John Kerry Does It: Breaks the Taboo with his challenge

John Kerry Does It: Breaks the Taboo, and Shoves It Back Down Their Throats
by Paul Abrams
Posted July 20, 2007

I have been hoping, pleading, wishing that the issue of the war proponents not volunteering, that not a single member of the Bush family has volunteered, would rise to the surface. I have written about it on this site, and placed ads in Crawford, TX, newspapers when the White House Press Corps was in town to watch Bush clear brush while al-Qaeda plotted.

In "Ultimate Accountability: The Conspiracy of Silence", I pointed out why, namely that politicians and the MSM had an understanding that it would not be raised. Nonetheless, this is a very potent weapon, as I could personally attest having directly asked Jeb Bush and Bill Kristol those questions standing eyeball-to-eyeball, and, in both cases, noted the red-flushing of their faces and, in the case of Kristol, shouting "why should I, why should I?";and in the case of Jeb, turning on his heels and strutting away. Charlie Rangel said he introduced the draft proposal rather than confronting the subject directly. Charlie Rose wondered why to raise it? Howard Fineman, said "yeah, right."

John Kerry has done it. On Olbermann yesterday he said, "it is about time that those promoting this war offered up their own children to fight it, and anyone who themselves are 40 and under in the Congress and the Administration"...

This was in response to the letter Hillary Clinton received from Eric Edelman, former Cheney advisor, now in the Pentagon, and, according to Turkish newspapers, the absolute worst US Ambassador to Turkey in history. Edelman wrote that Clinton's letter asking what plans the Pentagon had for withdrawing US troops was, in effect, helping our enemies.

Democrats typically would slam the Administration for such accusations, thus succumbing to their invitation to join their argument. Indeed, that is what Hillary did in her response.

John Kerry did it better. He shoved it back down their throats so that they would choke on it. He also broke the taboo on calling for those voting and promoting the war volunteering themselves and having their own children go to Iraq.

This hypocrisy is NOT the major reason we should not have invaded to begin with, nor the main reason we should withdraw all our troops. It is, however, a potent weapon because it strikes at the most "reptilian" part of our brain: their fear conflicting with and overcoming their grand ideas of remaking the world so long as someone else took the risk.

Now, John Kerry has broken the taboo. Politicians, bloggers, and MSM -- repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.