Those who say that there is little difference between Bush and Kerry are either not sufficiently alert or are letting a habit of cynicism blind them to reality. There are plenty of obvious differences to be seen by anyone who cares to exert the mental effort to stop sulking and take a good, long look.

This is going to be one dirty campaign, full of lies, twisted half-truths, and attempts to take things out of context and use them to try to make you think Kerry is actually the way the Bush boosters want you to think he is. This is one of the reasons why it is important to be an informed electorate, know a few facts, and not just swallow what the TV set barfs out at you.

Commercials for Bush (actually negative ads against Kerry) are devoted to misinformation such as—to mention only two of the many things being hawked currently—claiming that Kerry favors a 50¢ increase in gasoline tax and that he voted against body armor for troops in Iraq.

Facts (not opinions, Doug, facts):   a 50¢ gasoline tax was something that was proposed ten years ago in an attempt to get people to drive less. The person who proposed it was Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw, who is now the chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. Kerry neither voted for it, nor did he sponsor legislation favoring it. It is an outright lie. The same thing about weapons systems and body armor. Kerry did not vote against body armor for troops in Iraq. When he voted against the $87 billion to continue Bush's War, he knew that the money would be needed if the war wasn't going to become an even bigger cock-up than it already was, and he also knew that Congress would pass it by a wide margin even without his support, so he voted against it as a protest against the way the war was being handled. Incidentally, as far as the ceramic-based type of body armor (which made up one-third of one percent of the bill) is concerned, the troops had initially been sent to the Iraqi war without it.

These are only two of the many lies and twistings of the truth that the Bush boosters are trying to lay on Kerry, including the so-called "flip-flops." And it's interesting to note that when people talk about Kerry's "flip-flops," if you pin them down and ask them exactly which "flip-flops" they're talking about, they either babble incoherently, unable to think of anything specific, or quote one of the Bush-booster commercials.

When one takes a position, and then, in the light of new evidence, changes one's mind, this is the mark of an intelligent, thoughtful person. If that's "flip-flopping," then this country and the whole world would be a helluva lot better off right now if Bush had flip-flopped a bit before launching this country into "The Big Muddy" once again. Bush is a shining example of someone who ignores evidence, goes off half-cocked, and is afraid to change his mind for fear of looking indecisive, even when the disastrous consequences of his intended actions are obvious to everyone else. [This is the kind of "leadership" that the late historian Barbara Tuchman wrote about in her book The March of Folly.] In the meantime, of course, Bush is silly-putty in the hands of Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, et al.

By the way:

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
                                                   —Sen, Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Don Firth