VansOpinion - ISN'T IT IRONIC

This article was forwarded to be by one of my loyal readers and attributed to a Rick Moskowitz who I frankly have never heard of. The author points out a number of things which one might have noted by watching the entire Democratic Party Convention which took place in Boston several days ago. The article certainly contains information worthy of pondering prior to election day.

Has anyone given any thought to the irony pouring forth during many of the speeches at the Democratic convention in Boston this past week?

Does anybody see the irony in Jimmy Carter lecturing us on the "evils" of "preemptive war" and on President Bush's alleged lack of leadership on the Middle East? Wouldn't that be the same Jimmy Carter whose idea of leadership on the Middle East was to sit by and do absolutely nothing for 444 days while over 60 American citizens, many of whom were accredited diplomats serving their country, were held captive by Muslim fundamentalists in Iran?

Does anyone see the irony in the Rev. Al Sharpton preaching to the country about the lies President Bush allegedly told when making the case for American troops to go into Iraq? Wouldn't that be same Al Sharpton who jump-started his career as a "civil rights leader" by spreading the lie that Tawana Brawley, a high school student in suburban New York City, had been raped and tortured by five "racist" police officers and a "racist" prosecutor in Dutchess County, New York? The same Al Sharpton who was reported by one of his aides at the time to have said that he thought Brawley's story sounded like "bull" but was spreading it anyway because he thought it would make him "the biggest [N-word] in New York." The very same Reverend Sharpton who was found liable by a jury for intentionally slandering the good name of six law enforcement officials who were guilty of nothing more than doing their jobs, and who ended up having to pay nearly half a million dollars in damages for defamation.

What about the irony in Ted Kennedy pounding the podium about what he called the bad character of President Bush and Vice President Cheney? Wouldn't that be the same Ted Kennedy who showed what his character was made of by getting drunk at a party, picking up a young lady, installing her in the back seat of his car, driving the car off a bridge, and leaving her there to drown while he agonized for several hours about whether to call the police because he was afraid of what this would do to his political career? And the Ted Kennedy who has yet to apologize for what in most states would have been prosecuted as manslaughter or even murder.

Does anyone see the irony in Al Gore holding forth about how wrong President Bush supposedly was for "unilaterally" abandoning the Kyoto environmental treaty? The same Kyoto treaty that Gore "negotiated" and President Clinton unilaterally abandoned before he left office, because he, Clinton, knew that it would have forced the United States to make all kinds of concessions that were demanded by Europe and China but would have hurt American businesses, without getting anything in return.

And speaking of Al Gore, what about the irony in hearing him whine (again) about how President Bush allegedly stole the election in 2000? Wasn't that the same Al Gore who deployed an army of lawyers to Florida to invalidate as many votes as possible from military men and women serving our country overseas? The very same Al Gore who claimed he wanted to make sure all the votes in Florida were counted, but sought a recount only in the state's three most Democratic-leaning counties (Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade).

How about the irony of Dennis Kucinich attacking President Bush for his record on the environment and the economy? Wouldn't that be the Dennis Kucinich who was Mayor of Cleveland in the late 1970s when the Cuyahoga River, which runs right through the center of that city, literally caught fire because it was so polluted? The very same Mayor Kucinich who drove Cleveland into bankruptcy by refusing to pay the city's bills?

And finally, does anyone see the irony in Teresa Heinz Kerry trying to reassure the American people that her husband would keep our country safe from terrorism? The same Teresa Heinz Kerry who has contributed millions of dollars to the shadowy Tides Foundation, which funds, amongst other groups, the terrorist-allied Council on Islamic-American Relations. (If you don't believe me, click on: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12187 and/or http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/202 .)

I know, I know. None of these people are running for President, John Kerry is. But none of these speakers would have been allowed to take the podium in the first place without the approval, if not the INVITATION, of the Kerry campaign. According to every newspaper account I've read on the subject, Kerry's campaign vetted each and every speech in advance before it was delivered on the campaign floor, to make sure that the rhetoric was not so extreme that it would scare the American people or alienate moderates and "undecideds." They made sure Michael Moore didn't get to speak, and wasn't seen with Kerry, even though Moore showed up at the convention as an "uninvited" guest and sat next to Jimmy Carter, the expert on how to exercise leadership in the Middle East, immediately after Carter delivered his stirring words about the same.

Yet Kerry and his aides apparently thought Carter, Sharpton, Kucinich, Gore, Ted Kennedy, and their rhetoric, were perfectly okay. What do you think? Were they perfectly okay? Did you appreciate the speakers' irony? On November 2, 2004, we get to decide.