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noc
PO1
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
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Location: Dublin, CA
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 Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 5:41 pm Post subject: John O'Niell - Nominated for Texan of the Year 2004 |
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John O'Neill: He had last word in Vietnam debate
06:50 PM CST on Friday, December 17, 2004
The Dallas Morning News
note: URL converted to hypertext
The Houston telephone book lists more than 16,000 lawyers, some clearly more famous than others. Very few – perhaps only one – can credibly claim to have helped pull the hand brake on a presidential campaign.
John O'Neill had his day on the national stage 33 years ago, but this year he emerged from the weeds of his comfortable anonymity because of a burning belief that John Kerry would make an awful commander in chief – and had to be stopped.
In February, Mr. O'Neill rallied more than 200 fellow Vietnam vets to form Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, one of the independent political groups known as 527s made possible by campaign finance reform. The 527s, including MoveOn.org from the liberal side, played a powerful role in this year's election.
None mattered more than the Swifties, who charged that Mr. Kerry had hurt Vietnam veterans with his 1971 Senate testimony about purported war crimes, had exaggerated his war record and did not deserve his war medals.
Mr. O'Neill was no stranger to the argument. He had debated Mr. Kerry in 1971 on national television. More than three decades later, with his old nemesis running for president, major newspapers and networks mostly ignored Mr. O'Neill for months, until his anti-Kerry broadside Unfit for Command stormed the best-seller list. So huge was the Swifties' impact that traditional media grudgingly picked up the story, if only to challenge their claims.
But the fog of political warfare they generated never quite dissipated. Mr. Kerry, a Navy vet, made his military service the centerpiece of his campaign, but the Swiftie assault stopped the Democrat's momentum cold. Mr. Kerry never fully regained his offensive footing.
Love him or hate him, Mr. O'Neill turned a presidential election on its ear. For his drive, vision and influence, we name him a 2004 finalist for The Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.
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coldwarvet
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| Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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It is moments like this I wish I was a Texan.
CWV
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Harvuskong
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:17 am Post subject: You are more than welcome to move to Texas!! |
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| coldwarvet wrote: | It is moments like this I wish I was a Texan.
CWV |
You are more than welcome to move to Texas!!
Just make sure that you do not move to any of the "Blue" counties.
Counties like Travis County, the location of Austin, TX, the State Capitol of Texas.
The City of Austin is sometimes referred to as "The People's Republic of Austin" by some of us Texans. |
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Tom Poole
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 1:43 am Post subject: |
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Hear, hear. John O'Neill's my choice for Texan of the Year too. However, take a look at what some sad, misinformed pin-heads have to say about him. Three out of four letters to be published in the Dallas Morning News tomorrow regarding John's nomination, smear him. If these people eventually study the Silky Pony issues like many of us already have, they'll be embarrassed for having written them.
These smears prove to me that more pressure is needed to totally expose the traitor in such a way as to remove all doubt from the minds of everyone. And as for John O'Neill, he's tougher than any simple-minded letter to the editor. As requested, here are the four letters in their entirety along with the link.
| Dallas Morning News wrote: | O'NEILL FINALIST FOR TOP TEXAN
Nominee most unsavory Texas has produced
Re: "John O'Neill – He had last word in Vietnam debate," Saturday Editorials.
Numerous people accuse your paper of being too liberal or too conservative, and I have often defended you as being largely centrist. However, after your selection of John O'Neill as a Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year finalist, I can no longer defend you. Mr. O' Neill published a sensationalist book followed by sensationalist commercials, all of which were chock-full of lies and distortions. He knew the mainstream media would not take the time to question what he said. Of all the unsavory characters Texas has produced – gerrymandering tax-evader Tom DeLay; manipulative, evil genius Karl Rove; even incompetent war hawk George W. Bush – I can think of no one more unfit for the title of DMN Texan of the Year than shameless character assassin John O'Neill.
Tim Neal, Richardson
'Vision' thing only shows your bias
When you give John O'Neill's "vision" as a reason for his selection, you ignore the facts and display a head-in-the-sand bias unworthy of balanced editorial writing. His challenges to John Kerry's wartime bravery and right to his decorations were scurrilous and disproved by the facts. His other beef was with Mr. Kerry's conclusion that our activities in Vietnam were not justified and having the courage to stand up and say what he thought was right. If Mr. O'Neill and others with his "vision" can't handle free speech and peaceful dissent, they are living in the wrong country and probably would be happier in a more totalitarian environment.
Walter Pearson, Dallas
For helping to beat Kerry, a good pick
Congratulations on the editorial about John O'Neill. He should be Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year. He and the swift boat crews helped to defeat John Kerry. For that, they will have my eternal thanks.
Jess L. Cariker Jr., Paris
Surely you don't see him as a role model
That this John O'Neill guy is a Texan is enough of an embarrassment, but to hold him up as some sort of role model is preposterous. John Kerry spent his life fighting for America and Americans, for a better life for all of us – not just for wealthy white men.
John Carle, Lewisville
Four Letters |
And here's the photo:
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Tom Poole
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 4:32 am Post subject: |
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Oh, and I forgot to mention that Dan the Marine also was nominated by the Dallas Morning News as "Texan of the Year." What are they thinking? I wrote a letter on that one but it was not published.
| Dallas Morning News wrote: | Dan Rather: CBS anchor unmoored himself
07:49 PM CST on Wednesday, December 15, 2004
This was the year Dan Rather came undone.
It happened in the heat of the presidential campaign, when a hard-charging 60 Minutes producer told the reporter that she had documents that proved George W. Bush had misrepresented his National Guard service. Dan Rather believed the documents and reported them as fact to a national television audience. Almost immediately, the report and the reporter were dogpiled by bloggers and others who demonstrated in a single day that CBS News had been had. On Sept. 20, Mr. Rather issued a humiliating apology. Two months later, he announced that he would step down in March from the CBS anchor chair, once the most prestigious seat in broadcast journalism. It was a hell of a note to go out on. That's because whatever else might be said of him, Mr. Rather is and always was a dogged reporter. Hurricanes, earthquakes, assassinations, presidential scandals, wars and rumors of wars – Gunga Dan has been there. Even at 73, Mr. Rather still has a beat reporter's zeal for a good story. It is a tragic irony that this drive, perhaps guided by a desire that the Bush documents story be true, caused him to make the fatal misstep.
The fall of Dan Rather marks the end of an era of journalism and indeed is a signal moment in American cultural history. When Mr. Rather succeeded Walter Cronkite in 1981, the evening newscasts at CBS, ABC and NBC commanded 72 percent of the TV audience in that time slot. Today, it's half that. People get their news from a variety of ideologically diverse sources, including cable news channels and the so-called "new media" on the Internet. The symbolism is perfect: Dan Rather, once a media titan, was brought down by anonymous bloggers speaking truth to power – the kind of people who, not so long ago, could only yell impotently at the media elite. The media revolution, it turns out, is not being televised. It's being blogged. Dan the Marine |
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Navy wife
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Joined: 09 Aug 2004
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Location: Arlington, VA & Ft. Worth, TX
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 4:37 am Post subject: |
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Thanks, Tom!!! The letters re John O'Neill were indeed sick--except the one that supported him! What a great picture of John! I sure wouldn't put John O'Neill and Dan Rather in the same category. Dan is sicko.
We sure appreciate you posting these letters! |
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noc
PO1
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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There are many of these letters to the editor and I would not be surprised if John O'Neill is receiving the most. He was by far and away representative of the most effective movement against John Kerry and his run for president.
John O'Neill did something that had never been done before in presidential politics. The political game may never be the same again.
What struck me when I first started following the story was the more than 200 Swift Vets that had signed on to the letter. Dozens sign affidavits, based on first hand accounts in support of the book. John Kerry only had about 12 Swift Vet supporters. Even if someone never read the book or the detailed information on this website, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math on this one. |
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Navy wife
Research Director
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Posts: 353
Location: Arlington, VA & Ft. Worth, TX
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| Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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noc wrote:
| Quote: | | What struck me when I first started following the story was the more than 200 Swift Vets that had signed on to the letter. Dozens sign affidavits, based on first hand accounts in support of the book. John Kerry only had about 12 Swift Vet supporters. Even if someone never read the book or the detailed information on this website, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math on this one. |
Yet isn't it interesting that the 12 were taken at face value by the MSM and those brave 200 were called liars! I could never understand how that could happen. |
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Tom Poole
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 12:59 am Post subject: |
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| Navy wife wrote: | | ...I sure wouldn't put John O'Neill and Dan Rather in the same category. ... |
For tomorrow's Dallas Morning News, no letters yet regarding Mr. O'Neill's nomination. But this one (quoted in its entirety) on Dan the Marine will be seen. Hear, hear.
| Mark Arrington, Dallas, TX wrote: | Please, I'd Rather not
DMN Texan of the Year should apply to someone who is a part of our state. Dan Rather is not. He has not lived in Texas for over 40 years and ceased being recognizable as a Texan long ago. Texans will not soon forget how he did everything he could to try to bring down George W. Bush. When Mr. Rather retires, I hope he stays in New York with his liberal media friends. We don't want him retiring to Texas. He will be unwelcome. Letter |
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coldwarvet
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Joined: 03 Jun 2004
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Location: Minnetonka, MN
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 1:52 pm Post subject: Re: You are more than welcome to move to Texas!! |
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| Harvuskong wrote: | | coldwarvet wrote: | It is moments like this I wish I was a Texan.
CWV |
You are more than welcome to move to Texas!!
Just make sure that you do not move to any of the "Blue" counties.
Counties like Travis County, the location of Austin, TX, the State Capitol of Texas.
The City of Austin is sometimes referred to as "The People's Republic of Austin" by some of us Texans. |
Thanks for the invite Harvuskong and welcome aboard. As tempting as it sounds to be with others that hold the values that are important to me I aint done fighten for Wisconsin. The way I look at it we have come up short by just a couple of thousand votes the last two presidential elections which I consider the margin of fraud. We need to hang unto every right thinking person we have in WI. Perhaps you and a couple of thousand other right-minded Texans could move up to the frozen tundra and make a difference.
CWV
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"Peace is our Profession"
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Tom Poole
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Location: America
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| Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2004 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| noc wrote: | | There are many of these letters to the editor and I would not be surprised if John O'Neill is receiving the most.... |
No doubt you probably are correct. However, any more positive letters about Mr. O'Neill? Nary a one through Saturday's edition.
The Dallas Morning News is not a typical left wing, shrieking nay-sayer like the NYT, LAT, WaPo, CBS, etc. However, it has a nasty tendency to "go along" with prevailing opinions. You see, it owns a monopoly in this community and, fearing competition, cannot ruffle too many feathers.
Like the old media, it's often what the News doesn't say that contains the bias. I wonder how the rest of the journalistic world would have received the SVPT message if the News had studied the material and given it their full support.
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Fort Campbell
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Posts: 896
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| Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2004 3:42 am Post subject: |
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John Kerry may have been derailed in this election, but our biggest enemy as I see it may just be our MSM. The Liberal bias that they perpetuate is not showing any signs of abatement. We must be as vigilant as ever to their bag of slanted journalism.
My Congratulations to John O'Neill. I am eagerly awaiting the news that he has been chosen the Texan of The Year.  |
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Tom Poole
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Posts: 914
Location: America
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| Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2004 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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They almost got it right. I wrote and agreed with their wisdom but qualified it by stating John O'Neill would have been my choice. I also added that, in time, history would reveal the truth and vindicate the Swift Boat Vets. It also would prove Mr. O'Neill's courage, persistence and heroism.
| Wayne Slater, Dallas Morning News, December 25 wrote: | Our TEXAN OF THE YEAR: Karl Rove
The man who is building a Republican majority
Editor's note: Today the editorial board names Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush, as The Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year for 2004. He has the distinction of following in the footsteps of his boss, who was our 2003 choice, and therefore ineligible for consideration this year. After making its decision, the editorial board turned to Dallas Morning News political reporter Wayne Slater, one of the country's leading Rove experts, to analyze for our readers why Karl Rove mattered so much this past year.
The president, that famous giver of nicknames, bestowed a new one after his re-election on Karl Christian Rove: The Architect. A perfect tribute. It was Mr. Rove – master strategist and political grenadier – who drew up the plan to win George W. Bush a second term in the White House and bird-dogged every detail to victory. He honed the central theme of the presidential campaign. He built the biggest, shiniest, most elaborate voter-identification and turnout machine in history. And in the process, he advanced an audacious goal of making the GOP America's permanent majority party.
In selecting The Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year, the editorial board sought someone of uncommon character who demonstrated both leadership and vision in 2004, who exemplified a trailblazing instinct and ability to navigate adversity. In these, Mr. Rove emerged as one of the most creative and influential political figures of our time. His work for the president helped assure the Bush agenda will affect Americans for the next four years. His desire for a Republican-dominated realignment of government could affect us for decades.
To be sure, candidates win elections, not consultants, and Mr. Bush proved the better candidate in 2004. But even the best candidate needs a savvy adviser, someone to match a leader's strengths with the mood of the moment. Bill Clinton had his James Carville, Woodrow Wilson his Col. House and President McKinley a nimble political guru-in-chief named Marcus Hanna.
Mr. Rove might very well be the best of the bunch.
The Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year
THE OTHER NINE
10. Carolyn Thomas, Domestic violence survivor
9. Dan Rather, Legendary anchor
8. Wallace B. Jefferson, History-making judge
7. John O'Neil, Swift Boat Veteran for Truth
6. Lupe Valdez, Barrier-breaking sheriff
5. Alberto Gonzales, Attorney general nominee
4. Anousheh and Amir Ansari, Spaceflight visionaries
3. The Texas military family, From the front lines to the home front
2. Allie Scott and Family, Brave family shares story
Consider this year's election achievement. Mr. Bush flew into the teeth of considerable obstacles (Iraq and a lackluster economy to name two) and scored a convincing victory – the first president since 1988 to win a majority of the popular vote. He became the first president re-elected while gaining seats in both the House and Senate since 1936, knocked off the Democratic Party's pesky Senate leader and accomplished something his father never did – a second term. Mr. Rove's genius was to mobilize a million moving parts while at the same time focusing the campaign around a central idea: Mr. Bush the war president, a strong and resolute leader who will stand tough against an insidious evil.
Sure, critics might complain that the war is a mess of the president's own making and that Rove & Co. unfairly lampooned Democrat John Kerry as an inveterate flip-flopper. But the Bush campaign beat a relentless message: Who would you rather have protect us against the terrorist threat at home? A majority of American voters picked the president. "There's not a part of the campaign that Karl didn't touch significantly in some way," said Mark McKinnon, the Bush-Cheney campaign media director. "He laid the foundation, he framed it and he put on the roof. The president paid him the highest compliment when he called him the architect."
A portfolio beyond politics
Mr. Rove is White House senior political adviser, but his portfolio is broader. He's not just Mr. Politics but, increasingly, a figure guiding policy as well. During Mr. Bush's first term, he intervened in the fight between farmers and environmentalists over the salmon in Oregon. And he helped convince Mr. Bush at one point to impose steel tariffs – anathema to Bush free traders – to woo union workers in politically important West Virginia and Pennsylvania. And he's already at work on plans with Republican activists outside the White House to prepare a national campaign to promote private Social Security accounts. To understand Mr. Rove's deft touch at synthesizing politics and policy, consider this expert maneuver: Last month, as the president looked for new blood to fill his Cabinet in the second term, he dispatched Mr. Rove to sound out Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat. Mr. Nelson wanted to stay in the Senate, but he was worried that Republican Gov. Mike Johanns might challenge his re-election in 2006.
The solution? Make Mr. Johanns agriculture secretary and, in the process, earn the gratitude of Mr. Nelson, considered by many to be the president's strongest Democratic ally in the Senate. When the White House needs votes across the aisle next year, count on Mr. Rove to pay a repeat visit to Mr. Nelson on behalf of the president's agenda. Mr. Rove's considerable influence was evident early in Mr. Bush's first term. John DiIulio, a former presidential adviser, warned in a 2001 e-mail to a journalist for Esquire magazine that Mr. Rove was dictating White House policy based on raw politics. "Karl is enormously powerful, maybe the single most powerful person in the modern, post-Hoover era ever to occupy a political adviser post near the Oval Office," he wrote. "Little happens on any issue without Karl's OK." Early on, Mr. Rove shared a sphere of influence with Karen Hughes, another trusted Texas adviser with equal claim on the president's attention. Insiders say the pair served a kind of yin and yang inside the White House – Mr. Rove the dark master of hardball partisanship and Ms. Hughes the pragmatic keeper of Mr. Bush's compassionate persona.
When Ms. Hughes returned to Texas in the summer 2002, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card said it disrupted the balance of power and sent him scurrying for "people trusted by the president that I can elevate for various needs to balance against Karl." "It won't be easy," he told Esquire, as if describing a battle outside the White House. Only it was within. "Karl," he said, "is a formidable adversary."
The rise of Rove
Born in Colorado and raised in Utah, Mr. Rove came to Texas in the mid-1980s to start his own political consulting business. His Texas connection was George Herbert Walker Bush, for whom he had worked at the Republican National Committee while still in college. Mr. Rove remembers first meeting the son, then a student at Harvard. In George W. Bush, Mr. Rove saw everything he was not: handsome, easygoing, the son of a political family with the burnished look of those frat boys who sail the gilded edges of Republican politics. In Mr. Rove, the younger Bush saw his complement: driven, wonkish, a brilliant strategist with a penchant for smashmouth politics. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Mr. Rove helped convince Mr. Bush to run for governor in 1994, and directed that campaign – and every Bush campaign that followed through last month's re-election to the White House. The political wars, over time, have earned Mr. Rove his share of devotees and detractors. Friends call him brilliant, charming and indefatigable. Enemies say he's devious, mean, driven and vindictive. Like him or hate him, both sides agree he's formidable. In virtually every political campaign he has run over the years, there have been accusations against Mr. Rove of hardball tactics and dirty tricks. Mr. Rove denies it, but does acknowledge there's a dark side to his reputation. Asked recently on ABC television how he thinks people view him, Mr. Rove did not hesitate. "Evil Rasputin," he said.
As a College Republican, Mr. Rove got his start teaching seminars on dirty tricks. In Mr. Rove's political rise, critics have been quick to see an instinct for winning at any cost. A Rove campaign, they say, always follows a pattern: virulent whisper campaigns or damaging attacks from surrogate groups against his opponents, but never evidence that he was involved. Adversaries call it the Mark of Rove.
In 1994, when Mr. Bush ran for governor, incumbent Gov. Ann Richards says she was targeted by an astonishingly effective word-of-mouth campaign in East Texas over gays and lesbians in her administration. Four years ago, Sen. John McCain says he was targeted in the Republican presidential primary by a group of veterans who questioned his temperament to be president – code for whether his prisoner of war experience had made him crazy – and by Bush supporters who spread vicious rumors about his personal life. In much the same way, the Kerry team saw the Mark of Rove in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack on the Democrat's Vietnam war record. Mr. Rove denies involvement with the Swift Boat Veterans and in the earlier episodes, and dismissed as political paranoia the left's insistence that he's behind everything that works to Mr. Bush's fortune. "I've become a convenient myth," he said.
'Commander in Geek'
His colleagues inside Team Bush have another assessment of the round, bespectacled uber-achiever: Commander in Geek. In a White House where workaholics thrive, friends say Mr. Rove works harder than anyone, is smarter than anyone and immerses himself in the gears and levers of everything. The big themes, the wording of the TV scripts, the layout of the phone banks in Orange City, Iowa – Mr. Rove's mystique is that he knows it all. At one point late in October, a reporter questioned Mr. Rove during a swing through Florida about whether the campaign had paid enough attention to Ohio where, according to media reports, Democrats were doing a better job at voter registration. It was as if someone opened a fire hydrant. "We've been to Moreland Hills, Ashtabula, Cleveland, Cambridge, Canton twice, Akron, Cambridge, Portsmouth, Marietta, Troy, Lima, Columbus several times, Cincinnati several times," he said rapid-fire, in a torrent of words.
As for voter registration? He glanced at his Blackberry and delivered a real-time accounting: 57 Ohio counties that voted Republican in the past four presidential races had added about 20,000 likely Bush voters to the rolls. And the state's 11 biggest Democratic counties? "There are 106,000 fewer registered voters today than there were four years ago – 106,000 fewer!" he declared. He seemed to be on top of every detail. Mr. McKinnon recalls Mr. Rove once calling from Air Force One to say that the script of an upcoming television commercial was 87 words and only needed to be 85. "And by the way, you don't need that extra comma," he added, fixing the grammar. It's no accident that throughout the campaign year, the picture of the president striding across an airport tarmac or the White House lawn often had Mr. Rove at his side.
Campaigns, in politics or on the battlefield, are often won on a key decision. Mr. Rove's big decision was to target the GOP base, not depend on moderate swing voters to build a majority. The idea was to identify your reliable voters – religious conservatives, rural voters, white men, married women in suburbs, exurbanites and business-friendly Republicans – and get them to the polls in bigger numbers than four years ago. Energizing Christian conservatives was an important part of the strategy. Churches conducted voter-registration drives. The campaign collected church membership directories and recruited volunteers in congregations. With the Bush team's encouragement, allies put proposals to ban gay marriage on the ballot in 11 states. This attracted evangelicals and social conservatives in droves. In the pivotal battleground state of Ohio, a quarter of those surveyed in exit polls identified themselves as "white evangelical/born-again Christians" – and most of them voted for Mr. Bush.
The election machine that Mr. Rove and company built for the 2004 race was like nothing ever seen before in an American election. Two years before a vote was ever cast, the team began assembling an enormous list from voter files, magazine subscriptions, marketing lists, population trends, TV viewing habits, census data, demographic information – and created a computerized model capable of identifying their voters with extraordinary precision. They studied how many of their likely voters were watching CSI on television in Cleveland. They placed ads on the Golf Channel. They discovered that although the president supported a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, many married Republican women – an important constituency – regularly watched the sitcom Will & Grace, which portrays gay life positively. In battleground states, Will & Grace became a favorite spot for Bush-Cheney TV ads.
Rove the visionary
In making its decision, the editorial board said that his second-to-none tactical skills were not the only thing that earned Mr. Rove Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year status, but an uncommon political vision in which he has cast Mr. Bush's political success as part of something larger: a permanent Republican revolution of U.S. politics. The blueprint started in Texas in the 1980s, where as a young political acolyte in the camp of Republican Gov. Bill Clements, Mr. Rove wrote a memo anticipating the GOP takeover of the Lone Star State. He was right. And two decades later, he's taken the thing national. Although he never graduated from college, Mr. Rove has proven himself an adept student of history. He finds particular meaning in the election in 1896 of William McKinley that launched a fundamental realignment of American politics. With Mr. McKinley began a 30-year run of near-exclusive Republican rule in the White House, ending only with Franklin Roosevelt and another fundamental realignment.
It's a model – an enduring Republican majority lasting decades – that Mr. Rove would like to duplicate in the 21st century. In Washington, Republicans have indeed become the majority party. The party controls the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. It controls a majority of governorships. And the results of the 2004 race suggest that the ideological center of the nation has moved toward Mr. Bush, who captured 51 percent of the vote. The shift is not wholly of Mr. Rove's making, but it is consistent with his larger design. (And by the way, over 20 years in Texas, Mr. Rove was instrumental in turning Democrat-dominated Texas into a state where the GOP today holds every statewide office and both Senate seats, as well as dominating the courts and the Legislature. When U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay spearheaded the successful drive to redraw congressional boundaries in Texas, he found a Legislature and state leadership friendly to his purpose – thanks in part to Karl Rove's handiwork.)
A few days after the November election, Mr. Rove appeared on Fox News and was asked whether the outcome had the same kind of potential as the McKinley victory in 1896 to give a governing majority to the Republican Party for decades. "It does. We'll only tell with time," he said. "It was an election that realigned American politics years afterwards. And I think the same thing will be here." Critics dismiss the prospects, but it is a big idea, the kind of idea that makes him more than so many political operatives interested only in the chess move of the moment. "He's so strategic," said Texas political consultant Ken Luce. "His mind works at a different level." If his advocates are right, Mr. Rove is one of the most creative political minds in history. If his critics are right, his unrelenting partisanship will only exacerbate the polarization that divides the country. Either way, his impact and influence on Americans in 2004 – and beyond – are unmistakable. Karl Rove |
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Tom Poole
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| Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2004 3:53 am Post subject: |
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I spoke too soon. The Dallas Morning News web site posted these letters at 1:28 p.m. today, Saturday, December 25, about the time we were disposing of all the Christmas wrapping paper. In any event, here are Five Letters, in their entirety, three in favor of Mr. O'Neill and two against.
| Craig Kline, Plano, TX wrote: | Who can't live with free speech?
One of your readers stated that if John O'Neill and others with his vision can't handle free speech and peaceful dissent, they are living in the wrong country. It would appear that this reader, and others expressing similar views, might be the ones who can't handle free speech and peaceful dissent and may not be qualified to determine where John O'Neill and others should live. |
| Matt Nall, Dallas, TX wrote: | Choice represents disgusting idiocy
This is the most disgusting thing I have seen in your pages. If John O'Neill qualifies, why don't you get a list of Texas' biggest criminal fraud cases and promote those criminals? I have wondered about the methods behind The News' editorial page – now I know they are based on sheer idiocy. |
| Jean Roberts, Addison, TX wrote: | Some can't handle the truth
Congratulations on printing three derogatory letters Tuesday regarding John O'Neill and one four-line letter in his defense! For Tim Neal, who wrote the hate-mongering letter regarding Mr. O'Neill, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove and President Bush: Perhaps you should join the other liberals who are receiving psychiatric care because they can't deal with the election result. Sadly, some people just can't handle the truth. |
| Kelly L. Scott, Princeton, TX wrote: | Who's next, Oswald?
Forget the fact-tortured assertions and shameless omissions. Forget the ethical issues raised by a campaign with its genesis inside the Nixon White House. Forget the negative impact every successful smear has on our political process. By all means, let's celebrate John O'Neill as a finalist for Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year. If the ability to turn an election on its ear is such an inspiration, surely Lee Harvey Oswald is on your short list. |
| John Brennan, Sherman, TX wrote: | Ultimately, the voters got it right
John O'Neill and the veterans who supported him deserve credit for exposing John Kerry's true character. None of the revelations about Mr. Kerry's Vietnam record were contradicted and even were proven by his own diary. Cries of "lies" and "distortions" did not prevent the electorate from discerning the truth. |
Edited to correct "Sunday" to "Saturday" in the opening remarks.
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'58 Airedale HMR(L)-261 VMO-2
Last edited by Tom Poole on Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Tom Poole
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Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 914
Location: America
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| Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2005 1:25 am Post subject: |
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| Candy Fowler, Dallas, TX Letter to Morning News, January 1 wrote: | Pick insults 49 percent
Your selection of John O'Neill and Karl Rove as two of the top 10 Texans of the Year insulted 49 percent of the citizens of Texas. These two men have provided our youth with perfect examples of blatant lying, character assassination and smear tactics. Are these the morals of the Republican Christian Coalition? Bush sycophants are not journalists, and people from Arizona must have a different definition of "top 10." Insults 49% |
| Dan Kraemer, Allen, TX Letter to Morning News, January 4 wrote: | 6 in 10 might disagree
Re: "Pick insults 49 percent," by Candy Fowler, Sunday Letters.
While it may be true that the 48 (not 49) percent of Americans who voted for John Kerry could be insulted, only 38 percent of Texans voted for Mr. Kerry. I am quite positive that the 61 percent who voted for President Bush believe that a true Vietnam War hero in John O'Neill and a political mastermind in Karl Rove, both of whom have shaped America's political future for decades, deserve the honor of making The Dallas Morning News' top 10 Texans of the Year. 61% Disagree |
Local letters to the Dallas Morning News indicate the moonbats still face resistance.
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'58 Airedale HMR(L)-261 VMO-2 |
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