Barack Obama spent the Fourth of July in Montana.  A Red State. A state that few think he can win. A state that gave huge margins to George Bush the past two elections.

    But here he was. On Independence Day. Marching in a parade. Hosting a picnic for hundreds. Trying to rally support for his Presidential run. Trying to show that he can appeal to voters of every political, social, and economic demographic. His web site tells us he "shook hands, kissed babies, signed autographs and posed for pictures." Patriotism just oozed out of his every pore.

    Barack Obama is now as patriotic as the electorate wants him to be. During most of the primaries, he didn't wear a flag pin in his lapel. He didn't think wearing pins makes one patriotic, or not wearing one makes someone unpatriotic. But, the right-wing lambasted him for that. Now he wears a flag pin.

    And every speech he makes, he is now flanked by several American flags. Just in case anyone thinks he isn't patriotic. Or is a foreigner. Or worse, a Muslim.

    Barack Obama has changed in other ways. Once he said he would pull the U.S. out of Iraq. End that war. Now, he's calling for a phased withdrawal.

    Once, he opposed innumerable pieces of legislation sent to the Senate by the Bush-Cheney Administration--and which a Republican Congress rubber stamped. Now, as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, he voted for provisions of a law that granted immunity to telephone companies that violated both established federal law and the 4th Amendment to the Constitution by voluntarily giving personal data about subscribers to the government.

    Once, he said he would accept government restrictions and decline the excessive private contributions that have muddied politics. Now, with a campaign war chest at least two or three times greater than John McCain's, he has flip-flopped and is taking whatever he can get--and doesn't have to report who gave what.

    Barack Obama isn't the only politician to forsake some of his principles for the greater principle--do whatever it takes to get elected. Hillary Clinton moved more to the center when she began to think she could be the next president, and even voted for the renewal of the unconstitutional PATRIOT Act. John McCain, by any standards a conservative, began playing even more to the right-wing when the evangelical Christians challenged some of his beliefs and voting record. Every politician, even the most maverick ones, say that they need to get elected to do whatever it is they want to do. But, once in office they continue to do whatever is necessary to stay in office and get re-elected.

    Barack Obama, like every other politician, needs to reflect upon the principles of what the Founding Fathers wanted. And maybe every politician should decide that on this Independence Day weekend, it is time to declare that once and forever they will follow their convictions, their beliefs, and declare themselves to be independent, now and forever, not only of special interests, but also of pandering for votes.

    [Walter Brasch has covered politics and presidential campaigns more than 40 years. He is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, a syndicated columnist, and author of 17books. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, available through amazon.com and other stores.]

            From the tumbleweed towns of Texas to urban Houston and Galveston, from the Rust Belt to the Bible Belt, Americans have taken to the streets to protest.
            Waving oversized Chinese-made American flags, wearing T-shirts with pictures of Donald Rumsfeld, and holding banners proclaiming, "Destroy Iraq, Save Civilization," they demand that America accept the "augmentation" of troops in Iraq.
            "How can you call for continued war?" I asked one of their leaders.
            "Because if we leave Iraq," said Thelma Lou Hodgkins of Whelping Falls, Mo., "we'll have stood down and the terrorists will win because we can't stand the Iraqis, so they'll either stand up or down. Or maybe sit. Or maybe they'd be lying down on the streets." Mercifully, I cut her off.
            "Most Americans now say they were lied to by the Administration, that the war was wrong, that it has been poorly planned and abysmally executed."
            "That's only the ones who have never been in Iraq. Or went to Iraq. Or knew someone who went to Iraq. The rest of us know better."
            "More than 3,000 Americans and as many as 100,000 Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians, have died in this war. At least 20,000 American soldiers have been wounded, some crippled for life."
            "So what's your point?" she asked.            "Besides, we just can't cut and run like the defeatists want. There's still a war to win, and money to be taken by Halliburton and Exxon."
            "The war profiteers have indeed gotten richer because of this war," I said, hoping she'd see my point.
            "And that's how we keep the economy as good as it's been. More profit means more jobs and the right of every family to be able to shop at Wal-Mart."
            "It also means more deaths."
            "There you go with that death thing again," she said. "At least 5,000 soldiers haven't yet had any opportunity to win a medal?"
            "Even if the medals are Purple Hearts?"
            "Wounded. Dead. Helps their career. They get promoted. Makes for better survivor benefits."
            "You're aware that only about 28 percent of all Americans even believe in this war?"
            "That makes us a minority, and we have rights!"
            "A year ago, you were in the majority, and you said the minority were unpatriotic traitors. Said they should be shot for treason."
            "And we were right then, too." She paused a moment, reflecting upon what had happened in the past year. "Besides, we'd still be in the majority if all those cowardly politicians who supported us didn't turn tail and try to get re-elected. At least Thomas Jefferson is on our side."
            "I doubt Jefferson would have said that supporting war is the best course of action in any dispute."
            "Maybe it was Washington. Or Cornwallis. I get all them Founding Fathers mixed up. But, someone said that no one has the right to protest the government. That's downright unAmerican!"
            "None of our Founding Fathers said that silencing opposition was acceptable. That's why they gave us the First Amendment."
            "Don't you ever watch FOX News?" she demanded. "Our glorious leader, Bill O'Reilly, has declared that in order for Americans to be safe from camels overtaking taxis in New York, we must outshout all opposing views and suspend the Constitution. Except for the Second Amendment, of course. No one messes with the right to lock and load!"
            "How long do you intend to stay on the streets?" I asked.
            "Until the last soldier is killed dying for this country. That's when we'll know the war is over."
            "Don't you feel any shame?" I asked.
            "All we are asking," she said, "is give war a chance."
            When last I saw the protestors, they were holding hands and singing, "Okie from Muskogee."

[Walter Brasch's current books are America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights; `Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina; and Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American Culture. They are available through amazon.com and other on-line sources. You may contact Dr. Brasch, professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University, at brasch@bloomu.edu, or through his website, www.walterbrasch.com.]

    Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and the rest of the gang that thinks they're a war cabinet supporting the man who thinks he's a war president used the fifth anniversary of 9/11 to tell the world how great they are.
    In speech after speech, all meant to boost their neocon candidates' chances for re-election in two months, they dominated the news media to proclaim that under their watch there have been no more attacks on American soil. They looked directly into the cameras and told us that because Americans are fighting in Iraq, the terrorists aren't in New York City. For their part, the establishment media willingly disseminated the PR.
    What wasn't stated in the rah-rah political boosterism was that the massive babbling was nothing more than sleight-of-hand distortion. The sleeping Bush-Cheney administration before 9/11 had begun to reduce the effectiveness of FEMA, cut back funding for the FBI counterterrorism operations, failed to act upon a number of FBI warnings about potential terrorists already in the United States, and disregarded substantial and significant warnings of the impending attack. Even one month before 9/11, President Bush apparently didn't do much with a Presidential Daily Brief that was entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside U.S.," and then stood flat-footed when first told about the 9/11 attacks. But then his advisory council, largely composed of his father's advisors, regrouped and led him into at least the appearance of being presidential.
    To strike the terrorist base camps, Bush ordered troops into Afghanistan to tear down the Taliban regime that protected the al-Qaeda terrorists, and vowed to capture Osama bin Laden. Five years later, the Department of Defense, the CIA, and the "Big Ear" NSA have admitted that the trail to bin Laden is cold. But, there are about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan, which under American control again leads the world in growing opium.
    In Iraq are about 150,000 American troops because the war president and his war cabinet wanted to invade Iraq, and lied to the American people. Even knowing substantial evidence to the contrary, they blatantly told us that Saddam Hussein had ties to 9/11 and al-Qaeda. They said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The establishment media unquestioningly channeled the message.
    The non-combatant "White House Warriors" who planned to "shock and awe" the world with a swift military strike, claimed American troops would be welcomed by the Iraqis who would give them joyful praise and even flowers, much like the liberated French gave conquering Americans in World War II. They claimed the war, which has now cost Americans about than $440 billion, would be financed by oil revenue. What they didn't tell Americans is that there are no oil revenues, and that American oil-based corporations have had massive windfall profits to be added to millions of taxpayer-provided dollars that have either been misplaced, unaccounted for, or can't be traced.
    Because of diversion of funds, equipment, and supplies into the Iraq war, combined with the placement of the National Guard and their materiel in Iraq, America is less protected against hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and other natural disasters.
    For his part, Donald Rumsfeld refused to allow the military to plan for a post-war occupation. "In his own mind, he thought we could go in and fight and take out the regime and come out,"  Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, who was in charge of the Logistics War Plans Division, told Orin Kerr of the Hampton Roads (Va.) Daily Press this month. Rumsfeld "said we will not do that because the American public will not back us if they think we are going over there for a long war," and threatened to fire anyone who argued for post-war planning, said Gen. Scheid.
    The military weren't the only ones threatened. In Bush Speak, enhanced by almost every talk-show mouth and right-wing politician, and led by the draft-dodging Dick Cheney, refusal to buy into the Bush-Cheney propaganda was equated with refusal to "Support the Troops." Those who questioned the Bush-Cheney administration were branded "cut and run cowards"; they were called unpatriotic, even treasonous, accused of "aiding the enemy."
    It was those "unpatriotic traitors" who questioned why the Bush-Cheney administration was methodically shredding the Constitution. They opposed the excesses of the USA PATRIOT Act, opposed renditions, opposed torture of prisoners, challenged the suppression of First Amendment rights of free speech, spoke out against the Administration's quashing of Fourth Amendment rights of privacy, and the Fifth and Sixth amendment rights of due process, and the eighth amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.
    The war in Iraq has now cost more than 3,000 American lives, caused more than 20,000 injuries, thousands of them permanent. At least 41,600 civilians and others in the combat zones have been killed, according to the nonpartisan estimates of Iraq Body Count, which keeps detailed data on all deaths in Iraq.
    To continue to instill fear into Americans, the Bush-Cheney Administration has used the fifth year anniversary of 9/11 to tout the $20 billion spent on airport security, but hasn't acknowledged the vulnerability of the nation's ports, railway or bus systems. While praising the new multimillion dollar counterterrorism building and all the agencies working within it, it hasn't acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security has become a bungling bureaucratic nightmare. And, underneath all of the blustering and braggadocio is still a domestic reality--health care, the environment, and protection of all Americans against workforce exploitation and poverty is of secondary importance to this Administration.
    Two days after his election in 2004, George W. Bush told America he "earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style." He said, "That's what happened in the--after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election--and I'm going to spend it."
    For several months after 9/11, Americans were united in their grief. Almost the entire world, including countries with a majority of its population Muslim, was America's ally. President Bush and his war cabinet squandered that good will by their arrogant jingoistic deceitfulness and stupidity, and are now on a nationwide tour to invoke the memory of 9/11 and try to hammer-lock the nation into believing that they needed to give up some Constitutional and fundamental rights in order to be safe. The President has spent all of his political capital and has put America into debt.
    America is divided, more so than during the Vietnam War. The Bush-Cheney legacy won't be that they stopped terrorism, but that they played upon fear to promote a political agenda that fractured a country almost as much as the Civil War ever did.

[Walter Brasch's current books are America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and `Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Both are available through amazon.com and other on-line sources. You may contact Dr. Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu]

            Ralph A. Saggiomo is an affable sort of fellow, one you probably wouldn't mind having a couple of beers with, swap a few tales, and discuss just about anything.

            He grew up in one of the most rural, most remote parts of the country, and considers himself to have the same values as the Colonials who lived in Pennsylvania more than two centuries earlier. But, he's also lived in urban America. He was a Philadelphia firefighter for 33 years, the last few in command positions.

            After retirement, he moved back to his 75-acre family farm in Sayre, Pa., and continued his work in local civic organizations, becoming president of both the Greater Valley Emergency Medical Services and the Sayre Business Association. He's a member of the Pennsylvania Governor's Advisory Council for Hunting, Fishing & Conservation; and was president of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, an association that claims about 20,000 members.

            For 60 years, Ralph A. Saggiomo has proudly been killing fish and game, both small and large. Name a domestic species, and he's probably shot at it, wounded it, or killed it.

            He says he was told one of his more recent kills was a Dall Sheep; more likely, it was a Texas Dall ram, a lucrative target because of its thick curly horns. The rams, a hybrid of Corsican and Mouflon sheep, are primarily bred to look like the Dall Sheep, native to the mountainous regions of Alaska and the northwest part of Canada. Dall sheep are a challenge to hunters because of their adept ability to escape into the steep mountainous slopes. Domesticated Texas Dall rams pose no such problems.

            Whatever he killed--"dispatched" and "harvested" are the terms hunters euphemistically prefer--Saggiomo didn't have to go more than 3,000 miles to the subarctic mountains, he only had to go about 50 miles from his home to the Tioga Boar Hunting Preserve. Saggiomo's day of killing, a gift from his family, was in a fenced-in area.

            "It was a wonderful experience," Saggiomo told the Pennsylvania House Game and Fisheries Committee, which was holding a hearing in equally remote Towanda, an hour's drive east of Tioga, away from the major media and in an area not likely to bring many protestors. The Committee was in Towanda to hear testimony about a bill to ban what has become known as a "canned hunt." For a few thousand dollars, Great White Hunters--complete with rented guides, dogs, and guns or bows--can go into a fenced-in area and shoot an exotic species. In most canned hunts, the animals have been bred to be killed, have little fear of humans, and are often lured to a feeding station or herded toward the hunter to allow a close-range kill. In some of the preserves--Tioga denies it ever used these techniques--animals are drugged or tied to stakes. Some of the "big cats," recorded in investigative undercover videos by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Fund for Animals were declawed, placed in cages, and then released; the terrified and non-aggressive animals were then killed within a few yards of their prisons; some were killed while in their cages.

            Canned hunts attract not only ethics-challenged pretend-hunters, but ethics-challenged celebrities as well. Among celebrities who have participated in canned hunts, and who mistakenly believe they are hunters and not cold-blooded killers, are Vice-President Dick Cheney, who has been on several hunts in which the kill was assured; and Troy Gentry of the country-rock duo, Montgomery Gentry.

            In December 2003, Cheney and nine of his friends--including former Naval Academy and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), and some Texas high-roller Republican party donors--went to the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier, Pa., about an hour's drive east of Pittsburgh. The owners of the country club, being the good hosts they were, released 500 domesticated and penned-up ring-necked pheasants in the morning. Bird Dog and Retriever News reports that about 40 percent of all domesticated pheasants, if not shot by pretend-hunters, either starve or are killed by predators within the first week of their release; about 75 percent die within a month.

            At Ligonier, starvation wasn't a problem. A game keeper told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Cheney alone killed about 70 of the 417 killed that day. In the afternoon, having hardly raised a bead of sweat, the good ole boys slaughtered dozens, perhaps hundreds, of equally tame mallards that had been hand-raised and shoved in front of waiting shotguns for the massacre. No one kept score, but by the time Cheney flew out of the area, the mallards were plucked and vacuum-packed, according to the Post-Gazette, ready for flight aboard the taxpayer-funded Air Force 2. The pheasants the hunting party didn't keep, according to the Dallas (Texas) Morning News, were donated to a local food bank. However, no one involved indicated which food bank, nor did they acknowledge that preparing pheasant is cumbersome, and that such a donation, if it did occur, was probably more of a public relations ploy or a tax-deduction to justify their killing orgy than community service. Nor does any "donation" alleviate the reality that people in these non-challenging fenced-in grounds kill because they like the excitement of killing a live animal, often mixed with the sheer joy of watching their prey die. After awhile, the animals are seen only as things to be blasted, essentially living clay pigeons; it is an attitude that true sportsmen abhor.

            The owners of the country club didn't say how much, if anything, the Cheney Pot-Shot Safari paid, but others who go to the exclusive country club/canned preserve pay for each bird or duck killed. It's in the financial interest of the owners to make sure there's easy prey.

            Even easier prey was a black bear named Cubby. In October 2004, Troy Gentry, who had paid about $4,650 for the tame bear, killed it on a private "preserve" in Sandstone, Minn., and then tagged it as if the bear was killed in the wild. There was even an edited videotape of the "stalking" and killing by the singer who envisions himself to be an expert archer. There is no law against the murder of animals if done on private property. But, in August 2006, Gentry was in federal court to defend himself against a violation of the Lacey Act, which forbids the false tagging of any animal.

            Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), with 10 co-sponsors, introduced a bill (S. 304) in February 2005 to ban the interstate transport of exotic animals for the purpose of them being killed on private preserves. "There is nothing sportsmanlike or skillful about shooting an animal that cannot escape," said Lautenberg at the time he introduced the bill, and emphasized, "In an era when we are seeking to curb violence in our culture, canned hunts are certainly one form of gratuitous brutality that does not belong in our society." That bill is buried in the Senate's Subcommittee on the Judiciary. A companion bill (HR 1688), introduced in the House of Representatives by Sam Farr (D-Calif.), with 39 co-sponsors, is buried in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Under the Republican-controlled Congress, neither bill is likely to emerge from committee.

            For his part, President Bush wants to amend the Endangered Species Act to allow trophy-hunting Americans who kill endangered species in other countries to import them into the U.S. The proposal has roots in the Safari Club International; its political action committee has given about $800,000 in campaign contributions, mostly to Republican candidates, since 2000, according to an investigation by the Humane Society of the United States. The plan has the support of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose former deputy director was chief lobbyist for the Safari Club before his appointment by Bush. He is now with the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

            Many of the animals on canned hunts are surplus animals bought from dealers who buy cast-off animals from zoos and circuses; the animals sold to the preserves are often aged and arthritic. Dozens of preserves have bought black bears, zebras, giraffes, lions, boars, and just about any species of animal the client could want, solely to be killed, photographed, and then skinned, stuffed, and mounted. Ralph Saggiomo's sheep may have come from a breeder in Missouri. The proprietors at Tioga, said Saggiomo, "were gracious, humane and helpful."

            Those "humane" proprietors are the Gee family, which believes their "preserve" is really a private farm. Like ones that grow alfalfa and corn. A 1,550 acre private farm--with a fenced-in area of about 150 acres to make that "sure shot" more probable. And, while people "from all over the world" are killing animals at Tioga, the "farm" operation provides significant "economic benefits" to the community, according to Michael Gee. There are 14 Pennsylvania farms and about 1,000 in the nation that the proprietors believe are the poster children for the Chambers of Commerce and, most certainly, the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.

            This particular "farm," according to its website, "features high success rate hunting, youth hunts, hunts with dogs, guided hunts, trophy hunts, Sunday hunting . . .  virtually any type of big game hunt you can imagine." Whatever "you can image" costs $70 a day for food and lodging, plus a kill fee and supplementary costs for skinning and mounting. Pay $595 and you can kill a Texas Dall ram, rocky mountain ram, or Corsican ram. Buffalo are at least $1,250. Elk bulls come for $2,000. And, just in case you have trouble killing one of the nation's 30 million white-tailed deer--1.6 million of them in Pennsylvania alone--during the bow, crossbow, muzzleloader, rifle, or shotgun seasons, just come to Tioga. For $1,000 "and up," you can get that elusive buck, with a 10-point rack suitable for mounting in your very own trophy room in suburban America. Tioga's rates are at the lower end of the scale. At other preserves, prices for white-tailed deer, with trophy-sized racks, can be more than $5,000. The costs for some of the exotic "trophy"-class animals, usually found only in sub-Saharan Africa, are well over $15,000.

            Tioga, like most preserves, guarantees a kill. The clients are told they "may hunt as long as you wish until you get what you wish." No hunting licenses are required, there are no limits, Sunday hunting is permitted, and "kills are usually made from 25 to 100 yards." This "farm" even tells prospective clients, "Wild goat and sheep with large horns are numerous. Hunting them is great sport for the hunter." The rocky mountain ram, with "their big, sweeping, curled horns make a great trophy," the Gee family tells prospective clients. Of course, there are some restrictions. No one under the age of 10 is allowed to shoot.

            Heidi Prescott, undoubtedly feeling like a peace activist in a convention of Army recruiters, was the only one at the House committee hearing who didn't fish, hunt, or had close ties to the hunting industry. Prescott is senior vice-president of the Humane Society of the United States, which has a membership of 9.5 million, more than three times that of the National Rifle Association. Prescott showed members of the committee news stories and a separate undercover videotape of canned hunts. Before the hearing, Michael Gee had told a local newspaper that animal rights groups "just try to bring up extreme cases to prove their point," and use it as a "stepping stone" to ban hunting. "If she says anything in that video is from Tioga, that's a lie," Pete Gee, Michael's father, retorted to the undercover investigation by Emmy-winning investigative reporter Melanie Alnwick of WTTG-TV (Fox News), Washington, D.C. The news story--but not the videotape of the brutal killing of a boar, probably at another game preserve in Pennsylvania--was filmed in early May 2006 at Tioga, according to Aaron Wische, WTTG's executive producer for special projects.

            Most "kills" on the "farms" are from animals bleeding out. Animals suffer minutes to hours, says Prescott. Canned hunting, says Prescott, "is about as sporting as shooting a puppy in pet store window." Most sportsmen agree with her. The concept of the "fair chase" is embedded into hunter culture. The Boone & Crockett Club and the Pope and Young Club (bowhunters), two of the three primary organizations that rate trophy kills, refuse to accept applications from persons who bagged their "trophy" on a canned hunt. The Safari Club does allow persons to seek recognition, but only under limitations that most preserves can't meet.

            Members of the committee weren't convinced that canned hunts need to be banned. Rep. Tina Puckett (R-Towanda) told a reporter before the hearing she believed banning the canned hunt "could be the beginning of an attempt to say `no preserve hunting,' which then leads to no hunting." She said she wouldn't favor the bill "because of those down-the-road concerns." Rep. Thomas Corrigan (D-Bucks County) says he submitted the bill, which carries 38 cosponsors, for consideration because canned hunts are "unsporting, cruel, and tarnish the image of all hunters."

            The House committee kept throwing pointed questions to Prescott; she adeptly batted them back.

            The bill that prohibits canned hunting would also be the first step to eliminating all hunting. Not so, said Prescott. Of the 22 states that already ban such practices, "the hunting culture is still strong." She pointed to Montana, which has one of the nation's strongest hunting cultures. In 2000, following a hunter-led initiative, it became the first state to ban canned hunts, reinforcing the values that true sportsmen believe in fair chase.

            The state's 900 deer and elk farms would be banned. The bill specifically excludes deer, elk, and all other cervidae.

            The bill would prohibit farmers or butchers from killing livestock for food. "No judge in his right mind would interpret it that way," retorted Prescott, who said the Humane Society "would be happy to work with representatives to amend it if members were truly concerned about it."

            Ralph Saggiomo, according to his official biography published by the Governor's Advisory Council for Hunting, Fishing & Conservation, has a "love for the outdoors," and has "spent the greater part of his life enjoying the outdoors and has been able to pass his passion on to all of his children, who have become successful hunters, fishermen, and trappers. His grandchildren are now carrying on the tradition, which his father and grandfather passed on to him." Although still active in the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, if Saggiomo was a sportsman, he wouldn't have shot a domesticated animal that was lured into his sights and had no way to escape. If he truly understood the beauty and grandeur of the outdoors, he would have allowed animals to live their lives without the intrusion of people who kill not for food or clothing but because their hormones are infused with the ecstasy they get from the kill and the resultant "trophy," which he says now hangs in his den.

            [Walter Brasch's current books are America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and `Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Both are available through amazon.com and other on-line sources. You may contact Dr. Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu, or through his website, www.walterbrasch.com. Readers may also wish to order Making Burros Fly: Cleveland Amory, Animal Rights Pioneer, by Julie Hoffman Marshall.]

    George W. Bush says he believes in up-or-down votes. He proclaimed it shortly after his first inaugural, and included that belief in his 2005 State of the Union address, when he demanded that "every judicial nominee deserves an up-or-down vote."

    A one-vote majority, says the President, should decide nominations and issues. He constantly talked about up-or-down votes in the Senate for the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N., for bills to ban gay marriages, to make it illegal to burn the flag, and almost every bill his administration proposed. His words were echoed by the Congressional leadership and by the evangelical fundamental Christian base.

    He disagrees with Senate rules, which require 60 votes to override a filibuster. The reason President Bush believes in the "up-or-down" theory of governance is because for most of his Administration he has had a Republican Congress willing to do whatever it takes to advance a neoconservative political and social agenda.

    Since President Bush believes in one-vote majorities, it shouldn't have been a problem for him to accept a 238-194 vote in the House and a 63-37 vote in the Senate to allow medical researchers to use stem cells from embryos, with their donors' consent, that would have been discarded by fertility clinics. About 400,000 frozen embryos are in clinics; a few will be "adopted" by mothers who have them implanted in their uteruses; most embryos will be thrown away.

    Embryonic stem cells are the basic building blocks of life, cells that will develop into any cell in the body, and are the key to learning more about life itself. Stem cell research could lead to cures for Parkinson's Disease, diabetes, numerous cancers, spinal cord injuries, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. Nancy Reagan, whose husband's last years were spent in the fog of Alzheimer's, is a strong proponent of stem cell research.

    Almost seven months after his first inauguration, President Bush declared that the federal government would fund research only on stem cell lines that had already been developed, and not for any new ones. He equated the medical use of stem cells with murder, and threatened to veto any new legislation to expand stem cell research. His veto threats had worked on 141 other bills over a five and a half year period, as the Republican-controlled Congress meekly revised bills or eliminated them.

    This time, Congress--faced by the political reality that about 70 percent of Americans supported expanded stem cell research--didn't buckle. Fifty House Republicans broke from the White House legislative controls; in the Senate, nineteen Republicans and all but one Democrat voted for the bill. The President renewed his veto threat.

    Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) had asked the President, "not to make the first veto of your presidency one that turns America backward on the party of scientific progress and limits the promise of medical miracles for generations to come." Bill Frist--heart surgeon, Senate majority leader, and one of the most active voices in pushing the Bush-Cheney agenda--also opposed the veto. "Given the potential of this research and the limitations of the existing lines eligible for federally funded research, I think additional lines should be made available," Dr. Frist said.

    But the president did veto the bill, and neither the House nor the Senate had the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto. The President's veto, said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is a "shameful display of cruelty, hypocrisy, and ignorance." Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said he thought the President was "captured by his own ideology and taking his ideology to an extreme." Research, said Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) "will now continue in the private sector with insufficient funding and a lack of government oversight, all while millions of people wait for cures to devastating diseases.

     President Bush said in April 2002, "We have a moral imperative to protect the sanctity of life," and continued to throw "sanctity of life" in almost every speech or comment about stem cell research. At the time he explained his veto, he declared the bill--approved by significantly more than an "up-or-down" vote--"crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect."

    If the President honestly believed in a "moral boundary" and the "sanctity of life," he would not have exploited a couple of dozen "snowflake babies"--children born from implanted embryos--by using them as props in the East Room when he explained why he vetoed the bill.
    If George W. Bush understood moral boundaries and the sanctity of life, he would not have lied about the non-existent ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda or the weapons of mass destruction he claimed were in Iraq in order to launch an invasion that has cost more than 2,500 American lives and caused injuries, many life-threatening, to another 18,000, in addition to 50,000-70,000 civilian deaths. He would not have decided that the Geneva Accords didn't apply to thousands of prisoners that his Administration confined in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and other prisons. If he had any kind of a "moral compass," he would have allowed prisoners to have due process, to be treated humanely, and not be subjected to "renditions," the transfer to secret prisons in countries that use torture.

    If this former non-combatant National Guard officer had any concern for humanity, he would not have ordered severe cuts in combat pay and family benefits for active duty military, proposed a $1.3 billion cut in veterans' benefits, and an increase in health care costs, while also pushing for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans.

    If he believed in a moral administration, he would not have allowed Halliburton, the financial empire once run by Dick Cheney, to continue to get several multi-million dollar no-bid contracts in New Orleans and Iraq after being exposed for price gouging and fraudulent business practices.

    If George W. Bush understood the meaning of the "sanctity of life," he would not have spent several minutes at a photo-op in Florida where he read "My Pet Goat" to children after being notified that the first plane had hit the Twin Towers. He would not have been embarrassingly slow and seemingly unconcerned to respond following the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake/tsunami in Southeast Asia or after Hurricane Katrina hit America's Gulf Coast.

    He would not have disregarded the ubiquitous warnings from the scientific community about global warming and the multitudinous pleas to preserve and defend the environment and all of its life. He would not have diverted funds for disaster relief, and cut back on health and welfare needs. He would not have placed political cronies into senior administrative positions in the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and then cut that agency's funding for disaster response.

    If he believed in "morals," he would have cut all ties with his good buddy, "Kenny Boy" Lay, whose company cheated thousands of employees out of their pensions, while the executives were living in luxury.

    If the President of the United States was concerned about "morals" and the "sanctity of life," he would have condemned hunting and the gun lobby that was one of the primary contributors to his political campaigns. He would have condemned the spurious and vicious attacks upon Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2000 primary contest, and the Swift Boat attacks upon Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in the 2004 general election.

    There is a lot that George W. Bush, who campaigned on promises to bring morality to the White House, could do to prove he is a moral leader, one who believes in the sanctity of life. But, his record, not his rhetoric, shows otherwise.

    [Walter Brasch's current books are America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and `Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Both are available through amazon.com and other on-line sources. You may contact Dr. Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu]