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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: laura_bush who wrote (33046)	12/19/2003 11:58:40 AM
From: Bill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

That guy is such a moron. Read his piece and count how many false dichotomies he posits. It's an absolute joke.

To: laura_bush who wrote (33046)	12/19/2003 7:38:38 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 89467

"we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war, for its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth." Telling It Right By PAUL KRUGMAN nytimes.com Published: December 19, 2003 "This is a very, very important part of history, and we've got to tell it right." So says Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Kean promises major revelations in testimony next month: "This was not something that had to happen." We'll see: maybe those of us who expected the 9/11 commission to produce yet another whitewash were wrong. Meanwhile, one can only echo his sentiment: it's important to tell our history right, not just about the events that led up to 9/11, but about the events that followed. The capture of Saddam Hussein has produced a great outpouring of relief among both Iraqis and Americans. He's no longer taunting us from hiding; he was a monster and deserves whatever fate awaits him. But we shouldn't let war supporters use the occasion of Saddam's capture to rewrite the recent history of U.S. foreign policy, to draw a veil over the way the nation was misled into war. Even the Iraq war's critics usually focus on the practical failures of the Bush administration's policy, rather than its morality. After all, the war came at a heavy cost, even before the fighting began: to prepare for the Iraq campaign, the administration diverted resources away from Afghanistan before the job was done, giving Al Qaeda a chance to get away and the Taliban a chance to regroup. And while the initial invasion went smoothly, since then almost everything in Iraq has gone badly. (Saddam's capture would have been a smaller story if it had happened in the first flush of victory; instead, it was the first real piece of good news from Iraq in months.) The security situation remains terrible; the economy remains moribund; gasoline shortages and power outages continue. To top it all off, the ongoing disorder in Iraq is a clear and present danger to our own national security. A large part of the U.S. military's combat strength is tied down in occupation duties, leaving us ill prepared for crises elsewhere. Meanwhile, overstretch is undermining the readiness of the military as a whole. Now maybe, just maybe, Saddam's capture will start a virtuous circle in Iraq. Maybe the insurgency will evaporate; maybe the cost to America, in blood, dollars and national security, will start to decline. But even if all that happens, we should be deeply disturbed by the history of this war. For its message seems to be that as long as you wave the flag convincingly enough, it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth. By now, we've become accustomed to the fact that the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction — the principal public rationale for the war — hasn't become a big political liability for the administration. That's bad enough. Even more startling is the news from one of this week's polls: despite the complete absence of evidence, 53 percent of Americans believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, up from 43 percent before his capture. The administration's long campaign of guilt by innuendo, it seems, is still working. The war's more idealistic supporters do, I think, feel queasy about all this. That's why they lay so much stress on their hopes for democracy in Iraq. They're not just looking for a happy ending; they're looking for moral redemption for a war fought on false pretenses. As a practical matter, I suspect that they'll be disappointed: the only leaders in Iraq with genuine popular followings seem to be Shiite clerics. I also wonder how much real commitment to democracy lies behind the administration's stirring rhetoric. Does anyone remember that Dick Cheney voted against a resolution calling for Nelson Mandela's release from prison? As recently as 2000 he defended that vote, saying that the African National Congress "was then perceived as a terrorist organization." Which brings me to this week's other famous prisoner. While the world celebrated the capture of Saddam, a federal appeals court ruled that Jose Padilla must be released from military custody. Mr. Padilla is a U.S. citizen, arrested on American soil, who has been held for 18 months without charges as an "enemy combatant." The ruling was a stark reminder that the Bush administration, which talks so much about promoting democracy abroad, doesn't seem very concerned about following democratic rules at home.

To: laura_bush who wrote (33046)	12/21/2003 1:03:35 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

All About George Bush ___________________________________ bushin30seconds.org Here's a short list of the top 7 reasons we're running this ad campaign against President George W. Bush and his administration. We hope this informs your own commercials, and inspires you to look further into the policies of the Bush Administration and their effect on the American public. 1. It appears that the Bush Administration has consistently misled the American public about Iraq , most significantly regarding Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his ties to al Queda and Osama bin Laden. fair.org 2. The Bush Administration's regressive environmental policies have lowered cleanliness standards for our air and water while allowing utility companies (many of whom are Bush campaign contributors) to profit off of the weakened regulations. In 2002, the head of the EPA's Office of Regulatory Enforcement resigned, complaining that the agency was “fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce." (CNN, Aug. 22, 2002) The Bush Record on the Environment for 2003: nrdc.org 3. Bush is underfunding education. The President cut $200 million from his own No Child Left Behind Act, eliminating crucial educational programs for lower income children and cutting professional training for more than 20,000 teachers. Flawed from its very foundation, No Child Left Behind is based on then-Governor Bush's late-‘90s “Texas Miracle,”—a program of standardized testing designed to increase performance and reduce dropout rates--now recognized as a scandalous failure. villagevoice.com 4. The Bush Administration's Patriot Act threatens our constitutional rights and civil liberties. Passed by a post 9/11 Congress, the Patriot act expands the ability of law enforcement to conduct secret searches, and engage various forms of surveillance, including internet monitoring and wiretapping. It gives the FBI access to American citizens' highly personal medical, financial, mental health, and student records without notification or permission, and allows them to investigate individuals without probable cause of a crime. Finally, it permits non-citizens to be jailed based on mere suspicion and held indefinitely in six month increments without meaningful judicial review. aclu.org 5. Bush's Tax Cuts only benefit the rich. Bush claimed that his tax cut would “reduce tax rates for everyone who pays income tax.” He failed to mention that this “relief” program would put half of the tax cut's dividends into the hands of our nation's wealthiest 5%, while 8.1 million citizens in the bottom half of the income bracket receive approximately $300 a year. ctj.org 6. 3.3 million jobs (93,000 in August of 2003 alone) have been lost since Bush took office--more than the last 11 Presidents combined. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, June 2001-August 2003) Meanwhile, huge corporations are paying fewer taxes than ever: cbpp.org 7. Bush is underfunding homeland security : While energetic in waging war abroad, the Bush administration has been oddly lethargic in fortifying our defenses at home. Domestic security agencies have been neglected. Police and firefighters have been denied essential resources, and muddled public strategy has only spread alarm and confusion. ppionline.org More Recommended Reading: The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, by Paul Krugman Dude, Where’s My Country?, by Michael Moore Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, by Al Franken The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, by Mark Crispin Miller Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America, by Molly Ivins Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, by James Moore The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, by David Corn Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq, by Sheldon Rampton, John C. Stauben