The opinions expressed in the Mailbag are not necessarily those of BuzzFlash. Read the BuzzFlash FAQ for info on submitting to the Mailbag.

Subject: THE UNMITIGATED GALL!

Even retired Lieutenant Colonel Albert C. Lloyd Jr., a former Texas Air National Guard personnel chief who vouched for Bush at the White House's request in February, agreed that Bush walked away from his obligation to join a reserve unit in the Boston area when he moved to Cambridge in September 1973. By not joining a unit in Massachusetts, Lloyd said in an interview last month, Bush ''took a chance that he could be called up for active duty. But the war was winding down, and he probably knew that the Air Force was not enforcing the penalty."

But Lloyd said that singling out Bush for criticism is unfair. ''There were hundreds of guys like him who did the same thing," he said.

Perhaps so, Jr., but only ONE of those "hundreds of guys" was first elected governor, then President of the United States currently running for re-election, due in part to a published SPURIOUS (*look it up Georgie) military "record" which when FINALLY examined carefully turns out to be PURE TEXAS BULLSHIT!!!

As Jon Stewart would say: THE UNMITIGATED GALL!

And as John Kerry recently said: Dubya is "All Hat, No Cattle."

Truer words were never spoken. And surely never by anyone associated with the Grand Old Republican Party.

Someone (Poppy maybe?) ought to advise Jr, Lumpy and the twins that maybe it's time to pack up all their shit and go back to the ranch... George can then fertilize the whole back 40 with all the manure his administration has pumped out for the last 3 1/2 years.

MP in Vancouver

Subject: My New Blog at BobFertik.com

"The AWOL story is a volcano that is about to blow. The purpose of this blog is to monitor the early warning signs so that you, dear reader, will be among the first to know when the pent-up gases and red-hot lava blow the cap right off the mountain, blasting Bush's utterly phony "patriotism" - and his entire administration - to smithereens." So begins [my] new blog. Jump right in with your own comments on the latest Bush scandals! (Democrats.community registration required).

Bob Fertik
http://bobfertik.com

Subject: 60 minutes show

OK City CBS affiliate has chosen to deny the 60 Minute Slot at 7 CST and will show at 3:15 AM...how's that for politicking???

Elizabeth

Subject: OK City got to see 60 minutes

I want to thank anyone who called or e-mailed KWTV in Oklahoma City. They finally gave in and asked us not to call any more. 60 minutes II was shown in its regular time slot.

Karen Webb
Moore, Ok.

Subject: Cheney's remarks of 9/7/04

Heard today that Cheney's remarks, as used in an attempt to sway (frighten) voters, could be construed as a terrorist threat, which could be determined to be either malfeasance or misfeasance (according to Black's Law Dictionary).   Think anyone in D.C. will pursue this?

M. Gabriel

Subject: a pit bull with a pork chop

If bush tries to dis the fine people of Missouri in the debates, Kerry and Edwards need to grab hold of that like two hungry pit bulls on a pork chop and head to Missouri with it. If bush has time for scripted rallies with scripted questions and answers in Missouri..........then he has time for a sixty min. debate!   WHY IS HE SO SCARED OF QUESTIONS THAT ARE NOT PREPARED BY HIS STAFF?

Why is he so scared of undecided voters in Missouri?

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Cheney's attacks

Cheney made a statement about "pre-9/11 mind-set". . .  Isn't that where the President gets a briefing about a terror attack while on one of many vacations and ignores it?????????

Bonnie M. Matheson
Wheaton, MD

Subject: Washington Times

In the home page of The Washington Times there is an offering for a FREE copy of "Unfit for Command." Have the sales been so low that they have to give it away?

...just asking.

Jocelyn
Miami, Florida

Subject: Purple Hearts and Senseless Threats

Dear Buzz,

Since I just returned from vacation, this may be somewhat stale news.  However, having spent eight years as an MIA wife during the Vietnam era, I'm shamelessly using BuzzFlash to express my absolute outrage at the sight of Republicans merrily cavorting with their "purple heart" band-aids, a lame and juvenile attempt to denigrate Sen. Kerry's service (as opposed to Bush's heroics, one would presume).  I don't believe I'm nitpicking in raising this issue; on the contrary, I believe we can use GOP exercises in guilt-by-innuendo (see also: boldfaced lies) like this particular stunt as an accurate barometer of the slime inherent in Bush's campaign, which, incidentally, is making Nixon's look like a demonstration of Sermon-on-the-Mount virtue. And Bush, by not denouncing his lickspittles' cutesy little snippet of "family values" humor when he sashayed to the podium to bask in their adulation, tacitly sanctioned it.  This, of course, is a commander-in-chief who, with nary a qualm, is sending thousands of our young people into the killing fields of his whimsical war; so his subsequent imprimatur on the belittling of war wounds as a device to belittle his opponent shows Bush for the conscienceless, spineless, insipid little twit that he is.

And now Cheney informs us that, unless the nation re-elects this Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight to protect us, we're sitting ducks for another 9/11.  Well, hey, Dick, not for nothin', but who exactly was it who was protecting us last time?  The one fact that NOBODY has voiced is the teensy detail that the worst attack we've ever endured took place on Bush's watch.  Did he do anything to incur it?  I'm quite sure he didn't.  But neither did he do anything to prevent it.  So, Mr. Cheney, you may want to chew on that one a while.  

Or maybe the Vicemeister knows something the rest of us don't.  Let's see; Cheney / secrecy...hmmm...nah, couldn't be!

Ellen in Westwood, NJ  

Subject: Bush Whining

Bush is whining about Kerry using anti-war Dean lines: Bush Says Kerry's Using Old Dean Lines (Yahoo). I think Kerry should use a few more.

How about this one from Reagan?: " There they go again," claiming Saddam is tied with 9/11.

How about this one from Bush 41? "Read my Lips," I will bring our boys home.

Or this one from Jimmy Carter: "I'll never tell a lie" to the American people about War.

Thanks for all the hard work ......Keep the Buzz.

John

Subject: Censorship or Coincidence?

During last night's airing of the 60 Minutes interview with Ben Barnes, the former Texas speaker of the house, who admitted to pulling strings to help George Bush avoid service in Vietnam and got him into the Air National Guard... (see also http://media.greaterdemocracy.org/)

As 60 Minutes began airing this interview, our local CBS affiliate WYOU 22 in Scranton-Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, decided to show a test pattern instead of showing the controversial interview. I immediately contacted the station to register my protest and they claimed it was a transmitter problem, or could it maybe have been an over zealous Bushie deciding to censor the news? If this possible local censorship concerns you, please consider contacting the following numbers and register your concern for free speech.

WYOU 22
409 Lackawanna Ave.
Scranton, PA 18503
PHONE: (570) 961-2222
PHONE: (570) 823-2828

60 Minutes, Weeknight Edition
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
PHONE: (212) 975-6200
E-MAIL: 60II@cbsnews.com

Ken

Subject: Media and the Bush's

With the main stream media doing its best to define Kerry by Bush's standards what are we going to do? How can we really fight them? How can rational people we be heard? Did anyone see one show interviewing some protesters after the convention? I had no idea that Bush's car was pelted with eggs or there was such a huge demonstration at his inauguration until I saw Fahrenheit 911. Chris Matthews says the Bush military record controversy is a desperate distraction by the Democrats after spending weeks excoriating Kerry with the swiftboat idiots. According to Matthews, if the American people buy what Cheney said today the election is over for Kerry and he told his audience so. Wolf Blitzer and Judy Woodruff aren't much better and that poor fool George Stephanopolous is just a loser all the way around. By the way did you hear the news: Daryn Kagan of CNN is now dating Rush Limbaugh. Forget that tuition plan, your babies will be going to war and you'll have no job, social security, clean drinking water or healthcare. What do you think the American people say to that: "4 more years"! What country am I living in? God help us all.

Barbara Illes
Frustrated and frightened in Santa Monica

Subject: Wrong war

Dear Buzz-

Bush accuses Kerry of adopting the "Wrong war wrong place" line from Howard Dean. Please note that the quote originated from General Omar Bradley criticizing MacArthur over Korea. After several months of vacillation in Washington, General Omar Bradley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered the prudent judgment that a wider war with China would be "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy." Howard Omar Bradley Dean my ass.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/trivia/macarth.htm

Bush says Kerry appropriated Howard Dean's line of attack on anti-war stand (AP)

Howard Dean on War & Peace (issues2000.org)

Jonathan N.

Subject: 24 Months

Hi BuzzFlash,

President Bush has taught us many things these last three and half years.  By sending so many National Guard units to Iraq he has taught us that men in their 50s are capable of fighting in a war.

From the September 6, 2004, Boston Globe article on President Bush's service record I have learned that he owes up to 24 months active military service.  That would place him in the ranks of the ready reserve.  Another group of soldiers that Bush has called up sent to Iraq. 

I think it would be appropriate if President Bush served his 24 months of service in Iraq.  After all, he claims to be a "War President."  What better way for him to show his prowess in the art of war, than by actually being there?

Paul

[BuzzFlash Note: Perhaps he would serve as a forward observer for the artillery?]

Subject: Jim Baker talking point

Not that you all won't already have thought of this, but I just wanted to emphasize that given that Chickenhawk Bush is trying to chicken out of a debate with John Kerry, and is hiding behind *Jim Baker* to weasel out of the debate, we should build on Michael Moore's work on connecting Bush to the Saudis and really hammer out the point that Jim Baker is representing the Saudi Royals against the 9/11 victims' families.

Campaigns Enlist Big Names to Set Debates' Details (Herald Tribune)

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Keep hammerin' it home, John and John

The latest report from the Census Bureau showing that over 12 percent of the American people -- 35.9 million, 12.9 million of them children -- now live below the poverty line, and that the number of Americans with no health insurance has increased by 5.8 million under Bush, bringing the total to 45 million.

All John Kerry and John Edwards need to do to win this election in a landslide is to hammer these points home, over and over and over, ad nauseum. Find ways to demonstrate those numbers so that everyday Americans can understand and comprehend the sheer magnitude of it all!

Americans are waiting to find any leadership qualities in Kerry/Edwards to which they can cling and to which they can harness their hopes and dreams. This is their chance!

Call them. E-mail them. Write to them. Show up at rallies and tell them! Make them understand that some of us -Americans - know Kerry and Edwards are strong leaders. Now let ALL Americans know it. Even the 'Murkins the prez talks about all the time. Even the love doctors, those OB-GYN doctors Bush proclaimed as love doctors for women, will understand if the candidates phrase it just right!

Pray. Register. Vote. Take someone you know to register. And to vote. God help us all if Democrats stay home on election day like they usually do!

Sincerely,

Hattie Falin,
The Newsbee
Gate City, VA.

Subject: 1000 Dead! I've come to the end of my patience with bush & cheney

1000 are now Dead! My heart breaks for the loved ones of the brave 1000. Moreover, I have come to the end of my patience with bush & cheney.

Yes, I have lost my patience with this group of lying, immoral, underhanded, war-mongering, Un-American neocons. It is long past time that I call a spade a spade. I have sat back quietly as our sorry excuse of a president spouted lie after lie while he sold out the USA, and our Brave Reservists (they used reservists so they don't have to pay health insurance once they come home), as he pushed us into an un-needed war with Iraq. Yesterday, we hit a milestone; over 1000 Americans have given their lives in bush's un-called-for war of aggression against the people of Iraq . The most obscene aspect of bush's war (in this ex-US Navy man's opinion), is that we never had to fight this war. Rather than exploring the myriad of more peaceful options in front of him, bush decided to go to war as his first choice.

As I look back over the many lies bush, and his minions told while selling us this war, all of them circle back to one indisputable fact; this administration cares more for the graft they can realize from this war, than they care about the lives of soldiers whose death their lies have caused. So complete is bush's indifference to those who have died for his lies, that he has NEVER attended a single funeral of any one of those 1000 soldiers. However, bush has been able to attend over 220 fundraisers, and use more than 1/3 of his time in office to go on vacation. As I said earlier, bush has pushed me to the end of my rope.

I have come to the end of my patience with this awful administration. I cannot stand to hear their lies about our floundering economy. While bush, for his own self-serving reasons, attempts to put lipstick on this pig of an economy, he cuts the programs to help those his terrible economy is hurting most while he gives Billions to the richest .02% through tax cuts.

I am sick to death of their lies about John Kerry 's service in Vietnam , as this administration fights their "War on Heroism," when all evidence I've seen shows that george w. bush went AWOL while serving in his "Champagne Unit" of the National Guard. In addition, dick cheney copped 5 (FIVE), deferments in order to keep his cowardly butt out of the Army. When asked why he needed five deferments, cheney answered, "I had other priorities."

I can assure ol' deferment dick that EVERY soldier had other priorities than getting shot, or shot at for that matter, however, when your country calls, you go.

This guy bush is the same man who promised to be a uniter, not a divider. The only people he's united are the terrorists' recruiters. Those people owe a great deal of their success to bush. Since his war of aggression against the people of Iraq, terrorist recruitment has gone up worldwide. Our uniter has also united our allies AGAINST us. On September 12, 2001, the entire world was behind the USA, they shared our pain. Today, we are hated, laughed at and feared. We are feared because our old allies now believe an un-smart, unbalanced, and unprincipled man governs us. Having just returned from a trip to Asia , I can assure you this IS how people who have been our allies for many, many years now see us.

The only solution I can see is to make a change on November 2 nd, 2004. I've seen some reporters in the elite right wing media try to paint John Kerry in the most unflattering terms. No matter what he has done for our country in his life, these people try to degrade him. They do this while applauding bush's AWOL status as a member of a stateside Champagne Unit made up of a bunch of rich kids. The kids whose parents called in favors so their boys would not have to march around in the jungles of Vietnam as Senator Kerry VOLUNTEERED to do. However, even that was too rough for young george bush and he went AWOL. Today these people have the gall to insult John Kerry who actually FOUGHT FOR THIS COUNTRY! I am sick of this!

On November 2nd, 2004, more than 50% of this country will have the good sense to join me in getting rid of this awful administration. See, no matter how many lies bush and his people tell, more than 50% of this country feel as I do, we are all at the end of our patience with bush and with cheney.

Signed,

Robert W. Strauss
Beaverton, Oregon

Subject: Reverse dominoes

Remember how, during the Vietnam War, government fed us the ridiculous rationale called the Domino Theory?

According to that theory, Communism was sweeping through Asia, and if we allowed Vietnam to fall, soon we would be fighting Communism in Australia, and then California. According to this theory, we had to contain communism before it spread, and Vietnam was a better place to do this than the United States.

Well, it seems that Bush has two similar, simultaneous but competing rationales for being in Iraq. One could be labeled the Redux Domino Theory, and the other can be called the Reverse Domino Theory.

According to Bush's Redux Domino theory, we are containing terrorists, because they would rather go to Iraq to shoot at Americans than buy plane tickets to the U.S.

According to his Reverse Domino theory, the U.S., by invading Iraq, is spreading democracy throughout the Middle East, and corrupt and authoritarian regimes are falling like dominoes in the wake of freedom.

All I know is that the rationale was bogus then and it is even more bogus now. If anyone believes, as Bush states, that Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda would rather attack armed American soldiers in Iraq, as opposed to unarmed civilians right here at home, I've got a bridge to sell them. And with Bush in office, we Americans have enough problems keeping democracy at home--never mind spreading it elsewhere.

Of course, I can't compete with Bush when it comes to selling bridges. Fool me once, twice, three times.....

A Loyal BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: 1000 Points of Light / 1000 Points of Sorrow

Today I flashed back to George Bush, Sr's. run for president. A theme of Father Bush's campaign was entitled, "1000 Points of Light," a national program he devised to honor the best in our society [to inspire greater levels of volunteerism]. That program is now a foundation with a mission to engage people more effectively in volunteer community service, and to help solve serious social problems. Whether as a Democrat or Republican, we can all agree Father Bush's vision was a noble one.

Boy Bush has his 1000 points too, each draped with an American flag. His father's points of hope have been transformed into our own points of sorrow, and this is a tragedy. We must mourn and we must celebrate the lives represented by each of these points. These were good men and women who stepped into harm's way to protect our nation. Equally, we should detest Boy Bush, whose shameful deception unnecessarily created these 1000 points of sorrow. Tonight, I say 1001 prayers, for our soldiers, and for you Mr. President. I sincerely pray for your soul.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: desertion, flat out

If Bush is proven to have been A.W.O.L. for more than 30 days during a time of war, that is by military definition desertion. There is no statute of limitations for prosecuting deserters. Wonder what our troops will think about this? Presuming the news gets to them.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: updates to registration-deadlines.com

Hi, In between trips to swing states, I've updated my new website[on voter registration deadlines]: http://www.registration-deadlines.com

I think it's pretty useful now - map with mouseovers displaying state voter registration deadlines - reference calendar - links to state elections boards. Enjoy, and link before it's too late (most registration deadlines are now less than a month away...)

Sincerely,

Margie
Baltimore, MD

Subject: W's record

From Boston Globe:

''He broke his contract with the United States government -- without any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National Guard was complicit in allowing this to happen," Lechliter said in an interview yesterday. ''He was a pilot. It cost the government a million dollars to train him to fly. So he should have been held to an even higher standard."

...''It appears that no one wanted to hold him accountable," said retired Major General Paul A. Weaver Jr., who retired in 2002 as the Pentagon's director of the Air National Guard.

Bush fell short on duty at Guard Records show pledges unmet

And so what else is new? W's incredible lucky streak continues -- with catastrophic consequences for the US and the world.

Buzzer

Subject: : 'catastrophic successful' election tampering

Has anyone been over to look at www.blackboxvoting.org lately?. It doesn't matter how well Kerry/Edwards campaign, if the election is rigged.

Investigations

Manipulation technique found in the Diebold central tabulator -- 1,000 of these systems are in place, and they count up to two million votes at a time.

By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.

This program is not "stupidity" or sloppiness. It was designed and tested over a series of a dozen version adjustments.

Public officials: If you are in a county that uses GEMS 1.18.18, GEMS 1.18.19, or GEMS 1.18.23, your secretary or state may not have told you about this. You're the one who'll be blamed if your election is tampered with. Find out for yourself if you have this problem: Black Box Voting will be happy to walk you through a diagnostic procedure over the phone. E-mail Bev Harris or Andy Stephenson to set up a time to do this.

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: Organize independent "Push Polls"

This might not be an original idea, but consider this: how about you and other liberal bloggers help organize "Push Polls"? It's time for Democrats to get tough, as well as down and dirty - let's give Bush back what he gives and set up phone calling projects that will ask questions like, "If you knew Pres. Bush had started drinking again, would you be less likely to vote for him?" or "If Pres. Bush was suspended from flying in the National Guard for testing positive for cocaine and lied about it, would you trust him to lead the country?" I'm sure you could come up with more fun and informational questions! If the Bush people start barking about it they will just look like hypocrites (again!) and bring more attention to his actions against McCain. We have to give it back, and no one would have to lie - and it's only fair. We could organize "Push Poll" parties, one night a week, or every night the week before the election.

Thanks,

Jerry

(Forwarded by a BuzzFlash Reader)

CLICK HERE FOR PART 2 OF THE SEPTEMBER 10, 2004 BUZZFLASH MAILBAG.