1,001 Reasons Not To Vote For Bush (Vol. 100)
991. Lila Lipscomb. (Yes, I finally saw Fahrenheit 9/11.)
992. In an article in its Nov. 8, 2004, edition, Newsweek includes this doubly surprising passage: "Both plans depend heavily on building significant Iraqi forces to take over security. But the truth is, neither party is fully reckoning with the reality of Iraq—which is that the insurgents, by most accounts, are winning. Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general who stays in touch with the Joint Chiefs, has acknowledged this privately to friends in recent weeks, Newsweek has learned."
993. I don't know which is more surprising: that Colin Powell would be so candid, even privately, or that after his lies to the United Nations and the American people, Colin Powell still has friends.
994. This is just revolting. From an Oct. 30, 2004, New York Daily News article on the political ramifications of Osama bin Laden's videotaped message: "A senior GOP strategist added, 'anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush.' He called it 'a little gift,' saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection."
995. Not everyone saw the bin Laden video as "a little gift." Kristen Breitweiser and Monica Gabrielle, whose husbands died on Sept. 11, 2001, offered up an open letter to Bush: "Our question to President Bush is: Why didn't you catch him when you promised us you would? Why is this mass murderer -- this madman -- still out there making videotapes and terrorizing our country three years after you promised our country that you would make us safe from him?"
996. From an article in the Oct. 29, 2004, Washington Post: "A Bush political appointee in the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection bureau drafted and distributed a public relations strategy designed to 'change perception' about the nation's security by repeating the message, in the weeks leading up to the presidential election, that America is safer, according to internal government documents."
997. Yes, that would be the "we don't do politics" Department of Homeland Security.
998. At Slate.com, author Daniel Benjamin provides yet another example of the Bush administration's inability to see where the real threats are: "The idea that states are the real issue and terrorists and their organizations are of secondary concern has been present throughout the Bush presidency....After 9/11, senior officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, simply refused to believe the assessment of the intelligence community that Iraq had no hand in the attack and that al-Qaida operated independently of state support. In the Pentagon's conduct of operations in Afghanistan, the overwhelming focus was on unseating the Taliban, the effective state power, while less attention was paid to pursuing al-Qaida, which had just killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil." (Via Kevin Drum)
999. From Maureen Dowd's Oct. 31, 2004, column in the New York Times: "The Bushies' campaign pitch follows their usual backward logic: Because we have failed to make you safe, you should re-elect us to make you safer. Because we haven't caught Osama in three years, you need us to catch Osama in the next four years. Because we didn't bother to secure explosives in Iraq, you can count on us to make sure those explosives aren't used against you."
1,000. A view from the U.K.: The Guardian, in an Oct. 30, 2004, editorial, says: "To adapt the words of Talleyrand, the Bush presidency has been not merely a crime but a mistake. Mr Bush has proved a terrifying failure in the world's most powerful office. He has made the world more angry, more dangerous and more divided -- not less. This, above all, is why it matters to us, as it should to Americans, that John Kerry is elected on Tuesday."

- posted by Boots @ 10/31/2004 08:03:00 PM