The Real Enemy
Colbert King, writing in the Washington Post, has a sharp rebuke for both political parties during this election year. As he points out, both parties should be working together to defeat the real enemy, the terrorists. They should not be regarding one another as the enemy that must be defeated.
It's amazing what a few days away from this politics-obsessed town can do for one's perspective. Seen from afar, the congressional debate over the war and terrorism comes across as a Washington event designed to show that Democrats are wimps on national security and to boost Republicans as true defenders of the homeland. Or Republicans are portrayed as clueless warmongers hell-bent on sending other people's sons and daughters into battle.
In reality, the struggle on Capitol Hill is not about terrorism. It's about gaining and holding power in the fall election. And it is a disgusting sight to behold.
Only five years after a horrifying new reality crashed into America, the political parties have lost sight of the nation's interests. Now it's all about getting elected.
So what if we are doing battle with an enemy that operates without a government behind its name? So what if it's the kind of enemy that boards an airplane containing schoolchildren and their teachers, mothers holding toddlers by the hand and other innocent civilians minding their own business? So what if it sets out to kill because the intended victims have the bad grace to live in America?
Unless I'm mistaken, the Sept. 11 hijackers didn't ask the doomed passengers if they were Democrats or Republicans. They didn't care one bit if the people strapped in their seats for takeoff were liberals, conservatives or neocons.
They made no politically correct announcements allowing women, children and people of color to leave the aircraft before the flight attendants closed the doors.
King makes several good points here. It is worth reading just to remember what - and who - we are supposed to be fighting together.
By Black Jack, Saturday, 23 September , 2006 @ 2:56 pm
I don’t buy the “everybody’s doing it” argument. Conservatives and most Republicans are fighting Islamic terrorism, but Dems have different enemies, they’re fighting against GWB, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Joe Lieberman, motherhood, and voter IDs.
So, yeah, both sides are involved in a fight, but one side wants the American people to win and the other side is only looking out for their own self interest.