Posted on Thu, Mar. 11, 2004
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/...ns/8159253.htm

For a clean presidential mind, change it often

By Molly Ivins

Creators Syndicate


Living proof that the Democrats haven't gotten any smarter since the last time they ran a candidate for president.

Much huffing (and a huffy Democrat is a terrifying sight) over the fact that George W. Bush used images of 9-11 and of the firefighters at ground zero to tout his candidacy in his first campaign ad. How crass, said the D's.

But the problem is not that the ad is in bad taste -- the problem is that Bush flimflammed the firefighters in a famous case of his favorite bait-and-switch tactic, and now he has the chutzpah to exploit them anyway.

For those of you who have forgotten what happened: Shortly after the 9-11 attacks, Bush promised a $3.5 billion aid package to provide equipment and training in dealing with such attacks to local police and fire departments.

For more than 18 months, no money appeared, and when it finally did, it was nowhere near the promised levels. (Hey, he had to cut those taxes on the richest 1 percent of Americans.)

Furthermore, the New York City firefighters who worked ground zero were specifically swindled.

They were promised $90 million to monitor the long-term health effects of breathing in all that ash for months while they cleaned up. The money was to have been included in the overall post-9-11 aid package for New York City, but it got shifted to another bill that Bush rejected the following August. About half the workers screened before the money ran out suffered from respiratory problems.

Republicans in Congress twice voted down first-responder money. New York's congressional delegation, led by Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, put up a huge battle before the long-promised $90 million was finally pried out of a reluctant Congress and White House, but the responder money is still not fully funded to this day.

You can see that this is already shaping up as a campaign where the media observe John Kerry under a microscope and neglect to point out the obvious facts about Bush's record. Kerry, say the Republicans solemnly, is given to flip-flopping. Kerry is?

Let's just start counting off the top of our heads:

George W. Bush was opposed to a commission to investigate how and why 9-11 occurred, but then he changed his mind and backed it.

He was certainly opposed to a commission to investigate the intelligence failures on Iraq, but then he changed his mind and backed it.

He now brags, "I went to the U.N. [before invading Iraq]"? Who recalls why he changed his mind about doing that? He originally said he not only did not need to consult the United Nations -- he did not even have to consult the U.S. Congress.

Anyone remember how Bush, the corporate ethicist of Harken Energy, opposed the Sarbanes-Oxley bill? Sarbanes-Oxley was a mildly reformist piece of legislation deemed slightly necessary in the wake of the staggering accounting scandals that caused the collapse of Enron, Tyco and WorldCom.

There seemed to be a new record bankruptcy every week, but our president didn't think we needed any new laws to prevent such things -- my, no. When did he change his mind and decide to sign it? After it passed the House with one vote against it.

Remember when we weren't going to negotiate with North Korea? Then we weren't going to negotiate with North Korea again, but we would "talk" to North Korea, but only in multilateral "talking," until Bush changed his mind yet again and now we're in multilateral negotiations.

Remember when the United Nations was "unnecessary" and "irrelevant," and boy was Bush ever ready to tell it to go jump in the lake? We now think the United Nations is so useful and necessary that we call on it not just for Iraq but for Haiti and other trouble spots as well.

Remember when we didn't need any civilian or international advice about how to pacify and reconstruct Iraq -- our military could do it just fine, thank you?

Remember when nation-building was a dirty word?

Boy, that John Kerry -- he just flip-flops all the time, doesn't he?