PLAIN TALK

Leonard Horwin October 18, 2004

(310) 785-6600 tel.

(310) 785-6644 fax

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Vice Presidential Debate Confirms Time for a Change?

Questions and Answers are cited below as “Q” and “A”

1. Q: Overall impression of the debate results?

A: Sympathy for the venerable existing vice president, Dick Cheney who appeared almost removed from the fray.

2. Q: What impression of candidate for the vice presidency, John Edwards?

A: Youth coupled with very firm ability to meet the problems of the present situation of the nation.

3. Q: What problems of the nation appeared most pressing from the debate?

A: Forceful demonstration of the current administration’s unfitness for office by:

(1) (a) Senator Edwards’ very effective blasting of the administration for lying to the nation that the President would respond with immediate war against the terrorists, –and indeed timely locating the enemy who had been hiding after the 9/11 hijacking attacks in part of the Afghan mountainous region. However, instead of using the immediately available trained U.S. forces to capture and kill the located enemy, –the administration let the captured bin Laden forces be turned over to the Afghans supposedly friendly to the U.S.-led coalition, but tied in fact to a dangerously large share of the Afghan anti-freedom forces of Taliban and otherwise to the culprits here, –who were promptly made to disappear.

(1) (b) Letting the administration mislead the American people by treating the Saddam Hussein Iraqi as a part of the attackers on 9/11 and therefore as subject to U.S. retaliation for that reason, whereas in fact the administration knew that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had no part whatever in the 9/11 hijacking attacks on the United States.

(1)(c) In sum, the Bush administration’s incredible above-described failures in effect fueled all of our subsequent losses in Iraq from which we must now seek to extricate ourselves.

(2) The administration’s planning failures on its Iraq War included lack of planning for other than actual victory in Iraq. Accordingly, there was essentially no planning for ability of the allied forces to substitute for the Iraqi indispensable human services as e.g., utilities for those destroyed by war. This in turn led to Iraqi change in reaction to the allied occupiers, from a very friendly reception because of their removal of Hussein, into enemies in a purported war to substitute democracy for dictatorship.

This in turn led to the war in Iraq being reduced to guerrilla warfare in which Saddam Hussein’s essentially irreligious forces who had nothing to do with the 9/11 hijackings, were pushed into alliances with the religious Iraqis and related Iranians, all more or less governed by religious fanaticism and hatred for the nonbeliever Free World.

This in turn has brought us to a virtual civil war in Iraq, in which we appear more and more to be the losers instead of the victors.

(3) Avoidance of any further U.S. sacrifice of blood and economy by avoidance of any further U.S. troop movement to Iraq.

(4) An end to expensive goods and services to Iraq to be paid for out of Iraq’s oil income, with suspiciously illicit benefits to Vice President Cheney’s Haliburton spawn.

(5) A related war on poverty, including in the U.S.

(6) A related end to the U.S. administration’s huge and gathering fiscal deficits coupled with absurd concurrent reduction in U.S. taxes, especially for Americans most able to pay the taxes.

(7) Meeting the nation’s health problems by a form of universal health insurance.

(8) Edwards also made personal observation that Israel must be left to decide for itself what is essential for its security and not tied to insecurity, –as it is now, –by the United States’ presidential position on the “Road Map to Peace.”

4. Q: In sum:

(1) Definitely time for a change in administration.

(2) An end to “more of the same” in the American government’s revealed responses to the nation’s immediate needs.

(3) A strong impression that the contenders for the presidency and vice presidency in Kerry and Edwards are fully informed, vigorously able, and with very specific and well-planned ideas for change to constructive action.

(4) A related probable lift in the nation’s morale, –indispensable to successful change of direction.

* * *

cc: George W. Bush, President

Richard Cheney, Vice President

John Kerry, Senator & Presidential Candidate

John Edwards, Senator and VP Candidate

Colin Powell, Secretary of State

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

Condoleezza Rice, National Security

Advisor

Colonel Oliver North

Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland

Security

John Ashcroft, U.S. Attorney General

Tony Blair, Prime Minister of Great Britain

Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary

Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the

U.S. House of Representatives

Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu, Economy Minister

for the Israeli Government

Israel’s “Women In Green”

National Unity Coalition for Israel

Arianna Huffington, Syndicated

Columnist

Oriana Fallaci, International Journalist,

Interviewer and Author

Yohanan Ramati, Chairman, Jerusalem

Institute for Western Defense

Gerardo Joffe, FLAME (Facts & Logic

About the Middle East)

Mortimer Zuckerman, Editor in Chief -

US News and World Report

Time Magazine

Washington Post - Attn: Bob Woodward

International Jerusalem Post

The Weekly Standard – Bill Kristol, Editor

The Wall Street Journal - Editorial and

p-Ed Department

Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed Department

Dr. and Mrs. Jordan Phillips,

Medical Books for China International