Contrasts: Right and Wrong

A couple of pieces I read today pretty much represent the contrasts in attitudes prevelant today. Looking at each it is no wonder which political view is winning and which is imploding. One is entitled "The Fire of Freedom" while the other is "The Pollyanna Army".

The Authors of these two glaringly contrasting articles are Larry Elder and Sidney Blumenthal. Guess who wrote which. Elder writes in Jewish World Review, while Blumenthal writes in UK's Guardian.

Elder points out that President Bush said that democracies tend not to attack each other. The future of Iraq, the defense of America, and a successful prosecution of the War on Terror mean this: repressive, brutal, un-free, non-transparent governments must fall. A free Iraq threatens to ignite what the president called, in his most historic inaugural address, the "fire of freedom."

By contrast, Blumenthal calls the president's inaugural address as "a trumpet call of imperial ambion" and "soaring rhetoric". He refers to our military as a "volunteer" army, with emphasis on the quotation marks, as if it is not really voluntary. How insulting is that to our voluntary heros. While he grudgingly mentions we are on the eve of elections in Iraq, he says that neither the president's "soaring rhetoric nor the new secretary of state's fantasy numbers touch the brutal facts on the ground".

If Blumenthal can speak out in a European publication and call our army "pollyanna" , then he must reluctantly admit that Democrats are definitely "cassandra".

I am so thankful I live at a time wherein I can happily witness and celebrate the proliferation of new historic elections in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Palestine and yes, even Iraq. And to know our country has had major roles in the success of these and FUTURE victories of freedom.

I am at least equally thankful that I do not see the world through the unhappy viewpoint of the Cassandra party.