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---> EXCLUSIVE: Bush's Tactical Lying

10.31.04 (10:46 am) [edit]

No one has investigated Bush more thoroughly than Jim Moore, author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, and Bush's War for Re-election: Iraq, the White House, and the People. Jim Moore writes that Bush's original biographer Mickey "Herskowitz has verified what a number of sources told me off the record in Alabama: Bush never talked about the guard and brought neither uniforms nor equipment of any kind with him for his time in Montgomery. The guard was no longer a part of his life... In both of my books, I used all available evidence to make the case that the Bush administration, indeed, the Bush campaign, had been thinking about Iraq long before 9/11... Herskowitz told Baker that Bush was interested in a war [in 1999] because it would help him politically and that he would use that political capital to win passage of his legislative agenda. "

[b]More[/b] ... http://blog.democrats.com/nod...

---> Bush/Cheney Rig Florida With Help From Embezzler Jebby-boy Bush!!!

10.31.04 (6:35 am) [edit]

[b]Missing Ballots in West Palm Beach[/b]

Sun-Sentinel: "Amid a throng of complaints about an absence of absentee ballots, Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore agreed Thursday to rush them to some voters by overnight mail. LePore said she would expedite absentee ballots, on a 'case by case' basis, to local voters who are out of the county... LePore says her office already has mailed almost 115,000, compared to about 55,500 four years ago. But an untold number still haven't gotten those ballots, with little time left for mailing back and forth by the 7 p.m. Tuesday deadline to return completed ballots." Ain't this grand, has 'Lame Duck Lepore' engineered another debacle in S. Florida?

[b]More[/b] ... http://sun-sentinel.com/news/...,0,7263407.story?coll=sfla-home-head lines

---> Eminem, Anti-Hero

10.31.04 (6:28 am) [edit]

[b]With a new video proudly declaring war on Bush, Eminem steps into the political fray, perhaps the least likely – and most effective – generational leader imaginable. [/b]

There was merely a ripple in the cultural zeitgeist when Bruce Springsteen put aside his genial nonpartisan everyman stance and headlined the Vote for Change concerts, benefiting America Coming Together (ACT), and ultimately, John Kerry. No one blinked when Ani diFranco set off on her own tour, boldly titled Vote Dammit. Same with Moby, who has worn his politics on his sleeve from day one. And no eyebrows were raised when P. Diddy, in typical Diddy style, came out big and loud with his Vote or Die campaign – which as usual seemed to be more about Diddy than anything else.

But Eminem – the man who George Bush once called "the most dangerous threat to American children since polio" – could be the true October surprise.

Eminem is one of the least likely artists to come out with an overtly political message and a rallying call to youth, yet eight days before the election Eminem released "Mosh," the second single from his forthcoming album "Encore," scheduled for release on Nov. 6. Solidly established as an anti-hero, reveling in the fact that his words and actions – pulling a gun on his ex-wife's boyfriend, rapping about "fags" and then making nice with Elton John or mooning fans at the MTV Video Music Awards – were not to be followed, analyzed, or mimicked, Eminem seemed content to remain the angry young man with a wicked flow, biting lyrics and astronomical record sales.

Instead, he releases a rousing call to arms for the hip hop generation to take back the government that seeks to represent them. He even proclaims himself their leader. Surprise indeed.

With "Mosh," Eminem – the most polarizing musician of our times – takes on the most polarizing election of our times.

In the video, Eminem leads a mob fired up and politicized by four years of outrage and anger at the Bush administration. Clad in black hoodies, fists raised, the angry young men and women descend on a state building ... to vote.

Chunky black-and-white illustrated figures on a moody, sepia-toned landscape play out the frustration and angst of a generation. One young Iraq veteran returns home, to be met by his wife and children and a notice of reassignment; "Fuck Bush" is the accompanying lyric he spits out. Then he dons a black hoodie and joins the mob. A single mother comes home, groceries in hand, and opens an eviction notice while news of a tax cut for the rich plays on the television ... she dons a black hoodie and joins the mob.

Eminem leads the crowd, providing "spark" to the chorus http://www.azlyrics.com/lyric... :

"Come along follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength
Come with me and I won't steer you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
To the light at the end of the tunnel
We gonna fight, we gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march
Through the swamp, we gonna mosh through the marsh
Take us right through the doors (c'mon)"

The video was produced, directed and edited by Ian Inaba of the Guerilla News Network, who didn't necessarily have Eminem in mind when he came up with the concept. Inaba, also a contributor to GNN's new book "True Lies" http://www.guerrillanews.com/... (The Penguin Group, 2004), concurs that the song and the video have altered the left's perception of one of its favorite whipping boys: "People who have been critical are now saying positive things about him," Inaba tells AlterNet. "I think he's matured a lot as an artist and he's a very hard working and intelligent artist. And I think this song and his effort is showing people that."

This sea change in public perception occurred in less than five days. The video was finished on Monday, Oct. 25, and posted at gnn.tv on the same day. After rumors that MTV would refuse to air it, the video appeared on Total Request Live on Tuesday; it's currently No. 1 on the charts.

So Inaba and Eminem were a fortuitous pairing. The video was first a concept in search of a song, but when Inaba, who had worked with Eminem on his last album, heard the song, he felt it was the perfect fit. "I wanted to do a voting video," he says. "[We were] trying to come out with it right before the election – hopefully a little earlier than we ultimately did." Inaba shopped it around to record labels, landing at Interscope, looking to see who among the label's artists would be releasing an album near the election. "The video's content was pretty well established in my head when I went to his management so we were both kind of surprised when I heard the song. You know it couldn't have been a better song," says Inaba.

"Mosh" couldn't have fit better with the concept, and Inaba considers Eminem's nation of listeners a powerful bloc who otherwise wouldn't have heard the message: "We heard the song, we knew it was gonna have the reach, you know we could have gone with other artists, but he's got reach into swing states, into middle America, and that's, you know, a powerful thing." Think of it as the Michael Moore effect on an Xbox.

Indeed, in a nation where undecided-voter frenzy has reached a fever pitch, the hip hop generation has been a favorite target. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 26.7 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 24, and only 8.6 million of them – about 32 percent – voted in the 2000 presidential elections, meaning two of every three did not vote.

Reactions to the video have been dramatic. Moby, whose history with Eminem is stained with vitriol, has been effusive: http://www.nme.com/news/11035... "Wow, you know that Eminem and I have had our differences in the past, but this video is the best thing that I've seen all year. It's an amazing song and an even more amazing video. Please go watch." The "differences" that Moby blithely refers to include a call-out in Eminem's 2002 release "Without Me": "You 36-year-old boy fag, blow me/ You don't know me, you're too old, let go/ It's over, nobody listens to techno."

Inaba thinks the response has been amazing – and if the goal is getting out the vote, he believes that the video is a success: "We've gotten a lot of responses on message boards, on blog sites, things like that; kids saying, 'I wasn't gonna vote and I saw this video and it's really transformative and I'm now gonna go out and vote.'"

Naturally, the hip hop generation is watching, and talking. On MTV.com's "You Tell Us" http://www.mtv.com/news/youte... feature, reactions are strong. Kyle, a 22-year-old from Ithaca, N.Y. says: "Not since Chuck D has a hip hop artist spoken so eloquently of the power in numbers. If we stand up as a bloc and vote, both the president and the senator will have no choice but to listen."

Nineteen-year-old Kelley from Apple Valley, Minn. has a different take: "I am completely appalled by Eminem's 'Mosh' video. He may have his own opinions about our president, but there should be no reason that he has to come out with this Bush-bashing video a week before the election. I am a huge Eminem fan, but this is extremely upsetting. I am also afraid that people will watch this video and be corrupted by what he is portraying, and that is a false image of President Bush."

Eminem, not surprisingly, disagrees. In an advance report of a poorly timed interview in Rolling Stone (appearing in the Nov. 5 issue), he is quoted as saying http://www.rollingstone.com/n... rtistcage&pageregion=trip le3 :

"[Bush] has been painted to be this hero, and he's got our troops over there dying for no reason ... I think he started a mess ... He jumped the gun, and he fucked up so bad he doesn't know what to do right now ... We got young people over there dyin', kids in their teens, early 20s that should have futures ahead of them. And for what? It seems like a Vietnam 2. bin Laden attacked us, and we attacked Saddam. Explain why that is. Give us some answers."

According to the article, Eminem won't endorse a candidate: "'Whatever my decision is, I would like to see Bush out of office,' Eminem says. 'I don't wanna see my little brother get drafted – he just turned eighteen. People think their votes don't count, but people need to get out and vote. Every motherfuckin' vote counts.'"

If the video augurs anything, those votes will be legion. Eminem ends the song as a line of voters stretches out into the distance:

"As we set aside our differences
And assemble our own army
To disarm this weapon of mass destruction
That we call our president, for the present
And mosh for the future of our next generation
To speak and be heard
Mr. President, Mr. Senator
Do you guys hear us?"

Well, do you?

[b]Davina Baum is Managing Editor of AlterNet. Evan Derkacz, a writer based in New York, contributed information for this story[/b]. - http://www.alternet.org/wiret...

---> Right-Wing Neo-Fascist Clap-Trap

10.31.04 (6:21 am) [edit]

"The Bush gang has managed to keep much under wraps. They clearly do not believe in democracy as an activity predicated upon informed consent. This is a need-to-know crowd, and, from its perspective, there's plenty the public does not need to know--especially on Election Day." - Questions About Bush, David Corn, http://www.thenation.com/capi...

[b]Abetted by the news media, the Republican spin machine has succeeded in painting John Kerry as inconsistent. Meanwhile, Bush's far greater flip-flopping has become the biggest secret in American politics.

Bush is a power-drunk, money-grubbing opportunist, lacking in [i]any real [/i]conviction ... "We the People" must force ourselves to see through his phony facade and look into this shallow, mediocre man who has reeked chaos, havoc and misery during his insane neo-con tenure ... Please vote for John Kerry in order that we can restore sanity, integrity and dignity to the White House ...[/b]

Read "[b]The Flip-Flop Flim-Flam[/b]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...

---> James Roosevelt Jr.: 'What is a war president?'

10.31.04 (6:07 am) [edit]

[b]Franklin D. Roosevelt's grandson assesses George W. Bush's performance[/b]

Last May, I walked through the magnificent new World War II Memorial that was soon to be dedicated on the National Mall in Washington. The architecture, sculpture and carved quotations were impressive. But it was the faces of the retired veterans and the depth of feeling in the eyes of their wives and widows that was most moving. As I watched them read the words of inspiration from the war's leaders etched into the stone walls, I thought of my father, who served during the war as a Marine in Carlson's Raiders. His father, my grandfather, was making his own contribution: as president of the United States.

Today, I remember the words etched into that memorial while I read the news from Iraq. The contrast is stark. This summer, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's name and legacy were invoked by almost a dozen speakers at the Republican National Convention. But George W. Bush is not, and never will be, a president like FDR.

In the White House today is a man who for the first time in our nation's history invaded another country without our first being attacked and without the support of a global alliance. The real leadership of FDR, by contrast, was the skill with which he solidified our alliances and made winning the war a truly global effort.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> James Roosevelt Jr.: 'What is a war president?'

10.31.04 (6:07 am) [edit]

---> FOX Faux "NEWS" Fascist Channel Doctors Photos of Osama bin Laden to Smear Kerry!!!

10.31.04 (6:04 am) [edit]

[b]Kerry camp vs. Fox News: Angry over on-air remark, adviser threatens a ban[/b]

DES MOINES -- John Sasso, a senior adviser to John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, threatened to ban Fox News staff from the candidate's plane Friday night when Fox initially refused to apologize for a talk show host's comment that a new videotape showed Osama bin Laden with a Kerry button.

Kerry advisers quickly backtracked, however, concluding that an escalating conflict with a major cable channel just days before the election would do nothing to help the Democratic nominee. Kerry senior adviser Mike McCurry spoke to Fox executives Friday and yesterday and was told that the Fox News host, Neil Cavuto, may address the remark on Monday's show, officials from Fox and the Kerry campaign said.

The furor was a rare moment of visible frustration inside the Kerry camp: Kicking a major cable outlet off of the candidate's plane would almost certainly spark a run of negative stories in the media about Kerry lieutenants lashing out and their preelection confidence vanishing.

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.smirkingchimp.com/...

---> FOX Faux "NEWS" Fascist Channel Doctors Photos of Osama bin Laden to Smear Kerry!!!

10.31.04 (6:04 am) [edit]

---> Bush Ghost Writer Shows Truth About Father and Son

10.31.04 (5:58 am) [edit]

Mickey Herskowitz - a ghost writer for both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush - has revealed startling information about both men, which he learned from extensive candid conversations with the 41st and the 43rd presidents. Herskowitz revealed the information in a series of interviews with investigative reporter Russ Baker, which Baker tape recorded.1

Baker's article reveals that "in 2003, Bush's father indicated to [Herskowitz] that he disagreed with his son's invasion of Iraq."2

George W. Bush was reluctant to talk to Herskowitz about his National Guard service. But Bush did tell him "that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was 'excused.'"3 Bush's comments to Herskowitz "directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard."4

According to Herskowitz, "two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq."5 In 1999, Bush said to Herskowitz, "My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade…. if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."6

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000," Russ Baker, 10/27/04.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

---> Tucker Carlson Calling It For John Kerry?

10.30.04 (3:04 pm) [edit]

[b]In this WaPo Sunday Outlook piece, Tucker Carlson suggests the following (on the record):[/b]

[u]Popular Vote[/u]
Bush 48
Kerry 51.5

[u]EV[/u]
Bush 260
Kerry 278

[u]FL[/u]
Bush 49
Kerry 51

[u][b]Outlook 2004 Crystal Ball
Hot Button Choices[/b][/u]: http://www.washingtonpost.com...

Perhaps Jon Stewart slapped some sense into him after all. If you prefer Wonkette, she calls it for Kerry, too. The usual partisans call it as expected. But we've got over 1000 calls of our own to sort through here http://www.dailykos.com/story... .

Even if Tucker gets it right, he and the pundits will have plenty to answer to after the election. It's their fault we never had a substantive debate about Bush's policies, including and especially Iraq.

---> Eminent Psychoanalyst Describes Deranged Bush as "Paranoid Meglomaniac"

10.30.04 (12:48 pm) [edit]

[b]Eminent Psychoanalyst Describes Mentally Unstable Bush as "Paranoid Meglomaniac, etc." ...

""Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late." - Dr. Justin Frank, http://www.unknownnews.net/in...

Psychoanalyst describes Bush as "paranoid meglomaniac," "untreated alcoholic" (In other words, Dubya is a Dry-Drunk!)[/b]

A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a "paranoid meglomaniac" as well as a sadist and "untreated alcoholic." The doctor's analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.

Dr. Justin Frank, writing in [i]Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President[/i], http://www.harpercollins.com/... also says the President has a "lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs http://www.all-creatures.org/... ) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions ... and pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad." http://www.unknownnews.net/in...

Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President's years of heavy drinking "may have affected his brain function -- and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse."

Dr. Frank's revelations comes on the heels of last week's [i]Capitol Hill Blue [/i]exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush's emotional stability http://www.unknownnews.net/in... .

Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.

Bush shows an inability to grieve -- dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction -- no funeral and no mourning -- set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Other findings by Dr. Frank:

. His mother, Barbara Bush -- tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" -- had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.

. George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."

. The President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.

Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr. Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.

"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."

Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by Capitol Hill Blue.

"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last week recommended the latest book by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward to reporters at the daily press briefing. - http://www.unknownnews.net/in...

---> Bush, the War Criminal, Defying The Geneva Convention

10.30.04 (12:41 pm) [edit]

If, as Senator John McCain says, http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/s... "the thing that separates [the U.S.] from our enemy is our respect for human rights," than that separation is a very thin line. A new report shows that the CIA violated the Geneva Convention by transferring detainees out of Iraq. The transferring itself is prohibited under the Convention, as is the fact that neither the Red Cross, the UN, or any other group was notified.

Given the direct disregard for international law and the continuing torture scandal of Abu Ghraib, it's hard to believe that in June a top Pentagon lawyer assured reporters that the treatment of Iraqi prisoners would be "all Geneva, all the time." Oh yes, and the War in Iraq is going fabulously.

---> Bush, Kerry Statistically Tied in Daily Reuters/Zogby Poll ...

10.30.04 (11:40 am) [edit]

President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry remain statistically tied in a daily poll by Reuters/Zogby.

Bush was supported by 48 percent of 1,206 likely voters surveyed Oct. 25-27 and Kerry, the four-term Massachusetts senator, drew 46 percent. Four percent of voters are undecided. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. Bush led by 1 point in yesterday's results.

A Zogby tracking poll at this time in the 2000 election showed Bush led former Vice President Al Gore by 1 point.

The tracking poll by Reuters/Zogby is conducted daily and its result is a rolling average of three days' worth of polls. A portion of the total sample is interviewed each day. The earliest results are dropped when a new day is added.

[b]Zogby International is based in Utica, New York. Reuters Group Plc, the world's largest publicly traded provider of financial information, is based in London[/b]. - http://quote.bloomberg.com/ap...

---> Al Qaeda Endorsed Bush in March

10.30.04 (11:36 am) [edit]

Amidst all the discussion of who Al Qaeda wants to win, the media has totally ignored "an al Qaeda declaration following the Madrid bombing and published in full on 17 March in the Arabic-language dailies al-Quds al-Arabi and al-Hayat in the UK... 'A word for the foolish Bush. We are very keen that you do not lose in the forthcoming elections as we know very well that any big attack can bring down your government and this is what we do not want. We cannot get anyone who is more foolish than you, who deals with matters with force instead of wisdom and diplomacy. Your stupidity and religious extremism is what we want as our people will not awaken from their deep sleep except when there is an enemy. Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation. Because of this we desire you [Bush] to be elected.'"

[b]More[/b] ... http://english.aljazeera.net/...

---> Which Of These Two Statements Sounds Like It Comes From The Stronger Leader???

10.30.04 (10:47 am) [edit]

[b]John Kerry:[/b] In response to this tape from Osama bin Laden, let me make it clear, crystal clear. As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians. And I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes. Period.

[b]George W. Bush:[/b] Earlier today I was informed of the tape that is now being analyzed by America's intelligence community. Let me make this very clear: Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this. I also want to say to the American people that we're at war with these terrorists and I am confident that we will prevail.

[b]You decide ...[/b]

-- Josh Marshall, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....

---> Former HBS Prof Warns America About "Shallow", "Mediocre" Bush!

10.30.04 (10:42 am) [edit]

[b]Former HBS Prof Blasts Bush

Business scholar says president was 'shallow,' 'flippant' in 1970s class[/b]

As the race for the White House heats up and the nation’s left-leaning heads come together to unearth potential skeletons in President Bush’s closet, one line in his resume has avoided major scrutiny: the time Bush spent just across the Charles River, earning an MBA at the Harvard Business School (HBS) in the 1970s. Now, as some fervently question the commander-in-chief’s performance in the Texas National Guard decades ago and more current-minded politicos take aim at the events surrounding Sept. 11, 2001 and the invasion of Iraq, one former HBS professor is doing his best to publicize his recollections of what he calls a sarcastic, mediocre student who went on to lead the United States.

Yoshihiro Tsurumi, an avowed opponent of Bush’s current views and policies who was a visiting associate professor of international business at HBS between 1972 and 1976, said Bush was among 85 students he taught one year in a required first-year course. In the class on “Environment Analysis for Management,” incorporating elements of macroeconomics, industrial policy and international business, Tsurumi said students discussed and debated case studies for 90 minutes several times a week.

Tsurumi—now a professor of international business at Baruch College in the City University of New York—said he remembers the future president as scoring in the bottom 10 percent of students in the class.

Thirty years after teaching the class, Tsurumi said the twenty-something Bush’s statements and behavior—“always very shallow”—still stand out in his mind.

“Whenever [Bush] just bumped into me, he had some flippant statement to make,” said Tsurumi when reached at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. “The comments he made were revealing of his prejudice.”

The White House did not reply to requests for comment on Bush’s time at HBS.

Tsurumi said he particularly recalls Bush’s right-wing extremism at the time, which he said was reflected in off-hand comments equating the New Deal of the 1930s with socialism and the corporation-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission with “an enemy of capitalism.”

“I vividly remember that he made a comment saying that people are poor because they’re lazy,” Tsurumi said.

Tsurumi also said Bush displayed a sense of arrogance about his prominent family, including his father, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.

“[George W. Bush] didn’t stand out as the most promising student, but...he made it sure we understood how well he was connected,” Tsurumi said. “He wasn’t bashful about how he was being pushed upward by Dad’s connections.”

Tsurumi said that the younger Bush boasted that his father’s political string-pulling had gotten him to the top of the waiting list for the Texas National Guard instead of serving in Vietnam. When other students were frantically scrambling for summer jobs, Tsurumi said, Bush explained that he was planning instead for a visit to his father in Beijing, where the senior Bush was serving at the time as the special U.S. envoy to China.

In addition, Tsurumi is still sore about what he recalls as Bush’s slight to his cinematic taste. When he arranged for students to view the film of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath during their study of the Great Depression, Tsurumi said, Bush derided the film as “corny.”

At the time, Tsurumi said his worries about his student extended no further than the boardroom.

“All Harvard Business School students want to become president of a company one day,” Tsurumi said. “I remember saying, if you become president of a company some day, may God help your customers and employees.”

When he discovered that his former pupil was vying for the presidency in 2000, Tsurumi said he tried to inform the public about his experience with the then-Texas governor at HBS—but got few results beyond hate mail.

“Last election time, if you recall, the American mass media did a shameful job of vetting [the presidential candidates],” Tsurumi said.

As another November approaches, Tsurumi is trying again to air his criticisms of the man he once taught and his actions as president.

“This time it seems to be getting around a bit more widely,” he said. “After three years of dismal record, people seem more inclined to believe that all his failed leadership was apparent during the Harvard Business School years.”

In a July 2 speech to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo, Tsurumi repeated the broadside he has launched repeatedly in the past.

“I always remember two groups of students,” Tsurumi said then, according to published reports. “One is the really good students, not only intelligent, but with leadership qualities, courage. The other is the total opposite, unfortunately to which George belonged.” - http://www.thecrimson.com/art...

---> Endorsing Neo-Craziness???

10.30.04 (3:17 am) [edit]

On the eve of the election, our media elite are belatedly deluging us with important information. However, much of it is being delivered with neo-crazy 'spin'.

For example, the [i]Washington Post [/i]tells us http://www.washingtonpost.com... :

"[i]In the tumultuous first year after Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush confronted a deluge of classified threat [b]reports[/b] about the spread of [b]nuclear weapons technology[/b] to unfriendly hands.

"An atomic black market, operating on three continents, was funneling [b]bomb-making equipment [/b]to Libya – and to customers unknown. [b]Iran had made unexpected strides toward a weapon [/b]along a route concealed for more than a decade. North Korea, judged in June 2002 to be years away from domestic [b]uranium enrichment[/b], was discovered a month later to be [b]on the brink [/b]of it. The National Intelligence Council assessed that there was '[b]undetected[/b] smuggling' of [b]'weapons-grade [/b]and weapons-usable nuclear materials' known to have been stolen in Russia on four occasions between 1992 and 1999[/i].

"[i]The profusion of threats laid competing demands for Bush's attention in a climate of uncertainty and rapid change.

"Like the 'war on terrorism,' which it often intersected, Bush's efforts against nuclear proliferation followed many paths[/i]."

(Emphasis mine.)

But as the Post surely knows, those "classified threat reports" turned out to wrong. There is no evidence that anyone has funneled "bomb-making equipment" to Libya or anyone else. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. No convincing evidence that North Korea has a uranium enrichment program. And if the "smuggling" of fissile materials out of Russia was "undetected," how did the NIC "assess" that it had occurred?

Consequently, the "many paths" Bush followed to prevent nuke proliferation were nearly all wrong. Many counterproductive. Some even crazy?

Soon after Bush took office, three dozen analysts gathered for a full-day, top-secret conference to address the question "how and where could al-Qaeda get a nuke?"

"[i]'We thought the highest probability of their getting anything would be to buy a weapon "full up" from corrupt or ideologically allied insiders in the chain of custody in a nuclear weapons state,' said Richard A. Clarke, who organized the intelligence summit as Bush's national coordinator for counter-terrorism. 'We assumed the place most likely to supply that would be the former Soviet Union[/i].'"

So, Bush should have immediately joined President Putin in fully supporting the Non-Proliferation Treaty proliferation prevention regime administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in general, and in ensuring that all Russian-deployed nukes – as well as the excess Soviet nukes Russia was in the process of dismantling with U.S. assistance – were safeguarded and secure.

"[i]Bush took a different view. In the State of the Union address of Jan. 29, 2002, the president declared he would keep 'the world's most destructive weapons' from al-Qaeda and its allies by keeping those weapons from evil governments. Much later – after applying that doctrine in Iraq – he told a campaign audience in Pennsylvania, 'We had to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons and one regime stood out: the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein[/i].'"

Now, that's crazy.

In order to obtain a Gulf War cease-fire, Saddam had unconditionally accepted UN Security Council Resolution 707, which required Iraq's full cooperation in the "destruction, removal or rendering harmless" – under IAEA supervision – of "all nuclear-weapons-usable materials, all potentially related subsystems or components, and all potentially related research, development, support, and manufacturing facilities."

By 1996 the IAEA could report that "nothing remained" of Saddam's stillborn nuke program.

Nevertheless, in March 2003, Bush told Congress he had intelligence that Saddam would soon have nukes to give to al-Qaeda. But IAEA Director General ElBaradei contrarily reported to the Security Council that, "As of 17 March 2003, the IAEA had found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq."

To the dismay of our former European allies, Russia, and the whole Islamic world, Bush applied the Bush Doctrine to Iraq, anyway.

Now the whole world is watching, waiting to see whether we give Bush a chance to launch a preemptive attack against Iran, yet another country the IAEA has declared to be nuke-free.

As investigative reporter Sy Hersh put it http://www.alternet.org/media... in a recent interview:

[i]"The Europeans so far give us a pass on the grounds that, well, you've got these crazy leaders and they do crazy things. But if we reelect them, then it's not just the president they're mad at. They're going to be mad at all of us[/i]."

[b]Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico[/b]. - http://www.antiwar.com/prathe...

---> Saudi Royal Puppet-boy Bush Has Lied About His Good Buddy: Escapee Osama bin Laden ...

10.30.04 (3:10 am) [edit]

"PRESIDENT Bush said yesterday that he wanted Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile, "dead or alive" in some of the most bellicose language used by a White House occupant in recent years. ... "I want justice," [Bush] said after a meeting at the Pentagon, where 188 people were killed last Tuesday when an airliner crashed into the building. "And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' "" - Bin Laden is Wanted:: Dead or Alive Says Bush, September 18 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

[b]Bush Misleads on Osama Bin Laden[/b]

During the presidental debates President Bush claimed that, contrary to Sen. John Kerry's assertion, he never said he was "not that concerned" about Osama Bin Laden. Bush chastised Kerry saying, "Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. That's kind of one of those exaggerations."1 Bush was completely wrong.

At March 13, 2002 press conference, Bush said "So I don't know where he [Osama Bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him...I truly am not that concerned about him."2 Watch the video http://mywebpages.comcast.net... of Bush's remarks .

[b]Sources: [/b]

1. "Transcript of Debate Between Bush and Kerry, With Domestic Policy the Topic," New York Times, 10/13/04.
2. "President Bush Holds Press Conference," The White House, 3/13/02.

[b]REFER TO "HOUSE OF BUSH, HOUSE OF SAUD" ON http://www.houseofbush.com/ ...[/b]

---> Bush Ghost Writer Shows Truth About Father and Son

10.30.04 (3:06 am) [edit]

Mickey Herskowitz - a ghost writer for both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush - has revealed startling information about both men, which he learned from extensive candid conversations with the 41st and the 43rd presidents. Herskowitz revealed the information in a series of interviews with investigative reporter Russ Baker, which Baker tape recorded.1

Baker's article reveals that "in 2003, Bush's father indicated to [Herskowitz] that he disagreed with his son's invasion of Iraq."2

George W. Bush was reluctant to talk to Herskowitz about his National Guard service. But Bush did tell him "that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was 'excused.'"3 Bush's comments to Herskowitz "directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard."4

According to Herskowitz, "two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq."5 In 1999, Bush said to Herskowitz, "My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade…. if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."6

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000," http://russbaker.com/Guerrill...%20News%20Network%20-%20B ush.htm Russ Baker, 10/27/04.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

---> Osama is Laughing at George "My Pet Goat" Bush -- Are You??? ...

10.29.04 (3:07 pm) [edit]

[b]Even OSAMA thinks Bush's so-called "leadership" is a farce. How can Bush lead a 'war on terror' when the world's leading terrorist is laughing at him??? More [/b]... http://blog.democrats.com/nod...

---> Bush Has Failed America's Test ...

10.29.04 (2:59 pm) [edit]

[b]TO BEGIN WITH, THE PRESIDENT IS A FOOL[/b]

NEW YORK -- John Kerry is winning the presidential election -- as far as I can tell. I have already voted absentee and I voted for the Democrat. I voted for him because I have children and grandchildren, too, and I love my country too much to watch George W. Bush try to figure it out for four more years.

Biased? Of course. That's why I write this column: to share my bias. I am always amazed when I get letters, many of them, accusing me of being a "liberal" or, a lot worse, an "elitist." Yes, I am. Hello!

I also think that being president of the United States is an elite job. Don't you? What are we talking about here?

Yes, I am disappointed with the way Sen. Kerry has presented himself and his bias. But I am frightened by the thought of a Bush second term. I'll stick with my analysis of the man from Massachusetts as a rather humorless straight-A student. If you teach (and I do), Kerry is of a type, a smart guy who gets it all down, synthesizes it beautifully, and then tries to give you back what he thinks you want. The defining moment of his campaign, I thought, was his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. It was an A paper without a single original thought. I counted 15 lifts from archived presidential speeches, most of them by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

My gripe with President Bush, who has risen above his Yale, Harvard and oil resume to become a man of the people, is that he is an incompetent man of the people. He's smart enough for an elite job, but he has lousy judgment, no sense of history and the dogmatic ways of the insecure. He is a fool, quoting Webster's first definition: "A person lacking judgment and prudence."

I find myself in absolute agreement with Kimberly Parmer, a lady from western Michigan presented in The New York Times last week as the last undecided voter, who said it was hard to make up her mind because "One is too polished; the other one, I think to be honest, I don't know how he ever got to be president."

Well, the Supreme Court picked him. Maybe they thought he was his father.

Kimberly Parmer then went on to say something both silly and profound: "If you actually look at him, and he stands next to Kerry, you kind of just feel sorry for him."

I can see that, though I tend to feel sorry for the rest of us. There are two Americas facing off against each other in this election, not rich and poor, but past and future.

A lot of Americans, mostly white males of a certain age, look to this George Bush and see themselves. This campaign, I would argue, is one of the last convulsions of angry, real American men, who fear losing the country they know (or imagine), fighting to hold back the time and tide of the new, the un-white and un-Christian, and those girlie men, too, who sooner or later will make a different America. Bush has the "Father Knows Best" vote, from men who have lost their personal power and hate what they see happening all around them. Kerry, often blowing in the wind, is "the times they are a-changin'" candidate.

Which one will prevail? I think Kerry will hold the one-vote lead I gave him. But this is a wild-card election. For the first time in a while no one is quite sure who will actually come out and vote this Tuesday. It would do wonders for the tired blood of American politics if there was a big turnout, but that could help or destroy either side. It could also shake up the Congress, which could use some shaking. The narrowly partisan and ideological meanness some Republican leaders have brought to the debate in Washington -- I'm really thinking of that other angry Texan, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- is about the worst I've ever seen.

So the last question is, "Who votes?" I already have. You should too. Perhaps you will feel driven to neutralize my vote. Good luck. I certainly hope the best man wins. - http://www.uexpress.com/richa...

---> Surely America Deserves Better than a Brainless Butcher like G.W. Bush

10.29.04 (12:20 pm) [edit]

New Zealander John Roughan writes: "Like most guests of the US Government, I have attended those security seminars in Washington where there were always one or two nuts who imagined military force could work miracles in places they didn't know much about and didn't care to know much about. But I never imagined they would get the chance to mobilise unprovoked and march into a country where, predictably, they would not be welcome and their occupation would strengthen the hand of the militant strand of Islamic nationalism. I suppose it was always on the cards that one day America would elect a substandard President, but somehow I'd imagined the system would prevent it. Previous occupants of the White House had their faults but there were always compensating strengths. This one is a blowhard when there is an army behind him but as weak as dishwater on every issue requiring political strength. "

[b]More[/b] ... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sto...

---> Saudi Royal Slut BUSH Was "Gonna' Get OSAMA 'Dead or Alive'", Remember???

10.29.04 (12:10 pm) [edit]

"PRESIDENT Bush said yesterday that he wanted Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile, "dead or alive" in some of the most bellicose language used by a White House occupant in recent years. ... "I want justice," [Bush] said after a meeting at the Pentagon, where 188 people were killed last Tuesday when an airliner crashed into the building. "And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' "" - Bin Laden is Wanted:: Dead or Alive Says Bush, September 18 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

[b]Bush Misleads on Osama Bin Laden[/b]

During the presidental debates President Bush claimed that, contrary to Sen. John Kerry's assertion, he never said he was "not that concerned" about Osama Bin Laden. Bush chastised Kerry saying, "Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. That's kind of one of those exaggerations."1 Bush was completely wrong.

At March 13, 2002 press conference, Bush said "So I don't know where he [Osama Bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him...I truly am not that concerned about him."2 Watch the video http://mywebpages.comcast.net... of Bush's remarks.

[b]Sources: [/b]

1. "Transcript of Debate Between Bush and Kerry, With Domestic Policy the Topic," New York Times, 10/13/04.
2. "President Bush Holds Press Conference," The White House, 3/13/02.

[b]REFER TO "HOUSE OF BUSH, HOUSE OF SAUD" ON http://www.houseofbush.com/ ...[/b]

---> Bush Ghost Writer Shows Truth About Father and Son!!!

10.29.04 (10:31 am) [edit]

Mickey Herskowitz - a ghost writer for both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush - has revealed startling information about both men, which he learned from extensive candid conversations with the 41st and the 43rd presidents. Herskowitz revealed the information in a series of interviews with investigative reporter Russ Baker, which Baker tape recorded.1

Baker's article reveals that "in 2003, Bush's father indicated to [Herskowitz] that he disagreed with his son's invasion of Iraq."2

George W. Bush was reluctant to talk to Herskowitz about his National Guard service. But Bush did tell him "that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was 'excused.'"3 Bush's comments to Herskowitz "directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard."4

According to Herskowitz, "two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq."5 In 1999, Bush said to Herstkowitz, "My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade…. if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."6

[b]Sources: [/b]

1. "Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000," Russ Baker, http://russbaker.com/Guerrill...%20News%20Network%20-%20B ush.htm 10/27/04.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

---> Hold Bush Accountable

10.29.04 (10:23 am) [edit]

[b]I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But if I were to write the headline for this one, it would be "Impeach George Bush." [/b]

Of course, I realize there's no chance Congress would impeach the president at this point or under almost any circumstance. It somehow reserves its outrage for lying about sex under oath and not, as now seems clear, the making of war under false pretenses. Say what you will about Bill Clinton, no one died in the White House pantry.

The same cannot be said in the larger sense about George Bush. Well over 1,000 Americans and countless more Iraqis have died because the president insisted on going to war. I know I should grieve for the Iraqi dead as much as I do the Americans, but I simply don't. It is the Americans -- those names I read almost every day, the hometowns, the lives I conjure up for them, the hideous moments of death -- who would make up every one of my articles of impeachment. I would read every name from the well of the House.

I do not hold George Bush accountable for believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I have talked with senior administration officials who opposed the war and they, too, thought Hussein had chemical and biological weapons -- but not nuclear ones. By the time Bush had firmly decided to go to war, all in Washington knew Hussein's nuclear weapons program consisted of a wish. Even Vice President Cheney had to know that, but the truth does not matter to him. In a long career as a Cold Warrior, he morphed into the enemy: The end justifies the means.

In his forthcoming book on the Crusades, "Fighting for Christendom," Christopher Tyerman of Oxford University argues, "There existed no strategic or material interest for the knights of the west" to invade the Muslim east and try to wrest Jerusalem from Islam. "Consequently, the Christian wars of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the Near East provide startling testimony to the power of ideas."

I cite this book for a reason. You will remember that early on Bush referred to the war against terrorism as a "crusade." The word, though, was too freighted with Christian-Muslim conflict, and Bush quickly backed down. But, really, he was speaking the truth. Just as the original Crusades were a form of mass madness, so was this one when it was extended to Iraq. It came, as did the original one, out of the bonnet of a leader: Bush this time, Pope Urban II in 1095 -- and it swept everything before it. Congress lent its approval and so, significantly, did the media (myself included). The failure of leadership was across the board. The events of Sept. 11 were as emotionally wrenching to us as the Muslim capture of Jerusalem was to medieval Christians.

My peripatetic colleague Dana Milbank recently reported on a poll showing that 72 percent of Bush's supporters believe Iraq did in fact possess weapons of mass destruction and that 75 percent believed Hussein gave al Qaeda "substantial support." These beliefs are false, in contradiction of the facts, and even Bush, when pressed, has admitted that. But these beliefs did not arise out of nowhere. They are a direct consequence of the administration's repeated lies -- lies of commission, such as Cheney's statements, and lies of omission, the appalling failure to correct wrongly held views.

Not since the Spanish-American War has the United States gone off to war so casually, so half-cocked and so ineptly. The sinking of the Maine, the [i]casus belli [/i]for that dustup, has been replaced by missing weapons of mass destruction, and the Hearst and Pulitzer presses are now talk radio and Fox News Channel. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. Still, though, we mourn the dead, look away from the wounded and maimed, and wonder what it was all about. We embarked, truly and regrettably, on a crusade.

Yet from Bush comes not a bleep of regret, not to mention apology. It is all "steady as she goes" -- although we have lost our bearings and we no longer know our destination. (Don't tell me it's a democratic Middle East.) If the man were commanding a ship, he would be relieved of command. If he were the CEO of some big company, the board would offer him a golden parachute -- and force him to jump. But in government, it's the people who make those decisions. We get our chance on Tuesday. - http://www.washingtonpost.com...

---> HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: White House of Horrors ... Warning: Scccaaarrry!!!

10.29.04 (10:16 am) [edit]

[b]Dick Cheney peaked too soon. We've still got a few days left until Halloween.[/b]

It was scary enough when we thought the vice president had created his own reality for spin purposes. But if he actually believes that Iraq is "a remarkable success story,'' it's downright spooky. He's already got his persona for Sunday: he's the mad scientist in the haunted mansion, fiddling with test tubes to force the world to conform to his twisted vision.

After 9/11, Mr. Cheney swirled his big black cape and hunkered down in his undisclosed dungeon, reading books about smallpox and plague and worst-case terrorist scenarios. His ghoulish imagination ran wild, and he dragged the untested president and jittery country into his house of horrors, painting a gory picture of how Iraq could let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers.

He yanked America into war to preclude that chilling bloodbath. But in a spine-tingling switch, the administration's misbegotten invasion of Iraq has let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers. It's also forged the links between Al Qaeda and the Sunni Baathists that Mr. Cheney and his crazy-eyed Igors at the Pentagon had fantasized about to justify their hunger to remake the Middle East.

It's often seen in scary movies: you play God to create something in your own image, and the monster you make ends up coming after you.

Determined to throw a good scare into the Arab world, the vice president ended up scaring up the swarm of jihadist evil spirits he had conjured, like the overreaching sorcerer in "Fantasia." The Pentagon bungled the occupation so badly, it caused the insurgency to grow like the Blob.

Just as Catherine Deneuve had bizarre hallucinations in the horror classic "Repulsion,'' Mr. Cheney and the neocons were in a deranged ideological psychosis, obsessing about imaginary weapons while allowing enemies to spirit the real ones away.

The officials charged with protecting us set off so many false alarms that they ignored all the real ones.

President Bush is like one of the blissfully ignorant teenagers in "Friday the 13th'' movies, spouting slogans like "Freedom is on the march'' while Freddy Krueger is in the closet, ready to claw his skin off.

Mr. Bush ignored his own experts' warnings that Osama bin Laden planned to attack inside the U.S., that an invasion of Iraq could create a toxic partnership between outside terrorists and Baathists and create sympathy for them across the Islamic world, that Donald Rumsfeld was planning a war and occupation without enough troops, that Saddam's aluminum tubes were not for nuclear purposes, that U.S. troops should safeguard 380 tons of sealed explosives that could bring down planes and buildings, and that, after the invasion, Iraq could erupt into civil war.

And, of course, the president ignored Colin Powell's Pottery Barn warning: if you break it, you own it.

Their Iraqi puppet, Ayad Allawi, turned on Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush this week, in a scene right out of "Chucky.'' Mr. Allawi accused coalition forces of "major negligence'' for not protecting the unarmed Iraqi National Guard trainees who were slaughtered by insurgents wearing Iraqi police uniforms. Iraqi recruits are getting killed so fast we can't even pretend that we're going to turn the country over to them.

If you really want to be chilled to the bone this Halloween, listen to what Peter W. Galbraith, a former diplomat who helped advance the case for an Iraq invasion at the request of Paul Wolfowitz, said in a column yesterday in The Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/gl... .

He said he'd told Mr. Wolfowitz about "the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion, the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was letting this happen.'' He told Mr. Wolfowitz that mobs were looting Iraqi labs of live H.I.V. and black fever viruses and making off with barrels of yellowcake.

"Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites,'' he said.

In his column, Mr. Galbraith said weapons looted from the arms site called Al Qaqaa might have wound up in Iran, which could obviously use them to pursue nuclear weapons.

In April 2003 in Baghdad, he said, he told a young U.S. lieutenant stationed across the street that H.I.V. and black fever viruses had just been looted. The soldier had been devastated and said, "I hope I'm not responsible for Armageddon.''

Too bad that never occurred to Dr. Cheneystein.

[b]By Maureen Dowd, NY Times[/b], http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1...

---> BULGE-GATE: (Photo) Picture of the Phoney-Baloney, Brain-Dead Buffoon!!!

10.29.04 (9:57 am) [edit]

[b]BULGE-GATE: A Top NASA Scientist ... A Spy-Store Owner ... An Audio Expert ... ALL Strongly Suspect Bush was WIRED during Debates ... Cheater-Bush, the Phoney-Baloney, Brain-Dead Buffoon Isn't Fit To Be President!!![/b]

[b]More[/b] ... http://blog.democrats.com/

---> BULGE-GATE: (Photo) Picture of the Phoney-Baloney, Brain-Dead Buffoon!!!

10.29.04 (9:53 am) [edit]

---> Bush Administration Misleads (Lies) on Missing Explosives

10.29.04 (5:40 am) [edit]

The Bush administration is pushing the theory that the 380 tons of explosives were missing from the Al Qaqaa storage facility before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Administration spokesman Dan Senor said on CNN that "there's a very high probability that those weapons weren't even there before the war."1

For days, this theory has been in direct conflict with a Pentagon official, who told the [i]Associate Press [/i]on Monday, "US-led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact."2

Now, video shot in Iraq by a Minneapolis news team provides further proof that the administration's theory is bogus. After the invasion - on April 18, 2003 - the Minneapolis ABC news crew was stationed just south of the Al Qaqaa facility.3 That day, they drove 2 to 3 miles north with the 101st Airborne Division. There, "members of the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew bunker after bunker of material labeled 'explosives.'"4 Some of the boxes were marked "Al Qaqaa."5 One soldier told the crew: "we can stick [detonation cords] in those and make some good bombs."6 Watch the video http://kstp.dayport.com/viewe... .

[b]Sources:[/b]

1. "Paula Zahn Now," CNN, 10/26/04.
2. "380 tons of explosives missing in Iraq," Associated Press, 10/25/04.
3. "5 EYEWITNESS NEWS video may be linked to missing explosives in Iraq," KSTP.com, 10/28/04.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

---> Bush Administration Misleads (Lies) on Missing Explosives

10.29.04 (5:40 am) [edit]

---> BUSH/CHENEY LIED: Video, Photos Show Explosives at Site AFTER US Invasion!!!

10.29.04 (5:36 am) [edit]

[b]Video suggests explosives at site after invasion

U.S. TV crew saw troops opening bunkers at Al-Qaqaa base[/b]

Videotape shot by a Minnesota television crew traveling with U.S. troops in Iraq when they first opened the bunkers at the Al-Qaqaa munitions base nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein shows what appeared to be high explosives still in barrels and bearing the markings of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

[b]More (See Photo)[/b] ... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6...

---> BUSH/CHENEY LIED: Video, Photos Show Explosives at Site AFTER US Invasion!!!

10.29.04 (5:35 am) [edit]

---> NASA Photo Expert Says Bush Was Wired

10.29.04 (5:31 am) [edit]

Salon's Kevin Berger writes, "Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis... A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. 'I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate,' he says. 'This is not about a bad suit'... Nelson stresses that he's not certain what lies beneath the president's jacket. He offers, though, 'that it could be some type of electronic device -- it's consistent with the appearance of an electronic device worn in that manner.' The image of lines coursing up and down the president's back, Nelson adds, is 'consistent with a wire or a tube.'" Bush Cheated!

[b]More[/b] ... http://salon.com/news/feature...

---> BUSH-THE-BUTCHER: 100,000 Died from A'W'OL's Blood-thirsty Iraq Invasion!!!

10.29.04 (5:30 am) [edit]

LONDON -- Researchers have estimated that as many as 100,000 more Iraqis -- many of them women and children -- died since the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq than would have been expected otherwise, based on the death rate before the war.

Writing in the British-based medical journal The Lancet, the American and Iraqi researchers concluded that violence accounted for most of the extra deaths and that airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition were a major factor.

There is no official figure for the number of Iraqis killed since the conflict began, but some non-governmental estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000. As of Thursday, 1,106 U.S. servicemen had been killed, according to the U.S. Defense Department.

The scientists who wrote the report concede that the data they based their projections on were of "limited precision," because the quality of the information depends on the accuracy of the household interviews used for the study. The interviewers were Iraqi, most of them doctors.

Designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the study was published Thursday on The Lancet's Web site.

The survey attributed most of the extra deaths to violence and said airstrikes by coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths.

"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," the researchers wrote.

The report was released just days before the U.S. presidential election, and the lead researcher said he wanted it that way. The Lancet routinely publishes papers on the Web before they appear in print, particularly if it considers the findings of urgent public health interest.

Those reports then appear later in the print issue of the journal. The journal's spokesmen said they were uncertain which print issue the Iraqi report would appear in and said it was too late to make Friday's issue, and possibly too late for the Nov. 5 edition.

Les Roberts, the lead researcher from Johns Hopkins, said the article's timing was up to him.

"I emailed it in on Sept. 30 under the condition that it came out before the election," Roberts told The Associated Press. "My motive in doing that was not to skew the election. My motive was that if this came out during the campaign, both candidates would be forced to pledge to protect civilian lives in Iraq.

"I was opposed to the war and I still think that the war was a bad idea, but I think that our science has transcended our perspectives," Roberts said. "As an American, I am really, really sorry to be reporting this."

Richard Peto, an expert on study methods who was not involved with the research, said the approach the scientists took is a reasonable one to investigate the Iraq death toll.

However, it's possible that they may have zoned in on hotspots that might not be representative of the death toll across Iraq, said Peto, a professor of medical statistics at Oxford University in England.

Lancet editor Richard Horton wrote in an editorial accompanying the survey that more household clusters would have improved the precision of the report, "but at an enormous and unacceptable risk to the team of interviewers."

"This remarkable piece of work represents the efforts of a courageous team of scientists," he wrote.

To conduct the survey, investigators visited 33 neighborhoods spread evenly across the country in September, randomly selecting clusters of 30 households to sample. Of the 988 households visited, 808, consisting of 7,868 people, agreed to participate. Each household was asked how many people lived in the home and how many births and deaths there had been since January 2002.

The scientists then compared death rates in the 15 months before the invasion with those that occurred during the 18 months after the attack and adjusted those numbers to account for the different time periods.

Even though the sample size appears small, this type of survey is considered accurate and acceptable by scientists and was used to calculate war deaths in Kosovo in the late 1990s.

The investigators worked in teams of three. Five of the six Iraqi interviewers were doctors and all six were fluent in English and Arabic.

In the households reporting deaths, the person who died had to be living there at the time of the death and for more than two months before to be counted. In an attempt at firmer confirmation, the interviewers asked for death certificates in 78 households and were provided them 63 times.

There were 46 deaths in the surveyed households before the war. After the invasion, there were 142 deaths. That is an increase from 5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 12.3 per 1,000 people per year -- more than double.

However, more than a third of the post-invasion deaths were reported in one cluster of households in the city Fallujah, where fighting has been most intense recently. Because the fighting was so severe there, the numbers from that location may have exaggerated the overall picture.

When the researchers recalculated the effect of the war without the statistics from Fallujah, the deaths end up at 7.9 per 1,000 people per year -- still 1.5 times higher than before the war.

Even with Fallujah factored out, the survey "indicates that the death toll associated with the invasion and occupation of Iraq is more likely than not about 100,000 people, and may be much higher," the report said.

The most common causes of death before the invasion of Iraq were heart attacks, strokes and other chronic diseases. However, after the invasion, violence was recorded as the primary cause of death and was mainly attributed to coalition forces -- with about 95 percent of those deaths caused by bombs or fire from helicopter gunships.

Violent deaths -- defined as those brought about by the intentional act of others -- were reported in 15 of the 33 clusters. The chances of a violent death were 58 times higher after the invasion than before it, the researchers said.

Twelve of the 73 violent deaths were not attributed to coalition forces. The researchers said 28 children were killed by coalition forces in the survey households. Infant mortality rose from 29 deaths per 1,000 live births before the war to 57 deaths per 1,000 afterward.

The researchers estimated the nationwide death toll due to the conflict by subtracting the preinvasion death rate from the post-invasion death rate and multiplying that number by the estimated population of Iraq -- 24.4 million at the start of the war. Then that number was converted to a total number of deaths by dividing by 1,000 and adjusting for the 18 months since the invasion.

"We estimate that there were 98,000 extra deaths during the postwar period in the 97 percent of Iraq represented by all the clusters except Fallujah," the researchers said in the journal.

"This isn't about individual soldiers doing bad things. This appears to be a problem with the approach to occupation in Iraq," Roberts said.

The researchers called for further confirmation by an independent body such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the World Health Organization.

The study was funded by the Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies at Johns Hopkins University and by the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, Switzerland, a research project based at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. - http://www.newsday.com/news/n...,0,7799287.story?coll=sns-ap-world-h eadlines

---> BUSH-THE-BUTCHER: 100,000 Died from A'W'OL's Blood-thirsty Iraq Invasion!!!

10.29.04 (5:20 am) [edit]

---> BUSH-THE-BUTCHER: 100,000 Died from A'W'OL's Blood-thirsty Iraq Invasion!!!

10.29.04 (5:20 am) [edit]

---> BUSH-THE-BUTCHER: 100,000 Died from A'W'OL's Blood-thirsty Iraq Invasion!!!

10.29.04 (5:20 am) [edit]

---> Rumsfeld on 'Russian Troops' Bushit: 'Can't Validate That Even Slightly'

10.29.04 (5:13 am) [edit]

MSNBC: "Rumsfeld, in one radio interview, also cast doubt on the suggestion of one of his subordinates that Russian forces assisted the Iraqis in removing them. John Shaw, the deputy U.S. undersecretary of defense for international technology security, suggested to The Washington Times in an interview that the Russians may have been involved, prompting an angry denial from Moscow. Rumsfeld said, 'I have no information on that at all, and cannot validate that even slightly.' " When it's too wacky for even Rumsfeld, you know it's a bunch of bushit. By the way, let's not forget about the OTHER looting scandal -- at Tuwaitha -- also thanks to Bush's failure to secure THAT site. "[Melissa] Fleming said the IAEA -- which had put storage bunkers at the site under seal two months before the war -- alerted the United States about the Al-Qaqaa site after the Tuwaitha nuclear complex was looted. The IAEA said it informed U.S. officials separately of the Tuwaitha looting on April 10."

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