Friday, October 01, 2004
Kerry Invokes FBI Translator Problems in First Debate
According to this transcript:
KERRY: The president just said the FBI had changed its culture. We just read on the front pages of America's papers that there are over 100,000 hours of tapes, unlistened to. On one of those tapes may be the enemy being right the next time.
And the test is not whether you're spending more money. The test is, are you doing everything possible to make America safe?
We didn't need that tax cut. America needed to be safe.
Kerry's solution to the FBI's translator shortage problem, as I explained at length in National Review Online this week, is to make the problem worse by imposing translation mandates for Arabic and other languages throughout the length and breadth of the United States.
The costs of such a mandate are unknown. Add to it all the personal injury lawsuits Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, and his fellow trial lawyers will bring against doctors for using a translator who spoke the wrong version of Arabic or Chinese and there will be precious little money left to provide tax cuts or make America safer.
One more thought about tax cuts. It seems that Kerry believes absolutely everything the government spends money on domestically is a vital necessity from which can be spared not a penny, but national defense is a luxury good which must be paid for by steep tax increases.
There were those who argued (and still do) that the United States should be spending lots more money on foreign aid and the United Nations instead of aggressively defending American interests. Had Gore been in office on September 11th, 2001, the question is not whether we would be fighting in Iraq, but rather would we be fighting anywhere, including Afghanistan?
The Clinton-Gore approach treated terrorist attacks, such as an unsuccessful attempt to blow up New York's World Trade Center, as a law enforcement/foreign aid issue. This approach has the advantage of being considerably cheaper and less likely to interfere with welfare spending at home. Its disadvantage is that it makes us appear to our enemies like craven cowards who seek to buy our way out of trouble.
Osama bin Laden thought America would fold up its tent in Israel, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere if his attacks on September 11th succeeded. How he got that idea remains worthy of discussion in this presidential race.
|posted by Jim on 8:27 PM|
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