Where's The Outrage? Why Is Anyone Other Than Someone With The Surname "Bush" Voting For Bush?

It goes without saying that I find it inconceivable that Bush could win this election. What I find difficult to understand is why anyone would vote for Bush.

Case in point: On September 13, 2004, Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Powell testified that "it is unlikely we will find any stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." This, of course, is about as obvious as the fact that George Bush did not get into Yale because he is the next Einstein and did not get into the Texas National Guard because he is the next Achilles. What is more striking about Powell's recent testimony is the fact that in the same testimony Powell admitted that at the time he made the case to the United Nations in February 2003 for the invasion of Iraq, some unnamed U.S. "intelligence officials" already knew that many of Powell's claims about Iraqi weapons and terrorist ties were, in Powell's words, "suspect." Powell testified as follows: "What distressed me is that there were some in the intelligence community who had knowledge that the sourcing was suspect and that was not known to me. They knew at the time I was saying it that some of the sourcing was suspect."

[I have not been able to find on the Web an actual transcript of Powell's testimony. As described below, the only major news story that appeared about Powell's testimony was in the Boston Globe, which is where these quotes appear, and which can be viewed at www.boston.com/news/articles/2004/09/14/. ]

Powell's sworn admission that U.S. intelligence officials knew that the "sourcing was suspect" to support Powell's claims about Iraq weapons of mass destruction stands in stark contrast to what Powell told the U.N. on February 5, 2003, when, in hyping the case for an immediate attack against Iraq, Powell stated: "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." See www.guardian.co.uk.

As noted, Powell now claims that there were unnamed "intelligence officials" who knew that Powell's statements to the U.N. were false but did not share that knowledge with him. Powell's defense of lack of knowledge has been called into question by his former chief of intelligence on nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, Greg Thielmann, who has revealed that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research provided Powell with a report two days before Powell's U.N. speech which called into question the reliability of many of Powell's claims about Iraqi weapons.

Nevertheless, even if we accept Powell's defense of lack of knowledge at face value, the questions that arise are mind-boggling. What was the basis for Powell's repeated assurance to the U.N. that he was reporting "facts" and "not assertions"? What did Powell do to back up his claim to the U.N. that his speech was based on "solid sources"? Did Powell question intelligence officials about the reliability of the sources on which the speech was based, and if not, why not? And if he did, Powell seems to be saying now that those officials deliberately lied to him. If so, who are these unnamed lying officials and why aren't they spending the rest of their lives in jail? [Actually, deliberately lying about matters that were directly responsible for bringing the nation to war is probably chargeable as treason, which is a capital offense]. And, where were Bush and Cheney while all this lying was going on?

I refuse to believe that the voters of this nation have become so cynical and so corrupt that they cannot see that Bush's debacle in Iraq is the most horrendous scandal in U.S. history. The Secretary of State admitted that he presented false information to the U.N., notwithstanding his repeated assurances of the reliability of the information, and he admitted that officials in the U.S. government knew at the time that the information was unreliable and that Powell's assurances of reliability were false. As a direct result of these lies, more than a thousand U.S. soldiers are dead, thousands more are seriously wounded, countless more will die in the years ahead as the war drags on, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead, and Iraq is in ruins.

What I do believe is that the American people know that the Bush Administration is utterly ruthless, corrupt, and dishonest. And this is known notwithstanding the best efforts of a flaccid news media that systematically attempts to sanitize Bush's disgraceful record. I have done searches of the Web and found little reporting of Powell's testimony beyond the single story that appeared in the Boston Globe; neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post, those alleged bastions of the liberal media, carried the story.

This election is the ultimate test of pure democracy. I still believe that democracy will rise to the occasion.

The Kerry Record: Right On Iraq, Now and Then

On September 20, 2004, John Kerry delivered an outstanding speech on Iraq; indeed, Senator Kerry delivered the outstanding speech on Iraq. Kerry's statement of his position on Iraq represents precisely what America and the world need to hear at this crucial moment in time. No one should be satisfied with simply hearing the snippets of the speech that are presented on the evening news, although Kerry's speech was so good that even the most heavy-handed editors cannot conceal the fact that Kerry has hit a grand-slam home run in the bottom of the ninth on this issue. Nevertheless, I would recommend that the speech be read in its entirety, and it can be viewed at www.johnkerry.com.

Kerry has clearly articulated all of the critically-important points that must govern American policy in Iraq. Kerry's clarion declaration included the following: (1) Bush's invasion of Iraq was unwarranted and unjustified, and the removal of Saddam Hussein was not, in and of itself, a valid reason for the war; (2) withdrawal of all American troops at the earliest practicable time must be our government's prime objective; (3) an indefinite American occupation of Iraq is not an option; (4) conditions in Iraq must be stabilized through a combination of expedited reconstruction and cooperative international peace-keeping, not unilateral American military action; (5) other nations should be given incentives to cooperate in the stabilization of Iraq by opening up bidding on reconstruction contracts, even if that means cutting into some of the gravy being ladled out to the Bush/Cheney good old boys at Halliburton; (6) full and fair Iraqi elections, subject to meaningful international supervision which is currently impossible under Bush's policy, must be held as soon as possible.

Every rational voice in the media has praised Kerry's articulation of a comprehensive approach to addressing the Iraq dilemma. The New York Times ran an editorial entitled "Straight Talk, At Last, On Iraq." Considering the kind of mealy-mouthed stuff that usually shows up on the Times' editorial page, this was an amazingly candid recognition of Kerry's triumph.

Unfortunately, straight talk is the last thing you can expect from Bush and his band of high-priced prevaricators. They have already started running obnoxious ads accusing Kerry of "flip-flopping" on Iraq. Let's consign this tired false accusation to the dustbin of lies in which it rightly belongs. The truth is that Kerry is not only right on Iraq today, he has been right on Iraq all along. And, Kerry has been totally consistent in his position on Iraq. Turn off the Republican media noise machine for a moment and take a look at the facts.

Senator Kerry gave a detailed statement on Iraq in a pre-war speech given on the Senate floor on October 9, 2002, which can be viewed at www.independentsforkerry.org. At that time, Senator Kerry voted in favor of a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, but only if it was necessary to do so in order to defend American national security and in order to enforce UN resolutions prohibiting Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction. As Kerry made very clear at the time, this vote was not the blank check for war that Bush now claims it to have been. Moreover, Senator Kerry's 2002 speech made it clear that he never supported Bush's agenda of unilateral "pre-emptive" war in Iraq, and that his position on Iraq has always been consistent with what he recently said in the September 20 speech. Take a look at the comparisons:

1. "Regime Change" Was Not Justification for Bush's War. On September 20, 2004, Senator Kerry said, "Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war." On October 9, 2002, Senator Kerry said, "As much as we decry the way Saddam Hussein has treated his people, regime change alone is not a sufficient reason for going to war, as desirable as it is to change the regime."

2. Bush's Dishonesty About the Reasons for War. On September 20, 2004, Senator Kerry said, "[Bush] failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war. ... His two main rationales -- weapons of mass destruction and the Al Quaeda/September 11 connection -- have been proved false by the president's own weapons inspectors and by the 9/11 Commission." On October 9, 2002, Senator Kerry said, "Let me be clear, the vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. ... In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill his commitments he has made to the American people in recent days -- to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."

3. The Impropriety of Bush's Unilateral Military Action in Iraq. On September 20, 2004, Senator Kerry said, "The president rushed to war without letting the weapons inspectors finish their work. He went without a broad and deep coalition of allies. He acted without making sure our troops had enough body armor. And he plunged ahead without understanding or preparing for the consequences of the post-war. None of which I would have done." On October 9, 2002, Senator Kerry said, "Let there be no doubt where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm him by force, if we ever exhaust those other options [i.e., inspections], but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances. .. But it is not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing we have had suggests it is imminent."

4. America Has Been Made Less Secure By Bush's War. On September 20, 2004, Senator Kerry said, "The president's policy in Iraq divided our oldest alliances and sent our standing in the Muslim world into free fall. Three years after 9/11, even in many moderate Muslim countries like Jordan, Morocco, and Turkey, Osama bin Laden is more popular than the United States of America. Let me put it plainly: The president's policy in Iraq has not strengthened our national security. It has weakened it." On October 9, 2002, Senator Kerry said, "The administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do. If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed."

5. Congress Never Voted To Give Bush A Blank Check For War. On September 20, 2004, Senator Kerry said, "Two years ago, Congress was right to give the president the authority to use force to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. This president, any president would have needed the threat of force to act effectively. This president misused that authority." On October 9, 2002, Senator Kerry said, "Congressional action on this resolution is not the end of our national debate on how best to disarm Iraq. Nor does it mean we have exhausted all of our peaceful options to achieve this goal. There is much more to be done. The administration must continue its efforts to build support at the United Nations for a new, unfettered, unconditional weapons inspection regime. We have an obligation to try that as the first course of action before we expend American lives in any further effort."

6. International Cooperation Is Necessary to Reconstruct Iraq. On September 20, 2004, Senator Kerry said, "The president has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it alone. ... After insulting allies and shredding alliances, this president may not have the trust and confidence to bring others to our side in Iraq. But we cannot hope to succeed unless we rebuild and lead strong alliances so that other nations share the burden with us." On October 9, 2002, Senator Kerry said, "The United States, without question, has the military power to enter this conflict unilaterally. But we do need friends. We need logistical support such as bases, command and control centers, overflight rights from allies in the region. ... The international community's support will be critical because we will not be able to rebuild Iraq singlehandedly. We will lack the credibility and the expertise and the capacity."

The only "flip-flopping" (with an emphasis on flopping) that has been going on in reference to Iraq is in connection with the disastrous mess that Bush's policies have created. One very tragic example of the chaos wrought by Bush's incompetence and indecision can be seen in his handling of the situation in Fallujah, which is well-chronicled in an article entitled "Bush's Bloody Flip-Flop," www.consortiumnews.com. Last April, Bush overruled Marine commanders by first ordering a massive ground and air assault on Fallujah following the murder of four U.S. contractors. However Bush then overruled those same commanders three days later by calling off the offensive in the midst of the attack. Today, as a direct consequence of Bush's vacillation, as Kerry properly emphasized in his September 20 speech, "Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, even parts of Baghdad -- are now "no go zones" -- breeding grounds for terrorists who are free to plot and launch attacks against our soldiers."

At every step of the way, Bush has done the wrong thing in Iraq. It is equally clear that Senator Kerry has been right all along. Kerry has now given a blueprint for the future that can give confidence to all Americans that this country can get on the right track -- in Iraq and everywhere else -- as soon as Bush is voted out of office.

The New Bush-Crime: Asking Why

I apologize for interrupting my series of positive, pro-Kerry blogs, but I simply had to post something about a story that I just read. It is a story that says so much about what is at stake in this election, and illustrates very graphically why BushAmerica bears no resemblance to the country that I love.

It is the story of Susan Niederer of Hopewell, NJ. Ms. Niederer had a twenty-four year-old son named Seth. He was a First Lieutenant in the Army. He was home for two weeks at the beginning of the year. Then he got sent back to Iraq. He died in February while trying to disarm a bomb.

Ms. Niederer went to a speech given by Laura Bush today in nearby Hamilton, NJ. Ms. Bush was telling everyone that her husband was doing a wonderful job on the economy, health care, and the war on terror. Ms. Niederer thought that as an American, she had something called Freedom of Speech. She might have heard that there was something called the First Amendment that guaranteed that right. She might have heard that kids like her son died in past wars to defend that right. Ms. Niederer called out to Ms. Bush. She asked her why her son Seth had been killed in Iraq.

Ms. Niederer did not get an answer to her question. Instead, she got an arrest record. The local police took her out of the rally and placed her under arrest. Laura Bush went on with her speech.

Susan Niederer was arrested for the crime of asking why her son was dead.

Why?

The Kerry Record: The BCCI Case

There is no more important issue facing America in this election year than the subject of the financing of terrorist organizations. And there is no one in America with a more impressive track-record on this issue than John Kerry.

Over a five-year period lasting from 1987 until 1992, John Kerry almost single-handedly led an arduous investigation that directly resulted in the demise of the notorious Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), dubbed by one CIA official as the "Bank of Crooks and Criminals International." Kerry carried on the investigation of BCCI in spite of the opposition of powerful political forces, including significant figures in the political leadership of his own party. At the end of the day, Kerry succeeded in laying bare a chronicle of money laundering, fraud, bribery, and support for international terrorism without historical parallel. Indeed, Kerry's investigation uncovered the fact that a then little-known Saudi businessman named Osama Bin Laden -- he whose name could not be uttered at the Republican convention -- maintained a series of accounts at BCCI for the purpose of directing money to Islamic terrorists. An excellent account of Kerry's extraordinary work in the BCCI case is set forth in an article entitled "Follow The Money" appearing in the current issue of The Washington Monthly. It should be required reading for anyone who has the slightest doubt about the strength of John Kerry's Senatorial record, his tenacity and integrity, and the indisputable fact that he is the superior candidate in this election.

First of all, consider why terrorist funding is such a crucial subject. It is, in essence, what 9/11 was all about. Even though Bush has used 9/11 as an excuse to promote all sorts of expensive weapons systems such as Reagan's old "Star Wars" boondoggle, the reality is that weaponry had almost nothing to do with 9/11. The only weapons that were wielded that day were box cutters. What made 9/11 a reality was the fact that well-to-do Islamic fundamentalists, primarily located in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil states, were able to take advantage of an international financial network that enabled them to funnel money to their operatives in the United States so that those operatives could take flying lessons and ultimately coordinate their actions on that horrible day. It is no exaggeration to say that if you cut off the flow of money, you go a long way to stopping terrorism.

That is why Kerry's record in the BCCI case is so relevant to this election. First, some background on BCCI. The bank was founded by Agha Hasan Abedi, a Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist who had the avowed objective of "fighting the evil influence of the West." Abedi located BCCI's headquarters in Luxembourg, in part to conceal its connection to Islamic organizations and in part to take advantage of the generous bank secrecy laws that the Grand Duchy has to offer. In short order, BCCI became the bank of choice not only for Muslim terror networks, but also for drug dealers and other major international criminals.

In 1987, after taking a leading role in uncovering the Iran-Contra scandal (the subject of a future blog), Senator Kerry was appointed Chair of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations. In the process of following-up on information about cocaine trafficking by Contra leaders, Kerry's staff became aware of the fact that Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega appeared to be running large amounts of drug money through a then little-known bank called BCCI. Kerry obtained authorization from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to begin an investigation and issue subpoenas. The Reagan Justice Department however, which the CIA had alerted to BCCI's illegal activities as early as 1985, promptly put a stop to the investigation, claiming that Kerry's subpoenas were interfering with ongoing criminal cases. Kerry continued to press the investigation but in early 1989, was rebuffed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and told to end the inquiry.

It is here that Kerry's doggedness becomes striking. Instead of moving on to the sort of meaningless pap that occupies the days most politicians in Washington, Kerry continued to press to have the truth about BCCI uncovered. Kerry and his staff investigators provided the information they had uncovered about BCCI to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, which now began its own investigation of BCCI in conjunction with the Federal Reserve Board.

In 1990, the Justice Department announced a settlement with BCCI, one which would impose insignificant fines, would not include any charges against BCCI's officials, and would permit the bank to continue in operation. Kerry went public with his criticism of this outrage and demanded a new Senatorial investigation, which was finally authorized in early 1991. It soon became apparent why so many roadblocks had been placed in the way of Kerry's investigation. Kerry uncovered evidence that numerous prominent political figures -- both Democrats and Republicans -- had long-standing working relationships with BCCI. One of the most prominent of BCCI's backers was legendary Democratic power broker Clark Clifford. Kerry was confronted with enormous pressure from within his own party to back off; Democratic luminaries such as Jacqueline Onassis and Pamela Harriman called Kerry's office and asked him not to go after their friend Clifford.

Kerry carried on his investigation in face of overwhelming pressure to stop it. Kerry forced Clifford to give public testimony to account for his actions. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Kerry could not have undertaken "any more potentially career disruptive move than grilling Clark Clifford."

The results of Kerry's investigation were striking. The Report of the investigation (which was issued in 1992 and can be obtained online at www.fas.org/irp/congress) runs thousands of pages and contains an extraordinarily valuable account of how terrorists and other international criminals use banking channels to carry on their activities. According to numerous Congressional staffers, Kerry himself participated personally not only in directing the investigation, but in writing the Report.

Reading the Report in light of the events of 9/11 is humbling. As noted, Osama Bin Laden utilized the services of BCCI. Post- 9/11 investigations concluded that Bin Laden's financial network was modeled on BCCI and included many of the same players in the Islamic world that had been involved with BCCI. Kerry's recommendations in the Report included proposals for new regulations to combat money laundering, and, most importantly, recommendations that the CIA and the State Department monitor international money laundering more closely and coordinate the dissemination of financial intelligence with law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, in 1994, two years after Kerry's Report was issued, Newt Gingrich & Co. gained control of Congress and the idea of imposing new financial regulations was viewed as the height of bad taste.

Based on evidence uncovered by Kerry and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, BCCI was finally shut down by Federal banking regulators in July 1991. No one should doubt that it was John Kerry who was responsible for making that happen. The most revealing testament to Kerry's work came from Senator Hank Brown, the ranking Republican on Kerry's subcommittee: "John Kerry was willing to spearhead this difficult investigation. Because many important members of his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry did."

As a final irony, contrast Kerry's legacy on BCCI with that of George W. Bush. In 1987, when Kerry was just setting out on the tortuous path that would lead to the demise of BCCI, Bush was working (using the term generously) for an outfit called Harken Energy. Harken had recently bailed out Bush's failed (and aptly named) Arbusto Oil venture, and Harken was looking for some fresh infusions of cash. Harken found the cash in the form of a very sweet $25 million loan from a bank that turned out to be a front for -- you guessed it -- BCCI. BCCI correctly concluded that there were enormous financial and political benefits to be reaped by currying favor with the President's son. According to a 1991 Wall Street Journal article, there was "a mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken ... since George W. Bush came on board."

Anyone who is still undecided in this election should remember BCCI and ask him or herself this question: Do I want to vote for the guy who moved heaven and earth to get at the truth about terrorist financiers or do I want to vote for the guy who climbed into bed with them?

Let's Get Positive! Why Kerry Should Win

It is one of the canards of this campaign that the reason why Kerry talks so much about Vietnam is that he doesn't have a Senatorial record on which to run. (While I would like to limit myself to saying only positive things about Kerry, I must confess that some of the fault for this lies with Kerry's own campaign, which has not done enough to emphasize the strengths of Kerry's Senatorial career). The truth is that Kerry's Senatorial record is a very impressive one. In today's political environment, John Kerry is a surprising and refreshing alternative to the choices with which we are usually presented; a case can be made that he is, in fact, about as good a Presidential candidate as we are going to get.

Democrats should stop looking at Kerry as nothing more than the guy who is running against Bush. In my next few blogs, I will be discussing the Kerry record, a record that shows that he is eminently suited to be elected President.

Jewish Voters: Looking Before Leaping Into Bed With The GOP

The one group that has been suggested as a potential source of defections to the Republican column are Jewish voters. The suggestion has been made in some quarters that conservative Jewish voters were induced to vote for Gore by reason of Lieberman's presence on the ticket, but will now turn to Bush because of the Bush Administration's supposed support for Israel. Again, I am very skeptical that any potential for such a voting shift actually exists. Nevertheless, all Jewish voters should be very aware of the disastrous mistake they would be making by throwing in their lot with the extremist cabal that is the Republican Party of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Giuliani and McCain may be the welcoming, inclusive faces that the Republicans put on display at their convention, but they are not the faces of the people wielding the levers of power in today's Republican Party. To put this in an historical context, this is not the Republican Party of Jacob Javits. This is the Republican Party of the Liberty Lobby, the John Birch Society, and the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade. This is a party that makes the deliberate and not-too-subtle gesture of designing the podium at the RNC in the shape of a cross. This is the party that seeks to have America officially declared to be a "Christian Nation." This is the party in which a Congressional candidate can blithely, and without rebuke, describe a fund-raiser for a Democratic opponent as "that Jew boy from Savannah." For an excellent compendium of recent outrages by the Republican Right along these lines, I suggest a visit to the website of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

For a particularly revealing insight into the true face of the Republican Right, consider the case of the right-wing's recent demonization of George Soros, a Jewish refugee from Communist Hungary. Soros is a billionaire currency speculator/hedge fund manager who has also become highly-involved with international philanthropy, most notably The Open Society Institute, which supports the promotion of capitalist democracy in the former Soviet bloc. In terms of domestic politics, Soros has historically supported Republicans as often as Democrats, since he finds the free-market policies of the Republicans consistent with his vision of an "open society," a belief to which Soros was drawn as a result of his studies with philosopher Karl Popper at Oxford. This year, however, Soros has been an outspoken opponent of Bush, believing that the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush Administration reflects the antithesis of a truly "open society." Soros has given substantial financial support to anti-Bush organizations such as MoveOn and Americans Coming Together (ACT).

Of course, these "527c" organizations have been driving the Republicans bonkers, simply because they have aggressively told the truth about Bush. The Republican strategy has been to attack these groups by demonizing Soros. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has accused Soros of funneling money derived from "drug groups" into ACT and MoveOn. Hastert has not found the fact that he admittedly does not have a shred of evidence to support this outrageous allegation to be any impediment to his continuing assertion of the charge. Telling the truth is one of those "nuances" that today's Republican Party "does not do."

Tellingly, Hastert's vicious defamation of Soros has been coordinated with an even more ugly attack coming from the Right. Fox News commentator Tony Blankley described Soros as a "left wing crank" and -- appropos of nothing except the disgusting blood libel that it is -- "a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust." Rather than castigating Blankley for his lament that Hitler did not do a thorough enough job, Fox News superstar Sean Hannity simply said, "Tony, I think you're right." Apparently, Fox News' idea of being "fair and balanced" means balancing criticism of MoveOn with criticism of Hitler for not killing every Jew. Lest anyone have any doubts about who Blankley is and whom he represents, Blankely is the former top aide to Newt Gingrich who now works as the editorial page editor for Rev. Moon's Washington Times.

Regrettably, this is not even the worst of the Republican Right's treatment of Soros. A website called gopusa.com recently posted an article entitled "Satan Lives in George Soros." This revealing piece described Soros as a "descendant of Shylock" and "the embodiment of the merchant from Venice." (Yes, that's what it said; I guess the author's favorite play is "Eleventh Night.")

I know MoveOn got into trouble for running an ad comparing Bush to Hitler. I don't think it's necessary to say a word in order to draw any comparisons. Just let the Republican Right go on speaking for itself.

Why Kerry Will Win

My conclusion that John Kerry will win the Presidential election is based on the following analysis: The reason why incumbents generally have an advantage is because, by definition, they won the last election. Thus, an incumbent can only lose a re-election if there is a net shift in voting patterns from the last election. That is, in order to defeat an incumbent the challenger either has to pick up voters who voted for the incumbent (or a third party) in the last election or else win overwhelmingly among voters who did not vote in the previous election, such as by an increase in turnout among groups supporting the challenger.

However, this reasoning does not apply in Bush's case. Gore got more than 500,000 more votes in 2000 than Bush did. Setting aside the peculiarity of the electoral college, Gore won the last election and Bush lost. In terms of voting patterns, it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are really in the position usually enjoyed by an incumbent. In other words, barring another electoral college anomaly, Bush can only win re-election if there is a net shift of more than 500,000 votes from the Democratic column to the Republican column. I do not see how this can happen.

I have a great deal of difficulty conjuring up the image of any voter who voted for Gore in 2000 who will vote for Bush this year. Such rare birds may exist, but I have a hard time believing that there are many of them. On the other hand, I can think of lots of reasons why voters who chose Bush in 2000 will vote for Kerry this year. Most importantly, working-class voters who chose Bush because of distaste over the Clinton scandals may well decide to vote Democratic this time around because of economic concerns. I again emphasize that it is Bush, not Kerry, who needs a net shift in voters in order to win, and I certainly don't see many voters shifting from the Democrats to the Republicans because of economic issues. There are also the Nader voters, and it seems highly likely that there will be a big shift in this group away from Nader to the Democratic ticket -- there certainly won't be any shift in this group in favor of Bush.

Nor do I see changes in turnout as yielding a result favorable to Bush -- quite the contrary. There may well be a significant increase in voter turnout among minority voters, particularly African-Americans, who have been hit hard by job losses and who are angry over perceived racial exclusions of voters in Florida in 2000. If so, this will undoubtedly favor Kerry. Polling also indicates that Kerry does well with younger voters, who also have concerns about the job market and who tend to be more opposed to the Iraq war than the general public. It is therefore unlikely that Bush will score any net gains among first-time voters. In all, the likelihood is that voters who turn out to vote this year but who did not vote in 2000 will favor Kerry, not Bush.

There has been a suggestion that Republican strategists believe that they can increase the turnout among Bush's core voters, namely, religious and other social conservatives. I am skeptical of this. Right-wing ideologues (NRA-types, anti-abortion voters, etc.) tend to be highly motivated voters who always have a high turnout rate. I find it very unlikely that social conservatives will be any more motivated to vote in this election than they were in 2000, when they were motivated by a zeal to rescue America from eight years of government by their version of the anti-Christ, Bill Clinton. In any event, these groups tend to be concentrated in states that Bush carried in 2000, so I do not see any realistic chance that an increase in turnout among social conservatives will do anything to throw the election to Bush.

In short, my advice to Democrats is simple: Calm Down! Let's stop second-guessing Kerry and rally behind our truly excellent candidate, the candidate who will finally put an end to the Bush national nightmare.

RNC Convention: Messages and Messengers

The themes of the Republican National Convention combine ridiculous assertions about the "compassionate" nature of the Bush agenda, rabid attacks on Democrats in general and John Kerry in particular, and a Riefenstahlian glorification of Bush's alleged "courage" and iron will. Let's take a look at some of the messengers who are delivering these bogus messages:

- Non-girlieman Schwarzenegger was presented as the prototype of the American immigrant success story; just your average Mr. Universe who comes to America with pluck and offers of Hollywood contracts and who ultimately gets big corporate funding so that he can supplant an elected Democratic Governor and become a GOP superstar. However, we learned from his speech that Young Arnold fled Austria not in search of Hollywood fame and fortune, but in fact, to escape political oppression. According to Arnold, he came to America because of his lingering fear of Communism, which he allegedly experienced first-hand during the Soviet occupation of a portion of eastern Austria. The chronology is a bit confusing here, since the last Soviet troops left Austria in 1955 (peacefully, by the way, without any force or threat of force), which was more than twenty years before Arnold struck Hollywood gold (to mix metallic metaphors) with his smash documentary, "Pumping Iron." Anyway, Arnold told the rapt RNC audience about his childhood terror that his father would be pulled out of his car by Soviet soldiers, stating, "[M]y family and so many others lived in fear of the Soviet boot." Arnold's reference to Soviet footwear is regrettable. In fact, his father, Gustav, was a veteran of the Nazi SA (generally known as the "Brownshirts"), having volunteered for "service" in 1939, shortly after Austria united with Nazi Germany. Arnold also has had a long-standing friendship with Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim. Apparently, Arnold and his family had a selective distaste for jackboots, depending upon whose feet they were on.

- Keynote Speaker Zell Miller, whom Republicans have dubbed the "conscience of the Democratic Party," offered a particularly frothy rant, in which he decried the fact that the Democratic Party of John Kerry and John Edwards is not the same party with which Miller identified in his youth. We can only thank the Lord that this is so. Although not widely reported in the media, one should note that Miller got his big break in Georgia politics by serving as Chief of Staff to then-Governor Lester Maddox. To younger readers who don't remember the civil rights movement or have not studied it in history classes, Maddox rose to prominence under the banner of "Segregation Forever!", wielding an axe-handle to prevent Blacks from dining at his chicken restaurant. Miller is correct that axe-handles are not part of the Democratic Party platform; they may well have a plank in the GOP's.

If you really want to burn your noodle, consider the prominence given by the RNC to Miller in conjunction with the remarks of Maryland's Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (calling Steele and other African-American Republicans tokens is an insult to tokens). Steele hailed the history of the GOP, going back to Lincoln and pointing out that a majority of Republican Senators supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in opposition to "segregationist Democrats." Steele failed to note that one Republican who did not support the Civil Rights Act was young George H.W. Bush, then an unsuccessful Congressional candidate. Nor did Steele note that those "segregationist Democrats"-- such as Miller's mentor Maddox -- went on to become the stalwarts of the born-again Republican Party, such as Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms.

Yes, Zell, the Democratic Party of John Kerry and John Edwards is not the party of Maddox, and no, Michael, the Republican Party of George Bush and Dick Cheney is not the party of Lincoln.

truthvsbush - introduction

This is my newly-created blog dedicated to the deafeat of the Bush presidential campaign. I have been fulminating about this election long enough, and have concluded that I must make a public effort to bring about the defeat of the Bush candidacy. While it is doubtful that these blogs will have any meaningful impact, they will at least give me an opportunity to vent, which, I suppose, is the essential purpose of all blogs.