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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (4114)	8/19/2003 6:11:00 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Can Wesley Clark be the Democrats' Ike? csmonitor.com <<...DraftWesleyClark.com, the largest of several draft committees trying to lure the retired four-star general into running, will start running TV ads this week in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first states in the nominating process, and in Little Rock, Ark., Clark's hometown. DraftWesleyClark.com is registered with the Federal Election Commission as an "unauthorized political committee," and has no contact with the general. Clark's supporters see two signs that there's room for one more candidate: the lack of a clear Democratic front-runner and the fact that the only Democrat with momentum is former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who has captivated some in the liberal base but makes the party establishment nervous, in part because of his lack of experience on defense issues. "The strength of a Clark candidacy is his depth of knowledge and experience and leadership in the military," says Kristo Kofinis, a paid Democratic adviser to the D.C.-based draft committee. "Now, security trumps other issues," adds Mr. Hlinko, co-chair of DraftWesleyClark.com, along with Hlinko's brother-in-law, Josh Margulies, a Republican. "The war on terrorism, national security, safety - those won't change." As a CNN military commentator, the silver-haired, square-jawed general has criticized the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war and its aftermath. On social issues, he supports abortion rights, affirmative action, and gays in the military. On the economy, Bush's Achilles heel in polls, Clark is also critical: He opposed Bush's tax cuts, calling them unfair and inefficient as a stimulus for creating jobs. He also criticizes Bush for allowing the budget deficit to skyrocket. For Clark boosters, the gold-plated résumé makes them stand and salute: first in his class at West Point, Rhodes scholar, 34 years in the military, Vietnam combat veteran, NATO commander. He's also an investment banker and an author - his second book, "Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire," comes out in September...>>

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (4114)	8/19/2003 11:10:53 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Bush's Neverland Economics ______________________________________ By David Ignatius Columnist The Washington Post Tuesday, August 19, 2003 INDIANAPOLIS -- When all 50 state governors agree on something, that's a powerful message. Especially when it's a cry for help in dealing with what many governors say is a national fiscal crisis -- invisible at the federal level but ravaging state government. This rare display of unanimity came in a plea to Congress from the governors gathered here this week for their semiannual meeting. They asked the federal government to take responsibility for billions of dollars in Medicaid prescription drug costs that are now burdening the states. Without help, Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee told me, the states face a "galloping" crisis that could destroy their ability to pay for schools, hospitals and other basic services. You don't get this sense of looming disaster in the Neverland of Washington, where the Bush administration continues to pump the deficit and ignore any serious accounting for the cost of war in Iraq. But governors can't play games with numbers. Every state but one is required to balance its budget annually, and over the past several years, governors have faced some excruciating choices on what to cut -- a state nursing home or a junior college, a prison or a new highway. The governors have cut spending so much that even Republicans have been doing the unthinkable and raising taxes. But the attempt to recall California Gov. Gray Davis, who raised taxes to deal with his state's $38 billion deficit, was a warning that these budget ills can be politically fatal. The fiscal squeeze was the first topic many governors brought up at the conference. The war in Iraq is far away, but the economic crunch is here and now. Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico explains that President Bush is still very popular in his state, regardless of the troubles in postwar Iraq. Fellow Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius agrees that voters in her home state of Kansas are worried about the economy, not Iraq. Huckabee illustrates how the fiscal crunch is playing out across the country. He says that 91 percent of his budget now goes for education, Medicaid and prisons. These amount to fixed costs. Because of declining revenues, he had to cut his budget 11 percent over the past two years -- despite raising the state's tobacco tax last May. "You're cutting down to the bone," he says. "It comes down to deciding how many inmates you will release from prison, which colleges and nursing homes you will close." Without federal help on Medicaid spending, says Huckabee, he fears rolling cutbacks that will undermine the economy of his state. A reduction in Medicaid reimbursements could force him to close some rural hospitals; that loss of health services, in turn, might lead companies to decide not to locate in Arkansas; that would increase unemployment and lower tax revenue . . . and down it goes. Huckabee exemplifies the tax-cutting fever of the 1990s that got many states into such trouble. Like many governors, he rushed to cut taxes during the boom years. His 1997 tax cut was the first in the state's history, and he followed with another in 1999. Then, the bubble burst, revenues began to fall and the fiscal squeeze began. "This is a burning crisis," says Huckabee. "There is no indication that it will get better," without federal help. Though the Arkansas governor is a conservative Republican, he could be mistaken for a New Dealer when he calls for the federal government to accept responsibility for health care of the elderly. I can't help but contrast this sense of urgency and political realism with the happy talk coming from Washington. The federal budget deficit is nearing $500 billion, more than 50 percent bigger than the $304 billion deficit that was forecast early this year. That doesn't include the full costs of the war in Iraq, for which the administration still hasn't provided detailed numbers. Estimates range from Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer's recent prediction of up to $100 billion over the next three years to a Brookings Institution forecast of $300 billion to $450 billion. Does the Bush administration plan to raise taxes to pay for the war? Does it plan to cut spending? Or does it just plan to wing it and hope for the best? That would ignore the one clear lesson of Vietnam, which is that if you decide to go to war, you have to pay for it -- or risk the damage of severe inflation. But the Bush administration apparently thinks it is exempt from the laws of economics. It can wage war, cut taxes, spend what it likes -- and worry later about the consequences. That choice is not open to the nation's governors. Their unanimous cry for help should be a wake-up call to the White House. davidignatius@washpost.com © 2003 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (4114)	8/19/2003 1:15:14 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

Shh, don't tell anyone; we're running things sfgate.com

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (4114)	8/20/2003 3:17:18 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Bush Ignored The Terrorist Threat buzzflash.com

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (4114)	8/20/2003 3:32:09 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 10965

Enronization of the Bush administration _________________________________ By STEVEN C. CLEMONS Special to The Japan Times japantimes.co.jp WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush has become the new Kenneth Lay. As chief executive officer of the former juggernaut Enron Corp., Lay presided over a network of deception and malfeasance that led to one of the greatest investor ripoffs in U.S. corporate history. Enron inflated reported income and conducted much of its business through off-balance-sheet transactions hidden from analysts, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the general public. In public, Bush repeatedly denounces these "serious abuses of trust by some corporate leaders." But given the disturbing sleight of hand manipulations by his administration regarding the search for weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, in Iraq, the president seems to be more inspired than repulsed by Lay's deceptive wizardry. Bush has triggered a tectonic shift in the management of official secrets, hiding more from the public across all policy sectors -- not just national security -- than any president since the conspiracy-obsessed Richard Nixon. He has fostered a White House culture that is casual about facts and is comfortable with making unsubstantiated national security assertions. One of the major violations of trust between this president and the American public is his unqualified assertion in his January 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq maintained an extensive WMD program and sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Bush's comfort with concealing inconvenient facts is equally evident in the burying of a Treasury Department report on the long-term economic impact of growing budget deficits and an Environmental Protection Agency study on global warming and potential remediation strategies. This president does not like bad news or news that conflicts with his agenda -- no matter how objective -- even if it is commissioned by members of his own Cabinet. U.S. citizens are this nation's stakeholders, and the president has been misleading the public, distorting fact, and contriving false realities with the aim of sending men and women into harm's way. No serious commentator denies the horror and tragedy that a virulent and dangerous form of transnational terrorism visited upon symbols of American power in New York and Washington on 9/11, but the Bush's incursion into Iraq is controversial not because America should not be able to strike at those responsible for imminent threats to this nation but because it is increasingly unclear that Saddam Hussein, as despicable a tyrant as he was (and there are many more in the world), was an immediate danger. Hussein's removal was not worth the friendly fire inflicted upon longstanding alliances that America has needed in the past and will need again. The president would do well to revisit his clever quip during the presidential debates regarding his favorite philosopher. He used to say that when confronted with a challenge, he would ask himself, "What would Jesus do?" With some reflection, Bush would realize that little of his administration's obsession with secrets and its tendency to spin false truths would be consistent with this self-revealed touchstone of faith that he shared with the nation. More importantly, however, duplicity of the magnitude now unfolding in Washington is inconsistent with democracy. Enron executives felt secure enough in their environment to mislead the public and enrich executives at the expense of stakeholders without accountability -- or to come out far enough ahead that any penalties would pale in comparison to their personal gains. This strategy worked until Enron's collapse, and now some are caught in the legal mechanism of accountability at a staggeringly large cost to the public. America's image in the world as a bastion of stockholder accountability, good governance and a place where hard, honest work leads to empowerment and potentially to wealth, was damaged by Enron-style crony capitalism. Bush's team may eventually be held accountable for its deceptions, but the judiciary and the legislature appear remarkably contrite given what appears to be serious executive office malfeasance. America's current board of directors -- Congress and the Supreme Court -- like the boards of Enron, MCI, Adelphia and other top-tier blue chip firms that deceived investors and the nation, is failing in its responsibility to check a president who needs to be brought into line. The fall of Enron and the ongoing prosecution of the worst at the company's helm depended on whistleblowers and average people at the firm who were willing to tell the truth about the crimes committed by Enron executives. Accountability rests on exposure and on a personal morality of honesty and commitment to public trust that many in this nation do feel and that did exist among many Enron employees whose livelihoods were ruined by Lay and his collaborators. Today a national whistleblower is needed, someone in Bush's administration who can copy the foot-thick file of official secrets in his or her desk to reveal the overreach, fabrication and distortions of intelligence that the president used to deceive Congress, America's allies and the public in order to conduct the invasion of Iraq. Bush has called those who question his assault on Iraq and the legitimacy of this incursion "historical revisionists." But the term applies more appropriately to this Ken Lay-like president/CEO who seems to have only disdain for the constraints of our kind of government. For all the pretense of his early statements that his would be a "presidency defined by humility and honesty," and an administration that "would inspire trust from its citizens," it has turned out to be anything but. Many in the nation admire and respect the leadership qualities of this president. But someone in government today needs to expose the now-classified and cloaked record of what the president knew about the Iraq WMD intelligence gap and when he new it, to paraphrase former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker about Richard Nixon. Americans deserve honesty, and if there is malfeasance, Congress and the courts should not let it be buried in a labyrinth of official secrets for future generations to uncover. ______________________ Steven C. Clemons is executive vice president of the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based centrist policy institution.