Clear Choices

By Judson Cox  

Last week, I took advantage of early voting, and cast my ballot.  Granted, my brains haven’t baked in the southern sun quite as long as a Floridian who can’t tell the difference between Al Gore and Pat Buchanan, but it seemed a pretty clear choice to me.  The whole process took maybe ten minutes, and all I had to do was fill in a few ovals with a felt tipped pen.  The ballot was straight forward, the instructions were clear, and it could not have been easier.  

Regardless of what the politicos, wags, spinners, pundits, race warlords and lawyers may say, voting is easy, and the choices are very clear.  For President, we must choose between two very different men.  If you believe the world changed on 9/11, you will vote for President Bush.  If you believe 9/11 changed nothing, you will vote for Sen. Kerry.  

9/11 changed everything for President Bush; indeed, it changed President Bush.  He was transformed from a president who showed little interest in foreign engagement, to a strong war time leader.  He stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center , the Pentagon and that Pennsylvania field and shed real tears.  He embraced the families, the first responders and the construction workers and vowed that soon the whole world would know our determination to never allow such an attack on our soil again.  He began waging war against the nations that harbor and fund terrorism, even in opposition to the opinion of much of the world and most of the Democratic Party.  He made clear that we would fight this war – with our allies if they are willing, but alone if we must.  President Bush believes this is a war we will either fight on foreign soil or on our own.  9/11 left us no choice.  

Kerry told The Harvard Crimson in 1970. “I’m an internationalist; I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”  And in 1994, discussing Bosnia , he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no." ( Washington Post 10/20/2004)  Sen. Kerry said, when asked how 9/11 had changed him either personally or politically, “I mean, it didn't change me much at all.” (New York Times Magazine, 10/10/04)   

When asked what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, Kerry said, “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." (The New York Times Magazine, 10/10/04)  In the same article he compared terrorism to “gambling and prostitution,” evils we would have to learn to tolerate and live with.  With the exception of the constantly changing positions he began adopting during the presidential campaign, Kerry’s statements have been consistent over the past 34 years.  He does not believe terrorism is a threat great enough to warrant war, and he would never wage or support any war without UN approval.  Kerry’s top foreign policy advisor, said, ''We're not in a war on terror, in the literal sense.  The war on terror is like saying the war on poverty. It's just a metaphor.” (The New York Times Magazine, 10/10/04)  

The candidates’ strategies to combat terrorism are starkly different.  Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (a terrorist regime) “made its first open statement Monday expressing support for US democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.” ( Jerusalem Post 10/18/2004)  On the same day, Russia ’s President Putin said that, “"International terrorists have set as their goal inflicting the maximum damage to Bush, to prevent his election to a second term. If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition." (CNN 10/18/2004)  If the choice is so clear to foreign leaders - that those who support terrorism support Kerry and those who oppose terrorism support Bush - why should the waters seem so muddy in American politics?  

We have a clear choice to make - between strength or weakness, American interests or foreign interests, between action and appeasement, between killing the terrorists and allowing them to kill us – between President Bush and the “internationalist.”  I chose President Bush.