I thought last week was the best week of the campaign for Team Bush. Kerry showed his populist credentials by jetting off to his wife's $7 million ski lodge for some much needed rest and relaxxation with his rich friends. Just the thing a laid-off auto worker can identify with. The Bush ads started in earnest, featuring Kerry pompously declaring "I voted for the $87 billion, then voted against it." There's a slogan to energize the voters. This week by contrast was a horror for Bush, courtesy of turncoat weasel Richard Clarke. Starting with Leslie Stahl's infomercial for his book, Clarke pretty much ruled the airways and used it to jab his poison pen into the eyesockets of his former bosses, Condi Rice and the President. The Republicans managed to get their response machinery started by the end of the week and issued stock statements that Clarke was a disgruntled former employee with an odd memory and a habit of saying whatever people wanted to hear. Since they had vetted his book--query, couldn't they have held it up until after the election???--they knew what he was going to say. Still, they seemed unprepared and were clearly wrongfooted by the media savvy Clarke. They had to use valuable time and resources to attack and discredit Clarke, when the target should have been Kerry. Given the shellacking Kerry took last week, they might have been able to end this fight on a second round TKO, but their ineptness coupled with Clarke's mendacity equalled a bad week for the boys from the Lone Star state. There is however a silver lining. The single issue before voters now is the fight against terrorism. Bush has to like his odds against Kerry if the election is decided on that issue. The Clarke storm will pass, but the image of Hanoi John standing proudly with Jane Fonda will not. Voters don't trust the Democrats on security issues and with good reason. Kerry, as the last term's single most liberal senator, has to overcome that burden. While Clarke damaged Bush's reputation slightly, he did nothing to enhance Kerry's credentials. Bush can still point out that had Kerry been in office, Saddam would not only still control Iraq, he would control Kuwait and perhaps Saudi Arabia as well.
It must be a very interesting world you live in. How about being part of the solution instead of part of the problem? Did you know anyone who died over there? Know anyone who had to buy their own armor, because only 25% of the Bush military was already outfitted?
i had jury duty yesterday - in the juror waiting area there was a wall somebody put up with pictures of KIAs from the area. there must of been close to 100 pictures. i was against the iraq conflict and that truly made me sad to see the results of of it.
Kerry and his wife are wealthy. And Bush is just a poor sharecropper from Texas. "turncoat weasel"? If the guy is just trying to sell books, then why would he wait until after the election as you suggest? But what if he is actually right? Is it beyond your capability to even consider the possibility? Why was Bush so reluctant to let the 9/11 commission continue it's investigation? What possible harm could come from the truth? Why would this even be a partisan issue? Do you deny that there is some logic to the possibility that Bush had a bit of a hardon for the guy that put out a contract on his father's head? Is it not a fact that Bush and Cheney and a good part of the current administration have business interests in oil, and that there is a lot of oil in Iraq? And a lot of potential profit for Bechtel in rebuilding Iraq? Is it not a fact that the Bush and Bin Laden families have been doing business together? Is it not a fact that the Bin Ladens that were in America were given special treatment to travel from the US when air traffic was suspended immediately after 9/11? Is it not a fact that Bush Sr. actually was with some members of the Bin Laden family at the very time NYC was attacked? AAA, maybe there is nothing here. Maybe it's all a bunch of made up nonsense by the "liberal press". But if you are going to believe everything you hear or read coming from the right, can you not even CONSIDER anything else? I have asked you this before. Is everything "Bush" good and everything "Not Bush" bad by definition? The "single issue before the voters now is the fight against terrorism".....Perhaps, but that is not what I read today. I read that the top issue is the economy. I read it on the MSNBC home page. Of course you probably think that is some ultra left wing communist source, but I don't really think that is the case. I guess there will be about a zillion polls on this issue soon enough. Then we can have a "poll of polls" and figure out what the top issue really is. AAA, I don't know what to think of Clarke's statements and especially of his "impressions". Impressions are just that. Maybe he misinterpreted everything. But keeping an open mind is something you may want to consider. I know that the most expensive thing anyone can have (in a sense of being "costly"), is a CLOSED MIND. You are liberal and progressive enough to use a computer. I bet you don't own a slide rule or a typewriter any more. You have proven that you have at some points in your life opened your mind to change. Not very "conservative" of you. Well now is a time for you to again consider things outside your core beliefs. Not change your mind necessarily.....just CONSIDER things from a different perspective. Who was the last "populist" President? (there is an answer). Peace RS
If Bush makes the economy the #1 issue, he loses. If Bush makes the war on terrorism the #1 issue, he likely wins. Any guesses which issue is #1 in Bush's mind?
Didn't the Sudanese offer bin Laden to the Clinton's...twice? Does anyone with a shred of objectivity believe ANYONE would have supported an invasion of Afghanistan to get to al-Qaeda in the early months of Bush's administration because Clarke said so? What were the Clinton's response to the attack on the African Embassies?...the USS Cole?....the first WTC bombing? Didn't Clinton leave Bush with the beginnings of the recession? Didn't we just have record GDP growth last quarter (Q4 '03)? Isn't the unemployment rate the same as it was during Clinton's re-election in 1996? Just wondering. I'm sure everyone will have very "objective" answers. Oh, by the way. Error, do you know any soldiers who were killed? I know plenty. What is your point with that question to AAA?
I don't mean to minimize the importance of the war or other issues or demean anyone's sacrifice by analyzing the political impact of these issues. But we are in a campaign and these are the issues. This election more than most will be decided by the ground it is fought on. And right now that ground is terror and security, which happen to be the President's bread and butter issues and the issues voters most trust the Republicans on. The Democrats are taking a big risk here in challenging Bush on this issue. Even if they score some points, which they did this week thanks to Clarke, they keep it front and center. I'm not sure that is a good strategy.
I am still waiting to learn from you the "evidence" that you cite that the Bush Administration provided to the American people that came from the CIA's assessment on Iraq's WMD program which as you say, was "consistent with every other major country's intelligence service" and was used as the basis for the invasion of Iraq. So far, as I stated earlier on another thread in which you have still not replied, I only see some aluminum tubes that Condoleezza Rice presented to the American people as to be "only suitable for use in a nuclear application" that the Department of Energy laughed at, and forged reports about Niger and unranium as evidence that the Iraqi's had WMD and an ongoing nuclear development program. Care to add anything to that? Did I miss anything? Cat got your tongue?
And Kerry can point out that if they were both 21 and there was a draft, Bush would be drinking and not showing up for duty and Kerry would be pulling gaurd duty on a Baghdad corner, voluntarily. That's a fact. Top that asshole.