2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

The long, hot summer has begun in Iraq. American GIs are dying almost daily. So are Iraqis. But that hasn't stopped President Bush from embarking on a fund-raising spree premised on his triumphal role as commander in chief. Who needs reality when you've got spin? http://www.msnbc.com/news/929206.asp?0cv=KB10

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"He lied to all of us," said John Kerry, Democrat senator for the state of Massachusetts, referring to President George W. Bush and his claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, reported ANSA.
Kerry, who is hoping to secure the Democratic candidature for the 2004 presidential elections, said that Bush had lied to everyone and that was one of the reasons why he intends to run for president.
The senator affirmed in New Hampshire that he believed it was right to make President Bush responsible if he and his government have lied to everyone. He also called into question specific elements of the intelligence information presented by the government prior to the war in Iraq and added that he was favor of investigating the issue in Congress.
Kerry - a veteran of the war in Viet Nam - was highly critical of Bush's foreign policy last April when the war began, and had declared that a regime change was needed in Washington as well as Baghdad.

I gather that as the charges against the Bush WoMD escalate we will hear more and more from the radical right how it doesn't really matter about the WoMD 'cause Bush lied for a good reason or was just mis-informed by those nasty guys at intelligence. After all, we beat them Iraqi's fair and square with shock and awe and eventually the Iraqi's will kiss our feet while we sell off their oil and we will probably only have to keep 140,000 US troops there to help maintain order only losing a few enlisted men non and then to the one or two radical arabs that insist on ruling their own nation. We are bound to allowed them self-governance within a few years and then we can establish Ken Lay as their energy czar to run things.

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Tar,
I checked out the link. I am very interested in following the entire process in the Presidential election. That's why I seldom indicate a preference for a candidate. All of them have some dirt on their noses. Some of them are better at it than others. For me, it is a manner of identifying key leadership characterists, determining any guiding principles employed by individual candidates, the quality and experience of their team, organizational skills, the ability to attract public support and finding out if they have the strength to stand alone as President, to say no to your own advisors.

As a man, President Bush still has some appeal. But I am less than enthusiastic, maybe even scared of, some of the members of his team. I know the candidate appeals to the public as a person, but it's the team that makes things happen. With this in mind, I am waiting on the press and A2K folks to dig out information as to the movers and shakers of each candidate. Remember, some of us didn't know Karl Rove until after the election. I want to know Kerry's, Dean's and the other candidates Karl Rove before the election.

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Mapleleaf...Great point. NPR (and I am sure other media) have been interviewing the Dem candidates. A good question would be:
"Who is your equivalent of Karl Rove?"

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I like that question.

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MoveOn offers the opportunity to ask the candidates questions directly.

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I note that MoveOn says they are going to endorse one candidate after the e-poll. WAAAYYY to early, IMHO.

Joe

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Maple - not everyone has a Karl Rove. Most high political figures have people standing right behind them, but Rove was known down in Texas. It was said that Karen Hughes was a softening agent, but he got rid of her.

And Nixon had some frightners. His AG was John Mitchell, nasty in many ways, who actually wound up in jail. And the two guys with Nixon were Haldeman and Erlichman. Although not limited to the republicans, they do seem to have a particular talent when it comes to the behind people. Or is it the chicken or the egg?

Incidentally, I keep forgetting that the Watergate affair took three years to develop, and started out with the public not willing to believe that Nixon had done anything, accepting many deeds and lies without protest - similar to today. Iraq is pronounced differently, but I believe it will be Iraq - not the economy, not the budget, not the programs or lack of - that will bring them down. Watergate was domestic. Iraq is far reaching.

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a little prayer wings its way heavenward

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Quote:

No, seriously scrat- the quote is as obtuse as you are belligerent.

Belligerence know thyself, thy name is snood.

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There really IS a difference between belligerence in the service of truth vs. belligerence in the service of the big lie.

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He looks like an apple-cheeked grandpa and has a tendency to break into snatches of song during his campaign speeches, but there's nothing gentle about the way Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) is lighting into President Bush.
In recent days and weeks, Graham has compared Bush to President Richard M. Nixon; accused Bush of misleading the public on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and other subjects; called Bush "the most environmentally unfriendly president in history"; and charged the president with failure to finish off al Qaeda when he had the chance.

There is scant evidence yet that Graham's flurry of punches is helping his presidential campaign, though one recent poll showed him moving up from the low single-digits to the head of the second tier of candidates. His entry into the race was delayed for open-heart surgery, and when at last he got started, the presidential campaign was buried under war news.

But Graham does have some Democratic Party insiders talking, and he appears to have encouraged some of his rivals for the nomination to chime in.

Wa Po

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Thank you for that article! Why do I have the lingering doubts about Graham? Why do I remember him as being not-so-good on domestic policy? Well, your post has caused me to 'google' the guy and see . . . I'll be back later re same

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Sunday morning talk shows often make news for days afterward. Since prominent government officials dominate the guest lists of the programs, it is not unusual for the Monday editions of major newspapers to report on interviews done by the Sunday chats.

But the June 15 edition of NBC's Meet the Press was unusual for the buzz that it didn't generate. General Wesley Clark Tim Russert that Bush administration officials had engaged in a campaign to implicate Saddam Hussein in the September 11 attacks-- starting that very day. Clark said that he'd been called on September 11 and urged to link Baghdad to the terror attacks, but declined to do so because of a lack of evidence.

Here is a transcript of the exchange:

CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."

RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"

CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence."

Clark's assertion corroborates a little-noted CBS Evening News story that aired on September 4, 2002. As correspondent David Martin reported: "Barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, the secretary of defense was telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." According to CBS, a Pentagon aide's notes from that day quote Rumsfeld asking for the "best info fast" to "judge whether good enough to hit SH at the same time, not only UBL."

truthout.org

So...more evidence of pushing the link without the facts.

Is that lying?

This is beginning to reach critical mass...

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just googled Senator Graham's record; damn, now I remember:

http://www.talkleft.com/archives/002458.html

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PDiddie
I saw the interview you speak of and I must say I was impressed by the general. Inorder to get a little more insight I googled him.
This is what I found. It was not very flattering. He is smooth but apparently not well thought of by some of his subordinates.

Meet the Real Gen. Clark

Anyone seeking to understand the bloody fiasco of the Serbian war need hardly look further than the person of the beribboned Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley K. Clark. Politicians and journalists are generally according him a respectful hearing as he discourses on the "schedule" for the destruction of Serbia, tellingly embracing phrases favored by military bureaucrats such as "systematic" and "methodical".
The reaction from former army subordinates is very diffe[]rent.
"The poster child for everything that is wrong with the GO (general officer) corps," exclaims one colonel, who has had occasion to observe Clark in action, citing, among other examples, his command of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood from 1992 to 1994.
While Clark's official Pentagon biography proclaims his triumph in "transitioning the Division into a rapidly deployable force" this officer describes the "1st Horse Division" as "easily the worst division I have ever seen in 25 years of doing this stuff."

More}
http://www.counterpunch.org/clark.html

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Graham is more conservative than I am.
Party names don't really tell you alot anymore.

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au1929 wrote:

PDiddie
I saw the interview you speak of and I must say I was impressed by the general. Inorder to get a little more insight I googled him.
This is what I found. It was not very flattering. He is smooth but apparently not well thought of by some of his subordinates.

Meet the Real Gen. Clark

Anyone seeking to understand the bloody fiasco of the Serbian war need hardly look further than the person of the beribboned Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley K. Clark. Politicians and journalists are generally according him a respectful hearing as he discourses on the "schedule" for the destruction of Serbia, tellingly embracing phrases favored by military bureaucrats such as "systematic" and "methodical".
The reaction from former army subordinates is very diffe[]rent.
"The poster child for everything that is wrong with the GO (general officer) corps," exclaims one colonel, who has had occasion to observe Clark in action, citing, among other examples, his command of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood from 1992 to 1994.
While Clark's official Pentagon biography proclaims his triumph in "transitioning the Division into a rapidly deployable force" this officer describes the "1st Horse Division" as "easily the worst division I have ever seen in 25 years of doing this stuff."

More}
http://www.counterpunch.org/clark.html

Au- help me out here. Was this supposed to impugn the credibility of what he was saying about the bogus atttempt to immediately link Hussein and 9/11?

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snood
No, I was impressed by much of what he said. Inorder to get a better prespective of the individual I went to the google. What I found was not very flattering.

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Now this thread is starting to get meaty.

I like it that the two links I posted motivated you to go find out more--and you brought back something that wasn't puffery.

This is how we can assist everyone who reads this thread in vetting the candidates for themselves.

Good job, sweetc and au.

Here's a tasty endorsement:

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Presidential candidate Howard Dean may have his own Ben & Jerry's sundae, but one of his Democratic rivals got the endorsement of his home state's ice cream company founder.

Ben Cohen, who with Jerry Greenfield founded Ben & Jerry's Homemade ice cream in Burlington, Vt., said Friday that he is supporting Rep. Dennis Kucinich (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio.

Describing himself as a Vermonter, entrepreneur, Grateful Dead fan and longtime peace advocate, Cohen said only Kucinich represents the values most important to him.

"While others discuss incremental change, only Dennis Kucinich advocates changing the way our government is run in order to reflect the values of America's people," Cohen said.

Yahoo!

I think the real significance is why Ben Cohen did NOT endorse Howard Dean, a fellow Vermonter...

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2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

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