DONKEY KONG


Democrats don’t take issue with the President on basic positions because they actually believe that:

a. we are hated throughout the world because we love liberty;

b. Karl Rove is smarter than they are;

c. rich people need incentives to get them out of bed in the morning; or

d. presidents are entitled to pick the laws they’ll obey and disobey, without telling us which.

"WAR" ON TERROR


"Everything” is said to have “changed” on 9/11 because:

a. it was easier to say that than figure out what actually changed and act accordingly;

b. if only a few things changed, like our appreciation for better airport, seaport and border security, a former draft-dodger calling himself the “war president” would have looked goofy;

c. trusting a president who trusted his gut wouldn’t have made sense in any world that any of us had ever inhabited before; or

d. the “everything” that “changed” could also be said to include the reasons for the legal limitations-on-what-presidents-can-do that were so unconstitutional and dangerous.


The idea of a “war on terror” remains a good one because:

a. our high-tech army is so fearsome that the President’s mere declaration of a war on terror has scared most of the terrorists silly;

b. the best way to separate terrorists from their supporters is to clear supporters out of their cities and reduce their cities to rubble;

c. we’ve put all evil regimes on notice that, if they defy us, we’ll invade and be welcomed with open arms and flowers; or

d. since terror will never be defeated, we’ll always be at war, and violations of legal limitations-on-what-presidents-can-do are easier to justify when the country is at least rhetorically at war.

ANN O'REXIA AWARDS*

*The Ann O’Rexia (or AO'R for short) is a platinum statuette of a slim, boney thing with long straight hair, scarey fingers and a fetching sneer.


... CHRISTIANITY

Which of the following sentiments most deserves the AO’R for true Christian feeling:

a. John Murtha is the reason soldiers invented fragging.

b. I really want to hurt Christophers Shays (D. Conn.). I want him to feel pain.

c. God said, “Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.”

d. The thing I like about Bush is I think he hates liberals.

e. My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.


... CHEMICAL IMBALANCE

Which of the following sentiments most deserves the AO’R for idiocy in the defense of idiocy:

a. It's no surprise that Democrats want Saddam Hussein back – he made them seem moderate by comparison.

b. Hitler carried the secularists' philosophy to its grisly conclusion.

c. Democrats have declared war against Republicans.

d. Republicans will be sitting in cells at Guantanamo after Hillary is elected.

e. Liberals are dangerous psychotics.

f. Liberals care only about destroying human life.

g. Libertarians don’t appreciate the benefits of local fascism.

h. Since 9/11, Democrats have nearly gone stark raving mad at having to mouth patriotic platitudes while burning with a desire to aid the enemy.

i. In liberal eyes, a man who is married with four children, whom he home-schools, is the moral equivalent to a Ku Klux Klanner.


... PRESCIENCE

Which of the following ridiculees most deserves the AO’R for turning out to have been right:

a. Democrat moneyman George Soros, for suggesting that “democracy cannot be imposed by military means;”

b. Nicholas Lehman, for writing that “It is difficult to find anybody in Washington, in either party, who will seriously defend Bush's management of Iraq;”

c. Al Gore, for laying out the Democrats “full traitorous case” by suggesting we should not get sidetracked by Saddam Hussein;

d. Dick Gephardt, for calling President Bush a "miserable failure."

e. Columnist Bob Herbert, for suggesting that "Competence has never been highly regarded by the fantasists of the George W. Bush administration."

IRAQ


The President was right to lead us into war because:

a. removing Saddam Hussein was the only way to ensure that death-loving, America-hating foreigners would never again manage to smuggle box-cutters onto American airliners;

b. if there was as much as a one percent chance that invading Iraq might increase our security, even by as little as one percent, the number of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who would certainly be killed and maimed was irrelevant;

c. it’s better to concentrate as many American targets as possible in a place whose borders are even more porous than ours, so jihadi terrorists from around the world can attack Americans without having to clear US Customs; or

d. a real war makes violations of legal limitations-on-what-presidents-can-do even easier to justify than the rhetorical kind.


Republicans will never "cut and run" because:

a. they need to live down their sorry record of cutting and running from Korea and Vietnam;

b. if they did cut and run, they'd just have to trump up another war somewhere else;

c. if the country got the idea that it could cut one of the losses inflicted on it in the last five years, there's no telling where it would all end; or

d. they're too fat to walk, much less run, and wouldn't want to risk breaking a claw.


Democrats fear the "cut and run" label because:

a. they already cut and ran -- when the President was misleading the country into war;

b. they too are afraid that brute strength is the only resource the country really has to draw upon;

c. they're too uninformed or witless to propose rational alternatives; or

d. it's been so long since they took a stand on principle that few would view it as such if they ever did.


Democrats are best advised to take no position on Iraq because:

a. leaving the country to toss and turn in the bed the President has made for it will eventually prove that Democrats are ready for leadership;

b. vacillation is a proven winner at the polls;

c. indecision about how to use the military makes them look "stronger on security" than explaining why some security problems do not have military solutions; or

d. defending the least bad of the awful options the President has presented us requires smarts and guts that Democrats just don’t have.


The only chance we have of being out of Iraq by 2009 is if:

a. more troops are needed in Iran;

b. God instructs the President to reinstitute the draft;

c. the world learns that estimates of Iraqi oil reserves are based on audits conducted by Arthur Andersen; or

d. Jeb decides he does want to run in 2008.

AFTER HAMDAN


The President should continue to violate the Geneva Conventions because:

a. the Framers didn't mean it when they made treaty obligations the Supreme law of the Land under the Constitution;

b. the Attorney General has determined that some of the Geneva Conventions are "quaint;"

c. as Professor Yoo protests, the Conventions "suppress creative thinking;" or

d. legal limitations-on-what-presidents-can-do are dangerous and unconstitutional.


The President should continue to violate the anti-torture law that Congress passed because:

a. the Vice President has learned from long experience that people who are willing to die for their cause, and who have no hope of ever being released or even brought to trial, will tell us what we want to know if we traumatize and degrade them enough;

b. since 9/11, torturing Arabs is not the same as torturing Americans, or even the French;

c. it's safer to be loathed than respected, especially in the Middle East; or

d. legal limitations-on-what-presidents-can-do are dangerous and unconstitutional.