The president insists on distorting John Kerry's words. But a simple check of the record exposes his con game

Visit our New Forum

Bush's war on truth
The president insists on distorting John Kerry's words. But a simple check of the record exposes his con game.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert

March 18, 2004 | The Bush campaign is twisting the meaning of a quote from Sen. John Kerry to the breaking point, making it clear that the president and his supporters will not allow facts to get in their way. Speaking yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Vice President Cheney declared that Sen. John "has given us ample doubts about his judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on matters of national security." Cheney's money line in defining the supposedly weak-on-security Democratic candidate was this: "Senator Kerry has questioned whether the war on terror is really a war at all. Recently he said, and I quote, 'I don't want to use that terminology.'"

Cheney first debuted the zinger at a South Dakota fundraiser on March 8: "Several days ago, Senator Kerry said he wasn't even comfortable calling this a war. He said, 'I don't want to use that terminology.'" President Bush chimed in the same day at a Texas fundraiser: "Just the other day my opponent indicated that he's not comfortable using the word 'war' to describe the struggle we're in. He said, 'I don't want to use that terminology.'"

On March 13, at another Republican fundraiser in Kentucky, Cheney repeated the allegation: "On one side, we have the Democratic nominee, who is uncomfortable with the idea we are at war. Quote, 'I don't want to use that terminology,' he said last week." Then Cheney repeated the claim again in California on Wednesday.

But the accusation doesn't jibe with Kerry's recent tough rhetoric. For instance, on Feb. 28 at UCLA, in a speech on national security, Kerry spoke about "the war on terror." On March 3, the Kansas City Star reported that Kerry, in remarks in Washington, D.C., had vowed to "fight the war on terrorism." This week the Los Angeles Times quoted him campaigning in West Virginia: "When it comes to protecting the security of our nation and to winning the war on terror, America is unified."

So where did this I-won't-call-it-a-war-on-terror quote come from? On March 5, Kerry gave a foreign policy-oriented interview to the New York Times aboard an airplane. Extended portions of the interview were printed in the paper, as a sidebar to a news story. At one point Kerry was addressing the big picture regarding "the war on terror," a phrase he used repeatedly during the interview. He said, "The combination of economic, the economic bleakness, the devastation, within countries that are potentially explosive, where you have very large young populations of uneducated people ripe for the pickings of radicalism, is a much bigger challenge than the world as yet has been willing to grapple with." Kerry concluded, "The final victory in the war on terror depends on a victory in the war of ideas, much more than the war on the battlefield. And the war -- not the war, I don't want to use that terminology. The engagement of economies, the economic transformation, the transformation to modernity of a whole bunch of countries that have been avoiding the future. And that future's coming at us like it or not, in the context of terror, and in the context of failed states, and dysfunctional economies, and all that goes with that."

There's not a college freshman in America who would read that passage and suggest Kerry is reluctant to call the struggle against terrorism a "war." That's simply not what he said. His point was obvious -- the war on terror, or "the war on the battlefield," is intricately connected with the war of ideas (economics, modernity, religious fanaticism).

Kerry's phrase about not wanting to "use that [war] terminology" had nothing to do with Sept. 11, al-Qaida, Madrid or Baghdad. It was Kerry's clarification to reporters of the distinction between the war on the battlefield and the battle over ideas. But the Bush campaign is trying to transform the utterance into a false ideological dividing line.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the cut-and-paste ruse is being promoted by Bush's tools in the conservative media. Writing for the Wall Street Journal opinion Web site last week, James Taranto cited Bush's use of the "terminology" quote and insisted, "Bush's criticisms of Kerry are based on hard facts."

Better check again.
salon.com source...

Name:	Smedley
To:	ET

Message:
I can see that you're carrying water for the Party of Anti-Semites.

Eric Boehlert? I mean, another Salon.con schill? doesn't matter who does your lying for you, huh?

Why don't you use a respected source? I mean -- something even from the lamestream press would be preferable.

Name:	Individual
To:	right wing extremist, smedley

Message:
What are your sources? What are your numbers? My sources are Bureau of Labor Statistics for job data and OMB for deficit data. OMB Table 1.1 SUMMARY OF RECEIPTS, OUTLAYS, AND SURPLUSES OR DEFICITS (-): 1789-2008. Put up or ....

Name:	ET
To:	Smedley

In response to:
I can see that you're carrying water for the Party of Anti-Semites.

Message:
No, I'm carrying the water for any soldier that is the victim of lies and character assassination.

I am especially against impugning the military record of our brave decorated soldiers who put their lives on the line for us.

This is unforgivable and disgraceful. It is also dangerous to our country. How do you think the soldiers in Iraq feel about the fact that if they ever run for president their military record will be impugned by truth-twisting political liars?

Name:	Smedley
To:	ET

In response to:
But the accusation doesn't jibe with Kerry's recent tough rhetoric.

Reason #1 why ALL democrats are liars

Salon Nazi doesn't address the accuracy of the quote, but makes references to other statements that Kerry made. (Not to forget that Kerry has been on both sides of every issue from the start.)

Here's a bet, ET.

If the quote is accurate, then you cannot post an anti-bush article for the remainder of this election.

If Bush/Cheney made a ficticious quote, then I will neither post a pro-Bush or anti-Kerry blurb on this forum for the rest of the election cycle.

This is how confident I am that Bush is an honest man and that Democrats are a shameless party of liars.

political liars?

Message:
Thats all we Republicans are. We have our Fox TV network and we have our people all over the place with their greased palms still out to help us smear any one who isnt one of us and the stupid people belive it as gospell.

Name:	Smedey
To:	ET

In response to:
No, I'm carrying the water for any soldier that is the victim of lies and character assassination.

Message:
Sure, that's why your posting moveon.org rhetoric while removing all references to them.

I am especially against impugning the military record of our brave decorated soldiers who put their lives on the line for us.

Okay -- now can you show where Bush has impuned Kerry's patriotism or military record? No, you can't. Also, can you show me Kerry's military record? no you can't. Now why would Kerry, a decorated war hero, hide his Vietnam war records?

blah blah blah -- what is disgraceful is your actions, not my condemnation of them.

Message:
Don't forget we love to smear political opponenents and call them commiies.

Name:	Smedley
To:	Philly Nerd

In response to:
Thats all we Republicans are. We have our Fox TV network and we have our people all over the place with their greased palms still out to help us smear any one who isnt one of us and the stupid people belive it as gospell.

Name:

Smedley

Message:
I must go now for the evening. All posts for the next four hours under my name are fake

Name:	ET
To:	Smedley

In response to:
I can see that you're carrying water for the Party of Anti-Semites.

Message:
As soon as Bush stops impugning the military record of Kerry is as soon as I stop defending our brave soldier who put their lives on the line for us.

Bush and his character-assassination buddies are fools for thinking that they can win us over by resorting to these cheap lies and broadcasting fake photos to impugn the military record of Kerry.

The best thing you can do for this country is to try and stop the Bush from going down this road. He is turning off the Democrats that supported him in the war on Iraq.

Bush and his character-assassins are definitely turning off people of my age that remember Vietnam, and admired those who raged against that senseless war where 56,000 of our soldiers lost their lives. If it were not for Kerry and others like him the Vietnam war would have gone on for years with more death.

Back in the sixties I admired Kerry for his honesty and courage in joining with others in stopping the Vietnam war. Bush is running a stupid campaign impugning Kerry's military record while Bush partied safely here in the US, and didn't even fulfil his National Guard service honorably.

What Bush and his buddies are succeeding in doing is showing us what vicious character assassins they are. That cr*ap may win over some Republicans, but there is a growing group of decent Republicans that are embarrassed by the Bush character-assassins trying to impugn Kerry's military record.

Bush is pointing the character-assassins gun in his own face. I'm disgusted with what he is doing. You should be too.

So don't tell me about "carrying water" when you are carrying water for the character assassins who are impugning a good soldier's military record. You should be ashamed.

Name:

Individual

Message:
Kerry: Who would you trust to rally the world leaders and get their cooperation in a very long war on terrorism? It is absolutely necessary that world leaders cooperate to the maximum extent in the war on terror.

Name:	Dr.Mike
To:	forum
Re:	Communist in PA

Message:
This is the Representative whom wants 'assault weapons' banned in PA

Name:

ODX

In response to:
Bush's war on truth The president insists on distorting John Kerry's words. But a simple check of the record exposes his con game.

Name:

Smedleys concience

In response to:
So don't tell me about "carrying water" when you are carrying water for the character assassins you are impugning a good soldier's military record. You should be ashamed

Name:

Sure

In response to:
With lousy doctors and careless hospitols and HMO's we need good trial lawyers to protect us.

Message:
With lousy teachers who can't be fired, we need a slick hustler like Hillary to protect us from our own stupidity

Name:	Jinks
Re:	Getting out of hand - coming to you SOON

Message:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...tricity_probe_1

CARLSBAD, Calif. - When police noticed Dina Dagy's family was spending $250 to $300 a month on electricity, they suspected a marijuana farm was flourishing under high-intensity lights inside their suburban home.

What they found when they showed up with a drug-sniffing dog and a search warrant was a wife and mother who does several loads of laundry a day, keeps a dishwashing machine going, has three electricity-guzzling computers and three kids who can't remember to turn the lights out when they leave a room.

"It's hard to believe a high utility bill would be enough to issue a state warrant," said Dagy, who is demanding the Police Department issue a written apology.

Authorities say they have already apologized verbally several times and were only following proper procedures. Tracking down marijuana growers by reviewing electricity bills, they say, is a common practice.

"I understand they feel something isn't appropriate here, but it is very much consistent with how search warrants are prepared," said police Lt. Bill Rowland.

When authorities noticed how high the bill for the Dagy home was, they sent a police dog to the neighborhood, and it reacted as though it had smelled drugs.

They also noticed the family had put its trash out that morning, something police say drug growers often do to hide the evidence. In the Dagys' case, however, it was trash day.

When officers returned on March 19 with a search warrant, Dagy was volunteering at her son's second-grade class. She was heading back to her car when police arrived at the school, and she returned home and let them into the house.

They found nothing illegal, and she says she feels fortunate she wasn't in her son's classroom when they arrived.

"I would have been so embarrassed," she said, "and my son would have died: `They're taking your mommy away!'"

Name:	ET
To:	Smedley

Message:
The Fonda-Kerry photo has been exposed as a fake. That's right Smedley F-A-K-E.

I'll repeat. The best thing you can do for the Republicans is to stop the character-assassination against Kerry's military record while Bush partied safely here in the US. It's NOT SERVING THE RIGHT.

IT'S NOT SERVING THE RIGHT - THE RIGHT-WING CHARACTER-ASSASSINS ARE ASSASSINATING THEMSELVES - NOT KERRY!

Name:

HIstory

In response to:
With lousy teachers who can't be fired, we need a slick hustler like Hillary to protect us from our own stupidity

Message:
Its a matter of money and smaller classes and not entirely the teachers fault. Who teaches the doctors and lawyers answer the teacher. Maybe if Teacher's starting salary was $50.000 to $75,000 perhaps better teachers would become available. Many women become Doctors, Lawyers, and CPA's today where as in the past they only became telephone operators, secretaries nurses, and bookkeepers. The brightest ladies of those days became teachers.

Name:

Meat Eater

In response to:
speech at the George Washington University, Kerry outlined his plan to strengthen, expand and restructure the military, while also codifying the rights of military families and establishing a "Civilian Stability Corps" of volunteers to work in post-conflict environments around the world.

Message:
Criticizing Bush on intelligence failures when Kerry has spent most of his life acting as if the CIA was a main component of evil in the world?

Would that only one person ask Kerry if his "new" view on military readiness with "high tech" weapons was a repudiation of his past record of opposing the very weapons that today make us the strongest military in the world.

Name:	Klink Hoffer
To:	Forum

Message:
Here is the first article, published a year ago at the height of the Second Gulf War. Compare it to the second, published today (below).

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - There was a bit of unfinished business left over in Baghdad from the 1991 Gulf War. The U.S. Army has taken care of it. At the Al-Rashid Hotel, President Bush the elder - father of the current American chief executive who ordered this year's invasion of Iraq - is a doormat no more.

U.S. soldiers visited the battered Al-Rashid on Thursday night wielding hammers and chisels, and dug out the intricate tile mosaic of the former president that was used for years as a state-sponsored insult. In its place, they laid a portrait of Saddam Hussein.

"Everybody walked over it and wiped their feet on it," Lt. Col. Rick Schwartz, the battalion commander said. He left the Saddam portrait behind, on the ground for future use.

Taking shoes to the face is not exactly a compliment in any culture, but in the Arab world it's a particular slam. Pointing the soles of one's feet at someone is a grave insult.

So the notion of thousands of Iraqi feet trudging over the patrician features of George Herbert Walker Bush was particularly appealing to Saddam's regime, humiliated by Bush during the 1991 Gulf War to free Kuwait from Iraqi invaders. Saddam personally picked the Al-Rashid for the insult to Bush senior. The hotel was heavily trafficked by foreign guests and the base of operations for journalists during the 1991 war - and the place where, on the night of the first American air strike in January 1991, Arab guests huddled in the basement and shouted "Death to Bush." __

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-03-25-dems-usat_x.htm

WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party came together to embrace its presidential standard-bearer on Thursday, aligning its diverse constituencies and past luminaries behind John Kerry's candidacy.

John Kerry is surrounded by, from left, Joe Lieberman, Al Gore, John Edwards, former President Bill Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter. Former presidents Clinton and Carter, 2000 nominee Al Gore and nearly all of Kerry's primary rivals linked hands at a sold-out dinner to energize core supporters and raise more than $11 million for the campaign against President Bush. Only Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, the only other primary candidate still running, was not invited.

The party also formally opened a renovated, technology-packed $30 million headquarters that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called "the temple" for political training, fundraising and the crafting of positions and strategy. The building features television and radio studios, expanded office space and a massive new 170-million-name computer database named "Demzilla."

*** Entering McAuliffe's new corner office, which is equipped as a TV studio, *** visitors walk over a doormat bearing a likeness of President Bush and the *** words, "Give Bush the Boot."

Name:	The Kid
To:	poster

In response to:
This is the Representative whom wants 'assault weapons' banned in PA http://www.pahouse.net/frankel/ He introduced House Bill 2451 to ban guns: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/BI/ALL

Message:
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are the two major urban centers in PA, with the usual demographics that you see in rotted-out big cities. Lots of poor minorities, lots of criminals. Something like half of all reported car thefts statewide happen in Philadelphia. Politicians in these cesspools have to pretend to fight crime, but they can't be mean to criminals because so many of the voters there are either criminals themselves, are shacked up with criminals, or have criminals in their families. So they "fight crime" by establishing special "gun free" zones, "special services" districts (where the cops actually cruise by once in a while), or they sponsor gun buybacks. Both these cities had assault weapon bans of their own a few years back, despite the State supremacy clause in the State Uniform Firearms Act. What Philadelphia did was attempt to modify the State law by altering the State definition of "prohibited offensive weapon", but only within city limits. The city tried to unilaterally change a State law. It was challenged and struck down.

Pennsylvania has a massive number of hunters and sport shooters outside of those two hellholes, so Statewide anti-gun measures seldom pass the State legislatures. Pennsylvania also has a pro-gun Constitution, and an acknowledgement by the Legislature that gun rights are a "fundamental" right. I wouldn't worry.

Name:

Charleton Heston

Message:
I forgot to mention that the NRA is bankrupt and won't be helping the Republicans out like they did in 2000. So I guess you gun nuts are going to lose in 2004.

Name:

Justin Case

Message:
Its a matter of money and smaller classes and not entirely the teachers fault.

Bull. The curriculum has been diluted to ensure teacher proficiency even if they aren't proficient. It's a union thing.

In this day and age, you'd probably even get a B for writing this incoherent crap.

Maybe if Teacher's starting salary was $50.000 to $75,000 perhaps better teachers would become available.

Many women become Doctors, Lawyers, and CPA's today where as in the past they only became telephone operators, secretaries nurses, and bookkeepers.

Name:	A Women whois a trial lawyer
To:	Justin Case

In response to:
No you are an idiot. Many women become Doctors, Lawyers, and CPA's today where as in the past they only became telephone operators, secretaries nurses, and bookkeepers. What has that got to do with anything? The brightest ladies of those days became teachers.

Message:
Women who are bright do not become teachers instead they become doctors, lawyers, and CPA's. Who would want to work in an over crowded classroom for lousy wages? Only some dedicated teachers and others who were not smart enough to become Doctors, Lawyers, and CPA's. Men they are so stoopid!

Name:

Justin Case

Message:
Women who are bright do not become teachers instead they become doctors, lawyers, and CPA's.

Teachers do not make lousy wages. That is a union bargaining tactic. It simplu is not true.

Only some dedicated teachers and others who were not smart enough to become Doctors, Lawyers, and CPA's.

Name:

Individual

In response to:
I'll repeat. The best thing you can do for the Republicans is to stop the character-assassination against Kerry's military record while Bush partied safely here in the US. It's NOT SERVING THE RIGHT.

Message:
Wrong. According to the latest polls, people believe that both Kerry and Bush should tone it down, but that Kerry is worse than Bush, to wit: "Kerry, the target of weeks of Bush attack ads in key battleground states, has been hit the hardest. He has suffered a slight dip in his personal ratings and fallen behind or into a dead heat with Bush in most national surveys after holding small leads earlier in the month."

Name:

A Women whois a trial lawyer

Message:
Who would want to work in an over crowded classroom for lousy wages?

Teachers make lousy wages compared they make as Business managers, executives and other high paying professions..

So they are dumb. I thought so. No dummie, you are the dummie for not understanding that if a women is bright there are better paying careers to be had than a lowly teacher in some parts of the US.

Name:	Sonof PurpleHeart
Re:	The Meaning of IS

Message:
Now he COULD release ALL his records like the DNC challenged BUSH...just to clear things up...

Name:	Controlled Words
To:	Jokesters
Re:	jesus efing key-riste

Message:
Fruit L[00]P...............

Name:	Smedley
To:	Citizen of the World

In response to:
Name a single Republican that's assassinating Kerry's military record

Message: you and all the other character assinators on here and in the ads on TV

Message:
Give the gentleman from Philly a "Duh" and a year's free prescription of Prozac.

Ya' know, the Dems have hacked at Bush for so long at his military record that many will say, with a straight face, that just because Bush's teeth were on base (as is evidenced by X-Ray dental records) doesn't mean Bush was actually on base.

Now, quite franky, many on the right did harp on Gore's VietNam service as he's the only person I've heard of had a bodyguard while stationed away from all the fighting -- that and he was caught lying about being in combat.

Well, so far no one's done anything like that with Kerry, and to tell you the truth, its refreshing to see Democrats praise military service.

Name:

Smedley

In response to:
Now he COULD release ALL his records like the DNC challenged BUSH...just to clear things up...

Name:	Citizen of the World
To:	ET
Re:	is the POPE part of the Bush distortion machine?

Message:
A Test of Kerry's Faith The candidate's policies are at odds with church canon. Will there be a price to pay? By KAREN TUMULTY AND PERRY BACON JR. Monday, Apr. 05, 2004 The last time a major political party put forward a Roman Catholic candidate for President, he had to confront bigotry and suspicion that he would be taking orders from Rome. Forty-four years later, the Democrats are poised to nominate another Catholic—another Senator from Massachusetts whose initials happen to be J.F.K.—and this time, the controversy over his religion may develop within the Catholic Church itself. Kerry's positions on some hot-button issues aren't sitting well with members of the church elite. Just listen to a Vatican official, who is an American: "People in Rome are becoming more and more aware that there's a problem with John Kerry, and a potential scandal with his apparent profession of his Catholic faith and some of his stances, particularly abortion."

Name:

Civil Bagdasarian

Message:

Rapture Ready

Rapture Ready Home

Nearing Midnight

Rapture Ready Bulletin Board

Left Behind

Left Behind Letters

	Print a text version of this article
	A New Moon for Earth?

	Submitted By:Jack
	Click for Source Article
	Earth has acquired a "quasi-moon" — an asteroid that will encircle our planet for the next couple of years while it orbits the sun on a horseshoe-shaped path, according to a report to be published on Saturday in New Scientist. The asteroid, 2003 YN17, "is probably a chunk of debris" from an impact between a larger space rock and the surface of the moon, the British weekly said. 2003 YN17's orbital plane is roughly the same as the earth's, but its unusual path, compounded by a corkscrew-like track, means that sometimes it is ahead of us and sometimes it is behind. "Since 1996, its path has taken it round the earth, making it a quasi-satellite. This phase will last until 2006," the report said. The finders are a team led by Paul Chodas, an asteroid specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Two other "quasi-moons" — temporary fellow-travellers that around the earth for while as they girdle the sun — have been spotted in recent years: Cluithne and asteroid 2002 AA29.

Name:	Great Shades O' Nixon
Re:	Guess Kerry hired some plumbers (hope they're UNION)

Message:
Author who uncovered John Kerry surveillance files reports some stolen

SAN FRANCISCO - The man who uncovered evidence the FBI tailed presidential candidate John Kerry for months in 1971 said some of those files were stolen this week.

Author Gerald Nicosia reported to police Friday that three of the 14 boxes of once-secret FBI files he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act were taken from his Corte Madera home Thursday.

Particular files from the remaining 11 boxes were also taken, Nicosia said, including files containing documents about Kerry that hadn't been reviewed yet by others.

"The three files folders about John Kerry were taken," Nicosia said. "Those revelations are lost now, at least to me." (snip)

Name:	Citizen of the World
To:	ET
Re:	Scary, Scary John Kerry

Message:
By JOSH FRANK

Finally a reason to get excited, as we now have before us an electable candidate worthy of taking on George W. Bush and his coterie of neoconservatives next November. Well, at least that's what the scared liberals out there would have us believe. But John Kerry is neither electable nor exciting. He is a Zionist sympathizer who supports Bush's "road map for peace" in Israel and Palestine, as well as a corporate Neoliberal, who voted in support of NAFTA, normalized free-trade with China, and the US's $17.9 billion dollar "aid" package to the IMF.

Not to mention Kerry is also a proclaimed War Criminal, where he participated in bloody swift boat patrol missions on the Mekong Delta near Cambodia in Vietnam. And as he put it in to Crosby Noyes of the Washington Evening Star upon his return in 1971, "[During those missions] I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50 caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions."

However, Kerry's defenders still claim that at least he's better than George W. Bush. Under a selective microscope perhaps, but by and large Kerry and Bush see eye to eye on the critical issues of our times.

Name:	Jiggers
To:	LOF
Re:	Kerry Lies

Message:
Militia being state rather than federal. http://www.txusa.com/tsga/

Name:	Ciizizen of the World
To:	The real one
Re:	no the Moniker thief

Message:
Say whatever want ET, it does change the fact that John Kerry is a self confessed nice guy. Thank God we have him on videotape.

Name:	Citizen of the World
Re:	Kerry and Black America

Message:
Just Another Stupid White Man

John Kerry says he wants to be America's second "black president," but sadly, his record on issues of racial justice makes him look more yellow than black. This could spell trouble for the Democrats. In a recent editorial, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said, "There is no question that the Democratic Party cannot win without the support of African American voters in 2004." The black vote could make or break the Democrats in critical battleground states such as Michigan and Ohio. Black voters have been fiercely loyal to the Democratic Party for the past several decades. Realizing that black voters have essentially nowhere else to go, Democrats have started taking the black vote for granted. While it is unlikely that black voters will switch to the Republican side, turnout among black voters may decrease if they feel the Democratic candidate doesn't understand their problems. Bill Clinton made middle class white voters his primary target during his first campaign and black voter turnout dropped considerably.

Before he dropped out of the race and endorsed Kerry, General Wesley Clark had been very critical of statements Kerry once made about affirmative action. Kerry's response was essentially to say, "I have been endorsed by [black Congressman] Jim Clyburn." Kerry's website features pictures taken at a cocktail party he attended with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Being endorsed by Jim Clyburn and going to cocktail parties with black members of Congress are fine things, but does Kerry really believe any of this will inspire black voters to rally to his cause? It seems unlikely. Kerry isn't half the panderer Bill Clinton was. Hell, he wasn't even Jim Clyburn's first pick! Clyburn originally endorsed Gephardt and threw his support rather unenthusiastically to Kerry after Gephardt dropped out of the race.

The aforementioned criticisms by General Clark stemmed from a speech given by Kerry at Yale in 1992. In the speech, Kerry waged a full-frontal assault on racial justice, arguing that affirmative action and welfare created a "culture of dependency" among blacks. He argued that the government should focus on "law and order," "self-reliance," and "individual responsibility" rather than affirmative action as a solution to ending racial inequality. He seemed particularly concerned with the feelings and opinions of white people. He said, "We cannot hope to make further racial progress when whites believe that it is they and not blacks that suffer most from racial discrimination." He sympathized with white people "who feel alienated or abandoned by their government, that we simply don't care about them." In addition to hanging white America out to dry, the government has created a tangled mass of affirmative action laws in which there "exists a reality of reverse discrimination that actually engenders racism." In order to further advance civil rights, Kerry argues, we must regain white support and try to understand "the anger of taxpayers who work hard to support their families and then find themselves supporting generations of welfare families as well."

Apparently Kerry saw no irony in giving this speech on an elite college campus before an audience which undoubtedly consisted of rich white kids for the most part. Yale's faculty is 2.8% black and 1.9% Hispanic. Fortunately, it seems Yale has not been corrupted by the wave of "reverse discrimination" that is sweeping the nation. Nor did Kerry seem to recognize any irony in the fact while he lectures poor black people about "self-reliance," Kerry has essentially never had to do anything for himself. Kerry was born into an obscenely rich family that would go on yachting trips with the Kennedys. Since he became a politician his bank accounts have been generously stocked by corporate lobbyists. He has also married some of the richest women in the world, including his current wife, Teresa Heinz. It's hard to imagine how such a person could even have a concept of "self-reliance." John Kerry preaching to poor people about self-reliance seems rather like a blind person trying to teach people about the colors of the rainbow.

Irony aside, Kerry makes some pretty outrageous claims here. Some have suggested Kerry's speech was a political ploy designed to make himself appear more "moderate." This would not be surprising. The Democratic Party has a long and sad history of selling out its most vulnerable constituencies for the sake of attracting white middle class voters. Single mothers, blacks, immigrants, union members, and poor people are all very familiar with this kind of cynical political "pragmatism" often practiced by white liberals. However, I'm willing to assume that Kerry really meant the things he said in his speech. If that is the case, then he is utterly clueless about the reality of racism in America. In fact, he buys into a worldview that is so explicitly right-wing it ought to cast doubt on his ability to tackle other social problems not related to race.

Kerry's speech represents a dramatic capitulation to the "white backlash" against the gains made by people of color during the civil rights era. Race relations in America have been characterized by periods of progress and backlash. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, America had an opportunity to atone for the racial injustices of its past. For a while, things seemed to be on the right track. During Reconstruction the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed along with a series of constitutional amendments designed to guarantee blacks equal rights under the law. Some of the South's first public schools were built during this time. Blacks made unprecedented gains in employment. Hiram Revels became the first black member of the U.S. Senate.

However, as blacks made gains, the white majority became more and more nervous. That nervousness eventually culminated in a full-fledged backlash against racial progress. This period is often referred to as the "nadir" of American race relations. Southerners called it the "Redemption." Membership in the Ku Klux Klan soared to over 3 million at one point. The courts began to chip away at the foundation of civil rights with decisions such as Plessy v. Ferguson. Blacks in the South were forced to work as sharecroppers, making them anchored to the land with little or no prospects for social mobility. Blacks in the North were excluded from the new industrial economy and labor unions. Within a few short years white supremacy had been restored in both the North and the South. The white backlash turned back the clock on almost all the gains made by blacks during Reconstruction.

A similar backlash befell the country after the civil rights era. After years of black insurgency, the movement won the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Affirmative Action was never developed as a coherent policy. It evolved through a series of executive orders, administrative decisions, and court rulings. At a time when many in the movement were talking about a revolution and radically redistributing wealth and power in the country, affirmative action was seen as a very moderate and reformist policy. The fact that it is now seen as such a controversial issue indicates how successful the white backlash and the right-wing's exploitation of it has been. As it was after the first backlash, the courts have been chipping away at the gains made by the civil rights movement. The focus and blame for racial inequality has shifted from white racism to blacks themselves. We have even seen a return of the pseudo-scientific racism that inspired the eugenics movement with the publication and subsequent success of The Bell Curve.

In the typical cowardly tradition of white liberalism, Kerry has in large part bought into the notion that blacks themselves are responsible for their misery. While he agrees that white racism still exists, he only makes a fleeting mention of it before going on to attack black people. As part of his solution, Kerry says we must focus on "law and order," and has called for a large increase in the number of police officers on the beat. In reality, crime is a symptom of racial inequality, not a cause of it. The first candidate to make "law and order" a major campaign issue was Richard Nixon. The "law and order" message was in response to a series of ghetto uprisings that started in Detroit in 1967 and spread across the country like wildfire. The "law and order" theme was an integral part of the infamous and misleadingly-named "Southern Strategy," which played upon the racial fears of the white majority to win elections.

In other words, when a politician talks about being "tough on crime," what he's really saying is "If you vote for me, I'll put all those scary black people in jail where you won't have to worry about them anymore." Kerry says "we cannot equate fear of crime with racism," but that is precisely what it is in many cases. Violent crime is usually associated with images of black males on TV news at night. Never mind that white people are much more likely to be attacked by another white person. Never mind that "white-collar" crime costs the country far more than all the robberies and petty thefts combined. While most white folks think of cops as "our" upstanding "Boys in Blue" whose primary goal is to keep "us" safe, to black people, cops are blackshirt thugs that keep them relegated to a colonized status in their own country. The word "order" can have very different connotations depending on which side of that "order" you're on. The only street that could use a few extra cops in America is Wall Street, but don't expect Kerry to do anything beyond a few token reforms to beef up law enforcement there.

Another response to the "race riots" of the late 1960s was the Kerner Report, which famously stated that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white_separate and unequal." Far from blaming black criminality, the report said that "white racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end o World War II." As a remedy the report suggested more vigorous enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and extending affirmative action. It also called for numerous reforms in housing, education, and welfare. Nixon denounced the report, saying it was too divisive: "What we need is more talk about reconciliation, more about how we're going to work together." Kerry made similar remarks when he said "we must rebuild the consensus that brought us the civil rights movement in the first place." In other words, the overriding concern of white liberals is to avoid racial conflict rather than achieve racial justice. Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently denounced this kind of behavior in his famous letter from a Birmingham jail:

"I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action'; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advised the Negro to wait until a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will."

In addition to the mistake of placing "order" and "harmony" over equity and justice, Kerry makes the mistake of treating racism as an attitude or a psychological abberration of some kind when he says, "The truth is that affirmative action has kept America thinking in racial terms." Actually, racism has kept America thinking in racial terms; not that people "thinking in racial terms" is of any significance in the first place. The matters of importance are the deep-seated inequalities embedded in the institutions of American society, not the "terms" that people are thinking in. People who adhere to this naive conception of racism seem to believe that if black and white people get together, hold hands, and sing "Kumbaya," all of our racial problems will disappear. It's easy to understand why treating racism as an attitude has so much appeal to white folks. It takes the focus away from the vast array of privileges that we enjoy as a result of the color of our skin. As Dr. King pointed out in that same letter, "History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily."

So excuse me if I don't shed any tears for the white people who feel like their government has "abandoned" them. In reality, no group has received more support and subsidy from the government than white people. After World War II white people took billions of dollars in loans from the government and used it to buy homes in the suburbs. Those loans were essentially off limits to black people, and now that generation of white folks is handing down trillions of dollars in government-created wealth to their white progeny_and that is just one striking example. Yet when the government steps in to help people of color, whites recoil in horror, crying "reverse discrimination." This isn't new. Right after the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson complained that the 1866 Civil Rights Act was "made to operate in favor of the colored race and against the white race." In 1883, Supreme Court justice Joseph Bradley said it was "time for the Negro to seize being the special favorite of the laws and instead assume his place amongst all others in society." This was only a few short years after chattel slavery had been abolished.

Kerry criticizes the "culture of dependency" he says exists in black America, echoing the fears of Reconstruction critics who claimed blacks were becoming "permanent wards of the state," as was the popular phrase of the time. Presumably, he is talking about the number of black people on welfare, even though most welfare recipients are white. Kerry voted for Clinton's vicious welfare reform bill in another of his cynical attempts to appear "moderate." The "generations of welfare families" that Kerry talks about are a virtual nonentity. Even before welfare reform, over 80% of all welfare recipients stayed on the program for 5 years or less. There are "generations of welfare families" that taxpayers ought to be concerned about, but their names aren't Tamika and Latoya; their names are Rockefeller and Morgan. White-owned corporations have been sucking away at the public trough much longer and much harder than black single mothers ever have or ever will, but again, don't expect Kerry to do anything serious about it.

The lowest point in Kerry's speech is when he stereotypes urban communities as having "a violent, drug-ridden, rat-infested reality," without ever mentioning how those conditions came to be. He apparently chalks it up to the inability of black people to obey the law and stay off welfare. He doesn't mention the fact that while the government was subsidizing "white flight" to the suburbs, it was denying those loans to black people. He doesn't mention the rampant "redlining" of black communities or racist lending practices by banks that saddled black people with crippling debt. He doesn't mention the process of "urban renewal," and how it displaced black residents and tore apart their communities to make way for strip malls and highways designed to make it easier for white folks to make it to the city from their new suburban homes. He doesn't mention the rampant racial discrimination that goes on to this day in the housing and banking industries that make it nearly impossible for people of color to get out of the "ghetto" even if they want to. As a result of these practices, whites with only $13,000 in annual income are more likely to own their own home than blacks who make $48,000 a year.

Then again, the fact that black people are less likely to get those loans means that white people are more likely to get them, which brings us back to the question of white privilege. During the civil rights era, white people were dragged kicking and screaming down the road of racial progress by the black protest movement. There was no "consensus" between whites and blacks that allowed for progress to be made, as Kerry claims, and there never has been. White people vigorously defend and justify their privileges just as any privileged group would. Kerry's capitulation to the white backlash and endorsement of "blaming the victim" type explanations for racial inequity indicate that he would not hesitate to turn back the clock on racial justice if the political climate pushed him in that direction. While his campaign platform says some promising things about supporting affirmative action and low-cost housing initiatives, it is unclear from his record and past statements that he understands why those things are necessary, how necessary they are, or how sincere he is in saying he supports them. Remember, this is the same Kerry who criticizes the Iraq war, the Patriot act, and numerous other things he actually supported in the past.

If Kerry needs proof that affirmative action is not "reverse discrimination" and is actually a measure designed to level a playing field that is tipped heavily in favor of whites, here is a short (and by no means exhaustive) list of studies for him to consider:

- A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research indicated that after sending out 1,300 dummy resumes, black-sounding names were 50 percent less likely to get a callback than white-sounding names with comparable resumes.

- Devah Pager, a sociologist at Northwestern University, conducted a study in Milwaukee which showed whites with a criminal record were more likely to be hired for a job than similarly qualified blacks with no criminal record.

- A recent study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition showed that subprime lending activity typically increases in neighborhoods with greater numbers of blacks, even when other factors such as income, creditworthiness and housing are constant.

- According to a study by the Russell Sage Foundation, blacks are 36-44 percent less likely to be hired in white suburbs even if they search for work longer and more aggressively and are equally qualified to their white counterparts.

- Estimates by the Urban Institute indicate that blacks lose over $120 billion in wages due to labor market discrimination every year.

- The Wall Street Journal has reported that almost 70 percent of whites with poor credit are still able to receive a mortgage loan whereas only 16 percent of blacks with equally poor credit could do the same.

These are the facts that Kerry should be talking about; not the fact that a bunch of over-privileged white people feel neglected by their government. Those of us with white skin are in no position to be complaining about racial exclusion. We are all stockholders in a corporation called white supremacy, and we profit from that investment on a daily basis. We don't have to worry about being racially profiled by the cops on the way to work and we don't have to worry about being denied a promotion because of our skin color once we get there. Kerry's overriding concern for harmony between the races echoes claims by Southern segregationists that desegregation would only harm black people by "increasing racial tension." Similar arguments were made by advocates of slavery.

In other words, it doesn't matter how much lip service Kerry gives to his alleged devotion to improving the conditions of black people. Bill Clinton pandered to blacks more than any president in American history and ended up doing virtually nothing for them once in office. Black voters need to hold Kerry's feet to the fire and force him to make a strong commitment both to affirmative action and other measures that are necessary to promote racial justice.

Any Democrat is better than Bush

Name:	English teacher
To:	Whitey
Re:	The "N" word

Message:
White people must not use certain language. Don't you know? Don't be an idiot. Only black people are allowed to openly discuss race and use such verbiage.

Now that hardcore racism and discrimination is in full retreat, integration is being retarded by cultural territorialism and an abundance of excessive sensitivity. It's made fun of by Chan's goof in Rush Hour, but in real life the examples are twice as ridiculous. In early 1999, Washington DC's mayoral aide David Howard was forced to resign after using the word “rdly” in a private staff meeting. “rdly” means to be miserly (you know, being a total jew with money), and dates back to middle English. It raised hackles, however, especially with the H.N.I.C.: DC Mayor Anthony Williams.

This word rdly is so potent with the oversensitive, in fact, that it also got a North Carolina teacher reprimanded for teaching it to a fourth-grade class. The teacher, of course, is a honkie and according to her reprimand letter is also “lacking sensitivity to the school's diverse population of students and not being aware of cultural differences.” She was sentenced to sensitivity training upon threat of suspension (presumably so she could be taught to notice the presence of darkies in her classroom and treat them differently).

Name:	truth monger
To:	forum
Re:	interesting information

In response to:
check this link out for the truth shall set you free, all information in this is verified thru a indepentant agency

Name:	Talkmaster
Re:	Positive job news

Message:
It would seem that March was a pretty good month for job creation. Preliminary figures show that there were more new jobs created in March than in any month since 2000. How many? About 120,000. There are predictions that as many as one million jobs or more may be created before the election.

Kerry knows the numbers look good, and he needs a way to overshadow the latest statistics. So ... he has now come up with some sort of a grand plan to create 10 million new jobs.

sKerry says he will put forward a comprehensive economic plan in the coming weeks to create these 10 million new jobs. What a load of nonsense. First of all, the government does not create jobs. Jobs are created in the private sector. All John Kerry would do would be to propose legislation that would kill jobs. But that is not what gets reported. And what about the 10 million figure? Where does that come from?

Do you want to know how sKerry would "create" these jobs? Government spending, that's how. Take money out of the private sector, where jobs are created based on the free interaction of a free people in an arena of economic liberty, and use that money to create massive public works projects to put these people to work for government instead of the private sector. Kerry will also come up with plans to seize money from the private sector by way of taxes, and then redistribute that money back to the private sector to create government subsidized jobs.

Bottom line ... jobs aren't a problem. The economy is growing, and the private sector is creating jobs at a swift pace. Here's a little quiz: Just what was the unemployment rate at the end of the third years of Clinton's presidency. Why, since you asked, it was 5.6%. And what was the unemployment rate at the end of the third year of Bush's presidency? Sure! Happy to tell you! It was 5.6%.

Name:	XYZ
To:	John Kerry

Message:
Since you are so fond of quoting scripture for political gain, here's one from the same book (James) you quoted yesterday:

Name:	Hillary Sucks Donkeys
To:	So Does Hillary Supporter
Re:	Government lending porgrams must be abolished.

In response to:
So excuse me if I don't shed any tears for the white people who feel like their government has "abandoned" them. In reality, no group has received more support and subsidy from the government than white people. After World War II white people took billions of dollars in loans from the government and used it to buy homes in the suburbs.

Message:
YOU DUMB SH!T! THE "WHITE" PEOPLE PAID THE GOD DAMNED TAXES! WHERE DO YOU THINK THE GOVERNMENT GOT THE MONEY FROM, YOU STUDID BAG OF CATSH!T??

Name:

Like Sands Through The Hour Glass

Message:
So will the DNC do a last second switcheroo? Will Lurch get benched ala Toricelli? Will Hillary fly in on her broom to "save" the party? They should make a soap opera outta this... oh wait, they did. It was the FIRST Clinton Presidency...

Name:	Venus Flytrap (snicker)
To:	Entralled
Re:	Hillary Messiah

In response to:
So will the DNC do a last second switcheroo? Will Lurch get benched ala Toricelli? Will Hillary fly in on her broom to "save" the party? They should make a soap opera outta this... oh wait, they did. It was the FIRST Clinton Presidency...

Message:
She will ride Bill Clinton himself into the gloomy convention hall wearing elevator shoes and carrying an enormous bullwhip. She will dismount directly in front of the podium, violently kick it over, and punch Kerry's lights out with one swift jab. She will then step over his crumpled form, face the conventioneers, crack the whip thunderously, raise her left fist in the familiar revolutionary gesture, and roar out "I am HERE!". The little donkeys will rend their garments and go utterly, mindlessly wild as they succumb en masse to the greatest simultaneous orgasm in the history of the universe!

"Israel has a right to defend itself," said President Bush. And against whom was Israel defending itself at dawn on Monday?

A half-blind and deaf paraplegic being wheeled out of a mosque after prayers, Sheik Ahmed Yassin was struck by missiles that blew him to pieces. In carrying out the assassination of the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Ariel Sharon used a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship. Thus, in Islamic eyes, we are passive accomplices in the killing.

Instantly, protests erupted in Mosul and Basra. Ayatollah al-Sistani, the Shiite leader on whom we depend for a peaceful transfer of power in Iraq, was enraged: "[T]his morning, the occupying Zionist entity committed an ugly crime against the Palestinian people by killing one of their heroes, scholar-martyr Ahmed Yassin."

Sharon's defenders say the sheik had sanctioned terror attacks on innocent Israelis. But why did Israel not then seize him, expose his complicity in murder, and put him in prison, as Israel had before? Why convert this crippled old sheik into a martyr-saint? Why enhance the prestige of Hamas?

Has the killing made Israel more secure? If so, why were Israeli buses deserted all week? Has it made us more secure? Why then were the travel advisories issued to Americans in the Middle East? Why are U.S. embassies shutting down? How does inflaming the Islamic world against us advance the president's goal of persuading the world that Islam is not America's enemy?

President Bush must begin to realize that his blind solidarity with Sharon, who has shown himself contemptuous of America's interests in the larger region, is among the greatest crosses we have to bear in the war on terror.

A year after the fall of Baghdad, Bush's men are boasting of his triumphs – the overthrow of the Taliban, the liberation of Iraq, not one act of terror on U.S. soil in two years. But consider the war from bin Laden's vantage point.

The murderous strike of 9-11 electrified America-haters, but produced blowback and near total disaster for bin Laden. In weeks, Bush had united a great coalition, smashed the Taliban and almost finished Osama himself at Tora Bora. Then came Iraq.

Here Bush played straight into bin Laden's hand. By attacking a prostrate Arab nation that played no role in 9-11, we united Arab and Islamic peoples in hatred of America. We shattered alliances and ignited a guerrilla war.

According to a Pew poll, U.S. prestige in the Muslim world has never been lower. Bush is widely detested. In Pakistan, 65 percent of the people hold Osama in high regard, while 8 percent are positive on Bush. We are losing the hearts and minds of the Islamic young, creating a spawning pool out of which future terrorists will emerge.

Now, an attack in Madrid has left 200 dead and blown a hole in our coalition. A socialist has come to power who intends to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq. Poland, too, has begun to waver

As Bush wins battles, Osama advances toward his strategic goals: Demonization of America as the enemy of Islam, isolation of America as an imperialist aggressor against Arab nations and the enabler of Sharon, and unification of Islam's young behind bin Laden's ultimate war aim: the expulsion of America from all Muslim lands.

The legendary Col. John Boyd described strategy as appending to oneself as many centers of power as possible, while isolating one's enemy from as many centers of power as possible.

Bush I did this brilliantly in the Gulf War, isolating Saddam. Bush II did it brilliantly in the Afghan war, isolating the Taliban. Now Bush has fallen into the trap his father avoided. He is letting Ariel Sharon create the perception that America's war and Israel's war are one and the same.

In the Middle East, Sharon has no friends. He does not care whom he alienates. But we are a world power with friend, allies and interests in 22 Arab and 57 Muslim countries.

To protect our interests, to win our war on al-Qaida, it is imperative that we not let ourselves become as isolated as Israel is today.

Between America and Israel, there are thus common interests and a collision of interests. Sharon does not want us to confine our war on terror to those who attacked us on 9-11. He wants us to expand our list of enemies to include his list of enemies: Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia. He wants us to escalate "the firemen's war" into an American war on Israel's enemies, so, together, we can establish joint hegemony in the Middle East.

If Sharon and his acolytes in the Bush administration succeed in conflating Sharon's war with America's war, we could lose our war. Why cannot the president see what is going on? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pat Buchanan ill Richardson; all the rest are sabacious pervo-crooks like Hillarie or Fast Eddie.

Name:	ET
To:	Smedley

In response to:
Wrong. According to the latest polls, people believe that both Kerry and Bush should tone it down, but that Kerry is worse than Bush, to wit: "Kerry, the target of weeks of Bush attack ads in key battleground states, has been hit the hardest. He has suffered a slight dip in his personal ratings and fallen behind or into a dead heat with Bush in most national surveys after holding small leads earlier in the month."

Message:
Cool the personal insults at me personally, and stop using my name. I don't use yours so play the game like a gentleman. You are losing your demeanor and acting crazy.

The Bush Team should not get down with in the gutter and play dirty. They should conduct themselves in an exemplary manner and rise above the sh*t. By taking the low road they are signalling to us that they are in trouble and scared.

This is very bad political strategy if you are in power, unless you think you are going to lose. I know the polls show that Kerry and Bush are even but Bush and the right-wingers are panicking and resorting to trash fighting.

Even you, and some of the regulars have taken to smearing me personally. Keep up the dirty work and the right will "hoist themselves on their own petard"

I'm sending you guys on the right a message: Kerry is easy to beat, but you must beat him on the issues not with smearing, lies, fake photos and impugning his military record.

Name:	Sonof PurpleHeart
To:	ET
Re:	Since Kerry's Website Practices Censorship

In response to:
I'm sending you guys on the right a message: Kerry is easy to beat, but you must beat him on the issues not with smearing, lies, fake photos and impugning his military record.

Message:
ONE fake photo, QUICKLY repudiated by everyone on the right. Kerry has PLENTY of REAL skeletons ready to rattle his his cage.

Name:	XYZ
To:	ET

In response to:
This is very bad political strategy if you are in power, unless you think you are going to lose. I know the polls show that Kerry and Bush are even but Bush and the right-wingers are panicking and resorting to trash fighting.

Message:
The Bush team is confident. Flip-Flop Kerry and team drew first blood and now they do not like a taste of their own medicine. The polls at this point in time are meaningless. Neither the Bush team or Republicans are panicking, as there is no reason to.

The most intriguing question in this campaign is when will Hillary Clinton completely derail, sabotage, and destroy John Kerry to assure George W. Bush a 2nd Presidential term?

Name:	Talkmaster
To:	ET

In response to:
Kerry is easy to beat, but you must beat him on the issues

Name:	Sonof PurpleHeart
To:	ET
Re:	Since Kerry's Website Purges Any Questions They Don't like

Message:
All Senator Kerry has to do is release his records...like the DNC challenged Bush to do..

In the 1990s, hard-line national security experts outside the government regarded Richard Clarke as a rare kindred soul inside the Clinton administration. That's mainly why he alone of Bill Clinton's senior team was kept on by George W. Bush. So, how did Clarke become President Bush's scourge, taken very seriously at the White House as a threat to the re-election campaign?

The answer lies with personality rather than ideology, with personal relations rather than political strategy. Clarke is now painted as a miscreant by Republicans and as a martyr by Democrats, but he really is a super-bureaucrat accustomed to working behind closed doors who has been thrust into the public arena. Downgraded and disrespected at the Bush White House, he became an anti-Bush activist with his testimony last week.

Clarke had complained to friends about the Clinton administration's weakness on terrorism, and probably expected to prosper in a Republican environment. Instead, he has become a leading witness for the Democratic prosecution. His past frustration with Clinton is minimized in his book Against All Enemies, which excoriates Bush.

Until the past week, Clarke was best known inside Washington as one of the most skilled manipulators ever of the national security bureaucracy. He is the hero of journalist Richard Miniter's 2003 book, Losing Bin Laden, a scathing exposure of Clinton's anti-terrorism failings. Clarke was described as ''blunt, tough and unrelenting'' in pursuing terrorist Ramzi Yousef, sought in the first World Trade Center bombing. ''Imagine what he could have accomplished if Clinton had publicly endorsed his efforts,'' Miniter wrote.

Clarke was not only the hero but also obviously a prime source of Losing Bin Laden. Miniter for the first time revealed, directly quoting Clarke, the meeting of Cabinet-level officials on Oct. 12, 2000, after the terrorist attack on the USS Cole. The vote was 7-1 against an attack on Osama bin Laden. Only Clarke wanted action.

In his own book, Clarke quickly brushes off the Cole meeting that he described in detail to Miniter. Instead of complaining about Clinton's failure to come to grips with al-Qaida and bin Laden, Clarke recites what sounds like Democratic talking points. He even interprets U.S. intervention in Bosnia as having ''defeated al-Qaida,'' adding that Clinton ''had seen earlier than anyone that terrorism would be the major new threat facing America.''

Clarke's experience with the Bush administration appeared to heighten his appreciation of Clinton. Whereas he had briefed Clinton, Bush was briefed by CIA Director George Tenet. Clarke found himself at ''deputies'' rather than ''principals'' meetings. The final indignity was his rejection by Secretary Tom Ridge for a high-ranking Homeland Security post.

While Clarke had worked closely with Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger in bureaucratic maneuvers to further Clarke's anti-terrorist agenda, Condoleezza Rice as Berger's successor was not engaged. Clarke described her to close associates as ''shallow.''

Beyond Rice, friends say, Clarke felt uncomfortable with the conservatives brought in by George W. Bush as he had not felt with George H.W. Bush's or certainly Clinton's team. The White House team is not hospitable to outsiders, and Clarke was surely an outsider.

Clarke since he left the government is described by friends as becoming much closer to Rand Beers, who succeeded him as chief terrorist official in the Bush administration. Beers quit his high-ranking post to become Sen. John Kerry's foreign policy adviser. Since then, Clarke and Beers have been collaborating.

That Beers is a registered Democrat and Clarke says he is a registered (but never an active) Republican is inconsequential. Clarke's only political contributions in 2002 and 2004 were to two former colleagues on the Clinton National Security Council staff who are running for Congress as Democrats.

While Clarke testified under oath last week that he would not join a Kerry administration, he is now, in effect, part of the Kerry campaign. His book's publication was timed to coincide with his testimony, and his transformed posture is one of political partisan.

Name:	SonofPurpleHeart
To:	ET
Re:	Since you shouldn't smear a vet unless he speaks against Kerry

Message:
If you want to see "smears" and "distortions" check out Kerry's internet Townhall, any veteran that writes an opinion against Kerry is subjected to ridicule and scorn.

Name:	TE
To:	mean mean anyone not like mean hillie is mean
Re:	Demmies need those govt. connections, they ain't making it in the real world

In response to:
I'm sending you guys on the right a message: Kerry is easy to beat, but you must beat him on the issues not with smearing, lies, fake photos and impugning his military record.

Message:
Yeah you guys - - those methods are reserved by Hillary Clinton and her saps to use against Republicans!!

Name:	Milan
To:	fair play
Re:	Buchanon's rant

Message:
1) "Israel has a right to defend itself," said President Bush. And against whom was Israel defending itself at dawn on Monday? ...A half-blind and deaf paraplegic being wheeled out of a mosque after prayers

RESPONSE: Using a criminal's physical state as an "entitelement" for special treatment is a pathetic tactic of the left. Buchanon is getting REALLY desperate.

2) But why did Israel not then seize him, expose his complicity in murder, and put him in prison, as Israel had before?

RESPONSE: Why doesn't the U.S. do everything possible to seize Bin Laden alive? So what if this is a war. The poor guy has failing kidneys...

3) How does inflaming the Islamic world against us advance the president's goal of persuading the world that Islam is not America's enemy?

RESPONSE: The people who are inflamed were never our allies in the first place. It's high time these fair weather friends came out of the closet to show their true colors. Our "engagement" with Saudi Arabia only resulted in 80% of America's mosques dominated by radical Muslim leadership, a growing 5th column in our prisons and our universities, and the lax security that lead to 9/11.

4) By attacking a prostrate Arab nation that played no role in 9-11, we united Arab and Islamic peoples in hatred of America.

RESPONSE: The humanitarian and military cost of keeping Iraq contained was on the top of Al Qaeda's reasons for 9/11. As life in Iraq improves, this trend will subside.

RESPONSE: The only true isolationist is in this picture are our fair weather "friends" in old Europe. It's high time they showed their true colors too.

As for the "guerilla war" which get increasingly depraved as they get weaker, it is making Bin Laden much less appealing to the Iraqis. In a captured document from Iraq, a senior Al-Qaeda leader laments the difficulty in recruiting Iraqis.

6) According to a Pew poll, U.S. prestige in the Muslim world has never been lower. Bush is widely detested.

RESPONSE: This is the same culture that praises Bin Laden, and mourns the death of on of (Yassin) on of the most depraved terrorist leaders. Do you think we should care what they think of America anymore?

RESPONSE: Is this America's fault? Buchanon is getting desperate again. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Pretty soon, Pacifica radio will asking him to do a regular show. Move over Ramsey Clark!

8) The legendary Col. John Boyd described strategy as appending to oneself as many centers of power as possible, while isolating one's enemy from as many centers of power as possible. Bush I did this brilliantly in the Gulf War, isolating Saddam.

RESPONSE: Culminating in a costly containment campaign with U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, 500 Iraqi civilians dead from sactions, an "oil for food" program that did little to help the Iraqi people as it bought Saddam influence abroad, while further corrupting the U.N.

9) To protect our interests, to win our war on al-Qaida, it is imperative that we not let ourselves become as isolated as Israel is today.

RESPONSE: De-evoltution is happening all around: The reaction of most European leaders to Yassin's assasination shows exactly how far they strayed from the values that made Western civilization so great. Thank God that our leaders have the backbone to still acknowledge Israel's right to self-defense.

10) Sharon ... wants us to escalate "the firemen's war" into an American war on Israel's enemies, so, together, we can establish joint hegemony in the Middle East.

RESPONSE: Jeeze...is starting to sound like those crazies from Egypt's "El-Ahram" newspaper who wallow in conspiracy theories.

Name:	Milan
Re:	CORRECTION!

In response to:
RESPONSE: Culminating in a costly containment campaign with U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, 500 Iraqi civilians dead from sactions, an "oil for food" program that did little to help the Iraqi people as it bought Saddam influence abroad, while further corrupting the U.N.