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Link, the Hero of Time
Vice Admiral
Joined: 15 Sep 2001
Posts: 5581
Location: Kokori Forest, Hyrule
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 Sun Oct 31, 2004 7:27 am Ending the Fantasy |
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| Quote: | Ending the Fantasy
It�s hard to game the election with all the conflicting polls. But the signs are pointing to a big turnout and a Kerry winWEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 1:45 p.m. ET Oct. 29, 2004Oct. 29 - Bush pollster Matthew Dowd, unshaven and looking weary, met with print journalists Thursday for one last spin session. For the record, he thinks the president will win, but he sounded so unconvincing that halfway through the hourlong lunch, a reporter said, "OK, so the race is very close and one or the other will win."
When the laughter subsided, Dowd remembered his talking points and said a bit sheepishly, "The lead [of the story you ought to write] is that the election is very close and President Bush is going to win."
Asked to name John Kerry's biggest mistake, Dowd cited the Democratic National Convention where Kerry left himself vulnerable to GOP caricatures by not talking about his Senate career in a positive way. But that was last summer's talking point and Dowd quickly caught himself. Kerry�s biggest mistake, Dowd said, warming to the subject, could turn out to be jumping on the story of the missing 380 tons of deadly explosives out of Iraq.
Bush says Kerry rushed to judgment before he had all the facts on this issue. This is from a president who rushed to war before he had all the facts. Bush is like a pyromaniac who returns to the scene of the crime. This is his fiasco, and it's smart for Kerry to hold Bush accountable. The failure to guard the aptly named Al Qaqaa is emblematic of everything Bush is doing wrong. The administration clearly didn't send enough troops, and now 380 tons of the most dangerous munitions are out there for possible use against U.S. troops.
The Bush team�s response is also emblematic. First, they deny a charge that is undeniably true, that they went into Iraq with insufficient forces. Second, they slime the person telling the truth. Kerry wasn�t faulting U.S. troops for not finding and securing the missing weapons, as Bush asserted. Kerry was attacking the chicken-hawk civilians who brushed aside pleas from the military for more manpower. Third, Bush falls back on the tried and true, pointing to evidence of a cache of deadly explosives to say this proves Saddam really was dangerous. It�s still heresy to say it, but Americans were safer when Saddam was in power. He guarded his high-grade-weapons sites, and just days before the U.S. invasion, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency had monitored the site, warning the Bush administration about the potential danger.
Bush is running against the headlines and no amount of spin can make the bad news out of Iraq look good. �He has his finger in the dyke with Iraq, and there was a little leakage this week,� says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. In addition to the revelation about the explosives, Bush�s good friend, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, accused U.S. forces of willful neglect in the deaths of dozens of newly trained Iraqi soldiers gunned down as they traveled in an unarmed and unguarded convoy. Then word leaked that the White House would ask Congress after the election for $70 billion more for Iraq, upping the cost of the war to $225 billion.
Defending Bush is getting harder, but that doesn�t deter the diehards. Conservative talk-show hosts were pushing the theory that Russian trucks hauled the missing explosives to Syria before the war. �And that�s the good news: that it�s not in the hands of insurgents in Iraq, it�s in the hands of terrorists in Syria,� says Wittmann, laughing at the absurdity of the claim. In an effort to throw Bush a lifeline, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani went on the �Today� show and said what Bush had wrongly accused Kerry of saying�that failure to find and secure the weapons was the troops� fault. �No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be with the troops that were there," said Giuliani. "Did they search carefully enough? Didn�t they search carefully enough?�
It�s hard to game the election with all the conflicting polls, but my prediction is that it will break at the last minute for Kerry. With more than two thirds of the undecided voters saying the country is on the wrong track, Kerry should win. Bush got 47.9 percent of the vote in 2000, and that�s where he is stuck today. A record voter turnout is expected, and that signals change, not four more years of the status quo.
The story that broke late Thursday about the Bush campaign using a doctored photo in an ad should help drive home Kerry�s message in the final days. The image used is reminiscent of Bush�s parading on an aircraft carrier flight deck to declare major combat operations over in Iraq. Here he stands as the commander in chief before cheering troops, except on close examination, the same faces are repeated over and over in the crowd. The ad uses troops as props and manipulates the scene to create a Hollywood computer-generated picture of a war president. Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart issued a statement demanding that the Bush campaign pull the ad, saying, �Now we know why this ad is named, �Whatever it takes'.�
The White House has spent four years creating a fantasy world around Bush. Win or lose on Tuesday, the mistakes Bush has made in Iraq have caught up with him.
� 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6363063/site/newsweek/ |
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lionhead
Rear Admiral
Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 4020
Location: The Delta Quadrant (or not...)
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| Sun Oct 31, 2004 10:27 am |
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I don't find that really 'World' news, more american because i don't give a chit about kerry or bush.
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Never explain comedy or satire or the ironic comment. Those who get it, get it. Those who don't, never will. -Michael Moore
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Pah-Wraith
Sheikh
Joined: 30 Nov 2001
Posts: 6012
Location: Londonistan.
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| Sun Oct 31, 2004 11:05 am |
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"When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold"
I think the American Election is World News, feel free to post anything that is considered "World News" in your Opinion. However whoever is elected as President of America will no doubt have an effect on the World.
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Hitchhiker
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:08 pm |
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Indeed. Most Canadians are paying more attention to the American election than they did the Canadian election. 
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Sun Oct 31, 2004 3:29 pm |
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Alright, we have a topic about this.
-------signature-------
"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Jeremy
J's Guy
Joined: 03 Oct 2002
Posts: 7823
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland
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| Sun Oct 31, 2004 5:38 pm |
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It seems to be a bit biased on the facts quoted, I'm sure it's closer than that. But saying that I think Kerry Might just win. Still, it's way too close to call.
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Jeff Miller
Fleet Admiral
Joined: 22 Nov 2001
Posts: 23947
Location: Mental Ward for the Mentaly Unstable 6th floor, Saint John's 1615 Delaware Longview Washington 98632
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| Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:38 am |
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| Republican_Man wrote: | | Alright, we have a topic about this. |
I find the first sentence in your signature disturbing its not the music thats vile its the peoples opinion of it thats vile music is a art.
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LightningBoy
Commodore
Joined: 09 Mar 2003
Posts: 1446
Location: Minnesota, U.S.A.
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| Mon Nov 01, 2004 3:58 pm |
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| Jeff Miller wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | Alright, we have a topic about this. |
I find the first sentence in your signature disturbing its not the music thats vile its the peoples opinion of it thats vile music is a art. |
MUSIC is art. Gangster Rap is "vile".
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Pah-Wraith
Sheikh
Joined: 30 Nov 2001
Posts: 6012
Location: Londonistan.
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| Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:06 pm |
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| LightningBoy wrote: | | Jeff Miller wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | Alright, we have a topic about this. |
I find the first sentence in your signature disturbing its not the music thats vile its the peoples opinion of it thats vile music is a art. |
MUSIC is art. Gangster Rap is "vile". |
depends what your definition of "Ganster Rap" is, and everyone has a different Opinion of what is "Vile". There are some talented Politically active young rappers out there like Paris with his Brilliant Album "Sonic Jihad" 
Generally as long as Rapper's aren't Commercialised ignorant fools then they produce good music, Rap can be poetry sometimes. 
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Captain Dappet
Forum Revolutionist
Joined: 06 Feb 2002
Posts: 16756
Location: On my supersonic rocket ship.
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| Mon Nov 01, 2004 4:12 pm |
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| LightningBoy wrote: | | Jeff Miller wrote: | | Republican_Man wrote: | | Alright, we have a topic about this. |
I find the first sentence in your signature disturbing its not the music thats vile its the peoples opinion of it thats vile music is a art. |
MUSIC is art. Gangster Rap is "vile". |
You do realize, of course, that "Gangster Rap" is a form of music?
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Founder
Dominion Leader
Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 12755
Location: Gamma Quadrant
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| Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:57 pm |
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| Pah-Wraith wrote: |
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WTF is that a picture of!? A plane about to ram the White House? Is that somehow supposed to be amusing? Sick......
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Republican_Man
STV's Premier Conservative
Joined: 26 Mar 2004
Posts: 14823
Location: Classified
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| Mon Nov 01, 2004 10:22 pm |
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| Founder wrote: | | Pah-Wraith wrote: |
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WTF is that a picture of!? A plane about to ram the White House? Is that somehow supposed to be amusing? Sick...... |
EXACTLY! Right, I agree. Sickening.
-------signature-------
"Rights are only as good as the willingness of some to exercise responsibility for those rights- Fmr. Colorado Senate Pres. John Andrews
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Link, the Hero of Time
Vice Admiral
Joined: 15 Sep 2001
Posts: 5581
Location: Kokori Forest, Hyrule
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| Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:06 am |
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alright, continuing off topic for THE LAST OFF TOPIC POST (Hint hint);
Wasn't it morals that banned good music like rock and roll for all those years? Wasn't it morals that banned elvis from most places because of the way he swung his hips? Wasn't it morals that made a Husband and wife slept in seperate beds?
"Morals" is the last defense people use to deny change. People didn't think it was moral to let African-americans be equal. People didn't think it was moral to allow women to vote.
Though I do dislike much of Rap there is some that I've listened to for a while. Rap is basically street poetry, and if the person doing it isn't Commercialized like Pah said they are very good.
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