posted March 13, 2005 02:07 PM              

Published: March 13, 2005

t is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.

"Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

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To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.

Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.

Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.

Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.

An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.

It is also a world where all participants benefit.

CONTINUED...

posted March 13, 2005 03:32 PM              

A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.
Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army.
"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.
"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said.
He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting."
"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.
Abou Rabeh was interviewed in Lebanon.
http://www.wokr13.tv/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=422B960A-26BA-4891-9E60-21C8818788D4

posted March 13, 2005 03:34 PM              

The Bush administration has floated the name of Otto Juan Reich for possible nomination as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (see Al Kamen, “In the Loop,” The Washington Post, 15 February 2001). Mr. Reich served in the Reagan administration as assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development (AID) from 1981 to 1983, then as the first director of the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (S/LPD) from 1983 to 1986, and finally as ambassador to Venezuela.
Mr. Reich’s tenure at the Office of Public Diplomacy generated major controversy during the exposure of the Iran-contra scandal and left an extensive document trail, some of the highlights of which are included in this Briefing Book. For example:

* The Comptroller-General of the U.S., a Republican appointee, found that some of the efforts of Mr. Reich’s public diplomacy office were “prohibited, covert propaganda activities,” “beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities….” The same September 30, 1987 letter concluded that Mr. Reich’s office had violated “a restriction on the State Department’s annual appropriations prohibiting the use of federal funds for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by Congress.” The letter also said, “We do not believe, however, that available evidence will support a conclusion that the applicable antilobbying statute has been violated.”

* The General Accounting Office in an October 30, 1987 letter and report found that Mr. Reich’s office “generally did not follow federal regulations governing contractual procedures” in its contracting “with numerous individuals and several companies.” The GAO quoted Mr. Reich as saying “he was generally unfamiliar with the details related to the office’s contracting procedures. Instead he relied on his staff as well as State’s procurement office to ensure that federal regulations were adhered to.”

* The bipartisan report of the Congressional Iran-contra committees (November 1987, p. 34) found that “[i]n fact, ‘public diplomacy’ turned out to mean public relations-lobbying, all at taxpayers’ expense.” The committees concluded their discussion by quoting the Comptroller-General’s findings in the September 30, 1987 letter. A detailed critique of the public diplomacy operation, written by Iran-contra committee staff, was deleted from the Iran-contra report after heated partisan debate (see Robert Parry and Peter Kornbluh, “Iran-Contra’s Untold Story,” Foreign Policy, No. 72, Fall 1988, pp. 3-30).

* A staff report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee (September 7, 1988) summarized various investigations of Mr. Reich’s office and concluded that “senior CIA officials with backgrounds in covert operations, as well as military intelligence and psychological operations specialists from the Department of Defense, were deeply involved in establishing and participating in a domestic political and propaganda operation run through an obscure bureau in the Department of State which reported directly to the National Security Council rather than through the normal State Department channels…. Through irregular sole-source, no-bid contracts, S/LPD established and maintained a private network of individuals and organizations whose activities were coordinated with, and sometimes directed by, Col. Oliver North as well as officials of the NSC and S/LPD. These private individuals and organizations raised and spent funds for the purpose of influencing Congressional votes and U.S. domestic news media. This network raised and funneled money to off-shore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or to the secret Lake Resources bank account in Switzerland for disbursement at the direction of Oliver North. Almost all of these activities were hidden from public view and many of the key individuals involved were never questioned or interviewed by the Iran/Contra Committees.”

* Mr. Reich responded in detail to questioning by staff of the Iran/Contra Committees in a formal deposition on July 15, 1987. The full text of the 122-page deposition is included here. Part of the questioning revolved around a lengthy March 20, 1985 memo written by Oliver North to National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, providing “the chronology of events aimed at securing Congressional approval for renewed support to the Nicaraguan Resistance Forces.” The chronology contains repeated listings of actions to be taken by “State/LPD (Reich)”; however, Mr. Reich testified that he “never saw it as a tasking memorandum” and that he was unaware that his contractors were involved in lobbying efforts or ads targeted on specific members of Congress. North’s memo also referred to an advertisement (“53 cents per day supports a freedom fighter”) that was off-message; the text of the ad was attached to Mr. Reich’s deposition as an exhibit.

* On March 12, 1985, one of Mr. Reich’s staff, Daniel “Jake” Jacobowitz, on detail from the U.S. Air Force, wrote a detailed “public diplomacy action plan” that paralleled the North chronology, with candid commentary about the lobbying campaign including a three-item list of audiences: “U.S. Congress,” “U.S. media,” and “interest groups.”

* On March 13, 1985, Mr. Reich’s deputy, Johnathan S. Miller, wrote a two-page report to White House director of communications Pat Buchanan, giving what Miller called “[f]ive illustrative examples of the Reich ‘White Propaganda’ operation.” These included op-eds the office had written or placed covertly, without any acknowledgement of the government’s role, and planned op-eds under the contra leaders’ bylines.

* Mr. Reich sought and obtained staff for his office by getting them detailed from various U.S. military units engaged in “psychological operations.” The declassified documents include requests for these detailees on March 5, 1985 and on September 18, 1985, a staff discussion of the need for detailees on December 10, 1985, a December 16, 1985 request for certificates of appreciation for five detailees, and a plaintive memo to NSC staffer and former CIA official Walt Raymond on January 5, 1986 complaining that the Pentagon had turned down a new request for detailees. Perhaps the most illuminating discussion of the psyops detailees can be found in a May 30, 1985 memo from Jake Jacobowitz to Mr. Reich about the impending arrival of five detailees, calling them the “A-team” and including the comment “Since he is a PSYOP type he will also be looking for exploitable themes and trends….”

posted March 13, 2005 04:50 PM            

I still don't understand how leftists can be so dense. You've had sooooo many clues.

Saddam was never in hiding, he's a CIA man. Don't you remember the CIA set Saddam up to rule Iraq years ago. The US never had to hunt for Saddam, they always knew exactly where he was. It was Saddam's doubles who were running all over Iraq and showing up just to be seen...to keep the illusion alive.

You just don't get it. The Iraq war was never about Iraq's oil. Give Bush credit, he's a Texan and Texans think big. It's always been about controlling ALL the oil in the Middle East.

Look what's happening. Iraq is being pacified, Syria is pulling back their troops from Lebanon, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are already in the Bush camp and Iran was always the target. Libya was an extra added bonus on the oil front and I do mean front.

So, soon the Iranian clerics will get the message they can't hold out against Bush. When that happens, things will get back to the way they were before that unmitigated disaster Jimmy Carter turned Iran over to the radical Islamic fundamentalist mullahs.

Soon, Saddam will be installed as the behind the scenes ruler over the entire region but he's our guy and it will once again be Pax Americana.

posted March 13, 2005 04:58 PM            

As for bin Laden....he's here, he's there, he's everywhere but the reason no one can find bin Laden is because he's bunking in the spare bedroom at the Bush Crawford, Texas ranch. Don't you remember...the bin Ladens are AH buddies of the Bushes. You should have had your first clue when W bought a camel for the ranch...in August, 2001.

posted March 13, 2005 05:13 PM              

Some US assertions from the last war on Iraq still appear dubious.

By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

MOSCOW – When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf – to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait – part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.

But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert.

"It was a pretty serious fib," says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story.

The White House is now making its case. to Congress and the public for another invasion of Iraq; President George W. Bush is expected to present specific evidence of the threat posed by Iraq during a speech to the United Nations next week.

But past cases of bad intelligence or outright disinformation used to justify war are making experts wary. The questions they are raising, some based on examples from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, highlight the importance of accurate information when a democracy considers military action.

"My concern in these situations, always, is that the intelligence that you get is driven by the policy, rather than the policy being driven by the intelligence," says former US Rep. Lee Hamilton (D) of Indiana, a 34-year veteran lawmaker until 1999, who served on numerous foreign affairs and intelligence committees, and is now director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The Bush team "understands it has not yet carried the burden of persuasion [about an imminent Iraqi threat], so they will look for any kind of evidence to support their premise," Mr. Hamilton says. "I think we have to be skeptical about it."

Examining the evidence

Shortly before US strikes began in the Gulf War, for example, the St. Petersburg Times asked two experts to examine the satellite images of the Kuwait and Saudi Arabia border area taken in mid-September 1990, a month and a half after the Iraqi invasion. The experts, including a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who specialized in desert warfare, pointed out the US build-up – jet fighters standing wing-tip to wing-tip at Saudi bases – but were surprised to see almost no sign of the Iraqis.

"That [Iraqi buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn't exist," Ms. Heller says. Three times Heller contacted the office of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (now vice president) for evidence refuting the Times photos or analysis – offering to hold the story if proven wrong.

The official response: "Trust us." To this day, the Pentagon's photographs of the Iraqi troop buildup remain classified.

After the war, the House Armed Services Committee issued a report on lessons learned from the Persian Gulf War. It did not specifically look at the early stages of the Iraqi troop buildup in the fall, when the Bush administration was making its case to send American forces. But it did conclude that at the start of the ground war in February, the US faced only 183,000 Iraqi troops, less than half the Pentagon estimate. In 1996, Gen. Colin Powell, who is secretary of state today, told the PBS documentary program Frontline: "The Iraqis may not have been as strong as we thought they were...but that doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me. We put in place a force that would deal with it – whether they were 300,000, or 500,000."

John MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine and author of "Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War," says that considering the number of senior officials shared by both Bush administrations, the American public should bear in mind the lessons of Gulf War propaganda.

"These are all the same people who were running it more than 10 years ago," Mr. MacArthur says. "They'll make up just about anything ... to get their way."

On Iraq, analysts note that little evidence so far of an imminent threat from Mr. Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has been made public.

Critics, including some former United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq, say no such evidence exists. Mr. Bush says he will make his decision to go to war based on the "best" intelligence.

"You have to wonder about the quality of that intelligence," says Mr. Hamilton at Woodrow Wilson.

"This administration is capable of any lie ... in order to advance its war goal in Iraq," says a US government source in Washington with some two decades of experience in intelligence, who would not be further identified. "It is one of the reasons it doesn't want to have UN weapons inspectors go back in, because they might actually show that the probability of Iraq having [threatening illicit weapons] is much lower than they want us to believe."

The roots of modern war propaganda reach back to British World War II stories about German troops bayoneting babies, and can be traced through the Vietnam era and even to US campaigns in Somalia and Kosovo.

While the adage has it that "truth is the first casualty of war," senior administration officials say they cherish their credibility, and would not lie.

In a press briefing last September, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted occasions during World War II when false information about US troop movements was leaked to confuse the enemy. He paraphrased Winston Churchill, saying: "Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies."

But he added that "my fervent hope is that we will be able to manage our affairs in a way that that will never happen. And I am 69 years old and I don't believe it's ever happened that I have lied to the press, and I don't intend to start now."

Last fall, the Pentagon secretly created an "Office of Strategic Influence." But when its existence was revealed, the ensuing media storm over reports that it would launch disinformation campaigns prompted its official closure in late February.

Commenting on the furor, President Bush pledged that the Pentagon will "tell the American people the truth."

Critics familiar with the precedent set in recent decades, however, remain skeptical. They point, for example, to the Office of Public Diplomacy run by the State Department in the 1980s. Using staff detailed from US military "psychological operations" units, it fanned fears about Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista regime with false "intelligence" leaks.

Besides placing a number of proContra, antiSandinista stories in the national US media as part of a "White Propaganda" campaign, that office fed the Miami Herald a make-believe story that the Soviet Union had given chemical weapons to the Sandinistas. Another tale – which happened to emerge the night of President Ronald Reagan's reelection victory – held that Soviet MiG fighters were on their way to Nicaragua.

The office was shut down in 1987, after a report by the US Comptroller-General found that some of their efforts were "prohibited, covert propaganda activities."

More recently, in the fall of 1990, members of Congress and the American public were swayed by the tearful testimony of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only as Nayirah.

In the girl's testimony before a congressional caucus, well-documented in MacArthur's book "Second Front" and elsewhere, she described how, as a volunteer in a Kuwait maternity ward, she had seen Iraqi troops storm her hospital, steal the incubators, and leave 312 babies "on the cold floor to die."

Seven US Senators later referred to the story during debate; the motion for war passed by just five votes. In the weeks after Nayirah spoke, President Bush senior invoked the incident five times, saying that such "ghastly atrocities" were like "Hitler revisited."

But just weeks before the US bombing campaign began in January, a few press reports began to raise questions about the validity of the incubator tale.

Later, it was learned that Nayirah was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington and had no connection to the Kuwait hospital.

She had been coached – along with the handful of others who would "corroborate" the story – by senior executives of Hill and Knowlton in Washington, the biggest global PR firm at the time, which had a contract worth more than $10 million with the Kuwaitis to make the case for war.

"We didn't know it wasn't true at the time," Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser, said of the incubator story in a 1995 interview with the London-based Guardian newspaper. He acknowledged "it was useful in mobilizing public opinion."

Intelligence as political tool

Selective use of intelligence information is not particular to any one presidential team, says former Congressman Hamilton.

"This is not a problem unique to George Bush. It's every president I've known, and I've worked with seven or eight of them," Hamilton says. "All, at some time or another, used intelligence to support their political objectives.

"Information is power, and the temptation to use information to achieve the results you want is almost overwhelming," he says. "The whole intelligence community knows exactly what the president wants [regarding Iraq], and most are in their jobs because of the president – certainly the people at the top – and they will do everything they can to support the policy.

"I'm always skeptical about intelligence," adds Hamilton, who has been awarded medallions from both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. "It's not as pure as the driven snow."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html

posted March 13, 2005 06:31 PM              

Many soldiers, same letter
Newspapers around U.S. get identical missives from Iraq

WASHINGTON -- Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours.
And all the letters are the same.

A Gannett News Service search found identical letters from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, also known as "The Rock," in 11 newspapers, including Snohomish, Wash.

The Olympian received two identical letters signed by different hometown soldiers: Spc. Joshua Ackler and Spc. Alex Marois, who is now a sergeant. The paper declined to run either because of a policy not to publish form letters.

The five-paragraph letter talks about the soldiers' efforts to re-establish police and fire departments, and build water and sewer plants in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where the unit is based.

"The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored, and we are a large part of why that has happened," the letter reads.

It describes people waving at passing troops and children running up to shake their hands and say thank you.

It's not clear who wrote the letter or organized sending it to soldiers' hometown papers.

Six soldiers reached by GNS directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it, and one said he didn't even sign it.

Marois, 23, told his family he signed the letter, said Moya Marois, his stepmother. But she said he was puzzled why it was sent to the newspaper in Olympia. He attended high school in Olympia but no longer considers the city home, she said. Moya Marois and Alex's father, Les, now live near Kooskia, Idaho.

A seventh soldier didn't know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va.

"When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: 'What letter?' " Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. "This is just not his (writing) style."

He spoke to his son, Pfc. Nick Deaconson, at a hospital where he was recovering from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in both his legs.

Sgt. Christopher Shelton, who signed a letter that ran in the Snohomish Herald, said Friday that his platoon sergeant had distributed the letter and asked soldiers for the names of their hometown newspapers. Soldiers were asked to sign the letter if they agreed with it, said Shelton, whose shoulder was wounded during an ambush earlier this year.

"Everything it said is dead accurate. We've done a really good job," he said by phone from Italy, where he was preparing to return to Iraq.

Sgt. Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which counts the 503rd as one of its units, said he was told a soldier wrote the letter, but he didn't know who. He said the brigade's public affairs unit was not involved.

"When he asked other soldiers in his unit to sign it, they did," Oliver explained in an e-mail response to a GNS inquiry. "Someone, somewhere along the way, took it upon themselves to mail it to the various editors of newspapers across the country."

Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th infantry Division that is heading operations in north-central Iraq, said he had not heard about the letter-writing campaign.

Neither had Lt. Cmdr. Nick Balice, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.

A recent poll suggests that Americans are increasingly skeptical of America's prolonged involvement in Iraq. A USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll released Sept. 23 found 50 percent believe that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, down from 73 percent in April.

The letter talks about the soldiers' mission, saying, "one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from ten jumbo jets." It describes Kirkuk as "a hot and dusty city of just over a million people." It tells about the progress they have made.

"The fruits of all our soldiers' efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school," the letter reads. "I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well."

Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a military public affairs officer whose name he couldn't remember about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier said he did not sign any letter.

Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter's sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or spell out his own accomplishments.

"It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade," Grueser said by phone from a base in Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.

Moya Marois said she is proud of her stepson Alex, the former Olympia resident. But she worries that the letter tries to give legitimacy to a war she doesn't think was justified.

"We're going to support our son," she said. But "there are a lot of Americans that are not in support of this war that would like to see them returned home, and think it's going to get worse."
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031011/frontpage/121390_Printer.shtml

posted March 13, 2005 06:51 PM            

quote:

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oh yes...vision eh??...but not enough brains to take the lens cap off

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Hmmm, well I would think you would be more careful Petron. Passing judgment on someone else's brain power when you don't know what the system of government is in your own country strikes me as utterly bizarre.

quote:

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i'm glad i live in a Constitutional Democratic Republic...not a republic or a democracy

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posted March 14, 2005 06:10 PM              

The essential foundations of prosperity and progress remain democracy and the rule of law --bush jr.'s propagandist

Turkey has found what nations of every culture and every region have found: If justice is the goal, then democracy is the answer. --bush jr.'s propagandist

Our nation has always been more secure when freedom is on the march. As hope and freedom spread, the appeal of terror and hate will fade. And there is not a democratic nation in our world that threatens the security of the United States. The best way to ensure the success of democracy is through the advance of democracy. --bush jr.'s propagandist

America joined with other members of the Organization of American States to create the Inter-American Democratic Charter. This charter recognizes democracy as the fundamental right of all peoples in the Americas and pledges our governments to promoting and defending the institutions of liberty. --bush jr.'s propagandist

We're at war with terrorists who hate what we stand for: liberty, democracy, tolerance and the rights and dignity of every person --bush jr.'s propagandist

The transition from dictatorship to democracy is hard, and will take time -- but it is worth every effort. --bush jr.'s propagandist

Some people in Muslim cultures identify democracy with the worst of Western popular culture, and want no part of it. And I assure them, when I speak about the blessings of liberty, coarse videos and crass commercialism are not what I have in mind. There is nothing incompatible between democratic values and high standards of decency --bush jr.'s propagandist

Democratic values also do not require citizens to abandon their faith. No democracy can allow religious people to impose their own view of perfection on others, because this invites cruelty and arrogance that are foreign to every faith. And all people in a democracy have the right to their own religious beliefs. But all democracies are made stronger when religious people teach and demonstrate upright conduct - family commitment, respect for the law, and compassion for the weak. Democratic societies should welcome, not fear, the participation of the faithful. --bush jr.'s propagandist

In addition, democracy does not involve automatic agreement with other democracies. Free governments have a reputation for independence, which Turkey has certainly earned. That is the way democracy works. We deal honestly with each other, we make our own decisions - and yet, in the end, the disagreements of the moment are far outweighed by the ideals we share. --bush jr.'s propagandist

Because representative governments reflect their people, every democracy has its own structure, traditions, and opinions. There are, however, certain commitments of free government that do not change from place to place. The promise of democracy is fulfilled in freedom of speech, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, economic freedom, respect for women, and religious tolerance. These are the values that honor the dignity of every life, and set free the creative energies that lead to progress. --bush jr.'s propagandist

Achieving these commitments of democracy can require decades of effort and reform. --bush jr.'s propagandist

Democracy leads to justice within a nation - and the advance of democracy leads to greater security among nations. --bush jr.'s propagandist

Democracy, by definition, must be chosen and defended by the people themselves --bush jr.'s propagandist

In just 15 months, the Iraqi people have left behind one of the worst regimes in the Middle East, and their country is becoming the worlds newest democracy --bush jr.'s propagandist

The terrorists are doing everything they can to undermine Iraqi democracy, by attacking all who stand for order and justice, and committing terrible crimes to break the will of free nations --bush jr.'s propagandist

And Poland has found what America has found, that democracy and free markets are honorable and just and indispensable to international progress. --bush jr.'s propagandist

There is no doubt that the might and the dynamism of the United States originate in the free thought and entrepreneurship of a free men, energy of democracy that continues to search for new solutions. And it is worth emphasizing that the sovereignty of Polish people, regained 13 years ago, takes our country down the same routes as the ones that have been followed by America towards the faster development of democracy, economy and civic society. --bush jr.'s propagandist

posted March 14, 2005 08:30 PM              

--president bush's speechwriter

posted June 26, 2005 11:18 PM              

quote:

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republics are a dime a dozen....i'm glad i live in a Constitutional Democratic Republic...not a republic or a democracy.--Petron

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quote:

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Glad to hear you've finally left the United States Petron.--jwhop

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quote:

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Hmmm, well I would think you would be more careful Petron. Passing judgment on someone else's brain power when you don't know what the system of government is in your own country strikes me as utterly bizarre.-jwhop

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****

quote:

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The United States is not a direct democracy but is instead, a Constitutional Republic--jwhop

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posted June 27, 2005 12:09 AM            

"It was a sunny day in Philadelphia in 1787, and the Constitutional convention had just finished its work. A woman, watching the esteemed gentlemen congratulate themselves, approached one of the young nation's leading statesmen, Ben Franklin. "Mr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?" she asked. "A Republic, madam," Franklin quickly answered. "If you can keep it."" http://www.wealth4freedom.com/A_Republic.htm

I don't give a flying flip that politicians, the press, school teachers or anyone else makes the mistake of referring to our system of government as a "democracy". That issue was settled long ago and the Constitution, which guarantees to every state a Republican form of government has never been amended to permit a democracy.

Of course, I wouldn't expect you to take the word of Benjamin Franklin that our government is a Republic or the Constitution itself which says so because what, after all could one of the founding fathers of America know about the system of government they formed by writing and adopting the Constitution?

posted June 27, 2005 12:10 AM              

"The older jwhop gets.......the dumber."