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Around here, it's hard to find people who are better off than they were four years ago, and even on a national scale, the economic record of George W. Bush is far from inspiring. The failures range from a net job loss during his presidency to record federal deficits.
For that reason alone, it's hard to make a case for continued employment for Bush. But there's the argument that Bush has stood strong against terrorists, while Sen. John F. Kerry is a flip-flopper who has never fought terrorism.
But as it turns out, Kerry does have a record as an opponent of terrorism, and it's one that represents some political courage of the first order.
To see it, we need to go back to 1987 and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI was an international maze of holding companies and subsidiaries founded by two Pakistanis. It was then a respected institution, with branch offices, travelers' checks and a thriving business all over the world.
It was also one of the largest criminal enterprises on
the planet. There was fraud, of course, but as a 1992 U.S.
Senate investigation reported, there was plenty more:
money laundering in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the
America's; BCCI's bribery of officials in most of those
locations; support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and the
sale of nuclear technologies; management of prostitution;
the commission and facilitation of income tax evasion,
smuggling, and illegal immigration; illicit purchases of
banks and real estate; and a panoply of financial crimes
limited only by the imagination of its officers and
customers.
That report was issued by the Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it was signed by two senators: Hank Brown of Colorado, the ranking Republican, and John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic chairman.
BCCI used high-level political connections to ease its spread into the United States, and the report names them. Among them were Clark Clifford, a Democratic lawyer and high-level adviser who had served as secretary of defense under Lyndon Johnson, and his law partner Robert Altman -- both of whom had contributed $5,000 to Kerry's senate campaign.
Other Democrats named included Burt Lance, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Jimmy Carter, and Stuart Symington, a Missouri senator from 1953 to 1976 and a one-time presidential candidate.
As the senate investigation of BCCI led to these names, Kerry came under considerable pressure from his own party to back away. In 1989, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, formally asked Kerry to stop the investigation. Kerry continued the investigation, even after he got calls from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Pamela Harriman, asking him to stop.
In other words, it would have been politically prudent to halt the investigation, instead of following the facts where they led, and helping to bring down an organization that was, among other things, financing terrorists. It didn't make him popular with his own party.
As Colorado's own Hank Brown told the Washington
Monthly, John Kerry was willing to spearhead this
difficult investigation. Because many important members of
his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a
distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee
chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry
did.
So Kerry had some political courage. He was willing to say what needed to be said, even though his own party was trying to shut him up.
How about our brave and resolute George W. Bush?
Last week, the Rev. Pat Robertson said he talked to Bush
just before the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and
urged the president to prepare Americans for casualties.
Robertson said that Bush told him, 'Oh, no, we're not
going to have any casualties.'
Now, I can't imagine Bush saying any such thing. But the President has not found the courage to step up and say that Robertson, a member of his own party with a substantial following, is lying.
There's a contrast in political courage. A dozen years ago, Kerry was willing to follow the facts even though they led to some of the biggest names in his own party. So far, Bush hasn't mustered up enough backbone to confront Pat Robertson.
That should tell us something about which one has the fortitude to pursue America's battle against terrorism. George Bush can't even face Pat Robertson.
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