corrente

After the debate tonight, or as far into it as you need to watch to get the quotes you need, start writing a letter giving your thoughts on the Kerry presidency.

Print three copies.

Send one to your local paper. I don't care how rural you are, you almost certainly have a local fishwrapper that prints letters to the editor. Make this one as short and pungent as you can.

You have a state capital, and IT has a newspaper. Send them your second letter. Make this one a little longer and tie in something from the debate that relates to an issue important in your state or region. It can be something Bush said that would have a bad effect, or something Kerry said that would improve matters. Or plug another Dem candidate.

Pick your target for the last one. Send it to the New York Times if you want. Send it to your best friend from school who you haven't seen in years with a "hey, are you voting this year?" personalized addition. Or send it to your mom, she probably wants to hear from you anyway.

We ain't Kos, we ain't Atrios in terms of size. But we have enough readers here that we too can have our own little rapid-reaction force. Send it email if you have to, paper if you can. But let's do it. Make the trolls cry.

Mr. President:

Several news organizations and watch dog groups, like FactCheck and the Washington Post, have analyzed those of your campaign's TV ads that claim to inform the viewer about Senator Kerry's positions on various subjects, Iraq, defense policy, healthcare, and found those ads to be inaccurate, in their use of partial quotations of his words, often taken out of their context, and their distorting use of the Senator's long history of casting votes in the Senate to suggest, for instance, that he didn't support certain weapons system, when in fact, he did. Are you aware that your ads do this? If not, what are we to think about the voiceover in which you say you are aware of the content of a particular ad and have authorized its use? If so, how do you justify the use of these techniques, and are they fair to the American electorate?

Mr. President:

Since the entire point of turning over soverignty to the government of Mr. Alawi was to put an Iraqi face on the occupation until an election could be conducted next January, what was so important about having Mr. Alawi come here, not only to address the UN, but also a joint session of Congress, and to have him at your side for a press conference, expressing ideas that sounded very much like many of your own speeches, when such an extended visit filled with just such activities was bound to make him look less independent of American power and influence than he might otherwise appear to the average Iraqi?

Mr. President:

Why did you wait from January of 2002, when you first articulated the Axis of Evil and began to talk about calling Saddam Hussein to account until September 2002 to do anything concrete, other than to make speeches to articulate the Bush doctrine of preemptive war, if it was true that in dealing with Saddam, "time," as you and the Vice-President both remarked on more than one occasion, was not on our side, but on Saddam's side? Why, in particular, if you truly hoped that inspections could avoid war, did you wait until September to take your case to the UN, and considering the lack of WMD and ties to Al Queada we have since found in Iraq, do you still think that time was on Saddam's side and not on our's?

Mr. President:

On the stump, you often make personally disparaging remarks about Senator Kerry, deliberately seeming to want to hold him up to contempt and derision of a very personal nature? You and the Vice-President have both called him "unfit" to be Commander In Chief, echoing the ads of the Swiftboat Vets For Truth, even though you claim not to believe what they have to say about Senator Kerry's service in Vietnam. Do you consider it Presidential to conduct a campaign using personal derision in this manner, and isn't it a distraction from what the voters say they want, a substantive discussion of the serious issues facing this country?

Mr. President:

Why has your administration not been able as yet, to get the 18 million earmarked for Iraqi construction by the congress into into the hands of Iraqi's themselves on the local level to do the work of repairing infrastructure, and why do you have no such specific plans reading to implement, when it is generally conceded by many with expertise in this area that the dire unemployment through-out Iraq is contributing warm bodies to the insurgency, and souring all Iraqis on the US presence there. Isn't what Iraq needs most a massive public works project, disbersed as widely as possible to smaller, local Iraqi entrepreneurs?

Mr. President:

You have said that Senator Kerry's plan for making affordable health coverage available to more Americans will result in a government takeover in which ordinary Americans will no longer be able to pick their own doctors, and will find their medical treatment under the supervision of bureaucrats. These were the same arguments used against Hillary Clinton's attempt to extend healthcare to all Americans. But what the nineties taught most Amerians was that it was the HMO's who kept people from choosing their own doctors, and the HMO's who relied on bureaucrats to over doctors to control medical costs. Yet, premiums have kept on being more and more expensive. Can you please explain how medical savings accounts will make health insurance more affordable for the great majority of Americans?

Over the weekend, I happened to catch, from among the previous presidential debates that C-Span has been cablecasting, the first Bush-Gore debate from 2000. At first I thought I couldn't bare to watch it, so I stood for moment, remote in hand, just to make sure there wasn't any reason for revisiting all that anger and outrage.

I knew there was when it felt like I was looking at a totally different debate than the one I remembered.

Where was Gore's stiffness, his odd affect, his hectoring, lecturing tone, where were the sighs and the rolling of the eyes, where was the know-it-all dismissiveness, where was Bush hanging in there sufficiently to eventually be considered the winner on likability, style, presidentiality. Now let me be clear; at the time, I thought Gore not only won, I thought Bush did rather poorly; I've always found Bush's affect to be at least as peculiar as Gore's and I thought he didn't look at all presendential during that first debate. There were even moments of unattractive, fear-provoked gracelessness, and on substance, and it was clear that Bush's positions wouldn't pass even the most casual of fact-checking exercises.

We all know what happened the next day, when the Bush campaign spinners were successful in infecting the discourse with the view of Gore that they'd been promoting through-out the campaign - the serial exaggerator, the man who would do anything to be president, the man who didn't know who he was because he wore different kinds of clothing depending on the event. It worked because the entire SCLM had already, by the first debate, become an echo-chamber for Republican spin. How Gore managed to get half a million more votes than Bush, given the delight with which just about everyone who had access to an inch of print or fifteen minutes of airtime made cruel, demeaning fun of him, says something about how much better a campaign Gore waged than he's ever been given credit for. Even his win in the popular vote was immediately recast, after election day, as a loss, because with such peace and prosperty he shoulda won by a landslide.

Digby has a fascinating post that's relevant here; it features a description of Bush during one of his early debates running for the Republican nomination for governor; the description is almost exactly the one used all those years later to undercut Gore. Once again Rove was projecting onto Bush's opponent the most obvious weaknesses from which Bush himself suffers.

We've all been over this history; most of us know it by heart. But it isn't until you see that first debate again that you realize the full dimensions of the swindle perpetrated on the American electorate in which pretty much the entire SCLM, that same SCLM covering the Kerry/Bush contest four years later, was complicit.

No one has chronicled that outrage as well as has that national treasure, Bob Sommerby; he was at it again in yesterday's Daily Howler, and still is in today's. Read them, and the links he provides to his own contemporaneous coverage of how completely and utterly the SCLM in 2000 flunked the most minimal test of its responsibilities as a free press in a representative democracy. Do it even if you think you already know all there is to know about it, even if you've read everything Bob's written about this. So have I, and reading it again made me realize that the blogisphere, the left half of it anyway, ought to be thinking about what we can do to keep exactly the same thing from happening to John Kerry.

The Kerry coverage hasn't been quite as bad as was Gore's in 2000, but Kerry isn't liked by most of the SCLM, and he's been gored more than once during this campaign. As was Dr. Dean in the primaries, as would any Democrat, no matter what Mickey Kaus pretends to believe about the foolish reasons the Democratic electorate voted overwhelmingly for Kerry in the primaries. So, if they don't like Kerry, do they like Bush? A lot of the SCLM does; we often forget how many card-carrying right wingers are full fledged members - everyone who appears on Fox, which includes such mainstream biggies as Michael Barone, Charles Krauthamer, Jeffrey Birnbaum, Bill Kristol, everyone who writes for the Washington Times, who also often appear on Fox, like Bill Sammon; the NR Cornerites, who have a second home at CNN these days, Kate O'Beirne, Tucker Carlson, god-help-us Jonah Goldberg, Rich Lowry, Stephen Hayes, a whole slew of Republican operatives, like Jack Burnbaum and Cliff May and let's not forget Bob Novak or Bill Schneider; compare the number of writers who appear in The Nation who also appear on any of the three cable news networks compared with The Weekly Standard writers who get airtime such . When John Leo is considered mainstream, when David Brooks is able to pass himself off as a centrist, you know that the discourse has been skewed dramatically to the right.

What motivates that part of the media, Judy, Howard, Chris, Norah, Aaron, Jeff, and on and on, which isn't hardcore right, but manages never to say anything displeasing to that constituent? My guess: careerism and fear.

Whatever the reason, from early this Spring, when Kerry became the putative candidate, he's been "framed" as the electable candidate whom no one likes, as a man with a long history of political opportunism, as a many who has failed to distinguish himself in his public life, yes, a war hero of sorts, but doesn't he brag too much about that, a candidate who should have known better than to marry that Heinz woman, a candidate whose positions may have been grossly distorted by Bush campaign ads to an unprecedented degree, but who clearly brought that on himself by being so vague, changing his mind too often, and just in general being too damned nuanced, not to mention that he comes from the wealthy upper crust, a man who is boring on the stump, glum and essentially unlikable, who can't connect with ordinary Americans, probably because he's a liberal, was most likely lied about by those Swift Vets For Truth guys, but brought that on himself , too, by acting like he was some kind of Audie Murphy in Vietnam, and then basing his entire campaign not on any particular issues, but solely on the four months he spent in Viet Nam, which opened him up to charges that his leadership of the anti-war veteran's movement was treasonous, and if any of these claims could be called slanderous, that's his fault too, for making his fellow Vietnam vets so angry.

Of course all of th above is nonsense, untrue and unfair, as anyone knows who's watched CSpan's coverage of Kerry campaigning, or listened to his speeches, and his interviews with even a modicum of attention, but since clearly that cohort doesn't include the SCLM, the frame of untruths, endlessly repeated, has become, as it did with Gore, more real than the actuality of the candidate himself.

Welcome to America, the world's oldest and greatest democracy.

Here's a little something to help you frame tonights debate; it's a piece of a transcript from yesterday's extended Hardball, in which Richard Holbrooke takes the battle to Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan:

HOLBROOKE: But I think that the issue here is clear. Iraq is not going as well as the president and his senior advisers have said it is. And the senior advisers are publicly disagreeing with each other and with him. The American public will have to decide whether they want to offer four more years to an administration which has misled them on Iraq from the get-go on weapons of mass destruction, on democracy, dancing in the streets, and is presumably therefore telling them about future events and an equally overtly optimistic rose-colored way.

MATTHEWS: The challenge, it seems to me, faced by your candidate, John Kerry, is that all those things you‘ve said, he said before. And yet, almost half the American people believe that Iraq was involved in an attack on our country on 9/11. The vice president continues to suggest that there was a threat from nuclear weaponry from Saddam Hussein, that it was in fact a connection to al Qaeda. They continue to say that the construction efforts over there are going along well. And they‘re not being reported sufficiently by the American press. In other words, their argument will stand tomorrow night. When will yours begin to sell?

HOLBROOKE: First, I challenge every premise in your question. According to the polling data, over half the public knows the truth, despite the administration misleading it. And the other half has to just learn by listening to reality. And I think your question is frankly not fairly phrased, Chris. The fact is that the administration has been successful in fooling some of the people all of the time and most of the people some of the time...

MATTHEWS: I have fresh information on public opinion. And the opinion is that the president would do a better job in handling the situation in Iraq than your candidate. Isn‘t that a challenge for him tomorrow night?

HOLBROOKE: That is because the president and the administration misled the public on the reality in Iraq. And the public has to look at the reality. Look, it comes down to this. If the president, Donald Rumsfeld and his colleagues and Dick Cheney are right, then NBC News is wrong. Then Fox News is wrong. Then CNN and CBS and ABC are all wrong because you can‘t have it both ways. Even “Newsweek” is wrong if the president is right.

MATTHEWS: Let me to go Pat Buchanan. Pat, take over here with Ambassador Holbrooke. Your questions.

BUCHANAN: Ambassador Holbrooke, it appears to me that the country believes directly that we‘re moving in the wrong direction, it believes that the Iraq war was not worth the cost but it is also prepared to reelect the president of the United States because quite obviously, it feels by almost 2-1 he‘s a stronger, more decisive leader, and we want him to lead the country. How does John Kerry turn that around tomorrow night?

HOLBROOKE: Well, Pat, your question is biased and unfair. The ratios are not 2-1. And its misrepresentation of the facts that has given Bush a slight but significant edge which John Kerry will turn around by making his case. Here we are, talking in the most (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and polemical terms about polls which all of you otherwise say don‘t mean much yet. A margin of error, a difference between the two which can be made up. Why don‘t we talk about the issues, Iraq, the war on terror, homeland security. Pat, I‘ll leave the spin to you and your panel. I‘m not here to spin for John Kerry...

BUCHANAN: Let me ask you this...

HOLBROOKE: Let‘s talk about the issues.

BUCHANAN: In leading the country in the war on terror in Iraq, the nation by an overwhelming majority prefers the president, even though it believes the war has not gone as well as he said it would. And even though he believes a lot of things that aren‘t going well, they still prefer the president. How does Kerry sell himself as the man to replace the president?

HOLBROOKE: It is great being interviewed by you. You can ask the question and then answer it. You don‘t need me. Let‘s talk about the issues. The fact is that this administration has weakened us internationally. We are weaker today than we were three and a half years ago. You yourself know that. You have said that yourself on some of the programs. And the fact also is that not only in Iraq, but all over the world, things are going in the wrong direction for the United States.
The American public will have to decide...

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you.

HOLBROOKE: Will you let me—let me finish, you know. You asked me on the show. If you want to interview yourself, do it on some other time. The issue for the American public is very basic. Do they really four more years of America to be more isolated in the world, to give Vladimir Putin and the Russians to have a blank check for Mr. Abuse of democracy, to ignore most of the major problems in the world. To have our forces, military forces stretched too thin. If they do, if they think Iraq is really going that well, let them give George Bush four more years. The facts are otherwise, and there‘s plenty of time left for the American public to reassess the situation.

There you have it. They don't listen, except to themselves and one another, and they already know the answers to the questions they ask.

Don't expect anything much better tonight. Even if you think that Kerry is doing well.

I see that Atrios is setting up threads for his readers to use for blogging the debate itself, and also suggesting that readers divide up the task of watching the various network/cable responses.

It's the next step that matters. How can all the fine material I know our side of blogovia is going to be producing about what really happened in that debate be put to use in a coordinated way, to influence the course of the debate about he debate as it ensues in the days ahead? I'm not exactly sure. But think about the effect to which the right uses coordination of message with constant reiteration. That doesn't come easily to the left, but maybe if bloggers and readers appoint themselves to look for the best material to support Kerry, and to knock down the Republican spin coming out of our blogs, the most cogent and pithy, there might be some way to feature them on every blog.

Late in the game, I know, except for my usual computer problems this would have been posted yesterday. All thoughts from readers appreciated.

Two real good reasons to go read Juan Cole today. First off, he's got an explosive hint that the delays in the Plame case (and others) are not due to Patrick Fitzgerald et al being pokey. He claims inside sources:

(via Juan Cole)

Several high-profile FBI investigations, in which substantial progress have been made, may well have been put on hold by the Bush administration for political reasons. That is, it has been alleged to me that the White House may have leaned on the FBI-- not to drop the investigations but to postpone some key arrests until after the November elections.

Secondly, part of the same piece but worthy of separate mention, he makes a terrific preemptive strike on the meme that's starting to be in circulation--to whit, that to criticize the PNAC/neocon/American Enterprise Institute cabal is to be anti-Semetic. This accusation is, needless to say, a crock, and he calls it what it is: playing the race card:

Warning: The text below will use the word "Neoconservative." In my lexicon, a Neoconservative is a person from a social group that typically voted Democrat before 1968 but now votes Republican.

Some have attempted to argue that the very term "Neoconservative" is a code word for derogatory attitudes toward Jews. This argument is mere special pleading and a playing of the race card, however, insofar as only a tiny percentage of American Jews are Neoconservatives, and only a tiny percentage of Neoconservatives are Jews. The Neoconservative movement is an example of what social scientists call cross-cutting cleavages, which are multiple loyalties and identities typical of complex urban political societies.

He's got a link to a discussion of the "cross-cutting cleavages" thing, which I haven't read yet so will avoid commenting upon except to point out that it would be a terrific slogan for a maker of women's undergarments.

It was outside the ice cream shop. Fall is in the air now, and before long folks won’t be able to sit outside and eat ice cream around here. The conversation went something like this:

So you’re voting for Kerry, Jim? I saw the sticker on your truck.

Yeah.

Well, I’m voting for Bush.

Why, Al? He's a fuckup.

You don’t switch horses in the middle of the stream, Jim. We’re at war.

Look, Al. You switch horses in the middle of the stream if you tried to keep the damn horse from going into the stream to begin with, and he went anyway, and now has two broken legs, can’t get out, and won't even admit the stream is flooded. Someone offers me a fresh horse in that situation, I’m taking it.

Heh.

Oh Jeezis.(i wonder if Leni set up the camera angles):


Frank Rich:

More than any other campaign artifact, it clarifies the hard-knuckles rationale of the president's vote-for-me-or-face-Armageddon re-election message. It transforms the president that the Democrats deride as a "fortunate son" of privilege into a prodigal son with the "moral clarity of an old-fashioned biblical prophet." Its Bush is not merely a sincere man of faith but God's essential and irreplaceable warrior on Earth.

[...]

"Faith in the White House" purports to be the product of "independent research," uncoordinated with the Bush-Cheney campaign. But many of its talking heads are official or unofficial administration associates or sycophants. They include the evangelical leader and presidential confidant Ted Haggard (who is also one of Mel Gibson's most fervent P.R. men) and Deal Hudson, an adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign until August, when he resigned following The National Catholic Reporter's investigation of accusations that he sexually harassed an 18-year-old Fordham student in the 1990's. [...]

[...]

"Will George W. Bush be allowed to finish the battle against the forces of evil that threaten our very existence?" Such is the portentous question posed at the film's conclusion by its narrator, the religious broadcaster Janet Parshall, beloved by some for her ecumenical generosity in inviting Jews for Jesus onto her radio show during the High Holidays. Anyone who stands in the way of Mr. Bush completing his godly battle, of course, is a heretic. Facts on the ground in Iraq don't matter. Rational arguments mustered in presidential debates don't matter. Logic of any kind is a nonstarter. The president - who after 9/11 called the war on terrorism a "crusade," until protests forced the White House to backpedal - is divine.

Read the rest: FRANK RICH, Now on DVD: The Passion of the Bush - Published: October 3, 2004

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Next. This isn't funny: "College Republicans take a scalp". Via patriotboy

"My voice is out of the classroom. Why? Because I feared for my life," he said. "I really miss teaching - that's where my heart is."

Last June, Steven Helmericks committed treason in his General Sociology class at Colorado State University. One of his student's disagreed with his defeatist assertion that American troops were dying unnecessarily in Iraq and reported Helmericks' thoughtcrime to the CSU branch of the College Republicans. Justice was swift. Death threats came pouring in.

---

3 Questions for the Pope of Preventative Intelligence:
Question #2:

Your version of Christianity supports and blesses preventive war. What relation is this to the Christianity preached by the pope and by mainstream Protestants who oppose preventive war?

Two more questions here: Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

*

Now that we've all been suitably impressed, depressed, repressed, suppressed, and practically undressed by the wisdom of the media that can analyze debates that haven't happened yet, and told us in advance what we're All Going to be Talking About on Friday, I just want to say

... I think they're all full of shit. And I ain't the only one. This piece by Linda Feldmann starts out slow but has a real kick at the end. This is just one example of a topic, and a tactic, that are perfect for Kerry. Oh, and it has the added benefit of truth. Bush is good at fending that off, but for the non-koolade drinkers it's wearing really thin.

(via Christian Science Monitor)

Senator Kerry will press his newly focused argument that the Iraq war is a major diversion from the war on terror, and that Bush has in fact made America less safe. As he has done for the past week, Kerry will seek to keep the spotlight on the past 18 months - on the administration's decision to invade Iraq when it did, and on the occupation.

"It's very clear Bush is wagering his whole presidency on his reputation as being an indispensable commander in chief in the war on terror," says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank. "It's Kerry's challenge to convince people that it's precisely Bush's mismanagement of security policy that is the main reason to fire him."

Another moment of sizzle could come if Kerry decides to repeat his allegation that a second Bush term could include a return of the draft. At a campaign appearance on Sept. 22 in West Palm Beach, Fla., Kerry said that he couldn't rule that out.

"Given the way he has gone about this war, and given his avoidance of responsibility on North Korea and Iraq and other places, it is possible," Kerry said.

Bush has stated that a reinstatement of the draft is not needed, but Kerry and other Democrats have already planted the seed - a point that, should Kerry or his surrogates choose to focus on it, could help him win back some of the women who have trickled away from his side in recent weeks.

Bush, of course, could use that moment to show resolve, looking intently into the camera and declaring something along the lines of, "Read my lips, no new draft." But it would be a no-lose gambit for Kerry.

"I would be shocked in the debate if [Kerry] doesn't bring it up," says Mr. Ali, the pollster. If Kerry can drive that point home, he adds, "I guarantee he will have a 15-point lead with women who have teenage kids."

I'll tell ya the line I would most like to hear Kerry say and don't expect to: "Mr. Bush says he will do better at protecting America from terrorist attack. I hope that means that the next time he gets a memo saying "Bin Laden Expected to Attack Inside US" he will do something other than go on vacation."

Boy was Paul Krugman right or what?

The debates haven't even taken place yet and MSNBC has already declared W the winner:

President Bush’s ability to stick to a scripted defense of his policies on Iraq and terrorism should give him an edge over Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry in Thursday’s presidential debate, analysts say.

...

But analysts say Bush has recently neutralized Iraq as a political liability, through campaign ads and stump speeches that have boiled the issue down to a series of scripted messages about strength and optimism.

“It’s hard to argue with ‘strength is good’ and ‘are you saying you’re not for strength?’,” said Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Kerry has to be able to give an answer that’s almost as short and about as punchy. And that’s hard,” he said.

That's pretty damned appalling, isn't it?

Ah, that liberal media, huh?

And don't you love these "analysts" they talk to?

The fact that Bubble Boy Bush is lying his ass off in his repeated happy talk about Iraq doesn't mean a damned thing to them.

For these analysts and their ilk, it's all about presenting short pre-digested pap soundbites that people with IQs below the triple digits will understand.

Every four years these morons come out of the woodwork and make these pronouncements about the debate. By doing so, they frame the discussion of the debate and the folks in the television media (who, like the "undecided voters," have IQs below the triple digits) will parrot it for the next two days.

Sigh.

A Reuters/Decision Quest poll shows that things are more interesting than Gallup would have us believe. The way I see it, this is news we can use in getting out the vote. Cynics just have to get a shot of hope, and the good guys’ target audience is clear. Find these gummint-distrusting, authority-hating, disenfranchised-feeling people and get 'em registered and to the polls! I mean, hey, I'm gummint-distrusting, authority-hating, disenfranchised-feeling myself, so I can actually talk to these Americans!

Highlights:

The nationwide telephone survey of 1,100 adults found 61 percent of Americans had lost faith in leaders and institutions over the past four years. "A significant proportion of people feel disenfranchised," said DecisionQuest Chief Executive Philip Anthony. "It seems that there is an epidemic level of loss of trust here."

No! It can't be!

The study showed politicians received "C" grades on a scale of A-plus, meaning totally trustworthy, to F, meaning totally untrustworthy. President Bush and Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry…both received C grades.

But…

Bush's score resulted from more polarized rankings, with those viewing him as totally trustworthy balanced by others with a diametrically opposing view. Kerry's rankings were more uniformly average.

Yet more evidence of mind control in the Bushco camp? Nothing about blogs, but…

Newspaper and television reporters received a "C" grade for trustworthiness. TV reporters are trusted less now than four years ago by 43.8 percent of Americans, while 39.4 percent said their trust in print reporters had eroded.

And…

A number of major U.S. journalism outlets, including CBS, The New York Times, USA Today and CNN, have been tainted in recent years by flawed and false reporting.

Cause and effect?

When asked about specific factors causing an overall loss of trust, 34.5 percent cited the war in Iraq. The 2000 election controversy in Florida came in second with 16 percent. Other reasons included white-collar crime scandals with 14.4 percent and terrorism with 11.5 percent.

My, my…bad news for aWol…

The poll showed more women, 66 percent, had lost confidence in leaders and institutions, than men, at 55 percent.

Is this evidence that women are smarter than men?

People's views were divided along political and racial lines. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats reported a drop in trust, compared with 39 percent of Republicans. Among blacks, 84 percent said their trust had declined, compared with 57 percent of whites.

Those GOPers—such a trusting lot. And, gee, I wonder why black folks are less trusting of the system? What could have caused that? Wonder how American Muslims score here?

"This lack of trust is manifesting itself in jury verdicts," Anthony said, referring to Americans' growing suspicion of authority.

Now, why would the American people, especially non-whites, be suspicious of authority? If only we can get the right people in the dock answering charges, that trend could change…

(via Poll Shows U.S. Distrust of Politicians 'Epidemic')

Excerpt below from: Judging W's heart, by Jake Tapper Salon, Nov. 2000.

There's also Lynn Novick, a co-producer of Ken Burns' PBS series "Baseball," who had the rare treat of accompanying Bush to a Texas Rangers game in the summer of 1994, before he was elected governor. "He was a very gracious host," Novick says. "He was perfectly pleasant. Until he changed the subject."

Bush mentioned something about Yale University, from which he graduated in 1968. Novick graduated from Yale in 1983, so she brought it up, thinking it would be "like a bonding thing."

"When did you graduate?" Bush asked her, as she recalls. She told him. That's when Bush told her that Yale "went downhill since they admitted women."

"I said, 'Excuse me?'" Novick says. "I thought he was kidding. But he didn't seem to be kidding. I said, 'What do you mean?'"

Bush replied that "something had been lost" when women were fully admitted to Yale in 1969, that fraternities were big when he'd been there, providing a "great camaraderie for the men." But that went out the window when women were allowed in, Bush said.

"He said something like, 'Women changed the social dynamic for the worse,'" she says. "I was so stunned, shocked and insulted, I didn't know what to say."

W is for worm.

*

Today's WaPo:

Growing Pessimism on Iraq - Doubts Increase Within U.S. Security Agencies | By Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks

A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.

While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say.

People at the CIA "are mad at the policy in Iraq because it's a disaster, and they're digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper," said one former intelligence officer who maintains contact with CIA officials. "There's no obvious way to fix it. The best we can hope for is a semi-failed state hobbling along with terrorists and a succession of weak governments."


[...]

"I'm not surprised if people in the administration were put on the defensive," said one CIA official, who like many others interviewed would speak only anonymously, either because they don't have official authorization to speak or because they worry about ramifications of criticizing top administration officials. "We weren't trying to make them look bad, we're just trying to give them information. Of course, we're telling them something they don't want to hear."

Quickly Codpieced Crusader, into the soundproof bubble!

*

Judy Woodruff ~ bangin' the keys on the whorehouse piano:

Disputes over polling techniques, once the exclusive province of statistic geeks and partisan bloggers, heated up and spilled over to the public domain today.

[...]

Anchor Judy Woodruff began by briefly outlining MoveOn's complaint: "[R]ecent polls have shown George W. Bush leading John Kerry and MoveOn.org claims Gallup's polling techniques exaggerate Republican support." Woodruff then gave Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport almost three minutes to respond, uninterrupted, to the charges. Naturally, Newport defended Gallup's methodology, but essentially asked viewers to take it on faith that he knows what he's doing.

End of segment.

With that nifty sign-off, CNN implicitly confirmed a criticism of itself that was leveled in the MoveOn ad: the charge that CNN winds up "acting as unquestioning promotional partners [with Gallup], rather than as critical journalists." For this was not the journalism of a disinterested party with no ax to grind. This was PR. Had it been journalism, it would have gone something like this:

Read on... See: Columbia Journalism Review, CNN Circles the Wagons on Polling.

*

Newsday:

Military Hospital Sees Iraq Carnage Daily - Staff Frustrated That Nation Doesn't Know Enough Of War's Toll - By Mathew MCallester

Landstuhl, Germany:

It was an average morning at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which has become the American military's museum of pain and maiming, doubt and anger. The planes from Iraq land every day, sometimes two or three of them.

Like his staff, who brim with frustration at what they see as the irresponsible disinclination of the American people to understand the costs of the war to thousands of American soldiers, the hospital's chief surgeon feels that most Americans have their minds on other things.

"It is my impression that they're not thinking about it a whole lot at all," said Lt. Col. Ronald Place. As he spoke, the man who has probably seen more of America's war wounded than anyone since the Vietnam War sobbed as he sat at a table in his office.

Nowhere is it less possible to escape the horrors of the war in Iraq for American soldiers than Landstuhl. Nestled among the tall trees of a forest on the outskirts of this small town in southwestern Germany, the largest American military hospital outside the United States is the first stop for nearly all injured American personnel when they are flown out of Iraq or Afghanistan. Dedicated and compassionate doctors, nurses and support staff push aside curtains of fatigue and what the hospital's psychologists call "vicarious trauma" to patch up and tend to soldiers before they fly to the United States for longer-term care.

[...]

Col. Earl Hecker sat outside the room where nurses were applying white antimicrobial cream to burned soldiers. Twenty-seven years old, Hecker remarked, looking at the patient's notes.

Hecker, at 70, is a few generations older than his patient. A surgeon who had retired from the Reserves but recently rejoined, he has forsaken his private practice in Detroit for now to help at Landstuhl, working past his assigned 90-day tour to stay nearly 150 days.

The day before, Hecker had been taking care of an 18-year-old soldier who, thanks to an Iraqi bullet, will forever be quadriplegic.

Hecker sat gazing through the window at the burned soldier and thought of the kid he had sent off to the States the day before. "Terrible, terrible, terrible," he said, staring into the distance. "When you talk to him he cries."

A month ago, Hecker took four days off to fly home to see his family. He needed a break. They went out for dinner at a nice restaurant. Hecker realized during dinner that he was suddenly seeing the world differently. He looked around at the chattering people, eating their fine food, drinking good wine and he thought to himself: “They have no idea what's going on here. Absolutely none.”

He doesn't think people want to see it. He thinks the nation is still scarred by Vietnam and would prefer not to see the thousands of injured young men coming home from Iraq.

"I just want people to understand — war is bad, life is difficult," he said.

Maybe it was the stress, maybe it's because Hecker has no military career to mess up by speaking out of line, but it just came out: "George Bush is an idiot," he said, quickly saying he regretted the comment. But then he continued, criticizing Bush as a rich kid who hasn't seen enough of the world. "He's very rich, you'd think he'd get some education," Hecker said.

"He's my president. I'll follow him in what he wants to do," he continued, "but I'm here for him." Hecker leaned forward and pointed through the glass at the unconscious soldier fighting for his life 2 yards away.

[...]

[...] Comments such as Hecker's about the president can lead to severe consequences for those with careers ahead of them. ~ More...see full story: Newsday

*

Via Red Hair & Black Leather

City officials in Philadelphia are mulling over a US$10 million plan to turn the entire city into a WiFi hotspot. Repeaters and transmitters would be placed throughout the city, possibly on streetlights, enabling blanket coverage for the entire city. - Full post here

Good idea. This might discourage Lambert from climbing around on the ledges of the Corrente building - during electrical storms - in his flame retardant "official" bloggers bathrobe - in order to locate elusive WiFi hotspots. Then again, maybe not.

*

"...we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda," - The Lone Star Iconoclast.

Crawford Newspaper Endorses Kerry Tue Sep 28.
CRAWFORD, Texas - A tiny weekly newspaper that bills itself as President Bush hometown paper has endorsed John Kerry for president, saying the Massachusetts senator will restore American dignity.

(thanks Chris)

*

It's coming to be that time when personal decisions have to be made about how to best spend our finite funds and energy for the cause, time to give ourselves our own marching orders.

My posts have been fewer recently, in part because of computer problems, apparently kharmic in nature, but also because I've been doing some on the ground organizing.

My own new marching orders will center on the blog and providing information and encouragement to readers; I plan to do some posts that will be essentially compact talking points for use by anyone who knows anyone who could do with some persuading to vote, and to choose Kerry and a Democratic congress.

Bill Scher at Liberal Oasis has a great example of what I'm talking about. The key to being an effective informal advocate is to have done some thinking about what kind information voters you know are most in need of, and have some of it ready at hand, both for purpose of discussion, email follow-ups, or printed out on a single page. That was part of what I was doing, preparing training materials for use by grass roots election workers who will be getting out the vote in their own African-American and Latino neighborhoods, the emphasis being on creating real enthusiasm for voting based on issues before election day

My belief that speaking up on a daily basis whenever an opportunity presents itself, with family, with friends, with colleagues, at the laundramat, standing in line at a supermarket, can make a real difference is based on years of experience that I can trace all the way back to my teenaged years, when the North Carolina student sit-ins at lunch counters inspired me to organize some of my friends, aided by our parents, to start an informational picket line in front of Woolworths, which was a ubiquitous chain of five-and-dimes, in whose southern stores African-Americans could shop, but not sit at a counter and order so much as a cup of coffee. We not only generated thousands of protest letters vowing not to shop at the chain until Woolworth's southern policy was changed, other picket lines were spun off in front of other Woolworths. (see also, RDF's lovely post below on the subject of going after the slacker vote

Herewith, some suggestions for putting funds and energy to work.

Cursor is having a pledge drive; yes it comes at an awkward time with so many important campaigns to contribute to, but Cursor needs the funds to continue its own invaluable work, providing a one stop liberal/left information center, and don't forget their work on media transparency, or the recent invaluable addition to the site, "Derelection, 2004" keyed to campaign coverage.
The site has raised more than half of what it needs to keep going through next January; if enough of us take the time to contribute as little as twenty-five bucks, even as little as five or ten bucks, an invaluable resource stays in business.

"DRIVING VOTES" is a dandy website that makes it easy to get organized to register voters in those battleground states. (courtesy of Steve Monohan)

Registering voters in swing states is the single most effective way to defeat Bush. Driving Votes provides you with everything you need to register voters in swing states. Get your friends together for a road trip for democracy.

Registration deadlines are coming up! Take a trip before thedeadline, and then stay tuned to find out how you can help Driving Votes make sure that on November 2nd, everybody votes.

This is one of the best organizational sites I've seen; lots of practical information. Some of you may live close enough to one of the swing states to make it a day trip, or a weekend one. But even if you can't, take a look at the site, and then consider giving it a bit of your financial support.

Isebrand.com, is a terrific site for an up-to-date take on relevant-to-the-election news stories, and in general, the site has an activist bent. In particular, take the Isenbrand e-pamphlets; short, pointed, documented and suitable for email tranmission to friends and family, each pamphlet supplies quick talking points on a single subject. Useful in themselves, they also serve as a sample of how to be your own walking media center.Also, recently received at the Corrente building, an email from Scott Isenbrand that spoke to the issue of Kerry's record as a public servant, which the media, echoing the Bush campaign, has treated as if it is something Kerry is trying to hide from the public. I can't find a link for it on the site, but it is too good not to share, so I'm reproducing it here.

John Kerry's Record as a public servant
*John Kerry put 100,000 new cops on America’s streets, and was credited by President Clinton for his efforts.
*John Kerry put behind bars "one of Massachusetts’ most notorious gangsters, the number two organized crime figure in New England."
*John Kerry wrote The New War years before 9/11 happened. It is an in-depth study of America's national security in the 21st Century.
*John Kerry is the ranking Democrat on the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee.
*John Kerry is a leading expert on North Korea.
*John Kerry wrote the first bill in American history reducing acid rain.
*John Kerry repeatedly led the charge in protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from drilling.
*John Kerry passed legislation that shut down money laundering activities of terrorists and drug traffickers.
*John Kerry orchestrated the settlement with tobacco companies ending marketing to children and teenagers.
*John Kerry fought against Newt Gingrich’s anti-labor and anti-environmental regulatory reform.
*John Kerry fought to raise the minimum wage.
*John Kerry worked to shut down wasteful corporate subsidies.
*John Kerry has served 19 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
*John Kerry was chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs and with John McCain negotiated an agreement with Vietnam to provide a full accounting for POW/MIAs.
John Kerry’s military record: http://www.johnkerry.com/about/john_kerry/service_timeline.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Clinton Praised Kerry for Putting 100,000 COPS on the Street – “When we tried to get past six years of talking tough on crime but nothing happening, rhetoric and rhetoric and rhetoric and no action, to put 100,000 police on the street, to ban deadly assault weapons to pass the Brady bill, the other side, [the Republicans] led the fight against it. But John Kerry helped us pass the toughest, smartest, best crime bill this country has seen in many a day, and the crime rate has gone down for four years in a row. John Kerry was on the right side of history.” [Public Papers of the President: Fall River, MA; 8/28/96]
U.S. Senator Zell Miller, Democratic Party of Georgia Jefferson Jackson Dinner 2001.
"My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders--and a good friend. In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington. Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so. John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment."
Even Dr. Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader Says Kerry’s Global AIDS Legislation is a “Huge Step Forward”: “’The Kerry-Frist bill is a huge step forward,” said [current Majority Leader Bill] Frist. “It further validates U.S. leadership in the global effort to end devastation many countries face in the fight against HIV/AIDS’.” [Office of Senator Frist, press release 7/12/02]

This sounds like a little tiny scam operation, but if it's happening in Minne-goddam-Sota it can happen anyplace. Considering that most of us have to call ten people to get one human who isn't screening calls or using a machine, these scammers are deplorably dedicated.

(via Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

A phony voter registration drive in which a telephone caller seeks Social Security numbers and other personal information is part of an apparent identity theft scam, the League of Woman Voters and the Minnesota Secretary of State's office warned on Monday.

Over the weekend, reports came in from the Moorhead, Minn., area about calls being placed from people identifying themselves as being from the League, or from an unknown organization called "Women's Right to Vote." Other calls may have been placed in Rice and Isanti counties.

The targets of the calls were told they were not registered to vote and that they could ensure registration by supplying their Social Security numbers and other personal information.

Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer's office said anyone seeking to register to vote must complete a form with a signature and no one can do that for anyone over the phone.

Although it might be worth pointing out that one of the lines on the Loyalty Oath form that has to be filled in to get into BushCo rallies is....one's Social Security number. If any infiltrators find themselves in this position, I suggest using the number "911-43-1984"

In the Bibles I own, Jesus is recorded as saying "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto the Lord that which is the Lord's." Rev. Republican's copy is obviously a newer edition which omits this passage:

(via Richmond VA Times-Dispatch)

LYNCHBURG - Evangelical Christian ministers crowded into the Rev. Jerry Falwell's new law school yesterday for a pep talk on how to preach conservative politics without running afoul of the law.

Bristling with frustration, several raised their hands when asked if they had received letters from Americans United for Separation of Church and State warning that giving biased information about political candidates could jeopardize their tax-exempt status as nonprofit organizations.

Jerry Falwell Jr., Falwell's son and a lawyer for the ministry, said that despite the letters, churches were actually allowed to hand out candidate biographies and voter-registration packets.

What they should not do, he said, was endorse a candidate in church. The tax code forbids it, though he hopes the Supreme Court will eventually change the law.

"That's why this election is so important," he said. "Three or four justices are going to be appointed in the next four years."

Falwell, a favorite target of Americans United, was himself accused of breaking the law this summer when he wrote a letter urging followers to re-elect President Bush.

"Jerry Falwell is, I think, the worst possible person to give advice about the tax code," said Barry Lynn, a Christian minister who runs Americans United.

Sometimes I think the best thing we could do for the Christian church is outlaw it. They are never quite happy unless they're being persecuted, are they? I would not, however go so far as to throw them into a colliseum with lions or bears as that would result in a pretty lousy football game.

"All those eyes on me--the town, the whole universe--and I couldn't risk the embarrassment. It was as if there were an audience to my life, that swirl of faces along the river, and in my head I could hear people screaming at me. Traitor! They yelled. Turncoat! Pussy! I felt myself blush. I couldn't tolerate it. I couldn't endure the mockery, or the disgrace, of the patriotic ridicule. Even in my imagination, the shore just twenty yards away, I couldn't make myself be brave. It had nothing to do with morality. Embarrassment, that's all it was.

And right then I submitted.

I would go to the war--I would kill and maybe die--because I was embarrassed not to.

That was the sad thing. And so I sat in the bow of the boat and cried.

....

The day was cloudy I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forests and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and then home again. I survived, but it's not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to war."

So wrote Tim O'Brien in "On the Rainy River," of his decision not to flee to Canada, despite his lifelong pacifism. This luminous passage came back to me as I read of reaction to the news about a planned "war resisters memorial" in the town of Nelson, BC, one of a handful of Canadian towns that succored young Americans fleeing the meat grinder of Vietnam.

Never mind that the memorial and event are entirely the work of private individuals, and probably a small group of them at that; it should come as no surprise that since the news was publicized, the town of Nelson itself--an absurdly peaceful, friendly, and beautiful little town I recently had the pleasure to visit--has found itself in the crosshairs of the jingoes. This link, which carried a sampling of the abuse, and occasional plaudits, generated by the story, currently appears to be down. Suffice it to say that the abuse divided between O'Reilly-esque threats of a nationwide boycott of all things Canadian and denunciation of the "cowardice" of those who "refused to defend our freedom". (A similar, more civil spectrum of comments can be found here.)

It would be sad enough to encounter this reaction even under normal times, but to see it now, where once again cynical politicians are using the threat of shame and ostracism to coerce support for a desperately evil war, only underscores the importance that their refusal to submit to the illegitimate will of unworthy leaders was indeed an act of courage worthy of remembering, and indeed, following. As Eric Alterman trenchantly put it yesterday,

Iraq is actually worse than Vietnam. When Vietnam happened, we hadn’t experienced Vietnam yet. We didn’t know that a president would lie to the country in order to involve us in a war that would needlessly kill tens of thousands of Americans and destroy our prestige and moral standing in the world. Now we do. And we let it happen again.

The widespread human inability to distinguish legitimate duty from submission to the herd, to separate nobility from political rank, to resist manipulation of moral emotions for immoral ends, is, as is being demonstrated daily, a central problem for us as a species, not just us a nation. Until we learn to recognize this flaw in ourselves, history will continue to repeat, tragically, forever.

It's certainly possible that what the organizers come up with may retroactively falsify (and thus cheapen) the resisters' motives and experiences, just as many who went to Vietnam, too scared to say no, or unwilling to admit a mistake, now falsify theirs. Let's be clear about one thing: The only real cowards during the Vietnam era were those that supported the war while ducking fighting it. Those people, it should go without saying but never does, are now the very bastards sending another generation off to slaughter in the current one. That so many Vietnam vets fail to direct their rage at them, says alot about the need for just such a memorial, and recognition of the many forms that courage takes.

[UPDATE: Well that didn't take long. I am told via email from a town official that the organizers have backed down, official announcement to come later. Chalk up another victory for fear. Tim O'Brien would have understood.]

Sweeeet!

(via AP (in NYT))

A tiny weekly newspaper that bills itself as President Bush's hometown paper has endorsed John Kerry for president, saying the Massachusetts senator will restore American dignity.

The Lone Star Iconoclast, which has a weekly circulation of 425, said in an editorial dated Sept. 29 that Texans should rate the candidates not by hometown or political party, but by where they intend to take the country.

``Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding Iraq,'' the editorial said.

The Iconoclast, established in 2000, said it editorialized in support of the invasion of Iraq and publisher W. Leon Smith promoted Bush and the invasion in a BBC interview, believing Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

``Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda,'' the editorial said.

Hey, they could have thrown in "All Hat, No Cattle!" and mentioned fear of horses and goat abuse, but I'll take it just the way it is.

Ran across some Bush campaigners yesterday. First bunch I've seen on the stump. They’re out there, and they’re scary. Almost like cyborgs, relentlessly chanting the mantra of Strong Leadership, Moral Values, and Strong Economy, as if saying it makes it true. Come on, you’ve seen them; they’re fully assimilated, swaying to the vibes of the Central Rove… they want you to believe that resistance is futile.

Scary. So what are the good guys doing to ward off the attack of the Bush hive, to stop them from assimilating more impressionable minds?

Michael Moore is kicking ass, and what he says resonates with me. He says: “I'm putting out the red alert call to slackers everywhere to help me lead this revolt. I want everyone in their teens and twenties who exist from one packet of Ramen noodles to the next bag of Tostitos to take your fully-justified cynicism and toss it like a Molotov right into the middle of this election. As ‘non-voters’ you have been written off. But if only a few thousand of you vote, it could make all the difference. You literally hold all the power in your hands. That's even cooler than holding a TV remote.” (via http://www.michaelmoore.com/)

Sure, Moore’s got money and time, and most of us poor slobs don’t. But there’s something everybody can do to get out the vote. I mean the vote of most Americans—the burned out majority. There aren’t that many of these borgs among us; the SCLM just makes this election seem close. Time is short. Do you know when registration ends in your state? What’s the deadline for absentee voting? Visited any college campuses lately with compelling literature? Visited any malls or parks? Volunteered to be a pollwatcher? (I did that once; it was fun.) Have you talked to anyone at your local Dem HQ about volunteering to make phone calls, help with mailings, knocking on doors? If you’re not a joiner, at least pick up some literature and visit the parks and hangouts. Mention the looming specter of fascism to appropriate audiences.

A few tips:

There is no point in talking to someone who says they can’t vote for Kerry because he’s immoral and unchristian and approves of gay marriage and abortion. Run, don’t walk, away from this person. The look in their eyes will tell you they’re already assimilated into the hive. They will murmur things like “Strong Leadership, Moral Values, and Strong Economy, must vote for Beloved Leader.” No discussion.

Your best bet is twofold: (1) getting Dems, Greens and independents who are already registered to the polls on e-day or making sure they have absentee ballot requests turned in by deadline, and (2) distribute Libertarian Party literature to Republicans, especially 2nd Amendment enthusiasts. (I dropped a load off at the local VFW—you can get it for free at their website.)

It’s still not too late to register unregistered folks, especially young folks, but time is short.

And if the Bush borgs get another four years—either by hook or by crook—how many more will be assimilated?

What’s everybody else doing to get out the vote? Can we share stories so we don’t feel like we’re fighting this alone? Isn’t that the beauty and power of blogs—to make connections and know that, hey, I’m not the only one?

(Disclaimer: This is my first try at this; I'm not much of a techie. Sorry.)

It seems Yusef Islam/Cat Stevens was just a fine upstanding example of a Good Muslim back not that long ago. Wonder if anybody in DC, like maybe at the WaPo, has a picture of this meeting? We have one of Secretary of Offense Don Rumsfeld shaking hands with the Spider of Evil back before he turned to the Dark Side, I think they would make a nice matched set:

(via LA Times op-ed)

God almighty! Is this the same planet I'd taken off from? I was devastated. The unbelievable thing is that only two months earlier, I had been having meetings in Washington with top officials from the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to talk about my charity work.

Back in the days when railroad travel was more common than it is today, a man took a long trip which required use of a sleeper berth. It was infested with insects, and when he got home he wrote an irate letter to the railroad to complain.

He gets back a long and flowery missive from the railroad president himself, apologizing profusely and explaining that such a thing had never been known to happen before, heads would roll, etc.

The irate traveler was prepared to be satisfied with this until he noticed another piece of paper, obviously put in with the apology by accident. It turned out to be his original letter of complaint, with a note scrawled in the corner: "Send this crank the bedbug letter."

(via Columbia (SC) State)

The director of operations for Jim DeMint’s U.S. Senate campaign has been reprimanded for derogatory remarks she made about gays and lesbians in an errant e-mail.

Ginny Allen was admonished personally Monday by the Republican nominee, who promised in a letter of apology that she would be dealt with “according to office guidelines.”

Allen was not fired. Attempts to reach her for comment were unsuccessful Monday.

Lisa Hall, chairwoman of the Central Savannah River Area Rainbow Alliance, which works to raise awareness of gay and lesbian issues, in July invited both Senate campaigns to an Oct. 7 town hall meeting to discuss issues of interest to gay voters.

Democratic nominee Inez Tenenbaum promptly promised to send a representative, but after receiving no reply from the DeMint campaign, Hall sent a follow-up e-mail Monday.

Allen, apparently thinking she was forwarding the e-mail to someone inside the campaign, inadvertently replied to Hall.

“Come on, fag, give this dike a reply,” Allen wrote.

DeMint sent Hall a personal letter of apology Monday for the “extremely inappropriate remarks” in the e-mail.

“Mrs. Allen’s remarks do not reflect my beliefs or the character of the campaign,” DeMint wrote. “I am running a positive campaign of ideas, and that includes personal respect for others.”

Yeah right. Let's see what does represent his "beliefs and character."

During three terms in Congress, DeMint has consistently opposed allowing gays and lesbians to marry. He backs a constitutional amendment to prohibit it nationwide.

“The government cannot approve and promote homosexuality,” DeMint says in a video on his campaign Web site. “If we approve gay marriages, we’ve, in effect done that.”

Well, that's just so much better! See? No "fag" or "dyke" in that, so this must mean he's really okay.

And we thought the "signed oaths of fealty" were just to protect the sanctity of Bubble Boy's fragile reality system:

(via NYT)

Want to see the president when he comes to your town? Get in line - to make phone calls for his campaign.

President Bush's campaign aides say they have hit on a novel way to recruit volunteers for his get-out-the-vote army. Anyone wanting to attend one of Mr. Bush's campaign rallies, anywhere in the country, has to get a ticket first. And anyone wanting a ticket, or a coveted spot up front, can improve his chances by putting in a few hours at a phone bank, canvassing Republican homes or putting up lawn signs.

Campaign rallies may be as old as politics itself, but in this year of earliests, firsts and most-expensive-evers, the Bush campaign has taken this most basic form of communication to a new state of the art, by pressing audiences to work as foot soldiers, before, during and immediately after Bush events.

The tactic points up a stark difference between the presidential campaigns: while Senator John Kerry is using his rallies and forums to try to reach undecided voters and to close the deal with standoffish Democrats, Mr. Bush is packing his audiences with supporters who must identify themselves as such in questionnaires and whipping them into brigades ready to blitz crucial districts to get every last voter to the polls.

Kerry aides scoff at the invitation-only audiences and what they say is the shanghai-ing of volunteers. "We don't require oaths of allegiance, and we don't take people captive," said Tom Shea, director of the Kerry campaign in Florida, after turning out close to 10,000 people for a rally in Orlando last Tuesday where, he said, 700 people signed up to help.

But Donald P. Green, a professor of political science at Yale and the author of "Get Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout," said Mr. Bush's strategy was inspired. "There's a basic principle in experimental psychology, that the hand teaches the heart," Professor Green said. "You've now made phone calls for George Bush; that helps solidify your commitment to the campaign. If you weren't enthusiastic and committed already, you might be now."

If Mr. Bush likes to call his retail politicking "fertilizing the grass roots," the volunteer recruitment can create a kind of hothouse effect.

That's the nicest formulation of "keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em bullshit" I think I ever heard. Bush followers are mushrooms.

Nice note about the Kerry Orlando appearance. Ten thousand people, hit by a hurricane just the week before, and staring at the radar which showed another one bearing down on them, turned out to see the next President. And when those people volunteer it's really, ya know, voluntary. What a concept!

This is the kind of vapid crap the wide-eyed and bushy tailed movers and shakers at globe trotting CNN come up with each morning in America. This is what passes for "news" prgramming at America's most trusted news source, or number one news source, or whatever sassy new marketing pitch it is that they've come up with this time around:

CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK - Effects of Hurricane Jeanne; Presidential Debate Preview; "Scorecard" - Aired September 27, 2004, transcript.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAN BARTLETT, WHITE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Senator Kerry has been preparing his whole life for this. He was a prep star debater. He was an Ivy League debater and served 20 years in the United States Senate. So, he's prepared his whole life for this moment, whereas President Bush, he's going to go in there and he's going to hold his own and speak clearly to the American people about what he believes and about how we are prosecuting this war on terror. (END VIDEO CLIP)

[Carol] COSTELLO: Ah! But did you hear the buzz words in Dan Bartlett's apparent compliment? Ivy League education. Prep school debate. Get it? Actually, we thought we'd look at the buzz surrounding things that should not matter. We're talking about hair and hand gestures with Vaughn Ververs, editor of the "National Journal's" "Hotline."

COSTELLO: Actually, we thought we'd look at the buzz surrounding things that should not matter. We're talking about hair and hand gestures with Vaughn Ververs, editor of the "National Journal's" "Hotline." Good morning.

VAUGHN VERVERS, EDITOR, "THE HOTLINE": Good morning, Carol. How are you?

COSTELLO: I'm fine. You know, at least three newspapers -- "The New York Time," "The Washington Post" and "The Atlanta Journal- Constitution" -- wrote articles about the look of the candidate. Does it really make that much difference? I mean, voters are educated nowadays on such things.

VERVERS: Yes. But, you know, this isn't a debate that's going to be decided on points and who made the better argument and who scored the knock-out punch. Most likely, this is going to be a debate some of the people are going to be watching to see if they're comfortable with these candidates. And part of that is the way they look and their body style and what their body language is telling people.

Hair can make a difference in that sense. And remember, John Kerry is the one who said that one of the reasons he picked John Edwards, even though he was joking, was he had great hair. So...

COSTELLO: I know. Because, you know, in "The New York Times," this is a quote from an expert who says John Kerry has buoyantly vertical hair. He has exciting hair, and it could help him. And take a look at this from "The New York Times," too. It says, "Senator Kerry's anvil-like chin conveys power, but his droopy eyebrows and hooded eyes send an unwelcome signal of age and lethargy." Are Kerry's people bringing in the makeup people?

VERVERS: Well, you know, John Kerry has been compared to a lot of things in this campaign. The Republicans like to call him lurch and all kinds of other things. And he does have very distinct facial parts to him, and it is a really long face, a jutting jaw. But, you know, he'll come across as the way he is. And he'll be very serious. He's a very serious person. The president, on the other hand, he's got to watch a couple of things as well. He's going to have to watch his smirk. That can sometimes be something that turns off people. So, these guys really have to know when they're on camera and...

COSTELLO: Well, going on about President Bush, this is from "The Washington Post." It says, "President Bush has a half-wink that signals he's about to land a punch, and a half-squint that says, 'I really, really mean what I'm saying now.'" Does President Bush actually practice such things?

VERVERS: Oh, I think these guys practice to some extent. Look, but they're more extensions of their personalities and how they are. You can't change yourself overnight. I think if either one of these guys decided they were going to come out and be something different, that's just a mistake. And President Bush has a style that he's had for ever since he's been in public office, that's for sure. And he does -- he gets those shoulders kind of hunched over and he gets that squint. And, you know, it's like almost shaking his finger at people and saying, look, listen up, this is serious now.

COSTELLO: OK. Since we're talking about superficial things, let's talk about fashion, because the navy blue suit is key here. And if you -- I don't know if any of you out there have noticed, but President Bush has been wearing French cuffs with gold cufflinks lately. And Senator Kerry has been wearing a yellow Lance Armstrong wristband lately, which supposedly appeals to the younger viewers. And the gold cufflinks supposedly appeals to the business man in President Bush.

VERVERS: Well, I thought John Kerry was the one who was supposed to wear the French cufflinks -- or the French cuffs. But, you know, and that bracelet is interesting. I'll be interested to see if he's wearing it -- if John Kerry is wearing that. That's a big thing among young people today. You look around on the streets all the time and you see lots of people wearing those. So, it does -- he is trying to send a message by wearing that.

COSTELLO: All right, Vaughn Ververs, interesting insight this morning, thank you so much.

VERVERS: Well, we don't have much to talk about until that time, so this is what we occupy ourselves with.

COSTELLO: That's right. We're still three days out.

VERVERS: That's right.

Oh yeah, "thats right" Vaughn, you sniveling little screw-worm, there ain't much to talk about in the "news" these days aside from you and Carol Costello's cheeky imbecillic half-wink observations on hair management and Lance Armstrong wristbands - whatever in God's name those are - and fruity French cufflinks from Georges of Paris. Jeezis, the things ya see when you don't have a gun.

Look, I've had about all I can take of this kind of cretinous bullshit from these fucking Zip City television media Babbitts. As a matter of fact I'm going out right now and buy an assault rifle. Or two. There's nothing else going on. I'll be back in a few hours. In the meantime please enjoy the soothing music I have selected for your listening enjoyment:

how much is that doggy in the window, the one with the waggily tail...

Ok, I'm back. I also picked up an Ontario SP1 Marine Combat knife with a Kraton polymer handle and epoxy-powder-coated carbon steel blade and a pair of Night Owl Optics night vision flip up goggles. I can buy these all right at the corner. From a guy named "Major Judges 210". Including a pair of sexy crotch enhancing Advantage Timber Silent Weave six pocket pants. And a pair of sheepskin lounger slippers - with soft extra soft crepe sole - too. Just because. I also had my hair shampooed and permed and then I purchased a LumiNox Navy Seal Ultimate series Dive watch with chronograph black bezel. The perm and the watch alone ran me $900 bucks! And I bought some Ted Nuggent CDs. You can never have too many of them playing all at one time. Surrender to your Kings and Stormtroopin' are two of my favorite choices for the upcoming post election holiday season. You rock Nooge!

What? It's not like there is anything going on in the "news". Or something. Might as well go shopping and listen to some tunes. Heck, I might even go out hunting for one of them Vaughn Ververs. What the hell. And when I spy me one with my night vision goggles I'm gonna leap silently from the shadowy gloom and rip it's aortal artery up through it's hairless neck and blow down the tube until it's fluttering heart explodes all over the inside of it's sternum cavity! How's that for perky fashionable verve? Vaughn? Then I'm going to cut your flapping tongue from your stupid face with my Ontario SP1, roll it around in a puddle of that pancake syrup Steve Gilliard is pimping on behalf of the maple syrup lobby, and nail the sticky squirming thing to a rotting stump for the woodpeckers to nibble on! Because, ya know, there isn't anything going on in the "news". At least for the next couple of days. And woodpeckers like fancy eatin' as much as the next critter. So you better knock it off.

Hey. I don't tell you what to do with your spare time - do I? Heck no.

And see, it's like this: as a regular reader (who I'll spare the humiliation of being associated with this unsettling post) noted in earlier comments:

According to that NYT mag article, the qualifications for being a "top blogger" are: perky attitude, sex appeal, and fondness for fancy food.

Ok by me. I want to stay on top of my blogger game. And I think I've covered each of those "qualifications" above. If violent excitable perk and sexy blood spurting Old Testament style vitriole is good enough for the adolescent techno-nerd pod warrior nativist Neanderthali at Little Green Booger Flickers or the scraped knuckle-walking Christian Nation gestapo at Free Republic dot-con-artist then it's good enough for me. Image is everything!

So all of those fey attack pussies at the NYTimes and the Washington Post and the Atlanta-Journal Constitution (where the hell's Willian Tecumseh Sherman when ya need him?) can all go poke their wet forks into a live electrical outlet as far as I'm concerned. Yes seh. Wink. Squint. Smirk.

BTW, these sheepskin loungers really are fuzzy and soft and warm. You should all run down to the mall and get yourselves a pair. Get yourself a new Chevy Suburban while your at it too. One with the Onstar; XM Satellite radio and DVD player. You'll need one of those so you can listen to your Ted Nugent CDs during the Rapture. Now, I wonder who's on MSNBC that I can feed to the birds.

[NOTE: To the easily alarmed. I didn't really get a shampoo and perm. I just made that up. My hair gets kind of wavy when it rains anyway, so ya know --- sorry if I frightened anyone.]

*

Woe, alas, alack. We may as well write off Ohio, folks. Kerry's doomed there.

(via Akron Beacon-Journal)

President Bush appears to have the support of one of Ohio's more controversial political figures -- former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant, aka federal prison inmate No. 31213-060 in Ray Brook, N.Y.

The second congressman since the Civil War to be stripped of his position appears to have written in a recent letter that ``Bush is answer (sic) for America!! You're on the right track!!''

Traficant, who has turned down repeated interview requests, apparently wrote the letter in response to Texan Tony Brown, who runs a Web site that includes things like computer programs to get around the copying safeguards on DVDs and autographs of famous people from Bush Cabinet members to Bill Gates.

Brown, who says on his site that he likes the current president, posted Traficant's letter on his autograph section.

The handwriting in the letter appears to match samples of Traficant's writing.

In the letter, Traficant rails against the U.S. Department of Justice, which put him in prison until 2009 after successfully convicting him on bribery and corruption charges.

Even though he was in prison at the time, Traficant received 16 percent of the vote when he ran in 2002 as an independent for the 17th Congressional District seat, which includes portions of Portage, Summit, Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

Sorry, I decline to look up "Texan Tony Brown's" website to provide a link, lest it give Evangelist General John Asscroft an excuse to shut down Corrente and arrest all of us for promoting illegal DVD copying.

But this ought to give the LGF and Freeper folks an opportunity to show that they have document-analyzation skills not leaked to them in advance by Karl Rove, as they set the winger blogosphere on fire attempting to prove that this, too, is a forgery designed only to smear their Dear Leader.

Nothing much in this LA Times piece today that regular readers here, or of Paul Lukasiak's tireless work, are not already familiar with. Worth reading anyway because, well, it's the LA Times. Tragically, they still get more readers than we do so it's worth it to have this whole great gray-green greasy story out there for those who are not as well informed as they might be.

Plus there's a detail on the "public service program" where Bush "found work" (love that phrasing...poor little unemployed fella, thank god a charity program gave him a chance!) after He finally blew off the remainder of his TANG obligation entirely.

And finally...hmm, he "completed most of his required training in a flurry..." Flurries, eh? Flakes of white stuff. Often found falling from the sky. Wonder if somebody is trying to sort of...imply...something here?

I'm sure it's all perfectly innocent. Plus it was washed away by Jeebus so we shouldn't even be talking about it. How petty of me. I am ashamed.

(via LA Times)

National Guard commanders in Texas and across the nation said they occasionally allowed guardsmen to move from one state to another so that the "weekend warriors" could pursue their full-time jobs while serving in the military.

But retired Air Force Judge Advocate General Scott Silliman, now a law professor at Duke University, said Bush's case was unusual because of the incomplete paper trail permitting such an arrangement.

Bush had returned to Houston by January 1973, finding work with an inner-city youth program run by former Houston Oiler football stars John White and Ernie "Big Cat" Ladd.

Lt. Bush completed most of his required training in a flurry between May 29 and July 30, 1973, attendance records show.

Bush is planning on winning the debates on the basis of perspiration??

So sayeth Froomkin...

(via WaPo)

The possibly master stroke: " 'He's a sweater,' chortles a G.O.P. official, 'and women don't like sweaters.' That's why Bush's team was happy to have the Kerry campaign climb down from its demand that the debate hall be chilled to below 70 degrees. The Jordan-Baker agreement stipulates that the debate commission use 'best efforts to maintain an appropriate temperature according to industry standards.' Whatever those are."

Following up on Xan's post (back) on Fascism:

One of the characteristics of fascism that Orcinus identifies is this:

-- the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason;
(via Orcinus)

Now does all the talk about Bush's quick decision making and acting from his gut fall into place?

This is why bringing forward the truth about Bush's personal history—torturing small animals as a child ("Having a beer with a nut job"), deserting, and so forth—is not peripheral. It's absolutely central: it shows that Bush has bad instincts. Bad instincts, bad Leader.

In fact, Kerry should say it just that way:

Bush has bad instincts

Then tie that to the great riff he's running on Iraq decision making: "Wrong," "wrong," "wrong"....

Fascists don't want to talk about the issues, or what's "really important." They want absolute power and a police state, and will say or do anything to get it. That's what's "really important" to them. Not Medicare, or "policy" fer cryin' out loud.

Maybe even the anarchist sk8ters can get it together to vote in this election. Eh?

Who am I - were did I come from....?

Fear and laptops on the genesis project
There's a fascinating essay in today’s New York Times Magazine about how a group of scientists are searching for the origins of blogging. It seems that in January 2006, the Stardust spacecraft will return from its encounter with the comet Wild 2, bringing with it a payload of cosmic debris "which scientists now expect may offer significant clues about blogging’s origins here on earth."

Until recently, many scientists believed that blogs were formed in a kind of primordial soup formed when a bunch of people got really pissed off:

Left-wing politics are thriving on blogs the way Rush Limbaugh has dominated talk radio, and in the last six months, the angrier, nastier partisan blogs have been growing the fastest. Daily Kos has tripled in traffic since June. Josh Marshall’s site has quadrupled in the last year. It's almost as though, in a time of great national discord, you don’t want to know both sides of an issue. The once-soothing voice of the nonideological press has become, to many readers, a secondary concern, a luxury, even something suspect. It’s hard to listen to a calm and rational debate when the building is burning and your pants are smoking.

While acknowledging that some bloggers lack the evolutionary maturity necessary to appreciate the "calm and rational debate" the American media offered when it keenly analyzed Bill Clinton’s fraudulent land deals, Wen Ho Lee’s treasonous espionage, Al Gore's criminal eye-rolling, and Saddam Hussein's fearsome cache of weapons of mass destruction, most scientists now believe that the origins of blogging go back much further than had previously been imagined.

Indeed, the search for a "Last Universal Common Ancestor," or LUCA, may not only answer the question of how blogs first arose from inorganic media; it may also help to explain the process of evolution itself – or, as one researcher puts it, "the question of how the primitive, early Kaus became the highly intelligent Kos we know today." (more......)

[:-) ...See:Michael Berube's blog, (non fattening - 100% ad free!)

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"Fascist" is a not a word to use lightly. The old rule on discussion boards which said the minute the word was used meant the end of that particular topic, and the loss of the argument by the side to which the user subscribed, struck me as a good one. And I still maintain that for modern political discussion we need a different word, perhaps "Corporatist," to avoid the baggage "fascism" brings to any hope of rationality.

All of which I am presently reconsidering. David Neiwert has Part 2 of his latest series on the topic posted now, and I recommend you go take a look:

(via Orcinus)

"Fascism is a poisonous ideology that grows and adapts to its circumstances -- Eurofascism reflected European vices; American fascism is similarly home-brewed. Therein lies the challenge in identifying it and combating it. Fascism always wraps itself in the flag, always seeks absolute power, always brands opponents as traitors, always relies heavily on propaganda for dissemination of its ideas, always invokes subversive enemies (at home and abroad), always embraces militarism and permanent war, always favors politicizing of police functions (and expanding them and the surveillance state), always scorns intellectuals, artists, and bourgeois democratic values, always is hostile to leftist and labor movements, and is obsessed with idealized images of a mythic "better time" of the past (while at the same time destroying that past, and the nation as a whole).

This installment consists largely of definitions such as the one above, which comes not from David but one of his correspondents Dante M.

The word "fascism" is, in fact, a little bit like the word "God" in that it's short, everybody says it, but nobody can be even a little bit sure that the person listening is imagining the referent the word points to in the same way the speaker meant it. It's too big, too awful in the old sense of that word's meaning, to get your mind around.

But for word junkies it's worth looking at if only for one other definition:

Roger Griffin, who calls it "palingenetic ultranationalistic populism".

Wheee! Time to haul out the New Oxford International, I don't think my pocket Websters is gonna have "palingenetic." If it was "paladingenetic" I would understand it right away, although am pretty sure Richard Boone was not a facist.

So Billmon kills his comment section because they got to be too much to manage. Then he says he's taking an ocean voyage and will be gone for a couple of weeks. I still hit him every day and finally realized that last post was on August 15. So I resolve to be patient because I love the guy's writing.

Harumph. Now we find his writings, not at the Whiskey Bar but in the editorial section of the LA Times fer chrissakes. And what does he have to say?

Bloggers are sellouts, their sites look like "glorified billboards" because of all the ads, we're being co-opted by the "media-industrial complex" because the ad money all goes to the top few sites.

That's bad enough, but then he twists the knife:

As blogs commercialize, they are tied ever closer to the mainstream media and its increasingly frivolous news agenda. The political blogosphere already has a bad habit of chasing the scandal du jour. This election season, that's meant a laser-like focus on such profound matters as the mysteries of Bush's National Guard service or whether John Kerry deserved his Vietnam War medals.

Meanwhile, more unsettling (and important) stories — like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or the great Iraq weapons-of-mass-destruction snipe hunt — quietly disappear down the media memory hole. And bloggers either can't, or won't, dig them back out again. As the convergence with big media continues, I suspect there will be progressively less interest in trying.

So let me get this straight...because within the last few months a few blogs have become profitable enough from ad sales that the authors can quit their jobs or otherwise go full-time, this is a sign we've sold out? Because the sites that get ads will make money and get mentioned in the "real" media which will bring them more readers? And then, gasp, because we're not "egalitarian" enough to all starve together in our garretts, this is somehow the end of Left Blogostan?

I gotta tell ya, this whole piece just did not sound like the Billmon I know. Or thought I knew. Maybe he's been taken captive and forced to write this through some finger-holes cut in the duct tape binding his hands together. There are still pirates out there you know.

Okay, you bastards, he's done your bidding. He's heaved a world-weary sigh and denounced us all for doubleplusungood thoughtcrimes, and a desire to avoid bankruptcy.

Now let him go. He sounds like a man who needs to start a blog.

As you can see, I'm in a different time zone. The thing I can't believe that the Dems caved on, in the debates, was having a timer visible when the candidates speak. I can just see Bush smirking as he emits carefully crafted soundbyte after soundbyte—all well under the time limit.

Lambert notes here how the US Forest Service has been politicized. A group called the NPS Retirees.org, formerly about as political as a head of lettuce, has for some time been trying to call attention to the same thing happening in the National Park Service.

Remember how they hid the contract that sent private mercenaries in as torturers at Abu Ghraib by having it "managed" by the NPS? That's almost a trivial irrelevance to the havoc they're wreaking at one of the oldest, most-respected operations the Federal government has ever run.

The NPS Retirees manifesto is long and I almost despaired of choosing among the multitude of examples of awfulness. The "privatization" of jobs issue by itself is appalling. But this one I think serves a double purpose. See if this sequence of statements reminds you of anything....

Equivocation and disingenuousness by Interior and NPS officials on the “maintenance backlog” has been especially egregious. Consider this series of public promises:

--Gale Norton said in a press release on April 9, 2001: “The FY2002 budget makes good on the President’s pledge to eliminate the maintenance backlog over five years [emphasis added].”

--Then, in the “FY2004 Interior Budget in Brief, p. BH-66,” she said, “In order to support the President’s commitment to manage the maintenance backlog...”

--Then, in a DOI press release on February 3, 2003, she said, “The President’s 2004 budget request proposes...to fulfill the President’s pledge of addressing the maintenance backlog in the parks [emphasis added].”

--Finally, from a press conference on July 8, 2004, as reported by the Associated Press: “Eliminating a maintenance backlog in the national parks, as President Bush promised in his 2000 campaign, is impossible, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Thursday.”

Hmm..."Osama dead or alive!" "Osama's not that important!" Osama bin Forgotten...yeah, I thought you'd note the similarity.

Scariest of all is this. Seems like there isn't just one Office of Special Plans:

Sources inside the NPS indicate that the political appointees within the DOI and the Bureaus in Washington DC have established their own “chain of command” and meeting protocols. These meetings occur frequently and totally exclude career employees from the Bureaus. Often decisions are made that favor the political interests of those involved and not in the best interests of the missions of the Bureaus. Generally there are no records of the meetings or decisions, and decisions and actions are carried by “word of mouth.”

One recent “order from on high” required daily reports from the NPS political leadership about what actions were being taken to benefit the re-election of President Bush.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. There's a common factor that ties it all together. Wouldn't you know that the guy who's seen it most clearly, and talked about it most bravely, is getting set to "retire"?

On June 3, 2004, Bill Moyers delivered the keynote address at the Inequality Matters Forum held at New York University. In part, he said:

“I don’t have to tell you that a profound transformation is occurring in America: the balance between wealth and commonwealth is being upended. By design. Deliberately. We have been subjected to what the Commonwealth Foundation calls a ‘fanatical drive to dismantle political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private power.’

From land, water, and other natural resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, and to politics itself, a broad range of the American commons is undergoing a powerful shift toward private and corporate control. And with little public debate. Indeed, what passes for ‘public debate’ in this country has become a cynical charade behind which the real business goes on—the not-so-scrupulous business of getting and keeping power in order to divide up the spoils.”

UPDATE The notion that the wingers have set up their own, parallel administrative structures fascinates me. We now have two examples: the National Park Service, and the National Forest Service. It sounds a lot like the old USSR, with the Party and the State. Given the Trotsky-ite heritage of many of the neo-cons, this is not surprising; back in the day, "The Trots" were notorious for using this tactic to split organizations they wanted to control or destroy.

Setting up Partei organizations in parallel to the legitimate state was also, of course, a tactic used by the Nazis in '30s Germany, as a letter to the Times (not, oddly, available on line) pointed out this week. Frank Rich writes that without—I wonder why—being hyped by the SCML at all, Roth's new Plot Against America, whose cover art depicts "a one-cent stamp of the 1930's crisply postmarked with a swastika" is now in the top 25 at Amazon. Maybe people are starting to realize what's happening to them... Read "They thought they were free", and then sing along with Frank Zappa: "It can't happen here...."—Lambert

Here's an interesting quotation from the International Herald Tribune:

This system, [Guess the country!] has at least seven attributes: absence of independent and politically meaningful mass media; absence of an independent [legislature]; absence of an independent judiciary; absence of civil control over intelligence and law-enforcement agencies; absence of free elections; the complete fusion of business and government; and rule by clans.

Clearly, the organic medium for such a system is widespread corruption, the suppression of independent parties and opinion, and the fragmentation and deterioration of civic organizations.

What is the public face of this system? Only lies and evasions..... This system is perfectly suitable for a narrow group of people that calls itself "the state," and for their economic interests. The intelligence and law-enforcement services are designed to provide security for this group. They are not suited for protecting citizens from danger, or from terrorism.
(via IHT)

Guess the country! No, silly, it's not the US under the Bush heel. It's Russia under Putin! (The author of the piece is Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the Yabloko Party, the oldest liberal party in Russia.)

But the similarities really are remarkable.

Absence of independent and politically meaningful mass media? Check. The collapse of CBS is the final degradation.

Absence of an independent legislature? Check. The Republicans now control all three branches of government, with the result a complete absence of checks and balances.

Absence of an independent judiciary? Check. Bush v. Gore.

Absence of civil control over intelligence and law-enforcement agencies? Check, kinda—they're starting to be deprofessionalized and turned political instruments.

Absence of free elections? Florida 2000. And, perhaps, election fraud 2004.

The complete fusion of business and government? Check. Just like in Texas.

Rule by clans? Check. That would be the Bush Dynasty.

No wonder Bush looked into Putin's eyes and liked what He saw!

A little over the top? Sure. I mean, Russia is just an outight kleptocracy, and under Bush... Oh, wait. I forgot. Social Security. After all, what other name than kleptocracy would you give to a regime that takes trillions of dollars working people contributed to their own retirements via FICA ("When Republicans say it's not about the money, it's about the money" (back)), gives some of those trillions to the super-rich in the form of tax cuts, and will then, under the guise of an "ownership society" give trillions more to the financial industry in commissions and rake-offs?

After lying, looting is what Republicans do best!

and I'm struck speechless by this graf:

Left-wing politics are thriving on blogs the way Rush Limbaugh has dominated talk radio, and in the last six months, the angrier, nastier partisan blogs have been growing the fastest. Daily Kos has tripled in traffic since June. Josh Marshall's site has quadrupled in the last year. It's almost as though, in a time of great national discord, you don't want to know both sides of an issue. The once-soothing voice of the nonideological press has become, to many readers, a secondary concern, a luxury, even something suspect.
(via NY Times)

Um.

Meanwhile, over in wingerland, the circlejerk continues (Pandagon)

A lovely example of IOKIYAR (via GOTV maven Alice Marshall):

The U.S. Forest Service blocked the assessment of mandatory criminal penalties and civil cost recovery for an escaped fire set by U.S. Representative Henry Brown (R-South Carolina)...

Citing “blatant” obstruction, extortion and violations of agency policies, the whistleblower complaint was filed with the Agriculture Office of Inspector General on September 8th by two top Forest Service criminal investigators...

On March 5, 2004, Rep. Brown conducted a prescribed burn on his property adjoining the national forest. Brown had a state permit authorizing a 25-acre burn but he set the fire on a day in which a “Red Flag Alert” was issued due to high winds. The fire quickly burned more than 200 acres of Brown’s land and crossed over into the national forest, burning another 20 acres there. The Forest Service needed a helicopter, three fire engines and a bulldozer to bring the fire under control. A Forest Service review of the fire found that Brown was negligent:

“Mr. Brown was not adequately prepared to detect, or adequately equipped to suppress, the escaped fire on 5 March 2004 with only two men, a bucket of water, and no means of delivery of that water to the escaped fire.”

“This is an act of corruption both petty and profound,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that agency policy requires both assessing a criminal fine of approximately $250 as well as a civil action to recover the agency’s fire suppression costs, estimated at approximately $4,000. “The pattern with this Administration is that the laws do not apply to its political allies.”

When Forest Service officials informed Rep. Brown that he would be cited for the fire, the Congressman expressed concern that his political opponents would find out about it and warned that if the Forest Service persisted its programs “might need to be scrutinized more closely.” Brown then reportedly contacted agency officials at higher and higher levels without receiving the assurance of non-prosecution. It was not until he met with Agriculture Undersecretary Rey, a former timber lobbyist, that he extracted a promise to drop the matter.
(via whistleblower site PEER)

Sweet!

Can you imagine how the wingers would be frothing and stamping if a Democrat ignored a "Red Flag" alert, burned up 200 acres of public land, and had only a bucket of water to put it out? But the whore media slumbers, silent, exhausted from fluffing the wingers....

You know, trying to put out a forest fire with a bucket of water reminds me of Bush's approach to war on terror on the cheap. No port security, no money to first responders, cuts in homeland security budgets only after the election....

And setting a fire only to watch it burn out of control because of poor planning reminds me of Iraq.

But IOKIYAR!

GOTV time, by raison de fem:

Those fresh-faced kids at the tribal community college handing out voter registration cards are serious. Organized. Dedicated. They have to be nonpartisan, working for the New Voter Project (it’s a 501(c)3), but the implication is clear in their rap: who’s looking out for the young voters?

They're far better at reaching the skaters and pinkhairs than an alter kockus like my ownself. I watched them for awhile and talked to a couple of them to see how things were going. Last week they were at the library in Nowheresville. Week before that I saw some working a crowd at the mall in a nearby larger town.

Their line goes like this: what do the candidates talk about? Social security, medicare, and such. Who's talking about the draft, drug laws, finding jobs after graduation? Are the "young folks" concerns being heard?

And so forth. They point out that the pols know old folks get out and vote, while young folks sit at home and play video. So the young folks get written off along with "youth issues." I point out that a lot of "old folks" have similar concerns, and she says "well, yeah, but we know you already vote. Gotta get the kids out." So I ask how many she thinks will vote for Kerry and how many for Bush. She tells me she thinks the kids who would vote Bush are already registered for the most part, so most of the ones they're registering are probably more left-leaning, and for the most part they think voting is useless, so it’s harder to get them in.

Is she saying she thinks more lefty kids think voting is useless? Yeah. Especially the skaters and anarchists, she says.

Wow, I think. Is that true? Is the right more organized? Well, yeah. For one thing, they have the churches. And don’t think for a minute that the churches aren’t pushing the GOP "values" agenda. They are. Plus, right-wing parents probably push their kids more into voting. I know the Mormons hereabouts do.

Another interesting thing the NVP girls told me—yeah, they were all girls, no boys, which is interesting, too—is that they found out a lot of the county clerks were dumping new voter registrations in a room for "later processing" if anything looked like it was left blank or wrong. Some clerks are "overwhelmed" with new voters. They told me that clerks were telling people that registering through a third party might mean that their registrations wouldn't ever make it to the office, since third-party registration groups were paid by the number of registrations they did and didn't really care about sending them in. The NVP-ers said, yeah, that's true, we get paid that way. But, they said, our hearts really are in it.

Proof? Well, they give each new registrant a card to fill out, and tell them if they fill it out and give it them, they'll follow up with a phone call a few weeks later to make sure they got their card and know where their polling place is. They tell me they check each card—which they do, I watched—and take them in a batch to the clerk's office in each county they work. I think they’re serious. Nobody's getting rich at this work. I won’t say how much they were making, but it's bubkes for how much high-energy work they were doing.

Registration deadline's coming for most of the states hereabouts. Crunch time. I get some more registration cards from the NVP folks. Just in case.

And maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning. Not long after that, outside the library where I use the computers when I'm in town, I met a very pretty Native girl decked out head to toe in Kerry-Edwards stickers, shirt, even bumperstickers plastered all over her pants, hat and bookbag. We're outside in the smoker's area, so I ask her if this is her first presidential election. She says yeah, and she's excited. I ask her if she's taking any shit for her Kerry getup, and she says yeah, some, but she's also getting a lot of positive vibes, especially from boys. I tell her to keep up the good work. Girl power!

[post author, raison de fem]

*

"Control the food supply and you control the people."

Via Slam Brannan at Edge of Alleigh:

A senior economist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture has come under fire from Democrats and government watchdogs for suggesting that the Bush administration could maximize votes in key dairy states by keeping milk prices high through the election.

Larry Salathe, a 27-year veteran of the USDA, also suggested that his agency would hold off on policies that could anger dairy farmers--including proposing a new milk tax on them and eliminating a price support program--until after the election.

Continue reading: The Mother's Milk of Politics.

*

(via NYT Business section)

The Bush administration has broken new ground in its "faith-based" initiative, this time by offering federal employees a Catholic health plan that specifically excludes payment for contraceptives, abortion, sterilization and artificial insemination.

The plan, which will begin enrolling federal workers in 31 Illinois counties in November, is sponsored by OSF Health, a unit of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, which runs the St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria and five Roman Catholic hospitals in Illinois and Michigan.

Now frankly I would be tempted to shrug at this point...of all the "faith-based" crap this administration has pulled this is far from the worst. Until you read a little further....

The OSF plan has two parts. It couples a tax-free savings account for enrollees to use to pay for routine care with a high-deductible health plan that offers coverage only after the annual deductible has been reached - $1,050 for individual or $2,100 for family coverage. As part of the benefit, a portion of the premium that the government will pay to OSF will be deposited into each enrollee's savings account.

The government's total contribution to the new OSF plan will be $240.89 a month for individuals and $599 a month for families. The employees' monthly premium contribution will be $80.30 for individuals and $199.66 for families. By comparison, federal workers enrolling in a more traditional preferred provider plan in Illinois will pay $89.09 for individuals and $299.96 for families.

So if you join up with regular ol' Blue Cross or whatever it costs you a hundred bucks more a month, a significant amount given what Federal work pays down in the ranks. Join Blue Bishop instead and save that amount, PLUS get a payment into your deductible account...just as long as you're careful never to have sex. If temptation overcomes you and you're all that desperate for sterilization services there is always your local veterinarian.

I can see real potential here. If this plays in Peoria (thank you Richard Nixon) I can see it catching on elsewhere:

Blue Seagull, available in and around Salt Lake City: No coverage for lung cancer, liver disease, addiction treatment of any sort, or dental services like teeth whitening. Family coverage must include one male but is decidedly vague on number of females covered per household.

Blue Buggy, available in Lancaster PA, Amana IA, Arcola, IL and other towns with heavy Amish populations: No treatment for injuries incurred in auto accidents unless caused by collision with horse-drawn vehicle; no treatment for electric shock injuries; separate deductible for each child with genetic disorder caused by inbreeding.

Blue Baptist: No coverage for anything. All payments made to pastor of local church for power-of-prayer rituals. Patients charged extra for bad reactions to snakebites.

George Bush, personally, with his own dirty fingers and his own lying mouth, cost the US military whatever chance they had of "winning" (at least in the military sense) the war on the insurgency in Iraq.

This is worse than just about any White House meddling in the conduct of military operations that I can think of. Worse than Johnson micromanaging Vietnam. Worse than Lincoln ordering the untrained Union forces into the debacles of Ball's Bluff and Bull Run.

This could be a better story than it is--how about naming names, Rajiv? WHO in the Provisional Authority mismanaged the training and recruitement of the Iraqi police? WHO was the "private contractor" hired to do this training, and WHO ordered it chosen?
(via WaPo)

The police outpost here is supposed to house 90 armed members of Iraq's National Guard. Their job is to keep watch over a stretch of six-lane highway, deterring insurgents from laying roadside bombs and trying to blow up a bridge over the nearby Tharthar Canal.

But when the U.S. Marine commander responsible for the area visited the outpost this month, he found six bedraggled guardsmen on duty. None of them was patrolling. The Iraqi officer in charge was missing. And their weapons had been locked up by the Marines after a guardsman detonated a grenade inside the compound.

The unit's demise underscores the degree to which errors committed by civilian and military leaders during the 15 months of rule by the U.S.-led occupation authority continue to impede the U.S. effort to combat a vexing insurgency and rebuild Iraq's shattered government and economy. Recovering from those mistakes has become the principal challenge facing the United States in Iraq, three months after the transfer of political authority to an interim government.

"We're trying to climb out of a hole," said an official with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity. American missteps during the occupation, the official said, "continue to haunt us."

The errors have had a major impact on almost every aspect of the U.S. agenda here, from pacifying rebel-held cities to holding elections in January to accelerating reconstruction projects. In each area, past mistakes have made it far tougher to accomplish U.S. objectives and those of Iraq's interim government.

The guardsmen in Saqlawiya, who come from the nearby city of Fallujah, were not always this pathetic. Early this year, their battalion was lauded by the U.S. military for repelling insurgent attacks on the mayor's office and police headquarters in Fallujah. They were, as one Army officer put it in March, "a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark place."

The battalion disintegrated in April because of an order by the White House and the Pentagon to have the Marines lay siege to Fallujah -- a decision top Marine officials now acknowledge was a profound mistake. As Marines advanced into the city, the guardsmen were put in an untenable position: Either flee, or join the Marines in fighting Iraqi neighbors -- and risk violent retribution. The guardsmen fled.

In early April, as the Marines were besieging Fallujah, U.S. commanders ordered one of the first battalions of Iraq's reconstituted army to join the fight in a supporting role. The commanders figured it would provide the Iraqi soldiers with a valuable lesson. It turned out to be the other way around.

When the soldiers, who had just finished basic training, were told where they were being sent, they staged a mutiny and refused to board transport helicopters. The Iraqis told U.S. officers that they did not enlist in order to fight fellow Iraqis.

Stunned U.S. military officials tried to determine what had gone wrong. According to several commanders, they eventually concluded that it was a mistake to have a private contractor conduct basic training, a concern that had already been raised by some veteran military officers, who maintained that the military would have done a better job. Their objection was ignored by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Once the soldiers finished boot camp, they were put under the command of U.S. officers whom they had never met.

To go with my WHO questions above I have one more: WHY is this running on a Saturday, the least-read day of the week? I know it's in the dead-tree paper today because somebody posted a screenshot of it on dKos. Maybe there's another installment tomorrow that will answer my quibbles. Meanwhile, go read.

First, we learn that Negroponte controls Allawi's schedule (back) Now this.

So much for Iraqi sovreignty:

The trials of former president Saddam Hussein and his top lieutenants likely will not begin this year, a U.S. official here said Friday, contradicting a recent pronouncement from Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, that Hussein's trial could commence as soon as next month.

Allawi has sought to speed up the trials by exhorting judges and investigators to accelerate their work and by replacing the administrator of the special tribunal that will conduct the trials. The prime minister has said he wants the proceedings to begin before national elections, scheduled for January.

But the U.S. official, who is part of team of Americans advising the tribunal, cast doubt on that timetable because of the complexity in proving that Hussein and other top officials ordered soldiers and low-ranking government officials to commit atrocities. "These are very difficult trials," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "These are command-responsibility cases. . . . You have to follow the chain of command up."
(via WaPo)

Absolutely. I mean, it's obvious that the specialists and privates in the Army wouldn't have done what they did at Abu Ghraib without at least feeling they had been authorized... Oh, wait. Sorry. Wrong chain of command. My bad. What I meant to say—

Gee, it looks like Bush has decided that putting Saddam on trial won't get him any votes in November. I wonder why? Could it be pictures like this? Back from the days when Rummy had real hair?

Your morning 'Chestnut'





*

I remember the immortal words of Colin Powell: "I sleep like a baby. Every two hours, I wake up screaming."

Yep.

Well, ratfucking (back) works, doesn't it?

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.

Ms. Edwards said that the report had been scheduled for June but that it was postponed because of additional news on the subject.

The CBS statement followed a report in the online edition of Newsweek that described the frustration of CBS News reporters and producers who said the network had concluded that it could not legitimately criticize the president because of the questions about the National Guard report.

According to the Newsweek report, the "60 Minutes" segment was to have detailed how the administration relied on false documents when it said Iraq had tried to buy a lightly processed form of uranium, known as yellowcake, from Niger. The administration later acknowledged that the information was incorrect and that the documents were most likely fake.

The Newsweek article said the segment was to have included the first on-camera interview with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who was given the fake documents and who provided them to a United States Embassy for verification. The documents were sent to Washington, where some officials embraced them as firm evidence that Iraq was aggressively trying to make nuclear weapons.
(via the pretty-cowardly-themselves Times)

WHEN WOULD IT BE MORE APPROPRIATE TO RUN A STORY ABOUT FAKE DOCUMENTS THAT BUSH USED TO JUSTIFY THE WAR THAN BEFORE AN ELECTION IN WHICH BUSH IS RUNNING? HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE MAD? WHY DOESN'T CBS JUST SHUT THEIR WHOLE OPERATION DOWN? WTF?

And he's not exactly a dove. From Kerry's speech today at Temple:

My fellow Americans, the most urgent national security challenge we face is the war against those who attacked our country on September 11th, the war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. As president, I will fight a tougher, smarter, more effective war on terror. My priority will be to find and capture or kill the terrorists before they get us.

President Bush was right to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban. I supported that decision. So did our country and our allies. So did the world.

But since then, again and again, the President has made the wrong choices in the war on terror… around the world and here at home.

Instead of using U.S. forces to capture Osama bin Laden… the President outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who let bin Laden slip away. That was the wrong choice. ... That was the wrong choice. ... That was the wrong choice. ... That was the wrong choice. ... That was the wrong choice. ... That was the wrong choice.

The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy – Al Qaeda -- which killed more than three thousand people on 9/11 and which still plots our destruction today. And there’s just no question about it: the President’s misjudgment, miscalculation and mismanagement of the war in Iraq all make the war on terror harder to win. Iraq is now what it was not before the war – a haven for terrorists. George Bush made Saddam Hussein the priority. I would have made Osama bin Laden the priority. As president, I will finish the job in Iraq and refocus our energies on the real war on terror.

And my litmus test: loose nukes (back):

Twelve years ago, we began a bipartisan program to help these nations secure and destroy those weapons. It is incredible – and unacceptable -- that in the three years after 9/11, President Bush hasn’t stepped up our effort to lock down the loose nuclear weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere. More such materials were secured in the two years before 9/11 than in the two years after.

When I’m president, denying our most dangerous enemies the world’s most dangerous weapons will become the central priority for America.

At our seaports we’re physically inspecting only 5% of the cargo coming into America. The Bush Administration is spending more in Iraq in four days than they’ve spent protecting our ports for all of the last three years.

For al Qaeda, this war is a struggle for the heart and soul of the Muslim world. We will win this war only if the terrorists lose that struggle. We will win when ordinary people from Nigeria to Egypt to Pakistan to Indonesia know they have more to live for than to die for. We will win when they once again see America as the champion, not the enemy, of their legitimate yearning to live in just and peaceful societies. We will win when we stop isolating ourselves and start isolating our enemies. The world knows the difference between empty promises and genuine commitment.

So we will win when we show that America uses its economic power for the common good, doing our share to defeat the abject poverty, hunger, and disease that destroy lives and create failed states in every part of the world. The world’s poorest countries, suffering under crushing debt burdens, need particular attention. As president, I will lead the international community to cancel the debt of the most vulnerable nations in return for them living up to goals of social and economic progress.

We will win when we work with our allies, to enable children in poor countries to get a quality basic education. More than 50 percent of the population in the Arab and Muslim world is under the age of 25. The future is a race between schools that spark learning and schools that teach hate. We have to preempt the haters. We have to win the war of ideas. New generations must believe there is more to life than salvation through martyrdom.
(via John Kerry transcript)

As I say, he's no dove. Neither am I. After all, we can hardly have fundamentalists flying airplanes into our buildings—any more than we can have them loading loose nukes into shipping containers and setting the timers.

My only concern: The speech reads great. Can anyone tell me how the speech sounded? Remember Xan's crucial insight: "Bushspeak is not meant to be read, but to be performed." (back) How was Kerry's speech as a performance? Readers?

UPDATE Hey, guess what! Kerry can interact with a heckler without having them arrested, or having morans in the crowd drown them out with that noxious "Four More Years!" chant, or having his thugs assault them. What a concept! Alert reader pol writes:

I saw most of the speech. It was excellent.

Someone interrupted [Kerry] in the middle of the speech and asked him what he would do about AIDS. He stopped his speech, spoke about how he had sponsored legislation for AIDS research and how Bush has paid out very little of the money he's promised for AIDS, then segued back into his speech seamlessly. It was impressive to see him connect like that, and a nice touch, too.

Remember yesterday, in the Rose-Petal-and-Chocolates Garden? Bush said the "right track/wrong track" polls were better in Iraq than they were here. Aside from the fact that he is receiving some well-deserved mockery for what this says about people's attitudes here, Atrios points us to a genuine find by a party who goes by the nom-de-blog Balta :

Who exactly did that poll that Mr. Bush cited in his press conference which said that Iraqis were more optimistic about their country than the U.S.? Here's the answer.

Bush was referring to a survey by the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit group aimed at promoting democracy, which showed that more than 51% of Iraqis felt their country was headed "in the right direction." Thirty-one percent said it was headed in the wrong direction.

Now, suspicious as I usually am of our "Liberal" media, something struck me as curious about this. They call it the "International Republican Institute".

Cue scary music. Here's a partial list of the governance and participants in this IRI. Affiliations have been emboldened (sorry) for emphasis:

John McCain Chairman (R)
Michael V. Kostiw Vice-Chairman - also Vice President, International Government Affairs at ChevronTexaco
U.S. Representative David Dreier
Lawrence S. Eagleburger - Short-term Secretary of State under Bush 1
Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. - Former Chairman of the Republican Party
Alison B. Fortier - Director, Lockheed Martin Missile Defense Programs
Susan Golding - Former Republican Mayor of San Diego
U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, (R-Neb)
Robert M. Kimmitt - US ambassador to Germany under Bush 1
Dr. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick - Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
U.S. Representative Jim Kolbe, (R-Ariz)
Brent Scowcroft - Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Bush 1.
William J. Hybl - Bush 2's U.S. Rep to U.N. General Assembly
Fred Meyer - Former Chairman, RNC Victory 2000 and the Presidential Inauguration 2001 Executive Committee
Alec L. Poitevint, II - National Committeeman, Georgia Republican National Committee
Marilyn Ware - Board of Trustees, American Enterprise Institute

U.S. tax dollars go to fund the thing, and they really mean it when they say "Republican." They've been potentially involved in the coups in Venezuela and Haiti. THey even hosted a talk during the Republican National Convention. It also has a current budget of over $20 million dollars.

Down in Atrios' comments on this post we find the following by a commentor known as Count Asterisk:

51% said Right Track
31% said Wrong Track

Breaking the numbers down further:

18% said "Go away, go away"

15% shot at the poll taker
14% kidnapped the poll taker
2% kidnapped and shot the poll taker

51% said "We love America, we love America, please don't shoot us"

Run over to Balta's place and take a look, he has details on this outfit far beyond this brief excerpt. Let's just say this IRI is not nearly as interested in promoting "democracy" as they are "Republicancy." And overthrowing elected governments from time to time, but only when people were foolish enough to elect the wrong governments, dammit.

Heh.

Ha ha ha.

Bwaa-hah-haha-ha-ha!

The Defense Department released the records in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press. Friday was the court-ordered deadline for the Pentagon to turn over all records it could find on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service.

The release marked the second Friday night in a row that the Defense Department has released more of the president's National Guard files. The White House has repeatedly announced this year that all of Bush's records have been released, only to have the Pentagon come up with more files in response to the AP's lawsuit and FOIA requests.

The records do not have information about the most controversial aspects of Bush's service: gaps in attendance for as long as six months in 1972 and 1973 and the future president's decision to skip a required medical examination in 1972 that ended his certification to fly F-102A fighters.
(via AP)

Snort!

So, where was Bush during his missing year? And why has no witness come forward to claim that $50,000 reward?

And why did Bush miss that medical exam?

And why on earth is Bush proud of a record that ends with being grounded?

And is Bush just as proud of the thousands he's sent to their deaths in his own war?

So much for sovreignty.

George Will—WTF?!—writes:

After "This Week" arranged with Allawi's office for Sunday's interview, the U.S. State Department called ABC to say that the office of U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte in Baghdad had decided that the interview would not happen until this coming Sunday, after Allawi's U.S. visit. This attempt by the U.S. embassy to exercise sovereignty over the prime minister raised interesting questions about just what was actually transferred on June 28 when sovereignty was supposedly given to the Iraqi government. The White House recognized the inconvenience of such questions. The interview occurred.
(South Missippi Su n Herald via Josh Marshall, who is getting snarkier and snarkier these days.)

But, I dunno. This may be a little exteme. I mean, that thug Acting President Rove controls "President" [cough] Bush's schedule, so why shouldn't that thug Ambassador Negroponte control "President" [cough] Allawi's schedule? Let's be reasonable here.

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing.

Yesterday, I mentioned listening to President Bush in his joint press conference with PM Allawi, held in the White House rosey scenario garden , and asked the question, did I hear correctly, did he just say that the electric grid in Iraq was performing above pre-war levels, and asked readers if I hadn't just heard the President of the US tell an easily verifiable lie.

Well, in a land far away, Riverbend was also listening to the President; although, as she tells us, she usually avoids doing so, she was curious to see what Allawi was up to. The title of the post is "Liar, Liar," and here is what she has to say about the electricity in Baghdad.

My favorite part was when he claimed, "Electricity has been restored above pre-war levels..." Even E. had to laugh at that one. A few days ago, most of Baghdad was in the dark for over 24 hours and lately, on our better days, we get about 12 hours of electricity. Bush got it wrong (or Allawi explained it to incorrectly)- the electricity is drastically less than pre-war levels, but the electricity BILL is way above pre-war levels. Congratulations Iraqis on THAT!! Our electricity bill was painful last month. Before the war, Iraqis might pay an average of around 5,000 Iraqi Dinars a month for electricity (the equivalent back then of $2.50) - summer or winter. Now, it's quite common to get bills above 70,000 Iraqi Dinars... for half-time electricity.

She's absolutely right; the President's speech was almost interchangeable with ones he's given six months ago, six months before that, in fact, all the speeches he's given have been variations on the same "everything's great in Iraq" theme ever since it first began to occur to everyone else that everything wasn't. That's the President's Rovian modus operandi; deny, deny, lie, lie, attack, attack.

As Jon Stewart noted on the Daily Show, Allawi's speech sounded like it had been written by Bush speechwriters. Stewart is an American Jew, so am I, Riverbend is an Iraqi muslim, but the truth is still the truth, and our common humanity makes us more alike than different, at least when it comes to talking back to a TV screen.

I sat listening, trying not to focus too much on his face, but rather on the garbage he was reiterating for at least the thousandth time since the war. I don't usually talk back to the television, but I really can't help myself when Bush is onscreen. I sit there talking back to him- calling him a liar, calling him an idiot, wondering how exactly he got so far and how they're allowing him to run for re-election. E. sat next to me on the couch, peeved, "Why are we even watching this?!" He made a jump for the remote control (which I clutch to shake at the television to emphasize particular points)- a brief struggle ensued and Riverbend came out victorious. You know things are really going downhill in Iraq, when the Bush speech-writers have to recycle his old speeches. Listening to him yesterday, one might think he was simply copying and pasting bits and pieces from the older stuff.

She also helps to put in perspective Allawi's performance on Thursday.

After Bush finished his piece about the glamorous changes in Iraq, Allawi got his turn. I can't seem to decide what is worse- when Bush speaks in the name of Iraqi people, or when Allawi does. Yesterday's speech was particularly embarrassing. He stood there groveling in front of the congress- thanking them for the war, the occupation and the thousands of Iraqi lives lost... and he did it all on behalf of the Iraqi people. It was infuriating and for maybe the hundredth time this year, I felt rage. Yet another exile thanking the Bush administration for the catastrophe we're trying to cope with. Our politicians are outside of the country 90% of the time (by the way, if anyone has any news of our president Ghazi Ajeel Al Yawir, do let us know- where was he last seen or heard?), the security situation is a joke, the press are shutting down and pulling out and our beloved exiles are painting rosey pictures for the American public- you know- so everyone who voted for Bush can sleep at night.

Try and get your boggled mind to think for a moment about the implications of major Iraqi politicians being outside of the country 90% of the time. Read the whole thing.

We should probably note that Riverbend's take on her own country is markedly different from that which one gets from another Iraqi blog, "Iraq, The Model." I read "Ali" and his compatriots fairly regularly, and I don't quite know what to make of them. I'm prepared to believe that many Iraqs feel the same committment to a pluralistic, democratic future for Iraq, but find myself put off by their easy acceptance of so much misery being visited on their countrymen, their soaring rhetoric which mirrors so perfectly Bush and the American right wing, and most of all, I question his readiness to claim that anyone who is currently resisting the occupation is nothing more nor less than a terrorist. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the portrait painted in the Guardian/Observer of at least one insurgent strongly suggested that he is anything but a hater of either democratic governance, or Americans as a people, and that if the Bush administration had made good on any of its promises, they would have won the patient support of more Iraqis than they've managed to. My question about Ali is why its so difficult for him to imagine that there were other ways of deposing Saddam, and other ways to help the Iraiqis toward a democratic future other than a full scale primarily American invasion whose purpose was not merely to get rid of Saddam, but even more importantly, to deliver all of Iraq into the hands of Bush & co?

I don't read Riverbend because she confirms the negative view of the occupation that I want to have; what is happening in Iraq breaks my heart. I read her because of her intelligence, gift for writing, and her honesty, and the rare opportunity to hear first-hand from such a sensibility what is happening in a place where history is happening right before our eyes, a history for which we Americans have a primary responsibility.

UPDATE Some numbers from Kos ("put together by USAID, are distributed to international aid workers and NGOs")."Liar, Liar," indeed.—Lambert

Finally! Someone in the media (Dana Milbank) has recognized that W's use of fear for partisan purposes in the War on Terra is like John Adams's use of the "Quasi War" on France!

Such accusations have been a component of American politics since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and surfaced in the modern era during the McCarthy communist hunt and the Vietnam War protests.

In a column for the History News Network, I suggested this more than two years ago. It's about time someone finally said it. I've been waiting for this moment for quite some time.

Of course, Adams and the Federalists ultimately lost a close election in 1800 as most Americans (or, more accurately, most Americans who could vote at the time) rejected this fear-mongering and elected Thomas Jefferson president. Their fear-mongering didn't work.

Therefore it would be nice if history repeated itself in this instance.

Americans simply have to prove that they can't be scared into voting for an incompetent and bumbling incumbent administration. The Bush campaign is doing its best to "stampede the herd" and, so far, it appears to be working.

As I've said on a couple of different comments to posts here, if W wins the election, I think it's going to be a rough four years for W. I suspect the wheels will rapidly come off Iraq in the months following the election and the economy is apparently pretty soft so a "dubya dip" recession very well may be in our immediate future. Furthermore, as Iraq spending increases the deficit is going to approach $1 trillion annually within two or three years.

If Bush wins, it will be nice to pin all of these problems on his administration and his party. As Atrios said the other day, if Bush wins, will we then, finally, be able to agree that EVERYTHING is his fault and not that of the all-powerful Clenis?

A second four years for W would also put the final nail in the coffin for the efficacy of all that Republicans hold near and dear as far as economy and foreign policy is concerned. Tax cuts have failed to do a damn thing for the economy (they didn't really work that well during the 1980s either, by the way). Militarism and go-it-alone-ism haven't worked at all in Iraq and as anti-terrorism policy.

The worst part for a John Kerry administration would be that it would have to work really hard to clean up the the horrible mess that is our economic and foreign policy -- a mess that no Democrat created I might add.

To return to the historical parallel, it would be nice if Bush's administration was ultimately remembered as Adams's administration has been by historians: as a desperate cabal of fear-mongering incompetents who tried ham-handedly to hold onto their power and succeeded in destroying their own party in the process.

That outcome, even if (God forbid) it means another four years for W, would be fine with me.

Prime-Minister-du-Jour Allawi may wind up regretting his notion of pushing for a "trial" of Sadaam before "the" elections. (If you saw much of the coverage of the Rose Petal Appearance of the two potentates yesterday you might have noted how it was occasionally hard to determine just which country's elections were being referred to at any given time.)

The proposal, however, has brought some voices bubbling back up out of the Memory Hole into which they had fallen. One of those voices belongs to a Chalabi, and--dig this!--he's the one who comes off sounding like the voice of reason, sanity, and respect for something resembling the rule of law:

(via AP via Jackson MS Clarion-Ledger)

JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The former director of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal said that interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi has taken over the court and could rush forward with "show trials" of Saddam Hussein and other former Iraqi leaders to boost his popularity before presidential elections scheduled for January.

In an e-mailed statement Thursday, Salem Chalabi, the former chairman of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, urged the international community to prevent Allawi's government from politicizing the trials.

Allawi has said he wants the trials to begin sooner than the one or two years the court argues it needs to delve into tons of documents and prepare to prosecute Saddam and the top members of his regime. Allawi replaced Chalabi with a member of his own party - though Chalabi insists the move was illegitimate.

In August, Iraq's Central Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on murder charges for Chalabi, and the court said it wanted Chalabi's uncle, prominent exile politician Ahmad Chalabi, on counterfeit charges.

Those charges have since been dropped,

Did you hear about that? Me neither. Dang, we gotta start following the news more...

but the murder investigation into the death of a Foreign Ministry official continues, Chalabi said.

"These murder charges were concocted in order to discredit me and the Iraqi Special Tribunal," he said.

Chalabi said his ouster was a violation of the court's U.S.-written founding law, which appointed him for a three-year term and holds the tribunal as independent from the government.

He said the investigations were not ready for indictments or trials that would meet minimum legal standards.

One question never, ever asked: What laws is Sadaam charged with violating? Pre-war law? What specific statute? You think that Sadaam, any more than Bush, being in control of the entire apparatus of government, didn't have some clause in there saying "If the President sez it's legal, then dammit, it's okay"? That would seem to bring up a problem with the notion that you can't have an ex post facto law--you can't charge somebody with something that wasn't illegal at the time it was done even if the law changes later.

Or is it postwar, Occupation "Provisional Authority" law? That brings up another set of challenges. If it's going to be a kangaroo court, which seems inevitable, where the charge consists of "You're a naughty, naughty man, dammit!" let's just admit it and get on with the theater and not tarnish the notion of "law" by pretending it's a trial.

Lambert notes (here) that Google News "skews right". This is said to have complicated reasons, which we believe because the word "algorithms" was used. Some rightwardness is less hard to understand. We have a little kabuki theater playing out in Norfolk, Virginia:

Richmond Times-Dispatch

NORFOLK A news-talk radio station in southeastern Virginia has dumped CBS News because of listener outrage over Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" report questioning President Bush's National Guard service.

Democracy in action, right? The People rose up and demanded Change, and this humble station nobly listened to their consumers. That's sure what they'd like you to believe anyway:

"We had so much outcry from our listeners. They were calling and complaining and saying they wouldn't listen to a CBS newscast anymore," said Lisa Sinclair, general manager of Sinclair Communications, which owns WNIS and four other stations in the Norfolk area, home to the world's largest naval base.

"This is a conservative market, and people felt that CBS was exhibiting a great deal of liberal bias and lost credibility with this situation," Sinclair said, referring to the Sept. 8 story. Sinclair did not know how many upset listeners had called the station.

We've seen the name "Sinclair Communications" a couple of times before, haven't we? Big supporters of The War on iWreck, big supporters of Bush as it just happens. In addition, the company is based in Minneapolis. Lisa Sinclair wouldn't know Norfolk from Nashville. But still, this was all spontaneous outrage, right? From local Norfolkians? Um, maybe so, maybe not:

Station managers at several CBS affiliates said they appear to be a target of a national e-mail campaign placing pressure on the network to oust Rather as anchorman of the "CBS Evening News."

Many e-mailers offer the same message: I will not watch CBS News again until Rather is gone, said Bob Lee, president and general manager of WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, and head of the CBS affiliate board. Lee said he can't recall any other issue getting such a big response from viewers.

The e-mail campaign appears to originate from a blogger on the Web site Rathergate.com, who is forwarding e-mails to stations around the country.

"The buck has to stop," said Mike Krempasky of Falls Church, who works for a political advertising company and set up Rathergate.com, as well as the conservative-oriented Web site Redstate.org.

And they say one man's opinions don't amount to a hill of beans in this country anymore. I nominate Mike Krempasky for the 2004 Hill of Beans Award for his contributions to expanding diversity in public discourse, so long as all the diversity agrees with him.

"Produced by the U.S. Department of State, Office of International Information Programs" - http://usinfo.state.gov/

Countries Where al Qaeda Has Operated Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda - (Posted November 10, 2001)

This list was posted to the State Depatment's webpage on Oct. 10, 2001:

Albania | Algeria | Afghanistan | Azerbaijan | Australia | Austria | Bahrain | Bangladesh | Belgium | Bosnia | Egypt | Eritrea | France | Germany | India | Iran | Ireland | Italy | Jordan | Kenya | Kosovo | Lebanon | Libya | Malaysia | Mauritania | Netherlands | Pakistan | Philippines | Qatar | Russia | Saudi Arabia | Somalia | South Africa | Sudan | Switzerland | Tajikistan | Tanzania | Tunisia | Turkey | Uganda | United Arab Emirates | United Kingdom | United States | Uzbekistan | Yemen

Uh....what's missing from this list? If you answered "Iceland" - YOU - yes you! - win the Pontiac Sunbird with the rollaway sunroof!

John archy McKay has more including a copy of the 2001 State Dept. map. As well as info and links.....so go check that out. (includes a Village Voice link - who also discovered the map.)

Also noted here: Uncle Horn Head who reminds us that Hesiod at Counterspin Central is back in action.

*

We certainly hope it's not bias—though some human at Google-owned blogger shamelessly pimping for the winger Mighty Wurlitzer (back) might give us pause.

The US Annenberg Online Journalism Review has a reasonable hypothesis:

Despite those predictable flaws, it's been puzzling to read Google News' takes on John Kerry and George W. Bush over the past month.

n addition to mainstream news outlets from both sides of the political fence (say, NPR and The Washington Post on the left and The Washington Times and New York Post on the right), there were 34 anti-Kerry screeds from the second-tier websites. There was only one pro-Kerry item, from CommonDreams.org.

Far from an isolated example, the pattern has repeated itself throughout the past month. Small conservative Web sites such as Useless-Knowledge, Men's News Daily, Michnews and ChronWatch turn up in disproportionate numbers when clicking on news about John Kerry. Useless-Knowledge, for instance, made up 12 of the first 100 results for John Kerry on Friday, and 11 of the first 100 results Saturday.

By contrast, a search on George Bush or George W. Bush typically results in a fairly neutral, evenly balanced set of results from both sides of the political spectrum, with many of the same small conservative sites showing up to sing the president's praises.

What's going on? Have Google's search results been hijacked by Fox News?

"I think what you're seeing is an odd little linguistic artifact," said Zuckerman, former vice president of Tripod.com and now a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society who studies search engines. The chief culprit, he theorized, is that mainstream news publications refer to the senator on second reference as Kerry, while alternative news sites often use the phrase "John Kerry" multiple times, for effect or derision. To Google News' eye, that's a more exact search result.

A second possible factor, Zuckerman said, is that small, alternative news sites have no hesitancy about using "John Kerry" in a headline, while most mainstream news sites eschew first names in headlines. The inadvertent result is that the smaller sites score better results with the search engines.

"You have to wonder why some of these wacky sites make the cut," he added. With an occasional exception, Weblogs are generally not found among the Google News results, so Zuckerman had some advice for aspiring political publishers who want to game the search engines: Don't blog -- start an alternative news network. Use terms like George Bush and John Kerry frequently, rather than their last names alone, in both your text and headlines. Publish new works frequently.

What Zuckerman calls gaming the system, others call optimizing your site.
(Online Journalism Review via Talking Points Memo)

Interesting.

Isn't this another way of saying "Don't mourn, organize"?

And isn't there one other factor? It's an awful lot easier to set up a network when you're funded. And as we know, there's been a lot of funding in the past for winger networks doing meme transmittal. $300 million worth...

We need an equalizer, don't we?

1. Super analysis of the Iraq clusterfuck by Leah (back).

2. Start spreadin' the memes:

(via "The Mighty Atrios)

It's the Amazing Two-faced Man! (And does that make Dick "Dick" Cheney the Dog-faced Boy?)

3. Hunter: TANG typewriter: ROVE did it. Why am I not surprised? And why isn't this post over at Fables of the Reconstruction? Heh.

4. They're playing our song! OK, so it's a classic.

Acting President Rove clues us in on what Bush will consider His mandate to be, if He takes office a second time:

White House political adviser Karl Rove said President Bush, if re-elected, will claim a legislative mandate to institute personal Social Security accounts, to simplify and reform the tax code and to extend No Child Left Behind standards into high school.

When you hear a Republican use the word "reform," put your hand on your wallet.

Although the election debate has been dominated by foreign policy and national security, Mr. Rove told editors and reporters of The Washington Times at a luncheon yesterday that the president also will claim a mandate to move on domestic issues.

Weird. Bush didn't run on that platform. But now He's going to claim a mandate? Oh, I forgot. That's what He did the last time He won took office.

Mr. Rove yesterday said the administration won't produce specific policy for changing Social Security during this campaign, but it's clear what Mr. Bush wants and, if he wins, he will consider that a mandate to move forward.
(via The Moonie Paper)

Since we already know that "tax reform" means that only people who work for paychecks will get taxed, and we already know that Bush didn't bother to fund No Child Left Behind, let's look at Social Security. After all, giving up my guaranteed retirement check so that those fine upstanding people in the financial industry (back) can rake off a commission—I mean, where do I sign up?

And here I want to go back to a post that I wrote on July 4, 2003, back when we were all over at Atrios (see The Constitution, Corporatism, and "Loot, Repeat") It's based on an article by Nick Confessore, which you should also read (see "Welcome to the Machine") The "Loot, repeat" piece even has a handy chart!

The "Loot, repeat" concept has two simple points:

(1) With Republicans, when they say it's not about the money, it's about the money.If they say "reform," it's about the money. If they say "values", it's about the money. And especially if they say "freedom," it's about the money. As we'll see in a minute, Social Security is an especially obvious case of this.

(2) With Republicans, there's a method to their madness; their operations have a signature that you can watch out for. Here it is:

(1) Target: Pick an existing government revenue stream
(2) Transmit memes: Focus on the Mighty Wurlitzer on the target
(3) Privatize: Write the legislation "privatizing" the revenue stream
(4) Loot: Steer the privatized service to a wired (Republican) firm, and
(5) Repeat: Take a payoff from the wired firm, as campaign contributions or otherwise. With the payoff money, return to step (1) and pick new targets.
(Quoting "Loot, Repeat"

A simple example is Medicare prescription drugs [step (1)]. It is not an accident that the program is more complicated, more costly, and involves an initial corporate subsidy. That's the result of steps (3) and (4). As for step (5)—no doubt an alert reader can give the figures on the campaign contributions to the Republicans from Big Pharma.

Now, Social Security is the biggest money pot there is [step (1)]. And years of unrelenting winger propaganda and phony projections (back) [step (2)] have made the need for "reform" part of the CW. Never mind that the arithmetic doesn't add up (2-1=4). In fact, the looting [step (4)] has already begun (back); part of the Clinton surplus that Bush pissed away with the reverse Robin Hood move of giving the super-rich tax cuts was built up from ordinary people's pay checks through FICA contributions. Oh, that would be step 5—as the beneficiaries of Bush's largesse have already given the Republicans record contributions to complete his rape of the public purse.

Now, however, in election 2004, Bush is going for it all—all $2 trillion-worth of loot (step 4). (back),

Is it any wonder that his guys are energetic and very well-funded? Is it any wonder that such a big pile of cash draws whores?

So, when Republicans say it isn't about the money, it's about the money.

And when Republicans say "reform," put your hand on your wallet.

Especially with Social Security.

NOTE Readers, this is a complex issue and hard to explain simply. I believe Kerry has to hammer Bush on the war. But I also believe that the fate of Social Security is what this election is all about.

NOTE This post is an attempt at framing a la Lakoff, as written up in crucial post by Kos.

Words fail me:

"[BUSH] But what's important for the American people to hear is reality," Bush said, turning toward Allawi. "And the reality's right here in the form of the prime minister."
(via ABC)

Incredible but true!

To an immigrant, Arnold Schwarzenegger told delegates at the Republican convention last month, there is no country "more welcoming than the United States of America." And most of the time, that's true.

But it wasn't true last week in Miami Beach, where the Department of Homeland Security attempted to ban a nonpartisan voter registration operation from setting up tables on the sidewalk outside a massive naturalization ceremony at that city's convention center. The DHS complained that Mi Familia Vota would be blocking the doors at the swearing-in. But last Thursday, U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan ruled that the right to register voters was protected by the First Amendment, though he did stipulate how much space the group's tables could take up.

If that arrangement seems to you the kind of compromise that Mi Familia Vota and the DHS could have arrived at themselves without making a literal federal case out of it, you underestimate the Bush administration's aversion to voting by new immigrants -- particularly new Hispanic immigrants. (The DHS didn't respond to Mi Familia Vota's request for a meeting.) In states such as Florida and Nevada -- battleground states with Republican election officials and burgeoning Hispanic populations -- the activities of groups such as Mi Familia Vota have been challenged by GOP officeholders, though it's a new wrinkle to have the DHS join the fray.
(via WaPo)

Oddly, I read this story in today's paper edition of the Newark Star Ledger, but I can't find it on the site. And I can't find it on WaPo either. Now, before I go all paranoid....

Oh, wait a minute. I forgot. Inerrant Boy is Chosen of God to Lead His People. So anyone who doesn't vote for him is going to Hell. And what more could we do, to keep Der Heimat, whoops! The Homeland Secure than preventing people who are going to Hell from voting? Well, a lot more, actually, but this will do for a start.

Remember how "Brother" Bandar (bin-Sultan bin-Bush) promised that, come hell or high water, Saudi Arabia would use its leverage with OPEC to drop oil prices just in time for the election? Apparently somebody isn't clapping hard enough, because things aren't working too well there.

And remember how, when prices were spiking last spring, at or over $2.00 a gallon at the pump almost everywhere, Dear Leader not only did nothing to help the situation but aggravated it by continuing to buy crude for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, because that was absolutely vital to the national interest?

Funny how things change. Funny timing too, the cynical might think.

(via AP)

The Bush administration said Thursday it is weighing a request from several U.S. refiners to borrow crude oil from the nation's emergency stockpile to help offset supply disruptions along the Gulf Coast from Hurricane Ivan.

``Certainly Hurricane Ivan had an effect on the supply of oil imports and production in the Gulf of Mexico,'' said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. ``It has limited some refiners' access to crude oil supplies.''

He said that the Department of Energy was reviewing the requests.

In the past, President Bush has resisted calls to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, located in Texas and Louisiana, in an effort to counter soaring prices. Bush had criticized President Clinton's move in the fall of 2000 to tap the reserve, saying it was a political effort to help Democrat Al Gore, Bush's opponent in the 2000 election.

Damn! The potency of that man is just amazing. It's still the fault of The Clenis!

As you may have heard, Riverbend has posted for the first time since early August.

With her usual searing honesty, she reports her reaction to seeing a bootleg video of "Farhenheit 911" and tells us what 9/11 means to her as an Iraqi, living through this hellish American occupation that for over a year and a half now has predicated the terms under which Iraqis will live. Yes, non-Iraqi jihadists have had a part in all this, but we created the conditions of chaos, and the porous borders that have let them use Iraq as a forward position from which to wage their Jihadist war against the west, and not incidentally thereby demonstrate the impotence of the world's greatest superpower. Our President seeks to camouflage that woeful set of facts by pretending it's all part of the plan; "Bring 'em on," he says, better we fight them in Iraq than here, oh, and, by the way, we're to be congratulated for the blessings of liberty we're bringing to Iraqis.

Writing on September 15th, Riverbend tells us about a few of those blessings:

The last few days, Baghdad has been echoing with explosions. We woke up to several loud blasts a few days ago. The sound has become all too common. It’s like the heat, the flies, the carcasses of buildings, the broken streets and the haphazard walls coming up out of nowhere all over the city… it has become a part of life. We were sleeping on the roof around three days ago, but I had stumbled back indoors at around 5 am when the electricity returned and was asleep under the cool air of an air-conditioner when the first explosions rang out.I tried futilely to cling to the last fragments of a fading dream and go back to sleep when several more explosions followed. Upon getting downstairs, I found E. flipping through the news channels, trying to find out what was going on. “They aren’t nearly fast enough,” he shook his head with disgust. “We’re not going to know what’s happening until noon.”

Try for a moment to imagine yourself, at night, in your own bedroom, in your house or apartment, in your own town or city, not being surprised anymore by bombs exploding, or attacks from the air: imagine your own life, and the lives of the people who matter to you, being lived in a world where walls are haphazard, streets are broken, and buildings are carcasses, and no real end in sight to the violence of this war that isn't a war, because the President of someone else's country keeps proclaiming that this army of strangers he's sent to liberate you knows what's best for you, will stay in your country until that President of someone else's country "succeeds" in making your country what he thinks it ought to be, because "failure," despite all the failed promises of reconstruction of a functioning infrastructure, "is not an option," though killing and maiming increasing numbers of Iraqis clearly is.

Of course we can't really imagine that reality, not even those of us who were against this invasion from the first, though not against holding Saddam to account, on the matter of WMD and on the matter of his violation of the human rights of Iraqis. What distinguishs us from Bush & co and its battalion of keyboard tough guy idealists, so gung ho for a war and occuapation they wouldn't be caught dead fighting in, or reporting on first hand, is that it doesn't even occur to the likes of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, David Brooks or Wm. Kristol, that any reality other than the one in their own heads is worth trying to imagine.

The increasingly invaluable Spencer Ackerman makes the point in his TNR blog, "Iraqued," in a post about hearing Paul Wolfowitz addressing a group of visiting Iraqi dignitaries at a evening affair just last week; Ackerman compares two examples of Wolfowitz's "now-signature rhetorical mixture of delusion, arrogance, and platitude." with his reputation as a true paragon of neo-con idealism. (link, subscriber only)

Our plan for Iraq is what Iraqis can do for Iraq. Your future is in your hands.

It's wonderful to see Iraq standing up on its own two feet, taking its rightful place in the international community. ... We can't tell you how to solve your problems in your country. ... There are going to be extraordinary days ahead, and difficult days as well, both positive and negative.

Ackerman comments:

If you thought he couldn't get any more dismissive with other people's lives, he did: "Iraqis probably understand the challenges more than Americans." You think? If President Bush is allowed to continue his non-strategy in Iraq, the Iraqis listening to Wolfowitz last night stand a very good chance of being murdered by insurgents, like Izzedine Salim of the Iraqi Governing Council was. Wolfowitz stands a very good chance, by contrast, of returning to an endowed chair at a think tank. Just minutes before he spoke, I chatted with a top official of Iraq's Interior Ministry, who through an interpreter complained with astonishing candor about the U.S.'s inability to arm and equip police officers, whose morale he called "low." The Iraqi government, he said bluntly, was much weaker than the various insurgencies consuming the country.

edit

....on the question of postwar Iraq, the intelligence community has understood the situation on the ground exponentially better than Wolfowitz. His method of dealing with difficult questions is to dismiss those who ask them. Consciously echoing Bush's convention-speech reference to a 1946 New York Times dispatch about occupied Germany--which he took completely out of context--Wolfowitz bragged about finding a line from Life magazine in 1947 that said "Yes, America got rid of Nazism, but maybe the cure is worse than the disease."

edit

And that reference reveals something significant about Wolfowitz, Bush, and the supposed intellectual fault lines within the administration. There is a conceit in right-wing circles--a conceit shared by both Pat Buchanan and Bill Kristol--that the administration neoconservatives led by Paul Wolfowitz are somehow "different" from President Bush. In fact, three years after September 11, they are exactly alike in both program and intellectual style: dogmatic yet adrift, and relentlessly deceitful.

Tuesday, dogma adrift and relentless deceitfulness were in rare form, on display first at the UN, where the President didn't even try and pretend that he meant anything he was saying, whether it was the fiction that the he stood with the people of Iraq who want nothing more than a continuation of the current situation, or the fiction that Prime Minister Allawyi was the real head of a real Iraqi government that expresses the real desires of most Iraqis. But it was the President's performance in the joint press conference with Allawi that struck me as the high point of the day.

PRESIDENT BUSH: A couple of opening statements. We'll answer -- I'll answer a couple of questions from the U.S. media, AP and Reuters, and I'll answer a question from the Iraqi media, as well.

First, Mr. Prime Minister, it's been my delight to visit with you. I appreciate your courage. I appreciate your leadership. I am -- I share the same confidence you share that Iraq will be a free nation, and as a nation, our world will be safer and America will be more secure. We look forward to working with you, sir. I'm proud that you have -- you and your administration have stood strong in the face of the terrorists who want to disrupt progress in Iraq.

Today -- yesterday an American citizen was beheaded. We express our heartfelt condolences. We send our prayers to the Armstrong family. We also stand in solidarity with the American that is now being held captive, while we send our prayers to his wife. These killers want to shake our will --

PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: Yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: They want to determine the fate of the Iraqi people. We will not allow these thugs and terrorists to decide your fate, and to decide our fate. As your election draws closer, I'm confident the terrorists will try to stop the progress by acts of violence. And I appreciate your will, and I appreciate your strength. And we'll stand with you, Mr. Prime Minister. Welcome.

PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: Thank you very much. I would like to pay my condolences really to the people who lost their lives in defending -- fighters of freedom and democracy. The barbaric action of yesterday really is unbelievable. It demonstrates how much these criminals are wanting to damage our worth across Iraq, as well as in the civilized world.

We in Iraq appreciate tremendously the courage President Bush took in deciding to wage war to destroy Saddam. The atrocities and tyranny and -- atrocities that have been committed when Saddam was around was unbelievable. We show a lot of -- hundreds of thousands of mass graves in Iraq.

The war now in Iraq is really not only an Iraqi war, it's a war for the civilized world to fight terrorists and terrorism. And there is no route but the route of winning, and we are going to prevail and we are going to win, regardless of how much damage they are going to make and cause in Iraq and elsewhere.

edit

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, sir. Scott.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. You've answered some of Senator Kerry's criticisms in the last couple days about your Iraq policy. A couple of Republicans have raised some questions, as well, in the last couple days. Senator Hagel said that, "sharp analysis of our policies is required. We didn't do that in Vietnam, to the point where we finally lost." Senator McCain, you're not being "as straight as we would want him to be," about the situation in Iraq. What do you say to them?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Both Senators you quoted strongly want me elected as President. 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 my opponent made yesterday when he said that the world was better off with Saddam in power. I strongly disagree. It is in our interests that we deal with Prime Minister Allawi. It's in our interests that we work toward a free society in Iraq. And I believe we'll have a free society in Iraq, and I know that a free society in Iraq makes America safer and the world better off.

My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.

Who is from the Iraqi media?

Q Mr. President, how do you evaluate Mr. Allawi's visit to America? And in what way -- how can we -- what the result will be reflected on the situation of Iraq, as a result of this visit?

PRESIDENT BUSH: edit

This is an important visit because the Prime Minister will be able to explain clearly to the American people that not only is progress being made, that we will succeed. The American people have seen horrible scenes on our TV screens. And the Prime Minister will be able to say to them that in spite of the sacrifices being made, in spite of the fact that Iraqis are dying and U.S. troops are dying, as well, that there is a will amongst the Iraqi people to succeed. And we stand with them. It's also an important visit for me to say to the people of Iraq that America has given its word to help, and we'll keep our word.

Who is the Reuters man here?

Q Right here, Mr. President, thank you. Why do you think the CIA's assessment of conditions in Iraq are so much at odds with the optimism that you and Prime Minister Allawi are expressing at the moment?

PRESIDENT BUSH: The CIA laid out a -- several scenarios that said, life could be lousy, like could be okay, life could be better. And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like. The Iraqi citizens are defying the pessimistic predictions. The Iraqi citizens are headed toward free elections. This government has been in place for a little over two months, and the Iraqi citizens are seeing a determined effort by responsible citizens to lead to a more hopeful tomorrow. And I am optimistic we'll succeed.

edit

One thing is for certain. My discussions with Prime Minister Allawi reconfirm to me that the world is much better off with Prime Minister Allawi and his government in power. And any statement to the contrary is wrong. The idea somehow that the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power is an absurd notion.

That last, the waving of Saddam's bloody shirt in the face of anyone who questions the decision to go to war or the prosecution of the occupation is the President's security blanket, habitually clutched at to ward off all questions raised about the worsening situation in Iraq. And didn't he sound like a petulant child when brushing aside the CIA's own estimate of the dire security situation in Iraq? Just "guessing?" In 2002, when we'd had no human intelligence resources on the ground in Iraq since 1998, the Bush administration spoke with one voice to reassure us that the intelligence claims which confirmed Saddam's Iraq as a gathering threat were certain, you could take them to the bank, or slam dunk them through the nearest hoop. Now that we've had all kinds of human resources on the ground in Iraq for a year and a half now, our intelligence estimates are just guesses. Is a puzzlement.

In the context of Kerry's strong speech on Iraq this Monday, and the equally clear and strong position he articulated in Tuesday's press conference, Bush and Cheney's attempts to reduce all questions about Iraq to whether the world is a better place with Saddam Hussein under lock and key lacked their usual punch. Saddam in jail, big plus. Iraq on the brink of becoming a failed state, much bigger minus. Bush/Cheney ought to be able to recognize a cost/benefit analysis when they see one.

Based on Allawi's performance on Tuesday, in which each of his pronouncements mirrored exactly Bush administration talking points, I would predict that his address this morning to a joint session of Congress will display his readiness to be used by the Bush administration as part of its campaign for re-election.

For a dose of reality, read, if you haven't already, this compelling portrait from the Observer of a Sunni insurgent who initially welcomed the American overthrow of Saddam .

Intelligence experts in Iraq talk of three main types of insurgent. There is the Mahdi Army of Shia Muslims who follow the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and have led recent resistance to coalition forces in northern Baghdad, the central shrine city of Najaf, and Basra, the southern port under British control. There is also 'al-Qaeda' - non-Iraqi militants who have come to Iraq to wage jihad. And finally the 'former regime loyalists', who are said to want the return of Saddam Hussein or, if that is impossible, his Baath party.

Abu Mujahed, worryingly for the analysts, fits into none of these easy categories. For a start, he was pro-American before the invasion. 'The only way to breathe under the old regime was to watch American films and listen to their music,' he said. He had been a Bon Jovi fan.

Some of Mujahed's expectations were wholly unrealistic, but it wasn't disappointment that fed his disillusionment.

He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when, via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric, savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked through Baghdad.

'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here to help us but to destroy us,' he said.

Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer, said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not better.'

He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time had come. 'We realised. We had to act.'

Read the rest and you'll find Mujahed's reality is nowhere represented in what our President or "their" Prime Minister had to say this week. And note, too, that nowhere did the President seem to understand that Prime Minister Allawi's claim of sovereignity comes exclusively from us, there having been no elections as yet in Iraq.

Let us remember too, since it is devilishly difficulty to keep track of the mountain of mis-judgements made by this administration in Iraq, that the sole reason there are elections scheduled for January is that the Ayatollah Sistani vetoed the original Bremer/Bush plan by demonstrating his ability to put a hundred thousand protesting Iraqis in the street to demand direct elections to chose a interim government. Remember, too, that the only source Sistani was willing to believe about the non-feasibility of elections being held sooner than January of 2005 was the UN and Kofi Anan, and that Sistani was only willing to agree to the appointment of an interim government that would receive sovereignity from Bremer's coalition authority prior to elections if the UN played a prime role in the selection. And let us also not forget that the sudden revamping of the Brenner/Bush plan this summer to include an earlier than planned turnover of soverenity to an Iraqi government was the precise policy that both the UN and the non-coalition European countries were insisting was a necessary first step to get other countries to offer help on the ground in Iraq. So, in the end, Bush did a switcheroo, known in some quarters as a flip flop, but too late for American taxpayers, the American military on the ground in Iraq, or the Iraqi people to get the extra benefit from it that was available if Bush were ever able to listen to anyone outside his own small circle of advisors.

(BTW, I'm working on another post that will offer a talking points list arranged chronologically of all the mistakes made by Bush & co in Iraq from the point of the statue of Saddam coming down, so if any readers have suggestions, please email, or leave them in comments.)

Listen for a moment to the ambivalence of that Sunni insurgent, who, remember, has taken up arms against the American occupation:

Last week US military casualties in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, most killed since the end of the war by the actions of men like Abu Mujahed. The former engineering student said he does not know how many his group has killed: 'It is impossible to say what has been hit. I could boast of killing maybe 25, but to be honest we don't know,' he said. 'Maybe only five or six.'

'I know the soldiers have no choice about coming here and all have a family and friends,' he added. His justification for the struggle was an inconsistent mix of political and economic grievances and wounded pride: 'We are under occupation. They bomb the mosques, they kill a huge number of people. There is no greater shame than to see your country being occupied.'

He dismissed the interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, as 'the Americans' Barbie doll' but then says that if everyone had 'full bellies' no one would fight.

'Iraqis' top priority is to provide a good living for their families. I take home less than 250,000 ID (£100) a month and I have four children. I have to pay the rent, doctor's bills, my wife needs something, my house needs something. And a kilo of chicken costs 2,500 ID.'

'The US or the UK are not my enemy. I know that any individual US or UK citizen is very good, but we will keep fighting the occupying forces. We have no choice.'

It shouldn't have been that difficult to give a man like this, a Sunni who despised Saddam, a different choice, maybe two or three different choices. John Kerry is saying it isn't too late.

As I finish this post, I'm listening to Allawi this morning addressing congress. Wow, is he ever in Bush's pocket. Or perhaps its the other way around. And now in the Rose Garden, Bush is saying that the electrical grid in Iraq is fully functioning at pre-war levels. Am I missing something? Did I just hear our President tell a straight-up easily verifiable lie? Readers, please advise in comments.

I fear that Allawi is Bush's kind of guy; tough, resolute, mendacious, and an idealist about democracy and human rights, which is to say, he, like Bush, enjoys the sound of his own soaring rhetoric, while both men are relatively indifferent to the messy actuality of creating and preserving the institutions required to implement the rhetoric here on earth.

The best discussion I've read about Allawi is by Andrew Cockburn and can be found at Salon. Herewith, a sample:

May 29, 2004 There could be no more perfect evidence of the desperation among U.S. officials dealing with Iraq than the choice of veteran Baathist and CIA hireling Iyad Allawi as prime minister of the "sovereign" government due to take office after June 30. As one embittered Iraqi told me from Baghdad on Friday: "The appointment must have been orchestrated by Ahmed Chalabi in order to discredit the entire process." He was not entirely joking, given the fact that Chalabi joined the rest of the Governing Council in voting for Allawi despite their long and vicious rivalry.

Though he is Shiite, Allawi was once upon a time an active Baathist, a member of Saddam Hussein's political party, and is thought to enjoy much support among the officer corps of the old Iraqi army, and by extension among many former Baathists and influential Sunni. Indeed, there are reports that the reason Ahmed Chalabi, the neoconservative favorite, urged his friends in the White House to dissolve the army last year -- a decision now acknowledged to be the most disastrous of the occupation -- was Chalabi's fear of the support enjoyed by his rival (and cousin -- everyone in Baghdad is related) within the military.

Allawi cut his political teeth as a strong-arm Baathist student organizer before being dispatched by the party to London to run the Iraqi Student Union in Europe. Apart from the Iraqis he dutifully monitored, other Arab students with whom he came in contact were of considerable interest in Saddam's Baghdad, since they tended to be drawn from elite circles in the Middle East. They were also of more direct value to Allawi personally, garnering him a fruitful array of connections in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, which he then used with great effect in various business enterprises in the region. By the late 1970s he had become wealthy.

Cockburn goes into detail about Allawi's fascination with "the intrigue of intelligence operations," which led to the always paranoid Saddam's unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Allawi, and his subsequent career as an anti-Saddam exile, which has included a long rivalry with Chalabi.

The most interesting as well as depressing information Cockburn supplies is about the machinations of both Chalabi and Allawi, in concert with Bremer and the US to prevent the nomination of the UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi's first choice as interim Prime Minister, Hussein Shahristani.

Shahristani, a devout Shiite, would have been an inspired appointment. A man of extraordinary courage and integrity, he once told Saddam Hussein to his face that Iraq should not build a nuclear weapon. Predictably, he was tortured and put on trial for espionage, in the course of which he blithely insulted Saddam's parentage. He spent 10 years in solitary confinement in Abu Ghraib. "I probably survived execution because I was there on the direct orders of Saddam," Shahristani once told me. "And he simply forgot to sign my death warrant." He escaped disguised as a prison guard during the 1991 war after suborning a trusty who unlocked his cell and helped him flee.

Finding refuge in Iran, Shahristani refused to move on to comfortable exile in the West, preferring instead to stay in Iran and organize aid for otherwise friendless Iraqi refugees as well as the resistance inside Iraq itself. His unshakable independence eventually drove the Iranians to force him to move to London.

Returning to Iraq immediately after the war, Shahristani eschewed the trappings of power and cash rewards sought by other returning exiles and even refused to enter the U.S. Green Zone headquarters on the grounds it was occupied territory. He soon earned the trust and respect of Ayatollah Sistani. But that was not enough to protect him from self-interested intriguers like Allawi, Chalabi, and the representatives of the Islamist parties SCIRI and DAWA.

edit

The United Nations, charged with coming up with the new government, was taken by surprise by Allawi's selection. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said he "respects" the decision and is willing to work with Allawi, according to U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard. But the world body was less than effusive about the choice.

Me too. How could the Bush administration not see the greater value to the United States and what we say we hope to accomplish in Iraq of Shahristani over Allawi?

I'll talk about Kerry's speech about Iraq in a separate post, but for some idea of why his proposals may not be as utopian and impractical as they sound in the context of how the Bushies have handled the occupation of Iraq, take a look at this essay by Salim Lone, a surviving member of the UN delegation to Iraq in 2003. The essay, "I Lived to Tell the Tale: It wasn't Last Year's Bomb but American Policy which Destroyed the UN's Hopes in Iraq," details the way in which the Bush administration had already undercut the ability of the UN to be of use in creating an intelligent occupation that might have succeeded to the benefit of both the US and the Iraqi population, even before that terrible bomb of August killed 22 members of the delegation, including the incomparably valuable, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The vicious terrorist attack a year ago today surprised no one working for Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN secretary general's special representative. Indeed, the UN chiefs of communication in Iraq had met that morning to hammer out a plan to counter the intensifying perception among Iraqis that our mission was simply an adjunct of the US occupation.

Little did the Iraqis know that the reality was quite the opposite: by August, the UN mission had grown very distant from the Americans. The intense early relationship that Sergio, the world's most brilliant negotiator of post-conflict crises, had fashioned with Paul Bremer, the US proconsul, had already fractured. Contact was intermittent now that Bremer's coalition provisional authority (CPA) could deal directly with the Iraqis whom it had appointed, with Sergio's help, to the governing council. General dismay over occupation tactics aside, Sergio had already parted company with Bremer over key issues such as the need for electoral affirmation of a new constitution, and the arrest and conditions of detention of the thousands imprisoned at Abu Ghraib prison.

The low point came at the end of July last year, when, astonishingly, the US blocked the creation of a fully fledged UN mission in Iraq. Sergio believed that this mission was vital and had thought the CPA also supported it. Clearly, the Bush administration had eagerly sought a UN presence in occupied Iraq as a legitimizing factor rather than as a partner that could mediate the occupation's early end, which we knew was essential to averting a major conflagration.

Sergio had nevertheless continued to squeeze whatever mileage he could from what he called the "constructive ambiguity" of a terrible postwar security council resolution; one that sent UN staff into the Iraqi cauldron without giving them even a minimal level of independence or authority. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was this resolution that rang the death knell for the UN in Iraq. Having heroically resisted American pressure to authorize the war, security council members decided to show goodwill to the "victors". "A step too far" was how an Iraqi put it to me on my second day in Baghdad.

So it wasn't the "terrorists" who made a meaningful UN presence impossible in postwar Iraq, "little did the Iraqi's know," even less did Americans know about any of the reality Lone is talking about.

Read the whole thing; it's one of the most important pieces I've read about what went wrong with postwar Iraq. As if we didn't know.

And surprise! It's to the winger's advantage! What liberal media?

Would it be too much to ask that journalists do just a little basic research?

They know enough to know that Limbaugh is "conservative" [pause for true conservatives to gag] but they don't think to ask whether the blogs are.

Unbelievable? All too believable. From often reasonably reliable (at least when WaPo owned a piece of it) International Herald Tribune. Watch how seemingly neutral reportage eliminates half of your discourse:

It was largely the hammering of Web sites like www.freerepublic.com, www.instapundit.com and www.littlegreenfootballs.com, echoed by talk-show hosts - from the conservative talk-meister Rush Limbaugh to imitators like Sean Hannity and Michael Savage - that left CBS News without cover or defense, like a boxer too exhausted to protect his head.

As if the freepers and LGF weren't conservative? Puh-leeze! Can we have just a little objectivity here?

The blogs' response in the CBS News case was so immediate that some shaken Democrats muttered about a White House conspiracy.

"The" blogs? Like all blogs?

Within hours of the memos' becoming electronically viewable, according to Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute, www.freerepublic.com had posted a message from a certain “Buckhead,” who said the memos appeared typographically anachronistic - likely produced by computers unavailable in the early 1970s. Remarkably, a plethora of other experts on 1970s' fonts and spacing popped up almost instantly to agree.

Um, and it turned out that F/Buckhead was a winger oeprative, a lawyer, and a member of the Federalist society (back) Not exactly a guy in his pajamas, eh?

This writer learned in an earlier life, editing letters to this newspaper, that an error that might go unchallenged in a local American paper would almost invariably be caught by someone among the International Herald Tribune's far-flung readership. Someone, somewhere, would always know.

Blogs have the unknown reliability of “a tipster calling a reporter on the phone,” South said. Some tips pan out, others fizzle. But someone, somewhere, will always know.
(via Herald Trib)

Right. "Someone will always know." We'll be waiting for the correction real soon....

You'd think that a first thing that a journalist [cough] would do, when talking about a new medium that he or she does not understand, would check the circulation figure.

Here are the top 1o blogs from the NZ Bear ecosystem (here):



Looks pretty much like America, right? Evenly divided.

Daily Kos: Liberal

Talking Points Memo: Liberal

Eschaton: Liberal

And Volokh, if not liberal, is nothing like LGF.

Yet, for some reason, the SCLM, when it talks about "blogs," leaves out the liberal half of the blogosphere. I wonder why?

The facts vs. the fonts:

As usual, the utterly essential Orcinus not only nails the analysis, he points out the way forward. Starting with the criticism/self-criticism:

Ever since the word came down Sunday night that CBS was backing off the story, I've been contemplating my mistake. Some of it was an excess of rigor: Being an old curmudgeonly editor, it was apparent to me that the vast majority of the "forgery" charges were themselves bogus. As someone who's dealt a great deal in conspiracy theories and debunking them, it was abundantly clear that nearly all of the right-wing bloggers' claims were utter nonsense. They had, moreover, leapt to the conclusion that these were forgeries without anything approaching actual proof. My chief tenet -- and a point that still holds, frankly -- is that it's impossible to declare something a forgery without dealing with original documents, and without establishing proper provenance.

Yep. Where I went wrong on this one as well. Heck, I OWNED AN IBM TYPEWRITER, IN THE '70s, THAT DID KERNING AND SUPERSCRIPTS. [1]. Where we went wrong was trusting the SCLM to do, like, actual journalism.

I understand their thinking: The memos mostly substantiated things we already knew about Bush's record. Contemporaries said the memos certainly sounded like things that Jerry Killian was concerned about, and were consistent with Bush's actual performance (or lack thereof). But it's a basic rule: You don't run with a story -- and especially not a major story -- without nailing everything down. And CBS didn't come close.

Thus—surprise!—leaving Bush smelling like a rose (again).

In the process, they probably destroyed any chance that there will be a serious discussion of Bush's military record.

We'll see what AP comes up with (unless the way that the wingers have "worked the refs" on CBS with this one succeeds in killing the story).

The tragic irony of it all is that Kevin Drum (or Orcinus, or Atrios, or Corrente) could have told Dan Rather not go anywhere near Burkett, but to look at Paul Lukasiak instead.[2]

And now, a very interesting point:

There's an added element here, though, that needs discussing: The whole scenario -- particularly the way the Bush AWOL story has been effectively nullified -- that stinks of a classic Rovian Ratfucking.

This is especially the case if Burkett is telling the truth about how he came into possession of the documents: From a "mystery woman" named "Lucy Ramirez" who gave them to him at a rodeo.

Given that Burkett's credibility cannot be any lower than it is now, it's extremely unlikely that he received any such phone call or talked to any such person.

But on the off chance that he is telling the truth, it raises a question:

Any chance that "Lucy Ramirez" has a more than a passing resemblance to Yvette Lozano?
(via Orcinus)

And now, for your viewing pleasure:



NOTES
[1] Incidentally, I don't recall the issue of the variation of the baseline that a manual typewriter would produce. Was it? How manaically thorough was the forgery? And why not, after all, just buy a $75 typewriter?
[2] The story isn't about "the blogosphere." The story is about how a Republican elf transmitted a story to the winger blogosphere, thence to the Standard, thence to ABC.... And why CBS didn't look to the one portion of the blogosphere that could have saved them. "Liberal" media, ha.

And about time, too:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that Iraq's Ayad Allawi was sent before Congress to put the ``best face'' on Bush administration policy.

Shortly after Allawi, the interim government's prime minister, gave a rosy portrayal of progress toward peace in Iraq, Kerry said the assessment contradicted reality on the ground.

``The prime minister and the president[Allawi and Bush] are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story,'' Kerry said.
(via MinneapolisStrib)

A child of six could see that Allawi is in DC to fluff Bush by saying whatever Bush needs him to say.

Kerry points this out; good! The amount of winger yammering on this will be directly proportional to the truth of Kerry's statement, and the degree to which Bush is, well, unclothed.

MEMO TO KERRY: Don't say "the President." Say "Bush." You're not in the Senate anymore. And why concede Bush a title He didn't earn? Besides, it makes for a better soundbite. See the edits above.

I guess this means we're making "progress on the ground":

A closely watched measure of future economic activity fell in August for a third consecutive month, reflecting an uncertain climate for both businesses and consumers.

The Conference Board said Thursday its Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators fell 0.3 percent in August to 115.7, following a decline of 0.3 percent in July.

The August reading was the third month of decline in the index, after more than a year in which it gained steady ground. The drop last month was larger than the 0.2 percent decrease forecast by analysts.

Economists said the August drop in the index confirms a slackening in the recovery in recent months. But, while the new reading is cause for some concern, it comes as other evidence shows the economy is growing at a modest pace, they said.

"When the index goes down for a few months it doesn't mean the economy is in deep trouble, it could just mean the economy is cooling off," said Gary Thayer, chief economist with A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. "We get mixed signals on the economy when we're in a soft period like we've been in this summer, but the underlying economy is still doing pretty good."

The index is closely followed because it is designed to forecast the economy's health over the coming three to six months.
(via WaPo)

I blame gay marriage.

OCTOBER 20th ~ STOP BUSH


"This Is Our Country Too! - On October 20th let's tell George how we feel by sending a postcard to the White House."


From the folks at Stop Bush Postcards:

"Greetings from New York City"
We are selling postcards based upon nyc graffiti - our goal is to raise money for the Dems and to remind people to get out and vote. And of course to let george know how we feel. We have set up a day, an event, for everybody to mail their cards to the White House.

There ya have it. Visit Stop Bush Post Cards.com. Buy some cards and send them to the White House and to friends and relatives as a reminder to get out and vote. Various designs available.

*

Too tired to write....

But Xan's post on Bushspeak is genuinely frightening.

Yes, He's good at what He does.... Be afraid, be very afraid...

I hate, again, to interrupt the massive winger circle-jerk on the CBS memos—SCLM newsgathering sloppy! Film at 11—but duty compels me to remind them that everything in the memos is already attested to by independent sources that the wingers do not dispute.

Here's how that well-known liberal organ, the Air Force Times, describes Bush's tour of, um, duty:

From most accounts, Bush appears to have received preferential treatment to get into the Air National Guard and avoid the draft after he graduated from Yale University in 1968. He was initially regarded as a good pilot, but his performance faded over his final two years in the Guard and he was suspended from flight status. He did not fly for the remaining 18 months he served in the Guard, though he was obligated to do so.

And for significant chunks of time, Bush did not report for duty at all. His superiors took no action, and he was honorably discharged in 1973, six months before he should have been.

In a 2002 interview with USA Today, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said Bush was a model officer during the first part of his career. But overall, he said, Bush’s Air Guard career was erratic — the first three years solid, the last two troubled.

“You wonder if you know who George Bush is,” Roome said. “I think he digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George failed was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his life.”

Bush’s performance slipped. The descent began when Bush apparently did not follow an order to report for his annual flight physical in May 1972, which got him grounded
(via Air Force Times)

Plus all the usual detail you know about if you've been following the story at all.

Roome is wrong about one thing though—we don't wonder who Bush is; we know.

TV doesn't "bring the world into our living rooms," it persuades us that everything we see on the tube is fiction. A look at life in the midst of Operation Ameriki Freedom:

(via Juan Cole)

--3,300 Americans died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week. This is an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

--Deaths occur all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line: in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco.

--The grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall are constantly taking mortar fire.

--Reporters for all the major television and print media are trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis. The only time they venture into the Midwest is if they are embedded in Army or National Guard units.

(I almost left that last one out, because except for the "embedded" part it's pretty much what news coverage looks like anyway. Ahem, to continue...)

--Private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hide out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country. They completely control Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops cannot go into those cities.

--During the past year, the Secretary of State, the President, and the Attorney General have all been assassinated.

--The entire US is wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year.

--The Air Force routinely (daily or weekly) bombs Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies.

--Platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia are holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial.

--There is virtually no commercial air traffic in the country. Many roads are highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston. If you get on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire.

--No one has electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less. It goes off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami. The Alaska pipeline are bombed and disabled at least monthly. Unemployment hovers around 40%.

--Survivors of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing have been brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis.

--Municipal elections were cancelled and cliques close to the new "president" quietly installed in the statehouses as "governors?" Several of these governors ( Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by guerrillas.

--The leader of the European Union maintains that the citizens of the United States are refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner.

Earlier today I posted a couple of stories about people who are being actively prosecuted for "crimes" as heinous as wearing a Kerry-Edwards button within potential visual range of Dear Leader.

It wasn't until later in the day that I read today's Froomkin, at which point the situation got downright terrifying. He cites the following:

Jonathan M. Katz writes in Slate that behind the rash of arrests of presidential protesters is "an arcane 1970 Secret Service provision -- Title 18, Section 1752(a)(1)(ii) of the U.S. Code -- which makes it a federal crime to 'knowingly and willfully' enter an area restricted by the Secret Service during a presidential visit. The law was originally drafted by legislators scarred by the assassinations of the 1960s, in the hopes of preventing the next attempt on the life of a president. Turns out the law can be used to prevent criticism as well."

Go read Katz' piece, it's short. Of course, "1984" isn't very long either.

Dissent in public is a Federal crime. Wearing a button is dissent. I want somebody to try the following: Go to a BushCo worship service "rally" dressed like a Mormon missionary. As soon as Dear Leader mounts the stage, turn your back. That's it. Have no disloyal propaganda on your person--just turn your back.

I'll stand your bail, although I can't promise to cover medical expenses.

Via Media Matters:

Hume and York falsely claimed Bush fulfilled Guard service
National Review White House correspondent Byron York falsely claimed that President George W. Bush fulfilled his contractual obligation to the Texas Air National Guard. In fact, Bush's Guard records prove the opposite. In an interview with FOX News Channel managing editor and chief Washington correspondent Brit Hume on the September 20 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume, York purported to give a summary of Bush's Guard service; instead, he falsified Bush's record to make it appear that Bush had fulfilled his duty.

So where are all the twittering 24/7 "official statement" readers and "Cakewalk" frosting lickers at CNN and MSNBC when it comes time to wag a bitchy scold-finger at, oh say for instance, Fox "News" Channel's apparently endless parade of falsifications, intentionally misleading spinbites, cleverly sculpted distortions, and flat out lies? Well? Oh yeah, I forgot, too busy "examining" the fonts and proportional spacing in Ed Gillespie's latest media talking points memo. Or, sure nuff, squirming like cheap lazy whores in the lap of GOP agitprop pimp Roger Ailes.

Wolf Blitzer and Jeff Greenfield, leading CNN down the ladder one greasy rung at a time.

---

More FoxNoise style fear and sneer for the easily cowed: Via Isebrand

New GOP ads use old but proven tactics: spread irrational fear and gay bait. - Wed 09/22/04

Fear-mongering and division-causing drivel from a GOP radio ad: "There is a line drawn in America today. On one side are the radicals trying to uproot our traditional values and our culture. They're fighting to hijack the institution of marriage, plotting to legalize partial birth abortion, and working to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance and force the worst of Hollywood on the rest of America."

*

Yeah yeah the SCLM suck. This is news?. The latest:

"There's clearly a conflict of interest when [Mapes] plays both the role of the journalist and the role of an intermediary between a source and somebody in a political campaign," said Bob Steele, a professor of journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.
(via LA Times)

And what did Mapes do? She gave Bartlett ("with friends like these") a number in the Kerry campaign. Some left wing conspiracym, huh? When the conspirators don't even have each other's phone numbers?

What kind of world are these people living in? I mean, does anyone believe that Roger Ailes, of FUX News, doesn't have Unka Karl's number by heart?

And I seem to remember when George Will didn't just hand out a number—he helped Reagan practice for a presidential debate! IOKIYAR!

So, big fuckin' deal. Snort!

The biggest disconnect in politics is between people who "get" George W. Bush and those of us who don't. I'm not talking about those who are in it for the money or the (perceived) power or the simple joy of winning a pissing contest (yeah, trolls, I'm talkin' to YOU here.)

I mean those otherwise good people, often our own families and friends, but those who still maintain that they're going to vote for Bush. They can never quite articulate why, except to mouth some talking point like "He's keeping us safe" or "I just trust him."

(via New Yorker magazine)

When Bush appeared in person, moments later, he seemed surprisingly ordinary. “I’m here to ask for the vote,” he told the audience. “I believe it’s important to get out and ask for the vote. I believe it’s important to travel this great state and the country, talkin’ about where I intend to lead the country.” He made this sound like an original idea, and perhaps a controversial one, and the way he repeated the words “I believe” carried an air of defiant conviction: I’m not here offering myself to you because that’s how it’s done in a democracy but because that’s just how I am, and I don’t give a damn who says different.

He wore no tie, and his sleeves were rolled up, and the simplicity of the proposition, the easy conversational forthrightness, seemed so natural, so obvious and reassuring, that it was easy to forget, as he wound on through his stump speech, that he had promised to lay out a plan for the future. He offered no such plan, or even any new initiatives. He just declared the past four years a success, and said that more and better was to come.

This is quite a long article and somewhat icky in places (anything that includes a mention of "how comfortable [he] is in his body" requires a strong stomach) but it explains an awful lot. Come back when you've got an hour or so, first to read and then to think.

That great disconnect? We here deal in words, written words specifically. Bushspeak is not meant to be read but performed.

Granted, it all depends on what the meaning of "casualty" is. Still:

Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from public Pentagon casualty reports commonly cited by newspapers, according to military data reviewed by United Press International. Most don't fit the definition of casualties, according to the Pentagon, but a veterans' advocate said they should all be counted.

The Pentagon has reported 1,019 dead and 7,245 wounded from Iraq.

The military has evacuated 16,765 individual service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries and ailments not directly related to combat, according to the U.S. Transportation Command, which is responsible for the medical evacuations. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom.
(via UPI)

17,000?! Makes the strain the army is experiencing a little more comprehensible, eh?

The very patriotic Jesus General is working diligently today. He brings us these two items of treasonous conduct by people who should be grateful they are merely being dragged off, fingerprinted into the criminal justice system records for the rest of their lives, and subjected to possible fines and imprisonment. Since what they really deserve, after all, is to be summarily shot.

KWWL/Quad Cities, Iowa

Barbara Hannon was shocked her two friends Alice McCabe and Kristine Nelson were arrested for standing peacefully near the park. "We were told because we have Kerry Edwards buttons we are not allowed to be anywhere."

McCabe and Nelson were taken into custody and the Democratic Party called the American Civil Liberties Union about the arrests.

Linn County Democratic Party Chair Joel Miller says the party posted bond for the two women. "So much of the area is private property there is no room for protesters to stand. They have to keep moving away from the rally."

Maggie Swanson says she has been to lots of protests and has seen lots of arrests. "People who've never been to one say oh as long as you are standing peacefully they will let you stand as close as you want as long as you are being peaceful, it's just not true."

Police say they told protesters about the strict no loitering rules.

Lancaster PA

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Six Lancaster city men are headed to court next month, accused of dropping their pants this summer in protest during President George W. Bush's visit to Smoketown Elementary School.

Each of the self-monikered "Smoketown Six" has been charged with one count of disorderly conduct for stripping down to thong underwear minutes before the president's bus rolled by on its way to the Conestoga Valley elementary school.

East Lampeter Township Police arrested the men as they were re-enacting the infamous human-pyramid photo of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq.

Citations given to each defendant on the day of his arrest word the violation the same way.

"A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if with the intent to cause public inconvenience or alarm or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor," the citations read. "To wit: defendant did strip down to his underwear and build a human pyramid in protest of President Bush."

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Paula Knudsen said none of the men has violated any criminal laws..[and that] the defense team representing the "Smoketown Six" has invited the national media to cover the event because of its bearing on free speech.

"We believe this case deserves national attention because this kind of thing is probably happening in other communities," Knudsen said. "Clearly, this is more about politics than it is about the law. The very quick action in hauling off Tristan and the others says to me that someone didn't want protesters marring the scene when the president rode by."

If convicted, each of the defendants faces a maximum of 90 days in prison and a $300 fine.

Grateful, dammit! They should be grateful for such a mild rebuke to help them see the error of their ways. The Michelle Malkin Memorial Mind-Mending Module awaits those who persist in their wickedness.

Dear Leader:

"[BUSH] It's tough as heck in Iraq right now because people are trying to stop democracy," he said. "That's what you're seeing. And Iraqis are losing lives, and so are some of our soldiers. And it breaks my heart to see the loss of innocent life and to see brave troops in combat lose their life. It just breaks my heart. But I understand what's going on. These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave. That's what they want us to do."

Then, he said: "And I think the world would be better off if we did leave." Pause. "If we didn't -- if we left, the world would be worse," he corrected himself.
(Froomkin in WaPo

No matter how deep in denial Bush is, sometimes the truth slips out. (About the only time it does, eh?)

Who is now beheading people. Oh well.

With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

“Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,” said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.

“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
(MSNBC via AmericaBlog)

So tell me again what invading Iraq had to do with fighting terrorism? Made it worse, didn't it? Feeling safer yet?

NOTE "CF": Clusterfuck.

And we all know what They do when something displeases Them, or is insufficiently genuflectual to Dear Leader. They bring out the wind machines, on the theory that if they just huff and puff enough they can blow inconvenient facts out of public attention.

(via Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Republicans brought their protest of the Star Tribune's polling methods to the newspaper's front doors in downtown Minneapolis on Monday.

About 40 GOP activists again called for the resignation of Minnesota Poll director Rob Daves or the suspension of the poll through the Nov. 2 presidential election.

"Hey, hey, ho, ho, Rob Daves has got to go" and "Star and Sickle, you're in a pickle," they chanted, using a nickname to describe what they regard as the newspaper's leftist views.

..Outside the newspaper's Portland Avenue entrance during the lunch hour, demonstrators carried signs with "Real reporters report real results" and "Strib polls are fibs."

[Star Tribune editor Anders] Gyllenhaal said the Star Tribune's poll methodology is available for anyone to review. He also...noted that Gallup and Pew, widely respected national pollsters, last week reported vastly different presidential poll results. Gallup's poll showed Bush leading Kerry 55 percent to 42 percent nationally. Pew's survey showed the two tied at 46 percent.

This was not a repeat of the Republican-staged white collar riots in Dade County in 2000. The jackbooters don't have to be that blatant just to intimidate at this stage of the game.

Oh, and while I've never lived there and see nothing but their Page 1 every day, as best I can tell the Strib is about as "left-wing" as your average turnip. But the campaign continues to make the term "left-wing," like "liberal" before it, something akin to an accusation of child molestation, where the mere invokation of the word is enough to get the accused cast into the outer darkness.

The hot rumor in New York political circles has Roger Stone, the longtime GOP activist, as the source for Dan Rather's dubious Texas Air National Guard "memos." - (NYPost) See below





Pat Buchanan's secret "love child"; and other slimy tales squirming in the Bush family ooze.

Stone told Von Raab that his Buchanan maneuvers were a "tactical exercise"—an accurate description of his ironic orchestration of Al Sharpton's campaign this year. The master of convoluted chaos, double agent Stone has left his mark in the dark alleys of presidential politics since Watergate, but the sacking of the Reform Party may be his lasting legacy.

[...]

"Everyone who worked for Nixon knew about" the alleged Buchanan baby, says Stone, adding that he "lived with it through two Reagan campaigns." Stone and Buchanan were aides to Nixon and Reagan, and Stone, also a Bush I campaign veteran, was rewarded for his subterranean 2000 efforts with an appointment to the Department of Interior transition team, which he parlayed into a multimillion dollar business as an Indian gaming consultant (see Voice, April 19).

The Stone-inspired Reform infighting served multiple Bush interests: It killed any possibility of a third Perot run, blocked the candidacy of former Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker, and forced out the party's only elected official, Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Buchanan's vanishing act—after Stone cajoled him to run Reform—left nearly a dozen party leaders contacted by the Voice convinced that he and Stone were conscious agents of doom. (more...)

READ: How GOP operative Roger Stone destroyed the Reform Party in the 2000 presidential campaign - The Sex Scandal That Put Bush in the White House - by Wayne Barrett with special reporting by Jessie Singer - May 18th, 2004 - Much more... via the Village Voice (Long Article)

Fear and Sneer and Florida Fixers:

In 1992, W. famously offered his services to his father's moribund re-election campaign. The younger Bush counseled the president to hire private investigators to rummage through the bedtrails of Clinton's sex life, hoping to ignite "bimbo eruptions." This advice coming from a man who, according to one of his friends, spent the 1970s "sleeping with every bimbo in West Texas, married or not."

[...]

Then, with the recount underway, the Bush junta sprang into action. Using $13.8 million in campaign funds, they recuited an A-list of Republican fixers, tough guys and lawyers. Roger Stone, the former Republican fixer and body builder of Reagan time who fled to Florida following a DC sex scandal, was summoned to orchestrate gangs of rightwing Cubans to harass election officials in Dade and Palm Beach counties. Marc Racicot, later to be elevated by Bush to chair of the RNC, staged similar white-collar riots, all designed to impede the counting of ballots. Jeb and the haughty Harris did their parts as institutional monkeywrenchers.

Meanwhile, the legal strategy designed by Theodore Olson to fast track the case to the Supreme Court. When Scalia and Thomas refused to recuse themselves from the case despite glaring conflicts of interest (family members worked for the Bush campaign), the electoral theft was legitimized.

The ringmaster of this affair was Bush Sr.'s old hand, James Baker. Baker later boasted to a group of Russian tycoons mustered in London, "I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush." (more...)

READ: High Plains Grifter; The Life and Crimes of George W. Bush, - by Jeffery St. Clair, Sept. 01, 2004 - Counterpunch

Digby has more on Stone.

******
Bunkhouse buddies:

[Donald Rumsfeld] "Co-Owns New Mexico Ranch with Dan Rather, among others:..." ~ Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003 Time Magazine

Ooooo, that gawd derned libr'l media!

*

Not to interrupt the collective winger circle-jerk about the Killian memos, but—

1. Bush still blew off his Guard duty, multiple times in multiple ways, and we still don't know why he didn't take his medical exam (Holden has a nice takedown here, on "Ask the Presidential Lackey," of all places.)

2. Rather sucks. He's sloppy. So? Par for the course with today's SCLM, as the liberals who lived through Whitewater and election 2000 already know. Read The Howler.

3. Funny, isn't it—all the Republican yammering for an investigation of the CBS memos, where all the content is true, and which only hurts Bush's image. Compare that to the forged yellowcake memos—you remember, where 1/2 an hour on Google took them down, without even looking at the kerning—where the content was false, and which only took us into The Big Sandy, at the cost of over a thousand American lives, so far. Priorties, huh?
Why would that be?

Because 4. It's all about working the refs. If the wingers can take down Rather, the rest of the SCLM will get a bad case of The Fear.

And Fear, as ever, is Inerrant Boy's friend.

James Fallows has a sober, and sobering, look at Iraq that takes opportunity cost into account, as apparently Bush did not—amazingly for anyone with an MBA—when choosing to invade Iraq.

Since the article is only on the newstands, and not yet online, I typed excerpts from it in. But go read the whole thing. It's essential.

James Fallows, "Bush's Lost year: How the war in Iraq undermined the war on terror," The Atlantic, October 2004

Over the past two years I have been talking with a group of people at the working level of America's anti-terrorism efforts...

"Let me tell you my gut feeling," a senior figure at one of America's military-sponsored think tanks told me recently, after we had talked for twenty minutes about details of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. "If I can be blunt, the Administration is full of shit. In my view we are much, much worse off than we were than we went into Iraq. This is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys. But I think they are incompetent. Whatever tactical victories we may gain along the way, this will prove to be a strategic blunder."

This man will not let me use his name, because he is still involved in military policy. He cited the experiences of Joseph Wilson, Richard Clarke, and Generals Eric Shinseki and Anthony Zinni to illustrate the personal risks of openly expressing his dissenting view. But I am quoting him anonymously—as I will quote some others—because his words are representative of what one hears at the working level.

Professionals argue that by the end of 2002 the decisions the Administration had made—and avoided making—through the course of the year had left the nation less safe, with fewer positive options. Step by step through 2002 America's war on terror because little more than preparation for war in Iraq.

Because of that shift, the United States succeeded in removing Saddam Hussein, but at this cost: Afghanistan was left to fester, as attention and money were turned toward Iraq. This in turn left more havens in Afghanistan in which terrorist groups could reconstitute themselves. ...

A full inventory of the costs of the war in Iraq goes on. Bush began in 2002 with a warning that North Korea and Iran, not just Iraq, threatened the world because of the nuclear weapons they were developing. With the United States preoccupied with Iraq, the other two countries surged ahead. ... Because it lost time and squandered resources, the United States now has no good options for dealing with either country. It has fewer deployable soldiers and weapons; it has less international leverage through the "soft power" of its alliances and treaties; it has even worse intelligence, because so many resources are directed toward Iraq.

Before America went to war in Iraq, its military power appeared limitless. Now the limits on our military's manpower and sustainability are all too obvious.... Because of outlays in Iraq, the United States cannot spend $150 billion for other defensive purposes. Some nine million shipping containers enter American ports each year; only two percent of them are physically inspected ... Fewer than a quarter of 231 major cities under review had received any of the aid they expected. An internal budget memo from the Administration was leaked this past spring. It said that outlays for virtually all domestic programs, including homeland security, would have to be cut in 2005—and the federal budget deficit would still be more than $450 billion.

Worst of all, the government-wide effort to wage war in Iraq crowded out efforts to design a broader strategy against Islamic extremists and terrorists; to this day the Administration has articulated no comprehensive long term plan.

And here is the startling part. There is no evidence that the President and those closest to Him ever talked systematically about the "opportunity costs" and tradeoffs in their decision to invade Iraq. No one has pointed to a meeting, a memo, a full set of discussions, about what America would gain and lose.

The Administration apparently did not consider questions like "If we pursue the war on terror by invading Iraq, might we incite even more terror in the long run?" and "If we commit so many of our troops this way, what possibilities will we be giving up?" But Bush "did not think of this intellectually, as a comparative decision, I was told by Senator Bob Graham, of Florida, who voted against the war resolution for fear it would hurt the war on terror. "It was a single decision: He saw Saddam Hussein as an evil person who had to be removed."

A man who participated in high-level planning for both Afghanistan and Iraq—and who is unnamed here because he still works for the government—told me, "There was absolutely no debate in the normal sense. There are only six or eight of them who make the decisions, and they only talk to each other. And if you disagree with them in public, they'll come after you, the way they did to Shinseki."

"How will history judge this period, in terms of the opportunity costs of invading Iraq?" said John Pike, the director of GlobalSecurity.Org, when we spoke. I think the opportunity cost is going to be North Korea and Iran."

The strong working-level consensus is that terrorists are "logical," if hideously brutal, and that the steps in 2002 that led to war have broadened the extremists base. ... As violence surged in occupied Iraq, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London, reported that Al Qaeda was galvanized by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. As of mid-2004 Al Qaeda had at least 18,000 operatives in 60 countries. "Al Qaeda has fully reconstituted [and] set its sights firmly on the USA and its closest Western allies in Europe," the report said.

"I have been saying for years, Osama Bin Laden could never have done it without us," a civilian adviser to the Pentagon told me this summer. "We have continued to play to his political advantage and to confirm, in the eyes of his constituency, the very claims he made about us." The claims are that the United States will travel far to suppress Muslims, that it will occupy their holy sites, that it will oppose the rise of Islamic governments, and that it will take their resources.

To govern is to choose, and the choices made in 2002 were fateful. The United States began that year shocked and wounded, but with tremendous strategic advantages. All that was required was to think broadly about the threats to the country, and creatively about the responses.

The Bush administration chose another path. Implicitly at the beginning of 2002, and as a matter of formal policy by the end, it placed all other considerations second to regime change in Iraq. It hampered the campaign in Afghanistan before fighting began and wound it down prematurely, along the way losing the chance the capture Osama Bin Laden. It turned a blind eye to misdeeds in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and to MD threats from North Korea and Iran far more serious than any posed by Saddam Hussein, all in the name of moving toward a showdown with Iraq. It overused and wore out its army in invading Iraq—without committing enough troops for a successful occupation. It saddled the United States with ongoing costs that dwarf its spending for domestic security. And by every available measure [the Administration] only worsened the risk of future terrorism. In every sense 2002 was a lost year.

If Kerry can condense this down to a sentence, he wins. The debate and the election. The concept of "opportunity cost" lets us look at Iraq as a "kitchen table" issue. The issue is not, Was invading Iraq a good use of our resources. The issue is, Was invading Iraq the best use of our resources? We've had two years to find out, and the answer is No.

Alert reader MJS has the transcript:

Hey, what a crowd, huh? I just flew in from San Diego and boy is my crotch big. Ha-ha. I went up to Heaven and they asked me how I found the place—I answered "Could use some paint." Get it?

Is that blood on your hands or are you just happy to see me? Ever notice how Satan and Cheney are never seen together? Heh-heh—Hold on there, Saddam. Is this thing on?

Yeah, I found God—too bad the motherfucker never found me—some punishment, huh? I got a devil of an agent: Twenty shows a day, seven days a week for all eternity. It was either this or I had to read a book...Thank you, thank you. Got another post card from Mom—heck, she could have walked it over. I don't care what they say about you, Mom, you got a beautiful mind. Your face looks like Texas asphalt, but you got a...Hey, don't throw lava. I hate it when you throw lava. It's all in fun! Heh-heh.

But now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?

The hot rumor in New York political circles has Roger Stone, the longtime GOP activist, as the source for Dan Rather's dubious Texas Air National Guard "memos."

The irony would be delicious, since Rather became famous confronting President Nixon, in whose service a very young Stone became associated with political "dirty tricks."

Reached at his Florida home, Stone had no comment.
(via NY Post)

Of course, we consider the source...

"Like a Roger Stone" ...

UPDATE Digby has more.

Kevin Drum (here) points us to an oldie-but-goodie Julian Borger article on Acting President Rove:

"We did not believe that Bush would be as disciplined as he was. He was extremely disciplined," recalls George Shipley, who was then Richards' campaign adviser. "Karl gave him 10 index cards and said, 'This is what you are going to say. Don't confuse yourself with the issues.' It's the model for the presidency."
(via Guardian)

Sound familiar?

And about time, too. Columnist Richard Cohen writes:

We all have to face the prospect that Iraq will end up a mess no matter what. The administration's own national intelligence estimate raises the possibility that civil war may erupt by the end of next year. That's the direst prediction, but it now seems more likely than the one President Bush once envisioned: an Iraq with some sort of Jeffersonian democracy. That ain't about to happen and bit by bit, Bush has been scaling back his rhetoric. The truth is that we'd now settle for a pro-American strongman such as Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf or Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Both countries are essentially military dictatorships.

Who'd like to be the last man to die for that? I'm looking for a show of hands. But more than that, I'm looking for someone to raise questions that go to the heart of this matter of life and death. In this sense, Iraq is fast becoming Vietnam -- only the stakes are higher. (Vietnam had no oil.) It is also Vietnam in the way the presidential campaign is handling it. Once again the GOP is playing the odious patriotism card to silence dissent. As for Bush, he talks about Iraq with the same loopy unreality as he does his National Guard service. [Bush is] a fabulist.

Bush ought to come clean. What are his goals for Iraq now? Does he plan to bring in more troops if he wins in November or is he simply going to accept defeat, call it victory and bring the boys (and girls) home? If I were still in the uniform I once wore, I'd sure like to know. It's terrible to die for a mistake. It's even worse to die for a lie.
(via WaPo)

Inerrant Boy a "fabulist," eh? I like that. Ties into Bush's constant use of "fabulous" (back). It's another way of expressing the "Bush is just in denial" meme, which is really starting to spread. Good!

Because I live in a port city, Philadelphia—and others of us live in other port cities—my hair was been on fire about a loose nuke or a dirty bomb in a shipping container for some time (here, here, and here).

Now the CEO of the Port of Seattle is saying the same thing:

In the United States we have 361 river ports and seaports. Every year we get 50,000 visits from 8,100 foreign ships. Every day 21,000 containers enter the United States. We can verify the contents of only about 4 to 6 percent of those containers. And it would require only one rogue container to bring commerce to its knees.

It is a very different story at our nation's seaports. We're spending a fraction of what we spend at airports, on a far more complex problem. We do not have a comprehensive plan to know what is in the containers that arrive every day. We need to verify that those boxes are documented, loaded securely and protected against tampering throughout their journey.

Secretary Ridge has said that funding for more robust solutions to container security problems will have to come from the private sector.
(via WaPo)

These... people want to privatize port security? WTF?

Oh, wait. I forgot. The port cities are mostly in Blue states, and all the inhabitants are going to Hell anyhow. Fuck 'em.

The line Bush keeps repeating:

"[BUSH] I'm proud of my service in the Guard."
(via WaPo)

The

entirely

undisputed

fact:

Bush was grounded when he refused to take a mandated medical exam and never flew again.

So, what's to be proud of?

Hey, any witnesses collected on that $50,000? Just asking.

UPDATE Hey, it just occurred to me. Bush can spout shit like this—and even believe it—because He's in denial (back). It really is just classic AA, isn't it? Stinkin' thinkin'.

Serious questions about George W. Bush's credibility in his accounts of his misspent youth have arisen from a new group who say they shared those long-ago days of the early '70s with the future Commander in Chief. As noted in today's Washington Post, way down at the bottom of Froomkin's column.

These guys say they partied with Dubya, they drank (and other things), they sailed, they consorted with women of dubious character-- and they say Georgie was a punk. We think they deserve at least as much attention as the Swiffer Liars did. Genties and ladlemen, we bring you:

Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth

Look, there's a lot of people who will swear up and down that President George Bush is a genuine hard-partier, a real man who can hold his liquor and dope, a real hero of the dope days of the sixties and seventies. But those of us who served with him on the front lines of Miami and in the trenches of Houston and Cape Cod know the truth. The lies about Bush's ability to party sully the good name of all of us who really could party and sail at the same time, who fought the good fight back in the glory days. George Bush - you're a lightweight.

I'm Captain "Panama" Red and this is a true account, I think.

Note to trolls...we're pretty sure these Pleasure Boat guys are working in a category known as "humor." You're probably not familiar with it, so might want to start out on something easier like knock-knock jokes and work your way up. We know you, like your glorious leader, would much rather get back to the present day and have a serious discussion of policy issues.

Yep.

"'Til the last dog dies."

Another one for the Pulitzer short list. After all the stories about reporters hiding out in the Green Zone, we find one, a woman no less, who went out looking for a story as likely to have her in danger from one side as the other:

(via Christian Science Monitor)

Ann Scott Tyson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Inside dusty, barricaded camps around Iraq, groups of American troops in between missions are gathering around screens to view an unlikely choice from the US box office: "Fahrenheit 9-11," Michael Moore's controversial documentary attacking the commander-in-chief.

"Everyone's watching it," says a Marine corporal at an outpost in Ramadi that is mortared by insurgents daily. "It's shaping a lot of people's image of Bush."

The film's prevalence is one sign of a discernible countercurrent among US troops in Iraq - those who blame President Bush for entangling them in what they see as a misguided war.

Conventional wisdom holds that the troops are staunchly pro-Bush, and many are. But bitterness over long, dangerous deployments is producing, at a minimum, pockets of support for Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, in part because he's seen as likely to withdraw American forces from Iraq more quickly.

"[For] 9 out of 10 of the people I talk to, it wouldn't matter who ran against Bush - they'd vote for them," said a US soldier in the southern city of Najaf, seeking out a reporter to make his views known. "People are so fed up with Iraq, and fed up with Bush."

With only three weeks until an Oct. 11 deadline set for hundreds of thousands of US troops abroad to mail in absentee ballots, this segment of the military vote is important - symbolically, as a reflection on Bush as a wartime commander, and politically, as absentee ballots could end up tipping the balance in closely contested states.

It is difficult to gauge the extent of disaffection with Bush, which emerged in interviews in June and July with ground forces in central, northern, and southern Iraq. No scientific polls exist on the political leanings of currently deployed troops, military experts and officials say.

Suddenly those stories about troops being encouraged to vote by email make more sense. Read the rest of this, there is no reason any soldier anywhere HAS to give up the right to a secret, paper, absentee ballot.

Michigan:

On July 16, the Detroit Free Press quoted John Pappageorge, a Republican state representative from Troy, Michigan, who said, "If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle." Detroit is 83 percent African American. Link

*

Forget Dan Rather and CBS. Regardless of the CBS memos scam questions still remain concerning Bush's service record.

"One serious question is whether some of Bush's superiors may have played an active role in hiding Bush's shoddy record -- pressured perhaps by powerful politicians -- by crediting him with crucial makeup training days that appear dubious in nature." - Eric Boehlert - Salon.com

Bush's very own "official" military records make that clear. So if you're looking for some document tampering to eyeball check out what Paul Lukasiak has found:

TAMPERING, FORGERY, AND PURGING OF BUSH MILITARY RECORD - PART I: EVIDENCE OF DOCUMENT TAMPERING ~ See: AWOL Project

THE MYSTERY OF AF FORM 11
A second form which has clearly been subjected to tampering is Bush’s AF Form 11, his Officer Military Record. There are three different versions among the documents that were released by the White House: an “old” version, whose entries extend only to sometime prior to July 7, 1972, an “unscribbled” version whose last entry is dated October 1, 1973, and an excerpt from the form (Item 8, “Chronologicial Listing of Service”) that has clearly been tampered, whose last entry is also 10-1-73.

[...]

Indeed, if one were to believe Bush’s Official Military Biography, one would think that he spent his last year affiliated with the Armed Forces as a pilot assigned to the Obligated Reserve Section of ARPC. Yet, according to the documents that were released by the White House, this is clearly not the case. The complete lack of appropriate documentation for virtually everything that occurred that is indicated by the documents strongly suggests that Bush's records were purged in order to avoid disclosing embarrassing information.

Coming attractions:

Judge orders government to find, release all Bush military records (AP) Thursday, September 16, 2004 - SFGate

A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and make public by next week any unreleased files about President Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press.

U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. handed down the order late Wednesday in New York. The AP lawsuit already has led to the disclosure of previously unreleased flight logs from Bush's days piloting F-102A fighters and other jets.

Pentagon officials told Baer they plan to have their search complete by Monday. Baer ordered the Pentagon to hand over the records to the AP by Sept. 24 and provide a written statement by Sept. 29 detailing the search for more records.

Froomkin | WaPo, Monday, September 20, 2004

National Guard Watch
Yet more questions are being raised about Bush's National Guard service -- questions that have nothing to do with the disputed CBS document. The issue now is whether Bush may have received credit -- and maybe even payment -- for drills he didn't perform.

In the New York Times, Sara Rimer takes a long look at 1972, "the year George W. Bush dropped off the radar screen."

Rimer writes that "a review of records shows that not only did he miss months of duty in 1972, but that he also may have been improperly awarded credit for service, making possible an early honorable discharge so he could turn his attention to a new interest: Harvard Business School."

Rimer writes: "Payroll records released by the White House show that in addition to being paid for attending a drill in Alabama the last weekend in October, Mr. Bush was also paid for a weekend drill . . . on Nov. 11 and 12, and for meetings on Nov. 13 and 14.

"But there are no records from the 187th indicating that Mr. Bush, in fact, appeared on those days in October and November, and more than a dozen members of the unit from that era say they never saw him. The White House said last week that there were no records from the Alabama unit because Mr. Bush was still officially part of the Texas Guard. But Mr. [Bobby W.] Hodges, the former Texas commander, said the 187th 'should have a record of his drills.' "

Similarly, Rimer writes: "Documents released by the White House show that he was paid for drills in January, April and several days in early May 1973. . . . But Mr. Bush had been authorized to drill in Alabama only from September through November 1972."

Resource link:

Payroll records showing that Bush requested and received pay and point credit for which he was ineligible under Air Force policy (See Fraud—The Secrets of Bush’s Payroll Records Revealed) AWOL Project

*

Yeah, so Rather "admitted" he got spoofed by a source. Insert obilgatory gasping of shock, horror, etc.here. He admitted these particular memos were not what he thought they were, and apologized.

This does not make him a bad guy, or a bad reporter, believe it or not. This is why we do not call Dan Rather rude names like "Kneepads," unlike some people with jobs in the media who get played for fools and help bring on unnecessary wars which kill and maim thousands, and have never yet admitted they were spoofed by their ever-so-trusted Chalabi source. Other similar examples are pointed out by the invaluable Digby

The thought of a network or major newspaper acting as a tool of political sabotage to sully the character of a president is chilling indeed.

But, I can't help wondering why this orgy of recriminations is happening over this incident when there have literally been thousands of even worse examples of the press willingly acting as partisan tools over the past 12 years or so, much of it fed to them directly by political operatives. Why is the thought of Dan Rather being used for partisan political purposes (if indeed he was) so shocking when we know that the mainstream press has been the victim of hoax after hoax by such outfits as Citizens United for years?

Did anyone ever call Jeff Gerth on the carpet for falling for the Scaife financed "Arkansas project" propaganda on the NY Times Whitewater stories? How about the chinese espionage "scandal" which was also a right wing hack job that proved to be absolutely bogus (aided and abetted by our good friend Rep. Chris Cox and his wholly discredited Cox Report.) Did anybody pay a price for pimping the Vince Foster story for the Mighty Wirlizter? Troopergate? The White House vandalism and stolen gifts stories? The list is endless. Years and years and years of hoaxes and smears and lies that led to tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money wasted on investigations that went nowhere and NOBODY SAYS A FUCKING WORD about the press's incestuous involvement with those who perpetrated these expensive frauds on the American public. (I won't even mention the elephant sitting in the middle of the room with the words "Saddam and 9/11" tattooed on his forehead.)

The lesson in this is clear. Dan Rather made a big mistake all right, but it wasn't the one that the rest of the press corp is unctuously wringing its hands over. The lesson is that he should have never have shown the documents. He should have done the story with some guy in the shadows with his voice disguised saying that "he'd seen the documents." He should have hinted darkly at death threats and used many anonymous sources without ever producing any kind of proof. He should have dribbled the story out over a couple of weeks on the CBS evening news instead of presenting it all at one time.

Oh yes, and he should have done the story about a Democrat. Nobody ever gets in trouble for committing journalistic malpractice against them. In fact, it's a career booster.

"Memogate" has Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it, most especially the "non-denial" of the memo contents from the White House. He did his damndest to wave the red flag of distraction in our faces, to take attention away from Bush's crappy "service" record, noted below. Paul Lukasiak's brilliant, dogged work is getting attention all over the place, which we tried for months to do. We could never have done it without Karl's help.

I sometimes feel almost sorry for Karl. He's a good whore, in the sense that he does his best to service his client, but I bet he's sneaking a look at his watch about now to see how soon this one's going to be over. I hope he got a nice sum left on the dresser, because I don't see him getting a lot of work from here on out.

Excellent post by Kos. go read. The differences are clear, and even show up in how conservative and liberal blogs are structured. Interesting.

Republican violence escalating:

Vandals set fire to signs and wrote pro-President Bush messages on the front of Lafayette’s Democratic Party Headquarters, the second time the office was hit by vandals.

A mixture of ash from the fire and what appeared to be motor oil was used to smear “4+ GWB” across the front windows and “W” on the headquarters’ door.

The office was closed Thursday because of Hurricane Ivan. The building’s owner found the damage Thursday morning when he checked on the building, said Lexi Thompson, state director of the National Coordinated Campaign.

“Obviously, this vandalism is an attempt to intimidate volunteers and the Democratic effort,” said Mike Skinner of Lafayette, chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. “This is not Iraq. This is Louisiana. Issues will decide this election, not intimidation.”

The situation could have been even more dangerous because the fire was set at the front door of the headquarters, Thompson said.

“Thank God we didn’t have anybody here this morning,” she said. “They were trying to harm us.”
(Lafayette Advertiser via Kos)

Nice to hear Bush speak out against the behavior of his supporters. Oh, wait...

Here's what we know without the fershuggeneh Killian memos. Eric Boehlert writes in Salon (and I'm quoting most of it because it's so tightly written and consolidates everything. Go on, get the day pass anyhow.

The record—again, not considering the Killian memos—contain 34 discrepancies. They clearly show that Bush disobeyed a direct order to take his medical exam. And leave open the question of why Bush didn't take the exam. And they indicate that Bush simply did not take his commitment to the Guard seriously.

The flap over dubious documents has obscured the real story. Here it is. None of the discrepancies detailed below between Bush's accounts and what his records show are based on the disputed memos reportedly written by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian that were aired by CBS News two weeks ago.

1. Bush flew for the last time on April 16, 1972. Upon entering the Guard, Bush agreed to fly for 60 months. After his training was complete, he owed 53 months of flying.

But he flew for only 22 of those 53 months.

2. Upon being accepted for pilot training, Bush promised to serve with his parent (Texas) Guard unit for five years once he completed his pilot training.

But Bush served as a pilot with his parent unit for just two years.

3. In May 1972 Bush left the Houston Guard base for Alabama. According to Air Force regulations, Bush was supposed to obtain prior authorization before leaving Texas to join a new Guard unit in Alabama.

But Bush failed to get the authorization.

4. In requesting a permanent transfer to a nonflying unit in Alabama in 1972, Bush was supposed to sign an acknowledgment that he received relocation counseling.

But no such document exists.

5. He was supposed to receive a certification of satisfactory participation from his unit.

But Bush did not.

6. He was supposed to sign and give a letter of resignation to his Texas unit commander.

But Bush did not.

7. He was supposed to receive discharge orders from the Texas Air National Guard adjutant general.

But Bush did not.

8. He was supposed to receive new assignment orders for the Air Force Reserves.

But Bush did not.

9. On his transfer request Bush was asked to list his "permanent address."

But he wrote down a post office box number for the campaign he was working for on a temporary basis.

10. On his transfer request Bush was asked to list his Air Force specialty code.

But Bush, an F-102 pilot, erroneously wrote the code for an F-89 or F-94 pilot. Both planes had been retired from service at the time. Bush, an officer, made this mistake more than once on the same form.

11. On May 26, 1972, Lt. Col. Reese Bracken, commander of the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, informed Bush that a transfer to his nonflying unit would be unsuitable for a fully trained pilot such as he was, and that Bush would not be able to fulfill any of his remaining two years of flight obligation.

But Bush pressed on with his transfer request nonetheless.

12. Bush's transfer request to the 9921st was eventually denied by the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, which meant he was still obligated to attend training sessions one weekend a month with his Texas unit in Houston.

But Bush failed to attend weekend drills in May, June, July, August and September. He also failed to request permission to make up those days at the time.

13. According to Air Force regulations, "[a] member whose attendance record is poor must be closely monitored. When the unexcused absences reach one less than the maximum permitted [sic] he must be counseled and a record made of the counseling. If the member is unavailable he must be advised by personal letter."

But there is no record that Bush ever received such counseling, despite the fact that he missed drills for months on end.

15. Bush's unit was obligated to report in writing to the Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base whenever a monthly review of records showed unsatisfactory participation for an officer.

But his unit never reported Bush's absenteeism to Randolph Air Force Base.

16. In July 1972 Bush failed to take a mandatory Guard physical exam, which is a serious offense for a Guard pilot. The move should have prompted the formation of a Flying Evaluation Board to investigation the circumstances surrounding Bush's failure.

But no such FEB was convened.

17. Once Bush was grounded for failing to take a physical, his commanders could have filed a report on why the suspension should be lifted.

But Bush's commanders made no such request.

18. On Sept. 15, 1972, Bush was ordered to report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, the deputy commander of the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery, Ala., to participate in training on the weekends of Oct. 7-8 and Nov. 4-5, 1972.

But there's no evidence Bush ever showed up on those dates. In 2000, Turnipseed told the Boston Globe that Bush did not report for duty. (A self-professed Bush supporter, Turnipseed has since backed off from his categorical claim.)

19. However, according to the White House-released pay records, which are unsigned, Bush was credited for serving in Montgomery on Oct. 28-29 and Nov. 11-14, 1972. Those makeup dates should have produced a paper trail, including Bush's formal request as well as authorization and supervision documents.

But no such documents exist, and the dates he was credited for do not match the dates when the Montgomery unit assembled for drills.

20. When Guardsmen miss monthly drills, or "unit training assemblies" (UTAs), they are allowed to make them up through substitute service and earn crucial points toward their service record. Drills are worth one point on a weekday and two points on each weekend day. For Bush's substitute service on Nov. 13-14, 1972, he was awarded four points, two for each day.

But Nov. 13 and 14 were both weekdays. He should have been awarded two points.

21. Bush earned six points for service on Jan. 4-6, 1973 -- a Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

But he should have earned four points, one each for Thursday and Friday, two for Saturday.

22. Weekday training was the exception in the Guard. For example, from May 1968 to May 1972, when Bush was in good standing, he was not credited with attending a single weekday UTA.

But after 1972, when Bush's absenteeism accelerated, nearly half of his credited UTAs were for weekdays.

23. To maintain unit cohesiveness, the parameters for substitute service are tightly controlled; drills must be made up within 15 days immediately before, or 30 days immediately after, the originally scheduled drill, according to Guard regulations at the time.

But more than half of the substitute service credits Bush received fell outside that clear time frame. In one case, he made up a drill nine weeks later.

24. On Sept. 29, 1972, Bush was formally grounded for failing to take a flight physical. The letter, written by Maj. Gen. Francis Greenlief, chief of the National Guard Bureau, ordered Bush to acknowledge in writing that he had received word of his grounding.

But no such written acknowledgment exists. In 2000, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Boston Globe that Bush couldn't remember if he'd ever been grounded.

25. Bartlett also told the Boston Globe that Bush didn't undergo a physical while in Alabama because his family doctor was in Houston.

But only Air Force flight surgeons can give flight physicals to pilots.

26. Guard members are required to take a physical exam every 12 months.

But Bush's last Guard physical was in May 1971. Bush was formally discharged from the service in November 1974, which means he went without a required physical for 42 months.

27. Bush's unsatisfactory participation in the fall of 1972 should have prompted the Texas Air National Guard to write to his local draft board and inform the board that Bush had become eligible for the draft. Guard units across the country contacted draft boards every Sept. 15 to update them on the status of local Guard members. Bush's absenteeism should have prompted what's known as a DD Form 44, "Record of Military Status of Registrant."

But there is no record of any such document having been sent to Bush's draft board in Houston.

28. Records released by the White House note that Bush received a military dental exam in Alabama on Jan. 6, 1973.

But Bush's request to serve in Alabama covered only September, October and November 1972. Why he would still be serving in Alabama months after that remains unclear.

29. Each of Bush's numerous substitute service requests should have formed a lengthy paper trail consisting of AF Form 40a's, with the name of the officer who authorized the training in advance, the signature of the officer who supervised the training and Bush's own signature.

But no such documents exist.

30. During his last year with the Texas Air National Guard, Bush missed nearly two-thirds of his mandatory UTAs and made up some of them with substitute service. Guard regulations allowed substitute service only in circumstances that are "beyond the control" of the Guard member.

But neither Bush nor the Texas Air National Guard has ever explained what the uncontrollable circumstances were that forced him to miss the majority of his assigned drills in his last year.

31. Bush supposedly returned to his Houston unit in April 1973 and served two days.

But at the end of April, when Bush's Texas commanders had to rate him for their annual report, they wrote that they could not do so: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report."

32. On June 29, 1973, the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver instructed Bush's commanders to get additional information from his Alabama unit, where he had supposedly been training, in order to better evaluate Bush's duty. The ARPC gave Texas a deadline of Aug. 6 to get the information.

But Bush's commanders ignored the request.

33. Bush was credited for attending four days of UTAs with his Texas unit July 16-19, 1973. That was good for eight crucial points.

But that's not possible. Guard units hold only two UTAs each month -- one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday. Although Bush may well have made up four days, they should not all have been counted as UTAs, since they occur just twice a month. The other days are known as "Appropriate Duty," or APDY.

34. On July 30, 1973, Bush, preparing to attend Harvard Business School, signed a statement acknowledging it was his responsibility to find another unit in which to serve out the remaining nine months of his commitment.

But Bush never contacted another unit in Massachusetts in which to fulfill his obligation.
(via Salon)

OK.

Dan Rather got punked. Memo to Burkett: With friends like you, who needs enemies?

Question to Bush supporters: So?

Kerry brings it in the NYU speech. Read the whole thing, but one small point:

[Kerry] This President was in denial.

This is a more powerful statement of the "way beyond spin" meme (back) we pointed to last night. I think this one might take. Everyone knows what being "in denial" means. It's good because it converts Bush's "moral clarity" and "resolve" from a perceived strength into a weakness. More like this, please.

One more example of what Republicans call courage:

A New York ABC television affiliate captured footage of a Republican Youth Convention attendee dragging to the ground and kicking an AIDS activist who had entered the event undercover as part of a larger protest against the George W. Bush administration.

The student in the video, whose name was unknown at the time the footage was taken, has been identified by several Penn students as Wharton junior Scott Robinson, a member of the Penn College Republicans.

In video clips on the Internet, the student is seen grabbing for a female protester and helping to drag her to the ground. He is later shown making a kicking motion toward the girl on the ground, while the television reporter commented that he was kicking her.

When asked on camera after the incident if he kicked a protester, the student replied, "I don't believe so." He had no response when he was told that the image was captured on tape.

The protesters were removed from the event within minutes by security and Secret Service agents. It was not until later that the video footage emerged.

"Having seen Scott at a number of events, and having seen the video, I think it looks like him," said Stephanie Steward, a College senior and chairwoman of the College Republicans. "But I can't say absolutely positively."

The College Republicans have distanced themselves from the incident.

"Our group strongly condemns violence, politically motivated or otherwise. This incident is between two individuals at a private event and will be resolved between those two individuals. It in no way involves the Penn College Republicans," a group statement read.
(Daily Pennsylvanian via Atrios)

Nice to see the Republicans condemning violence. Not that there's a pattern, or anything...

After the election, of course. Just a trial balloon....

[NOVAK] 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.
(Sun Times via Pandagon)

Wow. Moral clarity!

UPDATE Say, wonder if this has anything to do with lockdowns for the reservists on their way to Big Sandy?

Here's a curious little item from the Times letters column. It reinforces what we already know about the Boy in the Bubble, but there's more:

To the Editor:

"Before Friendly Audiences on the Trail, a Looser, Livelier Bush Appears" (White House Letter, Sept. 13) mentions the policing of dissent at events, but does not mention the campaign's pre-emptive invitation process.

Through a misplaced phone call, we were invited to pick up tickets for a convention-week appearance in Michigan. The invitation was nearly rescinded when we said we were neither registered Republicans nor likely supporters of the president. We were granted nontransferable tickets only after a campaign supervisor sensed that her colleague's "grilling" (his word) might appear, well, undemocratic. This grilling session sought a loyalty oath.

We're still on the presidential guest list; President Bush himself calls to urge us to use the absentee ballot his campaign secured, and we're invited to attend events 200 miles away. These "rapturous" crowds are not only vetted but, apparently, willing to travel.

Jennifer Wenzel
Joseph Slaughter
Ypsilanti, Mich., Sept. 16, 2004
(via Times)

As we've been pointing out (back):

The voting machine manufacturers are Republicans...

The voting machine testers are Republicans...

The testing process is entirely secret....

The voting machine software is entirely secret...

Swing states Ohio (home of Diebold) and Florida (fraud in 2000, already) are using electronic voting machines that are manufactured, tested, and run by Republican firms...

And now we have Bush recommending that Republicans bypass the system they own and run, and use absentee ballots. I wonder why? Could it be—and I know this would be winger projection run amok—that in the case of a close election that Bush loses, He plans to cry fraud Himself?

The light bulb goes on for MoDo:

But the Bushies are way beyond spin, which is a staple of politics. These guys are about turning the world upside down, and saying it's right side up. And that should really give security moms the jitters.
(via NY Times)

A nice meme to start working on. It converts a percieved Bush strength—his certainty—into a weakness. More like this please.

This is ugly. This is beyond FUBAR. Read past the lead and see how screwed up this situation is getting before these guys even get on the boat to leave for the Big Sandy:

(via The State (Columbia SC) via WaPo)

THOMAS E. RICKS

The Washington Post

FORT DIX, N.J. — The 635 soldiers of a battalion of the South Carolina National Guard scheduled to depart today for a year or more in Iraq have spent their off-duty hours under a disciplinary lockdown in their barracks for the last two weeks.

The trouble began Labor Day weekend, when 13 members of the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment went AWOL, mainly to see their families again before shipping out. Then there was an ugly confrontation between members of the battalion’s Alpha and Charlie batteries — the term artillery units use instead of “companies” — that threatened to turn into a brawl involving three dozen soldiers, and required the base police to intervene...[Note: booze was involved. Big whoop.]

This particular Guard unit was put on an accelerated training schedule — giving the soldiers about 36 hours of leave over the past two months — because the Army needs to get fresh troops to Iraq and there are not enough active-duty or “regular” troops to go around.

Preparation has been especially intense because the Army is short-handed on military police units, so these artillerymen are being quickly re-trained to provide desperately needed security for convoys. And in order to fully man the unit, scores of soldiers were pulled in from different Guard outfits, some voluntarily, some on orders.

As members of the unit — drawn mainly from South Carolina’s coastal Lowcountry — looked toward their tour, some said they were angry, or reluctant to go, or both. Many more are bone-tired. Overall, some of them fear, the unit lacks strong cohesion — the glue that holds units together in combat....

The decisions include the Bush administration’s reluctance to sharply increase the size of the U.S. Army. Instead, the Pentagon is relying on the National Guard and Reserves, which provide 40 percent of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Also, the top brass has concluded that more military police are needed as security deteriorates in Iraq and the violent insurgency flares in ways that were not predicted by Pentagon planners.

These soldiers will be based in northern Kuwait and will escort supply convoys into Iraq. That’s some of the toughest duty on this mission, with every trip through the hot desert bringing the possibility of being hit by roadside bombs, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire.

Sgt. Kelvin Richardson, 38, a machinist from Summerville, S.C., volunteered for this mission but says he now wishes he had not and has misgivings about the unit’s readiness.

Richardson is a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in which he served with the 1st Cavalry Division, an active-duty “regular” unit. This battalion “doesn’t come close” to that division, he said. “Active-duty, they take care of the soldiers.”

Pfc. Kevin Archbald, 20, a construction worker from Fort Mill, S.C., who was transferred from another South Carolina Guard unit, also worries about his cobbled-together outfit’s cohesion.

“My last unit, we had a lot of people who knew each other. We were pretty close.” He said he does not feel that in the 178th. Here, he said, “I think there’s just a lot of frustration.”

UPDATE: Hit "publish" too fast without highlighting what I think is the most important line in this story. The rules for creating effective mass armies have been around since the ancient Spartans and two of the biggies are gone with the wind here:

(1) You want to instill not just training in a particular skill, but pride that that is the most important damn job in the whole friggin' service. Artillery is particularly intense, so much that they have their own saint even (Barbara). This is compensation, in part, for being the original "cannon fodder." Now that's been taken away from them. Does wonders for morale.

(2) Even more important is unit cohesion. Draw your own inference how well THAT'S working here. You are, after all, supposed to fight the Other Guy, not your mates. As best I can tell Pfc Archbald is considerably more hip to this than whoever threw this mismash together.

Swiped from an Atrios comment thread from late last night, from somebody who goes by the handle "Just Asking":

How to start your day with a positive attitude
1. Create a "new folder" on your computer.
2. Name it "George W. Bush".
3. Send it to the trash.
4. Empty the trash.
5. Your computer will ask you: "Do you really want to get rid of "George W. Bush"?
6. Answer calmly, "Yes", and press the mouse button firmly.

Scoff if you will, but I actually did this a couple of times and you know, it does feel good. Consider that freepers and LGT'ers get up every morning and do calisthenics in front of their Freedom Family (tm) Security Surveliance Cameras, choreographed to John Ashcroft's rendition of "Let the Eagle Soar" followed by the Daily Patriot Prayer (recited while kneeling in the direction of Crawford, Texas) to get themselves fired up for the day's fight, and it doesn't seem like a lot of work at all.

Well, well:

A mistake by an election worker "lost" 245 electronic ballots cast in last month's Florida primary, but the mix-up did not change the outcome of any race when the votes were finally counted, authorities said.

Hillsborough County residents cast the ballots before the Aug. 31 election on an ATM-style machine set up at a library, Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson said. A member of Johnson's staff left the machine, made by Sequoia Voting Systems, in test mode. The votes were recorded and stored but not counted until they were found Friday.

Johnson said the votes were discovered missing when his staff compared the number of people who signed in to vote at the precinct and the number of ballots counted there. In all, the county had 118,699 votes cast.
(via WaPo)

So 567/245 is what?

But not to worry! After all, Federalist society "elf", freeper, and Republican operative F/Buckhead (back) says everything is A/OK! Phew!

1. Photo opportunity. 2. Planted story in the SCLM.

Went into a small Barnes and Noble today—the one I used to sit down and read the magazines in when I was unemployed and had no money at all—to get Hersh's (back) Chain of Command. The lady behind the cash register said "Oh yes, I've got to buy that one today."

So we got to talking about the election and Kerry.

The bad news was, she had a Cuban friend who is "very smart, but she's going to vote the wrong way. She's Cuban, and she's going to vote Republican because of what Kennedy did."

The good news is, she's out there talking up Kerry and how important it is to vote for him.

Who can say the same?

The chain of command... It starts with us. Right? Right?

Theoretically everybody saw this when they followed Lambert's lead to the *F*Buckard story over at Digby, but here's another shot. Don't bother unless you have, hope to have, once had, once were, know any, or otherwise care about a teenage boy:

If there was ever a man with less moral authority to call up a draft than the phony AWOL flyboy, I don't know who it would be. He has even less than someone who went to Canada --- at least that person had to live with the consequences of his actions. This was a guy who had the gall to shove to the front of the line, play around with a million dollar airplane for a couple of years and then check out early for reasons we can only speculate about.

All young people in this country should vote for John Kerry and they should drag their slacker friends to the polls with them. He faced all these choices head on in the crucible of his generation and he came out a man of strength and integrity. Bush ran away. Young people should realize that he will not hesitate to put their lives on the line to cover his ass. He did it to his fellow young men when he was twenty one years old, he's doing it to reserves and national guard troops today and he'll do it to young people with a draft tomorrow. It's in his character to make others fight his battles and clean up his messes for him.

Go read the whole thing for the documentation: DOD documents (mysteriously "scrubbed" off their website by people who never heard of Google Cache) about how they're revving up the old Selective Service Boards again. My sons are 24 and 15, I'd sure appreciate if this news got around a little more.

Wait for it—

F/Buckhead! (back; back)

Yep, winger loon, Federalist Society "elf", Republican operative, and typographic Renaissance Man (sayeth digby):

Computer experts at respected universities have sounded the alarm over the potential for high-tech chicanery. Grass-roots activists, leaders of alternative political parties and others have stoked the flames, mostly via the Web. Touch-screen-related legislation is pending in Congress and the General Assembly.

Some critics suspect the machines might have played a role in the surprise defeats in 2002 of two Democrats — Gov. Roy Barnes and U.S. Sen. Max Cleland.

Diebold [back] Election Systems won a $54 million contract to provide touch-screen machines for Georgia, which in 2002 became the first state in the nation to implement electronic voting statewide.

In October, the Fulton County Elections Board sent Cox a letter that asked pointed questions about the security of Georgia's voting machines. The state's largest county uses 2,975 machines. Harry MacDougald, a Republican board member [F/Buckhead!!] , wrote the letter after hearing about Rubin's report.

Cox wrote a six-page response explaining the procedures in place to ensure the machines cannot be manipulated.

The Fulton board replied Dec. 1, telling Cox she had alleviated members' concerns.


"I feel reasonably comfortable," MacDougald said recently.

F/Buckhead feels comfortable.... Well, that's all I need to know!

"There's always a theoretical possibility [of tampering]. That can never be excluded, regardless of the voting technology. But the measures that were previously in place, with the new measures and technical fixes that are being made, bring the issue within a reasonable degree of security."
(via the Atlanta Joural Constitution)

Digby also adds the following sage warning:

One thing I might warn everyone about on this voting technology issue. Be advised that if we win and it's close, the set-up has been put in place for Buckhead and his grubby little friends to rush online claiming that we stole the election. I have a hundred bucks riding on it. Projection has gone beyond a psychological diagnosis to an actual propaganda tool.

Eesh. I hate to picture Digby losing a hundred bucks—but I sure hope he does.

I dunno. On the one hand, there's supposed to be some sort of liberal conspiracy against Bush, and CBS, the Democratic Party, and the Kerry campaign are all in it together, and forged the Killian memos.

On the other hand, the guy who's being tagged as the source of the Killian memos is announcing his intentions to all and sundry on a Yahoo bulletin board (AP), no doubt infested with Republican trolls and operatives, just as our blog is.

Something doesn't add up here.

UPDATE Snort!

Yes, leave it to Louisiana to combine election fraud with an anti-gay marriage amendment. Unbelievable:

Louisiana voters decided Saturday whether to approve a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, one of up to 12 such measures on the ballot around the country this year.

It was expected to pass by an overwhelming margin, though court challenges are likely. The civil rights group Forum for Equality has promised legal action.

[A] possible legal complication: delayed delivery on Saturday of voting machines to precincts in New Orleans, which has a politically strong gay population.

State director of elections Frances Sims said at least 59 precincts did not have voting machines when polls opened because officials with New Orleans' clerk of court's office failed to meet drivers who tried to deliver the machines earlier that morning. The problem was solved by midday.

Julius Green, 58, said he went to his polling place in New Orleans' Bywater neighborhood about 10 a.m. and found no voting machines - just a crowd.

"I am angry. I'm very angry," [Julius] Green said. "This is ridiculous. It makes people feel that their vote don't count."
(via AP)

Yes, Julius? Your point?

Sheesh. Just not having the voting machines there at all... That makes Florida look subtle, doesn't it?

You know, the $50,000 that goes to anyone who can prove that Bush performed his duties in the Air National Guard between May 1972 and May 1973? (back)

Didn't think so.

Oh, wait.

Bush hasn't agreed to the debates, yet.

So they can't be sure of the trial date, now, can they? C'mon, people. Let's be reasonable.

From the UK's Daily Telegraph (via Kos:

Tony Blair was warned a year before invading Iraq that a stable post-war government would be impossible without keeping large numbers of troops there for "many years", secret government papers reveal.

The documents, seen by The Telegraph, show more clearly than ever the grave reservations expressed by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, over the consequences of a second Gulf war and how prescient his Foreign Office officials were in predicting the ensuing chaos.

But it is the warning of the likely aftermath - more than a year in advance, as Mr Blair was deciding to commit Britain to joining a US-led invasion - that is likely to cause most controversy and embarrassment in both London and Washington.

Mr Straw predicted in March 2002 that post-war Iraq would cause major problems, telling Mr Blair in a letter marked "Secret and personal" that no one had a clear idea of what would happen afterwards. "There seems to be a larger hole in this than anything."

Most of the US assessments argued for regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Mr Straw said.

"But no one has satisfactorily answered how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better. Iraq has no history of democracy so no one has this habit or experience."

The paper, compiled by the Cabinet Office Overseas and Defence Secretariat, added: "The only certain means to remove Saddam and his elite is to invade and impose a new government, but this would involve nation-building over many years."

Then again, there's plan B (can you say "Allawi"?)

Replacing Saddam with another "Sunni strongman" would allow the allies to withdraw their troops quickly. This leader could be persuaded not to seek WMD in exchange for large-scale assistance with reconstruction.

"However, there would then be a strong risk of the Iraqi system reverting to type. Military coup could succeed coup until an autocratic Sunni dictator emerged who protected Sunni interests. With time he could acquire WMD," the paper said.

Even a representative government would be likely to create its own WMD so long as Israel and Iran retained their own arsenals and Palestinian grievances remained unresolved.

The documents also show the degree of concern within Whitehall that America was ready to invade Iraq with or without backing from any of its allies.

Sir David Manning, Mr Blair's foreign policy adviser, returned from talks in Washington in mid-March 2002 warning that Mr Bush "still has to find answers to the big questions", which included "what happens on the morning after?".

In a letter to the Prime Minister marked "Secret - strictly personal", he said: "I think there is a real risk that the administration underestimates the difficulties.

"They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it."

Oh, that dry British understatement. I love it.

It did not see the war on terrorism as being a major element in American decision-making.

"The swift success of the war in Afghanistan, distrust of UN sanctions and inspections regimes and unfinished business from 1991 are all factors," it added. That view appeared to be shared by Peter Ricketts, the Foreign Office policy director.

There were "real problems" over the alleged threat and what the US was looking to achieve by toppling Saddam, he said. Nothing had changed to make Iraqi WMD more of a threat.

"Even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years. Military operations need clear and compelling military objectives. For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge match between Bush and Saddam."
(via Daily Telegraph)

Yep. "He tried to kill my Dad." Well, I'm sure the families of the 1000 American dead will be happy to hear all this.

He is a vacuous, vapid ignoramus. He is the author of Lott's Doctrine of Preemptive Capitulation. Except, of course, when he is sticking it to his own party. Then he is willing to burn down the Senate in order to preserve his sinecure and the perquisites of his office. He is a disgusting rodent of a man but is really much more of a Nancy Boy than a man.

Rather than letting him gratify his ego lust by hanging on to the Senate Majority Leadership, may I suggest just paying someone to walk around behind him calling him "Leader" every few minutes in a room full of mirrors, and throwing in a life-time supply of Aqua Net hairspray? He would be equally happy, and we would all be a lot better off.

The latest imbroglio is just more more good reason this pathetic loser, this pale pint-size knock-off of a genuine leader, has to be removed from the leadership. He has got us so far off message we need a trip planner and a telescope to find it again. He has gladly capitulated to a constellation of race-hustling poverty pimps in an repellent effort to hang on at all costs.

Get rid of this weasel or go down in flames with him.

And that's what this genius F/Buckhead said about someone in his own party, Trent Lott.

He honestly felt that Trent Lott wasn't conservative enough to be a Republican Senate Majority Leader. He was too compromising! Holy Cow!

I keep reading stories in which friends and political allies of his call him a "passionate" conservative.

If by passionate you mean he's a stark-raving right-wing loon that has no business being anywhere near the corridors of power then I guess I'll agree that he's certainly, um, passionate.

These are the sorts of operatives this administration keeps around them folks.

And, yeah, I'm so sure he didn't get tipped by Rove about this. Right. The Freepi don't have enough imagination or analytical ability to come up with this stuff on their own. Rove fed it to him. I can't help but wonder how long they had copies of this memo -- and it makes me wonder if the memos aren't genuine after all.

Shouldn't this sort of thing bother moderates who are pondering voting for this utter failure of an administration?

Especially so since, I'm sure, F/Buckhead is on the list of appointees to the federal bench for the second Bush term.

UPDATE Alert reader Beth shares some F/Buckhead-isms:

A few Buckheadisms:
1."WHO’S PART OF THE “SMEAR CAMPAIGN”?

Oh, please Joe, let it be me."

2."Not knocking Cheney - he's a total stud"

3."Actually, there's a very good argument that environmentalism is a
secular religion.... This being so, it is more a matter of faith and
belief than of facts and reason."

"What do Greens and watermelons have in common? Green on the outside, red on the inside"

Oh, and F/Buckhead's views on Stalingrad:

4.[re:US offer of ceasefire in Fallujah] "Hopefully, we are just saying
that stuff publicly to shut up the backstabbing ingrates on the IGC,
while we press the assault with another battallion of marines and kill
every last man or boy in the city who is toting a weapon."

Sheesh. Fight a war for the oil, and at least you could get some:

The sharp rise in attacks on Iraq's oil pipelines in recent weeks has substantially impaired the country's production, dealing a blow to the economy and threatening the struggling reconstruction effort, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.

Insurgents are bombing pipelines and other parts of Iraq's oil infrastructure almost daily, another sign that the country's security situation is deteriorating beyond the control of U.S. military and Iraqi security forces.

In an appearance before Congress in March 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz said Iraqi oil revenue could bring in as much as $100 billion over two to three years.

This week, however, Bush administration officials asked Congress to divert $450 million earmarked for reconstruction to increase oil production. That's on top of $1.7 billion already devoted to rebuilding the industry.

"The premise was that we'd go to Iraq, and oil would provide the money. That's not what is happening, and somebody is going to have to pay," said Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

The success of the bombings and the expansion of targets have signaled to some experts that the insurgents have inside help. Some of Iraq's 55,000 oil technicians and engineers who are disenchanted with the U.S. occupation may be providing instruction.

"A significant number are supplying information and intelligence to the various insurgents to blow up facilities," said Youssef Ibrahim, a director of the Strategic Energy Investment Group, an energy consultancy based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. "It's part and parcel of the effort to bring down a government that they see as collaborators."

The effectiveness of the pipeline attacks also has led to worries that dissidents in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, could copy the strategy. "A simple attack produces a huge impact," said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. "It's cheap, easy and achievable."

With 40% of the world's oil transported by pipelines and global demand at an all-time high, an outbreak of pipeline bombings could have disastrous economic consequences, analysts said. "The world can live with Iraq pumping 2 million barrels per day. The world cannot live with pipelines popping all over the place," Luft said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have been at a loss to determine how to contain the damage.
(via LA Times)

More proof that we're winning!

Look! Over there! Hurricane Ivan!

Look! Over there! CBS News!

And pay no attention to the war behind the curtain!

"You know the drill."

Who knew?

What better image of Arab ill-treatment and oppression could be devised than that of a naked Arab man lying at the feet of a short-haired American woman in camouflage garb, who stares immodestly at her Arab pet while holding him by the throat with a leash? Had bin Laden sought to create a powerful trademark image for his international product of global jihad, he could scarcely have done better hiring the cleverest advertising firm on Madison Avenue.

And not only are these photographs perfect masterpieces of propaganda; they have, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger, the considerable advantage of being true. Or, to put it another way: if the Hooded Man and the Leashed Man and the naked human pyramids and the rest shocked Americans because of their perverse undermining of the normal, they shocked Iraqis and other Arabs because the images seemed to confirm so vividly and precisely a reality that many had suspected and feared but had tried not to believe.

(via The Fancy-That-A-New-York-Publication-Not-The-New-Yorker-That-Covers-The-News Review of Books)

Excellent review. Go read. And I've got to quote this:

"I always knew the Americans would bring electricity back to Baghdad. I just never thought they'd be shooting it up my ass."
—Young Iraqi translator,Baghdad, November 2003

[Rim shot. Laughter. "Thanks. I'll be here for the whole war."]

He's an "elf":

[Buckhead is Harry MacDougal], an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes and who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Los Angeles Times has found.

MacDougald is a lawyer in the Atlanta office of the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and is affiliated with two prominent conservative legal groups, the Federalist Society and the Southeastern Legal Foundation, where he serves on the legal-advisory board.

Well, well, well. Remember the role the Federalist Society and its elves played in the coup the wingers plotted against our last elected President?

This really is starting to give off, um, a Rove-ian aroma, isn't it?

What's the word for FBuckhead? It's on the tip of my tongue... Op.. Op... Operative!

Editor and publisher has more:

Suspicions that MacDougald may have been tipped off have arisen because his quick comments on typography seemed to go far beyond his reputed expertise. He wrote that the memos purportedly written in the early 1970s by the late Lt. Col Jerry B. Killian were "in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman....The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software and personal computers," MacDougald wrote. "They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts."

Actually, there are two reasons to be suspicious: (1) the quickness of FBuckhead's response, (2) his typographic comments were lies, as we've repeatedly demonstrated (take the PC magazine tests).

Gee, it's almost like the Republicans think they're in a war, and have pre-positioned the material for their campaign, isn't it? That's what enables rapid response, after all. (If only they could fight real wars so well. Oh, wait...)

And now (3) the source of the typographic lies was a Republican operative. A classic case of the winger meme transmittal from the fringe to the mainstream, per Orcinus (in his essential "Rush, Newspeak, and Fascism.")

Developing....

What Kevin Drum says:

I think it's worth pointing out that this is why the right wing is paying so much attention to Rather, just as they did to Jayson Blair and the BBC's Andrew Gilligan — but not to Judith Miller or Robert Novak. It's not about the fact that the mainstream media makes mistakes — of course they do — it's about keeping alive the persecution myth so central to American conservatism: that the liberal media is a corrupt and malign institution intent on crushing conservative dissent at every opportunity.

Sure, it's an absurd argument, but that doesn't mean it won't work. After all, yelling loudly enough got the heads of both the New York Times and the BBC fired last year, both of them for journalistic misdeeds that were actually fairly modest. Meanwhile, Judith Miller, who plied patent falsehoods from Ahmed Chalabi on the front page of the New York Times, and Robert Novak, who cheerfully outed a CIA agent in his syndicated column, continue to ply their trade unhindered.

This game has been ongoing for a long time, of course, but conservative bullying and intimidation of the media has real-world consequences quite aside from personnel shuffling at the New York Times or the BBC. Just as Rathergate has helped bury bad news from Iraq this week, persistent complaining from conservatives has kept the overall coverage from Iraq relatively benign for over a year, despite a nearly unanimous belief among reporters on the ground that events there are even worse than they look.

Since the Iraq clusterfuck is a winning issue for Kerry, yes, I'd say that winger bullying does have real world consequences...

Within the past few weeks some of those reporters have finally begun saying that on front pages and the evening news, but it's a year late and several billion dollars short.

Dan Rather can handle his own problems, but preventing conservatives from intimidating the press into manufacturing a phony balance regardless of where the truth lies affects us all. That's what's really at stake here.

The wingers are just working the refs. Same as always. Yawn.

... Says "I'm here to ask for your vote"—in front of pre-screened supporters? (In fact, may have been made to sign loyalty oaths, back?

That takes real courrage, doesn't it? Bush courage....

Iraq:

"This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies." - Retired general William Odom, former head of the NSA. ~ credit: "Anonymous" [from earlier comments]

NY Times (the old grey whore she ain't what she used to be):

That verdict is now at hand, and it only strengthens the case against Mr. Bush's main reason for waging preventive war against Iraq. Iraq was not an imminent or urgent threat, and Mr. Duelfer's report undermines the idea that it was even a "gathering threat," as Mr. Bush now routinely describes it.

[...]

The most specific evidence of an illicit program was apparently a network of clandestine laboratories operated by the Iraqi intelligence service. Those laboratories, first mentioned by Mr. Kay, have now been thoroughly inspected. They look small-bore indeed, capable of producing only small quantities of chemical or biological agents that might be useful in assassinations or perhaps in research far removed from weapons production. That is hardly justification for preventive war.

[...]

Republicans argue that the international consensus to keep Mr. Hussein boxed in with sanctions and inspections was eroding, making the invasion necessary to forestall the graver threat of a rearmed Iraq. But with no evidence emerging that Mr. Hussein posed an urgent threat, and with the situation deteriorating badly in Iraq, that calculus is flawed. Intentions Versus Reality in Iraq, (NYTimes, Sept. 18)

"...the economy stinks and that war is a joke, and yet all we hear about is the drunk's viet nam record." ~ credit: "Anonymous" [from earlier comments.]

Note: "The drunk" doesn't have any "viet nam" record. None. As in: not any. The closest "the drunk" ever got to "viet nam" (according to my "official sources") was chasing a minature pig around a picnic table during a 1972 campaign fundraiser at the Prattville State Game Farm.

*

Most of you probably already know about the Freeway Blogger sign slogan contest. But just in case...:


The Freeway Blogger and General JC Christian are holding a contest. You can submit your own freewayblogger sign slogan and become famous. Your sign will be featured at Freewayblogger.com and on an overpass or fence or something.

Rules, guidelines, and prize info available from the General. Deadline Monday, Sept 20th.

And Remember:

TREES dON'T VOTE fOR BUSH!

Hee. Get it? Pleeze don't vote for Bu$h. :-) nevermind........

Hurry and enter. You can win a Savage M-12 BVSS bolt action varmint hunting rifle or a whole bag of used Ted Nugent records! Or maybe you can't. Either way, enter to win. And also read this blog post by the Freeway Blogger right here: 100 signs, 1000 soldiers

*

Esteemed reader Raison de Fem points us to an incredibly useful site, courtesy of Michael Moore: Registration Deadlines State By State.

A hasty scrolldown reveals that possibly as many as HALF the states have deadlines in just two weeks, Oct. 1-4. Oct. 1, as it happens, is a Friday this year. I suggest all voter registration encouragers to treat Oct. 1 as the deadline by which forms must be either postmarked or physically in the hands of the registrars.

Mike has some useful data for college students on voting at school vs. back at home. My advice is to vote back home, since you know you should call your mother anyway and she will be so relieved that you are asking for an absentee ballot rather than money it will make her day. And at worst you can always ask for money later in the conversation. You may have to have voted in person at least once before you can vote absentee so check this too.

Xan Advice: (1) Carry stamps. I am looking at a TN form I picked up at the Davis-Kidd Bookstore in Jackson yesterday (free plug for good citizenship behavior), and it isn't postage-paid. Don't be a cheap bastard like TN is, blow contribute $3.70 per ten voters and think of it as an investment of good will.

(2) If you live on or near a state line, carry forms from both. Yeah it's work, but people will be impressed by your dedication and/or too embarassed to refuse by this point. As a form of nonviolent coercion I think even Gandhi would be impressed.

(3) Don't be shy. You're not asking for money, a committment, an oath of fealty or a DNA test. You can even phrase it as "hey, have you moved since you voted last time, you know you have to re-register in your new precinct" which is both perfectly true AND lets both of you avoid having to raise the question of whether the person has voted since the Carter administration.

(4) And if anybody hits you with a refusal because they think registering to vote will make them eligible for jury duty--nope. They're already in the pool if they have a driver's license. If they still argue after you point this out, skip 'em, they're so stupid they'd probably vote Bush anyway.

So that's my nag for the week on GOTV. When I got back into active politics (thanks to blogs) I had forgotten that acronym and kept trying to figure out what the hell it meant. Go TV? TV sucks, that would be stupid. Go on TV? Ehh, no--when it comes to appearance, I've got a body for radio.

Get Out The Vote, somebody finally said. D'oh! I said, slapping my forehead. Fact remains, it's the most important thing us foot soldiers in the trenches do in an election year. Personal contact and interest is the most powerful influence on anybody to do anything.

Most people are so lonely and don't realize it, that making any non-commercial human contact at all is a real rush. Being asked for a favor conveys a feeling of power, also a strong behavioral reinforcer. You have more influence as one person than a $20 million media buy.

If we turn out even 20% of the non-voting half, Kerry's landslide will be of historic proportions. And we have to win, or the goats will cry.

I'm putting out the candle in my little room under the stairs at The Mighty Corrente Building. The fervor of the Bush crowd really appalls me. How can they not see? Sigh.

And why (Republican donor) Gallup's polls are hosed. Phew.

Sigh..

As the Green Party candidate in 2000, Nader attracted 97,000 Florida votes -- and most Democrats and many Republicans agree that those votes cost Democrat Al Gore the presidency.

President Bush won the state by 537 votes after three weeks of recounts and legal fighting -- much of it before Florida's high court.

This year, the Reform Party of Florida submitted Nader to the state as its candidate. The Florida Democratic Party and several individual voters challenged his certification.

The key legal challenge against Nader was the contention that the Reform Party was no longer a bona fide national party and didn't nominate Nader in a national convention -- as required by Florida law -- but did it in a conference call three months earlier.

Officials with the party and Nader argued that the Reform Party convention may have been small but that it had legitimately confirmed him as their presidential nominee.

The Reform Party formed in 1995 out of Ross Perot's 1992 and 1996 presidential bids; Buchanan ran as its candidate in 2000. But the party has seen its membership decline amid infighting in recent years. Its national treasurer last month said the party had $18.18 in the bank.

Well... I have to believe that the Florida Supreme Court was reading the law right... And it's good to have Nader exposed as a fraud (sigh)... But still...

Why am I not surprised?

SAN DIEGO (AP) - The U.S. Army said Friday that defense contractor Titan Corp. will continue to provide translators and interpreters in Iraq for at least the next six months.

The contract, which has an option for another six months, has a potential value of up to $400 million. Titan, which has had at least two employees linked to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, had a five-contract that was due to expire at the end of the month, but the Army decided to hold off on renewing it because another company complained the process was unfair.

A recently released investigation by Army Maj. Gen. George Fay found two Titan civilian translators, who were not named, contributed to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

One employee, a woman, failed to report detainee abuse. The second, a man, beat and may have raped a detainee. The Fay report recommends the information be forwarded for possible criminal prosecution and that "appropriate contractual action" be taken.
(via AP)

You know, generally contractors aren't rewarded when they don't do what the administration wants. Oh, wait...

"I bump into these anti-Bush alarmists all the time. Recently an extremely successful and erudite man I much admire told me he viewed the upcoming election as something akin to September 1939,..." - Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Apparently Richard Cohen is mighty flummoxed over all of the - EEK! - "Bush hatred" - and "anti-Bush alarmists!" - Eeek-eeek! - fouling his airspace. Give it up Cohen you silly assed Attack Pussy [link to James Wolcott's recent post]

Likewise, visit the Daily Howler for Bob Somerby's take on Cohen's latest quivery. See:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2004 ~ THE TWO COHENS:
"This is not the place to examine why Bush is so hated," Cohen continues. But does his acquaintance really "hate Bush?" It's hard to tell from the exchange he describes. What exactly did Cohen's friend mean when he compared this election to 1939? Either Cohen didn’t ask, or the answer wasn't colorful enough to be included in this column.

I think I know what Cohen's friend is talking about. Maybe this will encourage Richard Cohen to add a little more blue to his prosy pallet:

Within the Protestant Church, there were those who looked to the coming Leader to bring about spiritual renewal and moral revival. The fall of the monarchy and collapse of 'God-given' authority, the secularization of society, and the perceived 'crisis of faith' in German Protestantism all contributed to a readiness to look to a new form of leadership which could reinvoke 'true' Christian values. The shadings of the various leadership images came together in the tract of the nationalist publicist Wilhelm Stapel, a former liberal turned volkisch enthusiast, member of the hamburg group of neo-conservatives associated with the ideas of Moeller van den Bruck, who depicted the 'true statesman' as 'at one and the same time ruler, warrior, and priest'. It amounted to a secularized belief in salvation, wrapped up in pseudo-religious language.

Whatever the particular emphasis, the conservative and volkisch Right juxtaposed the negative view of a 'leaderless democracy' with a concept of a true leader as a man of destiny, born not elected to leadership, not bound by conventional rules and laws, 'hard, straightforward, and ruthless', but embodying the will of God in his actions. 'God give us leaders and help us to true following', ran one text. Devotion, loyalty, obedience, and duty were the corresponding values demanded of the followers.

The spread of fascist and militaristic ideas in post-war Europe meant that 'heroic leadership' images were 'in the air' and by no means confined to Germany. The emergence of the Duce cult in Italy provides an obvious parallel. But the German images naturally had their own flavour, drawing on the particular elements of the political culture of the nationalist Right. And the crisis-ridden nature of the Weimar state, detested by so many powerful groups in society and unable to win the popularity and support of the masses, guaranteed that such ideas, which in a more stable environment might have been regarded with derision and confined to the lunatic fringe of politics, were never short of a hearing.

Sound familiar? Thats from Ian Kershaw's Hitler; 1889-1936: Hubris, page 181. The keep it stupid, keep it simple, drumming that you hear coming from the palace guard at CNN and MSNBC and FoxNoise et al., as well as the Bush campaign itself, bears an eerie resemblance to Kershaw's passage above (and below); not only in style but in content.

The crowds that began to flock in 1919 and 1920 to Hitler's speeches were not motivated by refined theories. For them, simple slogans, kindling the fires of anger, resentment, and hatred, were what worked. ~ Kershaw, Hubris, pg 137

How many times have you heard some think tank pundit dolt, broadcast television "news" chanter, or newspaper attack pussy, repeat the negatively intended charge that John Kerry's arguments to audiences are to complex, or refined, or - eek! - nuanced. Oooo that pesky nuance. By God and Homeland that George W. Bush, Him chosen by divine oversight to lead, does not engage in such sensitive girly man complexities. Him, embodied by the 'W', parade marshal to the heroic leadership personality cult, surrounded by entralled sycophants at each whistlestop, and embedded within the neo-corporate state oligarchy, is not motivated by wispy fuzzy wuzzy "refined theories". No-seh!

Remembering also of course that this is this same clangor horn of corporate media-store stove minders, think tank hood ornaments, and Bush administration policy swindlers that screwed the American people into an unnecessary war in Iraq based on fraudulent intelligence, misleading rationalizations, forgeries, and outright lies. All wrapped up and tied neatly with a pretty purple ribbon of simple slogans and expalnations designed to kindle the fires of anger, resentment, and hatred.

And it worked.

*

Miss Manners, er we mean Miller, does not seem to carry any particular clout with Judge Hogan. We award him one more character point--but this story has a twist I have never heard before in privilege cases:

(via WaPo)

A federal judge, in an order released yesterday, ruled that New York Times reporter Judith Miller cannot avoid a subpoena to testify about her private conversations with news sources before a grand jury investigating whether senior administration officials leaked the identity of a covert CIA officer to the media.

In his Sept. 9 order denying Miller's request to quash the subpoena, U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan said that the reporter's discussions with anonymous sources are not protected, either by the First Amendment or by common- law privilege. Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams, said the Times would appeal the decision.

Senior White House officials have acknowledged they were trying to raise concerns with reporters at that time about Wilson.

Miller contemplated writing an article about Wilson and Plame and "spoke with one or more confidential sources" about a July 6, 2003, article that Wilson wrote for the Times titled 'What I Didn't Find in Africa," according to Hogan's order.

Why the distinction about "anonymous sources"? Hell, is there any other kind in Washington? Anyone with expertise in First Amendment law is invited to clarify this point in Comments.

And gets arrested for it, naturally, since anyone who dissents at a Bush rally is arrested (back)

The Pennington mother of a soldier killed in Iraq was arrested and charged with trespassing after she interrupted first lady Laura Bush’s speech yesterday.

Sue Niederer was arrested after she was escorted from the Colonial Fire Co. hall on Kuser Road where the Republican rally was being held yesterday morning, according to Hamilton police Lt. James Kostopolis.

Niederer was wearing a shirt that read, "You killed my son," at the time.

Niederer was one of 1,217 to receive a ticket for the rally and stood near the back of the hall as local Republican politicians thanked Bush for visiting Hamilton before introducing the first lady.

Bush was well-received by the crowd, many of whom waved pompoms and Bush-Cheney signs after giving the first lady a lengthy ovation when she arrived.

Bush was about 10 minutes into her speech on campaign issues, however, when she began speaking about U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was at this point that Niederer began yelling loudly toward Bush, but supporters at the rally realized Niederer was a detractor and began drowning out Niederer’s shouts with chants of "Four more years!"

The ruckus briefly rattled Bush, who halted her speech and turned toward local dignitaries, but she quickly resumed her comments on the war.

Niederer’s son, Army Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, was killed by a roadside bomb near Baghdad Feb. 3, while commanding an 18-man convoy. Dvorin was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart and was credited with saving more than a dozen soldiers from being killed or injured.

I said, ‘How come your daughters and children of congressmen and senators aren’t fighting in the war if it’s so positive?’" Niederer said last night of what she yelled to Bush.

Niederer is charged with defiant trespassing and was released on her own recognizance. She is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 12.
(via The Trentonian)

Don't you just love the Republicans? Drowning out the voice of a mother who lost her son with that noxious "Four More Years" chant. Unbelievable.

Another taste to Republican love:

She drew little sympathy from the firehouse crowd.

"Your son chose to go fight that war!" shouted one woman. "She's got the press she wanted," cracked another.
(via The Trentonian)

And a party with attitudes like this is sending your sons and daughters off to die? Unbelievable.

NOTE Of course, she could consider herself lucky that she wasn't assaulted—the Republicans have a kink about assaulting women at Bush events. (See "Bush watches as woman gets abused, "Republicans keep hitting women; Kicking 'em while they're down.)

UPDATE Atrios lays in the ammo for when these thugs claim moral equivalence.

UPDATE Froomkin notes that the woman's remarks have been deleted from the official transcript. [Laughter. Applause. Chants of "Four more years."]

Salon has crucial stuff on the Iraq clusterfuck. Go read:

1. Turning point: How Bush "joysticked" the battle of Fallujah, and lost the war.

2. The "war is lost": The Sidster extracts devestating quotes from top military:

Gen. Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and senior military officers over Iraq is worse than any he has ever seen with any previous U.S. government, including during Vietnam. "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."

I bet they wish they had Clinton back.

3. Why the Republicans can't fight terror 10 reasons:

The Bush administration's manifest failure to make us safer has ideological roots. American national security has been put at risk because of the Republicans' own "pre-9/11 mind-set." This mind-set includes distrust of centralized government, unquestioning faith in the private sector, hostility to nonmarket distributions, sympathy with religious certainty and scriptural fundamentalism, the belief that freedom demands an unregulated market in military-style weaponry, unawareness that "law" protects decision makers from disinformation, a proclivity to apply military solutions to nonmilitary problems, and a reluctance to take the interests and opinions of other countries into account. This dogmatic and erroneous set of beliefs and dispositions has prevented Cheney and Bush from coming to a clear understanding of the unprecedented threats we face and devising an adequate response.

We need to take seriously their steadfast refusal to admit even their most obvious mistakes. If reelected, they are promising, apparently without embarrassment, to continue unswervingly on the path that has brought us where we are today. If we want to know how they will conduct the war against terrorism in a second term, we need only examine the mess they have wrought over the past three years. Bush's and Cheney's spectacular mishandling of the war on terror has many causes, but none more important than the stale ideology that continues to becloud and paralyze their minds.

Great stuff.

Go on, get the day pass. You know you ought to, and it's definitely worth it.

And while we're at Salon, it looks like Paul Lukasiak finally has a mainstream media outlet. Congrats. Sometimes the good guys win.

Oh, and Jimmy Breslin on why the polls are all wrong.

What Mithras says:

The national Republican Party seems intent on policies that will increase income and wealth disparity in this country. They may only be serving the interests of one of their two main constituencies (those being The Stupid and The Evil), but in effect they are driving the United States to look more like a third-world country, with a super-rich elite which both captures political power and diverts the country's resources to their own benefit, leaving everyone else to suffer. In any civilized society, they would be chucked out of power for such regressive, dangerous policies. Fortunately for them, money buys a lot of loyalty, and good advertising.
(via Fables of the Reconstruction)

"Seems" intent?

And Bush is seriously PO'd! Thanks to alert reader Beth for discovering this gem:

By BRENDA ENGLAND

VICE President Dick Cheney enjoyed telling Sen. Pat Leahy to "F- - - off" on the floor of the U.S. Senate so much that he's been hurling the epithet at cabbies, clerks, waiters, interns, passersby -- and even first lady Laura Bush, shocked White House insiders report!

And President George Bush -- who's been known to let fly with a few hair-curlers himself --is said to have told Cheney to "cool it" before the religious right stops looking the other way and turns the cussing into a bona fide national scandal that could impact the presidential election.

"I know the Vice President is an important man but telling me to 'F- - - off' was harsh," says Pinkie Graderson, who waits tables and loads dishwashers at a posh restaurant near the White House.

"All I did was ask him if I could take his plate to make way for his dessert. He looked at me with a big, self-satisfied smile and said, 'F- - - off.'

"But I'm not the only one. He's been saying that to everybody. He thinks it's funny."

Nobody knows that better than blind paraplegic and Vietnam war hero Henry Feltern, who has owned and operated a popular newsstand in Washington since 1979.

"Mr. Cheney sent one of his aides over to pick up a few newspapers but forgot to give her the money to pay for them," says Feltern, 53. "When I told the young woman that she owed me $27.50, she said, 'But these are for the Vice President.'

"I told her she'd have to pay anyway, so she dialed Cheney on her cell phone and handed it to me. I said, "Mr. Vice President, your papers will be $27.50.'

"There was a long silence, and then he said, 'Do the words 'f- - - off' mean anything to you?' "

The incident with the first lady reportedly took place when Mrs. Bush accidentally bumped into Cheney outside the Oval Office. Sources close to the V.P. insist he merely told her to " 'frig off,' which isn't really cussing."

But a senior administration official who was in earshot insists that "the F-word Cheney used was 'the real thing.' Laura didn't say anything, but you could tell it floored her."

Washington insiders agree that Cheney has never been one to mince words. But that soon might be all in the past. White House sources say the President made a point of chastising Cheney during a recent Presidential Daily Briefing, basically telling him to "cut the crap" before bad press gets out of control. "The exact words he used were slightly more abrupt," says an insider who witnessed the dressing down. "The President said, 'Dick, I'll give you a choice: You can zip it with the cussing or you can 'you know what.' " 'F--- off?' Cheney asked. To which the President replied, 'F---- A!' And then it was on to a really nasty discussion about Iraq."

Don't forget to pick up this week's newsstand issue!
(via Weekly World News)

OK, it's the Weekly World News. I think that's great. This isn't Letterman or The Daily Show. A publication millions read in the supermarket checkout line has decided a couple of things:

1. Their readership will think this line—"He looked at me with a big, self-satisfied smile and said, 'F- - - off.'"— is an apt description of Cheney's attitude (and, by extension, the Republicans, and

2. A "really nasty discussion about Iraq" is an appropriate joke to make.

I'd say this gives the Democrats the green light to go after Bush hard on the war, starting right now. Heck, even throw a little class warfare into the mix, why not? We didn't start it, after all.

No, no. In Baghdad!

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.

But insurgency has escalated this week, spreading to the centre of Baghdad.
(via Financial Times via Kevin Drum)

More proof that we're winning, right? Somehow, I don't think that little ol' $3 billion for security is going to do the job. I mean, if we can't secure the most fortified installation in Iraq, where's the security?

Kerry starts holding Bush accountable:

There’s something else we owe you and all the men and women serving right now in Iraq. We owe you the truth. True leadership is about looking people in the eye and telling the truth – even when it’s hard to hear. And two days ago, President Bush came before you and you received him well, as you should. But I believe he failed the fundamental test of leadership. He failed to tell you the truth. You deserve better. The Commander in Chief must level with the troops and the nation. And as president, I will always be straight with you – on the good days, and the bad days.

Two days ago, the President stood right where I’m standing and did not even acknowledge that more than 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq. He did not tell you that with each passing day, we’re seeing more chaos, more violence, more indiscriminate killings. He did not tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are getting bolder – that Pentagon officials report that entire regions of Iraq are now in the hands of terrorists and extremists. He did not tell you that with each passing month, stability and security seem farther and farther away.

He did not tell you any of this, even though – as the country learned today in the New York Times – his own intelligence officials have warned him for weeks that the mission in Iraq is in serious trouble. But that is the truth – hard as it is to hear. You deserve a president who will not play politics with national security, who will not ignore his own intelligence, while living in a fantasy world of spin, and who will give the American people the truth about the challenge our brave men and women face on the front lines.

Putting the "W" in Wrong:

The hard truth is that our president has made serious mistakes in taking us to war with Iraq. He was wrong to rush to war without giving the inspectors time to do their job. He was wrong to rush to war without understanding and planning for the post-war in Iraq – which itself has become an ongoing conflict. He was wrong to rush to war without the allies we needed by our side. He was wrong to send our troops into battle without the equipment they need to do their jobs. He was wrong to ignore the best advice of America’s own military – including his own Army Chief of Staff – about how many troops we needed to accomplish our mission. So when it comes to Iraq, it’s not that I would have done one thing differently than President Bush – I would have done almost everything differently.

And today, because of his wrong choices, America has borne nearly 90% of the casualties, and paid nearly 90% of the bill in Iraq. Contrast that with the first Gulf War, where our allies paid 95% of the costs.

And perhaps worst of all, the mess in Iraq has set us back – way back – in the war on terror. The simple fact is, when it comes to the war on terror, George W. Bush has taken his eye off the ball.

In the months after September 11th, our troops were doing a magnificent job in Afghanistan, and they were hot on the trail of Osama bin Laden. But instead of staying the course and letting them finish the job, George W. Bush turned over critical military operations in Tora Bora to a band of warlords. As a result, Osama bin Laden escaped, and we haven’t seen him since.

And today, three years after September 11th, Al Qaeda is operating in 60 countries, and gaining a whole new generation of recruits. And again and again, on the evening news, we see videotapes from bin Laden or his top lieutenants. This administration has said bluntly: It is not a matter of if al Qaeda attacks here at home – it is a question of when.

I believe America can do better than we’re doing. We simply cannot afford four more years of wrong choices that undermine our security and our standing in the world.

I also believe that despite the miscalculations [Heh—Ed.] , it is not too late to turn things around in Iraq and in our global war on terror. But we need a leadership that sees a better set of choices – better options for getting the job done. Who will bring in our allies. Who will train Iraqi forces at the right pace with the right partners, so our troops can finally come home. Who will never mislead you about the realities you face on the battlefield. And when I’m your Commander-in-Chief, that is exactly what I will do.
(via Transcript)

More like this, please.

As our cultured readers surely know by now, the world lost a giant yesterday. Johnny Ramone, founding member of the world's greatest punk band, The Ramones, died yesterday of prostate cancer. As my friend Mark put it, there are now more surviving Beatles than Ramones.

I'll leave Johnny's biography to others. Who was the rock critic who began his review of Road to Ruin, "Have the Ramones ever written a bad song? No. Then how come they aren't rich?" That was exactly the way I felt in 1978. I could not believe I owned 4 albums by a band even most of my friends wouldn't listen to, and yet I loved every single song. I not only loved every song--I knew every song was objectively great. Every single goddam one. And yet they weren't famous! It blew my mind.

It may be hard for younger whippersnappers to comprehend just how bad music was in the mid-70s. Disco. Country rock. Jazz rock. ELO. ELP. Steve Miller Band. Toto. Music with a dial tone. I can't even bring myself to commit to writing the crap I listened to and pretended to like. Then, one day in 1977, I was introduced to a scruffy student whose dorm room still stands out in my memory for its utter squalor, even by dorm room standards. He was wearing a filthy t-shirt emblazoned, "Richard Hell and the Voidoids." I was there because I was looking for some, um, alternative to the pap music played at our college pub, and I'd heard about this punk stuff. In short order I was toddling back to my room lugging a dozen albums on labels I'd never heard of, by bands whose names seemed like an invitation to a club whose only requirement was an ability to share an inside joke: Talking Heads, Blondie. The Voidoids. Television. The Blockheads. And 3 albums by a bunch of misfits called The Ramones.

Everyone has, I imagine, their own list of songs that caused the world to stand still. On that day, I added a song called "Blitzkrieg Bop" to mine. In some real ways I imagine it was like Vaclav Havel felt listening to Zappa in Prague. It was about fun, but it was more than about fun. It was about subversion, but it was about more than subversion. It was nostalgia and antinostalgia. It was agitprop that was antiprop. It was intelligent stupidity. It was music that said: this is what you always wanted to hear, even if you never thought of it in a million years. It was like great oral sex, fun and passionate, naughty and innocent all at the same time. Compared to the stupefying banalities of "Fly Like an Eagle," songs like "We're a Happy Family"--
Sitting here in Queens
Eating refried beans
We're in all the magazines
Gulping down thorazines
We ain't got no friends
Our troubles never end
No Christmas cards to send
Daddy likes men
were like a bomb going off, a sensibility that mocked itself as much as it mocked the insane culture it found itself trapped in, making both criticism and self-importance equally impossible. All that was stolid henceforth melted into air.

I remember going to my first Ramones concert, in 1978, at Asbury Park. A preppie in a sea of black leather, I was like some Beatlemaniac teen bopper; I remember my girlfriend looking at me bemusedly like I had been possessed by some demented person. Well, gabba gabba, sweetheart. Shortly thereafter they came to my college, where I got to see Johnny from about 6 feet away, power chording through Blitzkrieg Bop and 24 other songs with barely a pause, Joey looming over the mike like some ectomorphic freak of nature and Dee Dee slashing away at his bass. I was a supplicant at the Church of the Everlasting Pinhead, baptized anew.

And, like a zillion other untalented kids in the years to come, it was soon after that that I bought my first guitar.
 
The second to last time I saw them was at University of Washington student union building, in 1985 or so. By then, the frat boy nitwits had picked up on them and the floor was jammed with these bozos, who were all being "punk" and spitting on the band. Finally Dee Dee jumped into the crowd and started using his bass as a baseball bat, injecting new meaning into "Beat on the Brat." The band was largely in decline by then, with no album to match the glorious first four. By then I knew, too, that Johnny was a hardcore Reaganite, but this only made watching them roast Ronnie in "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" that much more engrossing. A credit to his politics, Johnny was a guy who put business first.

I actually met Johnny once, on 8th Street in the Village, back in the Road to Ruin years. I was walking down the street when he materialized around the corner, sullenly hunched over, wearing his trademark jeans, jacket and shirt. Not wanting to blow the moment, I nodded in acknowledgement and said simply, "Hey."

To which he replied, "Hey."

Now, with the Boys from Forest Hills gone, I wish I had added, "Thanks."

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. Why Is It Always This Way? I'm gonna miss those guys.

"I wanna be sedated!"

Only the good die young. I mean, look at Dick Cheney.

I thought I had burned out my outrage circuits until I saw an ad last night for the "Twin Towers Memorial Collectible Coin" coated with a 1-atom-thick layer of silver recovered from the vaults under the WTC.

Then there came this...

(via MSNBC, story originally from WaPo)

As swing states with large elderly populations such as Florida gear up for another presidential election, a sleeper issue has been gaining attention on medical, legal and political radar screens: Many people with advanced dementia appear to be voting in elections -- including through absentee ballot. Although there are no national statistics, two studies in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island found that patients at dementia clinics turned out in higher numbers than the general population.

About 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia. Florida alone has 455,000 patients, advocates estimate.

Concern is growing that people with dementia may be targets for partisan exploitation in nursing homes and other facilities. Even without abuse, family members and caregivers may unduly influence close elections.

If a spouse of an Alzheimer's victim wants to vote on their behalf, even if they think it's 1914 and they're voting for Woodrow Wilson because they like his slogan "Too Proud to Fight", I got no problem with that. Organized political ops are another matter.

Bad enough they screw Grandma Millie on her electric bill. And scare the crap out of Grandpa Joe with ominous stories about Social Security. Stealing votes from the Mentally Not Quite All There is another matter, and a criminal one, although it would explain a lot about the outcome of certain races in 2000.

Nice to see Big Mo on the side of the angels. Eh?

Sen. John Kerry and President Bush are now enjoying almost equal levels of support, according to the latest Harris Interactive poll.

Immediately after the Republican convention in New York, several polls showed Mr. Bush jumping ahead of Mr. Kerry with a clear lead of between six and 11 percentage points. There's no such "convention bounce" for the president in the latest poll by Harris.

The results echo a recent poll sponsored by Investor's Business Daily, which also showed that the gap between the U.S. presidential candidates has disappeared. The poll of likely voters showed the two candidates tied at 47% in a two-man race and tied at 46% if independent candidate Ralph Nader is included.
(Online WSJ via Pandagon)

OK, stop cheering and back to work. And let's hope this brings all the Dem whining about the Kerry campaign to a halt. Heck, the guy went dark for an entire month, and he's still even. Digby says this better than I just did.

NOTE It takes a village to stomp a weasel.

1: Chance that a member of New York's Army National Guard was in Iraq in June : 1 in 4 [New York Army National Guard (N.Y.C.) ]
1A: Chance that a member of Texas's Army National Guard was : 1 in 31 [Texas Army National Guard (Austin) ]

2: Estimated year in which Baghdadis first harnessed electricity, using clay pots lined with copper : 230 b.c. [The British Museum (London) ]

3: Words the New York Times devoted last May to examining its own faulty reporting on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction : 3,082 [Harper's research ]
3A: Words the Times devoted last year to "correcting the record" after an investigation of reporter Jayson Blair : 7,102 [Harper's research ]

4: Minimum amount that Wal-Mart has received in subsidies from state and local governments since 1980 : $625,000,000 [Good Jobs First (Washington) ]

THE GREAT GOTH SCARE OF 2002!...
5: State grant awarded a Missouri police department's Youth Outreach Unit two years ago to battle Goth culture : $273,000 [Youth Outreach Unit (Blue Springs, Mo.) ]
5A: Amount the Unit returned to the state in April after no Goth-influenced youth could be found to aid : $132,000 [Youth Outreach Unit (Blue Springs, Mo.) ]
5C: Amount spent in the interim to set up the program : $141,000 [Youth Outreach Unit (Blue Springs, Mo.) ]

1-5C above from: Harpers Index, August 2004.

*

for Iraq Florida! Right! Anyhow, guess what? What Bush has been saying about Iraq doesn't match the facts. Who knew?

The National Intelligence Council presented President Bush this summer with several pessimistic [Um, that would be realistic, right?] scenarios regarding the security situation in Iraq, including the possibility of a civil war there before the end of 2005.

Well, that's 2005—after the election. What's their point, anyhow?

In a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate, the council looked at the political, economic and security situation in the war-torn country and determined that - at best - stability in Iraq would be tenuous, a U.S. official said late Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

At worst, the official said, were "trend lines that would point to a civil war." The official said it "would be fair" to call the document "pessimistic."

This latest assessment was performed by the National Intelligence Council, a group of senior intelligence officials that provides long-term strategic thinking for the entire U.S. intelligence community.

Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and the leaders of the other intelligence agencies approved the intelligence document, which runs about 50 pages.

C'mon, let's get the highly non-partisan Goss in there, already!

The estimate appears to differ from the public comments of Bush and his senior aides who speak more optimistically about the prospects for a peaceful and free Iraq.

Incroyable!

"We're making progress on the ground," Bush said at his Texas ranch late last month.

YABL, YABL, YABL...

"It states the obvious," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on Air Force One as Bush flew to a day of campaigning in Minnesota.

I'll say.

"It talks about the scenarios and the different challenges we face." He said it did not reach any conclusions and left it up to policy-makers to act on the information.
(via AP)

So I'm sure I can have every confidence...

And I love Bush talking about "progress on the ground." I mean, as opposed to what, progress in the air? Progress in the sea?

Jenna and Not-Jenna have to be in a quandary now. If they vote for Daddykins they will be exempt from the draft that's going to clearly be needed to keep supplying cannon fodder for his infinite series of excellent adventures in optional warfare, by reason of class privilege and family friends.

But if, in the privacy of the voting booth November 2, where Daddy and Vice-Voldemort Dick and Unka Karl can't see, they were to misread a confusing ballot and *purely by accident* hit the electronic screen for Kerry-Edwards, they would avoid military service by other means:

(via USAToday)

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — Vice presidential candidate John Edwards promised a West Virginia mother on Wednesday that if the Democratic ticket is elected in November the military draft would not be revived.

During a question-and-answer session, the mother of a 23-year-old who recently graduated from West Virginia University asked Edwards whether the draft would be reinstated.

"There will be no draft when John Kerry is president," Edwards said, a statement that drew a standing ovation.

As Kos points out, this is brilliant all across the board. BushCo's minions' statements have always been "we have no plans for a draft" (which is bullshit, they always have plans for everything) but puts the Forces of Evil on the defensive anyway. It's even better than statements like "We are quite sure the President has stopped beating his wife" or "It is beneath the dignity of the political process to comment in any way on the vile rumors about goats."

Given Delay's control over the House, and the clout that Acting President Rove wields, I'm surprised every single House Republican hasn't stepped up to the plate. Anyhow, if there were any percentage in it, Whiney Joe Lieberman would be

House Republicans are requesting a House committee investigation of CBS' use of forged documents.

Forty House Republicans have demanded CBS retract the report, calling CBS part of a campaign to deceive the public and defame the President.
(via "Christian" Broadcasting Network)

Two points:

1. The case that the substance of the memos is true has never been stronger (back). That's why the White House didn't dispute their authenticity immediately, but instead distributed copies of them.

2. Nice to see the House Republicans kicking ass and taking names over the WMD fiasco.

Oh, wait... I'm sorry. The memos thing is a public relations issue that might make Bush look bad in an election, so it goes right to the top of the list. This whole WMD thing is so over... It only justified this strategic disaster of a war, that's taken over 1000 American lives, with no end in sight. What was I thinking?

Say, isn't it a little weird that all the terror alerts died down right after the Republicans retreated from Manhattan?



#

From alert reader semper ubi:

Where are the memos that Knox (back) said she did type?

Rememeber:

Knox said the information about Bush in the memos was familiar and that she had typed documents for Killian with similar complaints. She also said the colonel did keep private "cover your back" files.

Interesting!

Far Out Crazy Man!

Where was George W. Bush in the late summer and autumn of 1972? I'll tell you where I think he was; he was making an album. Yup, and I have the only known copy that I know about.


The name of the album appears to be "Far Out Crazy Man" by Psychedelic 'W' and the Goat Squadron. On the Runaway Souffle Records label. There are some pretty weird songs on it too so I've been busy giving it a listen and writing down the lyrics for you. The audio quality isn't the best, a lot of cracks and pops and skirrrschhhh-and-krrrrrrshchhhhhh sounds on it, but you know how that is with those old records. Probably a bootleg. Heh.

The first song on side one is called "Media Creation". Goes like this:

Media Creation
You know I could run
for governor
but I'm basically a media creation.
I'm basically a media creation

I've never done anything much
I've worked for my dad.
I worked in the oil business.
but I'm basically a media creation.

You know I could run
for governor
If this were a dictatorship,
it'd be a heck of a lot easier,
just so long as I'm the dictator.

but I'm basically a media creation.
I'm basically a media creation

A lot of noisy guitar jammin' and a long drum solo on that one. Next, side one, song number two, is a kind of weird country western acid-rock gospel cut called "Plain Speakin":

Plain Speakin'
The way I like to put it,
if I can -- in plain English is,
on the one hand, they taketh -
- they giveth, on the other hand

On the one hand they give
on the other hand you don't get
It's hard to explain
things aren't exactly black and white

The way I like to put it,
if I can -- in plain English is,
when it comes to accounting
It's hard to explain

On the other hand they giveth.
On the one hand they taketh
The way I like to put it
things aren't exactly black and white

Jeezis huh? The paper with the little goat characters on it musta been some good shit! Next up is a track from side two. An anti-war MC5-like knockoff called "Motherhugger Me!":

Motherhugger Me!
I was running against peace
and prosperity.
There's only one person,
responsible for that decision.

Through opinion and the noise
you hear in Washington.
There's only one person,
responsible for that decision.

Motherhugger Me!
Motherhugger Me!

I've got responsibility to hug
the mothers and the widows,
The wives and the kids,
on the death of their loved ones.

There's only one person
responsible for that decision.
And thats me...

Motherhugger Me!
Motherhugger Me!

I was running against peace
and prosperity
there's only one person
responsible for that decision,
And thats me...

And, you know, it'll take time
to restore chaos
there's only one person
responsible for that decision,
And thats me...

Motherhugger Me!
Motherhugger Me!

Lots of screeching metal on that one. Immediately following that track is a strange arrangement of "Crimson and Clover" (over and over and over), so I'll spare you the agony and move to the fourth song on side two. Called "Sweet Home Alabama". Yep, that's right. Just like that song title by those Len-nerd Skin-nerd guys. I wonder if they stole the title from P.W. and the Goat Squadron? I suppose we'll never find out the truth but nevertheless the song goes like this:

Sweet Home Alabama
Home home on my mind
where the beer and the chandeliers sway.
Where seldom is seen,
any weed thats unclean.
And the skys are hot vinyl all day

Where cookies are baked...
with Columbian flake.
And the liquor stores open at nine.

Home home on my mind.
where the girls from the Country Club play
Where mostly I've found,
folks will by me a round.
Once my Daddy and friends have their say.

(repeat chrous)

Pretty straight forward peppy folk-pop number with some interesting harmonica action and someone whacking away at a cowbell. Up with people! The last track I had a chance to listen too is a love song titled "Sometimes When I Sleep at Night" which features a female lead vocalist named Laura Dream. Hmmm...well anyway, think Nico and the Velvet Underground on this one.

Sometimes When I sleep at Night
Sometimes when I sleep at night
I think of Hop on Pop.

Well, you got a pretty face,
You got a pretty face,
You're a good-looking guy.
Better looking than my Scott

Sometimes when I sleep at night
I think of Hop on Pop.

I didn't know what to say,
But I'll take what I can, I guess,
When a Texas Republican says
you've got a pretty face,

then I guess there is just no way around it.
You got a pretty face,
You're a good-looking guy.
Better looking than my Scott

Sometimes when I sleep at night
I think of Hop on Pop.

Yikes huh? There's also a version of "All Tomorrows Parties" on side one but I'm afraid to listen to it. I'm gonna have to go back to my attic and see what else is up there.

Psychedelic 'W' Live: The General was there! This is very exciting news. I believe that this was P.W. & the Goat Squadron's "Mission Accomplished" tour. I'm pretty sure. That was the tour that featured the giant inflatable codpiece - nicknamed "Tired Dick" - that was erected on stage for the show's encore perfomance of the classic generation defining ballad "White Panty Elvis Party". (I read about it in Tiger Beat.) I also believe that the concert the General mentions may have been the very same show that almost killed Grover Norquist when the inflatable codpiece suddenly went limp, collapsed onto the stage, and nearly suffocated the little runt like a chipmunk trapped under a wet plastic bag. But I'm not positive because I was far far away at the time, raising sheep in Patagonia, or mining Haiphong Harbor, or having sex with Claudine Longet in the front seat of a snowplow high in the Italian Alps. In August. Or something like that. I mean really, for chist's sake its just not reasonable to expect someone to remember exactly where they were or what they were doing or why they were doing it every single day years and years ago when they were supposed to be here or supposed to be there or supposed to be somewhere else or supposed to be.............

*

A new twist to the saga:

CBS News reported that the documents it first broadcast last week on "60 Minutes II" appear to be forgeries to the woman who would have typed the original memos in 1972 and 1973.

But Marian Carr Knox, a former Texas Air National Guard secretary, said she did type similar documents for her boss, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.

OK, since the wingers only want to talk about form. I guess we'll have to focus on substance:

"I know that I didn't type them. However, the information in those is correct," Knox told CBS anchor Dan Rather.

Knox, 86...

Not a lot of reason to lie, eh?

... had previously told the same story to the Dallas Morning News in a report that was published Wednesday morning.

The newspaper said Knox "spoke with precise recollection about dates, people and events."

She told the Morning News, "I remember very vividly when Bush was there and all the yak-yak that was going on about it."

In the memos, the author complained he was being pressured to "sugar coat" the future president's performance evaluations and that Bush failed to meet performance standards, including getting a required physical exam.

The author also wrote that Bush -- whose father was a Texas congressman at the time -- was "talking to someone upstairs" to get permission to transfer to the Alabama National Guard to work on a Senate campaign.

So, on substance, game over.

The legitimacy of the memos came under fire almost immediately as people posted doubts on a conservative Internet bulletin board. Soon, a number of document experts suggested the memos were not written on a typewriter in the 1970s but generated on a computer at a later date.

Knox told Rather that Killian was "upset" that Bush did not obey his order to have a physical, and she said the young lieutenant showed disregard for the rules to a degree that irritated other pilots.

So, Bush did disobey a direct order. Again, on substance, game over.

Knox said the information about Bush in the memos was familiar and that she had typed documents for Killian with similar complaints. She also said the colonel did keep private "cover your back" files.

So, it's possible that Killian typed the memoes himself, for CY"B" reasons, and carefully didn't involve his secretary in something that, even back then, must have been politically charged? The case for forgery, therefore, still remains unproven (and it's the wingers job to prove it.)

But, she said she did not type the memos that were aired by CBS because they were written in a format she didn't use and there was Army terminology not used in the Air National Guard.
(via CNN)

This is, however—depending on the terminology used—consistent with Killian typing the memos himself for his private files. He wouldn't have known the format.

Bottom line: The substance of the memos is true, and the memos could still be genuine.

Which should come as no surprise, since every bit of it has already (back) been independently confirmed many times over.

And that's the way it is. Frankly, I think keeping the story alive to this point is a triumph for the blogosphere, especially in the face of the awesome power of the winger attack machine.

I can think of two, no three, character-based reasons to vote for Kerry.

1. Kerry will reason from facts to come to a solution.

How different from Bush and the neo-cons, who went to war based on ideology, and when ideology failed them, had nothing to fall back on but trying to hide what they did and blame others.

2. Kerry is a prosecutor.

There are going to be an awful lot of rocks to lift, and a lot of creepy-crawlies scuttling out from under them. Kerry's prosecutorial mindset and experience (BCCS, the Contras) will be a great help.

And—this will be really un-PC, so forgive me as I to think it through:

3. Kerry knows what it means to take life.

Meaning: Kerry's been a soldier, and has killed people in battle, personally.

Bush, despite the strut, has killed people by signing off on their execution warrants, or through negligence and arrogance in planning for the Iraq war. He's a killer by proxy.

So I think Kerry, in defending the country, will take his duty seriously in a way that Bush never has. Putting on the flight suit is one thing; being shot at, and shooting back, is entirely another.

Readers?

Translation: You get left holding the bag.

Nice summary by Kevin Drum.

One of the reasons I'm annoyed by the whole Killian memo fiasco is that even if they're real they don't really add much to the story. ... 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.

Yep. Sigh....

No, not the swift boat vets for mendacity. Not CBS, who says the documents are real. Not Laura Bush, who says they aren't. And not the secretary, fine woman though I'm sure she is, who says the documents aren't "genuine," but their content is.

The "towering moral witness" in question belongs to those young widows of 9/11, sometimes known as the Jersey Girls, which is almost appropriate when you force yourself to realize how terribly young they were when they lost their husbands, but whose status as women/widows/citizen activists is becoming a great American story. No one has explained it better than the great Charles Pierce, writing at Eric Alterman's Altercation: (Sorry, no link, can't find it at MSNBC; but I had copied the text at the time into notes I keep of the really good stuff.)

The truly great thing about these 9/11 hearings remains the towering moral witness of the 9/11 widows -- and shame on Bob (Coiffure By Vespasian Of The Appian Way) Kerrey for shushing them. They are doing more than standing up for their loved ones, and that surely would have been enough. They are glorious in their casual disdain for the "Intelligence Community." They are blissfully unimpressed by the Great Men who presume to tell them what the Great Men decide they should know. They leave the pundits gaping at their heedless disregard for the Governing Class. Almost alone, they have insisted that information be brought to light that will enable us to judge our leaders and hold them to account, and that's what this whole silly experiment was supposed to be about -- the "most dreaded kind of knowledge," according to that impossible old blatherskite, John Adams. God save these wonderful women. They are being citizens -- in the most complete sense possible -- for the rest of us.

As you may or may not have heard:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Five outspoken Sept. 11 widows today will publicly endorse John Kerry for president, 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 said.

"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.

The move highlights the widening political divide among the nearly 3,000 Sept. 11 families.
At the Republican National Convention two weeks ago, two widows and the sister of another Sept. 11 victim offered moving tributes to their departed loved ones. The somber appearances offered no direct endorsement of President Bush, but their message of support was unmistakable.

I didn't see much coverage of this yesterday, just Kristen on CNN; she hasn't been on an airplane since that first 9/11; even catching sight of one of them in the skies above triggers immdiately the horrifying image of that jumbo jet hurtling straight into the building where her husband worked. Apparently, she's prepared to face down those demons if plane travel is required to campaign for Senator Kerry.

I'm sure this was a difficult decision for all of these young widows; up to now they have been rigorously non-partisan. Here's a sample of them responding on Hardball to that day's testimony in front of the 9/11 Commission last April by Condi Rice, whose reluctant appearance testifying under oath was largely the work of the 9/11 families refusing to take "no," for an answer.

MATTHEWS: What about the July briefing that was on domestic agencies?

MINDY KLEINBERG, WIDOW OF 9/11 ATTACK: You know, what’s unbelievable about that is that nobody followed that up. I mean they say that they told the FAA and they told the FBI, but nobody at the FAA did anything.

Nobody stepped up the protocols and procedures during that threat period. Nobody at the FBI knew that this threat was there.

And I would have liked them to continue to ask her, because apparently, she didn’t feel that was her responsibility.

MATTHEWS: You once said that she was either lying or she’s incompetent. What do you think of her now? Do you think that’s still a fair judgment, I mean if it ever was one?

BREITWEISER: I have to say, with a laundry list of questions that that Commissioner Lehman asked her, she said she didn’t know a lot of things. And I would question what exactly did she know? And if she didn’t know it, who else would know it?

It’s her job to know that information. It’s her job to relay that information to the president and to actually, in our opinion, inform the public.

If the public was better informed in the summer of 2001, lives would have been saved. Maybe the attacks wouldn’t have been prevented; but lives would have been saved.

My husband was in Tower II. If he knew that it was a terrorist attack, he wouldn’t have stayed in the building.

edit

PATTY CASAZZA, WIDOW OF 9/11 ATTACK: And it’s also disingenuous for the national security advisor to say she couldn’t have imagined planes being used as weapons.

In July, the president, Condoleezza Rice, Ari Fleischer, Karen Hughes, and Karl Rove attended the general summit in Italy. The national security advisor of that nation was aware of an assassination attempt to be committed upon our president and the leaders attending that G8 Summit in July.

How do you forget, two months later, the threat of your life, the president’s life, and not think that that threat could actually follow you home to the United States?

MATTHEWS: Were you surprised at the lack of attention during the last couple of hours on what the president knew and what he did? It seemed like the questions did not get to the commander in chief. I mean I’m just noticing that. Have you noticed that, Mindy?

KLEINBERG: Well, you know what -- it seemed, whether someone not telling us, whether they didn’t ask the appropriate questioning, but, yes, it seemed like he wasn’t getting the information that he should have been getting. This commission was created so that we could take a look at the vital flow of information and decide where the breakdowns are and then fix them. Somewhere along the way, you could see that people were not getting the information they needed to get-- whether it was the field agents, whether it was the airline security personnel, or whether it was the president of the United States.

edit

VAN AUKEN: Yes, well, we’ve known for a long time that that was the title of that briefing. They’ve been trying to keep that a secret from the public. They tried to keep it secret in the joint intelligence committee report. You know, that pretty much says it all.

If that strikes you as less than non-partisan that's because you, like all of us, have been exposed to a non-stop campaign on the part of the administration and its considerable echo chamber on the right to conflate all pointed questioning of this President's performance in office, before and after 9/11, with the narrowest kind of partanship - exactly the kind which animates pretty much every decision made by Bush & co.

The widows are aware of the issue of partsanship. Here's a piece of an interview with Kristen Breitweiser by David Brancaccio from Bill Moyer's Now on the Friday of the week Richard Clarke came before the 9/11 Commission to testify. (The first several quotes are from a previous Now interview that was excerpted as an intro to this one):

Condoleezza Rice versus Richard Clarke. How do the 9/11 widows make sense of the commission testimony?

BREITWEISER: If we can't remove politics from it. If they have to go down to that level, then how in God's name can we expect the world to come together.

edit

BREITWEISER: We have no expertise. But what we have is a passion, and a drive to right the wrongs. And to fix the problems. And to find the truth.

KLEINBERG: Please, pick up the phone. Call your senators. Call your congressman. Tell them that you want to be safe. Tell them that you want an independent investigation.

edit

BRANCACCIO: What do you think your greatest disappointment was from those two days of hearings?

BREITWEISER: I think my greatest disappointment was really the commissioners' behavior with regard to lowering themselves to partisan politics. We fought so hard to get this commission created. We wanted an independent commission. We wanted it to be bipartisan. To see them go to that level, really, it was upsetting. It's dishonoring of the dead.

edit

BRANCACCIO: What about the people called to testify during those two days? Should they have mixed it up more? Should it have been a different roster of people in some way?

BREITWEISER: I think that the roster was good. I think the roster was missing a key person, namely National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

The biggest question, the elephant in the room, is, you know, how is it possible of being National Security Advisor that you came out with a public statement in May of 2002 that you didn't know planes could be used as missiles? We have an intelligence history and record that clearly is replete with instances of planes possibly being used as missiles. In my humble opinion, it is one of two things. Either she's lying. Or she's incompetent. And in either case, she needs to come before the American people so that we can find out what the case is and hold her accountable and determine whether or not she is fit for her job.

BRANCACCIO: You raise this issue of partisanship. Do you ever worry that you're being used for those purposes? I had the radio on the other day. And there was conservative talk radio host, Rush Limbaugh, going on about some of the 9/11 widows suggesting that you've been coached by the Democrats.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: It sounds to me not only were women coached, but it sounds to me like somebody fed them to the networks.

BREITWEISER: I would have encouraged him to do his homework a little bit better. I voted for President Bush and so did my husband. I believed in him. And I believe when a President takes an oath of office, he takes an oath of office to lead, protect and serve. I think that the least President Bush could do for the families is to come forward and open a dialogue and discuss 9/11.

BRANCACCIO: And you're not seeing in that committee, at those hearings, this working together to making the world a safer place?

BREITWEISER: No, and that's what I'm saying. If we can't even get along on a commission that was set up by the families working so hard, begging to have this commission. We literally begged. If they can't even remove politics from it, if they have to go down to that level, how in the God's name can we expect the world to come together?

As they sought to understand what made 9/11 possible, other than the manical ,suicidal will of the jihadist terrorists to visit unspeakable horror on this country, these young widows developed a sense of what it means to live in a democracy that is not shared by the Bush administration, for whom all information about how the government operates belongs to them, not to ordinary citizens. That the administration had a public responsibility to submit someone like Condi Rice to a public questioning, so that citizens themselves could decide if and how she should be held accountable is still treated like some kind of unpatriotic outrage.

Their decision to endorse John Kerry is the logical outcome of the journey taken by these young widows; it might well have had a different outcome if the Bush administration hadn't been...well, the Bush administration.

They will be an asset to Kerry's campaign; by their mere presence they remind voters on whose watch 9/11 happened and also how reluctant the Bush adminisration was to submit itself to any kind of judgement, even to that of a hand-chosen, non-partisan Commission whose mission was of the highest patriotism - to avoid assigning blame in order to figure out what actually happened to avoid it happening again. As we've heard so often from all those ex-prosecutors-cum-TV personalities, flight is evidence of knowledge of guilt. The Bush administration had good reason for its flight from convening any sort of forum for evaluating how well the government responded on 9/11. This is in contrast to the previous administration;from President Clinton on down, Democrats have been in favor of such a commission. Both Clinton and Gore testified on the record, and Clinton's library had to threaten to sue to get the Bush administration to release all the relevant Clinton files.

No statement has riled the right wing against the widows more than Kristen's "that 3000 people died on George Bush's watch." And not without reason. Her statement, and their response goes exactly to the character issue. Bush and his partisans hear that sentence as laying the blame for 9/11 at the door of the White House. No. Even if big mistakes were made by his administration, Bush would not be to blame for 9/11. Kristen Breitweiser's comment is a statement of fact. 9/11 did happen on Bush's watch; it is an event in all of its many aspects for which he bears a primary responsibility; he is accountable for the day itself, and for what has happened post 9/11, including his reluctance to examine what did happen. Expect these new advocates for Kerry to be attacked. It will be said that they have shown their true partisan colors now. We should all be prepared to defend them from that kind of contemptuous dismissal as exemplified by that venerable battleax of the right, Dorothy Rabinowitz; herewith a small sample.

The venerable status accorded this group of widows comes as no surprise given our times, an age quick to confer both celebrity and authority on those who have suffered. As the experience of the Jersey Girls shows, that authority isn't necessarily limited to matters moral or spiritual. All that the widows have had to say--including wisdom mind-numbingly obvious, or obviously false and irrelevant--on the failures of this or that government agency, on derelictions of duty they charged to the president, the vice president, the national security adviser, Norad and the rest, has been received by most of the media and members of Congress with utmost wonder and admiration. They had become prosecutors and investigators, unearthing clues and connections related to 9/11, with, we're regularly informed, unrivalled dedication and skill.

Judge for yourself how just is this characterization by listening to Kristen in front of a Senate committee wrapping up the business of the 9/11 Commission, courtesy of Columbia/Union, which has the link up as part of its sidebar.

We're all used to it by now - the way any person who doesn't toe the entire right wing line is an immediate target for character assassination. And note the angry disdain for the Commission itself. Like William Kristol, a great nation conservative we're told, really wanted to get to the bottom of what happened on 9/11. Instead, maximum contempt is drummed up against any American whose total output of energy is not focusd on rage against "Islamofacists." For instance, here's Mark Styn, writing in April:

Stop whimpering, we're in a battle

"This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper." I'm saving the end of the world for my final column, but T S Eliot's words seem at least as pertinent to the present war - or "war", according to taste. It will be decided not by the bangs - whether in Fallujah or Bali or elsewhere - but by the whimpers. And, although the bangs have got a little louder in recent weeks, it's the whimpers that have become deafening.

Whimpers, whimpers everywhere. On American TV, the network sob-sisters tut sympathetically with the "Jersey Girls", four media-savvy 9/11 widows who've decided that metaphorically speaking George W Bush was at the controls of the planes that slammed into the World Trade Centre. Beltway reporters are a-twitter about the biennial doorstopper from

edit

The biggest whimpers of all come from the 9/11 Commission. Have you been watching it? Me neither. But, when I catch the odd 10 minutes, I begin to feel as anti-American as Margaret Drabble and Harold Pinter. In its ghastly exhibitionist ersatz-legalism, it represents all the most malign features of American life. Tony Blair should have offered to loan Lord Hutton. Instead, a mélange of hacks and has-beens mugs for the cameras round the clock, and any piece of government paper from the summer of 2001 containing the words "plane" and/or "Muslim" is taken as evidence of Bush's complicity.

In fact, the so-called incriminating memo is notable mainly for its confirmation of the woeful state of US intelligence. The mention of "media reports" in the first sentence is a sly admission that you could have found out all the stuff in this "classified" briefing by reading the papers. If you'd read a piece by Kenneth Timmerman in the July 1998 Reader's Digest, you'd have been much more informed. Bush would have been better off spending half an hour in a well-stocked dentist's waiting room than reading CIA briefings, and the ensuing root-canal surgery would have been a lot less painful than listening to the Commission poseurs.

The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that counter-intelligence was severely hobbled by the so-called "wall" erected between the CIA and FBI. Who put up this "wall", or at any rate extended it several feet higher than previously? Why, former Clinton-era Deputy Attorney-General Jamie Gorelick. Has she testified before the Commission? Well, no, because she's on it. That would seem to be a prima facie conflict of interest. But instead she's huffing indignantly about being a victim of "partisan rancor". "Partisan rancour" is wholly improper unless directed at Bush and Ashcroft.

edit

The other bombshell revelation from the hearings was trampled into oblivion in the stampede to Woodward's book and other flim-flam. Commissioner John Lehman remarked that "it was the policy [before 9/11] and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory."

Remarkable, isn't it, how badly past columns by propogandists fare upon re-reading? The statements about Gorelick and about the rule that kept airlines from asking questions of two muslims at a time are both incorrect

The mega-best seller status of the Commission's book-length report is some indication of how out of whack the righties really are with the American mainstream.

So, let's encourage the Kerry campaign to use these precious American citizens, to whom everyone owes a debt of gratitutde, well and often. Without even saying a word, they force their fellow citizens to take a hard look at the Bush administration.

The best preparation defending the honor of the 9/11 widows is to read this post by Tim Dunlop at The Road to Serfdom, which takes on and quickly vanquishes all their rightwing critics. It's a fun, and enormously satisfying read.

I honestly don't see why this is such a problem. Bush has already released all the records, right? Right?

Got proof that President Bush fulfilled his National Guard duties? It could be worth $50,000.

Texans for Truth, a Democratic "527" organization that has attacked the president's service record, is offering a reward to anyone who can prove that Bush performed his duties in the Air National Guard between May 1972 and May 1973.

"If the president won't come clean that he dodged his military responsibilities in Alabama during the height of the Vietnam War, we'll continue our search for the whole story," said Glenn Smith, head of the group.

Bush received an honorable discharge from the guard in 1974 but has been dogged by questions surrounding unexplained gaps in his service. Texans for Truth's offer, which was announced on the same day that Bush addressed the National Guard Association of the United States, is only the latest -- and most lavish -- in a series of similar stunts designed to fill in those gaps or, barring that, embarrass Bush's campaign.

Earlier this year, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau offered to donate $10,000 to the USO in the name of anyone who could provide similar evidence of Bush's service. During the 2000 presidential election, a small group of veterans offered $1,000 for such proof, a reward that a group called Democrats.com later offered to double.

But if you want Texans for Truth's money, which Smith said will come out of the group's approximately $400,000 kitty, you'll have to act fast -- the offer expires Sept. 30.
(via WaPo)

Hey, wouldn't this be ironic? Bush proves it himself, and collects! But how likely could that be....

UPDATE Alert reader Beth comments:

BTW, via CBS, "Forty members of the House signed a letter ... asking CBS if the documents are authentic, why won't the network say how it got them." Not one of these Republicans ever signed a letter asking why Novak wouldn't identify the traitor who outed an undercover CIA agent. Apparently, at least 40 House Republicans think keeping Bush's misdeeds a secret takes presedence over protecting our national security.

Lock up your teenage daughters and turn out the lights!

Now-prominent, established Texas figures in the military, arts, business and political worlds, some of them Republicans and Bush supporters, talk about Bush's alleged use of marijuana and cocaine based on what they say they have heard from trusted friends. One middle-aged woman whose general veracity could be confirmed told me that she met Bush in 1968 at Hemisphere 68, a fair in San Antonio, at which he tried to pick her up and offered her a white powder he was inhaling. She was then a teenager; Bush would have just graduated from Yale and have been starting the National Guard then. "He was getting really aggressive with me," she said. "I told him I'd call a policeman, and he laughed, and asked who would believe me."

[...]

The family that rented Bush a house in Montgomery, Alabama, during that period told me that Bush did extensive, inexplicable damage to their property, including smashing a chandelier, and that they unsuccessfully billed him twice for the damage--which amounted to approximately $900, a considerable sum in 1972. Two unconnected close friends and acquaintances of a well-known Montgomery socialite, now deceased, told me that the socialite in question told them that he and Bush had been partying that evening at the Montgomery Country Club, combining drinking with use of illicit drugs, and that Bush, complaining about the brightness, had climbed on a table and smashed the chandelier when the duo stopped at his home briefly so Bush could change clothes before they headed out again.

Continue reading: Why Bush Left Texas, by Russ Baker The Nation, September 14, 2004 issue

It's about sex. It's about character. It's about lying. It's about arrogance. It's about abuse of powder.

*

Remember when you couldn't open a newspaper or turn on a television set without being subjected to a blast-harangue of sneering self-righteous right wing tongue-waggles, culture war scoldpottles, pantysniffing pundits and amplified Jesus shouting mesmerists all shrieking in unison "it's about character stupid!" Remember that pious patent leather dirigible Bill Bennett and all his braying and bleating about "the death of outrage"? Remember all that cage rattling whoop and wail? Don't answer that, I know you remember.

Stuff like this:

[1] No, It's not about sex. It's about character. It's about lying. It's about arrogance. It's about abuse of power.

Gee, isn't that handy. It continues.....

[2] It's about dodging the draft and lying about It. When caught in a lie by letters you wrote, you concocted a story that nobody believed.

But we excused It and looked away.

[3] It's about smoking dope, and lying about It. "I didn't Inhale," you said. Sure, and when I was 16 and my buddies and I swiped a beer from an unwatched refrigerator, we drank from It, but we didn't swallow. "I broke no laws of the United States," you said. That's right, you smoked dope in England or Norway or Moscow, where you were demonstrating against the U.S.A.

You lied, but we excused It and looked away.

[4] It's about you selling overnight stays in the White House to any foreigner or other contributor with untraceable cash.

[5] You've established such a pattern of lying that we can't believe you anymore. Neither can your cabinet, the Congress or any of the leaders of the nations of the world.

[6] It said, "It's the economy, stupid!" Place the sign over your desk "It's about character stupid!"

[7] It's about character, but we have to live with your filth, lies and arrogance for a while longer. Your lies, amorality and lack of character have been as pervasive as they have been despicable, so we have no reason to believe that you will quietly resign and go away.

[8] You'll count on half truths and spin doctors to see you through, the country be damned. It has always worked before.

[9] Go away, Mr. President. Leave us alone. And when you leave, know that your legacy to the United States of America will be a stain on the Office of the President...

Well well, that was THEN. Written by a guy named Eric Jowers from Ozark, Alabama, a "retired Army officer," who "served as a public affairs officer at Fort Rucker from 1989 to 1991." Those are his charges leveled at you know who - that Bill Clinton feller. Jowers cached

So what you can do is copy down those nine points, amend each original point above appropriately with your own current talking points or smart allecky remarks, for maximum impact of course, and throw em right back where they belong. Send em to the media idiots or wherever. Ask them what became of the good old deafening cry to battle royal of - "it's about character, stupid!"

That was THEN. This is NOW:

THEN: [1]- No, It's not about sex. It's about character. It's about lying. It's about arrogance. It's about abuse of power.

NOW: [1]- It's not about sex. Its about sexy sexy! Hot Dubya! HIS hunka-hunka strutting manly messianic love. Check the package on that flight suit all you girly men, oooo, mission accomplished! It's not about character stupid, it's all about personality!. The Symbol has landed. Lying - arrogance - abuse of power: Ha! Out of the lineup. Lying is now being pitched as: what you don't know won't hurt you. Arrogance is now plain spoken resolve. Abuse of power has miraculously "reformed" itself as strong leadership in times of change - and a matter of national security. Fabulous! Ain't miracles sumpin'.

and so on...... you get the idea.

NOW: [2]- Dodgeball anyone! If George W. Bush is so proud of his military service record, as he told vets in Las Vegas yesterday, then why won't he answer specific questions concerning his whereabouts during that period. He knows where he was and what he was doing. Putting it plain spoken-like, why doesn't Bush knock off the grab-ass and tell us all where he was and what the fuck he was really into. Why not put this issue to rest once and for all. Mission accomplished! Yeah, sure. Never happen. And, sadly enough, too many in the SCLM, on their backs with their legs in the air, will never pressure Bush to come clean on the details of his TxANG service. Instead they will resort to barking at decoys and groping at shifting shadows or jumping up and down in muddy puddles if for no other purpose than to further their own lucrative careers as noisy splish-splash puddle muddlers. Info-tainment for info-tainment sake. For too many in the SCLM, especially the servile myrmidons in the cable television "news" racket, scampering about polishing the Oligarch's knob is what they prefer to honest skeptical inquiry and serious investigative journalism.

NOW: [3]- It's about smoking dope? Wrong. It's about being a dope. And a hypocrite and a profligate self-interest serving sanctimonious fraud.

"I can't be expected to remember what every drug-addled yuppie hanger-on-er who wanted to get close to me during a football game twenty-five years ago digested. There were so many dope fiends milling about, I don't remember what some Yalie named Bush, whose father was a factotum in the Nixon Administration, was doing. But he strikes me as the sort of person I would have thrown out of the room. A rich, beer-drunk yahoo with a big allowance who passes out in your bathtub." ~ Hunter S. Thompson.

NOW: [4]- Sleep-overs with GWB43? Would Kenny Boy like an Argentine gas-pipeline contract with his nightcap? How about a couple of FERC appointments on his fluffy pillow before beddy-bye time. Would cousin Bandhar like a cover tuck and a good night kiss on the forehead from Uncle Dick? Coming right up.

NOW: [5]- Pattern lying. Hard to know where to begin with this one. WMD's, mushroom clouds, drone planes, privatization scams wrapped in semantic happy talk...on and on and on.... Bush has managed to surround himself with an experienced assortment of liars, felons, mercenaries, bully pulpit theocrats, cheap-shot public relations shills, con artists - including an on bended knee Republican Congress - and a circus of media whelp-dogs willing to fetch the master's squeak toys at the first hint of a whistle. Pattern lying? George W. Bush & Co. are to pattern lying what the June Taylor Dancers were to kaleidoscopic choreography.

NOW: [6]- Place this sign in the window of your business: Closed. Just ask any of the millions of people who have lost their jobs to outsourcing. Just ask any of the small business owners who have been smoked from their holes on Main Street by predatory - race to the bottom of the wage barrel - corporations such as WalMart. Or the small independent family farmers who have been drained of life by the vampiristic practices of corporate agribiz. It's about the giant sucking sound of cheap labor conservatism. It's not about real "economy" or real "character" anymore. It's all about getting the money and getting away with it. It's all about defending the shiny bejeweled palace on the hill and guarding the precious pearls and birthstones hidden within. It's about gambling, and high risk speculation supermodels dressed up pretty-in the-pink, and renamed "opportunity". Place this sign on your desk instead: "It's about stupid 'creative destruction'" and the "opportunity" such pillage offers the privileged few at the expense of the many. It's about drowning representative democracy in a bathtub and the resuscitation of the Franco Way.

NOW: [7]- Filth, arrogance, pervasive lies? Don't let anyone ever tell you that the Republican Right never spreads it's assets around. Attributing their own mean spirited attributions and dishonest suppositions to others is one of their favorite causes. They'll write it all off as a tax deductible charitable contribution.

NOW: [8]- Half truths and spin doctors for 'W'? We now have entire media operations devoted solely to such black arts. From the fear and sneer personality cultists at FOXNews to the Creel Committee News-roomies at CNN. A fairy circle for the "lazy, stupid, and bitchy," as Bill Maher recently called them. With some notable exceptions the Fourth Estate is turning into little more than a feed bag for fast talking road agents, embedded Pentagon psy-ops, free marketeer illusionists, and cheesy consumer culture crank vendors.

THEN: [9]- Go away, Mr. President. Leave us alone. And when you leave, know that your legacy to the United States of America will be a stain on the Office of the President...

NOW [9]- Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.

*

Yes, better stories. Stories I can read myself to sleep with in my tiny room under the stairs at The Mighty Corrente Building.

"Once upon a time there was a little pet goat whose name was...."

The NY Times had better keep Krugman on, he's about the only excuse they have left for killing all those trees:

(via Krugman)

Some pundits are demanding that Mr. Kerry produce a specific plan for Iraq - a demand they never make of Mr. Bush. Mr. Kerry should turn the tables, and demand to know what - aside from pretending that things are going fine - Mr. Bush intends to do about the spiraling disaster. And Mr. Kerry can ask why anyone should trust a leader who refuses to replace the people who created that disaster because he thinks it's bad politics to admit a mistake.

We've given Dear Leader a few months to think of a mistake by now and maybe I missed it, but I haven't heard him cite one yet.

What Jesse says:

That's pretty much the secret to the conservative machine - they're disturbingly willing to disseminate an effective point as a counterbalance to facts, because they realize it's the story rather than the truth that people remember. In other words, they love to lie and it shows.

And the response? Long story short, it's about building up our own narrative machine. Not lists of facts, although they help. Not point-by-point contradictions, although they help. Generating the framework in which all evidence fits is the key - conservatives excel at setting this framework, so even things which blatantly disprove what they're saying must function not against the evidence they've provided, but the story they're told. We need better, more forceful, and more rapid storytellers.
(via Pandagon)

He's absolutely right.

"One upon a time, there was a little pet goat whose name was..." Readers? [NOTE: Be subtle, OK? Keep it suitable for children. The adults will figure it out.]

He said he'd sign an executive order that would reimburse all the parents of soldiers, who had to buy body armor to protect their children, and all the local chambers of commerce, who bought armor for their HumVees!

Oh, wait. You mean He didn't?

I wonder why?

Kerry:

"But why would we expect George Bush to level with us about Iraq? He never has," Kerry said.
(via Reuters)

It's Bush's nature...

I can't look at the Hersh book 'til the weekend. Who's read it? How is it?

The bad news back here. The good news via Atrios.

Hey, Kerry isn't even President yet, and already he's created more jobs than Bush!

NOTE I wonder if the Kerry campaign needs a graphic designer back)...

But when Bush says this, supporters cheer. Why is that?

Bush talks the talk:

[BUSH] "Nineteen individuals have served both in the Guard and as president of the United States," he said, naming Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, among others, "and I am proud to be one of them."
(via Kansas City Stat)

But he doesn't walk the walk:

For example, Air National Guard regulations at the time required commanders to write an investigative report for the Air Force when Bush missed his annual medical exam in 1972. The regulations also required commanders to confirm in writing that Bush received counseling after missing five months of drills.

The AP talked to experts unaffiliated with either campaign who have reviewed Bush's files for missing documents. They said it was not unusual for guard commanders to ignore deficiencies by junior officers such as Bush. But they said missing a physical exam, which caused him to be grounded, was not common.

"It's sort of like a code of honor that you didn't go DNF (duty not including flying)," said retired Air Force Col. Leonard Walls, who flew 181 combat missions over Vietnam. "There was a lot of pride in keeping combat-ready status."
(via the increasingly serious USA Today)

So, what the heck has Bush got to be proud of?

Why is He proud of being grounded? Fer gawdsake.

And what could Bush possibly know of honor or pride? To be honorable, and to know true pride, you've got to walk the walk.

Via: Frogsdong "May a smile be your umbrella". Click through the link in the Frogsdong post for the punchline:

How do you say "ditto" in French?

*

MJS writes to the editors:

Editors,

Michael Ramirez recent agitprop depicts Dan Rather with a large, CBS logo "black eye" and circles the superscript "th" in the background, in case the reader doesn't get it. This story has many facets, but a couple of points stand out: Without vetting the actual document, many "experts" passed along opinions about the legitimacy of this three decade-old document. There is no final verdict on this issue as of this writing, and many "experts" have asserted that the typewriters in use at the time had the functions necessary to produce the text as displayed in the copies.

As for black eyes, George W. Bush sent thousands of American soldiers off to fight a war in Iraq. The administration’s stated reasons for this imperial adventure have been proven to be demonstrably false, not by a few bloggers over the weekend, but by the evidence (or lack thereof) itself. If Rather has earned a black eye for an as yet unresolved "Superscript Follies" what might Bush receive for roaring mendacity that has resulted in the deaths and injuries of thousands and thousands of human beings? I do believe Mr. Ramirez has a rather twisted sense of proportion.

*

The math isn't fuzzy—it's missing entirely! I wonder why?

The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.

A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.

Bush's pledge to make permanent his tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2010 or before, would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to administration estimates. His proposed changes in Social Security to allow younger workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade, according to the calculations of independent domestic policy experts.

And Bush's agenda has many costs the administration has not publicly estimated.
(via WaPo)

Why am I not surprised?

Wikipedia finds that the psychological mechanism of projection is biblically based:

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
(via The King James Bible)

I've been looking for a handy meme to express the too-academic notion of projection, that also avoids the stale notion of "hypocrisy"—since, after all, people expect politicians to be hypocrites. "Matthew 7:3" might resonate well with wise, discerning Christians, as well.

I can see the T-shirts now: Matthew 7:3....

Brutal (The Howler)

Hodges has said that he doesn't recall Bush ever showing up at Ellington AFB in the summer of 1973.

"If [Bush] had come back to Houston, I would have kept him flying the 102 until he got out," said Hodges, a Bush admirer. "But I don't recall him coming back at all." - Boston Globe, July 28, 2000

Yet the Killian memo of June 24, 73 would suggest that Bush did show up at Ellington. Bobby Hodges now claims that he believes the Killian memo is a forgery. Does Hodges still stand by his claim that Bush never showed up at Ellington in 73?

Paul Lukasiak at the AWOL Project has the details:

THE TRUTH TRAP - THE QUESTIONS THAT THE WHITE HOUSE CANNOT ANSWER

We now know that Bush was paid for training on forty separate days in April, May, June, and July, 1973. Eight of those days (April 7 & 8, May 19 & 20, June 23 & 24, and July 21 &22) were "Unit Training Assembly weekends", the days that Bush’s entire unit was required to show up for the statutorily mandated periods of "drill and instruction." Yet, to date, no one remembers seeing Bush train at Ellington Air Force Base after he returned to Texas after the election in 1972.

[...]

In fact, the only evidence that supports the White House claim that Bush did really show up appears in a June 24, 1973 memo recently released by USA Today, in which Jerry Killian says that [he] cannot use Bush's "recent activity" to provide a rating for Bush on his annual Officer Effectiveness Training Report because that activity "is outside the rating period" (May 1, 1972-April 30, 1973.)

RE:CBS memo / Jerry Killian / June 24, 1973

2. Neither Lt. Colonel Harris or I feel we can rate 1st Lt. Bush since he was not training with 111F.1.S since April, 1972. His recent activity is outside the rating period. - Jerry B. Killian June 24, 1973

Does the White House think that this document is genuine, and provides the proof it needs to show that Bush did show up for training in May, June, and July of 1973 at Ellington Air Force base? Does the White House think that Bobby Hodges and Rufus Martin were lying to the Boston Globe in 2000, when they explained that the reason Bush hadn't regained his flight status was because Bush never returned to Ellington Air Force base to train? Will Bobby Hodges retract another one of his statements, like he did with regard to the authenticity of the memos released by CBS, and suddenly "remember" that Bush did come back to Ellington to train? Or does Hodges maintain the position that the documents are forgeries, and that Killian’s mention of "recent activity" proves it, because Bush never returned to Ellington for training? - [ Paul Lukasiak - The Truth Trap]

The AWOL Project Mainpage

******

MORE related:

Via Democrats.com

TOPIC: Bush's roommate says Bush did NOT "fulfill his obligations as a pilot"!

In a 2002 interview with USA TODAY, Dean Roome, a former fighter pilot who lived with Bush in the early 1970s, said that during the first part of Bush's pilot service, he was a model officer. But he described Bush's Air Guard career as erratic - the first three years solid, the last two troubled.

"You wonder if you know who George Bush is," Roome said. "I think he digressed after a while. In the first half, he was gung-ho. Where George failed was to fulfill his obligation as a pilot. It was an irrational time in his life."

UK Guardian:

Bush Piloted Guard Training Jets
The White House said it cannot explain the changes in Bush's official flight logs

Daily News:

President Bush' former Harvard Business School prof says his ex-student supported the Vietnam War but wanted somebody else to fight it.

[...]

Bush, according to Tsurumi, "had no sense of guilt" about getting into the Guard while others wound up fighting in Vietnam.

"He was very casual about it," the professor said. "I said, 'Lucky you, how did you manage it?' He said, 'My dad had a good friend who put me at the head of the waiting list.'"

Related Updates: Thanks to Peanut at Daily Beast and Bob Fertik. See: Bob Fertik.com and Democrats.com

*

Pathetic. As usual, you've got to read to the end. The point at issue is whether the documents are authentic, right? (At least that's what the Time's toothless old whore, William Safire, wrote yesterday). So we first we get spewage about what CBS executives and employees think, then we get to the facts:

Richard Katz, a computer software expert in Los Angeles who was featured on the "Evening News" segment, said in an interview that he had called his local affiliate, KCBS, after looking at the memos on the CBS Web site after the initial broadcast, when some [Republican, back) experts were saying that the memos looked as if they had been composed using the Times New Roman font in Microsoft Word.

Comparing the CBS memos with a replication produced on Microsoft Word, he noticed a slight variation in the boldness of the letters, as there is on many typewritten documents. "It doesn't look like you can do this very easily," he said. If you use something like Photoshop you could come close to faking it, but why not just go out and buy a Selectric for $75?"

Duh. Point one to the professional analysts.

Bill Glennon, a technology consultant and I.B.M. typewriter specialist who had posted his thoughts on the memos on a blog and was quoted over the weekend in publications including The New York Times, said CBS called him Monday morning. The producer asked him to come in and look at the memorandums and say whether he thought that an I.B.M. typewriter could have produced the documents. He said he was initially leery of talking. Because quite honestly there's some people out there, they're scary," he said. "You don't agree with them, you offer opinions that don't jibe with theirs and you get a target on your back."

Wow. I wonder who those people could be? Kinda blends with our "MBG Watch" series, doesn't it?

Mr. Glennon was in charge of service for 1,000 contracts for I.B.M. typewriters for 15 years, starting in late 1972, around the time the memorandums were produced. He spent 15 minutes with the CBS documents, he said, and believes that they could have been created using the kind of typewriters he worked with at I.B.M.
(via that pathetic, crippled, once-proud newsgathering organization, the Pulitzer-light Times)

So, the real story—buried by the Times—has three points, one of which is (conveniently) left out entirely.

1. It was possible to produce the memos using 1970s technology. In fact, 15 minutes of work will do it—fifteen minutes that apparently nobody but CBS was willing to take. So, the always implausible winger story falls to bits.

2. The freepers who broke the story are intimidating opponents into silence. (Gee, does that remind you of another story the Times didn't cover until far too late? Say, Florida 2000?) Say, I wonder if they intimidated Hodge? ("Winger triumphalism premature")

And the third point, unmentioned by the Times:

3. How is it that there is a fast track from freeper typographic amateurs to the Standard to ABC News and the Times—all in a single news cycle? You'd almost think that the mainstream media have become an echo chamber for a megaphone with right-wing crazies shouting into it, wouldn't you? (Shamefully, blogger pimps the freepers too. I thought Google were supposed to be good guys?)

Hapless, overworked, and increasingly co-opted Public Editor Dan "Bud Man" Okrent is back from vacation. Readers, perhaps you could share your POLITE, thoughtfully worded concerns with him?

UPDATE Feel free to mention these questions from Paul Lukasiak in your note to Mr. Okrent. After all, if the freepers can get you asking the wrong questions, then whether the answers are right doesn't matter, does it?

Boy, these people really know how to put the boot in, don't they?

"We were going back to work from break, and my manager told me that Phil said to remove the sticker off my car or I was fired," she said. "I told him that Phil couldn't tell me who to vote for. He said, 'Go tell him.' "

She went to Gaddis' office, knocked on the door and entered on his orders.

"Phil and another man who works there were there," she said. "I asked him if he said to remove the sticker and he said, 'Yes, I did.' I told him he couldn't tell me who to vote for. When I told him that, he told me, 'I own this place.' I told him he still couldn't tell me who to vote for."

Gobbell said Gaddis told her to "get out of here."

"I asked him if I was fired and he told me he was thinking about it," she said. "I said, 'Well, am I fired?' He hollered and said, 'Get out of here and shut the door.' "

She said her manager was standing in another room and she asked him if that meant for her to go back to work or go home. The manager told her to go back to work, but he came back a few minutes later and said, " 'I reckon you're fired. You could either work for him or John Kerry,' " Gobbell said.

Gobbell said she was averaging 50 to 60 hours a week on the plant's bagging machine.

"The lady there (at the unemployment commission) said that she has never heard of a firing like this before," Gobbell said.
(via The Decatur Daily from Salon)

God.

Woman works 60 hours at a bagging machine and gets fired over a bumper sticker. Sick, sick, sick.

I've got to put out my candle in the tiny room under the stairs at The Mighty Corrente Building, so I won't have time to find out about Gaddis, or Enviromate, but maybe tomorrow...

NOTE This is the second political firing (that we know of) in Bush's America (See back here). Pathetic.

A tip of the Ol' Corrente Hat to the alert reader who first comes up with a winger saying the document Hersh (back) has—the one that says Bush OKed the torture policies that led to Abu Ghraib—is a forgery.

I can see that one coming a mile off.

But heck, what's so weird about it? Bush tortured animals as a child—firecrackers, frogs—so it makes sense he'd still do torture as an adult, right? Just another one of those character issues...

Big Lie:

If you are a senior citizen, you don't have to worry about Social Security. If you're a baby boomer, you don't have to worry about Social Security. And by the way, you'll hear the same rhetoric you hear every campaign. Believe me. You know -- "oh, don't worry" -- "they're going to take away your Social Security check." It is the most tired, pathetic way to campaign for the presidency. So you don't have to worry about that. (Cheers, applause.)
(via LA Times)

Oh good. I'm really glad to have Bush's personal assurance on this, cough.

The numbers tell the truth:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something," wrote Upton Sinclair, "when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." To make sense of what passes for debate over Social Security reform, one must realize that advocates of privatization — of replacing the current system, at least in part, with a system of personal accounts — are determined not to understand basic arithmetic. Otherwise they would have to admit that such accounts would weaken, not strengthen, the system's finances.

Social Security as we know it is a system in which each generation's payroll taxes are mainly used to support the previous generation's retirement. If contributions from younger workers go into personal accounts instead, the problem should be obvious: who will pay benefits to today's retirees and older workers? It's just arithmetic: 2-1=1. So privatization creates a financial hole that must be filled by slashing benefits, providing large financial transfers from the rest of the government or both.

During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush was able to get away with the nonsensical claim that private accounts would not only yield high, low-risk returns, but save Social Security at the same time. For whatever reason, few reporters pointed out that he was claiming that 2-1=4. But when it came time to produce concrete plans, the arithmetic could no longer be avoided.

Sure enough, the plans laid out by Mr. Bush's Commission to Strengthen Social Security, though presented as confusingly as possible, involve both severe benefit cuts and huge "magic asterisks," infusions of trillions of dollars from an undisclosed location.

[The White House insists] that private accounts don't weaken Social Security, because diverting money from the trust fund into those accounts doesn't reduce the total sum of money available — if you still count private accounts as part of the total. As they say in the technical literature, "Well, duh." Of course the money doesn't disappear — but it is no longer available to pay benefits to older Americans, whose own Social Security contributions were used to pay benefits to previous generations.

As the facts about Social Security privatization gradually emerge, the general strategy of the privatizers seems to be to keep the public confused as long as possible. Indeed, Republicans are now being told to deny that personal accounts — which expose their owners to all the risks of any private investment — constitute "privatization." "Do not be complicit in Democratic demagoguery," urges one party memo. So it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, but it isn't a duck — not until after the next election.

But whatever they say, it is a duck. And the administration economists who claim that privatization will strengthen Social Security are, more than ever, revealed as quacks.
(via Paul Krugman (still true today))

Pathetic, indeed.

And Dick Cheney is lying all day...

Anyhow, here's what you get when you make your audience sign a loyalty oath (back) to get in the door, drag dissenters out by the hair, kick women when they're down (back), and so forth:

(Cheers, applause.)
(Chuckles.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Chuckles, cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause, chants of "Four more years, four more years!")
(cheers, applause)
(Laughter, chuckles.)
(Laughter.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(chuckles, laughter)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(chuckles)
(Off mike.)
(Off mike.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(applause)
(Scattered applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Applause.)
(Scattered applause.)
(cheers, applause)
(Cheers, applause.)
(cheers, applause)
(Laughter.)
(cheers, applause.)
(interrupted by cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Applause.)
(Boos.)
(Laughter.)
(interrupted by cheers, applause, chants of "four more years.")
(Laughter.)
(Chuckles.)
(Laughter.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Applause continues.)
(Audience replies, "No!")
(Laughter.)
(Laughter, cheers, applause.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Boos.)
(Laughs.)
(Laughter, cheers, applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter, applause.)
(Chuckles.)
(dollars)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(applause)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Chuckles, laughter.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(percent)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Laughter.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
(Applause.)
(Laughter.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(laughter)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter, applause.)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
(laughter)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Off mike.)
(Off mike.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(cheers, applause)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter)
(chuckles)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(applause)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Applause.)
(Whistles, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
(Applause.)
(Applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.)
(via LA Times)

Is there a Doctor Goebbels in the house?

It would be nice if we could force Bush out of his bubble into the open... But he's very resistant to that... Like when He didn't want to take questions from ordinary citizens in the St. Louis debate... Not that He's, um, a coward or anything....

Alive as you and me. Well, not quite.

I have vivid memories of my father playing that song on his concertina, which always made me cry, and occasionally on his flute, which required rigorous suppression of the giggles.

It memorilizes Joe Hill, a songwriting labor organizer, from whom we have received that profound wisdom, (what Joe is said to have said to followers who might become disheartened upon Joe's execution the next day, by firing squad, no less,) "Don't mourn, organize." My father was an artist/labor organizer, (the Screen Cartoonist Guild, his union, a tough, progressive little independent, that managed to keep its spirit even when forced to join the I.A) so when the time came, my brother and I decided it was a fitting epitaph for my father's headstone.

Here's what did happen last night. I opened an email from MoveOn.org. One of the reasons I was immediately drawn to join MoveOn and then to work in various capacities with them was precisely because they'd found an entirely contemporary way to make real and viable the choice of organizing over giving way to despair, and there is no better example of that than their "Leave No Voter Behind." Here's how the email put it:

Next week, 500 talented organizers will hit the ground in battleground states, and our ambitious $5 million Leave No Voter Behind field program will begin in earnest. We're aiming to turn out over 440,000 unlikely voters for John Kerry in the battleground neighborhoods where it matters most. Polling shows that this race is still neck-and-neck, which means that these hundreds of thousands of voters could easily tip the election. (More on the poll numbers below.)

So far, tens of thousands of MoveOn members have generously given over $2.6 million to make this program happen. But to launch the program, we need to raise the remaining $2.4 million this week. Whether you can give $1,000, $100, or even $10, we need your help today to win back the White House.

Though you'd never know it from the TV news, a close look at the polls shows that the Republican convention was actually a bust for the President. According to the Gallup polling agency, Bush's bounce was "one of the smallest registered in Gallup polling history, along with Hubert Humphrey's two-point bounce following the 1968 Democratic convention [and] George McGovern's zero-point bounce following the 1972 Democratic convention . . . Bush's bounce is the smallest an incumbent president has received." Bush's speech received slightly worse ratings from voters than John Kerry's, and according to the same Gallup poll, a remarkable 38% of voters said the convention made them less likely to vote for Bush.

The truth is that after hundreds of millions of dollars in negative advertising, after the "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush" attacks, after four nights of prime-time convention TV, and after four years in the bully pulpit of the White House, George Bush is still just neck-and-neck with John Kerry in the race for the Presidency.
When the MoveOn.org Voter Fund polled likely voters in battleground states last week, Kerry was only two percentage points behind George Bush -- within the margin of error, and within reach of victory.[3] Together, we can close that gap by reaching out to millions of these swing-state voters and convincing hundreds of thousands of them to come out for Kerry on November 2nd. Karl Rove has taken his best shot. Now it's time for us to take ours.

Do it. There is no better return you'll get on any investment you make to get John Kerry elected.

Here's the URL: https://www.moveonpac.org/donate/leavenovoterbehind.html, just in case the clickable link doesn't work.

MoveOn makes it easy and safe to contribute by credit card or check. Even ten dollars will help.

Do it for Joe, and Mother Jones, and Woodie Gutherie, and this land really being your land, and Jeffersonian Democracy, and the Democratic Republic that the Founders like Washington, Adams, Madison, Franklin, and other great Americans too numerous to inumerate had in mind, Click it and give, for Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, and Dr. King, both of them, and Fannie Lou Hammer, and Medgar and Bob Moses, Bobby Kennedy, and President Kennedy too, click it for Harry Truman, and yes, for Bill Clinton, oh whatthehell, add to the list of who we should be inspied by in comments and I'll post them but , because this money has to be raised this week to get those organizers on the road.

A question that answers itself... (Here, for the "didn't like it one bit" quote. Of course, maybe Bush meant that he didn't like getting caught one bit; the torture part was OK:

Hersh provides details of how President George Bush signed off on the establishment of a secret unit that was given advance approval to kill or capture and interrogate "high-value" suspects - considered by many to be in defiance of international law - an officially "unacknowledged" programme that was eventually transferred wholesale from Guantánamo to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Hersh reports that a secret document signed by Mr Bush in February 2002 stated: "I determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al-Qaida in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world."
(via Guardian)

Gee, I wonder what font that document is in?

NOTE Thanks to alert reader riggsveda.

But it can be very very effective. Josh Marshall makes an excellent point:

Here's what I mean.

Recently, President Bush has sought -- with real success -- to edge Iraq out of the campaign dialogue by putting the issue back on to Kerry, asking what he would do differently and how it would produce a better result.

This puts Kerry in a bit of a bind because the politically-unspeakable answer here is that there are no good solutions anymore. A year ago, even six months ago, there were. Now, there really aren't.

President Bush at least has a straightforward approach: denial. Pressed to come up with a soundbite-able and practical policy, Kerry is, well ... hard-pressed.

(As I said, President Bush, in this way, has managed to derive political advantage from the magnitude of his own failure.)

Politically, Kerry needs to ignore the commentators who will press him to come up with a twenty point plan that will immediately rectify the situation in Iraq. Yes, he needs to give an idea of what he'll do if and when he takes over. But the emphasis should be on the undeniable fact that though the way forward may be murky, the last person you want to lead the country down that foggy path is the guy who screwed everything up so badly in the first place.
(via Talking Points Memo)

And speaking of more proof that we're winning, how much oil is Iraq pumping?

The pumping rate is still down to 250,000 barrels a day from the normal average of 400,000 barrels, the official said on condition of anonymity. Exports will go back to normal when the line is fixed, he said.
(via AP)

Not that this would have anything to do with gasoline prices... But let me spin this the other way! Now there's real proof we didn't go to war over oil—we're not getting any!

First He smirks:



Then He says and does nothing:



(The slideshow is here.)

So, since Bush says and does nothing, I guess it's OK with Him if His supporters use violence against opponents. Nice! Very manly! Not to say Godly!

(Orginal incident here).

And it hurts me to say that... He writes:

Monday, Sep 13, 2004; 11:59 AM

To the White House's delight, [Some—Ed.] bloggers last week opened a new front in the continued war over the two presidential candidates' Vietnam-era military service.

A ferocious, Internet-spawned assault has raised questions about the authenticity of documents presented by CBS News as evidence of President Bush's failure to perform to National Guard standards.
(via WaPo)

Looks like he hasn't taken The PC Magazine Challenge (and back).

Help him out, readers, won't you? The Amazin' Froomkin. BE POLITE and informative!

The puzzling thing about this whole stealth campaign on voting machines has been the slowness of the Other Side to realize how badly this could turn around and bite them in the ass in the right circumstances.

Looks like they're finally figuring it out. This really isn't a partisan issue, or wouldn't be if it weren't for the particular partisans pushing it. Bushites don't even deserve to be called a party, they are are interested in nothing but their own power.

(via Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

WASHINGTON — With Election Day less than two months away, a conservative group rated Georgia's paperless touch-screen voting system the worst in the nation, with Florida and several other states not far ahead.

The Free Congress Foundation, a longtime fixture of the political right, warns in a new report that if the Nov. 2 vote totals are contested, the result could be a "fiasco," since so many states have installed electronic systems that have no paper ballots that can be recounted.

Georgia, the first state to install a paperless system in all counties, was graded "F-minus" based on the reliability of the equipment and its capacity for a "verifiable recount."

Nevada was credited with having the best system, using a touch-screen computer that prints out a paper ballot that is visible under glass for voters to check before each vote is cast. The paper ballots are retained as a backup if there are questions about the electronic count.

Kara Sinkule, spokeswoman for Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, dismissed the group's critique as "a rehash of what's been in the news and on the Internet."

Sinkule said the state would add printout devices if required but added, "Let's not rush to mandate a paper trail without federal standards in place."

One group, Verified Voting Foundation, founded by Stanford University computer science professor David Dill, recently set up a national hotline (1-866-687-8683) to allow voters to report problems they see or experience on Election Day.

The hotline is part of a project run by several nonprofit groups — including People for the American Way Foundation and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law — to assist voters and monitor elections.

On Nov. 2, Verified Voting Foundation's Web site (http://www.verifiedvoting.org) will provide a map of the country displaying where problems are reported and describing the incidents, said Pamela Smith, spokeswoman for the group.

In a test run in Florida's primary election Aug. 31, the hotline received nearly 300 reports from voters who said they were given the wrong ballot, encountered machinery problems or had other issues in 14 counties, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach.

Print those numbers and links out, or write them down on a Post-it (tm) Note and stick it on your forehead for greater public attention. Nobody but us wonks yet seems to realize what a disaster is coming in November, so the more conversations you can start on this the better.

...than the Teller. Although Teller's awfully good, he doesn't talk, which makes it hard to quote him here.

The esteemed Mr. Jillette conflates a couple of issues in this piece, so I pulled out all the we-need-more-than-two-parties stuff which, while probably true in the long term, ain't a-gonna happen in the next 50 days and is a distraction from the more important point.

And oh yeah: except for material cut, this is printed just as the Times ran it. You'll see the point about the asterisks as you read:

(via LATimes op ed)

Where is the god**** "freedom of speech" candidate? Isn't it about time someone running for president said, "I'll work to get the government out of the censorship business. My fellow Americans, I just read the Bill of Rights again, and I'm going to remind Congress of the 'Congress shall make no law' thang"? He or she would have my vote.

Anti-freedom of speech is on a roll... How did everyone get sucked into wanting the government to control what the people can say about the people who are the government? And I thought bottled water was a scam.

There is no reason for the government... to be involved in showbiz. No reason at all. The unconstitutional-from-the-get-go and now-completely-outdated Federal Communications Commission, which has been fighting against profanity on the networks, is now yapping about going after pay TV — and the anyone-but-Bush candidate hasn't said that's a bad idea. They all love the FCC.

The "****" in "god****" in the first line of this article is not censorship. I did that myself, guessing that's what The Times would want. That's my right. I'm writing the god**** thing; I can write it how I want. The newspaper is printing it; so they can do what they want. Anything outside of the government isn't censorship, it's merely taste.

I don't care if Disney doesn't want to put out a movie by a fat white guy who hates fat white guys. Disney hasn't put out a lot of stuff by me and I'm a fat white guy. I'm sure they have a lot of reasons for not putting my stuff out — in addition to me not having asked them.

Look on the bright side, Eminem and the "South Park" guys, some of the most-skilled writers of our time, don't seem to be slowed down at all. Whatever you think of the very successful Moore/Bush entertainment team, we have a movie trashing our president and it's not only out there, it's making tons of money. How cool is that?

I didn't like anything about that movie... but I love that that movie exists. I didn't like the movie, but seeing the marquees for it gets me all patriotic and teary-eyed.

We need a president who realizes that there's no government business in show business.

I think we need to pull out those before-and-after pictures of Ashcroft hiding the figure of Justice because it was in the form of a bare-breasted woman. That should have been the wake-up call to anybody who thought this particular Bush appointment was just another welfare program for a Republican who lost an election to a dead guy. Even an attorney private, or an attorney sergeant, much less an Attorney General, should be somebody who realizes his job is to promote Justice, not cover it up.

Yawn... Must not dream... of kerning....

Many many thanks to alert reader Beth, who completely revised the list and for the better. I've combined what she did with what we already had, and revised it further, adding talking points beneath. Some readers have said that the 10 points should be adjusted for different audiences, but I think let's get one message that we can get to everyone.

Readers, have at it! The rule of the game is that there can only be 10 points, so if you want to propose a new reason, you have to say which existing one to take away.

1. He fought the wrong war.

Rather than going after Al Qaeda (say, at Tora Bora) he got us into Iraq. Repeating the Big Lie that fighting Saddam was fighting AQ doesn't make it true. And he has not (barring an October Surprise) brought Osama Bin Laden to justice. (Remember "dead or alive"?)

2. He fought the wrong war badly.

Not enough troops (ask Shinseki). The wrong equipment (no body armor, not enough armored vehicles. Incompetent postwar planning. Then stop-loss orders for the Reserves.

3. He fought the wrong war for the wrong reasons.

After countless shifting justifications, Bush settled on WMDs. Then the WMDs didn't exist.

The shifting justifications showed that Bush was going to go to war, no matter what. So Bush lost all our allies. Gulf War 1 was fought with minimal loss of American life, ended in days, and the allies paid for most of it. Bush's war has cost 1000 American lives so far, there's no end in sight, and we're paying for all of it.

4. He betrayed the honor of our military by allowing and encouraging the practice of torture, prohibited in our Constitution as "cruel and unusual punishment."

If the torture at Abu Ghraib makes Bush "sick," then why hasn't he commended whistleblower Joseph Darby for revealing it?

5. He has left our cities vulnerable to devastating terrorist attack.

(See "Loose nukes: Bush still refused to take the threat seriously")

6. He drained our treasury, taking us from record surplus to record deficit.

7. Instead of funding our ailing school system, he's has saddled it with costly, bureaucratic regulations.

8. He has increased the cost of Medicare while reducing its benefits.

9. He has created more unemployment and underemployment than any since the Great Depression.

10. He has sold out our nation's health and environmental security for short-term corporate profits.

Of course, in a massive circle jerk, that's bound to happen.

So after working all that tedious issues stuff, like the continuing clusterfuck in Iraq, the increasing likelihood that election 2004 will be outright stolen, the mushroom cloud from North Korea—thanks, Dear Leader—and the top ten reasons Bush shouldn't be elected, let's get down to the serious stuff: Times New Roman and kerning.

Let's review the state of play. There are three essential points to the original CBS story (back) (I'm leaving aside the "sugarcoating" stuff, and the facts everyone on all sides accepts: that Bush used his family connections—not that there's anything wrong with that—to get into a TANG "champagne unit" and avoid serving in Viet Nam).

Point 1: The actual content of the documents.

Point 2: The documents themselves (the "Killian memos")

Point 3: The confirmation of the document's content from a new witness (Hodges).

Let's start with point 1: The actual content of the documents is unchallenged. The essential point of the Killian memos is that Bush disobeyed a direct order to take the medical exam he was required to take in order to keep flying. (As a result, he was grounded, and never flew for the Guard again (after the taxpayer's paid a million dollars to train him).

a. The fact that Bush blew off his medical exam and was grounded is well-attested (back). Granted, the White House's Bartlett said Bush "didn't need to" take the exam (here), but that's weak: in the military, you don't get to make that kind of decision for yourself.

b. Documents that are not contested show that Bush was guilty of payroll fraud (Paul Lukasiak, back), since he didn't actually perform the service he signed on to perform. That well known extreme liberal publication, US News and World Report comes to the same conclusion, based on its own reporting.

c. Reporting that is not contested shows that Bush blew off his obligation to seek out a new unit when he went to Harvard (here) and wasn't punished for it.

d. The single witness to say that Bush served his missing year in Alabama is a Republican activist, who gets his dates wrong. Other witnesses from that time say that Bush did not serve in Alabama (Linda Allison). Republican activist "Bill" Calhoun says that Bush served on dates that don't match payroll records. In any case, Calhoun didn't apparently doesn't think much of his own testimony; at least he never claimed the $10,000 reward for giving it.

So the essential Killian memo—the one that says Bush refused a direct order to take a medical exam—is icing on the cake. All it does is vividly confirm facts that we have gleaned from other sources. And here again, we can make the usual and obvious point: Why does AP have to sue to get Bush's military records if there's no problem with them?

Now to point 2: The documents themselves are not credibly challenged. Sure, there was a massive winger frothing and stamping on this point over the 9/11 weekend, but it all boils down to a demonstration of the fearsome efficiency of VWRC meme transmission.

The wingers argued that if they could reproduce the Killian memos themselves using the typographic features of Microsoft Word in 2004—"kerning", "superscripts", "Times New Roman"—that the Killian memos could not have been created in the 1970s. Of course, this argument is easily refuted by example, and when actual, as opposed to amateur, typographic experts entered the fray, that is exactly what happened. Here again, the winger sound and fury signified nothing. Via the essential Atrios (here) we find this from PC Magazine: Go try for yourself). Clearly, all of the typographic features that the wingers say couldn't have been created in the 1970s could have been and were. QED.

In fact, the entire winger focus on the typography is wrong: CBS (alas) has only copies of the documents, not the originals (back). Therefore, in authenticating the documents, CBS's expert Marcel Matley relied on an examination of Killian's signature, not on the typography at all. (Such examinations are valid evidence in court, remember.)

Bringing me to the point 3: The human element. The White House's Dan Barlett says that he "can't read the mind of dead man" so I'll leave the theories from Killian's family and friends off the table. What is important is that Hodge, Killian's associate at the time the memos were written, has recanted. But how plausible is the recantation? The answer is: Not very. Here's how ABC covers the Hodge recantation:

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian's supervisor at the Guard, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were "handwritten" and after CBS read him excerpts he said, "well if he wrote them that's what he felt."

Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70's and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been "computer generated" and are a "fraud".

CBS responds: ""We believed Col. Hodges the first time we spoke with him. We believe the documents to be genuine. We stand by our story and will continue to report on it."
(via ABC)

Presumably, CBS has tapes. Being an experienced newsgathering organization, they would. Reading the text, it seems clear to me that Hodges picked up the "computer-generated" meme very early, and seized the opportunity to back out of a statement he regretted making.

Bottom line: The Killian memos only offer vivid confirmation of what we already know:

1. Bush blew off his medical exam and was grounded (uncontested)
2. Bush was guilty of payroll fraud (uncontested)
3. Bush blew off reporting to a unit when he went to Harvard (uncontested)
4. Bush has no credible witnesses to his "missing year in Alabama.

It's really no wonder that the wingers want to talk about kerning, superscripts, and Times New Roman, is it?

NOTE A horrible example of premature triumphalism here. The LA Times manages to write about blogs without mentioned Atrios, who gets as many hits as anyone, and in addition is a grassroots fundraising player for Democrats.

UPDATE Limbaugh is already claiming that the documents are the products of DNC oppo research. So this is a fight we can't walk away from.

UPDATE Time has a reasonably even-handed review of the story here.

Do real men hit women? Do real "Christians"?

Apparently so.



This isn't the first time, of course (back)

Cowards.

The Times editorial page reports:

What election officials do not mention, however, are the close ties they have to the voting machine industry. A disturbing number end up working for voting machine companies. When Bill Jones left office as California's secretary of state in 2003, he quickly became a consultant to Sequoia Voting Systems. His assistant secretary of state took a full-time job there. Former secretaries of state from Florida and Georgia have signed on as lobbyists for Election Systems and Software and Diebold Election Systems. The list goes on.

Even while in office, many election officials are happy to accept voting machine companies' largess. The Election Center takes money from Diebold and other machine companies, though it will not say how much. At the center's national conference last month, the companies underwrote meals and a dinner cruise.

Forty-three percent of the budget of the National Association of Secretaries of State comes from voting machine companies and other vendors, and at its conference this summer in New Orleans, Accenture, which compiles voter registration databases for states, sponsored a dinner at the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge.

There are also reports of election officials being directly offered gifts. Last year, the Columbus Dispatch reported that a voting machine company was offering concert tickets and limousine rides while competing for a contract worth as much as $100 million, if not more.
(via the New York Times)

So here's where we are:

1. The electronic voting system is bought and paid for and controlled by Republicans (back).

2. Electronic voting machines have already stolen elections from Democrats (back).

So tell me again why I should trust any outcome where electronic voting gives Bush a margin of victory?

More proof that we're winning. Note that this is in Baghdad; we've already lost the countryside:

Insurgents hammered central Baghdad on Sunday with one of their most intense mortar and rocket barrages ever in the heart of the capital, heralding a day of violence that left at least 25 people dead in the city as security appeared to spiral out of control.

Many of the dead were killed 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.
(via Globe)

Tactial success; strategic failure. But hey, freedom's untidy!

Seymour Hersh on MTP:

MR. RUSSERT: Sy Hersh, let me again cite from your book. "As of this writing in August 2004, the Bush Administration continues to wage a war in Iraq by means that ensure that it cannot win. The American investment of billions of high-tech satellites and electronic surveillance, the untold millions paid to informers, and the deployment of the most highly trained Special Forces unit have failed since the early days of the war to produce crucial intelligence about the insurgency."

MR. HERSH: Absolutely. The fact is that a year ago the insurgents were operating one-, two-, three- man cells. Now, they're much bigger. They're 10-and 15-men groups. We still do not penetrate it. We don't know when they're going to hit. We had seven Marines killed in a bomb attack the other day. We have no advance information, no advance intelligence, no ability to get inside the insurgency. We just don't know what's next.
(via Meet the Press,MSNBC)

Bush says that he "knows how to win this war." It would be nice to know how he plans to, other than by looking manly on TV and sprinkling his in-the-bubble campaign speeches with God talk.

I've revised this with help from alert readers.

1. He fought the wrong war.

Rather than going after Al Qaeda (say, at Tora Bora) he got us into Iraq. Repeating the Big Lie that fighting Saddam was fighting AQ doesn't make it true. And he has not (barring an October Surprise) brought Osama Bin Laden to justice. (Remember "dead or alive"?)

2. He fought the wrong war in the wrong way.

Not enough troops (ask Shinseki). The wrong equipment (no body armor, not enough armored vehicles. Incompetent postwar planning. Then stop-loss orders for the Reserves.

3. He fought the wrong war in the wrong way for the wrong reasons.

After countless shifting justifications, Bush settled on WMDs. Then the WMDs didn't exist.

The shifting justifications showed that Bush was going to go to war, no matter what. So Bush lost all our allies. Gulf War 1 was fought with minimal loss of American life, ended in days, and the allies paid for most of it. Bush's war has cost 1000 American lives so far, there's no end in sight, and we're paying for all of it.

4. He has dishonored the military by enabling a culture of torture.

If the torture at Abu Ghraib makes Bush "sick," then why hasn't he commended whistleblower Joseph Darby for revealing it?

5. He hasn't protected the big cities against loose nukes or dirty bombs.

(See "Loose nukes: Bush still refused to take the threat seriously")

6. He has taken the US from record surplus to record deficit.

His fiscal policies have destroyed the retirement hopes for millions, since Social Security is funded out of general revenue. His tax cuts have given that money that should have gone to those who paid into the Social Security system to those who already have plenty.

7. He promised to leave no child behind, then didn't fund the program.

8. He promised to reform Medicare, but the system is confusing and only benefits the drug companies.

9. He's the first President in 72 years to lose jobs.

10. He politicized science, and denied global warming to help out the energy companies.

If you don't think this should be on the top 10, ask a Floridians.

---

Bottom line: Strong leaders have a record of accomplishment. When you look at the record, Bush is a weak leader.

Readers, how would you revise this list?

NOTE: The rule of the game is that there can only be 10 reasons. So, if you want to propose a new reason, please say which of the above 10 reasons should be replaced, and why.

Also, there are additional talking points that expand on the top 10 points (in bold). So, please propose more talking points here, too. In SHORT, SIMPLE language!

This morning I was walking to the local hotspot when I saw a woman wearing a Kerry button.

"Where did you get that Kerry button?" I asked

"On the Internet—but you can have it." And she handed it to me.

So now I can wear my Kerry button on my morning commute. Guess I have to shave every day now!

Alert reader raison de fem sends in a longer piece on more or less the same thing. Here it is:

---

Someone was telling me today that they think it's all over, that aWol will win. We might as well pack it up, go home, hunker down and stay drunk for the next four years. This coming from someone who thinks that Bush is taking us on a one-way trip to Armageddon.

The reason? Most Americans are stupid, she says. Most Americans think he's a "strong leader." And they are running a much smarter, much dirtier campaign, and it's too late to catch up, she says. "You can't defeat the forces of evil," she says.

I refuse to buy into this. Fuck the polls. This thing is winnable. We are sooooo close. They are sooooo vulnerable.

I'm talking to everybody these days. About the lies. What lies? I have handouts. Top ten Bush lies from the DNC, in Spanish and English (http://www.democrats.org/specialreports/top10_lies/). Surf the web and find your favorite. Make copies for a dime each in town at the library. Go door to door. Here, read 'em and weep. Have you registered to vote? No? Come on. They have forms at the library in town. Need a ride to the polls on E-day? I'll come get you. Local Dems need someone to call 20 folks day before E-day and on E-day and remind 'em to vote. I can do that. Make sure the folks you know get absentee ballots? Yeah, I can do that.

Look, Michael Moore is right. We CAN win this thing. Most Americans are NOT morons who'll believe whatever FUX tells them. Most Americans are scared, scared to take back their country, scared to speak their mind and lose their job. But most Americans, I'm sure--and I get around a lot--are a helluva lot closer to the platform of the Dems than the Dicks. They just don't KNOW. Or they're too beat and whipped down to believe a vote can change anything. But tell them. You don't have to be high profile. You don't have to be alone. You can do so much, even while keeping your head attached to your neck. Yes, big brother may be watching. But big brother is slow and stupid, and we are fast and smart.

We can't change everyone's mind. And maybe my friend is wrong, maybe Bush won't kill us all because of pushing the wrong button, maybe. But there are several Supremes who have to leave soon, and all you need to envision is what a Bush-packed court would mean to civil liberties, the environment and reproductive rights in order to GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR. STOP SHOUTING AT THE TEEVEE. Organize, get letters in the papers, hand out literature, talk to people. The Forces of Evil, you bet your ass, are organized, scarily focused, eyes on the prize. Wear your button. Put a sticker on your car and a sign in your yard. If the campaign comes to a town nearby, GO. And time is short. It's Labor Day, goddamit--ORGANIZE.

When millions of 18 year olds, people of color, the poor and those without health care or decent jobs, women who aren't ready to go back to the 1950's, old hippies and beats and civil rights activists who remember the dream, the dispossessed, union folks, religious folks who fight for peace and justice as part of their faith, and all of us with so much to lose, show up at our local polling place or mail in our absentee ballot, we will be firing one little shot at the heart of evil, firing one little shot to a better future we can almost taste. And a lot of one little shots can make one big impact.

Great work, George! Now that you've got us tied down in the Iraq quagmire, what do we do about this?

A large cloud that appeared over North Korea in satellite images several days ago was not the result of a nuclear explosion, according to a U.S. official.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency is reporting a huge explosion shook North Korea's northernmost province on Thursday producing a mushroom cloud over two miles (4 km) wide.

The blast coincided with the anniversary of North Korea's founding on Sepember 9 when various military activities are staged.
(via CNN)

Well, what are the radiation monitors saying? Or has the lid been slammed on this one?

Right on the fucking home page, linking here. "Swarm intelligence," my Aunt Fanny.

Blogger really does suck, doesn't it?

It was interesting riding the train homeward today, out of touch with any form of media—wondering if New York would still be there when I reached Penn Station.

The summing up:

First, contrary to the malarky that the Wurlitzer began circulating almost immediately, every single so-called anomoly in the douments that made them questionable could have been produced by typewriters in use at the time. The press jumped the gun and the "experts" were wrong.

Second, CBS had every reason to be extremely careful with its quotes on this story. Hodges, the Bush supporter, has every reason to lie about what he told CBS now that the documents have been called into question. His babbling about handwritten vs typewritten makes no sense. He admits that Killian had very high standards and didn't hold with pilots not meeting them. Therefore, it's not reasonable to assume that Hodges saying that he told CBS "if he wrote it, it must be true" is more credible than CBS's original quote. Indeed, it is ridiculous.

Third, the statements of Killian's family are irrelevant compared to the statement of Strong who handled Killian's work documents and others like it at the time. Unless you believe that spouses and children have better direct knowledge of workplace events than co-workers, that is the only conclusion to which you can come.
(via Hullaballo)

Read the whole thing.

However, here is Digby's summing up, with which I must disagree:

This whole pushback by the right, from the blogosphere to the Wurlitzer to the Whitehouse, is absolutely masterful. And, it should give everyone pause if they think there is even a snowball's chance in hell that any member of the Bush administration will ever get justice for the crimes they have committed while in office. Clearly, the press and much of the public are so willing to be used that it is hopeless. This entire episode is nothing but a pathetic reminder of how easily they manipulate perceptions.

We'd better be content to congratulate ourselves for having integrity because it's clear that we do not get any public credit for it. Indeed, we are perceived as being just as bad as they are. If that's the case, does it even matter that we aren't?

This is a counsel of despair. Never forget that Clinton's ratings were never higher than when the wingers were impeaching him. If we can get the message through, the American people will hear and understand.

This is perhaps the first time that we have joined battle with the Mighty Wurlitzer and the wingers who transmit their memes into it. They hold the high ground, and we're firing upward. But we have to keep fighting. This is one battle in a long war. Fighting the POTL is tiring. But we're in the right, and we have to remember that.

go fuck yourself, chica la gash. you must have one sorry life to be agreeing with the corrente fuckwit

You ever get the feeling they've trained us TOO well? What, I kept wondering, was going to be so explosive they had to run the "Fontgate" play right now to get everybody all hot and bothered and occupy the gasbags on Sunday morning?

Seymour Hersh's book comes out Monday.

Don't even bother with this miserable excuse of a "story" (via ho-hum NYT), just make plans to be at your local bookstore come opening time.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 - Senior military and national security officials in the Bush administration were repeatedly warned by subordinates in 2002 and 2003 that prisoners in military custody were being abused, according to a new book by a prominent journalist.

Seymour M. Hersh, a writer for The New Yorker who earlier this year was among the first to disclose details of the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, makes the charges in his book "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" (HarperCollins), which is being released Monday.

Mr. Hersh asserts that a Central Intelligence Agency analyst who visited the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in the late summer of 2002 filed a report of abuses there that drew the attention of Gen. John A. Gordon, the deputy to Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser.

But when General Gordon called the matter to her attention and she discussed it with other senior officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, no significant change resulted.

Mr. Hersh also says that a military officer involved in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq learned of the abuses at Abu Ghraib in November and reported it to two of his superiors, General John P. Abizaid, the regional commander, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith.

Mr. Hersh's thesis is that "the roots of the Abu Ghraib scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists" who have been charged so far, "but in the reliance of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on secret operations and the use of coercion - and eye-for-eye retribution - in fighting terrorism."

In particular, Mr. Hersh has reported that a secret program to capture and interrogate terrorists led to the abuse of prisoners.

Let's see how our pet Anonymous handles this....have they handed out the flip chart of talking points and denials for this filthy stinking mess yet or are they going to keep yammering nonsense about kerning?

This MoDo is a couple of days old but it seemed appropriate to hold it for today. Anybody yet seen a promotion for "Patriot Day Mattress Sale & Used Car Extravaganza"? I haven't either but...maybe next year.

In 1992, the senior Mr. Bush wooed the voters with "Message: I care.'' So this week, Mr. Cheney wooed the voters with, Message: You die.

The terrible beauty of its simplicity grows on you. It is a sign of the dark, macho, paranoid vice president's restraint that he didn't really take it to its emotionally satisfying conclusion: Message: Vote for us or we'll kill you.

Without Zell Miller around to out-crazy him...Mr. Cheney is back as Terrifier in Chief.

It's like that fairy tale where vipers and toads jump out of the mouth of the accursed mean little girl when she tries to speak. Every time Mr. Cheney opens his mouth, vermin leap out.

Mr. Cheney implies that John Kerry couldn't protect us from an attack like 9/11, blithely ignoring the fact that he and President Bush didn't protect us from the real 9/11.

Think of what brass-knuckled Republicans could have made of a 9/11 tape of an uncertain Democratic president giving a shaky statement that looked like a hostage tape and flying randomly from air base to air base, as the veep ordered that planes be shot down.

Just like Presidents Day sales feature George Washington sitting on a mattress with an axe and a bowl of cherries, future Patriot Day sales ads will feature George Bush sitting on top of Air Force One reading "The Pet Goat" while Cheney frantically tries to aim a Star Wars laser cannon at it. It will become traditional as a day of deep discounts on dark glasses, ball caps, unattractive swimwear and other traditional vacation items which remain unsold at the end of the season.

Not sure what will come of the great 60 Minutes memo scare of 2004. One things for sure though, the White House, and the SCLM, weren't going to let Dan Rather and gang scuff up the Bush boy's latest symbolic public relations stunt - "Patriot Day". Not a chance.

Anyway, i do think that it's rather interesting that so many thumbs ups were given early on to the charge that those CBS memos are forgeries. Esspecially since the forgery charge at this point is based almost entirely on pretty flimsy unfounded notions. Such as the notion that typewriters could not perform such marvels as proportional spacing and superscripting in the early 1970's. Points that are simply false.

IBM Executive typerwiters could do both. Many manual typerwiters had superscript keys at the time as well. (aren't ya sick of hearing about this shit) BTW: IBM Executive models, and others, could also apparently be used as terminals for early computers. So the basis for calling the memos forgeries seems to rest on points that don't add up. For instance: Via Kevin Drum's Washington Monthly post:

Kevin, I worked in the IBM Office Products Division field service area fixing typewriters in NYC for over 13 years in the 70s. I can tell you that the Model D can produce those documents, not only did it do proportional spacing, you could order any font that IBM produced AND order keys that had the aftmentioned superscripted "th." Also you could order the platen, thats the roller that grabs the paper, in a 54 tooth configuration that produced space, space and a half and double spacing on the line indexing, this BTW was popular in legal offices. The Model D had to be ordered from a IBM salesmen and was not something that was a off the shelf item, typical delivery time were 4-6 weeks. Also, typewriter keys were changed in the field all the time, its not that hard to do. I wish I had saved my service and parts replacement manuals to backup this claim but I'm guessing a call to IBM with a request for a copy of their font and parts replacement manuals would put this to rest ASAP. Posted by: BillG NYC on September 10, 2004 [...] FYI, but I have found nothing that contradicts this information. It would appear you could order the humble IBM Executive with a wide variety of typestyles and characters, especially if you were a large, important client. - comment permalink

"letter quality"
Similarly, with regard to the charge that the typeface appearing in the CBS memos, curlicues and apostraphes, etc.. etc.. blah blah... which some have attempted to claim was not available on typewriters prior to 1973 - and - which resembles later computer word processor font faces instead - might find this item below interesting. It's written by a programmer who worked on early versions of WordPerfect:

It would take a couple of years before people would consider it a status symbol to show off the fact that they were using a computer. The professional typewritten look was called "letter quality" in the industry, and one of our goals for WordPerfect 3.0 was to print a letter that looked as good as one typed on an IBM Executive typewriter. - excerpt from "Almost Perfect", by W. E. Pete Peterson, 1993link

In other words, even early word processor programmers were trying to replicate the type face found on older typewriters. Specifically, in this case, the IMB Executive (which could also perform proportional spacing and superscript duties). Aside from the knowledge that New Times Roman typeface has been around since 1931 this disclosure may help some people out there (you know who you are) understand why some typefaces included with modern computer programs resemble the typefaces on old typewriters. Curlicues and all! Okie dokie?

BTW: Philip D. Bouffard, the "forensic document examiner" who looked at the documents and told the New York Times he was originally skeptical of their authenticity, now, after discovering the wonders of old IBM Selectric typewriters, has apparently changed his tune. - See: Authenticity backed on Bush documents Boston Globe, Sept 11, 2004

Therefore it would appear that the charges of forgery are pretty much unfounded, at this point anyway, and largely little more than excitable media hype. Seems to me the real questions should now involve the specific allegations contained within the memos themselves. That would seem to be the real issue which needs further examination. Afterall, the same old questions concerning Bush's wereabouts still remain regardless of the authenticity of the CBS memos. Bush still can't (or won't) produce documention accounting for his comings and goings at the time.

He said she said:
So, who can answer the question of whether or not these memos CBS unleashed are authentic or not? Who would know if what is being discussed in these memos is even remotely plausible or factual? Who would possibly know if Col. Jerry Killian had indeed spoken with or "...ordered that 1st Lt. Bush be suspended not just for failing to take a physical….but for failing to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards." (?) Who would know if George W. Bush had or had not made any "...attempt to meet his training certification or flight physical." (?) Who would know if he had been instructed to seek a position with the Massachusetts Guard upon scurrying off to Hahvahd Yahd? Who? Why that would be George W. Bush himself wouldn't it.

But Commander SkyBox Pilot apparently ain't talking one way or another. Not in this case. One would think that if there were no possibility whatsoever that these latest memos might contain some shred of truth George W. Bush himself, or one of his trained seals, would be sliding back and forth across the political stage barking about the outrageous libel of it all. Perhaps even challenging Dan Rather to a duel at sunrise! Or showering the masses with firmly resolved declarations stating that the memos were certainly fakes because any such accusations contained within would never ever have been discussed with respect to Mr. Bush's TxANG service. No seh, never, because Mr. Bush had never ever found himself embroiled in any such messy misunderestimated tangles in the first place.

But nooooooo. That's not what has happened. Rather: The Bu$h, lost in his fabulous labyrinth, relies on Scotty McClellan to go hopping off to scratch at his noggin and mutter to the supple Press, "we don’t know if the documents are fabricated or authentic." - "We don't know?" You mean they might be authentic? Gee golly Scotty, that doesn't sound particually resolved-like.

Which begs the question....why don't you, Scotty, ask Commander Codpiece if there is anything valid or authentic-like to the charges contained in those memos? See, I'm sure, being the plain spoken forthright reg'lar kinda hero guy that he is, W would cack up the whole simple truth and nuttin' but the whole simple truth right there before God and country and Saddam's little hidey-hole gun and Scotty McClellan too! Right there in the Oval Office. Preznit would probably sum it all up right there in one short snappy symbol-like buzzphrase belch. Heck yeah Scotty.

But that would never really happen would it. Nope, it wouldn't. Because in the faith based bubble-fantastic of make believe that Bush43 inhabits, which is protected 24/7 by the palace guard thunder-dolts of the SCLM and other willing champagne unit fetchlings, it's understood that the delicate membrane surrounding the gas filled personality cult of the 'W' must never spring an ugly hissing leak.

I also find it ironic that so many in the SCLM devoted so much time over the course of one day attempting to discredit and deflect the CBS memos. Too bad those same excitable worthies hadn't expended as much energy and vigor and powers of skeptical inquiry when confronted with the fake claims made on behalf of the Bush administration's fabulous whizz-bang flower tossing Iraq cakewalk strut in the sand. Eh? Imagine that.

Beside the thousands of innocent Iraqis that have been killed in George W. Bush's fake-based experiment in "creative destruction" there'd be at least 1000 more US soldiers alive today. Soldiers who did actually show up for duty when and where they were asked to do so.


*

September 10, one day before September 11, and I'm engaged in a massive collective polemic about typography. How jejeune. Or maybe not. As Walter Benjamin writes in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:

The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity. Chemical analyses of the patina of a bronze can help to establish this, as does the proof that a given manuscript of the Middle Ages stems from an archive of the fifteenth century. The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical-- and, of course, not only technical-- reproducibility.<2> Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority...

The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity, the former, too, is jeopardized by reproduction when substantive duration ceases to matter. And what is really jeopardized when the historical testimony is affected is the authority of the object.

Our post-modern wingers...

Really, the whole controversy is non-trivial. The wingers say that the documents are not authentic. We say that Bush is not authentic, and that one one reason to believe this (there are many others) is the documents. A question of character...

You know, this election has always been about character, but until I scanned the blogosphere today, I hadn't realized how much it was about characters—specifically, the ^t and the ^h. [Rim shot. "Thanks. I'll be here all week!"]

And I have to say (as I said before, more politely, back) that it's fucking amazing the level of cluelessness in the wingerly tempest over the Killian memos.

Forensic Document Examination 101: It isn't possible to determine the authenticity of a paper document by examining a digital copy of it! If that were possible, every winger on the face of the planet would be taking digital copy of a ten dollar bill to the package store and loading up the new cooler they got with their GOP Gauleiter Points. And that's all the wingers have been doing.

Making it even more fucking amazing the savage efficiency with which the winger attack machine operates. Guy like Paul Lukasiak devotes months of his life to serious analysis of the Bush payroll record punchcards (why, oh why, didn't CBS go with this?) and we crow that we manage to get him mentioned in Froomkin's column. Then some winger shows it's possible to make one digital document look kinda like another digital reproduced document using software (wow!) and in 12 hours they're in the Standard, and in one news cycle they've got the network anchors repeating their talking points. "Liberal" "news" media my sweet Aunt Fanny.

Anyhow. CBS News didn't cave. Maybe Unka Karl shouldn't have left a horse's head in their bed over that Reagan biopic after all. Here's what CBS says:

"This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence, including documents that were provided by unimpeachable sources, interviews with former Texas National Guard officials and individuals who worked closely back in the early 1970s with Colonel Jerry Killian and were well acquainted with his procedures, his character and his thinking," the statement read.

In other words, CBS not only has documents, CBS has witnesses. Contrast Bush—we will, since His hapless apologists won't— who is missing documents, constantly finding them when they are "lost," and has no witnesses (not even for $10,000, back).

"In addition, the documents are backed up not only by independent handwriting and forensic document experts but by sources familiar with their content," the statement continued. "Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned."

And now we come to the first winger talking point: the famous superscripts:

CBS News Anchor Dan Rather says many of those raising questions about the documents have focused on something called superscript, a key that automatically types a raised "th."

Critics [now that's being generous!—Ed.] claim typewriters didn't have that ability in the 1970s. But some models did. In fact, other Bush military records already released by the White House itself show the same superscript – including one from 1968.

It would be nice if CBS mentioned Josh Marshall (back), who first pointed this out, but we'll take what we can get.

And now we come to the second winger talking point: The Times New Roman.

Some analysts outside CBS say they believe the typeface on these memos is New Times Roman, which they claim was not available in the 1970s.

But the owner of the company that distributes this typing style says it has been available since 1931.

"Times New Roman" is a red herring. It isn't possible to tell from the PDFs online what typeface is being used (look for yourself). Serifs, sure, but not only Times, a particular brand of Times? Forget it. Note also that many of us have enough experience to remember the days before desktop publishing, and plenty of us can remember IBM typewriters with both kerning and serif fonts, from the early 70s. In fact, I owned one.

Making the next point all the more crucial: The only way to authenticate a document is to examine the document, not a copy of it; that's Forensic Document Examination 101, as we say above. And that's why all the "experts" making pronouncements on copies of the documents are violating their own professional ethics (as we show here). CBS puts the same idea in words that are far more polite:

Document and handwriting examiner Marcel Matley analyzed the documents for CBS News. He says he believes they are real. But he is concerned about exactly what is being examined by some of the people questioning the documents, because deterioration occurs each time a document is reproduced. And the documents being analyzed [Heh.—] outside of CBS have been photocopied, faxed, scanned and downloaded, and are far removed from the documents CBS started with.

Translation: All the wingerly analysis and footstamping about "forgery" is "sound and fury signifying nothing" because they aren't working from the originals.

Matley did this interview with us prior to Wednesday's "60 Minutes" broadcast. He looked at the documents...

Note once more that if the documents were created with impact technology like a typewriter, this instantly destroys the wingerly argumentation, since all their claims of forgery depend on digital reproduction.

Note to CBS: It would be nice to hear you take up this point.

Note to readers: A tip of the Ol' Corrente Hat to the first reader to link to wingerly frothing about Marcel Matley's French-sounding name.

...and the signatures of Col. Killian, comparing known documents with the colonel's signature on the newly discovered ones.

"We look basically at what's called significant or insignificant features to determine whether it's the same person or not," Matley said. "I have no problem identifying them. I would say based on our available handwriting evidence, yes, this is the same person."

Matley finds the signatures to be some of the most compelling evidence.

Reached Friday by satellite, Matley said, "Since it is represented that some of them are definitely his, then we can conclude they are his signatures."

Matley said he's not surprised that questions about the documents have come up.

"I knew going in that this was dynamite one way or the other. And I knew that potentially it could do far more potential damage to me professionally than benefit me," he said. "But we seek the truth. That's what we do. You're supposed to put yourself out, to seek the truth and take what comes from it."

Don't go up in any small planes, Marcel.

And now the witness:

Robert Strong was an administrative officer for the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam years. He knew Jerry Killian, the man credited with writing the documents. And paper work, like these documents, was Strong's specialty. He is standing by his judgment that the documents are real.

"They are compatible with the way business was done at that time," Strong said. "They are compatible with the man I remember Jerry Killian being. I don't see anything in the documents that's discordant with what were the times, the situation or the people involved."
(via CBS)

In a world where Enlightenment values like "evidence" and "reasoning" counted for something, CBS (modulo conspiracy theories, of course) has a strong prima facie case that the documents are real. (Note that what the documents reveal goes to character and unlawful acts, since they show that Bush disobeyed a direct order.)

1. The only examiner to have looked at the original, physical documents confirms their authenticity to CBS.

2. Independent witnesses confirm the content of the documents to CBS.

3. Independent researchers (Paul Lukasiak) reinforce the context of the Killian memos—that Bush was given special treatment—besides

4. proving that Bush was guilty of payroll fraud (never addressed by wingers) and didn't meet his sworn commitments.

In addition, 5, the White House never disputed the authenticity of the Killian memos. This could be, of course, part of the pattern of Bush always letting others do the dirty work. But it could also mean that the reason the White House didn't claim forgery is that they thought that the memos were true.

Finally, 6, the essential point of the story—now in the process of being covered up by wingerly frothing and stamping—is not that Bush disobeyed a direct order, juicy though that is. The essential point is that Bush disobeyed a direct order to take a medical exam, after the medical exams began to include drug testing. Why didn't he? The Bush answer is that He didn't need to, but in the military, the person being given the order doesn't get to decide whether or not to follow it. Eh?

Now, I know there are lots of people—Xan among them (back)—who want to talk about "the issues." The worthy Canadians think we've gone nuts.

I disagree. The wingerly response to this story is the sharp end of the Republican sword. This is how they govern, and if we don't stop it, it's only going to get worse.

Further, Digby makes the excellent point (citing a New Yorker article) here that people often use stories as proxies for reasoning. Expecially undecided people:

These little dramas in campaigns, which seem to be about everything but what we informed voters believe are the essential issues, actually serve as character and issues proxies for the electorate to come to its gut reasoning.

That is why blunting the Swift Boat Smear was so important—heck, if we can't blunt a political smear, how can we defend the country? That's the proxy style of reasoning, and who's to say it isn't good enough?

With the Killian memos, we have a great, great story. Not only did Bush pull strings to get into the Guard, he disobeyed a direct order once he was in. Oh, what was the order? To take a medical exam. Heck, why didn't we want to do that?! And Kitty Kelley has the answer to that. And now he's commander in chief?! Get out!

We have a great story. It could tip the undecideds, who use proxy reasoning, to us. The wingers know that. That's why they're trying to take it away from us.

Worse, the story they're trying to replace it with is a tale of forgery, and the Mighty Wurlitzer is constantly pumping that line out.

So, if we don't want President Superscript to win in 2004, we have to win this one.

UPDATE I think Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall have gone native on us. Asking Hodges whether he was pressured is exactly not the right question, since it's back to he said/she said. The right question is: Were the original documents created on a typewriter? If so—and it's hard to believe that CBS and a professional document examiner, under contract, would have missed this—then all the winger claims collapse. When they do, then it's case closed that Bush disobeyed a direct order. Then, we can ask why He did that? (Snort!)

And The Poor Man has it exactly right:

Let me save everyone a whole lot of time. They are genuine. How do I know? Because the internet is currently awash in wingnuts claiming the memos are fakes. Ergo, they are for real. Q.E.D.

UPDATE Hunter at Kos nails the font arguments with solid technical analysis. Go read. Winger meme sounds good on first look, falls apart when Enlightenment values like "evidence" and "reasoning" are applied. Film at 11.
As Hunter says in the update:

A number of people point out that this debunking of a debunking is a colossal "waste of time". Perhaps, perhaps not. But one of the points of the cooperative blogosphere, and of political blogs in particular, is that different individuals can choose their targets. A very few people managed to track down irrefutable evidence that the rationales underpinning the "forgery" cries were simply false, and were able to do so in a short time. The rest of the blogosphere didn't have to lift a finger.

And I don't like lies. And I especially don't like lies that make it into the mainstream media with such astonishing ease. And I choose to do something about it.

There are more interesting things coming out of this than merely the full and certain knowledge that conservatives can't perform either logical analysis or basic Google searches. We also have been given a prime example of how the mainstream media obtains its information, and where they get it from.

UPDATE Eesh.

Mr. Matley, the documents expert, said in an interview after the program, that he had examined documents and handwriting since 1985 and had testified in 65 trials. Mr. Matley said the documents the network sent him were so deteriorated from copying that it was impossible to identify the typeface. As a result, he said, he focused on the signatures.
(via The Times

One the one hand, all the winger font analysis is out the window. On the other, it would have been nice to have the orignals (where are they?) So what we have now—and notice that this would be admissible in court—is the signatures and the testimony of witnesses. The case is still prima facie in CBS's favor.

Alert Readers:

Based on our experience with The Man in the Gray Turtleneck, there's one rule for handing trolls: Don't feed them. On the other hand, if the troll makes a real argument—even if you don't agree with it—don't personalize it and insult the troll. Instead, answer the argument: It's fun, it's good practice, and it sharpens our discourse.

TROLL PROPHYLACTIC: The URL on how GOP Team leaders can win points toward a beer cooler is here, and other points you can win for performing an aktion. Amazing stuff.

NOTE Originally published 2004-03-06.

NOTE Revisd 2004-08-08.

It would have been nice to see this some time back, and louder, and sharper, and on the front page. But after praising with those faint damns, I must at least give them credit for not falling for the whitewash. The prisoner abuse scandal is NOT going away.

(via WaPoEditorial)

A DAY OF congressional hearings yesterday confirmed two glaring gaps in the Bush administration's response to hundreds of cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first is one of investigation: Major allegations of wrongdoing, including some touching on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials, have yet to be explored by any arms-length probe. The second concerns accountability. Although several official panels have documented failings by senior military officers and their superiors in Washington, those responsible face no sanction of any kind, even as low-ranking personnel are criminally prosecuted. To use the phrase of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), this "is beginning to look like a bad movie."

Mr. Rumsfeld has frequently boasted of the number of Pentagon investigations into the abuse scandal and has maintained that no others are necessary. Yet the senior officer in charge of one of those probes, Gen. Paul J. Kern, told the Senate Armed Services Committee of two major areas that remain unexplored. One is the Army's accommodation of dozens of "ghost prisoners" held by the CIA and deliberately hidden from the International Red Cross in violation of the Geneva Conventions and Army regulations. Mr. Rumsfeld has acknowledged that at least one of those prisoners was held by his personal order -- an order that two former secretaries of defense, James R. Schlesinger and Harold Brown, testified was "not consistent" with international law. Gen. Kern reported that the CIA had flatly refused to provide his team with information about the ghost prisoners or their handling -- prompting Mr. McCain's acerbic comment.

Other stories today suggest that Rumsfeld is being kept off TV and out of the public/investigative eye as much as possible not, perhaps, out of well-deserved shame but because he is losing it:

(AP via WaPo)

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, responding to allegations that he fostered a climate that led to the prisoner-abuse scandal, said yesterday that the military's mistreatment of detainees was not as bad as what terrorists have done.

Asked at a National Press Club appearance whether he contributed to a climate that led to abuse, Rumsfeld said he had approved new techniques for Guantanamo but then rescinded them

Hmmm, flip-flopping, Rummy? Troubling...

and gathered lawyers to study the subject after military officers questioned them.

He said the procedures "were not torture" and were approved for use on only two people.

But Pentagon investigations in recent months have said there have been about 300 allegations of prisoners killed, raped, beaten and subjected to other mistreatment at military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay since the start of the war on terror.

He also made comments about the latest videotape released yesterday in which he repeatedly confused "Sadaam" and "Osama" as being the source. Maybe it makes it hard to concentrate when in the back of your mind you can't forget that everything you say is going to be used against you, very soon, at The Hague.

Okay, I want everybody to take a deep breath.

Put down the typewriter, be it IBM Selectric, Olympia, Underwood, Remington or whatever, and back slowly away from the cast-iron monstrosity. Cease any talk of font analysis, kerning, superscripts or anything else of a typographical nature.

You are playing right into Karl Rove's hands with this shit. I think we can all agree that is not a place we want to be, esthetically, morally or most especially politically.

Let's get back to the important point. It is Friday night for starters. It's 9-11 Weekend, "Patriot Day" in the Bushian world of emotion-playing, string-pulling bullshittery. You're supposed to spend all day tomorrow feeling bummed out, or feeling guilty for not feeling bummed out enough, or some such manipulative rubbish.

There's yet another hurricane coming in, to Florida, which seems to me conclusive proof that God has not yet got their attention on the matter of the Diebold voting machines, and She intends to keep sending hurricanes until Jebbie orders them all cast into the sea. Or else She will make sure they don't have power to run them anyway, hah!

Here's my bet, FWIW, and it has nothing to do with typewriters. The "forged documents" claim is being waved as a distraction, just like that guy is waving the cape in front of the bull. The bull, of course, is supposed to be us. I resent that.

More importantly, it is not our job to prove George Bush is a liar on the matter of his TxANG service. It is his job to prove what happened, then and now.

From Krugman today...and if I could get one sentence from his keyboard (screw whether it's kerned New Times Roman or chiseled hieroglyphics) to the Kerry speechwriting staff, it would start like this:

via NYT

It's the dishonesty, stupid. The real issue in the National Guard story isn't what George W. Bush did three decades ago. It's the recent pattern of lies: his assertions that he fulfilled his obligations when he obviously didn't, the White House's repeated claims that it had released all of the relevant documents when it hadn't.

It's the same pattern of dishonesty, this time involving personal matters that the public can easily understand, that some of us have long seen on policy issues, from global warming to the war in Iraq. On budget matters, which is where I came in, serious analysts now take administration dishonesty for granted.

It wasn't always that way. Three years ago, those of us who accused the administration of cooking the budget books were ourselves accused, by moderates as well as by Bush loyalists, of being "shrill." These days the coalition of the shrill has widened to include almost every independent budget expert.

Krugman's an economist so this is the particular aspect he looks at. But the same pattern of dishonesty pervades everything this administration does, from run National Parks to the space program to the military to defense of civil liberties (yeah, feel free to laugh about THAT one). Healthy Forests and Clear Skies, anyone?

I can cite experts from across the spectrum who will attest that:

1) The creation of matter out of nothing is unlikely.

2) The existence of an environment capable of sustaining life is also unlikely.

3) The emergence of life from inanimate matter is even more unlikely than that.

4) The emergence of human intelligence from animal life is super duper unlikely.


The implication of all these combined improbabilities is clear: we don't exist. We are nothing more than a simulacrum in a mad scientist's laboratory. No other explanation is possible. If I existed, I would be a genius. I now expect to be booked on cable TV to expatiate on my brilliant findings without interruption.

we don't know what we're talking about....but we don't care...we'll talk about it anyway.....

Unbelievable. The dewy-eyed yearlings at ABC World News This Morning are repeating the blither blather of some clucking hen (includes video clip) who is repeating the claim that typewriter subscript "th"s didn't exist on typewriters at the time the allegedly forged Killian memo(s) (cited by CBS) would have been written. Some people apparently (ABC News) will swallow any shiny come-hither -- hook line and sinker -- that so called "experts" on video tape dangle before their hungry wet maws. Obviously, for the perky freshly spawned pod-dolts at ABC World News This Morning, real investigative journalism, is, like totally dead as a totally yicky landed pod-carp. Like totally. Yicky. Moving along.....

More details on the hanging death of Winston Carter in Tuskegee Alabama. See: Hungry Blues

Crucial details to note: the family members feel so strongly that Winston Carter's death was not a suicide that they are ready to formally contest any coroner's report finding suicide as the cause of death. Also, the crime scene was never sealed off, and the local news weekly for Macon County has not made any mention of the hanging death of a local resident.

And here: Hungry Blues

At this second link I have a comment to Hungry Blues from Winston Carter's aunt from northern Virginia. In short she says that a) she, like the Tuskegee family members, does not believe Winston Carter would commit suicide and b) the police have not allowed the family to see the crime scene photos or to have access to information about the investigation.

More on commander G. W. Make Believe's sky-box pilot adventure(s): Bush's military service in question – again; Records appear to show that the president failed to fulfill his duty to the Air National Guard.

James T. Currie, a retired colonel who is a professor at the Industrial College of The Armed Forces and the author of an official history of the Army Reserve, said that while the Guard had a reputation as being a "good old boy's club" during Vietnam, that didn't mean regulations shouldn't apply. "You make a commitment, and in return for what is a fairly minor inconvenience, you avoid getting drafted and sent to Vietnam, so I think the least you could do was fulfill the letter of that commitment," he said. "Clearly if you were the average poor boy who got drafted and sent into the active force, they weren't going to let you out before you had completed your obligation."

Vote Bush or Die by Judd Legum & David Sirota, The Nation, September 27, 2004 issue.

By May, CNN Justice Department correspondent Kelli Arena "reported" that there was "some speculation that Al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House."

Yes, Kelli Arena, I'll bet there sure was "some speculation". Hey, they don't call CNN the (George) Creel News Network for nuttin'! And, by the way, no respecatable parent names a real live kid Kelli Arena. That isn't a name for a human being. It's a name for a convention center. Or a porn star who caters to corporate business junkets. Get a real name... you idiot. How about Idiot Arena? That would do nicely.

Judd Legum is also with American Progress. org which keeps a running count of Bu$hCo's growing Flip Flop porfolio.

Speaking of "flip flops" ---- on Sept., 08 Judy Woodruff's CNN "Inside Politics" show-program page sported this nifty summation:

Kerry - Iraq War Hurt Economy at Home; Bush Reverses Position on National Intelligence Director;... See: CNN/Inside Politics transcript

Wow-wee! I was very excited because usually Dame Judy can't tee up a single verbal probe without including the RNC talking point/buzz phrase/all purpose question..."how do you respond to critics who accuse John Kerry of being a flip-flopper....". But, alas, sadly, Miss Judy let me down. Not one utterance of "flip flop" or flip floppery or anything closely related with respect to our vaulted messianic Texan's latest flip flop. Alas, flip flops are penned in for lowly democracts. Manly take charge "Reverses" are for Judy's mucky-muck Beltway dinner party pals.

Finally: 'Call a Coward a Coward' - go visit "Big Dog" at Dog Fight 04.

Update: Don "Boat Show Cowboy" Imus and NBC mumble-peg Tom Brokaw are (as i write) reinforcing the claim that old typewriters didn't have subscript "th" abilities in the early 70's. Unbelievable. I'd invite each of these pampered enclave society millionaire celebrity geezer shut-ins to visit with my old Olympia, in my attic, but, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to beat each one of them bloody with an old hockey stick or a broken chair leg. Hmmm. On the other hand... c'mon over and visit with me you stupid blind bastards. heh heh heh...

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