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Politics : Discuss the candidates honestly. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (3219)	7/31/2004 4:55:01 PM
From: Andrew N. Cothran	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4965

It's Bush's Election to Win and Kerry's to lose and the War on Terror has become Bush's Ace in the Hole Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard The Bush campaign always intended to draw a sharp contrast with Kerry on national security and the war on terror. But now that Kerry has elevated these issues, indeed staked his candidacy on them, it will not seem forced for Bush to concentrate on them. In Boston, Kerry surrounded himself with military brass and former crewmates in Vietnam. Bush will rub shoulders with many more retired generals and admirals in New York. Kerry can't complain. He's made national security the premier issue of the campaign. The underlying Bush theme, of course, is that Kerry can't be trusted to be a strong leader given his Senate voting record, no matter what he says now or what he did in Vietnam. Bush has plenty of material to work with. Last week at the convention, the Republican National Committee released an 11-minute tape of Kerry's changing positions on Iraq. It's devastating. As primary rival Howard Dean gains among Democrats with his anti-Iraq war message, Kerry goes soft and finally opposes the $87 billion. He caves to political expediency. A New Yorker article on Kerry's foreign policy reinforces this conclusion. A Kerry adviser is quoted as saying, "Off the record, he did it because of Dean." And Democratic senator Joe Biden makes a similar point, saying Kerry sought "to prove to Dean's guys I'm not a warmonger." As luck would have it for Bush, Kerry and Edwards have also turned 9/11 into a major campaign issue. Just a few months ago, Democrats criticized Bush angrily for an ad that included a fleeting glimpse of Ground Zero in New York City. They claimed he was inappropriately politicizing the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bush backed off. But now Democrats have embraced the issue noisily. "It's now been over one thousand days since the September 11th terrorist attacks changed our nation," Sen. Bob Graham of Florida declared in his convention speech. "One thousand days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, America . . . was rolling to victory in World War II. In this new war on terror, we have not yet secured the beachhead. John Kerry and John Edwards will." Nonetheless, Democrats want to have it both ways: They can exploit 9/11, but Bush shouldn't touch the issue. "Do not dare use 9/11 for political purposes," New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer warned. Nonsense, responded former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Democrats have freed Bush to invoke 9/11 to his heart's content. And it's an issue that works better for him than for Kerry. Kerry has skillfully milked his four months in Vietnam for everything it's worth and then some. Never has a candidate made so much out of so short a military tour of duty. The question is how much it really helps his campaign. For sure, it doesn't hurt. But war heroes don't have a great record of political success. Democrat George McGovern was a bomber pilot in World War II but suffered a landslide loss in 1972. In 1996, Republican Bob Dole contrasted his bravery in World War II with Clinton's avoidance of military service. It got him nowhere. Four years earlier, the elder George Bush was bounced from the White House by Clinton despite his brave duty as a pilot in World War II. "Military service didn't do enough for any of them," says a Bush strategist. And it may not for Kerry either. He had two choices in dealing with his Senate record on national security: explain it or ignore it. He opted for the second. But nothing piques the interest of reporters like a politician's attempt to play down or hide something. Kerry might have been better off explaining. He could have said he'd learned a lot, even changed his mind, since the Cold War. He could have said he was traumatized by 9/11. Instead, Kerry's sudden emergence as a hawk in the war on terror looks entirely political. It bolsters the Bush case that Kerry can't be trusted. But a strong case against Kerry on national security won't necessarily prevail in the election. Voters may decide old Senate votes or flip-flops on Iraq don't matter, while Kerry's promise to win the war on terror does. In 1980, President Carter's strategists believed that once voters learned of Reagan's radically conservative views, they'd reject him. Voters didn't care. In 1992, Republicans figured the evidence against Bill Clinton--draft dodging, womanizing, no experience in foreign policy--was sufficient to turn off a majority of voters. But Republicans were wrong. It may be different this time. In 1980, the circumstances were right for a hard-liner in the White House, not a squishy dove like Carter. In 1992, the Cold War was over. So the elder Bush's strength, foreign affairs, was suddenly extraneous. Now both Kerry and Bush have vowed to win the war against terrorists. Bush's credentials in this war are better than Kerry's, and the case he's mounting against Kerry on national security is strong. So I think the race is not Kerry's to lose but Bush's to win. But I've been wrong before. © Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (3219)	7/31/2004 4:59:50 PM
From: TideGlider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4965

.I believe the guy in Rambo II was modeled after Kerry. The one that attempted to hide the POW evidence and later told Rambo...I am a Viet Nam vet...blah blah blah! Then Rambo shot up the com site. Plot Summary for Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) John Rambo is removed from prison by his former superior, Colonel Samuel Troutman, for a top-secret operation to bring back POW's still held in Vietnam. Rambo's assignment is to only take pictures of where the POWs are being held, but Rambo wants to get the POWs out of Vietnam. Teamed up with female Vietnamese freedom fighter Co Bao, Rambo embarks on a mission to rescue the POWs, who are being held by sadistic Vietnamese Captain Vinh and his Russian comrade, Lieutenant Colonel Padovsky. Rambo falls in love with Co Bao, and when Co Bao is killed by Captain Vinh, Rambo wants revenge, so he starts killing every enemy in sight while still focusing on his intentions to rescue the POWs. There are also corrupt American officials involved in the mission, including Marshall Murdock, one of Rambo's superiors. Another summary ;) John Rambo who is now in prison after the ruckus he caused in the previous movie, is approached by his former superior, Colonel Trautman. It seems that the government's looking for American MIA's in Vietnam, that are still being held there. Now the man in charge of the mission, Murdock, tells Rambo that his job is to go in, confirm their presence by taking photographs. Rambo senses that Murdock is not what he seems. Rambo goes in takes the photographs, but also takes one of the prisoners with him. When Murdock learns of this, he orders the chopper that's suppose to pick him up to pull out. Rambo is then captured. Obviously Murdock's desire was not to find anyone. Trautman warns him that Rambo's going to come after him. And that's what Rambo's going to do but first he is going after the Vietnamese and Russians, who brutalized him. xroads.virginia.edu