October 11, 2004 [LINK]
Kerry seeks to curtail terrorism
Glenn Reynolds writes in unusual detail about Kerry's comments in a New York Times Magazine article about wanting to reduce terrorism to the level of a "nuisance." Bush and his campaign organization jumped all over Kerry for that one, and there is a big irony in that Bush himself had caught some flak in early September for saying that we should not expect a clearcut military victory over the terrorists. That's just common sense, but Kerry has an extra burden of proof to surmount, by virtue of his own mealy-mouthed past statements that cast doubt on his commitment to prevail in the war on terrorism. Furthermore, the Bush ads mocking Kerry contain a very valid fundamental criticism: Over three years after 9/11, Kerry still shows no indication of grasping the nature of the Arab-Islamic fascist movement, or the political agenda behind it. He really does seem to think of terrorism as just an extreme form of juvenile delinquency that we just have to live with. On that point, he is dead wrong.
The networks and major newspapers all focused on the part of the report by U.S. chief weapons inspector Robert Duelfer that concluded that Saddam Hussein's capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction had been seriously degraded during the 1990s. Hardly any of them picked up on the part that found large-scale bribery of U.N. officials via the hopelessly corrupt "oil for food" program, rendering the economic sanctions against Iraq and the whole idea of "containing" Saddam a pathetic joke. (See Washington Post.) No surprise there. Another bit of good news for the Bush administration that got lost in the shuffle was the electoral victory of Australian Prime Minister John Howard's conservative coalition. He is almost as important an ally of the United States as Britain's Tony Blair.
In South Dakota, John Thune seems to have a narrow lead against incumbent Senator Tom "Mr. Obstruction" Daschle. The Washington Post reports that both candidates are pandering to West River ranchers who regard prairie dogs as destructive pests. Mainly for political reasons, environmental regulations on prairie dogs were recently loosened, so thousands of those burrowing rodents will probably be poisoned in coming months. To think that such peripheral issues might tip the balance of power in the U.S. Senate...