No, I didn’t watch the so-called debate between Al Gore and Bill
Bradley last week.
I didn’t think I would learn anything. I was wrong.
Had I watched, I would have learned that the Democratic Party’s top
leadership — not just a fringe element within the ranks — is so deeply
and uncompromisingly committed to the ugliest and most totalitarian
aspects of socialism as to represent an imminent threat to freedom in
this country.
I refer to the observations made by Bill Bradley when asked, in
essence: Who were the three greatest leaders in world history?
Without so much as a whimper of protest from his opponent, nor a
guffaw from the hand-picked Democratic Party activist audience present,
Bradley said there are “three values … important that a leader has to
have. One is absolute integrity — honesty and integrity. And there I
think of Jimmy Carter. Second, I think that a leader has got to have the
ability to see around the corners, to see the future before it’s here. I
think Woodrow Wilson had that. What he talked about America became
America in the 20th century. And next, I think a leader has to have
courage. Example of that, I would pick somebody who’s not an American,
Mikhail Gorbachev, who saw that the world was (changing), and had the
courage to make that change.”
Let’s talk about those sterling examples of leadership:
- Carter: Bradley is right that Jimmy Carter had honesty and
integrity. But he was, most Americans agreed then and agree now, a lousy
president. I say this as someone who voted for him twice. He was a
loser. He nearly destroyed the U.S. military (though not to the extent
of Bill Clinton). He blamed Americans for the failure of his own failed
economic policies. - Wilson: Woodrow Wilson was the first U.S. president to advocate
the sacrifice of American sovereignty and self-determination in favor of
a global order through the League of Nations, the predecessor to the
United Nations. He also signed into law the Federal Reserve System, an
abomination to those who believe in republican accountability, the rule
of law and free markets. He was hardly the visionary Bradley describes.
He was as responsible as anyone for getting America into World War I. - Gorbachev: Mikhail Gorbachev, the scourge of Afghanistan, did
not, as Bradley suggests, “have the courage to change.” Perhaps Bradley
needs to be reminded that Gorbachev was removed from power in a
bloodless coup. He had not transformed Russia. He was and remains today
universally hated in his country. He was a tyrant and never willingly
relinquished power. He never willingly recognized the inalienable rights
of his people. In fact, to this day, he has never renounced socialism or
Communism.
It says a lot about Bradley that he chose Gorbachev as one of
three outstanding world leaders of all time. He did not choose Noah,
Moses, nor King Solomon. He did not choose Jesus Christ, nor the Apostle
Paul. He did not choose George Washington, nor Thomas Jefferson, nor
James Madison. He did not even choose Winston Churchill, Margaret
Thatcher, nor Ronald Reagan. No. He chose Gorbachev, an unrepentant
Communist tyrant who dropped bombs that looked like toys in a genocidal
war against the Afghan people in our own lifetime!
You have to wonder how Bradley reconciles his selections of Carter
and Gorbachev. During his administration, Carter recognized Gorbachev as
the brute that he was for invading Afghanistan in a failed attempt to
dash toward the Persian Gulf oil fields. Carter’s response was
characteristically feeble. He chose to boycott the Olympics in protest.
This is not a joke, folks. I think Bill Bradley has an excellent
chance of becoming the next president of the United States. He is
running ahead of Gov. George W. Bush, the all-but crowned Republican
front-runner, in some polls. He is certainly a genuine threat to win the
Democratic presidential nomination.
What does all this say about the sad state of American politics? Such
poor choices were not even challenged by Gore. Have millions of
Americans lost their collective minds? And what does it say about the
U.S. press establishment, which didn’t even consider Bradley’s
incredible response to the question newsworthy?
