Why Would Anyone Vote for Bush and Cheney?
By Mike Hersh, Oct 26, 2004

Why would anyone vote for Bush and Cheney? It can't be their domestic or national security record - both of which are the worst ever. More jobs lost than in any four years since the Great Depression. The worst deficits ever. The worst break-down of security in US history on 9/11/01. Over 1000 Americans killed and thousands severely wounded in a needless war while Osama bin Laden laughs at us and Bush's impotent - and quickly forgotten - threats. Bush and Cheney can't run on their record.

What are the Bush/Cheney campaign themes? That John Kerry cannot keep us safe, even though they - not he - fell asleep at the switch, let terrorists kill thousands of Americans, and then they took their eye off the ball and let Osama bin Laden escape. Still, they come right out and threaten that a Kerry election would lead to a massive terrorist attack in our cities, and then blame Kerry for using "the politics of fear.

The Bush regime failed to address our health care crisis. Costs went up at least 10% each year Bush was ignoring the problems, even as 5 million Americans lost their coverage. Bush has no health care plan whatsoever. No ideas how to help. Without a record of action, and tied to a failed ideology which recognizes no responsibility to help Americans stay healthy, Bush relies on lying to us. Against all facts and reason Bush keeps claiming Kerry will spend $trillions on "government-run" health care. This although Kerry's plan would cost far less, and would expand choices. This would remain a private system, just one which works better than the complete lack of policy and attention under Bush.

Of course Bush and Cheney have a lot of excuses for their failures and failure to even try to fix problems, but where is the accountability? Where is the record of success? Rather than solve the serious problems, they blame others. They claim they took office during a recession, but the facts show otherwise. True, the economy was slowing in 2000, largely because of right wing Republican Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's restrictive monetary policies. Still, the economy was growing when they took office. They try to blame the recession and economic failure on the terrorist attacks they failed to prevent, but Bush and Cheney's statements and actions drove us into recession weeks before the 9/11 attacks.

As with many problems they blame on other people, Bush and Cheney are really to blame. They "talked down" the economy while running for office, which is not too unusual, but then - after taking office - they alarmed financial and equity markets with unfounded negative statements. This pointed pessimism was unprecedented in US history. Bush/Cheney policies hurt the economy and cost Americans jobs. Just last week Bush signed into law massive new loopholes rewarding firms for shipping good jobs overseas. The leading economic indicators are down for the past several months, even though Bush and Cheney claim we enjoy the best economy ever. Are they out of touch or shameless liars? Either they cannot tell the truth or they cannot tell the difference.

Unable to run on their record, Bush and Cheney hope people cast votes based on trivial side issues and non-issues. They latch onto a few stray comments made by Kerry and by people who know Kerry and try to spin them into damning attacks. Sometimes their audacity and hypocrisy surpass comprehension, such as trying to claim Kerry is a gay basher. The Log Cabin Republicans - a conservative gay organization - blasted Bush for playing politics with the Constitution and seeking votes by inciting hatred of gays.

Bush and Cheney are backing a radical Constitutional Amendment which would make gays second class citizens - while trying to gin up resentment by claiming John Kerry "insulted" gays by mentioning one of the Cheney's daughters is gay. Certainly this cannot have shocked them or anyone else, as Mary Cheney came out long ago and her job is to convince gays and lesbians to drink Coors Beer! This Bush/Cheney appeal to bigotry and hatred combined with feigned indignation is a dirty trick worse than a mere flip-flop. This is divisive and hypocritical politics of the worst order. Still, that's the least of it.

Cheney regularly repeats alarming threats that if we elect Kerry, we will suffer another horrendous attack. How does he know? Either he's just making up threats to scare us, or else he's relying on friends he made among the terrorists while he was helping Iraq, Iran and Libya build up power when Cheney was CEO of Halliburton. Let's review why Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit and compare this to Cheney's own record:

Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit because Kerry voted for some of the cuts in Pentagon Pork Cheney insisted on when he was Secretary of Defense. How dare John Kerry listen to Cheney! Sen. Zell Miller listed these cuts in a screaming outrage at the Republican National Convention, never mentioning Dick Cheney was their author.

Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit because Kerry supported cuts in CIA waste, cuts targeted at waste which were smaller than the severe and misplaced cuts Bush's newly-appointed Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss wanted at the time. Kerry supported better intelligence. Goss sought to slash human intelligence. Clearly Kerry is more in touch, and much more capable of protecting us than Bush, Cheney or their new CIA Director.

Cheney says Sen. Kerry is unfit because Kerry advocated waiting to see if sanctions and threats could scare Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. At that time, as Defense Secretary Cheney said, "We really needed some time to come to grips with this basic, fundamental question of our strategic assessment of what this meant. Did it matter that he'd taken Kuwait?" Once more, how dare Kerry rely on someone like Cheney who has no combat experience, no military knowledge, no common sense, and no integrity. Still, Kerry saw the sense of kicking Saddam out of Kuwait. Cheney wasn't so sure it even mattered! See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_a.html

Cheney makes no sense. He blamed Kerry's statements last month for Bush/Cheney failure to recruit allies to our side several months before. It's all just more of the same Bush/Cheney fail and blame game. In each case, Kerry took positions more sensible and defensible than the reckless, feckless Bush/Cheney positions.

As for who is "weak on terror," Dick Cheney supported empowering Iran by lifting sanctions against them, and helped other terrorist nations all to make money. He didn't care that his company was imperiling American lives. John Kerry would never do that. He rooted out terrorist-supporting criminals in the BCCI scandal. Still, Cheney bashes Kerry as weak! Either Cheney is knowingly lying when he claims a vote for Kerry is a vote for weakness, or else Cheney is dangerously out of touch with reality. Either way, Cheney is unfit.

But we're not really voting for Cheney. It's Bush who's really in charge. Yeah right. Anyway, let's consider the mighty Bush record. As his VP ghoulishly predicts nuclear, chemical and biological attacks - only if Kerry is elected - Bush accuses Kerry of playing " politics of fear." Bush's hypocrisy and dishonesty expose him as out of touch and unfit. So do his forty-six months of across-the-board failure, irresponsibility, and the countless mistakes he denies making. But back to "the politics of fear."

If threatening voters they will suffer nuclear attack if they don't do what you want isn't " politics of fear" according to Bush, what is? Kerry Quoting Bush's promises to "privatize" Social Security and discussing how the Bush failures in Iraq might lead Bush to impose a formal draft. Bush denies these are legitimate topics of discussion, but then again Bush lives in the Land of Denial. Consider the facts and Bush's own words.

Bush ran in 2000 openly promising to divert money from Social Security into the stock market and other investments. As Bush's failed economic policies crashed the stock market, Bush muted these positions, but he's never repudiated them. While Bush's privatization would pump money into the pockets of his pals the elite equities traders, it would drain $trillions from the Social Security trust fund and cost taxpayers an equal amount to administer.

In the Third Bush-Kerry Debate (Tempe Arizona Oct 13, 2004) Bush said, "I believe that younger workers ought to be allowed to take some of their own money and put it in a personal savings account, because I understand that they need to get better rates of return than the rates of return being given in the current Social Security trust." Sen. Kerry replied: "You just heard the president say that young people ought to be able to take money out of Social Security and put it in their own accounts. Now, my fellow Americans, that's an invitation to disaster. The CBO said very clearly that if you were to adopt the president's plan, there would be a $2 trillion hole in Social Security, because today's workers pay in to the system for today's retirees. We're going to protect Social Security. I will not privatize it. I will not cut the benefits."

Bush won't answer this on the merits and he won't tell us where these $trillions will come from. He just repeats the same empty promises from 2000. After Bush and the right wing Republicans raided the Treasury there's nothing left to steal, so Bush looks elsewhere to fund the massive, unfair loopholes and giveaways he promised to his richest backers. He has to loot Social Security, and he knows it. Bush balks at the term "privatization" but Bush has been planning to raid Social Security for years. We know because he's said so.

Kerry quoting Bush's plans to drain Social Security, raise the retirement age, and slash benefits isn't "politics of fear" this year, any more than Gore's accurate analysis of Bush's empty promises and voodoo economics was "fuzzy math" four years ago. It's past time to get past Bush's deceptive double-talk and hold him accountable for his own words.

In a speech at St. Charles, MO on November 2, 2000, Bush said he opposes "the federal government controlling the Social Security like it's some kind of federal program. We understand differently though. You see, it's your money not the government's money." But Social Security is a federal program. Bush wants to change that, because he wants to give our money to his friends once again, and there's nothing left in the coffers. Bottom line: Bush is planning to raid Social Security because he fundamentally opposes the program, and thinks his friends deserve our money more than we do.

About the draft, Kerry observes the current state of the military and uses knowledge he gained from personal combat experience - knowledge Cheney, Bush and almost all of their neo-con chicken hawk coop lack. As Kerry explains, under Bush's poor planning and worse decision-making, nearly all of our fighting forces are in Iraq, on their way home from Iraq, or on their way to Iraq. Military experts look at this mess and wonder if Bush will reinstitute a formal military draft in a second term. This dreadful prospect seems ever more likely considering the "back door" draft currently underway. Bush's attempts to ridicule our concerns cannot change these facts.

Bush Administration failures make our National Guard and Reserve personnel serve double and triple tours for which they're not trained or prepared - or fairly compensated. Bush even sought to slash their combat pay! As Bush abuses and misuses our troops, new enlistments and re-enlistments decline. Meanwhile, Bush's policies place greater demands on our men and women in uniform, spreading them ever thinner. This cannot continue but Bush has pledged to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld measures prospective occupation of Iraq in years not months.

If Bush is not going to instate a draft, how can he maintain his aggressive "Bush Doctrine" much less meet the legitimate requirements of national defense? Bush refuses to say. He's too busy making snide remarks about John Kerry which diminish the issues. For example, Bush says about Kerry "he can run, but he can't hide" using the same words he used vowing to bring back Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Bush hasn't brought bin Laden to justice, and despite empty claims to the contrary, Americans are not safer.

The record shows with the millions of jobs lost under Bush's mismanagement, an additional five million of us lost health care as well. Bush's policies lost millions of private sector jobs, not made up for by Bush's massive increase in government spending. Bush hasn't done anything to help Americans get access health care, and his so-called Medicare reform puts $billions in the pockets of pharmaceutical corporations and has not helped a single senior afford a single bottle of medicine.

Faced with these facts, Bush lies and denies. John Kerry has a plan to extend health care to Americans through tax cuts and credits encouraging employers to cover us among other means. Several news organizations and experts confirm the Kerry plan involves no "government takeover," but Bush keeps dishonestly accusing Kerry and lying about the costs of Kerry's plan. Bush thinks he's mocking Kerry, but he's really making a mockery of our political system, fiddling with ruin as our economy, health care, national security all burn. Some may claim Bush isn't really lying - he doesn't know any better. That's an excuse for a child who breaks a lamp, not for the Leader of the Free World so I'll assume Bush is lying - rather than severely mentally disabled - and call him a liar not a fool.

All Bush's lies about Kerry - and the lies about Iraqi nukes, uranium from Niger, "fuzzy math" giveaways for the idle rich, and so much more - undermine Bush's credibility. Bush's denials that he plans to reinstate the draft ring as hollow as the rest of his fabrications. Bush demands we just take his word for it. He's really telling the truth this time. We cannot believe him. We simply cannot trust Bush to keep his word. Bottom line: No matter how many lies Bush tells about Kerry, telling the truth about Bush's "back door" draft and the likelihood Bush will seek a formal draft isn't "politics of fear."

Although many politicians shade the truth, spin and exaggerate, Bush reacts to the truth with anger. Politicians are supposed to tell the truth, but Bush fails that test as badly as any president [sic] ever. Confronted with the facts during the debates, Bush scowled, snarled and even charged at the moderator. He also added to his long list of lies. When Kerry reminded us what Bush said a mere six months after 9/11, Bush quickly denied it claiming, "Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations." But when asked about bin Laden at a press conference on March 13, 2002 Bush said, "I truly am not that concerned about him."

It's hard to determine which is most alarming: Bush's blatant hostility toward the truth, his complete lack of "concern about" the terrorist whose organization killed 3,000 Americans and still threatens us or his outrageous hypocrisy claiming Kerry is the one who lacks focus against terrorism. Whichever you pick, all this says a lot about Bush and none of it good. Bush doesn't know what to think or do about our enemies, and the same is true about our friends. Bush has no idea how to build or maintain alliances.

Bush took office and quickly began alienating and insulting our allies. He even sided with Libya, Iran, and North Korea against the rest of the planet by opposing treaties to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Since 9/11, Bush squandered world-wide goodwill, and his reliance on giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton and focusing on securing oil fields in Iraq signaled most of our NATO friends they were unwelcome in any "Operation Iraqi Liberation" - OIL. Bush continues to insult our allies while grossly exaggerating contributions from "fair weather friends" who are fleeing his wilting "Coalition of the (no longer) Willing."

Bush's mistreatment of our friends is costing us lives and driving us deeper into debt. Still, Bush sees nothing wrong in any of this and insists he'll stay the course. This bloody, costly course is disastrous and getting worse. Kerry would immediately reverse Bush's antagonistic attitude and bring our allies to our side A President Kerry can and will face the facts and change the current situation under which Americans pay most of the costs of the Iraq War in blood and $billions.

Bush's audacious failures, misjudgments and mistakes undermine American strength from Iraq to your own neighborhood. During the heat of the campaign, Bush refuses to address real issues and rushes to blow up the deficit with $billions in gifts to his special interest cronies. Bush is paying them to keep exporting our jobs and charging the bill to us and our kids and grandkids. Bush didn't even bother to wait until after the voting to raid our Treasury one more time.

That's our money, not his, but Bush doesn't understand this. He keeps spending it on Halliburton no-bid sweet heart deals and overcharges and giving it away like Santa Clause, but Bush rewards huge corporations while taking from good little girls and boys. The timing and scope of this outrageous corporate loophole legislation demonstrates Bush's extreme arrogance, complete lack of connection with regulars Americans, or both.

After the election, what will Bush do? Unless we send him home as a loser, we have no idea because Bush refuses to say. His record is pretty clear, however. He's always taken the easy way, and done as little work as possible, and sided with the powerful elite over the middle class. Rather than facing facts, he's clung to denial. Instead of making the tough decisions needed to rally our allies, protect our people from attack and ill health, and reinvigorate the economy Bush would rather lie and mock John Kerry.

Even when forced to make a stand, he's made astonishingly disastrous decisions. Bush remains astonishingly irresponsible and unaccountable, ignoring timely warnings then making huge mistakes which make problems worse, and then pointing fingers at innocent people. What happened to "the buck stops here"? Bush passes the buck more than anyone in US history and then he lies about it.

Bush blames trial lawyers for his administrations' failure to heed warnings about flu shot shortages dating back years. Meanwhile, Bush refuses to sign a bill which would protect vaccine manufacturers from financial loss in lawsuits. Most importantly, Bush and his top officials ignored dire warnings leading up to 9/11. They laughed off former-Clinton, Bush and Reagan officials like Samuel Berger, Richard Clarke and others who told them terrorism and Osama bin Laden would dominate their security concerns.

Bush's National Security Advisor dismissed a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" as an "historical document" - whatever that is - to spin Bush's failure to act when told: "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York" and "a group of bin Laden supporters was inside the US planning attacks" against us.

Bush derides Kerry claiming the Senator would wait for an attack before responding, but that's not true. We do know that Bush ignored serious and specific threats in the past, and despite his claims that 9/11 was a wakeup call, why did Bush and his top officials ignore all the other wakeup calls such as the August 6, 2001 briefing? There are several other serious questions about this failed administration:

Why didn't Cheney bother to meet with the Anti-Terror Task Force he was supposedly running? Why did Rumsfeld threaten Bush would veto a defense bill if Congress diverted money away from Star Wars to fight terror? Why did Cheney advise doing nothing about Saddam's attack on Kuwait and then trade with Iraq and Iran in the 1990s? Why did the Bush team ignore pre-9/11 warnings and then hit the snooze button?

The Bush "national defense team" keeps ignoring threats posed by North Korea and Iran. They've done next to nothing to buy up loose nukes from the former Soviet Union which pose an unfathomably deadly threat. They've left our ports, railways, power grid, and other prime targets largely unprotected. They've spent all their energy trying to defend loopholes for multinationals that send our jobs overseas than defending legitimate US interests. They have no answers for any of these failures, so they rely on the "politics of fear" while deceitfully, hypocritically blaming Kerry.

Bush and Cheney base their campaign on hypocritical accusations that Kerry cannot protect American lives and trivializing or ignoring important issues. No wonder they try to claim they're the only ones who can keep us safe - even though they let terrorists operate in the US after ignoring specific warnings bin Laden was determined to strike. Bush and Cheney hope we forget that it wasn't Kerry who didn't keep us safe, Bush and Cheney failed on that paramount responsibility - and then failed to make needed changes to fix the problems.

Bush and Cheney cannot run on their dismal record, because that record shows their lack of ability and concern with protecting our lives. Or our jobs. Or our environment. Or our Constitutional rights. Or our children's' future. No wonder Bush and Cheney prefer to run and hide. They essentially say vote for them, despite their complete failure, because Kerry isn't perfect. Well, no one is perfect and Kerry has made mistakes - such as giving Cheney and Bush the benefit of the doubt. There's every indication that Kerry will do a much better job than Bush.

A vote for Bush is a vote for reckless, failed, fatal foreign policy which may require a draft. A vote for Bush is a vote to ignore Osama bin Laden, loose nukes, vulnerable targets, and threats from North Korea and Iran. A vote for Bush is a vote for more sky-rocketing health costs, run-away gas prices, more pollution, and exporting jobs. More Bush means more poverty, more rancor and division as he advocates tampering with the Constitution to race-bait, gay-bait and eliminate our basic rights.

Bush's inattention and prevarication proves his concern centers on keeping his job not protecting your job. His policies threaten to bankrupt Social Security. He's making it tougher to pay for college and tougher to find a decent job after graduation - while pushing us toward a military draft.

Either Bush can't do the job for America, or he refuses to do the job. Either way, it's time for serious leadership. It's time to end the blame games, the trivialization, the excuses, and the lies. We cannot afford four more years of more of the same. Bush is unfit to serve four more minutes. Bush whines that the job of president is "hard." Let's do him a big favor and fire him next week so he can find a job he can do.

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