BROADSIDES

October 31, 2006

C-Minus Student To Military: "You're Stupid!"

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. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. -- Sen. John Kerry, C-minus average college student, speaking at Pasadena City College, Oct. 30, 2006

Once again, Mr. Teresa Heinz has publicly demonstrated his and the Democratic Party's contempt for the men and women who volunteer to protect our country. And, once again, when called to account for his behavior, he shamelessly hid behind the very uniform he routinely disparages. Today, Kerry defended his Pasadena comments:

It disgusts me that a bunch of these Republican hacks who have never worn the uniform of our country are willing to lie about those who did.

By that logic, civilians have no right to criticize Benedict Arnold.

To Senator Kerry, his military service is merely a political shield to be deployed whenever he's caught being himself: a leftist kook who loathes the men and women of the United States military and seeks to sabotage the missions they undertake.

At Pasadena City College, John Kerry was just being honest about who he is -- the face of a political party hijacked by 1960s radical leftists intent on destroying both America's free market traditions and military might.

On the other hand, maybe we should cut the guy some slack. In all fairness to Sen. Kerry, I think he misspoke. What he meant to say was, "If you make the most of your education, you can do well. And if you don't, you can marry rich women."

B. Sides @ 1:36 PM

October 09, 2006

Is Kim Mailing Thank-You Notes?
Amazingly, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton weren't invited to attend North Korea's nuclear bomb test last night. How rude! Not only is Kim Jong Il a mass murdering commie, he's an ingrate, too.

Though every American president since Eisenhower has been far too tolerant of North Korea's bullshit, Carter and Clinton are the two most responsible for transforming the world's craziest regime into a nuclear power. In 1994, Jimmy Carter was (as he is today) desperate to change his well-deserved reputation as a profoundly crappy president. So he volunteered to represent Clinton in bilateral negotiations with the North Koreans, the aim of which was to persuade Kim to abandon his quest for nuclear weapons. In true Neville Chamberlain fashion, Carter announced that he had successfully persuaded Kim to freeze and eventually abandon his nuclear weapons program in exchange for the U.S., South Korea and Japan building for him two nuclear power plants. President Clinton and Congress signed off on the agreement.

And, as I wrote in 2002, after Kim got his nuclear reactors, courtesy of the United States, he broke the Carter agreement by refusing to halt his nuclear weapons program and using those reactors to produce weapons-grade plutonium. In other words, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter gave Kim Jong Il the ammunition for weapons of mass destruction that will most likely be aimed at the United States and our allies.

Jimmy Carter was willing to conclude any agreeement -- even a bad one -- with North Korea just so he could, like Chamberlain did after his talks with Hitler, dramatically announce that his negotiations had averted war and preserved peace. And, like Chamberlain, Carter was very wrong.

What happened last night in the North Korean underground is the direct consequence of Bill Clinton choosing a negotiator whose sole agenda was not safeguarding the United States against nuclear attacks by North Korea, but, rather, repairing his own tattered reputation.

B. Sides @ 1:41 PM

Axis Of Evil Goes Nuclear
North Korea, a charter member of the Axis of Evil, went nuclear last night when it detonated a nuclear bomb in an undergound test.

Judging from world reaction, diplomats are shocked that over ten years worth of diplomatic appeasement, wish-wash warnings and wrist-slapping sanctions didn't deter Kim Jong Il from developing a nuclear arsenal. And just this morning, President Bush provided a fine example of the hollow diplomatic blather which serves only to encourage Kim and his ilk:

Last night the government of North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had conducted a nuclear test. We're working to confirm North Korea's claim. Nonetheless, such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The United States condemns this provocative act. Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond.

This was confirmed this morning in conversations I had with leaders of China, and South Korea, Russia, and Japan. We reaffirmed our commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and all of us agreed that the proclaimed actions taken by North Korea are unacceptable and deserve an immediate response by the United Nations Security Council.

The North Korean regime remains one of the world's leading proliferator of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria. The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action.

The United States remains committed to diplomacy, and we will continue to protect ourselves and our interests. I reaffirmed to our allies in the region, including South Korea and Japan, that the United States will meet the full range of our deterrent and security commitments.

Threats will not lead to a brighter future for the North Korean people, nor weaken the resolve of the United States and our allies to achieve the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Today's claim by North Korea serves only to raise tensions, while depriving the North Korean people of the increased prosperity and better relations with the world offered by the implementation of the joint statement of the six-party talks. The oppressed and impoverished people of North Korea deserve that brighter future.

Let's look at a few of the president's statements:

Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard this before. Sounds just like our diplomatic condemenations of North Korea's long range missile test last July. The key phrase here is "Once again..." That's an inadvertent admission by the president that past diplomatic threats against North Korea are ineffective. And yet, he goes on to make another diplomatic threat: "the international community will respond." It's a safe bet that the international response will be nothing more than a UN resolution concluding that North Korea did a bad thing.

We reaffirmed our commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula ... Um, too late, Mr. President. The time to commit to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula was before Kim pushed the button on his nuke last night. (Besides, a policy goal isn't achieved solely by announcing your commitment to it.) And if the United States is committed to a nuke-free Korean Peninsula, why, after Kim refused to abandoned his nuclear weapons program, did you continue to honor an awful agreement Clinton made in 1994 to build two light-water nuclear power plants for North Korea which ultimately yielded weapons-grade plutonium?

The United States remains committed to diplomacy ... Translation: Nothing will be done to stop Kim from developing more nukes. Why? Because diplomats never act preemptively; their job is to react after the fact, once the damage is done. A case in point is North Korea's nuclear bomb test last night.

The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States ... In this, the president is absolutely correct. North Korea's economy generates no hard currency for the regime, so it must acquire wealth by selling arms aboard. There's no doubt that Iran, Syria and the terrorists those countries employ will be first in line to buy Kim's nukes, and that they will use those arms against the United States and our allies.

A decade of diplomacy has failed to stop Kim Jong Il from acquiring nuclear weapons; so what makes President Bush believe that diplomacy will stop him from developing more nukes and selling them to our enemies?

If there's a U.S. foreign policy matter which cries out for military preemption as a solution, it's this one. An American premptive military action (a naval blockade or airstrikes) will help prevent North Korea from becoming a terrorist's convenience store for nuclear weapons. Many lives could be lost in such a military undertaking, but millions more will die of incineration and radiation if diplomacy remains America's preferred weapon against North Korea.

My greatest fear is that if the president continues to use only diplomacy in dealing with North Korea, then we'll sometime soon wake to the news that a major American or European city is in ashes. And we'll hear the president announce that "Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community ..."

B. Sides @ 11:20 AM

October 05, 2006

The Politics Of The October Surprise
What are the Democrats thinking? The party of Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy wants to spring an election year October Surprise and they choose a sex scandal?

I think the Dems realized their strategic mistake shortly after ABC broke the Foley story. So they switched gears, aiming their criticism not at Foley's behavior but, instead, at how the House Republican leadership handled the revelations. But this new strategy -- hammering the majority party for its mishandling of a wayward officeholder -- offers no moral ground from which the Dems can score political points. Far from it.

Why? Well, Democrats for the most part think there's nothing wrong with an officeholder putting the moves on young -- and even underage -- staffers, interns and pages. What's more, Democrats generally believe that when it comes to their public officeholders, private character doesn't matter. No Democrat will publicly say it but the way they react to scandals in their own party loudly makes that point.

Just a few examples off the top of my head. Democrats either offered muted criticism, fell silent or were openly supportive when ...

... Marion Berry, who was caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine while serving as mayor of Washington, successfully ran for the mayor's office again after being released from prison.

... Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge appointed by That Boob Jimmy Carter and later removed from the bench after being impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate in 1989 for perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice, successfully ran for the House of Representatives.

... in an act of defiance, Massachusetts Congressman Gerry Studds literally turned his back on the House of Representatives in 1983 as motion of censure was read against him for having sex with a 17-year-old congressional page. Studds subsequently held a press conference accompanied by the page and insisted that he did nothing wrong. Studds' heavily Democratic congressional district reelected him the following year and thereafter. He retired from the House in 1997.

... Bill Clinton repeatedly lied about having sex with a White House intern only to confirm that fact later.

... Bill Clinton was held in contempt of court by a federal judge for lying in a federal sexual harassment lawsuit deposition.

... Bill Clinton commuted the prison sentence of former Democrat Congressman Mel Reynolds, who was serving time for a variety of state and federal crimes -- including having sex with an underage campaign volunteer and illegal personal use of campaign funds.

... Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson refused to resign after being videotaped taking a $100,000 bribe -- $90,000 of which was found by the FBI hidden in Jefferson's home freezer.

... Senator Ted Kennedy, um, well, there's not enough bandwidth to list this lout's misbehaviors.

There are plenty more examples, but you get the point.

Democrats are incapable of shame and feel no need to condemn the criminal or ethical misconduct of their own officeholders. In fact, they'll even hold some of them up as martyrs to the leftist cause and work for their reelection.

So I'm betting whatever criticisms they're voicing about Hastert and the Republican leadership in the Foley matter will ring hollow and hypocritical with most voters.

If Republicans lose control of one or both houses of Congress next month (and they deserve to), it won't be the result of the Foley scandal; it will be because they were worried more with preserving Republican incumbency than advancing Republican ideals.

B. Sides @ 12:51 PM

Excuses, Excuses
The ink wasn't even dry on Mark Foley's resignation when he shot off a series of lame excuses. Let's examine each:

1) I'm an alcoholic. So what? There are plenty of boozers in our midst; most, thankfully, don't prey on children as a result of alcoholism.

2) I was molested as a teenager. So what? Sadly there are many adults who were molested when they were children. But most didn't evolve into child molesters.

3) I'm gay. So what? A homosexual is as likely to molest a child as a heterosexual. Two relevant examples are both former congressmen, Dan Crane and Mel Reynolds. Crane had sex with an underage female congressional page and Reynolds did the deed with an underage female campaign volunteer. (Though Crane issued a tearful apology after being censured by the House, voters didn't buy it and tossed his sorry ass out of office. And Mel Reynolds' prison sentence on other campaign related crimes was eventually commuted by President Bill Clinton to time served. Reynolds was then hired by Jesse Jackson as a Rainbow Coalition youth counselor. Seriously.)

Even if the congressional page at the receiving end of Mark Foley's now infamous instant messages was 18-years-old at the time, it changes nothing. A congressman flirting or having sex with a congressional page is wrong, and should not be tolerated.

Mark Foley has no excuse. But there is a reason for what he did -- he's a bad person. Good riddance.

B. Sides @ 9:09 AM