A FORMER REPUBLICAN SENATOR FOR KERRY 'Frightened to death' of Bush -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Marlow W. Cook Special to The Courier-Journal I shall cast my vote for John Kerry come Nov 2. I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a party send the wrong person to the White House, then it is our responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his actions. I fall in the category of good conservative thinkers, like George F. Will, for instance, who wrote: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and having thought, to have second thoughts." I say, well done George Will, or, even better, from the mouth of the numero uno of conservatives, William F. Buckley Jr.: "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war." First, let's talk about George Bush's moral standards. In 2000, to defeat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a man who was shot down in Vietnam and imprisoned for over five years — they used Carl Rove's "East Texas special." They started the rumor that he was gay, saying he had spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton. They said he was crazy. They said his wife was on drugs. Then, to top it off, they spread pictures of his adopted daughter, who was born in Bangladesh and thus dark skinned, to the sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural South Carolina. To show he was not just picking on Republicans, he went after Sen. Max Cleland from Georgia, a Democrat seeking re-election. Bush henchmen said he wasn't patriotic because Cleland did not agree 100 percent on how to handle homeland security. They published his picture along with Cuba's Castro, questioning Cleland's patriotism and commitment to America's security. Never mind that his Republican challenger was a Vietnam deferment case and Cleland, who had served in Vietnam, came home in a wheel chair having lost three limbs fighting for his country. Anyone who wants to win an election and control of the legislative body that badly has no moral character at all. We know his father got him in the Texas Air National Guard so he would not have to go to Vietnam. The religious right can have him with those moral standards. We also have Vice President Dick Cheney, who deferred his way out of Vietnam because, as he says, he "had more important things to do." I have just turned 78. During my lifetime, we have sent 31,377,741 Americans to war, not including whatever will be the final figures for the Iraq fiasco. Of those, 502,722 died and 928,980 came home without legs, arms or what have you. Those wars were to defend freedom throughout the free world from communism, dictators and tyrants. Now Americans are the aggressors — we start the wars, we blow up all the infrastructure in those countries, and then turn around and spend tax dollars denying our nation an excellent education system, medical and drug programs, and the list goes on. ... I hope you all have noticed the Bush administration's style in the campaign so far. All negative, trashing Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards and Democrats in general. Not once have they said what they have done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all. Lyndon Johnson said America could have guns and butter at the same time. This administration says you can have guns, butter and no taxes at the same time. God help us if we are not smart enough to know that is wrong, and we live by it to our peril. We in this nation have a serious problem. Its almost worse than terrorism: We are broke. Our government is borrowing a billion dollars a day. They are now borrowing from the government pension program, for apparently they have gotten as much out of the Social Security Trust as it can take. Our House and Senate announce weekly grants for every kind of favorite local programs to save legislative seats, and it's all borrowed money. If you listened to the President confirming the value of our war with Iraq, you heard him say, "If no weapons of mass destruction were found, at least we know we have stopped his future distribution of same to terrorists." If that is his justification, then, if he is re-elected our next war will be against Iran and at the same time North Korea, for indeed they have weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, which they have readily admitted. Those wars will require a draft of men and women. ... I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep that secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court. Those of you who are fiscal conservatives and abhor our staggering debt, tell your conservative friends, "Vote for Kerry," because without Bush to control the Congress, the first thing lawmakers will demand Kerry do is balance the budget. The wonderful thing about this country is its gift of citizenship, then it's freedom to register as one sees fit. For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong direction. If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution. I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path. The writer, a Republican formerly of Louisville, was Jefferson County judge from 1962-1968 and U.S. senator from Kentucky from 1968-1975. http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/20/oped-marlow1020-8060.html
Former Kentucky Senator Cook articulated the same reasons some Republicans I know are voting for Kerry. A couple of them have been voting for Republicans for President since 1980. They don't recognize the George W. Bush they thought they were voting for in 2000. Frankly, and I'm a Democrat who has voted against Bush in every election in which his name has appeared on my ballot, I don't recognize him either. I'm astonished that so many of his supporters here seem to believe that this gentleman in the White House resembles, in any fashion, the man they thought they were voting for in 2000. Where did that guy go? Don't any of you wonder? Senator Cook summed up very well why this isn't the Republican Party it once was. If fear and extremism is your mantra, then today's Republican Party is for you. However, if you remember when the party allowed differing views, and stood for more than extremism in foreign policy, extremism in domestic policy, extremism in the service of big business, and extremism in the service of the wealthy, cutting their taxes, even in time of war, then now is the time to send your party a message. Show them, like Senator Cook, and many other prominent and everyday Republicans, that you have had enough. Show them on November 2nd. Keep D&D Civil!!
The first time I read those, I didn't notice the post times and I thought nyquil was reacting to you.
The best jokes are those which need to be explained for like 10 minutes until anyone even realizes that a joke was attempted .
i wanted to keep quiet and see if the thread would run its usual course. frankly, these "flip-floppers" who are "defecting" seem to think that their opinion matters more to people that it really does. when it comes down to the partisans, which 99% of us in the forum are, you will elicit two responses, 1) who cares, that guy's an idiot and 2) oo, now i feel better about myself and my beliefs now that the other side is getting weaker! Prove me wrong, is anyone getting a different response from these threads?
well, unlike many other americans, you don't have amnesia, way too many people make decisions from time hardened feelings and don't reflect when they read new things.
All these old school Republicans changing their mind don't mean much. Even Nixon had more scruples than the current Republican leadership.
W. Virginia Elector Might Leave Bush 11 minutes ago By JENNIFER BUNDY, Associated Press Writer CHARLESTON, W.Va. - If President Bush wins West Virginia, one of the state's five Republican electors says he might not vote for Bush to protest the president's economic and foreign policies. South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb said based on his research, an elector has "qualified discretion" when it comes to casting a vote. "There is an implied duty to vote for your party's candidate. But I don't think it's an explicit duty or responsibility," said Robb, a moderate Republican who has a reputation of being a maverick in the state party. Still, Robb calls it "highly unlikely" that he would cast a vote for Democrat John Kerry. He said he might cast his vote for Vice President Dick Cheney or another Republican instead as a protest against Bush, meaning the president would lose out on one electoral vote. Robb's decision could end up having enormous national significance because the presidential election is expected to go down to the wire. That is exactly what happened in 2000, when George W. Bush won the White House with 271 electoral votes. To win the presidency, a candidate must receive 270 electoral votes. "There are people talking about a tied race," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist with the University of Virginia. "This one man could change the election result, could negate the vote of 115 million Americans." Robb's dissatisfaction with Bush stems from the president's decision to invade Iraq (news - web sites) and economic policies he says have caused the loss of nearly 1,000 high-paying chemical and manufacturing jobs in his town of about 13,000 residents. Robb has been mayor of the Charleston suburb since 1975. A veteran who won a Bronze Star in the Vietnam War, Robb said he also is upset with campaign ads that attacked Kerry's war record. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=/ap/20041021/ap_on_el_pr/disgruntled_elector
Elmer L. Andersen: Why this Republican ex-governor will be voting for Kerry Elmer L. Andersen October 13, 2004 http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5029512.html Throughout my tenure and beyond as the 30th governor of this state, I have been steadfastly aligned -- and until recently, proudly so -- with the Minnesota Republican Party. It dismays me, therefore, to have to publicly disagree with the national Republican agenda and the national Republican candidate but, this year, I must. The two "Say No to Bush" signs in my yard say it all. The present Republican president has led us into an unjustified war -- based on misguided and blatantly false misrepresentations of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. The terror seat was Afghanistan. Iraq had no connection to these acts of terror and was not a serious threat to the United States, as this president claimed, and there was no relation, it's now obvious, to any serious weaponry. Although Saddam Hussein is a frightful tyrant, he posed no threat to the United States when we entered the war. George W. Bush's arrogant actions to jump into Iraq when he had no plan how to get out have alienated the United States from our most trusted allies and weakened us immeasurably around the world. Also, if there as well had been proper and careful coordination of services and intelligence on Sept. 11, 2001, that horrific disaster might also have been averted. But it was a separate event from this brutal mess of a war, and the disingenuous linking of the wholly unrelated situation in Iraq to 9/11 by this administration is not supported by the facts. Sen. John Kerry was correct when he said that seemingly it is only Bush and Dick Cheney who still believe their own spin. Both men spew outright untruths with evangelistic fervor. For Bush -- a man who chose to have his father help him duck service in the military during the Vietnam War -- to disparage and cast doubt on the medals Kerry won bravely and legitimately in the conflict of battle is a travesty. For Cheney to tell the hand-picked, like-minded Republican crowds in Des Moines last month that to vote for John Kerry could mean another attack like that of 9/11 is reprehensible. Moreover, such false statements encourage more terrorist attacks rather than prevent them. A far smaller transgression, but one typical of his stop-at-nothing tactics, was Cheney's assertion in last Wednesday's vice-presidential debate that he'd never met Sen. John Edwards until that night. The next day -- and the media must stay ever-vigilant at fact-checking the lies of this ticket -- news reports, to the contrary, showed four video clips of Edwards and Cheney sitting next to each other during the past five years. In both presidential debates, Kerry has shown himself to be of far superior intellect and character than Bush. He speaks honestly to the American people, his ethics are unimpeachable and, clearly, with 20 respected years in the Senate, he has far better credentials to lead the country than did Bush when he was elected four years ago. And a far greater depth of understanding of domestic and foreign affairs to do it now. Not that the sitting president has ever really been at the helm. I am more fearful for the state of this nation than I have ever been -- because this country is in the hands of an evil man: Dick Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is he who is running the country, not George W. Bush. Bush's phony posturing as cocksure leader of the free world -- symbolized by his victory symbol on the aircraft carrier and "mission accomplished" statement -- leave me speechless. The mission had barely been started, let alone finished, and 18 months later it still rages on. His ongoing "no-regrets," no-mistakes stance and untruths on the war -- as well as on the floundering economy and Bush administration joblessness -- also disappoint and worry me. Liberal Republicans of my era and mind-set used to have a humane and reasonable platform. We advocated the importance of higher education, health care for all, programs for children at risk, energy conservation and environmental protection. Today, Bush and Cheney give us clever public relations names for programs -- need I say "No Child Left Behind? -- but a lack of funding to support them. Early childhood education programs and overall health care are woefully underfunded. We have not only the largest number ever of medically uninsured in this nation, our infant mortality rates, once among the lowest in the world, have worsened to 27th. As taxes for the wealthy are being cut, jobs are being outsourced if not lost and children are homeless and uninsured, this administration is running up the biggest deficit in U.S. history -- bound to be a terrible burden for future generations. This imperialistic, stubborn adherence to wrongful policies and known untruths by the Cheney-Bush administration -- and that's the accurate order -- has simply become more than I can stand. Although I am a longtime Republican, it is time to make a statement, and it is this: Vote for Kerry-Edwards, I implore you, on Nov. 2. Elmer L. Andersen was Minnesota's governor from 1961 to 1963.
Former GOP Governor Endorses Kerry By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Kerry-GOP-Endorsement.html?oref=login TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) -- Former Republican Gov. William Milliken of Michigan endorsed Democratic Sen. John Kerry for president on Monday, saying President Bush has pursued policies ``pandering to the extreme right wing.'' Milliken, governor from 1969-82, accused the Bush administration of rushing into the Iraq war, pushing tax cuts that benefit the rich and blocking meaningful stem-cell research. ``I felt so strongly about the direction of this country that in the end, it wasn't a difficult decision to make,'' Milliken said in an interview Monday with Traverse City Record-Eagle reporters and editors. Milliken issued a three-page statement of his views about Bush and domestic and international issues. ``This president has pursued policies pandering to the extreme right wing across a wide variety of issues and has exacerbated the polarization and the strident, uncivil tone of much of what passes for political discourse in this country today,'' Milliken said in the statement. Milliken, a moderate Republican, has been critical of Bush and has faulted the GOP on such issues as same-sex marriage, flag-burning and abortion. The Bush campaign dismissed Milliken's endorsement, saying he led under a different time. ``We didn't have the threat from terrorists who want to kill us,'' said John Truscott, a spokesman for the Bush campaign. ``We didn't have the same kind of war going on. This election and these times demand a strong leader who's decisive and who will tell the truth.''
