New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler is one of 13 Congressional Democrats now on record as believing that the United Nations – cesspool of corruption and hypocrisy, comfort station for thugs and dictators of every ideological stripe, breeding ground for anti-U.S. and anti-Israel sentiment – is better qualified than American officials to oversee the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
In a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Nadler and his colleagues, citing all manner of alleged abuse and “voter disenfranchise ment” in the 2000 election, particularly among minority voters in Florida, asked “the Electoral Assistance Division of the United Nations Department of Political Affairs to send election observers to monitor the presidential election in the United States scheduled for November 2, 2004.”
Such charges have been refuted time and again, most recently by the American Enterprise Institute’s John Lott Jr. and Brian Blase, who quoted the Palm Beach Post, a liberal Florida newspaper, as stating unambiguously that “a review of state records, internal e-mails of [Database Technologies] employees and testimony before the civil rights commission and an elections task force showed no evidence that minorities were specifically targeted.”
Nadler, by any measurable standard one of the most left-wing members of Congress (except when he’s addressing Orthodox groups), is no newcomer to over-the-top political rhetoric. Back in March, when President Bush made a couple of lame jokes to a dinner of radio and television correspon dents about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Nadler responded with what could easily be taken as a blood libel against the president of the United States.
“It’s disgusting that during his little performance on stage,” said Nadler, “the president seemed to forget that people are dying because of weapons of mass destruction he lied about.”
Got that? Weapons of mass destruction Bush “lied about.” Not weapons of mass destruction he was mistaken about, not weapons of mass destruction he received faulty intelligence about, but weapons of mass destruction he “lied about.” And since, according to Nadler, “people are dying because of” Bush’s alleged lie, wouldn’t that make the president at the very least an accessory to murder”
Has Nadler ever made the claim that the Democratic candidates for president and vice president “lied about” weapons of mass destruction? Here’s John Kerry, in Oct., 2002: “I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”
And here’s John Edwards, also in Oct. 2002: “We know that [Saddam Hussein] has chemical and biological weapons…. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal…. It should be clear that our national security requires Congress to send a clear message to Iraq and the world: America is united in its determination to eliminate forever the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”
Nadler, though he originally endorsed the conspiracy-minded, self-destructive antiwar candidate Howard Dean for president (so much for political prescience and sound judgment), apparently feels quite comfortable supporting politicos who believed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction – as long as they’re Democrats.
Nadler was an outspoken defender of Bill Clinton, which no doubt is why he has never uttered the merest suggestion that the former president “lied about” Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But this was Clinton in 1998: “The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now; a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists.”
And this was Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2002: “We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”
So, is Jerrold Nadler ready to say that “people are dying in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction Kerry, Edwards, Clinton and Kennedy lied about?” Don’t hold your breath.