Why do you loathe John Kerry?

The guy hasn't had an opinion in his life.

I think John Kerry has the potential to be a fine president. I do not know which issues you are referring to that he has not expressed an opinion.

In order for him to be electable, he cannot take a strong opinion on many social issues (abortion rights, gay marriage, etc.) because he would risk alienating the "one-issue" voters he has to win.

I do hope he plays his own game, and emphasizes things like fiscal responsibility, a strict tightening of SEC enforcement on corporate malfeasance, and issues that truly effect the everyday citizen. Not that he is in any way advocating such a step....

I would really like to see a huge increase in the tax rate for the top few percent of earners. I see the consolidation of wealth as the single greatest threat to our democracy.

I see religious fundamentalists as the greatest threat to our democracy.

I think Kerry thinks whatever he thinks will go over best. I like what Mickey Kaus calls him -- a pandescender (combination of pander and condescend).

"Now Stern pounds him every day[...]"

Oh. Not pretty.

And what we currently have is a fundamentalist with unlimited wealth- I'm gettin the hell outta here!

It's martini time.

what's gained by attacking kerry? so the guy ain't perfect. so he has to play the same game bush did when he got elected: be vague about what he really believes so he alienates no one. bush did it and then turned a hard right and look at the mess we're in. if kerry acts like a centrist and then goes hard left, bravo. too bad one has to prevaricate and obscure to get elected but that's the way it is in these great united states. i'd rather have a crook with a heart in office than a crook without one.
i think this whole complaint about politicians changing their views on issues is bullshit. our expectations and standards are unreal and thats why we end up with the cretins we have in office. views change. people evolve. kerry may not be homo perfectionus, but give the guy a break. it's fun to be clever, like kaus, but the prospect of four more years of bush is scary.

David seems to get it. Except maybe for the comment about 4 more scary years if Bush wins again. What makes anyone think Gore would have not got us into a mess, too? Take a look at what Kerry said about Haiti. In last Sunday's NYT he said if he was prez he would have immediately sent in troops to keep Aristide in power. Immediately would kind of rule out a gentlemanly discussion with the UN, wouldn't it? Sort of like another Bush-Blair walk down mainstreet Tombstone. Similar to what Clinton did in 1994 to put Aristide back into power after a military coup. And don't we still have troops in the Serbia Croatia region? Politicians getting us into crap anywhere in the world is not limited to either party. And in the end, David and I, and just about all us little guys have nothing to say about any of the big or not so big decisions that impact the nation. Elect whoever you want. The mess will follow as it has done over and over. Keep yourself and you loved ones as protected as you can. That's the best we can do.

Looks like most of us will have to hold our noses as we vote in the next one, no matter who we are voting for. Autistic monkey or good ol' boy. So I agree with David, it's the way we go about it that keeps giving us these stinky choices.

Kerry's been like that throughout his career. It's not some new, get-elected game. The best thing he could do is pick McCain as his VP. The prospect of four more years of Bush is terrifying, but I can't say I like Kerry -- I just like him (or just about any non-fundamentalist sell-out) better than Bush.

I personally don't see how Kerry could win anyway. Bush stole the last election and with new voting machines that don't leave a paper trail, he'll steal this one, too. Much more easily, I might add.

tell you what: if bush wins narrowly, or there is some obvious impropriety, then it will prove the twice bitten theory -- and we will be in shit shape because our votes are no longer our own.

i think what kerry said about haiti, or for that matter what anyone says about anything -- especially pre-election -- is, while worth listening to, not dependable. it's really about what people do, not what they say. our electoral system is a shining example of that. what gets me is how people seem to let themselves get fooled election after election. "Maybe this time they're telling the truth?" Oy! And the one issue voters who will vote, say, against gay marriage, but not read the fine print that says that a year from now they will be required to send to the government their left arms, balls, or tits ... even horses see better with their blinders.

kerry has faults. bush has more faults. who knows what gore would have done. he wouldn't have been as purposefully polarizing as bush and c(heney)ompany. i doubt he would have been weak. he just wouldn't have screwed us in the ecological/moral/social values backside when we weren't looking. Wait I take that back. Bush did it while we were looking.

ABB: Anyone But Bush.

Kerry is running on a platform of raising taxes, as well as collecting the taxes that Bush cut the past few years. YIKES! I may be dumb to vote Bush, but I'm not stupid enough to vote for Kerry promising to raise my taxes. I know which side my bread is buttered on.

bush would like you to think that by not allowing his tax cuts for the wealthy to become permanent that kerry and the dems are really raising taxes. deception is reality. in truth, someone has to pay for bush's big spending ways, and i don't mind paying my share (but not yours). all i know is that with clinton in office and taxes higher (though comparatively our rates are low), we had a surplus, not a hydrogen bomb blast crater of a deficit. yes, revenues from the tech bubble helped, but at least we weren't so fiscally irresponsible. bush is a disaster, the worst kind of poseur.

Plus, Bush is more big-spending Democrat than any big-spending democrat. And more nannyish than the most nannyish of Democrats.

"With Clinton in office...we had a surplus." A surplus of what? Since the creation of our nation there has always been a deficit. It did not start with one party--it's been there from the get-go. And it will never go away as long as we remain greedy consumers.

did we or did we not have a surplus when clinton left office? yes we did. that we have always run deficits is not an argument when it is contrary to the facts. as mr spock often tells an incredulous captain kirk: "And yet, Captain, it is so." Whether years 9-12 of a Clinton presidency would have sustained that surplus, is another question. I'd like to think we'd be doing better than we are now.

I'd like to hear the words "President Hillary Clinton."

On Stern going after Bush, big deal. His listeners already loathe Bush anyway. And just how many of Stern's fans hit the voting booths?

On Prez Hillary. Coronaries for half the conservatives, dangerously high blood pressure for the rest. Just about the same ratio of Bush hating lefters. Polarizing is here to stay looks like. One thing that she has over Kerry is non-equivocating backbone. Another 9/11 with her in the oval office and mama bear just might come out growling. Bush actually tiptoed early on trying to get the Dems to get on the bus. I really doubt Hillary would ease into a response to Islamic terrorists. They are messing with her younguns. Could get that Arkansas temper riled up real good. Wouldn't have any trouble getting the Repubs locked and loaded no matter which way the political winds blow. This prez Hillary thing might work...'course we'd be back to lots of new taxes, rising interest rates, and nasty inflation. Then again, I believe that scenario is inevitable regardless of who is prez.

"'course we'd be back to lots of new taxes, rising interest rates, and nasty inflation."

Oh I'm sorry...what is it we have now?

I'm firmly in the ABB camp.

Bush is a "nanny" but you want Hillary in charge? "Religious fundamentalists" are "the greatest threat to our democracy"? I suppose that's true if you mean the bunch that just slaughtered hundreds of people in Madrid but something tells me you're more worried about the public's access to puerile shock humor.

and who would that autistic monkey be? We really have no choice. If you despise Bush as well as Kerry, there's really no one else to vote for. I don't agree with Bush on the environment, as I used to be a member of PETA for less than a month, but under Gore or G-D knows who, Saddam would still be in power.
Bush Country by John Podhoretz really is quite clarifying.

And Pres Hillary? Is this more about having a woman in office than the safety of our country? www.nicedoggie.net is a great blog, go check it out.
Btw, were you joking?

I was for intervention in the Middle East, and it's good that we've prevented more murders and horror in Iraq. What we should have been doing is finding and decimating Bin Laden and Co -- going into Iraq, much as I support the troops -- and I do -- and I'm even sending off a case of supplies to a US mil. chaplain for an Iraqi orphanage...going into Iraq because Bin Laden blew up the WTC is like cutting off your arm when you have a tumor in your left ear.

As for liking Hillary because she's a woman? Come on, you know me better than that. I'd take a transvestite, woman, man -- it's about their politics, period. I've been following Hillary Clinton since way before I ever knew who Bill was -- since her stuff on children's rights ran in NY Review Of Books. I think her health care idea is hideous -- but don't be so sure Democrats would have done worse than Bush in the Middle East. Clinton prepped Bush on terrorism, and the threat of the planes, etc. as weapons -- and Bush ignored the info.

She's not a horrible woman, but to foreign policy, I believe she's incompetent. Bush is a better leader on national security, I personally believe. Plus, as a Jew, I don't agree with her position on Israel.
Bin Laden may be dead, for all we know.

If you really want anybody but Bush, yet you understand Kerry is not worth voting for either, why not Vote For Ralph Nader??? That would "send a message".