Anyone But Bush

Looking at both sides of the debate over the looming 2004 Presidential campaign, one finds rampant silliness on both sides of the political aisle. From the mouths of those who advocate for the current administration, we find this feigned outrage directed at those who criticize George W. Bush. The critics, we are told, have no substance to them. They just hate Bush for the sake of simple hatred. Many who argue from the liberal/progressive realm, conversely, cast their eyes across the nine Democratic candidates for the office and find each and every one of them sorely wanting in one way or another.

In other words, liberals just hate Bush because they just hate Bush, and simultaneously dislike all the Democratic candidates because they do not pass the purity test. Those within the liberal realm who argue the ‘ABBA’ perspective (‘ABBA’ being the ‘Anyone But Bush Association’) are denounced by a segment of their fellow liberals for having no standards, no morals, no integrity.

ABBA people tend to be upfront about the fact that they would vote for a baloney sandwich before voting Bush in 2004. This does not pass the smell test for many of their fellow progressives. Has the baloney sandwich ever held office before? Does the baloney sandwich have a record it can run on? Did the baloney sandwich vote for the Iraq war? Did the baloney sandwich vote for the Patriot Act? Where does the baloney sandwich stand on the Israel/Palestine issue?

Et cetera.

There is no doubt that these are important issues, and there is no doubt that ABBA advocates will have to swallow a degree of their liberal integrity when they stand to support whomever wins the Democratic nomination in Boston this coming summer. Yet the conservative defenses of Bush and his ‘haters,’ along with liberal denunciations of the ABBA perspective as being without integrity, do not pass my own personal smell test.

The thing is, the conservative White House defenders are spot-on correct about one thing. I despise George W. Bush. I despise his Vice President, his Senior Political Advisor, his Chief of Staff, his Defense Secretary, his Assistant Defense Secretary, his Attorney General his National Security Advisor, and his chosen Ambassador to the United Nations.

I despise his Congressional allies, who have shredded their constitutional duties by effusing to investigate a variety of incredible crimes. For the record, these crimes include the fabrication of Iraq war evidence, the outing of a WMD-hunting CIA agent in an act of political revenge, and the serious questions about how four commercial aircraft fooled the entire domestic defense shield and the entire intelligence community long enough to kill three thousand people.

I despise any and all of his people who fanned out two years ago to pound into the American consciousness the idea that criticizing Bush is treason. If you think that is over, take a gander at the first paragraph of an editorial entitled ‘Kennedy, Other Critics, Are Traitors’ that appeared today in a local Philadelphia paper called the Daily Local. The author, one Harlan “Buck” Ross, does an admirable job of describing the attitude the Bush administration has about its critics:

“According to my dictionary a ‘traitor’ is a person who behaves disloyally; one who betrays his country. What I hear from U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is nothing short of traitorous. The nine (10?) would-be candidates for the presidency in 2004 are but a short distance behind him with their ranting and raving and irresponsible blaspheming of the president of the United States.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I could have sworn that one can only blaspheme against God. When criticism of this President, or any President, is rhetorically raised to the level of blasphemy, we the people have an enormous problem on our hands.

Yeah, I hate them all. Do I hate for the simple sake of hatred? Do I hate Bush because he is a Republican, a Texan, a white male, a meat-eater? Certainly not. I hate George W. Bush and all of his people because they have done an incredible amount of damage to this nation I hold so dear. I hate them because they are professional liars, thieves, brigands without conscience. I hate them, fully and completely, on the record.

They lied about the need for this war. If you won’t take it from me, take it from an avowed conservative and Bush voter named Paul Sperry, who wrote an editorial entitled ‘Yes, Bush Lied’ on October 6. This was published, if you can believe it, on the ultra-right-wing website WorldNetDaily.com, the same page that carries such luminaries as Ann Coulter. Feast:

“According to the consensus of Bush's intelligence services, there was ‘low confidence’ before the war in the views that ‘Saddam would engage in clandestine attacks against the U.S. Homeland’ or ‘share chemical or biological weapons with al-Qaida.’ Their message to the president was clear: Saddam wouldn't help al-Qaida unless we put his back against the wall, and even then it was a big maybe. If anything, the report was a flashing yellow light against attacking Iraq. Bush saw the warning, yet completely ignored it and barreled ahead with the war plans he'd approved a month earlier (Aug. 29), telling a completely different version of the intelligence consensus to the American people. Less than a week after the NIE was published, he warned that ‘on any given day’ – provoked by attack or not, sufficiently desperate or not – Saddam could team up with Osama and conduct a joint terrorist operation against America using weapons of mass destruction.”

In essence, Bush used the attacks of September 11 against the American people to gin up fear and dread, which he then used to push a war which did not need to be fought. Sperry, some devastating paragraphs later, concludes:

“Forget that Bush lied about the reasons for putting our sons and daughters in harm’s way in Iraq; and forget that he sent 140,000 troops there with bull’s-eyes on their backs, then dared their attackers to bring it on. It was the height of irresponsibility to have done so in the middle of a war on al-Qaida, the real and proven threat to America. Bush diverted those troops and other resources – including intelligence assets, Arabic translators and hundreds of billions of tax dollars – from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border. And now they’ve regrouped and are as threatening as ever. That’s inexcusable, and Bush supporters with any intellectual honesty and concern for their own families’ safety should be mad as hell about it – and that’s coming from someone who voted for Bush.”

Mr. Sperry, in all likelihood, will remember these gems:

"This is a man that we know has had connections with al-Qaida. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al-Qaida as a forward army." – Bush, October 14, 2002

"Yes, there is a linkage between al-Qaida and Iraq." - Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, September 26, 2002

”There have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al-Qaida going back for actually quite a long time." – National Security Advisor Rice, September 25, 2002

The list of lies this administration told is long and distinguished. The number of lies told specifically about Iraq – his claim in May that “We found the weapons of mass destruction,” his claim that Iraq refused to let the inspectors in when they demonstrably had, his claims about Iraq procuring uranium from Niger, his claims that Iraq was a threatening nation capable of attacking within 45 minutes, the mobile weapons labs, the aluminum tubes story, the mushroom clouds – boggle the mind. A few more to consider:

· He lied about wanting Osama bin Laden “Dead or alive” in September of 2001 because he turned around that March and claimed bin Laden was of no importance.

· His National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, said, “We had no way of predicting that terrorists would hijack planes and crash them into buildings.” This was a lie. I have spoken to several engineers in the building-building business. Large buildings, and especially large government buildings, are constructed with a number of potential catastrophes in mind. A purposefully crashed airplane has been on that hazard list for a very long time. This, in combination with the warnings given to this administration by foreign intelligence services that were specifically about hijacked aircraft being used as aerial bombs, makes the whole sordid excuse reek.

· He lied about making America a “humble nation,” and lied about “changing the tone.” America has virtually no friends left within the international community because we have been violently belligerent instead of humble. The cries of “Traitor!” against administration critics have certainly changed the tone, but for the worse.

· He said, “By far the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum.” This was a fantastic lie. The tax cuts benefited the vast majority of very rich people across the entire spectrum of very rich people. Those truly at the bottom of the spectrum received a pittance, and have watched the social programs they depend on die from lack of funding, because said funding was squandered by the tax cuts. By the end of the decade, Bush’s tax cuts will substantially increase the tax burden on middle-class families.

· He lied when he said he did not know Mr. Enron, Ken Lay, before 1996. Lay was one of Bush’s most generous benefactors well before 1996. The number of lies told about the specifics of Bush’s relationship to Lay and Enron, and the many ways Bush tried to rescue that criminal company, would require a list that stretches around the moon. When Bush said, “Ken who?” after being questioned by the press about his Enron connections, this stretched the definition of bold lying into impressive new shapes.

· He lied about the reasons for the attacks of September 11. It was “enemies who hate our freedom,” and not a constellation of foreign policy decisions made by this administration as well as its predecessors reaching back before 1978, that caused the attack. This lie, in particular, is diabolical. An American populace who are not given the understanding that actions have consequences is an American populace that can be easily led into an unnecessary war in the Mideast.

· He lied when he took credit for a Patients Bill of Rights as Governor of Texas. In fact, he vetoed the bill. Likewise, he took credit for reforms to the Texas educational system that had been put in place by Ann Richards and Mark White, among others.

· He lied broadly and often about his military service, despite the fact that no one in his Texas Air National Guard unit can remember laying eyes on him for almost two years of his tour. "I've been to war. I've raised twins. Given a choice, I'd rather go to war," said Bush to the Houston Chronicle on January 27, 2002. Cute, George. Problem: You’ve never been to war. Liar. The swagger across the aircraft carrier, by default, is a nauseating lie as well.

· He lied to the entire city of New York, and to the cops, firefighters and EMTs in particular. He said the air in New York was fine after 9/11 when he knew from his EPA chief that it was poison. He promised vast new funding to the police, fire and EMT departments in New York. Not a dime has been provided. It all went to the tax cuts and the Iraq war…which means it went to Bush’s wealthy allies and friends in the defense industry. Fancy that.

We would be here all day if this list were constructed to be comprehensive. The above is representative: George W. Bush has lied about September 11, the Iraq war, the economy, his record as governor of Texas, his relationship with corporate criminals, and his own military record. In short, he has lied day after day after day about all of the issues he and his administration claim to hold dear.

I do not hate George W. Bush merely for the sake of hatred, or because he is a Republican. I hate him because he is a cancer that is rotting out the guts of this country. I hate him because he would not know the truth if it crawled up his leg and grabbed him by the nose. Truth does not advance the profit motive.

For liberals who denounce the ABBA perspective as being without integrity, my response is simple. Voting for anyone who can remove Mr. Bush, his administration, and all of these deadly lies from the highest office in the land is an act of singular integrity and patriotism. All hail the baloney sandwich, and never mind the blasphemy.

we need SWCBB.

Smart Witty & Considerate?

????? Ann Coulter was on the Rush repacement show and seems to under the impression that GWB is unbeatable.Do these people not see and hear what is going on in the country?Do they not remember that Al Gore even got a half million votes more than *?that's not even including the 100,000 Floridians(of which I was one)who wee NOT allowed to vote.Wake up and when they do in November next year they'll find that 1 of 2 things will have happened
1;they got blown out or
2;they had to cheat to win....again
BEWARE THE BLACK BOX VOTING MACHINES FOLKS

by a lot. Blow him the fuck out of there by such an incredible margin that BBV isn't even a factor.

This is the same Florida who two years after the 2000 election re-elected Jeb Bush, right? So, where was the anger?

"George Bush is unbeatable." Coulter, et al, will beat that point into the ground because it's actually going to convince some weak-minded people.

The thing is, the conservative White House defenders are spot-on correct about one thing. I despise George W. Bush. I despise his Vice President, his Senior Political Advisor, his Chief of Staff, his Defense Secretary, his Assistant Defense Secretary, +++++his Attorney General his National Security Advisor, ++++++and his chosen Ambassador to the United Nations.

Just thought I'd point it out.

Fixed.

WILL--But the "yellow dog's" a lot friendlier!:D

Personally, I think your treatise, unabridged, should be included in the preamble to the 2004 Democratic Platform!

:kick:

B-)

I wear my "Bush-hater" label with pride. I earned it - the hard way.

When he was appointed, I had the naive thought that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't be a crazed, right-wing demagogue. You know, since he actually wasn't elected and all, perhaps he'd appreciate that somber fact and rule from more of the middle. I never thought, "Gee, I want our country to fall into the toilet, with a horrific terrorist attack, with the looting of the treasury for his rich pals and with an unjust war, just to make this yahoo look bad." No. I started off not liking the guy, but, over the past almost three years (which seem like an eternity), my "dislike" has truly morphed into hatred.

...and that's how we got into this mess in the first place.

You can hate the game, but don't hate the playa.

No one is going to argue with you about how horrible Bush is. It feels exhilarating to enumerate his perfidies - it's very easy to do, & you certainly do a fine job of it.

But then the problem arises, OK, what do we replace him with? If we replace him with someone who's far slicker, more eloquent & more intelligent; someone who comforts us with feel-good phrases like "multilateralism... consulting with our friends and allies..." BUT who is not powerfully committed to fighting the social forces & elements that made a phenomenon like Bush possible, then there's no victory.

Try to remember how promising Clinton looked in 1992. He had all the intellectual, verbal, & telegenic tools. He seemed to have a strong personality, & gifts of personal empathy. Yet during his 8 years, the concentration of wealth & power in the US continued apace. By the end of those 8 years, the RW oligarchy was far stronger than it had been at the beginning. They were ready to steal an election in broad daylight.

It matters a great deal exactly what kind of baloney sandwich is served up here, & we have every right to be very picky about it. If the sandwich we choose is no better than the Democratic congressional leadership of recent years, even if he wins, we lose.

and my fault, and the fault of the progressive community that went to sleep after fighting Reagan/Bush for 12 years. Who can blame them? But Clinton had no large, activated base pushing him. The only ones pushing him were the GOP activists, and they did their work well.

ABBA also means we don't quit if we win. We push twice as hard.

something similar in another thread. If our nominee is not a progressive then it is time to make them listen to us if we are unhappy. I am hoping for a win with a candidate who will, if a centrist, swing back to the left. Your thread about letting Clinton down really hit home. We all did, we rested. We must remember that winning the election is only the first step. Thanks.

Now that we know HOW bad Bush is, we need to focus on stopping the pain. After the pain is stopped, we can deal with healing the injury. Defeating Bush = Stopping the pain. As much as I agree with that, I am afraid that too many want to use that to stifle any kind of thoughtful discussion concerning certain candidates that they have decided "can win." We still have a primary process for nominating our candidate - and that primary goes on.

but I tempered my attitude with "well, Clinton not be a progressive, but at least he's a Democrat, and for now, I'll settle for that"

That said, I supported him during his impeachment.

The hyper-critical progressives who ragged Clinton and later Gore/Lieberman had, IMO, a bad case of what I call the "Nothing-But-The-Best-For-The Oppressed-Syndrome". Nothing was too good for them. They demanded a perfect candidate and either turned to Nader, or they stayed home and sulked. And now we are ALL paying a price for that.

Folks, whoever gets the Dem nomination, if he/she isn't exactly what you wanted, don't pout, stay home or go third party. We don't have time for that, and our nation cannot afford that, much less another 4 years of * and Co.. Swallow your pride, put a clothespin on your nose if need be, and campaign for that Dem ticket.

You'll have plenty of time to prod them toward progressive ideas later. But do it gently. There's no guarantee they'll adopt your ideas, but at least they'll give you a hearing. Because one thing's for certain: the Repukes won't.

:kick::kick::kick:

Thanks for this article. It very clearly articulates my position too.

Baloney Sandwich for President 2004!

already has beat us to it




LK1888
Cost: $39.20
Description:
(PLC5) Campaign Button: "Maddox for President 1976 offers" at top in red, white bkgd. Then, a sketch of a baloney sandwich in center w/"The Carter Sandwich" printed on it. Below sandwich, "a little peanut butter and a lot of baloney." Great 1976 item.
http://pages.tias.com/190/PictPage/1294125.html

I remeber the part about this so called independent "Anderson" playing tag team with Hoody Doody on Jimmy, and so much other dirty politics played by different groups thinking they were getting something better.

The lesser of two evils is less evil but is still evil so be carefull on what you wish for? I can see now that some of the crap thrown up against Carter was propaganda, and other parts just like * he was very naive about, so he paid the price. I suggest we should also make * also pay the price, but from the other end this time.

So many people go along and they chose the empty "feel good" retoric provided by the right. And their defense they were holding together crumbling organizations that were being cut off from funding and politically attacked. I figure I got out of the 80's with my life, was trying to regain my health during the 1990's and found myself catapalted from fightintg for disease recognition (Lyme Disease) to fighting, a monster comprised of corrupt researchers, big corporate medicine and political appointees in the national and local health organizations that are supposed to be working for the public health not insurance companies and the tourism industry. Working for corporationns beceame an exercise in torture and betrayal as they screwed over workers at every opportunity with impunity.

I just got a call from one of the Minnesota ex-patriates who fled the state because he/she was going to die here without treatment for a very treatable disease. Here in Minnesota, Mayo Clinic, U of MN hospitals best in the world. A psychaitrist and a lawyer helped her get a hold of some her assets and get out of state on the day she was to be committed for being crazy, "thinking" she had Lyme. She has been under a doctors care in another state for almost a year and really would like to see her kids over Christmas but she can't come back without a doctor who will go along with her treatment (designed at Columbia Medical Cneter not quacks are us.) The last time we tried this a elderly surgeon almost died when he got here and the U of MN doctor who said he would help backed out and refused to allow him his medicines.

My HMO case worker nurse was astonished when I went on referral to Parker-Hughes hoping their inovative spirit would carry over into infamitory disease. All I had to do is mention Lyme and the doctor got visabley defensive and nervous. I had been getting that reaction since 1993 but this was the first time there was a witness. It is just crazy and this can be directly tied to Glaxco-Welcome pulling their world headquarters out of NY state when they could not stop the advocates from fighting against an ill concieved and potentially dangerous vaccine that all the rules of testing were thrown out to getapporoved. To the creepy bio-med people at Plum Island in NY, the Tuskeegee study, the organized group that went after alternative medicine practitioners for the AMA that was disbanded by the US courts but reimerged as "Quack Watch" (Canadian courts threw them out of Canada when they tried to set up there).

People are dying because of greed, stupidity, abuse of power and dirty politics. They won't need concentration camps the purge has started. Look at Alabama, Florida and coming to a state near you.

We cannot change this particular situation until our votes again are counted. And situations such as this no doubt effect every family in America in one way or another. Progressive's part in all this needs to be explored but we need to stop beating dead horses and find a horse that will take us the distance. (Sorry, You know what I mean. I can't believe I said that time to sign off.)

My family knows that it takes up what little good time I have each day but there are children who are being born infected and becoming infected every day and they do not deserve to suffer for the disfunctions of adults in this country. I knew about organized evil, like Nazi Germany but I really had trouble accepting that it was happening here. I hope we are in time and thanks for all of you who could be partying and becoming millionaires for sharing your time and talents to stop this meance.

also saw thier way into the national spotlight under Clinton. Certainly our image abroad was better than it is now.

It's the breadth of damage that Bush* has done in a relatively short period of time that is truly staggering. I feel that even LIEberman would feel compelled to clean up some of that mess if only to improve our image abroad.

The sandwich matters, but anything is better than dogshit between to slices of Wonder Bread.

but the idea that the ONLY worthwhile way to win is to win everything all at once is as foolish as it gets. One of the wonderful things about DU is that I get to read the opinions of intelligent people who actually believe that the perfect SHOULD BE the enemy of the good.

...a baloney sandwich, or other inanimate object, is better than the status quo. Period. I think we can trust Democrats not to nominate Sen. Palpatine. We are not, after all, Republicans.

That having been said, most of the people we object to most strenuously (ex. Lieberman) are unlikely to progress far past the New Hampshire primary. We're not stupid. The ticket we wind up with will most likely be selected from the top four or so finishers, meaning Dean, Clark, Gephardt, and Kerry, possibly Edwards. ANY of those makes the anti-ABB argument moot.

Given this knowledge, I am confident that we will have someone OTHER THAN Bush who can whup his ass - IF we worry less about who that person is (see para. #2), and more about how that person can whup George W. Bush's ass. THAT, my friends, is the object of the game.

Hope your book does well.

that say any democrat can beat bush. So we should nominate someone who doesnt need to be babysitted.

if so, I'm dropping my support for Postrami immediately.

:)

I know, sounds disgusting...

But you get my point.

"For liberals who denounce the ABBA perspective as being without integrity, my response is simple. Voting for anyone who can remove Mr. Bush, his administration, and all of these deadly lies from the highest office in the land is an act of singular integrity and patriotism."

......but at this point in the history of this country....we have have to take a step even beyond that, cause quite frankly, a baloney sandwich can't fix, heal, repair the incredible damage George W Bush et al, has done to us.

So yes...get Bushwa out and then take it a step further and put in the best that we have....I don't want to vote for a baloney sandwich...there is already too much baloney around these days.....

just my 2 cents
Peace
DR

edited subject line...added "in part'

thats what i would call it and loose the divise rhetoric against the left.

still, very powerful :toast:

peace

boloney sandwich. Sperry wrote Crude Politics, good book.

This is a keeper if there ever was one! Thanks for the litany, Will.

from my personal perspective ABB has one glaring flaw and it isn't a matter of 'integrity.'

I have in my relatively short life lived through more occasions than I care to discuss which can be described by the phrase "out of the frying pan, into the fire."

The concept of ABB relies heavily on the presumption that no other potential president can be almost as bad, equally bad or worse.

I believe that the potential for perfidy in a political office is never so remote as to be dormant, let alone non-existent.

At this point in the race, I have identified no candidates amoung the current Democratic choices whom I believe would be horrifically ruinous to this country. My viewpoint on this may change as the battles rages, and issues and character are better revealed.