Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (76808)	10/12/2004 9:11:00 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793845

Wartime presidents: Bush has history on his side By DeWayne Wickham - USA TODAY What Paul Boller wrote recently about this election campaign probably won't surprise you. Its squabbling factions, the presidential historian said, included "peace groups castigating the president for taking the country into war and calling for a speedy end to the conflict; harsh critics harping on the president's mismanagement of the war effort and blaming him for reverses on the battlefield; and administration supporters insisting that all good patriots should rally around the flag and help the president bring the conflict to a successful conclusion." What may surprise you is that he was talking about the re-election of James Madison, and not the effort that President Bush is now waging. Madison was this nation's first wartime president to seek re-election. Bush is the sixth. Up to now, no American president who sought another term during a time of war has been defeated. This history isn't lost on Bush, who was quick to remind us of his special status during the presidential candidates' second debate last week. It's one that John Kerry, his Democratic opponent, may find difficult to overcome. Bush focuses on Iraq The first question in that debate came from an audience member who asked Kerry how he'd answer people who say they won't vote for him because he is "too wishy-washy." In response to Kerry's answer, Bush focused on the war. "I don't see how you can lead this country in a time of war, in a time of uncertainty, if you change your mind because of politics," he said. Later, when Bush was asked about his failure to veto a single spending bill as the nation's largest surplus turned into its biggest deficit, he blamed the recession and the war on terrorism. We're at war, Bush said. "And I'm going to spend what it takes to win the war." Bush wants this contest to be a "khaki election" — one that exploits the patriotic sentiments of voters during wartime. He wants voters to conclude, as Abraham Lincoln said Republicans had when they chose him for a second term during the Civil War, that "it is not good to swap a horse while crossing a river." Bush wants voters to think of him in the same way that The New York Times viewed Franklin Roosevelt after he'd won a fourth term. In Boller's book, Presidential Campaigns, which was published this year, he quotes The Times in 1944 as saying FDR "has been re-elected in a war year as a war president who could promise the country victory in the war and on the basis of victory, a lasting peace." Emphasis on continuity That's why Bush doesn't miss an opportunity to remind voters that the nation is at war. He knows that history is on his side. He understands that his best chance of winning re-election in November — nearly 18 months after he prematurely declared an end to major combat in Iraq — will be in convincing voters that it is not a good idea to change leaders during a war. If he succeeds in doing this — and he'll attempt to reinforce this notion during the final debate Wednesday in Tempe, Ariz. — Bush likely will survive Kerry's challenge. Nothing demonstrates the reluctance of voters to kick a wartime president out of office more than Richard Nixon's re-election. The anti-war movement that four years earlier had caused Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election was strong, and in 1972, the number of war dead was growing. Nixon had promised to end the war. Even though he didn't get that job done during his first term, he won a landslide victory over Democrat George McGovern for a second term. The polls suggest that the race is moving in Kerry's favor. You can bet the Bush campaign will try mightily to counter this shift by deflecting voters' attention away from domestic issues to the war on terrorism. To win the presidency, Kerry must find a way to effectively counter that. DeWayne Wickham writes weekly for USA TODAY. Find this article at: usatoday.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (76808)	10/12/2004 1:08:48 PM
From: Neeka	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793845

What I can't figure out is why Halperin sent a memo rather than giving a direct, vocal order. He had to have taken into consideration that the memo would be leaked. Did he decide to take a chance and trust that the recipients of that memo would keep it under wraps? A man in his position.....one supposedly aware of the fact that there could have been a mole, or that someone within that community might not take kindly to this kind of directive...should have known that this memo might have been leaked. Aren't there other ways of getting this kind of message out, and because of the surge of Internet messaging~bloggers, investigators, regular people with lots of time on their hands~why haven't we seen a copy of that memo? Maybe I missed it, and it's already been circulated? M