There are 41 days to go until the national referendum
on the CHARACTER, CREDIBILITY and COMPETENCE of the
_resident and the VICE _resident. They are presiding
over the final days of a failed regime. The Bush
abomination's economic policy has squandered an
unprecendented surplus and supplanted it with an
unprecedented budget deficit. The current issue of
National Geographic is devoted to the very REAL and
DEVASTATING impact of Global Warming. We have lost
four years we could not afford to lose in coming to
grips with this and other burning national security
issues (e.g., nuclear proliferation and AIDS in
Africa) because of the Bush abomination's radical flat
earth ideology. The Bush abomination's foreign policy
has divided our friends, and united our enemies. The
odds on either the _resident or the
shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair winning
the Nobel Peace Prize are LITERALLY 10,000 to 1, the
same odds given for Milosevic, who is in jail at the
Hague and on trial for war crimes. Yesterday's the
_resident delivered his fourth and hopefully final
address to the UN General Assembly. It was a
chillingly quiet chamber. The *only* applause was for
the end of the speech. The _resident's address was
preceded by another diplomatic (i.e. veiled) but
principled and unmistakable denunciation of the Bush
abomination's illegal war in Iraq. Yesterday, in
Miami, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) thundered,
"The President really has no credibility at this
point." Yes. The Three Stooges Reich, which allowed
Osama bin Laden to escape in Tora Bora, has tried,
convicted and sentenced Martha Stewart to prison, and
diverted a plane, detained and denied entry to Cat
Steven...What would America look like after four more
years of the Bush abomination? What would the world
look like? Do not be deceived by the US regimestream
news media's cooked polls and craven
propapunditgandists. There is an Electoral Uprising
coming in November 2004. The US regimestream news
media, at least until this point, has, in large part,
been a full partner along with the Bush Cabal and its
wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerluy-known-as-the-Republican-Party
in a Triad of shared special interest (e.g. oil,
weapons, media, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, etc.) Here
are four very important news items. They should
dominate the air waves and demand headlines above the
fold. But they won't. Please read them and share them
with others. Please vote and encourage others to vote.
Please remember that the US regimestream news media
does not want to inform you about this presidential
campaign, it wants to DISinform you...
www.harrisinteractive.com: President Bush’s ratings
have slipped to 45 percent positive and 54 percent
negative, the lowest ratings of his presidency,
according to a new Harris Poll. These numbers compare
to 50 percent positive, 49 percent negative in June
and 48 percent positive, 51 percent negative in
August. This downward trend no doubt helps to explain
why the lead which the president enjoyed over Senator
Kerry immediately after the Republican convention in
New York – the so-called “convention bounce” – has now
disappeared.
Ann Scott Tyson, Christian Science Monitor: Washington
- Inside dusty, barricaded camps around Iraq, groups
of American troops in between missions are gathering
around screens to view an unlikely choice from the US
box office: "Fahrenheit 9-11," Michael Moore's
controversial documentary attacking the
commander-in-chief.
"Everyone's watching it," says a Marine corporal
at an outpost in Ramadi that is mortared by insurgents
daily. "It's shaping a lot of people's image of Bush."
The film's prevalence is one sign of a discernible
countercurrent among US troops in Iraq - those who
blame President Bush for entangling them in what they
see as a misguided war. Conventional wisdom holds that
the troops are staunchly pro-Bush, and many are. But
bitterness over long, dangerous deployments is
producing, at a minimum, pockets of support for
Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, in part because
he's seen as likely to withdraw American forces from
Iraq more quickly.
Rick Hind and David Halperin, New York Times: While
President Bush continues to make terrorism and
domestic security the centerpiece of his campaign, he
has made little mention of one of the most urgent
threats to our safety: the risk that terrorists could
cause thousands, even millions, of deaths by
sabotaging one of the 15,000 industrial chemical
plants across the United States...
As The Wall Street Journal disclosed last month,
Homeland Security tried to reduce the threat of
catastrophic attack with the stroke of a pen. The
department announced that the number of plants that
threatened more than 1,000 people was actually only
4,391, and the number that endangered more than a
million people was not 123 but two.
Mr. Ridge has set in motion plans to install security
cameras at chemical plants in seven states - but not
in some high-threat states like Florida, Ohio and
Minnesota. Although the department visits plants and
offers advice, unlike the E.P.A., it doesn't have the
power to enforce security measures and relies instead
on voluntary efforts by the industry. Without
enforceable requirements, chemical firms will remain
reluctant to put sufficient safeguards in place, for
fear that their competitors will scrimp on security
and thus be able to undercut them on price.
Industry groups have lobbied intensely against the
Corzine legislation. While reluctant to invest in
plant safety, some of these companies and their
executives have found the resources to help pay for
the Republican campaign.
For the Bush administration, it seems, homeland
security is critical except when it conflicts with the
wishes of supporters who own chemical plants.
Terry McAuliffe, Democratic National Committee: “In
today’s New York Post, Roger Stone, who became
associated with political ‘dirty tricks’ while working
for Nixon, refused to deny that he was the source the
CBS documents.
“Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what
they know about Mr. Stone’s relationship with these
forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr.
Stone’s involvement? Or for that matter, others with a
known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or
Ralph Reed?”
David Corn, The Nation: The McCain-Bush face-off has
been one of the most-watched soap operas in
Washington. Now it appears that when McCain hit the
campaign trail for Bush this summer, the conflict was
not ultimately resolved. A few more twists and turns
could come, and in this relationship, McCain at the
moment has more power. (Remember McCain's home state
of Arizona could end up being a key state on November
2.) With his recent comments, McCain has essentially
called out the administration and undermined Bush's
spin. If McCain continues to talk so candidly, he will
be serving as a wingman for Kerry. Is this calculation
or coincidence? Revenge being served out of a
deep-freezer? McCain likes to promote his reputation
as a straight-talker, but next time I see him in a
green room, I'm not going to bother asking him to
answer the question. Let him do what he's gotta
do--especially if it's personal. Anyway, who would
want to know the end of this melodrama before the
final page?
Support Our Troops, Save the US Constitution,
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Restore Fiscal Responsibility in the White House,
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Save the Environment, Break the Corporatist
Stranglehold on the US Mainstream News Media, Rescue
the US Supreme Court from Right-Wing Radicals, Cleanse
the White House of the Chicken Hawk Coup and Its
War-Profiteering Cronies, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat the Triad, Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=496
President Bush’s Ratings Slip to Lowest Level of His
Presidency, According to Latest Harris Poll
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – September 17, 2004 – President
Bush’s ratings have slipped to 45 percent positive and
54 percent negative, the lowest ratings of his
presidency, according to a new Harris Poll. These
numbers compare to 50 percent positive, 49 percent
negative in June and 48 percent positive, 51 percent
negative in August. This downward trend no doubt helps
to explain why the lead which the president enjoyed
over Senator Kerry immediately after the Republican
convention in New York – the so-called “convention
bounce” – has now disappeared.
This is one of the results of a Harris Poll of 1,018
U.S. adults surveyed by telephone by Harris
Interactive® between September 9 and 13, 2004.
This survey also tracked the ratings of other
government leaders and of both parties in Congress.
Some of the other findings are:
Vice President Dick Cheney’s ratings – 40 percent
positive, 54 percent negative – have not changed since
August.
Secretary of State Colin Powell’s ratings are down to
63 percent positive, 32 percent negative from 69
percent to 27 percent in August, but he is still by
far the most popular member of the administration.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s ratings are
down very slightly to 43 percent positive, 50 percent
negative. This is the first time his negative ratings
have touched 50 percent.
Attorney General John Ashcroft’s ratings – at 40
percent positive, 49 percent negative – are also down
slightly since August, and his negative ratings have
never been this high before.
The best news for Republicans in this poll is probably
the fact that Republicans in Congress continue to
receive somewhat better (or, more accurately, “less
bad”) ratings, 38 percent positive and 56 percent
negative, than the Democrats in Congress, 34 percent
positive, 60 percent negative.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092204C.shtml
Strident Minority: Anti-Bush U.S. Troops in Iraq
By Ann Scott Tyson
The Christian Science Monitor
Tuesday 21 September 2004
Though military personnel lean conservative, some
vocally support Kerry - or at least a strategy for
swift withdrawal.
Washington - Inside dusty, barricaded camps around
Iraq, groups of American troops in between missions
are gathering around screens to view an unlikely
choice from the US box office: "Fahrenheit 9-11,"
Michael Moore's controversial documentary attacking
the commander-in-chief.
"Everyone's watching it," says a Marine corporal
at an outpost in Ramadi that is mortared by insurgents
daily. "It's shaping a lot of people's image of Bush."
The film's prevalence is one sign of a discernible
countercurrent among US troops in Iraq - those who
blame President Bush for entangling them in what they
see as a misguided war. Conventional wisdom holds that
the troops are staunchly pro-Bush, and many are. But
bitterness over long, dangerous deployments is
producing, at a minimum, pockets of support for
Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, in part because
he's seen as likely to withdraw American forces from
Iraq more quickly.
"[For] 9 out of 10 of the people I talk to, it
wouldn't matter who ran against Bush - they'd vote for
them," said a US soldier in the southern city of
Najaf, seeking out a reporter to make his views known.
"People are so fed up with Iraq, and fed up with
Bush."
With only three weeks until an Oct. 11 deadline
set for hundreds of thousands of US troops abroad to
mail in absentee ballots, this segment of the military
vote is important - symbolically, as a reflection on
Bush as a wartime commander, and politically, as
absentee ballots could end up tipping the balance in
closely contested states.
It is difficult to gauge the extent of
disaffection with Bush, which emerged in interviews in
June and July with ground forces in central, northern,
and southern Iraq. No scientific polls exist on the
political leanings of currently deployed troops,
military experts and officials say.
To be sure, broader surveys of US military
personnel and their spouses in recent years indicate
they are more likely to be conservative and Republican
than the US civilian population - but not
overwhelmingly so.
A Military Times survey last December of 933
subscribers, about 30 percent of whom had deployed for
the Iraq war, found that 56 percent considered
themselves Republican - about the same percentage who
approved of Bush's handling of Iraq. Half of those
responding were officers, who as a group tend to be
more conservative than their enlisted counterparts.
Among officers, who represent roughly 15 percent
of today's 1.4 million active duty military personnel,
there are about eight Republicans for every Democrat,
according to a 1999 survey by Duke University
political scientist Peter Feaver. Enlisted personnel,
however - a disproportionate number of whom are
minorities, a population that tends to lean Democratic
- are more evenly split. Professor Feaver estimates
that about one third of enlisted troops are
Republicans, one third Democrats, and the rest
independents, with the latter group growing.
Pockets of Ambivalence
"The military continues to be a Bush stronghold,
but it's not a stranglehold," Feaver says. Three
factors make the military vote more in play for
Democrats this year than in 2000, he says: the Iraq
war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's tense
relationship with the Army, and Bush's limited ability
as an incumbent to make sweeping promises akin to
Senator Kerry's pledge to add 40,000 new troops and
relieve an overstretched force.
"The military as a whole supports the Iraq war,"
Mr. Feaver says, noting a historical tendency of
troops to back the commander in chief in wartime. "But
you can go across the military and find pockets where
they are more ambivalent," he says, especially among
the National Guard and Reserve. "The war has not gone
as swimmingly as they thought, and that has caused
disaffection.
Whether representing pockets of opposition to Bush
or something bigger, soldiers and marines on Iraq's
front lines can be impassioned in their criticism. One
Marine officer in Ramadi who had lost several men said
he was thinking about throwing his medals over the
White House wall.
"Nobody I know wants Bush," says an enlisted
soldier in Najaf, adding, "This whole war was based on
lies." Like several others interviewed, his animosity
centered on a belief that the war lacked a clear
purpose even as it took a tremendous toll on US
troops, many of whom are in Iraq involuntarily under
"stop loss" orders that keep them in the service for
months beyond their scheduled exit in order to keep
units together during deployments.
"There's no clear definition of why we came here,"
says Army Spc. Nathan Swink, of Quincy, Ill. "First
they said they have WMD and nuclear weapons, then it
was to get Saddam Hussein out of office, and then to
rebuild Iraq. I want to fight for my nation and for my
family, to protect the United States against enemies
foreign and domestic, not to protect Iraqi civilians
or deal with Sadr's militia," he said.
Specialist Swink, who comes from a family of both
Democrats and Republicans, plans to vote for Kerry.
"Kerry protested the war in Vietnam. He is the one to
end this stuff, to lead to our exit of Iraq," he said.
'We Shouldn't be Here'
Other US troops expressed feelings of guilt over
killing Iraqis in a war they believe is unjust.
"We shouldn't be here," said one Marine
infantryman bluntly. "There was no reason for invading
this country in the first place. We just came here and
[angered people] and killed a lot of innocent people,"
said the marine, who has seen regular combat in
Ramadi. "I don't enjoy killing women and children,
it's not my thing."
As with his comrades, the marine accepted some of
the most controversial claims of "Fahrenheit 9/11,"
which critics have called biased. "Bush didn't want to
attack [Osama] Bin Laden because he was doing business
with Bin Laden's family," he said.
Another marine, Sgt. Christopher Wallace of
Pataskala, Ohio, agreed that the film was making an
impression on troops. "Marines nowadays want to know
stuff. They want to be informed, because we'll be
voting out here soon," he said. " 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
opened our eyes to things we hadn't seen before." But,
he added after a pause, "We still have full faith and
confidence in our commander-in-chief. And if John
Kerry is elected, he will be our commander in chief."
Getting Out the Military Vote
No matter whom they choose for president, US
troops in even the most remote bases in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and elsewhere overseas are more likely
than in 2000 to have an opportunity to vote - and have
their votes counted - thanks to a major push by the
Pentagon to speed and postmark their ballots. The
Pentagon is now expediting ballots for all 1.4 million
active-duty military personnel and their 1.3 million
voting-age dependents, as well as 3.7 million US
civilians living abroad.
"We wrote out a plan of attack on how we are going
to address these issues this election year," says Maj.
Lonnie Hammack, the lead postal officer for US Central
Command, an area covering the Middle East, Central
Asia, and North Africa, where more than 225,000 troops
and Defense Department personnel serve.
The military has added manpower, flights, and
postmark-validating equipment, and given priority to
moving ballots - by Humvee or helicopter if necessary
- even to far-flung outposts such as those on the
Syrian and Pakistani border and Djibouti.
Meanwhile, voting-assistance officers in every
military unit are reminding troops to vote, as are
posters, e-mails, and newspaper and television
announcements. Voting booths are also set up at
deployment centers in the United States.
"We've had almost 100 percent contact," says Col.
Darrell Jones, director of manpower and personnel for
Central Command, and 200,000 federal postcard ballot
applications have been shipped.
"We encourage our people to vote, not for a
certain candidate, but to exercise that right," he
said, noting that was especially important as the US
military is "out there promoting fledgling democracy
in these regions." Many of the younger troops may be
voting for the first time, he added.
-------
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/22/opinion/22halperin.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
September 22, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Lots of Chemicals, Little Reaction
By RICK HIND and DAVID HALPERIN
Washington — While President Bush continues to make
terrorism and domestic security the centerpiece of his
campaign, he has made little mention of one of the
most urgent threats to our safety: the risk that
terrorists could cause thousands, even millions, of
deaths by sabotaging one of the 15,000 industrial
chemical plants across the United States.
The dangers from chemical plant mishaps are clear.
According to data compiled by Greenpeace
International, the 1984 accident at an Union Carbide
insecticide plant in Bhopal, India, has caused 20,000
deaths and injuries to 200,000 people. A terrorist
group could cause even greater harm by entering a
plant in the United States and setting off an
explosion that produces a deadly gas cloud.
The administration knows the dangers. Soon after the
9/11 attacks, Senator Jon Corzine, Democrat of New
Jersey, highlighted the issue with legislation
requiring chemical plants to enhance security and use
safer chemicals and technologies when feasible. (Such
safer substitutes are widely available.)
A study by the Army surgeon general, conducted soon
after 9/11, found that up to 2.4 million people could
be killed or wounded by a terrorist attack on a single
chemical plant. In February 2003, the government's
National Infrastructure Protection Center warned that
chemical plants in the United States could be Qaeda
targets. Investigations by The Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review and the CBS program "60 Minutes" have
highlighted lax or nonexistent security at chemical
plants, with gates unlocked or wide open and chemical
tanks unguarded.
The Environmental Protection Agency under Christie
Whitman did its part to evaluate the threat,
identifying 123 chemical facilities where an accident
or attack could threaten more than a million people,
and 7,605 plants that threatened more than 1,000
people. The agency determined that it could use the
Clean Air Act to compel chemical plants to increase
security.
Following the Corzine approach, the agency also
planned to promote the use of less hazardous
chemicals. But the Bush administration overruled the
initiative, and in December the president announced
that chemical security was now the province of the new
Department of Homeland Security, under Secretary Tom
Ridge.
As The Wall Street Journal disclosed last month,
Homeland Security tried to reduce the threat of
catastrophic attack with the stroke of a pen. The
department announced that the number of plants that
threatened more than 1,000 people was actually only
4,391, and the number that endangered more than a
million people was not 123 but two.
Mr. Ridge has set in motion plans to install security
cameras at chemical plants in seven states - but not
in some high-threat states like Florida, Ohio and
Minnesota. Although the department visits plants and
offers advice, unlike the E.P.A., it doesn't have the
power to enforce security measures and relies instead
on voluntary efforts by the industry. Without
enforceable requirements, chemical firms will remain
reluctant to put sufficient safeguards in place, for
fear that their competitors will scrimp on security
and thus be able to undercut them on price.
Industry groups have lobbied intensely against the
Corzine legislation. While reluctant to invest in
plant safety, some of these companies and their
executives have found the resources to help pay for
the Republican campaign.
For the Bush administration, it seems, homeland
security is critical except when it conflicts with the
wishes of supporters who own chemical plants.
Rick Hind is legislative director of Greenpeace's
toxics campaign. David Halperin, a lawyer, has served
on the staffs of the National Security Council and the
Senate Intelligence Committee.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home |
Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help |
Back to Top
http://www.democrats.org/news/200409210001.html
Sep 21, 2004
McAuliffe: Will GOP Answer If They Know Whether Stone,
Others Had Involvement With CBS Documents?
Washington, D.C. - In response to false Republican
accusations regarding the CBS documents, Democratic
National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued
this statement:
“In today’s New York Post, Roger Stone, who became
associated with political ‘dirty tricks’ while working
for Nixon, refused to deny that he was the source the
CBS documents.
“Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what
they know about Mr. Stone’s relationship with these
forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr.
Stone’s involvement? Or for that matter, others with a
known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or
Ralph Reed?”
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1833
McCain: The October Surprise?
09/20/2004 @ 1:05pm
E-mail this Post
Will John McCain be the October Surprise?
Months ago, when the Republican senator who is often
dubbed a maverick finally started campaigning with
George W. Bush--after news reports noted that John
Kerry had delicately discussed with McCain the idea of
McCain becoming Kerry's running mate--the question
asked by political commentators (and cable talk show
consumers) was, what does McCain want? Did he want to
make peace with the GOP establishment so he could run
for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008
(when he would be 72 years old)? Was he looking to be
secretary of defense? Was he hoping that Bush would
bounce Dick Cheney and put McCain on the ticket?
The obvious answer was that McCain was just yielding
to the overwhelming Ds-and-Rs dynamic of Washington's
binary culture. In his case, the issue was whether
McCain was a Republican or not. And if he did want to
continue being a GOPer in good standing, then he had
to do right by the Family. (Think The Sopranos.) That
meant putting aside the resentment and anger he must
have felt toward the Bush clan, which--take your
pick--ran or countenanced an ugly and vicious campaign
against McCain in the South Carolina primary in 2000
that included questioning McCain's commitment to
veterans and spreading rumors that McCain had been
brainwashed in a Vietnamese prison camp, that his
adopted daughter was a love-child he had had with a
prostitute, and that his wife was a junkie. So this
year McCain sucked it up and hit the trail for Bush,
even as the Bush brigade was mounting the same sort of
trash-and-slash attack against McCain's colleague,
John Kerry. At least, McCain could point to the war in
Iraq as a point of agreement with Bush. Though McCain,
according to a McCain adviser, has not accepted the
neoconservatives' argument (adopted by Bush) that the
Iraq war is necessary as an initial step in remaking
the region, he believed that because Saddam Hussein
posed a possible threat and was such a tyrant he
needed "to be taken out."
But maybe there was another reason beyond loyalty to
the party and to the commander-in-chief why McCain
saddled up with Bush. Perhaps he wanted to get near
enough to knife Bush--metaphorically speaking, of
course. As in, keep your friends close and your
enemies closer. (Think The Godfather.)
Yesterday on Fox News Sunday, McCain whacked Bush on
Iraq. He accused Bush of making "serious mistakes
after the initial successes by not having enough
troops there on the ground, by allowing the looting,
by not securing the borders. There was a number of
things that we did. Most of it can be traced back to
not having sufficient numbers of troops there." When
he said "we," McCain actually meant Bush, Dick Cheney,
Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice.
He noted that the Bush administration has allowed
insurgents to establish sanctuaries--such as in
Falluja--where anti-American rebels or terrorists can
be trained and harbored. McCain, saying he still
supports the US mission in Iraq, was making a serious
charge: that Bush and his gang have screwed things up
tremendously.
Anchor Chris Wallace then asked what seemed to be a
Bush-friendly question: "Some have suggested that what
we're seeing, to use a Vietnam analogy, is kind of a
rolling Tet offensive to try to break the will of the
American and Iraqi people and to play a role in
defeating President Bush. Do you think that's what's
going on?"
While other GOPers have tried to make such a point to
shore up support for Bush among potential voters,
McCain would not. "I don't think they're interested so
much," he replied, "in defeating President Bush."
*********
When you're done reading this article,visit David
Corn's WEBLOG at www.davidcorn.com. Read recent
entries on a top military commander claiming Iraq is
lost, the Kerry campaign's lag on analogies, Bush's
most recent campaign-trail fibs, and the never-ending
flap over Bush's Air National Guard service and those
CBS memos.
********
McCain challenged Bush's assertion that progress is
under way in Iraq, noting "the situation has obviously
been somewhat deteriorating, to say the least." Bush,
he remarked, "is not being "as straight as maybe we'd
like to see." McCain called for the declassification
of the recent National Intelligence Estimate that
raised the possibility of civil war in Iraq. "The
key," said McCain, who urged more extensive US
military action in Iraq, is to "recognize those
mistakes, correct those mistakes, and prevail." He
added, "I'd like to see more of an overall plan
articulated by the president."
McCain's remarks were not what a consultant would call
politically useful to the fellow whom McCain is
supposedly trying to help get reelected. These
comments came the day before John Kerry was to give a
major speech blistering Bush for mistakes and
miscalculations in Iraq. McCain--as well as Republican
Senators Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar, who on other
talk shows each said the administration's handling of
postwar Iraq has been incompetent--softened up Bush
for Kerry's blows. But McCain's words, given his
standing in the media, hit the hardest.
Earlier this month, an editor at The Nation, dreaming
of magic-bullet scenarios, asked me whether Secretary
of State Colin Powell might break with Bush in October
and swing the election to Kerry. Not a chance I said,
read this. Powell is completely in the tank for the
Bush crew, enabling the neocons. But McCain--now he
might cause further difficult for his "good friend" in
the White House in the final weeks of the election.
The Bush campaign eagerly embraced McCain early in the
summer when Bush was slipping in the polls due to the
mess in Iraq. So when McCain (rather than Kerry) says
Bush hasn't articulated a plan for Iraq, can the White
House dismiss this serious statement? It sure cannot
be pooh-poohed by Bush's mouthpieces as partisan
rhetoric. Might such a remark cause Bushies to wonder
whether McCain infiltrated the Bush campaign in order
to better zing the man whose lieutenants once bitterly
and scurrilously attacked McCain's family and
questioned McCain's loyalty to veterans?
The McCain-Bush face-off has been one of the
most-watched soap operas in Washington. Now it appears
that when McCain hit the campaign trail for Bush this
summer, the conflict was not ultimately resolved. A
few more twists and turns could come, and in this
relationship, McCain at the moment has more power.
(Remember McCain's home state of Arizona could end up
being a key state on November 2.) With his recent
comments, McCain has essentially called out the
administration and undermined Bush's spin. If McCain
continues to talk so candidly, he will be serving as a
wingman for Kerry. Is this calculation or coincidence?
Revenge being served out of a deep-freezer? McCain
likes to promote his reputation as a straight-talker,
but next time I see him in a green room, I'm not going
to bother asking him to answer the question. Let him
do what he's gotta do--especially if it's personal.
Anyway, who would want to know the end of this
melodrama before the final page?
********
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAVID CORN'S BOOK, The Lies of
George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception
(Crown Publishers). A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An
UPDATED and EXPANDED EDITION is NOW AVAILABLE in
PAPERBACK. The Washington Post says, "This is a fierce
polemic, but it is based on an immense amount of
research....[I]t does present a serious case for the
president's partisans to answer....Readers can hardly
avoid drawing...troubling conclusions from Corn's
painstaking indictment." The Los Angeles Times says,
"David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush is as
hard-hitting an attack as has been leveled against the
current president. He compares what Bush said with the
known facts of a given situation and ends up making a
persuasive case." The Library Journal says, "Corn
chronicles to devastating effect the lies, falsehoods,
and misrepresentations....Corn has painstakingly
unearthed a bill of particulars against the president
that is as damaging as it is thorough." And GEORGE W.
BUSH SAYS, "I'd like to tell you I've read [ The Lies
of George W. Bush], but that'd be a lie."
For more information and a sample, go to
www.davidcorn.com. And see his WEBLOG there.
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