The Candidates’ Moment of Truth

A question for this and future Presidential debates

by Vincent Fiore
07/01/04

The 9/11 Commission is wrapping up its investigations into the events leading up to that fateful September day in 2001. In late July, around the time of the Democratic National Convention, the Commission will issue its report and recommendations.

For those of you expecting anything conclusive regarding Presidents Bush and Clinton in the way of definitive responsibility for 9/11, forget it. This report will be the equivalent of most modern-day Presidential memoirs: hundreds of pages filled with sidebar commentary, bereft of any new insights into who did what and why.

Bush supporters will find fault with it, if only for the committee’s disregard of Clinton’s eight years of ineffectiveness as compared to Bush’s eight months of barely breaking in the Oval Office chair.

Democrat supporters will spin it to look as a referendum against the war in Iraq, (which, incidentally, should have nothing to do with the "9/11 Commission") and use it as a campaign issue for John Kerry. As to the much ballyhooed "bipartisan committee," they will go back to a life of near obscurity and the occasional C-SPAN appearance.

Now, we have all heard that there is plenty of blame to go around. Isn't that just so accommodating of the talking heads among the press and political establishment? One wonders when reality will rear its oft-ignored head and point out that the self-indulging game of blame is well past. We are a country… no, a lifestyle, under attack. The very ideals that shaped America are under a relentless assault from an enemy that would as soon kill itself to see you dead.

This war will be generational, for the terrorists that hide among the tenants of Islam behave like New York City cockroaches: turn on the kitchen lights, and they scatter to the four corners of the room. Cut off the head, and another grows in its place. For they are vermin in most every sense the word can accommodate, and we freedom loving people must be the exterminator that never tire’s of setting our heel upon them.

So after the media have their turn at misrepresenting the facts of the 9/11 Commission (again…) and after said Commission makes its recommendations, we're still left with an enemy that seeks to plunge the world of light into one of darkness. Here then, is the issue at hand.

It is almost a certainty that Jim Lehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the host of "The News Hour," will make his 10th appearance in the last four Presidential elections as a moderator for at least one of the presidential debates this year between Bush and Kerry. Mr. Lehrer is looked upon as a rarity of sorts: a commentator who holds himself above the polemics of party politics. (Yes. Now about that bridge in Brooklyn for sale…)

As is his way, Lehrer will be ingratiating to the candidates a bit at first, getting them comfortable with him, then aim them at each other. After the first 30 minutes of thrust and counterthrust by the candidates, Lehrer needs to come in with a high hard one aimed at the heads of the candidates, and the following mock exchange may be an indicator of what we'll see should he do just that:

Jim Lehrer: Senator Kerry, how would you define victory in the war on terrorism?

Senator Kerry: First Jim, let me say that I have always supported the war on terrorism right from the start. I led the fight against terrorism in the Eighties and Nineties, and have always supported our troops in this effort, as I have always done. The President has "deceived" and "mislead the American people" by having "rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts." He has not assembled a "broad coalition" to fight terrorism, because of his "arrogant unilateralism." There was a time when America "extended a hand, not a fist," to our European allies. The President has "circumvented the process" and "made an end run around the United Nations."

"I know for a fact that there are countries prepared to be helpful" if the President were acting under the United Nations. From the beginning, Jim, terrorism was "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world - the very thing this Administration is worst at." Now, because of this Administration having done "too little" to fight the war on terrorism, Iraq may not yet become a quagmire, it but "it's possible that could develop there, if there isn't a wisdom applied to these...decisions." If I’m elected President, Jim, "I will not only personally go to the UN, I will go to other capitals...I will immediately reach out to other nations in a very different way from this Administration. Within weeks of being inaugurated, I will return to the UN and I will literally, formally rejoin the community of nations and turn over a proud new chapter in America's relationship with the world."

Jim Lehrer: President Bush, how would you define victory in the war on terrorism?

President Bush: I think in this instance, this war in our history that I define victory as not succumbing to the enemies of the civilized world, no matter how long it takes. "The defeat of violence and terror in Iraqis vital to the defeat of violence and terror elsewhere, and vital, therefore, to the safety of the American people. Now is the time, and Iraq is the place, in which the enemies of the civilized world are testing the will of the civilized world. We must not waver...."

"The consequences of failure in Iraq would be unthinkable. Every friend of America and Iraq would be betrayed to prison and murder as a new tyranny arose. Every enemy of America and the world would celebrate, proclaiming our weakness and decadence, and using that victory to recruit a new generation of killers."

"We will succeed in Iraq....Iraq will be a free, independent country, and America and the Middle East will be safer because of it....We serve the cause of liberty, and that is always...a cause worth serving."

It’s easy to see from the above that we are seeing two polar opposites in policy. Bush has a vision that spans a generation, while Kerry’s vision cannot extend past the prism of winning the presidency. Self-absorbed and oleaginous in his desire, Kerry has never explained his plan for the war on terrorism coherently, and cannot-as he lacks the vision and heart necessary to do this. Bush, for his part, has kept the same message from the beginning of this fight.

If Mr. Lehrer should by chance happen upon this question in preparation for the debate, let us hope he asks it. Let us further hope that many Americans are watching him on a brisk autumn night in October when the leaves are beginning to fall, and a moment of truth arises.