ELECTION
2004
Excellent sites to go to for Election
2004 coverage: Daily
Kos, DonkeyRising,
CJR Campaign
Desk, the Swing
State Project, Political
Animal, Atrios/Eschaton,
Talkingpointsmemo,
MyDD, Our
Congress, 2.004k.com,
Electoral
Vote, Race 2004
11/4/04 <link>
With Bush back in the
office, what should Democrats and their supporters do?
A number of bloggers have commented on
this. Here are some links: The
Left Coaster, Alas
A Blog, Skippy,
Atrios,
Josh
Marshall - and a
follow-up, Brad
DeLong, MyDD,
MyDD,
Dailykos,
Dailykos,
Eric
Alterman, David
Neiwert
11/3/04 <link>
UPDATED 11/18/04
Voting Irregularities and
Anomalies
Click
here to find out more.
10/24/04 <link>
John
Kerry for Dummies
A brief review of Kerry's career record
to answer Republican questioning on it. Read
it here.
10/22/04_1 <link>
The State of the
Battleground You can never tell if you watch too much CNN or Faux News or for that matter most of
the media (see Media
Matters' letter to CNN criticizing them for hiding polls favorable to
Kerry) , but Kerry is actually in a strong position (dare I say
"leading") in the Battleground States. Mystery
Pollster (Max Blumenthal) has helpfully compiled the data and
wonders whether Bush's strong lead in the red states might lead to a
2000-like situation where Kerry leads in the Electoral College but
loses the popular vote. Now, this speculation is premature because
even nationally Bush is not "leading" consistently and any
leads are within the MoE (and it certainly won't hurt to see this
MoveOn ad - capturing live Bush's
infamous joking about WMDs while soldiers were dying
"searching" for them - run all week next week). But I wonder what the RNC, Faux News and all
the sheep in the Republican Party who defended Mr. Electoral Vote Man
in 2000 will have to say about that scenario?
Ordinarily, I would
advise caution in interpreting subgroup findings, as the smaller
sample sizes come with considerably more sampling error. However,
when we see a consistent pattern across multiple surveys, we can
have a lot more confidence in the statistical significance of the
finding.
Here is the list of
what I have been able to cobble together (note that the definition
of battleground states varies from poll to poll, from 12 to 20
states):
|
|
All
Voters |
|
Battleground
States |
|
Dates |
Bush |
Kerry |
|
Bush |
Kerry |
# |
| AP-IPSOS
LV |
10/18-20 |
46% |
49% |
|
46% |
50% |
20 |
| Marist
Poll RV |
10/17-19 |
47% |
47% |
|
43% |
50% |
17 |
| Marist
Poll LV |
10/17-19 |
48% |
47% |
|
43% |
51% |
17 |
| Pew
RV |
10/15-19 |
45% |
45% |
|
43% |
49% |
? |
| NBC/WSJ
LV |
10/16-18 |
48% |
48% |
|
43% |
49% |
12 |
| CBS/NYT
LV |
10/14-17 |
47% |
45% |
|
40% |
51% |
|
| Harris
LV#1 |
10/14-17 |
48% |
46% |
|
44% |
51% |
17 |
| Harris
LV#2 |
10/14-17 |
51% |
43% |
|
47% |
47% |
17 |
| Gallup
RV |
10/14-16 |
49% |
46% |
|
46% |
46% |
16 |
| WashPost
RV |
10/15-17 |
48% |
47% |
|
45% |
50% |
13 |
| ICR
LV |
10/9-11 |
43% |
41% |
|
43% |
44% |
? |
|
|
|
| RV
= among registered voters; LV=among "likely" voters |
|
The pattern is
consistent: In every case Kerry runs better in the
"battleground states" than he does in the overall
electorate, although in some cases the difference is quite small.
Another survey that did not release specific numbers also showed the
same pattern: John Gorman of Opinion Dynamics noted
that his survey for Fox News showed a similar result: "One odd
factor is that much of the lead is concentrated in the so-called
'red states,' which were pretty much conceded to Bush at the
beginning. Thus his national lead does not reflect a big lead in the
battleground states that will decide the election. We may well be
facing a situation, as we did in 2000, where the popular vote and
the electoral vote produce different results."
Of course, it's still October and
there's still time for Bush's October surprise. And if that doesn't
happen, there's always Vote
Fraud to save the day for Bush - bundles of it. So it ain't over
until it's over.
10/13/04 <link>
It's 3-out-of-3 for
Kerry!
Kerry was masterful and definitely more
Presidential and in command of issues in this third debate than
President Bush was. It was an obvious win for Kerry in my view. My
concerns ended up being unfounded, with Kerry doing well to keep
the focus on his opponent and politely but forcefully refuted Bush's
repeated false attacks. One more thing: Kerry's composure
and strength is just astounding.
Josh Marshall has an excellent
summary - and I agree with it for the most part (for example,
unlike him I did call all the debates for Kerry off the bat). Go
read it. [Bush's litany
of lies will hopefully come out soon - especially the one about
Osama bin Laden. What
a whopper!] One disappointing
point. Why were there no questions on the environment or energy policy
or stem cell research?
It is no surprise that the early polls
are coming in for Kerry.
Here's DailyKos
with some results:
CBS News Poll
Kerry 39
Bush 25
CNN Focus Group
24 on the panel
Kerry 10
Bush 7
Undecided 7
ABC News
Kerry 42
Bush 41
38% GOP
30% Dem
28% Independent
Matthew Yglesias has one
more data point.
Kerry 52, Bush 39
That's CNN's quick
poll response. A clear win for John Kerry. The reason, I think, is
that even though both sides won some rounds, Kerry won the important
rounds, on health care and jobs. Especially on jobs. It's easy for
the professional media to overlook the extent to which job
overshadow talk about, say, the deficit since, by definition, media
professionals are not unemployed. Nor do media professionals live in
the areas of the country that are afflicted by job losses. But in
Ohio, West Virginia, and elsewhere that stuff's a huge deal and all
Bush said to people who are hurting is that they should go back to
school. It's pretty insulting for a president (especially this
president) to suggest that the reason folks are struggling is that
they're too dumb.
UPDATE:
CBS
News poll was of uncommitted voters.
A CBS News poll
of uncommitted voters who watched the debate named Kerry the winner by
39-25 percent over Mr. Bush, with 36 percent calling it a tie. Sixty
percent said Kerry has clear positions on the issues. Before the third
debate, only 29 percent of the same voters said Kerry had clear
positions.
ABC has
a breakout here. 81% of Democrats and 42% of Independents called
it for Kerry. Only 73% of Republicans and 35% of Independents called
it for Bush. With a heavily Republican biased sample, the Presidential
vote was 49-48 for Bush before the debate and 49-49 after. The
USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll results are
striking, considering their tendency to have high Republican Party
ID in their polls. The link shows other good numbers for Kerry.
1.
Regardless of which candidate you happen to support, who do you
think did the better job in the debate – John Kerry (or) George W.
Bush
| |
Kerry |
Bush |
Neither
(vol.) |
Both/
equally (vol.) |
No
opinion |
| 2004
Oct 13 |
52 |
39 |
1 |
8 |
* |
| 2004
Oct 8 |
47 |
45 |
1 |
7 |
* |
| 2004
Sep 30 |
53 |
37 |
1 |
8 |
1 |
The Democracy
Corps poll of voters (who voted 49-46 for Bush over Gore in 2000
and are matched with Democrats or Dem-leaning in Party ID) shows a
shift in the Kerry-Bush horse race from 48-48 before the debate to
50-47 after the debate. Good showing Senator!
10/9/04_3 <link>
Dred Scott - and
Abortion? One thing I forgot
to mention in my Debate #2 Roundup below -
President Bush's rather out-of-the-blue mention of the infamous Dred
Scott case, saying that he would never appoint a judge who would have
ruled in favor of the Dred Scott decision. Why is this important? Well,
firstly he appears to have gotten the facts wrong (and likely
deliberately), as usual - as Atrios
pointed out:
Mistakes
involving the issue of slavery are particularly offensive, no matter
what the mistake.
Bush said:
- Another example
would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges years ago
said that the constitution allowed slavery because of personal
property rights.
Dred Scott wasn't
based on property rights. It was based on racism.
- The decision of
the court was read in March of 1857. Chief Justice Roger B.
Taney -- a staunch supporter of slavery -- wrote the
"majority opinion" for the court. It stated that
because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had
no right to sue. The decision also declared the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, legislation which restricted slavery in
certain territories, unconstitutional.
But more importantly, why did he
pick Dred Scott of all cases and why now?
Fairshot has
the answer (via
Kevin Drum) and it is not pleasant (remember, right-wing
conservatives in power usually talk in code!):
Dred Scott = Roe v.
Wade
Some
people
seem
to be a
bit boggled
by Bush's Dred Scott remark last night. It wasn't about racism or
slavery, or just Bush's natural incoherence. Here's what Bush
actually said [Fairshot's translation of Bush's remarks for his
religious Right base]:
If
elected to another term, I promise that I will nominate Supreme
Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Bush couldn't say
that in plain language, because it would freak out every moderate
swing voter in the country, but he can say it in code, to make sure
that his base will turn out for him. Anti-choice advocates have been
comparing Roe v. Wade with Dred Scott v. Sandford for some time now.
There is a constant drumbeat on the religious right to compare the
contemporary culture war over abortion with the 19th century fight
over slavery, with the anti-choicers cast in the role of the
abolitionists.
Don't believe me? Here.
Further, Bush has to
describe Dred Scott as about wrongheaded personal beliefs, rather
than a fairly constricted constitutional interpretation because he
needs to paint Roe v. Wade the same way, and he wants "strict
constructionists" in the Supreme Court, so he can't really talk
about the actual rationale used in Dred Scott.
I can't emphasize
enough how important this is, and how much it needs to be
publicized.
Fairshot is absolutely right.
Here is one
of the links (The National "Right to Life" Committee,
NRLC) from the Google search he points to:
In an 1857 court
case, known as the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court
ruled that slaves, even freed slaves, and all their descendants,
had no rights protected by the Constitution and that states had no
right to abolish slavery. Where would Blacks be today if that
reasoning had not been challenged?
The reasoning in Dred
Scott and Roe v. Wade is nearly identical. In both cases
the Court stripped all rights from a class of human beings and
reduced them to nothing more than the property of others. Compare
the arguments the Court used to justify slavery and abortion.
Clearly, in the Court's eyes, unborn children are now the same
"beings of an inferior order" that the justices considered
Blacks to be over a century ago.
Is this astonishing or
what?
10/9/04_2 <link>
Is Bush Wired, as in -
wearing an earpiece with someone prompting him when he speaks? I'll
let the links do the talking here (bold text emphasis and comments in brown
font are added by me). Dave
Lindorff, Salon.com:
Was President Bush
literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry?
That's the latest rumor flooding the Internet, unleashed last week
in the wake of an image caught by a television camera during the
Miami debate. The image shows a large solid object between Bush's
shoulder blades as he leans over the lectern and faces moderator Jim
Lehrer [photos
are here
for those who do not subscribe to Salon.com].
The president is not
known to wear a back brace, and it's safe to say he wasn't packing.
So was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver,
picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president
answers through a hidden earpiece? Did the device explain why the
normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much
of the debate?
Bloggers are burning
up their keyboards with
speculation. Check out the president's peculiar
behavior during the debate, they say. On several occasions,
the president simply stopped speaking for an uncomfortably long time
and stared ahead with an odd expression on his face. Was he
listening to someone helping him with his response to a question?
Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved
rejoinder to Kerry, he said, "As the politics change, his
positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I,
I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same
intelligence my opponent looked at." It must be said that Bush
pointed toward Lehrer as he declared "Let me finish." [for
the video - see
here]. The
green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well,
finish.
Hot on the conspiracy
trail, I tried to track down the source of the photo. None of the
Bush-is-wired bloggers, however, seemed to know where the photo came
from. Was it possible the bulge had been Photoshopped onto Bush's
back by a lone conspiracy buff? It turns out that all of the video
of the debate was recorded and sent out by Fox News, the pool
broadcaster for the event. Fox sent feeds from multiple cameras to
the other networks, which did their own on-air presentations and
editing.
To watch the debate
again, I ventured to the Web site of the most sober network I could
think of: C-SPAN. And sure enough, at minute 23 on the video of
the debate, you can clearly see the bulge between the president's
shoulder blades.
Bloggers stoke the
conspiracy with the claim that the Bush administration insisted
on a condition that no cameras be placed behind the candidates.
An official for the Commission on Presidential Debates, which set up
the lecterns and microphones on the Miami stage, said the condition
was indeed real, the result of negotiations by both campaigns. Yet
that didn't stop Fox from setting up cameras behind Bush and Kerry.
The official said that "microphones were mounted on lecterns,
and the commission put no electronic devices on the president or
Senator Kerry." When asked about the bulge on Bush's back, the
official said, "I don't know what that was."
So what was it? Jacob
McKenna, a spyware expert and the owner of the Spy Store, a
high-tech surveillance shop in Spokane, Wash., looked at the Bush
image on his computer monitor. "There's certainly something
on his back, and it appears to be electronic," he said.
McKenna said that, given its shape, the bulge could be the inductor
portion of a two-way push-to-talk system. McKenna noted that such a
system makes use of a tiny microchip-based earplug radio that is
pushed way down into the ear canal, where it is virtually invisible.
He also said a weak signal could be scrambled and be undetected by
another broadcaster.
Mystery-bulge
bloggers argue that the president may have begun using such
technology earlier in his term. Because Bush is famously prone to
malapropisms and reportedly dyslexic, which could make successful
use of a teleprompter problematic, they say the president and his
handlers may have turned to a technique often used by television
reporters on remote stand-ups. A reporter tapes a story and, while
on camera, plays it back into an earpiece, repeating lines just
after hearing them, managing to sound spontaneous and error free.
Suggestions that
Bush may have using this technique stem from a D-day event in
France, when a CNN broadcast appeared to pick up -- and broadcast to
surprised viewers -- the sound of another voice seemingly reading
Bush his lines, after which Bush repeated them. Danny
Schechter, who operates the news site MediaChannel.org, and who has
been doing some investigating into the wired-Bush rumors himself,
said the Bush campaign has been worried of late about others picking
up their radio frequencies -- notably during the Republican
Convention on the day of Bush's appearance. "They had a
frequency specialist stop me and ask about the frequency of my
camera," Schechter said. "The Democrats weren't doing that
at their convention."
...
The blog Isbushwired.com
and Cannonfire
have plenty of additional material, including other incidents
suggesting that Bush might be wired. For example: (a)
Apparent
prompting of Bush during a joint Press Conference with French
President Chirac earlier this year, accidentally carrying over to the
transmission. Note, as Marisacat points out in the post that "The
bleed thru was in advance of his words, not his voice
- at first I thought it was the bleed thru of both original
transmission and delay but no different voice - but his words.
Then he would track, repeat the words with tiny differences, breaths
taken at different times." [for the video, see
here]
More on this, including other witnesses' comments, here.
Cannonfire provides
a transcript:
Regarding
the D-Day speech, I may not have yet relayed this transcript of Bush
and the "phantom voice":
Q
President Chirac, given the fact that your government also
believed that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior
to the war, do you believe that there was a worldwide intelligence
failure? And despite your opposition to the war, do you believe
that Iraq is better, or worse off, today?
Mr. President, what role specifically would you like the French to
play in Iraq going forward? Merci.
PHANTOM VOICE: The French are going to provide advice...
PRESIDENT BUSH: Listen, the French are going to provide great
advice. President Chirac has got good judgment about the Middle
East, and he understands those countries well. The French are
going to work together to put out a U.N. Security Council
resolution that sends a clear signal the free world is united in
helping Iraq. And those are great contributions, for which I am
grateful, and so is my nation.
(b) Isbushwired adds:
A poster to IsBushWired
comments that she heard the prompter for Bush's 9/11
address on a New York station: "I was watching ABC in NYC.
I had no cable and I could only get ABC from my antenna at that time
(the only station that transmitters on the Empire State instead of
WTC). I definitely heard the prompter. I posted about it at the time
at Salon."
...
"Sure, Bush uses an earpiece sometimes," a top
Washington editor for Reuters said to me last spring. "State of
the Union -- he had an earpiece for that. Everybody knows it,"
he said, or assumes it. But everybody doesn't know it, I said. Why
hadn't Reuters investigated? The editor shrugged and said it wasn't
so different from using a teleprompter.
Except that a teleprompter isn't a secret. And Americans have the
right to know if the president can't or won't speak in public
without covert assistance.
...
...A news photograph from July 7 shows Bush with another odd bulge at the back of his jacket.
(c) Cannonfire
has some additional links here,
here
and here. Since
Lindorff's report, there have been some developments (with the New
York Times, the Washington
Post and Associated
Press picking up the story) in which the White House initially
claimed the video was doctored - only to backtrack and claim it was
probably just a crumpled suit, which is also implausible given the
perfect rectangular shape of the protrusion. Lindorff's
latest update at Salon.com also adds this:
The most important
piece of information obtained by the Post reporter was a statement
by the Bush campaign that the president was not wearing a
bullet-proof vest during the debate appearance -- one of the most
widely offered alternative explanations for the bulge in the jacket.
Another point of note that Cannonfire
points out:
Two
lengthy quotations, taken together, paint a rather disturbing
picture. The first, which many of you have already read, comes from
Joshua Marshall (who offers his observation "with some
hesitation"):
In 2001, 2002 and 2003
the president had his annual physical in early August. And after
each he's gotten a clean bill of health. To all appearances the
president is in excellent health.
But this year, according to AFP, he's decided to postpone his
physical until after the election.
On its face, the explanation makes a certain amount of sense.
"This has been a busier travel period for the president than
the previous three years," Scott McClellan told the AFP.
But can the president really not afford one day?
And another thing occurs to me.
What was the president doing in early August this year? Right
about then is when he was taking the traditional hiatus from
campaigning during the Democratic convention. It seems like then
of all times he had some time free.
10/9/04_1 <link>
Kerry-Bush Debate #2 Bottomline
Bush did better than in his
first debate but not well enough. Kerry did well but should have
done much better. Overall, my immediate thought after the
debate ended was that Kerry just did well enough to win the debate. Details
Bush showed himself to be clearly in need
of anger management (the new meme is "Furious
George"). It remains astonishing to me that nearly half
the country wants to vote for a supposed commander-in-chief who is
barely in control of himself when the myriad fantasies of his
Presidency and his judgment are challenged. If there was ever a
spoilt, incompetent brat in the White House, this is it. Kerry on the
other hand looked far more mature, balanced and in control. After two
debates, Kerry has impressed me far more than I expected (and even
some staunch conservatives
agree). Having grown accustomed to the almost unlimited amount of
carping I have heard over his supposed lack of charisma, I am glad
Kerry proved his critics wrong. Additionally, Kerry was to the point
for the most part, was moderate yet strong in his responses, and had
strong (yet inoffensive) messages countering Bush and the charge of
"flip-flopper". In other words he was playing both to his
base as well as the undecideds /independents, whereas Bush was trying
to shore up his base - which was disappointed after his debate #1
debacle. Surprisingly though,
Kerry's biggest debating weaknesses were in the discussions on
domestic issues (the second half of the debate). Examples:
(a) I was dissatisfied at how he handled Bush's
attacks (on Kerry) on taxes and abortion.
Why not point out that Bush's fear mongering about taxes is absurdly
fake considering that the last time taxes were raised we had the most
unprecedented economic and jobs expansion in American history?
Why not point out that Bush favors not just a ban on the so-called "partial
birth abortion" (hoax),
but also favors a constitutional amendment to ban ALL
abortions?
(b) I was a bit underwhelmed by his somewhat
weak comments on embryos used for fertilization - something
that he should have used more aggressively to completely destroy
Bush's abjectly
fake morality on
the stem cell topic.
(c) Kerry's response to the budget deficit
reduction question was probably the most underwhelming of all. It
is clear that his proposals have little chance of reducing the deficit
by half in 4 years - but, being in this situation I was wondering why
he didn't go after Bush more aggressively to point out that what Bush
has proposed in terms of additional tax cuts and spending will add
much more to the deficit than Kerry ever would. Kerry also let Bush get
away with his completely
fabricated nonsense about non-defense discretionary spending in the
past 4 years, and Bush's
lie about not having part ownership of a timber company, among other
things. In the end, Kerry probably salvaged the situation by
reminding voters that he has actually fought repeatedly for balanced
budgets - which gives him far more credibility than Bush. But he let
this issue become a real fight rather than just a skirmish. Perhaps
it was the time limit - and perhaps I am just being overly demanding
on Kerry. We'll see how he handles these topics in debate #3. Looking
ahead to Debate #3
In the first two debates Kerry successfully attacked and almost
reversed the hoax
that "national security and foreign affairs are Bush's
strengths" - indeed Kerry has shown that he is far more
capable of handling the country's security and Iraq than he has been
given credit for.
However, his performance in the second half of debate #2 makes me
concerned that on domestic policy - which is widely consider
his strength (and it is) - he might actually be more vulnerable to
Bush's attacks unless he gets much sharper on this on the debate floor.
This is particularly true since
Bush and Cheney are going to continue to churn out egregious lies by
the dozen about Kerry - and the media will probably
not help much by their "fair and balanced" stand.
Will Saletan at Slate, who was disappointed with Kerry's
performance in debate #2, has some advice for Kerry on this
(especially on what he needs to learn from Edwards). How
did the public rate debate #2?
Consistent with my own view, a majority of potential voters (a slight
majority in one case, medium in another) appear to have concluded that
Kerry won debate #2. More encouragingly, Gallup's
poll and the Democracy
Corps poll both show that independents and/or undecided voters
felt Kerry won by double digit margins -- while Kerry continued to
consolidate his base. Perhaps most importantly, Kerry's positives in
the polls (favorability, likeability, etc.) continued
to increase measurably. (NOTE: Zogby is showing Kerry moving "ahead"
(within MoE) of Bush slightly in the latest tracking poll.)
10/7/04 <link>
Iraq for Dummies ©
Given the joke that the Bush
administration has made out of American lives and American security
(especially in Iraq), it's time for us all to drink some Kool-aid and
check out Iraq
for Dummies ©. Now!
10/6/04_2 <link>
Exaggerate and stretch
while running for office? That's not allowed, said Bush and Cheney - 4
years ago. Ah, compassionate
conservatism at work.
Via Digby,
we have blogger
Just My 2 with an appropriate flashback:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AL GORE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: First, I want to
compliment the governor on his response to those fires and floods in
Texas. I accompanied James Lee Witt down to Texas when those fires
broke out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Well, Al Gore did not actually visit Texas on this occasion with James
Lee Witt, the FEMA director at the time. He visited with his
subordinates. However, he did visit approximately 18 other disaster
areas with Lee Witt at other times. A small discrepancy right...
Well, not if you were part of the Bush/Cheney 2000 team. Here is what
they said.
Let's
start with...
MARY MATALIN: He did not accompany James Lee Witt in '96 or '98. He
never toured any of the fire zones. He did get a briefing in the
pilots lounge at the airport when he went down to campaign for
Governor Bush's opponent.
...Have we seen -- have we not seen this kind of compulsive behavior
in the leader of the free world, and don't we understand the dangerous
ramifications of somebody who just can't help themselves from making
up stories?
...
Here's
the President at the time...
CROWLEY: The Gore camp says the vice president frequently travels with
Witt to disaster sites and suggests that Gore's statement was a
trivial honest mistake. George Bush says this is not about details,
but about the larger picture.
BUSH: If there's pattern of just exaggeration and stretches to try to
win votes, it says something about leadership as far as I'm concerned,
because once you're the president, you can't stretch.
And
the President again...
Bush also criticized Gore for saying, during Tuesday night's debate,
that he visited disaster sites in Texas with federal emergency
management chief James Lee Witt.
"It's a pattern of just saying whatever it takes to win,"
Bush said. Asked whether the discrepancy was a big deal, he said
"There's a pattern of exaggerations and stretches to try to win
votes, and it says something about leadership."
and
the coup de grace...
Bush's running mate, former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, said he was
"puzzled and saddened to learn" that Gore had misrepresented
his actions during the 1998 wildfires in Texas.
"Al Gore has described these presidential debates as a job
interview with the American people," Cheney said. "I've
learned over the years that when somebody embellishes their resume in
a job interview, you don't hire them."
10/6/04 <link>
The Edwards-Cheney debate At
worst it was a draw for Edwards. More objectively I think
Edwards just about won this debate (especially with the undecideds). Why? For three reasons. (1)
Most importantly, Edwards did the job of telling people that KE04 have
a plan for most of the issues and highlighted the lack of a plan (or
worse) when it comes to BC04. I see that liberal Republican
William Saletan agrees in Slate:
If you watched this
debate as an uninformed voter, you heard an avalanche of reasons to
vote for Kerry. You heard 23 times that Kerry has a "plan"
for some big problem or that Bush doesn't. You heard 10 references
to Halliburton, with multiple allegations of bribes, no-bid
contracts, and overcharges. You heard 13 associations of Bush with
drug or insurance companies. You heard four attacks on him for
outsourcing. You heard again and again that he opposed the 9/11
commission and the Department of Homeland Security, that he
"diverted" resources from the fight against al-Qaida to
the invasion of Iraq, and that while our troops "were on the
ground fighting, [the administration] lobbied the Congress to cut
their combat pay." You heard that Kerry served in Vietnam and
would "double the special forces." You heard that Bush is
coddling the Saudis, that Cheney "cut over 80 weapons
systems," and that the administration has no air-cargo
screening or unified terrorist watch list.
As the debate turned
to domestic policy, you heard that we've lost 1.6 million net jobs
and 2.7 million net manufacturing jobs under Bush. You heard that
he's the first president in 70 years to lose jobs. You heard that 4
million more people live in poverty, and 5 million have lost their
health insurance. You heard that the average annual premium has
risen by $3,500. You heard that we've gone from a $5 trillion
surplus to a $3 trillion debt. You heard that a multimillionaire
sitting by his swimming pool pays a lower tax rate than a soldier in
Iraq. You heard that Bush has underfunded No Child Left Behind by
$27 billion. You heard that Kerry, unlike Bush, would let the
government negotiate "to get discounts for seniors" and
would let "prescription drugs into this country from
Canada." You heard that at home and abroad, Bush offers
"four more years of the same."
Most Democrats,
including Kerry, duck and cover when Republicans bring up values.
Not Edwards. He knows the language and loves to turn it against the
GOP. The word "moral" was used twice in this debate. The
word "value" was used three times. All five references
came from Edwards. He denounced the "moral" crime of
piling debt on our grandchildren. He called the African AIDS
epidemic and the Sudan genocide "huge moral issues." When
Ifill asked him about gay marriage, he changed the subject to taxes.
"We don't just value wealth, which they do," said Edwards.
"We value work in this country. And it is a fundamental
value difference between them and us."
Edwards applied the
same jujitsu elsewhere. He framed his vote against the $87 billion
Iraq appropriation as a vote against a $7.5 billion "no-bid
contract for Halliburton." When Cheney faulted Kerry's
inconsistency, Edwards argued that Kerry, unlike Bush, had been
"consistent from the beginning that we must stay focused on the
people who attacked us." When Cheney accused Kerry of weakening
America by subjecting its foreign policy decisions to the approval
of allies, Edwards replied that Bush, by refusing to persuade
allies, was leaving Americans to bear the war's costs and
casualties.
My favorite moment
came when Cheney impugned Edwards' voting record. Edwards replied
that Cheney had voted against Head Start, Meals on Wheels, the
Department of Education, and the Martin Luther King holiday. It was
such a devastating flurry of kidney punches, so blandly and
shamelessly delivered, that my wife and I burst into sobs of weeping
laughter. At the skill or the gall, I'm not sure which.
The charge that did
the most damage was the one Edwards leveled at the outset: that Bush
and Cheney aren't telling the truth about prewar and postwar Iraq.
Edwards listed the evidence contradicting Cheney's assurances about
the current situation: the monthly escalation of American
casualties, criticism of the administration's incompetence by
Republican senators, and a critique issued Monday by Bush's former
Iraq administrator. Then he listed the evidence contradicting
Cheney's associations of the Iraq war with 9/11: testimony from
Secretary of State Powell and reports from the 9/11 commission and
the CIA.
To this indictment,
Edwards added two others. In Afghanistan, he blamed Bush for letting
Osama Bin Laden escape Tora Bora to strike again. In Iran, he
accused Cheney of opposing sanctions against "sworn enemies of
the United States"—and an emerging nuclear threat—because
Halliburton had business there. Together, the charges painted a
picture of an administration that spent its ammunition on the wrong
target, allowing more serious threats to flourish.
Edwards' assault took
Cheney completely off his game. Cheney spent the first 15 minutes
defending the administration, unable to deliver his prepared attacks
on Kerry. He lost his cool and started to snap at Edwards, saying,
"You probably weren't there to vote for that," and
"You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United
States Senate." Though Edwards was delivering the harsher
blows, Cheney looked meaner.
(2) Edwards was debating perhaps the
most powerful and nasty Vice President in American history and he more
than held his own as a presumed "new kid on the block".
While he did miss responding to some Cheney zingers, I was surprised at Edwards' pre-emptive
and consistent aggressiveness against Cheney. Remember, Dick Cheney's job was to pull off a resounding
victory for BC04 and he failed to do that even if you believe that
Edwards did not win or that the debate was a draw (as the bulk
of the media talking heads seem to think). (3)
If the media really focuses on facts, they will unmask Cheney's
astonishing litany
of lies in the debate whereas Edwards can at best be accused of some
exaggeration. Indeed, Edwards' frontal attack on Cheney may
have even forced Cheney into some mistakes. Here are links to multiple
fact checks which show among other things that Cheney lied about
meeting Edwards the first time yesterday, about not hinting of an Iraq
- 9/11 link, about who benefits from the tax cuts, about how
Halliburton is benefiting from the Bush administration, etc. etc. [of
course, Edwards relatively minor exaggerations, in comparison, are
also discussed]:
Jonathan
Landay and Seth Borenstein (Knight-Ridder), Glenn
Kessler and Jim VandeHei (Washington Post), William
Saletan (Slate), Reuters/MSNBC,
Pandagon,
Atrios,
Liberal
Oasis, KE04 - 1,
2
[and updates -->] Kevin
Drum (Political Animal), Michael
Isikoff and Mark Hosenball (Newsweek).
[I
will take a minute to commend Knight-Ridder and the Washington Post
for elevating the importance of facts in this election. This year,
they have done better than any other newspaper or media as far as I
can tell]. Markos
at DailyKos asks the following, after showing Cheney's claim that
he never met Edwards before to be a bald-faced lie:
Why would Cheney make
a lie so obviously easy to expose? It's almost pathological --
reality need not get in the way of a good zinger.
Brad DeLong responds
correctly:
It's not almost
pathological, it's totally pathological--and based on an enormous
confidence in the incompetence of the press corps.
BONUS
A final point of
humor via
DailyKos.
Cheney urged the audience to go to FactCheck.com to get the
"truth".
Turns out that FactCheck.com
is a George Soros site. [it redirects to georgesoros.com!]
He probably meant FactCheck.org,
which is a non-partisan site. But even if he meant that, look at the
top headline from the site:
Bush Mischaracterizes Kerry's Health Plan
Bush claims Kerry's plan puts "bureaucrats in
control" of medical decisons, "not you, not your
doctor." But experts don't agree with that.
LOL!
10/4/04 <link>
The Bush Cheney 04
platform: The art of frightening people into voting for them
Two appropriate links to mark the
biggest hoax on Americans in a long time - namely, the claim
that Bush and Cheney have reduced the risk of terrorism against the
U.S. The first one is via Americablog
- and I entirely agree with John - it is absolutely brilliant - click
on one of the links below (whichever works for you) and watch it.
NOW!
Watch this, NOW. Do not
pass go. Do not collect $200.
I've posted links to several different sites carrying the same video -
it's getting a lot of traffic.
- Link
1
- Link
2 (you have to to give this link a chance to download - if you're
on dial-up, good luck).
- Link 3
UPDATE: This video was apparently done by Brennan Houlihan. You can
read more about Brennan here,
courtesy of OliverWillis.com, they're also one of those hosting the
video.
The second one is via Kevin
Drum (Political Animal) who brings to our attention the other part
of the Bush-Cheney strategy for this election:
TERROR ALERTS
QUANTIFIED AT LAST....This
falls into the category of stuff we already knew, but
it's nice to have rigorous confirmation anyway:
When the federal
government issues a terrorist warning, presidential approval
ratings jump, a Cornell University sociologist finds.
Interestingly, terrorist warnings also boost support for the
president on issues that are largely irrelevant to terrorism, such
as his handling of the economy.
...."Results
showed that terror warnings increased presidential approval
ratings consistently," says [researcher Robb] Willer.
"They also increased support for Bush's handling of the
economy. The findings, however, were inconclusive as to how long
this halo effect lasts."
The full report is here,
and the basic result is simple: a terror warning leads to an average
increase in the president's approval rating of 2.75% and the
increase lasts for about a week — possibly two weeks at the
outside. The results are statistically significant at a very high
level and (assuming I read the report correctly) Willer properly
controlled for major events like 9/11 and the capture of Saddam
Hussein.
That's good to know,
isn't it? Until now, we might have lazily guessed that the White
House was going to stage some kind of terror alert for, oh,
mid-October or so. But with this new data in hand, I think we can
confidently expect it on about October 27 instead. After all, the
effect only lasts a week.
Incidentally, the DCCC's blog, The
Stakeholder has another excellent Bush debate fact-check video on Iraq
and terrorism here
(via Buzzflash). Don't forget to check it out as well.
10/3/04 <link>
The First Debate - and
Where We Go From Here
Kerry did well in the debates and
although I expect minimal shifts in the horserace numbers due to to
this, it should help significantly strengthen voters' views of him as
a dependable and credible leader. The work now is to keep doing what
he did in the debate, EVERYDAY, for the rest of this campaign. Plus,
his camp needs to aggressively fight the fabrications and spin from
the GOP and the media.
More detailed analysis is
here (including Fox News' latest fabrications about Kerry).
Take a look.
9/27/04_2 <link>
Who voted "for
war"? Atrios has
the goods...
Let's
consider Bush's recent rhetoric. His
latest ad says "Kerry voted for the Iraq war."
When he asked Congress for the resolution, when Andy Card rolled it
out after Labor Day, Bush claimed it
was a vote for peace:
- you want to keep
the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force.
But it's -- this will be -- this is a chance for Congress to
indicate support. It's a chance for Congress to say, we support
the administration's ability to keep the peace.
At the time he signed
the resolution, he claimed it was
a vote for peace.
- Our goal is not
merely to limit Iraq's violations of Security Council
resolutions, or to slow down its weapons program. Our goal is to
fully and finally remove a real threat to world peace and to
America. Hopefully this can be done peacefully.
And, even today, as the
ad is
running he says:
- Of course, I was
hoping it could be done diplomatically. But diplomacy failed.
And so the last resort of a president is to use force. And we
did.
He claimed then it
was a vote for peace. He told Congress it was a vote for peace. He
then says that the vote for peace that he asked John Kerry to make
was actually a vote for war. The previous March he'd said,
"Fuck Saddam, we're taking him out." So, he told people it
was a vote for peace even though he'd decided it was a vote for war.
Maybe war is peace. Who the hell knows anymore.
Sure, we all knew in October what this vote was really for, and
Kerry should have too. But, it wasn't what Bush said.
9/27/04_1 <link>
More on the painting of
Kerry as a flip-flopper on Iraq Via
Buzzflash, I see Mark
Sandalow has this piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, pointing
out what William Saletan did.
NEWS
ANALYSIS
Flip-flopping charge unsupported by facts
Kerry always pushed global cooperation, war as last resort
No argument is more
central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the
assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq.
President Bush,
seated beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said Tuesday:
"My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that
his statements are hardly credible at all.''
The allegation is the
basis of a new Bush campaign TV ad that shows the Democratic senator
from Massachusetts windsurfing to the strains of a Strauss waltz as
a narrator intones: "Kerry voted for the Iraq war, opposed it,
supported it and now opposes it again.''
Yet an examination of
Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments
during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not
support the accusation.
As foreign policy
emerged as a dominant issue in the Democratic primaries and later in
the general election, Kerry clung to a nuanced, middle-of-the road
-- yet largely consistent -- approach to Iraq. Over and over, Kerry
enthusiastically supported a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even
as he aggressively criticized Bush for the manner in which he did
so.
Kerry repeatedly
described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or
eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support
for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan
for the post-war peace.
There were times when
Kerry's emphasis shifted for what appear to be political reasons. In
the fall of 2003, for example, when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean
surged to the top of Democratic polls based on an anti-war platform,
Kerry's criticism of the president grew stronger. There are many
instances in which clumsy phrases and tortuously long explanations
make Kerry difficult to follow. And there are periods, such as last
week, when the sharpness of Kerry's words restating old positions
seem to suggest a change.
Yet taken as a whole,
Kerry has offered the same message ever since talk of attacking Iraq
became a national conversation more than two years ago.
...
9/23/04_2 <link>
Did Kerry claim that he
would have invaded Iraq even knowing what he knew today?
(Also see THIS
UPDATE)
The answer is
NO. William Saletan in Slate looks
at the charge and shows that Kerry has been consistent in saying
that he would have voted for the Iraq war resolution to give the
President leverage, but he would not have gone to war the way Bush
did.
Bush argues that this
is yet another Kerry flip-flop and that Kerry now endorses Bush's
war. At a campaign rally on Tuesday, Bush asserted,
My opponent has
found a new nuance. He now agrees it was the right decision to go
into Iraq. After months of questioning my motives and even my
credibility, Senator Kerry now agrees with me that even though we
have not found the stockpile of weapons we believed were there,
knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into
Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power.
Does Kerry now agree
with Bush's decision? Would Kerry have gone into Iraq? Would he have
voted to give Bush the authorization had Kerry known what he now knows
about the absence of WMD and about how Bush would use the
authorization?
The answer, if you look
closely at Kerry's statements over the past three years, is no. [read here
for more]
Of course, since this article was
written, Kerry gave this
excellent speech at NYU on 9/20/04. Go read/watch
it because he finally makes his stance crystal clear - making it
obvious that voting for Kerry means voting for a very different view
and a more effective approach towards the Iraq war. Accordingly,
William Saletan has provided
a summary of what Kerry stands for and does not stand for. Not
surprisingly, Bush has started blandly lying about Kerry's speech, as
Liberal Oasis points
out:
For the second time
in two weeks, (click
here for the first time) ABC World News Tonight actually
performed a basic media function: truth-squadding.
PETER JENNINGS: We
were struck today by a very pointed attack by President Bush on John
Kerry.
First of all, this is what Mr. Bush said.
[begin video clip]
BUSH: We agree
that the world is better off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison
cell.
And that stands in stark contrast to the statement that my opponent
made yesterday, when he said that the world was better off with
Saddam in power.
I strongly disagree.
[end video clip]
JENNINGS: And this
is what Mr. Kerry actually said. [emphasis original]
[begin video clip]
KERRY: Saddam
Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in
Hell.
But that was not...in and of itself, a reason to go to war.
The satisfaction...that we take in his downfall does not hide this
fact:
We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less
secure.
[end video clip]
JENNINGS: Trying
to keep track of the Iraq debate.
This is not to say
that ABC is by any means a flawless
media operation.
In my opinion, Senator Kerry should
simply say the following to the American public:
"George Bush has
consistently misled you about a lot of things - whether it is Iraq,
terrorism, the economy and jobs, or healthcare. So, is there any
reason to believe him when he throws accusations at me, especially
ones that are repeatedly being shown to be untrue?"
9/23/04_1 <link>
CBS Rathergate Update As
I said before, the memos have turned out to be
NOT "authentic". I'm glad CBS exposed the source of the
discredited memos (Bill Burkett) and apologized and is doing an
investigation on how they used it without fact-checking. Now, I don't
happen to hold a particularly high opinion of CBS anyway - remember,
CBS viewers were second
to viewers of Faux News in holding views that patently
contradicted the facts regarding the Iraq war. In other words, after
Faux News viewers, CBS viewers were most
likely to think that the U.S. found WMDs in Iraq, that evidence
was uncovered that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were working closely,
and/or that the majority of the people in the world backed the US war
on Iraq. This itself told me the caliber of CBS'
"journalism". Having
said that, Outlet
Radio (via DailyKos)
has an appropriate summary of the situation:
| Dan
Rather, CBS News Anchor |
- given
documents he thought were true
- failed to
thoroughly investigate the facts
- reported
documents to the American people as true to make his case
- when
confronted with the facts, apologized and launched an
investigation
- number of
Americans dead: 0
- should be
fired as CBS News Anchor
|
| George
W. Bush, President of the United States |
- given
documents he thought were true
- failed to
thoroughly investigate the facts
- reported
documents to the American people as true to make his case
- when
confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth and
stonewalled an investigation
- number of
Americans dead: 1100
- should be
given four more years as President of the United States
|
9/20/04 <link>
Bush National Guard
Update Eric Boehlert
(Salon.com) has a remarkably
simple summary of the Bush Texas Air National Guard story. He
summarizes what is known and not known, what Bush was supposed to and
did not. This
is a must-read.
9/19/04_2 <link>
The Draft - the stormy
petrel of (more) war
Will there be a military
draft because of the morass in Iraq?
Senator Kerry charged
last week that Bush plans a major call up of reservists and Guard
members immediately after the election - something based on verifiable
information from Rep. John Murtha, and something that the Bush camp
has denied.
I don't know where the truth lies for
sure. However, one can attempt educated guesses on this enormously
important topic, one which should be a major item for debate in this
campaign. At least Senator Kerry has made it clear that he will work
with allies across the world to build a larger international force in
Iraq (to stabilize the country) - allies who have been substantially
disillusioned with the Bush administration and who are now continuing
to pull troops
from Iraq despite the rapidly deteriorating security situation
there, which is claiming greater
numbers of American casualties every month for some time now.
President Bush has offered nothing other than "staying the
course", meaning that our troops should continue to sacrifice
their lives for his grand, failed
experiment, while he continues to amass
an unmatched record of flip-flops on Iraq in the process of
displaying unmatched incompetence (as certified
by several Republican Senators recently). Where
do we go from here? Well, since the Bush administration won't
be straight with us, we have to assume what is logical. The
logical conclusion one arrives at when one considers that Iraq's
security situation has reached quagmire proportions, while (relatively
small) allied contingents are leaving Iraq, is that there will be no
option other than institute the draft, as long as the Bush
administration remains in power. (Senator Edwards, speaking for
Senator Kerry, has already ruled out the draft if they are to be
elected to power). The
potential introduction of the draft at this particular point in
time is fundamentally a disturbing proposition,
especially when thousands of lives (Americans and Iraqis) have already
been unnecessarily sacrificed for no fault of theirs, due to
dereliction of duty by those who sent our troops there to fight the wrong war
(based on myriad false
pretenses) against the wrong enemy at the wrong time -- while the Bush
administration continues to catastrophically underfund
National Security and ignore Al
Qaeda (the real terrorists behind 9/11), just
like they did prior to 9/11/01. Dave
Johnson at Seeing the Forest has a timely post on the draft,
and I reproduce part of it here.
It's the Draft,
Stupid - Calling All Bloggers
In the 1992 election James Carville hung a sign in the Clinton
campaign "war room" that read, "It's the economy,
stupid!" He was saying that the issue that was going to win for
them in that election was the economy, and everything else was a
time-wasting distraction. Perceptions about the economy tend to
decide elections because people tend to vote in their blatant
self-interest.
In this election I think there is another issue that is a winner:
the Draft. I think if young people start to believe they could be
drafted they will register and vote because it is in their blatant
self-interest. There are enough young non-voters to completely
change the dynamics of this election - even in the short time
remaining to get them registered.
The news from Iraq is not good. We are not winning, the
anti-American insurgency is gaining momentum, and we obviously need
a lot more troops there as soon as possible. This is why we are
hearing about National Guard and Reserve call-ups, as well as
stories about troops being threatened
with being sent to Iraq if they do not re-enlist. It appears
that Bush is waiting until after the election to do something about
this - and this politically-motivated hesitation means that things
will be even worse in November than they are now.
It's just reality that our military is stretched too thin in Iraq,
and consequently is stretched too thin in the rest of the world. If
ANYthing happens in another location, like Korea, we are in trouble.
We should have a draft in effect NOW, but Bush will not discuss this
before the election for obvious political reasons.
If we can start getting the word out that a draft is coming, it will
be self-re-enforcing. Every time Bush calls himself a "war
president" it reminds young people that they are of draft-age.
If you are young, you better read Dave's
other post on this topic, as well, which leads succinctly with
this: The Draft – A Reason to Vote if You’re Under 30
9/19/04_1 <link>
CBS memos
I've
been relatively silent on the CBS memo issue (largely because I've
been busy with my other websites), but one point does need to be made.
All this talk about right-wing bloggers and "experts" having
proven that the memos are fake is bunk - and not only that, the
work of long-time
Republican operatives and right-wing
media/columnists in promoting lies about the memos, the actual Bush
AWOL record
and his lies about it as well as the words
of multiple eyewitnesses who have attested to the validity of the
basic content of the memos been largely downplayed by the media. This
does not, of course, mean that the memos are NOT fake - they could
very well be. But proving a negative, in cases like these, is not
trivial. David
Neiwert of Orcinus has succinctly addressed the whole controversy,
so I'll just quote him:
It's
pretty funny, really, how right-wing bloggers are serially breaking
their arms patting themselves on the back for having exposed "Forgerygate."
Actually, all they've really managed to prove is P.T. Barnum's
famous adage, perhaps recast as "There's a blogger born every
minute."
Have any bloggers actually yet proven definitively that the CBS
documents are fake?
Well, no. All they've been able to produce so far is a great deal of
speculation, much of it later proven to be entirely without
substance.
Times New Roman didn't exist in 1972? It existed in 1931.
You can create a nearly identical copy with MS Word? Perhaps that's
because MS
Word was designed to replicate an IBM typewriter.
The signatures look fake? Actually, the signatures are the only
thing that experts have been able to say conclusively are genuine.
And on
and on
and on.
Perhaps the most amusing of the "forgery" theories is the
recent suggestion that the documents released by Bush in 2000 (and
re-released by the White House this year) are also forgeries.
At least, that seems to be the conclusion reached by those mental
wizards at WizBang,
who have developed a theory that Marty
Heldt (whose work I've featured here several times) has also
been peddling forgeries. This by way of arguing that Heldt is the
source of the CBS documents.
The only problem with that? Heldt's sole source for the documents
was a FOIA request, a fact that's easily substantiated by others,
mostly journalists at the Boston Globe and elsewhere, who received
the identical documents. It's further substantiated by the fact that
the White House re-released the exact same documents earlier this
year.
The source for the accusations against Heldt?
"Brooks Gregory", a supposed Democratic "political
consultant" who claimed o |