IT'S FEAR ITSELF

The Democratic presidential candidates have made a collective, collusive agreement not to debate on Fox News Channel (FNC). That FNC has a higher viewership than MSNBC and CNN indicates a healthy disrespect that the Democrats have for a significant portion of the electorate that may have an opposing or independent view.

While they debate the merits and fallacies of meeting with certain foreign leaders, with or without preconditions, and what American aims should or should not be, the voting viewers of FNC are supposed to believe that these candidates have the guts to stare down sympathizers and supporters of major terrorists and WMD seeking dictators when they are too afraid to take a question from Brit Hume!

Cowardice is not a trait best displayed by those who would lead a free nation at one of its more perilous times in history. Yet cowardice is exactly what compels their action(s). The Republicans have debated before all comers and in forums where questioners, like Chris Matthews of NBC News, have repeatedly shown an unobjective Democratic bias. What questions, that have not been asked, are the Democrats afraid of that the next President could easily be asked at a press conference? Their refusal to debate on FNC is nothing more than fear and cowardice masquerading as a principled stand. It disrespects the process, it disrespects their party members and, above all, it disrespects the voters who want more than pre-prepared and scripted non-answers to "Softball" questions from politically sycophantic journalists pretending to be tough and objective.

The cowardice of the last Democratic president should have been enough as he stood in the background behind a podium full of women who stepped to the microphone in his defense stating, "We believe the President," before he was shamed into his finger wagging, mendacious assertion that he, "... did not have sexual relations with that woman..." That Saddam Hussein harbored a major 1993 World Trade Center bomber and, for all 8 years of the Clinton presidency, Iraq repeatedly fired on US and allied aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone, all without retaliation, was indicative of a weak and incompetent presidency. And that none of this has been broached during these so-called Democratic debates posits tragedies we are doomed to repeat.

Why should voters believe that Mrs. Clinton will be any better at fighting terrorism than her husband was? With all of their talk about the war in Iraq and the "failed Bush policies," exactly what is their blueprint for combatting the ever changing face of terrorism here and abroad? Shouldn't the public have a chance to scrutinize these plans before they go to the polls? These are just a few questions that have yet to be asked and answered. And if these are questions the Democratic candidates fear FNC might ask, then the next obvious question should be, "What are they afraid of?"