The LNS does not, as you have probably observed, spend much time posting or distributing poll numbers. Of course, the LNS does spend considerable energy refuting their frequent misrepresentation to promote a deceptive reading of the political temperature of the country, or worse, their frequent misconstruction to promote a deceptive reading of the political temperature of the country. Although the LNS does not spend much time posting or distributiong poll numbers, we do spend a lot of time studying them (many of them), and as everyone who studies them seriously knows Zogby is the most accurate...Now, being an astute critic of the "US mainstream news media" you are probably not surprised that the major network news organizations are not *running* with this glimpse into the US electorate's thinking less than 100 days before the national referendum on the CREDIBILITY, CHARACTER and COMPETENCE of the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident...And remember, it is worse for the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident than even Zogbydetects...Yes, there is an Electoral Uprising coming...
John Zogby and Christopher Conroy, www.zogby.com: The most recent Zogby poll shows deeper trouble for President George W. Bush beyond just the horserace. Mr. Bush has fallen in key areas while Senator John Kerry has shored up numerous constituencies in his base. The Bush team’s attempted outreach to base Democratic and swing constituency has shown to be a failure thus far, limiting his potential growth in the electorate.
The most important group in this election now is the
undecideds and Mr. Bush’s standing among them is weak.
He is generally well liked among the undecideds,
having a strong favorability (56%), but his job
performance is another story. Only 32% approve of
Bush’s job in office and only 31% believe the country
is headed in the right direction...
There are three factors contributing to Senator
Kerry’s lead in the electorate; first is President
Bush’s eroding base, second is his failure in outreach
to swing groups and base Democratic constituencies,
and third is Mr. Kerry’s strengthening of his base.
Mr. Kerry also has the potential to open a bigger lead
in two areas. First, among the undecided voters, if
Mr. Kerry can sell himself as a viable alternative to
Mr. Bush, he stands to make large gains amongst the
small, but significant chuck of undecideds. Second is
in the turnout arena, Mr. Kerry’s large leads amongst
Hispanics – who will potentially make up a great
portion of the electorate than they did in 2000 – and
young voters – who numerous non-partisan groups like
Rock the Vote and MTV are targeting – will stand to
boost his total share of the vote with every point
their turnout increases. Mr. Kerry is showing a
2-to-1 lead (50% to 25%) amongst voters who didn’t
vote in 2000, while winning three-quarters (75%) of
Ralph Nader’s voters and stealing twice as many (8% to
4%) of Mr. Bush voters in 2000 than Bush is stealing
of Gore voters in 2000.
Break the Corporatist Stranglehold on the "US
Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Demoracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=849
The Race Is On: An Analysis of the Post-Convention
Zogby Poll By John Zogby and Christopher Conroy
The most recent Zogby poll shows deeper trouble for
President George W. Bush beyond just the horserace.
Mr. Bush has fallen in key areas while Senator John
Kerry has shored up numerous constituencies in his
base. The Bush team’s attempted outreach to base
Democratic and swing constituency has shown to be a
failure thus far, limiting his potential growth in the
electorate.
The most important group in this election now is the
undecideds and Mr. Bush’s standing among them is weak.
He is generally well liked among the undecideds,
having a strong favorability (56%), but his job
performance is another story. Only 32% approve of
Bush’s job in office and only 31% believe the country
is headed in the right direction. The undecideds are
not yet sold on Mr. Kerry, with only 49% having a
favorable opinion of him. But Mr. Kerry can still
sell his message to them: over a quarter (28%) are
either not familiar enough or are not sure of their
opinion yet. These undecided voters are generally
dissatisfied with the President, but are still not
acquainted enough with the Senator from Massachusetts
to support him.
The Bush campaign’s efforts to court voters in the
Hispanic, Jewish, and Catholic communities seem to
have fallen flat. Mr. Kerry is leading Mr. Bush by a
similar margin to that which former Vice-President Al
Gore won among Jewish voters in 2000. Mr. Bush is
also running far behind his 2000 Hispanic total, with
only 19% of the Hispanic voters supporting him, while
Mr. Kerry is beating Mr. Gore’s total with 69%. Mr.
Kerry is also running very strong among Catholics,
topping Mr. Bush, 52% to 37%, showing that not only
has Bush’s courting of them failed, but his use of
wedge issues like gay marriage and partial birth
abortion have failed to separate Catholic voters from
Kerry.
The Senator’s lead among Catholics is similar to the
Clinton margins of the 1990s.
Mr. Bush has also shown weakness in what is considered
to be his best region, the South. While Kerry’s
choice of Senator John Edwards gives him his biggest
boost, his economic populism and courting of veterans
are also key in his eroding of Mr. Bush’s support.
Not only has Kerry now come to a tie with Bush in
favorability in the South (55% for both), the
Kerry-Edwards ticket has pulled ahead, 48% to 46% in
the South. President Bush’s job performance is down
to only 44% in the South, and only 43% of Southerners
think the country is headed in the right direction.
Mr. Kerry is also performing well in Blue states,
among Young voters and among Single voters. In the
Blue states, Mr. Kerry is winning 50% to 38%, while in
the Red States, Mr. Bush is only winning 48% to 46%.
Among Single voters, Mr. Kerry is winning huge by a
total of 69% to 19%. And among young voters – 18-29
year olds – a group Al Gore only won by 2 points in
2000, Kerry is winning in a landslide, 53% to 33%.
There are three factors contributing to Senator
Kerry’s lead in the electorate; first is President
Bush’s eroding base, second is his failure in outreach
to swing groups and base Democratic constituencies,
and third is Mr. Kerry’s strengthening of his base.
Mr. Kerry also has the potential to open a bigger lead
in two areas. First, among the undecided voters, if
Mr. Kerry can sell himself as a viable alternative to
Mr. Bush, he stands to make large gains amongst the
small, but significant chuck of undecideds. Second is
in the turnout arena, Mr. Kerry’s large leads amongst
Hispanics – who will potentially make up a great
portion of the electorate than they did in 2000 – and
young voters – who numerous non-partisan groups like
Rock the Vote and MTV are targeting – will stand to
boost his total share of the vote with every point
their turnout increases. Mr. Kerry is showing a
2-to-1 lead (50% to 25%) amongst voters who didn’t
vote in 2000, while winning three-quarters (75%) of
Ralph Nader’s voters and stealing twice as many (8% to
4%) of Mr. Bush voters in 2000 than Bush is stealing
of Gore voters in 2000.
John Zogby is President of Zogby International.
Christopher Conroy is Political Research Associate at
Zogby International.
Way back in the 1992 presidential campaign, James
Carville coined the term "It's the Economy, Stupid."
The LNS says, "It's the Media, Stupid." Of course,
both axioms are political truths. Here is a compelling
example...Yesterday, while the increasingly unhinged
and incredibly shrinking _resident tried out his new
campaign themes "Results Matter" and "We've turned the
corner, and we are not turning back" in the state of
Misery, the US Department of Commerce released the
lastest BAD, BAD, BAD economic news safe in the
presumption that the major network news organizations
would misplace in their coverage of the Bush post-DNC
counterattack, which they dutifully did...never
mentioning the BAD, BAD, BAD economi news or the BAD,
BAD, BAD Zogby poll numbers...No CONTINUITY, no
CONTEXT...whether they are reporting on high crimes,
war crimes, treason or even political campaigns...Oh
but look, the White House also reported that the
federal DEFICIT (which the increasingly unhinged and
incredibly shrinking _resident's tax cuts created out
of the Clinton-Gore SURPLUS) will soar to $445 billion
this year...Yes, "RESULTS MATTER," but where are the
propapunditgandists now? Will they dish on it on the
Sunday morning news shows, Fork the Nation, Meat The
Press and This Week In Revision? Nah, they will stay
on message, and probably talk about how "small" a
"bounce" Kerry-Edwards will have gotten in their
cooked polls, never mentioning of course how limited,
more limited than ever before, the major network news
media coverage was...and, of course, they won't be quoting the Zogby poll numbers...
MARTIN CRUTSINGER, Associated Press: The U.S. economy
slowed dramatically in the spring to an annual growth
rate of 3 percent, as consumers, worried about higher
gasoline prices, cut back their spending to the
weakest pace in three years, the Commerce Department
reported Friday.
The April-June advance in the gross domestic product,
the country's output of goods and services, was below
the 3.8 percent increase many economists had expected
and was significantly down from a revised 4.5 percent
growth rate in the first three months of the year...
Private economists were troubled that the
second-quarter slowdown could develop into something
worse, especially if job growth fails to rebound after
a disappointing rise of just 112,000 payroll jobs in
June. The July jobs data will be released next Friday.
"All in all, the GDP was a disappointing report," said
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. "All the
surprises were on the downside."
The weaker-than-expected GDP number gave Wall Street
more to worry about in terms of how strong the economy
will perform in the second half of this year. The Dow
Jones industrial average managed to finish the day up
a slight 10.47 points at 10,139.71, not enough to wipe
out steep losses for July.
Associated Press: This year's federal deficit will
soar to a record $445 billion, the White House
projected Friday in a report provoking immediate
election-season tussling over how well President Bush
has handled the economy...
Democrats contrasted the $445 billion projection
with the $262 billion surplus for this year that Bush
projected in 2001, when he was persuading Congress to
approve the first of his tax cuts.
The shortfall will be the third consecutive - and
ever-growing - deficit under Bush, following four
consecutive annual surpluses under President Clinton.
Democrats said the turnabout underscored the damage
done by Bush's tax cuts and his poor stewardship of
the economy, and criticized the White House praise for
the report.
Restore Fiscal Responsibility to the White House, Show
Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/business/9281921.htm
Posted on Fri, Jul. 30, 2004
U.S. Economy Slows Drastically in Spring
MARTIN CRUTSINGER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy slowed dramatically in
the spring to an annual growth rate of 3 percent, as
consumers, worried about higher gasoline prices, cut
back their spending to the weakest pace in three
years, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
The April-June advance in the gross domestic product,
the country's output of goods and services, was below
the 3.8 percent increase many economists had expected
and was significantly down from a revised 4.5 percent
growth rate in the first three months of the year.
The administration, counting on a rebounding economy
to bolster President Bush's re-election prospects,
insisted the second-quarter slowdown was only
temporary and forecast that growth would rebound in
the second half of the year.
Treasury Secretary John Snow noted the upward revision
of the first-quarter GDP figures with the
lower-than-expected second quarter figure. If the two
figures were averaged together, he said, it gave
evidence of an economy growing at a solid 3.75 percent
rate.
"We're on a positive track, and the fundamentals are
solid for the future," Snow said in a statement.
Private economists were troubled that the
second-quarter slowdown could develop into something
worse, especially if job growth fails to rebound after
a disappointing rise of just 112,000 payroll jobs in
June. The July jobs data will be released next Friday.
"All in all, the GDP was a disappointing report," said
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. "All the
surprises were on the downside."
The weaker-than-expected GDP number gave Wall Street
more to worry about in terms of how strong the economy
will perform in the second half of this year. The Dow
Jones industrial average managed to finish the day up
a slight 10.47 points at 10,139.71, not enough to wipe
out steep losses for July.
The biggest drag on second quarter GDP came from
consumer spending, which rose by just 1 percent in the
second quarter, the weakest showing since a similar 1
percent rise in the second quarter of 2001, when the
economy was in recession. Consumer spending, a main
driver of the recovery, accounts for two-thirds of
American economic activity.
The weakness came from a 2.5 percent decline in
spending on big-ticket items such as automobiles.
Analysts noted, however, that auto sales, after a bad
June, have improved in July as dealers resumed
offering incentives to boost sales. Economists said
they still expect GDP growth to come in at 4 percent
or better rate in the second half of the year, which
would be strong enough to generate new jobs and
maintain the decline in unemployment.
Campaigning for a second term, Bush talks often of the
economy's creation of 1.5 million new jobs in the past
10 months. His Democratic challenger, John Kerry,
argues that this still leaves the country with 1.1
million fewer jobs than when Bush took office in
January 2001.
Kerry contends Bush is pursuing a failed economic
policy that has produced the worst jobs record of any
president since Herbert Hoover and is subjecting
Americans to a "middle-class squeeze" of falling wages
and rising costs for health care and education.
Friday's GDP report was the latest indication that the
economy, which had been racing ahead in recent months,
hit what Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan
described as a "soft patch" in June.
Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo in
Minneapolis, said the problem was that many of the
factors that had provided stimuli, such as Bush's tax
cuts and low interest rates supplied by the Fed, were
beginning to wane. The Fed raised interest rates for
the first time in four years on June 30 with more rate
hikes expected in coming months.
Sohn said the GDP report provided evidence that other
sectors were beginning to take up the slack, with
business investment rising at a solid 8.9 percent
rate, propelled by a 10 percent increase in sales of
equipment and software.
Inflation remained tame in the second quarter, as
reflected by a GDP inflation gauge favored by
Greenspan: excluding energy and food, prices rose at
an annual rate of just 1.8 percent, down slightly from
a 2.1 percent increase in the first quarter.
As long as inflation is under control, Greenspan told
Congress last week, the Fed will move rates upward at
a measured pace.
The 3 percent GDP growth rate in the second quarter
was the slowest growth in more than a year, since the
economy expanded at a lackluster 1.9 percent rate in
the first quarter 2003.
Over the succeeding four quarters, the economy turned
in sizzling performances with consecutive GDP growth
rates of 4.1 percent, 7.4 percent, 4.2 percent and 4.5
percent.
The 7.4 percent rate for last year's third quarter was
revised from an original 8.2 percent. All the
quarterly GDP figures over the past three years were
revised Friday as part of the government's annual
update to reflect new source data.
ON THE NET
Commerce Department: http://www.commerce.gov/
Treasury secretary's statement:
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/js1817.htm
Posted on Fri, Jul. 30, 2004
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080104Z.shtml
White House Projects Highest Deficit Ever
By The Associated Press
The New York Times
Saturday 31 July 2004
Washington - This year's federal deficit will soar
to a record $445 billion, the White House projected
Friday in a report provoking immediate election-season
tussling over how well President Bush has handled the
economy.
The administration's annual summertime budget
update forecast shortfalls falling to $331 billion
next year, then fading to $229 billion by 2009. For
each year, the red ink was smaller than the White
House envisioned six months ago.
The analysis was released the same day the
Commerce Department said economic growth slowed this
spring to an annual rate of 3 percent, well below the
3.8 percent spurt that many economists expected. The
slowdown was caused by a spending cutback by consumers
in the face of high gasoline costs, the department
said.
Administration officials hailed the budget figures
as a solid improvement over the deficits analysts
forecast early this year, and said they were on their
way to their goal of halving this year's shortfall in
five years. The White House estimated a $521 billion
budget gap for 2004 in February, while the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office predicted a $477 billion
deficit.
"This improved budget outlook is the direct result
of the strong economic growth the president's tax
relief has fueled," said White House budget director
Joshua Bolten.
He conceded that the red ink remained at
"unwelcome" levels, but said the report was still
"good news" because of the reduction from earlier
estimates.
Democrats contrasted the $445 billion projection
with the $262 billion surplus for this year that Bush
projected in 2001, when he was persuading Congress to
approve the first of his tax cuts.
The shortfall will be the third consecutive - and
ever-growing - deficit under Bush, following four
consecutive annual surpluses under President Clinton.
Democrats said the turnabout underscored the damage
done by Bush's tax cuts and his poor stewardship of
the economy, and criticized the White House praise for
the report.
"What we've got now is a president of the United
States who is actively misleading the American people
on the financial condition of the country," said Sen.
Kent Conrad of North Dakota, top Democrat on the
Senate Budget Committee. "Shame on him."
The White House attributed this year's improvement
to the collection of $82 billion more in revenue than
anticipated, reflecting stronger economic activity.
That was partly offset by $6 billion more in spending
than expected, largely for Medicaid and Medicare.
The projection, if accurate, would mean the
government will have to borrow 19 percent of the $2.32
trillion it expects to spend this year.
Last year's $375 billion deficit was the largest
ever. When adjusted for the loss of purchasing power
caused by inflation, only the shortfalls during World
War II have exceeded the projected $445 billion
shortfall.
The Concord Coalition and the Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget, bipartisan groups that
advocate balanced budgets, said the report showed
deficits must be controlled.
"We cannot continue to allow this burden to
multiply for our children and our children's
children," said Maya MacGuineas, the committee's
executive director.
The White House said this year's actual deficit
could well be smaller because federal agencies often
overestimate expected spending. The government's
budget year runs through Sept. 30, so the final
figures will be in shortly before the Nov. 2
elections.
Administration officials say a $445 billion
deficit would be manageable because it would be 3.8
percent the size of the economy - well under the 6
percent ratio during the worst of the red ink under
President Reagan.
"I am pleased with the direction we are moving
in," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle,
R-Iowa. Continuing a Republican theme, he and others
said the numbers showed spending must be constrained.
Democrats said by only extending five years, the
projections ignored the longer-term budget crisis
looming as the baby boom generation starts retiring
later this decade.
The report included the $25 billion Congress
recently approved for U.S. action in Iraq and
Afghanistan. But Democrats noted it ignored the next
request for those wars the White House will make early
next year, and the costs of easing the alternative
minimum tax's effect on middle-income families.
"There's no shock, there's no shame and there's no
solution" from the White House, said Rep. John Spratt
of South Carolina, lead House Budget Committee
Democrat.
The report also boosted the estimate of Medicare
spending by $67 billion over the next five years. It
said $26 billion was to correct costs left out of
Bush's budget last February, with the rest reflecting
new estimates for the program's spending.
Medicare, the government's health insurance
program for the elderly and disabled, spends about
$300 billion a year. It already faces questions about
its solvency because of the burden the baby boomers
will place on it, and growing medical costs.
The report was released a day after the Democratic
National Convention and the same day Congress began
hearings on the Sept. 11 commission's final report.
The deficit projection was due July 15, a date often
ignored by administrations of both parties.
Bolten said the report was not ready earlier, but
Democrats said the timing was aimed at hiding it.
-------
Extraordinary...The increasingly unhinged and
incredibly shrinking _resident is toast (politically),
unless, of course, a significant number of us are
toasted (physically), and he can once again proclaim, "Lucky me, I
hit the Trifecta!"
Ron Reagan, Esquire: It may have been the guy in the
hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his
genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash.
Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by
soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such
barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the
neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam
was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron
audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy
likely played a part. As a result of all these
displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a
couple of months back, as summer spread across the
country, the ground shifting beneath your feet...
Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed.
Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in
early June, items would appear in the newspaper
discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize
(subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection
for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the
fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs
were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like
(subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons...
Restore the Timeline, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/073104Y.shtml
The Case Against George W. Bush
By Ron Reagan
Esquire
September 2004 Issue
It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on
the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or
smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was
the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers
itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging,
lunatic retreat of the neocons from their
long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots
with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and
their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a
part. As a result of all these displays and countless
smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back,
as summer spread across the country, the ground
shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in
The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the
giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a
paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No
cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in
the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to
get calls from friends whose parents had always voted
Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid
Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim
Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing
out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual
channels that old hands from the days of Bush the
Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by
his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere
you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have
had just about enough of what the Bush administration
was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon,
accompanied by the sound of scales falling from
people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration
of that highest of American prerogatives and the most
deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.
Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed.
Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in
early June, items would appear in the newspaper
discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize
(subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection
for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the
fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs
were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like
(subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons. Predictably, this
backfired. People were treated to a side-by-side
comparison - Ronald W. Reagan versus George W. Bush -
and it's no surprise who suffered for it. Misty-eyed
with nostalgia, people set aside old political gripes
for a few days and remembered what friend and foe
always conceded to Ronald Reagan: He was damned
impressive in the role of leader of the free world. A
sign in the crowd, spotted during the slow roll to the
Capitol rotunda, seemed to sum up the mood - a
portrait of my father and the words NOW THERE WAS A
PRESIDENT.
The comparison underscored something important.
And the guy on the stool, Lynndie, and her grinning
cohorts, they brought the word: The Bush
administration can't be trusted. The parade of Bush
officials before various commissions and committees -
Paul Wolfowitz, who couldn't quite remember how many
young Americans had been sacrificed on the altar of
his ideology; John Ashcroft, lip quivering as, for a
delicious, fleeting moment, it looked as if Senator
Joe Biden might just come over the table at him -
these were a continuing reminder. The Enron creeps,
too - a reminder of how certain environments and
particular habits of mind can erode common decency.
People noticed. A tipping point had been reached. The
issue of credibility was back on the table. The L-word
was in circulation. Not the tired old bromide liberal.
That's so 1988. No, this time something much more
potent: liar.
Politicians will stretch the truth. They'll
exaggerate their accomplishments, paper over their
gaffes. Spin has long been the lingua franca of the
political realm. But George W. Bush and his
administration have taken "normal" mendacity to a
startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. On
top of the usual massaging of public perception, they
traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of
symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to
embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people,
finally, have started catching on.
None of this, needless to say, guarantees Bush a
one-term presidency. The far-right wing of the country
- nearly one third of us by some estimates - continues
to regard all who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid
(liberals, rationalists, Europeans, et cetera) as
agents of Satan. Bush could show up on video
canoodling with Paris Hilton and still bank their
vote. Right-wing talking heads continue painting
anyone who fails to genuflect deeply enough as a
"hater," and therefore a nut job, probably a
crypto-Islamist car bomber. But these protestations
have taken on a hysterical, almost comically desperate
tone. It's one thing to get trashed by Michael Moore.
But when Nobel laureates, a vast majority of the
scientific community, and a host of current and former
diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military
officials line up against you, it becomes increasingly
difficult to characterize the opposition as fringe
wackos.
Does anyone really favor an administration that so
shamelessly lies? One that so tenaciously clings to
secrecy, not to protect the American people, but to
protect itself? That so willfully misrepresents its
true aims and so knowingly misleads the people from
whom it derives its power? I simply cannot think so.
And to come to the same conclusion does not make you
guilty of swallowing some liberal critique of the Bush
presidency, because that's not what this is. This is
the critique of a person who thinks that lying at the
top levels of his government is abhorrent. Call it the
honest guy's critique of George W. Bush.
The most egregious examples OF distortion and
misdirection - which the administration even now
cannot bring itself to repudiate - involve our
putative "War on Terror" and our subsequent foray into
Iraq.
During his campaign for the presidency, Mr. Bush
pledged a more "humble" foreign policy. "I would take
the use of force very seriously," he said. "I would be
guarded in my approach." Other countries would resent
us "if we're an arrogant nation." He sniffed at the
notion of "nation building." "Our military is meant to
fight and win wars. . . . And when it gets
overextended, morale drops." International cooperation
and consensus building would be the cornerstone of a
Bush administration's approach to the larger world.
Given candidate Bush's remarks, it was hard to imagine
him, as president, flipping a stiff middle finger at
the world and charging off adventuring in the Middle
East.
But didn't 9/11 reshuffle the deck, changing
everything? Didn't Mr. Bush, on September 12, 2001,
awaken to the fresh realization that bad guys in
charge of Islamic nations constitute an entirely new
and grave threat to us and have to be ruthlessly
confronted lest they threaten the American homeland
again? Wasn't Saddam Hussein rushed to the front of
the line because he was complicit with the hijackers
and in some measure responsible for the atrocities in
Washington, D. C., and at the tip of Manhattan?
Well, no.
As Bush's former Treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill,
and his onetime "terror czar," Richard A. Clarke, have
made clear, the president, with the enthusiastic
encouragement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
Paul Wolfowitz, was contemplating action against Iraq
from day one. "From the start, we were building the
case against Hussein and looking at how we could take
him out," O'Neill said. All they needed was an excuse.
Clarke got the same impression from within the White
House. Afghanistan had to be dealt with first; that's
where the actual perpetrators were, after all. But the
Taliban was a mere appetizer; Saddam was the entrée.
(Or who knows? The soup course?) It was simply a
matter of convincing the American public (and our
representatives) that war was justified.
The real - but elusive - prime mover behind the
9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was quickly relegated
to a back burner (a staff member at Fox News - the
cable-TV outlet of the Bush White House - told me a
year ago that mere mention of bin Laden's name was
forbidden within the company, lest we be reminded that
the actual bad guy remained at large) while Saddam's
Iraq became International Enemy Number One. Just like
that, a country whose economy had been reduced to
shambles by international sanctions, whose military
was less than half the size it had been when the U. S.
Army rolled over it during the first Gulf war, that
had extensive no-flight zones imposed on it in the
north and south as well as constant aerial and
satellite surveillance, and whose lethal weapons and
capacity to produce such weapons had been destroyed or
seriously degraded by UN inspection teams became, in
Mr. Bush's words, "a threat of unique urgency" to the
most powerful nation on earth.
Fanciful but terrifying scenarios were introduced:
Unmanned aircraft, drones, had been built for missions
targeting the U. S., Bush told the nation. "We don't
want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice deadpanned to CNN.
And, Bush maintained, "Iraq could decide on any given
day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a
terrorist group or individual terrorists." We "know"
Iraq possesses such weapons, Rumsfeld and
Vice-President Cheney assured us. We even "know" where
they are hidden. After several months of this mumbo
jumbo, 70 percent of Americans had embraced the
fantasy that Saddam destroyed the World Trade Center.
All these assertions have proved to be baseless
and, we've since discovered, were regarded with
skepticism by experts at the time they were made. But
contrary opinions were derided, ignored, or covered up
in the rush to war. Even as of this writing, Dick
Cheney clings to his mad assertion that Saddam was
somehow at the nexus of a worldwide terror network.
And then there was Abu Ghraib. Our "war president"
may have been justified in his assumption that
Americans are a warrior people. He pushed the envelope
in thinking we'd be content as an occupying power, but
he was sadly mistaken if he thought that ordinary
Americans would tolerate an image of themselves as
torturers. To be fair, the torture was meant to be
secret. So were the memos justifying such treatment
that had floated around the White House, Pentagon, and
Justice Department for more than a year before the
first photos came to light. The neocons no doubt
appreciate that few of us have the stones to practice
the New Warfare. Could you slip a pair of women's
panties over the head of a naked, cowering stranger
while forcing him to masturbate? What would you say
while sodomizing him with a toilet plunger? Is keeping
someone awake till he hallucinates inhumane treatment
or merely "sleep management"?
Most of us know the answers to these questions, so
it was incumbent upon the administration to pretend
that Abu Ghraib was an aberration, not policy.
Investigations, we were assured, were already under
way; relevant bureaucracies would offer unstinting
cooperation; the handful of miscreants would be
sternly disciplined. After all, they didn't "represent
the best of what America's all about." As anyone who'd
watched the proceedings of the 9/11 Commission could
have predicted, what followed was the usual
administration strategy of stonewalling, obstruction,
and obfuscation. The appointment of investigators was
stalled; documents were withheld, including the full
report by Major General Antonio Taguba, who headed the
Army's primary investigation into the abuses at Abu
Ghraib. A favorite moment for many featured John
McCain growing apoplectic as Donald Rumsfeld and an
entire table full of army brass proved unable to
answer the simple question Who was in charge at Abu
Ghraib?
The Bush administration no doubt had its real
reasons for invading and occupying Iraq. They've
simply chosen not to share them with the American
public. They sought justification for ignoring the
Geneva Convention and other statutes prohibiting
torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners but were
loath to acknowledge as much. They may have ideas
worth discussing, but they don't welcome the rest of
us in the conversation. They don't trust us because
they don't dare expose their true agendas to the light
of day. There is a surreal quality to all this:
Occupation is liberation; Iraq is sovereign, but we're
in control; Saddam is in Iraqi custody, but we've got
him; we'll get out as soon as an elected Iraqi
government asks us, but we'll be there for years to
come. Which is what we counted on in the first place,
only with rose petals and easy coochie.
This Möbius reality finds its domestic analogue in
the perversely cynical "Clear Skies" and "Healthy
Forests" sloganeering at Bush's EPA and in the
administration's irresponsible tax cutting and other
fiscal shenanigans. But the Bush administration has
always worn strangely tinted shades, and you wonder to
what extent Mr. Bush himself lives in a world of his
own imagining.
And chances are your America and George W. Bush's
America are not the same place. If you are dead center
on the earning scale in real-world
twenty-first-century America, you make a bit less than
$32,000 a year, and $32,000 is not a sum that Mr. Bush
has ever associated with getting by in his world.
Bush, who has always managed to fail upwards in his
various careers, has never had a job the way you have
a job - where not showing up one morning gets you
fired, costing you your health benefits. He may find
it difficult to relate personally to any of the nearly
two million citizens who've lost their jobs under his
administration, the first administration since Herbert
Hoover's to post a net loss of jobs. Mr. Bush has
never had to worry that he couldn't afford the best
available health care for his children. For him,
forty-three million people without health insurance
may be no more than a politically inconvenient
abstraction. When Mr. Bush talks about the economy, he
is not talking about your economy. His economy is
filled with pals called Kenny-boy who fly around in
their own airplanes. In Bush's economy, his world,
friends relocate offshore to avoid paying taxes. Taxes
are for chumps like you. You are not a friend. You're
the help. When the party Mr. Bush is hosting in his
world ends, you'll be left picking shrimp toast out of
the carpet.
All administrations will dissemble, distort, or
outright lie when their backs are against the wall,
when honesty begins to look like political suicide.
But this administration seems to lie reflexively, as
if it were simply the easiest option for busy folks
with a lot on their minds. While the big lies are more
damning and of immeasurably greater import to the
nation, it is the small, unnecessary prevarications
that may be diagnostic. Who lies when they don't have
to? When the simple truth, though perhaps embarrassing
in the short run, is nevertheless in one's long-term
self-interest? Why would a president whose calling
card is his alleged rock-solid integrity waste his
chief asset for penny-ante stakes? Habit, perhaps. Or
an inability to admit even small mistakes.
Mr. Bush's tendency to meander beyond the bounds
of truth was evident during the 2000 campaign but was
largely ignored by the mainstream media. His untruths
simply didn't fit the agreed-upon narrative. While
generally acknowledged to be lacking in experience,
depth, and other qualifications typically considered
useful in a leader of the free world, Bush was
portrayed as a decent fellow nonetheless, one whose
straightforwardness was a given. None of that "what
the meaning of is is" business for him. And, God
knows, no furtive, taxpayer-funded fellatio sessions
with the interns. Al Gore, on the other hand, was
depicted as a dubious self-reinventor, stained like a
certain blue dress by Bill Clinton's prurient
transgressions. He would spend valuable weeks
explaining away statements - "I invented the Internet"
- that he never made in the first place. All this left
the coast pretty clear for Bush.
Scenario typical of the 2000 campaign: While
debating Al Gore, Bush tells two obvious - if not
exactly earth-shattering - lies and is not challenged.
First, he claims to have supported a patient's bill of
rights while governor of Texas. This is untrue. He, in
fact, vigorously resisted such a measure, only
reluctantly bowing to political reality and allowing
it to become law without his signature. Second, he
announces that Gore has outspent him during the
campaign. The opposite is true: Bush has outspent
Gore. These misstatements are briefly acknowledged in
major press outlets, which then quickly return to the
more germane issues of Gore's pancake makeup and
whether a certain feminist author has counseled him to
be more of an "alpha male."
Having gotten away with such witless falsities,
perhaps Mr. Bush and his team felt somehow above
day-to-day truth. In any case, once ensconced in the
White House, they picked up where they left off.
In the immediate aftermath and confusion of 9/11,
Bush, who on that day was in Sarasota, Florida,
conducting an emergency reading of "The Pet Goat," was
whisked off to Nebraska aboard Air Force One. While
this may have been entirely sensible under the chaotic
circumstances - for all anyone knew at the time,
Washington might still have been under attack - the
appearance was, shall we say, less than gallant. So a
story was concocted: There had been a threat to Air
Force One that necessitated the evasive maneuver.
Bush's chief political advisor, Karl Rove, cited
"specific" and "credible" evidence to that effect. The
story quickly unraveled. In truth, there was no such
threat.
Then there was Bush's now infamous photo-op
landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and his
subsequent speech in front of a large banner
emblazoned MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The banner, which
loomed in the background as Bush addressed the crew,
became problematic as it grew clear that the mission
in Iraq - whatever that may have been - was far from
accomplished. "Major combat operations," as Bush put
it, may have technically ended, but young Americans
were still dying almost daily. So the White House
dealt with the questionable banner in a manner
befitting a president pledged to "responsibility and
accountability": It blamed the sailors. No surprise, a
bit of digging by journalists revealed the banner and
its premature triumphalism to be the work of the White
House communications office.
More serious by an order of magnitude was the
administration's dishonesty concerning pre-9/11 terror
warnings. As questions first arose about the country's
lack of preparedness in the face of terrorist assault,
Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to the pundit arenas
to assure the nation that "no one could have imagined
terrorists using aircraft as weapons." In fact,
terrorism experts had warned repeatedly of just such a
calamity. In June 2001, CIA director George Tenet sent
Rice an intelligence report warning that "it is highly
likely that a significant Al Qaeda attack is in the
near future, within several weeks." Two intelligence
briefings given to Bush in the summer of 2001
specifically connected Al Qaeda to the imminent danger
of hijacked planes being used as weapons. According to
The New York Times, after the second of these
briefings, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack
Inside United States," was delivered to the president
at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in August, Bush
"broke off from work early and spent most of the day
fishing." This was the briefing Dr. Rice dismissed as
"historical" in her testimony before the 9/11
Commission.
What's odd is that none of these lies were worth
the breath expended in the telling. If only for
self-serving political reasons, honesty was the way to
go. The flight of Air Force One could easily have been
explained in terms of security precautions taken in
the confusion of momentous events. As for the carrier
landing, someone should have fallen on his or her
sword at the first hint of trouble: We told the
president he needed to do it; he likes that stuff and
was gung-ho; we figured, What the hell?; it was a
mistake. The banner? We thought the sailors would
appreciate it. In retrospect, also a mistake. Yup, we
sure feel dumb now. Owning up to the 9/11 warnings
would have entailed more than simple embarrassment.
But done forthrightly and immediately, an honest
reckoning would have earned the Bush team some respect
once the dust settled. Instead, by needlessly
tap-dancing, Bush's White House squandered vital
credibility, turning even relatively minor gaffes into
telling examples of its tendency to distort and evade
the truth.
But image is everything in this White House, and
the image of George Bush as a noble and infallible
warrior in the service of his nation must be
fanatically maintained, because behind the image lies
. . . nothing? As Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has
pointed out, Bush has "never fully inhabited" the
presidency. Bush apologists can smilingly excuse his
malopropisms and vagueness as the plainspokenness of a
man of action, but watching Bush flounder when
attempting to communicate extemporaneously, one is
left with the impression that he is ineloquent not
because he can't speak but because he doesn't bother
to think.
George W. Bush promised to "change the tone in
Washington" and ran for office as a moderate, a
"compassionate conservative," in the
focus-group-tested sloganeering of his campaign. Yet
he has governed from the right wing of his already
conservative party, assiduously tending a "base" that
includes, along with the expected Fortune 500 fat
cats, fiscal evangelicals who talk openly of doing
away with Social Security and Medicare, of shrinking
government to the size where they can, in tax radical
Grover Norquist's phrase, "drown it in the bathtub."
That base also encompasses a healthy share of
anti-choice zealots, homophobic bigots, and assorted
purveyors of junk science. Bush has tossed bones to
all of them - "partial birth" abortion legislation,
the promise of a constitutional amendment banning
marriage between homosexuals, federal roadblocks to
embryonic-stem-cell research, even comments suggesting
presidential doubts about Darwinian evolution. It's
not that Mr. Bush necessarily shares their worldview;
indeed, it's unclear whether he embraces any coherent
philosophy. But this president, who vowed to eschew
politics in favor of sound policy, panders nonetheless
in the interest of political gain. As John DiIulio,
Bush's former head of the Office of Community and
Faith-Based Initiatives, once told this magazine,
"What you've got is everything - and I mean everything
- being run by the political arm."
This was not what the American electorate opted
for when, in 2000, by a slim but decisive margin of
more than half a million votes, they chose . . . the
other guy. Bush has never had a mandate. Surveys
indicate broad public dissatisfaction with his
domestic priorities. How many people would have voted
for Mr. Bush in the first place had they understood
his eagerness to pass on crushing debt to our children
or seen his true colors regarding global warming and
the environment? Even after 9/11, were people really
looking to be dragged into an optional war under false
pretenses?
If ever there was a time for uniting and not
dividing, this is it. Instead, Mr. Bush governs as if
by divine right, seeming to actually believe that a
wise God wants him in the White House and that by
constantly evoking the horrible memory of September
11, 2001, he can keep public anxiety stirred up enough
to carry him to another term.
Understandably, some supporters of Mr. Bush's will
believe I harbor a personal vendetta against the man,
some seething resentment. One conservative
commentator, based on earlier remarks I've made, has
already discerned "jealousy" on my part; after all,
Bush, the son of a former president, now occupies that
office himself, while I, most assuredly, will not.
Truth be told, I have no personal feelings for Bush at
all. I hardly know him, having met him only twice,
briefly and uneventfully - once during my father's
presidency and once during my father's funeral. I'll
acknowledge occasional annoyance at the pretense that
he's somehow a clone of my father, but far from
threatening, I see this more as silly and pathetic. My
father, acting roles excepted, never pretended to be
anyone but himself. His Republican party, furthermore,
seems a far cry from the current model, with its
cringing obeisance to the religious Right and its
kill-anything-that-moves attack instincts. Believe it
or not, I don't look in the mirror every morning and
see my father looming over my shoulder. I write and
speak as nothing more or less than an American
citizen, one who is plenty angry about the direction
our country is being dragged by the current
administration. We have reached a critical juncture in
our nation's history, one ripe with both danger and
possibility. We need leadership with the wisdom to
prudently confront those dangers and the imagination
to boldly grasp the possibilities. Beyond issues of
fiscal irresponsibility and ill-advised militarism,
there is a question of trust. George W. Bush and his
allies don't trust you and me. Why on earth, then,
should we trust them?
Fortunately, we still live in a democratic
republic. The Bush team cannot expect a cabal of
right-wing justices to once again deliver the White
House. Come November 2, we will have a choice: We can
embrace a lie, or we can restore a measure of
integrity to our government. We can choose, as a
bumper sticker I spotted in Seattle put it, SOMEONE
ELSE FOR PRESIDENT.
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Recounts and Erased Ballots Hundreds of Millions
Missing in Iraq Ron Reagan | The Case Against George
W. Bush U.S. and Israeli Embassies Struck in Tashkent
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The increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking
_resident did not "stay up" to hear Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) sound the battle cry last night. Since he took most of the summer before 9/11 off, it is not hard to believe he would miss his rival's first prime-time speech to the nation. And, he is, according to Beltwayistan insiders, under heavy anti-depressants, etc. these day. But the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident was on the stump in the state of Misery this morning, saying "results matter." Yes, results like turning an unprecedented federal surplus into a multi-trillion dollar federal deficit, 900+ died US soldiers, no WMDs, isolated, outnumbered and ill--equipped in the Mega Mogadishu of Iraq, a Medifraud plan that was passed on bribes, threats and lies and works better for the Pharmaceutical industry thanfor the elderly, and that's only three examples of all he has "accomplishmed," yes, "results matter." The LNS is delighted that the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident is going to run on his record...Too bad the "US mainstream news media" will not provide any CONTEXT or CONTINUITY...Yes, it's the Media, Stupid....The Corporatist Media, and its Orwellian "news organizations" is a greater threat, and a more potent force than the Bush cabal itself...
Ruth Lopez, www.buzzflash.com: As for why young people
think that The Daily Show is a good source of real
news, ask yourself this: When the vice-president of
the United States is caught, on TV, publicly lying
about leading this country into a war where almost
1000 of our young people have needlessly died, and
then later states, again on TV, that he never said
what he said, why is it that the only "news" show to
play the side by side tapes of him lying, and then
denying what he said, is The Daily Show? Why wasn't
that headline news on every news show? " Vice
President denies saying what we have him on tape
saying, soldiers dying every day because of it."
That's news, but I have to watch Comedy Central to see
it. What's wrong with this picture, Mr. Brokaw?
Break the Corporatist Media Monopolies' Stranglehold
on the "News," Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat
Bush (again!)
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/07/con04315.html
July 27, 2004
Note to Tom Brokaw: Why I get my hard news from Jon
Stewart
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Ruth Lopez
Sunday morning, wanting to see some of the run-up to
the Democratic convention, I turned on CNN. There was
Judy Woodruff, talking to a Kerry spokesperson. In
thanking him for the interview, for her closing line,
she said, "Spoken like a true, loyal Kerry man." Did I
hear that right, I thought? Because it sounded to me
like a backhanded way to imply that he said what he
said just because he works for Kerry? A sly way to
discredit the speaker; slip in the line, close the
segment.
Then, because the Republicans have a "rapid response
war room" at the Dems' convention, Ms. Woodruff
interviewed one of the ex-Enron lobbyists that now
have jobs shilling for Cheney/Bush. I waited to see
how she would close the interview with him. First, I
had to listen to the same old tired list of Republican
"talking point" lies: Kerry voted to raise taxes 350
times (lie), Kerry is a flip flopper (lie), Kerry is
the most liberal senator (lie, but I wouldn't care if
he was). On and on, and not once did Ms. Woodruff
challenge or question the statements made. When he was
done, she thanked him sweetly for his time, as if it
had been a burden for him to have had to do all that
heavy lifting for lil ol' her. Yuck. I turned to
MSNBC. No better. They were all so excited to have a
"rabid response team" throwing them treats that they
were practically salivating on their mics.
Later in the day, while watching CSPAN, there was Ms.
Woodruff again, along with a panel of other esteemed
TV news professionals: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather. They
were discussing the sad state of news reporting during
the lead up to war. Yes, they admitted that they all
reported the war build-up wrong. They didn't ask hard
enough questions. They were cowed by an aggressive and
hostile administration. They were afraid to buck the
hyper patriotism in the lead-up to the war.
Then, I almost choked on my pretzel, Brokaw bemoaned
the fact that so many young people think that The
Daily Show is an acceptable way to get real news.
Note to Brokaw, Jennings, et al. You didn't just
misreport the insane drive to start an unnecessary,
pre-emptive war, you were part of the hyper patriotic,
jingoistic drumbeat. And it isn't just that you didn't
do enough to question it, it's that you didn't do
anything. And you still aren't. Your pathetic CSPAN
mea culpa, seen by less than 1% of the country, is
even less impressive when you go right back to your
studio and keep carrying water for the Bush
Administration, ala Ms. Woodruff.
As for why young people think that The Daily Show is a
good source of real news, ask yourself this: When the
vice-president of the United States is caught, on TV,
publicly lying about leading this country into a war
where almost 1000 of our young people have needlessly
died, and then later states, again on TV, that he
never said what he said, why is it that the only
"news" show to play the side by side tapes of him
lying, and then denying what he said, is The Daily
Show? Why wasn't that headline news on every news
show? " Vice President denies saying what we have him
on tape saying, soldiers dying every day because of
it." That's news, but I have to watch Comedy Central
to see it. What's wrong with this picture, Mr. Brokaw?
And it isn't just young people who are turning to Jon
Stewart for news dressed up as comic relief. I'm old
enough to remember another time when we had a VP like
Cheney. Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP, pleaded no contest to
charges of tax fraud and resigned. Apparently, Agnew
had illegal payments -- which he called legitimate
political contributions (in unmarked envelopes
containing as much as $20,000 at a time) -- delivered
directly to his vice presidential office! Sound like
anyone we know? Somewhere from Hell I'm sure Agnew is
smiling up at Cheney.
Every one of the top news people sitting on that CSPAN
panel should remember Agnew's disgrace; they're old
enough, they were all around then. And then, like now,
the news media toadied up to the Nixon Administration
until the weight of evidence in Watergate became
unavoidably massive.
Now it's gotten so bad that flacks like CNN's Kelli
Arena can proclaim that Osama Bin Laden is a Kerry
supporter and she still has a job. (Kelli, how often
do you and Osama talk?)
What's it going to take this time, Mr. Brokaw? Because
apparently you news guys have forgotten. Today, once
again, you and the other infotainment anchors posing
as news people dither and dawdle and pander to this
corrupt administration and cry hot little tears of
self-recrimination in the quiet corners of CSPAN and
then trot right back to your "news" desks and do it
all again.
One good hour of self-flagellation in the desert of
CSPAN and you feel so refreshed!
Meanwhile this country is again taken for a ride, one
that puts Nixon and Agnew to shame, and now, like
then, more of our young people die every day for lies.
You know, Mr. Brokaw, you guys aren't kids any more.
What are you afraid of? You've made your fortunes.
Even if you got fired today, you'll never be out on
the street starving. How about finding your courage,
and speaking some cold, hard facts: This country was
lied into war. The vice president is a war profiteer
who is being investigated for taking bribes and doing
illegal business with sanctioned countries. Try it.
Walter Cronkite could give some advice on this. Bill
Moyers is out there trying to do it, I bet he'd like
some company. Try grabbing yourself by your manly
parts and standing up for the truth.
I bet you'd find an audience then. Hell, I'd watch
every day.
Ruth Lopez
Orlando, FL
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
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Here are, first, perhaps the most important sound bytes from the 2004 Democratic National Convention...since AnythingButSee (ABC), SeeBS (CBS), NotBeSeen (NBC) and SeeNotNews (CNN) selected *none* of them as sound bytes for their lead news stories of either speech...and second, numerous important speeches from the 2004 Democratic Convention...The LNS has already posted (and distributed via e-mail) the speeches of former President Jimmy Carter, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Rev. Al Sharpton and US Navy swift boat veteran Rev. David Alston because they so beautiful epitomized the seriousness of the threat to this Republic and of the importance of this struggle toward Election Day 2004. Here, in response to the requests of LNS foreign correspondent Dunston Woods and the many ex-pats he is in touch with, are the speeches of Jim Rassman, Max Cleland, Wesley Clark, Madeleine Albright, John Kerry, John Edwards, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton…Each of them is poignant, each of them is powerful, each of them articulates the profound implications of the choices we will all make in this dire moment in the life of our nation...spread them far and wide…”the US mainstream media” has not and will not…Nor sadly it seems apparent will you hear the TRUTH about this race from *progressive* news media like KPFA (Pacifica) in Berkeley or www.commondreams, both of which are in deep denial about what has become of the shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Ralph-Nader...Dennis Kucinich (D-Future) and even Noam Chomsky understand what time it is in America...We are locked in a struggle in which every vote may not get counted, therefore it is imperative that no vote be wasted..."Let us not talk falsely now the hour is getting late."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) on Iraq:
"Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the
cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission
accomplished certainly doesn't make it so."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) on the Bush Cabal:
"I will be a commander-in-chief, who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the best advice of the military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who will uphold the Constitution of the United States."
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) on Energy:
We value an America that controls its own destiny
because it's finally and forever independent of
Mideast oil. What does it mean for our economy and our
national security when we only have three percent of
the world's oil reserves, yet we rely on foreign
countries for fifty-three percent of what we consume?
I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and
innovation - not the Saudi royal family.
And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest
in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars
of the future -- so that no young American in uniform
will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil
from the Middle East.
Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina) on Terrorism:
We will safeguard and secure our weapons of mass
destruction. We will strengthen our homeland security,
protect our ports, protect our chemical plants, and
support our firefighters, police officers, EMTs. We
will always use our military might to keep the
American people safe.
And we, John and I, we will have one clear
unmistakable message for al Qaeda and these
terrorists: You cannot run. You cannot hide. We will
destroy you.
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) on Health Care:
The story of people struggling for health care is the
story of so many Americans. But you know what, it's
not the story of senators and members of Congress.
Because we give ourselves great health care and you
get the bill. Well, I'm here to say, your family's
health care is just as important as any politician's
in Washington, D.C.
And when I'm President, America will stop being the
only advanced nation in the world which fails to
understand that health care is not a privilege for the
wealthy, the connected, and the elected - it is a
right for all Americans.
Sen. John Edwards (D-North Carolina) on Racism:
"From the time I was very young, I saw the ugly face
of segregation and discrimination. I saw young,
African-American kids being sent upstairs in movie
theaters.
I saw "white only" signs on restaurant doors and
luncheon counters.
I feel such an enormous personal responsibility when
it comes to issues of race and equality and civil
rights.
And I've heard some discussions and debates around
America about where and in front of what audiences we
ought to talk about race and equality and civil
rights. I have an answer to that questions:
Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.
This is not an African-American issue. This is not a
Latino issue. This is not an Asian-American issue.
This is an American issue.
It is about who we are, what our values are and what
kind of country we live in.
Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere."
Save the US Consitution, Save the Environment, Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies, Break the Corporatist Stranglehold on the "Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
Scroll through to the speech you are looking for..Rassmann, Cleland, Clark, Graham, Albright, Obama, Kerry, Edwards, Gore and the Clintons are all here...in complete transcripts...
US NAVY SWIFT BOAT CREW, JIM RASSMAN AND FORMER SEN. MAX CLELAND (D-GEORGIA)
CNN LIVE EVENT/SPECIAL
Swift Boat Crew, Max Cleland Introduce John Kerry
Aired July 29, 2004 - 21:49 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. They are introducing now the members of that swift boat crew, the men who served with John Kerry aboard that swift boat in Vietnam. Let's listen in there.
JIM RASSMANN, RESCUED BY JOHN KERRY IN VIETNAM: You know, there was a time when I thought I'd never see these guys again. A lot of our friends never made it home. We still miss them, especially on a night like this. We're all proud and honored to be here.
But let me say something important right up front: Nobody asked me to join this campaign. I volunteered.
(APPLAUSE)
And not just because, 35 years ago, John Kerry saved my life.
RASSMANN: I volunteered because I've seen John Kerry in action. I know his character. I've witnessed his bravery and leadership under fire. And I know he will be a great commander in chief.
(APPLAUSE)
Any one of these 12 brave men will tell you that in a tight situation, when your whole future, your whole life, depends on the decisions of one man, you can count on John Kerry.
(APPLAUSE)
And that's why this band of brothers is here tonight. That's why this band of brothers is still fighting for America. And that's why we are working so hard to elect the next president of the United States: John Kerry.
(APPLAUSE)
RASSMANN: There's another soldier here tonight, one who, like John, knows the trials of war and the true meaning of courage.
This man nearly lost his life in Vietnam, but he never lost his will, his sense of duty, or his devotion to country. Whether in state government, the United States Senate, the head of the VA, he has always been a leader of courage and conviction.
And no matter how low the attacks, he has always taken the high road, inspiring us all with his strength and patriotism.
(APPLAUSE) Please welcome a great American: Max Cleland.
MAX CLELAND, FMR. GEORGIA SENATOR: Thank you so much, Jim.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
My fellow Americans, I'd like to share with you tonight my story of how I came to know and love John Kerry.
(APPLAUSE)
It was April 1968. I was being airlifted out of Vietnam on a stretcher. At that moment, Ensign John Kerry was headed in a different direction. He was on a Navy ship in the Pacific requesting transfer into Vietnam, into the line of fire.
(APPLAUSE)
He had graduated from college. The world was his oyster. There were a lot of other things he could have done with his life. But he wanted to serve because he had been raised to believe that service to one's country is honorable, is noble and is good.
(APPLAUSE)
CLELAND: While John Kerry was earning a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, I was being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. I was 25 years old. My body was broken, and my faith was shattered.
I remember, one day, on leave from the hospital, a friend on mine was pushing me, and we were going around the city. I was in my new wheelchair.
Right there in front of the White House, we hit a little bump and it dumped me right on the street, right there on the curb. There were cigarette butts and trash all around me. And I remember trying to lift myself up off the street. I was angry in those days at war, saddened that veterans were not getting good care, and frustrated that people in power were not listening.
CLELAND: Those were difficult days for me. Those were difficult days for my country.
But I ultimately realized that although I had lost a lot, I still had a lot left.
(APPLAUSE)
I resolved to make something of my life.
(APPLAUSE)
I decided to run for the State Senate in my home state of Georgia.
(APPLAUSE)
I won, but when I got there, in 1971, I was a lone voice.
Then I heard this young veteran on TV speaking about the war. It was John Kerry. He put everything I was feeling into words.
CLELAND: Tonight, I'd like to let you know, that even before I met John Kerry, he was my brother.
(APPLAUSE)
Even before I knew John Kerry, he was my friend. Even before I spoke with John Kerry, he gave me hope.
(APPLAUSE)
The Bible tells me that no greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friends. John Kerry's fellow crewmates -- the men I am honored to share the stage with -- are living testimony to his leadership, his courage under fire, and his willingness to risk his life for his fellow Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no greater act of patriotism than that.
(APPLAUSE)
CLELAND: As I look back over the last 36 years, I realize John Kerry's service to his country did not end in Vietnam; it began there.
(APPLAUSE)
Since Vietnam, John Kerry's life has become an object lesson in what was once described as the true definition of patriotism -- the long and steady dedication of a lifetime.
(APPLAUSE)
And when we make John Kerry our next president of the United States, he will put America back on the long and steady road toward the vision of the country we fought for, a vision of the country we can become once again, a country that doesn't alienate our allies, but works with them...
(APPLAUSE)
... a country that doesn't lose jobs, but creates them...
(APPLAUSE)
... a country that doesn't limit educational opportunity, but expands it..
(APPLAUSE) ... a country that doesn't make health care less available, but more affordable, a country that doesn't spoil our environment, but protects it. A country that is strong a country that is respected, a country that is worthy of generations of sacrifice, and our children's highest hopes.
CLELAND: That is the America John Kerry volunteered to fight for. That is the America John Kerry will lead.
(APPLAUSE)
When John Kerry declared he was going to be a candidate for the highest office in our land, the presidency of the United States, on a hot, steamy day in Charleston, South Carolina, a little less than a year ago, I joined the band of brothers at his side.
CLELAND: After the ceremony, I grabbed his John's are and pressed a Bible into his hand. It was the Bible I once read from as a child. I knew that he would need the strength that it provided, the guidance it provided, and the comfort it had to offer in the days ahead.
At first, he said he was afraid he might lose it, he refused to take it. But I insisted. I told him: "Hold on to this. You'll need it like your country needs you now."
(APPLAUSE)
He looked with those kind of long sad eyes, and said, "I won't let you down."
My fellow Americans, John Kerry has never let me down. And he won't let you down either.
(APPLAUSE)
Why? Why? Because he is an authentic American, an authentic American hero. He is the next captain of our ship of state. And he will be the next president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Kerry, Kerry, Kerry...
CLELAND: In every hour of challenge our country has faced, in every hour of danger, there have been American heroes who have answered this country's call.
Just blocks from where we are tonight, some 230 years ago, a little group, a small group called the Sons of Liberty assembled to demand democracy and a voice in their future. Mere steps from where we are now, a former slave named Crispus Attucks gave his life for freedom.
(APPLAUSE)
And around the corner from where we are tonight, a beacon of light shows -- and showed on that fateful day -- from the old North Church that set Paul Revere on a mission to save this country's people from danger.
CLELAND: Those were fateful hours for our young country.
Tonight I am honored to introduce to you another son of liberty, a brother in arms, a man called by destiny at this fateful hour in our nation's history.
He is my brother. He is my friend. He is my hero.
Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, John Kerry is able to answer this nation's call.
(APPLAUSE)
WESLEY CLARK (D-NATO)
Clark: Kerry has moral courage born in battle
Thursday, July 29, 2004 Posted: 10:25 PM EDT (0225 GMT)
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, gave a prime time speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday. This is a transcript of his remarks.
CLARK: I am an American soldier. Our country has been attacked. We are at war. Our nation is at risk. And we are engaged in a life-and-death struggle against terrorists who are seeking nuclear and biological weapons.
As we are gathered here tonight, our armed forces are in combat.
Our freedoms were won in war. Our freedoms have been protected by generation after generation by the selfless service and sacrifice of men and women in uniform.
From Bunker Hill to Bastogne, from the frozen hills of Korea to the steaming jungles of Vietnam, from Kabul to Baghdad, American men and women in uniform have served with honor. They've given us so much; they've asked for so little.
Tonight, please give them a round of applause. Honor them, our veterans, our families. Give them a round of applause. We love our men and women in uniform.
They have given so much.
I want all America to see our party and how we respect the men and women who serve.
And I want to thank my wife, Gert; my son, Wesley; his wife Astrid; their son; and all of the military families especially who've stood year after year behind those who have served in uniform.
But I ask you now to observe with me just a moment of silence to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, so that we could have the freedoms that we exercise here tonight.
War. War. I've been there. So has John Kerry. I've heard the thump of enemy mortars. I've seen the tracers fly. Bled on the battlefield. Recovered in hospitals. Received and obeyed orders. Sent men and women into battle. Awarded medals, comforted families, attended funerals.
And this soldier has news for you tonight. Anyone who tells you that one political party has a monopoly on the best defense of our nation is committing a fraud on the American people.
Franklin Roosevelt said it best. Franklin Roosevelt said: "Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth."
This hall, this Democratic Party are filled with veterans who have served under the American flag. And this is our flag. Right there, that flag, we saluted this flag. We rose up in the morning and stood reveille to this flag. We fought for that flag. We've seen brave men and women buried under that flag. That flag is ours, and nobody, nobody will take it away from us.
But we've got to tell the truth. And the truth is this: The safety of our country demands urgent and innovative measures to strengthen our armed forces. The safety of our country demands credible intelligence. The safety of our country demands cooperation with our allies. The safety of our country demands making more friends and fewer enemies.
The safety of our country demands an end to the doctrinaire, ineffective policies that currently grip Washington.
Enough is enough.
A safe America, a just America, that's what we want, that's what we need. And with John Kerry and John Edwards, that is what we will achieve.
John Kerry has heard the thump of enemy mortars.
He's seen the flash of the tracers. He's lived the values of service and sacrifice. In the Navy, as a prosecutor, as a senator, he proved his physical courage under fire. And he's proved his moral courage too.
John Kerry fought a war, and I respect him for that. And he came home to fight a peace. And I respect him for that, too.
John Kerry's combination of physical courage and moral values is my definition of what we need as Americans in our commander in chief. And John Edwards with his leadership and extraordinary intelligence, he's going to be a great member of that command team.
John Kerry is a man who in time of war can lead us as a warrior, but in times of peace, he will heed the call of scripture to lead us in beating swords into plowshares.
John Kerry will lead America with strength and wisdom. He has the will to fight. He has the moral courage born in battle to pursue and secure a strong peace. Under John Kerry, I have no doubt -- and neither should any American -- that we are going to attack and destroy the terrorist threat to America.
John Kerry will join that pantheon of great wartime Democrats: great Democrats like Woodrow Wilson, who led us to victory in World War I; great Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who turned back the tide of fascism to win World War II; great Democrats like John Kennedy, who stood firm and steered us safely through the Cuban Missile Crisis; and great Democrats like Bill Clinton, who confronted ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia, and with diplomacy, backed by force, brought peace to a shattered land.
My fellow Americans, Democrats are leaders, and Democrats are fighters. And John Kerry is a leader, a fighter, and he will be a great commander in chief.
You see, John Kerry knows that the power of America is not just our armed forces and our weaponry.
It's really the power of our values and ideals.
And John Kerry knows that members of our armed forces embody the best of America's values: service, sacrifice, courage, compassion.
He knows that the members in the armed forces are serving to build something greater than themselves. They're serving to build something worth fighting for. They're serving to build something worth dying for.
John Kerry knows that the men and women who serve and our veterans are a company of heroes. And everyone who fights for the best in American life is also a hero: firemen, police officers, teachers and so many others.
I say to you tonight: John Kerry's time to lead this company of heroes has arrived. Right here, right now, in this town, tonight, from this place, we set out together to put our country back on track to security and freedom and opportunity.
America, hear this soldier.
Choose a leader whose physical courage, moral values and sound judgment, with the grace of God and our determined commitment, will strengthen our country, protect our liberty, renew our spirit and secure a future for our children that is worthy of our heritage.
Make John Kerry the next president of the United States
SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FRAUDIDA)
Senator Bob Graham
Fellow Democrats, thank you. And most especially, fellow Floridians, thank you for granting me the honor and privilege of serving you for nearly four decades. My family and I are so grateful to all of you for the wonderful adventure of public service you have made possible. Florida, you’ve made the difference for me; I know you’re going to make the difference for John Kerry and John Edwards. And this time, when the votes are counted, fellow Floridians, we are going to make a huge difference for America.
My fellow Americans, I want to tell you why I am casting my vote for John Kerry and John Edwards. The preamble to the Constitution tells us that one of the most important responsibilities of the government is to “provide for the common defense.” It has now been over one thousand days since the September 11th terrorist attacks changed our nation. One thousand days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America had already landed on the beaches of Normandy and was rolling to victory in World War II. In that same amount of time in this new war on terror, we have not yet secured the beachhead. John Kerry and John Edwards will.
In this new century, we have seen the rise of perilous new threats. And yet we have not stopped them; we haven’t even stood up to them. John Kerry and John Edwards will. At a time when all freedom-loving people are looking for leadership to unite the world in a war against terrorism, America has not provided it. My friends, John Kerry and John Edwards will.
As Governor of Florida, I learned how little the FBI and CIA communicate with the state and local law enforcement agencies that are our first line of defense against terrorist attack. As Florida’s senator, I saw seaports where the greatest security was often little more than a chain-link fence. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have seen the places in the world where the worst biological weapons were manufactured, where nuclear materials go unprotected, and where the next generation of terrorists is being recruited. And as chairman of that committee, I investigated the September 11th attacks and saw how they should have been prevented.
From all of my service, I’ve come to this conclusion: Yes, there are real threats. But there are also real solutions.
Just last week, the September 11th commission was the latest to recommend major changes in the way we fight the war on terror. Few of these are new. Most are obvious. Sadly, over one thousand days after September 11th, none of them are in place. The ideas are there. It’s the leadership that has been missing.
We know that North Korea and Iran have nuclear aspirations, if not nuclear weapons. And yet only John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to keep the world’s deadliest weapons from falling into the world’s most dangerous hands. We know that money is the terrorists’ lifeline, and yet it was John Kerry, long before September 11th, who had a plan to cut off the sources of terrorist funding.
We know that our bridges, tunnels, trains, buses, chemical plants, food and water supplies, are still vulnerable to attack, and yet only John Kerry and John Edwards are willing to make the investments we need to truly be safe. And we know that Iraq didn’t attack the United States on September 11th; Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda did.
And that is why John Kerry and John Edwards will not only win the peace in Iraq, but will fight the war on terror wherever it needs to be fought: the palaces of the Middle East, the banks of Europe, the ports in Florida, the firehouses of Boston. John Kerry recognizes that victory in the war on terror requires all of the resources of the United States—diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military.
Today, “recruiting billboards” for al Qaeda are being erected on the main streets of the Middle East. We need to work with our allies and like-minded people of the Islamic world to tear down those billboards and drain the swamp of terror. Providing for the common defense is not a piece of rhetoric from a founding document – it is the most solemn responsibility we entrust to our leaders. This is a war that demands new resources and new ideas. But most of all, it is a war that demands new leadership.
And when Americans ask, “Who will provide that leadership?” I can tell you, John Kerry and John Edwards will. For our children and grandchildren, for our security, for our country, we must elect John Kerry the next president of the United States.
FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT
STATE SENATOR BARAK OBAMA (D-ILL) keynote address
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Barack Obama, who is running for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, gave the keynote speech Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention. This is a transcript of his remarks.
On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, land of Lincoln, let me express my deepest gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention. Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely.
My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.
But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.
While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.
Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor my grandfather signed up for duty, joined Patton's army and marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised their baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the GI Bill, bought a house through FHA, and moved west, all the way to Hawaii, in search of opportunity.
And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter, a common dream, born of two continents.
My parents shared not only an improbable love; they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or "blessed," believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.
They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential.
They're both passed away now. And yet, I know that, on this night, they look down on me with pride.
And I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents' dreams live on in my two precious daughters.
I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on Earth, is my story even possible.
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.
This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations.
And fellow Americans -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- I say to you tonight: we have more work to do. More work to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that's moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn't have the money to go to college.
Now don't get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to.
Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon.
Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach our kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things.
People don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.
In this election, we offer that choice. Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. And that man is John Kerry.
John Kerry understands the ideals of community, faith, and service, because they've defined his life. From his heroic service in Vietnam to his years as prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he has devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we've seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available. His values and his record affirm what is best in us.
John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded. So instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he'll offer them to companies creating jobs here at home.
John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves.
John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren't held hostage to the profits of oil companies or the sabotage of foreign oil fields.
John Kerry believes in the constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties nor use faith as a wedge to divide us.
And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world, war must be an option sometimes, but it should never be the first option.
You know, a while back, I met a young man named Shamus at the VFW Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid, 6-2 or 6-3, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he'd joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week.
And as I listened to him explain why he'd enlisted, his absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us?
I thought of the 900 men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who will not be returning to their hometowns. I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists.
When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.
Now let me be clear. Let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.
John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure.
John Kerry believes in America. And he knows that it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are all connected as one people.
If there's a child on the South Side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.
If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.
If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper -- that makes this country work.
It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.
Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America.
There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America -- there is the United States of America.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.
We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it.
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?
John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here-the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it.
That's not what I'm talking [about]. I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a mill worker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.
Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope.
In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; a belief in things not seen; a belief that there are better days ahead.
I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity.
I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.
I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges that face us.
America, tonight, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do, if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president. And John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president. And this country will reclaim its promise. And out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.
Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. Thank you.
SEN. JOHN F. KERRY (D-MEKONG DELTA)
(AP) We are here tonight because we love our country.
We are proud of what America is and what it can become.
My fellow Americans: we are here tonight united in one simple purpose: to make America stronger at home and respected in the world.
A great American novelist wrote that you can't go home again. He could not have imagined this evening. Tonight, I am home. Home where my public life began and those who made it possible live. Home where our nation's history was written in blood, idealism, and hope. Home where my parents showed me the values of family, faith, and country.
Thank you, all of you, for a welcome home I will never forget.
I wish my parents could share this moment. They went to their rest in the last few years, but their example, their inspiration, their gift of open eyes, open mind, and endless world are bigger and more lasting than any words.
I was born in Colorado, in Fitzsimmons Army Hospital, when my dad was a pilot in World War II. Now, I'm not one to read into things, but guess which wing of the hospital the maternity ward was in? I'm not making this up. I was born in the West Wing!
My mother was the rock of our family as so many mothers are. She stayed up late to help me do my homework. She sat by my bed when I was sick, and she answered the questions of a child who, like all children, found the world full of wonders and mysteries.
She was my den mother when I was a Cub Scout and she was so proud of her fifty year pin as a Girl Scout leader. She gave me her passion for the environment. She taught me to see trees as the cathedrals of nature. And by the power of her example, she showed me that we can and must finish the march toward full equality for all women in our country.
My dad did the things that a boy remembers. He gave me my first model airplane, my first baseball mitt and my first bicycle. He also taught me that we are here for something bigger than ourselves; he lived out the responsibilities and sacrifices of the greatest generation to whom we owe so much.
When I was a young man, he was in the State Department, stationed in Berlin when it and the world were divided between democracy and communism. I have unforgettable memories of being a kid mesmerized by the British, French, and American troops, each of them guarding their own part of the city, and Russians standing guard on the stark line separating East from West. On one occasion, I rode my bike into Soviet East Berlin. And when I proudly told my dad, he promptly grounded me.
But what I learned has stayed with me for a lifetime. I saw how different life was on different sides of the same city. I saw the fear in the eyes of people who were not free. I saw the gratitude of people toward the United States for all that we had done. I felt goose bumps as I got off a military train and heard the Army band strike up "Stars and Stripes Forever." I learned what it meant to be America at our best. I learned the pride of our freedom. And I am determined now to restore that pride to all who look to America.
Mine were greatest generation parents. And as I thank them, we all join together to thank that whole generation for making America strong, for winning World War II, winning the Cold War, and for the great gift of service which brought America fifty years of peace and prosperity.
My parents inspired me to serve, and when I was a junior in high school, John Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the beginning of a great journey - a time to march for civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women, and for peace. We believed we could change the world. And you know what? We did.
But we're not finished. The journey isn't complete. The march isn't over. The promise isn't perfected. Tonight, we're setting out again. And together, we're going to write the next great chapter of America's story.
We have it in our power to change the world again. But only if we're true to our ideals - and that starts by telling the truth to the American people. That is my first pledge to you tonight. As President, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House.
I ask you to judge me by my record: As a young prosecutor, I fought for victim's rights and made prosecuting violence against women a priority. When I came to the Senate, I broke with many in my own party to vote for a balanced budget, because I thought it was the right thing to do. I fought to put a 100,000 cops on the street.
And then I reached across the aisle to work with John McCain, to find the truth about our POW's and missing in action, and to finally make peace with Vietnam.
I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a Vice President who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a Secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.
My fellow Americans, this is the most important election of our lifetime. The stakes are high. We are a nation at war - a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have ever known before. And here at home, wages are falling, health care costs are rising, and our great middle class is shrinking. People are working weekends; they're working two jobs, three jobs, and they're still not getting ahead.
We're told that outsourcing jobs is good for America. We're told that new jobs that pay $9,000 less than the jobs that have been lost is the best we can do. They say this is the best economy we've ever had. And they say that anyone who thinks otherwise is a pessimist. Well, here is our answer: There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.
We can do better and we will. We're the optimists. For us, this is a country of the future. We're the can do people. And let's not forget what we did in the 1990s. We balanced the budget. We paid down the debt. We created 23 million new jobs. We lifted millions out of poverty and we lifted the standard of living for the middle class. We just need to believe in ourselves - and we can do it again.
So tonight, in the city where America's freedom began, only a few blocks from where the sons and daughters of liberty gave birth to our nation - here tonight, on behalf of a new birth of freedom - on behalf of the middle class who deserve a champion, and those struggling to join it who deserve a fair shot - for the brave men and women in uniform who risk their lives every day and the families who pray for their return - for all those who believe our best days are ahead of us - for all of you - with great faith in the American people, I accept your nomination for President of the United States.
I am proud that at my side will be a running mate whose life is the story of the American dream and who's worked every day to make that dream real for all Americans - Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. And his wonderful wife Elizabeth and their family. This son of a mill worker is ready to lead - and next January, Americans will be proud to have a fighter for the middle class to succeed Dick Cheney as Vice President of the United States.
And what can I say about Teresa? She has the strongest moral compass of anyone I know. She's down to earth, nurturing, courageous, wise and smart. She speaks her mind and she speaks the truth, and I love her for that, too. And that's why America will embrace her as the next First Lady of the United States.
For Teresa and me, no matter what the future holds or the past has given us, nothing will ever mean as much as our children. We love them not just for who they are and what they've become, but for being themselves, making us laugh, holding our feet to the fire, and never letting me get away with anything. Thank you, Andre, Alex, Chris, Vanessa, and John.
And in this journey, I am accompanied by an extraordinary band of brothers led by that American hero, a patriot named Max Cleland. Our band of brothers doesn't march together because of who we are as veterans, but because of what we learned as soldiers. We fought for this nation because we loved it and we came back with the deep belief that every day is extra. We may be a little older now, we may be a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country.
And standing with us in that fight are those who shared with me the long season of the primary campaign: Carol Moseley Braun, General Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman and Al Sharpton.
To all of you, I say thank you for teaching me and testing me - but mostly, we say thank you for standing up for our country and giving us the unity to move America forward.
My fellow Americans, the world tonight is very different from the world of four years ago. But I believe the American people are more than equal to the challenge.
Remember the hours after September 11th, when we came together as one to answer the attack against our homeland. We drew strength when our firefighters ran up the stairs and risked their lives, so that others might live. When rescuers rushed into smoke and fire at the Pentagon. When the men and women of Flight 93 sacrificed themselves to save our nation's Capitol. When flags were hanging from front porches all across America, and strangers became friends. It was the worst day we have ever seen, but it brought out the best in all of us.
I am proud that after September 11th all our people rallied to President Bush's call for unity to meet the danger. There were no Democrats. There were no Republicans. There were only Americans. How we wish it had stayed that way.
Now I know there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities - and I do - because some issues just aren't all that simple. Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.
As President, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence. I will immediately reform the intelligence system - so policy is guided by facts, and facts are never distorted by politics. And as President, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.
I know what kids go through when they are carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place and they can't tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they're out on patrol at night and they don't know what's coming around the next bend. I know what it's like to write letters home telling your family that everything's all right when you're not sure that's true.
As President, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: "I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values from a threat that was real and imminent." So lesson one, this is the only justification for going to war.
And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.
I know what we have to do in Iraq. We need a President who has the credibility to bring our allies to our side and share the burden, reduce the cost to American taxpayers, and reduce the risk to American soldiers. That's the right way to get the job done and bring our troops home.
Here is the reality: that won't happen until we have a president who restores America's respect and leadership -- so we don't have to go it alone in the world.
And we need to rebuild our alliances, so we can get the terrorists before they get us.
I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President. Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security. And I will build a stronger American military.
We will add 40,000 active duty troops - not in Iraq, but to strengthen American forces that are now overstretched, overextended, and under pressure. We will double our special forces to conduct anti-terrorist operations. We will provide our troops with the newest weapons and technology to save their lives - and win the battle. And we will end the backdoor draft of National Guard and reservists.
To all who serve in our armed forces today, I say, help is on the way.
As President, I will fight a smarter, more effective war on terror. We will deploy every tool in our arsenal: our economic as well as our military might; our principles as well as our firepower.
In these dangerous days there is a right way and a wrong way to be strong. Strength is more than tough words. After decades of experience in national security, I know the reach of our power and I know the power of our ideals.
We need to make America once again a beacon in the world. We need to be looked up to and not just feared.
We need to lead a global effort against nuclear proliferation - to keep the most dangerous weapons in the world out of the most dangerous hands in the world.
We need a strong military and we need to lead strong alliances. And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose and we will win. The future doesn't belong to fear; it belongs to freedom.
And the front lines of this battle are not just far away - they're right here on our shores, at our airports, and potentially in any town or city. Today, our national security begins with homeland security. The 9-11 Commission has given us a path to follow, endorsed by Democrats, Republicans, and the 9-11 families. As President, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that commission. We shouldn't be letting ninety-five percent of container ships come into our ports without ever being physically inspected. We shouldn't be leaving our nuclear and chemical plants without enough protection. And we shouldn't be opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them down in the United States of America.
And tonight, we have an important message for those who question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction for our country. Before wrapping themselves in the flag and shutting their eyes and ears to the truth, they should remember what America is really all about. They should remember the great idea of freedom for which so many have given their lives. Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism.
You see that flag up there. We call her Old Glory. The stars and stripes forever. I fought under that flag, as did so many of you here and all across our country. That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind. It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with. For us, that flag is the most powerful symbol of who we are and what we believe in. Our strength. Our diversity. Our love of country. All that makes America both great and good.
That flag doesn't belong to any president. It doesn't belong to any ideology and it doesn't belong to any political party. It belongs to all the American people.
My fellow citizens, elections are about choices. And choices are about values. In the end, it's not just policies and programs that matter; the president who sits at that desk must be guided by principle.
For four years, we've heard a lot of talk about values. But values spoken without actions taken are just slogans. Values are not just words. They're what we live by. They're about the causes we champion and the people we fight for. And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.
You don't value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.
We believe in the family value of caring for our children and protecting the neighborhoods where they walk and play.
And that is the choice in this election.
You don't value families by denying real prescription drug coverage to seniors, so big drug companies can get another windfall.
We believe in the family value expressed in one of the oldest Commandments: "Honor thy father and thy mother." As President, I will not privatize Social Security. I will not cut benefits. And together, we will make sure that senior citizens never have to cut their pills in half because they can't afford life-saving medicine.
And that is the choice in this election.
You don't value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service, if you deny veterans health care, or if you tell middle class families to wait for a tax cut, so that the wealthiest among us can get even more.
We believe in the value of doing what's right for everyone in the American family.
And that is the choice in this election.
We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America. Not narrow appeals that divide us, but shared values that unite us. Family and faith. Hard work and responsibility. Opportunity for all - so that every child, every parent, every worker has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential.
What does it mean in America today when Dave McCune, a steel worker I met in Canton, Ohio, saw his job sent overseas and the equipment in his factory literally unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away along with that job? What does it mean when workers I've met had to train their foreign replacements?
America can do better. So tonight we say: help is on the way.
What does it mean when Mary Ann Knowles, a woman with breast cancer I met in New Hampshire, had to keep working day after day right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family's health insurance.
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when Deborah Kromins from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania works and saves all her life only to find out that her pension has disappeared into thin air - and the executive who looted it has bailed out on a golden parachute?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when twenty five percent of the children in Harlem have asthma because of air pollution?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
What does it mean when people are huddled in blankets in the cold, sleeping in Lafayette Park on the doorstep of the White House itself - and the number of families living in poverty has risen by three million in the last four years?
America can do better. And help is on the way.
And so we come here tonight to ask: Where is the conscience of our country?
I'll tell you where it is: it's in rural and small town America; it's in urban neighborhoods and suburban main streets; it's alive in the people I've met in every part of this land. It's bursting in the hearts of Americans who are determined to give our country back its values and its truth.
We value jobs that pay you more not less than you earned before. We value jobs where, when you put in a week's work, you can actually pay your bills, provide for your children, and lift up the quality of your life. We value an America where the middle class is not being squeezed, but doing better.
So here is our economic plan to build a stronger America:
First, new incentives to revitalize manufacturing.
Second, investment in technology and innovation that will create the good-paying jobs of the future.
Third, close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping our jobs overseas. Instead, we will reward companies that create and keep good paying jobs where they belong - in the good old U.S.A.
We value an America that exports products, not jobs - and we believe American workers should never have to subsidize the loss of their own job.
Next, we will trade and compete in the world. But our plan calls for a fair playing field - because if you give the American worker a fair playing field, there's nobody in the world the American worker can't compete against.
And we're going to return to fiscal responsibility because it is the foundation of our economic strength. Our plan will cut the deficit in half in four years by ending tax giveaways that are nothing more than corporate welfare - and will make government live by the rule that every family has to follow: pay as you go.
And let me tell you what we won't do: we won't raise taxes on the middle class. You've heard a lot of false charges about this in recent months. So let me say straight out what I will do as President: I will cut middle class taxes. I will reduce the tax burden on small business. And I will roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals who make over $200,000 a year, so we can invest in job creation, health care and education.
Our education plan for a stronger America sets high standards and demands accountability from parents, teachers, and schools. It provides for smaller class sizes and treats teachers like the professionals they are. And it gives a tax credit to families for each and every year of college.
When I was a prosecutor, I met young kids who were in trouble, abandoned by adults. And as President, I am determined that we stop being a nation content to spend $50,000 a year to keep a young person in prison for the rest of their life - when we could invest $10,000 to give them Head Start, Early Start, Smart Start, the best possible start in life.
And we value health care that's affordable and accessible for all Americans.
Since 2000, four million people have lost their health insurance. Millions more are struggling to afford it.
You know what's happening. Your premiums, your co-payments, your deductibles have all gone through the roof.
Our health care plan for a stronger America cracks down on the waste, greed, and abuse in our health care system and will save families up to $1,000 a year on their premiums. You'll get to pick your own doctor - and patients and doctors, not insurance company bureaucrats, will make medical decisions. Under our plan, Medicare will negotiate lower drug prices for seniors. And all Americans will be able to buy less expensive prescription drugs from countries like Canada.
The story of people struggling for health care is the story of so many Americans. But you know what, it's not the story of senators and members of Congress. Because we give ourselves great health care and you get the bill. Well, I'm here to say, your family's health care is just as important as any politician's in Washington, D.C.
And when I'm President, America will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy, the connected, and the elected - it is a right for all Americans.
We value an America that controls its own destiny because it's finally and forever independent of Mideast oil. What does it mean for our economy and our national security when we only have three percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we rely on foreign countries for fifty-three percent of what we consume?
I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation - not the Saudi royal family.
And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future -- so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East.
I've told you about our plans for the economy, for education, for health care, for energy independence. I want you to know more about them. So now I'm going to say something that Franklin Roosevelt could never have said in his acceptance speech: go to johnkerry.com.
I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another; and let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.
My friends, the high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place. And that's why Republicans and Democrats must make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks. This is our time to reject the kind of politics calculated to divide race from race, group from group, region from region. Maybe some just see us divided into red states and blue states, but I see us as one America - red, white, and blue. And when I am President, the government I lead will enlist people of talent, Republicans as well as Democrats, to find the common ground - so that no one who has something to contribute will be left on the sidelines.
And let me say it plainly: in that cause, and in this campaign, we welcome people of faith. America is not us and them. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.
These aren't Democratic values. These aren't Republican values. They're American values. We believe in them. They're who we are. And if we honor them, if we believe in ourselves, we can build an America that's stronger at home and respected in the world.
So much promise stretches before us. Americans have always reached for the impossible, looked to the next horizon, and asked: What if?
Two young bicycle mechanics from Dayton asked what if this airplane could take off at Kitty Hawk? It did that and changed the world forever. A young president asked what if we could go to the moon in ten years? And now we're exploring the solar system and the stars themselves. A young generation of entrepreneurs asked, what if we could take all the information in a library and put it on a little chip the size of a fingernail? We did and that too changed the world forever.
And now it's our time to ask: What if?
What if we find a breakthrough to cure Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzheimer's and AIDs? What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem cell research to treat illness and save millions of lives?
What if we do what adults should do - and make sure all our children are safe in the afternoons after school? And what if we have a leadership that's as good as the American dream - so that bigotry and hatred never again steal the hope and future of any American?
I learned a lot about these values on that gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta with young Americans who came from places as different as Iowa and Oregon, Arkansas, Florida and California. No one cared where we went to school. No one cared about our race or our backgrounds. We were literally all in the same boat. We looked out, one for the other - and we still do.
That is the kind of America I will lead as President - an America where we are all in the same boat.
Never has there been a more urgent moment for Americans to step up and define ourselves. I will work my heart out. But, my fellow citizens, the outcome is in your hands more than mine.
It is time to reach for the next dream. It is time to look to the next horizon. For America, the hope is there. The sun is rising. Our best days are still to come.
Goodnight, God bless you, and God bless America.
©MMIV, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
SEN. JOHN EDWARDS (D-SOUTH CAROLINA)
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina addressed the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night. Here is a transcript of his speech.
Thank you. Now you know why Elizabeth is so amazing, right?
I am a lucky man: to have the love of my life at my side. Both of us have been blessed with four extraordinary children: Wade, Cate, who you heard from, Emma Claire, and Jack.
We are having such an extraordinary time, myself and my entire family, at this convention.
And by the way, how great was Teresa Heinz Kerry last night?
My father and mother, Wallace and Bobbie Edwards, are here tonight.
You taught me the values that I carry in my heart: faith, family, responsibility, opportunity for everyone. You taught me that there's dignity and honor in a hard day's work. You taught me to always look out for our neighbors, to never look down on anybody, and treat everybody with respect.
Those are the values that John Kerry and I believe in. And nothing makes me prouder than standing with him in this campaign. I am so humbled to be your candidate for vice president of the United States.
I want to talk about our next president. For those who want to know what kind of leader he'll be, I want to take you back about 30 years. When John Kerry graduated college, he volunteered for military service, volunteered to go to Vietnam, volunteered to captain a swift boat, one of the most dangerous duties in Vietnam that you could have. As a result, he was wounded, honored for his valor.
If you have any question about what he's made of, just spend three minutes with the men who served with him then and who stand with him now. They saw up close what he's made of.
They saw him reach into the river and pull one of his men to safety and save his life. They saw him in the heat of battle make a decision in a split second to turn his boat around, drive it through an enemy position, and chase down the enemy to save his crew. Decisive, strong: Is this not what we need in a commander in chief?
You know, we hear a lot of talk about values. Where I come from, you don't judge somebody's values based upon how they use that word in a political ad. You judge their values based upon what they've spent their life doing.
So when a man volunteers to serve his country, the man volunteers and puts his life on the line for others, that's a man who represents real American values.
This is a man who is prepared to keep the American people safe, to make America stronger at home and more respected in the world.
John is a man who knows the difference between right and wrong. He wants to serve you. Your cause is his cause. And that is why we must and we will elect him the next president of the United States.
You know, for the last few months, John's been traveling around the country talking about his positive, optimistic vision for America, talking about his plan to move this country in the right direction.
But what have we seen? Relentless negative attacks against John. So in the weeks ahead, we know what's coming, don't we? More negative attacks -- aren't you sick of it?
They are doing all they can to take the campaign for the highest office in the land down the lowest possible road.
But this is where you come in: Between now and November, you, the American people, you can reject the tired, old, hateful, negative politics of the past. And instead you can embrace the politics of hope, the politics of what's possible because this is America, where everything is possible.
I am here tonight for a very simple reason: because I love my country. And I have every reason to love my country. I have grown up in the bright light of America.
I grew up in a small town in rural North Carolina, a place called Robbins.
My father, he worked in a mill all his life, and I still remember vividly the men and women who worked in that mill with him. I can see them. Some of them had lint in their hair; some of them had grease on their faces. They worked hard, and they tried to put a little money away so that their kids and their grand-kids could have a better life.
The truth is, they're just like the auto workers, the office workers, the teachers and shop keepers on main streets all across this country.
My mother had a number of jobs. She worked at the post office so she and my father could have health care. She owned her own small business. She refinished furniture to help pay for my education.
I have had such incredible opportunities in my life. I was blessed to be the first person in my family to go to college. I worked my way through, and I had opportunities beyond my wildest dreams.
And the heart of this campaign -- your campaign, our campaign -- is to make sure all Americans have exactly the same kind opportunities that I had no matter where you live, no matter who your family is, no matter what the color of your skin is.
This is the America we believe in.
I have spent my life fighting for the kind of people I grew up with.
For two decades, I stood with kids and families against big HMOs and big insurance companies.
When I got to the Senate, I fought those same fights against the Washington lobbyists and for causes like the patients' bill of rights.
I stand here tonight ready to work with you and John to make America stronger. And we have much work t
Rev. David Alston of Columbia, South Carolina, is one of the "Band of Brothers" that speak out for Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta), and this speech is from the first night of this most remarkable Democratic Convention. It is, in our view, perhaps the most powerful of several powerful speeches that have been delivered in this historic (and trans-historic) gathering of tribes and summoning of the Force...Therefore, the LNS has held it until the final night of the convention, in the hope that it stays with you through the tumult and trials that are to come...
David Alston: Once, he even directed the helmsman to
beach the boat, right into the teeth of an ambush, and
pursued our attackers on foot, into the jungle. In the
toughest of situations, Lieutenant Kerry showed
judgment, loyalty and courage. Even wounded, or
confronting sights no man should ever have to see, he
never lost his cool.
And when the shooting stopped, he was always there
too, with a caring hand on my shoulder asking,
"Gunner, are you OK?" I was only 21, running on fear
and adrenaline. Lieutenant Kerry always took the time
to calm us down, to bring us back to reality, to give
us hope, to show us what we truly had within
ourselves. I came to love and respect him as a man I
could trust with life itself.
I am a man of faith, and I did not come here tonight
to glorify what we did. I came here to share my
personal knowledge of a young naval officer who rose
to the challenges and responsibilities of leadership,
and who has always shown the courage to speak truth to
power.
The 27th Psalm tells us, "Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear. Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident" I stand before you tonight alive, while many of our brothers never made it home. I am grateful to have lived to enjoy my children, to see them grow up. But I stand here before you only because almighty God saw our boat safely through those rivers of death and destruction, by giving us a brave, wise, and decisive leader named John Kerry.
Today, 30 years after Vietnam, American soldiers are
once again fighting and dying on distant battlefields,
at war with an elusive enemy. We pray for these brave
men and women. They are our friends, our neighbors,
our loved ones. Their loss brings all of us sadness
beyond measure...
Friends, here in this city more than two centuries
ago, patriots launched a revolution that changed
history. Generations since have marched, fought, and
died to defend the sacred ideals of life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness-and to make these ideals a
reality for every American.
It is now our turn to defend these ideals. It is our
time to speak out. It is our duty to exercise our most
precious right as Americans: the right to vote.
Support Our Troops, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
David Alston
Good evening.
My name is David Alston, and I am a minister from
Columbia, South Carolina. I join you here tonight in
Boston-birthplace of the American Revolution-to
celebrate the bedrock ideals on which our nation was
founded-freedom, equality, and democracy.
I also come here tonight to honor a friend of mine, a
man of courage and conviction who has fought for these
ideals his entire life: John Kerry. Many of you in
this hall already know John Kerry well. Others across
this land are still learning about his long and
distinguished record of public service.
I know him from a small boat in Vietnam, where we
fought and bled together, serving our country. There
were six of us aboard PCF-94, a 50-foot, twin-engine
craft known as a "Swift Boat." We all came from
different walks of life, but all of us-including our
skipper, John Kerry-volunteered for combat duty. And
combat is what we got.
We usually patrolled the narrow waterways of the
Mekong delta, flanked on both sides by thick jungle.
As our crewmate Gene Thorson put it, we were a
traveling bulls-eye. And we often came under sudden
attack from the enemy, hidden in the shadows.
Machine-gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades, it all
came fast and furious, and Lieutenant Kerry had to
make quick, life-or-death decisions for the entire
boat.
You have to realize, a Swift Boat isn't armored. The
hull is aluminum, about as thick as two nickels. And
in the middle of a narrow river or canal, with no
cover at all, even small-caliber bullets could punch
right through it-and often did.
Manning the deck guns, most of us got wounded sooner
or later, including Lieutenant Kerry. It would have
been easiest, in an ambush, to simply rake the shore
with return fire and roar on down the river to safety.
But Lieutenant Kerry was known for taking the fight
straight to the enemy. I can still see him now,
standing in the doorway of the pilothouse, firing his
M-16, shouting orders through the smoke and chaos.
Once, he even directed the helmsman to beach the boat,
right into the teeth of an ambush, and pursued our
attackers on foot, into the jungle. In the toughest of
situations, Lieutenant Kerry showed judgment, loyalty
and courage. Even wounded, or confronting sights no
man should ever have to see, he never lost his cool.
And when the shooting stopped, he was always there
too, with a caring hand on my shoulder asking,
"Gunner, are you OK?" I was only 21, running on fear
and adrenaline. Lieutenant Kerry always took the time
to calm us down, to bring us back to reality, to give
us hope, to show us what we truly had within
ourselves. I came to love and respect him as a man I
could trust with life itself.
I am a man of faith, and I did not come here tonight
to glorify what we did. I came here to share my
personal knowledge of a young naval officer who rose
to the challenges and responsibilities of leadership,
and who has always shown the courage to speak truth to
power.
The 27th Psalm tells us, "Though an army besiege me,
my heart will not fear. Though war break out against
me, even then I will be confident" I stand before you
tonight alive, while many of our brothers never made
it home. I am grateful to have lived to enjoy my
children, to see them grow up. But I stand here before
you only because almighty God saw our boat safely
through those rivers of death and destruction, by
giving us a brave, wise, and decisive leader named
John Kerry.
Today, 30 years after Vietnam, American soldiers are
once again fighting and dying on distant battlefields,
at war with an elusive enemy. We pray for these brave
men and women. They are our friends, our neighbors,
our loved ones. Their loss brings all of us sadness
beyond measure.
In a few short months, we will choose our next
President. I believe we need to elect a man of faith,
experience, and wisdom. A man who knows that defending
America means defending our most fundamental rights. A
man who knows that leadership is not just about
telling others what to do, but inspiring them to do
it. A man who knows the true meaning of freedom,
equality, and democracy. And that man is my former
skipper, my friend, and our next commander-in-chief,
John Kerry.
Friends, here in this city more than two centuries
ago, patriots launched a revolution that changed
history. Generations since have marched, fought, and
died to defend the sacred ideals of life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness-and to make these ideals a
reality for every American.
It is now our turn to defend these ideals. It is our
time to speak out. It is our duty to exercise our most
precious right as Americans: the right to vote.
So come November 2nd, join me in casting your ballot
for a new, principled, and courageous leader-America's
next president-John Kerry.
Thank you.
Two more US soliders died in Iraq last night. For
what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges
Reich...Meanwhile, for the third consecutive night,
the Democratic Party's all-out assault on the failed
_residency of George W. Bush, i.e. the Bush
abomination, continued unrelentingly -- for the rescue
of our military personnel stranded in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the restoration of the US Constitution
and the redemption of America's soul...
Al Sharpton (D-Hood): We are here 228 years after
right here in Boston we fought to establish the
freedoms of America. The first person to die in the
Revolutionary War is buried not far from here, a black
man from Barbados, named Crispus Attucks...
We are also faced with the prospect of in the next
four years that two or more of the Supreme Court
Justice seats will become available. This year we
celebrated the anniversary of Brown v. the Board of
Education.
This court has voted five to four on critical issues
of women's rights and civil rights. It is frightening
to think that the gains of civil and women rights and
those movements in the last century could be reversed
if this administration is in the White House in these
next four years.
I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had
selected the court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have
never got to law school...
Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if
both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this
far playing political games. It was those that earned
our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights
Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act
under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under
Democrats.
Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us.
This vote can't be bargained away.
This vote can't be given away.
Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read
my lips: Our vote is not for sale.
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/28/dems.sharpton.transcript/index.html
Sharpton answers Bush in speech
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The Rev. Al Sharpton
brought down the house with a passionate speech to
Democratic National Convention delegates about what's
wrong with the Bush administration and how Sen. John
Kerry will help fulfill America's promise. This is a
transcript of his remarks:
Thank you.
Tonight I want to address my remarks in two parts.
One, I'm honored to address the delegates here.
Last Friday, I had the experience in Detroit of
hearing President George Bush make a speech. And in
the speech, he asked certain questions. I hope he's
watching tonight. I would like to answer your
questions, Mr. President.
To the chairman, our delegates, and all that are
assembled, we're honored and glad to be here tonight.
I'm glad to be joined by supporters and friends from
around the country. I'm glad to be joined by my
family, Kathy, Dominique, who will be 18, and Ashley.
We are here 228 years after right here in Boston we
fought to establish the freedoms of America. The first
person to die in the Revolutionary War is buried not
far from here, a black man from Barbados, named
Crispus Attucks.
Forty years ago, in 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer and the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party stood at the
Democratic convention in Atlantic City fighting to
preserve voting rights for all America and all
Democrats, regardless of race or gender.
Hamer's stand inspired Dr. King's march in Selma,
which brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Twenty years ago, Reverend Jesse Jackson stood at the
Democratic National Convention in San Francisco,
again, appealing to the preserve those freedoms.
Tonight, we stand with those freedoms at risk and our
security as citizens in question.
I have come here tonight to say, that the only choice
we have to preserve our freedoms at this point in
history is to elect John Kerry the president of the
United States.
I stood with both John Kerry and John Edwards on over
30 occasions during the primary season. I not only
debated them, I watched them, I observed their deeds,
I looked into their eyes. I am convinced that they are
men who say what they mean and mean what they say.
I'm also convinced that at a time when a vicious
spirit in the body politic of this country that
attempts to undermine America's freedoms -- our civil
rights, and civil liberties -- we must leave this city
and go forth and organize this nation for victory for
our party and John Kerry and John Edwards in November.
And let me quickly say, this is not just about winning
an election. It's about preserving the principles on
which this very nation was founded.
Look at the current view of our nation worldwide as a
results of our unilateral foreign policy. We went from
unprecedented international support and solidarity on
September 12, 2001, to hostility and hatred as we
stand here tonight. We can't survive in the world by
ourselves.
How did we squander this opportunity to unite the
world for democracy and to commit to a global fight
against hunger and disease?
We did it with a go-it-alone foreign policy based on
flawed intelligence. We were told that we were going
to Iraq because there were weapons of mass
destruction. We've lost hundreds of soldiers. We've
spent $200 billion dollars at a time when we had
record state deficits. And when it became clear that
there were no weapons, they changed the premise for
the war and said: No, we went because of other
reasons.
If I told you tonight, "Let's leave the FleetCenter,
we're in danger," and when you get outside, you ask
me, Reverend Al, "What is the danger?" and I say, "It
don't matter. We just needed some fresh air," I have
misled you and we were misled.
We are also faced with the prospect of in the next
four years that two or more of the Supreme Court
Justice seats will become available. This year we
celebrated the anniversary of Brown v. the Board of
Education.
This court has voted five to four on critical issues
of women's rights and civil rights. It is frightening
to think that the gains of civil and women rights and
those movements in the last century could be reversed
if this administration is in the White House in these
next four years.
I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had
selected the court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have
never got to law school.
This is not about a party. This is about living up to
the promise of America. The promise of America says we
will guarantee quality education for all children and
not spend more money on metal detectors than computers
in our schools.
The promise of America guarantees health care for all
of its citizens and doesn't force seniors to travel to
Canada to buy prescription drugs they can't afford
here at home.
The promise of America provides that those who work in
our health care system can afford to be hospitalized
in the very beds they clean up every day.
The promise of America is that government does not
seek to regulate your behavior in the bedroom, but to
guarantee your right to provide food in the kitchen.
The issue of government is not to determine who may
sleep together in the bedroom, it's to help those that
might not be eating in the kitchen.
The promise of America that we stand for human rights,
whether it's fighting against slavery in the Sudan,
where right now Joe Madison and others are fasting,
around what is going on in the Sudan; AIDS in Lesotho;
a police misconduct in this country.
The promise of America is one immigration policy for
all who seek to enter our shores, whether they come
from Mexico, Haiti or Canada, there must be one set of
rules for everybody.
We cannot welcome those to come and then try and act
as though any culture will not be respected or treated
inferior. We cannot look at the Latino community and
preach "one language." No one gave them an English
test before they sent them to Iraq to fight for
America.
The promise of America is that every citizen vote is
counted and protected, and election schemes do not
decide the election.
It, to me, is a glaring contradiction that we would
fight, and rightfully so, to get the right to vote for
the people in the capital of Iraq in Baghdad, but
still don't give the federal right to vote for the
people in the capital of the United States, in
Washington, D.C.
Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you
say Friday that you had questions for voters,
particularly African- American voters. And you asked
the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for
granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me
answer your question.
You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln
and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln
signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which
there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule.
That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations
starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way
to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres.
We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this
donkey as far as it would take us.
Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if
both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this
far playing political games. It was those that earned
our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights
Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act
under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under
Democrats.
Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the
reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to
vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was
soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of
Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of
four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred
to us.
This vote can't be bargained away.
This vote can't be given away.
Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read
my lips: Our vote is not for sale.
And there's a whole generation of young leaders that
have come forward across this country that stand on
integrity and stand on their traditions, those that
have emerged with John Kerry and John Edwards as
partners, like Greg Meeks, like Barack Obama, like our
voter registration director, Marjorie Harris, like
those that are in the trenches.
And we come with strong family values. Family values
is not just those with two-car garages and a
retirement plan. Retirement plans are good. But family
values also are those who had to make nothing stretch
into something happening, who had to make ends meet.
I was raised by a single mother who made a way for me.
She used to scrub floors as a domestic worker, put a
cleaning rag in her pocketbook and ride the subways in
Brooklyn so I would have food on the table.
But she taught me as I walked her to the subway that
life is about not where you start, but where you're
going. That's family values.
And I wanted somebody in my community -- I wanted to
show that example. As I ran for president, I hoped
that one child would come out of the ghetto like I
did, could look at me walk across the stage with
governors and senators and know they didn't have to be
a drug dealer, they didn't have to be a hoodlum, they
didn't have to be a gangster, they could stand up from
a broken home, on welfare, and they could run for
president of the United States.
As you know, I live in New York. I was there September
11th when that despicable act of terrorism happened.
A few days after, I left home, my family had taken in
a young man who lost his family. And as they gave
comfort to him, I had to do a radio show that morning.
When I got there, my friend James Entome (ph) said,
"Reverend, we're going to stop at a certain hour and
play a song, synchronized with 990 other stations."
I said, "That's fine."
He said, "We're dedicating it to the victims of 9/11."
I said, "What song are you playing?"
He said "America the Beautiful." The particular
station I was at, the played that rendition song by
Ray Charles.
As you know, we lost Ray a few weeks ago, but I sat
there that morning and listened to Ray sing through
those speakers, "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for
amber waves of grain, for purple mountains' majesty
across the fruited plain."
And it occurred to me as I heard Ray singing, that Ray
wasn't singing about what he knew, because Ray had
been blind since he was a child. He hadn't seen many
purple mountains. He hadn't seen many fruited plains.
He was singing about what he believed to be.
Mr. President, we love America, not because all of us
have seen the beauty all the time.
But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on
marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on
believing, we would make America beautiful for
everybody.
Starting in November, let's make America beautiful
again.
Thank you. And God bless you.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/28/dems.sharpton.transcript/index.html
Yes, the increasinlgy unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident stalked off the stage several
weeks ago, shortly after the indictment of Kenny Boy
Lay, abruptly and prematurely ending a press
briefing-- because he did not want to answer questions
about Enron, Lay, etc. Agence France Press noted it,
and distributed a photo of the increasinlgy unhinged
and incredibly shrinking _resident walking off, BUT,
of course, the "US Mainstream News Media" deep-sixed
the incident...But in a controlled environment in
which the existence of video-tapes depicting the
sodomizing of young boys while in the custody of the
US military can go unmentioned on the air waves or in
print, that shouldn't surprise you...
TERESA HAMPTON, Capitol Hill Blue: President George W.
Bush is taking powerful anti-depressant drugs to
control his erratic behavior, depression and paranoia,
Capitol Hill Blue has learned.
The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard
J. Tubb, the White House physician, can impair the
President’s mental faculties and decrease both his
physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a
crisis, administration aides admit privately.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” says one aide. “We can’t
have him flying off the handle at the slightest
provocation but we also need a President who is alert
mentally.”
Angry Bush walked away from reporter's questions.
Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a
clearly-upset Bush stormed off stage on July 8,
refusing to answer reporters' questions about his
relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J.
Lay.
“Keep those motherfuckers away from me,” he screamed
at an aide backstage. “If you can’t, I’ll find someone
who can.”
Break the Bush Cabal Stranglehold on the "US
Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4921.shtml
From Capitol Hill Blue
Bush Leagues
Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior
By TERESA HAMPTON
Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
Jul 28, 2004, 08:09
President George W. Bush is taking powerful
anti-depressant drugs to control his erratic behavior,
depression and paranoia, Capitol Hill Blue has
learned.
The prescription drugs, administered by Col. Richard
J. Tubb, the White House physician, can impair the
President’s mental faculties and decrease both his
physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a
crisis, administration aides admit privately.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” says one aide. “We can’t
have him flying off the handle at the slightest
provocation but we also need a President who is alert
mentally.”
Angry Bush walked away from reporter's questions.
Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a
clearly-upset Bush stormed off stage on July 8,
refusing to answer reporters' questions about his
relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J.
Lay.
“Keep those motherfuckers away from me,” he screamed
at an aide backstage. “If you can’t, I’ll find someone
who can.”
Bush’s mental stability has become the topic of
Washington whispers in recent months. Capitol Hill
Blue first reported on June 4 about increasing concern
among White House aides over the President’s wide mood
swings and obscene outbursts.
Although GOP loyalists dismissed the reports an
anti-Bush propaganda, the reports were later confirmed
by prominent George Washington University psychiatrist
Dr. Justin Frank in his book Bush on the Couch: Inside
the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank diagnosed the
President as a “paranoid meglomaniac” and “untreated
alcoholic” whose “lifelong streak of sadism, ranging
from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode
frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state
executions and pumping his hand gleefully before the
bombing of Baghdad” showcase Bush’s instabilities.
“I was really very unsettled by him and I started
watching everything he did and reading what he wrote
and watching him on videotape. I felt he was
disturbed,” Dr. Frank said. “He fits the profile of a
former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but
not treated.”
Dr. Frank’s conclusions have been praised by other
prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James
Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr.
Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford
University Medical School.
The doctors also worry about the wisdom of giving
powerful anti-depressant drugs to a person with a
history of chemical dependency. Bush is an admitted
alcoholic, although he never sought treatment in a
formal program, and stories about his cocaine use as a
younger man haunted his campaigns for Texas governor
and his first campaign for President.
“President Bush is an untreated alcoholic with
paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies,” Dr. Frank adds.
The White House did not return phone calls seeking
comment on this article.
Although the exact drugs Bush takes to control his
depression and behavior are not known, White House
sources say they are “powerful medications” designed
to bring his erratic actions under control. While Col.
Tubb regularly releases a synopsis of the President’s
annual physical, details of the President’s health and
any drugs or treatment he may receive are not public
record and are guarded zealously by the secretive
cadre of aides that surround the President.
Veteran White House watchers say the ability to
control information about Bush’s health, either
physical or mental, is similar to Ronald Reagan’s
second term when aides managed to conceal the
President’s increasing memory lapses that signaled the
onslaught of Alzheimer’s Disease.
It also brings back memories of Richard Nixon’s final
days when the soon-to-resign President wondered the
halls and talked to portraits of former Presidents.
The stories didn’t emerge until after Nixon left
office.
One long-time GOP political consultant who – for
obvious reasons – asked not to be identified said he
is advising his Republican Congressional candidates to
keep their distance from Bush.
“We have to face the very real possibility that the
President of the United States is loony tunes,” he
says sadly. “That’s not good for my candidates, it’s
not good for the party and it’s certainly not good for
the country.”
© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue
Of course, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's name has been on
the John O'Neill Wall of Heroes since the beginning,
scrawled in invisible ink...
Hunter S. Thompson, ESPN: Ah, but we live in a new
century now, and the president is not a football fan.
The first real game of the season will be a huge event
for most of us; but for young George Bush, it will
mean nothing. He will feel no relief, no escape from
the same sense of doom that fell on his father, only
12 years ago. The old man failed when he tried to get
re-elected, and so will his son. They both peaked too
soon, about six months before football season; and
after that, they sank like punctured fish.
So the time has come to get busy on what we call "the
summer book" in the business of gambling on
presidential elections. And right now the London/Vegas
numbers are about 51-49 percent for Bush, if only
because he is the filthy-rich incumbent and the son of
a global oil-industry magnate.
That is big in the politics business; but this year,
it will not be enough to make up for all the wretched,
disastrous failures of the Bush administration.
Betting on George Bush to win this coming election
would be like betting the Denver Broncos to win the
Super Bowl.
My own whim at the moment says that John Kerry will
win big in November, and that the Colts will finally
win the Super Bowl. Why not? This is the year of the
monkey, and George Bush will be lucky to get out of
Washington without being put on trial for treason.
Restore the Timeline, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=thompson/040727
By Hunter S. Thompson
Page 2
Sean Penn called me last night and said he was
quitting the movie business until after the football
season.
"I am going on the road with Brett Favre and the
boys," he said. "The Packers will kick ass this year,
and I want to be part of it. I love Brett Favre."
His voice sounded strange, so I goaded him.
"The football season has been cancelled this year. The
White House just announced it."
"No!" he shouted. "That's impossible! Football season
will never be canceled in America -- not in an
election year. There would be riots."
"Exactly," I replied. "Horrible riots every Sunday
afternoon, in cities all over the country. Football
fans will go crazy. I already feel the Fear."
It's true, but not because of our football season
being canceled. No. We must have football. What would
this country be without football in October?
That is a dangerous question, so I try not to worry.
Only an imbecile would alienate every football freak
in the country at a time like this.
What would we do without Brett Favre and NFL football
this fall?
It would be political suicide.
Would the President do a thing like that?
Who knows for sure? He is already muttering about
"postponing" the whole election, and that is almost as
ugly as canceling a football season.
These rumors are dark and disturbing, especially for a
football addict in July. Take my word for it, because
I am a certified addict. It makes me feel crazy on
some days, and this is one of them.
I am a football addict, and I am not alone in this
country. We are legion, and we must have football ...
Yes. It is righteous, and only a jackass would cancel
it.
Election years are always weird in America, and they
always happen in football season. That is a fact of
life. The President will always be elected on the
first Tuesday in November, for good or ill, and not
even Richard Nixon could change it. He hated anything
that stood between him and a Green Bay Packers game,
especially on Monday nights.
Nixon was a bad loser. He hated losing worse than
death, and that is why I enjoyed him. We were both
football fans, both addicts; and on some days, nothing
else mattered.
But that was yesterday, and George Bush is now.
Where is Richard Nixon, now that we need him? He was
crooked in every way and his hands were covered with
blood -- but he was a rabid, high-rolling football fan
with a sly taste for gin; and on some nights, he could
be good company.
Ah, but we live in a new century now, and the
president is not a football fan. The first real game
of the season will be a huge event for most of us; but
for young George Bush, it will mean nothing. He will
feel no relief, no escape from the same sense of doom
that fell on his father, only 12 years ago. The old
man failed when he tried to get re-elected, and so
will his son. They both peaked too soon, about six
months before football season; and after that, they
sank like punctured fish.
So the time has come to get busy on what we call "the
summer book" in the business of gambling on
presidential elections. And right now the London/Vegas
numbers are about 51-49 percent for Bush, if only
because he is the filthy-rich incumbent and the son of
a global oil-industry magnate.
That is big in the politics business; but this year,
it will not be enough to make up for all the wretched,
disastrous failures of the Bush administration.
Betting on George Bush to win this coming election
would be like betting the Denver Broncos to win the
Super Bowl.
My own whim at the moment says that John Kerry will
win big in November, and that the Colts will finally
win the Super Bowl. Why not? This is the year of the
monkey, and George Bush will be lucky to get out of
Washington without being put on trial for treason.
Yes sir, we are coming around to some bold visions
now, but my time is running out. Next week, I will
tell you what happens in America if Kerry loses this
election, along with the current odds on whether there
will be an election this year. Okay. Mahalo.
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson was born and raised in
Louisville, Ky. His books include "Hell's Angels,"
"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Fear and Loathing:
On the Campaign Trail '72," "The Great Shark Hunt,"
"The Curse of Lono," "Generation of Swine," "Songs of
the Doomed," "Screwjack," "Better Than Sex," "The
Proud Highway," "The Rum Diary," and "Fear and
Loathing in America." His latest book, "Kingdom of
Fear," has just been released. A regular contributor
to various national and international publications,
Thompson now lives in a fortified compound near Aspen,
Colo. His column, "Hey, Rube," appears regularly on
Page 2.
The Democratic Party's all-out assault on the failed _residency of George W. Bush, i.e. the Bush abomination, continued into the second night of the 2004 convention, with more powerful, haunting speeches that underscore the profound significance of the election this November. The language of these speeches are worthy of the state of national emergency, i.e. the national security, economic security and environmental security crisis..."Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
Barak Obama (D-Illinois) on Iraq:
And as I listened to him explain why he'd enlisted, his absolute faith in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might hope for in a child. But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he was serving us?
I thought of the 900 men and women, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who will not be returning to their hometowns. I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists.
When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.
Now let me be clear. Let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.
John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure.
Barak Obama (D-Illinois) on *Civil* War:
If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper -- that makes this country work.
It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.
Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America.
There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America -- there is the United States of America.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.
We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it.
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Camelot) on National Security:
The eyes of the world were on us and the hearts of the world were with us after September 11th until this administration broke that trust.
We should have honored, not ignored, the pledges that we made.
We should have strengthened, not scorned, the alliances that won two world wars and the Cold War.
Most of all, we should have honored the principle so fundamental that our nation's founders placed it in the very first sentence of the Declaration of Independence, that America must give a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. We failed top do that in Iraq.
And more than 900 of our service men and women have already paid the ultimate price. Nearly 6,000 have been wounded in this misguided war.
The administration has alienated longtime allies.
Instead of making America more secure, they have made us less so. They have made it harder to win the real war on terrorism and the war against al Qaeda.
And none of this had to happen.
How could any president have possibly squandered the enormous goodwill that flowed to America from across the world after September 11th? Most of the world still knows what we can be, what only we can be, and they want us to be that nation again. America must be a light to the world. And under John Kerry and John Edwards that's what America will be.
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Camelot) on *Civil* War:
Across this region are burial grounds -- many so humble. You find them without intending to. You're in a town like Concord, Massachusetts, or Hancock, New Hampshire. You're visiting the old church there, and behind the chapel you find a small plot, simple stones bearing simple markers. The markers say "War of 1776."
They do not ask for attention, but they command it all the same. These are the patriots who won our freedom. These are the first Americans who enlisted in a fight for something larger than themselves, for a shared faith in the future, for a nation that was alive in their hearts, but not yet part of their world.
They and their fellow patriots won their battle, but the larger battle for freedom and justice and equality and opportunity is our battle, too, and it's never fully won.
Each new generation has to take up the cause, sometimes with weapons in hand, sometimes armed only with faith and hope, like the marches in Birmingham and Selma four decades ago.
Sometimes the fight is waged in Congress or the courts, sometimes on foreign shores, like the battle that called one of my brothers to war in the Pacific and another to die in Europe.
Now, it is our turn to take up the cause. Our struggle is not with some monarch named George who inherited the crown, although it often seems that way.
Our struggle is with the politics of fear and favoritism in our own time, in our own country. Our struggle, like so many others before, is with those who put their own narrow interest ahead of the public interest.
Teresa Heinz Kerry? Yes, she told one of Richard Scaife's "reporters" to
"shut up, and shove it," and she did not apologize in
the ensuing "US mainstream news media"
brouhaha...Bravo!...But there is so much more to her,
and to this struggle..
Teresa Heinz Kerry: I grew up in East Africa, in
Mozambique, in a land that was then under a
dictatorship. My father, a wonderful, caring man who
practiced medicine for 43 years, and who taught me how
to understand disease and wellness, only got to vote
for the first time when he was 73 years old.
That's what happens in dictatorships...
John believes in a bright future. He believes that we
can and will invent the technologies, the new
materials and the conservation methods of the future
He believes that alternative fuels will guarantee that
not only will no American boy or girl go to war
because of our dependence on foreign oil...but also
that our economy will forever become independent of
this need.
We can, and we will, create good, competitive and
sustainable jobs while still protecting the air we
breathe, the water we drink, and the health of our
children, because good environmental policy is good
economics...
And John is a fighter. He earned his medals the
old-fashioned way by putting his life on the line for
his country.
And no one will defend this nation more vigorously
than he will.
And he will always, always be first in the line of
fire.
But he also knows the importance of getting it right.
For him, the names of many friends inscribed on the
Vietnam Memorial -- that cold stone -- testify to the
awful toil exacted by leaders who mistake stubbornness
for strength.
And that is why as president my husband will not fear
disagreement or dissent. He believes that our voices
-- yours and mine -- must be the voices of freedom.
And if we do not speak, neither does she.
In America the true patriots are those who dare speak truth through power.
And the truth that we must speak now is that America
has responsibilities that it is time for us to accept
again.
With John Kerry as president, the alliances that bind
the community of nations and that truly make our
country and the world a safer place, will be
strengthened once more.
With John Kerry as president, global climate change
and other threats to the health of our planet will
begin to be reversed.
With John Kerry as president, the alliances that bind
the community of nations and that truly make our
country and the world a safer place, will be
strengthened once more...
In his first inaugural, speaking to a nation on the
eve of war, Abraham Lincoln said, "We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot
grave to every living heart and hearth stone all over
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the
union when again touched, as surely they will be, by
the better angels of our nature."
Today, the better angels of our nature are just
waiting to be summoned.
We only require a leader who is willing to call on
them, a leader willing to draw again the mystic cords
of our national memory and remind us of all that we as
a people, everyday leaders, can do, of all that we as
a nation stand for, and of all the immense possibility
that still lies ahead.
I think I've found that guy.
Restore the Timeline, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/27/dems.teresa.transcript/index.html
Heinz Kerry advocates speaking out, taking a stand
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- My name is Teresa Heinz
Kerry.
And by now, I hope it will come as no surprise that I
have something to say.
And tonight, as I have done throughout this campaign,
I would like to speak to you from my heart. Y a todos
los Hispanos y los Latinos...
a tous les Franco-Americain...
a tutti Italiani...
a toda a familia Portugesa e Brazileria...
and to all the continental Africans living in this
country...
and to all new Americans in our country, I invite you
to join our conversation and together with us work
toward the noblest purpose of all: a free, good and
democratic society.
I am grateful -- I am so grateful for the opportunity
to stand before you and to say a few words about my
husband, John Kerry, and why I firmly believe that he
should be the next president of the United States.
This is such a powerful moment for me. Like many other
Americans, like many of you, and like even more your
parents and grandparents, I was not born in this
country.
And as you have seen, I grew up in East Africa, in
Mozambique, in a land that was then under a
dictatorship. My father, a wonderful, caring man who
practiced medicine for 43 years, and who taught me how
to understand disease and wellness, only got to vote
for the first time when he was 73 years old.
That's what happens in dictatorships.
As a young woman, I attended Witwatersrand University
in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was then not
segregated.
But I witnessed the weight of apartheid everywhere
around me. And so with my fellow students, we marched
in the streets of Johannesburg against its extension
into higher education.
This was the late 1950s at the dawn of civil rights
marches in America. And, as history records, our
efforts in South Africa failed, and the Higher
Education Apartheid Act passed. Apartheid tightened
its ugly grips. The Sharpeville Riots followed. And
Nelson Mandela was arrested and sent to Robben Island.
I learned something then. And I believe it still.
There is a value in taking a stand, whether or not
anybody may be noticing it, and whether or not it is a
risky thing to do.
And if even those who are in danger can raise their
lonely voices, isn't it more that is required of all
of us, in this land where liberty had her birth?
I have a very personal feeling about how special
America is, and I know how precious freedom is. It is
a sacred gift, sanctified by those who have lived it
and those who have died defending it.
My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what
some have called "opinionated"...
is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish.
And my only hope is that one day soon, My only hope is
that, one day soon, women, who have all earned their
right to their opinions...
instead of being labeled opinionated will be called
smart and well informed, just like men.
Tonight I want to remember my mother's warmth,
generosity, wisdom and hopefulness, and thank her for
all the sacrifices she made on our behalf, like so
many other mothers.
And this evening, I want to acknowledge and honor the
women of this world whose wise voices for much too
long have been excluded and discounted.
It is time -- it is time for the world to hear women's
voices in full and at last.
In the past year, I have been privileged to meet with
Americans all across this land. They voiced many
different concerns, but one they all share was about
America's role in the world, what we want this great
country of ours to stand for.
To me, one of the best faces America has ever
projected is the face of a Peace Corps volunteer.
That face symbolizes this country: young, curious,
brimming with idealism and hope, and a real, honest
compassion.
Those young people convey an idea of America that is
all about heart, creativity, generosity and
confidence, a practical, can-do sense, and a big, big
smile.
For many generations of people around this globe, that
is what America has represented: a symbol of hope, a
beacon brightly lit by the optimism of its people,
people coming from all over the world.
Americans believed that they could know all there is
to know, build all there is to build, break down any
barrier, tear down any wall. We sent men to the moon.
And when that was not far enough, we sent Galileo to
Jupiter, we sent Cassini to Saturn, and Hubble to
touch the very edges of the universe in the very dawn
of time.
Americans showed the world what can happen when people
believe in amazing possibilities. And that, for me, is
the spirit of America, the America you and I are
working for in this election.
It is the America that people all across this nation
want to restore, from Iowa to California...
from Florida to Michigan...
and from Washington state to my home of Pennsylvania.
It is the America the world wants to see: shining,
hopeful, and bright once again. And that is the
America that my husband John Kerry wants to lead.
John believes in a bright future. He believes that we
can and will invent the technologies, the new
materials and the conservation methods of the future
He believes that alternative fuels will guarantee that
not only will no American boy or girl go to war
because of our dependence on foreign oil...
but also that our economy will forever become
independent of this need.
We can, and we will, create good, competitive and
sustainable jobs while still protecting the air we
breathe, the water we drink, and the health of our
children, because good environmental policy is good
economics.
John believes that we can and we will give every
family and every child access to affordable health
care, a good education and the tools to become
self-reliant.
And John believes that we must and we should recognize
the immense value of the caregivers in our country,
those women and men who nurture and care for children,
for elderly parents, for family members in need. These
are the people who build and support our most valuable
assets, our families.
Isn't it time -- isn't it time that we begin working
to give parents more opportunity to be with their
children, and wouldn't it be wonderful for parents to
be able to afford a full and good family life?
With John Kerry as president, we can, and we will
protect our nation's security without sacrificing our
civil liberties.
In short, John believes that we can and we must lead
the world as America, unique among nations, always
should by showing the face not of its fear, but of our
hopes.
And John is a fighter. He earned his medals the
old-fashioned way...
by putting his life on the line for his country.
And no one will defend this nation more vigorously
than he will.
And he will always, always be first in the line of
fire.
But he also knows the importance of getting it right.
For him, the names of many friends inscribed on the
Vietnam Memorial -- that cold stone -- testify to the
awful toil exacted by leaders who mistake stubbornness
for strength.
And that is why as president my husband will not fear
disagreement or dissent. He believes that our voices
-- yours and mine -- must be the voices of freedom.
And if we do not speak, neither does she.
In America the true patriots are those who dare speak
truth through power.
And the truth that we must speak now is that America
has responsibilities that it is time for us to accept
again.
With John Kerry as president, global climate change
and other threats to the health of our planet will
begin to be reversed.
With John Kerry as president, the alliances that bind
the community of nations and that truly make our
country and the world a safer place, will be
strengthened once more.
And the Americans John and I have met in the course of
this campaign all want America to provide hopeful
leadership again. They want America to return to its
moral bearings.
And It is not -- it is not a moralistic America they
seek; it is a moral nation that understands and
willingly shoulders its obligations, a moral nation
that rejects thoughtless and greedy choices in favor
of thoughtful and generous actions.
And it is a moral nation that leads through the power
of its ideas and the power of its example.
We can and we should join together to make the most of
this great gift that we have all been given, this gift
of freedom and this gift of America.
In his first inaugural, speaking to a nation on the
eve of war, Abraham Lincoln said, "We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of
memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot
grave to every living heart and hearth stone all over
this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the
union when again touched, as surely they will be, by
the better angels of our nature."
Today, the better angels of our nature are just
waiting to be summoned.
We only require a leader who is willing to call on
them, a leader willing to draw again the mystic cords
of our national memory and remind us of all that we as
a people, everyday leaders, can do, of all that we as
a nation stand for, and of all the immense possibility
that still lies ahead.
I think I've found that guy.
And I'm married to him.
John Kerry will give us back our faith in America. He
will restore our faith in ourselves. And in the sense
of limitless opportunity that has always been
America's gift to the world, together we will lift
everyone up. We have to. It's possible. And do you
know what? It's the American thing to do.
Good night. And God bless you.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/27/dems.teresa.transcript/index.html
Here is some more background on why AnythingButSee
(ABC), SeeBS (CBS) and NotBeSeen (NBC) are only show
three hours (total) coverage of the entire four days
of the Democratic National Convention...You will not
hear this story on the evening news...The Emperor has
no uniform...
Kerry-Edwards, U.S. Newswire: In an unprecedented display of support
from the military establishment, twelve retired
generals and admirals endorsed John Kerry for
president of the United States on Wednesday. These
distinguished flag officers join the ranks of tens of
thousands of veterans -- including over 500 veteran
delegates in Boston -- who want a stronger, more
secure America and their fellow veteran John Kerry to
be the next Commander-in-Chief.
The endorsement comes on the day the convention is
focused on the Kerry-Edwards plan to make a stronger,
more secure America. General John Shalikashvili (Ret.)
will speak at the Convention on Wednesday evening and
be introduced by Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy
(Ret.). There will be a special video tribute to John
Kerry featuring distinguished flag officers talking
about what is at stake in this election and why they
support John Kerry to build a strong America,
respected in the world.
"My son is a Navy sailor, my son-in-law is a Navy
sailor, and my nephew is a Navy sailor. I want them,
and all of America's sons and daughters in uniform to
have a new, wiser, better, and courageous
commander-in-chief in John Kerry," said Vice Admiral
Lee F. Gunn (USN, Ret.)
Support Our Troops, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=109-07282004
12 Generals and Admirals Endorse John Kerry; Military Leaders to Speak and Take Part in Video Tribute in
Boston Wednesday
7/28/2004 9:00:00 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: National Desk, Political Reporter
Contact: Mark Kitchens of the Kerry-Edwards Campaign,
617-654-0066, Web: http://www.johnkerry.com
BOSTON, July 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In an unprecedented
display of support from the military establishment,
twelve retired generals and admirals endorsed John
Kerry for president of the United States on Wednesday.
These distinguished flag officers join the ranks of
tens of thousands of veterans -- including over 500
veteran delegates in Boston -- who want a stronger,
more secure America and their fellow veteran John
Kerry to be the next Commander-in-Chief.
The endorsement comes on the day the convention is
focused on the Kerry-Edwards plan to make a stronger,
more secure America. General John Shalikashvili (Ret.)
will speak at the Convention on Wednesday evening and
be introduced by Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy
(Ret.). There will be a special video tribute to John
Kerry featuring distinguished flag officers talking
about what is at stake in this election and why they
support John Kerry to build a strong America,
respected in the world.
"My son is a Navy sailor, my son-in-law is a Navy
sailor, and my nephew is a Navy sailor. I want them,
and all of America's sons and daughters in uniform to
have a new, wiser, better, and courageous
commander-in-chief in John Kerry," said Vice Admiral
Lee F. Gunn (USN, Ret.)
"Success in the global war on terror requires
enlightened U.S. leadership - leadership that knows
the importance of listening to and working with other
countries. Senator Kerry is such a leader, and as
Commander-in-Chief, he will adapt our military to the
unprecedented security demands faced by our country
and its armed forces," said Lieutenant General Daniel
Christman (USA, Ret.)
Kerry arrives in Boston for the convention Wednesday
morning where he will be met by 13 crewmates and
fellow veterans from Vietnam. Many of these
individuals will also participate in the convention
program on Thursday night before Kerry accepts the
Democratic nomination.
At the 2004 convention, veterans are playing a
historic, unprecedented role with over 500 delegates
who are veterans in attendance. On Monday, the first
ever Veterans Caucus was held. Led by notable veterans
like Wesley Clark, former Senator Max Cleland and
former Senator Bob Kerrey, over 2,000 veterans and
members of military families attended. Veterans have
also held grassroots 'Basic Training' sessions to
learn how they can help organize veterans in their own
communities and help elect John Kerry.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign has set a goal of
organizing one million veterans by Election Day.
Recruited through the 50 state- level Veterans for
Kerry organizations, these one million veterans will
be used in grassroots, veteran-to-veteran operations,
including phone-banks, canvassing and GOTV efforts.
John Kerry and John Edwards offer the right plan for
our troops and the right plan for our country. They
have proposed expanding America's active duty forces
by 40,000 to relieve the strain on today's military,
doubling America's special forces capability and
increasing other specialized personnel to improve
America's ability to conduct counterterrorism
operations, perform reconnaissance missions and gather
intelligence. John Kerry and John Edwards will ensure
that our troops have everything they need to
accomplish their mission.
------
The flag officers endorsing John Kerry are:
Lieutenant General Edward D. Baca (United States Army,
Retired)
Baca served as Chief of the National Guard Bureau in
Washington, D.C. where he was responsible for
formulating, developing, and coordinating all
policies, programs and plans affecting Army and Air
National Guard personnel. During his tenure as head of
the National Guard, Baca was one of the
highest-ranking Latinos in the U.S. military. A native
of New Mexico, Baca enlisted in the New Mexico Army
National Guard in 1956, volunteered for service in
Vietnam, and retired as a three-star general officer.
Baca also served as the Adjutant General of the New
Mexico National Guard where he exercised joint command
over both the Army and Air National Guard of New
Mexico.
"I am proud to have served our country in the military
for over 41 years. I am even prouder that 4 of my
children have worn the uniform of our armed forces.
Three are still serving. As a combat veteran and
proven leader, I know that John Kerry will never send
them in harm's way, without exhausting all means of
diplomacy. Even then, it will be a last resort. God
forbid if he ever has to, he will make sure that they
are part of an armed force as best equipped, best
training, and most respected in the world." - LTG
Edward Baca (USA, Ret.)
Lieutenant General Daniel W. Christman (United States
Army, Retired)
Christman served as the Superintendent of the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point. He also served for two
years as Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, during which time he represented the U.S. as
a member of NATO's Military Committee in Brussels,
Belgium. He is a combat veteran of Southeast Asia
where he commanded a company in the 101st Airborne
Division. Christman was born on May 5, 1943 and is a
native of Hudson, Ohio.
"Success in the global war on terror requires
enlightened U.S. leadership - leadership that knows
the importance of listening to and working with other
countries. Senator Kerry is such a leader, and as
Commander-in-Chief, he will adapt our military to the
unprecedented security demands faced by our country
and its armed forces." - LTG Daniel Christman (USA,
Ret.)
General Wesley K. Clark (United States Army, Retired)
Wesley Clark was born December 23rd 1944 in Chicago,
Illinois, and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. He
graduated first in his class from the United States
Military Academy at West Point in 1966 and received
his Masters degree in Philosophy, Politics and
Economics from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes
Scholar. In the Army, Clark rose steadily through the
ranks, culminating in his service as the
Commander-in-Chief of US Southern Command from 1996 to
1997 and NATO Supreme Allied Commander from 1997 to
2000. He retired from the Army in 2000. Clark and his
wife Gert live in Little Rock, Arkansas and have one
son. "I ask you to join me in standing up for an
American who has given truly outstanding service to
his country in peace and in war. John Kerry has the
right message and right character to bring the nation
forward. Both John and I served in Vietnam -- and know
what it is to be tested on the battlefield, fighting
for your country. John Kerry never quit fighting for
his country." - GEN Wesley K. Clark (USA, Ret.)
Admiral William J. Crowe (United States Navy, Retired)
Crowe served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
the highest ranking officer in the U.S. military.
Prior to serving as Chairman, he served as Commander
in Chief in several areas, including the U.S. Pacific
Command, Allied Forces in Southern Europe, U.S. Naval
Forces in Europe and the Middle East Forces. He was
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1985 until
his retirement from the Navy in 1989.
"The current administration has an overly simplistic
view of how and when to use our military. By not
bringing in our friends and allies, they have created
a mess in Iraq and are crippling our forces around the
world. John Kerry has a realistic understanding of the
requirements of our military and the threats that we
face." - ADM William J. Crowe (USN, Ret.)
Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn (United States Navy, Retired)
Gunn served as the Inspector General of the Department
of the Navy until his retirement in August 2000. Gunn
commanded the USS BARBEY and the Destroyer Squadron
"Thirty-one," a component of the U.S. Navy's
Anti-Submarine Warfare Destroyer Squadrons. Gunn is
from Bakersfield, California and is a graduate of the
University of California, Los Angeles. He received his
commission from the Naval ROTC program at UCLA in June
1965.
"My son is a Navy sailor, my son-in-law is a Navy
sailor, and my nephew is a Navy sailor. I want them,
and all of America's sons and daughters in uniform to
have a new, wiser, better, and courageous
commander-in-chief in John Kerry." - VADM Lee F. Gunn
(USN, Ret.)
General Joseph Hoar (United States Marine Corps,
Retired)
Hoar served as Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central
Command. After the first Gulf War, Hoar led the effort
to enforce the naval embargo in the Red Sea and the
Persian Gulf, enforce the no-fly zone in the south of
Iraq. He oversaw the humanitarian and peacekeeping
operations in Kenya and Somalia and also led the U.S.
Marine Corps support for operations in Rwanda, and the
evacuation of U.S. civilians from Yemen during the
1994 civil war. Hoar was the Deputy for Operations for
the Marine Crops during the Gulf War and served as
General Norman Schwartzkopf's Chief of Staff at
Central Command. General Hoar was born in Boston,
Massachusetts and graduated from Tufts University
where he received his commission through the ROTC
program.
"Sen. Kerry has demonstrated his courage in combat and
his broad knowledge of international relations while
in the Senate. He's a leader who is not afraid to
lead." - GEN Joseph Hoar (USMC, Ret.)
Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy (United States
Army, Retired)
Kennedy is the first and only woman to achieve the
rank of three-star general in the United States Army.
Kennedy also served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Army
Intelligence, Commander of the U.S. Army Recruiting
Command, and as Commander of the 703d military
intelligence brigade in Kunia, Hawaii. She was born in
Frankfurt, Germany, and earned her commission as a
second lieutenant in June 1969 through the Women's
Army Corps.
"John Kerry understands the future as it is framed by
the international community and by the people at home.
He will make the right decisions about education,
defense, intelligence, economic development both
foreign and domestic, and sustaining international
relationships. He is a leader I trust." - LTG Claudia
J. Kennedy (USA, Ret.)
Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick (United States Army,
Retired)
Kerrick served as Deputy National Security Advisor to
the President of the United States where he was
responsible for developing, implementing, and managing
United States foreign and national security policies.
He was a principal negotiator on the international
Bosnia Peace Delegation that ended the Bosnian War,
and served on the Steering Committee for the
Protection of United States Critical Infrastructure.
Kerrick holds a Masters degree from the University of
Southern California and a Bachelors degree from
Florida Southern College. He was awarded an honorary
Doctor of Diplomacy from Florida Southern College.
Kerrick was born on April 1949 in Bethesda, Maryland
and was raised in Islamorada, Florida.
"The miscalculations of the last three years have
severely stressed our armed forces both around the
world and here at home. John Kerry understands the
military and war. He is the right leader at the right
time to restore America's credibility around the
world." - LTG Donald Kerrick (USA, Ret.)
General Merrill "Tony" A. McPeak (United States Air
Force, Retired)
McPeak served as the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air
Force. Previously, McPeak served as Commander in Chief
of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces. He is a command pilot,
having flown more than 6,000 hours, principally in
fighter aircraft. General McPeak was born January 9,
1936 in Santa Rosa, California and entered the Air
Force in 1957 as a distinguished graduate of the San
Diego State College ROTC program.
"I'm a registered independent, but I like and admire
John Kerry. He simply has a great record of brave and
skillful service to the country. He is sure to be a
fine Commander-in-Chief, one we can all be proud of,
and proud to follow." - GEN Merrill "Tony" A. McPeak
(USAF, Ret.)
General John M. Shalikashvili (United States Army,
Retired)
Shalikashvili served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, the highest ranking officer in the U.S.
military. Prior to serving as Chairman, he served as
the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and also as the
Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. European Command. He
served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army
in Europe and during the first Gulf War in 1991,
assumed command of Operation Provide Comfort, the
relief operation that returned hundreds of thousands
of Kurdish refugees to Northern Iraq. Shalikashvili is
a naturalized U.S. citizen and was born in Warsaw,
Poland on June 27, 1936.
"I believe in John Kerry. As a young man, he heeded
his country's call to service when it needed him. He
commanded in combat and did so with bravery and
distinction. He knows from experience a commander's
responsibility to his troops. He stands with our
troops and with their families." - GEN John M.
Shalikashvili (USA, Ret.)
Admiral Stansfield Turner (United States Navy,
Retired)
Turner served as the Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency from 1977-1981. Previously, he
served in the U.S. Navy as Commander of the U.S.
Second Fleet and NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic. Turner
also served as the Commander-in-Chief of NATO's
Southern Flank, and as President of the Naval War
College. Before promotion to Admiral in 1970, he
served on destroyers off the shores of Korea and
Vietnam, and as executive assistant and naval aide to
two Secretaries of the Navy. A native of Highland
Park, Illinois, Turner received his commission from
the United States Naval Academy and was a Rhodes
Scholar.
"George Bush as the Commander-in-Chief has got us into
a morass in both Iraq and Afghanistan. John Kerry is a
true veteran, and would be a much better
commander-in-chief." - ADM Stansfield Turner (USN,
Ret.)
General Johnnie E. Wilson (United States Army,
Retired)
Wilson served as the Commanding General of the U.S.
Army Material Command, and was responsible for the
Army's wholesale logistics, acquisition and technology
generation operations. He was born on February 4, 1944
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and raised in Lorain, Ohio.
He entered the Army in August 1961 as an enlisted
soldier and retired n 1999 as a four-star general.
Wilson is one of just four African-Americans to earn
four stars in the U.S. Army's more than 200-year
history. Wilson held a wide variety of important
command and staff positions including Deputy Chief of
Staff for Logistics, and Chief of Staff of the U.S.
Army Materiel Command.
"Senator Kerry is a principled, patriotic leader with
the requisite skills to lead America in the 21st
century." - GEN Johnnie E. Wilson (USA, Ret.)
Paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
-0-
/© 2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) remarked yesterday
that the 9/11 Commission should stay on the job for
another year and a half, ostensibly to see that their
recommendations are really implemented, but, of
course, it occurs to the LNS that if they are still in
business that could go back and take a deeper and
unrestricted look at some of these painful and
disturbing issues...
MEANWHILE, Robert Scheer, as usual, is doing the work
that NotBeSeen, SeeBS and AnythingButSee should be
doing, and Scheer is not paid the millions of dollars
each (quite literally) that Brokaw, Jennings and
Rather are paid to feign objectivity, knowingness and
a commitment to keeping you informed.
Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times: Without dissent,
five prominent Republicans joined an equal number of
their Democratic Party peers in stating unequivocally
that the Bush administration got it wrong, both in its
lethargic response to an unprecedented level of
warnings during what the commission calls the "Summer
of Threat," as well as in its inclusion of Iraq in the
war on terror.
Although the language of the commission's report was
carefully couched to obtain a bipartisan consensus,
the indictment of this administration surfaces on
almost every page.
Bush was not the first U.S. president to play footsie
with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan, nor was the Clinton administration
without fault in its fitful and ineffective response
to the Al Qaeda threat. But there was simply no excuse
for the near-total indifference of the new president
and his top Cabinet officials to strenuous warnings
from the outgoing Clinton administration and the
government's counter-terrorism experts that something
terrible was coming, fast and hard, from Al Qaeda.
Osama bin Laden's gang, they said repeatedly, was
planning "near-term attacks," which Al Qaeda
operatives expected "to have dramatic consequences of
catastrophic proportions."
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer27jul27,1,7719764.column
ROBERT SCHEER
An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report
Robert Scheer
July 27, 2004
Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted
by his parents' early return home, President Bush's
nearly three years of bragging about his "war on
terror" credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan
9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.
Without dissent, five prominent Republicans joined an
equal number of their Democratic Party peers in
stating unequivocally that the Bush administration got
it wrong, both in its lethargic response to an
unprecedented level of warnings during what the
commission calls the "Summer of Threat," as well as in
its inclusion of Iraq in the war on terror.
Although the language of the commission's report was
carefully couched to obtain a bipartisan consensus,
the indictment of this administration surfaces on
almost every page.
Bush was not the first U.S. president to play footsie
with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan, nor was the Clinton administration
without fault in its fitful and ineffective response
to the Al Qaeda threat. But there was simply no excuse
for the near-total indifference of the new president
and his top Cabinet officials to strenuous warnings
from the outgoing Clinton administration and the
government's counter-terrorism experts that something
terrible was coming, fast and hard, from Al Qaeda.
Osama bin Laden's gang, they said repeatedly, was
planning "near-term attacks," which Al Qaeda
operatives expected "to have dramatic consequences of
catastrophic proportions."
As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that
Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the
U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On
May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard
Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza
Rice that "when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S.
facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder
what more we could have done to stop them." At the end
of June, the commission wrote, "the intelligence
reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks
as occurring on a calamitous level." In early July,
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told "that preparations
for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages
or already complete and that little additional warning
could be expected." By month's end, "the system was
blinking red" and could not "get any worse," then-CIA
Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.
It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush
began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years.
On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch,
Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page
intelligence alert titled, "Bin Laden Determined to
Attack in the United States." Yet instead of returning
to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive
posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the
government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.
"In sum," said the 9/11 commission report, "the
domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the
threat. They did not have the direction, and did not
have a plan to institute. The borders were not
hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified.
Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a
domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were
not marshaled to augment the FBI's efforts. The public
was not warned."
In her public testimony to the commission, Rice argued
that the Aug. 6 briefing concerned vague "historical
information based on old reporting," adding that
"there was no new threat information." When the
commission forced the White House to release the
document, however, this was exposed as a lie: The
document included explicit FBI warnings of "suspicious
activity in this country consistent with preparations
for hijackings or other types of attacks, including
recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."
Furthermore, this briefing was only one of 40 on the
threat of Bin Laden that the president received
between Jan. 20 and Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush, the commission report also makes clear,
compounded U.S. vulnerability by totally misleading
Americans about the need to invade Iraq as a part of
the "war on terror."
For those, like Vice President Dick Cheney, who
continue to insist that the jury is still out on
whether Al Qaeda and Iraq were collaborators, the
commission's report should be the final word, finding
after an exhaustive review that there is no evidence
that any of the alleged contacts between Bin Laden and
Saddam Hussein "ever developed into a collaborative
operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence
indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in
developing or carrying out any attacks against the
United States."
So, before 9/11, incompetence and sloth. And after?
Much worse: a war without end on the wrong
battlefield.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the
Archives at latimes.com/archives.
Article licensing and reprint options
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
Last night, the Democratic Party launched a powerful,
all-out assault on the failed _residency of George W.
Bush, and they did it, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Hillary
Clinton and Bill Clinton, one after another, with
eloquence and spiritual force. Therefore, of course,
the morning's lead story on NotBeSeen News is "Losing
Ground: Amid Convention Extravaganza, Poll Show Kerry
Slipping vs. Bush." But, as the Big Dog said last
night, "Remember the Scripture, Be Not Afraid..."
Anyone who has been following the dozen or so major
polls, as the LNS has, over the past few months knows
that Sen. John F. Kerry is ahead both in most one on one
match-ups and in most Electoral College projections -- a position of unprecendented strength against an incumbent. Of course, you have never seen -- in all these months -- a NotBeSeen lead story about the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident being farther behind at this late point than any other incumbent in modern history...Do you really think the
fact that there is less prime time coverage this convention year than ever before (a measly three hours total for each of the major networks) is a
coincidence? Please. Get a grip on yourself and face the reality of what has happened in America...Have you taken the time to analyze the embarrassing distortions that the Associated Press is distributing? Well,
really, we shouldn't have expected anything else...The
"US mainstream news media" could not add up the real, simple addition
numbers in its own post-Fraudida Gore vs. Bush NORC study, so
we really shouldn't expect them to correctly add up
the Electoral College projections for Kerry vs. Bush.
Buzzflash, one of the bastions of the Information
Rebellion, has a running blog for the DNC, its first
entry was prescient:
"Salaries of Leading TV Pandering Pundits
Not that we would be the ones to think that the large
salaries of the TV anchor person pundits pumping up
Bush's image everyday have anything to do with their
pro-White House bias. I mean, who could suspect such
a thing? These people are touted as unbiased, neutral
talking heads full of non-partisan hot air, but could
their salaries and class influence their coverage? Or
is it just that General Electric, Disney, Viacom,
Rupert Murdoch, Time-Warner and the like sign their
paychecks?
As we watched some of the Sunday morning coverage of
the upcoming Democratic convention, we couldn't help
but be struck by how seriously these blowhards take
the Bush administration, as if they have no memory of
his failings and lies. Today's spin was that the 9/11
Commission warned that a big terrorist attack was
coming soon, so wouldn't that make voters more likely
to stick with Bush?
Excuse us, but Bush didn't protect us from the last
one did he, even though he and Condi were warned about
terrorists hijacking planes in the U.S. And terrorist
incidents have risen since Bush's "war on terrorism"
commenced. And Iraq has become a haven for attracting
and creating terrorists.
But the news anchors know that they are safe going
with the White House/GOP spin. Their big fat
paychecks will keep coming. If they happened to give
some context to the news and point out the failings of
the Bush administration, its daily contradictions and
lies, its failure to protect America, well they might
be out of job.
And if they were fired for telling the truth and
giving some honest perspective to the ineptitude and
deception of the White House, how much money would
they lose?
According to the book "News Flash" (2004), by Bonnie
Anderson, here are examples of some of the salaries
that would be at risk if mainstream television news
personalities told us the truth:
Peter Jennings
$10- 11 million
Dan Rather
$7 million
Tom Brokaw
$7 -8 million
Katie Couric
$12-15 million
Paula Zahn
$2 million
Don't expect these folks to be rubbing shoulders with
the working people of America. They travel strictly
first class and expect to be treated like stars.
Their wealth is dependent upon continued employment by corporations that support the Republicans and the Bush Cartel at the expense of our national security. BuzzFlash can't say conclusively that their salaries
influence their biased punditry, but we'll just ask
you to use the common sense test and make your own
judgments as you listen to them continue to provide
Bush with credibility as someone who can protect our
national security, when he puts this country at grave
risk everyday because of his rash, politcally and
ideologically motivated actions...
You do the math as you watch these elitists perched on
chairs high above the Fleet Convention Center acting
as if they are professional journalists. "
It's the Media, Stupid. Yes, and the "US mainstream
news media," along with the Corporatist monopolies it
serves, and the Bush cabal that fronts for those
monopolies, are going to have an Electoral Uprising to
deal with in November 2004 that simply will not jibe
with the Orwellian fantasy they are attempting to
construct before our eyes. Will the Republic survive
this coming confrontation? The LNS believes that the
Kerry-Edwards ticket and the Electoral Uprising it
embodies is going to bust open the Bush cabal's TRIPLE
LOCK. The LNS does not believe they were as successful
as they needed to be on the Black Box Voting front,
the LNS does not believe that their overwhelming
advantage in campaign cash is going to cancel out the
negative impression that the nakedness of the Emperor
and the farcical nature of his Three Stooges Reich
have made on the America people, the LNS believes the
the complicity of the "US Mainstream News Media" and
its propapunditgandists over Iraq, 9/11, Enron, the
phoney "California energy crisis," Halliburton, Abu
Ghraib, Plame, Chalabi, the prostitution of the EPA,
Medifraud, the multi-trillion dollar deficit, etc. is
transparent and that the US Electorate has turned them
off. Michael Moore's $100 million BLOCKBUSTER
Fahrenheit 911 and Bill Clinton's No. 1 BESTSELLER My
Life are the proof...
Here is TRUTH from the podium of the oldest political
party in the world...
Former US Pres. Jimmy Carter: As many of you may know, my first chosen career was in the United States Navy, where I served as a submarine
officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready
for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend
our nation and its principles. At the same time, we
always prayed that our readiness would preserve the
peace.
I served under two presidents, Harry Truman and Dwight
Eisenhower, men who represented different political
parties, both of whom had faced their active military
responsibilities with honor.
They knew the horrors of war. And later as commanders
in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment, and
they had a clear sense of mission.
We had a confidence -- we had a confidence that our
leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our
soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars
of choice unless America's vital interests were in
danger.
We also were sure that these presidents would not
mislead us when issues involved our national security.
Today, our Democratic Party is led by another former
naval officer, one who volunteered for military
service. He showed up when assigned to duty...
... and he served with honor and distinction. He also
knows the horrors of war and the responsibilities of
leadership. And I am confident that next January, he
will restore the judgment and maturity to our
government that nowadays is sorely lacking...
After 9/11, America stood proud -- wounded, but
determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent
civilians brought us an unprecedented level of
cooperation and understanding around the world. But in
just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as
all this good will has been squandered by a virtually
unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.
Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United
States from the very nations we need to join us in
combating terrorism.
Let us not forget that the Soviets lost the Cold War
because the American people combined the exercise of
power with adherence to basic principles, based on
sustained bipartisan support.
We understood the positive link between the defense of
our own freedom and the promotion of human rights.
But recent policies have cost our nation its
reputation as the world's most admired champion of
freedom and justice.
What a difference these few months of extremism have
made.
The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed
its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies
by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of
preemptive war.
With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and
the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore
life to the global war against terrorism...
Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will
provide global leadership that springs from the unity
and the integrity of the American people, or whether
extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth,
will define America's role in the world.
At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul.
Restore the Timeline, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
JIMMY CARTER, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
My name is Jimmy Carter, and I'm not running for
president.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
But here's what I will be doing: everything I can to
put John Kerry in the White House with John Edwards
right there beside him.
(APPLAUSE)
Twenty-eight years ago I was running for president.
And I said then, "I want a government as good and as
honest and as decent and as competent and as
compassionate as are the American people."
I say this again tonight, and that's exactly what we
will have next January with John Kerry as president of
the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
As many of you may know, my first chosen career was in
the United States Navy, where I served as a submarine
officer. At that time, my shipmates and I were ready
for combat and prepared to give our lives to defend
our nation and its principles. At the same time, we
always prayed that our readiness would preserve the
peace.
I served under two presidents, Harry Truman and Dwight
Eisenhower, men who represented different political
parties, both of whom had faced their active military
responsibilities with honor.
(APPLAUSE)
They knew the horrors of war. And later as commanders
in chief, they exercised restraint and judgment, and
they had a clear sense of mission.
We had a confidence -- we had a confidence that our
leaders, both military and civilian, would not put our
soldiers and sailors in harm's way by initiating wars
of choice unless America's vital interests were in
danger.
(APPLAUSE)
We also were sure that these presidents would not
mislead us when issues involved our national security.
(APPLAUSE)
Today, our Democratic Party is led by another former
naval officer, one who volunteered for military
service. He showed up when assigned to duty...
(APPLAUSE)
... and he served with honor and distinction. He also
knows the horrors of war and the responsibilities of
leadership. And I am confident that next January, he
will restore the judgment and maturity to our
government that nowadays is sorely lacking.
(APPLAUSE)
I am proud to call Lieutenant John Kerry my shipmate,
and I am ready to follow him to victory in November.
(APPLAUSE)
As you all know, our country faces many challenges at
home involving energy, taxation, the environment,
education and health. To meet these challenges, we
need new leaders in Washington whose policies are
shaped by working American families instead of the
super- rich and their armies of lobbyists in
Washington.
(APPLAUSE)
But the biggest reason to make John Kerry president is
even more important. It is to safeguard the security
of our nation.
(APPLAUSE)
Today, our dominant international challenge is to
restore the greatness of America, based on...
(APPLAUSE)
... based on telling the truth, a commitment to peace,
and respect for civil liberties at home and basic
human rights around the world.
(APPLAUSE)
Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but
our credibility has been shattered and we are left
increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile
world.
Without truth, without trust, America cannot flourish.
Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the
sacred covenant between a president and the people.
When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our
republic together begin to weaken.
After 9/11, America stood proud -- wounded, but
determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent
civilians brought us an unprecedented level of
cooperation and understanding around the world. But in
just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as
all this good will has been squandered by a virtually
unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.
(APPLAUSE)
Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United
States from the very nations we need to join us in
combating terrorism.
Let us not forget that the Soviets lost the Cold War
because the American people combined the exercise of
power with adherence to basic principles, based on
sustained bipartisan support.
We understood the positive link between the defense of
our own freedom and the promotion of human rights.
But recent policies have cost our nation its
reputation as the world's most admired champion of
freedom and justice.
(APPLAUSE)
What a difference these few months of extremism have
made.
The United States has alienated its allies, dismayed
its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies
by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of
preemptive war.
With our allies disunited, the world resenting us, and
the Middle East ablaze, we need John Kerry to restore
life to the global war against terrorism.
(APPLAUSE)
In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has
come to a screeching halt. For the first time since
Israel became a nation, all former presidents,
Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a
comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice
for the Palestinians.
The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago
and the more recent progress made by President Bill
Clinton are now in peril.
Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the
region increasingly swept by anti-American passions.
This must change.
(APPLAUSE)
Elsewhere, North Korea's nuclear menace, a threat far
more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam
Hussein, has been allowed to advance unheeded, with
potentially ominous consequences for peace and
stability in Northeast Asia.
These are some of the prices of our government has
paid for this radical departure from the basic
American principles and values that are espoused by
John Kerry.
(APPLAUSE)
In repudiating extremism, we need to recommit
ourselves to a few common-sense principles that should
transcend partisan differences.
First, we cannot enhance our own security if we place
in jeopardy what is most precious to us, namely the
centrality of human rights in our daily lives and in
global affairs.
(APPLAUSE)
Second, we cannot maintain our historic
self-confidence as a people if we generate public
panic.
(APPLAUSE)
Third, we cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots
if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our
country.
(APPLAUSE)
Next, we cannot be true to ourselves if we mistreat
others.
And finally, in the world at large, we cannot lead if
our leaders mislead.
(APPLAUSE)
You can't be a war president one day and claim to be a
peace president the next, depending on the latest
political polls.
(APPLAUSE)
When our national security requires military action,
John Kerry has already proven in Vietnam that he will
not hesitate to act. And as a proven defender of our
national security, John Kerry will strengthen the
global alliance against terrorism while avoiding
unnecessary wars.
(APPLAUSE)
Ultimately, the basic issue is whether America will
provide global leadership that springs from the unity
and the integrity of the American people, or whether
extremist doctrines, the manipulation of the truth,
will define America's role in the world.
At stake is nothing less than our nation's soul.
(APPLAUSE)
In a few months, I will, God willing, enter my 81st
year of my life.
(APPLAUSE)
And in many ways, the last few months have been some
of the most disturbing of all. But I am not
discouraged. I really am not. I do not despair for our
country. I never do. I believe tonight, as I always
have, that the essential decency and compassion and
common sense of the American people will prevail.
(APPLAUSE)
And so I say to you...
(APPLAUSE)
And so I say to you and to others around the world,
whether they wish us well or ill: Do not underestimate
us Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
We lack neither strength nor wisdom. There is a road
that leads to a bright and hopeful future. What
America needs is leadership.
(APPLAUSE)
Our job, my fellow Americans, is to ensure that the
leaders of this great country will be John Kerry and
John Edwards.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you, and God bless America.
(APPLAUSE)
If you have not viewed Robert Kane Pappas' DVD, "Orwell Rolls in His Grave," you must...Like "OutFoxed," it is one of the DOCS advancing the Information Rebellion within the US...In it, the brilliant Mark Crispin Miller and numerous other brave dissenters, including Charles Lewis, the personification of real journalism, reveal the whole sordid truth...The government doesn't control the media, the media (along with other poweful monopolies, e.g., energy and weapons) controls the government...There is an Electoral Uprising coming in November 2004, it will sweep the Bush cabal out of office, and then the "US mainstream news media" must be dealt with directly. Otherwise, this Republic is finished. Some argue, it is already finished. We'll see in 99 days...It's the Media, Stupid.
Ted Turner, Washington Monthly: When media companies dominate their markets, it undercuts our democracy. Justice Hugo Black, in a landmark media-ownership case in 1945, wrote: "The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public."
These big companies are not antagonistic; they do billions of dollars in business with each other. They don't compete; they cooperate to inhibit competition. You and I have both felt the impact. I felt it in 1981, when CBS, NBC, and ABC all came together to try to keep CNN from covering the White House. You've felt the impact over the past two years, as you saw little news from ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox, or CNN on the FCC's actions. In early 2003, the Pew Research Center found that 72 percent of Americans had heard "nothing at all" about the proposed FCC rule changes. Why? One never knows for sure, but it must have been clear to news directors that the more they covered this issue, the harder it would be for their corporate bosses to get the policy result they wanted.
A few media conglomerates now exercise a near-monopoly over television news. There is always a risk that news organizations can emphasize or ignore stories to serve their corporate purpose. But the risk is far greater when there are no independent competitors to air the side of the story the corporation wants to ignore. More consolidation has often meant more news-sharing. But closing bureaus and downsizing staff have more than economic consequences. A smaller press is less capable of holding our leaders accountable. When Viacom merged two news stations it owned in Los Angeles, reports The American Journalism Review, "field reporters began carrying microphones labeled KCBS on one side and KCAL on the other." This was no accident. As the Viacom executive in charge told The Los Angeles Business Journal: "In this duopoly, we should be able to control the news in the marketplace."
This ability to control the news is especially worrisome when a large media organization is itself the subject of a news story. Disney's boss, after buying ABC in 1995, was quoted in LA Weekly as saying, "I would prefer ABC not cover Disney." A few days later, ABC killed a "20/20" story critical of the parent company.
Break the Corporatist (i.e., "Fascist") Stranglehold on the "US Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html
My Beef With Big Media
How government protects big media--and shuts out upstarts like me.
By Ted Turner
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the late 1960s, when Turner Communications was a business of billboards and radio stations and I was spending much of my energy ocean racing, a UHF-TV station came up for sale in Atlanta. It was losing $50,000 a month and its programs were viewed by fewer than 5 percent of the market.
I acquired it.
When I moved to buy a second station in Charlotte--this one worse than the first--my accountant quit in protest, and the company's board vetoed the deal. So I mortgaged my house and bought it myself. The Atlanta purchase turned into the Superstation; the Charlotte purchase--when I sold it 10 years later--gave me the capital to launch CNN.
Both purchases played a role in revolutionizing television. Both required a streak of independence and a taste for risk. And neither could happen today. In the current climate of consolidation, independent broadcasters simply don't survive for long. That's why we haven't seen a new generation of people like me or even Rupert Murdoch--independent television upstarts who challenge the big boys and force the whole industry to compete and change.
It's not that there aren't entrepreneurs eager to make their names and fortunes in broadcasting if given the chance. If nothing else, the 1990s dot-com boom showed that the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in America, with plenty of investors willing to put real money into new media ventures. The difference is that Washington has changed the rules of the game. When I was getting into the television business, lawmakers and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) took seriously the commission's mandate to promote diversity, localism, and competition in the media marketplace. They wanted to make sure that the big, established networks--CBS, ABC, NBC--wouldn't forever dominate what the American public could watch on TV. They wanted independent producers to thrive. They wanted more people to be able to own TV stations. They believed in the value of competition.
So when the FCC received a glut of applications for new television stations after World War II, the agency set aside dozens of channels on the new UHF spectrum so independents could get a foothold in television. That helped me get my start 35 years ago. Congress also passed a law in 1962 requiring that TVs be equipped to receive both UHF and VHF channels. That's how I was able to compete as a UHF station, although it was never easy. (I used to tell potential advertisers that our UHF viewers were smarter than the rest, because you had to be a genius just to figure out how to tune us in.) And in 1972, the FCC ruled that cable TV operators could import distant signals. That's how we were able to beam our Atlanta station to homes throughout the South. Five years later, with the help of an RCA satellite, we were sending our signal across the nation, and the Superstation was born.
That was then.
Today, media companies are more concentrated than at any time over the past 40 years, thanks to a continual loosening of ownership rules by Washington. The media giants now own not only broadcast networks and local stations; they also own the cable companies that pipe in the signals of their competitors and the studios that produce most of the programming. To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox--fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.
In this environment, most independent media firms either get gobbled up by one of the big companies or driven out of business altogether. Yet instead of balancing the rules to give independent broadcasters a fair chance in the market, Washington continues to tilt the playing field to favor the biggest players. Last summer, the FCC passed another round of sweeping pro-consolidation rules that, among other things, further raised the cap on the number of TV stations a company can own.
In the media, as in any industry, big corporations play a vital role, but so do small, emerging ones. When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can't compete by imitating the big guys--they have to innovate, so they're less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas. They are quicker to seize on new technologies and new product ideas. They steal market share from the big companies, spurring them to adopt new approaches. This process promotes competition, which leads to higher product and service quality, more jobs, and greater wealth. It's called capitalism.
But without the proper rules, healthy capitalist markets turn into sluggish oligopolies, and that is what's happening in media today. Large corporations are more profit-focused and risk-averse. They often kill local programming because it's expensive, and they push national programming because it's cheap--even if their decisions run counter to local interests and community values. Their managers are more averse to innovation because they're afraid of being fired for an idea that fails. They prefer to sit on the sidelines, waiting to buy the businesses of the risk-takers who succeed.
Unless we have a climate that will allow more independent media companies to survive, a dangerously high percentage of what we see--and what we don't see--will be shaped by the profit motives and political interests of large, publicly traded conglomerates. The economy will suffer, and so will the quality of our public life. Let me be clear: As a business proposition, consolidation makes sense. The moguls behind the mergers are acting in their corporate interests and playing by the rules. We just shouldn't have those rules. They make sense for a corporation. But for a society, it's like over-fishing the oceans. When the independent businesses are gone, where will the new ideas come from? We have to do more than keep media giants from growing larger; they're already too big. We need a new set of rules that will break these huge companies to pieces.
The big squeeze
In the 1970s, I became convinced that a 24-hour all-news network could make money, and perhaps even change the world. But when I invited two large media corporations to invest in the launch of CNN, they turned me down. I couldn't believe it. Together we could have launched the network for a fraction of what it would have taken me alone; they had all the infrastructure, contacts, experience, knowledge. When no one would go in with me, I risked my personal wealth to start CNN. Soon after our launch in 1980, our expenses were twice what we had expected and revenues half what we had projected. Our losses were so high that our loans were called in. I refinanced at 18 percent interest, up from 9, and stayed just a step ahead of the bankers. Eventually, we not only became profitable, but also changed the nature of news--from watching something that happened to watching it as it happened.
But even as CNN was getting its start, the climate for independent broadcasting was turning hostile. This trend began in 1984, when the FCC raised the number of stations a single entity could own from seven--where it had been capped since the 1950s--to 12. A year later, it revised its rule again, adding a national audience-reach cap of 25 percent to the 12 station limit--meaning media companies were prohibited from owning TV stations that together reached more than 25 percent of the national audience. In 1996, the FCC did away with numerical caps altogether and raised the audience-reach cap to 35 percent. This wasn't necessarily bad for Turner Broadcasting; we had already achieved scale. But seeing these rules changed was like watching someone knock down the ladder I had already climbed.
Meanwhile, the forces of consolidation focused their attention on another rule, one that restricted ownership of content. Throughout the 1980s, network lobbyists worked to overturn the so-called Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, or fin-syn, which had been put in place in 1970, after federal officials became alarmed at the networks' growing control over programming. As the FCC wrote in the fin-syn decision: "The power to determine form and content rests only in the three networks and is exercised extensively and exclusively by them, hourly and daily." In 1957, the commission pointed out, independent companies had produced a third of all network shows; by 1968, that number had dropped to 4 percent. The rules essentially forbade networks from profiting from reselling programs that they had already aired.
This had the result of forcing networks to sell off their syndication arms, as CBS did with Viacom in 1973. Once networks no longer produced their own content, new competition was launched, creating fresh opportunities for independents.
For a time, Hollywood and its production studios were politically strong enough to keep the fin-syn rules in place. But by the early 1990s, the networks began arguing that their dominance had been undercut by the rise of independent broadcasters, cable networks, and even videocassettes, which they claimed gave viewers enough choice to make fin-syn unnecessary. The FCC ultimately agreed--and suddenly the broadcast networks could tell independent production studios, "We won't air it unless we own it." The networks then bought up the weakened studios or were bought out by their own syndication arms, the way Viacom turned the tables on CBS, buying the network in 2000. This silenced the major political opponents of consolidation.
Even before the repeal of fin-syn, I could see that the trend toward consolidation spelled trouble for independents like me. In a climate of consolidation, there would be only one sure way to win: bring a broadcast network, production studios, and cable and satellite systems under one roof. If you didn't have it inside, you'd have to get it outside--and that meant, increasingly, from a large corporation that was competing with you. It's difficult to survive when your suppliers are owned by your competitors. I had tried and failed to buy a major broadcast network, but the repeal of fin-syn turned up the pressure. Since I couldn't buy a network, I bought MGM to bring more content in-house, and I kept looking for other ways to gain scale. In the end, I found the only way to stay competitive was to merge with Time Warner and relinquish control of my companies.
Today, the only way for media companies to survive is to own everything up and down the media chain--from broadcast and cable networks to the sitcoms, movies, and news broadcasts you see on those stations; to the production studios that make them; to the cable, satellite, and broadcast systems that bring the programs to your television set; to the Web sites you visit to read about those programs; to the way you log on to the Internet to view those pages. Big media today wants to own the faucet, pipeline, water, and the reservoir. The rain clouds come next.
Supersizing networks
Throughout the 1990s, media mergers were celebrated in the press and otherwise seemingly ignored by the American public. So, it was easy to assume that media consolidation was neither controversial nor problematic. But then a funny thing happened.
In the summer of 2003, the FCC raised the national audience-reach cap from 35 percent to 45 percent. The FCC also allowed corporations to own a newspaper and a TV station in the same market and permitted corporations to own three TV stations in the largest markets, up from two, and two stations in medium-sized markets, up from one. Unexpectedly, the public rebelled. Hundreds of thousands of citizens complained to the FCC. Groups from the National Organization for Women to the National Rifle Association demanded that Congress reverse the ruling. And like-minded lawmakers, including many long-time opponents of media consolidation, took action, pushing the cap back down to 35, until--under strong White House pressure--it was revised back up to 39 percent. This June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit threw out the rules that would have allowed corporations to own more television and radio stations in a single market, let stand the higher 39 percent cap, and also upheld the rule permitting a corporation to own a TV station and a newspaper in the same market; then, it sent the issues back to the same FCC that had pushed through the pro-consolidation rules in the first place.
In reaching its 2003 decision, the FCC did not argue that its policies would advance its core objectives of diversity, competition, and localism. Instead, it justified its decision by saying that there was already a lot of diversity, competition, and localism in the media--so it wouldn't hurt if the rules were changed to allow more consolidation. Their decision reads: "Our current rules inadequately account for the competitive presence of cable, ignore the diversity-enhancing value of the Internet, and lack any sound bases for a national audience reach cap." Let's pick that assertion apart.
First, the "competitive presence of cable" is a mirage. Broadcast networks have for years pointed to their loss of prime-time viewers to cable networks--but they are losing viewers to cable networks that they themselves own. Ninety percent of the top 50 cable TV stations are owned by the same parent companies that own the broadcast networks. Yes, Disney's ABC network has lost viewers to cable networks. But it's losing viewers to cable networks like Disney's ESPN, Disney's ESPN2, and Disney's Disney Channel. The media giants are getting a deal from Congress and the FCC because their broadcast networks are losing share to their own cable networks. It's a scam.
Second, the decision cites the "diversity-enhancing value of the Internet." The FCC is confusing diversity with variety. The top 20 Internet news sites are owned by the same media conglomerates that control the broadcast and cable networks. Sure, a hundred-person choir gives you a choice of voices, but they're all singing the same song.
The FCC says that we have more media choices than ever before. But only a few corporations decide what we can choose. That is not choice. That's like a dictator deciding what candidates are allowed to stand for parliamentary elections, and then claiming that the people choose their leaders. Different voices do not mean different viewpoints, and these huge corporations all have the same viewpoint--they want to shape government policy in a way that helps them maximize profits, drive out competition, and keep getting bigger.
Because the new technologies have not fundamentally changed the market, it's wrong for the FCC to say that there are no "sound bases for a national audience-reach cap." The rationale for such a cap is the same as it has always been. If there is a limit to the number of TV stations a corporation can own, then the chance exists that after all the corporations have reached this limit, there may still be some stations left over to be bought and run by independents. A lower limit would encourage the entry of independents and promote competition. A higher limit does the opposite.
Triple blight
The loss of independent operators hurts both the media business and its citizen-customers. When the ownership of these firms passes to people under pressure to show quick financial results in order to justify the purchase, the corporate emphasis instantly shifts from taking risks to taking profits. When that happens, quality suffers, localism suffers, and democracy itself suffers.
Loss of Quality
The Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans exerts a negative influence on society, because it discourages people who want to climb up the list from giving more money to charity. The Nielsen ratings are dangerous in a similar way--because they scare companies away from good shows that don't produce immediate blockbuster ratings. The producer Norman Lear once asked, "You know what ruined television?" His answer: when The New York Times began publishing the Nielsen ratings. "That list every week became all anyone cared about."
When all companies are quarterly earnings-obsessed, the market starts punishing companies that aren't yielding an instant return. This not only creates a big incentive for bogus accounting, but also it inhibits the kind of investment that builds economic value. America used to know this. We used to be a nation of farmers. You can't plant something today and harvest tomorrow. Had Turner Communications been required to show earnings growth every quarter, we never would have purchased those first two TV stations.
When CNN reported to me, if we needed more money for Kosovo or Baghdad, we'd find it. If we had to bust the budget, we busted the budget. We put journalism first, and that's how we built CNN into something the world wanted to watch. I had the power to make these budget decisions because they were my companies. I was an independent entrepreneur who controlled the majority of the votes and could run my company for the long term. Top managers in these huge media conglomerates run their companies for the short term. After we sold Turner Broadcasting to Time Warner, we came under such earnings pressure that we had to cut our promotion budget every year at CNN to make our numbers. Media mega-mergers inevitably lead to an overemphasis on short-term earnings.
You can see this overemphasis in the spread of reality television. Shows like "Fear Factor" cost little to produce--there are no actors to pay and no sets to maintain--and they get big ratings. Thus, American television has moved away from expensive sitcoms and on to cheap thrills. We've gone from "Father Knows Best" to "Who Wants to Marry My Dad?", and from "My Three Sons" to "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance."
The story of Grant Tinker and Mary Tyler Moore's production studio, MTM, helps illustrate the point. When the company was founded in 1969, Tinker and Moore hired the best writers they could find and then left them alone--and were rewarded with some of the best shows of the 1970s. But eventually, MTM was bought by a company that imposed budget ceilings and laid off employees. That company was later purchased by Rev. Pat Robertson; then, he was bought out by Fox. Exit "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Enter "The Littlest Groom."
Loss of localism
Consolidation has also meant a decline in the local focus of both news and programming. After analyzing 23,000 stories on 172 news programs over five years, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that big media news organizations relied more on syndicated feeds and were more likely to air national stories with no local connection.
That's not surprising. Local coverage is expensive, and thus will tend be a casualty in the quest for short-term earnings. In 2002, Fox Television bought Chicago's Channel 50 and eliminated all of the station's locally produced shows. One of the cancelled programs (which targeted pre-teens) had scored a perfect rating for educational content in a 1999 University of Pennsylvania study, according to The Chicago Tribune. That accolade wasn't enough to save the program. Once the station's ownership changed, so did its mission and programming.
Loss of localism also undercuts the public-service mission of the media, and this can have dangerous consequences. In early 2002, when a freight train derailed near Minot, N.D., releasing a cloud of anhydrous ammonia over the town, police tried to call local radio stations, six of which are owned by radio mammoth Clear Channel Communications. According to news reports, it took them over an hour to reach anyone--no one was answering the Clear Channel phone. By the next day, 300 people had been hospitalized, many partially blinded by the ammonia. Pets and livestock died. And Clear Channel continued beaming its signal from headquarters in San Antonio, Texas--some 1,600 miles away.
Loss of democratic debate
When media companies dominate their markets, it undercuts our democracy. Justice Hugo Black, in a landmark media-ownership case in 1945, wrote: "The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public."
These big companies are not antagonistic; they do billions of dollars in business with each other. They don't compete; they cooperate to inhibit competition. You and I have both felt the impact. I felt it in 1981, when CBS, NBC, and ABC all came together to try to keep CNN from covering the White House. You've felt the impact over the past two years, as you saw little news from ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox, or CNN on the FCC's actions. In early 2003, the Pew Research Center found that 72 percent of Americans had heard "nothing at all" about the proposed FCC rule changes. Why? One never knows for sure, but it must have been clear to news directors that the more they covered this issue, the harder it would be for their corporate bosses to get the policy result they wanted.
A few media conglomerates now exercise a near-monopoly over television news. There is always a risk that news organizations can emphasize or ignore stories to serve their corporate purpose. But the risk is far greater when there are no independent competitors to air the side of the story the corporation wants to ignore. More consolidation has often meant more news-sharing. But closing bureaus and downsizing staff have more than economic consequences. A smaller press is less capable of holding our leaders accountable. When Viacom merged two news stations it owned in Los Angeles, reports The American Journalism Review, "field reporters began carrying microphones labeled KCBS on one side and KCAL on the other." This was no accident. As the Viacom executive in charge told The Los Angeles Business Journal: "In this duopoly, we should be able to control the news in the marketplace."
This ability to control the news is especially worrisome when a large media organization is itself the subject of a news story. Disney's boss, after buying ABC in 1995, was quoted in LA Weekly as saying, "I would prefer ABC not cover Disney." A few days later, ABC killed a "20/20" story critical of the parent company.
But networks have also been compromised when it comes to non-news programs which involve their corporate parent's business interests. General Electric subsidiary NBC Sports raised eyebrows by apologizing to the Chinese government for Bob Costas's reference to China's "problems with human rights" during a telecast of the Atlanta Olympic Games. China, of course, is a huge market for GE products.
Consolidation has given big media companies new power over what is said not just on the air, but off it as well. Cumulus Media banned the Dixie Chicks on its 42 country music stations for 30 days after lead singer Natalie Maines criticized President Bush for the war in Iraq. It's hard to imagine Cumulus would have been so bold if its listeners had more of a choice in country music stations. And Disney recently provoked an uproar when it prevented its subsidiary Miramax from distributing Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11. As a senior Disney executive told The New York Times: "It's not in the interest of any major corporation to be dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle." Follow the logic, and you can see what lies ahead: If the only media companies are major corporations, controversial and dissenting views may not be aired at all.
Naturally, corporations say they would never suppress speech. But it's not their intentions that matter; it's their capabilities. Consolidation gives them more power to tilt the news and cut important ideas out of the public debate. And it's precisely that power that the rules should prevent.
Independents' day
This is a fight about freedom--the freedom of independent entrepreneurs to start and run a media business, and the freedom of citizens to get news, information, and entertainment from a wide variety of sources, at least some of which are truly independent and not run by people facing the pressure of quarterly earnings reports. No one should underestimate the danger. Big media companies want to eliminate all ownership limits. With the removal of these limits, immense media power will pass into the hands of a very few corporations and individuals.
What will programming be like when it's produced for no other purpose than profit? What will news be like when there are no independent news organizations to go after stories the big corporations avoid? Who really wants to find out? Safeguarding the welfare of the public cannot be the first concern of a large publicly traded media company. Its job is to seek profits. But if the government writes the rules in a way that encourages the entry into the market of entrepreneurs--men and women with big dreams, new ideas, and a willingness to take long-term risks--the economy will be stronger, and the country will be better off.
I freely admit: When I was in the media business, especially after the federal government changed the rules to favor large companies, I tried to sweep the board, and I came within one move of owning every link up and down the media chain. Yet I felt then, as I do now, that the government was not doing its job. The role of the government ought to be like the role of a referee in boxing, keeping the big guys from killing the little guys. If the little guy gets knocked down, the referee should send the big guy to his corner, count the little guy out, and then help him back up. But today the government has cast down its duty, and media competition is less like boxing and more like professional wrestling: The wrestler and the referee are both kicking the guy on the canvas.
At this late stage, media companies have grown so large and powerful, and their dominance has become so detrimental to the survival of small, emerging companies, that there remains only one alternative: bust up the big conglomerates. We've done this before: to the railroad trusts in the first part of the 20th century, to Ma Bell more recently. Indeed, big media itself was cut down to size in the 1970s, and a period of staggering innovation and growth followed. Breaking up the reconstituted media conglomerates may seem like an impossible task when their grip on the policy-making process in Washington seems so sure. But the public's broad and bipartisan rebellion against the FCC's pro-consolidation decisions suggests something different. Politically, big media may again be on the wrong side of history--and up against a country unwilling to lose its independents.
Ted Turner is founder of CNN and chairman of Turner Enterprises.
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Comments or questions ... please email Christina Larson by clicking here
Another US soldier died in Iraq yesterday. For what? The
neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. Meanwhile, the "US mainstream news media" is not telling you about the Bush cabal's handpicked Iraqi strongman Allawi executing six handcuffed, blindfolded
*suspects* with his own pistol in front of witnesses,
nor are they telling you about what Seymour Hersh has
been speaking out on publicly at universities around
the country (i.e. Abu Ghraib video tapes of young boys
being sodomized while in the custody of the US
military), nor have they told you that more US
soldiers have already died in Iraq in July (i.e.
post-"handover") than in all of June (i.e.,
pre-"handover"), nor are they telling you what the
free press of India is reporting (i.e. the US death
toll in Iraq is much higher than the official number
of 900+)...
Vladimir Radyuhin, The Hindu: The actual U.S. military
losses in Iraq may have reached 2,000 personnel, more
than twice the official figure of 900, as Washington
badly understates its casualty statistics, a military
diplomatic source told the Itar-Tass news agency.
"Official statistics do not include casualties among
non-U.S. nationals who sign up to serve in the
American armed forces in order to get a U.S. `green
card.' According to reliable information the share of
non-Americans in the U.S. force in Iraq may be as high
as 60 per cent," the source said. "The real number of
U.S. losses may be as high as 2,000 casualties and up
to 12,000 wounded," the military diplomat said.
Support Our Troops, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.hindu.com/2004/07/24/stories/2004072402401400.htm
International
2,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq: Russian expert
By Vladimir Radyuhin
MOSCOW, JULY 23. The United States suffers far heavier
casualties in Iraq than it officially admits, a Russia
military diplomat claimed.
The actual U.S. military losses in Iraq may have
reached 2,000 personnel, more than twice the official
figure of 900, as Washington badly understates its
casualty statistics, a military diplomatic source told
the Itar-Tass news agency.
"Official statistics do not include casualties among
non-U.S. nationals who sign up to serve in the
American armed forces in order to get a U.S. `green
card.' According to reliable information the share of
non-Americans in the U.S. force in Iraq may be as high
as 60 per cent," the source said. "The real number of
U.S. losses may be as high as 2,000 casualties and up
to 12,000 wounded," the military diplomat said.
How could the Bush abomination survive the political
fall-out from the implications of the August 6, 2001
PDB? It's the Media, Stupid.
PHILIP SHENON, www.democrats.com: In testimony this April to the Sept. 11 commission, before it was made public, Ms. Rice insisted that the report was "historical."
"It did not, in fact, warn of attacks inside the United States," she testified. "It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information.''
But there were gasps in the audience in the hearing room when she disclosed the name of the two-page briefing paper: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S."
The document was made public several days later and contained passages referring to F.B.I. reports of "suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." It noted that a caller to the United States Embassy in the Unitedar Lies, Arab Emirates that May had warned that "a group of bin Laden supporters was in the U.S.," planning attacks with explosives.
The commission's final report revealed that two C.I.A. analysts involved in preparing the brief had wanted to make clear to Mr. Bush that, far from being only a historical threat, the threat that Al Qaeda would strike on American soil was "both current and serious."
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=22732
Correcting the Record on Sept. 11, in Great Detail
July 25, 2004 By PHILIP SHENON
This article was reported by Philip Shenon, Douglas
Jehl and David Johnston and written by Mr. Shenon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/national/25PANE.html
[Note: only parts of the article below were published
on the Times web site]
WASHINGTON, July 24 - When the National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States set to work
early last year to prepare the definitive history of
the events of Sept. 11, 2001, it seemed that much of
the hard work of the so-called 9/11 commission was
already done, because so much of the horrifying story
seemed to be known.
At the time, it was understood that all of the
hijackers had entered the country legally and done
nothing to draw attention to themselves; Osama bin
Laden had underwritten the plot with his personal
fortune but had left the details to others; American
intelligence agencies had no warning that Al Qaeda was
considering suicide missions using planes; President
Bush had received a special intelligence briefing
weeks before Sept. 11 about Al Qaeda threats that
focused on past, not current, threats.
But 19 months later, the commission released a final,
unanimous book-length report last Thursday that, in
calling for a overhaul of the way the government
collects and shares intelligence, showed that much of
what had been common wisdom about the Sept. 11 attacks
at the start of the panel's investigation was wrong.
In meticulous detail, the 567-page report, including
116 pages of detailed footnotes in tiny, eye-straining
type, rewrote the history of Sept. 11, 2001,
correcting the historical record in ways large and
small and shattering myths that might otherwise have
been accepted as truth for generations.
The commission's report found that the hijackers had
repeatedly broken the law in entering the United
States, that Mr. bin Laden may have micromanaged the
attacks but did not pay for them, that intelligence
agencies had considered the threat of suicide
hijackings, and that Mr. Bush received an August 2001
briefing on evidence of continuing domestic terrorist
threats from Al Qaeda.
"Our work, we believe, is the definitive work on
9/11," said Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican
governor of New Jersey who was chairman of the
commission, and whose consensus-building talents are
credited by other commissioners as the reason the
panel's report was unanimous. If there are unanswered
questions, Mr. Kean said, it is mostly because "the
people who were at the heart of the plot are dead."
The Hijackers
For the commission of five Democrats and five
Republicans, the work of correcting the record began
with an understanding of how 19 young Arab terrorists
managed to enter the United States unnoticed, hiding
in plain sight in the weeks and months before they
joined in an attack that left more than 3,000 people
dead.
This was the subject of the first of what would be
series of riveting public hearings held by the
commission this year. The first fact-finding hearing
in January showed just how wrong - and self-serving
-much of the government's information about the Sept.
11 plot had been. And it suggested just how aggressive
the commission intended to be in setting the record
straight.
Immediately after Sept. 11 and in the months that
followed, the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and other
counterterrorism agencies defended their failure to
detect the plot by insisting that the hijackers had
gone out of their way to enter the United States
legally and to avoid detection in the months preceding
the attacks.
"Each of the hijackers, apparently purposely selected
to avoid notice, came easily and lawfully from
abroad," Louis J. Freeh, the former director of the
F.B.I., testified to Congress in October 2002. "While
here, the hijackers effectively operated without
suspicion, triggering nothing that alerted law
enforcement."
But in its final report, the commission found that as
many as 13 of the hijackers had entered the United
States with passports that had been fraudulently
altered, using criminal methods previously associated
with Al Qaeda.
The commission found that the visa applications of
many of the hijackers had been filled out improperly;
in several cases, the hijackers had provided
demonstrably false information on the forms. The names
of at least three of the terrorists were found after
Sept. 11 in the databases of American intelligence and
counterterrorism agencies.
After entering the United States, several of the
hijackers should have drawn the attention of law
enforcement agencies but did not.
Mohamed Atta, the plot's Egyptian-born ringleader,
overstayed his tourist visa. One of the terrorist
pilots, Ziad al-Jarrah, attended school in 2000 in
violation of his immigration status, which should have
been enough to block him from re-entering the United
States; he left and re-entered the country at least
six more times before Sept. 11.
Imagining the Unimaginable
In trying to explain why the nation had left itself so
vulnerable on Sept. 11, the leaders of the nation's
law enforcement and intelligence agencies have
insisted publicly that they never considered the
nightmare of passenger planes turned into guided
missiles.
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these
people would take an airplane and slam it into the
World Trade Center," Condoleezza Rice, President
Bush's national security adviser, said in May 2002. As
recently as this April, in testimony to the Sept. 11
commission, Mr. Freeh said that he "never was aware of
a plan that contemplated commercial airliners being
used as weapons."
But in its investigation, the commission found that an
attack described as unimaginable had in fact been
imagined, repeatedly. The commission said that several
threat reports circulated within the government in the
late 1990's raised the explicit possibility of an
attack using airliners as missiles.
Most prominent among those reports, the commission
said, was one circulated in September 1998, based on
information provided by a source who walked into an
American consulate in East Asia, that ''mentioned a
possible plot to fly an explosives-laden aircraft into
a U.S. city." In August of the same year, it said, an
intelligence agency received information that a group
of Libyans hoped to crash a plane into the World Trade
Center.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command had gone
so far as to develop exercises to counter the threat
and, according to a Defense Department memorandum
unearthed by the commission, planned a drill in April
2001 that would have simulated a terrorist crash into
the Pentagon.
Bin Laden's Role
American intelligence agencies had known for years
that the United States had much to fear from Osama bin
Laden, but it was fear based more on Mr. bin Laden's
power as a global symbol of Islamic fundamentalist
rage than as a terrorist logistician.
A senior State Department official testified to the
Senate in 2001 that the bin Laden terror network was
"analogous to a multinational corporation, bin Laden
as C.E.O.," leaving the details of the terrorist
attacks to others.
But the commission found that far from being the
disengaged leader of his terror network, Mr. bin Laden
was described by captured Qaeda colleagues as a
hands-on executive who wanted to be involved in almost
every detail of the Sept. 11 plot, choosing the
hijacking team himself and selecting targets. He was
reported to have been eager to hit the White House.
The report describes information obtained from the
interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Mr. bin
Laden's former chief of operations, who said that "bin
Laden could assess new trainees very quickly, in about
10 minutes, and that many of the 9/11 hijackers were
selected in this manner."
American intelligence analysts had long believed that
Mr. bin Laden had a vast personal fortune that
bankrolled Al Qaeda; news accounts described the bin
Laden fortune as totaling as much as $300 million,
with real estate holdings in London, Paris and the
C�´te d'Azur.
But the commission reached a far different conclusion,
finding that Mr. bin Laden was cut off from his
family's wealth after the early 1990's and that he
financed Al Qaeda's operations through a core group of
wealthy Muslim donors, mainly in the Persian Gulf. The
report said that from 1970 to 1994, Mr. bin Laden
received about $1 million a year from family funds - a
sizable sum, but not nearly enough to finance such an
ambitious terrorist network.
The Iraq Connection
The Bush administration has long maintained that there
was a close working relationship between Al Qaeda and
Iraq. In October 2002, with the invasion of Iraq only
months away, President Bush said in a speech in
Cincinnati that ''high-level contacts" between Iraq
and Al Qaeda "go back a decade," and that "we've
learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in
bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."
As recently as last month, Vice President Dick Cheney
said there was reason to believe a disputed Czech
intelligence report that Mohamed Atta had met with a
senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April
2001, suggesting a tie between Iraq and the Sept. 11
plot.
But in its most contentious effort to set the record
straight about the origins of the plot, the bipartisan
commission's final report found no evidence of close
collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda,
appearing to undermine a justification for the Iraq
war.
The commission found no credible evidence to suggest
that the Prague meeting took place and no evidence of
any kind to show Iraqi involvement in attacks by Al
Qaeda against the United States. While there had
indeed between periodic contacts in the late 1990's
between Al Qaeda representatives and Iraqi officials,
principally in Sudan, the commission found, those
contacts did not amount to much.
"To date we have seen no evidence that these or the
earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative
operational relationship," the commission wrote.
A footnote buried on page 470 of the commission's
report provided a clue to some of the false claims:
"Although there have been suggestions of contacts
between Iraq and Al Qaeda regarding chemical weapons
and explosive trainings, the most detailed information
alleging such ties came from an Al Qaeda operative who
recanted much of his original information."
The commission attempted to lift suspicion that the
leaders of another Arab government, that of Saudi
Arabia, had underwritten Al Qaeda, and to knock down
widely circulated theories that the Bush
administration had improperly assisted the Saudis by
allowing members of the extended bin Laden clan to
flee the United States on charter flights at a time
when all commercial air traffic was shut down after
the attacks.
''Saudi Arabia has long been considered the principal
source of Al Qaeda financing," the commission wrote in
its final report. "But we have found no evidence that
the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi
officials individually funded the organization."
The Evidence
In the first hours after the Sept. 11 attacks and ever
since, the White House has consistently insisted that
President Bush and his deputies had no credible
evidence before the attacks to suggest that Al Qaeda
was about to strike on American soil.
But the assertion has been questioned as a result of
the commission's digging. After its most heated
showdown with the Bush administration over access to
classified information, the commission pressured the
White House to declassify and make public a special
intelligence briefing that had been presented to the
president at his Texas ranch on Aug. 6, 2001, a month
before the attacks.
The existence of the document - but not its detailed
contents - had been known about since 2002, when the
White House confirmed news reports that President Bush
had received an intelligence report before Sept. 11
warning of the possibility that Al Qaeda might hijack
American passenger planes.
In testimony this April to the Sept. 11 commission,
before it was made public, Ms. Rice insisted that the
report was "historical."
"It did not, in fact, warn of attacks inside the
United States," she testified. "It was historical
information based on old reporting. There was no new
threat information.''
But there were gasps in the audience in the hearing
room when she disclosed the name of the two-page
briefing paper: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in
U.S."
The document was made public several days later and
contained passages referring to F.B.I. reports of
"suspicious activity in this country consistent with
preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks,
including recent surveillance of federal buildings in
New York." It noted that a caller to the United States
Embassy in the United Arab Emirates that May had
warned that "a group of bin Laden supporters was in
the U.S.," planning attacks with explosives.
The commission's final report revealed that two C.I.A.
analysts involved in preparing the brief had wanted to
make clear to Mr. Bush that, far from being only a
historical threat, the threat that Al Qaeda would
strike on American soil was "both current and
serious."
Democrats.com: The aggressive progressives!
Throughout the 9/11 Commission's investigation, the LNS hoped that another duo like Sens. Sam Ervin (D-SC) and Howard Baker (R-TN), who during the Watergate crisis were willing to put the high principles embodied in the US Constitution above their own creature comfort and its roots in partisan politics, would emerge and lead the 9/11 Commission to where it should have gone, but no one on either side of the 9/11 Commission was willing to go as far as the death of 3K innocent people on American soil really demands, and so the end product is Beltwayistan goobley-gook...Oh the TRUTH is in the final report, but it is buried, not trumpeted, and it is left open to obsfucation and denial, and afterall, obsfucation and denial is what the machinery of Beltwayistan is greased with...Which is not to say that the story is over, or even the investigation is over, if Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta) sticks to his hunter's instincts and his prosecutors skills, the open, festering wound of 9/11, just like the open, festering wounds of Abu Ghraib, Plame, Chalabi, Niger Green Cake, Halliburton, Medifraud, Enron, the phoney "California energy crisis," the prostitution of the EPA, the hundreds of billions of dollars spilled into the desert in Iraq, and the lives of 900+ US soldiers lost in that foolish military adventure, as well as the gutting of the US surplus and the creation of a massive new federal deficit, will throb, swell, ache and intensify all the way through the next 99 days...Yes, yes, the LNS understands that this week the rhetoric is going to be very upbeat and very positive, BUT that will end, and the national emergency, the failed administration and the Mega-Mogadishu in Iraq will still be with us, the most illegitimate, incompetent and corrupt regime in the US history will still be with us, and it must be made starkly clear to everyone that the November election is nothing more or less than a national referendum on the CREDIBILITY, COMPETENCE and CHARACTER of the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking resident (whoever shares the ticket with him)..."Let's us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
William Raspberry, Washington Post: For all its somber-faced seriousness, the report of the Sept. 11 commission turns out to be a childlike explanation of what went so tragically wrong nearly three years ago. It acknowledges the obvious, but it manages to avoid any semblance of individual responsibility. "The lamp broke," a child might say. Or, as the report would have it, the "system" failed.
Which surprises Ray McGovern not a whit.
"The whole name of the game is to exculpate anyone in the establishment," says McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA and a member of a group of former agents called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. " 'Mistakes were made,' but no one is to blame. Why is it that after all this evidence and months and months of testimony, the commission found itself unable even to say if the attacks could have been prevented?
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/columns/raspberrywilliam/
washingtonpost.com
Failures of the Sept. 11 Commission
By William Raspberry
Monday, July 26, 2004; Page A11
For all its somber-faced seriousness, the report of the Sept. 11 commission turns out to be a childlike explanation of what went so tragically wrong nearly three years ago.
It acknowledges the obvious, but it manages to avoid any semblance of individual responsibility. "The lamp broke," a child might say. Or, as the report would have it, the "system" failed.
Which surprises Ray McGovern not a whit.
"The whole name of the game is to exculpate anyone in the establishment," says McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA and a member of a group of former agents called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. " 'Mistakes were made,' but no one is to blame. Why is it that after all this evidence and months and months of testimony, the commission found itself unable even to say if the attacks could have been prevented?"
McGovern has no doubt they could have been. He cites the FBI report of "all those Arab fellows training on aircraft but with no interest in learning how to land them." The report was rejected, unread, he says, by an FBI official, Spike Owen, who nonetheless "received a $20,000 cash award from the administration for his duties in safeguarding the American people."
McGovern cites as well the President's Daily Brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" as evidence that President Bush and his top advisers had information on which they might have acted to prevent the attacks. Instead, he said in an interview Thursday, "the president went off to chop wood in Texas."
The combination of neglecting credible information and acting precipitously on highly questionable intelligence is something he'd not previously encountered in his government service, says McGovern, whose wife's cousin died in one of the World Trade Center towers. He is speaking out now "simply to spread a little truth around," he says.
And the truth as he sees it is that the commission has made two errors in judgment -- first, the refusal to place responsibility for intelligence shortcomings on particular individuals and, second, the attempt to repair the damage by proposing creation of a super spy chief, perhaps with Cabinet rank.
Both errors stem from the same impulse to politicize things that ought to be outside politics, according to McGovern, who has a chapter in a forthcoming book from the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation: "Patriotism, Democracy, and Common Sense: Restoring America's Promise at Home and Abroad."
Take the legal memorandum prepared by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales saying, in effect, that the president wasn't bound by the Geneva Convention in his treatment of certain war prisoners.
"Not a lawyer in the country believes that opinion holds water," McGovern said. "It was essentially a political document, one that told the president what he wanted to hear."
Much the same thing happened with the intelligence services, which strained to give the president what he clearly wanted to hear -- only to watch the administration stretch that already strained intelligence into a pretext for war.
Putting the top intelligence officer in the Cabinet would only exacerbate that problem, says McGovern. "Being in the Cabinet automatically politicizes the post. The director of central intelligence need not be above the battle, but he should certainly be apart from it."
The failure to remain apart from the battle may be the chief failing of the Sept. 11 commission, McGovern believes. "This commission is not representative of America or of the families of those who died in 9/11. It is an archetypically establishment body, consisting of people who, with the exception of a token white woman, look exactly like me. They are all lawyers or politicians, or both -- and all acceptable to Vice President Cheney, who didn't want a commission in the first place. The result is facile, mischievous and disingenuous. The families deserve better."
willrasp@washpost.com
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
DM_tag();
The botched, bungled "war on terrorism" is NOT the strength of the Bush abomination, it is the SHAME of the Bush abomination...And the blurring of the distinction between the real, intensive, well-documented counter-terrorism efforts of the Clinton-Gore administration versus the apalling (and well-documented) lack of such effort from the Bush-Cheney abomination is the SHAME of the "US mainstream news media" and its propapunditgandists as well as at the very least an embarrassing admission of weakness from the 9/11 Commission itself...
Joe Conason, Salon: The commission confirms Clinton's widely reported "obsession" with al-Qaida, describing in detail his efforts to raise international awareness, increase spending on counterterrorism and homeland security long before that phrase became fashionable, and to demand action by the nation's covert forces. Indeed, their report credits Clinton with ignoring a serious threat to his own safety to seek foreign assistance in the struggle against bin Laden.
In early 2000, immediately following the millennium crisis, Clinton was scheduled to visit India. He insisted on visiting Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf as well - despite the fact that both the Secret Service and the CIA had "warned in the strongest terms that visiting Pakistan would risk the President's life." Musharraf made promises that were never carried out, despite carrots and sticks brandished at him by American diplomats.
The contrast with the Bush administration could scarcely be clearer. On that score, the report's most relevant section is Chapter 8, "The System Was Blinking Red." And the most damning paragraphs of that report involve the notorious Presidential Daily Brief of Aug. 6, 2001. Under the bold headline, "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.," the briefing states the al-Qaida leader "would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 'bring the fighting to America.'"
Repudiate the 9/11 over-Up and the Iraq War Lies, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/072504C.shtml
The President Who Took Bin Laden Seriously
By Joe Conason
Salon.com
Saturday 24 July 2004
Republicans are trying to blame 9/11 on Clinton, but the official report shows that he responded to al-Qaida threats far more effectively than Bush.
While the nonpartisan members of the 9/11 commission have sounded excruciatingly even-handed as they issued their final report, the Republican congressional leadership - which has always tried to thwart the 9/11 investigation - blatantly insists on blaming Clinton or the intelligence failures that resulted in the fateful attacks.
Two days before the report appeared, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and his leadership team exploited a briefing on the report to mount a partisan assault.
Their script, repeated by Hastert and his whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., suggested that "eight months of the Bush administration" couldn't make up for the policies established during "eight years of the Clinton administration."
Readers of the report will also note its sharp criticism of the inadequacy and inattention to the real "gathering threat" during the '90s in Congress, where the "overall attention ... to the terrorist threat was low ... [and] not impressive." Of course, the Republican caucus has exercised iron control over the nation's legislative agenda since 1995.
"Beginning in 1999," the 9/11 report notes, various expert and well-intended commissions "made scores of recommendations to address terrorism and homeland security but drew little attention from Congress." Hastert's colleagues are too busy preparing an investigation of Sandy Berger to act on the report's recommendations - in an obvious attempt to deflect attention from its findings.
That's an understandable tactic, because anyone who reads the report's actual text may well conclude that in confronting the terrorist threat, the Clinton administration was considerably more serious and alert than its successor. Consider the critical chapters devoted to the Millennium plot and the months preceding 9/11.
"President Clinton was deeply concerned about [Osama] Bin Ladin," remarks the opening section of Chapter 6, titled "From Threat to Threat." It goes on to note that by the summer of 1998, Clinton and his national security advisor Sandy Berger "ensured that they had a special daily pipeline of reports feeding them the latest updates on Bin Ladin's reported location."
Stopping the Millennium plot - in which al-Qaida operatives planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport and other major targets at the end of 1999 - was in great measure the result of a lucky break, as the report acknowledges. An alert customs agent arrested al-Qaida operative Ahmed Ressam, who was bringing a carload of explosives into the United States from British Columbia.
Along with other intelligence alarms, Ressam's arrest spurred Clinton and his aides, including Berger and counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, into a desperate, unrelenting effort to prevent disaster. To Clinton, the Millennium alert required what one commissioner called "knocking heads together" every day in the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department and the National Security Council.
Among the effects of that daily head-knocking, according to the 9/11 report, was to force usually reticent FBI officials to disgorge the kind of critical information that they habitually held back from other federal agencies. Ordered to appear in person before a committee of Cabinet-rank officials, "it was hard for FBI officials to hold back information." Operations were mounted simultaneously in eight countries to disrupt the Islamist conspiracies. After Ressam's arrest, more wiretaps than ever before were authorized to find the sleeper cells that Clarke warned were preparing attacks here.
Again and again, the report takes careful note of Clinton's active, personal participation in the effort against al-Qaida during the Millennium alert, exploding myths about his supposed distraction by domestic scandals. Clarke spoke directly with the president on several occasions that month. "In mid-December," the report reveals, "President Clinton signed a Memorandum of Notification (MON) giving the CIA broader authority to use foreign proxies to detain Bin Ladin lieutenants, without having to transfer them to U.S. custody. The authority was to capture, not kill, although lethal force might be used if necessary."
The commission confirms Clinton's widely reported "obsession" with al-Qaida, describing in detail his efforts to raise international awareness, increase spending on counterterrorism and homeland security long before that phrase became fashionable, and to demand action by the nation's covert forces. Indeed, their report credits Clinton with ignoring a serious threat to his own safety to seek foreign assistance in the struggle against bin Laden.
In early 2000, immediately following the millennium crisis, Clinton was scheduled to visit India. He insisted on visiting Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf as well - despite the fact that both the Secret Service and the CIA had "warned in the strongest terms that visiting Pakistan would risk the President's life." Musharraf made promises that were never carried out, despite carrots and sticks brandished at him by American diplomats.
The contrast with the Bush administration could scarcely be clearer. On that score, the report's most relevant section is Chapter 8, "The System Was Blinking Red." And the most damning paragraphs of that report involve the notorious Presidential Daily Brief of Aug. 6, 2001. Under the bold headline, "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.," the briefing states the al-Qaida leader "would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 'bring the fighting to America.'"
Before examining the report's findings about the PDB, however, another usually ignored aspect of this story is worth noting in Chapter 6, where the drumbeat of warnings about an impending al-Qaida attack in spring 2001 first comes up. By then, Richard Clarke's hair was on fire, as was that of CIA director George Tenet. Enter Vice President Dick Cheney, whose important contributions during the months preceding the disaster merit a single paragraph:
"In May, President Bush announced that Vice President Cheney would himself lead an effort looking at preparations for managing a possible attack by weapons of mass destruction and at more general problems of national preparedness," the report says on page 204. (Remember that the comprehensive, bipartisan Hart-Rudman report on those issues had been published and ignored by the new administration a few months earlier.) "The next few months were mainly spent organizing the effort and bringing an admiral from the Sixth Fleet back to Washington to manage it. The Vice President's task force was just getting under way when the 9/11 attack occurred."
For reasons best known to the commissioners, they made little effort to learn why Cheney did so little for so long, or what his role was in dealing with the terrorist threat before that fateful September. That was the sole reference to the Cheney task force that I could find in the report, which contains no index.
While the report describes repeated chances to thwart the 9/11 plot, its authors were deeply reluctant to say that it could have been stopped. But the report adds a significant new detail to the tale of the famous briefing that the president received while on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
What Bush and his national security advisor Condoleezza Rice dismissively termed a "historical document" - before its stunning contents were declassified - was dispatched to Texas with far more urgent intentions. So testified the two CIA analysts who authored it. The two analysts - one of whom is identified in the report's voluminous footnotes only as "Barbara S." - told the commission bluntly that they regarded the PDB as "an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a Bin Ladin attack in the United States remained both current and serious." While the Aug. 6 PDB was the 36th in a series dealing with al-Qaida or bin Laden, it was the first one given to the president in 2001 that was "devoted to the possibility of an attack in the United States."
Unfortunately, the alarmed analysts were unable to pinpoint the time, date, place or method by which bin Laden's minions would wreak bloody havoc on us. Without such specific data, the president responded complacently to their warning. The commission's report says that he never discussed the threat of a domestic attack with any of his aides, including the attorney general - although the PDB highlighted the news that the FBI was then conducting "approximately 70 full field operations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related."
The report records what President Bush told the commission about the Aug. 6 PDB during his closed interview, without additional comment. Perhaps none is required:
"He ... remembered thinking that it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way ... He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember, because the "US mainstream news media" will not remind you, and, unfortunately, elected officials in the Democratic Party may not dare too either, that the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident was against the establishment of the 9/11 Commission, then he tried to appoint Henry Kissinger as its chairman, then he fought every request for documents (e.g., the August 6, 2001 PDB, etc.) or testimony (e.g., his own and Condescencia Rice's) that might shed light on his pre-9/11 failures, his minions went so far as trying to deep-six many thousands of Clinton Gore national security documents, and, of course, in the end, he was even afraid to testify alone and embarrassingly had the VICE _resident testify with him, and yes, they even tried to limit those present to Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (who wimped out on the October Surprise so long ago), and refused to allow the 9/11 Commissioners to take their notes away with them...The LNS was waiting for Richard Clarke's public statement on the 9/11 Commission's final report, as anxiously as it waited for his book, and his sworn testimony...Here it is, and he has not let us down, nor has he let John O'Neill down...He has stayed true...Makes me wonder how long he can hold out at AnythingButSee (ABC) as their "national security analyst"? The LNS has one objection to Clarke's statement though: the American people "owe a deep debt of gratitute" to the 9/11 Families for standing up for the Truth when the 9/11 Commission did not, the American people "owe a deep debt of gratitute" to Richard Clarke for bringing REALITY to the proceedings, the American people "owe a deep debt of gratitute" to Sibel Edmonds and others who bravely came forward, the American people "owe a deep debt of gratitute" to John O'Neill for what he tried to do and sacrificed his life for, but the 9/11 Commission...Well, the LNS expected more from Richard Ben-Veniste. Quite possibly he wrung as much out of the process as he could. But we see no reason to glorify this group of Beltwayistan insiders for gilding the naked truth of the Bush cabal's pre-9/11 incompetence (or perhaps "criminal negligence" would be a more apt term).
P.S. And, of course, John Ashcroft certainly owes a public apology to Jamie Gorelick, but it ain't gonna happen either.
Richard Clarke, New York Times: Americans owe the 9/11
commission a deep debt for its extensive exposition of
the facts surrounding the World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks. Yet, because the commission had a
goal of creating a unanimous report from a bipartisan
group, it softened the edges and left it to the public
to draw many conclusions.
Among the obvious truths that were documented but unarticulated were the facts that the Bush administration did little on terrorism before 9/11, and that by invading Iraq the administration has left us less safe as a nation (Fortunately, opinion polls show that the majority of Americans have already come to these conclusions on their own. )
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/opinion/25clar.html?hp--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 25, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Honorable Commission, Toothless Report
By RICHARD A. CLARKE
Americans owe the 9/11 commission a deep debt for its
extensive exposition of the facts surrounding the
World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Yet, because
the commission had a goal of creating a unanimous
report from a bipartisan group, it softened the edges
and left it to the public to draw many conclusions.
Among the obvious truths that were documented but
unarticulated were the facts that the Bush
administration did little on terrorism before 9/11,
and that by invading Iraq the administration has left
us less safe as a nation. (Fortunately, opinion polls
show that the majority of Americans have already come
to these conclusions on their own. )
What the commissioners did clearly state was that Iraq
had no collaborative relationship with Al Qaeda and no
hand in 9/11. They also disclosed that Iran provided
support to Al Qaeda, including to some 9/11 hijackers.
These two facts may cause many people to conclude that
the Bush administration focused on the wrong country.
They would be right to think that.
So what now? News coverage of the commission's
recommendations has focused on the organizational
improvements: a new cabinet-level national
intelligence director and a new National
Counterterrorism Center to ensure that our 15 or so
intelligence agencies play well together. Both are
good ideas, but they are purely incremental. Had these
changes been made six years ago, they would not have
significantly altered the way we dealt with Al Qaeda;
they certainly would not have prevented 9/11. Putting
these recommendations in place will marginally improve
our ability to crush the new, decentralized Al Qaeda,
but there are other changes that would help more.
First, we need not only a more powerful person at the
top of the intelligence community, but also more
capable people throughout the agencies - especially
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central
Intelligence Agency. In other branches of the
government, employees can and do join on as mid- and
senior-level managers after beginning their careers
and gaining experience elsewhere. But at the F.B.I.
and C.I.A., the key posts are held almost exclusively
by those who joined young and worked their way up.
This has created uniformity, insularity,
risk-aversion, torpidity and often mediocrity.
The only way to infuse these key agencies with
creative new blood is to overhaul their hiring and
promotion practices to attract workers who don't
suffer the "failures of imagination" that the 9/11
commissioners repeatedly blame for past failures.
Second, in addition to separating the job of C.I.A.
director from the overall head of American
intelligence, we must also place the C.I.A.'s analysts
in an agency that is independent from the one that
collects the intelligence. This is the only way to
avoid the "groupthink" that hampered the agency's
ability to report accurately on Iraq. It is no
accident that the only intelligence agency that got it
right on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State
Department - a small, elite group of analysts
encouraged to be independent thinkers rather than
spies or policy makers.
Analysts aren't the only ones who should be
reconstituted in small, elite groups. Either the
C.I.A. or the military must create a larger and more
capable commando force for covert antiterrorism work,
along with a network of agents and front companies
working under "nonofficial cover'' - that is, without
diplomatic protection - to support the commandos.
Even more important than any bureaucratic suggestions
is the report's cogent discussion of who the enemy is
and what strategies we need in the fight. The
commission properly identified the threat not as
terrorism (which is a tactic, not an enemy), but as
Islamic jihadism, which must be defeated in a battle
of ideas as well as in armed conflict.
We need to expose the Islamic world to values that are
more attractive than those of the jihadists. This
means aiding economic development and political
openness in Muslim countries, and efforts to stabilize
places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Restarting the Israel-Palestinian peace process is
also vital.
Also, we can't do this alone. In addition to "hearts
and minds" television and radio programming by the
American government, we would be greatly helped by a
pan-Islamic council of respected spiritual and secular
leaders to coordinate (without United States
involvement) the Islamic world's own ideological
effort against the new Al Qaeda.
Unfortunately, because of America's low standing in
the Islamic world, we are now at a great disadvantage
in the battle of ideas. This is primarily because of
the unnecessary and counterproductive invasion of
Iraq. In pulling its bipartisan punches, the
commission failed to admit the obvious: we are less
capable of defeating the jihadists because of the Iraq
war.
Unanimity has its value, but so do debate and dissent
in a democracy facing a crisis. To fully realize the
potential of the commission's report, we must see it
not as the end of the discussion but as a partial
blueprint for victory. The jihadist enemy has learned
how to spread hate and how to kill - and it is still
doing both very effectively three years after 9/11.
Richard A. Clarke, former head of counterterrorism at
the National Security Council, is the author of
"Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."
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Buried deep in the 9/11 Commission's final report, i.e. wimped out on by the milk-toast, limp-wristed Commissioners, and wholly ignored by the "US Mainstream News Media." [Remember, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) was the only Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee who had the courage to vote against Ashcroft's confirmation.] Of course, this embarrassing and disturbing glimpse into Ashcroft's psychogical state pales in comparsion to the significance of his sworn testimony in contradiction to that of FBI official Thomas Pickering. But you won't hear about it from the propapunditgandists...
www.misleader.org: In their final report released yesterday, the bi-partisan 9/11 commission concluded that Ashcroft's public testimony was false and misleading...
The commission bluntly stated that Ashcroft's public testimony did not "fairly or accurately reflect the significance of the 1995 documents and their relevance to the 2001 discussions."2 Specifically, "The Gorelick memorandum applied to two particular criminal cases, neither of which was involved in the summer 2001 information-sharing discussions." Any barriers between the law enforcement and intelligence communities were not created from written guidelines by internal Justice Department conflicts which "neither Attorney General [Ashcroft or Reno] acted to resolve" prior to 9/11.
Save the US Constituion, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df07232004.html
July 23, 2004 | |
Ashcroft Publicly Misleads 9/11 Commission
During his public testimony before the 9/11 commission, Attorney General John Ashcroft attempted to deflect criticism from his own lackluster counterterrorism efforts by pinning the blame on a 1995 memo written by former deputy Attorney General (and current 9/11 commissioner) Jamie Gorelick. Ashcroft said, "The 1995 guidelines and the procedures developed around them imposed draconian barriers, barriers between the law enforcement and intelligence communities. The wall effectively excluded prosecutors from intelligence investigations. The wall left intelligence agents afraid to talk with criminal prosecutors or agents."1 Ashcroft called the memo "the single greatest structural cause for the September 11 problem." In their final report released yesterday, the bi-partisan 9/11 commission concluded that Ashcroft's public testimony was false and misleading.
The commission bluntly stated that Ashcroft's public testimony did not "fairly or accurately reflect the significance of the 1995 documents and their relevance to the 2001 discussions."2 Specifically, "The Gorelick memorandum applied to two particular criminal cases, neither of which was involved in the summer 2001 information-sharing discussions." Any barriers between the law enforcement and intelligence communities were not created from written guidelines by internal Justice Department conflicts which "neither Attorney General [Ashcroft or Reno] acted to resolve" prior to 9/11.
Even Ashcroft himself has recently backed away from his April testimony before the commission. In a recent document released by the Justice Department, Ashcroft conceded that Gorelick's memo permitted "interaction and information sharing between prosecutors and intelligence officers" and allowed the FBI to use the fruits of an intelligence investigation "in a criminal prosecution."3 Ashcroft failed to mention that guidelines issued by his own deputy Attorney General, Larry Thompson, were more restrictive because they affirmed the Gorelick memo and added additional requirements.4
Sources:
"Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearing," The Washington Post, 04/13/04.
9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 539.
Report from the Field: The USA PATRIOT Act at Work, U.S. Department of Justice, July 2004.
"Thompson Memo," U.S. Department of Justice, 08/06/01.
Two more US soldiers died in Iraq yesterday. For what?
The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich.
The "US mainstream news media" does not want you to
know that more US soldiers have died in Iraq in July,
already, i.e. post-"handover," than in all of June,
i.e. pre-"handover."
The Emperor has no uniform...
Matt Kelley, Associated Press: The Pentagon on Friday
released newly discovered payroll records from
President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National
Guard, though the records shed no new light on the
future president's activities during that summer.
A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that
the records were destroyed was an ``inadvertent
oversight.''
Like records released earlier by the White House, the
newly released computerized payroll records show no
indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during
July, August and September of 1972. Pay records
covering all of 1972, released previously, also
indicated no guard service for Bush during those three
months.
Cleanse the White House of the Chickenhawk Coup and
Its War-Profiteering Cronies, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4344593,00.html
Pentagon Finds Bush's Guard Records
Friday July 23, 2004 10:46 PM
AP Photo MIPM104
By MATT KELLEY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon on Friday released
newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's
1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, though the
records shed no new light on the future president's
activities during that summer.
A Pentagon official said the earlier contention that
the records were destroyed was an ``inadvertent
oversight.''
Like records released earlier by the White House, the
newly released computerized payroll records show no
indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during
July, August and September of 1972. Pay records
covering all of 1972, released previously, also
indicated no guard service for Bush during those three
months.
The records do not give any new information toward
determining whether Bush kept his National Guard
commitments during 1972, when he transferred to the
Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the
U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Bush kept his
service commitments, pointing to the fact that Bush
was honorably discharged in 1973.
The release came days before Democrats began their
national convention in Boston to officially nominate
Sen. John Kerry as their presidential candidate.
Military veterans are being tapped at the convention
to help tell Kerry's story as he prepares to accept
the party's nomination next week.
Democrats have sought to contrast Bush's National
Guard service with Kerry's Vietnam War record. Kerry
enlisted in the Navy, volunteered for combat in
Vietnam and earned several medals including a Silver
Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. After
returning from Vietnam, Kerry became a prominent
anti-war activist.
The Associated Press had asked a federal judge on July
16 to order the Pentagon to quickly turn over a copy
of the pay records. The AP had sued under the Freedom
of Information Act to obtain the records from a state
library records center in Texas.
Records of Bush's National Guard service released
previously did not conclusively show whether Bush
fulfilled his service requirements in 1972 and 1973,
during the Vietnam War.
Bush had transferred to an Alabama National Guard unit
while he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of
Republican Winton Blount.
The Pentagon had said that the payroll records for
that time period had been inadvertently destroyed.
``Previous attempts to locate the missing records at
the Federal Records Center had been unsuccessful due
to the incorrect records accession numbers provided,''
the Pentagon's Office of Freedom of Information chief
C.Y. Talbott said in a letter Friday to The Associated
Press.
``The correct numbers were obtained ... and the
records were found.''
Talbott wrote that the Defense Department ``regrets
this inadvertent oversight during the initial search
and the delay it caused in your receipt of these
materials.''
(UPDATES throughout with records shedding no new light
on Guard service question; corrects name of Pentagon
official to Talbott, sted Talbot; DELETES outdated
final graf. No pickup.)
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
"Out, out damn spot!"
Sibel Edmonds, www.911citizenwatch.org: This puzzles
me, knowing the detailed information, I, myself,
provided to the commission during a three and a half
hour tape-recorded briefing; yet, finding only one
footnote (footnote 25) briefly stating insufficient
translation capability within the Bureau. It is highly
curious that the report mentions nothing regarding the
intentionally blocked translations by certain Middle
Eastern Translators, who also breached FBI security,
as confirmed by the Senate Judiciary; nothing
regarding adamant resistance to investigations of
certain terrorist and criminal activities; refusing to
transfer them to Counterterrorism from existing
counterintelligence investigations, solely based on
the vague notion of protecting certain foreign
relations’; nothing regarding continued efforts to
cover up certain highly specific information received
prior to September 11, even now, years after 9/11; or
nothing regarding knowingly allowing certain
individuals, directly or indirectly related to
terrorist activities, to leave the United States
months after 9/11, without any interrogation, and per
the State Department’s request. I am highly
puzzled and curious.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
Puzzled & Curious [from Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds]
Commentary / Current News about 9-11
Date: Jul 24, 2004 - 12:09 AM
By Sibel Edmonds
July 23, 2004
The countdown is finally over, and a five hundred
sixty seven-page Commission report is out. According
to the Commission Chairman, they have seen every
single document and have interviewed every single
relevant witness and authority.
According to all Commission members, this report
should be considered a resounding success, since it
encompasses all information relevant to the terrorist
attacks of 9/11, and very little, almost none, has
been redacted, classified, or glossed over. Yet we
have heard no one screaming "classification",
"sensitive diplomatic relations", "highly sensitive
foreign business relations", or "national security
implications." This is highly puzzling and curious.
This puzzles me, considering that every investigation
by the Congress and the IG into my issues, every
report involving my already confirmed allegations
involving serious lapses within the FBI, and every
legal procedure and due process dealing with my case
alone, has been blocked, gagged, entirely classified,
and stopped. It is extremely curious that while
investigations and reports on one case alone has
created so much havoc, a massive investigation and a
report involving all intelligence agencies and other
government bodies, including the State Department, has
evoked zero objections based on "sensitive foreign
relations," "highly classified intelligence matters",
and/or "ongoing intelligence investigations." I am
highly puzzled and curious.
This puzzles me, knowing the detailed information, I,
myself, provided to the commission during a three and
a half hour tape-recorded briefing; yet, finding only
one footnote (footnote 25) briefly stating
insufficient translation capability within the Bureau.
It is highly curious that the report mentions nothing
regarding the intentionally blocked translations by
certain Middle Eastern Translators, who also breached
FBI security, as confirmed by the Senate Judiciary;
nothing regarding adamant resistance to investigations
of certain terrorist and criminal activities; refusing
to transfer them to Counterterrorism from existing
counterintelligence investigations, solely based on
the vague notion of protecting certain foreign
relations’; nothing regarding continued efforts to
cover up certain highly specific information received
prior to September 11, even now, years after 9/11; or
nothing regarding knowingly allowing certain
individuals, directly or indirectly related to
terrorist activities, to leave the United States
months after 9/11, without any interrogation, and per
the State Department’s request. I am highly
puzzled and curious.
This puzzles me, having first hand knowledge of on
going intelligence received and processed by the FBI
since 1997, which contained specific information
implicating certain high level government and elected
officials in criminal activities directly and
indirectly related to terrorist money laundering,
narcotics, and illegal arms sales. It is highly
curious that the report omitted all this information,
knowing that others in the Congress have been briefed
on these issues, having been given the names of
targets involved, Special Agents, translators, field
offices, and files. I am highly puzzled and curious.
After the many public hearings shows, where the
Commissioners very skillfully played their "good
cop—bad cop" routine, and displayed their life-long
mastery of the political art of saying, but not
saying, and asking, but not asking, all parties and
all agencies have readily accepted this report. The
President apparently considered the report rosey and
appropriately symbolized its presentation in his "rose
garden." The previous administration sighed with
relief, having scored a negative 4, compared to the
current administration’s negative 6, in the blame
game. The notorious Attorney General, John Ashcroft,
left his over-secrecy and classification guns in their
holsters. It is highly puzzling and curious to see
that this report ended up being blessed by all those
responsible for our nation’s security and interests,
which were severely violated on September 11. I, for
one, am highly puzzled and curious, how about you?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article comes from 9/11 CitizensWatch
http://www.911citizenswatch.org/
The URL for this story is:
http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=354
Of course, it is worse than this study indicates...because in recent weeks the lockdown in on AnythingBuSee (ABC), SeeBS (CBS), NotBeSeen (NBC), etc. has extended to the deteriorating political and military circumstances in Iraq, and the mounting death toll for US soldiers there, as well as Abu Ghraib, Plame, Chalabi, the Alabama National Guard and other scandals...And, of course, Michael Eisner's AnythingButSee (remember Disney refused to release Fahrenheit 911) is the worst offender...It's the Media, Stupid.
Timothy Karr, www.mediachannel.org: During an average evening newscast in June, the networks were nearly four times as likely to mention President Bush as the Democratic presidential candidate...
ABC World News Tonight gave the least attention to Kerry and his campaign in June, devoting only 15.8 percent of its candidate coverage to the Massachusetts senator. In June, the half-hour newscast devoted 83.2 percent of its candidate coverage to Bush, according to the Media Tenor/Media for Democracy data.
Break the Bush Cabal Stranhglehold on the "US Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004 Defeat Bush (again!)
Big Three Networks Dim Their Lights on Kerry
By Timothy Karr
MediaChannel.org
A new study of network TV election coverage over the first half of 2004 reveals a dimming spotlight for Democratic candidate John Kerry. Meanwhile, the Bush campaign has made impressive strides in placing their own candidate before the cameras. Can Kerry recapture the attention of American viewers before voters go to the polls in November?
NEW YORK, July 22, 2004 -- The Kerry campaign's share of network news coverage has been on a steady slide since the Massachusetts senator all but clinched his party nomination after the March 2 "Super Tuesday" primaries. According to a survey of media election coverage during the first half of 2004, President George W. Bush's share of the nightly newscasts has risen steadily through the year, while Senator John Kerry's image and words faded from network screens.
The study, released today by Media for Democracy and Media Tenor, is based on daily monitoring of network evening newscasts from January 1 through June 30, 2004.
During an average evening newscast in June, the networks were nearly four times as likely to mention President Bush as the Democratic presidential candidate. By contrast, in March of this year, network mention of Senator Kerry (40 percent of all coverage of Kerry, Bush and Ralph Nader) nearly rivaled coverage of incumbent Bush (59 percent).
ABC World News Tonight gave the least attention to Kerry and his campaign in June, devoting only 15.8 percent of its candidate coverage to the Massachusetts senator. In June, the half-hour newscast devoted 83.2 percent of its candidate coverage to Bush, according to the Media Tenor/Media for Democracy data. (Get the full Media Tenor / Media for Democracy study)
Continuing analysis into July shows that Kerry enjoyed a jump in network coverage following his selection of Senator John Edwards as his running mate, but that this attention flattened to June levels during the last week surveyed -- July 12 through 16.
Alarm Bells?
"John Kerry has had an increasingly hard time competing with the president for television news coverage," said Media Tenor President Roland Schatz. "Bush, as head of state, was expected to have a natural edge in coverage, but our study shows a precipitous decline in focus on Kerry, which should be ringing alarms at the Democratic contender's campaign headquarters."
Four years earlier, Democratic frontrunner Al Gore captured an even share (50.1 percent) of the network spotlight in June 2000, by comparison to then Texas Governor George Bush's portion (49.9 percent) of all coverage devoted to the candidates, according to the study.
"Voters are reluctant to vote a standing president out of office unless his opponent maintains high visibility," Says Schatz. "John Kerry has not been able to consistently attract network attention since the primaries."
The Media Tenor data support a New York Times/CBS June 27 poll in which 36 percent of Americans said that they were undecided or had not heard enough about Kerry to form an opinion about whether to support him in the November ballot.
The Democratic Party's plans to leverage next week's Democratic National Convention to showcase their candidate for undecided Americans suffered a setback earlier this month when ABC, CBS and NBC elected to cut back network coverage of the conventions to an average of three hours per network, per convention. In 1976, each of the three major commercial networks provided on average more than nine hours of live
broadcasts from each convention.
But even factoring in the number of new cable stations devoting their primetime coverage to the conventions this year, overall television viewership has been in steady decline since the 1970s. That means that candidates have to make aggressive use of whatever coverage opportunities they can get, analysts say.
"For Kerry to cross the threshold and his image to become clearer to the public, he does need to get more coverage," Carroll Doherty, editor for the Pew Research Center, said. "The television lull between the primaries and the conventions is always tough for the challenger."
Good Coverage Is Often Bad News
Though many voters may not have a well-defined view of the Democratic candidate yet, Kerry is still running neck-in-neck with Bush in the many presidential preference polls that Pew Research Center monitors throughout the year. Doherty notes that while candidate Bush gets more attention from the networks' coverage, the coverage is not always positive.
Media Tenor's study shows network news stories about Bush had a more negative tone than stories about Kerry. Of the nearly 1,176 statements made about Bush during the networks' half-hour newscasts in the first six months of the year, Media Tenor classified 24.1 percent (or 284 statements) as negative. Stories that had a particularly negative cast included coverage tying Bush to terrorism advisor Richard Clarke's 9-11 Commission testimony, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and escalating violence in Iraq.
On average, this negative cast receded in June, largely due to positive coverage of Bush's appearances as head of state during the D-Day celebrations in France and the G-8 conference in the US.
The study categorizes only 13.1 percent of Kerry's January through June network coverage as negative.
Buying Ad Time to Take Up the Slack
Many voters now learn more about candidates from the tidal wave of political ads that have come to dominate primetime viewing in many swing-voter states this year. Kerry's camp has already spent more than $80 million on political ads to put their candidate before voters, a massive windfall for eager local broadcasters.
In western Michigan, on an average night in July television viewers are 13 times more likely to hear about candidates and their positions from political ads than from the 5:30, 6 and 11 O'clock local newscasts, according to a recent study by the Grand Rapids Institute of Information Democracy. A similar picture is emerging in other hotly contested election states where political ads do more to educate (or in many cases misinform) voters about federal candidates than the local news.
For the Kerry campaign, coverage by the national networks of the primaries and convention was the hoped-for antidote to the dearth of local political coverage.
With the networks planning to scale back on convention coverage, the campaigns are now turning to the three televised debates scheduled to begin in September to regain mainstream airtime denied their candidates in the first half of the year.
"The first debate is crucial for Kerry," Doherty said, but he remains skeptical that mainstream network coverage has the ability to influence voters as it had in the past.
"We're looking at a new media universe where mainstream political coverage is missing a lot of people, especially younger voters," Doherty said. "As a result, the broad public is much harder to reach for campaigns."
-- Timothy Karr is the executive director of MediaChannel.org.
© MediaChannel.org, 2004. All rights reserved.
Here are, first, the LNS's seven points of dispute with the 9/11 Commission and the "US Mainstream News Media" *coverage* of its final report,
and second, a powerful analysis of what actually is
IN the report, and can therefore be drawn on by
Kerry-Edwards and their champions (in particular, Max
Cleland (D-GA), Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fraudida) and Gen.
Wesley Clark (D-NATO)...
First, our seven points of dispute with 9/11 Commission's milk-toast final report:
1. Either Clinton or Bush is Lying. Bill Clinton says
that he and the increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident discussed national security and
that he (Bubba) warned the increasingly unhinged and
incredibly shrinking _resident that Osama Bin Lsden
and Al Qaeda was the greatest threat that the US faced
in 2001. The increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident, of course, remembers the
conversation differently and does not recall Osama Bin
Lsden and Al Qaeda being mentioned. (These conflicting
recollections are in the final report.) Either Bubba
or the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking
_resident is lying. Do you think that we will see a
national poll on which one of the two versions of the
encounter the US Electorate believes?
2. The problems concerning intelligence sharing and
analysis are well-known and systemic. That's why the
Clinton-Gore national security team had regular and
frequent "principles meeting" to "shake the tree" for
intelligence on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It was a
triage-fix, a work-around, to overcome these
well-known and systemic problems. The Clinton-Gore
national security team's approach contributed
significantly, according to Richard Clarke and others,
the thwarting of Al Qaeda's so-called "Millenium
plot." This approach was terminted by the Bush cabal
after the seized the White House, and, indeed, the
threat of Osama Bin Lsden and Al Qaeda was given a
much lower priority than in the Clinton-Gore
administration.
3. The legend of John O'Neill (to whom Richard Clarke
dedicated his book, Against All Enemies) remains
unacknowledged and unsanctified by the government and the country he gave his life trying to protect. The French bestseller, Forbidden Truth, a PBS Frontline Document, "The Man Who Knew," and a New Yorker
Magazine feature article provide ample reason for a
serious inquiry, but, disgracefully, his name was only
mentioned briefly in passing by 9/11 Commmissioner
Richard Ben-Veniste. For more information on John
O'Neill, and what he tried to do and what happened to
him. refer to the LNS searchable database.
4. The 9/11 Commission also wimped out on the case of
whistleblower Sibel Edmonds in its final product. It
simply refers the reader to the [DoJ] Inspector
General's report, but, of course, this document has
been classified. For more information on Sibel Edmons
and her heroic witnessing, refer to the LNS searchable
database. (It has not been classified, yet.)
5. In perhaps of its most ludricrous twists of the
truth, the 9/11 Commission's report gives a free pass
to the governments of Saudia Arabia and Pakistan.
Incredible. What will Danny Pearl's wife say? He was
decapitated in his attempt to explore the Pakistani
ISI's links to Al Qaeda. And concerning the
Saudis...Well, really, there is no need to
elaborate...[In today's other posting, the LNS will provide you with a very important analysis by Micheal Meacher, Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton, and formerly Environment Minister in the government of the
shell-of-a-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair, published in the Guardian (UK) on these issues.]
6. The 9/11 Commission also limp-wristed the issue of
the Saudi flights cleared by the White House. And no,
we do not care that Richard Clarke has taken
responsibility for authorizing them. Fortunately,
Craig Unger is on his game, and Sen. Frank Lautemberg
(D-New Jersey) has courage. Here is Unger's posting on
the latest developments in this outrageous breach: For
months we’ve known that approximately two dozen
members of the bin Laden family were among the 142
passengers on the White House-approved Saudi
evacuation, but exactly which members of the family
were on the flights? This week, Senator Frank
Lautenberg (D-NJ) released the passenger list for the
September 19, 2001, Boston to Paris flight, showing
who was on the flight for the first time. Two names in
particular might be of interest to investigators. The
documents show that Khalil Binladin boarded in
Orlando. According to the German wire service Deutsche
Presse-Agentur, Khalil, who had business interests in
the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, had won the
attention of Brazilian investigators because of his
visits to the Minas Gerais capital, Belo Horizonte,
which was allegedly a Hezbollah training center.
Another passenger, Omar Awad bin Laden, a nephew of
Osama’s, lived with his brother Abdullah, who was a
key figure in forming the American branch of the World
Assembly of Muslim Youth. Federal agents raided WAMY
this spring. The FBI has described the group as a
“suspected terrorist organization.”
7. And, of course, there is the day that John Ashcroft
testified...Did either Ashcroft or Thomas Pickering of
the FBI, perjuried themselves during those hearings?
Just like the increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident's selective memory about his
conversation with Bill Clinton, Ashcorft's memory
seems to have misplaced an awful lot of relevant
information about the threat from Al Qaeda in the
summer of 2001. But, wait, we're not finished...Don't
forget Ashcroft's sliming of 9/11 Commissioner Jaime
Gorelick (D-DoJ) in his testimony (look it up in the
LNS searchable database). It was spooky, deceitful and
embarrassingly revealing about Ashcroft's own psychological state, and certainly deserved to have been rebuked by the full Commission
in its final report. Why is Ashcroft alone allowed to make partisan attacks without political repercussion? And now, here's David Corn's excellent analysis...
David Corn, The Nation: The final report of the 9/11
commission confirms many of the panel's preliminary
findings that have--or should have--embarrassed the
Bush administration. The commission does note, "Our
aim has not been to assign individual blame. Our aim
has been to provide the fullest possible account of
the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons
learned." And it is true that the report does point to
screw-ups and negligent policymaking committed during
both the Bush II and Clinton administrations. But
George W. Bush is the incumbent president who has to
face the voters in November. Although Republicans in
recent days have been highlighting the mistakes of the
Clinton years, it is not inappropriate for voters to
focus on what report tells us about Bush and his
administration. As a public service, here is a look at
several of those critical portions...
Within the first few days after Bush's inauguration,
Clarke approached [national security adviser
Condoleezza] Rice in an effort to get her--and the new
President--to give terrorism very high priority and to
act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last
few months of the previous administration. After Rice
requested that all senior staff identify desirable
major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted
an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He
attached to it his [anti-al Qaeda] 1998 Delenda Plan
and the December 2000 strategy paper. "We urgently
need ...a Principals level review on the al Qida
network," Clarke wrote.
He wanted the Principals Committee to decide whether
al Qaeda was "a first order threat" or a more modest
worry being overblown by "chicken little" alarmists.
Alluding to the transition briefing that he had
prepared for Rice, Clarke wrote that al Qaeda "is not
some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be
included in broader regional policy." Two key
decisions that had been deferred, he noted, concerned
covert aid to keep the Northern Alliance alive when
fighting began again in Afghanistan in the spring, and
covert aid to the Uzbeks. Clarke also suggested that
decisions should be made soon on messages to the
Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in
Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations,
and on "when and how... to respond to the attack on
the USS Cole."
The national security advisor did not respond directly
to Clarke's memorandum. No Principals Committee
meeting on al Qaeda was held until September 4, 2001
(although the Principals Committee met frequently on
other subjects, such as the Middle East peace process,
Russia, and the Persian Gulf ).
The lack of response to Clarke does appear to indicate
that for Rice, at least, the al Qaeda threat was not a
high priority. The report details the many steps the
Bush administration did take in its first eight months
to establish a counterterrorism policy aimed at al
Qaeda. By no means were Rice and others doing nothing.
But counterterrorism was not on the fast track.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1594
The 9/11 Report: Bad News for Bush
07/23/2004 @ 07:40am
The final report of the 9/11 commission confirms many
of the panel's preliminary findings that have--or
should have--embarrassed the Bush administration. The
commission does note, "Our aim has not been to assign
individual blame. Our aim has been to provide the
fullest possible account of the events surrounding
9/11 and to identify lessons learned." And it is true
that the report does point to screw-ups and negligent
policymaking committed during both the Bush II and
Clinton administrations. But George W. Bush is the
incumbent president who has to face the voters in
November. Although Republicans in recent days have
been highlighting the mistakes of the Clinton years,
it is not inappropriate for voters to focus on what
report tells us about Bush and his administration. As
a public service, here is a look at several of those
critical portions.
* Bush's initial reaction. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11 has made famous--or infamous--the scene when
Bush, after having been told that a second airliner
had hit the World Trace Center, sits for seven minutes
in a Florida classroom, as the kids read a book. The
9/11 report says,
The President was seated in a classroom when, at 9:05,
Andrew Card whispered to him: "A second plane hit the
second tower. America is under attack." The President
told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have
the country see an excited reaction at a moment of
crisis. The press was standing behind the children; he
saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The
President felt he should project strength and calm
until he could better understand what was happening.
In the Moore film, Bush hardly looks as if he is
projecting "calm." To me--and, of course, this is a
highly subjective view--he has a
what-the-hell-should-I-do expression on his face. But
Bush backers and detractors are likely to see what
they want to in that seven-minute performance. Bush's
reaction, though, cannot be judged on the basis of
what is now known about the 9/11 attacks. Consider
this: when Bush was told about the second plane, it
was obvious that the United States was under attack.
Today we know that attack involved four planes. But at
the moment that Card whispered into his ear, Bush (and
everyone else) had no idea about the full extent of
the assault. There could have been twenty airliners
hijacked. There could have been WMD attacks coming.
Perhaps minutes mattered. So how was it a projection
of strength and calm for Bush to remain in a
classroom--doing nothing--when who-knew-what was
happening? He could have easily excused himself,
especially as pagers and cell phones were sounding.
His explanation rings hollow.
* Terrorism as a priority for the Bush administration.
Former counterterrorism Richard Clarke triggered a
fierce, partisan debate earlier this year when he
wrote in a book that the Bush administration pre-9/11
did not take the threat of al Qaeda seriously enough.
The Bush administration challenged Clarke's account
and attacked him vigorously. The 9/11 commission's
report does suggest the terrorism was not an A-list
topic for the Bush White House:
Within the first few days after Bush's inauguration,
Clarke approached [national security adviser
Condoleezza] Rice in an effort to get her--and the new
President--to give terrorism very high priority and to
act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last
few months of the previous administration. After Rice
requested that all senior staff identify desirable
major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted
an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He
attached to it his [anti-al Qaeda] 1998 Delenda Plan
and the December 2000 strategy paper. "We urgently
need ...a Principals level review on the al Qida
network," Clarke wrote.
He wanted the Principals Committee to decide whether
al Qaeda was "a first order threat" or a more modest
worry being overblown by "chicken little" alarmists.
Alluding to the transition briefing that he had
prepared for Rice, Clarke wrote that al Qaeda "is not
some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be
included in broader regional policy." Two key
decisions that had been deferred, he noted, concerned
covert aid to keep the Northern Alliance alive when
fighting began again in Afghanistan in the spring, and
covert aid to the Uzbeks. Clarke also suggested that
decisions should be made soon on messages to the
Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in
Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations,
and on "when and how... to respond to the attack on
the USS Cole."
The national security advisor did not respond directly
to Clarke's memorandum. No Principals Committee
meeting on al Qaeda was held until September 4, 2001
(although the Principals Committee met frequently on
other subjects, such as the Middle East peace process,
Russia, and the Persian Gulf ).
The lack of response to Clarke does appear to indicate
that for Rice, at least, the al Qaeda threat was not a
high priority. The report details the many steps the
Bush administration did take in its first eight months
to establish a counterterrorism policy aimed at al
Qaeda. By no means were Rice and others doing nothing.
But counterterrorism was not on the fast track. An
example from the report:
In May, President Bush announced that Vice President
Cheney would himself lead an effort looking at
preparations for managing a possible attack by weapons
of mass destruction and at more general problems of
national preparedness. The next few months were mainly
spent organizing the effort and bringing an admiral
from the Sixth Fleet back to Washington to manage it.
The Vice President's task force was just getting under
way when the 9/11 attack occurred.
And another example:
The Bush administration did not develop new diplomatic
initiatives on al Qaeda with the Saudi government
before 9/11. Vice President Cheney called Crown Prince
Abdullah on July 5, 2001, to seek Saudi help in
preventing threatened attacks on American facilities
in the Kingdom. Secretary of State Powell met with the
crown prince twice before 9/11. They discussed topics
like Iraq, not al Qaeda.U.S.-Saudi relations in the
summer of 2001 were marked by sometimes heated
disagreements about ongoing Israeli-Palestinian
violence, not about Bin Ladin.
Even when the Bush administration eventually finalized
a "three-phase, multiyear plan to pressure and perhaps
ultimately topple the Taliban leadership"--on
September 10, 2001--the plan was not ready for
implementation. The report notes, "Funding still
needed to be located. The military component remained
unclear. Pakistan remained uncooperative. The domestic
policy institutions were largely uninvolved."
Is it fair to hold the Bush crowd to a post-9/11
standard? In a way, yes. Presidents are responsible
for what happens on their watch. When the economy
improves or declines, they get the credit or the
blame. In this case, though, the Bush administration
can be faulted for establishing the wrong priorities.
For instance, Bush and his lot said that missile
defense was a top need because a ballistic missile
attack from a rogue state was a top threat.
(Intelligence community analysts disagreed with this
threat assessment.) Well, the Bushies got that wrong,
and a political punishment would not be unreasonable.
* The Bush administration's reaction to the threat
reports of 2001. The 9/11 commission's final report
elaborately details the flood of intelligence reports
received in the spring and summer of 2001 indicating
something big was coming from al Qaeda. The report
backs up the CYA assertion made by administration
officials that most of the reports appeared to suggest
the target for such an attack would be outside the
United States. Nevertheless, one question has been how
the Bush administration responded to the high state of
alert. One of his cabinet members comes out
particularly poorly in the commission's report.
Attorney General Ashcroft was briefed by the CIA in
May and by [acting FBI chief Thomas] Pickard in early
July about the danger [being indicated in the
intelligence reporting]. Pickard said he met with
Ashcroft once a week in late June, through July, and
twice in August. There is a dispute regarding
Ashcroft's interest in Pickard's briefings about the
terrorist threat situation. Pickard told us that after
two such briefings Ashcroft told him that he did not
want to hear about the threats anymore. Ashcroft
denies Pickard's charge. Pickard says he continued to
present terrorism information during further briefings
that summer, but nothing further on the "chatter" the
U.S. government was receiving.
The Attorney General told us he asked Pickard whether
there was intelligence about attacks in the United
States and that Pickard said no. Pickard said he
replied that he could not assure Ashcroft that there
would be no attacks in the United States, although the
reports of threats were related to overseas targets.
Ashcroft said he therefore assumed the FBI was doing
what it needed to do. He acknowledged that in
retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption. He did
not ask the FBI what it was doing in response to the
threats and did not task it to take any specific
action. He also did not direct the INS, then still
part of the Department of Justice, to take any
specific action.
In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in
response to the threat. They did not have direction,
and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were
not hardened. Transportation systems were not
fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted
against a domestic threat. State and local law
enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's
efforts. The public was not warned. The terrorists
exploited deep institutional failings within our
government. The question is whether extra vigilance
might have turned up an opportunity to disrupt the
plot. As seen in Chapter 7, al Qaeda's operatives made
mistakes. At least two such mistakes created
opportunities during 2001, especially in late August.
The commission, then, is suggesting that Ashcroft's
"dangerous assumption" contributed to a situation in
which the FBI was not able to take advantage of al
Qaeda's mistakes and thwart the 9/11 plot. In many
other nations, if the chief law enforcement officer
made a wrong assumption--even in good faith--that
placed the nation at risk, he or she would resign or
be canned. Yet Ashcroft has continued to enjoy the
benefits of government employment.
How Bush and his senior White House advisers responded
to the hair-raising "chatter" has been a critical
issue. The report shows that the intelligence
reporting in mid-2001 was indeed damn frightening.
Here's a sampling:
On June 25, Clarke warned Rice and Hadley that six
separate intelligence reports showed al Qaeda
personnel warning of a pending attack. An Arabic
television station reported Bin Ladin's pleasure with
al Qaeda leaders who were saying that the next weeks
"will witness important surprises" and that U.S. and
Israeli interests will be targeted. Al Qaeda also
released a new recruitment and fund-raising tape.
Clarke wrote that this was all too sophisticated to be
merely a psychological operation to keep the United
States on edge, and the CIA agreed. The intelligence
reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks
as occurring on a calamitous level, indicating that
they would cause the world to be in turmoil and that
they would consist of possible multiple--but not
necessarily simultaneous--attacks.
On June 28, Clarke wrote Rice that the pattern of al
Qaeda activity indicating attack planning over the
past six weeks "had reached a crescendo." "A series of
new reports continue to convince me and analysts at
State, CIA, DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], and NSA
that a major terrorist attack or series of attacks is
likely in July," he noted. One al Qaeda intelligence
report warned that something "very, very, very, very"
big was about to happen, and most of Bin Ladin's
network was reportedly anticipating the attack. In
late June, the CIA ordered all its station chiefs to
share information on al Qaeda with their host
governments and to push for immediate disruptions of
cells. The headline of a June 30 briefing to top
officials was stark: "Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile
Attacks." The report stated that Bin Ladin operatives
expected near-term attacks to have dramatic
consequences of catastrophic proportions. That same
day, Saudi Arabia declared its highest level of terror
alert. Despite evidence of delays possibly caused by
heightened U.S. security, the planning for attacks was
continuing.
On July 2, the FBI Counterterrorism Division sent a
message to federal agencies and state and local law
enforcement agencies summarizing information regarding
threats from Bin Ladin. It warned that there was an
increased volume of threat reporting, indicating a
potential for attacks against U.S. targets abroad from
groups "aligned with or sympathetic to Usama Bin
Ladin." Despite the general warnings, the message
further stated, "The FBI has no information indicating
a credible threat of terrorist attack in the United
States." However, it went on to emphasize that the
possibility of attack in the United States could not
be discounted. It also noted that the July 4 holiday
might heighten the threats. The report asked
recipients to "exercise extreme vigilance" and "report
suspicious activities" to the FBI. It did not suggest
specific actions that they should take to prevent
attacks....
In mid-July, reporting started to indicate that Bin
Ladin's plans had been delayed, maybe for as long as
two months, but not abandoned. On July 23, the lead
item for CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group]
discussion was still the al Qaeda threat, and it
included mention of suspected terrorist travel to the
United States.
But at least one prominent Bush aide was not worried
about al Qaeda. The commission writes,
[CIA director George] Tenet told us that in his world
"the system was blinking red." By late July, Tenet
said, it could not "get any worse." Not everyone was
convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might
just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB [Senior
Executive Intelligence Brief] contained an article
titled "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real." Yet Hadley told
Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin
was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that
he had already addressed the Defense Department's
questions on this point; the reporting was convincing.
To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior
official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that
he and a colleague were considering resigning in order
to go public with their concerns.
Which brings us to the infamous August 6, 2001,
Presidential Daily Brief. Bush received this report
after months of harrowing intelligence reporting.
True, the "chatter" had diminished in recent weeks,
but, as the commission notes, some of that "chatter"
had caused some officials to be concerned about the
possibility of a domestic attack. It was within this
context that Bush received a PDB titled, "Bin Ladin
Determined To Strike in US." The 9/11 commission,
which interviewed Bush (after the White House first
tried to limit the session and then insisted on a
single, joint interview with Bush and Cheney) notes,
The President told us the August 6 report was
historical in nature. President Bush said the article
told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he
had known since he had become President. The President
said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire
to attack America. He recalled some operational data
on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening
that 70 investigations were under way. As best he
could recollect, Rice had mentioned that the Yemenis'
surveillance of a federal building in New York had
been looked into in May and June, but there was no
actionable intelligence. He did not recall discussing
the August 6 report with the Attorney General or
whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers
had told him there was a cell in the United States,
they would have moved to take care of it. That never
happened.
Bush's explanation was disingenuous. The report was
not merely "historical in nature." It provided
information about the current threat. It said,
FBI information since that time [1998] indicates
patterns of suspicious activity in this country
consistent with preparations for hijackings or other
types of attacks, including recent surveillance of
federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field
investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin
Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a
call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a
group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning
attacks with explosives.
It turns out the PDB overstated the number of ongoing
investigations. But ponder this episode. Bush is told
that al Qaeda is involved in "suspicious activity in
this country," to the extent that there are 70 "full
field investigations," and he did not make any further
inquiries or ask the attorney general about any of
this. Perhaps he was confident that the FBI and others
were on the case. But a serious-minded president might
have poked and prodded the agencies on the basis of
this news. Ashcroft, for one, could have used some
goosing. But Bush goosed no one.
******************************
After you read this article, check out David Corn's
NEW WEBLOG by going to www.davidcorn.com.
******************************
* The alliance (or lack thereof) between al Qaeda and
Iraq. The 9/11 commission created a firestorm not too
long ago when it released an interim report that said
the commission had found no evidence of a
"collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein's
brutal regime and al Qaeda. In response, Bush and
Cheney declared there had been a "relationship." After
all, Bush had argued before the war that Hussein was
"a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda."
Without that connection and without the (still
missing) WMDs, Bush's primary case for war--Hussein as
an "immediate" threat--would fall apart. Thus,
Bush-backers and neocon advocates of the war have
relentlessly tried to keep alive the supposed
connection between Hussein and al Qaeda, even as the
Senate intelligence committee report on the prewar
intelligence says the intelligence community was
correct to conclude there was no confirmation of a
working relationship between the two.
After the 9/11 commission released that interim
report, there was talk that its final report might shy
away from this matter. But the commission hang tough.
These are the relevant portions:
Bin Ladin was also willing [in the early 1990s] to
explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even
though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had
an Islamist agenda--save for his opportunistic pose as
a defender of the faithful against "Crusaders" during
the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact
been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi
Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic
army. To protect his own ties with Iraq, Sudanese
leader Husan al] Turabi reportedly brokered an
agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting
activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently
honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he
continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists
operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of
Baghdad's control....
With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin
Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence
officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin
Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish
training camps, as well as assistance in procuring
weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded
to this request. As described below, the ensuing years
saw additional efforts to establish connections.....
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin
or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period
of some reported strains with the Taliban. According
to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a
safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently
judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained
more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports
describe friendly contacts and indicate some common
themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But
to date we have seen no evidence that these or the
earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative
operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence
indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in
developing or carrying out any attacks against the
United States.
Isn't it time to say "case closed"? No doubt, the
neocons will claim the 9/11 report, the CIA, and the
Senate intelligence committee are all wrong on this
subject. But at some point, doesn't good manners
compel them to hoist the white flag? Speaking of
which....
* Mohamed Atta in Prague. Cheney and others have not
been able to let go of the allegation--long deemed
unlikely by the CIA and the FBI--that Atta, the
ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers, met with an Iraqi
intelligence officer in Prague several months before
the September 11 attacks. When the 9/11 commission
issued a preliminary finding declaring there was no
evidence to substantiate the allegation, Cheney
insisted the Prague meeting remained an open question.
In its final report, the commission tries to bury this
charge once and for all. Will Cheney accept the
panel's verdict? Probably not, but maybe he will stop
talking about a meeting that probably never happened.
This is what the commission reports:
Mohamed Atta is known to have been in Prague on two
occasions: in December 1994, when he stayed one night
at a transit hotel, and in June 2000, when he was en
route to the United States. On the latter occasion, he
arrived by bus from Germany, on June 2, and departed
for Newark the following day. The allegation that Atta
met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in
April 2001 originates from the reporting of a single
source of the Czech intelligence service. Shortly
after 9/11, the source reported having seen Atta meet
with Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani, an Iraqi
diplomat, at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague on April 9,
2001, at 11:00 A.M. This information was passed to CIA
headquarters.
The U.S. legal attache ("Legat ") in Prague, the
representative of the FBI, met with the Czech
service's source. After the meeting, the assessment of
the Legat and the Czech officers present was that they
were 70 percent sure that the source was sincere and
believed his own story of the meeting. Subsequently,
the Czech intelligence service publicly stated that
there was a 70 percent probability that the meeting
between Atta and Ani had taken place. The Czech
Interior Minister also made several statements to the
press about his belief that the meeting had occurred,
and the story was widely reported.
The FBI has gathered evidence indicating that Atta was
in Virginia Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank
surveillance camera photo), and in Coral Springs,
Florida on April 11, where he and Shehhi leased an
apartment. On April 6, 9, 10, and 11, Atta's cellular
telephone was used numerous times to call various
lodging establishments in Florida from cell sites
within Florida. We cannot confirm that he placed those
calls. But there are no U.S. records indicating that
Atta departed the country during this period. Czech
officials have reviewed their flight and border
records as well for any indication that Atta was in
the Czech Republic in April 2001, including records of
anyone crossing the border who even looked Arab. They
have also reviewed pictures from the area near the
Iraqi embassy and have not discovered photos of anyone
who looked like Atta. No evidence has been found that
Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001.
According to the Czech government, Ani, the Iraqi
officer alleged to have met with Atta, was about 70
miles away from Prague on April 8 –9 and did not
return until the afternoon of the ninth, while the
source was firm that the sighting occurred at 11:00
A.M. When questioned about the reported April 2001
meeting, Ani--now in custody--has denied ever meeting
or having any contact with Atta. Ani says that shortly
after 9/11, he became concerned that press stories
about the alleged meeting might hurt his career.
Hoping to clear his name, Ani asked his superiors to
approach the Czech government about refuting the
allegation. He also denies knowing of any other Iraqi
official having contact with Atta.
These findings cannot absolutely rule out the
possibility that Atta was in Prague on April 9, 2001.
He could have used an alias to travel and a passport
under that alias, but this would be an exception to
his practice of using his true name while traveling
(as he did in January and would in July when he took
his next overseas trip). The FBI and CIA have
uncovered no evidence that Atta held any fraudulent
passports. KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] and [Ramzi]
Binalshibh both deny that an Atta-Ani meeting
occurred. There was no reason for such a meeting,
especially considering the risk it would pose to the
operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had
completed most of their training, and the muscle
hijackers were about to begin entering the United
States. The available evidence does not support the
original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting.
To recap, then: no working relationship between
Hussein and al Qaeda, no Prague meeting, no strong
reaction from Bush to the pre-9/11 warnings of a
pending al Qaeda attack, no more than routine
attention devoted to the al Qaeda threat by the Bush
team in the months before September 11. GOPers can wag
their fingers at Bill Clinton, who also did not do
enough (obviously). But there is no denying this
report is bad news for Bush and his crew. If Bush
wants this election to be a referendum on how he has
handled the threat posed by al Qaeda, this
report--available now in local bookstores and online
at the 9/11 commission's site--ought to be read by
those 49 swing voters in Ohio who will be deciding the
election for the rest of us.
********************
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 the official
website: www.bushlies.com. And check out Corn's blog
on the site.
************
"Out, out damn spot!"
Michael Meacher, Guardian: A fourth witness is Sibel
Edmonds. She is a 33-year-old Turkish-American former
FBI translator of intelligence, fluent in Farsi, the
language spoken mainly in Iran and Afghanistan, who
had top-secret security clearance. She tried to blow
the whistle on the cover-up of intelligence that names
some of the culprits who orchestrated the 9/11
attacks, but is now under two gagging orders that
forbid her from testifying in court or mentioning the
names of the people or the countries involved. She has
been quoted as saying: "My translations of the 9/11
intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering,
detailed and date-specific information ... if they
were to do real investigations, we would see several
significant high-level criminal prosecutions in this
country [the US] ... and believe me, they will do
everything to cover this up"...
It has been rumoured that Pearl was especially
interested in any role played by the US in training or
backing the ISI. Daniel Ellsberg, the former US
defence department whistleblower who has accompanied
Edmonds in court, has stated: "It seems to me quite
plausible that Pakistan was quite involved in this ...
To say Pakistan is, to me, to say CIA because ... it's
hard to say that the ISI knew something that the CIA
had no knowledge of." Ahmed's close relations with the
CIA would seem to confirm this. For years the CIA used
the ISI as a conduit to pump billions of dollars into
militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan, both before
and after the Soviet invasion of 1979.
W ith CIA backing, the ISI has developed, since the
early 1980s, into a parallel structure, a state within
a state, with staff and informers estimated by some at
150,000. It wields enormous power over all aspects of
government. The case of Ahmed confirms that parts of
the ISI directly supported and financed al-Qaida, and
it has long been established that the ISI has acted as
go-between in intelligence operations on behalf of the
CIA.
Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate select
committee on intelligence, has said: "I think there is
very compelling evidence that at least some of the
terrorists were assisted, not just in financing ... by
a sovereign foreign government." In that context,
Horst Ehmke, former coordinator of the West German
secret services, observed: "Terrorists could not have
carried out such an operation with four hijacked
planes without the support of a secret service."
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1266317,00.html
Comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Pakistan connection
There is evidence of foreign intelligence backing for the 9/11 hijackers. Why is the US government so keen to cover it up?
Michael Meacher
Thursday July 22, 2004
The Guardian
Omar Sheikh, a British-born Islamist militant, is
waiting to be hanged in Pakistan for a murder he
almost certainly didn't commit - of the Wall Street
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Both the US
government and Pearl's wife have since acknowledged
that Sheikh was not responsible. Yet the Pakistani
government is refusing to try other suspects newly
implicated in Pearl's kidnap and murder for fear the
evidence they produce in court might acquit Sheikh and
reveal too much.
Significantly, Sheikh is also the man who, on the
instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head
of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired
$100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the
lead hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed
nor Sheikh have been charged and brought to trial on
this count. Why not?
Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually
in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11
top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon,
the national security council, and with George Tenet,
then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the
under-secretary of state for political affairs. When
Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having
sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to
"retire" by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn't the
US demanded that he be questioned and tried in court?
Another person who must know a great deal about what
led up to 9/11 is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, allegedly
arrested in Rawalpindi on March 1 2003. A joint
Senate-House intelligence select committee inquiry in
July 2003 stated: "KSM appears to be one of Bin
Laden's most trusted lieutenants and was active in
recruiting people to travel outside Afghanistan,
including to the US, on behalf of Bin Laden."
According to the report, the clear implication was
that they would be engaged in planning
terrorist-related activities.
The report was sent from the CIA to the FBI, but
neither agency apparently recognised the significance
of a Bin Laden lieutenant sending terrorists to the US
and asking them to establish contacts with colleagues
already there. Yet the New York Times has since noted
that "American officials said that KSM, once
al-Qaida's top operational commander, personally
executed Daniel Pearl ... but he was unlikely to be
accused of the crime in an American criminal court
because of the risk of divulging classified
information". Indeed, he may never be brought to
trial.
A fourth witness is Sibel Edmonds. She is a
33-year-old Turkish-American former FBI translator of
intelligence, fluent in Farsi, the language spoken
mainly in Iran and Afghanistan, who had top-secret
security clearance. She tried to blow the whistle on
the cover-up of intelligence that names some of the
culprits who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, but is now
under two gagging orders that forbid her from
testifying in court or mentioning the names of the
people or the countries involved. She has been quoted
as saying: "My translations of the 9/11 intercepts
included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and
date-specific information ... if they were to do real
investigations, we would see several significant
high-level criminal prosecutions in this country [the
US] ... and believe me, they will do everything to
cover this up".
Furthermore, the trial in the US of Zacharias
Moussaoui (allegedly the 20th hijacker) is in danger
of collapse apparently because of "the CIA's
reluctance to allow key lieutenants of Osama bin Laden
to testify at the trial". Two of the alleged
conspirators have already been set free in Germany for
the same reason.
The FBI, illegally, continues to refuse the to release
of their agent Robert Wright's 500-page manuscript
Fatal Betrayals of the Intelligence Mission, and has
even refused to turn the manuscript over to Senator
Shelby, vice-chairman of the joint intelligence
committee charged with investigating America's 9/11
intelligence failures. And the US government still
refuses to declassify 28 secret pages of a recent
report on 9/11.
It has been rumoured that Pearl was especially
interested in any role played by the US in training or
backing the ISI. Daniel Ellsberg, the former US
defence department whistleblower who has accompanied
Edmonds in court, has stated: "It seems to me quite
plausible that Pakistan was quite involved in this ...
To say Pakistan is, to me, to say CIA because ... it's
hard to say that the ISI knew something that the CIA
had no knowledge of." Ahmed's close relations with the
CIA would seem to confirm this. For years the CIA used
the ISI as a conduit to pump billions of dollars into
militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan, both before
and after the Soviet invasion of 1979.
W ith CIA backing, the ISI has developed, since the
early 1980s, into a parallel structure, a state within
a state, with staff and informers estimated by some at
150,000. It wields enormous power over all aspects of
government. The case of Ahmed confirms that parts of
the ISI directly supported and financed al-Qaida, and
it has long been established that the ISI has acted as
go-between in intelligence operations on behalf of the
CIA.
Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate select
committee on intelligence, has said: "I think there is
very compelling evidence that at least some of the
terrorists were assisted, not just in financing ... by
a sovereign foreign government." In that context,
Horst Ehmke, former coordinator of the West German
secret services, observed: "Terrorists could not have
carried out such an operation with four hijacked
planes without the support of a secret service."
That might give meaning to the reaction on 9/11 of
Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism
chief, when he saw the passenger lists later on the
day itself: "I was stunned ... that there were
al-Qaida operatives on board using names that the FBI
knew were al-Qaida." It was just that, as Dale Watson,
head of counter-terrorism at the FBI told him, the
"CIA forgot to tell us about them".
· Michael Meacher is Labour MP for Oldham West and
Royton. He was environment minister 1997-2003
massonm@parliament.uk
Last night, the LNS editor-in-chief worked out, watching AnythingButSee (ABC)News with Peter Jennings, at the gym. Toward the tail end of a lead story on the day's bloodshed in Iraq, the reporter mentioned the death of one US solider (actually six had died in the previous 48 hours, and at least four that day), and then she went on to say that over one hundred or more Iraqis had died since the "handover," and how the number of US soldiers who had been killed was only a small percent of the number of Iraqis killed. But what she chose NOT to tell the US Electorate is that more US soldiers have died already in Iraq during the month of July (after the "handover") than in the whole month of June (before the "handover"). This misdirectional *spin* is worse than an outright lie, and it is a vivid example of the capitulation, complicity and cowardice of the "US mainstream news media." The LNS editor-in-chief cursed out loud and then sighed, gratefully, that he was finally going to see Fahrenheit 911 that night. Yes, he had already decided to see it that night because the long-awaited and probably infuriatingly mealy-mouthed 911 Commission report was due today. [Note: LNS will provide a thorough analysis in the days ahead.] Of course, America already received its real 911 report on June 25th when Fahrenheit 911 opened, America now knows everything it needs to know to cleanse the White House in November, and restore the Timeline: the wrong people were wrongly put into power and are weilding their power for the wrong reasons and toward wrong ends. End of story. Michael Moore's movie is more than a hypnotic cinematic polemic, it is MAGIC, it is a VERY powerful INCANTATION, just as the LNS is not just a news digest but also consciously a rain dance. Both are aimed at Election Day..After the performance, the LNS editor-in-chief got in his car, and checked his voice mail, and LNS foreign correspondent Dunston Woods was checking in -- to rant about, yes, AnythingButSee's disgraceful, deceptive spin on the carnage in Iraq on the evening broadcast, then as he drove out of the parking lot, the LNS editor-in-chief turned on SeeBS (CBS) All "News" Radio, just as the sound filled his car, the announcer said, "The time is now 9:11."
Mike Glover, Associated Press: Republicans initially dismissed "Fahrenheit 9/11" as a cinematic screed that would play mostly to inveterate Bush bashers. Four weeks and $94 million later, the film is still pulling in moviegoers at 2,000 theaters around the country, making Republicans nervous as it settles into the American mainstream...
Two senior Republicans closely tied to the White House said the movie from director Michael Moore is seen as a political headache because it has reached beyond the Democratic base. Independents and GOP-leaning voters are likely to be found sitting beside those set to revel in its depiction of a clueless president with questionable ties to the oil industry.
Based on a record-breaking gross of $94 million through last weekend, theaters already have sold an estimated 12 million tickets to "Fahrenheit 9/11." A Gallup survey conducted July 8-11 said 8 percent of American adults had seen the film at that time, but that 18 percent still planned to see it at a theater and another 30 percent plan to see it on video.
Break the Bush Cabal's Stranglehold on the "US Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=762&e=1&u=/ap/20040722/ap_en_ot/moore_film_politics
'Fahrenheit 9/11' Making GOP Nervous
Thu Jul 22, 7:01 AM ET
By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer
DES MOINES, Iowa - Republicans initially dismissed "Fahrenheit 9/11" as a cinematic screed that would play mostly to inveterate Bush bashers. Four weeks and $94 million later, the film is still pulling in moviegoers at 2,000 theaters around the country, making Republicans nervous as it settles into the American mainstream.
"I'm not sure if it moves voters," GOP consultant Scott Reed said, "but if it moves 3 or 4 percent it's been a success."
Two senior Republicans closely tied to the White House said the movie from director Michael Moore is seen as a political headache because it has reached beyond the Democratic base. Independents and GOP-leaning voters are likely to be found sitting beside those set to revel in its depiction of a clueless president with questionable ties to the oil industry.
"If you are a naive, uncommitted voter and wander into a theater, you aren't going to come away with a good impression of the president," Republican operative Joe Gaylord said. "It's a problem only if a lot of people see it."
Based on a record-breaking gross of $94 million through last weekend, theaters already have sold an estimated 12 million tickets to "Fahrenheit 9/11." A Gallup survey conducted July 8-11 said 8 percent of American adults had seen the film at that time, but that 18 percent still planned to see it at a theater and another 30 percent plan to see it on video.
More than a third of Republicans and nearly two-thirds of independents told Gallup they had seen or expected to see the film at theaters or on video.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" opened in June mainly in locally owned arts theaters that specialize in obscure films and tiny audiences. Drawn in part by the buzz surrounding the film, people packed the theaters and formed long lines for tickets. Within a week, it was appearing in chain-owned theaters along with "Spider-Man 2," "The Notebook" and other big summer attractions.
When he sat down to watch the film at the Varsity Theater in Des Moines last weekend, Rob Sheesley didn't harbor anti-Bush feelings. Two hours later, he left with conflicted emotions.
"You want to respect the president," Sheesley said. "It raised a lot of questions."
Bush's leadership in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had impressed retired teacher Lavone Mann, another Des Moines moviegoer. After watching the film, Mann wanted to know more about its claims.
"I guess that I think it makes me want to pursue how much of it is accurate and not just get carried away with one film," she said. "I don't hear Bush and (Vice President Dick) Cheney saying that this is incorrect."
Retired college professor Dennis O'Brien, a Bush voter in 2000 and a movie buff who has seen other Moore films, said "Fahrenheit 9/11" hasn't changed his view of Bush but may well serve a larger purpose by sparking debate.
"Moore forces you to think about the role of oil in the politics of American life," O'Brien said. "This goes back a long way."
In GOP-strong Columbia, S.C., watching the movie last week at the Columbiana Grande tipped 26-year-old David Wood's support more to the left.
"I don't consider myself a Republican or a Democrat. I just vote for whoever is right for the job," the University of South Carolina student said. "I think most people don't bother to really research, and all they need is something popular to sway them."
Others at the screening in Columbia were put off by what they saw as the film's biased approach to examining Bush and the reasons he took the country to war. For Scott Campbell, 19, the movie reinforced his apathy toward politics.
"We didn't even stay to see the whole thing," Campbell said. "It was one-sided."
Former Iowa Republican Chairman Michael Mahaffey said the movie's impact could be dulled over time. "It's July," he said. "Conventional wisdom will change completely every four or five weeks."
Still, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is likely to gain an even wider audience when it's released on home video in the weeks before Election Day. The Gallup survey found that nearly half of the Republicans and independents who expect to see the film said they were likely to view it on video.
"In all honesty, in a very close election, who knows what will sway the public?" Mahaffey said.
___
Associated Press writer Jennifer Holland in Columbia, S.C., contributed to this report
___
On the Net:
Gallup survey: http://www.gallup.com
Michael Moore official Web site: http://www.michaelmoore.com
Six more US soldiers have died in Iraq within the last 48
hours. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three
Stooges Reich. There have been over 900 US military
deaths in the increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident's foolish military adventure in
Iraq. Al Jazeera is now reporting the deaths of US
soldiers more accurately and more promptly than the
"US mainstream news media," which is a very disturbing
commentary on what is going on in this
country...MEANWHILE, the 9/11 Commission may have
wimped out, but Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), who lost her
Congressional seat to a Lierberman clone in the
Democratic primary after she dared to ask the
9/11-related questions that you and I and Michael
Moore and the 9/11 Families want answered, has been
VINDICATED. Her STUNNING political comeback is further
evidence (BLOCKBUSTER "Fahrenheit 911," and Bubba's
BESTSELLING "My Life," etc.) of the Electoral Uprising
that is coming in November 2004...Those who live in
denial in Beltwayistan, personified by the 9/11
Commission's apparent "bi-partisan" cowardice and the
"US mainstream news media" propapunditgandists that
enable it, had better come to grips with
reality..."The hour is getting late."
KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press: Former congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney danced to hip-hop music and shouted
"I'm back!" after surprising many by winning the
primary outright in her old congressional district.
The state's first black congresswoman, McKinney served
10 years in the House before losing the seat two years
ago. While in Congress, she dished out brash remarks
to both Republicans and Democrats she saw as too
conservative, and political watchers doubted she would
escape a runoff in her comeback bid in a crowded field
of six candidates.
In the end, as the primary results came in Tuesday night, she danced with a throng of supporters and declared that she was vindicated for her controversial remarks about President Bush in 2002. McKinney was
harshly criticized when she said on a talk radio show
then that Bush had advance warning of the Sept. 11
attacks but ignored them because his friends would
profit from a war.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
Posted on Wed, Jul. 21, 2004
McKinney moves closer to congressional comeback
KRISTEN WYATT
Associated Press
ATLANTA - Former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney danced
to hip-hop music and shouted "I'm back!" after
surprising many by winning the primary outright in her
old congressional district.
The state's first black congresswoman, McKinney served
10 years in the House before losing the seat two years
ago. While in Congress, she dished out brash remarks
to both Republicans and Democrats she saw as too
conservative, and political watchers doubted she would
escape a runoff in her comeback bid in a crowded field
of six candidates.
In the end, as the primary results came in Tuesday
night, she danced with a throng of supporters and
declared that she was vindicated for her controversial
remarks about President Bush in 2002. McKinney was
harshly criticized when she said on a talk radio show
then that Bush had advance warning of the Sept. 11
attacks but ignored them because his friends would
profit from a war.
"The American people appreciate being told the truth,"
McKinney said before claiming victory.
McKinney lost the 2002 primary to Denise Majette,
another black Democrat who previously was a
little-known state court judge. Majette left this year
to seek the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Zell
Miller, and she received the most votes in that race's
Democratic primary Tuesday, advancing to a runoff Aug.
10 against businessman Cliff Oxford.
McKinney said she never doubted she could win her
party's nomination outright, even though two of her
opponents raised more money and she did not run
television ads.
"I told you I'd be back. Tonight, I am back," she
said.
In the general election, she will face Republican
Catherine Davis, who is also black, in the heavily
Democratic district.
McKinney's comeback campaign appeared wobbly before
the primary. She raised just $214,000, much less than
opponents Cathy Woolard, a former Atlanta City Council
president, and state Sen. Liane Levetan.
McKinney concentrated on working the heavily black
neighborhoods that sent her to Congress for five
terms. Light turnout among her base was blamed for her
upset in 2002.
The tactic worked. Many voters said she was unfairly
drubbed for her comments about Bush.
"She did a great service and she's an extremely
courageous woman by calling George Bush on the
carpet," said 54-year-old Patricia Kilpatrick, a
Lithonia yoga teacher who voted for McKinney. "I know
a lot of people think she's out on the edge but I
think we need that. We need someone who looks out over
the precipice to see what's going on to forge that
path for us."
Emory University political scientist Merle Black said
there was a "huge sentiment that she was deprived of
her seat." He credited stronger black turnout and
McKinney's more positive campaign approach for her
win.
"She really changed her style. It wasn't
confrontational Cynthia McKinney. It was
representative-of-all-the-people Cynthia McKinney," he
said.
McKinney finished with 51 percent of the vote. Levetan
had 21 percent, while Woolard had 19 percent.
McKinney's impressive victory didn't soften criticism
from some.
"She's an embarrassment to our county," said DeKalb
County homemaker Vicki White, who considers herself a
Republican but voted in the Democratic primary Tuesday
just to vote against McKinney.
Bill King, a 19-year-old college student in Decatur,
said he felt McKinney would be ineffective in
Washington.
"I don't think any of the other congressmen take her
seriously," he said.
Two of Georgia's other open seats for Congress were
headed to runoffs.
In a Republican-leading district north of Atlanta,
state Sen. Tom Price will face state Sen. Robert
Lamutt. In another GOP district, running from the
southern suburbs of Atlanta to Columbus, voters will
pick between State Rep. Lynn Westmoreland and Dylan
Glenn, a former aide to Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.
The other active race in Georgia was a Democratic
contest in the 12th District, which runs from Athens
to Augusta to Savannah. Former Clarke County
commissioner John Barrow defeated former state Sen.
Doug Haines to win without a runoff.
The 12th District is being closely watched by national
Democrats because they see it as their best chance in
Georgia to knock off a GOP incumbent. The district,
created by redistricting in 2002, is held by
Republican Rep. Max Burns, although the district was
thought to lean Democratic.
Democratic Rep. David Scott, who holds a suburban
Atlanta district, handily defeated challenger William
Ogletree with no Republican challenger in the fall.
With 102 of 165 precincts reporting, Scott led
Ogletree 82 percent to 18 percent.
The rest of Georgia's congressional delegates did not
face challenges in the primaries. Those are:
Republican Reps. Nathan Deal, Phil Gingrey, John
Linder, Charlie Norwood and Jack Kingston; and
Democrats John Lewis, Sanford Bishop and Jim Marshall.
Linder, Lewis, Deal and Kingston don't have opposition
in either the primary or the general election.
There is a shaft of light breaking through the crack
between the Bush cabal and the CIA. Hopefully, that
crack and the shaft of light that is penetrating it
will widen in the days and weeks ahead...There is
still hope for our country...It resides in not only in
the US Electorate itself, but in the US military, the
US foreign policy establishment AND the US
intelligence community...."Let us not talk falsely
now, the hour is getting late."
Edwin Chen and Greg Miller, LA Times: President Bush
said Monday that his administration was investigating
possible links between Iran and the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, a statement that distanced the president from
acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, who had
downplayed a possible connection a day earlier.
In a second sign of a potential rift between the White
House and the intelligence agency, White House Press
Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that
McLaughlin was not speaking for the president when he
said it was unnecessary to create a new, more powerful
intelligence czar, despite faulty information before
the Iraq war.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/072104A.shtml
Bush, CIA at Odds on Iran
By Edwin Chen and Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday 20 July 2004
The president's interest in a possible 9/11 link goes
against the agency leader's assessment. They also
disagree over intelligence reforms.
Washington - President Bush said Monday that his
administration was investigating possible links
between Iran and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a
statement that distanced the president from acting CIA
Director John McLaughlin, who had downplayed a
possible connection a day earlier.
"As to direct connections with Sept. 11, we're
digging into the facts to determine if there was one,"
Bush said of Iran.
In a second sign of a potential rift between the
White House and the intelligence agency, White House
Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that
McLaughlin was not speaking for the president when he
said it was unnecessary to create a new, more powerful
intelligence czar, despite faulty information before
the Iraq war.
"The president is very much open to ideas that
build upon the reforms that we're already
implementing," McClellan said. "I think [McLaughlin]
was expressing his view."
McClellan's comments indicated that the White
House was receptive to the idea of fundamental reform
in the intelligence community, rather than the "modest
changes" McLaughlin had endorsed in an appearance on a
Sunday talk show.
The White House-CIA differences emerged as the
independent Sept. 11 commission prepared to release
its final report Thursday on the 2001 terrorist
attacks. The report is expected to contain
recommendations that could touch off a contentious
drive toward reforming the nation's
intelligence-gathering bureaucracy.
The independent commission is widely expected to
report that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers had
traveled freely between Iran and Afghanistan during
2000 and 2001. Last month, the panel's chairman,
former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, said in a
television interview that Al Qaeda had "a lot more
active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan
than there were with Iraq."
Iran's emerging prominence in the Sept. 11
investigations looms as a potentially difficult issue
for the White House, because it could raise new
questions about why Bush led a war against Iraq but so
far has taken a distinctly less bellicose stance
toward Iran.
McClellan argued that the United States indeed had
been "confronting" the threat from Iran, which Bush in
2002 listed, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part
of an "axis of evil." He added, however, that Iraq was
"a unique situation" because it had invaded its
neighbors and had possessed and used weapons of mass
destruction.
McClellan also said the White House was eager to
learn what the Sept. 11 commission knew about any
connections between the hijackers and Iran.
"Apparently it's something that's evolved over time,"
he said.
The Iranian government has denied knowledge or
involvement in the Sept. 11 plot.
McLaughlin had said Sunday that although "about
eight" of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have passed
through Iran before their mission, the CIA had "no
evidence that there is some sort of official
connection between Iran and 9/11."
Bush on Monday noted McLaughlin's comments, but
said: "We will continue to look and see if the
Iranians were involved."
The president also renewed his accusation that
Iran's rulers were "harboring Al Qaeda leadership,"
and urged Tehran anew to dismantle its nuclear weapons
program. The United States has asked Iran to turn over
Al Qaeda members to their respective countries.
The president's spokesman dismissed weekend media
reports that Bush may delay naming a new CIA director
until after the Nov. 2 election as having "no basis in
fact."
In brief remarks to reporters after meeting with
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, Bush said that he was
"still taking a good, hard look" at potential
successors to George J. Tenet as CIA director. Tenet
left the agency July 11.
As for the reforming the intelligence-gathering
apparatus, the president said he was looking forward
to seeing the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations.
"They share the same desires I share, which is to
make sure that the president and the Congress get the
best possible intelligence," Bush said.
"Some of the reforms, I think, are necessary: more
human intelligence, better ability to listen or to see
things, and better coordination amongst the variety of
intelligence-gathering services," he said. "And so
we'll look at all their recommendations, and I will
comment upon that, having studied what they say."
The commission is expected to recommend the
creation of a single Cabinet-level position overseeing
the 15 agencies that make up the nation's
intelligence-gathering community.
McLaughlin acknowledged on "Fox News Sunday" that
"a good argument" could be made for such
consolidation, but added that it was unnecessary
because the CIA already had taken steps toward reform
since Sept. 11 and because a restructuring would
impose additional bureaucracy on the system.
White House officials have described McLaughlin as
a capable leader, but have also indicated that they do
not see him as a permanent replacement.
That may be in part because McLaughlin was in a
senior position at the agency during a stretch that
included the failure to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks
and the erroneous assessments that Iraq had stockpiles
of biological and chemical weapons and had restarted
its nuclear weapons program.
But it also appears that the professorial
McLaughlin, who came up through the analytical side of
the CIA, doesn't have the sort of rapport with Bush
that the backslapping, gregarious Tenet did.
An anecdote in a recent book by Washington Post
reporter Bob Woodward describes McLaughlin giving a
key briefing to Bush and other senior White House
officials on the evidence against Iraq before the war.
Bush was unimpressed by the presentation and
complained that the evidence was weak, prompting Tenet
to call the case against Iraq a "slam dunk."
McClellan said Monday that McLaughlin was "someone
who is very capable and is doing a good job at the
CIA."
-------
Another true Republican has his name scrawled on the
John O'Neill Wall of Heroes...
Erik Stetson, Associated Press: One of the
Environmental Protection Agency’s earliest leaders,
flanked by Republican state politicians, blasted the
president’s record on the environment Monday during a
news conference organized by an anti-Bush
environmental group.
Russell Train, a Republican, was the EPA’s second
chief under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
But he said Bush’s record is so dismal he’s casting
his presidential vote for Democrat John Kerry in
November.
"It’s almost as if the motto of the administration
in power today in Washington is not environmental
protection, but polluter protection," he said. "I find
this deeply disturbing."
Save the Environment, Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
Republicans Blast President Bush on Environment
By Erik Stetson
The Associated Press
Tuesday 20 July 2004
Concord, New Hampshire - One of the Environmental
Protection Agency’s earliest leaders, flanked by
Republican state politicians, blasted the president’s
record on the environment Monday during a news
conference organized by an anti-Bush environmental
group.
Russell Train, a Republican, was the EPA’s second
chief under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
But he said Bush’s record is so dismal he’s casting
his presidential vote for Democrat John Kerry in
November.
"It’s almost as if the motto of the administration
in power today in Washington is not environmental
protection, but polluter protection," he said. "I find
this deeply disturbing."
Bush supporters defended the president’s record.
Tom Thomson, owner of Thomson Family Tree Farm in
Orford, praised the Healthy Forests Initiative as good
legislation that protects loggers as well as forests.
He predicted current policies would have positive
long-term effects.
Bush "has made progress over the last four years
giving us cleaner air, water and land," Thomson said
in a statement.
Officials with the state’s Bush-Cheney campaign
said sulfur dioxide emissions are down 9 percent,
while nitrogen oxide emissions are down 13 percent.
They added that the 2002 Farm Bill set aside more than
$40 billion in conservation funding.
Environment2004, the environmental group, released
a report Monday titled "Damaging the Granite State."
It criticizes presidential policies on energy, global
warming, toxic waste and air and water pollution.
"It is the worst record in modern history,
unfortunately," said Aimee Christensen, the group’s
executive director. "They are systematically weakening
our keystone public health protections and undermining
decades of bipartisan leadership on the environment."
The report faults Bush’s energy policy, for
example, for slashing renewable energy funding.
According to the report, the cuts are holding back New
Hampshire, which could produce 43 percent of its
energy from wind power. The report also claims the
state could add 5,000 jobs by 2020 with more renewable
energy and efficiency investments.
The report cites such sources as federal and state
agency reports as well as newspaper articles and
advocacy-group studies.
The two Republican state politicians who spoke -
Rep. Jim Pilliod, a pediatrician, and former Sen. Rick
Russman, who once headed the Senate Environmental
Committee, did not endorse Kerry. They said they
participated to stress the importance of environmental
issues.
Russman said funding was cut for cleanup work at
two of the state’s 19 Superfund sites. He also said
the administration’s standards would delay mercury
emissions cleanup until at least 2018. Pilliod added
that mothers and children are particularly vulnerable
to mercury pollution.
Train also accused Bush of letting weakening the
Clean Air Act. The record, he added, falls short of
those set by former Republican presidents ranging from
Theodore Roosevelt, who advocated creating national
parks and forests, to George H.W. Bush, who supported
new anti-air-pollution standards.
The Bush record is "appalling, with very, very few
exceptions," Train said. He described presidential
policies as "geared to rolling back environmental
protections."
Environment2004 has been actively campaigning
against Bush policies and has released a national
report on its Web site criticizing them.
-------
Almost 900 US soldiers have died in the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident's foolish military adventure in Iraq. Indeed, more US soldiers died in the first half of July (post-"handover") than in all of June...The Emperor has no uniform...If only the propapunditgandists of the "US mainstream news media" had Linda McQuaig's "clarity of mind."
Linda McQuaig, Toronto Star: The Bush administration has cast itself in a new role in the Iraq fiasco: innocent victim. With Iraq expected to be key to President George Bush's re-election chances this fall, the rewriting of history has begun in earnest; events leading up to the war have been given an extensive nip and tuck, leaving them barely recognizable.
Perhaps you recall how eager the Bush administration was to invade Iraq last year?
If so, you're mistaken. Senior administration officials weren't determined to invade Iraq, they were simply the victims of faulty intelligence. There they were, just minding their own business, when incompetent underlings kept hounding them with false information showing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and close links to Al Qaeda.
What choice did they have but to invade?
This notion of Bush officials as passive victims of faulty intelligence is being cultivated with the help of a recently-released U.S. Senate committee report, which documents how U.S. intelligence agencies erroneously exaggerated Iraq's weapons arsenal.
Support Our Troops, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
Jul. 18, 2004. 01:00 AM
Bushites are trying to rewrite history because they failed to see what millions did: There was no reason to attack Iraq
LINDA MCQUAIG
The Bush administration has cast itself in a new role in the Iraq fiasco: innocent victim. With Iraq expected to be key to President George Bush's re-election chances this fall, the rewriting of history has begun in earnest; events leading up to the war have been given an extensive nip and tuck, leaving them barely recognizable.
Perhaps you recall how eager the Bush administration was to invade Iraq last year?
If so, you're mistaken. Senior administration officials weren't determined to invade Iraq, they were simply the victims of faulty intelligence. There they were, just minding their own business, when incompetent underlings kept hounding them with false information showing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and close links to Al Qaeda.
What choice did they have but to invade?
This notion of Bush officials as passive victims of faulty intelligence is being cultivated with the help of a recently-released U.S. Senate committee report, which documents how U.S. intelligence agencies erroneously exaggerated Iraq's weapons arsenal.
The report's value is limited, however, since the committee's Democrats and Republicans agreed in advance to restrict their investigation to the role played by the intelligence agencies, deferring until after the election the more pertinent question about the role played by the White House in distorting information about Iraq.
Needless to say, this is convenient for a president anxious to disassociate himself from the colossal misinformation used to justify a war that has already killed almost 900 Americans and thousands of Iraqis, as well as generating anti-American feeling around the world.
The theory of the Bush team's victimhood is going largely unchallenged by media commentators, who seem content to suggest we were all caught up in "groupthink" about Iraq.
That seemed to be the position taken by CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview last week on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which, although on the comedy network, is one of the most informative U.S. news programs.
"We should have been more skeptical," said Blitzer, suggesting a kind of collective responsibility for buying into theories about Iraq's WMD.
What do you mean "we," white man?
In fact, beyond the elite circle of political and media insiders that Blitzer inhabits, skepticism was rampant.
Among the skeptics was chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, who clarified for the world — weeks before the U.S. invasion began — that there weren't any WMD in Iraq, at least not any that he or his team of experts could find after several months of intensive searching.
Blix made this point emphatically to the U.N. on Feb. 14, 2003, when he contradicted key aspects of the U.S. case. The U.N.'s top nuclear inspector, Mohammed ElBaradei, also reported that day that he'd failed to find evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.
So, regardless of the flawed information the Bush team had been receiving from its own intelligence agencies — the CIA didn't have any undercover agents actually inside Iraq — the Blix and ElBaradei reports clearly alerted the administration to the possibility of serious problems with the information.
In fact, even some U.S. intelligence officials had expressed concerns to the administration about the reliability of information coming from the Iraqi exile community, which was the Bush team's favourite source of information on WMD. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence officials had warned that reports of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda were not credible.
But the administration — particularly Vice-President Dick Cheney — refused to hear such talk, constantly pushing intelligence officials to accentuate the Iraqi threat. All this is recounted in a detailed report by four investigative journalists on the run-up to war, published in the May issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
So, given the warning signals from both U.S. intelligence officials and the U.N. inspectors, Bush officials clearly had grounds for doubting the case against Iraq.
The solution seemed obvious — hold the bombs, give inspections more time. But the administration clearly wanted to get on with the war. When it refused to back down after Blix's powerful presentation to the U.N., the world practically choked in disbelief.
The next day, Feb. 15, more than 10 million people took part in protests worldwide. Without access to intelligence data, with nothing more than their own questioning minds, millions of ordinary people had figured out what journalists had been unable or unwilling to see — that there were glaring flaws in the U.S. case for war.
The Bush administration would have us believe that its reckless rush to war can be blamed on an intelligence failure, and on "groupthink."
Another possibility is that the Bush team willfully chose to blind itself to what millions of people around the world had no trouble spotting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca
It's the Media, Stupid.
Scott McGlasson, www.buzzflash.com: I and millions of
others have seen Byron York in a CSPAN "Washington
Journal" interview a couple weeks ago saying that,
whatever the torture methods used in Abu Ghraib and
other US military prisons, "...it is, in fact,
working." He's said it more than once. The first
sentence of an article he wrote, shown on the same
program, was "Torture? Whatever it was, it worked."
Now we know that part of "whatever" was sodomizing
screaming Iraqi boys. York and nearly everyone else
already knew that it included forced masturbation and
sodomizing with light sticks, along with secret, old
techniques from Vietnam, and I'm sure many knew this
horrific story too. Certainly the Republicans privy to
the details of investigations knew it...
The era of trust and respect for conservative media is coming to an ugly, shameful end. The world can no longer tolerate this immoral insanity.
Crush the "Vast Reich-Wing Conspiracy," Show Up for
Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/07/con04301.html
Byron York: Sodomizing Children at Abu Ghraib "Worked"!
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Scott McGlasson
I and millions of others have seen Byron York in a
CSPAN "Washington Journal" interview a couple weeks
ago saying that, whatever the torture methods used in
Abu Ghraib and other US military prisons, "...it is,
in fact, working." He's said it more than once. The
first sentence of an article he wrote, shown on the
same program, was "Torture? Whatever it was, it
worked."
Now we know that part of "whatever" was sodomizing
screaming Iraqi boys. York and nearly everyone else
already knew that it included forced masturbation and
sodomizing with light sticks, along with secret, old
techniques from Vietnam, and I'm sure many knew this
horrific story too. Certainly the Republicans privy to
the details of investigations knew it.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article6492.htm
York would not even flat condemn "interrogation
resulting in death." He dismissed it with comments
about possible "unknown medical conditions." This is
real, guys. It was done. There is more and more
evidence with every investigation, and now that
information is out, do you really think you can bury
this? It hasn't worked for other crimes of the Bush
administration, despite your best efforts to divert
public attention from it.
The support among conservatives for York is obvious.
Not a single major conservative figure has said
anything to disagree with York. They know his
opinions, and clearly agree. York and his conservative
comrades are beyond sick, and soon everyone will know
it.
I can't wait until the American people find this out,
and believe me, this is going to come out. I want to
see York defend his support for raping children in
interviews. I want to see clips of York saying "it
worked," along with the documentation showing that
"it" included raping children and other horrors. No
journalist or pundit would discuss the prison abuse
scandal without knowing what it was about, of course,
so York knew pre
cisely what he was talking about.
This is the inescapable fact that America needs to
know -- conservatives knew the stomach-turning details
of the prison abuse incidents, and they still defend
these practices.
I want it live, on prime time TV. I want to see how
much York gave to the Bush campaign, and clips showing
York praising Bush / Cheney. I want the world to see
him say "it worked." I want to see York explain to the
world his theory of raping children to make America
safer. Then we can see the ample documentation from
the International Red Cross showing that 70% to 90% of
Iraqi detainees are there "by mistake."
The era of trust and respect for conservative media is
coming to an ugly, shameful end. The world can no
longer tolerate this immoral insanity.
Scott McGlasson
Denver, CO
A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
Joe Wilson is under attack from the Orwellian REWRITE
division of the US Senate and the "US Mainstream News
Media," meanwhile, his wife, Valerie Plame is as yet
unavenged...So Bubba weighs in...on Niger yellow
cake...Of course, his remarks on this Iraq-related
scandal are *highlighted* on British TV and in the
British free press...And in regard to the 9/11-related
"investigation" of Sandy Berger, the LNS simply wants
to express its hope that he made duplicates...
Michael White, Guardian: Mr Clinton told Sir David Frost: "Let me just say one other thing. Now this doesn't apply to the UK, it applies to America. There is no evidence that the CIA told the president or the White House that Saddam Hussein had gotten uranium yellow cake from Niger, or was close to having a nuclear weapon, a representation that was made.
"Now the intelligence in the UK may have told Prime
Minister Blair but the evidence is to the contrary in
America. And there is no evidence that the CIA ever
said that Saddam Hussein was tied to al-Qaida and
could have had anything to do with September 11
directly or indirectly," he said.
The implication of his remarks was that untrustworthy
sources had briefed the White House and other
agencies.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1264122,00.html
Clinton reopens book on Iraqi bid to buy uranium in
Africa
Michael White, political editor
Monday July 19, 2004
The Guardian
Tony Blair's ally and former US president Bill Clinton
yesterday reopened the sensitive issue of Saddam
Hussein's attempts to buy uranium in Africa.
Speaking on BBC1's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Clinton,
who is promoting his memoirs, said there was "no
evidence" the CIA had ever told George Bush about the
claim.
Though it has not been stated in the four official
inquiries into British intelligence, London's source
for its claims about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium -
widely repeated in the US until discredited - almost
certainly came from French intelligence.
France has much influence in Niger, the west African
state in which Iraq allegedly tried to buy the
so-called "yellow cake".
A convention between intelligence services allows a
provider of data shared with an ally to control
further dissemination. British sources say that Paris,
in this instance, refused further dissemination, even
when the US basis for a similar claim proved to come
from crudely forged documents.
The Butler report said "there was some evidence that
by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached", and
that statements in the UK government's dossier and by
the prime minister to the commons about Iraqi attempts
to buy such ore "were well-founded".
Mr Clinton told Sir David Frost: "Let me just say one
other thing. Now this doesn't apply to the UK, it
applies to America. There is no evidence that the CIA
told the president or the White House that Saddam
Hussein had gotten uranium yellow cake from Niger, or
was close to having a nuclear weapon, a representation
that was made.
"Now the intelligence in the UK may have told Prime
Minister Blair but the evidence is to the contrary in
America. And there is no evidence that the CIA ever
said that Saddam Hussein was tied to al-Qaida and
could have had anything to do with September 11
directly or indirectly," he said.
The implication of his remarks was that untrustworthy
sources had briefed the White House and other
agencies.
The moral, he said, was not to blame the CIA or other
agencies for things they had not done or got wrong.
How can Donald Rumsfeld, and his Torquemada, Mr. Cambione, still be in power as the Abu Ghraib scandal continues to unfold to expose the depth of hell and war crimes into which the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident's foolish military adventure has plunged us? To answer that question, you must ask some others...How can Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather sleep at night? What does Wolf Bluster tell himself when he looks in the mirror? What does the Editor-in-Chief of the NYTwits feel about his own humanity? What does the WASHPS Editor-in-Chief feel about the interior reality of the First Amendment to the US Constitution? The stench of Abu Ghraib is on the Bush White House, and the stench of the Bush White House is on Abu Ghraib. Is the "US Mainstream News Media" beyond redemption? Yes, tragically, it's the Media, Stupid.
William Rivers Pitt, www.truthout.org: The biggest
story of the Iraq war is not about missing weapons of
mass destruction, or about deep-cover CIA officers
getting their covers blown by vengeful White House
agents, or even about 896 dead American soldiers.
These have been covered to one degree or another, and
then summarily dismissed, by the American mainstream
news media. The biggest story of the Iraq war has not
enjoyed any coverage in America, though it has been
exploding across the international news media for
several weeks now.
The biggest story of the Iraq war is about the
torture of Iraqi children...
Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who first broke
the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, recently spoke at
an ACLU convention. He has seen the pictures and the
videotapes the American media has not yet shown. "The
boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the
worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking,"
said Hersh. "And this is your government at war."
Hersh described the prison scene as, "a series of
massive crimes, criminal activity by the president and
the vice president, by this administration anyway,"
and that there has been, "a massive amount of criminal
wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command
out there, and higher."
Break the Bush Caal's Stranglehold on the "US Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/072004A.shtml
Torturing Children
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 20 July 2004
The biggest story of the Iraq war is not about
missing weapons of mass destruction, or about
deep-cover CIA officers getting their covers blown by
vengeful White House agents, or even about 896 dead
American soldiers. These have been covered to one
degree or another, and then summarily dismissed, by
the American mainstream news media. The biggest story
of the Iraq war has not enjoyed any coverage in
America, though it has been exploding across the
international news media for several weeks now.
The biggest story of the Iraq war is about the
torture of Iraqi children.
A German TV magazine called 'Report Mainz'
recently aired accusations from the International Red
Cross, to the effect that over 100 children are
imprisoned in U.S.- controlled detention centers,
including Abu Ghraib. "Between January and May of this
year, we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits
in 6 different detention locations," said Red Cross
representative Florian Westphal in the report.
The report also outlined eyewitness testimony of
the abuse of these children. Staff Sergeant Samuel
Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, said that
interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15
or 16 year old girl. Military police only stopped the
interrogation when the girl was half undressed. A
separate incident described a 16 year old being soaked
with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud,
and then presented before his weeping father, who was
also a prisoner.
Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who first
broke the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, recently
spoke at an ACLU convention. He has seen the pictures
and the videotapes the American media has not yet
shown. "The boys were sodomized with the cameras
rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the
boys shrieking," said Hersh. "And this is your
government at war."
Hersh described the prison scene as, "a series of
massive crimes, criminal activity by the president and
the vice president, by this administration anyway,"
and that there has been, "a massive amount of criminal
wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command
out there, and higher."
Reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib and other American
prisons have been public knowledge since the release
of the Taguba Report. Recently, however, some 106
annexes to the report, previously classified, have
also been released. U.S. News and World Report
detailed the sum of what is contained in these annexes
in an article titled 'Hell on Earth.'
In it, U.S. News says, "The abuses took place, the
files show, in a chaotic and dangerous environment
made even more so by the constant pressure from
Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees.
Riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi
guards, unsanitary conditions, rampant sexual
misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and
humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from
Iraqi insurgents--according to the annex to General
Taguba's report, that pretty much sums up life at Abu
Ghraib." According to coalition intelligence officers
cited in a Red Cross report from last May, between 70%
to 90% of Iraqi detainees held in these prisons were
arrested "by mistake." That means they were innocent.
The orders to treat prisoners in this fashion were
not manufactured by the few "bad apples" we have heard
about, but came from up on high. Brig. Gen Janis
Karpinski, former commander of Abu Ghraib and now
scapegoat for the abuses, says the truth about where
the orders came from would be revealed in the trials
of the accused soldiers. Memos ordering the abuse of
prisoners were signed off on by Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld. The Justice Department and Mr. Bush's senior
legal advisor went out of their way to craft arguments
justifying this, claiming that torture isn't really
torture and that the President is basically above the
law.
Mr. Hersh will revisit this issue within the next
several weeks. In the meantime, the American news
media has an obligation to report on this situation.
Photographic and videotape evidence of this torture is
currently in the hands of the New Yorker, the
Washington Post, the U.S. Congress and the White
House. It must be released.
We invaded a country based upon the false claim
that Iraq was allied with al Qaeda. We invaded a
country based on the false claim that there were
weapons of mass destruction which needed to be
destroyed. We promised freedom and democracy, and
instead installed a CIA-trained strongman named Allawi
who has all but created a dictatorship in Iraq, and
who has been accused of killing Iraqi prisoners by his
own hand. 896 American soldiers have died so we could
do this.
We took thousands of innocent civilians off the
streets in Iraq and threw them into hellhole prisons,
where they were beaten, raped, and killed. This story
has faded from public view because no new pictures of
the abuses have come out in the last several weeks.
Those pictures are out there, and they show the rape
and torture of children. The international media is
reporting on it. Coalition ally Norway may be
preparing to flee Iraq because of the allegations
regarding these children.
Where is the American news media? Where are the
pictures? Who is responsible for this abomination?
Torturing children in the name of freedom? Is this
what we have become?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and
international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq:
What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The
Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
-------
Who will have the courage to say that the Iraqis, the
Americans, the Afghanis, the Israelis and the
Palestinians are all worse off and less safe today
than they were four years ago? Certainly, not the
propapunditgandists of the "US mainstream news media."
The lead stories, this morning, on all of the major
network news organization, even those stthat feign to
cover aspects of 9/11 or Iraq, are no more than innane
drivel...MEANWHILE the compelling testimony of Richard
Clarke, David Kay, Joe Wilson, Greg Thielman, Roger Cressey, Rand Beers and other dedicated professionals is put aside for the scapegoating of the CIA and saber-rattling about Iran, AND the haunting legend of John O'Neill,
the FBI counterterrorism expert who resigned in
frustration with the Bush cabal, went to work as World
Trade Center security director, and died, attempting
to save others, on 9/11, has never even been
acknowledged in the "US mainstream news media" -- with
the exeption of one PBS Frontline documentary two
years ago. What has the 9/11 Commission decided to do
about the serious issues of incompetence and
negligence that were raised by Richard Clarke in his
testimony? Nothing? What has the 9/11 Commission
decided to do about the issue of whether John Ashcroft
or Thomas Pickering committed perjury since their
testimony is in direct contradiction? Nothing? What
has the 9/11 Commission decided to do about Ashcroft's
savage and deceitful attack on 9/11 panel member Jaime
Gorelick? Nothing? AND these questions are only a few
of the MANY that are being left unanswered...The
botched, bungled "war on terrorism" is NOT the
strength of the Bush White House, it is the SHAME of
the Bush White House...and the SHAME of the "US
mainstream news media" AND the 9/11 Commission is that
they are going to give them a pass...What will the
9/11 Families do now?
Paul Krugman, New York Times: O.K., end of conceit.
President Bush isn't actually an Al Qaeda mole, with
Dick Cheney his controller. Mr. Bush's "war on terror" has, however, played with eerie perfection into Osama bin Laden's hands - while Mr. Bush's supporters, impressed by his tough talk, see him as America's champion against the evildoers. Last week, Republican officials in Kentucky applauded
bumper stickers distributed at G.O.P. offices that
read, "Kerry is bin Laden's man/Bush is mine."
Administration officials haven't gone that far, but
when Tom Ridge offered a specifics-free warning about
a terrorist attack timed to "disrupt our democratic
process," many people thought he was implying that Al
Qaeda wants George Bush to lose. In reality, all
infidels probably look alike to the terrorists, but if
they do have a preference, nothing in Mr. Bush's
record would make them unhappy at the prospect of four
more years.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/opinion/20krug.html?hp
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 20, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Arabian Candidate
By PAUL KRUGMAN
n the original version of "The Manchurian Candidate,"
Senator John Iselin, whom Chinese agents are plotting
to put in the White House, is a right-wing demagogue
modeled on Senator Joseph McCarthy. As Roger Ebert
wrote, the plan is to "use anticommunist hysteria as a
cover for a communist takeover."
The movie doesn't say what Iselin would have done if
the plot had succeeded. Presumably, however, he
wouldn't have openly turned traitor. Instead, he would
have used his position to undermine national security,
while posing as America's staunchest defender against
communist evil.
So let's imagine an update - not the remake with
Denzel Washington, which I haven't seen, but my own
version. This time the enemies would be Islamic
fanatics, who install as their puppet president a
demagogue who poses as the nation's defender against
terrorist evildoers.
The Arabian candidate wouldn't openly help terrorists.
Instead, he would serve their cause while pretending
to be their enemy.
After an attack, he would strike back at the terrorist
base, a necessary action to preserve his image of
toughness, but botch the follow-up, allowing the
terrorist leaders to escape. Once the public's
attention shifted, he would systematically squander
the military victory: committing too few soldiers,
reneging on promises of economic aid. Soon, warlords
would once again rule most of the country, the heroin
trade would be booming, and terrorist allies would
make a comeback.
Meanwhile, he would lead America into a war against a
country that posed no imminent threat. He would
insinuate, without saying anything literally false,
that it was somehow responsible for the terrorist
attack. This unnecessary war would alienate our allies
and tie down a large part of our military. At the same
time, the Arabian candidate would neglect the pursuit
of those who attacked us, and do nothing about regimes
that really shelter anti-American terrorists and
really are building nuclear weapons.
Again, he would take care to squander a military
victory. The Arabian candidate and his co-conspirators
would block all planning for the war's aftermath; they
would arrange for our army to allow looters to destroy
much of the country's infrastructure. Then they would
disband the defeated regime's army, turning hundreds
of thousands of trained soldiers into disgruntled
potential insurgents.
After this it would be easy to sabotage the occupied
country's reconstruction, simply by failing to spend
aid funds or rein in cronyism and corruption. Power
outages, overflowing sewage and unemployment would
swell the ranks of our enemies.
Who knows? The Arabian candidate might even be able to
deprive America of the moral high ground, no mean
trick when our enemies are mass murderers, by creating
a climate in which U.S. guards torture, humiliate and
starve prisoners, most of them innocent or guilty of
only petty crimes.
At home, the Arabian candidate would leave the nation
vulnerable, doing almost nothing to secure ports,
chemical plants and other potential targets. He would
stonewall investigations into why the initial
terrorist attack succeeded. And by repeatedly issuing
vague terror warnings obviously timed to drown out
unfavorable political news, his officials would ensure
public indifference if and when a real threat is
announced.
Last but not least, by blatantly exploiting the
terrorist threat for personal political gain, he would
undermine the nation's unity in the face of its
enemies, sowing suspicion about the government's
motives.
O.K., end of conceit. President Bush isn't actually an
Al Qaeda mole, with Dick Cheney his controller. Mr.
Bush's "war on terror" has, however, played with eerie
perfection into Osama bin Laden's hands - while Mr.
Bush's supporters, impressed by his tough talk, see
him as America's champion against the evildoers.
Last week, Republican officials in Kentucky applauded
bumper stickers distributed at G.O.P. offices that
read, "Kerry is bin Laden's man/Bush is mine."
Administration officials haven't gone that far, but
when Tom Ridge offered a specifics-free warning about
a terrorist attack timed to "disrupt our democratic
process," many people thought he was implying that Al
Qaeda wants George Bush to lose. In reality, all
infidels probably look alike to the terrorists, but if
they do have a preference, nothing in Mr. Bush's
record would make them unhappy at the prospect of four
more years.
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home |
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The "US mainstream news media" is not only choosing
keep you uninformed about the video tapes that
document the sodomizing of young boys in the custody
of the US military at Abu Ghraib, it is also choosing
to keep you uninformed about this very disturbing story from the Bush cabal's "liberation" of Iraq...
Khalid Hasan, Daily Times (Pakistan): The US media has
surprisingly failed to pick up the shocking disclosure
by Sydney Morning Herald, Australia’s leading
newspaper, that the Irqai Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
personally executed six suspected insurgents in a
Baghdad police station.
The story by award-winning Australian journalist Paul
McGeough said that the prisoners were handcuffed and
blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and
shot by the Iraqi PM. Dr Allawi is alleged to have
told those around him that he wanted to send a clear
message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.
Two people allege they witnessed the killings and
there are also claims the Iraqi interior minister and
four American men were present.
Break the Bush Cabal Stranglehold on the "US
Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-7-2004_pg1_2
US media kills story that Iraqi PM executed 6 prisoners
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The US media has surprisingly failed to
pick up the shocking disclosure by Sydney Morning
Herald, Australia’s leading newspaper, that the Irqai
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi personally executed six
suspected insurgents in a Baghdad police station.
The story by award-winning Australian journalist Paul
McGeough said that the prisoners were handcuffed and
blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and
shot by the Iraqi PM. Dr Allawi is alleged to have
told those around him that he wanted to send a clear
message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.
Two people allege they witnessed the killings and
there are also claims the Iraqi interior minister and
four American men were present.
An Australian television channel interviewed the
reporter who is in Iraq telling him that the Allawi
family had denied the story. He replied, “Well it’s a
very contentious issue. What you have is two very
solid eyewitness accounts. Each witness is not aware
that the other spoke.”
The Australian journalist said, “Well, I’ll take you
through what the two witnesses said to give you the
full chronology as I understand it. There was a
surprise visit at about 10:30am to the police centre.
The PM talked to policemen and then toured the
complex. They came to a courtyard where six, sorry
seven prisoners were lined up against a wall. They
were blindfolded, they were described to me as an
Iraqi colloquialism for the fundamentalist foreign
fighters who came to Baghdad. They have that classic
look that you see with many of the Osama Bin Laden
associates of the scraggly beard and the very short
hair and they were a sort of ... took place in front
of them as they were up against this wall was an
exchange between the interior minister and Dr Allawi,
saying that he felt like killing them on the spot.
The interior minister expressed the wish that he would
like to kill all these men on the spot. The PM is said
to have responded that they deserved worse than death.
At that point, he is said to have pulled a gun and
proceeded to aim at and shoot all seven. Six of them
died, the seventh, according to one witness, was
wounded in the chest. On the incident date, the
correspondent said, “It happened on or around the
weekend of June 19/20 — three weeks after Dr Allawi
was named PM and one week before the handover.”
Do you remember how much taxpayer's money, newspaper
ink, broadcast time and political capital was expended
over Whitewater? Contrast Whitewater to Enron...Even
the baseless, thoroughly refuted accusations involved
in Whitewater did not rise to the level of the
periphery of Enron-related filth seeping from the Bush
abomination, and its running dogs, including both
Conan the Deceiver and Tom DeLay...Do you remember
what the apologists for the "US mainstream news media"
said after the Impeachment debacle, "Oh, well, the
press will go after anyone, it's dirt that they want,
it's scandal they are after, they don't care which
side of the aisle its own." Really...The NYTwits ran
this AP story in their "Business" section, if it had
been about a Democratic leader, it would have been on
the front page...Of course, in the time before the
NYTwits succumbed to whatever they succumbed to, they
would have put their best investigative reporters on
Enron and the Bush cabal and would have broken the
complex of scandals that they are now struggling to
avoid covering...Did you know that the increasingly
unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident stalked
out of a press briefing the day after his friend and
benefactor Kenny Boy was indicted -- because all the
questions (for a change) were about Enron and Kenny
Boy? No? Well, that's probably because only Agence
France Press reported it. Did you know Jim Sharp is
workng for both Kenny Boy on his criminal case and for
the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking
_resident, as his personal lawyer in the Plame
investigation? No? Gee, hard to imagine that the
"rapid press corp" didn't pick up on that disturbing
coincidence. Yes, indeed, it's the Media, Stupid...
Suzanne Gamboa, Associated Press: In only a few
e-mails, Enron employees laid bare the reality of
politics: the money trail from companies seeking
favors from lawmakers with the power to grant them.
The e-mails circulated among Enron officials in 2000 and 2001, before the collapse of the Houston energy company, are under review by the House ethics
committee, which is considering whether to investigate the fund-raising activities of the No. 2 leader in the House, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Enron officials map out in the e-mail how to get
the most for their financial contributions, while
politicians compete for credit in securing large
campaign donations from the company.
Free Martha Stewart, Investigate the Bush-Cheney Enron
Connection, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush
(again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071904Y.shtml
Enron E-Mail a Window on Political Money
By Suzanne Gamboa
The Associated Press
Sunday 18 July 2004
Washington - In only a few e-mails, Enron
employees laid bare the reality of politics: the money
trail from companies seeking favors from lawmakers
with the power to grant them.
The e-mails circulated among Enron officials in
2000 and 2001, before the collapse of the Houston
energy company, are under review by the House ethics
committee, which is considering whether to investigate
the fund-raising activities of the No. 2 leader in the
House, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Enron officials map out in the e-mail how to get
the most for their financial contributions, while
politicians compete for credit in securing large
campaign donations from the company.
The e-mails "really do pull the curtain back and
give you a view of how it's done," said Larry Noble,
executive director of the Center for Responsive
Politics, which tracks political contributions and
spending.
Attention has refocused on the e-mails since a
Texas Democrat filed an ethics complaint last month
against DeLay. Rep. Chris Bell accused the majority
leader of soliciting and accepting political
contributions from a Kansas energy company, Westar
Energy Inc., in return for legislative favors.
DeLay's office denies there was any quid pro quo.
DeLay contends Bell filed the complaint because Bell
is bitter over losing his primary race in March.
What DeLay and other politicians cannot deny is
that the Enron e-mails illustrate the nature of
political fund raising.
"The e-mails are an indication of what goes on
behind closed doors," said Tom Fitton, president of
Judicial Watch, an ethics watchdog group that has
filed suits over political fund-raising.
Both Democrats and Republicans, he said, "engage
in a shell game that from outside may look at times
technically legal, but when you get these
communications on contributions solicited for the
campaign, their technical arguments fall apart."
In an e-mail from May 31, 2001, Enron lobbyists
Rick Shapiro and Linda Robertson discuss a $50,000
contribution solicited by Republican organizations for
a dinner saluting President Bush and Vice President
Dick Cheney.
"With the assistance of Congressman Tom DeLay we
were able to apply our previously contributed soft
money toward this dinner. Consequently, we will be
credited as giving $250,000 to this event, even though
we are being asked to give only $50,000 in new soft
money," according to the e-mail sent to Enron's now
ex-chairman, Kenneth Lay, and a second executive.
Soft money contributions are made by companies and
individuals to political parties. These donations to
parties were outlawed by a campaign finance law that
went into effect in 2002. Other organizations still
can accept soft money dollars but are limited in how
they can spend them.
The e-mails show "pretty clearly corporations were
being asked for contributions by members of Congress
who held the fate of legislation important to
corporations in their hands," said Trevor Potter,
president and general counsel of the Campaign Legal
Center, a campaign finance monitoring group.
"There's always a risk this will creep back into
the system, and politicians will again try to raise
it. These e-mails point out the dangers of that to an
ethical form of government," said Potter, a former
member of the Federal Elections Commission, which
regulates political fund raising and spending.
Just as Enron wanted credit for its contribution,
Republican lawmakers vied for credit in raising the
money, e-mails show.
Bringing in lots of political money helps raise a
politician's stature in the party, said Edwin Bender,
executive director of the Institute on Money in State
Politics, based in Helena, Mont.
The Enron lobbyists said in the e-mail they would
split credit for $100,000 of the contribution among
DeLay; former House Majority Leader Dick Armey,
R-Texas; Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who is now chairman
of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; and Rep.
Billy Tauzin, R-La.
The lobbyists said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison,
R-Texas, "has requested that Enron give her some of
the credit" for the other $100,000 in the
contribution.
The e-mails have raised questions about whether
the contributions were being used to influence state
races in Texas. The state bans corporate money from
elections except for administrative purposes such as
paying rent.
An e-mail from July 24, 2000, says Lay and Enron's
president at the time, Jeffrey Skilling, received
"notes from Tom DeLay about designating portions of
their contributions for use in Texas." The e-mail says
DeLay has provided a letter for the company to use
when making a $100,000 contribution.
"They clearly are orchestrating this and trying to
thread the needle in terms of how to couch the
letters," Noble said. "But that goes on all the time.
People are told you have to do it this way if you want
to be legal."
-------
The LNS often speaks of the failure of the "US
mainstream news media" to provide sufficient CONTEXT
and CONTINUITY...The increasingly unhinged and
incredibly shinking _resident APPOINTED David Kay to
find the WMDs in Iraq, not only did he deduce that
there were none, he said so bluntly and unequivocally,
confirming that Hans Blix and Scott Ritter were right,
and that the Bush cabal and the
shell-of-man-formerly-known-as-Tony-Blair was
wrong...Now in the throes of this disgusting
scapegoating of the CIA, as the "US mainsteam news
media" capitulates to the Bush abomination and its
running dogs in control of the US Senate, carrying
their filthy water, blaming the CIA for Iraq, just as
it is about to scapegoat the CIA for 9/11, Kay speaks
out again forcefully and plainly...Kay, Richard
Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Joe Wilson -- all Republicans,
all former supporters of Bush and officials of the
Bush abomination...But you have not seen one lead
story on a major network news organization broadcast
showing their faces, their pedigrees and their
corroborating stories (CONTEXT and CONTINIUTY) linked
to show a compelling, DAMNING portrait of a failed
administration, marked by sheer INCOMPETENCE, serious
CHARACTER flaws and an utter ABSENCE OF
CREDIBILITY...You have not seen David Kay or Joe
Wilson on SeeBS Fork The Nation or NotBeSeen Meat The
Press, dissecting the US Senate Intelligence Committee
whitewash on Iraq, nor will you see Richard Clarke I
believe, or the 9/11 Families, for that matter, on the
sunday morning propapunditgandist shows talking about
the 9/11 Commission whitewash...
BETH GARDINER, Associated Press: David Kay resigned
from the CIA (news - web sites) in January and his
conclusion then that Iraq did not have stockpiles of
forbidden weapons caused serious problems for both
Bush and Blair, undercutting their main justification
for war.
He told Britain's ITV network that Bush and Blair "should have been able to tell before the war that the evidence did not exist for drawing the conclusion that Iraq presented a clear, present and imminent threat on the basis of existing weapons of mass destruction."
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040718/ap_on_re_eu/britain_iraq_kay_1
Kay Criticizes Bush, Blair on Iraq Intel
Sun Jul 18, 3:28 PM ET
By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press Writer
LONDON - President Bush (news - web sites) and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) should
have realized before going to war that intelligence on
Iraqi weapons was weak and did not indicate Saddam
Hussein (news - web sites) posed a danger to the West,
America's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq (news
- web sites) said Sunday.
David Kay resigned from the CIA (news - web sites) in
January and his conclusion then that Iraq did not have
stockpiles of forbidden weapons caused serious
problems for both Bush and Blair, undercutting their
main justification for war.
He told Britain's ITV network that Bush and Blair
"should have been able to tell before the war that the
evidence did not exist for drawing the conclusion that
Iraq presented a clear, present and imminent threat on
the basis of existing weapons of mass destruction."
"That was not something that required a war," he said.
He said the leaders may not have been sufficiently
critical of intelligence on Saddam's alleged weapons
of mass destruction.
"WMD was only one and I think in their mind, not
really the most important one," he said. "And so the
doubts about the evidence on weapons of mass
destruction was not as serious to them as it seemed to
be to the rest of the world."
Kay said two recent reports on intelligence failures
in Iraq showed that American and British
information-gathering and analyzing systems were
"broken."
"I think they are a scathing indictment," he said of
the reports from the U.S. Senate Intelligence
Committee and a British commission headed by former
senior civil servant Lord Butler.
Butler's report, published Wednesday, said Iraq had no
stockpiles of useable chemical or biological weapons
before the war and British intelligence to the
contrary had been drawn in part from "seriously
flawed" or "unreliable" sources.
He absolved Blair's government of deliberately
distorting the evidence and did not blame any
individuals for the failure. But he said the
government had pushed its case to the limits of
available intelligence and solidified analysts'
hedged, tentative assessments of Iraqi arms into
definite statements.
The U.S. report agreed that intelligence on Iraq was
flawed and placed much of the blame on the CIA, which
it accused of succumbing to "group think" and
interpreting all evidence according to its presumption
that Iraq had banned weapons.
Kay said analysts were facing pressure to support the
belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
"Anything that showed Iraq didn't have weapons of mass
destruction had a much higher gate to pass because if
it were true, all of U.S. policy towards Iraq would
have fallen asunder," he said in the interview.
If the NYTwits, or the WASHPs, had been serious in
their *mea culpas* about failing to serve the TRUTH in
the run-up to the increasingly unhinged and incredibly
shrinking _resident's foolish military adventure in
Iraq, you wouldn't have to rely on this kind of
analysis being translated from the French
"Liberation," you would be reading in the pages of the
NYTwits, or the WASHPs, but the painful reality is
that they are still carrying the filthy water of the
Bush abomination on Iraq and as you will see again
this week, 9/11 as well...
Jean-Dominique Merchet interviews Eric Denécé,
Liberation: How did that happen?
In two ways. First, there was the establishment of
new tightly controlled offices outside of the CIA,
such as the Office of Strategic Plans and the Office
of Strategic Influence. They produced syntheses that
went in the direction the powers-that-be wanted. In
the heart of the CIA, some young guys took advantage
of the windfall to draw up their reports to match what
they thought the powers-that-be wanted to read! It's a
company where the internal quarrels are very intense
and which has evolved profoundly since the end of the
Cold War. The former generation had a very European
culture, very New England. Now you meet more boorish
people, often from the South or from Texas, whose
world view is, let us say, more limited.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071904H.shtml
"The Secret Services were Used"
By Jean-Dominique Merchet
Libération
Friday 16 July 2004
Eric Denécé, an intelligence expert, analyzes the CIA
and MI6 Iraqi arsenal fiasco.
In Washington as in London, two official reports
have just called the secret services into question
over the weapons of mass destruction (wmd) affair in
Iraq. In the United States, a Senate report accuses
the CIA of having exaggerated the threat; while in the
United Kingdom, Lord Butler deems that MI6 has
committed serious mistakes. In both cases, political
responsibilities have been spared. Are the secret
services "scapegoats" to protect George W. Bush and
Tony Blair? Eric Denécé, Director of the French Center
for Intelligence Research (CF2R), provides his
analysis.
Were the American and British secret services
really fooled about the Iraqi threat?
Less than is believed. Before the summer of 2002,
they had never been caught in any flagrant mistake and
had not stopped telling political officials that they
had no proof of the existence of wmd. However, from
the moment the White house decided to go to war
against Iraq, pressure on the CIA became intense
because what the agency was saying did not suit the
neoconservative team. Something very similar happened
in Great Britain with Tony Blair's spin doctors' team.
How did that happen?
In two ways. First, there was the establishment of
new tightly controlled offices outside of the CIA,
such as the Office of Strategic Plans and the Office
of Strategic Influence. They produced syntheses that
went in the direction the powers-that-be wanted. In
the heart of the CIA, some young guys took advantage
of the windfall to draw up their reports to match what
they thought the powers-that-be wanted to read! It's a
company where the internal quarrels are very intense
and which has evolved profoundly since the end of the
Cold War. The former generation had a very European
culture, very New England. Now you meet more boorish
people, often from the South or from Texas, whose
world view is, let us say, more limited.
How do these intelligence services work?
There are numerous filters between the agent who
collects the intelligence on the ground and the memo
that arrives on the President's desk. At the core of
the CIA, intelligence is given form by Operations
Management, which transmits it to Intelligence
Management, where the analysts in their turn draw up
syntheses they transmit to the Director, who assumes
political responsibility. Afterwards, all that is
milled again with what comes from the other agencies,
such as electronic surveillance (NSA) or military
intelligence (DIA). The conditional phrases and the
cautions that you find at the beginning of the chain
get transformed into assertions that point in the
direction desired by the powers-that-be.
Always?
When you look for one thing, you don't find
something else! The way a question is asked partially
induces the answer. They were looking for wmd; they
found clues to their existence. In an ideal world and
to have a more balanced view, two teams should have
been set to work simultaneously; the one looking for
wmd, the other playing devil's advocate, looking for
proof of their disappearance.
Will this affair leave its mark on the
relationship between political power and the
intelligence services?
Undoubtedly, and especially in England where they
enjoyed a high level of trust. The secret services run
the risk of losing a part of their soul in all this
because they feel they have been totally used. This is
even the first time ever that democracies justify a
war with the argument: "Our intelligence services told
us..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language
correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
-------
More encouraging news from the SMASH-MOUTH campaign of
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta)...
David Halbdfinger, New York Times: Mindful of the
election problems in Florida four years ago, aides to
Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic
presidential nominee, say his campaign is putting
together a far more intricate set of legal safeguards
than any presidential candidate before him to monitor
the election.
Aides to Mr. Kerry say the campaign is taking the
unusual step of setting up a nationwide legal network
under its own umbrella, rather than relying, as in the
past, on lawyers associated with state Democratic
parties. The aides said they were recruiting people
based on their skills as litigators and election
lawyers, rather than rewarding political connections
or big donors.
Lawyers for the campaign are gathering intelligence
and preparing litigation over the ballot machines
being used and the rules concerning how voters will be
registered or their votes disqualified. In some cases,
the lawyers are compiling dossiers on the people
involved and their track records on enforcing voting
rights. The disputed 2000 presidential election
remains a fresh wound for Democrats, and Mr. Kerry has
been referring to it on the stump while assuring his
audiences that he will not let this year's election be
a repeat of the 2000 vote.
"A million African-Americans disenfranchised in the
last election," he said at the N.A.A.C.P. convention
in Philadelphia on Thursday. "Well, we're not just
going to sit there and wait for it to happen. On
Election Day in your cities, my campaign will provide
teams of election observers and lawyers to monitor
elections, and we will enforce the law."
Lawyers for nonpartisan advocacy groups conducting
voter registration drives are also working behind the
scenes and in court to ensure that their new
registrants make it onto the rolls and that their
ballots are counted.
But it is the campaign of Mr. Kerry that appears to be doing the most to apply lessons from the Florida recount and that is adopting the more fiercely partisan posture in the early going. Its plans include setting up SWAT teams of specially trained lawyers, spokesmen and political experts to swoop into any state where a recount could be needed.
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/19/politics/campaign/19VOTE.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 19, 2004
Kerry Building Legal Network for Vote Fights
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
Mindful of the election problems in Florida four years
ago, aides to Senator John Kerry, the presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee, say his campaign is
putting together a far more intricate set of legal
safeguards than any presidential candidate before him
to monitor the election.
Aides to Mr. Kerry say the campaign is taking the
unusual step of setting up a nationwide legal network
under its own umbrella, rather than relying, as in the
past, on lawyers associated with state Democratic
parties. The aides said they were recruiting people
based on their skills as litigators and election
lawyers, rather than rewarding political connections
or big donors.
Lawyers for the campaign are gathering intelligence
and preparing litigation over the ballot machines
being used and the rules concerning how voters will be
registered or their votes disqualified. In some cases,
the lawyers are compiling dossiers on the people
involved and their track records on enforcing voting
rights. The disputed 2000 presidential election
remains a fresh wound for Democrats, and Mr. Kerry has
been referring to it on the stump while assuring his
audiences that he will not let this year's election be
a repeat of the 2000 vote.
"A million African-Americans disenfranchised in the
last election," he said at the N.A.A.C.P. convention
in Philadelphia on Thursday. "Well, we're not just
going to sit there and wait for it to happen. On
Election Day in your cities, my campaign will provide
teams of election observers and lawyers to monitor
elections, and we will enforce the law."
The Kerry campaign's legal efforts are hardly
occurring in a vacuum.
The Bush-Cheney campaign says it will have party
lawyers in every state, covering 30,000 precincts. An
affiliated group, the Republican National Lawyers
Association, held a two-day training session in
Milwaukee over the weekend on "how to promote ballot
access to all qualified voters," according to the
group's Web site.
Lawyers for nonpartisan advocacy groups conducting
voter registration drives are also working behind the
scenes and in court to ensure that their new
registrants make it onto the rolls and that their
ballots are counted.
But it is the campaign of Mr. Kerry that appears to be
doing the most to apply lessons from the Florida
recount and that is adopting the more fiercely
partisan posture in the early going.
Its plans include setting up SWAT teams of specially
trained lawyers, spokesmen and political experts to
swoop into any state where a recount could be needed.
"The U.S. has had a policy of being able to fight two
regional conflicts and still defend the homeland,"
said Marc E. Elias, the Kerry campaign's general
counsel. "We want to be able to fight five statewide
recounts and still have resources available to the
campaign."
The lessons of Florida include fairly mundane ones.
Democratic lawyers said, for example, that they had
such a hard time obtaining office space in
Tallahassee, presumably because landlords in the state
capital feared antagonizing Gov. Jeb Bush, a
Republican and brother of President Bush.
This time, Kerry aides say, they are recruiting not
only specialists in election law who work in small law
firms or alone, but also litigators at large firms in
every state who have the resources and office space to
support a long-term, large-scale and pro bono recount
operation.
"We don't want a situation where we wake up the next
day and are scrambling to think of what our legal team
looks like," Mr. Elias said.
The Kerry campaign has already enlisted lead lawyers
in all 50 states, and those lawyers are recruiting
lawyers at the county and the precinct level.
"It's our intention to have lawyers in one fashion or
another covering all of Iowa's 99 counties," said
Brent Appel, the Kerry lawyer in Des Moines.
Kerry aides say the campaign has set up a national
steering committee with task forces tackling different
issues: one on ballot machines, another on voter
education, and a third on absentee, early, and
military voting, to name a few..
At the Democratic convention next week in Boston, they
say, any lawyers interested in volunteering will be
offered training. And dozens of the lawyers already
recruited by the Kerry organization will hold two days
of intensive meetings to finalize strategy, tactics
and assignments.
Democrats say they learned from the Florida vote, and
from the Supreme Court rulings that arose from it,
that the most important legal battles are those fought
before Election Day, over how election laws are to be
carried out, who is allowed to register and who will
be allowed to vote.
Robert Bauer, a partner of Mr. Elias's who is
overseeing the Kerry legal effort, took a historical
view of what he called "warfare over the electoral
franchise." The first phase, he said, concerned who
was entitled to vote and included the all-white
primary, literacy tests and poll taxes that were
eliminated in the mid-20th century. The second phase
was fought largely over the dilution of the vote along
racial lines and used the Voting Rights Act, he said.
"Now, we're into a third phase, that was exemplified
by Bush-Gore, of franchise restrictions that are
accomplished through manipulations of the elections
administration process or of the law," Mr. Bauer said.
"It's about people who somehow can't register, or
can't vote, or their vote isn't counted, and it's done
not frontally, but through legal manipulations."
Those can include the seemingly picayune. In
Minnesota, a lawyer for the Kerry campaign is
protesting a ruling by the secretary of state — Mary
Kiffmeyer, a Republican — that every registrant must
provide identification that matches "with certainty" a
state database containing registered voters' names,
birthdates and driver's license numbers or partial
Social Security numbers. "It doesn't take into account
a transposition of a number by a data-entry person,"
said Jim Rubenstein, the Kerry lawyer in Minneapolis.
In an interview, Ms. Kiffmeyer said local officials
would have the discretion to overlook an obvious
typographical error.
Republicans are not trumpeting their efforts nearly as
much, though Benjamin Ginsberg, the national counsel
for the Bush-Cheney campaign, said he expected lawyers
to cover 30,000 precincts on Election Day.
He noted that the chairman of the Republican National
Committee, Ed Gillespie, had been rebuffed by his
Democratic counterpart when he proposed recently that
the two parties agree on a list of pivotal precincts
and send bipartisan pairs of lawyers to monitor them.
"Obviously the goal in this is to have every valid
vote counted," Mr. Ginsberg said, "and to not allow
the sort of rhetorical overkill, on either
intimidation or fraud, to be used in a tainted fashion
to interfere with the get-out-the-vote operation."
Mr. Bauer of the Kerry campaign said: "There's not
much interest in depending on Republican agents to
police the polls."
Apart from the two campaigns, a host of advocacy and
civil-rights groups, which often act in parallel with
Democrats when it comes to expanding ballot access,
are stepping up their own election-law efforts this
year.
America's Families United, a racial-justice advocacy
group that is registering thousands of people, has set
up a "voter protection project" to ensure that its new
registrants make it onto the rolls, by comparing each
new voter list to its own list. Penda D. Hair, the
project director, said her goal was to recruit 6,000
lawyers in 20 states who could challenge registrars
when they reject applications improperly.
In South Dakota, Native American officials are suing
for clarification of new election rules. In 2002, they
say, a dramatic increase in voting by tribal members —
who often lack driver's licenses or other accepted
forms of picture identification — made the difference
in the Senate race that Tim Johnson won by fewer than
600 votes. The state has since revised its
identification rules, and in the special Congressional
election there last month, Native Americans reported
widespread discrepancies in the application of the
rules, said Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of
the National Congress of American Indians.
In some places, Ms. Johnson said, signs went up at
polling places warning, "No I.D., no vote," even
though the law allows voters to sign an affidavit if
they do not have valid identification. Elsewhere, she
said, people living as far as 60 miles from polling
places were sent home to get identification, and
partisan poll watchers sometimes insisted that voters
instead fill out provisional ballots. Ms. Johnson said
such ballots were more likely to be disqualified on
challenges.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, meanwhile,
has made a Freedom of Information Act request to
review the Justice Department's communications to
local and state election authorities during this
election cycle. "We're being proactive, trying to head
off any problems at the pass," said Nancy Zirkin, the
conference's deputy director.
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NOTE to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta): Another US soldier has died in Iraq. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges Reich. The hour is getting late. There is a massive build-up of US Navy vessels in the Taiwan straits to participate in a huge “military exercise.” There is a credible rumor that Vladimir Putin will commit 40K Russian troops to Iraq in the Fall to influence the US Presidential Election in favor of Bush (although we are skeptical). John Negroponte (whose shirt sleeve cuffs are red from Latin America) has been named the Bush cabal’s ambassador to Iraq, and Iyed Allawi, a paid US operative, who recently executed six blindfolded, handcuffed *suspects* with his own pistol in front of witnesses, has been installed as the Iraqi strong man. The now apparently soul-less Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has appeared on TV ads, extolling the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident’s “moral clarity,” and also campaigned in person with the VICE _resident in Michigan, which McCain won in the 2000 Republican primary season, despite the Bush cabal’s hate-filled dirty tricks. Bush supporters in Louisiana are distributing bumper stickers that read: "Kerry is Bi