Check this out from todays Lewiston Maine Sun Journal. Not sure what these guys do to get their news, but they obviously don't question the standard W talking points. How do guys like this even get these jobs?
Note the email address for the editor and feel free to flame him a new one!
Another term for Mr. Bush
Wednesday, October 27,2004
Erected on a lawn alongside Route 4 in Turner is a sign of the times: We need better choices.
The message could refer to many things, and it probably does. But it aptly describes this year's general election.
While there may be six presidential candidates on the Maine ballot, our real choices are just two: George W. Bush or John F. Kerry. Republican or Democrat. Texas or Massachusetts. Swagger or saunter. Decisive or irresolute. Straight-shooter or opportunist. Wealth or wealthier.
We need better choices.
We could look at the candidates' records, after sorting through all the finger-pointing, criticisms, half-truths and outright misrepresentations, and compare them point by point. It's a worthy exercise and has been done by news organizations and think tanks, but it's definitely not how most people whittle their choices. They look at their own circumstances and decide if they're better off now than four years ago.
So, do that. And be honest.
Look at your neighbors and neighborhoods. Consider the construction boom and the hot housing market. Consider the bustling shopping centers and the low unemployment rate. Is the United States a better place for everyone? No. But for a lot of people it is.
But what's much more important than looking back is looking forward to what the next four years have in store.
The two top issues in the race for the White House are the deficit-hindered economy and Iraq.
If Bush is re-elected, we will still be in Iraq at the end of that term. If Kerry is elected, it'll be the same story.
Both men have made it abundantly clear that Iraq is not a short-term mission.
Of the two, Kerry is pushing to boost the military with tens of thousands of additional troops and expanding Special Forces.
In April, he said he would send more troops to Iraq, trading National Guard for regular Army units, replacing one American for another. In September, he said he wouldn't dispatch those troops. Whatever he may ultimately decide on Iraq, he is firm on military expansion and adding to the national deficit.
According to the Bush administration and others, the present deficit has three prominent sources:
- the dot-com bust just weeks before Bush took office;
- Sept. 11, 2001, and the ensuing 1 million job loss in a three-month span; and
- the ever more expensive war on terror.
Both presidential candidates have announced plans to reduce the deficit in the coming years. Of the two, it's tough to believe we'll be deficit free under either leader by 2008. Kerry's proud record of expanded spending, though, offers a strong indication we'll be worse off under his leadership than under the more disciplined Bush.
Here in Maine, we're demanding that government reel back spending, so supporting a candidate who would expand spending on the federal level is contrary to the sentiment of ourselves and our neighbors.
Finally, what we're really looking for is a leader. Bush has been one. It's tough to believe Kerry can do that job.
How are we to believe Kerry's assertion that he can quickly organize the Coalition of the Willing to line up behind him and follow him into Iraq when he has not succeeded in getting the whole of the United States behind his presidential candidacy?
Bush enjoyed widespread support through much of the early part of his term, but that support waned as the deficit climbed and casualties in Iraq mounted. So, Kerry - if he is the leader he is begging us to believe - should have made easy work of lining the nation up behind his candidacy. He didn't because Bush has remained strong. The nation is split nearly in half, with Bush and Kerry heading into Nov. 2 neck and neck.
Kerry, while full of proposals to turn this nation around, has failed to convince us he's the right guy. Even his own campaign backers said the campaign was his to win or lose at the debate stage. Why? If he was the right guy, it would be obvious in myriad other ways. He's not the right guy.
While we don't agree with all the decisions George W. Bush has made over the last four years, he is the only choice.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com