Who Benefits?

British historian Paul Johnson points out the stakes:

Anti-Americanism, like anti-Semitism, is not, of course, a rational reflex. It is, rather, a mental disease, and the Continentals are currently suffering from a virulent spasm of the infection, as always happens when America exerts strong and unbending leadership.

Behind this second line of adversaries there is a far more sinister third. All the elements of anarchy and unrest in the Middle East and Muslim Asia and Africa are clamoring and praying for a Kerry victory. The mullahs and the imams, the gunmen and their arms suppliers and paymasters, all those who stand to profit—politically, financially, and emotionally—from the total breakdown of order, the eclipse of democracy, and the defeat of the rule of law, want to see Bush replaced. His defeat on November 2 will be greeted, in Arab capitals, by shouts of triumph from fundamentalist mobs of exactly the kind that greeted the news that the Twin Towers had collapsed and their occupants been exterminated.

I cannot recall any election when the enemies of America all over the world have been so unanimous in hoping for the victory of one candidate. That is the overwhelming reason that John Kerry must be defeated, heavily and comprehensively.

Even bin Laden has literally come out of his cave to support Kerry, literally using Michael Moore and Democrat National Committee talking points.

From his comments on the tape, bin Laden even appeared to have watched U.S. director Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which shows Bush first hearing news of the Sept. 11 attacks while visiting a school.

(Thanks for helping a mass-murderer with his propaganda, Michael. I cannot question your patriotism, for that is the greater sin these days, is it not?)

And in his derangement, Walter Cronkite tells Larry King that Karl Rove was responsible for the tape!

After the forged CBS documents that Dan Rather would not disavow; after the ABC memo directing the news to ignore Kerry's distortions; after the ridiculous and unfounded Captain Queeq-like focus on missing strawberries, er, explosives; it seemed the media could not stoop lower.

Yet it finds new, unimaginable ways.

Who can align themselves with these forces?

it is often maintained that Bush is just a puppet, controlled by Rove, or perhaps Cheney, or by Halliburton, or maybe the Saudis, or Zionists. And yet, as Johnson points out, Kerry

seems to have no strong convictions about what he would do if given office and power. The content and emphasis of his campaign on terrorism, Iraq, and related issues have varied from week to week. But they seem always to be determined by what his advisers, analyzing the polls and other evidence, recommend, rather than by his own judgment and convictions.

This is the man to fight implacable fanatics with memories measured in centuries?