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Mickey Kaus: Wrong
Once again, Mickey Kaus argues that a Kerry Presidency will be Carteresque, and that's okay (you know how to get to Kausfiles, his Kerry explanation is at the top for now). Except, you know, Kerry has said that he'll be hunting down the terrorists and killing them - despite his record of being on the other side in Vietnam, Latin America, Iraq.
Let's leave aside the fact that pining for the Carter days marks Kaus as a mental patient - come on, Mr. Car Guy - remember how great the late 70's were for car people? I take exception to things like this: "Let's say that n is the number of net new terrorists who'll come online in the next four years. Isn't it obvious that n is a lot lower if Kerry is president than if Bush is president?" Well, no, it isn't obvious. Because the number of terrorists isn't really driven by anger at who is President of the US. Remember how the Europeans loved Bill Clinton - he even had a mistress! And he had Arafat over to the White House more than Eleanor Mondale. And the terrorists were attacking us then. The first WTC bombing, AQ was involved in Somalia and the "Black Hawk Down" incident, the bombings of US facilities in Saudi Arabia, the embassies, the Cole?
Is there where Kaus wants to go? Isn't that where Kerry meant he was going to take us when he said that "nuisance" thing? And how is he going to get there if he is committed in every way to hunting down and killing terrorists, just like George Bush? Is Kaus one of those folks that thinks if we had just signed Kyoto, 9/11 wouldn't have happened? Please. Read UBL's fatwa from 1998, or this one, where he declared war on us in 1996. Find the part about global warming. And didn't we have a non-provocative, Europeans love him kind of President then - one obviously not dedicated to hunting down and killing terrorists?
Or didn't you listen to bin Laden the other day? Forget the Michael Moore stuff, he's upset about Israel (which, if we are taking Kerry at his word, he will defend every bit as much as President Bush), and about the tyrannies in the Arab world. Will Kerry be accomodationist to those tyrannies, or will he support freedom instead?
Kaus's problem here is that he does agree with bin Laden. That terrorism is all our fault. That if we changed, somehow the bad guys, still living in their excremental parts of the world, would suddenly be less angry.
Sorry, Mickey, if you feel the need to be apologetic. Perhaps the beaten and shamed (not stronger and more respected) US of the Carter days makes you think there will be less terrorists devoted to hating us. I am sure Carter thought that, too. Prior to November 4, 1979.
He was wrong then. And Mickey Kaus is wrong now.
 posted by blaster at 08:21 AM | Comments (3)
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