Bush accused Democratic Sen. John Kerry of pandering to Nevada voters by playing both sides of the issue, part of a broader effort to cast the Massachusetts senator as someone who bends to the political winds.
“He says he’s strongly against Yucca here in Nevada, but he voted for it several times,” Bush claimed.
That is not exactly true.
Each time Kerry has faced the simple choice of voting whether or not to send waste to Yucca Mountain, he has voted against it. But he has voted for some measures that had provisions to allow nuclear dumps there. Some 16 years ago, Kerry voted for an overall budget bill that included a provision favoring putting the nuclear waste in Nevada.
Be sure to re-read that bold line: ”That is not exactly true.” Wow, the media calls Bush on a lie. mjh
”Dick Cheney’s desperate misleading attacks now have him criticising George Bush’s own words, who called for America to be `sensitive about expressing our power and influence’,” a [Kerry] spokesman said.
”Dick Cheney doesn’t understand arrogance isn’t a virtue. Alienating allies makes it harder to hunt terrorists and bring them to justice.”
Bush has suggested that overhauling the tax code would be a second-term priority if he is re-elected. While campaigning in Florida on Tuesday, he said replacing the income tax with a federal sales tax is “an interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously.”
Kerry seized on Bush’s comments even as White House officials denied that any such plan is under consideration.
Do you really want Bush and a Republican Congress overhauling the tax code and Social Security? mjh
Four years ago, network exit polls found that Bush and Democrat Al Gore split the vote of 18- to 29-year-olds, with Gore claiming 48 percent and Bush getting 46 percent — the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate in more than a decade.
But that was then. In the latest Post-ABC News poll taken immediately after the Democratic convention, Kerry led Bush 2-1 among registered voters younger than 30. Among older voters, the race was virtually tied. …
Surveys suggest that Bush’s popularity has plummeted among 18- to 29-year-olds in the past four months, posing a new obstacle to the president’s bid to win reelection and an immediate challenge to Republicans seeking to win over impressionable and lightly committed young people during their upcoming convention.
As President Bush took office in January 2001, Newsweek asked: “Which one of the following do you think should be Bush’s top defense and national security priority? Should his top priority be: Developing a high-tech missile defense system to protect the United States from nuclear attack (34 percent); reconfiguring US military forces so they can move more quickly to deal with crisis situations around the world (29 percent); or improving our ability to identify and counteract terrorist threats (31 percent)?”
And in May 2001, the Pew Research Center asked: “Do you think that international terrorism is a major threat, a minor threat, or not a threat to the well being of the United States?” Prescient answer: 64% major threat, 27% minor threat, 4% not a threat.
Yet some say we had no idea about the threat of terrorism before 9/11. mjh
Washington and certain other cities are beginning to resemble occupied territories. … This raises the questions of whether we can hope to make ourselves “safe” – if by that we mean no more terror attacks – and if it is worth the price of transforming ourselves into an armed fortress. Changing America is a primary objective of the terrorists. If we change ourselves, have they won? …
D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said: “We are fighting to preserve both security and freedom. We’re not going to accept the closing of the city.” The new restrictions were imposed by Congress without consulting D.C. leaders, according to Norton. Mayor Anthony Williams said at a news conference, “When in doubt, preserve freedom.” That may be increasingly difficult to do, depending on one’s definitions of “security” and “freedom.” …
As we ratchet up our defenses, we, however, must maintain a balance between our safety and our freedoms. We would do well to recall Benjamin Franklin’s warning: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Note that Calcified Cal Thomas, radical evangelical Christian and paleo-con deep-thinker, is saying what many others, including this atheist leftist have been saying: we are not reacting well to 9/11. I would go so far as to say that nearly every single step we have taken since 9/11 has been a misstep — we may have done nothing right. Certainly, the things we are doing wrong are colossal and the repercussions will resound for many years. mjh
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams
