CE 7

[chrisfan]

I agree with you that it is a ridiculous conspiracy. That was my point in mentioning the Kerry conspiracy. (although actually ... and this demonstrates the absurdity of the rules ... if Kerry did in fact take a pen out of his pocket, that was in violation of the rules. Pens and paper had to be approved by the debate sponsors and placed on the podiums before the candidates came out) I was reading on Democratic Underground before the debate reports that Bush would be wired. There was even a woman who called into C-Span saying hte same thing, and the chair of the debate sponsoring committee basically laughed at her.

[chrisfan]

I had a thought this morning, and I was wondering if any of you guys had the info to help me put it all together ...

There have been a lot of stories in the news about the huge number of voter registrations that have been gathered this year. These are all being presented as NEW voters. Does anyone know if they differentiate between voters who are registering for the first time, and people who are just transferring their registration? Because we also keep on hearing that home ownership is at an all time high ... which means there have been a lot of people moving into the homes they've bought ... including me. So I had to re-register from my apartment address to my house address. Is that being counted as a new voter registration?

[Galactus]

You'd think if Bush was wired he'd have done alittle better...

I don't think he was wired...bet he'd like to be for the tonight though...

[chrisfan]

What I Really Said About Iraq
By L. PAUL BREMER III

Published: October 8, 2004


In recent days, attention has been focused on some remarks I've made about Iraq. The coverage of these remarks has elicited far more heat than light, so I believe it's important to put my remarks in the correct context.

In my speeches, I have said that the United States paid a price for not stopping the looting in Iraq in the immediate aftermath of major combat operations and that we did not have enough troops on the ground to accomplish that task. The press and critics of the war have seized on these remarks in an effort to undermine President Bush's Iraq policy.

This effort won't succeed. Let me explain why.

It's no secret that during my time in Iraq I had tactical disagreements with others, including military commanders on the ground. Such disagreements among individuals of good will happen all the time, particularly in war and postwar situations. I believe it would have been helpful to have had more troops early on to stop the looting that did so much damage to Iraq's already decrepit infrastructure. The military commanders believed we had enough American troops in Iraq and that having a larger American military presence would have been counterproductive because it would have alienated Iraqis. That was a reasonable point of view, and it may have been right. The truth is that we'll never know.

But during the 14 months I was in Iraq, the administration, the military and I all agreed that the coalition's top priority was a broad, sustained effort to train Iraqis to take more responsibility for their own security. This effort, financed in large measure by the emergency supplemental budget approved by Congress last year, continues today. In the end, Iraq's security must depend on Iraqis.

Our troops continue to work closely with Iraqis to isolate and destroy terrorist strongholds. And the United States is supporting Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in his determined effort to bring security and democracy to Iraq. Elections will be held in January and, though there will be challenges and hardships, progress is being made. For the task before us now, I believe we have enough troops in Iraq.

The press has been curiously reluctant to report my constant public support for the president's strategy in Iraq and his policies to fight terrorism. I have been involved in the war on terrorism for two decades, and in my view no world leader has better understood the stakes in this global war than President Bush.

The president was right when he concluded that Saddam Hussein was a menace who needed to be removed from power. He understands that our enemies are not confined to Al Qaeda, and certainly not just to Osama bin Laden, who is probably trapped in his hide-out in Afghanistan. As the bipartisan 9/11 commission reported, there were contacts between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime going back a decade. We will win the war against global terror only by staying on the offensive and confronting terrorists and state sponsors of terror - wherever they are. Right now, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Qaeda ally, is a dangerous threat. He is in Iraq.

President Bush has said that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. He is right. Mr. Zarqawi's stated goal is to kill Americans, set off a sectarian war in Iraq and defeat democracy there. He is our enemy.

Our victory also depends on devoting the resources necessary to win this war. So last year, President Bush asked the American people to make available $87 billion for military and reconstruction operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military commanders and I strongly agreed on the importance of these funds, which is why we stood together before Congress to make the case for their approval. The overwhelming majority of Congress understood and provided the funds needed to fight the war and win the peace in Iraq and Afghanistan. These were vital resources that Senator John Kerry voted to deny our troops.

Mr. Kerry is free to quote my comments about Iraq. But for the sake of honesty he should also point out that I have repeatedly said, including in all my speeches in recent weeks, that President Bush made a correct and courageous decision to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein's brutality, and that the president is correct to see the war in Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism.

A year and a half ago, President Bush asked me to come to the Oval Office to discuss my going to Iraq to head the coalition authority. He asked me bluntly, "Why would you want to leave private life and take on such a difficult, dangerous and probably thankless job?" Without hesitation, I answered, "Because I believe in your vision for Iraq and would be honored to help you make it a reality." Today America and the coalition are making steady progress toward that vision.


L. Paul Bremer III, former chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, was the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from May 2003 to June 2004.

[chrisfan]

Playing Politics With the Sick

By Leon R. Kass
Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A35

Stem cell research is again a hot political issue. Scientists, biotech companies and patients' groups continue their public relations campaign to force President Bush to change his funding policy. On Monday Sen. John Kerry accused the president of "sacrificing science for ideology and playing politics with people who need cures," adding that treatments "could be right at our fingertips" were it not for "the stem cell ban."

Sadly, this rhetoric utterly distorts the president's policy, ignores the weighty moral issues involved and seeks electoral advantage by cruelly exploiting the hopes of patients and their families. We need to set the record straight.

Wise public policy concerning embryonic stem cell research must attend to three important -- sometimes competing -- responsibilities: to seek scientific knowledge and cures for terrible diseases, to protect human life in all its vulnerable stages, and to respect the diverse yet deeply held moral views of the American people. The president's policy on funding this research offers a prudent means of doing all three. It provides an effective way to vigorously promote embryonic stem cell research and seek cures for disease without violating respect for nascent human life, and without conferring the nation's official blessing, through the awarding of federal taxpayer dollars, on practices many Americans find morally reprehensible.

The Bush policy takes very seriously the potential of stem cell research to provide cures for chronic diseases and disabilities. Far from banning it, the president has made federal funding available for embryonic stem cell research for the first time. The National Institutes of Health budget for embryonic stem cell research has risen from zero in 2001 to $24.8 million in 2003; the policy sets no funding cap on future budgetary increases. The NIH has built an in-house laboratory to characterize and test stem cell lines; created a Stem Cell Task Force to determine priorities and allocate resources accordingly; made numerous grants to individual researchers and institutions; plans to fund three new multidisciplinary "centers of excellence" around the country to focus on stem cell research directed at specific diseases; and is developing a centralized stem cell bank of the eligible lines to make them more easily and cheaply accessible to scientists.

Thanks to the NIH's scientific and legal efforts, 22 lines of eligible stem cells are available, up from just one line in the summer of 2002, with more coming -- enough lines for years of essential basic research that must precede any future therapy. Nearly 500 shipments of cells have already been made to researchers; 3,500 more sit ready for delivery upon request. There is no shortage of embryonic stem cells.

In addition, the current policy offers abundant federal support for promising, morally unproblematic research using non-embryonic (adult) stem cells. Also, private investment has mushroomed, with stem cell research centers newly created at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Cornell and Stanford, among other universities. Far from banning stem cell research, the Bush policy offers public funds to advance such research in a vigorous and responsible way, and leaves it free to advance further with private funds.

Unlike its critics who see only "ideology," the Bush policy recognizes the moral difficulty surrounding the research and upholds important moral values. Derivation of embryonic stem cells requires the deliberate destruction of 5- to 6-day-old human embryos. The moral issue does not disappear just because the embryos are very small or because they are no longer wanted for reproductive purposes: Because they are living human embryos, destroying them is not a morally neutral act. Just as no society can afford to be callous to the needs of suffering humanity, none can afford to be cavalier about how it treats nascent human life.

Since 1995 Congress has annually reaffirmed (with bipartisan support) its respect for early human life in the Dickey amendment, which forbids federal funding of research in which human embryos are harmed or destroyed. The president's policy upholds not only the letter but also the moral spirit of that law. By restricting federal funding to research using only those embryonic stem cell lines that were already in existence (the embryo-destroying deed having already been done), the policy refuses to be complicit in or to reward future destructive and coarsening practices. It promotes health without violating life or the law of the land.

The Bush policy also offers a prudent means of addressing a divisive public question. By refusing to reward future embryo destruction, it respects those who regard this practice as immoral. Yet by refraining from banning embryo-destroying research in the private sector, it also respects those for whom the moral balance favors sacrificing embryos for the sake of medical progress. The policy offers hope to those who might be aided by stem cell medicine in the future without recklessly trampling over the most cherished moral ideals of their fellow citizens.

It is not the president but his critics who are playing politics with the people who need cures. It is cruel to suggest that stem-cell-based therapies are "at our fingertips" when our best scientists have made it clear that it will be at least several decades before anyone's disease or disability might be cured by this means. It is cruel to suggest that a reversal of the current Bush policy -- dishonestly labeled a "ban" -- is all that scientists need to enable the wheelchair-bound to walk again, and soon.

Stem cell research -- embryonic and adult -- is a field of great potential, though it is much too early to know where it will lead. Now is the time for the researchers to take advantage of the great existing opportunities open for exploration. Now is the time for the demagoguery to stop.

The writer is chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics and is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

Looks as though those terrorists in Iraq have beheaded British hostage Ken Bigley, which is terrible news.

Some are trying to have a pop at Blair for not negotiating... like you could or should ever negotiate with these people. Besides, as Blair said, at no stage could the British government contact these people even to hear what they had to say, so negotiation was never a true motive. These beheadings are about sadism and propaganda, and many other hostage situations in Iraq by less idealogical groups than al-Zarqawi's are now purely about money. Makes you despair really.

[chrisfan]

I think it's a shame in a situation such as this when people point to the leader ofa country, and blame him for the murder committed by the hostage takers. I think that Blair did a very effective job of explaining a couple of weeks ago why the calls for negotiation were not genuine. Beyond that, it seems obvious to me that if any leader starts negotiating with terrorists, and giving to some of their demands, that is ony going to put the lives of their citizens MORE at risk, not safer.


On another note entirely, here's a little exercise for everyone today ... if you were in the audience for the debate tonight, what question would you pose? Mine would be for John Kerry. I'd ask him for more clarification on the global test notion -- Senator Kerry, you said in the first debate that you would not ever fail to defend American security, but that taking action must be able to pass a global test, to explain and get the support of citizens and the global community as to why you're taking action. In an ideal situation, the two go hand in hand. But if you were faced with a situation where you believed that the security of the US was in jeopardy, but could not gain the support of the global community, would you drop the global test to do what you believed to be right?

[pissin2]

that's funny cause I was saying just the other day I bet Bush was wired. You'd think he'd do better, but maybe that's just because he wasn't getting good reception. So there were those times where he actually had to speak on his own. And you see what it's like when that happens. "uh uh uh ummmm...." If he wasn't wired, then what the hell was it? A tumor?

[chrisfan]

I've heard several people say that with the conditions of the auditorium -- being totally dark so the audience could not be seen, that the secret service probably insisted that both men wear bullet proof vests. Don't know if that is the case or not, but it would make sense. They would not make it public if they did. And if you've ever seen the way the SS agents are watching everything and everyone when the president is somewhere, and then consider that you had 6 secret service protectees in the same room, it seems logical to me that it was a vest.

[Ampage]

Maybe it WAS a finger!

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

I'd simply ask Bush the following, if I was American and in the audience:-

"Mr President, I'd like to know if you are going to apologise to the American people, and especially to the families of those soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq, for taking us into war on not one, but two false premises: Namely that Iraq had WMD, and that Iraq was involved in 9/11?"

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

"Mr President, could you take off your jacket please, and allow Senator Kerry to closely examine your right ear?"

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

"Why do so many Arabs call you Little Bush? Could you please take out your manhood to dispel these rumours? We don't wish to be ruled by a girlie man."

[JesusLooksLikeMe]

"I'd like to ask the two candidates, other than death metal, what music did you last listen to?"

[pissin2]

That's not very logical to say it was a vest seeing on how the lump was only seen on one shoulder, and it wasn't seen on Kerry either.