All hat, no cattle

This was Kerry's response to Bush's speech. Right on!
Moe Rocca hit it during his little comedy bit on Larry King -- oh that Kerry, he said, what a buzz-killer.
He was right -- Bush's speech was pretty good -- brilliant toward the end, when the audience was in tears.
But he'll get little buzz from it now, and all because of Kerry's midnight rally, surrounded by thousands of people gathered to hear HIS speech. It was not defense, either -- instead he put Bush and Cheney on the defensive -- instead of basking in the glow of their own speeches, they'll be sputtering about how unfair and misleading Kerry's speech was.
Kerry covered just about everything -- he said health care was a right and he would not lie America into a war and he promised jobs and said America should not have to depend on Saudi Arabia to lower its oil prices and should not have given no-bid contracts to Halliburton while still being paid by them and that no one who avoided service like Bush and Cheney had the right to question his fitness to command.
So now, its the flaws in Bush's speech that are being talked about - even Tucker Carlson said it was too long. And they just got a phone call from a woman who asked, when Bush talks about bringing freedom to the world, is he talking about more wars?
And the media are lapping it up, so gleeful that they will have all sorts of stuff to cover for the next two months.

Smacktards!

"Smacktard" is the insult now used by my son and his friends -- he says its some kind of combination of the old insult "retard" (which for his generation is too un-PC and insufficiently insulting anyway) plus the phrase "smacked upside the head" (which they don't use either because it has its own unacceptable connotations).
Anyway, from what I have heard about the Cheney and Miller speeches, it seems to be an appropriate insult -- they're both a bunch of smacktards!

Pissing on a car

George W. Bush's missing year
The most memorable image from this story -- Georgie pissing on a car.
So while John Kerry was getting shot at in Vietnam, George Bush was coming to work late and leaving early, whooping it up in Georgia. Gee, what a leader of men!

It's all Nixon's fault

Listening to Arnold tonight, I thought I was listening for the most part to a speech that could have been delivered to a democratic convention, except for the "you may be a redneck" moments.
So as well as giving us that tiresome "--gate" label, we have another thing to thank Richard Nixon for -- turning natural-born-democrat Arnold into a republican.
Now I'm listening to Ben Stein talk about how "everyone" is talking about religion rather than the economy (though not too many of the people he talks to are unemployed, I would think) and how they will elect Bush as a "man of faith".
I just don't get it -- of course, the great divide between Canada and the United States now is a religious one, with America apparently becoming increasingly religious while Canada becomes increasingly secular, but I cannot understand voting for someone based on their religion rather than their policies. Maybe Marx was right - religion is the opiate of the masses.
I thought Laura Bush did a good job with her speech tonight, though her riff about children being safe rang a little hollow when it followed her story about the woman whose three sons are in the military, two of them at Fallaujah -- ah, yes, vote for Bush and your babies will be safe, but they will grow up to go to war.
It will be a religious war, though, so I guess that's OK.

Hey, Presto! Chango!

So not only did the Washington Post actually fact-check Guiliani's speech, but they also point out that the latest swifty attack is from a lobbyist whose client received a $40 million federal contract.
When the media flips, they really flip. I guess Mrs. Graham didn't raise any stupid kids, after all.
And I am glad that someone is finally following the money -- the idea that all of the swifties are just sincere, though perhaps misguided, patriots has been a media trope for too long.

Trust the Republicans

To be so politically tone-deaf that they come up with a stunt that ridicules wounded soldiers while also demonstrating beyond any denial how the swifties agenda is connected solely to the Bush reelection agenda. RNC Delegates mock wounded soldiers

Bush may be losing his base as well as his war

I hope the republican delegates read Paul Krugman's column A No-Win Situation.
Just like they found out yesterday how hundreds of thousands of people hate George Bush -- thus explaining their schizoid reaction of both distraction and hysteria with the McCain and Guiliani speeches tonight -- they would find out reading Krugman's column how the American military is losing in Iraq.
I found it odd, listening to tonight's speeches, how many "crowd" shots showed people yawning, chatting, frowning, staring off into space. I do think they were still a little shellshocked about the demonstration. Sure, they applauded McCain, but it was somewhat perfunctory and mechanical some of the time (particularly compared to the rapt attention and shining eyes shown during the democratic evenings). And the relative silence following his call for unity was deafening. During the 9-ll widow speeches, the hum of conversation was reaching an embarassing level - cue the singer.
They got fired up was when McCain attacked Michael Moore, and when Guiliani attacked the Germans, the Italians and John Kerry. But with all the talk, talk, talk about 9-11 and Bush's leadership, the image which kept popping into my mind - emphasized by McCain's reference to Moore - was Bush flipping through My Pet Goat while Guiliani was staring horror-struck at the people jumping from the 102nd floor.
I wonder how many republicans found themselves thinking about that, too.

Yes, the US is losing the war

I've been saying since June, I think, that the US is losing the war in Iraq and will not admit it.
Gilliard summarizes the American problems in Meanwhile, back in Najaf: "The question is why the US Army cannot force a battle to the conclusion against lightly armed, barely trained guerrillas. The better part of a combined brigade of US heavy armor and Marines could not defeat an insurgency of pissed off ghetto teenagers. Think a pissed off group of bloods and crips with high explosives and religious support. The US could not close and kill with them, even before they got to the Imam Ali shrine. Now, they're back to Sadr City, bloodied but unbowed."
On CNN last Thursday, former UN ambassador Richard Holdbrook said this:
". . . the United States' position in Iraq is getting progressively more difficult to sustain. Fallujah has now become a liberated zone, only 35 miles from Baghdad in which all sorts of the worst people in the world, terrorists, al Qaeda types, other people hostile to U.S. are pouring in. Najaf is now happened the same thing. The United States is in a disastrous situation in Iraq right now . . . I think that Americans really ought to hear from President Bush as to what our policy is in Iraq. He hasn't explained in a long time what's going on. He tells the American public things like, well, we've turned the corner in Iraq or we're bringing democracy to Iraq or he praises Iraq's performance in the Athens Olympics, but he doesn't explain what our policy is, whether there's any exit strategy and our troops have turned into the military wing of the Allawi government and that's a very odd position to be in. . . Any way you cut this, Miles, Najaf is a setback for the United States politically. . . . What is the United States doing, acting as the military force for Allawi, a secular Shiite, in his brutal internal civil war against Muqtada al Sadr, a monstrous and brutal extreme Shiite? . . . Ayatollah Sistani helped us out of a jam today, but anyone who thinks he is our friend has got a lot of learning to do about Islam, Iraq and Shiism."

No story here, folks - move along, move along

I posted a comment on Artios this weekend that when one guy passes secrets, its espionage; when a group does it for more than a year, its policy. And it doesn't matter whether the policy is both unannounced and unconscionable.
Washington Monthly describes this as Iran-Contra II, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is true -- another secret foreign policy authorized and run by the Pentagon, outside the purview of the State Department.
It appears that there are even many of the same guys involved, again.
But we'll likely never know unless the democrats are elected -- or unless Washington Monthly keeps going -- because the FBI investigation is being shut down -- back to harassing demonstrators, I guess.
The excuse is that the media publicity made the investigation impossible to pursue -- Officials Say Publicity Derailed Secrets Inquiry Here's the key portion of the story:
"The disclosure of the inquiry late on Friday by CBS News revealed what had been for nearly a year a covert national security investigation conducted by the F.B.I., according to the officials, who said that news reports about the inquiry compromised important investigative steps, like the effort to follow the trail back to the Israelis. As a result, several areas of the case remain murky, the officials said. One main uncertainty is the legal status of Lawrence A. Franklin, the lower-level Pentagon policy analyst who the authorities believe passed the Israelis a draft presidential policy directive related to Iran. No arrest in the case is believed to be imminent, in part because prosecutors have not yet clearly established whether Mr. Franklin broke the law. But the officials said there was evidence that he turned the classified material over to officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group. Officials of the group are thought to have then passed the information to Israeli intelligence."
Excuse me -- they have had more than a year to "follow the trail back to the Israelis" -- if they haven't done it by now, its not going to happen. But its pretty damned convenient for the Bush campaign that the story is now being declared officially dead.
And actually, I think it IS all the media's fault for breaking the story -- not because this made the sources dry up, but because this alerted the Bush administration to the situation, thus resulting in immediate kibosh.
UPDATE: Hmmm -- Google News shows 1,400 stories about this spy scandal - its obviously struck quite a chord. So one story in the NYT may not be enough to shut it down after all. It may, in fact, just lead others to same speculation that I have made.

Turning sauce for the goose into sauce for the gander

Digby in Projection Politics presents a very interesting thesis:
Rove has developed a campaign of projection in which he tars his opponents with his own candidates' weaknesses and then attacks them. He attacks Kerry for phony heroism thirty years ago when just last year his own candidate had himself filmed in a little costume prancing around on an aircraft carrier pretending he'd won a war that had only begun. But, by tarring Kerry with using war as a PR stunt for his own personal gain, people can process the uncomfortable feelings they are experiencing about Iraq as not really being caused by Junior, but by his rival who is the real shallow opportunist who only pretends to be a man of proven leadership and experience.
He spent 70 million to get people to call Kerry a flip flopper when the truth is that the compassionate-conservative-uniter-not-divider has a very recent proven record of unprecedented ugly partisanship and ruthless bloodlust. He's mananged to convince a large number of Americans that Kerry is unprincipled when the fiscal conservative Bush has just spent the entire surplus and run up the deficit beyond our wildest imaginings just three years ago. That's a pretty good trick. He's projected Bush's weaknesses on to Kerry and then gone after them ruthlessly. It makes it very difficult to then turn the attack back on Bush because it's been co-opted.
Given this thesis, then, if Kerry were to do the same thing he would:
1. attack Bush's speaking style. Too difficult to understand, too accented, too many convoluted sentences and mispronounced words
2. attack Bush's appearance. Too short and slight, mouth too small, ears too big. Alfred E Neuman
3. attack Bush's "signature" accomplishments. Too many announcements without any action. Too many photo opportunities without any real commitment. Too much pandering to the base.
Actually, sounds like a plan to me.

Kerry has guts

Yahoo! News - Kerry Says He's in a 'Fighting Mood'
So Bush doesn't have the guts to go to the NAACP, but Kerry is speaking Wednesday to the American Legion. Some of the veterans will dis him, but I hope they listen. Kerry is the one who wants to support the vets.

Lots of Random Thoughts (and remember, KERRY IS WINNING)

Both Blogger and my internet connection are working V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y today, so though there is lots going on that I would like to link to, I can't. But here's a few random thoughts:
On the Electoral vote
For the duration, I have added an Electoral Vote Predictor website to my blog.
The frustration I have with national polls is that they do not recognize the reality of the electoral college vote -- it all may come down to a few thousand people in Nevada, for heaven's sake, so it doesn't matter whether extra tens of thousands in, say, New York support Kerry or extra tens of thousands in Texas support Bush. This site takes the state polls and interprets them to develop a projection of where the electoral votes will go.
I had the same frustration during the Canadian election, where the media kept interpreting the polls as predicting a Liberal or Conservative "victory" in a situation where the actual popular vote means nothing -- its the riding-by-riding vote which matters.
And by the way, KERRY IS WINNING.
Lost in Iraq
Following up on my earlier post today, the NYT is now saying that the US has "lost" western Iraq. They also question whether true national elections will be held in January. (My own prediction is that meaningful elections will never be held in Iraq.) The only feasible, reasonable plan for Iraq is Kerry's plan to get the UN in and the US troops out -- maybe, just maybe, this will become clearer once the American death toll passes the 1,000 mark in about two weeks.
And remember, KERRY IS WINNING.
Keep hammering the message - Kerry tells the truth
As I noted in a response on frogsdong's blog earlier today, there are many, many people who are paying very little attention to the play-by-play of the swift boat issue and a lot of the other election slanders, so they come away with erroneous impressions -- even the media who are supposed to be following all this are now getting mixed up about which swiftie did what when.
Therefore the impression gets left with these non-involved people that "Kerry is a liar". Given this reality, I think bloggers and commentators and DNC people appearing on talk shows should be urged to make their message very very clear, speaking in words of one syllable, hammering home a simple message -- "Kerry tells the truth. He is not a liar nor a coward. He knows what he wants to do as president and he has a good plan." Keep spreading the news that KERRY IS WINNING
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
And finally, I don't understand why the democrats are so so worried about being "associated" with the protests in New York. First, the republicans will keep hammering the connection regardless of what the dems say. And for the most part, the protestors are right -- and there would be millions more people marching in New York this weekend if they could get there. The democrats should embrace them.
Remember, guys, KERRY IS WINNING. BUSH IS LOSING. That's the reality, regardless of what the talking heads are blathering on Fox. The people who are supporting Kerry and against Bush should be SUPPORTED, not denied.

Kerry tells the truth

and Bush does not. This column wraps it up: Yahoo! News - THE REAL ISSUE: BUSH IS INCOMPETENT

Still dying in Iraq

Because Najaf has been virtually the only fight in Iraq that American newspapers have been covering over the last couple of weeks -- they couldn't do more, of course, because they also had to cover a 35-year-old firefight in Vietnam -- it is likely that Americans will think that now that Iraq will be peaceful.
I think they will be disappointed -- by about mid-week, we'll be seeing stories asking how come Americans are still dying in Iraq. Check out Today in Iraq for the latest.
And already, its starting to sink in that Najaf was another American defeat.

Weird focus to election campaign

This is getting seriously weird -- read this exchange between Matthews and Pat Buchanan last night regarding Kerry's military record. Every single Navy document and every single personal statement FROM PEOPLE WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE ON THE BOAT support Kerry's heroism during Vietnam.
But the right wing just will not believe it -- it's like they can not permit themselves to believe it. Not only do they think Kerry lied, they have turned him into the scum of the earth. Now, I don't think Reagan's supporters thought that Carter was a lying, evil scumbag; nor did Bob Dole's supporters think that Clinton was a lying sack of shit (at least, not until after he was elected). But the way the right wing is after Kerry, you would think that he was the most corrupt, evil being ever to inhabit the United States.
Here is the Hardball transcript last night, just part of it, showing how Buchanan is frothing. Then I have an excerpt from later in Hardball, where Matthews interviewed an actual veteran, former Republican congressman. Compare the tone and the content:

"BUCHANAN: . . . This is a tremendously emotional issue for me. I was involved in all that. [Buchanan never went to Vietnam, though you would think he had from the way he is talking.] And we‘re caught up in it. We‘re intoxicated with it. It is the hottest issue going. And you look at that poll out in California. Kerry now only gets 3 percent of Republicans.
This is driving Republicans back to Bush and it is bringing home some Reagan Democrats. There‘s about 15 or 20 percent. They are moving toward Bush. And this for some of us—I know
it may be a minority.
. . . MATTHEWS: Pat, is it character or courage that is pivoting these voters?
BUCHANAN: It is about truthfulness. It is about character. It is about courage.
It is about Vietnam. Did this guy come home and slime all these guys while you have got POWs in North Vietnam who are being tortured to say the things Kerry was saying for free? That‘s the outrage, Chris, that you‘re feeling and you‘re seeing from a lot of folks.
MATTHEWS: OK. I get you. It‘s not the medals. It is the testimony. Let‘s go to...
FINEMAN: Yes, I do think the testimony is the emotional thing here. I was talking to a
Republican strategist very close to the White House. I said, aren‘t you guys just sort of talking to yourselves about this thing, this whole swift boat thing? And he said, what‘s wrong with talking to yourself? That‘s what the aim is here. And that‘s what the effect has been. And in Ohio, where I have spent a lot of time, I know a diner out there on the highway in Canton in the swing county of Stark. Those guys and those women are talking about this issue. No question about
it.
MATTHEWS: So, in other words, Bush ain‘t no great shakes, but he is not no lying, medal-gabbing, rat fink, like this other guy is.
FINEMAN: Right. This is all about, as an independent or not, making Kerry unacceptable. That‘s what it is all about.
MATTHEWS: To change the focus of a reelection campaign from the usual focus on the
incumbent, Marie, to the challenger. Brilliant move.
COCCO: Well, if I were George Bush and I had 61 percent of the people in your poll saying that the economy is not getting better for the middle class, I would want to change the subject, too.
I think what Kerry has to do after all of this talk and chatter—every piece of allegation against him is disproved by the actual Naval records. I think what Kerry ought to do is say over
and over again, this isn‘t my story. This is the U.S. Navy‘s story.
MATTHEWS: Right.
COCCO: Mr. President, do you not believe the U.S. Navy?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I think the only way he is going to change this story is to say he‘s gay . . . Changing
the subject now is going to have to be a full McGreevey. "

And here is the section from later in the show, when Matthews interviews a Republican congressman who actually DID go to Vietnam. Like historian Sydney Karnow, McCloskey supports not only Kerry's service but also Kerry's testimony:

"MATTHEWS: . . . The controversy over John Kerry‘s service in Vietnam and his subsequent anti-war protests have stirred emotions on both sides of the debate, particularly with the Vietnam veterans themselves. Yesterday, I spoke with former Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey, a highly decorated Marine who served in Korea, earning the Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. He testified before Congress that Americans had committed war crimes in Vietnam. He also marched with John Kerry in the 1971 peace march. I started with Pete McCloskey by asking him why the Vietnam War is still an issue here in 2004.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE MCCLOSKEY, FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Well, there is still a division between the
people who fought honorably there and are angry because they were criticized.But we were pursuing policies there that were war crimes. We were burning down villages that harbored terrorists or harbored Viet Cong. We had executed General Yodel (ph) after Nuremberg for doing that very thing. We knew it was a war crime, burning those villages down. Kerry had the guts to come back. He testified I think the same day as I did in front of Kennedy‘s or Fulbright‘s subcommittee about the same things. It wasn‘t about cutting off heads or arms. It was about
deliberately burning down villages in a war we were trying to (CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: But he did say in his testimony, we were people cutting off ears and cutting off heads.
MCCLOSKEY: Well, there were people that said that. And I...
MATTHEWS: He did, too.
MCCLOSKEY: Well, I‘ll tell you, we ran across General Patton‘s son, a colonel, who was
flying around in a helicopter collecting ears of Viet Cong, cutting off ears, shooting at them with his pistol out of a helicopter. But that was the exception. Most of the men served honorably. And Vietnam veterans ought to be treated better than most veterans, because they fought in a
war that was unpopular at a time. But I think these men have been so carried away by their anger over that testimony that he gave that I think they have forgotten the truth. The men that served with him knew him as a leader and as a war hero. I knew him as a principled, probably idealistic young man. It took courage to speak out in ‘71 against a war. We had Marines fighting over there. I had friends fighting over there. But the war was wrong. It‘s just like Iraq today. You can support the troops, but you don‘t necessarily need to support the policy that put them there or keeps them there.
MATTHEWS: Why are we arguing about one man‘s war record in terms of the medals he‘s won? What is that strategy about? Why are we doing that right now?
MCCLOSKEY: Well, the other guy...
MATTHEWS: You got a number of medals. You got the Navy Cross, which is a much higher distinction. Do people usually go back and question the Navy‘s decision in awarding these medals?
MCCLOSKEY: I‘ve never known a man to get a Silver Star that didn‘t earn it. A lot of people that earned them didn‘t get them, because there weren‘t people around to tell about them. But don‘t give the Silver Star lightly. That‘s a medal for heroism. And it‘s shameful that they‘ve made this attack, I think.
MATTHEWS: Because there‘s a foolproof system for awarding it?
MCCLOSKEY: It‘s not foolproof, but when a junior officer, an enlisted man got a Silver Star, it was earned. Sometimes, colonels and generals gave themselves. Lyndon Johnson I think had a Silver Star for flying over a Japanese island when he was in Congress. But, at that level,
a junior whose men respect him, he can‘t get a Bronze Star or Silver Star without their support.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about national policy.We‘re at war now in the country of Iraq. We are still fighting a war of resistance over there. And certainly in Najaf and places like that, we‘re facing local militia, lots of resistance still. We will probably lose by the Election Day, there‘s probably to count it, 1,000 people in combat, maybe 7,000 seriously wounded now.
Is that why this scab has been ripped off, that we‘re at war now and people question it just about 50/50 whether we should be there?
MCCLOSKEY: No. I‘m afraid it‘s because Bush joined the National Guard at a time when you joined the Guard only to avoid combat. Kerry volunteered for combat. That‘s the issue. And the issue is—it‘s a fair issue as to who can best lead this country. And my experience has been that the presidents who are most likely not to go to war are like Jack Kennedy and George Bush Sr., who were shot at when they were young. People that have been combat don‘t want to do it again unless they have to. The people that want to make war, prove their manhood and how tough they are
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Right. Is that what Cheney‘s up to?
MCCLOSKEY: I don‘t know. I liked Dick when I was in the House with him.
MATTHEWS: What happened to him and Rumsfeld? Why did they become—well, I always thought Cheney was a tough customer. When I worked on the Hill for Tip O‘Neill, I knew he was a tough customer politically, but the hard-nosed attitude about war, about not really being against war, what‘s that about? I always thought Rumsfeld was a moderate Republican. What happened to him?
MCCLOSKEY: I couldn‘t tell you. I like Don. Bob Dole is one of my favorite Republicans. We had marvelous Republican leadership. George Bush Sr. would not be doing what his son is doing today, in my judgment. He would not have gone to war without U.N. support. He wouldn‘t have gone to war unless he had to. And that‘s the way I think. In this election, where the choice is between a man who dodged combat, two men who dodged combat when they were young, against a man who volunteered for it, we‘re safer in the hands of the person who has been shot at . . . my old rifle company is outside Fallujah right now. And they‘re superb young Marines, well officered. The commanding general of the Marine division said don‘t hurt anybody you don‘t have to, marvelous kind of a humanitarian, but they‘re an occupying force. And I don‘t think we‘re going to be loved in Iraq or any country.
. . . MATTHEWS: . . . Do you think this election is going to turn on this war?
MCCLOSKEY: I don‘t know. I think it‘s so close.
MATTHEWS: Will it turn on John Kerry‘s war record?
MCCLOSKEY: I think he‘s been hurt by these attacks and I think the attacks were leveled because they knew it would hurt him. And I know how these guys feel.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: How come they‘re angrier at him, Pete, than they are at the guy who didn‘t serve, the president?
MCCLOSKEY: They‘re angry because they feel he betrayed their honorable service by coming back and testifying in front of the Senate of the war crimes. And we were committing war
crimes.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Did contribute—my sister-in-law e-mailed me the other day, said that he contributed, John Kerry, to the atmosphere for returning veterans, like my brother, who was a Naval officer in Vietnam, along the coast—he was in that same kind of coastal Naval
service. The way they were treated when they came back, that John Kerry contributed to that sort of spirit of blaming the soldiers for the war.
MCCLOSKEY: I don‘t think so. Kerry never sought to blame the soldiers. They were individuals or
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Well, they took it that way.
MCCLOSKEY: They shouldn‘t have. "