| |
 |
|
(JavaScript Error)
|
| Archives |
|
|
|
|
Subscribe
|
| Now you
can subscribe to this blog and receive new blogs direct to
your email! |
|
RSS/XML Syndication
| |
|
|
|
|
Video: Alternative
Views
|
|
Censured Casualties
features rare footage
of war crimes against the Iraqi people suffered during
and after the Gulf War. The footage is from former Attorney
General Ramsey
Clark in his attempt to document the injustice
of United States military actions in the region.
|
|
|
Video: Alternative
Views
|
|
Another Unknown
War
features a film on the
struggle of the indigenous people of West Papua to remain
sovereign in the face of an Indonesian invasion backed
by world capital. Footage of Noam
Chomsky on Western involvments in the region and
the relation to East Timor.
|
|
|
Doug's New Books & Related
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TV/Radio
|
|
|
| |
 |
| |
|
|
|
Sunday, October 31, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, October 30, 2004
|
How the bloggers have driven the news agenda
bloggers driving news agenda, traditional media following
Independent News: "How the bloggers have driven the news agenda"
|
|
|
Revealed: Blair's secret mission to woo Kerry
Blair sucks up to Kerry, a good sign the Brits think its going to be Big John
Independent News
|
|
|
Salon.com | Happy days are here again!
Jim Hightower is optimistic that Kerry is going to win because of all the progressive
groups mobilizing against Bush. Excerpt:
"Prediction: I believe George W. is a one-term president, just like his daddy was.
I don't say this glibly, nor is it wishful thinking. My prediction is based on what I've seen at the grass-roots level all across the country. As many of you know, I've been travelling practically nonstop since mid-July, going to 50-something cities and towns as part of my "Show Bush the Door in '04 Tour." Using my new book ("Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush") as a focal point, I've been crisscrossing America, speaking with folks in salons and saloons, labor halls and cow barns, bookstores and art museums, churches and theaters, on country fairgrounds, in civic centers, on campuses, in parks, and even inside neon-lit dance halls.
I find that people are onto the Bushites -- and why wouldn't they be? Bush Inc. has spent nearly four years downsizing the middle class, offshoring our best jobs, ignoring the growing cries for healthcare, gutting worker rights, unleashing corporate polluters and plunderers, defunding public education programs, bashing gays and lesbians, sending hundreds of thousands of our loved ones into a deadly war of lies, empowering federal agents to stomp on our liberties, making wholesale arrests of peaceful dissenters ... (gosh, so much to list, so little space).
Bush's policies are all big fat ugly hogs, and while the White House has tried to pretty them up with a coat of bright glossy lipstick, who wants to kiss a hog? Even many of the people who voted for the "compassionate conservative" in 2000, have since found themselves up close and personal with the raw ugliness of the Bushite agenda, and they want no part of "four more years" -- a partisan chant that most Americans now view as a direct threat.
This is a BIG TIME for America. It's not just another election -- and I find in my travels that people not only are aware of this, but they're preparing to spring an election surprise on George W.
Take the polls.
OK, I'm out on a limb here, but I dare say that this will not be that close of an election: Kerry will win going away. This has little to do with our boy John -- and everything to do with an electorate that is fired up and on the move.
Lest you think I'm juiced up on jimson weed, let me make three points about the conventional wisdom of the pollsters, who assert that it's a nip-and-tuck race. First, pollsters are like cats watching the wrong mouse hole, for they're only telephoning "likely voters" -- those who've been voting consistently in past presidential elections. This leaves out half of America's eligible voters. This time -- Surprise, George! -- a substantial number of the other half, the "unlikely voters," are going to show up at the polls, eager to punch out the Bushites who're running roughshod over them.
A big indicator of this is the massive surge in voter registration. Election boards are swamped with new registrants, particularly in the so-called battleground states, where they're having to add staff and work around the clock to absorb the influx. For example, Philadelphia has had the highest number of new registrations in 21 years, Cleveland has more than doubled the number of new voters it had in 2000, St. Louis says it'll have the largest number of registered voters its history, etc., etc. Even in supposedly Bush-safe "red states," the surge is phenomenal -- in my Democratic town of Austin, Texas, new voters are up 64 percent over 2000.
What's going on? People are realizing that it matters. Bush's loss of the popular vote and his enthronement by the Supreme Court last time -- combined with the extremist agenda he's pushed since then -- has motivated folks to believe that they can make a difference this time ... and must. "I've been too lazy," says Kurt Saukatis, a 43-year-old Pennsylvanian who did not go to the polls in 2000. He has two 16-year-old sons. "The thought of a draft is scary," he says. Plus, he's worried about his job and the middle-class possibilities for his family: "All that money spent on Iraq, then old people can't buy medicine. Figure that out!"
Second, there's not only a tsunami of new voters, but also an intensity of opposition to Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft/Rumsfeld & Gang that the pollsters can't measure. This intensity translates into real political action -- people willing to volunteer, give money, argue with their dittohead brothers-in-law, talk to their family and friends, and otherwise reach out personally to others.
Third -- and this is a giant one -- the pollsters are almost completely missing the coming youth vote. Since 1972, there's been a precipitous decline in turnout by the under-26 voter. Only about a third of these young folks have been voting, with the result that presidential campaigns have been ignoring them on the grounds that kids "don't do politics" anymore. Yoo-hoo ... the kids are back, registering in record numbers! A March poll of college students found that 62 percent definitely plan to vote in November. "I am determined that my vote be counted this year," says 25-year-old Rachelle Reposa of Oakland, Calif., who did not vote in 2000. "I do not want to go into war with other countries and waste billions of dollars when we need it over here."
There are 24 million of these 18-25 youngsters -- yet few ever get a call from a pollster. This is because most of them don't use regular phones, instead relying on their cellphones. It's estimated that 21 million of them own cellphones. Pollsters can't reach them, so their voting preferences simply are not being counted. "The people who are using telephone surveys are in denial," says noted pollster John Zogby, who has predicted Kerry will win on Tuesday. "They try not to mention cellphones. They go ahead with a method that is old and wrong."
Salon.com | Happy days are here again!
|
|
|
TNR Online | Caught on Tape (print)
One of the peculiar features of the election is the growing Bush cult. Ryan Lizza provides a frightening description of the cultism, which borders on fascism:
"Inside Columbus's Nationwide Arena, Bush's 20,000-strong crowd seemed re-energized. They roared with approval at all the cult-of-personality stimuli that mark a Bush campaign event in these final days. A four-person African-American a cappella group warmed up the crowd with a song in which the word "love" was replaced with the word "George":
George!
So many people use your name in vain
George!
Those who have faith in you sometimes go astray
George!
Through all the ups and downs, the joys and hurts
George!
For better or worse I still will choose you first
At first you didn't mean that much to me
But now I know that you're all I need
The world looks so brand new to me
Now that I found George
Everyday I live for you
And everything that I do
I do it for you
As they sang, a group of clean-cut white kids marched into the stands. They wore black athletic shorts and red shirts emblazoned with the letter W and sat down in a pattern that formed a giant scarlet W in the stands. Up on the Jumbotron, a rock-video-style short film opened with quick cuts of various GOP all-stars shouting Bush's name. "George W. Bush!" said Jeb Bush. "George W. Bush!" said Laura Bush. "Viva Bush!" said George P. Bush. After the film, one side of the arena shouted "B-U" and the other side returned "S-H." When Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bush arrived, the crowd cheered for seven minutes straight."
TNR Online | Caught on Tape (print)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Salon.com News | Kerry: Bush blew it on bin Laden
Kerry comes out swinging on Bush's failure to get bin Laden.
Salon story=
"Oct. 30, 2004 | APPLETON, Wis. -- At a rally in Miami Friday night, John Kerry said Bruce Springsteen had provided the theme for his campaign: "No retreat, baby, no surrender." But then Kerry delivered a speech in which he seemed to do a little bit of both. On a day when a new videotape showed pretty conclusively that Osama bin Laden was neither dead nor "on the run," Kerry said nothing at all about the terrorist leader or the Bush administration's failure to capture him.
Saturday morning in Wisconsin, Kerry had his backbone back. At a rally on a muddy football field in Appleton, Kerry made the point that many in his party were waiting to hear from him: If Bush hadn't diverted the military's attention from the war on terrorism to the war in Iraq, bin Laden wouldn't be making any videotapes today.
"As I have said for two years now, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, and it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us," Kerry said. Instead, Bush should have relied on U.S. troops, he said, soldiers "who wanted to avenge America for what happened in New York and Pennsylvania and Washington."
"It was wrong to divert our forces from Afghanistan so we could rush to war in Iraq without a plan to win the peace," Kerry said. "I will lead the world in fighting a smarter, more effective, tougher, more strategic war on terror, and we will make America safer."
Kerry's speech was a clear signal that, after a moment of hesitation in Miami Friday night, he won't be cowed by Republican charges that he has politicized the bin Laden tape. Kerry said nothing at all about bin Laden at the Miami rally, his only public event after the tape aired Friday afternoon. But the campaigns weren't done with bin Laden yet. Late into the night Friday, aides to Kerry and Bush played a high-altitude, cross-country pissing match about which candidate was "playing politics" with the tape.
On the late-night flight from Florida to Wisconsin -- usually a time for drinking and sleeping -- Kerry aides worked reporters on the press plane. Back in Washington, Kerry advisor Joe Lockhart held an unusual late-night conference call with reporters. Their predictable point: While the Bush team was accusing Kerry of making inappropriate, politically driven remarks about bin Laden Friday, the president crossed the line first and with much more partisan fervor.
Bush was apparently briefed on the tape Friday morning on Air Force One. After that briefing, he launched into his usual attacks on Kerry: He doesn't understand that Sept. 11 changed the world; he views the war on terrorism as a law enforcement action; he thinks the United States "must get permission from foreign capitals before we act in our own defense"; and he has "chosen the position of weakness and inaction."
Kerry learned of the tape later in the day, just after he spoke to a rally in West Palm Beach. As he frequently does, Kerry conducted a round of interviews with local TV stations immediately after the rally. In one of the interviews, Kerry said what he has said a thousand times before: Bush dropped the ball on bin Laden in Tora Bora by leaving Afghan warlords rather than the U.S. military in charge of the hunt. A few minutes later on the tarmac at the Palm Beach Airport, Kerry made a more cautious statement about the tape -- one he repeated in the course of his speech in Wisconsin Saturday. In the airport statement, Kerry said that "Americans are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists."
Bush followed with a strikingly similar statement Friday, saying that "Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country." He added: "I'm sure Sen. Kerry agrees with this." But then, a short time later in Columbus, Ohio, the president railed against Kerry for his comments about Tora Bora, calling them "especially shameful in light of a new tape from the nation's enemy."
On the late-night call with reporters, Lockhart said Kerry knew only of the tape's existence -- and not its contents -- when he made the Tora Bora comments Friday. He then complained about the Bush campaign's loose association with the truth. "One more time, this administration can't tell the truth, and everybody on this call, I think, has a personal experience with being deceived by someone in the White House, of being lied to by someone in there, and you just have to go back in your memory bank and think whether you can trust what they say or whether you can trust what we say."
Saturday morning, the Bush campaign pushed back, e-mailing reporters excerpts from columns by David Brooks and Bill Kristol excoriating Kerry for talking about Tora Bora on the day the tape was released. Kristol wrote: "Is there any development in the war on terror, however grave, that the Kerry campaign won't try to exploit for partisan advantage"?
Of course, Bush has built his entire campaign around the gravest "development" in the war on terror, the attacks of Sept. 11. He talks about the attacks every day on the stump, just as he did Saturday morning in his weekly radio address. "Since September the 11th, 2001, I have led a relentless campaign against the terrorists," Bush said. "We have strengthened homeland security. We removed terror regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are on the offensive around the world, because the best way to prevent future attacks is to go after the enemy."
Bush then said, "My opponent has a different view," before launching again into his usual attacks on Kerry.
Speaking to reporters in Appleton Saturday morning, Kerry spokesman Mike McCurry said the Kerry campaign "will not yield at all" in arguing that the "diversion of resources to Iraq left Osama bin Laden free to wander the globe."
Why didn't Kerry stay on the attack Friday night in Florida? McCurry said Kerry sometimes uses the Tora Bora argument in his speeches and sometimes doesn't, implying that the decision to exclude it in Miami was somehow just a coincidence. But nothing a candidate says -- or doesn't say -- this late in the game happens by accident, and the Kerry campaign was clearly struggling to find the right message Friday.
By Saturday morning, McCurry seemed confident that the campaign had settled on a "winning argument" -- about bin Laden and about everything else. He said the bin Laden tape, together with the story of the missing munitions from Al Qaqaa, "crystallizes" the question facing voters Tuesday.
But like everyone else, McCurry acknowledged that it's too early to tell whether the bin Laden tape will move voters -- or where. "What will be the impact of this, I don't know and you don't know," McCurry told reporters who crowded around him inside a school gymnasium in Appleton. "You can teach it round, you can teach it flat. We'll know Tuesday night."
Salon.com News | Kerry: Bush blew it on bin Laden
|
|
|
WIRED BUSH?
Here's my overview of the Wire story; spread this far and wide!
Media Spectacle and the Wired Bush Controversy
By Douglas Kellner
During a media age, image and spectacle are of crucial importance in presidential campaigns. Media events like party conventions and daily photo opportunities are concocted to project positive images of the candidates and to construct daily messages to sell the candidate to the public. These events are supplemented by a full range of media advertising that often attempts both to project negative images of the oppositional candidate and positive images for the presidential aspirant that the ads seek to support. In an era of media spectacle, competing parties work hard to produce a presidential image and brand that can be successfully marketed to the public. In a forthcoming study of media spectacle and election 2004, a draft of which is available on my website, I sketch out some of the key structural elements of the media campaign spectacle, discussing primaries and conventions, advertising and spin, and the presidential debates, illustrating them with examples from the 2004 which is emerging as one of the most highly contested and media-mediated in recent history.[i]
Election Spectacles and Resonant Images
The primary season requires that candidates raise tremendous amounts of money to finance travel through key campaign states, organize support groups in the area, and purchase television ads.[ii] While the primaries involve numerous debates, media events, advertising, and then state-wide votes for delegates, usually a few definitive images emerge that define the various candidates, such as the negative image in 1972 of Democratic party candidate and frontrunner Edmund Muskie crying on the New Hampshire state capital steps while responding to a nasty newspaper attack on his wife, or front runner Gary Hart hitting the front pages with a sex scandal, replete with pictures, in the 1984 primaries. Michael Dukakis was arguably done in by images of him riding a tank and looking silly in an oversize helmet in the 1988 election, as well as being the subject of negative television ads that made him appear too liberal and soft on crime and defense. Bush senior, however, was undermined during the 1992 election with repeated images of his convention pledge, “Read my lips. No new taxes” after he had raised taxes and doubled the national deficit.
Beyond political primaries, spectacles can make or break campaigns for the presidency as well. In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s decisive seizing of a microphone in the New Hampshire debates and insistence that since he was paying for the debate, he would decide who would participate produced an oft-repeated image of Reagan as a strong leader; in 1984, his zinging of Walter Mondale during their presidential debates (“There you go again!”) and making light of his age arguably assured his re-election. By contrast, Al Gore’s sighs and swinging from aggressive to passive and back to aggressive behavior in the 2000 presidential debates probably lost support that might have been crucial to his election and have prevented the Bush Gang from stealing it.[iii]
In the 2004, Democratic Party primary season, Howard Dean was for some time positively portrayed as the surprise insurgent candidate. An energetic Dean was shown nightly on television and he received affirmative publicity as front-runner in cover stories in the major national news magazines. Dean raised a record amount of money from Internet contributions and mobilized an army of young volunteers. As the time approached for the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, however, images of an angry Dean increased and intemperate remarks, or critical positions taken out of context, made Dean look like a fire-breathing radical.[iv] While he received significantly more media coverage than any other Democratic Party candidate in 2003, Dean received almost totally negative coverage in 2004 and his campaign came to an abrupt halt the night of the Iowa primary. Coming in a distant third, Dean tried to energize his screaming, young supporters and to catch the crowd’s attention when he emitted a loud vocal utterance, which followed an energetic recitation of the states he would campaign in. Dean’s “scream” was perhaps the most-played image of the campaign season and effectively ended his campaign
The Presidential Debates and Images of the Wired Bush
The Democrats went for “electability,” chose John Kerry, and anointed him at their convention spectacle. Unleashing an unparalleled barrage of negative advertising, including the Swift Boat campaign, the Republicans sought to impugn Kerry’s integrity, paint him as a hopeless flip-flopper, and finally as a tax-and-spend “Massachusetts liberal.” After dropping “Stronger, Safer” ads that were intended to re-elect George W. Bush, the Republicans unleashed a wide repertoire of positive ads of Bush combined with negative ones of Kerry, culminating in the infamous pack of wolves that were intended to scare the nation into voting for Bush.
The Democrats, in turn, unleashed a barrage of attacks on Bush for his disastrous war, failure to get Osama bin Laden, and failed economic performance. Both parties used their conventions to sell their candidates, and while the Democrats chose, perhaps unwisely, to go positive, the Republicans unleashed a unparalleled spectacle of mocking attacks on Kerry, including ritual “flip flop” displays and displays of small purple band-aids to highlight the Swift Boat campaign message that Kerry exaggerated his war wounds and did not receive a purple heart.
But it was the debates that provided a relatively direct confrontation of the candidates and that was probably the most revealing and perhaps important spectacle of the campaign. Television tends to exaggerate small defects and provides images of the candidates that their handlers might not wish to circulate. Al Gore was excoriated for his alleged signs during the first 2000 presidential debate and George W. Bush was taken apart for his petulant, testy, and often confused responses to Kerry’s sharp criticisms of his positions, and most commentators scored Kerry the decisive winner in all three debates.
But perhaps the prototypical and most surprising television moment of the spectacle was revelations in the first debate that George W. Bush seemed to have a wire running up his back. One of the most intriguing stories of the weekend after the first debate concerned images circulated in regard to the mysterious bulge in Bush’s coat evident throughout the first debate. Speculation mushroomed over whether Bush was wired with Karl Rove feeding him answers, or if the wire misfunctioned or was jammed, causing Bush evident grief. Indymedia and other Internet sites circulated the images of the bulge and speculated that it was an electronic wire telling Bush what to say and a website quickly appeared collecting all the information and key stories on the phenomena at http://www.isbushwired.com/. Once Salon broke the story on Friday,[v] all of the major Saturday newspapers had a story with lower-level Bush spokespeople saying it was “preposterous.”[vi] Yet the story persisted and on Sunday ABC’s morning show featured the images of Bush with the bulging coat that by now was blamed on his tailor. Yet the TV footage of the debate clearly showed what appeared to be a wire running along his back with a noticeable bulge around it.
Hence, when the third debate began on October 8 at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, many were looking closely to see if there were any signs of a tell-tail wire on the back of Bush’s coat. While his shoulders and rump revealed rather strange tailoring, there was no evidence of a wire, as there was throughout the first debate, on Bush’s back until the end of the debate and he bounded on stage to meet with his and Kerry’s families. A picture in Salon suggested that the wire popped out as an astonished Kerry daughter looked at the strange hump in the back of Bush’s jacket.[vii]
Speculations continued to fly over the Internet concerning whether Bush was wired, whether he had diabetes and the bulge was an insulin device, whether he had a heart attack (he had allegedly postponed his yearly physical this year), or whether the tell-tail bulge was just a flack jacket. Tailors weighed in and most said that the tell-tale bulges could not be explained by poor tailoring. The New York Times had an Op-Ed feature that showed pictures of New Yorkers walking down the street with big bulges in their clothes, but in these cases one could discern money-belts, shoulder pistols, flack jackets, and other devices. Critics like Dave Lindoff began looking at other tapes of the Bush presidency and finding evidence of a Wired Bush:
I just got a look at the full Fox tape of President Bush's May '04 joint news conference with French President Jaques Chirac. In that tape, as in several other tapes I've seen, Bush can be heard seemingly getting prompting from another voice. About 12 seconds into the piece, the leading voice says, "And I look forward to working to" Bush comes in with "And I look workin'And I look forward to workin' to" The verbal slip-up makes it clear that this is no electronic echo or sound synchronization problem.
At another point, about one minute and sixteen seconds into the tape, the leading voice lets out a loud exhale of breath. Bush does not follow suit. There is no preceding voice when a reporter is heard asking a question. Also, at one minute and 28 seconds into this tape, Bush reaches up and manipulates something in his ear, at which point there is a static noise and the sound of a speaker acting up, until he removes his fingers from his ear.
There is no wire going up to his ear, indicating that the earpiece in his right ear is wireless.[viii]
My own contribution to the Wired controversy emerged from a viewing of the extras on Michael Moore’s DVD to Fahrenheit 9/11 where one node features Bush’s press conference right after the 9/11 Hearings meeting between he, Cheney and the 9/11 Commission. A subdued Bush swaggered out to the White House lawn to make a statement and meet with the press and after fumbling he finds the words to describe the meeting and generally provided brief answers to reporters’ questions, often after a concentrated pause. As Bush turns around to return into the White House at the end one can clearly observe a bulging tell-tale sign in his jacket similar to the bulge observed during and after the first and third debates.
Of course, the bulge could have been a bullet-proof vest, but oddly the Bush handlers have not made the claim and in any case a flack jacket could easily hold and conceal a wiring device. A Wired Bush could explain his tendency to give answers in brief code words rather than sentences, although it is also possible that he is simply linguistically challenged. Wired or not, once again most commentators indicated that Kerry was the winner of the third debate on style and substance and that regarding the debates as a whole the Democrats scored a big grand slam over the inept Bush and the sinister Cheney. While Bush didn't flub as bad as the first two debates, his performance was full of misstatements, evasions, and empty rhetoric. He smiled inappropriately both when he and Kerry were speaking and his eyes wildly blinked throughout. His painful attempt to smile was undermined by the right corner of his mouth turning down as though a botox injection had gone bad and blog commentators complained about spittle hanging over the corner of his mouth for much of the debate.[ix]
Although John Stewart, Jay Leno, Dave Letterman, and other comedians continued to make Wired Bush jokes, the controversy was ignored by the mainstream media until Charles Gibson confronted Bush in a Good Morning America interview. In the summary of Washington Post columinist
As you recall, the bulge, most clearly photographed during Bush's first debate, raised conspiracy theories that Bush was possibly getting audio cues over some sort of wireless device.
This morning, in part two of his interview with Bush on ABC's "Good Morning America," Charlie Gibson spit it out. Brandishing a copy of the photo, he asked: "Final question. What the hell was that on your back, in the first debate?"
Bush chuckled.
Bush: "Well, you know, Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett have rigged up a sound system -- "
Gibson: "You're getting in trouble -- "
Bush: "I don't know what that is. I mean, it is, uh, it is, it's a -- I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."
Gibson: "It was the shirt?"
Bush: "Yeah, absolutely."
Gibson: "There was no sound system, there was no electrical signal? There was --"
Bush: "How does an electrical -- please explain to me how it works so maybe if I were ever to debate again I could figure it out. I guess the assumption was that if I was straying off course they would, kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer and I would jerk back into place. I -- it's just absurd."[x]
So it's the shirt? Sure doesn't look like a shirt.
Salon weighed in with another story on the mysterious bulge images as a NASA and Caltech scientist did an electronic enhancement of the image that clearly showed that something looking like a wire device was in the back of Bush’s jacket. In Kevin Berger’s summary:
George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt." Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons. For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."[xi]
It remains to be seen if the Wired Bush controversy and photo widely circulates through the Internet during the last days of the campaign, makes it into the mainstream media, and has any effect on the election. Yet the phenomena reveals how television can scrutinize and capture minute details of behavior, personality tics, and focus attention on issues –- or ignore them. The Wired Bush controversy was clearly initially an Internet phenomenon that snuck into the margins of the mainstream media, but so far has not penetrated the center. Failure of the mainstream corporate media to not more seriously investigate the phenomenon shows the incompetency, cowardice, and pack journalism conformity of the mainstream media. And yet when the mainstream picks up on an issue, it can be devastating, as the Dean Scream spectacle proved for Howard Dean and the Watergate saga for Richard Nixon. Watergate was initially a highly marginal story, which briefly appeared before the 1972 election, and then returned to haunt Nixon and drive him from office after the election. And so marginal images and stories can proliferate and can unforeseen consequences and effects. In an age in which politics is mediated by media spectacle, those who live by the media can also die by it.
Notes
[i] This text extracts from a forthcoming book to be published by Paradigm Press, Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy: Terrorism, War, and Election Battles. Thanks to Dean Birkenkamp for support with this project, and to Rhonda Hammer and Richard Kahn for discussion and editing of the text. A draft of the text is available at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/election2004.pdf.
[ii] By August 2004, a record billion dollars had been raised by both candidates, double the amount for the previous year. See Thomas B. Edsall, “Fundraising Doubles the Pace of 2000.” Washington Post, August 21, 2004: A01.
[iii] For details, see Douglas Kellner, Grand Theft 2000. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
[iv] Many media pundits were cool for Dean from the beginning although he got much good press when the long-shot contender became a surprise front-runner. On the very negative coverage of the Dean campaign by the media punditry and corporate networks, see Peter Hart, “Target Dean. Re-establishing the establishment.” Extra! (March-April 2004: 13-18).
[v] Dave Lindorff, “Bush's mystery bulge. The rumor is flying around the globe. Was the president wired during the first debate?” Salon, October 8, 2004 at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/08/bulge/.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
[vi] See Mike Allen, “Bulge Under President’s Coat in First Debate Stirs Speculation,” Washington Post, October 9, 2004: A16.
[vii] Farhad Manjoo, “The bulge returns. As this screen shot from the Wednesday night debate indicates, the Bush mystery will not disappear.” Salon, October 13, 2004 at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/13/bulgefoto/print.html. Tongue partly in cheek, the Salon writer noted: “Salon looked hard for evidence of the president's mystery bulge this evening, but for much of the debate, on the ABC feed we screened, Bush's back remained out of view. At the end, though, as the president crossed the stage to thank his opponent, we caught this glimpse of something strange pushing out of the commander in chief's tailored coat. Is it part of an in-ear prompting device? Is it a back brace? Body armor? Confirmation that Bush is an alien? The mystery deepens ... “ Earlier in the day, trying to make light of the whole affair, a Bush spokesman had said that the pictures of Bush’s humped back reveals that Bush is an alien.
[viii] Dave Lindoff, “At each ear a hearer: Bulletin on the Bush bulge,” Counterpunch, October 18, 2004 at http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff10182004.html.
[ix] See Ayelish McGarvey’s 01:54 a.m., October 13, 2004 commentary on the American Prospect webblog “Tapped” at www.prospect.org/weblog and the same day’s Salon “War Room ‘04” weblog at http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/.
[x]Dan Froomkin, “Bush Tackles the 'Bulge to washingtonpost.comTuesday, October 26, 2004 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63949-2004Oct26.html.
[xi] Kevin Berger, “NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate. Physicist says imaging techniques prove the president's bulge was not caused by wrinkled clothing,” Salon, October 29, 2004 at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/29/bulge/print.html.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
AlterNet: Election 2004: The Left's Well-Oiled Machine
this time progressives are well-organized and could deliver swing votes for Kerry and are pumped up and will be a force to be reckoned with if the Repugs try to steal it again
AlterNet: Election 2004: The Left's Well-Oiled Machine
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
washingtonpost.com: Impact Of Tape On Race Is Uncertain
the effect of the cryptic bin Laden tape on US election is uncertain, there are too many issues and too big differences to have much effect, unless... let's not go there
washingtonpost.com: Impact Of Tape On Race Is Uncertain
|
|
|
A crisis of trust: dirty tricks on both sides mean result is likely to be decided in the courts again
unless Kerry wins big and decisively it will be a hung or stolen election; this time, however, it will be nasty as both sides are pumped up
Independent News
|
|
Friday, October 29, 2004
|
Karl Rove: Political diehard who plays dirty for Bush
Karl Rove: an amazing metamorophosis from Turd Blossom to Bush's Brain; if, as we hope, Bush loses there will be hell to pay for Rove
Independent News
|
|
|
Bush campaign hurt by missing arms and Halliburton inquiry
Bad News for Bush campaign the last week of the election
Independent News: "Bush campaign hurt by missing arms and Halliburton inquiry"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Guardian | Bin Laden warning to America
it seems that Bin Laden is still around and threatening anew; hard to say what the effect will be on the US election; for al Qaeda its obviously timed to get maximum global audience with sharp interest in US election
Guardian | Bin Laden warning to America
|
|
|
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Campaign: Candidates in Attack Mode as They Cross Swing States
the Bush campaign is unravelling in the final days as the Kerry campaign picks up the Big Mo. Excerpt:
Bruce Springsteen "opened for Mr. Kerry at enormous rallies in Madison, Wis., and again before tens of thousands here at Ohio State University, where he endorsed Mr. Kerry in between performing his workingman's anthems "Promised Land" and "No Surrender."
"As a songwriter, I've written about America for 30 years," Mr. Springsteen said between numbers in Madison, as 80,000 or so packed the wide avenue that leads to the Capitol. "I've tried to write about who we are, what we stand for, what we pray for, and I believe that these essential ideas of American identity are what's at stake on Nov. 2."
In Toledo, Mr. Kerry pressed his attack over the explosives, which have dominated the campaign this week as Mr. Kerry has seized on their disappearance as emblematic of everything wrong with the administration's conduct of the war.
Mr. Bush spoke on the subject for the first time on Wednesday, accusing Mr. Kerry of making "wild charges" and "denigrating the actions" of troops in the field. On Thursday in Toledo, Mr. Kerry said that American troops were performing admirably and that it was the commander in chief who was not up to his job.
"I'm going to apply the Bush standard to this," Mr. Kerry said. "Yesterday, George Bush said, and I quote him: 'A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief when it comes to your security.' ''
"Well, Mr. President, I agree with you," he said, adding that Mr. Bush had "jumped to conclusions" on links between President Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks, on Iraq's unconventional weapons and on how Iraqis would greet American troops.
"Mr. President, here are the facts that every American can understand, it seems, except for you," he said of the explosives. "They're not where they're supposed to be. You were warned to guard them. You didn't guard them. They're not secure.
"And guess what? According to George Bush's own words, he shouldn't be our commander in chief. And I couldn't agree more."
QED
To add to the fun:
"The assault on Mr. Kerry reflected the nervousness in the Bush campaign five days from what is widely expected to be an exceptionally close election. Although Bush officials continue to strike a publicly upbeat note and repeat that they always expected a close race- a campaign official called it a "dogfight" on Wednesday - there is no disputing that they did not want to be in the position they are so few days from Nov. 2.
Mr. Kerry's aides have treated the reports about the explosives as an unexpected boon in the waning days of the campaign. Some aides said that they watched with surprise as Mr. Bush waited three days to address the subject and that they were reminded of their own mistakes in taking too long to respond to the onslaught over Mr. Kerry's Vietnam record by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Another Bush surrogate, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, traded attacks over the explosives with Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, after Mr. Giuliani had discussed them on "Today" on NBC-TV.
"No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there," Mr. Giuliani said. "Did they search carefully enough or didn't they search carefully enough? We don't know."
Mr. Giuliani added that Mr. Bush was "not willing to put blame on the troops when it isn't clear they should be blamed.'' Mr. Edwards, who read Mr. Giuliani's remarks to a crowd in Duluth, Minn., skipped the expressions of uncertainty about the explosives, prompting Mr. Giuliani to say his words had been taken him out of context.
"Let me say this very carefully on behalf of John Kerry and myself," Mr. Edwards said. "Our men and women in uniform did their job. George Bush didn't do his job."
SLAM DUNK
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Campaign: Candidates in Attack Mode as They Cross Swing States
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The New York Times > Washington > Missing Explosives: Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache
Bush, Cheney and the rightwing spin apparatus has been furiously attacks Kerry on the missing explosives, insisting that they may have been stolen before the US invasion, but VIDEO "SHOWS a huge supply of explosives still there nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, apparently including some sealed earlier by the International Atomic Energy Agency."
Bush and Cheney are simply thugs and should pay the price for their crimes
The New York Times > Washington > Missing Explosives: Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
washingtonpost.com: Munitions Issue Dwarfs the Big Picture
the KEY POINT is that TONS of munitions were stolen and accessible in Iraq, that the US blindly walked into a WEAPONS NIGHTMARE where there were weapons all through the country that could be used against them; this was MAJOR FAILURE of INTELLIGENCE, NOT ONLY THAT THERE WERE NO WMD BUT THERE WERE INCONCEIVABLE AMOUNTS OF OTHER WEAPONS TO BE USED AGAINST THE INVADERS
washingtonpost.com: Munitions Issue Dwarfs the Big Picture
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thursday, October 28, 2004
|
Salon.com News | NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate
I've been following the Wired Bush controversy and this article provides more evidence of the extent of Bush's fradulence and his mendacity, baldly lying when confronted by a picture of his wire; its astonishing that the Bush Gang would deploy such an obvious wire device, easily visible, as it was in many of his press conferences. What an utter fraud...
Here's the Salon story:
" George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."
Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.
For the past week, while at home, using his own computers, and off the clock at Caltech and NASA, Nelson has been analyzing images of the president's back during the debates. A professional physicist and photo analyst for more than 30 years, he speaks earnestly and thoughtfully about his subject. "I am willing to stake my scientific reputation to the statement that Bush was wearing something under his jacket during the debate," he says. "This is not about a bad suit. And there's no way the bulge can be described as a wrinkled shirt."
Nelson and a scientific colleague produced the photos from a videotape, recorded by the colleague, who has chosen to remain anonymous, of the first debate. The images provide the most vivid details yet of the bulge beneath the president's suit. Amateurs have certainly had their turn at examining the bulge, but no professional with a résumé as impressive as Nelson's has ventured into public with an informed opinion. In fact, no one to date has enhanced photos of Bush's jacket to this degree of precision, and revealed what appears to be some kind of mechanical device with a wire snaking up the president's shoulder toward his neck and down his back to his waist.
Nelson stresses that he's not certain what lies beneath the president's jacket. He offers, though, "that it could be some type of electronic device -- it's consistent with the appearance of an electronic device worn in that manner." The image of lines coursing up and down the president's back, Nelson adds, is "consistent with a wire or a tube."
Nelson used the computer software program Photoshop to enhance the texture in Bush's jacket. The process in no way alters the image but sharpens its edges and accents the creases and wrinkles. You've seen the process performed a hundred times on "CSI": pixelated images are magnified to reveal a clear definition of their shape.
Bruce Hapke, professor emeritus of planetary science in the department of geology and planetary science at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed the Bush images employed by Nelson, whom he calls "a very highly respected scientist in his field." Hapke says Nelson's process of analyzing the images are the "exact same methods we use to analyze images taken by spacecraft of planetary surfaces. It does not introduce any artifacts into the picture in any way."
How can Nelson be certain there's some kind of mechanical device beneath Bush's jacket? It's all about light and shadows, he says. The angles at which the light in the studio hit Bush's jacket expose contours that fit no one's picture of human anatomy and wrinkled shirts. And Nelson compared the images to anatomy texts. He also experimented with wrinkling shirts in various configurations, wore them under his jacket under his bathroom light, and couldn't produce anything close to the Bush bulge.
In the enhanced photo of the first debate, Nelson says, look at the horizontal white line in middle of the president's back. You'll see a shadow. "That's telling me there's definitely a bulge," he says. "In fact, it's how we measure the depths of the craters on the moon or on Mars. We look at the angle of the light and the length of shadow they leave. In this case, that's clearly a crater that's under the horizontal line -- it's clearly a rim of a bulge protruding upward, one due to forces pushing it up from beneath."
Hapke, too, agrees that the bulge is neither anatomy nor a wrinkled shirt. "I would think it's very hard to avoid the conclusion that there's something underneath his jacket," he says. "It would certainly be consistent with some kind of radio receiver and a wire."
Nelson admits that he's a Democrat and plans to vote for John Kerry. But he takes umbrage at being accused of partisanship. "Everyone wants to think my colleague and I are just a bunch of dope-crazed ravaged Democrats who are looking to insult the president at the last minute," he says. "And that's not what this is about. This is scientific analysis. If the bulge were on Bill Clinton's back and he was lying about it, I'd have to say the same thing."
"Look, he says, "I'm putting myself at risk for exposing this. But this is too important. It's not about my reputation. If they force me into an early retirement, it'll be worth it if the public knows about this. It's outrageous statements that I read that the president is wearing nothing under there. There's clearly something there."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Kevin Berger is a senior news editor at Salon."
Salon.com News | NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate
|
|
|
In 1999, candidate Bush spoke of wanting to invade Iraq if elected
evidence that Bush has long yearned of and planned for an invasion of Iraq; well, he got his wish and we got a big mess
The Smirking Chimp: "In 1999, candidate Bush spoke of wanting to invade Iraq if elected"
|
|
|
Dave Lindorff: 'Bulgegate: Bush's latest lie about what he wore to the debates'
Bush was finally asked by ABC's Charlie Gibson about the bulge in the debates and responded with Beavis and Butthead, "heh heh heh" chuckle and blamed it on a bad shirt; unbelievable that there has been no follow up on this and why doesn't a 527 run a series of images?
The Smirking Chimp: "Dave Lindorff: 'Bulgegate: Bush's latest lie about what he wore to the debates'"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
Americans prepare for the 'final assault' on rebel stronghold
will an all-out assault on Fallujah this weekend be the October Surprise?
Independent News
|
|
|
Molly Ivins: 'Clueless people love Bush'
A revealing study indicated that Bush supporters were ill-informed about almost every major issue, including Bush’s own positions, while Kerry supporters were relatively well-informed. In Molly Ivins summary:
"In further unhappy evidence of how ill-informed the American people are (blame the media), the Program on International Policy Attitudes found Bush supporters consistently ill-informed about Bush's stands on the issues (Kerry-ans, by contrast, are overwhelmingly right about his positions). Eighty-seven percent of Bush supporters think he favors putting labor and environmental standards into international trade agreements. Eighty percent of Bush supporters believe Bush wants to participate in the treaty banning landmines. Seventy-six percent of Bush supporters believe Bush wants to participate in the treaty banning nuclear weapons testing. Sixty-two percent believe Bush would participate in the International Criminal Court. Sixty-one percent believe Bush wants to participate in the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. Fifty-three percent does not believe Bush is building a missile defense system, a.k.a. "Star Wars."
The only two Bush stands the majority of his supporters got right were on increasing defense spending and who should write the new Iraqi constitution.
Kerry supporters, by contrast, know their man on seven out of eight issues, with only 43 percent understanding he wants to keep defense spending the same but change how the money is spent, and 57 percent believing he wants to up it."
The world is indeed wondering how someone so incompetent and dangerous as George W. Bush could continue to have such strong support and how Americans could be so ignorant to support such a failed and unqualified president. Obviously, decades of rightwing media with its Fox television network, Rush Limbaugh and a bevy of rightwing Talk radio hosts, the lunatic right on the Internet, and conservativism running through the culture had brainwashed enough people so that against their interests and all rationality large numbers continued to support George W. Bush.
Will “reality” intrude and wake up a majority of US voter?
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
washingtonpost.com: The GOP's Shameful Vote Strategy
GOP fighting to suppress votes. Excerpt:
"Time was when Republicans were at least embarrassed by their efforts to keep African Americans from the polls. Republican consultant Ed Rollins was all but drummed out of the profession after his efforts to pay black ministers to keep their congregants from voting in a 1993 New Jersey election came to light.
For George W. Bush, Karl Rove and their legion of genteel thugs, however, universal suffrage is just one more musty liberal ideal that threatens conservative rule. Today's Republicans have elevated vote suppression from a dirty secret to a public norm.
In Ohio, Republicans have recruited 3,600 poll monitors and assigned them disproportionately to such heavily black areas as inner-city Cleveland, where Democratic "527" groups have registered many tens of thousands of new voters. "The organized left's efforts to, quote unquote, register voters -- I call them ringers -- have created these problems" of potential massive vote fraud, Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman James P. Trakas recently told the New York Times.
Let's pass over the implication that a registration drive waged by a liberal group is inherently fraud-ridden, and look instead at that word "ringers."
Registration in Ohio is nonpartisan, but independent analysts estimate that roughly 400,000 new Democrats have been added to the rolls this year. Who does Trakas think they are? Have tens of thousands of African Americans been sneaking over the state lines from Pittsburgh and Detroit to vote in Cleveland -- thus putting their own battleground states more at risk of a Republican victory? Is Shaker Heights suddenly filled with Parisians affecting American argot? Or are the Republicans simply terrified that a record number of minority voters will go to the polls next Tuesday? Have they decided to do anything to stop them -- up to and including threatening to criminalize Voting While Black in a Battleground State?
This is civic life in the age of George W. Bush, in which politics has become a continuation of civil war by other means. In Bush's America, there's a war on -- against a foreign enemy so evil that we can ignore the Geneva Conventions, against domestic liberals so insidious that we can ignore democratic norms. Only bleeding hearts with a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set still believe in voting rights"
washingtonpost.com: The GOP's Shameful Vote Strategy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
New Florida vote scandal feared
There have been serious worries over voter fraud and Republican attempts to suppress Democratic votes in key battleground states. The Democrats had gone all out on a voter registration campaign and Republicans were claiming that there were many fraudulent registration forms and that they would challenge these votes and any provisional ballots on Election Day, creating the specter of another hung and perhaps stolen election. Reports have surfaced that thousands of Republican operatives would challenge newly registered voters (mostly of color) in Ohio and in on October 27 BBC Newsnight report Greg Palast released a secret document from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida “suggesting a plan—- possibly in violation of US law -—to disrupt voting in the state’s African-American voting districts.”
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
'Secure' arms dump that may have armed enemy
there is global fear that 350 tons of missing explosives from Iraq due to Bush-Pentagon incompetence could lead to terror attacks anywhere
Independent News
|
|
|
Guardian | Allawi blames US 'negligence' for massacre
its interesting that Allawi, clearly a choice of the Bush administration to rule Iraq, is attacking the US for "negligence" in recent Iraq atrocity; is he distancing himself from losing Bush regime or just covering his rear?
Guardian | Allawi blames US 'negligence' for massacre
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Benched? What Chief Justice Rehnquist's cancer means for the election
Rehnquists' cancer puts Supreme Court on the election agenda; let's indeed focus on this and imagine what horrors Bush would inflict upon us
|
|
Monday, October 25, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sunday, October 24, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
Dave Lindorff: A Bulletin on the Bush Bulge
Speculations have continued to fly over the Internet concerning whether Bush was wired during the debates, whether he had diabetes and the bulge was an insulin device, whether he had a heart attack (he had allegedly postponed his yearly physical this year), or whether the tell-tail bulge was just a flack jacket. Tailors weighed in and most said that the tell-tale bulges could not be explained by poor tailoring. The New York Times had an Op-Ed feature that showed pictures of New Yorkers walking down the street with big bulges in their clothes, but in these cases one could discern money-belts, shoulder pistols, flack jackets, and other devices. Critics like Dave Lindoff began looking at other tapes of the Bush presidency and finding evidence of a Wired Bush:
I just got a look at the full Fox tape of President Bush's May '04 joint news conference with French President Jaques Chirac. In that tape, as in several other tapes I've seen, Bush can be heard seemingly getting prompting from another voice. About 12 seconds into the piece, the leading voice says, "And I look forward to working to" Bush comes in with "And I look workin'And I look forward to workin' to" The verbal slip-up makes it clear that this is no electronic echo or sound synchronization problem.
At another point, about one minute and sixteen seconds into the tape, the leading voice lets out a loud exhale of breath. Bush does not follow suit. There is no preceding voice when a reporter is heard asking a question. Also, at one minute and 28 seconds into this tape, Bush reaches up and manipulates something in his ear, at which point there is a static noise and the sound of a speaker acting up, until he removes his fingers from his ear.
There is no wire going up to his ear, indicating that the earpiece in his right ear is wireless.
Dave Lindorff: A Bulletin on the Bush Bulge
My own contribution to the Wired controversy emerged from a viewing of the extras on Michael Moore’s DVD to Fahrenheit 9/11 where one node features Bush’s press conference right after the 9/11 Hearings meeting between he, Cheney and the 9/11 Commission. A subdued Bush swaggered out to the White House lawn to make a statement and meet with the press and after fumbling he finds the words to describe the meeting and generally provided brief answers to reporters’ questions, often after a concentrated pause. As Bush turns around to return into the White House at the end one can clearly observe a bulging tell-tale sign in his jacket similar to the bulge observed during and after the first and third debates.
Of course, the bulge could have been a bullet-proof vest but oddly the Bush handlers have not made the claim and in any case a flack jacket could easily hold and conceal a wiring device. A Wired Bush could explain his tendency to give answers in brief code words rather than sentences, although it is also possible that he is simply linguistically challenged.
|
|
|
The Big Winners (washingtonpost.com)
here's a fascinating article by hardcore Republican activist and organizer Richard A. Viguerie and a colleague about how alternative media made possible Republican hegemony, moving from direct mailing (that Viguerie himself promoted), to talk radio, to cable TV (i.e Fox), to the Internet. Conservative Republicans became dominant in these media, though V doesn't point this out, because of tremendous investment of conservative think tanks that cultivated alternative and mainstream media spokespeople and conservative corporations who controlled the media and found the conservatives promoting their interests. This has changed, however, this year with liberals and progressives using direct mailing and print media as effectively as Republicans, using the Internet as, if not more, effectively to raise money and get out information, and at least having some presence in talk radio and television (although here the Repubs are heavily dominant). V does not point out, however, how the conservative Republican dominance of radio and TV is counterbalanced to some extent this year through the tremendous proliferation of documentary films ranging from Fahrenheit 9/11 to the series of films produced and distributed by Robert Greenwald on the stolen election, Iraq, Fox, and most recently the Bush assault on civil liberties. Add to this, many, many more docs, the Springsteen Vote to Change Tour, P-Daddy's hip hop tour, and Jon Stewarts daily scouring of the Bush administration, and the Dems might have the alternative media edge. It all remains, of course, on how the ground troops get out their forces and if a strong majority can keep the Bush-Cheney Gang from stealing it again....
but its open and unpredictable in part because alternative media, including blogs, have counteracted the reactionary impact of corporate radio and TV
The Big Winners (washingtonpost.com)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scott McConnell: 'American Conservative endorsement: Kerry's the one'
even the American Conservative has endorsed Kerry! we've been posting a lot of Kerry endorsements by former Republican Congressman, Ron Reagan Jr, Ike's son the historian John Eisenhower and many others. Honorable conservatives are leaving the sinking and disgusting ship of state of the rightwing extremist Bush-Cheney Gang
The Smirking Chimp: "Scott McConnell: 'American Conservative endorsement: Kerry's the one'"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, October 23, 2004
|
Iraq: 26 killed on horrific day of violence
another death of death and mayhem in Iraq
Independent News
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The New York Times > International > International Special > After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law
the Bush-Cheney Gang threw away the constitution after 9/11, rewrote military law, disgraced the country with revelations of torture of prisoners, and: "three years later, not a single terrorist has been prosecuted. Of the roughly 560 men being held at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, only 4 have been formally charged." Is this a massive failure that totally reveals their incompetency as well as rightwing extremism? For sure!
The New York Times > International > International Special > After Terror, a Secret Rewriting of Military Law
|
|
|
Lucy Komisar: 'BCCI: The case that Kerry cracked'
one of Kerry's moments of pride: battling the Bush Daddy Gang, BCCI, and Iran Contra; Kerry knows the vileness of the Bush mob, where the bodies are buried, and what still needs to be done
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Another Bush lie: Former workers dispute Bush's pull in Project P.U.L.L
another part of the High Plains Grifter's life in question. After his failure to complete his Air Guard duty, as most documents suggest, Bush ends up doing social work in a Houston ghetto. This just doesn't fit into his career scenario so many think that his volunteer work was a deal that Bush Daddy cut with a Texas judge to keep him out of jail on a drug or drunk bust. Junior bragged out his volunteer work with PULL but its coming under question, another little piece of a sleazy mendacious life
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
'If you register Dems, you're fired': GOP voter drive accused of tossing cards
more on Sproul attempt to throw out registered Democrat voting cards; this is one of the down and dirtiest tricks yet, what else have the Repugs been up to?
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
washingtonpost.com: The Campaign of a Comedian
Jon Stewart and his popular comedy hour is another wild card: it has been more and more antiBush and proKerry, will this make a difference?
washingtonpost.com: The Campaign of a Comedian
|
|
|
Guardian | Blogwatch
blogs and the election: one of the unpredictable factors in this election is that there are multiple new sources of news, information, and discussion like blogs and an unprecedented number of films, concerts, and celebrities out on the campaign trail. What difference all this will make remains to be seen....
Guardian | Blogwatch
|
|
Friday, October 22, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
David Goodman: 'No child unrecruited'
The military wants into every high school, to get every child's info and home addresses and to harass every kid and parent, boosting their recruiting numbers; this shit has to stop!
The Smirking Chimp: "David Goodman: 'No child unrecruited'"
|
|
|
John W. Dean: 'The coming post-election chaos'
John Dean sees a big ugly mess on the horizon of a chaotic and contested election; its becoming more and more clear: the US electoral system is disfunctional
The Smirking Chimp: "John W. Dean: 'The coming post-election chaos'"
|
|
|
Hunter S. Thompson: 'Fear and loathing, Campaign 2004'
Hunter Thompson on Bush's unraveling
The Smirking Chimp: "Hunter S. Thompson: 'Fear and loathing, Campaign 2004'"
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thursday, October 21, 2004
|
Kerry sends 10,000 lawyers to fight for battleground states
10,000 Dem lawyers ready for war, are they serious this time?
Independent News
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Marlow W. Cook: 'This former Republican senator for is voting for Kerry'
another honorable Republican for Kerry
The Smirking Chimp: "Marlow W. Cook: 'This former Republican senator for is voting for Kerry'"
|
|
|
Expecting a fight, Kerry looks to avoid Gore recount missteps
Kerry promises to fight another republican attempt to steal an election and he may have to...
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
RE-SCOPING SCOPES! Lawrence O’Donnell got it very right when he questioned George Bush’s religion:
here's an excellent analysis of Bush's extremely bizarre notion of religion and concept of God -- and an excellent analysis by Bob Somerby of an all-too-rare media critique of Bush's religiosity
The Daily Howler
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
|
Guardian | Faith against reason
a divided country.... Bushites cannot see the utter failure of the Bush regime and his stunning incompetency because they are Believers and guided by faith in Bush [what an incredibly pathetic object of faith]; how can the country survive such a divisive election and regime that has so viciously divided the country? Remember Bush's Big 2000 Lie: He's a uniter not a divider.
Guardian | Faith against reason
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
AlterNet: The Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
there is a battle in the Agency as to whether or not release a damning 9/11 intelligence report before the election that criticizes top Bush administration officials
AlterNet: The Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Al Gore: 'The failed presidency of George W. Bush'
Al Gore has a very strong and reflective critique of the Bush presidency, arguing that its Bush's rightwing ideology and not his Christian faith that makes him so dogmatic, reductive and impervious to reality. In fact, I think its BOTH his rightwing ideology and religious fanaticism that blend in highly dangerous ways. Anyway, Gore's critique is worth a read
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, October 18, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
Bush's Meager Attempts in Indian Country
Bush's meager attempts to "swing" voters in Indian country are shallow, reflecting this president's disinterest in the issues that are relevant to American Indians. As the authors of the article posted below say to Bush, "too little, too late", it should be noted that there is much at stake in this election for American Indians and Kerry is clearly the better choice.
From Indian Country Today:
"Bush: Too little, too late for Native Americans
Posted: October 15, 2004
Thirty-nine days before the presidential election in November George W. Bush, facing a hotly-contested race to keep his job, finally got around to inviting a small group of tribal leaders to the oval office: A subtle nod to the fact that the Indian vote can make the critical difference in the outcome of the election in certain key western states. Proudly proclaiming it an historic moment, the President produced a weak and watered down version of former President Clinton's 1993 Executive Memorandum on the government-to-government relationship, so minimal in scope that a picture of a smiling George Bush surrounded by a handful of tribal leaders had to be inserted in order that the document might fill the entire page.
Having signed this document with ''pomp and circumstance-lite,'' George Bush would now with a straight face have us believe that his administration is committed to tribal sovereignty and the government-to-government relationship. Just in case we missed it, the point was repeated in four of the five paragraphs, sometimes more than once. The problem is that it was just about the only point made in the entire statement, other than to make clear that the document is not intended to be enforceable and doesn't create any substantive or procedural right. Actually, as it turns out, the legal disclaimer represents 20 percent of the document.
If repeating a phrase enough times were sufficient to make it true, Mr. Bush's memorandum might be of some significance. If it had come four years ago, it might have been more meaningful. If the doors of the White House had not been slammed shut to Indian country four years ago, it might be more believable, but actions speak louder than words and there has been scant little action from the administration since January 2000.
John Kerry, on the other hand, has been a long-time ally of Indian country in the Senate. Tribal sovereignty isn't just a catch phrase to John Kerry, he understands its meaning, and equally importantly the federal obligations that attach to the federal Indian relationship. As Chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee, John Kerry introduced the Native American Small Business Development Act which will create a permanent Office of Native American Affairs at SBA and will create a new grant program to assist American Indians and Alaska Natives. He understands the critical need for infrastructure and economic development in Indian country. More importantly, he knows what needs to be done and that it needs to be done in partnership with tribal governments.
The Kerry campaign has reached out to Indian country and it shows. The Kerry Indian policy agenda is comprehensive and touches upon all of the issues of importance to tribal communities from healthcare to judicial appointments to education. In a Kerry administration the ''homeland'' in homeland security won't exclude Indian country because Kerry understands that tribal governments are an integral part of the American political family just as Native Americans are vibrant and important players in the American political process.
To Mr. Bush, all that can be said is that his last ditch effort to capture the hearts and minds of the First Americans is simply much too little, much too late.
Signed on October 14, 2004 by:
Chairman W. Ron Allen, Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, Sequim, Wash.
Gwen Carr, member of the Cayuga Tribe, Madison, Wis. Kalyn Free, member of the Cherokee Nation, McAlester, Okla.
Kevin Gover, member of the Pawnee Tribe, Phoenix, Ariz.
Montana Legislator Carol Juneau, member of the ThreeAffiliated Tribes, Browning, Mont.
Stan Juneau, member of the Blackfeet Tribe, Browning, Mont.
Wilma Mankiller, former principal chief, Cherokee Nation, Park Hill, Okla.
Chapter Leader Chili Yazzie, Navajo Nation, Shiprock, N.M. "
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sunday, October 17, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Guardian | Dear Limey assholes
Guardian letter-writing campaign to tell US citizens what they think about Bush, Kerry and the state of the world
Guardian | Dear Limey assholes
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The New York Times > Opinion > John Kerry for President
The NYT endorses Kerry. Excerpt:
"We have been impressed with Mr. Kerry's wide knowledge and clear thinking - something that became more apparent once he was reined in by that two-minute debate light. He is blessedly willing to re-evaluate decisions when conditions change. And while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.
•
There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure. Nearly four years ago, after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency, Mr. Bush came into office amid popular expectation that he would acknowledge his lack of a mandate by sticking close to the center. Instead, he turned the government over to the radical right."
The New York Times > Opinion > John Kerry for President
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, October 16, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Max Blumenthal: 'Republican dirty tricks'
Republican Dirty Tricks promise to be very nasty in this most nasty of elections
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
|
|
|
Friday, October 15, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thursday, October 14, 2004
|
Halliburton's Interests Assisted by White House
the Los Angeles Times has a great story today about how the Bush-Cheney Gang have given Halliburton all sorts of favors. Excerpt: "Over the last four years, the Bush administration and Vice President Dick Cheney's office have backed a series of measures favoring a drilling technique developed by Halliburton Co., Cheney's former employer.
The technology, known as hydraulic fracturing, boosts gas and oil production and generates $1.5 billion a year for the company, about one-fifth of its energy-related revenue. In recent years, Halliburton and other oil and gas firms have been fighting efforts to regulate the procedure under a statute that protects drinking water supplies."
Halliburton's Interests Assisted by White House
|
|
|
Across the Nation, its Kerry romped
Here's a large number of commentaries collected on The Smirking Chimp that declare Kerry the Big Winner in all three debates and attack the poor performance, record, and utter lack of capability of the Bush Shrub. Bush didn't flub as bad as the first two debates but his performance was full of lies, misstatements, evasions and empty rhetoric. He smiled inappropriately both when he and Kerry were speaking and his eyes wildly blinked throughout.
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
TNR Online | Winner Take All (print)
New Republic declares a sweep for Kerry.
Excerpt: "Forget all the one-liners and policy details for a moment. Looking back over the three debates, what is the biggest change in the presidential race since Bush and Kerry took the stage in Miami on September 30? Without a doubt it is the fact that Bush's year-long effort to define John Kerry has been undermined. Kerry won the first debate because most Americans found out he wasn't the guy they had been told about in Bush's ads. Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who has been one of the most intellectually honest conservatives commenting on this election, noted earlier today in an e-mail that "despite confidently declaring 'victory' [in defining Kerry as a flip-flopper] they [Bush's advisers] have found themselves right back where they started and apparently never effectively completed the job."
In the second debate, and more forcefully in last night's contest, the Bushies moved to plan B--paint Kerry as a big-spending liberal. It didn't work. Here is the problem with this ancient GOP line of attack: Being defined as "liberal" in and of itself means little to voters. Calling Kerry a liberal is meaningless unless Bush spells out why that threatens the Republic. After the debate Bob Shrum, a college debate champion himself and the man who ran Kerry's debate prep team, showed up in Spin Alley for the first time. He was clearly taking a bit of a victory lap (if Kerry wins there will be a delicious battle between the Clintonites and Shrum over who was responsible for righting the ship--the new communications team and its decision to emphasize Iraq, or Shrum's brilliant debate training camp). "Let's just say I felt good about coming out tonight," he told me. Shrum made an important point about the efficacy of Bush's liberal strategy. Republicans used this tactic when Shrum ran John Edwards's Senate race in North Carolina in 1998, and it failed. "Voters said, 'We want to know what you're talking about. Don't just throw labels out,'" Shrum told me.
In his missive before the debate, Fabrizio made the same point: "It will be interesting tonight to see if the President can move beyond just labeling Kerry as a Liberal (which more than 2/3's of voters see him as already) and successfully define Kerry's liberalism as dangerous to America." That was the test Bush had to pass last night to stop Kerry's momentum and be declared the winner. Bush failed that test, and Kerry won his third debate.
Reading over the transcript, it's clear that there are two main reasons that Bush simply couldn't make the big government argument stick last night. On health care, Bush's caricature of Kerry's plan as Hillarycare doesn't withstand scrutiny, and Kerry's explanation and defense of the plan largely defanged Bush's attack. But the most important reason that Bush couldn't paint a Scarlet "L" on Kerry is that Bush has lost his credibility on fiscal discipline. Every time Bush attacked Kerry for being a big-spending liberal, Kerry parried with details of the fiscal recklessness of the last four years. "This president has never once vetoed one bill--the first president in a hundred years not to do that," Kerry said in response to Bob Schieffer's early question about federal spending. In response, Bush went after Kerry's Senate record:"
TNR Online | Winner Take All (print)
|
|
|
Salon.com News | The bulge returns
Bush wired again? The bulge mystery deepends. Pictures are starting to appear of earlier events where Bush looks bulgy; maybe its a Wired Presidency and Bush is a Puppet? Here's Salon:
"Salon looked hard for evidence of the president's mystery bulge this evening, but for much of the debate, on the ABC feed we screened, Bush's back remained out of view. At the end, though, as the president crossed the stage to thank his opponent, we caught this glimpse of something strange pushing out of the commander-in-chief's tailored coat. Is it part of an in-ear prompting device? Is it a back brace? Body armor? Confirmation that Bush is an an alien? The mystery deepens.... "
Salon.com News | The bulge returns
|
|
|
Salon.com News | Strike three!
IF the voting public is following debates and scoring candidates, Bush is knocked out, 0 for 3. A Big If. Salon's Tim Grieve calls it for Kerry:
Excerpt: "It's early still. It will be early until the campaigns and the 527s flood Ohio and Florida and Pennsylvania and Iowa with wave after wave of nasty ad. It will be early until Karl Rove uncorks whatever nasty tricks he's been holding in reserve. It will be early until Osama bin Laden is captured or a terrorist attack is warned of or realized. It will be early until the votes are cast and counted and contested and counted again.
It is early -- things can change -- but the momentum in this race has turned against the president. George W. Bush and John Kerry met for their third and final debate Wednesday night. It wasn't a Kerry blow out like the first one. It couldn't be. But for third night in the row -- four if you count the Cheney-Edwards debate -- the challenger went face-to-face with the incumbent, and the challenger got the better of it. A Gallup Poll of debate watchers gave Kerry a 14 point win; a CBS News poll of uncommitted voters gave it to Kerry by 14 points; and ABC called it a tie but said "bragging rights" go to Kerry because the ABC poll over-sampled Republican voters.
Over in a quiet corner in the press hall an hour after the debate ended, Karl Rove said it wasn't so. He said he still believes Bush won all three debates, even that disastrous first one. He said that anybody who believes the post-debate instant polling is "kidding yourself." The momentum belongs to Bush, he said, and "the wind's at our back."
There may be something on Bush's back, but it's not the wind. Bush needed a decisive victory Wednesday night to stop his sudden and now steady slide in the polls. He didn't get it. Bush wasn't bad Wednesday; his performance was plainly the best of his three. He was clear and focused, and he offered buckets of the good ol' boy Texas charm that seemed to be AWOL for the first two debates. He didn't scowl and he didn't stumble. He scored points on taxes -- looking directly into the camera and telling workers how he put more money in their pockets -- and he came off as utterly reasonable on religious freedom and gay rights.
But Kerry was right there. He passed the presidential test in the first debate, and he did less than nothing to hurt himself in the second two. The man may not have been scintillating in St. Louis and Tempe, but he was steady. Again and again Wednesday night, Bush wandered off into some tangent or tall tale. Again and again, Kerry calmly reined him back in and set the record straight. Asked about jobs -- a topic that hurts him in swing states like Ohio, and one for which he has no real answer -- Bush segued quickly into an answer about education. Kerry called him out. "I want you to notice how the president switched away from jobs and started talking about education," he said. It was a small point, but it was effective. When Bush tried to steer a job discussion to education again later in the debate, every viewer must have seen exactly what he was doing. "Listen," he insisted, "the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act when you think about it." You could almost hear people saying, "Sure it is."
When he wasn't keeping Bush in check, Kerry was helping himself. He proved himself surprisingly agile at questions of faith. He spoke eloquently about the balance between his religious views and his public life -- quoting the Bible along the way -- and then still had enough in reserve on the subject to answer it anew the second time it came up. Bush parked a question about what he's learned from the women in his life -- he even had Kerry laughing at his jokes about how the first lady sets him straight -- but Kerry answered back with a response about "marrying up" (to ketchup heiress Teresa Heinz, of course) that was funnier, and a story about a conversation with his mother just before she died that was more moving. Kerry came off as likable then. Earlier in the night, when he said swapping after-school programs for tax cuts for the rich "not in my gut" and "not in my value system," Kerry seemed both human and strong. It turns out he's not Michael Dukakis.
Bush tried hard to tag Kerry as a tax-and-spend liberal -- he accused him of sitting on the "far left bank" of the mainstream -- but the attacks were often so over-the-top that they probably missed their mark. And with the mainstream media finally rising to its role as debate fact-checker, it's hard to think that too many viewers were fooled by the familiar falsehoods Bush peddled again Wednesday night. Kerry "voted to increase taxes 98 times"? No. "Three-quarters of al-Qaida leaders have been brought to justice"? No.
When Kerry knocked Bush for flip-flopping on Osama bin Laden -- first saying he wanted him "dead or alive," then saying that he wasn't "that concerned" about him -- Bush claimed that he'd caught Kerry in a lie. "Gosh," the president said, "I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations." Only it wasn't. As every major media outlet will report Thursday, Kerry quoted Bush exactly right.
Kerry stumbled on the facts a few times Wednesday night. He said that Bush had never met with the Congressional Black Caucus, when in fact he had. He said the minimum wage, when adjusted for inflation, is the lowest it has been in 50 years. In fact, it was bit lower in 1989. But Kerry's factual errors weren't aimed at obscuring larger truths -- Bush has an unhappy track record with the Congressional Black Caucus and African-American groups more generally, and the minimum wage is awfully low. Whichever statistics you choose -- the private sector numbers Kerry favors, the overall numbers Bush likes to cite -- the country has suffered a net loss of jobs on Bush's watch.
Bush's misstatements -- when they're not accidental, like his goof last week about the timber company he didn't know he owned -- almost always aim at overselling his accomplishments, downplaying his shortfalls or trashing John Kerry. Democrats think the cumulative effect of it all is beginning to have a cumulative effect on voters.
"The president's charges are so specious they're not likely to cause any political harm," Kerry spokesman Tad Devine said just after the debate. "When the president launches into these attacks, people just don't listen to them anymore. They've seen so much of it. I think it's a failed strategy. If it worked, the incumbent president of the United States wouldn't be sitting here with a 47 percent job approval rating in the Gallup Poll, with a horserace number in almost every national poll below 50. He'd be ahead. He's the incumbent. He needs to be ahead right now to win. And I think the failure of his strategy is demonstrated by his position in this race."
The Kerry campaign left Phoenix Wednesday bullish on the race but a little lukewarm about the debate. Kerry had won, Kerry aides said, but there was none of the euphoria that exploded around them two weeks ago in Miami. "The first debate was such a decisive blow-out, I don't think we're likely to see that for several more election cycles, never mind in the rest of the debates," Devine told Salon Wednesday night. Still, if the first debate was the "pivot point" in the race, Devine said the second two built on the first. "We've got the momentum we need to close out the race," he said.
The Bush campaign paints a different picture, of course. Under giant orange signs emblazoned with big Ws, the Bush spinners poured out into spin alley and argued hard that the president had won again and won "decisively." Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman said the final debate had drawn clear lines between the president and his challenger, clear differences on taxes and terror, on strength and weakness, and that it would play well with both the Republican base and undecided voters.
Still, Mehlman also acknowledged that the race was tight, even if he danced around the question of whether the race had tightened. Last week, Mehlman told reporters that he thought Bush was ahead by 2 points nationally. Wednesday, he said that the number was now 1. But Kerry hasn't really picked up voters, he insisted. He has just "energized" what was once a "dispirited Democratic base."
With the debates over, both campaigns will now focus on the nuts-and-bolts work of the final days: getting out the vote, fighting -- or perpetrating -- voter fraud, and setting the stage for the legal fights that will surely come. Democrats are spilling over with stories of vote suppression, vote fraud and other electoral skullduggery from Florida to Ohio to Wisconsin to Minnesota. Republicans like Mehlman are warning about voters who have registered multiple times, and they're repeating the GOP mantra: "Our goal is to make sure that every eligible voter can vote." Both sides seemed to be setting the stage for arguments they will make later: the other guys are stealing the vote.
Both sides are also bracing themselves for last-minute developments that might sway the race as much as the first debate did. Developments in Iraq could move voters, as could the pre-election terrorist attack that the administration keeps predicting. And then there's the question of dirty tricks. Karl Rove and the Bush family have a history of playing dirty late in tough campaigns -- against Ann Richards in Texas, against John McCain in South Carolina, against any number of local candidates who have found their lives turned upside down after running against Karl Rove. Rove wasn't laying out his playbook Wednesday night, but the Democrats were getting ready nonetheless. "We're ready for anything," Kerry advisor Joe Lockhart told Salon Wednesday. "There is a Bush family tradition: When you get behind, when your back is behind the wall, you do anything to win and to hold onto power."
Bush's back might not be against the wall yet, but three debates have pushed him awfully close to it. There are 19 days left until Nov. 2.
Salon.com News | Strike three!
|
|
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
|
From Indian Country Times:
Winona LaDuke endorsement of John Kerry for president
Email this page Print this page
Posted: October 13, 2004
I am voting for John Kerry this November. I love this land, and I know that we need to make drastic changes in Washington if we are going to protect our land and our communities. I am committed to transforming the American democracy so that it is reflective of the diversity of this country. I believe in a multi-party system and a multi-racial democracy. I believe there are many opinions, not simply two, that merit a hearing on any issue. I believe we should be working harder to increase the numbers of people of color, women, and Native people elected to office because we are this country and we are what America looks like. I'm voting my conscience on Nov. 2; I'm voting for John Kerry. This does not mean that John Kerry will be a perfect leader. Nor does it mean that any of us should give Kerry a pass simply because he is a rational alternative to the most destructive administration in recent memory. But he has earned my support, even if the leaders of his party aren't quite with the program. I regret that the Democratic Party is investing positive, grassroots energy in a campaign to deny ballot access to Ralph Nader - grassroots energy that is needed in these urgent times. I support wholeheartedly Ralph Nader's right to run and be on the ballot in all states. In a true democracy, the right to be on the ballot in all states and the right to participate in the presidential debates would be guaranteed. That's what democracy is. We must continue to work to make this ideal of democracy the reality in America. For the past two elections, I've run for the office of vice president. Sometimes you run for vice president and sometimes you work on putting up wind towers. In either case, you are working to bring about a better future for your children. In 2004, I decided the direct action I could take to help put up wind towers in my community would be more effective at curbing global climate change than another run for office. On White Earth, Pine Ridge and on reservations throughout the Midwest and Great Plains, we are working to develop the wind resource on Native lands. And the electricity generation potential of the wind in Native communities represents about half of present U.S. installed electrical consumption. I believe we can combust ourselves to oblivion, or we can move to alternative energy. In the largest energy market in the world, your power supplier - particularly if you're a junkie like America - impacts your democracy. I was proud of John Kerry when he called the $87 billion spent in Iraq a ''Halliburton Slush Fund.'' It is, and we need to recognize that. Now if we could only get Kerry to pledge to 25 percent development of the wind potential of Native communities during his first term in office we could really get excited. John Kerry provides promise for Native America and for America. His policy proposals involve vision - like alternative energy, more accessible health care, and finding all those children who have been ''left behind'' by the Bush administration. Heck, Kerry can even say ''sovereignty,'' which is a far cry from Bush's inability to pronounce the word. It is true that Kerry has not yet paid close enough attention to his base. But once in office, I know he will find himself and remember who we are. I've spoken with his staff and received some encouraging answers. He is more interested in solving than litigating the Indian Trust case. He wants to move federal policies to support Native communities, whether Native farmers, businesspeople or tribal governments. We are on his radar; this is a beginning. Kerry offers other reasons for hope. He opposes converting Yucca Mountain into a nuclear waste dump. He noted in the first debate that America cannot demand that other countries dispose of their nukes while we are busy engineering new ones. He should find the courage to say that a right to life extends to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children affected by our weapons. Kerry needs to make the rich pay their share, and end corporate welfare - I have heard some inklings of that. And while Kerry may be a diamond in the rough on issues like genetic modification, tribal budgets and building a more inclusive democracy, he has potential. And this is far more than what we can say for his opponent. By Nov. 2, 2004, John Kerry will have earned my vote.
|
|
|
Afghan warlords poised to take up power
whatever Bush blathers, Afghanistan is still a mess
Independent News
|
|
|
Elmer L. Andersen: 'Why this Republican ex-governor will be voting for Kerry'
Republican ex-Governor of Minnesota says why he's voting for Kerry
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Nuclear materials from Iraq 'missing'
highly damaging material for Bush that Kerry could use against him came out recently when International Nuclear Agency inspectors said that much nuclear material that they had targeted in inspections and secured was now missing because Bush had no Iraq plan and allowed the dangerous material to be stolen, perhaps on nuclear black market. And so Bush claimed to go into Iraq to protect the US against a WMD attack but going in only made it more likely that terrorists would get nuclear material
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Nuclear materials from Iraq 'missing'
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nuclear material 'has gone missing' since war
here's an Iraq scandal made for Kerry: nuclear material that inspectors knew were at certain sites and locked up has gone missing because US did not secure it; the result is that Bush's invasion has now unleashed nuclear material upon the world; this should be a big story
Independent News
|
|
|
Salon.com News | Technical expert: Bush was wired
Bush wired? excerpt: "Speculation continues to run wild about President Bush's mystery bulge. Since Friday, when Salon first raised questions about the rectangular bulge that was visible under Bush's suit coat during the presidential debates, many observers in the press and on the Internet have wondered aloud whether the verbally and factually challenged president might be receiving coaching via a hidden electronic device.
Now a technical expert who designs and makes such devices for the U.S. military and private industry tells Salon that he believes the bulge is indeed a transceiver designed to receive electronic signals and transmit them to a hidden earpiece lodged in Bush's ear canal.
"There's no question about it. It's a pretty obvious one -- larger than most because it probably has descrambling capability," said Alex Darbut, technical and business development vice president for Resistance Technology in Arden Hills, Minn. Darbut examined photographs of the president's back taken from the Fox News video feed at the first presidential debate in Coral Gables, Fla., as well as 2002 photos of the president driving and working in a T-shirt on his Crawford ranch, which were posted on the White House Web site.
Darbut speculates that the device the president wears is provided by the Secret Service, noting, "They're not going to have him driving around the countryside on his ranch without being in instant contact with him."
Salon.com News | Technical expert: Bush was wired
and WiFied? Excerpt: "Wireless technology might explain why US President George W. Bush performed better than usual in the last two presidential debates with his opponent, Senator John Kerry.
Unless he's reading a well-rehearsed speech, the President is normally much given to malapropisms and incoherent syntax. When confronted with questions for which he is not prepared, he typically muddles along unintelligibly when starting a reply, until he finds a path to one of his prepared talking points, as he repeatedly did during his televised prime-time press conference of 13 April 2004. It is not unusual for him to take refuge in his prepared points, regardless of what question is asked, and his answers are often irrelevant as well as confused. That is, he tends to stay "on message," rather than "on topic".
Yet, during both presidential debates, he miraculously spoke in clear, organized sentences that were fairly relevant to the questions asked. He stumbled only occasionally, and then only briefly. The public has declared Kerry the winner of both debates - the first by a wide margin, and the second by a narrow one - but it is undeniable that the President far exceeded his baseline performance when confronting the unexpected. Or, said another way, he may have looked bad in comparison to Kerry, but he looked very good in comparison to himself."
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=18227
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
|
Hail to The Boss: Springsteen Plays Politics (washingtonpost.com)
I watched the whole concert on Sundance channel last night and was totally into it! took me back to the great concerts of the '60s and '70. Eddie Vedder's "Masters of War" was astonishing; I thought I heard loud boos at the end of it, as well as cheers, but the article below indicates that what sounded liked boos was "Brruuce", chants for Springstein who was high energy and on-target politically. The best political rap might have been James Taylor who complained how he hates to hear people worried about changing horses in mid-stream. When the horse is drowning, way over his head and doesn't want to be there in the first place, Taylor noted, its time to get a good old Democratic mule to do the job
Hail to The Boss: Springsteen Plays Politics (washingtonpost.com)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Monday, October 11, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
The New York Times > The Bush Record: Challenging Rest of the World With a New Order
The Bush administration has alienated the US from its allies and dangerously isolated us in a perilous time. Excerpt: "It is a characterization of Mr. Bush's foreign policy style often heard around the world: bullying, unreceptive, brazen. The result, critics of this administration contend, has been a disastrous loss of international support, damage to American credibility, the sullying of America's image and a devastating war that has already taken more than 1,000 American lives. In the first presidential debate, Senator John Kerry argued that only with a change of presidents could the damage be undone.
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > The Bush Record: Challenging Rest of the World With a New Order
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush Unhinged
After seeing Bush's uneven debate performance on Friday several pundits have raised questions about his sanity. Longtime columist Jimmy Breslin concludes: "The president is a dumb guy who gets people killed. He and his people forget he lost the last election and had it stolen for him. If you could see through his endless rapid blinking on Friday night, he seemed to show that he is not completely sane. He has a religious belief in his lies. In the Friday night debate, George Bush, who lied America into war, did say one truthful thing: "This is going to be a long, long war."
The Smirking Chimp
Maureen Dowd comented: "George Bush is not giving an inch on Iraq. He's toughing out the cascade of confirmation and criticism from his own people about the hyperpower hyperbole that led to an unnecessary war and an unruly occupation. His advisers say it's better for the president to appear out of touch than apologetic. He'd rather seem delusional than deluded.
....Of his decision to invade Iraq, he said: "Sometimes in this world you make unpopular decisions because you think they're right." Or you stick to them even after you know they're wrong.
The president's living in a dream world. He kept insisting that 75 percent of Al Qaeda has been "brought to justice," even though such a statistic is misleading, since counterterrorism experts say that the invasion of Iraq was a recruiting boon for Osama and that Al Qaeda has metastasized and spawned other terrorist groups.
Mr. Bush tried to pretend the devastating Duelfer report backed him up, noting after the report came out that Saddam "retained the knowledge, the materials, the means and the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction and could have passed this knowledge to our terrorist enemies."
W. should have followed his father's policy on hypotheticals. As Poppy Bush would say, when someone asked him to be speculative: "If a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its tail on the ground."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/opinion/10dowd.html?8hpib
|
|
Sunday, October 10, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Center for Public Integrity posts classified documents that form the basis of the Taguba report
will Abu Ghraib become a campaign issue? obviously Bush issued a memorandum that made torture possible, as did Rumsfeld but so far the issue has stayed off the election radar
The Center for Public Integrity
|
|
|
Bush's Shout Revisited
Knowing that he had been harshly criticized in the first debate for making weird faces when Kerry was speaking, Bush tried his best to keep a blank face while appearing to listen intently to Kerry with his hands tightly folded in his lap, but occasionally his eyes would blink, blink, blink in rapid reaction, signaling intense psychological turmoil. As the debate proceeded, Bush appeared to be more tightly wound and at one point he jumped up after Kerry’s criticism of his largely unilateral Iraq policy and failure to build broader alliances. Although moderator Charles Gibson, according to the rules of the debate, was beginning to pose another question, Bush interrupted in a remarkable exchange that put on display his inability to take criticism and a highly turbulent psyche. Reflection on the exchange is thus instructive.
KERRY: We're going to build alliances. We're not going to go unilaterally. We're not going to go alone like this president did.
GIBSON: Mr. President, let's extend for a minute--
BUSH: Let me just--I've got to answer this.
GIBSON: Exactly. And with Reservists being held on duty--
(CROSSTALK with Bush charging Gibson, seeming to push him aside and interrupting, breaking the rules of the debate with his interjection)
BUSH: Let me answer what he just said, about around the world.
GIBSON: Well, I want to get into the issue of the back-door draft--
BUSH [loudly shouting]: You tell Tony Blair we're going alone. Tell Tony Blair we're going alone. Tell Silvio Berlusconi we're going alone. Tell Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland we're going alone.
Bush’s uncontrolled shouting perhaps has Oedipal roots as Kerry had constantly taunted Bush, comparing his father’s construction of a multilateral coalition to throw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in Gulf war 1, compared to Bush’s failure to construct a vigorous coalition in Gulf War 2. The Democrats had also quoted Bush’s father’s memoirs about why he did not go into Iraq, as well as criticizing Bush’s failure to have a plan. Bush’s competitive relation with is father is obviously very touchy and was made the subject of a Sunday, October 10 Doonesbury cartoon that has the Empty Helmut signifying the Mindless Warrior George W. Bush talking on the phone to his father about the Iraq mess as the father reads from his book warning against the impossibility of occupying Iraq.
here's the Doonesbury
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20041010
Bush’s rant shocked the room into silence as he screamed about his Iraq alliance and defended his policy and it looked like this could be a major TV moment with a presidential candidate becoming unhinged on national television. Bush calmed down somewhat, but still occasionally jumped up and shouted an answer, while throughout he maintained a pose of an arrogant, dogmatic, over-confident, defiant, and aggressive Angry President, a posture perhaps even more disturbing than the flailing, incompetent, and confused whiner of the first debate.
here's a good analysis of Bush's bullying and characterological questions that need to be raised about Bush; Kerry is now going after Bush as unhinged and I think this is true of Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and the Whole Sick Crew. The Madmen are running the asylum
The New Republic Online: Shift in Strategy
|
|
|
washingtonpost.com: Rivals Draw New Material From Second Debate
It didn’t take Bush any time to get back on the trail and mock Kerry, obviously his preferred mode of campaigning. One of his Bold Lies in the debate, mentioned twice, was that Kerry had “worked hard” to become “the most liberal member of the United States Senate.” Bush cited a ranking in a conservative journal National Review which had admitted that its ranking was just for the past year and that over-all Kerry had a moderate ranking. Astonishingly, on the campaign trail the next day Bush highlighted “the most liberal member of the Senate” argument, crowing, “he can run but he can’t hide.” The empty demagoguery discloses the desperation of the Bush campaign that must depend on Bold Lies (that every informed person knows is a Lie) to demean Kerry and the utter cynicism of the Bush handlers who program their campaign puppet knowing that their Bold Lies of the day are utterly false. It will remain to be seen if the Kerry campaign and the media expose this fraudulent characterizing of the Democratic candidate.
Meanwhile, the Kerry campaign went back to Bush’s unbalanced debate performance on Friday and, referring to Bush’s breaking the rules and charging Charlie Gibson to shout out a demented answer, portrayed the republican as unhinged, issuing a three-page document describing Bush as “Nixon-like” and “hot under the collar.” Taunting Bush’s immaturity and the failures of his policies, Kerry criticized Bush’s “refusing to show the maturity” to be patient in building a bigger alliance and Iraq and argued that it was time to put “adults” in charge of foreign policy.
Indeed, if John F. Kennedy’s Harvard brain trust were “the Brightest and the Best,” Bush’s neocons and Texas mafia were “the Stupidest and the Worst.”
washingtonpost.com: Rivals Draw New Material From Second Debate
|
|
Saturday, October 09, 2004
|
Comments on the second presidential debate
The second presidential debate took place at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri and had a town hall format with ABC commentator Charlie Gibson fielding questions from the audience, some of whom were allowed to read their questions to the candidates. The give-and-take between the candidates was as fierce as the first debate with each sharply attacking the other and defending his own position, clearly etching the difference in policy and personality between the two candidates. The opening thirty minutes or so re-hashed the contest over Iraq in the first debate. Bush interpreted the Duelfer report that acknowledged that Iraq had destroyed its arms programs years before as “evidence” that Saddam Hussein was a threat who was planning to reconstitute his arms programs after the UN sanctions were released. Kerry let this fantastical claim go by, choosing instead to hammer home the points he’d made in the first debate that Bush had made a “catastrophic error” in going into Iraq, that it was a diversion from Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the war on terror, that Bush had no plan to win the war, and had basically made a big mess in Iraq.
Knowing that he had been harshly criticized in the first debate for making weird faces when Kerry was speaking, Bush tried his best to keep a blank face while appearing to listen intently to Kerry with his hands tightly folded in his lap, but occasionally his eyes would blink, blink, blink in rapid reaction, signaling intense psychological turmoil. As the debate proceeded, Bush appeared to be more tightly wound and at one point he jumped up, pushed moderator Charles Gibson aside, and started shrieking: “You tell Tony Blair we’re going alone!,” shocking the room into silence as he ranted about his Iraq alliance and defended his policy. Bush calmed down somewhat, but still occasionally jumped up screaming and throughout maintained a pose of arrogant, dogmatic, over confident and aggressive Angry President, a posture perhaps even more disturbing than the flailing, incompetent, and confused whiner of the first debate.
Bush insistently pandered to his base, providing unqualified defense of his positions on Iraq, stem-cell research, restricting abortion, and taxes. He tried to imply that Kerry would certainly raise taxes on the middle class to pay for his programs, although Kerry insisted he would only raise taxes on those who made over $200,000 and in response to a question from the audience Kerry looked into the camera and promised he would not raise taxes for the middle class and working people.
Bush’s worst moment came in response to a question asking him to recall the three worst mistakes he’d made in office, a question similar to one in his last live press conference where he hemmed and hawed and just couldn’t think of any mistakes. This time he went on the offensive, saying that he had not made any mistake on Iraq, taxes, or major issues, but conceded he was disappointed in some of the appointments he’d made. Revealingly, this showed that he was totally incapable of self-reflection and critique, as well as petty, vindictive, and unforgiving toward all those who had crossed him, such as his former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neil who wrote a memoir after Bush removed him from office, indicating how Bush would not discuss economic policy, was planning an Iraq invasion from the beginning of his presidency, and refused to compromise on his massive tax-break for the rich, even after 9/11 and competing priorities. Bush showed himself at his worst, arrogant, unrepentant, rigid, and refusing to change course or see evident problems.
Kerry, by contrast, was cool, collected, and competent, reprising sharp arguments on foreign policy and generally making cogent statements on domestic policy. He continued to sharply criticize Bush administration policy while insisting that he had better plans for Iraq and domestic security, jobs and the economy, healthcare, and the environment. Although Kerry scored many debate blows, he did not throw any knock out punches and was not as sharp in deconstructing Bush’s debate points as he made them as in the first debate. Most network TV commentators called it a draw, although early polls showed that viewers tended to see Kerry as the winner and that he’d done better with undecided voters, while some noted that Bush appeared very testy, angry, and aggressive.
Here's a CBS commentary
The Smirking Chimp
Here's commentary by William Rivers Pitt: 'The scary little man'
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=18187
|
|
|
Salon.com News | Kerry wins on points, but misses the knockout
at the end of the second debate the wobbly and weird Bush is still standing, but Kerry's standing taller. Excerpt: "He was in denial on Iraq. His sharpest line of the night might have been false. He winked and he shouted and he stormed around the stage like a house afire, but when a woman asked him to name three mistakes he'd made, he spoke so softly he was almost inaudible, said he'd take responsibility if historians ever find that he made some tactical errors, and then blamed -- without naming names -- some of the people he had appointed.
It wasn't a great night for George W. Bush, but it might have been good enough.
After his stammering and scowling performance in his first debate with John Kerry, Bush might have won the second debate just by getting through it without cussing out an undecided voter. But he did better than that Friday night. He spoke in complete sentences, he offered coherent thoughts, and he survived a week of bad news that might have sunk a man more firmly lashed to reality. Two nights into this thing, Bush is still standing.
John Kerry won Friday night's debate on points -- two network instant polls gave him a slight edge -- but he also let Bush back in. Bush was staggering coming into the second debate, bruised on jobs, bloody on Iraq, but Kerry never found a way to put the boot in. Too often, he fought on Bush's turf, wasting precious time defending himself against the flip-flop charge when he could have been nailing Bush on his record.
Early on, Bush tried to spin his way out of Charles Duelfer's devastating report on Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Bush said Saddam Hussein was a "unique threat" because "he could give weapons of mass destruction to an organization like al-Qaida" -- despite the fact that the Duelfer report establishes, once and for all, that Saddam didn't have any weapons to give. The president then suggested that the report offered an alternative justification for the war: "Saddam Hussein was gaming the oil-for-food program to get rid of sanctions."
Kerry might have hammered him for it: "Mr. President, are you saying we went to war because Saddam Hussein was 'gaming' the oil-for-food program?" Instead, Kerry used the opening to defend himself against the flip-flop charge. "Well, let me tell you straight up," he said. "I've never changed my mind about Iraq. I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat. I always believed he was a threat."
Score one for Bush. He said something implausible, something laughable, and Kerry not only let him get away with it, he reminded voters of what they don't like about him in the process. Kerry communications director David Ginsberg said the candidate made a conscious choice to attack the flip-flopping "caricature" that the Republicans have drawn of him. It might have been a good strategy for the first debate, where Kerry had to establish himself as presidential, but it's harder to understand in the second debate, when that basic burden suddenly seemed to be on Bush. Kerry came off as presidential in the first debate, and he did it again in the second. But by failing to go harder after Bush Friday, Kerry let the president seem presidential again, too.
That said, while Bush may have gotten himself back over the "presidential" threshold Friday night, he did little to distinguish himself. With bad news coming at him from all directions, the president frequently came off as either oblivious or willfully ignorant. In a week of car bombings in Iraq, dire safety warnings within the Baghdad Green Zone, and another beheading, Bush told the tale of meeting the Iraqi finance minister, who thought everything was going swimmingly in his country until he "turned on the TV and listened to the political rhetoric." Faced with September job numbers that were lower than expected, lower than needed to keep up with population growth and way, way lower than his own Council of Economic Advisors projected just last year, Bush could say only that the country would be better off if the Senate cracked down on trial lawyers and passed Dick Cheney's energy bill. The economy is "growing," Bush said, and "freedom is on the march."
Salon.com News | Kerry wins on points, but misses the knockout
|
|
Friday, October 08, 2004
|
Got Wood?
In tonight's presidential debate, George W. Bush responded with shock when, in the context of a discussion of how rich folks often hide wealth in corporate structures that allow them to qualify for tax breaks as "small businesses," John Kerry mentioned the President's conflicting interests as both a self-professed (though laughable) "steward of the land" and owner of a timber company.
Bush jumped from his seat -- "I am the owner of a timber company? Want some wood...?" he smirked at moderator Charley Gibson.
The impression was that Kerry had made a mistake.
In fact, the mistake was the President's, who either baldly lied to the American people with a tremendous sense of self-satisfied conviction or more likely didn't even know his own financial holdings.
A real man of the people -- he owns a company with holdings of hundreds of thousands of dollars and isn't even aware of it.
But what's a couple hundred thousand dollars to a filthy-rich Bush heir?
Vindicating Kerry's claim took all of about 3 minutes, by going to the public record of President Bush's 2004 financial holding filing, available at opensecrets.org.
There one can find a listing for an asset on Page 8, Item 9 of Bush's filing for LSTF, LLC, which contains an asterisk directing the reader to an attachment explaining why the company has no listed financial data.
On page 14 of the filing, one can then find this attachment which reveals that LSTF is in fact a limited liability company with a little over $6,000 dollars in a Wells Fargo checking account and over $200,000 worth of trees as inventory.
Why does it have trees, Mr. President? Why because, as it reads on your own financial disclosure, that the company was "organized on 2-13-03 for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales."
Okay, so it's a timber company, George W. might retort with a Texas snort and a wink, but it doesn't mean he owns it!
Unfortunately, Bush's financial disclosure undermines that strategy too, reading that LSTF, LLC is co-owned by John Taylor and "The Lone Star Trust (George W. Bush, Grantor)."
It's often been remarked by friends and foes alike that the President is a "simple" man. But here again is evidence that Bush has a remarkable way of evading and denying even relatively simple truths.
|
|
|
An October Surprise for Bush and the FBI?
will 9/11 come back and bite Bush or will he find Osama just before the election?
City Pages: Print an Article
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thursday, October 07, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: Why Did James Baker Turn Bush Into Nixon?
Bush may suffer the fate of Nixon, who blew the first debate and lost the election in 1960; see also John Dean's Worse than Watergate for sharp denunciation of Bush administration and how while it is Nixonian its worse than Nixon. And remember Watergate: when there is an administraion this scandalous in a democracy, either it goes down or democracy erodes and maybe disappears
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: Why Did James Baker Turn Bush Into Nixon?
|
|
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The final judgement
A devasting judgment against the BUsh administration: No WMD, the Bush Gang Lied and People Died
Independent News
|
|
|
The New York Times > International > Middle East > U.S. Report Finds Iraq Was Minimal Weapons Threat in '03
Another devastating attack is out on Bush administration rationale for an Iraq war. Excerpt: " Iraq now appears to have destroyed its stockpiles of illicit weapons within months of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and by the time of the American invasion in spring 2003, its capacity to produce such weapons was continuing to erode, the top American inspector in Iraq said in a report made public today.
The report by Charles A. Duelfer said the last Iraqi factory capable of producing militarily significant quantities of unconventional weapons was destroyed in 1996. The finding amounted to the starkest portrayal yet of a vast gap between the Bush administration's prewar assertions about Iraqi weapons and what a 15-month postinvasion inquiry by American investigators has concluded were the facts on the ground.
At the time of the American invasion, Mr. Duelfer concluded, Iraq had not possessed military-scale stockpiles of illicit weapons for a dozen years and was not actively seeking to produce them."
The New York Times > International > Middle East > U.S. Report Finds Iraq Was Minimal Weapons Threat in '03
|
|
|
Antonia Zerbisias: 'Truth first casualty of Cheney debate style'
Cheney lied constantly throughout the debate last night; Edwards main failure was that he didn't pound him harder on his systematic lies and the constant lying about Kerry as substance of Bush campaign
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Runners Advance - Edwards keeps the Democrats' rally going. By William?Saletan
Generally speaking, Edwards contributed to the campaign by consistently making the case for the Democrats and attacking the Republican record. He came off as competent and likeable while Cheney came off vile and mean in many exchanges. Both got tired and the debate meandered the last thirty or so minutes after some very dramatic sections where they both got personal and harsh. Here's an analysis by William Saletan of what Edwards achieved. Excerpt:
"Cheney seemed to think most viewers were tuning in to judge the vice presidential nominees. Edwards seemed to think they were tuning in to hear about the presidential nominees.
If Cheney guessed right on that question, he probably won. But if he guessed wrong—and I suspect he did—Edwards kicked his expletive. If you watched this debate as an uninformed voter, you heard an avalanche of reasons to vote for Kerry. You heard 23 times that Kerry has a "plan" for some big problem or that Bush doesn't. You heard 10 references to Halliburton, with multiple allegations of bribes, no-bid contracts, and overcharges. You heard 13 associations of Bush with drug or insurance companies. You heard four attacks on him for outsourcing. You heard again and again that he opposed the 9/11 commission and the Department of Homeland Security, that he "diverted" resources from the fight against al-Qaida to the invasion of Iraq, and that while our troops "were on the ground fighting, [the administration] lobbied the Congress to cut their combat pay." You heard that Kerry served in Vietnam and would "double the special forces." You heard that Bush is coddling the Saudis, that Cheney "cut over 80 weapons systems," and that the administration has no air-cargo screening or unified terrorist watch list.
As the debate turned to domestic policy, you heard that we've lost 1.6 million net jobs and 2.7 million net manufacturing jobs under Bush. You heard that he's the first president in 70 years to lose jobs. You heard that 4 million more people live in poverty, and 5 million have lost their health insurance. You heard that the average annual premium has risen by $3,500. You heard that we've gone from a $5 trillion surplus to a $3 trillion debt. You heard that a multimillionaire sitting by his swimming pool pays a lower tax rate than a soldier in Iraq. You heard that Bush has underfunded No Child Left Behind by $27 billion. You heard that Kerry, unlike Bush, would let the government negotiate "to get discounts for seniors" and would let "prescription drugs into this country from Canada." You heard that at home and abroad, Bush offers "four more years of the same."
Most Democrats, including Kerry, duck and cover when Republicans bring up values. Not Edwards. He knows the language and loves to turn it against the GOP. The word "moral" was used twice in this debate. The word "value" was used three times. All five references came from Edwards. He denounced the "moral" crime of piling debt on our grandchildren. He called the African AIDS epidemic and the Sudan genocide "huge moral issues." When Ifill asked him about gay marriage, he changed the subject to taxes. "We don't just value wealth, which they do," said Edwards. "We value work in this country. And it is a fundamental value difference between them and us."
Runners Advance - Edwards keeps the Democrats' rally going. By William?Saletan
|
|
|
The New York Times > AP > > Report May Undercut Bush's Iraq Rationale
Final report on Iraqi WMD will conclude that there weren't any. Excerpt: "The final report of the chief U.S. arms inspector for Iraq was expected to undercut a principal Bush administration rationale for removing Saddam Hussein, that Saddam's Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction.
In drafts, weapons hunter Charles Duelfer concluded Saddam's Iraq had no stockpiles of the banned weapons but said he found signs of idle programs that Saddam could have revived once international attention waned.
Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, was providing his findings Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee. His team has compiled a 1,500-page report; it is unclear how much will be made public. Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, who quit last December, also found no evidence of weapons stockpiles."
The New York Times > AP > National > Report May Undercut Bush's Iraq Rationale
|
|
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
|
washingtonpost.com: Bush Campaign Acknowledges Bremer's Criticism
a MAJOR EMBARASSMENT for the Bush administration as the main Iraq reconstruction figure turns on them and says he requested more troops and the Bush administration turned him down; obviously, Bremer is shifting blame from himself for the Iraq fiasco and its good to see the bad guys turning on each other
washingtonpost.com: Bush Campaign Acknowledges Bremer's Criticism
|
|
Monday, October 04, 2004
|
The New York Times > Opinion > The Nuclear Bomb That Wasn't
could it be that the New York Times is getting hardcore antiBush? let's hope so; I'm surprised on extent to which the big three TV networks continue to pound theme of how bad Kerry trashed Bush in the debates, keeping circulating images of Kerry's strong points and Bush's blunders
The New York Times > Opinion > The Nuclear Bomb That Wasn't
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edwards targets jobless as debate with Cheney looms
Next on the Media Spectacle agenda: Cheney vs Edwards, let's hope John is up to the job. Hint: Go after Cheney for 9/11: he was appointed head of committee to deal with terrorism in May 2001, blew off the Hart-Rudiman report that called for immediate action to defend US against al Qaeda attack and did NOTHING to prevent 9/11. And the, of course, there is Halliburton.... Let's hope Edwards nails him
Independent News
|
|
|
Kerry attacks Bush's 'extreme right-wing ideology' in banning stem cell research
Kerry goes after rightwing nutcase Bush on stem cell research
Independent News
|
|
|
Guardian | Dear Mike, Iraq sucks
Some Reports from the Front, US soldiers in Iraq email Michael Moore and tell him how bad Iraq Sucks
Guardian | Dear Mike, Iraq sucks
|
|
|
Media | Fox - the naked truth
Fox is forced to admit a fabrication, the whole network is a fabrication, a Republican construction of the world, nothing fair and balanced, but all rightwing conservative Republican, a spin machine for the demons of darkness
Media | Fox - the naked truth
|
|
|
As Debate Nears, Kerry Focuses on Economy
Kerry took a populist turn this weekend, vowing to fight for working people. Excerpt: "Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry delivered a populist message to this long-suffering industrial region, visiting a picket line and telling blue-collar workers here Sunday that President Bush has been dishonest about the economy's health.
On a swing through the Mahoning Valley near Youngstown in eastern Ohio, the senator from Massachusetts told a crowd full of union workers that "I've got your back," and he portrayed Bush as disengaged from economic suffering. "This administration, every time it's had an opportunity to make a choice for you . . . they've made a choice that helps the powerful, they've made a choice to help the people who are the most helped already," he said. ...
Kerry's argument, combining populist strains with doubts about Bush's credibility, had echoes of Al Gore and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), both onetime opponents of Bush. "Straight talk is exactly what I intend to give you today," Kerry said, borrowing the slogan of McCain's 2000 primary challenge to Bush. And Kerry's vow to "fight" for the people against "powerful" interests was a theme touted in the 2000 election by Gore, who promised to fight "for the people, not the powerful."
Kerry's argument, combining populist strains with doubts about Bush's credibility, had echoes of Al Gore and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), both onetime opponents of Bush. "Straight talk is exactly what I intend to give you today," Kerry said, borrowing the slogan of McCain's 2000 primary challenge to Bush. And Kerry's vow to "fight" for the people against "powerful" interests was a theme touted in the 2000 election by Gore, who promised to fight "for the people, not the powerful."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4528-2004Oct3?language=printer
|
|
|
The New York Times > : Bush and Reality
Bob Herbert says that Bush's poor debate performance is a sign he's lost touch with reality, living in a world of fantasy and cannot engage real world arguments and issues. Excerpt: "John Kerry got the better of President Bush in last Thursday's debate in Coral Gables, Fla. The president seemed listless, defensive and not particularly well prepared. His facial expressions and body language at times were odd. Some of his strongest supporters were dismayed by his performance, and polls are showing they had reason to be concerned.
There undoubtedly were many reasons for Mr. Bush's lackluster effort. But I think there was one factor, above all, that undermined the president in last week's debate, and will continue to plague him throughout the campaign. And that was his problematic relationship with reality.
Mr. Bush is a man who will frequently tell you - and may even believe - that up is down, or square is round, when logic and all the available evidence say otherwise. During the debate, this was most clearly displayed when, in response to a question about the war in Iraq, Mr. Bush told the moderator, Jim Lehrer, "The enemy attacked us, Jim, and I have a solemn duty to protect the American people, to do everything I can to protect us."
Moments later Senator Kerry clarified, for the audience and the president, just who had attacked the United States. "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us," said Mr. Kerry. "Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaeda attacked us."
Given a chance to respond, Mr. Bush flashed an unappreciative look at Senator Kerry and said, "Of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us - I know that."
With no weapons of mass destruction to exhibit, and no link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, Mr. Bush has nevertheless tried to portray the war in Iraq as not only the right thing to do but as largely successful. The increasing violence and chaos suggest otherwise. Even as the presidential debate was being conducted, details were coming in about car bombings earlier in the day in Baghdad that killed dozens of Iraqis, including at least 34 children."
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Bush and Reality
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sunday, October 03, 2004
|
With voters widely viewing Kerry as the debate’s winner, Bush’s lead in the NEWSWEEK poll has evaporated
A Newsweek poll indicates that Bush's disastrous debate performance has cost him the lead in the polls
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6159637/site/newsweek/
In a widely circulated article “Father Kerry vs. Boy George,” Steven Rosenfeld & Jan Frel made the argument that “John Kerry came across as a mature candidate during the debate, while George Bush squirmed repeatedly at challenges to his record.” The authors assert that in the debate it was clear that Kerry was a mature adult, while Bush came off as an immature frat boy, petulant, unprepared for the challenge, and petty and mean-spirited. It was clear that Bush was losing the Battle of Masculinity and that Kerry appeared much more likely to been seen as a Father and Leader, two roles that Bush had wished to play. Indeed, it was rare that a president had ever appeared so immature and incompetent, and it seemed that Bush had shrunk and withered since he had become president. Gone was the cocky, relaxed and bantering Bush and instead a rather puny and naked would-be Emperor appeared without the right stuff and gravitas to do the job.
http://alternet.org/election04/20050/
|
|
|
A Vietnam Vet Saw His Honor Under Attack, and Took the Fight to the Kerry Camp
An article by Hanna Rosin, “Unfriendly Fire. A Vietnam Vet Saw His Honor Under Attack, and Took the Fight to the Kerry Camp” (Washington Post, October 3, 2004: D01) documents the role of another one of the organizers of the Swift Boat campaign, Roy Hoffman. The story indicates that Hoffman was angered at the negative presentation of himself in David Brinkley’s book on Kerry’s Vietnam activity and struck back hard at Kerry; there are indications in the story that Hoffman was one of the nastiest Vietnam vets and may have been involved in war crimes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2975-2004Oct2.html
|
|
|
Bush Says Kerry Will Allow Foreign Vetoes;Democrat's Ad Says President Is 'Lying'
Bush's campaign so far has been largely lying about Kerry's record. And after the debate it has been no different with Bush constructing an imaginary "Kerry doctrine" to mock and deride, despite the fact that Kerry made it clear that he was not giving other country's veto power over US security Bush and Cheney have been repeating this Big Lie daily. It is good that the Dems are out with an ad accusing them of "lying" and proving it. Take off the gloves and call the Liars what they are.
Excerpt: " President Bush said Saturday that under a "Kerry Doctrine," Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry would require permission of foreign powers before launching military action.
The inflammatory charge, leveled here by Bush and in a new campaign commercial, was immediately denied by Kerry's advisers. The accusation is based on a partial reading of Kerry's remark in Thursday's debate that he would have a "global test" to prove the legitimacy of U.S. military action; Kerry also said that he would reserve "the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States."
Kerry "said something revealing when he laid out the Kerry Doctrine," Bush said at a convention of home builders here. "He said that America has to pass a global test before we can use American troops to defend ourselves. . . . Senator Kerry's approach to foreign policy would give foreign governments veto power over our national security decisions."
Bush said a president should not "take an international poll," and said: "Our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals."
Within hours, the Kerry campaign responded with its own ad, to run in the same markets as the Bush ad. "George Bush lost the debate," it said. "Now he's lying about it." The ad also includes Kerry's assertion that "the president always has the right for preemptive strike" and charges that Bush "rushed to war."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2933-2004Oct2?language=printer
|
|
|
Kerry on Economy
Kerry is now taking on Bush over the economy after wiping him away on foreign policy. Note that for the first time Kerry has Rock Star status with crowds chanting his name; Kerry came through Big-Time in the debates and the Dems have the Big Mo to take out the shrub
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2934-2004Oct2?language=printer
Excerpt: "John F. Kerry kicked off the final month of the presidential election Saturday with a broad and blistering critique of President Bush's economic policies, warning voters in this battleground state nothing less than the "American dream" is on the ballot Nov. 2.
"Not too long ago, this dream was within reach for every single person willing to reach for it," said Kerry, who painted a portrait of an America suffering from job loss, falling wages and rising everyday costs for school, health care and transportation. "Today, for too many families, the dream is being taken away by decisions made in Washington."
In a strategic shift to highlight the economy in the run-up to Friday's domestic policy debate in St. Louis, Kerry said voters face a critical choice: a president "who gives more and more to those with the most" vs. a "new choice for the great middle class and all those struggling to join it." At the same time, the Kerry campaign pulled most of its national security ads and started running two new commercials highlighting his job creation plans.
Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd at Freedom High School, Kerry highlighted the most ominous economic data to indict Bush for ignoring troubles confronting most Americans and consistently choosing the wealthy over the worker. "That's what he stands for, that's who he stands for, that's who he fights for, and if you give him the chance, that's what he'll do for four more years," Kerry said.
Kerry was interrupted by repeated ovations, which appears to reflect a surge in optimism among Democratic voters, officials and Kerry's aides after Thursday's debate at the University of Miami. Here in Florida, newspapers were filled with articles lauding Kerry's debate performance and momentum. The mention of the word "debate" by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) sent audience members here to their feet chanting "Kerry, Kerry!"
|
|
Saturday, October 02, 2004
|
How Cheney's firm routed $132m to Nigeria via Tottenham lawyer
Bush Gang Halliburton Criminal faces more heat, let him go down hard
Independent News
|
|
|
The New York Times > > Skewed Intelligence Data in March to War in Iraq
The Bush Gang lied about Iraq and skewed intelligence data from the beginning; I remember clearly a weekend when the Bush Liars sent their entire A-Team on national television to insist that some alluminum tubes found in Iraq were especially made for nuclear weapons at a time when there were credible reports dismissing this; nonetheless, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Card and Bush all LIED, knowing they were lying (well maybe not Bush) and now are caught in documented lies once again
The New York Times > International > Middle East > Skewed Intelligence Data in March to War in Iraq
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mocking Bush
Bush continues to get attacked for his debate performance which is being rated one of the worst all-time performances in presidential debates ever and one that is likely to be cited for years to come, let's hope its a Turning Point. Here are the smirkingchimp's selection of delightful Bush bashing.
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Retreat into a substitute reality
Sidney Blumental argue that in the first presidential debate Kerry effectively deconstructed Bush’s epistemology of certainty and put on display Bush’s intellectual vacuity and rigidity. As Kerry hammered Bush on position after position, he would stammer and say “I am certain that…,” “I know that…,” and other phrases of absolutism, while Kerry zinged him by arguing that "It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and be wrong." In Blumenthal’s words, “For Bush, certainty equals strength. Kerry responded with a devastating deconstruction of Bush's epistemology. Nothing like this critique of pure reason has ever been heard in a presidential debate.”
Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Retreat into a substitute reality
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: Now on DVD: The Passion of the Bush
another weapon in the culture war that will equate Bush as the agency of God that will be used in his election campaign. Check this out: "Of the many cultural grenades being tossed that day, though, the one must-see is "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House," a DVD that is being specifically marketed in "head to head" partisan opposition to "Fahrenheit 9/11." This documentary first surfaced at the Republican convention in New York, where it was previewed in tandem with an invitation-only, no-press-allowed "Family, Faith and Freedom Rally," a Ralph Reed-Sam Brownback jamboree thrown by the Bush campaign for Christian conservatives. Though you can buy the DVD for $14.95, its makers told the right-wing news service WorldNetDaily.com that they plan to distribute 300,000 copies to America's churches. And no wonder. This movie aspires to be "The Passion of the Bush," and it succeeds.
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. The stations of his cross are burnished into cinematic fable: the misspent youth, the hard drinking (a thirst that came from "a throat full of Texas dust"), the fateful 40th-birthday hangover in Colorado Springs, the walk on the beach with Billy Graham. A towheaded child actor bathed in the golden light of an off-camera halo re-enacts the young George comforting his mom after the death of his sister; it's a parable anticipating the future president's miraculous ability to comfort us all after 9/11. An older Bush impersonator is seen rebuffing a sexual come-on from a fellow Bush-Quayle campaign worker hovering by a Xerox machine in 1988; it's an effort to imbue our born-again savior with retroactive chastity. As for the actual president, he is shown with a flag for a backdrop in a split-screen tableau with Jesus. The message isn't subtle: they were separated at birth.
"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. As for the documentary's "research," a film positioning itself as a scrupulously factual "alternative" to "Fahrenheit 9/11" should not inflate Mr. Bush's early business "success" with Arbusto Energy (an outright bust for most of its investors) or the number of children he's had vaccinated in Iraq ("more than 22 million," the movie claims, in a country whose total population is 25 million).
"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. He may not hear "voices" instructing him on policy, testifies Stephen Mansfield, the author of one of the movie's source texts, "The Faith of George W. Bush," but he does act on "promptings" from God. "I think we went into Iraq not so much because there were weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Mansfield has explained elsewhere, "but because Bush had concluded that Saddam Hussein was an evildoer" in the battle "between good and evil." So why didn't we go into those other countries in the axis of evil, North Korea or Iran? Never mind. To ask such questions is to be against God and "with the terrorists."
The New York Times > Arts > Frank Rich: Now on DVD: The Passion of the Bush
|
|
|
|
|
|
Friday, October 01, 2004
|
Guardian | Retreat into a substitute reality
Bush Alone: a Neurotic Mess and Gross Incompetent whose buttons Kerry effectively pushed including the Oedipal one, withering Bush's delusional ego
Guardian | Retreat into a substitute reality
|
|
|
Thomas Oliphant: 'Bush's costly gaffe'
Perhaps Kerry’s strongest argument is that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a diversion in the war on terror and that it was a mistake to go after Saddam Hussein before Osama bin Laden was dealt with and Afghanistan was pacified. Kerry caught Bush’s major gaffe of the evening after Bush summed up his reason for invading Iraq with the phrase because the enemy attacked us." Kerry quickly responded by point out that Saddam Hussein had not attacked the United States, but, under Osama bin Laden's direction, Al Qaeda had.
Kerry scored big when he talked about the failure to get bin Laden at Tora Bora and that Bush had “outsourced” the job of closing down Al Qaeda, even when their leaders were cornered, hiring warlords to do the fighting and not putting US ground troops in.
A flustered Bush responded by pouting of course, bin Laden was behind the attacks and nervously laughed, "I knew that." He blustered on, “to think that another round of resolutions would have caused Saddam Hussein to disarm, disclose, is ludicrous, in my judgment. It just shows a significant difference of opinion.” And indeed there was a significant difference. On Iraq, Kerry tried to insist that he had the credibility, ability, and plan to deal with the Iraq crisis and Bush had made a colossal error in going into the country in the first place and had no plan to get out. Bush insisted that his plan was to train Iraqi troops and let them create their own security, but he greatly exaggerated the number of troops trained and most reports from the ground indicated that the Iraqi military forces often refused to fight, in many cases sided with the insurgents, and were utterly incompetent to guarantee security in the country. Kerry repeatedly argued that allies needed to be brought in to share the responsibilities and rewards. Scoring a big point, he noted that Bush had given all the big contracts to Halliburton and other US corporations that supported Bush and had told countries who had not supported the invasion to forget about bidding for contracts. And Kerry perhaps scored his biggest point when at the end of several detailed exchanges on Iraq he noted that Bush’s “plan” came down to four words: “more of the same.”
Here's Thomas Oliphant on 'Bush's costly gaffe'
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Arianna Huffington: 'Bush's toxic campaign mix: God, country and perpetual fear'
Since Bush doesn’t have any arguments to defend his presidency, a record he can run on, or a convincing case against his obviously superior opponent, Bush can only play his trump card – God. As Arianna Huffington puts it in Arianna Online:
"Leave no sucker punch unthrown. That seems to be the scorched earth mantra of the GOP campaign as it heads into the final rounds. But if you're thinking these guys can't go any lower, guess again. George Bush doesn't just have his head buried in the sand — he's let his integrity sink below sea level, as well.
The latest dirty blows are a contemptible one-two combination with which Team Bush has portrayed John Kerry as both the enemy of God and, if not exactly the ally of al-Qaida, then at least the terrorists' candidate of choice. To hear them tell it, a vote for Kerry is a vote against God and Country. Talk about hitting way, way below the belt.
Let's start with God.
It was revealed last week that the Republican Party has sent out an incendiary mass mailing warning that, if elected, "liberals" (and I'll give you one guess which presidential candidate that includes) will try to — I kid you not — ban the Bible.
The full-color flyer features a picture of the Bible with the word "Banned" stamped across it, and a photo of a man, on bended knee, placing a wedding band on the hand of another man, accompanied by the word "Allowed."
Clearly, Bush and the GOP have taken their Bible-thumping ways to a whole new level: Now they're using the Good Book to try to bash in the skulls of their opponents.
This "God is on our side" attack is all the more outrageous because it's not coming from some shadowy 527 committee that Bush can publicly — albeit disingenuously — distance himself from but, rather, from deep in the heart of the Bush-run Republican National Committee. The president's team has undoubtedly "approved this message."
They've also used the official Georgewbush.com campaign website to attack Kerry, a Catholic, as being "Wrong for Catholics", while an RNC website, KerryWrongForCatholics.com, slams him for not being loyal enough to the Pope. We've certainly come a long way since another JFK had to assure voters in 1960 that he wouldn't take orders from the Vatican.
The idea that Kerry and the Democrats are anti-Bible and that Bush has a hot line to The Man Upstairs is both offensive and patently absurd. One look at the latest statistics showing the rise in the number of Americans living in poverty proves that Republicans — who, contrary to their claims, do not hold a copyright on the Bible — have grotesquely perverted its core teachings."
The Smirking Chimp
|
|
|
Field Day for Liberal Pundits: Bush Blows it Bad
Today liberal pundits had one of their great days ever dissecting Bush's failed debate performance. Most honorable pundits admitted that Bush had a bad night and Kerry a good one although some of the more mendacious Republican spinners just couldn’t help not telling Big, Bold, and Brazen Lies. Fox News host Sean Hannity said of Bush, "I've never seen him more passionate, more on message, more articulate." And in Chris Sullentrop’s summary: “Karl Rove must have known things didn't go well when the New York Post asked him whether this was the worst debate of President Bush's life. No, Rove insisted. This was one of the president's best debates, and one of John Kerry's worst. "Really?" asked the reporter, Vince Morris. "You can say that with a straight face?"
Here are a score of collected commentaries on the debate from the Smirking Chimp in full smirk mode today
The Smirking Chimp
Here's my analysis of the substantive issues:
Iraq dominated the debate and from the beginning Kerry put Bush on the defensive. Asked to respond to Republican criticism that the US would be more vulnerable to terrorist attack with Kerry in the White House, the senator responded:
KERRY: I believe in being strong and resolute and determined. And I will hunt down and kill the terrorists, wherever they are.
But we also have to be smart, Jim. And smart means not diverting your attention from the real war on terror in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden and taking if off to Iraq where the 9/11 Commission confirms there was no connection to 9/11 itself and Saddam Hussein, and where the reason for going to war was weapons of mass destruction, not the removal of Saddam Hussein.
This president has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. And judgment is what we look for in the president of the United States of America.
Kerry rattled off all the high-level military officers who supported him, and soon after was asked by the moderator to indicate what “colossal errors of judgment” President Bush made. Kerry hit his stride, criticizing Bush’s failure to get UN approval and significant allies involved in the project, only going to the UN after his father’s top advisors insisted on it, promising to go to war only as a “last resort” and rushing to battle without a plan to win. Then in perhaps the key statement of the night that demonstrated Kerry’s ability to combine facts with argument he noted: “And so, today, we are 90 percent of the casualties and 90 percent of the cost: $200 billion -- $200 billion that could have been used for health care, for schools, for construction, for prescription drugs for seniors, and it's in Iraq. And Iraq is not even the center of the focus of the war on terror. The center is Afghanistan, where, incidentally, there were more Americans killed last year than the year before; where the opium production is 75 percent of the world's opium production; where 40 to 60 percent of the economy of Afghanistan is based on opium; where the elections have been postponed three times. The president moved the troops, so he's got 10 times the number of troops in Iraq than he has in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden is. Does that mean that Saddam Hussein was 10 times more important than Osama bin Laden -- than, excuse me, Saddam Hussein more important than Osama bin Laden? I don't think so.”
Bush never recovered and an obviously rattled and defensive president confused Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, a Freudian slip that indicated his difficulty in pronouncing the Unnamable One (since he got away): “Of course we're after Saddam Hussein -- I mean bin Laden. He's isolated. Seventy-five percent of his people have been brought to justice. The killer -- the mastermind of the September 11th attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, is in prison..” In fact, no one knows what percentage of Al Qaeda leadership has been captured or neutralized, and most salient reports indicate that Al Qaeda has expanded, has increased recruits as a response to Bush’s Iraq disaster, and is more dangerous than ever.
On Iraq, Kerry tried to insist that he had the credibility, ability, and plan to deal with the Iraq crisis and Bush had made a colossal error in going into the country in the first place and had no plan to get out. Bush insisted that his plan was to train Iraqi troops and let them create their own security, but he greatly exaggerated the number of troops trained and most reports from the ground indicated that the Iraqi military forces often refused to fight, in many cases sided with the insurgents, and were utterly incompetent to guarantee security in the country. Kerry repeatedly argued that allies needed to be brought in to share the responsibilities and rewards. Scoring a big point, he noted that Bush had given all the big contracts to Halliburton and other US corporations that supported Bush and had told countries who had not supported the invasion to forget about bidding for contracts. And Kerry perhaps scored his biggest point when at the end of several detailed exchanges on Iraq he noted that Bush’s “plan” came down to four words: “more of the same.”
Kerry also made much stronger arguments on Iran and North Korea than Bush, accusing the president of doing nothing and letting both countries develop nuclear capabilities. Kerry’s general motif was that by focusing all energy on Iraq more dangerous problems such as nuclear proliferation were not addressed. Bush insisted in the North Korea issue that it was unfeasible to carry out bilateral discussions, that it was better to have a multilateral force negotiating and that China would be marginalized and lose its leverage if the US began bilateral talks. Kerry insisted that both could be done and in fact China had been urging the US to get involved in dealing with North Korea directly so Bush appeared utterly inept and incompetent on foreign policy in this exchange.
After the debate, the candidates wives came on stage, both dressed in white, and Bush’s daughters also appeared. Theresa Kerry engaged Laura Bush in conversation while Kerry tried to talk to the Bush daughters who giggled and scurried away as their father, eager to get off the stage where he had performed so miserably, quickly left the stage with them and the wives continued talking and Kerry eagerly plunged into the audience knowing that he had scored big.
|
|
|
Pundits and Spinners weigh in: Kerry scores big
here's analysis by policy expertsTompaine.com - Print Page
Interestingly, the best the Republican National Committee rabid response could come up with was that Kerry lied about Bush a liar:
KERRY CLAIMS HE'S "NEVER, EVER" USED WORD "LYING" IN REFERENCE TO PRESIDENT BUSH ON IRAQ. JIM LEHRER: "New question, Senator Kerry. Two minutes. You've repeatedly accused President Bush, not here tonight but elsewhere before, of not telling the truth about Iraq. Essentially, of lying to the American people about Iraq. Give us some examples of what you consider to be his not telling the truth." SEN. KERRY: "Well, I've never, ever used the harshest word as you just did." (Sen. John Kerry, First Presidential Debate, Miami, FL, 9/30/04)
BUT IN DECEMBER 2003, KERRY TOLD NEW HAMPSHIRE EDITORIAL BOARD BUSH "LIED" ABOUT REASON FOR GOING TO WAR IN IRAQ. "Kerry also told a New Hampshire newspaper editorial board Friday that Bush had 'lied' about his reasons for going to war in Iraq, a word Kerry has been reluctant to use publicly for months. Yesterday he said he did not plan to use the word again." (Patrick Healy, "Kerry Camp Lowers N.H. Expectations Behind In Polls, Senator Now Seeks Spot In 'Top Two,'" The Boston Globe, 12/8/03)
AND IN SEPTEMBER 2003, KERRY SAID BUSH ADMINISTRATION "LIED" AND "MISLED." "This administration has lied to us. They have misled us. And they have broken their promises to us. The president promised to the people and the Congress that he would build an international coalition, respect the United Nations' process and only go to war as a last resort. I will tell you that from my war fighting experience, I believe there is a test for a president as to how you go to war. And that test is whether or not you can look in the eyes of parents and say to them, 'I did everything possible to avoid the loss of your son and daughter, but we had no other choice in order to protect the security of our nation,' and I know this president fails that test in Iraq." (Sen. John Kerry, Campaign Event, Claremont, NH, 9/20/03)
The Democratic National Committee by contrast had page after page of positive comments about Kerry and attacks on Bush. Here are some examples
REVIEWS KEEP COMING IN:
CNN / GALLUP POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE
Kerry: 53
Bush: 37
CBS POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE:
Kerry: 44
Bush: 26
Tie: 30
ABC POLL ON WHO WON DEBATE:
Kerry: 45
Bush: 36
Tie: 17
Mort Kondracke: “This is the President's turf, this is the place that the President is supposed to dominate, terror and the war in Iraq. I don't think he really dominated tonight. I think Kerry looked like a commander-in-chief.”
Kate O'Beirne, National Review Online’s the Corner: "I thought the President was repetitive and reactive."
Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online's the Corner: "The Bush campaign miscalculated on having the first night be foreign policy night."
Bob Schieffer: “The President was somewhat defensive in the beginning”
Mark Shields: "The President showed a few times obvious anger"
Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard: “I think Kerry did pretty well tonight, he was forceful and articulate.”
Bob Schieffer: “Kerry got off to a very good start.”
Joe Scarborough: “It was John Kerry’s best performance ever…As far as the debate goes, I don’t see how anybody could look at this debate and not score this a very clear win on points for John Kerry.” (MSNBC)
Andrea Mitchell: “This is the toughest we’ve ever seen John Kerry. He attacked the very core of the President’s popularity. He’s basically saying, who do you believe?” (MSNBC)
Tim Russert: “Tonight he seemed to find his voice for the Democratic view of the world.”
Fred Barnes on FNC: "Kerry did very well and we will have a Presidential race from here on out."
Posted on October 1, 2004 at 12:03 AM
BUSH vs. REALITY
BUSH: Mixed messages are bad for our troops, efforts in war on terror.
REALITY
Mixed Messages on Winning the War on Terror
“Can’t Win The War On Terror” Asked “Can we win [the war on terror]?” Bush said, “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the - those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.” [NBC, “The Today Show,” 8/30/04]
Mixed Messages on Osama Bin Laden
QUESTION: Do you want bin Laden dead?
BUSH: I want justice. And there’s an old poster out west, that I recall, that said, “Wanted, Dead or Alive.” [Bush Remarks, 9/17/01, emphasis added]
BUSH: “And [Osama Bin Laden is] just – he’s a person who has now been marginalized. His network is -- his host government has been destroyed. He’s the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match…So I don’t know where he is. Nor -- you know, I just don’t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I…I truly am not that concerned about him.” [Bush Remarks, 3/13/02]
Mixed Messages on Protecting the Homeland
Bush Thought Homeland Security Cabinet Position Was "Just Not Necessary” And Blocked Its Creation. In October 2001, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush opposed creating Office of Homeland Security position for Ridge. "[T]he president has suggested to members of Congress that they do not need to make this a statutory post, that he [Ridge] does not need Cabinet rank, for example, there does not need to be a Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security is because there is such overlap among the various agencies, because every agency of the government has security concerns," Fleischer said. [White House Press Briefing, 10/24/01]
Posted on September 30, 2004 at 10:25 PM
Debates | Entry link
BUSH vs. REALITY
BUSH RHETORIC: HE “HOPES” HIS POLICY IN NORTH KOREA WORKS
While Bush Failed to Have a Plan, Kerry Will Make it A Priority To End Nuclear Weapons Programs In North Korea, Kerry will make it a priority to end nuclear weapons programs in states like North Korea and Iran. As President, Kerry will continue the six party negotiations, but will also be prepared to talk directly with North Korea. John Kerry would adopt a comprehensive approach based on the hard realities that confront us. While Kerry would maintain all options, including military ones, he would be willing to negotiate on a range of issues of concern to both parties, including North Korea’s concerns for its security and economic development. [NYT, 9/12/04], [Washington Post, 7/9/04] [Washington Post, 8/6/04]
North Korean Nuclear Capability Has Quadrupled Under Bush’s Watch While He Sat By and Failed to Do Anything. The Bush administration's erratic handling of the North Korean nuclear crisis has served only to create confusion and put North Korea's despotic leader, Kim Jong Il, in the driver's seat. Bush initially said he would “not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea,” yet since he took office, North Korea’s nuclear capability has “quadrupled,” with U.S. intelligence services estimating that Pyongyang now has fuel for up to eight nuclear weapons. According to Bush Administration officials, “The United States has determined that North Korea is working on new ballistic missile systems designed to deliver nuclear warheads and that it is testing the technology by proxy in Iran.” [ABC, “This Week, 9/12/04; Christian Science Monitor, 9/15/04; Associated Press, 8/5/04; NYT, 9/12/04]
Former Bush Special Envoy to North Korea Said Bush Lacked An Effective Strategy To Deal With North Korea. “Charles Pritchard, formerly Secretary of State Colin Powell's top official dealing with North Korea, has warned for months that "the White House lacks an effective strategy to dissuade North Korea from building up its nuclear arms." Under Bush's watch, "North Korea's nuclear arsenal, which was once thought to number one or two weapons, appears to be growing substantially." According to Pritchard, the situation has deteriorated because "the administration has neither offered much of a carrot nor wielded a stick." The administration has refused to engage North Korea in direct negotiations or "put the North Koreans on notice that further developments will trigger economic sanctions or perhaps even military actions." [United Press International, 9/21/04]
Posted on September 30, 2004 at 10:14 PM
Debates | Entry link | Comments (5)
The Coalition of the Diminishing
Thailand: 423 troops leaving early on Aug. 31 instead of Sept. 20; 20 withdrawn on Aug. 10.
Norway: 10 currently in Iraq; 140 withdrawn on June 30. Cited reason: growing domestic opposition and peacekeepers needed elsewhere, such as Afghanistan.
Dominican Republic: 302 withdrawn on May 4. Cited reason: growing domestic opposition.
Honduras: 370 withdrawn on May 12. Cited reason: Troops were sent for reconstruction, not combat.
Nicaragua: 115 withdrawn on Feb. 4. Cited reason: lack of funds.
Philippines: 51 withdrawn on July 19. Cited reason: to save lives of hostages.
Singapore: 160 withdrawn on April 4. Cited reason: completed humanitarian mission.
Spain: 1,300 withdrawn on May 4. Cited reason: new government fulfilled campaign pledge.
Posted on September 30, 2004 at 10:09 PM
Debates | Entry link | Comments (1)
BUSH vs. REALITY
BUSH
Iraq wasn’t a diversion from the War on Terror
REALITY:
BUSH DIVERTED FROM WAR ON TERROR
The rush to war in Iraq took the pressure off of Bin Laden and al Qaeda. In 2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. The CIA, meanwhile, was stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan. US Intelligence officials said that as much as half of the intelligence and special forces assets in Afghanistan and Pakistan were diverted to support the war in Iraq. [USA Today, 3/29/04; KnightRidder, 9/5/03]
AND BECAUSE HE DIDN’T PLAN
Secret Joint Chiefs Report: Pentagon Planners Were Not Given Enough Time. In August 2003, the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepared a secret report assessing the post-war planning for Iraq. The report blamed “setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process.” It also said “planners were not given enough time” to plan for reconstruction. [Washington Times, 9/3/03, emphasis added]
WE ARE NOW BOGGED DOWN IN IRAQ
Security in Iraq Has Continually Deteriorated. On average, U.S. forces are now being attacked well over 60 times per day. This is a 20% increase from the three months before the transfer of sovereignty. Each month since June has seen a higher death toll for American soldiers: 42 were killed in June, 54 were killed in July, 66 were killed in August, and already, more than 77 have been killed in September. In the initial invasion of Iraq, 138 American soldiers were killed; since the handover, over 239 have been killed. [Los Angeles Times, 8/31/04; Reuters, 9/3/04; Brookings Institution, “Iraq Index,” 9/29/04]
Posted on September 30, 2004 at 10:01 PM
Debates | Entry link
Hunt down terrorists
1. Bush: you gotta have a president who'll persue the terrorists
But:
"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02
"I am truly not that concerned about him."
- G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts,
3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)
Posted on September 30, 2004 at 09:34 PM
http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/
|
|
|
The New York Times > In Debate, Kerry and Bush Stand Firm for 90 Minutes but Kerry clobbered him
The long-awaited moment of the debate finally came. Jim Leherer introduced the debate, sketched some of the ground rules, and introduced the candidates. An eager-beaver Bushie walked out first and went on the offensive, walking so fast that he met Kerry beyond the midpoint of the stage, in front of Mr. Kerry’s lecture. Kerry then seized the moment, leaned over to joke to Bush, with his 6’4” frame overwhelming the 5’ 10” Bush who Kerry managed to grab his hand and hold on and banter, as a flustered Bush tried to break away and return to his lectern.
John Kerry proved that he is one of the best debaters in the world last night, scoring point after point against the highly mediocre George W. Bush. Kerry was forceful, articulate and presidential, while Bush was defensive, confused, petulant, peevish, and inarticulate. While Kerry criticized his "colossal mistake" on Iraq and other blunders, the split-screen revealed Bush to be frowning, angry, shaking his head, blinking, squirming, and perhaps knocked off stride. A couple of times Bush interrupted as if he was going to make a killer point and then blanked out with his characteristic deer in the highlights blank look, and after painful silences sputtered out his "message" of the night, “I’m firm, resolute,” “shouldn’t send mixed messages” (he used this about ten times), and so on. Bush does not speak in the form of argument or even sentences. but sputters code words to his base. Often, he would hunch up his shoulders, lean over the lectern, and try to speak directly to the camera, but usually repeated his set “message” lines and didn’t really communicate anything of particular substance or interest, instead looking rather smallish in a scrunched-up and desperate attempt to say something memorable.
Hence, on the issue of style vs. substance that is often the focus of pundit discussion, Bush was terrible on style and weak on substance, whereas Kerry scored big on both. While there was worry that the rigid debate format and 32-pages of rules would inhibit spontaneous exchange and lead both candidates to simply regurgitate their standard stump speeches, in fact the exchanges were often dramatic, the differences in position and style were striking, and most observers found it an interesting and engrossing debate (although for Bush fans it must have been rather painful as the magisterial Kerry dominated the scene and Bush appeared not at all ready for prime time, much less the presidency).
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > News Analysis: In Debate, Kerry and Bush Stand Firm for 90 Minutes
|
|
