Bush in 2004

I commented yesterday (third comment) that free-market small-government minded voters should support GWB over John F. Kerry in November despite W's Farm Bill, Steel Tarriff, African AIDS Relief and multi-billion dollar Medicare expansion. I said, "We (my friend and I) both agree that Republican and Democrat politicians have collectivist tendencies. The difference is that most Republicans also have a healthy respect for individual liberty and capitalism, while the few Democrats who admit such principles get the Joe Lieberman treatment,"

That argument essentially related to domestic policy, but the preference for Bush over Kerry is ten-fold when it comes to foreign policy. Today's WSJ lead editorial concludes:

"All indications are that this election is going to include the most important national security debate in a generation. September 11 exposed America's acute vulnerability to terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, and Mr. Bush has pursued a strategy to defend against it. Senator Kerry and his fellow Democrats have every right to attack that strategy and offer better ideas for fighting global terrorism, if they can. But the debate ought to be about who has the best policies to keep America safe, not who won the most medals 30 years ago."

Another friend of mine often accuses the administration and the Republican party of "deflecting blame," and he may consider this a clear effort to shift the focus away from the particulars of W's personal military service thirty years ago. I say if you need your focus shifted for you then you haven't really thought about how your life might change - or end - if Islamist terrorists trigger a moderately-successful WMD in a major US city. It reminds me of this old favorite that I blogged last March: Hey France... YOU shut the hell up. WE'LL protect civilization. Simply replace "France" with "Bush Haters."