The Democrats' DilemmaYesterday, an old pal emailed me asking what I thought about the speeches Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez gave at the United Nations.
My reply:
Lincoln said it's better to be thought a fool rather than to speak and remove all doubt. In the case of Ahmadinejad substitute the word "maniac" for "fool". And with Chavez, use the word "clown."
Today Chavez, who is the trailer trash of the international community, put me in mind of the time Nikita Khrushchev arrived at the UN, pounded his shoe on the desk and warned the West, "We will bury you." The funny thing about Hugo is that the Bush Administration has always ignored him--which drives him nuts. He wants so badly to be the new Fidel, to be the one world leader who irritates America the most and to get into a pissing-match with the U.S. But all he seems to get from the U.S. is indifference. And this leads him to say even more outlandish things. Though his country is oil-rich and he's forging alliances with Iran and Syria, he's no strategic threat at this point.
Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, is a legitimate threat; and that speech should prove it to anyone who, up until yesterday, was too slow-witted to have figured that out already. His prayer before the UN General Assembly was downright chilling.
Ironically, these two speeches will help Bush politically because they confirm everything he has been warning us about our enemies. And the fact that Democrats are making little or no effort to denounce Ahmadinejad and Chavez will remind voters that Dems, to characterize it diplomatically, are not to be trusted with national security.
But I'm in no mood to be diplomatic; these speeches sounded like they were written by Howard Dean and John Kerry. This is what it has come to: the rhetoric of America's enemies mirrors DNC talking points. Example: [at a recent party] a lefty walked up to me and said with a smirk of smug self-satisfaction, "Your president has really screwed up. We've got to get our troops out of Iraq now." I replied, "Osama bin Laden agrees with you." The smirk disappeared. Then I asked, "Does that bother you at all?" He stuttered a bit and replied, "That's bullshit." and changed the subject.
I'm sure I'm not the only voter to notice that it's getting difficult to tell the difference between the Democrats and the vermin who want to destroy our country. So the biggest dilemma facing Democrats today is who to choose to deliver the keynote address at their 2008 national convention -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez.
