This David Broder column from last week was interesting. He found three people at a meeting in New Hampshire that have the media's prejudices at the top of mind. Two are servicemen back from Iraq and the third is the wife of a guy currently deployed. These people prefer Kerry.
Martha Jo McCarthy, whose husband is on National Guard duty in Iraq, was the first. "Everyone supports the troops," she said, "and I know they're doing a phenomenal job over there, not only fighting but building schools and digging wells. But supporting the troops has to mean something more than putting yellow-ribbon magnets on your car and praying they come home safely."
"I read the casualty Web site every day and ask myself, 'Do I feel safer here?' No. I don't think we can win this war through arrogance. Arrogance is different from strength. Strength requires wisdom, and I think we need to change from arrogance to solid strength."
Of course she doesn't feel safer. The barbarians could kill her husband any minute. Add that to the media making a stink over casualties and I'm sure this poor woman is frantic. She forgets we have men like her husband volunteer to risk their lives so that the barbarians won't kill us here.
She doesn't think we can win the war through arrogance. Strength minus wisdom equals arrogance. This sort of thing plays real well into Kerry's continual use of the word "strength" without any specific action attached. Somehow Kerry will be wise and therefore liked and further strong. Bush is disliked because he isn't wise and therefore arrogant. It's all just babble really. Strength is strength. Arrogance is all perspective. Would it have been arrogant for Britain and France to stop Hitler in 1934 before 50 million people lost their lives?
Scott Lewis, an Army Reserve sergeant home after 15 months in Iraq, spoke just a few words. "We need some new ideas in Iraq," he said. "People criticize John Kerry for changing his mind about Iraq, but I think that's actually a strength. And I'm a Republican."Kerry has a great idea. It was Clinton's before him. Denounce terrorism when it comes and then otherwise ignore its rise.
Doug Madory, a recently discharged Air Force captain, was the last. He spent four months in Iraq, but most of his deployment was spent in Italy. He spoke of the way Italians embraced American servicemen in brotherhood after Sept. 11 and said, "President Bush squandered a good deal of that support all through Europe by rushing headlong into Iraq. George Bush should be held accountable. . . . People around the world are with us, but are not with George Bush."
What exactly were we gaining from that outpouring of emotion and what exactly did it cost us when we decided to take action?
A bully punches you in the nose and all your classmates gather around you and denounce the horrible act. You decide you've had it and want to beat up the bullies. Suddenly your classmates see you as less sympathtic. Did it matter what they thought either time? What other than ridding the school of bullies should matter to you? Oh, that's right, peer pressure. You shouldn't beat up the bullies because you won't be popular anymore. If you aren't popular you'll have to eat lunch with Poland and Slovakia. Only a President with self-confidence could do that sort of thing. Is that arrogant? Maybe to the people who need to get their self value from the opinion of others.
When John Kerry says we have alienated our friends we have done no such thing. Your friends always stick by you. We've alientated nations that had a self-interest in cozying up to us. Once that self-interest came into conflict with a bigger self-interest, they abandonned us. These kinds of situations help weed out who are real friends are.
The kinds of leaders that are willing to go it alone if neccessary are the ones that will get the real respect from nations looking for leadership. The leaders that plead with the world for their permission are the ones who will become insignificant.
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