Charlie Reese writes for the Orlando Sentinel. He's a Conservative
>Republican who is anti-abortion, anti-tax-and-spend, loudly critical of
>legislation by the judiciary, doesn't think much of multiculturalism or
>secularism, thinks Ronald Reagan is the greatest thing to come down the
>pike since canned beer, and voted for Bush in the last election.
>
>Yet he wrote the following:
>****************
>
>Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
>
>Orlando Sentinel, Charlie Reese
>
>Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's
>re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick
>Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of
>neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers.
>
>I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a front
>man, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration.
>Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president
>in my memory.
>
>It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague.
>
>Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be
>embarrassed that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and
>articulately in English than our own president at their joint press
>conference recently.
>
>John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think
>and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's
>comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate
>that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal
>to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.
>
>But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed
>that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and
>never will be.
>
>People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their
>stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as
>far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but
>he won't fool me twice.
>
>It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly
>increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and
>the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American
>jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits
>
>don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is
>doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in
>the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the
>authoritarian.
>
>It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few
>Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found
>yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that either
>you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy
>combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?
>
>This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but
>because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost
>restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is
>not only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the
>world thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration.
>Don't forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea
>and Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
>
>I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in
>the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it.
>Go to Kerry's Web site (www.johnkerry.com<http://www.johnkerry.com/>) and read some of the magazine
>profiles on him. You'll find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than
>the GOP attack dogs would have you believe.
>
>Besides, It would be good to have a man in the White House who has killed
>
>people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man and
>
>dispels all illusions about war.
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > This is from the site of the Sierra Times, a web news service. It
> > discusses civil liberties and Bush, and why, the author -- a Christian
> > conservative Republican -- backs Kerry. This is worth a read.
> >
> >> http://www.sierratimes.com/04/10/20/carlwo...lworden.htm>
>
>
>The Last Straw - Carl Worden Makes
>
> His Vote Official
> Carl F. Worden
>
>
> That's it, I've had it.
>I've been a registered Republican since I pulled my first lever in a
> voting booth, and I've voted as a loyal Republican for Republican
> candidates consistently every year.
>
> I am 55 years of age. I am
> considered a right-wing Christian conservative and strict
> constitutionist who knows the Framers of the Constitution expected
> strict adherence to that original document unless and until it is
>amended.
>
> You don't get much more conservative and constitutionally-minded than
>I am, and that is why I just cast my Oregon vote-by-mail ballot for
> Democrat John Kerry as the next president of the United States. So did
> my wife -- and she's a very independent thinker. I know there are
> thousands of lifelong Republican/Independent conservatives who are
>going to do the same thing on November 2nd, because they've written and told
>me so.
>
> The absolute last straw for me took place at the Bush rally, held in
> Central Point, Oregon on October 14th. President Bush stayed in
> Jacksonville, Oregon overnight after the rally, and protesters and
> police clashed on the streets.
>
>I sent out a photo of a Jackson County
>Sheriff's Deputy, all Nazi'd up in black leather riot control gear and
>grinning evilly as he shoved a woman holding her 5 year-old daughter.
>It wasn't the finest hour for local law enforcement, but even that wasn't
>the last straw for me. No, the last straw for me happened just before
> the Bush rally itself.
>
>
> Three local teachers got tickets to the Bush rally, passed all the
> security checkpoints and scrutiny and got in. They never created or
> caused a disturbance, and they were perfectly peaceful members of the
> audience waiting to hear Bush speak. But before they got to hear Bush,
> they were expelled from the rally by Bush rally staff who objected to
> the words printed on the T-shirts they were wearing.
>
> No, the words on the T-shirts the ladies were wearing did not
>disparage
> Bush, nor did they suggest support for Kerry or any other candidate.
>
>The words did not condemn or support the war in Iraq, nor did they slam
>any Administration policy. No, the T-shirts the three women wore showed an
> American flag, and under it the words, "Protect Our Civil Liberties".
>
> That was all -- I kid you not.
>
>
> That was it. That was the last straw for me. That was the defining
> moment I'll never forget. That was my epiphany.
>
> Bryan Platt, Chairman of the Jackson County Republican Central
>Committee, said he stood 100 percent behind the person who made the
> decision to exclude the women, removing any doubt that one or two
> individuals exceeded their authority and blew it. No, it was solid,
> Republican neo-conservative fascist policy on open display, and the
> Brown Shirts weren't about to apologize for it. No way.
>
> I am now a man without a political party. I will never again register
>as a Republican unless the party returns to what it was before the
>fascists took it over. I'm certainly not a Democrat or a liberal, but I might
> just register as a Democrat to help them avoid mistakes in the next
> primary, like running another John Kerry for president. Any moderate,
> pro-gun southern Democrat would have easily swept Bush aside this
> election. As it is, the race is so close it could go either way at
>this point.
>
> My decision to vote for Kerry was a vote to get Bush and his
>administration out. I could have voted for a third party candidate who
> couldn't possibly win, but that would have translated into a vote for
> Bush, and I just couldn't do that. Too many kids in uniform have
>already been killed and maimed for nothing, and I see it as my primary duty to
> save as many of them as I can.
>
> If my vote for a third party candidate
>means Bush wins and more kids come home dead and mutilated, then I
>have abrogated my duty as an American, as a Christian and as a decent human
>being. I didn't know better during the Vietnam War, when I voted for
> Nixon twice, but I would be without excuse if I did it again now.
> This election is different: In this election, we all have to answer
>the call to vote wisely. Lives depend on it, and God is watching how we
>vote as well. When an individual sins, God deals with him individually.
>
>When a whole nation sins, God deals with the nation nationally. It's right
>there in the Bible.
>
>The way I see it, the threat Bush presents is just too great. I know
> what Bush did with his first four years on good behavior, and so do
>you.
>
>What scares the bejeebers out of me is what Bush would do with four
>more years with nothing to lose -- and an assumed mandate from the people
>for what he did the first four. At least a Kerry Administration would be
>strapped down by a Republican Congress, so I'm not too worried about
> major gun control bills being passed, and as far as abortion is
> concerned, it really doesn't matter what a president believes, because
> that issue is decided only by the Judiciary Branch now.
>
> Regardless of the proclaimed Bush position on abortion, he never
>issued an executive order banning any form of abortion because he knew such
>an order would be overturned by the courts. Oh, and that phony Late-Term
> Abortion Ban Bush signed? It's as good as dead -- and I have a
>niggling feeling it was intended to be killed even as they wrote it. The lower
>Federal Courts are already finding it unconstitutional, and why?,
>because the people who authored it left no possibility for a woman to
>use late term abortion to save her life, let alone to preserve her
>health.
>
>In lieu of that provision, any first year law student knew the
>federal courts would overturn it, so why did seasoned
>lawyers/legislators write it that way? Don't even try to convince me
>they overlooked something as obvious as that.
>
>I still believe this election is going to Kerry, no matter what the
>polls predict. Last time, it was so close the Supreme Court had to
>decide the outcome. This time, a huge number of former Bush
>Republicans like me have bolted to Kerry. Unless a large number of former Gore
>supporters are going to vote for Bush this time, I don't see how Bush
>can get re-elected. Add to that the massive numbers of young voters
>who are registered to vote for the first time under threat of a draft,
>and I see Bush being shown the door by more than a close vote. But we'll
>see...
>
>
> What I do know is that any party that would find the words, "Protect
>Our Civil Liberties" offensive or even threatening, is a party I won't
>belong to anymore.
>
>
> That was the last straw.
>
> Carl F. Worden