Is Kerry A Good Democrat?

I assume that the Kerry people now agree that lying and misrepresentation about Vietnam-era behavior is relevant to current fitness for command. But never mind; this post is not about that. It’s about something that risks being lost amid all the current hoohah over possibly forged documents possibly put out by the Kerry campaign and the recent polls showing Bush ahead: a very interesting poll conducted by the German Marshall Fund that surveyed 11,000 people in the United States and Europe.

Among its interesting findings:

  • Asked whether it was essential to secure the approval of the United Nations before using military force, 81 percent of Democrats said yes, and 69 percent of Republicans said no;
  • Sixty-two percent of Republicans strongly agreed it was justified to bypass the United Nations when the country’s vital interests were threatened, compared with 18 percent of Democrats; 33 percent of Democrats strongly disagreed;
  • 63 percent of Republicans strongly agreed that military action to eliminate terrorist organizations is the most appropriate way to fight terrorism, compared with 23 percent of Democrats;
  • Seventy-seven percent of Democrats said it was essential to win the approval of key Europeans before using military force in a future situation similar to Iraq, while Republicans split on that question; 48 percent said it was not essential and 46 percent said it was.

Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund, stated that “Democrats are showing a much stronger inclination toward the United Nations.” In fact, he said, “the “Democratic numbers are closer to the center and even to the left of the European spectrum.”

These numbers tend to confirm what I have argued before (here most recently) — that the Democrats are becoming more and more a clone of rigidly ideological European left-wing splinter parties.

Say What? (3)

  1. James September 10, 2004 at 6:04 pm | | Reply

    John-

    The picture you paint with your post is too broad. This is an interesting tidbit on Kerry

    from Peter Kirsanow at the National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200403090827.asp

    According to the Boston Globe, John Kerry stunned many liberals during a 1992 speech before the Yale Political Union by contending that, “today the civil rights arena is controlled by lawyers and the winners and losers [are] determined by…rules most Americans neither understand or are sympathetic with. The shift in the civil rights agenda has directed most of our attention and much of our hope into one inherently limited and divisive program: affirmative action.”

    Kerry went on to note that, “[t]he truth is affirmative action has kept America thinking in racial terms.” The Globe reported Kerry maintained that affirmative action wasn’t supposed to result in quotas, yet: “Not only by legislation, but by administrative decree and court order, a vast and bewildering apparatus of affirmative action rules and guidelines has been constructed. And somewhere within that vast apparatus conjured up to fight racism there exists a reality of reverse discrimination, that actual engenders racism.”

  2. John Rosenberg September 10, 2004 at 6:22 pm | | Reply

    James – This post didn’t paint any picture of Kerry. I’m aware of Kerry’s comments at Yale about affirmative action. I wonder if he remembers them? He’d certainly be a more interesting candidate today if he still agreed with them, as Lieberman would have been in 2000 if he hadn’t similarly disavowed his similar comments.

  3. mikem September 10, 2004 at 11:13 pm | | Reply

    I agree that the repeated wishful thinking was unnecessary, but I can live with that. My disgust is for the unashamed performance of the MSM in running interference for Kerry and his incredibly hypocritical “band of brothers” posture. He has no honor and the MSM has obviously reveled in the chance to twist the knife into Vietnam veterans one more time. If Kerry wins, his victory will an insult to every man and woman who ever served.

Say What?