September 30th, 2004
Here are some lines from John Eisenhower’s, son of president Eisenhower, endorsement of Mr. Kerry, that are simply remarkable:
“The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar.”
[...]
“In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.” I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.
The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation’s financial structure sound.”
[...]
“I celebrate, along with other americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. but let it be based on careful thought. i urge everyone, republicans and democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.”
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http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44657
September 29th, 2004
This time from President Eisenhower’s son:
THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3 1/2 years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.
Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.
Read the rest here: http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44657
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Finally, a real conservative that understands, as I’ve mentioned in previous threads, that the modern Republican party is not what it once was.
September 29th, 2004
The point of the Iconoclast’s endorsement is that its editorial page has changed its mind about Mr. Bush, after inspecting the record. In 2000 the paper endorsed Mr. Bush; moreover, the paper also supported the invasion of Iraq because of the threat Mr. Bush said that country represented; finally, the paper concludes, Mr. Bush let us down, none of what he claimed has turned out to be right and, therefore, the paper has arrived at the only logical conclusion: Mr. Bush must be replaced and let someone else come in to fix the mess that the Bush administration created.
But it’s not just the Iconoclast that is revising its position on Mr. Bush and Iraq. Even that bedrock of neo-conservatism, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is reconsidering Mr. Bush’s military unilateralism. In an article entitled “The End of the Unipolar Myth,” a fellow at the AEI writes:
“With American casualties in Iraq passing 1,000, and regions of the country descending into more destructive violence, the limits of U.S. military power are on display. The Bush administration’s scramble to strike repeated compromises in Iraq, and its failure to achieve stability there, raise fundamental questions about the limits of American power.”
[...]
“As Zbigniew Brzezinski put it recently, “Preponderance should not be confused with omnipotence.” It has been obvious since the later stages of the Vietnam War that overwhelming firepower is not enough for victory. Though the American death toll was significantly lower than the Vietnamese (58,000 versus 3 million), the superpower was unable to avoid defeat; media coverage of the devastating happenings eventually undermined credibility both at home and abroad.
The war in Iraq and its chaotic aftermath, however, highlight the basic unipolarist misconception that sophisticated military and economic power are sufficient to subdue any adversary.
The United States possesses by far the largest pile of sophisticated weaponry on earth, yet its conventional military power is severely stretched in fighting one and a quarter wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
[...]
“The “war on terrorism,” for its part, is far more complex than a massive deployment of men and munitions against a clearly perceived enemy-state or coalition of states. In this war, terrorism is not the enemy; it is a battle tactic used by an elusive, globally dispersed, well-funded enemy. Building a worldwide coalition of allies to fight such an enemy is not a policy choice. It is the only option in a war without conventional battlefields. The formidable superiority of U.S. economic power is also under threat. The rapidly ballooning expense of the Iraq war is increasing budget deficits that were already huge. This is also intensifying a gathering U.S. fiscal crisis of growing debt, now financed by foreign capital.
Thanks to persistently large current account deficits, the United States last year borrowed from abroad at an unprecedented rate of $4 billion a day Asian, European and Middle Eastern lenders are buying what they see as dollar assets.”
[...]
“The United States today, even with its travails in Iraq, remains much more than the world’s dominant power. As former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once asserted, America is still the world’s “indispensable power.” It can create avoidable crises by plunging into poorly planned wars of choice, as in Iraq; or it can intervene as a coalition head to create relatively benign outcomes, as in the first Gulf war. But it would be hard to resolve a major world crisis without the active help of the United States. In other words, America continues to occupy the world’s leadership position. But it’s a board chairman’s job, requiring persuasion, the creation of consensus and discreet flexing of power, as well as popular acceptance. Its tasks cannot be performed by a lone maverick. If the United States wants to reassert itself as a widely accepted, and respected, leader of the democratic world, it will have to carry the world with it. Its efforts will fail if it continues to believe it can wield unilateral power indefinitely in a unipolar world.”
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http://www.aei.org/news/filter.all,newsID.21288/news_detail.asp
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For more on the American Enterprise Institute see here.
September 28th, 2004
In an incredibly scathing review of Mr. Bush’s presidential tenure, The Lone Star Iconoclast, Mr. Bush’s hometown newspaper endorsed Mr. Kerry for president. The newspaper notes that in 2000 it endorsed Mr. Bush, and that it supported his Iraq war. Nonetheless, after examining the record, it endorses Mr. Kerry for his vision of a return to normalcy which our country so desperately needs.
Here are some excerpts from the paper’s editorial endorsement:
“Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.”
[...]
“In those dark hours after the World Trade Center attacks, Americans rallied together with a new sense of patriotism. We were ready to follow Bush’s lead through any travail.
He let us down.
When he finally emerged from his hide-outs on remote military bases well after the first crucial hours following the attack, he gave sound-bytes instead of solutions.”
[...]
“Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him.
The Iconoclast, the President’s hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper’s publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Again, he let us down.”
[...]
“We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a “wartime president.” America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done.”
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“Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous thing and “spin” will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not a thousand of them.
Kerry has remained true to his vote granting the President the authority to use the threat of war to intimidate Saddam Hussein into allowing weapons inspections. He believes President Bush rushed into war before the inspectors finished their jobs.“
[...]
“Kerry’s four-point plan for Iraq is realistic, wise, strong, and correct. With the help from our European and Middle Eastern allies, his plan is to train Iraqi security forces, involve Iraqis in their rebuilding and constitution-writing processes, forgive Iraq’s multi-billion dollar debts, and convene a regional conference with Iraq’s neighbors in order to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq’s borders and non-interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.”
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“When examined based on all the facts, Kerry’s voting record is enviable and echoes that of many Bush allies who are aghast at how the Bush administration has destroyed the American economy. Compared to Bush on economic issues, Kerry would be an arch-conservative, providing for Americans first. He has what it takes to right our wronged economy.
The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our present course of chaos. We cannot afford to double the debt that we already have. We need to be moving in the opposite direction.
John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in America the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district attorney, lieutenant governor, and senator.
Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence, good sense, and guts to make it happen.
That’s why The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.
The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.”
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http://news.iconoclast-texas.com/web/Columns/Editorial/editorial39.htm
September 24th, 2004
On September 11, 2001, we were attacked by Osama Bin Ladin and his terrorist network: Al Queda. The Bush administration took their eyes off the ball, plunged us into a war of choice in Iraq, all the while Osama Bin Ladin remains at large. As for Al Queda, the terrorist organization now is a multi-headed beast with outcrops in many more countries than it had in 2001 and all Mr. Bush can now say about Osama Bin Ladin is:
“I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him… I truly am not that concerned about him.” [President Bush, Press Conference, 3/13/02]
Bush’s supporters can rationalize things all they want and split hairs into a million pieces, but none of their cognitive dissonance will change facts on the ground, and every day that passes the truth becomes harder and harder to spin.
Today, once again, Mr. Kerry outlined his Iraq plan. You can read the speech here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0924.html
