9/11, Saddam, and Terror

Oliver Willis distills the Republican National Convention down to it's most basic messages, and it's fairly f*cked up. To paraphrase my coworker Benari, the most horrible aspect of all this is that they've essentially made the tragedy of 9/11 meaningless in order to make cheap, political hay out of the most horrific attack ever to take place on American soil. Sons of bitches.

Keep Smiling, Democrats

E.J. Dionne understands why we were smiling yesterday morning, and he's not being caught by the spin that you may be incredulously witnessing on the SCLM Networks over the past 24 hours. You know what I mean. I'm talking about the "Bush won by not losing" drivel. Please, he got whipped. Let's shout it from the rooftops.

The Faces of Frustration

This video pretty much sums it up. Bush's worst performance ever. The music is a nice touch, too.

Send it to all of your friends.

The Debate

I suppose, as any good blogger should, I have to weigh in on the debate last night. I noted earlier, along with Josh Marshall and the boys at Pandagon, and many others, that the key to this debate was how the post-debate spin would really decide the winner for the public eye. Look anywhere, Kerry won it. Whether the comment is that he won it slightly, or he scored a TKO, there was no doubt that Kerry presented himself as a clear, coherent, presidential candidate. Bush, on the other hand, came off as somewhat uninformed, dodgy, repetitive, and angry at times.

Much of all of this has already been said elsewhere, but I'm buoyant this morning. Kerry was clear last night. There was no vacillation. Sometimes I wondered if Bush had really prepared for the debate at all. He seemed lost on the U.S. North Korea policy and inflexible on Iraq. Check out the blogosphere, check out the news media outlets. Kerry did very, very well. It was a great opening salvo and a much more exciting debate than I expected. I may have more later, but I'm just sort of basking in this feeling that Kerry swung and landed some serious blows last night, without being harmed any further by the Bush attack dialogue.

Perceptions, Distortions, and the Bush Record

Today, while arguing with my father about Bush's foreign and domestic policies (don't worry, he's voting for the good guy), I was struck by the realization that this Administration has done a remarkable job at distorting not only its intentions, but also its actual positions on all kinds of policy matters.

As if on cue, DailyKos picks up on this study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes that exposes what I was fearing. That is, those who support Bush don't know much about the guy's policies at all. And the SCLM doesn't help them out very much in sorting out the details, as far as I can tell. But they are certain to sort out for us how much John Kerry's haircuts cost. Sweet.

The Red Sox, The Playoffs, and Bill Simmons

I'm going off general topic for a post here. Most of you know me, and most of you know how much of a fanatical Red Sox fan I am. So I have to admit that, once again, they've sucked me into believing completely that THIS IS THE YEAR. Even after the most devastating loss of my conscious lifetime last October. That was then. This is now. They're going to do it this time. Just you wait.

Many of you probably don't know about Bill Simmons, however. Simmons, known now as The Sports Guy on ESPN.com's Page 2, was formerly known as The Boston Sports Guy and, in my opinion, speaks for the entirety of Red Sox Nation.

Take this nugget, for instance:

[Game 7 of the World Series] is scheduled for Halloween night. Seriously. I'm not sure what chain of events would need to happen here -- it would be extensive -- but the thought of Mike Myers coming out of the Red Sox bullpen, on Halloween night, to pitch in the deciding game of a World Series at Fenway ... I mean ... wouldn't that be the most unbelievable scenario in the history of sports? And what if he won the game? Would there be rioting in Boston and Haddonfield? I can't stop thinking about this. Red Sox pitcher Mike Myers enters Game 7 of the World Series at Fenway on Halloween night ... this could actually happen. My God.

So go read he latest column, Pledge allegiance to Red Sox and enjoy a true master of this art of blogging, regardless that it's about my favorite team.

One of the Many Republicans for Kerry

Ambassador Eisenhower with an enthusiastic endorsement (via Atrios).

Dan Rather v. George W. Bush

I received this in an email today from one of the local Chester County Dems. This is great, so I had to put it up here:

Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor

1) given documents he thought were true

2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts

3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case

4) when confronted with the facts, apologized and launched an investigation

5) number of Americans dead: 0

6) Republican solution: should be fired as CBS News Anchor


George W. Bush, President of the United States

1) given documents he thought were true

2) failed to thoroughly investigate the facts

3) reported documents to the American people as true to make his case

4) when confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth and stonewalled an investigation

5) number of Americans dead: 1100

6) Republican solution: should be given four more years as President of the United States

30 Days, 2,368 Attacks

I know, it's mind boggling. While Bush and Allawi have been painting such a pretty picture of Iraq, the troops there have been experiencing a decidedly different situation. A quick calculation puts that figure at about 79 attacks per day across Iraq. That's hardly the picture of peace and progress.

How Can Gallup...?

Ruy Teixiera, over at Donkey Rising, introduces us to a new game called How Can Gallup...?

"How do you play? It's easy! Just take the latest Gallup outlier and compare it to other publicly available data that seem to contradict it. And let the fun begin!"

For instance, How Can Gallup... have Bush leading the West by 21 points, while he is trailing by 15 points in California, losing in Washington, and in a dead heat in Oregon?

See? Fun!

It's a sweet post, and I don't want to wholesale copy it here, so check it out.

Noah

I have never seen such a torrential downpour like this. The staff here is collectively wondering if we'll even be able to make it to our homes tonight. All the low roads, including I-76 headed to Philly, are closed, and detours abound. I live approximately 3.5 miles from here as the crow flies, and I'll let you know in the morning how long it took me to make it back. Two out of a scheduled eighteen phone bankers made it into the office to work tonight, and I'm amazed that they made it.

We've also discovered that our office is not waterproof. We've got some serious leaks, but the wind seems to have shifted and they are not streaming as they were earlier.

We've got 34 days starting tomorrow morning, and the polls are turning in Kerry's favor here in PA. I think they'll be in his favor all over the country when this election is finally over. There are record numbers of voter registrations (mostly new dems) all over the country, and these are the people who aren't being polled. I think there are going to be some suprises in this election, and I'm confident that, with sustained effort, they'll go our way. Being positive is something that we have in our favor, and a positive Democratic electorate will win this election. We are on the right side of every issue, both factually and morally. So talk to your neighbors, your co-workers, and everyone else you can, about how much better off we can all be with Kerry in the White House.

We can all do a little bit more to help, so try to get those last few folks registered before your respective state deadline, or offer to give a senior neighbor a ride to the polls, or make phone calls on Nov. 2 to remind other Dems to vote. Everyone, even those too young to vote, can do something to help Kerry make this not only a successful election, but also a clear mandate about the direction we want our country to take over the next 4+ years.

A Brilliant Oil Painting of Bullshit

Atrios seems to have cranked it up today and is posting with a new wind. This is a great one about the way that the Bush Administration has been able to manufacture an entire alternate reality that is dutifully conveyed day after day by a pliant news media.

"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public."*







*Ray Zalinsky, Auto Parts King

Crawford, Texas Paper Endorses Kerry

Well, I guess the Village wants its idiot back.

The Debate: Spin or Be Spun

Josh Marshall is absolutely correct when he (and the Krugman column he cites) notes that the winner of the debate will not be decided in the 90 minutes of the debate itself, but rather during the post-debate spin spewed forth by the yapping heads on the SCLM*.

Krugman points out that the real test will be whether the print media is sucked in by the temptation to dwell on that spin and its inevitable focus on superficial style points, rather than ask the tough questions about the substance of the debate itself. The race will be to frame the debate, so to speak, and we know that the GOP will be doing everything it can to plant the impression that Bush won this round, regardless that our lying eyes will likely disagree.


*for the uninitiated, the "So Called Liberal Media"

NYT Bombshell on Iraq

The NYT today has an article describing the outlook before the invasion of Iraq as follows:

The officials' descriptions portray assessments that are gloomier than the predictions by some administration officials, most notably those of Vice President Dick Cheney. But in general, the warnings about anti-American sentiment and instability appear to have been upheld by events, and their disclosure could prove politically damaging to the White House, which has already had to contend with the disclosure that the National Intelligence Estimate prepared by the council in July presented a far darker prognosis for Iraq through the end of 2005 than Mr. Bush has done in his statements.

Hopefully this will make it more difficult for the Bush Administration to spin their prewar confidence on Iraq. They knew it would be like this, and they went in anyway.

Company

Seems there are others out there feeling the acrimony from the other side. Except Tony Pierce was threatened at his house. He handles it well, though.

Life Sentence

This from Talk Left, a blog that looks at the politics of crime. The post is about another important aspect of this election, the fact that the next presidential election will also decide the fate of the Supreme Court. That's a big freaking issue.

Oh, HELL Yeah

Apparently, when asked by Bill O'Reilly on FOX News if he would declare "mission accomplished" again if he had the chance, President Bush said that he would. Amazing. We had lost 150 soldiers in Iraq when he made the declaration. We've lost over 900 since.

The good news is that our man JK has already responded.

I think the new guys on the campaign have been doing their job.

Dean, sans Scream

Athenae at First Draft once again puts up a great blog entry. This time she quotes a speech by Howard Dean about this presidential race, and the direction of current American policy. Here's a great bit I've taken right from her entry:

"Two hundred and two Septembers after the creation of our Bill of Rights, Attorney General John Ashcroft drafted a document that has eroded our Constitutional rights and broken down the mutual trust between the American people and their government -- and between Americans and each other -- by making suspects out of all of us.

"That is not the act of a patriot.

"A true Patriot Act is not born out of fear, but out of trust; it is not born out of division, but out of community; it is not born out of suspicion, but out of faith in each of us.

"We need to remind this administration what a Patriot Act is.

"A neighbor lends a hand to a friend in need, that is a Patriot Act.

"A mother struggles for her children's future, that is a Patriot Act.

"An immigrant becomes a member of our American family, that is a Patriot Act.

"Men and women risk life and limb on behalf of our country through our armed services, that is a Patriot Act.

"Americans come together as a community and as a country to declare their values, their rights, and their very independence that is a Patriot Act, as it was in 1776 and as it is over two hundred years later and as it will be, through our actions, over two hundred years from now."

This resonates with me in a lot of ways. And probably more now that I've experienced the invective being hurled by the supporters of this Administration in the name of Patriotism. We really need to remember what it means to be a Patriot. So read the speech already.