Ron Suskind, on President Bush and a second Bush administration

[solarbird]

I'm posting this because it's much too much like what I've been picking up as how the Bush administration - and how President Bush in particular - works.

-----

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND
October 17, 2004

TinyURL here: http://tinyurl.com/5nb83

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them...

''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''

Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'''

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. ''My instincts,'' he said. ''My instincts.''

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. ''I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'''

The democrat Biden and the Republican Bartlett are trying to make sense of the same thing -- a president who has been an extraordinary blend of forcefulness and inscrutability, opacity and action.

But lately, words and deeds are beginning to connect.

The Delaware senator was, in fact, hearing what Bush's top deputies -- from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his ''gut'' or his ''instinct'' to guide the ship of state, and then he ''prayed over it.'' The old pro Bartlett, a deliberative, fact-based wonk, is finally hearing a tune that has been hummed quietly by evangelicals (so as not to trouble the secular) for years as they gazed upon President George W. Bush. This evangelical group -- the core of the energetic ''base'' that may well usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger from God. And in the first presidential debate, many Americans heard the discursive John Kerry succinctly raise, for the first time, the issue of Bush's certainty -- the issue being, as Kerry put it, that ''you can be certain and be wrong.''

What underlies Bush's certainty? And can it be assessed in the temporal realm of informed consent?

All of this -- the ''gut'' and ''instincts,'' the certainty and religiosity -connects to a single word, ''faith,'' and faith asserts its hold ever more on debates in this country and abroad. That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge. But faith has also shaped his presidency in profound, nonreligious ways. The president has demanded unquestioning faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision -- often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position -- he expects complete faith in its rightness.

The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions. Since 9/11, those requests have grown scarce; Bush's intolerance of doubters has, if anything, increased, and few dare to question him now. A writ of infallibility -- a premise beneath the powerful Bushian certainty that has, in many ways, moved mountains -- is not just for public consumption: it has guided the inner life of the White House. As Whitman told me on the day in May 2003 that she announced her resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: ''In meetings, I'd ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!'' (Whitman, whose faith in Bush has since been renewed, denies making these remarks and is now a leader of the president's re-election effort in New Jersey.)

Much, much more at the web site.

Comments

[banner.livejournal.com]

Man, the BS here is so deep you'd need a snorkel. I find it interesting how all of these people, who do not understand religion, who are afraid of religion, go on with these wild eyed fantasies about Bush and his Messianic complex. Talk about your hate crimes.

They said all this last time, and they were wrong, and they're saying it all again this time, and they're wrong. That and of course that so much of what's gone on in the White House during meetings and crises has been recorded and published and none of this has ever actually taken place. But no, if you are religious these days, you are EVIL!!!!

Don't any of you even stop to realize the hypocracy of this belief?

And really, taking the word of Joe Biden? Please!

This is nothing but yet -another- hit piece. Let's hear some talk about Kerry's military records, you know, the ones he won't release? or how about his voting record? You know, the one he hides? Or how about his divorce? You know the one the court won't unseal? (but it unsealed a Republican's divorce papers so he had to leave the election), or how about his taxes? You know, how he pays HALF of what everyone else does? There are all these facts that ALL of the press are ignoring. Yet the slightest fantasy about Bush and we have a week long press cycle devoted to it with 24 hour coverage.

If Bush gets re-elected he's not going to become some all powerful demi-god. Really, grow UP People! Aren't any of you bothered by how so many democrates are acting like NUT CASES? The party is coming apart because it has lost power and is desperate. The psycho's have taken it over and are saying truely bizarre things. Listening to it is not healthy. Believing any of it is a lot worse. Stop listening to the man behind the curtain, and start thinking about either fixing the democratic party, or replacing it with something better.

Personally I'd like to recommend the Libertarians :-)

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

I love how you attempt to cut down anything that criticizes Bush when the guy is clearly very flawed as a President.

Trying to discredit something is usually a good sign that there's some truth to it, but you don't even back up your attempt to write it off. You just act like everyone out there should realize what you think the truth is.

I also love how you attempt to turn this back around on Kerry by bringing up old military records, for one. While I think he should've released them if he was going to use Vietnam during his campaigning, I fail to see what that has to do with anything going on now.

This is about how Bush is living in a fantasy world where he can do no wrong. Not only is he blind to the real world, he scoffs at it.

[banner.livejournal.com]

I have never claimed the man was perfect. There are a lot of things he has done that I disagree with.

However, your claims that he is living in a 'Fantasy World' as well as the claims made in the article are quite ridiculous. Why should I have to disprove something that has not been proven? The burden lies on -you- to prove something so outrageous. Not on me to disprove it.

So before you tell me that I must disprove that 'Bush Scoffs at the real world', please -prove- to me that he does.

I bring up the Kerry stuff, because it is very important. The Man got a bad discharge. Probably a bad conduct discharge. This most likely makes it illegal for him to be a Senator, much less a President. Probably why he got it changed. If there is anything that we the public need to know about a man running for President, it is if he is LEGALLY allowed to hold the position. Don't you think? What is he hiding from us? What? Aren't you the least bit curious? Or has your hate consumed you so much, that logic discourse and important questions no longer matter?

Talk about scoffing at the real world...

Evil?

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

No, just fed up... Bush's entire presidency has been filled with nothing but conspiracy, and holy war... This isn't the middle ages with the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, or whatever other holy fanaticism took place back then, this is the 21st-fucking century... We're not all blind fanatics who blindly follow religion to get our answers... I'm not a republican, nor am I a democrat, but I want Shrub-boy out of office as much as the next guy... If he's ousted, maybe this senseless war in Iraq will end, and our men and women overseas will finally be able to come home (those that weren't killed to satisfy the Shrub's warmongering)...

Shrub, a demi-god? That's not the word I'd use... Anti-Christ seems more accurate.

[avram]

A typical Banner post. Seven paragraphs, and not one actual factual refutation of what you’re replying to.

And, of course, you’ve totally misread the text. Nobody here is accusing religious people of being evil. What’s being complained about is basically hubris, a certainty based in false faith, really the sort of thing that kills any actual religious feeling. I know quite a few religious people for whom religion is a source of humility and wonder and humble confidence. The troublemakers are the ones for whom it’s a source of the belief that their gut instincts trump actual facts.

And what’s this noise about Kerry hiding his voting record? How the heck does a US Senator hide his voting record? What, does he have minions running around to libraries all over the country swiping twenty years’ worth of copies of the Congressional Record?

And which court are you talking about that supposedly has jurisdiction over divorce cases in both Illinois and Massachusetts?

And is there some particular reason we shouldn’t take the word of Joe Biden? ’Cause I figure if there was a real reason, you’d tell us. The fact that you haven’t just means that you’re afraid that if you actually do give us a reason, we’ll go out on the net looking for actual evidence and find out you’re bullshitting us. Like usual.

[risu.livejournal.com]

This is fantasy.

This. What you're writing. It is not reality-checked. It is not based on observation. It is from space.

Fundamentalists are not the target. They are not helpless. They are not a punching bag. The people who criticize them are not lashing out.

The people who criticize them are scared.

When you say that being religious is treated as 'EVIL!!!' that is from space. It is a fantasy. It is a tactic.

People who are religious have a very easy way to earn the respect of everyone around them. They can be good people. They can say good things. They can do good works. They can not do crazy nutcase things.

It's that easy.

The people who are scared are not the DNC. The DNC is . . . troubled. The people who are scared are ordinary people. They are not genetically Democrats. They are not an inferior and easily frightened Democratic race.

They are people.

Who have been scared.

Who feel something horribly wrong.

And are looking for what it is.

And are pretty sure that it's not religious persecution.

Because, in America, the persecution of Christianity is pretty much only happening in space.

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Note that the person cited in the beginning of the article, Bruce Bartlett, is a self-described libertarian-leaning Republican. And the fact is that Bush is about as far from libertarian as you'll find in our political spectrum.

Think about it, most libertarians describe themselves as fiscally conservative and socially liberal (at least when it comes to regulation). Bush, despite his rhetoric, is fiscally liberal and socially conservative. That's why I, like many libertarians and libertarian-leaning folks, will hold our noses and vote for Kerry.

Afraid?

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one, my friend... I think the majority of those of us "reality based" individuals are... you should check out my LJ entry from Thursday (I think)... or was it Weds... too damn much underhandedness, and conspiracy... I just want the shrub out of office for good...

[tinlail.livejournal.com]

Well I can tell that I am not held in high regard among most people in my friends list. So I have no problem saying that regardless of how Bush is deciding to what to do. I plan to vote for him because I think he is doing the right thing.

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

An honest question or two:

What is the "right thing" that he's doing?

Is that worth the rest of the problems that have come up during his time in the White House?

Is that worth our rights being compromised in the interest of "national security?"

Is that worth having a President in office who is against abortion, against gays having the right to marry, and so on?

I say no. The ends do not justify the means. I hear a lot of people say Bush is doing the right thing by going after the terrorists, and I do believe that is the right thing to do. But, I do not believe Bush is the only man capable of continuing this, and I do not believe we are suddenly going to find ourselves under more attacks if Bush does not remain in office.

[solarbird]

Why are you translating political issues with the current president into an attack upon yourself? I haven't done that. I don't know who has.

As for President Bush, it isn't so much "how he comes to a decision," it's more that he's picked up the...

There's a religious position common to fundamentalist protestantism that spiritually, you must be "with Jesus" or "with Satan," and that there's no inbetween. That has, over the last few decades, become a social meme within the fundamentliast evangelical community, and, in the last decade or so, has moved from there into the political realm as well.

There are big problems with this. First, is that any opposition becomes evil. Not just wrong; not just misguided: evil. To be destroyed. That's why you hear that kind of rhetoric so commonly out of political advisors of the President. Questions are disloyal; opposition is treason. (Hence books by that title.) Second, if you're the Right Side, which is therefore God's Side, and God cannot be wrong, any data that conflicts with your views must therefore be "wrong," no matter how well demonstrated, and anything presented that supports your views must be "right," no matter how factually errant.

You used to see this mostly with creationists, anti-abortion activists, and gun-control activists on the left; lots of made-up "facts," lots of attempts - often via outright lies - to discrect actual empirical data. In the 90s, you naturally saw it extended to anti-gay politics.

It's bad enough there. It's even worse when it extends over into all decision-making. It's corrosive.

I have a healthy respect for emperical data and the process of rational thinking. President Bush doesn't. He does not apparently care what the facts are. That strikes me as very dangerous, and very bad to have in a president.

This isn't about marginal tax rates. It isn't even about terrorism or foreign policy. It is, I admit, about whether I get to continue living here, but that's just me. It's not true for most people. What it's about for everyone is... whether the ideas of the enlightenment should mean anything. Whether reason matters. Whether facts are true, or just opinions to be decided by the people who yell the loudest or have the most power.

Even independant of the social issues which attack me and my family directly, and that he was running on throughout the first half of his campaign.

Kerry's a wanker. I don't like him either. He's not even the point, though, for me. For me, it's whether someone as bad - for me - as President Bush should get a second term. I can't imagine how he could. Tax cuts are cool. Faith trumping reality... kinda isn't. And it's all well and good to say, "I'm voting for lower marginal tax rates and social security reform, and not for these other things," but you don't get to slice-and-dice candidates like that. You vote for one... and you're kind of voting for the other.

Man, it's going to be an ugly second term. (I do think he's going to win, btw. I think Kerry might still be able to pull it out, but I don't think he will.) I'm not looking forward to it at all.

[wrog]

He is treating terrorism as the most dangerous threat facing America

This is manifestly not true.

There are whole areas of terrorist action that are being ignored by the current administration.

• We had a white-supremacist group in Texas that was building cyanide bombs which could have killed hundreds of people, and it was mainly a matter of plain, dumb luck that we even found out about them at all before they struck,
  
• The anthrax killer(s) are still out there.
  
• The conspiracy that protected Eric Rudolph is still out there; likewise for the other abortion-clinic bombing conspiracies.
  
• The Oklahoma City bombers are mostly still out there (testimony that there were at least 5-6 people helping to load up the truckbomb was ignored at McVeigh's trial).
  

Meanwhile Ashcroft's Justice Dept. continues to insist that the A#1 domestic terrorism priority is the Earth Liberation Front whose sole crimes are vandalism and sabotage of lumber mill machinery --- which is not to say they shouldn't be in jail, but let's have some perspective here; they have not killed nor have they attempted to kill a single person; for them, property damage suffices, however offensive this might be to the right-wing folks.

Never mind that in cases where white-supremacists and clinic bombers are being brought to trial, terrorism statutes are explicitly not being invoked, apparently because only Islamic folks can be terrorists. In fact, the one actual terrorism trial we've had (the Michigan al Qaeda case) has been hopelessly fucked up by Ashcroft's leaks and interventions; the suspects in question will probably end up going free.

[... cont.]

[wrog]

He is treating terrorism as the most dangerous threat facing America

Even narrowing the focus to foreign terrorism, it's still manifestly not true.

Bush has certainly been treating Iraq as if it's the most dangerous threat facing America. Certainly nothing else could justify the current sacrifices our army is making.

But Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a very minor player in the terrorism arena. His own efforts to create terrorist groups were laughably incompetent. His funding of Hamas and Hezbollah was small potatoes compared to what they've been getting (and are still getting) from Saudi Arabia and Syria. Never mind that Hamas and Hezbollah have very specific, well-understood goals and as such are not a direct threat to the US at all (to Isreal, yes, but that war's been going for nearly 50 years, there's nothing new about any of it).

Al Qaeda is almost completely different --- not all terrorists are created equal. Al Qaeda is about overthrowing moderate/secular Arab regimes and the moderate elements of the Saudi monarchy that stand in the way of their establishment of Islamic paradise-on-Earth; Saddam Hussein was probably their #2 or #3 target right behind Hosni Mubarak or Jordan's Hussein and Saudi crown prince Abdullah. Saddam Hussein would sooner have thrown acid in his own face than give them any kind of real support (which is not to say that he might not have been able to come up with ways to use them, but "two-edged sword" doesn't begin to cover it --- any WMDs that he were stupid enough to give them would be just as likely to go off in Baghdad as anywhere else). The Sudanese, who were working with both Al Qaeda and Hussein were very careful to make sure neither knew about the other.

Which makes the equation between Iraq and the worldwide threat posed by Al Qaeda is especially ludicrous to any analyst who knew anything about the region or Al Qaeda's goals. A huge chunk of the CIA had to be ignored; Cheney+Rumsfeld had to create their own intelligence org (Doug Feith's office) separate from the CIA in order to stovepipe what they wanted to hear.

Keep in mind that our choices in Iraq have always been between bad and worse. GHWB understood this; it's why we didn't seige Baghdad the first time around; it's why we sat on our thumbs when the Kurds and Shi'ites rose up against Saddam in 1991. It's why Clinton kept the sanctions regime up, no matter the Iraq deaths this caused; nobody had a viable alternative that was better.

Cheney+Rumsfeld+Perle thought they did, but it was based on Chalabi's fantasies. And now we find out that Chalabi was working for the Iranians

[cont.]

[wrog]

I would even go as far as to say that if Saddam Hussein had had a bona-fide nuclear warhead in his posession, while that would be Bad, it's still less dangerous than the situation we face today,

• with Iraq devolving into Lebanon-style chaos where Al Qaeda and other groups have a free hand and a whole new batch of highly-motivated recruits,
  
• where there are now several nuclear warheads that didn't exist before (in the hands of N.Korea and maybe other folks as well) and lots of nuclear material unaccounted for --- whether we want to talk about what we failed to secure in Iraq while Rumsfeld sent everybody to lock down the Oil Ministry, or whether we want to talk about the material that A.G.Khan of Pakistan released to his unknown friends for which he got a glorified wrist-slap,
  
• or Iran proceeding full speed ahead with its program because they got the message Bush was sending (i.e., "we consider you to be the axis of evil, so get your nukes pronto before we invade your ass, too").
  

Saddam Hussein, for all of his faults was a secular dictator who had things pretty well tied down. He was great at stomping Islamic fundamentalists. In particular, like Quadafi or Syria's Assad, he was a fairly rational and intelligent guy --- there's no way he'd have survived that long otherwise --- meaning he'd never be stupid enough to actually use a nuke unless he had nothing left to lose (a situation we create by invading); something you cannot say about bin Laden, Mullah Omar, Zarqawi et al.

He was an evil fuck, to be sure, but remember, it's Bad vs. Worse that we're talking about here.

Now we've got 2/3 of our army hopelessly tied down and being ground up by the most fantastically well-armed resistance in history (and that only because Rumsfeld was too clueless to send in enough troops so that they could clean up the ammo dumps in the wake of the invading forces).

At this point it doesn't even matter what Kerry's plan is. never mind the disingenuousness of harping on Kerry not having a real plan when Bush doesn't have one either. Neither of them can; the way things on the ground are progressing, no plan made now is likely to survive unchanged through to January 20. The real question you have to ask is who is more likely to be able to adapt to changing conditions, and Bush, for my money, has shown that he is totally incapable of this.

And as JS said, after somebody's driven my car into a ditch, endlessly promising that he can get it out all while grinding the gears and spinning the wheels, I'll gladly give the keys over to a 7-year-old. Kerry's hope that we can get the UN and other Arab countries to take up the slack is just that, a slim hope; but at least there's a chance of getting out of this debacle with some of our superpower status intact; Bush won't even try and nobody'd believe him if he did.

WOW

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

Looks like you set the rock rolling down hill fast on this one, Girl...

just an observation...

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

HAs anyone else noticed that Mr. Banner's catperson looks like it's taking a piss? sorry, I'm tired, and I digress...

[We now return you to our irregularly unscheduled mud-slinging]

Re: just an observation...

[banner.livejournal.com]

I must say, I find it rather interesting how many people love to launch personal attacks against me. Guess the truth just isn't popular anymore, or even debating issues calmly. I think everyone in this thread has launched a personal attack against me, some quite a few, and then when I call them on it they accuse me of 'typical behavior'.

I could say a lot of things about your icon, but that would be rather stupid, wouldn't it?

[rosepurr.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's the most succinctly accurate assessment of Bush I've seen. Very scary.

[deneethe.livejournal.com]

Listen up people, I want a commander in chief that is going to go after the terrorists hell bent for leather! These people want us dead! We are an affront to their belief system, our existance, our prosperity makes a sham of their worldview. That is why we have to be destroyed, to prove that "Allah is greater", which, by the by, is the accurate translation of "Allah Akbar". It's not that Bush "doesn't listen", he has an accurate worldview of good versus evil, that all the political BS can't change. If anything, you gamers out there should recognize a real live Paladin when you see one. We are not the evil empire here. The enemy is a 6th century ideology that wants to destroy western civilization as personified by us and I for one, want to keep my genitals intact and not have to go swathed head to toe in a Burka...that is when a male relative allows me to go out. That is one of the things that I feel is worth fighting for, as well as those of you with "alternative" lifestyles. You would be stoned to death! Who do you feel safer with? A person who will change his opinion based on who he's talking to, or one who will tell you what he's going to do and then do it. This is war, dirty, nasty and people are going to die, I just want it to be them and not us!

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

Wow..the ignorance is blinding...

I see Banner's pals are starting to come over.

A little more

[flashfire.livejournal.com]

You know, the way the Bush Administration is trying to go on the topic of gays alone, it won't belong before you see them being stoned to death HERE.

As for the rest of your blind rhetoric, it's typical BS. Bush knows about good vs. evil? Yeah, as far as he's concerned he's good and everyone else is evil.

Terrorism should be stopped, but destroying an entire religion is not the way to do it. Open your eyes, join the rest of us in the real world, and learn a little about Islam. It is NOT a violent religion. It's not supposed to be, and the fanatics are the ones trying to use it to further their hatred of Western civilization.

[solarbird]

Keep in mind that you're talking to someone who was calling for the overthrow of the Taliban regieme in 1998, and while you'd be allowed to live (if in a burka) I'd just be killed because I'm a dyke.

If anything, you gamers out there should recognize a real live Paladin when you see one.
This does imply that you believe Bush channels the voice of God. Was that intentional? If it is, then there's not a lot of point in talking.

As to the rest: the best way to lose a war is to convince the opposition - and more importantly in this case, the potential talent base for that opposition - that you intend to destroy them utterly if you can.

The way you talk about it in this post would convince Arabic Muslem people that you want to kill all of them. At that point, they will fight you to the death. So your opposition goes from "thousands" to "tens of millions."

And that's why approach and ideas matter. That's the kind of fact you have to react to. It's not as clean and it's not as "pure," but it's a lot more effective in the long run.

There are plenty of people in the Arabic world who think this is a clash of civilisations. Adding to that number is stupid. It makes the fight harder. It's as if we'd started dropping rifles into German army bases during WWII. It's stupid.

I'll admit, emotionally, it's easier. But that's why rational civilisations have won, because they react to emperical data.

(Um. Is that where your commentary about "empire" comes from? Because nobody's brought that up. Emperical data means is data that is derived from observation or experiment; data which is verifiable or provable by these means. This is as opposed to faith, which exists in the absense or denial of data.)

[risu.livejournal.com]

> This is war, dirty, nasty and people are going to die,
> I just want it to be them and not us!

Bush does not own survival.
Bush does not own the fight against terror.
Bush does not own liberty.
Bush does not own life.
Bush does not own the manufacture of non-burka clothing.

Nobody wants the terrorists to win. Nobody wants to get slaughtered by extremists. That isn't an issue in today's election. If you think that people who are against Bush's policies want to see a nightmare terrorist-run world, you are living a life driven by slogans, poorly-considered ideas, and fear.

Rebecca

Here's something I found... sound vaguely familiar?

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

From The Te of Piglet, by Richard Benjamin, published in 1992 --

"Call out the troops! Mad Tyrant Number Twelve is taking over the world!
We've got to stop him -- even if we have to kill half a million people doing it!
Oh, it's simply awful!"Well, let's see. . . Who sold him his weaponry? We did.
Who trained his military forces in the use of it? We did. Who supplied the
materials he wanted? We did. Who supported his vicious dictatorship for years
because he persecuted our "enemies"? We did. And who ignored his unstable
personality, his destruction of anyone who opposed him, and his repeated threats against world order for all time? We did."

[tinlail.livejournal.com]

Two peoples with follow up email with Barletts

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_10_17_corner-archive.asp#042821

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2004/10/running_the_wor.html