Defending America Is Now A Partisan Issue

22 Oct, 2003 by John Hawkins

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To me, priority #1 of the government of the United States should be to defend our country from hostile nations and organizations that want to harm Americans. But according to these poll numbers from the latest Byron York column, the overwhelming majority of Democrats don’t agree….

“In one question, pollsters read a list of a dozen topics — education, taxes, big government, the environment, Social Security and Medicare, crime and illegal drugs, moral values, healthcare, the economy and jobs, fighting terrorism, homeland security, and the situation in Iraq — and asked, “Which concern worries you the most?”

In Iowa, 1 percent of those polled — 1 percent! — said they worried about fighting terrorism. It was dead last on the list.

Two percent said they worried about homeland security — next to last.

In New Hampshire, 2 percent worried about fighting terrorism and 2 percent worried about homeland security.

In South Carolina — somewhat surprising because of its military heritage — the results were the same.

Democrats in each state were then given the same list of topics and asked to name their second-most concern. Fighting terrorism and homeland security still placed near the bottom of the list.

Then pollsters read two statements and asked respondents to react. The first statement was “America’s security depends on building strong ties with other nations,” and the second was “Bottom line, America’s security depends on its own military strength.”

In Iowa, 76 percent of those polled said they agreed with the first statement. Just 18 percent favored the second.

In New Hampshire, 77 percent favored the first and 17 percent the second.

In South Carolina, 56 percent favored the first statement and 33 percent the second.”

Maybe the Democrats should change their symbol from a donkey to an ostrich with its head in the sand. That seems appropriate for a group of people who are more concerned about making nice with countries like France and Belgium than defending America from another 9/11. Putting the lives of Americans into the hands of people who have this sort of “let’s just cross our fingers and hope against hope that everything turns out OK” approach to dealing with our enemies would be a recipe for tragedy. For America’s sake, let’s hope that the terrorists aren’t fortunate enough to have a Democrat capture the White House in 2004.