Zobgy: Bush Approval Collapses

[MikeVielhaber]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Half of the country? We haven't even voted yet and need I remind you that George didn't get 50% of the vote last time.

sorry if half the country TO THE WHOLE of a person didn't vote for him. screw you dude. half the country in general, maybe not EXACTLY half of the country to the person, but half the country....DID vote for him and so far in the polls thats how its divided so don't give me this childish BS

[MikeVielhaber]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/bio.html
As he was graduating from Yale, John Kerry volunteered to serve in Vietnam, because, as he later said, "it was the right thing to do." He believed that “to whom much is given, much is required.” And he felt he had an obligation to give something back to his country. John Kerry served two tours of duty. On his second tour, he volunteered to serve on a Swift Boat in the river deltas, one of the most dangerous assignments of the war. His leadership, courage, and sacrifice earned him a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V, and three Purple Hearts.

But John Kerry's wartime experience taught him a painful lesson that he could not forget, even after he returned home. In the midst of battle, he had seen the lives of his fellow soldiers, his friends, put at risk because some leaders in Washington were making bad decisions. He decided he had a responsibility to his friends still serving, the friends he had lost, and his country, to help restore responsible leadership in America.

So he decided to become active as a Vietnam Veteran Against the War (VVAW). He became a spokesman for VVAW and later co-founded Vietnam Veterans of America. Only 27 years old, John Kerry sounded this call to reason in April 1971 when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and posed the powerful question, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Later, John Kerry accepted another tour of duty - to serve in America's communities. After graduating from Boston College Law School in 1976, John Kerry went to work as a top prosecutor in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He took on organized crime and put behind bars "one of the state's most notorious gangsters, the number two organized crime figure in New England." He fought for victims' rights and created programs for rape counseling.

John Kerry was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1982. In that office, he organized the nation's Governors to combat the acid rain that was polluting lakes, rivers, and the nation's water supply. Two years later, he was elected to the United States Senate and he has won reelection three-times since. He is now serving his fourth term, after winning again in 2002.

John Kerry entered the Senate with a reputation as a man of conviction. He confirmed that reputation by taking bold decisions on important issues. He helped provide health insurance for millions of low-income children. He has fought to improve public education, protect our natural environment, and strengthen our economy. He has been praised as one of the leading environmentalists in the Senate, who stopped the Bush-Cheney plan to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

John Kerry has never forgotten the lessons he learned as a young man – lessons that have been strengthened in his 19 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has learned that America must work with other countries to achieve our goals and the world's common goals. From his ground-breaking work on the Iran-Contra scandal to his leadership on global AIDS, John Kerry has distinguished himself as one of our nation's most respected voices on national security and international affairs.

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, he worked closely with John McCain to learn the truth about American soldiers missing in Vietnam and to normalize relations with that country. As the ranking Democrat on the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, he is a leading expert on that region, including North Korea.

Years before September 11th, John Kerry wrote The New War, an in-depth study of America's national security in the 21st Century. He worked on a bipartisan basis to craft the American response to September 11th and has been a leading voice on American policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, the Middle East peace process and Israel's security.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0227-07.htm
What's Right With Kerry
by David Corn

In the heat of battle, with his campaign crumbling, Howard Dean lashed out at John Kerry. First, he called the leader in the Democratic presidential race a "Republican." Then he said, "When Senator Kerry's record is examined by the public at a more leisurely time...he's going to turn out to be just like George Bush."

Just like George Bush? It is true that Kerry, another Yalie and Skull and Bones alum, has voted in favor of NAFTA and other corporate-friendly trade pacts, that he once raised questions about affirmative action (while still supporting it), that he has, like almost every Democratic senator, accepted contributions from special-interest lobbyists (while being one of the few to eschew political action committee donations), that he voted to grant Bush the authority to invade Iraq. But this hardly makes him Bush lite. There is, as evidence, his nineteen-year Senate record, during which he has voted consistently in favor of abortion rights and environmental policies, opposed Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, led the effort against drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, pushed for higher fuel economy standards, advocated boosting the minimum wage and pressed for global warming remedies. But what distinguishes Kerry's career are key moments when he displayed guts and took tough actions that few colleagues would imitate. One rap on Kerry is that he is overly cautious and conventional. He's no firebrand on the stump, nor does he come across as the most passionate and exciting force for change. But his history in Washington includes episodes in which he demonstrated a willingness to confront hard issues, to challenge power, to pursue values rather than political advantage, to take risks for the public interest.

Kerry arrived in the Senate in 1985. This Vietnam War hero turned antiwar leader had been lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. But he entered the body more as the prosecutor he had been in the late 1970s after graduating from Boston College law school. In early 1986 Kerry's office was contacted by a Vietnam vet who alleged that the support network for the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras (who were fighting against the socialist Sandinistas in power) was linked to drug traffickers. Kerry doubted that the Reagan Administration, obsessed with supporting the contras, would investigate such charges. He pushed for a Senate inquiry and a year later, as chairman of a Foreign Relations subcommittee, obtained approval to conduct a probe.

It was not an easy ride. Reagan Justice Department officials sought to discredit and stymie his investigation. Republicans dismissed it. One anti-Kerry effort used falsified affidavits to make it seem his staff had bribed witnesses. The Democratic staff of the Senate Iran/contra committee--which showed little interest in the contra drug connection--often refused to cooperate. "They were fighting us tooth and nail," recalls Jack Blum, one of Kerry's investigators. "We had the White House and the CIA against us on one side and our colleagues in the Senate on the other. But Kerry told us, 'Keep going.' He didn't let this stuff faze him."

Kerry's inquiry widened to look at Cuba, Haiti, the Bahamas, Honduras and Panama. In 1989 he released a report that slammed the Reagan Administration for neglecting or undermining anti-drug efforts in order to pursue other foreign policy objectives. It noted that the government in the 1970s and '80s had "turned a blind eye" to the corruption and drug dealing of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who had done various favors for Washington (including assisting the contras). The report concluded that "individuals who provided support for the contras were involved in drug trafficking...and elements of the contras themselves knowingly received financial and material assistance from drug traffickers." And, it added, US government agencies--meaning the CIA and the State Department--had known this.

This was a rather explosive finding, but the Kerry report did not provoke much uproar in the media, and the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill did little to support Kerry and keep the matter alive. His critics derided him as a conspiracy buff. Yet a decade later the CIA inspector general released a pair of reports that acknowledged that the agency had worked with suspected drug smugglers to support the contras. Kerry had been right.

After the contra investigation, Kerry next turned to a far more sensitive target: a bank connected to a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser. During their investigation of Noriega, Kerry's staff discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International had facilitated Noriega's drug trafficking and money laundering. This led to an inquiry into BCCI, a worldwide but murky institution more or less controlled by the ruling family of Abu Dhabi. BCCI was a massive criminal enterprise, although this was not yet publicly known. It had engaged in rampant fraud and money laundering (to help out, among others, drug dealers, terrorists and arms traffickers) around the world. Its tentacles ran everywhere. Its political connections reached around the globe. Jimmy Carter and Henry Kissinger both became involved in the scandal. When banking regulators finally shut down BCCI in 1991, an estimated 250,000 creditors and depositors from forty countries were out billions of dollars.

One key issue was whether BCCI had secretly and illegally acquired control of First American bank in Washington, DC. The top officials of First American were Clark Clifford, a longtime Democratic graybeard and a party fundraiser, and Robert Altman, his protégé. Democratic senators grumbled about Kerry's crusade, which put Clifford in the cross-hairs. "This really pissed people off," Blum says. BCCI hired from both Democratic and Republican quarters an army of lawyers, PR specialists and lobbyists (including former members of Congress) to thwart the investigation. The Justice Department of the first Bush Administration did not respond to information on BCCI uncovered by Kerry's staff. So Blum took the material to New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, who then commenced an investigation of BCCI that led to indictments. And Kerry again found himself tussling with the CIA, for the agency had been using the services of BCCI even after it had learned that the bank was crooked and in league with terrorists (including Abu Nidal).

In the fall of 1992 Kerry released a report on the BCCI affair. It blasted everyone: Justice, Treasury, US Customs, the Federal Reserve, Clifford and Altman (for participating in "some of BCCI's deceptions"), high-level lobbyists and fixers, and the CIA. The report noted that after the CIA knew the bank was "a fundamentally corrupt criminal enterprise, it continued to use both BCCI and First American...for CIA operations." The report was, in a sense, an indictment of Washington cronyism. In the years since, there's been nothing like it. Senator Hank Brown, the ranking Republican on Kerry's subcommittee, noted, "John Kerry was willing to spearhead this difficult investigation. Because many important members of his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry did."

While Kerry was in the middle of the BCCI muck, Senate majority leader George Mitchell asked him to assume another difficult task: investigate the unaccounted-for Vietnam POWs and MIAs. For years so-called POW advocates, like billionaire Ross Perot, had claimed American GIs were still being held in Vietnam, and the highly charged POW/MIA issue was the main roadblock to normalizing relations. Working closely with Senator John McCain, a Republican who had been a POW, Kerry got the Pentagon to declassify 1 million pages of records. His committee chased after rumors of American soldiers being held. He took fourteen trips to Vietnam. This was a hard mission: How could his committee say there were absolutely no POWs still captive in Vietnam? Yet anything less could keep the POW controversy alive.

On one trip to Hanoi, as Douglas Brinkley notes in Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, Kerry insisted that he be allowed to inspect the catacombs beneath Ho Chi Minh's tomb, where, according to a persistent rumor, the remaining POWs were being held. Permission was granted, and with conservative Republican Bob Smith by his side, he inspected the tunnels and found no signs of POWs. In January 1993 Kerry's POW/MIA committee released a 1,223-page report concluding that there was "no compelling evidence that proves any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia." Some POW die-hards howled. (Journalist Sydney Schanberg has accused Kerry of covering up and destroying evidence that POWs were left behind.) But the report mostly settled the issue. President Bill Clinton was able to drop the Vietnam trade embargo and normalize relations.

Investigations were not the only notable moments in Kerry's Senate career. On September 10, 1996, as he was in a tight re-election contest against William Weld, the popular Republican governor of Massachusetts, Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which would deny federal benefits to same-sex couples and permit states to not recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other states. He was one of only fourteen senators to oppose the measure. Several leading Senate liberals--including Paul Wellstone, Tom Harkin and Pat Leahy--had voted for it. But on the floor of the Senate that day, Kerry, who noted that he did not support same-sex marriage, said, "I am going to vote against this bill...because I believe that this debate is fundamentally ugly, and it is fundamentally political." He refused to pretend that the bill was not a wedge-issue trap devised by conservative Republicans. The legislation, he charged, was "meant to divide Americans," and he argued fiercely that it was unconstitutional. "If this were truly a defense of marriage act," he said, "it would expand the learning experience for would-be husbands and wives. It would provide for counseling for all troubled marriages, not just for those who can afford it. It would provide treatment on demand for those with alcohol and substance abuse.... It would guarantee daycare for every family that struggles and needs it."

The following year, a re-elected Kerry was in another lonely position as one of only five original sponsors of the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act, to provide for full public financing of Congressional elections. The measure would remove practically all special-interest money from House and Senate campaigns. (Kerry's colleagues were Wellstone, Leahy, John Glenn and Joe Biden--all Democrats.) "Kerry was totally into it," says Ellen Miller, former executive director of Public Campaign, a reform group pressing for the legislation. "He believes in this stuff."

In introducing the legislation, Kerry said on the Senate floor, "Special interest money is moving and dictating and governing the agenda of American politics.... If we want to regain the respect and confidence of the American people, and if we want to reconnect to them and reconnect them to our democracy, we have to get the special interest money out of politics." He was also a backer of the better-known McCain-Feingold legislation, a more modest and (some might say) problematic approach to campaign reform. But over the years he's pointed to the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act as the real reform. "It is a tough position in Congress to be for dramatic change in financing elections," says Miller. "It's gutsy to go out and say, 'Let's provide a financially leveled playing field so there is more competition for incumbents.' Kerry and Wellstone were the leaders and took a giant step. It was remarkable."

After two decades in the Senate, Kerry has a long record that can be picked apart by competitors within his own party as well as in the GOP. And though he has been re-elected three times, he has not developed the best political skills. He has not shed a manner too easily criticized as aloof or patrician. He has had brushes with smarmy campaign financing. But there have been times he has shown courage, devotion to justice and commitment to honesty, open government and principle-over-politics. There are few senators of whom that can be said. A full assessment of the man ought to take these portions of his public service into account.

sum that sumbitch down dude......i don't have hours to waste. and just like anyone else you're so one sided and antagonistic to the person you dont want elected. go quote from george's website to give me information why he is unworthy why dont you? cause i assure you you won't find it. so good game on quoting from john kerry's website. i'm sure they have anything bad to say of him. and a article on kerry. .....you could find positive stuff on george on his site or from an article from a person who wants bush elected as well.

i mean damn....using the whole "oh the surpeme court appoint the president he wasnt voted on" crap....i'm sure you're much older than me but why not act like it. i dont believe a word you say if you think bush has no good qualities and kerry has no bad qualities. thats just ridiculous. they both have good qualities and bad qualities and kerry benefits from not having been scrutinized by america for the past 4 years....i mean american is so fickle. directly before 9/11 bush's approval rating was at 51%......directly afterwards it was in the 90's.....now why was that? did bush have anything to do with the attacks? what did bush do in those couple days that warranted his approval rating to shoot up 40%? and whenever something positive happens in the war on terror his approval rating went up....and whenever something happened...a few people died....his approval rating went down. either you agree with whats going on and accept the fact that people die during war as sad as it is as they signed up to protect us and are braver than we who did not. or you don't agree with whats going on and think the soldiers are dying in vain.......you can't just go with the flow. simple as that. and i just went on a rant there but whatever . i need to get to bed and off to church in the morning.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by MikeVielhaber

sorry if half the country TO THE WHOLE of a person didn't vote for him. screw you dude. half the country in general, maybe not EXACTLY half of the country to the person, but half the country....DID vote for him and so far in the polls thats how its divided so don't give me this childish BS

Boy you seem to get really angry when you're wrong. What happened to last week when you were all open minded?
Bush "won" the election with 47.87% of the vote to Gore's 48.36%. Bush's percentage was one of the lowest ever. No surprise though, since he wasn't duly elected.

[MikeVielhaber]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Boy you seem to get really angry when you're wrong. What happened to last week when you were all open minded?
Bush "won" the election with 47.87% of the vote to Gore's 48.36%. Bush's percentage was one of the lowest ever. No surprise though, since he wasn't duly elected.

47.87 percent is almost half of the country...just as 48.36 is almost half of the country...the country was divided pretty equally. thats what i mean by half he country. it wasnt meant to be an exact number. the country was and is indisputably divided pretty much equally between democrats and republicans.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by MikeVielhaber

sum that sumbitch down dude......i don't have hours to waste. and just like anyone else you're so one sided and antagonistic to the person you dont want elected. go quote from george's website to give me information why he is unworthy why dont you? cause i assure you you won't find it. .

I don't need to go to George's web site. I can tell you straight up why I don't like George. Everything he ever touched has turned to ****. His first oil business was backed by Salem Bin Laden, Osama's brother. Georgie is the first president to have a criminal record. In another of his businesses, Harken, he dumped $800,000 right before the stock tanked and the business went under. That's the same kind of thing Martha Stewart was just tried for. It's called insider trading, only that's not what they charged Martha with. One of George's first act as president was to suspend the Mexico City Agreement. It suspends US aid to third world countries for family planning. He passed No Child Left Benhind but then didn't fund it. Someone in his administration and we're talking maybe one or two of six people, outed and undercover CIA agent to Robert Novak of CNN. George's father has said this is "treason." He's stonewalled the investigation into it. He's rolled back environmental policies. His vice president is running a shadow government and conducted secret energy policy meetings and won't release the details to anyone. Cheney also made over $200,000 in deferred salary from Haliburton this year. Haliburton is being investigated for over billing the government for their services in Iraq. This administration is privitizing our military. And they are making all of the money from it.
Our president invaded a sovereign nation on lies, when in fact he should have been continuing to look for the perpetrators of 9/11.
We have the highest federal deficit in our 200 plus year history as a nation.
When speaking in an unscripted public forum, it is evident that this man is ill equipped to answer questions concerning domestic or foreign policy. He does not read his briefs but instead has his staff go over them verbally in 15 minute increments.
Until his presidency, he had never left the continental United States.
He thinks Jesus is guiding him in his presidency.
He doesn't read the newspaper.
He spent more time on vacation prior to 9/11 than any president in modern history.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

Not to mention Bush was not duly elected. He was appointed by the supreme court. I've got a long list of Gerogie's "accomplishments" if anyone wants to go there.

SPIN and FOUL

Once again all recounts of the districts Gore put at issue indicate W wonn without the help of the USSC. So, you assertion cannot be supported by the facts and I am tired of typing this response It is okay to admit the facts - I swear - the truth will set you free

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by MikeVielhaber

sorry if half the country TO THE WHOLE of a person didn't vote for him. screw you dude. half the country in general, maybe not EXACTLY half of the country to the person, but half the country....DID vote for him and so far in the polls thats how its divided so don't give me this childish BS

I am unsure what you mean here. W did not get more of the popular vote in the 2000 election - Gore got more of the popular vote. The problem is Presidents are not elected by the popular vote. They are elected by the electoral votes as set forth in the U.S. Const. and other related and subsequent Acts. W won the electoral vote. Subsequent informtion indicates W also won the popular vote in the Florida counties Gore requested a manual recount in. So, by that standard W won Fla. and therefore the election. Having said that, Fla. cooked its lists of eligible voters before the election - conversly, the D. approved the buterfly ballot that confused apparently only people in certain counties that were favorable to Gore So, it is a bit unfair for anyone to rely on Jeb Bush's govt. or or Gore's behavior during the recounts as shining examples of the right to vote

[MikeVielhaber]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I don't need to go to George's web site. I can tell you straight up why I don't like George. Everything he ever touched has turned to ****. His first oil business was backed by Salem Bin Laden, Osama's brother. Georgie is the first president to have a criminal record. In another of his businesses, Harken, he dumped $800,000 right before the stock tanked and the business went under. That's the same kind of thing Martha Stewart was just tried for. It's called insider trading, only that's not what they charged Martha with. One of George's first act as president was to suspend the Mexico City Agreement. It suspends US aid to third world countries for family planning. He passed No Child Left Benhind but then didn't fund it. Someone in his administration and we're talking maybe one or two of six people, outed and undercover CIA agent to Robert Novak of CNN. George's father has said this is "treason." He's stonewalled the investigation into it. He's rolled back environmental policies. His vice president is running a shadow government and conducted secret energy policy meetings and won't release the details to anyone. Cheney also made over $200,000 in deferred salary from Haliburton this year. Haliburton is being investigated for over billing the government for their services in Iraq. This administration is privitizing our military. And they are making all of the money from it.
Our president invaded a sovereign nation on lies, when in fact he should have been continuing to look for the perpetrators of 9/11.
We have the highest federal deficit in our 200 plus year history as a nation.
When speaking in an unscripted public forum, it is evident that this man is ill equipped to answer questions concerning domestic or foreign policy. He does not read his briefs but instead has his staff go over them verbally in 15 minute increments.
Until his presidency, he had never left the continental United States.
He thinks Jesus is guiding him in his presidency.
He doesn't read the newspaper.
He spent more time on vacation prior to 9/11 than any president in modern history.

ok but you look to kerry's website to find what you like about him. i'm sure there are things that kerry has done and would do that you dont and wont agree with. but its not gonna say anything about that on his website.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by MikeVielhaber

the majority of the media is liberal.

You conservatives sure do provide me with some hearty laughter. For that, I am forever grateful.

If you would get your news from sources other than the networks, you'd know how truly conservatively biased the media is. NBC and its subsidiaries are owned by GE. ABC is owned by Disney. Fox is owned by Murdoch, the same man who owns the New York Post. To say that these are part of the "liberal media" is absurd. They selectively choose what to report and hinders this country more than anything.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by MikeVielhaber

sorry if half the country TO THE WHOLE of a person didn't vote for him. screw you dude. half the country in general, maybe not EXACTLY half of the country to the person, but half the country....DID vote for him and so far in the polls thats how its divided so don't give me this childish BS

Gore won Florida. He won the election. It was stolen by the USSC. Get it? The same thing will happen this year when you consider that over 90 million votes will be tabulated on electronic voting machines. Expect the fight over who won to last for months.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by MikeVielhaber

go quote from george's website to give me information why he is unworthy why dont you?

His record speaks for itself. He's supposedly all about the troops, yet he sends them to iraq and cuts veterans benefits almost in half. Good guy.

He passed No Child Left Behind, then stopped funding it.

He pledged $3 billion to Africa to fight AIDs, yet hasn't delivered.

He's privatized Medicare.

He presented false and misleading information to the country in order to get support for a war in Iraq.

The economy is going down the tubes AGAIN, after he lied about the economy being in a recession because of Clinton.

His invasion of Iraq has made Al Qaeda stronger than ever and they now have close to one million members.

He has not captured Osama Bin Laden. He did not invade Afghanistan for more than two months after the 9/11 attacks, therefore letting Osama and Al Qaeda take their act on the road.

He refused to have the 9/11 commission created, but only did so when his approval ratings slipped.

He doesn't speak our language. (Cheap shot, I know.)

Shall I go on? It's his record that I'm taking this from, in case you didn't know. With every one of your post sin these threads, you always moan about how you don't have the time to read this or that. If you don't, how do you expect to be educated enough about these things to cast the vote for the right man in November? Feigning ignorance just makes all your points seem invalid.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by MikeVielhaber

ok but you look to kerry's website to find what you like about him. i'm sure there are things that kerry has done and would do that you dont and wont agree with. but its not gonna say anything about that on his website.

Which is why you take the time to research these things.

[jwd]

dissention:

Gore won Florida. He won the election. It was stolen by the USSC. Get it? The same thing will happen this year when you consider that over 90 million votes will be tabulated on electronic voting machines. Expect the fight over who won to last for months.

I'd bet money that you wouldn't raise a stink over the electronic voting machines if Kerry won!

There has to be an acceptable method of voting set up in each county of the U.S. this year before the election, because we really can't afford that 2000 fiasco again.

[jwd]

dissention:

You conservatives sure do provide me with some hearty laughter. For that, I am forever grateful.

And I can assure you that your posts are "entertaining" as well. At least for awhile, until you've seen the same show over and over again.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

SPIN and FOUL

By duly elected I mean he did not win the poplular and electoral vote and the circumstances of his coming to power were extremely suspect. the term "duly elected" is open to interpretation.