Re: charlie reese..interesting reading if true

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (Robert)]

If you can hear on-line audio, this week's This American Life
(http://www.thislife.org/) has some pretty fascinating stuff on undecided
voters.  Some people are remarkably irrational and it's both funny and
tragic.  This is the direct link: http://www.thislife.org/ra/276.ram

 > From: Alice Hinchcliffe <http://www.aaahawk.com/~aliceh>
 > Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 08:49:14 -0400
 >
 > http://www.aol.com/~AmbersMomm wrote:
 > 
 > > friends and family...the election will be here soon... don't forget to 
 > > vote!
 > >
 > > Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
 > > Orlando Sentinel
 > > Charlie Reese
 > >
 > > Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's 
 > > re-election,
 > > they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick Cheney, Donald
 > > Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative
 > > ideologues and their corporate backers. I have sadly come to the 
 > > conclusion
 > > that President Bush is merely a front man, an empty suit, who is 
 > > manipulated
 > > by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously
 > > simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.
 > >
 > > It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. 
 > > Take
 > > away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed
 > > that an Arab King (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and 
 > > articulately
 > > in English than our own President at their joint press conference 
 > > recently.
 > >
 > > John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think
 > > and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's
 > > comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's 
 > > unfortunate
 > > that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal
 > > to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.
 > >
 > > But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he 
 > > observed that
 > > people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never
 > > will be.
 > >
 > > People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their
 > > stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is 
 > > as far
 > > from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he
 > > won't fool me twice.
 > >
 > > It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly
 > > increase the power of government, to show contempt for the 
 > > Constitution and
 > > the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of 
 > > American jobs
 > > is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and
 > > that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is 
 > > the most
 > > prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His
 > > administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.
 > >
 > > It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few
 > > Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found
 > > yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that 
 > > either
 > > you can plea-bargain this or the President will designate you an enemy
 > > combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration ?
 > >
 > > This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but
 > > because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost
 > > restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America 
 > > is not
 > > only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the 
 > > world
 > > thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration.
 > >
 > > Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea
 > > and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
 > >
 > > I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a 
 > > man in
 > > the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us 
 > > with it.
 > > Go to Kerry's Web site (http://www.johnkerry.com/ 
 > > <http://www.johnkerry.com/>) and
 > > read some of the magazine profiles on him. You'll find that there is a 
 > > great
 > > deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.
 > >
 > > Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays hockey, windsurfs,
 > > ride motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and speaks French. And .
 > > . it would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed people
 > > face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and 
 > > dispels all
 > > illusions about war.
 > >  
 > > /Charlie Reese writes for the Orlando Sentinel. He's a Conservative
 > > Republican who is anti-abortion, anti-tax-and-spend, loudly critical of
 > > legislation by the judiciary, doesn't think much of multiculturalism or
 > > secularism, has suggested Clinton "turned the Oval Office into a
 > > whorehouse," thinks Ronald Reagan is the greatest thing to come down the
 > > pike since canned beer, and voted for Bush in the last election.