Clinton-hating Hardcore Conservative: vote Kerry!

Charlie Reese writes for the Orlando Sentinel. He's a Conservative Republican who is anti-abortion, anti-tax-and-spend, loudly critical of legislation by the judiciary, doesn't think much of ulticulturalism or secularism, has suggested Clinton "turned the Oval Office into a whorehouse," thinks Ronald Reagan is the greatest thing to come down the pike since canned beer, and voted for Bush in the last election. So, take a look at his article which follows.

Vote For A Man, Not A Puppet
Orlando Sentinel
Charlie Reese

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Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's re-election, they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative ideologues and their corporate backers. I have sadly come to the conclusion that President Bush is merely a front man, an empty suit, who is manipulated by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.

It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague. Take away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed that an Arab King (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and articulately in English than our own President at their joint press conference recently.

John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's unfortunate that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.

But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed that people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.

People who think of themselves as conservatives will really display their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush. Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled me once, but he won't fool me twice.

It is not at all conservative to balloon government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal and trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most secretive president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward the authoritarian.




Orlando Sentinel

A Conservative that thinks for himself AND has broken from blindly following the party line! In a Bush stronghold part of Florida for a paper that was as active sniffing Ken Starr's fingers as , well, Ken Starr!
It is bourne out by my conversations at my annual Costume Party that I had with family & friends: my retired military officer older brother, with whom I had heated discussions with at this time of year four years ago, was on board with Team Kerry. Just about everyone was FOR Kerry, except my kid brother who is a police officer. I worked on him a bit, but quite frankly, I let up real quick: whenever he picks the side against my team, be it a Superbowl or whatever, he loses, so I was kind of happy he was for Bush!!! Besides, by that time I was feeling no pain & talking politics was killing my buzz!

This also by Reese, sums it up quite nicely for the 100's of thousands of Republicans that are not picking up that phone & letting pollsters know that they are crossing party lines & voting Kerry: "I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man in the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with it.