> Charley Reese is a columnist for the King Features Syndicate. He turns
out
> three columns a week and is known as a staunchly committed conservative. I
> guess that's why this column is causing such a stir. He apparently took a
> good hard look at Bush & Co.'s record vs. rhetoric, and came to some
> inevitable conclusions. See
> <http://www.conservativechronicle.com/columnists/reese/>
>
http://www.conservativechronicle.com/columnists/reese/ if you have any
> doubts about his conservatism.
>
> Vote for a Man, Not a Puppet
>
> by Charley Reese
>
> Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's
reelection,
> they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick Cheney, Donald
> Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative
> ideologues and their corporate backers. I have sadly come to the
conclusion
> that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is
manipulated
> by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously
> simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.
>
> It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague.
Take
> away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed
> that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and
articulately
> in English than our own president at their joint press conference
recently.
>
> John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think
> and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's
> comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's
unfortunate
> that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal
> to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.
>
> But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed
that
> people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never
> will be. People who think of themselves as conservatives will really
display
> their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush.
>
>
>
> Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled
me
> once, but he won't fool me twice. It is not at all conservative to
balloon
> government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show
> contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that
> foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal
and
> trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their
> government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most
secretive
> president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward
> the authoritarian.
>
> It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few
> Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found
> yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that
either
> you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy
> combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?
>
> This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but
> because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost
> restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is
not
> only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the
world
> thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration. Don't
> forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and
> Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
>
> I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man
in
> the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with
it.
> Go to Kerry's Web site and read some of the magazine profiles on him.
You'll
> find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs
would
> have you believe. Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays
> hockey, windsurfs, rides motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and
> speaks French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has
> killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man
> and dispels all illusions about war.
>