The politics of hate

It has been quite a week on the campaign trail, but not everything has made it to the evening news. The Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters in several states have been raided. The daylight raids have generally been AFL/CIO protests gone bad, resulting sometimes in injuries to the volunteers. After hours, several offices have been shot at or broken into. The national headquarters even had several key computers stolen. Attributing the breakins to the Democratic party is an easy assumption, but innocent-until-proven-guilty still applies. The Philadelphia Inquirer is running a series called "21 reasons to elect Kerry". One conservative author (so far) has been given the podium for a rebuttal - well worth the read. What amazes me is the disparity with which the candidates are treated - here and elsewhere. Bush has revealed all his records, yet he's still assumed to have enlisted to avoid going to Viet Nam, and blamed for not fulfilling his duty, despite all evidence to the contrary (and there is plenty).

• George W. Bush applied to enlist in a unit which was currently stationed in Viet Nam when he could have chosen others. At the time he applied, it was not clear when the unit might return to the states, which might have taken him overseas as well.
• When offered the opportunity to fly in Viet Nam, he applied to go. He was turned down because they were looking for more seasoned pilots.
• The unit he belonged to was not full when he enlisted, and at times during his tour, as many as half the available slots remained empty. Therefore, he did not have to pull strings to get into the unit.
• His chosen position, flying a plane known sometimes as "widow-maker", was a very unlikely position for someone trying to avoid the draft. By all reports, he not only fulfilled the position, but excelled.

On the other side, it is a matter of record that Kerry has not released over 100 pages of information about his enlistment. As reported today on Powerline, a bit of investigation has suggested that Kerry may not have received an honorable discharge after all. An update later today trims the sails a bit, but there still remain two important questions:

• If Kerry has nothing to hide, why won't he release his full records and dispell the speculation?
• Why aren't the mainstream media having a feeding frenzy over the intimations and possibilities suggested by the evidence we have?

It seems so obvious to me that the media is stumping for Kerry. I can't understand how this isn't visible to anyone who thinks about it - but maybe that's really the key. The Liberals (I won't say Democrats, because there remain conservatives in the party) succeed on the backs of the uninformed.

Just yesterday, I heard a radio program caller saying he wanted Bush out of office because he had taken us into an illegal war. That was the gentleman's entire argument, and he couldn't back the statement up with any kind of evidence, even when pressed by the hosts. Similarly, I have heard people who genuinely believe that Bush lied in order to go to war. Operating on the best information obtained by the intelligence agencies of at least four countries is not lying.

Lately, the actions of the radical Left seem to be more in concert with the terrorists than democracy. Apart from the campaign headquarters raids, some Bush/Cheney supporters have had their signs destroyed and swazticas burned into their lawns. These attacks are being investigated as hate-crimes, and rightfully so, but I wonder if the term hate-crime needs to be extended to those who use violence to disagree with your political perspective, not just those who use Nazi emblems in the commission of those attacks? Do we need another revolutionary war in order to make sure the conservatives are given equal rights?

Another example of MSM bias: a columnist for the London Telegraph had his column pulled because his article suggested that maybe, perhaps, Tony Blair had done the right thing by not sending in commandos to rescue Kenneth Bigley. Rather, it's likely that Bigley's last words will result in even more people being captured and used as leverage. Certainly, I can't begrudge a man who knows he's about to die from saying many desparate things, but I can hold a big grudge against the media who choose to amplify that message because it serves their political purpose.

On preparations for elections, the increased scrutiny has brought out evidence of fraud and inaccuracies on both sides. A Denver news station has uncovered major voter registration fraud which has resulted in some people registering multiple times. If done with the registrant's knowledge, each additional registration constitutes a felony, yet one person quoted in the story admits to having registered about 35 times this year! Other investigations (many from the same news source) have unearthed votor registration groups which ignore registrations for one party or the other. Some states are discovering that they have many convicted felons registered as well. And don't forget the thousands of people double-registered between New York and Florida.

Zell Miller, the Democrat senator who spoke at the Republican convention, has written an editorial on how the battle for Iwo Jima might have been covered if today's media had been around. A short excerpt:

Cutie: "There is no way the Marines could have expected this. Someone got it all wrong. No one predicted this. This has been a horrible 24 hours for our country. This is a slaughterhouse. After all this fighting, Marines control only about a mile and a half of beach and the casualties are now over 3,500 and rising rapidly. We'd like to know what you think. Call the number on the bottom of the screen. Give us your opinions on these three questions: 1. Were the Marines properly trained? 2. Is this nothing of an island worth all these lives? 3. Has the president once again misled the American people? "After the break, we'll ask our own Democratic and Republican analysts, both shouting at the same time, of course, what they have to yell about all this. It should make for a very shrill, provocative morning.

What exactly has happened to this country that has brought us from Patrick Henry's "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." to the point where freedom of speech only includes those who espouse a particular political viewpoint? It makes me want to put up a Bush/Cheney sign on my lawn just to make sure the attacks have the opposite effect. It's certainly more of a gesture than activism, but it's the very least I can do to help the campaign.