Remember, it's the economy, stupid!
Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The index of leading U.S. economic indicators fell for a third consecutive month in August, suggesting slower economic growth ahead amid rising crude oil prices, a private group said...
Crude oil prices reached a record in August and job growth slowed from earlier this year, restraining incomes, consumer confidence and the appetite to spend...
Wage increases over the past year have failed to keep up with inflation. Average hourly wages for production and non-supervisory workers, which account for about 80 percent of the workforce, were up 2.3 percent for the 12 months ended in August, according to figures from the Labor Department. Consumer prices rose 2.7 percent over the same period...
The number of workers filing new claims for jobless benefits rose to 350,000 last week, the Labor Department said in a separate report, linking most of the increase to Hurricanes Charley and Frances.
How much evidence do we need that Bush doesn't have a clue about how to fix the economy? He does know how to get oil prices up, however.
High oil prices played a part in the second-quarter soft patch and continue to be a factor in the economy...
Crude oil prices averaged $44.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared with $30.99 a year earlier...
Oil prices could top $60 a barrel by the summer of 2005, said Wachovia Corp. economist Jason Schenker in a report issued yesterday.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Partisan hurricanes?
This is pretty funny.
The hurricanes that struck Florida this year have all conveniently avoided counties that went for Gore in 2000.
I think Pat Robertson should be worried.
The hurricanes that struck Florida this year have all conveniently avoided counties that went for Gore in 2000.
I think Pat Robertson should be worried.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Offensive liberal caricatures
So what is a liberal anyway? There are all of these caricatures and stereotypes of liberals constantly being bantered about in editorial cartoons, letters to the editor, talk radio, etc.
Often times it is the aging Hippie with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, usually wearing round glasses and dressed in either tie dyes or an outdated suit jacket (in the case of academic types). But these images are beginning to be a bit old as the Boomer generation nears retirement.
I guess the thing that offends me the most is the implication that a person with liberal political beliefs also has bad values in their personal life.
An example is this recent Prickly City comic strip - the newest right-wing political comic picked up by the San Antonio Express-News (Comic balance is currently 4-1 with Prickly City, Mallard Fillmore, Nacho Guarche and B.C. on the right and just Doonesbury on the left.)
The strip features a little girl and a young coyote who constantly make right-wing observations and take pot-shots at Democrats and liberals. The strip from Sept. 21 was particularly offensive. It has a grotesque man carrying a bottle of booze and smoking a cigarette making a pass at the little girl and revealing that he is a sexual offender. He then shouts out an anti-Bush profanity, barfs on everything and then passes out. The "punchline" is that he represents the typical Hollywood liberal.
The fact that the author tries to equate drunkeness, slovenliness, smoking, sexual perversion and profanity with liberalism is both outrageous and highly offensive. Whenever I think of a Hollywood liberal I imagine someone like Paul Newman (who actually lives in Connecticut) who launched the Newman's Own food line and gives all the profits away to charity. When I lived and worked in Connecticut many years ago I got to see firsthand the beneficial results of Newman's philanthropy.
But still this gross caricature persists in the minds of many conservatives. No wonder they find it so easy to despise liberals.
But the only problem is that I don't fit that description (and neither do most liberals I know). While I have some very strong liberal political beliefs, I am probably more conservative in most of my personal habits than most conservatives I meet.
I don't smoke.
I don't drink alcohol.
I have never taken drugs.
I don't use profanity.
I don't gamble.
I've been happily married for 14 years.
I go to church regularly (Methodist).
I wear my hair relatively short and dress in slacks and a tie when I go to work.
I drive a Ford F150 pickup truck.
So what is it about me that makes me a liberal? Is it the fact that I don't openly condemn people who don't mirror my personal habits? Is it because I am too forgiving of other people's faults? Or is it because I want the government to tax all my conservative friends into the poor house and give all their money away to welfare cheats and roustabouts? (Just kidding!)
More on this later...
Often times it is the aging Hippie with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, usually wearing round glasses and dressed in either tie dyes or an outdated suit jacket (in the case of academic types). But these images are beginning to be a bit old as the Boomer generation nears retirement.
I guess the thing that offends me the most is the implication that a person with liberal political beliefs also has bad values in their personal life.
An example is this recent Prickly City comic strip - the newest right-wing political comic picked up by the San Antonio Express-News (Comic balance is currently 4-1 with Prickly City, Mallard Fillmore, Nacho Guarche and B.C. on the right and just Doonesbury on the left.)
The strip features a little girl and a young coyote who constantly make right-wing observations and take pot-shots at Democrats and liberals. The strip from Sept. 21 was particularly offensive. It has a grotesque man carrying a bottle of booze and smoking a cigarette making a pass at the little girl and revealing that he is a sexual offender. He then shouts out an anti-Bush profanity, barfs on everything and then passes out. The "punchline" is that he represents the typical Hollywood liberal.
The fact that the author tries to equate drunkeness, slovenliness, smoking, sexual perversion and profanity with liberalism is both outrageous and highly offensive. Whenever I think of a Hollywood liberal I imagine someone like Paul Newman (who actually lives in Connecticut) who launched the Newman's Own food line and gives all the profits away to charity. When I lived and worked in Connecticut many years ago I got to see firsthand the beneficial results of Newman's philanthropy.
But still this gross caricature persists in the minds of many conservatives. No wonder they find it so easy to despise liberals.
But the only problem is that I don't fit that description (and neither do most liberals I know). While I have some very strong liberal political beliefs, I am probably more conservative in most of my personal habits than most conservatives I meet.
I don't smoke.
I don't drink alcohol.
I have never taken drugs.
I don't use profanity.
I don't gamble.
I've been happily married for 14 years.
I go to church regularly (Methodist).
I wear my hair relatively short and dress in slacks and a tie when I go to work.
I drive a Ford F150 pickup truck.
So what is it about me that makes me a liberal? Is it the fact that I don't openly condemn people who don't mirror my personal habits? Is it because I am too forgiving of other people's faults? Or is it because I want the government to tax all my conservative friends into the poor house and give all their money away to welfare cheats and roustabouts? (Just kidding!)
More on this later...
Monday, September 20, 2004
A correction
Mark Harden notes in the comments on the last post that in light of the CBS admission that they cannot authenticate the memos they used for their 60 Minutes story last week I now have a statement on this blog that is no longer supported by the evidence at hand.
"...this blog still has a post online, without correction or update, which states that President Bush disobeyed a direct order while serving in the National Guard. That little tidbit of slime has only one source: the forged memos which even CBS now admits are fraudulent."
Mark is correct, in part. I still believe that Bush demonstratably disobeyed an order to partake in a flight physical in 1972, but I can no longer say for certain that he disobeyed a "direct order" to that effect. The fact is that it was a "requirement" of the National Guard at the time that all pilots submit to a flight physical every year. That is what is called a general order.
When I was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M it was a requirement that I be up each morning by 6:30 and out on the quadrangle with my outfit for morning formation before marching to breakfast. I suppose Cadet George W. Bush probably would have lounged around in bed all morning until some upper classman came and gave him a "direct order" to get up, but the rest of us required no such special encouragement (nor did we want it).
Since Bush failed to take a flight physical in '72 we have to assume that at minimum he disobeyed a general order. There is no evidence that he had special permission to skip the physical requirement. It is still possible that he also disobeyed a direct order, but we do not have documented proof as such. Ruth Knox, Col. Killian's secretary, says she remembers typing up memos that said as much, but since they have apparently been "cleansed" from Bush's files there is no way to verify it.
I stand corrected.
"...this blog still has a post online, without correction or update, which states that President Bush disobeyed a direct order while serving in the National Guard. That little tidbit of slime has only one source: the forged memos which even CBS now admits are fraudulent."
Mark is correct, in part. I still believe that Bush demonstratably disobeyed an order to partake in a flight physical in 1972, but I can no longer say for certain that he disobeyed a "direct order" to that effect. The fact is that it was a "requirement" of the National Guard at the time that all pilots submit to a flight physical every year. That is what is called a general order.
When I was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M it was a requirement that I be up each morning by 6:30 and out on the quadrangle with my outfit for morning formation before marching to breakfast. I suppose Cadet George W. Bush probably would have lounged around in bed all morning until some upper classman came and gave him a "direct order" to get up, but the rest of us required no such special encouragement (nor did we want it).
Since Bush failed to take a flight physical in '72 we have to assume that at minimum he disobeyed a general order. There is no evidence that he had special permission to skip the physical requirement. It is still possible that he also disobeyed a direct order, but we do not have documented proof as such. Ruth Knox, Col. Killian's secretary, says she remembers typing up memos that said as much, but since they have apparently been "cleansed" from Bush's files there is no way to verify it.
I stand corrected.
Friday, September 17, 2004
Who is the bigger dupe: Dan Rather or George W. Bush?
Bush apologists are now demanding a retraction and an apology from CBS News and Dan Rather over the apparently forged National Guard documents. CBS was apparently duped into running a story on 60 Minutes II that was based on the bogus memos.
Well, get in line folks. I’m still waiting on a retraction and an apology from the Bush administration for taking us to war based on phony information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The chief U.S. weapons inspector has now formally concluded that Iraq Had No WMDs.
So which of these two instances of people being duped by bogus information is more deserving of our attention? If Dan Rather is forced to step down to atone for the mistakes at CBS, why isn’t Bush stepping down for misleading us into a war that didn’t need to happen when it did?
While the Bush-appointed head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, is finally admitting that Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction - the major reason for our headlong rush to war more than a year ago - he still insists that Hussein “left signs that he had idle programs he someday hoped to revive.”
Uh huh, sure. And Saddam also had big plans of becoming a best-selling novelist.
“Saddam Hussein spent the final weeks before the war writing a novel predicting that he would lead an underground resistance movement to victory over the Americans, rather than planning the defence of his regime...”
Maybe during the first Gulf War Saddam might have been a threat, but it is clear now that at the start of this war he was just a delusional old man who was rapidly losing control of his country.
"He lost touch with reality," said Saad Hadi, a journalist who was involved in the production of Saddam's novels. "He thought he was a god who could do anything, including writing novels."
So Bush was duped into taking us into an ill advised war against a toothless old dictator who had “lost touch with reality” at the cost of more than 1,000 U.S. lives and more than $200 billion in tax dollars. And right-wingers are demanding that Dan Rather step down to salvage CBS’s credibility. What about our nation’s credibility?
Well, get in line folks. I’m still waiting on a retraction and an apology from the Bush administration for taking us to war based on phony information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The chief U.S. weapons inspector has now formally concluded that Iraq Had No WMDs.
So which of these two instances of people being duped by bogus information is more deserving of our attention? If Dan Rather is forced to step down to atone for the mistakes at CBS, why isn’t Bush stepping down for misleading us into a war that didn’t need to happen when it did?
While the Bush-appointed head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, is finally admitting that Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction - the major reason for our headlong rush to war more than a year ago - he still insists that Hussein “left signs that he had idle programs he someday hoped to revive.”
Uh huh, sure. And Saddam also had big plans of becoming a best-selling novelist.
“Saddam Hussein spent the final weeks before the war writing a novel predicting that he would lead an underground resistance movement to victory over the Americans, rather than planning the defence of his regime...”
Maybe during the first Gulf War Saddam might have been a threat, but it is clear now that at the start of this war he was just a delusional old man who was rapidly losing control of his country.
"He lost touch with reality," said Saad Hadi, a journalist who was involved in the production of Saddam's novels. "He thought he was a god who could do anything, including writing novels."
So Bush was duped into taking us into an ill advised war against a toothless old dictator who had “lost touch with reality” at the cost of more than 1,000 U.S. lives and more than $200 billion in tax dollars. And right-wingers are demanding that Dan Rather step down to salvage CBS’s credibility. What about our nation’s credibility?
Thursday, September 16, 2004
Bush's bankrupt tax policy
My conservative sparring partner, Mark Harden, in the comments for the previous post links to an op-ed piece in the Detroit News written by Donald (I’m not a stalker) Luskin, that purports to “debunk” the notion that Bush’s tax cuts favor the rich.
Luskin, an investment banker who writes for National Review Online, argues that a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, which produced headlines such as “Reports contend Bush tax cuts benefit rich” and “Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle,” actually shows that the overall federal income tax burden has been shifted toward the wealthy and away from lower-income earners.
Now the problem with Luskin’s piece and particularly with the way that Mark uses it to try and counter Robert’s statement -“while there have been tax cuts for the wealthy” - is that Robert is talking about all of Bush’s tax cuts as a whole and Luskin is referring strictly to income taxes alone. In fact, Luskin even admits in his piece that when you include Bush’s 2002 tax cuts which allowed for greater deductibility of capital expenses for corporations it skews the numbers very sharply in favor of the wealthy.
“Naturally, the highest-income earning taxpayers will get the bulk of this,” Luskin admits. But he then tries to excuse this by arguing that “all taxpayers enjoy the many benefits of a stronger economy...” Yeah, right. More trickle down B.S.
The problem with Bush slashing federal income taxes, besides running up the deficit, is the way it shifts the tax burden on to other more regressive forms of taxation. As federal revenues dry up, there is less available to pass on to state and local governments in the form of federal grants. That forces state and local governments to jack up property taxes and sales taxes and fees and other hidden forms of taxation. State-run schools jack up tuitions, poor kids are cut from federal health programs which drives up health costs at the state-run emergency clinics. And it goes on and on.
Here is an excellent web site that details many of the problems with Bush’s tax policy. And while we are swapping op-ed pieces back and forth, here is one from The Seattle Times that I will quote extensively:
“Bush's performance is the worst for job creation in the first two years of an economic recovery and second from last in gross domestic product (GDP) growth, as compared with the eight earlier postwar recoveries from recession.
No president in the past 60 years, save George Herbert Walker Bush, has failed so miserably in his economic performance. But to see how bad President Bush's economic policies have been, we must work through the numbers. It's worth the effort.
Consider the percentage change in jobs from the bottom of each of the postwar recessions to 28 months into the recovery. Before the early 1990s, job increases averaged over 7 percent; the elder Bush gained only 2 percent; and the current recovery, as of March 2004 (the report's cutoff date), had produced no job growth.
Later information shows an increase of 1.5 million jobs in the past 10 months. It is still a tepid performance after an unprecedented postwar record of no job gains for the first two years into the recovery.
The Bush record also pales compared with Bill Clinton's average of 236,000 additional jobs per month, or 2.3 million in 10 months. Clinton's average gain per month is 50 percent greater than the average of Bush's gains in the past 10 months.
Finally, Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, has pointed out that over four-fifths of total job growth in the past year has been in low-end occupations.”
Did you catch that? Four-fifths of the jobs that Bush is touting right now as proof that his tax cuts have helped the economy “turn the corner” are in low-end occupations. Terrific.
“In assessing Bush's performance, deleterious consequences clearly resulting from the three tax cuts also need to be taken into account. Most important was the swing from a budget surplus in 2000 of $236 billion, or 2.4 percent of GDP, to a Congressional Budget Office-projected deficit of $477 billion, or 4.2 percent of GDP, in 2004.
As Shapiro and Friedman underscored: "The swing of 6.6 percentage points of GDP is the sharpest deterioration in the nation's fiscal balance since World War II."
Despite Bush's efforts to blame the size of the deficit on the economic downturn and increased defense and homeland security spending, the authors wrote that his three tax cuts "account for more than half of the 2004 deficit."
Without the three tax cuts, the deficit in 2014 is projected to be under $100 billion. In contrast, the projection 10 years out is a whopping $675 billion with the Bush tax reductions, they said.”
In other words, while 9/11 was certainly a blow to the economy, we would likely have turned things around a lot quicker without Bush’s tax cuts dragging us down.
“Bush's three tax cuts add up to the worst major income-tax legislation in American history and are the major policy factor in the least successful economic performance of the postwar years.
Nor is the poor performance a mystery. The Bush administration has refused to abandon an economic theory that did not pan out. The largest three-year tax cut in the nation's history produced record yearly budget deficits, but failed to generate lots of good jobs or high economic growth.
The bottom line is that Bush refuses to accept the hard facts showing the failed policy performance and instead relies with blind stubbornness on a bankrupt economic theory that threatens to bankrupt the nation.”
I’ve said before that Bush is an ideologue. He governs by blind faith. Faith in failed ideas that have resulted in a failed presidency.
Luskin, an investment banker who writes for National Review Online, argues that a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office, which produced headlines such as “Reports contend Bush tax cuts benefit rich” and “Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle,” actually shows that the overall federal income tax burden has been shifted toward the wealthy and away from lower-income earners.
Now the problem with Luskin’s piece and particularly with the way that Mark uses it to try and counter Robert’s statement -“while there have been tax cuts for the wealthy” - is that Robert is talking about all of Bush’s tax cuts as a whole and Luskin is referring strictly to income taxes alone. In fact, Luskin even admits in his piece that when you include Bush’s 2002 tax cuts which allowed for greater deductibility of capital expenses for corporations it skews the numbers very sharply in favor of the wealthy.
“Naturally, the highest-income earning taxpayers will get the bulk of this,” Luskin admits. But he then tries to excuse this by arguing that “all taxpayers enjoy the many benefits of a stronger economy...” Yeah, right. More trickle down B.S.
The problem with Bush slashing federal income taxes, besides running up the deficit, is the way it shifts the tax burden on to other more regressive forms of taxation. As federal revenues dry up, there is less available to pass on to state and local governments in the form of federal grants. That forces state and local governments to jack up property taxes and sales taxes and fees and other hidden forms of taxation. State-run schools jack up tuitions, poor kids are cut from federal health programs which drives up health costs at the state-run emergency clinics. And it goes on and on.
Here is an excellent web site that details many of the problems with Bush’s tax policy. And while we are swapping op-ed pieces back and forth, here is one from The Seattle Times that I will quote extensively:
“Bush's performance is the worst for job creation in the first two years of an economic recovery and second from last in gross domestic product (GDP) growth, as compared with the eight earlier postwar recoveries from recession.
No president in the past 60 years, save George Herbert Walker Bush, has failed so miserably in his economic performance. But to see how bad President Bush's economic policies have been, we must work through the numbers. It's worth the effort.
Consider the percentage change in jobs from the bottom of each of the postwar recessions to 28 months into the recovery. Before the early 1990s, job increases averaged over 7 percent; the elder Bush gained only 2 percent; and the current recovery, as of March 2004 (the report's cutoff date), had produced no job growth.
Later information shows an increase of 1.5 million jobs in the past 10 months. It is still a tepid performance after an unprecedented postwar record of no job gains for the first two years into the recovery.
The Bush record also pales compared with Bill Clinton's average of 236,000 additional jobs per month, or 2.3 million in 10 months. Clinton's average gain per month is 50 percent greater than the average of Bush's gains in the past 10 months.
Finally, Stephen Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, has pointed out that over four-fifths of total job growth in the past year has been in low-end occupations.”
Did you catch that? Four-fifths of the jobs that Bush is touting right now as proof that his tax cuts have helped the economy “turn the corner” are in low-end occupations. Terrific.
“In assessing Bush's performance, deleterious consequences clearly resulting from the three tax cuts also need to be taken into account. Most important was the swing from a budget surplus in 2000 of $236 billion, or 2.4 percent of GDP, to a Congressional Budget Office-projected deficit of $477 billion, or 4.2 percent of GDP, in 2004.
As Shapiro and Friedman underscored: "The swing of 6.6 percentage points of GDP is the sharpest deterioration in the nation's fiscal balance since World War II."
Despite Bush's efforts to blame the size of the deficit on the economic downturn and increased defense and homeland security spending, the authors wrote that his three tax cuts "account for more than half of the 2004 deficit."
Without the three tax cuts, the deficit in 2014 is projected to be under $100 billion. In contrast, the projection 10 years out is a whopping $675 billion with the Bush tax reductions, they said.”
In other words, while 9/11 was certainly a blow to the economy, we would likely have turned things around a lot quicker without Bush’s tax cuts dragging us down.
“Bush's three tax cuts add up to the worst major income-tax legislation in American history and are the major policy factor in the least successful economic performance of the postwar years.
Nor is the poor performance a mystery. The Bush administration has refused to abandon an economic theory that did not pan out. The largest three-year tax cut in the nation's history produced record yearly budget deficits, but failed to generate lots of good jobs or high economic growth.
The bottom line is that Bush refuses to accept the hard facts showing the failed policy performance and instead relies with blind stubbornness on a bankrupt economic theory that threatens to bankrupt the nation.”
I’ve said before that Bush is an ideologue. He governs by blind faith. Faith in failed ideas that have resulted in a failed presidency.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
The “Bush Bash” lessons
My friend Michael Gaffney says a pox on both houses for all of the negative mudslinging in the presidential campaign. I can’t blame him for turning away in disgust. This election has gone downhill rather rapidly and I’ve been just as guilty as anyone of following it down that path.
But I would just say that the fault lies less with the politicians and more with the electorate which has allowed itself to be swayed by negative campaigns over the years. The voters (those that bother to vote) have a habit of awarding election victories to whoever manages to slam their opponent the hardest. It doesn’t pay anymore to sit back and take the high road while your opponent trashes your character - just ask Michael Dukakis.
George W. Bush learned that lesson a long time ago when he made his unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat from Lubbock in 1978. He got slammed by his opponent after one of his supporters ran an ad in the Texas Tech newspaper touting a “Bush Bash” fundraiser featuring “Free Beer-Music”.
I wrote about the incident several years ago when I was a reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal...
“...Bush would run into one more stumbling block before crossing the finish line in November. The infamous ''Bush Bash'' ad that appeared in the University Daily, Tech's student newspaper, on Sept. 18, 1978, became prime fodder for a last-minute counterattack by Hance's campaign. The ad invited students to attend a ''Bush Bash'' that evening with ''free beer-music'' at the home of former Lubbock Mayor Jim Granberry.
Just as the race was winding down, George Thompson, one of Hance's law partners, penned a letter to 4,000 Church of Christ and First Baptist Church members that called into question Bush's moral character for using alcohol to garner the support of Tech students.
The letter extolled Hance as a person of high moral character and then went on to state ''Kent's opponent, young Mr. Bush, apparently is using tactics to secure votes which do not indicate the same high character. Mr. Bush has used some of his vast sums of money in an attempt, evidently, to persuade young college students to vote for and support him by offering free alcohol to them.''
Bush called the letter questioning his morals ''unfair'' and said he did not know about the ad in the student newspaper before it was published.
Today, Hance said he does not believe the ''Bush Bash'' was a factor in his election victory. He said his polling at the time did not show any significant change before and after the issue went public.
''I really think that Mahon's endorsement of me was a bigger help than the one-day story on the beer bash.''
But Bush supporters from that period remember the issue as being much more damaging.
''I wouldn't say it killed it for him, but it didn't help him any,'' Stinnett said. ''I think it hurt him with those particular church groups.''
''My sense is that it was overstated,'' Weiss said. ''But it didn't help things. The letter to The A-J about how improper it was really hurt.''
Today, Bush and his surrogates are quick to attack on the “character” issue and all of its implications. And Democrats, not willing to be the good guys who finish last, are ready to respond in kind. So we get campaigns that focus on “character” issues like the Swift Boat allegations and the National Guard follies. To be fair, the “official” campaigns don’t focus on these things, but their surrogates do and so does the national media.
Now I tend to be very pragmatic about these kinds of things. If this is the way you have to win elections these days then that’s what you have to do until someone can come up with a way to make it better. We can tut-tut about it all day long, but this is the reality we are faced with.
But I would just say that the fault lies less with the politicians and more with the electorate which has allowed itself to be swayed by negative campaigns over the years. The voters (those that bother to vote) have a habit of awarding election victories to whoever manages to slam their opponent the hardest. It doesn’t pay anymore to sit back and take the high road while your opponent trashes your character - just ask Michael Dukakis.
George W. Bush learned that lesson a long time ago when he made his unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat from Lubbock in 1978. He got slammed by his opponent after one of his supporters ran an ad in the Texas Tech newspaper touting a “Bush Bash” fundraiser featuring “Free Beer-Music”.
I wrote about the incident several years ago when I was a reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal...
“...Bush would run into one more stumbling block before crossing the finish line in November. The infamous ''Bush Bash'' ad that appeared in the University Daily, Tech's student newspaper, on Sept. 18, 1978, became prime fodder for a last-minute counterattack by Hance's campaign. The ad invited students to attend a ''Bush Bash'' that evening with ''free beer-music'' at the home of former Lubbock Mayor Jim Granberry.
Just as the race was winding down, George Thompson, one of Hance's law partners, penned a letter to 4,000 Church of Christ and First Baptist Church members that called into question Bush's moral character for using alcohol to garner the support of Tech students.
The letter extolled Hance as a person of high moral character and then went on to state ''Kent's opponent, young Mr. Bush, apparently is using tactics to secure votes which do not indicate the same high character. Mr. Bush has used some of his vast sums of money in an attempt, evidently, to persuade young college students to vote for and support him by offering free alcohol to them.''
Bush called the letter questioning his morals ''unfair'' and said he did not know about the ad in the student newspaper before it was published.
Today, Hance said he does not believe the ''Bush Bash'' was a factor in his election victory. He said his polling at the time did not show any significant change before and after the issue went public.
''I really think that Mahon's endorsement of me was a bigger help than the one-day story on the beer bash.''
But Bush supporters from that period remember the issue as being much more damaging.
''I wouldn't say it killed it for him, but it didn't help him any,'' Stinnett said. ''I think it hurt him with those particular church groups.''
''My sense is that it was overstated,'' Weiss said. ''But it didn't help things. The letter to The A-J about how improper it was really hurt.''
Today, Bush and his surrogates are quick to attack on the “character” issue and all of its implications. And Democrats, not willing to be the good guys who finish last, are ready to respond in kind. So we get campaigns that focus on “character” issues like the Swift Boat allegations and the National Guard follies. To be fair, the “official” campaigns don’t focus on these things, but their surrogates do and so does the national media.
Now I tend to be very pragmatic about these kinds of things. If this is the way you have to win elections these days then that’s what you have to do until someone can come up with a way to make it better. We can tut-tut about it all day long, but this is the reality we are faced with.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Bush: A disciplinary problem for the National Guard
The latest documents to suddenly surface about George W. Bush’s National Guard service make it clear that Bush did not quit flying jets in 1972 at the behest of or with the support of his commanding officers, as the administration has implied. Rather he was “suspended” after flatly refusing
to carry out a direct order to undertake a medical examination.
“President Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot, according to documents made public yesterday.”
Furthermore, the documents show that Bush’s commanding officer was under some type of political pressure to “sugar coat” Bush’s evaluation during the time that he was skipping drills and blowing off direct orders.
“In another "memo to file," dated Aug. 18, 1973, (Lt. Col. Jerry) Killian complained that he was under pressure from his superior, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, to "sugar coat" Bush's officer evaluations.”
We still don’t know why Bush was so intent on avoiding a medical examination back then.
All of this comes on the heels of a Boston Globe story that reveals that Bush failed to meet his committments to the National Guard.
“...Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty. He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show.”
Kevin Drum of Political Animal is right when he notes the ‘night and day’ differences between this story and the Swift Boat controversy:
“This story is a perfect demonstration of the difference between the Swift Boat controversy and the National Guard controversy. Both are tales from long ago and both are related to Vietnam, but the documentary evidence in the two cases is like night and day. In the Swift Boat case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence indicates that Kerry's accusers are lying. Conversely, in the National Guard case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence provides additional confirmation that the charges against Bush are true.”
As I have said before, the difference between Bush and Kerry is that while Kerry’s superior officers were recommending him for medals (even though some are now denigrating those same medals for political purposes), Bush’s superior officers were wondering where the hell he was half the time.
Kerry was an asset to the military. Bush was a disciplinary problem.
to carry out a direct order to undertake a medical examination.
“President Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot, according to documents made public yesterday.”
Furthermore, the documents show that Bush’s commanding officer was under some type of political pressure to “sugar coat” Bush’s evaluation during the time that he was skipping drills and blowing off direct orders.
“In another "memo to file," dated Aug. 18, 1973, (Lt. Col. Jerry) Killian complained that he was under pressure from his superior, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, to "sugar coat" Bush's officer evaluations.”
We still don’t know why Bush was so intent on avoiding a medical examination back then.
All of this comes on the heels of a Boston Globe story that reveals that Bush failed to meet his committments to the National Guard.
“...Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty. He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show.”
Kevin Drum of Political Animal is right when he notes the ‘night and day’ differences between this story and the Swift Boat controversy:
“This story is a perfect demonstration of the difference between the Swift Boat controversy and the National Guard controversy. Both are tales from long ago and both are related to Vietnam, but the documentary evidence in the two cases is like night and day. In the Swift Boat case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence indicates that Kerry's accusers are lying. Conversely, in the National Guard case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence provides additional confirmation that the charges against Bush are true.”
As I have said before, the difference between Bush and Kerry is that while Kerry’s superior officers were recommending him for medals (even though some are now denigrating those same medals for political purposes), Bush’s superior officers were wondering where the hell he was half the time.
Kerry was an asset to the military. Bush was a disciplinary problem.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Republican incompetence
Republicans control every branch of the federal government. They control the White House and the Executive Branch, they control both the House and Senate in the Legislative Branch and they have seven of the nine seats on the Supreme Court appointed by Republicans.
And yet they are so incompetent when it comes to running the government that they have allowed unfinished bills to pile up in Congress with no prayer of passage before the year is out. This is causing some major headaches for some small business owners as illustrated in a story in the Sept. 7 Wall Street Journal, page A4. The story tells about a CEO of a shoe company in Wisconsin who has seen his import duties more than double to 19 percent this summer as Congressional leaders have dithered with tax changes needed to comply with international trade rules.
The story goes on to show the huge backlog of legislation facing lawmakers:
“As lawmakers return from their national conventions, the pile of unfinished bills - and warnings from frustrated voters - is mounting. No budget has been approved for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, and only one of 13 annual appropriation bills has been enacted (Defense). Amid high oil prices, energy legislation is stalled, and an entire construction season has passed without action on highway funding.”
Of course, the Republicans are trying to blame this on Democrats, but the WSJ story is quick to dismiss this nonsense as just “a calculated strategy to motivate conservative voters...”
“The majority (Republicans) has become so unyielding at times that it seems more devoted to tagging Democrats with the obstructionist label than to getting legislation passed. Bills have been abandoned rather than let Democrats have the votes on amendments they demand, such as on minimum-wage increases or rules protecting workers’ rights to overtime.”
Republicans feuding and turf battles are the real culprit. That and the general incompetence of Republicans in government.
“The complaints about Democrats ignore the fact that internal Republican differences also cause delays...
The Highway Bill, for example, is hung up in a dispute between Republican Senators and the White House over its cost. In the energy debate, oil-state Republicans, led by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, are in a dispute with Northeastern Republican Senators such as Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.”
These are the same Republicans who have squandered the record surpluses left by the Clinton administration and left us with a record $422 billion deficit.
So what do Republican leaders plan to do during the final months of the year with all this critical work still left undone? Well let’s see.... Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wants to vote on a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning for the umpteenth time, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is pushing to bring up a vote on a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
And yet they are so incompetent when it comes to running the government that they have allowed unfinished bills to pile up in Congress with no prayer of passage before the year is out. This is causing some major headaches for some small business owners as illustrated in a story in the Sept. 7 Wall Street Journal, page A4. The story tells about a CEO of a shoe company in Wisconsin who has seen his import duties more than double to 19 percent this summer as Congressional leaders have dithered with tax changes needed to comply with international trade rules.
The story goes on to show the huge backlog of legislation facing lawmakers:
“As lawmakers return from their national conventions, the pile of unfinished bills - and warnings from frustrated voters - is mounting. No budget has been approved for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, and only one of 13 annual appropriation bills has been enacted (Defense). Amid high oil prices, energy legislation is stalled, and an entire construction season has passed without action on highway funding.”
Of course, the Republicans are trying to blame this on Democrats, but the WSJ story is quick to dismiss this nonsense as just “a calculated strategy to motivate conservative voters...”
“The majority (Republicans) has become so unyielding at times that it seems more devoted to tagging Democrats with the obstructionist label than to getting legislation passed. Bills have been abandoned rather than let Democrats have the votes on amendments they demand, such as on minimum-wage increases or rules protecting workers’ rights to overtime.”
Republicans feuding and turf battles are the real culprit. That and the general incompetence of Republicans in government.
“The complaints about Democrats ignore the fact that internal Republican differences also cause delays...
The Highway Bill, for example, is hung up in a dispute between Republican Senators and the White House over its cost. In the energy debate, oil-state Republicans, led by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, are in a dispute with Northeastern Republican Senators such as Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.”
These are the same Republicans who have squandered the record surpluses left by the Clinton administration and left us with a record $422 billion deficit.
So what do Republican leaders plan to do during the final months of the year with all this critical work still left undone? Well let’s see.... Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wants to vote on a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning for the umpteenth time, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is pushing to bring up a vote on a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Bush's missing National Guard records
The AP has a story explaining
how there should have been at least five documents produced by the National Guard when Bush blew off his flight physical in 1972:
“Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and 1973, according to regulations and outside experts.
For example, Air National Guard regulations at the time required commanders to write an investigative report for the Air Force when Bush missed his annual medical exam in 1972. The regulations also required commanders to confirm in writing that Bush received counseling after missing five months of drills.
No such records have been made public and the government told The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it has released all records it can find.”
How convenient for President Bush that these documents either can’t be found or were never produced. Kevin Drum has looked at this issue
in depth and has interviewed a former National Guardsman who claims Bush’s military service records were “cleansed” before he ran for governor of Texas.
Of the five missing documents, this is the one I think is the most important:
--Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status. When Bush skipped his 1972 physical, regulations required his Texas commanders to "direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination," according to the Air Force manual at the time. An investigative report was supposed to be forwarded "with the command recommendation" to Air Force officials "for final determination."
Bush's spokesmen have said he skipped the exam because he knew he would be doing desk duty in Alabama. But Bush was required to take the physical by the end of July 1972, more than a month before he won final approval to train in Alabama.
I would like to know how common it was back then for Guardsmen to blow off their physicals and what happened in any of those other cases. It would seem like a great way to avoid service in Vietnam – Join the National Guard and then blow off you required medical exam so that you are grounded and would not be able to join your unit should they be activated for duty. The only question is how Bush was able to accomplish this without leaving any type of paper trail.
how there should have been at least five documents produced by the National Guard when Bush blew off his flight physical in 1972:
“Documents that should have been written to explain gaps in President Bush's Texas Air National Guard service are missing from the military records released about his service in 1972 and 1973, according to regulations and outside experts.
For example, Air National Guard regulations at the time required commanders to write an investigative report for the Air Force when Bush missed his annual medical exam in 1972. The regulations also required commanders to confirm in writing that Bush received counseling after missing five months of drills.
No such records have been made public and the government told The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that it has released all records it can find.”
How convenient for President Bush that these documents either can’t be found or were never produced. Kevin Drum has looked at this issue
in depth and has interviewed a former National Guardsman who claims Bush’s military service records were “cleansed” before he ran for governor of Texas.
Of the five missing documents, this is the one I think is the most important:
--Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status. When Bush skipped his 1972 physical, regulations required his Texas commanders to "direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination," according to the Air Force manual at the time. An investigative report was supposed to be forwarded "with the command recommendation" to Air Force officials "for final determination."
Bush's spokesmen have said he skipped the exam because he knew he would be doing desk duty in Alabama. But Bush was required to take the physical by the end of July 1972, more than a month before he won final approval to train in Alabama.
I would like to know how common it was back then for Guardsmen to blow off their physicals and what happened in any of those other cases. It would seem like a great way to avoid service in Vietnam – Join the National Guard and then blow off you required medical exam so that you are grounded and would not be able to join your unit should they be activated for duty. The only question is how Bush was able to accomplish this without leaving any type of paper trail.
Friday, September 03, 2004
Feeling down
I watched Bush's speech last night (some of it anyway) and today I was sick. A coincidence? Perhaps.
Actually my wife and son got sick earlier in the week so I was just the last one on the merry-go-round. Even my cat got sick this time.
My computer also got nailed by a bunch of spyware junk that made pop-up ads blossom out of control to the point where you couldn't do anything.
My friend Robert helped me find some free shareware program - AdAware SE - that fixed the problem.
Actually my wife and son got sick earlier in the week so I was just the last one on the merry-go-round. Even my cat got sick this time.
My computer also got nailed by a bunch of spyware junk that made pop-up ads blossom out of control to the point where you couldn't do anything.
My friend Robert helped me find some free shareware program - AdAware SE - that fixed the problem.
Thursday, September 02, 2004
The Scowl
Wow! That had to be the angriest, most hatefull vindictive speech ever given in prime time. The scowl never left Miller's face.
What a contrast when compared to the keynote speech at the Democratic convention given by Barak Obama.
Here is Howard Kurtz talking about the speech in the Washington Post:
â??The former keynoter at the '92 Democratic convention totally overshadowed the vice president of the United States. He looked really hostile -- even if you turned the sound off -- as he eviscerated Kerry. No flicker of a smile ever crossed his lips.â??
He then goes on to list the reaction from some other folks:
"I've never heard such an angry speech," said Bill Schneider of CNN, even angrier, he said, than Pat Buchanan's "culture war" address in '92.â??
"I don't think I've ever seen anything as angry and ugly as Miller's speech," said Joe Klein.
The Wall Street Journal's John Harwood said Miller "looked like a spouse at a divorce proceeding who says, 'Oh yeah, she's a child molester too.' "
And here is conservative blogger Andrew Sullivanâ??s take:
"Miller's address will, I think, go down as a critical moment in this campaign, and maybe in the history of the Republican party. I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift.
"Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats.
"Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric. As an immigrant to this country and as someone who has been to many Southern states and enjoyed astonishing hospitality and warmth and sophistication, I long dismissed some of the Northern stereotypes about the South. But Miller did his best to revive them. The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude. . . .
"Last night was therefore a revealing night for me. I watched a Democrat convince me that I could never be a Republican. If they wheel out lying, angry bigots like this as their keynote, I'll take Obama. Any day."
William Saletan at Slate dissects both Zell Millerâ??s screed and Cheneyâ??s more subdued but equally negative speech.
Oh, and here is what Zell had to say about John Kerry three years ago still posted on his web site.
Yes, Zell Miller lied and lied and lied. He accused Kerry of trying to disarm our military and leave them with nothing but "spitballs." But the weapons systems that Kerry opposed were also opposed in the House by then Congressman Dick Cheney. And other no votes that he referenced were not against funding the military but against bloated Republican bills that went further than what military commanders were requesting to provide pork for bigtime defense contractors.
I have to agree with Atrios. It was a big mistake to put this angry, bitter, hypocrite up there as the GOP's keynoter. They obviously have nothing positive to say. Fear and Loathing are the themes of this convention.
What a contrast when compared to the keynote speech at the Democratic convention given by Barak Obama.
Here is Howard Kurtz talking about the speech in the Washington Post:
â??The former keynoter at the '92 Democratic convention totally overshadowed the vice president of the United States. He looked really hostile -- even if you turned the sound off -- as he eviscerated Kerry. No flicker of a smile ever crossed his lips.â??
He then goes on to list the reaction from some other folks:
"I've never heard such an angry speech," said Bill Schneider of CNN, even angrier, he said, than Pat Buchanan's "culture war" address in '92.â??
"I don't think I've ever seen anything as angry and ugly as Miller's speech," said Joe Klein.
The Wall Street Journal's John Harwood said Miller "looked like a spouse at a divorce proceeding who says, 'Oh yeah, she's a child molester too.' "
And here is conservative blogger Andrew Sullivanâ??s take:
"Miller's address will, I think, go down as a critical moment in this campaign, and maybe in the history of the Republican party. I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift.
"Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats.
"Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric. As an immigrant to this country and as someone who has been to many Southern states and enjoyed astonishing hospitality and warmth and sophistication, I long dismissed some of the Northern stereotypes about the South. But Miller did his best to revive them. The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude. . . .
"Last night was therefore a revealing night for me. I watched a Democrat convince me that I could never be a Republican. If they wheel out lying, angry bigots like this as their keynote, I'll take Obama. Any day."
William Saletan at Slate dissects both Zell Millerâ??s screed and Cheneyâ??s more subdued but equally negative speech.
Oh, and here is what Zell had to say about John Kerry three years ago still posted on his web site.
Yes, Zell Miller lied and lied and lied. He accused Kerry of trying to disarm our military and leave them with nothing but "spitballs." But the weapons systems that Kerry opposed were also opposed in the House by then Congressman Dick Cheney. And other no votes that he referenced were not against funding the military but against bloated Republican bills that went further than what military commanders were requesting to provide pork for bigtime defense contractors.
I have to agree with Atrios. It was a big mistake to put this angry, bitter, hypocrite up there as the GOP's keynoter. They obviously have nothing positive to say. Fear and Loathing are the themes of this convention.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Booing Michael Moore
I had to laugh when I read this graph in the middle of a Washington Post story about the disruption that Michael Moore’s presence at the GOP convention caused.
“A delegate from Missouri called Moore a 'disgrace,' a few seconds after asking for his autograph.”
Yep, that autograph might be worth something someday. Those Republican delegates have their priorities straight.
I’m not sure that having the entire convention ‘boo’ Michael Moore for several minutes in the middle of John McCain’s speech was the kind of moderate, positive image that the Party was hoping to portray. Oh well, the truth comes out in the end. And of course all Moore could do was sit there and smile imagining the extra $$$ this kind of attention would generate for his film that is still in the theaters.
Moore was there at the behest of USA Today to write a guest column. They had previously asked Ann Coulter to do the same during the Democratic convention but ended up canning her and hiring someone else because her column was so bad.
“A delegate from Missouri called Moore a 'disgrace,' a few seconds after asking for his autograph.”
Yep, that autograph might be worth something someday. Those Republican delegates have their priorities straight.
I’m not sure that having the entire convention ‘boo’ Michael Moore for several minutes in the middle of John McCain’s speech was the kind of moderate, positive image that the Party was hoping to portray. Oh well, the truth comes out in the end. And of course all Moore could do was sit there and smile imagining the extra $$$ this kind of attention would generate for his film that is still in the theaters.
Moore was there at the behest of USA Today to write a guest column. They had previously asked Ann Coulter to do the same during the Democratic convention but ended up canning her and hiring someone else because her column was so bad.
Bad News Republicans
The Republicans come to town and the Yankees suffer their worst loss in the history of the franchise. 22-0 against Cleveland. Ouch!!
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Compare and Contrast
Via Atrios
During the 1988 presidential campaign, there was a brief controversy concerning George Bush Sr.’s service during World War II.
Bush Sr., who was a Navy pilot, had said his airplane was in flames when it plunged to the ocean on Sept. 2, 1944, according to the New York Times. In his autobiography, Mr. Bush wrote that his Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber began burning after it was hit in an attack on a Japanese radio installation and that he ejected after radioing his gunner and radioman to jump.
But Chester Mierzejewski of Cheshire, Conn., a turret gunner on another plane in Mr. Bush's squadron, said that the plane was not engulfed in flames, as the Vice President has recounted, and that Mr. Bush might have saved the lives of two other men on the plane had he tried a water landing.
But the Democrats did not give Mierzejewski hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce television ads and books to spread his story across the media. There was no WWII Tailgunners for Truth set up by big Democratic donors to smear Bush. Instead, here was Gov. Dukakis’ reaction in the same NYTimes story:
"Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, questioned about a World War II gunner's challenge to Vice President Bush's account of being shot down over the Pacific, said, ''I don't think that kind of thing has any place in the campaign.''
The Democratic Presidential nominee said the challenge to Mr. Bush's war record was ''unfair'' and ''unfortunate.''
Mr. Bush ''served this country,'' Mr. Dukakis said. ''He served it well and with tremendous courage, and you don't fly 58 missions without enormous courage and tremendous patriotism.''
Yep, Dukakis was a class act.
Now, fast forward to today and listen to Bush Sr. commenting on the Swift Boat Veterans smear against John Kerry:
Pressed about advertisements by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Mr. Bush called "rather compelling" the claims of some veterans who have attacked Mr. Kerry's service, and he noted that others had accused these veterans of lying. "I have great confidence in Bob Dole," he added. "I don't think he'd be out there just smearing."
So what is the lesson here? Are Democrats doomed to electoral failure because they are too decent to embrace the dirty games that Republicans like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove specialize in? This is really sad.
During the 1988 presidential campaign, there was a brief controversy concerning George Bush Sr.’s service during World War II.
Bush Sr., who was a Navy pilot, had said his airplane was in flames when it plunged to the ocean on Sept. 2, 1944, according to the New York Times. In his autobiography, Mr. Bush wrote that his Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber began burning after it was hit in an attack on a Japanese radio installation and that he ejected after radioing his gunner and radioman to jump.
But Chester Mierzejewski of Cheshire, Conn., a turret gunner on another plane in Mr. Bush's squadron, said that the plane was not engulfed in flames, as the Vice President has recounted, and that Mr. Bush might have saved the lives of two other men on the plane had he tried a water landing.
But the Democrats did not give Mierzejewski hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce television ads and books to spread his story across the media. There was no WWII Tailgunners for Truth set up by big Democratic donors to smear Bush. Instead, here was Gov. Dukakis’ reaction in the same NYTimes story:
"Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, questioned about a World War II gunner's challenge to Vice President Bush's account of being shot down over the Pacific, said, ''I don't think that kind of thing has any place in the campaign.''
The Democratic Presidential nominee said the challenge to Mr. Bush's war record was ''unfair'' and ''unfortunate.''
Mr. Bush ''served this country,'' Mr. Dukakis said. ''He served it well and with tremendous courage, and you don't fly 58 missions without enormous courage and tremendous patriotism.''
Yep, Dukakis was a class act.
Now, fast forward to today and listen to Bush Sr. commenting on the Swift Boat Veterans smear against John Kerry:
Pressed about advertisements by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Mr. Bush called "rather compelling" the claims of some veterans who have attacked Mr. Kerry's service, and he noted that others had accused these veterans of lying. "I have great confidence in Bob Dole," he added. "I don't think he'd be out there just smearing."
So what is the lesson here? Are Democrats doomed to electoral failure because they are too decent to embrace the dirty games that Republicans like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove specialize in? This is really sad.
Monday, August 30, 2004
Another celebrity endorsement update
Just in time for the opening night of the Republican National Convention, here is my updated list of celebrity endorsements for the 2004 presidential campaign. It seems I haven’t been giving Bush full credit for all of his celebrity fans as I have found quite a few that have cropped up just recently. Some, however, are rather obscure singers as noted in this Slate piece.
I can’t vouch for the fact that all of these folks are definitely supporting said candidate, but their names have popped up lately in election coverage attached to one side or the other and some are scheduled to perform at this week’s convention.
For Bush-Cheney:
Angie Harmon
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Ben Crenshaw
Bo Derek
Britney Spears
Brooks & Dunn
Bruce Willis
Charlie Daniels Band
Charlton Heston
Chuck Norris
Daize Shayne
Dana Glover
Daniel Rodriguez
Daryl Worley
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Miller
Donnie McClurkin
Freddie Prinze Jr.
Fuzzy Zoeller
Jason Priestly
Jessica Simpson
John Rhys-Davies
Johnny Ramone
Jonny Lang
Kelsey Grammer
Kid Rock
Lance Armstrong
Lara Flynn Boyle
Larry Gatlin
Leeann Womack
Lynyrd Skynryd
Michael W. Smith
Randy Travis
Ricky Martin
Ricky Schroeder
Ricky Skaggs
Rip Torn
Robert Davi
Robert Duvall
Ron Silver
Sara Evans
Shannen Doherty
Stephen Baldwin
Steven Tyler
Ted Nugent
Third Day
Toby Keith
Tom Selleck
Tony Sirico
Travis Tritt
Vincent Gallo
Wayne Newton
For Kerry-Edwards
Aaron Sorkin
Al Franken
Alan Cumming
Alec Baldwin
Alfre Woodard
Angela Bassett
Angelica Huston
Ani DiFranco
Annette Bening
Avril Lavigne
Barbara Streisand
Barry Manilow
Beastie Boys
Ben Affleck
Ben Stiller
Bette Midler
Billy Crystal
Blink 182
Bob Dylan
Bob Odenkirk
Bonnie Raitt
Bono
Brad Pitt
Bruce Springsteen
Cameron Diaz
Carole King
Charlize Theron
Cher
Chevy Chase
Chloe Sevigny
Chris Cooper
Chris Rock
Chris Tucker
Christian Slater
Christina Applegate
Christopher Reeve
Coldplay
Courtney Cox
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Danny DeVito
Danny Glover
Dave Grohl
Dave Mathews Band
David Alan Grier
David Spade
Dixie Chicks
Drew Barrymore
Dustin Hoffman
Ed Asner
Ed Begley Jr.
Ed Harris
Edward Norton
Elton John
Elvis Costello
Eminem
Emmylou Harris
Eric Idle
Esai Morales
George Carlin
George Clooney
Glenn Close
Goldie Hawn
Gwyneth Paltrow
Halle Berry
Harrison Ford
Harvey Weinstein
Ian Holm
Jack Black
Jack Nicholson
Jackson Browne
James Brolin
James Gandolfini
James Garner
James Taylor
Jamie Foxx
Jamie Lee Curtis
Janeane Garafalo
Janet Jackson
Jann Wenner
Jason Alexander
Jeff Goldblum
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Lopez
Jerry Seinfeld
Jessica Lange
Jewel
Jimmy Buffett
Joan Allen
Joan Osborne
John Cleese
John Cusack
John Fogerty
John Leguizamo
John Mellencamp
John Sayles
John Travolta
John Williams
Johnny Depp
Jon Bon Jovi
Josh Hartnett
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Roberts
Jurassic Five
Kate Hudson
Kathleen Turner
Keb Mo
Kenau Reeves
Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Costner
Kevin Spacey
Kirsten Dunst
Lance Bass
Larry David
Laura Dern
Lenny Kravitz
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leslie Ann Warren
Linda Ronstadt
Lisa Loeb
Liz Phair
Lou Reed
Madonna
Margaret Cho
Mark Wahlberg
Martin Sheen
Mary J. Blige
Mary Steenburgen
Matt Damon
Matthew Broderick
Maya Angelou
Meg Ryan
Melanie Griffith
Melissa Etheridge
Mia Farrow
Michael Douglas
Michael Eisner
Michael J. Fox
Michael Jackson
Michael Keaton
Mike Farrell
Moby
Morgan Fairchild
Natalie Portman
Neil Diamond
Neil Young
Nicolas Cage
Nicole Kidman
Oliver Stone
Ozzie Osborne
P. Diddy
Paul Newman
Paul Simon
Pearl Jam
Penny Marshall
Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary)
Public Enemy
Quincy Jones
REM
Renee Zellwegger
Rhea Perlman
Richard Belzer
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Gere
Richard Pryor
Rob Lowe
Rob Reiner
Robert Altman
Robert DeNiro
Robert Redford
Robin Williams
Russell Crowe
Sally Field
Salma Hayek
Sarah Jessica Parker
Scarlett Johansson
Sean Penn
Sharon Stone
Sheryl Crowe
Spike Lee
Stephen Stills
Steve Buscemi
Steve Earle
Steve Harvey
Steve Martin
Steven Spielberg
Stevie Wonder
Sting
Susan Sarandon
Ted Danson
Terry Gilliam
The Eagles
Tim Robbins
Tobey Maguire
Tom Cruise
Tom Hanks
Tom Petty
Tommy Lee Jones
Tony Bennett
Uma Thurman
Viggo Mortensen
Warren Beatty
Weird Al Yankovic
Wesley Snipes
Whoopi Goldberg
Will Ferrell
William Baldwin
William H. Macy
Willie Nelson
Woody Allen
Woody Harrelson
Wyclef Jean
I can’t vouch for the fact that all of these folks are definitely supporting said candidate, but their names have popped up lately in election coverage attached to one side or the other and some are scheduled to perform at this week’s convention.
For Bush-Cheney:
Angie Harmon
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Ben Crenshaw
Bo Derek
Britney Spears
Brooks & Dunn
Bruce Willis
Charlie Daniels Band
Charlton Heston
Chuck Norris
Daize Shayne
Dana Glover
Daniel Rodriguez
Daryl Worley
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Miller
Donnie McClurkin
Freddie Prinze Jr.
Fuzzy Zoeller
Jason Priestly
Jessica Simpson
John Rhys-Davies
Johnny Ramone
Jonny Lang
Kelsey Grammer
Kid Rock
Lance Armstrong
Lara Flynn Boyle
Larry Gatlin
Leeann Womack
Lynyrd Skynryd
Michael W. Smith
Randy Travis
Ricky Martin
Ricky Schroeder
Ricky Skaggs
Rip Torn
Robert Davi
Robert Duvall
Ron Silver
Sara Evans
Shannen Doherty
Stephen Baldwin
Steven Tyler
Ted Nugent
Third Day
Toby Keith
Tom Selleck
Tony Sirico
Travis Tritt
Vincent Gallo
Wayne Newton
For Kerry-Edwards
Aaron Sorkin
Al Franken
Alan Cumming
Alec Baldwin
Alfre Woodard
Angela Bassett
Angelica Huston
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Bette Midler
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Blink 182
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Bob Odenkirk
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Carole King
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Cher
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Chris Rock
Chris Tucker
Christian Slater
Christina Applegate
Christopher Reeve
Coldplay
Courtney Cox
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Danny DeVito
Danny Glover
Dave Grohl
Dave Mathews Band
David Alan Grier
David Spade
Dixie Chicks
Drew Barrymore
Dustin Hoffman
Ed Asner
Ed Begley Jr.
Ed Harris
Edward Norton
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Esai Morales
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P. Diddy
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Pearl Jam
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Public Enemy
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REM
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Willie Nelson
Woody Allen
Woody Harrelson
Wyclef Jean
Friday, August 27, 2004
Let me check with Rover, and I'll get back to you...
Has Bush finally seen the light on global warming? We’re not sure.
The New York Times
and The Washington Post are both reporting that the Bush administration has shifted its position on global warming.
From the Times: “In a striking shift in the way the Bush administration has portrayed the science of climate change, a new report to Congress focuses on federal research indicating that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades.”
From the Post: “A Bush administration report suggests that evidence of global warming has begun to affect animal and plant populations in visible ways, and that rising temperatures in North America are due in part to human activity.”
President Bush, of course, was typically clueless when asked to explain the discrepancy between this latest report and his administration’s past positions. Here is an excerpt from a NYTimes interview with Bush the other day:
Ms. Bumiller: Mr. President, why did your administration change its position on what causes global warming?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think we did.
Ms. Bumiller: According to —
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think so, Elisabeth.
Ms. Bumiller: You said that it's almost certainly carbon monoxide — which you hadn't said in the past, carbon dioxide.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that was my position during the campaign, if I'm not mistaken.
Ms. Bumiller: It changed —
MR. McCLELLAN: You're talking about the National Academy of Science report?
Ms. Bumiller: Yes, yes.
MR. McCLELLAN: We've always talked about how that would - we'd be guided by their science on the issue, and that's why the President has done a lot in terms of climate change, advancing the science of climate change, and also doing more research —
THE PRESIDENT: Let me get back with you on that, because I think you might — I don't know why you said what you just said.
Ms. Bumiller: Well, we had a story in the paper this morning saying that you issued a report saying —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, okay, well, that's got to be true.
Press Flack Scott McClellan tried to jump in and bail Bush out with a bunch of mumbo gumbo, but it was too late.
The New York Times
and The Washington Post are both reporting that the Bush administration has shifted its position on global warming.
From the Times: “In a striking shift in the way the Bush administration has portrayed the science of climate change, a new report to Congress focuses on federal research indicating that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades.”
From the Post: “A Bush administration report suggests that evidence of global warming has begun to affect animal and plant populations in visible ways, and that rising temperatures in North America are due in part to human activity.”
President Bush, of course, was typically clueless when asked to explain the discrepancy between this latest report and his administration’s past positions. Here is an excerpt from a NYTimes interview with Bush the other day:
Ms. Bumiller: Mr. President, why did your administration change its position on what causes global warming?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think we did.
Ms. Bumiller: According to —
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think so, Elisabeth.
Ms. Bumiller: You said that it's almost certainly carbon monoxide — which you hadn't said in the past, carbon dioxide.
THE PRESIDENT: I think that was my position during the campaign, if I'm not mistaken.
Ms. Bumiller: It changed —
MR. McCLELLAN: You're talking about the National Academy of Science report?
Ms. Bumiller: Yes, yes.
MR. McCLELLAN: We've always talked about how that would - we'd be guided by their science on the issue, and that's why the President has done a lot in terms of climate change, advancing the science of climate change, and also doing more research —
THE PRESIDENT: Let me get back with you on that, because I think you might — I don't know why you said what you just said.
Ms. Bumiller: Well, we had a story in the paper this morning saying that you issued a report saying —
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, okay, well, that's got to be true.
Press Flack Scott McClellan tried to jump in and bail Bush out with a bunch of mumbo gumbo, but it was too late.
Four More Years?
Here is a recent picture of President Bush leading supporters at a rally in a chant of "Four More Years!"
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Bush's unanswered questions
We’ve spent several weeks now consumed with the back-and-forth bickering over John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. It should be clear by now to anybody not completely blinded by partisan politics that the main charges brought by the Swift Boat Liars for Bush have been thoroughly refuted by both the official records and by numerous eyewitnesses who have recently come forward.
I would also point everyone to this excellent post today at eTalkinghead where I am an occasional contributor.
But what still amazes me is that in the thick of this fight over how many bullets were wizzing over Kerry’s swift boat and how much blood spilled out of his arm when he was struck with schrapnel, George aWol Bush and Chickenhawk Cheney are still getting a free pass when it comes to their less than meritorious activities in the late-60s and early-70s.
USA Today still has some unanswered questions for President Bush:
• Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?
•What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
•Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years?
The first question is the one I most answered most of all. How could Bush just blow off his flight physical during the middle of a war and throw away all the time and money the military spent training him to be a fighter pilot without any repercussions whatsoever?
Why won’t anybody ask Bush that question?
I would also point everyone to this excellent post today at eTalkinghead where I am an occasional contributor.
But what still amazes me is that in the thick of this fight over how many bullets were wizzing over Kerry’s swift boat and how much blood spilled out of his arm when he was struck with schrapnel, George aWol Bush and Chickenhawk Cheney are still getting a free pass when it comes to their less than meritorious activities in the late-60s and early-70s.
USA Today still has some unanswered questions for President Bush:
• Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?
•What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
•Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years?
The first question is the one I most answered most of all. How could Bush just blow off his flight physical during the middle of a war and throw away all the time and money the military spent training him to be a fighter pilot without any repercussions whatsoever?
Why won’t anybody ask Bush that question?
Monday, August 23, 2004
Larry Gatlin vs Bruce Springsteen
Country Singer Larry Gatlin wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal today. There is no link for it so I transcribed it below. It was apparently written in response to this op-ed piece that Bruce Springsteen wrote recently for the New York Times.
I wouldn’t expect to find any great political wisdom in an article by Gatlin (or Springsteen) but the naivete and errors in fact that are sprinkled throughout his writing is evident of someone who must get all their information from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
So here is Mr. Gatlin with my comments in bold:
Since Bruce Springsteen is about to “Rock the Vote” for John Kerry, I’d be only too happy to start booking my motel rooms to hit the road for George W. Bush. With my brothers Steve and Rudy, my buddies the Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Greenwood, Mark Wills and any number of other country music artists who get their support from the Heartland, I’m going to find the time, come fall, to tell America that we’re playing, and praying, for President Bush.
Mr. Gatlin is already touring on behalf of the Bush campaign. He has performed at a number of Bush rallies and is scheduled to perform at the Republican National Convention next week.
Musicians can be political, and when the right time comes - and the right cause - they will be. But while I respect Bruce Springsteen’s artistry and even his opinions on the current political situation (as expressed not long back in the New York Times), I see the world differently. Here’s my take.
The intel on Iraq that President Bush saw raised red flags to some analysts and doubt in others. Some said there was an imminent threat, some said there was not. I believe that if one of Mr. Springsteen’s friends were to swear to him that his house was on fire and another that it was not, he, or anybody, would surely check it out.
I’m not sure whether Mr. Gatlin’s ‘house on fire’ analogy here is supposed to refer to the 9-11 terrorist attacks or the allegations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It would appear that it is being used to represent both. Like many Fox News viewers, Mr. Gatlin has been mislead to believe that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on the United States.
Well, our house was on fire. President Bush and an army of “the good guys and the good gals” checked it out. Big Time. And as a result, the bad guys have not been able to set our house on fire again.
In either case, we were able to “check out” the fire analogy without launching a pre-emptive war in Iraq. We checked out the 9-11 attacks and found the cause to be al-Queada which was holed up in Afghanistan and we promptly (and properly in my view) launched a military action there. We were also “checking out” the WMD story via the United Nations weapons inspectors who were requesting more time to finish their job before President Bush pulled the trigger on the costly military invasion that is still killing our soldiers and draining our resources. As for not being able to ‘set our house on fire again’ that remains to be seen.
To say, as John Kerry has, that “If attacked I will respond decisively” is not enough in today’s world. Good Lord, Senator Kerry - Barney Fife would respond decisively if we were attacked again! President Bush had the strength of will and courage to pre-emptively take out those who would attack us. I say “Rock on, Mr. President” (you too, Bruce). Keep checking out the bad guys and let Barney keep peace in Mayberry (a little humor in the middle of a very serious situation).
It is obvious now that Iraq did not attack us the first time and was not in a position to attack us afterwards either. North Korea, on the other hand, does have that capability. As a charter member of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and one that definitely does have WMDs, would Mr. Gatlin tell President Bush to “Rock on” and attack them as well?
My gratitude to the president isn’t confined to his role in keeping us safe. His tax cuts have helped all Americans who pay federal income taxes and have jump-started an economy that was in recession through no fault of President Bush.
So this is what a jump-started economy looks like? And how does Mr. Gatlin substantiate this claim that all Americans have been helped by Bush’s tax cuts? (Never mind the record national deficits.)
Those who refuse to see that have their heads in the sand and a “Kerry for President” bumper sticker on their SUVs. (I’d say the former condition is pretty much a prerequisite for the latter).
Oh, I see. By telling anyone who doesn’t agree that they have their head in the sand. Nice.
I’m no economist, but I do know two things for sure: I never got a job from a poor man; and the more money people have in their pockets, the more jobs they create by spending the money.
Bush’s first tax cuts took effect before 9-11 and the Republican-controlled Congress has passed more since then and yet Bush is still going to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs during his watch.
President Bush’s attempts at education reform have been thwarted at every turn for fear that vouchers might actually work. (Imagine that, Ted Kennedy!)
Bush’s education reforms have never been adequately funded by the Republican-controlled Congress. Ted Kennedy had nothing to do with it. He is stuck in the minority.
His faith-based initiatives tried to help those who can’t help themselves, only to be “shot down” for fear that someone might get well and that God might have something to do with it.
OK, now he is getting a little wierd. Bush’s faith-based initiatives haven’t been ‘shot down’. The person Bush tapped to head his program quit in disgust a while back and said Bush was never serious about tackling social problems.
I was lucky. I had the money for my little “28-day vacation in pajamas” 20 years ago. There are millions out there who are not so lucky. So they die in the back streets of America for want of help. God only knows how many. (But there’s the rub - we can’t say God and government on the same page.)
Millions dying on the backstreets for want of help? Does he think we are living in Sudan? And all because some unnamed people have allegedly blocked Bush’s faith-based initiatives?? Whatever.
In closing I’d say this to Bruce Springsteen: We do have something in common - we were both “Born in the USA.” From the bottom of my heart I say, Thank God.
I got to see Larry Gatlin peform live a number of years ago at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I’ve never seen Bruce Springsteen perform, but I do have a lot of his records.
I wouldn’t expect to find any great political wisdom in an article by Gatlin (or Springsteen) but the naivete and errors in fact that are sprinkled throughout his writing is evident of someone who must get all their information from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
So here is Mr. Gatlin with my comments in bold:
Since Bruce Springsteen is about to “Rock the Vote” for John Kerry, I’d be only too happy to start booking my motel rooms to hit the road for George W. Bush. With my brothers Steve and Rudy, my buddies the Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Greenwood, Mark Wills and any number of other country music artists who get their support from the Heartland, I’m going to find the time, come fall, to tell America that we’re playing, and praying, for President Bush.
Mr. Gatlin is already touring on behalf of the Bush campaign. He has performed at a number of Bush rallies and is scheduled to perform at the Republican National Convention next week.
Musicians can be political, and when the right time comes - and the right cause - they will be. But while I respect Bruce Springsteen’s artistry and even his opinions on the current political situation (as expressed not long back in the New York Times), I see the world differently. Here’s my take.
The intel on Iraq that President Bush saw raised red flags to some analysts and doubt in others. Some said there was an imminent threat, some said there was not. I believe that if one of Mr. Springsteen’s friends were to swear to him that his house was on fire and another that it was not, he, or anybody, would surely check it out.
I’m not sure whether Mr. Gatlin’s ‘house on fire’ analogy here is supposed to refer to the 9-11 terrorist attacks or the allegations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It would appear that it is being used to represent both. Like many Fox News viewers, Mr. Gatlin has been mislead to believe that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on the United States.
Well, our house was on fire. President Bush and an army of “the good guys and the good gals” checked it out. Big Time. And as a result, the bad guys have not been able to set our house on fire again.
In either case, we were able to “check out” the fire analogy without launching a pre-emptive war in Iraq. We checked out the 9-11 attacks and found the cause to be al-Queada which was holed up in Afghanistan and we promptly (and properly in my view) launched a military action there. We were also “checking out” the WMD story via the United Nations weapons inspectors who were requesting more time to finish their job before President Bush pulled the trigger on the costly military invasion that is still killing our soldiers and draining our resources. As for not being able to ‘set our house on fire again’ that remains to be seen.
To say, as John Kerry has, that “If attacked I will respond decisively” is not enough in today’s world. Good Lord, Senator Kerry - Barney Fife would respond decisively if we were attacked again! President Bush had the strength of will and courage to pre-emptively take out those who would attack us. I say “Rock on, Mr. President” (you too, Bruce). Keep checking out the bad guys and let Barney keep peace in Mayberry (a little humor in the middle of a very serious situation).
It is obvious now that Iraq did not attack us the first time and was not in a position to attack us afterwards either. North Korea, on the other hand, does have that capability. As a charter member of Bush’s “Axis of Evil” and one that definitely does have WMDs, would Mr. Gatlin tell President Bush to “Rock on” and attack them as well?
My gratitude to the president isn’t confined to his role in keeping us safe. His tax cuts have helped all Americans who pay federal income taxes and have jump-started an economy that was in recession through no fault of President Bush.
So this is what a jump-started economy looks like? And how does Mr. Gatlin substantiate this claim that all Americans have been helped by Bush’s tax cuts? (Never mind the record national deficits.)
Those who refuse to see that have their heads in the sand and a “Kerry for President” bumper sticker on their SUVs. (I’d say the former condition is pretty much a prerequisite for the latter).
Oh, I see. By telling anyone who doesn’t agree that they have their head in the sand. Nice.
I’m no economist, but I do know two things for sure: I never got a job from a poor man; and the more money people have in their pockets, the more jobs they create by spending the money.
Bush’s first tax cuts took effect before 9-11 and the Republican-controlled Congress has passed more since then and yet Bush is still going to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs during his watch.
President Bush’s attempts at education reform have been thwarted at every turn for fear that vouchers might actually work. (Imagine that, Ted Kennedy!)
Bush’s education reforms have never been adequately funded by the Republican-controlled Congress. Ted Kennedy had nothing to do with it. He is stuck in the minority.
His faith-based initiatives tried to help those who can’t help themselves, only to be “shot down” for fear that someone might get well and that God might have something to do with it.
OK, now he is getting a little wierd. Bush’s faith-based initiatives haven’t been ‘shot down’. The person Bush tapped to head his program quit in disgust a while back and said Bush was never serious about tackling social problems.
I was lucky. I had the money for my little “28-day vacation in pajamas” 20 years ago. There are millions out there who are not so lucky. So they die in the back streets of America for want of help. God only knows how many. (But there’s the rub - we can’t say God and government on the same page.)
Millions dying on the backstreets for want of help? Does he think we are living in Sudan? And all because some unnamed people have allegedly blocked Bush’s faith-based initiatives?? Whatever.
In closing I’d say this to Bruce Springsteen: We do have something in common - we were both “Born in the USA.” From the bottom of my heart I say, Thank God.
I got to see Larry Gatlin peform live a number of years ago at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I’ve never seen Bruce Springsteen perform, but I do have a lot of his records.
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