October
28, 2004
I'm moving into a new
apartment this weekend, so I'm shutting down my computer now and
taking it over to the new place. I should have my cable modem back up
and running by tonight, but you know how these things go.
If I miss tomorrow, you'll know why. Sorry for the inopportune timing.
Irrefutable
From KSTP in Minnesota:
A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew in
Iraq shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein was in the area where
tons of explosives disappeared, and may have videotaped some of those
weapons.
The missing explosives are
now
an issue in the presidential debate. Democratic candidate John Kerry is
accusing President Bush of not securing the site they allegedly
disappeared from. President Bush says no one knows if the ammunition
was taken before or after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 when
coalition troops moved in to the area.
Using GPS technology and
talking with members of the 101st Airborne Division, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS
has determined the crew embedded with the troops may have been on the
southern edge of the Al Qaqaa installation, where the ammunition
disappeared. The news crew was based just south of Al Qaqaa, and drove
two or three miles north of there with soldiers on April 18, 2003.
During that trip, members of
the 101st Airborne Division showed the 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS news crew
bunker after bunker of material labelled "explosives." Usually it took
just the snap of a bolt cutter to get into the bunkers and see the
material identified by the 101st as detonation cords.
They have pictures up, too.
Sometimes in the past contradictory visual evidence has motivated Bush
campaign spokespeople to move on to other subjects, and other times
they just mutate their talking points. We'll have to see what they do
this time.
Giuliani
In his attempts to get elected
in 2008, this guy will say anything. From
ABC's Noted Now:
On NBC's "Today," former New
York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was asked by Matt Lauer about the missing
explosives in Iraq and said: "The President was cautious. The President
was prudent … the actual responsibility was on the troops there. Did
they search carefully?" Giuliani then moved back to saying: "The
President was not willing to put blame on the troops."
There's have been a ton of allegations during this campaign that
various Democrats have "blamed the troops," but this is the only
iron-clad case I can recall of a politician actually doing it.
Uncle
Sam Wants You
From Texans for Truth,
where you can
watch the video.
It's real.
It should be his official White House portrait.
The
Economist Endorses Kerry
The
Economist (no link up yet)
editor puts a fine
point on their endorsement of Kerry:
It was a difficult call,
given
that we endorsed George Bush in 2000 and supported the war in Iraq. But
in the end we felt he has been too incompetent to deserve re-election.
The Economist is, in
many ways, fundamentally conservative.
Bizarre
The
Washington Times, which is
nearly as serious a journalistic enterprise as
High Times, prints
this tale in today's edition:
Russian special forces troops
moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq
and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military
operation, The Washington Times has learned.
John A. Shaw, the deputy
undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said
in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi
intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material
that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.
I don't know if Shaw's a renegade or if he's leaking this at another
Bush official's behest, but publically blaming Russia for this is
extremely serious. In fact, even if the story were true, Shaw should be
fired for being "almost certain" instead of absolutely certain.
Josh Marshall gives several reasons, however, why
this story is almost certainly not true. And, really, quite ridiculous.
For more perspective on Al Qaqaa, check out this
AP timeline and
this recommended diary from
Daily Kos.
I sense that the Bush campaign feels they've been victimized by
The New York Times and don't have
enough time to build even a remotely coherent alibi before the
election, so they'll simply make stuff up – anything that diverts
attention from the appearance of incompetence. If there's any justice,
it will backfire, because this Russia thing begs about 100 more serious
questions that only the president can answer.
The
Onion
The Onion almost always makes me laugh, but
this isn't good satire because it's too close to
unvarnished reality:
With the knowledge that the
minority vote will be crucial in the upcoming presidential election,
Republican Party officials are urging blacks, Hispanics, and other
minorities to make their presence felt at the polls on Wednesday, Nov.
3.
"Minority voters should make
their unique voices heard, especially the African-American voting bloc,
which is always a major factor in every election," said Florida
Republican Party voter-drive organizer Mark Monreal, as he handed out
flyers at a community center in the mostly black Miami neighborhood of
South Farms. "That's why we put up hundreds of brightly colored banners
featuring Martin Luther King Jr. and the 'Vote November 3' reminder. We
needed to make sure they know when we want them at polling places."
Of course, there are instances in every federal election of Republicans
doing exactly that. It will happen this year in some places. Bet on it.
9/11
Families Not Happy
This story has been obscured so far, but
I'm surprised it's not getting more play:
The principal advocacy group
for families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks blamed President Bush
and a group of House Republicans on Wednesday for the failure of
Congress to approve a bill to enact the recommendations of the
bipartisan Sept. 11 commission and overhaul the nation's intelligence
agencies.
In a statement clearly meant
to
influence voters in next week's election, the group did not explicitly
endorse Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, but
said Mr. Bush had "allowed members of his own party to derail the
legislative process."
The statement, which also
singled out Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and five other House Republicans
for blame, said, "The president never took time from his campaign to
come to Washington himself to see this through," adding: "Election Day
is imminent. Now it's our turn."
Efforts by House and Senate
negotiators to work out a compromise bill appeared close to collapse on
Wednesday, with lawmakers at a stalemate over the powers of a proposed
national intelligence director and other issues.
I still think there must be a chance they can get something for Bush to
sign, no? If they don't, they're missing a huge political opportunity.
I expect the bad government from these guys, but not the stupid
politics.
October
27, 2004
Basic
Training
Interim Iraqi Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi on Tuesday, responding to the slaughter of 49
Iraqi National Guard recruits over the weekend:
A terrible crime was
committed
in which a large number of the ING were martyred. We think this shows,
in addition to gross negligence on the side of some of the
multinational forces, it shows the kind of insistence to hurt Iraq and
its people.
This was a terribly surprising public condemnation of the U.S. from
Allawi, especially considering he and Bush apparently share many of the
same schedulers and speechwriters. Bush can't criticize Allawi, of
course, since he basically said Kerry was unpatriotic for doing so a
couple weeks ago.
It's a given among the chattering class that Kerry's and Bush's Iraq
plans don't differ in any significant ways. This is wrong for several
reasons, but the tragedy of these slaughtered troops points to a
prominent one: where to train Iraqi security forces (army and police).
This isn't the first time trainees have been slaughtered, obviously;
hits on individuals and groups have been a common, pervasive problem
throughout the country for months and there's no reason to believe the
attacks on them will decrease in the foreseeable future. Hence, John
Kerry, John Edwards, Richard Holbrooke, and Wes Clark have each
proposed publically that we air lift groups of Iraqi trainees to a more
secure location out of Iraq – perhaps our bases in Germany – and let
them complete their full regimens there. It seems to me like a common
sense thing to do, but I don't hear anybody in the Bush administration
talking about it, much less actually doing it.
Nader
Nader's officially off the
ballots in Ohio and Florida. He's also off in Arizona, Oregon,
and Virginia, other states which might be close. Here's an update of
his status in all the states from the good folks at
TheNaderFactor.com.
While this could prove important, I don't think it will, for two
reasons. The first is that I predict Nader's November 2 vote total will
be an instant candidate for most embarrassing case of shrinkage any man
has ever had; it will be minuscule. The second, and perhaps more
important reason, is that at least one recent poll has shown that
people intending to vote for Nader who would still vote if he weren't
on the ballot would split roughly even between Bush and Kerry. This is
a big difference from 2000, where exit polls in Florida and elsewhere
showed Nader voters typically would have gone 2 to 1 for Gore had Nader
not been on the ballot.
It does makes sense that a lot more protest votes would remain from
potential Bush voters than from potential Gore voters who see
themselves as burned by the results of 2000.
Anecdotally, I know maybe 15 or 20 people who voted for Nader in 2000,
and every single one of them is voting for John Kerry this time.
Mosh
I thought Springsteen would be
the most likely musician to impact the 2004 race, but now I'm
pretty sure I was wrong.
Toby
Keith will oh, shit It turns out it's Eminem. Check out his
latest video, a strikingly earnest and passionate
call for the young people of this country to vote against George W.
Bush on November 2. Music videos have come a long way since "Thriller."
Granted, I don't think any have aired since then, or at least none that
anybody can remember.
By the way, as
Juan Cole points out, Eminem isn't just a blue
state guy.
Visualize
Winning
Okay, maybe this
video is a little cheesy, but I still find its positivity
refreshing.
October
26, 2004
100,000
Strong
Every news source I've
read estimates the crowd at the Kerry/Clinton rally in
Philadelphia yesterday to be over 100,000 people [
update: reading about it later, I
saw some estimate 80,000 to 100,000, but the next sentence is still
good]. I don't have a
comprehensive comparative list, but I don't think there's much argument
that it's among the biggest political campaign gatherings in modern
American history.
Al
Qaqaa
The Bush campaign seems to be
settling on the talking point that
Al Qaqaa must have been raided before the war, and
therefore Kerry's criticisms are baseless and he's a liar. It's a
microcosm of their entire campaign thus far, really, trying to enforce
a change of subject from their own incompetence to assertions of John
Kerry's weakness.
Josh Marshall details several reasons why this Al
Qaqaa explosives "gone before we got there" narrative is doubtful.
October
25, 2004
Up
In
Smoke
On the Hannity and Colmes airing today on Fox News Channel,
President Bush
says:
Whether or not we can be ever
fully safe is up – you know, is up in the air.
No doubt, it's Karl Rove's nightmare to hear Bush use the words "
up in the air" to describe our
national security just before the election.
The remark has been widely reported and Kerry's
already making fun of it. It could prove to be a damaging political
gaffe.
However, a much more conclusive story headlines today's
New York Times.
It's specific, well-sourced, and suggests our security situation in
Iraq and here at home, under this administration, is far worse than "
up in the air." In fact, I think
trusting Bush and his spectacularly incompetent security team to keep
us and our troops safe from those who intend to kill us is a lot like
playing Russian Roulette with a fully-loaded gun.
That may sound like an exaggeration, but check
this out:
The Iraqi interim government
has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that
nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish
buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are
missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military
installations.
The huge facility, called Al
Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a
no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday.
United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many
years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the
explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.
380 tons of explosives. That couldn't be enough to do serious damage,
otherwise they would have made sure Al Qaqaa was properly guarded,
right?
American weapons experts say
their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major
bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives,
mainly HMX and RDX, could produce bombs strong enough to shatter
airplanes or tear apart buildings.
The bomb that brought down
Pan
Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound
of the same type of material, and larger amounts were apparently used
in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999
that killed nearly 300 people.
The explosives could also be
used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear
inspectors had kept a watch on the material, and even sealed and locked
some of it. The other components of an atom bomb - the design and the
radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain.
Wow. Well, they must not have known the seriousness of the threat,
then, because George W. and Dick always take every precaution to
protect us from those who hate freedom. Right?
The International Atomic
Energy
Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the
war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States
officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European
diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say
they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the
fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of
munitions they found throughout the country.
and...
The Qaqaa facility, about 30
miles south of Baghdad, was well known to American intelligence
officials: Mr. Hussein made conventional warheads at the site, and the
I.A.E.A. dismantled parts of his nuclear program there in the early
1990's after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. In the prelude to the 2003
invasion, Mr. Bush cited a number of other "dual use" items - including
tubes that the administration contended could be converted to use for
the nuclear program - as a justification for invading Iraq.
The other day, I saw a poll that showed 92% of people who consider
terrorism our nation's chief concern were voting for Bush. I find that
terribly unjust and depressing. What could John Kerry possibly do that
would be more helpful to terrorists than something like this?
Endorsements
I don't know if newspaper
endorsements mean anything any more, but I wish they did.
Editor and Publisher has kept a
running tally, and here's what they wrote
yesterday:
Sen. John Kerry continued his
raid on newspapers that backed President Bush in 2000, grabbing 24 new
"flip-flops," plus The Washington Post, which was a major supporter of
the war in Iraq. The Democrat has now won endorsements from at least 35
papers that went for Bush in 2000, while Bush has earned only two Gore
papers.
However, Bush got a prize in
the key state of Ohio, The Columbus Dispatch.
Kerry now leads Bush 125-96
in
endorsements in E&P's exclusive tally, and he leads by about 16
million to 10 million in the circulation of backing papers.
And more setbacks for Bush:
The
Detroit News, which has never endorsed a Democrat, and which backed
Bush in 2000, announced that it would sit out the 2004 election, not
happy with either candidate. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, another
Bush backer in 2000, said the same thing today in an editorial titled
"No One to Champion." A third Bush supporter in 2000, The Patriot-News
in Harrisburg, Pa., also declared neutrality today.
The Chicago Sun-Times, the
Los
Angeles Daily News, the Orlando Sentinel and The Commercial-Appeal in
Memphis, Tenn., were among the 24 papers that backed Bush in 2000 but
today chose Kerry.
I suppose you could look at these editorial boards who switched from
2000 as the most well-informed swing voters, and Kerry's winning them
35 to 2.
It's too bad Bush got The Columbus Dispatch, although it's pretty
amazing Kerry was perceived to have any shot at it in the first place.
It's also worth noting that the Orlando Sentinel hasn't endorsed a
Democrat in 40 years.
Also, this paragraph is pretty funny:
The Daily News in New York
appeared to endorse Kerry today but it was hard to tell: The paper did
nothing but bash Bush for several paragraphs without once mentioning
his opponent's name.
Several bloggers have singled out
The Des Moines
Register endorsement, which makes this outstanding point:
Yes, Kerry is liberal. But
what's to fear from a liberal president? That he would run big
deficits? That he would increase federal spending? That he would expand
the power of the federal government over individuals' lives? Nothing
Kerry could do could top what President Bush has already done in those
realms.
Vote
Early and Often
If you don't know where your
polling site is,
mypollingsite.com should be able to help. All you
have to do is put in your address. Please pass on to any voters looking
for answers. It's a great resource that covers the entire country.
October
22, 2004
Friends
This is from a Kerry
rally
held outside the Metrodome in Minneapolis. It shows an extraordinary
number of people for a campaign rally. And not one of them had to sign
anything pledging eternal allegiance to Kerry-Edwards.
Disinformation
Rules
From a recent poll taken by the Program of
International Policy Attitudes:
Even after the final report
of
Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant
WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had
actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%).
Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD
and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at
least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on
all these points.
Similarly, 75% of Bush
supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial
support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this
support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that
this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume,
incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here
again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite
perceptions.(...)
Steven Kull, director of
PIPA,
comments, "One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these beliefs
is that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them.
Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and Kerry supporters
agree." Eighty-two percent of Bush supporters perceive the Bush
administration as saying that Iraq had WMD (63%) or that Iraq had a
major WMD program (19%). Likewise, 75% say that the Bush administration
is saying Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. Equally
large majorities of Kerry supporters hear the Bush administration
expressing these views--73% say the Bush administration is saying Iraq
had WMD (11% a major program) and 74% that Iraq was substantially
supporting al Qaeda.
Steven Kull adds, "Another
reason that Bush supporters may hold to these beliefs is that they have
not accepted the idea that it does not matter whether Iraq had WMD or
supported al Qaeda. Here too they are in agreement with Kerry
supporters." Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if
US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing
support to al Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said the US should not have
, and 61% assume that in this case the President would not have. Kull
continues, "To support the president and to accept that he took the US
to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial
cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness
of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."
Hmmm... I wonder where Bush supporters got those ideas?
There's a lot more confusion, too, so check out the
entire poll.
Pointed
and Powerful
Check out the ad called
"
Out of
Touch."
I believe it's generally good to be able to laugh at your mistakes, but
there are exceptions – for instance, using a false rationale to send
over 1000 American men and women to their deaths.
Another
Reason to Vote Kerry
Unfortunately, I think this
news
probably rallies the Republican base more than it does our side,
but Clinton's perfect for the job. From
UPI:
Former U.S. President Bill
Clinton has set his sights on becoming U.N. secretary-general. A
Clinton insider and a senior U.N. source have told United Press
International the 56-year-old former president would like to be named
leader of the world body when Kofi Annan's term ends early in 2006.
"He definitely wants to do
it,"
the Clinton insider said this week.
A Clinton candidacy is likely
to receive overwhelming support from U.N. member states, particularly
the Third World. Diplomats in Washington say Clinton would galvanize
the United Nations and give an enormous boost to its prestige. But the
former president's hopes hang on a crucial question that will not be
addressed until after the presidential elections: can he get the
support of the U.S. government -- a prerequisite for nomination?
The political wisdom is that
a
second George W. Bush presidency would cut him off at the pass. The
notion of Clinton looming large in the international arena from "the
glass tower" in New York would be intolerable to the Bush White House.
If Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wins on Nov. 2 the
prospect of Clinton as secretary-general won't exactly be welcome
either, but Kerry would find it much harder -- if not impossible -- to
go against it.
Classy
I thought Teresa Heinz Kerry
did need to apologize for her recent remarks about Laura Bush, so I've
got to give Laura Bush credit. This is realy classy, and it saves us
from having to hear more about another meaningless "campaign issue."
From the
AP:
Laura Bush said
Thursday
that Teresa Heinz Kerry didn't need to apologize for saying she
couldn't remember whether the first lady had ever had "a real job."
"She apologized but she
didn't
even really need to apologize," Mrs. Bush told reporters at a coffee
shop before attending a rally for President Bush. "I know how tough it
is and actually I know those trick questions."
Juan
Cole on Eminem
I never expected I'd see
Juan Cole analyze an Eminem song, so I'm
pleasantly surprised. Interesting stuff:
The themes of the lyrics
above
and the interview are interesting. Mathers obviously had a
difficult time in his relations with his parents. His mother was
only 15 when she had him St. Joseph, Missouri, and his father was
absent. At one point his mother was suing him over his constant
insults to and cursing of her. He once told her "You only loved me
until I was 8 years old."
So it is interesting that he
reads Bush as merely attempting to please a somewhat distant and
perhaps often absent father. And he critiques Bush's attempt to
impress the old man insofar as W. used other young men's lives up in
the process, instead of strapping on an AK-47 himself. Eminem
knows about packing heat, and was accused of pistol-whipping a rival
from the rap group Insane Clown Posse. (Actually, this would be a
good epithet for Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney and Bush).
The other interesting thing
about the lyrics above is their invocation of the icon of lower middle
class white identity, the "rebel yell." The appeal of the
Confederate South for most of them lies not in its horrible race
politics or slavery, but in a resistance to the intrusion of the
Federal government into their lives.
Eminem cannily turns the
Republicans' Southern Strategy against them, calling for a revolt
against Bush policies by the guys Howard Dean referred to as having
Confederate flags on their pickup trucks. (Although most listen
to Country, some of the youngsters are Eminem fans.) Bush now becomes a
symbol of grasping, stupid Federal interference, and Iraq is
reconceived as a carpetbagging operation. "Until they bring our
troops home" is a lyric that makes a moral claim. Bush & Co.
have kidnapped US young persons in uniform and are holding them
prisoner in an Iraqi cauldron for no good reason. The soldiers
are not just soldiers but teenagers, Eminem's constituency.
The song is important as a
development in popular culture. But I am arguing that it may also
be important in class terms. If any significant number of lower
middle class white youth are thinking like this, it could make a
difference in some races.
Nothing
Political
Just real funny.
October
21, 2004
Abortion
In Sojourners,
Christian
ethicist Dr. Glen Harold Stassen examines abortion in America
under George W. Bush:
I look at the fruits of
political policies more than words. I analyzed the data on abortion
during the George W. Bush presidency. There is no single source for
this information - federal reports go only to 2000, and many states do
not report - but I found enough data to identify trends. My findings
are counterintuitive and disturbing.
Abortion was decreasing. When
President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a
24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an
average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the
decade. (This data comes from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life
using the Guttmacher Institute's studies).
Enter George W. Bush in 2001.
One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course
downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.
I found three states that
have
posted multi-year statistics through 2003, and abortion rates have
risen in all three: Kentucky's increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003.
Michigan's increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's
increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. I found 13 additional states that
reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in
abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and five saw a decrease (4.3%
average decrease).
Under President Bush, the
decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed.
Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the
United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change
of direction.
Dr. Stassen details some reasons why abortions have increased under
Bush, and then offers this conclusion:
Economic policy and abortion
are not separate issues; they form one moral imperative. Rhetoric is
hollow, mere tinkling brass, without health care, health insurance,
jobs, child care, and a living wage. Pro-life in deed, not merely in
word, means we need policies that provide jobs and health insurance and
support for prospective mothers.
Bill Clinton said the smartest thing about abortion that I've heard
from any politician: "
Abortions
should be safe, legal, and rare." While Americans remain
bitterly divided over the "safe" and "legal" parts, nearly everybody
prefers that abortions be "rare." Hence, until the debate shifts from
the lightning rod arguments over the legality of abortion to
progressive discussions about how we can make abortions less necessary,
we'll continue this sad, unwinnable game of tug-of-war between those
who consider themselves "pro-life" and those who consider themselves
"pro-choice."
October
20, 2004
With
Friends Like These...
Pat Robertson said
earlier this year that God told him Bush would win. Perhaps he
assumes nothing he could say about Bush, then, could possibly hurt his
chances. How else do you explain
what he told Paula Zahn yesterday?
The founder of the U.S.
Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush
before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the
likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going
to have any casualties."
Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush
supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in
Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush
in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."
"You remember Mark Twain
said,
'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was
just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on
the CNN show, "Paula Zahn Now."
"And I warned him about this
war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was
trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American
people for casualties.' "
Robertson said the president
then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
Robertson, the televangelist
who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, said he
wishes Bush would admit to mistakes made.
Some read something like this and call Bush "strong and wrong," but I
think "strongly wrong" is more accurate. And, of course, "strongly
wrong" is just another way of saying "extremely weak."
I didn't see this, but no matter how you interpret that "
We're not going to have any casualties"
line, it's bad for Bush. Either he literally believed we'd have zero
casualties in Iraq (unlikely), or he callously believed that the loss
of a few dozen or hundred soldiers isn't something to get too excited
about. He's either got a bad head or a bad heart.
To be fair, however, I don't know what the hell Pat Robertson is
talking about most of the time and he's certainly vulnerable to the
misquote, so somebody should get Bush's side of the story.
Sinclair
Progress on the Sinclair front,
as reported in
The Los Angeles Times:
Facing advertiser defections,
a
viewer boycott and a plummeting stock price, as well as strong
opposition from Democrats, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. scrapped its
plan to air a film that attacks the 1970s-era antiwar activities of
Sen. John F. Kerry, and will instead run a special produced by its news
division incorporating parts of the movie.
The decision not to run all
of
"Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" came after several shareholder
complaints against the company were announced Tuesday, sending Sinclair
shares down 3.5% after a nearly 8% slide Monday.
This is quite a victory for progressive blogs and Democratic
mobilization.
It's also notable that Sinclair stock was actually down 12.5% near the
end of the day yesterday, and it will be interesting to watch what
happens tomorrow.
What they now intend to broadcast, however, will end up being a one
hour attack ad against John Kerry anyway, so who are they trying to
placate by only showing some of "
Stolen
Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" and not all of it?
Their stock should continue to sink.
The
Onion
I love it:
After 19 months of struggle
in
Iraq, U.S. military officials conceded a loss to Iraqi insurgents
Monday, but said America can be proud of finishing "a very strong
second."
"We went out there, gave it
our
all, and fought a really good fight," said Gen. George W. Casey, the
top U.S. commander in Iraq. "America's got nothing to be ashamed of. We
outperformed Great Britain, Poland, and a lot of the other top-notch
nations, but Iraq just wouldn't stay down for the count. It may have
come down to them simply wanting it more."
October
19, 2004
2
Things
Just 2 things today,
because I'm despondent over the Cardinals loss to the Astros last night
and I must return to intense mourning asap.
1. The attention given to Iraq on t.v. news from week to
week strikes me as inexplicably arbitrary. Last week, 30 U.S. soldiers
died in Iraq –
among the worst weeks since the invasion – but I didn't get that sense
at all watching last week's news.
2. Already, there's been all kinds of early voting
shenanigans in Florida (for instance, there's only one early voting
site for the 840 square mile city of Jacksonville) and serious
registration problems, and likely more than a little outright fraud, in
Nevada, Wisconsin, Ohio, etc...
After the 2000 election, George W. Bush had an unprecedented
opportunity, in fact his only natural mandate, to federally institute
fair, comprehensive, and meaningful electoral reforms and
modernizations. The opportunity to truly be "a uniter, not a divider"
was served up on a silver platter. Despite his frequent sentimental
invocations on the importance of freedom and democracy, however, he's
clearly a lot more interested in maintaing a system where it's a lot
easier for some people to vote than others. I think it's fair to flatly
state that he's a lot more interested in winning than he is in
democracy. The prospect that this election could actually get messier
than the last one is very real, and there's no better example of his
failed, shameful leadership.
October
18, 2004
The
Putinization of American Life
I genuinely don't know
yet – I'm still thinking about it – if I agree with the thesis
of
this blog entry by the dazzlingly smart Matt
Yglesias, but damn, it's bold and provocative in a way blogs were born
to be:
Christopher Hitchens, in one
of the few insightful things he's said about the war on terrorism, took
the chance in his final Nation column to criticize those on the
left "who truly believe that John Ashcroft is a greater menace than
Osama bin Laden." At the time, I thought it was a very sharp remark. I
never supported Bush and always hoped he would lose in 2004 since I
thought his policies were misguided, but many people seemed to me at
the time to have lost all sense of perspective about who the really
threatening enemies were. Suskind's article
along with other pieces of evidence of what one might call the creeping
Putinization of American life (the Sinclair incident, the threatening
letter to Rock The Vote, the specter of the top official in the House
of Representatives making totally baseless charges of criminal conduct
against a major financier of the political opposition [shades of
Mikhail Khodorovsky], the increasing evidence that the 'terror alert'
system is nothing more than a political prop, the 'torture memo'
asserting that the president is above the law, the imposition of rigid
discipline on the congress, the abuse of the conference committee
procedure, the ability of the administration to lie to congress without
penalty, the exclusion of non-supporters from Bush's public
appearances, etc.) are beginning to make me think this assessment may
have been misguided. Terrorist forces operating in and around Chechnya
have done some horrible things -- I was in Moscow for the big apartment
bombings -- but ultimately the most harmful thing they have done was to
enable Putin to tighten his grip on power.
Hypocrite
Naughty Bill O'Reilly before
he got caught in a little
misbehavior all his own.
Those audio tapes are going to be best-sellers.
Non-Partisan
Analysis
“W” Stands for “Whupped His Behind", from
The National Review Online's Jay
Nordlinger, is one of the funniest things I've read this election
season. Its opening tone is strikingly unique – half frat house boast,
half grade school book report:
That's my boy. That's my
Bush. He a hoss — a debatin' hoss. Last night, he was flat-out
marvelous in debate. I said, following the second debate, that he had
done well, but not his best. (Who does his best all the time? That's
why we call it "best.") Last night, he did his best — and his best is
superb. And I say this as an analyst, not a Bush partisan.
Polls
If you're looking for
some perspective on polls released during these final 2 weeks, I
highly recommend these 2 great sites:
Mystery
Pollster and
Donkey Rising.
If you're looking for raw numbers, the most comprehensive state poll
guide I'm aware of is
2.004k.com,
and
pollingreport.com
does a great job tracking the national numbers.
October
15, 2004
Swift
Boat Scumbags
I was going to post on Nightline's further exposure of the Swift
Boat Liars tonight, but
Kevin Drum has summed it all up better than I can.
I concur with his thoughts completely, and hopefully he won't mind my
stealing from him if I endorse his blog as one of the 2 or 3 best out
there, which I do:
SWIFT BOAT LIES.... Like most
bloggers, I have my beefs with the mainstream media. But you know
what? They produce an awful lot of damn fine original reporting.
Case in point. In
August the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth charged that John Kerry had
lied about the events that led to his Silver Star. In order to
figure out if the SBVT account was true, Nightline sent a crew to
Vietnam, where they visited the hamlets of Tran Thoi and Nha Vi and
interviewed the local villagers to get their recollections of what
really happened 35 years ago. You can read the resulting story yourself,
but it's summarized pretty easily: Kerry was right and SBVT honcho John
O'Neill wasn't.
But there was also this:
Back in
Tran Thoi, villager Nguyen Van Khoai said that about six months ago he
was visited by an American who described himself as a Swift boat
veteran and told him another American from the Swift boats was running
for president of the United States. Nguyen said the man was accompanied
by a cameraman.
"They say
he didn't do anything to deserve the medal," Nguyen said. "The other
day, they came and asked me the questions and I said that the
recognition for the medal is up to the U.S.A."
He said
that, after they met, the Swift Boat veteran and the cameraman turned
around and went back down the river. Nightline has not been able to
identify the men.
Unbelievable. The SBVT
folks, hoping to dig up dirt on Kerry, interviewed these villagers six
months ago and have known the truth all along.
It wasn't just a case of
differing recollections in the heat of the battle. They knew the truth.
But they went ahead and told their lies anyway.
What a revolting bunch of
men. What a disgusting, repellent, sleazy operation. And
now Sinclair Broadcasting is about to air their movie.
Even worse, we still have
three weeks to go. I wonder how much lower the Bush team and
their surrogates can sink in that time? And I wonder what decent
Republicans are going to do about it after Bush drags them down to
defeat in November?
This
site will let you know if you have a Sinclair
affiliate in your area and, if so, who the local advertisers are. Some
advertisers have already dropped out, so polite, concerned,
boycott-threatening calls can make a real difference.
Angry,
Reasonable Bear
Angry Bear common-sense-checks
the fact-checking
article on the debate from
The Washington Post, which I linked
to yesterday.
Hilarious
An instant classic from
The Onion:
In an announcement that has
alarmed voters across the nation, Vice President Dick Cheney said
Monday that he will personally attack the U.S. if Sen. John Kerry wins
the next election.
"If the wrong man is elected
in November, the nation will come under a devastating armed attack of
an unimaginable magnitude, one planned and executed by none other than
myself," Cheney said, speaking at a rally in Greensboro, NC. "When they
go to the polls, Americans must weigh this fact and decide if our
nation can ignore such a grave threat."
Added Cheney: "It would be a
tragedy to suffer another attack on American soil, let alone one
perpetrated by an enemy as well-organized and well-equipped as I am. My
colleagues and I urge voters to keep their safety in mind when they go
to the polls."
October
14, 2004
The
Near-Complete
Presidentification of John Kerry
Debate notes:
1. It's uncanny how similar general perceptions of Bush's 2004 debate
performances are to Al Gore's 2000 debate performances. In 2000, Gore
was peeved in the first, stoned in the second, and overly amped in the
third (at least that's my recollection of the general perceptions).
This year, Bush was peeved in the first, coked up in the second, and
goofy/vacant in the third.
John Kerry, on the other hand, appeared as the exact same person in all
three debates: the next President of the United States.
2. Kerry wins all the instant polls:
CNN/Gallup/USA Today
53% for Kerry, 39% for Bush
CBS News (poll of uncommitted voters)
39% for Kerry, 25% for Bush
Democracy Corps
41% for Kerry, 36% for Bush
ABC News
42% for Kerry, 41% for Bush, although 38% of those polled were
Republican, and only 30% were Democrats. Kerry won independents by 42%
to 35%.
3. Remember, the instant polls after Friday night's debate showed
things very close – virtually tied – but by Monday the CNN/Gallup/USA
Today poll showed Kerry winning by 15% (45% to 30%). Likewise, the
initial results in the CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll after the first debate
showed very similar numbers to this one (53% to 37%), but in subsequent
days showed Kerry winning 60% to 19%. I think Kerry is likely to win
the perception battle here as well, in no small part due to Bush's
Osama bin Laden gaffe.
What's the Osama gaffe? Here's the relevant part from the debate
transcript:
KERRY: Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be
caught dead or alive, this president was asked, "Where is Osama bin
Laden?" He said, "I don't know. I don't really think about him
very much. I'm not that concerned."
We need a president who stays deadly focused on the real war on terror.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?
BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about
Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those
e-x-a-g-g-e-r-a-t-i-o-n-s.
Of course we're worried about Osama bin Laden. We're on the hunt
after Osama bin Laden. We're using every asset at our disposal to
get Osama bin Laden.
Uh-oh. Once again, we've got
visual evidence contradicting a member of the
Republican ticket. I think it's fair to expect we'll be seeing this on
tomorrow's morning shows, on the network news tomorrow night, and all
day on cable news.
If you'd like it in text,
here it is (from March 13, 2002):
Q But don't you believe that the
threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found
either dead or alive?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from
him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of
any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he
is. I -- I'll repeat what I
said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I
know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he
had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact
that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the
Taliban.
In an earlier answer, he also said:
You know, I just don't spend that much time on him,
Kelly, to be honest with you.
It's a sizable leap from his committed tough talk less than 6 months
earlier,
September 17, 2001:
THE PRESIDENT: I want justice. There's
an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, "Wanted: Dead or
Alive."
and...
THE PRESIDENT: I just remember, all I'm doing is
remembering when I was a kid I remember that they used to put out there
in the old west, a wanted poster. It
said: "Wanted, Dead or Alive." All I want and
America wants him brought to justice. That's what we want.
Kerry repeatedly hammered Bush in these debates for not making more of
an effort to put Osama bin Laden in hell, where he belongs, and Bush
never had an answer for it. The footage of Bush saying almost precisely
what Kerry said he did is a trifecta for the Kerry campaign: 1) it
catches him in a false denial, a.k.a. "lie," which bolsters their "Bush
is incredible" story line, 2) it underscores their contention that Bush
took his eye off the ball (al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan) to wage a
war of choice in Iraq, and 3) it punctures the hot air balloon of
George Bush's presidential persona as ultimate shitkicker.
4. Did Incurious George really intend to suggest that all unemployed
people should go back to school? It's one of the most out-of-touch
statements I've ever heard a politician make, and I'm shocked that he
hasn't been hammered for it more already (none of the t.v. pundits I
saw mentioned it, although some bloggers have).
5. Is Incurious George doing the country any favors by saying the
answer to the vaccine shortage is for healthy people not to get
vaccinated? Does that really qualify as an answer, or is it more of an
excuse?
6. "
Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a
little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this
country." To be sure, a canned line, but if you've got more like
these, please can 'em up.
7. Here's how Kerry began to respond to Bob Schieffer's question about
whether homosexuality is a choice:
KERRY: We're all God's children, Bob. And I think
if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she
would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was
born as.
This is going to be a controversy, and probably an unwelcome one
because it distracts from Kerry's superior performance tonight. Lynne
Cheney, who's not a good woman, has come out and
said about Kerry, "
This is not a good man,"
but what, exactly, did Kerry say that she disagrees with?
I agree wholeheartedly with
Andrew Sullivan on this:
SOMETHING ABOUT MARY: I keep getting emails asserting that
Kerry's mentioning of Mary Cheney is somehow offensive or gratuitous or
a "low blow". Huh? Mary Cheney is out of the closet and a member, with
her partner, of the vice-president's family. That's a public fact. No
one's privacy is being invaded by mentioning this. When Kerry cites
Bush's wife or daughters, no one says it's a "low blow." The double
standards are entirely a function of people's lingering prejudice
against gay people. And by mentioning it, Kerry showed something
important. This issue is not an abstract one. It's a concrete, human
and real one. It affects many families, and Bush has decided to use
this cynically as a divisive weapon in an election campaign. He
deserves to be held to account for this - and how much more effective
than showing a real person whose relationship and dignity he has
attacked and minimized? Does this makes Bush's base uncomfortable?
Well, good. It's about time they were made uncomfortable in their
acquiescence to discrimination. Does it make Bush uncomfortable? Even
better. His decision to bar gay couples from having any protections for
their relationships in the constitution is not just a direct attack on
the family member of the vice-president. It's an attack on all families
with gay members - and on the family as an institution. That's a
central issue in this campaign, a key indictment of Bush's record and
more than relevant to any debate. For four years, this president has
tried to make gay people invisible, to avoid any mention of us, to
pretend we don't exist. Well, we do. Right in front of him.
8. Here's a preliminary fact-check from
The Washington Post. It's okay, but by
tomorrow some blogger out there will have done a much more sensible and
comprehensive accounting, and I'll link to it when I see it.
October
13, 2004
Warning
to the Wise
My cousin Mark emailed me an important reminder
about what's probably coming:
btw, you see the new polls today? kerry is definitely ahead
right now. so get ready for rove's nuclear bomb (which may literally be
a nuclear bomb).
A joke, of course. I think.
Expose
the Bully Day
2 stories breaking
on phony, cowardly shitkickers:
1. Lead stories currently on
ABC's Noted Now:
BUSH: "I'M GOING TO BE REAL
POSITIVE WHILE I KEEP MY FOOT ON JOHN KERRY'S THROAT"
FROM UPCOMING NYT MAG STORY:
Ron Suskind quotes Bush statement from confidential luncheon with RNC
Regents…
and this:
MORE BUSH, ON SWEDEN:
"THEY'RE THE NEUTRAL ONE. THEY DON'T HAVE AN ARMY."
IN THE OVAL OFFICE: Rep. Tom
Lantos turns to Bush and says "Mr. President, you may have thought that
I said Switzerland," and Bush insists that Sweden has no army, Sen. Joe
Biden, Kerry supporter who was in Oval Office, tells Suskind…
2. From
The Smoking Gun:
OCTOBER 13--Hours after Bill
O'Reilly accused her of a multimillion dollar shakedown attempt, a female Fox News producer fired back at
the TV star today, filing a lawsuit claiming that he subjected her to
repeated instances of sexual harassment and spoke often, and
explicitly, to her about phone sex, vibrators, threesomes,
masturbation, the loss of his virginity, and sexual fantasies. Below
you'll find a copy of Andrea Mackris's complaint, an incredible
page-turner that quotes O'Reilly, 55, on all sorts of lewd matters.
Based on the extensive quotations cited in the complaint, it appears a
safe bet that Mackris, 33, recorded some of O'Reilly's more steamy
soliloquies. For example, we direct you to his Caribbean shower fantasies. While we suggest reading the entire
document, TSG will point you to interesting sections on a Thailand sex show, Al Franken, and the climax of one August 2004 phone conversation.
(22 pages)
Christmas has arrived early this year. Can't wait for
O'Reilly's Talking Points on the
Caribbean shower fantasies...
Don't
Forget the Cultural Issues
It's hard to imagine
Kerry not trouncing Bush tonight when the focus is on jobs,
health care, social security, stem-cell research, and, to a slightly
lesser degree, education. The trickier part for him will be addressing
the "God, guns, and gays" issues. Bush thinks he has a winner on these
cultural issues, and he's abandoned, for the most part, taking middle
ground positions. He risks alienating swing voters (mainly moderate,
suburban Republican women), which Kerry can exploit, but only if he
finds a way to equivocate without sounding equivocal. I'll be paying
special attention to his answers to these questions.
Clarification
The other day, I
wrote that my beloved St. Louis Cardinals were taking on "the Bushes'
Astros" in the NLCS. The ever-vigilant, astute Cory Elliott wrote in
response:
While I often share your
opinions and aggravations, I'm a little miffed at you today for
associating Bush with the Astros. Everyone knows he's a Rangers
fan.
Cory's right. As former owner of the Texas Rangers, George W. is first
and foremost a Rangers fan. What I was referring to, though, was the
several times I've seen George H.W. and Barbara Bush on t.v. at Minute
Maid Park rooting for the Astros and against Albert Pujols and company.
(Incidentally, Bush has failed to use Pujols as a key weapon in our
international war on terror – the lost opportunity is obvious, and
Kerry was mistaken not to shed light on this in the first 2 debates.)
Nice
Kerry's often asked to
specify which one of our allies might commit troops in Iraq if
he's elected. He's now got a
simple answer:
Germany might deploy troops
in Iraq if conditions there change, Peter Struck, the German defence
minister, indicated on Tuesday in a gesture that appears to provide
backing for John Kerry, the US Democratic presidential challenger.
In an interview with the
Financial Times, Mr Struck departed from his government’s resolve not
to send troops to Iraq under any circumstances, saying: “At present I
rule out the deployment of German troops in Iraq. In general, however,
there is no one who can predict developments in Iraq in such a way that
he could make a such a binding statement [about the future].”
Mr Struck also welcomed Mr
Kerry’s proposal that he would convene an international conference on
Iraq including countries that opposed the war if he were to win next
month's election.
Germany would certainly
attend, Mr Struck said. “This is a very sensible proposal. The
situation in Iraq can only be cleared up when all those involved sit
together at one table. Germany has taken on responsibilities in Iraq,
including financial ones; this would naturally justify our involvement
in such a conference.”
October
12, 2004
Incompetence
Last week on CNN,
I heard an undecided voter from St. Louis say "I love what Bush has
done in Iraq." It's not an uncommon thing to hear in an undecided voter
interview, and it drives me crazy, especially after I read something
like
this:
Equipment and materials that
could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq but
neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed, the U.N.
nuclear watchdog agency reported on Monday.
Satellite imagery shows that
entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed
high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group
make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a
report to the U.N. Security Council.
Equipment and materials
helpful in making bombs also have been removed from open storage areas
in Iraq and disappeared without a trace, according to the satellite
pictures, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said.
While some military goods
that disappeared from Iraq after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion,
including missile engines, later turned up in scrap yards in the Middle
East and Europe, none of the equipment or material known to the IAEA as
potentially useful in making nuclear bombs has turned up yet, ElBaradei
said.
The equipment -- including
high-precision milling and turning machines and electron-beam welders
-- and materials -- such as high-strength aluminum -- were tagged by
the IAEA years ago, as part of the watchdog agency's shutdown of Iraq's
nuclear program. U.N. inspectors then monitored the sites until their
evacuation from Iraq just before the war.
The United States barred the
inspectors' return after the war, preventing the IAEA from keeping tabs
on the equipment and materials up to the present day.
How in the world can so many people still believe that Bush is the
right choice to keep us safe? What could John Kerry possibly do that
would be more careless than leaving the world's most dangerous
materials unguarded and unaccounted for?
It makes me sick.
ACT
For awhile now,
I've assumed this election would break one way or another and we'd have
a pretty clear idea by now who our next president would be. Silly me.
It's looking increasingly likely that this election is going to come
down to get-out-the-vote efforts in battleground states, and
that's why America Coming Together may well be the most important
organization in the world right now.
ACT is looking for 25,000 + volunteers on election day to supplement
their 45,000 strong regular army.
I strongly encourage/implore/beg/ beseech you to help
in whatever way you possibly can.
Gallup
Wow. Despite instant polls
that showed a more even second debate, a more comprehensive
Gallup survey released yesterday shows a strong
plurality of viewers thought, once again, that John Kerry cleaned
Incurious George's clock:
Although an instant poll of
debate watchers taken Friday night showed the meeting to be without a
clear winner, Gallup's two-day poll showed 45 percent of respondents
picked Kerry as the winner. Just 30 percent chose Bush as the debate
winner.
The pressure's on Kerry, though, because the same poll
shows something like 56% now expect him to win the third debate, which
is Wednesday (bad timing for me, considering it goes up against my
beloved St. Louis Cardinals taking on the Bushes' Astros in game one of
the NLCS – thank God for TiVo).
Free
Kerry-Edwards Bumper Stickers
My paramour has 20 or so
extra Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers she's willing to send out, free of
charge. Send me your address if you want one. Supplies are limited and
swing staters will get first priority, but all are welcome to apply.
These graphics look pretty damn good.
Interest
Level: 2000 vs. 2004
Interest level in this election,
as gauged by VP debate ratings, is significantly higher than in 2000,
although somewhat surprisingly, not quite up to 1992 levels:
At least 43.6 million people
watched the debate between Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John
Edwards on Tuesday, an unexpectedly large audience that nearly matched
that of the first presidential debate in 2000 between George W.
Bush and Al Gore, according to Nielsen Media Research data released
Wednesday.
That debate was watched by at
least 46.6 million people. The 2000 vice-presidential debate, between
Mr. Cheney and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, was watched by 29 million.
Tuesday night's debate was
the most-watched vice-presidential face-off since the three-way debate
with Mr. Gore, Dan Quayle and James B. Stockdale, Ross
Perot's running mate, in 1992. At least 51.2 million people watched
that.
It's worth noting that there was a big Yankees-Twins game during this
year's VP debate, although I don't know what they went up against in
1992. Still, there can be no doubt: Admiral James B. Stockdale = box
office gold.
Dazed
and Confused
Okay, this has nothing to do
with politics, but I couldn't sleep if I didn't pass along
this piece of hilarity to anyone who may be
familiar with the movie, a modern classic:
Three former high school
classmates of "Dazed and Confused" director Richard Linklater have
filed a lawsuit claiming they have suffered embarrassment and ridicule
because of characters based on them in the movie.
The men -- Bobby Wooderson,
Andy Slater and Richard "Pink" Floyd -- say Linklater did not get their
permission before creating three characters in the 1993 cult classic
sharing their surnames and likenesses. The suit was filed Thursday in
Santa Fe against Universal Studios, which released the film.
October
11, 2004
The
Worst
I believe George Bush
is firm and resolute, but only when it comes to putting politics
above all other considerations, including human lives. Here's proof
from
The Los Angeles Times:
The Bush administration plans
to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S.
elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that
large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential
race.
Although American commanders
in Iraq have been buoyed by recent successes in insurgent-held towns
such as Samarra and Tall Afar, administration and Pentagon officials
say they will not try to retake cities such as Fallouja and Ramadi —
where the insurgents' grip is strongest and U.S. military casualties
could be the highest — until after Americans vote in what is likely to
be an extremely close election.
"When this election's over,
you'll see us move very vigorously," said one senior administration
official involved in strategic planning, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
"Once you're past the
election, it changes the political ramifications" of a large-scale
offensive, the official said. "We're not on hold right now. We're just
not as aggressive."
Moral disaster.
Kerry
Wins
Again
Mystery Pollster analyzes
the three polls on Friday's debate:
Gallup described the debate
reaction as "a standoff"and ABC News said debate viewers "divided along
partisan lines," because the results in both surveys showed that
partisans on either side judged their man the winner by nearly
identical margins (or at least within sampling error). Vote
preferences barely budged during the debate. Historically, that
is the typical reaction -- the debate itself tends to reinforce
existing preferences.
However, most of the coverage
has overlooked the fact that independents
perceived Kerry as the winner on all three surveys:
- Gallup - "Who do you think did a better job in the
debate?" Kerry 53%, Bush 37%
- ABC News - "Who, in your opinion, won the
debate?" Kerry 44%, Bush 34%
- Democracy Corps - "Who
would you say won the debate?" Kerry 44%, Bush 33%
Bush may have succeeded in pumping up his base, but Kerry succeeded
both at that and in reassuring independents he's up to the job. That's
an extraordinarily difficult task, and he deserves mucho credit for
having accomplished it in both debates.
Bumper
Stickers
Some people have been
commenting lately on the large amount of Kerry/Edwards bumper
stickers they've seen, even in
conservative areas. I live in one of the least
conservative areas of the country – West Los Angeles – but I've still
been struck by how many more Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers I've seen
than Bush/Cheney stickers. Driving throughout L.A. this weekend, on the
highways and off the main roads, I counted each time I saw a
Kerry/Edwards sticker, and each time I saw a Bush/Cheney sticker. The
results:
Kerry/Edwards: 39
Bush/Cheney: 1
Gore/Lieberman: 1
I'm not kidding, I actually saw a Gore/Lieberman leftover and it
matched the Bush/Cheney '04 grand total.
I don't know what the 39 to 1 figure means, because I have nothing to
compare it to, really. It could just mean that California Democrats are
way, way more likely to put bumper stickers on our cars, but that kind
of margin – even here – gives me hope that something more powerful may
be going on.
October
10, 2004
2
Quick Debate Bits
1. Here's a
video
clip of Incurious George going berserk, rudely interrupting Charles
Gibson during the debate just so he could get pimp-handed by John
Kerry.
2. A lot of us found Bush's Dred Scott reference a little curious. It
turns out it's code for overturning Roe v. Wade.
Paperwight's Fair
Shot explains:
Some people seem to be a bit
boggled by Bush's Dred Scott remark last night. It wasn't
about racism or slavery, or just Bush's natural incoherence.
Here's what Bush actually said:
If elected
to another term, I promise that I will nominate Supreme Court Justices
who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Bush couldn't say that in
plain language, because it would freak out every moderate swing voter
in the country, but he can say it in code, to make sure that his base
will turn out for him. Anti-choice advocates have been comparing
Roe v. Wade with Dred Scott v. Sandford for some time now. There is a
constant drumbeat on the religious right to compare the contemporary
culture war over abortion with the 19th century fight over slavery,
with the anti-choicers cast in the role of the abolitionists.
Don't believe me? Here.
October
9, 2004
The
Debate
I'll just give you my
broad impression now, and go into specifics later.
I think Kerry won another decisive victory substantively, and a more
narrow victory stylistically. Unfortunately, Bush was so bad in that
first debate that his measurably better performance this time – despite
hints of becoming unhinged about 20 minutes in – will have many pundits
calling it a draw, and probably many undecideds seeing it that way,
too. Unless you're grading on a curve, though, it's still difficult for
me to believe somebody assessing Bush as the better man.
October
8, 2004
Job
Growth Anemic
From AP:
American businesses added
96,000 jobs in September, the Labor Department reported today, a poorer
showing than expected in the final employment report before the
presidential election, in which job creation is a major issue.
To put this in perspective...
The nation needs to add about
150,000 jobs a month to keep pace with population growth, according to
economists. While employers have added jobs for 12 consecutive months,
the gains have exceeded that level in only four of those months.
And more perspective...
"I wouldn't want to be in
President Bush's shoes," Ken Mayland of ClearView Economics told the
Associated Press. "He had better prepare himself for an onslaught . . .
The reality is that a 96,000 increase in a work force of a 131 million
base is an anemic rise, and is in no way a satisfactory increase."
Here's the "Excuse Presidency" line:
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao,
in a statement, said the economy "has been through a great deal lately
-- devastating hurricanes and rising oil prices." The new figures show
"the strength and resilience of our economy and that the labor market
continues to improve," she said.
And why it won't work:
The figures were not
"materially" influenced by the string of hurricanes that hit Florida
and other southeastern states, the department said.
Anemic job growth, a disaster in Iraq, no WMD confirmed, pre-war lies
on aluminum tubes confirmed, skyrocketing oil costs, horrible images of
terrorists striking in Egypt and across the globe – that's just this
week. Anybody who watches the news knows that Bush is a stunningly
ineffective president, and the most important political aspect of this
anemic job growth is probably that it reasserts to the press that this
is the case.
What the hell is Bush gonna talk about tonight? Oh, yeah. He's gonna be
talking about John Kerry. And John Kerry's gonna be answering people's
questions about these other things.
Tonight's
Debate
The only thing that concerns me about tonight's
debate is, given Kerry's stellar performance last Thursday, there's now
much higher expectations for him. I've seen him answer questions from
average Americans in similar forums, though, and think he's generally
pretty good at them. He listens very well.
Perhaps I'm confusing my hope with my judgment, but I don't see any
reason to believe Bush will be any better in this debate than he was in
the last one. He's got some real problems as a political performer
right now:
1. Bush is a broad actor, and Karl Rove seems to have
hammered the idea into him that he only needs to project resolve and
decisiveness. Those qualities alone, especially with a solid majority
of voters believing we're headed in the wrong direction, aren't going
to get him across the finish line.
2. Bush retooled his stump speech so that it's a
non-stop barrage of Kerry attacks. Clearly, the Bush campaign needs to
distract attention from Iraq and put it on John Kerry. It takes a very
subtle political performer to drive up your opponent's negatives during
a town hall Q & A session, and subtlety is not one of his political
gifts (it is, however, one of Kerry's – see the last debate, where he
said extremely harsh things about Bush all night but still came off as
generally respectful).
3. Al Gore didn't know how to bounce back from his negative
reviews (mostly for sighing – a direct equivalent to Bush's smirks this
year) for his first debate performance in 2000, so he showed up as a
completely different person for the second debate, and was visibly
constrained. I'm not saying Bush is incapable of striking the balance
he needs in this debate, but he's likely to be at least a little
self-conscious (he wouldn't have mentioned "making faces" on the
campaign trail yesterday if he wasn't painfully aware of all the
negative reviews). If he emulates his campaign appearances this week,
he'll come off as stubborn and arrogant again, and if he tries to
moderate himself he risks coming off as dithering again. He'll only
perform well if he strikes a balance between resolve and humility, a
nearly impossible task when you've made a calculated decision not to
acknowledge any mistakes.
4. From
The New Republic:
Bush has always been a sucker for a good storyline--and
never more so than when it involves him. In his own mind, Bush is the
central figure in an ever-unfolding series of dramas. As such, Bush
prides himself on possessing the qualities of a hero: compassion and
justness on the one hand; boldness, principle, and resolution on the
other.
I agree. In fact, when Bush takes those rare steps out of his campaign
cocoon like he has to for these debates, he has to come to at least
some realization that our current world looks a lot more like "
Battle of
Algiers" than "
Top Gun" to most people, and whether he's
conscious of it or not it really bothers him. When he's challenged by
regular people who aren't loyal Republican partisans, or by non-hack
news reporters, or by a formidable opponent like John Kerry, it
complicates and disrupts his heroic self-image.
5. Besides the delivery of the last few paragraphs of his
convention speech, Bush hasn't had a terrific political performance in
a "big event" this year (State of the Union was a flop, all his full
press conferences have been flops, first debate performance was a big
flop). And when's the last time he's taken non-scripted questions from
real people? Everybody's welcome to John Kerry's campaign appearances –
they're not pre-screened like Bush's – so he does it all the time.
6. I watched last week's debate a second time. It was
very clear to me that Bush hates Kerry, and honestly believes his
campaign caricature of Kerry is real. I don't think it will take much
for Kerry to get under his skin.
7. Bush has to answer questions about the economy this
time, too.
October
7, 2004
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch headline this
morning isn't going to put any smiles on the faces of Bush-Cheney '04
campaign workers:
Iraq Arms Report Contradicts Bush
Hopefully, one of those "soft Bush" supporters at tomorrow's debate is
soft enough to ask him a pointed question about it.
Bush-Cheney '04 reps have been saying they've got Missouri locked up,
but I've heard 3 different reports on radio and t.v. over the last 2
days saying that internal polls from both campaigns show the race,
after Kerry's debate performance closed the gap, within a point or two.
Candor
John Kerry commenting today on Incurious George's
delusional response to the
Duelfer Report:
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States and
the Vice President of the United States may well be the last two people
on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq.
I
Wish We Didn't Know, Either
John Edwards' 4 year-old son Jack, following
Tuesday's debate:
Which one is Cheney?
Hard
Work Ad
Wow.
This ad nails it.
Orwell
In the House
From yesterday's New York Times,
which details the report from Charles Duelfer revealing that Iraq had
eliminated all illicit arms in the 90's:
Iraq had destroyed its
illicit weapons stockpiles within months after the Persian Gulf war of
1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly
eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American
inspector for Iraq said in a report made public Wednesday.
The report by the inspector,
Charles A. Duelfer, intended to offer a near-final judgment about Iraq
and its weapons, said Iraq, while under pressure from the United
Nations, had "essentially destroyed'' its illicit weapons ability by
the end of 1991, with its last secret factory, a biological weapons
plant, eliminated in 1996.
When the Kaye report came out, Bush said he couldn't say anything with
finality, he had to wait "for Charlie's report." So Charlie's report
says clearly that we invaded a country that wasn't a WMD threat, and
therefore the central rationale the administration pushed to take us to
war was false.
Dick Cheney's response today? From
ABC News:
Vice President Dick Cheney
asserted on Thursday that a report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector
in Iraq, who found no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass
destruction after 1991, justifies rather than undermines President
Bush's decision to go to war.
The report shows that "delay,
defer, wasn't an option," Cheney told a town-hall style meeting.
George W. Bush's
response:
Based on all the information
we had to date, I believe we were right to take action and America is
safer today with Saddam Hussein in prison.
He retained the knowledge,
the materials, the means and the intent to produce weapons of mass
destruction and he could have passed that knowledge onto our terrorist
enemies. Saddam Hussein was a unique threat, a sworn enemy of our
country, a state sponsor of terror operating in the world's most
volatile region.
John Edwards has it
exactly right:
They are willing to say left
is right and up is down. The vice president, Dick Cheney, and the
president need to recognize that the Earth is actually round and that
the Sun is rising in the east.
October
6, 2004
Pathological
Liar
It's impossible to
evaluate last night's debate without focusing on the truly
astonishing set of lies Dick Cheney told the American people. Every
politician stretches the truth, but Chency's problem, even when
subjected to a low, politician's standard of truth, distinguishes
itself as truly pathological.
Cheney told two lies in particular so obvious and egregious that the
press should make them the story of the debate:
1. From the debate
transcript:
Mr. Edwards: ...And these
connections, I want the American people to hear this very clearly,
listen carefully to what the vice president’s saying, because there is
no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of Sept. 11.
Period. The 9/11 Commission has said that’s true. Colin Powell has said
it’s true. But the vice president keeps suggesting that there is. There
is not. And in fact any connection with Al Qaeda is tenuous at best.
Ms. Ifill Mr. Vice President,
you have 90 seconds to respond.
Mr. Cheney The senator’s got
his fact wrong. I have not suggested
there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
He said this emphatically. He didn't even bother to use a qualifier,
but simply claims that he never even "
suggested"
a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
On December 9, 2001, he took the same emphatic tone as he did in his
denial last night when
he told Tim Russert:
Well, what we now have that's
developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report
that--it's been pretty well confirmed that he [Mohammed Atta] did go to
Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence
service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.
Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we
simply don't know at this point, but that's clearly an avenue that we
want to pursue.
This suggestion that 9/11's ringleader was in bed with Iraq had already
been discredited by the time he asserted it was "
pretty well confirmed." It was
again further and more publically debunked after his false
MTP appearance, but that didn't
stop him from continuing to spread the lie. Here's Cheney a full two
years later in his September 14, 2003,
interview
with Russert:
With respect to 9/11, of
course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs
alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a
senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but
we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of
confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know.
Cheney
