Mr. McCain your integrity is in question! You have compromised the one thing that cannot be placed on the table for barter - your integrity of "word!"

We know that Government is a constant search for middle ground between competing forces. We know that all moves forward in government, from any perspective, require the give and take of compromise.

Most of us know, however, that there is a limit to what can be compromised. When you took a stand against the barbarity of the Bush/Republican effort to join in torture as a 'legitimate' way to question a prisoner, we all applauded. We knew that is where you would stand! And then your knees folded! You knuckled under! To what? Why?

This country declared that we will not be subject to a King. Neither will we allow establishment of a Caesar! We will say neither 'Your Majesty,' nor 'Hale' nor 'Heil' to anyone, Maybe Chavez is closer to the truth than we realize.

We don't know what you were offered! We do not know the reward you are seeking? We do know that you have crossed that boundary where personal integrity permits no crossing. You cannot compromise on torture of prisoners! You, more than many, should know that. I can no longer respect this country or you as my representative in its governance! I will increase my efforts to rid this country of dictatorial ambitions of Bush and all of his supporters - Wolferwitz, Perle, Rumsfeld and McCain et al. It is true that the Democrats have little to offer, but "Anything will be better than what we now have!"

And, now I will get back to work!

Harry Wettig

Our young men and women who joined the Military Forces of the United States, believing their role to be assurance of Liberty and Justice for all under our Constitution, now deserve the chance to declare that enlistment void. National objectives pale when viewed by the standards of this Republican Administration. Our Country as the aggressor, Our country seeking raw global power, Our country's leadership lying and cheating to achieve its goals, and now Our Country declaring that we will join the barbarians in the use of torture to reach our goals makes the pledge of National Service invalid.

Every member of our military should have a full and honest explanation of the current goals of this government. They should then be given the choice of supporting these objectives or returning to the nonmilitary status with full benefit of their accrued service,

I, a member of the 'Greatest generation' and having been declared an 'Officer and Gentleman' by the Congress, would refuse to serve under this current commander in chief! Our young men and women in the Military forces deserve this choice.

Imagine! Fighting for a leader who says 'I will risk your torture if captured,' in order to secure my hidden and personal goals! And, this is America?

Harry Wettig

Dear Sir: I stumbled across your webpage this evening. It's taken a lot of courage for you to post such a page. Your words ring such truth during these recent years of hazy propaganda. I am a Democrat. I've never been paticularly crazy angry with Republican Policy but Bush has polarized this country, and this world, in such a way as I have never seen it, and I am fearful that his mad spending may slide us into an economic depression. I don't believe folks have any idea how much credit debt we have. Any way, I'd just like to thank you for your bravery, and I hope to see some good candidates, Republican and Democrat, step up and lead this country in a more decent and professional manner than this crazy Bush Regime has done.

Yours in Peace,
Lisa

Where were the "Born Again Christians?"

In a letter to the Express News, my friend in Texas wrote the following question to the supporters of unbridled barbarism by this United States government:

Last week the Senate and House debated and passed legislation that defines the country's Moral Compass: i.e. The degree of torture we can subject humans to. Since this is a Country "under God", it seems the Clergy, who were notably absent, would have shown interest and made some input in such sobering legislation. However, since it did not pertain to Abortion or Gay Marriage, it apparently was not important to the "Born Again".

Jim

A Plea from a Former Republican — October 2006

Let me begin by stating that I hope all who read this pass it along to their friends. I am so motivated that I hope this spreads throughout Daily Kos. Often, words mean more when an individual from the outside weighs in. Maybe this can be the Zell Miller speech the Democrats never had in 2004.

I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be posting on a Liberal Blog. I'm sure one year from now I'll regret this. But this is not one year from now. This is October 2, 2006. Our nation is one month away from one of the most important Congressional Elections in history.

Until recently, when I became an Independent, I was a life long Republican. I twice voted for George W. Bush. Furthermore, I have never voted for a Democrat for anything higher than State Office. I believe in Conservative Values: I am for limited Government, responsible Government, National Defense, Fiscal Responsibility, and family values. And to further validate what I am going to say, my family is Conservative as well. My dad was the only individual to vote for Barry Goldwater in his mock election in 1964. Legend has it, my uncle vomited when Bill Clinton was elected president.

My own political hero is to this day Ronald Reagan. Comparing George W. Bush to him is treason. Ronald Reagan is rolling in his grave. The Republican Party he built is dead.

Whats amazing is that they died in two years. Just when they looked invincible, had control of every major branch of government, and most state governments, something took hold that has been the downfall of men throughout history: The convergence of Power and Greed.

In 2005, two major scandals occured that opened the eyes of Conservatives everywhere: The CIA Leak Case, and the Abramoff Scandal. If the PR for a war is more important than planning for it, and if Washington can be bought, how much worse can things get? It couldn't get any worse. Until it did. On August 30, 2005.

I remember standing at a football game after Hurricane Katrina and not being able to sing the National Anthem. I was embarrassed to be an American. I don't ever want to feel that again. It couldn't get any worse. Until it did.

Scandal after scandal, failure after failure. This Administration and Congress have been given every chance to turn it around. And they have failed. They failed to pass Social Security Reform. Failed to Pass Immigration Reform. Failed to secure Iraq. Failed to secure Afghanistan. Failed to find Bin Laden. Failed to confront Iran. Failed to lead in the Israeli-Hezbollah war. Failed to read the Constitution and protect American Rights and the Geneva Convention. It couldn't get any worse. Until it did.

In August of this year, the nation had the privlidge of learning that a Presidential hopeful was a racist. Senator George Allen of Virginia used to the word "macacca" to describe an opponents volunteer who had dark skin. He summarized by saying "welcome to America." It couldn't get any worse. Until it did.

Senator George Allen was later found to have used the N-Word by several sources. It couldn't get any worse. Until it did.

When I read the Mark Foley story this week, I nearly fell out of my chair. To have a man who legislated against Exploited Children, exploit 16 year old students. Without Republican Leadership Confronting it? And this is the party of moral values?

It's over. I've had it. They must go. All of them. Every single one. There must be a message sent across the nation, just like there was one sent in 1994. I will not vote for anyone with an (R) beside them.

I will meet you all again in 2008. Maybe by then we can debate real Conservative/Liberal issues. But for now we must unite. We must unite because our country is in trouble. Get them out. Now. All of them.

Good Luck.

Peggy

And this is not an April Fools Story!

Former Democrat - Aide Says He’s Lost Faith in Bush - Now a Democrat again!

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: April 1, 2007

AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 — In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

“I’m a big believer that in part what we’re called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have,” Mr. Dowd said. “Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election.”

Mr. Dowd’s journey from true believer to critic in some ways tracks the public arc of Mr. Bush’s political fortunes. But it is also an intensely personal story of a political operative who at times, by his account, suppressed his doubts about his professional role but then confronted them as he dealt with loss and sorrow in his own life.

In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.

Mr. Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated. But, he said, he holds out no great hope. He acknowledges that he has not had a conversation with the president.

Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Mr. Dowd’s criticism is reflective of the national debate over the war.

“It’s an issue that divides people,” Mr. Bartlett said. “Even people that supported the president aren’t immune from having their own feelings and emotions.”

He said he disagreed with Mr. Dowd’s description of the president as isolated and with his position on withdrawal. He said Mr. Dowd, a friend, has “sometimes expressed these sentiments” in private conversation, though “not in such detail.”

During the interview with Mr. Dowd on a slightly overcast afternoon in downtown Austin, he was a far quieter man than the cigar-chomping general that he was during Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign.

Soft-spoken and somewhat melancholy, he wore jeans, a T-shirt and sandals in an office devoid of Bush memorabilia save for a campaign coffee mug and a photograph of the first couple with his oldest son, Daniel. The photograph was taken one week before the 2004 election, and one day before Daniel was to go to boot camp.

Over Mexican food at a restaurant that was only feet from the 2000 campaign headquarters, and later at his office just up the street, Mr. Dowd recounted his political and personal journey. “It’s amazing,” he said. “In five years, I’ve only traveled 300 feet, but it feels like I’ve gone around the world, where my head is.”

Mr. Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Mr. Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Mr. Dowd and a mentor to Mr. Bush.

“It’s almost like you fall in love,” he said. “I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides. And this guy’s personality — he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration.”

Mr. Dowd established himself as an expert at interpreting polls, giving Karl Rove, the president’s closest political adviser, and the rest of the Bush team guidance as they set out to woo voters, slash opponents and exploit divisions between Democratic-leaning states and Republican-leaning ones.

In television interviews in 2004, Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Kerry’s campaign was proposing “a weak defense,” and that the voters “trust this president more than they trust Senator Kerry on Iraq.”

But he was starting to have his own doubts by then, he said.

He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but “missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice.”

He was dumbfounded when Mr. Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Several associates said Mr. Dowd chafed under Mr. Rove’s leadership. Mr. Dowd said he had not spoken to Mr. Rove in months but would not discuss their relationship in detail.

Mr. Dowd said, in retrospect, he was in denial.

“When you fall in love like that,” he said, “and then you notice some things that don’t exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say ‘No no, no, it’ll be different.’ ”

He said he clung to the hope that Mr. Bush would get back to his Texas style of governing if he won. But he saw no change after the 2004 victory.

He describes as further cause for doubt two events in the summer of 2005: the administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and the president’s refusal, around the same time that he was entertaining the bicyclist Lance Armstrong at his Crawford ranch, to meet with the war protester Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq.

“I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up,” he said. “That it’s not the same, it’s not the person I thought.”

He said that during his work on the 2006 re-election campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, which had a bipartisan appeal, he began to rethink his approach to elections.

“I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people,” he said, “but bring the country together as a whole.”

He said that he still believed campaigns must do what it takes to win, but that he was never comfortable with the most hard-charging tactics. He is now calling for “gentleness” in politics. He said that while he tried to keep his own conduct respectful during political combat, he wanted to “do my part in fixing fissures that I may have been part of.”

His views against the war began to harden last spring when, in a personal exercise, he wrote a draft opinion article and found himself agreeing with Mr. Kerry’s call for withdrawal from Iraq. He acknowledged that the expected deployment of his son Daniel was an important factor.

He said the president’s announcement last fall that he was re-nominating the former United Nations ambassador John R. Bolton, whose confirmation Democrats had already refused, was further proof to him that Mr. Bush was not seeking consensus with Democrats.

He said he came to believe Mr. Bush’s views were hardening, with the reinforcement of his inner circle. But, he said, the person “who is ultimately responsible is the president.” And he gradually ventured out with criticism, going so far as declaring last month in a short essay in Texas Monthly magazine that Mr. Bush was losing “his gut-level bond with the American people,” and breaking more fully in this week’s interview.

“If the American public says they’re done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want,” Mr. Dowd said. “They’re saying, ‘Get out of Iraq.’ ”

Mr. Dowd’s friends from Mr. Bush’s orbit said they understood his need to speak out. “Everyone is going to reflect on the good and the bad, and everything in between, in their own way,” said Nicolle Wallace, communications director of Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign, a post she also held at the White House until last summer. “And I certainly respect the way he’s doing it — these are his true thoughts from a deeply personal place.” Ms. Wallace said she continued to have “enormous gratitude” for her years with Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bartlett, the White House counselor, said he understood, too, though he said he strongly disagreed with Mr. Dowd’s assessment. “Do we know our critics will try to use this to their advantage? Yes,” he said. “Is that perfect? No. But you can respectfully disagree with someone who has been supportive of you.”

Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008. The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity. But, he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work.”

He added, “I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.”

Reprinted from the New ork Times.

Imagine living in a country where one man, no matter how religious and well placed in the majority religion, is given the right to decide life and death over thousands who have pledged to support him. Imagine living in a country where one man aspires to supremacy over all functions of government without question from the majority of citizens who disagree with him. Imagine living under the rule of a man who wears a black turban on his head, or a crown, or a wreath or just goes bareheaded in his control of the lives of those who live in his country! Imagine Living in Nero's Rome! Imagine living in Hitler's Germany! Imagine living in Hussein's Iraq! Imagine living in the Ayatollah's Iran! Imagine living in George Bush's United States of America!

George has not yet accomplished his Goal, but he is working hard to affirm control of the three branches of government even though the people have spoken against him in the last election. Is it possible that he could succeed with just 30 percent of the population supporting him? Is it possible that Party Loyalty in the Congress will give George the support he needs to set up his monarchy? If so, will he choose the Crown or the Laurel Wreath?

Imagine a United States with a president who listens to the people, a president who puts the interest of the country before that of his cronies and himself, a population where the principles of equality are allowed to function for every citizen. Think back through the years! Has there ever been such a threat to our country and Our Constitution as now posed by George?

Questions By Harry Wettig

Our Congress, our representatives and Senators that we elected, have fallen into line with the ambitions and the lies of this idiot president! They have voted to give him and those around him, including the attorney general who gives no sign of knowing or caring about the truth or law, the power to invade our private lives. A power strictly forbidden by the Constitution that I know and have sworn allegiance to! How could they do that?

In the hysteria of the War on Terror, a war that was manufactured by the ipresident's controllers (Wolferwitz, Perle, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others) our elected representatives, our Senators, have said that it is OK for the iPresident and his agents to collect information about us and our thoughts and written and spoken words that they might use against us in their campaign for Power!

What will you say to them? Have you told your Representative and your Senators that you do not approve of their action? Have you accepted the fate that this iPresident has planned for this country - a return to autocracy and unfettered Power of the King?

Harry Wettig has not accepted this fate!