Kerry Kerry, quite Contrary

Drudge has an interesting exchange b/t Brokaw and Kerry
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash5.htm

NBCNEWS Brokaw interviewed John Kerry Thursday evening.
Brokaw: "If you had been President, Saddam Hussein would be in power."
Kerry: "Not necessarily."
Brokaw: "You said you wouldn't go to war against him."
Kerry: "That's not true. Because under the inspection process, Saddam Hussein was required to destroy those kinds of materials and weapons."
Brokaw: "But he wasn't destroying them."
Kerry: "That's what you have inspectors for. That's why I voted for the threat of force, because he only does things when you have a legitimate threat of force. It's irresponsible to suggest that if I were President, he wouldn't be gone. He might be gone, because if he hadn't complied, we might have had to go to war, but if we did, we would have gone with allies, so the American people weren't carrying the entire burden. And the entire world would understand why we did it."

Excuse me, Senator Kerry, Saddam DIDN'T comply. That's why the U.N passed the final resolution, out of some previous 18 or so to show to Saddam that this was the final straw. You see, you just can't say you will use force if you won't, for if the enemy knows you will never attack, then there is no LEGITIMATE threat of force. Saddam was attempting call us out to see if we were bluffing. When cards were revealed, it turned out we had a full house and the U.N. a low pair. Paris already stated they would never authorize force, no matter what. I thought the U.S. showed to the world that we have a pretty long fuse, and we'll work with you, but there is a big ole bomb at the end of that fuse, so don't mess with us.

What I'd really like Kerry to explain is what you do after Saddam doesn't comply for the 10,000 time? and what if the "axis of weasels" is unwilling to support you? Have you failed the "Global test" and therefor unable to use the force?

The NY Times pulls a C-BS and is loose and fast with the facts.

This is big. Not suprisingly, once again the media has rushed to print a story which is meant to be damaging to the President. In C-BS fashion the NY Times reported a "huge" story, essentially blaming the US for losing account of 370 tons of explosives.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3493-2004Oct27.html

On Sunday night, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller told Jeff Fager, executive producer of CBS's "60 Minutes," that the story they had been jointly pursuing on missing Iraqi ammunition was starting to leak on the Internet.
"You know what? We're going to have to run it Monday," Keller said

However, ABC news later ran a story claiming that when they arrived no explosives where there.

NBC's Jim Miklaszewski, who was embedded with the Army's 101st Airborne Division during the war, reported Monday that the unit visited the Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, and never found the explosives.

Most interesting was a report that the Russians were allegedly carting off explosives before the invasion in addition to destroying all evidence of any contractual relations between Iraq and Russia

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041028-122637-6257r.htm

It certainly seems that the liberal media is a one way ratchet, always turning tight against the republicans.

What Could be Worse than Hillary as First Lady?

NRO has a great article on Ter(ray)sa Heinz and Laura Bush.

http://www.nationalreview.com/blyth/blyth200410280828.asp
After discussing how Laura Bush had the uncanny ability to remain out of the spotlight, the article goes on:
And that's why the thought of Teresa Heinz Kerry (a.k.a. the Portuguese Firecracker) as First Lady can be so darn unnerving. Mrs. Kerry not only has lots of opinions on everything from the environment to the war to how to alleviate the symptoms of arthritis (with gin-soaked raisins), she also wants everyone to listen to her and respect what she says.

In her "enough about him, let's talk about me" convention speech Teresa declared, "My only hope is that one day soon, women — who have all earned the right to their opinions — instead of being labeled opinionated, will be called smart and well informed, just like men." With that much-quoted remark she was playing, of course, to those few perpetually disgruntled 60s-era feminists still among us — many of whom, by the way, are part of the media.

The only problem is that, throughout the campaign, Teresa has not been "smart and well informed" — she has been a dopey near-disaster. From telling a reporter asking a tough question to "shove it," to winning the New York Times's Marie Antoinette Award (for suggesting that Caribbean children who were victims of a hurricane "go naked"), to last week's diss of Mrs. Bush, it has been gaffe after gaffe after gaffe. And the mouthy "Mama T" at the present time is still being kept tightly under control. Just imagine what she would be like in the White House as the Boss's Wife — and what fun the press would have recording her daily doings.

In [a] USA Today/PBS survey, 76 percent of Americans gave Mrs. Bush a favorable rating and only 16 percent had an unfavorable view, while 40 percent of the public rated Mrs. Kerry unfavorably and only 38 percent had a favorable view.

On the Today show the other morning, John Kerry defended his wife by declaring that he loved her outspokenness. But during the last debate, when asked about the strong women in his life, he couldn't come up with anything nice to say about her. The camera caught Teresa looking pretty sulky about that. He did finally, concede he enjoyed the style of life she provided.

Stolen Honor, for free online

The documentary "Stolen Honor" is now available for free online, in a hi-res format.

http://www.stolenhonor.com/documentary/watch-video.asp

Disenfranchised by the Democrats

Courtesy to Matt a.k.a. Bear, for the following article. Matts comments at the end are particularly poignant.

"Newsflash: Philadelphia Gains Population for the First Time in 50 years "Liberal registration groups have turned in so many new voter registration cards in Philadelphia that the City of Brotherly Love now has as many registered voters as the number of people over the age of 18 that the Census Bureau estimates live there."Republicans bought a copy of the voter file for Philadelphia lastmonth and sent every voter who had registered between March and Augusta letter congratulating them and urging them to consider voting forthe GOP. Nearly 10% of the 131,000 letters came back marked "Return to sender" because there was "no such number" or no one by the voter'sname living at the address. Among the other names returned as unreachable were people who were in prison or dead."Democrats dismiss the Republican letter campaign as a stunt and say there is no evidence that any of the invalid registrations would havebeen used to cast votes. City officials took the returned letters alittle more seriously. Edward Schulgen, a Philadelphia deputy citycommissioner, urged the Republicans to bring in their evidence so aninvestigation could be launched."But the city can do very little about the fake registrations beforeElection Day. By law, the city cannot remove names from the rollswithin 90 days of an election for any reason. Making matters worse isnews that Democratic Governor Ed Rendell has appointed former Kerry fund-raiser Mark Aronchick of Philadelphia to lead a team of 150 election monitors to assist counties with their vote counts. Republicans say Mr. Aronchick is likely to be more interested in boosting voter turnout by any means rather than investigating allegations of vote fraud. Philadelphia Democrats boast that they expect Mr. Kerry to exceed Al Gore's dramatic 350,000-vote margin inthe city. Given the city's swelled registration rolls of 1.1 millionnames, I'm not going to argue with their prediction.--John Fund

Matt Comments:

"Now follow me if you can... If I cast a legal and legitimate vote for Bush, and my neighbor casts two votes for Kerry, my one vote has basically been canceled out by the illegal vote of my neighbor. My vote has been taken away, and I have been disenfranchised and robbed of my voice in this democracy. This voter fraud has the potential to be and I think will be just as big a source of disenfranchisement as any voter intimidation. Both are illegal and wrong. But which one do you here about...?

10 out of 10 Terrorists Agree, Kerry for President

The Washington Times has quotes from a hardline muslim cleric who supports the insurgents in Iraq. Not suprisingly, he hopes the casualties in Iraq will cause Kerry to win, thus leading to withrawal and defeat. http://www.washtimes.com/world/20041027-121030-7792r.htm

"If the U.S. Army suffered numerous humiliating losses, Kerry would emerge as the superman of the American people,"

"American elections and Iraq are linked tightly together," he told a Fallujah-based Iraqi reporter. "We've got to work to change the election, and we've done so. With our strikes, we've dragged Bush into the mud."

After seeing what happened in the Spanish elections, who knows what could happen.
Vladimir Putin has also made some comments, recognizing that the terrorist community would love for Bush to lose the election. He stated:

"International terrorists have set as their goal inflicting the maximum damage to Bush, to prevent his election to a second term."
"If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition," Putin said.
"In that case, this would give an additional impulse to international terrorists and to their activities, and could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world."
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/10/18/putin.iraq/

In reality, terrorist are going to be happy no matter who wins. If Bush loses, they'll take it as a victory, recognizing that they have power to influence the most powerful nation in the world, animating their cause even more and giving them a sense of invincibility. If Bush wins, they will not concede defeat, but will try to rally the troops behind someone who has taken a hard stance. For it is always easier to be against a man of principle, then a man of nuance.

Kerry Meets with the Entire UN Security Council, ie., a few of them

The Washington Times, which admittedly isn' t the most reliable source, has an interesting report on Kerry's claim that he met with all the members of the UN Security Council.

During the Presidential Debates, Senator Nuance stated:
"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable."

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either. The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.

When confronted with the Times investigation, he changed his tune

The statement did not repeat Mr. Kerry's claims of a lengthy meeting with the entire 15-member Security Council, instead saying the candidate "met with a group of representatives of countries sitting on the Security Council."

While not particularly important, it does poke holes in the picture Kerry tried to paint regarding his encounters with foreign leaders.

Kerry Mocks Iwo Jima

I know this is old news, but for those who don't know, in the early 1970's John Kerry wrote a book called "The New Soldier." It basically espouses Kerry's and his groups (the VVAW) philosophy of the war.

Pictures and text can be found at:
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=NewSoldier

Most interesting is the cover which shows a group of vets-turned hippies, mockingly re-enacting the famous moment when marines planted the flag on Mt. Suribachi after the fierce battle on Iwo Jima. The moment is now enshrined as a bronze statue at the Marine Core Memorial in Arlington, Virginia. Kerry's book cover, has the flag placed upside down on the pole and the facial expessions of the participants are particularly disturbing.

Obviously, this book is extremely difficult to get as Kerry apparently hasn't allowed for its republication.

NY Times Gives "Stolen Honor" a Positive Review

Surprisingly, the New York Times gave the documentary "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal" a positive review. The film is an hour long documentary which examines the effects the anti-war protestors had on Vietnam POWs. Here are some excerpts:

[this] highly contested anti-Kerry documentary, should not be shown by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. It should be shown in its entirety on all the networks, cable stations and on public television.

what is most enlightening about this film is not the depiction of Mr. Kerry as a traitor; it is the testimony of the former P.O.W.'s describing the torture they endured in captivity and the shock they felt when celebrities like Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden visited their prisons in North Vietnam and sided with the enemy

The former prisoners - now old and graying - are not just talking about their sense of betrayal by fellow Americans. They also seize the Kerry candidacy as a chance to recall their experiences:

This film is payback time, a chance to punish one of the most famous antiwar activists, Mr. Kerry, the one who got credit for serving with distinction in combat, then, through the eyes of the veterans in this film, went home to discredit the men left behind.

He recalls listening to Mr. Kerry's testimony in 1971, saying, "I felt an inner hurt no surgeon's scalpel could remove.''

That pain is the main theme of the documentary.... One former P.O.W., John Warner, lashes out at Mr. Kerry for having coaxed Mr. Warner's mother to testify at the Winter Soldier Investigation, where disgruntled veterans testified to war crimes they committed. Calling it a "contemptible act," Mr. Warner, who spent more than five years as a prisoner, tells the camera that Mr. Kerry was the kind of man who preyed on a mother's grief "purely for the promotion of your own political agenda."

While I haven't seen the film, I think the subject matter is something that needed to be discussed. The article correctly makes the point that while the History Channel tends to portray the heroics of WWI and WWII, any examination of the Vietnam War solely focuses on "its moral and strategic ambiguities and its effect on American society in the 1960's and 70's."

The pyschological toll levied on POW's by anti-war protestors is something which definitely needed to be examined.

DNC Field Manual on How to Prevent Voter Intimidation

Per request, I have provided a link to portions of the DNC manual that discusses the use of a pre-emptive strike even if n0 signs of voter intimidation appear. The DNC claims that the Drudge took them out of context and offered a response.

Here's the link http://www.democrats.org/news/200410140008.html

You have to scroll three-quarters of the way down to get to the quote.

Sue Your Way to the White House, Part II

Well this article from Fox News makes my stomach churn. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136011,00.html

Unlike the former vice president, who lost a recount fight and the 2000 election, Kerry will be quick to declare victory on election night and begin defending it. He also will be prepared to name a national security team before knowing whether he's secured the presidency.

Six so-called "SWAT teams" of lawyers and political operatives will be situated around the country with fueled-up jets awaiting Kerry's orders to speed to a battleground state. The teams have been told to be ready to fly on the evening of the election to begin mounting legal and political fights. No team will be more than an hour from a battleground.

"Right now, we have 10,000 lawyers out in the battleground states on Election Day, and that number is growing by the day," said Michael Whouley,

Their goal would be to persuade voters that Kerry has the best claim to the presidency and that Republicans are trying to steal it.
Democrats are already laying the public relations groundwork by pointing to every possible voting irregularity before the Nov. 2 election and accusing Republicans of wrongdoing.

What have we come to? A "SWAT" teams of lawyers? This is insane. Really, this is a new low. While the "Re-defeat Bush" crowd might buy into this, I hope the American people will see through all this for what it really is, a desparate attempt, no a pathetic attempt to guarantee Kerry the presidency and to illegitimatize President Bush, irregardless of the facts.
If any one has doubts about this, go read the DNC manual I mentioned in a previous post that discusses how people should claim disenfranchisement, even if none exists.

The "Global Test" Permission Slip

Someone has created a hilarious permission slip which would authorize the President to use force.

Check it out at http://www.strangecosmos.com/content/item/102957.html.

Prepare to be Drafted?

Well, for the past few weeks, Dems and the media have been trying to scare the American people into believing that a military draft was afoot. MTV's webpage even states "the possibility of a new military draft is not a hoax or an Internet rumor," and it even has a form letter that you can sign your name to, demanding answers from the RNC and DNC. See http://www.rockthevote.com/draft/

C-BS News ran a "news" story on the issue, as ratherbiased.com reports, which included dubious information:

Three weeks after he denounced the internet as being "filled with
rumors," the embattled CBS anchor ran a story on his Tuesday
"Evening News" program hoping to stir up fear of an impending military
draft. In a story that was a textbook example of slipshod reporting, CBS
reporter Richard Schlesinger used debunked internet hoax emails
and an unlabeled interest group member to scare elderly
"Evening" viewers into believing that the U.S. government is poised to
resume the draft.

Littlegreenfootballs.com has also dug up some interesting material on Kerry's website from a few years ago. Whereas the President has unequivocaly stated that the voluntary army is sufficient, Kerry, in years passed has delved into the relm of obligatory national service. See http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=13038

The most intersting thing is that the only bill on the table that would have required a draft was written and proposed by democrats. Just recently republicans made the extra effort to kill the bill successfully. Talon News states:

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected a Democratic bill Tuesday that would reinstate the draft, 402-2. The vote was scheduled to silence a Democratic whispering campaign that accused President Bush of having a secret plan to restart the draft if he were reelected.

Tom Delay made a few poignant remarks after killing the bill. He stated:

"For months now, the American people have been subjected to -- and had their intelligence insulted by -- a manipulative, dishonest, and willful campaign of misinformation.... This campaign, which started as a whisper but has since been given voice by the leading Democrats in the country today, asserts without any evidence whatsoever that there is a secret Republican plan to reinstitute the military draft."
DeLay continued, "This campaign is a baseless and malevolent concoction of the Democrat Party, and everyone in this chamber knows it. It has one purpose -- to spread fear. To spread fear among an unsuspecting public, to undermine the war on terror, to undermine our troops, to undermine our cause, and most of all, to undermine our commander-in-chief ... in an election year."

The whole thing is pretty pathetic. I predict as the election approaches, Dems are going to bite and claw their way in an effort to win at any cost. The whole notion of "Anybody but Bush" reflects that. For if you're willing to have Anyone as president, but Bush, why wouldn't you be willing to do Anything to get him out?

Sue your way to the White House

Drudge reportedly has received a DNC mobilization manual to be distributed throughout a number of states which counsels people to claim voter disenfranchisement, even when it doesn't exist. The manaual states:

"If no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a 'pre-emptive strike.'"

I think, since 2000, when the Dems sent an army of attorneys to florida in an effort to get Gore into the presidency, despite what the law said, they set a new low. Alot of others have written on this new phenomena, but I think it is worth mentioning that the Dems realize any way in which they can tie things up and make an election look illigitimate when the opponent wins is in their favor.

We all remember the hoopla in florida when The Reverand "lovechild" Jackson, rallied his troops and countless people claimed they had been subjected to harrassment. After the waters settled, however, there were no substantiated claims of disenfranchisement.

I'm not claiming that bad things don't happen, they do, but the minute you start crying wolf, you lose all legitimacy and damage the very cause you're trying to help. The more hollow complaints of voter disenfranchisement that exist, the less weight is given to valid complaints.

368 Economists Agree: Kerrynomics Won't Work

national review has published a statement, signed by 368 economists, which states:

“John Kerry favors economic policies that, if implemented, would lead to bigger and more intrusive government and a lower standard of living for the American people.”

Six of the 368 are nobel laureates, Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Robert Lucas, Robert Mundell, and — the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics — Edward C. Prescott.

The article goes on to say:

It is no secret that John Kerry wants America’s foreign policy to be more like that of Germany and France. But perhaps even more disturbing, he has demonstrated that he wants to emulate their failed tax-and-spend economic policies, too. Over time, the consequences could be devastating. Consider the impact those policies have had on Europe. Germany and France once enjoyed standards of living comparable to those of the United States. Today, U.S. per capita GDP is 38 percent higher than that of Germany and 43 percent higher than that of France. Indeed, as economist Bruce Bartlett recently pointed out, “On average, Europeans only live about as well as those in the poorest American state, Mississippi.”

Is Edwards Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite?

Drudge has this headline, apparently from John Edwards speaking at a highschool. A central Iowa paper has the quote: http://www.timesrepublican.com/news/story/1012202004_newnews.asp

In a reference to John Kerry's presidency he stated "people like Christopher Reeve are going get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

This statement, is perhaps, a little less fantastical than Pedro's promise that "if elected, your wildest dreams will come true."

Edwards later said that if elected, Kerry would "plant trees that grew money" and "would waive a magic wand to create jobs." He coupled those remarks with his statements that holding a "summit would make all other nations support our efforts in Iraq" and that with him in office this would be "the right war, in the right place, at the right time."

Dems versus Free Speech

opinionjournal.com has some great insights on the Dems outcry against Sinclair Television deciding to air a documentary on Kerry's post war activities and their effects on POWs. Predictably, the Dems are outraged and trying to legally enjoin the stations from airing the film.

As well, it underscores the authoritarian nature of the political left when it comes to political speech. Liberals are quick to cry "censorship" when others merely criticize far-left or anti-American speech (remember the Dixie Chicks?), but they are eager to use the force of government to silence those with whom they disagree.

As an added point, I seem to recall the dems issuing ceast and desist letters to television stations that were airing the swiftboat ads as well.

UPDATE///
national review has an interesting article on the Sundance Channel who has decided to run an enourmous amount of anti-Bush propaganda.

By the time the polls close on Nov. 2, the Sundance Channel will have consigned roughly 35 hours of programming to films attacking President Bush and other Republicans. Meanwhile, it's also televising the Al Franken radio show three times every weekday. In toto, Sundance will devote 81 hours over a 22 1/2-day period, or fully 15 percent of its airtime, to decidedly anti-Bush programming.

Predictably, the Sundance Channel won't get nearly as much coverage as the Sinclair decision to air one anti-kerry film.

Must Read Rants From Jonah Golderg

Here are a couple of lines from Goldbergs column.

Goldberg on the "Bush Lied" mantra:

Oh, one more thing no one asks. How could Bush think he could pull this thing off? I mean, knowing as he did that there were no WMDs in Iraq, how could he invade the country and think no one would notice? And if he's capable of lying to send Americans to their deaths for some nebulous petro-oedipal conspiracy no intelligent person has bothered to make even credible, why on earth didn't he just plant some WMDs on the victim after the fact? If you're willing to kill Americans for a lie, surely you'd be willing to plant some anthrax to keep your job.

Goldberg on "Bush hasn't leveled" with the American people:

Indeed, John Kerry said it so eloquently when he noted that George W. Bush has offered 23 rationales for the war. Heaven forbid the International Grandmaster of Nuance contemplate that there could be more than a single reason to do something so simple as go to war. Let's not even contemplate that the ticket that says this administration hasn't "leveled" with the American people should have to grasp that sometimes leveling with the public requires offering more than one dumbed-down reason to do something very difficult and important.

Goldberg on Dems' hypocrisy on Iraq vis a vis Bosnia:

Ah, but in the Cold War we never fought the Soviets, we merely leveled sanctions. Couldn't we have done the same to Iraq, since Saddam was no threat to America? I'm sure all of the people asking this asked it already of Bill Clinton when we toppled Slobodan Milosevic, a man who killed fewer people, threatened America less, and violated fewer U.N. sanctions than Saddam ever did.

Goldberg on Dems' hypocrisy and stance against the war:

I'm not saying there are no good arguments against the war. I am saying that many of you don't care about the war. If Bill Clinton or Al Gore had conducted this war, you would be weeping joyously about Iraqi children going to school and women registering to vote. If this war had been successful rather than hard, John Kerry would be boasting today about how he supported it — much as he did every time it looked like the polls were moving in that direction. You may have forgotten Kerry's anti-Dean gloating when Saddam was captured, but many of us haven't. He would be saying the lack of WMDs are irrelevant and that Bush's lies were mistakes.

C BS: The Truth Will Prevail, but after the election

brain-terminal.com has a great analysis on CBS' adopted policy of not revealing the findings of their internal investigation regarding the forged memos until AFTER the election.

According to CBS president Les Moonves, "it should be done probably after the election is over so that it doesn't affect what's going on."

So, let's see: CBS airs phony documents intended to damage the Bush campaign. They don't care whether that affects the election. But, because the investigation will undoubtedly discuss collaboration between CBS News staffers and the Kerry campaign, well, that bad news can wait until after the election. It could be damaging to Kerry.

The fact that CBS would have the audacity to come out and actually say this is also troubling. We all know the bias exists, we didn't realize, however, how blatant and unabashed it would be. You would at leat think they would show us the respect of coming up with some boloney story of how the investigation would take months to finish or that it shouldn't be rushed so as to preserve its quality and reliability.

So when this does come out, it will be months from now, after the election, on the bottom of page 23, sandwiched between a story on Wisconsin gravel pits and Cardboard production.

Saddam is Innocent? Let Him Free?

John Gibson has an interesting post on if the Dems are right, and Saddam has no terrorist connection, and never had WMD, then why not let this innocent man free? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134679,00.html

Let's say they're right — despite the evidence that conclusions have been made for political purposes — but let's say they're right for argument's sake: There were no WMD, no Al Qaeda, no 9/11 link. That means Saddam was innocent and that means the war was wrong
That means Saddam should still be in charge of his country and that regime change was unjustified and in error.

He goes on to explain that since Saddam is in our custody, why not let him loose and permit to build up his regime again.

Predictably, no Dems are going to argue for his release, even though their own arguments force one to conclude that the war is "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

Debate Roundup: why the Dems’ solutions won’t work

After watching the first round of debates, it is pretty clear, at least in my mind, that the Dems have put forth some pretty lame solutions. Here’s a couple of examples.

Kerry’s Global Test: When Kerry was asked about whether the US would leave its foreign policy in the hands of foreigners, Kerry reserved the right to preemption, but then oddly stated that it ought to pass a "global test." I know that this has been written on a lot on other blogs, but it is worth mentioning. Firstly, what in the world does this mean? What nations must be included for it to pass this global test? Is it only global if France and Germany are involved? The fact that Kerry would spout off such a policy without any explanation of what it means, or its ramifications seems a little odd.

Kerry's "We will hold a summit": ok, lets be honest here. How will holding a summit, get other nations to want to commit troops? What in the world is Kerry going to tell them. Just imagine Kerry sitting around a table with our current allies (who he has repeatedly belittled) and then asking nations like France (who has always said they would never commit troops) to join this "quagmire" of a war which is "in the wrong place at the wrong time." Does anyone really think that holding a summit will do anything? The truth is, it won’t, and Dems only mention it because it might sound good to anyone who doesn’t take the extra second to think about it.

Edwards' View on Outsourcing: In the debate, Edwards went out of his way to reveal the horrific fact that the Bush administration is in favor of, "outsourcing" that's right, "outsourcing" american jobs to those oversees. To anyone who has absolutely no economics background, this does sound menacing, after all, if foreigners provide services americans used to provide, what will the americans do? However, economics reveals that letting nations do what they are best at boosts the economies of all the nations involved. Its a little concept called "competitive advantage," and is the key to why free trade makes nations that participate better off. To those of you who are still sceptics, imagine what the US would be like if all the states acted like foreign nations and practiced protectionist trade policies? Those living in state A, could only buy and use products produced in that state, or pay a higher premium, even though state B could do it for alot less. It is a foregone conclusion that "free-trade" works, and that includes outsourcing. If India can perform a service cheaper and better than americans can, let the american workers do what we are best at. That way, its cheaper for consumers of both nations to purchase services, and both nations are doing what they are best at.
I simply cannot endorse a party, who professes that they know how to improve the economy when they fail to grasp the most basic and fundamental concepts of capitalsim.

Edwards’ Solution to Rising Med Mal Costs: This by far, seemed to be the oddest suggestion of both the debates so far. The very notion that submitting potential cases to independent review will somehow cure rising insurance premiums is far fetched, and Edwards knows it. Such a mechanism is already in place to screen frivolous cases. (its called a demurrer, motion for summary judgment, and Rule 11 sanctions). The problem with Med Mal is not that there are large numbers of frivolous cases, but that there are large numbers of cases that on their face, look like someone really screwed up. Unlike any other profession, we demand absolute perfection from our physicians. Whenever anything goes wrong on the operating table, it is almost a foregone conclusion that someone, somehow, affiliated with the hospital was negligent. Legal standards of causation and negligence essentially go out the window and everyone focuses on damages. In addition, its not the doctors getting sued per se, but the insurance companies, and what could be a better target for trial lawyers than the deep pocket insurance companies. While there are solutions to the Med Mal problem, submitting cases to independent review isn’t one of them. In my opinion, the best solution is to cap Med Mal cases at a certain figure.