Whose Side Are Democrats On? Part III

"Americans face the choice between two parties with two different attitudes on this war on terror."

--George W. Bush, September 28, 2006

With little more than a month to go before the November elections voters are faced with some stark contrasts. On the one hand, the Republican Party, with all it's faults and flaws has managed under the leadership of President Bush to keep us safer these past five years; stopping planned attacks in the United States. On the other hand, Democrats brag, as Harry Reid did about "killing the Patriot Act" and have continued to obstruct, undermine or expose every tool we have used to prevent further attacks.

In the past week, President Bush has "taken off the gloves" in speeches addressing the contrast in the political choice we face:

"Five years after the 9/11 attacks, some people in Washington still do not understand the nature of the enemy. The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world."
...
"The party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run."

Are these comparisons unfair? We have more than the Democrats words themselves that make this case, we have Democrat votes in both houses of Congress. In June 2006, 149 Democrats voted AGAINST a resolution in the House of Representatives which "declares that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary." The remainder of the resolution "honors all those Americans who have taken an active part in the Global War on Terror" and rejects the cut and run tactics.

On September 27, 2006 168 House Democrats voted against the Military Commissions Act which set up court procedures to try terrorist detainees currently held at Guantanamo and granted terrorists greater rights than any non-US citizen ever held for attacking and killing Americans.

The Act also limited aggressive interrogations according to the compromise formula negotiated by Senator's McCain, Graham and Warner. 34 Democrats in the Senate also voted AGAINST the compromise.

Senator McCain insisted that the practice of "waterboarding," which gives the sensation of drowning without harming the prisoner would be disallowed. Even with that assurance, Senator Kennedy rose to proclaim his opposition to waterboarding, which some find macabre considering how the police diagrams at the crime scene where Mary Jo Kopechne died in the car Senator Kenney drove off the bridge in Chappaquiddick in July 1969 suggest she died a horrible, slow death.

Even though the Military Commission Act granted terrorists unprecedented rights, Democrats may not be satisfied until terrorists are granted full U.S. citizenship and voting rights. It's just a shame they won't be able to get absentee ballots down to Gitmo in time for the fall election!

The 2006 Congressional election will decide whether we win or lose in Iraq. It will decide whether we continue the fight against terrorism or begin a long slow slide to surrender. Democrats have made their position clear. President Bush has made the Republican record clear.

Whose side are YOU on?