Anyone But Bush!!!

“Anyone but Bush!”

Those three words have become the battle cry of democrats everywhere. They are the rallying call of anti-war activists, unemployed workers, proponents of gay marriages, and people who are still sore about Florida in 2000.

In an effort to observe where such burning hatred for our Commander-In-Chief comes from (although some democrats will refuse to acknowledge him as THEIR president) I’ve been asking Bush-haters about their motives, and attempting to see their rationale.

I must admit that in listening to, and reading, what people have said about Bush, there seems to be a bit of presumption, assumption, and guessing on the part of those willing to vote for “whoever can beat Bush.”

One of the biggest and most consistent reasons people hate Bush is because of the war in Iraq. First, there are the people who just despise war of any kind and for any purpose and second, there are those who think we weren’t justified in doing what we’ve done.

I really don’t have much to say to those who think that peace is simply the absence of war other than, “No, it’s not.” There are many places in the world in which there isn’t an open, armed conflict (Iraq was a good example of that) yet the people there aren’t living in peace. History has proven many times that pacifism is a bad idea for a nation’s foreign policy.

As far as our justification for going into Iraq goes, I really don’t see how we weren’t justified in doing what we did.

Right now there is a 9/11 commission that is looking at what the government knew and when we knew it in their stated attempt to find the truth of what happened and how it happened in order to fix those problems (although there is also a lot of attempts to put blame on someone).

Now what would have happened if, before 9/11 happened, we actually DID have credible, specific, and actionable intelligence that said that Al-Quaida was planning to attack us the way they did? What could we have done? We couldn’t have shut down the airlines because there would have been an enormous public outcry, especially since if we would have stopped the plot no one would have ever seen the true reason behind it. If we would have kept all Arabs off of planes, the ACLU or some group like that would’ve had a hay-day. If we would’ve preemptively struck at Al-Quaida (which would’ve meant attacking in Afghanistan and Pakistan before we were attacked ourselves), the very people decrying our preemptive strike in Iraq would have been complaining about us attacking there too.

What was done by America, Britain, and a few other countries by attacking Iraq and removing Saddam from power was a preemptive move in an attempt to further cut the ability of terrorists. That was the main aim and that’s what we’ve done.

It seems that some people are rather hung up that we haven’t found any clouds of nerve gas, stockpiles of anthrax, or nuclear warheads yet. Yet, even if Saddam did destroy all of his WMD’s without telling anyone and even if we never find any, the fact remains that he DID have them.

Intelligence reports dating back into the 1990’s by US intelligence services, United Nations inspectors, and sources from other countries confirmed that Saddam had WMD capabilities and was actively pursuing his WMD programs (in fact, I’ll post a copy of a letter from the US Senate Committee on Armed Services to President Clinton, dated October 1998 and signed by many people-including John Kerry-which urged the president to take actions {including attacking Iraq} to deal with their violations of UN resolution 1194). Some of Saddam’s programs were apparently successful because he used chemical agents to attack and kill people in his own country.

Saddam DID have WMD’s and active projects seeking to acquire and produce more WMD’s. The fact that we haven’t found any yet doesn’t negate the fact that he had them (he also had years and years to hide them, so we may still find them…although most likely not in Iraq).

President Bush never intentionally lied about WMD’s in Iraq. If they were actually destroyed or moved out of the country, then our intelligence, the intelligence of many of our allies, and the intelligence of the UN was faulty. But maybe the he should’ve known that. Yeah, that’s probably it.

Then there are those who say that we are fighting for oil. Our president in all his greed and his Texan love for the slippery black liquid, has found a way for his buddies at Halliburton and other oil companies to hit pay dirt. We are simply trading blood for oil.

If that’s true, then where’s the oil? Why is it that when OPEC cut oil production last month, thus raising the prices of oil and gasoline here in the states to near record levels, we didn’t just crank up the Iraqi oil machine and fill the void? We’ve been there for over a year, we should be able to squeeze a few million barrels out of there.

Perhaps we’ve been too busy building and rebuilding schools and hospitals and homes and roads. Perhaps we’ve been too busy trying to find capable Iraqi people to fill the interim government that we are planning on handing over power to on June 30th.

Or maybe the president is just waiting until the oil prices get even higher so that he will appear justified in tapping the Iraqi oil supply. Yeah, that’s probably it.

And then we come to the people who think that Bush was planning to attack Iraq from before he was even sworn in, as a way to get back at Saddam for what Saddam did to his daddy. Isn’t it funny though how after the planes took out the twin towers and the Pentagon, we went into Afghanistan first? Then again, maybe that was just a distraction so that his motives wouldn’t be so visible. Yeah, that’s probably it.

So now we come to the economy. Many Bush-haters try to make it seem like the economy is terrible and that there are mass numbers of people starving in the streets, and that unemployment is horrendous, and that the president is asking other countries to take “American jobs.” But is the economy really all that bad?

Inflation is fairly low and interest rates are at historical lows. The unemployment rate, contrary to what some in the media and other places would have people believe, isn’t really all that high. The supposed “outsourcing” of American jobs to other countries, which is talked about frequently by media people and democrats, has been offset a bit by the “insourcing” of more jobs from other countries than the number that have gone overseas (which media people and democrats don’t talk about).

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics from the Department of Labor (which I’m looking at right now), unemployment in America didn’t “jump” above 5% until after September 11th, 2001. In fact, the worst it ever got was 6.3% last June. Isn’t it a little weird that, given all the financial and other turmoil caused by 9/11 that the economy was only hit that hard?

Then again, Bush knew about 9/11 long before it happened and could have prevented it, so it’s still his fault. Yeah, that’s probably it.

One thing that I think is a main reason that most of the Bush-haters really hate him, yet they will seldom admit this because they like to think of themselves as “open-minded and tolerant,” is because of his religious beliefs. And not only that, but thefact that his faith guides his thinking, actions, decisions, and that he’s not afraid to talk about it in public.

This is probably a good place to bring up the whole gay marriage issue. Contrary to what some think, the majority of people in the country are against the idea (polls put those against gay marriages ahead of those for them by between 1 to 2 and 2 to 3). Although the president has said that he is against gay marriages, for obvious reasons given his faith, he has simply said that the people of the country should vote on the issue since it’s something that reaches so deep into the fabric of society.

Isn’t it strange that while pro-gay marriage people try to pretend to be open-minded and accepting and tolerant, they actually put their beliefs and ideals above those who don’t agree with them by not wanting people to vote on the issue (possibly because they know they’d lose)?

Oh yeah, did you know that John Kerry is against the idea of gay marriages too? Well, at least that’s what he said once…his stand on that might change.

So because of these things, and possibly others, people are willing to vote for “anyone but Bush.”

One thing I find a bit amusing is how “anyone but Bush” was transformed into “whoever has the best chance of beating Bush” during the democratic primaries, and the person who democrats thought has the best chance to beat Bush is John Kerry.

The funny thing is, I have yet to meet anyone who will admit to having voted for Kerry, or will admit that they will vote for him. Whenever I ask anyone who is a democrat about that, they simply default to the “anyone but Bush” phrase.

The problem with Kerry is that he really has no message. The only thing I’ve heard him talk about is how “bad” things are in America or how President Bush has supposedly screwed things up so bad. I have yet to hear him give any real ideas he has for fixing the things that are “screwed up” now.

To be honest, I have had a hard time finding people who actually remember much of anything Kerry says. About the only thing that I, and many others, can recall him saying, is his infamous “I actually voted for those things before I voted against them” quote. Somehow, I have a feeling that this single phrase is going to be the one thing he’s best remembered by.

And he has the best chance of defeating Bush… Yeah, that’s probably it.

Personally, I think voting for “anyone” simply to unseat the current president is as unpatriotic as spitting on the graves of the founding fathers. It shows that a person’s hate or dislike of the current president outweighs their love and concern for their country. It shows that they have taken the presidents actions or policies personally, and feel harmed or threatened by them, and wish to have a part in taking him out no matter what.

It seems to me that if there is such a huge group of people who hate Bush that SOMEONE in that group would be a bit more qualified and electable than Kerry. It seems to me that there must be SOMEONE who is able to embody the ideals and views of those who despise Bush and still win enough votes to take the White House.

Could it be that Kerry is really the best that can be scrounged up?

Maybe they’re just waiting until the last minute to come out of the wings and become the savior of the Bush-haters. Yeah, that’s probably it.

Anyhow, I could say more, and perhaps sometime I will. But I have things to do and places to go, so here’s that memo from the Armed Services Committee that I promised.

^Wow, look at some of those good^
democrats that signed on to that…