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yesterday etc Tomorrow Links In Defense of Bush
I shall cast my vote for John
Kerry come Nov 2.
A Former Republican Senator: 'Frightened to Death' of Bush
by Marlow W. Cook
Published on Thursday, October 21, 2004 by the Courier-Journal /
Louisville, Kentucky
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.
© 2004 Courier-Journal
