September
30,
2004
The
Great Debate
There's a good chance
tonight's debate will impact the result of this election more
than any other single event. 47 million people watched the first debate
in 2000; with increased interest this year, you have to figure over 50
million will watch tonight. Most of those 50 million + are going to
vote. Although the "low undecideds" factor has become a bit of a cliche
in this race, I'm not so sure everybody's sticking with what they've
been telling pollsters. Most of the polls – despite disparate horserace
totals – agree that voters don't like the direction the country's
headed under Bush, but he maintains some big personal and leadership
attribute advantages over Kerry since the Republican Molestation
Machine has been so successful roughing him up. Hence, a significant
percentage of voters are weighing competing claims, so if one of these
guys does phenomenally well (or the other makes a serious mistake or
two), he could get most of the undecideds and take a chunk of his
opponent's leaners. Remember, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, Dad Bush,
Clinton, and Baby Bush – were all perceived winners of their first
presidential debates, and the fact that they each went on to win the
White House probably isn't coincidence.
(By the way, I hope you like the Republican Molestation Machine
moniker, because I think it's a more appropriately negative description
than the Republican Attack Machine, as I had been calling it, although
perhaps not as accurate in some ways as Republican Noise Machine. I
also like Republican Media Molestation Machine, which I'll refer to it
as when I'm talking about their message/distortion delivery system
outside the official RNC and BC04 campaigns – talk radio hosts,
Drudge,
Instapundit,
Free
Republic,
Fox
News – even though the two are hardly inseparable.)
Actually, I shouldn't simplify things by saying the performance tonight
represents the entire debate event. That goes in 3 phases:
pre-debate (setting up expectations and post-debate talking points; the
debate itself; and the post-debate spin.
Last time, the Bush campaign killed in the pre and post-debate phases.
The expectations for Bush were tremendously low, which his campaign
engineered partially by letting fester a perception that he was
"dodging" the debates. If I remember correctly, too, the Gore campaign
didn't bother to even try lowering expectations much for their guy,
who'd acquired a reputation as a fantastic debater.
Bush came off as relaxed during the debate, and he stuck to his message
like glue, even if he didn't say much. Gore came off as a little
bombastic to many, but also as more knowledgable to most. Gore held a
slight advantage when voters were asked "who won" immediately
afterwards.
Then the Republican Molestation Machine went into action and found
willing news reporters eager to deliver a Gore-ing. Before you knew it,
sighs and a minor inaccuracy (saying he was with the FEMA director on a
date that he wasn't) from Gore were all people talked about, and Bush
was perceived not only as the winner of the debate, but he had also
turned his several point disadvantage in most polls into a double digit
lead.
In this pre-debate climate, both sides can claim something.
The Kerry campaign has done a remarkably good job at setting
expectations low, as evidenced by recent polls showing voters, by
double digits, thinking Bush will do better. They've also firmly
planted the idea in reporters' heads that Bush isn't squaring with the
American people about how bad the situation is in Iraq. If Bush gets
too assertive about how much progress we're making, it could present
real problems for him.
The Bush campaign, of course, has successfully branded Kerry as a
flip-flopper. If Kerry shows even a moment of indecisiveness or
indulges too many awkward tangents, he's in real trouble.
What I like about Kerry's chances:
1. Expectations are about as low for Kerry as they were for Bush in
2000.
2. In the primaries, Democrats didn't just vote for Kerry because he
was a war hero; they voted for him because he's "presidential." People
respond to style more than points made in these things, and this is
where Kerry could clobber Bush. He's simply more credible as a person
who knows the issues and takes them seriously. Plus, not only does he
possess a natural gravitas, but his stature elevates some more as soon
as he and the sitting commander-in-chief shake hands.
3. Kerry's debate performances against Bill Weld in 1996 are the stuff
of legend. I've only seen snippets (in which he proved himself a
rhetorical bad ass, in the best sense), so I can't comment too much on
those (if you want a detailed examination of both Bush's and Kerry's
previous debate performances, this
Atlantic Monthly article is
awesome). However, what people fail to mention is that Kerry beat John
Edwards – who out common-touches GW – in the primary debates pretty
good. They never debated one-on-one, but still, I thought Kerry came
off as stronger, more knowledgable, and more nimble in several
instances than Edwards. There was only one moment when Edwards laid a
glove on him, and that was after Kerry gave a multi-part answer to a
yes or no question. Edwards shot back, "That's the longest answer to a
yes or no question I've ever heard," or something like that. I'm sure
Bush's debate handlers took note.
4. When's the last time a presidential challanger had as much
opposition research ammo as Kerry does? I'd say never.
5. The taller guy usually wins the public's confidence, as stupid as
that is. The podiums will be 10 feet away from each other, though, so
that may negate some of Kerry's height advantage.
6. Kerry's recent speeches have been punchy and brilliant.
7. There's a sense out there – both among reporters and the general
populace – that Kerry's allowed himself to be a doormat at times during
this campaign. This may be too logical, but you'd think this would
garner him some extra leeway to be extraordinarily aggressive, wouldn't
it?
8. Bush has looked extremely cocky on the campaign trail recently, even
more so than usual. If he comes in with a swagger and Kerry finds a
soft spot in the armor, Bush will get rattled. This is not a man who
responds well to challenges to his integrity, and he's not good when
he's mad. I expect he'll be too disciplined for that, though, and will
stay out of it.
9. If Bush clings to the flip-flopper tags too religiously, and Kerrry
can somehow disarm the charge early, even an idiot will recognize Bush
as beating a broken drum. Also, if Kerry spends the whole time talking
about the world's problems and Bush spends the whole time talking about
John Kerry's problems, he risks appearing really petty.
What scares me:
1. The Bush campaign fought for a light that will be visible to the
audience if the speaker goes over his allotted time (90 seconds, I
think) for each answer. Even if Kerry's delivering good stuff, if that
light keeps going off in Kerry's face all night it could become that
one dreaded story that seems to dominate every debate cycle.
2. I didn't see Kerry's entire interview with Diane Sawyer yesterday,
but I saw a couple segments where he was in long-winded form, and he
equivocated about whether it was wrong to go into Iraq. My heart sank.
3. Bush stays on message, and he lies. In a more freewheeling format,
like his Weld debates, Kerry could easily expose him. But given all the
contractual constraints governing this debate, it's going to be tough.
4. Bush usually performs best when he's prepared, and I understand he's
been training for tonight's debate for six months.
5. Bush has looked extraordinarily relaxed in recent interviews.
Wild cards: audience laughter, Jim Lehrer, protestor interruptions, and
Bushisms.
September
29,
2004
Sorry my posts
have been so light lately – I'm working on a very time-consuming
project, but will be finished by tomorrow night and will have a full
debate preview then.
Good
News/Bad News
Some preliminary good
news from Iowa, according to
The New York Times:
In the state's 20 most
populous counties, which account for about 60 percent of the vote, more
than 140,345 absentee ballots had been applied for as of last
Wednesday, according to a survey of county auditors by The Des Moines
Register. Under Iowa law, anyone can
request an absentee ballot, no questions asked, and roughly three times
as many Democrats as Republicans did so in the counties studied by The
Register. Early voting began on Thursday, 40 days before
Election Day.
Which is one reason Gov. Tom
Vilsack, a Democrat, is optimistic about John Kerry's chances of
carrying the state. Four years ago, Al Gore was outvoted at the polls;
his entire 4,144-vote margin of victory in Iowa was from absentee
voters.
But there's some potentially troubling news from Wisconsin. According
to
The Hotline editor Chuck
Todd, internal polls show that as many as 40% of African Americans in
the state are supporting Bush, in large part due to a popular school
voucher program in Milwaukee. Only 3% of Wisconsin voters are African
American, but they made the difference for Al Gore when he won the
state in 2000 (Bush narrowly won the white vote, but Gore took the
black vote overwhelmingly). Obviously, Kerry needs those numbers to
move, and the answer may be Barack Obama, a superstar from neighboring
Illinois, who's begun to spend some time there campaigning for Kerry.
September
28,
2004
Darn
Good Intelligence
From today's The New York Times:
The same intelligence unit
that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing
instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential
costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the
war began, government officials said Monday.
The estimate came in two
classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the
National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the
director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an
American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political
Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to
violent internal conflict.
Bush told us recently that the initial invasion of Iraq was so quick
that it was a "catastrophic success," one that caused him to
"miscalculate" the enormity of difficulties faced in the invasion's
aftermath. If he read or was briefed on this report, and it's as
described by
The Times, he's
lying. If he didn't read or wasn't briefed on the report, he's
incompetent. There are no other choices.
September
27,
2004
'Mission
Still Accomplished'
Even O'Reilly was
dumbfounded by Bush's latest. From
Reuters:
President Bush said he had no
regrets about donning a flight suit to give his "Mission Accomplished"
speech on Iraq in May 2003 and would do it all over again if he had the
chance, according to excerpts from an television interview released on
Sunday.
When asked by Fox News if he still would have put on a flight suit to
declare major combat operations in Iraq over, Bush replied,
"Absolutely."
When Bush gave his May 1 speech fewer than 150 Americans had died in
the war. Since then more than 900 have died.
The interview is to air on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" on Monday,
Tuesday and Wednesday, just before Bush and Democratic presidential
nominee Sen. John Kerry face off in their first televised debate on
Thursday.
Suicidal stubborness.
I expect this to be a big story today.
Quotes
George W. Bush, Dick
Cheney and
several other hyper-nationalist buffoons have
recently stepped up attacks on John Kerry's patriotism, suggesting his
truthful characterizations of the situation on the ground in Iraq
"emboldens our enemies," "hurts our soldiers' morale," and are simply
"destructive." These 4 quotes could have originally been written with
them in mind:
1. "
Patriotism is a
lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock
crowing on its own dunghill."
– Richard Aldington, The Colonel's Daughter, 1931
2. "
To deride patriotism marks
an impoverished blood, but to extol it as an ideal or an impulse above
truth and justice, at the cost of the general interests of humanity, is
far worse."
– John Morley, Notes on Politics and History: A University Address,
1913
3. "
Here in America we
are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels –
men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their
heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."
– Dwight D. Eisenhower, Columbia University Speech, 1954
4. "
We must not confuse
dissent with disloyalty."
– Edward R. Murrow, CBS Report on Senator Joe McCarthy, 1954
Speaking of Edward R. Murrow,
if they get
The New York Times
in heaven, I guarantee you he's awfully pissed off:
CBS News said yesterday that
it had postponed a "60 Minutes" segment that questioned Bush
administration rationales for going to war in Iraq.
The announcement, in a
statement by a spokeswoman, was issued four days after the network
acknowledged that it could not prove the authenticity of documents it
used to raise new questions about President Bush's Vietnam-era military
service.
The Iraq segment had been
ready for broadcast on Sept. 8, CBS said, but was bumped at the last
minute for the segment on Mr. Bush's National Guard service. The Guard
segment was considered a highly competitive report, one that other
journalists were pursuing.
CBS said last night that the
report on the war would not run before Nov. 2.
"We now believe it would be
inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election,"
the spokeswoman, Kelli Edwards, said in a statement.
The horror.
Musharraf
President Bush frequently touts
Pakistani President/Dictator Pervez Musharraf as one of our top allies
in the War on Terror. Perhaps he should listen to what he's been
saying in interviews lately, like this one with
CNN's Paula Zahn:
ZAHN: Is the world a safer
place because of the war in Iraq?
MUSHARRAF: No. It's more
dangerous. It's not safer, certainly not.
ZAHN: How so?
MUSHARRAF: Well, because it
has aroused actions of the Muslims more. It's aroused certain
sentiments of the Muslim world, and then the responses, the latest
phenomena of explosives, more frequent for bombs and suicide bombings.
This phenomenon is extremely dangerous.
Flip-Flzzzzzzzzzzz
I've noticed several recent
articles have debunked the Bush-Cheney '04 myth that John
Kerry's been horribly inconsistent in his positions on Iraq. Two decent
ones are
The San Francisco
Chronicle and
Knight-Ridder.
Check 'em out.
September
26,
2004
Good
News
I've spent some time this year
registering voters in Los Angeles. This is the first year I've done it,
so I have nothing to compare it to, but the veteran activists tell me
they haven't seen anything close to what they've seen this year – in
numbers or enthusiasm. I trust that enthusiasm is greater and Democrats
will see a lot of new voters at the polls, but
how much greater? And, more
importantly, how much greater is the enthusiam in swing states, and how
does it stack up against what is certainly a Republican Party more
fired-up than 2000, too?
The New York Times
has some answers today:
A sweeping voter registration
campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new
voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge
that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a
review of registration data shows.
The analysis by The New York
Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio -
primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations
since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In
comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in
Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the
strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent
higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest
Republican areas.
Here are some of the raw numbers in Ohio:
In rock-ribbed Republican
areas - 103 ZIP codes, many of them rural and suburban areas, that
voted by two to one or better for George W. Bush in 2000 - 35,000 new
voters have registered, a substantial increase over the 28,000 that
registered in those areas in the first seven months of 2000. The Ohio
Republican party said it was pleased with the results.
But in heavily Democratic
areas - 60 ZIP codes mostly in the core of big cities like Cleveland,
Dayton, Columbus and Youngstown that voted two to one or better against
Mr. Bush - new registrations have more than tripled over 2000, to
63,000 from 17,000.
And in Florida:
In Florida, where The Times
was able to analyze data from 60 of the state's 67 counties, new
registrations this year also are running far ahead of the 2000 pace,
with Republican areas trailing Democratic ones. In the 150 ZIP codes
that voted most heavily for Mr. Bush, 96,000 new voters have registered
this year, up from 86,000 in 2000, an increase of about 12 percent.
But in the heaviest of
Democratic areas, 110 ZIP codes that gave two-thirds or more of their
votes to Al Gore, new registrations have increased to 125, 000 from
77,000, a jump of more than 60 percent.
In Duval County, where a
confusing ballot design in 2000 helped disqualify thousands of ballots
in black precincts, new registrations by black voters are up 150
percent over the pace of 2000.
This might be the most promising news I've read all year for John Kerry
and other Democrats, especially when you keep in mind that many of
these new eligible voters are hard to track in polls and highly
unlikely to be included in "likely voter" models.
September
24,
2004
Clear
Options
Campaign Notes:
1. Both candidates seem determined to make the race a referendum on
Iraq. Kerry and his campaign have been notably disciplined, and so far
successful, I think, this week in framing the race as a simple choice
between "stay the course" or "change the course" in Iraq. Kerry is
finally rebutting Bush immediately so he's in the same news cycle. He's
been beating the message like a drum: Bush certainly isn't being honest
with us on Iraq, and perhaps not even honest with himself. In other
words, he's at least dishonest and quite possibly delusional (as Kerry
said last week, on Iraq Bush "
lives
in a fantasy world of spin"). This would seem over-the-top if we
didn't have so much visual evidence and empirical data that contradict
Bush's daily distortions of what's happening in Iraq.
2. Here's a good example, from his press conference yesterday in
Columbus, Ohio, of the kind of strong left jab Kerry's throwing more
frequently and precisely these days:
Before the war he said that
lots of terrorists were causing trouble and that's why we had to go to
war. Now that we are at war he says there are only a handful of
terrorists...
3. Finally, we've got some real substance in the meta-narrative of this
campaign. Do you believe we're making progress in Iraq or do you think
we need a different approach? Which guy is better equipped to deal with
Iraq? Those are valid central questions for the campaigns and the press
to focus on over these next 41 days.
4. Although I've only seen parts of it delivered, I think Kerry's
Tuesday
speech is the most hard-hitting and substantive
political attack speech I've ever read. It's brilliant, and it's all
true. I can't encourage you enough to read it
all.
This may be my favorite snippet:
His two main rationales –
weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda/September 11 connection –
have been proved false… by the President’s own weapons inspectors… and
by the 9/11 Commission. Just last week, Secretary of State Powell
acknowledged the facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists
that the earth is flat.
5. Here's 9/11 widow, Bush 2000 supporter, and "Jersey Girl" Kristen
Breitweiser introducing John Edwards yesterday:
The only way we will be safer
in this nation is if we have Sen. Kerry as our president and Sen.
Edwards as our vice president.
The Kerry campaign or DNC should buy Breitweiser a home television
studio and ask her to do t.v. and radio interviews 24/7 until the
election. I think her story really challenges a lot of the false
perceptions "security moms" have about Bush. If you haven't seen her
but want an indication of how striking a surrogate she is, here's two
excerpts from her recent
Inside Politics
interview (although keep in mind her presentation is every bit as
good as what she says):
WOODRUFF: You said that
you voted for George W. Bush in 2000. What has turned you around?
BREITWEISER: I think my
own personal experience in the last three years, where I'd hoped that
President Bush -- someone that I voted for, that my husband voted for
-- would have been my biggest ally in trying to correct the problems
that occurred on the morning of September 11th and trying to make this
nation safer.
And what I found out, for the
last three years, is that he was our biggest adversary. And I'm
very disappointed...
WOODRUFF: Specifically
because he what?
BREITWEISER: With
regard to the 9/11 Commission, President Bush: fought the creation of
the commission; fought the legislative language to make sure the
commission was set up in a bipartisan manner; fought the funding of the
commission; fought an extension for the commission; fought access to
individuals and documents.
This commission was very
important because it was going to make sure that we learn from the
mistakes that occurred in 9/11 and, in a sense, honor the lost lives by
making sure that in the next attack -- which we know is going to happen
-- more lives would be saved.
WOODRUFF: But in the
last analysis, the president did come around on most of that, didn't
he?
BREITWEISER: He came
around after he was backed into a corner and after a 90-8 vote in the
Senate. And it was a long year. And I wonder, what if the
president had started his own commission in the days after 9/11, much
like happened in Pearl Harbor. Maybe this wouldn't be a campaign
issue this year. Maybe national security would be taken care
of. Maybe I would feel safe. Maybe I wouldn't be so scared
three years since 9/11.
and...
WOODRUFF: Some people
are going to ask, were you in any way used by this campaign? Are
they in any way taking advantage of your obvious and understandable
emotions in order to get you to...
BREITWEISER: And I can
tell you from my heart, I reached out to the Kerry campaign. I
reached out after the Republican convention that was in New York, and I
felt that listening to people talk about 9/11 as incessantly as it was
done during the campaign -- or the convention in New York, if you're
going to use 9/11, use it to make this nation safer than it was on
9/11. And that's not being done. If
you're going to use 9/11, if you're going to be impassioned about the
lives lost on 9/11, then do so by making us safer. Don't use 9/11
to go to war in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 -- not on my
husband's name. The war in Iraq has increased recruitment of al
Qaeda. It has increased animosity and hatred toward Americans.
I want to know that I'm
safer. I lost my husband. I want to know that my daughter
and I are safer. And President Bush hasn't one that. As
much as we have begged and pleaded and screamed to try to get these
problems fixed, to try and become safer living in this country, it just
hasn't happened.
September
23,
2004
Carrots
and Sticks
Just a couple thoughts:
1. I agree wholeheartedly with this
New York Times
op-ed on Bush's speech before the U.N. Tuesday:
We did not expect President
Bush to come before the United Nations in the middle of his re-election
campaign and acknowledge the serious mistakes his administration has
made on Iraq. But that still left plenty of room for him to take
advantage of this one last chance to appeal to an increasingly
antagonistic world to help the Iraqis secure and rebuild their
shattered nation and prepare for elections in just four months.
Instead, Mr. Bush delivered an inexplicably defiant campaign speech in
which he glossed over the current dire situation in Iraq for an
audience acutely aware of the true state of affairs, and scolded them
for refusing to endorse the American invasion in the first place.
American approval ratings in countries around the world are the lowest
in our history. I wonder why.
2. Most pundits immediately dismiss the idea that a President Kerry
would be able to successfully internationalize efforts in Iraq, and
turn the fraudulent coalition into a real one. They may be right. But
if things aren't entirely lost before Kerry's inauguration, it's
possible they could be proved wrong, too, considering the following:
a. Iraq's final deterioration would be a complete nightmare to
its European and moderate Arab neighbors. Fear is the great
motivator.
b. Kerry's call for an international summit so the United States can
"lead, not just lecture" other countries towards an international
agreement on Iraq seems like common sense. The difference between Kerry
and Bush here seems to be a simple matter of will.
c. Kerry has talked a lot about dangling carrots – huge contracts – in
Iraq, something else Bush would never consider. What do all those who
so eagerly dismiss Kerry's chances not understand about the persuasive
power of $$$$$?
The Florida Ballot
Wow. Glenda Hood and Jeb Bush
must have worked pretty hard with Diebold Technologies to perfect this
new
Florida ballot – feel free to cast a vote.
Good
for Peter Jennings
Here's a good example
of a news outfit doing its job by being
appropriately objective instead of
inappropriately balanced. From
The Nattering Nabob:
PETER JENNINGS: We were
struck today by a very pointed attack by President Bush on John Kerry.
First of all, this is what
Mr. Bush said.
[begin video clip]
BUSH: We agree that the world
is better off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell.
And that stands in stark
contrast to the statement that my opponent made yesterday, when he said
that the world was better off with Saddam in power.
I strongly disagree.
[end video clip]
JENNINGS:
And this is what Mr. Kerry
actually said. [emphasis original]
[begin video clip]
KERRY: Saddam Hussein was a
brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in Hell.
But that was not, in and of
itself, a reason to go to war.
The satisfaction that we take
in his downfall does not hide this fact:
We have traded a dictator for
a chaos that has left America less secure.
[end video clip]
It's a sad day when you have to give a news man a gold star simply for
calling it like it is, but it's preciously rare indeed. Usually, the
absurd mischaracterization (a.k.a. "lie") is just allowed to stand, or
if a reporter has a problem with it, they give the lying campaign a
chance to explain – both of which encourage more negative, empty,
truthless politics.
The Judge
Read this if you want to feel better about
your own weirdnesses.
Are
You Kind of Uncool or
REALLY Uncool?
If you're at work right now,
surely you'll want to waste the next 10 minutes
finding
out. If I had come out more like Bush, I would have had to dust off
the old arsenic bottle...
September
22,
2004
The
Comedy of Richard Perle
Richard Perle was one
of the Bush administration's most prominent public surrogates in
the run-up to the Iraq War. Here's
what he had to say exactly one year ago, September
22, 2003, before the conservative American Enterprise Institute (thanks
to
Josh Marshall for the tip):
A year from now, I'll be very
surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named
after President Bush.
(Here's the
audio.)
He also said:
But let me just say that the
Iraqi people must choose their next government, their leaders. If they
choose Ahmed Chelabi, I think they will have a very bright future.
I've known Ahmed Chelabi for
more than a dozen years. He is a man, in my experience, of absolute
integrity and courage, and he would be a great Iraqi leader.
Sadly, Perle's judgment is representative of the Bush administration
power players (particularly Cheney and Wolfowitz), then and now. The
daily tragedies in Iraq are in large part a symptom of their idiocy.
Dan
Rather and Those Goddamn CBS Memos
Just a few thoughts:
1. Once again, George W. Bush is proved one of the luckiest politicians
in U.S. history. The controversy over the forged memos serves to
completely obscure all the substantiated, authenticated facts of Bush's
Guard service (some of which we learned from documents made available
shortly before the airing of the infamous
60 Minutes report on the forged
docs).
Kevin Drum
catalogued last week what the known facts are, and
gives a bit of a summary here:
What we know for sure is that
Bush began having problems flying in 1972; refused his physical; was
grounded; disappeared for five months; probably disappeared for an
entire year; failed to sign up with a unit in Boston for his final year
of service; and got an honorable discharge anyway.
And he's never come clean
about it. We don't need CBS's memos to remind us of that.
We already knew it.
2. The more I've read about it, the more clear it becomes that the
60 Minutes report was sloppy and
indefensible – a colossal fuck-up for which there can be no excuse.
Obviously, the segment producer should resign or be fired, and if Dan
Rather truly wants to accept responsibility, he should resign, too.
3. I like Dan Rather.
About 6 or 7 years ago, I remember striking up a conversation late one
night in a Hell's Kitchen bar with two guys who'd just finished work at
the
CBS Evening News. One of
them was its director, and the other one was a union crew member (I
think maybe an electric or something). They'd both worked on the show
for about 10 years, I think.
The conversation flowed freely. Getting ready to relish some
egomaniacal horror stories, I asked them to give me their worst story
about Rather (sounds like a strange request, I know, but my experience
suggests people with who work alongside the famous and powerful are
usually eager to vent, and I'm just as eager to listen).
Both guys had nothing but praise for Rather. They said he never treated
anybody who worked there with anything other than complete respect, and
it went beyond professional courtesy – Rather was the kind of guy you
could go to if you needed personal help. I think the director even
called him "The greatest guy in the world." They said everybody on the
show felt the same way about him.
4. Still, Dan Rather vehemently defended the integrity of the documents
even as he knew independent document analysts questioned them. The
initial report was bad enough, but his strong defense, however
well-intentioned, was equally indefensible because he deliberately
overlooked
obvious problems with the documents. He's never
going to be credible to a lot of people out there, so he should step
down and let CBS News get a fresh start with a new anchor.
I realize I stand with many right-wingnuts in thinking Rather should
resign. However, anybody who takes this stand and wants to be taken
seriously must agree that President Bush should resign as well. How
could you argue that Dan Rather should resign over presenting what
turned out to be false documents to his audience and not argue that
President Bush should resign for presenting what turned out to be
false information about Iraq's capabilities to the American people?
Regardless of whether they intentionally spread the falsehoods, both
guys have undermined their credibility beyond repair, and must assume
responsibility.
5. Many on the right also suggest that Rather and the forged documents
are representative of a hopelessly biased liberal media.
Absolute nonsense.
First off, "liberal media" claims are almost always based on isolated
anecdotes, never empirical data. The empirical studies I've seen on
press coverage during the 2000 election (like this
one) showed Bush getting considerably more
favorable coverage than Gore, and
the only study on press coverage I've seen so far
this year again shows Bush with much more favorable coverage than his
opponent.
Secondly, "the media" is far too expansive to be making monolithic
claims about. The only exception might be Jon Stewart's take (can't
find the exact quote right now, so I'll paraphrase): the press are like
6 year-olds playing soccer. You throw the ball out there, and they all
chase after it like crazy.
Thirdly, how could public opinion behind the Iraq War have been so
favorable pre-invasion if we had a "liberal media"? How would you
explain something like
Judith Miller using neocon con man Ahmed Chalabi
as the source for several important stories on Iraq's WMD capabilities
that appeared on the front page of the allegedly
"liberal"
New York Times and helped to shape
public opinion in favor of the Iraq War? How come the Miller story
receives scant attention in the "liberal media" at large?
Fourth, isn't talk radio part of the media? Over 90% of talk radio
hosts are proudly conservative.
Fifth, aren't cable news channels part of the media? Fox News, which by
an objective accounting is part and parcel of the Republican Party, is
the highest-rated cable news channel. To try and get a slice of that
audience, MSNBC hired Michael Savage, Alan Keyes, and Joe Scaraborough
– all within a couple years. CNN isn't immune to market pressures,
either.
Sixth, PBS – which was established with a mandate to broadcast
underrepresented voices in our society – now features shows hosted by
Tucker Carlson, Paul Gigot, and Michael Medved (Medved show in
development, I think), all proud conservative ideologues.
Seventh, you could add 1000 other things to this list. The idea of a
pervasive liberal media is a joke.
September
21,
2004
Kerry
I don't know how people
will respond to Kerry's
Late
Show with David Letterman appearance. I thought there was an
earnestness to him, but a real awkwardness as well. His best moments
came when he focused on Bush's specific failures in Iraq and when he
talked about the particulars on the ground there (oh, how nice it would
be to once again have a president capable of naming several cities in
the country he's declared war on!). Maybe his
Top 10, too, which lightened him up
a little bit (thanks to Letterman and his writing staff – a friend of
mine who's had direct contact with Letterman, by the way, told me that
Letterman thinks Bush is a disastrous president).
Although the talk show format is best suited for raconteurs, which
Kerry certainly is not, perhaps his fish-out-of-water gravity worked
for him with some viewers.
His weakest moment, by far, was after Letterman asked him if, had he
won the 2000 election, we would be in Iraq today. He said "no," which
was good, and he should have stopped there. Instead, he drifted into an
explanatory mess that mixed good, accessible sentences with bad,
inaccessible sentences. It's inexplicable that he doesn't yet have a
simple canned sentence at the ready for that type of question – he's
only about two years late in getting one. He better have one for the
debates, or it's going to kill him.
To be clear, though, the problem Kerry needs to solve is a political
communication problem, not an integrity problem. Kerry correctly
pointed out the difference between "voting for war" and "voting to give
the president authorization," which may seem like a fine distinction
until you realize, as Iggy at
The Nattering Nabob
wisely reminds us, that the president himself stressed the difference
at the time. Here's
Bush just before the senate authorization vote:
Approving this resolution
does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable.
The resolution will tell the
United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and
is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean
something.
Here's
Kerry casting his vote for authorization on the
senate floor two days later:
"As the President made clear
earlier this week, 'Approving this resolution does not mean that
military action is imminent or unavoidable.' It means 'America speaks
with one voice.'...
...In giving the President
this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to
the American people in recent days--
To work with the United
Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough
and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at
our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force.
If he fails to do so, I will
be among the first to speak out."
Still, Kerry's got to put this in a sentence or two that
everybody understands.
On a related note,
Kerry's
speech on Iraq at NYU yesterday was cogent,
concise, stinging, perhaps his most effective presentation of the year
– and I'll get to it tomorrow...
Goss
From The New York Times:
Representative Porter J.
Goss, the Florida Republican nominated to be director of central
intelligence, said today that some prewar statements by senior Bush
administration officials may well have overstated available
intelligence about the threat posed by Iraq.
Under pointed questioning
from a Senate Democrat, Mr. Goss said he agreed that statements by Vice
President Dick Cheney and the national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice that linked Iraq to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, to Al Qaeda
and to an active nuclear weapons program appeared to have gone beyond
what was spelled out in intelligence reports at the time.
Goss, of course, is very close to Cheney, so this is kind of surprising.
Explaining
the Polls
The
Wall Street Journal's John
Harwood does a pretty good, objective job
here of explaining why we're seeing such disparate
polling numbers on the horse race.
Novak
Bob Novak has proven
he's willing to kill in order to effectively shill for the Bush
administration (literally, in the case of Valerie Plame’s former CIA
assets), which makes his anonymously-sourced
column yesterday awfully interesting:
Inside the Bush
administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that
U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not
predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal
stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go.
This prospective policy is
based on Iraq's national elections in late January, but not predicated
on ending the insurgency or reaching a national political settlement.
Getting out of Iraq would end the neoconservative dream of building
democracy in the Arab world. The United States would be content having
saved the world from Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass
destruction.
That last sentence is hilarious, particularly in its suggestion that
“the United States” (in Novak’s world, United States = George W. Bush
and friends) could claim “having saved the world” from what we now know
to be a crazy man’s impotent desire.
More unintentionally
Onion-esque satire from Novak:
Getting out now would not end
expensive U.S. reconstruction of Iraq, and certainly would not stop the
fighting. Without U.S. troops, the civil war cited as the worst-case
outcome by the recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate would be
a reality. It would then take a
resolute president to stand aside while Iraqis battle it out.
If Karl Rove succeeds in repealing the
22nd Amendment, he’ll have at least two great 2008
campaign slogans to choose from:
George W. Bush: Resolute in
Both War and Surrender
or...
George W. Bush: Resolute
Doing Something, Resolute Doing Nothing
Come to think of it, he's pretty much using that second one already
this year.
September
20,
2004
Letterman
Don't forget:
Kerry's on Letterman tonight.
3
Debates
It looks like there's going to be 3 debates after
all. From today's
Washington Post:
The campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have
tentatively settled on a package of three face-to-face debates that
both sides view as a potentially decisive chance to sway huge audiences
ahead of the Nov. 2 election, Democrats and Republicans said yesterday.
Bush's campaign, which opened the negotiations by urging just two
sessions involving Bush and Kerry, yielded to the full slate of debates
that had been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates,
according to people in both parties who were briefed on the
negotiations.
The Post further reports all 3 will be 90 minutes. So
we'll have 3 presidential debates (on 9/30, 10/8, and 10/13), a
combined 4 and a half hours of rhetorical squabbles between Kerry and
Bush, and one 90 minute vice presidential debate (on 10/5) between
Edwards and Cheney.
A few things:
1. I thought the Bush campaign figured they were doing well enough that
they could minimalize subjecting their candidate to the uncertainties
and risks of a debate environment. I figured they'd only accept 2, and
that they'd also try to reduce the running time of at least one of
those 2 to one hour. If this all turns out to be accurate I'm more than
a little shocked, and equally as happy.
2. None of the details have been released yet. They can be crucial –
for instance, will the candidates be standing for any of the three,
allowing viewers the site of the 6'4'' Kerry towering over the 6'0''
Bush?
3. According to the Commission on Presidential Debates, 38-47 million
people watched the debates in 2000, compared to only 24-25 million who
tuned into the conventions. Obviously, they have the potential to move
significant numbers of voters, including some who now consider
themselves decided.
4. In the next week or so, I'll do a full consideration on the
head-to-head, bringing in a lot of stuff from this brilliant
Atlantic
Monthly article –
When
George Meets John (sorry, I think it's subscription required,
but I'll excerpt soon) – that gives a very enlightening glimpse into
their contrasting debate styles and in-depth insights into their
previous performances.
Kerry
From The Washington Post:
With some Kerry advisers convinced he cannot win a debate
over whether the United States should have gone to war, given Bush's
relentless attacks on Kerry for shifting his positions on the war, the
Massachusetts senator has settled on a two-phase plan to refocus the
debate. Aides say he will first challenge the president's optimistic
assessment of conditions in Iraq and then draw a sharp contrast with
Bush over getting the United States out of the country within four
years.
Kerry's phase one case is bolstered not only
by Republican senators (the Sunday political shows
featured a number of them being quite clearly critical of Bush's
policies and even his competence), but also by the tragic images
saturating our television sets with increasing frequency.
Phase two is much riskier, but necessary. Kerry must distinguish
himself from Bush on Iraq in ways that everybody can understand, and
outlining a finite exit strategy might be the only way to do it.
September
19,
2004
Portrait
of the Insensitive
Ideologue as a Young Man
George W. Bush is both an avowed
anti-intellectual and a committed ideologue. It's a deadly combination,
and from nearly everything I've read, I gather he's always been that
way.
Salon (if you want to read the whole
article and don’t want to subscribe, you can watch a short ad)
interviewed Yoshi Tsurumi, who taught George W. Bush macroeconomic
policy and international business at Harvard Business School 25 years
ago. He offers a disturbing portrait of Bush as a young man. Although I
question some of what Tsurumi says, if only because it jibes so readily
with political stereotypes of Bush as evil buffoon incarnate, there’s
little in Bush’s words and actions as Texas Governor or U.S. President
that would undermine Tsurumi’s depiction.
Indeed, what Tsurumi describes are early warning signs of a mindset
that could lead us into Iraq decisively but without forethought or
preparation, and one that continually rationalizes tax cuts for the
wealthy elite as a panacea for the working poor.
Just a couple excerpts:
Bush once sneered at Tsurumi for showing the film "The
Grapes of Wrath," based on John Steinbeck's novel of the Depression.
"We were in a discussion of the New Deal, and he called Franklin
Roosevelt's policies 'socialism.' He denounced labor unions, the
Securities and Exchange Commission, Medicare, Social Security, you name
it. He denounced the civil rights movement as socialism. To him,
socialism and communism were the same thing. And when challenged to
explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either
ideologically, polemically or academically."
………………........................
"I used to chat up a number of students when we were walking
back to class," Tsurumi said. "Here was Bush, wearing a Texas Guard
bomber jacket, and the draft was the No. 1 topic in those days. And I
said, 'George, what did you do with the draft?' He said, 'Well, I got
into the Texas Air National Guard.' And I said, 'Lucky you. I
understand there is a long waiting list for it. How'd you get in?' When
he told me, he didn't seem ashamed or embarrassed. He thought he was
entitled to all kinds of privileges and special deals. He was not the
only one trying to twist all their connections to avoid Vietnam. But
then, he was fanatically for the war."
Tsurumi told Bush that someone who avoided a draft while supporting a
war in which others were dying was a hypocrite. "He realized he was
caught, showed his famous smirk and huffed off."
As long as we're on the subject of Bush's youth, you can
make some
okay money if you ask the president a very simple
question he's gone to great lengths to avoid answering for the last
decade or so...
September
17,
2004
New
Polls
Two new polls released
yesterday share similar headlines:
The Pew Poll:
Kerry Support
Rebounds, Race Again Even
The Harris Poll:
Bush’s Convention
Bounce Vanishes as Race Tightens
Now, hyperbolic political reporters, gloating Republicans, and
Democrats with weak stomachs should all shut up and acknowledge the
only reality of this race: it is very close. That is, at least until
the first debate, which is hugely important.
National
Intelligence
vs. Bush Intelligence
From yesterday's
New York Times:
A classified National
Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells
out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said
Wednesday.
The estimate outlines three
possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case
being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said.
The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would
remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel
yesterday:
The worst thing we can do is
hold ourselves hostage to some grand illusion that we are winning –
right now we are not winning. Things are getting worse. Measure that by
any measurement you want... more casualties... more debts... more
pipeline sabotage. You pick the measurement standard and it's worse
than where it was 6 months ago or 12 months ago.
Retired Gen. William Odom,
former head of the National Security Agency
under Ronald Reagan, quoted yesterday in Salon:
I've never seen it so bad
between the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the military.
There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster. The two
parties whose interests have been advanced have been the Iranians and
al-Qaida. Bin Laden could argue with some cogency that our going into
Iraq was the equivalent of the Germans in Stalingrad. They defeated
themselves by pouring more in there. Tragic.
President
George W. Bush on the situation in Iraq yesterday at a campaign rally in St. Cloud,
Minnesota:
Freedom is on the march!
Hold
Them Accountable
The ads
from Hold Them Accountable 2004 are
simple, concise, and extraordinarily powerful.
If you have a few bucks and you want to actually hold them accountable,
ensuring that these ads get maximum exposure in swing states would be
a wise investment.
Also, the 4 points outlined
in their "
The Case Against the Bush Administration" are
exactly right, and their cited
details and sources come from some of the most intellectually rigorous
articles available. It you know of an undecided intellectual (is there
one left on the planet?), send this to him/her.
By the way, Bush's sudden
conversion away from his traditional support of 527 ads wasn't just so
he could weasel out of specifically condemning the disdainful Swift
Boat ads (although it served that purpose, too). It's because you can
expect to see a lot more ads like this.
September
16,
2004
Kerry
Walter
Shapiro had a
very insightful take on John
Kerry in yesterday's USA Today article, "
Kerry at his best
when he leaves Mr. Nice Guy at home."
The money graphs are
at the end:
If the Democrats have made a
tactical misstep in this campaign, it probably was in the smile-button
blandness of the Boston convention that failed to draw sharp
distinctions with the Bush administration. Such a nice-to-a-fault style
is not Kerry.
As Democratic media
consultant Mandy Grunwald, who is not affiliated with the campaign, put
it, “Kerry sounds strongest not when he's being positive or laying out
his plans, but when he's tough on Bush and does it from a moral high
ground.”
That seems to be the way that
Kerry has decided to conduct the rest of the campaign, excoriating Bush
not on a personal level but over the choices he has made as president.
This always-attack approach runs the risk of antagonizing undecided
voters, but it offers the authentic version of who Kerry is as a
candidate.
Instinctively that strikes me
as true, and perhaps goes a long way
in explaining why Kerry always seems to perform best when his
back is against the wall.
3 reasons why Kerry is likely
to be successful if he continues to
escalate the aggressive stances he's been forced into the past week or
so:
1. It clashes
with the "weak, indecisive, flip-flopper"
labels that the Bush-Cheney machinery needs to have indelibly stamped
on insides of voters' skulls as they enter voting booths on November 2.
If that stamp gets smudged, they lose.
2. There's a
growing and unprecedentedly strong belief
among pundits – even many
neocons – and journalists on the ground in Iraq
that the situation there is worse than ever, and perhaps hopeless. Even
the "secure" part of Iraq isn't secure. From
The Financial Times:
US military officers in
Baghdad have warned they cannot guarantee the security of the perimeter
around the Green Zone, the headquarters of the Iraqi government and
home to the US and British embassies, according to security company
employees.
At a briefing earlier this
month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone's perimeter said
he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the
compound's defences.
The US major said it was
possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone,
and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green
Zone, in Baghdad's centre, is one of the most fortified US
installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to
penetrate it.
Kerry can be honest about how
bad things are in Iraq and get elected,
and Bush can't. Some think the Bush campaign has tied Kerry in so many
knots on Iraq that my previous statement is invalid, but it's hard for
me to believe that increased perceptions of deterioration in Iraq
will work to the advantage of the guy who drove us there. Images on the
news will contradict Bush's "it was the right thing to do" crap and
bolster Kerry's "wrong choices" message.
Then again, if the truth
about Iraq remains as generally hidden in news
reports for the rest of this month and into October as it was in
August, when more Americans were attacked and injured than any other
month of the war, I may be wrong. I doubt it will be, though.
3. Kerry can hurt
Bush with
the hard truth on the economy, too, as he did
yesterday in Michigan:
George Bush’s record speaks
for itself. 1.6 million lost jobs. The first president in
72 years to actually lose jobs on his watch. 8 million Americans
are now looking for work. 45 million have no health insurance – 5
million more than the day he took office. 4.3 million Americans
have slipped into poverty over the last four years – 1.3 million are
children. The average family saw their income fall $1,500, while
they saw the cost of health care, child care, gasoline, and tuition
rise faster than ever before. 220,000 more Americans did not
attend college last year for the simple reason that they could not
afford it. This President turned a $5.6 trillion surplus into
trillions of debt for our children. George Bush accomplished all
this in only four years. Imagine what he could do in another
four. I want to be clear: I’m not saying that president wanted
these consequences. But I am saying that by his judgments, by his
priorities, he has caused these things to happen. And he can’t
see the error of his ways.
At that convention in New
York the other week, President Bush talked about his ownership
society. Well Mr. President, when it comes to your record, we
agree – you own it.
Of course, the President
would have us believe that his record is the result of bad luck, not
bad decisions. That he’s faced the wrong circumstances, not made
the wrong choices. In fact, this President has created more
excuses than jobs. His is the Excuse Presidency: Never
wrong, Never Responsible, Never to Blame. President Bush’s desk
isn’t where the buck stops – it’s where the blame begins. He’s
blamed just about everyone but himself and his administration for
America’s economic problems. And if he’s missed you, don’t worry
– he’s still got 48 days left until the election.
Those are live bullets.
A
Couple Site Recommendations
1.
FlipFlops.Compassiongate.com
is an awesomely comprehensive catalogue of Bush flip flops. It's still
in development, but already the Cadillac of the genre.
2.
Ready. Think.
Vote. offers wonderfully concise
arguments against Bush's
re-election through graphs that illustrate a record of failure on
several issues. About half of the sourcing for the graphs is the
administration itself, and the other sources are unimpeachable.
This is a very good site to
send to non-partisan, undecided voters.
September
15,
2004
Message
of the Day
There's
a lot of
Democratic naysaying going
around, and it's tiresome.
Digby (read the whole thing) has it pegged:
In late September of '92
people were beginning to beg Perot to get back in the race and nobody
knew what was going to happen. There was no empirical reason to believe
that Clinton had it in the bag although I'm not surprised that he felt
confident. That's how competitors make themselves get up in the
morning. That race was like a fucking bungee jump. And believe me, if
you'd asked the same crew of sad sack Democratic insiders what they
thought at the time they would have said that the sky was falling and
that we were doomed, doomed, doomed and should have nominated Tsongas
because he didn't have a draft problem.
I'm as fond of Clinton
hagiography as anyone on the planet, but a whole lot of this fuzzy
nostalgia about '92 is just crap. Bush senior was in free fall in the
polls because he was widely considered to be out of touch on the
economy, which was perceived to be very bad. Ross Perot had sucked all
the oxygen out of the campaign for months and took the press's eye off
of the Bush assault on Clinton. Then he dramatically withdrew from the
race during the Democratic convention saying that the Democratic party
was "revitalized." That was quite a gift and it gave Clinton a chance
to re-start what had been a very anemic campaign.
He fought back, yes, by using
the innovation of answering charges within the same news cycle. But, I
watched that campaign more closely than any in my life and I can tell
you that each one of those hits took another piece off of his
hide. He didn't lie down, and that was admirable, but that's not
why he won. He won because both he and Perot were hitting Senior
hard on the economy while Senior and his crew were having to discredit
both Perot and Clinton with character smears. Perot imploded, but by
the time he did he had helped drive Senior's negatives even farther
into the dirt than Clinton's and maintained a "movement" that siphoned
off 20% of the vote when he got back in. It was one of the weirdest
campaigns in American history and virtually no lessons can be drawn
from it.
Kerry has every reason to be
hopeful. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that Bush's ephemeral
lead is shrinking as we speak. It's a nailbiter, but it is far from
over.
I just
wish that Dems could put on their game faces and try to sell the guy a
little bit instead of constantly writing his epitaph. He's really a
good man, you know. He's spent his life in public service, trying
to do the right thing, working hard and carrying our agenda. He's our
most liberal nominee in decades. He's smart and energetic and he's
never been tainted by corruption or scandal. Is it so hard for
Democrats to get behind a man like this or are we just as shallow as
everybody else? Would we too be happier with a brand name in a
suit?
Amen.
Spread the
word to any Democrats with weak stomachs.
Crazy
Al
From The Chicago Tribune (registration
required):
Declaring that his campaign
strategy is dependent on controversy, Republican U.S. Senate candidate
Alan Keyes told the state's top GOP donors at a recent closed-door
meeting that he plans to make "inflammatory" comments "every day, every
week" until the election, according to several sources at the session.
The sources said Keyes
explained that his campaign has been unfolding according to plan and
likened it to a war in which lighting the "match" of controversy was
needed to ignite grass-roots voters.
"This is a war we're in," one
source recounted Keyes as saying. "The way you win wars is that you
start fires that will consume the enemy."
The kinds of fires he’s
talking about:
He has said that Vice
President Dick Cheney's daughter is participating in "selfish hedonism"
because she is a lesbian, and he has accused Obama of holding a
"slaveholder's position" by supporting abortion rights.
And…:
…he likened Democratic
opponent Barack Obama to a "terrorist" because Obama, a state senator,
voted against a legislative proposal pushed by abortion foes, sources
said.
And…:
Keyes also said the repeal of
the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which created the direct
public election of senators, was a "critical" issue of his campaign,
the sources said. The Republican contender said the method spelled out
until 1913 in the Constitution, in which state legislators chose U.S.
senators, would bring more accountability to government.
And then there’s the general
behind-closed-doors craziness like this:
In his remarks to the finance
group, Keyes used a Civil War-themed allegory to describe his tactics,
according to the sources. They said he spoke of the vastly different
styles of two leading Union generals, the aggressive Ulysses S. Grant
and the passive George McClellan, adding that it was easy to tell if a
child would grow up to be a successful military leader.
The child who is willing to
line up his toy soldiers and not merely admire them but swat them down
and "put them into the meat grinder" will be a great general, the
sources said Keyes told the group.
It’s a shame Keyes isn’t
running in a state where he’d have a better
chance to win, because I’d love to see him gain more prominence as a
national Republican spokesman. But he’s going to lose to Barack Obama
by over 40% (that’s my prediction, anyway).
Meanwhile, this Tribune story
just confirms not only that Obama has this thing 100% locked up, but
that he's got an opponent engaged in some strange form of political
masturbation. He really doesn't need to stick around for it, and should
spend most of his time before November 2 campaigning in swing states
for John Kerry. He can leave Alan Keyes in Illinois to campaign for
Barack Obama.
More
Help for John Kerry
President
Bush has once again
unwittingly endorsed
John Kerry for President. On the
campaign trail in Greenwood Village, Colorado, yesterday, he said:
The American President must
be clear in his thinking, and must be clear in his speaking in order to
make this world a freer place.
September
14,
2004
Good
News
I
realize 9/11 family
members run the risk of
diluting their credibility with some
people just by endorsing a candidate, but Kerry
has gained a campaign ringer in Kristen
Breitweiser, who instantly becomes one of his most knowledgable and
persuasive surrogates on homeland defense issues:
Five outspoken Sept. 11
widows on Tuesday will publicly endorse John Kerry for president, The
Associated Press has learned, throwing their weight behind the
Democratic challenger in a heated campaign debate over who is best
suited to defend the nation from another terrorist attack.
Some, including Kristen
Breitweiser, of Middletown, N.J., and Monica Gabrielle, of West Haven,
Conn., also have agreed to make campaign appearances for the Democratic
senator, campaign sources told the AP.
"We will be speaking from the
heart, and speaking from our conscience," Breitweiser said Monday. She
would not elaborate. Breitweiser is by far the most visible and
outspoken of the Sept. 11 family advocates, and has been highly
critical of the government's reform efforts to date.
Breitweiser has the makings
of an extraordinary campaigner: telegenic,
naturally sympathetic, ferocious but never shrill, and as effective as
any one I've seen at penetrating the canard of Bush as great 9/11
leader.
Rule
By
the Few
Jeb Bush
and Dawn Roberts
are
disgusting:
Independent presidential
candidate Ralph Nader's name can appear on Florida ballots for the
election, despite a court order to the contrary, Florida's elections
chief told officials on Monday in a move that could help President Bush
in the key swing state.
The Florida Democratic Party
reacted with outrage, calling the move "blatant partisan maneuvering"
by Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, and vowed to fight
it.
In a memo to Florida's 67
county supervisors of elections, Division of Elections director Dawn
Roberts said the uncertainty of Hurricane Ivan, which could hit parts
of the state by week's end, forced her to act.
Their will to win obviously
obliterates all other moral or democratic
concerns, including, now, a court order. Every step of the way, these
oligarchs tried to re-implement their 2000 blueprint (remember how they
agreed to abandon purging voter roles again only after a Freedom of
Information Act request revealed its corruption?). It's exasperating.
September
13,
2004
I
watched Mazen
al-Tumeizi die on television
yesterday, a victim of indiscriminate U.S.
military helicoptor fire:
At least 37 people were
killed in Baghdad alone. Many of them died when a U.S. helicopter fired
on a disabled U.S. Bradley fighting vehicle as Iraqis swarmed around
it, cheering, throwing stones and waving the black and yellow sunburst
banner of Iraq's most-feared terror organization.
The dead from the helicopter
strike included Arab television reporter Mazen al-Tumeizi, who
screamed, ``I'm dying, I'm dying,'' as a cameraman recorded the chaotic
scene. An Iraqi cameraman working for the Reuters news agency and an
Iraqi freelance photographer for Getty Images were wounded.
Maimed and lifeless bodies of
young men and boys lay in the street as the stricken U.S. vehicle was
engulfed in flames and thick black smoke.
To me, it looked like
al-Tumeizi was a good 15 yards or so from the
Bradley. It was senseless.
Iraq is an unmitigated
disaster.
September
10,
2004
Separate
and Unequal
Kerry
speaking before
the National Baptist Convention
yesterday:
In the hardest passages of
the long
march for civil rights -- amid lynchings and beatings and unyielding
discrimination, the stalwart foot soldiers of justice did not look
around and say, as we have heard so often from Washington these days,
that we've turned the corner or that the job was getting done or that
this was the best that we could do. Like us, they were a
generation of
optimists. They believed that America's best days lay ahead...
that
America could always do better. Against all odds, they saw a new
dawn
of liberty. They had a dream of a more perfect union -- a
dream of
one America.
But that dream -- our dream
-- is dim
and denied in the Washington of today. 140 years after President
Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, it is time to again
emancipate this land, to live up to our ideals; it is time for a new
moment of conscience in America.
The fact is, the wrong
choices of the
Bush Administration -- reduced taxes for the few and reduced
opportunities for the middle class and those struggling to join
it --
are taking us back to two Americas -- separate and unequal.
Our
cities and communities are being torn apart by forces just as
divisive
and destructive as Jim Crow -- crumbling schools robbing our
children
of their potential...rising poverty...rising crime, drugs and violence.
I say again: Where are the deeds? Where is the
substance in our faith?
Four years ago, George Bush
came to
office calling himself a "compassionate conservative."
Well, in the
story of the Good Samaritan we are told of two men who pass by or
cross to the other side of the street when they come upon a robbed and
beaten man. They felt compassion, but there were no deeds.
Then the
Good Samaritan gave both his heart and his help. (Luke 10)
It is clear: For four
years, George
W. Bush may have talked about compassion, but he's walked right
by.
He's seen people in need, but he's crossed over to the other side of
the street.
I saw the Jim Crow line on
ABC's Noted Now
site, but don't see it prominently displayed in any of the major
newspapers I've looked at today. That's an almost nuclear indictment,
and I wonder if the Kerry campaign didn't dangle it as a lightning rod
to bring the debate back to the economy.
Also, for all those in the
Bush campaign and others who say John Kerry
can't take a tough stand on anything, send them this speech.
al-Zawihiri
bin Forgotten
Continuing the al Qaeda
custom
of releasing tapes before
anniversaries of their own terrorist acts, Ayman al-Zawihiri
appeared in a videotape
yesterday broadcast on Al
Jazeera. In the past, al-Zawihiri and bin Laden have pulled some 1-2
punches (only on audiotapes over the last year, though), so don't be
surprised if bin Laden himself appears in his own release soon.
Why aren't these guys in hell
yet?
Crap
There are
legitimate questions
about whether the National Guard documents 60 Minutes II
reported on Wedneday night are authentic. CBS has
stood by its story, but it strikes me as a possible sign of concern
that they're revealing sources. From
The Washington Post:
A senior CBS official, who
asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond
their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired
Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents'
alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read
the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that "these
are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."
"These documents represent
what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other
people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone
several extra miles."
The official said the network
regarded Hodges's comments as "the trump card" on the question of
authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that he did not
want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera interview
to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering machine
in Texas.
I figure Hodges probably has
to make some kind of statement now, one
that I somehow doubt will entirely back up the CBS official's
statement.
Let's see what happens.
Sudan
It's about time Colin Powell
took this step. From
The New York Times:
Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell, seeking to raise pressure on Sudan to stop the atrocities in
Darfur, declared today for the first time that the killings, rapes and
destruction that have forced 1.5 million people from their homes
amounted to genocide and should be treated as such by the United
Nations.
Now the pressure should be on
the Bush administration to follow words
with
actions.
September
9,
2004
The
Bridge
Here's
Kerry in a speech yesterday on the Iraq War:
George W. Bush’s wrong
choices have led America in the wrong direction in Iraq and left
America without the resources we need here at home. The cost of
the President’s go-it-alone policy in Iraq is now $200 billion and
counting. $200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can’t afford
after-school programs for our children. $200 billion for Iraq,
but they tell us we can’t afford health care for our veterans.
$200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can’t afford to keep the
100,000 new police we put on the streets during the 1990s.
Kerry is well-served
politically by tying Iraq and the economy together
like this. It allows him to focus his two central criticisms of Bush's
presidency (disastrous management of the economy, disastrous management
of the Iraq War) into one combined, coherent argument. I expect
more of it.
It's
Always the Cover-Up
I think a
lot of people in the
news media and throughout the
country are suffering from
Vietnam-era fatigue, but smoking guns relating to Bush's record in the
National Guard are popping up all over the place. Last night,
60
Minutes II revealed 4 new memos
from Bush's Texas Squandron Commander, Jerry Killian.
Here they are:
04 May
1972
MEMORANDUM FOR 1st Lt. George
W. Bush... Houston, Texas 77027
SUBJECT: Annual Physical
Examination (Flight)
1. You are ordered to report to commander, 111
F.I.S., Ellington AFB, not later than (NLT) 14 May, 1972, to conduct
annual physical examination (flight) IAW AFM 35-13.
Report to 111th F.I.S.
administrative officer for schedule of appointment and additional
instructions. Examination will be conducted in duty status.
JERRY B. KILLIAN
Lt. Colonel
Commander
19 May 1972
Memo to File
SUBJECT: Discussion with
Bush, 1st Lt Bush
1. Phone call from Bush. Discussed options of how Bush can get out
of coming to drill from now through November. I told him he
could do ET for three months or transfer. Says he wants to transfer to
Alabama to any unit he can get in to. Says that he is working on
another campaign for his dad.
2. Physical. We talked about him getting his flight
physical situation fixed before his date. Says he will do that
in Alabama if he stays in flight status. He has this campaign to do and other things
that will follow and may not have the time. I advised him of our
investment in him and his commitment. He's been working with staff to
come up with options and identified a unit that may accept him. I told him I had to have written acceptance
before he would be transferred, but think he's also talking to someone
upstairs.
01 August 1972
MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD
SUBJECT: Bush, George W. 1st
Lt.3244754FG Suspension of Flight status
1. On this date I ordered that 1st Lt. Bush be
suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG
standards and failure to meet annual physical examination (flight) as
ordered.
2. I conveyed my verbal
orders to commander, 147th Ftr. Intrcp Gp with request for orders for
suspension and convening of a flight review board IAW AFM 35-13.
I recommended transfer of
this officer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in May and forwarded
his AF Form 1288 to 147th Ftr Intrcp Gp headquarters. The transfer was
not allowed. Officer has made no attempt to meet his training
certification or flight physical. Officer expresses desire to transfer
out of state including assignment to non-flying billets.
On recommendation of Harris,
I also suggested that we fill this critical billet with a more seasoned
pilot from the list of qualified Vietnam pilots that have rotated.
Recommendations were received but not confirmed.
JERRY B. KILLIAN
Lt. Colonel
18 August 1973
Memo to File
SUBJECT: CYA
1. Staudt has obviously
pressured Hodges more about Bush. I'm
having trouble running interference and doing my job. Harris
gave me a message today from Grp Regarding Bush's OETR and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it: Bush
wasn't here during rating period and I don't have any feedback from
187th in Alabama. I will not rate. Austin is not happy today
either.
2. Harris took the call from
Grp today. I'll backdate but won't rate. Harris agrees.
A few points to make:
1. Any examination of Bush's
available Guard records settle the
question of whether he met his Guard requirements:
he didn't. Any reporting
suggesting there are still "questions" about that – and there's been a
lot of it – is irresponsible.
2. I don't think most people
care too much about point one. What they
might care about, however, are recent lies and cover-ups coming
directly from the White House.
First, the White House said
in February that they released all known
records related to Bush's National Guard record.
Last night, they released their own copies of the
Killian memoes for the first time [
correction:
it turns out the White House was just passing on
copies of copies of the documents CBS gave them], and they're now
holding up a Freedom
of Information Act request from the AP
to view all relevant microfilm records.
Second, here's Bush himself
in February on
Meet the Press:
Russert: You did — were
allowed to leave eight months before your term expired. Was there
a reason?
President Bush:
Right. Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it
out with the military.
If by "worked it out," Bush meant "I screwed them over
and then some higher-up still finagled me an honorable discharge," then
he might have been truthful. From
The Boston Globe:
On July 30, 1973, shortly
before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that
declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to
another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I
fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up
to 24 months. . . " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate
a new unit.
But Bush never signed up with
a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the
Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston
area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now
concedes. ''I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House
communications director, said in a recent interview.
3. Bush's political
protectors have done a lot of misspeaking about his
Guard record over the years.
Salon has it right (subscription only, but you
can
watch a short ad to read the whole article and it will be well worth
your time):
The shifting explanations and
obfuscations coming from the White House are one reason why the Guard
story remains dangerous for Bush. The controversy, after all, is not
merely about how he received a million dollars' worth of free pilot
training and then stiffed the government when it came time to pay it
back in service. It's also about how, for the last decade, Bush and his
advisors have done everything possible to distort, if not erase, the
truth about Bush's service record in order to advance his political
career.
Salon also points to some of the documents
still
missing from Bush's Guard file:
This week, the AP reported
that a thorough analysis of Bush's military documents indicate obvious
gaps in his service along with equally gratuitous gaps in his
paperwork. Specifically missing are: "A report from the Texas Air
National Guard to Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush
remained in good standing." "Records of a required investigation into
why Bush lost flight status." "A written acknowledgment from Bush that
he had received the orders grounding him." "Reports of formal
counseling sessions Bush was required to have after missing more than
three training sessions." "A signed statement from Bush acknowledging
he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to
another guard unit after leaving Texas."
Where are they?
4. Plenty of Bush's
mouthpieces have said flat-out that he didn't
receive any special treatment to get into the Guard. Those assertions
are laughable in the first place, but even so Ben Barnes put any doubts
about that to rest last night.
5. Thanks to
Atrios, we've got this 1988 exchange:
