Amir Taheri nails it when he examines Kerry's speech in The Wrong War. Kerry is fighting the Vietnam War.

Kerry failed to exaplin how this war is unlike any we've ever ween, and wants to rely on lessons learned in Vietnam. If ever there were two oposite wars, these are it.

The lessons of Vietnam could be misleading in fighting the war against terrorism. In Vietnam, the war was over territory: The Communists who had seized control of North Vietnam wanted to annex the south. The United States had intervened to prevent that and enable the South Vietnamese to choose a different future.

This is a great point. We were fighting communist expansion, following the Truman Doctorine of assisting free peoples everywhere. The real enemy, Moscow, had thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at us and was supporting the North Vietnamese. Terrorists have no terrirtorial aims other than places to train, and the elimination of Israel.

Kerry says "We need to be looked up to, and not just feared." Yet, while it is always pleasant to be looked up to, what is needed now is that the terrorists, and their allies and patrons, should fear the United States. The bin Ladens and Saddam Husseins of this world are unlikely to look up to the United States. But they can be made to fear it, to the point of running to hide in caves and holes.

I made this point a short time ago.

The worst citicism is that Kerry "would ask hard questions and demand hard evidence." That's precisely the problem. You rarely get hard evidence, and by the time you do, 3000 people die. Demanding that is a recipe for paralysis not action.

The most disturbing idea that Kerry launched, however, came when he spoke of a message that he would send to American troops on the first day of his presidency: "You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace."

Logically, this means: never.

I wrote about this too, regading the Marshall Plan. (Scroll down, it's there.)

Kerry simply has the wrong ideas, and he konows it. He is trying hard to sound tough, while hiding his real views. If Team Bush is good, and I'm sure they are, they will hammer Kerry on this.

Speaking about Bush, unscripted I'd assume, Kerry says "He's lost 4 million people without health care."

Really? Where'd they go?

This is the Kerry we'll see more and more of. When he's unscripted, he can't hide. He's trying to hide his real ideology, and in doing so, he sounds...bizarre. Yes, Bush sometimes seems as though English is a second language. But, the main difference is that Bush has trouble explaining his ideas, while Kerry has trouble concealing his ideas. Huge difference.

John Kerry's rapid acceptance of the entire 9/11 Commission's report gives a particular insight into how he would function as president. He couldn't have possibly read the whole thing, and even if he had his aides read it, he couldn't have given it much thought and anaylsis. He is campaigning full time, and he was preparing for the most important speech of his life. (Considering the speech, maybe he did spend time elsewhere.)

So what does this mean? Without a detailed understanding and thoughtful analysis, he is ready to fully implement sweeping changes without giving it time to be debated in Congress. He is willing to rush into a massive overhaul of one of the nation's most important agencies. He hasn't explained why, only that "we need to do better". He is willing to embrace the report because it resounds well politically.

Isn't this, according to his criticism of the war, the exact thing the Bush administration did regarding Iraq? This is why John Kerry is unfit to lead the nation, at any time, but more than ever now that we're in a time of war.

CIA foibles predate the fall of the Soviet Union. They failed to see it coming, or preapre for their role in the aftermath. The CIA has been plagued with a bureaucratic mentality, an incestuous (think Wilson) nature, congressional handcuffing, and lack of clearly defined role, all of which have hampered the agency, and US intelligence, for years. Reform is a long time coming.

Kerry's unqualified embrace of the Commission's recommendations gives us insight into how he will run his administration. And it is troublesome. He had the opportunity to explain his policy for dealing with proliferation of WMD's, the War on Terror, and defending America in the 21st century Thursday night. He failed. We got more of the same: greater reliance on allies, shared burdens, and no wars for oil.

His quick embrace of the report, for purely political reasons, should give anyone serious about the nation's security reason for concern. This isn't leadership, it's recklessness. And it's no way to fight and win a war.

John Kedwards (Kerry/Edwards, looking at their pre-convention "closeness") et al. are ever quick to point the two Americas, one for the privileged, one for the rest of us. This doesn't take into account that Kedwards are two of the wealthiest men in the Senate. At least one of them earned their income, unless you consider having to listen to THK ramble work, because I sure do.

Now, the NY Times has handed Bush a huge boost with this article. According to the headline, "I.R.S. Says Americans' Income Shrank for 2 Consecutive Years", but read further and you get the real picture.

The total adjusted gross income on tax returns fell 5.1 percent, to just over $6 trillion in 2002, the most recent year for which data is available, from $6.35 trillion in 2000. Because of population growth, average incomes declined even more, by 5.7 percent.

So, incomes are falling, but where are they falling?

the new information shows that its effect on Americans' incomes, particularly those at the upper end of the spectrum, was much more severe

Ah ha. So, the rich didn't get richer, they got poorer. But it gets even better.

From 2000 to 2002, individual income taxes fell 18.8 percent, more than three times the decline in adjusted gross incomes, the I.R.S.'s latest statistical reports show.

Let's take a look at some other IRS data, that being the tax percentage liability. As of 2001, the total tax share of the top 50% is 96%. However, the total tax share of the top 5% is 53%. This means that more than 1/2 of all tax revenues are paid by the top 5%. And, 2/3 of all tax revenues are paid by the top 10%. So, clearly, when those at the top suffer from an economic slowdown, tax revenues suffer heavily. So, what caused this decline in income at the top?

The unprecedented back-to-back declines in reported incomes was caused primarily by the combination of the big fall in the stock market and the erosion of jobs and wages in well-paying industries in the early years of the decade.

So, the stock market crash had a huge impact on income, which had a huge impact on revenues. And what about those "tax cuts for the rich" we've heard so much about?

But in that year(2001) and in 2002 the cuts applied primarily to those making less than $100,000, especially families with children, and to capital gains from the sales of appreciated assets like stock.

Really?

Falling incomes, rather than tax cuts, appear to count for the greatest share of the decline in income taxes paid.

Really? You mean the deficit was caused by decline in income of the wealthiest Americans, rather than "reckless tax cuts for the rich".

At the same time many of those whose incomes fell the most - those reporting $200,000 to $10 million in income - paid at the highest rates, which meant that the drain on revenues was even greater when their incomes shrank.

And how about the "most privileged among us"?

The combined income of this rich and thin slice of Americans plummeted 63 percent, to $110 billion, in 2002 from $300 billion in 2000. Among those who stayed in this category average annual income fell 22 percent, to $20.9 million from almost $26.8 million in 2000.

All those corporate fat-cats and Benedict Arnold CEO's sure didn't get their money's worth. Apparently, Bush hasn't helped them much.

And how did those CEO's fare?

Pearl Meyer, a leading executive pay consultant in New York, said the stock market even took a toll on the pay to the chief executives of the 200 largest publicly traded companies.


For the 200 executives, stock option profits, which are taxed at the same rate as salaries, fell to an average of $3 million in 2002 from $5.3 million in 2001 and $7.4 million in 2000, Ms. Meyer said.

Total pay for the top 200 chief executives, she calculated from reports to shareholders, plummeted to an average of $7.9 million in 2002 from $12.5 million in 2000.

Well, it looks like CEO salaries plummeted from their heyday in the Clinton years.

The dot-com era grew wildly and blew up during the Clinton years. The dot-com crash began in March 2000, "which eliminated trillions of dollars of paper wealth" , while the recession didn't begin for almost a year. With the economy growing strong, job creation accelerating, and incomes rising, Kedwards economic populist rhetoric is going to sound a little stale. Especially since the "privileged" didn't do too well.

The democrats' favorite attack on the president's foreign policy has been his "go it alone" strategy. His greatest error it seems, is that he has alienated our allies. Of course we know who those allies are, the French and the Germans. Now, last time France was a military power was two centuries ago, and the last time Germany was a military power, they started two little things called world wars.*

But, I think this is a ball Bush should pick up and run with. Let's face it, whose going to put the fear in terrorists? A president who has proven he will engage the enemy, not worry about the "world opinion" and act alone if needed, or a president who is more concerned the number of allies who are with us?

This is a really good issue for the president to take advantage of. Here is a clear difference between the president and Kerry. Going it alone need not be the albatross the democrats want it to be. Rather, it is decisiveness, a willingness to act to defend the country, to take on the enemy first, to defeat him before he gets to our shores.

The cowboy image is a good one. I would rather, in a time of war, have a gunslinger in the white house. The Iraq war has done many things, most of them good. But most importantly, it has shown the terrorists that we are not afraid to fight. That is something that the democrats don't understand. The fact that Bush will act, alone if necessary, should put fear into the hearts of the mullahs in Iran and the regime in Syria, not to mention the lunatic in Pyong Yang.

A fellow teacher had a poster in her classroom that said the following:

What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.

I can't think of anything that better describes the differences between Bush and Kerry. Bush will always do what is right, at least regarding foreign policy, regardless of whether he has the approbation of other nations, especially those who never would have helped in the first place.



*Yes, I know what happened in July 1914. Germany was no more to blame than the French and Austrians and Russian. And, oddly enough, what caused WW1 in the first place was a series of alliances (in other words, too much concern for "allies"), the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente', which had concluded the series of ever shifting alliances that dated back to the Thrity Years War.

For example, after the War of Austrian Succesion, Maria Theresa ups and switches alliances and sides with the French, which prompts the 7 years war. Hmmm, alliances with France, then war. WW1, alliances with France, war. WW2, alliances with France, war. Post WW2, alliances with France, war (Vietnam after Diem ben phu, oh yeah). And then, alliances with France, Gulf war (need we recount Saddams "French Connection").

It's just that the history books all say Germany was to blame (Article 231 of the Versialles treaty) and we know high school history books always tell the truth!!

Several weeks ago, I point out Chirac's desire to be Napoleon. Now, Newsweek sees it the same.

Let's see what I wrote.

Historically, France has always sought to be the hegemonic power in Europe.

Let's see what Newsweek has to say.

As Europe has expanded its frontiers, the eternal French game for power and influence inside the Union has moved to the countries just outside.

Here's more of what I said.

France and Germany sit at the heart of Europe. They are the manufacturing and agricultural leaders. But they are heavily dependent on cross-border trade, and they both have very expansive welfare states that currently are going bankrupt. The war was in diametric opposition to French and German interests so they opposed it.

And here's what Newsweek has to say.

When French presidents invoke "the national interest," often as not it means they've cut a deal they'd really rather not explain.

When the crunch comes, the Turkish question could split the union between Euroskeptics like Britain and Scandinavia, which tend to support enlargement in general and Ankara in particular, and Euro-integrationists like the French, who want a union that's more compact, unified and dominated by the Franco-German axis. Some observers think that's actually what Chirac wants: to make the expanded "New" Europe so unwieldy that the "Old" Europe can shed the skeptics and pull together into a tighter, more decisive union at Europe's core.

Am I gloating? Well, maybe. But at least I understand the "allies" we supposedly alienated, unlike a certain presidential candidate.

Okay, I am gloating.