He's Hiding, So Don't Ask

It's a work of art - spin within spin.

The latest tack on the right is that no one should look into George Bush's National Guard record because he didn't tout his record, but you should report without question lies about actual war heroes.

Well, I have some bad news for the right. The stories the candidates don't tout are exactly the ones to investigate. Nixon didn't tout Watergate, Reagan didn't tout secretly selling Arms (to Iran) so he could finance an illegal war in Central America.

Kudos to the warped weasel who though up this spin. Your prize: 10 days community service at the lovely Walter Reed medical facility in VA, where you'll be changing bedpans for newly limbless soldiers, who unlike your idol, are not chicken hawks.

Perhaps some time with real soldiers, instead of GI George, will teach you some humility.

Perhaps, when these men and women someday talk about their sacrifices you'll hesitate for just a moment before attacking.

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Wherefore Art Thou, Iraq?

Iraq is not associated with the terrorists who attacked us, but the right has done a great job of convincing people otherwise.

Countering their claims with "Nuh-uh, no they didn't," is completely ineffective. You've got to break the false "Iraq = Al Qaida-terrorists" frame.

So how do you counter them? They've so tightly bound "Iraq," "Al Qaida," and "terrorists" in people's minds that if you say one of those words, people automatically picture the others.

Here's an idea: stop using those words. Replace them with the truth:

Al Qaida and terrorists become "The people who attacked us."

Iraq becomes "A country that was not a threat and wasn't about to become one."

What would this look like in use?

Instead of "When I'm president, we will win the war on terror," it's "When I'm president, we will win the war on those who attacked us."

Instead of "I'll get our brave young men and women out of Iraq," it's "I'll get our brave young men and women out of a country that posed no threat and wasn't about to become one."

The best way to counter a frame is to stop using the words that activate it. Due to a spectacularly well-executed "Big Lie" strategy of constant repetition, the right has succeeded in turning Iraq, Al Qaida, Terror into activators for one another. Break the frame - use different terminology.

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That Fixes Everything!

Earlier this week, Vice President Cheney desperately tried to make people think that voting for John Kerry would cause a terrorist attack:

“It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."

Today, tail between his legs like a scolded puppy, he tried to "clean up" the controversy he had sparked with his hysteria:

"I did not say if Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack. Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks. My point was the question before us is: Will we have the most effective policy in place to deal with that threat? George Bush will pursue a more effective policy than John Kerry,"

Well, that fixes everything! Let's ignore the lie and the obvious implication about John Kerry. Let's focus on the part where George Bush will be more effective. Look at the record so far - what has its effect been? What kind of effectiveness is he talking about?

• Send too few troops to the country where the terrorists are hiding.
  
  
• Send them too late to capture the actual terrorists.
  
  
• As you're closing in on the bad guys, but before you finish the job, pull the vast majority of troops out of that country.
  
  
• Send those troops to another country that posed no threat and had no dealings with the terrorists who attacked us. Attack a country we had very effectively prevented from becoming a threat, angering the very people who might want to become terrorists.
  
  
• Leave us defenseless at home by bankrupting the national treasury and cutting funding for the very police departments, fire departments and other first responders who would protect us if there were a threat.
  
  
• While you're at it, send the National Guard, whose role is to protect us on American soil, to the unnecessary war, so they won’t be here to protect us.
  

I’d say the President has been very effective - at making us MORE vulnerable.

Personally, I'd like a common sense policy that makes us LESS vulnerable. I don't like Bush/Cheney's style of effectiveness.

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Such an Inconvenience....

Lots has been made of George W. Bush's National Guard duty (though not nearly enough). Honestly, the specifics of his failure to fulfill his duty don't matter. What matters is the pattern:

1 - Take on responsibility,
2 - Shirk your duty,
3 - Discredit anyone who tries to hold you accountable.

This man has twice taken on a role where he was supposed to defend his country. In both roles, he deemed his personal life more important than his country. As a National guardsman, he chose not to fulfill his requirement because he would not have "enough time," - not due to something excusable, like a family emergency, but because defending his country was inconvenient.

He writes off his National Guard shirking as "old news," as if that makes it irrelevant. I'd say if you see the same pattern of behavior repeatedly over the course of 35 years, you can be certain it's not going to change. Old news is relevant when you're looking for patterns.

As President, he failed to do his duty because he needed his vacation. In 3.5 years in office, this President has taken as much vacation as a typical working class person gets in 10 years, assuming they actually get to take all their vacation time each year.

While the threat of an Al Qaida attack loomed, reading and paying attention to security briefings, paying attention to senior advisors, and taking action was inconvenient. He had golf to play, bikes to ride, and other shows of manliness to perform. Potentially preventing the worst attack in the history of the United States wasn't convenient.

Let's not inconvenience him any further. Let's give George W. Bush all the vacation time he wants - and more. Starting November 3.

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Play into the Frame and Lose

What's wrong with this sentence (John Kerry at a Cincinnati, Ohio campaign stop):

"Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq; more than 1,000 of America’s sons and daughters have now given their lives on behalf of their country, on behalf of freedom, the war on terror."

Answer:
It legitimizes the so-called "war on terror," legitimizes the war on a country that posed no threat to us, and conflates the two (makes people think they're related, even though they're not).

More importantly, this framing implies that the honorable service of our soldiers was honorable because of their location, not because of their wilingness to sacrifice.

The "right" created this frame to manipulate people into believing that disagreeing with the location of a war would be to dishonor the soldiers' willingness to sacrifice. The real dishonor comes in taking credit for their honorable service through decietful language.

To truly honor these fine men and women, John Kerry needs to reframe:

"Today marks a tragic milestone in the war in Iraq; more than 1,000 of America’s sons and daughters have now given their lives on behalf of their country. We honor their sacrifice.

I understand the pain of losing a loved one in war. My heart goes out to their families. When I am President, I will ensure that their sacrifices will not have been in vain."

[UPDATE 9-8-04]
The campaign has reworded the speech for today. Much better!

Yesterday in Iraq, we marked the most incalculable loss of all. Yesterday, we reached a tragic milestone. More than 1,000 of America’s sons and daughters gave their lives in service to our country. More than 1,000 sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters who will never come home to live the lives they dreamed of. We honor them, we pray for them and for their families, and we owe it to their memory and all our troops to do what’s right in Iraq.

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VP Cheney Has No Shame

In a desperate attempt to frighten people into voting Republican, Vice President Cheney came out with the following bit of hysteria in Des Moines, Iowa:

`It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States,'' Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city."

This can be interpreted 2 ways:

- The administration is in control of the terrorists, and can affect their attack plans.

OR

- The administration knows that their post-convention "bounce" is nowhere near what it should be for an incumbent during a war.

Neither is particularly favorable. I think we now know just how worried the Bush administration is about their chances in November.

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First Draft – Zig-Zag Zell Edition, a Parody

Imagine the first draft of Zell Miller's 2004 RNC Convention Speech - before the truth was edited out. It might go something like this...

Since I last stood in this spot, a whole new generation of the Miller Family has been born: Four great grandchildren, which is entirely irrelevant, but I want you to like me.

Along with all the other members of our close-knit family -- they are my and Shirley's most precious possessions; not beings worthy of respect, but possessions. And I know that's how you’d feel about your family also, if you believed in keeping chattel, like me.


Like you, I think of their future, the promises and the perils they will face. Unlike you, I can use my influence to protect mine from the folly of this administration’s policies. Like you, I believe that the next four years will determine what kind of world they will grow up in. Unlike you, I don’t have to care. And like you, I ask which leader is it today that has the warped vision, the maniacal willpower and, yes, the artificial backbone, which is why he walks like that; to best protect my family from countries that pose no threat, from their constitutional rights, and above all, from the French?

The clear answer to that question should worry you. Carl Rove has placed me in this hall with you tonight, because he couldn’t find anyone sane who would do it. For my family is more important than my party, and they threatened to challenge my family to a duel if I didn’t come here and read their script.

There is but one man to whom I am not willing to entrust their future and that man's name is George Bush.

In the summer of 1940, I was an eight-year-old boy living in a remote little Appalachian valley. Our country was not yet at war but even we children knew that there were some crazy men across the ocean who would kill us if they could. President Roosevelt, in his speech that summer, told America "all private plans, all private lives, have been in a sense repealed by an overriding public danger." A danger that was not fictitious, unlike the so-called imminent threat from Iraq.

In 1940 Wendell Wilkie was the Republican nominee. And there is no better example of someone repealing their "private plans" than this good man. He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time, just like now. But that won’t stop us from drafting your kids to fight an unnecessary war against a country that was, until we invaded it, well under control.

And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue, unlike President Bush. President Bush's mission is to get the press to focus on a partisan cat fight instead of the war, because his unwarranted invasion has been catastrophic. Mission accomplished.

Shortly before Wilkie died he told a friend, that if he could write his own epitaph and had to choose between "here lies a president" or "here lies one who contributed to saving freedom", he would prefer the latter. George W. Bush would prefer the former.

Where are such statesmen today? Where is the bi-partisanship in this country when we need it most? You might try asking the republicans, who will go so far as to extend a vote deadline until they can sufficiently browbeat any bipartisans in their party into toeing the partisan line. Republicans don’t believe in “bi,” in either their partisan or their families.

Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq for no reason, and in the mountains of Afghanistan, because we pulled their brethren over to Iraq; our nation is being torn apart and made weaker by George Bush’s policies, not because of the Democrat's romanic and well-justified obsession to bring down our insane Commander-in-Chief.

What has happened to the Republican party I've spent my life working in, as opposed to the Democratic party I pretend to belong to?

I can remember when Democrats and Republicans believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny, not to preemptively attack a country just because someday that country could pose a threat to some country somewhere, but probably not the USA. Now it’s just the Democrats.

It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, because they had invaded Iran; who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city. It was President Bush who took our troops out of Afghanistan, where the terrorists were hiding, and attacked Iraq, who wasn’t doing squat, having had its army and weapons programs destroyed by the first Iraq war and subsequent sanctions.

Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today, when the Democrats wanted to focus on the threat, but the Republicans wanted to play empire.

Slow learners, motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, the Republicans don’t “get” why today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator. And nothing makes this irrational former Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators, even if we are occupiers.

Tell that to the one-half of Europe that was freed because Franklin Roosevelt led an army of liberators, not occupiers, and they’ll agree that this time we are occupiers.

Tell that to the lower half of the Korean Peninsula that is free because Dwight Eisenhower commanded an army of liberators, not occupiers. They’ll agree that this time we are occupiers who have endangered them like never before by causing North Korea to redouble their efforts to become a serious nuclear threat.

Tell that to the half a billion men, women and children who are free today from the Baltics to the Crimea, from Poland to Siberia, because Ronald Reagan rebuilt a military of liberators, not occupiers, which is entirely unrelated to their freedom, since Reagan sent no troops to make that happen. They, also, would agree that this time, we’re occupiers.

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier, and the French resistance, and the British who lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy and throughout Europe. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home, especially when we work with our allies to ensure that the numbers of troops are sufficient to prevent insurgency, and when we fully staff our police departments and hospitals.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is not the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press, but our Constitution. It is not the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech, but our Constituion. It is not the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest, but our Constitution. It is the not soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag, but our Constitution.

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home, except when our soldiers have been misused in a crazy empirical occupation, in which case he should consider them occupiers. No one should be Commander in Chief who won’t listen to his own military advisers, preferring his civilian friends and their “cooked” intelligence. No one should be Commander in Chief who does not believe in the fundamental rights bestowed by our Constitution, for all our citizens at all times.

But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. Unlike the Republicans, who in their warped way of thinking, believe that American dissent and any other country that poses no threat to us is the problem, not the solution.

They don't believe there is any real danger in the world from Iraq, well, at least there wasn’t, except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy. And they are right.

It is not their patriotism – with the Republicans, it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter's pacifism would not lead to peace. They were wrong, but they were so determined to prevent peace that they did everything they could to sabotage its chances in the world, including selling to Iraq the very arms that were used against our troops and the very WMDs Hussein used against his own people; selling to Iran the arms they are preparing to use against us should we invade them, too.

They claimed Reagan's defense buildup would not lead to war. Luckily, the Soviet economy was in such bad shape, the country was dissolving of its own weight, so they were wrong, but not because of the buildup.

And, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two lazy, spoiled, unthinking rich kids running the country: George Bush and Dick Cheney, unlike the two hard working, dedicated Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.

Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that Dick Cheney opposed, even though we had won the Cold War, and these systems were no longer needed. And now the President claims we are winning the War on Terror, even though, before we invaded Iraq, it was a secular country whose crazed Muslim fanatics were under control, where a year ago, there were only 5,000 insurgents; and where now, there are approximately 20,000 insurgents, despite the thousands we have killed or captured, and the number is growing.

Listing all the weapon systems that Dick Cheney, along with his colleague Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security, but Americans need to know the facts.

The B-1 bomber, that Dick Cheney and Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40% of the bombs in the first six months of the unnecessary Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) renamed from Operation Iraq Liberation (OIL), because it was too obvious.

The B-2 bomber, that Dick Cheney and Senator Kerry opposed, delivered air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan and, unnecessarily, Hussein's command post in Iraq.

The F-14A Tomcats, that Dick Cheney and Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Khadafi's Libyan MIGs over the Gulf of Sidra. The modernized F-14D, that Dick Cheney and Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora.

The Apache helicopter, that Dick Cheney and Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War. The F-15 Eagles, that Dick Cheney and Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's Capital and this very city after 9/11, but thanks to President Bush, not in time to prevent 9-11.

I could go on and on and on: Against more of the faulty Patriot Missile that shot down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles over Israel, sometimes, when they were lucky; Against the Aegis air-defense cruiser, Against the ineffective, money-wasting Strategic Defense Initiative, Against the obsolete Trident missile, against, against, against. Against unnecessary additional weapons of the types that are ineffective against terrorists and insurgents, but would work pretty well against a non-existent standing army, like that of the former Soviet Union.

This is the man who is our Vice President, and also his colleague.

Who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces? Lots of people. U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs? Or perhaps armed with accurate instead if faulty intelligence? Or armed with protective vests, armored vehicles, functional communications systems, and weapons that work in the desert? All of which could have been funded by the money wasted on those systems these men voted against.

Twenty years of votes can tell you much more about a man than twenty weeks of campaign rhetoric. Senator Kerry’s voting record, unlike Representative Cheney’s has been exemplary.

Campaign talk tells people who you want them to think you are. How you vote tells people who you really are deep inside, which is how you can tell I'm a Republican. Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if necessary, and to share the burdens of war, he would endeavor to have such actions approved by the United Nations, to ensure strength in numbers for our troops.

Kerry would not let Paris decide when America needs defending, but would ask Paris to join us in the fight. I want President Bush to decide, because I like sending your kids to die for no reason, it’s fun, like dueling.

John Kerry, who says he doesn't like outsourcing jobs, wants instead to outsource George Bush, because he knows how important that is to our national security.

That's right, he wants to outsource the most dangerous President we’ve ever had. It would be the best outsourcing of all.

This politician, John Kerry, wants to be leader of the free world, not ruler of an empire. Free for how long? That depends on whether he succeeds. Let’s hope he does.

For more than twenty years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been very effective, whereas when he was a Representative and again as Secretary of Defense, Vice President Cheney was more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure.

As a war protestor, Kerry blamed our military for the well-documented atrocities encouraged by the high command. As a Senator, he voted to weaken those unfit elements of our military while strengthening the fit ones. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny 20 billion dollars in pork-barrel spending that was slapped onto the bill meant to provide protective armor for our troops in harms way, in a galaxy far-far-away, that he cares about responsible government.

George Bush understands that we need new strategies to meet new threats, but he doesn’t like them, and even if he did, wouldn’t understand how to implement them.

John Kerry wants to re-fight the errors we are making now that we also made in yesterday's war. George Bush believes we have to fight today's unnecessary war with your children, not his. And you should be ready for tomorrow's challenges, when he reinstitutes the draft, so you should start working on Canadian citizenship now. George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists, then redirecting them to fight someplace else instead, sacrificing your children so that Vice President Cheney and former President Bush can make more money.

They cannot disguise the fact, no matter what undisclosed spider hole they may hide in or what undisclosed rock they crawl under, George Bush and Dick Cheney are bent on world domination. Meanwhile, John Kerry wants to grab terrorists by the throat and not let them go - unlike the President, who needs to get a better grip on reality.

From John Kerry, they get a reasoned decision-making process, not a "yes-no-maybe" bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends - like the President’s stance on whether or not we should have a department of Homeland Security, or his waffling on whether or not to investigate 9-11.

I first got to know George Bush when we served as governors together. I admire this man’s ability to hold his liquor. I am impressed by his anger. I am moved by the respect he shows the First Lady, his unabashed love for his parents and his daughters, and the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America. Too bad he is indifferent, himself.

I can identify with someone who has lived that line in "Amazing Grace," "Was blind, but now I see," and I like the fact that he's the same man on Saturday night that he is on Sunday morning, thanks to the hair of the dog that bit him.

He is not a slick talker, in fact he’s barely coherent without a well-rehearsed script, but he is a straight shooter and, where I come from, deeds mean a lot more than words, because we can’t understand words. So shooting things, or hitting golf balls, or fishing, or riding his bike, takes precedence over reading documents that could prevent great national tragedies.

I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home - not him, because he was on vacation; but a God-fearing man with a good heart who thought he had bought into a time-share in Florida. But I have faith that George will be back some day, with his spine of tempered steel, which is what makes him walk like that. It looks pretty uncomfortable.

The man I trust to protect my most precious possession: my family, is Alexander Hamilton, who liked to duel, or maybe Aaron Burr.

This election will change forever the course of history, and that's not any history. It's our family's history. The only question is how. The answer lies with each of us. And, like many generations before us, we've got some hard choosing to do.

Right now the world just cannot afford any indecisive voters in America. Fainthearted, self-indulgence, like voting for George Bush, will put at risk all we care about in this world. In this hour of danger, brought about by this administration’s failures, our President has had the courage to stand up and mock everything you hold dear. And this Democrat in name only is proud to stand up with him, because I’ve gone senile, and then there’s that duel…

Thank you. God Bless this great country and God Bless George W. Bush, but don’t bless anyone else or I’ll throw down the gauntlet, and you and I will have to duel.

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Open Letter to Kerry Campaign

One of the biggest questions this election year is how to get women, particularly single women, to the polls. Well, you've got to make the issues, besides reproductive rights, relevant to women's lives.

For that to happen, you've got to know where women's pain is.

Frank Luntz, the architect of the neo-con's rhetorical approach (Iraq, for example), in an interview, in July, explained the strategy for winning the women's vote.

My gut tells me he's absolutely right. The Kerry campaign should capitalize on this. The true number one issue for women is not seen as a political issue: it is the lack of free time.

How does the campaign capitalize on that?


Find out and communicate the ways in which women's time is affected by political issues, like this:

When President Bush signed the law that took away people's overtime pay, he did more than take away your money - he created an incentive for your employer to require you to work longer hours.

He knows that, because of the mess he has made of the economy, you'll work those extra hours, because you know there may not be another job to go to if you refuse. It doesn't matter that your child will be stuck either alone or in daycare, instead of with you during those hours, you need your paycheck, so you'll work them.

He's allowing companies to blackmail you into giving up more of your time to them - for nothing.

He is doing the same thing when he refuses to raise the minimum wage. He is stealing your time by causing you to work extra hours, or more than one job, just to feed your family and keep a roof over your head.

The campaign should analyze every issue, and see how it can be tied back to women's time. Whatever you come up with will work for many men, as well. Everyone feels the time crunch, women just pay more attention to it.

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Calling on the Pros

Andrew J. Bacevich wants the generals in Iraq to speak up about the insurgency:

A year ago, when he assumed charge of United States Central Command and acknowledged that Operation Iraqi Freedom had given way to what he candidly called "classical guerrilla war," Gen. John Abizaid assessed the total number of insurgents to be 5,000. But according to a recent Associated Press dispatch all but ignored by major media outlets, official estimates of the enemy's strength have risen to 20,000 - this despite the fact that over the past year American forces have killed or imprisoned several thousand Iraqis and so-called "foreign fighters." In short, enemy recruitment is easily outpacing our efforts to reduce his numbers.

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First Draft - VP Edition, a Parody

Imagine the first draft of Dick Cheney's 2004 RNC Convention Speech - before the truth was edited out. It might go something like this...

Mr. Chairman, delegates, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans: I accept your nomination for vice president of the United States.

I am honored by your misplaced confidence. And tonight I make this pledge: I will give this campaign all the dirty tricks that I have, and together we will make George W. Bush president for another four years, after which, we will crown him emperor.

Tonight I will talk about this good man and his fine record leading our country to ruin. And I may say a disingenuous word or two about his opponent. I am also mindful that I have an opponent of my own. People tell me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal, and his great hair, which is not true, but they say it anyway. I say to them - how do you think I got the job? If you guessed skullduggery, you're right!

On this night, as we celebrate the opportunities that America offers, I am filled with gratitude to a nation that has been much too good to me, and I remember the people who set me on my crooked, dishonest way in life. My grandfather noted that the day I was born was also the birthday of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Which I mention so you'll confuse me with him in your minds, since that's as close as I'll ever get to true greatness.

And so he told my parents they should send President Roosevelt an announcement of my birth - that kind of self-agrandisement runs way back in my family. Now my grandfather didn't have a chance to go to high school. For many years he worked as a cook on the Union Pacific Railroad, and he and my grandmother lived in a railroad car. But the modesty of his circumstances didn't stop him from thinking that President Roosevelt should know about my arrival. My grandfather believed deeply in the promise of America, and had the highest hopes for his family. And, since I have no humility, I don't think it would surprise him much that a grandchild of his stands before you tonight as Vice President of the United States.

It is the story of this country that people have been able to dream big dreams with confidence they would come true, if not for themselves, then for their children and grandchildren. And that sense of boundless opportunity is a gift that we must pass on to all people of privilege who come after us, but not to the peasants, because they are not deserving of God's grace - that's why they're poor.

From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world, which is why I believe it's imperative that we destroy them. When the President and I took office, our schools were shuffling too many children from grade to grade without giving them the skills and knowledge they needed, like Yale, where alcoholic drug abusers get a free pass, if they have the right Dad. So President Bush reached across the aisle and brought both parties together to pass the most significant reduction of public education reform in 40 years.

With higher standards and new resources, America's schools could be great. But instead, they are now on an upward path to excellence, at least the private schools. Public schhols face a different reality - and not for just a few children, but for every child with the misfortune to be born to an average American family.

Opportunity also depends on a vibrant, growing economy. As President Bush and I were sworn into office, our nation was booming, after several months, it began sliding into recession, and American workers were not exactly overburdened with federal taxes. Then came the events of September 11th, which hit our economy very hard. So President Bush delivered the greatest tax reduction for his friends in a generation, and the results are clear to see. Businesses are creating jobs in other countries. People who are lucky enough to find a new job, are returning to work for thousands of dollars less per year.

Mortgage rates are low, to create an artificial housing bubble, and home ownership in this country is at an all-time high.

Coincidentally, so are personal bankruptcies. The Bush tax cuts are working to decimate all the programs that made this a Great Society - the underclass is growing.

Our nation has the best healthcare in the world, unless you count such critical factors as infant mortality, average lifespan, and medical error rates. President Bush is making it more unaffordable and inaccessible to all Americans. And there is more damage to do. Under this President's leadership, we will reform medical liability so the system serves wealthy patients, bad doctors, insurance companies, and occasionally, good doctors; but not personal injury lawyers and their clients, like those innocent children whose intestines were ripped out by faulty swimming pool drains, or that guy in Jeb's state, Florida where they amputated the wrong foot.

These have been years of dictatorial achievement, and we are eager for the work ahead. And in all that we do, we will never lose sight of the greatest challenge of our time: preserving the freedom and security of the greedy and uncaring in this nation against determined enemies.

Since I last spoke to our national convention, Lynne and I have had the joy of seeing our family grow. We now have a grandson to go along with our three wonderful granddaughters, and the deepest wish of my heart and the object of all my determination is that they, and all of America's children of privilege, will have lives filled with opportunity, but not my gay daughter, who I am willing to sell out for political gain … and that they will inherit a world in which they, but no one else, can live in freedom, in safety, and in peace.

Four years ago, some in this administration said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger, despite repeated warnings from former Clinton administration officials and our own appointees. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false. Like other generations of Americans, we soon discovered that history had great and unexpected duties in store for us, to which we dutifully pay lip service.

September 11th, 2001, made clear the challenges we faced, but ignored. On that day we saw the harm that could be done by 19 men armed with knives and boarding passes, when the leadership of this country fails its people. America also awakened, courtesy of our propaganda, to a possibility even more lethal: this enemy, whose hatred of us is limitless, armed with chemical, biological, or even nuclear weapons, which makes one question why we have done nothing to secure the unguarded stockpiles of the former Soviet Union.

Just as surely as the Nazis during World War Two and the Soviet communists during the Cold War, the enemy we face today is bent on our destruction, because they don't appreciate the puppet government we've installed, or being bombed, or shot. As in other times, we are in a pointless war we did not start as quickly as we wanted to, and have no choice but to pretend to try to win, so we don't lose face. Firm in our resolve, focused on our mission, and led by a superb commander in chief, we will prevail. Unfortunately, George is only mediocre, so we won't.

The fanatics who killed some 3,000 of our fellow Americans may have thought they could attack us with impunity - because terrorists had done so previously. But if the killers of September 11th thought we had lost the will to defend our freedom, they did not know America … and they did not know George W. Bush, the lucky duckies.

From the beginning, the President made clear that the dark-skinned, foreign terrorists would be dealt with, usually in cash - and that anyone we don't like who supports, protects, or harbors them would be held to account. Obviously, this excludes our ever-shrinking list of allies, like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In a campaign that has reached around the world, we have captured or killed hundreds of Al-Qaeda, while creating tens of thousands. In Afghanistan, the camps where terrorists originally trained to kill Americans have been shut down, and newer ones built; and the Taliban, while briefly driven from power, seems to be making a comeback. In Iraq, we dealt with a gathering threat, and removed the regime of Saddam Hussein before the information that might have been used to prevent us from going to war could be gathered. Seventeen months ago, he controlled the lives and fortunes of 25 million people. Tonight he sits in jail, and the Iraqi people cower in their sweltering homes - jobless, hungry, thirsty, and terrified; watching the few freedoms that briefly took hold, like freedom of the press, fade away. Some get fed up, and take up arms against your children, who they see as the forces of occupation.

President Bush does not deal in empty threats and half measures, but empty promises and false hope. And his determination has sent a clear message. Just five days after Saddam was captured, the girlie-men running the government of Libya agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program and turn the materials over to the United States, while North Korea and Iran redoubled their efforts to become serious nuclear powers. Tonight, uranium, centrifuges, and plans for nuclear weapons that were once hidden in Libya are locked up and stored away in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, never again to be a danger to Americans, except in the sense that they'd make a great target.

The biggest threat we face today, after the complete collapse of our economy, is having nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists. The president is working with many countries in a global effort to end the trade and transfer of these deadly technologies, but not to secure unguarded stockpiles. The most important result thus far - and it is a very important one - is that the black-market network run by our allies in Pakistan, that supplied nuclear weapons technology to Libya, as well as to Iran and North Korea, has been shut down, too late to do any good. The world's worst source of nuclear weapons proliferation is out of business, but the runner-ups are still going strong - and we are not really safer as a result.

In the globally condemned war we are fighting, we owe a mighty debt to the men and women of the United States armed forces.

They have fought the enemy with courage and reached out to civilians with compassion, rebuilding a few of the schools and hospitals and roads that were destroyed in our unnecesary war. They have won stunning victories. They have faced hard duty and long deployments, because of our catastrophic planning. And they have lost comrades. For no reason, more than 1100 brave Americans, whose memory this nation will honor forever, have died, along with countless innocent Iraqis. The men and women who wear the uniform of the United States represent the very best of America. They have the thanks of our nation. And they haven't the confidence, the loyalty, or the respect of their commander in chief, which you can tell by the way he deserted his cushy post as a non-combat mail clerk and allows his friends to call into question the valor of war heroes who oppose him, like John McCain, Max Cleland, and John Kerry.

In this election, we will decide who leads our country for the next four years. Yet there is more in the balance than that.

Moments come along in history when leaders must make fundamental decisions about how to confront a long term challenge abroad and how best to keep the American people secure. We faced such a moment after World War Two, when we put in place the policies that defended America throughout the Cold War. Those policies - containing communism, deterring attack by the Soviet Union, and promoting the rise of democracy - were carried out by Democratic and Republican presidents in the decades that followed. Presidents who, unlike our current president, were skilled statesmen, striving for peaceful solutions, and reserving force for those times when one country invaded another, or when civil war threatened to unleash genocide.

This nation has reached another of those defining moments. Under President Bush we have put in place new policies of empire and created new institutions to defend Americans from their rights; to fail to stop terrorist violence, to strengthen the determination of those at its source; and to help move the Middle East away from old hatreds and resentments against Hussein and toward the lasting lack of peace that only freedom from human rights can bring. This type of oppression is the work not of months, but of years - and keeping these commitments to injustice is essential to our future lack of security. For that reason, ladies and gentlemen, the election of 2004 is one of the most important, not just in our lives but in our history.

And so it is time to set the alternatives squarely before the American people.

The President's opponent is an experienced senator, with a distinguished record. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we dishonor him for it. But there is also a record of more than three decades since. And on the question of America's role in the world, the differences between Senator Kerry and President Bush are the sharpest, and the stakes for the country are the highest. History has shown that a strong and purposeful America, led by a just and thoughtful leader, is vital to preserving freedom and keeping us safe - yet time and again Senator Kerry has watched as the President made the wrong call on national security. Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed "only at the directive of the United Nations," because teamwork yields better results than going it alone. During the 1980s, Senator Kerry opposed those of Ronald Reagan's major defense initiatives that brought record deficits (which have since been dwarfed by those of the current administration), weakening the US economy, putting millions out of work, and exchanging the effectiveness of our armed forces for weapons that would never work. The failed premise of communism then brought inevitable victory in the Cold War, but we claimed it was caused by our arms buildup. In 1991, when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait and stood poised to dominate the Persian Gulf, Senator Kerry voted against Operation Desert Storm.

Even in this post-9/11 period, Senator Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed, he still seems to believe that that person in the oval office believes in the constitution. He talks about leading "a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history." Not as though he believes Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side, but because he knows that talking softly and carrying a big stick works better than talking big and under-staffing your army and alienating the allies whose armies could share the burden. He declared at the Democratic Convention that he will forcefully defend America - after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked, and faced with an enemy who seeks the deadliest of weapons to use against us, we cannot wait for the next attack. We must do everything we can to prevent it - and that includes the use of pre-emptive military force against a former ally who poses no threat, while ignoring the real threat, until it's politically convenient to generate a positive news story because the presient is lagging in the polls.

Senator Kerry denounces American action when other countries, and most of our own experts don't approve - as if they believe the whole object of our foreign policy were part of a juvenile desire to implement a schoolboy's plan to please a few persistent critics of reality. In fact, in the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side. But as the President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many, and submitting to the objections of a few. George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people.

Senator Kerry also takes a different view when it comes to supporting our military, because he's sane.

Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, but only if we exhausted all non-military options, such as allowing the weapons inspection to be completed, first; he then decided he was opposed to the war, when we didn't follow the spirit of the authorization. And voted against a funding bill containing 20 billion in pork above the 67 billion needed for our men and women in the field. He voted against 20 billion that wasn't part of the funding for body armor, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, armored vehicles, extra pay for hardship duty, and support for military families. Senator Kerry is campaigning for the position of commander in chief. Yet he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief - and that is to support American troops in combat, a little, but support your corporate benefactors more. And in further contrast to our current president, Senator Kerry believes our injured soldiers and our veterans deserve proper medical care when they return.

In his years in Washington, John Kerry has been one of a hundred votes in the United States Senate - and very unfortunately on matters of national security, his views rarely prevailed, especially when I was secretary of defense.

But the presidency is an entirely different proposition. A senator is what John Kerry is. I was a Representative. A Representative can be wrong for 20 years, with no consequence to the nation, but put him in a presidential administration and soon, you'll be trading arms for hostages, or invading Iraq. Similarly, a Governor can destroy his state, again with little consequence to the nation, except those downstream or downwind; but watch out for the brain-damaging mercury and poisonous arsenic in your drinking water if you elect him President. A president - a president - always casts the deciding vote, unless there's enough congressional support to make the bill veto-proof, in which case he's powerless. And in this time of challenge, America needs - and America has - a president we can count on to get it right. As long as the it to which you refer does not involve foreign policy, domestic policy, or the English language. As long as it means corruptly funneling our national treasury into the overflowing coffers of his wealthy friends.

On Iraq, Senator Kerry has disagreed with many of his fellow Democrats. But Senator Kerry's liveliest disagreement is with himself. We imply that his back-and-forth reflects a habit of indecision, rather than the ability to read, which enables him to recognize which version of a piece of legislation is worth voting for, and which is not. Because of our implications, you are incapable of such recognition. And because we know it sends a message of confusion, we gladly repeat the implication at every possible opportunity. And it is all part of a pattern. He has, in the last several years, been for the No Child Left Behind Act in one form - and against it, when it was rewritten to be extremely destructive to public schools everwhere. He has spoken in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement, because of its potential for good - and against it, when the version implemented decimated jobs for our working class and failed to provide protection for workers, the air we breathe and the water we drink. He is for the Patriot Act, with reservations, as a temporary trial in the heat of a national emergency - and against it, now that its potential for abuse has been amply demonstrated by this corrupt administration. Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas, the one full of crooked, avaricious wealthy, such as myself and the President, and our good friends, like Kenny Boy Lay; and the one in which you peasants hope not to end up living on the street, due to an unforeseen illness or job loss. It makes the whole thing mutual - because of our lies, America sees the false image of two John Kerrys.

The other candidate in this race is a man our nation has come to know as an all hat and no cattle spoiled rich kid, and one I've come to admire very much for his "often wrong, but never in doubt" stubbornness. I watch him at work every day, except his 580ish vacation days (that's equivalent to 58 years worth of vacation for most Americans). I have seen him face some of the hardest decisions that can come to the Oval Office - and make those decisions without neither the wisdom nor the humility Amearicans expect in their president. George W. Bush is a man who speaks plainly, because he's incapable of speaking either intelligently or clearly.

And he means what he says, except when he's lying. He is a person of loyalty and kindness, unless you disagree with him, in which case you might as well commit suicide, because he's going to destroy your life. And he brings out these qualities (vengefulness, spitefulness, impatience, arrogance, and more) in those around him. He is a man of great personal strength, because he works out - and more than that, a man with a heartlessness for the weak, and the vulnerable, and the afflicted. We all remember that terrible morning when, in the space of just 102 minutes, more Americans were killed than we lost at Pearl Harbor, and our inept administration did nothing to stop the 2nd or 3rd planes, failing to save thousands.

We remember the President who came to New York City and pledged that the terrorists would soon hear from all of us, in a way that will strengthen their cause, improve their recruitment efforts, and imperil us all. George W. Bush saw this country through grief and tragedy … he has acted with patience, waiting to act despite compelling evidence; and calmly allowed the terrorists to complete their 9-11 plans, and a moral seriousness that calls evil by its name, unless its his own, in which case he calls it leadership. In the great divide of our time, he has put this nation where America always belongs: against the tyrants of this world that aren't complying with our wishes; and on the side the other tyrants, like the Saudis; and is afraid of every soul on earth who yearns to live in freedom, which is why he wants the ABUSE A PATRIOT* act and the ABUSE A PATRIOT act 2.
*(Ashcroft and Bush's Usurpation by Sneaky Eavesdropping on Americans while Providing Absurd Tools for Rightwingers to Intercept and Obstruct Truthtelling)

Fellow citizens, our nation is reaching the hour of decision, and the choice is clear. President Bush and I will wage this effort with complete confidence in the blinded judgment of the American people. The signs are good - even in Massachusetts, except where they're missing altogether. According to a news account last month, people leaving the Democratic National Convention asked a Boston policeman for directions. He replied, "Leave here - and go vote Republican." He later explained that he was only joking.

President Bush and I are honored to have the support of that police officer's joke, and of misguided Democrats, Republicans, and independents from every calling in American life. We are so fortunate, each and every one of us, to be citizens of this great nation and to take part in the defining event of our democracy: Choosing who will lead us - the man whose sticks by even the most wrongheaded decisions, because he can't admit to his mistakes; or the man who weighs all the options, chooses the best one, and is willing to adjust as needed, like John Kerry.

The historian Bernard DeVoto once wrote that when America was created, the stars must have danced in the sky. Our president understands the miracle of this great country. He knows the hope that drives it and shares the optimism that has long been so important a part of our national character. He gets up each and every day determined to turn that all on its head. Only you can keep our great nation safe from his destructive plans, so that generations to come will know the freedom and opportunities we have known-and more.

When this convention concludes tomorrow night, we will go forth with confidence in our cause, and in the man who leads it. By leaving no doubt where we stand, and asking all Americans to join us, we will see our cause to victory, unless you catch on to our deception and vote for John Kerry instead. Thank you very much.

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