Late in 2003 I was asked by the chair of the Florence Area Democratic Club to take the office of vice-chair. Nobody held that position and the chair wanted somebody to help her find guests to speak at our meetings and plan meeting agendas. I declined confessing that I hadn’t the experience to know how to do what she wanted. She then suggested that I take the office of secretary and the current occupant become the vice chair. I agreed. The job entailed taking the minutes of each meeting and releasing club reports to the press.
The Presidential election of 2004 was looming. Public support of President Bush was waning. Hope was in the air. Senator John Kerry, Vietnam War veteran, would become the Democratic Party candidate. Several polls taken in May suggested that Bush might be “on the ropes.”
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Several new polls have Bush hitting new lows in important ways.
First, the Newsweek poll. In this poll, Bush’s overall approval rating is down to 42 percent, with 52 percent disapproval, his lowest rating yet in any public poll. (Note: Zogby also has his rating at 42 percent, but Zogby job ratings are based on a different question and therefore are not directly comparable with other public polls.) And Bush’s approval rating on Iraq is down to 35 percent, with 57 percent disapproval, also a new low. Wow. It was just a few days ago (see below) that his Iraq rating went below 40 percent for the first time.
Bad as the Newsweek findings are for Bush, the findings from the CNN poll are probably worse. First, the poll finds Kerry ahead of Bush in practically every issue area, including protecting the environment (+22); health care (+19); reducing the deficit (+18); handling the economy (+13); and even taxes (+6). But here’s the really significant part: besides these domestic issues, Kerry is also ahead of Bush on handling foreign policy (+2) and handling the situation in Iraq (+3). A couple of weeks ago, Bush had a healthy lead on handling Iraq; last week Bush had a small lead; this week, he’s behind. Clearly, the tide is turning.
And even on his “signature issue,” as it were, handling the war on terrorism, he now only has a seven-point lead over Kerry (49 percent to 42 percent). I am quite sure that this is the smallest lead we have seen yet for Bush on this issue. If he loses a few more points and Kerry gains a few more, he and Kerry will be essentially tied on handling terrorism! I suspect that would get the Bush-Cheney campaign kind of worried (Teixeira 1-2).
Source cited:
Teixeira, Ruy. “New Polls Bring New Lows for Bush.” Center for American Progress, May 19, 2004. Net. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/news/2004/05/19/782/public-opinion-watch/
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I was trying to influence public opinion of the President by sending letters to newspaper editors. This one was printed by the Siuslaw News March 13. I presumed that readers were sufficiently familiar with the people I mentioned that I would not need to identify them. The second letter was printed July 31.
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Are Administration Republicans really a bunch of liars and crooks? Consider Iraq.
Thanks to Paul O’Neill we know that the Bush people were making plans in Jan. 2001 to depose Saddam. The day after 9/11 Rumsfeld opined that the hijacker attacks had provided the Administration the opportunity to remove Saddam. After bin Laden had escaped into Pakistan, the Administration exploited the opportunity.
We heard numerous speeches about WMD. Rumsfeld’s department created the Office of Special Plans to rake up nuggets of WMD “evidence” that the CIA, despite Cheney’s pressure, had refused to sanction. Chalabi and his exile group kept whispering falsehoods that Cheney and the neocons wanted to hear. And Bush had the assassination attempt on Pappy to avenge.
Wolfowitz admitted later that WMD had been the Administration’s most saleable argument. We heard about crop-duster drones, al Qaeda operatives given WMD secrets, mobile labs, aluminum tubes, and mushroom clouds.
9/11 and Saddam were constantly juxtaposed.
Well after Bush’s aircraft carrier landing, we were told that real progress was being made -- Why wasn’t the press reporting it? -- while our soldiers were being killed one or more a day.
We were told that Iraqi oil production would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction.
When public opinion turned, the Administration said it shouldn’t be blamed for declaring Saddam an “imminent” threat. Heck, the CIA had given Bush bad intelligence. (And Bush had never used the word “imminent”) Congressional Democrats had looked “at the same intelligence” (the doctored version, thank you) and they had authorized preemptive action! Even the Clinton Administration had believed that Saddam had been developing WMD. (Meaning Clinton, in Bush’s place, would also have defied world opinion, dismissed Hans Blix’s inspection results, and invaded?)
And least we forget, Saddam had WMD programs! Because he would have used them, going to war preemptively was still warranted!
We are supposed to believe now that all of the chicanery above doesn’t matter. Bush is Mr. Democracy, Mr. Humanitarian, Protector of the Homeland, Savior of World Peace. Like Napoleon in Animal Farm, he will lead us safely, unselfishly through this “challenging,” harrowing time. Trust him. (God forbid that we elect Kerry!)
Printed March 13, 2004, in the Siuslaw News
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Ed Gillespie goes on Hardball, Charley Black appears on Scarborough Country, Kelly Ann Conway expounds on Inside Politics, lesser and larger lights recite the same talking points on Fox Cable News. On the radio Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, etc. drive home the same message.
Lie. Vilify. “Frivolous” lawsuits are the cause of skyrocketing health care costs. The selfish trial lawyers lobby is preventing “essential” tort “reform.” John Edwards, no good. But the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has stated that malpractice lawsuits represent less that 2% of the nation’s total health care costs.
Bushites have claimed that “frivolous” lawsuits are also responsible for outrageous medical malpractice insurance premiums. Another lie. The number of malpractice court cases over the past decade has remained constant. Insurance companies raised premiums to remedy bad stock market investments.
Why do many good Americans take as gospel this Administration’s gross deceit? Corporate ownership of media news is one answer. Tell them whatever will serve our and the Administration’s self-interest. Play to their foibles. Get them mad.
Bush’s Believers live in a fantasy land where Reagan’s “trickle-down” economic policy did bring about the prosperity of the 90s; Clinton’s “heavy-handed” tax rates did cause the recession of 2001-2002; Bush’s tax cuts, for sure, are helping all Americans; Saddam Hussein, in fact, had a hand in 9/11; and invading Iraq has, indeed, made us safer.
Calvin Hurd’s letters to the contrary, radical right governance has America’s ship of state steaming for the rocks. On November 2 we can do something about it.
Printed July 31, 2004, in the Siuslaw News
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Karl Rove, campaign manager of the President, dubbed “Bush’s Brain” by syndicated columnist Molly Ivins, had become famous for his tactic of attacking his client’s opponent’s greatest perceived strength. John Kerry’s conspicuous strength was his Vietnam War record. Kerry would come under withering attack from Vietnam veterans claiming that Kerry had not deserved the purple hearts and service awards he received for valor under fire.
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In the Navy, Kerry served aboard boats known as PCFs, or swift boats. According to a Boston Globe overview of Kerry’s service in Vietnam, as reported by Snopes.com and FactCheck.org: “Under [Navy Admiral Elmo] Zumwalt’s command, swift boats would aggressively engage the enemy. Zumwalt calculated in his autobiography that these men had a 75 percent chance of being killed or wounded during a typical year.”
Kerry received a Purple Heart after being wounded in December 1968 when he got hit by schrapnel. The Boston Globe quoted William Schachte, who oversaw the mission, as saying it “was not a very serious wound.”
A wound is described as any combat injury to the body; the Purple Heart criteria have no mention of how severe the injury needs to be.
In an affidavit, physician Lewis Letson said he treated Kerry and said Kerry’s wound was self-inflicted when his gun jammed and he threw a grenade at an object, which sprayed the area with shrapnel. Kerry’s medical records show that he was treated by J.C. Carreon (who has since died). Letson said it was common practice for medics to sign the paperwork for the attending physician.
Letson said in his affidavit that “the crewman with Kerry told me there was no hostile fire, and that Kerry had inadvertently wounded himself with an M-79 grenade.” But the crewmen with Kerry that day deny ever talking to Letson, FactCheck.org reported.
A second Purple Heart was awarded after Kerry was returning from a PCF mission in February 1969, when shrapnel hit his leg. Again, the wound was not serious.
Kerry earned his Silver Star later in February when he jumped onto the beach from his boat to chase and shoot a guerrilla who had a rocket launcher and who, Kerry thought, was about to fire a rocket at Kerry’s boat. According to the Boston Globe, another member of the crew on Kerry’s boat - Frederic Short, with whom Kerry had not talked for 34 years until being contacted by the Globe reporter - confirmed the account and said there was no doubt Kerry’s action saved the boat and crew.
Republican Sen. John Warner, who was Under Secretary of the Navy at the time, said there was careful checking for the Silver Star award and “I think we best acknowledge that his heroism did gain that recognition.”
A third Purple Heart and Bronze Star was awarded in March 1969 when Kerry’s boat took fire, sending a man overboard. Kerry, who said his injuries came from an underwater mine, returned to pull the man to safety and to assist another damaged boat. Jim Rassmann, the man who fell overboard, confirmed the account in a detailed article in the Wall Street Journal. But other sworn statements say there was no hostile fire and Kerry’s wounds came from his negligently throwing a grenade into a rice pile.
Although Snopes.com labels attacks on Kerry’s medals being earned under “fishy” circumstances as “false,” FactCheck.org said in 2004, “at this point, 35 years later and half a world away, we see no way to resolve which of these versions of reality is closer to the truth” (Fader 1-2).
Work cited:
Fader, Carole. Fact Check: John Kerry’s War Accounts and Whether He Deserved Commendations Still Being Called into Question.” jacksonville.com,, January 3, 2013. Net. https://www.jacksonville.com/article/20130103/NEWS/801259907
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