On the most important issue, Dems fail

I could give you a long list of things I think President Bush and the Republicans get wrong. But there’s one thing they get right that Democratic Party leaders have been getting very wrong for decades. And now most rank-and-file Democrats seem to get it wrong too.

That one thing is so important I can’t bring myself to vote for Democrats in elections for national office.

Michael Barone tell us about that one thing :

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Those two sentences, spoken by John Kerry last week, tell a lot about the mindset of many -- not all, but many -- Democrats who supported him for president in 2004 and who, as this is written, are looking forward to Democratic victories this week. One thing they tell us is that Kerry's mindset is still back in the Vietnam era. […]

Kerry's explanation for his bizarre refusal to apologize for two days and then his grudging off-camera apology was that he was trying to make a joke about the stupidity of George W. Bush (even though Kerry's grades at Yale were slightly lower than Bush's).

But his words were not wholly out of line with previous statements by him and other Democrats characterizing American troops as perpetrators rather than heroes.

There was Kerry's 1971 "Genghis Khan" testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as his December 2005 statement that troops were "terrorizing" women and children.

Sen. Dick Durbin likened American service members to Nazi storm troopers and the Khmer Rouge, and Sen. Edward Kennedy suggested that Abu Ghraib under our "new management" was comparable to Saddam Hussein's regime of torture and murder.

Behind all these statements is an unspoken assumption that American service members are incompetent and vicious.(bold added) […]

If other Democratic leaders roundly condemned such statements, I’d think something like: “Well, both parties have their clunkers.”

But you didn't hear House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi say Kennedy’s remarks, made on the Senate floor, were an outrage for which he should have immediately apologize. Or DNC Chair Howard Dean demand Durbin immediately apologize for his statements.

It’s not just Democratic Party leaders who fail to speak out against those who slime our military.

Look at Democratic newspapers such as the NY Times, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, and, here in North Carolina, the Raleigh N&O. Do they editorialize and take their party leaders to task for sliming our military?

Most rank-and-file Democrats I know applaud when terrorists or their sympathizers are invited to speak at college campuses. Students should be exposed to all points of view, they say.

But allow ROTC recruiters on those same campuses? That’s different. Of course not.

Clinton scandals? Dems won't talk about them.

But Abu Ghraib? They never seem to tire of talking about it; especially describing to one another the “shocking photos” they’ve seen.

If you’re among such people and you point out the magnificent service our military renders, you start to get stares. You’re clearly “off message.” You’re likely to be asked if you’re a Republican or Conservative.

Our military is America and the world’s principal protection from the kind of horrors Muslim fundamentalists would inflict on all peoples throughout the world.

America’s military is the world’s largest, best-equipped, best-trained, most generous and most effective humanitarian service organization.

Its defense and humanitarian service work, often one and the same, is incredibly dangerous. Millions of its members have literally given life and limb in the service of our country and humanity.

As long as Democrats slime our military, they’ll never get my vote.