In the first of a pair of outstanding columns for National Review Online Michael Novak offers six reasons why he thinks the Democrats will not win in November. He writes:
1. No one - neither his colleagues nor his wife nor his supporters nor he himself - has anything good to say about John Kerry except that he served bravely in Vietnam. The nearly 30 years since then have generated few boasts on his part, few commendations from others, few successes anyone can seem to remember.
2. The Democratic elite sitting in convention cannot present themselves as they are to the American people, but must stifle their deepest feelings, be silent about their most passionate aims, and hide their turbulent loathing of George Bush Republicans (lest it frighten independents with its ferocity). The Democratic elite is saying as little as possible about same-sex marriage. And guns. And very little about abortion. And not a word about total withdrawal of American troops from Iraq - quite the opposite. Democratic elites do not want the people to know what they really think. On that ground, they fear they will lose.
3. Democrats must hide from the public what they truly think about evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Catholics. They express these thoughts mostly among themselves.
4. John Kerry looks sillier in the pale blue NASA rabbit suit than Michael Dukakis did in a tank.
5. The months of April, May, and June were so heavy with bad news for George Bush - the huge Sorosian expenditures on anti-Bush ads came at him in torrents - and still he held even with Kerry in the polls. It is hard not to believe that there will be at least a slight change in the roaring winds. When it comes (and the change is already underway), it is bound to push Bush's sails steadily ahead as the weeks roll on.
6. The worst lies told by the Democrats about Bush - those of Joe Wilson, Michael Moore, and others, saying that Bush lied about Iraq - have already been proven wrong by the 9/11 Commission (which was supposed to blow Bush out of the water just before the election, but ended up destroying his worst calumniators). These lies were also proven wrong by the British inquiry. Even the Kerry Convention in Boston ended up taking the Bush strategic line in Iraq, except for one thing: Kerry is wistful about the probability of persuading France and Germany to bear some burden on behalf of liberty in Iraq. Good luck! God knows, Bush and Colin Powell tried.
In response to this argument, the persuasiveness of which we'll leave to the reader to decide, he received several hundred e-mails roughly half of which were filled with such hate-filled invective that he was stunned by their viciousness. In a subsequent rejoinder he tells us about them:
Their sentiment was far more animus against Bush than support for Kerry. One said my word 'hatred' was inexact: 'Total disgust' is more accurate. That's what a good many people expressed - an almost inarticulate disgust beyond their powers of speech. Quite a number compared Bush to Hitler, and the present to the early Third Reich.
About half (or maybe only a third) of the 207 letters went into painful riffs, long or short, about the vices of George W. Bush. Several of these are based on untruths - things Democratic speakers such as Howard Dean and Michael Moore say all the time that simply are not true. The revulsion against Bush expressed in these emails does not seem to depend on truth. Even those who actually believe these things could with a little effort find out that they are false. Let me just mention a few of these untruths:
1. The intelligence, academic achievement, and IQ of George Bush are too low for the job. Bush's IQ, measured by his SAT scores and academic achievements, is higher than that of John F. Kennedy and many other successful presidents. Much was published on this in 2000.
2. Bush "lied" when he said Iraq was an "imminent" danger to the U.S. Bush expressly denied that the danger was then imminent, and said when it was actually "imminent" it would be too late to counter.
3. Bush "lied" when he said Iraq had the "potential" to develop weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam must be assumed to possess weapons of mass destruction. Saddam's potential to develop weapons of mass destruction has been demonstrated from what was found after May 2003. And any reasonable leader, hearing the best estimates of all major intelligence services and observing Saddam's behavior, had to assume that he possessed them. Even the anti-war movement employed the same assumption. It used as one of its arguments the claim that war would occasion Saddam's use of WMDs.
4. Bush "lied" when he said in his 2003 State of the Union address that the British had information about the attempt of Iraq to purchase "yellow cake" in Nigeria, as charged by Joseph Wilson. (The famous 16 words.) The British Butler Inquiry said Bush's words were "well-founded." The Senate Intelligence Committee discovered that it was Wilson who had lied.
5. Bush "lied" when he landed on the aircraft carrier under a banner that said "mission accomplished." General Tommy Franks has said he suggested the symbol as a strategic move, to dramatize to reluctant allies that the offensive operations were now over. A new (but still difficult) phase of ending disorder and bringing stable political and economic institutions had begun. On this task, some Europeans had hinted they would help. Franks wanted a dramatic signal sent to them. It was also meant as a "closure" for the main Coalition offensive.
6. A big reason for the deficits are the Bush tax cuts. As even the New York Times has noted, the main cause by far was the great drop of income for the wealthy in the two-year stock-market drop, with a consequent dramatic drop in tax revenues. This was before the Bush tax cuts came into effect. Since then, tax revenues have dramatically increased, especially from the rich. The top 10 percent pay 65 percent of all income taxes.
Both of these essays have much more in them worth reading. I don't know if Bush is going to win in November, but if he loses it will be because of some of the most repugnant political tactics I've ever witnessed. The depth of hatred that justifies any means of unseating George Bush is as frightening as it is repulsive. Heed the words of one of Novak's correspondents: "First we will vote, then if we lose, we will fight." In other words if lies don't work then violence will? This is the language of fascist tyrants and Stalinist totalitarians.
