10:58 a.m. - 2005-08-27
Legitimate Debate
I listen to a lot of talk radio and if you know anything about the political talk radio circuit you would know how much it tends to lean to the right. From Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to Michael Savage as well as many others too numerous to name it would seem that the conservative party almost has a monopoly in this particular medium. It would seem that the next appropriate question would be why? Now I know that the first reason that might come to most peoples mind is that the conservative party is currently the dominant political power but that’s not the reason. Conservative talk radio flourished during the Clinton administration so it must be something else? In light of recent events surrounding our current military situation in Iraq I feel that the answer to this question is becoming clearer and clearer to most of us. With mouthpieces like Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and most recently Cindy Sheehan its no wonder that the once proud democratic party is quickly losing the hearts and minds of the average American voter. Don’t get me wrong even though I mostly support the war I realize that there is plenty of solid ground to debate against it. The problem is that the people that are speaking out against this war are not using that solid ground to debate on. Most of the dissention I hear is junk about oil and Halliburton and how bush and his cabinet waged a war to make money for the big corporations and that, according to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911, the bush family is best friends with the Saudis. Cindy Sheehan said just the other day that Iran should be able to have nuclear weapons if they wanted them and that America was an evil imperialistic nation. The problem with all of this ridiculous rhetoric is that the average fair-minded American can easily see the holes and inconsistencies in it. The facts are that Bush and his family were already millionaires before this war was even a twinkle in their eyes. This war has already cost over $300,000,000,000 dollars and depending on how it turns out could greatly hurt the way that bush will be historically viewed. Presidents don’t run for president for financial gain, are you kidding me, ……they spend more money on their campaign than they will ever get back in their four or eight year term. Presidents run for office for idealistic reasons. Ross Perot said that he would have given any amount of money to become president. Presidents want to become president to go down in history as great and no amount of money in the world can buy that. As far as being friends with the Saudis, as Michael Moore would like to have everyone believe, The Saudis wouldn’t let the U.S. use Saudi Arabia as a staging ground for this war. Saudi Arabia is the leader of OPEC, and again, if bush was in bed with the Saudis, why is the price of oil skyrocketing to over $67 a barrel, the highest it’s ever been! O, I’m sure that the Michael Moores and Cindy Sheehans of the group would try to tell us all something like the bush and Cheney family get their gas for .79 cents a gallon along with kickbacks for every barrel sold and that’s why they went to war. There’s almost no exaggeration there, these are the ridiculous notions that these people are trying to sell America, and its not selling. If I were leading the Democratic Party I would do the best that I could to muzzle these fanatics that are hijacking their name and open up the stage for legitimate political debate. John Kerry had some great points when he talked about going to war too hastily without a plan to win the peace. The political ideals that this war is based on would be the solid debate to have. These silly wild accusations are just hurting the antiwar cause.
