Farewell to "The Man Who Would Be King"

by Boge Quinn

Today, November 3rd, 2004, is an historic day. Not only did President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney win re-election, but they won re-election by a good majority of voters and received more votes than any Presidential ticket in history. Our nation proved itself to be too strong to bend to the will of foreign leftists who tried to influence the outcome by unethical means; too strong to bend to the will of men like billionaire George Soros, left-wing propagandist Michael Moore, and entertainers such as Bruce Springsteen and the Dixie Chicks; and too strong to bend to the will of terrorists like Osama Bin Laden, who overtly sought to influence our elections by fear as they had earlier done with great success in Spain. The United States of America proved to the world that we are not Spain, and we will not bend our knees before threats.

Further, the GOP strengthened its majority in both houses of Congress, and for the first time in history a sitting Senate Minority Leader, the rabidly anti-gun Tom Daschle, was defeated in his re-election bid.

Finally, eleven states from the deep South to North Dakota rejected the attempts of rogue judges and mayors to force a radical homosexual agenda by approving constitutional amendments banning same-sex "marriage" - regardless of one's personal views on this issue, the clean sweep of state referenda on the issue is compelling evidence not only of the strength of religious conservatism, but also of the traditional American rejection of outside influence upon internal issues. While this issue will not be going away, and while there will without doubt be legal battles over the issue for many years to come, it is significant that eleven states chose to stand for their rights against external political forces.

By any measure, today is a red-letter day for conservatives and for America, but it is also a day to reflect a bit upon the man who opposed the President in the election, Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, and his running mate, soon-to-be former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, whose seat has been won by the GOP.

There were some low points in the Kerry campaign, such as when both Kerry and Edwards used the debates as a platform in a shameful attempt to drive a wedge into President Bush's conservative base by exploiting Dick Cheney's daughter Mary Cheney's lesbianism. Such inflammatory rhetoric has helped divide the country over the past few years, and obviously the Kerry campaign has much for which they should be ashamed. In today's concession speech, Edwards continued his campaign rhetoric; he revised his tired "two Americas" stump speech and came across as a phony-baloney shill of a trial lawyer, even to the point of putting on a defiant and angry posture while John Kerry made his concession. By contrast, Kerry proved to be a gentleman, and this afternoon graciously conceded rather than subject his country to a painful and divisive ordeal as his predecessor, Al Gore, did. Unlike Gore, who did everything he could to steal and challenge the election of 2000, Kerry chose to extend the hand of friendship and cooperation to President Bush, and asked that his followers do the same. By doing this, Kerry has shown himself to be a far better man than Al Gore. Kerry acknowledged in his concession speech that the vote was just not close enough for him to have a chance by challenge, and that it is now the responsibility of those who lost the election to unify around the President and work with the victors for the greater good. In doing this, Kerry showed a lot of class in defeat, and I salute him for that. He now has the chance to prove himself a statesman and help heal the national wounds inflicted by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, wounds painfully aggravated at every turn since the 2000 election by Gore. Such statesmanship would stand in stark contrast to Gore, who has become a raving "voice in the wilderness", ranting and spitting his inflammatory rhetoric with the zeal and delivery of a lunatic tent revivalist.

Senator John Kerry today took the "high road". Although I do think he is entirely wrong on nearly every issue, lacks the courage of conviction so ably demonstrated by President Bush, and would have been an abysmally bad President, and although I thank almighty God that such a man will not ascend to the highest office in our land, I do appreciate the way he exited the stage of Presidential politics.

Senator John Kerry indicated today that he would act in the coming years as a statesman and a patriot - hopefully, his actions will prove to match his words.

Finally, I offer some John Kerry quotes that I have used on Gunblast.com over the past months. These quotes have been very popular as I have rotated them on a regular basis, and I post them one last time to serve as a reminder of the man who "almost made it".

Boge Quinn

John Kerry on Gun Rights:

"I go out with my trusty 12-gauge double-barrel, crawl around on my stomach. I track and move and decoy and play games and try to outsmart them. You know, you kind of play the wind. That's hunting."

"I was proud to be one of the 11 cosponsors of the original Brady Bill in 1987. Now we need to carry the fight to the White House and restore common sense on gun safety to the Oval Office."

"I don't think the Democratic Party should be the candidacy of the NRA."

"There's a story in [the] Washington Post that says that Democrats are going to run away from the issue of gun safety. I don't think that we can get elected nationally if we are not prepared to stand up against powerful special interests. I am for the assault weapons ban. I'm for the Brady Bill."

"I don't want to be the candidate of the NRA. I don't want our party to be the party of the NRA. I reject that notion."

"You want an assault weapon? Join the Army."

John Kerry on Patriotism:

"We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the 'greater glory of the United States'. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars."

John Kerry on War Crimes in Vietnam:

" I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 calibre machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages."

John Kerry "Flip-Flops":

"My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam. I don’t own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle."

"Those weapons belong in the hands of our military folks, and people who are fighting wars, not in the hands of average citizens."

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"I’ll never give a veto to any country over our security."

"I would have done what was necessary to know that you had exhausted the available remedies with the French and the Russians."

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"The reason for going to war was Weapons Of Mass Destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein."

"I would disagree that [the greatest threat is] the actual weapons of mass destruction he may use against us, it’s what he may do in another invasion of Kuwait or in a miscalculation about the Kurds or a miscalculation about Iran or particularly Israel. Those are the things that I think present the greatest danger. He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat."

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"Those who doubted whether Iraq or the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein and those who believe today that we are not safer with his capture don’t have the judgment to be president or the credibility to be elected president."

"This President has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. And judgment is what we look for in the President of the United States Of America."

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"You don’t send troops to war without the body armor that they need."

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it."

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"What [President Bush] has said is that, even knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction, even knowing there was no imminent threat, even knowing there was no connection with al Qaeda, he would still have done everything the same way. Those are his words. Now, I would not."

"Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it’s the right authority for a president to have."

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"The President says that I’m denigrating these [coalition] troops. I have nothing but respect for the British, Tony Blair, and for what they’ve been willing to do."

"Well, the fact is that those countries are really window dressing to the greatest degree. And they weren’t there in the beginning when we went in, and they’re not carrying the cost of this war."

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"I’ve had one position, one consistent position, that Saddam Hussein was a threat"

"We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and posed no imminent threat to our security."

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"Saying there are Weapons Of Mass Destruction in Iraq doesn’t make it so."

"I Have Always Said We May Yet Even Find Weapons Of Mass Destruction."

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