Neocons: realizing their own internal conflicts

Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Tuesday September 23, 2003

...Even General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the coalition's ground forces in Iraq, appeared to subscribe to this theory, conceding that Iraq was "a terrorist magnet" but adding: "This is exactly where we want to fight them." Other neoconservatives disagree, however - one of numerous ways in which their previous consensus seems to be fragmenting.

Some dissenters have seen the breach with the Pentagon coming since before the war. As an example, Mr Rumsfeld was reported to have personally delayed the dispatch to Iraq of heavy artillery units based in Texas and Germany. Even to many hawks that seemed a foolhardy degree of commitment to the "revolution in military affairs", the doctrine that America will win the wars of the future with light, nimble forces using laser-guided missiles and precision bombs.

"Rumsfeld, in particular, has become a bit of a problem, because he's so committed to the revolution in military affairs that he doesn't like the idea of American ground troops patrolling, doing low-tech things," said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1047850,00.html

Comments

[DE Teodoru]

Mr. Hayes, I assume you are refering to my memo to Kerry above: Let me be clear, no African witchdoctor should rule the USA, in my view, not even a North African witchdoctor from the little nation of Israel names Arik Sharon. The neocons are so desperate for a pat on the head from the Israelis and Sharon saying to them: good work, you are indeed mensch, that they are his operatives in the US Govt. and public arena, spewing anti-Semitic (but in this case Arabs) hate. Worst still,I do not want to see Bush blaming the neocons for all his poor judgements (and theirs made under his authority). They claim to be the voice of Judaism and Zionism, calling the Jews who vehemently disagree with them (remeber, 80% of American Jews voted for Kerry),"self-hating Jews." So, when the backlash comes in response to the Bush abrogation of responsibility for his leadership (see his 20/20 interview Jan.2005) as he seeks to deflect blame for his Iraq mess, the neocons will not be seen as a small cabal, pretending to look like more than the relative few they really are, but the leading Jewish figures; as a result, the old,"the Jews did it" will again be a crisis we as a nation will be visited by as was Europe. Neocons are as few as they are dumb. Americans-- non-Jews and Jews--should take back America from these Likudnick witchdoctors. THAT is the solution; the rest is commentary!

[DE Teodoru]

AGONIZING REAPPRAISAL I Dear Senator Kerry, Can you use the support of a confessed flip-flopper? Since I wrote to you in February 2004, offering you my full support because I am sure that your combat experience will make the shrapnel under your scar hurt should you think of sending America's volunteer soldiers to combat, causing you to think twice-- unlike the multi-deferment and reservist combat evaders who have brought so much misery to so many American families with their Iraq War-- I have often "flip-flopped" in my support. Most of that flip- flopping was because of the rage of the Viet Vets with whom I started Vietnam Veterans for A Just Peace in order to debate your charge that all Americans in Vietnam combat were war criminals. I flip-flopped back to you when it seemed that you were regretting the harsh words expressed in an embittered youth upon your return from Vietnam. And so I wrote to you, asking you to apologize for your charge against all Viet Vets so that we may all move on to more current issues. However, when you did not respond, instead expressing pride in what you did in Vietnam-- though on the Dick Cavett Show in 1972 you said that you committed war crimes-- I again flip-flopped away from you. Perhaps if we use the words of a famous Republican, John Foster Dulles, "agonizing reappraisal," it might be clear that flip-flopping is not indecisiveness, but more likely, given the consequences, courage to re-evaluate where one stands, something one is often forced to do in international affairs; indeed, something that was the salient element in our defeat of Communism in the Cold War without a nuclear conflagration. Still, I condemn both what you said in the 1970s and your refusal to apologize to your fellow Viet Vets. The other night I saw a documentary about Maj. Kelly, the "dust-off" chopper squadron leader who, long before we had troops in Vietnam, along with his pilots, courageously risked their lives to pick up wounded ARVNs. In 1964, as VC were firing on his chopper, the US adviser on the ground radioed him, "Get the hell out of here, Kelly, the VC have a bead on you." To this Kelly responded:" I will, after I pick up my patient." Seconds later, a VC bullet pierced his heart. So, I broke down in tears and pleaded with my 85 years old mother: what can I do, I knew many Kellys over ten years in and out of Vietnam; so how can I be expected to support a man calling them all criminals? But that night I saw Cheney, the man who got five deferments without ever finishing school, call you unfit, and all the safe-at-the-home-front heroes like Juliani declare that they know who is best to lead us in war. I certainly could not have supported their sordid arguments. I was in a weeping quandary. I could no longer flip-flop; I just flipped into a moment of utter madness. Despaired I fell onto my bed. And then, God must have led my hand to pick up the TV remote, aim it at the TV, and order a C-Span station. There you were, giving your speech to the American Legion. THAT WAS IT...EUREKA, my flip-flopping days are over! Yes, I'm mad as hell at you and disgusted with your smug mug before Congress in 1972. But if I join with my VVJP friends in condemning you now, I may help bring about, finally, justified revenge for a bunch of old fart like me, but then I am betraying my son's generation. For, were there still a draft, my son would now be in combat now, in Iraq, making far worst mistakes and doing far more terrible things, as a result of bad policies, than our generation ever did in Vietnam. None of the old Viet Vets I know are happy with the Iraq War. For them it is also an outrageous deja vu. Once again, a Sec. of Defense usurps presidential power and, while Congress approves one war, cannibalizes it to start another so that he may present Congress with a fait accompli that they must fund. I loved George Bush. I thought he was a simple, honest man who knew what it's like to hit bottom and consequently knew limitless deep compassion. But domestically he was not a compassionate conservative; he was the puppet of the robber barons of finance. In his speech at the Republican Convention he spoke of all the things, "I would do in my new term"-- only in the future tense. Sounds revolutionary (though in no details) but he is not the challenger, he is the incumbent. Yet, he spoke of his career as president over the last four years far less than you spoke of your career as senator. Why? Because he gave America away. He robbed the Congressionally approved Afghanistan War to start a fraudulent Iraq War, which is a quagmire with no end in sight; which has become a factory for suicide-killers who live only to revenge the thousands of innocent civilian victims of our firepower. And we used that firepower because Rumsfeld, like McNamara, believed that he could go in thin and win on the cheap. Concequently, so thin devoid of even body armor and proper vehicles, unless you kill almost indiscriminately, you lose far, far more of your own. We are killing Iraqis defensively, but pointlessly. That is the real issue. I need not make the case, which I well could, for you made it so well before the American Legion. You are not alone. A special issue of the New Republic, one time mouthpiece for expeditionary war in the Middle East, entitled: WERE WE WRONG?-- is replete with articles by leading one-time Bush hawks describing the criminal negligence that resulted in our Iraq quagmire. I say to you, Senator: one Democrat Senator, who voted for the war, and umpteen ex-hawks, who cheered it on in writing, can't be all wrong in their postmortem-- Bush must have made a hell of a mess in Iraq. We must show our troops that never again will we let stay on the job a Commander-and-Chief who makes such a mess. We must give them confidence by firing him as soon as we can-- November 4th! I would not blame Bush personally. I still think that deep down he is a good man like his father. I know that the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocons axis usurped the presidency, much as they practiced doing regularly as unelected and unaccountable "alternative presidents" during the Reagan Administration in exercises for takeover of the nation in case the Soviets kill the President and Vice President in a first strike. But the President did not die in 9/11, thanks to the brave passengers who crashed their hijacked plane to the ground in Pennsylvania. Therefore, the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon cabal had no right to usurp the Presidency after 9/11. No matter how dumb-founded President Bush looked when he got the bad news, Cheney had no right to take over as President, the representative of the robber barons of finance that brought us the ENRON, WORLDCOM and others Wall Street scandals. I pleaded with President Bush to dump the Cheney- Rumsfeld-neocon cabal. I would be willing to give him another chance if he showed the courage to do that. After all, it was he who appointed Gen. Powell as Sec. of State, the only sane voice in the Cabinet (along with Paul O'Neill). But though Rumsfeld is clearly out next term and the neocons are persona non grata in his administration, Bush never had the courage to get rid of evil Cheney. This is what makes Bush re-election intolerable. Combining my medical knowledge prognosticating with actuarial calculations, there is no chance that Cheney would outlive Bush. So, clearly he was not taken as a real vice-president to replace Bush in case he falls. Cheney is there as the ventriloquist, making Bush the dummy. That is what makes his "compassionate conservative" promise a lie. For Cheney may be a conservative of sorts (the me and mine type who sends other to die while his Halliburton rakes in the doe) but he never was, is not now, nor ever will be compassionate. He is the Darth Vader of Republican avarice, always reminding Bush of his debt to "his base. He emptied the treasury bare with tax cuts only for the rich, burdening the middle class out of existence, encouraging outsourcing and lavishing on oil-wells wars. When Paul O'Neill, the Sec. of the Treasury warned Bush of the recklessness of such looting of the Treasury, Cheney proved to be the power behind the throne, and Cheney fired him, not Bush. I am a Nixon Republican. I believe that America should be a power but a global power that learns from interacting with its friends, not by bullying them. I believe that wealthy should be encouraged to invest, but the middle class must also be supported and the poor must be helped up onto the American dreamboat, not left to drown in its wake. Nixon, together with Moynahan, had proposed many novel ideas. Then, also being compassionate conservatives, the neocons supported him. But now, like sharks, they smell blood in the water and are out in a feeding frenzy. Looting the treasury to compensate themselves for the burst of their Wall Street bubble is no way for the rich to courageously invest the old-fashioned way, living with the consequences of one's own choices. They are therefore not brave entrepreneurs but robber baron financiers that suck the life blood out of the American Middle Class through their agent, the evil Dick Cheney. Bush sold his soul to that Devil for campaign cash. He thus forfeited my support. You are the only other choice and not so bad at that, so long as I look forward not back to the Vietnam days. Your American Legion speech has brought peace to my soul. My flip-flop days are over. I feel that I can trust you to lead us domestically and abroad, though I am pissed as hell at your unwillingness to apologize for calling your fellow Viet Vets war criminals. Perhaps, God willing, you may be as tall in your heart as in your stature to some day do that. But until then, I cannot stay fixated on the injustices of my time. I must recognize the injustices foisted on my son's time and his generation. Thus, so long as I have breath in me, I must work to leave a real American Dream for my children and grand-children. It is, therefore, for them, not for me (as I'm still fuming) that I promise to walk through fire for you, doing everything I can to help get you elected President of these United States on November 4, 2004. Whatever it costs me in friends, life and assets, I want to devote myself to making your case for you-- not, as a life-long Democrat but as a Bush supporter who cannot accept a Bush Administration taken over through stealth-coup by the evil Cheney-Rumsfeld and necon cabal. We are now comrades in yet another war, a political war, to bring America home so it can mend the future of its children rather than destroy the future of the children of others through criminal negligence and blind avarice. So, a flip flopper no longer, I Daniel E. Teodoru, am reporting for duty to you, Senator Kerry, on your side of the political divide, in your effort to save America from destroying its own future. Daniel E. Teodoru AGONIZING REAPPRAISAL II I left neurobiology-- which I loved all my adult life--and the medical field to study and write about the Vietnam War academically. My obsession was, since 1992, to be fair and complete in my analysis of the Vietnam War-- at least as fair and complete as I can be. Every time I went to write something, I would remind myself that, "the dead are reading over your shoulder." By that I mean that the entire effort is an attempt to do justice to the many Americans, Vietnamese and many, many others who died in that war. On 9/11, I was on crutches going to the World Trade Center's Borders Bookstore to pick up two books that I had ordered and was notified had come in. Suddenly, the first airliner hit and I scrambled out on my crutches, sure that what the voice on the loudspeaker was saying was not true. When I got home, I asked my mother who had seen it all on TV, what was happening. Enraged at the event (because ever since then I blame the airlines for making it all possible), from that day forward, as with my beloved neuroscience, I lay ed aside my Vietnam studies and focused on our war on terror. I could get well informed, because the old Vietnam hands in government were now working on 9/11 and they introduced me to many operatives in current Mideast and War on Terror policies. Since that day I have not once read a thing on Vietnam and just once glanced at the abstract of a neuroscience paper. Why am I telling this story? Firstly, I want to make it clear that I do not consider any veteran more obsessed with Vietnam than me. For all of us it was extremely personal and, especially for those of us involved with it existentially for a decade, a nightmare that will not let us free or to feel peace until we fully understand it. To be sure, to understand Vietnam, one must fully grasp the Cold War, for Vietnam was totally a manifest aspect of that war. Too many Americans and Vietnamese with whom I was very, very close died hopelessly in that war for me to simply be polemical. Furthermore, the horrors of events in which I partook make it utterly mandatory for me that I understand why things had to be as they were. IT IS ALSO INEVITABLE, THEREFORE, THAT I AM-- AS I ALWAYS WAS-- AS OBSESSED WITH JOHN KERRY'S BETRAYAL OF OUR NATION'S VIETNAM WAR AS IS JOHN O'NEILL. IN FACT, VIETNAM VETERANS FOR A JUST PEACE (VVJP) WAS SOMETHING O'NEILL WALKED INTO, NOT CREATED, AS HE DID THE SWIFT BOATS VETERANS FOR TRUTH. WHEN NIXON BETRAYED VVJP AND CAUSED IT TO COLLAPSE WITH COLSON'S LIE THAT HE HAD CREATED VVJP, ALL THE VIET VETS LEADING VVJP WERE MARKED "NIXON STOOGES." BECAUSE NONE WERE IN ANY WAY PROFESSIONALLY ASSOCIATED WITH VVJP, AND IT WAS TOTALLY A DEDICATION OF THE HEART FOR ALL INVOLVED, THE NIXON BETRAYAL WAS A PERSONAL PAIN ALL SUFFERED HELPLESSLY-- INCLUDING, I AM TOLD JOHN O'NEILL. NOW, I, LIKE MANY OF THE OTHERS, TOOK O'NEILL AT HIS WORD, AND TO THIS DAY DEFENDED HIM AGAINST DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHARGES THAT HE IS NOW AN AGENT OF BUSH AS HE WAS AN AGENT OF NIXON. PERSONALLY, I DEFENDED HIM, POINTING OUT THAT THE ONLY REASON HE GOT TO THE WHITE HOUSE'S ATTENTION IS BECAUSE THE LEADERS OF VVJP CHOSE HIM TO FACE-OFF WITH KERRY, SINCE THEY HAD BEEN IN THE SAME UNIT, IN THE SAME PLACE, ONE AFTER THE OTHER. THEREFORE, WHEN O'NEILL WAS LATER CO-OPTED BY THE WHITE HOUSE, WE EITHER COULD ASK WHY HE DOESN'T DENOUNCE COLSON'S LIE FROM INSIDE, IN LOYALTY TO HIS GROUP, OR, WE COULD HAVE SAID THAT, WHATEVER JOHN IS DOING, IT IS FOR THE BEST AND IN NO WAY REFLECTS ON HIM OPPORTUNISTICALLY. WE ALL CHOSE TO DO THE LATTER. Now I bought and read O'Neill's book UNFIT TO COMMAND. And I must say that if the tables were turned, not only could Kerry write a similar book about O'Neill being an opportunist and unfit to command, based on his later relationship with Nixon, but then O'Neill could retort back, much as the Democrats retorted for Kerry. It is all like some kind of depressing macabre insider talk. Too much is: he said, she said, and too much in unintended smear of others by implication, others who are in no way involved with the relationship between these two Swifties and Kerry's medals. Yes, one could easily ONCE AGAIN get ten thousands of Viet Vets to denounce what Kerry had said back then, thirty years ago. And yes, personally I am still in deep pain and rage over that. So I full understand and commensurate with the Swifties' feelings. BUT, the real issue now is not whether we should stop re-living and trying to understand the Vietnam War, but whether we can afford to focus on the Vietnam War in the middle of the Iraq War. In none of the Swifties material have I ever seen the word "Iraq" once. So why are they attacking Kerry? Is it because they deem him unfit to command in Iraq, or STILL, just unfit to command in Vietnam? The two questions are mutually exclusive because the human brain cannot in the 60 days left before the election, completely process enough data to competently answer both questions:(1) WAS KERRY FIT TO COMMAND IN VIETNAM? and (2) IS KERRY BETTER FIT TO COMMAND IN THE WAR IN TERROR AND NOW IN IRAQ THAN BUSH? If you answer one, there's not enough time to properly answer the other. Therefore, in view of the fact that the only two choices available to us voters this November will be Bush and Kerry, we must focus on: which of them is most competent to command for the next four years our war in Iraq and our war on terror? For the Swifties, the MAIN focus is on the four months of Kerry's Vietnam experience, arguing through their book and ad-- not that we condemn Kerry's charge on his return that our soldiers in Vietnam were war criminals-- but that we should denigrate his medals. Also, the Swifties, instead of arguing whether Bush (who managed to evade the very Vietnam service that Kerry volunteered for) is the more qualified to lead us in the present war in Iraq and the war on terror, they distract us voters away from the life and death question we now face, drawing us instead, into a question so far behind us that it can only remain an obsession of victims and dilettantes. I respect the Viet Vets' obsession with Vietnam-- after all, I totally share it. But to make that the basis on which Bush gets re-elected is utterly irresponsible. I DID NOT COME EASILY BY THIS POSITION. IT IS MY SECOND "AGONIZING REAPPRAISAL," RIGHT AFTER MY DECISION TO SUPPORT JOHN KERRY AS FAR BETTER THAN BUSH AT SAVING US FROM THE ***PRESENT***-- NOT FROM THE LONG, LONG PASSED VIETNAM WAR-- IRAQ QUAGMIRE AND TO RESET OUR COURSE IN THE WAR ON TERROR. BUT, JUST AS I ABANDONED MY VIETNAM STUDIES TO FOCUS ON THE WAR ON TERROR, I FEEL I MUST ASK O'NEILL AND THE SWIFTIES TO EITHER ALTER THEIR ADS TO MAKE THE CASE WHY KERRY IS NOT FIT TO COMMAND RELEVANT TO IRAQ OR ELSE FACE UP TO THE FACT THAT THEIR VIETNAM THEME IS MERE OBFUSCATION OF THE REAL ISSUES BEFORE THE VOTING PUBLIC. In fact, if one chooses not to give O'Neill the benefit of the doubt about his post-VVJP days with the Nixon White House, one could-- with equal legitimacy-- attack him for opportunistically using the Vietnam War for his advantage as now, using the Vietnam War to muddle the Iraq War, also for his advantage. BUT WHAT BENEFIT IS THERE IN ASSUMING ALWAYS THAT THOSE WHO ARE ACTIVE ARE OPPORTUNISTS? NONE. IT ONLY SERVES TO OBFUSCATE THE ISSUES AND DE-ROUTE THE KIND OF CAREFUL DELIBERATION THE FOUNDING FATHERS SOUGHT FROM ALL VOTING CITIZENS. SO WHY ASSUME "OPPORTUNISM" ON ANYONE'S PART? LET'S LAY THAT AWAY FOR LATER, WHEN WE CAN FACE-OFF VVAW AND VVJP IN DEBATE BEFORE THE COURT OF AMERICAN HISTORY. RIGHT NOW, WHY DON'T THE SWIFTIES JUST ARGUE THAT KERRY IS LESS FIT TO COMMAND IN THE WAR ON TERROR THAN GEORGE BUSH? LET THEIR ADS MAKE THAT CASE AND LET THEM DEMAND DEBATE WITH ANYONE WHO SPEAKS FOR KERRY OR SUPPORTS HIM. THEN-- AND ONLY THEN-- WILL THEY BE LEGITIMATE PARTICIPANTS IN THIS ELECTION CAMPAIGN. The issue is not that their charges against Kerry are not legitimate, but whether these charges are MORE legitimate than the question of which would best lead us through the war on terror, Bush or Kerry? IF JOHN O'NEILL WANTS TO DEBATE WHETHER KERRY OR BUSH IS MORE FIT TO LEAD US THROUGH THE WAR ON TERROR, GIVEN THE CURRENT RECORD OF WHAT BOTH DID AND SAID, I WOULD BE VERY HAPPY TO DEBATE HIM, IN FACT I WOULD BE HONORED. FOR I ASSUME THAT, LIKE ME, HE MUST HAVE LAYED ASIDE THE VIETNAM WAR IN A TOTAL EFFORT THE UNDERSTAND THE ***PRESENT*** WAR BEFORE US. ALL THE RATHER EXPENSIVE PAGES OF O'NEILL'S BOOK ARE WORTHLESS AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT, UNLESS HE IS IN A POSITION TO ARGUE THAT GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE BETTER MAN TO SERVE AS COMMANDER AND CHIEF, LEADING US IN THE WAR ON TERROR. UNLESS HE CAN ARGUE THIS CASE, ALL HIS ARGUMENTS ABOUT HOW KERRY EARNED HIS MEDALS THIRTY YEARS AGO ARE NOTHING MORE THAN OBFUSCATIONS AND A MALICIOUS ATTACK AGAINST KERRY THAT MUDDLES THE REAL ISSUE. IT ONLY REMINDS ME OF THE ATTACK ON JUDGE THOMAS AT HIS CONFIRMATION HEARINGS....OUTRAGE OVER THE ALLEGED CRIMES AND CHARACTER OF ANOTHER, AS A RULE, LOSE THEIR STEAM AFTER THIRTY YEARS OF SILENCE-- UNLESS YOU CAN MAKE THEM RELEVANT TO TODAY. AND, AS FOR TODAY, I TRULY BELIEVE THAT THIS S.O.B. JOHN KERRY, WHO TO THIS DAY SO ENRAGES ME AS I REMEMBER THE TERRIBLE LIES HE SAID IN 1971, WOULD BE THE BEST OF THE TWO CANDIDATES AVAILABLE TO SERVE US AS COMMANDER AND CHIEF THROUGH THE WAR ON TERROR. NO, I COULD NEVER DEBATE AGAINST O'NEILL'S OR THE SWIFTIES' ANGER AT KERRY FOR HIS 1971 TESTIMONY ON VIETNAM BEFORE CONGRESS BECAUSE I FULLY SHARE THAT RAGE. BUT I COULD NEVER BELIEVE THAT GEORGE BUSH WOULD MAKE A GOOD COMMANDER AND CHIEF TO LEAD US THROUGH THE WAR ON TERROR OVER THE NEXT FOUR YEARS BECAUSE, JUST AS O'NEILL CLAIMS TO HAVE SEARED IN HIS MEMORY HOW KERRY GOT HIS MEDALS IN VIETNAM, I HAVE SEARED IN MY MEMORY HOW BUSH GOT US INTO IRAQ AND FAILED IN THE WAR ON TERROR. NOW, JOHN O'NEIL, WHICH IS MORE RELEVANT TO THIS ELECTION AND WHY? That is where I stand, obliged to be as honest and as logical and as empirical as reality allows. I cannot let old emotions rule my mind because to do so, is to say to the generation that suffers so much grief today that remembering the grief of our youth is more important than stopping the grief of your. Daniel E. Teodoru AGONIZING REAPPRAISAL III In the Walt Disney cartoon film, "Pinnoccio," bad boys are taken to a town where they are allowed to wreck everything, fully expressing their disinhibited bad side. But as they do, slowly, they turn into asses (here, I can't say donkeys for political reasons). Then, the bad man who runs the whole kidnap operation sold these asses on the free market of glue factories. Please keep that image in your mind as you reconstruct Mr. Bush's life into his last term as president. George had realized long ago that he was a disappoitment to his "Poppy," because poppy told him so-- over and over again. So George was going to make his Poppy proud, not by changing, but by proving how much a bad boy could get away with. So far, George hasn't had much success, for it was Poppy who had to repeatedly intervene with influence peddling to save George from the concequences of his behavior and from the real world everyone else must face. But along came the evil merchant, "Ass-salesman, Richard Cheney, who told George: I'll make you President of the USA so that you can make your dad proud, and at the same time you'll be able to be as bad a boy as you want to be, wrecking everything in my "bad boys' town," Washington DC. Of course, Dick was really hoping to get George to be so bad as to turn himself into an ass, whom Dick could then sell out to the robber barons and financiers who are investing in the George presidency that Dick runs; they hope to recoup all their dumb investmentent losses in the 1990s Wall Street bubble, turning poor George the ass into glue . You all saw what the few who stole early and often could do in the ENRON and WORLDCOM cases, amongst others. But you ain't seen nothing yet. There's this idea that begins with letting three million illegal workers in through Arizona-- who can't challenge wages or hours-- while outsourcing to cheap Third World wages whatever requires high-tech education. Then, cheaply made things can be sold cheaply to a gradually impoverishing America. By the time the nation collapses, these robber barons are invested elsewhere as "global citizens." Of course too, there has got to be an army remade by the Defense Dept...quick and high tech, which, in the name of "democratization," can kick the crap out of any nation into which the robber barrons confront barriers. As for "resonable" individuals, our State Dept. can always greace their palm-- after they get rid of that uppedy Secretary of State! This is Cheney's America. But Cheney is not a fighter. He, afterall, has a bad ticker with an ejection fraction of 38%. So he pushes George up front. But bit by bit, as George comes to realize that thanks to Dick he can be both a bad boy and President at the same time, he is making more and more of an ass of himself. In the next four years, George will not go down in history as a great president, instead he will go to the glue factory, sold as a spent ass! But what about the America that hundreds of millions of Americans work so hard to build and a prescious million voluntarily fight to protect? Ah, that the the beauty of the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon run town of bad boys, Washington DC. No matter how much George and his bad boys chums wreck, old bad boy Karl Rove and bad girl Karen Hughes will go on making asses of themselves covering up for George. George, therefore, invariably comes to think that indeed, YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH BEING A BAD BOY HAVING FUN WRECKING WASHINGTON DC AND BE PRESIDENT AT THE SAME TIME-- NOT REALIZIN WHAT AN ASS HE IS MAKING OF HIMSELF-- BECAUSE BEING A BAD BOY IS SOMETHING YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH AS PRESIDENT, THANKS TO MR. DICK-- SO LONG AS YOU LET HIM BE VICE PRESIDENT AND RUN BAD BOYS' TOWN! Now, along comes John Kerry and he is made to face the flip-flops of his own judgemental turning over and over again of issues. Karl and Karen are putting the words into George's mouth: I'M DECISIVE, THIS FLIP-FLOPPER IS INDECISIVE....AND IT IS A DECISIVE BAD BOY LIKE ME THAT YOU NEED TO LEAD YOU IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM. But George is "decisive" only about trying to be a bad boy and get away with it as president. George wasn't always so decisive. Do you all remember how when George used to make his speeches a few moths ago he had beeds of sweat on his brow and would puff his cheeks and blow out when he finished because he was really scared that no one would believe him-- realizing instead, as former Sec. of Treasury O'Neill told us-- that he is nothing but an irresponsible bad boy? I am told that he even had to take anxiolytics and anti-depressants because in the real world where his Poppy lives you couldn't get away with such crap. But soon Karl and Karen convinced him that the evil ass merchant, Mr. Dick, was right: if you stick to Mr. Dick, you're gonna do just fine. NOW GEORGE BELLOWS OUT AT YOU WITH A GIGGLE! He believes that he has gotten away with it; and therefore, he concludes, there's no limit to what he can get away with. WHY IS THIS SO? It is so because the Democrat Party is divided between those obsessed with 2004 and those obsessed with 2008. These two groups are working against eachother. I'll spare you the gory details. But, I do want to tell you what all this means. It means that unless each and every one of us takes this election into each and everyone of our hands as if it were a presonal war against the evil ass-merchant, Mr. Dick and George, the developing ass, in order to say: STOP, we can't stop you from becoming an ass, George, but we can stop you from thinking that you can get away with it by giving America to Mr. Dick and his evil robber barons. Sure, sure, you can write letters to the editor and put Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers on your fenders. BUT THAT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH! Mr. John Zogby, America's premier polster, told me that IF WE GET AMERICA'S YOUTH TO VOTE, KERRY WILL WIN! And that's as it should be. Afterall, by the time George turns into an ass completely and the evil ass-merchant Mr. Dick delivers the coup de grace to the last of America's wealth, stealing it for his masters, the robber barons, many of us oldies will be gone. The Americans who will suffer from a devastated America ARE THE YOUNG VOTERS. So, do you fear evil Mr. Dick so much... do you refuse to let him turn all our youths from bad boys into asses... then, go and tell some young person why he or she should not be fooled by evil Mr. Dick's town for bad boys, Washington DC, and that they must clean out our nation's capital with their vote now. Each vote for John Kerry is one more sweep of the broom. Enough votes to elect Kerry will tell George that you can't get away with being a bad boy and president at the same time. It's time to clean the streets of Washington DC of all the poop from all the asses the evil ass-merchant Mr. Dick has created from bad boys and is now dragging to sell to the glue factory. Go to every young person in your neighborhood and say: JOHN KERRY AND JOHN EDWARDS COULDN'T COME TO YOUR HOUSE TODAY, SO I'M GOING TO TELL YOU WHY YOU SHOULD GO AND VOTE FOR THEM INSTEAD-- BEFORE EVIL MR. DICK AND GEORGE THE ASS TURNS ALL YOU SWEET PINOCCIOS INTO ASSES TOO...Then, tell them what Kerry and Edwards can't tell them because two men can't be everywhere at once. Do it for the boys and girls in Iraq and Afghanistan; do it for the victims of 9/11; do it for the millions who toiled and other millions who sacrificed their lives to make America great. Don't let it be known after Nov. 4th that America is the one place where you can be a bad boy (while turning totally into an ass) and think you can get away with it-- ALL THE WAY TO THE PRESIDENCY, so long as you follow evil Mr. Dick. When he first became president, George would brag-- even at the Yale Commencements-- that he's proof that a mediocre "C" student can become president. If now you let him be re-elected, then you can't say a word when at the next Yale Commencement he is sure to brag that he's proof that a bad boy can be president all the while turning into an ass. SAVE AMERICA BY SAVING A YOUTH FROM APATHY...GET HIM/HER TO VOTE!!! Daniel E. Teodoru

[Harold Haynes]

As usual you complain one hell of a let with no solutions for anything but sell the sovergienty of the US to a African Witch Doctor.