Keith Olbermann: Bush, Not Kerry, Owes Troops an Apology
Keith Olbermann puts the Kerry speech and the right wing's unhinged response to it into historical perspective in this excellent clip from his show on MSBNC.
Olbermann really is channeling Edward R. Murrow these days. He -- along with a few others -- has both really hit his stride during the Bush Administration.
Buyer's Remorse: Kerry Would Beat Bush Easily If Election Were Held Today
A new Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows that if the 2004 presidential election were held again today, John Kerry would easily win.
The outcome of the 2004 United States presidential election would be different if a new ballot took place this year, according to a poll by Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times. 47 per cent of respondents would vote for Democrat John Kerry, while 40 per cent would support Republican George W. Bush.
In American elections, candidates require 270 votes in the U.S. Electoral College to win the White House. In November 2004, Bush earned a second term after securing 286 electoral votes from 31 states. Kerry received 252 electoral votes from 19 states and the District of Columbia. As far as the popular vote is concerned, Bush garnered 51.03 per cent of all cast ballots, with Kerry getting 48.04 per cent.
In a January 2005 interview with NBC’s Tim Russert, Kerry expressed satisfaction with his campaign, saying, "I won the youth vote. I won the independent vote. I won the moderate vote. If you take half the people at an Ohio State football game on Saturday afternoon and they were to have voted the other way, you and I would be having a discussion today about my State of the Union speech."
On Apr. 20, Kerry discussed the possibility of a presidential bid in 2008, saying, "I will make that decision before the end of the year but I’m thinking about it hard." The Massachusetts senator jokingly added, "If you can help me find 60,000 votes in Ohio."
Polling Data:
Regardless of how you may have voted in the presidential election in November 2004, knowing what you know today, would you vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry if the presidential election was being held today?
John Kerry (D) 47%
George W. Bush (R) 40%
Someone else 6%
If the Kerry campaign had responded quickly and aggressively to the cowardly, lying scum who were behind the Swift Boat Smear Campaign, things would have turned out differently. Kerry said during the campaign that his team had to be perfect in order to win. He was right. His team did everything right -- except for that slow response, and it killed the campaign. If Kerry had gone on TV and said "You bet I testified before Congress about the My Lai massacre and I'd do it again today because it was the right thing to do" and then boldly attacked those who questioned his patriotism and service in Viet Nam, Rove would not have gotten the upper hand.
I'll never forget the Democratic convention and Kerry's inspiring biopic, which highlighted his military service and years of public service as a prosecutor who helped take down organized crime. Contrast that with George Bush's biopic which showcased Bush's most courageous moment: once, the Secret Service made him wear a bulletproof vest while he threw out a pitch at a baseball game after 9/11. Yawn.
Now that a majority of Americans believe that a) going to war in Iraq was a mistake; b) President Bush is not honest and c) there should be a bipartisan investigation into Plamegate, the Democrats have finally stop being so terrified of Dick Cheney. In fact, bolstered by Bush's sagging poll numbers, quite a few of them have found their voices. When Dick Cheney launched his campaign-style attack against war critics in a speech he gave at a dinner last night, no doubt the White House expected Senate Democrats to run back into their spider holes and issue apolgies for having questioned the war. It didn't happen.
In an interesting inteview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN today, John Kerry responded to Cheney's assertions that anyone who dares to question the war is putting the troops in harm's way. Kerry totally rejected Cheney's rhetoric, noting that it is this administration who is putting our troops in harm's way by 1) misleading the country into war by claiming Saddam had WMD when he did not and the White House had been told in three different reports that he did not have WMD and concealing those reports from the Senate so they would vote to give Bush power to go to war; 2) failing to provide body armor and armored humvees for the troops; and 3) failing to have any kind of exit strategy.
The White House is using the same playbook -- the Karl Rove Special. When attacked, try to attack your opponents by saying they did what you are being accused of (see, Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth"). But the game has changed quite a bit since the last presidential campaign. Troops are dying. Jordan was attacked by Iraqis who are mad about the occupation. The Iraqi insurgency is growing; the military missteps we made at the start of the war have infuriated Iraqis who see us as occupiers not liberators. The American people don't trust the president. That is why the Karl Rove Special isn't working this time around. The more the White House says things are great in Iraq, the more out of touch they look. And the more Democrats, Independents and moderate Republicans are being brave enough to take a stand against this administration's failed foreign policies.
Former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry fired a shot across the bows of the White House today in a stinging address at Brown University. Excerpts of the text of the speech were in an email sent to supporters. Kerry is quite a writers: the missive is just full of zingers, such as defining the Bush Administration as "The Katrina Administration."
Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do. Michael Brown -- or Brownie as the President so famously thanked him for doing a heck of a job -- Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam dunk intelligence; what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad; what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning; what Tom Delay is to ethics; and what George Bush is to "Mission Accomplished" and "Wanted Dead or Alive." The bottom line is simple: the "we'll do whatever it takes" administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.
This is the Katrina administration.
Where were all these zingers in Kerry's stump speeches? During the post-mortems of the campaign, it came out that Kerry deleted all the best lines from his speeches because he thought they were schmaltzy. Or something like that. The sad truth of American politics is that schmaltzy plays in the heartland. Zingers and catch phrases are a good thing. Leave the reasoned policy discussions to the smoke-free backrooms of the Democratic party, the think-tanks and those who blog the media and politics, and who love a good wonkfest. Because when you run a campaign, you need to boil it down for the average voter who just doesn't have the time (sadly enough) to crunch the numbers and hear all the boring details....The Katrina Administration. It's catchy.
MSNBC.com reports that
Democrats and Republicans alike are trying to persuade
President Bush not to veto a new bill that would fun embryonic stem cell research. Bush has threatened to veto the bill which has already passed in the House. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has been one of the loudest supporters of the bill:
But Republican proponents such as Hatch and Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore.,
argue that the stem cells used in research would come from embryos left over
from in vitro fertilization programs, embryos that would be discarded anyway.
On Wednesday Hatch praised the House-passed embryonic stem cell funding bill
and urged the Senate to pass it as well.
"It seems ridiculous to make the argument that we’re going to allow those
400,000 in vitro fertilization embryos to die by discarding them, but we can’t
utilize them for the benefit of mankind," Hatch said.
President Bush's recent speech at Fort Bragg, N.C. to shore up support for the Iraq War has been criticized for once again linking the Iraq War to 9/11
despite the fact that there is no evidence to support such a link.
A USA Todayarticle detailed some of the reaction to the speech:
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi accused Bush of demonstrating a
willingness "exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no
connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq.
"The president's numerous references to September 11 did not provide a way
forward in Iraq," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said. "They only
served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely
Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose and al-Qaeda remains capable of
doing this nation great harm nearly four years after it attacked America."
Both Democrats and Republicans said that President Bush speech offered
nothing new in the speech and that there are still not enough troops in Iraq to secure the country:
Sen. John McCain, interviewed on CBS's The Early Show, maintained that "one of the very big mistakes early on was that he didn't have enough troops on the ground, particularly after the initial victory, and that's still the case."
Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic opponent in last year's presidential election, told NBC's Today show that the borders of Iraq "are porous" and said "we don't have enough troops" there.
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., appearing on ABC's Good Morning America, disputed Bush's notion that sufficient troops are in place.
"I'm going to send him the phone numbers of the very generals and flag officers that I met on Memorial Day when I was in Iraq," the Delaware Democrat said. "There's not enough force on the ground now to mount a real counterinsurgency."
Biden argued, "The course that we are on now is not a course of success. He (Bush) has to get more folks involved. He has to stand up that army more quickly."
The ScotusBlog has emerged as a popular blog with discussions on the
Supreme Court's Ten Commandments and Grokster decisions. Many blogs and media outlets noted that there was no resignation announcement from Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
The Washington Post sums up the Grokster decision in this article:
Internet file-sharing services will be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting warnings that the lawsuits will stunt growth of cool tech gadgets such as the next iPod.
The unanimous decision sends the case back to lower court, which had ruled in favor of file-sharing services Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. on the grounds that the companies couldn't be sued. The justices said there was enough evidence of unlawful intent for the case to go to trial.
The Grokster decision is being heavily discussed online and HowToWeb has links to some news articles and blog posts about the Grokster decision.
Take it to Karl is a new blog that posts emails from
military personnel who are mad at Karl Rove's recent comments
about liberals.
Bloggers are organizing to fight the possibility of government regulation.
Military Casualties: Obleek uses Flash to show U.S. casualties over time and where they occured in Iraq. Icasualties.org has detailed information about military casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan (Operating Enduring Freedom).
Several bloggers have formed BlogPac, an online political action committee. Bloggers on BlogPac's advisory board include: Markos Moulitsas of
Daily Kos, Jerome Armstrong of
MyDD, Duncan Black of
Atrios, Jeralyn Merritt of
Talk Left, John Aravosis of
AmericaBlog, Matt Stoller of
BOP News, Anna of
Annatopia, Jesse Taylor of
Pandagon, Chris Bowers of
MyDD and Steve Gilliard's
News Blog
Arianna Huffington questions whether Cheney's recent hospital
visit was really about an old football knee injury.
John Kerry's office has released a copy of his letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee requesting an investigation of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures (and the Downing Street Memo) to LightUpTheDarkness.org.
Think Progress has a list of Bush Administration report white-outs.
Iraq is "hard work" -- sound familiar? The Washington Post picked
up on the hard work theme in Bush's comments during a meeting with
new Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari:
Bush alluded to high levels of difficulty no fewer than 19 times in his
33-minute appearance. The Iraqi government faces "monumental tasks," he said.
"The way ahead is not going to be easy." In case somebody napped through that,
he repeated: "It's difficult. . . . It's tough work, and it's hard."
Wesley Clark won the first DailyKos straw poll for 2008 Democratic presidential candidate. The poll had 13,000 votes. No Freakin' Clue came in second.
More on the Downing Street Memo: The U.S. tried to provoke Saddam into a
War according to this L.A. Times opinion piece.
CBS News plans to embrace blogs and transform into a web-centric news model.
Atrios says that Karl Rove's recent attack on liberals was a a new strategy on Iraq to blame the critics for the War's problems. The Carpetbagger Report says that the calls for Rove to apologize or resign are "clearly justified."
The Freedom Jeep, a 2005 Jeep Wrangler X with a patriotic design, has been placed for auction on eBay. The proceeds are being donated to the United Service Organizations (USO). The jeep has been signed by political and business leaders.
A Silent Cacophony reports on the Defense Department's plans to create a database of high school students at a time when military enlistments are dropping.
The winners of the 2005 Freedom Blog Awards have been announced by Reporters Without Borders. The awards were given to blogs that defend freedom of expression. They were created to draw attention to countries where the traditional press is under the control of the authorities.
Time magazine reports that John Edwards has been talking to left-leaning bloggers:
Although John Edwards isn't officially running for office, he is
already courting a key constituency for a possible presidential bid in
'08: left-leaning bloggers. Not only did the former VP candidate spend
the week guest-blogging on TPMCafe, a new offshoot of the popular Talking Points Memo, but amid his postings on such issues as poverty
and globalization, another blog disclosed that he had been the host
of an off-the-record dinner with several bloggers at his house in
Washington. "Gaining the loyalty of bloggers," noted TAPPED, "is
not that hard to do if you just talk to them."
BlogPulse, a service which tracks conversations in blogs, offers
this graphical look at blog discussion of the Bush Initiatives in 2005 so far.
The Boston Herald's Inside Track reports that Steven Spielberg
doesn't think the democratic Hollywood base campaigned hard enough during the 2004 election:
Steven Spielberg is hitting out at Hollywood for not rallying around
John Kerry in the last election. The War of the Worlds director
apparently feels the film industry wasn't vociferous enough in its
support for the Bay State's junior senator. Apparently, Steven
wasn't paying attention when Ben Affleck, Barbra Streisand, Brad
Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, the Baldwins, etc. prostrated themselves
before the pride of Louisburg Square. Because in an interview on
an Australian chat show, Spielberg fumed, ``The Democratic Hollywood
base, power base and money base really didn't come out this year and
I was surprised about that.''
Detroit Democrat John Conyers is blogging at conyersblog.us
G8 Scientists are urging President Bush to act on global warming
before it is too late.
The Star Tribune reports that Dick Cheney claims he doesn't understand Howard Dean's appeal:
Howard Dean is "over the top,'' Vice President Dick Cheney says, calling the
Democrats' chairman "not the kind of individual you want to have representing
your political party.''
"I've never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved
him, but I've never met anybody who does. He's never won anything, as
best I can tell,'' Cheney said in an interview to be aired Monday on
Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes.''
The liberal DailyKos blog had some controversy over a
pie fight ad for The Real Gilligan's Island reality tv show.
Bloggerman reports that John Kerry has been amazed by the lack of media coverage of the Downing Street Memo.
Last Wednesday, Senator John Kerry told the editorial board of the
newspaper in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the "Standard-Times," that he
was amazed at the lack of American media coverage of the so-called "Downing
Street Memo" — notes of a July, 2002 British cabinet meeting that
suggested the U.S. was making all the evidence fit a pre-planned
invasion of Iraq.
The words of the Democrats' 2004 standard-bearer?: "When I go back
(to Washington) on Monday, I am going to raise the issue. I think
(the memo) is a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable
statement of the truth..."
Bloggerman also explains how some blogs and media outlets incorrectly interpreted John Kerry's statement as a call for impeachment.
John Kerry got behind presumed new DNC Chair Howard Dean today, pledging $1 million to the DNC for grassroots organizing. Kerry wrote in an email to supporters today:
A new DNC Chair will be elected at the end of this week. Let's make sure that he has everything he needs to start strong. The Democratic Party should have powerful and nimble organizations in every single county and precinct. There's only one way to win - we've got to compete everywhere, all the time. Our party should be a constant positive presence in every American community, and we can be if we tap into the grassroots energy of volunteers.
Kerry is also asking for donations of both money and time from supporters to grow the grassroots Democratic organization over time.
Since Dean got behind Kerry and campaigned hard on his behalf, it's only sportsmanlike for Kerry to get behind Dean as he takes the reins of the DNC. And, speaking of that, has this campaign for head of the DNC gone on longer than the presidential campaign, or is that just me? I mean, honestly, it's unseemly. What happened to the smoke-filled rooms? The secret deliberations and a sudden announcement that "this is the new leader"? Kerry, not exactly a shrinking violet, has decided to step forward and support Dean and his efforts for the 2006 midterms. No flip-flopping here. We'll see if other party powerhouses follow suit. If they don't, the Republicans are going to eat their lunch in the midterms.
Despite the U.S. State Department's best efforts to convince
the government of Qatar to clamp down on al-Jazeera,
the arab news network
aired a fourteen minute tape from terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
U.S. news networks quickly
followed suit, providing excerpts and transcripts for American viewers as a sort of extra Halloween treat.
One of President Bush's favorite stump speech lines is that
"al Qaeda hates us because of our freedom." Osama riduculed
that explanation of the terrorists' aims, saying:
"free people don't let go
of their security -- contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom.
He should tell us why we didn't hit Sweden, for instance. It's
known that those who hate freedom don't have dignified souls,
like the 19 who were blessed. But we fought you because we are
free people, we don't sleep on our oppression. We want to regain
the freedom of our Muslim nation."
Bin Laden then went on to take
full responsibility for 9/11, and described how the idea came to
him when the U.S. helped Israel bomb Beirut, Lebanon in 1982,
and he watched towers fall and women and children die. He also
mentioned the Palestinian people. Basically,
he justified his actions as retaliation for the killings of Muslims
around the world.
Of course, what Osama doesn't seem to understand is that
American foreign policy (and Americans' memories) are
like an Etch-a-Sketch; every four
years we shake the slate clean and start over again, as if nothing
had gone before. "Beirut in 1982??" most Americans will ask, scratching their
heads, "what the hell does that have to do with flying two planes into
the Twin Towers in 2001?" And that just points up one of the many
differences between our two cultures. "Though I have to wait 1000 years,
I will have my revenge" is an old saying in Osama's part of the world.
Blood feuds last lifetimes. Americans, by contrast, can barely remember
Paris Hilton's last sex tape. And polls show that most Americans
are so ignorant of geography and current events that they probably couldn't even
find Beirut on a map.
We haven't heard from Osama in quite a while and this new
tape is puzzling terror experts for a number of reasons.
Osama looks fit, well-rested
and has the full use of both of his hands (in prior tapes, it appeared
that he couldn't move his left arm at all). He also speaks calmly,
and reads from prepared remarks as he stands at an American-style
podium, with his hands firmly on the lectern. One wonders if he watched the presidential debates.
He delivers his speech in common Arabic,
using none of the flowery, religous language he has used before.
He addresses the American people directly, telling us that
he will share how we can avoid another tragedy and that our safety
is not in the hands of President Bush, Senator Kerry or even al-Qaeda,
but in our hands -- and presumably in those who conduct America's foreign
policy. What is profoundly odd about the tape is the way Osama
delivers his lines: like a politician or diplomat addressing the U.N.
He speaks calmly and rationally,
as he describes his justification for murdering 3,000 innocent people.
He has the air of wanting to open a diplomatic dialogue with the American
people. No ranting, no raving, nothing. I personally found it much
scarier than the other tape that came out this week in which a
turbaned guy talked about the streets running with blood, there being so
many bodies that we wouldn't be able to count our dead etc. etc.
But Osama sounded clear and
rational, while saying irrational and evil things.
It is unclear right now what this October surprise means for the election.
It isn't helpful for Bush to have Osama, alive and well, show up on tape
and ridicule Bush's actions on 9/11. Osama tasked Bush for
reading "My Pet Goat" to schoolchildren
while leaving "50,000 of his citizens in both towers to face the horrors
by themselves when they most needed him." It also galling to have the
admitted architect of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil
laughing at us, while we sit in the quagmire of Iraq with no exit strategy
or benefit to the U.S. in sight. I mean, 1,000 troops are dead, over 7,000
are injured and yet the perpetrator of the crime has not been punished.
Bush seemed to grasp this
fact immediately, hopefully predicting that "Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this."
In response to the tape, Senator Kerry said, "Let me make it clear, crystal clear: As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. They are barbarians. And I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes, period."
Kerry sounded strong and the tape may hurt Bush.
On the other hand, Bush's poll numbers are better than Kerry's on the
terrorism issue and a new tape, regardless of the substance, may help
Bush. I think it will be a wash and isn't going to help either candidate.
But we'll see on Tuesday.
RNC to Rock the Vote: Shut Up or Face the Wrath of the IRS
With American troops stretched thin on the ground in Iraq,
and the activation of reservists and national guardsmen to
active duty in Iraq, many experts are questioning where the
troops are going to come from to continue the progression of the
current administration's foreign policy.
The L.A. Times
quotes Elaine Kamarck, a public policy expert
at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government,
saying that the rumors of the reinstatement of the draft "stem from a direction in foreign policy that is just beginning to sink into the consciousness of the country. Which is, 'Wait a minute, if our foreign policy is to go around the globe and take out bad guys, something's gotta give.'"
And although major newspapers and policy experts are talking about the
realistic possibility of a draft in America's future, apparently, the Republicans
don't even want the subject discussed. Why is that? Polling shows that
young people believe that Bush is much more likely to impose a draft than
Kerry would, although both candidates have said they will not
impose a draft. But Kerry has said he will add two divisions to the Army
and double Special Forces to cover the shortfall and end the backdoor
draft. Bush keeps saying things are fine in Iraq and that the troops
aren't stretched too thin -- which is why there is a credibility gap
as large as the Grand Canyon between his comments and
the beliefs of anyone who has bothered to actually read the
Republican Party Platform.
Founded by liberal-leaning musicians, Rock the Vote is a non-partisan
group which focuses on encouraging young people to get involved with
politics and to vote. It has encouraged a discussion of the draft issue.
Enter
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie who, after reading
about this in the L.A. Times, sent
this astounding letter to Rock The Vote, demanding that they
stop even discussing the issue of the draft or face the
repeal of their non-profit status. The grounds for Mr. Gillespie's
there will be no draft under President Bush, so an
assertion that even raising the possibility of a draft is
engaging in "malicious intent and a reckless disregard for the truth."
And Mr. Gillespie's proof that there will never be a draft?
Why, President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld said so!
I predict that this heavy-handed attempt by the RNC to stop free speech by Rock the Vote is going to backfire in a big way. Because young people just don't trust old
men who promise not to send them to war -- especially when the old men pull stunts like this.
The second debate took place in a less formal setting: a town hall format, with audience members asking prescreened questions, presided over by Charlie Gibson, genial host of Good Morning America. Gibson is a nice guy, but honestly, I thought Jim Lehrer was the clear winner.
Lehrer came out swinging in the first debate; he told the audience that they must be absolutely silent during the proceedings. If they left the room, they couldn't get back in. If they made a sound during the debate, laughed, talked, clapped, wept or engaged in any other prohibited behavior, he would stop the debate and personally humiliate them on national television. The crowd was cowed and deathly silent. The debaters were also cowed -- when Lehrer spoke, they listened.
But Charles Gibson was weak from the outset. He chatted with the audience members beforehand and actually took their complaints about the lousy sound system. He didn't threaten at all, merely asked them to be quiet during the debates...a fatal error.
After Kerry said that he was "not going to go alone like this president did" in Iraq, Bush leapt from his stool and roared,
"I've got to answer this!" just as Gibson was going to ask a follow up and give Bush time respond. Bush cut Gibson off at the knees, charged towards him and thundered,
"You tell Tony Blair we're going alone!!"
After that, Gibson lost all authority. The crowd laughed at the candidates' jokes. They sighed. The coughed. You were aware they were there. Gibson strove to regain lost ground by pulling out some half-glasses and donning a stern look, but the match was over by then. Lehrer would never have allowed a sitting president to run roughshod over him -- no, he is made of sterner stuff. Advantage, Lehrer, with Gwen Ifill coming in second for her snappy put-down of Dick Cheney in Tuesday's debate: when he said he couldn't answer in only 30 seconds, Ifill snapped back "Well, that's all you have."
Oh, and the presidential candidates? Kerry wins on points for substance, and for managing to get in the facts he's a Catholic, served as an altar boy, that you can be Pro-Choice without being Pro-Abortion, and for bringing up Nancy Reagan when discussing stem cell research. Bush improved immeasurably from his dismal performance in the first debate. But he lost on style points for 1) forgetting this was a debate, not a bullfight and charging the moderator; 2) chuckling and smirking to himself, then doing facial contortions in a heroic attempt to suppress his scowls when Kerry talked about how he's for tort reform and lower taxes, 3) talking about the "rumors you've heard on the Internets", thereby immediately fueling more rumors of a second, undisclosed Internet location and 4) answering questions with values instead of facts. Although the "we had to cut down the trees in order to save the trees" argument was impressive, as was the claim that he was the one who proposed the hydrogen automobile and the piece de resistance, "To destroy life to save life is one of the real ethical dilemmas that we face."
Bob Schieffer has his work cut out for him on the 13th.
After all of the niggling over the height of the podiums, the gameshow warning lights and buzzers, the temperature of the auditorium and the
prohibition against the candidates talking directly to each other, the first of the presidential debates finally got underway.
For the Kerry camp, the debate was a crucial milestone in the campaign. And it appears that the Bush campaign miscalculated when it insisted on such strict time limits for the candidates' responses: for tonight, John Kerry was articulate, charming and -- gasp -- concise. Yes, that's right: he didn't ramble or explain too much or qualify any of his answers, as he has been wont to do in the past. He was calm, collected and in command of his facts. He was decisive and bold.
President Bush, on the other hand, bumbled and fumbled his answers and actually got off message. Presidential advisor Karen Hughes was clearly devastated by her boss' performance. She told Wolf Blitzer that the president did a good job, but her demeanor said otherwise. The normally calm Hughes looked frazzled and nervous -- she was literally sweating bullets onscreen. General Wesley Clark, on the other hand, couldn't stop grinning as he answered Wolf's questions, and then those of John Stewart on The Daily Show.
One of Bush's weirdest moments was when he demanded extra time and then ranted about it being a MISTAKE to talk to Kim Jong-Il of North Korea. "We can't talk directly to him!" It was just bizarre, really -- Kerry, on the other hand calmly advocated talking directly with North Korea, and also continuing multilateral talks.
Kerry also finally put a flip-flopping charge to rest by admitting that he misspoke when he said that he voted for the $87 billion spending bill before he voted against it. "I made a mistake in how I talked about the war; The president made a mistake by going to war. Which is worse?" The president, famous for his malapropisms and misstatements seemed flummoxed.
The networks gleefully violated the "no cutaway" rules that the Bush camp insisted on, and it really hurt Bush. When Kerry scored points, Bush smirked, then looked annoyed, then looked really angry. He also rolled his eyes a lot. Kerry, by contrast, seemed to know where the camera was. He smiled and took notes as Bush talked. He looked calm and focused. Bush looked rattled and angry.
So, to sum up: Advantage Kerry. But it's far from over. There are two more debates and a long month of October campaigning to go. But there is no joy in the Bush camp tonight, regardless of what the spinmeisters may say.
With all the media coverage being accorded to the
Vietnam-era activities of President Bush and Senator
Kerry, there is another -- much more important -- story
simply falling through the cracks. After the voting debacle
of the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election, you'd think that
our government would have taken steps to ensure that
yet another one million African American votes aren't
mysteriously "lost" in Florida or elsewhere, for that matter.
But you'd be dead wrong if you thought that.
As Election Day approaches, most voters are unaware that approximately 50 million votes cast in this upcoming election will be
made on voting machines which give no paper receipt or have any
way to verify what votes were cast. The major vendor of these voting
machines, Diebold Inc., makes cash registers -- you know, the kind
that give you a receipt after you buy your groceries? Or buy gas?
But for some reason, Diebold decided that there was no need to
leave any paper trail or tangible record of how people cast their votes.
Election officials from a number of states have pooh-poohed the idea that
a receipt or paper trail is needed in case of a recount. Unfortunately, those
election officials have neglected to mention their cozy relationship with
the voting machine industry. According to the New York Times,
California's Secretary of State, Bill Jones,
left office in 2003 to take a cushy job with Sequoia Voting Systems, as
did the assistant Secretary of State. And now the former secretaries of state from
Florida and Georgia have signed on as lobbyists for Election Systems
and Software and Diebold Election Systems. How nice for them!
A bipartisan bill to require a paper trail for the new machines stalled out in the U.S. Senate.
According to Wired magazine, saner heads have prevailed in California and
Nevada, where laws have been passed
to require a paper receipt for electronic votes. But has Florida, Ohio or Pennsylvania
passed such a law? Not a chance. But, don't worry. Walden O'Dell, the CEO of
Diebold, Inc. (a major contributor to President Bush) wrote in a Republican fundraising
letter to potential donors that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes
to the president." Diebold is based in North Canton, Ohio.
Thank goodness! For a minute, I was beginning to worry that there might be something
crooked going on.
The U.S. Presidential Campaign Kicks into High Gear
Polls taken just after the close of the Republican Convention show
President Bush getting a robust bounce in the polls: both
Newsweek and Time show Bush ahead of Kerry by 11 points.
Before the convention, which effectively pounded home the
message that only President Bush can keep our grandchildren safe
from terrorists, the polls were too close to call. Some
pollsters are saying that those numbers could flatten back out again
in the coming weeks, especially if Kerry decides to abandon
his gentlemanly style of campaigning and go for the jugular.
All signs do point to Kerry having made a fundamental shift in his campaign style. Immediately after the addition of Joe Lockhart to the campaign, the Kerry Rapid Response Team shifted into action. During the Republican convention, Terry McAuliffe roamed a room of fact checkers who monitored the Republicans' speeches for accuracy. When distortions of Kerry's record were found, McAuliffe emailed his rebuttal to the media -- oftentimes just as the speech in question ended.
The wild-eyed oratory by Zell Miller generated so many Democratic corrections
and talking points, it's a wonder that the Rapid Response Team didn't
develop Actue Carpal Tunnel Syndrome on the spot.
But the best part of Zell Miller's performance wasn't his speech on Wednesday
night; it was
on Hardball with Chris Matthews. After Matthews asked
Miller if he really thought that Senator Kerry would try to defend
the United States against Al-Qaeda using only spitballs, Miller
became enraged and actually challenged Matthews to a duel. He was actually
shocked that Matthews had the audacity to challenge him
on a talking point -- that Kerry is weak on defense. It was an easy
question to answer for someone who had done his research.
Ed Gillespie certainly could have answered it. Well, I say kudos
to Chris Matthews for finally asking some hard questions. I just hope
he's well-versed in the etiquette of dueling.
The New York Times leads today with a story that
blows away any lingering credibility of the
so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the
Republican donor-funded Viet Nam
veterans group who have launched
attacks on John Kerry's integrity and
honesty about events that happened during the Viet Nam
war. Between the New York Times piece and the
Washington Post piece (which uses official military records to
demonstrate that Larry Thurlow lied when he said there was no gunfire
the day that Kerry saved Jim Rassmann's life and won a Silver Star) it seems clear that this group has major credibility problems.
When asked for a copy of the citation for the Bronze Star he
received the same day as Kerry won his Silver Star, Thurlow came up with some ridiculous story
that his ex-wife has it and he can't stand to talk to her. But that didn't
stop the journalists from the newspaper that exposed Watergate;
they simply filed a Freedom of Information Act request and
got the records themselves.
The military records show that Thurlow's boat was full
of bullet holes. In fact, the official report describes "enemy small arms and
automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla.
Thurlow's citation praises
him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat
"despite enemy bullets flying about him." Sounds to me like the
five swift boats were in a very difficult and dangerous
combat situation. And there was plenty of gunfire when Kerry fished Rassmann out of the water.
What's really odd about this story is the fact that
these same men who are attacking John Kerry's heroism on the
Bay Hap River that day have made statements as recent as
last year praising his heroism.
Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group,
told Douglas Brinkley that although he had not agreed with
Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions, he said, "I am not going to say
anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."
In a feature piece about Kerry that ran in The Boston Globe
in June 2003, Hoffmann said of Kerry's actions that won him a
Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."
Group members George Elliott and Adrian Lonsdale
both praised Kerry's courage in Viet Nam and
campaigned for him in 1996.
The New York Times futher reports that Mr. Londsdale told reporters and camera crews at the Charlestown Navy Yard that
"Senator Kerry was no exception." "He was
among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."
Kerry's military records
were released earlier this year.
Those records show Mr. Elliot in 1969
ranking Kerry as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage,
judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" -- the second-highest distinction
-- in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry
"unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader
in his peer group."
Meanwhile,
CNN is reporting that the same group is airing a new ad which
completely distorts Senator Kerry's testimony to Congress
after he came home from the war. Kerry was reporting to
Congress about the Winter Soldier investigation and
described what other vets had told him about atrocities they had seen committed.
The new ad deletes Kerry's preface to his remarks, which
explain their source, and merely runs Kerry's
descriptions of atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Viet Nam.
When asked by Sean Hannity on Fox News about Kerry's
accusations of U.S. atrocities in Viet Nam, General
Tommy Franks refused to contradict Kerry. He affirmed that atrocities were committed, telling a surprised
Sean Hannity: "[the] things Kerry said are undeniable," explaining that
"things didn't go right" in Viet Nam.
A cold, clear reading of the evidence in this case
tells me that the Swift Boat Veterans' story is as full of
holes as Larry Thurlow's boat was on the day that Thurlow
got a Bronze Star and Kerry earned a Silver Star.
I think the Swift Boat Veterans are starting to be a liability
rather than an asset to the Bush campaign. Time to
bail out and find a new tactic: like discussing the current war, instead of
one that was over forty years ago.
The media wars just got nastier. First, there was
Robert Greenwald's documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism,
which reveals memos sent by the corporate honchos
to reporters telling them to downplay John Kerry's
war record and the Abu Ghraib scandal but to
give President Bush favorable, respectful coverage.
Then Fox News Channel Chairman Roger Ailes
asked, "Why does CNN hate America?"
Now, Richard Parsons, CEO of TimeWarner and CNN
has fired back. During a speech to minority journalists in
Washington today, Parsons was asked by
Univision Anchor Jorge Ramos why CNN
was losing the ratings battle with Fox. Parsons said that
CNN actually has more unique viewers than Fox (which is
true, by the way.) Parsons said that Fox was more like talk radio on
TV, which meant that its viewers stayed longer because
people tended to "come and sit down for an hour or two
and listen to crazy people exchange views." Ouch.
He also said that CNN is not liberal in its bias and -- in another jab at Ailes --
said that no corporate memos are sent to anchors telling them how
to slant news. CNN, in fact, has been widely criticized for its
pro-Republican slant during its coverage of the Democratic
National Convention.
So, is Fox News right? Does CNN's or MSNBC's analysts
report in a fair and unbiased manner or do they all
just parrot back the talking points memos sent out by
email every day from the Kerry and Bush campaigns?
You know who's got
the right idea? Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's
The Daily Show, who wields his humor against
both Republicans and Democrats alike. Perhaps mindful of
CNN's disastrous and overly talkative coverage of the Democratic
National Convention, Stewart asked
viewers to simply listen to the candidates' speeches on C-SPAN
or public television, then turn their tv sets off. Don't listen
to the pundits, he said. Instead, ask yourself, "Did I like what that
candidate said?" "Does what he said square with the facts or is it
just empty rhetoric?" Then, make up your own mind.
I agree. With all the networks accusing each other of biased
coverage, it's hard to get to the truth on the important issues.
So, this year the informed voter has to do a little legwork.
Read the actual platforms on both
JohnKerry.com and
GeorgeWBush.com. Read the news
online.
Independent thinking -- it's a good thing.
Well, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission released its report and
it's a doozy. Available
for download free online, or in bookstores for $10,
the Report is an interesting mix of history, analysis and
recommendations for the future. For the most part, it
avoids placing blame for 9/11 one any one party or
or person. But it does detail a number of missed
opportunities during both the Clinton and Bush Administrations.
The report also lists a number of changes that it recommends
be implemented by the government. The five major areas
of change are:
• unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning against
Islamist terrorists across the foreign-domestic divide with a National
Counterterrorism Center;
• unifying the intelligence community with a new National Intelligence
Director;
• unifying the many participants in the counterterrorism effort and
their knowledge in a network-based information-sharing system that
transcends traditional governmental boundaries;
• unifying and strengthening congressional oversight to improve quality
and accountability; and
• strengthening the FBI and homeland defenders.
Many of these changes can
be made by executive order by the President. Some
must be implemented by Congress.
For example,
the Report calls for more oversight of the intelligence
agencies and their budgets by a new joint House and
Senate Intelligence Committee.
The Commission has made it clear that it wants action -- now.
The strongly worded statements by Chairman Kean
scared the heck out of everybody. “An attack of even greater
magnitude is possible and even probable,” he said.
“We don’t have the luxury of TIME.” Yikes!
Senator Joe Lieberman and others have cut their traditional
August vacations short to start work on this important
work for our country's future safety.
Of course, there is nothing guaranteed to generate a
turf war than Congress suddenly demanding more oversight
of the CIA, NSA and other security organizations.
So far, President Bush has been non-committal about the
recommendations, saying he must study the issues first.
Presidential candidate John Kerry has endorsed the idea
of a new intelligence czar, which the acting head of the CIA
bitterly opposes.
The Committee has announced that it will release four more
reports in the future and will also give a report in a year
or so as to how the government is doing on implementing
the changes it recommended. This bipartisan committee
has worked incredibly long, hard hours and has given us
a report that is as non-political as it is possible -- no easy
task, given the polarized political environment.
So, kudos are in order to the 9/11 Commission for a job well-done.
