One Radical Opinion

by "Radical" Russ Belville
Sunday, September 12, 2004

"Radical" Russ Belville was born on the first day of the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War in the town of Nampa in the "red" state of Idaho, where any opinion to the left of Reagan gets you labeled as "radical". He currently resides in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon (a.k.a. "Little Beirut") where he works in Information Technology. In his spare time, he enjoys writing about current events, playing the six-string bass guitar, and volunteering for liberal political causes. You can contact him via e-mail at letters 'at' radicalruss.net.

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When you hear the Bush Campaign complaining about how Senator Kerry "flip-flopped" on the war, you'll hear three things:

1) "Senator Kerry said that even knowing what he knows now (that there were no WMD's) he'd still have voted for the war!"

What's the difference between voting for a president to have the authority to wage war versus voting for a president to wage war. It's the simple difference between lock and load and fire!. The Congress felt that the threat of a loaded gun would be the pressure necessary to get the inspectors back into Iraq to finish their job. Bush, however, took lock and load to mean ready, aim, fire!

2) "Senator Kerry voted for the war, then he voted against supporting the troops!"

I've shown above that Kerry voted to trust the President, not to go to war. When it came time to vote for war funding, Kerry did vote for it. That leads to the third "flip-flop":

3) "Senator Kerry said he voted for the $87 Billion, before he voted against it!"

The Congress came up with a bill that would provide war funding if the tax cuts for the top 1% were repealed to pay for it, but Bush threatened to veto that. (Can't have the "have mores" actually pay for the war that benefits their corporations.) The next vote to come up didn't require any sacrifice from the rich, and that's what Kerry voted against as a protest (he knew the bill would pass anyway). So, I could actually frame the $87 Billion bill like so:

"George W. Bush wouldn't allow Congress to support the troops until Congress promised that his rich buddies wouldn't have to pay for it!"

The fact is when it comes to flip-flops, there are few who can hold a candle to George W. Bush. I'll use the Republican's own rhetorical style -- simple sentence sound-bites -- to make the point:

"George W. Bush said he was against the Independent 9/11 Commission before he was for it!"

"George W. Bush said he was against an Independent WMD Probe before he was for it!"

The two biggest failures of intelligence in American history – the attacks of 9/11 and the Iraqi WMD's – and Bush stonewalled all attempts at independent investigation. You'd think he'd want to get to the bottom of those mysteries. After all, there's a saying in Texas, "fool me once, shame on, shame on you. Fool me... you can't get fooled again."

Yet Bush's supporters see him as a firm and resolute leader. He's certainly resolute about two things:

Cutting taxes for rich people in spite of escalating war costs, a ballooning federal deficit, and a sagging American economy.

Continuing to get American troops killed in order to find weapons of mass destruction protect us from the Iraqi al-Qaeda terrorists topple the regime of Saddam Hussein liberate the Iraqi people from torturous imprisonment install an American-oil-company-friendly democracy in the Middle East (note: war justification subject to change without prior notice.)