[Nick]

(a) All intelligence sources in the US believed that there were WoMDs in Iraq. Let's face it, sure, either this is a big screw up on our part OR Iraq hid them really well OR sent them off to somewhere else. However, given that intelligence, what are you going to do? Say you don't believe them? These people, wrong or not, have jobs to investigate this stuff; consider them the leaders of the intelligence community. Disbelieving them is probably the most stupid thing you can do.

Iraq doesn't equal war on terror for starters. If we go by original mission, we failed miserably. Intelligence is pointing to Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan, yet we refuse to even approach the Pakistanis to get in there and investigate.

There is massive evidence of a WMD program in stasis that wasn't functioning, but little to none showing an active one that is similar to that described by Powell (who's since apologized for his UN speech), the UK, and the CIA. There's been talk of book-cooking through the CIA, and there is considerable evidence against the administration for rushing to war.

Furthermore, there was direct and open evidence agaist other countries who are still actively going after WMDs (North Korea especially, Iran to a lesser extent). North Korea was closer to a bomb, had delievery systems just under ICBM range, and has a ground army that's more than able to pour over the DMZ and demolish one of the more technological powerhouse countries in Asia. Why is that ignored.

(b) The Russians believed there were WoMDs in Iraq. Source: our good old friend Vladimir Putin. Vlad had whispered in the ear of our President that there were WoMDs in Iraq, and it wasn't just the Russians. There were other people too who were convinced of it. With our own intelligence plus the intelligence of others telling us this, just what are you going to do? Ignore them all? How much are you willing to risk?

Lets examine Putin: Used Chechnyian attacks (which are a result of a decade of bungled Russian policy to Chechnya) to increase his power while decreasing the power of the regional governments and the Russian Dumas. Lets not forget the shifty tactics used against opposition leaders, such as open kidnapping and inprisonment. Putin is securing a new dictatorial state in Russia, so you know....he's credible and all.

(c) Bush could not have passed it by the U.N. because of the French. No matter how you look at it, the French would never have approved this measure, and it's not just because they didn't like the war. They didn't like the war because they were getting kickbacks from Saddam Hussein because of the overtly corrupt Oil for Food program. Saddam gives them a little oil for cheap so that they can sell it elsewhere for big-time bucks. Let's ponder this. If it were in France's best interest to leave Saddam there, EVEN IF they had WoMDs in Iraq, would they have been sold on the idea? Like heck they would've.

It says something that public opinion supporting the US was at an alltime high (higher than post WWII) in the international community after 9/11. Why? We were finally going to address a problem that has plagued the rest of the world for decades: terrorism. Yet, we saw support in this fade after we started to slack off and shift focus from anti-terrorism to this hunt for Saddam's unconnected WMDs. Evidence was sketchy at best, so that didn't help our case. France would have been on board if we would have presented solid and true evidence because the rest of NATO would have been on board. UK, US and Austrailia does not make a wide-spread coalition.

d) If "vast majority" of the international community equates to France and Germany, then I think they've got to start looking in the dictionary some.

Don't forget Poland. Let's face it...we went in without our traditional allies. We couldn't even get NATO troops in Iraq. UK, Australia, and the US bore the main invasion, and anyone else that was in our "coalition" was in name only or in support roles and not doing direct fighting. Even then, no major powers outside of Britain were in the coalition. Why do you think that is? The real question should be "How did George Bush manage to turn the greatest level of international American support since WWII into the greatest level of international American hatred EVER?"

(e) Bush actually met the requests of the US Senate prior to going to war in Iraq. They requested Bush to go to the UN; he did. They requested weapons inspections; Bush allowed them. They requested allies; Bush satisfied them.

Doesn't say much since the Senate was republican controlled, nor does it say much since the politically accountable senate was still in its post-9/11 rollover phase (meaning it was too afraid to stand up to questionable policies). That doesn't even get to the notion of faulty intelligence given to Senate members.

a) Kerry voted for the authorisation of the President to go to war. Sure, NOW he's claiming it that the President should have the right... pending that got the alliance he was promising. So let's get this straight: you vote for the war when you really want to wait and see how it goes before you really want that war to kick start? Where does that start making sense?

You missed his point and you don't have a grasp on national politics, though I may touch on the latter in a little bit if I'm not too tired. He's basically saying that the President should have the right to engage in war as commander in chief. Also, in the minds of every career politician in Washington, the spectre of military action is generally thought to go hand in hand with seeking support from our strongest allies. Bush has violated 50 years of foreign policy and scuttled decades of work in foreign relations for his crusade. Is that truely worth it?

(b) Kerry, in the midst of his anti-war mobilisation, has said that he would, knowing today that there would be no WoMDs found in Iraq, still have gone into Iraq with the war. Okay, so it's the wrong war, but I still would've done it. It looks like Nader is more promising all the day.

Completely and utterly out of context, like most Kerry quotes. He's referring to the point from the first one.

c) The primary qualm now about the Iraq war is the lack of allies that Bush took into the war. Given that we have no idea WHAT Kerry really thinks about the war AND given that even Kerry can't get the French into the war now (nor then because of Oil for Food), what alliances does Kerry hope to obtain to help complete the war?

I'm a shareholder in a company. The CEO we elect takes on some questionable policies that essentially drives my stock value from 50/share to 3/share. At the shareholder meeting, we're given the option of firing the current CEO and electing a new CEO. The potential new CEO doesn't have a clear plan to fix all of the mistakes of the former, but he'll still get elected every time because if someone screws up that badly, any replacement is needed. Kerry isn't calling for an immediate pullout (since he's realistic and knows it isn't possible). The main reason he's being vague is because it isn't smart politics to present a clear-cut plan or course of action in a campaign because it may not be possible or may backfire. Prime example is Kennedy in the 1960 elections criticizing Nixon (Ike's VP) for the administration being too soft on Cuba. He gets in and finds out that they were actually planning the Bay of Pigs, and pressured by his campaign rhetoric and old guard military advisors, he orders that fiasco.

a) Bush's tax cuts are not "for the rich". Anyone remember the Bush checks that Bush signed into law at the very beginning of his campaign? Those went to everyone, not just "the rich". Secondly, even if they were "for the rich", let's do a quick analysis of who the rich are.... how about business owners? To quote a rather famous source, "I never got a job from a poor man." As such, the business owners, now with a bit more money in their budget, are able to hire more workers and increase the salaries of their employees. What, you think that every person in the world is inheritly greedy and will hoarde every single dollar to themselves and not buy stuff? No way! They're going to buy stuff from someone else. Even if that is an umpteen million dollar yacht, that yacht has to be made, and thus people have to be hired to build said yacht. Rich people tend to get bigger tax cuts because, surprise, they pay more taxes.

Wealthy pay more taxes, but they should bear the tax burden, not the middle and lower classes. Tax cuts can work and do work, although they have two styles. Temporary ones should be coupled with increased government spending. This worked fairly well in the mid-20th century (Kennedy and LBJ, lesser extent Ike). Granted, most of the boom was due to the Interstate system forming. Then there's the typical Neo-con tax-cut. Cut all taxes permanently. This actually can work IF YOU CUT SPENDING. Under Bush, the size of the fed has ballooned to its highest level ever (after 2 decades of cuts under Reagan, Bush, and Clinton). He hasn't controlled spending, and it isn't like he's facing a hostile congress. He's had Republican controlled Congresses every year save half of one that he's been in office. Why has he not vetoed any of these grotesquely large spending bills? He single-handedly through is inaction took the US budget from a nice shade of black to a horribly bad shade of crimson.

(b) As if Kerry is going to be better. Kerry still hasn't responded to claims about the tax gap between his spending proposals versus his tax freeze on the "middle class". Kerry vows he won't raise taxes on anyone who earns under $200k per year, but at the same time can't raise enough money to fun his multitrillion dollar spending cap. Balance the budget? Only if he's using that "new math" concept.

It really doesn't matter. He at least is trying to find a way to get the budget out of the red. The Bush admin has made no indication that they'd actually balance the budget or even try to remotely control spending. Do you realize how many people would not understand the technical jargon in a report on the proposed kerry budget? He doesnt' even get access to the specifics of much of the intelligence budget, so he doesn't know how much is going to antiterrorism in Afghanastan and how much is going to ohidontknow developing mind-controlling giant chickens with eye rays.

Can anyone say... 9/11? Folks, if you think Bush caused this ruckus, I've got news to you? Do you remember waking up on 9/12? People were really freaking scared. People didn't want to leave their houses. People thought the malls would get blown up. People thought the world was going to end. People... stopped spending money. THAT'S the reason all the economic indicators went belly up. You think Bush caused that? Don't you remember how many airlines nearly or did go bankrupt in the months following 9/11? The terrorists caused that. If anything, Bush did the opposite. Bush had to spur the economy into action. Bush HAD to lower taxes in order for us to increase consumer confidence. You think we'd have spent more money if he had hiked taxes!? Not on this planet. Why else would interest rates be the lowest they had been in 50-some years?
b) We came in with a bubble in the economy from the Clinton's era. I won't even blame it on Clinton (the President doesn't do all that much to physically help the economy, and if you don't like that, then tough; it's a fact), but the fact that the bubble DID burst at the get-go is a sign that we started off Day 1 with a negative directioned economy. 9/11 made that even worse. To think that in the past two and a half years that we nearly turned around the 9/11 sink is actually quite amazing.

How do you pay for the new programs he instituted? Furthermore, blaming 9/11 for everything doesn't work. There are far too many other issues plaguing the economy. 2001 saw the final nail in the tech-boom's coffin. See, that was faulty investor's problem. Investing ungodly amounts of capital into dot-com startups that aren't proven and have no profit structure is stupid and should have never happened.

(c) With this comes the issue of jobs. Yes, jobs. Now before anyone ridicules me on this, I live in Ohio, ranked 49th in job "creation" this year. We've had a net loss. But people, when money doesn't flow in the nice circle that we call "circular economics", people don't make money. If people don't make money, people can't afford to keep others as employees. When employees can't be kept, what happens? They get laid off. This net job deficit over four years (which is a debated statistic) is a NATURAL result from us being both at war AND attacked on our home soil. Never mind that the President has REALLY LITTLE control on job creation; Bush did the best he could.

The rust belt is a prime example of why Bush has actually worked against the American worker. In the last 5 years, outsourcing has become a huge problem. Bush turned a blind eye to it. Companies recieve "corporate welfare" even if they outsource American jobs to sweatshop conditions overseas. That is deplorable. 9/11 didn't effect manufacturing, it effected office. People getting laid off in an auto-part plant because the company packed it up and moved to Malaysia has nothing to do with 9/11, but everything to do with the federal government allowing companies to still get taxbreaks and federal subsidies when they're exporting the workforce. The jobs created under bush pay an average of $9000 less than the jobs that were lost under Bush. That is not good.

(d) Talk to any investor in the nation and ask who would be better for the economy. Nine times out of ten, they'll say Bush. Bush's economic policies, record and statements, are more consistent with economic growth than Kerry's record and statements. And that comes from someone with financial and investment experience.

Talk to any investor in 1999 and he'd tell you to sink all your money into Worldcomm, Enron, and generic-dot-com-failure-number-5.

Bush is FAR from perfect, and I'll be the first person to admit that. But he's not as bad as many demean him to be; in fact, he's actually a decent President. The problem is that most people see Kerry as this hero, or at least see him as "Not Bush". Kerry may accuse Bush's policy of being "more of the same", but Kerry's policy can be summed up in three words: "Bush, but better". Yes, you had all better vote for Nader, because Kerry surely won't be helping us out.

Bush had no mandate, though he acted as if he did. The state of things are generally worse than they were 4 years ago, and change is needed. Keeping someone that hasn't made things better or stay the same in power is dumb from any standpoint...we don't need an Eisner-style situation in politics.

This election won't be a landslide by any means. If it IS a landslide, it'll actually be for Bush than Kerry given the newest polls out -- 50% to 47% Bush.

Debatable. All of the polls fall in the margin of error, plus the general consensus among staticians is the heart-pounding fear that they're underestimating and representing the under 30 crowd in the polls. The tech-savvy under 30 crowd is thought of as not being able to be polled because more and more of them are primarily using cells and not house-phones, plus the under 30 crowd isn't included as much because they're generally not clear to the pollers, so they don't know where to include them. Many staticians have feared that a large turnout by the under-30 crowd would completely contradict the projected polls.

Pushing all of that aside, Bush proved in 2000 that you don't need a majority to win. Kerry is a traditionally strong finisher, and he's fairing well in many of the large-vote states and gaining ground in many of the swing states.