If you’re one of those 58 million knuckle-dragging ‘Mercuns who helped re-elect Chimpy McSmirk, the BBC would like to know why. Here’s what I told ‘em:

I voted for Bush for too many reasons to list, so here are the top three. First, I didn’t trust Kerry to prosecute the war on terror as vigorously as Bush has, especially on its more controversial fronts such as Iraq. Even if I could trust Kerry himself to do the right thing, I think that a Kerry victory would inevitably be interpreted around the world as a partial if not total repudiation of the “Bush Doctrine.” Second, a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court is imminent, and two more are expected over the course of the next four years. While I cannot guarantee that President Bush will nominate three sensible judges who will faithfully interpret our laws according to their text rather than the judges’ own personal whims, I can guarantee that President Kerry would not have done so. Third, on a more general level, I simply do not trust John Kerry. This is the man who for decades repeated a fabricated tale of his secret, illegal mission to Cambodia in 1968, at the behest of a “President” who had not even been inaugurated at the time. He is the man who repeatedly dodged questions from his fellow veterans for months by falsely claiming that all of his non-medical military records had been made public, when in fact only those records favorable to him had been released. Kerry effectively admitted to his lie just last week on national television, when he was questioned about a military aptitude test that suggested his IQ was lower than Bush’s. And then there’s the 2002 meeting with the UN Security Council that never happened. Meanwhile, he has been on every side of Iraq over the past two years, an issue he stood squarely on the wrong side of in 1990. It remains to be seen whether Bush will be remembered as a great President, but unlike Kerry, there can be little doubt that he is at least a minimally competent one.

My hopes for a second Bush term are that Bush’s strong track record of doing what he says he is going to do will cause the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq to resist the urge to play “chicken” with him, as they likely would have tried with President Kerry. On other fronts, one would hope that Bush’s mandate will strengthen his hand against other countries, such as Iran and North Korea, that pose continuing threats to the west. Moammar Khaddafi learned from Muhammad Omar and Saddam Hussein’s mistakes. Will Kim Jong-il and the mullahs in Iran learn from them also? Time will tell.

Hat tips: Baldilocks and the Jawa Report.