Monday,
February 7 2005
TED KENNEDY, FREEDOM FIGHTER:
Ted Kennedy was so excited about the first democratic
elections in Iraq in more than a half century he decided
to try and undermine them by giving a highly
publicized defeatist rant at Johns’ Hopkins School
of Advanced International Studies on January 27. Three days
later Kennedy's office put out this
wildly enthusiastic one paragraph statement saying the
Senator thought the Iraqi elections were "a good first
step" but "not a cure" and urging President
Bush to hurry up and "look beyond" the vote.
Given
that we've seen two other remarkable cases of democracy
blossoming around the world in the last six months, I wondered
if Senator Kennedy had greeted the historic events in Afghanistan
and the Ukraine with the same passion and enthusiasm with
which he handled Iraq. The answer, not surprisingly, is
"yes."
On
October 8 of last year, one day before Afghans went to the
polls, Kennedy delivered this
statement on the floor of the United States Senate:
Afghanistan still faces
fundamental threats to the casting of ballots on Saturday,
let alone its long-term stability and prosperity. Elections
are vitally important to the process of rebuilding a free
country, but they are not a panacea for the myriad problems
that face the people in Afghanistan.
Sounds pretty familiar. This
time, however, it looks as if Senator Kennedy didn't bother
with congratulating the people of Afghanistan on their historic
achievement. Kennedy's
web site shows that he did find time to issue three
statements that weekend (October 9-10), but praising democracy
in Afghanistan wasn't among them. Nor does a Lexis-Nexis
search for the month of October turn up any trace of Senator
Kennedy saying a single thing (either positive or negative)
about the Afghan elections. It's as if they never happened.
But
surely the good Senator had something positive to say about
Ukraine, right? After all, the Orange Revolution was untainted
by Bush's hated militarism/imperialism/unilateralism and
came off without a shot being fired. Liberals (and conservatives)
everywhere praised the peaceful manner in which democracy
triumphed in Ukraine.
Not
Kennedy. Starting with the time of the initial, fraudulent
vote in Ukraine (November 21) through the revote (December
26) through the day Yuschenko was sworn in (January 23)
I can't find a single word uttered by Senator Kennedy on
the matter. Nothing on Google, nothing in Lexis-Nexis. Nothing
on his web site and nothing in the Congressional Record.
If Kennedy has said something - anything - about the historic
events in Ukraine I can't find it.
Kennedy's indifference to the spread of freedom and his
belief that elections are quaint but not really important
events are two more reasons the Democrats are in real and
mortal danger by letting this man continue to be the face
and voice of their party.
CAN'T
KILL THIS BILL: Richard
Benedetto shows that it's almost impossible to kill
government spending programs:
Bush proposed eliminating
65 programs last year. All but one, a $14 million grant
program for developing new information technologies, survived.
Most got a little less money than the year before; a few
got more.
This year, Bush's budget targets
150 government programs to be either eliminated or drastically
reduced. Mike
Allen and Peter Baker report in this morning's Washington
Post that the early reaction from the Hill is predictable:
Some congressional officials
pronounced many of the proposed cuts dead on arrival.
One lawmaker involved in the negotiations said that House
and Senate leaders have told the White House that no more
than two dozen of the 150 proposals are likely to be accepted,
although Congress might agree to reductions in some programs
targeted for elimination.
Republicans
in the House and Senate need to assert their leadership
and get rid of as many useless spending programs as they
can. Democrats have complained for quite a while now that
we're never asked to make any sacrifices even though we're
a nation at war. Now's our chance. - T.
Bevan 12:40 pm Link
| Email |
Send
to a Friend