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Why I Can't Support the George W. Bush Administration or Any Republican

The Washington Post
  • http://www.washingtonpost.com/ home page
  • Why Did We Really Go Into Iraq?
  • A Bush Administration Ethics Scandal?
    • Bush Administration Propaganda Mill
    • Viewer Beware
        The Bush administration's video news releases are government-produced, government-funded spots packaged to look and sound like regular television reports, complete with fake news reporters signing off from Washington. The Government Accountability Office found this kind of phony news to be impermissible "covert propaganda." The Bush administration is now instructing its officials to ignore the GAO. This technique is both illegal and unwise.
    • Administration Paid Commentator - Education Dept. Used Williams to Promote 'No Child' Law
    • Administration Agitprop
        Asked whether he was aware of the codes of ethics published by multiple journalists' and broadcasters' associations, which explicitly forbid members to accept money for promoting particular views, Mr. Williams said, "I don't know anything about these kinds of documents." It is much less clear that the Bush administration, whose policies lay behind this remarkable ethical violation, either understands the error or is prepared to suffer any consequences. ... Bush administration ... covert propaganda is more than unethical; it is against the law for taxpayer dollars to be used "for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States," unless approved by Congress. Congress should investigate, as this administration does not seem to understand the lines it has crossed.
  • The Failed Iraqi War
    • Bush Bungles Iraqi War
        John F. Kerry went before an audience of thousands of veterans to accuse President Bush of creating a more dangerous world by mishandling virtually every major strategic decision he has made before and after the military invasion of Iraq. "Terrorists have secured havens in Iraq that were not there before," the Massachusetts senator said. ". . . Violence has spread in Iraq, Iran has expanded its influence, and extremism has gained momentum."
    • President Admits Mistakes in Iraq as Republican Convention Opens
        Democrats derided the (Republican) convention as phony. "They're going to run a kind of Potemkin convention, where they will have people on the stage who don't run the Congress, don't run the administration, but are going to be putting the kinder and gentler, compassionate-conservative look on this administration," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) said Sunday on ABC News's "This Week." "The show that the Republicans will put on is not going to fool the American people this time." ...
        Bush also acknowledged in the interview that the administration did not anticipate the nature of the resistance in Iraq, and he said that was his greatest mistake in office. "Had we had to do it over again," he said, "we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success, being so successful so fast that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day." Democrats tried Sunday to exploit that acknowledgment. "The president is now describing his Iraq policy as a catastrophic success," Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said in Washington. "I, like most Americans, have no idea what that means, but it is long past time for this president to accept personal responsibility for his failures and for his performance." Edwards said the Iraq war "has clearly been a failure."
    • GOP Legislator Assails Iraq War: Nebraskan Criticizes Administration as He Ends 13th Term
        A senior Republican has broken from his party in the final days of his House career, saying he believes that the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and that the situation has deteriorated into "a dangerous, costly mess." "I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote to constituents. "Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action."
  • We Watch So You Don't Have To -- Kerry on Vietnam, Oil, and Keeping People Out of Bush Rallies
      Kerry is the first presidential nominee to appear on "The Daily Show." Host Stewart wasted no time grilling him. ...
      Kerry also said a lot of stuff about the allegations over his war record being disappointing because he thinks most Americans would like to have a much more intelligent conversation about where the country's going, and that he's seen a "web and network" behind the ads that have attacked his Vietnam War record, and how President Bush doesn't want to talk about the real issues because, after all what's he gonna do, come out and say we've lost 1.8 million jobs and 4 million Americans lost their health care and how we're going backward on the environment and we have angered everybody in the world? ...
      Stewart wanted to know if oil would turn out to be the United States' kryptonite. "The United States has 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We import 61 percent of our oil. There is no possible way for us to drill our way out of this crisis. We have to invent our way out of it . . . by moving to alternatives, to renewables, to fuel-efficient vehicles, to biomass." ...
      Kerry (noted) that anyone can come to one of his rallies but you have to sign a loyalty oath to get into a Bush rally.
  • George W. Bush and the Texas National Guard
    • Democrat Says He Helped Bush Into Guard to Score Points
        A former senior politician from Texas has told close friends that he recommended George W. Bush for a pilot's slot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War because he was eager to "collect chits" from an influential political family.
        The reported comments by former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes add fuel to a long-running controversy over how Bush got a slot in an outfit known as the "Champagne Unit" because it included so many sons of prominent Texans. Friends said that Barnes had recorded an interview for the CBS program "60 Minutes" that will address the question of whether Bush pulled strings to evade being sent to Vietnam.
    • Democrat 'Ashamed' He Helped Bush
        Former Texas House speaker Ben Barnes said he is "more ashamed at myself than I've ever been" because he helped President Bush and the sons of other wealthy families get into the Texas National Guard so they could avoid serving in Vietnam.
  • Conservatives Critical of Bush
    • Conservatives for Kerry? Here's Your Man.
        "I've never understood why we take Bush and his family seriously," (says eminent author Kevin Phillips, a longtime Republican, a former Nixon aide and past party theoretician). "They come from the investment-inherited-money wing of the Republican Party. They display no real empathy for anyone who is not of their class." ... "They aren't supply-siders; they're crony-siders." ... His best-selling, muckraking book on the family that has held the presidency for eight of the past 16 years, "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush," is a sustained rummage through the Bush family closet. He pulls out all manner of files on the early Bushes and the Walker branch of the family, and their dealings with post-World War I German industrialists and post-World War II Saudi princelings. And he draws a bright connecting line between those wheeler-dealer financiers and their Texas-lite descendants. ... "Texas civic culture," Phillips writes, "more akin to that of Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil, has accepted wealth and its benefits with minimal distraction by guilt and noblesse oblige." Phillips elaborates on this critique during an interview. "George W. is the first president to come directly out of the oil industry, even if he was a failure at the actual business of looking for it," he says. "And who did he pick as his vice president? Another man from the oil industry. It's astonishing that nobody really questions the implications of this." ... George W. Bush never ran a profitable oil business, but he was terrific at raising copious sums of finance capital and walked away from each oil venture with a fatter bank account. ...
        He's confounded, too, by the Democrats' inability to savage their opponents. He frowns -- it's as if someone took pliers and pulled out the party's canine teeth. "The Democrats accumulated all this dirt on Bush, but they wouldn't use it," he says. "These people have no taste for the jugular." ...
        So what's an Nixon-Eisenhower Republican to do when he steps inside a voting booth in November 2004? Phillips shrugs. ... "I'm hoping that Kerry's a seven on a scale of 10, but I'm afraid maybe he's just a five," Phillips says. "But Kerry's running against a zero. So my choice is clear."
  • Bush Administration Health Care Plans Faltering
    • Bush Health Care Plan Seems to Fall Short
        If the Republican-controlled Congress enacted President Bush's entire health care agenda, as many as 10 million people who lack health insurance would be covered at a cost of $102 billion over the next decade, according to his campaign aides. But when the Bush-Cheney team was asked to provide documentation, the hard data fell far short of the claims, a gap supported by several independent analyses. ... Since Bush took office, the number of Americans without health insurance has climbed by 4 million, to nearly 44 million. On its Web site and at news briefings, the Bush campaign says that through its actions overseeing Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, the administration has "expanded eligibility to more than 2.6 million people." The statement gives the impression "they have extended coverage to 2.6 million more, and that is not really true," said Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. "In reality, only 200,000 of them got coverage" because of Bush administration efforts. ... "Part of the reason more people were covered is the economy got so bad that people lost income," Rowland said. "There were more low-income people under Bush than previously, so they became eligible for public programs."
  • Speaking Up For Freedom
    • 20,000 Keep Anti-GOP Rallies Going -- Marchers Protest Growing Ranks of Poverty-Stricken Under Bush
        An additional 20,000 or so demonstrators took to the streets of the city Monday, using drums and horns and chants to raise a ruckus about the Republicans who have come to town for the week. ... "It's about concrete issues today, poor people have suffered," said Monami Maulik, 29, a member of the Still We Rise/Racial Justice 911 coalition, which organized the march. "There's a demand for comprehensive commitment for education, jobs and health care." ... "There's a war against the poor, a war against our right to health care . . . all under the name of national security," said Ajamu Baraka, a human rights activist in Atlanta. ... For several days now, protests have seemed to spring up in every corner of Manhattan.
    • Celebrities Speak Out About Bush
        Hip-hop impresario Benny Boom, who has directed videos for P. Diddy, Lil' Kim and LL Cool J, didn't need to have his arm twisted to join an anti-Bush advertising campaign. "I felt like Bush stole the last election and the whole country kind of got robbed and bamboozled, and I wanted to make sure I did my part besides voting," he says. When he was approached by the liberal MoveOn PAC, "I was like, yo, I want to do an ad myself." A celebrity-saturated effort to defeat the president kicks into high gear tonight in New York. ... "What galls me to the core of my being is when George Bush pretends to be a cowboy," says Moby, recalling that he grew up near the Bush family estate in Connecticut. "It galls me that they've created the largest federal deficit in the country's history. It galls me that they basically lied about the reasons for starting a war in Iraq and alienated our allies. The list of things that gall me is too long to get into."
    • Singing for the Blues -- Musicians Tour to Defeat George Bush
        Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, the Dixie Chicks, Babyface and more than a dozen other stars are fanning out to play concerts in the most hotly contested terrain of the presidential election ... (in) the "Vote for Change Tour." ... "The overall message is that we're very unhappy with the direction that George Bush is taking this country." ... All the shows are scheduled to take place between Oct. 1 and 8. ... The tours will only reach cities in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Missouri. Ticket prices have not been established.
  • The Bush Administration and the Economy
    • Poverty Rate Up 3rd Year In a Row
        The number of Americans living in poverty or lacking health insurance rose for the third straight year in 2003, the Census Bureau announced yesterday, reflecting a job market that failed to match otherwise strong economic growth. ... The national poverty rate declined from 1993 to 2000, when it reached a low of 11.3 percent. In the next three years, 4.3 million more people fell below the poverty line, and the median household income dropped by more than $1,500 in inflation-adjusted terms.
    • Ranks of Poverty-Stricken, Uninsured Rise
        The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. While not unexpected, it was a double dose of bad economic news during a tight re-election campaign for President Bush.
    • "Republicans Misleading American People"
        John F. Kerry returned to the political wars Tuesday, firing a preemptive shot at next week's Republican National Convention here with a warning that four days of "slogans and personal attacks" cannot cover up a four-year record of economic failure. ... Republicans are responsible for "four years of lost jobs, lower wages, higher health care costs and tax cuts for the few. At every step of the way," he said, "George W. Bush has put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans." ... (C)ampaign aides gave reporters accompanying Kerry a compilation of 37 news articles and editorials decrying the ads sponsored by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. And in an obvious reference to the charge his campaign has made that Bush supporters are behind the veterans' attacks, Kerry said Republicans are "misleading the American people, hiding behind front groups, saying anything and doing anything to avoid the real issues that matter, like jobs, health care and the war in Iraq." Kerry's audience greeted that statement with a standing ovation.
        "Are the people of Ohio going to rehire a man who cost them 230,000 jobs?" (John) Edwards asked, drawing a unified "No!" from the hundreds in the audience. ... As he has for the past several days, Edwards called again for Bush to denounce an ad that has questioned Kerry's military service. "Every day these ads go on and the president refuses to say 'Stop these ads,' we are learning more and more about the character of George W. Bush."
    • Tax Cuts a Mistake
        This exercise, in which we have strained to make assumptions that might support Mr. Bush's claims that the tax cuts are affordable, has reinforced our view that these cuts are a mistake. Put simply, every plausible vision of the future suggests that government is going to grow as a share of the economy, partly because of the need to support baby boomers but also because societies demand more things of their government as they grow more prosperous. The share of government in GDP has more than quadrupled in the United States over the past century, and a World Bank cross-country study has shown that the richer a country, the larger the share of its resources that flows through the government. As people grow richer, their appetites for newer and jazzier consumer durables taper off, and the things they want more of include health, education, clean air and safety from threats both foreign and domestic. These things are often provided by the government. To starve the government with tax cuts is to misread this trend.
    • Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle
        Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found ... (T)he conclusions have heightened significance because of their source, a nonpartisan government agency headed by a former senior economist from the Bush White House, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. The study will likely stoke an already burning debate about the fairness and efficacy of $1.7 trillion in tax cuts that the president pushed through Congress. "CBO is nonpartisan, it's independent, and right now it works for a Republican Congress with a former Bush economist at its head," said Jason Furman, economic director of the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). "There's no higher authority on the subject." ... Furman said the results will be too stark to spin. "This is the first really detailed government report that says not only did the wealthy get an enormous tax cut, but, if the conclusions are what we expect, the middle class will be left paying a larger proportion of the taxes than they were before," he said.
    • A Record Deficit
        The Bush administration announced last week its revised figure for this year's budget deficit: $445 billion. This ... marks the highest deficit ever (though the administration seems to be setting the stage for a new round of better-than-expected numbers just before Election Day). Only in the administration's upside-down economic world could a deficit $70 billion higher than last year's be hailed as progress. ... As the administration notes, tax cuts account for 29 percent of the deterioration in the budget balance in the past three years. The lesson of the new deficit numbers is that these cuts are a cost the country cannot afford.
  • Bush Administration Bungling of Terror Alerts
    • Goss Backed '95 Bill to Slash Intelligence: Plan Would Have Cut Personnel 20%
        President Bush's nominee to be the director of central intelligence, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), sponsored legislation that would have cut intelligence personnel by 20 percent in the late 1990s. ... The Bush reelection campaign has been blasting Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry as deeply irresponsible for proposing intelligence cuts at the same time. ... But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry and specifically targeted the "human intelligence" that has recently been found lacking. The recent report by the commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks called for more spending on human intelligence.
    • Credible and Direct? - Not!
        To sum up: The country has an administration that has still not mastered the art of conveying clear, useful information about terrorist threats to the public. The city (Washington, D.C.) has a Capitol security team that doesn't act according to that information anyway. Surely there must be a better way.
    • Old Data, New Credibility Issues for Administration
        The White House's failure to make it clear that the dramatic terrorism alert Sunday was based largely on information that predated the Sept. 11 attacks is a case study in the difficulty of managing such warnings for an administration whose credibility is a central issue in a difficult presidential campaign. ... (F)ormer Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean strongly suggest(ed) political motives behind the announcement. "I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism," Dean said Sunday. Moreover, the administration's credibility on intelligence matters has been undermined by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- a fact that Kerry has repeatedly noted on the stump. In his nomination acceptance speech last week, Kerry declared: "Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. . . . As president, I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence." ... Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland, found it curious that the administration withheld the dated nature of the information at the time of the original announcement ... Greenberger added that the alert "has left a lot of anger in its wake" among local officials, who had to use resources and money that might have been held in reserve if the age of the intelligence had been clear from the beginning. He said the administration's credibility may be hurt the next time it issues a warning.
    • 'Fortresses of Fear'
        At the rate federal authorities are walling off U.S. buildings and grounds in the nation's capital, downtown Washington could become a partitioned government enclave in only a few years. ... Mayor Anthony A. Williams ... said in a statement: "We cannot allow the symbols of American freedom and democracy to be transformed into fortresses of fear." That, however, is exactly what U.S. security officials, in the name of fighting terrorism, are doing. ... "Walling off the Capitol," as Mr. Williams observed, "is a capitulation to terrorism."
  • The Democratic Party National Convention
    • all speakers' text speeches and video clips -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/shoulders/dnc_fullschedule.html
    • Senator John Kerry
    • Senator John Edwards
    • In Speech, Kerry Vows 'America Can Do Better'
        John Forbes Kerry accepted the Democratic presidential nomination Thursday night, offering himself to Americans as a decorated Vietnam War veteran who saw the horrors of war firsthand as a young man, and who nearly four decades later is ready to defend the country with more vigilance and better judgment than President Bush. Asserting that America is in "a global war on terror against an enemy unlike any we have ever known before," Kerry repeatedly challenged Bush's credibility, and charged that the Republican incumbent presents a pose of strength but not the reality. In one of his sharpest lines against Bush, Kerry said his brand of leadership "starts by telling the truth to the American people. That is my first pledge to you tonight: As president, I will restore trust and credibility." To charges that he does not share traditional values, Kerry said, "I don't wear my religion on my sleeve, but faith has given me values and hope to live by from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, 'I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side.'"
    • A Challenge To the GOP On Values, Security
        Before a jam-packed audience at FleetCenter, Kerry delivered an acceptance speech designed not just to promote his candidacy but also to answer critics who say he is too liberal, too cerebral and lacks an obvious sense of humor. But at its heart, it was an attempt to turn the policies of the Bush administration on their head and argue in often toughly worded language that there is a different way to keep the country safe, a better way to make it prosperous, and a less divisive way to govern.
  • The Republican Strategy -- Underhanded Politics
    • GOP Abuse of Power in the U.S. House
        House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) plans to lash out at the chamber's Republican leaders today with a report accusing them of abusing their power through parliamentary tactics designed to suppress dissent. The report documents cases where rules governing major legislation "severely restrict or sometimes even totally block the minority's ability to debate or amend bills." It charges that Republicans on the Rules Committee have intentionally "used emergency meeting procedures and late-night meetings . . . to discourage Members and the press from participating in the legislative process." "While this Republican administration has spoken strongly about promoting democracy around the world, the House Republican leadership is working feverishly to undermine democracy here at home," she said in a statement to be released with the report.
        "In the 108th Congress, House Republicans became the most arrogant, unethical and corrupt majority in modern Congressional history," the report begins. It notes that Gingrich said during a January seminar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars that the House leadership's tight rein on House proceedings is an "enormous strategic mistake."
        Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said that the method by which Republicans run the House and their procedures "are moral decisions." "Over the past two years, the Republican leadership ignored House Rules and the basic standards of legislative fairness and decency with an impunity that is unprecedented in the history of the House of Representatives," she said in a statement.
    • GOP Prism Distorts Kerry Positions
        Speakers at this week's Republican convention have relentlessly attacked John F. Kerry for statements he has made and votes he has taken in his long political career, but a number of their specific claims -- such as his votes on military programs -- are at best selective and in many cases stripped of their context. ... the barrage by Republicans at their own convention has often misportrayed statements or votes that are years, if not decades, old. For instance ...
        Though Miller recited a long list of weapons systems, Kerry did not vote against these specific weapons on the floor of the Senate during this period. Instead, he voted against an omnibus defense spending bill that would have funded all these programs; it is this vote that forms the crux of the GOP case that he "opposed" these programs. On the Senate floor, Kerry cast his vote in terms of fiscal concerns, saying the defense bill did not "represent sound budgetary policy" in a time of "extreme budget austerity." ...
        Kerry's vote last year against the administration's $87 billion proposal to fund troops in Iraq and pay for Iraqi reconstruction has also been the focus of Republican attacks. "My opponent and his running mate voted against this money for bullets, and fuel, and vehicles, and body armor," Bush said last night. Kerry actually supported all those things, but as part of a different version of the bill opposed by the administration. At the time, many Republicans were uncomfortable with the administration's plans and the White House had to threaten a veto against the congressional version to bring reluctant lawmakers in line. In a floor statement explaining his vote, Kerry said he favored the $67 billion for the troops on the ground -- "I support our troops in Iraq and their mission" -- but faulted the administration's $20 billion request for reconstruction. He complained that administration "has only given us a set of goals and vague timetables, not a detailed plan." Yesterday, the State Department said that only $1 billion of that money has been spent in the 11 months since the bill was passed.
    • George Bush, No Fastball From the Mound
        Bush still has problems maintaining poise. Twice, when cheers from the crowd (at the Republican National Convention) were interrupted by jeers from protesters -- who were quickly hustled out of the hall by security guards and police -- Bush looked flustered, even frightened, though he did keep reading from the prompting devices encircling him. Ronald Reagan in the same situation would have responded with a quip and dismissed the protesters with a tolerant smile. Bush clung carefully to his text, his eyes darting anxiously around the hall. ...
        Taking no chances, Bush opened and closed the speech with remarks keyed to the vicious assaults by suicidal extremists on Sept. 11, 2001, and remarks about terrorism generally. In the last 10 minutes of the speech, as he reeled off emotional anecdotes, Bush was trying either to fight back tears or to induce them. ...
        Bob Schieffer of CBS News had the guts to tell anchor Dan Rather that the speech "just quite frankly was too long" and that many of the supposedly bold proposals Bush was making had a very familiar ring to them.
    • A Failure of Accountability
        Only a few years ago, it seemed the slightest suggestion of malfeasance by a presidential administration -- allegations of tampering with a minor administrative office, say, or indications that a cabinet secretary might have understated the amount of money given to a former girlfriend -- could trigger a formidable response from the other two branches of government: grand juries, special prosecutors, endless congressional hearings, even impeachment proceedings. Some of that auditing, especially during the Clinton administration, went too far. Yet now the country faces a frightening inversion of the problem. Though there is strong evidence of faulty and even criminal behavior by senior military commanders and members of President Bush's cabinet in the handling of foreign detainees, neither Congress nor the justice system is taking adequate steps to hold those officials accountable. ...
        When the prisoner abuse allegations first became public in May, many members of Congress, including several senior Republicans, vowed to pursue the evidence up the chain of command and not to allow low-ranking reservists to be prosecuted while more senior officials escaped sanction. Yet, as matters now stand, Mr. Rumsfeld, Gen. Sanchez and other senior officials are poised to execute just such an escape. When the scandal began, these leaders told Congress they were prepared to accept responsibility for the wrongdoing. As it turns out, they didn't mean that in any substantive respect. Their dodge shames not only them but the legal and legislative bodies charged with enforcing accountability.
    • Divide and Conquer
        A top official from a former Republican White House said Bush's governing operation created critical problems for his political arm by deciding to "divide and conquer rather than unite and win." This official, who refused to be identified because he works with Bush's inner circle, said that largely because of Vice President Cheney's influence, the White House adopted a confrontational style with Capitol Hill and with the Democratic Party that is endangering Bush's chance of reelection. "There's nobody over there saying 'No,' " the official said. "It's all the same Kool-Aid. Instead of the art of governing, it's been, 'Are you for me or against me?'"
    • Do You Hear What I Hear?
        Taking what John Kerry says and twisting it to mean something else -- one way how the Bush campaign lies about Kerry.
    • Voter Intimidation
      • President's Speeches for Only his Supporters, Not the American People
          GOP Volunteer Probed on Role at President's Speech after 3 Democratic Observers Were Ejected From Event. This is not the first time the White House has faced scrutiny for ousting critics from Bush appearances or trying to stack audiences with friendly Republicans. Several people reported similar treatment at other Social Security rallies, as well as during the 2004 presidential campaign. The ACLU is investigating other incidents to determine whether it can show a pattern of unlawfully silencing critics. "The incidents occurred in so many locations, it's hard to believe individuals in each local area are coincidentally making the same decision," said Christopher Hansen of the ACLU Foundation in New York.
      • Groups Say GOP Moves to Stifle Vote
          The NAACP and other civil rights leaders yesterday charged that recent events suggest the Republican Party is mounting a campaign to keep African Americans and other minority voters away from the polls this November. In a new report, the NAACP and People for the American Way cite incidents from Florida to Detroit. NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said efforts at intimidation and suppression, once a tool of Democrats in the Jim Crow South, "have increasingly become the province of the Republican Party" as it seeks to counter the overwhelming advantage Democrats enjoy among black voters. ... (In Florida) the GOP secretary of state was forced to abandon an effort to remove felons from the state's voting rolls after newspapers discovered that the "purge" list erroneously would have disenfranchised thousands of qualified voters, many of them African Americans. Additionally, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement intimidated black voters in Orlando to scare them away from the polls in November. ... A Republican state representative in Michigan told the Detroit Free Press that the GOP will have "a tough time" if "we do not suppress the Detroit vote." Detroit is 83 percent black. ... In Jefferson County, Ky., the local GOP plans to send poll watchers to Democratic, predominantly black precincts to challenge voters' eligibility. A similar, 2002 plan provoked cries of voter intimidation after a recruitment flier became public. ... In Maryland's 2002 gubernatorial election, anonymous fliers were distributed in black neighborhoods in Baltimore gave voters the wrong date for Election Day.
    • Manipulating Policy
      • The "Fill Rule" -- Appalachia Is Paying Price for Rule Change
          The "fill rule" is a case study of how the Bush administration has attempted to reshape environmental policy in the face of fierce opposition.
          The coal industry chafes at the name -- "mountaintop removal" -- but it aptly describes the novel mining method that became popular in this part of Appalachia in the late 1980s. Miners target a green peak, scrape it bare of trees and topsoil, and then blast away layer after layer of rock until the mountaintop is gone. In just over a decade, coal miners used the technique to flatten hundreds of peaks across a region spanning West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. Thousands of tons of rocky debris were dumped into valleys, permanently burying more than 700 miles of mountain streams. By 1999, concerns over the damage to waterways triggered a backlash of lawsuits and court rulings that slowed the industry's growth to a trickle. Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the practice of dumping mining debris into streambeds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable "waste" to legally acceptable "fill." The "fill rule," as the May 2002 rule change is now known, is a case study of how the Bush administration has attempted to reshape environmental policy in the face of fierce opposition from environmentalists, citizens groups and political opponents. Rather than proposing broad changes or drafting new legislation, administration officials often have taken existing regulations and made subtle tweaks that carry large consequences.
      • 'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis of Regulation
          The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate -- is used as a cudgel to beat back regulation.
          (T)he Data Quality Act (is) a little-known piece of legislation that, under President Bush's Office of Management and Budget, has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation. The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate -- is just two sentences directing the OMB to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses. ... Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda. In the past six months, more than 4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science. The White House's heavy editing of a key global-warming report, its efforts to emphasize abstinence rather than condoms in the war against AIDS and its alleged stacking of scientific advisory committees have drawn particular ire. But many scientists and public advocates believe that far more is at stake with the Data Quality Act. From their perspective, the act is shifting the authority over the nation's science into the politicized environment of the OMB -- a change, they say, that will favor big business.
      • Bush Forces a Shift in Regulatory Thrust
          The administration has employed a subtle aspect of presidential power to implement far-reaching policy changes. Most of the decisions are made without the public attention that accompanies congressional debate. --
          Tuberculosis had sneaked up again, reappearing with alarming frequency across the United States. The government began writing rules to protect 5 million people whose jobs put them in special danger. Hospitals and homeless shelters, prisons and drug treatment centers -- all would be required to test their employees for TB, hand out breathing masks and quarantine those with the disease. These steps, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration predicted, could prevent 25,000 infections a year and 135 deaths. By the time President Bush moved into the White House, the tuberculosis rules, first envisioned in 1993, were nearly complete. But the new administration did nothing on the issue for the next three years. Then, on the last day of 2003, in an action so obscure it was not mentioned in any major newspaper in the country, the administration canceled the rules. Voluntary measures, federal officials said, were effective enough to make regulation unnecessary. ... The (Washington Post) analysis, combined with the more detailed look at specific regulatory decisions, shows how an administration can employ this subtle aspect of presidential power to implement far-reaching policy changes. Most of the decisions are made without the public attention that accompanies congressional debate. Under Bush, these decisions have spanned logging in national forests, patients' rights in government health insurance programs, tests for tainted packaged meats, Indian land transactions and grants to religious charities.
    • People Tired of Bush Tactics
        "I just think the people are getting smarter as to Mr. Bush's antics. I think Bush is money-hungry, he's power-hungry, and I think people are starting to smarten up and see through him," Jan Gion, 53, a high school teacher in Fargo, said Saturday as she waited for Edwards at the rally. ... Mary Hansen, a Lutheran minister who was seated nearby, chimed in that one thing the Democratic ticket should do is "address and bring along the support that he has of non-evangelical Christians. That's a big play that the Republicans have, that they're the Christian party. . . . I've been a Democrat for 33 years, and it is my understanding that it is the Democrats who care about the people and not the Republicans," Hansen said. "There are a lot of good Christians who don't happen to be evangelical Christians who feel very strongly about this election." ... Joyce Slater, 73, a registered Republican, stood in the rain waiting for Edwards at a rally in Flint on Friday afternoon. "I'm very disappointed in Bush. We've got 931 dead boys, and for what? And how many injured? Thousands. And thousands of dead Iraqis and for what?" Slater asked.
    • The Republican Smear of Kerry
      • Topic of Terror Overshadowing All Others
          It is no coincidence that each prime-time (Republican Convention) speech this week, whatever the stated theme, has turned to national security. With the economy showing signs of a summer swoon, the president's campaign is betting his surest route to reelection is by keeping the focus on terrorism. ... Miller and Cheney reached deep into Kerry's past to present him as a danger to Americans' security -- at times mischaracterizing the Democrat's positions in the process. ... Democrats, naturally, suspect a more sinister motive. "He's just not going to fool swing voters and moderates a second time" with talk about economic opportunity and compassion, said Jim Jordan, Kerry's former campaign manager who is advising an anti-Bush advertising effort. "The better bet, and they know it, is to keep up the John Wayne act."
      • Bush-Cheney Lawyer Advised Anti-Kerry Vets
          A top lawyer in President Bush's reelection campaign acknowledged Tuesday that he has been advising the veterans group seeking to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry's military record, an admission the Kerry campaign said is evidence the president's campaign is orchestrating a "smear" by the private group. Benjamin L. Ginsberg, the chief outside counsel to the Bush campaign who also has advised Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said: "I've done some work for them. . . . The law lets lawyers do that . . . and does not include lawyers among the coordinated political activities" that are prohibited by federal election law. ... Ginsberg's dual roles complicate the Bush campaign's effort to rebut as "frivolous" Kerry's complaint that it is behind the Swift boat ads. ... "If the Bush campaign truly disapproved of this smear, their top lawyer wouldn't be involved with the Swift boat veterans group,'' said Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton.
        • Bush Campaign Chief Outside Lawyer Resigns
            The Bush campaign's chief outside counsel resigned Wednesday morning after acknowledging on Tuesday that he also was providing legal advice to the veterans group working to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's war record. ... Ginsberg's resignation followed the Bush campaign's dismissal Saturday of a volunteer on its veterans steering committee who appeared in a Swift boat veterans ad. ... Ginsberg's dual role ... was seized upon by the Kerry campaign as evidence the president's campaign is orchestrating a "smear" by the private group. ...
            Mary Beth Cahill, the Kerry campaign manager, used Ginsberg's resignation to renew Kerry's request for Bush to renounce the ads by the swift boat veterans. "The sudden resignation of Bush's top lawyer doesn't end the extensive web of connections between George Bush and the group trying to smear John Kerry's military record," she said in a statement. "In fact, it only confirms the extent of those connections. Now we know why George Bush refuses to specifically condemn these false ads. People deeply involved in his own campaign are behind them, from paying for them, to appearing in them, to providing legal advice, to coordinating a negative strategy to divert the public away from issues like jobs, health care and the mess in Iraq, the real concerns of the American people. It's time for George Bush to take responsibility himself and condemn these false attacks." ... The Kerry campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission charging illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the group. ...
            Democrats also said their allegation of collusion was supported by a flier at a Bush-Cheney office in Florida promoting a Swift boat event, and by close relationships in the past between backers of the veterans group and Bush aides such as political adviser Karl Rove.
        • Lawyer Quits Bush-Cheney Organization
            The chief outside counsel to President Bush's campaign resigned yesterday after acknowledging he had provided legal advice to a veterans group that has run television ads attacking Democratic nominee John F. Kerry. ....
            The resignation came amid a growing political battle over the allegations by the Swift boat veterans about Kerry's combat record as a naval officer in Vietnam and his antiwar activities in the early 1970s. Those charges have been aired in ads running in only a few battleground states, but they have dominated coverage of the presidential campaign for the past 10 days. Many of the charges have been undermined by the testimony of other veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam or by military records.
            Kerry's campaign, after initially ignoring the charges, has mounted a fierce counterattack in the past week, charging that the Swift boat ad campaign was orchestrated by the Bush campaign and calling on the president to denounce the ads directly, which he has declined to do. Kerry officials seized on Ginsberg's resignation as evidence of collusion between the anti-Kerry veterans and the Bush team, and said it calls into question statements from Bush advisers that the campaign has no connection with the ads of outside groups.
      • Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete And Flawed -- Critics Fail to Disprove Kerry's Version of Vietnam War Episode
          An investigation by The Washington Post into what happened that day (in Vietnam indicates that) although Kerry's accusers have succeeded in raising doubts about his war record, they have failed to come up with sufficient evidence to prove him a liar. ... On the core issue of whether Kerry was wounded under enemy fire, thereby qualifying for a third Purple Heart, the Navy records clearly favor Kerry. Several documents, including the after-action report and the Bronze Star citation for a Swift boat skipper who has accused Kerry of lying, refer to "all units" coming under "automatic and small-weapons fire." ... Many Swift boat veterans opposed to Kerry acknowledge that their disgust with him was fueled by his involvement in the antiwar movement.
      • Military Records Counter A Critic Of Kerry
          Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.
          In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day. But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him." ... Thurlow, an oil industry worker and former teacher in Kansas, said he was angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return to the United States. .... Members of Kerry's crew have come to his defense, as has Rassmann, the Special Forces officer whom he fished from the river. Rassmann says he has vivid memories of being fired at from both banks after he fell into the river and as Kerry came to his rescue.
      • "Republicans Misleading American People"
          John F. Kerry returned to the political wars Tuesday, firing a preemptive shot at next week's Republican National Convention here with a warning that four days of "slogans and personal attacks" cannot cover up a four-year record of economic failure. ... Republicans are responsible for "four years of lost jobs, lower wages, higher health care costs and tax cuts for the few. At every step of the way," he said, "George W. Bush has put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans." ... (C)ampaign aides gave reporters accompanying Kerry a compilation of 37 news articles and editorials decrying the ads sponsored by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. And in an obvious reference to the charge his campaign has made that Bush supporters are behind the veterans' attacks, Kerry said Republicans are "misleading the American people, hiding behind front groups, saying anything and doing anything to avoid the real issues that matter, like jobs, health care and the war in Iraq." Kerry's audience greeted that statement with a standing ovation.
          "Are the people of Ohio going to rehire a man who cost them 230,000 jobs?" (John) Edwards asked, drawing a unified "No!" from the hundreds in the audience. ... As he has for the past several days, Edwards called again for Bush to denounce an ad that has questioned Kerry's military service. "Every day these ads go on and the president refuses to say 'Stop these ads,' we are learning more and more about the character of George W. Bush."
      • Analysis: Dispute Over Kerry's Vietnam Service Cuts Both Ways
          (S)ome Republican strategists see the potential for a backlash developing that will hurt the president, who they say must overcome doubts about his leadership on Iraq and the economy and can ill afford voters concluding that he and his campaign orchestrated the attacks on Kerry by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. ... Other Democrats say that in the end, the fact that Kerry served voluntarily in Vietnam will be enough to satisfy swing voters, who are more worried about Iraq and the economy than about what happened 35 years ago. ... Kerry advisers hope to put Bush on the defensive by suggesting a pattern to the president's campaigns, arguing that Bush allies sought to sully Arizona Sen. John McCain's military record during the 2000 GOP primary in South Carolina and that the GOP did the same to then-Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) two years ago. The Kerry camp also has called on Bush to condemn the Swift boat ad, noting that Kerry had denounced a scurrilous ad run by a Democratic group. "Making the connection to the president is very powerful to voters because it opens a whole line of scrutiny around the president and how he has dealt with this issue before," Devine said.
      • Swift Boat Sniping
          (A)ds by the group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had crossed the line in smearing the service that earned Mr. Kerry three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. Nothing we've seen in the two weeks since has changed that view. In fact, additional evidence has emerged, in reporting by The Post's Michael Dobbs and in other papers, that further discredits the group's claims. The Post reported that Larry Thurlow, who accused Mr. Kerry of lying about being under enemy fire when he rescued Jim Rassmann, earned a Bronze Star in the same episode -- for his heroism, according to the citation, "despite enemy bullets flying about him." Two crewmen on other boats have also said that Mr. Kerry and his crew mates were being fired on. ... (T)he Bush campaign's disingenuous response to the ads -- declining to condemn them but rather calling on all independent "527" groups to cease and desist -- has done no credit to the president ... Resurrecting a tactic wielded against Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) four years ago, Bush surrogates have irresponsibly suggested that Mr. Kerry is dangerously rattled by the controversy, flinging about terms such as "wild-eyed" (Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot) and "losing his cool" (White House press secretary Scott McClellan). It's remarkable that the current Vietnam debate centers on Mr. Kerry's record. Even if Mr. Bush faithfully fulfilled his National Guard service, he undeniably took steps to avoid the duty for which Mr. Kerry volunteered. Likewise, Vice President Cheney availed himself of five draft deferments.
      • Kerry Team Lines Up Vietnam Witnesses
          The Kerry campaign ratcheted up its defense of the Democrat's military record yesterday, producing three veterans to attest to John F. Kerry's valor in Vietnam while pointing reporters to other veterans who expressed disgust at the attacks on the presidential nominee. In a conference call with reporters arranged by the campaign, three Navy Swift boat officers who served with Kerry 35 years ago but who said they have not been in touch with him for years defended his service and his bravery. Rich McCann, Jim Russell and Rich Baker said Kerry served honorably and took issue with questions raised by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about his commendations.
          ... President Bush yesterday repeated his condemnation of unregulated money that he said was "pouring" into the political process. But he stopped short of denouncing the ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is being aired in three battleground states and is funded largely by Republicans. ... In Oshkosh, Wis., Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, blasted Bush for not being more critical of the ad and the claims by the group. "Today, George Bush faced his moment of truth and he failed," said Edwards, who has repeatedly called on the president to denounce the veterans group's ad. "He failed to condemn the specific attacks on John Kerry's military record. We didn't need to hear a politician's answer, but unfortunately that's what we got."
          ... William L. Sweidel, a decorated Korean War veteran who appeared with Sandusky, said later that he voted for both Bushes for president but will support Kerry because of these attacks. "I called the campaign to express outrage. I was disappointed. I was diminished," Sweidel said. "Nobody was talking about how it was hurting all veterans to have them criticize Kerry's medals. The whole system is now suspect based on what these people are saying. It's pernicious." ...
          McCann said that he tried to stay out of politics but that when he saw that the Swift boat group had identified him on its Web site as being "neutral" on Kerry without asking him, he was furious. Kerry's commendation record "has stood for 35 years and suddenly you've got people coming forward saying, 'Well, I've had second thoughts about this,' " McCann said. "That is dishonoring not only John Kerry, it is dishonoring all veterans."
      • Group to Air Ad Attacking Kerry's 1971 Testimony
          ... the Democratic National Committee defended Kerry with a new ad, featuring retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. McPeak -- a Bush supporter in 2000. "John Kerry has the strength and common sense we need in a commander in chief," McPeak says in the ad. ... Yesterday, Kerry did not respond to the new allegations, although aides said his testimony was directed at military leadership, not the soldiers fighting in Vietnam. The Kerry campaign filed a legal challenge against the veterans group, alleging it is illegally colluding with the Bush campaign. Aides denounced the president and his aides for what they called a smear campaign. ... A local Bush-Cheney organization in Florida, for example, is listed in a new brochure promoting an upcoming rally of the anti-Kerry Swift boat veterans. ... "This is another ad from a front group funded by Bush allies that is trying to smear John Kerry," Kerry spokesman Jonathan Beeton said in a statement. "The newest ad takes Kerry's testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts. He testified as a 27-year-old Vietnam veteran. He opposed a war that, at that point, cost over 44,000 lives of the 58,245 names that are on the Vietnam Memorial wall."
      • Kerry: Ad Groups Do Bush's 'Dirty Work' -- 08/20
          Faced with unrelenting attacks on his military record, Sen. John F. Kerry on Thursday said a Republican-funded group of veterans is lying about his service in Vietnam and operating as a front organization for President Bush. The president "wants them to do his dirty work," Kerry said. ... "Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam." ... "Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that," Kerry told the International Association of Fire Fighters meeting here.
      • Kerry: Ad Groups Do Bush's 'Dirty Work' -- 08/19
          John F. Kerry for the first time Thursday personally lashed out at critics who have waged unrelenting and increasingly shrill attacks on his military record, calling them a "front for the Bush campaign" and asserting that President Bush "wants them to do his dirty work." ... "(Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) isn't interested in the truth -- and they're not telling the truth. They didn't even exist until I won the nomination for president," Kerry told a few thousand firefighters at the International Association of Firefighters meeting here. "They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the president won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know -- he wants them to do his dirty work." ... "Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country," Kerry said to loud cheers from the audience. "Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that."
      • MoveOn.org's Swift Response to Anti-Kerry Ad
          A liberal organization is taking to the airwaves today to challenge an ad by a group of Navy veterans that accuses Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) of distorting his Vietnam record. ... The ad in question, from a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, charges Kerry with "lying about his first Purple Heart" in Vietnam 35 years ago. The MoveOn response -- airing in the same four markets in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin, and on CNN and Fox News -- begins by attacking President Bush's military record. "George Bush used his father to get into the National Guard, and when the chips were down, went missing," a narrator says. "Now he's allowing false advertising that attacks John Kerry, a man who asked to go to Vietnam and served with dignity and heroism." The ad quotes Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) as calling on the Bush campaign to condemn the "dishonest and dishonorable" ad.
      • McCain Criticizes Ad Attacking Kerry's Service
          Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) rushed to John F. Kerry's defense Thursday, condemning a new ad claiming the Democratic presidential nominee lied about his military record and betrayed his Vietnam comrades by protesting the war. McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, called on President Bush to condemn the ad, which was financed in part by a major Republican Party donor in Texas. ... The general counsel for the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee sent television stations a letter asking them not to run the ad because it is "an inflammatory, outrageous lie" by people purporting to have served with Kerry. In an interview with the Associated Press, McCain called the ad "dishonest and dishonorable." Asked if the White House was behind it, McCain said: "I hope not, but I don't know. But I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the ad."
          (Another issue is the Missouri vote to ban same-sex unions.) "I don't think gay marriage is going to be a big issue in Missouri -- people realize there are far more important issues at stake that affect everybody's lives, not just a few," said Joan McCarthy, 45, a database administrator here (St. Louis). Rochelle Webber-Williams, 45, a Gulf War veteran, recited the mantra that jobs and the economy matter in Missouri above all else. "Personally I really don't care what people do behind closed doors. What I do care about is the economy and the war," she said. "People want a change from Bush more than anything else -- that's why I'm voting for Kerry."
      • Swift Boat Smears
          John F. Kerry has made his tour of duty in Vietnam -- a stint in which he earned three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star -- a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. ... (A) new assault on Mr. Kerry -- in an ad by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and in a new book -- crosses the line in branding Mr. Kerry a coward and a liar. This smear is contradicted by Mr. Kerry's crew mates, undercut by the previous statements of some of those now making the charges and tainted by the chief source of its funding: Republican activists dedicated to defeating Mr. Kerry in November. ... The biggest single donor so far to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth isn't a Swift boat veteran but one of the leading Republican donors in Texas. Houston builder Bob J. Perry gave the group $100,000, accounting for the bulk of the $158,000 in receipts it has reported. It's fair to ask whether truth is at the top of this group's agenda.
      • Group Runs Anti-Kerry Ads on Radio Stations
          A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots. ... The Kerry campaign denounced the ads, all of which are being aired on radio stations with largely black audiences. "It's disgusting that the president's political allies are now using race as a political weapon," said Bill Lynch, deputy manager of the Kerry campaign. "First a group of right-wing Swift boat veterans began smearing John Kerry's military service, and now another group has resorted to playing racial politics."
    • Who's the Flip-Flopper?
        John F. Kerry now finds himself accused of aggravated flip-flopping in the first degree. The charge comes from various Republican Party front groups, individual GOP fellow travelers and, of course, the president himself. ... In supposed contrast to Kerry, Bush presents himself as the immutable politician, a man of fixed, firm beliefs who sticks to them not because they are popular but because they are right -- despite all evidence or reason. This is certainly the case when it comes to his core beliefs. ... But on other matters, Bush has flipped and flopped with the best of them. ... Flip-flopping, like beauty, is in the mind of the beholder. It can be an indicator of an alert mind, one that adjusts to new realities, or it can be evidence of ambition decoupled from principle. With Kerry it's a mix of both. With Bush, who changes his positions but never his mind, it is always the latter.
    • Mr. Keyes the Carpetbagger
        Facing popular Democratic state Sen. Barack Obama on the November ballot, the Illinois Republican Party -- after its candidate dropped out because of some sex-related allegations -- has gone out of state in search of a party member to pick up the GOP flag. ... But then Republicans in the Land of Lincoln -- and this is the political party that preaches world without end that it is race-blind and wedded only to merit -- actively sought out African American candidates to run against Mr. Obama, also an African American. Cynical you say? Yes, and tokenism, too. ... (This) is a sad commentary on ... the desperation -- or shall we say apparent defeatism -- of a Republican Party that turns to a Marylander with a track record that almost rivals that of Harold Stassen.
    • Republicans Helping Nader to Help Themselves
        The Michigan Republican Party submitted more than 40,000 signatures last week in a bid to get independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the state's November ballot. Of course, this is not really about helping Nader. It is all about helping President Bush and hurting Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry's campaign in a closely contested state. The Michigan GOP denies that, of course.
      • An Ad Campaign Asserts a Bush-Nader Alliance
          A new advertising campaign satirizing the Republican financial support of Ralph Nader's independent campaign for the presidency sums up the effort this way: Bush-Nader '04. ... "Republicans are helping Nader get on the ballot in Oregon, Nevada, Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, even Florida," an announcer says. "Why? Because the right wing believes that helping Ralph Nader helps George Bush." ... "We're talking about organized Republican operatives," Mr. Kofinis said. "They're not doing it nonbattleground states." ... "He (Nader) is now at a point where his entire legacy may come down to him helping Bush stay in office for another four years and him cooperating with the right-wing groups that he's opposed," Mr. Kofinis said.
        • TheNaderFactor.com
  • The C.I.A. Leak
    • Reporter Held In Contempt in CIA Leak Case
        A federal judge has held a Time magazine reporter in contempt of court for refusing to testify in an investigation of the leak of a CIA officer's identity, rejecting requests from two media organizations to quash federal grand jury subpoenas seeking information from the media. ... While NBC fought a subpoena issued May 21 and was included in the opinion, it avoided a contempt citation after Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," agreed to an interview over the weekend in which he answered a limited number of questions posed by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, NBC said in a statement. Lawyers involved in the case said it appears that Fitzgerald is now armed with a strong and unambiguous court ruling to demand the testimony of two journalists -- syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, who first disclosed the CIA officer's name, and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, who has written that a Post reporter received information about her from a Bush administration official. ... Fitzgerald has shown a continuing interest in (Vice President Cheney chief of staff Lewis I. "Scooter") Libby, witnesses have said, but it now appears that his reasons may be more complex than was first apparent. Libby has signed a waiver allowing reporters to tell the prosecutor whether he disclosed Plame's name to them. Prosecutors have e-mails and phone records showing his contacts with reporters, and witnesses have said they are interested in a story Cooper wrote last summer in which Libby was interviewed.
  • Postponing the U.S. Elections Is Only One Step Away From Stealing the Elections
    • Lawmaker Doubts U.S. Warnings Of Possible Attack to Stop Elections
        A Democratic congressman who receives classified briefings on the threat of terrorist attacks said yesterday that top U.S. government officials' repeated statements that international terrorists want to disrupt the American electoral process this year "appear to have no basis." Rep. Jim Turner (Tex.), ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, said that after several recent briefings by U.S. intelligence officials about perceived terrorist threats this summer and fall, "I don't have any information that al Qaeda" plans to attack the election process. "Nobody knows anything about timing" or the exact nature of any possible attack, although U.S. officials say al Qaeda wants to mount an attack this year, Turner said. ... Some Democrats have suggested lately that top U.S. officials, by raising fears of a terrorist attack to derail the elections, are trying to get President Bush reelected. But they have not cited evidence. An example of such statements was one by Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) after Ridge's news conference: "This administration has a long track record of using deceptive tactics for political gain. One cannot help but question whether their aim was to deflect attention from the Kerry-Edwards ticket during their inaugural week." ... "The Department of Homeland Security should not instill fear or inject uncertainty into the election," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in a statement. Cox and Turner discounted the likelihood of the country canceling Election Day, pointing out that it could require a constitutional amendment and emergency action by Congress and state legislatures. "The last thing we want to do is suppress [voter] turnout because people think Election Day is a dangerous day," Turner said. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the administration is not considering postponing the elections. "We've had elections in this country when we were at war, even when we were in civil war. And we should have the elections on time. That's the view of the president, that's the view of the administration," Rice told CNN.
    • Tuesday in November
        Perhaps without meaning to, Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, opened an unexpected can of worms last week when he warned of a terrorist attack designed to disrupt November's presidential election. His comments -- maddeningly lacking in detail, as always -- immediately suggested a number of nightmare electoral scenarios. ... Those who want to prepare for any of these scenarios are limited by the Constitution, which states that the presidential election must take place on a single day across the country and that Congress is responsible for setting the date. Yet on Election Day, Congress will not be in session. State and local officials will be in charge. And the time for disputes is limited: According to the 20th Amendment, the new president must be sworn in by Jan. 20, 2005. If not, the speaker of the House becomes president. ... In recent days, Mr. Ridge informally asked the Justice Department to look at what might happen if an election had to be postponed, leading to a few suspicious, even hysterical reactions, and talk of stolen elections. While it is appropriate for the administration to think out loud about how it should react, it must bend over backward to do so in a bipartisan, premeditated fashion, with no hint of politicization. The legislature, not the executive, is clearly the body that should deal with this issue.
    • Election Officials Consider Security Options at Polls
        U.S. officials are expressing concern that terrorists will try to disrupt the presidential election in November by launching an attack around Election Day, but they are only now planning to raise the subject with local election officials. Meanwhile, the chairman of a federal voting commission said the government has been negligent in not moving faster. "Nothing has been done," said DeForest B. Soaries, chairman of the Election Assistance Commission, which Congress created to help localities improve their voting systems. ... Soaries, a Baptist minister who was New Jersey's secretary of state from 1999 to 2002, said he wrote two letters to Homeland Security, in April and last month, but received no reply. The letters urged the agency to start discussing security concerns with local officials, and also said the government should consider changing the date of the November election in the event of a terrorist strike, he said.
  • The Republican Congress and Bush Administration - More Doublespeak
    • The Berger Affair
        Whether it was a mistake or not, (Sandy) Berger's conduct (improperly removing secret documents from the National Archives), the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI, was reprehensible, and he was right to resign as a Kerry adviser. Still, it's hard not to be repulsed by the reaction to the affair by President Bush's campaign spokesmen and Republicans in Congress. They have suggested, without foundation, that Mr. Berger took the papers to benefit Mr. Kerry, who says that he knew nothing of the matter; House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has spoken, with gross hyperbole, of a "national security crisis." Having squelched congressional examination of a genuine national security scandal -- the involvement of U.S. military commanders in grave violations of the Geneva Conventions in Iraq -- House leaders, including Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), have rushed to announce hearings on the Berger affair. As happened so often during the Clinton administration, they are treating a real but apparently limited case of misconduct as an opportunity to misuse congressional oversight powers to wage partisan warfare. It's worth noting that news of the months-old investigation of Mr. Berger just happened to leak on the week before the Democratic convention, and two days before the release of the Sept. 11 commission's report -- which covers serious lapses by President Bush as well as President Bill Clinton. Officials at the Bush White House had been briefed on the Berger probe. Could that be a coincidence?
    • Weapons Alert: 9/14/04
        Anyone seeking weapons of destruction inside the United States may find it considerably easier after Sept. 13. Unless Congress wakes up and votes to do something about it, the federal ban on the manufacture of certain military-style assault weapons will expire that day, and the mad marketing of these dangerous firearms will resume across the homeland. Though lawmakers in both parties, and President Bush on alternate days, have looked at the polls and supported renewal of the ban, the gun-lobby-controlled leadership on Capitol Hill won't lift a finger unless prompted by the president. Mr. Bush, in turn, is said to be waiting for Congress to send him legislation. ... Mr. Bush need only give a forceful public cue to Congress to keep a ban in place. With the political conventions and elections this year, the days on Capitol Hill already are down to a precious few. Does the president care?
      • Who Needs Assault Weapons?
          President Bush, sidestepping a promise, is allowing the ban on assault rifles and oversized clips to expire on Sept. 14. ... President Bush promised in the last presidential campaign to support an extension of the ban, which was put in place in 1994 for 10 years. "It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around our society," Mr. Bush observed at the time. These days Mr. Bush still says that he'll sign an extension of the ban if it happens to reach his desk. But he knows that the only way the ban can be extended on time is if he actually urges its passage, and he refuses to do that. So his promise to support an extension rings hollow - it's not exactly a lie, but it's not the full truth, either. Mr. Bush's flip-flop is surprising because he has generally had the courage of his convictions. Apparently he's hiding from this issue.
  • Republicans Want to Mess with the Constitution for Political Gain
    • Marriage Protection Act Passes -- House Bill Strips Federal Courts of Power Over Same-Sex Cases
        The House approved a bill yesterday to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over same-sex marriage cases, despite warnings by opponents that the measure is unconstitutional and would open the floodgates for efforts to prevent judges from ruling on other issues, from gun control to abortion. With strong backing from the Bush administration, the Marriage Protection Act was adopted 233 to 194. ... The bill's congressional opponents, several constitutional scholars and a wide array of civil liberties groups called it a nearly unprecedented attack on the constitutional separation of powers among the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government. Democrats accused the bill's sponsors of using the issue as a smoke screen before the national conventions and the run-up to the November election. "This bill is a mean-spirited, unconstitutional, dangerous distraction," said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass). "Instead of addressing the real concerns faced by American families, the leadership of this house has decided to throw its political base some red meat. They couldn't amend the Constitution last week, so they're trying to desecrate and circumvent the Constitution this week," he added. ... The American Civil Liberties Union noted that the vote fell well short of the two-thirds majority that would be required in the House to approve a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages. "It's time for the Republican leadership to stop messing around with the Constitution and get back to addressing the real problems that face real Americans," said Christopher Anders, ACLU legislative counsel.
    • Muzzling the Courts?
        Following the Senate's burial last week of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, foes of same-sex marriage are back with another radical proposal. This time they are pushing a bill that would prevent federal courts from hearing challenges to a federal law that limits gay marriage. The bill, scheduled for a vote tomorrow, is an attack on the basic function of the courts in American society. Making this attack all the more ominous is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's stated intention to promote similar bills to bar court challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance and, potentially, on other social issues. This is as wrong as wrong can be. The House should not strip courts of their authority in order to protect bad policy -- or even good policy -- from constitutional scrutiny.
    • Kill This Amendment
        The reason the Senate is moving forward (on voting on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage) is politics of a particularly crass and ugly sort: Gay marriage has become a national electoral issue. And Republicans believe it is one that can help President Bush, who has come out in favor of the amendment ... Precisely because of the weight conservatives have put on this issue, today's vote, despite its preordained outcome (the proposed amendment is well short of the votes needed to send it on to the states), has become deeply important. It requires senators to take a public stand on a question of deep principle: Are they willing to warp the entire American constitutional structure to prevent people who love one another from marrying?
    • Ban on Gay Marriage Fails
        The Republican-controlled Senate yesterday blocked a proposed constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriage, effectively killing the White House-backed measure for the rest of this year and handing President Bush a big election-year defeat. The vote was 48 to 50 against bringing the initiative to a vote, 12 short of the 60 needed to limit debate and move toward final action on the amendment. It would have taken a two-thirds majority -- 19 votes more than the GOP had yesterday -- to pass the amendment itself. ... Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry appeared as pleased as Bush was disappointed by the Senate vote. "The floor of the United States Senate should only be used for the common good, not issues designed to divide us for political purposes," the Massachusetts senator said in a statement issued by his campaign. He said the Senate should be spending its time on issues such as homeland security, job creation and raising the minimum wage. ... "It's not about how to protect the sanctity of marriage," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "It's about politics -- an attempt to drive a wedge between one group of citizens and the rest of the country, solely for political advantage." ... Republicans "propose turning the Constitution of the United States from the fundamental charter preserving our freedoms into a kiosk for political bumper stickers," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), ranking Democrat on the judiciary panel.
  • Questionable (Illegal??) Campaign Tactics of the Bush Administration
    • Pastors Issue Directive in Response to Reelection Tactic
        Ten teachers of Christian ethics at leading seminaries and universities have written a letter to President Bush criticizing his campaign's outreach to churches, particularly its effort to gather church membership directories. The Aug. 12 letter asked Bush to "repudiate the actions of your re-election campaign, which violated a fundamental principle of our democracy." It also urged both presidential candidates to "respect the integrity of all houses of worship." The letter's signers included evangelical Christians who teach at generally conservative institutions. ... "When certain church leaders acceded to the request of the Bush/Cheney campaign to hand over the names and addresses of their congregants, they crossed a line," the letter said. "It is proper for church leaders to address social issues, but it is improper, and even illegal, for them to get their churches to endorse candidates or align their churches with a specific political party."
    • Bush Campaign Reaches Out to Churchgoers
        The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign has sent a detailed plan of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives. ... (T)ax experts said the campaign is walking a fine line between permissible activity by individual congregants and impermissible activity by congregations. ... A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service, Frank Keith, (pointed out that) the IRS on June 10 sent a strongly worded letter to both the Republican and Democratic national committees, reminding them that tax-exempt charitable groups "are prohibited from directly or indirectly participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office."
    • Scholars Say Bush Campaign Is Making History With Often-Misleading Attacks
        Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising. ... The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading.
  • Confronting The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act: Threat to Civil Liberties
    • Republican House Leaders "Out of Control"
        House Republicans, under strong pressure from the White House, narrowly defeated an effort yesterday to water down the Bush administration's signature law to combat domestic terrorism. ... But the victory came only after GOP tactics infuriated Democrats and a number of Republicans. The vote, scheduled to last 15 minutes, dragged on for 38 minutes despite outraged shouts and a unified chant of "shame, shame, shame" from Democrats across the aisle. ... "The Republican leadership is out of control," said Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.). "Today's vote on the Freedom to Read Protection Act is just the latest example of a growing trend towards abusive, closed-fist partisanship on the part of Republican House leadership." Rep. C.L. Butch Otter (R-Idaho), a conservative and an advocate of the defeated provision, told reporters after the vote: "You win some, and some get stolen."
    • Justices Back Detainee Access to U.S. Courts
        The Supreme Court struck down key elements of the Bush administration's legal policy for its battle against terrorism yesterday, ruling in two cases that the executive branch does not have the authority to deprive accused members of al Qaeda or the Taliban of their liberty without giving them a day in court.  The court said the president may order a U.S. citizen detained as an "enemy combatant" -- but it soundly rejected the administration's expansive interpretation of that authority, ruling that such detainees are entitled to contest the government's case against them.  (T)he court's bottom line was clear: Insofar as it affects individual constitutional rights, the president's conduct of the fight against terrorism is not immune to judicial review.
    • Executive Branch Reined In
        Liberal or conservative mattered little in the ultimate outcome. The (Supreme Court) roundly rejected the president's assertion that, in time of war, he can order the "potentially indefinite detention of individuals who claim to be wholly innocent of wrongdoing," to quote the court's opinion in the case of foreign prisoners held at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In fact, the administration's claim to such power over U.S. citizens produced an opinion signed by perhaps the court's most conservative justice, Antonin Scalia, and possibly its most liberal, John Paul Stevens.  "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive," Scalia wrote, with Stevens's support.  ...  Yet if, in the end, the justices could not agree on exactly how far the president can go, they were clear that he had already gone too far.
    • Supreme Rebuke
        SINCE THE OUTSET of the war on terrorism, the Bush administration, across a wide range of issues, has had a simple message for the federal judiciary: Trust us and don't interfere. Yesterday, in a pair of much-awaited rulings, the court delivered its response. ... Trust, even during wartime, has limits. ... What should be clear, however, is that the judiciary will not sit still for assertions of unbridled executive power. As the war on terrorism progresses, the administration will need -- at long last -- to submit to the oversight and transparency it has so assiduously resisted.
  • Halliburton Scandal Brewing?
    • Halliburton's Work in Iran Stirs Democrats
        Democrats who have been hammering away at Halliburton Co. and its former chief executive Dick Cheney about the company's work in Iraq yesterday added Iran to their list of complaints. In a conference call with reporters, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said he found it "unconscionable" that a Halliburton subsidiary appeared to be doing business with a country tied to terrorist activities at a time Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive. ... The conference call ... came one day after Halliburton disclosed that a federal prosecutor had subpoenaed documents as part of an investigation of whether a Halliburton subsidiary violated anti-terror sanctions on Iran. "This is such an outrageous bit of news," Lautenberg said. ... Such cases are referred to Justice only when there is evidence "intentional or willful" violations have occurred, government officials said.
  • The Vice President Shows His True Colors
    • Conduct Unbecoming
        "I LOOK FORWARD to working with you, Governor, to change the tone in Washington, to restore a spirit of civility and respect and cooperation." So said Dick Cheney on the day he was chosen to be George W. Bush's running mate. "The days of the war room and the permanent campaign are over. . . . We take seriously the responsibility to be honest and civil." So said Mr. Cheney in February 2001, in his first major speech as vice president.  In his confrontation with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) during a picture-taking session on the Senate floor Thursday, the vice president's vulgar suggestion of what Mr. Leahy should do to himself did not live up to those high-toned statements. The remark, in that setting, was disappointing, not so much for the profanity (we've been around long enough to have suspected that even politicians use such words sometimes) but for the partisan hostility and distrust that seemed to underlie it.
  • September 11 Commission Reports No Link Between Iraq and Al Qaeda
    • Bush's Intelligence Moves Don't Attain Scope Urged by 9/11 Panel
        New powers for the CIA director and creation of a national counterterrorism center -- both the products of executive orders signed last week by President Bush -- stop short in many ways from achieving the type of intelligence reorganization urged by the Sept. 11 commission and proposed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and others on Capitol Hill.
    • U.S. Struggles to Win Hearts, Minds in the Muslim World
        The Bush administration is facing growing criticism from both inside and outside its ranks that it has failed to move aggressively enough in the war of ideas against Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups over the three years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Sept. 11 commission last month called for a vigorous strategy for promoting the image and democratic values of the United States around the world ... But Middle East experts -- and some frustrated U.S. officials -- complain that the administration has provided only limited new direction in dealing with anti-American anger among the world's 1.2 billion Muslims and is spending far too little on such efforts, particularly in contrast with the billions spent on other pressing needs, such as homeland security and intelligence. ... Yet in a report to Congress in October, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy warned that cultural exchanges and similar efforts to win the hearts and minds of Muslims were "absurdly and dangerously underfunded."
    • Panel: Pre-9/11 Threat Underestimated
        The U.S. government was utterly unprepared on Sept. 11, 2001, to protect the American people from al Qaeda terrorists, who outwitted and outmaneuvered a bureaucracy that had never seriously addressed them as a threat and had never fathomed the possibility of such a calamitous assault on U.S. soil, according to a searing account of failures and missteps released yesterday.
    • 9/11 Commission Offers Critiques On Many Fronts
        The nearly 600-page report (by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks) is a broad indictment of the government's efforts to combat al Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks. The document, to be released at a news conference here this morning, identifies as many as 10 opportunities to potentially unravel the plot and recommends a dramatic overhaul of counterterrorism efforts, including creation of a Cabinet-level intelligence chief, according to officials who have read the document, which has been the subject of a strict embargo.
    • 9/11 Report to Cite 10 Missed Opportunities
        The final report by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks details as many as 10 missed opportunities by the Bush and Clinton administrations to detect or derail the deadly terrorist hijackings. ...The report also concludes that al Qaeda's relationship with Iran and its client, the Hezbollah militant group, was far deeper and more long-standing than its links with Iraq, which never established operational ties with the terrorist group, said officials familiar with the document.
    • 9/11 Panel Defends Intelligence
        The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks said yesterday that it has had access to the same information on alleged ties between al Qaeda and Iraq as Vice President Cheney, who suggested last month that the panel may not have been privy to all available intelligence when it found limited links between the two. ... Commission officials asked the administration to give the panel any additional evidence, but they have said since that none has been provided.
    • Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed
        The Sept. 11 commission reported yesterday that it has found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda, challenging one of the Bush administration's main justifications for the war in Iraq. ... The report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. In yesterday's hearing of the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding. ... The finding challenges a belief held by large numbers of Americans about al Qaeda's ties to Hussein. According to a Harris poll in late April, a plurality of Americans, 49 percent to 36 percent, believe "clear evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found." As recently as Monday, Cheney said in a speech that Hussein "had long-established ties with al Qaeda." Bush, asked on Tuesday to verify or qualify that claim, defended it by pointing to Abu Musab Zarqawi, who has taken credit for a wave of attacks in Iraq. Bush's Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), sought to profit from the commission's finding. "The administration misled America, and the administration reached too far," Kerry told Michigan Public Radio. "I believe that the 9/11 report, the early evidence, is that they're going to indicate that we didn't have the kind of terrorists links that this administration was asserting. I think that's a very, very serious finding."
    • 9/11 Panel Links Al Qaeda, Iran
        While it found no operational ties between al Qaeda and Iraq, the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has concluded that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network had long-running contacts with Iraq's neighbor and historic foe, Iran. ...  The Sept. 11 panel's findings on Iran have been eclipsed by the continuing political debate over Iraq, which the commission said had not developed a "collaborative relationship" with al Qaeda despite limited contacts in the 1990s. That appeared to conflict with previous characterizations made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other administration officials in their justifications for launching the war against Saddam Hussein.
  • Bi-Partisan Group of Diplomats and Military Leaders Seeks Change In Security Policy
    • Dignitaries Fault Bush Administration
        Angered by President Bush's conduct of foreign policy and dismayed about America's diminished reputation abroad, more than two dozen former top diplomats and military leaders will release a statement this week calling for a change in U.S. national security policy. Members of the group -- a mix of Republicans and Democrats -- have served in capitals from Moscow to Tel Aviv and Lima to Kinshasa. The list includes a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former head of U.S. Central Command, a former CIA director and a decorated array of former ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state and defense. "We all have this extremely strong feeling that this administration has failed in its responsibilities to the nation," H. Allen Holmes, former assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said yesterday. "We have never been so isolated in the world, and feared. It's incredible that the United States should be in that position." The group calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change. The one-page statement, which will be released formally Wednesday at a Washington news conference, criticizes the Bush administration for ineffectiveness in its approach to the world. It mentions Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- on which the White House has strongly backed hard-line Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- and cites evidence of increasing anti-American attitudes among Muslim young people. The statement also mentions a range of other issues, including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and U.S. approaches to HIV-AIDS, the environment and the distribution of wealth. "(The Bush administration's invasion of Iraq is) called the war against terrorism," Harrop asserted, "but in fact it has created terrorism in Iraq."
    • Administration Unable to Handle 'Global Leadership,' 27-Member Group Asserts
        The Bush administration does not understand the world and remains unable to handle "in either style or substance" the responsibilities of global leadership, a (bi-partisan) group of 27 retired diplomats and military commanders charged yesterday. "Our security has been weakened," the former ambassadors and four-star commanders said in a statement read to a crowded Washington news conference. "Never in the 2 & 1/4 centuries of our history has the United States been so isolated among the nations, so broadly feared and distrusted." The new group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, believes Bush should be defeated in November if the United States hopes to rebuild its credibility and strengthen valuable foreign alliances. ... The former officials said the administration "adopted an overbearing approach to America's role in the world, relying on military might and righteousness, insensitive to the concerns of traditional friends and allies, and disdainful of the United Nations. . . . Motivated more by ideology than by reasoned analysis, it struck out on its own." ... On a day when the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks said it found "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein worked with al Qaeda on any missions in the United States, the 27 signers accused the Bush administration of a "cynical campaign to persuade the public that Saddam Hussein was linked to al Qaeda and the attacks of Sept. 11."
  • The Questionable Ethics of Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.)
    • Tom DeLay's House of Scandal
    • Travel Agency Subpoenaed for DeLay Records
    • Texas Nonprofit Is Cleared After GOP-Prompted Audit -- "This audit was political retaliation by Tom DeLay's cronies to intimidate us for blowing the whistle on DeLay's abuses," Texans for Public Justice director and founder Craig McDonald said. "Enlisting the IRS to intimidate critics is a dirty trick reminiscent of Richard Nixon. . . . It is not a crime to report a crime, as we did with DeLay."
    • 'DeLay Inc.' Lobbying Firm Has Links to Three Capital Scandals - Representative Tom DeLay's campaign to get Republicans to dominate Washington lobbying may have worked too well for Alexander Strategy Group. The firm has links to no fewer than three of the scandals convulsing the U.S. capital. Alexander Strategy's links to lawmakers are an outgrowth of a decade-long effort by DeLay, 58, to force lobbying firms to hire more Republicans, who can direct corporate money to the party. The system, known as "DeLay Inc." or "the K Street Project," has fueled a surge of money in politics, and critics say it has also created the potential for greater corruption.
    • Firm Fined for Channeling Donations to GOP - On August 18, the Federal Election Commission fined Westar Energy Inc., two former corporate officers and the firm's lobbyist a total of $40,500 for their roles in channeling contributions to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other Republicans.
    • Abramoff: More Trouble Ahead? - Former superlobbyist Jack Abramoff was indicted on fraud charges then arrested in California. A possible reason for the Feds' playing hardball: to pressure Abramoff to cooperate in a broader, D.C.-based probe that could touch members of Congress and Bush administration officials.
    • Abramoff Indictment May Aid D.C. Inquiry -- The indictment of Abramoff could force the House ethics committee to postpone any investigation of DeLay, according to an official familiar with the committee's discussions. DeLay's association with Abramoff clearly has become a concern for those in the majority leader's camp.
    • FEC Faults Accounting at DeLay's PAC -- The Federal Election Commission criticized a political fund chaired by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for misstating accounts and failing to report debts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
    • Abramoff Indicted in Casino Boat Purchase -- Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist involved in ethics allegations facing Representative Tom DeLay, was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday as part of a wide-ranging fraud case stemming from the purchase of a Florida casino cruise line from a businessman later murdered in Fort Lauderdale.
    • Judge Refuses to Drop Case Against DeLay Ally - A Texas state judge yesterday reaffirmed the indictment of a political associate of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), turning aside his claim that a state law barring the use of corporate funds in the 2002 Texas election was unconstitutionally vague. The ruling was the latest of several in Texas courts to run against former officials of Texans for a Republican Majority, which was created by DeLay and his political aides to orchestrate a 2002 takeover of the Texas House.
    • Doing Right on Ethics - Sometimes the system works -- even if it takes too much time, noise and anguish. That is the happy lesson of the decision by the House Republican leadership to roll back the changes in ethics rules that were bullied through the body earlier this year.
    • The Right's Fight - He's not one to take trouble lying down. Inside Tom DeLay's defense strategy--and what it means for Team Bush.
    • GOP to Reverse Ethics Rule Blocking New DeLay Probe - House Republican leaders, acknowledging that ethics disputes are taking a heavy toll on the party's image, decided yesterday to rescind a controversial rule change that led to the three-month shutdown of the ethics committee, according to officials who participated in the talks.
      • DeLay Is Likely to Be Found Culpable - Now that it's clear that his controversial private-paid trips abroad will be put under a microscope in Congress, Tom DeLay is in serious danger of being declared in violation of House ethics rules, legal experts say.
    • DeLay Airfare Was Charged To Lobbyist's Credit Card - The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number. DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip. House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists.
    • With Friends Like These - A lunchtime chat with a lobbyist close to Tom DeLay suggests he may be headed for hotter water.
    • DeLay In Trouble - "Republicans are suffering from what once helped them gain power," says Marshall Wittman, a former conservative activist now with the Democratic Leadership Council. "While nothing DeLay has done may be illegal, Republicans based their takeover on a revolution to make things different. I was part of it. Now, they're outdoing anything Wright did in terms of power. DeLay has intimidated the whole business community." In private, some senior Republican leaders are saying it's only a matter of time before the most powerful Republican in Congress is forced from office. "Democrats should save their money. Why murder someone who is committing suicide?" said a senior GOP lawmaker, on condition of anonymity.
    • Republicans Criticizing DeLay - Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), one of Capitol Hill's leading conservatives, warned House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) yesterday that he needs to "lay out what he did and why he did it", while Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said DeLay should step down.
    • A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny - Moscow visit was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to sources and documents.
    • Smells Like Beltway - Wall Street Journal: The real reason Tom DeLay is in political trouble. Mr. DeLay, who rode to power in 1994 on a wave of revulsion at the everyday ways of big government, has become the living exemplar of some of its worst habits. He has betrayed the broader set of principles that brought him into office, and which, if he continues as before, sooner or later will sweep him out.
    • GOP Supporters Rally Behind Their Guilty Majority Leader - DeLay was hit by a fresh wave of ethical questions yesterday. The Washington Post reported that DeLay accepted a six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 that was financed by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that DeLay's political action and campaign committees have paid DeLay's wife, Christine, and daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro, more than $500,000 since 2001.
    • Shedding Light on a Shadowy Network - The problems of Representative Tom DeLay's associates have renewed criticism about his aggressive networking and fund-raising.
    • Warning: Ethics-Free Zone - The House of Representatives is now an ethics-free zone. To be precise, it has no mechanism for investigating or disciplining members who violate ethics rules, a result of unethical rules changes forced on the ethics committee by the Republican leadership.
    • GOP Concerned Over DeLay Ethics Allegations - The House Majority Leader has dismissed questions about his ethics as partisan attacks, but some Republicans are now worried about his political future and possible consequences for the party's image.
    • Gambling Interests Funded DeLay Trip - Gambling groups covered most of the cost of a $70,000 trip in 2000, two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the groups.
    • House Ethics Panel in Gridlock - Democrats Refuse to Participate Under New Unethical GOP Rules
    • Majority Leader May Have Broken House Rules - Tom DeLay and other Republican House members accepted an expense-paid trip to South Korea in 2001 from a registered foreign agent in violation of House rules, documents show.
    • Prosecutor Won't Say If DeLay Is Under Probe - House majority leader has been unable to escape relentless attention to his ethics problems and the Texas criminal and civil cases alleging wrongdoing by a political action committee he helped to create.
    • DeLay Moves to Protect His Political Base - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's (R-Tex.) strength in his suburban Houston congressional district has eroded considerably -- forcing him to renew his focus on protecting his seat.
    • DeLay PAC Lawsuit Trial Begins in Texas - A high-profile civil trial opened Monday on allegations that the treasurer of a political action committee created by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) illegally raised and spent corporate campaign funds in the 2002 election that led to a GOP takeover of the Texas Legislature.
    • Texas Ethics Bill Could Allow Appointees to Bar Prosecutions - A key Republican legislator has introduced a bill that would give a Texas agency authority to stop prosecution of election law violations, drawing comparisons to a recent attempt in Washington to rewrite ethics rules to keep House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in power if he is ever indicted.
    • Ethics Purge - The speaker of the House has demonstrated the extreme lengths to which he is willing to go to neuter the ethics process and protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
    • House GOP Leaders Name Loyalist to Replace Ethics Chief
    • GOP Leaders Tighten Their Grip on House - Democrats and some Republicans, troubled by the moves, cite parallels between today's Republicans and the Democrats who lost their 40-year hold on the House in 1994 after Gingrich and other conservatives campaigned against them as autocratic and corrupt, and gained 52 seats. "It took Democrats 40 years to get as arrogant as we have become in 10," one Republican leadership aide said.
    • House Ethics Chair Likely to Be Replaced
    • Ethical Freeze - It was a measure of how far House Republican leaders overreached in trying to eviscerate their ethics rules that their own, normally compliant members refused to go along with the gutting.
    • Republicans Abandon Ethics Changes - House Republican leaders Monday night abandoned proposals to loosen rules governing members' ethical conduct, as they yielded to pressure from rank-and-file lawmakers concerned that the party was sending the wrong message.
    • Analysis: Lowering the Bar for Government Ethics? - Republican Moves Reflect Growing Influence of Money on Politics
    • House to Consider Relaxing Its Ethics Rules - The proposed change would essentially negate a rule of conduct that the ethics committee has often cited in admonishing lawmakers for bringing discredit on the House if their behavior was not covered by a specific regulation.
    • Rigging the Rules
    • Rewriting Ethics History
    • House Republicans Act to Protect DeLay
    • GOP Pushes Rule Change To Protect DeLay's Post
    • DeLay Draws Third Rebuke in House
        The House ethics committee admonished Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for asking federal aviation officials to track an airplane involved in a political spat and for conduct that appeared to link political donations to legislative action.
    • Third Strike Could Weaken Lawmaker
        With House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) now involved directly or tangentially in a handful of ethics cases and investigations, some analysts say that another setback could substantially weaken the lawmaker's ability to champion Republican causes and candidates. DeLay's bare-knuckle tactics have sparked controversy and Democratic ire for years, but Thursday's 62-page report by the House ethics committee highlighted DeLay's questionable arm-twisting of GOP members when crucial votes are at stake.
    • Ethics Panel Rebukes DeLay
        The House ethics committee admonished Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) last night for offering a political favor to a Michigan lawmaker in exchange for the member's vote on last year's hard-fought Medicare prescription drug bill. ... "This conduct could support a finding that . . . DeLay violated House rules," the committee said in its 62-page report. ". . . It is improper for a member to offer or link support for the personal interests of another member as part of a quid pro quo to achieve a legislative goal."
    • GOP Unites Behind DeLay After 3 Aides Are Charged, While 8 Public Interest Groups Seek Ethics Panel Action
        House Republicans rallied around Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) yesterday ... (meanwhile) A loosely knit group of eight public interest organizations, calling itself the Congressional Ethics Coalition, yesterday called on the ethics panel to dig into the allegations. The committee "has a clear responsibility to investigate whether Mr. DeLay violated ethics rules in the course of his leadership of [two political action committees], both of which are the subject of the criminal indictments announced yesterday in Texas," the coalition said.
    • 3 DeLay Workers Indicted In Texas
        Three top political aides to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) were indicted Tuesday on charges of illegally raising political funds from corporations in 2002, much of which was funneled into the Republican takeover of the Texas legislature.
    • DeLay's Corporate Fundraising Investigated
        (An) e-mail, which surfaced in a subsequent federal probe of Houston-based Enron, is one of at least a dozen documents obtained by The Washington Post that show Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and his associates directed money from corporations and Washington lobbyists to Republican campaign coffers in Texas in 2001 and 2002 as part of a plan to redraw the state's congressional districts. DeLay's fundraising efforts helped produce a stunning political success. Republicans took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, Texas congressional districts were redrawn to send more Republican lawmakers to Washington, and DeLay -- now the House majority leader -- is more likely to retain his powerful post after the November election, according to political experts. But DeLay and his colleagues also face serious legal challenges: Texas law bars corporate financing of state legislature campaigns, and a Texas criminal prosecutor is in the 20th month of digging through records of the fundraising, looking at possible violations of at least three statutes. A parallel lawsuit, also in the midst of discovery, is seeking $1.5 million in damages from DeLay's aides and one of his political action committees -- Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC) -- on behalf of four defeated Democratic lawmakers. ... Documents unearthed in the probe make clear that DeLay was central to creating and overseeing the fundraising. ... Several weeks ago, DeLay hired two criminal defense attorneys to represent him in the probe. ... Cristen D. Feldman, the Texas lawyer who filed the suit, said in response, "I guess DeLay and his team forgot they were from Texas . . . [where] the prohibition against clandestine corporate cash is 100 years old."
    • DeLay to Be Subject of Ethics Complaint
        A Democratic congressman plans to file a wide-ranging ethics complaint today against House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), shattering the remnants of a seven-year-old, unwritten ethics truce between the two parties and possibly nudging the House back toward a brand of political warfare that helped topple two speakers. The complaint, which Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.) said he will send to the House ethics committee, accuses the House's second-ranking Republican of soliciting campaign contributions in return for legislative favors; laundering illegal campaign contributions through a Texas political action committee; and improperly involving a federal agency in a Texas partisan matter. A grand jury in Austin has been looking into the Texas PAC's activities, although DeLay's aides say there is no evidence he is a target of the probe. DeLay has denied wrongdoing in all the matters cited in Bell's complaint.
  • The Questionable Iraqi Defense Contracts
    • U.S. Won't Turn Over Data for Iraq Audits
        The Bush administration is withholding information from U.N.-sanctioned auditors examining more than $1 billion in contracts awarded to Halliburton Co. and other companies in Iraq without competitive bidding, the head of the international auditing board said Thursday. ... The Security Council (with U.S. approval) established (the auditing agency, the IAMB), which includes representatives from the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in May 2003 to ensure that Iraq's oil revenue would be managed responsibly during the U.S. occupation. The council extended its mandate in July so it could continue to monitor the use of Iraq's oil revenue after the United States transferred political authority to the Iraqis in June.
    • Waxman Raises New Questions on Cheney
        As the government prepared for war in Iraq in the fall of 2002, a senior political appointee in the Defense Department chose oil services giant Halliburton Co. to secretly plan how to repair Iraqi oil fields, and then briefed Vice President Cheney's chief of staff and other White House officials about the sole-source contract before