Another Hewitt symposium

Here's the question: "In 250 words or less, why vote for Bush and what's wrong with Kerry?"

Here's my answer:

President Bush deserves reelection both because he will defend America, and because he believes America is worth defending. President Bush has demonstrated that he will take decisive action when it is needed -- regardless of his personal popularity at home or abroad -- to keep Americans safe. His sincere religious faith provides an assurance that his decisions will be driven by considerations of what's right, rather than by what's expedient. In his faith, directness, honesty and "heart," he reflects the best of America, and in turn, he sees the "real America" as generous, steadfast, capable and kind. Understanding that all people have the right to be free, he believes that the United States has a unique role to play in ridding the world of Islamofascist terrorism by spreading democracy.

John Kerry sees an America that is morally compromised and riddled with injustice and division -- a country that is unfit to serve as an exemplar to anyone, no more fit to possess nuclear weapons than Iran. His career is marked by vacillation and pandering, with opportunism and political ambition its only consistent themes. Kerry's domestic big government liberalism reflects an arrogance that deems politicians more qualified to run citizens' lives than the citizens themselves. His foreign policy vision -- from his Vietnam testimony through the nuclear freeze through Gulf War I to the present -- is dangerously naive. His obsession with the opinion of the "international community" and his history of relying on words rather than deeds in the foreign policy arena will leave Americans vulnerable to the predations of our enemies.