READ THIS...Thanks to Delegate Deb's Email Post...

Before you enjoy another hearing of the laugh track from the recent convention with its bad hair jokes and vitriol, take a look at this accounting of the man would seeks your vote.

Bush by numbers: Four years of double standards
By Graydon Carter, The Independent

1 -Number of Bush administration public statements on National security issued between 20 January 2001 and 10 September 2001 that mentioned al-Qa'ida.
104- Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein.
101 -Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned missile defence.
65 -Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned weapons of mass destruction.
0 Number of times Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden in his three State of the Union addresses.
73 -Number of times that Bush mentioned terrorism or terrorists in his three State of the Union addresses.
83 -Number of times Bush mentioned Saddam, Iraq, or regime (as in change) in his three State of the Union addresses.
$1m -Estimated value of a painting the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and Bush family friend.
0 -Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses.
1,700- Percentage increase between 2001 and 2002 of Saudi Arabian spending on public relations in the United States.
79 -Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia.
3- Number of 11 September hijackers whose entry visas came through special US-Saudi "Visa Express" programme.
140- Number of Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, evacuated from United States almost immediately after 11 September.
14- Number of Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa'ida is active.
$3m -Amount the White House was willing to grant the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 11 September attacks.
$0- Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.
$10m- Amount Bush cut from the INS's existing terrorism budget.
$50m- Amount granted to the commission that looked into the Columbia space shuttle crash.
$5m -Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study legalised gambling.
7- Number of Arabic linguists fired by the US army between mid-August and mid-October 2002 for being gay.
George Bush: Military man
1972- Year that Bush walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas National Guard, Nearly two years before his six-year obligation was up.
$3,500- Reward a group of veterans offered in 2000 for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama guard service.
600-700- Number of guardsmen who were in Bush's unit during that period.
0- Number of guardsmen from that period who came forward with information about Bush's guard service.
0- Number of minutes that President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the assistant Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, the former chairman of the Defence Policy Board, Richard Perle, and the White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove ­ the main proponents of the war in Iraq ­served in combat (combined).
0- Number of principal civilian or Pentagon staff members who planned the war who have immediate family members serving in uniform in Iraq.
8- Number of members of the US Senate and House of Representatives who have a child serving in the military.
10- Number of days that the Pentagon spent investigating a soldier who had called the President "a joke" in a letter to the editor of a Newspaper.
46- Percentage increase in sales between 2001 and 2002 of GI Joe figures (children's toys).
Ambitious warrior
2- Number of Nations that George Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into office.
130- Approximate Number of countries (out of a total of 191 recognised by the United Nations) with a US military presence.
43- Percentage of the entire world's military spending that the US spends on defence. (That was in 2002, the year before the invasion of Iraq.)
$401.3bn- Proposed military budget for 2004.
Saviour of Iraq
1983 -The year in which Donald Rumsfeld, Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs as a gift.
2.5-Number of hours after Rumsfeld learnt that Osama bin Laden was a suspect in the 11 September attacks that he brought up reasons to "hit" Iraq.
237 -Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by top Bush administration officials between 2002 and January 2004, according to the California Representative Henry Waxman.
10m- Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets on 21 February 2003, in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, the largest simultaneous protest in world history.
$2bn -Estimated monthly cost of US military presence in Iraq projected by the White House in April 2003.
$4bn- Actual monthly cost of the US military presence in Iraq according to Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld in 2004.
$15m- Amount of a contract awarded to an American firm to build a cement factory in Iraq.
$80,000- Amount an Iraqi firm spent (using Saddam's confiscated funds) to build the same factory, after delays prevented the American firm from starting it.
2000- Year that Cheney said his policy as CEO of Halliburton oil services company was "we wouldn't do anything in Iraq".
$4.7bn- Total value of contracts awarded to Halliburton in Iraq and Afghanistan.
$680m- Estimated value of Iraq reconstruction contracts awarded to Bechtel.
$2.8bn-Value of Bechtel Corp contracts in Iraq.
$120bn- Amount the war and its aftermath are projected to cost for the 2004 fiscal year.
35 -Number of countries to which the United States suspended military assistance after they failed to sign agreements giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.
92p- Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2002.
60 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2003.
55 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who were unemployed before the war.
80- Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who are unemployed a Year after the war.
0- Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender in May 1945.
37- Death toll of US soldiers in Iraq in May 2003, the month combat operations "officially" ended.
0- Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home that the Bush administration has permitted to be photographed.
0- Number of memorial services for the returned dead that Bush has attended since the beginning of the war.
A soldier's best friend
40,000- Number of soldiers in Iraq seven months after start of the war still without Interceptor vests, designed to stop a round from an AK-47.
$60m- Estimated cost of outfitting those 40,000 soldiers with Interceptor vests.
62- Percentage of gas masks that army investigators discovered did not work properly in autumn 2002.
90- Percentage of detectors which give early warning of a biological weapons attack found to be defective.
87- Percentage of Humvees in Iraq not equipped with armour capable of stopping AK-47 rounds and protecting against roadside bombs and landmines at the end of 2003.
Making the country safer
$3.29 Average amount allocated per person Nationwide in the first round of homeland security grants.
$94.40- Amount allocated per person for homeland security in American Samoa.
$36- Amount allocated per person for homeland security in Wyoming, Vice-President Cheney's home state.
$17- Amount allocated per person in New York state.$5.87 Amount allocated per person in New York City.
$77.92- Amount allocated per person in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University, Bush's alma mater.
76- Percentage of 215 cities surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors in early 2004 that had yet to receive a dime in federal homeland security assistance for their first-response units.
5-Number of major US airports at the beginning of 2004 that the Transportation Security Administration admitted were not fully screening baggage electronically.
22,600- Number of planes carrying unscreened cargo that fly into New York each month.
5- Estimated Percentage of US air cargo that is screened, including cargo transported on passenger planes.
95- Percentage of foreign goods that arrive in the United States by sea.
2- Percentage of those goods subjected to thorough inspection.
$5.5bn-Estimated cost to secure fully US ports over the next decade.
$0- Amount Bush allocated for port security in 2003.
$46m- Amount the Bush administration has budgeted for port security in 2005.
15,000- Number of major chemical facilities in the United States.
100- Number of US chemical plants where a terrorist act could endanger the lives of more than one million people.
0- Number of new drugs or vaccines against "priority pathogens" listed by the Centres for Disease Control that have been developed and introduced since 11 September 2001.
Giving a hand up to the advantaged
$10.9m- Average wealth of the members of Bush's original 16-person cabinet.
75- Percentage of Americans unaffected by Bush's sweeping 2003 cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.
$42,000- Average savings members of Bush's cabinet received in 2003 as a result of cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.
10- Number of fellow members from the Yale secret society Skull and Bones that Bush has named to important positions (including the Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum Jr. and SEC chief Bill Donaldson).
79- Number of Bush's initial 189 appointees who also served in his father's administration.

A man with a lot of friends
$113m- Amount of total hard money the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign received, a record.
$11.5m- Amount of hard money raised through the Pioneer programme, the controversial fund-raising process created for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign. (Participants pledged to raise at least $100,000 by bundling together cheques of up to $1,000 from friends and family. Pioneers were assigned numbers, which were included on all cheques, enabling the campaign to keep track of who raised how much.)

George Bush: Money manager
4.7m -Number of bankruptcies that were declared during Bush's first three years in office.
2002 -The worst year for major markets since the recession of the 1970s.
$489bn- The US trade deficit in 2003, the worst in history for a single year.
$5.6trillion- Projected national surplus forecast by the end of the decade when Bush took office in 2001.
$7.22 trillionUS national debt by mid-2004.
George Bush: Tax cutter
87- Percentage of American families in April 2004 who say they have felt no benefit from Bush's tax cuts.
39- Percentage of tax cuts that will go to the top 1 per cent of American families when fully phased in.
49- Percentage of Americans in April 2004 who found that their taxes had actually gone up since Bush took office.
88- Percentage of American families who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes.
$30,858 -Amount Bush himself saved in taxes in 2003.
Employment tsar
9.3m- Number of US unemployed in April 2004.
2.3m- Number of Americans who lost their jobs during first three Years of the Bush administration.
22m- Number of jobs gained during Clinton's eight years in office.
Friend of the poor
34.6m -Number of Americans living below the poverty line (1 in 8 of the population).
6.8m- Number of people in the workforce but still classified as poor.
35m -Number of Americans that the government defines as "food insecure," in other words, hungry.
$300m- Amount cut from the federal programme that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes.
40- Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest 1 per cent of the population.
18- Percentage of wealth in Britain held by the richest 1% per cent of the population.
George Bush And his special friend
$60bn- Loss to Enron stockholders, following the largest bankruptcy in US history.
$205m- Amount Enron CEO Kenneth Lay earned from stock option profits over a four-year period.
$101m- Amount Lay made from selling his Enron shares just before the company went bankrupt.
$59,339- Amount the Bush campaign reimbursed Enron for 14 trips on its corporate jet during the 2000 campaign.
30- Length of time in months between Enron's collapse and Lay (whom the President called "Kenny Boy") still not being charged with a crime.
George Bush: Lawman
15- Average number of minutes Bush spent reviewing capital punishment cases while governor of Texas.
46- Percentage of Republican federal judges when Bush came to office.
57- Percentage of Republican federal judges after three years of the Bush administration.
33- Percentage of the $15bn Bush pledged to fight Aids in Africa that must go to abstinence-only programmes.
The Civil libertarian
680 -Number of suspected al-Qa'ida members that the United States admits are detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
42- Number of nationalities of those detainees at Guantanamo.
22- Number of hours prisoners were handcuffed, shackled, and made to wear surgical masks, earmuffs, and blindfolds during their flight to Guantanamo.
32- Number of confirmed suicide attempts by Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
24- Number of prisoners in mid-2003 being monitored by psychiatrists in Guantanamo's new mental ward.
A health-conscious president
43.6m- Number of Americans without health insurance by the end of 2002 (more than 15 per cent of the population).
2.4m- Number of Americans who lost their health insurance during Bush's first year in office.
Environmentalist
$44m- Amount the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and the Republican National Committee received in contributions from the fossil fuel, chemical, timber, and mining industries.
200- Number of regulation rollbacks downgrading or weakening environmental laws in Bush's first three years in office.
31- Number of Bush administration appointees who are alumni of the energy industry (includes four cabinet secretaries, the six most powerful White House officials, and more than 20 other high-level appointees).
50- Approximate number of policy changes and regulation rollbacks injurious to the environment that have been announced by the Bush administration on Fridays after 5pm, a time that makes it all but impossible for news organisations to relay the information to the widest possible audience.
50- Percentage decline in Environmental Protection Agency enforcement actions against polluters under Bush's watch.
34- Percentage decline in criminal penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.
50- Percentage decline in civil penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.
$6.1m -Amount the EPA historically valued each human life when conducting economic analyses of proposed regulations.
$3.7m- Amount the EPA valued each human life when conducting analyses of proposed regulations during the Bush administration.
0- Number of times Bush mentioned global warming, clean air, clean water, pollution or environment in his 2004 State of the Union speech. His father was the last president to go through an entire State of the Union address without mentioning the environment.
1- Number of paragraphs devoted to global warming in the EPA's 600-page "Draft Report on the Environment" presented in 2003.
68- Number of days after taking office that Bush decided not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases by roughly 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States was to cut its level by 7 per cent.
1- The rank of the United States worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
25- Percentage of overall worldwide carbon dioxide emissions the United States is responsible for.
53- Number of days after taking office that Bush reneged on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
14-Percentage carbon dioxide emissions will increase over the next 10 years under Bush's own global-warming plan (an increase of 30 per cent above their 1990 levels).
408- Number of species that could be extinct by 2050 if the global-warming trend continues.
5- Number of years the Bush administration said in 2003 that global warming must be further studied before substantive action could be taken.
62- Number of members of Cheney's 63-person Energy Task Force with ties to corporate energy interests.
0- Number of environmentalists asked to attend Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings.
6- Number of months before 11 September that Cheney's Energy Task Force investigated Iraq's oil reserves.
2- Percentage of the world's population that is British.
2- Percentage of the world's oil used by Britain.
5- Percentage of the world's population that is American.
25- Percentage of the world's oil used by America.
63- Percentage of oil the United States imported in 2003, a record high.
24,000- Estimated number of premature deaths that will occur under Bush's Clear Skies initiative.
300- Number of Clean Water Act violations by the mountaintop-mining industry in 2003.
750,000- Tons of toxic waste the US military, the world's biggest polluter, generates around the world each Year.
$3.8bn- Amount in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 1995, the Year "polluter pays" fees expired.
$0m- Amount of uncommitted dollars in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 2003.
270- Estimated number of court decisions citing federal Negligence in endangered-species protection that remained unheeded during the first year of the Bush administration.
100- Percentage of those decisions that Bush then decided to allow the government to ignore indefinitely.
68.4- Average Number of species added to the Endangered and Threatened Species list each year between 1991 and 2000.
0- Number of endangered species voluntarily added by the Bush administration since taking office.
50- Percentage of screened workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from
long-term health problems, almost half of whom don't have health insurance.
78- Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from lung ailments.
88- Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from ear, nose, or throat problems.
22- Asbestos levels at Ground Zero were 22 times higher than the levels in Libby, Montana, where the W R Grace mine produced one of the worst Superfund disasters in US history.
Image booster for the US
2,500- Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further the image of the US abroad in 1991.
1,200- Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further US image abroad in 2004.
4- Rank of the United States among countries considered to be the greatest threats to world peace according to a 2003 Pew Global Attitudes study (Israel, Iran, and North Korea were considered more dangerous; Iraq was considered less dangerous).
$66bn- Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 1949.
$23.8bn- Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 2002.
85- Percentage of Indonesians who had an unfavourable image of the United States in 2003.
Second-party endorsements
90- Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2001.
67- Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2002.
54- Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 30 September, 2003.
50- Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 15 October 2003.
49- Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president in May 2004.
More like the French than he would care to admit
28- Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2003, the second-longest vacation of any president in US history. (Record holder Richard Nixon.)
13- Number of vacation days the average American receives each Year.
28- Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2001, the month he received a 6 August Presidential Daily Briefing headed "Osama bin Laden Determined to Strike US Targets."
500- Number of days Bush has spent all or part of his time away from the White House at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, his parents' retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, or Camp David as of 1 April 2004.
No fool when it comes to the press
11- Number of press conferences during his first three years in office in which Bush referred to questions as being "trick" ones.
Factors in his favour
3- Number of companies that control the US voting technology market.
52- Percentage of votes cast during the 2002 midterm elections that were recorded by Election Systems & Software, the largest voting-technology firm, a big Republican donor.
29- Percentage of votes that will be cast via computer voting machines that don't produce a paper record.
17- On 17 November 2001, The Economist printed a correction for having said George Bush was properly elected in 2000.
$113m- Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, the most in American electoral history.
$185m- Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign, to the end of March 2004.
$200m- Amount that the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign expects to raise by November 2004.
268- Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Pioneer status (by raising $100,000 each) as of March 2004.
187- Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Ranger status (by raising $200,000 each) as of March 2004.
$64.2m- The Amount Pioneers and Rangers had raised for Bush-Cheney as of March 2004.
85- Percentage of Americans who can't Name the Chief Justice of the United States.
69- Percentage of Americans who believed the White House's claims in September 2003 that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September attacks.
34- Percentage of Americans who believed in June 2003 that Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" had been found.
22- Percentage of Americans who believed in May 2003 that Saddam had used his WMDs on US forces.
85- Percentage of American young adults who cannot find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Israel on a map. 30- Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map.
75- Percentage of American young adults who don't know the population of the United States.
53- Percentage of Canadian young adults who don't know the population of the United States.
11- Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the United States on a map.
30- Percentage of Americans who believe that "politics and government are too complicated to understand."
Another factor in his favour
70m- Estimated number of Americans who describe themselves as Evangelicals who accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour and who interpret the Bible as the direct word of God.
23m- Number of Evangelicals who voted for Bush in 2000.
50m- Number of voters in total who voted for Bush in 2000.
46 -Percentage of voters who describe themselves as born-again Christians.
5- Number of states that do not use the word "evolution" in public school
science courses.

This is an edited extract from "What We've Lost", by Graydon Carter, published by Little Brown on 9 September

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For a former college drop-out from Ontario and, briefly, a lineman stringing up telegraph wires on the railways of Canada, Graydon Carter, 55, has risen to impressive heights. The editor of Vanity Fair since 1992 ­ after succeeding Tina Brown ­ he is one of America's celebrity editors with clout, glamour and a nice line in suits.
©2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. All rights reserved

from AlterNet

The Bush Crusade
By James Carroll, tomdispatch.com
Posted on September 4, 2004, Printed on September 4,

Editor's Note: This is a shortened version of the introduction of 'Crusade, Chronicles of an Unjust War' (Metropolitan Books, 2004).

At the turn of the millennium, the world was braced for terrible things. Most "rational" worries were tied to an anticipated computer glitch, the Y2K problem, and even the most scientifically oriented of people seemed temporarily at the mercy of powerful mythic forces. Imagined hobgoblins leapt from hard drives directly into nightmares. Airlines canceled flights scheduled for the first day of the new year, citing fears that the computers for the traffic-control system would not work. The calendar as such had not previously been a source of dread, but all at once, time itself held a new danger. As the year 2000 approached, I bought bottled water and extra cans of tuna fish. I even withdrew a large amount of cash from the bank. Friends mocked me, then admitted to having done similar things. There were no dances-of-death or outbreaks of flagellant cults, but a millennial fever worthy of medieval superstition infected the most secular of cultures. Of course, the mystical date came and went, the computers did fine, airplanes flew and the world went back to normal.
Then came September 11, 2001, the millennial catastrophe – just a little late. Airplanes fell from the sky, thousands died and an entirely new kind of horror gripped the human imagination. Time, too, played its role, but time as warped by television, which created a global simultaneity, turning the whole human race into a witness, as the awful events were endlessly replayed, as if those bodies leaping from the Twin Towers would never hit the ground. Nightmare in broad daylight. New York's World Trade Center collapsed not just onto the surrounding streets but into the hearts of every person with access to CNN. Hundreds of millions of people instinctively reached out to those they loved, grateful to be alive. Death had shown itself in a new way. But if a vast throng experienced the terrible events of 9/11 as one, only one man, the President of the United States, bore a unique responsibility for finding a way to respond to them.
George W. Bush plumbed the deepest place in himself, looking for a simple expression of what the assaults of September 11 required. It was his role to lead the nation, and the very world. The President, at a moment of crisis, defines the communal response. A few days after the assault, George W. Bush did this. Speaking spontaneously, without the aid of advisers or speechwriters, he put a word on the new American purpose that both shaped it and gave it meaning. "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism."
Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad.
For George W. Bush, crusade was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, it was an accidental probing of unintended but nevertheless real meaning. That the President used the word inadvertently suggests how it expressed his exact truth, an unmasking of his most deeply felt purpose. Crusade, he said. Later, his embarrassed aides suggested that he had meant to use the word only as a synonym for struggle, but Bush's own syntax belied that. He defined crusade as war. Even offhandedly, he had said exactly what he meant.
Osama bin Laden was already understood to be trying to spark a "clash of civilizations" that would set the West against the whole House of Islam. After 9/11, agitated voices on all sides insisted that no such clash was inevitable. But crusade was a match for jihad, and such words threatened nothing less than apocalyptic conflict between irreconcilable cultures. Indeed, the President's reference flashed through the Arab news media. Its resonance went deeper, even, than the embarrassed aides expected – and not only among Muslims. After all, the word refers to a long series of military campaigns, which, taken together, were the defining event in the shaping of what we call Western civilization. A coherent set of political, economic, social and even mythological traditions of the Eurasian continent, from the British Isles to the far side of Arabia, grew out of the transformations wrought by the Crusades. And it is far from incidental still, both that those campaigns were conducted by Christians against Muslims, and that they, too, were attached to the irrationalities of millennial fever.
If the American President was the person carrying the main burden of shaping a response to the catastrophe of September 11, his predecessor in such a grave role, nearly a thousand years earlier, was the Catholic pope. Seeking to overcome the century-long dislocations of a postmillennial Christendom, he rallied both its leaders and commoners with a rousing call to holy war. Muslims were the infidel people who had taken the Holy Land hundreds of years before. Now, that occupation was defined as an intolerable blasphemy. The Holy Land must be redeemed. Within months of the pope's call, 100,000 people had "taken the cross" to reclaim the Holy Land for Christ. As a proportion of the population of Europe, a comparable movement today would involve more than a million people, dropping everything to go to war.
In the name of Jesus, and certain of God's blessing, crusaders launched what might be called "shock and awe" attacks everywhere they went. In Jerusalem they savagely slaughtered Muslims and Jews alike – practically the whole city. Eventually, Latin crusaders would turn on Eastern Christians, and then on Christian heretics, as blood lust outran the initial "holy" impulse. That trail of violence scars the earth and human memory even to this day – especially in the places where the crusaders wreaked their havoc. And the mental map of the Crusades, with Jerusalem at the center of the earth, still defines world politics. But the main point, in relation to Bush's instinctive response to 9/11, is that those religious invasions and wars of long ago established a cohesive Western identity precisely in opposition to Islam, an opposition that survives to this day.
With the Crusades, the violent theology of the killer God came into its own. To save the world, in this understanding, God willed the violent death of God's only beloved son. Here is the relevance of that mental map, for the crusaders were going to war to rescue the site of the salvific death of Jesus, and they displayed their devotion to the cross on which Jesus died by wearing it on their breasts. When Bush's remark was translated into Arabic for broadcast throughout the Middle East, the word "crusade" was rendered as "war of the cross."
Before the Crusades, Christian theology had given central emphasis to the resurrection of Jesus, and to the idea of incarnation itself, but with the war of the cross, the bloody crucifixion began to dominate the Latin Christian imagination. A theology narrowly focused on the brutal death of Jesus reinforced the primitive notion that violence can be a sacred act. The cult of martyrdom, even to the point of suicidal valor, was institutionalized in the Crusades, and it is not incidental to the events of 9/11 that a culture of sacred self-destruction took equally firm hold among Muslims. The suicide-murderers of the World Trade Center, like the suicide-bombers from the West Bank and Gaza, exploit a perverse link between the willingness to die for a cause and the willingness to kill for it. Crusaders, thinking of heaven, honored that link too.
Here is the deeper significance of Bush's inadvertent reference to the Crusades: Instead of being a last recourse or a necessary evil, violence was established then as the perfectly appropriate, even chivalrous, first response to what is wrong in the world. George W. Bush is a Christian for whom this particular theology lives. While he identified Jesus as his favorite "political philosopher" when running for President in 2000, the Jesus of this evangelical President is not the "turn the other cheek" one. Bush's savior is the Jesus whose cross is wielded as a sword. George W. Bush, having cheerfully accepted responsibility for the executions of 152 death-row inmates in Texas, had already shown himself to be entirely at home with divinely sanctioned violence. After 9/11, no wonder it defined his deepest urge.
But sacred violence, once unleashed in 1096, as in 2001, had a momentum of its own. The urgent purpose of war against the "enemy outside" – what some today call the "clash of civilizations" – led quickly to the discovery of an "enemy inside." The crusaders, en route from northwestern Europe to attack the infidel far away, first fell upon, as they said, "the infidel near at hand" – Jews. For the first time in Europe, large numbers of Jews were murdered for being Jews. A crucifixion-obsessed theology saw God as willing the death of Jesus, but in the bifurcated evangelical imagination, Jews could be blamed for it, and the offense the crusaders took was mortal.
The same dynamic – war against an enemy outside leading to war against an enemy inside – can be seen at work today. It is a more complex dynamic now, with immigrant Muslims and people of Arabic descent coming under heavy pressure in the West. In Europe, Muslims are routinely demonized. In America, they are "profiled," even to the point of being deprived of basic rights. But at the same time, once again, Jews are targeted. The broad resurgence of anti-Semitism, and the tendency to scapegoat Israel as the primary source of the new discord, reflect an old tidal pull. This is true notwithstanding the harsh fact that Ariel Sharon's government took up the Bush "dead or alive" credo with enthusiasm and used the "war on terrorism" to fuel self-defeating overreactions to Palestinian provocations. But some of Israel's critics fall into the old pattern of measuring Jews against standards to which no one else is held, not even our President. That the war on terrorism is the context within which violence in Israel and Jerusalem has intensified should be no surprise. It wasn't "Israel" then, but conflict over Jerusalem played exactly such a flashpoint role a thousand years ago.
The Crusades proved to have other destructive dynamics as well. The medieval war against Islam, having also targeted Europe's Jews, soon enough became a war against all forms of cultural and religious dissent, a war against heresy. As it hadn't been in hundreds of years, doctrine now became rigidly defined in the Latin West, and those who did not affirm dominant interpretations – Cathars, Albigensians, Eastern Orthodox – were attacked. Doctrinal uniformity, too, could be enforced with sacred violence. When the US Attorney General defines criticism of the Administration in wartime as treason, or when Congress enacts legislation that justifies the erosion of civil liberties with appeals to patriotism, they are enacting a Crusades script.
All of this is implicit in the word that President Bush first used, which came to him as naturally as a baseball reference, to define the war on terrorism. That such a dark, seething religious history of sacred violence remains largely unspoken in our world does not defuse it as an explosive force in the human unconscious. In the world of Islam, of course, its meaning could not be more explicit, or closer to consciousness. The full historical and cultural significance of "crusade" is instantly obvious, which is why a howl of protest from the Middle East drove Bush into instant verbal retreat. Yet the very inadvertence of his use of the word is the revelation: Americans do not know what fire they are playing with. Osama bin Laden, however, knows all too well, and in his periodic pronouncements, he uses the word "crusade" to this day, as a flamethrower.
Religious war is the danger here, and it is a graver one than Americans think. Despite our much-vaunted separation of church and state, America has always had a quasi-religious understanding of itself, reflected in the messianism of Puritan founder John Winthrop, the Deist optimism of Thomas Jefferson, the embrace of redemptive suffering that marked Abraham Lincoln and, for that matter, the conviction of Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, that Communism had to be opposed on a global scale if only because of its atheism. But never before has America been brought deeper into a dynamite-wired holy of holies than in our President's war on terrorism. Despite the post-Iraq toning down of Washington's rhetoric of empire, and the rejection of further crusader references – although Secretary of State Colin Powell used the word this past March – Bush's war openly remains a cosmic battle between nothing less than the transcendent forces of good and evil. Such a battle is necessarily unlimited and open-ended, and so justifies radical actions – the abandonment, for example, of established notions of civic justice at home and of traditional alliances abroad.
A cosmic moral-religious battle justifies, equally, risks of world-historic proportioned disaster, since the ultimate outcome of such a conflict is to be measured not by actual consequences on this earth but by the earth-transcending will of God. Our war on terrorism, before it is anything else, is thus an imagined conflict, taking place primarily in a mythic realm beyond history.
In waging such a "war," the enemy is to be engaged everywhere and nowhere, not just because the actual nihilists who threaten the social order are faceless and deracinated but because each fanatical suicide-bomber is only an instance of the transcendent enemy – and so the other face of us. Each terrorist is, in effect, a sacrament of the larger reality, which is "terrorism." Instead of perceiving unconnected centers of inhuman violence – tribal warlords, Mafia chieftains, nationalist fighters, xenophobic Luddites – President Bush projects the grandest and most interlocking strategies of conspiracy, belief and organization. By the canonization of the war on terrorism, petty nihilists are elevated to the status of world-historic warriors, exactly the fate they might have wished for. This is why the conflict readily bleeds from one locus to another – Afghanistan then, Iraq now, Iran or some other land of evil soon – and why, for that matter, the targeted enemies are entirely interchangeable – here Osama bin Laden, there Saddam Hussein, here the leader of Iran, there of North Korea. They are all essentially one enemy – one "axis" – despite their differences from one another, or even hatred of one another.
Hard-boiled men and women who may not share Bush's fervent spirituality can nonetheless support his purpose because, undergirding the new ideology, there is an authentic global crisis that requires an urgent response. New technologies are now making it possible for small groups of nihilists, or even single individuals, to wreak havoc on a scale unprecedented in history. This is the ultimate "asymmetric threat." The attacks of 9/11, amplified by the murderous echo of the anthrax mailer, the as-yet-unapprehended psychopath who sent deadly letters to journalists and government officials in the weeks after 9/11, put that new condition on display for all the world to see. Innovations in physics, biology, chemistry and information technology – and soon, possibly, in nanotechnology and genetic engineering – have had the unforeseen effect of threatening to put in a few hands the destructive power that, in former times, could be exercised only by sizable armies. This is the real condition to which the Bush Administration is responding. The problem is actual, if not yet fully present.
So, to put the best face on the Bush agenda (leaving aside questions of oil, global market control and economic or military hegemony), a humane project of antiproliferation can be seen at its core. Yet a nation that was trying to promote the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, would behave precisely as the Bush Administration has behaved over the past three years. The Pentagon's chest-thumping concept of "full spectrum dominance" itself motivates other nations to seek sources of countervailing power, and when the United States actually goes to war to impose its widely disputed notion of order on some states, but not others, nations – friendly as well as unfriendly – find themselves with an urgent reason to acquire some means of deterring such intervention.
The odd and tragic thing is that the world before Bush was actually nearing consensus on how to manage the problem of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and had begun to put in place promising structures designed to prevent such spread. Centrally embodied in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968, which had successfully and amazingly kept the number of nuclear powers, actual as well as admitted, relatively low, that consensus gave primacy to treaty obligations, international cooperation and a serious commitment by existing nuclear powers to move toward ultimate nuclear abolition. All of that has been trashed by Bush. "International law?" he smirked in December 2003. "I better call my lawyer."
Now indications are that nations all over the globe – Japan, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, Australia – have begun re-evaluating their rejections of nukes, and some are positively rushing to acquire them. Iran and North Korea are likely to be only the tip of this radioactive iceberg. Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India are a grim forecast of the future on every continent. And the Bush Administration – by declaring its own nuclear arsenal permanent, by threatening nuclear first-strikes against other nations, by "warehousing" treaty-defused warheads instead of destroying them, by developing a new line of "usable" nukes, by moving to weaponize the "high frontier" of outer space, by doing little to help Russia get rid of its rotting nuclear stockpile, by embracing "preventive war" – is enabling this trend instead of discouraging it. How can this be?
The problem has its roots in a long-term American forgetfulness, going back to the acid fog in which the United States ended World War II. There was never a complete moral reckoning with the harsh momentum of that conflict's denouement – how American leaders embraced a strategy of terror bombing, slaughtering whole urban populations, and how, finally, they ushered in the atomic age with the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Scholars have debated those questions, but politicians have avoided them, and most citizens have pretended they aren't really questions at all. America's enduring assumptions about its own moral supremacy, its own altruism, its own exceptionalism, have hardly been punctured by consideration of the possibility that we, too, are capable of grave mistakes, terrible crimes. Such awareness, drawn from a fuller reckoning with days gone by – with August 6 and 9, 1945, above all – would inhibit America's present claim to moral grandeur, which is simultaneously a claim, of course, to economic and political grandiosity. The indispensable nation must dispense with what went before.
"The past is never dead," William Faulkner said. "It isn't even past." How Americans remember their country's use of terror bombing affects how they think of terrorism; how they remember the first use of nuclear weapons has profound relevance for how the United States behaves in relation to nuclear weapons today. If the long American embrace of nuclear "mutual assured destruction" is unexamined; if the Pentagon's treaty-violating rejection of the ideal of eventual nuclear abolition is unquestioned – then the Bush Administration's embrace of nukes as normal, usable weapons will not seem offensive.
Memory is a political act. Forgetfulness is the handmaiden of tyranny. The Bush Administration is fully committed to maintaining what the historian Marc Trachtenberg calls our "nuclear amnesia" even as the Administration seeks to impose a unilateral structure of control on the world. As it pursues a world-threatening campaign against other people's weapons of mass destruction, that is, the Bush Administration refuses to confront the moral meaning of America's own weapons of mass destruction, not to mention their viral character, as other nations seek smaller versions of the American arsenal, if only to deter Bush's next "preventive" war. The United States' own arsenal, in other words, remains the primordial cause of the WMD plague.
"Memory," the novelist Paul Auster has written, is "the space in which a thing happens for the second time." No one wants the terrible events that came after the rising of the sun on September 11, 2001, to happen for a second time except in the realm of remembrance, leading to understanding and commitment. But all the ways George Bush exploited those events, betraying the memory of those who died in them, must be lifted up and examined again, so that the outrageousness of his political purpose can be felt in its fullness. Exactly how the war on terrorism unfolded; how it bled into the wars against Afghanistan, then Iraq; how American fears were exacerbated by Administration alarms; how civil rights were undermined, treaties broken, alliances abandoned, coarseness embraced – none of this should be forgotten.
Given how they have been so dramatically unfulfilled, Washington's initial hubristic impulses toward a new imperial dominance should not be forgotten. That the first purpose of the war – Osama "dead or alive" – changed when Al Qaeda proved elusive should not be forgotten. That the early justification for the war against Iraq – Saddam's weapons of mass destruction – changed when they proved nonexistent should not be forgotten. That in former times the US government behaved as if facts mattered, as if evidence informed policy, should not be forgotten. That Afghanistan and Iraq are a shambles, with thousands dead and hundreds of thousands at risk from disease, disorder and despair, should not be forgotten. That a now-disdainful world gave itself in unbridled love to America on 9/11 should not be forgotten.
Nor, given Bush's reference, should the most relevant fact about the Crusades be forgotten – that, on their own terms and notwithstanding the romance of history, they were, in the end, an overwhelming failure. The 1096 campaign, the "First Crusade," finally "succeeded" in 1099, when a remnant army fell upon Jerusalem, slaughtering much of its population. But armies under Saladin reasserted Islamic control in 1187, and subsequent Crusades never succeeded in re-establishing Latin dominance in the Holy Land. The reconquista Crusades reclaimed Spain and Portugal for Christian Europe, but in the process destroyed the glorious Iberian convivencia, a high civilization never to be matched below the Pyrenees again.
Meanwhile, intra-Christian crusades, wars against heresy, only made permanent the East-West split between Latin Catholicism and "schismatic" Eastern Orthodoxy, and made inevitable the eventual break, in the Reformation, between a Protestant north and a Catholic south. The Crusades, one could argue, established basic structures of Western civilization, while undermining the possibility that their grandest ideals would ever be realized.
Will such consequences – new global structures of an American imperium, hollowed-out hopes for a humane and just internationalism – follow in the train of George W. Bush's crusade? This question will be answered in smaller part by anonymous, ad hoc armies of on-the-ground human beings in foreign lands, many of whom will resist Washington to the death. In larger part, the question will be answered by those privileged to be citizens of the United States. To us falls the ultimate power over the American moral and political agenda. As has never been true of any empire before, because this one is still a democracy, such power belongs to citizens absolutely. If the power is ours, so is the responsibility.

Reprinted by arrangement with Metropolitan Books.
© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved

If only this were true...
Blondie

Bush Is A Christian? So Was Adolph Hitler
by Kurt Vonnegut
I, like probably most of you, have seen Michael MooreÕs Fahrenheit 9/11. Its title is a parody of the title of Ray BradburyÕs great science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. This temperature 451¡ Fahrenheit, is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of BradburyÕs novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books. And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. And still on the subject of books: Our daily sources of news, papers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books can we find out what is really going on. I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published near the start of this humiliating, shameful blood-soaked year. In case you havenÕt noticed, and as a result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war lovers, with appallingly powerful weaponry and unopposed. In case you havenÕt noticed, we are now almost as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis were. With good reason. In case you havenÕt noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound and kill Õem and torture Õem and imprison Õem all we want. Piece of cake. In case you havenÕt noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send Õem anywhere. Make Õem do anything. Piece of cake. The OÕReilly Factor. So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and the Chicago-based magazine you are reading, In These Times. Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed that there were weapons of mass destruction there. Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadnÕt even seen World War I. War is now a form of TV entertainment. And what made WWI so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun. Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. DonÕt you wish you could have something named after you? Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now am tempted to give up on people too. And, as some of you may know, this is not the first time I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine. My last words? ÒLife is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse.Ó Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas! Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without a sense of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own? --

posted 08.31.04, reprinted from In These Times

I love this 'toon
Blondie

Pot Shrinks Tumors;
Government Knew in '74
By Raymond Cushing, AlterNet
The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.
The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects.
Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.
The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.
The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out - unsuccessfully - to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high."
The Madrid researchers reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.
The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University, also irrigated healthy rats' brains with large doses of THC for seven days, to test for harmful biochemical or neurological effects. They found none.
"Careful MRI analysis of all those tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage related to necrosis, edema, infection or trauma ... We also examined other potential side effects of cannabinoid administration. In both tumor-free and tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid administration induced no substantial change in behavioral parameters such as motor coordination or physical activity. Food and water intake as well as body weight gain were unaffected during and after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the general hematological profiles of cannabinoid-treated rats were normal. Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor markers of tissue damage changed substantially during the 7-day delivery period or for at least 2 months after cannabinoid treatment ended."
Guzman's investigation is the only time since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has been administered to live tumor-bearing animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a 1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, but that was a "petri dish" experiment that didn't involve live subjects.)
In an email interview for this story, the Madrid researcher said he had heard of the Virginia study, but had never been able to locate literature on it. Hence, the Nature Medicine article characterizes the new study as the first on tumor-laden animals and doesn't cite the 1974 Virginia investigation.
"I am aware of the existence of that research. In fact I have attempted many times to obtain the journal article on the original investigation by these people, but it has proven impossible." Guzman said.
In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer, who states, "We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared."
Guzman provided the title of the work - "Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids," an article in a 1975 Journal of the National Cancer Institute - and this writer obtained a copy at the University of California medical school library in Davis and faxed it to Madrid.
The summary of the Virginia study begins, "Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBN)" - two types of cannabinoids, a family of active components in marijuana. "Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor size."
The 1975 journal article doesn't mention breast cancer tumors, which featured in the only newspaper story ever to appear about the 1974 study - in the Local section of the Washington Post on August 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part:
"The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."
Guzman, writing from Madrid, was eloquent in his response after this writer faxed him the clipping from the Washington Post of a quarter century ago. In translation, he wrote:
"It is extremely interesting to me, the hope that the project seemed to awaken at that moment, and the sad evolution of events during the years following the discovery, until now we once again Îdraw back the veilâ over the anti-tumoral power of THC, twenty-five years later. Unfortunately, the world bumps along between such moments of hope and long periods of intellectual castration."
News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article. This writer stumbled on it through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report web page. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors.

Raymond Cushing is a journalist, musician and filmmaker. This article was named by Project Censored as a "Top Censored Story of 2000."

BUSH FAILS CEO TEST
by Juan Cole, published by Informed Comment
Bush gave a long speech Thursday night, which sounded like a laundry list of promises more than anything else. He pointed to few genuine accomplishments during the past four years, and seemed stuck in fall, 2001. If you think about George W. Bush as CEO of America, Inc., it becomes clearer why his poll numbers have been so low (low to mid forties) in the run up to the election. No president with those kinds of poll numbers in the spring before the election has ever won. Bush's basic characteristic is not steadfastness, as the convention attempted to argue, but rashness. He is a gambler who goes for the big bang. He loses his temper easily, and makes hasty and uninformed decisions about important matters. No corporation would keep on a CEO that took risks the way Bush has, if the gambles so often resulted in huge losses. Let us imagine you had a corporation with annual gross revenues of about $2 trillion. And let's say that in 2000, it had profits of $150 billion. So you bring in a new CEO, and within four years, the profit falls to zero and then the company goes into the red to the tune of over $400 billion per year. You're on the Board of Directors and the CEO's term is up for renewal. Do you vote to keep him in? That's what Bush did to the US government. He took it from surpluses to deep in the red. We are all paying interest on the unprecedented $400 billion per year in deficits (a deficit is just a loan), and our grandchildren will be paying the interest in all likelihood. And what if you had been working for America, Inc. all your life, and were vested in its pension plan (i.e. social security)? And you heard that the company is now hemorrhaging money and that the losses are going to be paid for out of your pension? What if you thought you were going to get $1000 a month to retire on, and it is only going to be $500? Or maybe nothing at all? Because of the new CEO whose management turned a profit-making enterprise into an economic loser? Would you vote to keep him on? What if the CEO convinced himself that the Mesopotamia Corp. was planning a hostile takeover? What if he had appointed a lot of senior vice-presidents who were either incompetent boobs or had some kind of backroom deal going with crooked brokers, and fed him false information that Mesopotamia Corp. was making a move and had amassed a big war chest for the purpose? And what if, to avoid this imaginary threat, he launched a preemptive hostile takeover of his own, spending at least $200 billion to accomplish it (on top of the more than $400 billion he is already losing every year)? Remember, it was a useless expenditure. It turns out that Mesopotamia Corp. was a creaky old dinosaur with no cash reserves, and couldn't have launched a hostile takeover of the neighborhood mom and pop store. And, moreover, its arena of operations is extremely dangerous, and nearly a thousand America, Inc. workers get killed taking it over. And it turns out that the managers that the CEO put into Mesopotamia Corp. were bunglers. They adopted policies that made the taken-over employees bitter and sullen and uncooperative. Instead of standing on its own, the wholly owned subsidiary of Mesopotamia, Inc., requires continued infusion of capital from America, Inc. It looks increasingly as though Mesopotamia, Inc., will have to be let loose, and that its new managers will opt for interest-free Islamic banking as soon as they can. Meanwhile, the real threat of a hostile takeover comes from al-Qaeda, Inc. Because 138,000 employees had to be assigned to Mesopotamia, Inc., there are few left to meet that challenge. So given this kind of record, do you vote this CEO back in? It is often said that a lot of Americans want to stick with Bush to "see Iraq through." But if you think about him as a CEO, and look at how well he has run things, you can see the idiocy of this argument. The real question is, do you throw good money after bad?

"Just Give Me Some Truth"
In the 1960s and 70s a revolution swept across our nation. Political unrest motivated musicians, writers, artists and homegrown terrorist organizations like the Black Panthers and the Weatherman. People were dissatisfied then, they're dissatisfied today.If the 2004 election were held today George W. Bush would win the electoral vote and lose the popular vote. Just like in 2000. It's not right. A president chosen by its people not politicians should represent our country. It's time for a change. It's time to get pissed off enough to actually do something about it. It's time for someone to step up and point fingers. It's time for some truth© Just give me some truth!Seattle recording project Mountain Con has done this very thing. They have answered the call with a politically charged re-mix of a classic John Lennon anti-war anthem, adding in both the White Stripes and Outkast to make one hell of a statement. Check it out and pass it on!!!

The Daily Mislead...

BUSH MISLEADS ON TAX CODE COMPLEXITYLast night, accepting the Republican nomination, President Bush said a "drag on our economy is the current tax code, which is a complicated mess, filled with special interest loopholes."[1] Bush noted that the American people were saddled with "6 billion hours of paperwork and headache every year," and said that he was the candidate to create "a simpler, fairer" system.[2] But during the last four years, Bush has pushed through changes to the tax code far more complicated and burdensome for taxpayers. According to official Internal Revenue Service estimates from 2000 to 2003, "the time required for the set of forms associated with the 1040 has increased by 3 hours and 8 minutes."[3] The average taxpayer spent 1 hour and 20 minutes longer filing his or her taxes in 2002 than in 2003[4] Worse, while the tax cuts themselves have gone overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans, "the increased time spent filling out forms has been more democratically distributed."[5] Many taxpayers not getting much of a reduction at all have to fill out the same forms that save others millions.

Sources: 1. "Text: President Bush's Acceptance Speech to the Republican National Convention ," The Washington Post, 9/02/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2198579&l=53415.
2. Ibid, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=2198579&l=53415.
3. "Economic Snapshot," Economic Policy Institute, 9/2/04.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Bush Skates Past Iraq
Bush's speech may have been effective and affecting, but it, like all the other Republican speeches, manipulated 9/11 and contained the usual cant on Iraq.
Discarding pleasantries, Bush alluded to 9/11 in his second sentence. He might have been worried that a lot of viewers would fall asleep before he had a chance to maximize the propaganda value of that event. So he brought it up early and often and dwelled on it at the end.
In between, he tried to pawn himself off as Mr. Compassionate Conservative. He reached out especially to working people and to women.
Sounding like John Kerry or John Sweeney, he said, "Government must take the side of working families." But the devil was in the details: He talked about comp-time, which he's trying to let employers use instead of overtime.
Sounding like Hillary Clinton, he said, "Two-thirds of all moms also work outside the home. . . . And government must take your side."
Like a liberal Democrat, he vowed to increase spending on job training, community colleges, affordable housing, and rural and community health clinics in every poor county in America. (On the last promise, my wife, who is a Headstart nurse, said, "I'll believe it when I see it.")
Continuing in this vein, he said he would "enroll millions of poor children" in government health insurance programs and expand Pell grants.
And he reached out to Latinos by saying "no child left behind" in rusty Spanish.
Of course, he pulled out the usual Republican plans to privatize part of Social Security, to require more work for those in welfare reform programs, to reduce regulation on corporations, to limit medical and product-liability lawsuits, and to make permanent his regressive tax cuts.
But he took pains to emphasize his "compassionate conservative philosophy." This worked for him last time, but can people really be fooled twice with the same lure?
He also threw out some bones to social conservatives, but they didn't have as much red meat on them as the rabid ones might have hoped.
On abortion, he said, "We must make a place for the unborn child." He did not say that Roe v. Wade should be overturned.
On gay marriage, he said, "I support the protection of marriage against activist judges." He did not say he favored a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Though he gamely ran down the list of domestic issues, he did not become fully engaged until the halfway mark, when he centered his speech on--and we all knew this was coming--September 11.
"Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country," he said.
Maybe he should have been thinking about that in the nine months prior to 9/11.
He talked about what he's done "to protect our homeland." But he didn't say anything about safeguarding chemical plants or nuclear plants, and for good reason. He's left them as vulnerable today as they were on September 10, 2001.
Nor did he mention Osama bin Laden, a name that he won't bring himself to utter. Karl Rove must have told him that until the United States captures or kills bin Laden, his name should not pass their lips.
(Just imagine if Democrats had been in power on September 11. The President would have been pummeled daily on talk radio and Fox for letting the attack happen. And if the President hadn't caught bin Laden three years after the attack, they would have been calling for the President's head.)
But it was on Iraq that Bush was the most disingenuous.
First, he tried, almost like Bill Clinton, to make himself the pitiable object of the story. "I faced the kind of decision that comes only to the Oval Office, a decision no President would ask for."
Come on! You asked for it, George. Admit it: You wanted to get rid of Saddam almost since the first day you came to power. (Richard Clarke's book shows how obsessed the Administration was, from day one, in knocking Saddam off. In March 2002, according to Time magazine, Bush said to visiting Congresspeople in the White House, "Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out.")
But Bush kept up the façade that invading Iraq was something thrust upon him: "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."
Bush said he was faced with the following dilemma: "Do I forget the lessons of September 11 and take the word of a madman or do I take action to defend our country?"
Note how Bush fused September 11 and Saddam together in that one sentence.
But there is another dishonesty here. Bush didn't need to "take the word of a madman."
He could have taken the word of the U.N. weapons inspectors. They were given unprecedented access to sites all over Iraq, and they reported back that they could not find the huge stockpiles of weapons and they needed more time to search. Mohammed el-Baradei, head of the United Nations nuclear inspections, even said flat-out that "we have found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program."
But Bush didn't want to hear those words.
He also could have listened to the words of CIA Director George Tenet, who said that it was unlikely that Saddam would attack the United States or hand off his weapons to terrorists.
But Bush didn't want to hear those words, either.
And he was not content to let U.S. spy planes survey every square inch of Iraqi territory 24/7.
No, he was deadset on war. So much so that, even if Saddam had backed down at the last minute, Bush still would have ordered the invasion. "If Saddam Hussein leaves, we'll go in anyway," Bush said, just days before the launch, according to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack."
In his speech, Bush also minimized the current chaos in Iraq, referring only to "ongoing acts of violence." That's putting it mildly.
And he said, "The Army of Iraq is fighting for freedom," when it is actually the U.S. Army that is doing most of the fighting.
He gave no hint how long U.S. troops will be there, how many are likely to die or be injured, and what the final cost will be.
He just skated right by.
Bush distorted other situations, as well.
He made the Israel/Palestine crisis out to be the fault only of the Palestinians. And he bizarrely claimed that the United States had aided the rise of democracy in Nicaragua when, in actual fact, Ronald Reagan armed and trained the contras to wreak havoc in Nicaragua.
Bush ended with a few hymns of messianic militarism.
"America is called to lead the cause of freedom in a new century," he said. "We have a calling from beyond the stars." And he repeated a line from his State of the Union address: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world, it is the almighty God's gift to every man and woman in this world."
By implication, Bush is just serving as God's delivery boy.
-- Matthew Rothschild

"Purple Heart" Band-aids a Mockery of Service
A Statement from Thomas H. Corey, National President, Vietnam Veterans of America
(Washington, D.C.) – Vietnam Veterans of America has received reports of delegates at the Republican National Convention disseminating and wearing "Purple Heart" band-aids in mockery of one of nation’s most distinctive honors, the Purple Heart medal.The Purple Heart is one of the oldest military awards, first introduced in 1782 by Gen. George Washington to honor the service and sacrifice of the common soldier and recognize the spirit of volunteerism and selfless dedication. It was reinstated in 1932. The Purple Heart is awarded to members of the armed forces who are wounded by the enemy. The spirit of the award recognizes the personal sacrifice of our troops without regard to the severity or nature of the wound. It is the wounding itself that merits the honor. To demean the decoration and the sacrifice it symbolizes demeans all veterans and the patriots who honor them.With our nation’s sons and daughters at war to protect global freedom, demeaning military service in this way is especially hurtful. Vietnam Veterans of America urges all Americans to decry this type of outrageous, disrespectful, and infantile behavior.

Zell Tries to Hide GOP's Record of Defense Cutting

[Zell's hypocracy knows no bounds]

Columbus, OH -- Last night, while attempting to condemn John Kerry on defense issues, Zell Miller conveniently papered over Vice President Dick Cheney’s disastrous record of reckless defense cuts. What Miller failed to tell the viewers was that during Vice President Cheney’s tenure as Secretary of Defense, he proposed some of the largest cuts to our military in history.
Cheney’s anti-military proposals include:

As Secretary of Defense under Bush Sr., Cheney launched a major Dept. of Defense downsizing, cutting major weapons programs: “I’ve always liked to remind everybody at the outset that we are already embarked upon a massive reduction in U.S. military capability, a 25-percent cut in force structure. We’ve got the lowest active force today that we’ve had since before Korea. I’ve eliminated 70,000 civilian jobs in the last 18 months out of the Pentagon. I’ve closed or terminated 81 programs. We’re shutting down 300 military bases worldwide. It’s a massive reduction already underway.” [Source: Cheney on ABC’s “This Week,” 9/29/91]
Cheney on shutting down F-14D production:
“What I recommended to the Committee was that we shut down the new F-14D production line, which will save almost $2.5 billion...” [Source: Newsday, 2/5/91; Cheney testimony to House Armed Services Committee, 7/13/89]
Cheney cutting B-2 bombers by 45%: “Defense Secretary Richard Cheney announced a cutback… of nearly 45 percent in the administration’s B-2 Stealth bomber program, from 132 airplanes to 75.” [Source: Boston Globe, 4/27/90]
Cheney forcing AH-64 Apache cuts: “This is just a list of some of the programs that I’ve recommended termination: the V-22 Osprey, the F-14D, the Army Helicopter Improvement Program, Phoenix missile, F-15E, the Apache helicopter, the M1 tank, et cetera.” [Source: Cheney testimony, Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee, 6/12/90]
”The Army, as I indicated in my earlier testimony, recommended to me that we keep a robust Apache helicopter program going forward, AH-64…I forced the Army to make choices…So I recommended that we cancel the AH-64 program two years out.” [Source: Cheney testimony, House Armed Services Committee, 7/13/89]
Cheney cutting off F-13 program: “Cheney signed off on the fiscal 1991 recisions on Jan. 7, more than a week before the start of the war with Iraq. The decision to cut off F-14 remanufacture - modernizing F-14As into Ds - is consistent with what sources said is an apparent Cheney fiscal 1992 budget decision to turn down the Navy’s request for new F-14D procurement, while supporting funding for an upgraded F/A-18 with increased strike capability. F-14 funds recissions were from the procurement account, sources said.”
Cheney on ending F-15 production: “But the overall message brought out by Cheney on Wednesday was that the industry will face cutbacks through the mid-1990s…The Pentagon plan includes an end to production of the Grumman F-14 and McDonnell F-15 jet fighters, both of which have significant content in California, including radars built by Hughes.” [Source: Los Angeles Times, 1/30/92]
More importantly, as we look to the future of our intelligence community and our nations national security, the President’s nominee to head the intelligence community has consistently pushed to cut our intelligence budget. Just last month the Washington Post reported that Rep. Porter Goss proposed intelligence cuts larger than anything Kerry ever supported – and Goss’s cuts targeted human intelligence: “But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry and specifically targeted the “human intelligence” that has recently been found lacking. The recent report by the commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks called for more spending on human intelligence.” [Source: Washington Post, 8/24/04]
Zell Miller Praises Kerry in 2001
In 2001 at the Georgia Democratic Party Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner Senator Miller had praised John Kerry’s leadership and service. Now only three years later his tune has changed leaving one to wonder whether Mr. Miller’s statements have any credibility.
Zell Miller in 2001 speaking about John Kerry:
“My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation’s authentic heroes, one of this party’s best-known and greatest leaders—and a good friend. He was once a lieutenant governor—but he didn’t stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984.—U.S. Sen. Zell Miller (Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001)…..
“In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment.”—U.S. Sen. Zell Miller (Remarks to the Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001)

Lie of the Day...

September 3
Energy
Rhetoric: “Our administration … developed the first energy plan in a long period of time for this government. Now, energy means we’ve got to conserve better, and we will.” [Source: President Bush Remarks to Teamsters barbecue, 9/3/01]

Reality: The Bush energy plan ignores energy efficiency. The Bush energy plan dishes out $34 billion in tax breaks to the energy industry. 72% that goes to encourage production of fossil fuels. Only 12% goes to encourage efficiency and convservation. [Source: Citizens for Tax Justice Policy Brief, 8/17/01]

Posted by Brendan Gilfillan, Research Intern at 09:35 AM

From Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)

‏Around 3,000 people killed, 11,600 injured in Iraq over the last four months ‏
‏SEC-IRAQ-MINISTRY-VICTIMS ‏
Around 3,000 people killed, 11,600 injured in Iraq over the last four months‏
‏‏
BAGHDAD, Sept 3 (KUNA) -- The Iraqi health ministry announced on Friday ‏
‏that 2,956 people were killed and 11,669 others were injured due to clashes ‏
‏and terror attacks in several Iraqi cities over the last four months.‏
‏ A well-placed source at the ministry told the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) the ‏
‏victims fell during the period from April 5 to August 31 this year.‏
‏ ---There are 157 women and 125 children among the killed, while 508 women and ‏
‏310 children were injured during this period.‏
--- A total of 829 people including 57 women and 42 children were killed in the ‏
‏capital city, Baghdad alone, while the injured totaled 4,652 including 241 ‏
‏ women and 151 children.‏
‏ --- In the Moslem holy city of Najaf, 528 people were killed including nine ‏
‏women and three children, while 2,039 others were injured including 37 women ‏
‏and 27 children.‏
The case was worse in the Anbar governorate, to which the cities of Falluja ‏
‏and Ramadi belong; there were 620 persons killed including 33 women and 53 ‏
‏children and 1,441 injured including 88 women and 67 children.

Cheney Smugs for the Camera
Matthew Rothschild, Editor, Progressive Magazine
A hero to the conservatives at the Republican Convention, Dick Cheney could not have found a more sympathetic crowd, except perhaps at the annual meeting of the Halliburton corporation.
He soaked up the applause, and then, in his smug monotone, began his case, oddly invoking the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who stood for everything Cheney opposes.
After the obligatory autobiographical bow to the promise of America, Cheney spent less than 10 percent of his time racing through Bush's domestic achievements. Granted, he did not have much to deal with there.
On the economy, he said, "President Bush delivered the greatest tax reduction in a generation, and the results are clear to see."
Indeed, they are: A net loss of one million jobs, stagnant wages, the stock market in the doldrums, and consumer confidence on the decline.
On health care, he said, "President Bush is making it more affordable and accessible to all Americans."
What's he talking about? A new government report just came out showing that 45 million Americans are without health care--more than ever before. And the cost of health care, for those who have it, keeps rising, with Americans having to shell out more for deductibles and premiums.
Cheney also praised No Child Left Behind, which is a disaster for school systems around the country.
That was it. He said nothing more about what Bush did domestically.
Then Cheney lavished all of 27 words about what Bush will do domestically in the next four years.
Here they are: "And there is more to do. Under this President's leadership, we will reform medical liability so the system serves patients and good doctors, not personal injury lawyers."
For all the rest of the speech, Cheney contented himself with reformulating insults about Kerry being too indecisive.
By contrast, he praised Bush's leadership qualities, including Bush's "wisdom and humility," both of which have been in short supply.
At first, playing good cop to the Swift Boat bad cops, Cheney tried to act magnanimously toward Kerry, which is difficult for him: "The President's opponent is an experienced Senator," Cheney said. "He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it."
It is said that mafia godfathers, after ordering a hit, sometimes pay for the victim's funeral, and that's what Cheney's gesture was like.
But he couldn't help himself from joining the hit squad.

Cheney Smugs for the Camera
Matthew Rothschild, Editor, Progressive Magazine
A hero to the conservatives at the Republican Convention, Dick Cheney could not have found a more sympathetic crowd, except perhaps at the annual meeting of the Halliburton corporation.
He soaked up the applause, and then, in his smug monotone, began his case, oddly invoking the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who stood for everything Cheney opposes.
After the obligatory autobiographical bow to the promise of America, Cheney spent less than 10 percent of his time racing through Bush's domestic achievements. Granted, he did not have much to deal with there.
On the economy, he said, "President Bush delivered the greatest tax reduction in a generation, and the results are clear to see."
Indeed, they are: A net loss of one million jobs, stagnant wages, the stock market in the doldrums, and consumer confidence on the decline.
On health care, he said, "President Bush is making it more affordable and accessible to all Americans."
What's he talking about? A new government report just came out showing that 45 million Americans are without health care--more than ever before. And the cost of health care, for those who have it, keeps rising, with Americans having to shell out more for deductibles and premiums.
Cheney also praised No Child Left Behind, which is a disaster for school systems around the country.
That was it. He said nothing more about what Bush did domestically.
Then Cheney lavished all of 27 words about what Bush will do domestically in the next four years.
Here they are: "And there is more to do. Under this President's leadership, we will reform medical liability so the system serves patients and good doctors, not personal injury lawyers."
For all the rest of the speech, Cheney contented himself with reformulating insults about Kerry being too indecisive.
By contrast, he praised Bush's leadership qualities, including Bush's "wisdom and humility," both of which have been in short supply.
At first, playing good cop to the Swift Boat bad cops, Cheney tried to act magnanimously toward Kerry, which is difficult for him: "The President's opponent is an experienced Senator," Cheney said. "He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it."
It is said that mafia godfathers, after ordering a hit, sometimes pay for the victim's funeral, and that's what Cheney's gesture was like.
But he couldn't help himself from joining the hit squad.

Mike's Take on RNC Bushenanigans

Why Democrats shouldn't be scared - By Michael Moore
By Michael Moore / USA Today
NEW YORK — If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times from discouraged Democrats and liberals as the Republican convention here wrapped up this week. Their shoulders hunched, their eyes at a droop, they lower their voice to a whisper hoping that if they don't say it too loud it may not come true: "I...I...I think Bush is going to win."
Clearly, they're watching too much TV. Too much of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zell Miller, Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. Too much of swift boat veterans and Fox News commentators.
Action heroes always look good on TV. On Wednesday night, the GOP even made an action-hero video and showed it at the convention. There was White House political czar Karl Rove and other administration officials dressed up for "war" and going through boot camp on the National Mall in Washington.
I could only sit there in the convention hall and wish this were the real thing: Rove, national security adviser Condi Rice and Co. being sent to Iraq, and our boys and girls being brought home. But then the lights came up, and everyone sitting in the Bush family box was having a grand ol' hoot and a holler at the video they just saw.
For some reason, all of this has scared the bejabbers out of the Democrats. I can hear the wailing and moaning from Berkeley, Calif., to Cambridge, Mass. The frightening scenes from the convention have sent John Kerry's supporters looking for the shovels so they can dig their underground bunkers in preparation for another four years of the Dark Force.
I can't believe all of this whimpering and whining. Kerry has been ahead in many polls all summer long, but the Republicans come to New York for one week off-Broadway and suddenly everyone is dressed in mourning black and sitting shivah?
Exactly what moment was it during the convention that convinced them that the Republicans had now "connected" with the majority of Americans and that it was all over? Arnold praising Richard Nixon? Ooooh, that's a real crowd-pleaser. Elizabeth Dole decrying the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse wall in Alabama? Yes, that's a big topic of conversation in the unemployment line in Akron, Ohio. Georgia Sen. Miller, a Democratic turncoat, looking like Freddy Krueger at an all-girls camp? His speech — and the look on what you could see of his strangely lit face — was enough for parents to send small children to their bedrooms.
My friends — and I include all Democrats, independents and recovering Republicans in this salutation — do not be afraid. Yes, the Bush Republicans huff and they puff, but they blow their own house down.
As many polls confirm, a majority of your fellow Americans believe in your agenda. They want stronger environmental laws, are strong supporters of women's rights, favor gun control and want the war in Iraq to end.
Rejoice. You're already more than halfway there when you have the public on board. Just imagine if you had to go out and do the work to convince the majority of Americans that women shouldn't be paid the same as men. All they ask is that you put up a candidate for president who believes in something and fights for those beliefs.
Is that too much to ask?
The Republicans have no idea how much harm they have done to themselves. They used to have a folk-hero mayor of New York named Rudy Giuliani. On 9/11, he went charging right into Ground Zero to see whom he could help save. Everyone loved Rudy because he seemed as though he was there to comfort all Americans, not just members of his own party.
But in his speech to the convention this week, he revised the history of that tragic day for partisan gain:
As chaos ensued, "spontaneously, I grabbed the arm of then-police commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie, 'Thank God George Bush is our president.' And I say it again tonight, 'Thank God George Bush is our president.' "
Please.
There were the sub-par entertainers nobody knew. There was the show of "Black Republicans," "Arab-American Republicans" and other minorities they trot out to show how much they are loved by groups their policies abuse.
And there were the Band-Aids. The worst display of how out of touch the Republicans are was those Purple Heart Band-Aids the delegates wore to mock Kerry over his war wounds, which, for them, did not spill the required amount of blood.
What they didn't seem to get is that watching at home might have been millions of war veterans feeling that they were being ridiculed by a bunch of rich Republicans who would never send their own offspring to die in Fallujah or Danang.
Kerry supporters and Bush-bashers should not despair. These Republicans have not made a permanent dent in Kerry's armor. The only person who can do that is John Kerry. And by coming out swinging as he did just minutes after Bush finished his speech Thursday night, Kerry proved he knows that the only way to win this fight is to fight — and fight hard.
He must realize that he faces Al Gore's fate only if he fails to stand up like the hero he is, only if he sits on the fence and keeps justifying his vote for the Iraq war instead of just saying, "Look, I was for it just like 70% of America until we learned the truth, and now I'm against it, like the majority of Americans are now."
Kerry needs to trust that his victory is only going to happen by inspiring the natural base of the Democratic Party — blacks, working people, women, the poor and young people. Women and people of color make up 62% of this country. That's a big majority. Give them a reason to come out on Nov. 2.