Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Smear and Fear
"Smear and Fear" should be the Bush/Cheney election campaign slogan.
President Bush has no plan to deal with the rising cost of health care or prescriptions. When pressed on this issue--critical to millions of Americans--Mr. Bush repeats his scripted tirade against "trial attorneys" and "frivolous lawsuits", and calls John Kerry names.
That is not a health care plan.
But Mr. Bush has nothing else to offer. Well, not quite all; we've seen recently that the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has spent millions investigating the possible health benefits of prayer. Since a recent government study found that 45 percent of adults prayed specifically for health reasons and suggested that many of them were poor people with limited access to care, it was, in the words of NCCAM senior advisor Dr. Richard Nahin, "a public health imperative to understand if this prayer offers them any benefit."
Attacking trial attorneys and counting on the benefits of prayer to meet "a public health imperative" do not constitute a health care plan, and Mr. Bush knows it. So when the subject comes up--he attacks John Kerry.
Similarly, Mr. Bush has no plan to untangle the mess in Iraq. Bogged down in a guerilla war, caught in what experts now say was Saddam Hussein's plan all along--retreat followed by sustained guerilla attacks--the US is bearing 90% of the "coalition" costs in lives and money. Mr. Bush has gone back to the UN looking for assistance, but has been met with skepticism.
This is unsurprising, given that he tried to mislead and bully them into this war in the first place. He sent Colin Powell to present highly dubious evidence in support of now-discredited claims of Iraq's WMD and ties to al-Qaida--claims Mr. Powell himself now regrets making. When that failed to convince, Mr. Bush himself went and told the UN that if they didn't follow him unquestioningly they were "with the terrorists". It was hardly America's greatest moment on the world stage.
Mr. Bush never had a viable plan for fighting terrorism. He never had a viable plan for engaging the rest of the world in his war in Iraq. He has no viable plan for getting out of Iraq. He has no viable plan for sustaining the troops levels we now need with a volunteer military.
So he attacks John Kerry.
We could go on and on, but the repetition would be tiresome. The fact is that on issue after issue Mr. Bush has nothing to offer, and instead counters every criticism of his term in office not with substantive refutations but with attacks and yes, smears, on his opponent.
These smears do not answer the questions which any American has a right to ask about Mr. Bush's basic competence. Changing the subject and attacking John Kerry does not combat rising health care costs, set a strategy for getting out of Iraq, balance the budget, or create jobs.
We believe that if Mr. Bush had plans for dealing with these things we'd have heard them by now.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have perfected the art of suggesting that a vote for Kerry is a vote for "terrorism", or will somehow bring down upon us another terrorist attack. Their surrogates have gone as far as claiming that "the terrorists" prefer John Kerry, which, frankly, is a little hard to believe given how much they've accomplished under George W. Bush.
The lowness of this Strategy of Fear is almost beyond comprehension; we've never heard anything so pernicious, so un-American, come out of the mouths of a candidate for the nation's highest office.
But it's all they have. Mr. Bush has presided over what may be the worst four years in office for a president since the Civil War erupted around Abraham Lincoln: the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, and the worst foreign policy since William McKinley's. He could not possibly run for reelection on his record. So instead he has embraced the politics of Smear and Fear.
Americans should reject Smear and Fear--and reject Mr. Bush.
201k.com endorses John F. Kerry for President of the Unites States. Simply put, the world is too dangerous a place for us to any longer trust the presidency to the hands of Mr. Bush, who mistakes image control, obfuscations and mule-headed certainty for policy.
John Kerry is pragmatic, experienced, accomplished, and intelligent. America desperately need that.
President Bush has no plan to deal with the rising cost of health care or prescriptions. When pressed on this issue--critical to millions of Americans--Mr. Bush repeats his scripted tirade against "trial attorneys" and "frivolous lawsuits", and calls John Kerry names.
That is not a health care plan.
But Mr. Bush has nothing else to offer. Well, not quite all; we've seen recently that the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has spent millions investigating the possible health benefits of prayer. Since a recent government study found that 45 percent of adults prayed specifically for health reasons and suggested that many of them were poor people with limited access to care, it was, in the words of NCCAM senior advisor Dr. Richard Nahin, "a public health imperative to understand if this prayer offers them any benefit."
Attacking trial attorneys and counting on the benefits of prayer to meet "a public health imperative" do not constitute a health care plan, and Mr. Bush knows it. So when the subject comes up--he attacks John Kerry.
Similarly, Mr. Bush has no plan to untangle the mess in Iraq. Bogged down in a guerilla war, caught in what experts now say was Saddam Hussein's plan all along--retreat followed by sustained guerilla attacks--the US is bearing 90% of the "coalition" costs in lives and money. Mr. Bush has gone back to the UN looking for assistance, but has been met with skepticism.
This is unsurprising, given that he tried to mislead and bully them into this war in the first place. He sent Colin Powell to present highly dubious evidence in support of now-discredited claims of Iraq's WMD and ties to al-Qaida--claims Mr. Powell himself now regrets making. When that failed to convince, Mr. Bush himself went and told the UN that if they didn't follow him unquestioningly they were "with the terrorists". It was hardly America's greatest moment on the world stage.
Mr. Bush never had a viable plan for fighting terrorism. He never had a viable plan for engaging the rest of the world in his war in Iraq. He has no viable plan for getting out of Iraq. He has no viable plan for sustaining the troops levels we now need with a volunteer military.
So he attacks John Kerry.
We could go on and on, but the repetition would be tiresome. The fact is that on issue after issue Mr. Bush has nothing to offer, and instead counters every criticism of his term in office not with substantive refutations but with attacks and yes, smears, on his opponent.
These smears do not answer the questions which any American has a right to ask about Mr. Bush's basic competence. Changing the subject and attacking John Kerry does not combat rising health care costs, set a strategy for getting out of Iraq, balance the budget, or create jobs.
We believe that if Mr. Bush had plans for dealing with these things we'd have heard them by now.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have perfected the art of suggesting that a vote for Kerry is a vote for "terrorism", or will somehow bring down upon us another terrorist attack. Their surrogates have gone as far as claiming that "the terrorists" prefer John Kerry, which, frankly, is a little hard to believe given how much they've accomplished under George W. Bush.
The lowness of this Strategy of Fear is almost beyond comprehension; we've never heard anything so pernicious, so un-American, come out of the mouths of a candidate for the nation's highest office.
But it's all they have. Mr. Bush has presided over what may be the worst four years in office for a president since the Civil War erupted around Abraham Lincoln: the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, and the worst foreign policy since William McKinley's. He could not possibly run for reelection on his record. So instead he has embraced the politics of Smear and Fear.
Americans should reject Smear and Fear--and reject Mr. Bush.
201k.com endorses John F. Kerry for President of the Unites States. Simply put, the world is too dangerous a place for us to any longer trust the presidency to the hands of Mr. Bush, who mistakes image control, obfuscations and mule-headed certainty for policy.
John Kerry is pragmatic, experienced, accomplished, and intelligent. America desperately need that.
