(Please forgive the capitalization. For some reason Netscape's browser will not let me use bold or different fonts)

KOCH IN COMPARING DOMESTIC ISSUES TO TERRORISM:: These issues, however, pale in importance beside the menace of international terrorism, which threatens our very survival as a nation. President Bush has earned my vote because he has shown the resolve and courage necessary to wage the war against terrorism.

EEE: The above is hyperbole. Come on, right now our nation is not any safer or in more danger from terrorist threats since 9/11. Now, one way we are not safer is that we have not adequately changed since 9/11. By this I mean, we know what can happen and neither the Bushies or Congress have done enough to change things. For example, on NOW With Bill Moyers, one segment aired six months ago depicted how easily a terrorist could plant a truck bomb next to a chemical plant that if detonated could kill/injure millions of Americans. (This is such a sensitive area of the country with its number of chemcial plants that the show blurred signs and such to disguise where filming was being done).

Also, really, has international terrorism slowed any at all? And in America, the only thing now being curtailed are civil liberties. As I've posted earlier - do the dang investigations and prosecutions correctly so that there is no chance of successful appeals.

And what courage and resolve have the Bushies shown? "Bring it on"....not giving our troops the required ballistic vest materials and armor for vehicles?!?

KOCH: The Democratic presidential contenders, unfortunately, inspire no such confidence. With the exception of Senator Joseph Lieberman, who has no chance of winning, the Democrats have decided that in order to get their party's nomination, they must pander to its radical left wing. As a result, the Democratic candidates, even those who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, have attacked the Bush administration for its successful effort to remove a regime that was a sponsor of terrorism and a threat to world peace.

EEE: Here a couple of bold faced lies and misrepresentations. Of the Democratic contenders, only one has really pander to the left wing and that has been Kucinich. The biggest misrepresentation is that of Dean. Dean is a helluva moderate. And in primary politics, on both sides, the candidates ALWAYS pander to the strongest base of the party. That is just political common sense. Candidates have to get the most loyal, hard core voters to their side.

Koch says the Democrats attacked the Bushies for removing a regime "that was a sponsor of terrorism and a threat to world peace".....SOMEONE, ANYONE, pleast tell me, what terrorists other than his own party members has Saddam EVER sponsored?!?!? The crazy bastard was too busy sponsoring his own activities. And here is KOCH's biggest misrepresentation: when have the Bushies ever went after Saudia Arabia? They have been the biggest financial supporter of terrorism world wide than any other country! US News And World Report just did an excellent article on SA' terrorism funding, as did Time a few months ago. Where is Koch's attack on SA? Where is Koch's attack on the business ties between SA, bin Laden and the Bush family? Oddly, he wants to attack the Dems....which is even stranger, because Lieberman is the one who came up with the idea for the Dept of Homeland Security!

KOCH: The Democrat now leading in the race, former governor Howard Dean, is a disgrace. His willingness to publicly entertain the slander that President Bush had advance warning of the September 11 attacks and his statement that America is no safer as a result of the capture of Saddam Hussein should have been sufficient to end his candidacy. But the radicals who dominate the primaries love the red meat that is thrown to them, even when it comes from a mad cow.

EEE: The above paragraph pisses me off to no end. And I have posted about these Dean comments before. Dean stated he did not believe such a theory, but brought it up because of the 28 pages blacked out of one of the 9/11 reports in regards to Saudia Arabia allow theories like this to stay alive. His point was that the 28 pages need to be released and we need to quit protecting Saudia Arabia.

Next, Dean is right; we are not any safer with Hussein captured. The Iraqi people are, but we are not. I have lost count of the soliders killed and wounded since his capture and tonight on the news it was reported that attacks in Iraq have picked up. And as Dean has said, we were just at the Orange alert level, a dirty bomb threat was reported and airplanes were being escortedby fighter pilots.

KOCH: In contrast, President Bush has confronted the terrorist threat head on. Immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the president presented the core principle of what has become known as the Bush Doctrine, an articulation of American foreign policy that rivals in importance the Monroe Doctrine, which barred foreign imperialism from the Western Hemisphere, and the Truman Doctrine, which sought to contain communism around the world. The Bush Doctrine, simply stated by the president, is: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

President Bush has lived up to that credo. Under his leadership, Afghanistan was liberated from Al Qaeda's patron, the Taliban. The president also has demonstrated, through the liberation of Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, that he is willing to wage a preemptive war when he believes the national interests of the United States are endangered.

EEE: Still more hyperbole from Koch. What infuriates me is that we were on the right track in Afghanistan and the Bushies made a wrong turn built on terrible lies (do I have to list them again? No mobile WMD labs, no nuclear capablities, no 45 minute attacks, no uranium from Niger, no ties to al Queda, still no WMD's - where Rumsfeld said we "knew" where they were at, and on and on). And again, SOMEONE, ANYONE, please tell me how Iraq was more of a threat to the national interests any more so than N. Korea, Iran, or Pakistan?

KOCH: Even if we never find weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq — though I think that we will — our military campaign for regime change was justified. If the bodies of a quarter-million Iraqi dissenters killed by Saddam, some tortured with their eyes gouged and tongues cut out, is not proof enough, there is still Saddam's undisputed use of weapons of mass destruction against his own people and Iran. That record is why Congress overwhelmingly voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

EEE: This is it; I am getting tired. Our man in the White House did, in my opinion, the absolute worst thing an American president can ever do: lie to the American people on the road to war. Really, what else is worse than lying to the American people when it comes to war? Don't get me wrong, we have every right to go after those who funded and were behind 9/11 and any country or people who are an IMMINENT threat to us, but tell the truth about it. Don't lie to the American people like the Bushies have done over and over again and again. The misrepresentation here is that dammit, Saddam was a hugely US created monster and mainly a Republican created one at that. Go back and look at the carnage he created and most of it was done under Republican adminstrations.

Koch can leave the Democratic party as far as I'm concerned.

And thanks to anyone who has read this far....