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Posted: 1:00 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004

Today's Nuze: October 06, 2004 

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By Neal Boortz

Today's Nuze: October 06, 2004
Wednesday, October 6, 2004 -- 28 days left

THE VEEP DEBATE

The media is hard at work this morning trying to portray last night's Vice-presidential debate as a draw.  Close?  Yes.  But while I called the first presidential debate for Kerry, this one goes to Cheney.  I tried until my teeth itched and my hair hurt trying to come up with some sort of an analogy that would describe the interaction between Edwards and Cheney.  The best I could come up with was the debate looked like a teenager (Edwards)  arguing with a parent (Cheney) over household rules. 

Admittedly, the debate was somewhat boring.   Both sides got their digs in, but I don't know if it was worth staying up for 90 minutes.  The vice president was his usual self...calm, cool and collected..and the trial lawyer was his usual self...slick, phony and smooth-talking.  So how did it go?

Much better than the first presidential debate.  Cheney held his own, and called out The Poodle and The Tort King on several issues.  As predicted, John Edwards brought up Halliburton (for those of you scoring at home, he said "Halliburton" six times.)  And on this very issue, John Edwards lied to the American people.  Let's break down the Halliburton myth for a second.

The Kerry/Edwards campaign likes to talk about the supposed "no-bid contracts" that Halliburton got in Iraq.  They insinuate that Dick Cheney greased the skids at the Defense Department so that he could line the pockets of his buddies at his former company.  That is false, and the Democrats know it.  Consider these facts:

  • The supposed "no-bid contracts" took no bids because Halliburton was the only company capable of providing the services needed at the time.  No other bids were taken because no other company could do the work.  The congress has passed specific laws that allow for the granting of no-bid contracts during emergencies.  Somehow Edwards forgot to mention this, and he forgot to mention Halliburton was also awarded no-bid contracts by the Clinton administration.  So ... Edwards loses this argument.
  • Edwards and Kerry also imply that Dick Cheney is getting money from these Halliburton contracts.  The fact is that any money Cheney received from Halliburton was for work he performed before he ran for vice president.  The truth hurts, and Edwards was working very hard last night to avoid any pain.

Surprisingly, NBC pointed out the no-bid contract lie, but the Democrats generally get a pass on it.  Unfortunately, when Cheney responded to the Halliburton situation, he directed people to factcheck.com, which directs people to that anti-American Bush-bashing socialist George Soros' site.  He meant factcheck.org.  Big oops.  Cheney also said at one point that the debate was the first time he had met Edwards, but later acknowledged meeting him on other occasions.  Edwards must have been rather forgettable.  I'm sure the press will point that out over and over again.

Cheney did manage to land some blows in the debate, taking Edwards to task for his awful Senate attendance, his misleading statement about the United States taking 90% of the "coalition casualties" in Iraq, and his ambulance-chasing litigation.  Overall, he did much better than his boss did in last week's debate with The Poodle.   I wonder if it's OK to upstage the boss like that.

By the way ... just a bit more about this "90% of the casualties" line.  Edward is technically right if you only consider causalities suffered by coalition nations.  To reach this figure you have to totally ignore all casualties suffered by Iraqis fighting for their own freedom.   This is in keeping with the Kerry-Edwards game plan.  Iraqis are never to be given any credit for their own efforts and sacrifices in trying to build a new government.  That's why Kerry slammed, demeaned and insulted interim Prime Minister Allawi when he visited the US two weeks ago.

The next debate is Friday night in St. Louis...it will be a townhall-style debate between the president and The Souffle. 

THE BIG LIE AT WORK

Edwards did try to make use of the time-honored tactic of "The Big Lie."  You make an untrue statement enough times and eventually people will come to accept that statement as the truth.  The "Big Lie" promoted by Edwards last night was that Cheney and the Bush Administration have been pushing the idea that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved with the 9/11 attacks on the United States.  Simply put, the Bush administration has NOT made that connection.  But ... if you repeat that line often enough maybe people will believe it. 

ABOUT THE DEBATE RULES

I could be wrong here, but it appeared that on at least two occasions last night John Edwards butted in with a response to Cheney's statements when the debate rules called for no such rules.  If this is the case, why did Gwen Ifill let him get away with it?

THAT "GLOBAL TEST" LINE   

Undoubtedly John Kerry wishes he could have that line from last Thursday's debate back.  Kerry already knew that the American people were suspicious of his past history of calling for UN approval for US military actions.  The last thing he wanted to do was to fuel those suspicions, but fuel them he did with his "global test" line.

So .. what did Kerry really mean?  Did he mean that the US would take whatever military action was necessary to protect our people and our country and then try to explain his actions to the world?  Or did he actually mean to say that the US would first seek a passing score on the "global test" and then take the appropriate military action?

I found this gem in yesterday's Taranto column. 

The real point about Kerry's "global test" comment, though is that it contradicts what he said immediately before. Here, again, is what Kerry said:

No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test, where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

This is one of those "but"-head remarks we noted Friday. Kerry is trying to have it both ways: to reserve "the right to pre-empt in any way necessary" while also insisting on "the global test." Reader Ruth Papazian offers some insight on what this really means:

It's the placement of the conditional but that is most revealing of Kerry's true inclinations regarding pre-emptive use of force against countries harboring terrorists.

Consider these two statements:

(a) I will let you go to the concert, but I want you to clean your room.

(b) I want you to clean your room, but I will let you go to the concert.

In statement (a), permission to go to the concert is conditional upon cleaning your room. In statement (b), permission to go to the concert is not conditional upon cleaning your room.

Consider Kerry's "global test" statement with the phrases before and after the conditional "but" flipped:

You've got to do it in a way that passes the global test, but no president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to pre-empt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

The first statement suggests that the historical right of pre-emptive action by a U.S. president is conditional upon first convincing the rest of the world that our actions are justified. The second statement suggests that while global considerations are important, the right of pre-emptive action by a U.S. president will never be conditioned upon whether the rest of the world thinks our reasons are legitimate.

The man who would utter the second statement will not hesitate to pull the trigger. The man who uttered the first statement will.

Now that's one smart lady.

FINAL IRAQ WEAPONS REPORT DUE

Get ready for another pro-Kerry onslaught from the media...this time involving the final report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq survey group.  He is set to report his findings today.

In the report, Duelfer is expected to say that he could not find any stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.  He will say, however, that he did find signs of idle programs that Saddam could have started back up to produce the weapons of mass destruction.  In other words, it's a wash.

The first thing is...just because the Iraq Survey Group didn't find any weapons of mass destruction doesn't mean there weren't any.  There still exists the possibility that they were hidden, or transported out of the country.  Remember, the entire stockpile of anthrax that Saddam Hussein was supposed to have could be hidden in one suitcase.  Just one.  It could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, and it could be hidden in one suitcase. 

There's something else you need to know about these chemical and biological weapons.  Once you have the technology down, the manufacture of these weapons is no really big deal.  It's not like making a 2000 pound bomb.  You get a room, you get the ingredients or the biological agents, you mix them up and you have your deadly weapon.  Terrorists don't need expensive delivery systems.  Just give them a container and they're on their way.   We know Saddam Hussein had these weapons.  He used them.  Tens of thousands of human beings died when he used them.  He had the capacity to make them and use them again ... quickly.  It would have been insanity to leave this man in a position to do so.

THEY WERE UNION GOONS ... SO NOBODY IS REALLY SURPRISED

A group of protesters ransacked a Bush - Cheney campaign office in Orlando yesterday.  They were asked to leave, and they did not.  They generally trashed the place.  We learn now that the protestors were union members.  AFL-CIO.  Well ... that explains it.  Union members have a history of ignoring the law when it comes to pushing their causes.  Prior to the age of terrorism the number one cause of the illegal use of explosives in this country was union violence.  Unions are mobs.  Mobs don't think.  A local AFL-CIO spokesman says that the Orlando protest "didn't go as planned."  Note, please, that this neither constitutes an apology nor a condemnation of the actions of the union members.  Do we expect more of the same before the election?

Another violent incident at the Bush-Cheney campaign office in Bearden, Tennessee.  Shots were fired from a passing car into the headquarters.  No word on whether or not the shooter was a union member.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Don't forget to vote in today's AJC.com fantasy presidential election...the Talkmaster vs. Cynthia McKinney.  Early returns are very encouraging.

Here is a full transcript of last night's 90-minute vice-presidential debate between Dick Cheney and The Tort King.  If you want to check out the website Cheney mentioned about Halliburton, it's Factcheck.org, not .com.

The House of Representatives voted down a bill calling for the reinstatement of the draft by an overwhelming majority - 402 to 2.  Will the media and the Democrats shut up about it now?  Of course not.

Mockumentary "filmmaker" Michael Moore is under fire for trying to bribe college students into voting against Bush...by passing out underwear and food. One he probably needs and the other he could do without.

The Poodle is finally admitting he won't be able to get the French or the Germans to commit troops to Iraq if he is elected president.  So again, where are the foreign troops going to come from, Senator Kerry?

NBC seemed to be awfully precise in their choice of picture in a story about President Bush.  The Media Research Center has a full report.

There is a ridiculous new policy in higher education where "success equals effort," and grades are not solely based on academic performance.  Walter E. Williams exposes the fraud.

Michelle Malkin talks about the disastrous immigration policies of both candidates, and says neither are doing a single thing to secure the borders.

Two of the most important issues await whomever is inaugurated in 2005: Iran and North Korea's plans to obtain nuclear weapons. Tony Blankley explains.

The Poodle says that the United States has to pass a global test before committing troops to war.  Jonah Goldberg says this is not the only other issue Kerry holds a similar position on.

And now, a letter to Dan Rather...from Professor Mike Adams.  Will Dan write back?  I doubt it.

Saddam is sitting in jail awaiting trial, but William F. Buckley asks the question: what kind of trial?  What are we waiting for?

Donor's organs may have been removed before he was actually dead.

Kerra auctioned off space on her bald head for an anti-Bush tattoo.

Halloween is fast approaching. Do you have a costume...for your cell phone? Your dog will be so jealous.

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