Article Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2004
d.note
Snortin’ hellfire in Crawford
Crawford, Texas’ hometown newspaper on Tuesday endorsed John Kerry with this headline, “Kerry Will Restore American Dignity.” Alright, so the Lone Star Iconoclast ain’t the Washington Post, but it is in Bush’s front yard.
However, vengeance is swift in Crawford.
According to the New York Times, advertisers are already canceling their contracts with the paper. But W. Leon Smith, the paper’s publisher-editor and Democratic mayor of Clifton, Texas, says he expected as much. Smith said he decided to publish the editorial anyway because “we felt we had to be able to sleep at night.”
If the paper doesn’t weather this storm, at least Smith will have sent it off with a bang.
A few highlights:
“The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.
“Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.”
WAR
“In those dark hours after the Word Trade Center attacks, Americans rallied together with a new sense of patriotism. We were ready to follow Bush’s lead through any travail…He let us down…He did not trust us to be ready to sacrifice, build up our public and private security infrastructure, or cut down on our energy use to put economic pressure on the enemy in all the nations where he hides. He merely told us to shop, spend, and pretend that nothing was wrong.”
“Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him.”
“The Iconoclast, the President’s hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper’s publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair…Again, he let us down.”
“Now he argues unconvincingly that Iraq was providing safe harbor to terrorists, his new key justification for the invasion. It is like arguing that America provided safe harbor to terrorists leading to 9/11.”
LAZY
“We should expect that a sitting president would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a ‘wartime president.’ America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-in-chief until he is forced to, and who is in constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done.”
(In an interview with the New York Times, Mayor Smith explained, “Bush has been a part-time president. There’s a work ethic here in Texas, people work hard, especially the middle class – they don’t get two or three months vacation a year.”)
DENIAL
“Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous thing and ‘spin’ will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not a thousand of them.”
PUSHY BUSHY
“The publishers of the Iconoclast differ with Bush on other issues, including the denial of stem cell research, shortchanging veterans’ entitlements, cutting school programs and grants, dictating what our children learn through a thought-controlling ‘test’ from Washington rather than allowing local school boards and parents to decide how young people should be taught, ignoring the environment, and creating extraneous language in the Patriot Act that removes some of the very freedoms that our founding fathers and generations of soldiers fought so hard to preserve…”
NO MORE YEARS
“The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our present course of chaos. We cannot afford to double the debt that we already have. …”
KERRY
“John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in America the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district attorney, lieutenant governor, and senator…”
“…The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.”
“The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.”
*** I’d suggest that Mayor Smith enter the federal witness protection program, but considering who heads up the justice department, it’s probably better to just stand and fight.Dani Newsum, a former civil rights attorney in the Colorado Attorney General's office, appears weekly on KBDI Channel 12's "Colorado Inside Out" (8 p.m. Fridays).
