Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Laura Bush Speech Transcript

Laura Bush Speech

[LAURA BUSH SPEECH]

"We need to remind them [our children] that most people in the world are good."

Dear Laura,
We could have started by winning hearts and minds instead of bombing and shooting and killing people and destroying their towns and villages. We could have led the world to follow us in spreading good will and providing security while working cooperatively and systematically to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. He could have easily been marginalized. But we didn't do that. We rushed into a mess-- virtually alone. Your husband couldn't and wouldn't compromise with the world-at-large and every world leader knows it. Fellows like Arnold Schwarzenegger jokingly try to prove that that's what being "a real man" is all about...'no compromise'. In reality, it's been a recipe for disaster for the current generation and generations to follow.



No American President ever wants to go to war. Abraham Lincoln didn't want to go to
war, but he knew saving the union required it.
.....my husband didn't want to go to
war, but he knew the safety and security of America and the world depended on it.


Sorry, Laura. I don't buy it.
Not for a split second.
Our nation is bitterly divided about the war on Iraq.
The union would have been more united had Bush not barreled, misinformed, and misled his way toward an unnecessary war in Iraq.
The world is not safer today with Saddam Hussein gone.
He wasn't a fundamentalist.
He wasn't an imminent threat.
He was a tin-pot nothing.
Terrorists are growing like weeds and we are losing the war on terror because of your husband's unwise and poorly planned diversion from the real war on those responsible for 9/11.

Glory Hallelujah.
Your husband, Laura Bush, is no Lincoln.

We Are Back

We Are Back

We are?

Uh...back where?



Some are back and their mothers wonder why the hell they ever went.

"Un-Conventional Haiku"

"Un-Conventional Haiku"

McCain applauds Bush,
As if Bush never wronged him.
Ambition trumps pride.


--Mad Kane Un-Conventional Haiku
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In "honor" of the GOP Convention, Mad Kane is posting "Un-Conventional" Haiku:
http://www.madkane.com/news_haiku.html

New: Changes To Strengthen Kerry Campaign

New: Changes To Strengthen Kerry Campaign

The Kerry-Edwards campaign announced today that it has brought on board key new staff.

Joining the Kerry-Edwards campaign:
Senior Advisor Joe Lockhart
Director of Rapid Response Joel Johnson
Senior Advisor for National Security Affairs Dr. Susan Rice
Policy Advisor on Israel and the Middle East former Congressman Mel Levine
Elizabeth Edwards' Chief of Staff Lori Denham
Elizabeth Edwards' Communication Director Karen Finney

I have no doubt their media strategy needs a real shot in the arm. The campaign needs some Carvillian genius to reveal these radical right-wing nutjobs for what they are.

Bowery Mission


Bowery Mission

They still need our help, even though we're all poorer today.

The Bowery Mission--We're all poorer was showcased tonight at the RNC.
My own child especially enjoyed seeing the RNC Video because he has volunteered there at the mission himself, cutting vegetables and sorting through clothing donations.

They are right when they say there's no better place to find true compassion in the city of New York.

I am not a fan of siphoning funds away from existing government programs to give to faith-based organizations, but I am all for raising taxes to assist places like the Bowery Mission.

It should not be a wedge issue.

Compassion crosses ideological lines.

Taxes should not be dedicated to faith-based organizations at the expense of existing programs, but they're a worthy case for an increase in dedication of funds.

If you think we can't afford to pay more in taxes for such a worthy cause, you are probably right. The middle class is already strapped.

As paradoxical as it sounds, it's because of the Bush tax cuts.

They have made us all a poorer middle class while enriching those on Wall Street who, in dismal concert with the Bush adminstration, have not provided job creation to go along with an economic recovery.

In the meantime, the middle class kids getting ready for college today could very well be tapped for a draft in the near future while the jobs they might have looked forward to go to Bangalore, India.

We don't outsource our war pawns,do we?

Pretty Is...


Pretty is.....


...as pretty does.



"Every country comes to us and wants us to help them in some way or another, or help solve a problem. And because they come and want help and ask
us for help, they also blame us for a lot of things
that really aren't our fault."

--Laura Bush December 9, 2003

Mayor Bloomberg RNC Speech

Mayor Bloomberg RNC Speech

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is grateful that neither America nor President Bush ever stopped believing in New York City.

I've heard a lot of the RNC delegates denigrating the good city of New York this week.

I would hope Bush wouldn't forget NYC (although he did a great job of snubbing NYC in his 2000 campiagn and in the months before 9/11).
Without NYC, the markets would tank.

The Mayor called NYC "the city of dreamers".
Many dreams have died with the Bush administration.
Mayor Bloomberg says NYC showed that their dreams, like their liberties, will never be lost to violence or hate.


Just another dream in Ashcroft's America


They have, however, been lost to partisanship, one-party politics, a radically ignorant president, and attorney general John Ashcroft.

Mayor Bloomberg clings to the original Republican party of Abe Lincoln. I don't blame him. That was when the party actually stood for something morally ethical.
The current administration bears no resemblance whatsoever to that of Abe Lincoln's Republicans. I'll lay a wager Bush has never heard the name Charles Fournier in his life.

My own Revolution-era ancestors were New York City patriots and politicians in the Civil-war era. (Democrats cut from the Free Soilers' cloth). I'll bet you anything that Mayor Bloomberg understands exactly what Dubya Bush has done to cause Americans like me to want to puke when he compares today's Republican missions to that of the old Free Soilers.

[Bloomberg speech]

August 31 RNC Speakers Schedule

August 31 RNC Speakers Schedule

Tonight's convention lineup includes speeches by:

• Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.)
• Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.)
• Sen. Elizabeth Dole (N.C.)
• Rep. Anne M. Northup (Ky.)
• presidential nephew George P. Bush
• 2003 Miss America Erika Harold *wow*
• Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.)
• Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.)
• "Survivor" star Elisabeth Hasselbeck *oh wow*
• Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige
• Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele
• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.)
• First lady Laura Bush

McCain's Best Point in RNC Speech

McCain's Best Point in RNC Speech

"As we've been a good friend to other countries in moments of shared perils, so we have good reason to expect their solidarity with us in this struggle."

-"As we've been good friends to other countries..."
Dubya Bush has alienated our once good friends.
He betrayed a trust that is delicate.
Bush blew it.

-"..we have good reason to expect their solidarity with us in this struggle."
Not with Dubya Bush we don't.
Sorry. It's true.
It goes unspoken in diplomatic circles around the world, but cooperation with Bush has become a one-sided proposition and leaders from other nations are waiting for Americans to elect a leader these world leaders will trust.

[The Speech]

Bush's AWOL Scandal

Bush's AWOL Scandal
Let's Break Through the Media Barrier
Bernard Weiner
Co-Editor, The Crisis Papers
August 9, 2004
[LINK]


Will you join Paul Lukasiak, Joseph Nobels and others of us publicizing this AWOL issue for the internet and small liberal magazines to help take our country back from the extremist, incompetent, greedy Bush&Co. group? This is the Administration that is endangering our national interests and helping create more terrorists rather than fewer, spending us into huge deficits and thus robbing our social programs and states and counties (and our children!) of much-needed funds, shredding our Constitutional guarantees and civil liberties, creating a Big Brother-style government, ruining our environment and air and water, and on and on.

Rather than only donating money and hoping and waiting for political candidates and activist groups to do it, let's start the ball rolling ourselves, in our own small ways adding to the momentum that will help restore our government to a more sane, middle course where we all will benefit.

We can do it.

The GOP doesn't reflect America

The GOP doesn't reflect America
by Michael Moore
[LINK]

John McCain pulled out a red meat trick in his speech last night by attacking an American artist. (Heavens, the GOP must be desperate to cover the expository damage Moore did to them). He liked the crowd's response so much that he said the same thing twice. In doing so, the "sheen" so many people see on him began to melt down. Underneath the bipartisan hero-glow, I saw the guy who wanted to see boots on the ground in Kosovo circa 1999 (thank God for Wes Clark for his wisdom)...I saw the guy who wants to make our political speech illegal by eliminating 527s....I saw McCain on ABC with Peter Jennings saying he thought a fellow veteran, John Kerry, was mistaken to use his record in Vietnam as part of his campaign (when all we hear about were McCain's own POW days--which I do consider honorable service to our nation).

McCain proved one thing to me last night.
He's quite a bit of a hypocrite.
I expected more from him.
He lost me as a believer.

I couldn't agree more with Moore.
The GOP doesn't reflect America.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related blogpost: Moore vs. McCain by Taegan Goddard

Bush 41 Hypocrisy

Bush 41 Hypocrisy
George H.W. Bush told Paula Zahn in an interview that he's "given up" on the N.Y. Times because they're nothing bit a liberal newspaper.

This is the ultimate in hypoocrisy.

Just yesterday, I reported to you that George H.W. Bush used a quote from a N.Y. Times column in his speech to veterans on the USS Intrepid.

He obviously hasn't given up. He takes from the N.Y. Times what he needs to denounce our political speech and trashes the rest.

Leon Goes to Gomorrah


Leon Goes to Gomorrah

"I left God's country. They could use a bunch of people from Iowa to come here to show New Yorkers what life is all about, what being patriotic is all about, and what country is all about. I'm as confident about Bush being re-elected as I am that eggs are going to be in New York tomorrow morning."
--RNC delegate Leon Mosley of Waterloo, Iowa, co-chairman of his state party

Avert your eyes from the protesters on the street when you reach for the salt to put on those eggs this morning, Leon.
You might become one with the salt.

A topic missing from RNC speeches

A topic missing from
RNC speeches



I wouldn't talk about it if I were them, either.