The first of 3 Presidential debates was held tonight in Miami. Pundit Pinheads agree that John Kerry did a better job than President Bush on the debate topic of Iraq and homeland security.
It was assumed that Bush would score well on that topic. That is why it was the first topic of the debates. But Kerry was able to make his points, rebut most of Bush’s, and to steer the debate toward his agenda.
Each candidate got into details on some of the issues like what kind of talks should be held with North Korea.
The other part of the debate had nothing to do with what was said but how each man presented his ideas and presented himself.
We saw the return of Bush the stammerer. He has been known not to be good at off the cuff remarks and it showed. Also while Kerry was speaking Bush looked annoyed the whole time like he wanted to fight. His eyes darted around the room and it looked like he was chewing on the inside of his cheek.
Kerry refrained from his long winded responses and while Bush talked he either listened intently or wrote some notes to himself.
Oh and the two wives had similar colored outfits……
I don’t often get angry while watching a news broadcast, but on Friday 9/24/04 I happened to catch our local newscast giving an update on the Presidential campaign, I got very angry. Angry enough to walkout of the break room just so I wouldn’t have to watch the story.
It started with a clip of John Kerry giving his 7 point plan for the war on terrorism and critiquing Bush and company for going after Saddam instead of finishing the job against Bin Laden.
“George Bush made Saddam Hussein the priority,” Kerry told a group of students and faculty at Temple University. “The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy, al-Qaida, which killed more than 3,000 people on 9/11 and which still plots our destruction today. And there’s just no question about it: The president’s misjudgment, miscalculation and mismanagement of the war in Iraq will make the war on terror harder to win.”
“Iraq is now what it was not before the war: a haven for terrorists,” Kerry said. “I will grant no one, no country, no sweetheart relationship a free pass,” he said. “As president, I will do what President Bush has not done; I will hold the Saudis accountable.”
http://tinyurl.com/4ykkv
So then Vice President Cheney responds:
Vice President Dick Cheney complained Friday in Warrenton that the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, suggested that Iraq wasn’t a home for terrorists before Saddam Hussein was deposed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Saddam himself was a terrorist,” Cheney told about 1,500 people at a Republican rally at the Warren County Fairgrounds.
Cheney said Saddam had provided a safe haven for terrorists over the years, made $25,000 payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers and had a relationship with al-Qaida.
The Bush-Cheney team continue to LIE about the reasons for invading Iraq. That is why I got mad. The news allowed Cheney to spit out his untruths without ANY questioning from the press or anyone.
Taking a closer look at Iraq and terrorism finds that Saddam was considered dangerous, no one disputes that, but not an immediate threat to the US. Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi of Libya was more of an immediate threat to the US than Saddam. Bin Laden had ordered the killing several thousand innocent civilians in the 9/11 terrorist act yet the President shifted the focus from Bin Laden to Saddam without a resolution.
The other lie Cheney is fond of stating is that Saddam and al-Qaida had a relationship. He is then assuming you and I will connect the dots and think Saddam had something to do with 9/11. There was no relationship. Saddam was too busy keeping his grip on Iraq to help another terrorist group. He wasn’t looking for an excuse to be attacked.
Cheney is also the one who inferred that if Kerry was elected, the US would be attacked by terrorists.
Terrorism is a threat. Unfortunately, the Republicans are too busy keeping Cat Stevens out of the country and forcing book stores to tell the government what books I buy, among other civil rights abuses, to fight terrorism as it needs to be fought. Terrorism and the groups who commit terror acts are in the shadows. They have no country or army to fight. Fighting terror requires a concerted effort of intelligence agencies across the world and old fashion police work. Just ask the Italians how they broke the back of the Red Brigades, or how the British turned down the IRA troubles, or how the Germans defeated the Baader-Meinhof gang or how Japan dealt with the Japanese Red Army group.
Cheney and Bush want you to think that terrorists care who is in the Whitehouse.
If you have followed the “news” in the past couple of weeks, the “media” has been beside itself on yet another side show to the Presidential elections of 2004. The cause of the commotion was the broadcast by Dan Rather on 60 Minutes that included memos detailing what we all have known for months, that President Bush got a free ride in the Texas National Guard in the early 1970’s.
The main issue was the use of memos that proved Bush was suspended from flying because he refused to take a mandatory physical and pressure on Bush’s commander to white wash the problem.
It seems now the memos can’t be verified as authentic and CBS and Dan Rather have backed off defending the use of the memos.
As Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) reported on September 16, the information in those memos is true even if the memos themselves may not have been produced during that time.
In an interview, also broadcast by CBS during their defense of the story, Marian Carr Knox, Bush’s commander’s secretary supported the information in the memos:
Marian Carr Knox is a compelling witness who provides substantive reasons to doubt the authenticity of the memos bearing the signature of Lt. Col. Jerry Killian– forcing CBS News to run an interview with her (CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes II, 9/15/04) that cast doubt on aspects of its September 9 reporting on the Bush Guard story. At the same time, she debunked several of the specific reasons other news outlets had given for questioning the memos that were featured in that report.
But while Knox greatly undermines the documentation of the CBS reporting, it is important for critics to recognize that she corroborates the substance of that reporting. “The information in them is correct,” she told the New York Times (9/15/04).
http://www.fair.org/activism/cbs-memos-knox.html
Of course the whole story is a big fire about nothing in the scheme of things. Bush has run on being a “war” President while his challenger, Sen. John Kerry is the only one of them that actually fought in a war. It has been common knowledge that President Bush, like other sons of prominent Americans were able to avoid going to Vietnam by joining the National Guard.
It is ironic that such ducking of service isn’t possible today because the National Guard is a front line unit that has been sent to hot zones around the world like Iraq and Kosovo. Those part-time soldiers are used to save the government money they would have to spend on a large standing military.
In my spare time I write. I have done it for many years and it is a way for me to rant and work out issues I have in my thick skull. Most of the time I write short stories but I also like to write essays on various topics.
On September 16th, 2001, still in shock from the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, I wrote an essay as a Humanist repsonse to the incident.
I felt that today, the 3rd anniversy of the attacks I would share that essay I wrote so soon after the event:
A big black smoking hole in one of the World Trade Center towers was the first scene I saw at 8:55 am on Tuesday September 11, 2001. Thick black smoke poured into the air. The reporters said a plane had crashed into the tower. At 9:03 am I witnessed, live on TV, a second jet come into view and plow into the other tower with a resultant explosion as thousands of pounds of fuel ignited.
“What the f***?” I remember saying while the commentators on the morning show were asking if they just saw what they just saw. They reran the video and yes it was a second jet crashing into the other tower.
Senator Zell Miller’s speech at the Republican National Convention on 9/1 was the talk of all the pundits that week, especially when Miller challenged Chris Matthews to a duel. Back in 2001, Miller had nothing but nice things to say about John Kerry. President Bush and the Republicans have harped on Kerry for changing his position on some issues over the years yet here is Miller saying nice things about Kerry in 2001 and then being real nasty about him at the RNC in 2004. The following intro is posted on Miller’s Senate website:
Introduction of Senator John Kerry
Democratic Party of Georgia’s
Jefferson-Jackson Dinner
March 1, 2001
My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation’s authentic heroes, one of this party’s best-known and greatest leaders � and a good friend.
He was once a lieutenant governor � but he didn’t stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984.
In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington.
