Here is a good article about last year's election

[ProSense]

Let me preface by saying I believe dirty tricks (not simply the blind Bush voter syndrome) were employed to return Bush to the WH. Without the dirty tricks Bush would be playing cowboy in Crawford.


Understanding the 2004 Presidential Election:
Beyond the Polarized Electorate, And The Republicans' Superior Voter Turnout
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, Nov. 05, 2004

A large number of Americans are very unhappy - indeed, many are extremely depressed - about the 2004 presidential election returns. Countless supporters of Senator John Kerry are literally scratching their heads, unable to fathom how seemingly rational people voted for President George W. Bush to serve a second term. Given our poor economy, and the disastrous Iraq war -- with its bogus justification and its thousands of American casualties - Kerry supporters find it hard to imagine, let alone understand, the case for casting a Bush vote.

Political pundits explain the election as the result of a deep division within America. They note that we are a culturally polarized nation, with the red states and the blue states providing a map of the divide. Pundits also explain the election as a result of voter turnout: Conservatives, they say, proved themselves superior at getting their voters to the polls on November 2nd.

These explanations are doubtless correct, to some extent. But they are also dreadfully incomplete. Books will be written deconstructing and biopsying this 2004 contest. Hopefully they will reach farther than these surface explanations to understand what occurred.

Pollster John Zogby appropriately dubbed this an "Armageddon Election" given the "closely-divided electorate with high partisan intensity on each side." But the word "Armageddon" suggests another explanation as well: I suspect religious overtones and undercurrents played a major role in the election.

Kerry Voters' Question: What In The World Were Bush Voters Thinking?

A few days before the election, I got some insight into the thinking of Bush voters, when I listened to a call-in by a liberal community college instructor, to a conservative radio show.

The caller explained that she was a periodic listener who thought the host was honest, though she seldom agreed with his beliefs. She recounted a conversation with two of her colleagues. She said they were intelligent, politically active Bush supporters.
The caller had told her friends that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq, and that this had recently been confirmed in the report of President Bush's envoy Charles Duelfer. But her colleagues insisted there had indeed been WMD, and cited the same Duelfer report.

The caller had also told her friends that there was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Iraq - and pointed out that Vice President Cheney had admitted as much in the Vice Presidential debate, and that the 9/11 Commission's report had so found. But her friends insisted there had indeed been such a relationship; that Cheney had misspoken, and she was wrong about the 9/11 Commission's report.

Column continues below �« Where did her two colleagues get their factually erroneous information? The caller explained that they attended the same evangelical church, and got their information from a sermon their minister had given on the subject.

The talk show host conceded that the caller was correct on all of the points she'd raised. And then he made a comment to this effect: "This isn't the first time I have had callers raise this nonsense being spread from the pulpit. Now I am a Christian, but I am not an ignorant Christian. What in the world are they thinking spreading this erroneous junk information?"

Looking For Answers

What I had heard intrigued me. Were conservative religious leaders pushing junk information on their parishioners? I began listening to a wide cross-section of radio stations, to see what was being said.

Several Christian radio shows included frequent, unabashed proselytizing for Bush votes. Ministers, and their guests, regularly said that a vote for George Bush was the vote that God wanted cast. One minister advised listeners that "God's watchman" would be observing us all "in the polling booths," and reporting what we did directly to God.

Of course, this is anecdotal evidence. It was (and is) too soon for any reliable studies to have surfaced. But the religious influence in this election certainly accounts for at least part of the reason why Kerry supporters cannot understand Bush supporters. Conservative religiously leaders have been boasting of the massive turnout they instituted for the election.

Again, though, this is but part of the story. In truth, not only is there a culture divided between Bush and Kerry supports, but they seem to inhabit separate realities - and different views on religion's role in voting are only one dissimilarity between their two disparate worlds.

The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters

The term "separate realities" isn't mine - it comes from an important and incisive October 21, 2004 report by the Program on International Policy Attitudes and the Center for Intentional and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, entitled "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters."

Importantly, this study wasn't funded by partisan political groups. To the contrary, it was underwritten by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation.

The report's findings are stark: Bush and Kerry supporters agree that the U.S. should not have gone to war if there were no weapons of mass destruction or if there was no support of Al Qaeda by Saddam. But - like the colleagues of the caller mentioned earlier - other Bush supporters have closed their eyes to the reality that, in fact, there were no WMD, and there was no Al Qaeda connection.

According to the report, Bush supporters have similarly rejected the reality that world opinion was against Bush - believing, contrary to facts, that it actually favored Bush. No neutral observer could possible dispute that, as a factual matter, world opinion strongly opposed, and continues to oppose, the United States's actions in Iraq - and would have preferred Kerry to Bush as President.

Indeed, Bush's own argument has been that he is unwilling to hold an international referendum on his policies - not that he would prevail were such a referendum held. The only supportive countries he has cited in the debates, among the "Coalition of the Willing" are the U.K. and Poland.

Why Are Bush Supporters Resistant to Well-Established, Non-partisan Facts

The report shows that Bush supporters seem to simply ignore information they don't like - even if it is confirmed by the Bush Administration itself! They continue to believe in arguments even Bush and Cheney themselves have dropped - the WMD, and the Saddam/Al Qaeda connection, respectively. And this may be because they get their information from unreliable sources.

Steven Kull, the report's author, provides a rather benign explanation for why this is: "The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," Steven opines, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake."

This bond between Bush and his supporters, Kull notes, interacts with some "idealized image of the President" that they hold. And the two, together, make "it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies, or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."

To study this report is to realize that Bush won reelection through blind faith and loyalty. Bush did not acquit himself well in the debates: Kerry won adherents each time he spoke. But it seems it did not matter: Bush supporters either weren't watching, or weren't really listening, when the debates occurred. This becomes more glaring because the University of Maryland study shows the Kerry supporters were living in the real world.

A "Broad Nationwide Victory" And a New Bipartisanship -- Not Exactly

When introducing the President's victory appearance, Vice President Cheney said, "We've worked hard . . . and the result is now clear: a record voter turnout and a broad, nationwide victory." (Emphasis added.) Forty-eight percent of the nation's voters -- all those (literally and figuratively) blue voters -- will take exception to Cheney's arrogant analysis.

Cheney's claim is all too reminiscent of 2000 when with no mandate whatsoever, the Bush Administration started by employing radical policies as if it had one - quickly burning bridges rather than building them. The first four years of this administration were devoted to winning a second through partisan hardball, and insiders tell me that the second term will seek to consolidate and expand Republican control through as much of the same as necessary.

In his victory speech, after thanking supporters, Bush said, "I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust." Yet the next day, in his first post-election press conference, he described working with his opponents as their agreeing with his goals and aims.

With four years of evidence, Kerry supporters - realists that they are, who have learned to watch what Bush and Cheney do, rather than what they say - will hardly be persuaded that this administration seeks a new era of bipartisanship. That is particularly true given that the President suggested at his recent press conference that the divisiveness will end when everyone agrees with his positions. Little wonder there is widespread depression.

The sensible take on the next four years will not be found in the President's faux offers of thorny olive branches with very short stems. Bush and Cheney are not going to trim their sails, and with the ship of state listing dangerously starboard, no one should expect smooth sailing for the next four years. Humility does not come easily to these men of hubris. Rancor should be expected. Indeed, it may be necessary to keep them from sinking us all.


http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20041105.html



With their mind set, it didn't take much BS on the Bush Administration's part to reinforce their perception. For example, Armitages's response to Kerry's criticism (via a question by CNN's John King)is, basically, "84 flags."

MR. KING: Saddam Hussein has been in the custody of the United States for quite some time now. Is the United States learning anything meaningful from him at all? And I understand from your comments in recent days, sir, you think he's being a bit of a wise guy.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Well, I felt he's been a wise guy for some time, and it certainly appears that he's being that way with his interlocutors. But as I also said in recent days, I think we are going to have a while before we can connect all the dots in what he's telling us. And clearly, whatever he tells us will have to be checked against other people's recollections and intelligence that's collected on the ground.

MR. KING: Is he cooperating at all, or is he simply debating?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Well, I don't know that I -- since I wasn't personally involved, I can characterize it. I would say that he appears to be enjoying himself.

MR. KING: Appears to be enjoying himself. Since the election in Spain and the change of government, the newly elected prime minister says he will pull his troops out. He has said that he believes the Bush administration's approach to the war on terrorism has been a failure, that in fact that violence and the use of military force is inspiring more terrorism. Romano Prodi at the European Union has said the same thing. Mr. de Villepin today.
Is there a debate among longstanding allies of this country, the United States, about the strategy, the Bush administration strategy, and how would you answer those critics?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: I think I'd say that we sat back for years in the face of attacks, the World Trade Center in '98, the Cole bombing -- excuse me, in '93 -- the Cole bombing in the latter part of the '90s, and finally we were attacked wantonly on 9/11 and we decided we're not going to take it anymore. And President Bush summoned a mighty coalition to kick the Taliban out of sanctuary and kick al-Qaida out of sanctuary in Afghanistan.

So, clearly, those that think you can conquer the global war on terrorism without some resort to military force are dead wrong.

MR. KING: It's a debate not only overseas, a debate in this country now in the middle of a presidential campaign in which the president's Democrat opponent, Senator John Kerry, says the approach is a failure. And he says that the Administration, including your State Department, sir, have been stubborn and arrogant, sticking to a policy that he says is a failure and driving away allies. How would you answer him?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Well, I attended the President's speech today and I noticed the flags of 84 countries arrayed behind the president. These are the 84 nations in the world who are with us in the global war on terrorism. So I think that graphic demonstration, or tableau, ought to answer Senator Kerry's remarks.

http://www.state.gov/s/d/former/armitage/remarks/30622.htm

[ProSense]

1. Here is why I posted this

There are still a lot of people in denial, some intentionally, about Kerry's positions and strengths. They only saw Kerry and the other candidates as a counter to Bush. The reality was (and still is) that Kerry has a brilliant vision for where he wants to take this country. I just wish more people would open their eyes to that fact.

People need to realize that it's crazy to throw blind support behind a candidate.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 30, 2004

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JAY ROCKEFELLER ON JOHN F. KERRY’S DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

WASHINGTON, D.C. – “There is no doubt that John Kerry has connected with the American people. He gave an absolutely commanding performance last night that was clearly presidential.

“His experience and leadership showed the American people, and the rest of the world, that he is more than ready to be our next president.

“He talked about building strong alliances and restoring our credibility in the world.

“He articulated his vision of a safer and stronger America. He spoke of his unwavering determination to defeat terrorism and his commitment to strengthen our domestic economy by rewarding companies who keep good paying jobs here at home.

“He demonstrated that he values working families by calling for an increase in the minimum wage, access to affordable health care, and stronger public schools for our children. He called for efforts to expand the middle class instead of bankrolling the wealthy.

“John Kerry’s message is clearly resonating with West Virginians and I’m very excited about what that means for our future.”


http://rockefeller.senate.gov/news/2004/pr073004.html

[ProSense]

2. Presenting a real Commander in Chief.

Sen. Kerry discusses elections with Kirkuk area leaders

By Sgt. Sean Kimmons and Maj. Sam Schubert

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Just two months after the U.S. presidential elections, former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., flew by helicopter into the U.S. State Department compound here to visit Army, U.S. State Department and provincial Iraqi leaders on Jan. 6.

The reason for Kerry’s visit was for him to gain a better understanding of the political and security issues in the Kirkuk Province as part of Iraq’s first democratic elections slated for Jan. 30.

There were two meetings during his short visit. In the first meeting, he discussed security and political issues with Brig. Gen. John W. Morgan III, 1st Infantry Division’s assistant division commander; Brig. Gen. Alan Gayhart, 116th Brigade Combat Team commander; Col. Lloyd Miles, 2nd Brigade Combat Team commander; and Peter Thompson, U.S. State Department regional director in Kirkuk.

The senator’s second meeting was with local Iraqi leaders representing the various ethnic and religious groups of the Kirkuk Province. The principal subject of both discussions was the upcoming Iraqi national and provincial elections.

Even though Multi-National Forces will be not be directly involved in Iraq’s election process, Army units will work jointly with the Iraqi Security Forces in protecting Iraqis from terrorists and insurgents as they go to cast in their ballots.

Due to a potential election boycott by certain political parties from both the Kurdish and Sunni Arab groups, Kerry spent the second meeting talking to their representatives and other Iraqi politicians from the Kirkuk area about the effects of sitting out on these elections.

Certain Kurdish and Sunni Arab politicians want to postpone Iraq’s elections because of concerns about the ongoing security issues in the province and country.

Kerry countered the proposed boycotts by asking the concerned politicians how the security situation would improve in the following months if the Iraqi government were to grant a postponement. He added rhetorically that a potential security lapse could occur if the country’s majority Arab Shia were denied the opportunity to participate in the scheduled Jan. 30 elections.

Nevertheless, Kerry said he would personally address the issues brought forth by the Kurdish and Sunni Arab groups to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. The senator’s bottom line to the Iraqi politicians was that if they do not participate in the legislative elections later this month, they would not have a voice in the country’s new democratic government.

Iraqi voters will elect a 275-member Transitional National Assembly on Jan. 30. That body will put together a draft constitution that will go undergo a national referendum in October. If the constitution is approved, the plan calls for elections of a permanent Iraqi government in December.

On the same day as national elections, voters from Kirkuk will also elect a 41-member Provincial Council. One of these elected members will be chosen as the next governor of the Kirkuk Province.

Kerry also traveled to Fallujah and Mosul to assess security and political conditions.





http://www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Stories/01_05/22.htm

[Noisy Democrat]

3. This is excellent

Thanks for posting it!

[ProSense]

4. My pleasure! n/t

[TayTay]

5. I agree, these were great!

That was a very, very close election. We need to remember that and remember why so many people felt such hope. It's all still there, IMHO.

[jillan]

6. Excellent articles P.S.

To quote you here-
There are still a lot of people in denial, some intentionally, about Kerry's positions and strengths. They only saw Kerry and the other candidates as a counter to Bush. The reality was (and still is) that Kerry has a brilliant vision for where he wants to take this country. I just wish more people would open their eyes to that fact.

you are soooo right. And I think that's what separates the 'Kerrycrats' from the rest. We KNOW what Kerry is capable of, what his presidency would mean to this country and the world. It baffles me that there are so many people that still don't know what this man stands for, and frustrating for me that I continuously have to remind people. It's almost like they didn't pay attention to what he was saying during the election.

Another quote, another topic

In his victory speech, after thanking supporters, Bush said, "I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust."
I believe this statement was due to Kerry. He mentioned how upsetting it was to him during his concession speech that this nation is so divided. And he had said that he had passed that one to bsh during THE phone call. Kerry would have taken steps to bring this country together, although that would be a monumental task. Clinton really tried, and look at what they did to him!

What I wish is that Kerry had a better PR man - (or woman). He just doesn't get the recognition that he deserves. We support him so strongly because we wanted to learn about this man. And the more we learned, the more we knew what he would bring to this country.

[ProSense]

7. Why Would Anyone Vote for Bush and Cheney?

(Good stuff, great ending)

Why Would Anyone Vote for Bush and Cheney?
By Mike Hersh, Oct 26, 2004

Why would anyone vote for Bush and Cheney? It can't be their domestic or national security record - both of which are the worst ever. More jobs lost than in any four years since the Great Depression. The worst deficits ever. The worst break-down of security in US history on 9/11/01. Over 1000 Americans killed and thousands severely wounded in a needless war while Osama bin Laden laughs at us and Bush's impotent - and quickly forgotten - threats. Bush and Cheney can't run on their record.

What are the Bush/Cheney campaign themes? That John Kerry cannot keep us safe, even though they - not he - fell asleep at the switch, let terrorists kill thousands of Americans, and then they took their eye off the ball and let Osama bin Laden escape. Still, they come right out and threaten that a Kerry election would lead to a massive terrorist attack in our cities, and then blame Kerry for using "the politics of fear.

The Bush regime failed to address our health care crisis. Costs went up at least 10% each year Bush was ignoring the problems, even as 5 million Americans lost their coverage. Bush has no health care plan whatsoever. No ideas how to help. Without a record of action, and tied to a failed ideology which recognizes no responsibility to help Americans stay healthy, Bush relies on lying to us. Against all facts and reason Bush keeps claiming Kerry will spend $trillions on "government-run" health care. This although Kerry's plan would cost far less, and would expand choices. This would remain a private system, just one which works better than the complete lack of policy and attention under Bush.

Of course Bush and Cheney have a lot of excuses for their failures and failure to even try to fix problems, but where is the accountability? Where is the record of success? Rather than solve the serious problems, they blame others. They claim they took office during a recession, but the facts show otherwise. True, the economy was slowing in 2000, largely because of right wing Republican Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's restrictive monetary policies. Still, the economy was growing when they took office. They try to blame the recession and economic failure on the terrorist attacks they failed to prevent, but Bush and Cheney's statements and actions drove us into recession weeks before the 9/11 attacks.

As with many problems they blame on other people, Bush and Cheney are really to blame. They "talked down" the economy while running for office, which is not too unusual, but then - after taking office - they alarmed financial and equity markets with unfounded negative statements. This pointed pessimism was unprecedented in US history. Bush/Cheney policies hurt the economy and cost Americans jobs. Just last week Bush signed into law massive new loopholes rewarding firms for shipping good jobs overseas. The leading economic indicators are down for the past several months, even though Bush and Cheney claim we enjoy the best economy ever. Are they out of touch or shameless liars? Either they cannot tell the truth or they cannot tell the difference.

Unable to run on their record, Bush and Cheney hope people cast votes based on trivial side issues and non-issues. They latch onto a few stray comments made by Kerry and by people who know Kerry and try to spin them into damning attacks. Sometimes their audacity and hypocrisy surpass comprehension, such as trying to claim Kerry is a gay basher. The Log Cabin Republicans - a conservative gay organization - blasted Bush for playing politics with the Constitution and seeking votes by inciting hatred of gays.

Bush and Cheney are backing a radical Constitutional Amendment which would make gays second class citizens - while trying to gin up resentment by claiming John Kerry "insulted" gays by mentioning one of the Cheney's daughters is gay. Certainly this cannot have shocked them or anyone else, as Mary Cheney came out long ago and her job is to convince gays and lesbians to drink Coors Beer! This Bush/Cheney appeal to bigotry and hatred combined with feigned indignation is a dirty trick worse than a mere flip-flop. This is divisive and hypocritical politics of the worst order. Still, that's the least of it.

Cheney regularly repeats alarming threats that if we elect Kerry, we will suffer another horrendous attack. How does he know? Either he's just making up threats to scare us, or else he's relying on friends he made among the terrorists while he was helping Iraq, Iran and Libya build up power when Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. Let's review why Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit and compare this to Cheney's own record:

Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit because Kerry voted for some of the cuts in Pentagon Pork Cheney insisted on when he was Secretary of Defense. How dare John Kerry listen to Cheney! Sen. Zell Miller listed these cuts in a screaming outrage at the Republican National Convention, never mentioning Dick Cheney was their author.

Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit because Kerry supported cuts in CIA waste, cuts targeted at waste which were smaller than the severe and misplaced cuts Bush's newly-appointed Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss wanted at the time. Kerry supported better intelligence. Goss sought to slash human intelligence. Clearly Kerry is more in touch, and much more capable of protecting us than Bush, Cheney or their new CIA Director.

Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit because Kerry advocated waiting to see if sanctions and threats could scare Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. At that time, as Defense Secretary Cheney said, "We really needed some time to come to grips with this basic, fundamental question of our strategic assessment of what this meant. Did it matter that he'd taken Kuwait?" Once more, how dare Kerry rely on someone like Cheney who has no combat experience, no military knowledge, no common sense, and no integrity. Still, Kerry saw the sense of kicking Saddam out of Kuwait. Cheney wasn't so sure it even mattered! See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_a.html
Cheney makes no sense. He blamed Kerry's statements last month for Bush/Cheney failure to recruit allies to our side several months before. It's all just more of the same Bush/Cheney fail and blame game. In each case, Kerry took positions more sensible and defensible than the reckless, feckless Bush/Cheney positions.

As for who is "weak on terror," Dick Cheney supported empowering Iran by lifting sanctions against them, and helped other terrorist nations all to make money. He didn't care that his company was imperiling American lives. John Kerry would never do that. He rooted out terrorist-supporting criminals in the BCCI scandal. Still, Cheney bashes Kerry as weak! Either Cheney is knowingly lying when he claims a vote for Kerry is a vote for weakness, or else Cheney is dangerously out of touch with reality. Either way, Cheney is unfit.

But we're not really voting for Cheney. It's Bush who's really in charge. Yeah right. Anyway, let's consider the mighty Bush record. As his VP ghoulishly predicts nuclear, chemical and biological attacks - only if Kerry is elected - Bush accuses Kerry of playing " politics of fear." Bush's hypocrisy and dishonesty expose him as out of touch and unfit. So do his forty-six months of across-the-board failure, irresponsibility, and the countless mistakes he denies making. But back to "the politics of fear."

If threatening voters they will suffer nuclear attack if they don't do what you want isn't " politics of fear" according to Bush, what is? Kerry Quoting Bush's promises to "privatize" Social Security and discussing how the Bush failures in Iraq might lead Bush to impose a formal draft. Bush denies these are legitimate topics of discussion, but then again Bush lives in the Land of Denial. Consider the facts and Bush's own words.

Bush ran in 2000 openly promising to divert money from Social Security into the stock market and other investments. As Bush's failed economic policies crashed the stock market, Bush muted these positions, but he's never repudiated them. While Bush's privatization would pump money into the pockets of his pals the elite equities traders, it would drain $trillions from the Social Security trust fund and cost taxpayers an equal amount to administer.

In the Third Bush-Kerry Debate (Tempe Arizona Oct 13, 2004) Bush said, "I believe that younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their own money and put it in a personal savings account, because I understand that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return being given in the current Social Security trust." Sen. Kerry replied: "You just heard the president say that young people ought to be able to take money out of Social Security and put it in their own accounts. Now, my fellow Americans, that's an invitation to disaster. The CBO said very clearly that if you were to adopt the president's plan, there would be a $2 trillion hole in Social Security, because today's workers pay in to the system for today's retirees. We're going to protect Social Security. I will not privatize it. I will not cut the benefits."

Bush won't answer this on the merits and he won't tell us where these $trillions will come from. He just repeats the same empty promises from 2000. After Bush and the right wing Republicans raided the Treasury there's nothing left to steal, so Bush looks elsewhere to fund the massive, unfair loopholes and giveaways he promised to his richest backers. He has to loot Social Security, and he knows it. Bush balks at the term "privatization" but Bush has been planning to raid Social Security for years. We know because he's said so.

Kerry quoting Bush's plans to drain Social Security, raise the retirement age, and slash benefits isn't "politics of fear" this year, any more than Gore's accurate analysis of Bush's empty promises and voodoo economics was "fuzzy math" four years ago. It's past time to get past Bush's deceptive double-talk and hold him accountable for his own words.

In a speech at St. Charles, MO on November 2, 2000, Bush said he opposes "the federal government controlling the Social Security like it's some kind of federal program. We understand differently though. You see, it's your money not the government's money." But Social Security is a federal program. Bush wants to change that, because he wants to give our money to his friends once again, and there's nothing left in the coffers. Bottom line: Bush is planning to raid Social Security because he fundamentally opposes the program, and thinks his friends deserve our money more than we do.

About the draft, Kerry observes the current state of the military and uses knowledge he gained from personal combat experience - knowledge Cheney, Bush and almost all of their neo-con chicken hawk coop lack. As Kerry explains, under Bush's poor planning and worse decision-making, nearly all of our fighting forces are in Iraq, on their way home from Iraq, or on their way to Iraq. Military experts look at this mess and wonder if Bush will reinstitute a formal military draft in a second term. This dreadful prospect seems ever more likely considering the "back door" draft currently underway. Bush's attempts to ridicule our concerns cannot change these facts.

Bush Administration failures make our National Guard and Reserve personnel serve double and triple tours for which they're not trained or prepared - or fairly compensated. Bush even sought to slash their combat pay! As Bush abuses and misuses our troops, new enlistments and re-enlistments decline. Meanwhile, Bush's policies place greater demands on our men and women in uniform, spreading them ever thinner. This cannot continue but Bush has pledged to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld measures prospective occupation of Iraq in years not months.

If Bush is not going to instate a draft, how can he maintain his aggressive "Bush Doctrine" much less meet the legitimate requirements of national defense? Bush refuses to say. He's too busy making snide remarks about John Kerry which diminish the issues. For example, Bush says about Kerry "he can run, but he can't hide" using the same words he used vowing to bring back Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Bush hasn't brought bin Laden to justice, and despite empty claims to the contrary, Americans are not safer.

The record shows with the millions of jobs lost under Bush's mismanagement, an additional five million of us lost health care as well. Bush's policies lost millions of private sector jobs, not made up for by Bush's massive increase in government spending. Bush hasn't done anything to help Americans get access health care, and his so-called Medicare reform puts $billions in the pockets of pharmaceutical corporations and has not helped a single senior afford a single bottle of medicine.

Faced with these facts, Bush lies and denies. John Kerry has a plan to extend health care to Americans through tax cuts and credits encouraging employers to cover us among other means. Several news organizations and experts confirm the Kerry plan involves no "government takeover," but Bush keeps dishonestly accusing Kerry and lying about the costs of Kerry's plan. Bush thinks he's mocking Kerry, but he's really making a mockery of our political system, fiddling with ruin as our economy, health care, national security all burn. Some may claim Bush isn't really lying - he doesn't know any better. That's an excuse for a child who breaks a lamp, not for the Leader of the Free World so I'll assume Bush is lying - rather than severely mentally disabled - and call him a liar not a fool.

All Bush's lies about Kerry - and the lies about Iraqi nukes, uranium from Niger, "fuzzy math" giveaways for the idle rich, and so much more - undermine Bush's credibility. Bush's denials that he plans to reinstate the draft ring as hollow as the rest of his fabrications. Bush demands we just take his word for it. He's really telling the truth this time. We cannot believe him. We simply cannot trust Bush to keep his word. Bottom line: No matter how many lies Bush tells about Kerry, telling the truth about Bush's "back door" draft and the likelihood Bush will seek a formal draft isn't "politics of fear."

Although many politicians shade the truth, spin and exaggerate, Bush reacts to the truth with anger. Politicians are supposed to tell the truth, but Bush fails that test as badly as any president ever. Confronted with the facts during the debates, Bush scowled, snarled and even charged at the moderator. He also added to his long list of lies. When Kerry reminded us what Bush said a mere six months after 9/11, Bush quickly denied it claiming, "Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations." But when asked about bin Laden at a press conference on March 13, 2002 Bush said, "I truly am not that concerned about him."

It's hard to determine which is most alarming: Bush's blatant hostility toward the truth, his complete lack of "concern about" the terrorist whose organization killed 3,000 Americans and still threatens us or his outrageous hypocrisy claiming Kerry is the one who lacks focus against terrorism. Whichever you pick, all this says a lot about Bush and none of it good. Bush doesn't know what to think or do about our enemies, and the same is true about our friends. Bush has no idea how to build or maintain alliances.

Bush took office and quickly began alienating and insulting our allies. He even sided with Libya, Iran, and North Korea against the rest of the planet by opposing treaties to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Since 9/11, Bush squandered world-wide goodwill, and his reliance on giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton and focusing on securing oil fields in Iraq signaled most of our NATO friends they were unwelcome in any "Operation Iraqi Liberation" - OIL. Bush continues to insult our allies while grossly exaggerating contributions from "fair weather friends" who are fleeing his wilting "Coalition of the (no longer) Willing."

Bush's mistreatment of our friends is costing us lives and driving us deeper into debt. Still, Bush sees nothing wrong in any of this and insists he'll stay the course. This bloody, costly course is disastrous and getting worse. Kerry would immediately reverse Bush's antagonistic attitude and bring our allies to our side A President Kerry can and will face the facts and change the current situation under which Americans pay most of the costs of the Iraq War in blood and $billions.

Bush's audacious failures, misjudgments and mistakes undermine American strength from Iraq to your own neighborhood. During the heat of the campaign, Bush refuses to address real issues and rushes to blow up the deficit with $billions in gifts to his special interest cronies. Bush is paying them to keep exporting our jobs and charging the bill to us and our kids and grandkids. Bush didn't even bother to wait until after the voting to raid our Treasury one more time.

That's our money, not his, but Bush doesn't understand this. He keeps spending it on Halliburton no-bid sweet heart deals and overcharges and giving it away like Santa Clause, but Bush rewards huge corporations while taking from good little girls and boys. The timing and scope of this outrageous corporate loophole legislation demonstrates Bush's extreme arrogance, complete lack of connection with regulars Americans, or both.

After the election, what will Bush do? Unless we send him home as a loser, we have no idea because Bush refuses to say. His record is pretty clear, however. He's always taken the easy way, and done as little work as possible, and sided with the powerful elite over the middle class. Rather than facing facts, he's clung to denial. Instead of making the tough decisions needed to rally our allies, protect our people from attack and ill health, and reinvigorate the economy Bush would rather lie and mock John Kerry.

Even when forced to make a stand, he's made astonishingly disastrous decisions. Bush remains astonishingly irresponsible and unaccountable, ignoring timely warnings then making huge mistakes which make problems worse, and then pointing fingers at innocent people. What happened to "the buck stops here"? Bush passes the buck more than anyone in US history and then he lies about it.

Bush blames trial lawyers for his administrations' failure to heed warnings about flu shot shortages dating back years. Meanwhile, Bush refuses to sign a bill which would protect vaccine manufacturers from financial loss in lawsuits. Most importantly, Bush and his top officials ignored dire warnings leading up to 9/11. They laughed off former-Clinton, Bush and Reagan officials like Samuel Berger, Richard Clarke and others who told them terrorism and Osama bin Laden would dominate their security concerns.

Bush's National Security Advisor dismissed a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" as an "historical document" - whatever that is - to spin Bush's failure to act when told: "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York" and "a group of bin Laden supporters was inside the US planning attacks" against us.

Bush derides Kerry claiming the Senator would wait for an attack before responding, but that's not true. We do know that Bush ignored serious and specific threats in the past, and despite his claims that 9/11 was a wakeup call, why did Bush and his top officials ignore all the other wakeup calls such as the August 6, 2001 briefing? There are several other serious questions about this failed administration:

Why didn't Cheney bother to meet with the Anti-Terror Task Force he was supposedly running? Why did Rumsfeld threaten Bush would veto a defense bill if Congress diverted money away from Star Wars to fight terror? Why did Cheney advise doing nothing about Saddam's attack on Kuwait and then trade with Iraq and Iran in the 1990s? Why did the Bush team ignore pre-9/11 warnings and then hit the snooze button?
The Bush "national defense team" keeps ignoring threats posed by North Korea and Iran. They've done next to nothing to buy up loose nukes from the former Soviet Union which pose an unfathomably deadly threat. They've left our ports, railways, power grid, and other prime targets largely unprotected. They've spent all their energy trying to defend loopholes for multinationals that send our jobs overseas than defending legitimate US interests. They have no answers for any of these failures, so they rely on the "politics of fear" while deceitfully, hypocritically blaming Kerry.

Bush and Cheney base their campaign on hypocritical accusations that Kerry cannot protect American lives and trivializing or ignoring important issues. No wonder they try to claim they're the only ones who can keep us safe - even though they let terrorists operate in the US after ignoring specific warnings bin Laden was determined to strike. Bush and Cheney hope we forget that it wasn't Kerry who didn't keep us safe, Bush and Cheney failed on that paramount responsibility - and then failed to make needed changes to fix the problems.

Bush and Cheney cannot run on their dismal record, because that record shows their lack of ability and concern with protecting our lives. Or our jobs. Or our environment. Or our Constitutional rights. Or our children's' future. No wonder Bush and Cheney prefer to run and hide. They essentially say vote for them, despite their complete failure, because Kerry isn't perfect. Well, no one is perfect and Kerry has made mistakes - such as giving Cheney and Bush the benefit of the doubt. There's every indication that Kerry will do a much better job than Bush.

A vote for Bush is a vote for reckless, failed, fatal foreign policy which may require a draft. A vote for Bush is a vote to ignore Osama bin Laden, loose nukes, vulnerable targets, and threats from North Korea and Iran. A vote for Bush is a vote for more sky-rocketing health costs, run-away gas prices, more pollution, and exporting jobs. More Bush means more poverty, more rancor and division as he advocates tampering with the Constitution to race-bait, gay-bait and eliminate our basic rights.

Bush's inattention and prevarication proves his concern centers on keeping his job not protecting your job. His policies threaten to bankrupt Social Security. He's making it tougher to pay for college and tougher to find a decent job after graduation - while pushing us toward a military draft.

Either Bush can't do the job for America, or he refuses to do the job. Either way, it's time for serious leadership. It's time to end the blame games, the trivialization, the excuses, and the lies. We cannot afford four more years of more of the same. Bush is unfit to serve four more minutes. Bush whines that the job of president is "hard." Let's do him a big favor and fire him next week so he can find a job he can do.

© Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 by MikeHersh.com and identified authors. MikeHersh.com invites you to broadcast any material at this site, provided you identify the source as MikeHersh.com. All Internet, email and other summaries, excerpts or other written reproductions must include this blurb and a link to http://www.MikeHersh.com.
http://www.mikehersh.com/printer_Why_would_anyone_vote_for_Bush_and_Cheney.shtml