Endoresment II
This voter will be casting a ballot tomorrow for a Presidential
candidate, a Senate candidate and a House of Representatives
candidate. All but the house candidates are for members of the
non-incumbent party. While I can't think of a reason to defend votes
for Barack Obama over Alan Keyes, and for Mark Kirk over Ihaveno
Ideawhom, I do have reasons to vote for John Kerry.
They are not the reasons you'd think.
If you are one of those Bush supporters that thinks George Bush is a
messenger from God. That he can do no wrong. That John Kerry didn't
deserve his medals and won't defend this country. If you are one of
those, stop reading now. If you are a Kerry supporter who thinks that
the 2000 election was stolen. That there was no reason to invade Iraq.
That there should be a draft to make "the rich kids" fight. Stop
reading now.
However, if you have concerns about fiscal sanity. About competence in
fighting a war. About playing with the constitution for political
reasons. And about executives taking responsibility, I'm going to try
to appeal to logic.
------
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to our nation. September the 11th changed
the strategic thinking, at least, as far as I was concerned, for how
to protect our country. My job is to protect the American people. It
used to be that we could think that you could contain a person like
Saddam Hussein, that oceans would protect us from his type of terror.
September the 11th should say to the American people that we're now a
battlefield, that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a
terrorist organization could be deployed here at home.
So, therefore, I think the threat is real. And so do a lot of other
people in my government. And since I believe the threat is real, and
since my most important job is to protect the security of the American
people, that's precisely what we'll do.
Our demands are that Saddam Hussein disarm. We hope he does. We have
worked with the international community to convince him to disarm. If
he doesn't disarm, we'll disarm him."
- George Bush, March 6, 2003
I believed in the War on Iraq. I also believed that Saddam was
supporting terrorists by shipping oil illegally through Syria (source:
Wall Street Journal - "Iraq Shipping Large Crude Cargoes, Violating
U.N. Rules", Feb 21. 2003). Syria then sold the oil and financed
terrorists operating in Israel that killed Israeli and US citizens. I
believed that either of these were reason enough for the war.
The first case panned out not to be true. The second case was never
made by the administration. Still, that's not reason enough to change
course. Right?
But then we see that there aren't enough troops committed. This is not
a new criticism. I had the opportunity to eat lunch with Rep. Rahm
Emanuel back in March, 2003, right after the war started. He sat next
to me and told me that there weren't enough troops deployed then. The
war plan from this administration was flawed from day 1. That's reason
enough to change course.
Now, I have a degree in economics. I believe that active fiscal policy
is slightly less effective at managing an economy than Dusty Baker is
at controlling team outbursts. I believe in free tade and a balanced
budget. This administration has given away the farm to the farmers.
Given drugs to seniors in a program they don't like and that is too
expensive. Given protectionist tariffs to the steel industry that cost
more jobs than it saved. And run up a deficit that will cost us all
somewhere between $30 billion and $65 billion in additional taxes,
just in interest costs, every year. That's plenty of reason to change
course, especially with the rest of the reasons.
So why John Kerry? Is he any better?
I have no idea.
What I do know is that this country works best when the government
does nothing and business does its business. In 1998, the economy
rolled when Congress investigated Monicagate and did little else.
Not a coincidence in my book.
John Kerry represents divided government. That's a plus. I urge you to
vote for gridlock. For divided government. If you can't vote for
Kerry, then vote for a democrat for congress and senate where you
live.
But most of all, vote. No more Floridas.
// posted by Chuck @ 11/01/2004 10:38:00 PM
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Endorsement
Let me be the first to publicly endorse the hiring of Bob Brenly as a
replacement color announcer for the Cubs broadcast booth. This is a
man who, like Steve Stone, tell it like it is. And is not afraid to
bash stupidity on the field.
Bob was with the Cubs' on WGN radio team back in the "three man booth"
days in the early 90's. On the occasion of the Cubs' last game before
the All-Star Break in 1990, Les Lancaster had a nice start going
against the Cardinals. In the seventh, Les was starting to tire. It
was obvious to everyone. Essian refused to quickly use his bullpen.
Four runs scored and the Cubs eventually lost the game.
Brenly lambasted Essian. It was the last game before the break. Go
ahead and use the pen early as everyone was going to be getting three
days off.
Hire this guy. If anyone thinks that Stone went tough on Baker, they
haven't seen anything like what Brenly will do. Hell. Brenly might
even have designs on Baker's job.
// posted by Chuck @ 11/01/2004 11:53:00 AM
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Sosagate, Stonegate, Chipgate....
So many articles in the news about all this breuhaha surrounding the
team. Go ahead and read the articles and the punditry to get a flavor
of what's surrounding our favorite team. And then remember this:
None of this has anything to do with what we want to see, which is
winning baseball.
The entire focus of this team has been lost. Jim Hendry needs to get
the focus, both internal and external, back on the field. How he does
that is anyone's guess. I'll guess that it's done with some big free
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