| Sunday, August 1, 2004 |
21:16 - Judging character
http://www.capitalistlion.com/article.cgi?1133
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CapLion noticed this about Kerry's recent statement that he wants to put Osama bin Laden on trial for "murder" in a U.S. court:
Kerry has just proven that he doesn't care one bit about the war on terror, about 9/11, or about the survival of our nation. He just said (assuming the highly unlikely-- that bin Laden hasn't been cave paste for years) that should bin Laden be captured, he should be tried for murder. This is a flip-flop on his previous statement that if captured, he should be shot in the head. This proves something to me: Kerry doesn't give a damn either way. He only wants the power, and is willing to say or do whatever his handlers calculate as the best means to that end. If that means appearing "moderate" on the subject of bin Laden, then that's what he says.
Yes, exactly. This is key and critical. If Kerry can't come up with a consistent statement about how he'd deal with Osama if he arrived in Washington in chains, and hems and haws based on how he thinks voters will react to his stance on capital punishment or international criminal justice, then he's making a statement far louder than anything he could say in words.
A friend recently told me that he's simply bothered by the idea that "someone with Billy Graham on his speed-dial is in charge of fighting the war on Islamia." Okay, well, fair enough. But who would you rather have: someone who justly recognizes this war as the clash of civilizations that it truly is, or someone who doesn't even seem to give a crap?
Having religious convictions doesn't automatically make someone a good person, it's true. But neither does not having religious convictions. And in the case of the struggle we're now facing, a leader who is so caught up with believing that his aloofness from overt faith is proof of his intellectual superiority that he would treat terrorism as a criminal matter, to be dealt with by police and the court system and "first responders", and who can't work up the moral courage to even issue a vaguely visceral response to questions about bin Laden, is someone we can't trust to have a value system at all.
Maybe we're old-fashioned that way. But, well, so are they.
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Brian Tiemann
