GOP rallies at Emerson picnic

Gary Exelby photo From left are keynote speaker U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), hostess U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, featured speaker U.S. Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) and master of ceremonies Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder. The 11th annual Emerson Picnic took place at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau last Saturday.

But U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO-8) declined to be the star of her 11th annual picnic at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau last Saturday. That's because she had invited two friends to do a lot of the talking.

The keynote speaker, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, talked on a variety of subjects, from agriculture and renewable fuels to judicial activism and the problem of methamphetamine. But he saved much of his energy for the war on terror.

"People say Iraq is like Vietnam," Thune said. "But it's not like Vietnam.

"When we left Vietnam they [the enemy] didn't follow us home. These people will."

Republican Thune gained national notoriety by defeating then-Senate Minority leader Tom Daschle for the Senate in 2004. "Jim Talent helped turn the Senate from Democrat to Republican," Emerson said in introducing Thune. "But John Thune took that to a whole new level in defeating Tom Daschle."

In his remarks, Thune said the United States had a long and successful history of fighting "-isms" for decades, and thanked veterans present at the picnic for their efforts in defeating those "-isms." "You defeated Nazism, Fascism and Communism," he said. "The '-ism' of our generation is terrorism, Islamic fascism."

Thune said the threat of terrorism had made the present day the most dangerous time for the United States since the end of the Cold War. "This war on terror is a long hard-fought, painful exercise, He said. "People are weary of it."

That said, however, he reminded the audience the country had not experienced an attack since Sept. 11, 2001. And, mindful of the upcoming election in November and the generally political nature of the picnic, Thune took care to draw differences between Republicans and Democrats on the issue of the war on terror and its most active front, in Iraq.

"We need leadership that isn't confused on the issue," he said. "If you want to see how the Far Left views this issue, see what happened last week in Connecticut, in Sen. Lieberman's election."

In the Aug. 8 Connecticut Democratic primary election, incumbent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a strong supporter of the war on terror, lost to an acknowledged antiwar candidate, Ned Lamont. Lieberman is now running as an independent to keep his Senate seat.

"The other side is confused and ambiguous," Thune continued. "At least we are certain of the stakes.

"We HAVE to win this war."

Sen. Jim Talent, the evening's featured speaker, suggested in his own remarks that the terrorists' failure to attack the U.S. in almost five years was not for lack of trying. "We've seen just in the last couple of days what this war is all about," he said of the foiled plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners in mid-flight from the United Kingdom. "It's a boot in the face of everybody but them, the Islamofascists."

Talent, defending his seat against Democratic state auditor Claire McCaskill, said attempting to treat with the enemy would not persuade him to go away. "There is no accommodation with them to get them to leave us alone," he said. "With the first World Trade Center attack, the 'Cole,' the Khobar Towers and the embassy attacks, we left them alone and they didn't leave us alone," Talent said.

He added the terrorists' vision of the world is for them to tell everyone else what to do. On the other hand he urged the United States keep doing what it is doing. "The only way we can lose is if we quit," Talent said.

"A lot of the news is bad, I know," Emerson said in her own comments. "But how proud were you of our intelligence community this week when they, together with the British, foiled that plot with the airliners?"

She urged the attendees to help get Talent re-elected. "I can't tell you what a difference it makes to have Jim Talent and John Thune, instead of [Carl Levin] calling the shots in the Armed Services committee," she said.

gexelby@dailystatesman.com