Joan Swirsky
Monday, Mar. 15, 2004

In those years, defenders of Clinton tried but failed to prevent him from being impeached, being disbarred and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in apology – and, to their everlasting horror, they saw the election to the presidency not Clinton's heir apparent but a conservative Republican. (Yes, it’s the Electoral College, stupid!)

When their homeboy’s homeboy lost the election, Democrats were so enraged that they became like the fanatical protagonist in the movie “Fatal Attraction” whose raison d’être became revenge at any cost.

Their tactic: the same blathering points that didn’t work for them in 2000!

Their blather – i.e., drivel, nonsense – started, predictably enough, even before President Bush took the reins of government, when Clinton refused to leave the stage on his successor’s inauguration day and in a pathetic and narcissistic plea for ongoing adulation choreographed, with his wife, the most blatant grab for media attention ever waged by an outgoing president.

His defenders – including most media people – blathered about the former president wanting to bask in his “legacy” (whatever they imagined it to be), just as they blathered about this “right,” at the 11th hour, to grant immunity to convicted criminals and crooks like Marc Rich.

When President Bush took office, he immediately showed the nation what class was all about by sparing the former president what would have been a legitimate investigation into a number of egregious acts. He “changed the tone” in Washington and re-introduced a long-lost sense of decorum.

After inheriting a recession that was camouflaged during the presidential campaign by those in power, the president succeeded in securing a tax cut “for all Americans” and, after Sept. 11, confronting terrorists whose attacks on America and American interests abroad had been totally ignored by his predecessor.

These and other concrete accomplishments drove the tax-adoring, anti-defense-spending Democrats into near madness. Their unoriginal response: Blather on!

Blathering point (BP): “Tax cuts for the rich!”

In spite of the huge expenses incurred after America was attacked on Sept. 11 for homeland security and wars against terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, today the economy is slowly but surely turning upward, with promises that the deficit will be halved in five years.

P.S.: John Kerry has promised to vanquish “tax cuts for the rich,” i.e., raise taxes!

BP: “We’re in a quagmire in Iraq.”

Except for the Sunni Triangle in Baghdad in which desperate leftovers from Hussein’s Baathist party and drifter terrorists from al-Qaida, Syria and Iran are making their last stand, the rest of Iraq is amazingly up and running.

Schools and hospitals are open, citizens are shopping, getting married, having babies and doing business. And Iraqis have just established an interim constitution!

P.S.: John Kerry, in typical liberal fashion, can’t find even one positive word to say about all this progress.

BP: “We didn’t have the proper intelligence.”

There are only 535 people in Congress, representing nearly 300 million Americans. We expect them to have ALL the information necessary to protect us and serve our needs.

When terrorists attacked us on Sept. 11, President Bush “got it” immediately – “it” being the nature of our enemies and the need to fight them.

P.S.: John Kerry, who sits on both the Foreign Affairs and Select Intelligence committees, didn’t get it. In his perverse worldview, he continues to tout Kofi Annan and denigrate George W. Bush.

BP: “$87 billion for our troops in Iraq is too much when it could be spent on problems here at home.”

Yes, the money could solve a lot of problems in America, but at what price?

If that $87 billion – and more to follow – keeps the war against terrorism away from our shores, cities, bridges, nuclear plants and homes, who will disagree that it is money well spent?

P.S.: John Kerry disingenuously whines that our soldiers are inadequately protected but voted against the $87 billion to support them in the field.

BP: “We’ve alienated our allies by being unilateralists.”

To the contrary, the United States now has nearly 50 countries supporting our efforts against terrorism, including Germany and Russia, and many more climbing on board.

P.S.: John Kerry is still infatuated with that famously ineffectual body, the U.N., and yearns for the support of our “ally,” France, the country we saved from extinction during World Wars I and II that is still the most hostile European nation to our fight against terrorism.

BP: “The president wasn’t wounded in the Vietnam War.”

No, he just joined the National Guard, flew fighter jets and fully accepted the risk of being called to action every day for four years.

P.S.: John Kerry served in the jungles of Vietnam, received medals for his service and then returned to slam each and every one of his compatriots, undermining their heroism and going on to become the most liberal, anti-war, anti-defense-spending senator in modern history.

BP: “President Bush ‘exploited’ Sept. 11 by using a picture of Ground Zero in his campaign.”

This central issue – of our time and this century – is defined by the president’s decisive actions in leading our nation with laser-like focus to war against terrorism.

P.S.: John Kerry, to my mind, is a latter-day Neville Chamberlain, who advocates appeasement with a Bostonian accent. Moreover, he has failed to mention that protesters of Bush’s campaign ad were financed through the Heinz Foundation’s charitable trust – chaired by his wife – an organization that has spent millions of dollars for anti-Bush propaganda, including an ad that shamefully and with astounding ignorance compared the president to Adolf Hitler.

BP: “We shouldn’t have intervened in Haiti.”

By ushering Aristide out of Haiti as desperate rebels rose up against the Marxist thug, President Bush again acted decisively to remove the anti-democratic president who was “democratically elected” in 1990, deposed a year later, restored to power by President Clinton in 1994 and re-elected in a 2000 election that even the U.N. said was fraudulent.

P.S.: John Kerry objected to the president’s actions, saying, "I would intervene with the international community, and absent an international force, I'd do it unilaterally." Do what? Quell the popular uprising to keep a tyrant and enemy of the U.S. in office!

As Kerry crosses the country in full-blather mode – covered by a media that, by and large, speak his language – he is sure to learn that Americans want more than he has so far offered: a non-stop litany of what is wrong with our country, a non-stop menu of rehashed platitudes, and a non-stop list of excuses and rationalizations for his contradictory views and voting record.

All of it will be in stark contrast to the plainspoken, visionary and refreshingly blather-free man who now sits in the Oval Office.

Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author who can be reached at joansharon@aol.com).