News Intelligence Analysis
It Was A Rout!
How Bush Made America Weaker
By Katherine Yurica
October 1, 2004
Bellingham, WA.
We all saw the next president of the United States. He is a plain spoken man. There are no frills, no bells, and no fabrications. He’s not an actor. He’s not a phony. He is clearly a man for this hour, a man whose genuineness is compelling. He was relaxed but his mind was quick and steady. He forged a verbal path past the pitfalls that might have tempted weaker men to stray; he found the way to say the things that needed to be said, without offending. This craggy faced man, John Kerry, reminds me of Abraham Lincoln, a man who came to the presidency at an hour when his nation needed the greatest of leaders.
President Bush seemed to shrink before our eyes when we contrasted him to genuine strength. This diminutive little man can’t really be the President of the United States, I thought. He had always appeared to be so tall and strong, but last night in the first debate between Senator Kerry and the President, Mr. Bush grew smaller and smaller until I saw him as a little boy, trying to stand on his tip toes to bring his head above the podium. He pounded the podium to make his points, but it only made him look weaker.
The contrast between the two could not be broader. Kerry emerged as a tower of strength; Mr. Bush looked like a man who had been only playing the part of a strong man. Sadly, President Bush stuck to his fabrication implying that the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001 by Saddam Hussein.
John Kerry gently corrected the President:
“Jim, the president just said something extraordinarily revealing and frankly very important in this debate. In answer to your question about Iraq and sending people into Iraq, he just said, ‘The enemy attacked us.’
“Saddam Hussein didn’t attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaeda attacked us. And when we had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, 1,000 of his cohorts with him in those mountains, with the American military forces nearby and in the field, we didn’t use the best trained troops in the world to go kill the world’s number one criminal and terrorist.
“They outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who only a week earlier had been on the other side fighting against us, neither of whom trusted each other. That’s the enemy that attacked us. That’s the enemy that was allowed to walk out of those mountains. That’s the enemy that is now in 60 countries, with stronger recruits.”
The President responded,
“First of all, of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that.” The President tried to hide himself behind these words, “To think that another round of resolutions would have caused Saddam Hussein to disarm, disclose, is ludicrous, in my judgment. It just shows a significant difference of opinion.”
Senator Kerry responded:
“Thirty-five to forty countries in the world had a greater capability of making weapons at the moment the president invaded than Saddam Hussein. And while he’s been diverted, with nine out of ten active duty divisions of our Army, either going to Iraq, coming back from Iraq, or getting ready to go, North Korea’s gotten nuclear weapons and the world is more dangerous. Iran is moving toward nuclear weapons and the world is more dangerous. Darfur has a genocide. The world is more dangerous. I’d have made a better choice.”
The veil of star dust has been torn from Mr. Bush’s person. The nation saw him naked, exposed by his own lies. Let his team try to re-cloth him, let them try to put a better face on him. Allow the hard right pundits to spin their absurdities—but once America has seen a naked president trying to hide himself, they will never forget it. There is nothing that Mr. Cheney or Mr. Rove can do to save their boy from losing the presidency. America is awake now. Millions will be voting. Millions will be watching the polling places. There will be cameras everywhere. And the whole world is watching for the Lord has revealed “them as wicked men in the open sight of others…” Job 34:26. KJV.
Katherine Yurica was educated at East Los Angeles College, the University of Southern California and the USC school of law. She worked as a consultant for Los Angeles County and as a news correspondent for Christianity Today plus as a freelance investigative reporter. She is the author of three books. She is also the publisher of the Yurica Report.
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