Ashcroft and Arafat: History's Judgement

This week has seen the departure from the political scene of two historic men: John Ashcroft and Yasser Arafat.

The media coverage of these two men by the MSM and the "conventional wisdom" on them held by the American left demonstrates clearly why the left cannot be trusted with the responsibility of providing for our national security.

The left in America and across secular Europe loves Arafat and despises John Ashcroft. This cannot possibly be a more upside down view of reality.

First Arafat, who the MSM elevates to a co-equal among statemen. A champion of his oppressed people. The reality is the polar opposite. Arafat was a thug and a terrorist who, at the end of the day, left his people in refugee status and deep oppressive poverty for 40 years while he pilfered billions from them for his Swiss bank account. He deserved to die in ignominy instead of being welcomed by the terrorist-coddling French.

Second, John Aschroft - who the liberal elite and the MSM despise and caricature as a prudish religious fanactic facist who ran roughshod over the constitution and our civil liberties. Again, the polar opposite of the truth. I could recount his record as our Attorney General, but that has already been done here by Terence Jeffrey better than I could do it.

I will note a ridiculous observation by a celebrated pundit who said this week that clearly, in hindsight, the fear of a terrorist attack during our election cycle was overblown and hyped. Why? Because an attack didn't occur, of course. It doesn't occur to this man that the opposite is true - that the threat was very real and that the reason that we weren't attacked was the courageous and effective work of our Attorney General in thwarting the attacks. Our national security will be set back tremendously if we allow this misunderstanding of Ashcroft's role to go unchallenged in the MSM. I say thank you, John Ashcroft, for you hard work in the face of withering fire from the left. Thank you for keeping us safe.

Ashcroft and Arafat. I trust that history will judge them more wisely than the talking heads of our time have done.