Town of Braintree

Oct 29, 2004
The Election of a Lifetime

In that this will be my last column before the presidential election, there will be no sarcasm, no attempts at witty repartee. The topic is too serious, and the stakes are too high.

This November we will vote in the only election during our lifetime that will truly matter. Because America is at a once-in-a-generation crossroads, more than an election hangs in the balance. Down one path lies retreat, abdication and a reign of ambivalence.

Down the other lies a nation that is aware of its past and accepts the daunting obligation its future demands. If we choose poorly, the consequences will echo through the next 50 years of history. If we, in a spasm of frustration, turn out the current occupant of the White House, the message to the world and ourselves will be two-fold. First, we will reject the notion that America can do big things. Once a nation that tamed a frontier, stood down the Nazis and stood upon the moon, we will announce to the world that bringing democracy to the Middle East is too big of a task for us. But more significantly, we will signal to future presidents that as voters, we are unwilling to tackle difficult challenges, preferring caution to boldness, embracing the mediocrity that has characterized other civilizations.

The defeat of President Bush will send a chilling message to future presidents who may need to make difficult, yet unpopular decisions. America has always been a nation that rises to the demands of history regardless of the costs or appeal. If we turn away from that legacy, we turn away from whom we are.

Second, we inform every terrorist organization on the globe that the lesson of Somalia was well-learned. In Somalia we showed terrorists that you don't need to defeat America on the battlefield when you can defeat them in the newsroom. They learned that a wounded America can become a defeated America. Twenty-four-hour news stations and daily tracing polls will do the heavy lifting, turning a cut into a fatal blow. Except that Iraq is Somalia times 10. The election of John Kerry will serve notice to every terrorist in every cave that the soft underbelly of American power is the timidity of American voters. Terrorists will know that a steady stream of grisly photos for CNN is all you need to break the will of the American people. Our own self-doubt will take it from there. Bin Laden will recognize that he can topple any American administration without setting foot on the homeland.

It is said that America's W.W.II generation is its 'greatest generation'. But my greatest fear is that it will become known as America's 'last generation.' Born in the bleakness of the Great depression and hardened in the fire of W.W. II, they may be the last American generation that understands the meaning of duty, honor and sacrifice. It is difficult to admit, but I know these terms are spoken with only hollow detachment by many (but not all) in my generation. Too many citizens today mistake 'living in America' as 'being an American.' But America has always been more of an idea than a place. When you sign on, you do more than buy real estate. You accept a set of values and responsibilities.

This November, my generation, which has been absent too long, must grasp the obligation that comes with being an American, or fade into the oblivion they may deserve. I believe that 100 years from now historians will look back at the election of 2004 and see it as the decisive election of our century. Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as the moment America joined the ranks of ordinary nations; or they will describe it as the moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the greatest generation accepted their burden as caretakers of the City on the Hill.''

-By One Path Lies Retreat Abdication, in the only election during our lifetime

By This deserves repeating

Wake up my child

history always repeats itself. Learn from the past.

I love you.

By Granny

Labor Department acknowledged

Labor Memo Suggests Bush to Win Election

The Kerry campaign said the analysis was an improper use of taxpayer money, and the Labor Department acknowledged Friday, ''Clearly, this kind of armchair political analysis doesn't belong in government memos, even if they are entirely internal.''
The Labor Department report, obtained by The Associated Press, includes an analysis of economic models that suggest Bush will beat Democrat John Kerry. Titled ''In Focus: Predicting the Election Outcome,'' the memo says, ''Nearly every single model has him winning.''
''Some show the margin of victory being smaller than the models' inherent margin of error, while others report the lead as substantial. And this is without the consideration of a third-party candidate.'' Bush's win of the popular vote could be 57.5 percent, 55.7 percent or 51.2 percent, said the paper, dated Oct. 22 and prepared by the department's Employment and Training Administration staff for the assistant labor secretary. The Bush administration blamed midlevel employees for preparing inappropriate government material. ''This appears to be an internal ETA document prepared by midlevel ETA staff,'' said Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank.
Kerry's campaign contended the Bush administration was wasting taxpayers' money.
''If the Bush administration focused more on the economy and less on politics, George Bush (news - web sites) would not be the first president in 70 years to lose jobs,'' said Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer. ''George Bush has turned the government into his own taxpayer-funded political machine.'' The document also includes a Washington Post story, an article from Monster.com and charts and briefs on the latest economic indicators.

One factor in the election that has been ''downplayed is the president's popularity,'' a variable the report says may be important. ''Fortunately, there are models (that) incorporate this concept,'' it says. The economic models are not infallible, but they do ''systematically measure past data, which is a far cry better than relying on anecdotal evidence,'' the paper says. The models looked at an array of economic indicators, including gross domestic product, unemployment and inflation.
The analysis also discusses a futures market that lets players bid on a probable election outcome. It also checked Web sites of oddsmakers in America and abroad


By Labor Department report

Thank You, President Bush

Thank You, President Bush

I'm a New Yorker and terrorism is a key concern for me. If its not the most important issue this years election, I don?‚t know what is. Where I may not agree 100% with all of President Bush's policies, I do agree 110% that he would do a better job in defending New York and our great country from the same Islamic terrorists who have caused so much pain and suffering. By spreading the seeds of freedom in the garden of evil, we are ensuring that a new generation will never have to endure another 9/11. Where freedom grows, terrorism dies.

Not too long ago, another generation had to make some tough choices. An unpopular war, divided electorate, hard decisions, and tough economic times made the election a pivotal point in history. But, thank God the people of America re-elected the Republican Abe Lincoln in 1864.

In a recent interview a New York newspaper asked a voter whom they supported. He replied ''Bush. You may not agree with him, but at least you know what you are getting. With Kerry I have no idea what we would get''. In this time of global challenges, we cannot afford to have a leader who has admitted that his first action as president would be to crawl back to the UN and take a global test. Kerry will try to make America popular with the same crowd who sold us out in the first place. Shall we forget that France was doing business with Saddam behind our backs and ensured that the men, women, and children of Iraq would continue to fill his mass graves uninterrupted by sanctions by Kerry's vaunted UN?

America has never tried to win a popularity contest, nor should it sink that low. If being accepted and liked is all we cared about, would we have spent the time and money needed to bring down the Evil Empire that was the Soviet Union? We would not have tried to keep a small country in Southeast Asia from the oppression of Communism. Nor would we have prevented the rape of Korea by the Communist in the 1950s. Our rebuilding of Japan and Germany after World War II was not all that popular at times. If we wanted Europe to like us, we would have not retaliated against Spain in the Spanish-American War. We would have not pursued the Barbary Pirates, put down The Boxer Rebellion, or protected Latin America from European dictators in defense of The Monroe Doctrine. In fact, from the start of our little republic, trying to pass a global test would have kept a group of patriots from facing off against the mighty British army at Bunker Hill, dumping tea into Boston Harbor, or even meeting to lay the foundation of the constitution which is the envy of the entire world. Nothing in our history was accomplished because we wanted to look swell in the eyes of the global body.

Whether you would like to admit it or not, our nation has weathered one of the most critical periods of its young life. With George W. Bush at our helm, the nation we hold dear has survived and rebounded like no one thought possible, once again we are leading the armies of freedom to make the world a safer place to live. Because of that, he has my vote.


By President Bush's policies