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OpinionMarch 17, 2003

KENNETT, Mo. -- President Dwight Eisenhower, 1953: "All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time, I don't believe there is such a thing; and frankly, I would never listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."...

Jack Stapleton

KENNETT, Mo. -- President Dwight Eisenhower, 1953: "All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time, I don't believe there is such a thing; and frankly, I would never listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."

President George W. Bush, 2003: "America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other areas pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials: "Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions."

President George W. Bush, 2002: "We must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

President Bush, same year in address at West Point: "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. The only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act."

Bush administration spokesman, 2003: "The North Korean situation is not a crisis. Our policy toward that country will be one of dialogue, leading to a peaceful multilateral solution, including the possibility of renewed oil shipments."

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 2003: "If you want to avoid 'regime change' by the United States, build a nuclear arsenal -- but be sure to do it quietly and fast, because then you get negotiations, and not military action."

Presidential National Security Directive, 2003: "The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force -- including potentially nuclear weapons -- to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies."

Gen. Leslie Groves, the Pentagon overseer of the Manhattan Project: "If we were truly realistic instead of idealistic, as we appear to be, we would not permit any foreign power with which we are not firmly allied, and in which we do not have absolute confidence, to make or secure atomic weapons. If such a country started to make atomic weapons we would destroy its capacity to make them before it has progressed far enough to threaten us."

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President George W. Bush speaking to a meeting of leading congressional Republicans: "The tax reduction plan that I want you to pass, and I want to sign, will put more money into the pockets of the entrepreneurs of America, which is good for those looking for work."

Latest Department of Labor estimate of unemployed workers still looking for job opportunities: "Highest since the final year of the 1992 recession."

Rich Bond, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1992: "I think we know who the media want to win this election -- and I don't think it's George Bush."

The same Rich Bond, during the very same election: "There is some strategy to bashing the 'liberal' media ... If you watch a great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one."

Conservative columnist and former GOP official William Kristol, 2003: "I admit it. The liberal media was never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." Same author, two years earlier: "The trouble with politics and political coverage today is that there's too much liberal bias. There's too much tilt toward the left-wing agenda. Too much apology for liberal policy failures. Too much pandering to liberal candidates and causes."

President Bush, state of the union address in 2002: "The United States is a peaceful nation, populated by peace-loving citizens who in turn select leaders willing to make whatever it takes to perpetuate the absence of war and the dictates of international bullies."

Time Magazine's European edition poll results, 2003: "Which nation poses the greatest threat to world peace?" Of the 268,000 who responded, 8 percent answered that it was North Korea, 9 percent Iraq and 83 percent said the United States. The most recent survey finds that 70 percent of the British public oppose Prime Minister Tony Blair's willingness to participate in any Middle East war without United Nations' support. The government of Australia is sending troops to assist in the war, but 92 percent of the Australian public oppose war unsanctioned by the United Nations.

President George Bush's state of the union address in January: "We will continue to pursue progress on the home front by undergirding the American economy with a second tax reform package that will quick-start progress on the domestic front."

U.S. News & World Reports editor Mortimer B. Zuckerman: "The puzzling thing is that the president has now put his prestige behind a bold tax-cut program that does little to stimulate the stumbling economy. The centerpiece ... is a permanent alteration of the landscape, adding to the $2.5 trillion deficit we face over the next decade when we will have to fund Social Security and Medicare."

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.

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