KC
September 27, 2003, 12:52 PM
From the WSJ Opinion Journal (http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004073)
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"What would you say is your biggest shortcoming?" When an employer asks this question during a job interview, the safest way to answer is by offering self-flattery thinly disguised as self-criticism: "Well, sometimes I have a tendency to work too darn hard." Moderator Brian Williams asked a similar question in last night's debate: "What in office, as president, would be the least popular, most right thing you would do?" Most of the candidates shoveled vigorously:
Bob Graham: " I would begin the process of rebuilding America's relationship with the world."
John Kerry: "I intend to take the politics out of how we are going to guarantee that Social Security is sound into the future."
John Edwards: "In this effort to protect ourselves and fight our war on terrorism, we cannot allow people like John Ashcroft to take away our rights, our freedom and our liberties."
Carol Moseley Braun: "I would work to build community and civil society and fight the discrimination against women in daily life."
Way to go out on a limb there, guys! Only Dennis Kucinich gave a straight answer to the question:
Three things come to mind. First, I would take action to stop the federal death penalty.
Second, I would move to cut the Pentagon budget by 15 percent, which would in no way affect adversely our national defense, and put the money into child care.
Third, I would move to create a Department of Peace which would seek to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society and to work with the nations of the world to make war itself archaic.
These ideas actually are unpopular--and with good reason. While there are respectable arguments against capital punishment, slashing defense during wartime and creating a Department of Peace are truly loopy ideas.
The most revealing answer, though, came from Joe Lieberman: "I'm going to prosecute the war against terrorism and win it even if it's unpopular, because that's where our future security rests." That Lieberman would think this an "unpopular" position just two years after Sept. 11 speaks volumes about his party.
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Dennis Kucinich is another who has not read "1984". Should we consider it offensive that he wants to inflict a MiniPeace on us? It's bad enough that left-wing doublespeak has changed the Department of War into the Department of Defence, but now this?
_____________________
"What would you say is your biggest shortcoming?" When an employer asks this question during a job interview, the safest way to answer is by offering self-flattery thinly disguised as self-criticism: "Well, sometimes I have a tendency to work too darn hard." Moderator Brian Williams asked a similar question in last night's debate: "What in office, as president, would be the least popular, most right thing you would do?" Most of the candidates shoveled vigorously:
Bob Graham: " I would begin the process of rebuilding America's relationship with the world."
John Kerry: "I intend to take the politics out of how we are going to guarantee that Social Security is sound into the future."
John Edwards: "In this effort to protect ourselves and fight our war on terrorism, we cannot allow people like John Ashcroft to take away our rights, our freedom and our liberties."
Carol Moseley Braun: "I would work to build community and civil society and fight the discrimination against women in daily life."
Way to go out on a limb there, guys! Only Dennis Kucinich gave a straight answer to the question:
Three things come to mind. First, I would take action to stop the federal death penalty.
Second, I would move to cut the Pentagon budget by 15 percent, which would in no way affect adversely our national defense, and put the money into child care.
Third, I would move to create a Department of Peace which would seek to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our society and to work with the nations of the world to make war itself archaic.
These ideas actually are unpopular--and with good reason. While there are respectable arguments against capital punishment, slashing defense during wartime and creating a Department of Peace are truly loopy ideas.
The most revealing answer, though, came from Joe Lieberman: "I'm going to prosecute the war against terrorism and win it even if it's unpopular, because that's where our future security rests." That Lieberman would think this an "unpopular" position just two years after Sept. 11 speaks volumes about his party.
________________________
Dennis Kucinich is another who has not read "1984". Should we consider it offensive that he wants to inflict a MiniPeace on us? It's bad enough that left-wing doublespeak has changed the Department of War into the Department of Defence, but now this?