It is truly amazing how bold this administration can get despite all its failures. It starts from the devastation of 9/11 to the intelligence failure in Iraq and everything in between. Such as? Such as the record $400 billion deficit, the millions of unemployed, growing poverty, the thousands of soldiers who have died (and civilians), escalating health care, neglect of the environment, Abu Ghraib scandal, and flip-flops. Yes, flip-flops:
Remember when our decisive president:
- was against homeland security before he was for it?
- said we didn't find WMD before we did?
- was looking for Osama dead or alive then not concerned about him?
- supported manadatory caps on carbon dioxide before he opposed it?
- opposed the creation of an independent 9/11 commission before he supported it?
- stated we will win the war on terror after he said we can't win it but before he told our troops we were winning it?
...and so many more that the title of flip-flopper in chief fits him well.
Doesn't this spell failure? Or rather, it defines failure. And to think that no one was held accountable for this disaster. Yet, Bush/Cheney have the audacity to say, 'Vote for us again!'
I read this piece today from Robert Scheer entitled
If Only Kerry Were From the Bronx. It about sums up all the things that need to happen.
Kerry needs to be:
He's got to be outraged. Not only have his combat-shy opponents stood idly by as their surrogates trashed his Vietnam War record, Vice President Dick Cheney, stooping to a despicable low, said a vote for Kerry was tantamount to a vote for Osama bin Laden and terrorism.
He needs to say:
Kerry should just say, "What a load, you're the guys who blew it before 9/11!" Kerry needs to point out that it is Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and our nominal President who have screwed up Afghanistan, Iraq, the economy and the war on terror. That they are the ones who gave us Abu Ghraib but not bin Laden; 1,000 American dead but no peace in Iraq; fiery speeches at the Republican convention in New York but no on-the-record testimony to the 9/11 commission.
He needs to remind us that:
First, on September 11, 2001, when Cheney hid in a bunker, a dazed Bush was not kept in the loop, key agencies did not coordinate, antimissile defenses were not activated, crucial decisions were left unmade and the public was left in the dark, wondering where the President was.
Kerry needs to remind voters that, within hours, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives embedded in the Bush Administration began a whining chorus of demands that this tragedy be exploited as an excuse to whack Iraq.
But most of all Kerry needs to drill this into America:
Cheney said that if a Democrat was elected to the White House, we would run the risk of lapsing into "a pre-9/11 mind-set." He's exactly wrong. It was his Administration's "what, me worry" pre-9/11 mindset that got us into this horrible mess. Kerry can get us out.
Kerry/Edwards '04