Kerrys Acceptance Speech.............

.....I watched some of it, but I couldn't hear all of it because we were at the bar. Regardless I read the transcript this morning to get filled in, and I was not impressed.


Many bloggers have reviewed it more eloquently than I could hope to, this by Charlotte Allen at the Independent Womens Forum, or James Lileks latest, but I will comment on what I had hoped to hear but didn't.

I wanted to hear Kerry say SPECIFICALLY how he planned to take the war on Terror to the enemy's front door, much the way Bush has with Iraq and Afghanistan, instead we got more crap about international coalitions, how we are "going it alone"-once again like Edwards- ignoring the fact that we have numerous other countries that have troops fighting alongside ours in Iraq and Afghanistan. This point is beginning to piss me off, and if I was serving in say the Polish Army, I would be VERY pissed off. Because we're Polish we don't count? What the hell is that?


Kerry had this line that made me scratch my head.

"As president, I will fight a smarter, more effective war on terror. We will deploy every tool in our arsenal: our economic as well as our military might, our principles as well as our firepower."

Principles? Hoo-kay. I'm sure Mohammed was worried that we would start using our principles in Iraq-GAME OVER DUDE!!-since we have been, I don't know, saving them up I guess?

Then he followed it with this line-

"In these dangerous days, there is a right way and a wrong way to be strong. Strength is more than tough words."

This may be true, but how does this wash with your bold "principles" strategy? Shower them with strong principles?

Then there's this-

"We need a strong military and we need to lead strong alliances.

And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose, and we will win."

I'm sorry, but this won't get Achmed to put the RPG's down and go vote for his local councilmen. The terrorists already know they can't beat us on the battlefield, they have to use beheadings and extreme violence to try and scare us away. Telling them they will lose is the military equivalent of pissing in the wind.

I was disappointed that he didn't mention anything about Iran, nothing about Islamofascism, nothing about the specific things he wants to do to defeat our enemies. He did mention adding 40,000 troops, but none of the Officers in Iraq are saying they don't have enough troops. Everything else he proposed is pretty much already being done. What else? Are you going to face down the Mullahs? He made a reference to the Saudis, but it was in relation to developing more efficient engines, not fighting terror. John, we are going to need Saudi oil for at least the next twenty years. There is no magic pill. The best way to remain secure is to push reform on the Saudis by, oh I don't know, ESTABLISHING DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST MAYBE?

Not one single speech that I'm aware of from the Convention placed this as the most important issue facing our nation. Islamofascism stems from the LACK of democracy and equality rampant in most Arab societies. Defeating the enemy on the streets and forcing a country to take on Democracy worked in Japan, German, and South Korea, why doesn't anyone realize this is what is needed now?

We shall see how Bush does at his convention, but I imagine this will be one of his major points to come across. If I were him, I would point out that he has started the long and difficult process of reforming the culture that is producing the Jihadists, and he must continue to do so by forcing regime change in Iran and reform in other countries in the Arab world.