In Time Magazine’s July 19 issue, on page 31, John Kerry is seen using an Apple PowerBook (15″ TiBook, it looks like). The photo, taken by Diana Walker, is captioned “From his study in the family’s Pittsburgh, PA, home, Kerry phones Edwards to officially invite the North Carolina Senator to be his running mate.” This comes on the heels of the report, “Vice President Dick Cheney a confirmed Apple iPod user” and, of course we all know that, at least back in 1998 when the photo of Bush was snapped, President Bush uses a PowerBook, too. That just leaves V.P. candidate John Edwards’ choice of platform in question.
MacDailyNews Take: You’d think that with Apple CEO Steve Jobs advising John Kerry and with Al Gore on Apple’s Board of Directors, Steve could figure out a way to get Kerry a new 17″ PowerBook – at least for photo ops.
Update: Updated PowerBook model speculation as per Seahawk’s post below.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Conservative Mac users miffed at Apple’s Jimmy Carter page – October 14, 2002
The Mac is Bush to Windows’ Clinton – October 25, 2002
Bush-Cheney ’04 Re-election website adds QuickTime multimedia choice – April 27, 2004
That cannot be a 17″ model: never had ports on the back, hence it is a TiBook.
Uhmm, both candidates use Powerbooks. Who to vote now? Here goes a major selection factor.
More importantly is the fact that Lance Armstrong travels with and loves his iPod!
Thank God Kerry is an Mac User. I was worried there for a while cuz there is no way I could vote for Bush even if he is an Mac User and of course I think it would be better if our President was an Mac User. If not for any other reason then just because using a PC would probably make him cranky and you don’t want the guy with the button being any more cranky than he has to.
Bush is using the old Pismo Powerbook and Kerry is using the new 17″ Powerbook. I think Miss Tereza Heinz used her billions to buy Kerry that 17 incher. While Bush….I guess already spent his money on his Daughters and got them Powerbooks with iPods. So, he still has the old one for now. (All the above after the first sentence is purely speculation)
Damn Bush it’s time to upgrade! Is that a g3 powerbook?! That must be 4+ years old by now.
WHOT GIVES A F**K!
That’s great that it’s now confirmed, but there is still no way I could vote for Kerry even if he is a Mac User. Maybe since Steve Jobs is helping with the campaign, he “donated” the PowerBook to Kerry. Or maybe it came for Al Gore. haha Well, a 15″ PowerBook makes for a nice “campaign contribution” I’d say. ; )
My understanding previously was that Kerry did not use a computer. Would the dems stage a photo to get some crossover mac votes? Naw………………..
If he’s such a big Mac user, why didn’t Kerry speak up last year during the televised debate? When the question was posed then, only Al Sharpton said he used a Mac. I guess once Steve Jobs endorsed him, Kerry figured he had better go buy one pretty quick so Jobs and Al Gore wouldn’t get pissed at him.
I won’t vote for either Bush or Kerry…no matter what computer they use
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400,000 and he’s using OS 9… woof
hey, this is WAY more relevant than the stupid ‘angelina jolie gets a tattoo of a tiger’ story!
this actually has to do with apple..
if he’s using OS9, then he’s an old school mac user
the bush photo was taken in ’98, so he may have switched to the dark side before he took office. This would be why he killed the Microsoft anti-trust case. Or maybe he was pressured into doing that by Dick.
So, this proves that Mac is used among a wide spectrum of people.. from the smart ones to the dumb ones.
What a dick that Dick
Give me a break, Bush had nothing to do with the M$ anti-trust case being killed. Since when has the executive branch had any control over the judicial branch anyway? The judicial branch does whatever the hell it feels like because they answer to no one including the voters. Everybody knows that.
Just because some staffer put an old pismo behind Bush for a publicity shot of him “working” doesn’t mean he’s a Mac user. Notice that NOTHING is active on the screen? Really using it there, sport.
No, Dubya doesn’t use any computer at all. That’s the reality.
apparently kerry has mo’ money than dubya…
baawahhahhahahhaahhaha
moo.
Obviously Mac users are everywhere and fall on both sides of the political spectrum. Much to the chagrin of some (including Steve Jobs apparently as well) it isn’t just liberals that own and use Macs and iPods despite what some people may think or wish.
“Give me a break, Bush had nothing to do with the M$ anti-trust case being killed. Since when has the executive branch had any control over the judicial branch anyway? The judicial branch does whatever the hell it feels like because they answer to no one including the voters. Everybody knows that.” -RL
The Judicial Branch? The Attorney General (who is in charge of proscuting such cases) is appointed by the President. Please head back to Federal Government 101 – or just do a Google search. Geez.
Oh, so you can see what’s “active” on the screen of Kerry’s PB there in that photo huh A-Bomb? What a weak excuse of a post just to bash on Bush. Give it a rest dude…
Kerry: “I was using Windows before using a Mac” in an attempt to explain why he is now using Windows again.
Gotta love MDN. At least they show both sides of the Mac political issue and aren’t afraid to post it on this site. If you were to look at Apple as a company you’d think only Democrats ever used Macs. Having Al Gore on the Board, posting Jimmy Carter on the front page of their website and in their Think Different campaign, not allowing anyone with a conservative philosophy to ever advertise for them (but allowing someone like Howard Stern to though), etc., etc. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s not just liberals and Democrats that use Macs. At least MDN recognizes that, too bad Apple won’t.
I’ve seen more recent photos of Bush using one of the newer PowerBooks. As noted by someone else above, this was an old photo, so it seems he’s been using it a while and insisted the WH IT folks deal with it.
Guys, how about giving the politics a rest and taking satisfaction that BOTH major party candidates use Macs!
Real Mac fans should be thrilled.
Lance,
At least Kerry is facing the frickin’ laptop. The Bush photo is so obiously a set-up that it’s ridiculous. And as to Mac User‘s suggestion that there are photos of Dubya using a newer PowerBook, how about producing them.
Dubya is a chimp.. er, I mean chump. Sorry that the truth hurts.
Oh, and Lance, I don’t need to create an “excuse” to bash Bush. He produces plenty of reasons without my help!
Oh so he’s a “chimp” huh? That’s a REAL intelligent statement you made there. Glad to see that’s all you can come up with. We wouldn’t want you to have to think too hard or anything…
Geez dude, if that’s all you can come up with give us a break. You’re obviously no Rhodes Scholar there yourself Atomic. LOL
A couple of posters suggested that Bush was using a Pismo PowerBook in the photo. However, the Pismo PowerBook has a white Apple at the top of the screen, whereas Bush’s PowerBook has a multi-colored Apple at the bottom. In addition, the hinge in the photo is different than the Pismo’s. That looks like a “Wall Street” to me.
Lance,
I didn’t even have to think that one up:
http://www.sleestak.net/humor/bushchimp/
And here’s a fun game for you:
http://www.urban75.org/useless/bush.html
Just do a Google search on “Bush chimp”. The number of results and variety of comparisons are startling… and hilarious!
Again, sorry about that. The truth hurts – especially for those out there who are blindly loyal …to a lying, corrupt chimp.
“You’re obviously no Rhodes Scholar there yourself Atomic.”
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Typical Bush-zombie response. Attack the commentor rather than the subject matter. Pathetic.
Well then, I guess your life is just going to be hell for the next 4 1/2 years then with Bush as President huh Atomic? I just don’t know how you’ll make it thru live that long. haha
Lance,
Re-selecting Bush (or just not holding the election at all – as his administration recently suggested through their surrogate in the House) would be PERFECT! His tax cuts have pumped tens of thousands into my accounts that wouldn’t have been there otherwise, and he provides more fodder for late night comedians than all the presidents before him combined! It’s great!
No way do I want to see him out of office. Besides, if things get too bad, I have the means to move to any European country (or anywhere for that matter) at any time. Do I feel bad for the poor unwashed masses who don’t have that option? Sure. But if they’re stupid enough to put Dubya back in office (again, if they’re even given the chance) [see Reichstagg] then that’s their problem.
Stupid is as stupid does, eh?
I’d be THRILLED to have Dubya’s Follies for four more years. THRILLED!!!
Thanks for degrading this discussion into a juvenile name calling contest as usual A.B.
And for RL’s enjoyment, I meant to type “Dumbya“.
You’re welcome, Cobra. Happy to be of service, though a quick glance at the posts preceding mine make it difficult for me to take full credit. Nevertheless, I’m happy to be of service.
Yes, it appears that Bush is on a Pismo … great laptop, still totally useable. Kerry looks like he is on a 17″er aluminum … up to date with the latest.
Tough call.
Still thinking about Kerry not voting to fund our troops with that 87 billion … said something like he voted for it first, then voted against it, then wanted to send a message about international cooperation, bla bla bla. When all that talk is done, out guys dont even have bullet proof vests, let alone 17inch aluminum Mac powerbooks.
Think I’ll vote to keep the lib pussy out.
A-Bomb, “…he provides more fodder for late night comedians than all the presidents before him combined!”
How soon they forget Bubba Clinton romancing a 21-year-old intern with a cigar. That’s too tough to beat.
TruthTeller – That was a hilarious bit. There were some good skits to come out of that one little cigar. But it’s the absolute volume of gaffes, foibles, mis-statements, goof-ups, and hilarious out-takes that give Bush the clear advantage. I never could have imagined that one person could butcher the English language as thoroughly and relentlessly as Bush has. Not to mention his penchant for falling on his face at the drop of a hat and providing the goofiest looks imaginable.
Bush has made many a comedian’s career. There’s no doubt that his departure would be a major hit to the entertainment industry. Though Kerry is one goofy lookin’ mug.
This won’t even be a very close election, no matter what the media wants you to believe – they want you to believe this, so you’ll watch their coverage with bated breath until the election. Bush will win easily. Why? Improving economy, jobs being added, tax cuts, strong on defense. No need for the most liberal senator to come in and raise taxes, kill the recovery, and wimp out to France and the U.N.
Don’t believe me? Check this thread the day after the election. I’ll be here typing, “I told you so.”
Registered Voter: You’re on, Nostradumbass.
“Gotta love MDN. At least they show both sides of the Mac political issue and aren’t afraid to post it on this site. If you were to look at Apple as a company you’d think only Democrats ever used Macs. Having Al Gore on the Board, posting Jimmy Carter on the front page of their website and in their Think Different campaign, not allowing anyone with a conservative philosophy to ever advertise for them (but allowing someone like Howard Stern to though), etc., etc. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s not just liberals and Democrats that use Macs. At least MDN recognizes that, too bad Apple won’t.”
Hey, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB network is an all-Mac outfit. Not that I agree with a lot of what he says but at least he has good taste in computers.
Above quoted post by Rob.
Senators don’t win Presidential elections very often, almost never. Two senators on the same ticket = doom.
Bush will kill them with their own voting records. Watch and learn.
Is it just me or does is seem like there’s one Bushovic posting under multiple names. This person seems to have a prediction complex or something. Weird.
If you want to post multiple times, feel free. Why not just use the same name?
This is my second post and what I’ve posted above is simply fact.
Foam: More than 1/3 of all Presidents (15) were Senators. That’s fact.
How many in the last hundred years when newspapers and media coverage matters?
Governors win Presidential elections. And sitting Presidents and Vice Presidents. Not Senators. Not in modern times.
Fact.
Atomic Bomb is a liar:
“Harding and Kennedy are the only two senators who have won the White House. That’s not because other senators haven’t tried. Some big-name senators in U.S. history failed to parlay their Senate careers to the White House, including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and Michigan’s Lewis Cass, defeated in 1848 by Taylor. Today’s Senate is heavy with ex-presidential candidates: Joe Lieberman, Bob Graham, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, Tom Harkin, John McCain and Ted Kennedy. But 12 senators have become vice president, three of them eventually becoming president (Truman, Nixon and Lyndon Johnson).”
Oh, look here, an actual link to back me up:
http://www.freep.com/news/politics/civics16_20040216.htm
Tsk, tsk, A-Bomb. Just like your candidate Kerry – a lying loser. I will now repeat the facts:
Senators don’t win Presidential elections very often, almost never. Two senators on the same ticket = doom.
Bush will kill them with their own voting records. Watch and learn.
Governors also lose Presidential elections. Recent examples are, of course, Carter and Dukakis. In “modern times” (post 1950’s television era), most presidential elections haven’t included Senators. But their winning percentage has actually been on par with the far more frequent option of governors. The reality is that the cycles of Senatorial terms often preclude as great a pool of candidates for non-incumbant candidacies as those from Governor offices.
In other words, your argument has no statistical basis and is inherently flawed.
Lie? My statement was very clear and stands on its own: 15 Senators have become President. Period.
Your attempts at obscuring the facts and attacking the messenger only expose your clear insecurities.
It’s the voting records, stupid. You take the votes and spin them against the senator. Easy as pie.
And, thanks to unionized Democrat teachers dumbing down America for years, it’s easy to mold public opinion.
Bush will win easier than you think. Sorry to break it to you.
Foam: Let’s hope your simplistic world view is shared by a majority of the electoral college. Bush’s follies have been great for my pocketbook, so I have no interest in seeing him gone.
Atomic,
Link, please.
Foam, “thanks to unionized Democrat teachers dumbing down America for years, it’s easy to mold public opinion.” How right you are, just look at how many saps think Michael Moore is spouting Gospel instead of propaganda.
Link:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/
Atomic ahole,
Let’s hope that your phony boy Kerry doesn’t make it into office or we’ll probably see atomic bombs set off on our soil. You’d probably like that though you psycho!
A-Bomb, that link doesn’t show Senators who ran for President and won. Poor try, bomber. My link does:
http://www.freep.com/news/politics/civics16_20040216.htm
“Harding and Kennedy are the only two senators who have won the White House.”
Atomic,
Who the hell are you to name call the President of the United States? What are your major accomplishments? Gay internet porn watching? Give me a break and spare us the name calling of our president.
CUPERTINO, Calif., July 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple� today announced financial results for its fiscal 2004 third quarter ended June 26, 2004. For the quarter, the Company posted a net profit of $61 million, or $.16 per diluted share. These results compare to a net profit of $19 million, or $.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $2.014 billion, up 30 percent from the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 27.8 percent, up from 27.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 39 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
The quarter’s results include an after-tax restructuring charge of $6 million. Excluding this charge, the Company’s net profit for the quarter would have been $67 million, or $.17 per diluted share.
Apple shipped 876 thousand Macintosh� units and 860 thousand iPods during the quarter, representing a 14 percent increase in CPU units and a 183 percent increase in iPods over the year-ago quarter.
“It was an outstanding quarter-our highest third quarter revenue in eight years,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Our Mac-based revenue grew a healthy 19 percent, and our music-based revenue grew an incredible 162 percent. We’ve got a strong product portfolio, with some amazing new additions coming later this year.”
“We were very pleased with our 30 percent year-over-year revenue growth and our operating margin expansion,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004, we expect revenue of about $2.1 billion and earnings per diluted share of $.16 to $.17, including $.01 per diluted share in restructuring charges.”
Anybody ever seen a photo of Apple board member Al Gore using an Apple computer?
Got a link?
Kiss this perfumed lib adios. We stopped electing lib yankees from Massa a long time ago. They are just plain out of touch. Besides, we need a tough guy in there now.
We will mend fences down the road. Until then, who needs skeddadlers like the French, the Spaniards and the Filipinos. They cut and run.
you donkey
They just don’t run where smells like oil
This is hilarious! It’s so easy to whip the lobotomized Bush zombies into a tizzy.
What a pathetic lot.
1) Maybe at the top, you need a smart guy as opposed to a tough guy. You win wars like the one we’re in using intelligence, not macho bravura.
2) The last yankee from Ma. elected was George Bush Sr., if you’re talking about where they really lived as opposed to where they paid taxes. So the only difference is whether you should elect liberals or not.
Well of course I have an expensive Apple laptop, my billionaire, foreign born, widow-wife, “TAY-RAY-ZAH”, bought for me.
—John Kerry
just a gigilo…
P.S. I have only missed 73% of the Senate votes in the last year, not the 80% someone mentioned earlier.
now that we know we killed tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens, 894 Americans, 60 Britons, six Bulgarians, one Dane, one Dutch, one Estonian, one Hungarian, 19 Italians, one Latvian, six Poles, one Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and seven Ukrainians, in the war in Iraq as of July 14, 2004, ALL FOR NOTHING, what do we do now? we know the WMD’s were a lie, i think people let that one slide. what do we do when we find out 9-11 was a lie also? who was responsible? we know that famous Usama Bin Laden video was a lie. so what does this mean? we now know that 9-11 was no suprise to the bush admin. what does that tell us? we had the world in our hand and now we dropped the ball. as American Citizens, what do we do to right these wrongs? we don’t need a “strong person in the whitehouse” we need strong citizens to demand that washington speaks for the democratic majority. we need strong citizens to demand our rights back. we need to vote these insane men out. we need to all show up in november.
Reply to “the big one”: What it means is you are an idiot.
P.S. John Kerry voted to invade Iraq.
(John Kerry was absent for 78% of the Senate votes last year. AWOL.)
John Edwards is on the Senate Intelligence Committee that recieved the same intelligence info as the President and recommended that the U.S. invade Iraq.
(John Edwards was absent for 43%of the Senate votes last year. AWOL.)
I suggest you move out of the U.S. and give up your citizenship. Move to Iraq and help your buddy Bin Laden.
So those who vote for Bush like:
Torture http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-sweden-guantanamo.html
Trillions in debt.
Telling people to lie about the health care plan (100+ billion more then Bush told Congress).
He wants to ban same-sex marriages. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/politics/10amend.html?fta=y
etc, etc.
I’m not saying I like John Kerry either, but Bush has done some incedibly f***ked things.
MA = Massachusetts.
ME = Maine (where Geo Bush lived part of the time).
Thomas Hobbbess: “Trillions in debt.”
Yeah, sure.
Same-sex marriages: Well, get married to your boyfriend for chrissakes…move to Massachusetts.
By the way Kerry is not for same-sex marriages, neither is Edwards.
Health care? Kerry and Edwards are in the SEnate that approves all Health care plans in the US. Where is their responsibility.
Educate yourself Thom and someday when you are 18 you can vote.
Why do people tend to think of politicians as superhuman? They are just people, they make mistakes and act in their own interest. Its good that Mac’s are getting further penetration in the military and government.
“I love liberals, they taste like chicken”
Bon Apetite
I’ll bet that both of those laptops were put there as props to ‘fill out’ the shot, or make the candidates look more ‘with it’. Time magazine probably sent the photographer and an art director. And I bet the computers belong to the photographer or a staff member.
Just a little bit of cynicism on my part (because i’m a photographer).
And just because a staff member mentions the particular brand of computer doesn’t mean anything. No one in this campaign would admit that their boss DOESN’T use a computer, nowadays. So they would probably say the brand THEY use.
Photos are just as phony as everything else.
dv
PS Kerrys comp is a Tibook, look at the picture it has the ports on the back. All the new AL books have the ports on the sides, something i really appreciate.
Sorry mistook one New England state for another.
George W Bush: Born in Connecticut, educated at Yale and Harvard
GHW Bush (or Bush Sr., depending on your preference): Born in Milton, MA, educated in Andover, MA
Prescott Sheldon Bush: Almost an Okie, having been born in Ohio, but then goes all traditional by going to school in Newport, RI and Yale. GHW’s father and GWB’s grandfather served in the Senate for Connecticut between 1952 and 1963 before resuming a New York-based banking career. PSB died in 1972 and is interred in Greenwich, Connecticut.
I’ll give you the fact that JEB is almost a good ol’ boy, having been born and educated in Texas, but to describe the Bush family as if they were true sons of the Confederacy is fallacious, as is the idea that GWB is some sort of political outsider.
Just to back that statement up, GWB and JEB represent the [B]fourth[/B] consecutive generation of the Bush family to be involved in politics, given that Samuel P. Bush (GWB/JEB’s great-grandfather) was an adviser to Herbert Hoover.
Remember, Jimmy Carter was credited as being the most intelligent president (nuclear submariner and all) and what an idiot he turned out to be.
High intelligence does not mean one is smart. Or the right person to be President of the U.S.
The smartest thing Kerry ever did was marry two wives that were million- and billion-aires.
Bin Laden and his buddies are wanting to kill all us “infidels”. He wants to destroy western civilization and replace it with radical Islamic religious rule. He does not care who is President, Democrat or Republican. He wants to destroy our government, our country, our society. It is very black and white with him: Destroy the western world.
At this time of war we need a leader who is strong and not afraid to defend the US (and western world, including France and Germany and any other wimps). We do not need a leader like John Kerry who sees everything in broad shades of grey.
I use a 12″ iBook, but Jo Stalin has a 15″ Al Powerbook. Eisenhower has a Dell running Suse 9.1 while Winston has a mechanical Babbage. Mussolini has a FerrariAcer Travelmate and Mao has an abacus. This is not the most stupid comment on this page. Honestly.
Bin Laden uses airplanes to kill Americans
When somebody is shooting at you in war, you need a commander who kicks ass and wins.
You do not need some “intellectual” who sticks his $600 haircutted head out of the trenches waving the white flag, so that we can discuss this war like we high society, super rich, upper crust “intellectual” Democrats do.
Kerry does not have some communist Vietnamese delegation to visit in Paris like he did (illegally) during the Viet Nam war. To Bin Laden, Kerry is either a target or an idiot. He hopes both.
I guess Apple is for the elite and Windows is for the little people.
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Got a bit hot this one.
Personally (less of an axe to grind as a European) I m glad that whoever gets to be President should nt be getting some deranged hacker out to prove that if you store all your launch codes with Windows XP they can launch your missiles.
I preferred the pics of Angelina Jolie with the Tiger tattoo.
well the government is in favour of apple for security reasons.. there’s been much publicized regarding this.. especially with Xserve deals
as for the windows little people.. gimme a break.. macs are < 800. for most users an eMac is perfect and comes with every piece of software you could ask for (which is why it sucks to be a mac developer)
windows users who haven’t played with a mac in the last 2 years shouldn’t comment on this
“Hey, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB network is an all-Mac outfit. Not that I agree with a lot of what he says but at least he has good taste in computers.”
I know and that was the point I was trying to make. Apple won’t pay him to endorse their products, but they’ll pay Howard Stern for example despite the fact he doesn’t reach half the audience that Limbaugh does. Whether they agree with his politics or not that’s very narrow minded on Apple’s part. Apple as a company pretends that conservatives and Republicans don’t exist and frankly that’s only because Steve Jobs has a radical leftist political ideology. That’s why he’s put Gore on his Board, glorifies Carter on his company’s website, publicly supports Kerry’s campaign, etc, etc.
All I was saying is that at least MDN will state the obvious that not only Democrats and liberals use Macs and it’s a shame Apple won’t do the same. Steve Jobs could do himself a big favor and not wear his ultra liberalism on his sleeve so much and it might help him sell a few more Macs in the process because in reality it really does turn some people off to Apple.
I personally choose to keep an open mind and I buy Macs because they’re the best computer there is and for no other reason. Frankly, I don’t care a damn bit nor do I even want to know what politician Steve Jobs supports. I’m also sure as hell not going to vote for a candidate based on what computer he/she uses or doesn’t use, or whether Steve Jobs likes or dislikes him/her or not. But not everyone is that way and Jobs should realize this because he’s no dummy when it comes to business, except in this instance.
>* I’m trying to get all the press reports on this political stuff straightened out in my head so
>I’ll know how to vote come November. Who to believe…
>Lemme see, have I got this straight?
>Clinton awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Yugoslavia – good…
>Bush awards Halliburton no-bid contract in Iraq – bad…
>
>Clinton spends 77 billion on war in Serbia – good…
>Bush spends 87 billion in Iraq – bad…
>
>Clinton imposes regime change in Serbia – good…
>Bush imposes regime change in Iraq – bad…
>
>Clinton bombs Christian Serbs on behalf of Muslim Albanian terrorists –
>good…
>Bush liberates 25 million from a genocidal dictator – bad…
>
>Clinton bombs Chinese embassy – good…
>Bush bombs terrorist camps – bad…
>
>Clinton commits felonies while in office – good…
>Bush lands on aircraft carrier in jumpsuit – bad…
>
>Clinton says mass graves in Serbia – good…
>Entire world says WMD in Iraq – bad…
>
>No mass graves found in Serbia – good…
>No WMD found Iraq – bad…
>
>Stock market crashes in 2000 under Clinton – good…
>Recession under Bush – bad…
>
>Clinton refuses to take custody of Bin Laden – good…
>World Trade Centers fall under Bush – bad…
>
>Clinton says Saddam has nukes – good…
>Bush says Saddam has nukes – bad…
>
>Clinton calls for regime change in Iraq – good…
>Bush imposes regime change in Iraq – bad…
>
>Terrorist training in Afghanistan under Clinton – good…
>Bush destroys training camps in Afghanistan – bad…
>
>Milosevic not yet convicted – good…
>Saddam in custody – bad…
>
>Ah, it’s so confusing!
Thanks Jay. That’s the best post in this thread yet.
here, here,
spectacular post Jay! that hit the nail on the head of the liberal hypocracy.
Al Gore had a powerbook, but gave it to the Chinese so they could copy it. Kerry was a Mac user, but then was a Windows user, oh wait…he changed again and is a Mac user…no Windows user…whatever he is, I hope he has telecommute access being that he has missed 86% of work both here in the democrat-controlled state of Taxachusetts as well as in Wash DC. The guy never shows up for work..period. I think he spends most of his time playing golf with his best friends….Ho Chi Minh, the French government, Jane Fonda, Daniel Ortega, and Kofi Annan.
Liberals are the cancer of America. No military can defeat us in an open conflict, yet we are in far more danger here at home from the liberal morons like the ACLU who believe terrorists have more rights than do American citizens. Liberals continue to strip away all that is America in the name of long lost causes such as feminism, marxism, communism and now they defend the Islamists who are among us to one day deprive us all of our liberty. The only postive note anymore is the anticipation one feels for the looming backlash which will one day come. If we are attacked again like 9-11, we will need to bring back internment camps to house all Muslims living in America and begin mass deportations. We also ought to proclaim that we will nuke Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria if there is another attack in America since those countries fund and contribute to terrorism. The sooner we nuke Iran, the better.
I like the trend here!
It will be embarrassing for the democrats this year when they get clobbered by Bush!
FOAM: “It’s the voting records, stupid. You take the votes and spin them against the senator. Easy as pie.
And, thanks to unionized Democrat teachers dumbing down America for years, it’s easy to mold public opinion.
Bush will win easier than you think. Sorry to break it to you.”
So it seems you are saying that “spinning” the facts and the factor that America has been “dumbed down” is the way Bush will win. For all of our sakes I hope you are wrong and that the “straight” facts interpreted by intelligent Americans will result in our getting rid of Bush. Unfortunately I am afraid that you may be right and that morons voting for Bush based on “spun” facts could result in our being stuck with him for 4 more years. God help us all if this happens.
The Pope uses windoze. Everytime it crashes, freezes or cops a virus he forgives it. Everytime it boots, he sings an Alleluia. Everytime Exploder has all its bookmarks reset to porn sites he prays: “Lord, why doth thou test me so!”
The reason no prez’ would use windoze is that everytime Word crashes it sends an error report and a copy of the document to Gates, with all the previous edting and sometimes previous document editing buried in the file. Just reset any Word document to a text file, open it in BBEdit and examine all the trash in the file. That’s why M$ runs rings around the Justice Dept.
Saddam used windoze. When the Kurds planted a trojan that reset all of Exploder’s porn bookmarks to human rights’ sites he got pissed and gassed them. He was caught only because he sent an email to Jenna Joy and she had a virus that copied itself to all addresses in the pentag… er, her address book.
I’m sick of all the political discussions and name calling. I really wish everyone would keep their peace and vote their beliefs and let the chips fall where they fall.
Amen.
And if they ever institute electronic voting … a M$ candidate will win.
Bush doesn’t USE the computer. He sits in front of it. I seriously doubt he has the smarts to use ANY computer. He has other people do it, as with everything he doesn’t do, which is everything.
IT guy-
“So, this proves that Mac is used among a wide spectrum of people.. from the smart ones to the dumb ones.”
thats funny
rextool,
look in the mirror tool. what’s your major accomplishment in life? I can only imagine. head grocery bagger?
To whoever used the pseudonym Abe Lincoln:
Conservative != “Nuke them bastasds!”
I honestly don’t think Abe would have said such rhetoric. If you’re going to spout off genocidal and racist remarks, please put down the cloak of being a conservative and seek psycological assistance. Don’t give other conservatives a bad name by being such a vocal bafoon. Think about what you said? How many of our founding fathers would have endorsed killing of innocent peoples because of their race? It was Abraham Lincoln who abbolished slavery due to race.
Please take your biggotry, ponder its ugliness for a while, and put it away from yourself forever. That nonsense has nothing to do with the conservative or liberal mindset, but belongs only in fascism.
Yours truly,
<the rest of the world>
A truly amazing thread! While there is plenty of good old fashioned vitriol in a few posts, most of the moronic Michael Moo-risms have been avoided. All but A-bomb are to be commended.
That said, I continue to be amazed at the anti-Bush screeds. You liberals do know that Conservatives consider Bush to be a moderate, even liberal on things like big government expansionism, don’t you? His policies have been demonstrated to be well left of JFK and many other Democrats prior to JFK except maybe FDR.
We like W not because he spends like a wild man on federal education programs or prescription drug programs or Medicare programs but because he is a straight-shooting guy who you can trust. Everyone knows where he stands for good or ill. He is honest, forthright, and tough. I don’t particularly like his immigration policies, or his choices for the bench, or his general unwillingness to take the gloves off and fight back against all the intolerant hatespeech that is farted his direction everyday. Taking the high road is not always absolutely necessary.
As for his choice of computers, I hope it’s a Mac as this would demonstrate one of the defining qualities of a Conservative: practical and clearheaded. But, like I said, Bush is a moderate and so it is quite likely that he uses a PC like most execs.
Cheers,
B
P.S. Jay, that is the most intelligent post you have ever written. You sure you didn’t get that in an email and repost it (it is quoted out after all)? No offense but usually you tend to foam at the mouth a little in your posts. This is better.
You Bush supporters here are repeating a lot of lies. Where did you get them from, Rush and Hannity?
“Harding and Kennedy are the only two senators who have won the White House.”
This is wrong from the start, as LBJ was elected in 1964. And who the hell is quoting FREEP? Good lord, they make Fox News look “fair & balanced.”
Kerry did not vote to invade Iraq. He voted to give the president the power to deal with the huge threat that was Saddam Hussein, as presented by the administration. That was his duty, to protect the country. However, as we all know now, it was a pack of lies. The American people know this too. Kerry doesn’t have to run negative ads, it’s in the news every day. Bush doesn’t stand a chance in November.
You don’t believe me? Nobody who voted for Gore in 2000 is going to vote for Bush, so Kerry already has the popular vote. Florida’s electoral votes will go to Kerry (as they should have gone to Gore) as well as Arkansas’s votes. You will be surprised how fast it will be over. That’s why the Republicans are floating this notion of postponing the election, but if they do, it will be civil war time.
The Republicans are determined to tear this country apart. The poisonous spewings of right wing demagogues have toxified political debate into a us versus them struggle to the death.
From Bill Clinton’s book:”I won a lot of elections and I think I did a lot of good, but the more I tried to bring people together, the madder it made the fanatics on the right. Unlike the kids [at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago], they didn’t want to come back together. They had an enemy, and they meant to keep it.”
Bring it on.
Bush in 2004!
– I am Osama Bin Laden and I approve of this ad.
Okay, I spoke too soon.
Neomonkey, it does your credibility (assuming anyone thinks you had any in the first place) no good to whine about “lies” from the Bush supporters and then proceed to spew a laundry list of easily debunked fabrications of your own. To wit:
NM: This is wrong [that only 2 senators have won the White House] from the start, as LBJ was elected in 1964.
Let’s try to be a little less obtuse okay? The context is the Kerry/Edwards ticket: 2 STANDING Senators. Only 2 standing senators have won the WH, while a total of 15 held the job but went on to other things before taking the presidency. THE POINT is that current senators rarely win the WH. The real argument is that one has a better likelihood of winning the presidency as an ex-senator than as a standing senator. (for a list see next post)
NM: Kerry did not vote to invade Iraq. He voted to give the president the power to deal with the huge threat that was Saddam Hussein.
Nice parsing. He voted for the resolution, he can’t and isn’t running away from that vote. He says he would vote for the war again TODAY. On this point, Kerry disagrees with you (although he may agree with you tomorrow, who knows?)
NM: Nobody who voted for Gore in 2000 is going to vote for Bush.
Really, so you know more than every political analyst living today? Amazing. Of course, there is NO WAY that you can make this claim. Indeed, it is a ludicrous prediction on many fronts. Given that there are bound to be those who voted for Gore who see Kerry as the most liberal senator in the country a certain percentage of voters will likely align with the more moderate Bush this time around.
NM: So Kerry already has the popular vote.
I would bet a C Bill that you are absolutely wrong on this front. However, I don’t claim to have the knowledge of the future that you claim to have so I won’t.
NM: Florida’s electoral votes will go to Kerry (as they should have gone to Gore).
How do you figure? The 2000 Florida vote was recounted by numerous organizations including the far Left-wing rag, the New York Times. Bush won the Florida popular vote each time. This is well documented. You do understand that if you win a state’s popular vote you get its electoral votes don’t you? Hence, by your logic, Florida will clearly go to Bush again this time.
(cont.)
(cont. from above)
NM: That’s why the Republicans are floating this notion of postponing the election.
Tom Ridge is ONE Republican and he was inquiring about whether Homeland Security would have authority to postpone the election just like it was postponed in New York on September 11th. On a purely political calculation I would definitely want the election to go on. Look at the pro Bush sentiment after 9/11. Not only that, the next terrorist attack is going to be in a heavily Democrat area like New York, SF, or LA. I will guarantee if there is an attack just prior to November 2nd, it will be the Democrats who will be demanding that the election be postponed.
NM: The poisonous spewings of right wing demagogues have toxified political debate into a us versus them struggle to the death.
Hmm, did Whoopi Goldbrick, Michael Moore, the Dixie Chicks, et al, suddenly become right wingers? I must have missed that.
-B
P.S. Thanks for the Bill Clinton quote. It really helped your argument about the need for truthfulness in government leadership
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So much for the theory that only good guys use Macs…
Presidential Occupations
Here are the governmental positions held just prior to reaching the presidency:
George Washington — General
John Adams (1797-1801) — VP
Thomas Jefferson (1801-09)– VP
James Madison (1809-17) — Cab Sec (State)
James Monroe (1817-25) — Cab Sec (State)
John Quincy Adams (1825-29) — Cab Sec (State)
Andrew Jackson (1829-37) — Senator (4 years prior to President)
Martin Van Buren (1837-41) — Cab Sec (State)
William Henry Harrison (1841) — Ambassador to Columbia
John Tyler (1841-45) — VP
James Polk (1845-49)– Gov (Tenn)
Zachary Taylor (1849-50) — General
1850-1901
Millard Fillmore (1850-53) — VP
Franklin Pierce (1853-57) — Senate (11 years prior)
James Buchanan (1857-61) — Ambassador to England
Abraham Lincoln (1861-65) — Rep (12 years prior)
Andrew Johnson (1865-69) — VP
Ulysses S. Grant (1869-77) — General
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-81) — Gov (Ohio)
James A. Garfield (1881) — Senate
Chester A. Arthur (1881-85) — VP
Grover Cleveland (1885-89) — Gov
Benjamin Harrison (1889-93) — Senate (2 years prior)
Grover Cleveland (1893-97) — President (4 years prior)
William McKinley (1897-1901) — Gov (Ohio)
1901-2001
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) — VP
William H. Taft (1909-13) — Cab Sec (War)
Woodrow Wilson (1913-21) — Gov (New Jersey)
Warren Harding (1921-23) — Lt. Gov (Ohio), Senator
Calvin Coolidge (1923-29) — VP
Herbert Hoover (1929-33) — Cab Sec (Commerce)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-45) — Gov (New York)
Harry S Truman (1945-53) — VP
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61) — General
John F. Kennedy (1961-63) — Senate
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-69) — VP
Richard M. Nixon (1969-74) — VP (8 years prior)
Gerald R. Ford (1974-77) — VP
Jimmy Carter (1977-81) — Gov (Georgia)
Ronald W. Reagan (1981-89) — Gov (CA – 7 years earlier)
George Bush (1989-93) — VP
William J. Clinton (1993-2001) — Gov (Arkansas)
George W. Bush (2001-2004) — Gov (Texas)
George W. Bush (2005-2008) — President
So here is how it breaks out:
12 VPs
10 Governors
6 Cabinet Secs
6 Senators (only 2 sitting)
4 Generals
2 Ambassadors
1 Representative
Of these, I think only Washington, Jefferson and Lincon were confirmed Mac users, but that may just be a rumor
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
-B
Math correction:
-13 Veeps not 12
-Also, one president took office then lost the next election then won 4 years later.
This is from another site but it contains important points so I thought I would quote it here.
Posted by atthisaddress on spymac.com:
“I’m a Republican that will be voting for Kerry. I agree that the idea that Kerry is a liberal is a joke, he is every bit as establishment as Bush. Kerry is far from my idea of an ideal candidate.
However, there is more to this election than simple politics. An important legal doctrine is at stake, the legal right to privacy. This was most recently used to strike down a popular Texas law that called for a PRISON sentence for those engaging in a homosexual act. The Bush administration argued that the law should stand, and said that the simple belief that the people of Texas had said through their legislature that homosexual acts were immoral was reason enough to justify the law.
The court, by a narrow majority, ruled that the implied right to privacy in the constitution required Texas to prove they had an overwhelming reason to restrict the conduct of citizens, a reason that would be more important than the right of people to do as they saw fit as adults under the law.
For the right-wing Biblical conservatives, this is the most hated modern legal doctrine. It was first envoked in 1965, when the Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law that called for a PRISON sentence for married couples that used condoms. Imagine that, the insanity, the intolerence of a law like that.
If Bush gets in again, kiss that doctrine goodbye. There are a lot of very old Justices, and Bush would name as replacements young conservatives that would not only overturn this legal doctrine, they would serve on the Supreme Court for decades.
For all his faults, Kerry will name replacement Justices that would preserve this doctrine. This election has real life consequences. Here is a link to that 1965 decision if you are interested. “
/doc/{@37793}/hit_headings/words=4?][url=http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=]http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[jump!3A!27381+u!2Es!2E+479+douglas!27]/doc/{@37793}/hit_headings/words=4?[/url]
Beeblebrain, nobody gives a shit about your “governmental positions held just prior to reaching the presidency.” What with invading a sovereign country with no provocation, based on lies, Bush and his neocon outlaws have to go, it’s that simple. I doubt if you understand that the Bushies provoked the 9/11 attacks in the first place, and have been covering up ever since. They were going to invade Afghanistan in October 2001, but Al Qaeda launched a preemptive strike since they were going to lose everything anyway. But sheep like you suffer from cognitive dissonance and self-deception and reality avoidance when it comes to your Glorious Leader.
9/18/2001
A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week’s attacks.
Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1550366.stm
Kerry Didn’t Read Iraq Report Before Vote — Aides
Wed Jul 14, 7:42 PM ET
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic candidate John Kerry, whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.
it’s interesting to see comments such as
If we are attacked again like 9-11, we will need to bring back internment camps to house all Muslims living in America and begin mass deportations. We also ought to proclaim that we will nuke Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria if there is another attack in America since those countries fund and contribute to terrorism. The sooner we nuke Iran, the better.
This is extremely racist and fascist.
The idea that concentration camps are acceptable to hardcore Bush supporters suggests that the Nazis didn’t really lose World War II.
I’m no fan of John Kerry – who is a cousin of George W Bush and Dick Cheney.
Kerry and Bush are also part of the evil Skull and Bones society.
Kerry has a history of covering up Bush crimes (cocaine smuggling in the 1980s) and will be a fine successor to Baby Bush, covering up his complicity in 9/11.
Who had the power to turn off the Air Force protection of New York and Washington on 9/11? Osama? Saddam? Cheney and Rumsfeld?
When Hitler came into power, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag (Parliament), blamed it on a lone Communist arsonist, and used it as the excuse to “temporarily” suspend civil liberties.
The Republican Convention in New York – criminals always return to the scene of their crime.
“Who the hell are you to name call the President of the United States? What are your major accomplishments? Gay internet porn watching? Give me a break and spare us the name calling of our president.”
Oh, and I suppose you didn’t call President Clinton any names?? What a bunch of friggin’ hypocrites.
Mark with your statements such as:
——————————————
“Kerry has a history of covering up Bush crimes (cocaine smuggling in the 1980s) and will be a fine successor to Baby Bush, covering up his complicity in 9/11.
Who had the power to turn off the Air Force protection of New York and Washington on 9/11? Osama? Saddam? Cheney and Rumsfeld?
When Hitler came into power, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag (Parliament), blamed it on a lone Communist arsonist, and used it as the excuse to “temporarily” suspend civil liberties.
The Republican Convention in New York – criminals always return to the scene of their crime.”
————————————————
…it is time to return to the nut house and go back to your “it�s all a big conspiracy!” club.
And don�t forget to put back on your aluminum foil hat!
Tip to Eddie: Don�t call names, use facts. Didn�t your momma ever tell you that?
neochimp,
you are a disgusting, lying, poor excuse for a human being.
I think this is interesting how it has degraded into what it always does these days with opposing points of view. Didn’t this thread start with the topic of who uses a mac or not? The post from the email earlier comparing Bush and Clintons approval stats was great and a few other posts here. The majority of the political commentary here is just name calling and hateful.
I love my MAC, we have a home full of them. I assure you that my politics had nothing to do with my choice of platform. Quality and reliability were my deciding factors.
To be in the “Think Different” club I guess you have to ‘think the same’ as the liberal masses after all. How unfortunate.
What’s a shame is how hypnotized and hoodwinked the Bush supporters seem to be (probably from watching too much Fox News). It’s sort of like how a kidnapping victim often ends up respecting and praising their kidnapper. My response is this: Enjoying Fascism Yet? I’m not, and I can’t wait until we show Bush/Cheney the door.
Remember, Regime Change Starts at Home!
Extreme Liberalism is Communism and Fascism.
EXCEPT FOR ENDING SLAVERY, FASCISM, NAZISM & COMMUNISM
WAR HAS NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING.
PROTECT ISLAMIC PROPERTY RIGHTS AGAINST WESTERN IMPERIALISM.
SAY NO TO WAR!
gee I can’t believe I missed this discussion.
Nice try back there Dave H.
rexray,
Yes, the old “call your opponent a fascist if you have no ideas of your own” canard. This is tiresome. Fascism is a forced government monopolistic system such as the left pushes nearly everywhere around the globe.
By the way, by all emperical observation, Fox News is a middle of the road news channel. But even if it were as conservative as you imagine it to be, it can barely be heard above the noise of the leftist “news” organizations of CBS, NBC, ABC, NYT, LAT, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR and other left-wing organizations. When was the last time you heard a positive story about Bush on one of these networks or in one of these newspapers? When was the last time you heard any probing questions about Kerry, his lame war record or Edwards’ ambulance chasing lawsuits which have virtually destroyed the OB/GYN profession? When are we going to hear from the major media about Kerry being the most liberal Democrat senator to EVER run for the presidency?
We won’t becuase the major media LOVES Democrats and hates Bush. Every day we are punished with a disgusting love fest for the Dems with “reporters” talking about how sexy Edwards is and how the camera lens “melts” when it gets a picture of the two Dems together.
Throwing footballs on the tarmac, give me a break
Talk about Lemmings. I hear nothing from liberals except “Bush is an idiot” (which he clearly is not), and nothing about policy issues, or substantive matters. With liberals its all about feelings and perceptions and what the lib media spoon feeds you everyday. You are so easily swayed by snake oil salesmen like Michael Moore who knows that you are just a bunch of easily manipulated robots. He pretends to be this blue collar guy from Flint (he’s not) and then drives around in limos and flies in his chartered G5 (that’s a jet, not a PowerMac) and collects his millions. He decries Bush’s “ties” to the Carlyle group (Bush has none – that was his father) while having his film partially funded by George Soros who was a principle financier of the Carlyle group!
Until one of you actually can speak with a little intelligence on this subject the conservatives herein will continue to believe that you are incapable of putting one cogent thought after another.
We know you think Bush is an idiot and a fascist, we get it. Now, tell us WHY and back it up with some educated posts. If you can’t, you won’t mind if we ignore you.
Thanks.
-B
rexrap spues: “Enjoying Fascism Yet?”
What are you talking about? I doubt you have any idea what any three of those words mean, let alone the middle one.
From Princeton university: Fascism – a political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism).
Where are you living at rexray? Not in the U.S. I do.
Hey rexray… you werent by chance at that Oz Fest show last night in Jones Beach, NY were you? Your rhetoric sounds spawned from the same ignorance as the Hitler Montage in that concert last night.
I always find it interesting when immigrants like Ozzy, who have made their fortunes off the American Dollar, bite the hand that feeds them. Maybe JohnKerry.com will underwrite a website for him too. Another example of honesty…
Amazing
OK Beetlebrox. Let’s hear you defend Bush’s record on the environment. Please don’t just jump to the other issues below. Let’s hear your defense of this issue first. It alone is reason enough not to vote for Bush.
Other policies/issues where I think Bush is doing a terrible job is his disproportionate tax breaks for the very rich, the war in Iraq which he got us into based on faulty intelligence (c’mon, admit it for once that the WMD battle cry that Bush used to justify getting us into Iraq was wrong), the continuation of the Patriot Act which should only have been used (if at all) in the immediate emergency situation follow 9-11 and which is now starting to be abused, his ignoring the Geneva Convention, the torture of prisoners carried out during Bush’s watch by soldiers under his command that most probably resulted from the atmosphere which Bush as the commander in Chief created in the Armed forces, the fact that he has taken more vacation than any president in US history, the fact that he was totally not on the ball before 9-11 and actually got a briefing warning him of Bin Ladens intentions and did NOTHING (but stay on vacation) and more.
There, is that enough policy issues and substantive matters for you?
I just went downstairs to have some food and cool off and was thinking over this debate. It is utterly amazing to me that intelligent, clear-headed people (Mac Users even!) could be for George W. Bush. While I was eating I think I have realized how this could happen.
After 9-11 there was a tremendous upwelling of Pro-America feeling in the United States. I mean we all remember how the whole country was covered in US flags. We were also all scared by this vicious attack on our own soil. We all started pulling together and thinking as one country because of this. George W. Bush was the head of our country when this occurred. As our leader he is a symbol for all of us of America embodied in one man. (I mean if you had to pick one person who would be functioning as the representative of America it would have to be the president, right?) As such he was the recipient of all these positive feelings for America and is in fact still receiving these positive feelings from you. Americans were (are) scared and angry. Bush beat somebody up and blamed someone for our troubles and we cheered him on and loved him for it. (I will admit I was (and am still) very much behind the action in Afghanistan and find no fault with what Bush did there) The problem is that although America may merit these wonderful positive Pro-America feelings, Bush does not.
I don’t think he is evil but he is definately following his own agenda which benefits himself and the special interest groups he favors and does NOT necessarily have the best interests of a majority of Americans in mind. So many people are going along with it though because they are angry and scared and they love America. They want George to protect them and make them feel safe again. The problem is that what George is doing is not having this effect. People are also giving him a huge benefit of the doubt on a lot of other issues right now because he is the leader of America right now and they love Amerca. Please wake up and look at his record on the issues objectively and not through a prism of Hate and Fear for our enemies nor through one of excessive love for our country. (cont.)
(cont.)
Wake up people. Take a step back and look objectively at George’s record. Try and do it without the emotions of fear and anger tinging your judgement. I think you may be able then to see that George W. Bush is NOT the man that we need to have as President of our country.
Is Kerry perfect? No. Will he do a better job than George? That would not be difficult for him to do and I am confident that since he is much more of a middle of the road type his performance will be be much preferable to George’s. And that is why he is going to get my vote.
Jack A…
How about you wake up….Bush and Kerry are both fucking idiots and I wont vote any dipshit into office in this day and age (Local, State or federal)…The only way we can keep this country from going to Hell in a handbasket (Even though it will anyway) is to take the power back ourselves. If you think kerry is really going to take charge..Think again. He’s just as much an idiot as Bush.
Besides the People who actually run this country arent “elected officials” they are employees of our government. And personally, Im saving cash to go to another country….
Life is a bitch and then you die NoMacForYou. Especially with an attitude like that. Enjoy.
Fascism, as per the Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Philosophy of government that stresses the primacy and glory of the state, unquestioning obedience to its leader, subordination of the individual will to the state’s authority, and harsh suppression of dissent.”
“Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and ’30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems.”
Hmm… Who’s the pussy?
The guy who evaded service in Vietnam by joining the “Champagne Unit” (for fellow “connected” rich kids) in the Texas Air National Guard — and even went AWOL from said vacation to snort coke and get arrested for drunk driving — or the guy who volunteered for duty in Vietnam, spent years in a boat on the Mekong Delta leading a squadron, and actually fought, got shot at, got war injuries, and three medals of honor?
You chickenhawks don’t know the meaning of sacrifice.
Kerry was an “A” student at Yale, while Bush got C’s — and only passed because his daddy was head of the CIA at the time. (He rarely went to class, and was too busy drinking and being a male cheerleader — it’s true!!! — to bother with his studies.)
It is BS that Kerry uses an Apple computer or any computer.
Fromthe Associated Press, July 15:
Kerry said he writes in long hand, then cuts and pastes pieces of the speech to reorganize his thoughts. He uses old-fashioned scissors and glue, not the computer keystrokes modern writers are accustomed to.
It’s not that he’s opposed to keyboards � he said he uses computers and preferred to compose letters on a typewriter when he was fighting in the Vietnam War. He said it’s just that he writes more effectively on paper.
“I find that this” � he moves his fingers like he’s typing on an imaginary keyboard � “somehow becomes the concentration. … It interrupts the flow for me.”
When he’s satisfied, Kerry turns over his work to staffers who type it into a computer.
———
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&u=/ap/20040715/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_s_speech_1&printer=1
To “Kerry is no idiot”:
Bush kicked ass in two countries and freed the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and has Bin Laden hiding in a cave.
Kerry is an admitted war criminal and killed at least 20 people.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0421041kerry1.html
Jack A: Kerry and the environment? During the Clinton Administration Kerry voted against the Kyoto Treaty. Clinton was also against that treaty. Bush uses the same arguments as Clinton.
When Clinton (and Kerry) does it – good.
When Bush does it- Bad
Kerry at the NAACP giving the radical “Black Power” Black Panthers1960s clinched fist salute.
Kerry showing his support for a group of (former) U.S. terrorists, the Black Panthers…
http://www.umich.edu/~eng499/concepts/power.html
You want that person as your President?
To ToJackA: No, with regards to the environment, when Clinton does it Bad, when Bush does it Bad. However, in addition to not doing Proactive things like join the Kyoto Treaty, Bush has been relaxing regulations and losing ground already won. That is worse.
Photo Op
The Civil rights movement and the Vietnam war was a time of turbulence and strife in the US.
At least Kerry actually fought for his country himself rather than relying on Daddy’s connections to keep him out of it (and then it seems Bush did not actually forfill all his obligations – this is not for sure though, Bush is keeping his records sealed so we can’t find out for sure, I wonder why). Bush is just good at sending other people off to risk their lives and die for their country (or for his pet war as the case may be).
P.S. I am not saying Kerry is perfect. I just think he is much more of a middle of the road type guy and will not go to the extremes and pull the gaffs that Bush has.
During the Clinton Presidency – 1996- the military lost Bush�s military records. In the news last week. I believe they lost a couple of years of records – not just Bush�s, but lots and lots of military personnel records.
Kerry did not fight for his country. He was going to Viet Nam to build a resume for future political use.
He was in Viet Nam barely 4 months.
Read the history of Kerry -he was trying to copy his family friend, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy(JFK). John F. Kerry (JFK).
Kennedy was a hero during WWII commanding a PT boat. Kerry went in the navy, got himself assigned to a PT-type boat so he could be like Kennedy.
Most soldiers/sailors spent 1 year minimum in VietNam. Kerry spent 4 months.
He then got himself a cushy job in NY City as an admiral�s aide (compliments of his Kennedy family connections).
While still in the military he chauffered around anti-war activists.
Kerry is a phoney who blows smoke and does nothing.
In his 20 years as Senator he has little to show. In the last year he has missed over 75% of the Senate votes.
And you say: ” I just think he is much more of a middle of the road type guy “
What??!!? Kerry is the most liberal, left-wing, Senator in the US Senate. (Edwards is 4th most liberal.)
That is middle of the road?
Kerry is where he is because of his Kennedy connections and the fact that he married two women who were millionaires and billionaires.
What extremes and gaffs has Bush pulled?
We are at war. Islamic extremists want to destroy our society and culture. They want to kill you and me and all our families. They want to impose Islamic religious law in our country.
And you want a middle of the road guy to lead you?
Not me. I want a President that will see the threat and take action to defenc our country from harm.
How about you?
I find it interesting that Kerry came back from VietNam (a 4 months of duty) and lead the anti-war movement and then
he encouraged young men to dodge the draft and avoid military service in Viet Nam.
If you take the argument that Bush went into the Air National Guard to avoid service in VietNam, then wasn’t he doing what Kerry was preaching and promoting?
How can Kerry criticize that? Sounds a bit ironic to me.
(Of course, Kerry seems to have amnesia about his anti-war activities…he just talks about his 4 months (about 26 missions) of duty in VietNam like it was 4 years.
——————-
Real news article from today:
MEDAL OF HONOR LETTER TO W.V. VETS [07/15 11:16 AM]
Twenty-one Medal of Honor recipients have signed an open letter praising President Bush and criticizing Kerry, and sent it to veterans in West Virginia. The letter states:
Dear fellow Veterans in West Virginia:
We have listened to Senator Kerry falsely attack President Bush for months over funding for veterans, and it’s time to set the record straight. The truth is President Bush has led the way on improving veterans� benefits, supporting our troops and restoring honor and dignity to the White House.
Since 2001, President Bush has increased veterans funding by over $20 billion, and funding for veterans’ health care has increased by 40 percent since he took office. Funding for veterans has gone up twice as fast under President Bush as it did under President Clinton, and those who accuse the President of cutting funding are simply not being honest with veterans.
Meanwhile, John Kerry voted against a $1.3 billion increase in veterans health care, skipped votes on concurrent receipt and voted against funding for our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. And while he talks a good game, Kerry’s record shows he is out of the mainstream. The American Flag symbolizes our ideals, our history and our values. President Bush shares this belief and supports a Constitutional Amendment banning desecration of the Flag. John Kerry believes this is “an attack on free speech.”
We are disturbed that John Kerry would try to scare veterans with his false accusations, and we are disappointed in his lack of support for today’s troops. Please join us in setting the record straight and showing your support for President Bush � a leader who has proven his support for those who have served, backs our troops defending our nation and shares our values.
Ok Jack A, I appreciate someone finally raising some policy issues with which they disagree with Bush rather than just spewing the standard MoveOn.org/Michael Moo hate-speech. IMHO, you are wrong on several issues and on others, you and I simply disagree on policy. Here is my analysis of your assertions:
“Environment.” Just before Clinton left office he laid several land mines using environmental executive orders that he knew could not stand (and he did not propose for the entire 8 years while he was in office until the last minute). Bush rolled them back to the Clinton administration’ pre-11th hour levels. Had Gore won, Clinton would not have made these orders. You mention Kyoto. The Senate (who approves treaties) UNANIMOUSLY voted not to participate. It would have been a disaster for the world economy which would have then destroyed the environments of said economies (remember, wealth creation enables a cleaner environment).
“Disproportionate tax breaks for the very rich” This is true. To be fair, the rich should have gotten larger tax breaks than they got (and thus the disproportionate-ness targeted the rich unfairly.) To not be disproportionate, the rich should have gotten the same percentage of tax break as everyone else. They did not-it was less. The wealthy in this country pay a disproportionate amount of the taxes and this hurts everyone. For example, I work in education so I am amongst the middle-class but I don’t mind the rich being able to make money because their money funds our university. The more they make, the more our university prospers. When the rich leave our state due to an unfair tax burden our university suffers. I would favor a flat tax to correct this problem.
(cont)
“Faulty intelligence.” Regarding WMDs, we now know that key intelligence on the Iraqi nuke program wasn’t faulty after all. It turns out that Iraq WAS trying to buy yellow-cake just as Bush and Blair said they were. The only use for this is for nuclear weapons. Also, there was a serious tie has been established between Iraq and Al Qaeda just as Bush said. Of course, Clinton, France, Germany, Kerry, Rockefeller, etc. etc. all said Iraq had WMDs and was sponsoring Islamic terrorism. Were they all lying? We had better intelligence regarding Iraq than Clinton ever had for bombing the Serbs or the Chinese embassy or the Aspirin factory. You may disagree with the war effort but trying to paint it as a mistake because of faulty intelligence is disingenuous at best and dangerous at worst. Saddam would have a nuke by now if we had not gone in. Personally, I think this would have been bad. Baaad.
“the continuation of the Patriot Act “ This is ironic given your previous criticism of our intelligence services. The lack of a unified approach (which the PA addresses) is why the FBI would not tell the CIA the intelligence it had regarding the 9/11 hijackers. The PA is sound legislation, first proposed by the Democrats and has helped us tremendously with the war on terror.
“ignoring the Geneva Convention” Who ignored the GC? Oh, you probably think that the GC applies to terrorists. It does not. Period.
(cont)
“The torture of prisoners carried out during Bush’s watch”. You call it torture, I do not. But even if it were, it was the Army that uncovered the abuse and is prosecuting the perps. Bush has steadfastly condemned the action of the few soldiers who did the deeds. I challenge you to define what Bush did that promoted some mythical “atmosphere” that lead to the abuse.
“he has taken more vacation than any president in US history”. Jack A, you know no such thing! In fact this is an outright lie perpetrated by Michael Moore in the juvenile Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore bases his assertion on the Washington Post analysis of Bush’s time away from the White House. It turns out that of the 98 days Moore and the Post assert were vacation days, as many as 64 were weekend days. Much of the rest were working retreats. Just because he was away from the WH does not a vacation make. Let me ask you this Jack A, how many vacation days have you taken this year (include all weekends in the number please)? As an aside, Clinton took a huge amount of time away from his job. However, a lot of it was spent in the White House, if you know what I mean.
All in all, you are either outright misinformed or are spinning like a whirling dervish. The closest you get to a valid issue is your criticism of the PA, something about which we should all be concerned of course. However, there have been no abuses to date of the PA and more importantly it is allowing for better intelligence gathering, the very thing that every Lib is saying we need (and I agree). Either you want the intelligence or you don’t, you can’t have it both ways.
-B
Here’s how Governor Bush supports our troops: He sends our good men and women in uniform into harm’s way to invade another nation under false pretenses. There were no WMD’s left in Iraq, there WAS NO CONNECTION to Al-Quaida or 9/11. There was and is oil, and lots of it. Bush has dumped literally billions of our taxpayer dollars into the military-industrial complex and advanced the geo-political stance of American and Saudi oil companies, while creating the largest budgetary deficit in U.S. history. Our childrens’ children will still be paying it off.
How many Americans have been killed in Iraq, and are we any safer as a nation? No. In fact, because Bush managed to inflame the Middle East even more against us, we’re now at even greater risk than we were before 9/11. Bush is losing his war on terror.
Military might will never stop terrorism. You kill an innocent Muslim, you radicalize his brother, his son. It’s a no win approach.
Here’s how you support our troops: you never, ever send them into harm’s way for no good reason. You make damn sure if you engage another country militarily that all other options have been exhausted.
It’s time for the A students to run the country again. The C student had his chance.
And by the way, Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini is quoted as saying, “Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is a merge of state and corporate power.” Sound familiar?
rexray,
What false pretenses? Enumerate them. Support them.
WMDs? Sounds like you are admitting they WERE there (which everyone knows is the case) but are “no longer there”. Except for the fact that we are now finding bio-WMDs, this is possible. But if they are not there it is because we waited too long to go in and they were secreted out of the country. (Of course, we now know that Iraq was trying to buy, or actually did buy, yellow cake, used to make WMDs).
We have bountiful evidence that Iraq was in bed with Al Qaeda. Bush never claimed Iraq had a connection to 9/11
We ARE safer. Have we had an attack here since 9/11? Have not Libya and North Korea started towing the line since the war was won? Indeed they have. This has made the world significantly more stable.
The military IS stopping terrorism. Killing terrorists will do that. We are not targeting “innocent Muslims”. We are killing evil, bloodthirsty Islamofascist thugs. This is a good thing.
We did not send them into Iraq “for no good reason”. And we did exhaust all other options. In fact, we waited WAY too long to go in. We should have gone in at the same time as we went into Afghanistan.
And what A students are you proposing should be running the country? The billionaire waffler? I don’t think so.
Today’s Liberal/leftist ideology is a variant of fascism by all empirical analysis. I agree that there are elements of our government that are tending fascist but this is because of rampant big governmentalism, a central Liberal tenet.
-B
Beeblebrox,
Basically everything you said in your last post is unsupportable crap. You’ve bought the Big Lie, and now you defend it with lots of smaller lies. Please, you are embarrassing yourself.
As for “big governmentalism” (is that a Bushism? It’s not a real word), The federal deficit has been largest under those famous liberals, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The federal government staff was smaller under Clinton/Gore than it was under Reagan or Bush, Sr., and now with the huge and wasteful department of Fatherland, er, Homeland Security, it’s getting larger again under this Republican administration.
It seems you’re listening to too much “Whoa What a Rush” Limbaugh.
Bush was a coward, Kerry was a three-time medal-winning war hero. ‘Nuff said.
Neither Bush or Cheney served in Vietnam, the cowards.
You’re not really very good at this Rex, are you? I provide specifics and you dismiss them with no specifics and stoop to inane insults instead. Nicely done.
We HAVE evidence of Iraq WMDs, nuke programs, & ties to Al Qaeda. That is the support for my position. But you know you are beaten on this point so you simply belch the equivalent of “oh yeah?” That may be a premier debating tactic in your freshman social studies class but not in adult circles.
Allow me to summarize so you can attempt to rebut: We have had NO terrorist attacks since 9/11, Iraqis have their country back, Libya fessed up to a nuke program, Iraq had a nuclear program, and North Korea is back at the table. These are easily observable facts and all can be credited to Bush.
At the end of the day, your post utterly lacks substance (except for the specific claim about the deficit – and what lib would cut back on this spending – certainly not your “A student” who wants to accelerate spending.) Will you criticize Kerry’s plan to balloon the deficit?
Beyond this, you evidently have not learned that the legislative branch spends the money, so blame them. The conservatives in the Senate and House have not gotten their desire to curb spending and as a result, spending has significantly increased. Bush should cut back on domestic pork with the veto pen. But by trying to get along with the big government libs in the Congress he is certainly contributing to the deficit. No argument there. Bush is a liberal (except socially) so this should not surprise anyone. But you are outright wrong regarding the size of the deficit. The deficit number is only relevant as a measure of the portion of the GDP. The record for this goes to FDR (or rather, the Congress at the time) which was 30%+.
-B
Dear Chickenhawk,
-Bush’s fighter wing was active in Vietnam when he joined up. He could have ended up fighting there at any time.
-He was credited as being one of the best fighter pilots in his wing. To fly any high performance military aircraft takes a very high level of skill, dedication, training, and intelligence. Only the best of the best become fighter pilots.
-Bush served 11 months, Kerry only 4.
-Bush flew F-102s, something that is very dangerous. Many pilots died stateside flying these planes.
-Kerry got his final purple heart (the one that got him sent back stateside) through a self inflicted wound.
-Cheney was too old to serve in Vietnam.
Next.
-B
Beetlebrox, I don’t know where you are getting your information but a lot of it is just wrong or based totally on theory. I know you are trying your best but you should get your information from other than just hard right sources. They are the masters of spin.
Kerry tried to avoid the draft but failed:
From the Harvard Crimson Newspaper:
” “John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress”, published on February 18, the paper reported: “When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy.”
Read the entire article here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/07/wkerr07.xml&sSheet;=/news/2004/03/07/ixnewstop.html
Kerry tried to avoid the draft, but couldn�t. He did not go willing into the military, he went in so he would not be drafted into the Army and made a front line grunt.
Jack, you have not posted a link to any of your “facts”, which to me sound like blargh you read at moveon or mmoore�s website or the kerry campaign.
Not to defend Beetlebrox, he seems to be able to do it himself, but statements he has made I have read to and find them all to be factual, not spin or theory.
Have you noticed how the Kerry campaign avoids discussing his Senate record or his post-Viet Nam history. Educate yourself and you will be surprised that the Kerry being touted – “middle of the road conservative war hero” – is not the real Kerry.
———–
One of my favorites about Kerry that shows some insight into his character is how he wanted to start a cookie store in Boston in 1979-1980.
Here is an excerpt from the true story, with the link to the article below.
�Some guy who called me up was John Kerry, in �79 or �80,� Liederman recalled. �He said he wanted to come down and talk to me about franchising. He came to the office and said he had an incredible space in Boston, which was Faneuil Hall. He said he needed some plans and some layouts and all sorts of things to get the approval of the landlord.�
�So I gave him the layout, the package, and he went back and I didn�t hear from him for six or seven months.�
Then one day Liederman got a call from someone who said they�d seen one of his stores in Faneuil Hall. Not having a store in Boston, Liederman decided to have a look for himself.
�It was a direct, 100-percent knock off of David�s Cookies,� said Liederman, from the appliances to the shop�s design to the cookies themselves. �If you had walked into a David�s Cookie�s store in Manhattan at the same time he opened �John�s Cookies� in Boston, you couldn�t tell the difference.�
In his 1989 autobiography �Running Through Walls,� where the charge first appeared, Liederman wrote that he challenged Kerry on the origin of his business. �I told him he had stolen my idea, and he replied: �You�re absolutely right. I am a politician; I shouldn�t be in the cookie business, so let me sell you my store,�� Liederman wrote.
Liederman never bought the store, he said, because Kerry was operating it in violation of his lease. �He was supposed to be selling jams and jellies, not cookies,� he wrote.
Read about it here:
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012804/kerry.aspx
Jack A:
You said: “…just think he is much more of a middle of the road type guy”
How do you figure that? How do you figure someone who has BILLIONS of dollars in liquid assets as some one who is a “middle of the road type guy”?
Do you really REALLY think someone with that kind of money knows what middle class people want? History speaks for itself……no such elitist ever knows what middle America wants or likes.
And second of all why do you think they wont release their financial records? Because they have an OBSCENE amount MORE than Bush does. He’s an American he needs to release the records and the Americans have been asking for it not to mention the liberal media. And he says NO??? Think again.
jack a,
you are an idiot!
Beeb, ok, let’s break it down.
You say, “We HAVE evidence of Iraq WMDs, nuke programs, & ties to Al Qaeda.”
Where do you get that? From the Bush/Cheney campaign website? From the White House website? Each one of Bush’s justifications for preemptively striking another nation has been summarily disproven by level-headed professionals both inside and outside the Bush administration. There is no new information on these points. You’re just wrong about that.
You say, “We have had NO terrorist attacks since 9/11…” So what? This proves nothing, other than that the entire world is naturally more alert and aware of terrorist movements since 9/11. Bush attacking Iraq has nothing to do with whether or not there have been terrorist attacks, because again, Saddam was not involved with Al-Quaida. The Bush administration has, of course, attempted to keep good Americans afraid with their raising of the terrorist alert every so often, just so we don’t forget his endless war on terror.
You said, “Iraqis have their country back, Libya fessed up to a nuke program, Iraq had a nuclear program, and North Korea is back at the table.”
First of all, a little lesson about the people you call “Iraqis”. There’s no such thing as a unified group called “Iraqis”. There are, however, a number of disparate tribes that all occupy that geographical region. There are the Tikriti and the Sunni to name two, and there are dozens of offshoots and subgroups. Many of those people were treated brutally by Saddam when he, among other things, used the chemical weapons sold to him by the U.S. on them. People that we call loyalists, the Baathists, prefer Saddam over the U.S. created and propped up interim “government”. They aren’t the only ones. (cont.)
(cont.) Many people in Iraq have seen the U.S. occupying force kill and maim thousands of innocent people and destroy what infrastructure they had for a quality life. They hate us, and understandably so. And they don’t have their country back, they have the U.S. replacement for Saddam, which is now very much under our control and friendly to U.S. oil and military establishments. That’s why we went there to begin with. Mission accomplished.
It’s a huge stretch to try to credit Dubya with Libya. It’s like saying Reagan was responsible for the fall of Communism, there’s no connection other than it happened under his watch. I doubt Bush could tell you without looking on a map or asking Cheney where Libya is. Libya decided to throw in with the West for economic reasons, nothing more. (cont.)
As for N. Korea, the U.S. has known and been dealing with N. Korea for many years. It was under Clinton that the deal was made to stop their nuke program. They eventually renigged (under Bush), not surprisingly. N. Korea, being strategically significant to China, will continue to play cat and mouse with the West over nukes, etc. Will we do anything about it militarily? Likely not because of China and because there’s no oil to be had. Give Bush credit for them coming “to the table”? I think not. That country is in bad shape. They need the West as much as they need China. Bush has nothing to do with it.
You say, “…the legislative branch spends the money, so blame them.” I’m talking about the budgets as submitted by the Republican presidents in the last twenty years and more or less rubber stamped by both Republican and Democratic Congresses. Those Republican presidents ran up the largest deficits, in real dollars, between them this country has ever seen. That’s a fact. Republican military spending and corporate welfare is way more expensive to the taxpayers than social programs ever would be.
And another lesson, the deficit has nothing to do with GNP. The deficit is simply the amount by which government spending exceeds government revenues. Bush has run up the single largest deficit ever. He runs our government like he ran his other failed business ventures: into the ground.
I’ve said and had enough. Good luck with your fantasy world, Beeb. Meantime, the rest of us are getting sick of the Bush/Cheney version of reality.
When Bush lied, people died
Your posts are big MoveOn.org, propagandist yawners Rex. I don’t have the time refute the mindless drivel you continue to spew by repeating findings in the Senate report, the recently released British intelligence report, the Polish reports on WMD stockpiles, or the countless other official reports about these issues. You clearly do not know what you are talking about so there is really no point. The educated amongst MDN readers are aware of these reports and can look them up.
By the way, either Reagan defeated communism or he had nothing to do with the budget deficits. In fact, your complaint about Bush’s deficits and 9/11 being his fault are utterly destroyed by your own logic if one believes such convoluted thinking.
Here’s how it works: Bush is not responsible for 9/11, the budget deficit, the lack of CIA intelligence, etc. because they just happened “during his watch”.
See how easy this is.
But in your closed minded little world, good things are happenstance and can’t be credited to Bush and bad things are all his fault. This is grade school level thinking and thus, I am through trying to get through to you. When you get out of high school come back here and I’ll pretend you’re an actual adult.
Enjoy the rest of your teenage years.
-B
I for one am impressed with rexray’s grasp of the facts. I think it’s Beeblebrox that needs to grow up and learn about the world.
When Clinton screwed Monica, she ended up with the stained dress. With Bush, we’re all wearing the dress now!
rexray is mindless tool of the hate-bush crowd. facts don�t matter, hate matters.
And not giving credit to Bush for Libya for giving ups its Nuke program and other WMD. Give me a break! You probably think he did it because he was one of those foreign leaders Kerry met with that want him to be Prez.
And a remark on US budgets, the only reason there were budget surpluses during the Clinton years was because of the stock market bubble. Investors were paying huge amounts of money on capital gains taxes.
And then the stock bubble burst at the end of the Clinton era and all this tax revenue disappeared.
And millions of American lost huge amounts of money that they had invested in the Clinton bubble market.
And During a war there are always large Government budget deficits.
We are at war rexray. It may not impact your summer vacation from high school, but we are at war and the Islamic extremists want to kill all us westerners.
And, tell me, how has any govt. budget deficit ever impacted your life?
“As Zell Miller, the Democrat senator from Georgia, has said, Kerry and Edwards have combined the foreign policy of George McGovern with the tax-increase policy of Walter Mondale and the tariff policies of Herbert Hoover. It is also particularly interesting that in 2004, with national headlines reporting on Iraq on a daily basis, that Kerry’s closest advisers – and Kerry himself – appear incapable of defining their policy position on the future of Iraq.
Kerry-Edwards believe the answers to most of the problems facing our country reside in new or existing government programs, whether the issue is jobs, health care or retirement security. In fact, Kerry claims he’s going to “create” 10 million new jobs with tax increases, which will result in slower growth; protectionism, which will result in less trade; nationalizing health care, which will only make the current situation worse; and by doing nothing with regard to Social Security, which will consign near and future retirees to less retirement savings and continued dependence on the government. They are wrong on all counts.
Besides, President Bush has a good record to run on – the strongest economic recovery in 20 years, no terror attacks on our soil since 9/11 and a vision of the future recognizing the importance of national security including the reconstruction of Iraq and the need to complete the transformation to an ownership society at home.”
July 08, 2004
(CNSNews.com) – A taxpayer watchdog group gives Sen. John Edwards an “F” grade on its tax-and-spending scorecard.
According to the National Taxpayers Union, Edwards in 2004 has supported legislation, which — if enacted in its entirety — would increase federal spending by $92.1 billion per year. That is roughly half the total cost of John Kerry’s legislative agenda ($182.0 billion), NTU said.
“The data on John Edwards offers little comfort to taxpayers seeking spending restraint from Washington,” said NTU President John Berthoud in a press release. “There is scant evidence to suggest his fiscal policies would be more moderate than those offered by the man at the top of the ticket.”
Beeblebrox is exactly right (as he usually is – must be the double head
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News reports have been slow to acknowledge that Ambassador Joe Wilson lied about the uranium sales to Iraq. But this is a huge smoking gun that destroys the “no WMDs found” accusations from the left.
There are also numerous documented ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda and Hussain’s funding of terrorist activities around the world (he was behind the first Twin Towers terrorist attack.)
People like rexray need to get out a little more. Too much time sitting in a dank theatre watching Fahrenheit 9-11 has made his brain soft.
Well, sorry folks but I am outa here. This has been taking up too much of my time. I wish I had nothing better to do all day than show you where you are wrong Pro-Bushites but I do have other things I have to do and this is getting to be a bit too much like work and in addition I don’t think I will convince any of you anyway. Here is one last parting shot though where I will sum up all the things I KNOW to be true and which make up most of the reasons I will not be voting for George W. Bush. Please spare me the rationalization as to why in your opinion the following are OK. They are NOT OK for me no matter why they occurred or are occurring.
I was for Afghanistan but didn’t think we should have gone into Iraq (at the very least not so quickly). Bush pushed for this. Many people have died because of this and more are dying everyday. His justification of WMDs has not been suffienciently substantiated to this day.
I was ashamed by the toture that occurred under Bush’s watch. That is not what I believe that America is about and not how I want America to be percieved.
Bush took probably the highest level of Pro-American feeling and sympathy by the rest of the world that we have ever seen and turned it to the highest level of Anti-American feelings we have probably ever seen by his heavy handedness and actions listed above. He has made me embarrassed by the things my country and some of my countrymen have done or are doing and I want that to stop.
I believe also that his alienation of the middle east could lead to more terrorism and not less.
He has backed and continues to support the Patriot Act.
If Bush is elected there is a good chance he will be able to pick hard right replacements for several Supreme Court Justices.
Bush has not been pro-environment in his policy decisions.
(here is a link on Bushes Enviromental Policy. Probably slanted but just the fact that there are these many facts to be slanted AGAINST Bush should give you a big hint on how enviromentally friendly he is. http://www.environment2004.org/files/Env2004_BushRPT.pdf )
Bush’s Tax breaks disproportionly favor the very rich.
As I said before, please do not try and explain to me why the above are OK. They are NOT OK WITH ME and they were supported by or happened during Bush’s administration and that is why I will be voting for John Kerry in the upcoming election.
Jack A, Feel free to vote for Kerry. I hope you will be honest enough to recognize that Kerry:
1. voted for the war (but not to fund it)
2. Would continue the current Iraq policy.
3. Would seriously increase our deficit with trillions of dollars in additional spending.
4. Would role back the tax cuts that have given us the best economic growth and job creation in the last 20 years.
5. Would continue with the Patriot Act.
6. Would make the French happy (your desire) while alienating the people who are now with us (over 40 countries are part of our coalition).
7. Would not lead but follow in an attempt to make people like us. Of course, the Russians, Chinese, Germans and French don’t like us and I consider that a good thing. It means we’re doing something right.
Cheers,
B
Cheers, Beetlebrox. At least we can agree that Macs are the best computers (and the candidates seem to agree on this too
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Indeed they do!
-B
Tough Decision wrote:
Still thinking about Kerry not voting to fund our troops with that 87 billion … said something like he voted for it first, then voted against it, then wanted to send a message about international cooperation, bla bla bla. When all that talk is done, out guys dont even have bullet proof vests, let alone 17inch aluminum Mac powerbooks.
Think I’ll vote to keep the lib pussy out.
Dear Tough Decision,
You’re being brainwashed. If you know how Congress works, you know that bills go through many, many versions before being approved. The first version Kerry voted for reduced the tax cut on the top 1% from $690 billion to $600 billion and used the difference to fund the troops. W actually said he would veto that version if it passed. The version Kerry voted against borrowed the money, pumping up the deficit even further. So, Kerry was for the responsible version and against the irresponsible version, while Bush was for the irresponsible version only. Each candidate had one version they liked and one they didn’t. The troops don’t have supplies inspite of the money being approved and had nothing to do with Kerry’s vote. And as for Kerry being a liberal pussy: it was Bush that hid in the Texas Air National Guard while Kerry was fighting in Vietnam.
Beeblebrox wrote: I hope you will be honest enough to recognize that Kerry:
1. voted for the war (but not to fund it)
2. Would continue the current Iraq policy.
3. Would seriously increase our deficit with trillions of dollars in additional spending.
4. Would role back the tax cuts that have given us the best economic growth and job creation in the last 20 years.
5. Would continue with the Patriot Act.
6. Would make the French happy (your desire) while alienating the people who are now with us (over 40 countries are part of our coalition).
7. Would not lead but follow in an attempt to make people like us. Of course, the Russians, Chinese, Germans and French don’t like us and I consider that a good thing. It means we’re doing something right.
My debunking:
1. Read my previous post about Kerry’s vote; he wasn’t against funding troops, he wanted it done responsibly.
2. But he wouldn’t repeat it, as W has hinted at by calling other countries part of the “Axis of Evil”.
3. Deficits were reduced under Clinton and would be again under Kerry because he would not let the super rich and corporations get away with not paying their due.
4. The tax cut that he would roll back are only on the super rich and corporations, not the middle or lower classes.
5. Would continue only parts of the Patriot Act; Kerry has a plan to improve the Patriot Act�s ability to prevent terrorism and curb its assault on civil rights.
6. What are the 40 countries in our coalition? Nobody big aside from the British. How come only Great Britain and the US have troops in Iraq if the coalition is so strong? We went in without the backing of the UN and now we want them to bail us out.
7. People will immediately like us more if we dump the cowboy Bush. The world not liking us is a bad thing, not good. It creates terrorists, makes travel more difficult, and makes international business more difficult. We live in a global community, we should be good citizens of that community.
Beeblebrox (or is it Brainwashed?),
I forgot to mention: your part about the best economic growth and job creation in 20 years under Bush is laughable. Bush will be the first president to lose jobs during his term since the depression! He has given a tax break to corporations that outsource jobs overseas! The economy is barely growing and job creation is barely keeping pace with the increase in the working population. The best economic growth since WWII was under Clinton, after he raised taxes on the top 2%, which is exactly what Kerry plans to do. Look it up.
The “rich” get their Federal Income taxes cut because that is who is paying most of the taxes:
Top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes (Down from 2000 figure: 56.47%).
The top 10% pay 64.89% (Down from 2000 figure: 67.33%).
The top 25% pay 82.9% (Down from 2000 figure: 84.01%).
The top 50% pay 96.03% (Down from 2000 figure: 96.09%).
The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.97% of all income taxes. The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%!
And who earns what?
The top 1% earns 17.53 (2000: 20.81%) of all income.
The top 5% earns 31.99 (2000: 35.30%).
The top 10% earns 43.11% (2000: 46.01%); the top 25% earns 65.23% (2000: 67.15%), and the top 50% earns 86.19% (2000: 87.01%) of all the income.
1. Kerry voted against the funding. He was one of only 12 Senators who did. He can’t run away from the vote. You can rationalize (incorrectly) why he did but my statement stands. He voted AGAINST the funding (and he admitted it). So you didn’t “debunk” this one after all.
2. That’s what scares me. The guy is as spineless as Clinton. Indeed, Bush was a bit of a wimp on this too. I’m happy he finally set aside politics and did the right thing. So you didn’t “debunk” this one either.
3. Deficits went down when Newt took power. Clinton wanted to spend but the new GOP majority wouldn’t let him (wish we still had that resolve in the GOP). Also, keep in mind that the dotcom bubble is what produced the huge cap gains that overflowed the federal coffers. Clinton had nothing to do with that. But, let’s give him credit anyway. The economy was good in the middle of his term but then tanked at the end, so I blame him for that. Bush pulled us out of the Clinton recession. So still no debunking success.
4. Regarding Kerry tax policy. You are in error. John Kerry has voted for higher taxes at least 350 times and would raise taxes by at least $900 billion during his first 100 days in office. The “super rich” could give 100% of their earnings to Kerry to cover that tax hike and would barely make a dent. No, he will definitely roll back the entire Bush tax cut, just as he promised in December of last year.
This is complex so read:
Kudlow on business taxes and investment.
and
Stephen Moore
Kerry himself said he would raise taxes on everyone over $200,000 per year. This is a seasoned auto worker and his veteran high school teacher wife. That is NOT the super rich! You’re still having trouble debunking me Mr. B.
(cont)
My debunking mrbroma�s debunking:
1. No matter how you slice and dice it, Kerry voted against funding the troops. That�s why they have votes. By the way Kerry was absent for over 70% of Senate votes in the last year.
2. Kerry thinks the U.S. is the center of all evil.
3. All talk, no proof that Kerry can or will reduce deficits. As cited in one of the posts above, Kerry�s economic agenda calls increasing spending by over $180 BILLION. Today he pledged to spend another $15 BILLION for AIDS (you and I…well, me anyway, who has a job will pay for all that govt. increase in spending.) Kerry�s Senate record is only that of raising taxes, never lowering taxes.
4. The lower and middle class hardly pay any Fed. Inc.taxes. See post by taxboy above.
5. Ha. Ha. Ha. He voted for the Patriot Act. He did not have to, just like he did not have to vote for funding the troops in Iraq (see #1 above). And Congress approves and makes changes to the Patriot Act – not the President.
6. Who cares, the French and Germans are all wimps anyway. The French have never won a war since Napolean. And then he got his butt kicked. Oh, yeah and most of the countries that belong to the U.N. are either lead by dictators or despots or both.
7. You don�t know what you are talking about. I travel to Europe all the time to do business. Never have a problem, never seen any private citizen criticize the U.S.
Give me an example of making international business more difficult. Ever heard of telephones, email and the internet.
And your “good citizens” slime. Islamic radicals attacked the U.S. Bin Laden declared war on America.
WE ARE AT WAR.
Your “good citizen” friend Bin Laden and his fellow Al Queda “good citizens” want to destroy our society, our lives, our familes.
Saddam Hussein will never again start up another nuclear bomb program, manufacture poisonus gas, pay the families of Hezbolah terrrorists $25,000 for every human bomb they blow up in Israel killing innocent men, women and children, never invade another country.
And remember, Bill Clinton is not going to allow Kerry to become President. Hillary has the first shot at it.
(more)
5. Patriot Act. All I have to say about this is that the PA was crafted by Congress and Kerry both praised it and voted for it. He is complaining about it now because he thinks if he demagogues the issue he will win points with people like you. Since we only have his voting record to go on, I think I win this round as well.
6. I didn’t say we had over 40 big countries. We have big, medium and small. And France is a pitiful example of a “big” country if that is to whom you are referring. Germany has no military and not even Kerry would be able to convince Russia and China to join us so what’s your point and where is the debunking action you promised?
Also, nice slight against
Afghanistan
Albania
Angola
Australia
Azerbaijan
Bulgaria
Colombia
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
El Salvador
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Georgia
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Japan
Kuwait
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Mongolia
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Palau
Panama
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Rwanda
Singapore
Slovakia
Solomon Islands
South Korea
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
and Uzbekistan
By the Way, the UN passed a resolution (1441) which gave us the power to go in. So stop lying.
7. People would like us even more if we just gave up our military and handed the control of the world over to France. But then, everyone would hate France then wouldn’t they? In the end, I don’t care whether the French or the Russians like us. If you want to be liked by them MOVE THERE. Bush had better NEVER do foreign policy based on whether France or Russia like us or not. He’d be out on his backside if he ever did that. This is my opinion of course, and your 7th point was your’s and neither can be “debunked”. Thus, you were 0 for 7 on your list. Thanks for trying though.
-B
WASHINGTON July 16, 2004� Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry said Friday he would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against terrorists if he had adequate intelligence of a threat.
Kerry offered some support for one of the most controversial aspects of President Bush’s national security policy.
“Am I prepared as president to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have the sufficient intelligence? You bet I am,” he said at a news conference at his Washington headquarters.
The Bush administration laid out the doctrine of pre-emption months before the Iraq war began in March 2003. It argued that the United States could not rely on its vast arsenal to deter attacks and must be willing to strike first against potential threats. Critics of the policy say the Iraq war shows how the country could be driven to war by flawed intelligence.
Kerry said the intelligence needed to be improved so that the word of a U.S. president “is good enough for people across the world again.”
But he added, “I will never allow any other country to veto what we need to do, and I will never allow any other institution to veto what we need to do to protect our nation.”
Beeblebrox,
Funny, I read your replies and still think I was 100% right. Bush cheated his way into office, ignored the threat of terrorism, lied us into a war where Haliburton and the Carlisle Group have made huge profits wasting tax dollars, attacked environmental protections, attacked civil rights, all the while giving tax breaks and corporate welfare to the very rich.
On taxes: First, there are far more tax loop-holes and deduction possibilities for the wealthy, so while the poor pay very close to the % on the tax table they are supposed to, the rich pay about 30% less than the proscribed rate. Next, lets take a look at payroll taxes (FICA). On my paychecks, FICA is nearly equal to the federal taxes. I get a portion of my federal taxes back every year, but don’t get anything back from FICA. Payroll taxes are capped at $80,000 earned. All income over that amount is not subject to FICA. Thus, people making millions pay FICA equal to a middle class person. Combine this with the fact that many of the very wealthy don’t earn money from payroll at all, but rather from investments which are not subject to FICA. When you combine federal income tax with FICA, the result is nearly a flat tax rate. Now, I happen to think that people who are able to make a great deal of money because we have such a great free market system should pay a bit more into the system because they get so much more out of it (a progressive tax).
On UN resolution 1441: It was “to afford Iraq, by this resolution, a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council”, and said “Iraq shall provide UNMOVIC and the IAEA immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to any and all, including underground, areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records, and means of transport which they wish to inspect”.
It said nothing about endorsing an invasion. It does say “serious consequences”, but I don’t think that meant a unilateral invasion by the US and Britain (note the lack of blue UN helmets in Iraq?). In fact, the resolution promises only that the Security Council will meet to �consider the situation� should Iraq be charged with interfering with weapons inspections. So, who’s the liar?
One last thing, Beeblebrox:
I don’t want to move anywhere, I love America. That is why I want it to be better. You love America the way a 4 year loves daddy, you think anything it does is the best thing ever (“my daddy can beat up your daddy”). I love America like the parent loves the 4 year old, helping it learn and grow and become better, and punishing it when it is bad.
Mr Boma,
You can condescend if you want but the truth is, your ideas would not make America better, they would destroy this country. And constantly lying to a 4 year old is hardly the mark of a good father
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Let me try this one last time:
Your claim about Kerry only taxing the “super rich” turns out to be patently false, yet you still believe it .
You claim that “Bush cheated his way into office” which is also patently and demonstrably false. The NYT verified that Bush won Florida fair and square yet only the Michael Moore acolytes seem to still believe it. It’s like a cult of stupid people.
You claim that Bush “lied us into a war”. Examples? Saddam had a nuke program, supported Al Qaeda, violated every UN resolution passed by that feeble and cowardly body (blue helmets -HA!). Bush was right on every count. I realize you nurse a hope that he DID lie now that the economy is roaring back but sorry, turns out he didn’t.
As for the lame remark about “Haliburton and the Carlisle Group”, what evidence do you have that either has conspired with Bush in any way?
You do realize:
-That Clinton hired Haliburton before Bush don’t you?
-That Haliburton is one of only 2 companies that is qualified to handle the kinds of things it does don’t you?
-That Haliburton could have made a lot more money if Bush had gone into Iraq slow, giving Saddam time to torch his oil wells. But noooo, he had to go in such that Haliburton had very little clean up work to do. I guess that $17,000 they gave the Bush campaign was wasted. D’oh!
You claim Bush “attacked environmental protections” and “civil rights” but give no examples. I know of no such attacks.
You claim Bush provided “corporate welfare to the very rich”, but again, no examples.
These are all the standard, tired litanies of the vacuous left, but keep repeating them, maybe someone will buy.
Finally, you don’t seem to know that the word “unilateral” means one individual or organization doing something on their own. You mention the UK and the US in the same sentence, entirely missing the irony that this is TWO countries. You then ignored the long list I posted of the other countries that were “unilaterally” involved.
Facts seem wasted on you. Regrettable, but not surprising. You are a liberal, no?
-B
Regarding your tax info. The “poor” do not pay any income taxes. Check out your 1040 tax chart and see at what rate people start paying any taxes.
http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=109877,00.html
While people earning $38,000 and less pay 15% taxes (highest amount = $1,000), a person earning $311,950 or more pays 35%
which starts them at $87,736.00 in taxes.
No wonder they need deductions.
(I am for a flat tax where everyone pays taxes and no or very few deductions.)
You state: “Combine this with the fact that many of the very wealthy don’t earn money from payroll at all, but rather from investments which are not subject to FICA.”
First off, there are very, very, very few rich people that do not make a salary. Every doctor,lawyer,businessman, movie star, rock star has a salary and pays FICA.
The only one I can think of who does not is John Kerry�s Billionaire wife.
I am not rich, but have investments in the stock market and every year I pay a lot of taxes on any capital gains on those investments.
By the way Kerry�s wife has still not filed her federal income taxes for this year – she is waiting until October or later so that she does not reveal to the world how rich she is and the investments she owns- such as her recent revelation of owning a large block of Enron stock. And I am sure with her large portfolio she owns stock in Halliburton. Now that would be embarrassing, right? But typical liberal.
Regarding your tax info. The “poor” do not pay any income taxes. Check out your 1040 tax chart and see at what rate people start paying any taxes.
http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=109877,00.html
While people earning $38,000 and less pay 15% taxes (highest amount = $1,000), a person earning $311,950 or more pays 35%
which starts them at $87,736.00 in taxes.
No wonder they need deductions.
(I am for a flat tax where everyone pays taxes and no or very few deductions.)
You state: “Combine this with the fact that many of the very wealthy don’t earn money from payroll at all, but rather from investments which are not subject to FICA.”
First off, there are very, very, very few rich people that do not make a salary. Every doctor,lawyer,businessman, movie star, rock star has a salary and pays FICA.
The only one I can think of who does not is John Kerry�s Billionaire wife.
I am not rich, but have investments in the stock market and every year I pay a lot of taxes on any capital gains on those investments.
By the way Kerry�s wife has still not filed her federal income taxes for this year – she is waiting until October or later so that she does not reveal to the world how rich she is and the investments she owns- such as her recent revelation of owning a large block of Enron stock. And I am sure with her large portfolio she owns stock in Halliburton. Now that would be embarrassing, right? But typical liberal.
Well said Mr. Not,
But you used actual facts and data. That’s a problem for liberals. Hypocrisy, slander, and falsehoods are the bread and butter of the modern Liberal. So my guess is that your points will be lost on Mr. B. It’s sad really, but at least the lurkers will be getting a better sense of just how out of touch with reality these people are.
In fact, it never ceases to amaze me that they have put together enough brain cells to choose the Mac. Nice to know Apple products appeals to the dense and the enlightened alike!
-B
Kerry said the intelligence needs to be improved so that the word of a U.S. president �is good enough for people across the world again.�
The four-term Massachusetts senator said that nearly three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, �this president has not taken action sufficient to fix the intelligence problems that have plagued us.�
This from a candidate who proposed and voted to cut $1 billion from intelligence in 1994, one year after the first World Trade Center attack. Specifically, he proposed cutting that $1 billion from the budgets of the National Foreign Intelligence Program and from Tactical Intelligence, while freezing their budgets. (The amendment was soundly defeated.) Kerry sponsored a 1995 bill to trim intelligence spending by $1.5 billion over five years. A candidate who, back in his first unsuccessful run for Congress in 1970, promised to �almost eliminate CIA activity� if elected. Who asked, in 1997, �Now that [Cold War] struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow?�
Republicans also recall that in 1995, Kerry voted to slash FBI funding by $80 million. �Kohl, D-Wis., amendment to add $80 million for social crime prevention programs and offset the cost by cutting FBI funding by an equal amount.� (H.R. 2076, CQ Vote #480: Adopted 49-41: R 9-40; D 40-1, 9/29/95, Kerry Voted Yea)
And recall, just recently, from Reuters: �Democratic candidate John Kerry, whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.�
KERRY ON PREEMPTION, THEN AND NOW
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Friday he would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against terrorists if he had adequate intelligence of a threat.
“Am I prepared as president to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have the sufficient intelligence? You bet I am,” he said at a news conference at his Washington headquarters.
The Boston Globe, February 28: �Sen. John Kerry said President Bush’s policy of �unilateral preemption� had failed to win the war on terror and only fueled anti-American anger worldwide.�
Kerry�s speech before the Council on Foreign Relations last December: �We have a President who has developed and exalted a strategy of war � unilateral; pre-emptive; and in my view, profoundly threatening to America�s place in the world and the safety and prosperity of our own society.�
Kerry on �Meet the Press� last December: �I did not buy into preemption � I thought that was wrong.� The doctrine of preemption the �most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy� in modern history.
KERRY: I’LL BE BETTER ON IRAQ, BUT I CAN’T SAY HOW
Kerry’s interview with The Wall Street Journal on Iraq has all kinds of specifics. Excerpts:
“The key at this point is to have a stable, nonfailed state that is moving towards democracy and security sufficient for the government to stand on its own. And for its own forces to stand up for that government. I have a plan for how we can get there. I’m not going to negotiate my plan in the newspapers or publicly.”
“You have to measure the level of stability. And you have to measure the outlook for the stability to hold. You can’t do that until that moment arrives. I’m not going to give you a July prediction about those standards.”
WSJ: If you become president, do you think that by the end of your first term, that troops will be out of Iraq?
KERRY: “I certainly can’t tell you numbers. But I can tell you this. At the end of my first term, I would consider it a failure of my diplomacy if we haven’t reduced the number significantly.”
WSJ: I understand you have a difference with the president on how do we get there. Give us more of a vision of what the “there” is? How will we know when we’ve reached that point?
KERRY: “I’ll tell you.”
Some one posted this:
KERRY ON PREEMPTION, THEN AND NOW
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Friday he would be willing to launch a pre-emptive strike against terrorists if he had adequate intelligence of a threat. “Am I prepared as president to go get them before they get us if we locate them and have the sufficient intelligence? You bet I am,” he said at a news conference at his Washington headquarters.
The Boston Globe, February 28: �Sen. John Kerry said President Bush’s policy of �unilateral preemption� had failed to win the war on terror and only fueled anti-American anger worldwide.�
Kerry�s speech before the Council on Foreign Relations last December: �We have a President who has developed and exalted a strategy of war � unilateral; pre-emptive; and in my view, profoundly threatening to America�s place in the world and the safety and prosperity of our own society.�
Kerry on �Meet the Press� last December: �I did not buy into preemption � I thought that was wrong.� The doctrine of preemption the �most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy� in modern history.
____________________________________________
While Bushies would like you to see this as a flip-flop, I don’t necessarily see a contradiction here. Kerry specifically denounces UNILATERAL preemption. More importantly: would he lie, exaggerate, or rely on suspect intelligence to make a preemptive strike against a sovereign foreign nation? Very,very doubtful. Would that prevent him from making a preemptive strike against a terrorist cell? Not at all, just as it didn’t prevent the Clinton administration (with internation help) from foiling the millenium bomb plot. Lastly, intelligent, open-minded people constantly reevaluate policies and positions based on new information and circumstances, so if he changes his stance periodically, I think that is a character strength, not flaw.
My personal opinion on preemption: If it is ok to make a first strike “just in case” someone might be planning to strike you, this gives every other country the ok to strike us at any time. The US has been the most militaristically meddling and bullying country since the end of WWII, and Bush has not been shy about identifying possible targets.
�No matter what your political persuasion this is a very sobering reminder. From what I can tell this information appears to be factual. It makes it worth the read. —– You have to read the catalogue of events in this brief piece. Then, ask yourself how anyone can take the position that all we have to do is bring our troops home from Iraq, sit back, ������������������re-set the snooze alarm, go back to sleep, and no one will ever bother us again.
�In case you missed it, World War III began in November 1979…that alarm has been ringing for years.
U.S. Navy Captain Phil Ouimette is the Executive Officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida. Here is a copy of the speech he gave last month. It is an accurate account of why we are in so much trouble today and why this action is so necessary.
�AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP!
That’s what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 (When more than 3,000 Americans were killed -AD) and maybe it was, but I think it should have been “Get Out of Bed!” In
fact, I think the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.
It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of
Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil it was an attack that held the world’s most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign U. S. embassy set the stage for events to follow for the next 23 years.
America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to do some thing. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America’s inability to deal with terrorism.
America’s military had been decimated and downsized/right sized since the end of the Vietnam War. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.
Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.
In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.
Then just six short months later a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.
Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.
The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gates of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.
Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe. In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid.
Then in August a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rhein-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked.
Fifty-nine days later a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.
The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259.
Clinton treated these terrorist acts as crimes; in fact we are still trying to bring these people to trial. These are acts of war.
The wake up alarm is getting louder and louder. The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America. In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The following month, February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war?
The Snooze alarm is depressed again. Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women.
A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively.
They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.
The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors.
Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.
And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.
In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high officials in government over what they knew and what they didn’t know. But if you’ve read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don’t have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since1979.
The President is right on when he says we are engaged in a war. I think we have been in a war for the past 23 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough.
America needs to “Get out of Bed” and act decisively now. America has been changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button again and again and roll over and go back to sleep.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto said “…it seems all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant.” This is the message we need to disseminate to terrorists around the world.
�Support Our Troops and support President Bush for having the courage, political or militarily, to address what so many who preceded him didn’t have the backbone to do both Democrat and Republican. This is not a political thing to be hashed over in an election year this is an AMERICAN thing. This is about our Freedom and the Freedom of our children in years to come.
Please forward this to as many people as you can especially to the young people and all those who dozed off in history class and who seem quick to protest such a necessary military action.
To whomever posted as “On Preemption”
Kerry did a MAJOR flip flop on this issue and everyone but the blind see it. The fact that you imply that Kerry’s born-again preemption policy is different because it is not “unilateral” is proof of this blindness. Bush had a coalition of over 40 countries. The term “unilateral” means ONE country. There is a difference between 1 and 40+. Failing to understand this basic arithmetic disqualifies you, in my mind, as a thinking person who’s views should be considered as serious. They clearly are not.
-B
Post by: Tough Decision ….
Still thinking about Kerry not voting to fund our troops with that 87 billion … said something like he voted for it first, then voted against it, then wanted to send a message about international cooperation, bla bla bla. When all that talk is done, out guys dont even have bullet proof vests, let alone 17inch aluminum Mac powerbooks
Thats not all true. I am a soilder serving in Iraq as we speak and I am typing on a 15inch Aluminum PowerBook. Just thought I’d throw that out. O and by the way Im voting for Kerry.
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