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BushAdmin Lies about Iraq's WMD: in Their Own Words

By Jackson Thoreau

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
- Dick Cheney, speech to VFW National Convention, Aug. 26, 2002

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
- George W. Bush, speech to UN General Assembly, Sept. 12, 2002

No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
- Donald Rumsfeld, testimony to Congress, Sept. 19, 2002

The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq.
- George W. Bush, Nov. 23, 2002

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Dec. 2, 2002

We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Jan. 9, 2003

What we know from UN inspectors over the course of the last decade is that Saddam Hussein possesses thousands of chemical warheads, that he possesses hundreds of liters of very dangerous toxins that can kill millions of people.
- White House spokesman Dan Bartlett, CNN interview, Jan. 26, 2003

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
- George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
- Colin Powell, remarks to UN Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003

We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
- George W. Bush, radio address, Feb. 8, 2003

If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since [UN Resolution] 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us.
- Colin Powell, interview with Radio France International, Feb. 28, 2003

So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad?.I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
- Colin Powell, remarks to UN Security Council, March 7, 2003

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
- George W. Bush, address to the U.S., March 17, 2003

The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.
- George W. Bush, address to U.S., March 19, 2003

Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly..All this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleisher, press briefing, March 21, 2003

There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And.as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
- Gen. Tommy Franks, press conference, March 22, 2003

I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
- Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman, The Washington Post, March 23, 2003

One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
- Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark, press briefing, March 22, 2003

We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.
- Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, March 30, 2003

Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find - and there will be plenty.
- Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, April 9, 2003

But make no mistake - as I said earlier - we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, April 10, 2003

We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.
- George W. Bush, NBC interview, April 24, 2003

There are people who in large measure have information that we need.so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.
- Donald Rumsfeld, press briefing, April 25, 2003

We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so.
- George W. Bush, remarks to reporters, May 3, 2003

I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.
- Colin Powell, remarks to reporters, May 4, 2003

I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein  because he had a weapons program.
- George W. Bush, remarks to reporters, May 6, 2003

We said what we said because we meant it..We continue to have confidence that WMD will be found.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, May 7, 2003

Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found.
- Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps, interview with reporters, May 21, 2003

Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction.
- Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, NBC Today Show interview, May 26, 2003

Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there's a lot of information out there."
- Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, Defense Intelligence Agency, press conference, May 30, 2003

You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons....They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two [the labs were later judged to not contain any such weapons, that they most likely were used for weather balloons]. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on, But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them.
- George W. Bush, remarks to reporters, May 31, 2003

The backpedaling begins:

We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.
- Donald Rumsfeld, Fox News interview, May 4, 2003

U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction.
- Condoleeza Rice, Reuters interview, May 12, 2003

I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago - I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago - whether they were destroyed right before the war [or] whether they're still hidden.
- Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne, press briefing, May 13, 2003

I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons. [SEE NEXT QUOTE]
- Donald Rumsfeld, Senate appropriations subcommittee on defense hearing, May 14, 2003

We believe [Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.
- Dick Cheney, NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.
- Donald Rumsfeld, remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, May 27, 2003

It was a surprise to me then - it remains a surprise to me now - that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there.
- Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, press interview, May 30, 2003

I think some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent. Those were not words we used. We used 'grave and gathering' threat. [SEE NEXT QUOTE]
- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, press briefing, Jan. 31, 2004

This is about an imminent threat.
- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, press briefing, Feb. 10, 2003

After being asked whether Hussein was an imminent threat: Well, of course he is
- White House spokesman Dan Bartlett, CNN interview, Jan. 26, 2003

After being asked whether the U.S. went to war because officials said Husseins alleged weapons were a direct, imminent threat to the U.S.: Absolutely.
- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, May 7, 2003

And finally, some truth:

We urge you to... enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power.
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and others, Jan. 26, 1998, http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

The U.S. should assert its military dominance over the world to shape the international security order in line with American principles and interests, push for regime change in Iraq and China, among other countries, and fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
- Rebuilding Americas Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, The Project for the New American Century [members include Cheney and Rumsfeld], Sept. 2000

Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden].Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.
- Donald Rumsfeld notes, Philadelphia Daily News, Sept. 11, 2001

For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, [as justification for invading Iraq] because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.
- Paul Wolfowitz, Vanity Fair interview, May 28, 2003

From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. Going after Saddam was topic "A" ten days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.
- former Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill, CBS 60 Minutes, Jan. 11, 2004

I don't think they [WMD] existed. What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last [1991] Gulf War, and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s.
- David Kay, former chief weapons inspector of the UN Special Commission on Iraq, Reuters, Jan. 24, 2004

Intelligence analysts never said there was an imminent threat" from Iraq before the war.
- CIA Director George Tenet, speech, Feb. 5, 2004

NOTE: Republicans impeached Clinton over a lie involving a private extramarital affair that he told in public, in which no one died. The Bush administrations lies about Iraqs supposed weapons of mass destruction have contributed to the deaths of more than 500 U.S. soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians.

- Compiled by Jackson Thoreau, with help from these sources: Whiskey Bar: Free Thinking in a Dirty Glass, by Billmon, http://billmon.org.v.sabren.com/archives/000172.html; Bush Watch, by Jerry Politex, http://www.bushwatch.com/bushlies.htm; The Daily Mislead, by MoveOn.Org, http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df02052004.html; Invading Iraq not a new idea for Bush clique: Four years before 9/11, plan was set, Philadelphia Daily News, http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/2003/01/27/news/local/5025024.htm

Jackson can be emailed at jacksonthor@yahoo.com or jacksonthor@justice.com.

Press Conference: Bush's Big Mistake

byJackson Thoreau

WASHINGTON, D.C. - George W. Bush recently did something unusual for him - he took six "impromptu" questions from the press after a short announcement of his nomination for the new HUD secretary.

Big mistake.

In his first three years, Bush's handlers have let him take media questions on his own fewer times than any president in modern history. At the same point in their terms, Bush Sr., Clinton, LBJ, Carter, and Ford had faced the press more than 40 times. Reagan and Nixon had staged solo news conferences more than 20 times. Bush Jr. has done so nine times.

Nine times.

And for those conferences, Bush Jr. was provided with a list of possible questions by aides, given a few hours to rehearse his answers, and taken into an official, dress rehearsal, with staff members pretending to be reporters and firing questions at him. Its as if the president of the United States has nothing better to do than spend numerous hours rehearsing lines like some two-bit actor. Well, this one doesnt have anything better to do  Bush is known to work out and play video games while on the job in the middle of the day. How sad. How pitiful.

How unpresidential.

Take a look at the official White House transcript of Bush's answers to questions on Dec. 12, 2003, about Halliburton's no-bid Iraqi contract, Baker's conflict-of-interest position, the dollar, and other topics at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031212-1.html. You can see for yourself why Bush's handlers hate to let him answer questions on his own. The first question was whether Bush was concerned that the Halliburton contract, which the pork-laden Pentagon - the agency that has never seen a $200 hammer it cannot buy - is "investigating," gave fuel to his critics that the contract was inappropriate. Bush ignored Cheney's obvious conflict in this matter and sounded like he didn't have any personal interest in the situation. He said he appreciated the Pentagon "looking out after the taxpayers' money. They felt like there was an overcharge issue."

That's a lie right off the bat. The Pentagon didn't feel there was an overcharge issue. This was only brought forth because many other people - not the Pentagon, which awarded the contract in the first place - raised hell about it.

And what should be done about this no-bid contract, according to Bush? "If there's an overcharge, like we think there is, we expect that money to be repaid," he said.

Let me get this straight. A unit of the company the vice president made millions off of before he helped steal the White House in 2000 gets a no-bid contract worth millions from this administration and American taxpayers are charged more than $3 for every gallon of gas imported to Iraq, about double most other contractors' charges. And we just make Halliburton pay a few more bucks, then let them go on with their merry ways? We don't put contracts up for competitive bids so the taxpayers can get the best deals?

Before another reporter named April could follow up with another Halliburton question, Bush tried to divert attention and keep the mood light by asking her if this was her "first Christmas season as a mom." The effect is that reporters laugh and find it hard to be tough on Bush, who acts like a nice, fun guy on the surface but underneath is petty and, to quote him, a major-league asshole. Bush is also good about remembering reporters' names and calling them by that to make them feel special. He even did that to me when I just met him at my first conference with him in Texas on the 2000 campaign trail. The effect is also that reporters don't really pay attention to the fact that Bush doesn't really answer their questions.

April asked a good question about Bush's response to critics who say he should distance himself from Halliburton and Cheney. He again didn't answer the question and simply repeated that "if anybody is overcharging the government, we expect them to repay that money." April did not get to ask a follow-up question, asking Bush to answer her first question. Another reporter named Wendell then started out by saying, "In light of the New York Times editorial today, tell me why....." Then Bush stopped him and said to more laughter, "I don't read those editorials." That's another lie. Bush might not read every Times editorial, but someone on his staff does and he is briefed about them. Bush rarely reads anything in detail. He usually lazily relies on staff briefings, which is why his knowledge on issues is so shallow. But sometimes he actually reads the Times' editorials. To say he doesn't ever read the editorials is misleading. Bush even contradicted himself and admitted he sometimes reads the Times' editorials a few minutes later by saying, "I didn't mean to 'dis' the New York Times editorial page, but I just didn't - I'm not reading it a lot these days."

SO.....is Bush not reading those editorials at all, or is he not reading them "a lot?" No reporter caught the lie to question Bush about it. But to be fair, I doubt I would have had I been there - I'm better at catching things when I go back and read the fine print. And how many presidents have used the term "dis," especially with an African-American official next to him? Bush was trying to act hip, but it came across staged and even demeaning.

Anyway, Wendell's question dealt with why former Secretary of State Baker's ties with the Carlisle Group and Baker Botts, which have also won Iraqi contracts, don't pose a conflict of interest with Baker's new job of restructuring Iraq's debt. Bush again didn't answer the question, saying that Baker - the front man for the election heist in Florida in 2000 - was "a man of high integrity" and other bull.

The final question concerned the slide in the dollar against the euro and whether Bush planned to intervene to try to stop the dollar's decline. Bush's answer showed that he knows absolutely nothing about economics, despite having an MBA from Harvard. His answer lent more suspicion that Bush cheated on tests and term papers in Harvard by getting his frat buddies to give him answers beforehand and write papers. I mean, read Bush's answer to the question: "My answer to that question about the dollar is that this government is for a strong dollar, and that the dollar's value ought to be set by the market and by the conditions inherent in our respective economies. And our economy is very strong and is getting stronger. But the policy, the stated policy -- and not only the stated policy, but the strong belief of this administration is that we have a strong dollar."

Say what?? The question is not: Do you believe we have a strong dollar? The question is: What the hell are you going to do about the dollar's decline? And Bush's answer is obvious: Nothing because I don't know what the hell to do. He doesn't even know what a declining dollar actually means. And it's another lie that the economy is getting stronger - see my previous column [next column below] I wrote on the economy and these phony economic growth numbers we're suddenly seeing during this election year. --posted 12.28/.03

Poor Americans continue to multiply under Bush as Republicans continue to stick their heads in the sand

By Jackson Thoreau

I admit I used to watch Frazier and sometimes even enjoy it, although I found most characters, except Fraziers dad, a bit pompous for my tastes. But after Kelsey Grammers recent comments on Fox's Hannity & Colmes, those days are over.

Grammer, a Republican who has contributed to the likes of Arnold The Groper Schwarzenegger, said he would like to run for political office some day, such as the U.S. Senate. It always amazes me that these Hollywood actors think that a career of reading lines, kissing butts, and pretending theyre someone theyre not qualifies them for public office. Come to think of it, maybe it does these days.

Anyways, it wasnt so much Grammers desire to join a growing group of Republican actor-politicians that got me. It was this comment: "I would like to rid the country of the idea that it's the rich against the poor. It never has been."

What country  or planet  has Grammer been living on? With that comment, he shows himself to be another ill-informed, stick-your-head-in-the-sand Republican who doesnt know much about the history of the United States, how it is set up, and how it operates. For a primer, read Howard Zinns excellent A Peoples History of the United States. Or if you dont like progressive writers, read The Politics of Rich and Poor, a great book by conservative Kevin Phillips [see, I do read and recommend works by a few conservatives]. If you just want to read a shorter report, try the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recent news release showing how the gap between the rich and poor in this country is now wider than it was in 1929 - right before the Great Depression  at http://www.cbpp.org/9-23-03tax-pr.htm. Then, see if you think Grammer is still right.

For further proof that wealthy Americans are getting richer while the poor multiply, watch for a report by the Census Bureau on Sept. 26 that will show the poverty rate and income gap rising. A preliminary survey by the Republican-led federal bureau reported earlier this month that some 1.4 million more Americans fell into poverty last year. About 12.4 percent of all Americans  almost 35 million people  live under the federal poverty rate, which was up from 11.7 percent in 2001.

Under President Clinton, the U.S. poverty rate dropped from 15.1 percent in 1993 to 11.3 percent in 2000, close to the record low of 11.1 set in 1973. In the initial year of the Bush regime, the poverty rate climbed for the first time in eight years. With tax cuts for the wealthy and cruel budget cuts for social safety net programs, some believe the poverty rate for 2002 is really closer to the Bush I regime figure, that the Republicans are playing with figures and that the bureaus estimates fall far short of reality. Some 12.2 million children  or 17 percent  lived in poverty last year. Many people in the U.S. love to beat their chests and call their country the best in the world, but the fact is that the child poverty rate in their nation is among the highest of major industrialized countries. I dont know about you, but thats not a fact of which this American is proud.

Jay Shaft, editor of the Coalition For Free Thought In Media, wrote in an excellent article earlier this year [see http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4305.htm] that homelessness and poverty in the U.S. has grown by more than 35 percent since the end of 2000. Cities like Phoenix, Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago reported increases of around 50 percent between January 2001 and July 2003. Homeless shelters are overcrowded; in 2002, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported that 30 percent of all requests for shelter went unmet.

Those trends particularly increased in the first six months of 2003, as Bushs cruel budget cuts and tax increases for the poor took greater effect, Shaft wrote. Some 60 percent of new homeless cases targeted single mothers with children in 2003.

The lack of affordable housing leads the list of causes, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. The Ford administration requested more than 400,000 Section 8 vouchers to help poor families obtain housing in 1976. The Bush regimes 2003 budget request was for 34,000, despite a growth in poverty and homelessness since the 1970s.

Other causes are the continued onslaught of corporate layoffs, which have slowed only slightly this year over the torrid pace of 2001 and 2002, and the decline in value of the minimum wage, which has fallen by 25 percent since 1975. Workers with families who make the minimum wage just cannot afford the rising costs of housing, food, medical care and other necessities. More families seek governmental assistance that is dwindling.

At the same time, good-paying jobs are declining in favor of service jobs that often pay no health insurance and other benefits. Some 46 percent of the jobs with the most growth since 1994 paid less than $16,000 a year, hardly a livable wage, according to the homeless coalition.

For another look at our economic trends, see Forbes magazines annual list of the fastest-growing companies released this month. The top spot is by a firm that produces airport security devices. The list is dominated by oil and gas companies, pharmaceutical firms, and other businesses friendly to Bush. More companies are outsourcing jobs to contractors who get no benefits. The number of Americans without health insurance continues to grow, and what is Bush and other Republican leaders doing about that? Nothing. Not a damn thing.

Another indication of Bushs inability to help the poor is that the number of Americans suffering from hunger rose from 8.5 million in 2000 to 9 million in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Soup kitchens and similar places report huge increases in needs.

Following years of decline, participation in the federal food stamp program substantially rose in 2001 and 2002. In December 2002, some 20.5 million people received food stamps, an increase of 3.6 million people from July 2000.

To make things worse for the homeless, a growing number of cities are criminalizing their very existence. Almost 70 percent of cities surveyed by the National Coalition for the Homeless passed at least one new law targeting homeless people since January 2002, according to an August 2003 coalition report [see http://www.nationalhomeless.org/hatecrimes03.html]. Instead of the compassionate responses that communities have used to save lives in the past two decades, the common response to homelessness [these days] is to criminalize the victims through laws and ordinances that make illegal life-sustaining activities that people experiencing homelessness are forced to do in public, said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless and a former homeless victim himself.

The coalition found the top five meanest cities to the homeless were Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. California and Florida were the meanest states. The top 20 list of cities included some surprises, such as those with progressive images like Austin, Tx., Boulder, Colo., and Santa Cruz, Calif. Dallas was not on that list, although I think it should have been since the city has implemented draconian measures against the homeless like bulldozing their makeshift homes.

In its 2003 report on cities cruel crackdowns on the homeless, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty cited these five cities or counties as being particularly harsh: * Albuquerque, N.M., where police arrested and beat homeless teens standing in a parking lot in the morning waiting for a program for homeless teens to open. In addition, police regularly confiscated homeless persons property.

* New Orleans, La., where homeless persons were arrested for standing on public sidewalks and waiting for paychecks.

* New York City, where homeless people were forced by police to move from church steps even though a court order in the case, 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church v. City of New York, gave them that right.

* Orlando, Fla., where new laws prohibited sitting or lying on sidewalks downtown, but police reportedly allowed almost everyone else but the homeless to do so.

* Palm Beach County, Fla., ground zero for Republicans stealing the 2000 presidential election, where a church housing the homeless was fined more than $27,000 for alleged zoning violations even after the church agreed to stop housing people in exchange for elimination of the fine.

Punishing poverty is no way to end homelessness, said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. The real solution is to ensure decent, affordable housing with good-paying jobs for all. That is a pipe dream while Bush is in office.

The center also commended Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Miami, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., for implementing more positive solutions, such as opening centers that provide comprehensive services to the homeless. While some cities are taking positive steps, the Bush administration sure is not. Bushs fiscal year 2004 budget proposed ZERO new resources to meet the needs of the growing homeless population.

If the U.S. spent just $18 billion  which is what America spends in three months to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan  the country could wipe out hunger and homelessness completely for ten years, Shaft wrote. If the US took just 25 percent of its annual military budget, which is expected to top $450 billion for fiscal year 2004, the largest by far [Russia is a distant second at $60 billion, according to the non-partisan Center for Defense Information], that would go a long way towards wiping out hunger and homelessness around the world. Just 10 percent of our military budget spent yearly on America could give every high school graduate a college education for four years, Shaft wrote.

It seems like it is not a priority to protect our children from starvation and living on the streets, Shaft wrote. Our education system is crumbling and the school breakfast and lunch programs are being slashed mercilessly.If this crisis continues, we are in danger of actually having worse hunger and homelessness than some third world countries. The military expansion and occupation must stop so that we can salvage our future before it is too late to stop the landslide of poor and starving.

These harsh trends of the poor multiplying and getting poorer, while the rich get richer, are exactly what many of us knew would happen under Bush-Cheney. Its happening faster than many predicted.

Did you see Foxs conversation between Republican butt-kisser Brit Hume and Bush on Sept. 22? That was about as much a conversation as any of Bushs staged press conferences, as Bush continually looked off-camera for the cue cards. I thought I was watching actors playing Bush and Hume in a Saturday Night Live skit.

Anyways, Bush again blamed a recession I inherited from Clinton and the terrorist acts of Sept. 11, 2001, for trends like the number of Americans living in poverty rising to about 35 million in 2002, some 3.5 million more than the level in 2000. Under Clinton, the poor dropped by about 7 million people, a better record than any other president since LBJ saw the ranks of the impoverished decline by some 12 million people. Under Bush I, the poor increased by 6 million, the most of any modern-day president, but Bush II should overtake his father in 2004. Under Carter, the impoverished also increased, while the ranks went down under Nixon and Ford and stayed about the same under Reagan.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, you will hear a lot of Republicans blame Clinton and Democrats for the poor economy and try to divert your attention with phony economic growth numbers. But ask people around you: Are you better off now than you were in 2000? Do you feel more like making major purchases, even if interest rates are kept artificially low to mask economic problems and help Republicans stay in office? Heres one trend that brings our economic malaise under Bush home to me: 67 percent of the men in my 1995 wedding party have been laid off in the last two years and are earning substantially less than they made in 2000.

There are a lot of reasons, but I blame Bush-Cheney for much of that trend. The buck stops there. Bush and Republicans always talk the talk about taking responsibility. Well, walk the walk, Repugs. Take some responsibility for this, suckers. Stop blaming Clinton, who has been out of office for almost three years. Remember Bushs tax cuts for the super wealthy and funding cuts for programs that help poor and middle-income people? Citizens for Tax Justice says the plan worked out in 2003 will give more than half of the cuts to the wealthiest 5 percent, while the poorest 60 percent will only get 8 percent.

The wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers in the U.S., who make at least $373,000, already own about 34 percent of the wealth - more than the bottom 90 percent! - according to the non-partisan U.S. Federal Reserve Board. Organizations like the Cato Institute and Citizens for Tax Justice put the top 1 percents wealth percentage higher, at closer to 40 percent. No other industrial country comes close to matching this imbalance between the very rich and the rest of us. Even in class-conscious England, with its imperial Queen and all, the wealthiest 1 percent own closer to 20 percent.

Furthermore, these very wealthy American families only pay about 20 percent of the taxes, not 34 to 40 percent. Their actual rate is 39 percent, but they get that drastically reduced through tax credits and creative, Enron-like, accounting schemes.

In 2001, this 1 percent received an average tax cut from the Bush administration of $53,123; meanwhile, 60 percent of American families only got a cut of $347, on average, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. The poorest 20 percent of American families received virtually nothing. This is not proportionate, and its not liberty and justice for all, in my book. You still think that it never has been about the rich against the poor in this country, Kelsey? How do you think some people get so rich and many more stay poor? I challenge anyone to name one thing Bush has done to help a person climb out of poverty. All he has done is help his rich-buddy campaign contributors get filthy, bloody richer.

Bush doesnt really care about poor people, or even middle-income people, except to gain their votes. When are more people going to learn that? And hes worse than most Republicans who suck up to the wealthy because Bush tries to play up his Christian image more than most. Again, unlike Christ, who Bush is supposed to try to follow, Bush does nothing to help the poor. Hes just a big, stinking hypocrite, and I really get mad every time I see him posing with some poor kid in a Big Brothers center - whose funding he cuts - as a cynical attempt to gain some more votes. Bush just makes fools of people. And its maddening as hell that more people dont see it, or if they do, dont speak out against it.

As the 2004 elections approach, we have to hammer people with these wealth trends. Under Bush, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, the poverty rate is rising, and household income is falling for all but the wealthiest Americans. Keep repeating that to whomever you come across.

***

Some people have asked me who I think has the best chance to topple Bush in 2004 among the crop of Democratic presidential candidates. My choice is the latecomer, Wesley Clark. Sure, he is a retired Army general, but that will play to his favor, especially when you compare Clarks war record to Bushs draft-dodging, AWOL record during the Vietnam War. Some polls already show that Clark and John Kerry actually top Bush. Howard Dean, who lags behind those two in recent polls, has done some good work in raising important issues. But the fact is that Bush and Rove WANT Dean to win the Democratic nomination because they know they can paint him as being too liberal, even when he is moderate on numerous issues, and steal another election.

Bush and Rove are most afraid of Clark, who is articulate, about as charismatic as a general can be [more so than Kerry at least], a Rhodes scholar, and open to suggestions. Sure, he supported the Iraq war last spring, but as filmmaker Michael Moore pointed out, Clark was the only talking military head on the television news programs during the start of the Iraqi war to say that Moore had a right to criticize the war and Bush during the Oscar ceremonies.

The fact of the matter is that we are not going to elect someone like Dean to the White House in 2004. I may not like everything about Clark, but I like him a lot more than I do Bush. And Id love to see Bush and Rove squirm for the next year, even if they end up stealing another election through fixing electronic balloting machines and other methods. Clark is our best shot, even more so than Kerry.

***

Finally, bear with me in the next few months, as I complete a 1,400-mile move from Texas to Washington, D.C., start a new job, finish some interesting writing projects, including a book compilation of essays against the Bush administration, and generally make my life even more complex than it already is. You may not see my columns as frequently as before. But Im working harder than ever against this regime. --09.28.03

Jackson Thoreau is an American writer and co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The updated, 120,000-word electronic book can be downloaded on his Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. He can be contacted at jacksonthor@yahoo.com or jacksonthor@justice.com.

Texas Democrats learned the hard way about being nice to Republicans

By Jackson Thoreau

September 4, 2003—During the 2000 campaign before the world went to hell under Bush-Cheney, Rodney Ellis, a Democratic state senator in Bush-Cheney's home state of Texas, was asked by some national Democratic officials to travel around the country saying not-so-nice things about the dangerous corporate hack who now occupies the White House.

Ellis, an African-American from Houston who once worked under the late Congressman Mickey Leland, one of many Democrats who have died in suspicious ways, said he would talk about Bush's rail-thin record, such as his opposition to a law strengthening action against hate crimes. But he declined to bash Bush personally.

Now after Bush, Rove and other Republicans have led efforts to squash minority voting rights in Florida, Colorado, Texas and other states, Ellis wishes it was early 2000 again. "Now I regret I was so nice," Ellis said during a recent conference call with mostly Texas journalists.

Ellis is one of 11 Texas senators who have remained in New Mexico since July 28 to effectively block a Karl Rove-Bush-Tom DeLay plan to steal even more seats in Congress. The Republican mafia has whipped out every dirty trick in the book to get Ellis and other Democrats to comply with their scheme.

They have tried to arrest them using state and federal resources. They have fined them as much as $5,000 a day. They have hypocritically taken them to court as they bash courts and lawyers. They have called them negative names and said the situation was their fault because they refuse to "show up for work." Never mind that many Republicans refuse to show up for work, even when they are supposedly on the job. Never mind that Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst changed the rules in mid-stream by doing away with a long-standing rule that two-thirds of senators must agree for a bill to be debated.

In short, Republicans have done everything they did in Florida in 2000 and more to get their own way in Texas. And Democrats have successfully held them off for months.

Some background: Redistricting in Texas is normally done in years ending with one—for example, 1991 and 2001—every 10 years right after new U.S. Census numbers are released. In 2001, the Texas legislature could not reach a consensus, and new districts were redrawn in court.

After Republicans took control of the legislature in 2002, DeLay, Rove and Company wanted to solidify their power in Congress. So they hatched a plan to redistrict seats so Republicans would win them more easily, even though most of those seats are already Republican—voters just don't like the Republicans who run for Congress in those districts.

This is the first time in Texas history that a party has made such a re-redistricting attempt in a mid-year without being under a court order, said Sen. Royce West, another member who left the state. Among the reasons for this unprecedented Republican redistricting push is to do away with the section that calls for preclearance in the federal Voting Rights Act that is up for a vote in 2007. "If Republicans can get enough support in Congress, that section won't be reauthorized in 2007," West said.

It's important for people around the country to understand that what is happening in Texas and with the California recall election are not isolated incidents, West said. Those situations are part of a broader scheme by Rove-Bush-Cheney for Republicans to keep control of the country for decades. They don't care how many rules and laws they break in the process.

"You have to connect the dots," said West, an African-American from Dallas. "It started in Florida [in 2000] and moved to Colorado with the redistricting by Republicans there earlier this year. It's now in Texas and California. These are not isolated situations. There needs to be a national effort against them. I blame Democrats if we don't put up a defensive and offensive plan."

In Florida, Democrats eventually backed down to Republicans after putting up a half-hearted fight. I'm still almost as mad at Al Gore for conceding a victory he rightly won as I am at Bush for stealing that election. Gore didn't have to ever concede. He could have refused to accept the partisan decision by Bush's buddies on the Supreme Court to stop the legal counting of votes in Florida.

As Democrats.com outlined back then, Gore could have joined the lawsuits in Seminole and Martin counties, which could have been appealed to the Supreme Court using the equal protection amendment claim that Bush employed. He could have joined the lawsuit challenging Cheney's residence, which was appealed to the Supreme Court. Gore could have lobbied legislatures that had Democratic majorities in eight states that Bush won—Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia—to do what the Republican-dominated Florida legislature was doing and override the voters in their states, switching their electors to Gore.

Gore could have asked three Republican electors to switch to him since in most states such electors were not required by law to vote for the candidate that voters chose. He could have lobbied congressional Republicans to vote with Democrats to refuse to count Florida's 25 electors.

And it didn't fall all on Gore's back. Democrats in the Florida legislature could have done what Texas legislators are doing and left the state when Republicans there vowed to declare Bush the winner of the state's electoral votes even if the counts somehow went forward and Gore was rightfully found to be the winner in Florida. Democrats everywhere could have refused to work with Bush-Cheney.

But most didn't. Some like former Dallas Democratic Party Chairman Sandy Kress accepted positions under Bush and don't even attend Democratic functions anymore. Kress has become a Republican. Many more, from Lieberman to Gephardt, might as well be Republicans.

In January 2001, Gore wouldn't even recognize the few members of Congress who protested the certification of the election by walking out of the process, as he presided over that process. He could have changed the rules, as Republicans often do to suit them, and allowed those protesting members of Congress to speak.

Instead of becoming a college professor, Gore could have formed a powerful, national organization to work against everything Bush-Cheney stands for. He could have been a real voice of opposition and joined the few Democrats like Rep. Cynthia McKinney who were really opposing Bush-Cheney. That's why she was targeted so much by Rove to be smeared and defeated, which occurred in 2002. That's why strong Democratic voices like the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, whose suspicious plane crash probably had the involvement of agencies close to Republicans, were silenced.

But Gore didn't really fight for the victory he won. Such a lack of backbone, of doing everything to fight for what is right, is what's really missing among many Democrats.

In Colorado, Democrats could have fled the state last May, as they did in Texas, to hinder that redistricting process. But they didn't. Democrats there are now fighting an uphill battle in court to reverse that process, rather than a proactive, preventive battle as Democrats are doing in Texas.

In Florida, Gore and Democrats fought for a mere six weeks before conceding a victory they won to Republicans. In Texas, Democrats have been fighting for four months to stop the latest Republican power play. That's backbone. Take note, Democrats across the land. This is how to fight the Republicans.

Even though they've been fighting Republicans for months, West, a big guy and former college football player, said the battle has just begun. He vows to remain out of Texas through a third special session and so on. "If you use a football analogy, we're only in the second quarter," he said. "This is a long way from being over."

Take note, Gore. That's how you fight. You don't just do it for a few weeks, then concede. You don't try to take the high road. Republicans are going to spin things against you and accuse you of playing dirty even if you don't. So you might as well play hardball and win a few victories for a change.

First, House Democrats in May, then senators in July, fled out of state to keep the redistricting plan from being considered. Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who gets his marching orders from Rove & Co., has called two special sessions for redistricting, wasting almost $4 million in a year in which Republicans cut billions from health and human service programs, such as health insurance for lower-income children. Perry has vowed to call a third session and even move the primary voting dates to get the redistricting scheme in place by next year. He doesn't care how much money he wastes.

MoveOn.org has showed its appreciation of Texas Democrats by raising $1 million for a national media campaign to raise awareness about the situation. The best thing that can happen is that Democratic politicians throughout the U.S. enact similar tactics as the Texans, who have succeeded in stopping Republicans in their filthy tracks where Dems in Florida and Colorado failed.

Ellis and West represent a growing number of Democrats who tried to play with Republicans only to find that they cheat to win. They are not radicals in the sense of Malcolm X, though they have always found ways to stand up for justice. Ellis was president pro tem of the Texas senate for two years and is chairman of the Senate Government Organization Committee. West was the first African-American chief felony prosecutor in Dallas County and is vice chairman of the Senate Education Committee.

"They pushed us over the edge," Ellis said. "People are just not going to disrespect us."

Ellis is particularly incensed by the fines imposed by the Republicans. "We have no intention of paying those fines," he said. "Republicans in the Senate and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst betrayed [former] President [Lyndon] Johnson's legacy by voting to impose a new poll tax on minority members of the senate, and those that represent minority communities . . . It is a racial issue. Most of us who were targeted with those fines are minority."

The Democratic Party is starting to get some backbone, West observed. "We have some real differences between our parties, and we will draw that distinction [in the 2004 elections]," he said.

Some Democrats in New Mexico, where the party controls the state legislature, are discussing redrawing congressional seats to combat the Republican efforts. Hopefully, Democrats in more states are making similar plans.

I haven't heard of any real efforts to recall Republican governors, beyond petitions against Perry. But perhaps there are some efforts I haven't heard about—I hope so. I sure hope that if Enron-Rove puppet Arnold Schwarzenegger prevails in California's recall election, Democrats there immediately implement a petition drive to recall the groping Robot Man. Almost 700 people have signed an Internet petitionI began to recall Schwarzenegger at. I sure hope that some members of Congress initiate proceedings to expel dirty trickster DeLay—nearly 2,000 people have signed the petition against DeLay that I started.

Another positive sign is that even the mainstream late-night comedians like Leno and Letterman are becoming more aggressive against Bush and other Republicanss. Here's one from Letterman: "The White House says that the vacation in Texas will give Bush the chance to unwind. My question is, when does the guy wind?" Here's one from Leno: "Bush's economic team is now on their jobs and growth bus tour all across America. I think the only job they created so far is for the guy driving the bus."

Here's another from Leno: "The United States is putting together a Constitution now for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It's served us well for 200 years, and we don't appear to be using it anymore, so what the hell."

Besides Iraq, the terrible economy and the crackdown on constitutional liberties, another issue to pound Bush on is how he is closing Veterans Administration hospitals throughout the country and reducing services for vets, especially in areas like mental health and substance abuse, as he spends billions every day to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. One prominent Texas veteran who supported Bush in 2000 told me: "Veterans got Bush in office through the military write-in votes in Florida. And veterans may get Bush out of office."

There is so much anger against Bush, even from supporters, that you can't help but think another Sept. 11 event will occur soon to divert people's anger. That's another diabolical way Bush and other Republicans plan to stay in office.

But we'll keep fighting. Hopefully, more people like Sen. Ellis, have learned their lesson the hard way about working with and being too nice towards Republicans. --09.05.03

Jackson Thoreau is co-author of We Will Not Get Over It: Restoring a Legitimate White House. The entire updated, 120,000-word electronic book can now be downloaded on his Fight the Right Internet site at http://www.geocities.com/jacksonthor/ebook.html. Citizens for Legitimate Government has the earlier version at http://www.legitgov.org/we_will_not_get_over_it.html. Thoreau also co-authored a book on Dallas history from the perspective of African-Americans, civil rights advocates, and others. Thoreau can be emailed at jacksonthor@justice.com.

Even Republicans are calling Schwarzenegger a liar

By Jackson Thoreau

Just one day into his campaign for governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger is being called a liar, Hollywood opportunist and con man.

And that’s just by fellow Republicans.

Schwarzenegger bungled his television announcement on the Tonight Show Aug. 6 by burning one of his supposed closest allies, former LA Mayor Richard Riordan. Riordan was reportedly "stunned" that Schwarzenegger announced on TV after giving Riordan indications he would not enter the race.

Schwarzenegger claimed that he and Riordan agreed to maintain suspense, which a Riordan aide disputed in no uncertain terms [see http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-media7aug07,1,6506478.story]. "This idea that we have worked together, keeping people guessing and all this for the last few weeks is [ridiculous]," the Riordan advisor said, adding that he knew what it was like to get mugged.

Only one day on the campaign, and already even Republicans are calling Schwarzenegger a liar. Makes for a great Hollywood story, huh?

Schwarzenegger makes Reagan seem intelligent, Bush seem articulate and Gore seem loose. He is fine for shallow, idiotic movies where his most complex line is "Hasta la vista," but not for governor of the largest state in the country.

In yukking it up with Jay Leno, the only reason Schwarzenegger could give for running was because the Golden State had supposedly "deteriorated." He showed no understanding of the complexities behind California's budget problems, which were mostly caused by the Republican-controlled federal government cutting funds to states and refusing to help in California's energy scam crisis.

Moreover, Schwarzenegger could not articulate what he would do as governor beyond "pumping up" Sacramento, whatever the hell that meant. His announcement on comedian Leno's show would be funny, if there was not so much at stake. Many in the mainstream media are already calling him a formidable political force, if not the front-runner in the race. What does that say about the mainstream media?

Schwarzenegger has no political record beyond organizing a proposition for after-school programs - boy, that's going out on a limb, huh? That's like Laura Bush speaking out for.....reading! Whew, these Republicans take my breath away with their courageous stands on the controversial issues of the day.

What does Schwarzenegger really know about running a state? His Planet Hollywood restaurants crashed and burned. What does he know about getting legislation passed or forging compromises with people of different views?

Schwarzenegger says he has all the money he needs and won't be beholden to "special interests," but what about his own interests? What are his own interests? We do know that Schwarzenegger came from Hitler’s home country of Austria, and his father WAS literally a Nazi in occupied Austria. That should set well with the California Jewish community.

Why should we trust this millionaire for an important political position when he has no political track record? Someone with all the money he needs can be a Perot-like dictator, not a politician who has to learn the fine art of compromise.

If Schwarzenegger wants to run for mayor of Brentwood, fine. But not governor of the largest state in the country, especially one that is clearly on the Democratic side. It just smells of more Republican dirty tricks.

Then there are the rumors about his extramarital affairs and marital problems. At least Schwarzenegger has owned up to his steroid and marijuana use - but he's still another hypocritical Republican who goes around telling kids to stay off drugs, something he didn't do.

The great mystery here is: How could a member of the Kennedy clan marry this dimwit?

Before we have to endure a political career that could be worse than Reagan or Bush, we need to put an end to these pranks and foolishness. We need to say, "Hasta la vista, baby," to Schwarzenegger.

California is starting to give Florida and Texas a run for their money in the battle for the weirdest political sideshows. In fact, I’d say the United States’ largest state has taken over first place.

Since California was where Republicans started this recall the governor business to divert attention from Bush’s lies about Iraq, the economy and everything else, we have to be proactive and take the offensive. That’s why I started a petition to "totally recall" Schwarzenegger, even before he gets in office.

Rather than sit around worrying about what to do if this Total Recall jerk actually wins the governorship of the largest American state, go and sign this petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/schwarze/petition.html - you’ll feel better. I know I felt better after writing the petition following Schwarzenegger’s low-brow act with Leno, who called the announcement "huge." I guess anything on TV that doesn’t have to do with snake pits and boobs is surprising.

These petitions are being done to turn the tables on the Republican hypocrites who mostly caused the budget crises in states like California through the Republican-controlled federal government's funding cuts to states. The liars then spun it around as they always do to blame those crises on Democrats and the victims.

The Republicans just want to take the heat off the Bush administration's lies about Iraq and other matters by diverting attention from those Republican scandals. Much of the mainstream media, which over-covers Kobe and Schwarzenegger while losing sight of the Iraqi lies, has bought the Republican lies, but you don't have. --08.07.03

Republican Administration Doesn't Really Care About Improving Race Relations

By Jackson Thoreau

I'm a blond-haired, blue-eyed, middle-class, middle-aged white guy who has lived most of my life in Dallas, Tx., probably the country's bastion of old-school racism where Dubya Bush and Dick Cheney once lived.

I haven't been a victim of racism myself - I don't subscribe to the reverse racism theory leveled by many closet Republican racists like William Bennett, who recently in the National Review equated universities with affirmative action policies that attempt to level the playing field with the same type of racism exhibited by the Ku Klux Klan, which has engaged in terrorism and murder for decades. Because of my whitebread appearance, many white Republicans have felt comfortable enough around me during various times in my adult life to let their guard down and express their true feelings on matters of race.

Big mistake. This column is part of my payback for having to endure all those sickening comments. It's part of my payback for Republicans refusing to heed my responses that I don't appreciate their racist comments and them acting like there's something wrong with me because I don't play along.

I know from experience that Trent Lott is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to racism in the Republican Party.

I can't count the number of times some Anglo conservative has used the N-word in reference to African-Americans in front of me, even towards those they root for, such as Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith. I can't count the number of racial "jokes" or references some white City Council member, police officer, businessman, or other establishment figure - whom I know is a Republican - has told to my face. A popular "joke" during this time of year by such racist Republicans is, "What are you doing for Martin Luther 'Coon' Day?" Or they will snicker, "Have you learned anything during 'Black Ass' History Month?"

I've sat at high school football games in Republican-dominated towns as Anglo adults in the stands taunted the lone black player on the opposing team using that N-word. I've attended all-white meetings - as a reporter, not participant - in which elitist Republicans have discussed getting around the Voting Rights Act by lobbying for requirements that voters have to own property. I didn't need someone to spell out what they were talking about - they wanted some way to keep blacks from voting.

In the 1920s, Dallas had more Ku Klux Klan members per capita than any other large U.S. city. The city had an actual "segregation of the races" clause written in to its charter as late as 1968. Peter Gent, a former Cowboy player and author of classics like North Dallas Forty, says he was shocked to arrive from the Midwest in the mid-1960s to witness such blatant Jim Crow segregation. For example, the team's black players had to drive an extra hour from their segregated South Dallas neighborhoods to reach practice in North Dallas. Through lawsuits, protests, and other measures, the blatant racist policies are gone, but they have been replaced with subtle, back-door racism executed from still all-white country clubs and subdivisions in the suburbs.

Sure, the white racists around here used to be mostly Democrats, who hated Lincoln-style Republicans who forced Reconstruction on them after the Civil War. But most of those have left the Democratic Party for the friendlier-for-them confines of the Republican Party, where they don't have to rub elbows with African-Americans at the multi-cultural Democratic functions that contrast with Republican events like black and white keys on a piano.

Many of the high-profile African-American Republicans are of mixed race, anyways - Colin Powell, for example, is part black, white, and Indian. In fact, Powell could be more white than black, with English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry mixed in with African and Indian. There's nothing wrong with that, of course - many Americans have some mixed blood. But let's be honest - the average white Republican would rather have a light-skinned mulatto move in next door than a dark-skinned African-American.

Name a white public figure who espouses racist views, and the vast majority of the time he or she is affiliated with the Republican Party [yes, there is racism exhibited by some African-American public figures, but that's the subject for another column]. David Duke, the former Klansman and Louisiana state representative, chaired the Republican Parish Executive Committee of the largest Republican parish in Louisiana as late as 2000, when he skipped the country and eventually was convicted of fraud and tax evasion. Many Republicans are associated with the openly-racist Council for Conservative Citizens, including outgoing Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, who has spoken before the segregationist group, and Republican National Committee leader Buddy Witherspoon, who has resisted calls that he resign his CCC membership.

As the Internet site, evilGOPbastards.com, points out, Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a Republican, launched his career as a GOP operative in 1964 by harassing black voters. Republican Attorney General John Ashcroft opposed racial integration and the appointment of African Americans to offices as Missouri governor and attorney general and has uttered pro-Confederate views.

The Republican Party in general launched a strategy during the late 1960s to capture the southern racist vote by opposing affirmative action, supporting the rights of states like South Carolina to fly the Confederate flag in front of public buildings, and similar positions. Bush himself spoke before the segregationist Bob Jones University in South Carolina, genuflected before the Confederate flag, and helped implement the racist Willie Horton ad during the 1988 presidential campaign of Bush Sr., who approved the racist ad after lobbying by his son. Both Bush's have appointed many racists - both subtle and overt - to high offices, who now work to further erode civil rights.

White House strategist Karl Rove also aided with the racist Horton ad and oversaw the racist 2000 South Carolina smear campaign against Sen. John McCain, which alluded to McCain's "black child," who actually is an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. While in Congress >from 1979 until 1989, Cheney opposed measures strengthening laws against housing discrimination and collecting hate-crime data. Cheney supported apartheid in the racist South African regime, even as it crumbled. Republican politicians in Georgia and South Carolina, such as Sonny Perdue, the new Republican governor of Georgia, were elected in 2002 on platforms that included "restoring pride" in the Confederate flag.

Who can forget the Florida 2000 recount battle, when white supremacists rallied for Republicans who embraced their support? What about Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush's and former Bush-state-campaign-co-chair-Secretary-of-State-turned-Congresswoman Katherine Harris' openly racist system of >purges before the 2000 election that took the names of mostly African-American voters off the rolls? What about the police roadblocks near black precincts on election days? And how about the Republican warnings in communities across the country about impending black voter fraud that usually occur a few days before an election, not to mention misleading fliers circulated by Republican operatives in African-American neighborhoods telling them of different days to vote or wrongly warning that their criminal backgrounds and parking tickets will be checked to try to intimidate them against voting?

Getting to Lott, Republicans still think highly enough of him to make Lott chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, despite his public banishment as Senate Majority Leader and a racist record that includes far more than a few errant comments. As our last elected president, Bill Clinton, recently said, "[Lott] just embarrassed [Republican leaders] by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day." And as Jack Hughes of evilGOPbastards.com writes, the majority of Republican senators who elected Lott as their leader "must either share his views [which were so often repeated that nobody could plead ignorance of Lott's sympathies], or were at the very least 'comfortable' with a leader that held those beliefs."

Indeed, many senators, such as new Majority Leader Bill Frist and Don Nickles, the first Senate Republican to call for Lott's resignation as majority leader - not because he's a racist but because it was giving Republicans bad publicity - have a civil rights voting record nearly identical to Lott, according to the NAACP. One of the worst - perhaps even worse than Lott - is Jefferson Sessions of Alabama. Sessions has called a black assistant U.S. attorney "boy" and a white civil rights attorney a "disgrace to his race." As a prosecutor, Sessions pursued civil rights workers on phony voter fraud charges. As Alabama attorney general, he again pursued allegations of voter fraud in African-American communities, looked the other way in Anglo communities, and refused to aggressively investigate burnings and bombings of black churches. He also said he thought KKK members were "OK" until he heard some might have smoked marijuana and charged the NAACP with being "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." Despite such a past, Bush and other Republicans have campaigned for Sessions.

The other Republican senator from Alabama, Richard Shelby, callously equated Lott's verbal criticism in the media with an atrocious physical act of violence against African-Americans and others. "I think we should not lynch him," Shelby told CNN.

Frist, himself, has his own racial skeletons. He was a member of the all-white Belle Meade Country Club in Nashville, Tenn., before running for the Senate in 1994. Some believe the National Republican Senatorial Committee headed by Frist was behind the intimidation of minority voters in recent years.

Then there is Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia, who as governor of that state, issued a proclamation recognizing "Confederate History and Heritage Month." Allen, the new National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, also displays a Confederate flag in his living room, according to a recent New York Times column.

Moving over to the U.S. House, there is Cass Ballenger. The white Republican from North Carolina recently told the Charlotte Observer that he had "segregationist" feelings and called former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, an African-American Democrat from Georgia, a "bitch." In an ensuring radio interview, Ballenger, the Deputy Majority Whip and a member of the House Republican Steering Committee who has a black lawn jockey in his yard that an aide recently painted white, refused to apologize to McKinney, calling her divisive, pushy, and "less than patriotic."

"One must wonder whether [Ballenger] would have made the same statement about a white congressman he considered to be pushy or divisive," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women. "I think not. His statements demonstrated beliefs about race and gender that do not belong in the U.S. Congress."

While some like Democrats.com and Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority, called for Ballenger to resign, most ignored his racist comments, as they have other Republicans' racism. You can email Ballenger at http://ballenger.house.gov/contact.asp, if you don't think his views are right.

There are many other examples. In Texas, an aide to new Republican Sen. John Cornyn derisively dismissed the Democrats fielding a Hispanic, African-American, and Anglo in the top three state races in 2002 as a "racial quota." Meanwhile, the top three Republican candidates were - you guessed it - white. So were the Republicans fielding the usual white-only quota?

Rep. Tom Craddick, the new Texas House Republican leader, was one of a small group to vote against establishing a Martin Luther King Jr. state holiday in 1987. He repeated his opposition to the holiday in a 1991 vote that clarified the day. Unlike Lott, Craddick has yet to publicly apologize for those votes.

In Rochester, N.Y., Monroe County Executive Jack Doyle, a white Republican, recently derided Mayor William Johnson Jr., a black Democrat. "If there was a mayor that looked like me, it would be a whole different landscape," Doyle told a local reporter.

A recent article by USA Today cited several other examples of recent insensitive remarks made by Republican public officials and none by Democratic officials because reporters could not find any - believe me, they would have included some by Democrats if they found them. Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Fritz Hollings of South Carolina have made some racist remarks in the past, but not recently enough to run in that article.

Racism, especially subtle racism, does exist in many people across the board. It especially comes out during times of crisis. In the week following September 11, 2001, Arab-Americans - a group that includes my wife and two children - reported a significant upswing in hate crimes, including murders, against them. A Gallup poll conducted September 14-15 found respondents evenly divided over whether Arab-Americans should be required to carry special identity cards. Two late September polls found that most respondents favored police profiling of Arab-Americans. A December 2001 poll by the Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Illinois found that more than 25 percent of respondents said Arab-Americans should surrender more rights than others.

Profiling someone simply due to his or her race is racism, period. You can always justify your racism by saying you are concerned about your security. But who's to say the next terrorist won't be white like Timothy McVeigh who bombed the Oklahoma building in 1995? Who's to say the next terrorist won't be white like the Irish Republican Army? Who's to say the next terrorist won't be white like the KKK? Who's to say the next terrorist won't be white like most mass murderers are?

Should we implement special profiling against white people like me because of the McVeigh's and Duke's of the world? I don't recall similar polls favoring racial profiling of white Americans after the 1995 Oklahoma bombing. I don't recall polls favoring profiling of >white Americans after white Texan George Hennard drove his truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and killed 23 people in a terrorism act.

Another 2001 Gallup Poll found that 60 percent of white respondents believed that black Americans were not treated the same as whites in this country. That rocketed to 91 percent among African-American respondents. Some 47 percent of black respondents said they experienced discrimination in stores, by the police, and in other situations in the previous month.

I've long wondered how many people there are who secretly harbor racist views they would denounce in public. I recently contacted the authors of 20 postings to white supremacist Web sites, asking if I could quote them using their real names. Only three replied back granting permission to use their names.

Jessica Coleman of Texas claimed her grandfather was "a powerful knight [of the KKK] in South Carolina," and she thought all blacks should be shipped "back to Africa and all of the wetbacks back to Mexico." Tom of >New Jersey, who would not give his last name, wrote about a high school field trip to Philadelphia, which sickened him so much to see blacks that he "wanted to take out a machine gun and shoot everyone of them." Are these people really just aberrations to be ignored again until the next major race-related blow-up in our country? Or do they represent the suppressed voices inside the average white Republican - and, yes, some Democrats - who doesn't dare let such thoughts reach the surface?

That's why I call Republicans like Bush and Cheney and Bennett, who publicly embrace Martin Luther King Jr. as they call for a colorblind society, yet live in their mostly-white neighborhoods and practice racism when it suits their political agenda, closet racists. They like to point out that lynching black people is wrong as they oppose proposals that would do more to bring about real equality and execute racist campaigns - as Bush did against McCain in South Carolina in 2000 - to gain political victory.

Would such closet racists live next to African-American families? I have for more than six years, and the only problems we have had were with some white neighbors. Living in a multi-cultural neighborhood is part of my contribution to carry out what a lot of Republicans only give lip service to, and go beyond words to live out our desire for a truly colorblind society.

I respect my Republican parents and what they did for me, but I don't like their racist comments, such as they hope black people don't buy the homes up for sale on their blocks. I don't know what has made me so different from my parents on this matter. I've been this way since as a young child I was one of the few to befriend the only African-American student in our elementary school. A psychic once told me I was black in a past life. Maybe that's it. Maybe in a past life, I actually walked in the shoes of a slave and experienced the discrimination that I can't stand today. Maybe that's the only way a white American can really understand what a black American experiences - to walk in his or her shoes. Maybe that's the only way we can make some real progress on race relations.

Anyway, I can't recall such comments about hoping African-Americans don't move on the block coming from Democrats I know in recent years. In the aftermath of the Lott debacle, Republicans, as usual, tried to turn the tables on Democrats and highlight the latter party's racist past, as seen in members like Sen. Byrd.

But that's like Bush and other Republicans saying Democrats took money from Enron when Republicans took three or four times as much. The sins are not of the same magnitude. When more than, say, 50 percent of current Republicans exhibit racist tendencies and less than, say, 20 percent of Democrats do, you can't paint a broad stroke and say both parties exhibit racism and just leave it at that. For every Sen. Byrd Republicans bring up, I can counter with five Sen. Lotts and Sen. Sessions and Sen. Frists and Rep. Ballengers and Dubya Bush's.

The subtle and overt racism of the Republican Party is a stench they have to live with, and no amount of history rewriting by Republican apologists can eradicate that smell. To eradicate it, they must admit that racism in their party goes far beyond Lott and make at least as much progress on advancing race relations as the Democratic Party has. Republicans have not done that, and I doubt they will while I'm still alive here.

As the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday approaches, these subtle racist Republicans will talk like they have supported King's vision of a colorblind society and African-American rights all along, when their records and actions speak otherwise. That's just more of the Republican con job. Don't buy that crap. --01.09.03

Jackson Thoreau is the pen name of a Washington, D.C.-area journalist/writer. He can be contacted at jacksonthor@gmail.com.