Wes Vernon
May 5, 2008


Senator John McCain — the presumptive Republican presidential nominee — remains an enigma. He stands up to those who want us to soft-pedal the source of the terrorist threat. But he caves to Democrats when they express the slightest displeasure. Go figure.

This is a quiz

All right, class, today's lesson is a multiple-choice quiz:

The terrorists who on 9/11 slammed passenger airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field were identified as:

A-The Beatles; B-The Three Stooges; C-The Red Cross; D-The Chamber of Commerce; E-Radical Islamists; F-The United Way.

What is the answer? No coaching from the audience, please...You say the answer is "E?" Corrrrrrrect! You go to the head of the class!

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and similar groups have decreed that we should never even whisper the word Islam in connection with terror. Shades of the practice in the old Nazi- and Communist-occupied countries of "redacting" — i.e., blacking out — words or whole passages in school textbooks that offended the occupying powers that be.

Shut up and look the other way

So it is that a coalition of Muslim groups has demanded that candidate McCain stop using the word "Islamic" to describe terrorists who want to kill those Americans who fail to bow down to the "religion of peace."

Muneer Fareed, head of the Islamic Society of North America, has whined to the Washington Times that "certainly, we should think seriously about just characterizing them [terrorists] as criminals, because that's what they are."

No, Mr. Fareed. We should not call them "just criminals," because they are more than that. They are terrorists who — in the name of Islam — have declared war on the United States. People who claim to be following the Koran want to kill us. Got that? Kill us! Not try to convert us if we decline their invitation. Not offer to live with us in a culture of mutual respect. Not respect the oft-repeated touchy-feely pleas for "diversity" (a non-existent word, by the way, in countries where they are in the majority).

No, Mr. Fareed. They want to kill us. Do we have to draw a picture? If you and your "peaceful Muslim" colleagues would spend as much time condemning, pressuring, disassociating yourselves from, and hectoring your murderous co-religionists who claim they're only doing it in your name — if you would spend as much time doing that as you spend telling the rest of us to shut up — we might be able to have a different conversation. Maybe then we could shed our suspicions that your inactions — ranging from weak disclaimers to outright silence — are motivated by a fear of retaliation in the form of a personal jihad. If that's what's going on, we need to get it out in the open. Some suspect that "honor killings" have taken place on American soil.

Politicians: Ooooh! Mustn't say naughty word

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama avoid the term "Islamic terrorism," opting instead for "War on Terror," possibly out of a desire to avoid antagonizing the terrorist lobby. So too does President Bush himself, perhaps believing that getting the terrorist bloc mad at him could send his already-meager approval ratings to rock bottom.

McCain to terrorist apologists: Take a hike

Senator McCain frequently uses the term "Islamic" to describe our terrorist enemies. The Arizonan's media strategist Steve Schmidt says, "Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda represent a perverted strain of Islam at odds with the great many peaceful Muslims.... But the reality is, the hateful ideology which underpins bin Ladenism is properly described as radical Islamic extremism. Senator McCain refers to it that way because that is what it is."

Imagine that! Calling something what it is!

Then there's the other McCain

While standing up to terrorists, however, Senator McCain has shown a remarkable tendency to back off when partisan Democrats bear their fangs. At that point, he condemns his own allies, just as he did during Senate debates of McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and McCain-Lieberman. Coming just as the senator is trying to patch things up with the Republican Party's conservative base, this is pure poison for Mr. McCain's own efforts to bolster a disconsolate GOP rank and file.

More importantly, it is wrongheaded on the merits. The latest example of the senator's unfriendly political fire spotlighted an ad run by the North Carolina Republican Party. The TV spot showed the widely publicized fiery sermon of Barack Obama's years-long pastor calling on God to condemn America. It went on to link Rev. Jeremiah Wright with two North Carolina gubernatorial candidates who had endorsed Obama.

This is no-holds-barred, but well within the bounds of politics as a contact sport. Senator McCain, who spent five years sassing back his torturers at the Hanoi Hilton, should understand that this ad — by comparison — as pure patty-cake.

North Carolina's Republican Chairman Linda Daves — a slip of a woman with a backbone of fireproof steel — refused to yank the ad despite McCain's urging. She then drew a demarcation outlining where the senator's sphere of authority ends and hers begins. She will run the McCain campaign in her state any way the senator wants her to do. But this current ad in question dealt with state candidates, is therefore a state matter, and thus (my words, not hers) none of the senator's business.

Democrats' orders to McCain

Predictably, Democrats viewed McCain's pleas to Daves — not as an act of good will or fair play — but as a sure sign of weakness. When there is blood in the water, the sharks go for the kill.

Intoned Democrat National Committee spokeswoman Karen Finney: "Instead of sending e-mails [to Daves], Senator McCain could take action to show he's serious by firing the state party chair from her position with the Republican National Convention and kicking the Republican Party leaders who helped fund this ad off his campaign steering committees."

Oh, right. And why stop there? I understand capital punishment is still allowable in North Carolina.

This is not the first time McCain has indulged himself in this kind of silliness. He also reprimanded a talkshow host for referring to Barack Hussein Obama by his name, and took to task a supporter who joked about Hillary Clinton's ad about answering the White House phone at 3 a.m. The jokester said the only time Hillary would be on the phone at 3 in the morning would be to ask where her husband is. So now we (1) cannot "insult" an opponent by calling him by his name and (2) can't take a joke. This campaign needs to lighten up.

It's time

That in fact may be happening. Senator McCain has since calmed down on the North Carolina ad kafuffle. Apparently he is beginning to understand that — just as it is not a good idea to kick the soccer ball at your own team's goalposts — so too is it not a winning strategy for a Republican candidate to fire away at fellow Republicans rather than at Democrats. Surely, a man who stood up to his tormentors in Hanoi and the Islamic pressure groups here at home would understand that.

Wes Vernon is a Washington-based writer and veteran broadcast journalist.

© Copyright 2008 by Wes Vernon
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/vernon/080505

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• Violent chickens roost on candidates' shoulders: exploring the liberal/Marxist nexus
  
  
• Defense jobs shift overseas=foreign policy by threat or fear?
  
  
• California secession from the U.S.: The coming war with Russia?
  
  
• Convention fight? Great, get me a front row seat!
  
  
• The enemies of free speech are on the march (Part 10)
  
  
• The new "inconvenient truth" that dares not say its name
  
  

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