A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community

Acknowledgements

SEARCH eRiposte!

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