My roommate is anti-Bush, but not pro-Kerry. I'm pro-Bush, and anti-Kerry, which makes me feel a lot better about my decision to vote for Bush come November. There are so many reasons not to like Kerry. You could look at the superficiality of his war record, three purple hearts, honorable discharge, etc., and think he was a good soldier. But you dig a bit deeper and see that he was only there for four months. You also find many, many quotes from people who served below him, or were his supervisors while over there, and the condemnation is resounding. He "required constant supervision," he "showed disdain for authority and for the military," he was "devious, self-absorbing, manipulative, disdain for authority, disruptive," and he "arrived in country with a strong anti Vietnam War bias and a self serving determination to build a foundation for his political future." Then you get to the whole medal throwing fiasco. Depending on whether you ask him on Thursday or Friday, he either threw his own medals, just threw the ribbons, or he threw someone else's medals. Seeing as he still has his, with the ribbons, choice three seems to be correct. And don't forget the allegations of how he got his purple hearts. At least one medic that treated him says one of his injuries was very suspicious, possibly caused by Kerry's own clumsiness while in camp, and barely more than a scratch, but his superior officer awarded him the medal as much to get him to stop whining, and perhaps get him out of that command as soon as possible. Just the type of person we want running the country.

He's a man whose first marriage brought him in to a $300 million fortune, whose second marriage netted him at least a billion, with some estimates as high as $3.8 billion. He's probably never worked a hard day in his life, except for his own self-gratification and glory. He has several multi-million dollar homes all over the country, and jets back and forth in his private plane while lambasting Republicans for their oil dependence.

He refuses to take a stand on any issue except one, he's not Bush. But we all knew that already, and, to me, it's hardly a ringing endorsement. He voted to authorize the war in Iraq before he voted to not pay for the war in Iraq. And a few months he was totally against ever having gone in there, despite having approved of it previously. Must be nice when you can do a 180 on an issue and don't have to live with the consequences. Now that things are going fairly well in Iraq, with democracy beginning to take hold, suddenly he's more of a centrist hawk, especially with the Democratic Convention giving him the chance to move right on the world stage, for a week anyway. He's never given any clue of his stance in the Israel-Palestine situation, and, being a pro-Israel type myself, I cannot understand how any Jew could vote for him when he's as likely to get elected and tell the U.N. that they are in charge of the dismantling of Israel as he is to support Israel. He doesn't have any plan for fighting Islamic terrorism except that it's not a religious thing (then how come all the terrorists are extremist Muslims?), and that he would build more international support. With whom? For what, exactly? The only way to get the French, Germans, and Russians in his corner would be to basically give up some of the USA's sovereignty to the U.N.

Compare all this to George W. Bush. Since Bush took office the economy has rebounded from the doldrums of the post-dot.com era, Afghanistan is having free and democratic elections, with Iraq headed in the same direction. There have been no major terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11. Despite the clamor heard from the left, there is only one single instance of a citizen's civil liberties being taken away, and the Supreme Court has since reversed that (Jose Padilla, in case you were wondering). Bush freed a country from an evil dictator, and lost very few American lives in the bargain. Before his election, Bush seemed to be somewhat of an isolationist, but obviously 9/11 changed things, and he should not and cannot be blamed for reversing on that ideal, instead he ought to be congratulated for adapting to face a threat none of us saw coming. Other than that he has, to my knowledge, done only what he said he would do when he ran for election the first time.

Bush '04!