SwiftVets.com

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THE FOUNDATION

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." --Nathan Hale, American Patriot, in his last words before being hanged by the British, without a trial, this day, September 22, 1776.

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INSIGHT

"The most may err as grossly as the few." --John Dryden

"What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?" --Adam Smith

"I think we all have a need to know what we do not need to know." --William Safire

"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer." --Thomas Merton

"The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself a slave to it." --Benjamin Franklin

"Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all." --Voltaire

"It takes a heap of sense to write good nonsense." --Mark Twain

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UPRIGHT

"Terrorists aren't interested in guilt or innocence, or whether it's Iraqi or American blood they spill. They're just out to kill, maim and destroy. Anybody. The purpose is to instill fear and create the kind of chaos in which their kind prospers -- a power vacuum they can fill." --Paul Greenberg

"Few things have been more grossly distorted than tax cuts. Liberals in politics and the media seem to think that what matters is what happens to the money. In reality, what matters is how the cut in tax rates affects people's behavior." --Thomas Sowell

"Democrats still seem to believe they can win back the White House without making any significant modification to their party's policies -- that they are the natural majority party just waiting to be given back control." --Brendan Miniter

"The Bush campaign is executing with confidence and verve a game plan it set out long ago. The Kerry campaign has been regrouping and lurching from one emphasis to another. It is proof of the old political saying: The campaign always reflects the candidate." --Michael Barone

"[I]nstead of moral absolutes, the Left holds legal absolutes. 'Legal' for the Left is what 'moral' is for the Right. The religious have a belief in God-based moral law, and the Left believes in man-made law as the moral law." --Dennis Prager

"Terrorism didn't begin on September 11, 2001. ... It began in the hearts of evil men.... It won't go away, even if America withdraws from Iraq tomorrow. Had we not gone there in the first place, terrorism would still be around." --Cal Thomas

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EDITORIAL EXEGESIS

"Violence is spiking again in Iraq, and U.S. officials are warning that it is going to get worse before it gets better. So now is a good moment to sort out where we are in Iraq, and more important, to remember who precisely our enemy is. The first thing to stress is that Iraq is not in 'chaos,' nor is there some general uprising against either Coalition forces or the interim government led by Ayad Allawi. If that were true, the violence would be far worse. ... So who are we fighting? The answer is a combination of Saddam Hussein's former Fedayeen, intelligence services and other Ba'athists, as well as jihadists led by the long-time Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi. The extent of their cooperation is unknown, but they certainly share the same immediate goal of promoting violence -- both random, and precisely targeted against Iraqis who work with the Coalition -- to drive the Americans out and create enough mayhem so they can take over. ... Meantime, our enemies will continue to do whatever damage they can. They can read the U.S. election calendar as well as al-Qa'ida read Spain's, and their hope is to create precisely the appearance of 'chaos' that American critics of the war are broadcasting for their own partisan purposes. It hasn't helped that many prominent Democrats, including recently John Kerry, are giving the impression that they will start to pull out as early as six months from taking office. Iraqis of all kinds have heard that too." --The Wall Street Journal

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DEZINFORMATSIA

From the ever-growing "See B.S." Files: "[Right-wingers] can't deny the message so they have to discredit and destroy the messenger, [and] know that I'm fiercely independent and that's what drives them up a wall." --Chatterhead "Dan Rather" ++ "I'm surprised at their reluctance to concede they're wrong." --Andy Rooney ++ Lo, and behold -- This week's "Non Compos Mentis" Award: "Last week, amid increasing questions about the authenticity of documents used in support of a '60 Minutes Wednesday' story about President Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard, CBS News vowed to re-examine the documents in question-and their source-vigorously. And we promised that we would let the American public know what this examination turned up, whatever the outcome. Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. ...[I]f I knew then what I know now, I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question. But we did use the documents. We made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to carry on a CBS News tradition of investigative reporting without fear or favoritism. Please know that nothing is more important to us than people's trust in our ability and our commitment to report fairly and truthfully." --"Dan Rather" **"That's my story and I'm st-st-sticking to it!"++ "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret." --Andrew Hayward of CBS **Now you know why they say "On the air."

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THE DEMO-GOGUES

This week's "Purveyor of 'Truth'" Award: "I didn't forge anything. I didn't fake any documents. The only thing I've done here is to transfer documents from people I thought were real to people I thought were real. And that has been the limitation of my role. I may have been a patsy." --Bill Burkett

This week's "Limited Candle Power" Award: "[The Bush administration hasn't] even engaged in a legitimate effort to try to really transform the ability of Israel to find a legitimate entity to negotiate with." --John Kerry **How nuanced is that!

"My favorite gun is the M-16.... I don't own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle [AK-47]." --John Kerry

This week's "Periplaneta Americana" Award: "Staying the course [in Iraq] is not an option." --San Fran Nan Pelosi

"I think it is interesting as the only senator from the class of 1984, [John is] the only one who has not run for president, which, of course, is not a reason to run for president." -- Maria Teresa Thiersten Simoes-Ferreira Heinz Kerry

This week's "Primo-Prevaricator" Award: "George Bush has no strategy for Iraq. I do." --John Kerry **Hold on while we quit laughing...++ This week's "Blow Hard" Award: "One clear sign of weakness and failed leadership is when a politician stoops to the politics of fear. Last night, [Dennis Hastert] said something to the effect that al-Qa'ida wants John Kerry to be President of the United States. ... When John Kerry is President of the United States, we will find al-Qa'ida where they are and crush them before they can do damage to the American people." --John Edwards accusing Dennis Hastert of "fear mongering" **Maybe we should start a category entitled "The Big Laugh"

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VILLAGE IDIOTS

From the Global Village Files: "I have indicated [the Iraq War] was not in conformity with the UN charter...from the charter point of view, it was illegal." --UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, defying our President and Constitution at the same time **Kofi is an important "ally" to John F. Kerry.

This week's "Chronic Villagitis" Award: "[Republicans] are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself 'Republican,' yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet." --"The Disingenuous Filmmaker" Michael Moore **Doesn't this guy EVER shut-up?

This week's "Social Entropy" Award: "I am the mother of a 12-year-old girl and I can tell you unequivocally that if my daughter was pregnant, I would take her kicking and screaming to have an abortion." --Celluloid thespian Ellen Barkin **Whatever you do, don't choose "choice!"

This week's "Village Ignorati" Award: "I challenge anyone deep in your hearts to realize that Kerry isn't like Bush. Bush is like Saddam Hussein. Bush condones rape and murder, and does it with a wink of an eye. Bush says he does it in the name of economic policy. John Kerry decried rape, murder and genocide while he was in Vietnam. If you think John Kerry will end this war too soon, I say 'too soon for what?' It'll save our sons and daughters. ... Vote for John Kerry -- I'm going to." --Michael Berg, father of terrorist victim, Nick Berg

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SHORT CUTS

"[T]he Associated Press reports that Massachusetts' Sen. Ted Kennedy 'is launching a seven-week election drive' on Kerry's behalf. As if Kerry needs help running his campaign off a bridge." --James Taranto

"[Dan] Rather could ferret out his forgery quite easily, but, you see, he is duty-bound to protect the confidentiality of the forger. No conscientious journalist would rat out a forger. Imagine the damage that would do to the profession. Forgers might never talk to reporters again." --George Neumayr ++ "In the spirit realm where Rather apparently now dwells, truths are simply known as a matter of faith. That's cool. I can travel in the realm of ultimate truths -- on my time off. But in my day job here on Planet Earth, at least when making claims against someone else's rectitude, truth has to be supported by fact." --Kathleen Parker ++ "Putting it in Dan-speak, CBS is attempting to sell the public more cow-pies than a dunghill at a cattle ranch." --James Hirsen

"Kerry...probably still believes there is a French division somewhere over the horizon that will bail us out in Iraq, if only we bow and scrape enough. In any case, now the election will turn on exactly what it should, and be won or lost on the most important issue facing the country." --Rich Lowry ++ "[John Kerry] and his new campaign handlers (most of whom are retreads from the Clinton presidency) have reportedly decided on a novel strategy: Staking out just one position on the war in Iraq." --Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

"[John Kerry] says he's in touch with the West. He must mean western Massachusetts." --Vice President Dick Cheney

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NIGHTLINES

Argus Hamilton.... Saddam Hussein was reported by his Iraqi captors Monday to be depressed and distraught and begging for mercy. He got word that morning that he faces a war crimes trial and prostate surgery. Still, he didn't have as bad a day as Dan Rather. .... John Kerry in New York Monday accused President Bush of creating a crisis of historic proportion in Iraq. He called for a national debate on Iraq and the war on terrorism. Then he voted to cut funding for podiums, moderators and water glasses. .... Democratic VP nominee John Edwards warned voters Sunday that the White House is planning a back-door draft. It's an old problem. For eight years the White House kitchen had a little doggie door so President Clinton could come and go freely at night. .... The Emmy Awards in Hollywood Sunday took great pains to keep politics out of the telecast. The only evidence of any anti-war agitation was the presence of the blimp above the Shrine Auditorium. Michael Moore looked like King Kong up there.

Jay Leno.... President Bush addressed National Guard troops at the National Guard Association in Las Vegas [last week]. President Bush told the troops he's proud of his time in the National Guard, he said it was the best weekend of his life. .... Here's some good news -- unemployment is down to 5.4%, but a lot of people are still looking for jobs. If you're looking for a job in TV, I understand "60 Minutes" needs a fact checker. .... A lot of new shows premiering this week. CBS has a new news magazine coming out -- it's called "Dan Rather's Believe It or Not." .... Senator Ted Kennedy is hitting the campaign trail with John Kerry now. You know what they say -- two huge heads are better than one. .... John Kerry campaigned in Wisconsin today. It was reported he had a huge cheese head on. Turns out that was his actual head. .... According to the latest crime statistics, crime in the U.S. is at a 30 year low. John Kerry blamed this on President Bush. He said, "See even criminals are having a hard time finding jobs to pull off." .... Did you know John Kerry is going to be appearing on "Dr. Phil" next week"? Is that how bad his campaign is going? He needs grief counseling now? .... What happened to John Edwards? You know, I thought you weren't supposed to go into your secret location until after you're vice president.

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.)

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Link to -- http://FederalistPatriot.US/current2004a.asp