Colby noted that "Kerry supported Bush's tax cuts," and -- in contrast to Dean -- he does. Although he voted against the "Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001" and the "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003," Kerry now, as you admit, "favors rolling back the tax cuts for people making over $200,000 a year, although he would like to keep some of [sic] the cuts for middle-income people." That probably should be "all of the cuts" -- for Kerry is as close to unequivocal as he ever is: "I don't believe that we should be raising taxes on the middle class," and "I am going to protect the middle class," where "middle class" seems to mean those earning less that $200,000p.a.
That's better than Bush, of course, but it's not a unique example of Kerry's wishing to have it both ways. (He also voted for an economic stimulus package in 2002 "that contained a hefty but temporary tax cut for businesses, currently set to expire at the end of this year" <www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=138#>.)
At worst Colby is guilty of hyperbole, perhaps on the order of "planning the destruction of public education..." There's a worse example later in the article: "Of the many similarities between the patricians Bush and Kerry, there's nothing more disturbing than their membership in the super-secret and super-elite Skull & Bones club at Yale University." Although Colby quotes a mordant comment form the excellent Sam Smith on this college club, there are certainly more disturbing similarities between Kerry and Bush, notably in the common interests they serve.
Colby's attempt to point out those similarities is a corrective for what the editors of CounterPunch call the "sublime indifference to the messy realities of politics and life that is now inspiring Democrats to rally behind Kerry, under the vacant banner, Anybody But Bush." That's certainly worthwhile. --CGE
On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, John Lacny wrote:
> Michael,
>
> I confess that I really have no idea who you are, but I did read your
> article that appeared on CounterPunch the other day:
>
> http://www.counterpunch.org/colby02142004.html
>
> In it you write:
>
> "Before the delusional Democrats out there start peppering me with
> hostile emails about the absolute necessity of getting 'anybody but
> Bush' in the White House, just stop yourselves long enough to consider
> these facts: Kerry supported Bush's war on Iraq; Kerry supported
> Bush's tax cuts; Kerry hasn't proposed one major social or
> environmental initiative in over 20 years in the U.S. Senate; Kerry
> hasn't put forward any meaningful policy initiatives in his campaign
> for the presidency regarding jobs or healthcare."
>
> Hm. Well, Michael, in those e-mails, has anyone commented on how the
> insistence of Cockburn & Co. on telling us what we already know
> (literally saying stuff like gee, did you hear that Kerry supported
> the Iraq War? -- anyone who thinks that they have to point this out is
> too stupid for words) is so boring it that it induces headaches?
>
> What you write about the tax cuts is of a somewhat different order,
> though it is also symptomatic of people on the "left" who are
> objectively campaigning for Bush -- it falls in or in close proximity
> to what I will call for lack of a better term the "Let's Just Make
> Shit Up" School of Falsification. Or perhaps a better and more concise
> term would be a "lie," since any grade-school child with basic
> literacy and access to the Internet could have found that Kerry voted
> against both rounds of Bush tax cuts (the $1.35 trillion over 11 years
> on May 23, 2001 and the $350 billion over 11 years passed on May 23,
> 2003 in the Senate):
>
> http://www.issues2000.org/2004/John_Kerry_Tax_Reform.htm
>
> So did you lie, or were you just too dumb to look it up? Or am I
> unfairly taking out my annoyance on you when the real problem is that
> you have Alexander Cockburn for a fact-checker?
>
> These days Kerry says that he favors rolling back the tax cuts for
> people making over $200,000 a year, although he would like to keep
> some of the cuts for middle-income people. Say what you want about
> that, but it isn't Bush. Unless you just want to make up more shit,
> that is.
>
> Meanwhile, Bush is planning to block-grant Medicaid. The Bush crew is
> planning the destruction of public education over the long term
> through school vouchers, which they have already imposed in the colony
> of the District of Colombia. And Bush wants to privatize Social
> Security, even talking about it openly in his State of the Union
> address. Kerry differs with Bush on all of these, but I suppose these
> are all irrelvant side issues for those intrepid few, like yourself,
> who are busy making more fundamental change by writing counterfactual
> bullshit for CounterPunch.
>
> Ta ta!
>
>
> - - - - -
> John Lacny
>
> People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running
> dogs!
>
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>