The Third Debate

[cowboyangel]

Into the achashic record I go, and what do I see...why a Kerry Victory of course.

[geekster]

The ultimate effect of democracy is to render political leaders helplessley incapable of true governance, since they are inevitably forced to gratify and flatter the common people, who can turn on them with impunity as soon as they fail to please.

[DVD Burner]

I cant remember what thread I saw it on but this Bush being wired thing is starting to get really big.

I'm happy it is getting some play.

Any bets he will have a smaller "Bulge" this next debate?



So stupid they cant get stupid right.

[geekster]

My guess is that it is body armor ... and if Kerry was photographed from the same angle in the same kind of clothing might show the same bulge. The idea that Bush could speak as fast as someone could speak to him in an earphone without him stopping to listen is goofy.

[DVD Burner]

My guess is that it is body armor ... and if Kerry was photographed from the same angle in the same kind of clothing might show the same bulge. The idea that Bush could speak as fast as someone could speak to him in an earphone without him stopping to listen is goofy.

[img]
http://sp5.fotologs.net/?u=anomalous&i= ... 97.jpg&c=f[/img]

Does'nt look like body armor I've seen before. Nor does it look like your average wireless Nady.
You know something .....what is it?

also when is the debate.

[DVD Burner]

dont know why that last link didn't go through but anyway.......

http://www.fotolog.net/anomalous/?photo_id=8742496

[cowboyangel]

Red Sox baseball, the debate....let's see now..........

[geekster]

Then my second guess would be that it is a communications device but more likely connected to the secret service to be used to transmit messages such as "DUCK!"

[calicowboy925]

I think the bulge was a sucrets box where the Pres keeps his stash! You know he had to mellow out before the debate just to avoid making fun of Skerry's fake tan!

[Alpha]

A vote for Bush is a vote to reverse Roe v. Wade

First, a snippet from the transcript of last Friday's debate:

MICHAELSON: Mr. President, if there were a vacancy in the Supreme Court and you had the opportunity to fill that position today, who would you choose and why?

BUSH: I'm not telling.

(LAUGHTER)

I really don't have -- haven't picked anybody yet. Plus, I want them all voting for me.

(LAUGHTER)

I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.

Let me give you a couple of examples, I guess, of the kind of person I wouldn't pick.

I wouldn't pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn't be said in a school because it had the words "under God" in it. I think that's an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process as opposed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution.

BUSH: Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights.

That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all -- you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America.

And so, I would pick people that would be strict constructionists. We've got plenty of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Legislators make law; judges interpret the Constitution.

Why would Bush bring up the ancient history of the Dred Scott case? Here's the answer: http://fairshot.typepad.com/fairshot/20 ... _roe_.html

[cowboyangel]

touche!

[DVD Burner]

thanks Alpha.

[Simply Joel]

Just in case you missed history class the day Dred Scott Vs. Stanford was discussed....

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933t.html

Dred Scott case: the Supreme Court decision

There are two leading questions presented by the record:

1) Had the Circuit Court of the United States jurisdiction to hear and determine the case between these parties? And

2) If it had jurisdiction, is the judgment it has given erroneous or not?

The plaintiff [Dred Scott]... was, with his wife and children, held as slaves by the defendant [Sanford], in the State of Missouri; and he brought this action in the Circuit Court of the United States for [Missouri], to assert the title of himself and his family to freedom.
The declaration is . . . that he and the defendant are citizens of different States; that... he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York.

The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution....

The words "people of the United States" and "citizens" are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who ... form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives.... The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement [people of Aftican ancestry] compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.

The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, [Dred Scott] could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts.
It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other; it was formed by them, and for them and their posterity, but for no one else. And the personal rights and privileges guarantied to citizens of this new sovereignty were intended to embrace those only who were then members of the several State communities, or who should afterwards by birthright or otherwise become members, according to the provisions of the Constitution and the principles on which it was founded....

It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted....

... [T]he legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted....

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery. . . . He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.

And in no nation was this opinion more firmly fixed or more uniformly acted upon than by the English Government and English people. They not only seized them on the coast of Africa, and sold them or held them in slavery for their own use; but they took them as ordinary articles of merchandise to every country where they could make a profit on them, and were far more extensively engaged in this commerce than any other nation in the world.

The opinion thus entertained and acted upon in England was naturally impressed upon the colonies they founded on this side of the Atlantic. And, accordingly, a negro of the African race was regarded by them as an article of property, and held, and bought and sold as such, in every one of the thirteen colonies which united in the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. The slaves were more or less numerous in the different colonies, as slave labor was found more or less profitable. But no one seems to have doubted the correctness of the prevailing opinion of the
time.

The legislation of the different colonies furnishes positive and indisputable proof of this fact....

The province of Maryland, in 1717, passed a law declaring "that if any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white woman, or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, excepting mulattoes bom of white women, who, for such intermarriage, shall only become servants
for seven years. . . ."

The other colonial law to which we refer was passed by Massachusetts in 1705. It is entitled "An act for the better preventing of a spurious and mixed issue," &c.; and it provides, that "if any negro or mulatto shall presume to smite or strike any person of the English or other Christian nation, such negro or mulatto shall be severely whipped......

... [T]hese laws ... show, too plainly to be misunderstood, the degraded condition of this unhappy race. They were still in force when the Revolution began, and are a faithful index to the state of feeling towards the class of persons of whom they speak, and of the position they occupied throughout the thirteen colonies, in the eyes and thoughts of the men who framed the Declaration of Independence and established the State Constitutions and Governments. They show that a perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery, and governed as subjects with absolute and despotic power, and which they then looked upon as so far below them in the scale of created beings, that intermarriages between white persons and negroes or mulattoes were regarded as unnatural and immoral, and punished as crimes, not only in the parties, but in the person who joined them in marriage. And no distinction in this respect was made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation, was fixed upon the whole race.

We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted ... in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.

The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally Conclusive: ...

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appeared, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.

Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men -- high in literary acquirements -- high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separate from white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.

This state of public opinion had undergone no change when the Constitution was adopted, as is equally evident from its provisions and language....

[There] are two clauses in the Constitution which point directly and specifically to the negro race as a separate class of persons, and show clearly that they were not regarded as a portion of the people or citizens of the Government then formed.

One of these clauses reserves to each of the thirteen States the right to import slaves until the year 1808.... And by the other provision the States pledge themselves to each other to maintain the fight of property of the master, by delivering up to him any slave who may have escaped from his service, and be found within their respective territories.... And these two provisions show, conclusively, that neither the description of persons therein referred to, nor their descendants, were embraced in any of the other provisions of the Constitution; for certainly these two clauses were not intended to confer on them or their posterity the blessings of liberty, or any of the personal rights so carefully provided for the citizen.

No one of that race had ever migrated to the United States voluntarily; all of them had been brought here as articles of merchandise. The number that had been emancipated at that time were but few in comparison with those held in slavery; and they were identified in the public mind with the race to which they belonged, and regarded as a part of the slave population rather than the free. It is obvious that they were not even in the minds of the framers of the Constitution when they were conferring special rights and privileges upon the citizens of a State in every other part of the Union.

It would be impossible to enumerate ... the various laws, marking the condition of this race, which were passed from time to time after the Revolution, and before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In addition to those already referred to, it is sufficient to say, that Chancellor Kent, whose accuracy and research no one will question, states in ... his Commentaries ... that in no part of the country except Maine, did the African race, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites in the exercise of civil and political rights.

The legislation of the States therefore shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the inferior and subject condition of that race at the time the Constitution was adopted, and long afterwards, . . . and it is hardly consistent with the respect due to these States, to suppose that they regarded at that time, as fellow-citizens and members of the sovereignty, a class of beings whom they had thus stigmatized; ... and upon whom they had impressed such deep and enduring marks of inferiority and degradation; or, that when they met in convention to form the Constitution, they looked upon them as a portion of their constituents, or designed to include them in the provisions so carefully inserted for the security and protection of the liberties and rights of their citizens. It cannot be supposed that they intended to secure to them rights, and privileges, and rank, in the new political body throughout the Union, which every one of them denied within the limits of its own dominion. More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State. For if they were so received, and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognized as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

It is impossible, it would seem, to believe that the great men of the slaveholding States, who took so large a share in framing the Constitution of the United States, and exercised so much influence in procuring its adoption, could have been so forgetful or regardless of their own safety and the safety of those who trusted and confided in them....

To all this mass of proof we have still to add, that Congress has repeatedly legislated upon the same construction of the Constitution that we have given....

The first of these acts is the naturalization law ... [of] March 26, 1790, [which] confines the right of becoming citizens "to aliens being free white persons." . . .

Another of the early laws of which we have spoken, is the first militia law, which was passed in 1792, at the first session of the second Congress. The language of this law is equally plain and significant.... It directs that every "free able-bodied white male citizen" shall be enrolled in the militia. The word white is evidently used to exclude the African race, and the word citizen to exclude unnaturalized foreigners; the latter forming no part of the sovereignty, owing it no allegiance, and therefore under no obligation to defend it. The African race, however, born in the country, did owe allegiance to the Government, whether they were slave or free; but it is repudiated, and rejected from the duties and obligations of citizenship in marked language.

The third act to which we have alluded is even still more decisive; it was passed as late as 1813, (2 Stat., 809) and it provides: "That from and after the termination of the war in which the United States are now engaged with Great Britain, it shall not be lawful to employ, on board of any public or private vessels of the United States, any person or persons except citizens of the United States, or persons of color, natives of the United States."

Here the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word citizens, and they are described as another and different class of persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States....


The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The question was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when he was the Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that the words "citizens of the United States" were used in the acts of Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case, and acted upon by the Secretary of State, who refused to grant passports to them as "citizens of the United States....

No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of this court, and make it the mere reflex of the popular opinion or passion of the day. This court was not created by the Constitution for such purposes. Higher and graver trusts have been confided to it, and it must not falter in the path of duty....

And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that.... Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts; and, consequently, that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the case, and that the judgment on the plea in abatement is erroneous....

... t appears affirmatively on the record that he is not a citizen, and consequently his suit against Sandford was not a suit between citizens of different States, and the court had no authority to pass any judgment between the parties. The suit ought, in this view of it, to have been dismissed by the Circuit Court, and its judgment in favor of Sandford is erroneous, and must be reversed.

It is true that the result either way, by dismissal or by a judgment for the defendant, makes very little, if any, difference in a pecuniary or personal point of view to either party. But the fact that the result would be very nearly the same to the parties in either form of judgment, would not justify this court in sanctioning an error in the judgment which is patent on the record, and which, if sanctioned, might be drawn into precedent, and lead to serious mischief and injustice in some future suit.

We proceed, therefore, to inquire whether the facts relied on by the plaintiff entitled him to his freedom.

But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the Sate of Illinois, independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri.

Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration, in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham [1850]. In that case, the slave had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and aftewards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were bourght back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgement of a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this court had no jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of the case.

So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that charcter, his staus, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois....

Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no juisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequestly, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933.html

[cowboyangel]

..just tuned in long enough to hear the phrase "armies of compassion" and to prevent puking I quickly went back to St. Louis

[Simply Joel]

October 14, 2004
FACT CHECK
Under Pressure, Mischaracterizations and Misstatements
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM

As they traded charges and countercharges on the economy, health care and other domestic issues, President Bush mischaracterized who received the tax cuts that have been the centerpiece of his legislative record, and Senator John Kerry exaggerated when he said he was proposing clear ways to raise revenue to pay for his spending proposals.

Mr. Kerry was also wrong in saying the president's refusal to allow the government to negotiate drug prices had contributed to the increase in Medicare premiums next year.

Taxes

Mr. Bush said most of the tax reduction in his presidency had gone "to low- and middle-income Americans." In fact, Internal Revenue Service figures compiled by the Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute show that half of all the tax cuts in effect this year go to the wealthiest 10 percent of taxpayers, those with incomes above about $70,000. One-quarter of the cuts go to the richest 1 percent, those with incomes above about $290,000.

Mr. Bush also said the cuts were needed "to get us out of the recession." But he proposed the cuts in his last presidential campaign, in 2000, before anyone knew that a recession was at hand, and he justified them by saying the surplus should be returned to the taxpayers.

The president said, as he often has elsewhere, that Mr. Kerry had voted for tax increases 98 times. That is probably true. But many, if not most, of those were multiple votes on the same bills or on nonbinding resolutions and motions.

Mr. Kerry has voted for two large tax increases - the 1990 budget law backed by the president's father that put the country on the road to a balanced budget and President Bill Clinton's 1993 bill, which imposed most of the increases on upper-income taxpayers.

Budget

Mr. Kerry said Mr. Bush had proposed $3 trillion in new spending, and Mr. Bush said Mr. Kerry had proposed $2 trillion. Neither claim can be proved, because the details of their proposals are so vague.

Mr. Kerry was correct when he said the budget picture had declined from a projected $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years when Mr. Bush took office to large deficits for the foreseeable future.

But Mr. Kerry was not accurate when he said he had shown "exactly how" he intended to pay for all his spending proposals. In fact, he lists as revenue raisers vague promises like closing corporate loopholes and making the government more efficient.

Mr. Kerry was right that Mr. Bush had opposed pay-as-you-go rules that required tax cuts and spending increases to be offset by other tax increases or spending cuts. Those rules were put in effect in the administration of Mr. Bush's father and remained throughout the Clinton years. With Mr. Bush's encouragement, they were allowed to expire. Had they been in effect, his tax cuts could not have been enacted.

Border Security

Mr. Kerry said 95 percent of the cargo containers entering American ports were not inspected. Mr. Bush said, "We're doing everything we can to protect our borders and ports."

According to the Congressional Research Service, seven million cargo containers a year enter American ports. The fear is that a nuclear explosive that would be hard to smuggle through Customs could be hidden on a ship and detonated in a port. The 5 percent inspection rate is correct, according to Congressional testimony. It takes five agents three hours to inspect a typical containership for contraband when it arrives.

Since 2002, under new Container Security Initiative, American and foreign customs officials have started to inspect some suspicious cargoes at overseas ports, based on screening criteria that focus on certain ports, shipping companies and the like. Some ports are equipped with radiation detectors.

Legislation has been introduced in Congress to require inspection overseas of all cargoes bound for the United States. The Associated Press said a report to be released today would show that the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department acknowledges that some progress has been made but says better detection equipment and searches continue to be needed.

Social Security

Both candidates hedged on Social Security.

Mr. Bush never answered how he would pay the cost, estimated at more than $1 trillion, of going from an entirely federal retirement system to one in which workers could put part of their Social Security taxes into private retirement accounts.

Mr. Kerry never answered what he would do to make sure that the Social Security system would have the resources to pay benefits to all the retirees in the baby boom generation.

Jobs

Mr. Bush has been, as Mr. Kerry said, the first president since Herbert Hoover to have the number of jobs in the country decline in his term. As of the end of last month, there were at least 585,000 fewer jobs than existed when Mr. Bush took office. But jobs are much more a function of the business cycle than they are of government policies, and Mr. Kerry has not offered a surefire way to guarantee employment growth.

Pell Grants

In a sense, both candidates told pieces of the truth about Pell Grants, which are essentially college scholarships for low-income students.

It is true, as Mr. Kerry implied, that the average size of Pell Grants has decreased, shrinking slightly, to $2,399 in 2005 from $2,457 in 2003, with few students receiving the maximum $4,050.

Mr. Bush's assertion, "We've increased Pell Grants by one million students," says little about administration policy, leadership or budgeting, because students obtain grants based on eligibility and tuition costs. It is true, however, that the government has in the last two years increased spending on Pell Grants, to $12.8 billion from $11.3 billion in 2003.

As more middle- and low-income students qualify for aid, and with tuition vastly outpacing inflation, the shortfall between financial aid and the cost of tuition has widened.

Race Relations

Mr. Kerry criticized Mr. Bush for poor relations with "the civil rights leadership," saying he was "the first president ever, I think, not to meet with the N.A.A.C.P." and had never met the Congressional Black Caucus. Mr. Bush is the first president since Hoover to have never spoken at the annual N.A.A.C.P. meeting, but he has met members of the caucus at least twice and has also appeared before the Urban League.

Osama bin Laden

Mr. Bush incorrectly denied saying last year that he was no longer concerned about finding Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Kerry, criticizing the president as shifting his attention from that search to the Iraq war, said: "Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, this president was asked, 'Where's Osama bin Laden?' He said: 'I don't know. I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned.' "

Mr. Bush denied making the remark. "Gosh, I don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden," he said in the debate. "That's kind of one of those exaggerations."

But at a news conference on March 13, 2003, Mr. Bush said just that when asked why he rarely mentioned Mr. bin Laden any more. "I don't know where he is," Mr. Bush replied. "I just don't spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you."

He added at the time: "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."

Veterans

Mr. Kerry said that the administration "hasn't fully funded" the Veterans Affairs Department and that "veterans are complaining." Mr. Bush said financing for the department had increased $22 billion since he became president. "We're meeting our obligation to our veterans,'' he said, "and the veterans know that."

Budget authority for the department increased, from $47.4 billion in the 2001 fiscal year, which began the month before the last election, to $60.3 billion in the 2004 fiscal year, which ended two weeks ago. The administration's budget request for this year is $65.2 billion.

In dollar terms, that increase is a bit less than Mr. Bush said. The increase in Mr. Bush's first three years was 27 percent; in Mr. Clinton's eight years, it increased 31 percent.

One reason is that middle-income veterans have increasingly turned to veterans' benefits, which have a generous prescription drug feature, according to FactCheck.org. In January 2003, the administration said that despite the budget increases it would have to turn away many middle-income applicants. It proposed, and Congress rejected, making the drug benefit slightly less generous.

Veterans' groups have sought more money, and Secretary of Veterans' Affairs Anthony J. Principi told a Congressional committee this year that he had requested $1.2 million more in the 2005 budget than the White House had approved.

Edmund L. Andrews, Michael Janofsky and Edmund L. Andrews contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Simply Joel]

..just tuned in long enough to hear the phrase "armies of compassion" and to prevent puking I quickly went back to St. Louis

puking? weak constitution?

[cowboyangel]

..just tuned in long enough to hear the phrase "armies of compassion" and to prevent puking I quickly went back to St. Louis

puking? weak constitution?

na...strong moral fiber

[geekster]

I thought this was interesting in the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Oct14.html

[Simply Joel]

geekster, i don't want to register, can you re-post?


and now, onto today's ration

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 16, 2004

Debate, Declaim, Debacle
By DAVID BROOKS

SCHIEFFER And our first question goes to Senator Kerry. Sir, your spending plans will cost over a trillion dollars. Your combined tax plans will cost $500 billion. How are you going to balance the budget?

KERRY Bob, I'm glad you asked me that question, but before I dodge it I'd like to thank you for moderating this debate, I'd like to thank Arizona State University for being such wonderful hosts and I'd like to thank Dick Cheney's daughter for being a lesbian - in case anybody didn't know.

Bob, as you know, this nation is on the brink of an apocalyptic catastrophe. Civilization as we know it is hanging on by a thread. Our culture has collapsed, our economy is in tatters, the human spirit is extinguished, children never laugh, God is dead, and families like Dick Cheney's are ashamed of their daughters, one of whom is a lesbian. All of this is because of George Bush.

Did you know that right here in Arizona the average share of the national debt on a per capita basis is rising faster than the inverse of the median lost wages ratio of the typical swing voter in Ohio, Missouri and Florida combined?

Bob, when I'm president, we're going to have a president as gloomy as this country should be. But the difference is that I have a plan to balance the budget. In fact I have seven plans. Seven and a half if you count the one I was working on in the limo, not even counting subclauses. When I'm president, our country is going to marry a really rich country, which will pay for everything. Thank you.

SCHIEFFER Mr. President?

BUSH You need a plan. I know that. I'm president. I wake up every day looking for a plan. In fact, I supported Mitch McConnell's plan. But my opponent voted to raise taxes 1,500 gazillion bazillion times. He even voted for some of my budgets, which have created deficits as far as the eye can see! He's a liberal!

The first thing we need to do is cut back. I'm not going to have a flu shot this year. I'm not even going to take a Tylenol. I'm going to have a root canal right here on this stage without Novocain. But we also need to declare an international war on deficits.

I'm excited about 19-year-old girls in Afghanistan who are voting in favor of the line-item veto for the first time ever. I'm excited about the millions of Iraqis who have been liberated from Saddam's Hussein's trial lawyers and their frivolous lawsuits.

SCHIEFFER According to the prearranged rules of this debate, each candidate will now have two minutes to spew forth sentimental blather in order to connect with the American people.

KERRY Thank you Bob. I'm a Catholic. I was an altar boy. In Nativity plays I was usually cast as one of the posts holding up the manger. I know that a lot of people are tired of politicians who just tell them what they want to hear. America, I want to look you in the eye and pledge I will never pander to you.

Spirituality is important to me. I've always felt that we humans are insignificant maggots scuttling across the muck of the universe, and that life itself is just a meaningless moment of agony between the suffocating stench of the womb and the foul decay of the grave.

SCHIEFFER Thanks for that uplifting message. Mr. President?

BUSH America, we've been through a lot together. Imagine how bad things would be if I'd made any mistakes. But we've come through it.

We haven't enforced the Dred Scott decision. And what about my timber company? Can you believe the networks? Oh, never mind. Do you want some wood? How late does this go, anyway? I'm losing it.

SCHIEFFER As I was driving in tonight one thing occurred to me: All three of us are surrounded by strong women. What the hell are we doing up here? Why aren't they running the country?

KERRY Bob, it's true that I am married. She's my second wife, to be precise. Can't recall her name at the moment, but she's fully funded. And I've got two beautiful daughters. Heterosexuals, both of them.

I want to tell you about my family unit and what it means to me. We're in the 79th percentile in most demographic categories. Our compatibility fitness score is within the standard deviation for median households worldwide. ...


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