posted on June 1, 2004 12:19:16 PM new
You might be interested in the following just written by Charley Reese of the
Orlando Sentinel. If you know the writer and his strongly conservative
reputation, you should find it eye opening. Note particularly what he says about
John Kerry.
The conservative journalists Robert Novak and William Kristol happen to be
saying the same things.
Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election,
they are really voting for the architects of war ‹ Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and
their corporate backers.
I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a
front man, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his
administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of
any president in my memory.
It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take
away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that
an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in
English than our own president at their joint press conference recently.
John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and
who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book
world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our
poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt
simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.
But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed that
people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will
be.
People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their
stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as far
from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he
won't fool me twice.
It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly
increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and
the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is
good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that
people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most
prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His
administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.
It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few
Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found
yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either
you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy
combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?
This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but
because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost
restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is not
only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the world
thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration. Don't forget,
a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and Iran as the
greatest threats to world peace.
I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in
the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it.
Go to Kerry's Web site (www.johnkerry.com) and read some of the magazine
profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP
attack dogs would have you believe.
Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs,
ride motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. It
would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people face to
face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and dispels all
illusions about war.
___________________________________
As I've Matured...
1. I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in...
[ edited by Roadsmith on Jun 1, 2004 12:21 PM ]
posted on June 1, 2004 03:31:29 PM new
It's sobering to realize that because of failed Bush foreign policy we now have few friends anywhere in the world and that we are among those countries considered the greatest threats to world peace.
posted on June 1, 2004 07:10:34 PM new
oh, and I wasn't busy looking up articles kraft, after a long 'holiday' weekend, there was a long line I was standing in at the pharmacist (which I finally said screw it) long line at the bank, and then dinner to get.
posted on June 1, 2004 07:14:18 PM new
Taking into account all of the tragedy of the Iraqi prison scandal and invasion and the overall mess there, I would think that the world community would think of us, US as a world bully. A major blunder from Bush.
I really don't see things getting better there by the deadline date to turn over power.
True Americans do not exclude anybody. They recognize that everyone should have the same rights. Bigotry, intolerance and hatred are cancers of the mind.
posted on June 1, 2004 08:30:43 PM new
Hey, Roadsmith is a "her," not a "him." She would love your vote, by the way. Here's a joke for all my buddies here (probably an old one, with many variations?):
George W. Bush is out jogging one morning, notices
a little boy on the corner with a box. Curious, he runs over to the
child and says, "What's in the box, kid?"
The little boy says, "Kittens, they're brand new kittens."
George W laughs and says, "What kind of kittens are they?"
Republicans," the child says.
"Oh that's cute," George W. says and he runs off.
A couple of days later George is running with his buddy Dick Cheney and
he spies the same boy with his box just ahead.
George W. says to Dick, "You gotta check this out" and they both jog
over to the boy with the box. George W. says, "Look in the box, aren't
they cute? Look at those little kittens. Hey kid, tell my friend Dick
what kind of kittens they are."
The boy replies, "They're Democrats."
"Whoa!" George W. says. "I came by here the other day and you said
they were Republicans. What's up?"
"Well," the kid says, "Their eyes are open now."
___________________________________
As I've Matured...
1. I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in...
posted on June 1, 2004 10:22:03 PM new
[i]The conservative journalists Robert Novak and William Kristol happen to be
saying the same things[/i].
You're suggesting Novak and Kristol have said they're going to vote for Kerry? LOL - I'd like to see proof of THAT because I don't believe it for a minute!!!
posted on June 2, 2004 08:20:58 AM new
Most of the posts here are like the Yeager Thread. Everyone has their own opinion and they will never change no matter what someone else says. All the reporters write about he said she said or form their own opinions.
The only articles in the news paper I believe are the sports scores and sometimes they are wrong. Of course I read the newspaper but is it the truth or are they just writing their feelings.
Are we given fact or fiction as is hard to detect fact in the reporters opinions. Just because it is written doesn't mean it is fact.
posted on June 2, 2004 01:17:06 PM new
A lot of Republicans/Conservatives are fed up with Bush & Co.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/01/27/cpac/
The conservatives are outraged -- about Bush
At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, foot soldiers of the right rail against the big-government, free-spending ways of the White House.
By Michelle Goldberg
Jan. 27, 2004 | CRYSTAL CITY, Va. -- Razor-tongued right-wing darling Michelle Malkin stood before a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday and denounced George Bush's new immigration policy. Her voice oozing contempt, she described Bush as "Clintonian" for claiming to oppose amnesty in his State of the Union speech. She held up an orange sign with Bush's words, "I oppose amnesty," written on it. Then she ripped it up and roared, "What part of amnesty doesn't he understand?"
This year's CPAC, an annual conference that's ground zero of the vast right-wing conspiracy, pulsated with the usual antipathy toward liberals, gays, secular judges, environmentalists and Europeans. Yet many attendees also bristled with a more uneasy anger, one directed at their erstwhile allies in the White House. Conservative activists, especially older ones, felt betrayed and disappointed by Bush's immigration policy, his expansion of the federal government and his promiscuous spending, so much so that some suggested the grass-roots right might stay home on Election Day. There were plenty of passionate Bush fans in attendance, most of them college students, but movement leaders and veterans spoke of them with outright contempt. One right-wing pollster called them "Bushlickers."
This year's CPAC, in fact, was more encouraging for liberals than conservatives. Bush's right-wing base is demanding more concessions than he's made so far, but those concessions are likely to erode whatever moderate support the president has. At one of the most fervently Republican gatherings in the country, it wasn't hard to find people who were planning to vote for third-party candidates from the Constitution or Libertarian parties, and a few even confided in whispers that they might vote for Joe Lieberman or John Edwards if given a chance. The mood was like that of liberals in 2000 who saw Al Gore as nothing more than a lesser evil and yearned to send a futile message through Ralph Nader. While the grass-roots left is more motivated and disciplined than it's ever been, the grass-roots right has turned sullen and uncompromising.
"A lot of people here don't care if Bush wins or not," said Rick Shaftan, a right-wing political consultant and pollster based in New Jersey.
That's good news for Democrats, because few people care more about conservative politics than CPAC attendees. Organized by the American Conservative Union, CPAC is a three-day conference that brings together the leaders of the American right with their most passionate foot soldiers. This year, around 4,000 people gathered at a Marriott in Crystal City, Va., outside of Washington, to hear speakers including Vice President Dick Cheney, neo-McCarthyite Ann Coulter, veteran anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Iran-Contra veteran Oliver North.
Coulter offered a salutary reminder of how the right really feels about "political hate speech," telling a cheering crowd of hundreds that the Democrats' key constituency consists of "breathtakingly stupid women." She declared, "You can never be too scandalous in talking about liberals. These people are animals; they want to destroy the country and they support the Taliban and al-Qaida the way they supported Stalin in McCarthy's day." Oliver North, the Iran-Contra conspirator, was equally magnanimous, making a joke about journalists killed covering Iraq. "Seventeen war correspondents were killed," he said. "That's unusual. Usually war correspondents are just injured and become casualties when they fall off their egos and land on their IQs." Meanwhile, a company called Star Spangled Ice Cream, a right-wing answer to Ben and Jerry's, handed out samples of "I Hate the French Vanilla" and vendors sold "Bring Back the Blacklist" mugs and "Dean People Suck" buttons.
Yet all the fervent vituperation couldn't hide the widespread feeling of disillusionment. At last year's CPAC, worship for the president was almost cultlike -- people festooned themselves with T-shirts and buttons bearing his face and bought up George Bush mouse pads, mugs and handbags. The same merchandise was for sale this year, but it wasn't moving as swiftly. By Saturday, Bush baseball caps had been marked down from $15 to $3.
"There's concern over what Bush is doing, no question," said Donald Devine, vice chairman of the American Conservative Union and former director of the Office of Personnel Management in the Reagan administration. "He's increased domestic spending more than any recent president. I don't think it's turned into voting against Bush. It may show up in terms of turnout. In the past, that's hurt Republicans."
Indeed, that's why Shaftan, a Jewish Manhattan native wearing a Confederate flag tie under his gray suit, said he wouldn't bet on Bush in the coming election. "If I still gambled, I would not say he's the favorite," he said.
A recent Newsweek poll says the same thing, with 52 percent of voters wanting to see Bush defeated in the 2004 election. Even more significantly, the poll shows fewer people passionately support Bush than passionately oppose him -- while 37 percent of respondents said they strongly want to see Bush reelected, 47 percent strongly do not.
"Some people are upset that Bush himself didn't come," said Foster Lowe, Republican co-chairman of Little Ferry, N.J. Lowe and Shaftan were standing with a group of New Jersey Republicans, all of them griping about the president. "We're the base, and there's an undercurrent of unhappiness," Lowe said. "Last year, everyone was super-excited."
Shaftan looked at Lowe and said, "Where's your 'W' sticker?"
"I don't know," Lowe shrugged, adding that he has one on his car.
"Everyone here should be having five Bush stickers on," said Shaftan. "In '84, it was a Reagan lovefest. People had 12 stickers." Now, he said, "I don't sense any great deal of enthusiasm." Republican leaders, he said, "are all fat and lazy and thinking they can't lose. These guys are just very arrogant. They think, 'What are they going to do, vote for Kerry?'"
"Don't tell me I have nowhere else to go," said Steven Lonegan, the Republican mayor of Bogota, N.J., speaking of feeling insulted by an administration that takes conservatives for granted.
Shaftan knew that the opposition was crackling with energy, and that worried him, because he sees the activists as the key to victory. "When I get all the whackos together and they're all juiced up, I always win," he said. "Bush treats everybody here like we're all a bunch of nuts."
"I've polled on this guy, and I can't believe how weak his numbers are," Shaftan continued. "Have you talked to anyone here who defends Bush? It's only people under 25." He pumped his fist and grunted mockingly, "Bush the man!"
Of course, there were plenty of people at CPAC willing to defend Bush. Grover Norquist, powerful right-wing strategist and president of Americans for Tax Reform, said that "economic conservatives should be delighted" with Bush because of his tax cuts. Among the college students, there was still enormous enthusiasm for the war in Iraq -- the fervor was so great that some, like 18-year-old John Bascom, had even briefly considered joining the military. (Why did he decide against it? "I didn't think I was the right type of person," he explained.) And social conservatives were largely pleased that Bush had nodded toward a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in his State of the Union speech.
Introducing Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, right-wing radio host Armstrong Williams said: "I am so proud of the president. I'm so impressed by what he said, that marriage is between a man and a woman. Howard Dean says God spoke to him about same-sex marriage. My only question is, what God is that? Definitely not the God we serve."
Chao gave a speech in which she tried to rile the crowd against the growing threat of nongovernmental organizations, which she said are working to "promote global social and cultural values." NGOs, she warned, "should be at the top of every conservative watch list." She didn't mention which NGOs she was talking about, but she did give an example of their nefarious influence. One of them, apparently, filed a friend of the court brief in Lawrence vs. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court case that ruled anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional. One of the judges in the case, Chao said, "relied on research supplied by this NGO to justify his support for this new constitutional right."
Chao's speech probably resonated with the significant faction of CPAC attendees for whom sodomy is the most urgent issue facing the nation. (The group Bascom belongs to, the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, put out a flier comparing the Lawrence decision to Sept. 11). Ultimately, though, she failed to deflect the attendees' anger away from the administration and onto villains like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
That anger was focused on Bush's economic policies and his expansion of entitlements. At a panel titled "GOP Success: Is it Destroying the Conservative Movement?" Devine said, "I'm probably going to end up voting for George Bush, but let's not kid ourselves." He then listed presidents -- including Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter -- who were better than Bush on domestic spending. "The bottom-line fact," Devine concluded, "is they're not going in the right direction." The crowd applauded.
Surprisingly, factions of the movement with very different agendas shared this sentiment. Even as Bush's runaway spending and expanding deficits infuriated small-government libertarians, his immigration proposal outraged right-wing populists who want the government to intervene to protect American workers.
After Malkin spoke, it fell to Daniel Griswold from the libertarian CATO Institute to defend Bush's immigration policy against a furious audience. His laissez-faire argument about matching willing workers and employers met with only tepid applause. He was followed by Schlafly, whose denunciation of the downward pressure on wages caused by globalization won standing ovations. "It's a terrible betrayal of American workers to make us compete with cheap labor from the rest of the world," she cried while the crowd cheered. Suddenly, the lower-middle-class rage that Republicans have so effectively deflected toward supercilious elites and parasitic minorities was turning back on the GOP.
Shaftan has seen the same thing. "I was in Arkansas, in a bar with a big Confederate flag on the wall," he said. It was full of good old boys, none of them fans of Clinton, who had turned on the president. They told Shaftan, "#*!@ Bush. The economy sucks and he's letting all the damn wetbacks in."
Typically, Republicans facing this kind of populist anger divert it with a culture war, and several speakers suggested that's what we'll see this year. Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, gave a speech in which he accused supporters of gay marriage of "religious bigotry," saying, "Those who say I must turn my back on the tenets of my faith in order to be accepted by them are the ones who are intolerant."
Later, at a panel called "Previewing the 2004 Elections," Jeff Bell, a lobbyist who pushed for Bush's 2001 tax cuts and his faith-based initiatives, acknowledged that the upcoming election was going to be a rough fight. "Democrats are wising up," he said. "They're not going to be the sitting ducks that Max Cleland and others were in 2002," referring to the former Georgia Democratic senator who lost three limbs in Vietnam but was nonetheless tarred as a traitor by Republicans.
When it looked like Howard Dean was going to be the nominee, Bell said, Republicans "didn't have to worry about the base and the base's morale." But he worried that Kerry or Edwards would pose bigger challenges. "To keep his base exercised the president will have to bite the bullet and come out for specific measures to preserve traditional marriage," said Bell.
That will oblige the people at the Traditional Values coalition, who, as part of their anti-gay marriage display, had a woman dressed as a bride serving wedding cake. The group's chairman, Rev. Lou Sheldon, sees gay marriage as a sign of approaching apocalypse, saying, "Babylon is symbolic of promiscuity, hedonism and homosexuality." Sheldon says he has a weekly conference call with the White House about the issue, and is confident that the president will respond to grass-roots pressure.
It's unclear, though, if that will be enough to satisfy those disappointed with the administration in so many other ways. "The only way I'd vote for Bush," said Jeffrey Becker, a 41-year-old engineer from West Virginia, "is if Hillary got in the race."
Edited for UBB
____________________
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy
[ edited by bunnicula on Jun 2, 2004 01:21 PM ]
posted on June 2, 2004 01:45:28 PM new
Sure there's some who don't like this policy or that policy of BOTH candidates/partys.....they're just voicing their opinions. DOES NOT mean that they are going to switch sides when and where they would be EVEN MORE things they'd disagree with. That's just plain silly to think that. There's many more each side WOULD agree with in the party they support.
posted on June 2, 2004 01:53:42 PM new
Oh, Linda, pretty weak defense of your man. I think you're whistlin' in the dark.
And, good God, Ann Coulter, Ollie North, and Phyllis Schlafly together! The three lightweights. And little Ann has the nerve to call Democratic women "breathtakingly stupid." I can just hear her nasal rasping voice saying that. She's a real piece of work.
___________________________________
As I've matured, I've learned. . .
#2. I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from
> you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away. And the
> real pains in the butt are permanent.
posted on June 2, 2004 02:04:59 PM new
What exactly do you like about George Bush, linda. Do you identify with his IQ? What has he done that benefited what you call the majority? He has trashed the economy, the environment and has made our country a less safe place to live. He has angered our former allies and embarrassed us throughout the world. He has started a war with a country not responsible for 9/11 and while fighting that war left our country more vulnerable and without defense against terrorism.
Tell me what has he done for you?
posted on June 2, 2004 02:10:31 PM new
And now that the conservatives have read the 'better read this' post....maybe the liberals 'better read this' too.
taken from the WSJ today:
Happy Country, Unhappy Base
Two articles in the Washington Times suggest trouble for the Democrats come November.
The paper's Donald Lambro says that the Democratic base is disunited. Some Howard Dean supporters, eager for defeat in Iraq, are leaning toward Ralph Nader instead of Kerry. Some Black and Hispanic leaders say Kerry has too many people of pallor among his advisers. And although hard-core Democrats hate President Bush with a passion, "most polls show that at least 12 percent of all registered Democratic voters say they will vote for Mr. Bush, twice the number of Republicans who intend to vote for Mr. Kerry."
posted on June 2, 2004 02:28:43 PM new
Yes, helen I did. So glad you noticed. Why would I want to waste my breath answering a redundant questions? LOL Anyone who's read my posts already knows why. You're just a little slow I guess.
posted on June 2, 2004 02:28:49 PM new
Linda has been asked that question on more than one occasion and has had trouble answering it and usually avoids it.
Hmmmmm...... perhaps she just has a secret crush on Bush like a girl does over a rock star and she can see him do no wrong?
posted on June 2, 2004 02:46:33 PM new
That's pitiful, linda. But I can sympathize. I wouldn't be able to name one single positive thing that Bush has accomplished for this country either. The question now... that you should ask yourself, at least, is why are you a strong supporter of such an incompetent president.
I think we refer to it as "blind loyalty". Not to poke fun at anyone's hardships, but it's like the battered woman who stays with her batterer. They blindly think that things will change and get better. They don't know anything or anyone else and are afraid to walk away. The big difference is that they have support groups for battered women. Maybe someone should start a support group for blind followers of Bush?
posted on June 6, 2004 09:54:58 AM newwhy are you a strong supporter of such an incompetent president...
It's the fear vote Helen, and I think it's going to play a HUGE part in the election. Bush's handlers seem to know this too, and are capitalizing on it.
edited to fix italics tags. I timesome have lisdexia.
___________________________________
When a dog howls at the moon, we call it religion. When he barks at strangers, we call it patriotism. - Edward Abbey
[ edited by profe51 on Jun 6, 2004 09:56 AM ]
posted on June 6, 2004 10:10:02 AM new
Religion is also a key factor when it comes to voting.
On Tuesday, the Bush campaign sent an e-mail to supporters in Pennsylvania seeking to "identify 1,600 'friendly congregations' where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis." The campaign asks for a volunteer coordinator for each congregation.
Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, calls the e-mail "a breathtakingly bad merger of religion and politics" that asks churches to violate their tax-exempt status. Tax law forbids political activity by churches. Steve Schmidt of the Bush campaign said the outreach was to individuals, not to churches.
- I'd like to see proof of THAT because I don't believe it for a minute!!!