"The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful." -- Abraham Lincoln.
DETROIT -- The American people are feeling that great power Honest Abe knew so well. Our finest Republican president gives us the words we should listen to as hope grows of ridding our nation of transparently disingenuous George, our worst Republican president.
Another wise Lincoln insight -- that you can't fool all the people all the time -- is at work as a fresh "Newsweek" poll shows 52 percent of the voters don't want Bush re-elected.
Howard Dean deserves great credit for his courageous opposition to the Iraq war, his forthright views on a number of issues and for energizing so many people. But, frankly, his shrill style turns off too many, and his chances of beating Bush are slim at best.
Sen. Joe Lieberman's continuing futile attempts to justify the war in Iraq disqualify him as a serious candidate.
Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich are provocative and right on a number of counts, but really can't be considered contenders for the Democratic nominations. Thank them for their participation and move on.
Any one of the remaining Democrats -- Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards and Gen. Wesley Clark -- can beat Bush. But they can't be cute, delicate or diplomatic. They must fight, using the unvarnished truth, and present to the American people the Bush administration for what it is: a despicable operation built on lies, debt, dirt and deals. It is a presidency that is a serious threat to our national security, world peace and our children's future.
First, the great lie of our era. We went to war with Iraq because George Bush and his minions told us Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were a threat to our national survival. But the Bush administration's own weapons inspector now says, "I don't think they existed." In an interview with Reuters, Dr. David Kay, who was sent to Iraq to find illicit weapons, says they didn't exist. Kay says flat-out that, as a result of United Nations inspections and the Iraq government's own decision, they "got rid of them" long before the U.S. invasion.
Kay's admission runs smack in the face of President Bush's firm assertion in his awful State of the Union address that, "had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day." Now only Bush, his partner in deception, Vice President Cheney, and the most blinded partisans continue to cling to the great fraud that was used to sell a war to the American people.
In remarks reminiscent of O.J. Simpson's promise to find the "real killers," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of Saddam's phantom weapons, "Yes, we believe he had them, and yes, they will be found. We believe the truth will come out." Does McClellan drive a white Bronco?
Kay is retiring and CIA Director George Tenet praised him for his "extraordinary service under dangerous and difficult circumstances," while the White House flack discredited the esteemed scientist.
That's essentially the same tactic used on former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill when he blew the lid on the plans to invade Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration and the use of the Sept. 11 attacks as a convenient pretext to do just that.
Bush's challenger must kick him in the shins at every possible opportunity about these monumental lies.
Even many who supported the war now admit post-war Iraq is a bloody disaster. You can lay much of that disgraceful and continuing failure right on the Secretary of Defense, His Arrogance, Field Marshall Donald Rumsfeld.
In a magnificent piece of reporting, James Fallows of "The Atlantic" magazine writes, "The U.S. occupation of Iraq is a debacle not because the government did no planning but because a vast amount of expert planning was willfully ignored by the people in charge."
Fallows reports Rumsfeld paid little attention to the grave warnings from many sources about the difficulties to be faced in a post-Saddam Iraq. That, along with the triumphalism of the administration, led to serious miscalculations about what was needed to protect American troops and restore civil order.
But the ultimate responsibility is the president's and Fallows finds George W.'s avoidance of details and his easy willingness to allow subordinates like Cheney and Rumsfeld to make so many critical decisions most troubling.
"His lack of curiosity about significant details may be his fatal weakness. When the decisions of the past eighteen months are assessed and judged, the administration will be found wanting for its carelessness. Because of warnings it chose to ignore, it squandered American prestige, fortune and lives," Fallows concludes.
While Bush still plays the rhetorical deception of using Saddam's name in every paragraph that also includes terrorism and Sept. 11, the Democratic candidate can truthfully assert that our present commander in chief is responsible for the mess in Iraq. George W. Bush, mess in Iraq, George W. Bush mess in Iraq. Say it as a single word.
The candidate must remind voters of Bush's initial opposition to the Sept. 11 commission and the delay tactics he's using in providing the panel with information it is seeking. Why the stalling? What is he hiding?
The Bush family ties with interests in Saudi Arabia require vivid attention in this election. Why does George W. always protect and coddle the Saudis, who produced bin Laden and most of his terrorists and financed the Sept. 11 attacks?
Kevin Phillips, the Republican conservative writer and pundit, is on to the Bush deals with the Saudi royal family. His book, "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush," details the family's business deals and vast network of political connections in the Middle East.
In a piece in the Houston Chronicle, Phillips argues there is no evidence that the events of Sept. 11 might have been prevented had someone other than Bush been president, but says that "there is certainly enough to suggest that the Bush dynasty's many decades of entanglement and money-hunting in the Middle East have created a major conflict of interest that deserves to be part of the 2004 political debate. No previous presidency has had anything remotely similar. Not one."
The administration's deficit-cutting plan is a joke that no one who can simply add and subtract should take seriously. The Democratic candidate should step up to a blackboard, literally, and show the American people the folly of George W. Bush's "fuzzy math." He's talking about reducing the federal deficit to about $200 billion by 2009, but his numbers and budget don't even include the cost of maintaining troops and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's right. He's taken war off the books.
If the Bush tax cuts that largely benefited the most wealthy are made permanent, as he wants, Edward McKelvey, an economist with Goldman Sachs who actually can do simple arithmetic, predicts that the government will run up deficits of more than $5 trillion over the next 10 years.
Bush's Democratic opponent must call him what he truly is, the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history. He is a spend-and-borrow madman who's raided the U.S. Treasury to make his rich friends richer and he's going to pass the bill on to the children of the middle class.
Those children, by the way, are having much tougher times finding jobs. George W. Bush must be asked to explain why, under his leadership, the nation has experienced an average loss of 66,000 jobs a month.
George W. Bush's record on the environment is the worst since the environment came to the public agenda, some 40 years ago. My colleague John Hanchette is right -- Bush's neglect of the environment could jeopardize his re-election.
This administration is fighting for dirty air, filthy water and the exploitation of public lands for private gain. The Bush energy bill is designed to protect corporate polluters and stick it to energy consumers.
Enron's disgraced Ken Lay and other energy industry bigwigs helped craft the mess, and Dick Cheney is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to save him from a lower court's order that he reveal publicly the dealings of his energy task force with industry representatives. (An aside: Justice Antonin Scalia, who recently went on a pheasant-hunting vacation with Cheney, should recuse himself from the case. Any honorable justice, with that kind of cozy relationship with a party in the case, would. Scalia, of course, won't.)
Examples of the Bush administration's deals with its corporate friends and campaign donors are everywhere, the corruption is so obvious, and it's an issue that can resonate simply by recitation of the facts.
Here's another Halliburton horror story. Vice President Cheney's old company said it will now pay the government $6.3 million that its employees improperly received as part of a kickback scheme with a Kuwaiti company. "We will bear the cost of the potential overcharges, not the government," a Halliburton executive said. How noble. The company is already under investigation for allegations it overcharged U.S. taxpayers $61 million for gasoline imported into Iraq from Kuwait.
Why aren't these Halliburton executives facing criminal charges? Why has the Bush administration given the company $9 billion in no-bid contracts in Iraq, and why does it continue to do business with such a slimy outfit?
What kind of corporate culture did Dick Cheney foster at Halliburton?
Bush will probably refuse to debate, but if he does, he should be grilled on two matters of great importance that touch on his character and honesty.
"Why do you not, Mr. President, request that the Securities and Exchange Commission make public the entire file of its investigation into your suspected insider trading when your were an officer of Harken Energy?"
"Mr. President, will you order the Pentagon to release your full military service record as a member of the Texas Air National Guard in order to clear up allegations that you were AWOL in 1972 and in 1973, failing to report for duty, as you were ordered to, and why you refused to undergo a physical examination you were required to take, and why you were grounded and no longer flew the planes the taxpayers spent $1 million training you to fly?"
The records in both these matters will easily clear up questions that have never been fully answered, and the president can easily choose the course of clarity. Why won't he?
Bush must be held accountable on all these issues and not allowed to hide as he would prefer. It will take extraordinary exertion for a Democrat to win. Getting people out to vote tops the exertion list. The candidate must be bold and willing to mix it up with His Excellency, King George, armed with his $200 million campaign war chest. But after more than two years of doubting, I am now convinced that Bush can be beaten and that consumes me with the wonderful happiness that comes with hope.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | January 27 2004 |