The World Is Drifting Toward Tragedy with Bush

The World Is Drifting Toward Tragedy with Bush

"Today, we heard more of the same distortions from the President about the situation in Iraq. George W. Bush keeps saying that things are getting better even when we all know that's just not true. The fact is, no matter what he says, all of us can see for ourselves what's happening in Iraq - we can see it on the front pages and on the nightly news. But why would we expect George Bush to level with us about Iraq? He never has. So I'll be straight with you: things are getting worse. More than a thousand Americans have been killed. Instability is rising. Violence is spreading. Extremism is growing. There are now havens for terrorists that weren't there before. And the Pentagon has even admitted that entire regions of Iraq are now controlled by insurgents and terrorists. The situation is serious and we need a president who will set a new direction and be straight with the American people."

--John F. Kerry 9-14-04

Kristen Breitweiser Endorses Kerry

9/11 Widow Kristen Brietweiser
Endorses John Kerry

"I don’t really know what happened to him. I don’t know whether he jumped or he choked to death on smoke. I don’t know whether he sat curled up in a corner watching the carpet melt in front of him, knowing that his own death was soon to come or if he was alive long enough to be crushed by the buildings when they collapsed. These are the images that haunt me at night when I put my head to rest on his pillow."

--Kristen Breitweiser, speaking about her husband Ronald, who died on 9/11/01

I believe this is one of the most important endorsements John Kerry could have received. Kristen Breitweiser has often been the topic of my conversations here at Iddybud. She was featured in my second and third anniversary 9/11 blog presentations.I respect her greatly for having had the fortitude and persistence in speaking out for the 9/11 Commission at a time when the Bush administration was doing nearly everything in their political power to put a stop to it. Kristen asked the right questions. She expected answers, as any of us women who might have lost their husband or family member might expect the government to answer our questions.

Kristen wanted to know why her husband Ronald had to die that beautiful horrible day in September.
She wanted to know if our governmental agencies were doing their job on that fateful morning.
She only wanted to know.

Kristen has said she finds it strange that Bush would pin his re-election hopes on an event like 9/11 because she thinks it was the chief failure of his administration. She said the highly critical Sept. 11 commission report should be enough to make any politician think twice about invoking the attacks.

"I don't understand how 9/11 can be a platform for his re-election," said Breitweiser, who voted for Bush in 2000. "Every day that goes by since Sept. 12 I see as a squandered opportunity by the administration in fixing problems everyone knows need to be fixed."

Freedom Thieves: Shays/Meehan/McCain/Bush/Kerry

Freedom Thieves:
Shays/Meehan/
McCain/Feingold
Bush/Kerry

Most of the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform favored politicians' organized interests over individual liberty.

Suing the FEC over 527s reveals these Congresspeople as Americans with a divested interest in seeing my speech--and yours--cut down to silence.

Special interests belong to American individuals--and not to the members of Congress as a cartel.

If their lawsuit is successful, these 527 groups will be forced to register as political action committees and thus be confined to using hard money only. If 527s are outlawed, there will be other ways for these groups to form legally.

My emphasis here? I firmly believe that all these politicians are doing is showing us their contempt for American voices having a power equal to that of Congresspeople's favorite lobbyists and corporate contributors.

An oligarchy cannot stand when individual voices break down the shrouded concentration of corporate power through individual freedom of speech. In this case, "money" is the same as "freedom" for individuals as much as "money" is "freedom" to corporate special interests.

They've wasted our hard-earned tax money and become embedded with the lobbyists of Washington D.C. for too long. Their regrettable use of pork-barrel spending to lure PAC money has made political competition nearly impossible.

American individuals have found a powerful political voice in the 527 option. I'm not surprised that members of Congress and President Bush and his challenger John Kerry would be intimidated.

But to see them sue to cut off our individual voices--it's criminal. It runs against all tenets of freedom and liberty. Free speech can harm no one except the most corrupt Representatives, when all is said and done. Americans should be trusted to form their own common-sense opinions in an atmosphere of sheer freedom.

I pray the Supreme Court will find a way to legally accomodate the American individual and not the D.C. cartel.

See this editorial that praises Bush for his "progressive" stand on 527s. What is wrong with this picture? It's thievery of American freedom in the name of bipartisanship. Why is this one of the only issues on which Congresspeople can "get along" when it runs contrary to individual freedom?

Have you noticed that neither Bush nor Kerry has asked their supporters to discontinue 527 activity immediately?

Russia Going Back to Authoritarian Rule

Russia's Democracy: Another Casualty of the Iraq War

During Ronald Reagan's presidency, the spell of Communism was broken and the Berlin wall came down.

During Dubya Bush's presidency, Russia turned back toward Soviet rule.

It's nothing surprising. Russia's been sliding back toward Soviet-style rule for years now.

What should be shocking is the fact that our president watched Russia slide back toward its ocean of Soviet illness and has done nothing to abate the undertow. The sands of democracy erode beneath the Russian people's feet.

The Bush administration has squandered many opportunities to keep Russia from sliding back toward authoritarian rule. What was our foreign policy toward Russia? Did we even have one?

The leverage the U.S. had before 9/11 was softened like mashed potatoes by the (greatly restrained) State Department in order to attempt to get Russia's cooperation on Bush's Manichaean war on terror. The Bush administration deliberately looked the other way, knowing fully well that Chechnya was a victim of Russia's cruel denial of human rights.

Russia agreed to help us in Afghanistan. In the tradition of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Putin had been consistently pursuing wide-ranging security cooperation with dominant Western powers--especially the U.S. Then came Bush's disastrous Iraq war, which contributed greatly to a near-total breakdown of trust of the Bush administration--in over half of domestic America and abroad.

Bush's dogmatic insistence and race to unilaterally take out Saddam Hussein caused him to proceed with blinders, neglecting a diplomacy that was sorely needed and inviting distrust of America and inviting right-wing radicals-East and West- to follow America's pre-emptive lead. Putin recognized the Iraq war (and rightly so) as a war evocative of the Cold War-era rather than a new and necessary type of warfare where we don't rub out regimes, but instead rub out terrorist networks.

That breakdown in trust has led to Russia's falling away from democracy and contributes to European instability which endangers our nation's interests in Central Asia. It has lead many in the world to believe that the Bush administration's National Security strategy did not take into serious consideration the fact that the Berlin Wall had fallen in the first place. It's no wonder all nations of the world (except for three) hope there is a change in American leadership this November.

As historians look back with retrospect, Bush's greatest historic error will have been his alliance with Neoconservatives--rabid Russia haters who hide themselves in 'freedom-fighters' clothing while placing Israel's interests above America's best interests.

As punishment for their refusal to join America in the Neoconservative war on Iraq, Russia was made to appear, by frothing Bushite propaganda, as little more than a thief-nation which robbed in the name of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food program (when myriad nations, including the US, reaped untold benefit from the same easily-corruptible program).

Any morally-trained child could tell you that, if you alienate a friend in need, that friend will slide into despair. If we hold liberty as our American mainstay, the people of Russia should have been considered friends. We should have acted, in accordance with the America's best interests, to ensure that the people of Russia remained free. As overwhelmingly troubled as the old U.S.S.R. was, Ronald Reagan understood that, unless you employed diplomacy with hope and good faith, you will never forward America's best interests.

Colin Powell has been kept on a short leash by the president and allowed himself to be used badly in the lead-up to the Iraq war (in the name of loyalty to the president). Shamefully, Powell has been the most-wasted American asset.

While I truly believe Ronald Reagan acted in his nation's best interests, I believe Bush has acted with contempt for America's best interests, or at best, Bush has simply been an incapable leader.

This is only one glaringly dreadful consequence of failure of American leadership. Faltering US/international relationships and the quickly disintegrating Israeli-Palestinian relationship, the rise of Fundamentalist popularily in Muslim states, and the growth industry for new terrorists are more examples of failure in American leadership.

Not only has Bush admitted the war on terror is unwinnable, we've lost Russia's democratic promise. Putin has, in effect, coopted and encouraged the right-wing flank of the Western political spectrum and the Bush administration is a beautiful example.

Wartime restrictions on citizens' freedoms in the US have allowed Putin and his pro-Kremlin media, through America's example, to recast Russia’s domestic dictatorship of the law as a standard towards which the US itself has allegedly turned.

Bush-supporters are afraid to look into the sterile eyes of the truth, because what would stare back at them would shatter their frozen, false beliefs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See Washington Monthly for Robert Kagan's statement on the issue of democracy in Russia.

Andrew Sullivan on Media Wars 2004

Andrew Sullivan on Media Wars 2004

"...it's real and dynamic and open. It's democratic. And if you're interested in politics, it keeps you looking forward to opening your laptop each morning."

-Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan has written what I consider to be a brilliant piece on the shift in political influence via modern media wars. Sullivan cites three genuinely new power-brokers in American politics and culture in this election season. They are cable news, the blogosphere, and "527s".

Question:

• Bloggers: Andrew believes you've arrived. How does it feel to sit at the wheel of democracy?
• Do you believe you have more of a political voice with the blogosphere and 527s?
• Do you believe your chosen political "side" is doing a good job in the mainstream arena?
• Any other comments?

Political Ads--Bill Hillsman's Views

Political Ads-
Bill Hillsman's Views

There is an interview about political ads at Mother Jones that I found to be fascinating. The interviewee is Bill Hillsman, who made his name in political advertising with spots (featuring candidates such as Paul Wellstone and Jesse Ventura) that bucked the tired old formulas and really got people talking.

Excerpt:

MJ.com: Which presidential campaign do you expect will do a better job reaching swing voters?

BH: I think Bush’s campaign will be better at it. They were in 2000, the Republicans were absolutely better at that during the 2002 midterm elections, and Bush’s people are just better at it than Kerry’s people. In fact, I don’t think Kerry wins unless some independent groups come in and do a good job with those voters. But if you look at what’s been going on so far with the Media Fund people and the MoveOn people, they can’t get out of the way of themselves. They don’t really know how to do ads that are aimed at these swing voters because they’re not those types of people. So they sort of do these “anybody but Bush” ads that have no real relevance to independents or swing voters. All they’re really doing is spending a lot of money to talk to their base, which is already convinced.

Question:

• What kind of Kerry ads would you imagine swing voters would be drawn to?
• What issues would best motivate swing voters to vote for Kerry in November?

For Whom Would Sun Tzu Vote?

For Whom Would Sun Tzu Vote?

"Bush's campaign has mastered at least one of Sun Tzu's ancient rules of warfare: When you are weak, appear strong."

Many people on the left believe that John Kerry should have answered the president this summer by saying no, he would not have gone to war in Iraq, knowing what he knows today. Writer Steve Sebelius suggests it would have shown that Kerry has learned something, and is putting it into practice.

I often complain that our current president makes many errors of judgement, then stands by them, even when we all can see clear evidence to the contrary.

This is not proof of an inherently wise leader.

This causes me to ask the question:

The Bush campaign points to and mocks John Kerry, who, in real time, is putting into practice all he's learning before the eyes of the world, regardless of their characterization of him as "flip-flopper".

* See my comments about Sun Tzu and Bush on August 29th

Question:

• Take some time and study the Art of War.
• Who, in the eyes of Sun Tzu, do you believe would truly be the wiser of the two leaders?
• Why?

Bloggers' Pie Still in the Sky

Bloggers' Pie Still in the Sky
Oh, how I identify.

The Washington Times Insider features an article about the money (or lack thereof) being made in the world of blogging.

At Raw Story, Avery Walker has some advice for the overrated blogosphere.

"I love oxblog, wonkette, iddybud and American Amnesia as much as the next guy. More, in fact. These people find stories that have otherwise slipped through the cracks and follow them with a tenacity that print journalists sorely lack. But we have to remember that these people have some of the best blogs out there. Many of these bloggers are, in fact, writers and journalists who use their blog as a way of expressing themselves outside of the restrictions of print media.

*Thanks, Avery.*

LA Times Credits Bloggers/Exposes Rightwing Media Chain

LA Times Credits Bloggers/Exposes Rightwing Media Chain

In the LA Times today, from a story titled
"No Disputing It: Blogs Are Major Players-Netizen's late-night post questioning CBS claims about Bush's service spreads at warp speed.":

"It was amazing Thursday to watch the documents story go from FreeRepublic.com, a bastion of right-wing lunacy, to Drudge to the mainstream media in less than 12 hours. That's not to say the documents didn't deserve examination. But apparently the entire thing was cooked up by a couple of amateurs on Free Republic. The speed with which it moved was breathtaking."

--Jim Jordan, a strategist for independent Democratic groups opposed to Bush

When we speak of the right wing "conspiracy", we can clearly see it's no conspiracy at all. As a matter of fact, mainstream media plays directly into the steamroller we tend to mislabel as the "right wing conspiracy".

Last week when the CBS forgery story was sprung, I visited one of my favorite blogs called The Moderate Voice, which is written by veteran journalist Joe Gandelman. (Joe also writes for Dean's World).

Joe had quoted the NY Post's house-neocon John Podhoretz as saying:

"THE populist revolution against the so-called mainstream media continues. Yesterday, the citizen journalists who produce blogs on the Internet — and their engaged readers — engaged in the wholesale exposure of what appears to be a presidential-year dirty trick against George W. Bush."

My thoughts at the time were:

I think he's mainly talking about the infamous squeaky wheel known as Matt Drudge (who gets his "tips" from God-knows where, but it's surely steeped in rightwing poop).

While I do not begrudge Drudge (bad pun intended), I think the marvelous "populist revolution" of which Podhoretz speaks is not worth much more than the gossip-mill that spits it out.
Drudge is the new Paul Revere, except he runs through the wires screaming "The lefties are coming! The lefties are coming!"

The thing that is most troubling is the emphasis and weight placed on Drudge's gossip-train by our mainstream media.

How low have we sunk in American journalism?
Have our journalists become as incurious as Bush himself?

This chain-of-events is all too familiar.
The left dares to speak out against King George.
Suddenly, a major story pops up on the Drudge report and it's suddenly scandal!

Key word: "suddenly".

Mainstream media, in their race to keep up with the gossip train, falls incredibly short of fairness, balance, and truth.
For instance, ask yourself why this forgery story is on the front pages instead of the real issues facing America at this moment?
Perhaps it's a story as old as time. Sensationalism sells.
Sensationalism isn't going to unite America, though. Nor will it create an opportunity for Americans to make serious choices.
The only "revolution" I see is the right getting one step closer to making America a nation ruled by one party.
Ben Franklin would spin in his grave like chicken rotisserie if he could hear Podhoretz ramble on.

My point?
Until the mainstream media learns it cannot compete with gossip generated by bloggers, they will be considered just another arm of the right wing.

The mainstream media cheapens America. Journalists and editors all over America serve to dumb down the public by allowing the right wing mouth-machine to hijack the great American discussion.

David Broder recently wrote about the fact that neither Bush nor Kerry are presenting a vision of the future in this presidential campaign of distortion. It has been nearly impossible for John Kerry to talk about America's future when the Bush campaign, the right wing mouth-machine, and the mainstream media facilitate a tornado of diversion.

Outside of narrow talking points, I have not seen the mainstream television media give voice to Kerry or Edwards' bigger ideas. It's as if the executives of mainstream media are intentionally and heavy-handedly keeping those ideas from reaching Americans.

The devil is in the details, in this particular case- a "th" on a typewriter. How easily Americans are being distracted from the most serious issues they've ever faced by the media's hyperfocus on Dan Rather.

Newsmax, a right wing media haven, is saying today in their headlines that the CBS flap will be the factor that causes Kerry to lose the November election.

If an election is lost upon the predication that there's a dubious chance that a document may be fake as opposed to a President's lies being responsible for sending over 1000 troops to unnecessary death, then God help America.

I am happy to say that I am a blogger who speaks to the bigger picture and the realistic issues, and I always will. If visionary bloggers never get a second glance from the LA Times or the NY Post, it's their loss. Suffering from a cultural attention-deficit-disorder as we do, believe it's also America's loss.

To date, Syracuse.com has been the only mainstream media outlet who has appreciated some of my thoughts. I am grateful to them for the opportunity to get my message out.

If anyone is asking "Where is the 'Drudge' of moderate-to-left America?", my answer is the same as yours. The mainstream media loves Drudge. They've loved him since the Clinton scandal.

In the words of James Wolcott:

Unlike Bush, Kerry can't delegate his aggression to Cheney, Fox News, and a yapping band of attack poodles; the Democratic party doesn't have that same threshing infrastructure. He has to go it almost alone and run the risk of being too forceful and coming across as "unlikeable" in the eyes of gardening clubs like The Capital Gang. Pundits prefer their Democrats soft and emasculated, it makes them so much easier to fillet.

I know there are serious and intelligent voices out there. So does the mainstream media. It's obvious that they don't care. They've been Drudged-down and they're taking American trust down the toilet of mainstream journalism along with them.

I thank the LA Times and Peter Wallsten for this story. I think they've done a good job of telling it like it is. They remain one of my favorites for their fine writing and editorial staff.

"Just Like Bush"-A Child's Tale

"Just Like Bush"-
A Child's Tale

Part Three:

So, children...
After the terror in Beslan, the Kremlin reached for harsh levers, refusing to negotiate its way out of the Chechen war for fear it would look weak and embolden other separatist movements in Russia.

George W. Bush would never have negotiated with terror. Why should Vladimir?

So 100,000 more Chechens were slaughtered and 100,000 more terrorists were born.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The moral of the story:
No one wins when you rage, with hatred and bloodthirst, against a tactic.

Learn To Love

Learn to love what you do, or stop.

9/11/04

On 9-11-

My prayers go out to all who lost loved ones three years ago today.
In their memory, I reprint the 2002 Congressional testimony of Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her beloved husband Ronald on that dreadful day.
Listen to Kristen's voice.
It took quite a while for Kristen's voice to be heard. After many Stonewalls and U-Turns, the Jersey girl got what she and other 9/11 families had hoped for.

"The mortal citizens of a planet are praying right now that we will bear in mind, better than ever before, that no kind of bomb ever built will extinguish hatred."

-Barbara Kingsolver / 9-23-01

Statement of Kristen Breitweiser, Co-Chairperson September 11 Advocates, Concerning the Joint 9/11 Inquiry
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Reprinted from September 18, 2002


I would like to thank the families of the 3000 victims for allowing me to represent them, here today, before the Joint Intelligence Committee. It is a tremendous honor. Testifying before this committee is a privilege and an enormous responsibility that I do not take lightly. I will do my best not to disappoint the families or the memories of their loved ones.

Toward that end, I ask the members present here today to find in my voice the voices of all’ of the family members of the 3000 victims of September 11th. I would also ask for you to see in my eyes, the eyes of the more than 10,000 children who are now forced to grow up without the love, affection, and guidance of a mother or a father who was tragically killed on September 11.

I would now like to thank the members of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Eleanor Hill, and her staff for giving the families this opportunity to be heard. It has been an excruciating and overwhelming 12 months, and it is now time for our words and our concerns to be heard by you.

My three-year old daughter’s most enduring memory of her father will be placing flowers on his empty grave. My most enduring memory of my husband, Ronald Breitweiser, will be his final words to me, “Sweets, I’m fine, I don’t want you to worry, I love you.” Ron uttered those words while he was watching men and women jump to their deaths from the top of Tower One. Four minutes later, his Tower was hit by United Flight 175. I never spoke to my. husband, Ron, again.

I don’t really know what happened to him. I don’t know whether he jumped or he choked to death on smoke. I don’t know whether he sat curled up in a corner watching the carpet melt in front of him, knowing that his own death was soon to come or if he was alive long enough to be crushed by the buildings when they collapsed. These are the images that haunt me at night when I put my head to rest on his pillow.

I do know that the dream I had envisioned, that I so desperately needed to believe—that he was immediately turned to ash and floated up to the heavens, was simply not his fate. I know this because his wedding band was recovered from ground zero with a part of his left arm. The wedding band is charred and scratched, but still perfectly round and fully intact. I wear it on my right hand, and it will remain there until the day I die.

September 11th was the devastating result of a catalogue of failures on behalf of our government and its agencies. My husband and the approximately 3000 others like him went to work and never came home. But, were any of our governmental agencies doing their job on that fateful morning? Perhaps, the carnage and devastation of September 11th speaks for itself in answering this question.

SEE REMAINDER OF STATEMENT HERE

~~~~~~~~~~



REALITY: Who would think you'd see a sign like this at the site of the World Trade Center just three years after the 9/11 tragedy?

~~~~~~~~~~

Commending an AP Politics Writer

Commending an AP Politics Writer
This is the way it should be done.

I highly respect Pete Yost from the Associated Press for quoting Dubya Bush at a West Virginia rally yesterday and then following up on Bush's biting rhetoric with some facts. We just don't see enough honest journalism like this anymore.

THE RHETORIC: "The newest wrinkle is that Sen. Kerry has now decided we are spending too much money in Iraq even though he criticized us earlier for not spending enough," Bush said. "One thing about Senator Kerry's position is clear. ... If he had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power and would still be a threat to our security and to the world."

THE REALITY: Kerry has not chided Bush for spending too much money on the war but has criticized the president for engaging in "a war of choice" without obtaining more financial support from allies. The war has cost nearly $200 billion that, according to Kerry, could have been used for domestic programs.

Mr. Yost wrote about the fact that Zell Miller was campaigning in West Virginia with Dubya.
Yost followed up with this fact:

THE REALITY: Miller's keynote address at the Republican convention galvanized delegates and left Democrats fuming over what they called an angry, inaccurate rant by the Georgia Democrat.

Does Lack of Vision Perpetuate American Fear?

"Fear is not the natural state of civilized people."

--Aung San Suu Kyi

Does Lack of Vision Perpetuate American Fear?
James Wolcott believes so, and explains how our cultural attention-deficit disorder stymies our progress
[LINK]

"Now there are lots of reasons bruited about for why this election is dragging so much dead baggage.
• The group narcissism of the baby boomers.
• The unhealed wounds of Vietnam.
• An attempt to misdirect attention from a war we're in the process of losing (Iraq) to thrash about in the big muddy of a war we lost thirty years ago (Vietnam).

All very plausible explanations. One or all may be true.

But I also think that the future is what this election wants to avoid. The country now has such short attention span that it can't/won't concentrate on the future, finds it too taxing, would rather back up into the future than face it honestly."

--James Wolcott

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

See: The Long Now Project, a cultural institution, where the necessity of mechanism or myth which encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility is stressed. 'Long-term' is measured at least in centuries.

"Jesus-Loserman"

This one's making the rounds. I found it on Daily Kos.
It's from Mad Magazine.
I call it 'Jesus-Loserman'.

William Saletan: Wrong-Way Bush

Wrong-Way Bush
In the war on terror, the worst defense is a bad offense.
There isn't much we can do now about the damage the Iraq war has done to our campaigns against al-Qaida and WMD proliferation. But there is something we can do at election time about a president who persists in running the wrong way despite all pleas and evidence: We can tackle him. LINK/SLATE

Bush: Cowardice, No WMD, Nat'l Guard Updates

Bush: Guided By Moral Cowardice

From The Hill-
Bush’s National Guard years-
His moral cowardice has guided him all along
By Josh Marshall
The same sort of moral cowardice that led him to support the Vietnam War but decide it wasn’t for him, run companies into the ground and let others pay the bill, play gutter politics but run for the hills when someone asked him to say it to their face — those are the same qualities that led the president to lie the country into war, to fail to prepare for the aftermath and then to refuse to take responsibility for any of it when the bill started to come due.

Iraq Survey Group Verdict: No WMD

Nothing on their hands except...

The final [no WMD] verdict in the long-awaited report from the Iraq Survey Group will prove a great embarrassment for both leaders:
George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

National Guard Headlines

• Which is more cowardly? Bush's Alleged Service or Recently-Alleged Lack of Service?
• CBS convinced of 60 Minutes Guard document authenticity even though Bush campaign is trying hard to make it look like they're forgeries.
• Bush's Lost Year by James Fallows
• Now It's Bush's Turn to Squirm by Sidney Blumenthal
• Diagnosing Dubya-The president who mistook his wife for a hat by Timothy Noah
• Sen. John F. Kerry to Address National Guard Association Conference Sept 16
• Texas National Guard has first Iraq fatality

UPDATE:
• Daily Kos: TANG Typewriter Follies; Wingnuts Wrong
• The Moderate Voice: Were The CBS Documents On George Bush's Military Service Forged?
• At The Angry Liberal: A good summary of the latest articles
--C. Murphy Archibald, who worked on the Blount campaign, said that in the fall of 1972, Bush frequently was late for work on the Alabama campaign and often bragged about how much he drank the night before. (USA Today)

Kerry: Bush is No Good Samaritan

Kerry: Bush is No Good Samaritan

"Four years ago, George Bush came to office calling himself a compassionate conservative. Well, in the story of the Good Samaritan we are told of two men who pass by or cross to the other side of the street when they come upon a robbed and a beaten man.

They felt compassion, but there were no deeds. Then the Good Samaritan gave both his heart and his help.

It is clear: For four years, George W. Bush may have talked about compassion, but he's walked right by. He's seen people in need, but he's crossed over to the other side of the street."

--John Kerry, speaking today at the National Baptist Convention in New Orleans, LA

Dog Does WHAT?!?

Dog Does WHAT?!?



You've heard of 'dog bites man', but......click on this photo and you'll see what this dog did.

Bushes Attacked Nat'l Guard Service of Others

The Bushes Attacked National Guard Service of Others

From The Daily Mislead:
As reported in the August 23, 1988 Los Angeles Times, then Vice President George H.W. Bush's campaign co-chairman John Sununu went on national television to impugn an opponent's dealings with the National Guard during Vietnam. Sununu specifically claimed Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) had improperly helped get his son into the Texas National Guard during Vietnam. Bentsen's son served in the very same National Guard unit at the very same time as George W. Bush. The Bush campaign's attacks came just days after Bush's allies on Capitol Hill launched a vicious attack on Gov. Michael Dukakis (D-MA) for receiving a draft deferment during the Korean War. At the time of the coordinated attack, George W. Bush was serving as a senior adviser to his father's campaign.

[A further irony is that Texas politician Ben Barnes now admits he helped both young men get into the Guard]