The US election: What's at stake?
published: Sunday | October 31, 2004
Ian Boyne, Contributor

"In the 25 years since I started working in mental health, I have never experienced the intensity of focused fear on the outcome of an election as I am experiencing this year. Many of my patients are as afraid of having another four years of a Bush presidency as they are of the terrorists."
New York Psychologist Mary Frederick.

IT'S NOT just many Americans who are scared to death of George W. Bush's return to the White House for another four years: Much of the world is equally, if not more, terrified at that not unlikely prospect. Never has a U.S. President caused as much consternation and apprehension in the international community as has George W. Bush, America's 'born again' president. Many Americans are worried to death that Mr. Bush has so squandered America's goodwill and has so angered militant Muslims and other American detractors that American security is actually more threatened, rather than strengthened, under the Bush presidency.

The Europeans and the people of the Third World have perhaps even greater reasons to be alarmed at the prospects of George Bush's being declared winner on Tuesday night: It will mean a victory and the legitimising of a most pernicious doctrine, that of pre-emption; and the justification of a style of leadership which elevates force over international law and unilateralism over multilateral cooperation and consensus-building.

QUESTIONS RAISED

No less a prestigious journal in international relations than Foreign Affairs, in its just-released November/December issue, raises serious questions about the dangers of the Bush Doctrine of Preemption, or anticipatory self-defence. In an article on 'The sources of American legitimacy', Robert Tucker, professor emeritus of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, David Hendrickson and Robert J. Fox, distinguished service professor at Colorado College say, "How to restore legitimacy has thus become a central question for U.S. foreign policy."

The scholars show the long history of American adherence to the principle of international law and multilaterialism, however chequered has been the practice.

"Just as civilisation itself is distinguished by the insistence that conflicts be settled by means other than brute force, so U.S. post-war leaders insisted that international relations be ordered by the same principle."

The scholars note the contempt of the Bush administration for international law and any notion of constraint on U.S. power. They quote Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton, who said in the late 1990s that, "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so, because over the long term the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States."

OFFICIAL ARROGANCE

This is the kind of official arrogance and demagoguery which have characterised the Bush administration, and which accounts for the fact that the entire world will hold its breath on Tuesday to see whether such an administration will be unleashed on the world for another four years. As America is the only superpower standing, with unprecedented power as an empire, it is vitally important that it has a leader who respects international law and who is not a law unto himself, listening only to God.

Hendrickson and Tucker in their Foreign Affairs piece say that Europe's aversion to the world's greatest power "taking the law into its own hands" is not simply postmodern sensibility. Objection to such unilateralism "has been at the core of Western reflection on international relations since the birth of the modern state system and it was axiomatic to America's founders who erected the constitutional regime on the proposition that power must be checked and balanced."

The scholars commented poignantly: "It is a part of the pathology of U.S. power today that the evident need for a constitutional check on the world's most powerful state ­ a constraint the United States would welcome if it were true to its political heritage ­ is now seen to stem from spiteful anti-Americanism."

The Bush administration's failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on the environment, as well as the Comprehensive Test Tan Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the International Criminal Court, as well as its declaration of war on Iraq without United Nations authority, is part of its official doctrine of unilateralism and global supremacy. Its vision of the New American Century is a frightening one, and one which will keep the world awake on Tuesday to see just who its next world leader will be.

KERRY FOR WORLD PEACE

John Kerry is not what the doctor ordered, so to speak, but he is better for international peace and security. He respects the rule of law and believes in working closely with key players in the international community. He would restore the multilateralist approach to US foreign policy (though I make the disclaimer that US foreign policy practice before George Bush was not ideal and made in heaven).

John Kerry would begin to build back the soft power of the United States and would win back key constituents in Europe, the Middle East and the wider Third World. John Kerry has had to talk tough and to demonstrate that he can be a big bad wolf, too. America after 9/11 has no patience with a pacifist. That's why John Kerry is running and not Howard Dean.

"This election fundamentally is about the safety of our children, our streets, our airspace," says former Ronald Reagan Chief of Staff Ken Duberstein in an interview with U.S. News and World Report (November 1, 2004) The American election is not about the economy, social security, education etc. It is about the war on terror and who is the best man to protect America's interests.

John Kerry has to pander to these interests and concerns. The world only benefits because Kerry believes that in delivering security to his fellow Americans he needs the cooperation of the Europeans, Middle East players and the United Nations. He believes that he can't go it alone. (See America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, by Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, foreign policy scholars trained at Oxford and Cambridge. It unmasks the new world order of the doctrinaire set now influencing the Bush administration).

POLITICS OF FEAR

This election, more than any other, is about the politics of fear. John Kerry can't ignore this. He has had to spend all of his time over the last few months trying to convince American voters that he is tough, resolute, decisive and is a butt-kicker when needs be. The Republicans have cast him in the role of a flop-flopping 'softie' who would endanger the security of the American nation and would, in effect, be an invitation to terrorists.

The extent to which George Bush emerges the victor on Tuesday would be the extent to which his politics of fear has triumphed. Fear is a most powerful human motivator, far more powerful than reason, Kerry's chief weapon. But fear almost always trumps reason.

For many, the thinking is as simplistic as that of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo: "The simplest of all issues is war: It's incredibly easy to understand: Evil people came and killed 3,000 right in the heart of our country. We have to destroy them and we have a president who is a genius at communicating simply..."

Kerry is a more nuanced thinker, not given to simplistic arguments and clichés, the stock-in-trade of George Bush. But simplistic, either-or, black-and-white rhetoric works far better on the campaign trail, as Kerry might learn painfully on Tuesday night.

The Economist this week makes the point that over the last four elections no incumbent President has received more votes than the opinion polls indicated he would, but that the challenger usually receives about four per cent more. So the President's getting 50 per cent in the polls and Kerry's getting 46 per cent should not be as worrying to Kerry. If the President falls below his 50 per cent and is seen in the polls as having just 46 per cent or 48 per cent then he should be concerned. It is felt that the swing voters are likely to vote against the incumbent. But then this is no ordinary election. The world did change since September 11, 2001.

RELIGION CONCERNS

The Kerry campaign, I still maintain, has hurt itself by not cleverly and astutely addressing the concerns of the religious community. Many secular commentators don't realise the power Bush wields though the support he receives from Evangelicals and Fundamentalists. Anti-Catholic feelings run strong in certain conservative religious circles in the United States, plus the fact that Kerry is pro-choice and opposes Bush's proposed constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of man-woman marriage.

People are wondering why is Bush getting so much support from black Americans and Kerry getting less than is traditionally garnered by Democrats. Many blacks are religiously conservative and we underestimate the power of religious television in America. The American Religious Right is not just praying and fasting but working at the grass roots to keep their Born Again President in office to withstand the forces of The Devil who wants to keep religion out of schools, sanction gay marriage and push the "abortion and feminist agenda".

The liberal Nation magazine, in its November 8 issue formally endorsing John Kerry for President, deplores the fact that Bush has "pandered to a base of religious fanatics, many of whom are looking forward to a day of 'rapture' when Jesus returns to earth and kills everyone but them." But it is a powerful base.

WAR AND THE ECONOMY

The shocking report of a group of scientists on Thursday that up to 100,000 civilians might have been killed since the war in Iraq will make little difference to the Fundamentalists and those gripped by fear. That US$140 billion has been spent on a war which was illegal and unnecessary and which diverted resources and focus from the real war on terror and Osama bin Laden will mean little to many American voters.

On the economy, the Bush administration has been a failure. A US$236 billion surplus has been turned into a $422 billion deficit. As of September 30, the US debt is US$7.3 trillion, a record high. The minimum wage is now at an inflation-adjusted 50 year low. President Bush is the first President since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs ­ approximately 800,000 ­ over his four-year term. The Bush administration implemented regulation which made millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay. Twenty per cent of Bush's tax cut recipients receive 68 per cent of the benefits.

On economic and security grounds, the Bush administration has been a failure: No weapons of mass destruction found, no links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda verified, no links between Saddam Hussein and September 11. A war which has been bungled and which has claimed more than 1,000 US lives and over 7,000 injured, with insurgencies rising every day.

Yet, George W. Bush is likely to win the elections on Tuesday. Perhaps his Fundamentalist brothers and sisters are right that the world is really coming to an end.

MOSQUITO: Hey.

ME: Hhph?

MOSQUITO: Here. On the wall.

ME: (spitting) What?

MOSQUITO: Well played. That Sunbeam thing.

ME: Well, the citronella was useless and the coils are lethal to everyone except mosquitoes and why the hell am I talking to a mosquito? And more important, why the hell aren't you speaking Patois?

MOSQUITO: Doesn't matter. So what are you using for skin protection?

ME: Avon Bug Guard Expedition. It works!*
* - Not a paid endorsement

MOSQUITO: Yeah? C'mere. Lemme clue you in. C'mere. I won't bite.

ME: Yes you will.

MOSQUITO: Okay. I'll give you that. But I wanted to clue you in. See what's left of those trees out there? We've been through a friggin' hurricane that shut down the hotel next door. How do I look?

ME: Uh...good I guess.

MOSQUITO: So your spray from Avon's SKin-So-Soft division and that little spark machine in the bedroom? Please.

ME: Gotcha. Can I give you anything to send your guys over to the yuppies in the next villa and leave us alone?

MOSQUITO: No. Sorry. Democratic meat is much better.

ME: But not as thin-skinned as we used to be.

MOSQUITO: Does EVERYTHING you do - even this imaginary conversation with a damned mosquito - ALWAYS have to be political? Now, rinse and we'll talk again.

ME: No we won't. (SLAP)

MOSQUITO: Now you've pissed me off.

AP: New Bush Guard papers leave questions

By Matt Kelley, Associated Press Writer | October 26, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Unearthed under legal pressure, three-decade-old documents portray President Bush as a capable and well-liked Air National Guard pilot who stopped flying and attending regular drills two-thirds of the way through his six-year commitment -- without consequence.

The files, many of them forced to light by Freedom of Information lawsuits by The Associated Press, conflict with some of the harshest attacks Democrats have levied on Bush's Vietnam-era service, such as suggestions that Bush was a deserter or absent without leave.

But gaps in the records leave unanswered questions about the final two years of his military service in 1972 and 1973. Chief among them: Why did Bush's commanders apparently tolerate his lapses in training and approve his honorable discharge?

Bush's commanders could have punished him -- or ordered him to two years of active duty -- for missing drills for six months in 1972 and skipping a required pilot's medical exam. Instead, they allowed him to make up some of his missed training and granted him an honorable discharge.

"Obviously, the commander saw the lieutenant's interest in the guard was waning," said retired Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver Jr., a former head of the Air National Guard. "Had he been good before? Yeah. Does that mean he should nail him to the wall? No. The culture at the time was not to enforce that."

But the culture apparently did not apply to everyone. Although no records mention any punishment against Bush other than being grounded, the Texas unit's files show another airman was ordered to involuntary active duty in March 1972 as punishment.

OCTOBER, 2004: Recently, we at GeorgeWBush.org happened to notice that our mail server had a default "catch-all" mailbox, which for the past several months had been quietly gathering any and all e-mails addressed to [INSERT-ANYTHING-HERE]@georgewbush.org. We felt the need to share.

10.26.2004: Readers may be interested to learn that the "caging" e-mails below (one and two) are indeed the same documents referenced in Greg Palast's latest BBC Newsnight investigation. We sent them to him last week prior to assembling this page.

I Need a President - Again
By John Cory
t r u t h o u t

I first wrote "I Need a President" during the disastrous end of the 2000 Election. I ended my piece with these words: "Yes, I need a president. But I must wait for now."

The time of waiting is over.

I need a President who does not believe in suppressing votes as he clings to a warped sense of his own entitlement to power. I need a President who does not fear the voice of the people. Not the President of a sanitized America-by-invitation-only, but a President of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I need a President who recognizes that America is a member of the world community and not its master. I need a President who faces the world with a welcoming hand, not a closed fist. A man who embraces questions, and not the coercive rule of unchallenged reign.

I need a President who believes science is a tool for healing and not just a profitable device for the creation of Smart Bombs and Weapons of Mass Destruction. I need a President who sees that stem cell research benefits not only the diseased but also the soldiers with spinal cord wounds and brain trauma inflicted in their service to America.

I need a President for whom "liberal education" is not a partisan pejorative but rather the old-fashioned definition of a balanced and well-rounded education, an education not of political bent, but of the beauty and diversity of life's great treasures. I need a President who sees education as a right, and not a privilege only for those who can afford to buy knowledge.

I need a President whose environmental policy is not only for the wilderness, but also applies to the workplace.

I need a President who understands that family health should never be dependent on family wealth.

I need a President who knows well that secrecy is a cancer on democracy. I want a President who has overcome the fear of battle, not by sending others into combat, but by standing face-to-face against the ravages of war and bringing honor home to the fight for peace and open government.

I need a President who understands that if money is free-speech, the middle class and poor will never have a voice in today's corporate politics; that the dreams of Main Street America will be smothered by the greed of K Street lobbyists and their financial owners.

I need a President who recognizes that corporate crime should not be a reward system for crooked CEOs, while punishing workers with financial ruin. I need a President for whom accountability is not a bookkeeping technique that ensures increased stock value at the cost of American jobs.

I need a President who knows that God is not spelled G-O-P.

I need a President who recognizes the requirement for checks and balances on government, not checkpoints on citizens.

I need a President for whom liberty is not a license to plunder budget surpluses for the benefit of wealthy campaign donors. I need a President, not a corporate puppet, or a panderer to the bigotry of puritanical zealots and self-righteous hypocrites.

America needs a President to whom freedom is not a focus group slogan, tested as justification for the lethal lies of a manufactured war. Not a President who finds humor in the deaths of soldiers in order to get a laugh from the dining room divas of corporate Media.

America needs a President, not a saint without human error. America needs a President who recognizes his own fallibility and rises to the need for change.

America needs a President whose compassion is without label or restriction, who lifts the poor and ignored without making himself tall by standing on the dead and downtrodden. A President who does not limit the colors of America to red, white and blue, but includes each and every variation that weaves the whole fabric of this richly textured nation.

America deserves a President, not an owner.

I deserve a President, not George Bush.
_______

John Cory is a Vietnam veteran. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with V device, 1969 - 1970.

Congresswoman Harris was born in Key West, Florida. She is married to Anders Ebbeson and has a 21-year-old daughter, Louise.

Questions Mount Over Failure to Hit Zarqawi's Camp

By SCOT J. PALTROW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 25, 2004; Page A3

As the toll of mayhem inspired by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi mounts in Iraq, some former officials and military officers increasingly wonder whether the Bush administration made a mistake months before the start of the war by stopping the military from attacking his camp in the northeastern part of that country.

The Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002, giving the administration a series of options for a military strike on the camp Mr. Zarqawi was running then in remote northeastern Iraq, according to generals who were involved directly in planning the attack and several former White House staffers. They said the camp, near the town of Khurmal, was known to contain Mr. Zarqawi and his supporters as well as al Qaeda fighters, all of whom had fled from Afghanistan. Intelligence indicated the camp was training recruits and making poisons for attacks against the West.

Senior Pentagon officials who were involved in planning the attack said that even by spring 2002 Mr. Zarqawi had been identified as a significant terrorist target, based in part on intelligence that the camp he earlier ran in Afghanistan had been attempting to make chemical weapons, and because he was known as the head of a group that was plotting, and training for, attacks against the West. He already was identified as the ringleader in several failed terrorist plots against Israeli and European targets. In addition, by late 2002, while the White House still was deliberating over attacking the camp, Mr. Zarqawi was known to have been behind the October 2002 assassination of a senior American diplomat in Amman, Jordan.

But the raid on Mr. Zarqawi didn't take place. Months passed with no approval of the plan from the White House, until word came down just weeks before the March 19, 2003, start of the Iraq war that Mr. Bush had rejected any strike on the camp until after an official outbreak of hostilities with Iraq. Ultimately, the camp was hit just after the invasion of Iraq began.

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who was in the White House as the National Security Council's director for combatting terrorism at the time, said an NSC working group, led by the Defense Department, had been in charge of reviewing the plans to target the camp. She said the camp was "definitely a stronghold, and we knew that certain individuals were there including Zarqawi." Ms. Gordon-Hagerty said she wasn't part of the working group and never learned the reason why the camp wasn't hit. But she said that much later, when reports surfaced that Mr. Zarqawi was behind a series of bloody attacks in Iraq, she said "I remember my response," adding, "I said why didn't we get that ['son of a b-'] when we could."

IAEA: Tons of Iraq explosives missing

Some 380 tons of explosives, powerful enough to be used to detonate nuclear warheads, are missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog says.

Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CNN the Iraqi interim government reported several days ago that the explosives were missing from the Al Qaqaa complex, south of Baghdad.

The explosives -- considered powerful enough to demolish buildings or detonate nuclear warheads -- were under IAEA control until the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. IAEA workers left the country before the fighting began.

"The task we've got ahead of us now is an awkward one ... It's untidy. And freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here. And for suddenly the biggest problem in the world to be looting is really notable."

This has been rumored in Washington for several days. And now the Nelson Report has broken the story.

Some 350 tons of high explosives (RDX and HMX), which were under IAEA seal while Saddam was in power, were looted during the early days of the US occupation. Like so much else, it was just left unguarded.

Not only are these super-high-yield explosives probably being used in many, if not most, of the various suicide and car bombings in Iraq, but these particular explosives are ones used in the triggering process for nuclear weapons.

In other words, it's bad stuff.

Bush Interior Dept. Pepper Sprays Top Cop

Theresa Chambers has become a poster child for the destruction of enduring American institutions. In this case, the National Park Service and the national monuments it protects.

Until last July, Theresa Chambers was the U.S. Park Service Chief of Police. She was responsible for security and public safety at U.S. National Parks and Monuments in urban centers, including the Washington Monument and the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials on the Washington Mall along with many other parks and monuments in the nation's capitol.

On December 2, 2003, Chambers was interviewed by a Washington Post reporter. She spoke candidly of the challenges the Park Service Police faced with stepped up demands for homeland security and declining Park Service budgets. "My greatest fear," she said, "is that harm or death will come to a visitor or employee at one of our parks, or that we're going to miss a key thing at one of our icons."

On December 5, 2003, the National Park Service stripped Teresa Chambers of her gun and badge and placed her on administrative leave for "violating federal rules" regarding the discussion of budgets and for "giving away critical public safety information."

Theresa Chambers decided to fight back. She challenged her dismissal, and as a result, was subjected to a nasty campaign of reprisal by political hacks within the Interior Department. Someone sprayed pepper spray, the noxious chemical weapon used to control violent criminals, into the open door of her office. The harassment included computer break-ins, planting false rumors, leaking misleading portions of confidential reports, and intimidating her supporters from speaking out.

In fact, what has happened to Theresa Chambers is but one example of a "culture of fear" that now exists within the Interior Department. In August, the Interior Department's Office of the Inspector General released an investigative report that included a survey of 25,000 employees. More than one quarter of those who responded said they fear retaliation for reporting problems.

Former workers dispute Bush's pull in Project P.U.L.L.

President Bush often has cited his work in 1973 with a now-defunct inner-city program for troubled teens as the source for his belief in "compassionate conservatism."

"I realized then that a society can change and must change one person at a time ..." Bush said in a video shown at the 2000 Republican National Convention about his tenure at P.U.L.L., the Professional United Leadership League, whose executive director, John White, had played tight end for the Houston Oilers in the early 1960s.

But former associates of White, who died in 1988, have disputed in recent interviews much of Bush's version of his time at the program.

"I was working full time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project P.U.L.L.," Bush said in his 1999 autobiography, "A Charge to Keep." "My friend John White ... asked me to come help him run the program. ... I was intrigued by John's offer. ... Now I had a chance to help people."

But White's administrative assistant and others associated with P.U.L.L., speaking on the record for the first time, say Bush was not helping to run the program and White had not asked Bush to come aboard. Instead, the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to Bush's father, who was honorary co-chairman of the program at the time, and Bush was unpaid. They say White told them Bush had gotten into some kind of trouble but White never gave them specifics.

"We didn't know what kind of trouble he'd been in, only that he'd done something that required him to put in the time," said Althia Turner, White's administrative assistant.
_______

No documents from Bush's time with P.U.L.L. exist. The agency, which closed in 1989, left most of its records behind when it moved to a new location in 1984. The building's owner, Southern Leather Co., said those were discarded. No one seems to know what happened to any remaining records after 1989. White's widow declined to be interviewed.

But many people recall Bush's tenure at the agency.

Turner, who said she has avoided reporters for years, agreed to be interviewed only after phoning her pastor for advice.

When she hung up the phone, she turned to a reporter: "My pastor says if you found me, I should tell the truth."

LINK - The comedian also takes a light swipe at news programs that may not all run on cable. When reminded that the Television Critics Association voted his "The Daily Show" the best news and information program of the year, Stewart says, "I think in some respects, they were punking you, as opposed to praising us."

Dear Editor:

There's [sic] rumors on the Internets [sic] -- as Dubya himself would say -- that the venerable Plain Dealer is being forced by its publisher to endorse a deranged, incompetent, murdering religious visionary for the presidency of the Republic.

By extension, that suggests that you are, in the public interest of the people of Northeastern Ohio, endorsing the most corrupt and corrosive administration in the nation's history, as well as the most dangerous cabal of power-seeking sociopaths ever unleashed on the planet.

I refuse to believe these rumors. Such a thing would be unthinkable in the Ohio where I was born and raised, a landscape populated by gentle folks of infinite politeness, who exercised charity and compassion as second nature, who impulsively came to the aid of strangers, who played dumb for effect, were sharp as horse-traders and could spot a con-man two cornfields away.

Although I left my home state 30 years ago, I have carried my "Ohio-ness" proudly into my adult life. Now, alas, for the first time, it makes me ashamed.

The Ohioans I knew could have no use for a man who would deceive them into not one, but two, senseless and bungled wars. They would burn their own fields before they would condone the pointless deaths of our own children, the murder of thousands of innocent people who have never harmed us, and the wholesale torture and abuse of individuals not even charged with a crime.

The Ohioans I knew would not conscience the covert dismantling of the Bill of Rights, the arrogant cronyism that places corporate self-interest above the popular will, and a government that cows its citizens with endless speculation of horrific attacks by nameless bogeymen straight out of a cheap dime-novel.

Above all, the Ohioans I knew did not care to be lied to by the people they trust. And if there is a dark side to being an Ohioan, it is that we never forget an act of betrayal. We carry our memories well and long.
And it's never too late to settle an old score.

Presidents come and -- hopefully, in this case -- go. But the day will come when the PD may be asked to explain why, at the precise moment when its wisdom and resolve could have made a difference, it cast its lot with an administration whose only gift to Ohio will be four more years of war, lost jobs, sinking incomes, gutted educational systems, deteriorating infrastructure, declining social services and local municipalities scraping to survive.

If the Ohio I remember still exists, you'd best have one hell of a spectacular excuse.

Kevin
Pittsburgh, PA

Soldier, Democratic supporter among those barred entrance

Depending on what side of the fence people are on, crowd control was at an all-time high or low at the Wachovia Arena in Wilkes-Barre Township during President Bush's visit Friday.

A 27-year-old registered Republican and member of the U.S. Army, along with three other people around him, was forced to leave the arena before getting inside.

The Wyoming Valley man who did not want to be identified by name because of his loyalty to his service members is being deployed to Iraq in two weeks. His Army service and status were verified.

He explained that he was attending the event in hopes of finding the right candidate to vote for on Nov. 2.

"I thought seeing Bush would be enough to sway my opinion one way or the other. After today, it definitely has swayed," he said.

While waiting in line, he noticed a stranger standing alone and invited the person to stand with him.

"I didn't think that would be a problem," he said.

It turned out to be.

Individuals from the Bush campaign spotted the individual with the soldier and identified the person as a Democratic supporter.

The spotters, and eventually police, asked the Democratic supporter to remove a jacket, a sweater and some other articles of clothing in what was described as basically a police search.

The soldier said the Democratic supporter did what was asked without any complaint. The person also provided a ticket to the event.

The soldier said that when he asked why the person was being hassled, the spotters said the Democrat's name wasn't on their "master list."

"So I asked if we could see the master list? They said they didn't have it," he said.

The soldier said he stood up for the supporter, but was in no way hostile, because he was there to see the president and hoped to justify voting for him.

Not long after showing his own ticket and being told he wasn't part of the "master list" either, the police asked the soldier to leave. He was told the event was for Bush supporters or undecided voters only.

Until Friday when he left the arena, the soldier was an undecided voter. Now he's voting for Sen. Kerry and volunteering for the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

"I thought the whole Bush message was compassionate conservatism. I didn't see anything compassionate from the Bush people," he said.

Without saying a word, Ventura gets behind Kerry

ST. PAUL (AP) - Former Gov. Jesse Ventura now supports John Kerry for president. You'll just have to take Angus King's word for it.

In a bizarre news conference Friday in the Capitol complex, Ventura stood silently next to the former Maine governor in an event billed as independents for Kerry.

King said Ventura wouldn't be talking but had authorized King to answer questions on his behalf. Ventura, King said, had changed his mind after saying last month that he didn't like either of the candidates.

Asked if Ventura's presence meant he was endorsing Kerry, King replied: "Yes."

Kerry's the One
By Scott McConnell

Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation's children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliche about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal - Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can't be found to do it - and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail.
_______

The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.

If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong.

Some Voters Say Machines Failed, Incorrect Choices Appear on Screens

Kim Griffith voted on Thursday - over and over and over.

She's among the people in Bernalillo and Sandoval counties who say they have had trouble with early voting equipment. When they have tried to vote for a particular candidate, the touch-screen system has said they voted for somebody else.

It's a problem that can be fixed by the voters themselves - people can alter the selections on their ballots, up to the point when they indicate they are finished and officially cast the ballot.

For Griffith, it took a lot of altering.

She went to Valle Del Norte Community Center in Albuquerque, planning to vote for John Kerry. "I pushed his name, but a green check mark appeared before President Bush's name," she said.

Griffith erased the vote by touching the check mark at Bush's name. That's how a voter can alter a touch-screen ballot.

She again tried to vote for Kerry, but the screen again said she had voted for Bush. The third time, the screen agreed that her vote should go to Kerry.

She faced the same problem repeatedly as she filled out the rest of the ballot. On one item, "I had to vote five or six times," she said.

Michael Cadigan, president of the Albuquerque City Council, had a similar experience when he voted at City Hall.

"I cast my vote for president. I voted for Kerry and a check mark for Bush appeared," he said.

He reported the problem immediately and was shown how to alter the ballot.
_______

Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera said she doesn't believe the touch-screen system has been making mistakes. It's the fault of voters, she said Thursday.
Cadigan, for example, could have "leaned his palm on the touch screen and it hit the wrong button," she said.

Conservative Author Is Attacked With Pies

About 2400 people gathered to hear Coulter defend President Bush and bash the Democrats. And she delivered.

"The Democrats have no actual policy proposals of their own unless constant carping counts as a policy," Coulter said.

But outside, protestors showed that not everyone welcomed Coulter's visit, and at least two even made it inside.

As Coulter addressed a question about terrorism, she stopped mid-statement: "You take away the terrorism and liberals would hate..." at that Coulter gasped as she looked to her left, and began backing away from the podium. Two men ran by, on-stage, and each threw a pie a her. They were mobbed as they tried to exit the auditorium.

"Could the Marines please find them?" Coulter asked aloud, speaking of some of the men in the audience.

"You gotta start travelling with a bodyguard. It's a crazy time and liberals are out of their minds and look, someone can harm you and it does make me think maybe I should start travelling with somebody," Coulter said.

US tried to plant WMDs, failed: whistleblower

According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration's assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to "plant" WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by "friendly fire", the Environmentalists Against War report.

Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq. According to Al Martin Raw.com, "Ms Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense."

LINK - Just weeks before the Nov. 2 election, researchers at Harvard's Institute of Politics found that 52 percent of all students want the Massachusetts senator elected president, 39 percent support Bush, and 8 percent are undecided.

In 14 hotly contested swing states, the poll shows Kerry leading Bush by 17 points among students.

The data suggest more students are leaning toward Kerry than six months ago, when Harvard last surveyed them. That poll, released in April, found Kerry leading Bush by 48-38 percent with 11 percent undecided.

LINK - George Bush's judgment is so tragically simple as to make us fearful for this nation. When an enemy in Afghanistan attacked us, he instead attacked Iraq. When the economy tanked, he gave money to the rich. And when he wasn't doing any of the above, he was putting on his cowboy hat, swaggering across America and projecting the image of America as Badass.

George Bush ran on a platform of compassionate conservatism. But when the world got dicey and his tiny viewfinder of a mind couldn't handle reality, he morphed into a schoolyard bully. If anything makes this newspaper regret this man's presidency, it is that the strongest nation in the world doesn't need to be a bully. Bullies are bullies because they're insecure and weak and dumb. This nation is none of the above. George Bush is all of above.

And so we endorse John Kerry. We do so without shouting his name from the mountaintops. But we do so knowing that he has a fully formed brain, that he fought honorably for this country and that he would work to regain the respect of nations around the world. We have no confidence he would figure out Iraq. We have no idea how anyone figures that out.

On the domestic front, we feel that John Kerry would respect ordinary working Americans, that he would work to reform entitlement programs for the sick and elderly, and that he would be more involved at an intellectual level with the policy discussions in which every president should be immersed. We also have more confidence in Democrats to get the debt under control. Republicans have totally lost their grip on proper fiscal stewardship.

Over time, John Kerry has grown on us. To a Southerner, his pedantic delivery and royal elocution can be a bit much, but in the debates we've slowly come around. We are confident John Kerry will at least engage with the complexity in today's world. It's not just that Bush won't do that. It's that he can't.

Richard Boucher, US Department of State spokesman:

It just demonstrates, once again, the kind of role that Britain is prepared to play in a matter that affects their security and our security, the security of all of us, and that is stabilising Iraq and helping the people of Iraq take control of their destiny and reconstruct their country.

Geraldine Smith MP, Labour (former supporter of war and one of more than 60 Labour MPs who called for a parliamentary vote on the deployment):

We're being told that this is an operational necessity, and if this is true it must imply that the Americans have insufficient of the right type of troops and equipment on the ground in Iraq. And we really need to know why this is so. After all, they are the world's superpower. It does beg the question is it because George Bush is not prepared to commit additional American forces before the presidential elections?

#1 - Tenet calls Iraq War "Wrong"

Addressing the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan Wednesday night, George Tenet, former director of central intelligence, called the war on Iraq "wrong," according to Clark's article today. Tenet added that while the Iraq war was "rightly being challenged," the CIA was making important strides toward success in the greater war on terrorism.

#2 - Boston Police Union Jumps the Fence

The city's main police union broke with a tradition of backing Republicans for president and voted to endorse Democrat John Kerry, largely because he honored their picket line during the Democratic National Convention this summer.

The union's 50-member House of Representatives gave its backing to Kerry on Wednesday, following a personal appeal by U.S. Rep. William D. Delahunt, D-Mass., to support the hometown candidate.

#3 - Republican Ex-Governor Endorses Kerry Out of a "Growing Sense of Concern"

Former Republican Gov. William Milliken - who served a record 14 years as Michigan's chief executive - is endorsing Democrat John Kerry, saying President Bush "has pursued policies pandering to the extreme right wing."

"I have felt a growing sense of concern for some time and I don't think that I couldn't speak out as a Republican and as a citizen," Milliken said in a Monday interview with The Detroit News from his Traverse City home. "To me, this transcends politics."

#4 - Bush's Approval Numbers at Worst Post-9/11 Level

There has been little movement in how voters assess the candidates on the issues. But a separate Pew Research Center poll of 803 adults shows that Bush's own approval measures have weakened appreciably. Bush's overall job approval stands at 44%, while solid majorities disapprove of his handling of the situation in Iraq (56% disapprove) and the economy (55%). Even on terrorism, the president's strongest issue, his approval rating stands at 49% ­ the lowest level since the Sept. 11 attacks.

#5 - New Pre-War Intelligence Report: Iraq/Al Qaeda Connection Exaggerated by DOD

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released a report today of an inquiry he initiated on June 27, 2003 and conducted by the SASC Minority Staff.
_______

The report demonstrates how intelligence relating to the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship was exaggerated by high ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the Administration’s decision to invade Iraq when the intelligence assessments of the Intelligence Community did not make a sufficiently compelling case.

HANNITY: ...joining us with a Democratic reaction to the interview that I just had with the vice president is Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

Let me put on the screen here a Fox News poll from yesterday as it relates to the vice president and his daughter, and I was asking him about it. Kerry's reference to Cheney's daughter: 25 percent said appropriate, 64 percent said inappropriate.

How do you feel about it? Was it inappropriate?

U.S. SENATOR MARY LANDRIEU (D), LOUISIANA: Well, first of all, Sean, let me say, I wasn't call what just happened with the vice president an interview. I think it was an info-commercial for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. With all due respect...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Hey, Senator, if you want to insult me...

LANDRIEU: If I got to watch the interview...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Senator, Senator, I think you're a lousy senator.

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: I'm not insulting you. I'm giving you my opinion about the what the interview ...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Senator, if you want to insult my interview, you can...

LANDRIEU: It's what the interview was.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: This is an opportunity to go a little deeper and get a little bit more knowledge in a very comfortable environment for both candidates. So if you don't like it, I don't really care, but we have offered it to both sides in the name of fairness.

So if you want to come on the program and try and insult me or insult the channel, that's fine, but you have been a guest on this program multiple times and for you to do that, I think, is a cheap shot by you. So we'll move on.

Do you think -- to answer the question -- do you agree with the poll or do you disagree with the poll?

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: Sean, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to you. But I'm entitled -- I'm not trying to be disrespectful to you, but I'm entitled to my opinion. You asked me to come on the show and respond to the interview.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: I didn't ask you that question though. I asked you about Dick Cheney's daughter.

LANDRIEU: I understand. And I'm going to get there in just a minute.

HANNITY: If you want to be insulting, if you want to make cheap shots, you can...

(CROSSTALK)

LANDRIEU: You asked me to come on this program...

HANNITY: Right. So why don't you answer the question I asked you...

LANDRIEU: You asked me to come this program and respond to the interview.

HANNITY: Answer the question then.

LANDRIEU: So I was thinking what I thought about the interview.

LINK - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is married to a Kennedy, joked at a public-policy conference that his sex life suffered after he endorsed President Bush at the Republican National Convention.

"There was no sex for 14 days," he said. "Everything comes with side effects."

Schwarzenegger, whose wife is TV journalist Maria Shriver, had an audience of about 1,000 people in stitches Monday as he took part in a lecture series organized by former Clinton administration chief of staff Leon Panetta.

Robertson: I warned Bush on Iraq casualties

The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going to have any casualties."

Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."
_______

"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' "

Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
The agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials.
By Robert Scheer
The Los Angeles Times

It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."
_______

None of this should surprise us given the Bush administration's great determination since 9/11 to resist any serious investigation into how the security of this nation was so easily breached. In Bush's much ballyhooed war on terror, ignorance has been bliss.

The president fought against the creation of the Sept. 11 commission, for example, agreeing only after enormous political pressure was applied by a grass-roots movement led by the families of those slain.

And then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath, or on the record. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commission members, with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White House meeting in which commission members were not allowed to take notes. All in all, strange behavior for a man who seeks reelection to the top office in the land based on his handling of the so-called war on terror.

In September, the New York Times reported that several family members met with Goss privately to demand the release of the CIA inspector general's report. "Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and no one has been held accountable," 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser told the paper.

The failure to furnish the report to Congress, said Harman, "fuels the perception that no one is being held accountable. It is unacceptable that we don't have [the report]; it not only disrespects Congress but it disrespects the American people."

The stonewalling by the Bush administration and the failure of Congress to gain release of the report have, said the intelligence source, "led the management of the CIA to believe it can engage in a cover-up with impunity. Unless the public demands an accounting, the administration and CIA's leadership will have won and the nation will have lost."

Anti-Kerry Film Won't Be Aired
Democrats, Investors Push TV Conglomerate to Alter Broadcast Plans

By Frank Ahrens and Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 20, 2004; Page A07

Under mounting political, legal and financial pressure, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. yesterday backed away from its plan to carry a film attacking John F. Kerry's Vietnam War record, saying it would air only portions of the movie in an hour-long special scheduled for Friday.

"The experience of preparing to air this news special has been trying for many of those involved," Sinclair chief executive David D. Smith said in a statement. "The company and many of its executives have endured personal attacks of the vilest nature, as well as calls on our advertisers and our viewers to boycott our stations and on our shareholders to sell their stock."

Chad Clanton, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, which had demanded equal time to respond to the planned airing of the 42-minute film "Stolen Honor," said Sinclair "has been all over the map on this issue. One thing that's certain is that they have a partisan agenda."

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the nonprofit Media Access Project, called the Sinclair move "a surprising cave-in" and said the 62-station television company "clearly felt a lot of pressure and this is an attempt to find a face-saving way out."

LINK - 50 percent of Ohio likely voters in this ABC News poll favor Kerry, with 47 percent for Bush - a close race, with the difference between the candidates within the survey's margin of sampling error. It remains 50 percent to 47 percent with Nader in the race; he's currently off the ballot with a court challenge pending.

LINK - CRITICS said it wouldn't happen - but all-liberal WLIB is seriously challenging talk-radio rivals WABC and WOR.

According to Arbitron ratings released yesterday, WLIB thrashed WOR and nipped at the heels of top-dog WABC among the 25- to 54-year-old listeners advertisers chase.

"The elections are giving them an added boost in a largely liberal town, [and] they're benefiting from the whole Bush-Kerry thing," said Mark Lefkowitz of the Furman Roth ad agency.

"WABC has proven that it works in election years and not, [so] it'll be interesting to see what happens to WLIB...after the November election," Lefkowitz told The Post.

During midday, when both stations roll out their top guns - WABC's Rush Limbaugh vs. Air America's Al Franken - WABC is ranked 15th in listeners 25-54, followed closely by WLIB, which ranked 18th.

WOR trails badly, finishing 27th in midday.

"In a new term as your President, we will finish the work we have started. We will stand up for terror -- we will stand up for freedom. And on November the 2nd, my fellow Americans, I ask that you stand with me."

Kerry left off some absentee ballots
By Barry M. Horstman
Cincinnati Post staff reporter



Some absentee ballots distributed to Hamilton County voters do not include the name of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, local election officials confirmed today.

Because of a printing error -- limited, election officials believe, to only a few ballots in the Forest Park area -- absentee ballots recently mailed out exclude the Democratic presidential ticket of Kerry and his running mate, Sen. John Edwards.

"It's a screw-up," said Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections. "This just feeds the paranoia that's out there. The tragic thing is that even though I think we will have a very fair and accurate count here, this will cause people to question the accuracy of our operation."

Although election officials believe only two voters have received the inaccurate ballot to date, Burke said he is worried that the mix-up "will open us up to all kinds of questions and concerns." He also conceded that some may question whether the problem is, indeed, limited to only a few ballots.

Report: Fox May Fire Producer Who Sued O'Reilly
Producer Says Fox Served Her With Papers

In the latest in the battle between TV personality Bill O'Reilly and his former associate producer, Andrea Mackris, Fox News is asking a court to clarify its ability to terminate Mackris' employment.

Mackris was served with papers about her potential firing Friday evening. She told CNN's Anderson Cooper a man entered into her building and approached her as she entered her apartment with the documents, which she refused to accept

Sources familiar with the filing say Fox News is asking the court to rule if Fox fires Mackris, it is not in retaliation for her sexual harassment lawsuit.

In a written statement, Fox News explained it wants the court to determine if Mackris' allegations are valid.

"We have also asked the court to advise Fox News about the possible termination of Ms. Mackris' employment. Ms. Mackris is still employed and on the payroll of Fox News," according to the statement.

THE PRESIDENT: Most Americans still felt that terrorism was something distant, and something that would not strike on a large scale in America. That is the time that my opponent wants to go back to.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: A time when danger was real and growing, but we didn't know it. A time when some thought terrorism was only a "nuisance."

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: My opponent has taken a different approach, and it shows in his record. Just one year after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, Senator Kerry proposed a $6 billion cut in the nation's intelligence budget.

AUDIENCE: Booo!
_______

THE PRESIDENT: My opponent has a fundamental misunderstanding on the war on terror. A reporter recently asked Senator Kerry how September the 11th changed him. He replied, "It didn't change me much at all."

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: His unchanged world view is obvious from the policies he still advocates. He has said this war is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation." He has declared, we should not respond to threats until they are -- quote -- "imminent." He has complained that my administration -- quote -- "relies unwisely on the threat of military preemption against terrorist organizations." Let me repeat that. He says that preemptive action is "unwise," not only against regimes, but even against terrorist organizations.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: Senator Kerry's approach would permit a response only after America is hit.

AUDIENCE: Booo!
_______

THE PRESIDENT: My opponent promises that he would do better with our allies. Yet, he's decided that the way to build alliances is to insult our friends. As a candidate for President, Senator Kerry has managed to offend or alienate almost every one of America's fighting allies in the war on terror. He has called the countries serving alongside us in Iraq -- quote -- "a trumped-up ... coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought, and the extorted."

AUDIENCE: Booo!
_______

THE PRESIDENT: As part of his foreign policy, Senator Kerry has talked about applying a "global test."

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: As far as I can tell, it comes down to this: Before we act to defend ourselves, he thinks we need permission from foreign capitals.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: Yet, even the Gulf War coalition in 1991 did not pass Senator Kerry's global test. Even with the United Nations' approval, he voted against removing Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: If that vast, U.N.-supported operation did not pass his test, nothing ever could. (Applause.) Senator Kerry's global test is nothing more than an excuse to constrain the actions of our own country in a dangerous world. (Applause.)

I believe in strong alliances. I believe in respecting other countries and working with them and seeking their advice. But I will never submit our national security decisions to a veto of a foreign government. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!
_______

THE PRESIDENT: Unfortunately, Senator Kerry does not share our commitment to victory in Iraq. For three years -- depending on the headlines, the poll numbers and political calculation -- he has taken almost every conceivable position on Iraq.

AUDIENCE: Flip-flop! Flip-flop! Flip Flop!

THE PRESIDENT: First, he said Saddam Hussein was a threat, and he voted for the war. Then he voted against funds for bullets and body armor for the troops he had voted to send into battle.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: He declared himself an anti-war candidate. Months later he said that knowing everything we know now, he would have still voted for the war. Then he said the war was a "mistake," an "error," or "diversion." Having gone back and forth so many times, the Senator from Massachusetts has now flip-flopped his way to a dangerous position. My opponent -- my opponent finally has settled on a strategy, a strategy of retreat.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: He has talked about artificial timetables to pull our troops out of Iraq. He has sent the signal that America's overriding goal in Iraq would be to leave, even if the job is not done.

AUDIENCE: Booo!
_______

THE PRESIDENT: The Senator who claims the world is more dangerous since America started fighting the war on terror is the same Senator who said that Ronald Reagan's policies of peace through strength actually made America less safe.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: The same Senator who said the Reagan presidency was eight years of "moral darkness" --

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE PRESIDENT: In this campaign, Senator Kerry can run from his record, but he cannot hide. (Applause.) Thank you.

Truth and Consequences

In articles, columns and one internal ABC News memo, some journalists have argued that the president has engaged in far more serious distortions than John Kerry has, and that media outlets should blow the whistle on these falsehoods.

"Your instinct is that if we say bad things about one side you have to say bad things about the other side," says Adam Nagourney, the New York Times's chief political reporter. "You want to give equal scrutiny to both sides, but I don't think you should impose a false equivalence that doesn't exist."

The Bush team, which issued a release slamming a recent Nagourney story, is pushing back. "The Bush campaign should be able to make an argument without having it reflexively dismissed as distorted or inaccurate by the biggest papers in the country," says spokesman Steve Schmidt.

At issue is how far reporters should go in analyzing the candidates' attacks and ads, especially if one side is using a howitzer and the other a popgun.

I only saw part of this last night, but the more I learn about Kerry and Bush the more I think Kerry is really a statesman and Bush is a rich guy riding the wave.

A War Without Reason

There should no longer be any doubt that the war in Iraq is an exercise in lunacy. It was launched with a spurious rationale, the weapons of mass destruction, which turned out to be a fantasy relentlessly stoked by obsessively hawkish middle-aged men who ran and hid when they were of fighting age and the nation was at war.

Now we find that we can't win this war we started. Soldiers and civilians alike are trapped in the proverbial briar patch, unable to move around safely in a country that the warmongers thought would be easy to conquer and then rebuild.

There is no way to overstate how profoundly wrong they were.
_______

As the pointlessness of this war grows ever clearer, the president's grand alliance, like some of the soldiers on the ground, is losing its resolve. When John Kerry, in the first presidential debate, mentioned only Britain and Australia as he mocked Mr. Bush's "coalition" in Iraq, the president famously replied, "You forgot Poland."

Poland has 2,400 troops in Iraq. But on Friday the prime minister, Marek Belka, announced that he will cut that number early next year, and then "will engage in talks on a further reduction."

Mr. Belka has a political problem. He can't explain the war to his constituents. And that's because there is no rational explanation.
_______

The president and his apologists never understood what they were getting into in Iraq. What is unmistakable now is that Americans will never be willing to commit the overwhelming numbers of troops and spend the hundreds of billions of additional dollars necessary to have even a hope of bringing long-term stability to Iraq.

This is a war that never made sense and now we are seeing - from the troops on the ground, from our allies overseas and increasingly from the population here at home - the inevitable reluctance to forge ahead with the madness.

The president likes to say he made exactly the right decision on Iraq. Each new death of a soldier or a civilian, each child who loses a parent to the carnage, each healthy body that is broken or burned in this war that didn't have to happen, is a reminder of how horribly wrong he was.

LINK - The president took a day off from campaigning. While his rival was in Ohio and Florida, Bush readied what aides called a major speech on terrorism for Monday in New Jersey, where millions live within sight of the terrorist-scarred lower Manhattan skyline.

Bin Laden Is In China
So confirms Gordon Thomas, a journalist with contacts in major intelligence services. The terrorist might have reached an agreement with China, which is now negotiociating his return with President Bush. It's the latter's great electoral trick.

GORDON THOMAS

During the final stretch leading up to the U.S. elections, Osama bin Laden could become the ace up President Bush's sleeve. At this very moment, Washington is negociating, in utmost secrecy, a deal with Beijing, the Chinese capital, to extract bin Laden from his sanctuary in the turbulent Muslim provinces of China, to the northwest of the country of the Great Wall.

More than five million people, many of them fanatical followers of Osama, live in what is considered one of the most volatile regions on Earth. Thousands of them work for the crime syndicates that traffic in human beings or drugs to the west. Last summer, bin Laden finalized a treaty with the government in Beijing, in which the latter would guarantee safety for bin Laden, while he would guarantee the cessation of the guerilla war by Chinese Muslims against the Chinese government.

LINK TO EDITOR AND PUBLISHER - Kerry gained the editorial backing of at least 22 papers, with Bush winning the support of just five, giving Kerry the lead by 37-18 in E&P's exclusive tally. He has many more large papers on his side, maintaining his "circulation edge" at about 4-1: approximately 8 million to 2 million (we will post a complete tally later today).

Among his new supporters were three papers that had backed Bush in 2000: the Bradenton Herald in Florida, the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado and the Daily-Herald in Arlington Heights, Ill.

However, Bush did pick up the endorsement of the Chicago Tribune and The Dallas Morning News in his home state.

Among the papers endorsing Kerry today were newspapers in key swing states: The Miami Herald, St. Petersburg Times, Palm Beach Post, Daytona Beach News Journal and Bradenton Herald in Florida; the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in Minnesota; the Daily Camera in Colorado, and the Dayton Daily News and Akron Beacon-Journal in Ohio.

He also got the nod from major papers in states already friendly to him: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury-News, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee and Modesto Bee.

Other papers backing him were the Kansas City Star, the Roanoke (Va.) Times, the Grand Fords (ND) Herald, Charlotte Observer, and the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. Clearly, many papers in the Knight Ridder and McClatchy chains have rallied to his side.

John Kerry for President

Senator John Kerry goes toward the election with a base that is built more on opposition to George W. Bush than loyalty to his own candidacy. But over the last year we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we've seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent.

We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking - something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.
_______

We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

Voting for president is a leap of faith. A candidate can explain his positions in minute detail and wind up governing with a hostile Congress that refuses to let him deliver. A disaster can upend the best-laid plans. All citizens can do is mix guesswork and hope, examining what the candidates have done in the past, their apparent priorities and their general character. It's on those three grounds that we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.

"This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them...

"This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts," [Bruce] Bartlett went on to say. "He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence." Bartlett paused, then said, "But you can't run the world on faith."

U.S. Military Faults Lack of Troops in Iraq - Poll

A majority of U.S. troops serving in Iraq and their families said the Bush administration did not send enough forces to Iraq and relied too heavily on the National Guard and reserve troops, a poll showed on Saturday.

Almost two-thirds of those surveyed by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, or 65 percent, said they believed President Bush "had underestimated the number of troops needed in Iraq," the poll said.

But while 60 percent said part-time troops were overburdened and the number of regular troops should have been expanded, a larger majority, 74 percent, said they were opposed to reinstating the draft.

Annenberg researchers surveyed 186 troops who were serving on active duty in Iraq between February and October, including full-time, National Guard and reservist forces. If they were not available for polling, a family member was surveyed.

The results were part of a larger survey of 655 troops or their families.

Forty percent of National Guard members and reservists surveyed said they did not have enough training or supplies for their mission in Iraq, compared with 35 percent who said they were adequately prepared, the poll found.
_______

Despite those doubts, the military generally supports Bush and the efforts in Iraq, the poll showed. But support from those who spent time in Iraq was lower by about 10 percent.
_______

The poll, conducted from Sept. 22 to Oct. 5, also found the military "overwhelmingly disagreed" with the administration's photo ban of military coffins arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

(SF Chron story of same poll) Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they approved of the way President Bush was doing his job, compared with 49 percent in a sample of the general public collected during the same period.

Similarly, 69 percent of survey respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the president, while just 29 percent had a favorable opinion of his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry. That compared to a nationwide favorability rating of 49 percent for Bush and 44 percent for Kerry.

"Although I am a longtime Republican, it is time to make a statement, and it is this: Vote for Kerry-Edwards, I implore you, on Nov. 2."

Former MN Governor Elmer Andersen

Jon Stewart: Crossfire "hurting America"

"I think you're a lot more fun on your show," said Tucker Carlson to "Crossfire" guest Jon Stewart this afternoon. "And I think you're as much of a dick on your show as on any other," Stewart shot back. It wasn't the faux avuncularity we've come to expect from Stewart on "The Daily Show" but there, of course, he's playing a role. Here he was himself -- and he wasn't buying any of it.

From the moment Stewart sat down he made no secret of how repugnant he found the show. In fact, he said to Carlson and co-host Paul Begala that he had been so hard on the show he felt it was his duty to come on and say to their faces what he has said to friends and in interviews. What he said was that their show was "hurting America," and he was being only slightly hyperbolic. Stewart told them that when America needed journalists to be journalists they had instead chosen to present theater.

Carlson, trying to affect an air of dry amusement that a comedian would presume to lecture him, important pundit that he is, but looking as if his bow-tie were about to start spinning, could barely contain his outrage. In an absolutely mind-boggling moment, Carlson tried to counter Stewart's criticism by pointing out that during John Kerry's recent appearance on "The Daily Show," Stewart asked the candidate softball questions. "If you want to measure yourself against a comedy show," Stewart said, "be my guest."

Paul Begala tried to put a more conciliatory face on things by pointing out that theirs was a "debate" show. Stewart was having none of it. "I would love to see a real debate show," he said. And went on to tell them that instead of holding politicians' feet to the fire by asking tough question, "you're part of their strategy. You're partisan -- what's the word? -- uh, hacks."

It's almost a cliche by now to talk about "The Daily Show" being more trusted than real newscasts, but Stewart showed why. He pointed out to Carlson that he had asked Kerry if he really were in Cambodia but "I don't care," and when Carlson asked him what he thought about the "Bill O'Reilly vibrator flap," Stewart said, "I don't." It was as concise a demonstration of the triviality of the media as you could hope for.

"I thought you were going to be funny," Carlson said toward the end of the interview. Stewart responded, "No, I'm not going to be your monkey." And that was what was so bracing.

Stewart's "Crossfire" appearance is going to generate talk about how prickly he was, how he wasn't "nice" like he is on "The Daily Show." But prickliness is just what was needed. If you've built your reputation as a satirist pointing out how the media falls down on the job, you're not going to make yourself a part of their charade.

I've heard people talk about "The Daily Show" as an oasis of sanity, a public service. I couldn't agree more. Stewart's appearance on "Crossfire" was another public service. He went on and acted as if the show's purpose really was to confront tough issues, instead of being the political equivalent of pro wrestling. Given a chance to say absolutely what he thought, Stewart took it. He accomplished what almost never happens on television anymore: He made the dots come alive.

"Our country is the greatest in the world in spite of our leadership. Our country should be the greatest in the world because of our leadership."

- Gov. Howard Dean this morning on KPCC's "Air Talk"

Polls Show U.S. Reputation Spirals Down
America's Reputation Abroad Is Worsening, According to Polls in 10 Nations, Including Close Allies

America's popularity around the world has taken a beating in recent years, according to a set of coordinated polls conducted in 10 different countries. But the survey also found that despite widespread animosity toward President Bush, huge majorities said they have a good opinion of Americans.

"We like Americans, we don't like Bush," was how Britain's Guardian newspaper summarized the results of the surveys published Friday.

The polls found that to an overwhelming degree, respondents in most of the countries have a more negative view of the United States now than a few years ago, disapprove of the war in Iraq and dislike Bush. Democratic challenger John Kerry is favored often by landslide proportions in all but two of the nations.
_______

On average, 57 percent said they had a worse opinion of the United States than two to three years ago, compared to 20 percent who said they had a higher opinion now. That question was asked each country except Russia.

In eight of the nations, more people said their view of America had worsened than improved. Seventy-four percent of Japanese, 70 percent of French, 67 percent of South Koreans, 64 percent of Canadians and 60 percent of Spaniards said they had a lower opinion of America now than a few years ago.

Platoon defies orders in Iraq
Miss. soldier calls home, cites safety concerns

A 17-member Army Reserve platoon with troops from Jackson, Miss., and around the Southeast deployed to Iraq is under arrest for refusing a "suicide mission" to deliver fuel, the troops' relatives said Thursday.

The soldiers refused an order on Wednesday to go to Taji, Iraq - north of Baghdad - because their vehicles were considered "deadlined" or extremely unsafe, said Patricia McCook of Jackson, wife of Sgt. Larry O. McCook.

Sgt. McCook, a deputy at the Hinds County, Miss., Detention Center, and the 16 other members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company from Rock Hill, S.C., were read their rights and moved from the military barracks into tents, Patricia McCook said her husband told her during a panicked phone call about 5 a.m. Thursday.

The platoon could be charged with the willful disobeying of orders, punishable by dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay and up to five years confinement, said military law expert Mark Stevens, an associate professor of justice studies at Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, N.C.

On Friday, the Army confirmed that the unit's actions were under scrutiny.

KARL ROVE TESTIFIES BEFORE GRAND JURY INVESTIGATING CIA LEAK...MORE

NO COMMENT TO CAMERAS: Rove testifies for over 2.5 hours, escorted out with unidentified male, possibly an attorney, ABC News' Jason Ryan reports...

Comedy Central Darling Jon Stewart Backs Kerry

Comedian Jon Stewart, whose nightly cable television show is popular with the young voters considered key in the upcoming presidential election, said on Thursday he prefers Democrat John Kerry over Republican President Bush.

"It looks like Kerry," said Stewart, host of "The Daily Show," a satirical late-night review of politics on Viacom Inc.-owned cable channel Comedy Central. "I would be stunned if something happened to change my mind."

He called the U.S.-led war in Iraq a "mistake" and said he failed to understand the "Bush doctrine" of preemptive strikes against perceived security threats.

"If one guy drove me into a ditch and said, 'Don't worry, I know how to get us out of this,' I'd give the keys to a 7-year-old," Stewart said during a media event sponsored by Syracuse University's Newhouse School.
_______

Stewart roasted both candidates for their repetitive stumping during their final public debate.

"I thought both men took rhetoric to another level," he said, adding that Bush appeared "well coached."

"He wasn't the angry Bush of the second debate or the retarded Bush from the first," Stewart said.

Stewart also took aim at the mainstream U.S. media -- which he mocks regularly -- and said it fails to take politicians or big business to task.

"The press has bravely and nobly eroded the public trust," he said. "What I'm advocating is the media come back and work for us again. ... The bias of the media is not liberal. It's lazy and sensationalist."

LINK - Senior Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have privately told colleagues they are determined to pin a fourth star on [Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo] Sanchez, two senior defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this week.

Rumsfeld and others recognize that Sanchez remains politically "radioactive," in the words of a third senior defense official, and would wait until after the Nov. 2 presidential election and investigations of the Abu Ghraib scandal have faded before putting his name forward.

LINK - The Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race.

LINK - Expect more gas pains.

Worries over lagging supplies sent crude oil and heating oil futures to new peaks Thursday, sparking predictions of higher gasoline prices in the coming weeks.

As it was, the average in California reached a record $2.378 for a gallon of self-serve regular Thursday, according to the Auto Club. Fresh highs were set in nearly two-thirds of the communities in a survey by the club, with the Santa Barbara region topping all others at an average of $2.499 a gallon.

Chemicals Sickened '91 Gulf War Veterans, Latest Study Finds

A federal panel of medical experts studying illnesses among veterans of the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf has broken with several earlier studies and concluded that many suffer from neurological damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, rejecting past findings that the ailments resulted mostly from wartime stress.

Citing new scientific research on the effects of exposure to low levels of neurotoxins, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses concludes in its draft report that "a substantial proportion of Gulf War veterans are ill with multisymptom conditions not explained by wartime stress or psychiatric illness."

It says a growing body of research suggests that many veterans' symptoms have a neurological cause and that there is a "probable link" to exposure to neurotoxins.

The report says possible sources include sarin, a nerve gas, from an Iraqi weapons depot blown up by American forces in 1991; a drug, pyridostigmine bromide, given to troops to protect against nerve gas; and pesticides used to protect soldiers in the region.

Saudis Blame U.S. and Its Role in Iraq for Rise of Terror

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 13 - Seventeen months into a shadowy terror campaign that has killed more than 100 people, numerous Saudis express less anger at the insurgents than at the United States for its invasion of Iraq, the signal event that they say touched off the attacks inside the kingdom.

In interviews over the last week, the Saudis condemned the terror attacks, aimed primarily at foreigners, but called them a small inconvenience that has not forced them to make significant changes in their daily lives. By contrast, they expressed unremitting disdain for the United States.

Many Saudis appear to have reached a form of intellectual accommodation with those carrying out the violence. When asked about the attackers' goals, they assigned varied motives but often one that is consistent with their personal, social or political concerns.
_______

Behind all this lies an ever more complex Saudi-American relationship. Its foundation, of course, is the shared need to buy and sell oil. But the fact that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi has become an issue in the presidential campaign, as has the accusation that the Bushes are too close to the royal family.

No one here seems to care about any of that. Instead Saudis unceasingly complain about American support for Israel and the war in Iraq, which they call unjustified, though Saudi Arabia allowed American troops to operate here during the war. Government officials also say they deplore the Bush administration's call for more democracy here. "It's none of their business," one of them said with scorn.

Budget Gap Swells to Record $413 Billion

The U.S. budget gap expanded to $412.55 billion in fiscal 2004, marking the Bush administration's second-straight record deficit, the Treasury Department said on Thursday.

Though the final 2004 figure was the largest budget deficit in U.S. history, it was smaller than the White House's most recent forecast of a $445 billion shortfall given in July and well below the $521 billion it foresaw early this year.

The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office had expected a $415 billion gap in fiscal 2004, which ended Sept. 30.

Thursday's budget announcement came the day after the third and final debate before the Nov. 2 election, where President Bush and Sen. John Kerry squared off on domestic issues, including the budget.

Halliburton's Interests Assisted by White House

Over the last four years, the Bush administration and Vice President Dick Cheney's office have backed a series of measures favoring a drilling technique developed by Halliburton Co., Cheney's former employer.

The technology, known as hydraulic fracturing, boosts gas and oil production and generates $1.5 billion a year for the company, about one-fifth of its energy-related revenue. In recent years, Halliburton and other oil and gas firms have been fighting efforts to regulate the procedure under a statute that protects drinking water supplies.
_______

Since he took office in January 2001, Cheney has received $398,548 in deferred compensation, and he will continue to receive annual payments through 2005. He also has 433,333 options to purchase Halliburton stock, according to financial disclosure records filed in May 2004.

LINK - Sen. John Kerry appeared to gain more momentum heading toward November 2, easily beating President Bush in the third and final debate, a poll taken late Wednesday night suggests.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup snap poll taken immediately after the presidential debate found that respondents gave a significant edge to Kerry over Bush, 52 percent to 39 percent.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The numbers were similar to the results of a poll taken the night of the first debate September 30 in Miami, Florida. That night Kerry was favored by a 53 percent to 37 percent margin.

Kerry and Bush were almost even in the second debate on October 5, with the numbers falling with the margin of error.

Fox News' Bill O'Reilly Accused of Sexual Harassment

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, the nation's top-rated cable news host and an insistent advocate for personal responsibility and self-control, was accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed Wednesday by a producer on his show who says O'Reilly repeatedly pressured her to engage in phone sex and frightened her with lewd "monologues."

The suit, filed in New York by Andrea Mackris, a 33-year-old associate producer on "The O'Reilly Factor," quotes O'Reilly as speaking to her in highly explicit terms about vibrators, oral sex, masturbation and a fantasy involving a Caribbean hotel room shower.

It also quotes O'Reilly as threatening "any woman" who complained about his advances, and as suggesting that Fox News chief Roger Ailes would "go after" enemies of the channel.

"Look at Al Franken - one day he's going to get a knock on his door and life as he's known it will change forever," the suit quotes O'Reilly as saying.

Franken, a liberal commentator, has been engaged for months in a public feud with O'Reilly. Franken did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The suit names O'Reilly and several other defendants, including Fox's parent, News Corp., and Westwood One Inc., the syndicator of O'Reilly's radio show.

Before the suit was made public, O'Reilly and Fox News filed their own claim in New York Supreme Court against Mackris and her attorney, Benedict Morelli, accusing them of trying to extort $60 million from him.

"Enough is enough," O'Reilly said in a statement. "I will not give in to extortion."

Judge Holds Second Reporter in Contempt

A second reporter was held in contempt Wednesday by a federal judge for refusing to reveal confidential sources before a grand jury investigating the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper jailed for up to 18 months and the magazine fined $1,000 a day for refusing to comply with a grand jury subpoena seeking the testimony. Hogan suspended the jail time and fine pending the outcome of an appeal.

The ruling was nearly identical to one issued last week by Hogan in the case of Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times who is also refusing to name her sources. Miller and Cooper, both represented by lawyer Floyd Abrams, are expected to join together in appealing their cases on First Amendment grounds.

"No reporter in the United States should have to go to jail for simply doing their job," said Cooper, who is Time's White House correspondent.

CNN Transcript of Bush Press Conference, March, 2002

QUESTION: Mr. President, in your speeches now, you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that?

Also, can you can tell the American people if you have any more information -- if you know if he is dead or alive. Deep in your heart, don't you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won't really want to make...

BUSH: Well, deep in my heart, I know the man's on the run if he's alive at all. And I -- you know, who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not? We hadn't heard from him in a long time.

And the idea of focusing on one person is really -- indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission. Terror's bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who has now been marginalized. His network is -- his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match.

He is -- you know, as I mention in my speeches -- I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death. And he, himself, tries to hide, if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

So I don't know where he is. Nor -- you know, I just don't spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I'm more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well supplied, that the strategy is clear, that the coalition is strong, that when we find enemy bunched up, like we did in Shah-e-Kot mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did.

And there will be other battles in Afghanistan. There's going to be other struggles like Shah-e-Kot. And I'm just as confident about the outcome of those future battles as I was about Shah-e-kot, where our soldiers are performing brilliantly; we're tough, we're strong, they're well-equipped, we have a good strategy. We are showing the world we know how to fight a guerrilla war with conventional means.

QUESTION: Do you believe the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead of alive?

BUSH: As I say, we hadn't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, you know, again, I don't know where he is.

I'll repeat what I said: I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

But, you know, once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became -- we shoved him out more and more on the margins.

CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com/
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/
Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/
MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/
Akron Beacon-Journal: http://www.ohio.com/
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: http://www.ajc.com/
Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/
Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com/
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/
Orlando Sentinel: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Philadelphia Inquirer: http://www.philly.com/
South Florida Sun-Sentinel: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/

Germany Rejects Speculation That Iraq Policy May Change

German officials today reaffirmed their policy of not contributing troops to the American-led coalition in Iraq and rejected speculation, prompted by a remark by the country's defense minister, that that policy might change in the foreseeable future.

"There will be no German soldiers in Iraq," a government spokeman, Thomas Steg, said, answering reporters' questions about a report in The Financial Times in which Defense Minister Peter Struck seemed to hold the door open for a possible change in Germany's policy.

Copps tickets Sinclair

FCC commissioner Michael J. Copps attacked Sinclair Broadcasting on Tuesday for its plan to force its 62 TV stations to carry a primetime documentary critical of Sen. John Kerry during the week before Election Day, calling the decision "an abuse of the public trust."

"And it is proof positive of media consolidation run amok," Copps said in a statement, "when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology -- whether liberal or conservative."
_______

FCC commissioner Copps' statement took Sinclair to task for long-term partisan sympathies, saying the group's ABC affiliates "refused to air 'Nightline's' reading of our war dead in Iraq." Copps added that Sinclair "short-shrifts local communities and local jobs by distance-casting news and weather from hundreds of miles away."

Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.

Anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected.

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at Democrats. The focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.
_______

The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.

Moore Addresses Students In Speech That Almost Didn't Happen

Michael Moore addressed California State San Marcos students Tuesday night in a speech that was almost not going to happen.

University President Karen Haynes canceled the filmmaker's visit to the campus because she refused to spend state money on partisan politics, and she didn't have enough time to bring another speaker whose viewpoints could balance Moore's liberal bent.

The cancellation caused an uproar on campus, and the student government raised money on its own to finance Moore's visit, which cost $37,000.

Moore spoke at the Del Mar Fairgrounds as part of a 60-city "Slacker Uprising Tour" tour to urge students to vote.

Germany in rethink on Iraq force deployment

Germany might deploy troops in Iraq if conditions there change, Peter Struck, the German defence minister, indicated on Tuesday in a gesture that appears to provide backing for John Kerry, the US Democratic presidential challenger.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Struck departed from his government's resolve not to send troops to Iraq under any circumstances, saying: "At present I rule out the deployment of German troops in Iraq. In general, however, there is no one who can predict developments in Iraq in such a way that he could make a such a binding statement [about the future]."

Mr Struck also welcomed Mr Kerry's proposal that he would convene an international conference on Iraq including countries that opposed the war if he were to win next month's election.

Germany would certainly attend, Mr Struck said. "This is a very sensible proposal. The situation in Iraq can only be cleared up when all those involved sit together at one table. Germany has taken on responsibilities in Iraq, including financial ones; this would naturally justify our involvement in such a conference."

Global Message

The security of our country is the commitment of both political parties, and the responsibility of both elected branches of government.

Elected officials are working for a strong Congressional resolution that sends a clear message: UN Security Council demands must be followed and the Iraqi dictator must be disarmed. These requirements will be met, or they will be enforced.

The danger is grave and growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons and is rebuilding facilities to make more. It could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb -- and, with fissile material, could build one within a year.

Iraq's regime has longstanding and continuing ties to terrorist groups -- there are al-Qaida terrorists inside Iraq. The regime also practices the rape of women and the torture of dissenters and their children as methods of intimidation.

The President has made it clear: we refuse to live in a future of fear. We are determined to build a future of security and peace for the world.

"Can we win the war on terrorism? Yes, I think we can, in the sense that we can win the war on organized crime. There is going to be no peace treaty on the battleship Missouri in the war on terrorism, but we can break its back so that it is only a horrible nuisance and not a paralyzing influence on our societies."

LINK - At a rally in Hobbs, N.M., the Republican incumbent ridiculed Kerry for saying in an interview in the New York Times Magazine, ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives but they're a nuisance.''

In the interview published Sunday, Kerry compared the anti-terror battle to efforts by law enforcement to root out prostitution or illegal gambling, knowing such an activity could never be ended but could be reduced to where ''it isn't threatening people's lives every day.'' He cited his experience as a former prosecutor in Massachusetts.

''I couldn't disagree more,'' Bush said. ''Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive.''

The Bush campaign also takes on the ''nuisance'' comment in a new television ad. And Vice President Dick Cheney, campaigning in Medford, N.J., called Kerry's remarks ''naive and dangerous.''

Can Democrat critics of Sinclair Broadcasting, who now demand that the upstart network cancel plans to air a documentary on John Kerry's anti-Vietnam war activities, actually be serious?

More than a month after CBS News star Dan Rather aired forged military records trashing President Bush in a blatant attempt to swing the election to John Kerry, not a single CBS News staffer has been fired - even though forging military records is a federal felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

Sinclair: 'Attackumentary' = News

(The Nation) This column from The Nation was written by Ari Berman.

Republicans must really be feeling desperate. The GOP-coddling Sinclair Broadcasting Group -- whose sixty-four stations reach 25 percent of the national television audience -- is forcing its local stations to run an anti-Kerry propaganda film a week before the November 2 election, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The documentary Stolen Honor, produced by former Tom Ridge stooge Carlton Sherwood, and airing between October 21 and 24, accuses Kerry of actually prolonging the war in Vietnam as a result of his antiwar activism.

Sinclair's stations include Fox, ABC, CBS, WB and UPN, fourteen of which air in crucial swing states. Federal election law prohibits public corporations and labor unions from airing "electioneering communication" sixty days before an election. But Sinclair dubs the anti-Kerry attackumentary "news content."

A cursory look at Sinclair's recent record shows which side the broadcasting company is on. This is the same Sinclair Broadcasting Group who last April cried wolf over an attempt to "influence public opinion" by forbidding its seven ABC affiliates from airing a Nightline special devoted to the soldiers killed in Iraq.

The same Sinclair who gave $66,000 to the Republican Party in 2004.

The same Sinclair who required weather men to read a statement supporting President Bush's war on terror in 2001.

The same Sinclair who prevented a Madison, Wisconsin Fox affiliate from airing an advertisement by the Democratic National Committee last July.

The same Sinclair who today forces local stations against their will to run a daily "commentary" segment by its corporate spokesman which calls the French "cheese eating surrender monkeys," and antiwar Congressman "unpatriotic politicians who hate our military."

You get the picture.

Bush Attack Ad Is Questioned

With a new advertisement that accuses Sen. John F. Kerry of viewing terrorism as a "nuisance," President Bush is continuing his push to depict his Democratic opponent in a harshly negative light.

But some analysts warned Monday that his campaign was playing loose with the facts - and that the attack could backfire.

The new ad, which began appearing late Sunday on national cable stations, has drawn protests from the Kerry campaign and other critics, who say the Bush camp took a line out of context from a recent newspaper interview with the Massachusetts senator.

Some critics said the ad followed a pattern of the president distorting his rival's record on taxes, healthcare and other matters in an attempt to portray him as too liberal and unfit to lead the fight against terrorism.

They said the pattern began after polls showed the race tightening and after Bush stumbled during his first debate with Kerry.

Kerry has also been accused of distortions in his attacks on Bush. But Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who is not working for the Bush campaign, said Bush's attacks could wind up hurting the president by undermining his credibility.

"The Bush campaign did an effective job creating questions about Sen. Kerry's credibility that led them to a double-digit lead" in several national polls in early September, Fabrizio said. "But it would be a shame if that knife were turned on them because they pushed the envelope too far with ads like they released" Sunday.

Marshall Wittman, a former aide to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who is a registered independent and recently joined the Democratic Leadership Council, said of the new ad: "They want to demonize the opposition by any means necessary, and if that means distorting one sentence in an 11,000-word article, then so be it."
_______

On the campaign trail Monday, Bush appeared to backtrack a bit from the new ad. He continued to criticize Kerry's choice of the word "nuisance," but noted that the Democrat had used it in the context of trying to diminish terrorism.

Editorial: October surprise/Airing an anti-Kerry screed

If the stunt that Sinclair Broadcasting Group is pulling isn't against the law, it ought to be. Sinclair, owner of more American television stations than any other company, has ordered all 62 of its holdings -- which collectively reach a quarter of American households -- to suspend normal programming for one evening just before the upcoming presidential election. The stations are instead to air a one-hour conservative diatribe against Sen. John Kerry. This is a flagrant and cynical abuse of the public's airwaves for a partisan political purpose, an action that should put Sinclair's federal broadcast licenses in jeopardy. For comparison, imagine that WCCO's owner, CBS, ordered it to broadcast Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Indeed, Moore's film, while avowedly anti-Bush, is tame compared to the so-called documentary Sinclair plans to broadcast. "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal" focuses on Kerry's antiwar activities 30 years ago. A Web site for the film says it exposes Kerry's "record of betrayal." In the film, one Vietnam POW asserts that Kerry "committed an act of treason. He lied, he besmirched our name and he did it for self-interest. And now he wants us to forget." More than a dozen of the television stations required to air this screed are in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Sinclair's stable of stations includes franchises for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, which makes the problem all the worse because it generates so much viewer confusion. Normally, none of those networks, not even Fox, would broadcast such programming. And all of them should be worried about what Sinclair is doing to their credibility.

This is not an hourlong ad (although that will be its effect). To sidestep requirements of fairness, Sinclair is broadcasting "Stolen Honor" as a news program -- even though it wasn't produced by any sort of credible news organization. It was written by a former reporter for the off-the-wall Washington Times and paid for -- at least initially -- by a group of Pennsylvania veterans.

Asked to justify the "news" label, a spokesman for Sinclair said the topic is important and "hasn't been out in the marketplace, and in the news marketplace," ignoring completely the controversy that claimed so much air time in August over the barrage of hateful ads by the Swift Boat Vets for Truth.

There's a reason shock jock Howard Stern is moving to satellite radio. It's the same reason that porn is available via cable or satellite television. It's the same reason the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to fine CBS $550,000 for showing Janet Jackson's bare breast. Cable and satellite, with their almost unlimited capacities, are unregulated, and companies can do pretty much what they want.

But in broadcast radio and television, stations are licensed by the FCC and required to serve the public interest, in return for being able to use a bit of the finite, publicly owned airwaves. Sinclair is thumbing its political nose at its public-interest responsibilities.

It's not the first time. Last April, Sinclair forbade its ABC affiliates to broadcast a program of "Nightline" that was devoted to reading the names of U.S. dead in Iraq. Sinclair said that program was politically motivated. Just reading the names of war dead is too political, but accusing a presidential nominee of treason qualifies as news?

Many people argue over whether this network or that has a political bias. But those arguments are over nuance -- small stuff compared to this. Here we have a non-network owner of television stations using its properties to inject a bitterly partisan work into the closing weeks of a very close presidential race -- and calling it "news." It's outrageous. If the FCC lets this one by after all the fuss made about Jackson's breast, then we need a new FCC, not to mention new laws reversing the consolidation of media ownership that gives unscrupulous companies such as Sinclair so much power.

Swing State trip #5 to Las Vegas

WHEN: October 16 @ 7:00 AM
WHERE: Our goal is 300 Kerry supporters on this trip so please sign up NOW!!!!

The push is on. This is the 1st weekend they can vote in NV.

Where are we going? Vegas baby!! What insiders call the Nevada 3rd Congressional

When? We depart on Saturday, Oct. 16th.

Pick ups at:
7:00am from the Metro station at Marine and Redondo Beach Ave. and return on Sunday, Oct. 17th before 11:00pm.

North Hollywood at 7:00am, Norwalk at 7:15am and at Monrovia at 7:30am, so hop on board and get on the bus!

We will add more pick up points if requested...

Why? Because our fellow Democrats have asked us to help them get out the vote in securing their 5 electoral votes for John Kerry. Oh, and because we have the passion and fire to do it!!

What we'll be doing? We have something for everyone from walking "door to door", data entry, phone calling.... Even taking people to the polls they can start to vote in NV starting OCT. 16.

Cost: Free bus ride with a suggested donation of $35. Shared hotel room in Jean, NV $20

If you can't make this trip, sign up for the next trip or sponsor an other volunteer.

Contact: lasvegas4kerry@aol.com

LINK - Rick Cajigas holds his 23 pound Maine Coon cat as they wait to be judged at the Cat Show New York, October 9, 2004. The Cat Show New York features more than 40 feline breeds and 25,000 devoted cat lovers.

I think Kerry lost the election this weekend when his comments regarding a comparison of terrorism with prostitution and gambling were published.

Please don't get me wrong, I understood where he was trying to go but the Bush machine already has an ad out twisting his statement and it is pretty powerful. Originally the volunteer coordinator for Clark, I know that many of my cohorts (there were a significant number of us) were not totally enamored with Kerry. I'm sure that is also true of those of you who were Dean guys from the get go. It just keeps getting tougher and tougher to stand by this guy as he continues to shoot himself in the foot.

He hasn't rebutted the "Global test" distortion successfully (again I understood what he meant) and his failure to wail into the Swift Boat assholes forever allowed that pile of BS to circulate forever. He either is not listening to his advisors or he has assembled the dumbest team on earth. Damn.

I'm still going to vote the Kerry Edwards ticket but I honest to God believe the campaign is done.

With great respect for the job you have done,

Sincerely,

Frank
Plano, Texas

Kerry Opens Three-Point Lead on Bush

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic challenger John Kerry expanded his slight lead over President Bush to three points in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Monday.

The Massachusetts senator held a 47-44 percent lead over Bush in the latest three-day tracking poll, up two points from Sunday. Bush's support dropped one point and Kerry's support rose one point in the new poll.

LINK - When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

This analogy struck me as remarkable, if only because it seemed to throw down a big orange marker between Kerry's philosophy and the president's. Kerry, a former prosecutor, was suggesting that the war, if one could call it that, was, if not winnable, then at least controllable. If mobsters could be chased into the back rooms of seedy clubs, then so, too, could terrorists be sent scurrying for their lives into remote caves where they wouldn't harm us.

Baghdad Blasts Kill 11; Rumsfeld Visits

Two car bombs shook the capital in quick succession Sunday, killing at least 11 people, including an American soldier, and wounding 16, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made a surprise visit to troops in the field. A Marine was reported killed in action west of the capital.

Rumsfeld met with American troops in Iraq's western desert, telling them it was unlikely the United States would pull out any troops before next year's elections. He said the violence was expected to increase in the run-up to the elections.

It was Rumsfeld's first visit to Iraq since the United States handed over authority to an interim government June 28. With American troops getting killed at a rate of more than one per day in Iraq, Rumsfeld's trip was not announced in advance.

A suicide attacker detonated a minibus packed with explosives near an eastern Baghdad police academy, police Cap. Ali Ayez said at the scene. At least four mangled bodies lay on the street amid scattered shoes, papers and a handbag. Police collected body parts on stretchers.

Aftermath Of Last Week's Editorial Endorsement

We have been told by several avid Bush supporters that the days when newspapers publish editorials without personal repercussions are over. As publishers, we have printed editorials for decades, and have endorsed candidates, both Republican and Democrat. When Bush was endorsed four years ago, the Gore supporters did not respond with threats, nor did Democrats when we endorsed Reagan twice. Republicans did not threaten us personally or our business when we endorsed Carter and Clinton for their first terms.

In the past, when individuals disagreed with an editorial, they would write a letter to the editor politely expressing a different point of view in contrast to the views of the publishers, which we have usually published. Occasionally someone would cancel a subscription or an ad, but this was rare.

The goal of the editorial page has been to provide an arena for the expression of a variety of thoughtful opinions, some by the publishers, some by columnists, and some by our readers.

The new mode of operation, I am told, is that when a newspaper prints an editorial of which some sectors might disagree, the focus is now upon how to run the newspaper out of business. Out the window are the contributions the newspaper has made to the community in the past and the newspaper's extensive investment in the community.

We do understand peoples' rights to pull subscriptions and ads, and to express a differing opinion, but we have some trouble understanding threats and payback since in politics there are often a variety of options. For the publishers to herald one of the options should be no cause for persecution.

When you think about it, editorials are often displayed in people's yards with campaign signs. These are endorsements by residents. Is it proper to persecute them for stating their opinions in this manner if you disagree with their choices? Should they be harassed and threatened? We don't think so.

Unfortunately, for the Iconoclast and its publishers there have been threats - big ones including physical harm.

Too, some individuals are threatening innocent commercial concerns, claiming that if they advertise in The Iconoclast, they will be run out of business. We consider this improper in a democracy.

Several young members of our staff covering Tonkawa Traditions this past weekend were angrily harassed and threatened that they must leave, which cut short their ability to fully do their jobs and instilled in them considerable fear for their safety. These reporters had nothing to do with that editorial. They were part-time college students working to pay their way through school and better themselves.

Although several members of the community are upset at the newspaper, there are still those who want us to continue with local coverage as we have in the past. We do have concern for the safety of our staff, however, and find it troubling when they are bullied and cannot do their jobs.

EDITORIAL
Paging Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton was a rarity - the smartest kid in the class with whom everyone wanted to hang out. John Kerry is no Bill Clinton. The senator comes across as the smartest kid in the class, but a recent Zogby poll shows that only 9% of Americans would prefer to have a beer with him rather than President Bush.

Kerry failed in Friday night's town hall debate to address this weakness and bond with the audience, leaving ideologically uncommitted voters to choose between the smarter candidate and the likable one. Bush elicited more laughter from the audience, though he himself wasn't particularly engaging. At one point, the famously remote Kerry presumptuously assumed that only he, Bush and Charles Gibson, the moderator, would be affected by any tax increase for people making more than $200,000. Was he rendering a verdict on what the audience was wearing?

Conservative TV Group to Air Anti-Kerry Film
Sinclair, with reach into many of the nation's homes, will preempt prime-time shows. Experts call the move highly unusual.

NEW YORK - The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation's homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War, network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday.

Sinclair's programming plan, communicated to executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season that has been marked by media controversies.

Sinclair has told its stations - many of them in political swing states such as Ohio and Florida - to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry - a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester - of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the plan.
_______

The airing of "Stolen Honor" will be followed by a panel discussion, which Kerry will be asked to join, thus potentially satisfying fairness regulations, the sources said.

Kerry campaign officials said they had been unaware of Sinclair's plans to air the film, and said Kerry had not received an invitation to appear.

Executives at Sinclair did not return calls seeking comment, but the Kerry campaign accused the company of pressuring its stations to influence the political process.
_______

"Stolen Honor" was made by Carlton Sherwood, a Vietnam veteran and former reporter for the conservative Washington Times who is also the author of a book about the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. On the website for the film, he tells viewers, "Intended or not, Lt. Kerry painted a depraved portrait of Vietnam veterans, literally creating the images of those who served in combat as deranged drug-addicted psychopaths, baby killers" that endured for 30 years in the popular culture.

Sherwood did not return calls seeking comment.

The Scorer's Table, having taken two hours to let the Blogosphere complete its due diligence (and to permit the scorer to retreat to a corner of the room, don cold compresses, and moan quietly), can now quote the truth from "Factcheck.Org": "President Bush himself would have qualified as a 'small business owner' under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise." Brooks Jackson's marvelous site noted that the timber interest was listed under "royalties" in his 2002 and 2003 returns, indicating The Texas Thunderbolt still has an interest in said concern.

The point awarded to Mr. Bush in the thirteenth round is hereby withdrawn and awarded to Mr. Kerry, for the latter's enterprising hoisting of his opponent on said opponent's own petard.

Mr. Bush is also penalized three points for a truth foul.
Mr. Bush is further penalized two points for getting snarky while in the act of being factually incorrect.

The thirteenth round, originally scored 2-0 for Mr. Bush, now reverts to a 1-1 draw, and the rounds awarded total now changes from 12 Kerry, 4 Bush, 3 Drawn, to 12 Kerry, 3 Bush, 4 Drawn.

The final points scoring is now adjusted from Kerry 15, Bush 12, to Kerry 16, Bush 6. The Scorer thus designates the outcome as a Kerry victory outside the margin for statistical error.

The scorer's table reproaches President Bush for not knowing when he has wood.

Bush to rely on attack as best form of defence

George Bush plans to unleash a withering attack on his Democratic challenger in their debate rematch in Missouri tonight, scourging John Kerry's record in the Senate to argue that he would be a dangerous leader.

With the opinion polls suggesting that Mr Kerry's triumph in the first presidential debate last week has made it a closer race, President Bush cannot afford to let him win another round.

The Republican strategy presumes that a high-octane attack on Mr Kerry's fitness for office will deflect attention from Mr Bush's performance as the incumbent and put the Democrats on the defensive. That will handicap Democratic efforts to put the spotlight on Mr Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq.
_______

"America is safer today with Saddam Hussein in prison," Mr Bush told reporters, but added: "Much of the accumulated body of our intelligence was wrong and we must find out why."

At the same time he has sought to impress on voters that in his view a Kerry presidency would make the US far less safe. "My opponent's weak, vacillating views would make for a more dangerous world," he said in a fundraising email aimed at supporters yesterday.

Hey - Keith Olbermann is doing live blogging of tonight's Presidential debate. Check it out at www.hardblogger.msnbc.com. We are also doing a "Who won the debate?" live vote tonight beginning at 10:30 p.m. ET at www.hardball.msnbc.com. These live votes got over 2 million votes for the last two debates.

Enjoy the debate!
Trippi

Meeting Was Not First for Cheney, Edwards
Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. John Edwards Met Twice Before Debate, Contrary to Cheney's Statement

Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday night that the debate with Democratic Sen. John Edwards marked the first time they had met. In fact, the two had met at least three times previously.

"Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight," Cheney told Edwards during the debate.

On Feb. 1, 2001, the vice president thanked Edwards by name at a Senate prayer breakfast and sat beside him during the event.

On April 8, 2001, Cheney and Edwards shook hands when they met off-camera during a taping of NBC's "Meet the Press," moderator Tim Russert said Wednesday on "Today."

On Jan. 8, 2003, the two met when the first-term North Carolina senator accompanied Elizabeth Dole to her swearing-in by Cheney as a North Carolina senator, Edwards aides also said.

Edwards didn't forget their prayer-breakfast meeting. The Democratic vice presidential candidate noted the discrepancy at a post-debate rally in a Cleveland park, calling it an example of Cheney "still not being straight with the American people."

Bush, Cheney concede Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

President Bush and his vice president conceded Thursday in the clearest terms yet that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue - whether the invasion was justified because Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-for-food program.

Ridiculing the Bush administration's evolving rationale for war, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry shot back: "You don't make up or find reasons to go to war after the fact."

Vice President Dick Cheney brushed aside the central findings of chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer - that Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but he had no means of making any either - while Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

"The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the U.N. oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions," Bush told reporters as he prepared to fly to campaign events in Wisconsin. "He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away."

Bush Says It's Kerry Misleading Americans
In Attempt to Turn Tables on Opponent, Bush Says Rival Kerry Is Misleading Americans

WAUSAU, Wis. Oct. 7, 2004 - President Bush took a sharp jab at his Democratic opponent on Thursday, saying John Kerry and not the White House was misleading the country about the war in Iraq.

It was the latest example of high-stakes finger-pointing on Iraq and the war on terror, the two overriding issues of this year's presidential election less than four weeks away on Nov. 2.

In Colorado, Kerry said Bush led the nation into war under false pretenses and is in denial about ongoing violence and instability in postwar Iraq. Kerry bluntly asserted that the president and vice president might be the "last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq."

Bush shot back a few hours later at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. Bush quoted Kerry, who wondered aloud in a speech two years ago whether Saddam Hussein might invade allies in the region or let the weapons of mass destruction he was suspected of possessing "slide off to one group or another in a region where weapons are the currency or the trade."

"Now today, my opponent tries to say I made up reasons to go to war," Bush told cheering supporters at an outdoor rally. "Just who's the one trying to mislead the American people?"

EDITORIAL
Is He a Dope?

Although neither group likes to say so, some Americans who support President Bush and many who don't support him have concluded over four years that he may not be very bright. This suspicion was not allayed by Bush's answers in the first presidential debate a week ago.
_______

The issue might better be described as one of mental laziness.

Does this man think through his beliefs before they harden into unwavering principles? Is he open to countervailing evidence? Does he test his beliefs against new evidence and outside argument? Does his understanding of a subject go any deeper than the minimum amount needed for public display? Is he intellectually curious? Does he try to reconcile his beliefs on one subject with his beliefs on another?

It's bad if a president is incapable of the abstract thought necessary for these mental exercises. If he is capable and isn't even trying, that's worse. It becomes a question of character. When a president sends thousands of young Americans to kill and die halfway around the world, thinking about it as hard and as honestly as possible is the least he can do.

Bush's Iraq policy is full of contradictions, often rehearsed on this page and elsewhere. But so is Kerry's. It isn't routine political mendacity that makes many people - many more than will admit it - wonder about Bush's mental engagement. It is a combination of things: his stumbling inarticulateness, the efforts his advisors make to protect him from unscripted exposure, his extreme reluctance to rethink anything.

Does it matter? Yes, it matters. There are those who say that Reagan's mental laziness was actually a plus. It prevented a lot of competing signals from causing static on the lines, and kept his principles clear. We do not buy that. We state boldly that thinking hard is a good thing, not a bad thing, even in a president. If that sounds snooty, so be it. And maybe George W. Bush will reassure us by his performance Friday night that he is thinking as hard as he should about the issues the president will face in the next four years. Especially the issues resulting from his own failure to think hard during the last four.

COMMENTARY
First Responders
The debate suffers from premature acclamation

On Tuesday and on Wednesday morning, The Times received more than 1,500 e-mails about Tuesday evening's Cheney-Edwards debate. The ones below - along with about three dozen others - were unusual, however, in that they came in before the debate began at 6 p.m. Pacific Time. They are printed exactly as they were received.

Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 5:33 PM
To: letters@latimes.com
Subject: John Edward was amazeing!

The debates were great and Edward clearly got the best of ol' Halliburton Dickie. I know the GOP will start to spin this as soon as they can to make it look like Cheney was [word missing].

Sincerely,
Andy Taylor
Venice, CA

Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 5:55 PM
To: letters@latimes.com
Subject: Edwards Won the Debate!

Edwards beat Cheney in the greatestest super-duper debate rout EVER! Kerry's victory is assured!

Finally, it looks like Democrats are back in power!

GO KERRY/EDWARDS 04!!!

Sincerely,
Shay Enan
Los Angeles, CA

Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 5:44 PM
To: letters@latimes.com
Subject: Letter to the editor

To the editor:

Dear Sirs:

The debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney presented Americans with a stark choice.

John Edwards shared an optimistic vision for the next four years: Genuine leadership in the war on terror. An economic growth plan that creates jobs and keeps them here at home. Affordable health care for every American. A plan to make America stronger at home and respected abroad.

But Dick Cheney had nothing to share but attacks and excuses. As the architect of four years of failed Bush administration policies, Cheney had a lot to answer for in this debate. But he failed to explain those failures, instead attacking John Kerry over and over again.

I want a plan for the future, not attacks and excuses. The vice presidential debate made it clear that John Kerry and John Edwards are the right choice.

Sincerely,
Peter Blue
Sarasota, FL

The Times tried to contact the authors of these letters. Peter Blue did not return phone calls. Shay Enan did not respond to e-mail attempts to contact him. And Andy Taylor, whose real name turns out to be Andrew Schoppe, assured us that he had sent the letter as a test, just to see if we were checking. He said he was "very, very pleased" to find that we hadn't fallen for his prank. He said he was a registered Republican.

The premature letters all favored John Kerry and John Edwards. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the Bush campaign had called on its supporters before the debate to "make your voice heard" by declaring Cheney the winner. Democrats sent a similar message to Kerry supporters last week.

My friends, they will not catch me. Though I may be on the run, and I may never be able to return home to my beloved Michigan, I make this solemn vow to you and yours: The slackers of America shall not be denied their noodles, they will proudly wear their clean underwear as free Americans, and they will vote Bush out of office come November 2nd (though they will not show up to the polls until well after noon)!

Stay strong, stay slacker, and please remember to turn the underwear inside out every three days. As for the noodles, add boiling water, stir.

Michael
MichaelMoore.com

State GOP says Michael Moore illegally offered underwear in exchange for voting

The Michigan Republican Party is asking four county prosecutors to file charges against filmmaker Michael Moore, charging that he illegally offered underwear, noodles and snacks to college students in exchange for their promise to vote.

"We want everyone to participate in this year's election, but not because they were bribed or coerced by the likes of Michael Moore," said Greg McNeilly, executive director of the state Republican Party.

The GOP said it asked prosecutors in Wayne, Ingham, Antrim and Isabella counties to charge Moore with violating Michigan's election law. The law prohibits a person from contracting with another for something of value in exchange for agreeing to vote.

Moore, a native of Flint, is touring the country and imploring "slackers" who usually don't vote to head to the polls this year, saying they could make the difference in the presidential race.

He made stops at Michigan State University, the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Central Michigan University and Elk Rapids High School on the first leg of a 60-city pre-election tour.

During each program, habitual nonvoters are invited on stage to pledge to vote. First-time student voters are offered gag prizes such as clean underwear.

The GOP said Moore also offered students a clean dorm room, a year's supply of Tostitos and a package of Ramen noodles.

Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for the Wayne County prosecutor's office, refused to comment on the matter. Calls to Moore and the other county prosecutors weren't immediately returned Tuesday.

Iraq Had No WMDs
U.S. inspector finds no evidence Saddam made weapons after 1991

Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 American lives, the top U.S. arms inspector reported Wednesday that he found no evidence that Iraq produced any weapons of mass destruction after 1991. The report also says Saddam Hussein's weapons capability weakened during a dozen years of U.N. sanctions before the U.S. invasion last year.

Contrary to prewar statements by President Bush and top administration officials, Saddam did not have chemical and biological stockpiles when the war began and his nuclear capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing, according to the report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group.

Duelfer's findings come less than four weeks before an election in which Bush's handling of Iraq has become the central issue. Democratic candidate John Kerry has seized on comments this week by the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, that the United States didn't have enough troops in Iraq to prevent a breakdown in security after Saddam was toppled.

The inspector's report could boost Kerry's contention that Bush rushed to war based on faulty intelligence and that sanctions and U.N. weapons inspectors should have been given more time.

On Wednesday, Bush cited Saddam's "history of using weapons of mass destruction, a long record of aggression and hatred for America" in calling the invasion the right thing to do.

"There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said in a campaign speech in Wilkes Barre, Pa. "In the world after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford to take."

"King of All Media" Howard Stern and SIRIUS announced today an epic agreement whereby Stern will move to SIRIUS beginning January 1, 2006.

The world-renowned Stern is credited with revolutionizing the talk radio format. He is the No. 1 radio host among males 18-49 and ranks No. 1 in many of the 46 major markets where his show is broadcast, including New York and Los Angeles. Through SIRIUS' nationwide broadcast system, Stern will be heard in every market across the country.

"Signing Howard Stern is, without a doubt, the most exciting and transformational event in the history of radio," said Joseph P. Clayton, CEO of SIRIUS. "He is an entertainment force of unprecedented recognition and popularity in the broadcast world, who is capable of changing the face of satellite radio and generating huge numbers of subscribers for SIRIUS."

Bush Chides Kerry in Pa. After VP Debate

The president said, "My opponent's endless back-and-forth on Iraq is part of a larger misunderstanding. In the war on terror, Senator Kerry is proposing policies and doctrines that would weaken America and make the world more dangerous."

Regarding the battle against terrorists, Bush said, "Senator Kerry approaches the war with a September the 10th mindset ... that any attack will be met with a swift and certain response. That was the mindset of the 1990s, while al-Qaida was planning the attacks on America. After September the 11th our object in the war on terror is not to wait for the next attack and respond but to prevent attacks by taking the fight to the enemy."

On the economy, Bush said, "My opponent is a tax-and-spend liberal; I'm a compassionate conservative."

"The senator is proposing higher taxes on more than 900,000 small business owners," said Bush. "My opponent is one of the few candidates in history to campaign on a pledge to raise taxes. And that's the kind of promise a politician from Massachusetts usually keeps."

Two days before the second presidential debate, Kerry spokesman Phil Singer said Bush was trying to put a new face on the last one.

"The president tried to redo the debate from last week by giving a speech full of untruths he couldn't say on stage with John Kerry because he knew Kerry would knock them down," Singer said. "George Bush needs to get real with the American people and start telling the truth."