The little liberal talk radio "network" had its debut today.
I use that term loosely, as they opened with five stations.
To put that in perspective, the fringe Left Pacifica radio network has five stations.
Limbaugh has more affiliates than that in Oklahoma. Or Kansas. Or Arkansas. Over 1,000 total, I'm pretty sure.
I wonder how long the five will last?
I have no problem with activists protesting lawfully outside Karl Rove's property.
However, illegal trespass -- including banging on the man's windows -- is not something that should be condoned. Those who were breaking the law should have been arrested, and Rove should not have granted their leaders face time, even if it was only for "two minutes" (as the story points out).
It was a kindness on his part (to them, and to his neighbors) to do so, but a reward the thugs didn't deserve.
Here's a bit of good news (from my perspective) over at the Dem Senatorial Campaign blog. They're excited about this article from Roll Call:
I can't speak to the situations of two of those candidates, but I sincerely hope they take Brad Carson on the road and let him be a posterboy at liberal fundraisers. That will be a sure way to alienate the voters in one of the most conservative states of the union, whether he ultimately has to face Kirk Humphreys or Tom Coburn. I can't imagine that Carson, who's been careful to moderate his votes recently in preparation for a statewide race in a conservative state, will make that mistake, but then again, he needs to raise money, and there's probably not enough money to be raised in Oklahoma. Either way, I think the GOP holds that seat.Senate Democrats will send out an e-mail fundraising appeal today to more than 90,000 donors aimed at capitalizing on the growing diversity of their 2004 recruiting class.
"The dream team is here," Donna Brazile, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Voting Rights Institute, writes in the missive. "The emergence of Barack Obama, Ken Salazar and Congressman Brad Carson ... makes ours the most diverse class of U.S. Senate candidates in history."
Obama, a black state Senator, cruised to the Democratic nomination in Illinois last Tuesday, while Salazar, the Hispanic state attorney general, has emerged as the establishment's choice in the race to replace Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.). Carson is a member of the Cherokee Nation and is essentially unopposed for the Democratic nomination in Oklahoma.
Obama would be only the third black Senator since Reconstruction; no Hispanic has served in the Senate in the last 27 years. Carson is one of the eight American Indians to serve in Congress.
"The historic opportunity to increase diversity in the U.S. Senate, and thus the diversity of views, background and cultures ... is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss," writes Brazile, who is also a contributing writer to Roll Call.
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee officials hinted that the fundraising appeal is the first in a series of events aimed at creating a "national story" around their candidates.
"We are going to have a class that I would like to sell as a group because of the strength of their credentials," said DSCC Chairman Jon Corzine (N.J.). "We can take this crew on the road to help us on the financial side."
I hate the correspondents' dinners held in D.C.
The President is expected to poke fun at himself, and Presidents have done it for half a century or longer.
Call me a grouch, but I think the Office of the President is serious, and I don't think it's entertaining or useful for Presidents to ridicule themselves in front of the people who cover D.C. It's demeaning, and it's a "tradition" that I wish would end.
And of course the Kerry Campaign is going to make partisan hay over a "tradition" that has never been taken seriously by anyone. That's another reason to end the President's participation in the stupid thing. The President -- Democrat or Republican -- surely has better things to do with his time.
Apparently, the junior Senator from MA thinks he needs to be seen in church. And so he goes, decked out respectfully in skiing apparel:
It was just a media-op. Nice.So much for Kerry Catholicism. On Sunday, John Kerry showed up for the 10:30 Mass at Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church at 10:41 a.m. (The church had roped off two pews for the VIP.) Adding further insult, Kerry arrived noisily, fully outfitted for skiing, not dressed for a religious service. Compounding the insult -- this time to all Catholics in good standings -- Kerry received the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, even though he's not considered to be a Catholic in good standing.
"It was just a media-op," says a Kerry advance staffer. "We set it up with some reporters that we knew were going to be there."
Kerry, who claims to be a practicing Roman Catholic (though lately he's been playing up his partial Jewishness), has consistently voted in support of abortion as both a state politician in Massachusetts and in his time in Washington. He has also spoken in support of euthanasia. He has stated that he disagrees with the Catholic position in both areas.
Under church law, Kerry's very public support of abortion disqualifies him from the sacraments. He is not known to be a regular Mass attendee. In fact, some Roman Catholics in Boston have in the past pressed for the bishops there to excommunicate Kerry for his refusal to accept Catholic doctrine and canon law.
The President had his first official campaign rally yesterday.
The Conservative Observer calls attention to this bit of rhetoric:
Heh. Look for a Slate article on Monday explaining that it's flagrantly distortive and dishonest for the Bush campaign to bring up the Senator's record.THE PRESIDENT: We're beginning to see a pattern here. (Laughter.) Senator Kerry is one of the main opponents of tax relief in the United States Congress. However, when tax increases are proposed, it's a lot easier to get a "yes" vote out of him. (Laughter.) Over the years, he's voted over 350 times for higher taxes on the American people --
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: -- including the biggest tax increase in American history. He also supported a $.50 gallon tax on gasoline.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
Apparently, Senator Kerry's entire campaign staff has joined him on vacation.
How else to explain the fact that Ted Kennedy was trotted out to defend the Senator's record on Russert?
I mentioned a little over a week ago that the Bush campaign ought to grab that video of Kennedy looking on approvingly just over the shoulder of Kerry giving a speech. It seems that the Kerry campaign is determined to provide Karl Rove with plenty of choice in that regard.
Fred Kaplan accuses the Bush campaign of lying about Senator Kerry's record.
Then, he admits the facts in dispute are actually accurate (and tries to explain them away).
Orrin Judd has the details.
Memo to Kaplan: just because you disagree with something doesn't make it a lie.
The Kerry Campaign seems to have realized that their guy needed to be sequestered for a few days, so he could regroup and try to get his political footing back after a disastrous week or so.
Surely, they must be gritting their teeth that he can't even manage to keep from generating negative press in a setting that usually produces vacuous feel-good stories about a candidate's down time:
The more people see of this guy, the less likable he becomes.The image-conscious candidate and his aides prevailed upon reporters and photographers to let him have a first run down the mountain solo, except for two agents and Marvin Nicholson, his omnipresent right-hand man.
His next trip down, a reporter and a camera crew were allowed to follow along on skis — just in time to see Mr. Kerry taken out by one of the Secret Service men, who had inadvertently moved into his path, sending him into the snow.
When asked about the mishap a moment later, he said sharply, "I don't fall down," then used an expletive to describe the agent who "knocked me over."
The campaign's best hope may be to lock him in the ski lodge and let the eventual Veep candidate do all the public appearances.
The Claremonsters have some interesting comments on the recent "hate speech" debacle at Claremont McKenna College. Start here and scroll down.
They also note that J.D. Crouch has just been nominated to serve as Ambassador to Romania after serving in DoD for several years. J.D. was one of my national security studies profs, and a good guy, so good for him.
In Virginia, a young man has been told by his high school that his pro-life t-shirt is the equivalent of profanity:
Elsewhere, other liberals are very upset that anyone dare call baby killers baby killers:For the past two and a half years at Denbigh High School in Newport News the student has been wearing a sweatshirt that says "Abortion is Homicide. You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation. Rock For Life."
But the school's assistant principal told the pro-life teen the message on his shirt violated a school rule that prohibits students from using obscene or profane language. He was told not to wear it to school again, even though he had been doing so without incident going on three years.
Attorney Ed White of the Thomas More Law Center believes his client is being singled out because he is a Christian. He says at Denbigh High, most students are given fairly free rein to express themselves through their choice of clothing.
Err, umm, Lynn, it can't really be an assault on motherhood since to be a mother, one must actually have a child instead of killing it."Part of this assault on motherhood ... is to portray certain women as selfish people without regard for their babies," said Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
And so the "culture wars" continue.
(03-20-2004) The Conservative Observer posts an update.
I was just playing around in my Spain file earlier, and look at the news I found from a year ago:
Some of the recent press reports on Spain have mentioned Galan, so those can be search for further info. Apparently, Spain had a number of suspected Al Qaida cells operating in the country, although they mostly were suspected of being used for financial and recruitment purposes. It seems we can add deadly bombing to their capabilities.An alleged terrorist accused of helping the 11 September conspirators was invited to a party by the Iraqi ambassador to Spain under his al-Qaeda nom de guerre, according to documents seized by Spanish investigators.
Yusuf Galan, who was photographed being trained at a camp run by Osama bin Laden, is now in jail, awaiting trial in Madrid. The indictment against him, drawn up by investigating judge Baltasar Garzon, claims he was 'directly involved with the preparation and carrying out of the attacks ... by the suicide pilots on 11 September'.
Evidence of Galan's links with Iraqi government officials came to light only recently, as investigators pored through more than 40,000 pages of documents seized in raids at the homes of Galan and seven alleged co-conspirators. The Spanish authorities have supplied copies to lawyers in America, and this week the documents will form part of a dossier to be filed in a federal court in Washington, claiming damages of approximately $100 billion on behalf of more than 2,500 11 September victims.
[snip]
It also includes a new affirmation by the Czech government that Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 plotters, met an Iraqi intelligence officer, Ibrahim al-Ani, in Prague in April 2001. Some US officials have suggested this meeting did not happen. But in a signed statement dated 24 February, 2003, Hynek Kmonicek, the Czech ambassador to the UN, says his government 'can confirm that during the stay of Mohamed Atta ... there was contact with Mr al-Ani, who was on 22 April, 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities not compatible with his diplomatic status [the usual euphemism for spying]'. Garzon's indictment says Galan was part of a cell which organized bank robberies on behalf of al-Qaeda, and which had supported the group around Atta financially and logistically.
The Iraq connection is interesting, as is the fact that Galan was a former ETA member. Of course, no evidence of such connections will ever be enough for some members of the Spanish (or American) Left.
I'll link the full piece on the front page eventually, but I wanted to post this notable excerpt from George Neumayr on Spain and the war on terror:
Good questions.Spanish socialists sound like they are already cheering for a Kerry victory. Spain's new pacifist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, immediately rebuked George Bush, saying "You can't bomb a people" and "you can't organize war on the basis of lies."
Zapatero needs to line up his own sophistries better. If Bush was lying when he said that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a nest for al Qaeda and other terrorist outfits with potential access to weapons of mass destruction, then why would al Qaeda need to retaliate against Spain for joining Bush in toppling a regime to which it had no ties? Why would al Qaeda consider Spain's attack on Saddam Hussein an attack on it if Bush and Jose Aznar were wrong in associating the two? If al Qaeda is bombing Spain for "collaboration with the criminal Bush and his allies," as its videotape claims, that would confirm, not deny, Bush's contention that al Qaeda identified itself at some level with Iraq under Hussein.
Here is the take of David Broder, the "dean" of liberal conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, on what passes for bold thinking among the Dems these days.
Bigger government. Jobs programs. A new WPA, circa 2004. Tax the rich.
*yawn*
I've heard of electoral landslides, but this massive a margin is just a wee bit suspicious for a nation that is supposed to be a democracy, no?
It's really hard to trust an incumbent, clad completely in black, who was just was reelected with 69% of the vote, talking about how his administration will strengthen electoral competition. That's an image that cries 'ALERT! THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!' in reasonable minds, and especially in those familiar with Russian history.An exit poll from the Russian presidential election says incumbent Vladimir Putin has been swept back to power with 69% of the vote.
The non-governmental Public Opinion Foundation conducted the poll of 120,000 people in 1,200 voting stations.
At a news conference after midnight on Sunday, Mr Putin thanked voters for their support and promised to ensure further economic growth.
"All the democratic achievements will be guaranteed," he said.
"And we shall not stop with what has been achieved. We shall strengthen the multiparty system," he told reporters, wearing a black sweater and a black jacket with no tie.
And I'm not the only one who's concerned about this, either. Colin Powell has voiced his own thoughts on the weaknesses of Russian democracy as well:
Powell makes some very good points, and it makes it very difficult to take Putin's pronouncements seriously. Why would a man virtually guaranteed victory take steps to unfairly minimize the voice of his political opposition? It doesn't sound like the actions of a man who wants to "strengthen the multiparty system." It sounds like a guy who has a Napoleon complex, somebody that the US needs to keep an eye on.U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Sunday expressed concern about the conduct of Russia's presidential election campaign, including a lack of access by opposition candidates to the government-dominated news media. Mr. Powell said he has raised those concerns directly with President Vladimir Putin.
[...]
Mr. Powell said that to have full democracy, opposition candidates should have all the media access that the president does. He expressed puzzlement as to why opposition access is being curbed in Russia, given Mr. Putin's strong political position and standing with the electorate.
"Since President Putin has had such an overwhelming edge in this election and frankly is liked by the Russian people, and the Russian people will return him to office easily, then it's not entirely clear to me why they go out of their way to keep opposition candidates from fully participating in electoral process," he said. "It's not good, but I don't think it signals the total demise of democracy in Russia."
Mr. Powell said he had expressed those views directly to Mr. Putin and other Russian leaders.
Note the headline to this coverage of our possibly treasonous, and certainly leftist, antiwar activist who was arrested yesterday:
Accused spy is cousin of Bush staffer
Because that's obviously the most important part of the story, right?
There's no bias in the media. Nope, not all all.
Hat tip to No Left Turns for finding it. If you scroll down, you'll also find some fun questions for liberals from Steve Hayward.
There's lots of speculation tonight from folks about the tragic terrorist attacks in Spain, and whether or not they're Al Qaeda.
I don't think we're going to know that right away, but I really doubt that attacks come from ETA. As separatist organizations go, they're usually pretty good about trying to shield civilians from violence. Government officials and businessmen are fair game, but usually not large numbers of civilians. I could be wrong, but that's my initial reaction as someone who follows such things as they relate to international hydrocarbon E&P.
If it is Al Qaeda, it's yet another colossal blunder on their part. Interest in the war against Islamofascist terror is waning, and there never was much interest among our old Western European "allies" (our friends the Spaniards and Italians being notable exceptions). So why not bomb a bunch of civilians and ratchet up interest on the continent an order of magnitude or two? Brilliant. I hear the French even elevated their terror alert level from nothing to something in response.
I just saw a clip of Senator Kerry's refusal today to apologize for calling the GOP a bunch of crooks and liars, and who was over his left shoulder as he was carrying on in that monotonous drone of his?
That's right, his mentor Ted Kennedy.
I hope the Bush Campaign grabs that video for later use.
John McCain (R, Media) has apparently decided it would be fun to make a little news:
That's right. They'd never nominate Senator Lieberman to run for Vice President.Republican Sen. John McCain allowed a glimmer of hope Wednesday for Democrats fantasizing about a bipartisan dream team to defeat President Bush.
McCain said he would consider the unorthodox step of running for vice president on the Democratic ticket — in the unlikely event he received such an offer from the presidential candidate.
"John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it."
But McCain emphasized how unlikely the whole idea was.
"It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the Arizona senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen."
Oh, wait.
Umm, maybe he means they'd never nominate someone like him, because unlike Lieberman, he wouldn't run away from those stances once nominated.
Except he would. It would be impossible not to. Ask Senator Lieberman. And sticking the fork in President Bush's eye would make it all worth it, no?
Maybe.
(Update) Or maybe not. A McCain aide says he rules out a run for Vice President by his boss.
I think Drudge's treatment of Senator Kerry's potty mouth was a little fantastic, but this is just a stupid response from the Kerry campaign:
What a bunch of nonsense.A spokesman for Kerry said he believed the Web site was struck by ``a virus'' yesterday. He then promised to get back to us with a better story, but never did.
If we didn't already know enough about Senator Kerry's foreign policy advisors from their actual service in foreign-policy-challenged administrations over the years, their recent activities suggest they've adopted the Senator's approach of being on every side of an issue. Here's a snippet to whet the appetite:
Good questions. The rest of the piece is here.So who should the American public believe, the Sandy Berger who's providing gratis help to Kerry? Or the Sandy Berger who's telling paying clients that Bush's Homeland Security Department is focused and prepared for anything?
I'm sorry, but every time I read that George Tenet has been speaking to anyone about anything of note, I can't help but think that he has way overstayed his welcome at CIA, and that Rudy Giuliani would be an inspired choice to replace him.
The President was in Houston earlier, and gave a very good speech (no, I didn't donate $2,000 to see it in person, but watched in on the local cable news station). I enjoyed this part in particular:
We're constantly calling attention to the Administration's redefinition of terrorism as a national-security problem (instead of a law-enforcement problem). It's good to see that the President will be hitting the Democrat nominee over the head with this. Interestingly, it may be the one issue in which the Senator is not on both sides.Just the other day my opponent indicated that he's not comfortable using the word, "war," to describe the struggle we're in. He said, "I don't want to use that terminology." He also said the war on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation. I strongly disagree. (Applause.) Our nation followed that approach after the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. The matter was handled in the courts, and thought by some to be settled. But the terrorists were still training in Afghanistan, plotting in other nations, and drawing up more ambitious plans. After the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got.
Our friends at the Brothers Judd have a little pick-em contest going on when Senator Kerry will do the right thing and resign his Senate seat.
The details are here.
Some people don't like the President's re-election advertisement:
Surely one second of a political advertisement reminding Americans of the President's leadership during one of the defining moments of our time is not craven or immoral. And frankly, the notion that we should go from an attitude of "Never Forget" about 9-11 to "Never Remember" is a rather more offensive development.The Bush reelection campaign yesterday unveiled its first three campaign commercials showcasing Ground Zero images, angering some 9/11 families who accused President Bush of exploiting the tragedy for political advantage.
[snip]
Two ads, including a Spanish version, show fleeting images of the World Trade Center devastation. The 30-second spots include a poignant image of an American flag fluttering defiantly amid the WTC wreckage.
One, titled "Safer, Stronger," also features a one-second shot of firefighters removing the flag-draped remains of a victim from the twisted debris.
Both ads reinforce the Ground Zero imagery with frontal shots of two firefighters. Unlike the paid actors and actresses in most of the footage, they are not ringers, but their red headgear gives them away as non-New Yorkers.
I've watched the ads, and I think they're tastefully done.
So, the Godless Christopher Hitchens takes away the laws of nature, and takes away the laws of nature's God, and then pronounces he can find nothing objectionable about homosexuality:
Very well. But if Mr. Hitchens rejects the laws of nature (which he seems not to understand) and of nature's God (which he just can't stand), one wonders upon what stilts Mr. Hitchens can base any political or moral judgments. Mr. Hitchens, unable completely to shed his leftist past, seems to be suggesting all morality is a matter of convention.Well, I do know how I had allowed myself to run away with that last idea, but on reflection this had been largely an aspect of my identification of homosexual life with youthful narcissism and had little bearing on the choices being made by, or offered to, people of my now advanced age. What do I really know about this, when I ask myself? I know that homosexuality is innate in our species, and perhaps in other species also, and thus that it is nonsense to speak of it as an offense to "nature," and nonsense on stilts to speak of it as an offense to any presumable Creator (belief in whose intentions is Andrew's problem and not mine). I know that homosexuality is a form of love, not just a form of sex, and thus that it deserves respect if not reverence.
He concludes that since homosexuality is a form of love, it deserves respect. So there we have it. "Love" is the new standard of behavior for Mr. Hitchens, to replace the laws of nature and of nature's God. It's an updated refrain on that observation from noted philosopher and lyricist Sting, who cautioned us Cold Warriors in the 80s that the Russians love their children too!
And if we disagree with Mr. Hitchens, we've pleased the Mullahs in Iran, he intimates. I'm just not quite sure why that should bother us, since I can't resort any longer to the laws of nature and of nature's God in my evaluation of their "regime" and "lifestyle choices." I mean, I'm sure the Mullahs love their children too! Isn't that enough for Sting and Mr. Hitchens, if they really believe what they say?
One does trust that Hitchens and Sullivan enjoyed their version of Plato's Symposium, though.
Retaining the Nickles Senate seat in Oklahoma just got a bit more difficult:
Having three prominent Republicans in the race means a runoff is almost a certainty in the primary, while the Dem candidate will most likely be Congressman Brad Carson (and he probably won't need a runoff). Oklahoma is a strong Republican state at the national level, but this is likely to be a tough race. Too bad J.C. Watts couldn't be persuaded to run (and win).Former Oklahoma Congressman Tom Coburn joined the U.S. Senate race on Monday. Coburn, a Muskogee physician who served three terms in the U.S. House before retiring in 2001 to honor a term-limits pledge, said Monday that Congress was hamstrung by a lack of leadership and that "moral corruption" in Washington threatened to undermine the country.
A fiscal and social conservative, Coburn entered a race that already has two prominent Republicans -- Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Bob Anthony and former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys. Humphreys has the backing of retiring U.S. Sen. Don Nickles, R-Ponca City, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, and several current and former members of the Oklahoma delegation.
Robert Alt, a contributor over at NRO and blogger at No Left Turns, is headed to Iraq, from where he'll be reporting on the progress of regime change:
This is outstanding. I can't wait to read everything Alt has to say. And I can't help but think that this sort of blogging/reporting by intellectuals (but not trained journalists) is going to put pressure on the professional journalists to do their jobs better.By my recollection, the idea for this project was hatched about six months ago. Schramm decided that he should send the most horrible weapon ever devised by man to Iraq--a lawyer. I was struck at that time--and I still am today--by the disconnect between what was being reported on the news, and what people (mostly those unburdened by press credentials) returning from Iraq were saying. The former gave us only body counts, while the latter provided numerous examples of the slow success of regime change, both from the point of view of the soldiers and the Iraqis. While there is a certain bias to news coverage in favor of "bad" news, the drumbeat here was and is particularly pernicious . . . and particularly political. This skew is not particularly surprising coming from outlets such as CNN, which admitted to knowing yet failing to report about Saddam’s recent (pre-war) atrocities, lest it lose access to the country whose last confrontation with the U.S. put the network on the map.
This media disconnect is particularly disconcerting given the importance of the U.S. effort in Iraq. The effort to oust the Saddam and replace him with a democratic regime is an historic undertaking. The removal of a bloody tyrant and the attempt to bring freedom to an oppressed people is one worthy of the American people. But the task is one filled with both promise and peril. If regime change is done well, then Iraq will serve as an example in the Middle East and will likely contribute to the stability of the region. However, if regime change is done poorly, then Iraq will also serve as an example both of democracy in the Middle East and of U.S. foreign policy, and its failure would likely further destabilize the region.
Because so much is at stake, the skewed media perspective which provides the lone window into the region for most Americans is all the more dangerous. Dangerous because it misinforms Americans as to what our role is in Iraq, what kind of progress is being made, and therefore what sort of action we should take next.
This project is designed to provide some counterbalance.
Having hammered George W. Bush on his mixed free trade record, I've been wondering what they would have to say now since both John Kerry and John Edwards are running on anti-trade platforms.
Well, I need wonder no longer: They'll distort the record.
Alex Knapp takes Matt Yglesias to task for saying:
Fair enough, but what of the competition? Bush favors free trade, except he doesn't do anything to make new agreements go through, subsidizes favors industries, sometimes imposes tariffs to benefit politically-important constituencies, and slaps down his own economic advisor when he speaks the truth on the subject. I've hypothesized before that the Democrats have a free trading future and the GOP will turn forthrightly protectionist, but at the moment this is obviously unclear. Based on Bush's record we know that he will consistently speak out in favor of trade and consistently act so as to undermine it.
To which Knapp responds:
Where I really take issue with Matt is on this point" "he doesn't do anything to make new agreements go through..."
Except that under Bush's watch, the United States has eagerly pursued the FTAA and CAFTA, made a free trade agreement with Australia and Jordan, and is pursuing free trade agreements with many other countries. Additionally, it was under Bush's watch that the United States pushed during WTO negotiations a complete elimination of industrial tariffs, successfully negotiated broader protections for intellectual property globally, and actually began negotiations to eliminate agricultural subsidies (although Europe's refusal to do so made this a politically unsustainable position.)
Bush has indeed been imperfect on free trade. But it's hard to argue that he's "just as bad" as a politician that is openly using anti-trade rhetoric to attack him on jobs.
If you're liberal or dislike Bush to the point that you'd never vote for him, that's fine. Even if you're in favor of free trade, most of us have to bite our tongues on certain issues where we disagree with our preferred candidate. But if you believe in free trade, it's ludicrous to cite trade as a reason to vote against Bush.
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003