Quote:The inspectors uncovered hidden nuclear and biological weapons programs in Iraq but found virtually nothing new after 1996

Quote:The inspectors worked for nearly four months but found no evidence of any of the weapons the Bush administration had alleged.

Quote:Since the war, a nine-month search by a succession of U.S. teams has failed to find any current stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons

Quote:The Danish military emphasized that the tests were not definitive.

..and, probably most important of all:

Quote:The 120mm mortar shells are thought to be left over from the eight-year war between Iraq and neighboring Iran, which ended in 1988

Now, reconcile that with:

Quote:5,000 gallons of anthrax, several tons of VX nerve gas, between 100 and 500 tons of other toxins including botulinin, mustard gas, ricin and Sarin, 15 to 20 Scud missiles, drones fitted with poison sprays and mobile chemical laboratories

[quote]"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."

I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do a study without bias. The fascists all think the libertarians are too far left, the libertarians all think the Republocrats are too far left, the moderates all think the Democans are too far left, etc.

No matter where you fall, everyone else is relative to your scale.

JB=nail/head

Fibs and Flubs at Democratic Debate
Straining the Facts at Iowa's debate on Sunday Jan. 4

January 5, 2004
Modified: January 6, 2004
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Summary



Dean kept understating the size of the tax cut he wants to repeal and glossed over his political motivation for sealing records from his terms as governor. Kucinich misled with a claim that a steelworker pays as high a tax rate as someone making $400,000 a year. And Gephardt said he'd gladly support a ban on donations from lobbyists, without mentioning the millions he has received from interest groups.


Analysis

Tax Fibs

Dean once again understated the value of the Bush tax cuts that he has promised to repeal:

Dean: Well, we've got to look at the big picture. If you make over $1 million, you've got a $112,000 tax cut. Sixty percent of us got a $304 tax cut .

Actually, as we've said before, half of all US households got more than $470 according to the Tax Policy Center. Dean arrives at his figure by averaging in the cuts received by the bottom 60% of households, which includes all those who paid no taxes in the first place and thus got no cut. But as we've pointed out before, that's just as misleading as averaging in the cuts received by the top 60%, which produces a figure of $1,948. By Dean's logic, President Bush could claim that 60 percent of us got nearly $2,000 and he'd be just as correct as Dean. Which is to say, not very. (All these figures -- Dean's and ours -- are calculated from a table posted by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.)

Dean wasn't alone: Kucinich gave a distorted picture of who bears the tax burden:

Kucinich: Well, you know, when you consider that a steelworker who's making $40,000 a year has virtually the same tax burden as someone who's making $400,000 a year, you see that there are inequities.

But that's generally untrue even after the two Bush tax cuts, as can be seen in this table:

Average Effective Tax Rates 2003

(Combined Federal Income, Social Security and Medicare Taxes)



Income (thousands)
Rate

Less than 10

3.0

10-20

7.0

20-30

13.7

30-40

17.6

40-50

18.8

50-75

20.1

75-100

21.4

100-200

23.7

200-500

26.7

500-1,000

28.7

More than 1,000

27.4

Source: Tax Policy Center Table 2

Even counting Social Security and Medicare taxes along with federal income taxes, households with between $40,000 and $50,000 in income pay an average, combined tax rate just under 19%, much less than the nearly 27% rate paid by those whose income falls between $200,000 and $500,000 a year, according to figures published by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

It is true that a rich person who gets most or all their income from stock dividends and capital gains, and little or nothing from salary or other sources, would pay a lower tax rate than the sort of working person Kucinich mentioned. That's because the tax bill signed last year cuts the rate on dividend and capital gains income to 15%. However, such examples of the idle rich are not the rule and it's incorrect to imply otherwise.





Dean's Papers

Dean said he was protecting the privacy of homosexuals and others by refusing to release immediately all his papers as governor of Vermont .

Dean: I think if somebody is gay and they write me that, and they don't care to have that information disclosed to the public, that's their right.

What Dean failed to mention was that the sealing of his records was also motivated by a desire to protect himself. "We didn't want anything embarrassing appearing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor," he told statehouse reporters last year at the time of the sealing, according to The New York Times and The Boston Globe. And although aides later said Dean was joking, Dean's lawyer David M. Rocchio was quoted by the Times as saying that an

I know Kucinich is a communist, but you've got to love his ballsy attack dog style!

KlutzDio I Wrote:I read the article and looked at the link. This is what I think:

1. First of all, Clinton was run through the gauntlet throughout his presidency. If there was a drop off of tough questions posed to clinton during the 2000 election it might have been because he was not running for president.
2. Al Gore was running for pres. and he did get some tough questions. I remember quite explicitly reporters hounding him on how boring he is/was. They also ran him through the gauntlet on that Asian/Chinese campaign contributions as well as nuclear secrets walking out of the door on his watch.
3. Back to Clinton, the man waged a war while being impeached. I specifically remember the mainstream media ignoring his war asking him, "nevermind about the sorties, tell us more about the cigar! Does Hillary get into that kinky shee-aht?"
4. I think the Dems are getting more airtime now for several reasons and they are as follows:
A. Bush waged a war that is not as popular as previous wars, with only 55% really, really approving. Dems are challenging him on this just like GOPpers were challenging Clinton on their war, just like Dems challenged HW Bush on his war, just like Repugnicans challenged Johnson on his war and on and on through history. If one party is waging war, then the opposite party will criticize it. Point is, war is controversial, especially this one and the press wants to get the Dems to stir more and more controversy so more people will read, watch and listen. Consequently, more Americans will be subjected to insurance commercials about how you are in good hands with AllState and we'll furthermore be bombarded by ads for the next pill that will do wonders for your libido, or pills that will help you to not crap your pants ,followed, of course, by commericals for cell phones and cars with funny names like Solara!
B. Dean is the front-runner by polling data (which is useless but the press won't tell you that). Dean says things right off the top of his head so the press is twisting and distorting every little thing he says to make him look very controversial (which they don't have to try very hard to do that). Dean is liberal, very much so compared to the last Dem cheif exec (regardless of what GOPpers say, Clinton was a moderate). Also, Dean splits the nation into two camps such as the Yankee vs. Rednecks and the Blue states vs. Red states and the press is eating this up.
C. The last presidential election was close, very close and the press wants to milk this one for everything it's worth. Nearly 50% of the voters voted for Gore who did not win and it is logical to conclude that similar numbers will vote for the Dems' nominee this time around. The press wants to be on the bandwagon of a winner. They knew Reagan was going to stomp Carter and Mondale and they followed him around like a puppy dog during those election years so Reagan could get the word out on how much of a loser Carter was. They did the same for HW Bush vs. Dukakis. [I, however, do not think it will be close because Bush will reveal the WMD's right after the nomination and Osama will be caught around the same time. Even if this doesn't happen, I still say the Dems take only the Northeast states and maybe Californy]

The last couple of paragraphs claim the press doesn't ask question about liberal ideology and that is correct. They don't talk about issues during elections, they talk about controversial things, i.e. background, past political experience, fundraising, oh my god your wife or mistress got an abortion, who they were boffing in high school, and if you had to bomb one country which one would it be?
Seriously, they didn't get into Bush's ideology in the last election, they were concerned more on his rift with McCain and how he got to be were he was at the time, on the coattails of daddy Bush.

Another problem the study does not address is it only analyzed mainstream media outlets like ABC, CBS and NBC which cater to the advertising dollars. Most educated, voting Americans get their info from other sources. The whole media frenzy around a national election is like one big soap opera when candidates say lofty things like, "when I'm in office there will be free porn for all..." and the press never asks how they intend to enact such policies, i.e. the passage of bills through Congress and funding free porn programs in every classroom.
And I'll add the people serious about candidates meet them, wine them and dine them and give them checks. The rest of us watch crap like network television and take what they say as truth and then snicker and call them liberals! :roflol:

1. Gauntlet? In Clinnon's case, don't you mean rubber?

2. Wage a war while being impeached? You can't be so blind to suppose that the ONLY reason Clinnon launched those attacks was to divert attention from his impeachment/trial. You don't REALLY believe it was otherwise, do you? It was for me one of the most surreal political event I have seen.

3. Tough questions for Alphagore? What, like when did he invent the internet and how much of "Love Story" was true? Or why he wouldn't fix the crapper for one of his sharecroppers out on the family farm?