Elouqent and simply put. I got goose bumps reading this essay.

Thank you for sharing.

If you like it, send the URL to anyone you think it could make a difference to.

This was a thoughtful and beautifully written article. I believe that people who understand history and the big, global picture will vote for Bush because he is the man with a vision for our future and the future of the world. After the Holocaust the Jewish mantra was "Never Again!" This mantra and their memories of Hitler's nightmare of eradicating the Jewish race is what energized them to do the "impossible" against impossible odds - found the State of Israel. It is what fuels them to continue to stand against all enemies to maintain that State. We in America must think like Israeli's now, for the Islamic Terrorists, the culture of Hate, have not only declared the Jews their enemies, but everyone and anyone who is not "them," even their own fellow Muslims, who desire freedom and democracy. I am a Gentile who loves the Jewish people and stands behind the State of Israel. May we now stand, like Israel, to defend our survival against these monsters.

Posted at GlobalAffairs

Excellent essay! My thoughts exactly. I am 90% liberal ... but that 10% is for the defeat of the terrorists and victory for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and peace in Israel.

Thank you for sharing ... more please!

Perhaps the most touching and elouqent essay written on today's most important issue. Thank you for sharing it with us and I will pass it on to everyone I know......

As a gentile, married to a Jewish woman, I cannot understand the propensity of the Jewish population to vote Democratic. I was once a strong and vocal Democrat. Then, as I watched the party disintegrate into so many factions, and many of them radical and ridiculous, I began to look at it in a different way. It's a party of rhetoric, grand sounding (and often plain loony these days) ideas which simply don't work. Why? Because they do not pay attention to the basics of being a good human being, rather to guilt, angst, hatred and fear. Not what is needed to go forward in the world and effect real change for the better of humankind. Republicans aren't perfect, lord knows. But, what could be more in line with old line liberal thinking than freeing the lives of close to 50 million people who had ZERO hope, until President Bush took enormous political risk and embarked on this noble adventure.

Like your commentor, I'm proud to be an American as we stand beside the struggling Afghanis and Iraquis and so very proud of President Bush for guiding us along this difficult, but oh so necessary path.

Well written, I only wish that I were so eloquent.

This is filled with lies and exaggerations. If you choose to ignore reality, including the staggering incompetence of the Bush administration, you imperil us all.

This is filled with lies and exaggerations. If you choose to ignore reality, including the staggering incompetence of the Bush administration, you imperil us all.

"This is filled with lies and exaggerations. If you choose to ignore reality, including the staggering incompetence of the Bush administration, you imperil us all."

Whoa. The usual 'lies and exaggerations' tag, with absolutely no grounded argument to support it.
If it's worth a double-dip, it oughta be worth at least one, don't you think? Or is that the problem?

The italicized portion Posted by: How about the truth? at October 13, 2004 10:32 AM

How about the truth? (aka grantman)

Care to elaborate? If there are facts here that you feel are incorrect, please point them out. I prefer to have as accurate picture as possible.

However, if you simply disagree with the personal postions that the author has taken based on the facts as presented, then I would remind you that these are, in fact, opinions. They represent one persons take on the situation, and are an attempt to win others over to the same side. So please, if you have a true rebuttal of any factual point, by all means, please share. If you simply want to shout "liar, liar, pants on fire," go elsewhere.

Beautifully said.

Magnificent. One of the best posts to date on Jewish-liberals-for-Bush.

Webrider, you might be interested in Judith's comments on the relationship between Jews and Democrats at this post and elsewhere on Kesher Talk. See also Roger L. Simon.

This is filled with lies and exaggerations.

And there are no Americans in Baghdad Airport!

An inspiring commentary which eloquently states the truth. Thank you for your insightful thoughts.

I agree that George Bush means well. His intentions in going to war were defensible. Indeed, maybe even noble.

But a war President -- and I agree that there is an on-going struggle -- must be astute, shrewd and competent. I think Bush fails that test. Good intentions are not enough.

Therefore I find this post unpersuasive. I will vote for Kerry.

David Sucher, would you want your performance as David Sucher in toto, to be judged on the basis of only what io know about you? And yet you know as much about the situation confronting GWB, as I know about you. Do you think he gets his knowledge--the knowledge with which he makes decisions--fourth hand, as you and I do? In other words, my friend, you have no idea how astute, shrewd, or competent he is. Be honest. You probably prefer Kerry's semiotics.

But a war President ... must be astute, shrewd and competent. ... I will vote for Kerry.



Dept. of Non Sequiturs.

By using the label 'War on Islamic Terror' you risk turning it from a conflict with radicals into a world war between religions. Religious intolerance seems to be at it's highest point right now, it seems foolish to poke the bee hive with pointy jabs intending to push the Islamic moderates to side with the radicals.

As for voting for Bush, history will be the judge as to whether his actions were justified or not. I believe that it was foolish to enter Iraq with no real plan for getting out, I also believe that the intention was to secure an oil exporting nation with an easily controlled 'democracy'. You of course might think differently, however I ask you to remember that the reason 'freeing them from the tyranny of Saddam' only came into the circles of the current administration after no WMD were found. If the current administration flipflops on their public reasoning for the war, does that give us any reason to trust that they're really telling us the true motives?

I mean, that's just Bush on foreign policy. What about his domestic policy? His blatant disregard for environmental concerns? Ashcrofts distortion of the Patriot act for personal persecution of individuals? Tax cuts for the rich, a record deficit, religiously dictated human rights values? Who exactly will be paying off the Debt? Or is it the current administrations belief that the american people can get away with defaulting on their loans?

What about the fact that he's a simpleton? That he can't speak in public, that he makes up words, pronounces words wrongs, has spent more time on vacation then any other president, the whole Saudi connection thing, yadda yadda yadda? The list just goes on and on. Voting for bush is a vote for destroying America and possibly the world.

You talk about domestic problems. Let me go over a few I heard from economists at the University level. Regarding jobs. Some 2 million people are out of work.(more or less) Kerry promised to “create jobs” for those people. However, he wants to cut the Missile Defense program, which employs almost 3 million people. Now you have 5 million out of work. Next, he doesn’t support NASA, which directly employs 1.5 million people, and subcontracts to 22 nations and 153 subcontractors. Roughly that equates to almost 11 million people worldwide. But using the direct employment here, we are up to 6.5 million people out of work. Finally, in Wednesday’s debate, he was asked 3 different questions. One was regarding how to pay for Social Security, one on how to pay for his health care plan and the last on how he planned to balance the budget. His answer to ALL three was, “I will roll back the tax cut for the people making over $200,000 a year.” That’s how he answered ALL three questions. Won’t work! Rolling back that tax will only give back a few billion dollars. Plus, when the small business owners loose that tax break, they lay off people so they can afford to do business. Then of course, there is the minimum wage crap. Yes, I would LOVE to see a raise in the minimum wage because it would mean the economy was great. But, by raising the minimum wage with the “inherited” economy the way it is, business and corporations will have to readjust their own budgets to comply with the new wage. In order to keep their levels of revenue for themselves and their stockholders, they will be forced to lay off employees. Bush is doing the right thing here but nobody seems to be seeing it. Bush inherited a declining economy, plus with the 9-11 disaster, all hell broke loose in the financial district. Bush realizes that he has to do something to get the economy back on track, and that means putting people back to work. The only way to do that is to give tax incentives to the small business owners so they will start hiring again. All in all, Kerry’s plan for the future is horrible and will do more damage than Bush ever dreamed of doing. Michael Moore said we are all “doomed” if Bush gets re-elected. He got it half right. If Kerry gets elected, we WILL be doomed.

"I ask you to remember that the reason ‘freeing them from the tyranny of Saddam’ only came into the circles of the current administration after no WMD were found."

Simply false. Bush listed the humanitarian reasons right from the beginning. There were always 4-5 main reasons, and that was one of them. You can confirm that simply by reading Bush's speeches from 2002-2003, and also most news reports did quote him accurately at least part of the time.

So you are making a false assertion easily disproven. Should I consider the rest of your argument credible?

We can see what Israel's war on terror has done for them and for Palestine. No, I'm thinking anyone but Bush this go around since everything he has done since 9/11 has merely been damage control for the deeds of him and those with him that have executed a failed foreign policy experiment since the 80's, propping up the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein for their ends, and then tearing them down when they get out of hand. The true enemy is the Corporate control of our Military/Industrial complex on down to the media. This obsession with empire layed out by the Project for a New American Century marginalizes and kills millions so that the haves can have more. They mask all this with Patriotic rhetoric and a bit of fear factor thrown in for good measure.

Judith, your friend thinks and writes very well. Thanks for bringing this to us for her, and for us.

Chefquix, if any of that were true, then I'd be with you all the way. But, there is such a thing as 'true', there really, really is...it's called 'objective reality', and the thing his enemies have been doing, is putting out so much repetition of this stuff that you repeat that pretty soon, people hear it so often, they assume it's true.

It's Goebbels all the way, pal, and you're a patsy for it.

Go get yourself some objective reality. Takes a little effort, that too has a term: the duty of citizenship.

Chefquix: what was our "plan" for getting out of WWII? Should we have waited to attack Japan after Pearl Harbor? No one has an "exit" policy when it comes to war except that of victory. And I'm pretty sure Bush has that in mind.

@BH57: You're telling me that that 3 million americans work on the missile defense system. So 1 in 100 are directly involved in a piece of military hardware that doesn't work, and will only unbalance the political stability afforded by Mutual Assured Destruction? And can you tell me please where the terrorists are getting ICBM missles that this system is designed to destroy? Or is this intended to ward off missles from North Korea? If North Korea is such a threat then why isn't the focus of american foreign policy directed there? Sounds like a whole lot of political pork to me, a pet project for the (surprise surprise) industrial military complex. Also, just because he doesn't support NASA as it's currently configured does that mean he's going to drop all the funding for it? Doubtful. At any rate, NASA's time as the premier space agency may be coming to an end with the burgeoning private industry.

WRT Social security, health care and the balanced budget - what exactly is Bush doing for these? Remember, we're talking about RECORD BUDGET DEFICITS. Very soon the american debt will be so large it will be physically impossible to pay it off. Basing all of the debt repayment off of future earnings on a growth economy is foolish, especially as american dominance in industrialized world is on the decline. Any system based on growth is doomed to collapse eventually. That's why the call it boom and bust.

As for rolling back the tax breaks for the rich - please forgive me if I don't shed a tear because some corporate fatcat can't afford another ivory backscratcher. (forgive me the simpsons reference)

@Yehudit: Bush may have listed humanitarian reasons as part of a list, but the emphasis pre-war was always on Weapons of Mass Destruction. As an example, I did a google search for 'bush iraq war speech 2002', and the first item that came up was a speech given on Oct 7, 2002 entitled President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat. Lo and behold, all I see is WMD this, WMD that. Well that and trying to build a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. After the war of agression started and no WMD were found, the administration changed their tone from one of 'protecting americans' to 'freeing the Iraqis'.

@Buddy Larsen: You talk about 'objective reality' and 'stuff that you repeat that pretty soon, people hear it so often, they assume it's true.' I point you in the direction of this video, a 'summary' of the objective reality portrayed at this years republican national convention. Now I ask you, who is using propoganda techniques on who?

@babs: Once again, another confused American. Iraq did not attack the US, Al Qaeda did. So when the US invaded Iraq, 'pre-emptively' attacking another sovereign nation, perhaps a little thought into what their strategy would be once the 'imminent threat from Saddam' was eliminated would have been justified. Did they really think the Iraqis would welcome an invading army with open arms?

CQ,

Are you working on the missle defence system?

Why are you so sure it doesn't work.

Why are you so sure it can't work? What is the fundamental flaw? Should we be using lasers instead of missles? Or what.

Lots of military programs don't work very well in the beginning. In some the flaws get fixed. (M1A1 tank) In some the flaws don't (Osprey). How can you be so sure the flaws are unfixable?

In any case the purpose of Iraq was to get a favorable location in the heart of Indian territory. This is a good thing.

ChefQuix, you're basing your rebuttal on a sample of one. You not only need to get a dose of reality, you need to take a course in logic.

"Iraq did not attack the US, Al Qaeda did."

Have you ever heard of "no-fly zones"? Anyway, Saddam financed and harbored terrorist groups of all sorts, including AQ.

"what their strategy would be once the ‘imminent threat from Saddam’ was eliminated would have been justified."

Bush didn't say Saddam was an "imminent threat," he said we had to stop him before he became an imminent threat. Which the ISG report has borne out.

"Did they really think the Iraqis would welcome an invading army with open arms?"

They did, and many still do. Most of them are very happy we got rid of Saddam. And now they want us to wave a magic wand and fix all their problems created by Saddam (like deteriorating infrastructure, lack of civic institutions, fractured communities, internal divisions), and then leave. Well, nation-building takes longer and is harder than that. The Iraqis are volunteering in droves to join their armed forces and police. Sounds to me like they want to defeat the insurgents and jihadis.

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!
Needs to be dissemintaed all over the cyberuniverse.

Jen

The original posting is really quite extraordinary (in a good sense). It sums up nicely why I will be crossing party lines to vote for Bush.

As for ChefQuix recitation of Kerry talking points: No facts, no substance! Bush a simpleton?? The man has an undergraduate degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard and emerged still able to think for himself. I consider that a significant intellectual achievement.

Jewish Community’s Reluctance to Confront Democratic Party

Yehuda M. Hausman

Come the second of November, American voters will either reelect President Bush or replace him with Senator Kerry. Political pundits are predicting a razor-thin finish, as such, the Democratic and Republican parties are doing their best to broaden their base and woo the undecided. Their campaign messages cast a wide net in order to connect with both mainstream and minority groups. During the Republican National Convention, President Bush gratified the Christian Right, the military, and corporate executives, while at the Democratic Convention, Sen. Kerry appealed to the Urban Left, immigrants, and trade unions for their support. If this year’s presidential election is anything like November 2000, which was decided by only a few hundred votes, a small community of voters may end up making the difference. In this respect, it is hard to overstate the electoral significance of the Jewish community. First and foremost, Jews take the initiative on voting day. While many Americans are content to stay home – understandably, they don’t want to encourage our politicians – the overwhelming majority of Jews vote. Jews also live in concentrated communities, which bumps up their numeric significance in our state-by-state, winner-take-all, electoral system. Additionally, Jews reside in those prized swing states, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and of course, Florida.
Considering the potency of the Jewish electorate, the American Jewish community can place enormous pressure on a candidate to adopt a political worldview that is beneficial for Israel. It can also demand that candidates distance their parties and its constituents from anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias. Thus far, however, the American Jewish community has been reluctant to demand change, particularly within the Democratic Party.
Historically, the Jewish electorate has long-favored Democratic candidates. 74 percent of Jews voted for Al Gore last election. This year, experts expect Kerry to receive between 60 to 65 percent of the Jewish vote. However, this unfettered loyalty to the Democratic party can hamper the Jewish community’s ability to exert pressure. Our very reliability allows us to be taken for granted. One may ask, though, what changes would we like the Democratic Party to make? On this point, I would like to share two concerns. The first pertains to Israel-Palestinian ‘peace process’ and the second to the growing anti-Semitism on the Left.
During the Carter and Clinton presidencies, the White House followed a policy of military isolationism combined with aggressive diplomatic intervention. President Carter’s commitment to Mid-East diplomacy resulted in the Egypt-Israel peace accords. Following in Carter’s footsteps, President Clinton was instrumental in engineering a string of peace agreements between Israel’s government and the Palestinian Authority. Despite his good intentions, Clinton was, to put it mildly, terribly unsuccessful. President Clinton failed to recognize that his policies forced Israel into a much weaker bargaining position than it had while negotiating the Camp-David Accords. In 1979, the Israeli government had two possible ways of handling Egypt’s military threat. One, it could sign a peace agreement (which it eventually decided to do) and two, it could go to war. Israel had defeated the Egyptian military in 1967 and in 1973. If necessity demanded it, Israel knew it could depend on its military. This, however, was not the case during the Israel-Palestinian accords. The Clinton administration, time and again, ordered Israel to use ‘restraint, patience, self-control, and moderation’ when dealing with Palestinian terrorism. The upshot of Clinton’s diplomatic intervention was that Israel had only one method by which it could confront Palestinian terrorism: negotiation.
In contrast to Clinton, the current Bush administration encourages Israel to use its military to make its cities and towns safer. Over the last three years, Israel has erected large security barriers, adopted a strategy of targeted assassinations, and employed other measures to undermine and destroy the terrorist infrastructure. The results are encouraging. There are far fewer suicide-bombings and acts of terrorism. Tourism is improving and confidence is up. Moreover, President Bush’s policies are cognizant of the fact that Israel can only make peace if it can handily defeat terrorism through its military. To wage peace, Israel must be able to wage war. Unfortunately, I don’t believe Senator Kerry understands this fact. His numerous public statements make clear his intention to return to Clinton-style diplomatic intervention, misunderstanding yet again that “direct personal involvement” is useless if Israel cannot use military force.
There is another problem that is beginning to affect the Democratic Party.
Over the last several years, a new breed of anti-Semitism has steadily gained momentum within the leftwing political discourse. According the radical feminist, Phyllis Chesler, as well as Harvard Professor, Alan Dershowitz, this “new anti-Semitism” (read: anti-Israel bias) has conspicuously infiltrated leftist intelligentsia. There are the usual suspects such as Noam Chomsky and (the late) Edward Said. There are the oft-seen anti-Israel opinion pieces found in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times newspapers. There are also the anarchist-socialists who show up on public radio stations and label Israel an apartheid state. We could easily ignore this sort of thing if it were not for the following experience which has become utterly common across university campuses in the United States: a young Jew attends an anti-Bush or anti-war rally and notices that he is joined by a group of vocal anti-Sharon demonstrators. With growing frequency, Moslem interest-groups are linking with left-wing activists to bash Bush and thrash Israel. As radical liberalism grows stronger in universities and colleges across America, one wonders what effect this discourse will inevitably have on mainstream liberals and the Democratic Party.
Edward Alexander, a Professor of English at University of Washington, is not at all optimistic. In an op-ed piece to the Seattle Times, he bitterly complains that the Democratic party has done little to squelch anti-Semitism even in its own ranks. Speaking of Rev. Al Sharpton, Alexander writes, “it is common knowledge that this failed contender for the Democratic nomination incited anti-Jewish violence in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in 1991 and in Harlem in 1995. In the latter incident he encouraged the explicitly anti-Semitic boycott and picketing of a Jewish-owned store named "Freddy's." Eight employees of the store were killed in a fire started by one of Sharpton's followers. But none of this unpleasantness has kept Sharpton from being treated with oily sycophancy by the Democratic leadership.” Similarly, Alexander reminds us of how in November 2002 when Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney blamed her defeat on the “Jews”, the Democratic brass reacted benignly. “Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Whip. . .back(ed) her to the hilt.” More recently, “Senator Ernest Hollings, the South Carolina Democratic senator, alleged, on the floor of the Senate, that Bush had sent the country to war “in order to win Jewish votes.””
In light of these concerns, the majority of Jewish voters –loyal Democrats-- are facing a supreme predicament. ‘How are we going to deal with a party that has been quick to criticize Israel’s defensive maneuverings and slow to reign in anti-Semitism in its own caucus?’ One possible solution is defection. Jeff Helmreich, an analyst who studies Jewish voting patterns for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, estimates that 25-30 percent of Jewish voters will swing if they feel a certain candidate will be better or worse for Israel. Ruth Wisse, a Harvard Yiddish scholar and author of If I am My for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews encourages the Jewish community to simply shift to the right altogether. But for those Jews who are hardened democrats, defection is utterly out of the question.
Luckily, there is another possibility -- a possibility that will ensure that our interests are looked after regardless of who becomes president. If you are thinking about sending a contribution to the Democratic campaign to help with the homestretch, you should attach a note along with your check. “I would give far more generously if I knew Senator Kerry will not criticize Israel’s defense of her citizens, and that the Democratic Party will not tolerate anti-Semitism within its ranks, or accept support from those who espouse hate…”

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