PERSPECTIVES

Certainly voters can still do this but only if they rely less on polls and media opinions.

What does one do with a poll that states 2 days ahead that Bush wins the first debate? How much faith should one put on the media's decision following the debate? Polls are guesstimates, not facts, and lack prospective.

Instead of polls, let's take two occurrences that have been in the news and believed to have influenced voters, and apply perspective:

The Swiftboat veteran's accusations against Kerry and the revelation that CBS's Dan Rather presented the electorate with forged documents on national television. The Swiftboat ads intent was too make Kerry out to be a liar and a traitor who accused his fellow military of horrible crimes including rape and torture in Viet Nam.

If one takes the trouble to read just what Kerry actually said, one finds that he was speaking on behalf of many soldiers when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971.

While it is true that he spoke of atrocities by U.S. troops, a search of the records by the Village Voice "found plentiful records to back up Kerry's 1971 testimony point by point."

This is not pretty reading.

This article by the Voice reports that: "The archives have hundreds of files of official U.S. military investigations of such atrocities committed by American soldiers." Verbatim examples are given. http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0438/turse.php

Of course no one wants to think that our troops would do such things especially those who had brothers or fathers or husbands in Viet Nam during those times.

But in prospective, it does not seem so far afield. We can just look at what happened at Gitmo, at Abu Ghraib, for example. http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1029&printmode=true

Then there are arrests made just recently of several different military personnel for their torture and murder of Iraqi.

Face the facts. Atrocities are not just committed by the evil doers.

Recently, Dan Rather presented documents on "60 Minutes" that were shown to be forgeries. The hue and cry of the media has been deafening as each media ego rushed in to land a punch or a kick at Dan.

Maybe Rather deserved it or was it just because the documents confirmed what everyone knows; that is, that George Bush got favorite treatment to escape the draft by joining the National Guard? They also indicated that he failed to live up to his commitments, was AWOL for some time and that he left early without penalty.

But, in prospective, why were so many other forgeries made so little of at the time and are now forgotten? Here are just three that Bush used to "justify" going to war in Iraq.

* The scraps of paper that allowed Bush to link Saddam with al Quida.

* The "proof" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

* The documents showing that Iraq sought uranium in Africa. This little forgery even got into a State of the Union address. And what of Thursday's debate? GOPper spinners were twisting in the wind and Karl Rove aged 20 years. The talk is how people are now seeing the substance and value of Kerry.

We think an overlooked result of the debate may be that voters got a good luck at the man who has the power of the president and represents us to the world. As one woman noted, "It made me ashamed that people all over the world were watching him. I saw a man (Kerry) and a boy (Bush) in the debate and I worry for our future if the boy is elected."

We think his posturing and whinny look made him look the spitting image of Mad Magazine's Alfred "What me worry?" E. Newman. It did not inspire confidence.

gapperserve@peoplepc.com

2004-040

Copyright 2004 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@sover.net.