On my Monday afternoon walk to prayer, I ran into a grimy Rob Eshman, fresh from a family weekend at Mammoth, on his way to dinner at Pico Kosher Deli.
Embracing my new-found spirituality, I emulated Rob’s attire Wednesday night. Looking just like that proto-blogger from Nazareth on the way to deliver his Sermon on the Mount, I wore but blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket into the Beverly Regent.
When I sought the location of the night’s event from the hotel clerk, I found myself unable to say “the David Horowitz Freedom Center” and could only mumble, “Where’s the Bruce Herschensohn speech?”
I got only a blank stare so I added, “presented by David Horowitz.”
It turned out to be in the Champagne Ballroom where all the Republicans were dressed to the nines, eating cheese and drinking red wine while hundreds of homeless stagger the streets of the downtown.
Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit the earth.
Bruce Herschonsen spoke in a still small voice that moved all the but the hardest of hearts.
“Last Friday the House of Representatives voted this outrageous resolution to oppose further troops going into Iraq.”
Bruce served President Nixon in 1974.
I searched wikipedia for his name and the esteemed publication told me that this was the most relevant link.
“It was the 94th Congress that caused the surrender of South Vietnam and Cambodia.
“President Ford was so outraged by what Congress was doing that he went to Capitol Hill [April 10, 1974] and begged for $974 million in aid [to South Vietnam and Cambodia].”
The president didn’t get it and Cambodia and South Vietnam fell a few days later.
“In 1972, we signed the Paris Peace Accords. We thought we had won the war. We got what we wanted. Our troops were coming home.”
Bruce says the war in Iraq “is a war for our survival.”
Our enemies chant “Death to America!” They believe it. They want an imam as the leader of the United States. And they could achieve their aims.
“It was 1994 when North Korea signed an identical agreement [to the one they signed earlier this week].”
“China is not our friend. They gave nuclear technology to North Korea and Iran. They were the only country to support the Khmer Rouge.”
Bruce opposed trade with China.
He said the greatest sentence in U.S. foreign policy was said by John F. Kennedy: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
I ask the first question. “Did you expect that Iraq would turn into such a mess?”
Bruce said no.
“Then where did you go wrong in your thinking?”
Bruce, like the rest of those who publicly supported the invasion of Iraq, did not believe he was wrong, nor was the President wrong. That all these intelligence agencies believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Bruce believed that Saddam did but got rid of them in the two years before invasion.
Like Irving Kristol, Dennis Prager and company, Herschensohn gave no indication of learning anything from our debacle in Iraq.
Bruce’s ostensible topic was his new book Taiwan: The Threatened Democracy, which he discussed last week’s on Dennis Prager’s radio show.
At 8:15 p.m., near the end of the questions, publicist Michael Levine made a loud entrance.
