Just Because

MR. BUSH,

Just because you dodged the Viet Nam draft by going into the National Guard and then went AWOL and avoided punishment, doesn't necessarily mean you are unpatriotic,a coward,irresponsible or undisciplined .

Just because you were arrested for stealing a holiday wreath while a student at Yale and for drunk-driving in 1976,doesn't necessarily mean you are dishonest and lack self control.

Just because everything you worked on failed or required a bail out doesn't necessarily mean you are not a good decision maker.

Just because as Governor of Texas you got $1.4 million from officials whom you appointed to state office,and at the same time Texas was #1 In overall toxic releases
#1 In recognized carcinogens in the air
#1 In suspected carcinogens in the air
#1 In developmental toxin in the air (affecting brain and nervous-system development in children)
#1 Cancer risk
49th in spending for the environment
#1 In major discharge facilities with 575 major facilities
#2 In total number of minor Nipdes facilities, about 5,700.
3,000 Miles, or one third, of Texas rivers and 44% of Texas bays are polluted to the point that they do not meet the standards set for recreational and other uses.
13 Texas lakes were covered by advisories or bans on fish consumption in 1996.
#1 in use of Deep Well Injectors as method of Waste Disposal
#1 in Total Number of Hazardous Waste Incinerators
#1 in Environmental Justice Title 6 complaints
#1 in production of Cancer causing Benzene & Vinyl Chloride
#1 Largest Sludge Dump in Country
#1 in the Emission of Ozone Causing Air Pollution Chemical
The state of Texas under your leadership was ranked 50th in spending for teachers salaries
41st in per capita spending on public education
43% of Texas teachers planned to leave or were considering leaving teaching.
Money that could have gone into raising teacher salaries went into tax cuts for the rich.
The high school dropout rates in Texas were 30% overall
The high school dropout rate in Texas was 50% among minorities
Missing students and other mirages in Texas enrollment statistics profoundly affected both reported dropout statistics and test scores.
At the start of every school year, school began with literally hundreds of classrooms without teachers
You appointed a teacher certification board that, instead of working on improving the standards for the teaching profession and improving teacher quality, you decided instead to allow people who have poor credentials to enter into the teaching profession
One in five Texas high school teachers were not certified
About 41,000 of 63,000 vacancies in Texas public schools were unfilled in 1999
Since about 1982, the rates at which Black and Hispanic students are required to repeat grade 9 have climbed steadily, such that by the late 1990s, nearly 30% of Black and Hispanic students were "failing" grade 9.
Texas charter schools were even poorer than public schools. Even though the racial mix was skewed to non-white, and the number of schools (66) is small, the economically disadvantaged rate was very similar, the percent of special ed students was less in the charter schools, and the test scores were uniformly substantially lower.
On national tests (NAEP), with one exception (4th grade math), Texas scores have remained flat over the period you were governor
After you took office, Texas' own state test TASP (a college readiness test) results showed a sharp decrease (from 65.2% to 43.3%) in the percentage of students passing all three parts (reading, math, and writing).
Performance on the SAT in Texas did not improved since the early 1990s, (compared with SAT takers nationally)
79% of Texans who are 25 or older have a high school diploma or equivalency certificate and 24% have bachelor's degrees - both lower than the national average
147,000 people in state prisons. Counting state jails and on parole, there are 545,000 people in the system.
On any given day 450 people were on death row. Since 1976 Texas has executed 138 people - some of which were people who were mentally ill, profoundly retarded, and people who are innocent.
48th in per capita funding for public health
47th in delivery of social services
5th in percentage of people living in poverty
#1 in percentage of poor working parents without insurance
#1 in children without health insurance
Many industry legislative initiatives during your term as Governor followed parallel themes: limiting liability for polluters, reducing public input on regulatory decisions, allowing 'voluntary' instead of mandatory compliance with environmental laws, and, allowing polluters to design their own anti-pollution programs."
Doesn't necessarily mean you would do the same to the Nation as a whole as President.

Just because you,your brother Jeb and Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris used a patently obvious technique in Florida to discriminate against voters,using a scrub list" of 173,000 names that were targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry and thousands of voters lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm (ChoicePoint) with tight Republican ties,thereby stealing the 2000 election from Al Gore. Doesn't necessarily mean you have corrupted our Democratic process and became President of the United States of America illegitamately.

Just because you stopped an investigation into Osama Bin Laden just before he attacked on 9/11 doesn't necessarily mean you are not capable of making good decisions in the war on terror.

Just because at the news of the attacks on 9/11 you froze for seven minutes doesn't necessarily mean you are confused and indecisive.

Just because you pulled most of our troops and resources out of Afghanistan,unlawfully without informing Congress,before getting OBL doesn't necessarily mean you lack the focus and commitment to get the job done as Commander in Chief.

Just because you were wrong about Iraq's uranium enrichment program, long range missiles, remotely powered aircraft, mobile biological laboratories, chemical and biological weapons, ties to the 9-11 attack or anything that could be considered a clear and immediate danger to our country doesn't necessarily mean you have invaded a country in a manner that is illegal under international law.

Just because you withdrew from the control of international human rights treaties, the Geneva convention, and war crimes courts and told the soldiers to get information from prisoners "by any means necessary" doesn't necessarily mean you were setting up a culture that was conducive to war crimes and torture.

Just because you "Shocked and Awed" a contained,sovereign county, destroying their roads, electrical grid, water supply communications and killed their women and children,doesn't necessarily mean you don't understand how to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

Just because you took what you said was a projected $6.4 trillion surplus and turned it into more than a projected $2 trillion deficit doesn't necessarily mean you are not a fiscal conservative.

Just because you pulled out of the Kyoto accord and reversed almost all the environmental protections of our air, water and wilderness doesn't necessarily mean you don't understand the importance of a clean and healthy environment to the quality of life.

Just because your $1.35 trillion package of tax breaks gave the richest 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers nearly half of the loot.
Doesn't necessarily mean you paid off your super-rich campaign contributors by handing out as much money as possible to the very richest Americans.Or that you didn't want to use the money to help working people suffering through one of the worst economic slumps since the Great Depression by being fair with the working poor and middle class.

Just because your drug bill benefits the drug companies and HMOs at the expense of the sick and elderly doesn't necessarily mean you are not compassionate.

Just because you have polarized the country more than any leader in history doesn't necessarily mean you aren't a uniter.

Just because you have alienated our traditional allies and energized our enemies doesn't necessarily mean you lack diplomatic skills.

Just because the jobs you have promised have not materialized,(the reletively few that have pay 40- 60% on average less then those lost and have no benefits) while more and more have been outsourced,with a substantial net loss of jobs within your first term(more than any other President since Hoover during the great depression) does not necessarily mean you do not care about the circumstances of the working man.

Just because you were against the 9-11 investigation for 18 months and stonewalled the CIA leak for longer and then under pressure reversed your position doesn't necessarily mean that you FLIP-FLOP or that you have anything to hide.

Just because you have already spent more on smearing your opponent than any candidate in history doesn't necessarily mean you are afraid to run on your record.

Just because you violated the law by allowing private insurers to limit choices of some patients in a trial program of managed health care under Medicare, congressional investigators said.Doesn't necessarily mean you do not have the best interest of American seniors and tax payers at heart.

Just because you were made aware as early as 2001 that the aluminum tubes used as critical evidence to justify an invasion of Iraq were most likely not for nuclear weapons.And that the government's nuclear foremost experts had concluded that the tubes were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all.And chose not to tell the American public.Doesn't necessarily mean you are deceiving or lying to us.

Just because your ad referred to Kerry's comment in the debate that a pre-emptive strike must pass "the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."called it the "Kerry doctrine," and asked: "So we must seek permission from foreign governments before protecting America?"When,in fact Kerry also said first in the debate Thursday,Sept.30,2004 that he would not cede the United States' right to a pre-emptive strike and that he will "hunt and kill the terrorists wherever they are."
Doesn't necessarily mean you are distorting the facts because you can't handle the truth.

Just because,during the debate you cited as a sign of progress in Iraq that the US is "spending reconstruction money," when in fact the slow pace of spending has become a major problem for US officials.And you also said "100,000 troops" and other Iraqi security personnel have been trained to date.But you failed to mention that according to testimony of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage many trainees have received nothing more than a three-week course in police procedures -- what Armitage referred to as "shake-and-bake" forces.When actually Only 8,000 of the total are police who have received a full eight-week course of training.
Doesn't necessarily mean you distort the truth for personal political gain.

Just because you lied about moral issues and deviously used Americans Faith as a wedge to win re-election by demonstrating through your actions that you are without compassion and devoid of true morality,doesn't necessarily mean you are in fact an evil person.


No, Mr. President, none of those necessarily mean anything, but I have reached the inevitable conclusion that you're a lying,incompetent,arrogant,sanctomonious,hypocritical idiot. Why?

Just because.~ GOD help us ~

Tim, I like the way you set this post up, the whole involved fisking process. I don't think you've done this kind of thing before in Broken Masterpieces, and I hope you do some more like this.

(now I might quibble with your analysis.....)

Hey Tom,

I've done a bit of fisking before (see http://www.brokenmasterpieces.com/archives/000128.html) but not for a long time. It takes a long time to do and hurts my brain :).

Thanks,
Tim

btw, it seems like recent postings are still being blocked from comments. Not sure that's what you wanted.

Thanks for the heads up. Had the wrong default setting.

Democrats and Demographics

It's weird that this country seems to be reacting to 9/11 in such an interesting way. After this election, it became perfectly apparent, finally, that the Democratic party consists of nothing but the cities, and in them, the inner cities. The party has been distilled into a party of minorities and misfits (whose sole utility to the party is that they are minorities and misfits) and a few white people who are either bleeding heart left wing liberals or egomaniacal patronizing power mongers, who get high off of the idea that they are saving the masses of minorities and misfits. This is the party.

But it is changing rapidly, becoming more and more concentrated on the unrealistic and unrepentent left, squeezing most of the sensible whites, and now even the sensible minorities and sensible misfits out of it. They are running to the Republican party, which, while it has been very white, is not really based on anything like race at all. The Republican party is for open competition and reward. No matter the race, no matter the religion, a person's stature in the republican world is based on competence and competition (the ownership society and market capitalism), not quotas, handicaps, and hand-outs, which is all that the Democratic Party stands for these days.

But what is the real connection with 9/11?

9/11 caused a fantastic acceleration of this process, since, after 9/11 the issue of security could no longer be treated as an interest for the hobbiests, only, but quickly shot up to the head of the list of priorities of many, many average Americans. Not even as with Viet Nam, where the US had no fear of incurring damage at home - no matter what happened in the war. The issue of national security rose to a place, after 9/11, that Americans had not seen since the Civil War. Not World War I, not World War II. No, not even after Pearl Harbor. The security issue certainly had risen to a place of respect during the Cold War, when Americans truly contemplated the notion of destruction. There was, at that time, an interaction between the issues of national security and personal security, but the threat of the Cold War was one of total and immediate destruction, and never went anywhere past the theoretical. Never.

9/11 caused a total fusion between the notions of national security and personal security. 9/11 raised the new, combined issues of (national/personal) security to a place on the average American's list of priorities it had not seen since the 1860's.

This caused the sitting Republican president to gather a great deal of sympathy and power, from nothing more than the rallying around the flag effect, after the attack. The President then went on to increase this support even further by handling the seemingly endless series of difficult decisions extremely well, exhibiting both clear-headed judgement and surprisingly creative approaches. For a not-inconsiderable amount of time, every speech the President made was better than the speech before, which, itself, had been perhaps one of the great all time speeches (from a rhetorical AND substantial aspect). The President was proving himself worthy of the free support from 9/11, and then some! He was going to be unbeatable in the elections and everyone knew it.

As history always seems to be interesting in how it mixes the streams of events together, the Democrats just happen to be comprised of mostly cowards, except for the lunatics on the left. Not all cowards, to be sure. Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephart ran in the primaries, but a Jew would never be nominated for President on a Democratic ticket and Gephart just wasn't major league, on an individual level. The rest of the Democrats that might have had any reason left in their heads were total cowards, or overly slick tacticians, wanting to take a bye on this round - instead of suffering a nearly guaranteed loss, if not only for the dignity of the party. I guess those spectator Democrats didn't mind if the Democrats had to run a turtle, because they were going to lose, anyway.

I've played against people like that, who won't quit, but stop playing for real whenever they think they are going to lose, and then start cheating like crazy. It's an awful, awful trait in a person, and a fatal disease in a national political party.

So the only people left to represent the Democrats consisted of a field of lunatics and retards, slobbering all over themselves as they stumbled around the nation in a mad display of the entire range of highly unattractive human traits and repulsive quirks of personality. It was an event that pained one to watch, like getting front row seats to the heavyweight gold medal boxing match at the special olympics. It required a distinctly diagnosable emotional imbalance to really get any enjoyment out of it. In any event, the Democratic primaries showed, quite early on, that they would only generate an ogre of a candidate, or a troll, at best. Neville Chamberlain could have won the Democratic primaries, outright, running on his actual record!

So 9/11, the President's excellent performance under some of the most trying times the oval office has ever seen, and the cowardice of almost all of the reasonable Democrats conspired to push the Democratic party so far to the left that it exposed its bare underbelly to the nation - its real constituent parts. This would have happened in the normal course of events, without the above, but was propelled far into its own future by these special events and circumstances. The naked Democratic party was about to run out into the street, and this was a sight that only one with a REAL fetishist streak would get any enjoyment out of. The naked Democratic party was proof positive that clothes were not invented to guard against just the weather.

The average American took a good long look at this Democratic party. He looked at their ideas. Non-existent. He looked at their sense of fair play. Non-existent. The Democrats did not meet a single competition in which they could not argue that several of the competitors are entitled to be given head starts. Whether it be in schools, the courts, jobs, money, ... The Democrats were always arguing that someone was ENTITLED to a handicap. This offended the senses of almost all "average" Americans.

Then the Democrats ran the dirtiest, dumbest campaign in recorded history - where they displayed their love of cheating, also. How many Democrats thought the Dan Rather fraudulent document report was "fair play"? Does it remind you of the kid who would always whine about being fouled, but poke anyone in the eye if he thought the ref wasn't watching? If only the Democrats would fight America's enemies as hard and as dirty as they fight their own enemies in America. The "average" American, mouth agape, looked even longer at the Democrats, as he saw them then call him 'stupid' to his face. Well, not in so few words. But, when you contradict yourself and then tell someone that you did not contradict yourself, you are pretty much telling them that they are too stupid to follow your subtle and deft plays of logic (which the Democrats were constantly saying, to explain the TWISTED logic of John Kerry) that really cause the two, obviously contradictory, statements to be noncontradictory. People do have common sense, and they do know how to speak the language. "What is 'is', anyway?" is NOT a question that flies with anyone whose IQ is above 93.

As the spectacle of the Democrats became too much to handle, almost all "average" Americans (now renamed 'security moms') turned away from them in disgust, and left the Democrats with nothing but those who were utterly beholden to the party. The only unlucky ones left in the Democratic party pit were those who thought they deserved advantages in every single competition they might want to enter, and those who enjoyed arguing for advantages to be given to them. This is the just the cities. The inner cities, basically. That's why the whole country, by county, is red. Except for the cities, the Democrats are lost.

Anyone who had any self-confidence, at all, white or black, religious or secular, picked up and went to the Republicans, or didn't vote. The Republicans, with their emphasis on markets and competition, provide a fair playing field for those who wish to enter the various competitions of life and test their mettle. Black, white, no matter. Your abilities will determine your authority, within reasonable bounds. Personal responsibility is what it's all about. Blasphemy to the Democrats. They prefer hand-outs and quotas and handicaps. Democrats don't like test scores, or any kind of scores. They are, today, the feeble and meek, hoping to inherit the US through the government and the industrious nature of the rest of society, who have to do all the real work. The Hispanics see the writing on the wall. They have been fleeing the Democrats almost as fast as the whites.

These are the Democrats of today, and, strangely enough, they will be even worse tomorrow. They will not recover. But this political change is going to cause (?) a parallel demographic change. The successful people are going to start moving out of the cities once again, just as in the 50s and 60s. The urban growth spurt of the last 30 years has finally come to an end. The neighborhood is going to start emptying out, and fast.

This, in turn, will even further reveal the true Democratic party. It will be left with NOTHING but the inner cities, which will become poorer and poorer, along with a couple of white bleeding hearts and power mongers who enjoy being big fish in a little pond.

And the cities will empty even past the points they were at in the 70's. But, here is where the interesting part comes. This is exactly the behavior of a country reacting to an attack (and future threat) on its CITIES! The reaction of the population leaving the most densely populated areas and spreading out through the country is the perfect defense! Even against nuclear attack. If someone were looking at nothing but the population density of the United States, he would see, over a long period, a flow out of the cities and spreading throughout the country. This would all look like a normal reaction, but our observer would not be privy to these political fights that will drive this dispersal of the population.

In the end, the successful will win again, in a competition of choosing a safe area to live, and will survive through the wave of attacks to hit the US over the next 50 years. Beyond this, there will be a great turnover in the wealth of the United States, as the general wealth of the cities disappears, and is replaced in ex-urban areas.