Bush sets a high standard

Kerry can't measure up, and it's driving Democrats mad!

Posted September 15, 2004 6:30PM PDT

An 86‑year‑old lady says the memos used by 60 Minutes to cast doubts on George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard are false:

Marian Carr Knox of Houston said she thinks four memos unveiled by CBS News last week were forgeries, not the ones she typed at the time. … Knox, 86, worked for 23 years at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston and served as a typist for Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, then Bush's squadron commander, and several other officers. — Ex‑Guard typist recalls memos on Bush, by James Rainey, Seattle Times, September 15, 2004

Despite this revelation, the people behind the reports feel vindicated:

CBS officials appeared jubilant over Knox's revelations. "While we do not believe that she is a documents expert," CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius said, "it is exceptionally noteworthy that she supports the content of our story." — Ex‑Guard typist recalls memos on Bush, by James Rainey, Seattle Times, September 15, 2004

They're grasping at straws. While she confirmed that Bush's commanding officer in the Texas Air National Guard objected to some aspects of Bush's service, testimony from several other sources makes it clear the president didn't break any rules or fail to fulfill his commitments.

What else is clear, is that the CBS effort to smear the president reveals the network's bias. Liberal or conservative, it doesn't matter, they got caught. By itself, bias doesn't matter: my site has a conservative bias. Big deal. That's my point of view. But I don't go around making up stuff, and they did. That matters. What else matters, is that they have claimed to be unbiased, and this, now, is exposed as a lie.

They're big, they're billionaires, they'll survive. But will they change? Probably not.

John Kerry probably won't change, either. He based his campaign on his brief service in Vietnam. My cousin Mike served in Vietnam, too. Not on a swift boat, but on a river boat. Unlike the swift boats, the river boats navigated shallow water, and went far in‑country, much further into harm's way. And unlike Kerry, Mike was wounded for real.

Tale of Two Rich Kids

The service of John F. Kerry and George W. Bush is the tale of two rich kids. Bush got a hazardous but relatively safe and fun service stateside. Kerry pulled hazardous but brief service, for which he received an inordinate number of medals for incidents that cause many, if not most Vietnam vets to feel contempt.

While most working class kids hoped President Johnson's draft wouldn't pluck us from our jobs and college education to send us into a war few of us understood at that age—Nixon stopped the draft 28 days before it got to me—both Kerry and Bush got preferential treatment. Upper‑class kids always do. That's the way the world works, and it's not going to change.

What can and should change, is the focus of this election. From the beginning, it should have been about the issues. From the beginning, most conservative commentators have said this, while most liberal commentators—who are seldom willing to admit they're liberals—went along with Kerry to make it about his service in Vietnam. But it's his service in the U.S. Senate that's relevant, and he can't win on that basis. So any criticism of his war record is met with rage and panic.

This is why, when a single delegate to the 2004 Republican National Convention passed out 300 "purple owies" as a gag to 6% of the delegates and alternates at the convention, Democrats went berserk:

Morton Blackwell, a prominent Virginia delegate, has been handing out the heart-covered bandages to delegates, who've worn them on their chins, cheeks, the backs of their hands and other places. … Kerry's campaign quickly responded to the purple heart bandages, saying the Republicans are "mocking our troops." … "The smear continues on the floor of Madison Square Garden," a Kerry campaign statement trumpeted. — Delegates mock Kerry with 'purple heart' bandages—Democrats: GOP 'mocking our troops', CNN, September 1, 2004

As a delegate at the Republican National Convention, I witnessed that most of the people there did not participate in distribution of the Purple Heart band aids, and all of the people there honored America's veterans. So their accusation is false.

Why, then, are they making such a big deal about it? Because they have to. John Kerry has so little to offer as a candidate, that Democrats must take offense at even the smallest slight. But it won't work. The American people aren't stupid. With growing momentum, more and more are beginning to realize that, in this election, the Republican agenda is right for America.

Face it, kids, both candidates are good men, who have served our nation well, but as president, George W. Bush set the standard very high, and John Kerry simply doesn't measure up.

Masters of the New Media

Liberals are great at casting aspersions, but they're short on facts.

Posted September 6, 2004 2:00PM PDT

Conservatives, reactionary, anti‑progress troglodytes that we are, have done the unthinkable. And it has liberals, who, by popular definition, epitomize progress, grousing in their enlightened enclaves that conservatives have passed them by:

Democrats may dominate the documentaries, but Republicans have lately mastered the art of propelling their stories and "spin" to center stage in the national media.…Conservatives have shown a particular quickness in mastering the new media. — The View From New York: Conservatives have mastered the use of new media, by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

Dire consequences, says Connelly, are the result, as conservative dominance in the new media has stifled the liberal champions of diversity:

John Podesta, a former chief of staff in the Clinton White House, sounded a bit plaintive last week as he told a symposium: "The people who preach the politics of inclusion in this country need to find their way into the public dialogue." — The View From New York: Conservatives have mastered the use of new media, by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

Ironically, diversity is exactly why liberals are being left behind. From experience, many Americans know that the "people who preach the politics of inclusion" are anything but inclusive. In liberal states, especially, speech is severely limited. In the workplace, for example, it's often okay to talk in support of John Kerry, okay to speak in favor of gay marriage, okay to talk against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but say anything good about conservatism or President Bush and you invite disciplinary action.

I know this from recent, personal experience.

On the national scene, this was evident at the conventions of the two major parties. Protesters at the Democrat National Convention were relatively few and well‑behaved. While at the Republican National Convention, they were many, loud, insulting, and abusive.

I mentioned this when I appeared on the Erin Hart Show on August 29th. Hart, who is given to long strings of anti‑conservative invectives, snarled that this is "your fault" (conservatives) because "nobody likes you." Sounds like the "politics of bigotry," to me, a conclusion supported by some of the things I and my fellow delegates experienced in New York last week.

One evening, as I walked back to my hotel from Madison Square Garden, protesters who were gathered behind a police barricade were chanting "good job, good job killing children!" at us. Then one young white kid saw the back of my T-shirt, which reads "Conservative American Indian," and he started screaming "shame, shame!" at me. As if he had any moral basis for imposing his stereotype of what I, as an American Indian, should believe.

On my first night, as I walked around Times Square, I came upon a Puerto Rican woman, who was small of stature but great of courage, standing up to one protester who claimed President Bush is a murderer. The protester's reasons were unreasonable and indefensible, so 2 men joined her to shout down the woman, whom I later learned was named Evelyn. So I stepped in and began snapping answers to the questions being shouted by the 3 white protesters at her.

One of them turned to me, and accused Bush of murdering however many civilians have died in Iraq since the inception of the war. "More Iraqis would be dead by now under Saddam," I answered. "Would you prefer that?" Having no defensible answer, they began shouting "Fox News Watcher! Fox News Lies!" at me.

In another incident, one of my fellow delegates shared the following with me:

"I had met a Jewish couple at an event (they live in NYC) and we hit it off, so I invited them to use a couple of guest passes on Thursday to hear the president. So, they invited us out to a favorite kosher restaurant near our hotel. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to catch the bus to Madison Square Garden. When we got off of the bus, we were berated by a couple of protesters and they repeatedly called us Nazis and made references to Hitler. It's pretty offensive to be in the company of three Orthodox Jews (and, yes, my friend Howie was wearing a yarmulke) and have these kinds of things yelled at you. These people are ideologically bankrupt and don't have anything left but to call people names."

Together, the facts demonstrate that liberals are not progressive. They have become reactionary, exclusionary, censorious, and oppressive. So it should come as no surprise that conservatives have passed them by. So what does Connelly do? Drum up examples of issues that are either irrelevant or can be laid more easily on the Clinton Administration:

With a pair of powerful hurricanes striking Florida within a three-week span, are we not seeing evidence of the upsurge of catastrophic storms that scientists predict as a consequence of climate change? — The View From New York: Conservatives have mastered the use of new media, by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

These are natural phenomenon, not climate change brought on by conservative policies. Immanuel Velikovsky's Ages in Chaos demonstrates how such events have been with us since the dawn of time.

Didn't we see census figures, a couple of weeks back, proving that a substantial number of American families have recently lost health insurance? — The View From New York: Conservatives have mastered the use of new media, by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

A trend that began in earnest during the Clinton Administration, and for which President Bush offered an answer:

As I've traveled the country, I've met many workers and small business owners who have told me they are worried they cannot afford health care. More than half of the uninsured are small business employees and their families. In a new term, we must allow small firms to join together to purchase insurance at the discounts available to big companies. We will offer a tax credit to encourage small businesses and their employees to set up health savings accounts, and provide direct help for low-income Americans to purchase them. These accounts give workers the security of insurance against major illness, the opportunity to save tax-free for routine health expenses, and the freedom of knowing you can take your account with you whenever you change jobs. — In Acceptance Speech, President Bush Shares His Plan for a Safer World & More Hopeful America, George W. Bush, Thursday, September 02, 2004, Republican National Convention, New York, New York

Then Connelly switches gears and attributes to the Bush Administration events that took place before Bush was president!

Ongoing revelations by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D‑Wash., recently established that Enron manipulated power markets and gouged Southwest buyers.…In 2000‑01, a contrived power shortage cost the West Coast billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. — The View From New York: Conservatives have mastered the use of new media, by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

President Bush wasn't president in 2000. Corrupt corporate practices are a huge problem, and to the list I would add, from personal experience, how Saul Trujillo and Joe Nacchio ransacked the baby bell, US West. Trujillo, with pot‑sweetening policies to sell it, and Nacchio, former head of Qwest, who fired thousands of US West employees and dipped into the pension fund to pay current expenses, while delivering worse service.

These and countless other corrupt corporate practices all evolved during the Clinton Administration. Bush is the man whose administration is cleaning up the mess. But the fact such events transpired before Bush was president is irrelevant to democrats, like Connelly:

The conservatives are disciplined, manipulative and aggressive. — The View From New York: Conservatives have mastered the use of new media, by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

You can cast all the aspersions you want, Joel, but not a one of them will change the facts.

Checkmate?

Millions of Americans may hate Check 21, but it will help them in the long run.

Posted September 6, 2004 2:00PM PDT

Get ready for President Bush to be blamed as "payment challenged" Americans suffer a budget crisis when "Check 21" goes into effect next month:

The Consumers Union reported last month that by next summer, consumers could be bouncing as many as 7 million additional checks—and paying an additional $170 million in fees—because of Check 21. — Under new law, floating checks no longer float, by Candace Heckman, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

Check 21 is a new banking law that will go into effect on October 28,, 2004. It will allow banks to transmit checks back‑and‑forth electronically, which will effectively eliminate the float upon which millions of Americans rely to pay their bills on time between paydays. Consumer advocates expect a lot of people to be hurt by this:

Consumer advocates expect that behavior change to be difficult, especially for middle‑income families and the working poor, who use the float to survive month to month. — Under new law, floating checks no longer float, by Candace Heckman, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 6, 2004

No doubt Bush will be blamed for this, but from personal experience I know this will be a good thing.

I used to be one of those people who rushed to the bank every payday to cover checks that I had put in the mail a few days before. One day, I decided it was enough, and threw away my check book. Today, I have a checking account and a debit card. On payday, I get bank checks for bills that cannot be paid electronically. No hassle, no worry that checks will bounce, no temptation to write checks and hope they float.

The first couple months I did this were a little tough. But it was worth it, to get my finances under control. Just as Check 21, which will force millions of consumers to change their spending habits, will be worth it, too.