lily-livered liberals

[Sparrowhawk]

I'm Sparrowhawk, and I approve this message lol


You know your campaign is in trouble, when the most liberal newspaper in America throws up its arms in frustration over the most liberal US Senators in America failure to display any moral ground.


PS "lily-livered liberals" I wonder who first used that label... LOL






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-kerry13jul13,1,6259345.story
EDITORIAL
Kerry-Edwards Stonewall

July 13, 2004

If not murder, John F. Kerry and John Edwards have accused President Bush of something close to criminally negligent homicide in Iraq. "They were wrong and soldiers died because they were wrong," Kerry said of the Bush administration over the weekend.

This is strong language, but not unjustified. Last week's Senate Intelligence Committee report adds to the pile of studies and reportage that has undermined the key reasons Bush gave for going to war: Saddam Hussein's imperial designs, links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction and so on.

The trouble is, both Sens. Kerry and Edwards voted yes on the resolution authorizing the war in Iraq. And now they refuse to say whether they would have supported the resolution if they had known what they know today. Both say they can't be bothered with "hypothetical questions."

But whether it is a hypothetical question depends on how you phrase it. Do they regret these votes? Were their votes a mistake? These are not hypothetical questions. And they are questions the Democratic candidates for president and vice president cannot duck if they wish to attack Bush on Iraq in such morally charged language.

After all, the issue raised by the Senate Intelligence Committee report is not whether the Bush administration bungled the prosecution of the war, or whether there should have been greater international cooperation, or whether the challenges of occupying and rebuilding the country were grossly underestimated. When Kerry says "they were wrong," he is referring to the administration's basic case for going to war. Kerry supported that decision. So did Edwards. Were they wrong? If they won't answer that question, they have no moral standing to criticize Bush.

Reluctance to answer the question is understandable. If they say they stand by their pro-war votes, this makes nonsense of their criticisms of Bush. If they say they were misled or duped by the administration, they look dopey and weak. Many of their Democratic Senate colleagues were skeptical of the administration's evidence even at the time. If Kerry and Edwards tell the probable truth — that they were deeply dubious about the war but afraid to vote no in the post-9/11 atmosphere and be tarred as lily-livered liberals — they would win raves from editorial writers for their frankness and courage. And they could stop dreaming of oval offices.

Kerry and Edwards are in a bind. But it is a bind of their own making. The great pity will be if this bind leads the Democratic candidates to back off from their harsh, and largely justified, criticism of Bush. The Democrats could lose a valuable issue, and possibly even the election, because the Democratic candidates were too clever for their own good.

In the past, Kerry has dodged the question of his pro-war vote by saying that he intended to give Bush negotiating leverage and to encourage multilateral action, not to endorse a unilateral American invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, what he may have intended is not what he voted for. Furthermore, a vote in favor of the war resolution was unavoidably a statement that the various complaints against Hussein did justify going to war against him, if all else failed, whatever caveats and escape hatches were in any individual senator's head.

Kerry and Edwards would like to fudge the issue by conflating it with questions about how the war was prosecuted. Or they say that what matters is where we go from here. It is true that "what now?" is the important policy question. But that doesn't make it the only question. How we got here affects how we get out. And even if it had no practical relevance to our future Iraq policy, hearing how Kerry and Edwards explain their votes to authorize a war they now regard as disastrous would be helpful in assessing their character and judgment.

Their continued refusal to explain would be even more helpful, unfortunately.

[Sparrowhawk]

PS

It has not been confirmed that the union of Rosie and Moore will produce another Hillary.

<hr>

Rosie & Moore


Rosie Takes Shot At Bush During Gay-Friendly Cruise
Cruise To Stop In Key West Later This Week

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. -- On the eve of a possible U.S. Senate vote to make gay marriages unconstitutional, Rosie O'Donnell spoke out against the Bush administration's plans to ban same sex unions during a stop on a gay-friendly cruise, according to Local 6 News.

Rosie Promotes Cruise, Discusses Possible Gay Marriage Ban

"I think this cruise comes at the perfect time, when they're considering an amendment making it illegal for us to have families," O'Donnell told Local 6 News partner Florida Today.

O'Donnell, who is a strong advocate of gay marriage and adoption, railed against President George W. Bush and the administration, according to the report.

"It will be the first time, except for prohibition, that bigotry has been added to the Constitution," O'Donnell said. "That the prevention of rights and exclusion of rights takes paramount over some religious ideology. And, supposedly, that is what we are fighting in Iraq -- A religious extreme government that is not letting people live freely."



<hr>


The Democrats and Straightjacket Politics
by Vincent Fiore
11 July 2004

Nothing has been off-limits in this most hate-filled political season in anyone’s memory.


Imagine being driven by the very opposite of emotions you once supposed most prevalent in an enlightened society; that answering the call to a civic responsibility is not heeded out of duty and necessity, but out of conspiracy and distrust.

Imagine that the purpose you feel in competitive strivings is born of hate and fear and not of belief and trust, and the deadliest enemy in your life is not the terrorist who has bloodied this nation, but the president that leads that nation.

Imagine no more.

Today's hard left of the Democratic Party has trafficked heavily in advancing the absurd. Further, they delight in dictating such reprehensible and squalid demagoguery as to give the adjective, Machiavellian, a whole new meaning.

With four months to go until election Tuesday, progressive leaders and a surprisingly large minority of the party faithful have begun to break the confines of their political straitjackets.

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is celebrated among the left as a documentary of truth and faith, inasmuch as Christians celebrate the Gospel. Moore is so stupendously wrong in his entire cut-and-paste Bush-bashing that even noted liberal soothsayers had to abandon the premise of Moore’s movie being "just an opinion.”

Newsweek's Michael Isakoff and Mark Hosenball use nearly 2500 words to take apart Moore's documentary, and further expose just how transparently mendacious some members in the Democratic Party are in their zealous and overreaching attempts to steer an election for Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry.

Even Richard Clark, the former Bush terrorism czar-turned-Bush-critic, cannot save Moore on his claim that Bush allowed prominent Saudi officials, and members of the bin Laden family, to fly out of the United States in the immediate days after 9/11. Moore's assertions, says Clark, is "a mistake… it didn't get any higher than me."

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen’s latest piece says it all in its title: "Baloney, Moore or Less." Cohen has made his living trashing Republican administrations. For him and others like Vanity Fair columnists Christopher Hitchens, the Boston Globe’s Ellen Goodman, and the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, hanging Moore out to dry was the equivalent of journalistic cannibalism.

Nevertheless, as difficult and odd as this may seem to most leftists, tossing Moore over the side has taken on a sense of urgency; for the elite in-the-know members realize that for their side, this election ceased to be about politics quite some time ago, and more about the phantasmic and grandiloquent killing of President Bush.

Nothing has been off-limits in this most hate-filled political season in anyone’s memory. Enraged leftist Democrats, and those who embrace the “anybody but Bush” campaign, have even penned a short litany in book form that describes multiple ways on how one would literally kill George W. Bush.

On August 24, Nicholson Baker will debut a 115-page novella titled Checkpoint, a sickening and shocking tale of how the book’s main character, “Jay,” tells his friend, “Ben,” that he is going to assassinate President Bush. Though this is mere fiction, the author’s feelings regarding his “discontent” with Bush are insanely real. The reader will be treated to such engaging and penetrating prose as: “I’m gonna kill that bastard,” and “He’s one dead armadillo.”

It is amusing to hear Washington liberals lament that all civility in political discourse is lost upon hearing vice-president Cheney tell the Senate’s most notorious partisan, Vermont Senator Pat Leahy, Democrat, to “F*** yourself” during the annual Senate photography session. Lost in scandalous thought over this, the media tsk-tsk’s the raging flames of incendiary hate set in every medium by raving segments of the Democratic Party while it decries the minor flair-up in the oft-times cynical United States Senate.

The rabble supporting “anybody but Bush” for president has put John Kerry in a difficult position: He can either denounce what has been going on in the name of “democracy,” which he has not done, or continue not to notice the wild-eyed and growing liberal presence that has begun to cast a large shadow upon his campaign. If he turns away from the democratic fringe loudly and publicly, he will lose a good percentage of their support and money. If he continues to tactfully wrap a quasi-embrace around this rabble, the majority of the electorate will rightly conclude that a Faustian mentality has pervaded his campaign.

In 1958, the rise of the John Birch Society (JBS) had many believing that this was the face of conservatism. Led by Robert Welch Jr., the society became very influential in the early sixties, aiding Barry Goldwater’s run for the White House in 1964. But along the way, the JBS became rife with conspiracy theorists and extremism. By 1965, the JBS was generally considered radical and reactionary.

Around this time, a young, modern conservative named William F. Buckley stood athwart the JBS and in 1965, denounced and largely ended the Birch Society’s influence in conservative politics through his popular magazine, National Review. Calling the JBS claims “paranoid and unpatriotic drivel,” Buckley righted the conservative movement, thereby steering conservatism toward the mainstream of the country’s beliefs.

Who will be the Democratic Party’s version of William F. Buckley? Who will stand opposite today’s liberal mob, yelling “Stop?” As the loons gather and infest the political landscape this election, who will step up and tell the party of FDR and Kennedy that they sound about as rational and believable as a deacon caught in a ***** house with his pants off.

Meanwhile, cooler heads among the electorate will continue to denounce them and their words for the unhinged twaddle that it is.

Vincent Fiore contributes commentary for several web sites on a weekly basis, and occasionally has commentary posted on NewsMax.com. Your comments are always welcomed.

[d c taveapont]

i'm going to be the pain in the rear end...did the CiC say that we did not find the tons of WMDs YET...but we were right in going into iraq and removing saddam....and by removing him we are safer...BS...not when the terrorist have and are already here...was removing him worth the loss of lives both military and civilian...hell no... the fight is with the terrorist and where we find them which doesn't mean to go to war with every damn country that they are in....sit back and think about what has happened to our governament and those who are in charge...i for one had my doubts about iraq and still do...until some one shows me the TONS of WMDs....

[HardJedi]

hmmmm well, DC, it's a sketchy line isn't it? a preemptive war? 900 dead for us, and how many because of those 900 dead will now live longer and safer lives? who knows? ther is, of course, no way of knowing.

I have said this before though. We, America, that is, have a MORAL RESPONSIBILITY to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and whenever possibleto end the riegn of tyrants, in order to protect the innocent. you wanna know more about this, or in more detail? Just ask, I am almost never at a loss for words.

OH! and one MORE thing. There ARE no TERRORISTS. There is only the ENEMY! ( said that before too.) ;)

[enviro]

Oh it's real easy to sit back and criticize all of the measures taken to prevent terrorists actions from happening. But if we didn't do anything and terrorists were having their will with us on OUR HOMELAND, you'd be the first to criticize how not enough was done.

A prime example is a neighborhood where cops are heavily present. Crime is being prevented. Some will say it's a waste of money having all of those cops there. Let's take the cops away and see how many of them gripe because they were robbed - "Where were the police?" they scream.

Plain and simple - we have taken the war to their doorstep. Lives will be lost by the men and women who make sure we can sleep in peace every night.

WMD's? That was one out of 14 reasons for going to Iraq. This SOB bombed and gassed his own people, attacked Iran, invaded Kuwait, threatened us many times with his weapons, paid suicide bomber's families $25,000 cash for killing Americans and Isrealies, defied UN resolution after UN resolution, harbored terrorists, and gave terrorists money to kill Americans. You know, D.C. I guess you're right - we should have left this poor man alone.

Where we find them which doesn't mean to go to war with every damn country that they are in? So they can get a free ride anytime they want, huh? You voted for Clinton didn't you? That's the same assanine way of thinking that made 9-11 possible. If you sponsor terrorists, you are an enemy. They have been warned.

Sad to say - but you are the type of person that a terrorist would love. You are saying all of the things they want to hear. I know Saddam would embrace you and call you a genius. He'd still be in power and terrorists could roam freely across the world if you were in charge.

[Sparrowhawk]

Saddam Hussein ordered the assassination of President George H. W. Bush, while he was in Kuwait in April of 1993.

Now, I really don't care if it was Clinton, Carter or Reagan. An assassination was planned by Iraq against a former US President, who represents American, and in the end Americans.

That alone was reason to take out Sadam Hussein.

As it were Clinton only send off a handful of Tomahawk guided missiles at the Iraqi hintelligence headquarters in Iraq in the middle of the night and killed a couple of janitors, some two months afterwards, and then he only did it, because the press was going to release information that Iraq was responsible for the assassination attempt.

It was a very weak response by a sitting president, and our nation like other terrorist acts committed against us during the Clinton era was seen as slow to respond and even slower at holding anyone responsible.

[yellowwing]

It looks like Rosie won,

WASHINGTON (CNN), July 14, 2004 (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/14/mccain.marriage/)
McCain: Same-sex marriage ban is un-Republican
..."The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," McCain said. "It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them."

He and five other Republican stood up to the 'Yes men' and reminded them that the Rebulican Party is about less Federal Governemt

But I am very disappointed that my boy John Kerry didn't wote at all on this issue.

[Sparrowhawk]

that he has been straddling the liberal fence line so much, I think I'll send him a new voter registration form, so he can go ahead and register as a Democrat.

[enviro]

http://www.sagentic.com/images/image0011.jpg

[Sparrowhawk]

that pic is a keeper

[Sparrowhawk]

Slim-Fast pulls Whoopi's ads over raunchy anti-Bush rant


http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20040715/mdf628732.jpg

Goldberg is seen in an ad for Slim Fast's 'Big Loser' campaign in a picture released December 30. (Slim Fast Foods/Reuters)



Comedian Whoopi Goldberg will no longer appear in ads for diet aid maker Slim-Fast following her lewd riff on President George W. Bush name at a fund-raiser last week, the company said on July 14, 2004.

Florida-based Slim-Fast said it was 'disappointed' in Goldberg's remarks at last Thursday's $7.5 million star-studded fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York.


The company disavowed the barbs by Goldberg, who repeatedly made a sexual pun on Bush's surname at a celebrity concert in New York attended by presidential candidate John Kerry and his running-mate John Edwards.


A statement said Goldberg's monologue Thursday at Radio City Music Hall "does not reflect the views and values of Slim-Fast" which made the sassy comedienne its spokeswoman "because of her commitment to losing weight."


"We are disappointed by the manner in which Ms. Goldberg chose to express herself and sincerely regret that her recent remarks offended some of our consumers," the company said. "Ads featuring Ms. Goldberg will no longer be on the air."


Scathing anti-Bush tirades by Goldberg and other celebrities had already drawn the ire of the Bush campaign, which called the concert a "star-studded hate fest" and demanded the Democrats release videotape of the event.


Kerry said nothing at the concert about the comments but praised all the performers as representing the "heart and soul" of the country. His campaign later distanced itself from some of the insults.

[Sparrowhawk]

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20040709/capt.sge.lvs94.090704155429.photo00.default-154x384.jpg

Americans allergic to the subtle Democratic flavor of Heinz ketchup can now plunge their 'freedom fries' into a 100-percent guaranteed, patriotic alternative: 'W Ketchup'(AFP/HO)

[thedrifter]

Might as Well Face It, You're Addicted to Love

"This is the first time I've appeared anywhere without John Edwards in the last four days. I'm feeling this withdrawal."--John Kerry, quoted in USA Today, July 13


Ellie

http://ruinsmiley.tripod.com/PAGE5_files/hearts.gif

[thedrifter]

'Doonesbury' Artist Trudeau Skewers Bush

NEW YORK - Cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who has skewered politicians for decades in his comic strip "Doonesbury," tells Rolling Stone magazine he remembers Yale classmate George W. Bush as "just another sarcastic preppy who gave people nicknames and arranged for keg deliveries."


Trudeau attended Yale University with Bush in the late 1960s and served with him on a dormitory social committee.


"Even then he had clearly awesome social skills," Trudeau said. "He could also make you feel extremely uncomfortable ... He was extremely skilled at controlling people and outcomes in that way. Little bits of perfectly placed humiliation."


Trudeau said he penned his very first cartoon to illustrate an article in the Yale Daily News on Bush and allegations that his fraternity, DKE, had hazed incoming pledges by branding them with an iron.


The article in the campus paper prompted The New York Times to interview Bush, who was a senior that year. Trudeau recalled that Bush told the Times "it was just a coat hanger, and ... it didn't hurt any more than a cigarette burn."


"It does put one in mind of what his views on torture might be today," Trudeau said.


Having mocked presidents of both parties in the "Doonesbury" strip since 1971, Trudeau said Bush has been, "tragically, the best target" he's worked with yet.


"Bush has created more harm to this country's standing and security than any president in history," Trudeau said. "What a shame the world has to suffer the consequences of Dubya not getting enough approval from Dad."


Rolling Stone was publishing the interview Friday.


Rolling Stone Article..... Doonesbury Goes to War

Garry Trudeau talks about Iraq, the coming election and his old classmate George W. Bush
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story?id=6298171


Ellie

[d c taveapont]

Enviro: You said that i'm the type of person that the terrorist would love...now how in the hell did you come to that conclusion...by what i posted...damn your wrong son...i spend a year hunting the VC in the jungles of Viet-Nam...now don't make me laugh....you know i read this once...The unwilling, lead by the unskilled, to do the Unnessary, for the Ungreatful...in some ways it reminds me of this war....and those fighting it...

[ivalis]

apparently enviro would prefer a police state if it abolished crime.

enviro refer's to the UN resolutions that Iraq violated. I little tip for the fella, the US has never violated a UN resolution because it has veto power and therefore there has never been a UN resolution passed with which it doesn't agree. it puzzles me when those that say that the US doesn't need the UN while at the same time they refer to the UN resolutions as a reason to go to war.

Iraq was supported by the US in its war w/Iran.

The US had a "contract" out on Saddam, I guess we're just as tough as Saddam, who happened to be as legitimately elected as our president.

Don't recall where Iraq ever threatened the US, the only US troops at risk where those on Iraqi soil.

As far as going after those that sponsored terrorism, Pakistan & Saudi Arabia are bigger culprits than Iraq.

Afghanistan is back to its pre Taliban ways, war lords & opium.

[enviro]

I thought I explained my conclusion very thoroughly. Read it again - only slower this time.

I spent a year hunting a peek at my third grade teacher's boobies. I also spent 9 months hunting the Taliban through the deserts of Afghanistan.

We are very willing - our leaders are inspiring - our cause is just - and the people will always have its ingrates (they're called liberals).

Now - you're going to argue that Iraq can violate all the resolutions it wants because it's "not fair - the U.S. has veto power" C'mon!

Let me make this clear, fella, - the U.S. does not need UN approval to go to war or to hunt down the enemy wherever they may go. It's "not fair - the French have veto power"

Saddam was elected? Check your facts - Saddam joined the socialist Baath party when he was 19. He made his mark three years later when he participated in a 1959 assassination attempt against Iraqi Prime Minister Abudul Karim Kassim. Saddam was shot in the leg during the botched effort and fled the country for several years, first to Syria, then Egypt.

In 1968 he helped lead the revolt that finally brought the Baath party to power under Gen. Ahmed Hassan Bakr. In the process, he landed the vice president’s post, from which he built an elaborate network of secret police to root out dissidents. Eleven years later he deposed Bakr and plastered the streets with 20-foot-high portraits of himself.

Don't recall where Iraq ever threatened the US? Your memory is slipping. That research is too easy. Besides, I gave you examples.

Pakistan & Saudi Arabia are bigger culprits than Iraq? By who's scale? What do you use to measure this? So, we should have left everyone else alone and attacked two countries with nuclear inventories and do it with absolutely NO SUPPORT from anyone or any country.

Afghanistan is far from it's pre-Taliban ways. But then again, people like you think that since Vietnam, a secret Air Force laboratory invented a Fairy Wand that makes things happen OVER-FREAKING NIGHT!

[HardJedi]

a fairy wand!:D Dear god, I do NOT think Enviro was advocating a police state. ( though one might do us some good sometimes I think)

ahh well, opinions will vary, I suppose.

[Sparrowhawk]

Anything to deceive the public, as to who you really are!



http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2004/01/25/image595668x.jpg http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040715/i/ra2906614279.jpg




XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN JULY 18, 2004 19:53:02 ET XXXXX

KERRY BACK TO WRINKLES

After opting for a fresh-face-look for most of the campaign year, Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry has boldly gone back to wrinkles!

Snaps taken of the candidate last week [before his Nantucket vacation] show Kerry's face completely losing its smooth appearance.

Has Kerry been too busy for . follow-up injections of Botox? (http://www.lasernews.net/lasernews/lasernewsv3.nsf/0/65f2d006112a77a485256bbf001ec1ca?OpenDocument)

Will he go for a touchup before his closeup in Boston?

Is the candiate simply running low on rest?

Did the face never change to begin with?

The American people need answers

[DrBeall]

Personally, I think that Bush as doing a great job with the war and the country until he started letting the lilly-livered liberals start pulling his strings, when he started trying to be "not so much a cowboy" and getting to close to an election. Someone whispered in his ear and told him a lie, "if you don't become a little nicer and easier, you're going to loose the next election." I believe most americans are still the same, they want a good and strong leader!

Just my opinion, thanks yall.

Rene

[hrscowboy]

here here taveapont i agree totally. buttom line is america does not need to be the police department for every little country that cant take care of there selfs. enviro let me also remind you that alot of these young men and women that are in this war are vietnam vets children and grandchildren and where not going to let any body F**k them over like they did Us.

[HardJedi]

hmmmm. guess I am the lone remaining human on the planet with any sense of MORAL RESPONSIBILITY! ( i won't bother explaining it for the TENTH time on these forums)

[enviro]

Besides morals - it's the fact that people think we can just let the world crumble around us and America won't feel a thing. Wake up - we may have all the power, but we will fall fast if we don't take care of business overseas.

[HardJedi]

Amen , Enviro.


some people just LIVE with that ostrich syndome. Tell ya though, burrying your head in the sand only makes your a$$ a more inviting target ;)

[Sparrowhawk]

Mon Jul 19, 5:24 PM ET


LAS VEGAS - Singer Linda Ronstadt (news) not only got booed, she got the boot after lauding filmmaker Michael Moore and his new movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" during a performance at the Aladdin hotel-casino.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040719/capt.aphs10907191513.multimedia_7047189_ronstadt_p erforms_at_cma_awards_aphs109.jpg
AP Photo



Before singing "Desperado" for an encore Saturday night, the 58-year-old rocker called Moore a "great American patriot" and "someone who is spreading the truth." She also encouraged everybody to see the documentary about President Bush (news - web sites).


Ronstadt's comments drew loud boos and some of the 4,500 people in attendance stormed out of the theater. People also tore down concert posters and tossed cocktails into the air.


"It was a very ugly scene," Aladdin President Bill Timmins told The Associated Press. "She praised him and all of a sudden all bedlam broke loose."


Timmins, who is British and was watching the show, decided Ronstadt had to go — for good. Timmins said he didn't allow Ronstadt back in her luxury suite and she was escorted off the property.


Ronstadt's antics "spoiled a wonderful evening for our guests and we had to do something about it," Timmins said.


Timmins said it was the first time he sent a performer packing.


"As long as I'm here, she's not going to play," Timmins said.


Ronstadt had been booked to play the Aladdin for only one show.


Calls to Ronstadt's manager were not immediately returned.


In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal before the show, Ronstadt said "I keep hoping that if I'm annoying enough to them, they won't hire me back."


Looks like she got her wish.

[Sparrowhawk]

AP: Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos

43 minutes ago


By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON - President Clinton (news - web sites)'s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.



Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (news - web sites) agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.


Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.


"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement to the AP.


Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites). Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the commission.


The FBI searched Berger's home and office with warrants earlier this year after employees of the National Archives told agents they believed they witnessed Berger put documents into his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers, officials said.


When asked, Berger said he returned some of the classified documents, which he found in his office, and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but said he could not locate two or three copies of the highly classified millennium terror report.


"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Berger said.


"When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few document that I apparently had accidentally discarded," he said.


Lanny Breuer, one of Berger's attorneys, said his client has offered to cooperate fully with the investigation but has not been interviewed by the FBI or prosecutors. Berger has been told he is the subject of the investigation, Breuer said.


Government and congressional officials familiar with the investigation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the probe involves classified materials, said the investigation remains active and that no decision has been made on whether Berger should face criminal charges.


The officials said the missing documents were highly classified, and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports to sea ports.

[HardJedi]

Same thing that happened to Ronstadt happend here in Kansas City at the Red, White, and Boom concert to Liz Phair. Got booed big time, hell , I almost went up to the stage to ***** her out, cause she made some comments about the Marine Recruiters at the show. Only thing that kept me from it was the fact I was with my 14 year old neice.

[thedrifter]

Kerry-Edwards: The same old song
July 20,2004
OUR OPINION

To put a twist on Bill Clinton's internal slogan during his 1992 campaign, the Kerry-Edwards economic policy seems to be "it's the envy, stupid."

They're running on the "Two Americas" theme that John Edwards followed to defeat in the Democratic primaries. There has been some hope that Kerry would take something from the Edwards camp, just not that.

With a strong economic recovery propelling the Bush administration toward the November elections, class envy just isn't going to sell, especially when the two salesmen are multimillionaires.

"George W. Bush has chosen tax cuts for the wealthy and special favors for the special interests over our economic future," reads the issues briefing on the Kerry Web site; yet most Americans got a tax cut, not just the wealthy.

The Kerry environmental agenda is just as bad. "Kerry will ensure that we have 'Clean and Green Communities' throughout America by coordinating federal transportation policies, federal housing incentives, federal employment opportunities and the use of federal dollars to acquire parks and open space" to "take on ... sprawl." That means expensive mass transit and zoning schemes that cost billions, limit land use and raise housing prices.

And with "federal" used four times in one sentence in the Web briefing, it's clear distant federal bureaucrats would take even more control over citizens' lives.

Detroit News columnist Thomas Bray wrote on July 11, "(A) Kerry-Edwards ticket may look attractive, but beneath the well-coiffed surface it hints strongly at a two-pronged assault on Middle America. John Kerry's environmental extremism would be joined by the penchant of John Edwards and his powerful trial-lawyer backers to sue every job creator in sight."

It's too bad Sens. Kerry and Edwards can't come up with some proposals that really would help all Americans get ahead.


http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=24171&Section=Opinion

Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

Communist Party USA supports John Kerry
The St. Augustine Record ^ | 7.14.04


Posted on 07/14/2004 7:35:12 AM PDT by ambrose


Perspective: Communist Party USA supports John Kerry

By D.P. HEIMBOLD
St. Augustine
Publication Date: 07/14/04


The southern Democrats must be thrilled by the news that the Communist Party of The United States of America, CPUSA, is publicly supporting the election of John Kerry.

The CPUSA has made available on its Web site, cpusa.org, an advertisement entitled Top Ten Reasons To Defeat Bush. This advertisement can be downloaded. The communist party urges readers to place this ad in local newspapers throughout the country to defeat President Bush.

Remarkably, the "Top Ten Reasons" of the Communist party are identical to those of the Democratic party; out-sourcing, homosexual rights, abortion and the like.

At first, I thought "this is only a coincidence." The Democratic party of the United States couldn't be in lock step with the Marxists! So, I wrote to a spokesman of the CPUSA in Georgia and here is part of his letter:

" The CPUSA supports the John Kerry campaign with donations and volunteer effort. We believe that defeating George Bush is the single most important issue this November ..."

Next, I discovered that one of Kerry's campaign themes is " Let America be America Again." This slogan was borrowed from a Communist poet, Langston Hughes. This is not common knowledge to the average American.

"Let America be America Again" sounds good but is a rambling, gloomy poem. Interestingly, another poem by Langston goes as follows;

"Goodbye, Christ Jesus, Lord, God, Jehova, Beat it on away from here now.

Make way for a new guy with no religion at all -- A real guy named Marx, communist, Lenin, Peasant, Stalin, Worker, ME -- I said, ME!"

Then, if this was not enough to convince me that the Democratic party has lost it, a third discovery!

A Vietnam vet group took a trip to Communist Hanoi to investigate a report that John Kerry was in the "Hanoi Hall of Fame." Yes, there is a museum in Hanoi with a section dedicated to foreign activists who help defeat the United States Military in Vietnam. Of course, you would expect Jane Fonda's picture to be there. But, alas, there is John Kerry's picture shaking the hand of a communist official.

Never has there been such a tragedy.

Never has there been such a threat to America. The Democratic party has been taken over by the far, far left!

Not only the communists but the homosexual activists who are appalled that George Bush is married to a woman! They are enraged that the president wants a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage between a man and woman.

Then we have the ACLU running to a federal activist judge with every piece of legislation that doesn't fit into their leftist agenda. They support every Democratic socialist whim. The removal of the Ten Commandments is their top priority!

Why can't our children read? The liberal NEA runs the government schools. You can't mention God or the Ten Commandments, but you can teach Islam and have the children pray to Allah and pass out condoms. The teachers union is solidly behind the Democratic candidate, John Kerry.

How about the AFL-CIO? Solidly Democratic. How about the press? Solidly behind the left.

Case in point: Viacom owns CBS and Dan Rather. Dan is really the president of the American Leftist Establishment. Every night Dan informs the country what we, the troops and the president did wrong that day. His boss, Viacom, just happens to own the company that published Richard Clark's attack on George Bush and company. Clarke was the hero of the 9-11 hearing. Viacom pushed up the publication date of Clark's book to coincide with the hearings.

Oh, by the way, Viacom not only owns CBS and Dan Rather, but MTV!

Yes, the same MTV that featured Janet Jackson's breast at the Super Bowl half time!

Hollywood? There might be one or two votes for Bush from the filmmakers. But don't count on it. Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" propaganda film hurt the president. Impressionable youth fall victim to lies.

But, not to worry.

Truth means nothing to the Left.

The quality of character of the Hollywood crowd is best illustrated by the recent antics of the starlet Britney Spears. After her 24-hour marriage, Britney is now engaged to a loser who left his unmarried, pregnant girlfriend and little child. There was not one eyebrow raised by the Hollywood-infatuated Network News. This is normal behavior for the left.

The deck is really stacked against the re-election of President Bush.

Now even the mass murderer Saddam Hussein agrees with Kennedy and Kerry that the president is a criminal. Before the election in November the press will clean up Hussein to look like a saint and George W. Bush a gangster.

John Kerry promises to save the union by going to the UN. Kerry may have to deal with Muslim Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, who received "consultant" fees from Swiss company, Cotecna, which oversaw Iraq's Oil-For-Food program. Some of the $10 billion that was funneled through the "family run" UN program ended up in al Taqwa and Asat Trust, two of al-Qaida's front organizations. Funny, there are al-Qaida in Florida and the UN, but not in Iraq! Alas, but who is chopping off heads in Iraq?

While the bulk of our National Guard are over seas fighting terrorist, every leftist weirdo is coming out of the closet to hi-jack the November presidential election.

The question is: What are the "real" southern Democrats going to do?

Will they join the CPUSA, NEA, ACLU and a host of other radical leftist groups or help save the country from this mob.

[thedrifter]

This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0227a.html.
G o o g l e's cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled the web.
The page may have changed since that time. Click here for the current page without highlighting.




John Kerry Unveils Comprehensive Plan to Fight the War on Terrorism


February 27, 2004

For Immediate Release
Los Angeles, CA –

In a speech today at the UCLA International Institute, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry offered his comprehensive approach to fighting the global war on terrorism. In the second of a series of speeches on national security, Kerry presented a plan to identify, disrupt, and eliminate terrorist networks using all the resources at our disposal. As CIA Director George Tenet starkly reminded us this week, we are threatened by a far-flung terrorist network that will continue to operate even if Bin Laden is caught. Last December, John Kerry addressed the Council on Foreign Relations and outlined a global vision to make America safer and more secure. Today, he is detailing the terrorism component of that vision, strengthening the nation’s position in the global war on terror.

Kerry will act militarily when necessary, build strong alliances with other nations and enhance our intelligence and law enforcement capabilities. Kerry addresses the root causes of terrorism and offers a real plan to secure our homeland by safeguarding our chemical and nuclear facilities, bolstering port and aviation security, restoring 100,000 COPS on the street and adding 100,000 new firefighters in our communities.
“We cannot win the War on Terror through military power alone,” Kerry told an audience at the University of California at Los Angeles. “As President, if necessary, I will use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests. But the fight requires us to use every tool at our disposal. Not only a strong military – but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds.”

“To do all this, and to do our best, demands that we work with other countries instead of walking alone. For today the agents of terrorism work and lurk in the shadows of 60 nations on every continent. In this entangled world, we need to build real and enduring alliances.”

“We need a comprehensive approach for prevailing against terror – an approach that recognizes the many facets of this mortal challenge and relies on all the tools at our disposal to do it.”

Kerry also criticized the Bush Administration’s failure to maintain the post-9/11global coalition, inaction in stemming the rise of terrorism and inadequate efforts to defend the homeland.

“Day in and day out, President Bush reminds us that he is a war President and that he wants to make national security the central issue of this election. I am ready to have this debate. I welcome it. I am convinced that we can prove to the American people that we know how to make them safer and more secure – with a stronger, more comprehensive, and more effective strategy for winning the War on Terror than the Bush Administration has ever envisioned.”

John Kerry outlined a seven-point comprehensive plan to fight the war against terror:

I. Use Direct Military Action: Kerry will use military force when necessary to capture and destroy terrorist groups and their leaders. He will also increase active duty end strength and tailor forces to be better prepared for post-conflict and stability operation.

II. Improve International Intelligence and Law Enforcement: Kerry will strengthen communication networks between intelligence agencies, build cooperative capacity with international law enforcement agencies, increase the number of linguists trained in critical languages and create a real Director of National Intelligence with budget and personnel power.

III. Cut Off the Flow of Terrorist Funds: Kerry will impose tough financial sanction against banks or nations that engage in money laundering or fail to act against it and will launch a “name and shame’ campaign against those that finance terror.

IV. Control the Spread of Weapons on Mass Destruction: Kerry will appoint a high-level Presidential envoy to lead the effort and expand the Nunn/Lugar program to buy up and destroy stockpiles of loose WMD materials.

V. Win the Peace in Iraq and Afghanistan: Kerry will bring real security in Iraq by broadening the coalition, including the United Nations, and creating a real Iraqi security force that can take care of itself and the people it is supposed to protect. In Afghanistan, Kerry would put forward a major increase in security and fund the promised a Marshall Plan for reconstruction.

VI. Win the War of Ideas and the Future of a Young Generation: Kerry will build bridges to the Arab and Islamic world by supporting and assisting human rights groups, independent media, and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture.

VII. Secure America's Homeland: Kerry will restore funding for the COPS program, add 100,000 firefighters to our streets, secure and protect our nuclear and chemical facilities, bolster port and aviation security.



John Kerry: Winning the War on Terror

I. An Integrated Strategy to Destroy Terrorists Groups

Terror is the principle threat we face. John Kerry will deny terrorists sanctuary in every cave and with every tool, by:

1. Direct Military Action. John Kerry will always be prepared to use military force when necessary to neutralize terrorists and drain the swamps where they breed.

Deploy the Best-Equipped Forces Backed by the Most Accurate Intelligence. Kerry will increase the size of the special operations forces; and, increase training for peace-keeping missions so that failed states can be secured and terrorist sanctuaries denied. He will ensure that America’s fighting men and women always have the best equipment and information.
Tailor Forces to be Better Prepared for Post-conflict and Stability Operations. Kerry will add more engineers, military police, psychological warfare personnel, and civil affairs teams to the military to ensure combat forces are not drawn away to fill roles that stability forces should fill -- and that a security vacuum does not threaten hard-won victories.
Increase Active Duty End Strength. To better meet the needs of the War on Terror and America's global obligations, John Kerry has called for a temporary increase of about 40,000 active-duty Army troops: 20,000 in such specialties as military police and civil affairs, and 20,000 combat.

2. Improve International Intelligence and Law Enforcement. John Kerry will lead our nation in building strong international cooperation to ensure that America has the best information available and works effectively to cut financing for terrorist organizations.

Strengthen Communication Networks Between Intelligence Agencies. Kerry will ensure that our intelligence agencies receive the most accurate and timely information through established channels with intelligence and law enforcement agencies in other countries.
Build Cooperative Capacity with International Law Enforcement Agencies. Kerry will ensure that we are able to impart the latest and most effective techniques in battling terror to law enforcement agencies abroad as appropriate.
Increase the Number of Linguists Trained in Critical Languages. A Kerry Administration will increase funding and training for linguists competent in critical languages like Arabic so that American intelligence agencies have the best, most timely and translated information about terrorist planning and staging.
Create a Real Director of National Intelligence with Budget and Personnel Power. John Kerry will make the Director of the CIA the true Director of National Intelligence with real control of national intelligence personnel and budgets. John Kerry will also undertake and complete a national intelligence review immediately.
Back to Top

3. Cut Off the Flow of Terrorist Funds

Impose financial sanctions against nations or banks that fail to cooperate in the effort to control money laundering. This is an urgent step to ensure that rhetoric is backed by the tough action required to cut the stream of terrorist financing.
Launch a "name and shame" campaign against individuals, banks and foreign governments that are financing terror. Those who fail to respond will be shut out of the U.S. financial system. There will be no sacred cows as we take the steps that are necessary to protect America.
Back to Top

4. Control the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Appoint A High Level Envoy to Lead the Effort. John Kerry will ensure that the urgent and critical challenge of controlling the spread of WMD does not fall prey to inter-agency differences, and that a single individual is empowered to rally other nations to join an American-led effort to secure nuclear weapons and nuclear materials around the world.
Keep WMD from terrorists by aggressively refocusing and expanding efforts to secure stockpiles of loose WMD materials. Kerry will lead in this effort, and create a new international protocol to track and account for existing nuclear weapons and deter the development of chemical and biological arsenals.
Create a U.S.-Russian Commitment to Secure Russia’s Nuclear Weapons. Kerry will ensure that all of Russia’s nuclear weapons and materials are effectively secured within four years. He will significantly increase funding for Comprehensive Threat Reduction programs.
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continued.........

[thedrifter]

5. Win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan. John Kerry will bring real security in Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent terrorists from reemerging in Afghanistan or establishing a base in Iraq.

Broaden the Coalition in Iraq, Include the UN and Create Real Iraqi Security Forces for Stability. Kerry will do the tough diplomacy and hard bargaining to get more international boots and dollars and get the target off the backs of American troops. Kerry will rally the UN to help forge a transition to Iraqi sovereignty based on the need to build a stable democracy in Iraq. Kerry will be upfront about the costs, and he will make sure we meet our obligations fairly by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest and getting real international contributions.
Restore Security in Afghanistan and Undertake the Promised Marshall Plan. Kerry would expand the ISAF force and extend its reach into the provinces; and increase the trainees in the Afghan National Army (ANA). Kerry would pressure donor nations to meet the aid commitments they made at the Bonn Conference. He would double our counter-narcotics assistance to the Karzai government and make available a team of American counter-narcotics experts to provide technical assistance.

II. Win the War of Ideas and the Future of a Young Generation

John Kerry’s plan for building bridges to the Arab and Islamic world recognizes the key challenge posed by burgeoning youth cohorts. America’s security demands that young people have a future of promise and opportunity that is a clear alternative to terror and extremism.

Build Networks to Improve Education and Fight Brain Drain. Kerry will build closer integration between business communities and educational institutions so that curricula are developed and tailored to impart marketable skills to students. The project should build an infrastructure of knowledge and excellence that has suffered from brain drain and a dearth of important materials – from textbooks to news programming.
Assist Civil Society Through Human Rights Groups, Independent Media, and Labor Unions. Kerry will ensure that the U.S. government works with the private sector and international institutions to help civil society groups and governments aid democracy, public participation, free expression, transparency and efficient economic management.
Back to Top

III. Secure America's Homeland

Recent reports have revealed alarming gaps in security procedures at our nation’s most critical facilities. John Kerry will secure out nuclear weapons storage sites, nuclear power plants and chemical facilities. Kerry will ensure our first defenders are equipped, that we can respond to biological attacks, and air transportation security is made safer.

1. A New First Defenders Initiative to Ensure Local Responders are Equipped and Ready. John Kerry will ensure that first defenders have the gear to do their jobs safely and effectively. John Kerry has proposed creating a new fund for fire fighters – named after a September 11th hero, Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York City Fire Department who died delivering last rites. The Father Judge Fund would be similar to the COPS program and will hire up to 100,000 new firefighters and to provide the equipment necessary to assure firefighters are prepared. Kerry also believes we must restore funding to COPS to realize its initial mission of 100,000 new police officers. This initiative would also develop appropriate standards for preparedness in our cities and provide resources so communities can meet these goals.

2. A National Homeland Health Initiative. America’s public health system has risen to important challenges before, but it lacks the advances necessary to detect or contain a major outbreak. John Kerry believes we must connect the nation’s public health systems with a real time detection system to pool patient data across the country. This initiative would also provide training in developing plans for a surge in patients. We also need to increase research – and bring together the best of the public and private sectors to develop broad-spectrum designer antidotes so that our first responders and our population can be protected and treated from the widest possible range of attacks.

3. Increase Port Security and Accelerate Border Security. Currently, 95% of all non-North American U.S. trade moves by sea, concentrated mostly in a handful of ports. John Kerry believes improvements in port security must be made, while recognizing that global prosperity and America’s economic power depends on an efficient system. Kerry’s plan would develop standards for security at ports and other loading facilities for containers and assure facilities can meet basic standards. To improve security in commerce, John Kerry believes we should accelerate the timetable for the action plans agreed to in the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico “smart border” accords as well as implement security measures for cross-border bridges. Finally John Kerry will pursue modest safety standards for privately held infrastructure and will help owners find economical ways to pay for increased security.

4. Secure Nuclear Power Plants, Nuclear Weapons Facilities and Chemical Facilities. John Kerry will appoint an Energy Secretary who takes nuclear plant security seriously and ensures meticulous follow-up to any security violations. He would also order an immediate review of engagement orders and weaponry for plant guards, and ensure attack simulation drills be as realistic as possible. A Kerry Administration would ensure that security of our nuclear weapons facilities is a U.S. government responsibility – not cede it to private contractors as the Bush Administration considered doing. A Kerry Administration will tighten security at chemical facilities across the nation that produce or store chemicals, focusing first on facilities in major urban areas where millions of Americans live within the circle of vulnerability.

5. Tighten Aviation Security and Combat Threats to Civilian Aircraft. John Kerry will close loopholes in existing regulations on cargo carried by passenger flights and increase the reliability of new screening procedures. Kerry will increase perimeter inspections of U.S. airports and work with international aviation authorities to make sure the same standards are in place at all international airports. He will work with our allies to crackdown on the sale of shoulder-fired missiles that could be used in an attack on civilian aircraft, and are sold on the black market.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:-D_V0TfzaH0J:www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0227a.html+Kerry+press+release+port+securi ty&hl=en


Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

Jul 20, 4:53 PM (ET)

By RON FOURNIER

(AP) Former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger is seen Sunday, Feb. 22, 1998, in Washington. Berger,...
Full Image



WASHINGTON (AP) - Former national security adviser Sandy Berger, the subject of a criminal investigation over the disappearance of terrorism documents, stepped aside on Tuesday as an informal adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

"Mr. Berger does not want any issue surrounding the 9/11 commission to be used for partisan purposes. With that in mind he has decided to step aside as an informal adviser to the Kerry campaign until this matter is resolved," said Lanny Breuer, Berger's attorney.

The investigation had threatened to become a political problem for Kerry a week before his nominating convention in Boston in which he hopes to persuade voters that he is ready to be commander in chief. The cornerstone of Kerry's argument against Bush is that he used faulty intelligence and poor judgment in waging war against Iraq.

Berger, former President Clinton's national security adviser, is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department after highly classified terrorism documents disappeared while he was reviewing what should be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission.

Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents.

However, some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing, officials and lawyers told The Associated Press.

[Sparrowhawk]

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

PHOTOS VIDEO PHOTO ESSAYS


http://www.foxnews.com/images/132044/0_23_071904_berger_sandy.jpg


•Berger Steps Away From Kerry Campaign•Fast Facts: Sandy Berger•Bush Looks at Possible Iran-Sept. 11 Link•Iran Denies Harboring 9/11 Hijackers•9/11 Panel to Recommend Combining Intel Agencies•Sept. 11 Panel Asks Cheney for Evidence
WASHINGTON — Former President Clinton's national security adviser is under criminal investigation for taking highly classified terrorism documents that should have been turned over to the independent commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, FOX News has confirmed.

Sandy Berger (search) is under scrutiny by the Justice Department (search) following the disappearance of documents he was reviewing at the National Archives.

Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (search) agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives (search) and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents.

However, some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of Al Qaeda terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing, officials and lawyers said. Officials said the missing documents also identified America's terror vulnerabilities at airports to seaports.

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket, pants and socks, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.

[thedrifter]

Cab company denies free ride for head of state
By Cosmo Macero Jr.
Recent Columns by Cosmo Macero Jr.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004

It promises to be one of the boldest and most buzzworthy little product promotions that this - lattes raised - ``small c'' conservative city has seen in awhile. Not a bobblehead George W. Bush. But a dangling-by-a-string-as-if-perhaps-beheaded President Bush [related, bio] noggin greeting...


http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=36458


Ellie

:no:

[thedrifter]

"Swiftees" Respond To Kerry

Swift Boat Quotes about John Kerry
Editor note: Please read all quotes to get the whole picture. This page only reflects one of the many inconsistencies of John Kerry flip-flops included just to cater to the populous at large.

Anyone, irregardless of political persuasion can not honestly consider that John Kerry should be our President of the USA. Looking at all the information available on this candidate for President, no one could be serious in giving it a second thought. If he does become our President then God help us!

Click link to read them.........
http://www.bushcountry.org/john_kerry/n_072104_swift_boat_john_kerry.htm


Ellie

[yellowwing]

Wonder of Wonders - A Newspaper with enforced ethics rules!

S.F. Chronicle Editor Suspended for Kerry Donation (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040721/media_nm/politics_kerry_journalist_dc)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A San Francisco Chronicle editor who gave Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry $400 has been placed on leave for possibly violating the newspaper's rules, the newspaper said on Wednesday.

The newspaper's letters editor, William Pates, reached at home by telephone, confirmed that he had contributed about $400 to the Kerry campaign but declined to comment on his paper's response. Pates said he had worked for the Chronicle for the past 35 years.

"He's on paid leave while we are investigating. We have not made any judgment at this point as to whether the policy was violated," said editorial page editor John Diaz.

"It would be a concern to have somebody who is involved in selecting letters make what amounts to a public demonstration of support for a particular candidate."

The paper, whose editorials backed Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election, bars staffers from making campaign contributions without the approval of editors. The San Francisco area is known as one of the most politically liberal in the country.

The paper learned of the contributions from a researcher at a media watchdog group "On the News" who gathered a list of political contributions by San Francisco area journalists.

Last year the Chronicle fired a technology columnist who was arrested during an anti-Iraq war protest for creating an appearance of an ethics conflict.

Now if all the others would enforce ethics...and I still wonder why they practice political endorsement at all.

[grayshade]

Yeah! Who needs 'em. Lily-livered Liberals @#$*&% suck ass.
-Paid for by the Bush campaign



P.S. Sandy Berger must get probed alot. He looks like he needs a good probin'. Probe, probe, probe. Hey, more probe over here for the B-man.


:yes:

[thedrifter]

Vietnam Vets Mobilize Against John Kerry
By Cliff Kincaid
February 25, 2004



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fresh from an interview where he questioned President Bush about his Vietnam War-era service in the National Guard, Tim Russert of Meet the Press thinks that the Democrats are going to continue hammering on the issue. They think Bush’s service in the guard on U.S. soil stands in stark contrast to Kerry going to Vietnam and serving in combat. But they ignore a critical issue. As claimed by Mike Benge, a former civilian Vietnam POW, “John Kerry has fought harder for the Vietnamese communists than he fought against them in Vietnam.”

This is the aspect of Kerry’s record that the major media don’t want to touch. They are apparently intimidated by the medals he won while fighting for the U.S. side against the communists. But there are two groups determined to get the media to pay attention to what Kerry did after he returned from service. They want the public to know that Kerry came back to America, accused his fellow soldiers of atrocities, marched with those seeking a communist victory in Vietnam, and then ran a Senate committee that gave up hope of rescuing American POW/MIAs that were left behind after the war.

The groups are Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry and Vietnamese Americans Against John Kerry. The Vietnamese Americans are angry that Kerry promoted diplomatic relations with Hanoi while failing to promote human rights in Vietnam. They are not alone. One 30-year U.S. Army veteran wrote to us saying that he is “revolted” that the media are failing to reveal Kerry’s dark “secrets.” He calls Kerry the “War ‘Hero’ Traitor” because of how he turned against the war when his fellow soldiers were still fighting and dying on the battlefield.

POW/MIA researcher Roger Hall comments, “Now that it is fashionable for veterans to promote their military status publicly—now that it is popular to be a Vietnam Veteran—Senator Kerry touts his service and medals. But in the 1970s, when it became fashionable to protest the war, he chose that issue to begin his political career and appeared to throw his medals over the fence. Now he retrieves them to flash before our eyes to distract us from his devious ways.” Hall acknowledges that Kerry performed honorably in Vietnam. But he adds, “One brave moment does not outshine a devious and duplicitous person.”

He points to something that has been documented by the Center for Public Integrity, which is hardly a conservative group. It notes that Kerry ran a Senate committee “to investigate the possibility that U.S. prisoners of war and soldiers designated missing in action were still alive in Vietnam.”

But it notes that Kerry’s participation in the committee “became controversial in December 1992 when Hanoi announced that it had awarded Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate company, an exclusive deal to develop its commercial real estate potentially worth billions.” Stuart Forbes, then the CEO of Colliers, is Kerry’s cousin. For his part, Kerry decided there were no living American POW/MIA in Vietnam and the process of restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam proceeded. Kerry later visited Hanoi to meet with its Communist rulers.

Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at aimeditor@yahoo.com


http://www.aim.org/publications/media_monitor/2004/02/25.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Vietnam, protests put Kerry in early spotlight


WASHINGTON – The cavernous Senate hearing room was packed, with the usual well-groomed Capitol crowd mixed with scores of scruffy-looking military veterans, some in partial uniforms.

Sitting alone at the witness table in front of six graying senators was a young man, his green jungle fatigues adorned with three rows of ribbons, his long-jawed face framed by a thick mop of hair.

John Kerry, a decorated former Navy officer and the Ivy League-educated scion of an old Massachusetts family, urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to end the war in Vietnam because every day men were dying so the United States did not have to admit "that we have made a mistake."

"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" a 27-year-old Kerry asked.

That electrifying appearance April 22, 1971, catapulted Kerry into national prominence, setting the stage for a political career that has the Massachusetts senator on the verge of accepting next week's Democratic nomination for president.

In his bid for the White House, Kerry has relied heavily on his record as a thrice-wounded veteran and on the support of hundreds of fellow veterans, including the "band of brothers" of former sailors he led.

But he has been assailed by other Vietnam veterans who still burn with anger over Kerry's role in the anti-war movement.

Although Kerry already had doubts about the war, he has said he felt an obligation to serve because a number of his close friends at Yale were joining the military and because of his background. Kerry was born in a Denver military hospital in 1943; his father was an Army Air Forces pilot.

Kerry reported to Officer Candidate School at Newport, R.I., in August 1966 and three months later was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy Reserve.

His first assignment was to the Gridley, a guided-missile frigate, at Long Beach Naval Station, where he was responsible for keeping the ship clean and rust-free.

In his officer's evaluation, Kerry was described as:

"A most capable officer who demonstrates a high degree of maturity beyond his age and experience His division's morale is one of the highest on the ship due to his dynamic leadership."

But retired Navy Capt. James F. Kelly, who drafted that report as the Gridley's executive officer, recently condemned Kerry for protesting the Vietnam War while he and others were still fighting.

"Many of us felt betrayed that one of our own, a decorated hero, gave comfort to the enemy by such actions," Kelly said in a letter to a Navy journal.

Death of a friend
After the Gridley sailed for Vietnam in February 1968, Kerry received word that Richard Pershing, one of his closest friends at Yale, had been killed in combat.

The loss of Pershing – the first of several of Kerry's friends to fall in Vietnam – might have planted the seed for his zealous opposition to the war.

In a letter to his future wife, Julia Thorne, Kerry wrote:

"If I do nothing else in my life, I will never stop trying to bring to people the conviction of how wasteful and asinine is a human expenditure of this kind."

Although he had grown distressed over the war, Kerry already had volunteered to plunge into the conflict, requesting assignment to swift boats, one of the most dangerous Navy jobs in Vietnam.

The swifts, officially Patrol Craft Fast, were 50-foot, aluminum-hull boats with little in the way of armor to protect the six-man crew, but a lot of firepower. They were used for patrols along the coast and into the maze of rivers in the Mekong Delta.

After coming back for training at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, Kerry returned to Vietnam on Nov. 17, 1968.

Without a boat of his own, Kerry spent weeks with other swift boat officers on coastal patrol, where the main danger was frequently violent storms.

To break the boredom, Kerry volunteered for a Dec. 2 mission on a small boat with two sailors looking for vessels violating curfew. A night encounter with a group of Vietnamese led to an exchange of fire that left Kerry with a slight arm wound, earning him a Purple Heart.

Kerry later called the incident "a half-assed action that hardly qualified as combat, but it was my first and that made it very exciting."

He was soon given a swift boat of his own, PCF-44, with a crew of five.

At that time, Vice Adm. Elmo Zumwalt – a future chief of naval operations – assumed overall command of the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, and Capt. Roy Hoffman took over the Coastal Command, which included the swift boats. Hoffman ordered a more aggressive policy to "take the fight to the enemy

Firefights on patrol
In the following weeks, Kerry and his crew conducted numerous patrols in the small winding rivers and canals of the Mekong Delta, repeatedly taking fire from automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades from unseen enemies on the densely covered banks.

Kerry later noted that he was disturbed by the willingness of Vietnamese troops and some swift boat crews to shoot at apparently unarmed people, and that his gloom deepened upon hearing that Bob Crosby, a good friend from training, had been killed in an accidental shooting.

Late in January 1969, the skipper of another swift boat was badly wounded, and Kerry was given command of that boat, PCF-94, and its veteran five-man crew.

On one of their early missions, the crew encountered a sampan in the dark. Kerry told his crew to fire a warning shot, but the sailors opened fire. Boarding the craft, they found a woman with a baby, blood on the deck and a dead child. A man thought to be aboard to sampan was not found.

Kerry said the incident haunted him for years.

In the next weeks, the crew conducted 18 missions and engaged in numerous firefights. On Feb. 20, a rocket-propelled grenade hit the boat, sending shrapnel into Kerry's left leg and earning him a second Purple Heart.

Eight days later, Kerry's boat and another swift boat engaged in a series of firefights that reportedly killed nine Viet Cong guerrillas and earned Kerry a Silver Star, the third-highest decoration for valor.

As Kerry directed his boat toward the riverbank in response to enemy fire, a guerrilla popped up and aimed a rocket launcher at the vessel. Apparently because the fighter was too close to his target for the rocket to arm, he ran.

Fred Short, the crew gunner, said he could not fire his twin .50 caliber guns forward because the pilothouse was in the way. But he said Tommy Belodeau, in the bow, fired his M-60 machine gun, hitting the guerrilla in the leg.

"That guy never broke stride," Short recalled.

Kerry, armed with an M-16 rifle, jumped from the boat and chased the armed Viet Cong, followed by Mike Medeiros and Belodeau. Short said Medeiros told him the enemy soldier stood up aiming his rocket but that Kerry shot him before he could fire.

Critics would later question whether Kerry's action had been appropriate and necessary, but Short and Del Sandusky, the boat's senior enlisted man, said Kerry saved their lives.

If Kerry had not chased and killed the Viet Cong guerrilla, "we would have been dead," Sandusky said in an interview.

Adm. Zumwalt pinned the Silver Star on Kerry, citing him for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action."

Exit from Vietnam
On March 13, Kerry's boat and four other swift boats conducted a mission that would earn him two more medals and a ticket out of Vietnam.

After an incident ashore in which Kerry was hit in the buttock by shrapnel, the boats were leaving the area when they were raked by gunfire from the shore. Mines planted in the river exploded around them.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040721/images/2004-07-21kerry.jpg

John Kerry was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts in Vietnam between his arrival in November 1968 and his departure in March 1969. Associated Press


http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040721/images/kerry2.jpg

Associated Press
Peace demonstrators cheered John Kerry, then 27, when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 21, 1971, as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

As Kerry directed his boat to shield a damaged swift boat, another explosion rocked his boat, throwing him into a bulkhead and smashing his right arm.

Another blast knocked Army Green Beret Lt. James Rassmann from one of the other boats. Amid continued enemy fire, Kerry raced his boat back to reach the soldier and, despite an injured arm, ran from the cover of the pilothouse to pull the Green Beret aboard.

Rassmann nominated Kerry for another Silver Star. But he was awarded a Bronze Star with a citation praising his "professionalism, great personal courage under fire and complete dedication to duty."

Kerry also received a third Purple Heart, making him eligible to request assignment out of Vietnam.

Kerry insists that the transfer papers were filed routinely for him, but his critics say an individual had to make the request personally.

Regardless, Kerry flew out of Vietnam in late March 1969, after just over four months of a normal 12-month tour in country.

Back stateside, he requested early release from active duty in January 1970, returned to civilian life and joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

In one of his first activities with the veterans group, Kerry addressed a Labor Day rally at Valley Forge, Pa., following Jane Fonda.

continued..........

[thedrifter]

Kerry then attended the anti-war veterans group Winter Soldiers gathering in Detroit, where dozens of men who identified themselves as combat veterans described horrible deeds they said they witnessed or committed in Vietnam.

He also helped organize a large demonstration in Washington, which the Nixon White House tried to squash. At that protest, Kerry met Sen. J. William Fulbright, D-Ark., who invited him to testify before his Foreign Relations panel.

A lightning rod
Most Vietnam veterans do not object to Kerry's declaration that the war was being fought for the wrong reasons and could not be won.

But many were outraged when, during his testimony, he repeated on national television the allegations from the Detroit gathering of rapes, mutilations, destruction of villages and unprovoked shooting of civilians.

These violations, Kerry said, were not isolated incidents "but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

Thirty-three years later, his statements have caused thousands of Vietnam veterans to oppose Kerry for impugning the honor of their service.

This year, some of that opposition has apparent political motives.

An example of that is the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a well-funded organization recently established by Texas lawyer John O'Neill, a former swift boat officer who had been recruited by the Nixon administration in 1971 to counter Kerry's charges.

Most of the group's money came from a major Republican contributor in Texas.

The group held a Washington news conference in May to denounce Kerry as unfit to be commander in chief, condemning his assertions of atrocities and challenging the legitimacy of his medals for valor and combat wounds.

It claims 215 members, veterans of swift boats or units that served with them. The list includes swift-boat leader Hoffman, now a retired rear admiral; retired Cmdr. George Elliot, who was Kerry's immediate superior in the Delta; and Steven Gardner, who served with Kerry during the short time he commanded his first boat, the PCF-44.

Hoffman said Kerry in Vietnam "was aggressive, but vain and prone to impulsive judgment, often with disregard for specific tactical assignments."

Gardner said Kerry's "indecisive moves with our boat put our boat in jeopardy." Gardner is the only one of the 11 sailors who served on Kerry's two swift boats who has spoken out against him. Many of the others have appeared with Kerry during the campaign, and several have filmed TV ads for him.

They dismiss suggestions that Kerry did not deserve all of his three Purple Hearts or his two decorations for valor, or that he maligned all Vietnam veterans in his Senate testimony.

Kerry crew member Short said the critics have a right to their opinions. "But none of those men were on that boat I'm an eyewitness I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for him."

Sandusky noted that he was "on the 94 boat when (Kerry) won his medals. He deserved every one of them. I saw the blood. I saw what he did."

"He was an exceptional officer," Sandusky said. "We followed his orders explicitly. He made good decisions."


Key dates in Kerry's military service
Feb. 18, 1966 – Enlists in the U.S. Navy

June 1966 – Graduates from Yale

Aug. 22, 1966 – Reports to Officer Candidate School, Newport, RI

Dec. 16, 1966 – Commissioned as ensign in Navy Reserve

Jan. 3, 1967 – Reports to Naval Schools Command, San Francisco

June 8, 1967 – Reports to guided-missile frigate Gridley, Long Beach Naval Station

Feb. 9, 1968 – Gridley deploys to Western Pacific and Vietnam

July 20, 1968 – Departs Gridley for swift boat training

Aug. 25, 1968 – Begins swift boat officer training at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado

Nov. 17, 1968 – Reports to Coastal Squadron 1, Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam

Dec. 2, 1968 – Receives minor wound, earning first Purple Heart, during nighttime patrol near Cam Ranh

Dec. 5, 1968 – Takes command of swift boat PCF-44

Dec. 6, 1968 – Moved to Coastal Division 11 at An Thoi on Mekong Delta

Jan. 30, 1969 – Takes command of PCF-94

Feb. 20, 1969 – Receives minor wound, second Purple Heart, during ambush in Mekong Delta

Feb. 28, 1969 – Kills Viet Cong fighter who threatened swift boat with a rocket launcher, earning Silver Star

March 13, 1969 – Saves life of Green Beret Lt. James Rassmann during ambush; receives Bronze Star; arm injured; receives third Purple Heart

Late March 1969 – Departs Vietnam eight months early, under three-wounds provision

April 11, 1969 – Reports to Military Sea Transportation Service, Atlantic, as admiral's aide

Jan. 3, 1970 – Leaves active duty early

May 23, 1970 – Marries Julia Thorne; joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War

April 22, 1971 – Addresses Senate Foreign Relations Committee

November 1971 – Leaves Vietnam Veterans Against the War

–Compiled by Copley News Service correspondent Otto Kreisher


http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040721/images/kerry3.jpg

Associated Press
Police escorted Kerry (background, center) and other veterans and supporters from the Lexington Green after breaking up a May 1, 1971, demonstration in Massachusetts.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040721-1117-vietnam2.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Kerry's political ambitions date back to his youth

By Finlay Lewis
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON – John Kerry sat ashen-faced and in shock on the bench, his mind far from the action on the field.

It was late November 1963 in New Haven, Conn., and rumors had started circulating sometime during the first half of the Yale-Princeton soccer game. By the final whistle, the news had been confirmed: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was dead.

Saying little to his teammates, John Forbes Kerry, a sophomore substitute, quickly dressed and headed for church. He then took a solitary walk deep into the night before returning to his dormitory at Jonathan Edwards College on the Yale campus.

For the rest of the weekend, Kerry stayed glued to a small black-and-white TV in a darkened room, watching developments and mourning the assassination of his hero, who only 15 months earlier had taken him sailing off the coast of Rhode Island on Narragansett Bay.

Recalling that weekend, Harvey Bundy, one of Kerry's roommates then, remembered, "John was visibly shaken up. He was in a state of, in effect – 'How could this happen?' "

But the assassination did nothing to undermine his deep-seated sense of mission and purpose. From adolescence, Kerry was transparent about ambitions nourished by the career of a diplomat father and the commitments of a public-spirited mother.

Now 60, Kerry is expected to be officially named the Democratic presidential nominee at next week's convention in Boston, a culmination of his 19-year career as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

"There was never a question in our minds – whether it was before or after the Kennedy assassination – that John was going to go into public service," said Bundy, a nephew of Kennedy aides William and McGeorge Bundy.

Harvey Bundy, now a prominent money manager in Chicago, continued: "John is a leader. John is someone who wanted to lead, who wanted to serve – he's kind of orchestrated his life that way. We didn't know he would run for president, but we certainly weren't surprised because . . . we sat around the room talking about what our Cabinet positions would be."

Daniel Barbiero, another Yale roommate, remembers taking Kerry home during a class break and introducing him to his staunchly Republican mother as a future president. After the weekend was over, she pledged that Kerry would be the first Democratic presidential candidate to receive her vote. Now 88, Barbiero's mother recently wrote to Kerry and said she would keep her word.

Barbiero first met Kerry as a classmate at St. Paul's School, an exclusive college preparatory school in New Hampshire. Kerry, one of four children, entered St. Paul's in 1957 while his father, Richard, was on assignment with the State Department in Europe. He studied at the school for five years before entering Yale in 1962.

Kerry's path to St. Paul's and Yale led him through a variety of temporary addresses and schools in the United States and abroad, leaving the impression of a rootless childhood. Kerry was born in Denver on Dec. 11, 1943, where his father, an Army Air Corps test pilot, was recovering from tuberculosis.

In 1954, Kerry entered a Swiss boarding school while his parents moved to Berlin, where Richard Kerry had been assigned as legal adviser at the U.S. mission. Two years later, Kerry entered the Fessenden School in a Boston suburb, while his parents remained abroad. The next fall, Kerry found himself at St. Paul's.

Still a couple of years from a growth spurt that would turn him into an athletic 6-footer, Kerry felt himself something of an outsider upon entering the equivalent of the eighth grade at the all-boys Episcopalian school that had been educating wealthy bluebloods for more than a century. A Catholic, the youngster attended Mass in Concord while his classmates went to chapel on the campus.

Kerry, whose family was making ends meet on a diplomat's salary, did not learn until a year ago that his paternal grandfather was a Jew born in the Austrian Empire – now the Czech Republic – who changed his name from Fritz Kohn to Frederick Kerry. He did so to guard against anti-Semitism in Europe. He married a Jewish woman named Ida Lowe and the couple and their newborn son were baptized as Catholics in 1901. The family immigrated to the United States four years later.

On the other hand, his mother, Rosemary, was a descendant of two of New England's oldest and most storied families: the Winthrops and the Forbeses. .


continued.........

[thedrifter]

Making a mark
Barbiero remembers encountering Kerry in a faculty member's living quarters at St. Paul's. The teacher, John Walker, a rarity in those days as a black faculty member at an elite school, was enormously popular among the students for his counsel, which is why the two young boys had separately sought him out.
Walker, who would later become the Episcopal bishop of Washington, said to Barbiero, "This is Johnny Kerry, and he's feeling a little sad because he doesn't think he's popular."

Barbiero, now an employee benefits consultant, recalled: "I immediately liked him. I sort of liked his seriousness. I liked his intensity, and I told him so."

During his five years at St. Paul's, Kerry might not have been overwhelmingly popular with his schoolmates but he made his mark in other ways, as a skilled athlete, brilliant debater and strong student. He founded a political club, appeared on stage in "Julius Caesar" and "The Caine Mutiny," and was active in the French club.

A teammate on the lacrosse and hockey teams, John Rousmaniere, now an author of books on sailing, said: "He was a little remote emotionally. I agree he's very similar now to what he was then. . . . He seemed a little contrived, maybe. A little unclear: not a gregarious, warm, outgoing guy."

On a hockey team captained his senior year by Robert Mueller, now the director of the FBI, Kerry had the reputation among some on the team as a selfish player, who did not pass the puck often to open teammates, Rousmaniere said.

"I don't remember it much," added Rousmaniere, the goalie. "He was a very graceful skater, a strong skater. . . . And people like that very often tend to be" the designated puck handlers on thrusts against the other team's goal.


A brush with JFK
Kerry's political convictions were no secret.
In a school whose student body was notably Republican, Kerry stamped himself early as a Democrat, arguing Kennedy's case against a Richard Nixon partisan on the eve of the 1960 election.

Kerry lost the debate, but had the satisfaction of having backed the winner at the ballot box.

Aside from his partisan leanings, Kerry had several other ties to the young president. Not only were Kerry's initials also JFK, but in the months leading up to his freshman year at Yale, Kerry dated Jacqueline Kennedy's half-sister, Janet Auchincloss. One date – at the Auchincloss estate in Rhode Island – resulted in a family sail, skippered by the president.

While at Yale, Kerry's political interests came into sharper focus.

David Thorne, one of Kerry's closest friends from Yale days on and brother of Kerry's first wife, Julia, observed: "He, among very few others in college, was actively interested in a political career, running for office. There is no question about that."

Cameron Kerry, the senator's younger brother, said: "Certainly in terms of being engaged in issues, our parents inculcated a very strong sense of public duty. . . . Part of the influence was also the effect of being in places where you were exposed to things that gave you a sense of the impact of politics and world affairs on people's lives."

John Kerry played varsity soccer – he scored three goals his senior year in the Ivy League championship game against Harvard; proved his mettle as a debater against college students from across the nation and Britain; won the presidency of the Yale Political Union despite the Republican tilt of the student body; and began flying lessons as a senior and that year joined the exclusive Skull and Bones Club, an honor reserved for a tiny fraction of seniors thought to be destined for great things. (President Bush was tapped for the same club a couple of years later.)

"I think John was not the most attentive student in the world," Thorne said. "I think it was not that he wasn't a good student. There were other things he was really engaged in. . . . He was focused on what he was really interested in."


Vietnam's shadow
Kerry and his friends were also attentive to news reports of a growing U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
In the winter of Kerry's junior year, William Bundy, then a State Department official responsible for Vietnam policy, came to speak on the campus. Afterward, he visited the rooms of his nephew, Harvey, and his roommates.

"We asked him about Vietnam," Barbiero recalled. "He very seriously told us that this was a place we should go and we were needed there. And so that was a defining moment for us."

For Kerry, John F. Kennedy's rally cry – "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" – had a powerful resonance. But questions and doubts about America's commitment to preserving the South Vietnamese regime in Saigon began to intrude.

Kerry, given the honor of delivering the Class Day oration his senior year, tore up his original speech after it had been published in an official campus journal and delivered one with a sharply skeptical political tone. He criticized the Johnson administration for a military venture that did not advance the nation's vital interests and that effectively isolated the United States from the international community.

But by that time, Kerry had already committed himself to seeking a Navy commission, knowing it would probably expose him to combat in Vietnam.

"This was 1966," said Thorne, who, like Kerry and Barbiero, also was headed for Vietnam. "By 1968, I'm not so sure we would have made the decision to serve. I'll speak for myself, . . . this was truly a moving train, a transitional moment of great significance for all of us, and the country as well."


http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040719/images/2004-07-19news_kerry.jpg

Knight Ridder News Service
During John Kerry's five years at the exclusive St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, he made his mark as a skilled athlete and a brillant debater.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/federal/20040719-9999-1n19youth.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Pentagon Finds Bush's Military Payroll Records
Fri Jul 23, 2004 05:01 PM ET


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Payroll records related to President Bush's service in the Air National Guard three decades ago that the Pentagon said earlier this month were accidentally destroyed now have been located, defense officials said on Friday.
Bush's whereabouts during his service as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in the United States during the Vietnam War have become an election-year issue, with some Democrats accusing him of shirking his duty.

Defense Finance and Accounting Service spokesman Bryan Hubbard said the microfilm payroll records were found in Denver, and blamed a clerical error for the Pentagon's previous failure to find the records.

"We're talking about a manual process for records that are over 30 years old," Hubbard said.

The Pentagon previously said microfilm payroll records of large numbers of service members, including Bush, were ruined in 1996 and 1997 in a project to save large, brittle rolls of microfilm.

Bush moved to Alabama in May 1972 to work on a political campaign and, he has said, to perform his Guard service there for a year. But other Guard officers have said they had no recollection of seeing him there.

Last February, the White House released hundreds of pages of Bush's military records. Those records did not provide new evidence to place Bush in Alabama during the latter part of 1972, when some Democrats had said he was basically absent without leave

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=5761332


Ellie

[OLE SARG]

I THINK THAT ARTICLE SAID KERRY WAS A REAL MASTER BATER OR WAS THAT DEBATER:)

When Kerry was doing all of his anti-Vietnam protesting he was still an Officer (and I use THAT word loosely - I wouldn't follow him to a dog fight) in the Naval Reserve. You could say some of his actions represented him to be a TRAITOR!!!!!!!!!

I think of him as a Jane Fonda loving SOB. (AND I SAY THAT FROM THE HEART):banana:

OLD SARG

[thedrifter]

Kerry banking on foreign-policy skills

By Finlay Lewis
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
July 23, 2004

WASHINGTON – The call from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis cranked up the pressure on John Kerry, whose aggressive investigation of an international bank scandal was already producing angry muttering from fellow Democrats in the Senate cloakroom.

Kerry had been in the Senate only three years in 1988 when he opened a probe of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

At 45, he was a decorated Vietnam War veteran and former prosecutor, and his digging helped disclose a criminal web of money laundering, drug running and arms smuggling that eventually implicated Clark Clifford, a venerable Democratic patriarch who was then in his mid-80s.

Clifford's involvement caused Kerry's phone to start ringing. And it wasn't only the widow of Kerry's political hero – John F. Kennedy – calling. Among others he also heard from was Pamela Harriman, a party doyenne and key fund-raiser. Kerry aides also said that senators would sidle up and suggest that perhaps he should lay off.

The pressure was fierce, recalled K. Dun Gifford, a Boston businessman and Democratic stalwart who has been friends with Kerry since the early 1970s.

"It was talked about up here: 'Is the kid gonna cave?' They called him 'the kid,' " Gifford said.

He didn't, and Kerry's evidence gathered as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee found its way to prosecutors in New York, who brought indictments that hastened BCCI's collapse. Clifford, the one-time counselor to presidents, faced fraud, conspiracy and bribery charges that were never litigated because of his failing health.

Kerry hopes to exploit foreign-policy expertise from his 19-year career in the Senate and convince voters that he could do better than President Bush on national security and diplomatic policies.

Kerry's qualifications for making that case rest heavily on his military service as a decorated naval officer in Vietnam. But his foreign-policy credentials also have evolved out of the Senate hearing rooms where he investigated transnational crime issues. Targets included former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega – now in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering – and early evidence of the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra misdeeds in Central America.


Kennedy's shadow
Entering the Republican-controlled Senate in 1985 and finding himself in the formidable political shadow of Massachusetts' other senator, Edward Kennedy, Kerry made a choice. He would investigate and concentrate on foreign policy instead of trying to compete with Kennedy for the limelight on domestic issues. Kennedy's seniority and wide-ranging expertise, coupled with GOP rule, left Kerry little maneuvering room.
Indeed, even though he is in his fourth Senate term, he has no grand list of legislation that bears his name or stands as his lawmaking legacy. But in carving out a niche as an investigator, Kerry often exuded a sense of adventure that captivated many who worked for him.

Recruited to take charge of Kerry's staff in 1991, David Leiter recalled a job interview at which Kerry said: "David, just don't take the fun out of this. I want to have some fun." Leiter observed that calculations of political benefit often did not seem to figure into Kerry's decisions to take on tough assignments, whether it was the BCCI investigation or a later inquiry into the fate of GIs in Vietnam listed as possible prisoners of war or as missing in action.

Kerry's staff worried that such involvements would bolster claims by detractors that he was too interested in foreign policy, to the detriment of procuring money for Massachusetts.

"Whether it was POW/MIA or BCCI, someone might say, 'Hey, walk away from this – you're only going to make enemies here,' " Leiter said.

His Republican opponent in 1990 ran television ads claiming that Kerry's legislative accomplishments added up to zero. Kerry easily won re-election anyway.

In fact, Kerry had scored some modest legislative successes in his early Senate years, winning passage of a bill allowing for more high-tech exports in his state. He could also claim that his investigations laid a foundation for future legislation.

In a departure from party orthodoxy, he became one of the first Democrats in the Senate to support the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction measure.

In 1996, Kerry faced a more serious re-election challenge when he seemed unable to offer a list of his legislative accomplishments during a debate with William Weld, the state's popular Republican governor. Kerry managed to hold on to his seat in part because of his success in linking Weld to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Political reality circumscribed Kerry's ability to produce legislation – most notably the outcome of the 1994 election that delivered both houses of Congress to the Republicans.

"It is a little specious to say, as Republicans are taking over Congress by 1994, that Kerry should have been banging through some major-league legislation to prove his effectiveness," said Lou DiNatale, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts. "I think he did prove his effectiveness. I think that's why he has an investigatory record, and I think that is probably a result of what he could actually do, given the political . . . realities of the day."

The Republicans say Kerry's record is riddled with flip-flops, and they point to his stances on Iraq.

In 1991, Kerry voted against the use of force to evict Saddam Hussein's armies from Kuwait, saying that then-President Bush had neither exhausted diplomatic options nor fully exploited the effectiveness of economic sanctions.

Eleven years later, he supported the bill authorizing the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, only to turn against President Bush's conduct of the war. Kerry complained that Bush broke a promise to build a diplomatic and military coalition before going to war.

He then opposed a $87 billion bill to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, explaining that he did so to dramatize the need for a change in policy. On other occasions, he has said he would have supported the measure had the Senate not rejected a plan to raise the money by rolling back some of Bush's tax cuts.

Political beginnings
It is fitting that some of Kerry's most notable Senate moments have occurred in the Foreign Relations Committee's chambers, because it was there that he sprang to public notice in April 1971 with his impassioned indictment of the Vietnam War.
By the following year, he was aggressively exploring political options.

Basking in his celebrity, Kerry – by then married to Julia Thorne, sister of a Yale classmate and his closest friend – began serious preparations for a race for the U.S. House. Kerry had no roots; his diplomat father was posted in Europe during much of his childhood, and most of Kerry's pre-college years were spent at Swiss and New England boarding schools. That led to a search for a suitable congressional district, a process that left him saddled with an opportunist's label at the outset of his political career.

He settled on an area anchored by Lowell, a down-at-the-heels former mill town. Viewing Kerry as a carpetbagger, the local newspaper hammered him at every turn, and his maiden political voyage ended in ignominious defeat.

"The idea was that he was a war hero and that he would be welcomed as a war hero," recalled his friend Gifford, who helped with fund raising and political connections. "It worked for a while, but his fund-raisers were Peter, Paul and Mary. 'Puff the Magic Dragon' is not necessarily working-class music. There got to be kind of a cultural disconnect."

Friends half-jokingly refer to the next decade as Kerry's exile years, but that period may have matured and toughened him so that he was ready the next time a political opening beckoned.

During those 10 years, he became a father, went to law school and took on a hard-edged job in early 1976 as first assistant in the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office.

About that time, he and Gifford started a cookie company called Kilvert and Forbes in the historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Those were the maiden names of their mothers, who also supplied the main recipes for their chocolate-chip and oatmeal-raisin cookies. At the beginning at least, it was an amateurish operation, with Gifford and Kerry using an old baseball bat to hit huge blocks of chocolate and butterscotch to produce the right-sized chunks for cookie production.

They later sold the company at a profit, but the name has survived a series of ownership transfers.

In 1979, Kerry and a former colleague from the DA's office opened a private law practice. The partnership lasted only a couple of years, until Kerry ran for lieutenant governor. He won the office in 1982, and settled in as No. 2 to Gov. Michael Dukakis.

That also was a short-lived venture. An ailing Paul Tsongas announced in early 1984 that he was surrendering his U.S. Senate seat. Reneging on a promise not to use the lieutenant governor's office as a steppingstone, Kerry entered the race and won a tough primary with the help of a band of Vietnam veterans and coasted in the fall against weak GOP opposition.

Kerry arrived in Washington saddled with debts and a crumbling marriage; Julia, the mother of his two daughters, was fighting both depression and an aversion to politics. Their divorce became final in 1988.

Seven years later, he married his present wife, Teresa Heinz, widow of Republican Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania and heiress to her late husband's Heinz food fortune.


continued..........

[thedrifter]

The prism of Vietnam
Throughout Kerry's Senate career, the Vietnam War has been a constant, shaping his attitudes. Aides say his searing combat experiences left him with an enduring skepticism about government, which helps account for some of his differences over the years with traditional liberals such as Kennedy.
That attitude, former aides say, materialized in an aversion to government waste. Over the following decade, Kerry and a handful of colleagues waged war – sometimes successfully – on boondoggles such as subsidies to producers of wool and mohair (a special wool that was used to make Army uniforms during the Korean War).

Karen Kornbluh, at one point Kerry's budget expert, recalls overhearing then-Sen. Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican with an important wool-raising constituency, shout desperately into a telephone, "They're going after mohair again!"


"(Kerry) came to Washington to make government responsible," Kornbluh said. "That's why he came to Washington after the war. That's really the driving force: that government should be transparent and it should be responsible. I think he thought that not to cut the budget where there was waste and then to just try and spend more where you thought it was a good idea was irresponsible."

Kerry's wartime experiences and his Senate career fused most dramatically in 1992, when he agreed to lead a select committee investigation of the POW/MIA situation in Vietnam. The assignment paired Kerry with a fellow veteran, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

The hearings often turned testy.

"It was hideous," recalled Frances Zwenig, Kerry's staff director for the investigation. "Every day we felt under attack from the true believers – people who were totally convinced there were a lot of Americans still being held behind in Vietnam. . . . They were just rude."

McCain in particular had to endure accusations of being a traitor. At one point, Zwenig recalled watching as Kerry laid a gently restraining hand on the seething senator's arm.

"I remain grateful to him for doing that," McCain said later.

At least one senator on the committee, Robert C. Smith, R-N.H., was sympathetic to the claims of some MIA advocates. But in the end, Kerry managed to win even Smith's support for a unanimous finding of "no compelling evidence that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia."

The committee's work, completed in 1993, paved the way for the decision a year later by President Clinton to end the trade embargo with Vietnam and, in 1995, to normalize relations with the Vietnamese government.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20040723-9999-1n23kerry.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Understanding 'The Siege'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: July 20, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com


Those of you who are sick and tired of watching liberals drool over Michael Moore's miserable "Fahrenheit 9-11" are probably wondering why our side doesn't have something better to watch. Well, now we do.

Herb Meyer's video on "The Siege of Western Civilization" is taking off among conservative Americans. The video has sold out twice in just the last month – and one students' organization recently bought 1,400 copies for distribution to all their chapters at colleges throughout the country.

In "The Siege of Western Civilization," Herb Meyer outlines the real threats to our country's security, our economy – and above all to our culture. And he really "gets it." As Herb puts it, "Our culture is Western Civilization. This is who we are. We need to understand what Western Civilization is all about, such as the rule of law, human rights and economic liberty, and above all we need to teach this to our children. Today our civilization is under siege, and if our children don't understand what our civilization really is and what we stand for, they won't understand why it's worth defending."

Herb outlines the three main threats to our way of life and our future: the war that radical Islam is waging against us, the culture war within the United States that he calls "a second Civil War," and plunging birth rates in Europe, Japan and even here that not only will wreak havoc with our economies but could, quite literally, lead to the extinction of entire populations. And he does all this in a friendly, informal way that makes "The Siege of Western Civilization" good viewing not only for concerned adults, but for students as well.

If you ask students who attend the local public high school what "Western Civilization" is, will they volunteer such concepts as religious liberty, individual freedom and democracy? Will they talk of great art and literature, as well as daring inventions and discoveries that changed the course of history? How about the rise of the middle class and the highest living standard the world has ever known?

Not likely, according to Herb Meyer.

Let me take a moment to tell you something about Meyer, who is the kind of sharp thinker Western Civilization has long produced. This former CIA analyst was one of the first American scholars to predict the implosion of the Soviet Union. Other American intelligence officials looked at the Soviet Union and saw a bustling country with at least 3 percent annual growth as far as the eye could see. They saw a Cold War that would sooner turn hot than turn off.

Herb Meyer didn't. And he didn't have to tap any super-secret veins of information, either. He read newspapers and other completely public documents. "The most vital, most actionable pieces of intelligence aren't "secret" at all," he wrote recently on National Review Online. "They are visible to anyone with a reasonable grasp of politics and economics ..."

So while other analysts saw continued growth, he saw reports of mills and factories closing for lack of raw materials. He saw workers rioting to protest the lack of meat and soap, and memos from the Politburo putting pressure on various bureaucracies to find new ways of generating hard currencies. Things, in other words, you don't see in countries with 3 percent growth. He concluded the Soviets would become more aggressive and try to "win" the Cold War hurriedly – before they went broke.

Fortunately, President Reagan shared Meyer's view, leading him to launch an arms buildup the Soviets couldn't match. The rest is history.

Which brings us back to those students I mentioned earlier. "We've forgotten what Western Civilization is," Meyer says. "We no longer teach it in the schools. If you come to the schools where I live and ask a group of high-school students 'what is Western Civilization?' they'll tell you it's slavery, the oppression of women and that we don't recycle."

Such a colossal injustice is what led Meyer, a former associate editor of Fortune magazine and author of several books, to produce "The Siege of Western Civilization." We have to go back and understand just what it is we are fighting for," Meyer says. "When you understand Western Civilization, then you have a very clear sense of who the enemy is, what they are attacking and why it's worth defending."



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If you want to understand the threats our country and our culture face – and if you want to poke a finger in Michael Moore's eye – purchase a copy of "The Siege of Western Civilization". You can order through the website or by calling 1-800-393-1266.





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Rebecca Hagelin is a vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a research and educational think-tank whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values and a strong national defense. She is also the former vice president of communications for WorldNetDaily and her 60-second radio commentaries can be heard on the Salem Communications Network.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39532


Ellie

[Sparrowhawk]

The Washington Times