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More than one political pundit called Bush's speech to the joint session of Congress last week his "Pearl Harbor" speech and placed it among the greatest speeches ever made by an American president. I said, "Bush gave the best speech of his career, bar none. (see below) He was everything a speech writer would want his speaker to be: passionate, articulate, firm, and confident." I stand by that statement. But as I mentioned to one loyal Bush Watch reader who wrote in about the speech (here), "I didn't write that [Bush's] analysis of the situation was correct." Why was Bush able to give such a speech, a speech that was highly praised on both sides of the aisle and led to a 91% approval rating by those Americans polled? Naturally, the speech writer deserves some credit. Also, the situation that Bush found himself in, a human being serving as the symbolic head of a great nation facing a severe crisis, allowed just about everyone to cut him some slack. But there was more to it, there was a perfect mesh between what Bush had to say and his own personality.

As more than one person with whom I've spoken with since Friday night has observed, this was the first speech they've ever seen Bush give that came across as deeply felt, the first speech that seemed to come out of the man's character, rather than something that needed to be said for political gain. I had that feeling during most of the speech. I know enough about both writing and acting that I know one is most convincing when what one says comes from inside. While Bush's intention with the speech was clearly to assure people that we will come out of this crisis because we're strong and we have the will to do so, his focus was to tell the American people what he planned to do about the attacks of Tuesday:

"Tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban:

¶Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of Al Qaeda who hide in your land.

¶Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned.

¶Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country.

¶Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and hand over every terrorist and every person in their support structure to appropriate authorities.

¶Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps so we can make sure they are no longer operating.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act and act immediately. They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.

...Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.

From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

As Bush delivered lines of warning and lines of dire threat, he was serious and firm, and he was totally in the moment. In other parts of the speech, talking about the nuts and bolts of government, such as his appointment of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge as Homeland czar, the air leaked out of the speech, the light went out of his eyes, and he took on his usual role of tepid speechmaker. He even took time out and broke the tone of the speech with a wink to his wife. (Look, Laura, I can do it!) But when he talked about threatening people with death and countries with retribution, he was, as we said in our story last Friday, "in the zone." And he has changed, as the following report on the Bush-Gore debates from the March 21, 2000 Wall Street Journal indicates ( more dated indications are provided after this piece):

"Strategists in both parties see another potential danger for Mr. Bush at a time when Democrats are attacking him as ill-prepared for the Oval Office: The Texas governor has on at least two occasions left the impression he takes a cavalier attitude toward opponents of capital punishment. In a televised debate in California this month, Mr. Bush grinned and chuckled audibly as a questioner recounted reports that lawyers for some defendants in Texas capital cases had slept during their trials....Mr. Bush, in an interview, offers no explanation for his demeanor during the debate question on the death penalty. But he bristles at the suggestion that he has regarded the subject lightly."

To his credit, then, Bush no longer grins and chuckles when he talks about people getting killed. --Politex, 9/23/01

"George W. would be plagued by a serious drinking problem for many years. On another occasion when he was 26 [1972], the Post records, "he returned home inebriated one night to his parents’ home in Washington - with his then-teenage brother Marvin in tow - and plowed his car into a neighbor’s garbage can, dragging it down the street. When his father asked to see him, George W. challenged him to go ‘mano a mano’ outside." The situation was defused without fisticuffs." The New American, 9/13/99

"At a Dallas restaurant in April 1986, according to "First Son," the Bush biography by Dallas Morning News reporter Bill Minutaglio, he spotted columnist Al Hunt of the Wall Street Journal, who had recently predicted that Jack Kemp, and not then-Vice President George Bush, would be the 1988 GOP presidential nominee. George W. Bush, clearly sloshed, according to Hunt, approached the columnist and, in front of Hunt's young son, called him a 'no-good fucking sonovabitch.' " --Salon, 7/7/00.

"He does seem to have a mean side. This can be seen in the chilling relish he displayed in an interview with Talk magazine [in 1999] when imitating death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker's voice ("'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me'").... But my view is that, like most recovered alcoholics, he's still got some growing up to do." --Cary Tennis, 7/26/01

This evening before a joint session of Congress, George W. Bush gave the best speech of his career, bar none. He was everything a speech writer would want his speaker to be: passionate, articulate, firm, and confident. He made it clear that he was in the war against terrorism for the long haul, and so were we. He made non-negotiable demands upon the Taliban to turn over all terrorists, not just Bin Laden, and warned every country that harbors and supports terrorists to expect the full force of the American will to come down upon them. He celebrated the diversity of America, taking great care to defend the rights of American Muslims and Islamics. He praised the American people for their strength and fortitude. He put the nations of the world on alert in the war against terrorism, saying you are either for us or against us. That's what Bush said this evening, Thursday, September 20, 2001.

President Bush said, "''The United States will be firm with terrorists. We will not make concessions.... If we find states supplying money, weapons, training, identification, documents, travel, or safe haven for terrorists, we will respond. Our aim is to demonstrate to these countries that supporting terrorism is not cost-free .... We will bring terrorists to justice. We will ... identify, track, apprehend, prosecute, and punish terrorists. Terrorism is crime, and terrorists must be treated as criminals.'' This is what Bush's father said in November of 1988. As Jeff Jacoby wrote today in the "Boston Globe,"Like Ronald Reagan before him and Bill Clinton after, Bush did little to stop international terror. The result of that failure was to convince Islamist fanatics that America was weak and gutless, and to feed the audacity that led to the most devastating terrorist attack in US history." In other words, it's one thing to stand before Congress and take in wave after wave of applause. It's another thing to carry out the hard work of making your dream scenario for a lasting freedom come true. The difference between father and son, however, is the loss of over 7,000 lives in the New York and Washington terrorist attacks. We need to hope that Bush will succeed. We need to hope that words will be translated into deeds. We need to hope that the right deeds are carried out. For that, we'll have to wait. What is crystal clear, however, is that Bush needs to succeed, because if he doesn't, we will share in his failure, and the penalties will be severe.

While Bush's speech writer had him say, "We will not tire. We Will not falter. We Will not fail," and he read it perfectly and with great feeling, the less impassioned parts of the speech dealt with the nuts and bolts of reality, like Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge being selected as the administrator to lead the fight against terrorism. This announcement received one of the largest bursts of applause in the entire speech, and we're not sure why. We will reserve judgment for the time being. All in all, however, the point of the speech was not to deal with the specifics of the undertaking, but with the calling of the nation to arms and the articulation of a vision of success, and in this respect George W. Bush succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. --Politex, 9/20/01

Amen, Jerry. There are a lot of us with the same thought. It follows from what I've told my kids about carjackings: the longer it goes on, the more dangerous it gets. So look for me, a couple rows behind you, the middle-age software engineer who comes home to run 3 miles and thinks seriously about joining his kids in karate class. They may take the plastic bagel knife from my carpal-tunnel weakened hands, but my sturdy Olympus SLR will make a dandy club if needed. --Peter, 9/17/01

by Jerry Politex, Editor, Bush Watch

I made a promise to myself. But I don't know if I can keep it. You're on an airplane and the stewardess says, "If you're sitting in a seat in an "exit" aisle, you may be called upon to open the exit door. If you don't feel capable of doing so, please let us know and we will find you another seat."

Perhaps the airlines will have armed, plain clothes marshals on every flight in the near future. Perhaps the pilots will be in a sealed compartment. But it's doubtful that the stewardess will ever be called upon to say, "If you're sitting in an aisle seat, you may be called upon to stand up, unarmed, and attack an armed hijacker to prevent him from causing greater damage than blowing up the plane. If you don't feel capable of doing so, please let us know and we will find you another seat. Due to the new federal regulations, this plane will not leave the ground until the aisle seats have been filled."

No matter. I've promised myself that I'll only fly in an aisle seat, and if my plane is ever hijacked, I will charge the armed hijackers. After all, that's probably what happened on the hijacked plane that was driven into the ground some miles outside of Pittsburgh last Tuesday. The problem is I don't really know if I have the guts to follow through on my promise, but I will not fly until I can convince myself that I will.

Looking at it rationally, it's highly unlikely that I would draw the short straw and be on the fatal flight. But I have to think that I will be. You never know.

Why would I promise myself to do such a thing? Three reasons. First, I'm pissed. I will not allow any fucking religious fanatic nut case or political ideologue to con me into thinking that if I just go along with his plan everything will be cool and my life will be spared. You learn in Terrorism 101 that you have to con your victim into thinking he will get out alive by following your directions. I. Will. Not. Allow. That. To. Happen. Psychologists call my attitude healthy. Taking charge of my own life. Those who jumped out of the World Trade Center rather than being burned to death were taking charge of their own lives, according to the shrinks.

Secondly, what about the hijackers who aren't religious fanatics and just want to get their cousin out of stir. Tough. I'm assuming they're all religious fanatics and want to drive me into the Pentagon. From now on, anyone trying to hijack a plane should assume their flight will end in their death. In some deserted field where the least harm to the rest of humanity would be caused.

Finally, what if the other safeguards are put into place, making my suicide charge moot? Well, those of you who know me know that I'm always willing to re-think my position, based on new facts. But for now, my plan is in effect. It's been considered and voted on. Period.

Problem is, I don't know when I'll be put to the test. I was supposed to go to Seattle next week, but that was cancelled in advance of Tuesday's events. My next trips will be to D.C. and Vancouver, Canada, and I'm reluctant to drive from Austin, Texas, so I guess it won't be too long.

Will I keep my promise? I don't know. But if you see me on a flight, I'll be sitting in an aisle seat, and you'll know I'll be prepared, even though I may be sweating profusely. We all must do what we can. --9/17/01

by Jerry Politex, Editor, Bush Watch

Let's say you live in a large home in a better neighborhood of your town, and on a weeknight you have some friends over for dinner and drinks, and between 11 and midnight you set off 10 minutes of fireworks in your back yard. Your neighbors are quite upset, not having been asked in advance if that would be ok with them. They call the cops and complain. The guy across the street asks the police what kind of idiot would set off fireworks on a school night, waking his small son. The police inform you of your neighbors' complaints, but since you have quite a bit of clout in your town, they figure what's done is done. After all, you have to live with your neighbors, not them. You don't contact your neighbors and apologize. Instead, you have your wife send around a note that reads, "About the fireworks last night, 'as always, we try to be respecful of the residents in the surrounding [neighborhood]. As you know, the fireworks were part of a special event to celebrate our relationship with [our guests]. It was in no way meant to be disruptive.'" (NYT, 9/7/01)

Your guests happen to be soft drink executives from Mexico, and at a business meeting the next day, local reporters ask them a few questions during an informal press conference. You use your high school-level Spanish, showing off for your guests. Not liking one reporter's question, you tell him to "shut up" in Spanish: "callate." (Reuters, 9/5/01) Both you and your guests have a laugh at the puzzled reporter's expense. As the questions continue to be not to your liking, you and your guests quickly leave. You answer their last minute questions with, "No puedo oir." ("I can't hear you.") Your guests continue to laugh as you all walk away, and you hear a reporter say, "Asshole" in stage-whispered English.

At a businessmen's dinner later that evening, you declare that your franchise business will open over 60 locations next year. After the dinner at a press conference, one young local reporter begins to question that figure. You smile and mockingly call him "a fine, fine lad," getting a big laugh from out-of-state business reporters. The young reporter tries to continue his questioning, and "acting like an excited party guest who couldn’t keep a funny comment inside," you interrupt "the reporter to deliver the punch line. 'A little short on hair, but a fine lad. Yeah,' provoking a new round of laughter at the reporter's expense." (Consortium,8/27/01) Persistent, the youthful scribe tries again, again you interrupt: "This fine lad 'represents Fort Worth, [you say], prompting another round of knowing laughter from the national press corps.'" Your CEO, who is in on the joke, adds, "'I never would have guessed,' eliciting more laughter." The next day your CEO tells other reporters that you'll definitely be opening up 60 franchised locations next year. A week later, after media attempts to have you provide a list of the 60 franchise locations you spoke of, your press secretary admits that you will open fewer than half of the 60 franchises claimed, and chalks up your error to a "misunderstanding," saying that the 60 number represented "potential" locations, not actual locations. (NYT, 9/7/01)

The next day, pickets begin to form outside your house in protest of your general business practices, but you erect a 9 foot high, 2 1/2 miles long chain link fence topped with razor wire around your property (BDN, 9/3/01). You meet with the media on your protected grounds inside the fence, saying that you back the pickets' right to protest. Meanwhile, you have made a deal with the local police, having the pickets moved to a protest zone next to a busy freeway, 10 miles from your house. (TT, 9/4/01) You wonder why so many folks in town hate your guts.

Bush can't have it both ways. He can't say his Harvard MBA indicates his business savvy, then lie to the American people in such a stupid way that the only conclusion we can draw is that he holds us in very, very low regard. What arrogance. He expects the nation to actually believe that lawyers in large corporations are so dumb that they would actually advise CEO's, corporate billionaries like Cheney and O'Neill, to break the law and pay the government billions in taxes earlier than need be in order to help Bush balance his economic books. "'There is zero chance any member of the Fortune 100 would ever pay corporate taxes ahead of time,' said Clint Stretch, director of tax policy for the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. 'Corporations do not have the slightest interest in paying corporate taxes early. They're not going to volunteer money to the government.' Stretch says large corporations pay the lion's share of corporate taxes. All employ sophisticated teams of accountants and would never send the government millions in revenue it could hold and gain interest from."

Yet, on Saturday CNN goes on to report that "The Bush White House is counting on corporate America to save its surplus. But the corporations might not show up for duty. And if they don't, the president's budget could be in very hot political water. The White House is expecting American corporations to voluntarily pay $5 billion in taxes two weeks ahead of time, something corporate tax analysts doubt will occur. That extra $5 billion in revenue the White House expects corporations to pay ahead of time is very important indeed. Without it, the Bush budget surplus would be $5 billion smaller, and that would mean Bush has tapped into the Social Security surplus, something he has repeatedly vowed not to do. The White House released revised surplus numbers Wednesday, showing a federal surplus of $158 billion, a mere $1 billion more than the Social Security surplus. But that $158 billion surplus only exists if American corporations pay $5 billion in taxes two weeks early."

Obviously, when Bush appears before the American people during his "Tour of the Heartland" and tells them that he won't dip into Social Security unless there's a recession or a war, he's not only lying, but his lie is so blatant that he's insulting. How could he not know it? It doesn't take a Harvard MBA to see the truth. Such a blatant abuse of the good will and trust of the American people indicates how low Bush is willing to go, not to mention how fully he's shattering our trust in any statement that comes out of his White House. And this is the man who specifically said Gore will say anything to win, but HE will bring integrity to the White House. What a laugh. --Politex, 8/27/01

Bush has played a cruel hoax on the American people as well as Republican moderates and most of the Dems on the issue of stem cell research. Starting from a conservative evangelical position expressed through his campaign promise not to federally fund stem cell research, most of the Summer was spent spinning the scenario that Bush was agonizing and reading, reading and agaonizing, as he tried to balance out the conflicting demands of science and morality. Nonsense. Bush had his mind made up from the start, he just knew that telling the country that he was not going to back a stem cell research program was political poison, so he felt caught between a rock and a hard place. According to Tom Oliphant in yesterday's Boston Globe, then Conservative Republican Bill First came forward. First, " the Senate's lone physician member, as well as a health care industry zillionaire and right-to-lifer, advanced the three major elements of what is now the president's initiative: limiting federal funding to research on a sharply limited number of lines of stem cells; a significant increase in government aid to research using adult stem cells; and a presidential advisory panel to oversee the research."

First of all, the number of lines Bush came up with, 60, are world-wide, not American lines, but the bulk of them are said to be owned by one unnamed California firm. (Geron? Y-Cell?) Second, those lines are subject to destructive deterioration at any time. Third, most, if not all, of the lines are held by private companies that are under no compulsion to limit their lines to 60 nor have they exhibited any willingness to share their lines with any scientist who would want to work with them under federal fuinding. Further, not only did Bush draw the federal funding line at 60, but also the commission that he appointed to provide future advice to him is just as biased in his preconceptions as his social security commission. Dr. Kass, the head of the committee, is widely considered to be the far right's favorite bio-tech ethicist. Bush made a political decision all right, but it was not to move away from his Christian conservative base, it was to pretend to give those Americans who wanted federally funded stem cell research a moderate answer to the question of federal funding, while, in reality, he gave them nothing. For more on Bush's use of First's ideas to hoodwink moderates, see below. Finally, if you have any doubts about Bush's willingness to play politics with his idea of human life, ask yourself this question: If Bush does not want to allow future lines of stem cells to be created because he feels that would be condoning the actual killing of human beings, why doesn't he propose a ban on such "killings" that are taking place every day in the private bio-tech industry? --Politex, 8/13/01

By July "a rough version of Frist's ideas had already surfaced independently in the White House and there was speculation in Republican circles that this would be Bush's path of least resistance, but First's speaking up gave the idea what one official called "the gas" it had previously lacked. The president, sources say, resisted the part of the proposal that involved support for research on newly created embryonic stem cell lines, even if severely limited to a number below 100, as Frist initially suggested. It was clear to the White House that this would provoke direct conflict with the right-to-life movement. And it was equally clear that as a matter of conviction and politics, the president was not going to break with that movement.

"Another aspect of Frist's presentation that troubled the Bushies, however, was the question of whether existing lines of stem cells might be adequate for a vigorous stem cell program with federal dollars. Last month, Frist acknowledged that he didn't know precisely how many such lines would be needed or even how many there were in existence. It was in checking into this area in depth (good staff work) that the Bush group began to get information that the number of lines was about 60, much larger than previously thought and double the number used recently by the National Institutes of Health, though officials admit that the bulk of the existing, private research uses material under the control of one firm in California. Given the regenerative properties of stem cells, the Bush group came to the conclusion from its own scientific advisers that these 60 or so lines would be more than enough to provide the material researchers need. On that number and that conclusion, the president has hung the credibility of his proposal.

"There is going to be an argument on this point. Many scientists believe that 100 to 200 stem lines are needed to adequately compensate for possible contamination of the existing lines and guard against problems that could emerge (like rejection of regenerated organ tissue) from an insufficiently diverse supply of genetic material. That is why the leading congressional proposal - by Senators Tom Harkin, a Democrat, and Arlen Specter, a Republican, with co-sponsors ranging from Strom Thurmond to Hillary Rodham Clinton - is open-ended on creation of new lines and thus the destruction of embryos. The Clinton administration, however, recognized the issue in its guidlines for stem cell research last year, seeking to prevent federally funded researchers form being involved in the actual extraction of nuclear material in the act that destroys the embryo. As a right-to-lifer, Bush considered that a meaningless distinction, given the overall subsidy, and has now rejected it. However, he has clearly linked his opposition to the creation of new stem cell lines to the accuracy of the number 60 and of the assertion that this number is enough for the research community. We'll see." --Thomas Oliphant, 8/13/01

Last night in his "I've Agonized Over This Stem Cell Problem For You, My Fellow 'Mericans" speech, Bush decided to give his Bio-Tech corporate buddies a clear shot at big profits, saying, in effect, that he will keep the Feds out of the highly profitable stem cell market. In deciding that the 60+ lines of stem cells that already exist will be ALL that's going to exist through federal funding, he gave the nation's private corporate interests, who own most, if not all, of those lines, a virtual monopoly, unless Congress decides to enact future legislation to the contrary. You don't really think that private corporations are going to give those lines for scientists to use freely, do you? That means big bucks for big business. Check out the sudden shift in the price of bio-tech stocks today, and you'll see what I mean. Bush also indicated that those lines are diverse enough to do the job across the spectrum of needs, and they are robust enough to keep being replicated indefinitely, comments that were immediately challenged by some scientists. Others objected to the Bush decision on the basis of logic. If those 60+ lines were accepted by Bush because they already exist, what about the lines that will be created by private industry in the future, like today or tomorrow? There's no government ban on the creation and use of stem cells, so there will be brisk traffic in stem cell production in private industry, which is exactly what Bush implied he did not want. Bush has given unrestricted rights to the corporate makers of stem cells. They will set the rules of production and use without government intervention, and you can bet their criteria wlll be based on the bottom line. What Bush did last night was to favor unregulated private free amoral trade over government oversight and pretend his decision was based on questions of morals and ethics. Further, while he stressed the moral and ethical concerns that went into his decision, it was politics that floated his boat as he attempted to gather in the Christian conservative and Catholic vote. As is so often the case with Bush and folks like him, morality was used last night as sugar coating for a political and financial decision. --Politex, 8/10/01.

This week Howard Fineman has attempted to turn sow's ear Bush into a silk purse, calling his simple-minded stubborness "defiant simplicity." He then goes on to call our Dictator's willingness to lie through his teeth to Congress his version of a Texas-type political card game. "In dealing with the Texas Legislature, Bush played dumb and kept movin’, sticking with proposals — such as a sweeping education-tax reform — until there was no chance the thing would pass as he’d designed it. Then he accepted whatever the legislature would give him, and called it a victory. He did veto a state patients bill of rights, but let a second version go into law without his signature... I would look for Bush to ultimately accept just about whatever Congress will give him on the patients bill of rights, energy, his faith-based initiative and education reform. He’ll stick to his guns until he knows it’s time to put them back in the holster."

A Molly Ivins column this week is less willing to cut Bush any slack on his bull-headedness, but Ivins agrees with Fineman about Bush's attempts to con Congress. Bush lies up and down about what he's willing to accept, takes what he can get at the last minute, and then claims that the compromise was his idea all along and declares victory. "W. Bush is not plain-spoken or straightforward. He is opaque, diaphanous, and so rarely says anything approaching actual meaning that it's headlines when he does: e.g., "Major league asshole." You can listen to an entire forty-five-minute speech by this man and still wonder, "Did he just say anything we should have noticed?" He is much given to reiteration of the obvious, as though it were news. This just in: "The Cold War is over."...Having it both ways is something of a W. Bush signature. For example, when he was governor, he opposed the state's patients' bill of rights, first vetoing the bill in '95 and later letting it become law only after it had been passed by a veto-proof majority, after he had fought it every step of the way, and even then he let the strongest part of the bill become law without his signature. He is apparently about to use the same ploy on the federal patients' bill: Oppose it every step of the way and then claim credit for it. He just pulled this stunt with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's long-awaited capitulation on price caps for Western energy."

On Wednesday we learned that Bush and Rep. Charles Norwood, a Georgia Republican and one of the sponsors of the version of the Patients' Rights Bill that Bush was against, came to a verbal agreement about the specifics of the bill, but didn't say what they were. Today, we learned that they agreed to a cap on how much an HMO could be sued for, but Bush had to give up his position that such suits had to be tried in federal court. According to yesterday's NYT, " Mr. Bush said the agreement illustrated the bipartisan cooperation he promised to bring to the nation's capital." What "bipartisan cooperation? Norwood acted totally on his own, and neither his Republican nor his Democratic co-sponsors of the bill had accepted the agreement he came to with Bush. In short, the only change is that one more Republican got in bed with Bush. That's "bipartisan agreement"? Nonsense. As "Representative Marion Berry, an Arkansas Democrat and co-sponsor of the Norwood bill, said: "The compromise amounts to nothing more than a loosely stated idea. We haven't seen the actual legislative language, and we don't expect to see it until we are asked to vote on it." Moreover, Mr. Berry said: 'I consider this a breach of a bipartisan effort that has been going on for years. There was nothing bipartisan about the White House approach to this issue.'"

Bush has reached a new low with his confidence that he can say anything he wishes, no matter how obviously untrue it is, and his Rove-Hughes propaganda machine will make it so. Just as Bush said over and over again during the campaign that he backed the Patients' Rights Bill in Texas when, in reality, he did just the opposite, look for him not only to claim whatever Patients' Bill is passed on the national level as his own, but also to lie that his "victory" came about because of his "bipartisan approach." Will the Republican media CEO's who control the national media shape its reporting to fit Bush's version of reality, just like it did during the campaign? They will if they can get away with it. --Politex, www.bushwatch.com, 8/3/01

Here's the bottom line to this story: we don't need Bush to carry out the specifics of the Kyoto Accord. The other day in Bonn the world's leading industrialized nations decided to honor the Kyoto agreement, although Bush managed to put the economic screws to Japan to get them to act as his surrogate in a compromise that softened some of the details of the agreement. "Still, the agreement is a binding contract among nations — excluding the United States —," writes the NYT, "under which 38 industrialized countries must reduce those emissions by 2012 or face tougher emissions goals. The vote was 178-1. So much for Bush leadership. While he called the agreement "fatally flawed," he offered nothing to take its place. That's because corporate puppet Bush represents the greatest greenhouse gas polluters in the world, American big business. What Bush means by "fatally flawed" is that the agreement, according to him, places too much of the cleanup burden on industrial countries and would be too costly to the American economy. Of course it would put a costly clean-up burden on us, because we're the ones that made the mess in the first place. We're the world's biggest polluter and we should be the world's biggest contributer to the clean-up. Remember that Bush ran his campaign with the motto that if he were to be elected, he would usher in a "responsibility era"? What a laugh. What a liar. However, knowing that Bush is a lying hypocrite and an irresponsible purveyor of global filth does not really solve our immediate problem. This past week, the Guardian reported that Bert Metz, head of the UN panel on climate change, said a 5-10 year delay in world-wide curbing of greenhouse gas emissions, emissions that the U.S. is primarily respomsible for, could very well put the task of stabilizing the atmosphere out of reach. The time to act is now, and we can't wait for the next president to do the right thing in 2004.

That's why Seattle has decided to act this week on its own, and it's a model for us all. "Seattle officials on Monday said the city would meet greenhouse gas reduction targets in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and blasted President Bush for pulling out of the international treaty," Reuters reported yesterday. "'We are sending a message to the federal administration that it is time to act, just like the rest of the world,' Mayor Paul Schell told a press conference. Dubbed the Emerald City for its lush urban forests and boasting some of the greenest power and waste programs in the nation, Seattle pledged to beat the Kyoto goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels and try to cut three times that much. Largely through conservation and purchases of wind power, Seattle will meet rising local electricity demand without spewing more greenhouse gases over the next decade and will offset its entire emission load by planting trees, reducing road traffic and recycling industrial waste and heat. The mitigation would cost city-owned utility Seattle City Light about $3 million a year, a tiny fraction of the half billion-dollar annual budget, officials said, rejecting Bush's assertion that the Kyoto treaty would wreck local economies. The United States is the world's biggest polluter and the only major power to pull out of the Kyoto treaty, although the remaining signatories on Monday agreed to adhere to the targets anyway at a meeting in Bonn. 'It's a scandal that the White House won't step up to (the issue) and Seattle has to,' said City Councilor Jim Compton." Why not send a copy of the Reuters Seattle story to your city and state representatives, along with your personal request that they do the right thing? If Seattle can do it, why can't it be done in your city and state? Screw Bush, he's not running this country. Unless you do nothing and allow him to think he is. --Politex, www.bushwatch.com, 7/2501

When a member of the Bush family is accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, a racist, or a bigot, the response is shock, shock, I tell you. How could anyone question their motives? Why, they've given to the right causes. Why, why, some of their best friends are.... Then, their political enemies are blamed for such scurrilous attacks. That's it, it's all politics. What we're seeing here is yet another instance of what has often be called the banality of evil. In a perfect world, racists, bigots, and those who support those who practice genocide would be easily seen and identified, but we don't live in such a world. In our world, evil is often supported and practiced by book keepers, task assigners, folks who appear to be just like you and I, just doing their jobs, just trying to put food on their family. Which brings us to George W. Bush.

Yesterday, we learned of an agreement between the Resident and the Salvation Army in which a quid pro quo deal is spelled out. Bush will support a federal regulation that gives the Salvation Army cover in its actions to avoid state and local laws that protect gays from hiring discrimination, and the Salvation Army will support Bush in his plan to provide more federal funding of religious institutions. When the story broke, a Bush spokesman said that the proposed regulation would comply with federal civil rights laws that allow hiring discrimination against gays. What the spokesman didn't say was that the proposed Bush regulation would not allow states and cities to provide gays with protections against hiring discrimination. Later in the day, once the Bush anti-gay plan was exposed for what it was and was met by a strong public outcry, Bush backed down to the extent that a White House spokesman said the proposed regulation would not be needed, since federal laws on the books and federal bills presently being considered by Congress would be enough to ensure continued federal discrimination against gays in hiring. (WP, 7/11/01)

Recently, we learned that Bush has nominated Elliott Abrams to be director of the National Security Council’s office for democracy, human rights and international operations. Abrams, who has been proven to be, in the words of Eric Alterman, "a liar and an apologist for mass murderers," was pardoned by Bush's father after he pled guilty to two counts of lying to Congress about Reagan's Iran-Contra program. Abrams was also expelled from the D.C. Bar Association for other coverups of illegal activities by agents of the government. Further, Abrams' activities as head of the Latin America bureau for the State Department led one Dem Congressman to say Abrams made him "want to puke." "Abrams has insisted, 'The [Reagan] Administration’s record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.' Here is the achievement. According to figures assembled by the human rights office of the Catholic Archdiocese in San Salvador, in the period between 1980 to 1989, government-sponsored or government-assisted death squads killed 41,048 citizens. The equivalent figure for the left-wing guerillas, whom the US sought to defeat, was 776, including kidnappings," writes Alterman. " With his appointment to the National Security Council, Abrams joins Bush appointees John Negroponte and Otto Reich, both of whom played significant roles in these same shameful events, as part of a propaganda campaign to convince Americans that his father and Ronald Reagan did nothing wrong when they put the United Sates of America on the side of genocidal killers in Latin America and then lied about it." In his defense of Abrams the other day, a George W. Bush spokesman said such activities are "a matter of the past." They are also, it appears from history, an indication of the future when it comes to the Bush family in general and Junior in particular.

Last week, we learned that in the last three months the Chinese government executed 1800 of its citizens for crimes such as stealing, engaging in fraudulent activities and selling drugs. Around the same time, Resident Bush said he would not take a position on China's request to be allowed to host the 2008 Olympic Games. That matter will be decided by a vote of the Olympic commission this Friday. China is expected to be given the games, despite its ongoing record of human rights abuse. In fact, engaging in such an outrageous abuse of common decency immediately prior to the vote suggests an arrogance on China's part that equals that of George W. Bush, himself. Kill as many of your citizens as you like, Bush appears to be saying, and you'll still get the games, 'cause we want your bidness. " The world of sport is poised to condone the regime's imprisonment of U.S. citizens and residents, encourage its crackdown on dissidents in a modern version of 'scholar pitting,' and reward the recent systematic torture and murder of more than 220 peaceful adherents of the Falun Gong," writes William Safire. "President Bush's reaction is to shrug and say that where our Olympic athletes compete is of no concern to him. He then pays lip service to human rights by mentioning the arrests of Americans to President Jiang Zemin toward the end of a phone call." Presently, " the leading candidate to chair the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board is Brent Scowcroft. He's the guy the last President Bush sent to Beijing in secret, just after the massacre in Tiananmen Square, to tell Jiang not to be upset at what we had to say in public," adds Safire. An arrogant, clueless Junior doesn't even see the need to keep one's dirty laundry hidden from public scrutiny. Bush is willing to go along with the slaughter of thousands of Chinese and, like Pilate, wash his hands of human rights violations because anything is acceptable to him in the name of bidness and politics, and in his world if it isn't bidness, it's politics. With George W. Bush, the banality of evil has reached its nadir. --Politex, 7/11/01