Recently I received an e-mail from a friend serving in Iraq, telling me that some of his fellow service people are demoralized and are even repeating some of the horse manure excreted by the anti-War left. You know the lame, predicatable, stale litany: no WMD, Bush lied, blah blah blah. I found that disturbing, and I needed to respond. Here's what I wrote:
All these endless debates about pre-war intelligence are ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. As I have been saying on WLS since well before the war, when I first went on the air in August of 2002, it doesn't matter whether Saddam Hussein ever had any WMD, although I agree with you that he probably did. (Now that we know that Jay Rockefeller warned the Syrians and Iranians in 2002--nice job, democrats, as usual--that we were coming, he could have easily used that 14-month period--you know, the time that the liberals call the "rush to war"--to unload that stuff). The burden of proof was not on the U.S. or the rest of the international community to prove that he had WMD. The burden of proof was on him to prove he didn't. Game, set, match. End of story. He rolled the dice and he lost.
The question, and the absolutely only relevant question, in a post-9/11 world is which mistake would be in the interest of the safety and security of the U.S., a Type 1 error or a Type 2 error (as I learned in statistics)?;
that is, the starting premise is Saddam has WMD. If we reject that premise, and we're wrong (he does have them), we make a Type 1 error. If we believe he does and we're wrong (he doesn't), we make a Type 2 error. So which one is in the interest of our national security? Clearly a Type 2 error, which by the worst case scenario is the one we made. The answer should be obvious. All the rest of the blah blah blah on this issue is just pointless babbling as far as I'm concerned.
It's a shame that some of your fellow soldiers have absorbed some of this intellectually-deficient drivel about WMD, especially since most of the people spewing it are doing so to advance their own personal agendas, either to make money (Michael Moore, for example) or to advance their political careers, or those of their fellow party members, or I should say fellow travelers.
I just received a press release from the office of the man-god who we are so privileged to have as our junior senator, Barack Obama. On this Election Day, 11/8/05, the great man has turned his attention to vote fraud, and this very day, apparently to celebrate, he introduced the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2005, which would “make it illegal for anyone to knowingly attempt to prevent others from exercising his or her right to vote by providing deceptive information and would require the Attorney General to fully investigate these allegations. The legislation would also require the Attorney General, in conjunction with the Election Assistance Commission, to provide accurate election information when allegations of deceptive practices are confirmed.”
The release contains this quote:
“One of our most sacred rights as Americans is the right to make our voice heard at the polls,” said Obama. “But too often, we hear reports of mysterious phone calls and mailers arriving just days before an election that seek to mislead and threaten voters to keep them from the polls. And those who engage in these deceptive and underhanded campaign tactics usually target voters living in minority or low-income neighborhoods. This legislation would ensure that for the first time, these incidents are fully investigated and that those found guilty are punished.”
I don’t know about you, but I find this desire by Sen. Obama to protect the integrity of votes very encouraging. I’ve been very concerned about vote fraud for sometime ever since the democrats stole Wisconsin for John Kerry last year.
It no doubt means that he will support measures like those recommended by the American Center for Voting. In August, 2005, they released the most comprehensive review of the allegation of vote fraud, suppression and intimidation during the 2004 election. Let me quote from the report:
“The ACVR Legislative Fund report, “Vote Fraud, Intimidation & Suppression In The 2004 Presidential Election,” finds that while Democrats routinely accuse Republicans of voter intimidation and suppression, neither party has a clean record on the issue. The report finds that paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression activities than were their Republican counterparts during the 2004 presidential election. Examples include paid Democrat operatives charged with slashing tires on GOP get-out-the-vote vans in Milwaukee and an Ohio court order stopping Democrat operatives from calling voters telling them the wrong date for the election and faulty polling place information.” In addition, the report found extensive evidence of fraud in Milwaukee, including hundreds of felons illegally voting and double voters, and evidence of voter registration fraud by groups like ACORN (gee, I wonder who they support?) in several states.
You can check out the report here:
http://www.ac4vr.com/news/acvrnews080205.html
Do you suppose that He Who Walked Across the Potomac and Then Parted It caught that? Democrats were far more involved in the activities that he finds so deplorable, including making those phone calls telling people the wrong date for the election and the wrong polling places. Perhaps Senator Obama is genuinely concerned about preventing this sort of skullduggery, regardless of which party does it. If so I’m sure he’ll be anxious to amend his proposed legislation to include the voter fraud prevention steps recommended by the commission, including requiring a government issued photo ID at the polls. I also call on the good senator to denounce the proposals by his fellow democrats to permit felons to vote in violation of sensible state laws. Do you suppose we can expect those things to happen soon?