Articles week 2

By Ed Naha

All right, I caved-in and watched G.W.'s acceptance speech. Fortunately, I had a "refreshing beverage" before time. And I had my Ab-Cruncher on the floor in front of the TV. I worked out, screaming at the top of my lungs, and thus, didn't hurl the TV through the window. The entire retro-theme of the speech? I'm a God-Inspired Crusader and this is just like the last 100 speeches I've given. I have no mind. I trust mah guts. My way or the highway. Gettit, people with brains?

Golly, isn't democracy grand?

I mean, look at the text. He had the audacity to say: "Since 2001, Americans have been given hills to climb, and found the strength to climb them. Now, because we have made the hard journey, we can see the valley below. Now, because we have faced challenges with resolve, we have historic goals within our reach, and greatness in our future. We will build a safer world and a more hopeful America - and nothing will hold us back."

Now, what the HELL does that mean? 2001 happened on your watch, Junior. And, yeah, we heading head first into The Valley of Death thanks to your pre-emptive war. What goals are within our reach? The rise of global terrorism? Jeeeez. You lit the fuse, Dumbya. Explosions are going to happen for another two decades. Hopeful America? Try talking to the 1.8 million out of work on your watch. And people wearing Purple Heart Band-Aids and dorky elephant hats cheered this crap.

Another bon mot? "Two months from today, voters will make a choice based on the records we have built, the convictions we hold, and the vision that guides us forward. A presidential election is a contest for the future. Tonight I will tell you where I stand, what I believe, and where I will lead this country in the next four years.

"I believe every child can learn, and every school must teach - so we passed the most important federal education reform in history. Because we acted, children are making sustained progress in reading and math, America's schools are getting better, and nothing will hold us back."

Hello? You under-funded the No Child Left Behind Act and you're destroying the Public School system. You're encouraging rich kids to ditch out of our education system and head for a private school. In terms of the rest of your record? Hello, Titanic? Get the band playing louder and ignore the avalanche of ice-cubes hitting the brass section.

"I believe in the energy and innovative spirit of America's workers, entrepreneurs, farmers, and ranchers - so we unleashed that energy with the largest tax relief in a generation. Because we acted, our economy is growing again, and creating jobs, and nothing will hold us back."

You lost 1.8 million jobs, Dubya. And farmers and ranchers? They call this kind of talk horse pucky. In terms of the tax cut? How about the biggest deficit in American history? Let's allow the Luddites to cheer some more. Sheesh!

"I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift towards tragedy. This will not happen on my watch."

It already has, Preppy.

"The story of America is the story of expanding liberty: an ever-widening circle, constantly growing to reach further and include more. Our Nation's founding commitment is still our deepest commitment: In our world, and here at home, we will extend the frontiers of freedom"

Who asked you? Are you some sort of Christian World Cop? I don't remember our Founding Fathers talking about spreading freedom around the world. They were all about spreading it at home. (Oops. We have Ashcroft, now.) And stop watching "The Lion King." Read a book. Get a hobby. Whittle. Make an ark. When the ice caps melt, because of your ignorance on global warming? You're gonna need one, kid.

"The times in which we live and work are changing dramatically. The workers of our parents' generation typically had one job, one skill, one career, often with one company that provided health care and a pension. And most of those workers were men. Today, workers change jobs, even careers, many times during their lives, and in one of the most dramatic shifts our society has seen, two-thirds of all Moms also work outside the home."

Because they have to, thanks to your Administration and the whole "Globalization" deal. You garnered 144,000 low paying jobs last month. GM is going to be laying off a ton of workers next month. Okay, you got it right. Things are changing dramatically.

Duh. Can you say "Hooverville?"

"Another priority in a new term will be to help workers take advantage of the expanding economy to find better, higher-paying jobs. In this time of change, many workers want to go back to school to learn different or higher-level skills."

Dubya? Reality check. The economy is not expanding (well, maybe in India). And fifty-somethings who are out of work? They don't want to learn different skills. THEY WANT THEIR OLD JOBS BACK! Since you never earned an honest living in your life, that's a hard concept for you to wrap your widdle mind around.

"In this time of change, government must take the side of working families. In a new term, we will change outdated labor laws to offer comp-time and flex-time. Our laws should never stand in the way of a more family-friendly workplace."

In other words: cheap labor and anti-union. Thanks a bunch, Junior. Go ahead and gasbag more about all the workers' opportunities. Hey, are we forgetting about the kiddies? No, you have to hit them, too.

"To build a more hopeful America, we must help our children reach as far as their vision and character can take them. Tonight, I remind every parent and every teacher, I say to every child: No matter what your circumstance, no matter where you live - your school will be the path to the promise of America."

As long as you're rich.

"Because family and work are sources of stability and dignity, I support welfare reform that strengthens family and requires work. Because a caring society will value its weakest members, we must make a place for the unborn child. Because religious charities provide a safety net of mercy and compassion, our government must never discriminate against them. Because the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges. And I will continue to appoint federal judges who know the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law."

Translation: I'm out of here. Go to the nearest church. Get ready for witch trials. Screw gays. Hoo-yah.

"This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism - and you know where I stand. Three days after September 11th, I stood where Americans died, in the ruins of the Twin Towers. Workers in hard hats were shouting to me, 'Whatever it takes.' A fellow grabbed me by the arm and he said, 'Do not let me down.' Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America - whatever it takes"

He doesn't have a clue. YO! DUBYA!!! IT TOOK YOU THREE DAYS TO GET TO THE BIGGEST DISASTER IN AMERICAN HISTORY? I guess that 'Goat' book took a lot of time to read and digest. Sheesh!!

"So we have fought the terrorists across the earth - not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake. Our strategy is clear. We have tripled funding for homeland security and trained half a million first responders, because we are determined to protect our homeland"

Translation: We've cut the money for first responders, have created more terrorists than you can shake a stick at with our military debacles and want to make a lot of money off the fear we create. Hotcha!

"Our strategy is succeeding. Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of al-Qaida, Pakistan was a transit point for terrorist groups, Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for terrorist fundraising, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat, and al-Qaida was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks."

Osama WHO?

"Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history, more than 50 million people have been liberated, and democracy is coming to the broader Middle East."

Translation: Hail PNAC! Are we making money from that oil, yet?

On (shhhhh!) Iraq? "Our troops know the historic importance of our work. One Army Specialist wrote home: 'We are transforming a once sick society into a hopeful place ... The various terrorist enemies we are facing in Iraq,' he continued, 'are really aiming at you back in the United States. This is a test of will for our country. We soldiers of yours are doing great and scoring victories in confronting the evil terrorists.'"

Translation: "Did my nose grow just now? Have I left out those nasty Welfare Mothers? Oh, excuse me. That was Ronnie's riff."

Ah, but in terms of the original war? You know, the one that was ACTUALLY INSTIGATED BY 9/11? "Because of you, women in Afghanistan are no longer shot in a sports stadium."

No, now they can be shot in the streets, as the opium trade thrives and warlords rule.

On his personal style? Dubya admitted: "Even when we don't agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand. You may have noticed I have a few flaws, too...Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called 'walking.' Now and then I come across as a little too blunt - and for that we can all thank the white-haired lady sitting right up there."

The White Haired Lady who didn't want to worry her pretty little head about body bags at the start of this war? And, Dude, why are you the only one in your EAST COAST family who tries to talk and walk like John Wayne/Goober?

And, then, he went on and on and on, blathering like a Bible-Thumper on crack. My personal favorite phrase to try to figure out? Get ready.

"We see America's character in our military, which finds a way or makes one."

Right. Take your pills, go to bed, get out of my life and, please, get out of office. Any President who can actually say, with a straight face?

"Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom."

Time to eat your phaser.

Set it on 'smart.'

http://mkanejeeves.com/

By Les Payne, Newsday

The gathering of the Republicans in New York was as much a circus of the well-heeled as it was a big tent for the trapeze artists of the flip-flop.

The zigzag was set by the keynote speaker, a politician who, a dozen years ago, delivered the keynote address - for the Democrats. Zell Miller is as fond of the flip-flop as he is of his dirt roots in Georgia. He steadfastly promises to die a Democrat, a promise some hope would hasten after the GOP keynote.

The irony of the Miller choice is that the most effective image the Bush White House has floated against challenger John Kerry is that of a man who flip-flops. This charge, which has dogged Kerry on the campaign trail, echoed repeatedly throughout the four days of the convention. Showcasing Miller prime time, however, turned the zigzag charge on its ear.

In addition to supporting Bill Clinton at Madison Square Garden in 1992, Miller praised Kerry in 2001 as "an authentic hero." Other GOP speakers broke with profession and even family members.

Married into the nation's most prominent Democrat family, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger flopped to the GOP side that his bread is buttered on. The waxen visage of Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder flipped actor flipped politician, played well as a Kennedy-connected spouse under the hot lights. The Madison Square Garden home of pro athletes and the circus was just as exciting a venue for the trapeze acts of the GOP.

Reduced to its core, Schwarzenegger's message was that a once scrawny immigrant from Austria had pump-ironed his way into the ranks of the wealthy. As his fortune grows under GOP mathematics, Schwarzenneger's celebrity is the least he can offer to promote the party that plucked him out of the Hollywood Hills and, after engineering a successful recall, planted him in the Sacramento statehouse.

With Rudolph Giuliani, it was not so much the flip-flop as a reverting to form. The adulterous, thrice-married former mayor of New York led the GOP charge at the podium with all the brimstone of an ersatz moral force. What's left of the hair he once raked over his forehead is severely brushed back over his ears on the lucrative talk circuit. As with the hair, Giuliani has flipped wives, and he flops about the country these days with the confidence of a millionaire shamelessly minted on the coinage of the disaster of the World Trade Center.

As a magnet speaking of himself as a present-tense mayor, Giuliani's not altogether ineffective lecture flowed from the well of his previous career as a U.S. prosecutor. During summation, the lathered-up attorney ripped at John Kerry with the practiced fury of a Giuliani dicing a white-collar defendant. "John Kerry," he said, "has no clear, precise and consistent vision." Unlike Kerry, he continued, "President Bush (will) stick with difficult decisions even as public opinion shifts" and new information flows in.

This laughable charge that so amazingly has stuck to Kerry is all the more laughable for issuing from the same White House that, as a rule rather than the exception, flip-flops with the greatest of ease and regularity.

It is on the grave issue of war, peace and killing that the president flip-flops almost continuously. Shortly after 9/11, Bush declared his unstinting devotion to tracking down Osama bin Laden: "There's an old poster out West, I recall that says, 'Wanted: Dead of Alive.'" Unable to collect the bounty of bin Laden, Bush said at a press conference in March 2002, "I don't know where he is. You now, I just don't spend that much time on him."

With his attention shifted to Saddam Hussein, Bush, in September, 2002, stated, "You can't distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." A year later he changed his view to confirm that "we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11."

Even as the GOP convention got under way last week, Bush flip-flopped publicly on a grave matter of national policy. When Matt Lauer asked Bush if the United States could win the war on terrorism that is so central to his campaign, the president replied: "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

This was not quite the stout-hearted image of the war president that Giuliani, Schwarzenegger and the rest were painting at Madison Square Garden over national TV. Within 24 hours, Bush issued a quite different statement on the war against terror: "Make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win."

The GOP was silent on the Bush flip-flop.

Copyright ? 2004, Newsday, Inc.

Reprinted from Newsday:
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/columnists/
ny-vppay053955271sep05,0,7609221.column

'Why isn’t Kerry trouncing Bush?'

Officials in an administration that has gotten the US bogged down in an unpopular war and overseen a net loss of jobs and a net increase in poverty should be polishing their resumes for their inevitable defeat in November. Yet according to the opinion polls, the November presidential vote remains “too close to call” — with incumbent President George Bush running about even with the Democrats’ John-John ticket of senators John Kerry and John Edwards.

It is nothing short of incredible that Kerry is not already the odds-on favourite to win in November. US liberals and Democrats worry about a Bush “October surprise” (such as the capture of al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden) or rigged voting machines, which will allow Bush to eke out a victory. But the real reason for Kerry’s failure to bury Bush is more fundamental than any last-minute hijinks.

It lies in Kerry’s and the Democrats’ complete inability — and, increasingly, it seems, unwillingness — to offer anything positive to inspire support. On one question after another, Kerry has reiterated the standard “centrist” Republican-Lite positions that have become standard for Democratic candidates.

And on the most crucial question of the day — the occupation of Iraq — Kerry has stuck as closely to Bush’s failed policy as he can. As a result, Bush’s overall loss of support has not been reflected in any substantial shift towards Kerry.

The problem with the Bush-Lite strategy is that it’s a proven loser. Following this script, 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore turned what should have been a landslide into an election that was close enough for Bush to steal.

Democrats hope that the loathing of Bush among their supporters is so deep that it won’t matter if Kerry gives them no other reason to vote for him than that he isn’t Bush. They may be right. But this strategy runs the risk of making the presidential campaign so uninspiring as to fail to motivate Kerry voters to go to the polls in the so-called “most important election of our lifetime”.

If 2004 produces another 2000-like deadlock, odds are that Bush will hold on to the White House. Although he won’t say so, Kerry only became a viable candidate against Bush because Bush’s war policy has turned into a disaster. But because Kerry has refused to distinguish himself from Bush on the war (as well as on a number of other issues), he hasn’t really been able to pull into a substantial lead.

If Kerry promises no change from the policies that are driving people to want to fire Bush, Bush can quite reasonably ask the electorate why it should want to “change horses in midstream”. Bush can ask: “Do you want the real thing or the copy?” The Republicans know that given this choice, voters usually go for the real thing.

This was the entire rationale for Bush’s August 6 public challenge to Kerry to say whether he would still have voted to give authority for the invasion of Iraq “knowing what we know now”.

And on August 9, Kerry gave Bush exactly what he was hoping for. He said: “Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have.”

In reaffirming his 2002 vote for the war, Kerry threw away any credibility he might have in challenging what should be Bush’s biggest vulnerability.

In fact, in the wake of the warmongering Democratic convention in late July, a Gallup opinion poll taken August 9-11 noted a slight up-turn in the numbers of those saying the war in Iraq was “worth it”. For the first time since January, those who said that the war was “not worth it” fell below 50%. In June, during the high point of revelations about the US torture of prisoners, 54% of those surveyed said the war was “not worth it”. On a poll taken July 31-August 2, Gallup found that Kerry and Bush were tied at 48% each among registered voters, a result that represented a shift towards Bush.

So if these figures are accurate, Kerry’s pro-war stance hasn’t improved his chances. It’s actually helped rehabilitate Bush’s disaster. For the people who run the Democratic Party, that’s alright. As they showed in 2000 when they abandoned any fight against Bush’s Florida election fraud, they would rather lose an election than upset the ruling-class consensus.

, New York Times

The Manichaean Candidate sees the world only in terms of good and evil, black and white.

He scorns gray, nuance, complexity, context, changing circumstances and inconvenient facts. Real men make their own reality.

Trying to match John Kerry, who roused the base at his convention with a line bashing the House of Bush-House of Saud coziness, George W. Bush roused the base at his convention with a liberal-media-elite-bashing line.

Painting himself as the noble agent for "the transformational power of liberty" abroad, he said "there have always been doubters" when America uses its "strength" to "advance freedom": "In 1946, 18 months after the fall of Berlin to Allied forces, a journalist in The New York Times wrote this: 'Germany is a land in an acute stage of economic, political and moral crisis. European capitals are frightened. In every military headquarters, one meets alarmed officials doing their utmost to deal with the consequences of the occupation policy that they admit has failed.' End quote. Maybe that same person's still around, writing editorials."

She isn't. Anne O'Hare McCormick, who died in 1954, was The Times's pioneering foreign affairs correspondent who covered the real Axis of Evil, interviewing Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Patton. She was hardly a left-wing radical or defeatist. In 1937, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, and she was the first woman to be a member of The Times's editorial board.

The president distorted the columnist's dispatch. (download a PDF of the original column)The "moral crisis" and failure she described were in the British and French sectors. She reported that the Americans were doing better because of their policy to "encourage initiative and develop self-government." She wanted the U.S. to commit more troops and stay the course - not cut and run.

Mr. Bush Swift-boated her.

The Manichaean Candidate's convention was a brazen bizarro masterpiece. The case to sack John Kerry featured the same shady tactics used to build the case to whack Saddam - cherry-picked facts, selective claims and warped contexts.

W. took a page from Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Total Recall," a futuristic movie about inserting fully formed memories into the minds of unsuspecting victims.

The president and vice president ignored all the expert evidence now compiled indicating no link between 9/11 and Saddam, and no Saddam threat to U.S. security. After talking about "the fanatics who killed some 3,000 of our fellow Americans," Dick Cheney boasted: "In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat, and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein."

Though the convention mythologized Mr. Bush's bullhorn moment at ground zero, there was no mention of Osama, the fiend W. vowed to catch that day. The speakers did not acknowledge the brutal spiral in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the re-emergence of the Taliban, now finding sanctuary with our ally, Pakistan.

Mr. Cheney, king of hooey, bragged about a "Taliban driven from power," even though just as the convention got under way, at least seven people, including two Americans, were killed by Taliban fighters in Kabul.

W. stormed ahead with the discredited domino theory of democracy promoted by the neocons and Ahmad Chalabi - ignoring the widening F.B.I. probe into alleged leaks from neocon central at the Pentagon to Mr. Chalabi, an accused Iranian spy, and to an Israeli lobby. "Because we acted to defend our country, the murderous regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are history," the president said, adding that "democracy is coming to the broader Middle East."

The $445 billion deficit? Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney erased it. In their inside-out universe, the economy is blossoming, there's money to pay for Mr. Bush's to-do list and No Child Left Behind is more than an empty slogan.

W. suddenly proclaimed himself a compassionate conservative again, even though extra-chromosome conservatives, as Lee Atwater called them, were in closed meetings calling for a culture war to curb the rights of women and gays.

Mr. Bush even tried to implant in our heads that he is the son of Reagan. He didn't give his dad a speaking slot, though the last two Democratic presidents spoke in Boston, and he spent more time in his speech lionizing Gip than Pop.

Inside Madison Square Garden, W. kept insisting he'd made the world safer. Outside, the exploding world didn't seem safe at all.

Copyright 2004?The New York Times Company

Reprinted from The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/opinion/05dowd.html

By Robert Parry, Consortium News

Election 2004 suddenly is not just about whether John Kerry or George W. Bush will lead the United States the next four years. It's not even about which of the candidates has better policies or is more competent.

This election has become a test of whether reality still means anything to the American people, whether this country has moved to essentially a new form of government in which one side is free to lie about everything while a paid "amen corner" of ideological media drowns out any serious public debate.

For weeks now, George W. Bush's campaign has been radically testing the limits of how thoroughly one party can lie, misrepresent and smear without paying any price and indeed while reaping rewards in the opinion polls. Bush personally capped off this binge of dishonesty with his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, continuing his pattern of lying about how the war in Iraq began.

Before a national television audience, Bush repeated his false account of the run-up to the Iraq War, asserting he had no choice but to invade because Saddam Hussein refused to disarm or to comply with United Nations inspection demands. The reality is that not only did Hussein say publicly - and apparently accurately - that Iraq no longer possessed stockpiles of banned weapons but he allowed U.N. inspectors into Iraq in November 2002 and gave them free rein to examine any site of their choosing.

As the saying goes, you can look it up. U.N. chief inspector Hans Blix said he was encouraged by the Iraqi cooperation as his inspectors checked out sites designated as suspicious by Washington but found nothing. According to Blix, the Bush administration then forced the U.N. inspectors to leave in mid-March 2003 so the invasion could proceed.

"Although the inspection organization was now operating at full strength and Iraq seemed determined to give it prompt access everywhere, the United States appeared as determined to replace our inspection force with an invasion army," Blix wrote in his book, Disarming Iraq.

But that was not what Bush told the American people. Bush rewrote the historical record to make his invasion seem more reasonable. Bush said:

"We went to the United Nations Security Council, which passed a unanimous resolution demanding the dictator disarm, or face serious consequences. Leaders in the Middle East urged him to comply. After more than a decade of diplomacy, we gave Saddam Hussein another chance, a final chance, to meet his responsibilities to the civilized world. He again refused, and I faced the kind of decision no president would ask for, but must be prepared to make."

Even though the people of the world lived through those events less than a year and a half ago, Bush sees no apparent risk in fabricating the history. Indeed, he began revising the record within months of the invasion and has not been challenged by the U.S. press corps for his dishonesty. In July 2003, for instance, Bush said about Hussein, "we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power."

Bush reiterated that war-justifying claim on Jan. 27, 2004, saying: "We went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution -- 1441 -- unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spun the same historical point in an op-ed article in the New York Times on March 19, the war's first anniversary. "In September 2002, President Bush went to the United Nations, which gave Iraq still another 'final opportunity' to disarm and to prove it had done so," Rumsfeld wrote, adding that "Saddam Hussein passed up that final opportunity" and then rejected a U.S. ultimatum to flee. "Only then, after every peaceful option had been exhausted, did the president and our coalition partners order the liberation of Iraq," Rumsfeld wrote.

Brazen Lying

Beyond the brazen lying about the U.N. inspections, Bush and Rumsfeld also ducked two other obvious historical points: that the U.N. Security Council refused to sanction the invasion (so the inspectors would have more time to do their work) and that U.S. forces failed to find any stockpiles of illegal weapons in Iraq. The facts on the ground would seem to lead to a logical conclusion that Iraq actually was in compliance with the U.N. resolutions. Hussein's compliance might not have come willingly - previous U.N. inspections and U.S. bombing raids in 1998 apparently destroyed many of the Iraqi weapons - but it amounted to compliance nonetheless.

Still, what is almost as remarkable as Bush's obvious lie is the breathtaking arrogance with which it is delivered. Bush and his advisers must have concluded that they are free to say virtually anything - no matter how false or misleading - without fear of adverse consequences. Certainly, with the built-in echo chamber of Rush Limbaugh's talk radio, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and Sun Myung Moon's Washington Times, Bush has reason for this confidence.

Bush's lie about the run-up to war also doesn't stand alone. His campaign has peddled a string of dubious and bogus assertions about Kerry's record, including claims that he voted for (name-any-number-of) tax increases or that he opposed weapons systems (without noting that leading Republicans, including former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, also had considered them obsolete or excessive).

Even more troubling, Republicans have smeared Kerry's war record, including raising unfounded questions about whether he earned the Bronze Star that he won for heroism and at least one of his three Purple Hearts. A well-financed front group, called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, spearheaded these attacks with assistance from operatives close to George W. Bush's campaign.

As these anti-Kerry veterans spun out their story, much of the national press corps fell into line. CNN competed with Fox News to promote the dubious claims as serious news.

However, several major newspapers, including the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, examined the historical record and exposed the group's claims as deceptive and contradictory. Many of the anti-Kerry veterans were not in position to know what the circumstances were on Kerry's boat when he swung it around and rushed back to pull Jim Rassmann, a Special Forces soldier, out of the water. Rassmann has said Kerry's boat was taking small-arms fire, an account that matches what others on board have said and what the Navy's contemporaneous records show.

The smears were particularly ugly because whatever anyone thinks of Kerry, it was well-known that serving as captain of a swift boat in the Mekong Delta was one of the most hazardous assignments in Vietnam. The casualty rate for those junior officers was staggering. Anyone who captained one of those boats into enemy territory demonstrated extraordinary bravery, regardless of the details of any engagement.

But the conservative news media and mainstream outlets, such as CNN, let themselves be used to promote the dubious charges. The impact on Kerry's reputation has been devastating, sending him into freefall in national polls.

Deniability

For his part, George W. Bush refused to specifically denounce the attacks on Kerry, saying only that all political advertising from independent groups should be banned. In effect, Bush equated the dishonest swift boat veterans' attacks against Kerry's war record with questions raised by some liberal groups about how Bush slipped past better-qualified candidates to get a position in the Texas Air National Guard and then failed to fulfill even those duties.

Sinking to even a lower level, Republicans also sneered at Kerry's three Purple Hearts for Vietnam War wounds, implying that he was a faker. Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole suggested falsely that Kerry had won two Purple Hearts on the same day and didn't even bleed, though Dole later issued a half-hearted apology for his remarks.

As Bush stayed in the background maintaining his "deniability," his Republican allies continued to hammer home the "theme" of Kerry's supposed cowardice, distributing band-aids with purple hearts at the Republican National Convention. Republican delegates wore these band-aids on their chins, cheeks and hands as a way to mock Kerry's wounds. The band-aids were handed out by Morton Blackwell, who runs a Virginia training school for Republicans called the Leadership Institute.

Blackwell honed some of his own propaganda skills as a special assistant for public liaison for President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Blackwell participated in "public diplomacy" or "perception management" operations that were designed to sell the American people on the need to support hard-line rightist regimes in Central America to crush leftist insurgencies.

In one of those Reagan-Bush propaganda operations, the White House warned that if leftist rebels gained power in Central America, the United States would be flooded with "feet people," hundreds of thousands of Central American refugees. The effectiveness of this "theme" - playing on the racial and ethnic fears of white Americans in the Southwest - had been tested by Reagan's pollster Richard Wirthlin. Although the argument was dubious since Central Americans already were fleeing into the United States to escape the violence inflicted by the region's brutal right-wing security forces, Reagan added his voice to the "feet-people" theme in a White House speech.

Blackwell also understood the value of the emotional "feet-people"argument. "We may be in a no-lose situation," he said at the time. "If the president's opponents succeed in Congress" in blocking Reagan's Central America military funding, "the refugees are coming - and the public will hold [the Democrats] accountable."

Selective Editing

In some ways, the second ad produced by the anti-Kerry Swift Boat veterans may be even more troubling than the first because of what it portends for the future of a meaningful American democracy. In the second ad, the anti-Kerry veterans cropped Kerry's 1971 testimony when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The selective editing made it appear that Kerry was accusing veterans of committing atrocities in Vietnam.

"They personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads," the clip of Kerry's testimony says as one of the anti-Kerry veterans intones, "The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating."

But what Kerry actually was doing was recounting testimony given by Vietnam veterans at a conference where some had confessed to committing atrocities. Instead of accusing these veterans of committing these acts, Kerry was simply relaying their testimony to the senators. Anyone listening to this ad, however, would have a completely false impression of what Kerry meant. The ad is a very dirty trick.

Beyond the deception, there's also the fact that atrocities were committed in Vietnam. Massacres, torture, rapes and mutilations occurred on all sides. But it now appears that even a young man, who serves in combat and returns to the United States, can't describe the brutal reality of war without disqualifying himself for the Presidency. Only patriotic platitudes are acceptable.

By ripping Kerry's quotes out of context and effectively doctoring his meaning, the Republican attack machine has demonstrated that it can destroy the reputation of anyone who dares engage the American people in anything like a meaningful debate. In contrast, the machine's favored candidate can act as irresponsibly as he wishes and have his behavior protected.

Three Decades

The Republicans have been constructing this attack machine for three decades. Initially, it was a defensive reaction to Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal. The goal was to build a network of conservative media, think tanks and attack groups to protect a future Republican from another Watergate debacle.

But the senior George Bush was among the first to recognize that this machinery could be used offensively as well as defensively. This new capability was unveiled in a national political campaign in 1988 when Bush used it to take apart Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. Aided by the emerging conservative news media, especially Moon's Washington Times, the Republicans questioned Dukakis's sanity and his patriotism.

For his part, George H.W. Bush implied that Dukakis was un-American for belonging to the American Civil Liberties Union and for vetoing a Massachusetts bill that would have compelled public school students to pledge the flag every day. In a foreshadowing of the Swift Boat attacks on Kerry, an "independent" pro-Bush group aired a racially provocative ad about a convicted black murderer, Willie Horton, who raped a white woman while on a Massachusetts prison furlough.

Since 1988, this conservative media machine has continued to grow exponentially, creating a kind of gravitational pull that has caused the mainstream news media to drift to the Right, partly so journalists can protect themselves from accusation of being "liberal." This combination of factors has left the Democrats nearly defenseless when the Republicans unleash a propaganda barrage during a campaign season.

At least until recently, the Democrats and liberals failed to invest any significant sums in a similar attack apparatus. Now, they are finding that their belated recognition of the danger is too little, too late.

Devastated

The smears against John Kerry's patriotism, honesty and courage have inflicted severe - possibly irreversible - damage on his candidacy for president. According to some polls, Bush has opened up a double-digit lead. The national news media can be expected to fill up the next several weeks with commentary about how brilliantly Bush succeeded in "defining" Kerry and how Kerry failed to respond appropriately.

The larger danger, however, is that the United States may not have another meaningful national election for the foreseeable future. The Bush family and the Republican attack machine may have gained the power to effectively pick new presidents. Whoever stands in their way will be destroyed. That can happen to Republicans in the primaries, as Sen. John McCain learned in 2000, but it will certainly occur to the Democrats in the general election.

For their part, the Democrats can be expected to go through the quadrennial process of looking for a "perfect" candidate who will be impervious to the Republican smears. But there is no such candidate. There also may be no practical way for a majority of the American people to see through the cleverly designed attacks as they are amplified through the conservative echo chamber, turning the target into a national laughingstock, as Al Gore learned in 2000.

If that is indeed the case - and if these tactics succeed in politically destroying John Kerry this fall - the United States can be said to have succumbed to a new form of government that will be democratic in name only, with elections transformed into largely ceremonial affairs for affirming the Republican choice without meaningful consultation with the American people about the best policies to pursue. The nation is already dangerously far down that road.

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s, has just completed a book entitled, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

Reprinted from Consortium News:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/090404.html

Two heartbeats from the presidency, an absolute nut job.

By Jack Shafer, Slate

We live in dangerous times?more dangerous than you might imagine. Terrorists have marked the president of the United States for death. Heart disease has similar designs on the vice president, who's already had four heart attacks and goes into the hospital for angioplasty as frequently as some people take their cars to Jiffy Lube for oil changes. If that isn't enough danger for you, here's more: If both Bush and Cheney were to suddenly drop dead, the law would transfer the presidential powers to a man who proved himself an absolute nut job on the Aug. 29 edition of Fox News Sunday: Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Hastert used the Fox appearance to blurt out a bizarre and baseless accusation about billionaire George Soros, a Democratic Party financier and donor to anti-Bush 527s. We enter the Fox News Sunday interview transcript just after host Chris Wallace introduces the subject of 527s, such as MoveOn.org and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Hastert starts complaining about the power flexed by non-political party groups:

HASTERT: Here in this campaign, quote, unquote, "reform," you take party power away from the party, you take the philosophical ideas away from the party, and give them to these independent groups.

You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where?if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from. And I?

WALLACE (interrupting): Excuse me?

HASTERT: Well, that's what he's been for a number years?George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he's got a lot of ancillary interests out there.

WALLACE: You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?

HASTERT: I'm saying I don't know where groups?could be people who support this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know. The fact is we don't know where this money comes from.

Before, transparency?and what we're talking about in transparency in election reform is you know where the money comes from. You get a $25 check or a $2,500 check or $25,000 check, put it up on the Internet. You know where it comes from, and there it is.

(Emphasis added.)

I didn't see the program, but reading the transcript, it's easy to visualize Chris Wallace vaulting forward from whiplash as he says, "Excuse me?" and then asks, "You think [Soros] may be getting money from the drug cartel?" Had Wallace had the presence of mind, he might have challenged Hastert about the "mysterious" source of Soros' money. Soros runs the Quantum Fund hedge fund and earned a reported $1 billion in 1992 betting against the British pound. According to the Christian Science Monitor, he's dropped $5 billion of his fortune on his various "open society" programs around the world. He's given $12.6 million to the anti-Bush 527s, chump change relative to the size of his fortune. In addition, Soros has been a very public advocate and funder of drug-law legalization and liberalization campaigns.

Soros denies the charge that he is in the pay of drug cartels in this Aug. 31 letter he sent to Speaker Hastert, demanding an apology. Soros spokesman Michael Vachon says there's been a "concerted effort to smear George Soros since he became an administration critic" and calls the Hastert comments the "usual conservative message-machine M.O.: Throw something out there and see if it sticks."

Hastert states in a Sept. 1 letter to Soros that he never referred to drug cartels on Fox News Sunday, that Chris Wallace did. The "drug groups" Hastert claims to have had in mind were the "Drug Policy Foundation, The Open Society, The Lendesmith [sic] Center, the Andean Council of Coca Leaf Producers, and several ballot initiatives across the country to decriminalize illegal drug use." On this score, Hastert's letter is completely disingenuous. These groups are beneficiaries of Soros wealth: He's given them money. In the program transcript, Hastert is clearly asking about the source of Soros' money for his political and social campaigns, and then he asks the leading question, is it from "overseas or from drug groups"?

Where did Hastert get the notion that Soros might be getting money from drug cartels? A good guess would be the organization headed by political fantasist, convicted felon, and perpetual presidential candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. This campaign literature from the "LaRouche in 2004" Web site, dated Oct. 29, 2003, makes the drug charge directly:

Years of investigation by LaRouche's associates have answered that question in grisly detail: Soros's money comes from impoverishment of the poor countries against whose currencies he speculates, and from deadly mind-destroying, terrorism-funding drugs.

(Emphasis in the original.)

The LaRouchie slander of Soros dates back to the early '90s. Michael Lewis recorded an anti-Soros protest by LaRouche followers in a Jan. 10, 1994, profile in the New Republic. Since then, the drug charge has been a LaRouche literature mainstay. See, for example, this cached copy of a 2002 interview with LaRouche from his organization's Executive Intelligence Review.

Hastert may have also brushed up against the idea in a 1997 House hearing about needle exchanges that he chaired. David Jordan, the former U.S. ambassador to Peru, testified that Soros has backed drug legalization initiatives and owns a piece of a bank in Colombia. Connecting the imaginary dots, Jordan says, "And I think it would be very interesting for you to look to see and bring sometime [sic] who benefits from the legalization of narcotics."

Of course, if there were a shred of truth to the charge that Soros is mobbed up with the drug cartels, Hastert would contact the Drug Enforcement Administration or at the very least hold Hill hearings instead of broadly hinting about it on Fox News Sunday. Whatever the reason behind his eruption, Hastert has answered the question of who is screwy enough to run on this year's LaRouche ticket. "LaRouche-Hastert in 2004," anyone?

Reprinted from Slate:
http://slate.com/id/2106077/

By Mark Donham, CounterPunch

Several times recently on the Jim Lehrer News Hour, the Shields part of the long time "Shields and Brooks" political punditry (opposite's attract; "fair and balanced") team of Washington "insiders", punditized that, in response to the Brooks part saying that the New York GOP convention protesters were people "without a party," the reason, according to Shields, that Kerry wasn't getting traction in the polls was because of his asinine answer standing in front of the Grand Canyon several weeks ago that, IF HE KNEW THEN WHAT HE KNOWS NOW ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR, HE WOULD STILL VOTE FOR IT.

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show put it well shortly after Kerry made this blunderous statement. He said, referring to Kerry, "Come on now, that was a softball. Hit it out of the park! All you have to do is say, NO." Of course Kerry didn't - he said yes. Oh sure, "it wasn't that simple." He did actually say he would vote to authorize the president and not for the war, but to the nation this is a distinction without a difference. And you don't have to be a Republican to feel that way. We all heard it. We know what was said. As Stewart went on to bemoan, "is he trying to lose?"

Oh what a clever trap Karl Rove set for Kerry, and how he took the bait. Bush taunted Kerry in front of the press, asking the press whether Kerry, knowing then what he knows now, would he still vote for the war. Of course, the press went to Kerry but at first Kerry was smart and wouldn't bite. But Kerry couldn't take the taunting. Pride cometh before the fall! He got baited into answering. At, of all places, the Grand Canyon, he turned and said yes. YES?? How could he say "yes?" That continues to boggle my mind and many others.

Let's see, if we knew then what we know now? That the main reason for going to war was false, that over 10,000 civilians would be killed, that a thousand U.S. troops would be killed, that we had too few soldiers deployed, that we didn't have our humvees properly armored, that the insurgency would be a lot worse than anticipated, that the world would generally be opposed to what we are doing and long term alliances would be damaged, that our national debt would be out of control and the war would cost us hundreds of billions with no end in sight, that Iraq and Al Quaeda weren't connected, that our President had mislead us about a variety of things related to Iraq, that the US would be torturing prisoners and violating the Geneva Accords, that we would be locking up people indefinitely with no civil rights at all, and on and on. If Kerry knew that all this was going to occur, he would still vote for the war????? Say what??????

All Kerry had to do was to say no. N. O. No. All he had to do was to say, well, if I knew that there weren't going to be weapons of mass destruction found, that a thousand soliders would die, that ten thousand civilians would die, that it would cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and no end in sight, that we would be violating the Geneva Accords and torturing prisoners, that we would be imprisoning people at Guantonamo Bay indefinitely with no civil rights at all, that Halliburton and Bechtel would be getting most of the big U.S. governmental contracts without bids, etc. etc., of course I wouldn't have voted for it. BBBBBBBBUUUUTTTTTTT NOOOOOOOOOO!!! He said yes.

Ok, so he said yes. Now what. There are a couple possibilities. One is that he could admit that he screwed up and made a big boo boo. We all do that sometimes. Especially with that kind of pressure. He could say that, but the press would jump on that and say he is flip flopping again, and that would hurt him. So scratch that. People like Brooks are just waiting for him to do it. That would give credibility to their flimsly argument that Kerry is somehow an extreme flip flopper. (Bush is worse in reality.) But he is going to have to explain it. This is such a fundamental question with the Democratic base that it threatens to erode what was rock solid support under him. This is what Shields has been referring to. Kerry has to explain in a way that doesn't seem like he is completely changing positions (again) that he didn't mean "yes" in the way that we all took it. If he can do that, he has a good chance to resolidify the base. If he can't, then he has a good chance to lose. He cannot continue to stick with his current answer, trying to distinguish between voting for "authorizing the president" and voting "for the war," and keep the base together. This isn't going to be easy, but Kerry is a smart guy. Maybe he can do it.

In spite of this, Kerry still has a chance to win, not because of his greatness but because of the ABB (anybody but bush) principle. But he has to provide an alternative vision. His unfortunate "yes" on the key question of the campaign has to be explained, and that explanation has to be credible. Otherwise we all might be doomed to the worst three words we could ever hear at this time: "4 more years."

Reprinted from CounterPunch:
http://counterpunch.org/donham09042004.html

By Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star

Be afraid, very afraid. But keep shopping.

That was the message to the American voters from George W. Bush and the Republican National Convention.

Even discounting the partisan exaggerations of such self-serving gatherings, one can't think of a contemporary parallel in which the dissonance between rhetoric and reality was greater.

In the $107 million (U.S.) fantasy beamed out of Madison Square Garden in New York, there was nary an acknowledgment of several inconvenient facts. To wit:

* Self-absorbed Americans are not the only victims of terrorism.

* The applause greeting the president's triumphant declarations coincided with the cries of children and adult hostages at their impending murders in Russia by Chechen terrorists.

* The 140,000 American troops in Iraq are presiding over an exponential growth in terrorism.

* Extremism is flourishing in almost every place this president has intervened.

* America is deeply divided at home and almost universally reviled abroad.

Yet, here was Bush promising more wars, not fewer. And, oblivious to all of the above, the faithful were cheering him on.

That both the president and the party are in denial is, in some ways, more instructive than what they are being criticized for: the shameless exploitation of 9/11, the nasty attacks on John Kerry's war record and the hiding of the Christian fundamentalist delegates, who formed the majority at the convention but were barred from prime time.

Feeding fear of crime and exploiting its victims has long been a staple of Republican campaigns (and copied here by the Harris-Eves Tories).

Also familiar is the Bush family's penchant for demolishing opponents, whatever it takes. Exhibit A: Democrat Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. Exhibit B: Republican war hero John McCain in the 2000 primaries.

It comes as no surprise that Bush and running-mate Dick Cheney, having dodged service in Vietnam, are presiding over a vicious campaign to question Kerry's heroic service in that war and his even more heroic opposition to it when he returned home.

Having made a mess of the economy ? only "girly men" worry over it, said Arnold Schwarzenegger, while Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York counselled shopping ? the Bush-Cheney team is campaigning on its foreign policy, despite its demonstrable failure in curbing global terrorism.

War talk it will be from now until election day ? a balm to the frayed nerves of the citizens of a gun-toting culture, especially the Republicans' rural and conservative base.

The status of the stateless terrorists has been elevated to that of the Nazis and the communists.

McCain: "Just as surely as the Nazis during World War II and the Soviet communists during the Cold War, the enemy we face today is bent on our destruction."

Cheney: "It's an enemy whose hatred is limitless." Defeating it is "vital to preserving freedom."

Rudolph Giuliani: Terrorists are "dedicated to eradicating us and our way of life."

The conservative media join in.

Sean Hannity: "We are in the middle of World War III."

With that spin, it is easier to compare Bush to Churchill and Roosevelt, however absurd the proposition.

The Iraq war is, again, being rolled into the war on terrorism, notwithstanding the missing weapons of mass destruction and the missing links to Al Qaeda. It is as though those embarrassments never happened.

Bush: "In Saddam Hussein, we saw a threat."

Cheney: "We dealt with a gathering threat."

Giuliani: "In any plan to destroy global terrorism, removing Saddam Hussein needed to be accomplished. He was himself a weapon of mass destruction."

Also back in circulation is the retroactive justification of the invasion ? the liberation of Iraqis, even if nearly 20,000 have been killed in the process, so far.

Giuliani: "We ended Saddam's reign of terror."

McCain: "Iraq was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers and mass graves."

Which it was. But we must try to forget that it was at the peak of the gulag, in the 1980s, that Washington was happiest with Saddam as an ally.

Similarly, in hearing Bush boast of his democracy initiative in "the broader Middle East" ? its geography yet to be defined ? we are to turn a blind eye to the fact that the initiative is not going anywhere, precisely because he is the one promoting it.

We must also not rain on the president's parade of good news from Afghanistan.

That "more than 10 million citizens have registered to vote in the October presidential election" is, in fact, a reminder that there are only 9 million eligible voters.

Afghans are acquiring more than one ballot not out of democratic enthusiasm but because they can trade them to the warlords who hope to use them as bargaining chips with President Hamid Karzai.

The mission in Afghanistan remains half-finished, principally because of Bush's detour in Iraq. The Taliban are on the rise, as is opium production.

While the American war machine is bogged down abroad, the Republican propaganda machine rolls on at home.

hsiddiq@thestar.ca

Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.

Reprinted from The Toronto Star:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?
pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1094335810003