September 30, 2004

What to Ask George Bush by Madeleine Albright

WHAT TO ASK GEORGE BUSH
Changing Direction
By MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT
New York Times
Published: September 30, 2004

You say that we are winning in Iraq. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, says, "We're in deep trouble." Gen. John P. Abizaid is asking for more troops. Secretary of State Colin Powell admits the insurgency is getting worse. The C.I.A. is pessimistic. Billions of dollars that were earmarked for reconstruction have been diverted for security. Insurgent attacks have quadrupled. Deaths of coalition troops are up. Significant chunks of Iraq are under enemy control. You have no viable military plan to make sure the January elections proceed peacefully and no political plan to reconcile competing factions. Your argument for re-election is that this is too dangerous a time to change direction. But since the direction is obviously wrong, don't we at least need to change drivers?
•

How has the Iraq war made us safer, if it transformed Iraq from a place whose military was surrounded and contained, into what you have repeatedly called the "central front" in the war on terror?

Your exit strategy for Iraq begins with successful elections in January. And yet there are many obstacles to those elections, especially in areas where the insurgents hold power. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says it doesn't matter if the people in certain regions are unable to vote. Secretary Powell says elections will not be credible unless all Iraqis take part. Do you agree with Secretary Rumsfeld that partial elections are acceptable, or with Secretary Powell that the elections must be nationwide?

You have proclaimed that "freedom is on the march" around the globe, but freedom in Russia is in rapid retreat. During the 2000 campaign, you blasted President Vladimir Putin of Russia for "killing children" in Chechnya. Mr. Putin has now been fighting terrorism for years and failing dismally. What lessons do you draw from Russia's experience when considering our own options for fighting terror?

Compared with when you took office, are we more safe or less safe on the Korean Peninsula? What concrete progress have you made during the past in preventing North Korea from building nuclear weapons?

Madeleine K. Albright was the secretary of state from 1997 to 2001.

Posted by Elaine at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)

September 29, 2004

Jesus for President

Now I like the message behind this, but being a religious person I find myself offended.

I am all for John Kerry, but maybe it is comparing him to Jesus, however subtly, that gets me.

I really don't know what it is, I can't put my finger on it. I love the thought on so many levels. A "true Christian" nation would not attack another nation, even if they came and blew up their World Trade Centers, has been a thought that haunts me judging from Christ's exact words in the bible.

Maybe it is just that it's not that great. They should have put a bit more thought into the words they used.
I don't know what it is. I feel like I should like it more.

Ah, I'm just being picky. When I first opened it, I laughed. What the hell do I want?

Click pic to see it enlarged.

Posted by Denise at 12:38 PM | Comments (2)

September 28, 2004

Swagger vs. Substance

Let's hope the press won't let President Bush steal the debate with his Clint Eastwood imitation.

Swagger vs. Substance
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 28, 2004

Let's face it: whatever happens in Thursday's debate, cable news will
proclaim President Bush the winner. This will reflect the political bias so evident during the party conventions. It will also reflect the
undoubted fact that Mr. Bush does a pretty good Clint Eastwood
imitation.

But what will the print media do? Let's hope they don't do what they did four years ago.

Interviews with focus groups just after the first 2000 debate showed Al Gore with a slight edge. Post-debate analysis should have widened that edge. After all, during the debate, Mr. Bush told one whopper after another - about his budget plans, about his prescription drug proposal and more. The fact-checking in the next day's papers should have been devastating.

But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the
candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead
stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's lies -"against the other's minor errors."

The result of this emphasis on the candidates' acting skills rather than their substance was that after a few days, Mr. Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory.

This time, the first debate will be about foreign policy, an area where Mr. Bush ought to be extremely vulnerable. After all, his grandiose promises to rid the world of evildoers have all come to naught.

Exhibit A is, of course, Osama bin Laden, whom Mr. Bush promised to get "dead or alive," then dropped from his speeches after a botched
operation at Tora Bora let him get away. And it's not just bin Laden:
most analysts believe that Al Qaeda, which might have been crushed if
Mr. Bush hadn't diverted resources and attention to the war in Iraq, is as dangerous as ever.

There's also North Korea, which Mr. Bush declared part of the "axis of
evil," then ignored when its regime started building nuclear weapons.
Recently, when a reporter asked Mr. Bush about reports that North Korea has half a dozen bombs, he simply shrugged.

Most important, of course, is Iraq, an unnecessary war, which - after
initial boasts of victory - has turned into an even worse disaster than the war's opponents expected.

The Kerry campaign is making hay over Mr. Bush's famous flight-suit
stunt, but for me, Mr. Bush's worst moment came two months later, when
he declared: "There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on." When they really did come on, he blinked: U.S. forces - obviously under instructions to hold down casualties at least until November - have ceded much of Iraq to the insurgents.

During the debate, Mr. Bush will try to cover for this dismal record
with swagger, and with attacks on his opponent. Will the press play Karl Rove's game by, as Mr. Clymer puts it, confusing political coverage with drama criticism, or will it do its job and check the candidates' facts?

There have been some encouraging signs lately. There was a disturbing
interlude in which many news organizations seemed to accept false claims that Iraq had calmed down after the transfer of sovereignty. But now, as the violence escalates, they seem willing to ask hard questions about Mr. Bush's fantasy version of the situation in Iraq. For example, a recent Reuters analysis pointed out that independent sources contradict his assertions about everything "from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections."

Mr. Bush is also getting less of a free ride than he used to when he
smears his opponent. Last week, after Mr. Bush declared that Mr. Kerry
"would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in
Iraq today," The Associated Press pointed out that this "twisted his
rival's words" - and then quoted what John Kerry actually said.

Nonetheless, on Thursday night there will be a temptation to revert to
drama criticism - to emphasize how the candidates looked and acted, and push analysis of what they said, and whether it was true, to the inside pages. With so much at stake, the public deserves better.

Posted by Elaine at 07:44 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2004

Rather vrs. Bush

Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor
1) given documents he thought were true
2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
4) content of documents is true, documents themselves are not http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/lechliter.pdf
5) when confronted with the facts, apologized and launched an investigation
6) number of Americans dead: 0
7) should be fired as CBS News Anchor?

George W. Bush, President of the United States
1) given documents he thought were true
2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts
3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case
4) content of documents is false, documents are also false http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek
5) when confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth and stonewalled an investigation
6) number of Americans dead: 1100
7) should be given four more years as President of the United States?

Posted by Elaine at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2004

NEW GOP SLOGAN

Since the old one is no longer effective, the GOP has decided to hit hard with their new slogan:

"Spending Money We Don't Have To Protect Freedoms
We've Destroyed From Weapons That Don't Exist"

Posted by Elaine at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2004

An Open Letter to Dick Cheney

Thank you for warning me about my vote for John Kerry. In this version of America, the one you all have crafted, clarity is very difficult to come by. Let me make myself perfectly clear: my daughter was murdered on 9/11/2001, on an absolutely clear, late summer morning. She was four months pregnant and, that morning, five minutes after the first of two planes hit the World Trade Center, she was told she was "safe." She was told to "stay at her desk." She was found whole and intact ten feet from an alley between Towers IV and V. I cannot tell you how I would have appreciated such a clear warning before September 11th, or even on September 11th. Before that day, there were warnings, clear warnings, but they only reached the desk of George W. Bush. And I note he did nothing to stop the events of 9/11.

Nothing.

There were other warnings during Clinton's tenure in the White House (many I'm sure you don't need me to innumerate)--some, though they were perhaps more coded than your recent missive, came in the form of Ken Starr's investigation of Clinton. As a mother or a citizen of this country, did I read this as a warning then? No. I did not. Was this money well spent by the Republicans? Many of my Republican friends at the time did not think so. Could we Americans afford this kind of investigation, knowing now how much we needed Clinton to be free to pursue more pressing issues? No. Should I have read in my lack of understanding of the import of the Ken Starr investigation that there was something you people wanted to have occur? Was this a deliberate distraction? Has anyone in the media since, or, in fact, has anyone in any office of power in this nation asked any of you to, perhaps, answer for that?

Anyone?

I ask these questions now because the Bush/Cheney administration and all of your followers are the greatest beneficiaries of the events post-9/11, and I take your warning as an indication of what you guys will bring to America if Kerry wins. Get this clear, Mr. Cheney, what you guys will bring to America. I fear you, believe it or not, more than I fear another bin Laden attack and that is why I am asking you these questions now.

Because I take your warning as an admission of your ties to that event. Even, no especially, if that admission is not what you intended.

So thank you, once again. And, understand how truly thankful I am to hear you articulate what only I seem willing to articulate: That if Kerry wins, you will come back at us.

We are forewarned.

But know this: I will never again watch my values, and the values of my fellow Americans be trampled on by so much corruption, so much duplicity and so much unadulterated hate without speaking out. You are not a Republican. You have shamed Republicans. And many of them, I pray, will be voting with me, in hope as well as fear, for John Forbes Kerry.

Donna Marsh O'Connor
Mother of Vanessa Lang Langer, WTC, Tower II, 93rd floor

Posted by Elaine at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)

Forged Documents????

"In retrospect, knowing that some of the documents were indeed forgeries...
…had we known that at the time, we would not have put it in."

Dan Rather?

Nope, Condi Rice on Face The Nation, July 2003.

Posted by Elaine at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2004

Voter Registration, Bangor

It was a very good day.

Posted by Denise at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2004

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees:

"We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Posted by Elaine at 12:31 PM | Comments (3)

This is Bush's Vietnam

OP-ED COLUMNIST
This Is Bush's Vietnam
By BOB HERBERT
New York Times 9-17/2004

Exerpt:
Lieutenant VandeGeer died heroically. He was the pilot of a CH-53A
transport helicopter that was part of an effort to rescue crew members
of the Mayaguez, an American merchant ship that was captured by the
Khmer Rouge off the coast of Cambodia on May 12, 1975. The helicopter
was shot down and half of the 26 men aboard, including Lieutenant
VandeGeer, perished.

(It was later learned that the crew of the Mayaguez had already been
released.)

The failed rescue operation, considered the last combat activity of the
Vietnam War, came four years after John Kerry's famous question, "How do
you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Although he died bravely, Lieutenant VandeGeer's death was as senseless
as those of the 58,000 who died before him in the fool's errand known as
Vietnam. His remains were not recovered for 20 years - not until a joint
operation by American and Cambodian authorities located the underwater
helicopter wreckage in 1995. Positive identification, using the most
advanced DNA technology, took another four years. Lieutenant VandeGeer
was buried at Arlington in a private ceremony in 2000.

The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation put me in touch with the
lieutenant's family. "I'm still angry that my son is gone," said Mrs.
VandeGeer, who is divorced and lives alone in Cocoa Beach. "I'm his
mother. I think about him every day."

She said that while she will always be proud of her son, she believes he
"died for nothing."

Lieutenant VandeGeer's sister, Michelle, told me she can't think about
her brother without recalling that the last time she saw him was on her
wedding day, in May 1974. "He looked so handsome and confident," she
said. "He wanted to change the world."

Wars are all about chaos and catastrophes, death and suffering, and
lifelong grief, which is why you should go to war only when it's
absolutely unavoidable. Wars tear families apart as surely as they tear
apart the flesh of those killed and wounded. Since we learned nothing
from Vietnam, we are doomed to repeat its agony, this time in horrifying
slow-motion in Iraq.

Three more marines were killed yesterday in Iraq. Kidnappings are
commonplace. The insurgency is growing and becoming more sophisticated,
which means more deadly. Ordinary Iraqis are becoming ever more enraged
at the U.S.

When the newscaster David Brinkley, appalled by the carnage in Vietnam,
asked Lyndon Johnson why he didn't just bring the troops home, Johnson
replied, "I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a
war."

George W. Bush is now trapped as tightly in Iraq as Johnson was in
Vietnam. The war is going badly. The president's own intelligence
estimates are pessimistic. There is no plan to actually win the war in
Iraq, and no willingness to concede defeat.

I wonder who the last man or woman will be to die for this colossal
mistake.

Posted by Elaine at 07:42 AM | Comments (3)

September 16, 2004

It's Official!

Official Announcement:

The government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM because it more accurately reflects the government’s political stance.

A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re actually being screwed.

It just doesn’t get more accurate than that!

Posted by Elaine at 03:10 PM | Comments (0)

Garrison Keillor Speaks

From the Heart of America's Greatest Storyteller:

We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?
By Garrison Keillor

Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.

Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy—the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.

The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.

Our beloved land has been fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.

There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.

Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.

This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.

Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.
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Posted by Elaine at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

Why I'm Voting for President Bush

Why I’m Voting for President Bush

The President is a forthright man who not only knows what is good for America, but is willing to stand up, lie, cheat, steal, and send others to die to get it. He is a man who will keep our tax money out of the hands of the undeserving poor and ensure it goes into the coffers of our most valued citizens, the ownership class, where it belongs.

We need the war in Iraq in order to ensure the prosperity of loyal corporations like Halliburton. Only President Bush has the courage and vision necessary to prosecute this war to the end and then go on to Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and even all of South America until at last we own the oilfields of the world.

Only President Bush has the wisdom to pursue a policy of lowering taxes for the most deserving while building a trillion-dollar national debt that will forever bind the natural servant class in fealty to their rightful masters. A major, if unheralded, benefit that arises from transferring money directly from the public coffers into the accounts of the most deserving corporations is that it eliminates forever the temptation to divert these funds into wasteful enterprises such as public education and health care.

Public education is worse than wasteful. It is genuinely counterproductive to educate people beyond the specific skills they need for employment. Education is notorious for turning its recipients into malcontents who become resentful of their lot in life and may even refuse to conduct themselves in accordance of the needs and wishes of their owners.

Likewise, health care is a wasteful expense when squandered on the useless eaters, with the sole exception that a certain number of particularly healthy specimens from among the worthless classes may be selected for organ donation to their betters, and maintained in good health until their time comes for harvesting.

The President needs four more years to complete his work of converting America into a paradise for its rightful owners. It is with this glorious vision in my head that I proudly prepare to cast my vote for George W. Bush.

Posted by Elaine at 07:53 AM | Comments (1)

September 12, 2004

REPUBLICANS FOR KERRY

For the rest of us, Brad Delong tells us it's TIME TO BEG take a look at what author and republican speech writer Mark Helprin has to say about his party these days.

And while you're at it, check out Republicans
For Kerry 04!

Posted by Hope at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)

September 05, 2004

Rapid Response, It's about time

Go and check out another blog...the new Rapid Response Center on blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/

Posted by Denise at 03:51 PM | Comments (0)

Keep the Faith! We can/will WIN!

Moderates will decide next president

REPUBLICANS and Democrats designed their national convention TV infomercials this year to appeal to the roughly 7 percent of the electorate that is still undecided. But this is a battle where the Democratic ticket now has a real advantage.

Here's why.

Polls on voter satisfaction with the direction the country is headed, support for the war in Iraq and approval of the president have slipped into perilous territory for an incumbent. And among likely voters in battleground states who say they are still undecided, the numbers on these issues look especially bleak for President Bush. Undecided voters are responding to these questions in much the same way as supporters of the Democratic ticket.

Historically, undecided voters rarely break toward an unpopular incumbent, and everything in the current polls suggests that the undecideds this year may well break by two or even three to one toward the challenger. Even a narrower shift by the moderate center toward the Democratic ticket is likely to be crucial in 10 to 15 key states where those who have already made up their minds are split evenly at about 46 percent.

Nationally, Democrats still outnumber Republicans, so the consequence of any unusual defection by Republican moderates could be especially significant. As Berkeley political scientist Nelson Polsby observes, "GOP voters almost always vote more loyally for their party's presidential candidate than Democrats."

Since 1952 they have defected only once to the Democratic candidate in greater numbers than Democrats have voted Republican. That was in 1964 when Republicans abandoned Barry Goldwater in droves.

To some observers this election looks like 1980 and 1992 when Democratic and Republican incumbents lost to challengers. To me, 2004 looks increasingly like 1964. Voters in the political center are saying that GOP leaders in the White House and the Congress have strayed too far from the mainstream.

Over the last six months, I've asked a lot of moderate Republican voters what they're thinking about this election.

In conversations on airplanes, at business conferences, at my mother's retirement community, my 40th high school reunion, as well as a posh wedding in New York and at political gatherings in California, centrist Republicans and independents cite multiple reasons for their inability to vote again for the president they supported in 2000.

In this highly unscientific survey, this is what they say:

More in head-shaking sadness than in anger, they speak of the administration's faulty reasoning for launching the war in Iraq; its misleading use of intelligence to support that decision; alienation of key allies; lack of planning to deal with the aftermath; and inability to correct mistakes made there in the past year.

"They're reckless," said one retired Republican banker, "Conservatives aren't meant to 'do' reckless."

With astonishment they talk about dereliction of fiscal prudence, soaring federal spending, record deficits and debt. They say the country cannot afford the tax cuts that benefited them, or the effects of these policies on the economy. And they worry about how all that debt will cascade into the lives of their children and grandchildren.

What else upsets them? Failure to maintain clean-air, clean-water and wilderness safeguards. Growing gaps between rich and poor, especially in public education and in access to health insurance. Abuse of civil liberties by the

Justice Department, especially in enforcement of the Patriot Act.

Disregard for science -- and the politicization of decision making -- in such areas as stem cell research, global warming and public health. And they voice concern for the future of the Supreme Court, especially in light of the president's repeated nomination of right-wing judicial candidates.

Moderate voters also worry about the unwillingness of Republican leaders to put aside partisanship at a time when national unity seems more essential than ever to move the country forward again.

"They talked about uniting not dividing, but when have we been more divided?" asks Gail Slocum, who was the mayor of Menlo Park and is now an active Republican for Kerry.

What strikes me most about this temperate litany of disillusionment and disappointment repeated in moderate Republican voices is this. It is the same list of issues, expressed then in far more vehement language, that infused such passion into the Democratic primaries and creates such unprecedented unity among Democrats today.

Given the strength of that unity and disaffection among moderate Republicans and independents, it looks increasingly likely that John Kerry will become the 44th president -- and probably by a larger margin than most pundits now seem to expect.

David Irons (dirons@ascribe.org) ) is co-founder of AScribe/The Public Interest Newswire in Oakland.

Posted by Elaine at 09:33 AM | Comments (2)

September 03, 2004

New York Times Op Ed

Feel the Hate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times Op Ed
Published: September 3, 2004

I don't know where George Soros gets his money," one man said. "I don't know where - if it comes from overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from." George Soros, another declared, "wants to spend $75 million defeating George W. Bush because Soros wants to legalize heroin." After all, a third said, Mr. Soros "is a self-admitted atheist; he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."

They aren't LaRouchies - they're Republicans.

The suggestion that Mr. Soros, who has spent billions promoting democracy around the world, is in the pay of drug cartels came from Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, whom the Constitution puts two heartbeats from the presidency. After standing by his remarks for several days, Mr. Hastert finally claimed that he was talking about how Mr. Soros spends his money, not where he gets it.

The claim that Mr. Soros's political spending is driven by his desire to legalize heroin came from Newt Gingrich. And the bit about the Holocaust came from Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The Washington Times, which has become the administration's de facto house organ.

For many months we've been warned by tut-tutting commentators about the evils of irrational "Bush hatred." Pundits eagerly scanned the Democratic convention for the disease; some invented examples when they failed to find it. Then they waited eagerly for outrageous behavior by demonstrators in New York, only to be disappointed again.

There was plenty of hatred in Manhattan, but it was inside, not outside, Madison Square Garden.

Barack Obama, who gave the Democratic keynote address, delivered a message of uplift and hope. Zell Miller, who gave the Republican keynote, declared that political opposition is treason: "Now, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief." And the crowd roared its approval.

Why are the Republicans so angry? One reason is that they have nothing positive to run on (during the first three days, Mr. Bush was mentioned far less often than John Kerry).

The promised economic boom hasn't materialized, Iraq is a bloody quagmire, and Osama bin Laden has gone from "dead or alive" to he-who-must-not-be-named.

Another reason, I'm sure, is a guilty conscience. At some level the people at that convention know that their designated hero is a man who never in his life took a risk or made a sacrifice for his country, and that they are impugning the patriotism of men who have.

That's why Band-Aids with Purple Hearts on them, mocking Mr. Kerry's war wounds and medals, have been such a hit with conventioneers, and why senior politicians are attracted to wild conspiracy theories about Mr. Soros.

It's also why Mr. Hastert, who knows how little the Bush administration has done to protect New York and help it rebuild, has accused the city of an "unseemly scramble" for cash after 9/11. Nothing makes you hate people as much as knowing in your heart that you are in the wrong and they are in the right.

But the vitriol also reflects the fact that many of the people at that convention, for all their flag-waving, hate America. They want a controlled, monolithic society; they fear and loathe our nation's freedom, diversity and complexity.

The convention opened with an invocation by Sheri Dew, a Mormon publisher and activist. Early rumors were that the invocation would be given by Jerry Falwell, who suggested just after 9/11 that the attack was God's punishment for the activities of the A.C.L.U. and People for the American Way, among others. But Ms. Dew is no more moderate: earlier this year she likened opposition to gay marriage to opposition to Hitler.

The party made sure to put social moderates like Rudy Giuliani in front of the cameras. But in private events, the story was different. For example, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas told Republicans that we are in a "culture war" and urged a reduction in the separation of church and state.

Mr. Bush, it's now clear, intends to run a campaign based on fear. And for me, at least, it's working: thinking about what these people will do if they solidify their grip on power makes me very, very afraid.

Posted by Elaine at 12:56 PM | Comments (4)

Election Protection Volunteers Needed in Michigan

This is from Working Assets, People for the American Way, and ELECTION PROTECTION.ORG

Michigan is a "High Risk" state for Elephantine voter fraud tactics, and we're asked to head East to help our fellows make it through.

There is training offered via teleconference on three dates in September.

Lawyers, law students, and clergy are in particular demand.

Posted by Hope at 01:07 AM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2004

It's the war, stupid

I didn't write this...but I LIKED this...

The other side of the speeches:

Arnold and Laura: It's the War, Stupid
09/01/2004 @ 02:00am by David Corn

The official theme of Night Two of GOPalooza was "People of Compassion." But the real message of the evening was, Safety First. The key moments of the evening were designed to depict George W. Bush as the decisive leader who by launching the war in Iraq has protected, well, you and, of course, your loved ones. The convention has demonstrated that the no retreat/no surrender Bush campaign actually wants this election to be about Big Daddy's war.

In the early part of the program, speakers did praise Bush's policies on education, health care and home ownership. But the talk did little to jazz the crowd. When Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist hailed Bush for advocating health savings accounts and for passing a (rather limited) Medicare prescription drug benefit, the delegates politely applauded. In the Bush family box, George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush chatted with friends, barely paying attention to Frist. But then Frist blasted trial attorneys. Barbara Bush immediately jumped to her feet and began applauding enthusiastically. Her husband joined in. So did Commerce Secretary Don Evans and C. Boyden Gray, a corporate lawyer and longtime Bush family friend. Health savings account--no big deal. Beating up on trial attorneys--that rang their bells.

But the big bang of the night came when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger certified Bush a genuine action hero. In a crisply-written and well-delivered speech chockfull of good lines, Schwarzenegger retold his own coming-to-America tale to celebrate the American dream. He portrayed the United States as the force for freedom and liberty in the world. But his uber-goal was to present Bush as the best darn protector-in-chief in the world:

"The president didn't go into Iraq because the polls told him it was popular. As a matter of fact, the polls said just the opposite. But leadership isn't about polls. It's about making decisions you think are right and then standing behind those decisions. That's why America is safer with George W. Bush."

By the time of the invasion, Americans were supportive of a war in Iraq to deal with the supposed WMD threat. But that didn't stop the delegates from cheering wildly for Schwarzenegger. They ate up his bright, shining rhetoric about America:

"We're the America that fights not for imperialism but for human rights and democracy....When that lone, young Chinese man stood in front of those tanks in Tiananmen Square, America's hopes stood with him. And when Nelson Mandela smiled in an election victory after all those years in prison, America celebrated, too."

This was Hallmarkian history. Schwarzenegger neglected to mention that not too long after the Tiananmen Square massacre Bush the Elder moved to improve ties with the butchers of Beijing and that Ronald Reagan--hero to Schwarzenegger and every other Republican in the room--supported the racist regime that had imprisoned Mandela (and that a congressman named Dick Cheney had opposed imposing sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa). But why ruin a good story with reality? Schwarzenegger comes from a Hollywood obsessed with happy endings. He'll probably make a version of Moby Dick someday in which he plays Ahab and actually catches and kills (single- handedly) that damn white whale.

Schwarzenegger put his scriptwriters at the service of Constable Bush. We must "terminate terrorism," he declared. He recalled how an American GI who had lost a leg in Iraq had told him he planned to return to Iraq, vowing "Arnold...I'll be back." And, Schwarzenegger noted, "America is back"--back from recession, back from the 9/11 attacks-- because of one man: George W. Bush.

Schwarzenegger had little to say about compassion. His was a war speech. He breezed by his sharp differences with the party on social issues. Still, there's an obvious, but irresistible, point to make: the Republican Party that opposes abortion rights and gay rights--with no wiggle room in its platform--goes gaga over a fellow who believes it's perfectly fine if women destroy their babies and people engage in immoral and perverse sexual relations. (Don't write to complain; I'm using their terms for effect.) On the convention floor, I asked several delegates whether they could reconcile the apparent contradiction between assailing abortion as an abomination and embracing a man who supports abortion rights. Susan Stephens, a grandmother from Alabama, told me that while she considers abortion mass murder, she still can cheer for Schwarzenegger. "I know it sounds like I'm a sell-out," she remarked. "I'd like to talk to Arnold. I believe I can change his mind." And when Alan Keyes, a fundamentalist and fervent abortion foe now running for Senate in Illinois, walked by, I asked if he thought it was appropriate for the GOP to spotlight a Republican who says it is okay to engage in what Keyes has called one of the greatest evils of all time. Keyes was uncharacteristically restrained: "It's not the sort of thing I would do. But the task of making sure George W. Bush gets elected belongs to them. We have to hope and pray it works."

Tactics over principles? I never thought I would hear Keyes endorse such relativist means. But if Schwarzenegger could transfer some of his silver-screen swagger to Bush, then even Keyes was not going to complain.

When Laura Bush addressed the delegates, she too skipped over the compassion stuff. She noted that she could talk about education, about health care, about home ownership, "about the fact that my husband is the first president to provide federal funding for stem cell research," but such matters were not foremost on her mind (or the minds of the campaign strategists). "I want to talk about the issue," she said, "that I believe is most important for my own daughters, for all of our families, and for our future: George's work to protect our country and defeat terror so that all children can grow up in a more peaceful world." (In her brief reference to stem cells, Laura Bush disingenuously described her husband's policy, for she failed to say that he imposed limits on stem cell research that, according to most biotech experts, prevent the development of an effective research program.)

"My husband didn't want to go to war," Laura Bush maintained, "but he knew the safety and security of America and the world depended upon it."

And that is the essence of the Bush campaign's sales pitch. Safety is job one. Everything else? Sure, we can debate the No Child Left Behind Act, tax cuts, and health care. But what trumps it all is Bush's willingness to do whatever must be done to protect the United States. Even though polls show a majority of Americans now believe the war in Iraq was a mistake, Bush is not backing off. His campaign refuses to treat the war as a problem. Instead, it presents the war in Iraq as Exhibit A for the case that Bush has the cojones to defend America. This may well make strategic sense. After all, if you have a messy war (sold to the public with falsehoods and fibs) on your hands, you may as well make as much of it as possible. And how do you turn a liability into an asset? Just say it is, over and over. It helps if you have a movie-star hero leading the chorus. In the first two days of the convention, the Bush campaign has clearly revealed its credo: It's the war, stupid.

Posted by Elaine at 08:46 AM | Comments (0)