Another Democrat For Bush

Another Democrat For Bush

In a long anticipated move, former Mayor of New York City, liberal Democrat Ed Koch has endorsed George W. Bush for president. Adding his name to Senator Zell Miller and St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly, Koch proclaimed:

Why have I endorsed George W. Bush when I don't agree with him on a single domestic issue? Because I believe the issue of international terrorism trumps all other issues. I don't believe the Democratic Party has the stomach and commitment to deliver on this issue.

I believe terrorism will be with us for many years to come. So long as Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd are considered major leaders of the Democratic Party, and so long as we have radical candidates like Howard Dean, whose radical-left supporters have been described by the press as "Deaniacs," the Democratic Party will be limited in its ability to serve the country well in times of crisis.

Everyone familiar with my political career knows that, along with my deep love for and gratitude to the United States and the City of New York for giving me extraordinary opportunities to serve the public, I am a Jew proud of my people's history and accomplishments.

Over the years, I have expressed my anxieties at the escalating worldwide anti-Semitism that now abounds in Western European countries such as France, England, Germany, Belgium, Holland and throughout Eastern Europe, including Russia. We haven't seen the likes of this rising tide of hatred directed at Jews since the 1930s. So, of course, I am interested in the views of the two presidential candidates toward Israel and its security.

President George W. Bush has amazed me.

And, as Zell Miller stated in Kelly's press release:

I am really pleased Mayor Randy Kelly has joined me in the effort to re-elect George W. Bush. Mayor Kelly knows, as I do, that George W. Bush represents the values of America's heartland. President Bush is a man Democrats and all Americans can rely on to stand by his commitments to fight terrorism and support our troops. The President is also making sure that working people keep more of their hard earned money and send their kids to schools that give every child a good start in life. These are values that my fellow Democrats and all Americans can support.

These are only three of the many lifelong democrats who are not buying the Ostrich politics of the political left. They think that they can have 1998 back again. I wish we could as well. But the world is very different today. 9/11 really happened, Afghanistan and Iraq really happened. We are at war. And thinking people everywhere know that health care and abortion mean little when compared to the fact that Jihadi fundamentalists with wherewithal, drunk on fantasies of world domination and wholesale death, mean to harm us, and will stop at nothing to do so. Most Americans know in their hearts that protecting the feelings of some Europeans with questionable loyalties means nothing compared to al Qaeda exploding a nuclear bomb in one of our container ports.

We must remain vigilant and forward-deployed. We must take this fight to the enemy, so that the dying takes place in a place of our choosing, not his. We must make common cause with Israel, since their enemy and ours are indistinguishable. And as long as the democrat party disagrees with these self-evident truths, they must not be allowed to have the power to disarm us again.

President Bush has shown, and has said, that 9/11 changed his thinking. JFKerry has shown us that his thinking has not. He says that his mindset 35 years ago is the true window into his soul. No wonder so many democrats will vote for Bush. Bud Ed Koch, the ultimate democrat political insider, said it best:

[W]hy I support President Bush for reelection. I support him because of the Bush Doctrine, "we will go after the terrorists and the countries that harbor them." He has demonstrated that he means it by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, both threats to their regions and to the U.S. I do not believe that the Democratic Party, which is now dominated by those who preferred Governor Dean for president, but decided he could not win, has the stomach to take on worldwide terrorism. Indeed, a New York Times-CBS poll of the delegates at the Boston Convention demonstrated their opposition to John Kerry's position which is not to get out of Iraq now. It is the party activists who the candidate has to rely on to get elected and whose positions generally prevail.

That says it. That's the gorilla in the room. Kerry can say whatever he wants, but he can not change who and what he is. And he can not change the American people, he can not make them vote for him by making up stories of his days with Martin Sheen, hunting Colonel Kurtz. Many more democrats are headed this way. We can hear their footsteps.