October 22, 2004

Letter to an Undecided Voter

I spend too much time preaching to the choir. This essay is different, because it is where I will lay my case out for re-electing George W. Bush. It is not for political junkies, but for people who only follow the news when they have a chance between their other obligations. I'm going to put it to you as straight as I can, and try not to inject a lot of emotion into this piece—though I promise I am passionate about it.

I want you to vote for the President, no matter what you might think of him as a man, or as a speaker, or as a politician. No matter which of his policies you might disagree with. And no matter what your party affiliation might be. I'll try to keep it short. I have high hopes that I'll at least get you to think about a few important issues. Please read this through, and if it makes you think at all, pass it along to your friends—whether I persuaded you or not.

To begin with, I want to point out two things about the voting process. First of all, it's private. You don't have to tell anyone the way you voted. Not your spouse. Not your parents. Not your teachers, co-workers, or friends. Some of us let our concern over what other people might think prevent us from voting the way we might want to in our most private moments. To do this is to squander the privileges that a lot of men (and a huge number of women) died for over the centuries winning our independence, strengthening the Union, and defending this country. Democracy is precious; use it to its fullest. I may wear my politics on my sleeve, but there is really no need for you, dear reader, to be as vulgar as I am.

Secondly, political thought is not an aesthetic issue, but one that requires reason and common sense. In other words, when you are thinking about your vote, do not use the part of your mind that puts your wardrobe together, or arranges your art on the wall, or engages in any creative endeavor: this project needs your problem-solving mind, the part of you that figures out how you're going to make more money this month when you're short on rent, or how to open new markets for your small business, or how to position yourself so you can get that promotion next year, or how to sell your art. This realm is a function of your left brain; fashion and aesthetics have nothing to do with it.

What I'm suggeseting here, in part, is that you can be a Bohemian and still vote for Bush: no one will confiscate your hemp clothes or your vintage hats if you do so. Promise.

THE WAR IN IRAQ
There are a lot of arguments either way about whether we should have invaded Iraq. The fact is, we are there now, and millions of people are better off without Saddam Huessein in power. By deposing Saddam, we saved a lot of lives that would have been lost if we hadn't followed through on regime change (a policy that was initiated by Bill Clinton, by the way). Let me say it again: there are people who are alive now that wouldn't have been if Saddam had stayed in power.

And now that we're in Iraq, it's worth noting that some Iraqis are saying the terrorist/Baathist insurgents in their own country will take heart if George Bush is not re-elected. It will be seen as a repudiation of his policies, and there will be a very real expectation that John Kerry, as President, will be more likely to cut and run. The predictable result: there will be more assaults on innocent citizens of many countries, and particularly Iraq.

No matter how or why we got into the Iraq situation, it would be fatal to falter now: for the sake of the Iraqi people, we need to see this situation through in a resolute fashion. A win for John Kerry would cost lives, no matter what policy course he pursued. If you want to stop the suffering of the Iraqis, you'll vote for Bush.

THE ECONOMY AND TAX CUTS
This is a hard one, because for so many of us prosperity has appeared to be "around the corner" for some time now, and it's hard to keep the faith when you're one of the ones who isn't working. Yet considering the suddenness with which the "dot-com" bubble burst, and how closely after that 9/11 occurred, the economy has made a dramatic turnaround over the last two years. Obviously, the way to create jobs is to cut the taxes of those who are in a position to hire people. As is so often said, I don't usually get hired by people who are in a weaker financial position than I'm in; usually it's people (and companies) with money that do the hiring, and when they are being taxed at a high rate that simply doesn't happen as much.

MILITARY MATTERS, SECURITY, AND CONSCRIPTION
There are two allegations against the President in this regard: that he hasn't executed the War on Terror very well (either in Afghanistan or in Iraq), and that the military is at this point stretched so thin that a draft may become inevitable. As to the first charge, both the Afghani campaign and the Iraqi effort were far more successful than anyone dared hope. Certainly Iraq is at a delicate point wherein there are a lot of insurgents trying to do a lot of damage. But the Iraqi bloggers tell us that if Kerry is elected the insurgents will assume a drastic change in U.S. policy. Right or wrong, they'll perceive a high likelihood that we'll "cut and run." This would be a complete disaster for both countries. In fact, some maintain that the modern Islamic extremist movement that is hell-bent on killing Westerners started in Afghanistan, in the power vacuum left when the Soviet Union and the U.S. finished their proxy war there and abruptly departed. Do we want to risk electing a guy—John Kerry—who might set up exactly the same conditions in a Middle Eastern country?

In fact, a lot of what Kerry has said indicates that his priority would be getting out fast, rather than leaving the country in the strongest possible shape a new democracy can be in. If this project is handled right, Iraq can be a beachhead for democracy in the Middle East, and that entire region can set a new course. But this cannot be undertaken by a man who doesn't believe we should be there in the first place. Kerry is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time to pursue a strategy for making this country safe. In fact, he appears to have very few ideas beyond doing things differently than Bush would, and trying to make other countries like us more.

I don't want to be liked. I want to be safe, and I want my friends and family to be safe. As long as there is a guy in the White House who is perceived to be a bit of a "cowboy," we are safer—because although the "non-state actors" may not care too much what we might do, the countries that have been feeding and supporting them will care a great deal. Nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran will come around because they will fear that this crazy guy Bush might—just might—invade them, too.

In the particular world we live in this will be a good thing.

And, as for "the draft," every military expert says there's no reason we'll need any such thing: the armed forces would rather use people who volunteered, because they are motivated and smarter, and they fight harder. The bill proposing a draft was brought up by Democrats, and when it was brought to a vote it was defeated very quickly. Those who talk about a possible draft are usually trying to scare people into voting for the wrong guy: it's a sleazy tactic.

HALLIBURTON
There is a tremendous concern out there that because the Vice President used to work for a company that handles both military contracts and energy, there might be a conflict of interest in terms of our conducting a war at all—and certainly our invasion of a country that has huge oil reserves. Three points:

1) Cheney is paid money from that company that compensates him for work he did in the past, and the amounts are the same no matter how successful (or unsuccessful) the company is—so there is no conflict of interest;

2) A lot of the work done by military contracters in Iraq can only be done by a very specialized workforce. Bush-haters like to talk about "no-bid contracts," but most of these contracts date back to the Clinton era—when we were downsizing the military and it made sense to "farm out" some of their work—and were only renewed during the Bush Administration. Furthermore, there's no point in having an elaborate bidding process when there are only a handful of people in the entire world who can really tackle a particular job;

3) Over 40 people who work for Kellogg, Brown and Root (the military contractors who are part of Halliburton) have died in Iraq. There are a lot of guys who work in either the infrastructure part of Halliburton, or its energy side, who just want to make a living. They are not "the military-industrial complex," or rich buddies of the Vice President. They're people who are feeding their families doing really hard work that is sometimes quite dangerous.

Some see our invasion of Iraq as an amoral project, and maintain that energy interests close to the Bush Administration merely wanted to get hold of Iraq's oil. If they just wanted the oil, though, they could have bought it from Saddam. That would have been less moral, but much easier and cheaper—and without the political price that Bush had to pay.

BUSH'S "LIES"
There was some bad intelligence before the Iraq war, but everything that Bush and his advisors thought before we invaded Iraq was believed by every nation around the world that has any intelligence capability at all. And by officials in the Clinton administration. And by John Kerry. And by John Edwards. In fact, some of Saddam's advisors have said his public statements were meant to deceive other nations—Iran in particular—into believing that he had Weapons of Mass Destruction. He was bluffing, and we called his bluff.

We certainly know that as soon as the inspectors left Iraq, Saddam intended to get his weapons programs back on track. So unless we planned on leaving the inspectors in his country long-term, we would have ended up where we thought we were to begin with. In the meantime, we had tried to keep Saddam under control with sanctions, which led to suffering in his country. Then the U.N. began its oil-for-food program, which turned into a way for Saddam to stash money away for his future WMD programs, and meanwhile to reward countries such as France for allying themselves with him. Billions went to Saddam, and to officials in other countries, and relatively little went to the Iraqi people. It was an obscenity.

RACE AND THE REPUBLICANS
Let's also discuss race. There is a notion out there that Republicans in general—and the President in particular—are uncomfortable with people who aren't white. Yet three of his advisors are black, and his nieces and nephews (Jeb Bush's kids) are Latino. There were a lot of allegations that black people were disenfranchised in Florida during the 2000 election, but there have been many enquiries and no one has been able to document that any such thing occurred. When a charge that serious is made, it should be backed up; otherwise it is just a partisan slander.

The Republicans are the party of Lincoln, who issued the order that ended slavery in this country. The Republicans voted for the Civil Rights act of 1964 in greater percentages than the Democrats of the time did. The GOP is the party of racial equality.

Please do not be ruled by prejudice (or the innuendo of those with a partisan agenda) on an important issue like whether a candidate is a bigot or not.

The fact is, black support for Bush has doubled since the last Presidential election; word is finally starting to get out that there is no conspiracy or desire to hold African Americans back, and that the ever-increasing employment rate helps all of us, regardless of our color. As small business owners, many black people are starting to realize that high taxes hurt them, too.

It's a new world, and the old ideas about racial polarization no longer work. (If, in fact, they ever did.)


That's my case. It isn't artful; it isn't particularly well-written. It comes from the heart, and it's meant to make you feel okay about giving the President one more term.

Thank you for your time.


Joy McCann, aka Little Miss Attila
http://attila.mu.nu

Please circulate this to your friends and relatives (as text or as a link), particularly if they are considering voting for Kerry, or insecure in their support for Bush. Or if they live in Florida, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Ohio, Arkansas, Oregon, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, or Iowa. Or any of the other 37 important states in the union. Or in Washington, D.C.

Posted by Attila at October 22, 2004 09:39 PM
Comments

You might want to hop over to http://janegalt.net, where Ms. Galt has been asking for supporters of either candidate to make their case to her. She says she's undecided.

Posted by: Phil Fraering at October 23, 2004 11:08 AM


Well said Miss Attila!

I'm proud to say that my girlfriend and I voted for George W. Bush today, here in South Florida. It was our first time voting
and I'm feeling mighty good about it!

Posted by: Zoot at October 23, 2004 09:58 PM


Excellent! However, I am very confused by anyone who claims to be undecided at this point.

Posted by: Ogre at October 24, 2004 06:37 AM


The deapth of your self-deception amazes me.

Posted by: Emma at October 25, 2004 01:15 AM


Joy,
Very-well written. I would have to believe even the "undecideds" should be able to understand.
To echo Ogre's comments, I think people are over concerned about the undecideds. It is proven that undecideds are easily distracted by shiney objects and likely to forget to vote.
Got to your blog by way of John at RWN.
Later,
Bill

Posted by: LargeBill at October 25, 2004 04:59 AM


At this point, "undecideds" are the least of anybody's worries; from the townhall style Prez. debates, we were shown what a "real" undecided voter is: a pathetic left-leaning liar, and the only REAL thing they haven't decided is how MUCH they hate Bush.

Undecids will NOT affect this election, nor have they affected ANY election. This time around, the undecideds are around 1 - 4 PERCENT. That's it.

Posted by: kd1966 at October 25, 2004 07:33 AM


Your piece is precisely why I won't vote for Bush.

"Secondly, political thought is not an aesthetic issue, but one that requires reason and common sense." Of which, Bush has neither and is apparently proud of the fact.

That we should accept Iraq as a fait accompli is dangerous. How many more fait accomplis must we accept from Bush before we see the emperor as a naked idiot?

"Obviously, the way to create jobs is to cut the taxes of those who are in a position to hire people." - so why will Bush be the President who shows a net loss of jobs under his administration? The tax cuts only benefit the upper echelon of executives. Why should a company take the extra money to hire new employees when it can simply post a profit, pay a larger dividend, or spread the money as coporate bonuses? You need to get working in a large company and see what it's like out here.

"There was some bad intelligence before the Iraq war, but everything that Bush and his advisors thought before we invaded Iraq was believed by every nation around the world that has any intelligence capability at all. " Huh? Then why did Bush and his cronies sanitize and manipulate the reports that said otherwise? Get off it. You've been had and most of the world could smell it back then.

Race?!? Are you trying to pull an O.J. here? Race isn't an issue.

Fact is, you don't know as much about Bush as you think you do. The whole Administration is too secretive for the American good. If you want more of same and worse, vote Bush - plain and simple.

But if Bush wins and we have another terrorist attack, you won't be able to blame Kerry...start preparing your excuses now.

Posted by: littlemrmahatma at October 25, 2004 08:45 AM


Race isn't an issue?

Meanwhile, in Missouri the Democratic front-group Americans Coming Together hands out fliers depicting an African-American on the receiving end of a fire hose blast. "This is what they used to do to keep us from voting," the piece reads. On the back are a list of alleged incidents of recent voter intimidation, with the line, "This is how Republicans keep African-Americans from voting now."

Note, that's alleged voter intimidation. I certainly think that someone is certainly making race an issue.

Posted by: WayneB at October 25, 2004 11:05 AM


Ooops, my error. When I said race wasn't an issue I meant it in terms of debate topics.

The Republicans are not only targetting blacks but Democrats in general to keep them from voting - tearing up Democrat registrations (Nevada), having Dems use [disreputable] electronic voting machines while Repub majority areas use paper (Florida).

-----

Gosh, looks like Bush forgot to tell the military protect a few tons of explosives in Iraq. That's Bush leadership for you. Forgot to secure the borders after invasion. forgot to secure known armament sites but they did secure the oil ministry...you put 2 and 2 together.

Posted by: littlemrmahatma at October 25, 2004 01:21 PM


Emma:

Thanks. I try to lie to myself a little every day, and just build up to this level of self-deception. It takes practice, but I believe I'm the woman for the job.

LMM:

A. The oil ministry has proven to be 1) the key to getting the Iraqi economy rolling again, and 2) the source of most of our good information about what was going on in Saddam's regime in the months and years leading up to the war.

I do think that in a project of this complexity it's easier to throw rocks than to recognize the amazing strides that have been made.

B. I hope you're just as outraged by the real efforts of Democrats to disenfranchise military voters as you are by the imaginary efforts of Republicans to disenfranchise black voters.

C. I also hope you were just as upset by Clinton's unilateral actions in Bosnia and Somalia as you are now by Bush's invasion of Iraq. No?

D. The unemployment rate now is lower than it was when Clinton was re-elected for his second term. Furthermore, a lot of the instruments we have for measuring things like job loss haven't kept up with the changes in our economy: a lot of people now are working as independent contractors by choice, rather than reporting to bosses at large corporations (taxpayer-funded and non-taxpayer-funded).

E. Most large corporations are interested in growth. It's unfortunate that some remain static, but that certainly isn't the norm. Most publicly traded companies see a huge loss in their stock values (and thus their own portfolios, in a lot of cases) when the company doesn't grow.

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted by: Attila Girl at October 25, 2004 03:34 PM


I have enjoyed your blog site a great deal during the time I’ve been reading from it. The entertaining and often high-spirited discussions are always thought-provoking and respectful of the integrity of the contributors.

I’m writing this in response to your own “Letter to an Undecided Voter,” to explain to you why I cannot in good conscience support the president for re-election in spite of your fine essay.

I won’t argue the legitimacy of the war in Iraq, because we are there and that’s done. There is a disturbing continuum running through the operation however that I feel the need to point out. During the inspection period the soldiers within the administration who had experience in combat and command, including Powell and Shinseki, were ridiculed by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld when they urged procedures and manpower levels different from those the politicians were promoting. It is common military knowledge that to control an insurgent population, an irreducible minimum of one soldier to fifty populace is required or the insurgency can be expected to gain strength through the carnage and by the opportunities created in the vacuum. That puts a minimum number of troops for Iraq at 460,000, either American or American + coalition. Unlike the first president Bush who listened to and followed the advice of his top professionals (and who has my unqualified respect and admiration), this president ignored and even denigrated that advice because it disagreed with his less-well informed political appointees.

To fight such a war the political courageous action would have been to make the same choice George Herbert Walker Bush made after his “read my lips” campaign promise - to raise taxes. The Clinton administration’s ability to abolish the deficit, if not the debt, owed as much to this responsible decision as to the boom of the 90’s. This president is playing politics in a fashion much more reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson, who clung to a ruinously expensive domestic agenda while trying to prosecute a war on the cheap. It took a quarter of a century to recover economically from that policy, and our economy is not as demographically robust as it was in the 80’s and 90’s. Our children and grandchildren will be paying for this deficit, if they have the jobs to permit it.

I abhor the intrusion of government into the affairs of citizens. This administration has presided over the single most massive increase in the power and size of the Federal Government of any administration since FDR’s. The department of Homeland Security, the TSA, and the Patriot Act, notwithstanding the interpretations on existing governmental powers being used by Attorney General Ashcroft, represent a bulking up of governmental power and a surrender of individual liberty such as no wartime president since Lincoln has instituted. Lincoln's at least was only for the duration. This looks permanent.

The attacks of 9/11 were foreseen. The agencies in place were adequate to accomplish that task; we don’t need bigger government to cope with it. We need leaner but more efficient government. Our leadership was not imaginative enough and the bureaucracy was not permeable enough to permit the intelligence information to have the needed result. As a consequence, 9/11 occurred and it happened on George W. Bush’s watch. This is not to say that it would not have happened if someone else had been president. The failure to prevent the attacks would then be the responsibility of that administration.

The words of this administration do not match its actions. It is not a conservative government, which would be trying to preserve status quo while exercising fiscal discipline. It is not a Libertarian government, which would be trying to promote liberty, reduce the size of government, and reduce foreign involvement. It is a big-government for big-business administration that has saddled all of us with a tremendous burden of long-term debt, loss of liberty, and international opprobrium. I cannot imagine a committed ideological Conservative voting for George Bush, given the actions of his administration; actions that are at odds with the values he claims to espouse. Don't just listen to what he has said. Look closely at what he has actually done.

I do not want to cast my vote for John Kerry. There is at least on item in his agenda that I can support though, and that is deficit reduction.


Posted by: Douglas Brown at October 28, 2004 05:04 AM


Wooo, Winning Non Council member post!

http://king-of-fools.com/blog/weblog/posts/council_10292004/

Posted by: William Teach at October 29, 2004 06:31 AM


Douglas:

I have enjoyed your blog site a great deal during the time I’ve been reading from it. The entertaining and often high-spirited discussions are always thought-provoking and respectful of the integrity of the contributors.

Thank you for your kind words.

I’m writing this in response to your own “Letter to an Undecided Voter,” to explain to you why I cannot in good conscience support the president for re-election in spite of your fine essay.

I won’t argue the legitimacy of the war in Iraq, because we are there and that’s done. There is a disturbing continuum running through the operation however that I feel the need to point out. During the inspection period the soldiers within the administration who had experience in combat and command, including Powell and Shinseki, were ridiculed by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld when they urged procedures and manpower levels different from those the politicians were promoting. It is common military knowledge that to control an insurgent population, an irreducible minimum of one soldier to fifty populace is required or the insurgency can be expected to gain strength through the carnage and by the opportunities created in the vacuum. That puts a minimum number of troops for Iraq at 460,000, either American or American + coalition. Unlike the first president Bush who listened to and followed the advice of his top professionals (and who has my unqualified respect and admiration), this president ignored and even denigrated that advice because it disagreed with his less-well informed political appointees.

I don't know the inner workings of the Administration that intimately, but I do believe there are changes brewing in the art of warfare, and that in future we will be relying less on foot soldiers and more on technology.

But I also think that it's important to remember that we were originally going to have double the number of infantry in Iraq than we ended up with: because Turkey changed its mind at the last minute, the 4th infantry division was unable to come into Iraq and our mechanized infantry was cut down to half the numbers originally allotted.

And Turkey's decision was about as political as it gets: whether you ascribe it to the fear of a Kurdish state, the Turkish government's perceptions of what the Turks themselves thought, maneuvering within the U.N. Security Council or Turkey's desire to please Europe so they can join the EU, it was clearly a political decision outside our control.

To fight such a war the political courageous action would have been to make the same choice George Herbert Walker Bush made after his “read my lips” campaign promise - to raise taxes. The Clinton administration’s ability to abolish the deficit, if not the debt, owed as much to this responsible decision as to the boom of the 90’s.

I've heard this line of reasoning before, and it was in the 80s. Remember Reagan? The rap then was that he was running the country into the ground, and we were headed for collapse from his deficit spending (most of it going toward defense, spent on weapons he hoped we'd never use, in a conscious effort to bankrupt the Soviet Union).

The result, of course, was an economic boom that lasted for 20 years--through most of the Clinton era. Reagan's scary tax cuts made the economy hum, and eventually erased his sky-high deficits.

And when George H.W. Bush raised taxes, the economy stalled long enough for Clinton to get elected. Because tax hikes create a drag on the economy.

This president is playing politics in a fashion much more reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson, who clung to a ruinously expensive domestic agenda while trying to prosecute a war on the cheap.

Well, you can't say GWB is doing that! Iraq and the WoT in general are any number of things are not cheap!

Johnson's problems in Vietnam were that 1) he didn't rally the nation behind the effort, but rather tried to make it a "painless" war. This was impossible, of course, because young men kept disappearing to go off and fight it. And: 2) he micro-managed the war effort, rather than taking the advice of his military men. (Yes--I know you think GWB is doing the same thing, but I don't see it that way. My perception is that the military is in the process of a reform, and GWB is forward-thinking in that respect, listening to the new thinkers rather than being bound by the old bureaucracy. I certainly wouldn't compare GWB's advisors to Robert McNamara, for instance.)

It took a quarter of a century to recover economically from that policy, and our economy is not as demographically robust as it was in the 80’s and 90’s. Our children and grandchildren will be paying for this deficit, if they have the jobs to permit it.

It's not that I don't believe deficits matter, but I have tremendous faith in the American economy to recover the ground we've lost, as long as the tax base is kept relatively low.

I know, I know: I believe in what Reagan practiced, and what George H.W. Bush called "Voodoo Economics." But the economy did better under Reagan than it did under Bush I.

I abhor the intrusion of government into the affairs of citizens. This administration has presided over the single most massive increase in the power and size of the Federal Government of any administration since FDR’s. The department of Homeland Security, the TSA, and the Patriot Act, notwithstanding the interpretations on existing governmental powers being used by Attorney General Ashcroft, represent a bulking up of governmental power and a surrender of individual liberty such as no wartime president since Lincoln has instituted. Lincoln's at least was only for the duration. This looks permanent.

Lincoln's expansions of government powers were far, far greater than any that can be attributed to G.W. Bush. And I would submit that the long-standing War on Drugs and the continuing existence of the incompetent/superfluous BATF had already done far greater damage to individual liberties than anything Ashcroft has managed to accomplish in four years. (Basically, the Fourth Amendment exists only on paper, and that's due to an evolution that took place long before Bush II came into office--much of it on Clinton's watch.)

The attacks of 9/11 were foreseen. The agencies in place were adequate to accomplish that task; we don’t need bigger government to cope with it.

But the two main agencies that needed to put their information together to figure out what was going on didn't even have computers that could be networked together. They didn't even have a single system for translating Arab names so they could be recognized in computer searches. And they were separated by years of rivalry and restrictions that reflected the mentality of fighting terrorism as a law enforcement issue--and we know that that model has failed, since it brought us 9/11.

Somebody had to get all the agencies involved working together rather than against each other. Someone had to dampen the rivalries.

We need leaner but more efficient government. Our leadership was not imaginative enough and the bureaucracy was not permeable enough to permit the intelligence information to have the needed result. As a consequence, 9/11 occurred and it happened on George W. Bush’s watch. This is not to say that it would not have happened if someone else had been president. The failure to prevent the attacks would then be the responsibility of that administration.

The attack was planned on the watch of another administration, one whose response to a series of terror attacks in the 90s was so anemic that it emboldened the terrorists to envision bigger and grander things.

The words of this administration do not match its actions. It is not a conservative government, which would be trying to preserve status quo while exercising fiscal discipline. It is not a Libertarian government, which would be trying to promote liberty, reduce the size of government, and reduce foreign involvement. It is a big-government for big-business administration that has saddled all of us with a tremendous burden of long-term debt, loss of liberty, and international opprobrium. I cannot imagine a committed ideological Conservative voting for George Bush, given the actions of his administration; actions that are at odds with the values he claims to espouse. Don't just listen to what he has said. Look closely at what he has actually done.

I know: there are certainly plenty of arguments I have with George W. Bush, and he's no conservative. Certainly, that business of pretending to try to amend the Constitution was an egregious bit of pandering.

But I honestly want someone in office whom the terrorists fear, and other countries respect. (I do not mean respect as in "like." I mean respect as in "next door to fear.")

I do not want to cast my vote for John Kerry. There is at least on item in his agenda that I can support though, and that is deficit reduction.

But here's the question: what are the odds that he will actually go through with this plan? The only cost-cutting you can trust John F. Kerry to do will have to do with defense: as far as entitlements are concerned, he's going to be out of control.

He will expand entitlements, raise taxes, and give us a stagnant economy. Worse, he will go back to the reactive approach to the War on Terror, and we'll likely pay for it with thousands more American lives.

Meanwhile, he'll withdraw troops from Iraq before she's ready to defend herself, and the Iraqis will have been abandoned and betrayed one more time.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

Posted by: Attila Girl at October 29, 2004 11:46 AM


Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Unknown

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About Joy W. McCann: I've been interviewed for Le Monde and mentioned on Fox News. I once did a segment for CNN on "Women and Guns," and this blog is periodically featured on the New York Times' blog list. My writing here has been quoted in California Lawyer. I've appeared on The Glenn and Helen Show. Oh—and Tammy Bruce once bought me breakfast.
My writing has appeared in
The Noise, Handguns, Sports Afield, The American Spectator, and (it's a long story) L.A. Parent. This is my main blog, though I'm also an alumnus of Dean's World, and I help out on the weekends at Right Wing News.
My political philosophy is quite simple: I'm a classical liberal. In our Orwellian times, that makes me a conservative, though one of a decidedly libertarian bent.


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• Hymers' History of Violence

• How Fun Is It To
Be Recruited Into Hymer's
Offbeat Church? Not Very.
• How I Lost My Virginity


THE LITTLE MISS
ATTILA SAMPLER:


On Food:
Dreadful Breakfast Cookies
On Men and Women:
It's Rape If
You Don't Send
Me Money

Women Talk Too Much;
I'll Date Dolphins

Heterosexual
Men Are Kinky

Hot Cars,
Hot Girls

On Animation:
Freakazoid!
—the Commentary
Freakazoid!
DVD

On Religion:
Athiests and
Christians Talking
To Each Other



TESTIMONIALS:
"Good grammar, and better gin."
—CalTech Girl
"I enjoy Little Miss Attila's essays."
—Venomous Kate
"Joy is good at catching flies with honey."
—Beth C
"Your position is ludicrous, and worthy of ridicule."
—Ace of Spades
"Sexy."
—RightGirl
"Old-school."
—Suburban Blight

HAWT LYNX:

Teh Funny—
• Dave Burge
Interesting News Items

Civics Lessons—
Taranto on How a Bill Becomes Law

Editorial Resources—
• Better Editor
• Web on the Web
• Me me me me me! (miss.attila --AT-- gmail --dot-- com)
Cigars—
Cigar Jack

Science—
David Linden/
The Accidental Mind

Cognitive Daily

Rive Gauche—
Hip Nerd's Blog
K's Quest
Mr. Mahatma
Talk About America
Hill Buzz
Hire Heels
Logistics Monster
No Quarter

Food & Booze—
Just One Plate (L.A.)
Food Goat
A Full Belly
Salt Shaker
Serious Eats
Slashfood

Travel—
Things You Should Do
(In the West)

Just One Plate (L.A.)

Cars—
• Jalopnik
The Truth About Cars

SoCal News—
Foothill Cities

Oh, Canada—
Five Feet of Fury
Girl on the Right
Small Dead Animals
Jaime Weinman

Audio—
Mary McCann,
The Bone Mama

(formerly in Phoenix, AZ;
now in Seattle, WA;
eclectic music)

Mike Church,
King Dude

(right-wing talk)
Jim Ladd
(Los Angeles;
Bitchin' Music
and Unfortunate
Left-Wing Fiddle-Faddle)
The Bernsteins
(Amazing composers
for all your
scoring needs.
Heh. I said,
"scoring needs.")

Iran, from an Islamic Point of View
and written in beautiful English—

Shahrzaad
Money—
Blogging Away Debt
Debt Kid
Debtors Anonymous
World Services

The Tightwad Gazette

Sex—
Gentleman Pornographer

More o' Dat
Pop Culture—

Danny Barer
(Animation News) • Something Old,
Nothing New

(And yet more
Animation News)
Sam Plenty
(Cool New
Animation Site!)
The Bernsteins
(Wait. Did I mention
the Bernsteins
already? They're
legendary.)

Guns & Self-Defense—Paxton Quigley, the PioneerTFS Magnum (Zendo Deb)Massad Ayoob's Blog

THE BLOGOSPHERE ACCORDING TO
ATTILA GIRL:


The American Mind
Aces, Flopping
Ace of Spades
Argghhh!!!
Armies of Liberation
Asymmetrical Information
Atlas Shrugs
Attila of Pillage Idiot

Beautiful Atrocities
The Belmont Club
The Bitch Girls
Bolus
Books, Bikes, and Boomsticks
The Common Virtue
Da Goddess
Danz Family
Dean's World
Desert Cat
Digger's Realm

Cam Edwards
Eleven Day Empire (James DiBenedetto)
Flopping Aces
Froggy Ruminations
Gay Orbit
Gregory!
Jeff Goldstein

Mary Katherine Ham
At the D.C. Examiner
Hugh Hewitt
Hi. I'm Black.
Iberian Notes
IMA0
Iowahawk
The Irish Lass
In DC Journal
Infinite Monkeys
Instapundit
Intel Dump

Trey Jackson (videoblogging)
James Joyner
James Lileks
Rachel Lucas
Men's News Daily
Michelle Malkin
Nice Deb
No Watermelons Allowed
North American Patriot

On Tap
On the Fritz
On the Third Hand
Outside the Beltway
Oxblog

Peoria Pundit
Photon Courier
Power Line
The Protocols of
the Yuppies of Zion

Protein Wisdom

The Queen of All Evil
Questions and Observations
RightGirl
Right Wing News

Scrappleface
Donald Sensing
Rusty Shackleford
The Shape of Days

Sharp as a Marble
Sheila A-Stray
Laurence Simon

Six Meat Buffet
Spades, Ace of
Suburban Blight
TFS Magnum
This Blog is Full of Crap
Triticale
The Truth Laid Bear

Venomous Kate
VodkaPundit
The Volokh Conspiracy

Where is Raed?
Wizbang
Write Enough
You Big Mouth, You!


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