So, Charlie, we should call them the Swift Boat Veterans for Bias and ignore them.

Sadly, terrye, he did not. He had a superintendent or grand poobah of education (who recently compared someone with Hitler as I recall–very educational), who devised a scheme whereby kids who wouldn’t do well on tests for graduating seniors wouldn’t graduate, therefore wouldn’t take the test, therefore wouldn’t be included as illiterate. Yeah, we can raise the IQ of any group of people on earth if we kick out everybody with a low IQ. Then, viola! the group looks better.

One thing Bush did in Texas was cut the illiteracy rate dramatically. Once upon a time Democrats cared about stuff like that.

And Dems can act like freeing fifty millioin people is nothing if they want but the truth is if it had been left up to you guys those folks would never have any hope of anything better. The Taliban would still be shooting women in stadiums and Saddam would still be feeding old people and babies to starving dogs.

And you would not give a flying f**k.

As you can see the Democratic candidate was someone you never heard of, who had little or no support. Really, what surprises me is that Democrats have held on for so long in Texas. It’s a very conservative state, and it has been for a long time. In many instances the term Democrat or Conservative Democrat was just another name for a Republican who didn’t have the courage to say he was a Republican. It was safer to be a Democrat. Starting from the point when John Connolly switched from Democrat to Republican during the Nixon years, the Republican Party has been on the ascendency in Texas. I see nothing to indicate that this will change. So, considering that he’d beaten Ann Richards, that the Demos didn’t put up anybody known and didn’t support him, that he had the Bush name behind him, that he hadn’t gotten caught in any major scandal during his first term, Bush’s getting reelected by a landslide is not the least bit surprising to me. There’s also a tendency on the part of Texans to want to back the winner, whether in football or politics. Thus, there’s an element of a self-fulfilling prophecy about the situation. This is beneficial to Bush because if he loses this election, he can go back to Texas and run for something (Senator perhaps?) and win. Or, he can just muscle Bud Selig out of the way and be Commissioner of Baseball.

I’m a non-observant Jew. I don’t really relate to Orthodox or Hasidic Jews, but I know that in order for any religion to survive you need some hard core followers. If every Jew was a member of the Reformed movement, I don’t think Judaism would survive very long. I think that religion is an important element of society and the fact that America is probably the most religious Western nation has a lot to do with why we’re such a great country.

I think the Democrats have long been using the term “religious right” as a code word for “racist Southerners”. There are plenty of born again or evangelical Christians in this country who are either Black, Hispanic or Asian. Democratic polticians never refer to these people as religious fanatics. Instead, they are referred to as “community oriented people of deep faith”. When the Democrats want to demonize born agains they ALWAYS focus on the White Southerners. After all, if you’re White, Southern, and you believe in old fashioned values, then you must be a racist who wants to turn the clock back to the days of segregation. So let’s all wise up to this political tactic once and for all.

It’s pretty clear to me that Paris Hilton and Marilyn Manson are winning the culture wars, not Jerry Falwell. I’m more worried about the prospect that we’re getting too close to the decadence of ancient Rome than I am about evangelicals forcing us back to the Victorian age.

I abandoned the Democratic party when I realized that I was buying into lots of leftist rhetoric despite the fact that I never cared for leftists.The knee jerk negative reaction that moderates have towards the religious right is a good example of this.

Which was good enough to get him re-elected in a landslide. When’s the last time that happened in Texas?

By the way, you’re lapsing back into that “link, don’t think” thing.

Wow, Hollywood, you’ve just discovered that someone arguing a particular point may be biased.

And you claim to be a lawyer.

Which is about the same amount of time as it takes internent debunking to reach the MSM if the subject has traction.

I don’t think Kerry can calibrate it that finely.

It may be all he has left.

–==–

Do you know how John Kerry got a piece of shrapnel buried in his leg?

You don’t?

That is all right. Neither does John.

What is the War Hero Afraid of?

Form 180. Release ALL the records.

I tire of the old, dried arguments.

So here are a few comments:

1) Bush’s job was quite dangerous. If one looks at casualty rates, and the amount of time Kerry and Bush spent in harms way, Bush took the larger statistical risk. I am a Vietnam Veteran former Naval Aviator and I lost more people to training than combat. The attacks on Bush hit me directly because of a best friend who was killed doing exactly what Bush was doing, at the same time. I’m hoping the Republicans run ads with Terry McCauliffe’s comment that the National Guard was the easy way out.

2) Kerry has refused to release all of his records, including critical ones that would answer questions such as who approved Kerry’s first Purple Heart and why it was the last one awarded. The incident for which that was awarded took place 2 months after I had left the same place. VC? Pretty hard to find – they had just been wiped out in the 3 VC offensives of 1968.

3) I got into this fray when I found out that Kerry had smeared me and all Vietnam Vets and out country. Would it surprise you to know that an article from the Vietnam News Service a couple of months ago quotes Kerry’s words, with attribution, in a propaganda attack against our country. I have the full transcript of his notorious remarks. Kerry was nothing other than a mouthpiece for the enemy. It was listening to those remarks that got me seriously interested in this. Most Vietnam Vets don’t go around all the time thinking about Vietnam. I was surprised that the SBVT went after Kerry’s in country service rather than his post-war activity (which was not anti-war, it was anti-US). I didn’t realize that Kerry had been a snake and was widely despised by his peers and commanding officers.