now there's a good reason to want him as president. he can play basketball

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We're constantly visited by the *compassionate conservative* trolls from the other board who come here only to be spew hatred, personally attack posters and to generally cause trouble, despite constant requests from the monitor that they not do that.

I've always been in favor of stem cell research. I believe in science progressing and helping people live longer. I don't believe in forcing the personal religious beliefs of some down the throats of every American.

In all honesty, though, here lately it's hard for me to get excited if I see America making progress in any area because it doesn't matter what bill Congress introduces, votes in favor of and presents to the President. Bush will dismiss what he doesn't like and issue yet another of hundreds of his famous *signing statements.* I don't know why we even bother to have a Congress any more. They've been rendered impotent by King George.

I apologize if you feel you were being treated negatively. If you're someone who is legitimate and sincere about debate, then welcome to our board.

But if you're only here to start trouble, like most of the elephants in donkeys' clothing invading this board lately, then I'd prefer that you just go away. I won't feed any more hatred because I'm just tired of it all. I've climbed down to their level too many times in the last few months, the stench way down there is just terrible, and I no longer wish to engage in their kind of communication.

What are your thoughts on the issues I've mentioned? Please respond. Thoughtful, intelligent debate, without the use of degrading personal insults, is very welcome here.

But I know how you feel, I feel the same way every time I see the current Pres. Bush, and am starting to feel that way about McCain. There is just something about that man that doesn't sit right with me. And if I was a Republican I wouldn't necessarily change my party, but I would not necessarily be voting with it either.

I voted for Clinton when he first ran agains Bush Sr. After six months of him as president and what I saw happening to the country I re-registered as republican. Every time that man or his wife had their face on the TV I muted it. I cannot tell you why, but hearing his voice or seeing his face literally made me nausous. (I should have invested in Pepto Bismol stock and would have made a fortune because of all the Pepto I went through). I still believe for 8 years we had no president. Just someone sitting in the office, but we didn't have a real leader.

Now I keep hearing how everyone praises Bill Clinton and what a great president he was (even though he was impeached). So I would like to hear from people and name one thing that was good that he did so I could possibly have a different opinion of him. The really odd thing is everytime his face is in the news I get that sick nauseous feeling again and still have to mute him and look away.

The hair just stands up on my neck and I really feel like I am looking at what evil is (and I'm not religious, but he just gives me a creepy feeling), so please tell me something good about him.

The Downing Street memos have brought into focus an essential question: on what basis did President George W. Bush decide to invade Iraq? The memos are a government-level confirmation of what has been long believed by so many: that the administration was hell-bent on invading Iraq and was simply looking for justification, valid or not.

Despite such mounting evidence, Bush resolutely maintains total denial. In fact, when a British reporter asked the president recently about the Downing Street documents, Bush painted himself as a reluctant warrior. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," he said, answering for himself and British Prime Minister Blair. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Yet there's evidence that Bush not only deliberately relied on false intelligence to justify an attack, but that he would have willingly used any excuse at all to invade Iraq. And that he was obsessed with the notion well before 9/11�indeed, even before he became president in early 2001.

In interviews I conducted last fall, a well-known journalist, biographer and Bush family friend who worked for a time with Bush on a ghostwritten memoir said that an Iraq war was always on Bush's brain.

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and Houston Chronicle journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He went on, 'If I have a chance to invade�, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'"

Bush apparently accepted a view that Herskowitz, with his long experience of writing books with top Republicans, says was a common sentiment: that no president could be considered truly successful without one military "win" under his belt. Leading Republicans had long been enthralled by the effect of the minuscule Falklands War on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's popularity, and ridiculed Democrats such as Jimmy Carter who were reluctant to use American force. Indeed, both Reagan and Bush's father successfully prosecuted limited invasions (Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War) without miring the United States in endless conflicts.

Herskowitz's revelations illuminate Bush's personal motivation for invading Iraq and, more importantly, his general inclination to use war to advance his domestic political ends. Furthermore, they establish that this thinking predated 9/11, predated his election to the presidency and predated his appointment of leading neoconservatives who had their own, separate, more complex geopolitical rationale for supporting an invasion.

Herskowitz�a longtime Houston newspaper columnist�has ghostwritten or co-authored autobiographies of a broad spectrum of famous people, including Reagan adviser Michael Deaver, Mickey Mantle, Dan Rather and Nixon cabinet secretary John B. Connally. Bush's 1999 comments to Herskowitz were made over the course of as many as 20 sessions together. Eventually, campaign staffers�expressing concern about things Bush had told the author that were included in the manuscript�pulled the project, and Bush campaign officials came to Herskowitz's house and took his original tapes and notes. Bush communications director Karen Hughes then assumed responsibility for the project, which was published in highly sanitized form as A Charge to Keep.

The revelations about Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged during two taped sessions I held with Herskowitz. These conversations covered a variety of matters, including the journalist's continued closeness with the Bush family and fondness for Bush Senior�who clearly trusted Herskowitz enough to arrange for him to pen a subsequent authorized biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published in 2003.

I conducted those interviews last fall and published an article based on them during the final heated days of the 2004 campaign. Herskowitz's taped insights were verified to the satisfaction of editors at the Houston Chronicle, yet the story failed to gain broad mainstream coverage, primarily because news organization executives expressed concern about introducing such potent news so close to the election. Editors told me they worried about a huge backlash from the White House and charges of an "October Surprise."

But today, as public doubts over the Iraq invasion grow, and with the Downing Street papers adding substance to those doubts, the Herskowitz interviews assume singular importance by providing profound insight into what motivated Bush�personally�in the days and weeks following 9/11. Those interviews introduce us to a George W. Bush, who, until 9/11, had no means for becoming "a great president"�because he had no easy path to war. Once handed the national tragedy of 9/11, Bush realized that the Afghanistan campaign and the covert war against terrorist organizations would not satisfy his ambitions for greatness. Thus, Bush shifted focus from Al Qaeda, perpetrator of the attacks on New York and Washington. Instead, he concentrated on ensuring his place in American history by going after a globally reviled and easily targeted state run by a ruthless dictator.

The Herskowitz interviews add an important dimension to our understanding of this presidency, especially in combination with further evidence that Bush's focus on Iraq was motivated by something other than credible intelligence. In their published accounts of the period between 9/11 and the March 2003 invasion, former White House Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke and journalist Bob Woodward both describe a president single-mindedly obsessed with Iraq. The first anecdote takes place the day after the World Trade Center collapsed, in the Situation Room of the White House. The witness is Richard Clarke, and the situation is captured in his book, Against All Enemies.

Similarly, Bob Woodward, in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview about his book, Bush At War, captures a moment, on November 21, 2001, where the president expresses an acute sense of urgency that it is time to secretly plan the war with Iraq. Again, we know there was nothing in the way of credible intelligence to precipitate the president's actions.

Bush wanted a war so that he could build the political capital necessary to achieve his domestic agenda and become, in his mind, "a great president." Blair and the members of his cabinet, unaware of the Herskowitz conversations, placed Bush's decision to mount an invasion in or about July of 2002. But for Bush, the question that summer was not whether, it was only how and when. The most important question, why, was left for later.

Eventually, there would be a succession of answers to that question: weapons of mass destruction, links to Al Qaeda, the promotion of democracy, the domino theory of the Middle East. But none of them have been as convincing as the reason George W. Bush gave way back in the summer of 1999.

I can remember when republicans attacked Hiliary and Chelsea big time. Dont you remember? So, now that someone has attacked Bush, his daughters and wife (seems like quite a bit is not attack but truth), the poster is wrong. Geez, I can remember when I would read awful attacks on Chelsea, who was only a child while in the White House, and I often thought all this is gonna affect her self esteem. Hiliary has been a punching bag and continues to be from the right wing. So, can we all get over it? Politics is tough and yes both sides attack, even personally (really..wow??) the other side. From the posts I have read between these two (GT and MT), me thinks one has a grudge against the other and that to me is ridiculous and tiring to read. So, kiddies, can we all play nicely in the sand box?

So by your reasoning if a child molestor had molested a child many years ago....you would be okay with the person teaching young children? Because that person has a right to privacy and if they are qualified to teach...their prior history should not be of any concern?

I'm sorry but there are exceptions to every rule here. A person who willingly, knowingly, and admittingly helped blow up several buildings while running a terrorist group should have no right to be a teacher or instructor to any students......period.

What I'm tired of - denial. Widespread total denial, even as live as we've known it crumbles to ashes.

Take the healthcare mess. Lobbyists of insurance and pharmaceutical companies buying the vote of every senator and congressman in Washington to keep the status quo. The people we elected to office taking bribes to betray the very people that elected them. I am sick of knowing that no matter how much I pay in insurance premiums, when the time comes for a claim to get paid, big business will find any loophole to deny the claim and bankrupt me - and they get legislated more loopholes every day by anybody I vote for. And if I am unlucky enough to have a disease that requires a procedure to save my life, the "loss prevention" department at any insurer I pay will diligently seek reason to deny that procedure as "unnecessary" so I will do without the procedure and die. All Washington can do is lie and deny about the healthcare situation.

The lie that the more the government spends on "defense", the safer we are. I found out after Katrina just how safe I was, just how much my government would take care of me, and just what fun living under martial law is. I have learned just how much respect for our enlisted men the government has as they deny insurance claims to their families if they die in action, and force them to pay back sign-on bonuses if they are careless enough to get hurt on the job and have to be removed from duty before their stint is up. I have learned how much are government cares for our other heros, as they deny 9/11 rescue workers healthcare, while providing the best healthcare that can be bought for the terrorists they have incarcerated. Whatever the government claims to be defending, it is not you and me, it is the interests of the big businesses that have bought their vote. Oh, and PLEASE, search every sweet little grandmother that gets on any plane going anywhere - that'll make me feel real safe, because nothing can possibly go wrong with a flight if all the American passengers are treated like criminals before they board it. Keeping the sky safe is all we need, since our borders are so secure that no terrorist could possibly sneak into the country by any other means, like our illegal aliens do!

I am sick of profiteers getting bailed out at the expense of the little guy. I am disgusted to watch incompetence be rewarded and responsibility punished. I am tired of watching people lose their homes, jobs and way of life - while we legislate billions to keep the corporate profits strong, and swallow the propaganda that offshoring our jobs to other countries is a good thing.

I am sick of the war on drugs. How many years and how much mony have been spent on this, yet we are not winning it, so lets just keep throwing money at it and surely someday we'll win. Certainly a DEA agent would never take a bribe or feel any greed like the folks in Washington do.

I am tired of the welfare system and the corruption within it. I am tired of reporting fraud just to be shushed because it causes too much paperwork for them to investigate. I am tired of hearing how anyone can get a government check for threadbare reasons such as questionable mental disabilities, drug/alcohol addiction, or simply the desire to breed irresponsibly until their reproductive organs give up the game. I'm sick of us giving welfare to anyone that strolls into our country illegally and sticks out their hand. I'm 49, I am assured that there will be nothing left for me when I am old and ill, and I have paid into the system all my life. I am also assured that no matter how much wealth I may amass to try to pay my own way, health care costs will continue to skyrocket past it and any illness at all will financially wipe me out, so the best I can hope for is a quick, severe illness that kills me before I'm penniless and homeless.

I am tired of charities that bombard us with heartwrenching commercials - then turn around and pay any contributions we give to CEOs, advertising, and overhead - only then maybe a few cents will actually be left over for the pitiful victims we intended to help.

I am sick of the environmentalists, PETA activists and vegans. Get real, folks. We can't even stop being barbaric to other humans - considering the way we treat our heros, veterans, children, elderly, poor, disaster victims, mentally ill and homeless - do you seriously think we'll become misty eyed about a marshland or an animal? Well, obviously some of us find it preferable to caring about other humans. But your lectures regarding what will we leave our future generations and where is our conscience also apply to the national debt and all the other problems we continue to allow to escalate. So which fire needs to be put out first, would it be possible to actually define and prioritize all the issues intead of just jumping on your bandwagon?

I'm also tired of hearing about the horrific conditions in other countries - imagine taking an interest in what's wrong with our own country before we go fixing everybody else on the planet!

I am tired of being politically correct. We are sooo, sooo worried about offending "someone", and a slip of the tongue in front of a camera can ruin a career....but we have no problem taking away anyone's livelihood, housing, self-respect, dignity, health or even their life if it stands in the way of corporate profit. So why keep up the pretense that we care how anyone feels?

I am tired of going to the polls to vote for people who claim to stand for something, but are prepared to change their mind the minute they hit Washington and the bribes start rolling in. I am tired of having no good choices on election day, and no candidate that I have any faith in actually making it on the ballot. I am tired of knowing that any candidate from any party that makes it to Washington will be on a lobbyist's payroll before they cast their first vote on any issue, so whoever I vote for will put the highest bidder's interests first.

I am tired of the widespread apathy of my fellow citizens, who waste their brainpower on entertainment and fluff, instead of questioning the system and working to change it. I am tired of greed that has taken over every aspect of this country. I am tired of a society that worships wealth, celebrity and beauty for all the wrong reasons. I am weary of everyone being in debt up to their eyeballs, one paycheck away from total financial anniliation, and thinking its a sensible way to live because "everybody" does it. After all, our national leaders show us by example that the solution to huge debt is borrowing more money without a thought for tomorrow, and daily the media assures us those guys really know what they're doing! I am tired of conspicuous consumption and planned obsolesence. I am sick of the skyrocketing costs of education and transportation. I am sick that everything I voluntarily purchase or involuntarily contribute to via taxes has been deberately engineered by some corporate fat-cat to cost me more and give me less than it did yesterday.

Sign me - Just another unheard voice in the land of the deceived, home of the naive.

I prefer the LA Times version, though I don't really like them. Their article did not try to deliberately mislead.

despite how many times I tell you it has nothing to do with what my Christian beliefs are, other than my belief in Christ strengthens my moral resolve. Abortion is morally wrong and it is on that level that I most strenuously oppose it. I have no reason to believe that if I parted ways with God as you have that my moral convictions would go with Him. I had moral convictions before I knew Christ. All knowing Him has done is strengthen them.

You have morals, right? Has nothing to do with religion, as you don't have a belief in God, right? You and He parted ways a long time ago didn't you say? Did your morals go with Him? Of COURSE they didn't. You think war is morally wrong. That does not come from any religion in you does it? NO. It comes from your morality. The same place my exception to abortion comes from. There are many people against abortion on moral grounds who aren't Christians.

You ignored my question again. Do you think war is ever justified? Was the Revolutionary War? Was the Civil War? ANY war?

Just as you think it is a shame war casualties do you light a fire in my heart like millions of aborted children, I think it is a shame that aborted children don't light a fire in yours.

Geeezzzz piglet. Is there a GOOD way to murder a baby? I don't think so!! I don't care how they do it...it still kills them. Murder is rarely done in a "humane" manner. It would not be more palatable to me no matter how it was done. I mention how it is done because you continue to talk about maimed and mangled and bloody war casualties. That is why I bring the point that that is exactly what abortion does...maim, mangle, torture, and kill. Neither is pretty. Both are ugly, and both end with death. Would you want pictures of aborted babies on the 6:00 news? Would you like live video footage of a late term partial birth abortion with your evening meal? Perhaps we could have a half hour of war victims and a half hour of abortions?

I think you are wrong about abortion going underground. Women would start going to Mexico or to whatever state abortions were available. But at least the woman still has a choice of an illegal abortion or carrying the child. The child NEVER gets a choice. In your world that is fair. In mine, it is not. That being said, I realistically do not believe that we will ever live in a country again where abortion is illegal nationwide. I do not believe it will happen. That does not mean I will not continue to speak out against it or work with organizations to give women a choice other than abortion. And if called upon to vote for or against...it will be against. Just like I would not vote to legalize murder. Or theft. It is just amazing to me how outside the womb it is a crime to kill a child, inside the womb it is open season. Freaking amazing. That is why in a partial birth abortion they have to force a breech delivery, then pull back skin of neck, insert needle and suck the brain out, to collapse the skull, while the head is still inside the mother. So that the baby is dead when it is "delivered." If the head was out before that procedure, by law the child has been "born" and to kill it then would be murder. So, to be "legal," have to suck the brain out while the head still inside. Sick.

Going to war is not a unilateral decision. It requires a majority of Congress. Abortion requires a majority of one. Giving one human being total control and choice to take the life of another is morally wrong. Any other time that happens we call it murder without blinking an eye.

I saw the posts for myself, no one "ran" to me. Note that all boards were reviewed for inappropriate posts.

CORONADO, Calif. -- President Bush answered growing antiwar protests
yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in
Iraq: protection of the country's vast oil fields, which he said
would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists.

The president, standing against a backdrop of the USS Ronald Reagan,
the newest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet, said terrorists
would be denied their goal of making Iraq a base from which to
recruit followers, train them, and finance attacks.

''We will defeat the terrorists, Bush said. ''We will build a free
Iraq that will fight terrorists instead of giving them aid and
sanctuary.

Appearing at Naval Air Station North Island to commemorate the
anniversary of the Allies' World War II victory over Japan, Bush
compared his resolve to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's in the
1940s and said America's mission in Iraq is to turn it into a
democratic ally just as the United States did with Japan after its
1945 surrender. Bush's V-J Day ceremony did not fall on the actual
anniversary. Japan announced its surrender on Aug. 15, 1945 -- Aug.
14 in the United States because of the time difference.

''Democratic Presidents Roosevelt and Truman led America to victory
in World War II because they laid out a clear plan for success to the
American people, America's allies, and America's troops, said Howard
Dean, Democratic Party chairman. ''President Bush has failed to put
together a plan, so despite the bravery and sacrifice of our troops,
we are not making the progress that we should be in Iraq. The troops,
our allies, and the American people deserve better leadership from
our commander in chief.

The speech was Bush's third in just over a week defending his Iraq
policies, as the White House scrambles to counter growing public
concern about the war. But the devastation wrought by Hurricane
Katrina in the Gulf Coast drew attention away; the White House
announced during the president's remarks that he was cutting his
August vacation short to return to Washington, D.C., to oversee the
federal response effort.

After the speech, Bush hurried back to Texas ahead of schedule to
prepare to fly back to the nation's capital today. He was to return
to the White House on Friday, after spending more than four weeks
operating from his ranch in Crawford.

It has been an especially deadly month there for US troops, with the
number of those who have died since the invasion of Iraq in March
2003 now nearing 1,900.

The growing death toll has become a regular feature of the slightly
larger protests that Bush now encounters everywhere he goes -- a
movement boosted by a vigil set up in a field down the road from the
president's ranch by a mother grieving the loss of her soldier son in
Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan arrived in Crawford only days after Bush did, asking
for a meeting so he could explain why her son and others are dying in
Iraq. The White House refused, and Sheehan's camp turned into a hub
of activity for hundreds of activists around the country demanding
that troops be brought home.

This week, the administration also had to defend the proposed
constitution produced in Iraq at US urging. Critics fear the impact
of its rejection by many Sunnis, and say it fails to protect
religious freedom and women's rights.

At the naval base, Bush declared, ''We will not rest until victory is
America's and our freedom is secure from Al Qaeda and its forces in
Iraq led by Abu Musab alZarqawi.

''If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would
create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks, Bush
said. ''They'd seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could
recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the
United States and our coalition.