The Americanization of Iraq proceeds at an astonishing pace, the Iraqis are taking to freedom like fish to water, and the possibilities for this nation are endless. It’s hard to say who’s more upset about these developments: the last vestiges of pro-Hussein Baathist resistance in Iraq or John Kerry’s campaign manager.
The New York Times ran a front-page news story on Sunday about how life was better for Iraqi girls under Saddam Hussein — living under Saddam, that is, not the girls who were literally under Saddam, Odai and Qusai while they were being raped. The article was titled “For Iraqi Girls, Changing Land Narrows Lives.” True, they don’t have to run from Odai’s rape rooms anymore. But apparently not a single Iraqi female has been admitted to Augusta National Golf Club since the liberation!
The Democrats want Saddam back.
Of course we can’t be sure if their presidential candidate wants Saddam back, inasmuch as John Kerry will be in an undisclosed location until Election Day. As Mickey Kaus has pointed out, every time Kerry starts campaigning, his poll numbers plummet. According to a recent New York Times poll, after $60 million in warm and fuzzy TV ads about Kerry, 40 percent of Americans have no opinion of him. In other words, the ads are working! So Kerry will be sitting out the actual campaign this year.
But he’s got a lot of surrogates campaigning for him. There’s Michael Moore, who has said he hopes more Americans will die in Iraq. His movie, “Fahrenheit 7/11” as we call it, apparently supports the Times’ view that life in Iraq was better, sunnier, happier under Saddam Hussein. Moore has also accused the American people of being the stupidest, most naive people on the face of the Earth. And after last weekend, he’s got the box office numbers to prove it!
Moore keeps whining about all the right-wing hit groups out to get him. Granted he’s a large target (or what’s known in baseball as a “fat pitch”). But conservatives are frankly relieved we finally have a liberal who tells the truth about what he thinks of America.
Then there’s George Soros, who compared Israel to Nazi Germany and President George Bush to the Nazis. Soros later denied comparing Bush to the Nazis, saying he had merely said Bush reminded him of “the Germans.” Hmmm, which Germans was Soros referring to — the Von Trapp Family? Katarina Witt and Steffi Graf? Eric Braeden from “The Young and the Restless”? Wouldn’t Soros like Bush if he were similar to the new pacifist, America-hating Germans? If not, why did liberals keep pestering us to get Germany’s approval before we invaded Iraq?
Soros blames President Bush for anti-Semitism, and then proceeds directly to the usual liberal talking points attacking Israel. He says Israeli policies are to blame for anti-Semitism — coming in a close second after the Von Trapp-like Bush — and Israel was a large part of the reason the United States went to war with Iraq. Also oil, which would certainly explain why gas is so cheap now.
Apparently, given a choice between: (a) lifting the sanctions against Iraq so oil sales could resume, for the cost of a single phone call, and (b) a war costing $120 billion and nearly 900 U.S. lives so far, Bush chose (b). Seriously, there are still adults in the English-speaking world with opposable thumbs who believe this theory?
And then there’s Howard Dean, who thinks Bush was in cahoots with the Saudis — and he’s the centrist of the bunch. I’m looking forward to Dean’s address at the Democratic Convention this summer. Rumor has it he’ll end with a squeal so high-pitched only dogs will be able to hear it.
I admire their savage energy, but these people want to run the country. Even with all their money and power, I don’t think they could get the Haitians to let them govern. But Soros and company think they should be running the United States of America.
Apart from the fact that Kerry won’t come out of hiding while allowing the nuts to attack Bush for him, these aren’t random nobodies popping up to endorse Kerry. Howard Dean was considerably more likely to be the Democratic nominee for president than Joe Lieberman ever was.
Soros has vowed to spend $15 million to defeat George Bush this year — buying himself more influence than the entire populations of several states.
Michael Moore’s endorsement was proudly accepted by erstwhile Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark, who — just to counterbalance his own remarks defending infanticide as “a private matter between a woman and her doctor” — explicitly defended some of Moore’s loopier remarks, which is saying something.
Come to think of it, it’s no surprise they want Saddam Hussein back. He made the Democrats seem moderate by comparison.