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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (5243)	3/5/2004 10:12:51 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

IMO zonkie hit the nail on the head with: "If Junior didn't have anything to hide he would testify all day long under oath and make sure it was televised. He would also have Rice, Cheney and all the others do the same thing. Same goes for the Plame investigation and the energy task force coverup. He also wouldn't have kept his National Guard records hidden for so long and finally had to release the parts of them which don't hurt him too bad. He wouldn't have hidden his records from the time he spent as governor in Texas as soon as he could. He would answer questions about the issue of whether he spent time doing community service in Texas and why he was forced to do that. He wouldn't have had all of the records of his old drivers license destroyed and got a new one in Texas. If there weren't so many things in his past he wanted to keep hidden his life would be a lot easier and so would Scott McCellans." He and his buddies stonewall every investigating committee including the 9/11 investigation, Iraq war investigation, Cheney won't reply to Congressional committees that have repeatedly written him asking for answers. They hide behind executive privilege accusing those who ask anything of being unpatriotic or terrorists. They are the unpatriotic terrorists holding Americans hostage to their unconstitutional agendas.

To: Skywatcher who wrote (5243)	3/5/2004 10:55:48 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 173976

Bush trading on tragedy: It's not surprising that George W. Bush would seek to make political book on the mass murder of 9/11. Heck, from the moment he finally brought himself to stop reading that children's book in Florida, he's done nothing but trade on those tragedies. thenation.com But even for this White House, Bush's latest re-election advertisements -- which you can view here - - are startlingly calculated. They feature fire fighters at Ground Zero, including footage of the flag-draped remains of a victim being carried out on a stretcher. Barely out a day, they have already infuriated two (overlapping) 9/11 constituencies: fire fighters, and families of those killed on that horrible day. Fire Fighters Remember when President Bush visited Ground Zero to address workers via a megaphone, and threw his arm around a weary fire fighter? This time last year, that weary fire fighter, Bob Beckwith, stood in silent protest at the President's State of the Union speech: The Bush Administration was refusing to release funds Congress had set aside to monitor the health of Ground Zero workers. This would be the same Bush Administration that overruled its own environmental scientists and put lies in their mouths to the effect that the air near Ground Zero was perfectly safe. The same Administration seeking to cut overtime pay for fire fighters (and millions of other working Americans) -- the equivalent of laying a fat new tax upon them. The same Administration that looked on in approving (or indifferent) silence when a top Republican Senator insisted that -- at least until Republicans got around to killing off overtime pay altogether -- fire fighters and police should be patriotic enough to work overtime without extra pay, as a war-time sacrifice. Harold Schaitberger, who heads the nation's largest union of fire fighters, calls Bush's use of fire fighters as campaign props "hypocrisy at its worst" and "disgraceful." "Since the attacks, Bush has been using images of himself putting his arm around a retired FDNY fire fighter on the pile of rubble at Ground Zero. But for two and a half years he has basically shortchanged fire fighters and the safety of our homeland," Schaitberger says. "The fact is, Bush's actions have resulted in fire stations closing in communities around the country. Two-thirds of America's fire departments remain under-staffed because Bush is failing to enforce a new law that was passed with bipartisan support ... to put more fire fighters in our communities. President Bush's budget proposes to cut Homeland Security Department funding for first responders by $700 million for next year." In a formal resolution, the fire fighters union has declared, "the President's record on Fire Fighter and First Responder issues is one of failure and neglect," and they call upon Bush to discontinue the ads and apologize to the families of fire fighters killed on 9/11. The Families But even if the Bush Administration had a sterling, pro-first responder record, who could approve of a politician trading on 9/11 images? "It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place," says fire fighter Tommy Fee of Queens Rescue Squad 270. "The image of fire fighters at Ground Zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics." "It's a slap in the face," says Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died at the World Trade Center, of the Bush ads. "It makes me sick," says Colleen Kelly, who lost her brother in the attacks. "I would be less offended if he showed a picture of himself in front of the Statue of Liberty," says Tom Roger, whose daughter died on American Airlines Flight 11. "But to show the horror of 9/11 in the background, that's just some advertising agency's attempt to grab people by the throat." As with the fire fighters, the victims see this as insult added to injury: The same Administration that shows a flag-draped corpse carried out of Ground Zero continues to resist, with all of its might, an inquiry into how 9/11 came about in the first place.