The Kennedy-Reagan debates are next...
This comes from www.dailyikos.com, as well as a number of other sites. I guess when you're actor, you just follow the script.

Here's Ahnold from the convention.

"Schwarzenegger said, "I finally arrived here in 1968. What a special day it was. I remember I arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire.The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon-Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend of mine who spoke German and English translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which I had just left.

But then I heard Nixon speak. Then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military."

The facts? There was no presidential debate in that election. Nixon never debated Humphrey.
But it sure is a touching story, regardless of its truth.

Just another patriot
The more you learn about the Swift Boat vets, the more they stink. This story comes from the Washington Post's Dana Milbank.

"This is a story about Swift boats and FastShip.

Four days ago, retired naval Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. seconded accusations made by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth seeking to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry's record in Vietnam. But since then, Democrats have discovered that Schachte is also a long-standing supporter of President Bush and a lobbyist whose client FastShip Inc. recently won a $40 million grant from the federal government.

On Aug. 27, Schachte issued a statement saying that after he "avoided talking to media" for months, he was reluctantly stepping forward to challenge Kerry's award of one of his Purple Hearts on Dec. 2, 1968. "Kerry had himself in charge of the operation, and I was not mentioned at all," he said. "He also claimed that he was wounded by hostile fire. None of this is accurate. I know, because I was not only in the boat, but I was in command of the mission."

Kerry has said Schachte was not on the boat that night, adding another mystery to the disputed events of 36 years ago. But other events are not in dispute. According to a March 18 legal filing by Schachte's firm, Blank Rome, Schachte was one of the lobbyists working for FastShip on issues such as the effort to win funding for a new marine cargo terminal. On Feb. 2, Philadelphia-based FastShip announced that it would receive $40 million in federal funding for the project.

In addition, David Norcross, Schachte's colleague in the Washington office of Blank Rome, is chairman of this week's Republican convention in New York. Records also show that Schachte gave $1,000 to Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns.

The Kerry campaign alleges foul play. "It's amazing what a $40 million government contract can do for your memory," Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said, noting that Schachte did not challenge Kerry's Purple Heart while describing the incident in an interview last year. Schachte is listed as "of counsel" on Blank Rome's Web site, but a receptionist at the firm said he is retired, and messages left for him and a firm spokesman were not returned."

Just another patriot doing his duty.

Outing Congress
It's sad when someone has to keep their sexuality submerged. I don't think it's anyone's business if someone is gay or not. That's up to them to reveal. What bothers me is hypocrisy.

There is a website that is outing members of Congress who take anti-gay public stances but are secretly gay. The latest is Rep. Ed Schrock (R-VA). Here's part of what he said in 2000 in regards to the Clinton administration's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. It's from the Washington Post.

"He (Schrock) supported asking enlistees whether they have had homosexual experiences in an effort to try to keep gays from serving.

"You're in the showers with them, you're in the bunk room with them, you're in staterooms with them," Schrock told the Virginian-Pilot. "You just hope no harm would come by folks who are of that persuasion. It's a discipline thing."

Schrock has now announced he will give up his bid for a 3rd term.

We can't win!
Good for the Dems. They should really jump on Bush for this remark about the war on terror being unwinnable. There's also reference in here to Bush's interview with the NY Times. It just shows you: take this man out of an unscripted atmosphere and he is uninformed and disengaged.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush said in an interview that he does not believe the US-led war on terror can be won -- a statement that opposition Democrats exploited with great gusto.

Bush was asked in an interview on NBC television whether the United States can win the war on terror. "I don't think you can win it," he answered.

Despite the explanation that followed, opposition Democrats -- hungry to sink Bush's 2004 re-election aspirations -- immediately pounced on those seven words. Democrat John Kerry's vice presidential candidate, John Edwards, bashed Bush for being defeatist while on the campaign trail in North Carolina.

"After months of listening to the Republicans base their campaign on their singular ability to win the war on terror, the president now says we can't win the war on terrorism," Edwards said in a speech in Wilmington.

"This is no time to declare defeat," he said.

It is the second time in four days that Bush has been taken to task over his own remarks. In an interview published Friday with The New York Times, Bush said he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be" in Iraq after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein.

And the strong anti-US insurgency in Iraq was an unintended byproduct of a "swift victory," he said.
Bush however refused to go into detail on what went wrong, saying that it was a task best left to historians.

The Democrats reacted quickly. "The president has finally abandoned his stubborn refusal to admit his failure to plan," said Rand Beers, Kerry's adviser on national security issues. "Now he must both plan and act."

Retired army general Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate, took issue with Bush's Monday statements in an interview with Fox News. "I believe this war is winnable -- we won the Cold War," he said.

Clark, a the former supreme allied commander in Europe, expanded on his views in a joint telephone conference call with Democratic Senator Joe Biden. The chaos in Iraq "was not a miscalculation. It was simply negligence on the part of the president," Clark said. "It's a major mistake."

Clark said that the war on terrorists "motivated by Islamic extremist ideology is winnable, by going after, attacking and defeating the specific groups that attack us, cutting off their ability to recruit, (and) defeating the claims of their ideology."

It was also important to strengthen homeland security and keep militants from accessing weapons of mass destruction, Clark said, adding that the Bush administration's approach to the problem "is fundamentally flawed."

Biden also took a swipe at Bush. "If we do not unite the world in the resolution that the tactics of Islamic terrorists are totally unacceptable, then we will be fulfilling the prophecy of President Bush (news - web sites) which is we can't totally win the war," he said.

In Wilmington, Edwards reminded his audience that the last time the United States "collided with an enemy that wanted to destroy our way of life was at the end of World War II."

"Imagine if President Truman had responded to the Iron Curtain with a wall of indifference? Imagine if he had turned his back on allies that had stood by our side? Imagine if he had refused to lead the effort to rebuild our former enemies, Germany and Japan?" he asked

The Republicans will judge your wounds now
Wow. The Republicans are now in charge of judging whether someone's wounds were severe enough. They should greet the returning wounded troops from Iraq and determine whether they deserve their medals or not. And if they don't deem them medal-worthy, they should give them one of these cute little props.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Delegates to the Republican National Convention found a new way to take a jab at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service record: by sporting adhesive bandages with small purple hearts on them.

Morton Blackwell, a prominent Virginia delegate, has been handing out the heart-covered bandages to delegates, who've worn them on their chins, cheeks, the backs of their hands and other places."

Cute, huh?

Maybe the Democratic delegates should have walked around with empty Jim Beam bottles and mirrors with traces of cocaine on them to remind everyone of what Bush was doing in the early 1970s.

Bob Novak's fair and balanced approach
This is from the New York Times and it might just give my mother, who can't stand Bob Novak, a stroke.

"Among the stoutest defenders of "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," the best-selling book arguing that Mr. Kerry lied about his record of service in Vietnam, is the columnist Robert Novak.

In his syndicated columns and on the CNN program "Crossfire," Mr. Novak has lauded the book and referred to veterans who criticize Mr. Kerry - most notably John E. O'Neill, the book's co-author -as "real patriots."

Unmentioned in Mr. Novak's columns and television appearances, however, is a personal connection he has to the book: his son, Alex Novak, is the director of marketing for its publisher, the conservative publishing house Regnery.

In a telephone interview, Robert Novak said he saw no need to disclose the link. "I don't think it's relevant," he said. "I'm just functioning as a columnist with a point of view, and a strong point of view."

So when he's not busy outing CIA operatives, he's shilling for his son's right-wing publisher. Mercy.

10 reasons to boot Bush
I had a few days off so I didn't post for a while. I guess I'm gearing up for the Repugs convention. The last few weeks have been dominated, of course, by the Swift Boat Veterans and their attacks on Kerry. Their allegations have been pretty much thoroughly discredited with every piece of available documentation backing Kerry's version of events. In many cases, the statements of these veterans contradict earlier statements they made that are complimentary to Kerry.

Here's the story: a group of Vietnam vets are pissed at Kerry for saying what he did when he came back and are doing whatever they can to get back at him. End of story. John O'Neill, the ringleader, was a Nixon errand boy versus Kerry 30 years ago. Imagine his bitterness: his sworn enemy has been in the US Senate for more than 20 years and is months away from assuming the presidency.

Bush doesn't have much to sell himself on, frankly, except for the fact that he didn't cry publicly after 9-11. I like conspiracies as much as anyone but I don't buy into most of the Bush crime family theories. More importantly to me, this Administration is one of the most incompetent in history. It's hard to argue otherwise. Here are ten good reasons he shouldn't be reelected.

10) The latest numbers show over a million more Americans in poverty and over a million more without insurance. These numbers are typically released in mid-September but since they suck so bad, the Administration rushed to release them in August, when the media would pretty much sleep on them. Hey, they were right.

9) Bush shouldn't be reelected for this simple reason: to piss off the media. Why they are in love with this simple man who failed at everything he did before assuming the presidency is beyond me. I saw a CNN roundtable this weekend with Judy Woodruff where she said the Repugs should be pretty happy with recent poll numbers that show Bush leading Kerry by 20 points on the question of decisiveness. Of course, she didn't mention the same poll that said the majority of Americans think the country is moving in the wrong direction.

8) Almost 1,000 Americans killed, thousands more injured, and 30,000 Iraquis killed. Also, the twisted "Loss-Leave" program that doesn't allow military members to leave once their service is up.

7) The lack of postwar planning for Iraq. Has any Administration ever had its head more squarely up its ass?

6) The war itself. Facts were twisted to fit a sick agenda. 9-11 was the convenient episode that gaved them the rationale.

5) The disregard for the environment. Keep in mind, one of Bush's first decisions was to withdraw the US from the Kyoto Treaty.

4) His lifetime of letting others fight his battles. Bush, like Cheney, supported the Vietnam War, but went out of his way so he didn't have to go himself. He has others attack Kerry (like McCain before him) but Bush professes nothing but respect for his service. Chicken shit.

3) A net loss of more than a million jobs and a record deficit. Way to go, Chimpy!

2) The lack of accountability. This Administration loves to say, "I take full responsibility..." without anyone ever accepting responsibility or paying any kind of price. Isn't there a support group for this type of behavior?

1) The ineptitude in carrying out the war. Here's a great recipe: alienate your allies, tweak the facts to fit your rationale, out a couple of undercover agents in the war on terror (Plame and Kahn), ignore the Geneva Conventions (I'm sure our troops were psyched about that one), blame some lower level troops when the prison torture scandal blows up, allow Haliburton to rape the American people, back a guy for President who is bosom buddies with Iran (Chalabi, who sat with the First Lady during last year's State of the Union address), and have no plan for the post-war occupation.

Four more years? Sign me up.

Any other questions?

10 reasons to boot Bush
I had a few days off so I didn't post for a while. I guess I'm gearing up for the Repugs convention. The last few weeks have been dominated, of course, by the Swift Boat Veterans and their attacks on Kerry. Their allegations have been pretty much thoroughly discredited with every piece of available documentation backing Kerry's version of events. In many cases, the statements of these veterans contradict earlier statements they made that are complimentary to Kerry.

Here's the story: a group of Vietnam vets are pissed at Kerry for saying what he did when he came back and are doing whatever they can to get back at him. End of story. John O'Neill, the ringleader, was a Nixon errand boy versus Kerry 30 years ago. Imagine his bitterness: his sworn enemy has been in the US Senate for more than 20 years and is months away from assuming the presidency.

Bush doesn't have much to sell himself on, frankly, except for the fact that he didn't cry publicly after 9-11. I like conspiracies as much as anyone but I don't buy into most of the Bush crime family theories. More importantly to me, this Administration is one of the most incompetent in history. It's hard to argue otherwise. Here are ten good reasons he shouldn't be reelected.

10) The latest numbers show over a million more Americans in poverty and over a million more without insurance. These numbers are typically released in mid-September but since they suck so bad, the Administration rushed to release them in August, when the media would pretty much sleep on them. Hey, they were right.

9) Bush shouldn't be reelected for this simple reason: to piss off the media. Why they are in love with this simple man who failed at everything he did before assuming the presidency is beyond me. I saw a CNN roundtable this weekend with Judy Woodruff where she said the Repugs should be pretty happy with recent poll numbers that show Bush leading Kerry by 20 points on the question of decisiveness. Of course, she didn't mention the same poll that said the majority of Americans think the country is moving in the wrong direction.

8) Almost 1,000 Americans killed, thousands more injured, and 30,000 Iraquis killed. Also, the twisted "Loss-Leave" program that doesn't allow military members to leave once their service is up.

7) The lack of postwar planning for Iraq. Has any Administration ever had its head more squarely up its ass?

6) The war itself. Facts were twisted to fit a sick agenda. 9-11 was the convenient episode that gaved them the rationale.

5) The disregard for the environment. Keep in mind, one of Bush's first decisions was to withdraw the US from the Kyoto Treaty.

4) His lifetime of letting others fight his battles. Bush, like Cheney, supported the Vietnam War, but went out of his way so he didn't have to go himself. He has others attack Kerry (like McCain before him) but Bush professes nothing but respect for his service. Chicken shit.

3) A net loss of more than a million jobs and a record deficit. Way to go, Chimpy!

2) The lack of accountability. This Administration loves to say, "I take full responsibility..." without anyone ever accepting responsibility or paying any kind of price. Isn't there a support group for this type of behavior?

1) The ineptitude in carrying out the war. Here's a great recipe: alienate your allies, tweak the facts to fit your rationale, out a couple of undercover agents in the war on terror (Plame and Kahn), ignore the Geneva Conventions (I'm sure our troops were psyched about that one), blame some lower level troops when the prison torture scandal blows up, allow Haliburton to rape the American people, back a guy for President who is bosom buddies with Iran (Chalabi, who sat with the First Lady during last year's State of the Union address), and have no plan for the post-war occupation.

Four more years? Sign me up.

Any other questions?

Moderate, huh?
The Repubs didn't offer the opening invocation of their convention to Jerry Falwell, becuase they're trying to appear moderate. Instead, they chose a woman named Sherrie Dew, who wrote this article about gay marriage and adoption.

Here's part of what she had to say:

"This escalating situation reminds me of a statement of a World War II journalist by the name of Dorothy Thompson who wrote for the Saturday Evening Post in Europe during the pre-World War II years when Hitler was building up his armies and starting to take ground. In an address she delivered in Toronto in 1941 she said this: "Before this epic is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up with Hitler or against him. Every living human being either will have opposed this onslaught or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If he takes no side, he is on Hitler's side. If he does not act, that is an act--for Hitler."

May I take the liberty of reading this statement again and changing just a few words, applying it to what I fear we face today? "Before this era is over, every living human being will have chosen. Every living human being will have lined up in support of the family or against it. Every living human being will have either opposed the onslaught against the family or supported it, for if he tries to make no choice that in itself will be a choice. If we do not act in behalf of the family, that is itself an act of opposition to the family."

At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family--but maybe not. I just turned 50 years old, and I have never married. That was not my intention, and it has not been my choice. When someone asks me why I have never married, the simple and truthful answer is that nobody has ever asked me. Nonetheless, when I speak about the family, I have a deep, profound and abiding belief that the family is absolutely ordained of God, that it is part of His plan for His children, that marriage is supposed to be between a male and a female, and that children deserve to be born to and raised by two parents, father and mother. That is the ideal."

I guess this bitter woman figures since no one ever asked her to marry, others should be denied the same opportunity. Read what she wrote and imagine what kind of parent she would be. The chances her kid would be the next Timothy McVeigh are about 50-50.

Rush to war...
This is from www.nj.com, the online home of a group of New Jersey newspapers. It's pretty sad.

"Under growing pressure to ship Marines to Iraq, the Marine Corps is cutting in half the rigorous field combat training it gives units preparing to deploy, senior officers say.

The Marines hope to make up the time by intensifying this final, pre-deployment training and focusing it on skills needed to survive and prevail in Iraq's brutal combat conditions. This means practicing more nighttime operations, ambushes, city fighting and guarding of convoys."