Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

Anybody in the pentagon understand the half life of radiation? c.i.

PDid, I agree with that assessment; that the US is the most dangerous power that ever existed on the face of the earth. We all understand the reasons why; this administration has lost control of common sense. Even with "smart bombs," over three thousand Iraqi's were killed to go after one man, Saddam. c.i.

2 or 3 weeks, isn't it? After all, we're now slim, trim and highly mobile - in other words, fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Front page, Washington Post, today:

Former Aide Takes Aim at War on Terror By Laura Blumenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, June 16, 2003

Five days before the war began in Iraq, as President Bush prepared to raise the terrorism threat level to orange, a top White House counterterrorism adviser unlocked the steel door to his office, an intelligence vault secured by an electronic keypad, a combination lock and an alarm. He sat down and turned to his inbox.

"Things were dicey," said Rand Beers, recalling the stack of classified reports about plots to shoot, bomb, burn and poison Americans. He stared at the color-coded threats for five minutes. Then he called his wife: I'm quitting.

Beers's resignation surprised Washington, but what he did next was even more astounding. Eight weeks after leaving the Bush White House, he volunteered as national security adviser for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), a Democratic candidate for president, in a campaign to oust his former boss. All of which points to a question: What does this intelligence insider know?

"The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure," said Beers, who until now has remained largely silent about leaving his National Security Council job as special assistant to the president for combating terrorism. "As an insider, I saw the things that weren't being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out."....

* * *

Into this tricky intersection of terrorism, policy and politics steps Beers, a lifelong bureaucrat, unassuming and tight-lipped until now. He is an unlikely insurgent. He served on the NSC under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and the current Bush. The oath of office hangs on the wall by his bed; he tears up when he watches "The West Wing." Yet Beers decided that he wanted out, and he is offering a rare glimpse in. ...

* * *

When Beers joined the White House counterterrorism team last August, the unit had suffered several abrupt departures. People had warned him the job was impossible, but Beers was upbeat. On Reagan's NSC staff, he had replaced Oliver North as director for counterterrorism and counternarcotics, known as the "office of drugs and thugs."...

* * *

"Randy's your model government worker," said Wendy Chamberlin, a U.S. Agency for International Development administrator for Iraq, who worked with Beers on counterterrorism on the NSC of the first Bush administration. "He works for the common good of the American people. He's fair, balanced, honest. No one ever gets hurt feelings hearing the truth from Randy."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62941-2003Jun15?language=printer

Hmmm... wonder what he didn't agree with?

KENNEBUNKPORT, Me., June 16 ?- Last summer, when President Bush was in the scorching August heat in Texas, a reporter asked him why he voluntarily suffered through the hottest month in one of the country's hottest corners.

His answer was more sociological than meteorological. "Most Americans don't sit in Martha's Vineyard, swilling white wine," he said, with a touch of disdain in his voice for the world he left behind after Yale and Harvard Business School.

So why was the president lingering here on the Maine coast for four full days, less than a mile from a downtown that looks not entirely unlike the Vineyard's Edgartown, in an alternate epicenter of the effete East Coast elite? It is always a tough choice for the president, who feels an understandable filial duty to visit Mom and Dad here at their spectacular seaside compound Walker's Point, where the Bushes took up residence generations before they began gravitating to Texas. But while spending this Father's Day with his children and his own father ?- who celebrated his 79th birthday here ?- the president struck a silent compromise: He avoided too much contact with suspected wine swillers.

While the first lady, Laura Bush, was seen poking around a bookstore in town, and his daughters, Barbara and Jenna, now safely past their 21st birthdays, were reliably reported to have stepped into Federal Jacks, the local microbrewery and gathering point for college students, Mr. Bush never came into town. On Saturday, he attended the wedding of a Bush cousin at a beautiful stone church for 50 minutes. He skipped the reception.

* * *

Maine, which voted for Al Gore 49 percent to 44 percent in the 2000 presidential election, does not exactly roll out the red bunting for the president. There are pictures of 41 and 43 in Bartley's, one of the seafood places on the wharf frequented by the White House staff. But there are no signs hanging over the streets, no billboard announcing their presence, like the one on the approach to Crawford. Things are done discreetly here. There are not even many gawkers on Ocean Avenue, the road along the Bush compound.

* * *

Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, is in his last few weeks on the job. He admits contemplating spending his first few weeks of freedom some place cool and coastal, perhaps even Martha's Vineyard. This is not a resignation-month conversion. Last summer he conceded that President Bill Clinton's affinity for vacationing on that island was "one of the few things the previous administration got right."

New York Times

Yesterday, picking up some stuff at a laundry in town, I got into a conversation with a small hotel owner, avowed Republican. Quite an interesting conversation. But germane to this particular discussion was his horror of "the Northeast," where all bad things start "and California," he added after a pause. Bush's accent, of course, changes depending on who he's talking to, what his mission is. It's now admitted that many of his gaffes were planned PRECISELY in order to rope in the center of the country which doesn't want its pols to be smart-ass Harvard types who know how to pronounce the names of foreigners. What this says about our country -- and its fat middle -- doesn't do it much credit.

Tartarin

Excellent piece from the WP! thank you

Ah, yes, the evil northeast. Not many people realize it, but Hitler was born in massachusets. About 3 doors down from the Kennedy compound... SARS was first spotted in Vermont, near a popular ski area...

When in doubt... blame New England... we are the axis of all evil!

Hmmmm, we could invade on the 4th and have it won by the 12th and occupied by the end of July. Not a bad idea!

BillW, Before you attempt anything against Boston, you'd better make sure there's no Paul Revere. c.i.

If you get a chance, listen to Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity being interviewed today on Fresh Air (npr.org) about the deep corruption particularly with respect to officials/defense industry. He lays it out clearly, in detail.

If I'm not mistaken, we already occupy the Northeast, don't we?

Civil War Part II?

I think it is still blue!

Is GWBush beatable in 2004? That is the main question of this forum - I think, or I thought. ;( c.i.

You are absolutely correct... we will try not go off track again!

For sure. We just need to do it. One goes for the jugular, another for the eyeballs. We know where the weak points are.