Wednesday, September 08, 2004
The country is ‘obsessed’ with this election….understandably
Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited. –Jimmy Carter letter to Zell Miller http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3535-2004Sep7.html
Repubs to Keeps Dems on the Defensive: The Fall Agenda
This sounds promising. Flag burning, tort reform, the Pledge of Allegiance… all the important issues Americans care about.
The pace of legislative action is likely to quicken in the next several weeks, said Patrick Basham, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, but "most of it will be carefully packaged, focus-group-tested, window-dressing stuff designed to appeal to swing voters in closely contested congressional races, such as they exist."He predicted that the Republican leadership would bring bills to the floor "for the sole purpose of embarrassing or flushing out the Democrats on emotive or wedge issues. Between now and election day, the action on Capitol Hill will be more symbolic than substantive."Already, House Republicans are planning to bring up the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, according to Stuart Roy, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). And one House Republican aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leadership planned to schedule a bill to keep the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-congress7sep07,1,6550588,print.story?coll=la-home-politics
Medicare Scandal: Update.
Recall: Bush fella deliberately supplied false info to Congress and the public prior to passing vaunted Medicare prescription drug bill. Some justice, though odd how an individual is made accountable. Just who told him to lie to Congress?
The Bush administration illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law, and as a penalty, the former head of the Medicare agency, Thomas A. Scully, should repay seven months of his salary to the government, federal investigators said Tuesday.
The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said Mr. Scully had threatened to fire the chief Medicare actuary, in violation of an explicit provision of federal appropriations law.
Accordingly, they said, federal money could not be used to pay Mr. Scully's salary after he began making the threats to the actuary in May 2003.
The conclusion came in a formal legal opinion by the accountability office, an investigative arm of Congress formerly known as the General Accounting Office. The agency applied its interpretation of the law to factual findings previously made by the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Bush administration did not quarrel with those facts, but said on Tuesday that it was unconstitutional for Congress to compel the disclosure of data over objections from the executive branch. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/08medicare.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
The Botched Occupation Peter Galbraith, NY Review of Books essay. Good on the reality of Allawi, the expectable fragmenting of Iraq, and the royal incompetence of the Bush Administration:
The Bush administration's recruitment of staff for the CPA is one of the great scandals of the American occupation, although it has so far received little attention from the press. Republican political connections counted for far more than professional competence, relevant international experience, or knowledge of Iraq. In May, The Washington Post ran an account of three young people recruited for service in the CPA by e-mail, without interviews, security clearances, or relevant experience. They ended up responsible for spending Iraq's budget; because they knew little about the country or about financial procedures, they did so slowly. The failure to spend money was of course the source of enormous frustration to jobless Iraqis and undoubtedly produced recruits for the insurgency. According to the Post, the threesome, who included the daughter of a prominent conservative activist, had never applied to go to Iraq and could not figure out how they were selected. Finally they realized that the one thing they had in common was that they had applied for jobs at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which had kept their resumes on file. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17406
Iraqi Deaths:
At Sheik Omar Clinic, a big book records 10,363 violent deaths in Baghdad and nearby towns since the war began last year — deaths caused by car bombs, clashes between Iraqis and coalition forces, mortar attacks, revenge killings and robberies.
While America mourns the deaths of more than 1,000 of its sons and daughters in the Iraq campaign, the U.S. toll is far less than the Iraqi. No official, reliable figures exist for the whole country, but private estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 killed since the United States invaded in March 2003
"During Saddam's days killings were silent. Now the killing is done openly and loudly," said Ghali Karim Hassan, who lost his 31-year-old son, Ghaidan, last April. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=4&u=/ap/20040908/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraqi_deaths
Iran: [from Power and News Interest Report] It's on people's minds, including Rummy's
Iran has been the instigator of the present surge in tensions, taking advantage of the military and diplomatic vulnerabilities of the United States that were revealed by Washington's campaign for regime change in Iraq. Despite deep internal divisions in Iran over the vision of its future (Western or Islamic), all of its significant political forces are nationalist, uniting on the premise that any foreign attempts to change the Iranian regime and forfeit the revolution (however its meaning is interpreted) are unwelcome, indeed, intolerable, and are to be firmly resisted.
Political forces in Iran are also at one in the belief that the country should pursue a policy of enhancing its military machine to make it an effective deterrent against external attack, and expanding its influence as a regional power in all directions. Tehran's bid to alter the regional balance of power in its favor is evidenced by its increasing defiance of international controls over its nuclear program and its financial and probably military support of a wide spectrum of Shi'a movements and factions in southern Iraq. http://www.pinr.com
LA Times editorial on Guantanamo- a bit late, but on target:” Too bad they have eliminated their Opinion section from their (good) Sunday edition.
”The Bush administration is ignoring, if not defying outright, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that all terror suspects must be able to challenge their imprisonment. The opening round of detainee military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay last week resembled something between a Mel Brooks farce and the kangaroo courts of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Maybe Captain Kangaroo courts. The proceedings didn't look anything like justice, military or otherwise. Meanwhile, two U.S. citizens still sit in military brigs, isolated from their lawyers and months if not years away from the hearings the high court says they deserve….” http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-detainees2sep02 ,1,394 86.story
Russia’s Chechen Problem
Putin is trying to take a page from the Bush “playbook.” He insists that the schoolhouse attack is not part of his Chechen problem, but rather is part of the fight against “international terrorism”. Doesn’t sound like its playing well in Mother Russia.
Media tentativeness. They just can’t say that Bush lies. This NY Times report looked at the Acceptance Speech and was characteristically kind. The readers have to read all and make their own conclusions.
President Bush’s acceptance speech last night included assertions about his accomplishments and Senator John Kerry's past statements and voting patterns that were at best selective, and in some cases challenged by the historical record.
Not surprisingly, they were also challenged by the Kerry campaign, which refuted some of Mr. Bush's accusations and pleaded guilty with an explanation to others.
PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT "Senator Kerry opposed Medicare reform and health savings accounts," Mr. Bush said halfway through his speech, taking on his opponent, but not with the ferocity that Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, did on Wednesday night. He added, "I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Medicare."
FACT The reform was an overwhelmingly Republican initiative, with only 16 Democrats voting for it in the House, and 11 in the Senate. Mr. Kerry was on the campaign trail and did not vote on Mr. Bush's favored version of the Medicare plan, but he is on record as being opposed to it, saying it benefited drug companies at the expense of the elderly. Mr. Kerry, like most other Democrats, favored a more ambitious plan.
Mr. Kerry does oppose health savings accounts, which are tax-free vehicles for people to set aside money for medical expenses. Mr. Bush and other Republicans see them as a way to give people control over medical insurance, but Democrats and consumer groups say they are mostly an option for healthy, affluent people. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/politics/campaign/03facts.html
The Timing is Familiar. And I don’t blame the AP
AP: 'U.S. death toll in Iraq passes 1,000 mark' ... 4:27 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004
AP: 'Ridge: Terrorists hope to disrupt election' ... 4:40 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004
Assault Weapons: We Shall Return…next week! Another helpful move by the Repubs.
Gun manufacturers are gearing up for the scheduled expiration next week of a 10-year-old federal ban on assault weapons and are taking orders for semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines that may soon become legal again, according to a report released yesterday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3707-2004Sep7.html
Gore on Bush. Refreshingly blunt. From the New Yorker
The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office. He’s been shockingly malleable to Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and the whole New American Century bunch. He was rolled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He was too weak to resist it.
“I’m not of the school that questions his intelligence,” Gore went on. “There are different kinds of intelligence, and it’s arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. He certainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. He seeks strength in simplicity. But, in today’s world, that’s often a problem. I don’t think that he’s weak intellectually. I think that he is incurious. It’s astonishing to me that he’d spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question. But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.”http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040913fa_fact
The Man In Charge: Slime from Cheney re Kerry and Terrorism
If we don’t vote for Bush-Cheney, we die.
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign immediately rejected those comments as "scare tactics" that crossed the line.http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040907_956.html
Bush and the National Guard: “Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military.” Bush, to Tim Russert, 2/7/04
Just one of them lies…
Texans for Truth Target Bush
They’ve got a 30 second ad. Viewable at link-. http://texansfortruth.com/
Barnes: Delayed from Sunday:
CBS’ Dan Rather talked w/ former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a Democrat, about the role Barnes says he played in getting President George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard -- and why he now regrets it. T’was on 60 Minutes II. The media noted it en avance; we'll see re follow-up.
Yet, the Repubs were ready, and had a massive p.r. piece that ripped Barnes on their web site…which, of course, should be fact-checked. http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4625
And, the Globe front-paged their Spotlight report on Bush not fulfilling his obligations. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard?mode=PF
For those who missed it: Bush on OBGYN’s:
The man supposedly in charge speaks out:
President Bush offered an unexpected reason on Monday for cracking down on frivolous medical lawsuits: "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." http://news1.iwon.com/odd/article/id/425718oddlyenough09-07-2004::09:32reuters.html
Al Franken: His Radio show- http://www.airamericaradio.com/ 12 –3PM -is a wondrous blend of humor, political acumen and (appropriate) anger. One hour of it is now shown on the Sundance cable station, three times a day (10AM, 7PM, 11:30PM).
Polls: Others are not as bad as Time/Newsweek which had Bush up 11%
*Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll: Bush 47%, Kerry 47%
*RCP Poll Average: Bush 50%, Kerry 45%
*Electoral College Snapshot (270 Needed to Win)
*Electoral Vote Predictor: Bush 275, Kerry 237
*Intrade State Futures: Bush 284, Kerry 254
*ICR poll, With Nader, among 'likely voters': Bush:46, Kerry: 46, Nader: 4.
Without Nader, among 'likely voters': Bush 48, Kerry 47.
*Zogby:
The latest Zogby Interactive poll still shows Mr. Kerry well ahead, leading in 12 of the 16 battlegrounds in Zogby's twice-a-month polls. But Mr. Bush took the lead in two states -- Arkansas and Tennessee -- since the poll conducted a week before his convention. And there are other signs of strength for the president.
All told, Mr. Bush's numbers improved in 12 of the 16 states, most notably Tennessee. That state, which has been volatile in prior polls, gave the president a 9.6-point lead. In the mid-August poll, Mr. Kerry was up 1.9 points.
Still, Mr. Kerry picked up ground in Minnesota, Washington, Michigan and New Mexico. His leads in the latter two states moved outside of the margin of error. In Washington, his lead has been outside of the margin in every poll since early June. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-an0907.html
Bill Maher on Bush (HBO) He’s not my favorite, but this was worthy:
And finally, New Rule: You can't run on a mistake. Franklin Roosevelt didn't run for re-election claiming Pearl Harbor was his finest hour. Abe Lincoln was a great president, but the high point of his second term wasn't theater security. 9/11 wasn't a triumph of the human spirit. It was a f___-up by a guy on vacation. Now, don't get me wrong, Mr. President. I'm not blaming you for 9/11. We have blue-ribbon commissions to do that. And I'm not saying there was anything improper about your immediate response to the attacks. Someone had to stay in that classroom and protect those kids from Chechen rebels. But by the looks of your convention, you'd think that the worst thing that ever happened to us was the best thing that ever happened to you. You just can't keep celebrating the deadliest attack ever as if it's your personal rendezvous with greatness.
-R
Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited. –Jimmy Carter letter to Zell Miller http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3535-2004Sep7.html
Repubs to Keeps Dems on the Defensive: The Fall Agenda
This sounds promising. Flag burning, tort reform, the Pledge of Allegiance… all the important issues Americans care about.
The pace of legislative action is likely to quicken in the next several weeks, said Patrick Basham, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, but "most of it will be carefully packaged, focus-group-tested, window-dressing stuff designed to appeal to swing voters in closely contested congressional races, such as they exist."He predicted that the Republican leadership would bring bills to the floor "for the sole purpose of embarrassing or flushing out the Democrats on emotive or wedge issues. Between now and election day, the action on Capitol Hill will be more symbolic than substantive."Already, House Republicans are planning to bring up the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, according to Stuart Roy, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). And one House Republican aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leadership planned to schedule a bill to keep the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-congress7sep07,1,6550588,print.story?coll=la-home-politics
Medicare Scandal: Update.
Recall: Bush fella deliberately supplied false info to Congress and the public prior to passing vaunted Medicare prescription drug bill. Some justice, though odd how an individual is made accountable. Just who told him to lie to Congress?
The Bush administration illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law, and as a penalty, the former head of the Medicare agency, Thomas A. Scully, should repay seven months of his salary to the government, federal investigators said Tuesday.
The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said Mr. Scully had threatened to fire the chief Medicare actuary, in violation of an explicit provision of federal appropriations law.
Accordingly, they said, federal money could not be used to pay Mr. Scully's salary after he began making the threats to the actuary in May 2003.
The conclusion came in a formal legal opinion by the accountability office, an investigative arm of Congress formerly known as the General Accounting Office. The agency applied its interpretation of the law to factual findings previously made by the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Bush administration did not quarrel with those facts, but said on Tuesday that it was unconstitutional for Congress to compel the disclosure of data over objections from the executive branch. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/08medicare.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
The Botched Occupation Peter Galbraith, NY Review of Books essay. Good on the reality of Allawi, the expectable fragmenting of Iraq, and the royal incompetence of the Bush Administration:
The Bush administration's recruitment of staff for the CPA is one of the great scandals of the American occupation, although it has so far received little attention from the press. Republican political connections counted for far more than professional competence, relevant international experience, or knowledge of Iraq. In May, The Washington Post ran an account of three young people recruited for service in the CPA by e-mail, without interviews, security clearances, or relevant experience. They ended up responsible for spending Iraq's budget; because they knew little about the country or about financial procedures, they did so slowly. The failure to spend money was of course the source of enormous frustration to jobless Iraqis and undoubtedly produced recruits for the insurgency. According to the Post, the threesome, who included the daughter of a prominent conservative activist, had never applied to go to Iraq and could not figure out how they were selected. Finally they realized that the one thing they had in common was that they had applied for jobs at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which had kept their resumes on file. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17406
Iraqi Deaths:
At Sheik Omar Clinic, a big book records 10,363 violent deaths in Baghdad and nearby towns since the war began last year — deaths caused by car bombs, clashes between Iraqis and coalition forces, mortar attacks, revenge killings and robberies.
While America mourns the deaths of more than 1,000 of its sons and daughters in the Iraq campaign, the U.S. toll is far less than the Iraqi. No official, reliable figures exist for the whole country, but private estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 killed since the United States invaded in March 2003
"During Saddam's days killings were silent. Now the killing is done openly and loudly," said Ghali Karim Hassan, who lost his 31-year-old son, Ghaidan, last April. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=4&u=/ap/20040908/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraqi_deaths
Iran: [from Power and News Interest Report] It's on people's minds, including Rummy's
Iran has been the instigator of the present surge in tensions, taking advantage of the military and diplomatic vulnerabilities of the United States that were revealed by Washington's campaign for regime change in Iraq. Despite deep internal divisions in Iran over the vision of its future (Western or Islamic), all of its significant political forces are nationalist, uniting on the premise that any foreign attempts to change the Iranian regime and forfeit the revolution (however its meaning is interpreted) are unwelcome, indeed, intolerable, and are to be firmly resisted.
Political forces in Iran are also at one in the belief that the country should pursue a policy of enhancing its military machine to make it an effective deterrent against external attack, and expanding its influence as a regional power in all directions. Tehran's bid to alter the regional balance of power in its favor is evidenced by its increasing defiance of international controls over its nuclear program and its financial and probably military support of a wide spectrum of Shi'a movements and factions in southern Iraq. http://www.pinr.com
LA Times editorial on Guantanamo- a bit late, but on target:” Too bad they have eliminated their Opinion section from their (good) Sunday edition.
”The Bush administration is ignoring, if not defying outright, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that all terror suspects must be able to challenge their imprisonment. The opening round of detainee military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay last week resembled something between a Mel Brooks farce and the kangaroo courts of former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Maybe Captain Kangaroo courts. The proceedings didn't look anything like justice, military or otherwise. Meanwhile, two U.S. citizens still sit in military brigs, isolated from their lawyers and months if not years away from the hearings the high court says they deserve….” http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-detainees2sep02 ,1,394 86.story
Russia’s Chechen Problem
Putin is trying to take a page from the Bush “playbook.” He insists that the schoolhouse attack is not part of his Chechen problem, but rather is part of the fight against “international terrorism”. Doesn’t sound like its playing well in Mother Russia.
Media tentativeness. They just can’t say that Bush lies. This NY Times report looked at the Acceptance Speech and was characteristically kind. The readers have to read all and make their own conclusions.
President Bush’s acceptance speech last night included assertions about his accomplishments and Senator John Kerry's past statements and voting patterns that were at best selective, and in some cases challenged by the historical record.
Not surprisingly, they were also challenged by the Kerry campaign, which refuted some of Mr. Bush's accusations and pleaded guilty with an explanation to others.
PRESIDENT'S STATEMENT "Senator Kerry opposed Medicare reform and health savings accounts," Mr. Bush said halfway through his speech, taking on his opponent, but not with the ferocity that Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, did on Wednesday night. He added, "I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Medicare."
FACT The reform was an overwhelmingly Republican initiative, with only 16 Democrats voting for it in the House, and 11 in the Senate. Mr. Kerry was on the campaign trail and did not vote on Mr. Bush's favored version of the Medicare plan, but he is on record as being opposed to it, saying it benefited drug companies at the expense of the elderly. Mr. Kerry, like most other Democrats, favored a more ambitious plan.
Mr. Kerry does oppose health savings accounts, which are tax-free vehicles for people to set aside money for medical expenses. Mr. Bush and other Republicans see them as a way to give people control over medical insurance, but Democrats and consumer groups say they are mostly an option for healthy, affluent people. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/politics/campaign/03facts.html
The Timing is Familiar. And I don’t blame the AP
AP: 'U.S. death toll in Iraq passes 1,000 mark' ... 4:27 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004
AP: 'Ridge: Terrorists hope to disrupt election' ... 4:40 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004
Assault Weapons: We Shall Return…next week! Another helpful move by the Repubs.
Gun manufacturers are gearing up for the scheduled expiration next week of a 10-year-old federal ban on assault weapons and are taking orders for semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines that may soon become legal again, according to a report released yesterday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3707-2004Sep7.html
Gore on Bush. Refreshingly blunt. From the New Yorker
The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office. He’s been shockingly malleable to Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and the whole New American Century bunch. He was rolled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He was too weak to resist it.
“I’m not of the school that questions his intelligence,” Gore went on. “There are different kinds of intelligence, and it’s arrogant for a person with one kind of intelligence to question someone with another kind. He certainly is a master at some things, and he has a following. He seeks strength in simplicity. But, in today’s world, that’s often a problem. I don’t think that he’s weak intellectually. I think that he is incurious. It’s astonishing to me that he’d spend an hour with his incoming Secretary of the Treasury and not ask him a single question. But I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.”http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040913fa_fact
The Man In Charge: Slime from Cheney re Kerry and Terrorism
If we don’t vote for Bush-Cheney, we die.
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.
The Kerry-Edwards campaign immediately rejected those comments as "scare tactics" that crossed the line.http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040907_956.html
Bush and the National Guard: “Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military.” Bush, to Tim Russert, 2/7/04
Just one of them lies…
Texans for Truth Target Bush
They’ve got a 30 second ad. Viewable at link-. http://texansfortruth.com/
Barnes: Delayed from Sunday:
CBS’ Dan Rather talked w/ former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a Democrat, about the role Barnes says he played in getting President George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard -- and why he now regrets it. T’was on 60 Minutes II. The media noted it en avance; we'll see re follow-up.
Yet, the Repubs were ready, and had a massive p.r. piece that ripped Barnes on their web site…which, of course, should be fact-checked. http://www.gop.com/RNCResearch/Read.aspx?ID=4625
And, the Globe front-paged their Spotlight report on Bush not fulfilling his obligations. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/08/bush_fell_short_on_duty_at_guard?mode=PF
For those who missed it: Bush on OBGYN’s:
The man supposedly in charge speaks out:
President Bush offered an unexpected reason on Monday for cracking down on frivolous medical lawsuits: "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." http://news1.iwon.com/odd/article/id/425718oddlyenough09-07-2004::09:32reuters.html
Al Franken: His Radio show- http://www.airamericaradio.com/ 12 –3PM -is a wondrous blend of humor, political acumen and (appropriate) anger. One hour of it is now shown on the Sundance cable station, three times a day (10AM, 7PM, 11:30PM).
Polls: Others are not as bad as Time/Newsweek which had Bush up 11%
*Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll: Bush 47%, Kerry 47%
*RCP Poll Average: Bush 50%, Kerry 45%
*Electoral College Snapshot (270 Needed to Win)
*Electoral Vote Predictor: Bush 275, Kerry 237
*Intrade State Futures: Bush 284, Kerry 254
*ICR poll, With Nader, among 'likely voters': Bush:46, Kerry: 46, Nader: 4.
Without Nader, among 'likely voters': Bush 48, Kerry 47.
*Zogby:
The latest Zogby Interactive poll still shows Mr. Kerry well ahead, leading in 12 of the 16 battlegrounds in Zogby's twice-a-month polls. But Mr. Bush took the lead in two states -- Arkansas and Tennessee -- since the poll conducted a week before his convention. And there are other signs of strength for the president.
All told, Mr. Bush's numbers improved in 12 of the 16 states, most notably Tennessee. That state, which has been volatile in prior polls, gave the president a 9.6-point lead. In the mid-August poll, Mr. Kerry was up 1.9 points.
Still, Mr. Kerry picked up ground in Minnesota, Washington, Michigan and New Mexico. His leads in the latter two states moved outside of the margin of error. In Washington, his lead has been outside of the margin in every poll since early June. http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-an0907.html
Bill Maher on Bush (HBO) He’s not my favorite, but this was worthy:
And finally, New Rule: You can't run on a mistake. Franklin Roosevelt didn't run for re-election claiming Pearl Harbor was his finest hour. Abe Lincoln was a great president, but the high point of his second term wasn't theater security. 9/11 wasn't a triumph of the human spirit. It was a f___-up by a guy on vacation. Now, don't get me wrong, Mr. President. I'm not blaming you for 9/11. We have blue-ribbon commissions to do that. And I'm not saying there was anything improper about your immediate response to the attacks. Someone had to stay in that classroom and protect those kids from Chechen rebels. But by the looks of your convention, you'd think that the worst thing that ever happened to us was the best thing that ever happened to you. You just can't keep celebrating the deadliest attack ever as if it's your personal rendezvous with greatness.
-R
