"ArKLyte_" <ArkLyte_@Now.Net> wrote in message
news:ssikg0h44idqapli33hmo0pgcob7v8g6ft@4ax.com...

http://www.nationalreview.com

National Review Online

7-30-04

Michael Novak

Why the Dems Will Lose And why they'll be disconsolate.

You know how Democrats hate Bush now? How will they hate him when they
lose to him on November 2 by three or four percentage points?

How about when they lose by 23 percentage points?

...

In 2004, I see six reasons why the Democratic goose is cooked:

1. No one - neither his colleagues nor his wife nor his supporters nor
he himself - has anything good to say about John Kerry except that he
served bravely in Vietnam. ...

2. The Democratic elite sitting in convention cannot present
themselves as they are to the American people...

3. Democrats must hide from the public what they truly think about
evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Catholics. They express these
thoughts mostly among themselves.

4. John Kerry looks sillier in the pale blue NASA rabbit suit than
Michael Dukakis did in a tank.

5. The months of April, May, and June were so heavy with bad
news for George Bush - the huge Sorosian expenditures on
anti-Bush ads came at him in torrents - and still he held even
with Kerry in the polls. ...

6. The worst lies told by the Democrats about Bush - those of
Joe Wilson, Michael Moore, and others, saying that Bush lied
about Iraq - have already been proven wrong by the 9/11
Commission ...

(Novak wussed out on item 7. I'll attempt to create it for him.)

7. God wants Bush to win.

Finally, there is the matter of faith, ...

In that same spirit, I find it hard to believe that the Creator who
gave us liberty will ignore President Bush's willingness to sacrifice
his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq ...

...

And finally, reason number 8.

8. Nobody wants a kinder, gentler SOB.

ArKLyte_ wrote:

In that same spirit, I find it hard to believe that the Creator who
gave us liberty will ignore President Bush's willingness to sacrifice
his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq - their
50 million citizens, and perhaps their progeny for ages to come. A
kind of cosmic justice (which does not always materialize, I
recognize) calls for vindication. Especially when the president has
been so unfairly calumniated by his foes, domestic and foreign.

So the wingnuts at the (formerly intellectual) journal National Review

to superstition in their beLIEf in Bush's election.

ArKLyte_ wrote:

In that same spirit, I find it hard to believe that the Creator who
gave us liberty will ignore President Bush's willingness to sacrifice
his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq - their
50 million citizens, and perhaps their progeny for ages to come. A
kind of cosmic justice (which does not always materialize, I
recognize) calls for vindication. Especially when the president has
been so unfairly calumniated by his foes, domestic and foreign.

So the wingnuts at the (formerly intellectual) journal National Review have

to superstition in their beLIEf in Bush's election.

In article <ssikg0h44idqapli33hmo0pgcob7v8g6ft@4ax.com>,

http://www.nationalreview.com

National Review Online

7-30-04

Michael Novak

Why the Dems Will Lose And why they’ll be disconsolate.

You know how Democrats hate Bush now? How will they hate him when they
lose to him on November 2 by three or four percentage points?

.> ...

• Counting chickens before the eggs hatch?

When a reader encounters a sentence like "for Democrats, the purpose of
democracy is to milk government for ever more abundant benefits", what do
you think comes to mind ? What comes to mind is massive corruption and
cronyism with the Enron scandal, Haliburton's embezzlement in Iraq, payola
for George Bush's oil buddies, even more massive corruption in military
procurements and deficits deficits deficits as far as the eye an see.

What feeble nonsense. Americans have got your number, Mr. Michael Novak.
Do yourself a favor and start talking about issues instead of bandying the
bull.


"ArKLyte_" <ArkLyte_@Now.Net> wrote in message
news:ssikg0h44idqapli33hmo0pgcob7v8g6ft@4ax.com...

http://www.nationalreview.com

National Review Online

7-30-04

Michael Novak

Why the Dems Will Lose And why they'll be disconsolate.

You know how Democrats hate Bush now? How will they hate him when they
lose to him on November 2 by three or four percentage points?

One of the political commentators I admire most for his astuteness
said yesterday that the paroxysm of hatred the Democrats have been
indulging for the last six months is the worst American political
delusion he has seen in his entire life.

What will it be like - if after all this hatred, all this effort, all
those millions upon millions of dollars spent to express disdain,
contempt, and hate - Bush wins again, flashes a victory symbol over
his head, grins, strides around shaking hands, glows with exuberance
and radiance?

For Democrats, losing is much worse than for Republicans. For
Democrats, the purpose of democracy is to milk government for ever
more abundant benefits. Republicans in principle believe in limited
government, and thus in a certain way they do even better out of power
than when they must exercise it. Democrats without power suffer much
more. Democrats go listless, purposeless.

In a minority, Democrats are fairly useless creatures. In victory,
they cultivate grand visions of benefits to be shaken from government
largesse; defeat, however, freezes the core of their being. Democratic
defeat defies the natural order. For them, history halts. What had
been an onward rushing tide swirls round and round, becoming still.

So loss at any time (as in 2000) is almost inadmissible by Democrats.
But a loss in 2004, particularly a solid loss, will be for them a
disaster beyond imagination. Such recriminations there will be. Some
will blame the "centrism" of the Kerry team, and the much-resented
repression of the Left. Some will come to see the isolation in which
the widespread paroxysms of hatred and contempt for George Bush
blindly thrust them. Some will see that the core ideologies of the
Left are faultily drawn - in economics, their attraction to a kind of
governmental centralization, and their antipathy to capitalism, the
market, corporations, and job creators. They claim to love employees
while hating their employers, a self-defeating cycle. In matters of
culture, others will see that the left-wing's sexual ethic and
religious sensibility are too far out of tune with the American
people. Nonetheless, one can predict that both in economics and in
culture, others will try to drive the party more leftward still.

In any case, it would be wise to get ready for the coming cataclysm.

In 2004, I see six reasons why the Democratic goose is cooked:

1. No one - neither his colleagues nor his wife nor his supporters nor
he himself - has anything good to say about John Kerry except that he
served bravely in Vietnam. The nearly 30 years since then have
generated few boasts on his part, few commendations from others, few
successes anyone can seem to remember.

2. The Democratic elite sitting in convention cannot present
themselves as they are to the American people, but must stifle their
deepest feelings, be silent about their most passionate aims,
and hide their turbulent loathing of George Bush Republicans
(lest it frighten independents with its ferocity). The Democratic
elite is saying as little as possible about same-sex marriage.
And guns. And very little about abortion. And not a word
about total withdrawal of American troops from Iraq - quite the
opposite. Democratic elites do not want the people to know what they
really think. On that ground, they fear they will lose.

3. Democrats must hide from the public what they truly think about
evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Catholics. They express these
thoughts mostly among themselves.

4. John Kerry looks sillier in the pale blue NASA rabbit suit than
Michael Dukakis did in a tank.

5. The months of April, May, and June were so heavy with bad
news for George Bush - the huge Sorosian expenditures on
anti-Bush ads came at him in torrents - and still he held even
with Kerry in the polls. It is hard not to believe that there will
be at least a slight change in the roaring winds. When it comes
(and the change is already underway), it is bound to push Bush's
sails steadily ahead as the weeks roll on.

6. The worst lies told by the Democrats about Bush - those of
Joe Wilson, Michael Moore, and others, saying that Bush lied
about Iraq - have already been proven wrong by the 9/11
Commission (which was supposed to blow Bush out of the water
just before the election, but ended up destroying his worst
calumniators). These lies were also proven wrong by the British
inquiry. Even the Kerry Convention in Boston ended up taking
the Bush strategic line in Iraq, except for one thing: Kerry is wistful
about the probability of persuading France and Germany to bear
some burden on behalf of liberty in Iraq. Good luck! God knows, Bush
and Colin Powell tried.

Finally, there is the matter of faith, even of the sort Tom Paine
showed in 1776. Paine was no Christian, but he did believe that God
had created this vast and splendid universe in order to share His
friendship with free women and free men, and for this reason the
Creator put freedom at the core of things. Tom Paine had no tolerance
for the Bible, and less for Biblical fundamentalists, but he was not
so much an atheist, he wrote, as to believe that the Almighty Who made
the universe for liberty would allow the cause of people willing to
die for it to come to naught. Paine couldn't bring himself to believe
that God would favor George III.

In that same spirit, I find it hard to believe that the Creator who
gave us liberty will ignore President Bush's willingness to sacrifice
his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq - their
50 million citizens, and perhaps their progeny for ages to come. A
kind of cosmic justice (which does not always materialize, I
recognize) calls for vindication. Especially when the president has
been so unfairly calumniated by his foes, domestic and foreign.

In accepting the nomination of his party Thursday night, John Kerry
could not quite bring himself to give both the president and the
volunteer military who performed so well some credit for this great
and significant advance for human liberty. The theme of liberty in the
Muslim world belongs to George Bush. It was he who named liberty the
only real alternative to terrorism.

"With a firm reliance on Divine Providence," to cite our forebears
once again, Bush has publicly held that one cannot fight terrorism
merely by killing terrorists. One must provide an alternative of
liberty, prosperity, and opportunity - one must labor to build free
societies where they do not now exist. Liberty works. I think Bush
will win because these are the truths Americans hold.

Bush believes these truths. At this moment, the Democrats (who used to
believe them, nobly so) do not even see their relevance. Kerry spoke
well about patriotism, the international leadership of America, and
liberty - but he seems willfully blind to the relevance of these
beautiful ideals to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terrorism. For
such ideals and purposes some 900 young Americans of this generation
have laid down their lives. They will be thanked by generations yet
unborn.

So will their commander-in-chief.

* Michael Novak is the winner of the 1994 Templeton Prize for progress
in religion and the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion,
Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
Novak's own website is www.michaelnovak.net.

===========================================================
"Ah yes, we must mollify angry fanatics who seek our destruction
because otherwise .. they might get mad and seek our destruction."
- Ann Coulter 9/26/2002