Left Out is a public affairs program produced by WRCT 88.3FM and co-hosted by Bob Harper and Danny Sleator. Today's program is produced by Molly Meyer and Dan O'Neil. Listeners are welcome to call us at (412) 268-WRCT (9728), or send us email.
There are many ways to get help with the Kerry campaign for the final push before the election. Contact Moveon Pac at 412-434-0464. Here's the web link for helping in the Pittsburgh area. Other organizations to volunteer for are America Coming Together and the Kerry campaign.
Listen to the broadcast (requires MP3 player).
Track 1: Streaming, Download
Track 2: Streaming, Download
In the fifth of a series of speeches sponsored by MoveOn PAC Al Gore at Georgetown University cut to the core of the failures of the Bush administration by focusing on their "relationship to the truth." Here are some excerpts:
You can also listen to the entire speech. The full text of the speech is avaiable at Move On.
Gore's thesis --backed up by copious examples-- is that the Bush administration's policies are totally ideologically and politically driven, and not based on what makes sense, and what works in the real world. In fact, the administration has contempt for what they call "the reality-based community". That is, people who try to make policy based on measured facts about what's going on, and on what will actually work.
He also revisits a number of the decisions, actions, and statements of the Bush administration, using all the additional information that has come to light lately. This examination unequivocally shows that in fact the outrages that were committed are completely impossible to defend. This includes claims of Iraqi WMDs and nuclear weapons, the decision to invade Iraq, the total incompetence and lack of planning of that invasion, the total lack of a response to a cacophony of dire signals they had prior to 9/11, and the extent of the lies and coverup used to hide all of this.
The Nation has published a summary of 100 Facts leading to one opinion: Bush must go. The facts are indisputable. Their concluding opinion is:
If the past informs the future, four more years of the Bush Administration will be a tragic period in the history of the United States and the world.
Supporting Bush's re-election correlates strongly with having no idea about the relevant facts about the Bush administration's policies. This is not an accident. Here's one example from the article:
Three out of 4 self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them. According to a new survey published Thursday, the same number also believes that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein provided "substantial support" to al Qaeda.
But here is the truly astonishing part: as many or more Bush supporters hold those beliefs today than they did several months ago. In other words, more people believe the claims today -- after the publication of a series of well-publicized official government reports that debunked both notions.
Here's the full study.
Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, told CNN in an interview Tuesday night that he urged the president to prepare the American people for the prospect of casualties before launching the war in March 2003.
Robertson said Bush told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
A new report from Senator Carl Levin's office assesses the intelligence process in the run-up to the war on Iraq. Surprise, surprise: the intelligence was manipulated, cherry-picked, and cooked by Douglas Feith in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. This is a must read for anyone who wishes to debunk administration claims that the criticisms of its Iraq policies are mere hindsight.