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Friday, October 29, 2004
Non-policy reason to vote for Kerry over Bush, #4: Bush's irresponsibility
This is an important election for so many reasons. Certainly, there are important issues out there. But that isn't what this daily countdown is about.
Why?
Sometimes a man assumes power who is so inept, so untruthful, and so unwise that it becomes top priority to get that man out of office as soon as possible. In the U.S.A., we do it by voting. Let's make sure it remains so.
So far, the reasons are...
Reason #10: Kerry is hard-working, Bush is lazy.
Reason #9: Bush is careless with his words.
Reason #8: Bush is dangerously secretive.
Reason #7: Bush refuses to listen to contrary opinions and is incapable of changing his mind when the facts require it.
Reason #6: Bush is cruel.
Reason #5: Bush uses fear as a weapon against the people of the United States.
And now...
Reason #4: Bush refuses to take responsibility for his actions or his inactions.
Not taking responsbility: that is the sense of "irresponsibility" I am referring to, though certainly one can argue he is irresponsible in the sense of "reckless."
The Presidency of the United States is the single most powerful position in the world, whether elected, appointed, or gained by oneself.
The President affects nearly every life around the globe, and has a great bearing on the health, safety, and well-being of every United States citizen.
It is paramount that the President be responsible to the citizenry who elect him, lest he become a power unto himself.
That is why it is so dangerous that Bush refuses to take responsibility for his actions and his inactions.
Examples:
During the Clinton-Bush handover, Clinton made sure Bush knew he would be spending more time on terror than any other subject. After all, Clinton and company had stopped a Millenium bomb plot, and a plot to simultaneously hijack multiple airplanes.
A month before 9/11, President Bush got a Presidential briefing titled "bin Laden determined to strike in U.S." It includes this sentence:
"FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."
Bush's reaction to this frightening information? He spent almost all of the rest of August on vacation. On September 9th, when Congress proposed a boost of $600 million for antiterror programs, Bush and Rumsfeld threatened a veto because the money would take away less than 1% from the missile defense program. On September 10th, Ashcroft sent his Justice Department budget request to Bush, which included spending increases for zero programs dealing with antiterror (and 68 that did not), and listed terrorism nowhere among Ashcroft's top seven priorities. (Al Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, p. 131)
In other words, Bush and his Administration were asleep at the switch. It would have taken a major stroke of luck to prevent 9/11 with Bush's attitude. Such a bit of luck didn't happen, and 3,000 died.
Did Bush take his share of the blame?
Never. It was all the terrorists' fault. Not a bit of blame to be found in the shirking of his duties. Not a bit of blame in his laziness. In his lack of foresight. In his failure to heed the warnings.
When we invaded Iraq, incurring the displeasure of the Western world and the fear and hatred of the Islamic world, all for WMD programs the "evidence" for which he cherry-picked, and which didn't in the end exist at all, causing thousands of deaths and major wounds to our soldiers, and by some estimates, 100,000 civilian Iraqi deaths, did Bush take the blame?
No. He blamed his generals (who actually advised him to go in with more troops, when they saw they couldn't stop him from going ahead with the invasion at all). He blamed Saddam. He blamed anyone he could, but never shouldered his part of the responsibility.
Instead of an "I'm sorry," what do we get? Bush hides the coffins and funerals of our troops from the public, attacks anyone horrified at his lies as unpatriotic, and claims that removing Saddam was part of the war on terror, even though Saddam had no part in 9/11 and no alliance with al-Qaeda.
Bush, in fact, admits to no mistakes since 9/11: when asked by a reporter, he went through a litany of decisions he made that he was happy with, then said, "I don't want to sound like I've made no mistakes. I'm sure I have. But you just put me under the spot here." When he was asked a similar question later, during the debates--presumably after having plenty of time to now think of an answer, he said,
I have made a lot of decisions, and some of them little, like appointments to boards you never heard of, and some of them big.
And in a war, there's a lot of -- there's a lot of tactical decisions that historians will look back and say: He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have made that decision. And I'll take responsibility for them. I'm human.
But on the big questions, about whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan, the big question about whether we should have removed somebody in Iraq, I'll stand by those decisions, because I think they're right.
That's really what you're – when they ask about the mistakes, that's what they're talking about. They're trying to say, "Did you make a mistake going into Iraq?" And the answer is, "Absolutely not." It was the right decision.
Bush continued on this course for a while longer before finally concluding:
Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV. (end quote)
In other words, he stands by the lies he told to get us into his Iraq war, and all other mistakes, if he made them, either will only be evident to historians, or are based on appointments he made that he won't discuss.
This is hardly the stance of a principled, ethical man.
What happened more recently, when 380 tons of high explosives were found to have been looted at Al-Qaqaa? Well, even though the U.S. was warned about the explosives, and the explosives were definitely there when the U.S. troops invaded, they weren't contained. The sole focus of Bush's invasion "plan" was to take the land as quickly as possible. No plans were made to secure important sites, except for the Oil Ministry. Thus, even though the Bush Administration had the information to keep these explosives out of the hands of insurgents and terrorists, they failed to do so.
Apology, Mr. President?
No. Instead, he tries to claim Kerry was attacking him without knowing all the facts; that Kerry was somehow blaming the troops, even though Kerry was clearly blasting the Bush Administration's failure in leadership; that the explosives may or may not have been there at the start of the war. Trouble is, the "may or may not be there" argument was based on a misleading reading of one of the news stories--so neither was Kerry jumping to conclusions nor was there any chance that the explosives were anywhere but in al-Qaqaa when Saddam was ousted.
And who was blaming the troops? Bush's Republican pal, Rudoph Giuliani:
"No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there," Giuliani said on NBC's "Today" show. "Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?" (end quote)
Disgusting. Like the troops, who were told to take Baghdad at all speed, were going to go against their orders and search and protect all buildings on the way. No, this is a failure of planning from those who should be doing the planning--Bush and his Administration.
So, when you think "who blames the troops," it isn't Kerry. It's Republicans.
And when you think "lack of accountability," think Bush. Because he won't take the blame for any thing, any time, any place, any way.
That's fine if you're a dictator. Not so great if you're a leader of a free republic.
So now we have...
#4: Bush refuses to take responsibility for his actions.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Non-policy reason to vote for Kerry over Bush #5: Bush's fearmongering
This is an important election for so many reasons. Certainly, there are important issues out there. But that isn't what this daily countdown is about.
Why?
Sometimes a man assumes power who is so inept, so untruthful, and so unwise that it becomes top priority to get that man out of office as soon as possible. In the U.S.A., we do it by voting. Let's make sure it remains so.
So far, the reasons are...
Reason #10: Kerry is hard-working, Bush is lazy.
Reason #9: Bush is careless with his words.
Reason #8: Bush is dangerously secretive.
Reason #7: Bush refuses to listen to contrary opinions and is incapable of changing his mind when the facts require it.
Reason #6: Bush is cruel.
And so we come to...
Reason #5: Bush uses fear as a weapon against the people of the United States.
Fear has become the preeminent tactic--lying excepted--in the Bush public policy arsenal since 9/11.
The longest-standing tactic of fear has been the color-coded terror level alerts. Not once since 9/11/01 has the terror level been below "yellow." In New York City, it has never dropped below "orange."
Despite this, advisories to the public on actions they can take to make themselves safer or to help defend against terrorists are few and far between. We have the "duct tape and visquine" advisory, and a few advisories about schools or about insurance companies or a couple of others. But generally, the terror level alerts serve to do nothing but increase the anxiety level in the people of the United States.
This is in Bush's best interests. Ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It's pretty common-sense, actually. It basically says you have to take care of the basics of your life before you can go on to more lofty goals. In other words, you can't work on maximizing your potential as a human being if you're scrounging for food. Safety is very low on the hierarchy--it ranks just after the basic body needs of food, air, water, and so on. In other words, if you don't feel safe, it becomes difficult or impossible to take care of things you might want to take care of, such as love, self-esteem, or the improvement of yourself.
By keeping the population at a constant low level of anxiety, Bush creates out of his own actions a perceived need for himself.
Thus, fear has become used elsewhere in the Bush Administration. What was one of the main reasons for Bush's invasion of Iraq? Saddam had WMDs, Saddam might use WMDs, Saddam might turn WMDs over to terrorists, Saddam might help terrorists gain their own WMDs. Since the invasion, we've learned that 1) Saddam's old stocks of WMDs were destroyed after the Gulf War. 2) The international squeeze on Iraq's economy led to the destruction of Saddam's WMD programs, and 3) Saddam had no ties to al Qaeda, and the few meetings they had led to the secular Saddam rejecting the offers from the fundamentalist terrorists. But Bush's cherry-picked intelligence given to Congress and the public made the threat look real, and thus, the fear seem palpable.
Thus, fear has been used to both create a false need for Bush's "services" and to create a need to invade a country that was anything but an immediate threat. But more recently, fear has been used against the Kerry campaign:
On Tuesday (10/19/04), Cheney told Republican supporters in Ohio, "The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us -- biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans."
Cheney called it the ultimate threat," and suggested that Sen. John Kerry is not the man to deal with that threat: "For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," he said. (end quote)
In other words, vote for us...or else. This is the ultimate threat, and the ultimate use of fear.
But does that stand up?
Kerry is not a cowardly man. He's a Silver Star-decorated soldier who volunteered for one of the most dangerous duties within his branch of the Armed Services.
Kerry is not a stupid man. By all accounts, he is highly intelligent.
Kerry is not a man who sees a problem and does nothing about it. He proved that with the "Winter Soldier" investigation, and with the Kerry Commission as a Senator. He has detailed plans for every major issue put out in the public, which you can check out at his web site. Maybe you don't agree with every point of it, but you'll find that national security is right at the top of his list. And this is the man who, when asked in the first debate,
If you are elected president, what will you take to that office thinking is the single most serious threat to the national security to the United States?
KERRY: Nuclear proliferation. Nuclear proliferation. There's some 600-plus tons of unsecured material still in the former Soviet Union and Russia. At the rate that the president is currently securing it, it'll take 13 years to get it.
I did a lot of work on this. I wrote a book about it several years ago -- six, seven years ago -- called "The New War," which saw the difficulties of this international criminal network. And back then, we intercepted a suitcase in a Middle Eastern country with nuclear materials in it. And the black market sale price was about $250 million.
Now, there are terrorists trying to get their hands on that stuff today.
And this president, I regret to say, has secured less nuclear material in the last two years since 9/11 than we did in the two years preceding 9/11. (end quote.)
So not only do we know Kerry has extensively worked on this issue, we also know that Bush has fallen down on the job.
I don't plan on doing my own fear-mongering. But look at the facts. Bush has been extremely aggressive overseas. This has been the backbone of his "offense, not defense" anti-terror plan. But Afghanistan was his main success, and that was limited by his removal of military units to Iraq even as the troops were pushing out the Taliban. Now the warlords and the Taliban itself control large sections of Afghanistan. All this lack of success was part of the price of Iraq, which doesn't have any bearing on the war on terror. Or, I should say, it didn't at the time of Bush's invasion. Now there are many terrorists there, attacking our soldiers and anyone seen as helping the U.S., and the Iraqi invasion has been a boon to Islamic terror recruitment throughout the world.
Meanwhile, here in the United States, about 5% of cargo containers are inspected as they come into the U.S. And last month, three years after 9/11, Time magazine ran a cover story saying that America's borders are just as porous as ever, even though there is evidence that terrorists are starting to use the Mexican and Canadian borders for entry attempts into the United States.
Again, I would never say that if you vote for Bush, you're putting yourself in danger. I will say that I will sleep better at night knowing that an intelligent, wise man like Kerry who can see all aspects of an issue, and has a history of taking action where action is needed, will be on the job. Now that's a way to combat terror.
And do you really want to live through another four years with a man who wishes us all to live in fear just so he can hold onto power? That's today's non-policy reason to vote for Kerry over Bush,
#5: Bush uses fear as a weapon against the people of the United States.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Non-policy reason to vote Kerry over Bush #6: Bush's cruelty
This is the non-policy countdown of reasons to vote for Kerry over Bush--one per day until the day before Election Day. Non-policy? Yep. You won't find arguments over whose stance on jobs is better, or so on. This is all about the candidates' personalities.
Why?
There are terribly important issues out there, it's true. But sometimes a man assumes power who is so thoroughly corrupt, inept, or unwise, that it becomes paramount that he is pulled from power as soon as possible. I wouldn't have thought it possible before Bush, but we have in him a President who is all three.
So far, we have...
Reason #10: Kerry is hard-working, Bush is lazy.
Reason #9: Bush is careless with his words.
Reason #8: Bush is dangerously secretive.
Reason #7: Bush refuses to listen to contrary opinions and is incapable of changing his mind
when the facts require it.
And so we come to...
#6: Bush is cruel.
Cruelty to animals as a child is a danger sign, psychologically speaking. As a young child, Bush shot frogs with BB guns and blew them up with firecrackers.
As a college student, Bush branded his fellow fraternity members on the buttocks. (He also joined the secret society "Skull and Bones," which harkens us back to Reason #8.)
When Governor of Texas, Bush mocked the plight of a woman on death row he gave the go-ahead to execute: "Please," he whimpered, "don't kill me."
Before his televised speech informing the American public that he has invaded Iraq, he pumped his fist in the air and shouted, "Feels good!"
And this cruelty has now extended to his Presidency. Torture has occurred throughout the prisons and prison camps of Iraq and Afghanistan, most famously at Abu Ghraib. We now also know that the prisoners at Guantanamo were also tortured.
He has advocated the extension of the death penalty, even though it has become apparent that it is not exercised evenhandedly.
He pressured the EPA to play down the health damage of the air around Ground Zero, putting rescue workers, volunteers, and many other good people in grave jeopardy. Many firemen, policemen, and others who worked in the rubble have had serious lung problems.
He cut the pay of the troops in Iraq!
He ignores the pleas of even people in his own party, like Nancy Reagan, plus other figures like Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox, who are desperate to get research going on all kinds of stem cells, including embryonic, which are taken from frozen fertility clinic embryos which would be discarded and will never see a womb. Bush instead sticks by his fundamentalist dogma, ignoring the help that hundreds of thousands of very ill people could get from this line of research. Many people will die, and others will live in great pain and suffering, due to Bush's decision on stem cells.
When a man is cruel, it prevents him from helping others except in the very narrow sense of aiding one's cronies or advancing one's agenda. It is fine trait for a despot; a terrible one for a powerful democracy.
So here we are at:
#6: Bush is cruel.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Non-policy reason to vote for Kerry over Bush #7
This is the non-policy countdown of reasons to vote for Kerry over Bush--one per day until the day before Election Day. Non-policy? Yep. You won't find arguments over whose stance on jobs is better, or so on. This is all about the candidates' personalities.
Why?
There are terribly important issues out there, it's true. But sometimes a man assumes power who is so thoroughly corrupt, inept, or unwise, that it becomes paramount that he is pulled from power as soon as possible. I wouldn't have thought it possible before Bush, but we have in him a President who is all three.
So far, we have...
Reason #10: Kerry is hard-working, Bush is lazy.
Reason #9: Bush is careless with his words.
Reason #8: Bush is dangerously secretive.
And so we come to...
Reason #7: Bush is unable to listen to contrary opinions, or change his mind when the facts dictate.
In a way, this dovetails with #8, Bush's secrecy. Part of the reason for his secrecy is to keep contrary opinions or facts away from him, so he can continue down the ideologically-driven path he desires.
Bush and his Administration have become famous for stepping on whomever they need to in order to push through their agenda in Congress or make decisions affecting all of us. Bullying, discrediting, spreading false information...all tactics are open when it comes to dealing with anyone who stands against Bush on any issue at any time, regardless of whether they helped Bush in the past. Is it really that surprising he is the first President in U.S. history to NEVER veto a single bill?
When it came time to start ignoring the war on al-Qaeda and invade Iraq, Bush asked for information that would allow him to sell the war to the public. He wasn't interested in hearing opinions saying that "Saddam is contained" or "Saddam's WMD programs have fallen apart under the force of the international sanctions." All he wanted to hear was the rumors, innuendoes, and possibilities that would allow him to stitch together a tissue of lies to sell to the military, the public, and the world.
After Iraq was invaded and Saddam driven into hiding, the search for WMDs was on. Wasn't it? Well, to a degree, yes. They were hoping to find...something. After all, Bush's daddy and Reagan were the ones who sold Saddam his old WMDs, which he used on the Kurds and the Iranians. It stood to reason, they figured, that some might have been hidden away, instead of destroyed as Saddam had vociferously maintained. They figured wrong.
No protections were made of Iraq's munitions, nuclear plants, or museums. The only area properly guarded in Baghdad was the Oil Ministry. Why? I leave the answer to the reader.
Bush's whole plan for the war was: 1) Use the U.S. military to drive Saddam out of power. 2) Parade down the street to throngs of well-wishing Iraqis. 3) Pump oil like mad to fund the rebuilding of Iraq and line the pockets of Bush's cronies.
Now we know the results of that disastrous lack of post-invasion planning. Our soldiers are confined to certain areas, and whole cities have been declared "no-go" areas. Our soldiers are dangerously low on armor, ammunition, and spare parts, to the point where some soldiers are now refusing orders. Insurgent numbers keep climbing. Stocks of guns and explosives were taken without ever being properly guarded. Iraqi police and soldier trainees are blown up in line, unprotected, or massacred without weapons. The whole world, outside of the "coalition of the willing" is angry at Bush and, to a lesser extent, the U.S. Members of the "coalition of the willing" are becoming unwilling and going home. 100,000 Iraqis are "trained"--but only with a paltry three weeks of basic training. Less than 5,000 are fully trained. Car bombs blow up civilian Iraqis on a daily basis. Anyone traveling unarmed is subject to kidnapping. Since the oil pipelines keep being attacked and nearly the whole country is unbelievably dangerous to anyone thought of as helping the U.S., rebuilding is nearly zero, and Bush had to line Halliburton's pockets directly from the coffers of the U.S. Treasury instead of from oil money.
Despite this, Bush hasn't changed his mind at all about Iraq. He still claims it's part of the war on terror. This despite the fact that Saddam, a secular leader, declined invitations by fundamentalist al-Qaeda to partner up. Iraq wasn't part of our war on terror--until Bush bulled his way into Iraq. Now we know that some of the innocent people in both Guantanamo and Iraq whom we arrested and tortured have since turned into insurgents or terrorists. Bush is creating more terrorists than anyone else this side of Osama bin Laden, the man Bush wanted "dead or alive." Or, in a six-month flip-flop, "I truly am not that concerned about him." Was he changing his mind? No. He never really cared about getting bin Laden. Afghanistan was just a precursor to attacking Iraq. We know that because Bush was pulling troops towards Iraq even though the job wasn't even close to being finished. When it comes to something important to Bush, he'll never change his mind. Anything not important to him is just a potential lie to be told to advance his agenda.
Well, aside from terror, what does Bush think about Iraq? About the fact that there are no WMDs and there was no way for Saddam to get them as long as the no-fly zone and the international sanctions were in place? About the fact that we were not greeted as liberators, but as occupiers? About the growing insurgency? About his lack of planning, and the lack of an exit strategy? Would he have done anything different?
No, said Bush. I wouldn't have changed a thing.
This is the mind of a man incapable of dealing with reality. That makes it dangerous for anyone who is directly or indirectly exposed to his decisions. That would be....everyone.
Bush doesn't want to live in a democracy, he wants to be a dictator, making decisions with NO input from anyone else. To quote (found at DubyaSpeak.com):
1. It would be a heck of a lot easier to be a dictator than work in a democracy. (1996 - referenced in J.H. Hatfield's "Fortunate Son", when he was governor of Texas)
2. You don't get everything you want, a dictatorship would be a lot easier. (July 1998)
3. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier... just so long as I'm the dictator. (Dec. 18, 2000 - shortly after his contentious victory in the Supreme Court that resulted in his becoming president)
4. A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. (July 26, 2001)
Or, as Bush once put it regarding his executive order making faith-based groups eligible for federal subsidies in the face of the First Amendment, "It's not a dictatorship in Washington, but I tried to make it one in that instance."
To sum up:
Bush is incapable of listening to contrary opinions, meeting in the middle with people holding different philosophies, or reasonably changing his mind when the facts don't agree with his hypothoses. To sum up more:
#7: Bush is incapable of changing his mind even when it is vital to do so.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Non-policy reason #8: Bush is secretive
Though there are many important issues this election, for some elections we must put the issues aside. This occurs when a man who is thoroughly unfit for office holds power, and must be removed. The way we do it in America is by the vote. Let us work to ensure it will remain so.
This is the non-policy countdown of reasons to vote for Kerry over Bush. One each day through Election Day.
Reason #10: Kerry is hard-working, Bush is lazy.
Reason #9: Bush is careless with his words.
And now...
Reason #8: Bush is secretive and doesn't respect the public's right to know.
Bush and his Administration have ignored the Freedom of Information Act almost at will, and without consequence.
When the 9/11 report came out, the only large redaction was a total removal of Saudi Arabia's connections to the 9/11 plot and hijackers. Since the Saudi Royal Family are Bush Family buddies, this amounts to using the U.S. government power of secrecy to reward their cronies.
When Valerie Plame Wilson was reported by conservative journalist Robert Novak to be a covert agent on July 14, 2003, which was done to punish her husband, who had set the record straight "about the Bush Administration's bogus claim that Niger provided uranium to Iraq." ( Worse Than Watergate, 171) There are only a handful of people who would have access to that fact who would have reason to punish Wilson's husband, and all of them are high up in the Bush Administration. The "investigation" into this act of treason (Bush Sr.'s words to describe the act of a U.S. citizen uncovering a U.S. agent) has been slowed to a crawl, and will have absolutely no chance of moving forward until well after the election, if at all.
Helen Thomas, who has been a White House Correspondent since Kennedy, long was given the distinction of asking the first question at every Presidential press conference. Bush doesn't allow her to ask any questions at all. Why? Because she asks tough questions, of the kind Bush doesn't like. By similar press punishments, Bush has beaten down the White House Correspondents to the point where they don't bother asking tough questions at all. Thus, he is protected.
Bush attacks anyone who leaks information to the press, and has people on staff whose job it is to prevent leaks and go after leakers. ( Worse Than Watergate, 58-69)
Bush didn't want a 9/11 Commission AT ALL, despite the fact that 9/11 was one of the most blatantly important criminal acts in history, that similar acts of terror had been successfully thwarted by the Clinton Administration, that similar commissions had been started immediately after such events as Pearl Harbor, and that the 9/11 families were clamoring for one. Bush first didn't want one; then he tried not to fund it; then he tried to stymie it by appointing Henry Kissinger (!) as the Head of the Commission. Condoleeza Rice hoped to testify without being under oath. Bush refused to testify under oath, and only testified at all with Dick Cheney, in the White House, with no recordings OR notes taken. He only allowed it to go forward if it wouldn't point any fingers of blame, and if the report would come out early enough that it wouldn't be anywhere near the election.
Yikes.
While a certain amount of secrecy is necessary to perform certain functions of government, Bush goes way over the line. His methods of secrecy bear more parallels to authoritarian governments than to Western-style democracies.
John W. Dean, in Worse Than Watergate, goes over some of the dangers and evils of excessive secrecy, and discusses them further than I will here:
Secrecy is undemocratic
Secrecy threatens liberty
Secrecy precludes public accountability
Secrecy alienates
Secrecy negatively affects character
Secrecy is dangerous
Secrecy encourages incompetence
Ah, but will Kerry be any more open? I think it almost inevitable that he will. After all, this is the Kerry who, instead of burying his memories of Vietnam when he came home, testified before Congress in the "Winter Soldier" investigation. Here's a link to that testimony--it's fascinating.
As Senator, Kerry also headed the "Kerry Commission"--an investigation into the Iran-Contra affair, Nicaraguan cocaine trafficking, the Oliver North connection, and so on. Big deal, you say--that's Reagan and Bush Sr. as targets. Well, Kerry also uncovered some big Democratic Party donors along the way, and he was urged by many within his party to let it go. He did the right thing, and proceeded.
So Kerry has shown through tough actions that he believes that sunshine beats secrecy in government.
And that's #8-- Bush is super-secretive, to a dangerous level.
Sunday, October 24, 2004
#9 non-policy reason to vote for Kerry over Bush
(To get you up to speed, although there are a lot of important issues, sometimes an election features someone in power with such poor ethics, lack of judgement, and extremism that that person much be removed from power. This is such an election.)
#9: Bush is careless with his words.
At this point, you might expect some of the usual Bush gaffes: the "is our children learning?" gaffe, the "OB-GYNs practicing their love on women" gaffe, the "we will not have an all-volunteer army" Freudian slip, and so on.
But that's not really what I'm getting at.
Those kinds of quotes make Americans, Republican, Democrat, and other, cringe, and brings down our standing in the world, quite apart from Bush's other actions, policies, and words. But there's a worse habit of his:
THE WRONG WORDS AT THE WRONG TIME.
A not-so-verbal version of this was the "Mission Accomplished." Now, he never actually said "mission accomplished" during the speech. But he stood in front of the banner, and when he tried to lie by saying the banner wasn't put up by him or his team, he ended up saying his people screwed up (and, therefore, it WAS his people who put it up): "The "Mission Accomplished" sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed some how to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way."
But I'm not talking about lying, here, either. That's one for much higher up on this top ten list.
No, I'm talking about using his words as a sort of built-in Three Stooges routine, doing damage to himself and, more importantly, to our nation and our soldiers.
"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."
That was Bush, just a few months after his invasion, predicated mainly on Saddam having/procuring/allotting to terrorists WMDs, causing the deaths of many Americans, Iraqis, and others, joking by looking around his podium and the other furniture, as though the WMDs might be near him somewhere. By making light of the very reason he put our soldiers in danger, he weakened the already-weak "coalition of the willing" and made it obvious he was going into Iraq, and that the WMDs were, in essence, the MacGuffin--in other words, the thing which everyone is after, but which is essentially meaningless--it's just used to set things in motion.
"Bring them on."
There are five faults of the commander, according to Sun Tzu in the classic "The Art of War." Bush showed both the third and fourth of them with those words. To quote:
(3) a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
(4) a delicacy of honor which is sensitive to shame...
An unwise and distemperate man leading a great army cannot bring victory. By encouraging the insurgency, he made things more difficult for our army. These words were not merely foolish, but cruel to our own soldiers.
"The problem with the French is they don't have a word for entrepeneur."
Bush said that to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of England. I'll bet Blair is educated enough to know that the word derives from French. Heck, I'll bet about 75% of Europe knows that. And about 33% of the U.S. But a much higher percentage of people who have been to BOTH Harvard AND Yale, like our C-Student-in-Chief. Not just embarrassing but insulting.
Which brings us to the words of our "uniter, not a divider," when he decided that Kerry's foreign policy stands are "dangerous for world peace." This from the man who took a world in love with the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks, pushed them away by saying that if you aren't in the coalition you won't have any say after Saddam falls, period, then cherry-picked the intelligence to give to Congress and the public to get support for a war with a lie.
Bush's stance on war? It's not a last resort, by any means. In fact, it's right near the front, basically as soon as the war can be "sold" to the public like a can of peaches.
"The reason we start a war is to fight a war, win a war, thereby causing no more war!"
Bush doesn't understand at all. He thinks that because our mighty military is capable of so much, it should be used, early and often. He doesn't realize the long-term consequences.
Powell let Bush know that when it came to toppling Saddam, Iraq was strictly "you break it, you buy it." Well, that's not strictly true. Bush broke it, but we're ALL buying it. And we buy it a little more every time he says something that causes our allies to drift further away, our "coalition of the willing" members to rue their participation, or our enemies to make their attacks fierer.
And that's reason #9: Bush is careless with his words.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
10 days until the election...starting top ten list
I'm starting a top ten list, one per day, ending on election day:
Top ten non-policy reasons to vote for Kerry over Bush
Some will be anti-Bush, some will be comparative, and some will be pro-Kerry.
All will be non-policy.
In other words, I won't be arguing the benefits of one health care plan over another, or whether there should be a cut or a raise in the capital-gains tax.
Why?
Well, there are plenty of issues out there that are important. Very important. But some elections aren't about the issues. This happens when you have someone in power whose lack of ethics, lack of judgement, and extremism are so dangerous to our future that he must be defeated.
This is such an election, when the person trumps the issues.
So, here we go with the tenth reason...
#10: Bush is lazy, Kerry is hard-working.
Bush's record before he started having corporations given to him by his dad and his dad's cronies is one of being a true wastrel. After being given a "get out of Vietnam free" card by his dad's friends, he goes through expensive pilot training, then blows it off and does...well, no one quite knows, but it wasn't what he had signed up to do "for our country."
Kerry's early record? While he probably could have figured out a way to weasel his way out of Vietnam, instead he signed up for military service. And then, he volunteered for one of the most dangerous duties in his branch of the service--swift-boat duty. After Vietnam, he works hard to try to get the public and the government to get the POWs out of Vietnam, and for everyone to see the policy errors of a war with no strategy for winning and no exit strategy.
After Vietnam, Bush goes through his "failed CEO" period...something for another time. Later, he became the Governor of Texas--Texas has a "weak governor" system, so it wasn't too hard for him to do. Then, of course, he fell into the Presidency after his brother made sure Florida went his way.
As President, Bush has spent more than 40% of his time outside the White House--at either of his two mansions, or at Camp David.
After Vietnam, Kerry becomes a very successful prosecutor, then a lieutenant governor, then a Senator. He has never spent any long amount of time not working his butt off.
During the first debate, we found out just how much of a strain the Presidency is on a lazy man like George W. Bush. Eleven times he talked about how he's doing "hard work" or how the Presidency is "hard work." Once he talked about how loving his wife is "hard work." And twice he talked about how he and others in his Administration are working "hard."
Kerry's first words in his nomination acceptance speech? That he's "reporting for duty." He's a man who was disciplined by military life, and worked hard ever since.
And that's reason number ten: Kerry is hard-working, Bush is too lazy to do an effective job.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Iranian hard-core theocrats endorse Bush for President (AP)
Despite Bush's rhetoric against Iran, they'd rather have him back for more:
Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.
"We haven't seen anything good from Democrats," Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.
Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues.
"We do not desire to see Democrats take over," Rowhani said when asked whether Iran was supporting Democratic Sen. John Kerry against Bush.
Now that's interesting. Most of the truly democratic countries want Kerry, while false-front "democracies" and "republics" led by autocrats, like Iran, support Bush. Democrats do more harm than Republicans to these kinds of rulers, who enjoy cronylike status among the Republicans.
Who do you want for your President? Democracies' preferred candidate, Kerry? Or Iran's choice, Bush?
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Getting in the Halloween mood
Here's some short zombie fiction stories from the Twilight Creations site, makers of the "Zombies!!!" board game.
Eat well.
(added later:)
One more thing to chew on: George Romero is working on a follow-up to his other zombie movies, to come out next year. It's called "Land of the Dead." The plotline: a few years have passed, and the living dead have taken over almost all of the Earth. The surviving humans are in a walled-in city, desperately trying to survive each other as much as the zombies. Meanwhile, the zombie threat, which had started fading as the zombies decomposed, is rising again as the zombies evolve into new threats...
Sounds like it could be good.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Pat Robertson: I warned Bush about casualties in Iraq...
...Bush's response? "There aren't going to be any." (CNN)
Wow!
Bush thought there weren't going to be any casualties--as though invading Iraq was going to be like invading Grenada.
This is an amazing article. It's also full of irrationalist gems like this:
Jesus may have told Bush to invade Iraq, but God was giving warnings to Robertson: "I mean, the Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy."
Robertson also believes Bush is blessed by God:
"Even if he stumbles and messes up -- and he's had his share of stumbles and gaffes -- I just think God's blessing is on him," Robertson said.
Amazing. Bush is a goofball, self-assured for no reason, mistaken oh so many times, and foolish, yet his irrationalist buddies think "God" has blessed him.
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