Sunday, January 25, 2004

My letter still rings true.
I wrote this letter to my local newspaper, The Syracuse Post Standard, last summer.
It rings truer than ever now that even David Kay confirms there are no WMDs in Iraq.
Can I be absolutely honest here?
I hope Howard Dean, John Edwards, and Wesley Clark make 'french toast' out of John Kerry in the
New Hampshire primary this week!
Have you seen the Edwards blog? It's relatively new.
Howard Dean is still the one candidate who has my full confidence and support.
For some reason, I have lately felt that perhaps Senator Edwards could be more easily forgiven for voting 'Yes' on the Iraq Resolution than Kerry.
Why?
Edwards was a junior Senator from North Carolina serving his first term.
Kerry was a seasoned Senator who knew that many of his own constituents were against the Resolution.
Bottom line, I don't trust Kerry's intuition as a leader.

Howard Dean has it all "going on" for him except having the media on his side. The media has been so unfair to Dean that his supporters will never forgive journalists' sharply-pointed foolishness. They treat his coach-like enthusiasm as if he was Nikita Kruschev. They compare the Diane Sawyer/Judy Dean interview with that 1992 Clinton "I'm not some little woman standin' by her man" interview....as if Howard Dean was some bad-boy adulterer-just-been-caught!
Ask yourself....why would the media wish to ruin a "clean" candidate's reputation?
I can't help imagine them....today's marbly-mouthed gossip-quality journalists..not a Murrow among them...hardly a one of them being able to find the guts to think and speak independently in fear of the paymaster...gathering in their little journalist-clatches. One big ego (can you say Joe Klein*?) starts mouthing off about his/her favorite candidate and the "supporting polls" applying to that candidate...and the rest may protest, but eventually cave in..one by one to the ego-buzz. They think to themselves: "If so-and-so says so on his talk-show today, I do not dare broadcast something different or honest, lest they fire me...lest I'm WRONG!"
What do we viewers/readers wind up with?
All we get is the product of lazy, gutless, dependent, gossiping, arrogant, well-paid idiots.

*The Joe Klein reference was just one example of these arogant boobs and the way they play politics in their
corporate-sponsored magazines:
"That leaves—in addition to Clark—Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman as the only plausible foreign policy candidates in the Democratic field."
-Joe Klein
Kerry and Lieberman would be my last choice..and the last choice of many, many Democrats I know in real life.
Letter to Cleveland Plain Dealer:
"W" is no Jack Kennedy
by Todd J. Schneider

Todd Schneider of the Free Thinker's Page writes to his local newspaper:

Date: 23 Jan., 2004
To The Editor,

You know, I thought I had seen all the smoke and mirrors that Republican politics had to offer. But our fearless (except for a year or so as a no-show at his post in the Alabama Air National Guard) leader has charted new territory with the Mars project. This has to be Karl Rove's most twisted vote-gathering, corporate political contribution scheme to date. Actually, this is probably only the beginning of an almost daily hoodwinking of the American public into believing that George Bush is some kind of populist, from now 'til November.
Here's how it goes: First, you try to pretend you are John Kennedy; a president with a vision. Even though your intellect and personality fall far short in comparison, you may fool enough of the already distracted public into buying into this charade to collect a few votes. And considering the timetable of this adventure, by the time the public realizes that they have been fleeced (again), you will be long since gone from office, leaving some other chump to do the explaining.
In the meantime, all your friends and relatives in the arms trade will reap billions in federal contracts before America realizes what a swindle the Mars project has been. But no matter! It will be Congress that gets to be the bad guy when they cut the funding for the project seven years down the road. All the while, the political contribution tap will be wide open, allowing all of the project's corporate benefactors to show their appreciation.
But here's the best part for you and your neighbors in your gated community. You have been waiting for the perfect scheme to 'starve the beast', as Grover Norquist puts it - to make all the protective and supportive agencies of the federal government powerless through lack of available funding.
When taken with permanent tax cuts for your pals in the boardroom, and never-ending war, this pie-in-the-sky space project will sound the death-knell for all those 'entitlements' for the great unwashed that you hate so much. Why, how could one of the unwashed be so selfish as to hope for a few meat inspectors, or help for their aged mothers; we're going to Mars!
I tell you, this Mars project has it all. The illusion of 'vision', a never-ending shower of profit for your political contributors, and the final extermination of social programs. It's a dream come true. That is, if you ever intended this project for anything other than showboating anyway!
I mean, remember that AIDS initiative you mockingly proposed while simultaneously slashing our commitment to the Global Fund to Fight Aids? The money was only shuffled, and even then was only ‘protection’ for American drug companies, against the use of foreign ‘generics’ by the Global Fund.
And by the way, should anyone doubt the assertions made above, all one has to do is look back at 30 years of statements made by the fellas that run our nation now. If anyone is willing to face the truth, it will be very clear that this Mars project is nothing more than election year slight-of-hand, and a cruel joke at our expense.

Todd J. Schneider
A Few Words About A Fine Man:
Jerry's Legacy

"He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times."
- Johann Christoph Fredrich von Schiller


A man loved by many passed away early this month. "Sgt. Stryker's" Kevin Connors' accounting of the legacy left upon his heart by his friend and mentor Jerry Ringerman ( former JCCSF director ) leaves me wishing I had known him myself. It's a fine reminder that we all have something to cherish about and learn from one another, regardless of our politics.

"....his legacy is broad and rich; some of the better parts of me are just a small bit of it."
-Kevin Connors about his friend, JerryRingerman

The new Dennis Miller show promises to suck Bush-tail
Miller admits he will not have any real open-minded perspective:
Dennis Miller has usually been happy to spray his acerbic wit across the political spectrum, but things will be different on his new CNBC talk program. President Bush is in a mock-free zone.
"I like him," Miller explained. "I'm going to give him a pass. I take care of my friends."


"Nine-11 changed me," he said. "I'm shocked that it didn't change the whole country, frankly."
Frankly, it did change all of us. It turned Miller into a frank...as in WIENER.
ABC.com/The Note:
If Kerry were being treated like Dean

*WHY ISN'T HE?*
If Kerry were being treated like Dean was when Dean was the frontrunner (assuming any of you can remember that far back), these things would be monster flaps and areas of aggressive reportage:
-- Kerry saying "North Korea" instead of "South Korea" in the debate.
-- Kerry limiting his press availabilities.
-- Kerry "borrowing" aspects of Dean's message.
-- Kerry's record of legislative accomplishments (?).
-- Fritz Hollings using the word "Chinaman" at a Kerry event yesterday and Kerry not denouncing him.
-- Kerry bragging about his campaign finance record in the face of taking presidential PAC money, DSCC record, and Busta Caps.
-- Kerry claiming "endorsements don't matter" and then saying "We got Hollings and Mondale!" and, today, the League of Conservation Voters (and more are coming … ).
-- Kerry's apparently limited release of his tax returns.
-- Kerry showing an unpresidential temper in flipping out at kindly David Wade.
-- Kerry's team putting his traveling press corps at a different hotel than the candidate.
-- Kerry not being attacked at the debate and there being almost no pickup for his Vietnam medals answer.
-- Luis Navarro's quitting after yesterday's hiring of Steve Elmendorf.
-- A million other Kerry controversies that have been chronicled in the Boston papers over the years and clips on which exist in a bulging RNC file.
-- No Mike Isikoff stories (or: are there??).
Did you know? The Edwards press van hit a moose last night.

Other Dean articles
Fineman dissects what he considers to be Dean flaws
Fineman has been a fairly consistent Dean-doubting naysayer all along, so this is par for his course. I can see some of his points, but overall, it's just another case of anti-Dean-disease.

Jodi Wilgoren and Robin Toner provide much more balance in this story.
Dean has conducted quite a public relations offensive to counter the fallout from Iowa, but the impact on New Hampshire's voters is still unclear.