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Thursday, September 12, 2002
Is Mary McGrory As Dumb As She Sounds?
Is it just me or is Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory’s (9/12) piece very misguided? I get her point about making sure that our civil liberties are protected from government tyranny, but the way she presents her case is abominable. Her example of a good president who watches over the Constitution is Franklin Pierce!
“Franklin Pierce, whose name is a synonym for obscurity, was the only New Hampshire man to make it to the Oval Office. He was a calamity of a president and even worse as an ex-president. The only reason to give him a thought now is that he had one redeeming feature: a passion for the Constitution, learned at the knee of his father, a Revolutionary War veteran -- and that is a quality we could use now.
Pierce excoriated his successor, Abraham Lincoln, for suspending habeas corpus during the Civil War. At a Fourth of July celebration he declared that "the mere arbitrary will of the president takes the place of the Constitution." Pierce's attacks are detailed in "In the Memory House," a book by New Hampshire writer Howard Mansfield.”
Fortunately, she says his Presidency was a “calamity,” but she doesn’t mention Pierce’s “passion for the Constitution” included strict support for the Dread Scott decision and trying to get New Hampshire to secede during the Civil War! I’ve never liked McGrory’s writing and now I know why.
1:04 PM
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Is This Enough of a “Case?”
One of the biggest excuses of anti-war senators is that the president “has not made a case for going to war.” I concur that he should make an argument for invasion to Congress and the American people. But just because the Bush administration hasn’t come straight out in an organized speech and made a case, doesn’t mean that these particular senators can’t do some research on their own and make up their own minds. If all of the good articles in The New Republic and National Review weren’t enough, then this piece in today’s New York Post by John Keegan should help make the case.
“Saddam is deeply anti-Western, if only because it is the western States, particularly America, which frustrate his ambition to become a regional warlord and leader of the Arab Middle East. He has undoubtedly financed terror in the past, finances and supports the Palestinian suicide bombers and covertly endorses terrorism as an anti-Western program.
Moreover, if allowed to proceed to the development of nuclear weapons, Iraq could be enabled to support terrorism with impunity. Hence the urgency of the Bush program to overthrow the Saddam regime while the opportunity still exists.
Once the Iraqi nuclear program is complete, invasion of the country will become perhaps impossible and certainly very difficult and fraught with terrible risk. Saddam would then possess the means to devastate any sort of ground force launched against him, either from land bases or by an amphibious operation in the Gulf.
He already possesses the necessary rocket launchers, crude and relatively short-range as they are. He only needs the warheads, which he may soon possess.”
Keegan is one of the world’s premier experts on military history and teaches strategy to the top military cadets in Britain. He tends to be unbiased in politics and his beliefs should be taken seriously. I especially like his concluding reminder to opponents:
“Words of caution may seem wise at the moment. How will they sound when Saddam has the bomb? It will be too late then for the opponents of action now to say that they meant well. Saddam does not mean well at all.”
2:19 PM
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