by NudewigVonB » Sat Oct 23, 2004 7:14 am
More thoughts from a thinking Republican, Marlow W. Cook, formerly of Louisville KY, who was Jefferson County judge from 1962-1968 and U.S. senator from Kentucky from 1968-1975, who "is voting for Kerry"
Date: Thursday, October 21 @ 10:27:35 EDT
Topic: Election 2004
'Frightened to death' of Bush
By Marlow W. Cook, Louisville 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.
VOTE THE MORON OUT!!!
Nudewig Au Naturale
And then, he stands up and begins talking and walking toward me. I end up running out of the room, slamming the door shut and locking the door still listening to the ranting though.......
