Monday, August 30, 2004

New attacks on Kerry from well-known creep

New attacks on Kerry from well-known creep

From the Kerry campaign:

A new round of attacks on John Kerry comes from a familiar name -- Ted Sampley -- who has a long history of irrational public attacks against both John McCain and John Kerry. In 1992 Sampley created a fake photo of John Kerry shooting an American MIA. He has been jailed for starting a fight with John McCain's staff, and has called McCain the Manchurian Candidate, accusing him of being "brainwashed by the Vietnamese" and being a "KGB spy."

Ted Sampley is now the head of "Vietnam Veterans Against Kerry" and a supporter of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." He has been telling lies about John Kerry, and today he launched an extraordinarily false ad smearing John Kerry's military service.

To view this ad click here:

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.org

Ted Sampley's group is also still attacking Senator McCain. To view this page click here:

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com/mccain_myth.htm

What can you do?
Please take a minute and call the Bush campaign at the Republican Convention tonight. Ask George Bush to specifically condemn this ugly smear.

Call now:
(212) 356-2300 or (212) 356-2004

Rudy Covers the Lies

Rudy Covers the Lies

I'd like to tell Rudy it was quite effective for Dubya Bush to have said the terrorists would 'hear from us' as he stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center with Bob the fire chief. That was a memorable moment.

Iraq had nothing to do with the bunch that took down the towers, though.
Rudy tends to forget that Saddam was on Dubya's hit list long before 9/11.

Bush exploited 9/11 and its victims for the purpose of taking out Saddam Hussein.

The Iraq war was never necessary.

We were misled to war and fellows like Rudy are willing to let the lies go as if they are meaningless.

We were misled by the Commander in Chief.
We can't trust him--not even as far as we can throw him.
We were misled toward a war of disastrous results to date.
Countless thousands have died, including nearly 1000 of our troops.
Jesus, couldn't we have found a decent way?
I know we could have. With many allies. With a decent leader.
We didn't have one.

No speech, regardless of how wonderful, will cover that big boy of a lie.

That elephant in the corner is too big to fit in Madison Square Garden.

Rudy was awfully good at calling all presidents before Dubya "appeasers", including Reagan and Bush 41. What he forgets is that no president before Dubya allowed something of this magnitude and complexity to happen on his watch.

Here's what is the saddest---all Dubya HAS to run on is 9/11.
How macabre and perverted.
He didn't do much of anything to protect us from it, but he's running on it.
Exploitation reigns in NYC this week.

Rudy belittled John Kerry...looking like a schmuck, I'm sure to the majority of voters who already support Kerry. He was the white Al Sharpton (but I'll bet the media will treat Rudy like a darling whereas they treated Al Sharpton like a dolt).

Bush is no Roosevelt, no Reagan, no Churchill.
He's a dull fool who's been given a job that's way over his head.

I want a President who's smarter and yes, perhaps even more ethical than I am. (And I'm quite intelligent and ethical).

Rudy might, but I surely do not thank God that George Bush is our president and I do not thank God that the devious and unethical Dick Cheney is my vice president.

I'm scared when Rudy says Bush has a vision for the next four years.
I shudder.
I've seen how he acts upon his delusions.
It kills people rather indiscriminately.

9/11 Families Trotted Out for Politics

9/11 Families Trotted Out for Politics

I found this to be very moving from the standpoint of their stories, albeit exploitative on the RNC's part. The tear-jerking tales had nothing to do with anything Democratic or Republican.

Daniel Rodriguez did a beautiful rendition of 'Amazing Grace'...a great lead-in for Roooody.

Who Is Bob Beckwith?

Who Is Bob Beckwith?

Any relation to my guest-blogger DK Beckwith?
Do you even recognize Bob Beckwith's name?

Heaven knows his memory is invoked time and time again.

If you don't know him, here's a chance.

He doesn't like to be 'used' for politics.

Who Is Zainab Al-Suwaij?

Who Is Zainab Al-Suwaij?

Zainab Al-Suwaij spoke at the RNC tonight. Good to see foreign nationals coming in to campaign for an American president.

In some nations, you could be arrested for that.

While I empathize with Al-Suwaij, I also am reminded, as an American, of our misleading President who lied to us so many times and in so many ways about why he wanted to overthrow the Hussein regime during the lead-up to the invasion. I've also recently heard him lie about how he went to the UN during early 2003 in "the hopes diplomacy would work." He never hoped diplomacy would work. He was amassing troops all around the borders of Iraq while lying to us as to why he was doing it.

Imminent threat?

Al-Suwaij said this in February, 2003: (and remember, our President had just invoked fear of mushroom clouds ands 16 words about imminent threat in the State of the Union speech just weeks before to get the public to accept the invasion):
INTERVIEWER: The peace marches in their millions, for example, throughout the world in recent weeks, what do you say to them?

ZAINAB AL-SUWAIJ: Well, I say it's about time to stop the war inside Iraq.
Saddam has been killing people, torturing people for more than 30 years and it's about time for them to gain back their freedom and to enjoy and liberate their own country.
Imminent threat, indeed.
This was a twelve-year-old vendetta--finishing what the first Bush didn't/couldn't/wouldn't.
Now this woman returns to bolster the president who sent our troops to free her while lying to his own people.

Excuse me for not being terribly emotional.

Does Bernard Kerik ever smile?

Does Bernard Kerik ever smile?

Just wondering.

Wilson Praises Troops' Courage in Face of Iraq Insecurity

Wilson Praises Troops' Courage in Face of Iraq Insecurity

At the RNC, Heather Wilson asked this question regarding our troops:
Where does the courage come from? Where do we find men and women like this? We find them in Carlsbad, New Mexico and Cleveland, Ohio. We find them in Colorado Springs, Colorado and Tampa, Florida, and Houston, Texas.



She forgot to add where and how those men and women are too often "found". The vision of Marine recruiters scouring the poorest parts of Flint, Michigan for places where a lone unfortunate-looking fellow--or two at most--might be found. This was a scene from the film 'Fahrenheit 9/11'.
Too often, an escape from impoverishment leads to the courage a man or woman never realized he or she could have possessed in the face of war.

Wherever it comes from, courage belongs to the individual who displays it.

The honor, indeed, belongs to them.

This is not to demean service to our nation. This is to remind you of the reality--most of the men and women fighting for us in Iraq are not children of privilege.

The fact that Bush has used our troops unwisely does not mean the troops' courage carries over to him.

GOP Focusing on Going Negative on Opponent

GOP Focusing on Going Negative on Opponent

It's no surprise the RNC speakers are going gonzo-negative on Kerry. They have nothing to boast about.

Bush Admin Unworthy Heirs to Republican Party

Bush Administration: Unworthy Heirs to Republican Party
Capital Times Editorial: GOP veers from its founding principles





When delegates to the Republican National Convention meet in New York City this week, they will pass a platform that is radically out of sync with the principles upon which the party was founded, and they will nominate a presidential and vice presidential ticket made up of two men who once would have been booed off the convention stage of a gathering of the Grand Old Party.

Bush says war on terror not winnable

Bush says war on terror not winnable

President Bush says the war on terror isn't the kind you can win.
Trust him-- it's not.
Not under his leadership.

He cannot imagine a day when we will know it's over.
It never will be.
Not under his leadership.

He tells his fans (only fans are allowed in to the rallies) that we're all safer and that terrorists hate us for what we have.
He never mentions they hate us for what we've done.

The way to win the war on terror is through the hearts and minds of those we wish to assist on their march toward freedom.
Our wrong-minded foreign policy has created the best farming system for new terrorists there ever could have been.

The West is losing the war on terror. The unimaginative and unnecessary charade Bush led us to in Iraq has caused more instability than it has prevented. The most popular anti-American leader in the world today remains at large. Whether we shrink away at the thought or not, Bin Laden is as much of a political genius as Karl Rove. He can make people act as sheep, swallowing his propaganda and using Bush's ignorant "bring 'em on" attitude to inflame his would-be-followers. Bush's failures have emboldened this shadowy genius of a leader.

I am clearly and thoroughly dismayed by this thought, yet I believe it is true. Bush adamantly refuses to change course in Iraq and adjust/correct America's policies abroad. Muslim nations in that part of the world who were once moderate now lean toward the jihadists. We are not safer for having had this leader at this time in our nation's sordid, frightening, and sorrowful history.

Bush is finally on to something.
With him at the wheel, we're not going to be winning much of anything.
Ever.

Unless he flip-flops, of course.

There's always hope he has a touch of the flip-flopper in him.

He's proven that inflexibility kills.

Bush 41 calls NYC Protesters "Senseless; False Patriots"

Bush 41 calls NYC Protesters "Senseless; False Patriots"

I just watched George HW Bush (41st President) call the protesters in NYC "senseless" while speaking on the deck of the USS Intrepid. He also accused the protesters of being "false patriots".

He used the words of Major Butler in Najaf (words which allegedly appeared in a recent NY Times column) to assist him in denouncing the speech of the protestors.

While it is GWH Bush's right to blame protesters for his own's son's disastrous results in Iraq to date, I have the right to say I think he's simply finding a way to defend his son, which any of us parents might have a tendency to do where our children are concerned.

I think he's terribly mistaken to blame those who see his son's dreadful missteps for what they are.

No American should be intimidated by those who make the wars into believing they cause political failure in those wars (as opposed to recognizing the failure).

Major Butler, over in Iraq, may wish Americans would not speak for him when they protest American foreign policy.
We are not speaking for him.
We are speaking for ourselves.

Major Butler thinks the gifts we send to troops and the good will and prayers we offer up are "false support" if we've exercised our free speech along with the deal....if we don't fall in, like good soldiers, with misguided missions.
That's not in keeping with much of a spirit of gratitude or the American way, is it?

I wish Major Butler to know that I do support him and his right to believe as he wishes. I will not, however, ever stand for the Major calling someone like me a false patriot.

My family has shared in building and defending this country--all the way back to pre-Revolutionary times.

I certainly won't stand for the ones who plot and plan misguided wars and the familes who defend their sons' failures to call me a false patriot.

My views are every bit as important as any other American's.

Once again, nuance escapes the dull. Supporting your troops is not the same as silencing yourself when you see unnecessary danger to those troops.

If you care about them, you speak up.

John Kerry did it after he risked all in Viet Nam.
History proved John Kerry right, no matter how unpatriotic the Bushes try to paint him while they (and their shadowy Swift Boat liars) attempt to revise that history.


When critics of the war say their advocacy is on behalf of those of us risking our lives here, it's a type of false patriotism. I believe that when Americans say they "support our troops," it should include supporting our mission, not just sending us care packages. They don't have to believe in the cause as I do; but they should not denigrate it. That only aids the enemy in defeating us strategically.

Over Najaf, fighting for my hometown
Glen G. Butler NYT


All Hail President Catastrophe!

All Hail President Catastrophe!

Praising the Catastrophically Successful in the Big Apple

Fans of catastrophic success want to see four more years of it. Four more years of the likely possibility of charging blindly and without real provocation or real allies into yet another nation. Who will be next? Iran? Syria?

Not with our children, they don't. They're going to have to pry them out of our cold dead hands. We don't trust catastrophe wrapped up in fancy toilet paper and called "success".

We don't live in an alternate magical universe like these Bush idolizers.

We don't trust a leader who'd use a sneaky backdoor draft to avoid calling for a real one. Calling for a real draft would be the end of Bush politics as we know it. Poof. There would go the Bush charade as a moral leader of united people.

We don't trust a leader who finds it morally acceptable to lie their way into a needless war, then ignore and attempt to ban the political speech of the majority of the people of America when they call him on it.



Dishonorable success goes hand-in-hand with catastrophic success.




This election will be a referendum on the last four years. The question is: Will Americans see through this charade? Will they be capable of looking through the pretty Arnold and Rudy watercolors in order to see the political sewage stains that lie, in truth, underneath?

If the media doesn't do a good job over the next couple months, the truth could easily be hidden. Americans have very short attention spans.

Of course, the media will need help from the Democrats themselves. The Democrats could use a shot of Iron in getting the truth out. They are not going to win this election by assuming the media will do the honorable thing. They seldom do. In general, the media would rather appease the viewers' desire to 'see blood'. The sounding of recent mea culpas over Iraq misreporting and editing from major news outlets tells us something's terribly wrong.

Karl Rove has learned how to manipulate the worst in the crowd's desire for blood. He's a dishonorably successful man, make no mistake. Dishonorable success goes hand-in-hand with catastrophic success.

The media allowed themselves to be manipulated and failed us terribly in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. Rove and the Bush mouth-machine can turn the legend of the catastrophic idiot G.W. Bush into public polls resulting in nearly half of potential voters still willing to give President Catastrophe another shot at messing things up.

When will we all wise up?

All Hail President Catastrophe!