October 1, 2004

Subtance Versus Style

You may have noticed I'm not doing a lot of blogging about last night's presidential debate. I didn't watch it, and so I'm having to read the transcript. I've heard the Kerry campaign plans to release a video showing Bush's facial expressions. How juvenile and pathetic. Islamist terrorists, who slaughtered 3,000 of our countrymen, remain a potent force around the world, still scheming and planning and bombing. Still shooting schoolchildren in the back. Still chopping heads off of aid workers. Still working hard to thwart the growth of democracy and freedom in Iraq because they fear that freedom there will spread the desire of freedom throughout the Islamic world. And the Islamist terror fears liberty more than it fears anything else, even death.

And the Democrats want to focus on the President's facial expressions?

I urge you to read the transcript and evaluate what President Bush and Sen. Kerry actually said, rather than focus on on their facial expressions, verbal tics or mannerisms. Leading the country at a time of war is not about who can land a rhetorical punch or deliver the best soundbite in a joint press conference - it's about which man has the right approach to combating the enemy, and which man is most committed to seeing the fight through to final victory even if it means going it alone.

When you read the transcript you get the clear sense that Kerry defines "victory" in Iraq largely as handing Iraq off to unspecified "allies" and subjecting our future actions there to the decisions and pronouncements of foreigners. Sen. Kerry as president would subject American foreign policy to a "global test" to make sure it passes muster with the global community. But which members of the global community get to decide? France? China? Syria? Iran? North Korea?

Bush understands that America and the civilized world is currently engaged in a global test - a global test of our will to combat Islamist terrorism regardless of what the French think, regardless of what Syria thinks, regardless of what Iran thinks, and regardless of whether the U.N. Security Council approves it.

The test is being administered around the globe. In Bali. In Madrid. In Istanbul. In Saudi Arabia. In Beslan. In Iraq.

Kerry last night tried to make the argument that the central focus of the War on Terror should be hunting down Osama bin Laden. That, of course, is absurd. Hugh Hewitt says it best:

Would the many terrorist attacks since 9/11 in Bali, Madrid, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Beslan and elsewhere have occurred had the United States focused all of its efforts on Afghanistan? Yes. Would Zarqawi still be roaming freely throughout Iraq and the middle east, building his parallel networks? Yes. Would killing Osama at Tora Bora have stopped the Islamist fanatics around the globe? No.

John Kerry does not understand the enemy. He does not understand the war we are in, or how it must be waged. He doesn't understand the reason Libya disarmed. He doesn't get what's going on at all.

He was, last night, a well spoken fool. Most days he is a bore and a fool. The folks scoring a win for him last night because for 90 minutes he wasn't a bore aren't seriously examining what he had to say. But the voters will be talking to each other, not to the talking heads. Bush was smart to stay on message, stay focused and communicate again and again: He knows what we are up against. Kerry doesn't.