Capitol Banter

Tonight's the Night

Tonight's the night,
tonight's the ni-i-i-ight
Tonight's the night,
tonight's the ni-i-i-ight.

Bruce Berry was a working man
He used to load that Econoline van.
A sparkle was in his eye
But his life was in his hands.

Well, late at night
when the people were gone
He used to pick up my guitar
And sing a song in a shaky voice
That was real as the day was long.

--Neil Young

[I]t is becoming increasingly difficult for the collective conventional wisdom to do anything other than declare Kerry the winner of the first debate -- everything about it just screams "Kerry" to us....

First, let's look at the momentum. It's simple physics: What goes up must come down. Bush is at or near his highs for the year in many of the most influential media polls (including the erratic and increasingly suspect Gallup poll)....

As for the media's desire for a horse race, one can already sense the early start of the search for a Kerry comeback story. It's not going to take much and the snowball of coverage will go from there. The press already assumes Kerry can't connect with voters and believes these voters don't have a clear sense of his vision for the country. Well, a debate is one place where voters tune in and admit they have finally learned something about a candidate. In this case, the bar is set low enough that it's difficult to imagine Kerry failing to clear it.

And finally, Bush's debate negotiating team may have actually done more to help Kerry than they realized. Take, for instance, the campaign's insistence that the first debate focus on foreign affairs rather than domestic issues. The war on terrorism is Bush's greatest strength; the war in Iraq is potentially his greatest weakness (though it's his best weapon against Kerry). Bush has more tough questions to answer on Iraq than his challenger. The campaign has already established the Massachusetts senator as a flip-flopper but Bush is going to have to answer, for his largest audience to date, what "mission" was "accomplished" last May. He will also have to respond questions about whether his campaign surrogates are crossing the line on the fear front.

It remains unclear why the Bush camp insisted on going with foreign policy first. If the campaign truly believes foreign affairs is the ace in the hole, then why not save it? Why risk having the most watched debate center on a topic that was supposed to be Bush's strength, just to have Kerry do better than expected? If Bush ever starts losing support on terrorism or Iraq, he's in big trouble. If the president doesn't win the first debate decisively, and Kerry grabs the momentum, then Bush is going to have to make a comeback in two debates that are in less comfortable environments -- the town hall in St. Louis and the domestic policy event in Phoenix.

Also, what if the Bush camp’s decision to allow the TV audience to see the flashing light when a candidate's time expires actually focuses Kerry and keeps him on message? Wouldn't the Bush campaign have been better off to spin post-debate about the number of times Kerry went over his allotted time? Now, the entire audience will know.

posted by Capitola @ 1:59:00 PM 10 comments

Lambs To The Slaughter

A series of bombs killed 35 children and seven adults Thursday as U.S. troops handed out candy at a government ceremony to inaugurate a new sewage treatment plant. Hours earlier, a suicide blast killed a U.S. soldier and two Iraqis on the capital's outskirts.

The bombs in Baghdad's al-Amel neighborhood caused the largest death toll of children in any insurgent attack since the conflict in Iraq began 17 months ago.

"The Americans called us, they told us, 'Come here, come here,' asking us if we wanted sweets. We went beside them, then a car exploded," said 12-year-old Abdel Rahman Dawoud, lying naked in a hospital bed with shrapnel embedded all over his body.

Two bombs went off in quick succession at the ceremony about 1 p.m., then were followed by a third explosion a short distance away, said Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman. He said there were two suicide car bombs and one roadside bomb; the Americans said all three were car bombs.

The explosions killed 42 people and wounded 141, including 10 U.S. soldiers. The wounded included 72 children under the age of 14, said Dr. Mohammed Salaheddin.

posted by Capitola @ 11:06:00 AM 1 comments

PDB*, Love KE04

posted by Capitola @ 10:08:00 AM 0 comments

Shake Rattle Roll

I have one small piece of advice for John Kerry leading into tonight's debate: shake your opponent's hand.

Kerry should walk over to Bush's podium when the debate begins and shake Bush's hand. Maybe even give him a little hug.

Why? Because the Bush campaign made it plain in the 32-page debate memorandum of understanding that they do not want to have their candidate appear on camera with the much taller John Kerry.

If Kerry tries to shake Bush's hand at the beginning of the debate he will put Bush in a tough spot. Bush will face the choice of accepting the handshake and appearing to be really short before 50 million teevee viewers (and, remember, the taller candidate usually wins these days) or he can shy away or even refuse to retrun this gesture of friendliness and show the nation what an ass he truly is.

posted by Capitola @ 9:17:00 AM 0 comments

Now Is The Time

Understandably, the American people are reluctant to believe that their President has made errors of judgement that have cost American lives.

To convince them otherwise, there is no substitute for hard evidence: documents, photographs, transcripts. Often the only way for the public to get such evidence is if a dedicated public servant decides to release it without permission.

[snip]

All administrations classify far more information than is justifiable in a democracy - and the Bush Administration has been especially secretive. Information should never be classified as secret merely because it is embarrassing or incriminating.

Surely there are officials in the Administration who recognise that America has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so far kept their silence.

To them I have a personal message: don't repeat my mistakes. Don't wait until more troops are sent, and thousands more have died, before telling truths that could end a war and save lives. Do what I wish I had done in 1964: go to the press, to the US Congress, and document your claims.

Technology may make it easier to tell your story, but the decision to do so will be no less difficult. The personal risks of making disclosures embarrassing to your superiors are real. If you are identified as the source, your career will be over; friendships will be lost; you may even be prosecuted.

But 140,000 Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq. America is in urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials.

posted by Capitola @ 8:20:00 AM 2 comments

Turning Gold Into Bullshit

Gallup has done it again. After supplying CNN and USA Today with a poll two weeks ago that showed a double-digit Bush lead amongst likely voters that turned out to have a significant bias in its sample favoring the GOP, Gallup did it again yesterday.

Except that yesterday, they not only did it again, they apparently felt that a 7% GOP bias wasn't good enough. So they perpetrated the same fraud upon the media (including their partners CNN and USAT) and voters and this time used a 12% GOP bias in their likely voter screen. I kid you not.

[snip]

So if a poll with an unsupportable GOP bias of 12% in its likely voter sample, shows an 8% Bush lead amongst likely voters when a poll they used two weeks ago with a 7% GOP bias showed a 13% Bush lead with likely voters, then how can anyone not conclude that Kerry is doing much better than Gallup would have you believe?

By presenting these polls with this kind of bias, and then ensuring through CNN and USA Today the farthest possible media saturation, why is Gallup not guilty of engaging in a political disinformation campaign?

I've noticed watching Wolf Blitzer over the past few days that the reality as presented by the Bush administration is the reality that he, and much of the rest of the TV news media, convey to the public. It isn't simply a disagreement over certain issues, it's the digestion and regurgitation of an entire alternative reality world which has been served up by the Bush administration and eagerly spit back out by those in the media. It isn't simply about successful framing of the issues, they've managed to provide an entire canvas, a brilliant oil painting of bullshit.

It's impossible for Democrats and other people who are actually living in this world and not the one which the Bush administration has erected around the CNN studios to break through this. It's one thing to challenge errors, or provide a different spin, or reframe an issue. It's another thing to have to tear down the very fabric of this alternate reality.

The Bushies love to mock people for "living in a September 10 world" (apparently not bothered by the fact that on September 10th it was they who were tragically living in that world), but they and much of the rest of our news media are living in a May 2nd 2003 world, where the mission has been accomplished, the "schools" are being rebuilt, electricity is being restored, and progress is being made.

posted by Capitola @ 10:47:00 AM 1 comments

Kennedy Goes Nuclear

''The war in Iraq has made the mushroom cloud more likely, not less likely,'' Kennedy will say in Washington today -- and he will also say he's relieved Bush wasn't in charge during the Cuban missile crisis when his brother was president and the country came this close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union

"Kennedy's Monday speech details 13 reasons why Bush's policies have not made the United States safer from terrorism. Among other things, he said the war in Iraq created a new breeding ground for terrorists, distracted from efforts to eliminate al-Qaida, alienated America's allies and allowed North Korea and Iran to pursue nuclear weapons."

"The president's handling of the war has been a toxic mix of ignorance, arrogance, and stubborn ideology. No amount of Presidential rhetoric or preposterous campaign spin can conceal the facts about the steady downward spiral in our national security since President Bush made the decision to go to war in Iraq. If this election is decided on the question of whether America is safer because of President George Bush, John Kerry will win in a landslide. "

"What is helping to unite so many of the Iraqi people in hatred of America is their emerging sense that America is unwilling not just unable to rebuild their shattered country and provide for their basic needs. Far from sharing President Bush's unrealistically rosy view, they see up-close that their hope for peace and stability is receding every day. Inevitably, more and more Iraqis feel that attacks on coalition forces are acceptable, even if they would not resort to violence themselves."

"The Bush Administration's focus on Iraq has left us needlessly more vulnerable to an Al Qaeda attack with a nuclear weapon. The greatest threat of all to our homeland is a nuclear attack. A mushroom cloud over any American city is the ultimate nightmare, and the risk is all too real. Osama bin Laden calls the acquisition of a nuclear device a "religious duty." Documents captured from a key Al Qaeda aide three years ago revealed plans even then to smuggle high-grade radioactive materials into the United States in shipping containers."

"If Al Qaeda can obtain a nuclear weapon, they will certainly use it on New York, or Washington, or any of America's other major cities. The greatest danger we face in the days and weeks and months ahead is a nuclear 9/11, and we hope and pray that it is not already too late to prevent. The war in Iraq has made the mushroom cloud more likely, not less likely."

posted by Capitola @ 8:37:00 AM 0 comments

Bloggers R Us

The interesting part of CBS's open wound isn't the Killian story, but what it reveals about the sad, defensive, desperate state of the media as a whole. And the role played by the bloggers -- all idiotic triumphalism aside -- is only hyped because they don't quite understand us and, because of their ignorance, respect the potential of our unknown power. What they are not reacting to is the actual competence or importance we possess. As a blogger, as someone for whom blogging has done wonders and taught much, I wholeheartedly endorse this paragraph, which accurately captures the nature of both ends of the blogging spectrum:

[Tina's Paragraph] Fear of missing the bandwagon is behind all the hype about the brilliance of bloggers who blew the whistle. You'd think "Buckhead," who first spotted the flaws in the documents, is the cyberworld's Woodward and Bernstein. Now the conventional wisdom is that the media will be kept honest and decent by an army of incorruptible amateur gumshoes. In fact, cyberspace is populated by a coalition of political obsessives and pundits on speed who get it wrong as much as they get it right. It's just that they type so much they are bound to nail a story from time to time. /quote

[snip]

...Nice to know we're read, but sad to know that this triumphant moment didn't even come from one of our number. We didn't -- couldn't -- break Abu Ghraib. We are not the wellspring of new media nor the providers of an alternative voice. We don't bring you interviews that bare the souls of their subjects and the only news we break is what you can logically deduce from public documents.

At our best, we have an informed opinion or entertaining take on world events. We have vibrant boards of interested activists that provide a public space for political speech and, sometimes, involvement. We have people like Josh Marshall and Juan Cole who decide to use this format to peddle their expertise, but could really choose -- and excel -- in any medium. We're smart guys at the bar and we hopefully, hopefully, make the political sphere slightly better for our involvement. Anything you hear beyond that is simply masturbation -- it feels good and means nothing.

posted by Capitola @ 3:55:00 PM 0 comments

Iraq: Year Zero

It was only after I had been in Baghdad for a month that I found what I was looking for. I had traveled to Iraq a year after the war began, at the height of what should have been a construction boom, but after weeks of searching I had not seen a single piece of heavy machinery apart from tanks and humvees. Then I saw it: a construction crane. It was big and yellow and impressive, and when I caught a glimpse of it around a corner in a busy shopping district I thought that I was finally about to witness some of the reconstruction I had heard so much about. But as I got closer I noticed that the crane was not actually rebuilding anything—not one of the bombed-out government buildings that still lay in rubble all over the city, nor one of the many power lines that remained in twisted heaps even as the heat of summer was starting to bear down. No, the crane was hoisting a giant billboard to the top of a three-story building. SUNBULAH: HONEY 100% NATURAL, made in Saudi Arabia.

Seeing the sign, I couldn’t help but think about something Senator John McCain had said back in October. Iraq, he said, is “a huge pot of honey that’s attracting a lot of flies.” The flies McCain was referring to were the Halliburtons and Bechtels, as well as the venture capitalists who flocked to Iraq in the path cleared by Bradley Fighting Vehicles and laser-guided bombs. The honey that drew them was not just no-bid contracts and Iraq’s famed oil wealth but the myriad investment opportunities offered by a country that had just been cracked wide open after decades of being sealed off, first by the nationalist economic policies of Saddam Hussein, then by asphyxiating United Nations sanctions.

Looking at the honey billboard, I was also reminded of the most common explanation for what has gone wrong in Iraq, a complaint echoed by everyone from John Kerry to Pat Buchanan: Iraq is mired in blood and deprivation because George W. Bush didn’t have “a postwar plan.” The only problem with this theory is that it isn’t true. The Bush Administration did have a plan for what it would do after the war; put simply, it was to lay out as much honey as possible, then sit back and wait for the flies.

The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished belief of the war’s ideological architects: that greed is good.

[snip]

The problem is that governments, even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to prove their sacred theory right: despite their enormous ideological advances, even George Bush’s Republicans are, in their own minds, perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions, and alarmist environmentalists.

Iraq was going to change all that. In one place on Earth, the theory would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen.

[snip]

The fact that the boom never came and Iraq continues to tremble under explosions of a very different sort should never be blamed on the absence of a plan. Rather, the blame rests with the plan itself, and the extraordinarily violent ideology upon which it is based.

The article explains how L. Paul Bremer declared Iraq "Open for Business" two weeks after he arrived and the move would later be described as "the largest state liquidation sale since the collapse of the Soviet Union."

It might have been the plans for the McDonald’s in downtown Baghdad, or the planned Starwood luxury hotel and General Motors auto plant, that, when mixed with the myriad power struggles raging in the war-torn country, finally broke the proverbial camel's back and turned the neocons' dreams of a utopian society into the chaos and madness that is Iraq today. One thing is certain: For the neocons, their ideological belief in greed turned out to be stronger than greed itself.

posted by Capitola @ 7:47:00 AM 1 comments

Kerry Channelling Neil?!

Dear Capitola:

Let's show them what we're made of. The Bush campaign and the Republican Party strategists are betting that we Democrats aren't tough or committed enough to help our candidates drive through to victory. Maybe they won't understand it until they're packing their bags in November. But you and I know it now.

We're running a "we won't be denied" campaign and we will not yield an inch -- especially not now, when everything is on the line. September 30 -- just seven days away -- is a crucial end-of-the-month deadline. It's the point at which the Democratic Party must make critical decisions, allocating resources for the final month of our drive to elect John Kerry, John Edwards and other Democratic candidates.

It's a simple equation. The more resources we have, the harder we can compete, and the stronger our chances of victory will be in the most important election of our lifetime.

To defeat George W. Bush and win other pivotal contests, the next seven days have to be something special. Let's do it. Let's send wave after wave of donations pouring into Democratic Party headquarters between now and September 30, starting right now -- starting with you acting this very minute.

All through October, we'll see a fast-paced flurry of activity as Election Day closes in. It's absolutely essential that we give our spirited, full-fledged support to John Kerry and other candidates locked in tough races against well-funded and highly-motivated opponents. To win, we've got to go toe-to-toe with George W. Bush and the Republican Party every step of the way.

Don't yield an inch.

[snip]

We're in a tight race with everything we care about on the line. Let's act with the passion and urgency called for by this amazing moment in the life of our nation.

On to victory,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

posted by Capitola @ 3:52:00 PM 0 comments

Best. Captioning. Ever.

World gives Dubya a "time out". 

posted by Capitola @ 11:56:00 AM 0 comments

Flippity Floppity Flip

Dear Mr. Bush:

[snip]

I know you hate the words "flip" and "flop," so I won't use them both on you. In fact, I'll use just one: Flop. That is what you are. A huge, colossal flop. The war is a flop, your advisors and the "intelligence" they gave you is a flop, and now we are all a flop to the rest of the world. Flop. Flop. Flop.

And you have the audacity to criticize John Kerry with what you call the "many positions" he has taken on Iraq. By my count, he has taken only one: He believed you. That was his position. You told him and the rest of congress that Saddam had WMDs. So he -- and the vast majority of Americans, even those who didn't vote for you -- believed you. You see, Americans, like John Kerry, want to live in a country where they can believe their president.

That was the one, single position John Kerry took. He didn't support the war, he supported YOU. And YOU let him and this great country down. And that is why tens of millions can't wait to get to the polls on Election Day -- to remove a major, catastrophic flop from our dear, beloved White House -- to stop all the flipping you and your men have done, flipping us and the rest of the world off.

posted by Capitola @ 11:17:00 AM 0 comments

Kerry Speaks We Listen

"Even today, he blundered again saying there are only a handful of terrorists in Iraq," Kerry said in a brief interview. "George Bush retreated from Fallujah and other communities in Iraq which are now overrun with terrorists and threaten our troops."

Bush, campaigning in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, said, "It's hard to help a country go from tyranny to elections to peace when there are a handful of people who are willing to kill in order to stop the process. And that's what you're seeing on the TV screens.

Kerry said that in criticizing his statements on Iraq, Bush was "living in a make-believe world," unwilling to tell the truth or to understand the situation in Iraq.

The Democrat said he had laid out "steps to win the war, not to change, not to retreat, steps to win. George Bush is trying to fight a phantom here because he won't tell the American people the truth, so he sets up something that's not a real issue and attacks it."

Bush "missed a huge opportunity" at the United Nations this week to try to persuade other nations' leaders to join the United States in Iraq and the broader anti-terror war, Kerry said.

"I don't think he's providing the leadership we need," Kerry said. "I will do a better job of dealing with Iraq and winning the war and fighting the war on terror, period."

[snip]

In a day filled with rhetorical charges and countercharges -- at campaign stops and in advertising -- all four candidates found fault. Responding to Cheney's criticism of Kerry, Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said in a statement that Bush and Cheney "are the last two people we need a lecture from about how to keep the American people safe."

"It is the height of absurdity for Dick Cheney, a chief architect of the Iraq quagmire, to talk about the leadership needed to fix the mess in Iraq that he created," said Edwards, reviving a word -- quagmire -- often used to describe the Vietnam War.

posted by Capitola @ 9:31:00 AM 1 comments

Hell on Earth

Contrary to the administration's hopeful statements, we are not seeing the establishment of a stable Iraq, the mopping up of unreformed Baath Party apparatchiks and dead-enders. We are seeing the beginning of a larger conflict that is busily giving birth to monsters.

Since April, the coalition has lost ground in central and western Iraq and will be forced in the coming months to gain it back at great cost. Fallujah and Ramadi, two sizable Iraqi cities, are no longer under Iraqi government control. Sadr City, with several million people, remains a stronghold for the Mahdi Army and the site of a continuing series of battles.

[snip]

Here is something everyone in Iraq knows: The U.S. is now fighting a holding action against a growing uprising, and the more it fights the worse it gets. At the other end of the spectrum, if the U.S. military were to suddenly withdraw, the largest armed factions in Iraq would immediately begin to compete for the capital in a bloody civil war. Recently, a National Intelligence Estimate, a document prepared for President Bush by senior intelligence officials, warned of exactly that outcome.

[snip]

The war, illegal and founded on a vast lie, has produced two tragedies of equal magnitude: an embryonic civil war in the world's oldest country, and a triumph for those in the Bush administration who, without a trace of shame, act as if the truth does not matter. Lying until the lie became true, the administration pursued a course of action that guaranteed large sections of Iraq would become havens for jihadis and radical Islamists. That is the logic promoted by people who take for themselves divine infallibility -- a righteousness that blinds and destroys. Like credulous Weimar Germans who were so delighted by rigged wrestling matches, millions of Americans have accepted Bush's assertions that the war in Iraq has made the United States and the rest of the world a safer place to live. Of course, this is false.

But it is a useful fiction because it is a happy one. All we need to know, according to the administration, is that America is a good country, full of good people and therefore cannot make bloody mistakes when it comes to its own security. The bitter consequence of succumbing to such happy talk is that the government of the most powerful nation in the world now operates unchecked and unmoored from reality; leaving us teetering on the brink of another presidential term where abuse of authority has been recast as virtue.

[snip]

The administration, under false premises, invaded a country that it barely understood. We entered a country in shambles, a population divided against itself. The U.S. invasion was a catalyst of violence and religious hatred, and the continuing presence of American troops has only made matters worse. Iraq today bears no resemblance to the president's vision of a fledgling democracy. On its way to national elections in January, Iraq has already slipped into chaos.

posted by Capitola @ 8:13:00 AM 0 comments

Yummy Yum Red Meat

Even as a grim collage of mounting insurgent attacks, civilian beheadings by terrorists, and the general spread of chaos continues to darken the long shadow that's fallen over Iraq, the Bush campaign is launching a new TV ad focused on some other really, really important stuff. It seems they have a problem with their opponent's choice of leisure sport, and what it might say about his integrity. In the new spot, titled "Windsurfing", BC '04 cleverly flogs its Kerry flip-flopper theme, this time by showing Kerry tacking back and forth across the water, and announcing "John Kerry: whichever way the wind blows."

While the Kerry camp has taken much criticism for being too slow to respond to the Bush camp's cheap-shot tactics, they're wasting no time in fighting back now. Taking to the airwaves with a new ad of their own, the Kerry camp today is condemning President Bush for ignoring "the Iraq quagmire," while running the juvenile and tasteless attack ad. Their response, titled "Juvenile", will air in the same markets as the new Bush spot.

Campaigning in Florida today, John Edwards further expressed his dismay at Bush's flippancy.

"Today George Bush is laughing again," he told reporters in Miami. "Over a thousand Americans have lost their lives, Americans are being beheaded. Iraq is a mess and they think this is a joke."

posted by Capitola @ 3:19:00 PM 0 comments

YT Hearts Kerry

Kerry, who held a rally in Orlando on Tuesday night "right next door to (Walt Disney World's) fantasy land," said the difference between himself and Bush was, "I drove by it and he lives in it."

"I will never privatize Social Security, ever, ever, ever."

posted by Capitola @ 2:09:00 PM 0 comments

Oh The Irony

The Boston Globe reports that Bush still faces a "skeptical crowd" at the UN. Like most other papers, the Globe pointed out that the applause during the speech was sparse.

The headline of an editorial in The Independent reads: "Mr. Bush had a chance to ask for help in Iraq, but he chose to preach instead."

The Guardian called Bush's speech "unrepentant" and asserted that it "appeared essentially tailored for a domestic audience rather than foreign consumption." The Guardian quotes Swiss president, Joseph Deiss, as saying: "In hindsight, experience shows that actions taken without a mandate which has been clearly defined in a security council resolution are doomed to failure."

Geov Parrish, a Seattle-based columnist and reporter for Seattle Weekly, writes that "Bush embarrassed America when he went before a stony-faced audience at the United Nations Tuesday and claimed that all was well in Iraq..."

Slate columnist Fred Kaplan criticizes Bush's speech for empty rhetoric.

"It was a puzzling speech from start to finish. Near its beginning, when Bush said, "We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace," was there a delegate in the chamber who didn't wonder at the irony? It was Bush himself, after all, who was quick to choose war in Iraq – insiders' chronicles agree that he decided on that path in early 2002, over a year before the UN debates – while the vast majority of the body's members, free and unfree, were striving for a resolution short of conflict."

posted by Capitola @ 1:00:00 PM 0 comments

In Their Shoes

President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

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

[snip]

What if no one had electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if unemployment hovered around 40%?

What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis?

posted by Capitola @ 10:03:00 AM 1 comments

If You Had Just One Question

You are at the debates and given the microphone. The whole nation is watching, and the way you ask and phrase your question will reflect on Democrats.
What would you ask?

"Mr. President, in July of 2003 you said if anyone wanted to attack our troops in Iraq, they should bring it on. In March of this year you appeared at a reporters' dinner and ran a video in which you jokingly stumbled around your office looking for weapons of mass destruction. Can you explain this behavior to the families who have lost loved ones in Iraq?"

posted by Capitola @ 9:44:00 PM 1 comments

Sing It: I Love A Charade!

“In today’s New York Post, Roger Stone, who became associated with political ‘dirty tricks’ while working for Nixon, refused to deny that he was the source the CBS documents.

“Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone’s relationship with these forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr. Stone’s involvement? Or for that matter, others with a known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or Ralph Reed?”

Washington, DC— Facing questions about President Bush’s Guard Service and its own possible involvement with the disputed National Guard documents, the Republican National Committee has postponed a call scheduled to discuss the issue this afternoon.

And, in the last several hours, the Bush campaign has also cancelled scheduled appearances by Dan Bartlett on cable networks this evening. These cancellations came as the Bush operatives refused to appear live alongside Kerry campaign official Joe Lockhart.

“It’s clear that even the Bush campaign is having a problem defending the President’s National Guard service,” said Democratic National Committee Spokesman Howard Wolfson. “The Bush campaign has decided to once again duck the tough questions and avoid real debate. Given the President’s National Guard service, I don’t blame them for being camera shy.”

"Roger Stone, the dirty-tricks hobgoblin of Republican politics, has exploited his Bush connections to become an influence-peddling force in the $13 billion Indian gaming industry," reports Wayne Barrett. "Stone's booming business in such a federally regulated enterprise makes his recent pro bono orchestration of Al Sharpton's double-edged presidential campaign an even stranger covert caper. Stone financed and helped organize Sharpton's campaign in the Democratic presidential primary, prompting speculation that Sharpton was actually a stealth Republican operative working to weaken the party's chances in the general election. "Stone has a history of bizarre political operations, beginning with his Watergate-era infiltration of the McGovern campaign," Barrett notes. He explores Stone's current "double-agent role" in Indian gaming, which "mirrors his seemingly bizarre orchestration of the Sharpton scam. Both are just the latest sagas in Stone's exotic career of self-serving misdirection." Source: Village Voice, April 19, 2004

posted by Capitola @ 3:29:00 PM 0 comments

Operation Orphan

One of our neighbors, Chris Smith, is on his second tour of duty in Iraq, mainly around Fallujah. Currently his platoon is training Iraqi National Guard Units. However, Chris, who is a very charitable and compassionate person, thought of a great way to help some of the destitute Iraqi children. Here is a portion of the most recent email he sent to his parents on September 13:

The other day I took my platoon out on a patrol in the town of Diwanijah and we stopped off at an orphanage to assess the organization, and see if any coalition funding was needed there. I went in and met dozens of beautiful children of all ages that have virtually nothing. The toys and coloring books you see our American kids with back home is a something you don't see kids with over here. After stopping in that orphanage and at a few day care centers, I quickly thought to myself how great it would be to be able to give these kids some toys, coloring books, or anything that would make a difference to these children. An Iraqi child would have a year's worth of stories to tell from just being given a ball, or one coloring book.

That is why my platoon has started "Operation Orphan" here in Iraq, trying to draw any type of support and assistance we can from the kind hearted Americans back home in Cerritos. I have already contacted some friends, family members, and neighbors back in Cerritos to see if they can assist my platoon in any way getting some toys out here for these kids. Some local churches have been contacted and I am hoping the word will spread to a lot more people.

For anybody, or any organization that would be interested in sending toys or other items to support Operation Orphan, this is what we are suggesting:

- Coloring books and crayons
- Water painting supplies
- Dolls/ Figurines
- Balls ( rubber, soccer, etc.)
- Hot wheels
- Jumping ropes
- Yo-Yo's
- And all the normal stuff a child would enjoy playing with. It doesn't have to be new. Used toys will do just fine also!

Please know that simply ANY type of support, or passing of this information would be greatly appreciated.

Anybody who would like to assist the United States Marine Corps and my platoon with Operation Orphan can send their packages to:

1st Lieutenant Chris Smith
"Operation Orphan"
Alpha Company, 1/4, 11th MEU
UIC 40255
FPO-AP 96610-0255

Email Address: alpharaider1@yahoo.com

If you could please disseminate this information to as many people as possible it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

Semper Fidelis,

Christopher M. Smith
1stLt/USMC

posted by Capitola @ 1:19:00 PM 3 comments

Bush Speak We Cringe

I can't wait until he's done. He's careening all over the road. We went from terrorism and democracy, to cloning to the Sudan and back to terrorism and democracy. And he's still - STILL insisting that the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are basking in their newfound democracy. And he said the Iraqi security force is "growing." What, from zero Iraqis trained to...a half an Iraqi trained?

It's amazing that his "resolute" brain can't grasp the fact that there's a thing called "geopolitics" - Bush's warped vision of "democracy" and "freedom" simply doesn't work and is not always accepted in all parts of the world. The planet is not a toy to be comprehended by the average nine-year-old. It's complex. Bush isn't. He should not be the leader of the free world. He simply doesn't understand.

The simple folk in the red states eat this drivel up by the bucketload. But the rest of the world is looking at him like he just fell off - well, a turnip truck wouldn't get past U.N. security. Man, he's an embarrassment.
_______

He's done. In short: "I ignored all of you and created a crapstorm in two countries. Help me. Please. Pleeease."

posted by Capitola @ 9:38:00 AM 3 comments

Kofi's Choice

Annan opened this year's annual debate of world leaders at the United Nations by critising Bush's plan to deliver democracy to Iraq through forcein a pointed speech aimed at underlining the importance of the rule of law.

"Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it, and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it," Annan said, according to his prepared remarks.

"In Iraq, we see civilians massacred in cold blood while relief workers, journalists and other non-combatants are taken hostage and put to death in the most barbarous fashion," he said.

"At the same time, we have seen Iraqi prisoners disgracefully abused," he said, drawing a parallel between the Iraq bloodshed and the prisoner scandal in a way destined to irk Bush, who was to due to speak after Annan.

He said his mission was "not to retreat, it is to prevail."

"We will standing with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq until their hopes for freedom and liberty are fulfilled," Bush said.

"Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or not, here we go." - Bob Novack

[snip]

Well-placed sources in the administration are confident Bush's decision will be to get out. They believe that is the recommendation of his national security team and would be the recommendation of second-term officials.

posted by Capitola @ 8:38:00 AM 0 comments

A Strident Minority

Anti-Bush US troops in Iraq

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

"Everyone's watching it," says a Marine corporal at an outpost in Ramadi that is mortared by insurgents daily. "It's shaping a lot of people's image of Bush."

[snip]

"[For] 9 out of 10 of the people I talk to, it wouldn't matter who ran against Bush -they'd vote for them," said a US soldier in the southern city of Najaf, seeking out a reporter to make his views known. "People are so fed up with Iraq, and fed up with Bush."

"Nobody I know wants Bush," says an enlisted soldier in Najaf, adding, "This whole war was based on lies." Like several others interviewed, his animosity centered on a belief that the war lacked a clear purpose even as it took a tremendous toll on US troops, many of whom are in Iraq involuntarily under "stop loss" orders that keep them in the service for months beyond their scheduled exit in order to keep units together during deployments.

"There's no clear definition of why we came here," says Army Spc. Nathan Swink, of Quincy, Ill. "First they said they have WMD and nuclear weapons, then it was to get Saddam Hussein out of office, and then to rebuild Iraq. I want to fight for my nation and for my family, to protect the United States against enemies foreign and domestic, not to protect Iraqi civilians or deal with Sadr's militia," he said.

Specialist Swink, who comes from a family of both Democrats and Republicans, plans to vote for Kerry. "Kerry protested the war in Vietnam. He is the one to end this stuff, to lead to our exit of Iraq," he said.

We shouldn't be here

Other US troops expressed feelings of guilt over killing Iraqis in a war they believe is unjust.

"We shouldn't be here," said one Marine infantryman bluntly. "There was no reason for invading this country in the first place. We just came here and [angered people] and killed a lot of innocent people," said the marine, who has seen regular combat in Ramadi. "I don't enjoy killing women and children, it's not my thing."

posted by Capitola @ 3:23:00 PM 0 comments

It's Your Judgment, Stupid!

"Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?" the Democratic presidential candidate said at New York University.

Kerry said Monday, "Is he really saying to Americans that if we had known there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaida, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is resoundingly no because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe."

"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," Kerry said. "But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."

Kerry said Monday that Bush's invasion of Iraq has created a crisis that could lead to unending war and has raised questions about whether Bush's judgment is up to presidential standards. He offered his own four-point plan starting with pressing other nations for help.

_ Get more help from other nations.

_ Provide better training for Iraqi security forces.

_ Provide benefits to the Iraqi people.

_ Ensure that democratic elections can be held next year as promised.

"If the president would move in this direction ... we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring all our troops home within the next four years," Kerry said.

Bush's mistakes, Kerry said, "were not the equivalent of accounting errors. They were colossal failures of judgment — and judgment is what we look for in a president."

posted by Capitola @ 8:44:00 AM 2 comments

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, FantasyLand, USA

Bush's strategists say he is trying to reach swing voters by showing how women benefit from his national security and economic policies, and it may be working. A few polls over the past month have shown him narrowing the gender gap that has dogged Republicans since Ronald Reagan's race in 1980. Pollsters said the change is largely because security has become a bigger issue for all voters, making "security moms" one of this election's hot categories and displacing Democrat-friendly issues such as health care and education.

(CNN) -- Mothers of U.S. troops serving in Iraq will help Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry make the case Monday that President Bush's optimistic view of the war does not reflect reality, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said Sunday.

Kerry will make a "major address" on the issue at New York University, where at least five mothers of service members will criticize Bush's leadership in Iraq, McAuliffe told reporters in a conference call.

"They're sick and tired of George W. Bush and his rosy scenarios," he said. "They want America to know the truth, because they're talking to their sons and daughters" who have told them that Bush "is not telling the truth."

[snip]

He said the United States has become more isolated, with polls showing international opinion of U.S. policy plummeting.

"We're heading in the wrong direction in Iraq, and the president refuses to admit it," he said. "How can you fix a problem that you refuse to acknowledge exists?"

Instead, he said, Bush simply repeats that U.S.-led forces are making progress.

"He's like an ostrich with his head stuck in the sand," McAuliffe said.

posted by Capitola @ 5:58:00 PM 0 comments

7 Standing Os and 1 Quagmire

While Bush received seven standing ovations during his remarks to the Guard association, Kerry's speech was greeted with polite and scattered applause. His remarks on Bush's handling of the war in Iraq were met with silence.

FORT DIX, N.J. -- The 635 soldiers of a battalion of the South Carolina National Guard scheduled to depart Sunday for a year or more in Iraq have spent their off-duty hours under a disciplinary lockdown in their barracks for the past two weeks.

The trouble began Labor Day weekend, when 13 members of the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment went AWOL, mainly to see their families again before shipping out. Then there was an ugly confrontation between members of the battalion's Alpha and Charlie batteries -- the term artillery units use instead of "companies" -- that threatened to turn into a brawl involving three dozen soldiers, and required the base police to intervene.


[snip]

This Guard unit was put on an accelerated training schedule -- giving the soldiers about 36 hours of leave over the past two months -- because the Army needs to get fresh troops to Iraq, and there are not enough active-duty or "regular" troops to go around. Preparation has been especially intense because the Army is short-handed on military police units, so these artillerymen are being quickly re-trained to provide desperately needed security for convoys. And to fully man the unit, scores of soldiers were pulled in from different Guard outfits, some voluntarily, some on orders.

As members of the unit looked toward their tour, some said they were angry, or reluctant to go, or both. Many more are bone-tired. Overall, some of them fear, the unit lacks strong cohesion -- the glue that holds units together in combat.

"Our morale isn't high enough for us to be away for 18 months," said Pfc. Joshua Garman, 20, who, in civilian life, works in a National Guard recruiting office. "I think a lot of guys will break down in Iraq." Asked if he is happy that he volunteered for the deployment, Garman said, "Negative. No time off? I definitely would not have volunteered."

posted by Capitola @ 1:22:00 PM 0 comments

He's *So* Out Of The Loop

"We didn't find the stockpiles we thought we would find, the stockpiles that everybody thought was there. But I do know, that he had the capability of making those weapons, and he could've passed that capability on to an enemy ... Knowing what I know today, I would've made the same decision," Bush said.

Iraq Study Finds Desire for Arms, but Not Capacity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 - A new report on Iraq's illicit weapons program is expected to conclude that Saddam Hussein's government had a clear intent to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons if United Nations sanctions were lifted, government officials said Thursday. But, like earlier reports, it finds no evidence that Iraq had begun any large-scale program for weapons production by the time of the American invasion last year, the officials said.

posted by Capitola @ 9:47:00 PM 0 comments

They're Sick I Tell Ya Sick

All right, one more question. We got somebody over here? Sure. There you go.

Q Yesterday, a teacher of mine refused to sign an absence slip to come here. (Laughter.)

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Booo!.

Q And she said do you realize once -- if Bush gets reelected, that he'll make a draft. And I was just wondering what your thoughts were on the draft, and if this teacher what she said was at all necessary. (Laughter.)

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Did you get your -- did you get your absence slip?

posted by Capitola @ 8:30:00 PM 0 comments

It's Genetic

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told residents of the hurricane-weary state to take the necessary precautions, prepare for the impact and listen to authorities as evacuation orders go into effect.

"This is not the time to be defiant or to kind of let people know that you're a macho man. There are other ways to do that in life," Bush said at a news conference.

posted by Capitola @ 6:59:00 PM 0 comments

Who's Your Daddy

The Pentagon on Friday released more documents on President Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard Service, including a letter from his then-congressman father George Bush thanking a general for "taking interest in a brand new Air Force trainee."

Dozens of pages of documents, including historical records of the Air Guard unit in which Bush served, were released on orders from the White House.

[snip]

General Greene, this is a personal letter but I did want to write to you from the heart and thank you for what you, Sgt. (Henry) Onacki and the others are doing, and obviously doing well," (H.W.) Bush concluded.

At the White House, Buchan was asked why the Bush Vietnam-era documents have been released in batches at different times and whether more could be expected.
"The Pentagon has been undertaking, at the president's direction, a very comprehensive review of the documents," she said. "We've been told that they believe they have identified all the documents."

A top Democratic Party official reacted with skepticism, saying that the latest release of documents was the fifth since Bush had promised in 2000 to deliver them.

"More documents, no answers. It's time for this White House to come clean and release all of the President's National Guard records, once and for all," Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a statement.

"If the president was truly proud of his service he wouldn't be releasing these documents on a Friday night. These documents demonstrate yet again that George Bush was a fortunate son who received special consideration unavailable to the average American."

Our examination found that existing documentation regarding the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals indicates the awards approval process was properly followed," Route wrote in the memo sent Friday to Navy Secretary Gordon England.

"In particular, the senior officers who awarded the medals were properly delegated authority to do so. In addition, we found that they correctly followed the procedures in place at the time for approving these awards."

posted by Capitola @ 6:19:00 PM 0 comments

Votergasm

posted by Capitola @ 3:25:00 PM 2 comments

Come Out Come Out Where Ever You Are

"He won't tell us what congressional leaders are now saying, that this administration is planning yet another substantial call-up of reservists and Guard units immediately after the election," Kerry said. "Hide it from people through the election, then make the move."

[snip]

The White House called the allegation of a secret plan "completely irresponsible ... false and ridiculous." The Pentagon said troop replacements would include some from National Guard and Reserve units and those expected to be sent to Iraq had been notified.

While Bush has been campaigning as the best candidate to deter terrorists and protect the nation, his presidential rival portrayed him as out of touch with a serious and dangerous situation in Iraq.

"With all due respect to the president, has he turned on the evening news lately? Does he read the newspapers?" Kerry said. "Does he really know what's happening? Is he talking about the same war that the rest of us are talking about?"

Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, top Democrat on the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee and a former Marine who served in Vietnam, said he had learned through conversations with Pentagon officials that beginning in November, "the Bush administration plans to call up large numbers of the military Guard and Reserves, to include plans that they previously had put off to call up the Individual Ready Reserve."

[snip]

The Bush campaign denied the assertion about secret plans.

posted by Capitola @ 3:06:00 PM 1 comments

Do The Lynndie

Here are the basic instructions:

• Find a victim who deserves to be "Lynndied".
• Make sure you have a friend nearby with a camera ready to capture the "Lynndie".
• Stick a cigarette (or pen) in your mouth and allow it to hang slightly below the horizontal.
• Face the camera, tilt your upper body slightly forward but lean back on your right leg.
• Make a hitchhiking gesture with your right hand and extend your right arm so that it's in roughly the same position as if you were holding a rifle.
• Keeping your left arm slightly bent, point in the direction of the victim and smile.
  
  Ideally, you should refrain from telling the victim what you're about to do. Victims who are unaware, bemused or angry make for a Lynddie that is more in keeping with the original.

posted by Capitola @ 11:41:00 AM 0 comments

Jay, I Hardly Knew Ya

“They’re thinking of dropping Dick Cheney from the ticket. Oh great. Keep the dumb guy.”

Jay Leno says, “I’m not conservative. I’ve never voted that way in my life.” He “really worries” what a Dubya victory in November will do to the makeup of the Supreme Court. He believes “the wool was pulled over our eyes” with the Iraq war. He thinks the White House began using terrorism “as a crutch” after 9/11. He feels that during the campaign Kerry should “make Bush look as stupid as possible.” He believes “the media is in the pocket of the government, and they don’t do their job” so “you have people like Michael Moore who do it for them.” He has on his joke-writing staff a number of former professional speechwriters for Democratic candidates. “No Republicans.” When it comes to Bush, he doesn’t think his politics are much different from Letterman’s. “Does he show his dislike maybe a little more than I do? Probably.” Leno used to read Mother Jones magazine.

Could it be? Is it possible? Is Leno, “the right comic,” really a closet lefty?

posted by Capitola @ 9:55:00 AM 0 comments

Beyond The Green Zone

The security situation in Iraq has turned increasingly worrisome in recent days -- and not even the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad is safe anymore.

"US military officers in Baghdad have warned they cannot guarantee the security of the perimeter around the Green Zone, the headquarters of the Iraqi government and home to the US and British embassies, according to security company employees," the Financial Times reported this afternoon. "At a briefing earlier this month, a high-ranking US officer in charge of the zone's perimeter said he had insufficient soldiers to prevent intruders penetrating the compound's defences."

Even more ominous, in the shadow of Tuesday's massive car bomb attack on the Iraqi police headquarters in Baghdad, is that insurgents may have already infiltrated the stronghold:

"The US major said it was possible weapons or explosives had already been stashed in the zone, and warned people to move in pairs for their own safety. The Green Zone, in Baghdad's centre, is one of the most fortified US installations in Iraq. Until now, militants have not been able to penetrate it. But insurgency has escalated this week, spreading to the centre of Baghdad. The zone is home to several thousand Iraqis, and on Sunday it came under the heaviest attack since it was established. Up to 60 unexploded rockets were found inside its perimeters after a five-hour barrage."

posted by Capitola @ 8:59:00 PM 0 comments

Tell It Like It Is

Senator John Kerry accused President Bush today of "living in a fantasy world of spin" about Iraq and hiding the truth from the American people and the country's men and women in uniform.

"We owe you the truth," Mr. Kerry said. "True leadership is about looking people in the eye and telling the truth — even when it's hard to hear."

The Democratic presidential candidate leveled his charges in a speech to the National Guard Association in Las Vegas, where President Bush spoke two days ago.

"President Bush came before you and you received him well, as you should," Mr. Kerry said. "But I believe he failed the fundamental test of leadership. He failed to tell you the truth. You deserve better. The commander in chief must level with the troops and the nation. And as president, I will always be straight with you — on the good days, and the bad days."

If today's speech to the Guard is any indication, the challenger is not content to cede the commander-in-chief image to the president.

"I will be a president who goes into the Oval Office every morning knowing that it is my job to help you do yours," Mr. Kerry said. "I will fight for you every day, and I will never let you down."

[snip]

"He did not tell you that with each passing day, we're seeing more chaos, more violence, more indiscriminate killings," the senator said. "He did not tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are getting bolder — that Pentagon officials report that entire regions of Iraq are now in the hands of terrorists and extremists. He did not tell you that with each passing month, stability and security seem farther and farther away."

posted by Capitola @ 2:41:00 PM 3 comments

Mr. Pot? Meet Mr. Kettle

Five Texas Republicans are among the members of Congress demanding that CBS retract its story about President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard amid allegations that documents used for the story are forgeries.

[snip]

"Let's face it. When it comes to CBS News' reporting on this, this story is big on flaws and light on fact," Johnson said in a statement today. "You have to wonder, what happened to fairness and accuracy?"

Smith, one of the Texans who signed the letter, said "the American people deserve to have the facts, not biased stories, so they can make up their own minds about whom to support."

"Free people are best served by a fair and objective news media," said Smith, who has not served in the military.

posted by Capitola @ 11:41:00 AM 3 comments

Slip-Sliding Away

According to the latest Harris Interactive poll posted on The Wall Street Journal's website Thursday, Kerry secured 48 percent of the intended vote, compared with 47 percent for Bush.

Independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) garnered two percent of the hypothetical vote.

A slim majority of respondents (51 percent) said they do not believe Bush "deserves to be re-elected for another four years," compared with 45 percent who said they do, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Bush had enjoyed a slight lead of up to 11 points over Kerry in recent polls, as his party held its national convention in New York at the beginning of the month and as Kerry's records in Congress and Vietnam came under sustained attack.

posted by Capitola @ 10:29:00 AM 0 comments

Voterchausen Syndrome by Proxy

I'd like to address this to the Undecideds: I'm on to you. You may be fooling everyone else with your little "undecided" act, but you're not fooling me. You know perfectly well whom you're voting for. The only reason you say you're undecided is that it's a cheap ploy to get attention. How do I know? Because I'm the most indecisive person in the world. I set the template, baby, and you're not passing the smell test.

[snip]

Oh, I've observed you in action. I've sat next to you at dinner parties and watched while everyone talked themselves silly, trying to get you on board. But you wouldn't budge, would you? You almost seemed to take some pleasure from it, just like my 8-year-old when she makes me beg her to take her medicine, you rascals.

The other night I saw a whole gaggle of you on TV in a focus group. You really liked chatting with professional pollster Frank Luntz, didn't you? He seemed very interested in what you had to say. Afterward, I could imagine all of you piling into a bus and heading for Denny's to discuss your exciting evening with Frank. I could see all of you staying friends even after the election. Maybe go on some trips together. Perhaps a wine tour of Tuscany. On bicycles! Oh, the life of the Undecided. Too bad they can't hold these presidential elections more often. Ah, well, you'll just have to make do.

The truth is, Undecideds, you're getting on our nerves. We Decideds hate all the attention you're getting and that you're jerking us around. Anyone who can't make up his or her mind at this point in the campaign should forget about the election entirely, buy a pint of ice cream and get into bed.

We'd love to tell you to take a hike, but we're afraid to alienate you. If we really had any brains, we wouldn't spend another second on you, but on the people who can truly make a difference: the "unlikely" voters. And there are millions more of them than there are of you. Those people aren't after attention, they're just incredibly lazy. The only way they'll register to vote is if someone shows up at their door with a form. And then the only way they'll actually vote is if you carry them to the booth.

Not only are they lazy, they're also indifferent. They just don't believe that voting can have an effect on their lives. Well, it just so happens that right after I voted for the first time, I landed myself a big fat job in Hollywood, a biopsy came back benign and I met my future wife as soon as I walked out of the voting booth. Coincidence? You decide.

posted by Capitola @ 9:44:00 AM 0 comments

Pitiful Embarrassing Dangerous

"It's beyond pitiful, it's beyond embarrassing, it's now in the zone of dangerous," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), R-Neb., referring to figures showing only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent.

[snip]

Hagel said the shift in funds "does not add up in my opinion to a pretty picture, to a picture that shows that we're winning. But it does add up to this: an acknowledgment that we are in deep trouble."

Hagel, Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and other committee members have long argued — even before the war — that administration plans for rebuilding Iraq were inadequate and based on overly optimistic assumptions that Americans would be greeted as liberators.

But the criticism from the panel's top Republicans had an extra sting coming less than seven weeks before the presidential election in which President Bush (news - web sites)'s handling of the war is a top issue.

"Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration — what I call the 'dancing in the street crowd,' that we just simply will be greeted with open arms," Lugar said. "The nonsense of all of that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent."

He said the need to shift the reconstruction funds was clear in July, but the administration was slow to make the request.

"This is an extraordinary, ineffective administrative procedure. It is exasperating from anybody looking at this from any vantage point," he said.

A U.S. intelligence report prepared for President Bush in July offered a gloomy outlook for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst scenario being a deterioration into civil war, U.S. government officials said on Thursday.

The report is at odds with the generally optimistic tenor of the Bush's administration's public statements on Iraq, although Bush said last week it was "still tough" there but insisted elections would be held as scheduled in January despite doubts.

The National Intelligence Estimate, which is a compilation of views from various intelligence agencies, predicted three possible scenarios ranging from a tenuous stability to political fragmentation to the most negative assessment of civil war, the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"There doesn't seem to be much optimism," the official said.

Another official added, "It's a difficult environment, a challenging environment."

posted by Capitola @ 9:01:00 AM 0 comments

You Say Memo I Say Awol

Nevertheless, Rather -- in an interview appearing in Wednesday's New York Observer -- said the president still should answer the questions raised by the memos.

Those questions, the online paper said, "...have remained unanswered by the Bush administration: Did Mr. Bush get preferential treatment for the Texas Air National Guard? Was then-Lt. Bush suspended for failing to perform up to Texas and Air Guard standards? Did then-Lt. Bush refuse a direct order from his military superior to take a required examination?"

"It's never been fully, completely denied by the Bush-Cheney campaign or even the White House that he was suspended for meeting the standards of the Air Force or that he didn't show up for a physical," Rather said, suggesting the absence of such a denial suggests the story is true.

posted by Capitola @ 2:06:00 PM 0 comments

Dizzy, My Head Is Spinning

posted by Capitola @ 1:28:00 PM 0 comments

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

Washington

A Hollywood television writer is the largest donor to Texans for Truth, the independent liberal group that offered $50,000 Tuesday to anyone who can prove that President Bush fulfilled his National Guard service in 1972.

Daniel O'Keefe, a consulting producer for the Jason Alexander CBS sitcom, "Listen Up," contributed $100,000 to the group, far surpassing all other donors to the 527 organization. He has also written for "Seinfeld" and "The Drew Carey Show."

[snip]

"George W. Bush continues to mislead the American people, dodging the truth about his military record," Smith said. "If the president won't come clean that he dodged his military responsibilities in Alabama during the height of the Vietnam War, we'll continue our search for the whole story."

posted by Capitola @ 9:21:00 AM 0 comments

More Like This Please

At that convention in New York the other week, President Bush talked about his ownership society. Well Mr. President, when it comes to your record, we agree – you own it.

Of course, the President would have us believe that his record is the result of bad luck, not bad decisions. That he’s faced the wrong circumstances, not made the wrong choices. In fact, this President has created more excuses than jobs. His is the Excuse Presidency: Never wrong, Never Responsible, Never to Blame. President Bush’s desk isn’t where the buck stops – it’s where the blame begins. He’s blamed just about everyone but himself and his administration for America’s economic problems. And if he’s missed you, don’t worry – he’s still got 48 days left until the election.

posted by Capitola @ 8:47:00 AM 0 comments

I Feel Good

DETROIT - Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) has a new campaign worker helping him drum up support in Alabama after hiring a woman who was fired for displaying the presidential candidate's bumper sticker on her car.

Kerry called Lynne Gobbell on Tuesday after reading a newspaper story describing how she had been fired last Thursday from her job packing cellulose insulation at a Moulton, Ala., plant.

Gobbell said her former employer had told her she could either work for him or Kerry. She said Kerry told her, "Let him know that as of today, you're working for John Kerry."

"He was proud of me for standing up for what I believe in," the newly employed, 41-year-old said of her quick phone call with the candidate.

Gobbell said Kerry didn't offer too many details about her new position. She will be helping the campaign and may be traveling a little as it gets closer to the election.

She could receive help from another corner, as well. A liberal Web site, AMERICAblog.org, began raising money for Gobbell on Monday night after learning of her dismissal. John Aravosis, who runs the site, said he collected $1,800 over a 24-hour period.

posted by Capitola @ 7:52:00 PM 0 comments

Proof of Service

The founder of the group Texans for Truth said Tuesday that he is offering $50,000 to anyone who can prove President Bush fulfilled his service requirements, including required duties and drills, in the Alabama Air National Guard in 1972.

The group made the announcement as Bush was in Las Vegas, Nevada, to address the National Guard Association's convention.

"Today would be a fine day for him to finally answer all the questions that have dogged him since he entered public life," the group's founder, Glenn Smith, said in a statement.

"Bush's dishonesty about missing from service during Vietnam goes to the heart of his presidency. He was dishonest then just as he is misleading us about why we went to war with Iraq. He dodges responsibility then just as he dodges responsibility for Iraq today."

posted by Capitola @ 3:48:00 PM 0 comments

An Open Letter to The Media

Collateral Damage Has Faces 

posted by Capitola @ 11:11:00 AM 4 comments

Who, Me Angry?

U.S. news organizations are under constant pressure to report good news from Iraq. In fact, as a Newsweek headline puts it, "It's worse than you think." Attacks on coalition forces are intensifying and getting more effective; no-go zones, which the military prefers to call "insurgent enclaves," are spreading - even in Baghdad. We're losing ground.

And the losses aren't only in Iraq. Al Qaeda has regrouped. The invasion of Iraq, intended to demonstrate American power, has done just the opposite: nasty regimes around the world feel empowered now that our forces are bogged down. When a Times reporter asked Mr. Bush about North Korea's ongoing nuclear program, "he opened his palms and shrugged."

Yet many voters still believe that Mr. Bush is doing a good job protecting America.

If Senator John Kerry really has advisers telling him not to attack Mr. Bush on national security, he should dump them. When Dick Cheney is saying vote Bush or die, responding with speeches about jobs and health care doesn't cut it.

Mr. Kerry should counterattack by saying that Mr. Bush is endangering the nation by subordinating national security to politics.

posted by Capitola @ 8:54:00 AM 1 comments

Coward in Chief

By god, George W. Bush is a real man.

Or is he? We certainly know that Bush wants us to believe he's a real man - in fact, there are few things he works harder at. Sometimes it seems as if the entire might of the United States government is being wielded for the purpose of creating photo ops where Bush can look manly

[snip]

New York Times columnist Frank Rich recently noted that "castration warfare has been a Republican staple ever since Michael Dukakis provided the opening by dressing up like Snoopy to ride a tank." Democrats are understandably frustrated that Bush has been so successful at painting John Kerry as the one possessed of insufficient testosterone, down to calling his Vietnam service into question. After all, when their country called them to go into harm's way, Kerry said, "Where do I sign?" while Bush said, "How do I get out of this?"

Vietnam was hardly the last time Bush would show himself to be something of a sissy-boy. In fact, when you begin to think about his history, an unmistakable picture emerges: George W. Bush is a coward.

I do not use the word lightly. Speaking as someone born too late to be drafted, I can't say whether I would have been brave enough to follow John Kerry's course into Vietnam. But Bush's cowardice doesn't only emerge when his physical safety is at stake (although he's quite happy to proclaim his courageous indifference to dangers that will be faced by others, i.e. "Bring ‘em on"). Let's look at some other cases:

• When Bush was told that America was under attack by terrorists, he froze like a deer in the headlights, sitting there listening to "My Pet Goat" for seven interminable minutes before someone came and told him it was OK for him to get up and start doing something presidential. Ask a Bush partisan about this and their spinning will generate enough centrifugal force to suck in anything in the room that isn't bolted down. He was trying to reassure the children, they'll say, and project strength. When Ari Fleischer held up a sign that read, "Don't say anything yet," a real man would not have complied, as Bush did. A real man would have stood up, said, "It's been wonderful to meet you children, but I have to go" and gone to check on the status of the country he was supposed to be leading.


• When the September 11 commission wanted to question the President, he ran like a little girl who just saw a spider. First, he said he wouldn't testify. Then he said he'd talk to them, but not under oath, and only for an hour. Finally he agreed, but only so long as no one recorded the session, and Dick Cheney came along to bail him out if things got uncomfortable. These weren't just the actions of a man who had something to hide, they were the actions of a man afraid to answer for what he did and didn't do. And what kind of a wimp can't be questioned without his vice president by his side?


• Bush has held only twelve solo press conferences in his presidency, fewer than any other modern president, and you can rest assured there won't be another one between now and November. A real man would take questions from the press, even if some of them are going to be confrontational.


• At his last disastrous press conference, Bush couldn't bring himself to admit to a single mistake he had made in office. Real men admit it when they're wrong.


• No undecided voters - let alone Democrats - are allowed into Bush campaign events, lest the farcical "Ask the President" events include a question that is not accompanied by fulsome praise of Bush's greatness. A real man would have the guts to encounter voters who don't already love him.


• Bush's representatives are now pushing to eliminate from the schedule of debates the "town hall" scheduled to take place in St. Louis. According to news reports, they are concerned that, though the audience is supposed to consist of undecided voters, a Kerry supporter might sneak in and get to ask a question. What kind of a wimp is scared of answering a question from someone who supports his opponent? After all, Bush is supposed to be the president of all Americans not just those who support him. But he doesn't seem to have the guts to look voters in the eye.

posted by Capitola @ 7:26:00 PM 1 comments

Who the Hell is Undecided?

Are there simply millions of voters out in this sad and divisive nation who are so gullible, so unsure, so unclear about who they want to vote for that one overblown Vegas-style political convention followed by numerous insidious smear campaigns maligning Kerry's Vietnam heroism could sway them that easily, back and forth and forth and back?

Perhaps this is an "elitist" question, or naive, or simple misguided. Maybe I need to read far more detailed statistical sociopolitical theory, which is about as much fun as having all your skin scraped off with a cheese grater. But I simply know of no one anywhere in my world, from family to friends to family friends to remote acquaintances to the guy who sells me my socks, who is undecided about this election.

Do these people exist? Or are the polls merely wicked phantasmagorical allegories designed by the media to boost sales and pump ratings and numb the intellect and ruin your appetite for reason? I know my answer.

Because if you're paying any sort of attention at all, the differences between the party stances seems so agonizingly obvious, between not just the candidates, but between the tone and timbre of the country overall, of how we should be led and how we should be viewed and how we should be spoken to, between the openly violent, peace-hating, fear-happy, environment-loathing, homophobic worldview of the Bushies, and the more tolerant, issues-oriented, politically intelligent, less tyrannical worldview of the Kerryites on the other.

[snip]

Among America's strongest and most loyal allies and even among those who don't like us much and have good reason to believe we're a screaming whiny violent brat with too much money and too many toys and far too little soul, it is nearly unanimous: Bush has done more harm to the world, to international relations than any U.S. president in history. The world doesn't merely think Bush is an incompetent boob. They think he's a hostile and reckless incompetent boob. Which is, of course, far worse.

posted by Capitola @ 10:03:00 AM 3 comments

Why Does John F. Kerry Love America?

posted by Capitola @ 8:23:00 AM 0 comments

Rapid Reponse? You Bet Your Ass

Dear President Bush

In February, you sat in the Oval Office and told the American people, "I did my duty." But new evidence shows that you failed to perform your duties as required, including disobeying a direct order to show up for a routine physical.

You owe the American people answers on a lot of questions, including:

• Why did you say "I did my duty" when you missed months of duty in 1972, 73, and 74?
• How did you avoid getting called into active service for missing months of duty in 1972, 73, and 74?
• Why did you disobey a direct order to take a physical?
• What standard did you fail to meet when you were grounded for failing to perform at US Air Force/Texas Air National Guard Standards?
• Why did you go above your commander's head to ensure a favorable evaluation you had not earned?
• Why did you say you received "no special treatment" when Ben Barnes says he pulled strings to secure a Guard slot for you?
• Who asked your family friend Sidney Adger to get you a slot in the Guard immediately after you graduated and at the height of the Vietnam War?
• When will you produce any credible witness who can attest to your service in the Alabama Air National Guard?
  

I demand that you answer the American people and tell the truth about your service.

posted by Capitola @ 2:16:00 PM 1 comments

Creative Response? Hardly

Sept. 10, 2004 Upset by renewed attention to President Bush's disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard, White House communications director Dan Bartlett insists the new revelations about how strings were pulled to get Bush into the Guard, as well as to get him out, are part of "a coordinated attack by John Kerry and his surrogates on the president." There is no evidence to support that claim. But there is clear evidence confirming that the same conservative operatives who have been busily promoting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth smears of Kerry are now engaged in pushing the story that CBS's "60 Minutes Weeknight Edition" aired forged documents in its Wednesday night report on Bush and the National Guard.

Creative Response Concepts, the Arlington, Va., Republican public relations firm run by former Pat Buchanan communications director Greg Mueller, with help from former Pat Robertson communications director Mike Russell, sent out a media advisory Thursday to hawk a right-wing news dispatch: "60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake." Creative Response Concepts has played a crucial role in hyping the inaccurate, secondhand Swift Boat allegations, with Russell serving as the group's official spokesman. A company spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Throughout the Swift Boat smear campaign, the veterans involved asserted they had no political agenda and were unaffiliated with any political party. But Creative Response Concepts, which was obviously paid some undisclosed amount for its Swift Boat work, has many links to the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Among its clients are the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee. Its client list also includes the Christian Coalition, National Taxpayers Union, Media Research Council and Regnery Publishing. Regnery is the firm that published "Unfit for Command," the SBVT screed against Kerry's military record.

Now Creative Response is working the case against CBS's "60 Minutes" report on Bush's questionable service in the Texas Air National Guard.

By Thursday, the online Drudge Report and the Weekly Standard were also trumpeting the accusations. And Creative Response Concepts sent out a press release to major news organizations stating that the "documents on Bush might be fake."

In the release, Creative Response promoted a Web site called Cybercast News Service, one of several groups directed by Brent Bozell, a longtime right-wing activist who has devoted years to attacking the "liberal bias" of the mainstream press. His Media Research Center and other similar efforts have been heavily funded by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.

The forgery flap has created a firestorm among mainstream media, but it is merely a sideshow in the larger National Guard controversy. The disputed Killian documents represent just a fraction of what is known about Bush's Guard duty. To date, the voluminous information about the issue comes from Bush's own Texas Guard file, none of which has been called into question. And in fact, the veracity of the contents of the Killian memos remains undisputed. For instance, one memo dated May 4, 1972, ordered Bush to obtain a physical exam. There has been no controversy whatsoever about the fact that Bush was required to take a physical that year and failed to do so.

In April 1972, with 770 days left in his military commitment, and unwilling to have his physical, Bush was suspended from flying and walked away from his required duties.

posted by Capitola @ 1:49:00 PM 0 comments

How Many Deaths?

Preznit aWol

Eventually there'll be a fine memorial to honor the young Americans whose lives were sacrificed for no good reason in Iraq. Yesterday, under the headline "The Roster of the Dead," The New York Times ran photos of the first thousand or so who were killed.

They were sent off by a president who ran and hid when he was a young man and his country was at war. They fought bravely and died honorably. But as in Vietnam, no amount of valor or heroism can conceal the fact that they were sent off under false pretenses to fight a war that is unwinnable.

[snip]

At some point, as in Vietnam, the American public will balk at the continued carnage, and this tragic misadventure will become politically unsustainable. Meanwhile, the death toll mounts.

posted by Capitola @ 10:17:00 AM 2 comments

Typewriters?

The White House distributed the four memos from 1972 and 1973 after obtaining them from CBS News. The White House did not question their accuracy.

posted by Capitola @ 7:55:00 AM 0 comments

Lied To Death

WASHINGTON -- Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war, is urging government insiders to provide similar classified documents about the invasion of Iraq.

Joined by other whistle-blowers and former government employees, Ellsberg said at a news conference Thursday that claims of government deception and lies have "little credibility" unless supported by documentary evidence, which often is available only in classified materials.

In a memo to current government employees, Ellsberg and other former government officials said federal insiders owe a "higher allegiance" to the Constitution, the public and American soldiers in Iraq than to their government bosses.

"A hundred forty-thousand Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq for dubious purpose," the memo said. "Our country has urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials. Truth-telling is a patriotic and effective way to serve the nation. The time for speaking out is now."

The memo acknowledged that whistle-blowers risk personal setbacks, such as losing their jobs, but urged them to act nonetheless. "You may save many Americans from being lied to death," it said.

posted by Capitola @ 6:26:00 AM 0 comments

Gagglelicious Snark

Q: Al Gore is saying today that Cheney's comments on the election are sleazy and despicable and an effort to blackmail voters with fear. That's from Al Gore today -- Al Gore in response to Cheney's comments about another terrorist attack coming. If Kerry is elected -- Al Gore is calling Cheney's comments --

MR. MCCLELLAN: Consider the source.

Q: He was Vice President, last I looked.

posted by Capitola @ 3:39:00 PM 0 comments

Attack Attack Attack

Call a coward a coward until he's willing to meet you on open ground. Call the Cowards bluff and attack, attack, attack on the issues of courage of leadership and the moral courage to face critics in public! This man has demonstrated his moral cowardice by refusing to own up to the middle 20 years of his life.

John Kerry ought to start using this line of thought:

This elite, pampered prodigy of a man claims to be Texan. He even has a 'swagger'. He fails on a couple tests as one Westerner, myself, knows for sure:

A. No self-respecting Texan would ever be a gawdamn male CHEERLEADER at Yale! Jesus...a Texan, a Westerner, a Cowboy would die on an ant hill first! A gawdamn CHEERLEADER? Not hardly, pilgrim.

B. No self-respecting Texan, Westerner or Cowboy faced with an open challenge that measures your manhood, like a Town Hall debate or questions that aren't programmed and might be embarassing, would ever back down an inch. Not one damn inch. This is the state where 138 brave men died fighting an Santa Ana's Army of 5,500 because it was the right thing to do. How the hell does W think THOSE men feel about him calling himself a Texan when he can't even face a question much less real conflict? They must be spinning in their mass grave! George W. Bush is no Texan!

Embarass him, Senator! Embarass him to the point he reacts and shows that snotty, smirky self that comes through on camera so well. Embarass him to the point that he agrees to the debate! Make his cowardice the news story of the day, of the week...and don't stop until he's squarely in your sights, Senator!

posted by Capitola @ 2:39:00 PM 0 comments

Memogate II: The Undoing of George W. Bush

Records Say Bush Balked at Order

President Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot, according to documents made public yesterday.

Documents obtained by the CBS News program "60 Minutes" shed new light on one of the most controversial episodes in Bush's military service, when he abruptly stopped flying and moved from Texas to Alabama to work on a political campaign. The documents include a memo from Bush's squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, ordering Bush "to be suspended from flight status for failure to perform" to U.S. Air Force and National Guard standards and failure to take his annual physical "as ordered."

posted by Capitola @ 8:03:00 AM 0 comments

The Survey Sez....

Washington DC: In 30 out of 35 countries polled, from all regions of the world, a majority or plurality would prefer to see John Kerry win the US presidential election—especially traditional US allies. The only countries where President Bush was preferred were the Philippines, Nigeria, and Poland. India and Thailand were divided. On average, Kerry was favored by more than a two-to-one margin—46% to 20% (weighted for variations in population, the ratio was not significantly different). Overall, one-third did not give an answer.

The poll of 34,330 people was conducted mainly during July and August 2004 by GlobeScan and its worldwide network of research institutes, in conjunction with the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland. Due to the difficulties of polling in developing countries, in eleven countries, polling was limited to metropolitan areas. The margin of error ranged from +/- 2.3 - 5%.

[snip]

GlobeScan President Doug Miller says, “Perhaps most sobering for Americans is the strength of the view that US foreign policy is on the wrong track, even in countries contributing troops in Iraq.”

Opposition to the Bush administration was not unanimous, however. Should Bush take a long vacation in January, the poll identifies three countries in which he can expect a moderately warm welcome: The Philippines, Poland, and Nigeria.

posted by Capitola @ 3:50:00 PM 0 comments

Oh, Happy Day

Prior to the Republican convention, Kerry had a one point lead among RVs (47-46) in the battleground states. After the Republican convention, now that battleground voters have had a chance to take a closer look at what Bush and his party really stand for, Kerry leads by 5 in these same states (50-45)! Note that Kerry gained three points among battleground voters, while Bush actually got a negative one point bounce.

And wait--there's more! The Gallup poll's internals also show that Kerry continues to lead among independents (49-46) and that both parties' partisans are equally polarized for their respective candidates (90-7). Note that these findings directly contradict the results of the recent Newsweek poll, which showed Bush doing much better among Republican partisans than Kerry was doing among Democratic partisans.

Headlines blare the news that the death toll in Iraq has crossed the 1,000 milestone.

There are also big headlines about Bush's record $422 billion budget deficit and the multi-trillion-dollar deficit projections for the future.

Then there are all the stories about Vice President Cheney's jaw-dropping statement yesterday that a Kerry victory would result in more terrorist attacks. Even his own staff is qualifying it.

Bush's spotty National Guard record during the Vietnam War is turning into a full-fledged media conflagration, with more stories out today and "60 Minutes" weighing in tonight.

Plus, Sen.Bob Graham (D-Fla.) is all over the media charging Bush with covering up evidence that might have linked Saudi Arabia to the Sept. 11 hijackers.

And while the mainstream press is not putting stock in unauthorized biographer Kitty Kelley's hazily sourced allegations of past drug use by Bush, everybody -- at least everybody on the Internet -- seems to be talking about it.

Bush won't show up for the "Town Hall Meeting" style debate - mainly because the Commission on Presidential Debates won't force the audience to sign GOP loyalty oaths.

Folks, you're witnessing the incredible shrinking big bad war president.

posted by Capitola @ 2:26:00 PM 1 comments

Paragraph 14: a W o l

Lawsuit Uncovers New Bush Guard Records

[snip]

Significantly, it showed the unit joined a "24-hour active alert mission to safeguard against surprise attack" in the southern United State beginning on Oct. 6, 1972, a time when Bush did not report for duty, according to his pay records.

But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.

On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months. . . " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.

But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. ''I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview.

And early in his Guard service, on May 27, 1968, Bush signed a ''statement of understanding" pledging to achieve ''satisfactory participation" that included attendance at 24 days of annual weekend duty -- usually involving two weekend days each month -- and 15 days of annual active duty. ''I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation," the statement reads.

Yet Bush, a fighter-interceptor pilot, performed no service for one six-month period in 1972 and for another period of almost three months in 1973, the records show.

posted by Capitola @ 10:34:00 PM 0 comments

Gall: A Case Study

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.

posted by Capitola @ 7:06:00 PM 0 comments

What Goes Around

Texans for Truth, established by the 20,000-member Texas online activist group, DriveDemocracy.org, has produced a 0:30 second television advertisement, "AWOL." The ad features Robert Mintz, one of many who served in Alabama's 187th Air National Guard -- when Bush claims to have been there -- who have no memory of Bush on the base. In other words, Bush failed to fulfill his military duty while others were dying in Vietnam.

posted by Capitola @ 2:38:00 PM 1 comments

1001 KIA

posted by Capitola @ 1:43:00 PM 1 comments

Elephant Season

"We want to crush these guys. They made an enormous mistake questioning the heart and the patriotism of John Kerry, and they'll pay for it for the rest of their lives."

Wade said the campaign will take what he called the "Sean Connery approach" to future attacks from the right. It was a reference to the advice Connery's character in "The Untouchables" gave about beating Al Capone: "If they pull out a knife, we'll pull out a gun," Wade said. "We will always be on the offense, every day."

posted by Capitola @ 9:36:00 AM 1 comments

Eric Gets Mail

And Attaturk's correct, it is disturbing:

Name: Withheld

Location: Withheld

Eric,

I wanted to take this opportunity to offer an explanation on the current military practice and of cross-leveling, especially as it relates to the case of SPC Israel Rivera and Abu Ghraib

Here's what happened to him and my unit. I got caught up in the first half, but I volunteered for a second year of active duty and ended up at CENTCOM for OIF.

In OCT 2001, my battalion, the 321st Military Intelligence Battalion, was called to active duty. We shipped up to Fort Hood, TX where we sat for months waiting for something to happen. Instead, we spent a year of misery living in sub-standard housing being treated like crap by the active Army. We sent a few guys and gals to GITMO and one to Afghanistan, but were largely left out of the fight. A wasted year. The same thing happens to a similar Army Reserve unit, the 325th Military Intelligence BN at Fort Bragg. But apparently, the 325th is a really bad unit, so they have a much worse time than us. Lots of DUIs, fights, etc.

In the fall of 2002, the Army begins gearing up for Iraq, and the 325th gets called back up. This creates a huge political fall-out so when the Army goes to call us back up our unit gets "red-lined" by Rummy. He personally takes our unit off the mobilization list.

However, the Army does not have enough intelligence soldiers especially HUMINT types like interrogators and counter intelligence. This is especially true of the 325th because many of their soldiers have left the unit because of what happened before. So the Army begins looking for help. They start taking soldiers out of our unit to "cross level" to the 325th and other units.

SPC Rivera had been in basic training when all this happens. He graduates, attends one or two drills with our unit, and gets yanked to the 325th. He ends up in Iraq with a bunch of strangers.

[snip]

This is a happening all over. My unit is continually pimped for replacements. One or two here. Five or six there. Right now we're getting ready to send a conglomerate unit of about 100. What is happening is that they are taking non-intelligence soldiers like mechanics sending them to shake and bake schools and shipping them over as intelligence units. They are not taking any of the senior leadership because then they couldn't maintain the facade of not calling our unit back up.

This is not just happening to intelligence units either. The Texas National Guard is sending a Brigade over to Iraq. I know some senior leaders in the guard because of my full-time Texas Homeland Security gig. These guys are saying that they had to rob the entire Texas National Guard to field this Brigade at full strength. By the time you sort all the guys who can't deploy with all the empty seats in units, you are usually left at about 60-70% strength so they've had to take soldiers from the remaining guard units to fill the one going to Iraq. So on paper we still have three available Brigades, but the reality is that they are now hollow.

This is happening all over the Army. And we're running out of troops. I'm a perfect example. Under the current policy, I am now exempt from further mobilization because I have done two years. About 50% of my unit is getting to that point. But, the occupation goes on and on. So how long can we be benched before they have to change the policy and re-set our clocks back to zero? The rumor is that they are waiting until after the election to do so. That would mean I will be home for about a year, and then probably get called back up again because I'm an intelligence officer, an in-demand resource.

[snip]

P.S.: Have you noticed that there have been no Congressional Medals of Honor awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan? What do you bet in the next few months we see a bunch of them awarded at events where "W" can surround himself with troops before the election?

posted by Capitola @ 3:46:00 PM 0 comments

Another One Bites The Dust

As the dawn leaks slowly above the summit of Mount Winchester, causing the silver jumping fish of my beloved estuary to glint with the hope of promise forgotten, I sit on my balcony, aghast, chastened, morally defeated, and ashamed. What’s happened to the Republican Party I once cherished so? It’s hard for me to believe that the people who, until Monday, I trusted to launch American into a new kick-ass future, are the same people who just spent the last week equating an admittedly lame but basically harmless Democratic Senator with the Prince Of Darkness himself. And I don’t mean Karl Marx. I mean Satan. Beezelbub. The Horned One. He Who Shall Not Be Named.

[snip]

But nothing Bush said could undo the damage done by Zell Miller’s speech the previous night. It was an oratorical concoction so vile, so loathsome, so utterly slanderous and hate-filled, that it could only have been delivered by the leader of Lizard-People who have invaded our planet, causing us to surreptitiously spray-paint the letter V at midnight on warehouse doors. I simply can’t brook this cornpone fascism, even though I expressed nearly identical views three years ago, albeit in far loftier and pretentious language, calling those who criticized the early stages of our War On Terror “traitors worthy of imminent execution, especially Susan Sontag, that scum-sucking pus hag.”

Oh, Republicans! Oh, Republic! Whither has flown your integrity? I can no longer support that party that denies the right of marriage to some of its country’s best-looking men and sturdiest women. I can no longer support the party that intends to funnel billions of dollars into the coffers of crappy, hypocritical churches, the offshore bank accounts of arrogant plutocrats, and private armies that fight for no one’s interests but their own. And I can no longer support the party that refers to poor people as “girlie men.” Those of us who genuinely consider ourselves girlie men take umbrage at your implication, sir!

The war in Iraq isn’t going as poorly as its critics imply. After all, not everyone is dead yet. Also, there’s no doubt that the mullahs of Iran are doing everything they can to invite devastating airstrikes on their capital. Bang, bang. You’re dead. But good lord, people. It isn’t a crime to oppose the President, even one who climbs a pile of rubble to hug an old fireman, even one who “becomes who he is” after throwing out the first pitch of a World Series game.

[snip]

The ground below invites me to paint it with my brains. Goodbye, sweet world, and sweet Republican Party. This is the end, of my life and of America. I wish you luck, suckers.

And now, I die.

posted by Capitola @ 11:40:00 AM 1 comments

To The Mattresses

At a late-night rally that began just as the Republican Convention ended, Kerry declared: "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who misled America into Iraq."

It was a head-on attack on Cheney, who obtained five deferments to avoid going to Vietnam, and on Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard has been subjected to a new round of questions this week. It was a strong statement on the faulty intelligence and false statements that led the nation into war in Iraq. And it was just the beginning.

"The vice president called me unfit for office last night," Kerry told thousands of supporters who waited in the darkness to see him in Ohio. "I'm going to leave it to you to decide whether five deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of duty."

"Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this country. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without healthcare for four years makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi royal family control the price of oil for Americans makes you unfit to lead this country. Handing out billions of dollars in contracts without a bid to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit to lead this country.

"That, my friends, is the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney, and that only begins to scratch the surface. This president has misled American workers and misled the American people."

[snip]

He's on the right path now," Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich told Salon just after Kerry finished speaking. Kucinich seemed thrilled with Kerry's new approach. "What you saw here was the beginning of his victory. Mark the date."

posted by Capitola @ 9:56:00 AM 1 comments

Bushy, You Have Some 'Splainin' To Do

A closer examination of a photograph included in President George W. Bush’s Air Force records, released by the White House earlier this year, shows then-Second Lieutenant Bush wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award which he never earned.

Liaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar! 

Additionally, Lieutenant Bush would not have been authorized to wear the ribbon temporarily, the Air Force Personnel Center said in an email.

“There isn’t a ‘temporary’ wear of AF Outstanding Unit Awards for AF personnel,” the Air Force Personnel Center stated.

“I’ve never heard of temporary wear,” added Assistant Reagan Defense Secretary for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics Lawrence J. Korb, whose job included overseeing the Air Force Reserves from 1981-1985, in a telephone interview Wednesday. “The unit didn’t get this until 1975.”

The Air Force Public Affairs office tried to answer an inquiry, but went silent and said they just didn’t have enough information to answer after they heard the query was on President Bush. They deferred comment to the White House, and supplied the White House comment phone line.

RAW STORY reached the White House Press Office through the main switchboard, and a spokeswoman said they would look into it and return the call as soon as possible.

“We’re very short staffed this week,” she said, referring to the Republican National Convention.

[snip]

Punishment for wearing an award one hasn't earned is punishable by bad-conduct discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and/or confinement for 6 months under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

posted by Capitola @ 10:15:00 AM 0 comments

A Beautiful Thing To See

posted by Capitola @ 8:23:00 PM 0 comments

The FUCK YOU Movement

To My Enemies 

Even if you had not just spent a week on a remote farm in Peru with no access to media, then stayed up all night, then travelled for twenty hours zonked on Xanax and arrived in New York at two a.m. unable to sleep until the following night, you might find the Republican National Convention totally surreal. It's like, what if New York was a police state overrun by even more fat white tourists with stupid hair and name tags, and walking around the city suddenly became as hard as driving in it? It's like, what if you lived in a bizzarre kind of Alice-In-Wonderland double-speak world where you can exercise your right to free speech, as long as you do it in a tiny cage conveniently located where none of the people you're speaking to can see or hear you?

Most New Yorkers in the right minds have fled, but SuperLefty is proud to be back in New York in the most unenviable dog days of late August/early September, at the most unenviable moment of the Invasion of the Moron Puppeteers of Evil, to defend her beloved city from these demented, fascist interlopers. She is braving not only demented fascists and their fashion faux pas, but the revolting canyons of midtown, in order to do her part to speak truth to power.

The truth we speak is simple. To the delegates and fundraisers of the Republican National Convention, we say: "FUCK YOU."

No, really. For two days Rebecca and I have been showing up at various convention events and prowling the streets outside Madison Square Garden, sneaking past the barricades to unroll a giant FUCK YOU sign in the faces of Republicans. We are the FUCK YOU movement.

The FUCK YOU movement is simple. There are no meetings, no mass emails, no websites, no t-shirts. There are no permits, no chants, no tactics. We have a big, rolled-up sign. We avoid the little animal pens they've set up for the protestors and sashay right down gauntlets of Republicans lining up for fundraising dinners at Tavern on the Green, a giant FUCK YOU with legs. We also each have two little paddles we picked up from someone giving out free promotional CNN materials. (Strangely, this person is not asked by the police to "move along" from their spot on the sidewalk. Apparently only people with signs that say acutal things, instead of the name of television stations, are hazardously blocking the sidewalk.) On blank side of these paddles, we have each written "FUCK" and "YOU."

(Rebecca has helpfully marked which one is "right" and "left" so we don't mix them up and accidentally flash a "YOU FUCK," though I think this still works--as a noun, not a verb. Republicans are such total fucks. But I prefer not to think that they fuck. This would mean that they procreate, and this will mean that there will be more Republicans, and then I will have to procreate and go through pregnancy and childbirth just so I can raise anarchists to balance them out. I am still debating whether I am an anarchist (I think I am, I HATE INSTITUTIONS MORE THAN ANYTHING), but I am sure my children would be. I am incapable of imposing order.)

[snip]

Many of the demented fascists appear to have a sense of humor, and gleefully photograph us, a souvenir of their political moment in craaaazy New York City. Only one guy actually said, "Fuck you, too, ladies." There is a lot of sneering, a lot of uneasy chuckling, a fair amount of nose wrinkling and speeding up of steps. Nobody likes to be followed down the street by a sign that says FUCK YOU. But the best part is the bewildered expression that crosses their faces before they decide on their (usually lame) comebacks. Chanting, inscensed liberals safely barricaded across the street they were expecting, and can ignore. A "FUCK YOU" right in their face is a delicious surprise to deliver. It actually affects them in an unpleasant way. It gets to them. After all these years of them getting to me, and getting to me, and getting to me, I am finally getting to them!

All this time, I have been wanting to get up in the face of these motherfuckers and say FUCK YOU, but they are usually on T.V., or in Washington, or in parts of the country not accessible by New York City mass transit. I am so glad they all came to New York City and gave me this amazing opportunity. I estimate that I have said FUCK YOU to hundreds of Republicans from all over the United States. I was recently in a foreign country, and I met some amazing people there. It made me think about how you should say what you really feel to people you might never see again. It's nice to be able to implement that right here at home. Thank you, Republicans, for coming to New York and vilely explointing tragedies that have occured here, tragedies I witnessed with my own eyes that will haunt me forever. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to personally say FUCK YOU to many of you, right to your multitude of smug, doughy, rich, white, ignorant, racist, cigar-smoking, lipstick-feathered faces.

[snip]

But you can't pen up the FUCK YOU movement. You can't disperse it. It's too swift and too strong. The FUCK YOU movement doesn't get in the pen. It walks down the street, blending in, waiting for the right moment to give each and every Republican his or her own personal dose of the movement's message:

FUCK YOU.

posted by Capitola @ 1:55:00 PM 2 comments

NY Ain't No Boston

The Republican National Convention has an Olympic problem -- thousands of empty seats that shine blue, burgundy and toothpaste green out from the hall, draining away enthusiasm at first sight and making life hard for cameramen. Did the GOP not send out the tickets? Even the delegates appeared to be missing Monday night. Where was Vermont? What explained all the open real estate in South Carolina? Was Idaho having a party uptown?

There's an aura of weirdness about this convention. It's different from last month's Democratic show in Boston. Something's missing. The aging, cavernous Garden overwhelms everything and everyone in it. The energy seems sapped; the crowd roar dissipates too quickly. The stage seems much smaller, the light brighter, less flattering; the threat of a balloon avalanche less ominous. Even the podium looks out of place, a stacked sculpture of stained wood that reminded me of a synagogue bema or a Baptist pulpit.

On the first night in Boston, Bill Clinton had sucked every bit of air out of the FleetCenter. The journalists packed their risers; the nosebleed seats overflowed. You couldn't carry on a conversation.

posted by Capitola @ 10:28:00 AM 0 comments

Elephallic

Elecubis 

posted by Capitola @ 10:04:00 AM 1 comments

Evilution: Bushman

"He's ready,'' Ms. Hughes insisted, adding that they had been conducting "reading out loud'' sessions to "figure out what parts need to be tightened and which parts work and which parts don't."

Stage 5: Almost upright 

"He's ready," Ms. Hughes insisted, adding that they had been conducting "baby steps" sessions to "straighten out the knees so that Mr. Bush's knuckles don't drag."

posted by Capitola @ 9:31:00 AM 0 comments