Please read this important post on legislation that will make torture tactics even easier, and then write your representatives!

"(Cheney) was against getting bogged down in Iraq before he was for it." --
John Edwards, on Don Imus today, in response to this delicious discovery of a significant Cheney flip-flop (which you really should read, to see how insightful Cheney was 12 years ago).

Bush's ever-shifting rationale for invading Iraq --
Wouldn't it be fun if, in one of the upcoming "debates," someone asked Bush to reconcile his many rationales for invading Iraq?

"The (Crawford, TX) Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry." --
When I linked yesterday to the story about Bush's hometown paper, I should have urged you: don't just relish the news -- read the editorial, because it's quite good. Here's how it starts:

Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:
• Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
• Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.
• Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
• Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
• Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
• Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
• Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.

These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.

The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.

Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.

Negativists and naysayers --
From WaPo yesterday:

A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.

While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.

Actually, we've already got the state-run television; it's called FOX --
David Sirota:

"Our political system is starting to resemble the kind of banana republic authoritarianism we claim to despise. The only things missing are government-sponsored mural portraits of George W. Bush splashed on sides of buildings and state-run television.

Who knows? With Bush’s aircraft carrier stunt, Fox News’ incessant propaganda, and the White House now telling journalists it has a “different set of rules” for those who give too much coverage to the president’s opponents, anything is possible."

How goes that Faith Based Intiatives program? --
How else? It goes to favorites, it goes with no accountability, and it goes without any measurable results. Modus operandi. If this were a Democratic initiative, Republicans would be demanding congressional hearings and independent investigators. See Amy Sullivan for more.

The sad thing is, I'm not at all surprised at this --
Most Bush supporters know nothing about his positions:

Majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (84%), and the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the International Criminal Court (66%), the treaty banning land mines (72%), and the Kyoto Treaty on global warming (51%). They were divided between those who knew that Bush favors building a new missile defense system now (44%) and those who incorrectly believe he wishes to do more research until its capabilities are proven (41%). However, majorities were correct that Bush favors increased defense spending (57%) and wants the US, not the UN, to take the stronger role in developing Iraq’s new government (70%). (via Daily Kos)