Republicans & Conservatives Archives

Uh-oh. Kerry says he’s for the fence! He says that terrorists should be thwarted in their attempts to kill civilians. Get Kofi on the phone. Is that a frown from Chirac!

What a shocking display of unilateralism and American arrogance in the face of the will of the international community! I am deeply, deeply shocked and disgusted.

How dare an American not recognize the infallibilty of a court with the name “international” and “justice” in its title? What a dark day. Will our athletes not be able to fly our flag at the Olympics now? Shame, shame, shame.

I call on A.N.S.W.E.R. to schedule a street demonstration against Kerry as soon as possible.

I also call on Michael Moore to make a documentary exposing this American cowboy, John Kerry, at his earliest possible convenience.

Sweet lord, I believe that this gung-ho shoot-from-the-hip maverick Kerry has squandered the great outpouring of affection for America that occured after 9-11. And doesn’t he know how such statements will inflame the Arab street and provide the greatest posssible recruitment tool for terrorists?

Intemperate remarks and actions like those just displayed by Kerry should leave us all not only deeply indignant but quaking with fear in our Birkenstocks.

Since only states may request adjudication from the ICJ, and the ICJ only makes rulings on matters brought to it voluntarily by all involved states, it follows that Israel itself requested the court’s ruling on this.

Personally, I think that’s pretty low, asking for a court to take a case, agreeing to abide by its ruling, and then ignoring the ruling when it isn’t the one you want.

Regarding the implied accusation that all palestinians are terrorists: they aren’t. If you attack innocent people, that’s murder, and you should be dealt with harshly… but that guy down the street who just sells fish doesn’t bear your guilt and shouldn’t be punished.

Actually I don’t think Israel requested the ruling. So far it appears to me to be a general assembly resolution. But they sure make it hard to find out who sponsors these things. Here’s the letter requesting an advisory ruling.

In December 2003, the General Assembly passed a resolution requesting the International Court of Justice to make an advisory (non-binding) ruling on the “legal consequences arising” from the construction of the barrier. The hearings will begin in February 2004. The Palestinian Authority is not a member of the court but will be allowed to make a submission by virtue of being a UN observer and a co-sponsor of the General Assembly resolution. In January 2004, the court also authorized the League of Arab States and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to make submissions. [worldiq.com]

As for the effectiveness of preventing terrorist attacks, it appears to work.

Israeli officers, including the head of the Shin Bet, quoted in the newspaper Maariv, have claimed that in the areas where the barrier was complete, the amount of hostile infilitrations has decreased to almost zero. Maariv also stated that Palestinian militants, including a senior member of Islamic Jihad, had confirmed that the barrier made it much harder to conduct attacks inside Israel. Since the completion of the fence in the area of Tulkarem and Qalqiliya in June 2003, there have been no successful attacks from those areas, all attacks have been intercepted or the suicide bombers have detonated prematurely. page 56 (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/makovsky/makovsky020504.pdf)

In the Gaza Strip, which is surrounded completely by a fence, there has been almost no infilitrations of suicide bombers into the nearby cities Ashkelon and Sderot or into the Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The Palestinians, in recognition of the effectiveness of the fence, have responded with suicide bombings at the checkpoints in the fence that allow Palestinians entry into Israel and the Erez Industrial Zone.

It’s unfortunate, but the palestinian terrorist jihad puts it’s own civilian population in more danger. Various polls put Palestinian opinion at 60% to kill Israeli civilians regardless of whether there is a Palestinian state or not. Couple that with the de facto dictatorship in Palestinian communities by terrorist groups and Arafat himself, and you don’t have a very sympathetic picture of ‘civilians’. Where are the Palestinian soldiers?

Fifty-nine percent of Palestinians believe that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created, a new survey shows.

…Nintey-six percent of Israeli Jews say the people who piloted the planes on September 11 were terrorists, while 37 percent of Palestinians share that view.

Slightly more than one in four - 26 percent - of Palestinians believe Israelis planned the 9-11 attacks.

Forty-two percent of Palestinians and 61 percent of Israeli-Arabs stated that they support the people who are attacking Americans in Iraq. Zero percent of Israeli Jews said they did.

…During the Iraq war, Palestinian Authority-sponsored television glorified the killing of American soldiers, a theme that has continued until now in various media, Marcus said. [jpost.com]

Just last week we watched a man accused of ‘collaborating’ with the enemy and shot in the street. This happens often.

Woman dragged from her home and shot.

A dozen men are dragged out of jail and shot.

Masked Palestinian gunmen killed two Palestinian men suspected of collaborating with Israel.

The wall will come to be a hated thing on all sides. How long do you think it will be before people figure out a way to subvert it? How long before it creates enough discontent here and there and everywhere else that something worse happens. You want a really screwed up idea? What if the wall, and those who guard it become the targets instead?

The reality is, the occupation has never been legal in the first place. The reality is walls will not pacify the people in that country. The reality is no solution that fails to improve the lot of palestinians in those camps can create a lasting peace. Sharon’s peace, just like Bush’s in Iraq will always be coming tomorrow on the heals of an equally procrastinated victory.

Terrorists should not be appeased, but innocent people should not be made to suffer for the actions of the terrorists. For if their fate is no different, neither will their sympathies be.

Stephen,

Everyone wants peace. Or do they? Stephen, I don’t think the problem is Israel, which has courts, the rule of law, civil rights, etc.

There is no Palestine, there has never been a nation of Palestine. The Romans called Israel Palestine. The Palestinian cause is a manufactured one for the most part. The arabs living where Israel was created could have stayed (many did and are in fact citizens of Israel) but because of intense anti-semitism they chose war. Which brings about the ‘occupation’.

Yasser Arafat has a personal fortune of at least $300 million dollars, and may be as high as $1.3 billion dollars. Where did that money come from? “…Arafat has feasted on all sorts of funds flowing into the P.A., including aid money, Israeli tax transfers and revenue from a casino and Coca-Cola bottler.”

The reality is, the occupation has never been legal in the first place. The reality is walls will not pacify the people in that country. The reality is no solution that fails to improve the lot of palestinians in those camps can create a lasting peace.

You might argue that it was a mistake to recreate the state of Israel in the place it historically existed, but the argument that they all just need to ‘get along’ is not taking into account reality. The reality is that the only peace the ‘Palestinians’ are interested in is the destruction of Israel.

If the occupation is illegal you might as well go all the way and say the state of Israel is illegal.

People go on and on talking about how the Palestinians cannot be trusted. But what are we supposed to do about the Palestinians? What do you propose doing with all of those people?

The fence is not a permanent solution any more than the Maginot Line was. There are really only two possible long term solutions: co-habitation or ethnic cleansing. Which of these two solutions does the wall lead towards?

-Cf

“Come on and twist again…”

Will the music of Chubby Checker be highlighted at the GOP convention in August, Eric? You’ve heard of The Twist, haven’t you?

You skillfully and effectively cherry-picked Senator Kerry’s statements in an attempt to show, yet again, that you believe he constantly changes his position. And why not? It’s a tactic the GOP has used effectively in the past.

But let’s try telling the full story and see if the evidence is as damning.

First we have your quote from Kerry’s speech to the Arab-American Institute, including the preceding paragraph:

“No peace process will be successful unless Israelis and Palestinians are committed to that process and willing to take steps that each side finds difficult. Palestinian leaders must bring an end to the violence against Israelis and find a way, with the help of others, to rein in militant groups. And Israel must be prepared to meet its obligations, as outlined in the Bush Administration’s road map, with respect to settlements. The absence of movement on these two critical issues only serves to convince each side that the other is not really serious about peace.

“I know how disheartened Palestinians are by the Israeli government’s decision to build a barrier off the ‘Green Line,’ cutting deeply into Palestinian areas. We don’t need another barrier to peace. Provocative and counterproductive measures only harm Israeli’s security over the long term, increase the hardships to the Palestinian people, and make the process of negotiating an eventual settlement that much harder. “

Now let’s show the rest of Kerry’s statement from February 2004 (not June), for which you conveniently failed to provide a link:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1077608445534

“Israel’s security fence is a legitimate act of self defense. No nation can stand by while its children are blown up at pizza parlors and on buses. While President Bush is rightly discussing with Israel the exact route of the fence to minimize the hardship it causes innocent Palestinians, Israel has a right and a duty to defend its citizens. The fence only exists in response to the wave of terror attacks against Israel.”

Sounds like the same sentiment to me. Nowhere does Senator Kerry state that he opposes Israel’s decision to build the fence. It seems that Kerry has made an effort to understand the positions of those on both sides of the issue, while remaining consistent in his opinion that the Israelis have the right to protect themselves, but that the fence, as designed, is a hardship to the Palestinians. Sounds like he’s calling on both sides to fight for peace.

And what is exactly is the problem with that?

In another famous twist from the Right, you’ve repeated Kerry’s quote from an interview with the Harvard Crimson more than 33 years ago— the “I am an internationalist” statement. I notice you even have it up on your web site.

Of course, you don’t include Kerry’s explanation and long-held position on the topic. On Meet the Press in April, Kerry said:

“That’s one of those stupid things that a 27-year-old kid says when you’re fresh back from Vietnam and angry about it. I have never, ever, ever, in any vote, in any policy, in any speech, in any public statement advocated any such thing in all of the years I’ve been in elected office. In fact, I say the following and I say it very clearly, I will never cede the security of the United States to any institution and I will never cede our security to any other country. No country will have a veto over what we need to do to protect ourselves.”

Perhaps the Left should be out touting Bush’s statement from his 1978 Congressional race when he told a reporter from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that he “favors leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question.” But that would be disingenuous, wouldn’t it?

Christopher said “There are really only two possible long term solutions: co-habitation or ethnic cleansing. Which of these two solutions does the wall lead towards?”

Co-habitation, obviously, which is why the Palestinians hate it so much. If the potential for blowing up and murdering Israelis were removed or seriously diminished, they’d lose their only negotiating tool. They’re panicked to see their dream of ethnically cleansing the area of Jews start to slip away. If there was relative peace, if they weren’t able to keep Israeli civilians in a constant state of fear, then they’d have to recognize borders, the existence of Israel and live with it.

Arafat was offered a Palestinian state, remember, one much larger that what’s circumscribed by the wall. He refused. Don’t you wonder why? The intifada failed and the result is the result of this failure.

Wasn’t it just precious to see a Chinese judge, whose country raped Tibet, slaughtered protesters in Tiennaman Square and continually threatens Taiwan, deliver this high-minded verdict of “international law” and “human rights.”

If the Arab states are so concerned about the Palestinians, why don’t they stop shooting them when they try to cross the borders into Arab lands? The Palestinians are the prisoners of a cynical, racist and (thankfully) failed Arab dream.

Jerome, good going. Kerry’s position on the barrier remains consistent. He supports the wall as a barrier to terrorism, but will not condone its use in a land grab. Here’s a UPI analysis with more details.

Martin, you’re right about the Palestinian leadership. No matter who they choose as their prime minister, Arafat still pulls the strings. He could have had a good settlement on several occasions, but he’s apparently afraid he’ll marginalize himself by making peace.

I just finished reading Tom Clancy’s/Tony Zinni’s book, “Battle Ready”. Zinni relates a very good account of his efforts to help negotiate a Israeli/Palestinian settlement in 2002-03. He points out that some members of the Palestinian leadership truly want peace, but Arafat makes sure that will never happen, “Like every revolutionary leader, he [Arafat] spread out the guns and the authority; he didn’t let anybody who could challenge him have real authority.”

Martin, why are the palestinians locked in that dream? Why haven’t they given it up like most of the rest of the Arab world, which only gives it lip service?

On the UN site it gives some historical context to the issue. Once, Isreal, as a protectorate of the UN, was supposed to look like this: 1947 map But that didn’t happen, for better or worse. What did happen was that Israel declared its independence and took much of the land by force. Many of the Arabs in those lands did flee, many did not. But whatever happened, this was a point of contention between the Arabs and the Israeli’s, one which undoubtedly grew as Israel trounced the Arabs in two additional wars, and occupied the parts of Palestine that had formerly been under Egyptian and Jordanian control. It’s important to note that the West Bank and Gaza do not legally belong to the Israeli occupiers.

Unfortunately, Yasser Arafat and people like him figure into the equation of what happened next. Some want Genocide, others simply want to reclaim territory. but either way it does amount to the destruction of the state of Israel, and an invasion and expulsion of the Jews from that land, something Israelis could hardly be asked to countenance. In the end, Palestinian statehood and an end to the occupation, couple with agreements never to try to reconquer the land of Israel are what’s needed.

Sharon is a bigot and a warmonger. It’s his incursion into the Dome of the Rock that started this last Intifada, and his continued policies of military repression and murderously unselective violence against Palestinians that keeps this pot at a boil.

One can only hope that the next generation of leaders will be able to undo the damage committed upon the names of their respective country by these two warmongers and powergrabbers.

Eric quotes Kerry thusly:

The war on terror is… [a] law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world. [Kerry on Meet the Press, April 18, 2004.]

Okay, first of all you’ve misrepresented the context of the quote: The line you quote from Meet the Press was actually spoken by Tim Russert who was in turn misquoting something Kerry said in a Democratic debate on January 29 in North Carolina.

Second of all, you and Tim Russert both have brazenly omitted four key words: “… primarily an intelligence and …”.

Let’s look at the full quote from the January 29 debate (I’ve bolded the part that both you and Russert mangled):

“The war on terror is less — it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time. And we will need the best-trained and the most well-equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.

But it’s primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world — the very thing this administration is worst at. And most importantly, the war on terror is also an engagement in the Middle East economically, socially, culturally, in a way that we haven’t embraced, because otherwise we’re inviting a clash of civilizations.”

I gotta tell you, I can’t argue with that. If you think the war on terror is primarily military, then you’re saying that we should go to war with those countries from which we know with absolute certainty that terrorism originates: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Morocco… or for that matter maybe we also need to invade Britain, Russia, Germany, France, and other close allies who we know have dangerous terror cells operating within their borders. That’s what a “primarily military” approach to the war on terrorism means.

Kerry says it’s “primarily an intelligence and law enforcement” operation because that is the common sense truth, and it should be obvious to anyone who bothers to think about the issue instead of thinking about how to crucify Kerry. We need to have intense law enforcement and intelligence operations with those countries that are the source of international terrorism, sometimes covertly, sometimes without their permission, and sometimes in cooperation with their own intelligence and law enforcment organizations. We can use this information to help military operations, but we’re not going to invade every country in which we know terrorism is brewing. Thus, the war on terrorism is not primarily military.

Kerry puts it quite well in the full context of the quote, despite Russert’s relentless attempts to cram damning words into Kerry’s mouth:

MR. RUSSERT: But the Republicans, Vice President Cheney included, have pointed out to a comment that you made during a Democratic debate which they think undercuts your support of the war on terrorism. “The war on terror is…occasionally military. … But it’s primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world.”

SEN. KERRY: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: You do not believe the war on terror is primarily a military operation, not a law
enfor…

SEN. KERRY: No…

MR. RUSSERT: You don’t.

SEN. KERRY: …not primarily.

MR. RUSSERT: You don’t.

SEN. KERRY: Not primarily.

MR. RUSSERT: You do not.

SEN. KERRY: Not primarily. Tim, Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. America really needs to stop and focus on the truth again. This administration—and we now know it from Bob Woodward’s book. I mean, you can go through the series of events in August when the president was at the ranch taking the longest vacation in presidential history. During that time, the president was talking about Iraq more than he was talking about al-Qaeda. Andy Card came back and made an announcement that they didn’t introduce a new product in August because that’s not what you do in August. They introduced it in September. They came back and started down the Iraq road. They kept looking for a connection. George Tenet kept saying no connection. The intelligence people said no connection.

MR. RUSSERT: This is the war on terror, Senator.

SEN. KERRY: But let me just finish.

MR. RUSSERT: The war on terror is a law enforcement, not military…

SEN. KERRY: No. I said “primarily.” And here’s why. If you don’t know — if you’re going to fight an intelligent war on terror, you don’t want to fight it here in America. You do want to fight it abroad. You want to fight it where the cells are originating. And in order to know who they are, where they are, what they’re planning and be able to go get them before they get us, you need the best intelligence, best law enforcement cooperation in the world. Now, I’ve always said once you know where they are, will you use the Delta Force or SEALs or Rangers or Special Forces of some kind? Absolutely. And I will not hesitate to use those forces effectively.

In fact, this administration—I was the one who pointed out they failed to use our forces effectively in Afghanistan. We had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora. Rather than deploy the 10th Mountain Division or the 101st Airborne or the Marines, rather than use the best military in the world to go kill the world’s number-one terrorist, what did we do? This administration held them back. They sent the Afghans up into the mountains who a week earlier had been on the other side, and they let him escape.

I think that I can fight a far more effective war on terror. I will build alliances and ooperation. I will make America safer. But I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It’s an intelligence gathering, law enforcement, public diplomacy effort, and we’re putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas. We need to get it straight.

You were using an out-of-context and doctored quote to try to show that Kerry somehow has it totally backwards on terrorism, suggesting that the quote means that Kerry sees the war on terrorism as an episode of Law & Order, that we should wait until terrorists strike, then we limply investigate the crime scene, arrest suspects, build a case, try, and convict. You mean to suggest that he doesn’t think that killing terrorist before they strike is the correct approach. Every time the right uses the term “law enforcement”, they mean to conjure up this false soft-on-terror liberal image. It’s bad enough to misrepresent Kerry’s policies this way, but to do it with a doctored quote? Come on.

-Cf

Great points, Christopher.

I’m beginning to think that Kerry’s greatest liability in this race is his tendency to delve deeply into issues and to speak long enough about them to eventually provide the Right with some excerpt they can twist to serve their agenda.

Perhaps Bush has it right: No complete sentences. Sound bites. Simple language. Not a shred of nuance. Black and white.

To some, that’s apparently what passes for conviction these days.

Good posts Christopher and Jerome.

Let’s see Eric, Terrorists have no rights is your argument?

Who’s a terrorist, Eric?

Who decides who has no rights, you? Pehaps God decrees it from on high.

Does forcing an entire population into effective concentration camps and then walling them off so they cannot feed or cloth themselves count as terrorism?
In which court in Israel are Palestinians considered citizens with equal rights. If a country declares themselves just does that make them just? If property rights and freedoms are consistently ruled against a given population, because it occurs in a courtroom makes it just?

Israel cries we are persecuted, and has since British rule meted out attacks against Palestinians, which was the agenda of the Zionist movement. They lobbied and acheived “rights” by appealing to British and American interests. The Palestinians were never asked about surrendering their territory. If might makes right, then your sense of justice is true.

Yassir Arafat is a slug, I agree. He continues to be a hero to the Palestinians because he gives them a voice against their oppressor. Israel’s policies have been a failure since 1967. Where is the peace? The wall will not bring it either. Israel needs to surrender the occupied territories, and the settlements, and the military roads. Israel is clever in making concessions that are not really concessions, and then saying,” see
we tried peace and it didn’t work.” Apparently they only fool rabid neo-cons.

CF-

There are really only two possible long term solutions: co-habitation or ethnic cleansing. Which of these two solutions does the wall lead towards?

This is the choice, Christopher. The Palestinians have yet to consider co-habitation. That is the difference.

Jerome,

“No peace process will be successful unless Israelis and Palestinians are committed to that process and willing to take steps that each side finds difficult.

This preceding paragraph adds nothing to the meaning of what I quoted. In fact it highlights the inane appeasement philosophy of Kerry’s position. Our appeasers are constantly harping on the need for both parties to play by the rules, but by definition the Israeli’s are the only ones we could expect to influence this way. The Palestinian appeasers are shot in the street.

It is very much like the gun control debate. The only people who would turn in their guns if forced to are the law abiding. Criminals do not turn in their stolen weapons.

In the same way the only pressure for peace is on the Israeli’s. Arafat is a criminal terrorist. The Palestinian Authority is a terrorist organization.

I apologize for not having the link to that quote. I didn’t do it on purpose I assure you. (I’ll add it when I get home today.) Thank you, American Pundit. That’s where I got the quote: UPI

…the Israelis have the right to protect themselves, but that the fence, as designed, is a hardship to the Palestinians. Sounds like he’s calling on both sides to fight for peace.

And what is exactly is the problem with that?

This is non-sensical. And it illustrates my point well. It is the internationalists who insist that we must defend ourselves with our hands tied behind our back. In what way does the wall create a hardship? Bombing pizza parlors is a much more egregious hardship in my mind. The wall is actually an attempt to minimize the hardship on the palestinians. It’s defensive. Without it Israel will be forced to continue the policy of going in and killing the terrorists. Is this what the internationalists actually want? Perhaps it is. Because it allows them to continue pointing to Israeli ‘oppression’.

Stephen,

…Isreal, as a protectorate of the UN, was supposed to look like this: 1947 map But that didn’t happen, for better or worse. What did happen was that Israel declared its independence and took much of the land by force. Many of the Arabs in those lands did flee, many did not. But whatever happened, this was a point of contention between the Arabs and the Israeli’s, one which undoubtedly grew as Israel trounced the Arabs in two additional wars, and occupied the parts of Palestine that had formerly been under Egyptian and Jordanian control. It’s important to note that the West Bank and Gaza do not legally belong to the Israeli occupiers.

“Whatever Happened?” The Israeli’s should have done nothing? This is what is wrong with the liberal ‘internationalist’ ideology. Victimhood is valued more than freedom; ‘peace’ to the point of defeat. This is why Kerry’s statements are a contradiction. “We don’t need another barrier to peace.”

Let me spell out the reality of this situation. The Palestinians were offered their own state, with 95% of the disputed territory, they refused it. Purely for the reason that to do so would have ended the conflict. It is not a co-habitation peace they want. It is a peace without the existance of Israel.

What hypocrisy. Would you expect us to broker peace with Osama Bin Laden?

Sharon is a bigot and a warmonger. It’s his incursion into the Dome of the Rock that started this last Intifada, and his continued policies of military repression and murderously unselective violence against Palestinians that keeps this pot at a boil.

I am disappointed in you Stephen. A bigot and warmonger? Sharon caused the last intifada? are the Palestinian’s really devoid of all responsibility? By the same logic we are responsible for 9/11 too.

“…policies of military repression and murderously unselective violence…” This is unsubstantiated moral equivalence.

Your counsel is to just sit there and take it? Of course, it’s a law enforcement matter. Don’t fight back? No wall. No soldiers. Just die. To be the victim is better, I suppose, in liberal minds. The problem with that liberal approach is that it doesn’t work.

Oh by the way Jerome have you seen my Bush quote page?

The “left” is trying desperately to make Kerry seem “nuanced” rather than simply being a flip-flopper. I happen to think he is both. There are areas where he shows correctly that there is more than one solution to a problem—this is his nuanced side.

The next level of this is his willingness to allow people to believe what he wants them to believe (You mean you didnt realize those medals, ribbons or whatever i threw werent MINE???)

Let me us Christopher Fahey’s Kerry quote as an example of how venal Kerry is:

Kerry says: We had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora. Rather than deploy the 10th Mountain Division or the 101st Airborne or the Marines, rather than use the best military in the world to go kill the world’s number-one terrorist, what did we do? This administration held them back. They sent the Afghans up into the mountains who a week earlier had been on the other side, and they let him escape.

We all know that had Bush done precisely what Kerry suggests (now), Kerry would have been all over him for allowing Americans to die. When Bush did something else, Kerry simply focused on THAT target.

Lets look at Kerry (and the Dem party) on the economy for another example. First it was that the economy is bad, due to Bush. That moved to the economy improving, but a “jobless recovery”. When that ended up wrong, they said that the jobs being created are low paying. That has now been refuted—-check out FactCheck.org.

Kerry will say nearly anything to win. And some people will simply believe whatever he says, and they will beleive the next iteration as well.

CF-

You were using an out-of-context and doctored quote to try to show that Kerry somehow has it totally backwards on terrorism, suggesting that the quote means that Kerry sees the war on terrorism as an episode of Law & Order, that we should wait until terrorists strike, then we limply investigate the crime scene, arrest suspects, build a case, try, and convict. You mean to suggest that he doesn’t think that killing terrorist before they strike is the correct approach. Every time the right uses the term “law enforcement”, they mean to conjure up this false soft-on-terror liberal image. It’s bad enough to misrepresent Kerry’s policies this way, but to do it with a doctored quote? Come on.

It’s not out of context at all. It’s Kerry who is saying the war on terror is not about military strikes. It’s a law enforcement matter. If there’s nothing wrong with his position why does it need defending?

He doesn’t think that, “killing terrorist before they strike is the correct approach.” Or is preemption now a Kerry position? Of course it is… and isn’t.

I’m beginning to think that Kerry’s greatest liability in this race is his tendency to delve deeply into issues and to speak long enough about them to eventually provide the Right with some excerpt they can twist to serve their agenda.

Jerome,

I guess the fact that he issues statements on both sides of every issue helps refute any argument about his positions.

Let’s see Eric, Terrorists have no rights is your argument?

Greg,

When they are killing civilians they do not. In your liberal world every killer has the right to life, but in my world, when you are at war you are at war. Israel and ‘Palestine’ are at war.

Do you just ignore the news stories of these ‘freedom fighters’ crawling into settlements and shooting infants, women, and children at point blank range, gleefully?

Does forcing an entire population into effective concentration camps and then walling them off so they cannot feed or cloth themselves count as terrorism? In which court in Israel are Palestinians considered citizens with equal rights. If a country declares themselves just does that make them just? If property rights and freedoms are consistently ruled against a given population, because it occurs in a courtroom makes it just?

‘Palestinians’ didn’t exist until Israel came into existance. Why not ask Jordon and Syria why they force these people to live in camps.

Juxtapose this: There are Arab citizens of Israel. Arab citizens who have every civil right as any Jewish citizen. Arab citizens of Israel who do not fear to walk the streets, or voice their opinion, file lawsuits, etc. Would you, as a jew, feel safe to walk anywhere in Palestinian territory? Hell, would you feel safe as a Palestinian voicing any kind of sympathy for Israel in palestinian territory?

It amazes me how some can completely ignore the fact that there is nothing preventing Palestinians from creating the same kind of country as Israel. There is nothing preventing the creation of a state of Palestine. Nothing but the hatred of Palestinians.

Imagine. Today Arafat and all Palestinians announce a complete cessation of hostilities against Israel, renounce violence and concentrate on building up their communities. In ten years the concetration camps would be a paradise.

Even if Israel or Sharon wanted to continue killing Palestinians because of their rascist, homicidal, phychotic nazi, warmongering bigotry, if after six months or a year there were no homicide bombings in Israel there would be peace.

Eric:

Low blow on the “conveniently” charge. I apologize.

But I find it interesting that you’re now criticizing Kerry’s position on the fence, where it seems you were previously criticizing him for changing that position. If you don’t like his position, that’s fine. But I think it’s inaccurate and unfair to suggest that he has flip-flopped.

And yes, I had seen the Bush site. I appreciate your willingness to offer something not entirely positive about your candidate. However, I think you could find more representative quotes from Kerry that illustrate your feelings about his policies than a 33-year-old comment to a college paper— a comment that does not represent his long-held or current position.

Joe, it looked like you were going somewhere with the Tora Bora quote, but then you try to make your point with evidence that is pure conjecture— “We all know that…Kerry would have…” No, I don’t know that and I don’t believe he would have.

I think both sides are guilty of often straddling the ethical line in their effort to win. This campaign is already disgusting and dirty beyond comparison, at least in my experience. I admit that Kerry has gotten himself into trouble by trying to state his case in such a way as to present the best light to the audience he’s speaking to, but I reject the notion that he’s constantly changing positions. Anything more than a cursory examination of his statements, his votes, and his positions supports the contention that he is at least as consistent as most veteran politicians.

Kerry has made mistakes in this campaign and I’m afraid he’ll continue to make them. His biggest flaws are expecting that American voters will take the time to understand the nuance in his positions and underestimating his opposition’s ability to use that fact against him.

Jerome:

Here is a clearer explanation of where I am going:

Democrats seem to be simply looking for anything to blame Bush for. When the economy was sluggish—they blamed him. And I dont disagree with that since as President, he is the ultimate leader. But…..as the economy improved, there was only more criticism, as I noted. As each argument regarding the economy has faded under the spotlight of the facts, they have simply changed the attack to a different point. Lets note the complaints about the possibility of inflation—amidst the stunning silence about the 1.5 million jobs that have been created in the past 10 months.

My comment about Tora Bora was that Bush would get blamed for A) sending American troops into a dangerous area when we have “allies” (aka the Northern Alliance) who could have fought on our behalf since they know the territory, they fit in etc or B)NOT sending in American troops when we know the US is better trained etc

The upshot is that Bush gets blamed whichever direction he goes. This does give him some freedom interestingly, since he doesnt need to worry about Democratic position. It will always be an attack, even when he does what they wish (as evidenced by him going to the UN only to have Dems complain about THAT).

The argument of this article is absurd on its face. I am for the wall as a temporary measure to force Palestinians to rise up against Arafat and form their own government which wants peaceful co-existence with Israel.

That said, I am also for the rule of law. Eric is not. By Eric’s logic, because our own legal system convicts 100’s of innocent victims, we should scrap our legal system altogether. Absurd on its face.

Second absurdity, Kerry will check with the U.N. for its consent before making any foreign policy decision. Absurd on its face. I hope Kerry will consult with the U.N. on foreign affairs, and take the consequences of their advice into consideration in making foreign policy decisions, but, it is absurd to propose that Kerry will allow U.N. opinion to dicate foreign policy decisions which must be made based on a whole host of other variables besides the U.N.

joebagodonuts wrote:
> We all know that had Bush done precisely what Kerry
> suggests (now), Kerry would have been all over him
> for allowing Americans to die.

You just stated your personal opinion as if it were a fact. It’s merely your opinion, and in fact it’s the opposite of my opinion. Just because you use a phrase like “we all know that ___” doesn’t make what you say true.

Eric wrote:
> It’s not out of context at all. It’s Kerry who is
> saying the war on terror is not about military
> strikes. It’s a law enforcement matter.

Just because you say that something is “not out of context” doesn’t make it so. First, let’s look at the full quote one more time:

“The war on terror is less — it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time. And we will need the best-trained and the most well-equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.

But it’s primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world — the very thing this administration is worst at. And most importantly, the war on terror is also an engagement in the Middle East economically, socially, culturally, in a way that we haven’t embraced, because otherwise we’re inviting a clash of civilizations.”

Now, please tell me that you honestly believe the following two editorially-shortened versions encapsulate the meaning of the unedited quote above with equal accuracy:

(1) The war on terror is… [a] law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world.

(2) The war on terror is … occasionally military… But it’s primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world.

In (1), “Kerry” clearly advocates law enforcement as the exclusive tool to combat terrorism. In (2), Kerry says that intelligence and law enforcement are the primary tools, and that military action is also an occasional tool.

It seems fairly obvious to me that quotation number (1) was edited with the deliberate intention of changing the meaning of what Kerry said.

Every time you misquote a source to prove a point, us WB lefties will look up the real material and undermine you. You could save yourself (and the rest of us!) a lot of time and instead of lifting misquotes verbatim from right-wing web sites, you might choose instead to seek out the original quotes and include them in their truthful entirety.

> [Kerry] doesn’t think that, “killing terrorist
> before they strike is the correct approach.”

Oh really? So what exactly do you think he means by this?: “Now, I’ve always said once you know where they are, will you use the Delta Force or SEALs or Rangers or Special Forces of some kind? Absolutely.”

> I guess the fact that he issues statements on both
> sides of every issue helps refute any argument
> about his positions.

It only seems like he’s talking on both sides of issues because you keep reading right-wing news sources that chop-chop up his quotes to make them seem like he’s saying something different than what he means. The example of the Israeli wall is particularly egregious: Kerry opposes building a wall that encroaches past the “Green Line”, but he doesn’t oppose the wall itself. It only seems like a contradiction when people like you quote right-wing news sources who have doctored his quotes in the first place… or worse when you yourself chop out parts of his quotes to make them seem different.

Jeez, I feel like I’m writing a letter to the editor of the Weekly World News… or to Pravda!

-Cf

Joe, it’s not as if Kerry gets off scot-free from the Republicans. It is an election year and the rhetoric is turned up full blast.

As for the economy, I think it’s just the opposite. Bush should not have been blamed for the recession because he came into office with the economy on the downslope— much as his father was left holding the bag from the Reagan boom. While some will attribute the recovery to Bush’s ingenious economic plan (i.e., cut taxes and everything else will fall into place), I believe it’s more a case of a cyclical economy rebounding…possibly just in time to save his skin…than the result of anything this administration has done. The recovery seems to be gaining speed, but remains spotty in some areas (geographic as well as among economic indicators), so it will be interesting to see whether the voters give Bush points for the economy or take them away.

Jerome, to back up your point, we must not forget that the recession that hit in 2000 was world wide, and the recovery from it is also world wide, with some other nations suffering less than we and recovering faster. So your argument that Bush had little to do with this recession is supported by these facts.

Now the next recession caused by rising interest rates, oil costs, war costs, national debt and the associated interest on that debt will be traced directly in part, to Bush’s and the GOP congress’s lack of self-discipline when it comes to spending like there was no tomorrow. Guess they counted on Dem’s being in office when the bill comes due.

Eric,

You are absolutely right.

Let’s kill all the bastards who don’t agree with our ideals. Nuke ‘em. That’ll show them who’s boss.

Damn weak kneed liberals want to consider that perhaps some of them bastards might actually be some sorta human beings. Hogwash! Them’s all just a bunch of swarthy commie terrorists.

Only people that should have rights are the clean cut Christians. If only them freaks knew what kind and generous people we Americans are, why if we showed any understanding of their situation we’d have chaos on our hands.

It’s just like gun control. Give everyone a grenade launcher and peace will reign supreme. Why if we all had howitzers War would probably end tomorrow cause we’d kill all them undesirables.

Them damn liberals probably think we shouldn’t have killed all them Indians. They were just ungodly savages, anyway. Rights? They ain’t got no stinkin’ rights.

The world according to Eric Simonson…paraphrased a little by Greg.

Eric-
The Palestinian Territory isn’t theirs to begin with. That’s why the wall is illegal.

Would you blame Mexico, for example, if they protested our running a giant cement wall miles into their territory in order to stem the tide of illegal Aliens? However much it would be in our interests, we don’t have a right to do that, especially if we’re going to treat miles of their territory as if it were ours.

Would you blame the Iraqis for fighting back against us, if we had announced we were going to not only stay there for the next few decades, but also build settlements of our own and kicks Iraqis off their land?

This is essentially the behavior of Israel towards the Occupied Territories. The very name speaks to something: Those aren’t annexed by treaty, nor are they already part of Israeli territory. They were originally watched over by Egypt and Jordan, who lost them to the Israelis during that nice collection of dustups in the late sixties and early seventies. Since then, these refugee camps, which are more like permanent slums have been in territory which basically lacks for any real voice in the world. It’s not Israeli, so they can’t find representation in the Knesset. It’s not sovereign to itself, so they don’t have any real vote in the UN or diplomatic position with other countries. They are the red-headed stepchild of the Middle East, and it shows in the living conditions.

This intifada was ignited by Ariel Sharon’s knowing sacrilege against the muslims, walking through their sacred dome of the rock. Additionally, the armed settlements of Orthodox fundamentalists and ultra-right wing zionists (who both want to restore Israel to its biblical borders) have certainly not helped things, though Sharon has helped them.

It’s like with Bush and the UN. Everybody knows that Bush is not bonafide in his desire to truly determine whether inspections could work, or the UN solve the problem. Bush was afraid that would succeed. So too here, Sharon doesn’t want any resolution that benefits the Arabs.

In case you didn’t know, Sharon was linked to brutal massacre in Lebanon in a palestinian refugee camp. I think he was even relieved of command over it. Is this the kind of leader any red-blooded Arab would trust, any more than the Israelis or westerners could trust Arafat? In the desperation to win, the two sides have picked the worst kind of criminals to represent them. It’s really sad.

What makes it even sadder is that your president disengaged our country from the peace process in Israel just as he started planning for war against Iraq. It’s in that same meeting of the NSC that Paul O’Neill recounted in his book, ten days after the inauguration.

We Democrats are not naive. We allow ourselves to understand what some of the root aggravating causes of terrorism are, but we don’t support what the terrorists do against us. When we speak of dealing with the terrorist threats by removing such conditions, we’re not ruling out other responses, but rather removing a persistent problem instead of fighting the same battle again and again without progress.

But you could say your party is naive. You expect people with pride and years of grudges built up to be scared out of them by brutal strongarm tactics, not moved to avenge the grudges and salvage their pride. We’ve allowed their communities to be made into hellholes, so these people aren’t going to take pride in their land and their economy, miserable as they are. No, they are going to take pride in what steadfast martyrs they are, what loyal partisans of the cause they prove to be.

When they feel better about sticking out a hand to shake than a gun to shoot, then you will have victory in the war against terrorism in Israel and Palestine. We have to start taking their favorite issues off the table, giving them no rationale for their heinous crimes. If the Palestinean territories are at peace, and doing business with Israel, instead of being walled up and violated by settlers, those who cause violence will be less respected, and those who claim to take up the Palestinian’s cause will look less heroic for doing so.

But, oh, you want your battles, your glorious triumphs, your absolute security that will never come to pass. Get real. The wall is a lid on a pressure cooker, a future crisis waiting to happen, and by the time your people realize this error, we will have another international incident to prove to Osama Bin Laden’s audience that we are just as worthy of death and destruction as he claims us to be.

Damn it, I want this government of ours to stop handing Bin Laden gift-wrapped PR presents! The people who attacked Madrid want Bush to win the elections, because they believe Bush will confirm the stereotypes and raise anti-American sentiments. Which is what they want, of course.

There have to be standards that we stick to. We have to undermine Bin Laden’s radical picture of us, not confirm it.

The upshot is that Bush gets blamed whichever direction he goes. This does give him some freedom interestingly, since he doesnt need to worry about Democratic position. It will always be an attack, even when he does what they wish (as evidenced by him going to the UN only to have Dems complain about THAT).

joebagodonuts,

You make an interesting point here which has crossed my mind once or twice. The angry and rabid opposition of democrats against Bush, beyond the mere ‘loyal opposition’ stance makes it impossible for Bush to consider their position and compromise. There is nothing to gain from doing so. It is, in a sense, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bush has tried to be moderate on several issues, even courting Ted Kennedy at one point. What did it profit him?

David,

The argument of this article is absurd on its face. I am for the wall as a temporary measure to force Palestinians to rise up against Arafat and form their own government which wants peaceful co-existence with Israel.

Temporary or permanent it needs to be there. We may wait a long long time for the Palestinians to want peaceful co-existance with Israel. And the wall is by far a better alternative to the repeated need to send in tanks and root out terrorists who use children as sheilds.

That said, I am also for the rule of law. Eric is not. By Eric’s logic, because our own legal system convicts 100’s of innocent victims, we should scrap our legal system altogether. Absurd on its face.

Our legal system is not perfect but at least it is our own. We can reform our own legal system and we elect our own judges. The International Court of Justice and the UN is an unrepresentative and anachronistic disfunctioning organization. Do you consider the UN and the International Court of Justice to be a valid and binding authority and legal system over our own constitution? I do not. I would submit that it was never meant to be.

Internationalism is a vague term admittedly, but it does have relevant denotations regarding what an ‘Internationalist’ policy would consist of. Mainly that is: a de-emphasis on nationalism, and an emphasis on an international order consisting of an international government which excercises power to bring about world peace and all the utopian fantasies of the left. Which brings us to Kerry.

Second absurdity, Kerry will check with the U.N. for its consent before making any foreign policy decision. Absurd on its face. I hope Kerry will consult with the U.N. on foreign affairs, and take the consequences of their advice into consideration in making foreign policy decisions, but, it is absurd to propose that Kerry will allow U.N. opinion to dicate foreign policy decisions which must be made based on a whole host of other variables besides the U.N.

In effect, the UN would have ipso facto veto power over Kerry’s policies. Want to go to war? Hope France is ok with that, don’t want to alienate our allies. This is what international order is all about you know. Can’t have unilateralism, now can we? Or are you saying that it’s ok to act unilateraly?

Stephen, the intifada was ignited by a man who wasn’t even Israel’s prime minister at the time walking somewhere he wasn’t wanted? If a radical Muslim cleric visited the Vatican, would Christians strap on explosives and head for the local falafel stand?

My god, think about what you’re saying—what kind of petulant irrational babies do you take the Palestinians for? If that’s all it takes to get get them to kill themselves, then that wall needs to be twice as high and twice and thick. Not only that, the Palestinans need to be defeated to a man on the battlefield because their irrationaly has crossed from the absurdly petulant to actual evil.

You find Sharon’s sight-seeing, even if was ill-advised, even it was HORRIBLY ill-advised, a good reason for blowing up buses and restaurants filled with civilians? I can’t believe this kind of justification—absolutely outrageous. Not to mention contemptuous of the Palestinians.

Sharon’s visit was Arafat’s means of whipping up brainwashed killers, yes, but it was the pretext behind the real motivation—to kill the peace process before a settlement could be reached which left Israel in existence and the resulting death of Arafat’s messianic fantasy to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea.

> Bush has tried to be moderate on several
> issues, even courting Ted Kennedy at one
> point.

That was Laura Bush, and I believe it was Teddy doing the courting.

-Cf

Bush has tried to be moderate on several issues, even courting Ted Kennedy at one point. What did it profit him?

Eric, the Leave No Child Behind act that you’re referring to is a great example of why Democrats don’t trust the President. Bush signed that law, then stabbed Kennedy in the back with the same pen when he chose not to fully fund it.

If a radical Muslim cleric visited the Vatican, would Christians strap on explosives and head for the local falafel stand?

Martin. As always, I enjoy your metaphorical questions. My answer would have to be: If the Pope, the bishops, and the priests told them to do so, then yes many faithful Catholics would strap on the TNT and head for the casbah.

Sharon’s visit was Arafat’s means of whipping up brainwashed killers, yes, but it was the pretext behind the real motivation—to kill the peace process before a settlement could be reached which left Israel in existence…

I think it was just the opposite. Sharon knew exactly what he was doing. He derailed a peace process that he believed would leave Israel vulnerable. At the same time, he used the fear and outrage sparked by the intefada to become prime minister and implement his security plan, which includes a land grab in the Palestinian territories and a defensable buffer zone.

He played Arafat like a fiddle.

The parts of the wall being built on Palestinian land should be moved.

Building a wall right through the middle of someone’s farm or village is deeply immoral.

You’ve got it wrong again Eric.

Apparently Sharon now agrees with Kerry: he’s moving the wall back to the current border, or at least a little closer so that it’s less like a land grab.

President Bush never had the guts to insist that Sharon do this, even though apparently Sharon was actually flexible. This is par for the course with the Bush Administration: to completely miscalculate foreign leaders’ positions, to abdicate leadership on key international issues, and to get steamrollered by the flow of international events without showing any evidence of actually affecting those events. The only tool he’s ever used successfully in his foreign policy are his two invasions, and even those are still open questions.

-Cf

Ask yourself one question, Martin.
Who has profited from sustaining the unrest in Israel?

Arafat? Of Course he has. Sharon? Oops, guess he has, too. Who has gained economic and territorial advantage? Oops, Israel. Is peace their policy or territorial (prime territory, not wasteland without access to water) aquisition. How naive can you get?

Wake up and smell the falafel.

Martin, I specifically said that an understanding of the motivations of your average terrorist does not equal sympathy with them. It simply means we know our enemy, and are willing to use any number of means to render that person our enemy no more. If that means death for them, that’s unfortunate, but if it means being able to persuade them away from their current course of action, that’s much better.

Why? Because the people we and Israel face don’t have to keep their casualties down to win wars against their occupiers. They don’t have to win any battles. All they have to do is outlast our willingness to have our own blood shed. There’s a parallel in our history, of an excellent general who never won a battle in the Revolutionary war, but nonetheless helped win the war, because he kept his army in the field.

In the end, your course of action will be a dreadful waiting game, which we won’t necessarily win, but which most definitely will contribute to bad security situation for us, as its used to inspire terrorism against us. Certainly, the intifada hasn’t helped our allies- this one’s been bloodier than the last.

What’s worse is that we are simply concentrating all the palestinians into a nice neat area where they have little contact with the outside world, and too much contact with Arafat’s cadre.

What you really need to be doing is bleeding the Palestinians away from that world, where Arafat can cloud their minds with textbooks propagandizing against the west and the Israelis. You need to make things to where these people understand the harm Arafat and their people are doing to their welfare. As long as they only know the refugee camps, that’s precisely what you’ll have: close-minded, undereducated people willing to flock to Arafats banner.

Eric:
If Bush wants to do the right thing, he should do it if he feels that’s the case. A good leader should be willing to sacrifice electability for the greater good. Witness LBJ, an imperfect man nonetheless willing to sign the civil rights acts into law, even though it cost his party the south even to this day. That’s leadership. Bush has only to act rightly, and if he’s chosen rightly, the results of his actions will speak to the American people more eloquently than any kind of spin.

AmericanPundit,

Eric, the Leave No Child Behind act that you’re referring to is a great example of why Democrats don’t trust the President. Bush signed that law, then stabbed Kennedy in the back with the same pen when he chose not to fully fund it.

Fully fund it? I must admit not being really up on the vagaries of this particular education law, but all the arguments I’ve heard have revolved around the NEA’s need to forego testing. Because it unfairly evaluates the childs lernin’.

Of course, they always demand more money. Why can’t Johnny read? We’re spending $6,000-8,000 per child in public education, why can’t Johnny read? Well, it’s because Bush didn’t fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act. Not because we’re more interested in teaching about global warming and self esteem.

Here we have a true monopoly. Public education. I thought in liberal theology monopolies were bad. No, they just need more money.

The irony is, NCLB fails either way. It’s too rigid and reified as an educational system to begin with. It only gets worse if you have the standards at work, but not the funding to help states even meet those standards, as flawed as they are.

NCLB represents a view on education that one might call Taylorist- a term in labor circles that indicates an idea of running a business that tries to reduce everything to some kind of science. Trouble is, most disciplines outside of science have big elements of human interaction in there, and human action is rarely cleanly explicable by any sort of scientific principle. Education is very intense on human interaction, so a pseudo-scientific approach is bound to do more harm than good.

The standards it sets up are artificial, and encourage educators to adapt kids more to a testing regime than to the real world. I would think that this would be the sort of thing your people would be up in arms about stopping, philosophically speaking- essentially, you’ve let the ivory tower academics of testing right into your classroom. I guess you don’t see this because they’re your ivory tower academics, and you see this extension of theory over practice as an application of what you see as the always dependable business principles. Judging productivity and all that.

Problem is, productivity is always a relative measure. If you let a blind, indifferent system determine what productivity is, instead of the people on the ground level, or people familiar with a subject, then things will get wildly out of whack.

There doesn’t need to be some massive changeover of public to private. I mean, your people never stop to ask the questions of what our country was like when the policies they advocated were once law. Was our country better off before the public education system was brought into place?

I’ll tell you what the problem is- we are suffering the results of a society that is affluent enough to where people get the stupid idea that education is not as necessary. They get they idea because so many things in this modern world seem to run themselves, and so many other people seem to know enough to run things without their help, that there’s no need to learn math and science, literature and writing, or other subjects. They’re also exposed to these provincial, agrarian ideas of learning, which if they were bad enough in the days of industry, are lethally stupid in our modern, supertechnological times.

We are long past the point where rote learning will help us maintain our hold on economic power. Your system encourages rote learning. What we need in the average American is a gestalt understanding of how the systems in their lives work, from their computers, to their language, to the scientific principles that form the basis for their society. NCLB is a huge step backwards, because it encourages a surface only understanding of subjects, and worse doesn’t fund its initiatives, ensuring that many schools will fall behind on the initiatives for that cause alone. If Bush is trying to wreck the Public School system so private schools can come in and take over, he’s doing a brilliant job.

It’s too rigid and reified as an educational system to begin with. It only gets worse if you have the standards at work, but not the funding to help states even meet those standards, as flawed as they are.

The public education system is a monolithic and rigid monopoly. You’re right if what you mean is that there should be diversity in education. Public education is exactly what you are talking about when you refer to the control and influence of too much corporate power. Except that the corporation is the government and the NEA.

The standards it sets up are artificial, and encourage educators to adapt kids more to a testing regime than to the real world. I would think that this would be the sort of thing your people would be up in arms about stopping, philosophically speaking- essentially, you’ve let the ivory tower academics of testing right into your classroom.

Standards like spelling and reading comprehension? I think that most of the resistance to this by the NEA is more a responsibility dodge. Ivory tower? It’s the Ivory Tower acedemics who have instituted the lame low standards we have now.

What is wrong with high standards Stephen? The real problem is that public education is monolithic. Diversify!

I have a specific example for you. Inner city schools are notoriously failing the children there. The excuse is that there’s not enough money spent. The reality is that the ‘system’ is broken. Change the system in inner city schools and you suddenly get dramatic success. Choice is not a luxury. It is essential for learning.

The KIPP charter schools are a good example of what is possible. Inner city kids who failed in their normal public schools, at the KIPP charter schools virtually every child goes to college. Not just community college mind you but many are going to Princeton, Harvard, Oxford, etc.

This is what happens with choice. Freedom. Demand excellence and you will get it.

The Public Education system monolithic? Maybe if you were never educated in it to begin with. I would hardly call the disparate and varied school districts of the this nation a monolithic entity. Besides, if anybody wants it that way, isn’t it your candidate? As I recall it, the whole purpose of NCLB was to standardize things. And the basic effect of the testing regimes has been to take the varied approaches to teaching, and homogenize it towards test reviews

I’m a veteran of standardized tests. I’ve taken everything from Iowa, to TASC, WISC-R, TAAS, COGAT, and whatnot. And you know what? those tests, in my, experience, deal with the rudiments of the skills one has in math, reading, and writing. And they don’t test- can’t test- creativity, which is what we’re actually educating for. Forget just being able to read, write, and do algrebra. Try being able to do all those things as an integrated part of one’s life. As my high school days were drawing to a close, I noticed with depressing regularity that reviews for the TAAS test were getting far more common in my English class than lessons about literature, creative writing, and the like. That’s what standardize tests do: they take the meaning out of the material, and reduce it all to an artificial equation.

You should read the late Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man. That book is an eye-opener about the inherent problem of trying to determine inherent intelligence.

In any case, I think your people think that you are adding something that wasn’t there to begin with. It’s not working out that way. Recently, there were big scandals in my neck of the woods concerning principals holding back students in order to inflate the numbers who passed your standardized tests. I also have heard that there are some protests from other districts who have found that the so-called high standards of your NCLB act have actually dropped student perfomance. Also, it’s benefited many of the bad teachers better than thant the good ones. The good ones know how to engage the students through creative teaching, and this testing regime only hamstrings them. The Bad ones only have to follow the rote learning and appreciation the test is geared for. They barely even have to show up.

Guess what: KIPP doesn’t follow that pattern either. Neither does any school worth its salt. From what I read of it, it’s more keyed towards creative teaching and classwork, longer class days and semesters. It’s a more rigourous, well-funded curriculum. Of course its going to do better. But not because it’s competing- it’s a public school initiative. Instead, it works because there’s interaction. The kids are treated lik more than just test numbers, so ironically, they get better grades on the tests.

If you were to say that self-esteem is overvalued, I’d agree. You don’t give children self esteem by allowing them to fail and still get ahead, you give them self esteem by teaching them how to get through problems that before defeated them. Otherwise, the lesson taught is simultaneously degrading and self-aggrandizing: your feelings are more important than what you do, but we’re still going to push you through the system like the rest. Test scores have only resulted in different sort of degradation. In my mind, any system that fosters illusions for parent, student, or teacher of success and progression where none really is is a bad system. Whether that’s a touchy-feely self-esteem system created by those on the left, or an impersonal taylorist system like the NCLB act, I don’t care. I say, drop the middlemen, the intermediary systems. We need to raise the taxes necessary to pay for an educational system that has effective teaching methods and good facilities to begin with. NCLB, in a way, is too far ahead of itself. It takes a system that’s been underfunded to begin with, and asks, have we been getting our money’s worth?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t answer the question right: Yes we have. We should not expect high scores and other miracles out of systems that haven’t been adequately funded. You can talk about throwing more good money after bad, but if you never invested enough money to get the thing the functioning, the only thing bad about the previous investment is your stinginess with it.

Start paying your money’s worth, before you start complaining about getting your money’s worth.

Recently, there were big scandals in my neck of the woods concerning principals holding back students in order to inflate the numbers who passed your standardized tests.

You might want to rephrase this. Does that mean he held back students because they couldn’t pass the test to graduate to the next grade?

We should not expect high scores and other miracles out of systems that haven’t been adequately funded. You can talk about throwing more good money after bad, but if you never invested enough money to get the thing the functioning, the only thing bad about the previous investment is your stinginess with it.

Stephen, I educate myself every day and it doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime. How much will it cost per child to get the kind of education you think will work for every child? How much is enough? We are paying for cadillac educations now but we’re getting Yugo’s.

The idea that any program is going to make geniuses out of every child, no matter how much it costs, is fantasy. I thought the whole point of public education was so that everyone no matter what would have the basics of the three R’s. Why shouldn’t we test for that?

These are testable things. The more you say that is not important the more I say - you pay for it. I don’t want taxpayers paying for abstract teaching that can’t be measured.

I don’t quite understand your argument, or I just don’t agree with it I should say, that it’s unfair to have a measure of what is being paid for. I’m sure your boss or your clients wouldn’t buy that argument.

Guess what: KIPP doesn’t follow that pattern either. Neither does any school worth its salt. From what I read of it, it’s more keyed towards creative teaching and classwork, longer class days and semesters. It’s a more rigourous, well-funded curriculum. Of course its going to do better. But not because it’s competing- it’s a public school initiative. Instead, it works because there’s interaction. The kids are treated lik more than just test numbers, so ironically, they get better grades on the tests.

It succeeds precisely because it is outside the control of the way the regular system is setup. It’s a charter school. You say the kids get better grades on the test because they are treated like more than just test numbers. How much more does that cost? Why can’t other public schools do this? I’ll tell you why. They don’t care. And they are not encouraged to care. It’s a beauracracy that has institutional concerns over it’s intended purpose - education.

I don’t think it’s underfunding that is the cause of our failing schools. You might argue that unequal funding affects some schools, but the argument that more money needs to be thrown at something that isn’t working now is… well wrong in my opinion.

I thought the whole point of public education was so that everyone no matter what would have the basics of the three R’s. Why shouldn’t we test for that?

Eric, that’s exactly what NCLB does… Or would do if it was funded. As it is, all the program does is guarantee the destruction of the public school system replaced by a de facto voucher system.

40% of all schools are currently classified as failing and every public school in the United States will be declared failing by 2013. Students at failing schools can transfer to another school… If they can find another public school that will accept them, or if they can afford a $6,000 private school with a $2,000 voucher.