What kind of ads will Kerry run?

[JustMissed]

Anyone have any ideas about what kind of ads Kerry will start running tommorrow?

After the busted knee cap Zell Miller gave him last night and the body slam Bush will probably give him tonight, he needs to come up with something pretty darn good.

Some ideas I came up with that have already been used but not proven effective are:

1. Skipped a few air guard drills
2. Used to drink too much beer
3. Liked to execute criminals back is Texas(wish Chris Matthews had been one)
4.Didn't make good grades in college
5.Too much a Christian
6.Gave Haliburton a big no bid contract
7. Lied about WMD in Iraq-been there, done that-besides Kerry now supports the war,I think
8.Daughter got busted for drinking Margaritas
9.Stumbles over his words
10.Can't speak french

I don't know what Kerry can come up with. Looks like Fat Bastard Michael Moore has already taken the wind out of Kerry's sail. Kerry has diffinately painted himself into a corner.

Moveon.com already compared Bush to Hitler and that didn't stick. I think Kerry is between a rock and a hard place.

The Republicans have about three issues to cover with Kerry in their ads:

1.Anti-war protester/anti-veteran-POW/Jane Fonda issue
2.20 year liberal voting record
3.Flip-flopping

Going to get interesting. If Kerry doesn't come out strong tommorrow, it may be over for the DemLibs.

JM;)

[JustRalph]

They will find something...........they always do...........

[betchatoo]

If I were in charge of the Kerry campaign I would start by hitting the most important issue, the economy. There is a larger disparity between the rich and poor than at any time in American history. And the middle class has shrunk under Bush leadership. In addition the act of running a government by cutting income and increasing spending is ruinous. He inherited a surplus and has quickly turned it into the largest deficit spending ever. I remember that staunch liberal, Ronald Reagan arguing for a balanced budget (of course he only advocated it for Democratic administrations). Then, after George the First, the hated Bill Clinton got into office and actually did it. And guess what? The country’s economy ran on high for 8 years (whether Clinton got high is not relative at this point). George has returned to giving tax breaks to the corporations and the trickle down has gone mainly to CEO salaries.

I would also question his own flip flops. Certainly the “we can win against terrorists, no we can’t yes we can,” would be among them. So would the WMD. Even after it became apparent to most Americans that they didn’t exist, President Bush said that we went into find them, “because they are there.” Now, the administration is coming up with other reasons we went into Iraq (past posting). I would also mention that this administration said for months after the recommendation, that a Homeland security department was not necessary. Once public sentiment for it grew, Bush became an advocate and now counts it as one of his major accomplishments. I’d also mention that candidate Bush spoke harshly against imposing tariffs, but in 2002, President Bush put one on steel. There are those skeptics who believe it was done to gain political favor in swing states.

If I were in charge, I would also question his leadership. I think involving us in Iraq without a solid plan on what to do once we toppled Sadam is lousy leadership. In addition he has stated often that he wants to overhaul social security but he has yet to come up with any workable plan to even begin doing it. He advocated a plan to change immigration law but has not led his party into acting on it. He spoke on the side of a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage, but again never showed leadership in trying to get it passed.

I would also question his leadership based on the fact that this president has never had the courage of his conviction to veto any bill, even when they were things he had come out against. Examples include the campaign finance system and a large agricultural bill that substantially increased subsidies to farmers.

And I would challenge his so called decisiveness and call it more inflexibility. Being decisive about pursuing a bad or failed policy is not good leadership.

Anyway, if I were his manager that’s what I’d suggest. But I’m not so I guess I’ll just keep my opinions to myself.

And that’s all I have to say about that

[Lance]

He can find an ad or two in here:

Lies, Damned Lies, and Convention Speeches
Setting Kerry's record right—again.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004, at 11:50 AM PT


Half-truths and embellishments are one thing; they're common at political conventions, vital flourishes for a theatrical air. Lies are another thing, and last night's Republican convention was soaked in them.

In the case of Sen. Zell Miller's keynote address, "lies" might be too strong a word. Clearly not a bright man, Miller dutifully recited the talking points that his Republican National Committee handlers had typed up for him, though perhaps in a more hysterical tone than anyone might have anticipated. (His stumbled rantings in the interviews afterward, on CNN and MSNBC, brought to mind the flat-Earthers who used to be guests on The Joe Pyne Show.) Can a puppet tell lies? Perhaps not.

Still, it is worth setting the record straight. The main falsehood, we have gone over before (click here for the details), but it keeps getting repeated, so here we go again: It is the claim that John Kerry, during his 20 years in the Senate, voted to kill the M-1 tank, the Apache helicopter; the F-14, F-16, and F-18 jet fighters; and just about every other weapon system that has kept our nation free and strong.


Continue Article

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Here, one more time, is the truth of the matter: Kerry did not vote to kill these weapons, in part because none of these weapons ever came up for a vote, either on the Senate floor or in any of Kerry's committees.

This myth took hold last February in a press release put out by the RNC. Those who bothered to look up the fine-print footnotes discovered that they referred to votes on two defense appropriations bills, one in 1990, the other in 1995. Kerry voted against both bills, as did 15 other senators, including five Republicans. The RNC took those bills, cherry-picked some of the weapons systems contained therein, and implied that Kerry voted against those weapons. By the same logic, they could have claimed that Kerry voted to disband the entire U.S. armed forces; but that would have raised suspicions and thus compelled more reporters to read the document more closely.

What makes this dishonesty not merely a lie, but a damned lie, is that back when Kerry cast these votes, Dick Cheney—who was the secretary of defense for George W. Bush's father—was truly slashing the military budget. Here was Secretary Cheney, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 31, 1992:

Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend.

Cheney then lit into the Democratic-controlled Congress for not cutting weapons systems enough:

Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M1s, F14s, and F16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them.

I'm not accusing Cheney of being a girly man on defense. As he notes, the Cold War had just ended; deficits were spiraling; the nation could afford to cut back. But some pro-Kerry equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Zell Miller could make that charge with as much validity as they—and Cheney—make it against Kerry.

In other words, it's not just that Cheney and those around him are lying; it's not even just that they know they're lying; it's that they know—or at least Cheney knows—that the same lie could be said about him. That's what makes it a damned lie.

Before moving on to Cheney's speech, we should pause to note two truly weird passages in Zell's address. My favorite:

Today, at the same time young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of a Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief.

A "manic obsession to bring down our commander in chief"? Most people call this a "presidential election." Someone should tell Zell they happen every four years; he can look it up in that same place where he did the research on Kerry's voting record ("I've got more documents," he said on CNN, waving two pieces of paper that he'd taken from his coat pocket, "than in the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library combined.")

The other oddball remark: "Nothing makes me madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators." Huge applause line, but is he kidding? The U.S. troops in Iraq are occupiers. Even Bush has said so. If he doesn't understand this, then he doesn't understand what our problems are.

Cheney followed Zell, and couldn't help but begin with … not a lie, but certainly a howler: "People tell me Sen. Edwards got picked for his good looks, his sex appeal, his charm, and his great hair. [Pause] I said, 'How do you think I got the job?' "

Funny, apparently self-deprecating line, but does anybody remember how he did get the job? Bush had asked Cheney to conduct the search for a vice presidential candidate, and he came up with himself. He got the job because he picked himself.

Later in the speech, Cheney made this comment: "Four years ago, some said the world had grown calm, and many assumed that the United States was invulnerable to danger. That thought might have been comforting; it was also false."

Who are these people who thought this? The implication is that it was the Democrats who preceded Bush and Cheney. But it was Bill Clinton's administration that stopped the millennium attack on LAX. It was Clinton's national security adviser who told Condoleezza Rice, during the transition period, that she'd be spending more time on al-Qaida that on any other issue. It was Rice who didn't call the first Cabinet meeting on al-Qaida until just days before Sept. 11. It was Bush's attorney general who told a Justice Department assistant that he didn't want to hear anything more about counterterrorism. It was Bush who spent 40 percent of his time out of town in his first eight months of office, while his CIA director and National Security Council terrorism specialists ran around with their "hair on fire," trying to get higher-ups to heed their warnings of an imminent attack.

"President Bush does not deal in empty threats and halfway measures," Cheney said. What is an empty threat if not the warnings Bush gave the North Koreans to stop building a nuclear arsenal? What is a halfway measure if not Bush's decision to topple the Taliban yet leave Afghanistan to the warlords and the poppy farmers; to bust up al-Qaida's training camps yet fail to capture Osama Bin Laden (whose name has gone unmentioned at this convention); to topple the Iraqi regime yet plan nothing for the aftermath?

"Time and again Sen. Kerry has made the wrong call on national security," Cheney said. The first example he cited of these wrong calls: "Sen. Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed 'only at the directive of the United Nations.' " Yes, Kerry did say this—in 1971, to the Harvard Crimson. He has long since recanted it. Is there evidence that George W. Bush said anything remarkable, whether wise or naive, in his 20s?

The second example of Kerry's wrong calls: "During the 1980s, Sen. Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan's major defense initiative that brought victory in the Cold War." We've been over this—unless Cheney is talking about the Strategic Defense Initiative, aka the "star wars" missile-defense plan. It may be true that SDI played some role in prompting the Soviet Union's conciliation, though it was at best a minor role—and wouldn't have been even that, had it not been for Mikhail Gorbachev. But two more points should be made. First, lots of lawmakers opposed SDI; almost no scientist thought it would work, especially as Reagan conceived it (a shield that would shoot down all nuclear missiles and therefore render nukes "impotent and obsolete"). Second, Kerry voted not to kill SDI, but to limit its funding.

"Even in the post-9/11 period," Cheney continued, "Sen. Kerry doesn't appear to understand how the world has changed. He talks about leading a 'more sensitive war on terror,' as though al-Qaida will be impressed with our softer side." A big laugh line, as it was when Cheney first uttered it on Aug. 12 before a group of veterans. But Cheney knows this is nonsense. Here's the full Kerry quote, from an address to journalists on Aug. 5: "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."

In context, it's clear that "sensitive," a word that has several definitions, is not meant as a synonym for "soft." And Cheney, who is not a stupid man, knows this.

"He declared at the Democratic Convention," Cheney said of Kerry, "that he will forcefully defend America after we have been attacked. My fellow Americans, we have already been attacked." Where in Kerry's speech did he say this? Nowhere.

"Sen. Kerry denounces American action when other countries don't approve," Cheney continued, "as if the whole object of our foreign policy were to please a few persistent countries." No, that's not it. Kerry thinks that other countries should go along with our actions—that a president must work hard at diplomacy to get them to go along with us—because going it alone often leads to failure. Cheney should ask his old colleague Brent Scowcroft or his old boss W's father about this. Or he should simply go to Iraq and see what unilateralism has wrought.


Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate.

[ponyplayer]

To quote Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"

[Derek2U]

Face It, Pataki must of had a HollyWood coach. So Breathless.
even more than Winoma getting caught shoplifting. I always
hated that idiot even more than I hated that mafia Guillanni.
I think Pataki sexy talkin gave Bush W. a Boner. Of corse thats
just conjecture cause who can tell ... this is kinda the worst acting
about nyc fire dept ... like LOL. what PooP. its lies ALL lies & why? The Truth won't kill you republicans. Trust me.

[Lefty]

But the truth will kill the Dems.
Kerry's so proud of his 20 yrs in the Senate he spent about 26 seconds talking about it during the Dems convention.

[JustRalph]

Hey Derek

I know you have stated you are going to be the next Dali Lama...the spiritual leader of the Buddhist Religion...... and I saw this article from Yahoo News......... just wondered what kind of chaser you take with this? Or maybe what kind of wine goes with this............ I am sure they know the answer out there in the Hamptons..........fill us in

article:

Cup of urine a day keeps ailments at bay

Thu Sep 2,11:11 AM ET

BANGKOK (AFP) - Drinking urine can eliminate sinus trouble, turn grey hair black and even cure cancer, a Thai academic said, citing a study of local Buddhists who engage in the unorthodox practice.

Ratree Cheepudomwit, of the Thai Traditional and Alternative Medicine Development Department, said hundreds of urine drinkers attested that consuming a daily cup worked wonders for their overall health and helped slow the ageing process.

She said that in June she queried 250 members of Santi Asoke, a strict indigenous Buddhist movement believed to have thousands of followers, and 204 respondents said they had learned from ancient Buddhist manucripts that drinking one's urine improved health.

"Of the respondents, 87 percent confirmed that it had head-to-toe benefits for them, including for example reduction of dandruff, grey hair, sinus problems and cancer," Ratree told AFP.

The medical elixir was not easy on everyone's system, as about one in 10 urine drinkers suffered diarrhea afterwards, but the practice should not be viewed with disgust, she said.

"Other groups of people who drank urine were Buddhist monks who practised in accordance to scriptures which are more than 2,500 years old," she said.