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- - Kerry is a bad candidate (https://thetfp.com/tfp/tilted-politics/72127-kerry-bad-candidate.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

no offense intended to my man smooth, but since i know my civics and bush is ahead in the every electoral college projection ive seen (the nature of a poll brings suspect)...his comments do not make sense. it was just a quick turn of phrase regurgitated

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

This is a very complete electoral vote prediction sight that takes info from all legit polling companies

Quote:

Originally Posted by summerkc

Thanks for just putting me down saying I don't know what I'm talking about, its a good way to get across your point.

The senator explained the very clearly doring the debate? Kerry NEVER explains anything clearly, he is always on both sides of the issues. If he is not a supporter of the procedure why in the hell did he vote against it?

I didn't mean to put you down.

I'm not interested in arguing over this.

You didn't seem to be very knowledgable on the bill's details, and your comments looked like you were repeating things you've heard rather than you have actually read the bill itself.

Your comments (and your most recent comments seem to support this) about Senator Kerry made me think that you hadn't watched him debate, and if you had, that you weren't interested in understanding what he had to say.

If you have read the bill and you have watched the debates, I apologize for my assumptions to the contrary.

But I'm still not interested in arguing with you over it. And even if I were, are you interesting in learning why someone might be opposed to partial birth abortions yet not choose to implement what, in their professional opinion, was bad implemententation of a law to ban the practice? I don't pick that up from your statements. I don't make any assumptions about your intelligence other than I question whether you are deliberately ignoring nuance or are not able to conceptualize shades of gray.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

This is a very complete electoral vote prediction sight that takes info from all legit polling companies

It shows California as Weak Kerry. CA should be strong Kerry. Either this poll is way off, or something is not right in CA.

CNN has the electoral college at 301 Bush to 237 Kerry.

So...whatever. It will be a fun few weeks.

This website uses many different polls. Click on the state and you can see a history of where it stands. It may be that the last poll issued in california was an outlier.

Quote:

Originally Posted by athletics

no offense intended to my man smooth

none taken; here's another site with polling data to peruse:

http://www.pollingreport.com/

that's what the LA Times uses. They have Bush about 10 EC votes ahead of Kerry.

The guy who runs electoral-vote.com is a proclaimed Kerry-backer, so the stats he uses will be pro-Kerry when possible. www.realclearpolitics.com is on Bush's side, if you want to see a pro-Bush electoral count. I don't really trust what CNN is doing: they're interviewing pundits and campaign managers in swing states...why can't they just use their own polls?

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/spe...lls/index.html says Kerry is in the lead in popular votes and you can see he has the momentum.

In addition the cnn polls are using gallup which has been over sampling republicans.

As for electoral-vote.com he is a proclaimed kerry backer he lets that bias out right away. But he doesn't pick and choose data. The most recent poll is always used and he only denies poll places that are having problems (push polling, ect)

Who answers these polling questions? Is it by phone? Is there some dude in a suit hanging out at the mall near the Gap with a clipboard?

For electoral-vote they don't perform any of their own polls they use professional poles that are reputable, ie gallop ect. Click on the states and see who is doing the polls. Each polling place does it differently.

These polls don't include the internals. Those are pretty interesting since they are based on topics. I don't know how that changes things, but it sure makes me sleepy.

Quote:

Who answers these polling questions? Is it by phone? Is there some dude in a suit hanging out at the mall near the Gap with a clipboard?

That is something I would like to know also. Out of all the people I know I dont know anyone who puts imput into these polls. Where do I sighn up to put in my vote for Kerry on these polls. So realy the only poll that does count is the actual election.
Back to the original topic, I dont care if Kerry would seem week as a choice for president, anyone is better than Bush. All you have to do is look at how divided our country is to see how bad of a president he is. We have had bad presidents before but never has the country been so devided.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

Host, do you really doubt that Kerry went to Paris and met with the NVA and Viet Cong? (he admitted as much under oath) Do you really doubt that he was a signatory of the "Dear Commandante" letters? (easy to FOIA, after all, IIRC Harkin wrote them, he signed them). Do you really doubt what his voting record on defense systems was?

This is all stuff in the public domain.

"Treason is Patriotic" is a pretty crappy campaign strategy...

daswig, you exhibit an anachronistic attitude and a mindset that was discredited in the 70's. You are talking to the wrong guy, if you expect me to
be influenced in the slightest by your twisted, early 70's, unsubstantiated (as in; where are your links to authoritative sources?) warhawk propaganda.

Quote:

Ad Says Kerry 'Secretly' Met With Enemy; But He Told Congress of It

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 22, 2004; Page A08

The veterans organization that sparked controversy last month when it questioned John F. Kerry's military service in Vietnam plans to launch a new commercial today that equates Kerry with Vietnam War protester Jane Fonda and accuses the Democratic presidential nominee of secretly meeting with "enemy leaders" during the conflict.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said it will spend $1.3 million to air its advertisement in five battleground states and on national cable television networks over the next week. The ad, titled "Friends," makes no assertion of any direct link between Kerry and Fonda, but it suggests that their contacts with North Vietnamese leaders during the war were equally dishonorable.

"Even before Jane Fonda went to Hanoi to meet with the enemy and mock America, John Kerry secretly met with enemy leaders in Paris," begins the spot, with grainy footage of the actress and a young Kerry. ". . . Then he returned and accused American troops of committing war crimes on a daily basis. Eventually, Jane Fonda apologized for her activities, but John Kerry refuses to."

The group, whose members served in the Navy at the same time as Kerry, is referring to a meeting Kerry had in early 1971 with leaders of the communist delegation that was negotiating with U.S. representatives at the Paris peace talks. The meeting, however, was not a secret. Kerry, a leading antiwar activist at the time, mentioned it in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April of that year. "I have been to Paris," he testified. "I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Provisional Revolutionary Government," the latter a South Vietnamese communist group with ties to the Viet Cong.

Kerry's campaign said earlier this year that he met on the trip with Nguyen Thi Binh, then foreign minister of the PRG and a top negotiator at the talks. Kerry acknowledged in that testimony that even going to the peace talks as a private citizen was at the "borderline" of what was permissible under U.S. law, which forbids citizens from negotiating treaties with foreign governments. But his campaign said he never engaged in negotiations or attended any formal sessions of the talks.

"This is more trash from a group that's doing the Bush campaign's dirty work," Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton said. "Their charges are as credible as a supermarket rag."

In an interview yesterday, John O'Neill, an organizer of the Swift boat group and co-author of the anti-Kerry book "Unfit for Command," said it would be "unprecedented" for a future commander in chief to have met with enemy leaders. "It would be like an American today meeting with the heads of al Qaeda," he said.

Historian Douglas Brinkley said Kerry's trip to Paris, after his honeymoon with his first wife, Julia Thorne, was part of Kerry's extensive fact-finding efforts on the war. "He was on the fringes," said Brinkley, the author of "Tour of Duty," a book about Kerry's military service. "But he was proud of it. . . . He wanted to make his own evaluation of the situation."

The Swift boat group's first ad gained widespread exposure last month through talk-radio programs, cable television talk shows and newspaper articles because of its assertions that Kerry had exaggerated his war record as the commander of a Navy Swift boat in Vietnam.

Some of the independent organization's assertions were refuted, and several links between it and President Bush's campaign subsequently came to light. But the media storm created by the ad put Kerry and his campaign on the defensive.
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39744-2004Sep21.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39744-2004Sep21.html</a>

daswig, don't bother reading any of this......it is a waste of your time. You "know" what you "know". and history will not alter your opinion. If I tell you that history proved Kerry to be right about Viet Nam, and his prediction that
not ending that war by mid 1971 would result in the avoidable deaths of
5000 more U.S. troops by the time the U.S. inevitably pulled out in Jan., 1973
you would probably respond by posting that Kerry's 1971 anti war efforts
were a major influence in compromising the potential forU.S.victory in
Viet Nam. History, however, indicates that Kerry was right about Nixon's flawed Viet Nam policies, Reagan was wrong in the Iran-Contra activities.
and soon...that Bushco was wrong in turning the war on terror into the
tragic and deliberately misleading war in Iraq. 10 congressman signed
the "Dear Commandante" letters; Kerry was not a congressman:

Quote:

17 April 1984
The Wall Street Journal

This is the text of a letter sent by 10 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua's Sandinista junta. An editorial on this subject appears nearby. House of Representatives

Office of the Majority Leader

Washington, D.C., 20313

March 20, 1984

Comandante Daniel Ortega

Coordinador de la Junta de Gobierno Casa de Gobierno

Managua, Nicaragua

Dear Comandante:

We address this letter to you in a spirit of hopefulness and good will.

As Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, we regret the fact that better relations do not exist between the United States and your country. We have been, and remain, opposed to U.S. support for military action directed against the people or government of Nicaragua.

We want to commend you and the members of your government for taking steps to open up the political process in your country. The Nicaraguan people have not had the opportunity to participate in a genuinely free election for over 50 years. We support your decision to schedule elections this year, to reduce press censorship, and to allow greater freedom of assembly for political parties. Finally, we recognize that you have taken these steps in the midst of ongoing military hostilities on the borders of Nicaragua.

We write with the hope that the initial steps you have taken will be followed by others designed to guarantee a fully open and democratic electoral process. We note that some who have become exiles from Nicaragua have expressed a willingness to return to participate in the elections, if assurances are provided that their security will be protected, and their political rights recognized. Among these exiles are some who have taken up arms against your government, and who have stated their willingness to lay down those arms to participate in a truly democratic process.

If this were to occur, the prospects for peace and stability throughout Central America would be dramatically enhanced. Those responsible for supporting violence against your government, and for obstructing serious negotiations for broad political participation in El Salvador would have far greater difficulty winning support for their policies than they do today.

We believe that you have it in your power to establish an example for Central America that can be of enormous historical importance. For this to occur, you have only to lend real force and meaning to concepts your leadership has already endorsed concerning the rules by which political parties may compete openly and equitably for political power.

A decision on your part to provide these reasonable assurances and conduct truly free and open elections would significantly improve the prospect of better relations between our two countries and significantly strengthen the hands of those in our country who desire better relations based upon true equality, self-determination and mutual good will.

We reaffirm to you our continuing respect and friendship for the Nicaraguan people, and pledge our willingness to discuss these or other matters of concern with you or officials of your government at any time. Very sincerely yours,

Jim Wright

Michael D. Barnes

Bill Alexander

Matthew F. McHugh

Robert G. Torricelli

Edward P. Boland

Stephen J. Solarz

David R. Obey

Robert Garcia

Lee H. Hamilton
<a href="http://mypage.iu.edu/~erasmuse/w/dearcomandante.htm">http://mypage.iu.edu/~erasmuse/w/dearcomandante.htm</a>

Quote:

Sunday, December 08, 2002

washingtonpost.com
Back, But Not By Popular Demand party's scandal-scarred lions must be seen in the context of this governing strategy. If you try something controversial and get away with it, it makes you stronger. The recent appointments -- and the refusal to even acknowledge the legitimate outcry they have occasioned -- are a deliberate demonstration of power, a flaunting of contempt for opposition and dissent, in the expectation that such a show will likely deter, not spur, critics.

By David Greenberg

Sunday, December 8, 2002; Page B01

This fall the Democrats came in for some ribbing over the weakness of their bench. When the party suddenly had to field last-minute replacements in crucial Senate races, it exhumed Greatest Generation septuagenarians Frank Lautenberg and Walter Mondale instead of tapping young comers. Now, surveying the presidential aspirants for 2004, some mentioners are eyeing a contender from two decades ago, the newly minted elder statesman Gary Hart.

Who says there are no second acts in American life?

But if the Democrats' resuscitation of their Pleistocene leadership shows a lack of imagination, the Republicans' recent revival of their own dinosaurs betrays something far more troubling: a hostility to dissent and an eagerness to exercise power that are dismayingly redolent of the heavies they seek to resurrect.

Two weeks ago, President Bush placed Henry Kissinger, a veteran of the Nixonian era of secrecy, White House intrigue and dubious foreign ventures, in charge of uncovering intelligence and security flaws preceding the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Then last week, the president gave the National Security Council's top Middle East job to Iran-contra rogue Elliott Abrams. Meanwhile, outrage has belatedly fastened on February's naming of another Iran-contrarian, the pipe-puffing John Poindexter, to run a Big Brother-like Pentagon operation called Total Information Awareness that promises -- if news reports can be believed -- to harvest all known information about everybody into a searchable Internet database. Perhaps we'll see Poindexter and Abrams convene a reunion within the administration, where they can relive their heyday with other contra war alumni who are serving in the administration.

You might think that a few of these folks would have had their careers ended by their misdeeds. And you might think that being tough on crime, long a GOP mantra, begins at home. You'd be wrong: On the matter of these men's sordid pasts, the Bush administration has shown an indulgence and permissiveness that would make Dr. Spock blanch. (If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who's been indicted.) As a result, these vintage villains are not on parole but on parade. It's an '80s nostalgia party, as thrown by Ed Meese.

In one sense, these appointments shouldn't be shocking, since Iran-contra has now -- strange to tell -- receded into history. Many of today's White House correspondents weren't old enough to drink beer when Poindexter, as national security adviser, led up the illegal Iran-contra scheme or when Abrams, as a State Department official, abetted the efforts. These journalists are not likely to hype the story. Indeed, even devoted political junkies might be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what Poindexter and Abrams did wrong.

(The answer: Poindexter supervised the secret arms-for-hostages sales to Iran that violated Ronald Reagan's professed policies and possibly also the Arms Export Control Act. He green-lighted the funneling of profits from those sales to the Nicaraguan contras, in knowing defiance of a law barring government funding of those rebels. And he concealed his activities, destroyed evidence and lied to Congress. Abrams also misled Congress about the scheme.)

The public's natural forgetfulness was assisted by the work of Republican judges and higher-ups. Poindexter was convicted by a federal jury for lying and obstruction of justice. Though sentenced to prison, he escaped hard time thanks to conservative appellate judges Laurence Silberman and David Sentelle (later of Lewinsky affair fame), who overturned his conviction; they ruled that independent counsel Lawrence Walsh had relied too much on testimony that the NSC adviser himself gave while under congressional immunity.

Abrams won his Get Out of Jail Free card from an even higher authority. Convicted on two counts of lying to Congress, he avoided even probation and community service when, as a lame duck, President Bush senior gave Abrams and five others Christmas Eve pardons that ensured that no more information would surface. Bush's pardons helped give Iran-contra its final burial. Unlike Watergate, which has remained the benchmark for political wrongdoing for 30 years even as people forget its byzantine details, the Reagan scandals have lately grown dim -- occluded, partly, by the recent wash of gauzy tributes to the senescent former president in his twilight years.

In their own time, of course, the Watergate felons staged comebacks, too. John Ehrlichman reinvented himself as a pulp novelist, G. Gordon Liddy as a radio talk-show host and Chuck Colson as a man of the cloth. (The last of these strategies was briefly pursued also by Abrams, who rode the coattails of his father-in-law, conservative commentator Norman Podhoretz, into the world of letters where, as a born-again Jew, he took to browbeating his co-religionists about the evils of both intermarriage and strict church-state separation.) Significantly, however, until now none of the Nixon crowd ever returned to positions of government authority, only to the role of cultural curiosities.

What's more, they all knew they would be forever tied to Watergate. Indeed, they counted on our memory of their notoriety to earn them attention in their new guises; had their criminal behavior not catapulted them to fame in the Nixon years, no one would have ever published (or read) an Ehrlichman novel, aired (or tuned in to) a Liddy broadcast or printed (or commented on) a Colson op-ed. In contrast, Poindexter, Abrams and company are relying on our amnesia to effect their transformations into upstanding citizens worthy of wielding power again.

In the current crop of Republican retreads, Watergate survivor Kissinger is the exception that proves this rule. Unlike Liddy or Colson, Kissinger had (and still has) a reputation apart from the Nixonian miasma. He is counting on our selective memory: the China opening, not the secret bombing of Cambodia; shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, not the phony peace in Vietnam or his meddling in Chile. He has used his image as a pillar of the foreign policy establishment to shirk accountability for his role in what John Mitchell famously called the "White House horrors." What's unfortunate about the left's hyperbolic "war criminal" taunts is that Kissinger's actions were plenty bad without any embellishment.

Another reminder may be in order: As Nixon's national security adviser, Kissinger (as he admitted in his own memoir) targeted journalists and administration officials to be secretly -- and, the Supreme Court ruled, illegally -- wiretapped. That sordid episode, which started in 1969, was the first of many abuses of power that fell under the collective rubric of Watergate and brought Nixon down. But Kissinger emerged from the rubble unscathed because he was as deft at charming Washington's elites as Nixon was inept. He convinced those influential circles that his ouster would imperil what remained of an American foreign policy in 1973 and 1974. And many of them still rally to his defense.

But the question remains: Why has Bush chosen to resuscitate men with rather unusual résumés? The answer is that he appears not to think they did anything wrong.

For all the differences between Watergate and Iran-contra, the scandals shared one key aspect: their perpetrators' belief in the virtue of secrecy and White House prerogative at the expense of democratic rules. Kissinger justified wiretapping private citizens without a warrant -- Watergate's first chapter -- by claiming that "national security" was at stake; we now know it wasn't, and he would have needed a court order, anyway. Iran-contra was, at bottom, a purposeful ploy to subvert Congress's will because administration officials judged that they were better suited to the big boys' work of fighting communism and terrorism.

Poindexter and Abrams, like Nixon and Kissinger, harbored a contempt for Congress, for the opposition party and for the public, all of whom they considered short-sighted and ignorant, meddlesome and soft. These groups not only didn't have to approve of what was going on, it was decided; they didn't even have to know.

If you can't see any immorality and illegality at work here, then you might downplay these scandals as mere politics -- as some Bush aides seem inclined to do. Abrams, for one, wrote a book chalking up his criminal conviction to "political differences." Queried about Abrams, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called Iran-contra -- in what was, technically, an accurate description -- "a matter of the past." Watergate isn't whisked away so easily, but it should be remembered that in the summer of 1974, Karl Rove, then head of the College Republicans, was among the active minority fighting Nixon's impeachment -- circulating literature that painted the constitutional crisis as nothing more than a political witch hunt. Few dare voice that view today, but one wonders how many former foot soldiers, deep down, still believe it.

Still, you might ask, if the Bush team can't grasp the wrongdoing its recent appointees committed, doesn't it at least grasp the political sensitivities? On the contrary. Ever since the Florida recount fight, the Bush governance strategy has been to assert that they're in the right and to brook no intimations otherwise.

All along, the Bush team has understood that images can be self-fulfilling -- and that the best way to shore up a shaky position is to act as if your legitimacy isn't in doubt. If your decisions are assailed, hang tough, grit your teeth, shrug off the questioners and brazen it out. That attitude has been particularly marked in the waging of the war on terrorism, where the administration's fetish for secrecy and disdain for Congress are eerily reminiscent of -- guess who? -- John Poindexter and Henry Kissinger.

The attempt to rehabilitate the party's scandal-scarred lions must be seen in the context of this governing strategy. If you try something controversial and get away with it, it makes you stronger. The recent appointments -- and the refusal to even acknowledge the legitimate outcry they have occasioned -- are a deliberate demonstration of power, a flaunting of contempt for opposition and dissent, in the expectation that such a show will likely deter, not spur, critics.
Why has Bush appointed Kissinger, Poindexter and Abrams? It's like the old riddle: because he can.

David Greenberg, a visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a historian and columnist for Slate. His book on Richard Nixon and political image-making is due out from W.W. Norton next fall.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company <a href="http://ericksonhistory.blogspot.com/2002_12_08_ericksonhistory_archive.html">http://ericksonhistory.blogspot.com/2002_12_08_ericksonhistory_archive.html</a>

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

I'd rather have a passive boring unqualified senator then a irresponsible, stuborn, unintelligent, violent, hypocritical, war-mongering war-time president.

I don't want a president that counters in debates with insults and lies because he can't think of anything else. "I own a timber company? Thats news to me! Want some wood?"

I don't want a president that can't admit he is human and makes mistakes. I don't want a president that views himself as infallable. I don't want a president that views himself the hand of God. I don't want a president that thinks he knows what God wants and then uses that to justify things that are clearly not biblical. I don't want a president that protects his rich friends before protecting the nation. I don't want a president that uses fear and lies to brainwash people. I don't want a president that will call one of the greatest war heros of all time unpatriotic (talking Mc'cain here).

So you can say what you want about Kerry but the fact that he is not Bush is probably his strongest reason to vote for him as president. This isn't because he is a horrible canidate that can't stand on anything else. No this is because Bush is just that bad of a canidate.

Ok so you'd rather have someone who has absolutely NO idea of what he's doing and needs Clinton's team to tell him what to do instead of a guy who at least has a plan, an idea of how to run a country, and results which show that he can make the critical decisions in times of crisis? We have one of the strongest GDP growths in a long time. Looks to me like you've been listening to one too many Michael Moore documentaries. :rolleyes:

I also love how with such hatred toward Americans that thrive in countries like Iraq (which existed BEFORE this war even started), we want to pull out of the country. With each behedding, some people blame Bush, blame America, or blame our troops in combat. One look at the Berg behedding, or any other behedding can tell you why we need to take a stand and stop cowaring in the face of this scum of the earth. Oh... and need I mention God is used to justify these beheddings when obviously it's something that's immoral? On second thought... maybe we do need a "kinder, gentler war on terror". :lol:

I'd rather have a pacifist than a war monger. It is quite simple. I'm a strong christain and I cannot justify the intentional killing of thousands of innocencents.

As for Kerry not having a clue you are truely wrong there. I agree Bush can make decisions in the time of crisis unfortunatly they are typically wrong. But it's ok right? As long as bush keeps bribing people to vote for him by cutting taxes and then increasing spending and giving no-bid contracts to his friends he will stay in power right?

I don't want a currupt leader, which is what Bush is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

Strong Christian... You'd support a party which suppots the removal of the 10 commandments from our government buildings? You'd support the removal of "under God" from our pledge of allegance? You'd support a party which is for these things, yet thinks it's perfectly ok for a city in Michigan to hold a Muslim rally which boasts anti-American ideas? Christianity is a basis for much of our laws that govern our country, as well as the values which we hold dear. It is what our nation was founded on and that is a historical fact. You'd support a party that wants to get rid of history... strong Christian.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ^Ice_Bat^

Kerry has realized, belatedly, just who he is running against, and it ain't Bush!
^Ice_Bat^, who would you utilize, if you hoped to sucessfully counter Rove,
if you ruled out the team of political strategists who have a recent resume
of achieving results in a presidential race against an incumbent Republican
president? I would criticize Kerry if he didn't enlist Carville et al in his fight
against Bush! A sign that you are a victim of Rovian strategy is that you
apparently believe that Bush, (the guy who demonstrated by his performances in the 2004 debates #1 and #2 that he is clearly not only unqualified and inadequate, intellectually and emotionally to be president of the U.S., let alone have a "plan" that he, and not Rove, conceptualized, crafted, and conveyed to the American people, who can not even pass himself off as a mature, 58 year old adult American male,) is capable of being
the leader of the free world with a better plan than Kerry's for our future?
Are you serious?

Quote:

Posted on Sun, Oct. 10, 2004

Karl Rove's world

By Wayne Slater

The Bush-Cheney campaign and the Republican National Committee are populated by skilled operatives who occupy time on cable television. They are the face of the campaign, but insiders know who's really in charge.

That man is Karl Rove. As George W. Bush seeks re-election in a squeaker of a presidential race, Rove is the architect in every sense. The man who recruited Bush to run for governor. The man who directed his election as president in 2000. And now, the man the president is relying on to win a second term in the White House.

For non-believers, there is perhaps no better evidence of Rove's influence than this: By January 2002, the central theme of this year's presidential campaign had already been established. By Rove.

At a luncheon for GOP leaders in a hotel ballroom in Austin, the memory of Sept. 11 still fresh in everyone's minds, Rove took the stage and announced that the party could run to victory on the war against terror.

``We can go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job protecting and strengthening America's military might and thereby protecting America,'' he said. ``Americans trust the Republicans to do a better job of keeping our communities and our families safe.''

Eleven days later, in his State of Union address, President Bush warned Iraq and the other members of the ``axis of evil'' that ``our war on terror is only beginning.''

Does that mean that Rove told the president to go to war in Iraq? No. But it does mean that whenever the president decided to oust Saddam Hussein, Rove was there -- as he always is -- advising the president on the political implications of his policy.

In the war on terror -- which the administration says includes the war in Iraq -- Rove saw a political upside. So far, he has been right.

Despite the lackluster economy and the troubles in Iraq, which would have doomed many incumbents, polls indicate a close race, with Bush maintaining a tangible lead over Sen. John Kerry when voters are asked who would do better handling terrorism and homeland security.

``Karl is like a chess master,'' said Texas political consultant Ken Luce. ``He's so strategic, always six steps ahead of everything. His mind works at a different level.''

His critics see something more than political genius. They describe a darkly effective political opportunist with a history of dirty tricks and questionable tactics.

They see in the recent campaign waged by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth parallels to Rove campaigns of the past in which the pattern is always the same: astonishingly effective whisper campaigns or devastating attacks from surrogate groups targeting Rove's opponent, but never evidence that Rove was involved.

Political operatives in Texas who have watched him close up for years call it ``The Mark of Rove.'' Attack, and leave no fingerprints.

Rove is White House senior political adviser, but his portfolio is much broader. In a place where workaholics thrive, friends say Rove works harder than anyone, is smarter than anyone and immerses himself in every detail of politics and policy.

Political insiders, including some inside the White House, are quick to see Rove's hand in myriad decisions about both policy and politics. The list includes siding with farmers over the salmon in Oregon and imposing steel tariffs -- anathema to Bush free traders -- to woo union workers in politically important West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It also includes the bigger, and decidedly chancier, decision to market Bush as a ``war president.''

Early days

To understand how he has amassed such influence and why the president holds him in such confidence is to understand this: Rove knew Bush would be president before he did.

In the spring of 1990, while working on some political races in Texas, Rove told fellow consultant Luce about a candidate who was not a candidate at all: George W. Bush, a man who had never held public office and was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.

Rove had met Bush some years earlier while working for Bush's father. As a College Republican, Rove and fellow collegian Lee Atwater had gotten into trouble for conducting seminars on campaign dirty tricks. Rove could lecture about dirty tricks, because he'd already pulled some, like the time he stole stationery from an opponent and faked fliers -- ``Free beer, free food, girls'' -- to get homeless people to show up and disrupt the opening of the rival's campaign office.

The elder Bush, who was chairman of the Republican National Committee, investigated, but concluded the matter did not merit further action. Shortly thereafter, he hired Rove as his special assistant.

Rove's job in those days included giving the car keys to the son, then a student at Harvard, whenever he visited Washington on weekends.

In George W. Bush, Rove saw everything he was not: handsome, easygoing, the son of a political family with the burnished look of those frat boys who sail the gilded edges of Republican politics. In Rove, Bush saw his complement: driven, wonkish, a brilliant strategist with a penchant for smash-mouth politics.

Luce remembers how Rove sat at a table in the Austin headquarters of a political candidate in 1990 and, adjusting his glasses, set out a detailed plan to make Bush governor of Texas, then president of the United States. And in the decade that followed, he did exactly that.

Typically, political consultants seek out and exploit an opponent's weakness; Rove took a different route.

``Look,'' he told a reporter in a revealing moment a decade ago, ``I don't attack people on their weaknesses. That usually doesn't get the job done. Voters already perceive weakness.

``You've got to go after the other guy's strengths. That's how you win.''

Texas governor's race

In 1994, when Bush ran for governor, incumbent Ann Richards' strength was her inclusiveness and diversity. Richards had increased the number of women in her administration and appointed minorities in unprecedented numbers. She also appointed many gay people.

A whisper campaign emerged in east Texas, a socially conservative, solidly Democrat region. Reporters visiting the area were struck by the scope and virulence of the rumors -- that Richards surrounded herself with gays and, by implication, might be a lesbian herself.

Shortly before the election, the Bush campaign's east Texas chairman publicly questioned Richards for naming ``avowed and activist homosexuals'' to positions of authority.

Bush and Rove denied any involvement, but the technique -- an attack either anonymously or through political surrogates targeting an opponent's strength -- became a pattern.

Four years ago, Bush faced a serious challenge in the Republican primary from Sen. John McCain. McCain's valorous service as a prisoner of war in Vietnam was his strength. In South Carolina, a group of veterans questioned whether McCain had the temperament to be president -- code for whether his POW experience had made him crazy.

Two years later, Democrat Sen. Max Cleland, a veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam, was targeted by his Republican opponent in a TV ad that featured Osama bin Laden and questioned Cleland's patriotism because of his stance on a Department of Homeland Security. (Cleland actually supported such a department, but opposed Republican attempts to suspend civil service job protections in the new agency.)

The Georgia Senate race was a key one in an aggressive White House bid to boost GOP congressional strength. Cleland, who lost, blames Rove for the ad; Rove denies involvement.

This year, an independent group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, targeted Kerry's most conspicuous credential, his military record, in TV ads that proved very effective.

A Republican apparatus had assembled itself around the organization -- early funding from Texas contributors with long ties to Rove, coordination from a Dallas public-relations executive with connections to the Bush family, legal assistance from the Bush campaign's general counsel. The Swift Boat Veterans' accusations have been largely discredited, including the accusation that Kerry did not deserve his Vietnam medals.

The Kerry campaign was quick to see a pattern, even as Rove and Team Bush denied there was one.

``This town is built on myths,'' Rove told Fox News. ``And I've become a convenient myth.''

While there is no smoking gun connecting Rove to the low-road tactics that are routinely employed against his opponents, those who have worked with him over the years speak in awe of his total involvement in every aspect of a campaign, from the big-picture strategy to the wording on a direct-mail appeal in Sioux County, Iowa. Nothing escapes his attention, no detail is too small.

Behind the scenes

So when, say, a Houston home-builder whom Rove recruited two decades ago to help bankroll the Republican Party in Texas turned out to be the early money behind the Swift Boat Veterans, it seemed unlikely Rove would not have known.

Rove's mission at the moment is Bush's re-election, but his dream is bigger.

A student of history, Rove is fond of talking about William McKinley, whose election in 1896 began a 30-year run of near-exclusive Republican rule in the White House, ending only with Franklin Roosevelt and another fundamental realignment.

It is a model Rove would like to duplicate in a new century. Rove already had success at the state level; over 20 years, he was instrumental in turning Democrat-dominated Texas into a state where the GOP today holds every statewide office and both Senate seats, as well as dominating the courts and the Legislature.

Now he's on the national stage. In Rove's world, there would be a period of 20 or 30 years of Republican domination of Congress and the White House and statehouses and legislatures, guided by 1,000 Karl Roves.

During the Republican National Convention, Rove was greeted as a conquering hero at a late-day reception at a midtown bar sponsored by College Republicans, the group that got him started. Students clapped and jubilantly jumped up and down.

Eric Hoplin, chairman of the College Republicans, said a generation of GOP activists on campus see Rove as a role model.

They all want to be Karl Rove. And if his most famous client wins Nov. 2, they'll all have an opportunity to join his latest revolution.

WAYNE SLATER is the co-author of ``Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential'' and is senior political writer for the Dallas Morning News. He has reported on Karl Rove for 20 years. He wrote this article for Perspective. <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/9883580.htm?1c">http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/9883580.htm?1c</a>

If the most powerful force ever to be assembled, invaded your country,
destroying all systems that maintained order and internal security in the
process of invading, and then did nothing while looting and lawlessness then
filled the gap created in the invasion, what would your reaction be?
Beheading is a gruesome tactic. Have you also considered the devastating
effects of U.S firepower that inadvertently kills and maims noncombatant
Iraqis?

Can you justify as necessary and moral, an elective war with all
new reasons for it's instigation and continuing prosecution, now that
Bush and Cheney's original and urgent reasons have been exposed as
empty, misleading, and contrived rhetoric. Could you ever contemplate that
"your president" is a war crminal who launched a pre-emptive war without
justifiable provocation? This is a reasonable and growing argument, whether
you have it in you to consider it, or not.

Bush, himself declared that he would not want to live in a country that was under occupation. You are incapable of looking at what happened in Iraq from any other perspective than that of an unquestioning, partisan supporter of
Bush and his puppetmaster, Karl Rove. Viceroy Paul Bremer revealed last
week that allowing looting and lawlessness in Iraq immediately after the
invasion is a root cause of the current violence there. Do you believe that
the enemy kiling our troops and civilian contractors in Iraq now, are foreign
fighters, streaming across vast, impossible to guard borders? Our military
commanders counter this notion. Bush's failed and misleading "war on terror"
are the catalyst for the beheadings that pique your myopic outrage, and
the creation of a hostile, Iraqi insurgency:

Quote:

Insurgents Are Mostly Iraqis, U.S. Military Says

Tue Sep 28, 7:55 AM ET

Add to My Yahoo! Top Stories - Los Angeles Times

By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The insistence by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and many U.S. officials that foreign fighters are streaming into Iraq (news - web sites) to battle American troops runs counter to the U.S. military's own assessment that the Iraqi insurgency remains primarily a home-grown problem.

In a U.S. visit last week, Allawi spoke of foreign insurgents "flooding" his country, and both President Bush (news - web sites) and his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry (news, bio, voting record), have cited these fighters as a major security problem.

But according to top U.S. military officers in Iraq, the threat posed by foreign fighters is far less significant than American and Iraqi politicians portray. Instead, commanders said, loyalists of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime — who have swelled their ranks in recent months as ordinary Iraqis bristle at the U.S. military presence in Iraq — represent the far greater threat to the country's fragile 3-month-old government.

Foreign militants such as Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi are believed responsible for carrying out videotaped beheadings, suicide car bombings and other high-profile attacks. But U.S. military officials said Iraqi officials tended to exaggerate the number of foreign fighters in Iraq to obscure the fact that large numbers of their countrymen have taken up arms against U.S. troops and the American-backed interim Iraqi government.

"They say these guys are flowing across [the border] and fomenting all this violence. We don't think so," said a senior military official in Baghdad. "What's the main threat? It's internal." .........<a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/latimests/20040928/ts_latimes/insurgentsaremostlyiraqisusmilitarysays">http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/latimests/20040928/ts_latimes/insurgentsaremostlyiraqisusmilitarysays</a>

Quote:

Originally Posted by ^Ice_Bat^

A true Christian would condemn Bush's unChristian instigation of war that is, not absolutely necessary, not support him. Rove has succeeded in persuading you
and the majority of Christian fundamentalists to unquestioningly support a
man who mouths the "Christian Ethic", but is not a member of a Christian
congregation, or attend worship services at a church. Rove instructed Bush
four years ago to declare that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, and that
he was a "saved" Christian and you "bought it". Please explain why Bush,
who agrees with you that "abortion is murder", a president whose party
controls both houses of congress, has not even introduced a legislative bill
designed to ban abortion? He paid lip service to your beliefs by signing a
bill so flawed legally as to insure it's intended demise, that only limits third
trimester abortion. Bush only has to "talk your talk" by mouthing whatever
Karl Rove conceives that will harvest your political support and you will overlook all of Bush's manipulative religious hypocricy and unChristian international agenda. Your Christian President and his Christian party crafted
a conservative Christian platform at the NYC convention last month , and
then never mentioned it during prime time. They paid lip service to your
conservative Christian agenda, and then trotted out prime time speakers
like pro choice advocates Giuliani and Shwarznegger. While you are distracted
by non-issues such as the public display of the ten commandments, Rove is
free to cultivate moderate non-Christian and non-religious voters by offering
them a knowing wink that assures them that he is only patronizing the Christian fundamentalist platform to stregthen Bush's base. Rove enjoys the
fact that you are so easy to keep under control, under the "big tent". Kerry
and his party won't pay lip service to your homophobia and your goal of
"Christianizing" this country. Bush and Rove fool you into believing that they
are sincerely attempting to accomplish your goals, but they will never give
you more than the minimum, because giving you more would lessen their
political power. Do you see any display of the text of the Republican party
platform in the main stream press? Rove knows that your platform items
will not attract swing voters, or even a majority of registered Republicans.

Quote:

'Big Tent' Approach Upsets Some Republicans
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
By Peter Brownfeld

PHOTOS

Click image to enlarge
STORIES
•
Log Cabin Republicans Don't Worry About Insiders
•
GOP Platform a Point of Party Contention
•
Catholic Vote Outreach at Republican Convention
•
Day One Sees Smaller Protests
•
DeLay to Play Low-Key Convention Role
•
Judge Rejects Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
•
GOP Platform Draft Tackles
Controversial Issues
•
GOPers Seek Pro-Life Voice at Convention
NEW YORK — About two dozen demonstrators on Monday stood just steps from the security perimeter outside the Republican National Convention (search) with a message unlike many others offered up by the large protest groups in New York City this week.

Carrying signs that suggest the open-party policy of the GOP is allowing abortion-rights supporters and other moderate voters to sway the party's direction, the atypical protesters outside Madison Square Garden argued that "a tent divided will not stand."

"Hasta La Vista Pro-Abort GOP," read one protester's sign. "Babies Die in Big Tent GOP" stated another. Demonstrators chanted: "Rudy Giuliani is a poison to the party."

The activists say they want the party to take a harder line on abortion and gay rights. They slammed the convention and its lineup of moderate speakers like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

"Giuliani, [New York Gov. George] Pataki, Schwarzenegger. They're the poison to the party because they're not men of principle. They dishonor the party platform," said Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue (search) and president of the Society for Truth and Justice (search), both anti-abortion groups. "To parade them around is an act of deception and treachery." <a href="www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,130667,00.html">www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,130667,00.html</a>

Let me guess....Rove has convinced you that Bush believes that "abortion is
murder", and that you have to be patient until he gets re-selected, and
then he'll stop at nothing to achieve a federal ban on all abortions, but
first, they have to lure some pro-choice Republicans into their "big tent"
by deceiving them into thinking that Bush is not serious about implementimg
your platform items. I like Kerry's honest answer, that he doesn't believe in
making laws that interfere with a woman's right to choose. Seems fairer to
women who can't afford to confidentially fly to another
jurisdiction where abortion is legally available, if your agenda should ever
actually become law in the U.S. I guess you will declare victory if you can
use the law to compell full term pregnancies for women who aren't wealthy.
I've always wondered how you would deal with knowing that the uterus of a wealthy woman is beyond your control. I guess you would find solace in
legislating compulsive pregnancies only for the women on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

kerry is a bad candidate because he's making his campaign off promises that he cannot and will not fullfil

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom12

kerry is a bad candidate because he's making his campaign off promises that he cannot and will not fullfil

I would like to add: without raising taxes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ^Ice_Bat^

None of those things you mention prevent me from worshiping God nor anyone else. The bible does not tell us to force religion upon others. It tells us to inform them and then they can make a choice. Being forced into worshiping means nothing. God gave us free will so we could CHOOSE to love him. People have to make that choice on their own. If someone doesn't make that choice then it is between them and God and NO ONE else.

The intent is to display the MORALITY of this country. Not to impose religion. Christian ideas teach moral value which everyone should strive to maintain. The commandments are displayed as a reminder of one of the first forms of written law which laws subsequently have been based on.

Thats fine but if it offends people that they are there then remove them. I still know the 10 commandments and it doesn't harm my religion at all.

If your faith is so small that you need to see religious icons everywhere you look to reinsure you that you are correct I suggest you do some more soul searching. If everyone else on the planet didn't believe i'd still believe. It's called faith.

I'd rather not have 10 commandments displayed outside and have let needless deaths then have more needless deaths and have 10 commandments displayed.

Rekna, appeasement has never worked. Kerry makes Chamberlaine look like a piker at the "fine art" of appeasement.

Host: There was more than just the one "Dear Commandante" letter you quoted.

Quote:

You "know" what you "know". and history will not alter your opinion.

I'M the one living in the past?!? BWAHAHAAAA!!!! Even Hanoi Jane has apologized for her treasonous acts during her participation in the anti-war effort. Kerry still hasn't, since he still views treason as being patriotic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

Rekna, appeasement has never worked. Kerry makes Chamberlaine look like a piker at the "fine art" of appeasement.

Host: There was more than just the one "Dear Commandante" letter you quoted.

I'M the one living in the past?!? BWAHAHAAAA!!!! Even Hanoi Jane has apologized for her treasonous acts during her participation in the anti-war effort. Kerry still hasn't, since he still views treason as being patriotic.

Who let ann coulter in here?

As someone who has supported Senator Kerry from the day he announced, I will respectfully disagree with those who think he is a poor candidate. It is notoriously difficult to defeat an incumbent president, particularly while in the midst of a war. The Senator is statistically tied with the President and seems to have the momentum. Is John Kerry the IDEAL candidate - no, he is not. But he is certainly qualified and capable and if elected, will surprise many of you with his skill, leadership and political acumen. I spent yesterday(the day of the final debate) working for the Senator's campaign in Arizona and attending the rally after the debate. I was surrounded by excited, devoted and commited Kerry supporters. Certainly some were ABBers, but the vast majority were excited and passionate about their candidate. Never underestimate Kerry, others have and have usually regretted it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daswig

<H1>MY POSTS CONTAIN REFERENCE LINKS TO SUPPORT MY STATEMENTS.
MY OPINIONS ARE FORMED BY RESEARCH INTENDED TO POST FACT
BASED, UNIMPEACHABLE ARGUMENTS. PLEASE DO NOT POST REPLIES
INTENDED TO COUNTER THE REFERENCED POINTS IN MY POSTS WITHOUT INCLUDING YOUR OWN REFERENCES WHERE I CAN CHECK, CONTEXT,
BIAS, AND RELIABILITY!</H1>
Notice that I am countering your "points" with info from web sources.....
in contrast to the content of your posts, which contain only your opinion.

Quote:

<a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761581713_2/John_Kerry.html">http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761581713_2/John_Kerry.html</a> VI Senate Years

Kerry arrived in Washington, D.C., in 1985, returning to the forum where he had first come to fame in 1971 as an antiwar leader. Now Kerry was leading the fight against another war: the Reagan administration’s effort to overthrow the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Kerry flew to Nicaragua and met with the Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega. Ortega shortly thereafter flew to Moscow, then still the capital of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), to pick up a $200-million loan. The Reagan White House mocked Kerry for dealing with Ortega, calling him a Soviet ally, but Kerry kept a close eye on the Reagan administration’s dealings with the small Central American country.

Soon, Kerry began to hear stories about secret U.S. assistance to a group known as the contras that was trying to overthrow the Sandinista government. Although President Reagan viewed the contras as “freedom fighters,” Kerry called them a “mercenary army” financed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In an echo of his accusations about U.S. actions in Vietnam, Kerry charged that the contras had been “guilty of atrocities against civilians.” Kerry’s investigations helped lead to revelations of what became known as the Iran-contra scandal, in which profits from secret U.S. arms sales to Iran were illegally diverted to help finance the contras.

As a former prosecutor, and with his war experience providing him with a skeptical view of U.S. foreign policies, Kerry became known more as an investigator than a legislator. Kerry’s investigations included an examination of a banking scandal involving the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), which engaged in fraud and laundered money from illegal drug trafficking. Some of Kerry’s critics charge that his Senate career lacked distinction because of his failure to draft and sponsor the passage of major legislation. But his defenders answer that Kerry was not known for authoring bills because that task was left to his senior colleague, Democratic senator Edward Kennedy. Nevertheless, Kerry did help write and support many key pieces of legislation. Not all of the bills fit the liberal mold that Kerry is known for. Kerry, for instance, joined Republicans in backing a deficit-reduction bill. He was a fierce critic of the abuse of illegal narcotics, working on antidrug issues with some of the most conservative Republicans, including former senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.

Kerry also earned a reputation as a publicity seeker. He was given the nickname Liveshot for his ability to attract news coverage. But he also won many admirers who believed that Kerry was willing to tackle difficult issues. For example, Kerry worked with Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and fellow Vietnam veteran, on an investigation into whether American soldiers were still being held in Vietnam. The pair determined there was no proof that Americans were still imprisoned, and they stood by President Bill Clinton’s side in 1995 when the United States announced it was normalizing relations with Vietnam.

Quote:

<a name="Opposition_to_the_Vietnam_War"></a><h3> Opposition to the Vietnam War </h3>

In April 1970, Fred Gardner, Fonda and <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Donald_Sutherland">Donald Sutherland</a> formed *FTA* ("Free The Army" or sometimes referred to by servicemen as "Fuck The Army"), an antiwar road show designed as an answer to <a href="http://http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Bob_Hope">Bob Hope</a>'s <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/USO">USO</a> tour. The tour, referred to as "political vaudeville" by Fonda, visited military towns along the West Coast, with the goal of establishing a dialog with soldiers to get their throughts on their upcoming deployments (which were later made into a movie).
Also in 1970, Fonda spoke out against the war at a rally organized by <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Vietnam_Veterans_Against_the_War">Vietnam Veterans Against the War</a>, in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. She offered to help raise funds for VVAW, and was bestowed the title of Honorary National Coordinator for her efforts. Beginning <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/November_3">November 3</a>, she toured college campuses and raised funds for the organization. As noted by the New York Times, Fonda was a "major patron" of the VVAW.
In March 1971 , Fonda travelled to Paris (some claim alone, some claim with an unnamed VVAW representative) to meet with NLF foreign minister Madam Nguyen Thi Binh . According to a transcript in which she was translated to Vietnamese and back to English, she told Binh at one point "Many of us have seen evidence proving the Nixon administration has escalated the war causing death and destruction perhaps as serious as the, bombing of Hiroshima.". Afterwards, she travelled to London. A speech that she gave in London was criticized for her discussion of the US use of torture in Vietnam. Her financial support to VVAW at this time was apparently not significant, as within a month VVAW was broke and Kerry raised the needed funds.

Sixteen months later, Fonda went on her well-known trip to Hanoi.

<a name="Hanoi_Jane"></a><h3> Hanoi Jane </h3>
Although the war was largely protested at home by this time, and many Americans were against the war, her actions in 1972 were widely perceived as over the top. The anti-war movement of the time was not characterized by a single motivation: some, such as Quakers and other traditionally <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Pacifism">pacifist</a> groups were opposed to <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/War">war</a> in any circumstances; some felt that the war was not an American responsibility or concern, arguing especially that it was a <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Civil_war">civil war</a> in which the <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/United_States">US</a> was choosing sides; some, such as young men of <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Conscription">draft age</a>, their parents and friends, didn't want their lives risked in an unpopular war; but some expressed a partisanship for the opposing side in the war, including Jane Fonda - and this made her a polarizing figure.

She became the target of hatred from many Americans because of her visit to <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Hanoi%2C_Vietnam">Hanoi</a> where she advocated opposition to the war. Because of this visit she acquired the nickname Hanoi Jane, comparing her to war propagandists <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Tokyo_Rose">Tokyo Rose</a> and Hanoi Hannah . She has often been associated with contributing to a perceived anti-soldier sentiment among Vietnam War protesters, such as <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Spitting_on_soldiers_during_the_Vietnam_War">spitting on soldiers</a>. Because of her actions, John Wayne cut off all contact with her, in spite of the fact that he was a close friend of her father Henry Fonda.
When Jane Fonda was honored by <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Barbara_Walters">Barbara Walters</a> in 1999 as one of the 100 great women of the century, sentiments regarding Fonda's actions in Vietnam were rekindled. Rumors that Fonda handed over information about U.S. soldiers to <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/National_Front_for_the_Liberation_of_Vietnam">National Liberation Front</a> (NLF) insurgents (better known in the U.S. as the "<a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Viet_Cong">Viet Cong</a>") are provably untrue, as are reports that a pilot spat at Fonda and was beaten for it and that one POW was beaten to death for refusing to meet with her. The latter story, though, may be an exaggeration of the true account of Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the NLF in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. He wrote "When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was asked by the camp communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with her. I said yes, for I would like to tell her about the real treatment we POWs were receiving, which was far different from the treatment purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by Jane Fonda, as 'humane and lenient.' Because of this, I spent three days on a rocky floor on my knees with outstretched arms with a piece of steel re-bar placed on my hands, and beaten with a bamboo cane every time my arms dipped." [1] http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm [2] http://www.pownetwork.org/fonda/fonda_benge_letter.htm


<div style="width: 250px; float:right; margin:0 0 1em 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Image:Fonda-Hanoi1.jpg" class="image"><img src="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Fonda-Hanoi1.jpg" alt="Jane Fonda in Hanoi, 1971" /></a> Jane Fonda
in Hanoi, 1971

</div >
Fonda posed for a picture at an anti-aircraft battery and participated in several radio broadcasts. She also visited American <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Prisoners_of_war">prisoners of war</a> who assured her that they had neither been tortured nor brainwashed. Fonda believed these claims and relayed them to the American public. When cases of torture began to emerge among POWs returning to the United States, Fonda called them liars. She also added, concerning the POWs she met, "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." Concerning torture in general, Fonda told the <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/New_York_Times">New York Times</a> in 1973, "I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture...but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie.". Her stance has some backing, as former vice presidential candidate and POW <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/James_Stockdale">James Stockdale</a> wrote that no more than 10% of US pilots in captivity received more than 90% of the torture, usually for acts of resistance. Additionally, John Hubbel's research into the conflict indicates that the majority (but certainly not all) of the torture occurred before 1969 (Fonda's visit was in 1973).
To her credit, Fonda did deliver home letters from many American POWs in Vietnam. She also is often credited with publicly exposing the strategy of <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Bombing_of_Vietnam%27s_Dikes"> bombing the dikes in Vietnam</a>, for which she was at the time called a liar by then-UN ambassador <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/George_H._W._Bush">George H. W. Bush</a>. In <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/1988">1988</a>, Fonda apologized for her actions to the American POWs and their families. She has also stated:

"I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft gun, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless."
In <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/U.S._presidential_election%2C_2004">2004</a>, her name was used as a disparaging epithet against <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/United_States_Democratic_Party">Democratic Party</a> presidential candidate <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/John_Kerry">John Kerry</a> by <a href="a/../Republican_Party_of_the_United_States">Republican National Committee</a> Chairman <a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Ed_Gillespie">Ed Gillespie</a>, who called Kerry a "Jane Fonda Democrat". In addition, a photograph was circulated showing Fonda and Kerry in the same large crowd at a 1970 anti-war rally, although they were sitting several rows apart.
She funded and organized the Indochina Peace Campaign which continued to mobilize antiwar activists across the nation after the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement when most other antiwar organizations closed down.
<a href="http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Jane_Fonda">http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Jane_Fonda</a>

Quote:

The case of Jane Fonda reveals the double standards and hypocrisies afflicting
our memories. In Tour of Duty, the Kerry historian Douglas Brinkley describes
the 1971 winter soldier investigation, which Fonda supported and Kerry attended,
where Vietnam veterans spilled their guts about "killing gooks for sport,
sadistically torturing captured VC by cutting off ears and heads, raping
women and burning villages." Brinkley then recounts how Kerry later told
Meet the Press that "I committed the same kinds of atrocities as thousands
of others," specifically taking responsibility for shooting in free-fire
zones, search-and-destroy missions, and burning villages. Brinkley describes
these testimonies in tepid and judicious terms, calling them "quite unsettling."
By contrast, Brinkley condemns Fonda's 1972 visit to Hanoi as "unconscionable,"
without feeling any need for further explanation. 
 Why should American atrocities be merely unsettling, but a trip to Hanoi
unconscionable? 

 In fact, Fonda was neither wrong nor unconscionable in what she said and
did in North Vietnam. She told the New York Times in 1973, "I'm quite sure
that there were incidents of torture...but the pilots who were saying it
was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's
a lie." Research by John Hubbell, as well as 1973 interviews with POWs,
shows that Vietnamese behavior meeting any recognized definition of torture
had ceased by 1969, three years before the Fonda visit. James Stockdale,
the POW who emerged as Ross Perot's running mate in 1992, wrote that no
more than 10 percent of the US pilots received at least 90 percent of the
Vietnamese punishment, often for deliberate acts of resistance. Yet the
legends of widespread, sinister Oriental torture have been accepted as fact
by millions of Americans. 
 Erased from public memory is the fact that Fonda's purpose was to use
her celebrity to put a spotlight on the possible bombing of Vietnam's system
of dikes. Her charges were dismissed at the time by George H.W. Bush, then
America's ambassador to the United Nations, who complained of a "carefully
planned campaign by the North Vietnamese and their supporters to give worldwide
circulation to this falsehood." But Fonda was right and Bush was lying,
as revealed by the April-May 1972 White House transcripts of Richard Nixon
talking to Henry Kissinger about "this shit-ass little country": 
 NIXON: We've got to be thinking in terms of an all-out bombing attack....
I'm thinking of the dikes. 
 KISSINGER: I agree with you. 
 NIXON: ...Will that drown people? 

 KISSINGER: About two hundred thousand people. 
 It was in order to try to avert this catastrophe that Fonda, whose popular
"FTA" road show (either "Fun, Travel, Adventure" or "Fuck the Army") was
blocked from access to military bases, gave interviews on Hanoi radio describing
the human consequences of all-out bombing by B-52 pilots five miles above
her. After her visit, the US bombing of the dike areas slowed down, "allowing
the Vietnamese at last to repair damage and avert massive flooding," according
to Mary Hershberger. 
 The now legendary Fonda photo shows her with diminutive Vietnamese women
examining an antiaircraft weapon, implying in the rightist imagination that
she relished the thought of killing those American pilots innocently flying
overhead. To deconstruct this image and what it has come to represent, it
might be helpful to look further back in our history. 
 Imagine a nineteenth-century Jane Fonda visiting the Oglala Sioux in the
Black Hills before the battle at Little Big Horn. Imagine her examining
Crazy Horse's arrows or climbing upon Sitting Bull's horse. Such behavior
by a well-known actress no doubt would have infuriated Gen. George Armstrong
Custer, but what would the rest of us feel today? 
 In Dances With Wolves, Kevin Costner played an American soldier who went
"native" and, as a result, was attacked and brutalized as a traitor by his
own men. But we in the modern audience are supposed to respect and idealize
the Costner "traitor," perhaps because his heroism assuages our historical
guilt. Will it take another century for certain Americans to see the Fonda
trip to Hanoi in a similar light? 

 The popular delusions about Fonda are a window into many other dangerous
hallucinations that pass for historical memory in this country. Among the
most difficult to contest are claims that antiwar activists persistently
spit on returning Vietnam veterans. So universal is the consensus on "spitting"
that I once gave up trying to refute it, although I had never heard of a
single episode in a decade of antiwar experiences. Then came the startling
historical research of a Vietnam veteran named Jerry Lembcke, who demonstrated
in The Spitting Image (1998) that not a single case of such abuse had ever
been convincingly documented. In fact, Lembcke's search of the local press
throughout the Vietnam decade revealed no reports of spitting at all. It
was a mythical projection by those who felt "spat-upon," Lembcke concluded,
and meant politically to discredit future antiwar activism. 
 The Rambo movies not only popularized the spitting image but also the
equally incredible claim that hundreds of American soldiers missing in action
were being held by the Vietnamese Communists for unspecified purposes. John
Kerry's most noted achievement in the Senate was gaining bipartisan support,
including that of all the Senate's Vietnam veterans, for a report declaring
the MIA legend unfounded, which led to normalized relations. Yet millions
of Americans remain captives of this legend. 
 It will be easier, I am afraid, for those Americans to believe that Jane
Fonda helped torture our POWs than to accept the testimony by American GIs
that they sliced ears, burned hooches, raped women and poisoned Vietnam's
children with deadly chemicals. Just two years ago many of the same people
in Georgia voted out of office a Vietnam War triple-amputee, Senator Max
Cleland, for being "soft on national defense." 
<a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20040322&s=hayden">Tom Hayden - March 4, 2004</a>

Having Bush as president again is going to lead to all out Civil War II or World War III. That's my unbiased opinion :)

And then we all return to nothing, we all come tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling dowwwwwwn...

All this negative comparison to Clinto?
I am beginning to think not only is Kerry more honest than Clinton but also more intelligent. The Viet Nam speaches he made, which conservatives quote out of context as much as they can, are a triumphant achievement for a kid in his early twenties.
This man should be compared to JFK not Clinton... At least JFK had better taste in women to have affairs with... Kerry on the other hand seems to have a nice looking rich woman of high intelligence and integrity crazy about him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

Thats fine but if it offends people that they are there then remove them. I still know the 10 commandments and it doesn't harm my religion at all.

I think we could all agree people get offended too easily. This is kind of off topic of the 10 commandments thing, but people need to lighten up a little on some things. Take a deep breath sometimes and go eat some good ice cream or something...or what ever makes a person happiest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dwayne

All you have to do is look at how divided our country is to see how bad of a president he is. We have had bad presidents before but never has the country been so devided.

The country was just as divided when Reagan was in office. We live in a divided nation and always have. Going back to the Civil War. Division equating in internal war is the grandest division of all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rekna

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

This is a very complete electoral vote prediction sight that takes info from all legit polling companies

Shows Bush up now. But polls are polls. I don't trust them much. Too irregular.