POLLGATE: Pollsters Are Stealing Democracy

POLLGATE: Pollsters Are Stealing Democracy

Not one cell phone has been called during the presidential campaign. This is because there is no method for polling cell phones. Yet, there are 170,475,160 cell phones in America.

While polls may sound convincing, the foundation for their statistical predictions is shaky, at best. This is no longer a nation of landlines, and this is becoming a real credibility problem for pollsters. Polls are rapidly becoming an antiquated predicting tool.

If the election were to be stolen on November 2, the nation would be more apt to swallow it due to their heads being stuffed, 24/7, with inaccurate statistical poll data in the weeks leading up to the election.

On the positive side of possible poll inaccuracy, if Jimmy Breslin's right about this poll fiasco and Kerry wins by a landslide on election night, soon we could well be singing 'Buh-Bye, Dubya'!

Excerpt from Jimmy Breslin's latest column:

"Yesterday, the polls showed a Bush surge. It never happened because they were basing it on thin air. There also were figures showing Kerry winning states like Ohio in the Midwest. They came up with the percentages without calling one cell phone of the millions and millions of them in the area. I believe nothing.

Everybody maintains that the two candidates are in a statistical dead heat. Nobody knows that. With a huge number of new registered voters, overwhelmingly of color, and young, and with 40 million using cell phones, the only thing going on in this election is how many times George Bush goes under before he drowns on Election Day. As he should. He is the worst president we have had, maybe ever...

..They [the polls] are lies by numbers. The reporters basing their coverage on these polls are lazy, unimaginative and irresponsible. That everything is based on an untruth could be the reason for the dreadful election coverage. What they write or say so often has nothing to do with the times in which they are supposed to live and report."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Krugman writes in today's NYT:

"A lot can change in 11 days, and Mr. Bush may yet win convincingly. But we must not repeat the mistake of 2000 by refusing to acknowledge the possibility that a narrow Bush win, especially if it depends on Florida, rests on the systematic disenfranchisement of minority voters. And the media must not treat such a suspect win as a validation of skewed reporting that has consistently overstated Mr. Bush's popular support."

Doing 'Whatever It Takes' To Cling To Power by Sen. Patrick Leahy

Doing 'Whatever It Takes' To Cling To Power by Sen. Patrick Leahy

This week, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) offered a guest column to Howard Dean's 'Democracy for America' readers.

Excerpt:

"To hold on to power, to preserve their own political self interest, President Bush and his political allies have tried to smother debate about his policies on terrorism and on Iraq. They have implied that a coronation instead of a real election would be the patriotic thing to do....This is not politics as usual. This is something new and ugly and dangerous...they routinely use fear of terrorism to divide the American people to preserve their political self interest...this Administration has squandered the unity of the American people and our international allies....What they are saying is that the half of all Americans who disagree with this President's policies are less patriotic or are somehow not as American as they are. Have they no self respect? No sense of decency?....This is the American people's election, not al Qaeda's. And it's not Karl Rove's, Dick Cheney's or George Bush's either. As Election Day nears, they can't be allowed to undermine the right that the American people have to an open and informed debate about some of the most important issues of our lifetimes.."

Bravo, Senator Leahy!

Salam Pax in the U.S.A.

Salam Pax in the U.S.A

"There is no way the Bush administration can get away with the mess it created in Iraq by saying it did not know and could not predict this, because for two hours I sat with a man who was so knowledgeable on things I thought no one in the west knew or cared about."

-Salam Pax/The Baghdad Blogger

I hope you've been reading Salam Pax this week at the Guardian. His diary is filled with unique bits of observational wisdom. These paragraphs caught my eye in today's installment:

"The state department had, through its Future of Iraq project, detailed plans on how to proceed. There were plans for all the ministries. Months were spent preparing reports that once they reached the Pentagon ended up in the waste basket. Chalabi was in; everybody else was out. It really is strange how often his name comes up when people start talking about Why Things Went Wrong."

"..When we talk about possible Iraqi elections in January, he doesn't sound very optimistic. He doesn't see it happening because, to start with, there are no internal parties; only the exiles are ready. Actually, the religious parties are ready as well, and this is something not many people have considered. What would the US government do if we had elections and we in Iraq choose someone like Sadr - or even Ayatollah Sistani?"

Virginian-Pilot Endorses Kerry

Virginian-Pilot Endorses Kerry

"Resolve is no substitute for results."

A course change: The Virginian-Pilot endorses John Kerry

Terrorists for Bush, no matter what GOP tries to feed us

Terrorists for Bush, no matter what GOP tries to feed us

A new Bush ad is hinting that terrorists want Kerry to win this election. I found that to be preposterously hilarious, knowing that Iran (one member of Bush's "axis of evil") strongly endorsed him this week. (Democrats press human rights issues, you see).

The Abu Ghraib torture probably won Tehran over for Bush.

An endorsement from the government Bush considers to be 'evil' should give us all a startling pause. Breathtaking pause.


Why Iran Wants Four More Years by David Jagernauth

Massing Taking on the Press; Bradlee Calls Bush "a liar"

Michael Massing: Taking the press to task for buying into the war

The Seattle Times discusses a compendium of pieces written for The New York Review of Books by Michael Massing, a contributing editor of Columbia Journalism Review titled "Now They Tell Us: The American Press and Iraq".

Excerpt:

"So here's the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain working the bowels of the bureaucracy — low-level intelligence, defense and diplomatic analysts — and publishing on Oct. 8, 2002, a forceful story reporting the doubts analysts had about the Iraqi threat, and more significantly, making a case that the civilian leadership was deliberately exaggerating the threat.. but because Knight Ridder has no newspapers in New York or Washington, it was all to no effect..

Is American-style journalism — weighted with the misnomers "objective" and "impartial" — so reliant on government sources, and blind sources in particular, that it is prone to being duped by those willing to deceive to advance their agenda?"

Pierre Salinger and days of solid investigative reporting memorialized

Which leads me to a quote from the NY Times article about yesterday's funeral of former White House press secretary and bon vivant Pierre Salinger:

"....when the mourners prayed for "those who serve in government or the press," they prayed for themselves, marking the passing not only of Mr. Salinger but also of an era when journalists considered themselves reporters and thought of "media" as a Greek sorceress, "usually played by Dame Judith Anderson," as the veteran NBC and ABC correspondent Sander Vanocur recalled in a written remembrance read aloud..."

Ben Bradlee says, flat out, that Bush is a liar.

I read an alleged 'exclusive' piece on the internet about Ben Bradlee calling Bush a liar.

From Spiegel Online:

"He [Bradlee] says US President George W. Bush is a liar. Journalists should stop dancing around the issue and name Bush for what he is, the ever surly Bradlee says in a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview. Bradlee also bemoans a worsening Washington climate in which politicians regularly hide behind lies - his favorite being that they can't discuss an issue "on the grounds of national security." Nixon used that line, too, Brandlee says. Bradlee admonishes reporters at both the Washington Post and the New York Times to get a backbone and to do more homework. Journalists today should not only question what politicians say but also their motivation, he says. He faults both news biggies for not asking enough questions before the Iraq war broke out and for not investing enough time or money into researching tough-to-get stories. Calling Clinton a liar was easy, Bradlee says. With Bush, the trail is less transparent."

Minneapolis loves John Kerry

Minneapolis loves John Kerry!

Tonight’s John Kerry rally in Minneapolis at the Metrodome.
Look, Ma!
No Loyalty-Oaths!

Star Tribune: Kerry leading in Northeastern Minnesota

Kerry addresses estimated 30,000 at Metrodome rally -SEE VIDEO
It was one of the largest political rallies in Minnesota history.

Levin blasts Feith in report

Levin blasts Feith in report

Democratic Senator Carl Levin has accused a Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, of distorting intelligence information to back claims of links between Iraq and al Qaeda in the run-up to last year's U.S.-led invasion.

A report issued by Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also questioned assertions of pre-war links between Baghdad and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who since the invasion has emerged as a leader in the anti-U.S. insurgency.

Chicago Tribune Answers Furious Readers re: Bush Endorsement

Raw Story: Chicago Tribune Answers Furious Readers re: Bush Endorsement

Read about it here at Raw Story.

New: Project on Quality in Election Discourse

New: Project on Quality in Election Discourse

A new website is at www.projectqed.org. The Project on Quality in Election Discourse rates election candidates on the substance and logic of their speech. ProjectQED, as it's called, aims to encourage meaningful public debate in elections for high public office.

Most recently, they have subjected the debate performances of the two presidential candidates, George Bush and John Kerry, to a test. It's a test which the group of judges, who are trained in philosophy, law, the humanities and the sciences, have developed. The results are available at the website. I guarantee that you'll find them extremely interesting.

One Year Ago Today at IDDYBUD

One Year Ago Today at IDDYBUD-
"Shame on you, Bush!"



One year ago today, a hot topic of blog conversation was the censoring of the photography of flag-draped soldier's coffins arriving at Dover AFB.

Please read and reflect on my thoughts then...in light of what we've learned over the course of this past year.

CENSORED-October 21, 2003

Colin Powell loses confidence

Not so confident about January...

Colin Powell loses confidence

Who in their right mind
could blame him?

"[Colin Powell] was less firm in expectations for elections by the end of January than he had been in the past, while in New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said elections were only ''technically possible'' by that target date.

Annan said the United Nations may not have enough staff in Iraq to help prepare for voting. In Baghdad, Iraqi authorities expressed concern that the lengthening unrest would discourage international monitors from going to Iraq.

But Powell was confident Iraqis would vote for democracy."

Powell has lost confidence that meaningful elections can take place in January, but he is confident that Iraqis will "vote for democracy". What the hell does that mean?
I'll tell you what it means. NOTHING, when it comes to the part of Iraq's population against which we're fighting today. We are simply front-loading corruption onto Iraq's democracy before it is ever naturally formed.

By its most basic definition, a democracy is 'government by the people governed'. We are fighting 'the people' of Iraq. 'The people' of Iraq live in Fallujah as well as in other cities, and they will soon die in Fallujah at our hands, in the name of an interim Iraqi government who are seen as our puppets.
(GO HERE to see the video "Digging for Bodies in Falluja"--definitely not a good campaign ad for Bush)

Is it our plan to kill off that portion of 'the people' of Iraq who would vote for representatives who would support the continued killing of our troops? What if we cannot kill enough of them before the election?

Will we be surprised when a majority of Shi'ites, who are the majority in Iraq, elect hard-line fundamentalists to represent them?

How will we expect them to treat the Kurds, who will be a minority in their democracy?

I sense, if we rush a January election, we will pull our troops out of Iraq and there will be more mass graves to contend with in another year or two.

Bush has lied to us about the reasons for going into Iraq, and now he has made a horrendous political mess of the entire situation.

As an American, I hang my head in shame for what Bush has done to our trusting soldiers, the American citizens, and the people of Iraq.

I believe there is great strength that can be shown in humility, and my fervent hope is that John Kerry is elected and empowered to turn the tide and bring a light of hope to those who understand that democracy is more than just a word or a term for a political whore to wield.



UPDATE:
Reuters- U.S. - Backed Iraq Government Losing Support - Survey

George Tenet Calls Iraq War "wrong"

George Tenet Calls Iraq War "wrong"

Reporter Anna Clark of the Herald Palladium reports:

"George Tenet called the war on Iraq "wrong" in a speech Wednesday night to 2,000 members of The Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan at Lake Michigan College's Mendel Center. He did not elaborate."

Also reported at:
Daily Kos
Editor & Publisher
__________________________________________________

Who needs to elaborate, already? Saying the Iraq war was wrong is a "slam-dunk" comment, isn't it?

And, (omigawd!) Tenet came up with (choke) REASONS for the existence of terrorism and moral ways to ebb terror's wicked tide:

"Tenet said a developing nation's low per capita income, high unemployment among young men and high infant mortality rate strongly increase its likelihood of becoming a "terrorist safe haven."

"In 2010, 100 million people outside of Africa will be infected with HIV," Tenet said. "The secondary implications of this are staggering."

He said the work of public health officers, missionaries and literacy teachers in third world nations are crucial to the war on terrorism, because terrorists build supporters by spinning poverty as a form of humiliation caused by wealthy nations like the United States."

I'll bet this "Iraq war was wrong" comment will soon be all over the INTERNETS !

David Corn: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Visits the Spin Room

David Corn: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Visits the Spin Room



In case you missed it on Conan O'Brien's show last night, be sure to read about it.

-- TRIUMPH: A lot of people think [Bush] should appeal more to women because he's a douche. [laughter] I finally stopped you. You know what Bush won me over with? When he indicated that Kerry changed his mind. I think the 83rd time was finally a charm for me.

REPUBLICAN WOMAN: I think the most important time he changed his mind was when he refused to fund the troops in iraq, a critical situation for our country to be successful there. it's good to see you tonight.

TRIUMPH: Thank you for your time. Have a safe trip back to Stepford. [laughter]--

Rice Wastes Precious Time/A Republican Endorses Kerry

Rice Wastes Precious Time/A Republican Endorses Kerry

"There’s a problem when our troops are in harm’s way, fighting for a secure Iraq, and our national security adviser is out on the stump campaigning instead of working."

-Senator John Edwards

...while Dick Cheney gloomily warns of a pending nuclear attack against the nation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A FORMER REPUBLICAN SENATOR FOR KERRY
'Frightened to death' of Bush
Marlow W. Cook

"I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a party send the wrong person to the White House, then it is our responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his actions....I hope you all have noticed the Bush administration's style in the campaign so far. All negative, trashing Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards and Democrats in general. Not once have they said what they have done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all...If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution.
I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path."

What's Happening in Lucas County, Ohio?

"In the battle of Fallen Timbers, it took but 40 minutes for "Mad Anthony" Wayne’s disciplined troops to bring to an end 20 years of border warfare. My hope is that Democrats will bring, in but one day, an end to four years of miserable failure in American leadership and partisan warfare."--Iddybud

~~~~~~~~~~~~

What's Happening in Lucas County, Ohio?

There are things happening in Lucas County, Ohio, which are making me extremely nervous. Lucas County is situated at the western tip of Lake Erie and borders the state of Michigan. The county is home to Toledo, which rests upon on the historic Maumee River. It is the location of Fallen Timbers, which was one of the shortest and most significant battles in American history fought in 1794 between tribes of the Northwest Territory and the U.S. army, commanded by "Mad Anthony" Wayne. In that battle, it took but 40 minutes for Wayne’s disciplined troops to bring to an end 20 years of border warfare.

My hope is that Democrats will bring, in but one day, an end to four years of miserable failure in American leadership and partisan warfare. The prospects of the election being settled in one day are questionable right now, if we choose to believe the polls. A clear and decisive win by Kerry on election day would prevent corruption and chaos from seeping into the American election, as it did in 2000.

VP Dick Cheney appeared in Ohio yesterday at a rally and spoke of doom and gloom. He will make an appearance in Lucas County today. The news from this Ohio county is getting little play in the mainstream media, so I thought I would tell you a bit about what's been going on lately. Bear in mind, as you read, that this is just one county in America.

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BOARD OF ELECTIONS

Election day is less than two weeks away. According to a report from ABC/Toledo, the Lucas County board of elections is playing "beat the clock." They still have to process thousands of new registrations and thousands of people are waiting to learn where they need to go to vote. Election workers estimate there are 10,000 new registrations that must still be processed. And there are less than two weeks left to get that done and then notify those people where they need to go to vote. On top of that, board of elections members are trying to understand election law in case someone's voting eligibility is challenged.


The Lucas County Board of Elections is bracing for a wave of challenges against thousands of registered voters that could keep them from casting ballots in the November presidential election. As many as 4,000 voters may be targeted for removal from the list of qualified voters because the board has found residential addresses on their registrations incorrect. [See Toledo Blade article]

The 4,000 registered voters may be the subject of what election officials are calling a "prechallenge" that could disqualify them from voting before Election Day. Once the County files the challenges, which could come by the end of this week or early next week, a public hearing is scheduled and a letter will be sent to the registered voters notifying them their right to vote is at risk and they must appear to defend themselves.

On Election Day, poll workers running the election can challenge any voter's legitimacy to cast a ballot.
The poll workers at the precinct ask voters they have decided to challenge questions to determine whether they should vote. The poll workers - two Democrats and two Republicans - then vote on whether the persons should get a ballot. If they tie 2-2, the challenge fails and the voter is allowed to vote. If the majority of poll workers vote to approve the challenge, the voters areoffered a provisional ballot.

The provisional ballot, however, will not be counted until after an investigation is completed following Election Day to determine if the voter was properly registered and eligible to vote.


BLACKWELL SUIT

Last Friday, the Lucas County and Ohio Democratic parties sued Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, accusing him of failing to enforce uniform standards for people who register to vote in the Nov. 2 election. It is believed that Mr. Blackwell is trying to make it more difficult for people to vote rather than making it easier. The lawsuit surrounds a problem with the Ohio voter registration form. It includes a space, "Box 10", for applicants to provide their driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. In a Dec. 31, 2003 memo to county boards of elections, Mr. Blackwell's office said, based on the federal Help America Vote Act (HAPA), voter registration applications can't be accepted if "Box 10" isn't filled out and the form is submitted in person at a county elections board, a public library, or a motor vehicle department. But, in that same memo, the secretary of state's office said if a person completes the same form by mail, he or she wouldn't have to check "Box 10". [Toledo Blade article]



THEFT

Even more worrisome was a theft which took place sometime during the early hours of October 13. Thieves shattered a side window overnight at the Lucas County Democratic headquarters in Toledo, stealing computers with sensitive campaign information and triggering concern of the local party's ability to deliver crucial votes on Nov. 2. Among the data on the stolen computer of the party's office manager were: e-mails discussing campaign strategy, candidates' schedules, financial information, and phone numbers of party members, candidates, donors, and volunteers. Also taken were computers belonging to Lucas County Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak and to a Texas attorney working with the Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign to ensure election security.

The thefts have prompted the Kerry/Edwards campaign and Democrats in Washington to offer help and have left local officials fretting about the crime's impact on the upcoming election, in which Ohio plays a high-profile role.

Very little has been reported in the mainstream media about this theft.


Peter Jennings of ABC recently said he was nervous about the upcoming election. His concern is not that it might be delayed all night long on November 2nd. That would be okay with him. Jenning's concern is about a long, drawn-out presidential election battle and the effect it will have on our national institutions. Jennings says, "If we don't trust the voting system, then I think there's some danger we'll begin to question a lot of other institutions." Jennings said the media is included among the institutions that may get heightened scrutiny, and I think that's already happening.

Watching Lucas County, Ohio, I share Peter Jennings' concerns.

Remember, Lucas County is just one of many swing-state counties which may determine the winner in this race, if it's a close one.

I'm hoping it won't be a close race and that Kerry will win by an undeniable margin in the swing states.

Are you feeling nervous yet?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


UPDATE- More Ohio election trouble in the Columbus area, Voters report fake calls

Articles You Shouldn't Miss

Articles You Shouldn't Miss

• The art of stealing elections
by Robert Kuttner
"THE REPUBLICANS are out to steal the 2004 election -- before, during, and after Election Day. Before Election Day, they are employing such dirty tricks as improper purges of voter rolls, use of dummy registration groups that tear up Democratic registrations, and the suppression of Democratic efforts to sign up voters, especially blacks and students.


• GOPers Assail Nation Institute
by David Corn
"This past summer, the Senate intelligence committee released a report on the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The report was an indictment of the intelligence community, noting that the community's critical findings on Iraq's WMDs were "either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting." That was the big news: the war had been based on bad and overinflated intelligence. (And, by the way, Bush had even overstated the exaggerated intelligence.) But conservatives jumped on a portion of the report devoted to the Niger affair to mount an attack against Wilson. At the time, I debunked much of this assault in two columns (Click here and here). I didn't realize then that Representative J.D. Hayworth, a Republican from Arizona, and ten of his GOP House colleagues had written a letter to The Nation Institute to demand that the institute withdraw the award it had bestowed upon Wilson..."

• Desperate Measures
by William Rivers Pitt
"In the last Presidential election, it was Florida that made the mess. This time, it could very well be Ohio, Oregon, West Virginia and Nevada, and that's just for starters..."


• The End of Democracy
Losing America's birthright, the George Bush way
by Rick Perlstein
"..Many among our Republican rank and file would have a hard time noticing anything amiss. These are the people who can say, as Richard Viguerie told the Voice, "If there's vote suppressing, nine times out of 10 it's going to be Democrats."A coup? Deep Faith is convinced some might even welcome it. "It makes me wonder, if something really bad happened, and the Bush administration was able to have a coup and be in permanent charge," he tells me, sinking into his living-room couch, scaring the hell out of me, "who among my folk would seriously protest, if they could get a slice of the pie? 'We could go in there and reverse all this judicial precedent we don't like!' " That Kingdom of God they keep talking about, he reminds us, the hunger for which is now the fuel of the Republican engine, "is not a democracy."

Elections: Big Ruling, Little Notice

Elections: Big Ruling, Little Notice

From the Village Voice:

It's easy to vote absentee in Illinois if you meet certain qualifications, like being out of your home county on Election Day. It's also easy if you don't meet those qualifications: You just lie. In fact, greasy machine pols have been known to exploit the present system to cast "votes" for their entire block. Juliet Alejandre is one person who didn't qualify, and who wasn't prepared to lie. Going to school full-time and working nights, the single mother says that the last time she tried to vote she left much of the ballot incomplete because she was terrified her unminded toddler would fall off the stage upon which the booths sat. So with three other working moms, Alejandre sued in federal court to order the state legislature to revisit its horse-and-buggy absentee statute to make reasonable provisions—whether by extending voting hours, changing absentee requirements, or instituting a universal vote-by-mail system like the one that's worked well in Oregon.

This past Friday, Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit, a prominent conservative intellectual and vocal Bush supporter, handed down a capricious, flippant dismissal of the complaint, ignoring key portions of its argument and simply inventing others. (The plaintiffs wanted the court to "decree weekend voting," he fantasized, wondering whether a federal court would soon "have to buy everyone a laptop, or a Palm Pilot or Blackberry?")

Bad enough if it only affected Illinoisans. Here's the scary part: Posner worded his ruling in such a way to make it difficult for anyone to challenge any voting statute passed by any state legislature anywhere.

The decision is diabolical—a perfect counterpart to this season's Republican strategy of drowning voting-rights complaints in a sea of moral relativism. One example: A goal of the plaintiff's case was to stop existing fraud by making Illinois's vague and antiquated absentee regulations more uniform and fair. Instead, Posner argued that the plaintiff's commonsense request for a second look at the statutes opened the door to fraud.

The bottom line: Posner's precedent gives much more discretion to states like Ohio and Florida to take action to restrict voting opportunities, especially for working people. And it was handed down, conveniently, two weeks before Election Day.

—R.P/Village Voice

Rolling Stone: John Kerry Interview

"I love 'Hey Jude'."

Rolling Stone: John Kerry Interview


Click photo for link

Excerpts:

What are the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam?

Right now there is one parallel that's very disturbing, and that is the leadership in Washington has not told the truth to the American people.....

...A failed Iraq is not in the interests of Arab states, and it's not in the interests of the European states -- but they're absent from the kind of effort necessary to prevent that from happening. That's where leadership is going to be necessary. That's the difference that I intend to make, and that I must make -- for the sake of our country. To make ourselves safe in the long term, we're going to have to rebuild relationships and re-establish American credibility. Bush's mistakes don't have to become America's misfortune for the long term, and it's my job to undo his mistakes and turn this into a success.

If you send troops into Iraq, how will you be able to tell them they're not risking their lives for a mistake?

Because I'm going to make it a success, 'cause we're going to win. We're going to do what we need to do to get this job done. And I'm committed to doing that -- and I know how to do it. I'll put a foreign-policy team together that talks the truth to the American people.

Will you communicate to the American people the size of the crisis we face?

I'm doing it in the course of this campaign. I'm already talking about it -- and I will as president. Look: I'm a person who has always believed that you tell people the truth and they'll make reasonable decisions. Truth is powerful.

This administration disrespects the truth, because they have a different credo. The truth unfortunately works against their interests, because their interests are in keeping power and in making money. And so they feed the drug industry, and they feed the oil industry, and they feed the big power companies.

And that's the difference between us. I'm fighting for the middle class -- he's fighting for a tax cut for people who earn more than $200,000 a year.


How did you feel when you first saw those Swift-boat ads?

Disappointed -- a sense of bitter disappointment. That people will stoop to those depths of lying -- for their personal reasons.

Did you get angry at Bush personally?

I do worry, and I am angry, about what they do to the American people. That's what this race is about. It's not about me. I can take it -- I don't care. I've been in worse things. I was on those boats -- I got shot at. I can handle it. What I worry about is that they lie to America..


You don't get angry when Bush outright lies about you?

No, I don't get angry at it. I think it's sort of pathetic.


Were you surprised by how the Swift-boat thing blew up?

I was surprised that the media, even when they knew it was lies, continued to cover it and treat it as entertainment.


You were criticized for wearing a windsurfing outfit.

It shows how pathetic and diversionary they are. They can't talk about having created jobs for America; they can't talk about giving people health care; they can't talk about having protected America and made it safer.


Did anyone say, "Senator, you shouldn't be wearing windsurfing clothes"?

Yeah, a few people said . . .


And you said, Fuck it?

You're damn right. I said, "I'm going to be who I am" -- I think people care about authenticity. There are much bigger issues.


What do you think of Karl Rove? Is he an evil genius?

I don't know him. I've met him once. I'll tell you November 3rd.


What do you think of the Vote for Change concerts that Bruce Springsteen organized?

I haven't been able to go. I'm jealous of everybody who is. It's separate from us -- they've done it by themselves. But I'm obviously elated. His music has been the theme song of our campaign from Day One. To have him out there is both a privilege and exciting. I hope it has an impact on the outcome.

Who are your favorite rock & roll artists?

Oh, gosh. I'm, you know, a huge Rolling Stones fan; Beatles fan. One of the most cherished photographs in my life is a picture of me with John Lennon -- who I met back in 1971 at an anti-war rally. But I love a lot of different performers.


Do you have a favorite Beatles song -- or Stones song?

I love "Satisfaction" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Brown Sugar." I love "Imagine" and "Yesterday."


You're a greatest-hits kind of guy.

My favorite album is Abbey Road. I love "Hey Jude." I also like folk music. I like some classical. I love guitar. Oh, God. I mean, you know -- Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Buffett . . .

Let's Work Together to Elect Kerry/Edwards

Let's Work Together to Elect Kerry/Edwards
They're Going to Win - Believe It!

There are less than two weeks left before the presidential election. I'm optimistic that John Kerry will be elected by a clear and undeniable margin on November 2nd, no matter how the mainstream media beats the "close race" drum.

America knows too much of the truth to allow Bush to take our country further down the drain for another four years.

Democracy and strength at home, and respect in the world for America must be restored.

Let's work hard these next 13 days to make it happen.

Never lose hope. The Johns have got it goin' on!

KERRY-EDWARDS ONLINE FORUM
ACTION PLAN: POST ON BLOGS, FORUMS AND MESSAGE BOARDS
Pro-Kerry Blogs, Forums and Message Boards are listed here.
Visit as many as you can. Please participate. Volunteer.
Do all you can.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From Political Strategy:
"Top 35 Trends that say Kerry will Take the White House in November

"Recently, a couple nationwide polls have shown Bush with a substantial lead, including some nonsensical outlier from Fox News and an equally unrealistic poll from Gallup which showed likely voters favoring Bush by 8 points. What's going on?

Fear not. It is all a grand load of garbage!

See the transcript of John Kerry's powerful speech in Iowa:
A Fresh Start: Succeeding In Iraq And Winning Against Terrorism