Shrinkie, so will I, no lie, I am a moderate Republican, and have never voted outside party affiliation ever in a presidential race, until this Tuesday, as unlike 99% of Reps I don't do hook-line-and-sinker partisan politics..and I'm not the only one!
Published on Thursday, October 21, 2004 by the Courier-Journal /
Louisville, Kentucky
A Former Republican Senator: 'Frightened to Death' of Bush
by Marlow W. Cook
I shall cast my vote for John Kerry come Nov 2.
I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a
party send the wrong person to the White House, then it is our
responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his
actions. I fall in the category of good conservative thinkers, like
George F. Will, for instance, who wrote: "This administration cannot be
trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and having thought,
to have second thoughts."
I say, well done George Will, or, even better, from the mouth of the
numero uno of conservatives, William F. Buckley Jr.: "If I knew then what
I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have
opposed the war."
First, let's talk about George Bush's moral standards.
In 2000, to defeat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. a man who was shot down in
Vietnam and imprisoned for over five years they used Carl Rove's "East
Texas special." They started the rumor that he was gay, saying he had
spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton. They said he was crazy. They
said his wife was on drugs. Then, to top it off, they spread pictures of
his adopted daughter, who was born in Bangladesh and thus dark skinned,
to the sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural South Carolina.
To show he was not just picking on Republicans, he went after Sen. Max
Cleland from Georgia, a Democrat seeking re-election. Bush henchmen said
he wasn't patriotic because Cleland did not agree 100 percent on how to
handle homeland security. They published his picture along with Cuba's
Castro, questioning Cleland's patriotism and commitment to America's
security. Never mind that his Republican challenger was a Vietnam
deferment case and Cleland, who had served in Vietnam, came home in a
wheel chair having lost three limbs fighting for his country. Anyone who
wants to win an election and control of the legislative body that badly
has no moral character at all.
We know his father got him in the Texas Air National Guard so he would
not have to go to Vietnam. The religious right can have him with those
moral standards. We also have Vice President Dick Cheney, who deferred
his way out of Vietnam because, as he says, he "had more important things
to do."
I have just turned 78. During my lifetime, we have sent 31,377,741
Americans to war, not including whatever will be the final figures for
the Iraq fiasco. Of those, 502,722 died and 928,980 came home without
legs, arms or what have you.
Those wars were to defend freedom throughout the free world from
communism, dictators and tyrants. Now Americans are the aggressors we
start the wars, we blow up all the infrastructure in those countries, and
then turn around and spend tax dollars denying our nation an excellent
education system, medical and drug programs, and the list goes on. ...
I hope you all have noticed the Bush administration's style in the
campaign so far. All negative, trashing Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John
Edwards and Democrats in general. Not once have they said what they have
done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all.
Lyndon Johnson said America could have guns and butter at the same time.
This administration says you can have guns, butter and no taxes at the
same time. God help us if we are not smart enough to know that is wrong,
and we live by it to our peril. We in this nation have a serious problem.
Its almost worse than terrorism: We are broke. Our government is
borrowing a billion dollars a day. They are now borrowing from the
government pension program, for apparently they have gotten as much out
of the Social Security Trust as it can take. Our House and Senate
announce weekly grants for every kind of favorite local programs to save
legislative seats, and it's all borrowed money.
If you listened to the President confirming the value of our war with
Iraq, you heard him say, "If no weapons of mass destruction were found,
at least we know we have stopped his future distribution of same to
terrorists." If that is his justification, then, if he is re-elected our
next war will be against Iran and at the same time North Korea, for
indeed they have weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, which they
have readily admitted. Those wars will require a draft of men and women.
...
I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George
Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to
supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government
that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat
down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to
keep that secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Those of you who are fiscal conservatives and abhor our staggering debt,
tell your conservative friends, "Vote for Kerry," because without Bush to
control the Congress, the first thing lawmakers will demand Kerry do is
balance the budget.
The wonderful thing about this country is its gift of citizenship, then
it's freedom to register as one sees fit. For me, as a Republican, I feel
that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth,
takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism
to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of
those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong
direction.
If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a
president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the
consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under
our Constitution.
I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right
path.
The writer, a Republican formerly of Louisville, was Jefferson County
judge from 1962-1968 and U.S. senator from Kentucky from 1968-1975.
© 2004 Courier-Journal