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kerry vs bush 2

9 October 2004 _ 02h19m35 EDT
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~ the discussion over the debates is overwhelming; something can always be added, but we find that interest is already saturated. so, avoiding the post-debate debates on policy and style, we will mention a couple of personal points/grievances here, so that one might get a sense of what made us grin and/or hammer the arm rest with a clenched fist:

  1. how can bush fail to see the contradiction in his claim that he will only appoint supreme court justices who will interpret the constitution without any personal prejudice, and then demand that they follow his personal belief that the pledge to the flag should contain the clause ‘under god’?
  2. when kerry was answering question #12, concerning the environment, he referred to the lady who had asked question #4, which concerned international opinion of the u.s., by her name.
  3. bush doesn’t understand the dred scott case
  4. are we expected to believe that that weepy eyed question about federal funding for abortion was coming from an ‘undecided voter’? for fuck’s sake are we even still talking about abortion? the plane is about to crash into the goddamn mountain here; can’t we put off this parlour room musing about christ and ethics until we don’t have any real problems? maybe when one out of eight of our fellow americans isn’t fucking living in poverty we can argue about when a fetus is a life and whether it even matters anymore. right now, if you are basing your vote on someone’s opinion about abortion – for or against- then your priorities are sociopathic.
  5. to the woman in the red jacket who finished off the questioning, we raise our tea in salute. we noticed that bush did not shake your hand, for that you are toasted a second time.
  6. ‘liberal’ doesn’t mean anything, anymore
  7. just look at kerry’s response to the supreme court appointment question, and tell us if that does not clinch the decision for you.
a dot

here is the aforementioned quote concerning the supreme court, to save you the trouble of rereading the transcript.

john kerry: A few years ago, when he came to office, the president said, these are his words: What we need are some good conservative judges on the courts. And he said also that his two favorite justices are Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas. So you get a pretty good sense of where he’s heading if he were to appoint somebody.

Now, here’s what I believe. I don’t believe we need a good conservative judge and I don’t believe we need a good liberal judge. I don’t believe we need a good judge of that kind of definition on either side. I subscribe to the Justice Potter Stewart standard. He was a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. And he said the mark of a good judge, a good justice, is that when you’re reading their decision, their opinion, you can’t tell if it’s written by a man or woman, a liberal or a conservative, a Muslim, a Jew or a Christian. You just know you’re reading a good judicial decision.

What I want to find if I am privileged to have the opportunity to do it and the Supreme Court of the United States is at stake in this race, ladies and gentlemen, the future of things that matter to you in terms of civil rights: what kind of Justice Department you’ll have, whether we’ll enforce the law. Will we have equal opportunity? Will women’s rights be protected? Will we have equal pay for women, which is going backwards? Will a woman’s right to choose be protected? These are our constitutional rights.

And I want to make sure we have judges who interpret the Constitution of the United States according to the law.

a dot

for the sake of equal time, we have included bush’s quote regarding the supreme court and personal opinion. the fact that that the Pledge of Allegiance is not mentioned in the constitution, and is therefore not above being destroyed by the supreme court, not withstanding, it is baffling to us how bush is able to state that he is opposed to personal opinion entering judicial decisions then give his personal opinion on the pledge as a test for who may be a justice, without actually having the lobes of his brain move in opposite directions. in any event, as stated, you can not strictly interpret the constitution concerning the pledge, because the pledge ain’t in there! the issue is about the trappings of a state religion, not about the pledge. as bush might say when someone says they will spend responsibly: ‘it doesn’t make any sense’.

george w bush: I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.

Uh, let me give you a couple of examples I guess of the kind of person I wouldn’t pick. I wouldn’t pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn’t be said in a school because it had the words ‘under God’ in it. I think that’s an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process, as opposed to strict interpretation of the Constitution.

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'john' responds:

yeah, well, at least afghanistan is having ‘free elections’ today.

'the angry red planet' responds:

thanks for the good news.

“Oct. 9 – Even before the polling booths closed in Afghanistan”s first-ever direct presidential election, all 15 candidates running against incumbent Hamid Karzai denounced the election as a fraud and refused to recognize the results.”

'john' responds:

yeah, but, last night bush said…

public response: