Greens Reject Endorsement for Ralph Nader

Thank the stars somebody showed some brains in the Green Party. I love Ralph's record but this ego trip of his to get the nomination to spoil this election is a dirty shame on his part. Bush has to be crushed in the coming election by John Kerry making the world a much more welcome place for a person like Nader and those that support him. The alternative is unthinkable. ---Sam




By JR ROSS, Associated Press Writer

MILWAUKEE - The Green Party nominated Texas attorney David Cobb as its candidate for president Saturday, dealing a blow to independent Ralph Nader's campaign.


Nader, the party's candidate in 1996 and 2000, had hoped for the party's endorsement and access to the ballot Greens have in 22 states and Washington, D.C. (news - web sites) Instead, he will have to find another way to get on the ballot in those states, including Wisconsin and California.

Nader told party officials months ago he would not accept the party's nomination for president, openly courting their formal endorsement instead.

But 408 delegates voted for Cobb on the second ballot to give him the nomination. Maine radio personality Pat LaMarche was the party's nominee for vice president.

Cobb has walked a line between praising Nader and questioning what his candidacy as an independent offered the Greens as they try to expand their status as a third party.

Had Nader won the party's endorsement, it would have been up to the state parties to decide whether to present him as their candidate for president to local election officials. Getting on the ballot in some of those states as an independent could now require him to gather thousands of signatures and meet other requirements.

Nader already has the backing of the Reform Party, which has ballot access in seven states, but he has yet to be placed on any state ballots.

The delegate vote at the party's national convention in Milwaukee underscored the deep divide among party members over who serves their cause best — Cobb, a little known party activist, or Nader, a prominent national figure, but someone who has never joined the party and does not plan to.

Nader tapped longtime Green activist Peter Camejo as his running mate this week, a step that was expected to bolster his chances of winning the party's endorsement.

In speeches before the vote, Camejo, who ran for the Green Party's presidential nomination as a Nader backer, and Cobb tried to stress what they shared, not what divided them. Still, their addresses illustrated the split within the party over Nader's candidacy.

Camejo portrayed Nader as the only option who could truly give voters an alternative to the George Bush and John Kerry campaigns. He said Nader would give the party the profile it needed to successfully build its base.

Cobb promised to support whatever decision the delegates made but warned them many state parties could lose their ballot access without a nominated candidate, an obvious warning about the possibility of endorsing Nader.

Cheney F@*#s Up

1. Does anyone need anymore evidence of what a vicious and warped little prick Dick Cheney is?

2. Hee hee, with Cheney and Bush getting questioned last week concerning the treason investigation (someone in the White House outed a CIA agent) along with their polls slipping into hell it's obvious the f___s are feeling the heat and having a hard time dealing with it.

Fri Jun 25, 9:44 PM ET

By Dana Milbank and Helen Dewar, Washington Post Staff Writers

Vice President Cheney on Friday vigorously defended his vulgarity directed at a prominent Democratic senator earlier this week in the Senate chamber.

Cheney said he "probably" used an obscenity in an argument Tuesday on the Senate floor with Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and added that he had no regrets. "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it," Cheney told Neil Cavuto of Fox News. The vice president said those who heard the putdown agreed with him. "I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue."

The forceful defense by Cheney came as much of Washington was discussing his outburst on the Senate floor in which a chance encounter with Leahy during a photo session in the usually decorous Senate chamber ended in colorful profanity. The obscenity was published in yesterday's editions of The Washington Post.

President Bush had made his vow to "change the tone in Washington" a central part of his 2000 campaign, calling bipartisan cooperation "the challenge of our moment."

"Our nation must rise above a house divided," he said in his victory speech in December 2000. "I know America wants reconciliation and unity. I know Americans want progress. And we will seize this moment and deliver."

Cheney said yesterday he was in no mood to exchange pleasantries with Leahy because Leahy had "challenged my integrity" by making charges of cronyism between Cheney and his former firm, Halliburton Co. Leahy on Monday had a conference call to kick off the Democratic National Committee's "Halliburton Week" focusing on Cheney, the company, "and the millions of dollars they've cost taxpayers," the party said.

"I didn't like the fact that after he had done so, then he wanted to act like, you know, everything's peaches and cream," Cheney said. "And I informed him of my view of his conduct in no uncertain terms. And as I say, I felt better afterwards."

Leahy, crossing the aisle to the Republican side of the chamber Tuesday, tried to make small talk with Cheney. Cheney yesterday referred to the incident as "a little floor debate in the United States Senate," although the Senate was not in session at the time. According to Leahy's staff, the Vermont senator answered Cheney's complaint about Halliburton with Democrats' complaints that the White House sanctioned a smear of Catholic Democratic senators over their objections to Bush's judicial nominees.

"Ordinarily I don't express myself in strong terms, but I thought it was appropriate here," Cheney said on Fox.

David Carle, Leahy's spokesman, said: "It appears the vice president's previous calls for civility are now inoperative."

As news spread on Thursday of the Cheney-Leahy exchange, Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) appealed to colleagues of both parties to rise above "partisan retaliation" and find a "common ground" for lawmaking.

Speaking first with reporters and then addressing the full Senate, Daschle acknowledged that earlier efforts by Democrats and Republicans to restore the Senate's once-cherished comity have yielded meager results. "But we have to try . . . to build a better relationship" between the political parties, regardless of which controls the Senate after the November elections, he said.

Daschle denied that he made his own civility proposals to boost Democratic campaigns, including his own hard-fought bid for reelection in South Dakota this fall. But his pitch for more bipartisanship -- coupled with a similar appeal Wednesday by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) -- underscored the perceived significance of voters' impatience with the partisan squabbling in Washington.

Daschle outlined what he called "fundamental commitments" that would undergird his efforts: to "deal in good faith with the executive branch"; to exert the "historical role of the Senate" on budget, oversight and nomination matters; to respect minority party rights, and to "end the cycle of partisan retaliation."

Among his proposals was full participation by both parties on House-Senate conference committees.

Iacocca Changes Support From Bush to Kerry

I've been hearing stories for months from "old school" Republicans who can't stomach Bush and who are either not voting in the election or switching to Kerry like Iacocca. ---Sam



By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Four years after former Chrysler Corp. chairman Lee Iacocca cut ads supporting George W. Bush's election, he's switching alliances to presidential challenger John Kerry.

Iacocca decided to announce his endorsement in person at a Kerry speech Thursday on creating high-tech industry jobs in Silicon Valley.

Iacocca, 79, gained a reputation as a champion of innovation within the automotive industry. He oversaw the development of the Ford Mustang in the 1960s and later the minivan and electric vehicles while at Chrysler Corp. He is the chairman and founder of EV Global Motors Co., a Los Angeles-based firm that designs electronic bicycles.

In a television ad that aired in Michigan during the 2000 campaign, Iacocca criticized Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore (news - web sites) on automotive issues, contending that Gore's environmentally "extreme ideas" could cost autoworkers their jobs.

Iacocca retired as chairman of Chrysler Corp. in 1992. He was president of Ford Motor Co. before joining financially ailing Chrysler in 1978.

In prepared remarks, Kerry said Thursday that the United States is losing its technological edge under President Bush (news - web sites)'s leadership, with the disappearance of 800,000 high-tech jobs and falling from 4th to 10th in the use of broadband. He said countries such as South Korea (news - web sites) and Japan are deploying networks that are 20-50 times faster than what is available in the United States.

He vowed to create jobs in the high-tech industry through an investment of $30 billion raised by auctioning off broadcast airwaves.

"This technological revolution is the foundation of a 21st century economy," Kerry said. "But it's up to us to build on that foundation so that we can create and expand 21st century jobs. We won't get very far with a government that wants to stifle or ignore the creativity and entrepreneurship that will produce the next big idea: We need to encourage it and invest in it."

Bush Interviewed in Gov't CIA Leak Probe

This is about treason from within the White House. ---Sam

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush was interviewed by government prosecutors Thursday in connection with the federal investigation of who leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative to the news media.

The president was questioned for 70 minutes in the Oval Office by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is heading the Justice Department investigation, and members of his team.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush has hired a private attorney, Jim Sharp, a Washington trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor, and he was present for the questioning.

"The leaking of classified information is a very serious matter," McClellan said, adding that the president repeatedly has said that he wants his administration to cooperate with the investigation. "He was pleased to do his part. No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States."

McClellan noted that Bush has urged anyone with information about the case to come forward.

Vice President Dick Cheney and other top administration officials, including White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, also have been questioned in the investigation.

Investigators want to know who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak last July. A federal grand jury in recent months has questioned numerous White House and administration officials.

Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime. (Sam Note: It's treason)

Asked if Bush had answered every question, McClellan said, "The president was glad to do his part to cooperate with the investigation. The president was pleased to share whatever information he had with the officials in charge and answer their questions."

McClellan, who said he was not in the meeting, was asked if Bush had any information about who leaked Plame's name. "That's just getting into questions that are best directed to the officials in charge of the investigation. I would not read anything into that one way or the other. This is an ongoing investigation."

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson has said he believes his wife's identity was disclosed to attack his credibility because he criticized Bush administration claims that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. Wilson went to Niger for the CIA to investigate the information about Iraq and he found the allegation to be highly unlikely.

Grand Delusion

Two Leaders Who See What They Want to See

By Richard Cohen

Tuesday, June 22, 2004; washingtonpost.com



I believe Cheney.

I believe the vice president when he claims that there was a link of some sort between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda -- and by intended implication with the events of Sept. 11, 2001. I believe, that is, that he is not necessarily lying, not making things up. I believe, in other words, that Cheney's -- and President Bush's -- insistence on this association is just more evidence that the two of them are blinkered by ideology and seeing precisely what they want.

I'll tell you a story. There was a man who went to see a psychiatrist. First, the shrink showed him a picture of crossed sticks and then one of hundreds of little dots. "What's that?" the shrink asked. Snakes and ants having sex, the man replied. The shrink told the man he was obsessed with sex. "What do you expect," the patient replied, "when you keep showing me dirty pictures?"

In life as in jokes, you see what you want. Cheney and Bush (protocol would insist on Bush first, but we know better) always saw a link between Hussein and al Qaeda. That link was tenuous at best, but it was supported by this or that meeting or sighting or the presence of someone in Iraq with links to Osama bin Laden. Aficionados of the Mafia will recognize the telltale signs. This person is linked to this person who is associated with that person who is married to yet another person who was once in business with the brother-in-law of yet another person. Once you have that mind-set, the Mafia is everywhere.

It is the same with intelligence. Very little of it is definitive. We have learned that the hard way. Even the mobile chemical labs in Iraq precisely identified by spy satellites turned out to be something else. Human intelligence can be even more problematic. It turns out, after all, that we knew next to nothing about what was going on in Hussein's inner circle.

Were there contacts between Hussein's regime and al Qaeda? Maybe. It's not inconceivable that someone in the regime wanted to keep an ear open. Were those contacts nefarious? Who knows? Did they lead in some way to the events of Sept. 11? It appears not. No evidence suggests that's the case, and the lack of such evidence is not proof of anything. It is not up to the critics of the war to prove the negative any more than it is up to astronomers to prove that the dark side of the moon is not made of green cheese. A little intellectual discipline is in order here.

It's not surprising that an administration already bent on war would interpret every dot, every squiggly line, as evidence that Hussein and bin Laden were in cahoots. This made sense to Bush and Cheney since, as we have found out to our dismay, they cannot distinguish between one kind of evil and another. Every possible suggestion of cooperation somehow became proof. This was particularly the case with Cheney when it came to weapons of mass destruction. He seized on the murkiest of reports to proclaim that Iraq had "reconstituted" its nuclear weapons program, which, lo these many months later, has yet to be found. So deluded were our top guys that they invaded Iraq expecting that the major problem would be how to clean up after all the victory parades.

Was Cheney lying or was he merely so driven by ideological or intellectual conviction that to him the occasional tree became a forest? It's hard to say. As my colleague Al Kamen reports, the vice president did indeed say it was "pretty well confirmed" that one of the Sept. 11 terrorists, Mohamed Atta, had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence official. Actually, that meeting has never been confirmed, and Cheney, for obvious reasons, has recently unconfirmed his statement, insisting he was never so definitive. Kamen confirmed he was.

But just as Cheney and Bush missed the forest for the trees, so do those who defend them and insist that the Sept. 11 commission overstated the case by reporting (in a draft) that "no collaborative relationship" existed between Iraq and al Qaeda. The fact remains that Hussein's fingerprints are not on the attacks of Sept. 11 and that the United States went to war for stated reasons that have simply evaporated -- weapons of mass destruction and that vaporous link between two very bad men. This brings me not to a joke but to the wisdom of the late Don Quixote, who says something to remember when this or that intelligence report is trumpeted by Cheney or Bush in justification of an unjustified war.

"Facts are the enemy of truth."

cohenr@washpost.com

Iraq Trust Gap: You've got a credibility problem, Mr. President

From the DALLAS MORNING NEWS...deep in the heart of Texas!

11:41 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 22, 2004

A time comes in most administrations when supporters tell the president he has a problem. Bob Dole told Ronald Reagan he should worry about the deficit. Tip O'Neill told Jimmy Carter he better improve his icy relationship with Capitol Hill. And George W. Bush told his father that White House chief of staff John Sununu needed to go.

The supporters find themselves like skunks at the garden party. They back the president but see a problem. And they decide to speak out.

We find ourselves in that position with President Bush and the war in Iraq. We supported his presidential candidacy. We backed the war in Iraq. But we now wonder: What happened?

U.S. troops have found no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. And the 9-11 panel says there was no working partnership between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. President Bush presented both WMD and the al-Qaeda/Hussein link as reasons for striking Iraq before it attacks us.

The president has a credibility gap here, and he needs to address it right away. Vice President Dick Cheney tried but failed miserably. He said, in effect, "we know more than you and you better trust us."

The country did just that when we went to war in Iraq, but things aren't working as promised. The administration needs to respond with specifics, not like members of a secret society with keys to the kingdom.

If the president or any member of his administration knows of concrete links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, we implore them to speedily present that information to the 9-11 commission. Commissioners say they'd welcome contradictions to their claim that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were not in cahoots.

A poll conducted by Republican Bill McInturff and Democrat Stanley Greenberg for National Public Radio shows 54 percent of Americans think the country's off track. Those are serious numbers, Mr. President. Arrogance will not change Americans' perceptions. Plain-speaking will. The country needs that, sir.