Presidential Debate: In Sum, Kerry Kicked Butt

10/02/2004 08:45:59 PM · #52

wow you gus have a lot of free time. keep it up.

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

10/02/2004 09:22:03 PM · #53

Originally posted by dsmboostaholic:

wow you gus have a lot of free time. keep it up.

Its about what you choose to spend your free time doing. I, I spend a good portion of mine reading and studying current events and history.

Check out that book I showed you for a good lesson in why we are able to have conversations over the internet with anyone from anywhere in real time while drinking a cold drink in an environmentally controlled shelter here.

darcy

Canon PowerShot G3

10/03/2004 10:28:22 AM · #54

anachronite,

i think its pretty obvious that when refering to how amazing my intellect is, you were inferring just the opposite. if that's how you want to play, be my guest. just don't try and deny the fact later when the tactic proves unpopular.

i'm not sure what it is you base your opinion of fox news being the most unbiased on other than what you yourself point out is our human tendacy towards solipsism, since they obviously uphold the same political agenda as you do.

how can anyone say a news corporation is unbiased when they routinely refer to the upcoming election as "when george w. bush gets re-elected," or where a young man who lost his father in the 9/11 attacks can be shouted at and repeatedly told to "shut up" because he questioned GWB's military actions in response to the attacks? a news corporation that routinely and candidly "spotlights" people who speak out against the president, and makes generic accusations against candidate kerry, often sighting "documents" to back up their claims without actually revealing what the documents are - one time they showed a picture of a document, though, so i guess that's something!

CBS made a mistake and they admit it. they had what seemed like a huge story and they got carried away. plenty of reporters came out afterwards and admitted that it could have happened to anyone, and that it was a harsh reminder to them all of just how important their process of checks and balances really is in the face of getting the news out first.

Olyuzi

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7

10/03/2004 01:04:48 PM · #55

In a matter of just one debate the latest polls show that John Kerry made up the 11 percentage points lead that George Bush had after the RNC. Is this because George Bush can't speak well or he just had weak arguments? What's it going to be after the second dabate, an 11 percentage point lead for Kerry?

Message edited by author 2004-10-03 13:06:10.

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

10/03/2004 02:22:37 PM · #56

Originally posted by Olyuzi:

The only poll that matters is the one that takes place on November 2nd. That won't be a push-poll, or a poll of "likely" voters or a poll of "registered" voters. It will be a poll of REAL voters. And there won't be a "margin of error" to consider ( though I anticipate a spate of lawsuits where the margin of victory is under 1%, just the same ).
But on the matter of polls - a National Poll doesn't mean much, anyway. It doesn't take into consideration that we do not elect the President through a National election - it's done by the electoral college, which represents the people on a state-by-state proportional basis.

10/04/2004 02:11:19 AM · #57

I think this image sums up the debate:

10/04/2004 02:15:38 AM · #58

Don't worry:

Panasonic Lumix G 14mm F2.5 ASPH

10/04/2004 05:24:28 PM · #59

As noted earlier, though Mr. Bush singled Poland as a member of the coalition that's now in Iraq, it appears that Poland is a reluctant member of that coalition. Again, as noted earlier, Poland's president, Alexander Kwasniewski, has been quoted as saying: "They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."

And now, Mr. Kwasniewski is making it clear that the Polish force will begin withdrawing its forces from Iraq as early as January, with the hopes of full withdrawal by the end of 2005:

"Polish troops will start to withdraw from Iraq in the New Year and all will be out by the end of 2005, the country's president has promised." [ Oct. 4, 2004 ]

---------------------------------------

Originally posted by ScottK:

Originally posted by bdobe:
From Last Night's Presidential Debate:

BUSH: My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What's he say to Tony Blair? What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?

---------------------------------------

And here's what the president of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski, said recently (March 2004) about the Iraq War:

ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI (translated): They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride.
--[ //www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1069242.htm ]

1. Whatever Kwasniewski may think about the war, it doesn't change the historical fact that they were (and are) part of the coalition, and that in dismissing their participation, Kerry denigrated the country and their sacrifice.

2. I'd be interested to see/hear more of the interview in context. The use of the pronoun "they" is ambiguous, and the use of an english idiom in the translation ("took us for a ride") is unusual. (Of course, I don't speak, understand or read Polish, so I'd always be at the mercy of the translator.)

Message edited by author 2004-10-04 19:21:24.

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

10/04/2004 06:14:27 PM · #60

Originally posted by ScottK:

You won't get the "context" from bdobe, of course. But here is what the Polish President's aide, Siwiec, said the day AFTER that quote:

Siwiec said Kwasniewski's Thursday comment about being "misled" was meant to criticize intelligence failures in general, not Washington.

"It was not a complaint by Poland addressed to the United States," he said.

On Thursday, Kwasniewski told French reporters he felt "uncomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction," according to a transcript released by his press office.

He then told a separate news conference, "This is the problem of the United States, of Britain and also of many other nations."

Ref this MSNBC article

Olyuzi

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7

10/04/2004 06:31:54 PM · #61

Originally posted by RonB:

Siwiec said Kwasniewski's Thursday comment about being "misled" was meant to criticize intelligence failures in general, not Washington.

"It was not a complaint by Poland addressed to the United States," he said.

On Thursday, Kwasniewski told French reporters he felt "uncomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction," according to a transcript released by his press office.

He then told a separate news conference, "This is the problem of the United States, of Britain and also of many other nations."

Ref this MSNBC article

My analysis of his statement would be that he was stating it in diplomatic terms so as not to anger the Bush administration and maintain ties with the US for trade, or whatever. Yesterday's NYTimes, as was posted earlier in another thread by MadMordegon, shows that the US Energy dept did in fact inform the Bush administration that they believed the CIA's analysis regarding Hussein's uranium enrichment program to produce nuclear weapons was questionable, at the least, and also showed that top Bush people chose to emphasize the threat.

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8D

10/04/2004 06:57:48 PM · #62

Ron,

You've either missed the point or are simply trying to muddy the waters. The Polish president, Mr. Kwasniewski, is well passed the point of questioning the pre-war intelligence. Unlike many on Bush's camp, Mr. Kwasniewski has concluded that his country went into Iraq under false pretenses, and is now moving forward to rectify that situation. That's why, as I posted above, Poland will begin to withdraw its troops from Iraq early next year.

Now, during the first presidential debate, Mr. Bush was adamant about singling Poland out as a member of the Iraq coalition; accordingly, one would've thought that Mr. Bush had been referring to a staunch supporter of his Iraq policy. But, of course, that's not the case; instead, just today, Mr. Kwasniewski has reiterated his promise to withdraw the Polish troops from Iraq.

"Polish troops will start to withdraw from Iraq in the New Year and all will be out by the end of 2005, the country's president has promised." [ Oct. 4, 2004 ]

---------------------------------------

Originally posted by RonB:

Originally posted by ScottK:

Originally posted by bdobe:
From Last Night's Presidential Debate:

BUSH: My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What's he say to Tony Blair? What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?

---------------------------------------

And here's what the president of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski, said recently (March 2004) about the Iraq War:

ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI (translated): They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride.
--[ //www.abc.net.au/am/content/2004/s1069242.htm ]

1. Whatever Kwasniewski may think about the war, it doesn't change the historical fact that they were (and are) part of the coalition, and that in dismissing their participation, Kerry denigrated the country and their sacrifice.

2. I'd be interested to see/hear more of the interview in context. The use of the pronoun "they" is ambiguous, and the use of an english idiom in the translation ("took us for a ride") is unusual. (Of course, I don't speak, understand or read Polish, so I'd always be at the mercy of the translator.)

You won't get the "context" from bdobe, of course. But here is what the Polish President's aide, Siwiec, said the day AFTER that quote:

Siwiec said Kwasniewski's Thursday comment about being "misled" was meant to criticize intelligence failures in general, not Washington.

"It was not a complaint by Poland addressed to the United States," he said.

On Thursday, Kwasniewski told French reporters he felt "uncomfortable due to the fact that we were misled with the information on weapons of mass destruction," according to a transcript released by his press office.

He then told a separate news conference, "This is the problem of the United States, of Britain and also of many other nations."

Ref this MSNBC article

Message edited by author 2004-10-04 19:21:09.

David Ey

Nikon D80

10/04/2004 08:07:03 PM · #63

It seems to me that he is in no big hurry to withdraw the Polish troops.
Could it be he feels no need for, in your words, "rectification"?

10/04/2004 08:24:49 PM · #64

Originally posted by gingerbaker:

Roger, I want to maintain some sense of civility here, but this response goes beyond absurd.

1) FactCheck.org is the most unbiased site I have seen. I can't say I've read every article they've posted, but I can say that they are very balanced in pointing out misstatements by both sides in this contest. Please point out one shred of evidence that they have exhibited any bias.

2) How can you possibly counter your attack on FactCheck's credibility by then countering with the (by implication) "unbiased" source of the Kerry/Edwards web site??? Please, tell me what you think the word bias means, because by definition, the only source of information that can rival the Kerry/Edwards website in it's bias is the Bush/Chenney website. C'mon, this isn't even a credible response.

3) OK, so ignoring the lack of bias of your source of information, and simply evaluating the response, please point out one place in that entire text where they actually refute the claims? There's not one. Oh, they try to attack the essence of the claim by asserting that Bush/Cheney are "using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts", and then obfuscate the issue by detailing how many closed meetings the committee held. But there is not one sentence, not even one word, which actually refutes the charge. From 1993-1998 the Select Intelligence Committee held more than 329 meetings; during the 103rd Congress, the Committee held a total of 103 on-the-record meetings and hearings. So, simple question: how many did Sen. Kerry attend? Ballpark numbers. Round percentages. About 100? 80%? 50%? If he even attended 25%, the simple statement "Sen. Kerry missed less than the 76% that the Bush campaign is alleging" might be a bit misleading, but technically true. There is not a single word in that statement which clearly asserts that the allegation is even remotely untrue.

The fuzzy numbers are clearly coming from the other side of the fence...

Message edited by author 2004-10-04 20:25:55.

10/04/2004 09:18:07 PM · #65

Curtsey of //www.georgewbush.com/olympics/

Could election lightning strike twice in Florida?

Man.. American politics in the 21st century is just fubar'd.

A guy at work today when I asked what he thought of Kerry after I sent him that clip; "I dunno bro, whatâ��s to like?" I said what do you mean? Have you read about Kerry? He says; "Iâ��ve seen some stuff on TV." He then could not name a specific issue, nor name news source, but made comment on how Kerry is a "wishy-washy". Got to love the "the commercial said" knowledge base 'terrorizing' our Democracy.

10/04/2004 10:04:30 PM · #66

Faux News just can't help it self. The Republican bias of Faux News is so blatant that its reporters almost trip over themselves trying to tow the Republican party line. This is precisely the reason why Faux News has had to apologize for the second time this week for going public with what were clearly bogus anti-Kerry items.

The "Communist for Kerry" group first came to my attention when several bloggers noted that a news item on the Faux News website mentioned the parody group as a legitimate organization supporting the Democratic candidate. Of course, by now the news item has been rectified to reflect that the organization is bogus, and the following was added to the online article:

Editor's Note:

In a version of this article that was published earlier, the Communists for Kerry group was portrayed as an organization that was supporting John Kerry for president. FOXNews.com's reporter asked the group's representative several times whether the group was legitimate and supporting the Democratic candidate, and the spokesman insisted that it was. The Communists for Kerry group is, in fact, a parody organization.

//www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134268,00.html

-------------------------------------------------

THE ITEM LISTED BELOW IS REPOSTED FROM ANOTHER THREAD BECAUSE THAT THREAD WAS "PREMATURELY" LOCKED

Here are just two glaring examples of Republican dirty tricks by two self-described Republican organizations:

1. On this board some have desperately tried to make the link between "communists" and Mr. Bush's opponent. Hmmm, I wonder where such ridiculous and caricaturist allegations could've sprung from? Oh, let me guess, how about from the minds of Republicans:

The group behind "Communists for Kerry" ( //www.communistsforkerry.com/ ) is a Republican organization called the Hellgate Republican Club. Incredibly enough, the Hellgate Republican Club ( //www.hellgate.org/disclaimer/ ) has the gall to call itself a "non-partisan" organization.

2. Clearly Mr. Nader was a factor in the 2000 election. Not daring to leave anything to chance in 2004, Mr. Bush's supporters want to give their candidate every possible advantage -- given how little faith many of them actually have on Mr. Bush. Accordingly, just as Republican organizations have done elsewhere, the Michigan Republican Party worked to get Mr. Nader 40,000 signatures to try to place him that state's ballot:

"The Michigan Republican Party submitted more than 40,000 signatures last week in a bid to get independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the state's November ballot." [ July 19, 2004 ]
-- //www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60340-2004Jul18.html

These are just two examples. I wonder what else our good friends at the GOP have in stored for the American public -- an "October Surprise," perhaps!?

Let the guessing games begin... perhaps Osama Bin Ladin will emerge from his hiding place in the caves of Tora Bora... or from the mountain ranges of Pakistan... who knows.

LoudDog

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

10/04/2004 10:47:08 PM · #67

Originally posted by MadMordegon:

Curtsey of //www.georgewbush.com/olympics/

That game is great, thanks for sharing it.

gingerbaker

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM

10/04/2004 11:39:39 PM · #68

Originally posted by ScottK:

Originally posted by gingerbaker:

Originally posted by RonB:

Originally posted by gingerbaker:

Originally posted by Anachronite:
because Kerry attended less than 25% of the intelligence committee meetings that he should have.

Never heard that before. I hear that number bandied about by the right in supposed regard to Kerry's alleged voting record, tho! :D

Perchance, do you have a link?

How about FactCheck.Org

An exerpt:

"A Bush-Cheney '04 ad released Aug. 13 accuses Kerry of being absent for 76% of the Senate Intelligence Committee's public hearings during the time he served there. The Kerry campaign calls the ad "misleading," so we checked, and Bush is right.

Official records show Kerry not present for at least 76% of public hearings held during his eight years on the panel, and possibly 78% (the record of one hearing is ambiguous).

Kerry points out that most meetings of the Intelligence Committee are closed and attendance records of those meetings aren't public, hinting that his attendance might have been better at the non-public proceedings. But Kerry could ask that his attendance records be made public, and hasn't.

Aides also claimed repeatedly that Kerry had been vice chairman of the intelligence committee, but that was Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, not John Kerry."

1) Factcheck.org is not exactly an unbiased source!

2) your 76% figure is from bush attack ad, never a good source of accurate info, I would say. Here is the Kerry/Edwards website reply to the ad. It looks way more complicated than the Bush ad or Factcheck presented it:

FUZZY MATH AND BAD STATS MISLEAD ON KERRYâ��S RECORD

Ad Text: â��As a member of the intelligence committee, Senator Kerry was absent for 76% of the committeeâ��s hearings.â��

Selective math and sketchy methods:
The Bush-Cheney Campaign is using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts. They rely only on whether Sen. Kerry made statements in one of a small number of open hearings. For example from 1993-1998 the Select Intelligence Committee held more than 329 meetings, hearings and markups. Just 65 of these were open meetings. [Senate Report 104-1; Senate Report 105-1; Senate Report 106-3]

Ad Text: â��In the year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Kerry was absent for every single one.â��

Fuzzy Math Again:
Again, the Bush-Cheney Campaign is using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts. They rely only on whether Sen. Kerry made statements in one of seven open hearings. All in all, during the 103rd Congress, the Committee held a total of 103 on-the-record meetings and hearings. There were seventy (70) oversight hearings and seven (7) business meetings. Twelve (12) hearings were held on the budget including the Conference sessions with the House. Hearings on specific legislation totaled nine (9) and nomination hearings totaled one (1). [Senate Report 104-1: Oversight Over Intelligence Activities in the 103rd Congress].

The following Republican members also failed to speak at a public hearing that year: John Chaffee; Malcom Wallop, Ted Stevens, Slade Gorton, John Danforth

Kerry was part of the â��most significant counterintelligence legislation ever.â�� According to Republican Chair and Bush Campaign Co-Chair Arlen Specter: â��The Committee pioneered the most significant counterintelligence legislation ever passed in the Congress.â�� The legislation addressed intelligence problems uncovered by the Committees investigation of the Aldrich Ames case, including the failure of the FBI and CIA to coordinate on counterintelligence. [Senate Report 104-1: Oversight Over Intelligence Activities in the 103rd Congress].

Roger, I want to maintain some sense of civility here, but this response goes beyond absurd.

1) FactCheck.org is the most unbiased site I have seen. I can't say I've read every article they've posted, but I can say that they are very balanced in pointing out misstatements by both sides in this contest. Please point out one shred of evidence that they have exhibited any bias.

2) How can you possibly counter your attack on FactCheck's credibility by then countering with the (by implication) "unbiased" source of the Kerry/Edwards web site??? Please, tell me what you think the word bias means, because by definition, the only source of information that can rival the Kerry/Edwards website in it's bias is the Bush/Chenney website. C'mon, this isn't even a credible response.

3) OK, so ignoring the lack of bias of your source of information, and simply evaluating the response, please point out one place in that entire text where they actually refute the claims? There's not one. Oh, they try to attack the essence of the claim by asserting that Bush/Cheney are "using misleading numbers and cannot pretend to have the facts", and then obfuscate the issue by detailing how many closed meetings the committee held. But there is not one sentence, not even one word, which actually refutes the charge. From 1993-1998 the Select Intelligence Committee held more than 329 meetings; during the 103rd Congress, the Committee held a total of 103 on-the-record meetings and hearings. So, simple question: how many did Sen. Kerry attend? Ballpark numbers. Round percentages. About 100? 80%? 50%? If he even attended 25%, the simple statement "Sen. Kerry missed less than the 76% that the Bush campaign is alleging" might be a bit misleading, but technically true. There is not a single word in that statement which clearly asserts that the allegation is even remotely untrue.

The fuzzy numbers are clearly coming from the other side of the fence...

Scott - I do not have a CLUE what to make of this so-called issue re attendence. All I could glean was that "attendence" may not have been actual attendence, but "speaking at a meeting", and that the numbers of actual meetings taken place was very different from the accusatory side, or Factcheck for that matter, and what the K/E campaign reports.

And nobody will know,it seems, because the nonpublic meeting attendence and speaking statistics are not made public - although the Bush side is only making accusations about the non-nonpublic = the public hearings :D

And I agree with you - K/E is definately giving out "fuzzy math" on this one. After all the bogus attacks on them, they probably could care less about satisfying every zealots sweet tooth.

The whole thing seems pretty lame to me.

Message edited by author 2004-10-04 23:45:17.

10/05/2004 11:56:00 AM · #69

Originally posted by bdobe:

Don't worry:

Get out the wine, cause that's one big hunk o' cheese!

10/05/2004 11:57:16 AM · #70

Originally posted by bdobe:

I think this image sums up the debate:

Yeah, it sure does. Mirror's my thoughts every time Kerry spoke: blah, blah, blah, more of the same ol' BS.

10/08/2004 07:32:10 PM · #71

After the "Whats that Kerry has!? ...oh wait, it's just a pen" debacle, I was hesitant to seriously consider this at first, until I read the entire article; especially the part I bolded.

//www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/08/bulge/index.html

Originally posted by Article:

Bush's mystery bulge

The rumor is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Dave Lindorff

Oct. 8, 2004 | Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry? That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim Lehrer.

The president is not known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing. So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate?

Bloggers are burning up their keyboards with speculation. Check out the president's peculiar behavior during the debate, they say. On several occasions, the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he listening to someone helping him with his response to a question? Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish.

Hot on the conspiracy trail, I tried to track down the source of the photo. None of the Bush-is-wired bloggers, however, seemed to know where the photo came from. Was it possible the bulge had been Photoshopped onto Bush's back by a lone conspiracy buff? It turns out that all of the video of the debate was recorded and sent out by Fox News, the pool broadcaster for the event. Fox sent feeds from multiple cameras to the other networks, which did their own on-air presentations and editing.

To watch the debate again, I ventured to the Web site of the most sober network I could think of: C-SPAN. And sure enough, at minute 23 on the video of the debate, you can clearly see the bulge between the president's shoulder blades.

Bloggers stoke the conspiracy with the claim that the Bush administration insisted on a condition that no cameras be placed behind the candidates. An official for the Commission on Presidential Debates, which set up the lecterns and microphones on the Miami stage, said the condition was indeed real, the result of negotiations by both campaigns. Yet that didn't stop Fox from setting up cameras behind Bush and Kerry. The official said that "microphones were mounted on lecterns, and the commission put no electronic devices on the president or Senator Kerry." When asked about the bulge on Bush's back, the official said, "I don't know what that was."

So what was it? Jacob McKenna, a spyware expert and the owner of the Spy Store, a high-tech surveillance shop in Spokane, Wash., looked at the Bush image on his computer monitor. "There's certainly something on his back, and it appears to be electronic," he said. McKenna said that, given its shape, the bulge could be the inductor portion of a two-way push-to-talk system. McKenna noted that such a system makes use of a tiny microchip-based earplug radio that is pushed way down into the ear canal, where it is virtually invisible. He also said a weak signal could be scrambled and be undetected by another broadcaster.

Mystery-bulge bloggers argue that the president may have begun using such technology earlier in his term. Because Bush is famously prone to malapropisms and reportedly dyslexic, which could make successful use of a teleprompter problematic, they say the president and his handlers may have turned to a technique often used by television reporters on remote stand-ups. A reporter tapes a story and, while on camera, plays it back into an earpiece, repeating lines just after hearing them, managing to sound spontaneous and error free.

Suggestions that Bush may have using this technique stem from a D-day event in France, when a CNN broadcast appeared to pick up -- and broadcast to surprised viewers -- the sound of another voice seemingly reading Bush his lines, after which Bush repeated them. Danny Schechter, who operates the news site MediaChannel.org, and who has been doing some investigating into the wired-Bush rumors himself, said the Bush campaign has been worried of late about others picking up their radio frequencies -- notably during the Republican Convention on the day of Bush's appearance. "They had a frequency specialist stop me and ask about the frequency of my camera," Schechter said. "The Democrats weren't doing that at their convention."

Repeated calls to the White House and the Bush national campaign office over a period of three days, inquiring about what the president may have been wearing on his back during the debate, and whether he had used an audio device at other events, went unreturned. So far the Kerry campaign is staying clear of this story. When called for a comment, a press officer at the Democratic National Committee claimed on Tuesday that it was "the first time" they'd ever heard of the issue. A spokeswoman at the press office of Kerry headquarters refused to permit me to talk with anyone in the campaign's research office. Several other requests for comment to the Kerry campaign's press office went unanswered.

As for whether we really do have a Milli Vanilli president, the answer at this point has to be, God only knows.

10/08/2004 08:38:42 PM · #72

Originally posted by MadMordegon:

I saw this this morning. What doesn't make sense is, if he was being fed his lines, why didn't he have some better ones?

10/12/2004 09:03:04 PM · #73

There's something remarkable going on in the "true" conservative wing of the Republican party, and not many are paying attention.

Here are some notable developments of late: President Eisenhower's son endorsed Mr. Kerry; Mr. Patrick Buchanan, in his latest book, essentially argues that the Republican party has been hijacked; and now, Mr. Bob Barr, of Clinton Impeachment fame, is debating whom he'll vote for in the upcoming election:

"Now we have the election of 2004. For the first time in my voting life, the choice in the race for president isn't so clear And, among true conservatives, I'm not alone.

What's making the contest so difficult? It's certainly not that both candidates are so conservative that we have a choice of riches. It's not even that John Kerry is sort of right wing compared to George W. Bush. The incumbent clearly is the more "conservative" of the two.

But the concerns for many conservative voters -- concerns that may cause them not to vote for Mr. Bush on Nov. 2 -- fall generally into three categories: fiscal, physical (as in the physical security of our nation) and freedom (as in protecting our civil liberties).

When Bush became president Jan. 20, 2001, he inherited an enviable fiscal situation. Congress, then controlled by his own party, had -- through discipline and tough votes -- whittled down decades of deficit spending under presidents of both parties, so that annual deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars had been transformed to a series of real and projected surpluses. The heavy lifting had been done. All Bush had to do was resist the urge to spend, and he had to exert some pressure on Congress to resist its natural impulses to do the same. Had he done that, he might have gone down in history as the most fiscally conservative president in modern times."

[...]

"The oft-repeated mantra that "the terrorists made us spend more" rings hollow, especially to those who actually understand that increases in nondefense discretionary spending are not the inevitable result of fighting terrorists. It also irritates many conservatives, whether or not they support the war in Iraq, that so much of defense spending is being poured into the black hole of Iraq's internal security, while the security of our own borders goes wanting." [October 12, 2004]

Mr. Barr concludes with:

"Hmmm. Who's the Libertarian candidate again?"

-------------------------------------------------

You may read the full post at: //www.bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=564

10/18/2004 04:37:34 PM · #74

I ask, What Liberal Media? If it exists, please point it out... I'm desperately seeking the liberal counterpart to F(au)x News and can't find any trace of one.

Here's a clear example of something that should've had more traction in the media (from the third presidential debate):

KERRY: Yes. When the president had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, he took his focus off of them, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and Osama bin Laden escaped.

Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, this president was asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden? " [Bush] said, "I don't know. I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned."

We need a president who stays deadly focused on the real war on terror.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?

BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.

HOWEVER!

We all know that, in fact, Mr. Bush was OUTRIGHT lying! [see Bush: Flip Flopper in Chief] (Surprise, surprise. Right!?) Well, let's just think for one second what would have happened if Mr. Kerry had been the one caught in a BLATANT lie like Mr. Bush was.

1. Rush and his clones in talk radio would've talked themselves to dehydration
2. F(au)x News would've immediately gone into their SPECIAL ALERT mode
3. We would've seen all the brand-loyal Republicans beating us all over the head with it

BUT NO! Mr. Bush is caught in a blatant lie and there's hardly any mention of it. By the way, for those that are not familiar with Mr. Bush's quote, here it is:

Question: But don't you believe that the threat that Bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. [President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]

Of course, every time there's an attack on our troops in Iraq we hear how the Iraqi insurgents are now increasingly linked to Al Queda and how their local leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is affiliated with Bin Laden. The question must be asked, if Bin Landen had been captured in Afghanistan during the war, and if we had still gone into Iraq, would our troops be seen the same level of resistence that they're witnessing in Iraq?

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K.I.A. in Iraq 1101 -- regrettably, when I posted the figure about a month and a half ago the count was 932.