SwiftVets.com

[Guest]

THE FOUNDATION

"Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions." --James Madison

_____----********O********----______

INSIGHT

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." --Oscar Wilde

"The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion. In a free society these institutions must be wholly free -- which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state." -- Alan Barth

"But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you -- the social reformers -- see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them." --Isaiah Berlin

"It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what might happen." --Herodotus

"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones." --Mother Teresa

_____----********O********----______

UPRIGHT

"I will never submit America's national security to an international test. The use of troops to defend America must never be subject to a veto by countries like France. The President's job is not to take an international poll -- the President's job is to defend America." --President George W. Bush

"[John Kerry and John Edwards] won't count the sacrifice and the contribution of our Iraqi allies. It's their country. They're in the fight. They're increasingly the ones out there putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They're doing a superb job. And for you to demean their sacrifice strikes me as beyond the pale. ... You that somehow they shouldn't count. Because you want to be able to say that the Americans are taking 90 percent of the sacrifice." --Vice President Dick Cheney

"Congress has the constitutional authority to rein in the federal courts' jurisdiction and the duty to preserve the states' republican forms of governments. Since government by the federal judiciary undermines the states' republican governments, Congress has a duty to rein in rogue federal judges." --Ron Paul

"From 1975 to 1992 when there was no ban on assault weapons, 16 police were killed by such weapons. During a similar period, when the ban was in effect 20 police were killed by assault weapons. Draw your own conclusions." --Lyn Nofziger

"John Kerry's whole foreign policy is cemented to the notion that allies are everything. And yet he spends precious time ridiculing America's allies as a 'coalition of the bribed' and letting his surrogates call the Iraqi prime minister a Bush puppet." --Jonah Goldberg

_____----********O********----______

EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

"Things are going from bad to worse for the United Nations. The latest complication for Secretary-General Kofi Annan's attempt to control the damage in the Oil for Food scandal is the resignation of Anna Di Lellio, spokeswoman for the Independent Inquiry Commission into the UN Oil-for-Food Program headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, for slurs against the president of the United States and the prime minister of Italy. Her departure is welcome. But the question remains: How could someone who believes the president of the United States is a threat to world peace analogous to Osama bin Laden have been appointed to such a sensitive position with the Volcker panel in the first place? ... Her departure raises disturbing questions: What kind of investigations does the United Nations conduct before making such appointments? Was Mr. Annan or any other senior official aware of the Guardian essay [in which she slurred President Bush and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi]? If not, why not? How does someone with such an unbalanced view of reality get selected to work for a UN commission, especially one dealing with an international financial scandal of major proportions? The Volcker panel has faced obstacles from the start (such as a lack of subpoena power) and the commission's strained relationship with Capitol Hill --stemming from its efforts to limit congressional oversight of the Oil for Food scandal. Given that, the question arises: Did Mrs. Di Lellio slip through the cracks, or was she deliberately placed in such a sensitive position?" --The Washington Times

_____----********O********----______

DEZINFORMATSIA

This week's dual "Circling the Wagons" Awards: "I think the attack on CBS is an attack on mainstream media, an attack on the so-called 'liberal media'." --ABC's Peter Jennings ++ "What I think is highly inappropriate is what's going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS News that is quite outrageous." --Tom Brokaw

From the Leftmedia Psychosis Files: "John Kerry is in trouble because the Bush campaign has seized control of what psychologists call the 'frame' of this year's presidential contest. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and company have framed the election starkly: Bush will keep us safe in a time of terror. He will put money in people's pockets by cutting our taxes, and somehow that will also be good for the economy." --Robert Kuttner, Boston Globe **Memo to Robert: Money in people's pockets IS good for the economy.

From the "Fifth Columnists of the Fourth Estate": "If George W. Bush is re-elected, we will have war without end. We never should have invaded Iraq. It will be a long time before we get our honor back. ... If Bush is re-elected, the draft will be reinstated, Social Security will be nearly eliminated, and there'll be more tax cuts for the rich." --Helen Thomas, evidently of the lurid belief that Bush's re-election would signal the return of the plagues

This week's "Propagandum Magnum" Award: "Nearly nine out of ten French people would back John Kerry if they could vote in the U.S. election, according to an opinion poll on Friday which showed deep distrust of President Bush since the Iraq war. The poll, published after Kerry and Bush battled over Iraq in a television debate, came as no surprise in the country which led opposition to the U.S.-led war..." --Reuters "news" service.

This week's "Keen Sense of the Obvious" Award: "Court: Don't drive drunk on frozen lakes" --Associated Press headline in Alaska

_____----********O********----______

THE DEMO-GOGUES

This week's "Space Cadet" Award: "I can do a better job of protecting America's security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere." --John uFo Kerry

"From the Four-Fingers-Pointing-Back Files: "One thing that's very clear is that a long rèsumè does not equal good judgment." --John Edwards **He couldn't have described himself and the other John any better!

This week's "Ignarus Perpetuus" Award: "Americans need a real conversation over our future. What they don't need is all these trumped up advertisements. They just make people curl up and walk away. I'm calling them 'misleadisments.' It's all scare tactics...because [Bush] has no record to run on." --John Kerry, the undecided candidate for president **Who's the one with no record to run on?++ Speaking of records: "We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the 'greater glory of the United States.' We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars." --John Kerry from his 1971 book, "The New Soldier" **To see the entire text of this anti-American diatribe by Mr. "Stronger America", link to http://kerry-04.org/new_soldier.php

This week's "Limited Candle Power" Award: "[Bush has] been the most disappointing to women, who thought with all of his commitments and promises that things were going to change for them. Things didn't change; they got worse." --Ann Richards **"So things got worse without changing? Must be some quantum-physics deal." --James Taranto

This week's "Non Compos Mentis" Award: "Here's what would be good for the American economy -- to outsource George W. Bush." --No. 2 John **Memo to the Johns: Your vision of foreign diplomacy notwithstanding, we can't outsource the presidency.

This week's "Hyper-Hypocrisy" Award: "I defended this country as a young man at war, and I will defend it as President of the United States." --John Kerry **Change the "defend" to "defeat" and you've got it.

From the "Bottom Half of the John-John Ticket": "I'd say if you live in the United States of America and you vote for George Bush, you've lost your mind." --John Edwards


_____----********O********----______

VILLAGE IDIOTS

This week's "Consummate Village-Celeb" Award: "The flip-flopping accusations that Bush hurls at Kerry is truly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Bush has clearly become accustomed to projecting his own inadequacies on to his opponent. I am flabbergasted by the American public's continued support for Bush even though he says one thing and does another." --Barbra Streisand

This week's "Village Victimitis" Award: "[W]e could lose the right to our bodies. ...[I]f you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote." --Cameron Diaz on Oprah Winfrey's "Voting Party," which included P. Diddy sporting a "Vote or Die" T-shirt

From the Global Village: "My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world. I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes." --Novelist Margaret Drabble, London Daily Telegraph

From the files of the Intellectually/Morally Challenged: "Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime. Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another." --Peter Hansen, UN Relief and Works Agency **Political organization? Who is he kidding?

From the "Village Matriarch" Files: "This is the most anti-reproductive freedom President we've ever had. ...[John Kerry has] always been a feminist." --Uber-feminist Gloria Steinem **After the manicure John had before the debate Thursday, we believe the operative word is "feminized!"

_____----********O********----______

SHORT CUTS

"I've never wilted in my life. And I've never wavered in my life." --John Kerry

"I have a theory to explain why the Democratic presidential ticket is growing lamer by the week. It suffers from a little-understood condition known as the 'Kerry Syndrome.' This is closely related to Simple Chronic Kerrytosis, a malady that causes poll numbers to drop when the candidate opens his mouth." --Jonah Goldberg

"Wall Street fell Thursday on news of Nigerian rebels threatening to halt the flow of oil. Crude advanced past fifty dollars per barrel. It made everybody wistful for the good old days when crude advances meant that Hillary was out of town." --Argus Hamilton

"I was a good debater in college because I found I could make up quotes when I needed them and get away with it. It was then I realized politics was for me, the anchor chair at CBS not being available to me at the time." --Rich Galen

"'Talking about' stuff is all Kerry's got. He's no executive experience, he's never run a state, never founded a company, built a business, made payroll. Post-Vietnam, all he's done is talk and vote. For 20 years in the U.S. Senate: talk, vote, talk, vote. So, if his talking and voting are wrong, what else is there?" --Mark Steyn

_____----********O********----______

NIGHTLINES

David Letterman.... "Top George W. Bush Debate Strategies:" Ask the question, "We've never had a horse-faced president so why start now?"; Instead of witty retorts, have secret service wrestle Senator Kerry to the ground; Use Kerry's long-winded answers to take much needed bathroom breaks; Instead of water, fill Kerry's mug with Red Bull and vodka; Find time to work in joke prop -- giant waffle; Moving his lips to pretend microphone isn't working; If Kerry makes a good point, distract him with some chaw spit in the eye; Point out Senator Kerry's mispronunciation of the word "nucular."

Jay Leno.... They say the debates are already helping the economy. In fact, millions of people are buying large screen TV sets so they can see Kerry's entire head. .... How many watched the presidential debate [Thursday]? Or, as the networks were calling it: "Rich White Guy Survivor." .... It was hard -- do you want the rich white guy who went to Yale and wears a red tie or the rich white guy who went to Yale and wears a blue tie? We have such choices in our country. .... The first question went to John Kerry because he won the coin toss. Well duh. His wife owns all the coins. .... Political experts say President Bush was off his game. He looked distracted, confused, a little at a loss for words. Off his game? That is Bush's game! .... Some good news from watching the debates -- the terror alert on John Kerry's face has been lowered from orange back down to pasty white. .... [Ralph] Nader is at 1% in the polls, and the margin of error is 3%. You know what that means? Nader is trailing the margin of error. The margin of error is 2 points ahead of him. .... Did you see Edwards and Dick Cheney together? It was like Mr. Wilson yelling at Dennis the Menace: "Get off my lawn!"

Lex et Libertas -- Semper Vigilo, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for the editors and staff. (Please pray on this day, and every day, for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world in defense of our liberty, and for the families awaiting their safe return.)

*Printer-friendly format
Link to -- http://FederalistPatriot.US/current2004a.asp