[link|http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/15/kerry_must_reframe_bush____and_fast/|http://www.boston.co...bush____and_fast/]

The neocons add credence to the phrase "nobody ever lost underestimating the intelligence of the American people".

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For Kerry and for Democrats, the frustrating reality is that everything important about George Bush and his presidency is a lie. Bush himself is far more of a phony. As several biographies have documented, he virtually fell upwards, benefiting from family connections to survive a dissolute youth, draft avoidance, and several business failures. But Bush has seized the iconography of the honest cowboy, the regular guy clearing brush on his Texas ranch, the war hero arriving by fighter plane to rescue America. That Kerry actually served in combat, that he made his way upwards with far less family help, gets buried under the smears.

Bush's presidency has been an even bigger lie, beginning with the dishonest way he assumed office and the gap between his moderate posture and his extremist policies. There is such a huge medley of lies that a challenger almost doesn't know where to start.

The tax cuts didn't create jobs. No Child Left Behind is big government without the resources. The deficit will sandbag the economy for decades. The Medicare drug plan is a fake. Privatizing Social Security will leave retirees worse off.

And his national security policy is worse. Whether the venue is Iraq, the phony case for war and the disastrous aftermath, the hit-and-run policy in Afghanistan, North Korea's quest for nuclear weapons, or the vaunted "war on terror" and the Keystone Kops Homeland Security Department, it all leaves America and the world less safe.

But the ordinary citizen is gulled by the stagecraft and numbed by the details. And if Kerry tries to explain the particulars, he plays policy wonk to Bush's John Wayne.

Bush and Cheney keep grabbing headlines with ever more outrageous lies. Just this week, speaking in Michigan, Bush described Kerry's health plan as "a government takeover of health care." In fact, the plan would have government compensate private health plans that faced excessive insurance losses because they had sicker-than-average members. The political press, rather than explaining Bush's lie, played the story as mere attack and counterattack.

And drawing a parallel towards the american people cutting them in half.

No more credit for you, son.

People would get that.

Most RINO's (Republicans In Name Only) seem to only care that Kerry might raise their taxes. Otherwise they really are mostly Dems (according to Michael Moore's article based on an informal survey on issues at the RNC). But mostly they feared tax hikes. So ask them how they'd feel about someone running up their credit cards without their permission. That's about what has happened.

Other good parallel would be illustrating Repo's as being prone to dine n dash. Same deal. Fiscal responsibility my foot.