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Subject: Linda Ronstadt uproar

Just to point out the obvious:  If a reported 25% of audience were whipped into a frenzy by the mention of Michael Moore's name, doesn't that mean that 75% approved?

Lynn

Subject: Sandy Berger

Bob Lambert
Northridge, CA

Subject: ultimate flip-flop

Bush: 'I Want to Be the Peace President' (Reuters)

John Kerry and all self-respecting Democrats need to challenge Bush on his newest absurdity. The self-described "war president" who launched a war based on lies that killed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and hundreds of U.S. soldiers is now calling himself the "peace president." Isn't this the ultimate flip-flop?

Barry Johnson
St. James, MO

Subject: DVDs -- Fahrenheit 9-11 / Outfoxed / Orwell Rolls in his Grave

Subject: Call the Aladdin!

Subject: CNN's Daryn Kagan spews rumor about Sandy Berger "stuffing" documents into clothes. Yellow Journalism.

CNN's Daryn Kagan repeated today's right-wing radio talking point that would have naive viewers believing that Sandy Berger didn't just possibly fold a document up that he believed was on the unclassified side of the line and put it in an exposed pocket, but somehow that he sat there putting documents inside his clothes on other places on his person. Her repeated jokes about articles concealed in stockings added to the (as of now) baseless implications. My understanding, by the way, is that there are people functioning as guards watching these actions at all times - I believe that's where the story came from.

I haven't read one responsible story that characterizes his behavior as Kagan does, and she needs to be much more careful when applying such a low threshold of credibility to information that she gives her trusting audience.

My bigger point that transcends this irresponsible incident is that this is a highly disturbing pattern wherein Kagan acts as a journalistic biased "loose cannon" (she recently spun a Kerry decision as "classic flip-flopping Kerry"). Horribly unprofessional at best.

To emphasize how dangerous it is for anchors/reporters to salivate and over-react, no less than David Gergen is on other channels today calling Berger a "hero in the war on terror" who would "never compromise our national security."

Since we don't know if this may be a Justice Dept. political witch hunt or not, or simply a mistake, it's VITAL that journalists not indulge themselves with "people are saying" statements that Kagan prefaced this potential falsehood with.

Ms. Kagan surely must be one of the most poorly informed and journalistically reckless TV personalities currently on CNN. Someone in management should immediately sit her down and explain that the actions she takes seriously risk turning her "news" segments into cheap thrill, tabloid journalism that undermines CNN's credibility.

Her statements about Berger today have to do with suggestions that he took actions that would be legally felonious and could damage national security. This is NOT a game or a topic to have fun with at the expense of a very possibly innocent, dedicated career civil servant.

CNN should issue a clarification of Kagan's reckless and potentially slanderous innuendo.

I would conclude by saying that for her to spread unsubstantiated rumors about President Bush would be equally as damaging to the public's clear right to get unbiased information, although, curiously, I've never seen her display anything but extreme deference to Mr. Bush, especially as regards his Iraq war and issues of terrorism.

Thank you much for considering these thoughts.

Dave Dorsett

Subject: Re: Pure Fallacy That Bush Has the Christian Vote

I actually saw a glimmer of hope regarding this subject several months ago. During a boring nighttime drive, I started flipping the radio through the AM dial and came across a Christian radio station and a very fundamentalist talk show. It quickly became apparent that the host was quite radical, but interestingly, his guest was a young, 24-year-old man who wasn't using his name on the air. He said he was part of a fundamentalist Christian group that was talking openly against bush (even though he wasn't giving his name on this show, openly?). Anyway, he said they didn't believe that bush's fiscal policies were conservative at all, that fiscal irresponsibility is a sin, and that bush's spending like there's no tomorrow was sinful. The host argued with him -- not obnoxiously ala rush limbaugh, but strongly. But this young man held his ground that he was not going to vote for bush, and neither were any of his cohorts in his organization. One statement he made really stayed with me: "If the president thinks that he has conservative Christians in his back pocket, he has another think coming." I didn't listen for very long, because they got off on the abortion thing then, and at that point, host and guest were agreeing too much for my eavesdropping ears. But what I did hear, I thought, was encouraging, and made me think that all the bull we hear about how many people are voting for bush is just that, bull, put forth by the pro-bush camp.

Sue

Subject: Girlie Men!

May God forgive me for saying this but maybe what America needs is another 4 years of george bush. The first 4 years did not wake you up, maybe the second 4 will. Of course by that time it will be too late for all of us anyway. I have been a lifelong Democrat but I am ashamed of these wimps. The only way to fight the republicans is down and dirty. Instead the Democrats want to be polite and courteous. I get sick every time I see Al Gore saying about the supreme court decision to hand the presidency to bush, "although I strongly disagree, I accept it." He had this little smile on his face that said the next time the country will be for me because I am doing the honorable thing. Tom Daschle is a big wimp and should step down as Senate Minority Leader. Maybe the Gropenator was right calling the Dems girlie men.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Oh for Christ sake!

Oh for Christ sake! Stuffing classified documents down his socks! With people watching no less! And you media people wonder why we give you no credibility. Jesus, listen to yourselves once in a while, you might figure it out! The White House spin machine says frog and you jump!

Sharon Swift
TN

Subject: like a pit bull on a pork chop

If Mr. Berger were trying to hide something, why in the world would he take copies of something knowing very well the originals were out there to see as well as other copies? As far as people seeing him stuffing papers in his clothes :) :)

That sounds a little like the media drive telling people the Clintons looted Air Force One. Even GW Bush said that was not true. However, the Repugs and the media sunk their jaws into it like a pit bull on a pork chop! :) :)

Something tells me once again we are getting another looting story. :) :)

Karen M.
SC

Subject: Chris Matthews

I like Chris Matthews, but many times he doesn't look beyond the top layer for his audience. He said Arnold called him a girlie man because he can't smoke cigars in his house. So what would a woman out here take from that? Possibly what I took from it. Schwarzenegger apparently feels a woman has no right to ask her husband to take his dangerous smoke outside away from her and her children. And if she does have the nerve to ask him to go out, and he does...then he is a girlie man. Sounds a great deal like my daughter's ex-husband. She divorced him because he was a pig.

Katie Johnson
Tampa, FL

Subject: Ron Reagan's speech and CBS

Regarding the decision to not cover Ron Reagan's speech at the Democratic convention, I can't help but think that, conversely, if Chelsea Clinton were to make an appearance at the Republican convention to speak in support of Mr. Bush, CBS would move heaven and earth to cover that speech -- even if it were only 5 minutes long. This decision was clearly and obviously made in deferment to the wishes of the GOP. Shame on you, CBS. Just how stupid do you think we are?

Jim

Subject: Recalling retired vets

Hey, My dad is a veteran of WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam war. He put in over 30 years. He is now 87, and said he would just love to go over to Iraq. Of course, he is on a walker and would need some assistance to get around, though. What do you think? This time next year the Bushies will be glad to have him.

Go Buzz.

Danielle in the panhandle

Subject: Where is the real O'Reilly?

Tonight's episode of the Factor displayed a rare glimpse of a moderate Bill O'Reilly.  Either he's trying to be nice because of the new attention of the 'Fair and Balanced' lawsuit or he's been abducted by aliens and that's his clone on t.v.

Ian

Subject: Ronstadt

How horrid!  I was a  fan of Linda Ronstadt's all through the seventies...and before, from the time she came on the music scene...she was great.

I am now writing much the same letter to Aladdin that I did to Slim Fast!

Shirley ...........St.Louis

PS:  I just saw the most darling thing on every local news station almost at the same time...either Jenna or Barbara Bush (the blonde one) sticking her tongue out at the people outside where they were campaigning....it was just lovely!!!  They were in a limo...and she did it twice...what a nice little girl. Can anyone here even imagine in their wildest dreams, Chelsea Clinton ever doing that??? Me neither...

Subject: Springfield News-Leader Editorial

I sent this in response to an editorial in our Sunday paper.

It is refreshing for an editorialist to have the courage and insight to enlighten Americans about what is occurring in the Executive and Judicial Branches of our government.

Thomas Jefferson said, "Experience hath shown, that even under the best forms of government those trusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

George Bush said, "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

Thomas Jefferson said, "To inform the minds of the people and to follow their wills is the chief duty of those placed at their head."

George Bush said, "I am the commander see? I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel that I owe anybody an explanation."

GW is doing everything he can to destroy our First Amendment rights. If he succeeds, our democracy will be gone and our government will be no better than the "terrorists" he says we should destroy. Terrorism has many facets -- fear, intimidation, coercion, and secrecy -- and in my opinion these apply to our current administration.

I am a grandmother of five and I firmly believe if we continue in the direction we are going their future is very uncertain and we will have a country where dissent in our government will not be tolerated at any level. This is more frightening to me than the "terrorists."

Again, thank you and keep defending our First Amendment Rights.

Beverly Harmon

Subject: CA Scenario

Terrorism and the Election: California is the Target! The link article that appeared in the 7/19 mailbag is an interesting scenario [terror alert, color red, around 4 pm pacific time... snarling traffic on CA expressways, causing Kerry voter to hurry home to their kids, etc.]

Democrats can circumvent that scenario by putting the word out in CA. to vote on the way to work, or more strategically, VOTE ABSENTEE BALLOT.

~ Cathy

Subject: it's not the berger that smells fishy.......

sandy berger took some copies of which there were many other copies and the media has jumped all over it like he should be stoned to death. if there were something in the newspaper about me i didn't want anyone to know, so i run to the stand get a copy and burn it thinking boy that was close, now no one will find out.................that would mean i have the iq of a dead fish. i do not think he is that stupid.  but the pouncing on the story after all this time sure smells fishy to me.

da

Subject: No Pardon For Vietnam War Objectors

Subject: From America's Amnesia, by Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive)

When Veronica de Negri first saw the pictures from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, she happened to be writing her testimony for the Chilean commission investigating human rights abuses during the regime of Augusto Pinochet.

"That kind of abuse was what I lived in Chile under Pinochet," says de Negri, who came to the United States twenty-seven years ago. Even the vocabulary carried an echo. "They told us, too, they were trying to soften us up."

De Negri was detained in 1976. "I was beaten up. I had electroshock," she says. "I was raped not just by the torturers but with a mouse. It's very repulsive. Imagination cannot reach the reality."

She recognizes that "the torturers in my case were Chilean," but she blames Washington for helping to overthrow Salvador Allende in 1973, for supporting Pinochet, and for training Chilean torturers. De Negri left Chile with her family in 1977, but her son Rodrigo Rojas went back almost a decade later. "He was participating in a national strike on July 2, 1986, when he was arrested, badly beaten, and set on fire and burned alive by Pinochet's forces," she says.

Americans are "very naive," she says. "They don't want to see" the involvement of the United States in torture over the years. The Abu Ghraib scandal "is nothing new," she says. "This has been happening behind your eyes for many years."

The United States likes to see itself with a halo on its head, and whenever a revelation like Abu Ghraib or My Lai surfaces, U.S. citizens tend to shrug it off as an anomaly. When you look at the last fifty years of U.S. history, it is anything but.

From Greece to Iran to Indonesia to Vietnam and throughout Latin America, the U.S. government has been complicit in the torture or murder of hundreds of thousands of people....(more)

Sent to BuzzFlash by Jackie N.

Subject: Another convenient leak by those vicious Rethuglicans 

Dear BuzzFlash,  

So since the rethugs could not get Pakistan to deliver Bin Laden before the Democratic convention, they decided to settle for smearing Sandy Berger. THE TIMING REALLY STINKS. After all, the 9/11 commission will be coming out with their report on Thursday, and methinks that the white house must be pretty nervous and desperate. Yes, and this time it is yet another "leak."  They remind me of rabid coyotes. Did you see the rethugs in congress come out like vultures and make a big todo about the whole situation, shaking their heads in pretend shock at just how serious this situation is to national security? What a bunch of hypocrites.

Instead of being indignant about Valerie Plame's name being leaked as a CIA agent, and going after the leakers in the white house, they decide to go after Sandy Berger. I am not surprised at the dirty politics these rethuglicans play, in fact I am fully expecting them to play more dirty politics as the elections get closer.

Sandy Berger has a good friend in David Gergen. I watched him on Aaron Brown today, and he very clearly spoke up for Mr. Berger, and explained the whole situation very precisely. Reading between the lines it was clear that he thought that this was a small incident blown out of proportion. I guess we all agree.

Roseanne

Subject: RE: Bush wants to be Peace President

President Bush has gone from "war president" to "peace president"? If that's not the flip-flop to end all flip-flops...what is?

---Don Kuhns

Subject: The inimical idiot

Judy Maclean Colorado  

Subject: Excerpt from the Congress Daily: "Dems unveil message for '04 and beyond"

Hoping to duplicate the GOP's 1994 takeover of the House and Senate, Senate Democratic operatives for more than six months have been quietly developing a major overhaul of the party's communication and message strategies, pulling together a set of "language" recommendations and thematic arguments similar to the blueprint used by the Republicans a decade ago.

During a Democratic Caucus meeting Thursday, Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan of North Dakota will roll out the DPC's "Language Project," outlining a series of new message marketing strategies. Caucus leaders, including Dorgan, Minority Leader Daschle and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the assistant floor leader, have signed off on the document.

Party leaders want rank-and-file members to begin using the Language Project document over the course of the next four months in hopes of not only influencing the outcome of this November's congressional and presidential elections, but also to reshape the public image of the party to boost Democrats' electoral success in the future.

Sent by a BuzzFlash Reader

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