Republicans are Jumping Off

Many Republicans are not happy.  And they want the word
to get out because they have serious second thoughts about 
George W. Bush.

And for Republicans to refuse to support an incumbent Republican 
President,  !!WOW!!, this IS a historic election.  

Many Republicans are jumping off the bandwagon.  Maybe not the
"haves and the have more" crowd, but many of the regular 
clear thinking Republicans are jumping off.  Here are a few:

Brent Scowcroft, national-security adviser for  
President George H. W. Bush has been quite critical of 
President George W. Bush.  Here is his most recent:
----- start Brent Scowcroft --------------------
Associated Press
Oct. 17, 2004 12:00 AM	
WASHINGTON - The national-security adviser under the first 
President Bush says the current president acted contemptuously 
toward NATO and Europe after Sept. 11, 2001, and is trying to 
cooperate now out of desperation to "rescue a failing venture" 
in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brent Scowcroft, a mentor to the current national-security adviser, 
Condoleezza Rice, also said in an interview that Bush is 
inordinately influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
"Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger," 
Scowcroft told London's Financial Times. "I think the 
president is mesmerized." 

found at 

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1017scowcroft17.html

-----  end Brent Scowcroft -------------------------

NEXT:
John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight Eisenhower, voted for
Bush in 2000.  He was a life long Republican until someone hijacked 
his party during the new millennium.  
Maybe there WAS a Y2K bug after all.

------ start John Eisenhower ---------------
From: THE UNION LEADER
Manchester, New Hampshire

Why I will vote for John Kerry for President
By JOHN EISENHOWER 
Guest Commentary
...
Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, 
unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend 
to vote as our parents did or as we "always have." We remained 
loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election 
of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I 
believe this is one of them. 

As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is 
automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 
years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current 
administration's decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, 
I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some 
utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic 
Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry. 

The fact is that today's "Republican" Party is one with which I am 
totally unfamiliar. To me, the word "Republican" has always been 
synonymous with the word "responsibility", which has meant limiting 
our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and 
financial terms. Today's whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion 
does not meet that criterion. 
...
[8 more paragraphs of detailed reasons to abandon Bush, omited]

available at

http://www.theunionleader.com/Articles_show.html?article=44657&archive=1

or available at this blog a little ways down the page:

http://iddybud.blogspot.com/2004_09_28_iddybud_archive.html
(the blog has a picture, John looks just like his dad.)
---- end John Eisenhower -------------

NEXT:
Here's what some other Republicans are saying:

--- begin capitolhillblue.com article --------------------
George Meagher of Charleston, South Carolina, is a veteran and 
lifelong Republican who, by his own admission, put his "heart 
and soul" into working for George W. Bush in 2000. 

Meagher organized veterans and once proudly displayed pictures 
of him and his wife with Bush.

No more. Meagher may vote Democratic this fall because he's 
fed up with what he sees as lies and deceit by President Bush 
and the Republican leadership in Washington.

"I should be all choked up at not supporting the President," 
says Meagher. "But when I think about the [1000] Americans killed 
in a war, with what we've done to Iraq and with what we've done
to our own country, I can't see any other way. Look at it. We're 
already $2 trillion in debt. Something has to be done."

Meagher is not alone when it comes to Republicans who are having 
serious second thoughts about George W. Bush.

John Scarnado, a registered Republican and sales manager from 
Austin, Tex., voted for Bush in 2000 but now says he will vote 
for John Kerry.

Scarnado cites Iraq and Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to 
scandal-scarred Halliburton as two reasons he can't vote for 
Bush again.

"It's just too much old boy politics with the Bush administration," 
Scarnado says. "I don't like that."

Neither does Londonderry, New Hampshire farmer Mike Cross, who voted 
Republican in 2000 and who says he doesnąt care much for John Kerry 
but has "had enough of George W. Bush."

In travels around the country in recent weeks, I've found many 
Republicans who feel betrayed by their own party. They say the 
President lied about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, has
abandoned basic Republican principles like a balanced budget and 
now ignores states' rights.

[...and it goes on ...]

entire article at:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4106.shtml
------- end capitolhillblue.com --------------------

[Oh no, I can't keep my mouth shut]
But it's OK, Republicans are allowed to vote their conscience.  
But to borrow from the Vice-President's rhetoric:  "If you make the 
wrong choice, your national debt will continue to grow astronomically."  

This Republican adminstration doesn't care about deficits and by 
consequence, national debt.  Apparently the bigger the better for
this adminstration.  They've tacked on nearly $2 trillion to the debt
just during their watch.  Look at the size of this number:

$2,000,000,000,000    

It's shameful.  President Bush claims that the Democrats
aren't fiscally responsible.  Actually the facts prove that
this current administation that is most fiscally irresponsible
of all time.  That's what the facts tell you, if you are interested 
in facts.

Someone else's children (and probably their children) will have to 
pay it, so why should they care?  These are the Bush administration's
family values?
[OK, I duct taped my mouth shut]

NEXT:
I heard during the radio network news that the small newspaper in
President Bush's hometown of Crawford, Texas is supporting John Kerry.
While it doesn't appear this paper is Republican, the publishers of 
The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago and endorsed his march to 
war in Iraq, but not now.  Here it is, if you want to read it:
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/Columns/Editorial/editorial39.htm
This Kerry endorsement is interesting, it's what the paper down 
the road from the President's ranch has to say about their 
neighbor and Commander-in-Chief.


NEXT:
John Dean was Counsel to President Nixon.  You'd think he'd be a more 
loyal Republican but boy he sure doesn't seem to like President Bush.

--- promo for John Dean's book "Worse than Watergate" from amazon.com ---
The most facile presidential comparison one could make for George W. Bush 
would be his father, who presided over a war in Iraq and a struggling 
economy. Some "neocons" reject the parallel and compare Bush to his 
father's predecessor, Ronald Reagan, citing a plainspoken quality and 
a belief in deep tax cuts. But John Dean goes further back, seeing in 
Bush all the secrecy and scandal of Dean's former boss, the notorious 
Richard Nixon. The difference, as the title of Dean's book indicates, 
is that Bush is a heck of a lot worse. While the book provides insightful 
snippets of the way Nixon used to do business, it offers them to shed 
light on the practices of Bush. In Dean's estimation, the secrecy with 
which Bush and Dick Cheney govern is not merely a preferred system of 
management but an obsessive strategy meant to conceal a deeply troubling 
agenda of corporate favoritism and a dramatic growth in unchecked power 
for the executive branch that put at risk the lives of American citizens, 
civil liberties, and the Constitution. 
...
... multiplying set of lies and scandals that far outstrip the misdeeds 
that led directly to Dean's former employer resigning in disgrace ...
...
[additional uncomplimentary stuff deleted]
------- end John Dean book promo -------------------------------

[I rip off the duct tape]
Ouch.  
That seems kind of harsh, coming from another Republican.

But let's go through the checklist:
1. risk the lives of American citizens?
CHECK!
2. risk our civil liberties?
CHECK!
3. risk our Constitution?
CHECK!

Well how about that?  I guess John Dean is right.

And of course there are a few Republican senators who have
been critical, some say they won't vote for Bush this time.

Please take the time to read these full articles, especially the 
John Eisenhower, then join these patriots, jump off the 
"preemptive war is good/mega deficits are good" Bush bandwagon.
This wagon is way out of control.
There's a better way to run this great country.

And just to be fair yet unbalanced, there's Senator Zell Miller, Democrat, 
who supports Bush.  Did you hear his speech at the RNC?  After he finished
he left the stage and had a confrontation where he said he wished that he 
lived in a time when he could challenge TV guy, Chris Matthews, to a duel.... Wow.  
Zell is pretty normal, huh?  
I wish you had lived during that time too, Senator Miller.

So go ahead, forward this url to ALL of your Republican friends, they need 
to know that they are not alone in their serious second thoughts about 
George W. Bush.