Radical Bush - Reactionary Kerry

The Boston Globe (surprisingly) published an article that is one of the best summations of the differences between Bush and Kerry that I've seen. (Hat tip Instapundit.)

To Bush the radical, 9/11 shattered the illusion that the Islamo-fascist terror can be controlled with indictments and criminal lawyers. And it shattered the belief that terrorism could be beaten without draining the swamps in which it breeds -- the dictatorships and theocracies of the Muslim Middle East. "Terrorists thrive on the support of tyrants and the resentments of oppressed peoples," Bush said last fall. "When tyrants fall and resentment gives way to hope, men and women in every culture reject the ideologies of terror and turn to the pursuits of peace."

From that insight springs Bush's campaign to democratize the Middle East and his rejection of the old "realist" policy of tolerating oppressive regimes in the name of stability. "This approach brought little stability and much oppression," he has said, "so I have changed this policy."

And Kerry the reactionary would change it back. He argues that "the goal . . . is a stable Iraq, not whether or not there's a full democracy." He told The Washington Post that if elected, he would, in the Post's words, "play down the promotion of democracy as a leading goal." In a Kerry administration there will be no effort to modernize the Middle East with freedom and pluralism. Democracy? "You can't impose it on people," Kerry says.

It appalls me that Kerry prefers the dictatorships of the mideast to freedom and democracy for the region.

Perhaps that's why Muslims hate us so much?