THE 2008 RACE - AS OF TODAY


1) The GOP is dispirited like nothing we have seen since Watergate. GOP primary voters are disgusted with just about everything from amnesty-for-illegals to the Iraq disaster to excessive federal spending under Bush and the GOP Congress.

2) Bush's stance on amnesty for illegals has shattered the GOP - and the conservatives - and left the party in tatters.

3) The 3 main '08 candidates - Romney (too much flip-flopping/Mormonsim seen as a cult), Giuliani (too liberal on social issues/too many marriages/too weird), and McCain (author of amnesty for illegals and of McCain-Feingold/incredibly arrogant and sarcastic to many conservatives; and whose campaign is imploding on a daily basis) - have all failed to capture the imaginations of the GOP primary voters. And the second tier candidates haven't caught on either.

4) Worried over 2008 - and shell-shocked over Bush's demise and the '06 loss of Congress - the GOP wants a 'savior' - another Reagan. Thus they have taken this so-far-undefined vessel called Fred Thompson and filled it with their hopes for the Ideal Candidate/Savior.

5) Thus Fred Thompson's rise in the polls - so far.

6) Thompson is, in fact, a total mediocrity. He is over-rated, lethargic, uninspiring, lugubrious. Plus, he isn't a very good speaker and can't inspire people the way a real leader must. But he will keep doing well as long as he stays out of sight and remains a non-candidate.

7) The minute he announces and the tough scrutiny begins, he will meet the same fate as all the other GOP candidates: his flip-flopping, non-conservative and lobbying credentials will all hurt him.

8) For example, the story came now out Saturday in the NY Times and LA Times: in 1991 he lobbied on behalf of an abortion rights group. Five people confirm this - yet Thomspon denies it all. Why? Because he knows that this will kill him on the Right. It will hurt him right in the heart of the GOP: social conservatives who will see him as another flip-flopper who can't be trusted.

9) Indeed, the voters hate lobbyists; they see lobbyists as part of the problem in Washington, as 'dirty' crooks who 'rig' things in DC. Thompson's 20 years in DC as a lobbyist are going to hurt him big time - and make him seem as an insider when the nation wants an outsider to ride into DC and clean it up.

10) Fred Thompson is Not the Savior the GOP is looking for.

11) As long as he doesn't announce, he will suck up support and political oxygen. But by the fall, his descent is inevitable. The big question then is: once Fred starts to go down, who will be seen as the savior then for the GOP?


Iraq - and the Democratic Race:

12) 72% of the USA wants out of Iraq - and pronto;

13) Of Democratic primary voters, that number is close to a whopping 90%!

14) Everyone these days is just assuming Hillary will be the nominee; I say hold on for a while - and here is why.

15) With the Democratic voters being so antiwar, why is it so inevitable that they would nominate the one candidate - Hillary - who was overly enthusiastic for the war - to prove her hawkishness as a woman - and still refuses to admit she was wrong? In other words, does it make sense for the anti-war party to nominate an un-apologetic supporter and advocate of the war?

16) Am just saying: national polls mean next-to-nada at this stage. More important is Iowa - where Edwards is very strong (big union state) - and thus her near-panic move of bringing her husband out there last week. Team Clinton knows this: if - as the prohibitive front-runner with all this 'she is the inevitable nominee' stuff - she loses in Iowa, she is automatically in Big Trouble. Plus, Obama is doing well in South Carolina, too, so she could lose two key races right off the bat to two different challengers.

17) OK, maybe she survives - maybe not. Either way, 52% of voters say they would never vote for her in November. God, are the Democrats stupid or what? The White House is so winnable next year and all they need is a bland, safe, moderate Democratic male candidate - and they are flirting with either Hillary or Obama? Crazy. (Next most unpopular? Romney with 50.9% who say they'll never vote for him. Clearly the Mormon thing is a big negative.)

18) Let's go back to 1992 - the last race in which the electorate was so sour, surly and ticked off at Washington DC. In February of 1992 - with Bush 41 surviving a Buchanan challenge - and Clinton winning the Democratic primaries - Ross Perot goes on Larry King and begins his 'odd' little campaign. By June he was ahead of both Bush and Clinton! All without spending a dime! Just fueled by free TV appearances!

19) Why? Because Perot had an 'edge' to him that matched the voters' anger. He tapped into the discontent out there. Yeah, he soon flipped his wig, claimed the CIA interrupted his daughter's wedding, dropped out, re-entered the race and still ended up with 19% of the vote! But for a few months he was winning - and had he not been a nut - he showed that under the right circumstances a third candidate could possibly win.

20) That brings us to Bloomberg: he does NOT tap into this anger. He doesn't get it at all - nor does he appear angry or anti-establishment. Yeah, he made a ton of dough and has been an efficient manager of NYC but there is no way the grass roots voters are going to see him as their Sherrif-Riding-Into-Town-To-Clean-up DC. He just doesn't fit. He IS the Establishment. Plus, he is boring on TV and doesn't have that special pizzaz that only Reagan and Bill Clinton have had recently.

21) Yeah, the NYC-DC political talking heads fall all over themselves over this Bloomberg-to-run as an Independent story, but out in America he doesn't turn anyone on at all. Prediction: if he runs in 2008 as a third party guy, he will be lucky to get 4% of the national vote.

22) There could be another Independent Third Candidate - someone we aren't even thinking about today. There is still lots of time for all this to play out - with Iraq deteriorating and Bush refusing to budge - as the backdrop. And who wins the nominations, too, will determine if a Third Guy gets in - a guy who could win.

23) Look for lots of twists and turns - and surprises too. The GOP is a mess and we don't have a clue who wins that nomination. And - with Bush and Cheney sitting in the White House and attending the GOP Convention - these two are gigantic albatrosses for the GOP nominee. If that nominee disagrees with Bush/Cheney on something (to curry favor with independent voters and moderate Democrats) then the remaining GOP base (26% of voters) will be ticked off; if the nominee agrees with the radioactive Bush, then independents go scurrying over to the Democrats or the Third Candidate, if there is one.

24) The media - which is pathetic and dumb and ignorant - ignores this huge factor. Bush's presence - yeah, yeah, I know this Bush "isn't on the ballot" nonsense - is toxic to all GOP candidates next year. And he will be on TV as President every day!!! The GOP can't hide him or run away from him.

WHY KATIE COURIC FLOPPED



Here is the latest sign of the total disintegration of Katie Couric and her version of the once-famed CBS Evening News: she is admitting to “slapping” a staffer over his insertion of the word “sputum” into a June story about the tuberculosis scare.

While Couric and CBS execs try to paper this over with claims that she was “only joking,” it peals away yet another layer of the ongoing journalistic and economic disaster CBS has made with her hiring 15 months ago at a whopping $22 million per year salary.

If we were at Harvard Business School, the Couric-to-CBS News story would be a case study in how to misread your market and your audience.

Some facts:

1) CBS has invested Huge Money in this ‘experiment.’

2) Between her salary, promotion, a new set ($10 million) and lost revenues, this has already cost CBS over $100 million.

3) Under interim anchor Bob Schieffer, The CBS Evening News was indeed in third place - but was making steady gains back after the Dan Rather debacle. Couric has lost those gains and is now the lowest rated third-place anchor in over 20 years.

4) In a NEW YORK MAGAZINE article out today, she claims the problem is the viewers! She explains her dismal ratings this way: “People are unforgiving and resistant to change.”

5) She conveniently ignores the fact that on her opening night last September - after three months of unrelenting CBS promotion - she had over 13 million people watching! ‘Resistant to change’? They tuned in to see this change and right away the next day her ratings began to deteriorate - and have steadily declined weekly ever since.

6) In other words, the viewers were open-minded about this ‘new’ broadcast and new anchor they had been promised. But - alas - it failed to hold their loyalty. Soon viewers drifted off to Charlie Gibson at ABC News - who got none of the publicity or promotion - or salary - that Couric got.

7) So why does Gibson/ABC News work and Couric/CBS News not work? Simple: He is a veteran, legitimate journalist who cut his teeth doing hard news for decades. When he talks about something, you listen. Katie cut her teeth in this new ‘infotainment’ world of the TODAY SHOW where she did fluffy features laced with humor and self-mockery. Yes, she was enormously popular in that venue - and TODAY’s ratings have declined without her.

8) But CBS made a fundamental miscalculation: they thought Katie could bring with her the morning audience of young women (ages 25-45) who advertisers target. But these women nowadays are not home at 6:30 PM to watch TV news. Yes, these women were devoted to Katie at 7 AM - but they won’t/can’t/haven’t altered their TV viewing habits to watch her at 6:30 PM.

9) Along with that fundamental screw-up by CBS, they also didn’t realize something else: she is no good at reading from a TelePrompter. She just doesn’t do it well. Her strength on TV was the ad-libbed back-and-forth with Matt Lauer. But evening news is serious business - and is not conducive to her humorous banter. So, along with her/their inability to bring the morning female audience with her to the evenings, she has systematically alienated the traditional - i.e. older - evening news audience.

10) No wonder she is a distant Third Place these days. And there is no hope of gaining any of her lost audience back; evening news viewers gave her a chance and she failed. Period. Now the only question left is how and when CBS gets rid of her.

11) You can bet your bippy that CBS big shots - the same fools who lured her over in the first place - already are planning on her replacement. Their problem is that CBS News’ bench is thin - and they also don’t know what to do anymore. Do they go back to a “boring, steady, white older guy” in the Schieffer/Gibson mode? Harry Smith perhaps? Or do they try another shocker - an African American man or another woman (Diane Sawyer perhaps)?

12) You also can bet CBS execs’ careers are on the line for this massive blunder - and that plays into who gets rid of her and who takes the fall for this?

13) Do they try to make her co-anchor their-always-failing CBS Morning Show? Do they give her an afternoon talk show or a night-time magazine show for the remaining years of her exorbitant contract?

All of this is soon to play out. It is one of the biggest screw-ups - ever - in TV news. They never understood their audience or the newer audience they were attracting. And they didn’t understand their new anchor either.

This will cost everyone involved - Big Time.

Prediction: she doesn’t make it past this coming Christmas/New year’s Holidays.

USA & GOP AT CROSSROADS


This week’s revival of the Amnesty/Immigration Bill - even President Bush now calls it an ‘amnesty’ bill and then has to rush Tony Snow out to clean up yet another mess - shows just how far our country and the Republican Party have fallen under six years of Bush’s Open Borders Policy.

With 12-20 million illegals now infiltrated all across our nation - and millions more poised to rush in here if this Amnesty Bill passes - G.W. Bush and the Senate GOP leadership actually think they are doing a good thing.

What planet are they on?

They have systematically undermined our national community - and they have fractured the Republican Party.

Here - in a nutshell - is what our immigration policy ought to be:


• Secure the southern border - all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf Of Mexico - whether through a fence, a wall, armed guards, a combination or other means. But the border has to be secure and able to prevent un-invited invaders from crossing into American territory. This comes before any other actions are taken on immigration.

• Enact severe employer sanctions to penalize Americans who knowingly hire illegals - to undecut American workers. These employers are traitors and cheaters - and ought to be nailed for their perfidy.

• Reform welfare rules to allow for the seasonal hiring of American workers without losing their benefits. This is a huge problem in agricultural areas where American cannot afford to take these seasonal job for fear of losing their rest-of-the-year welfare benefits.

• When all of the above has been done, then we need to address legal immigration. Who is deciding who can legally come into this country? Who sets the quotas for each country?

• Guest worker programs - something we have had for most of the 20th century - should be determined by ‘need.’ What skills does the country need? Let’s get the best of those people to come here. But don’t confuse that with a flood-tide of un-invited, unskilled families swarming here and overwhelming communities all the way from Maine to San Diego.


George W. Bush is already a political dead-duck. Iraq and immigration - along with his trademark smirking arrogance and monumental incompetence - have sunk him and his presidency. But that should not mean that the Republican Party needs to keep drinking his Kool Aid and become, as former NYC Mayor - and 2004 Bush supporter - Ed Koch just called it - “dead.”

The GOP is indeed in dire political trouble.

We conservatives need to re-assert ourselves and take over the party before the Bushies squander everything Ronald Reagan did for us and for the country.

This week is the beginning - either of the End or of a New Beginning.

HENRY KISSINGER SAY HE WON'T READ THE NEW BOOK - AN ENORMOUS CRIME!

This is from today's New York Daily News.

Henry Kissinger, the architect of the abandonment of our US POWs in SE Asia, says that he won't read AN ENORMOUS CRIME; The Definitive Account of US POWs Abandoned in SE Asia.

Guilty conscience, eh?
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Rush & Molloy


Henry K takes heat on MIAs


Friday, June 22nd 2007, 4:00 AM

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Good thing for Henry Kissinger that he won't be in the States today when President Bush meets with Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet.

A White House spokesman confirms to us that "a high U.S. priority" during the historic Oval Office summit would be "accounting for Americans still missing since the war."

But while Bush says he's eager to pry open the painful issue of prisoners of war, Kissinger tells us he has no interest in revisiting the subject.

The former secretary of state recently received a copy of "An Enormous Crime." The new book, by former Rep. Bill Hendon and Elizabeth Stewart, contends Kissinger and President Richard Nixon secretly promised $4.75 billion in aid to North Vietnam in exchange for the return of all POWs.

According to the book, the North Vietnamese returned half the POWs in 1973. But when Watergate came crashing down on Nixon, he sought a quick end to the POW mess and chose not to pay the money or to press for the unaccounted soldiers. Former Queens congressman John LeBoutillier, who sent Kissinger the book, included a letter telling him that it "proves beyond a shadow of doubt that Hanoi purposely kept 700 U.S. POWs behind as insurance."

LeBoutillier told Kissinger: "Hundreds of U.S. pilots and servicemen remain alive in captivity ... You need to address your mistakes - and the fact that the North Vietnamese 'took' you at Paris. ... You are directly responsible for this tragedy. It is still not too late for you to help ... bring these men home."

Kissinger calls the book's allegations "irresponsible" and "insupportable."

"There was some discussion [during the Paris peace talks] of economic aid that we might give [the North Vietnamese]," Kissinger told us this week before leaving for Asia. "But [the aid] didn't have anything to do with the prisoners. The prisoner release was supposed to be finished in April 1973. The economic aid question didn't arise till after that." He added, "We didn't pay them because they never carried out the agreement."

Kissinger argued that "if the Vietnamese held prisoners back in order to get more money, why didn't they ever say they had [the extra 700] prisoners?"

As for the book, "I'm not going to read it." Despite the authors' assertion that it draws on thousands of pages of declassified documents, "I would be amazed" if there was anything new, he said. "Congress went through all of this in the hearings [chaired by Sen. John Kerry in 1991]," said Kissinger. "I testified for two days then. ... There's no other subject on which my colleagues and I worked as hard."

Says LeBoutillier: "Of course the guy's not going to admit he got duped. He won a Nobel Prize for this. What a weasel!"





http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/r_m/index.html

DRUDGE AD CAMPAIGN AIMED AT PRESIDENT BUSH


See the unique ads for AN ENORMOUS CRIME running on the DRUDGE REPORT beginning Monday, June 18.

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Monday, June 18, 2007

MEMO

TO: PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

FR: FORMER CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEBOUTILLIER

RE: HOW TO SAVE YOUR PRESIDENCY


Mr. President, 66% of today’s public views your performance as ‘poor.’ You are today almost as unpopular as Richard Nixon was just before he resigned in disgrace. And most voters rank your presidency as a ‘failure’ or as one of the ‘worst’ - right down there with Jimmy Carter.

However, there is a way for you to reverse your fortunes in one fell swoop.

There is a way for you to do something so spectacular as to change the whole dynamic of American politics.

There is a way for you to earn the respect of those who today shun you.

There is a way for you to reverse the declining morale of our armed forces - and to restore pride again in the American uniform.

There is a way to take the national focus off of Iraq - and instead focus it on something for which you share no blame.

There is a way to make Americans feel good again about the country - because this single act will help to ‘cleanse’ the body politic.

There is a way to expose all your predecessors - and rivals - for their role in something that the American people would never accept - if and when they know about it.

And, Mr. President, there is also a way to “one-up” your father.

What is this magic elixir for a lame-duck- bordering-on-a- dead-duck presidency.

Quite simple, Mr. President.

This coming Friday - June 22 - you are meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet in the Oval Office. It is the first time a Vietnamese head of state has come to the United States since before the war.

Here is a simple plan, President Bush: when you sit down with President Triet, tell him you recently received and read a copy of AN ENORMOUS CRIME; The Definitive Account of US POWs Abandoned in SE Asia.

Tell President Triet, “Mr. President, this never-ending POW issue has hurt - and continues to hurt - both our nations - and yet neither of us had anything to do with it. So here is what I am proposing.” As you speak, pull out a letter to President Triet and hand it to him. Then say, “President Triet, this letter from me to you serves as a public, presidential statement that the government of the United States is now prepared to pay the government of Vietnam $15 billion for all the living Americans who are “left over” from the war - including any in Laos. These include US servicemen who were not “registered with the Centre for POWs. This $10 billion is to make up for the $4.75 billion Nixon and Kissinger pledged to you 35 years ago and which was never paid.”

You can also tell President Triet that for face-saving purposes if Vietnam wants to continue to claim they have no POWs that is just fine with us. We understand. It is OK with us if they “find” the POWs in Laos and “liberate” them and return them to us.

We have no interest in embarrassing Hanoi; nor do we want to renew hostilities with them.

All we want is our men - all of them - and to put this sordid chapter in our national rear view mirror.

Yes, there will be critics who say, “we can’t pay for these POWs. That would be tribute or ransom. It will encourage others to seize Americans and hold them for negotiation. And besides we don’t have enough money any more for all of this.”

Well, that is all nonsense.

We are now offering rewards in Iraq for the two missing US Army servicemen.

And President Bush, you have just pledged $30 billion for AIDS in Africa.

If we have enough for people in other countries, then we certainly have enough to pay for hundreds of US servicemen who have spent over 35 years in captivity waiting for Uncle Sam to come and bring them home.

So, Mr. President, are you going to step up to the plate and make history?

Are you going to be different than all your predecessors - including your father - who have allowed this festering sore to continue?

This Friday, President Bush, is the day you can reverse all the negative trends and do something so spectacular that you will earn a level of respect you haven’t seen since right after 9/11.

Friday, June 22. The Oval Office. Make the deal, Mr. President.

It is time for our POWs to come home.

MCCAIN: ENEMY OF THE POWS


With the publication just two weeks ago of the New York Times bestseller - AN ENORMOUS CRIME; The Definitive Account of US POWs Abandoned in SE Asia - it is inevitable that the role in the POW issue of Senator - and former POW - John McCain now be examined.

Having known McCain since June 7, 1974, I have often written of his sarcastic, arrogant and condescending attitude toward those who disagree with him - on any issue. His temper is legendary - and we all just heard of his latest outburst directed at fellow GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas over McCain’s immigration bill.

Everyone in the political world - both in DC and in Arizona - knows of this mean-spirited, cruel side of John McCain.

But on no issue has John McCain been meaner and more vicious than the question of the hundreds of US POWs who did not come home in 1973 when McCain came home.

He has used his unique and hard-earned status as a former POW not to help the cause of the un-returned POWs but rather to attack POW activists, demean POW family members and to bolster the Pentagon’s long-term strategy of ‘debunking’ credible sightings of POWs.

For example, the soon-to-be-famous satellite photograph on the cover of AN ENORMOUS CRIME is a 1988 image of a USA K - known as a ‘walking K’ because it has ‘feet’ on the bottom of the letters. This is an Escape & Evade (E&E) code given to US airmen before their missions.

The one on the cover of the book was placed by a still-held-against-his-will US airmen 15 years after the end of the Vietnam War and the return of McCain and the other now-famous US POWs.

It measures 37 feet across and each of the letters is 12 feet high.

The Walking K part is a secret; no one could or would know its significance other than the US airman who was given his unique E&E code before his mission.

This code translates to: “I am alive! Come and get me the Hell out of here ASAP!!!”

When this evidence was made public that a US airman was still being held as a POW - 15 years after he should have been released - John McCain did not ride to his former comrade’s rescue. No he did not!

Instead, he sided with the Defense Intelligence Agency’s ‘debunking team,’ whose role is to discredit every report, sighting, satellite image and radio intercept. Clearly they have an agenda: prove that no POWs are still held alive over there. (To admit otherwise places the US Government in a massive hostage crisis - and exposes countless now-famous US officials from Henry Kissinger to George H.W. Bush to Colin Powell to Paul Wolfowitz to Dick Cheney and dozens of others as having knowingly abandoned these POWs.)

And do you know how McCain explained this USA K symbol visible from outer space in a rice paddy in Laos?

He claimed it was created by a 6-year old Laotian boy who was copying an American postage stamp!

I kid you not!

It is in his memoir, Worth The Fighting For.

Unanswered by John McCain are these questions:

• How did a 6-year old Lao boy know of the secret Walking K E&E code?
• How could a 6-year old boy possibly write a well-written English USA 37 feet wide and 12 feet high?
• Why would he do it?
• How could he possibly know that an American satellite would fly overhead and photograph it?


All of these questions point to the most sinister part of the POW issue: the US Government has known all along that our POWs are still there - and still sending E&E signals. (There are sightings of other E&E codes through the years - all the way up to 1992. You can see some of them on www.enormouscrime.com ).

And the Pentagon is still receiving - and hiding from the public - credible live-sighting reports of our POWs still held against their will in both Vietnam and Laos.

John McCain - as the most famous former POW - has provided ‘cover’ for this nefarious behavior by the Pentagon and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

He has used his former POW status to defend the Pentagon - and to attack those of us who claim something rotten is going on inside DC.

And he fits this role to a T: his attack-dog style mows down anyone in his path including mothers, wives and the children of our still-missing, un-returned POWs.

Plus, the so-called Mainstream Media - which has always loathed the POW issue and seen it as a right-wing nut story (they have never explained why right wingers would want to trash mostly Republicans like the Reagan and Nixon teams, but that is another story) - adores McCain. So when he attacks the POW activists, the media applauds him for it. Thus, they have never given a fair examination of the massive evidence - the US Government’s own evidence - that indeed hundreds of US POWs are still alive in SE Asia. Remember: AN ENORMOUS CRIME is based on 66,000 pages of never-before-published US Government intelligence reports, memoranda, aerial photographs and radio intercepts.

Thus the already-startling rise of AN ENORMOUS CRIME - up the Amazon and New York Times best seller lists - without one cent spent by the publisher on advertising or promotion - proves that the American people know they have been lied to by successive administrations about this issue. There is a thirst for the truth about our men.

All you have to do is either read the book or read the 1983-1984 cover-up chapter on the unique - and free - web site: www.enormouscrime.com .

John McCain, who owed his political career to being a former POW, has abused his status and betrayed his fellow POWs.

In countless other issues, especially fighting illegal immigration, we have seen the real John McCain: a duplicitous, untrustworthy, spoiled and privileged little brat of a man who is happy to crush anyone who gets in his way.

But in no other issue have the consequences been bigger: by helping to give ‘cover’ to the abandonment of the US POWs in SE Asia, John McCain has proven himself unworthy to be their Commander-in-Chief.

AN ENORMOUS CRIME: A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER!


An Enormous Crime debuts at #34 on the hardcover, nonfiction, New York Times bestseller list dated Sunday June 17, 2007.

This is the NY Times' "extended" list (which covers bestsellers numbered 16-35). It will not appear on the printed list (which covers bestsellers numbered 1-15) when the issue of 6/17 runs in that Sunday's NY Times Book Review Section, but it will be on their web site and the NY Times encourages all in the business when they have an "extended" bestseller to consider themselves "NY Times bestsellers."

The Times only goes as high as #35 total in their bestseller count. Everything below that does not make the cut.