Full Article:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/special_packages/election2004/10044911.htm?1c

Interesting snippets:


When Catherine Herold received mail from the Ohio Republican Party earlier this year, she refused it.

The longtime Barberton Democrat wanted no part of the mailing and figured that by refusing it, the GOP would have to pay the return postage.

What she didn't count on was the returned mail being used to challenge the validity of her voter registration.

Herold,who is assistant to the senior vice president and provost at the University of Akron,was one of 976 Summit County voters whose registrations were challenged last week by local Republicans on behalf of the state party.

She went to the Board of Elections on Thursday morning to defend her right to vote and found herself among an angry mob -- people who had to take time off work to defend their right to vote.




Herold was angry when she was notified that her right to vote was being challenged.

``I felt that my voracity was being challenged, that my honor was being challenged. They basically were saying that I lied about where I lived. I resented that.''

The challengers, all older longtime Republicans -- Barbara Miller, Howard Calhoun, Madge Doerler and Louis Wray -- were subpoenaed by the elections board and were present at the hearings. Akron attorney Jack Morrison, a Republican, volunteered to represent the four.

Democratic board member Russ Pry suggested that the four could be subject to criminal prosecution for essentially making false claims on the challenge forms. The form states that making a false claim is subject to prosecution as a fifth-degree felony.

On Morrison's advice, Miller then refused to take part in any hearings after Herold's, invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Wray filed a challenge against 25-year-old Barbara Jean DeWilde of Stow, but testified that he had no personal knowledge that DeWilde didn't live at her Stow address, other than information he received from Summit County Republican Party headquarters.

DeWilde called the challenge ``a mockery of America's free election process.''
Twinsburg resident Errol Horam's registration was challenged twice.

An immigrant from Jamaica, Horam, 55, said he came to the United States because ``it is the greatest democracy on the face of the earth.''

``I am disappointed in the Republican Party,'' Horam said as he left the hearing room.

``I'm really disappointed that they are trampling on people's rights and democracy and depriving them of their right to vote.''

The angry voters had the Republicans on the defensive.

``Why'd you do it?'' one challenged voter shouted out at Calhoun. ``Who the hell are you?'' the man asked.

``What the hell do you care?'' replied Calhoun, an attorney.
Yeah, those Compassionate Conservatives and their integrity. I think Bush may have just blown Ohio. What thinking Republican with a conscience could cast their ballot for a party that attempts to **** with the most sacred of our rights?

wait... never mind... The only one I can think of offhand is John McCain. I bet he votes Kerry.

This, on top of the RNC funded Sproul Scandal and the possibly illegal email from the Florida Board of Electors to the Bush Campaign offices in DC and Florida really make the Repugnicans look like the party that will bring integrity to the White House.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1338946,00.html

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Bush TV ad pulled over doctored crowd scene

Stephen Brook, advertising correspondent
Friday October 29, 2004

George Bush's campaign team has been forced to pull a television advert after admitting a picture of the president addressing the troops in Iraq had been digitally enhanced.
The election ad showed President Bush addressing the Republican National Convention before cutting to a photograph of a group of soldiers at a rally in New York.

But the liberal weblog, DailyKos, showed that the same faces appeared several times in several different places within the same crowd shot.

A spokesman for the Bush campaign said the original photograph had been altered because the president and his podium obscured part of the crowd of soldiers. The people who made the advert removed the image of Mr Bush, replacing him with duplicated images of soldiers.

Mr Bush's Democratic rivals lost no time in trying to gain political capital from the gaffe. "Now we know why this ad is named 'Whatever it Takes,' " John Kerry's campaign adviser, Joe Lockhart, told the Los Angeles Times.

"This administration has always had a problem telling the truth, from Iraq to jobs to healthcare. If they won't tell the truth in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else."

However, the Republicans defended the advertisement.

"What the photo shows is the president speaking to US military forces, American soldiers," Republican adviser Steve Schmidt told the Los Angeles Times. "The soldiers are all real."

The advertisement will be re-edited and screened on television ahead of polling day next Tuesday.


It is not the first time a manipulated image has caused controversy in the presidential campaign.

Earlier this year, a faked photograph showed Mr Kerry attending a protest rally against the Vietnam war with Jane Fonda, whose controversial visit to Vietnam in the 70s offended many Americans.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33090-2003Dec3?language=printer

The photograph had been mocked up from two separate pictures.

The Bird Was Perfect But Not For Dinner
In Iraq Picture, Bush Is Holding the Centerpiece

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A33

President Bush's Baghdad turkey was for looking, not for eating.

In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey.



President Bush holds a platter at Baghdad airport on Thanksgiving. The turkey had been primped to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from steam trays. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais -- AP)

The bird is so perfect it looks as if it came from a food magazine, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Norman Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world.

But as a small sign of the many ways the White House maximized the impact of the 21/2-hour stop at the Baghdad airport, administration officials said yesterday that Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving plate.

Officials said they did not know the turkey would be there or that Bush would pick it up. A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays, the officials said. They said the bird was not placed there in anticipation of Bush's stealthy visit, and military sources said a trophy turkey is a standard feature of holiday chow lines.

The scene, which lasted just a few seconds, was not visible to a reporter who was there but was recorded by a pool photographer and described by officials yesterday in response to questions raised in Washington.

Bush's standing rose in a poll conducted immediately after the trip. Administration officials said the presidential stop provided a morale boost that troops in Iraq are still talking about, and helped reassure Iraqis about U.S. intentions.

Nevertheless, the foray has opened new credibility questions for a White House that has dealt with issues as small as who placed the "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the aircraft carrier Bush used to proclaim the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and as major as assertions about Saddam Hussein's arsenal of unconventional weapons and his ability to threaten the United States.

The White House has updated its account of an airborne conversation in which a British Airways pilot wondered into his radio if he had just seen Air Force One and was told that it was a Gulfstream 5, a much smaller plane. White House officials first said that the British Airways pilot had talked with the Air Force One pilot. Bush aides now say the conversation occurred between the British Airways pilot and an air traffic control worker.

"I don't think everybody was clear on exactly how that conversation happened," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

British Airways said it has been unable to confirm the new version. "We've looked into it," a spokeswoman said from London. "It didn't happen."

White House officials do not deny that they craft elaborate events to showcase Bush, but they maintain that these events are designed to accurately dramatize his policies and to convey qualities about him that are real.

"This was effective, because it captured something about the president that people know is true, that he really cares about the soldiers and gets emotional when he sees them," Mary Matalin, a former administration official, said about the trip to Baghdad. "You have to figure out how to capture the Bush we know, even if it doesn't come through in a speech situation or a press conference. He regularly rejects anything that is not him."

The Democratic presidential candidates tipped their hats to the White House stage managers by refusing to criticize the trip, which dominated weekend newscasts.

Aides to the Democrats said they concluded that the less said about the trip, the better. In the view of these aides, the trip produced reassuring images of a situation that has badly deteriorated, and Democrats just wanted the moment to pass so they could go back to criticizing Bush's postwar policy.

A poll conducted four days after Thanksgiving by the National Annenberg Election Survey put Bush's job approval rating at 61 percent, up from 56 percent during the four days before the holiday. His job disapproval rating dropped from 41 percent to 36 percent. His personal popularity increased from 65 percent to 72 percent. The polls of 789 people before Thanksgiving and 847 people after Thanksgiving each had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The trip was pulled off in total secrecy -- only a few Bush aides and reporters knew about it in advance, and they were allowed to discuss it only on secure phone lines. Reporters covering the Thanksgiving program in Baghdad were not allowed to report the event until after Air Force One had left.

Some of the reporters left behind at Crawford Middle School, where they work when Bush is staying at his Texas ranch, felt they had been deceived by White House accounts of what Bush would be doing on Thanksgiving.

Correspondent Mark Knoller said Sunday on "CBS Evening News" that the misleading information and deception were understandable, but that he had been "filing radio reports that amounted to fiction."

"Even as President Bush was addressing U.S. personnel in Baghdad, I was on the air saying he was at his ranch making holiday phone calls to American troops overseas," Knoller said. "I got that information from a White House official that very morning."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/22/bush.boxes/


President Bush stands in front of boxes which had "Made in China" labels obscured.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (CNN) -- Someone wanted the right setting Wednesday as President Bush traveled to the Midwest to deliver another pitch for his economic plan.

When the president delivered his remarks, he did so from the floor of a warehouse with American flags in the background along with the logo "Strengthening America's Economy" on a backdrop of boxes. The boxes were stamped "Made in U.S.A."

One problem: The boxes were made in China.

And that was evident despite an effort to hide labels on boxes surrounding the stage. The boxes placed on the side of the stage had "Made in China" labels covered up with white pieces of paper.

"This was the work of an overzealous advance volunteer," said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan. "It's being taken up with the appropriate people."

The event took place at JS Logistics, a trucking and warehouse firm. In his speech, Bush said his tax breaks would spur small-business growth.

http://irregulartimes.com/necktie.html

On May 15, 2003, Jim Shella of WISH TV-8 in Indianapolis reported that before a speech by George W. Bush in support of a tax cut, Republican White House operatives instructed wealthy donors and political players to remove their neckties if they would appear on-camera behind the image of George W. Bush.

Why remove neckties? As Shella reports, Republican operatives wanted it to appear that the individuals clapping and cheering on Bush's tax cut plan were not wealthy donors and political players, but rather just regular old plain folks. To make wealthy donors and political players look like just regular old plain folks, the neckties have got to go.

As the polls show, George W. Bush is having a hard time getting real working-class Americans to support his tax cut for the rich. Apparently, manufacturing fake working-class Americans for TV cameras is good enough.

This isn't the first time George W. Bush has had to manufacture a fake image because he couldn't deal with reality. Just a week ago, George W. Bush spent millions of taxpayer dollars keeping a ship and its crew idling in circles out in the Pacific away from its port so he could land on it in a jet for a campaign commercial. A few months before that, Dubya had his aides put "Made in America" stickers on Chinese-made boxes, then stacked them next to Bush. Apparently, the foreign-made truth would look bad on television. As far back as the Republican Convention of 2000, George W. Bush's handlers arranged for black faces to be painted on the Convention floor and black gospel choirs to be hired as entertainment in order to balance out the lilly white faces of the real Republican Party players there that week.

This is a pattern, people. And these aren't matters of opinion -- they are observed, confirmed facts. When it makes him look bad, George W. Bush can't handle the truth. Bush's choices demonstrate a galling lack of the honor and integrity he promised to maintain while occupying the office of President.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13631331_method=full_siteid=50143 _headline=-BUSH-PULLS-OUT-OF-SPEECH-TO-PARLIAMENT-name_page.html

BUSH PULLS OUT OF SPEECH TO PARLIAMENT

Nov 17 2003




By Bob Roberts, Political Correspondent


GEORGE Bush was last night branded chicken for scrapping his speech to Parliament because he feared being heckled by anti-war MPs.

The US president planned to give a joint address to the Commons and Lords during his state visit to Britain.

But senior White House adviser Dr Harlan Ullman said: "They would have loved to do it because it would have been a great photo-opportunity.

"But they were fearful it would to turn into a spectacle with Labour backbenchers walking out."


The decision to abandon the speech came as extraordinary security measures costing £19million placed London under a state of virtual siege ahead of Mr Bush's arrival tomorrow.

Roads in Whitehall were closed with concrete blockades. Overhead, a no-fly zone has been established with the RAF on standby to shoot down unidentified planes. All police leave is cancelled.

The only speech Mr Bush, who will stay with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, is now due to give will be to an "invited audience" at the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said: "This is yet another slight on this country by the president of the USA.

"The least he could do is subject himself to questions from MPs."

And colleague John McDonnell said: "Bush might be able to run from the protesters, he might be able not to see the banners.

"But he must not be able to hide from the anger felt across the country at this unjustified war."

Previous world leaders, including Bill Clinton, Nelson Mandela and Francois Mitterand, have all given speeches to the Lords and the Commons while visiting Britain.

Tony Blair gave a joint address to the American Senate and Congress in July.

But earlier this year, Bush was embarrassed when he was heckled by MPs in Australia.

Downing Street last night refused to comment on the president's itinerary.

A spokesman said: "We have said consistently the programme details will be announced at the appropriate moment. There is nothing to add to this."

The row about the speech came after President Bush set up a showdown with demonstrators by refusing to be apologetic on the Gulf war.

In an interview with the BBC's Breakfast with Frost show, he said they would not "cut and run" from Iraq. He added: "We will not be defeated by the terrorists."

Mr Bush also refused to grant British pleas for mercy for the six Britons held in Guantanamo Bay.

He said: "They will go through a military tribunal at some point, a military tribunal in international accord, or in line with international accords."