The Lone Star Iconoclast, the newspaper of President Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford, Texas, betrays Crawford's legacy as the Birthplace of Freedom by endorsing John Kerry:
Today, we are endorsing [Bush's] opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.Now Crawford will only be remembered as a place George Bush played a lot of Super Nintendo—sucks. On the upshot, Crawford can now claim to be under the thrall of the so-called liberal media—rad! That, and Lone Star Iconoclast is a title of which I aspire to be worthy one day.Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.
[. . .]
Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him.
The Iconoclast, the President’s hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper’s publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Again, he let us down.
Link courtesy of Jeanne d'Arc.
Posted by Kriston at September 29, 2004 5:23 PMi saw a news report out of waco about this tonight. already, they were repeating "suspicions" or something that the editor only wrote it to draw attention to himself. this is what talk radio has birthed: the great, cynical pursuit of an alterior motive.
Posted by: matty at September 29, 2004 9:54 PMThat seems kneejerk. Burnt Orange Report says that the LSI has done some oddly liberal things in the past. Li'l Austin?
Posted by: Kriston at September 29, 2004 11:14 PMKneejerk of Waco, that is. Fuckin' Waco.
Posted by: Kriston at September 29, 2004 11:15 PMUh, problem is, it's not really the hometown paper. Kriston should have known this:
The publishers of the self proclaimed President's hometown newspaper, The Lone Star Iconoclast, endorsed Senator John Kerry for President in a front page article today. Publisher, and Clifton resident, W. Leon Smith says the Massachusetts senator will "Restore American dignity" and "Urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country." The Lone Star Iconoclast was established and actually published in Clifton, Texas after President Bush and his family moved to their Crawford area ranch. The McGregor Mirror and Crawford Sun continues to cover news events in Crawford as well as neighboring McGregor and has done so for many decades.Sorry to dash your hopes. Posted by: j.scott barnard at September 30, 2004 9:28 AM
More info on the true hometown paper:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/CC/hlc58.html
but over on your site, scott, didn't kriston mention clifton's only 20 minutes away and they're all served by multiple papers? and you said you'd defer to him? since he's from texas and all.
Posted by: catherine at September 30, 2004 11:21 AMYes Catherine, check the time stamps.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at September 30, 2004 12:09 PMWhile I deferred to Kriston, I still think there's a big difference between a weekly alternative newspaper that just sprang up a couple of years ago, and the newspaper (The Crawford Sun) that's been there one hundred years.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at September 30, 2004 12:10 PMah gotcha, thanks.
Posted by: catherine at September 30, 2004 1:09 PMYeah, there is a difference, The Lone Star Iconoclast got it right.
Tom
Posted by: at October 2, 2004 9:57 PMActually, we published in Crawford before George Bush moved there. If we were not Crawford residents, neither is he. In fact, he is not. He lives in Prairie Dell, nearer to both Valley Mills and Clifton than Crawford; only his rural route postal address is in Crawford.
As for the McGregor Mirror, they closed down their unprofitable Crawford paper almost two decades ago. Until we published our endorsement, the Mirror anly rewrote press releases and stories from other media about Crawford, published as a single page of "country corn" in their regular edition. They did not go to regular school board meetings, city council meetings, graduation or athletic events.
We did all those things for five years. We staffed an office in Crawford until the business that rented the space to us wanted to make room for more Bush souvenirs.
We were not an alternative paper until the conspiratorial greed of Crawford merchants made that move financially necessary.
And by the way, now that we have moved out, the Mirror has returned to its policy of ignoring Crawford.
In brief, Mr. Scott, if he in fact exists outside the propaganda machine of neo-facism, is dead wrong in everything he said.
Don M. Fisher
Contributing Editor
Lone Star Iconoclast
