Friday, April 30, 2004

Bush Places Hussein Military in Charge in Iraq

Let me see if I have this straight:

First, Mr. Bush said we must invade Iraq because the United States was threatened by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Then when no WMDs were found, Mr. Bush said the invasion of Iraq was to liberate the Iraqis from Hussein's unquestionably oppressive regime.

Now, because the Iraqi people have not greeted U.S. troops as liberators, Mr. Bush's people in Iraq are placing members of Hussein's own army in charge of security for the Falujah region. And those Iraqi troops will be lead by one of Saddam's top generals.

Since he is now permitting the return to power of Saddam's military, Mr. Bush had better start developing yet another new rationale to justify his invasion of Iraq.

Monday, April 26, 2004

Invasion of Privacy or Evasion of Scrutiny

No cameras cover the return to the United States of American military personnel killed overseas.

In the past, the arrival ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware -- the largest military mortuary in the United States -- has been public. But the Bush administration now forbids news media coverage of the return of the fallen, claiming that the policy is in place to prevent an "invasion of privacy."

Does Mr. Bush really believe that it was an "invasion of privacy" when President Reagan publicly received the bodies of the marines killed in Lebanon? Does Mr. Bush actually think that it was an "invasion of privacy" when his father spoke at a memorial for the sailors killed aboard the USS Iowa?

Or is this Bush policy designed to mute the impact and significance of American military deaths in Iraq?

Monday, April 19, 2004

Friday, April 16, 2004

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Iraq is no Vietnam

In a rare prime-time news conference, President Bush rejected Sen. Edward Kennedy's statement that "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam."

Sen. Kennedy certainly overlooked a key distinction between Vietnam and Iraq -- Mr. Bush actually went to Iraq.

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Givin' it to you straight.

Mayor Richard Daley has named Cortez Trotter as the city’s new fire commissioner. Chicagoans may recognize Mr. Trotter from his many appearances on TV a little over a year ago. He was the man the mayor placed before the cameras to convince us that Meigs Field was torn-up in the dead of night, not because Mr. Daley had long wanted to turn Meigs into a park, but for "reasons of homeland security." Mr. Trotter repeated the mayor's alleged rationale even when the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Homeland Security both denied any prior knowledge of Meigs’ destruction.

I am sure that Mr. Trotter's ability to keep a straight face in front of the TV cameras will serve him and the mayor well when it comes time to answer questions about the fire department's handling of the October 17 fire that killed six at the Cook County administration building and questions regarding the recent slew of racial slurs heard over department radios.

But Chicago needs straight answers, not just a straight face.

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Cheney: Let us rid ourselves of the fiction that low oil prices are somehow good for the United States

The Bush campaign has attacked Senator Kerry as favoring higher gas prices. "Some people have wacky ideas like taxing gasoline more so people drive less. That's John Kerry," a recent Bush campaign commercial said. The commercial singled out Mr. Kerry's support a decade ago for a 50-cent gas tax increase, part of a deficit-reduction package that Mr. Kerry never even voted for.

By contrast, when vice-president Dick Cheney was in Congress, he introduced legislation to create a new import tax that would have caused the price of oil, and ultimately the price of gasoline paid by American drivers, to soar by billions of dollars per year.

"Let us rid ourselves of the fiction that low oil prices are somehow good for the United States," Mr. Cheney said shortly after introducing the legislation.

If his plan had been enacted when Mr. Cheney introduced it, in the years that followed it would have cost U.S. consumers $1.2 trillion.

Sen. Durbin said, "It is hard to explain how they could attack John Kerry for even considering a 50-cent gas tax, which he didn't introduce or vote for, and ignore Cheney's own legislation in 1986 which would have dramatically raised the cost of gasoline."

But it's not hard to explain. It's just another example of Bush administration hypocrisy.

Friday, April 02, 2004

Tavis Smiley Interviews Barack Obama on NPR and PBS.

Audio is available for the Barack Obama interviews conducted by public broadcasting gadabout Tavis Smiley on both Smiley's NPR program and his PBS program. The transcript to the PBS interview (with a bonus Jim Belushi interview!) is available here.

"I am very mindful of the fact that we've got a lot of work to do. We've got to make sure that we communicate our message effectively. I've got to make sure that I respond quickly and effectively to what are going to be inevitably a bunch of negative attacks coming from Karl Rove and the Republican shop. And I feel confident that we're gonna be working harder than any other candidate to make sure that we close the deal, and I can get busy actually making some changes that are gonna help the people of Illinois."

If you want to help Mr. Obama make those changes, feel free to click on the link to your right and donate to the campaign.

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