David V. Matthews – 8/20/06

This page was last updated on August 22, 2006.

Centrism is Bushism; David V. Matthews; Beaver County Times; August 20, 2006.

For background, in previous letters Mr. Matthews told us there’s no liberal media bias, President Bush committed treason, he’s positive creation played no role in our evolution, and President Bush plans to nuke Iran this year.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Wednesday’s pro-centrist editorial ‘Road to ruin’ calls the Lieberman primary loss an example of the ‘polarization’ caused ‘by hardliners on the left and right.’”

[RWC] Read my critique of “Road to ruin” and you’ll see Mr. Matthews missed the whole point of the editorial.

“Does the editorial board think supporting the Iraq war, Lieberman-style, is centrist? What does its members find centrist about an undeclared, preemptive war launched for specious reasons?”

[RWC] Apparently Mr. Matthews believes the only issue defining so-called centrism is the war in Iraq. He also doesn’t seem to remember the Times vehemently opposes the Iraq War and advocates a cut-and-run strategy. As a result, there’s no way the Times would consider “supporting the Iraq war” to be “centrist.”

Everyone knows the Connecticut Democrat primary was a single-issue election in an extremely “blue” state. The only significant difference between Sen. Lieberman and Ned Lamont was that Sen. Lieberman supports the war on terrorism – including the Iraq War – and doesn’t believe we should cut and run. Even so, Sen. Lieberman disagrees with the Bush administration on the execution. Ned Lamont, however, is in the MoveOn.org camp and believes we should get out of Iraq yesterday. Even so, Lamont won by only about four percent, hardly a landslide.

As I noted in another critique, “With the sole exception of the war on terrorism, Sen. Lieberman is as liberal as you get short of the MoveOn.org wackos. For example, Sen. Lieberman’s 2005 Americans for Democratic Action voting record was 94% and he was the VP candidate in 2000. The American Conservative Union gave Sen. Lieberman a 2005 rating of 8%.”

“According to a recent poll from Fox News (not exactly a network run by left-wing hardliners), 58 percent of Americans want the United States to withdraw all its troops from Iraq within a year or less.”

[RWC] Oh no, Mr. Matthews admits FNC may be “fair and balanced” after all. He’ll hear from his fellow travelers about that. <g>

“Are 58 percent of Americans left-wing hardliners who will destroy this country unless they embrace centrism, also known as Bushism?”

[RWC] Here’s a breakdown from the FNC poll Mr. Matthews probably doesn’t want you to know about.

Among Republicans, only 33% said they believe we should cut and run while 57% said we should “[p]ull out after Iraqi troops are capable of taking over, even if it takes years.”

Among Democrats, 76% said they believe we should cut and run while only 17% said we should “[p]ull out after Iraqi troops are capable of taking over, even if it takes years.”

There was another question I found interesting. It asked, “Do you consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist group or not, or don’t you know enough to say?” Amazingly, only 45% of Democrats answered “yes.” Among Republicans, 67% answered “yes” and I thought that was low given Hezbollah’s history.