The Aldrich Alert Gary Aldrich
A Publication of the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty

If They Only Had a Brain

May 26, 2001

by Gary Aldrich - Volume 2, Issue 28

This article appeared on TownHall.com on Thursday, May 23, 2002.

Members of the Hard-Left never tire of claiming that they’re extremely intelligent. For example, somehow they always manage to elect “the most brilliant president in the history of the United States,” or claim to have “the smartest first lady the nation ever had.” They may be smart in some ways, but when it comes to protecting the homeland, they are exceedingly dumb. If fact, I have often said that having the Hard-Left in charge of our national security is a danger to us all.

Hard-Lefters have two major failings fueling their ignorance: first, they believe that anyone who is “truly intelligent” would be a member of the Hard-Left, and secondly, they have lousy memories. They fail to remember the lessons from history and are doomed to repeat past mistakes, setting our nation up for disaster.

The Hard-Left adheres to their liberal pacifist ideology even in matters of life and death. Our country is in a battle to the death with fanatical terrorists, and for a while, the Hard-Left was silent because they knew that if they openly criticized the president and his administration during a time of war, they would be toast.

That is, until last week when a fairly impressive strike was launched against the presidency of George W. Bush, covered with the fingerprints of the Hard-Left. Key information was “leaked” and fingers pointed at the FBI. Soon after the so-called “FBI Phoenix memo” was sent to other agencies it turned up at The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The easy way out is to blame the FBI for the leak, except that it would be hard to find a single FBI agent who would trade George W. Bush for 10 Bill Clintons. So we must ask why the FBI would try to make Bush look bad? And consider this: why would the FBI leak a memorandum that would make their own agency look incompetent? But, facts don’t matter to the Hard-Left; it’s all about their political agenda.

Last week, The Times and The Post had headlines and identical information that was framed in such a way that citizens who didn’t care enough to read deeper might conclude that George W. was not bright enough to read the tea leaves prior to 9-11 and guess that our nation was about to be attacked.

The Hard-Left’s attempt to bring President Bush’s high poll numbers down didn’t work this time, but they will keep sending up trial balloons to see if the citizens are bored enough to entertain another session of political street fighting here in D.C. If the lies continue, eventually, enough mud will stick. If you tell a big lie often enough, sooner or later people will believe it.

The Hard-Left uses the “Big Lie” all the time because it’s one of a few arrows they have left in their quiver. They don’t have any real ideas – all they have are accusations.

Now, there are those who will claim that the Hard-Left is not much different than the Hard-Right, but that’s not true. One of the main differences between the two groups is that the Hard-Right had the evidence to back up their claims of a corrupt, and yes, stupid Clinton presidency.

Supreme Court decisions, federal grand juries, Independent Counsel reports, findings by federal judges and endless testimony in front of congressional committees and sub-committees, not to mention the accurate reporting of many news organizations, provided ample hard evidence of presidential corruption, recklessness and aimlessness.

Because the truth was surfaced, Bill Clinton is left to drag his legacy behind him with all the ceremony and grace of an ogre dragging a hefty fifty-foot chain. Clinton’s legacy was made without anybody having to fabricate a single fact.

Not only was Bill Clinton immoral and reckless, too often distracted by easy-to-get groupie bimbos, but during his administration the terrorists made steady progress toward September 11, 2001, surprising a new president with barely enough time in office to do a proper damage assessment of the agencies that protect us. In other words, Clinton was not asleep on the job, but he was sleeping on the job. He didn’t just squander his legacy – he squandered our safety.

Clinton left the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and other key agencies in a real mess. George W. Bush is still finding this out and fixing broken things as fast as he can. But what is one man supposed to do after years of purposeful neglect? Do citizens honestly believe that Bush, or anyone else, could fix in eight short months all the things Clinton broke?

Of course not! And so, the American people support Bush in steady numbers as the repair work continues – and that’s what worries the Hard-Left. They are desperate, and desperate people with poor memories and a propensity for lying do desperate things, like endanger the safety of our nation, simply to get power back.

They hate the fact that America’s hero in 2002 is a Republican. The contrast between the most corrupt president in history and one of the most popular and trusted presidents is blatant. It’s no wonder the Hard-Left is determined to bring George W. Bush down. Their “bad memories” prevent them from recalling that they orchestrated and cheered the cutting of defense, the cutting of intelligence agency budgets and did away with human intelligence gathering techniques, all in the name of political correctness. For awhile they were on a roll.

In fact, they rammed political correctness down our throats to the degree that otherwise hard-muscled, steely eyed FBI agents now sweat in all the wrong places at the thought of offending minorities by conducting investigations that could even remotely resemble racial profiling.

That’s what the “highly-intelligent” Clinton administration did for the FBI, and that’s just one agency. Political Correctness killed thousands of Americans on 9-11, and being “PC” continues to threaten our lives. But if you ask the Hard-Left, they will tell you it’s all Bush’s fault.

If you could sum up the Clinton years you might conclude that the only thing Bill Clinton and his Hard-Left friends gave us was an inability to properly protect ourselves.

Some legacy.

Maybe a few of these Hard-Left critics could follow the yellow brick road to Oz in the hope of getting a brain from the great wizard. American lives are on the line!