Washington, D.C. -- Last weekend at Fed Ex Field, just outside the nation's capital, the self-styled all-American rock-and-roller Bruce Springsteen played one of his marathon sessions to an enthusiastic crowd. They were approving -- that is, until "The Boss" interrupted his performance to complain about domestic politics and the war on terror.
Springsteen informed the crowd that people of all political stripes attend his concerts and everybody is welcome -- "with the exception of Dick Cheney." Springsteen has banned the vice president of the United States from his concerts -- not that Cheney would go anyway -- because he is part of an administration that Springsteen accuses of "playing with the truth during wartime." Springsteen is so upset that President George W. Bush is actually attacking the terrorists that he announced to the crowd, "It's time to impeach the president and replace him with the Big Man," referring to his longtime saxophonist Clarence Clemons.
 No thanks, Bruce, the American people have already suffered through one saxophone-playing president.
Springsteen's tirade is part of the echo chamber that emanates from the presidential campaign trail in which Democratic candidates are using hateful and craven rhetoric to attack the president and his efforts to defend Americans from terrorism. Dick Gephardt calls the president a "miserable failure," and Al Sharpton calls him a "gang leader." They carp about "quagmire," whine about "winning the peace," and insist that America's fate in the war on terrorism should be turned over "to the U.N. and the international community."
Three days after Springsteen's tirade, Democrats on Capitol Hill were singing the same song. Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, with California minority leader Nancy Pelosi at his side, now claims that he was duped into voting for the war and demands that "somebody has to be held responsible" for what he now perceives as a good idea gone bad.
Who should be held responsible -- Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, who has won two wars in two years, or Attorney General John Ashcroft, who, unlike Janet Reno, is actually taking steps to capture and incarcerate terrorists? The United States is engaged in a war on terrorism -- a war that started long before Sept. 11, 2001 -- and while it may not be pretty (no war is), President Bush and his team are actually fighting it, unlike his predecessor.
And so the criticisms of presidential wannabes and Hollywood elites beg the question: Do you really want to return to the days of Bill Clinton, when the United States refused to participate in a war that was being foisted upon us?
Clinton's initiation to the evils of terrorism came early in his tenure. About a month after his inauguration -- on Feb. 26, 1993 -- terrorists rented a van, packed it with more than 2,000 pounds of explosives, and parked it in the garage of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000. Their goal was to bring down the building and murder tens of thousands of Americans, and President Clinton's response was to "discourage the American people from overreacting." Continued... |