Bush On McCain: If They Hanoi Hilton Couldn’t Break Him, You Can Be Sure That The Angry Left Never Will
And that my friends, is the most memorable line so far at either convention.
Fred Thompson has done a superb job. I will post video when available!
Tonight our thoughts are still with our friends and fellow citizens in the Gulf Coast area, and our thanks go to those who have worked so hard to keep them safe. There can be no more important work than this.
But what we are doing at this convention is also important to our country.
We are going to nominate the next President and Vice President of the United States of America.
We do so while taking a different view of our country than that of the other party.
Listening to them you’d think that we were in the middle of a great depression; that we are down, disrespected and incapable of prevailing against challenges facing us.
We know that we have challenges : always have, always will.
But we also know that we live in the freest, strongest, most generous and prosperous nation in the history of the world and we are thankful.
Speaking of the vice presidential nominee, what a breath of fresh air Governor Sarah Palin is.
She is from a small town, with small town values, but that’s not good enough for those folks who are attacking her and her family.
Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit. Well, give me a tough Alaskan Governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the Union ” and won ” over the beltway business-as-usual crowd any day of the week.
Let’s be clear : the selection of Governor Palin has the other side and their friends in the media in a state of panic. She is a courageous, successful, reformer, who is not afraid to take on the establishment.
Sound like anyone else we know?
She has run a municipality and she has run a state.
And I can say without fear of contradiction that she is the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose : with the possible exception of Teddy Roosevelt.
She and John McCain are not going to care how much the alligators get irritated when they get to Washington, they’re going to drain that swamp.
But tonight, I’d like to talk to you about the remarkable story of John McCain.
It’s a story about character.
John McCain’s character has been tested like no other presidential candidate in the history of this nation.
He comes from a military family whose service to our country goes back to the Revolutionary War.
The tradition continues.
As I speak, John and Cindy McCain have one son who’s just finished his first tour in Iraq.
Another son is putting “Country First” and is attending the Naval Academy. We have a number of McCains in the audience tonight.
Also here tonight is John’s 96-year-old mother, Roberta. All I’ve got to say is that if Roberta McCain had been the McCain captured by the North Vietnamese, they would have surrendered.
Now, John’s father was a bit of a rebel, too.
In his first two semesters at the Naval Academy, he managed to earn 333 demerits.
Unfortunately, John later saw that as a record to be beaten.
A rebellious mother and a rebellious father - I guess you can see where this is going.
In high school and the Naval Academy, he earned a reputation as a troublemaker.
But as John points out, he wasn’t just a troublemaker. He was the leader of the troublemakers.
Although loaded with demerits like his father, John was principled even in rebellion.
He never violated the honor code.
However, in flight school in Pensacola, he did drive a Corvette and date a girl who worked in a bar as an exotic dancer under the name of Marie, the Flame of Florida.
And the reason I’m telling you these things, is that, apparently, this mixture of rebellion and honor helped John McCain survive the next chapter of his life:
John McCain was preparing to take off from the USS Forrestal for his sixth mission over Vietnam, when a missile from another plane accidentally fired and hit his plane.
The flight deck burst into a fireball of jet fuel.
John’s flight suit caught fire.
He was hit by shrapnel.
It was a scene of horrible human devastation.
Men sacrificed their lives to save others that day. One kid, who John couldn’t identify because he was burned beyond recognition, called out to John to ask if a certain pilot was OK.
John replied that, yes, he was.
The young sailor said, “Thank God”: and then he died.
These are the kind of men John McCain served with.
These are the men and women John McCain knows and understands and loves.
If you want to know who John McCain is, if you want to know what John McCain values, look to the men and women who wear America’s uniform today.
The fire on the Forrestal burned for two days.
20 planes were destroyed.
134 sailors died.
John himself barely dodged death in the inferno and could’ve returned to the States with his ship.
Instead, he volunteered for combat on another carrier that was undermanned from losing so many pilots.
Stepping up.
Putting his “Country First.”
Three months later John McCain was a Prisoner of War.
On October 26, 1967, on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam, a surface-to-air missile slammed into John’s A-4 Skyhawk jet, blowing it out of the sky.
When John ejected, part of the plane hit him ” breaking his right knee, his left arm, his right arm in three places.
An angry mob got to him.
A rifle butt broke his shoulder.
A bayonet pierced his ankle and his groin.
They took him to the Hanoi Hilton, where he lapsed in and out of consciousness for days. He was offered medical care for his injuries if he would give up military information in return.
John McCain said “No”.
After days of neglect, covered in grime, lying in his own waste in a filthy room, a doctor attempted to set John’s right arm without success : and without anesthesia.
His other broken bones and injuries were not treated. John developed a high fever, dysentery. He weighed barely a hundred pounds.
Expecting him to die, his captors placed him in a cell with two other POWs who also expected him to die.
But with their help, John McCain fought on.
He persevered.
So then they put him in solitary confinement:for over two years.
Isolation : incredible heat beating on a tin roof. A light bulb in his cell burning 24 hours a day.
Boarded-up cell windows blocking any breath of fresh air.
The oppressive heat causing boils the size of baseballs under his arms.
The outside world limited to what he could see through a crack in a door.
We hear a lot of talk about hope.
John McCain knows about hope. That’s all he had to survive on. For propaganda purposes, his captors offered to let him go home.
John McCain refused.
He refused to leave ahead of men who’d been there longer.
He refused to abandon his conscience and his honor, even for his freedom.
He refused, even though his captors warned him, “It will be very bad for you.”
They were right.
It was.
The guards cracked ribs, broke teeth off at the gums. They cinched a rope around his arms and painfully drew his shoulders back.
Over four days, every two to three hours, the beatings resumed. During one especially fierce beating, he fell, again breaking his arm.
John was beaten for communicating with other prisoners.
He was beaten for NOT communicating with so-called “peace delegations.”
He was beaten for not giving information during interrogations.
When his captors wanted the names of other pilots in his squadron, John gave them the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.
Whenever John was returned to his cell ” walking if he could, dragged if he couldn’t ” as he passed his fellow POWs, he would call out to them.
He’d smile : and give them a thumbs-up.
For five-and-a-half years this went on.
John McCain’s bones may have been broken but his spirit never was.
Now, being a POW certainly doesn’t qualify anyone to be President.
But it does reveal character.
This is the kind of character that civilizations from the beginning of history have sought in their leaders.
Strength.
Courage.
Humility.
Wisdom.
Duty.
Honor.
It’s pretty clear there are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves, “Who is this man?” and “Can we trust this man with the Presidency?”
He has been to Iraq eight times since 2003.
He went seeking truth, not publicity.
When he travels abroad, he prefers quietly speaking to the troops amidst the heat and hardship of their daily lives.
And the same character that marked John McCain’s military career has also marked his political career.
This man, John McCain is not intimidated by what the polls say or by what is politically safe or popular.
At a point when the war in Iraq was going badly and the public lost confidence, John stood up and called for more troops.
And now we are winning.
Ronald Reagan was John McCain’s hero.
And President Reagan admired John tremendously.
But when the President proposed putting U.S. troops in Beirut, John McCain, a freshman Congressman, stood up and cast a vote against his hero because he thought the deployment was a mistake.
My friends : that is character you can believe in.
For years, members of Congress, Republican and Democrat alike, have gouged the taxpayer with secret earmark spending.
Well, he has never sought an earmark.
I’ve experienced John’s character first hand.
In 1993, when I was thinking of running for the Senate, I went to John for advice. He convinced me I could help make a difference for our country.
I won that election, and with Republican control of Congress, we reformed welfare.
We balanced the budget.
And we began rebuilding our military.
What I remember most about those years is sitting next to John on the Senate floor as he led battle after battle to change the acrimonious, pork barreling, self serving ways of Washington.
The Senate has always had more than its share of smooth talkers.
And big talkers.
It still has.
But while others were talking reform, John McCain led the effort to make reform happen ” always pressing, always moving for what he believed was right and necessary to restore the people’s faith in their government.
Confronting when necessary, reaching across the aisle when possible, John personified why we came to Washington in the first place.
It didn’t always set too well with some of his colleagues.
Some of those fights were losing efforts.
Some were not.
But a man who never quits is never defeated.
Because John McCain stood up our country is better off.
The respect he is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship.
There has been no time in our nation’s history, since we first pledged allegiance to the American flag, when the character, judgment and leadership of our President was more important.
Terrorists, rogue nations developing nuclear weapons, an increasingly belligerent Russia.
Intensifying competition from China.
Spending at home that threatens to bankrupt future generations. For decades an expanding government : increasingly wasteful and too often incompetent.
To deal with these challenges the Democrats present a history making nominee for president.
History making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for President. Apparently they believe that he would match up well with the history making, Democrat controlled Congress. History making because it’s the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation’s history.
Together, they would take on these urgent challenges with protectionism, higher taxes and an even bigger bureaucracy.
And a Supreme Court that could be lost to liberalism for a generation.
This is not reform.
And it’s certainly not change.
It is basically the same old stuff they’ve been peddling for years. America needs a President who understands the nature of the world we live in.
A President who feels no need to apologize for the United States of America.
We need a President who understands that you don’t make citizens prosperous by making Washington richer, and you don’t lift an economic downturn by imposing one of the largest tax increases in American history.
Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases.
They tell you they are not going to tax your family.
No, they’re just going to tax “businesses”! So unless you buy something from a “business”, like groceries or clothes or gasoline : or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small “business”, don’t worry : it’s not going to affect you.
They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the “other” side of the bucket! That’s their idea of tax reform.
My friends, we need a leader who stands on principle.
We need a President, and Vice President, who will take the federal bureaucracy by the scruff of the neck and give it a good shaking.
And we need a President who doesn’t think that the protection of the unborn or a newly born baby is above his pay grade.
The man who will be that President is John McCain.
In the days ahead at this convention, you will hear much more about what John will do as president ” what he will do on the economy, on energy, on health care, the environment: It is not my role tonight to explain that vision.
My role is to help remind you of the man behind the vision. Because tonight our country is calling to all of us to step up, stand up, and put “Country First” with John McCain.
Tonight we are being called upon to do what is right for our country.
Tonight we are being called upon to stand up for a strong military : a mature foreign policy : a free and growing economy and for the values that bind us together and keep our nation free.
Tonight, we are being called upon to step up and stand up with John just as he has stood up for our country.
Our country is calling.
John McCain cannot raise his arms above his shoulders.
He cannot salute the flag of the country for which he sacrificed so much. Tonight, as we begin this convention week, yes, we stand with him.
And we salute him.
We salute his character and his courage.
His spirit of independence, and his drive for reform.
His vision to bring security and peace in our time, and continued prosperity for America and all her citizens.
For our own good and our children’s, let us celebrate that vision, that belief, that faith so we can keep America the greatest country the world has ever seen.
God bless John McCain and God bless America.
Joementum is just speaking now:
Allahpundit has
GOP convention, night two: Thompson and Lieberman
Others blogging:
- Stop The ACLU
- Joe Lieberman Speech (RNC Convention) » Right Pundits
- Hot Air » Blog Archive » The Eagleton scenario
September 2, 2008 - 09:49 PM on September 2nd, 2008
Yeah, that was a great line from Bush. And Fred did do a solid job.
“Now, being a POW certainly doesn’t qualify anyone to be President.
But it does reveal character.”
You got that right, Mr. Thompson. Man, no matter what your political ideals are, you gotta give McCain credit for enduring such conditions and staying strong.
Oh, and I saw Joe’s speech, too. Pretty good.
September 3, 2008 - 02:56 PM on September 3rd, 2008
I agree, except I thought Lieberman sounded a bit politician-ey by repeatedly using the phrase “my friends” during the speech. Other than that, I thought the speech content and delivery was well done.
September 3, 2008 - 03:10 PM on September 3rd, 2008
Rated-TVMA,
That was kinda driving me a bit crazy but then I remembered that he uses that phrase almost like a habit. I guess I would rather have someone say “my friends”repeatedly as opposted to “like” “um” “you know”
September 3, 2008 - 04:17 PM on September 3rd, 2008
Notice how the Republican speeches were about character, honor, duty, Country.
The Democrite speeches were about freebies, get the rich, and how wonderful Obama is.
September 3, 2008 - 06:46 PM on September 3rd, 2008
“I guess I would rather have someone say “my friends”repeatedly as opposted to “like”"um”"you know—
You’re right, Pam. I would too.
September 3, 2008 - 06:48 PM on September 3rd, 2008
Interesting contrast isn’t it, Robert? I was talking to a liberal friend of mine this morning and she said she thought B. Hussein Obama’s speech was fantastic. I said, “Huh?”
September 3, 2008 - 07:15 PM on September 3rd, 2008
It is quite a contrast TVMA. I was at the local train station the other day, waiting, and a woman was talking with someone about how wonderful Obama’s speech was. She said it just made her feel sooo emotional. She couldn’t name one real, tangible thing she thought Obama was going to do. It was all so general, such generic rhetoric: “He’s really going to change things!” How? “He just is!”
That’s the kind of mentality we are dealing with.
Another contrast from the Republican convention: When the camera scanned the crowd, I saw people who were energized, determined, purposeful. But I didn’t see anyone looking glassy-eyed as if in a trance, caught up in rapture, or crying. Quite a difference indeed.
September 3, 2008 - 11:26 PM on September 3rd, 2008
It’s amusing because I had the same conversation with my friend, well almost. The only difference was when I asked what B. Hussein Obama actually and specifically SAID he was going to do and change IN HIS SPEECH (or ever, for that matter??) I got crickets. BHO’s speech was more of the same feel good, do nothing rhetoric upon which he’s built his career.
Wow. I think it puts things on a whole new level of scary when you put it in terms of the Dems reacting in a cult like fashion to BHO’s speech.
September 4, 2008 - 10:23 AM on September 4th, 2008
I saw where he was also on the aircraft carrier USS FORESTSALL when it had its disasterous fire when a missle fired prematerly and survived in the infamous HANIO HILTON now the brutal vietcong owes restitution to all those who were held there
September 4, 2008 - 03:03 PM on September 4th, 2008
maybe you all should think about you Country first candidate. and examine his hanoi hilton record . Why do you think there are so many pics of him there? you all know he signed anti american statement in the hilton, and posed for propaganda. dont take my word check on it yourself. Country first! look for the alcatraz 11 they put country first. ask Rep. Sam johnston (R TX) about your Mr. McCain.
September 4, 2008 - 03:54 PM on September 4th, 2008
concerned american-
John is the son Admiral John Sidney McCain Jr., a four star admiral in the United States Navy who served in World War II through the Vietnam War. Do you think that his father’s position may have had something to do with all those pictures?
September 4, 2008 - 06:18 PM on September 4th, 2008
“Concerned American”: There are many instances of American POWs who signed forced confessions, were photographed and paraded around, yielded information to their captors, etc. McCain was no different. But he showed his character in other ways.
Now can you put yourself in his shoes for a minute in the Hanoi Hilton? Can you say with certainty what you would do if you were badly injured, sick, and desperate? I’m sure you would never waver, would never sign a propaganda confession, would never yield anything. Name, rank, and serial number is all you’d say, right Mr. Concerned American? You’d spit out those bloody teeth and forge ahead, stalwart in denial of anything to your tormentors. Because you’re a pillar of steel, a tower of strength! Yes, that’s what you do, you just know it, don’t you?
What a moron. No, you can’t say anything of the sort. You can’t even imagine what McCain went through, can you now? You couldn’t stand there and tell us what you would do, can you? How do you know you wouldn’t beg to sign a forced confession for relief or advantage, or just to avoid another beating, or rat on your fellow prisoners, or give them all the information you had? You just don’t know for sure, do you?
So STFU about John McCain. He did what he could to survive and his spirit helped others. THAT’s what important.
September 4, 2008 - 08:45 PM on September 4th, 2008
As much as I have little use for Mr. McCain and his politics, his empty pitbull from Alaska and his distortions about Obama, I have even less time for those who distort his war record. Its about the only thing he has in his corner. I’ll remember this when he gives me a $10 voucher so I can send my kid to school across town costing me $1000 (as he’s talking about now…) A school should answer to the students? He just loss me there. Keep it simple, Mac. Just make the schools better.
NY-David
September 4, 2008 - 10:28 PM on September 4th, 2008
NY-DAVID: Huh? Empty Pit Bull? Really? Surely you jest! She has a SOLID record of accomplishment.
You wanna talk empty? How about the empty Senator from Illinois, who mostly votes “present” when he feels like voting?
We’ll see in November. I was considering not even voting. Now I’ll be first at the polls when they open…
September 5, 2008 - 08:40 AM on September 5th, 2008
Sorry, I forgot about her original support for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it after she became governor.
For what its worth, I’m glad she’s invigorate people like yourself and Pam about the election. The more people involved with best intentions, the better we all end up.
NY-David
September 5, 2008 - 10:59 AM on September 5th, 2008
NY David no hope for you, thought you were coming to your senses, but guess not.
No more time for people like you, wishy washy and double minded, unstable in all your ways. Too bad, everyone misses out when it’s that way. So find you a blog with your own kind, and have at it.
Robert good for you. I would always vote, and not give the enemy even a small crack to crawl through. Right or wrong I’ve always voted, missed a few, but I got it right this time, and so has McCain/Palin. They are the top of the ticket, true winners. I told you McCain would grown on you and how could anyone resist that sweet smiling face and loving brown eyes of his. Cindy is truly blessed, they make a great team. When I see McCain’s face I see my dad’s loving brown eyes, always giving me a little wink as he went to work singing, “Count your blessing, name them one by one, count your many blessings see what God has done.”
Let’s do that and thank God from whom all good blessings flow, this election. Trust God in Christ to give America a Win/Win with John McCain and Sarah Palin!
I’m sure believing for that all the way. Thanks God!
Thanks John McCain and Sarah Palin.
We’ll stand with you not wavering and ‘fight the good fight of faith’
Good Speech John, you are great! We love you, and Sarah. I am grateful!
September 5, 2008 - 05:04 PM on September 5th, 2008
“So find you a blog with your own kind, and have at it.”
—————–
What’s wrong with you?!?
Do you only talk with people you agree with?!
That’s f*cking stupid. Grow a pair.
September 5, 2008 - 05:09 PM on September 5th, 2008
Thinking about the past week, it seems that Palin is “good” for McCain, in that she’ll energize his base like he couldn’t do.
For example, the “Roberts” of the Right finally get excited about the election. (!)
The game just got more interesting. McCain actually has a chance now at winning, whereas before he really didn’t - in my humble opinion.
September 5, 2008 - 06:00 PM on September 5th, 2008
Wow SFL! I had to blink twice to read that last line.
September 5, 2008 - 06:07 PM on September 5th, 2008
Hi Bon Bon! So glad to see you
September 5, 2008 - 07:31 PM on September 5th, 2008
Hi Pam…I should be posting more by Sunday. Can’t wait. I have so much I want to say.
September 5, 2008 - 07:32 PM on September 5th, 2008
Great! We want to hear it!
September 5, 2008 - 08:45 PM on September 5th, 2008
Robert,
‘It was all so general, such generic rhetoric: “He’s really going to change things!”How? “He just is!â€
That’s the kind of mentality we are dealing with.’
It sounds like you’re talking about the Republican convention. Don’t you find it more than a little ironic that only now McCain has started parroting Obama’s rhetoric about “change,” but not bringing specifics to the table? Surely you had to have noticed that. A guy who’s been solidly behind Bush for the last eight years in almost every policy area, and whose policies (such as he’s detailed them) follow the same Bush course wants us to believe that he’s now an agent of “change”????!!!
And I’ve got some snake oil to sell you.
Gimme a break.
If you really buy that stuff, then you’re either not paying attention or not thinking.
Has anyone here bothered to read Obama’s 33-page policy outline? Or do you just stand there with glazed eyes, repeating McCain campaign talking points about how Obama’s just an empty suit?
I think I know the answer to that question, but I’ll reserve judgment for the moment.
September 5, 2008 - 08:55 PM on September 5th, 2008
“Has anyone here bothered to read Obama’s 33-page policy outline?”- Which version? He has changed his position on just about everything..he was for clean coal until he was told to be against it etc…
September 5, 2008 - 09:21 PM on September 5th, 2008
Lemmy, btw are you and ‘Lenny” related? Although you are a much better writer.
McCain isn’t stealing or parroting Obama’s change theme, he’s making fun of it. Because Obama promises change, but there is nothing beyond his Marxist rhetoric that indicates he’s capable of accomplishing anything. He’s done nothing in the Senate, little in the Illinois legislature, and before that was a Community Organizer. That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee at Denny’s.
McCain has only been supporting Bush on Iraq, and perhaps immigration and certainly on the tax cuts. Events in Iraq have PROVEN McCain right and Obama WRONG. Tax cuts are PROVEN good. But McCain is truly a Maverick. He’s not perfect. I just posted last week that as a Conservative, McCain gives me ~40% of what I am looking for. Palin gives me 90% of what I am looking for (and with more experience that can go higher).
Obama gives me 4% of what I am looking for (at least he is an outsider and is new to Washington, and Biden gives me 0%. So doing the Math, McCain/Palin averages out to 65% of what I am looking for. Obanma/Biden averages to 2%. Pretty clear choice for me.
Don’t even start with me on the talking points and glazed eyes. Don’t even go there. The glazed eyes, enraptured, trance-like stares and sobbing with joy were the Kool-Aid drinkers at the Obama styrofoam Greek Column coronation.
September 5, 2008 - 09:39 PM on September 5th, 2008
Oh boy, Robert.
There’s nothing “Marxist” about Obama. Not rhetoric, not policy, not ideas. Nothing. That’s one very deep problem I have with hardcore rightwing conservatives: anything and anyone not hardcore rightwing conservative is, to them, automatically “Marxist.” I get the sense that not many of them have actually read Marx, or understand the profound distinctions first between Socialism and Communism, and then between Liberalism and Socialism. Liberalism and Socialism are, ideologically, mortal enemies.
You don’t have to agree with Obama’s policies; you can hate government intrusion in the market (though if that’s the case, you’ve got to hate the Republicans as much as the Democrats); you can hate social welfare. But don’t mistake any mainstream American political party or policy for anything remotely resembling Marxism or Socialism. America is a deeply capitalistic country down to its bones, and all forms of liberal opposition to conservatism still remain bound to the fundamentally capitalistic economic structure and social outlook of the country. Rightwingers and Liberals are arguing about different versions of the same socio-economic structure. They have different interpretations of it, and different ways of understanding how to maximize its potential. But they’re arguing about the same thing, at least socio-economically speaking. Religion and its role in the State is a whole other issue, and one in which I’m deeply, firmly rooted in the other side from where I guess you stand.
And no, I’m not Lenny.
By the way, here’s a rebuttal to your claim that Obama’s done “nothing” as a legislator:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html
Please don’t just repeat McCain campaign talking points. And whatever you do, don’t take the speech that Palin read as an accurate summation of Obama’s resume. Hell, she couldn’t even remember that she was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it (and took the money anyway) and was the Earmark Queen of Wasilla. If she (or actually, the guy who wrote the speech) couldn’t get the facts right about her own record, how do you expect her to get Obama’s record straight?
September 5, 2008 - 10:11 PM on September 5th, 2008
Lemmy, yes,Marxist. Let’s start with redistribution of wealth…
Thanks for the link. I will check it out.
September 5, 2008 - 10:14 PM on September 5th, 2008
Lemmy- define hardcore rightwing conservatives.
Obama’s mentor is a marxist- he told us that, we didn’t even need to dig it up.
September 5, 2008 - 10:17 PM on September 5th, 2008
Robert, I posted Obama record from Thomas- library of Congress Record in the poll Gods thread..It is the actual record..
September 5, 2008 - 11:19 PM on September 5th, 2008
Lemmy - Would you care to enlighten us all on how a career politician who has been in Congress for THIRTY-FIVE years is an avenue for change? What the hell was Biden doing in all that time? If he really wanted change, he would have done it already or at least tried to do something. McCain has done a few things of note during his tenure like campaign finance reform, for instance.
September 6, 2008 - 12:33 AM on September 6th, 2008
Lemmy,
Communism, Liberalism, and Socialism are all cousins. Ever heard the phrase “A Socialist is a Communist with no guts”? I like to say a Communist is a Socialist in a hurry.