Sunday afternoon outing.  

Sunday thoughts after a day sail

Since it’s Sunday evening and the Dolphins and Bucs are not engaged today I have some items to pass your way just for the debate value.

I'm not sure why it took so long for someone to find this, given that it's was the cornerstone of Kerry's campaign for president and a repeated debate point that Bush was unable to answer effectively at the time:

...in December 2001, when the Tora Bora operation was under way, Kerry endorsed Bush's tactics during an interview with CNN's Larry King.

Kerry said the Bush plan to get bin Laden "is having its impact, and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will."

Lest anyone mistake his endorsement as half-hearted, Kerry added:

"I think we have been doing this pretty effectively, and we should continue to do it that way."

The quotes, unearthed Saturday by New York Times columnist David Brooks, only add to Kerry's image as a political opportunist who tailors his rhetoric to fit the moment.

According to Kerry, says Brooks: "When we rely on allies everywhere else around the world, that's multilateral cooperation, but when Bush does it in Afghanistan, it's 'outsourcing.' In Iraq, Kerry supports using local troops to chase insurgents, but in Afghanistan he is in post hoc opposition."

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

U.S. employers probably added 175,000 workers to payrolls in October, the most in five months, while the unemployment rate held at a three-year low of 5.4 percent, the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists’ shows. . . .

Manufacturing, responding to increased third-quarter consumer demand and business spending on equipment, probably expanded in October, a report tomorrow is forecast to show. The Institute of Supply Management's gauge of factory activity is forecast to hold at 58.5 in October. Readings above 50 signal expansion and the index has shown growth since May 2003.

I'm guessing this report won't get much attention.

And from Charles Krauthammer in today’s WaPo:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER WRITES on "Kerry's Afghan Amnesia:"

Within days of Sept. 11, the clueless airhead president that inhabits Michael Moore's films and Tina Brown's dinner parties had done this: forced Pakistan into alliance with us, isolated the Taliban, secured military cooperation from Afghanistan's northern neighbors, and authorized a radical war plan involving just a handful of Americans on the ground, using high technology and local militias to utterly rout the Taliban.

President Bush put in place a military campaign that did in two months what everyone had said was impossible: defeat an entrenched, fanatical, ruthless regime in a territory that had forced the great British and Soviet empires into ignominious retreat. Bush followed that by creating in less than three years a fledgling pro-American democracy in a land that had no history of democratic culture and was just emerging from 25 years of civil war.

This is all barely remembered and barely noted. Most amazing of all, John Kerry has managed to transform our Afghan venture into a failure -- a botched operation in which Bush let Osama bin Laden get away because he "outsourced" bin Laden's capture to "warlords" in the battle of Tora Bora.

Outsourced? The entire Afghan war was outsourced. How does Kerry think we won it? How did Mazar-e Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar fall? Stormed by thousands of American GIs? They fell to the "warlords" we had enlisted, supported and directed. It was their militias that overran the Taliban.

"Outsourcing" is a demagogue's way of saying "using allies." (Isn't Kerry's Iraq solution to "outsource" the problem to the "allies" and the United Nations?) . . . .

Once again, the senator's position has evolved, to borrow the New York Times' delicate term for Kerry's many about-faces.

This election comes down to a choice between one man's evolution and the other man's resolution. With his endlessly repeated Tora Bora charges, Kerry has made Afghanistan a major campaign issue. So be it. Whom do you want as president? The man who conceived the Afghan campaign, carried it through without flinching when it was being called a "quagmire" during its second week and has seen it through to Afghanistan's transition to democracy? Or the retroactive genius, who always knows what needs to be done after it has already happened -- who would have done "everything" differently in Iraq, yet in Afghanistan would have replicated Bush's every correct, courageous, radical and risky decision -- except one. Which, of course, he would have done differently. He says. Now.

Ouch.

And finally another gem worth mining on a Sunday:

From George Will:

Reasonable people can question the feasibility of Bush's nation-building and democracy-spreading ambitions. But, having taken up that burden, America cannot prudently, or decently, put it down. The question is: Which candidate will most tenaciously and single-mindedly pursue victory? The answer is: Not John Kerry, who is multiple-minded about most matters.

Tuesday's winner will not start from scratch but from where we are now, standing with the women of Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Back in Washington recently, Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, said those women were warned that Taliban remnants would attack polling places during the Oct. 9 elections. So the women performed the ritual bathing and said the prayers of those facing death. Then, rising at 3 a.m., they trekked an hour to wait in line for the polls to open at 7 a.m. In the province of Kunar an explosion 100 meters from a long line of waiting voters did not cause anyone to leave the line.

Which candidate can be trusted to keep faith with these people? Surely not the man whose party is increasingly influenced by its Michael Moore faction.

Cheers:

JDD

William Adian Foster--newest addition to the Grand Parent Pool. Born in London, England via socialist medicine--UGH! 

My Hurricanes lose and give me gas

OK—for the first time I can remember, all three major Florida college football teams lost on the same Saturday. Florida loses to Georgia-no big surprise and you have to be happy for the Bulldogs as they have lost to Florida with regularity over the past few years. Unranked Maryland upsets Florida State in a big upset and the biggest surprise; my beloved Miami Hurricanes lose to the unranked North Carolina Tarheels in the final seconds of the game. The Miami defense has literally disappeared.

All I can say is Shit!

Seems that only Miami now has a shot at a BCS bowl.

OSAMA ENDORCES LT. KERRY

Sorry all you left wing liberal weenies, but Osama read directly off the Democrat talking points and endorsed Lt. Kerry for president. The only thing he didn’t do was wear a Kerry/Edwards button. You have to be out of your mind if you buy into Osama’s argument that if you elect Lt. Kerry he will leave us alone.

I love the part where this bearded rag head jihadist dog says,

**”"It never occurred to us that he, the commander in chief of the country, would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone, because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important."**

So—there you have Osama using the most used talking point from Fahrenheit 9/11 in democrat publications and commercials. Let’s see the democrats try and distance themselves from this.

THIS MIGHT BREAK JUST PRIOR TO THE ELECTION TUESDAY:

I [DONALD L. NELSON, CAPT, JAGC, USNR] was on active duty as a U.S. Navy lawyer when all of this was going on some 25 to 30 years ago, and so was Mark F. Sullivan, who at all relevant times was the personal lawyer to J. William Middendorf, then the Secretary of the Navy. We remember.

We are trying to break this absolutely true story nationwide, i.e., Fox News, C Span, and hopefully all the major networks. We are positive that John Kerry was one of those dishonorably dismissed from the Navy for collaborating with the Viet Cong, after he was released from active duty but still in the Navy, and for a totally unauthorized trip to Hanoi. He later got an "honorable" separation in 1978, some 12 years after joining the Navy, under President Carter's "Amnesty Program" for draft dodgers, deserters, and other malcontents who fled to Canada and Holland, among other places, to avoid military service to our country.

This is why he has refused, and continues to refuse, to release all of his Navy records: they reflect that he was Dishonorably Dismissed from the United States Naval Service. If they do not (which they do), he would have released them to the public. Again, he has not done so, because he well knows that the truth would kill his challenge to President Bush.

Perhaps the truth about Lt. Kerry and has shenanigans upon coming back to the World will finally get out there. The fact that the Main Stream Media has not tried to investigate why his discharge was re-issued in 1978 and his citations re-done as late as 1983 or the fact that he refuses to release his military records. Yet the New Yourk Times continues to run stories about President Bush’s Guard Service.

THE FIBER OF THE PRESIDENT:

Want to understand the real difference between the President and the Soufflé?

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/854cvlfo.asp?pg=1

Cutting to the Quick

The mother a soldier who died in Iraq talks about John Kerry.

by Stephen F. Hayes

10/29/2004 1:00:00 PM

Cheers:
JDD

Resting in the Bahamas 

And off we go

Well children it’s been far too long since we abandoned our verbal intercourse about all things Jaycees, football, politics, religion and the value of sniffing panties for a living. It was in March of 2003 that I first considered putting up a blog and terminated “Hack R Us” leaving you in a vacuum devoid of my wisdom, logic, and general overall good advice on everything that I deem important.

In the ensuing year and change, I have found myself with enough time once again to invite your silly self serving opinions to be viewed publicly in a new format in which we can argue and debate. And as always remember that I do this for entertainment value only as I fear that there can never be anything really accomplished by message boards. If someone gets motivated to do something for themselves or someone else as a result of some debate or discussion on this blog, then the blog has served a purpose other than just entertaining me.

I intend to link to articles that I deem important and I encourage you to alert me to those that you feel are important or provide evidence for whatever your point of view is. Let’s remember that opinions are not facts (except mine) and that if you declare something as fact then you should be prepared to defend it.

As with “Hacks R Us” there will be no censorship and no postings will be deleted for any reason. Make sure you are happy with your writings before you hit the send key.

Cheers:
JDD