A guy who mimed being a fighter pilot on a carrier versus a guy who
mimed throwing his medals over a fence?
An incumbent who sticks with the wrong decisions based on the wrong
facts versus a challenger who seems unable to stick to one side of any
decision, right or wrong?
A Republican who's a world-class optimist, despite making the world
more dangerous and virulently anti-American, versus a Democrat who looks
like a world-weary loner, even as he pledges to make the world safer and
more pro-American?
A president who can't go anywhere without his vice president to give
him the answers versus a candidate who can't go anywhere without his
campaign butler/buddy to give him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?
Bush campaign strategists don't seem worried that every positive
development the administration predicted would happen if we invaded Iraq
has soured into the opposite.
As an article on Monday in The Times noted about the growing ranks of
angry Muslims: "The call to jihad is rising in the streets of
Europe, and is being answered."
Communing with the Higher Father and the Almighty,
President Bush has either stumbled into a Holy War or swaggered into
one.
In their new book, "The Bushes," Peter and Rochelle
Schweizer, who interviewed many Bushes, including the president's father
and his brother Jeb, quote one unnamed relative as saying that W. sees
the war on terror "as a religious war": "He doesn't have
a P.C. view of this war. His view of this is that they are trying to
kill the Christians. And we the Christians will strike back with more
force and more ferocity than they will ever know."
Bush strategists seem to believe that the worse Mr. Bush makes
things, the better off he is, because nervous Americans will cling to
the obstinate president they know over the vacillating challenger they
don't know.
Senator Kerry's talent for turning a winning proposition into a losing
one is disturbingly reminiscent of Al Gore, who somehow managed to lose
an election he won. So is Mr. Kerry's sometimes supercilious manner, and
his habit of exacerbating a small thing with an answer that is not quite
straight.
When the senator was asked last week whether he owned a gas-scarfing
Chevy Suburban S.U.V., he replied, "I don't own an S.U.V.,"
only to have to admit, when pressed further by reporters, that his wife
owns the S.U.V. "The family has it," he said lamely. "I
don't have it."
The White House pounds Mr. Kerry for not playing straight on
small-bore stuff, even as they don't play straight on huge-bore stuff.
The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, pronounced the
administration "in denial" yesterday, after hearing Condi
Rice's briefing for House Democratic lawmakers.
"This is an administration that told us that our troops would be
welcomed with roses," Representative Pelosi said. "Instead,
it's rocket-propelled grenades. This is an administration that told us
that the Iraqi government would be able to pay for its own
reconstruction, and soon. And now it's costing nearly $200 billion to
the American people."
She added: "And it was expressed by the national security
adviser now that yes, there was disappointment — disappointment? —
about the Iraqi security forces not being able to secure the region that
they were assigned to. And this is the judgment that the American people
have placed their confidence in?"
Mr. Kerry errs on the side of giving the answer he thinks people want
to hear, even as Mr. Bush errs on the side of giving the answer he
expects people to accept as true.
When the president was asked yesterday by a reporter whether it would
take an all-out military offensive to put down the violence in Falluja,
and whether this would impede the transfer of power on June 30, he was
reassuring, despite news of the aerial bombardment of Falluja by U.S.
gunships and the 70-ton battle tanks being rushed in to aid marines in
the escalating fight.
"Most of Falluja is returning to normal," the president
said, presumably defining normal as flattened.
Anyway, is that 10 minutes to normal, as Karen Hughes would say? Or
10 years to normal? And what on earth is normal, when you're talking
about Iraq chaos theory?
In response to: ''If you can't say 'f-uc-k', you can't say 'f-u-ck the government.'''
-- LENNY BRUCE
Message: Books, movies, music, art, medical texts...Who turned out the lights? Is this the new dark ages? ET ? We have seen their enemy and they is us... I know what Hell looks like. Imagine a world where no one is offended. A world where the level of discourse is brought down to the lowest common denominator. A world that is 'safe for children.' A world that does not go beyond the intellectual level of a Barney episode. Those who say it can not be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it. You can and should shape your own future; if you don't someone else surely will! Vote Kerry!
TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up
does the responsibility go?
In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty
miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons,
with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as
fifty thousand men and women—no accurate count is possible—were
jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that
were little more than human holding pits.
In the looting that followed the regime’s collapse, last April, the
huge prison complex, by then deserted, was stripped of everything that
could be removed, including doors, windows, and bricks. The coalition
authorities had the floors tiled, cells cleaned and repaired, and
toilets, showers, and a new medical center added. Abu Ghraib was now a
U.S. military prison. Most of the prisoners, however—by the fall there
were several thousand, including women and teen-agers—were civilians,
many of whom had been picked up in random military sweeps and at highway
checkpoints. They fell into three loosely defined categories: common
criminals; security detainees suspected of “crimes against the
coalition”; and a small number of suspected “high-value” leaders
of the insurgency against the coalition forces.
Last June, Janis Karpinski, an Army reserve brigadier general, was
named commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade and put in charge
of military prisons in Iraq. General Karpinski, the only female
commander in the war zone, was an experienced operations and
intelligence officer who had served with the Special Forces and in the
1991 Gulf War, but she had never run a prison system. Now she was in
charge of three large jails, eight battalions, and thirty-four hundred
Army reservists, most of whom, like her, had no training in handling
prisoners.
General Karpinski, who had wanted to be a soldier since she was five,
is a business consultant in civilian life, and was enthusiastic about
her new job. In an interview last December with the St. Petersburg Times,
she said that, for many of the Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib, “living
conditions now are better in prison than at home. At one point we were
concerned that they wouldn’t want to leave.”
A month later, General Karpinski was formally admonished and quietly
suspended, and a major investigation into the Army’s prison system,
authorized by Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior
commander in Iraq, was under way. A fifty-three-page report, obtained by
The New Yorker, written by Major General
Antonio M. Taguba and not meant for public release, was completed in
late February. Its conclusions about the institutional failures of the
Army prison system were devastating. Specifically, Taguba found that
between October and December of 2003 there were numerous instances of
“sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. This
systematic and illegal abuse of detainees, Taguba reported, was
perpetrated by soldiers of the 372nd Military Police Company, and also
by members of the American intelligence community. (The 372nd was
attached to the 320th M.P. Battalion, which reported to Karpinski’s
brigade headquarters.) Taguba’s report listed some of the wrongdoing:
Breaking chemical lights and
pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked
detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;
threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard
to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed
against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical
light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to
frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one
instance actually biting a detainee.
There was stunning evidence to support the allegations, Taguba
added—“detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely
graphic photographic evidence.” Photographs and videos taken by the
soldiers as the abuses were happening were not included in his report,
Taguba said, because of their “extremely sensitive nature.”
The photographs—several of which were broadcast on CBS’s “60
Minutes 2” last week—show leering G.I.s taunting naked Iraqi
prisoners who are forced to assume humiliating poses. Six
suspects—Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick II, known as Chip, who was
the senior enlisted man; Specialist Charles A. Graner; Sergeant Javal
Davis; Specialist Megan Ambuhl; Specialist Sabrina Harman; and Private
Jeremy Sivits—are now facing prosecution in Iraq, on charges that
include conspiracy, dereliction of duty, cruelty toward prisoners,
maltreatment, assault, and indecent acts. A seventh suspect, Private
Lynndie England, was reassigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after
becoming pregnant.
The photographs tell it all. In one, Private England, a cigarette
dangling from her mouth, is giving a jaunty thumbs-up sign and pointing
at the genitals of a young Iraqi, who is naked except for a sandbag over
his head, as he masturbates. Three other hooded and naked Iraqi
prisoners are shown, hands reflexively crossed over their genitals. A
fifth prisoner has his hands at his sides. In another, England stands
arm in arm with Specialist Graner; both are grinning and giving the
thumbs-up behind a cluster of perhaps seven naked Iraqis, knees bent,
piled clumsily on top of each other in a pyramid. There is another
photograph of a cluster of naked prisoners, again piled in a pyramid.
Near them stands Graner, smiling, his arms crossed; a woman soldier
stands in front of him, bending over, and she, too, is smiling. Then,
there is another cluster of hooded bodies, with a female soldier
standing in front, taking photographs. Yet another photograph shows a
kneeling, naked, unhooded male prisoner, head momentarily turned away
from the camera, posed to make it appear that he is performing oral sex
on another male prisoner, who is naked and hooded.
Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is
especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law
and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard
Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University,
explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate,
being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,”
Haykel said.
Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead
men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied
body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There
is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.
The 372nd’s abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine—a fact of
Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide. On April 9th, at an
Article 32 hearing (the military equivalent of a grand jury) in the case
against Sergeant Frederick, at Camp Victory, near Baghdad, one of the
witnesses, Specialist Matthew Wisdom, an M.P., told the courtroom what
happened when he and other soldiers delivered seven prisoners, hooded
and bound, to the so-called “hard site” at Abu Ghraib—seven tiers
of cells where the inmates who were considered the most dangerous were
housed. The men had been accused of starting a riot in another section
of the prison. Wisdom said:
SFC Snider grabbed my prisoner and
threw him into a pile. . . . I do not think it was right to put them in
a pile. I saw SSG Frederic, SGT Davis and CPL Graner walking around the
pile hitting the prisoners. I remember SSG Frederick hitting one
prisoner in the side of its [sic] ribcage. The prisoner was no danger to
SSG Frederick. . . . I left after that.
When he returned later, Wisdom testified:
I saw two naked detainees, one
masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open. I thought I should
just get out of there. I didn’t think it was right . . . I saw SSG
Frederick walking towards me, and he said, “Look what these animals do
when you leave them alone for two seconds.” I heard PFC England shout
out, “He’s getting hard.”
Wisdom testified that he told his superiors what had happened, and
assumed that “the issue was taken care of.” He said, “I just
didn’t want to be part of anything that looked criminal.”
The abuses became public because of the outrage of
Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the
Article 32 hearing against Chip Frederick. A government witness, Special
Agent Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army’s Criminal
Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an
abridged transcript made available to me, “The investigation started
after SPC Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across
pictures of naked detainees.” Bobeck said that Darby had “initially
put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and
gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was
very wrong.”
Questioned further, the Army investigator said that Frederick and his
colleagues had not been given any “training guidelines” that he was
aware of. The M.P.s in the 372nd had been assigned to routine traffic
and police duties upon their arrival in Iraq, in the spring of 2003. In
October of 2003, the 372nd was ordered to prison-guard duty at Abu
Ghraib. Frederick, at thirty-seven, was far older than his colleagues,
and was a natural leader; he had also worked for six years as a guard
for the Virginia Department of Corrections. Bobeck explained:
What I got is that SSG Frederick
and CPL Graner were road M.P.s and were put in charge because they were
civilian prison guards and had knowledge of how things were supposed to
be run.
Bobeck also testified that witnesses had said that Frederick, on one
occasion, “had punched a detainee in the chest so hard that the
detainee almost went into cardiac arrest.”
At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his
attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a
civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General
Karpinski and all of Frederick’s co-defendants, would not appear. Some
had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others
were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. “The purpose of an
Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts,”
Gary Myers told me. “We ended up with a c.i.d. agent and no alleged
victims to examine.” After the hearing, the presiding investigative
officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a
court-martial against Frederick.
Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai
prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client’s
defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors
and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said,
“Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do
this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make
them talk was to have them walk around nude?”
In letters and e-mails to family members, Frederick repeatedly noted
that the military-intelligence teams, which included C.I.A. officers and
linguists and interrogation specialists from private defense
contractors, were the dominant force inside Abu Ghraib. In a letter
written in January, he said:
I questioned some of the things
that I saw . . . such things as leaving inmates in their cell with no
clothes or in female underpants, handcuffing them to the door of their
cell—and the answer I got was, “This is how military intelligence
(MI) wants it done.” . . . . MI has also instructed us to place a
prisoner in an isolation cell with little or no clothes, no toilet or
running water, no ventilation or window, for as much as three days.
The military-intelligence officers have “encouraged and told us,
‘Great job,’ they were now getting positive results and
information,” Frederick wrote. “CID has been present when the
military working dogs were used to intimidate prisoners at MI’s
request.” At one point, Frederick told his family, he pulled aside his
superior officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Phillabaum, the commander of
the 320th M.P. Battalion, and asked about the mistreatment of prisoners.
“His reply was ‘Don’t worry about it.’”
In November, Frederick wrote, an Iraqi prisoner under the control of
what the Abu Ghraib guards called “O.G.A.,” or other government
agencies—that is, the C.I.A. and its paramilitary employees—was
brought to his unit for questioning. “They stressed him out so bad
that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him
in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. . . . The next
day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in
his arm and took him away.” The dead Iraqi was never entered into the
prison’s inmate-control system, Frederick recounted, “and therefore
never had a number.”
Frederick’s defense is, of course, highly
self-serving. But the complaints in his letters and e-mails home were
reinforced by two internal Army reports—Taguba’s and one by the
Army’s chief law-enforcement officer, Provost Marshal Donald Ryder, a
major general.
Last fall, General Sanchez ordered Ryder to review the prison system
in Iraq and recommend ways to improve it. Ryder’s report, filed on
November 5th, concluded that there were potential human-rights,
training, and manpower issues, system-wide, that needed immediate
attention. It also discussed serious concerns about the tension between
the missions of the military police assigned to guard the prisoners and
the intelligence teams who wanted to interrogate them. Army regulations
limit intelligence activity by the M.P.s to passive collection. But
something had gone wrong at Abu Ghraib.
There was evidence dating back to the Afghanistan war, the Ryder
report said, that M.P.s had worked with intelligence operatives to
“set favorable conditions for subsequent interviews”—a euphemism
for breaking the will of prisoners. “Such actions generally run
counter to the smooth operation of a detention facility, attempting to
maintain its population in a compliant and docile state.” General
Karpinski’s brigade, Ryder reported, “has not been directed to
change its facility procedures to set the conditions for MI
interrogations, nor participate in those interrogations.” Ryder called
for the establishment of procedures to “define the role of military
police soldiers . . .clearly separating the actions of the guards from
those of the military intelligence personnel.” The officers running
the war in Iraq were put on notice.
Ryder undercut his warning, however, by concluding that the situation
had not yet reached a crisis point. Though some procedures were flawed,
he said, he found “no military police units purposely applying
inappropriate confinement practices.” His investigation was at best a
failure and at worst a coverup.
Taguba, in his report, was polite but direct in refuting his
fellow-general. “Unfortunately, many of the systemic problems that
surfaced during [Ryder’s] assessment are the very same issues that are
the subject of this investigation,” he wrote. “In fact, many of the
abuses suffered by detainees occurred during, or near to, the time of
that assessment.” The report continued, “Contrary to the findings of
MG Ryder’s report, I find that personnel assigned to the 372nd MP
Company, 800th MP Brigade were directed to change facility procedures to
‘set the conditions’ for MI interrogations.” Army intelligence
officers, C.I.A. agents, and private contractors “actively requested
that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable
interrogation of witnesses.”
Taguba backed up his assertion by citing evidence from sworn
statements to Army C.I.D. investigators. Specialist Sabrina Harman, one
of the accused M.P.s, testified that it was her job to keep detainees
awake, including one hooded prisoner who was placed on a box with wires
attached to his fingers, toes, and penis. She stated, “MI wanted to
get them to talk. It is Graner and Frederick’s job to do things for MI
and OGA to get these people to talk.”
Another witness, Sergeant Javal Davis, who is also one of the
accused, told C.I.D. investigators, “I witnessed prisoners in the MI
hold section . . . being made to do various things that I would question
morally. . . . We were told that they had different rules.” Taguba
wrote, “Davis also stated that he had heard MI insinuate to the guards
to abuse the inmates. When asked what MI said he stated: ‘Loosen this
guy up for us.’‘Make sure he has a bad night.’‘Make sure he gets
the treatment.’” Military intelligence made these comments to Graner
and Frederick, Davis said. “The MI staffs to my understanding have
been giving Graner compliments . . . statements like, ‘Good job,
they’re breaking down real fast. They answer every question. They’re
giving out good information.’”
When asked why he did not inform his chain of command about the
abuse, Sergeant Davis answered, “Because I assumed that if they were
doing things out of the ordinary or outside the guidelines, someone
would have said something. Also the wing”—where the abuse took
place—“belongs to MI and it appeared MI personnel approved of the
abuse.”
Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of
wrongdoing, said, “I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away
their mattresses, sheets, and clothes.” (It was his view, he added,
that if M.I. wanted him to do this “they needed to give me
paperwork.”) Taguba also cited an interview with Adel L. Nakhla, a
translator who was an employee of Titan, a civilian contractor. He told
of one night when a “bunch of people from MI” watched as a group of
handcuffed and shackled inmates were subjected to abuse by Graner and
Frederick.
General Taguba saved his harshest words for the military-intelligence
officers and private contractors. He recommended that Colonel Thomas
Pappas, the commander of one of the M.I. brigades, be reprimanded and
receive non-judicial punishment, and that Lieutenant Colonel Steven
Jordan, the former director of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing
Center, be relieved of duty and reprimanded. He further urged that a
civilian contractor, Steven Stephanowicz, of CACI International, be
fired from his Army job, reprimanded, and denied his security clearances
for lying to the investigating team and allowing or ordering military
policemen “who were not trained in interrogation techniques to
facilitate interrogations by ‘setting conditions’ which were neither
authorized” nor in accordance with Army regulations. “He clearly
knew his instructions equated to physical abuse,” Taguba wrote. He
also recommended disciplinary action against a second CACI employee,
John Israel. (A spokeswoman for CACI said that the company had
“received no formal communication” from the Army about the matter.)
“I suspect,” Taguba concluded, that Pappas, Jordan, Stephanowicz,
and Israel “were either directly or indirectly responsible for the
abuse at Abu Ghraib,” and strongly recommended immediate disciplinary
action.
The problems inside the Army prison system in Iraq
were not hidden from senior commanders. During Karpinski’s seven-month
tour of duty, Taguba noted, there were at least a dozen officially
reported incidents involving escapes, attempted escapes, and other
serious security issues that were investigated by officers of the 800th
.”MORE... ource...
Name:
marvin
In response to: Books, movies, music, art, medical texts...Who turned out the lights? Is this the new dark ages? ET ? We have seen their enemy and they is us... I know what Hell looks like. Imagine a world where no one is offended. A world where the level of discourse is brought down to the lowest common denominator. A world that is 'safe for children.' A world that does not go beyond the intellectual level of a Barney episode. Those who say it can not be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it. You can and should shape your own future; if you don't someone else surely will! Vote Kerry!
Message: Great post....
Name:
Right Man
Re:
Maureen Dowd
Message: Appease them! QUICK! Before it's too late!
Appease the Muslims!
Oh dear Lord.
They are angry. The Muslims are angry. They HATE us.
John Kerry, please make them like us!
Please John, make the Muslims like us.
Let them build mosques all over America, even though they shred our bibles if they catch us bringing such filth into Saudi Arabia. Even though it is forbidden to build a church in Saudi Arabia and the Muslims burn them down all over the world.
Let them implement Sharia Law in America, like they have begun to do in Ontario.
Appease these Muslims Oh Wise John Kerry.
They were not angry until BUSH came along. It's all HIS fault.
He enraged the peaceful Muslims.
Muslims just want to live in peace.
Islam means "Submit".
If we only "submit" to the Muslims, they will like us.
They know what is best for us, and hate Bush.
They prefer that we elect John Kerry.
So VOTE FOR JOHN KERRY and please the Muslims.
Maybe they will start to like us.
It's worth a try.
Appease the Muslims Now!
Name:
white shadow
To:
&
In response to: Pro-Choice activist are marching to anti-war against Iraqi.
Message: Some idiot decided it would be a good idea to put a restriction on how old you have to be to enter a mall. Now don’t get all excited and worried, this is only happening in a single state to beginning with, but before long it could spread to a mall near you.
Name:
Gil Favor
To:
forum
Re:
no good Anti American trial lawyers fight Patriot Act
Message: Who's Afraid of the Patriot Act?
Bernie Sanders thinks the Patriot Act lets the government spy on you for the books you read. Think again.
by Claudia Winkler
04/28/2004 12:00:00 AM
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Respond to this article
"THE USA PATRIOT ACT gives the government sweeping authority to monitor what books we read and buy." When that flat falsehood is being peddled by a national legislator, it's no wonder bookstores and libraries are circulating petitions to amend this fearful law, and ordinary American readers are signing them, in the earnest hope of rescuing our basic freedoms.
But Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is not alone in publicizing (on his website) this scurrilous rendition of the Patriot Act. The American Civil Liberties Union also propagates a caricature of the law as "setting the FBI loose on the American public." Here's a snippet from the ACLU's analysis of the relevant part of the statute, Section 215:
"For example, the FBI could spy on a person because they don't like the books she reads, or because they don't like the websites she visits. They could spy on her because she wrote a letter to the editor that criticized government policy."
To say the Patriot Act authorizes the FBI to spy on people because of their taste in reading is like saying that equipping beat cops with night sticks authorizes the police to bludgeon old ladies who annoy them. Sure, a rogue element at the FBI can run amok. It could before the Patriot Act. It can after the Patriot Act--not by doing what the law authorizes, but by breaking the law.
Judge for yourself. Section 215 is very short. It has to do with record requests "for an investigation to protect against international
terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." Such an investigation must be authorized by a federal court--the FISA court, specialized in foreign intelligence matters, an entity created by a Democratic Congress and Democratic president in 1978 and manned by normal federal judges assigned by the chief justice for seven-year terms.
Section 215 stipulates that the FBI's application for a court order "shall specify that the records concerned are sought for an authorized investigation . . . to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."
Just in case neither the FBI nor the authorizing court does its job properly, there is an oversight measure built into Section 215: Every six months, the attorney general must report to Congress how many requests for court orders have been made and how many granted. So far the number of searches of library and bookstore records reported under the Patriot Act: zero.
IT IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE, of course, that some piece of Section 215, or any other part of the Patriot Act for that matter, has been ill designed, perhaps too broadly tailored. It's possible, and the question deserves to be examined, and defects repaired. But the good people busy signing petitions--printed in patriotic red, white, and blue--at bookstores aren't being invited into that conversation. They're being cynically manipulated by demagogues who spread contempt for government.
Says Mark Corallo, chief spokesman for the Department of Justice, "You're scaring regular Americans into believing that their government is doing things that the government is neither inclined to do nor has the legal authority to do."
Britain's longest serving prime minister of modern times, Margaret Thatcher, used words with flair. She once called it "wicked" to suggest that those who opposed some particular Labour party social-uplift measure ipso facto didn't care about the poor. It is similarly wicked to suggest that those who see a need to provide the government with new investigative tools appropriate to the new security situation therefore are indifferent to the Constitution.
Claudia Winkler is a managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
Name:
Sul Rost
To:
forum
Re:
Unless these authors have video and audio, prognausticating
In response to: In their new book, "The Bushes," Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, who interviewed many Bushes, including the president's father and his brother Jeb, quote one unnamed relative as saying that W. sees the war on terror "as a religious war": "He doesn't have a P.C. view of this war. His view of this is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity
Re:
The press has already raped you once. Cross them, and they will do it again!
In response to: We are very happy that the Bush camp has spent $50 million on these ads and articles because they are going to get a surprise at the Democratic Convention in Boston. I won't tell you what it is because I want the Bush camp to continue wasting all their millions on Kerry. We're going to give the Bushies a "Boston Surprise."
Message: We know that you are going to jerk the rug out from under Kerry. Your problem is the press. They nominated him, and if you anger them, you are finished. The littlepeople loathe Kerry, but they loathe Hillary even more. Don't tell me I don't know what I am talking about. I am what your sort is pleased to call a littleperson. I live and work among littlepersons, and have for decades.
Name:
The Real Deal
To:
ET
Re:
Beware Of The “Torricelli Maneuver”
In response to: We are very happy that the Bush camp has spent $50 million on these ads and articles because they are going to get a surprise at the Democratic Convention in Boston. I won't tell you what it is because I want the Bush camp to continue wasting all their millions on Kerry. We're going to give the Bushies a "Boston Surprise."
Message: Christopher Adamo, 04/30/04
Republicans love to pass around that now famous picture of John Kerry and Jane Fonda, ostensibly sitting side by side at a Vietnam era anti-war rally. Whether or not the picture in question is the doctored version, showing them seated much closer together than they apparently were, the obvious camaraderie existing between the two serves as a huge indictment of Kerry’s leftist ideology.
Unfortunately, an equally incriminating picture exists, by which Democrats can similarly accuse the Bush Administration. The home page of liberal Republican Senator Arlen Specter is highlighted by the Senator embracing Vise-President Cheney. With Cheney and Bush’s diligent assistance, Specter managed this week to scrape out a victory over conservative challenger Pat Toomey, thus setting him on the road to chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee where he can corrupt constitutional law even more effectively than ever before.
In light of the razor thin electoral victories in Florida as well as several other states during the 2000 presidential election, it is entirely conceivable that, had such a picture been widely circulated during that election cycle, we would presently be under the authority of a Gore Administration. And since that time, President Bush has been working feverishly to eradicate any justification conservatives might have once had to support him. At present, just two reasons still exist for those on the right to remain in the Bush camp. One of them is 9-11 and the associated threats of Islamic terrorism. The other, unwittingly provided by the Democrats, is John Kerry.
At present, Republicans are enjoying regular Kerry gaffes, and jubilantly alluding to the likelihood of an eventual “meltdown.” However, their celebrations may be entirely premature. Kerry is indeed floundering, and shows signs of completely self-destructing as a viable presidential candidate. Yet something ominous is occurring within liberal ranks. And it should raise the warning flags for wary Republicans.
Liberals are beginning to go after Kerry in a manner which they usually reserve for conservatives. Kerry’s military medal controversy, and more importantly, the inconsistencies of his re-telling of the event, possesses the potential to become an embarrassment on the order of Clinton’s famous “sex is not sex” comment. And the flames of this controversy are being fanned by none other than the network news anchors.
Across the political spectrum, everyone from Rush Limbaugh to James Ridgeway of the -leftist “Village Voice” is suggesting the possibility that Kerry won’t remain as the Democrat nominee. However, it is dangerously naive to assume that the Democrats have any intention of simply writing off this presidential election and biding their time until 2008. They don’t work that way. Unlike Republicans, they play to win.
Consider the events as they unfolded in the 2002 New Jersey Senate race. Democrat Senator Robert Torricelli, having been embroiled in scandal, was severely lagging in the polls. Nonetheless, he had handily won that state’s Democrat primary and was the incumbent candidate. As Election Day approached, and well past any legal deadline for doing so, he suddenly dropped out of the race and was replaced by former Senator Frank Lautenberg who went on to win the general election. As a result, New Jersey’s contested senate seat remained firmly in the hands of the Democrats.
Some predictions are risky to make, especially in politics. However, dirty tricks from the Democrats, between now and November 7, is a safe bet. The Democrats may even once again attempt to ignore any deadlines. One of the distinct advantages of the Lautenberg substitution, occurring as it did during the final days of the 2002 campaign season, was that Republican candidate Doug Forrester was hardly able to campaign effectively against his new opponent, while his own “battle scars” remained intact. If Kerry absorbs all of the Republicans’ arrows while he continues as the official candidate, they will have little unused “ammunition” to direct at his replacement.
A new candidate, unencumbered by the sort of baggage presently dragging Kerry down, would likely appear as a plausible and worthwhile alternative to Bush. Any rapid response from Bush/Cheney against this “fresh new face,” whoever it might be, will largely be perceived as nothing more than partisan rancor.
With President Bush’s “conservatism” being little more than a skeletal caricature of that which got him elected, and with the Republican Party defined by the lowest standard it enthusiastically embraces (in this case, Arlen Specter), it wouldn’t take much for Democrats to find a candidate whose political philosophy appears entirely reasonable in comparison.
Name:
Jakkson Bekkers
To:
Scheming Nabobs of Socialist Tyranny
Re:
Cameras, implants, food-goo and combined workplace/dormitories!
In response to: We're going to give the Bushies a "Boston Surprise." What? Like the "Big Dig"? That was cool! What a surprise for taxpayers that was!
Message: Bring it ON!!!
Name:
PMS
In response to: Across the political spectrum, everyone from Rush Limbaugh to James Ridgeway of the -leftist “Village Voice” is suggesting the possibility that Kerry won’t remain as the Democrat nominee
Message: You read it FIRST HERE. (See HRC forum Archive, if it has survived diahrretic deletes designed to clear the way for the NEW candidate) GAWD, HOW I HOPE THEY NOMINATE HILLARY CLINTON/NANCY PELOSI!!!
Name:
Yeasting Masses
To:
Control
Re:
Smash Bush and put the whole world under surveilance!
In response to: THE EXCITING, ALL-NEW DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE!!!!
Message: Who can it be? Progressive circles from Maine to Sausalito are abuzz! Even the Chomskey faction is energized!! CPUSA is electrified! Clinton/Nader? Clinton/Wright? Clinton/Pelosi? Clinton/Sharpton? Clinton/Jackson? Clinton/Reno? Who? Who? Whjo will it be????
Name:
Marketing Dept. DNC HQ
To:
The Unwashed Masses
Re:
Election 2004!
In response to: THE EXCITING, ALL-NEW DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE!!!!
Message: New wrapper...same crappy product
Name:
XYZ
To:
Those who still wish Saddam Hussein was still in power
Re:
Good news from Iraq
Message: Contrary to what the liberal media and Democrats are saying, Iraq is not a disaster. Yes, it is not perfect and there is still a lot of work to do. But here is the good, in addition to the rape and torture rooms being closed, and no more mass graves:
*Over 400,000 children have up-to-date immunizations.
*School attendance is up 80% from levels before the war.
*Over 1,500 schools have been renovated and rid of the weapons store there so that education can occur.
*The port of Uhm Qasar was renovated so that grain can be off-loaded from ships faster.
*Over 4.5 million people have clean drinking water for the first time ever in Iraq.
*The country now receives two times the electrical power it did before the liberation.
*One hundred percent of the hospitals are open and fully staffed, compared to 35% before the liberation.
*Elections are taking place in every major city, and city councils are in place.
*Sewer and water lines are installed in every major city.
*Over 60,000 policeare patrolling the streets.
*Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
*Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with American soldiers.
*Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first time ever.
*Students are taught field sanitation and hand washing techniques to prevent the spread of germs.
*An interim constitution has been signed.
*Girls are allowed to attend school.
*Textbooks that don't mention Saddam Hussein are in the schools for the first time.
The Iraqi citizens do indeed want us there and are grateful for their liberation.
Source: Ray Reynolds, SFC, Iowa Army National Guard, 234th Signal Battalion
Ray is a medic, currently serving in Iraq.
Name:
Target
To:
Socialist Progressive Elites
In response to: Kerry Is Going To Fry.
Message: We know that you are going to jerk the rug out from under Kerry. Your problem is the press. They nominated him, and if you anger them, you are finished. Your Socialist agenda has virtually no support outside the big-time press and tenured/Unionized academia. The littlepeople loathe Kerry, but they loathe Hillary even more. Don't tell me I don't know what I am talking about. I am what your sort is pleased to call a littleperson. I live and work among littlepersons, and have for decades. Kerry will soon be looking for work outside DC. His goose is thoroughly cooked.
Name:
3 Watt Moon Raker
Message: Art is a rightwinger pretending to be a pansy liberal...I know ...
Name:
Yakub
In response to: Did the Editor go insane?
Message: I doubt it. But there is clearly some sort of pressure. (Hillary?) There is also enormous stress.
Bias Against Muslims up 70%
Washington Post ^ | May 3 | By Mary Beth Sheridan
Muslims in the United States experienced more than 1,000 incidents of alleged harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment in 2003, a jump of 70 percent over the previous year, according to a report to be released today by a major Islamic advocacy group.
Excerpted - click for full article ^
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com
Name:
Jack Tillmann
To:
Forum
Message: Buyer's Remorse
Dems start to worry that Kerry can't win.
Monday, May 3, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
It's six months until the election, and Democrats are already having buyer's remorse. The Bush campaign "is kicking Kerry's ass every damn day," one prominent Democratic operative told the Washington Post last week. "Kerry hasn't owned one day in the news yet. Not one day!"
Some liberals are so frantic that they want to pull the plug. Village Voice columnist James Ridgeway says prominent Democrats should "sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike" and withdraw. Call that the Torricelli option, after the former New Jersey senator who was muscled out of the race by party elders.
That's not going to happen. First, John Forbes Kerry has wanted to be president ever since he hung around the Kennedy family compound as a teenager. He's not going to let any of the same pooh-bahs who only last December wrote him off as a primary contender drive him from the race now. Second, Mr. Kerry's convention delegates are loyal to him and not easily transferable. There was similar grumbling about dumping Bill Clinton in the summer of 1992 when he was running third in polls behind both George Bush and Ross Perot. Nothing came of it.
M
But that doesn't mean that the worries about John Kerry's electability are going away. Time magazine columnist Joe Klein says Mr. Kerry is "engulfed by the sort of people Howard Dean railed against: timid congressional Democratic staff members and some of the old Clinton crowd. . . . Kerry's may be the most sclerotic presidential campaign since Bob Dole's." Ouch.
Complaints about Mr. Kerry extend beyond his staff. John Weaver, who was strategist for John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign before he became a Democrat, calls Mr. Kerry's TV skills "abysmal. . . . I don't know if it's a stream of consciousness or stream of unconsciousness." MSNBC's Chris Matthews, who has lavished airtime on Mr. Kerry, is nonetheless frustrated with his elliptical speech patterns. "There's no such thing as a trick question with Kerry, because he won't answer it," he sighs. "We'll be having conversations afterward, and it's hard to get to him even then."
The few times that Mr. Kerry decides to abandon his nuanced reserve and programmed responses he can become argumentative and hectoring. ABC's Charlie Gibson asked him last Monday on "Good Morning America" to reconcile his inconsistent stories about whether he had flung his medals or merely his combat ribbons over the White House fence during a 1971 antiwar protest . After Mr. Gibson pointed out that he had covered the demonstration and had personally seen Mr. Kerry throwing medals away, the candidate replied: "Charlie, Charlie, you're wrong! That is not what happened. I threw my ribbons across. And all you have to do is go back and find the file footage." He then lapsed into incoherence.
Vaughn Ververs, the editor of the political newsletter Hotline, says Mr. Kerry's weak performances have led to "a good deal of hand-wringing among Democrats over the perception that one of Kerry's biggest strengths--his military service--seems to have become a liability."
One reason is that he began his presidential race talking far too much about Vietnam. My colleague James Taranto points out that in a December 2002 interview with NBC's Tim Russert, Mr. Kerry managed to work Vietnam into an answer about the death penalty. Robert Sam Anson, a Kerry friend who first met him during that same antiwar protest at which Mr. Kerry burst onto the national scene in 1971, concludes that Mr. Kerry is suffering from a desire to "explain away, deny, revise, trim or flat-out lie about all past events, beliefs and statements that got you the Democratic nomination in the first place. It happened to another friend of mine in 1972. His name was George McGovern. . . . See what happens when you ignore what Mother said about fibbing? No one's saying that Mr. Kerry's cooked. But McGovern parallels give him a toasted look he didn't get skiing in Sun Valley."
Liberals know they are stuck with Mr. Kerry, but that's not preventing them from worrying about his tendency to appear to take both sides of an issue. The irony is that Mr. Kerry has wanted the White House so badly, and for so long, that he has become almost a caricature of an opportunistic, programmed candidate. The resulting image turns off many voters who sense that not much is motivating him beyond blind ambition. For example, many voters may not feel comfortable with Mr. Bush's religious impulses and motivations, but they highlight the image he conveys of a sincere, committed leader.
It is traditional for party activists to grumble about their prospective nominee between the time he wraps up the primaries and when he is actually nominated. But the doubts about Mr. Kerry go beyond campaign kvetching. At times, they seem to verge on quiet panic.
Name:
Kerry
To:
My numbers are rising
In response to: Republicans love to pass around that now famous picture of John Kerry and Jane Fonda, ostensibly sitting side by side at a Vietnam era anti-war rally. Whether or not the picture in question is the doctored version, showing them seated much closer together than they apparently were, the obvious camaraderie existing between the two serves as a huge indictment of Kerry’s leftist ideology.
Message: I'm being vindicated. When I exposed the abuses in Vietnam the right-wingers called me a liar. Now that the prison abuses are being exposed they can't accuse me of lying anymore. War is hell and it's well known that men go mad and commit the most egregious acts. But the Republicans pretended that they don't believe it. Republicans are not naive, but they are liars and manipulators.
Name:
MORE BAD NEWS FOR JOHN KERRY AND DEMOCRATS
Message: Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democrat nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander in chief." They will do so at a press conference Tuesday in Washington.
"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander in chief," O'Neill said.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., center, chats
with St. Louis, Mo., area veterans during breakfast in a diner in St. Louis,
Saturday, May 1, 2004. Some of the veterans raised their hands when asked by
Kerry how many of them had received counseling.
Doesn't this strike you as awfully creepy? Not only is Kerry perpetuating the
stereotype that veterans are psychologically damaged; he is invading their
privacy by questioning them publicly about their mental-health history. Does
Kerry really think it's legitimate to ask someone if he's sought professional
help simply because he's a veteran?
The New York Times, meanwhile, reports on a high-level
disagreement among Kerry's campaign staff:
At a recent meeting of senior staff members, Democrats said, Mr. Kerry's
aides became entangled in a lengthy debate over what might seem to be a less
than urgent issue: whether they should send a Democratic operative to Bush
rallies dressed as Pinocchio, a chicken or a mule, to illustrate various lines
of attacks Democrats want to use against Mr. Bush. (They say they want to
portray him as a liar, a draft avoider and stubborn.)
If Bush wanted to respond in kind, he could direct his campaign to send guys
to Kerry rallies dressed as counselors.
Name:
Lad
In response to: Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democrat nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander in chief." They will do so at a press conference Tuesday in Washington.
"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Message: Is this BS or True?
Name:
Bad News for Republicans
Re:
MORE BAD NEWS FOR BUSH AND REPUBLICANS
In response to: Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democrat nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander in chief." They will do so at a press conference Tuesday in Washington.
Message: Bush will not serve a second term. The lack of an exit strategy, the loss of American lives, and the prison scandals cannot be overcome.
Name:
Clinton-Clinton for President.
Message: Republicans, get ready to take on Clinton-Clinton for President.
Name:
The Real Deal
Message: No matter who you vote for the government wins...
Name:
Clinton-Clinton for Co-Presidents
Message:
Name:
Scotty
To:
Smedley
Re:
Clinton-Clinton for Co-Presidents
Message: Love those pics of yours.
Name:
Truth is stranger than fiction.
Message: Would you believe that this photo of Hillaroo is unaldulterated!
Someone gave her this hat as a gag gift, and she put it on.
I wonder if the person who gave it to her as a gag is still alive...
Name:
Digger Hut
To:
forum
Message:
Name:
More sad news for John Kerry
Message:
You've got to see some of the dirt coming out on John F. Kerry.
There is a new story which is about to blow the lid off his phlegmatic "campaign".
Name:
The Donkey
To:
Anyone
Re:
Shrum, McAuliffe, Clinton & Clinton, Varois "Democrat "spokepersyns
In response to: I'm dyin' here!
Message: Can't anyone help me? Can't anyone get these tinhorn pissants and pathological egomaniacal liars off my back??
Name:
Bones
Message:
Name:
do Demcorats lie so much
To:
Kerry
In response to: I'm being vindicated. When I exposed the abuses in Vietnam the right-wingers called me a liar.
Message: No. They did not call you a liar. They proved you were a liar. The man sitting next to you describing the war attrosities has never been in the military and had never been in Vietnam. John F'n Kerry, you are a proven liar.
Now that the prison abuses are being exposed they can't accuse me of lying anymore. War is hell and it's well known that men go mad and commit the most egregious acts.
There is no connection between your lies about Vietnam vets and current events. Quit trying to change the subject.
But the Republicans pretended that they don't believe it.
Name one Republican that is pretending they do not beleive. Why do Demcorats lie so much?
Name:
Sneberger
To:
Masses yearning to be taxed
Re:
Get the rich! Gimme gimme! Get the corporations!
In response to: Iron Control
Message: Want government freebies? Want to use the government to spite your fellow citizens? Want the government to be your parent?
You will get the government that you deserve. You will get tyranny.
Name:
The American People
In response to: At a recent meeting of senior staff members, Democrats said, Mr. Kerry's aides became entangled in a lengthy debate over what might seem to be a less than urgent issue: whether they should send a Democratic operative to Bush rallies dressed as Pinocchio, a chicken or a mule, to illustrate various lines of attacks Democrats want to use against Mr. Bush. (They say they want to portray him as a liar, a draft avoider and stubborn.)
Message: All Republicans have to do is set somebody to Kerry rallies dressed as John F'n Kerry if they want maximum damage.
Name:
Benjamen Milam
To:
Merci Moi
Re:
Mud Head Moo
In response to: Great stacks of poo
Message: 5-3-04-CGINEWSWIRE FOI GRAS (Near Dumas)
:::/[]\Get real, Sister MOO! Every last post you have placed here since around last Christmas (the "Nostradamus" series) has been part of an attempt on your part to maliciously influence the opinions and viewpoints of (gullible and under-educated) persons, using all manner of lies and distortions and below-the-belt smears.
You remind me of "Individual" as that entity might behave if "Individual" were to be deeply under the influence of LSD. The two of you employ a very similar modus, except that you seem to think that everyone in this forum is about 6 years of age, mildly retarded, and has been raised in a closet by psychotic mystics. "Individual" seems to think about the same, except that in "Individuals" estimation, everyone is about 13 years of age and raised by psychotic statisticians who are compulsive liars.
The joke is on you, though, Ms. MOO. Your junk, much like that presented by "Individual", is about as credible and convincing as the obnoxious, noisy advertisements for "herbal non-prescription penis-enlargement pills" that are flooding the airwaves these days.
Name:
Why John Kerry will never be president
In response to: Is this BS or True?
Message: Yes, and the Editor censored it.
After tomorrow it will be harder and harder for "Censorship for Kerry" to work.
Name:
The Donkey
To:
Bill Clinton
Re:
These pissants are even dissing MY family!!
In response to: Democratic operative to Bush rallies dressed as Pinocchio, a chicken or a mule, to illustrate various lines of attacks Democrats want to use against Mr. Bush. (They say they want to portray him as a liar, a draft avoider and stubborn
Message: A MULE??? How stupid are these people?
Name:
News Hound
Re:
Relevant Hillary Clinton Article
Message:
BEHIND THE MASK OF HILL'S DISGUISES AS SHE EYES RUN FOR
PRESIDENT
May 2, 2004 -- Political adviser
MORRIS was a first-hand witness to the two faces of Hillary Rodham Clinton
during his tenure as Bill Clinton's confidante. In his new book, "Rewriting
History," he offers a rebuttal to the New York senator's best-selling
autobiography, showing the Hillary he knows - warts and all.
LIKE the moon, she shows us the same face each time we see her. Sometimes,
she displays more, sometimes less of her visage, but always it is the same
carefully presented persona: friendly, open, giggly, practical, family-oriented,
caring, thoughtful, unflappable, serious, balanced and moderate.
Just like the moon, though, Hillary Rodham Clinton has a face she never shows
us, a side that is never visible, never on display.
This is a voyage around that side of Hillary - the parts of her personality
and history that have been rewritten, reinvented or omitted from her memoir,
"Living History," and her other writings or public statements.
Some of what Hillary conceals is not dark, only unseen. Not sinister, just
covered up, protected from our gaze. Parts of it, although not always
flattering, would be quite acceptable if she were to expose it to full public
view. With incredible discipline, however, she conceals this side of herself in
order to create an idealized portrait of Hillary.
But some of Hillary's hidden side is indeed dark. Like the moon, she has been
scarred by the constant pounding of political meteorites. Under their battering,
she has developed a sinister side, which is chilling even to those who know her
well. Some of her reinventions are defensive, a form of protective coloration to
minimize her potential vulnerability and maximize her capacity to deny what she
must to survive politically.
Both of the Clintons are masters of subterfuge. But Hillary's deceptions and
disguises are very different from Bill's. Bill Clinton deceives himself, and
fools us in the process. He pretends, even when he is alone, that he is not
doing what he knows he is doing. He never tells his right hand what his left
hand is up to.
By contrast, Hillary knows full well who she is and what parts of her must
never be exposed to public view. She reminds herself consciously, day after day,
which parts of herself to hide and which to expose.
Where Bill's instinct for deception is neurotic, Hillary's is opportunistic.
He wants to hide his private life from our eyes; Hillary seeks to conceal her
character from our view. But the things that Hillary hides are integral to her
political essence. They are who she is and what makes her tick. Her trickery is
designed to hide her most basic character and instincts from all of us.
What makes Hillary's unseen side unique is that, for the most part, it
represents her real personality, her true self, far more than the person who
smiles and giggles at us day and night.
All public figures use makeup to cover a blemish or two. But only Hillary
wears a mask of so many layers, one that hides her true face altogether.
Who is Hillary? We need to know. In fact, it's become critical that we do so.
After all, John Kerry is the Democratic Party's candidate in 2004, but
Hillary is still its most popular politician. Unless Kerry beats Bush, she can
have the nomination for the asking in 2008. And even if Kerry wins and runs for
a second term, it will probably be Hillary's turn in 2012. She could even run
for vice president in 2004.
But is Hillary a dedicated public servant or an unabashed self-promoter? The
victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy, or a shrewd operator who often gets
caught in her own devious schemes? An innate politician or a reinvention of
herself refined by her ghostwriters and handlers? A sincere advocate for women
and children or an opportunist out for power? A New Democrat or an old-fashioned
liberal?
The answers to our questions become more important as the possibility of a
Hillary Clinton presidency becomes more and more real. In fact, the key factors
seem to be gathering into a political "perfect storm" that Hillary Clinton plans
to ride all the way to the White House.
Consider the omens:
* The population of African and Hispanic Americans is rapidly rising.
* Voters are drifting to the left.
* The Republican Party is low on future presidential candidates, and
Hillary's strongest potential rivals there are the ones most likely to sow
division within the party.
* Likewise, no major Democratic alternative stands in her way.
* Democratic fund-raisers are setting new records for an out-of-power party.
* The Clinton machine is strengthening its control over the party.
* Bereft of winning issues beyond terrorism, Republicans are still groping
for a theme to replace welfare and crime, which Bill Clinton stole away from
them - and George W. Bush seems destined to leave huge deficits as a negative
part of his legacy.
ťSťO things look pretty good for Hillary. She could
be the first female president of the United States. But should she be?
I worked closely with her for two decades. And that firsthand experience
tells me that the person Hillary's supporters want to see in the White House is
a fiction - a character carefully and assiduously cultivated for decades to mask
the real Hillary.
The mask is imperfect, of course. Its gaps are revealed in the questions
raised frequently, by the press and the public, about the junior senator from
New York - questions that remain unanswered. We'd better answer them before she
gets to be president.
What qualities of Hillary Clinton's personality would characterize her
presidency? And how would they influence us all?
Every man or woman who morphs from private citizen into public figure is
changed forever by the journey. But Hillary's transition - perhaps the word
should be "transitions" - has been unusual, and not merely because it has taken
place on the most public stage imaginable. As she journeyed from campus activist
to lawyer to governor's wife to first lady and, finally, to United States
senator, Hillary has changed just about everything about herself - her politics,
her physical appearance, even her life story.
In the process, she became not only the candidate but the cartoonist,
deciding which features to emphasize and which to sublimate.
Think about it. As we all know, Hillary has changed her hair, her eye color,
her dress and her face more frequently than a professional model.
But the changes run far deeper. In her decades of public life, she has
adjusted her opinions, modified her ideology, altered her priorities, and
revised her rhetoric.
Hillary might like to describe this wholesale alteration as a product of
growth or maturity. But most of it is the result of simple calculation. Hillary
Clinton's image became what it needed to become in order to maximize the chances
of election to high public office.
So, again, we ask the question; Does Hillary Clinton have the character and
personality to be president?
She is a highly focused, hard-working and effective advocate for women and
children. But she no more possesses the political strengths of Bill Clinton than
she does his personal weaknesses.
She lacks his instincts, his empathy, his political savvy, his creativity,
his subtlety, his antennae, his ostensible earnestness. Bill Clinton is
flexible, charming, charismatic, and solicitous; Hillary, to put it mildly, is
not. Bill Clinton has a rags-to-riches story and a down-homey warmth; Hillary
has neither. And while Hillary is certainly bright and book-smart, she lacks his
creativity and intellect.
To warm up his audience, Bill needs only uncork the bottle and let the charm
flow. Hillary must resort to contrivance and pretense.
He can be friends with anyone. She keeps a mental enemies list.
He's a natural. She's not.
Hillary Clinton, in plain fact, is a student of Bill Clinton. She is not his
clone.
Bill Clinton's convictions are always open for discussion; he seems to tailor
his ideology to the political needs of the moment. Hillary's political
orientation, on the other hand, is fixed, her opinions ardent. Americans always
had difficulty explaining what Bill Clinton stood for. No one has any difficulty
identifying Hillary's signature causes: the needs of women, children and the
Democratic Party base.
Yet Hillary's passion about political issues is both her strength and her
weakness. It often leads her into inflexibility, and traps her within moralistic
requisites that distort her political compass.
Her health-care reform program, which began as a way to lower health-care
spending, became an almost theological crusade to make health benefits a
universal right and entitlement. She moved fearlessly - but also heedlessly -
into the teeth of strident opposition - and in the end, her failed efforts only
contributed to her party's loss of Congress in the ensuing election, almost
toppling her husband from office.
Hillary's tendency to treat political questions as moral issues also makes
her susceptible to the lure of gurus who eagerly try to sell her on their
omnibus programs of ideological utopias. Would she be vulnerable to new Ira
Magaziners - the Rasputin who got her to embrace a complicated and crazy
holistic approach to health-care reform? Would her apparent credulity give rise
to a presidency entirely subsumed by an ideological construct?
ťHťILLARY Clinton is passionate and, by her lights,
honorable. But can she be trusted?
"Between Hope and History" was the title of President Clinton's 1996
campaign, but it would have been a better fit for his wife's autobiography.
Hillary has a disturbing tendency to concoct carefully revised "facts" about
her past, her persona, her circumstances and her experiences - in other words,
she has a real problem telling the truth. Sometimes her deceptions are silly. At
other times, they are deeply pernicious. But even the fluffier fabrications send
us a warning not to trust her.
Take an apparently innocuous example: her nutty claim that her mother named
her after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest.
Meeting Sir Edmund by chance at the Katmandu airport, Hillary apparently made
up the story on the spot, telling reporters she was named after the intrepid
explorer. To bolster her claim, she piled on the details: While her mother was
pregnant, Hillary extemporized, she had read an article about Sir Edmund and
noticed that he spelled his name with two l's - "which," the first lady said, is
how her mother "thought she was supposed to spell Hillary."
She continued: "So when I was born, she called me Hillary, and she always
told me it's because of Sir Edmund Hillary."
But Sir Edmund didn't climb Everest until May 29, 1953 - 51/2 years after
Hillary Rodham was born. In fact, until 1951 Sir Edmund Hillary hadn't even left
New Zealand for his climb in the Himalayas. Before that, he was an unknown
beekeeper.
Why would Hillary make up such a silly and unnecessary story? To give the
press good copy? To try to glamorize her family history by connecting it with
the heroic mountaineer?
Sometimes, though, Hillary's inventions have been more than simple Walter
Mitty fantasizing - as when she invented a story about 9/11 on the "Today" show,
implying to Katie Couric that her daughter, Chelsea, had narrowly missed being
on the grounds of the Twin Towers at the time of the attacks.
Hillary told a national television audience that Chelsea had "gone on what
she thought would be a great jog. She was going to go around the towers. She
went to get a cup of coffee and - that's when the plane hit . . . She did hear
it. She did."
Couric told NBC's viewers that Hillary, "at that moment, was not just a
senator, but a concerned parent."
Chelsea herself, though, flatly contradicted her mother's account in an
article for Talk magazine, which she apparently had not cleared with Hillary. As
Chelsea revealed, she "was alone at a friend's Union Square apartment in
Manhattan that morning" when her host phoned to tell her what had happened.
Instead of being anywhere near the World Trade Center, she was three miles
northeast of Ground Zero - clear on the other side of town.
Hillary had lied. Effortlessly, spontaneously, chillingly, Hillary simply
invented the tale. Why? Did she feel the need to bond more closely with her
newly adopted state at the moment of its greatest catastrophe? Whatever it was,
to lie in this way at that time suggests a serious character flaw.
When Al Gore claimed to be the father of the Internet, or that his marriage
was the basis for "Love Story," his exaggerations tripped him up. Would a
Hillary candidacy - or presidency - be constantly embroiled in similar
controversy?
If her history is any guide, this might be an area of great difficulty for
Hillary: her credibility.
From the forthcoming book REWRITING HISTORY by Morris. Published by
arrangement with ReganBooks/HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
Name:
Nuff said
Message:
How many investigations were lanuched against the Bush administration? 0, zero, zip, nada
Bill Clinton was impeached, found in contempt of court for lying, dissbarred, and he accepted a plea bargan to avoid indictment.
President Bush has not been the target of any investigation.
Nuff said.
Name:
Glass Slippers, French Heels
Re:
The Great KOHN
In response to: After tomorrow it will be harder and harder for "Censorship for Kerry" to work
Message: It never has worked. It simply validates what is censored by suggesting that there is no arguement to be made against the statement.
Name:
Tibb's
Message: John Kerry is a no good lying yankee!
Name:
Boomslang
To:
All
Re:
The Beguiled
In response to: THE REAL TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON
Message: The real truth about Hillary Clinton is that absolutely NO ONE on earth needs her. No one anywhere needs her, or any of her collectivist prescriptions for misery, and no one ever will.
Name:
Scotty
Message: From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair."
Name:
No wonder the Democrats are on such a long losing streak
In response to: Bush will not serve a second term. The lack of an exit strategy, the loss of American lives, and the prison scandals cannot be overcome.
Message: Only a complete moron would try to blame the Iraqi interrogation scandal on Bush. Only a fool would think the President is in charge of training military police. Only a fool would claim there is no exit strategy when the President made the exit strategy well known: out by June 30. After June 30 you can whine but in the meantime you just look like a moron. If you are going to be stupid enough to try and blame the Iraqi interrogation scandal on Bush you might as well blame Bush for potholes on your streets, traffic jams, and the fat and caloric count of chocolate éclairs. No wonder the Democrats are on such a long losing streak.
Name:
fuh q
Message: CNSNews.com) - Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday.
"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.
O'Neill, currently a Houston, Texas, based attorney, is no stranger to Kerry. O'Neill served in the same naval unit as Kerry and commanded Kerry's swift boat after Kerry returned to the United States. Kerry's command of the PCF boat lasted four months and ended shortly after he received his third Purple Heart. According to naval regulations at the time, any sailor who received three Purple Hearts could request a transfer out of the combat zone.
Kerry and O'Neill engaged in a nationally televised debate in 1971 on The Cavett Show over Kerry's allegations that many Vietnam soldiers had routinely engaged in atrocities such as raping and cutting off ears and heads of Vietnamese soldiers and citizens. Kerry was the then spokesman for the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
"We are going to be presenting a letter that deals with Kerry's unfitness to be commander and chief that has been signed by hundreds of swift boat sailors, including most of those who served with Kerry," O'Neill explained.
"The ranks of the people signing [the letter] range from admiral down to seaman, and they run across the entire spectrum of politics, specialties, and political feelings about the Vietnam War," he added.
Among those scheduled to attend the event at the National Press Club and declare Kerry unfit for the role of commander-in-chief are retired Naval Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, who was the commander of the Navy Coastal Surveillance Force, which included the swift boats on which Kerry served.
Also scheduled to be present at the event is Kerry's former commanding officer, Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard. Hibbard recently questioned whether Kerry deserved the first of his three Purple Hearts that he received in Vietnam. Hibbard doubted both the severity of the wound and whether it resulted from enemy fire.
"I've had thorns from a rose that were worse" than Kerry's wound for which he received a Purple Heart, Hibbard told the Boston Globe in April.
Organizers are confident that Tuesday's event and the letter with hundreds of signatures will educate people about Kerry.
"It is one of the largest outpourings of concern about him being commander-in-chief that anybody could have in a presidential campaign and it is by the people who know him best," O'Neill said.
'Unfit Commander-in-Chief'
Swift Boat Veterans For Truth maintains that Kerry's fellow Vietnam veterans are almost uniform in their disdain for his military service and anti-war protests.
"Not only a majority of the people who served with him feel that way, but a vast and overwhelming majority," O'Neill said. He added that more than "ninety percent of the people contacted by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth responded to the request to sign their name, with only 12 declining to sign.
"s who actually served with him, almost all of them, are opposed to him, and believe he would be an unfit commander in chief and intend to bring the truth of his actual record to the attention of the American people," O'Neill said.
O'Neill hopes the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth can reveal to the American people what he sees as Kerry's flawed character.
"In the military, loyalty between commanders and the troops serving them is a two-way street. We have here a guy (Kerry) that with all of us in the field [in Vietnam] -- actually fighting the North Vietnamese -- came home and then falsely accused all of us of war crimes at a time when the people in uniform couldn't even respond," O'Neill said.
"And he did that knowing that was a lie," he added.
Name:
Scotty
Message: The U.S. continues to rank last among developed nations in official development assistance, giving only 0.12% of GNP."
Friends Committee on National Legislation
"Only the grand scale and technocratic impersonality of the crimes conceived and directed by the [U.S.] ruling elite acting under cover of state authority distinguish them from garden variety killers."
Name:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE
To:
Scotty
In response to: From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair."
Message:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE!
Name:
moron
In response to: Only a complete moron would try to blame the Iraqi interrogation scandal on Bush. Only a fool would think the President is in charge of training military police. Only a fool would claim there is no exit strategy when the President made the exit strategy well known: out by June 30. After June 30 you can whine but in the meantime you just look like a moron. If you are going to be stupid enough to try and blame the Iraqi interrogation scandal
Message: Lets see some body pics!
Name:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE
To:
Scotty
In response to: The U.S. continues to rank last among developed nations in official development assistance, giving only 0.12% of GNP." Friends Committee on National Legislation
Message:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE!
Name:
another moron
In response to: Just a question
Message: Where were all of the cock-munching salad-tossers when Saddam was brutalizing his own people? Are the Iraqi POWs treated better or worse than the political prisoners in North Korea?
Name:
Scotty
To:
forum
Re:
Queer for Kerry
In response to: Supporting Evidence PLEASE
Message: The leaders of the empire, the imperial mafia - George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al. ... are as fanatic and as fundamentalist as Osama bin Laden.
24.9 percent of American children live in poverty, while the proportions in Germany, France and Italy are 8.6, 7.4 and 10.5 percent. And once born on the wrong side of the tracks, Americans are more likely to stay there than their counterparts in Europe.
Those born to better-off families are more likely to stay better off. America is developing an aristocracy of the rich and a serfdom of the poor - the inevitable result of a twenty-year erosion of its social contract.The Soviet Union and something called communism per se had not been the object of Washington's global attacks. There had never been an International Communist Conspiracy.
The enemy was, and remains, any government or movement, or even individual, that stands in the way of the expansion of the American Empire; by whatever name the US gives to the enemy - communist, rogue state, drug trafficker, terrorist.
Name:
Democrats in Free Fall
Message:
Only a complete moron would claim Afghanistan has not connection to Al-Qaeda
Name:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE
In response to: The leaders of the empire, the imperial mafia - George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al. ... are as fanatic and as fundamentalist as Osama bin Laden.
Message: That's not supporting evidence. That is just more left wing B-ull-S-hi-t.
BTW: are you claiming Bush is the "leader of the empire" since 1945?
Name:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE
To:
Scotty
In response to: 24.9 percent of American children live in poverty
Message:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE!
Name:
Scotty
Message: If the U.S. really believes that supporting terrorists makes you as guilty as the terrorists themselves, then it would have to put on trial most of its military and political leadership over the last handful of administrations, and more
Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment ... People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers ... do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to.
Name:
another moron
In response to: giving only 0.12% of GNP
Message: This may seem like a small number to the small minded but as with morality amonth the salad-tossers on the left, everything is relative. Considering the fact that no other economy compares to the economy of the US in anything but a fractional sense, this number is meaningless. Considering again, that many contries are the recipients of aid rather than the donors, this statement looks even more ridiculous. Is there some kind of lefty jackass prize up for grabs that I don't know about?
Name:
Zilly T
Message: I'd like to stick a sharp knife up Maureen Dowds Cunt.
Juice in the muff
Name:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE
In response to: 24.9 percent of American children live in poverty
Message: Based on the 2003 census report, in the year 2001 and 2002, the child poverty rate in the US was 16.1%
Looks like Scotty is just another Left Wing/Democrat Liar
Message: Political discussion in the United States is usually restricted to the moderate to conservative range that precludes discussion of class conflict. If "class warfare" is mentioned, it is because a conservative wants to suggest that certain matters should be kept off-limits in American political discussion.
War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press ... have turned war into a vast video arcade game. Its very essence - death - is hidden from public view.
Name:
Clinton-Clinton
In response to: How many investigations were lanuched against the Bush administration? 0, zero, zip, nada
Bill Clinton was impeached, found in contempt of court for lying, dissbarred, and he accepted a plea bargan to avoid indictment.
President Bush has not been the target of any investigation.
Nuff said.
Message: Lots of investigations will be launched against the Bush administration. How about the Niger yellow cake? Just wait until Clinton-Clinton takes power. Endless investigations.
Name:
Scotty
To:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE
In response to: .9 percent of American children live in poverty
Message:
Based on the 2003 census report, in the year 2001 and 2002, the child poverty rate in the US was 16.1%
Looks like Scotty is just another Left Wing/Democrat Liar
Source
Message: The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.
The first premise of propaganda in the United States today is at doesn't exist, that there is no propaganda from the established media and from the government and that we have only "information.
Propaganda is something that other people do.
That's the first premise the denial that there is propaganda.
The second quality of propaganda in the United States is that it operates all the time and its major dedication is to avoid any kind of confrontation regarding class struggle in the United States.
It denies any recognition that there is exploitation of labor, that the rich exploit the poor, that we exploit the third world, etc.
We've now reached the point where you can talk about racism and sexism, but you cannot really talk about class power in America, and if you do, you are said to be engaging in propaganda.
Name:
More Bad News for Democrats
In response to: 24.9 percent of American children live in poverty
Message: The two worst states for child poverty are Democrat controled and Hillary over-seen New York at 26.3% and Completely-Democrat-Controled-until-the-voters-threw-the-rat-out California at 25.7%
Name:
Maureen
To:
Zilly T
In response to: I'd like to stick a sharp knife up Maureen Dowds .
Message: So the right-wingers want to stick sharp knives up Maureen Dowd's . Why are there no left-wingers wanting to stick sharp knives up Laura Bush's ? -- Because left-wingers don't sink to the lowest level of mankind.
Name:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE
To:
Scotty
In response to: The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly. The first premise of propaganda in the United States today is at doesn't exist, that there is no propaganda from the established media and from the government and that we have only "information.
Propaganda is something that other people do.
Message: And you make sh!t up.
Do you have a source for your numbers or are you pulling them directly out of you anus?
Name:
Scotty
To:
Sicko on the right
Re:
Why would you hurt this child?
In response to: I'd like to stick a sharp knife up Maureen Dowds .
Message: When will the rightwingers give it a rest...Very Sad!
Name:
Forum Member
To:
TROLL
In response to: The two worst states for child poverty are Democrat controled and Hillary over-seen New York at 26.3% and Completely-Democrat-Controled-until-the-voters-threw-the-rat-out California at 25.7%
Message: Dirty Lies!
Name:
Scotty
To:
Bush
In response to: Over 100,000 Iraqi civil defense police are securing the country.
*Over 80,000 Iraqi soldiers are patrolling the streets side by side with American soldiers.
*Over 400,000 people have telephones for the first
Message: The men and women who enlist in this country's military [should] be told the truth that they are not protecting the United States, they are and always have been protecting corporate interests.
Name:
California
To:
right-wing turd
In response to: The two worst states for child poverty are Democrat controled and Hillary over-seen New York at 26.3% and Completely-Democrat-Controled-until-the-voters-threw-the-rat-out California at 25.7%
Message: Stop telling lies about California. California is the most patriotic state in the Union and has sent the most troops to Iraq. Beat that you nasty right-wing turd.
Where does your conservative red-state stand. Probably at the bottom. I bet your state sent the least number of troops to Iraq. You specialize in lies and fraud, not fighting for your country, you unpatriotic fool.
Name:
Forum Fan
To:
Left Winger
In response to: When will the rightwingers give it a rest...Very Sad!
Message: There are some left wingers stinking this forum up with porn, Nazi crap, and other bs. Just sounds like more of the same...a left winger posts some of their favorite porn or they make a rude comment or post Nazi symbols and then immediately start whining about "look what the right wingers are doing"
We got your number left wingers, we know you are doing it.
Name:
Forum Member
To:
Forum
Message: The ruling elites know who their enemies are, and their enemies are the people, the people at home and the people abroad. Their enemies are anybody who wants more social justice, anybody who wants to use the surplus value of society for social needs rather than for individual class greed, that's their enemy.
Name:
Scotty
To:
People
Re:
Stop Bush
In response to: With President Bush’s “conservatism” being little more than a skeletal caricature of that which got him elected, and with the Republican Party defined by the lowest standard it enthusiastically embraces (in this case, Arlen Specter), it wouldn’t take much for Democrats to find a candidate whose political philosophy appears entirely reasonable in comparison
Message: A tiny portion of the population controls the lion's share of the wealth and most of the command positions of state, manufacturing, banking, investment, publishing, higher education, philanthropy, and media... these individuals exercise a preponderant influence over what is passed off as public information and democratic discourse.
The ruling class is the politically active component of the owning class, the top captains of finance and policy who set the standards for investment and concentration of capital at home and abroad... Their overall economic domination and their campaign contributions, media monopoly, high-paid lobbyists, and public relations experts regularly predetermine who will be treated as major political candidates and which policy parameters will prevail... Though relatively few in number they get the most of what there is to get. Their wealth serves their power, and their power serves their wealth.The fact that we've been a great democracy doesn't mean we will automatically keep being one if we keep waving the U.S. flag.
Name:
Supporting Evidence PLEASE, reseach dept.
To:
California
In response to: Stop telling lies about California. California is the most patriotic state in the Union and has sent the most troops to Iraq. Beat that you nasty right-wing turd.
Message: I love it when left wingers make fools of themselves.
1. What the hell does patriotic have to do with poverty rates?
2. The source of the data is a socialist web site (about as far from the right as one can get)
3. You should really check the facts before you spew forth.
Name:
Forum Fan
To:
California
Re:
California is the most patriotic state in the Union
Message: Good shot, California. You kicked that right-wing turd right where it hurts the most. I might add that California also makes the most money.
California makes the most money and sends the most troops. Don't mess with California you jealous unpatriotic frauds.
Name:
Art
To:
forum
In response to: Good shot, California. You kicked that right-wing turd right where it hurts the most. I might add that California also makes the most money.
California makes the most money and sends the most troops. Don't mess with California you jealous unpatriotic frauds.
Message: give em heck California!
Name:
Scotty
To:
Forum
In response to: BEHIND THE MASK OF HILL'S DISGUISES AS SHE EYES R
ASHINGTON
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