One of the biggest stories of the past two months has been the flap over John Kerry’s Vietnam service, orchestrated by the Bush Campaign. I’ll not rebut their assertions point by point here; that has been done to a golden turn by the print media at large.

I suppose Kerry invited this controversy himself by making his tour of duty the centerpiece of the Democratic Convention. Why he did so, I have no idea. I cringed when he saluted and “reported for duty.” Its not like there were no other issues to hammer the Liar-in Chief with, no outright lies and contradictions to enumerate. For starters, Karl Rove and company (and about half the electorate, I guess) has decided that John Kerry is a “flip-flopper.” This is meant to imply that he changes his mind on a regular basis, a canard we have debunked in a previous column. Very well, let’s look at some actual flip-flops from a master of the genre, GWB himself:

1- I seem to recall that when he was a candidate, Bush opposed nation-building as a matter of principle. We are now not only engaged in nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are doing so at a cost in lives and money that borders on criminal. The reason we are so occupied has apparently artfully morphed from protecting the United States from all those WMDs we never found, to the ridiculously altruistic and transparent “freeing the Iraqi people.” Can you imagine what the reaction from the right would be had Clinton initiated the present conflict and given that as the reason?

2- The administration bluntly ignored the UN’s input when it went to war; it now wants it involved in the rebuilding process. Bush declined NATO’s help in Afghanistan; Powell is now flying around the world looking for money and arms for Iraq.

3- No WAY would GWB EVER negotiate with North Korea; ultimately he did. Or wants to. He has all but doomed these negotiations by stupidly insulting Kim Jong Il, implying that he “couldn’t be trusted” as well as calling him a “pygmy,” I believe. An Undersecretary of State called Kim one of the world’s tyrannical rogue-state leaders. All this carefully thought out and delicately phrased diplomatic rhetoric prompted Kim last week to refer to Bush as a “political imbecile” and a “tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade.” While there is not much to quarrel with in either of the aforementioned evaluations by both parties, they are not exactly harbingers of healthy and fruitful negotiations.

4- The same GWB, who is at present feverishly signing executive orders to speedily implement a select few of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations before the convention, was opposed to the creation of the commission in the first place. He opposed allowing his top advisors to testify in public (that is, until public pressure forced him to send them forth to lie while he hid out in Crawford). He, the President, would never testify for all kinds of exotic constitutional reasons. That is until he did. With Cheney. In private. Not under oath.


5- He was opposed to the creation of the post of national intelligence director. He has recently called for the creation of the very same post. Why?

6- He recently declared in a televised interview that the war on terror was “unwinnable.” I’m sure our kids in Iraq enjoyed that bon mot. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than his handlers were clarifying and expanding on the fairly simple and clear statement. According to one (who was nowhere near Bush when he made the statement) what Bush actually meant was that it was not winnable in the traditional sense, i.e. militarily. This apparently sounded so good that the entire Bush campaign has now adopted the absurd caveat. If we accept this conclusion, one would have to wonder what our military is doing, specifically, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

7- Our president has recently filed suit in federal court (guess he’s not against all lawsuits, merely those against HMO’s) to force the 527 groups (the suit mentions only those supporting Kerry) from running ads supporting their candidate. Bush defended 527s in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" when supporters from Texas started such a group during his 2000 campaign for the White House and attacked then-presidential candidate John McCain during the GOP primaries. "That's part of the American process," Bush said. "There have been ads, independent expenditures . . . but that's what freedom of speech is all about." Could he have “changed his mind?”


* * * *
ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

It appears that there is one fellow in the Pentagon who knows exactly what the war in the Middle East is all about. And he’s no lightweight, either. William G. “Jerry” Boykin is a lieutenant general; a three-star Christian soldier who has finally had the courage to tell it like it is. He maintains that George W. Bush has been placed in his post by God (Was Clinton similarly installed?). He goes on to inform us that the U.S. military is recruiting a “spiritual army” that will draw strength from a greater power to defeat its enemy. He has also advanced the theory that those at present in opposition to administration policies in Iraq (including, we can assume, the Iraqi Olympic soccer team) are doing the work of Satan. The general has made these and similar remarks, in uniform, at speaking engagements at Baptist or Pentecostal churches. I could find no reference to his speaking at any synagogs. Truthfully, much as I would have enjoyed seeing and listening to an ass of such magnitude, I would have been forced to beg off, having at present too much pressing business back on Planet Earth…

* * * * *

THE O’REILLY WATCH

Last month’s OUTSPEAKER was so chock full of Billy’s idiocies, that I thought it had slaked my thirst as far as the pinch-face nastyboy was concerned. A recent reading of the New York Daily News however revealed a not totally unexpected wellspring of new dreck from the dolt. This may become a regular feature of this column! I Quote:

“According to the Health and Human Services Department, fewer than 2% of American youths had ever used marijuana back in 1962. Forty years later, that had increased to an astounding 54%. The simple question is: What dynamic has changed in America to account for the drastic increase in the consumption of marijuana?
The watershed event, of course, was the rise of the anti-war movement in the late 1960s. Smoking pot became the appetizer for the Vietnam protest entrée. The rock world immediately got involved, and the intoxication celebration was underway.”

Note the use of the phrase “of course” in the second paragraph. This equates with the dishonest debating tactic known as a “claim of omniscience.” In short, it implies that “everyone” accepts your claim as fact, and therefore relieves you of the burden of proof.
Billy blames the anti-war movement for the rise in marijuana use. A police officer friend, who was anything but an anti-war activist, first turned me on to pot. During the era in question I smoked weed with conservatives and liberals, hawks and doves, Democrats and Republicans. I find O’Reilly’s and HHC’s claim of 54% on the low side. Most people I came into contact with had either tried pot or were huffing weed on a regular basis. Or course, this is anecdotal evidence, and as such does not rise to the journalistic heights of Billy’s screed. The one thing I do wonder about is how come all the folks who “tried pot once and hated it” went on to become politicians or talk radio show hosts?

* * * * *

OUR ELECTORATE

Richard Nixon once declared that the average American is “like the child in the family.” I recall how offended I was at the time, but with age came the realization of the truth in his statement. More recently some columnist, I can’t recall who, offered the more blunt opinion that the average American voter is “a Yahoo.” The truth in his observation grows heavier on our collective shoulders by the day. Bush and company has emerged from their convention with their first double-digit lead in the polls since the election season started (since writing the above, the race has apparently evened up). What I find most curious is that 20% of the electorate seems to be “undecided.” This equates with your house being on fire, and you can’t decide between letting it continue to burn or letting a guy who is standing there with a hose put it out. Your reasoning? You don’t know the guy, he’s not real likeable, and he looks French to you. Gimmee a break!
The Republicans are selling us a particularly rotten box of cereal. If the print media, with all it’s stories, have not been able to expose all their instances of lying and distortions by Bush and company, then we indeed are a bunch of yahoos, and deserve what we are getting.
Why did not one “journalist” pin Larry Thurlow (one of the Swiftboat Liars for Truth) to the wall on the main point of his contention (that there was no enemy fire) when he tripped over his own lies? Mr. Thurlow commanded another swiftboat in the action for which both he and Kerry were awarded the Bronze Star. When it was pointed out to Larry that his own citation for the award mentions “hostile fire” he claimed to have lost his certificate over 20 years ago. Then, he started to back and fill. He stated that he, Larry Thurlow, has been under the impression for all these years that he had received his decoration for simply going to the aid of another swiftboat that had been disabled by a mine.
What?
He thought he got a Bronze Star for that alone?
I went to a convenient web site and looked up the requirements for receiving a Bronze Star. It appears that it is awarded for heroism while engaged in action against an enemy. That would appear to mean hostile fire. Unless you’re Larry Thurlow, in which case you get yours for routine rescue and/or repair work. Liar.
That Thurlow lied is not in and of itself all that frightening. What is frightening is how his organization (as of this writing four, count ‘em, four members of Bush’s re-election organization have had to resign over illegal ties to the group) has been able to sway public opinion so easily with their lies.
[Since I wrote the above, the Swift Boat Liars have released another of their commercials asserting that Kerry met with “the enemy” during the Vietnam War, and is therefore a traitor. I eagerly await John McCain’s denunciation of the ad, or maybe its too close to the election for him to recall what his boy did to his own reputation in 2000 with the same accusations].

I will not address the current Dan Rather controversy here. I consider Rather rather an ass (sorry!), and have long held that opinion. I further consider what each of the candidates did over thirty years ago to be little more than background noise to issues that actually matter to me.
Kerry’s actions during the Sixties speak for themselves. Bush? Anyone of my age knows firsthand that most if not all National Guard rolls were closed at the time the Boy Wonder landed his slot in the Air National Guard. I tried with all my might to get into the Guard, and was told to forget about it. At the time, I simply assumed that only those who were politically connected needed apply. Turns out I was correct. I need no memos, forged or otherwise, to inform me that he received special treatment. As a matter of fact, anyone smart enough to avoid that particular war (including Bubba Clinton) gets high marks for perceptive intelligence. Of course, Bush managed to avoid the war while at the same time supporting it, a stand based not on smarts and principal, but of cowardice and hypocrisy.
I suspect that our electorate, including the 20% who are undecided will conclude that since the documents Rather used were forged, all the charges against Bush are bogus. They will be aided in this process by the liberal (everybody knows they’re liberal, don’t they?) media, including Brit Hume, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Joe Scarborough, and all the rest, who will no doubt keep this nickel’s worth of nothing spinning until election day. Forget about the ever worsening goat-schtupp in Iraq, forget the miserable employment numbers, forget the ballooning national debt, forget the 44 million uninsured Americans, forget that not one of the many predictions George Bush made in support of his policies has come to pass, forget that he has absolutely no record to run on, forget that his entire, and I do mean entire, platform consists of programs he outlined in 2000 and never implemented. Not one of them. All that matters is that Rather screwed up.

* * * *
As I write this, the electorate is evenly divided, if we rely on the polls. Nevertheless most of the media and some Democrats have seemingly thrown in the towel. We seem to be ready to hand a second term to a President who is the worst thing we have inflicted on ourselves since, well, maybe ever. Bush equates marginally with LBJ, who at least had the grace to decline a second term even though he had a stellar record on the domestic front. Johnson was sold a bill of goods on Vietnam by his advisors, chief among them John McNamara, but he was man enough to admit he was wrong; that the fault ultimately was his own. A few years ago McNamara wrote a book in which he all but apologized for the Vietnam War. Which helps everyone save the 58, 000 Americans who died for a pack of lies.
It seems Bush and crew will do anything, demonize anyone, and say anything to get that second term. If enough Democrats and sane Republicans bother to vote, however, we will save ourselves that nightmare scenario. Imagine what GWB, free from the bother of getting reelected, a lame duck, will do to our country. The only worse scenario is if he has, as he does now, another Republican congress. With this in mind, voter turnout trumps all else, especially polls. Whichever party successfully activates its base wins the election. In short, if more Democrats are scared of another four years than Republicans are enamored of Bush, Kerry wins. If we all stay home on Nov. 2 and watch TV, Bush wins. It’s as simple as that.

That’s about all my stomach can handle for now my friends, I’ve gotta go watch “Fear Factor” or maybe “WWF Smackdown.” After all, I’m as American as the next guy…

Stay well, and let me know what you think!