Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party
436
Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party
436Paperback
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
—Sean Hannity, FOX News
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781596985261 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse Publishing |
| Publication date: | 08/28/2007 |
| Pages: | 436 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Bankrupt
The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party
By David Limbaugh
Regnery Publishing
Copyright © 2006
David Limbaugh
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1-59698-017-6
Chapter One
Iraq: Democrats Lied, and
Their Credibility Died
Nothing in recent politics has been more disheartening and
maddening than the Democrats' behavior on the Iraq war. We have
come to expect the Democratic Party to politicize domestic and
social issues. But it is still rather shocking that they also play partisan
politics over life and death issues involving our national security.
We are way past the point where today's Democratic leaders even
pretend to respect the long-accepted adage that "politics stops at the
water's edge." They might as well have substituted "no holds
barred" as their guiding philosophy on issues of national defense
and foreign policy. They politicized the Iraq war even before it
began but denied doing so and reversed the charge-falsely-against
Republicans. Senator Hillary Clinton said, "The exercise of
playing politics with war ... carries with it a very high cost, and
those who choose to play that game are squarely in the wrong." If
only she and her colleagues could follow their own advice.
Democrats complain loudly and often about perceived challenges
to their patriotism. But one cannot closely follow the news without
noticing that in the War on Terror, especially in theIraq theater, the
Bush administration is fighting terrorists and insurgents on the one
hand and the leadership of the Democratic Party on the other. At
every turn the Democrats can be counted on to oppose and obstruct
President Bush regardless of the consequences to the national interest.
With respect to President Bush's policies on Iraq, Democrats
"hear no good and see no good." No matter how positive certain
developments are in Iraq, they find something to complain about.
There are basically two reasons for this. One is that they truly
disagree-philosophically-with the hawkish bent of the Bush administration.
They are appeasement-oriented to a fault, especially when
their party does not control the presidency.
So they would be against President Bush on the Iraq war even if
they weren't playing partisan politics. But they are-the second reason
for their unmitigated opposition. It's as if they sense the horrifying
potential of a smoothly run, unopposed war to boost the
popularity of a commander in chief and his party. They simply cannot
allow him his due on any aspect of the Iraq war, because to
praise him is to elevate him politically.
From the very beginning of our attack on Iraq, the naysayers had
their say. They were beside themselves that we didn't give the UN
weapons inspectors more time. They predicted tens of thousands of
American casualties. They were hysterical over Bush's preemptive
attack. They complained that we acted unilaterally and strained
relations with our European allies. They said we were alienating
more Muslims than we were liberating and creating more terrorists
than we could kill or capture.
They shouted "quagmire" when a sandstorm hit Iraq shortly
after our invasion. They said our ground forces were moving
through the desert efficiently all right, but too efficiently-so
quickly that they had outrun their supply lines, resulting in unarmed
and unfed soldiers. They said our drive toward Baghdad had stalled
and a longer war would be likely. They said we didn't sufficiently
equip and arm our troops. They said we sent too few troops. They
said we sent too many troops.
We were being greeted, said the critics, not as liberators, but as
occupiers. We were killing innocent Iraqi women and children. They
implied we didn't care about "collateral damage," though our entire
prosecution of the war was carefully designed to minimize injury
and death to innocent civilians. They said we were destroying the
Iraqi infrastructure. They said we didn't anticipate and guard
against the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad. They said
we allowed stockpiles of munitions to be removed from Al-Qaqaa,
a former Iraqi military installation, even though signs indicated that
most of those weapons had been removed before our troops arrived
in the spring of 2003. (The New York Times reported the munitions
removal as a scandal of prewar planning incompetence, but it was
given repeated, exhaustive coverage-sixteen separate stories in the
eight days before the election-even though it was actually old
news. The Times curiously discontinued reports on the story following
the election.)
The naysayers said we attacked Iraq for oil. They said we
attacked because we are an imperialistic nation. They said President
Bush bribed other nations to commit troops and other resources to
help rebuild Iraq. They said we might have had a plan to win the
initial phase of the war, but had no idea how to win the peace. They
said we sowed the seeds of our ultimate difficulties with the terrorists
and insurgents by the very nature of our rush to Baghdad, letting
Iraqi troops retreat to the countryside to fight us later. They
characterized isolated cases of abuse and humiliation as a systematic
policy of torture and attributed it to the Bush administration.
They demanded constitutional rights for enemy combatants. They
mischaracterized intercepts of international communications of terrorists
as domestic spying on innocent American citizens. They were
quick to rush to judgment upon news of alleged Marine atrocities
in Haditha.
They say we should have anticipated the insurgency that followed
the war because this was obviously Saddam's plan. Yet a recent U.S.
military history study, "The Iraqi Perspectives Project," concluded
that Saddam did not, in fact, plan the insurgency, mainly because he
was convinced the U.S. would never invade his country and that we
would never dare enter Baghdad. The study said, "As far as can be
determined from the interviews and records reviewed so far, there
were no national plans to embark on a guerilla war in the event of
military defeat. Nor did the regime appear to cobble together such
plans as its world crumbled around it."
Mission Accomplished
A perfect example of the Democrats' orchestrated pessimism was
their refusal to join President Bush in celebrating the triumph of our
initial rout of Saddam. They ridiculed him for piloting a jet onto the
USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, standing in his flight suit in
front of a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" and declaring
an end to "major combat operations" in Iraq. Though some say
Bush didn't actually utter the phrase "mission accomplished," he
admittedly did say, "America sent you on a mission to remove a
grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission
has been accomplished."
Sometime later, with the full benefit of hindsight, liberals triumphantly
condemned Bush for that "premature" assessment.
They spun it as a reckless distortion, when at face value it was
accurate. Saddam was removed-in short order, no less-and the
Iraqi people were liberated from him. That terrorists and insurgents
launched an action to undo what America had already accomplished
didn't invalidate Bush's statement that we had effected a
regime change.
Iraq was certainly not a terror-free zone, but it had become a free
society on its way to constitutional self-rule. Perhaps it is fair game
to criticize the administration for its failure to anticipate the degree
to which terrorists would begin a reign of horror designed to break
our will, though it remains unclear how anyone, including Nostradamus,
could have predicted that with certainty.
It is unfair to say that Bush was intentionally overstating the military's
accomplishment in Iraq. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine what
conceivable motive Bush would have had to make such a statement
if he knew upcoming events would undermine our victory. Why
would he voluntarily subject himself to the inevitable ridicule of his
ever-eager detractors? Even if he had anticipated the nature and
degree of the insurgency, there is nothing wrong and everything
right with his congratulation of our troops for their accomplishment-and
it was a magnificent accomplishment.
We Let Osama Escape
One of the Left's most frequently uttered antiwar mantras is that
Iraq is not part of the global War on Terror and that Bush decided
to attack it for personal reasons. In doing so, he diverted our
resources and focus from Osama bin Laden-our real enemy. New
York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote, "Iraq never threatened
U.S. security. Bush officials cynically attacked a villainous
country because they know it was easier than finding the real September
11 villain, who had no country." Senator Kennedy said
that though Bush mentioned terror twenty-seven times in his State
of the Union address, he never mentioned the man who launched
the September 11 attacks. "What world is he living in?" asked
Kennedy. "He started a war we never should have fought. He
stopped fighting a war we hadn't won, and left our greatest enemy
in the world still at large, planning his next September 11."
One of Senator Kerry's favorite campaign slogans was that Bush
outsourced the job of capturing Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora in
2001 to Afghan warlords. General Tommy Franks refuted this
canard, saying that our Special Forces units were on the ground in hot
pursuit of bin Laden. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Franks
wrote, "As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was
responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the
senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality." Franks
rejected Kerry's contention that we allowed bin Laden to escape after
having him surrounded, saying "we don't know to this day whether
Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001."
Nor, according to Franks, did we "outsource military action."
President Bush never "took his eye off the ball" when it came to
Osama bin Laden. Perhaps most important, Franks affirmed that
"the war on terrorism has a global focus" and "cannot be divided
into separate and unrelated wars, one in Afghanistan and another
in Iraq."
"Bush Lied, People Died"
No other accusation against Bush was as slanderous as the repeated
allegation that he lied about the intelligence on Iraqi WMD in
order to drag us into an unnecessary, unjustified war. This was a
particularly egregious tactic by those who accused Bush of hurting
our national image. Their false charges not only discredited President
Bush, but damaged the image and standing of the United
States in the world. If American leaders-opposition party or not-consistently
tell the world that the nation's commander in chief
concocted a false version of events to justify attacking a sovereign
nation, without provocation, how can the world possibly think
America's hands are clean in Iraq?
Certain Democrats began accusing President Bush of misconduct
in the War on Terror well before we invaded Iraq in 2003. Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney, donning her conspiracy hat, asked
shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, "What did this
administration know and when did it know it, about the events of
September 11?" Senator Hillary Clinton was not far behind, asking
on the floor of the Senate, "What did Bush know and when did
he know it?" DNC chairman Howard Dean, not to be outdone,
related his theory on WAMU radio that the president "was warned
ahead of time by the Saudis [about the September 11 attacks]."
The New York Times reported, "President Bush was told more
than a month before the attacks of September 11, 2001, that supporters
of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United
States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government
official said Friday."
All of this hype was sparked by a single Presidential Daily Briefing
on August 6, 2001, which didn't mention a word about plans
for hijacked planes to be flown into buildings. It did mention that
Osama had aspired to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. since
1997, and told his followers that he wanted to target Washington,
D.C. But, as the briefing made clear, Osama had made this statement
"after US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998,"
which was three years before September 11. This is why the White
House was correct in referring to the intelligence contained in the
briefing as "historical."
The briefing did refer to bin Laden's desire to "hijack a US aircraft,"
and stated that the FBI had detected al Qaeda activity suggesting
"preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." But
the purpose of such hijackings was "to gain the release of 'Blind
Shaykh' 'Umar' Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists." The
briefing mentioned that terrorists had engaged in recent surveillance
of federal buildings in New York." Later that evening the New
York Times clarified its reporting to admit that "the briefing did not
point to any specific time or place of attack and did not warn that
planes could be used as missiles." But the damage had already been
done. The fact remains that there was absolutely nothing in the
memo that could have alerted the administration that the plane
attacks were coming-or when or where. But that didn't keep the
liberal press and Bush-hating Democrats from painting the picture
that Bush virtually knew about the attacks in advance, could have
prevented them, and chose not to do so.
Democrats also began accusing President Bush of lying about
Iraq before we attacked in 2003. Three Democratic congressmen,
Jim McDermott, David "Baghdad" Bonior, and Mike Thompson
went to Iraq in September 2002, denouncing the United States and
President Bush on enemy soil. They weren't just criticizing Bush, but
supporting a U.S. enemy in a way reminiscent of Jane Fonda's trip
to Vietnam to support the Viet Cong.
McDermott said he believed President Bush was willing "to mislead
the American people" about Iraq. "I believe that sometimes
they give out misinformation," said McDermott "... and they've
shifted. First they said it was al Qaeda, then they said it was
weapons of mass destruction. Now they're going back and saying
it's al Qaeda again." Not only did McDermott trash his own president
while in Iraq, but made statements supportive of Saddam Hussein's
position on WMD. "[Iraq] said they would allow us to go
look anywhere we wanted. And until they don't do that, there is no
need to do this coercive stuff where you bring in helicopters and
armed people and storm buildings." He said we "should take Iraqis
on their face value."
Bonior, the second highest-ranking House Democrat, implied
moral equivalence between Iraq and the United States. He said,
"We've got to move forward in a way that's fair and impartial. That
means not having the United States or the Iraqis dictate the rules to
these inspections." No one was alert enough to point out to
Bonior that the rules had already been dictated to Iraq as a part of
the treaty Saddam agreed to after being defeated in the Gulf War.
Not only did the Democratic hierarchy fail to reprimand these
misfits, other top party officials were busy competing to make similarly
destructive statements. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
said that the White House was "too narrowly focused on terrorism
and Iraq and has steered the economy into the worst trouble since
the Great Depression." Senator Robert Byrd said that President
Bush's plans to invade Iraq were a conscious effort to distract public
attention from domestic issues. Senators Hillary Clinton and Bill
Nelson said Byrd's remarks were "the height of patriotism."
The Big Lie
Next came the Democrats' big lie about the big "lie": "Bush lied
about Iraqi WMD." This claim has been particularly exasperating
both because of its preposterousness and its effectiveness. As Norman
Podhoretz said, "What makes this charge so special is the amazing
success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident
truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over
again by evidence and arguments alike. In this it resembles nothing
so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened,
blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life
with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters,
this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what."
Democrats, who prided themselves on not caring a whit about
presidential falsehoods during the Clinton scandals, suddenly had a
collective epiphany over Bush's alleged lies about Iraq. His lies were
different, they said, because people died as a result. Bush hadn't
lied-and Democratic Party leaders knew it. But they were in a
pickle. Most of them had supported the Joint Resolution to Authorize
the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, which they
insisted be brought to a vote, and needed to explain away their
votes to their rabid antiwar base.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bankrupt
by David Limbaugh
Copyright © 2006 by David Limbaugh.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Paperback Edition ix
Introduction: Why the Democrats Deserve to Lose xxv
The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of the Democratic Party in the War on Terror
Iraq: Democrats Lied, and Their Credibility Died 3
The Defeatocrats 33
King George 67
The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of the Democratic Party on Judges, Values, Race, and the Economy
We Have Values Too 95
The Values Blues 119
The "Living Constitution" 143
"Extraordinary Circumstances" 167
Politicizing Race 185
Class Warfare 201
The Roots of the Bankruptcy
"I Hate the Way He Walks" 227
The Monster, the Witch-Burner, and the Architect of Torture 253
A Pair of Rasputins 275
Hypocrisy and Sour Grapes 297
Those "P.E.S.T.y" Democrats, or A Party in Search of Coherence 323
The Republicans' "Worst Nightmare" 345
Acknowledgments 369
Notes 371
Index 429