Personally, I think we’re screwed either way.
The results of next week’s presidential election will produce detrimental effects on the Republic, regardless of which candidate is voted into office.
If President Bush is re-elected, all hell will break loose and not just here in Riot Central. (Actually, I don’t think that the usual suspects will riot at all.) Considering the spittle-flecked opposition that President Bush’s very existence seems to provoke, there will be a whole lot of unrest coming from corners that are usual intent on making love, rather than war.
Am I being too harsh on the Leftists by thinking that they’ll riot if they don’t get their way? Well, shizam. Elizabeth Edwards, wife of the Democrat vice-presidential candidate, agrees with me:
Supporter: Kerry's going to take PA.Liz Edwards: I know that.
Supporter: I'm just worried there's going to be riots afterwards.
Liz Edwards: Uh.....well...not if we win.
Notice that, conversely, Mrs. Edwards is tacitly acknowledging that Bush supporters are unlikely to riot if the Democrat ticket is successful.
Sheesh.
So what is likely to happen if John Kerry becomes the 44th President of the United States of America? A few Republicans may riot if only to prove Mrs. Edwards wrong (just kidding). The Bushes will wrap things up and prepare to go home and have a nice peaceful life and then January 20, 2005 arrives.
President Kerry will attempt to make good on his promises and the Iraqis will realize that they’ve been abandoned yet again. Because that’s what a Kerry win will mean to the Iraqis who think that, maybe, just maybe, they have a chance to have a democracy on their own soil, with the continued assistance of the Coalition. The election of Senator John Kerry as POTUS will send a message to the Iraqis and the Islamists in their midst, the same message that was sent when we pulled our troops out of Lebanon in 1983 (Reagan) and out of Somalia in 1993 (Clinton): that Americans have no stomach for a fight and cannot finish what they start.
Hard choice, no?

