OT: GOP: Character No Longer A Factor

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This is an article by Martin Heldt.

When the GOP finally had a chance to prove to the nation that "character really does count,"they wimped out. They have fallen in behind a candidate who has amply demonstrated that his policy to deal with tough questions is to evade them with carefully planned answers.

Have you ever used cocaine, Governor Bush?

My, that is a rather straightforward question. It would seem to be the perfect question for an easy yes or no response. One certainly can't accuse the press of trickery or tomfoolery with such a clean and simply worded inquiry.

We all know what happened next - - - G W Bush fed us the ridiculous answer that he could pass the seven-year cocaine free timespan for White House staff.

Then his answer kept stretching further and further as GeeDubbya found out that the standards were fifteen years for some lower level Justice Dept positions. Finally, G W Bush clammed up when he found out that the guidelines in both his father's and the Clinton White House allowed for zero cocaine use back to 18 years of age.

If his supporters had had a lick of character themselves they would have slapped him silly.

As it was they sold out their own souls to save him. G W Supporters who had been chanting such anti-drug rhetoric as "build more prisons" and "lock em up, lock em all up" now found themselves saying, "Cocaine doesn't really matter." That is right, these get tough on drug demons had suddenly seen the light and become compassionate conservatives (now you know why the term had to be coined).

Yes, for years these now proven hypocrites screamed "Just say no." So now what do they do? They pick a candidate who just can't say no to drugs.

Even worse for G W Bush and his cronies is the fact that Dubbya can say yes to locking up even young kids for drugs. In fact fourteen-year-old children who are arrested with cocaine --any amount, no matter how slight--now face charges as adults and may be sent to adult facilities to serve their sentences. When they get out even if they are fortunate enough not to have been repeatedly raped and beaten they will still carry the scars of their teen years having been spent behind bars and the weighty chains of a felony conviction locked around their neck for life. And don't forget that these are Texas rat-hole jails and prisons.

It is a safe bet that they'll never run for president--because felons lose their rights to vote and hold office.

-- y2k dave (xsdaa111@hotmail.com), September 22, 1999

Answers

Good article. Looks like the candidates in the next election won't be worth the powder to blow them to hell.

-- a (a@a.a), September 22, 1999.

The drug war has been a miserable failure and an excuse to enact draconian laws. I would love to see the pressure on GW to force some equality on the issue. If he can be a "fine upstanding citizen" and run for public office in spite of "mistakes" of his youth, then the very least he should do is pardon anyone behind bars for mere possession, and push for a rethinking of the whole anti-drug business/war.

But then I would also love to see total Y2K compliance.

Fat chance of either.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 23, 1999.


Vannevar was a mighty oak. Goerge was a Bush. GW is a shrub.

Cocaine and other drug laws are the front line of the class/race war in America. Double standards are the norm.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), September 23, 1999.


This election I don't think it's going to matter if the GOP candidate has character or IS a character. Same for the Democrats, with their current no-character, character in the White House.

If things "only" go economically bad because of Y2K but are still under control enough for an election we may see a third party win big, simply because the voters will want to select "None Of The Above". That and a campaign slogan of "Y2K: THEY knew but didn't warn you."

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), September 23, 1999.


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