The White House Website - and This Morning's Campaigns

Y'know, since everyone's paying for it and all, I'd sure feel better if WhiteHouse.gov was something more than just a free Bush-Cheney campaign site. It's not carrying news about the executive branch. It's covering Bush's campaign. It repeats their lies verbatim as our government at work. The headlines are always campaign talking points.

In fact, the only reliable thing about it is that we can go back to Bush's and Cheney's campaign speeches and find transcripts of their lies.

I went into this tirade because I tried to find Bush's little monologue before he signed the $417,000,000,000 defense bill (of which $25,000,000,000 will be spent on offense - Iraq). I found some quotes at the Guardian...

Overwhelmingly approved by a Congress eager to show election-year support for the military, the measure includes money for 39 more Army Black Hawk helicopters, a Virginia-class attack submarine, three guided-missile destroyers and a 3.5 percent pay increase for troops.

BUSH: "With this legislation America's military will know that their country stands behind them as they fight for our freedom and as they spread the peace."

"No enemy or friend can doubt that America has the resources to prevail."

"This bill will help make America a safer place."

Hmmm...still no turkee for vets' benefits, I see.

The study in contrast was on CNN this morning. After Bush's signing of the bill, they switched to Kerry's Q&A session at the Unity Conference in Washington. The timing was perfect. Kerry was asked if he were in a classroom in Florida while being told America was under attack, what would he have done differently from what Bush did? Would he have gone to war with Iraq? And how would he try to rectify that situation?

Leading questions, yes - but the last question allowed him to answer an important issue - live on CNN yet. The coverage gave viewers a chance to finally see the contrasts between the two candidates...not only in philosophy, but in ability to think on their feet - and speak. Kerry's answer was thorough and clear. When CNN cut away during his answering a question about media consolidation (heh), I switched to C-SPAN2 to see the rest of it. MAN, it's a pleasure seeing Kerry face questions and not blink, chuckle, stare blankly, fidget, smirk, look at his feet, pause to think, stare at the sky, and ruminate on how he wished he knew he'd be asked that question when he's asked questions.

One Kerry quote from the SF Chronicle (deemed "liberal" by the wingnuts because they're the only U.S. website to carry this):

"Just saying that you've turned a corner doesn't make it so. Just like saying there are weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq) doesn't make it so. Just like saying you can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. Just like saying 'mission accomplished' doesn't make it so," Kerry said.

"The last president who used that slogan, who told us that prosperity was just around the corner, was Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression," he said.

Is there a difference between Kerry and Bush? Damned skippy.