 | Politics "wid" a taste of Philly, by Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News |
| Politics "wid" a taste of Philly, by Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News |
7:42 p.m.: Saw an interesting promo on ABC's "World News Tonight," touting their upcoming debate coverage as, among other things, "Accurate." Can't imagine who else they might be referring to. I'll be back at 9...inshallah.
UPDATE: 9:00 p.m.: ABC News says it has an army of fact-checkers. Where were they when CBS needed them?
UPDATE: 9:03 p.m. Interesting handshake. Boy, is Kerry tall! Nice job sucking up to "plucky" Floridians. Wonder if he'd say that if this was Mississippi?
UPDATE: 9:07 p.m. Kerry gave a nice answer on Iraq -- too bad the question was about 9/11. Bush looks OK -- we think they've finally got his dosage right.
UPDATE: 9:09 p.m.: Bush: "People know where I stand..." Expect to hear that a lot.
UPDATE: 9:10 p.m.: Kerry: "We also need to be smart, Jim." Expect to hear that a lot. Also, he's playing the Osama card strong. Good line: "He outsourced that job, too." Also good -- Bush "changed his mind -- his campaign has a word for that."
UPDATE: 9:19 p.m.: Bush's big talking point: "Pre-Sept. 10th mentality." But W.'s answer misses the point. Inspections were working in Iraq -- they showed there was no nuclear program, and were unable to find other WMD. Also telling was that he almost called "bin Laden" "Hussein" His body language was bad when he had to mention Osama..."he's isolated. " Bush also on Iraq: "We will succeed -- we've got a plan to do so."
OK, what is it?
UPDATE: 9:21 p.m.: Is it just me, or does Bush look more like Alfred E. Neuman than ever before.
UPDATE: 9:25 p.m.: Good job by Kerry mentioning the 100,000 hours of untranslated tapes. And Bush really opened himself up when he said: "You better have a president who chases these terrorists down..." Uh, like Osama bin Laden.
UPDATE: 9:30 p.m. overview: Seems like they're playing a draw -- which is bad news for Kerry, who needs a clear win. Both men seem well-prepared...the most relaxed I've seen presidential candidates in Debate One. (also, Kerry just mentioned Vietnam -- surprised he did that). A lot of folks on this site may not like what Bush has to say, but he's playing very well to the support-the-troops-let's-not-consider-anything-else crowd -- and that's a lot of American voters.
UPDATE: 9:36 p.m.: Did anybody catch Bush's expression at the first mention of Halliburton -- looked like a serious case of acid indigestion? Seconds later he said of UN: "They pulled out after Sergio de Melo got killed." Uh, and how exactly did that happen, Mr. President? Also, it does seem like maybe Bush is overplaying his indignation at Kerry statements "denigrating" the troops and the war effort.
UPDATE: 9:45 p.m.: Bush is trying to look "presidential," but presidential can also look "arrogant," when you're not used to being challenged. His rule-bending may hurt him more than help him. I must say that Jim Lehrer is doing a good job letting things go with the flow. Also, it's good to see that W. remembers the name of one soldier that was killed -- wonder how many days of rehearsal that took.
UPDATE: 9:49 p.m.: "He's misled again..." -- Kerry's version of "There you go again, Mr. President."
UPDATE: 9:53 p.m.: Bush thinks that Allawi is "courageous and brave." When was that? When he was shooting those six prisoners, or when he was reading the speech that Bush's aides wrote for him?
UPDATE: 9:55 p.m. My own mother, one of my four valued readers, just declared Kerry the winner in the Comments section. Is that a subtle hint for me to do the same?
UPDATE: 10:00 p.m. overview: Kerry just landed a solid left hook by picking apart Bush's line about being attacked -- reminding everyone just who exactly attacked us in 9/11. Good follow-up with the 35-40 other more dangerous countries -- haven't heard that argument before. I think Kerry is pulling ahead here -- it's clear that his 20 years as a legislator have served him well. Also, Kerry fans -- not just my Mom but over at Atrios, who has some non-relative readers -- think the split screen thing is killing Bush. Will the punditocracy agree?
UPDATE: 10:07 p.m.: Kerry doing some serious truth-telling on North Korea. Bush does seem on the ropes a bit -- although I doubt the pundit referees will call it a knockout.
UPDATE: 10:14 p.m.: "That's a loaded question" on character -- you bet, W! You cannot lead if you send "mexed missages" -- there's the line of the night. I can already see the bumper sticker: "Stop Bush's Mexed Missages!" OMG! OMG! Bush "trying to put a leash" on his daughters. Wonkette's going to have a field day! [Ed. Note, 10/1: Yep.]
UPDATE: 10:16 p.m.: Kerry wants to talk about "nuclear proliferation." Is that just a ploy to get Bush to say "nucular" a lot?
UPDATE: 10:19 p.m.: Important note -- Bush has said twice that "we've busted the A.Q. Khan network." Sort of. But the Pakistani nuclear scientist doing deals around the world was allowed to remain a free man. What type of message does that send to terrorists?
UPDATE: 10:32 p.m. pre-pundit punditry: Well, no gaffes (unless you count that Barbara and Jenna "leash" thing) and also no really memorably zingers. Bush did look less comfortable -- lots of blinking and heartburn expressions. Can people really want to have a beer with this guy? Actually, we thought Bush looked better that his recent, awful deer-in-the-headlights speeches and press conferences. If you're biased toward Kerry (hi, Mom!) you have no doubt that he won. He was confident, on message, and scored some solid blows on North Korea and Iraq. OK, time to watch the "pros."
UPDATE: Some 10:40 p.m. ABC punditry: You'll be shocked to learn that George S. likes Kerry, saying he "answered the flip flopping more with his demeanor than with his words." Martha Radatz also mentions how Fallujah was botched under W. Terry Moran says Bush "managed to get through his main points" -- you'll be hearing that a lot, although he admits the flip-flopping charge wasn't sticking. The pundits are really dwelling on Kerry -- I think he's going to get the call.
UPDATE: 10:41 p.m.: Giuliani spinning away on NBC -- he gets the "mixed messages" right, at least. Still trying to spin Kerry as a flip-flopper -- not so sure that'll work when viewers get to see Kerry for themselves.
UPDATE: 10:47 p.m.: Getting more hints that Kerry will be annointed. We're hearing that Joe Scarborough on MSNBC -- a former GOP congressman -- is even calling Kerry the winner. And apparently even Fox is finding it hard to pump up Bush -- they're described the prez as looking "annoyed." OK, looking forward to the instant polls.
UPDATE: 10:48 p.m.: Kerry wins big in poll! But no minds changed...for now. That may change tomorrow around the water cooler. ABC has Kerry winning 45-36, with 17 percent saying a tie. Checking other nets.
UPDATE: 10:55 p.m.: John Roberts on CBS-- "close to a draw." He does slam Bush now for saying insurgents were fighting "vociferously" and for seeming hesitant. How is that a draw? Also, Bush is getting a lot of flack for claiming 100,000 trained police in Iraq. Was slightly off on ABC poll -- here's the numbers again below 45-36 Kerry.
UPDATE: 11:03 p.m.: OK, going home. Hearing that several focus groups of "undecideds" went well for Kerry -- we'll see how the spin goes round for the next 48 hours. Unless some blogger uncovers an amazing Kerry gaffe, I think it'll be hard to knock him down.
From the Allentown Morning Call:
In a swing state where tensions are high, Parkland High School has turned down an invitation for its marching band to play at President Bush's rally in Allentown on Friday, saying the band's presence at a partisan event could divide the community.
Meanwhile, Saucon Valley High School has agreed to play, despite some concerns being raised.
Superintendent Rick Grove said Saucon Valley didn't want its students to miss out on the chance to play for a president.
The Bush campaign expressed disappointment over Parkland's decision, seeing it as an opportunity for the students.
Not physically, although somehow I suspect the weather in Coral Gables is nicer than here in Philly. But we will be blogging continuously both during the debate and after, so plop down in front of the TV with the ol' wi-fi laptop tonight, and see what one fair and dangerously unbalanced journalist/blogger (a concept that reminds us of "The Gay Communist Gun Club") has to say, punditry-wise.
It's getting more play in the journalism blogosphere than the political one, but anyone planning to watch tonight's back-and-forth on Iraq MUST READ Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi's letter home from Baghdad. Fassihi wrote to friends -- never expecting it would be published -- and so she commits the journalism "blunder" of saying what she really thinks. Here's a quote, but read the letter for youself (as well as this article, which places it in some context.):
"One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle."
Read the whole letter below:
From: [Wall Street Journal reporter] Farnaz Fassihi
Subject: From Baghdad
Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under
virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.
Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.
It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April
when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when
Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began
spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a
foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.
Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."
What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health -- which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers -- has now stopped disclosing them.
Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.
A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.
For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.
The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are cooperating and coordinating.
I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.
America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard
units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being
murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.
As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that
almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18
billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.
Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage
and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?
Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for
insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.
I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.
Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about
elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."
One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.
The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while half of the country remains a 'no go zone'-out of the hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott elections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.
I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"
-Farnaz
Wonkette (by way of our most loyal non-Ted reader) alerts us to a group we think a majority of this site's patrons can get behind (in addition to Drinking Liberally). It's called Kerry-Haters for Kerry.
It features a "Panic Room" where anti-Kerry Kerry supporters can rant without alienating undecided voters. It offers bumper stickers like: "They're Strong Nuances!:, and excuses for Kerry to stay off the campaign trail, including: "Campaigning would be inappropriate so soon after the passing of Laura Branigan."
Check it out. Then start drinking liberally.
On April 15, every American is required to submit his income taxes. On Sept. 30, every American political writer is required to submit his "guide to watching the debate." Frankly, we think any undecided voter would be better served with this debate drinking game or this one.
But, for any American who's anal-retentive enough to sit through the debate with a pencil and "keep score," here's Campaign Extra!'s debate guide. If Al Gore's reading this (and what else does he have to do?), no sighing or eye-rolling:
How can you tell who won tonight's debate? If the past is any kind of prologue, TV's talking heads will have a disproportionally high influence on who wins.
In 2000, the initial sense among viewers was a slight edge to Al Gore. But once the punditocracy weighed in, George W. Bush was declared the winner.
This year, why not eliminate the middleman? Using this Daily News scorecard, you can decide for yourself who won - before Chris Matthews even opens his mouth.
Likability
Poll after poll shows that voters respond best to the candidates who "understand the problems of people like me," or the one they'd "most like to have a beer with." Conversely, they tend to be cool to politicians - from Adlai Stevenson through Al Gore - who act like they're the smartest person in the room.
Thus, Gore's eye-rolling and sighing at some of Bush's answers cost him more points than he won for knowing how to properly pronounce the name of world leaders. Likewise, radio listeners actually thought Richard Nixon beat John F. Kennedy in 1960, but TV viewers - who saw his sweat and swarthy complexion - went the other way. And George H.W. Bush sealed his doom in 1992 by looking at his watch.
Advantage ________________
Gaffes
Candidates get a lot less credit for getting things right than are damaged by getting something wrong. If you don't believe us, ask Gerald Ford about the second term he was denied in 1976 when he identified Poland as a nation not under the control of the Soviet Union.
One reason that Bush performed well in 2000 is because he's very good at sticking to the script - any deviations in 2004 could hurt. Ditto any Kerry comments that can be used to accuse him - fairly or not - of flip-flopping.
Advantage ________________
Zingers
Do you remember where Jimmy Carter was "going again, Mr. President" in 1980 against Ronald Reagan, or what Gary Hart proposal lacked "the beef" against Walter Mondale in 1984? Of course not, but you remember the line, and you probably remember what happened to Carter and Hart.
Even more dramatic, Dan Quayle never really recovered from "you're no Jack Kennedy." Will any candidate pull off a memorable line in 2004? If so, it may affect history's verdict well beyond the substance of what was actually said.
Advantage ________________
Substance
Remember this? What really put Reagan over the top in 1980 was his now-famous query, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago," which framed the issues against Carter in the simplest way.
Will Kerry, trailing in the polls and given to unwieldy political talk, be able to break down the Bush presidency in such a way? It may be his only chance. Few if any voters will switch sides tonight, but some undecided voters will find a comfort level with one or the other.
Advantage ________________
Apparently there's some sort of debate tonight. If you can't live with yourself without reading one more debate primer, here is a decent one. Slate.com has a much more interesting preview of the debate -- between George W. Bush and Howard Dean! Apparently, those terrorists really do want John Kerry to win, because they're going nuts over in Iraq today. Bastards. Another thing we could do without -- Lynne Cheney's (skin) color commentary. In spite of, or because of, this, the Kerry campaign isn't playing in Missouri. And he's also got room to grow in Ohio. He did gain one vote -- from the son of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. Meanwhile, Frank Rich takes us on a scary trip though the Christian evangelicals' "F-9/11.")
Inside today's DN: The paper nails down its status as a far-left icon by giving us the op-ed tag team of....Michael Smerconish and Michelle Malkin? Malkin uses her keen powers of insight -- unavailable to us mere mortals -- to reveal that Kerry "detests anybody and anything that interferes with his political ambitions." The certifiably sane Smerconish starts on the runway with Cat Stevens and takes off with a plea for racial profiling of Muslim passengers. In a strange display of ideological balance, the lead letter writer plays the Nazi card. There are two ways to look at tonight's debate: John Baer's way or Signe Wilkinson's way.
Way.
In journalism, timing is everything -- and Campaign Extra! has always had lousy timing. So when we reported on Jan. 27, 2003 (as part of a long, and early, story about the dreaded PNAC) that Dick Cheney said back in 1992 that Saddam Hussein wasn't worth "not very damn many" American lives, nobody paid us much mind. That's OK -- we're used to it.
Now, a good and enterprising journalist named Joel Connelly has dredged (dredged, not drudged) Cheney's quote up once again, and it's getting some play. So here, in the public interest, is what Cheney said -- not once, but several different times -- 12 years ago. This is from a news briefing in May 1992 (key passages in bold):
We stopped when we did, and it was a unanimous recommendation on the part of the President's advisors, civilian and military, we stopped when we did because we had achieved our objectives. We had said from the outset that our purpose was to liberate Kuwait and destroy Saddam Hussein's capacity to threaten his neighbors, his offensive military capability, we did that. We destroyed about two-thirds of his army in that portion that he sent in to Kuwait and Iraq, and stripped him of most of his weapons of mass destruction.
We could have gone on. There is no doubt in my mind, from a military standpoint we could have sent forces on down the road to Baghdad, captured Baghdad, but I would expect in terms of trying to get rid of Saddam Hussein that it would not have been an easy task. I don't think it was the kind of situation where we could have pulled up with a paddywagon in front of the Presidential Palace and said, "Come on Saddam, you're going to the slammer." I think we would have had to run him to ground, and doing that in Baghdad or in a nation as large as Iraq would have involved a lot of US forces.
Once we rounded up Saddam, then the question is what do you do? You're going to put a government in his place. Presumably, you're not just going to turn your back and walk away. You have to put some kind of a government in its place. And then the question comes is it going to be a Shi'a government or a Kurdish government, or maybe a Sunni government, or maybe it ought to be based on the old Baathist Party regime, or some combination thereof.
How long is that government to be able to stay in power without US military support to keep it there? How long can we maintain the coalition?
Remember we entered into this activity with the support of 30 other nations. A very important part of that support was the support of other Arab nations who took up arms against a brother Arab state, who allowed us to operate military forces from their territory, who sent combat forces to fight alongside our people in Kuwait.
How long could we have maintained that coalition of Arab states if we had been involved in the long-range occupation by the US in Iraq? I would guess if we had gone on to Baghdad I would still have forces in Iraq today. I don't know how we would have let go of that tar baby once we had grabbed hold of it.
A final point that I think is very important. Everybody is fond of looking back at Desert Storm and saying that it was, in fact, a low cost conflict because we didn't suffer very many casualties. But for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it was not a cheap or a low cost conflict. The question, to my mind, in terms of this notion that we should have gone on and occupied Iraq is how many additional American casualties would we have had to suffer? How many additional American lives is Saddam Hussein worth? And the answer I would give is not very damn many.
I think we got it right when we made the decision to use forces to liberate Kuwait; I think we got it right when the President made the decision, with my support and the support of everybody else, to stop when we did. And I, looking back on it now, think that the decisions both times were sound.
We never thought we'd suggest anyone from our hated crosstown (OK, crossbuilding) rivals for a Pulitzer Prize, but the Inquirer's David Swanson has earned one for his gut-wrenching photos from Iraq. Better yet, he's capable of speaking the truth, as he did at a symposium of war journalists here in Philly this week. He said:
"As a photographer, I couldn't find one positive image in Iraq. Isn't it obvious that there were no positive outcomes to this war?"
Something to think about going into tomorrow's foreign policy debate...
Who says the media is too timid? Maybe we didn't challenge Bush on the Iraq war, but we'll fight to the death for the best camera angles. Still, Barbra Streisand wonders what happened to a free press? Campaign Extra! wonders what happened to Barbra Streisand's plastic surgeon and personal trainer. Yet there's somebody with even less credibility than the media -- pollsters! Actually, John Kerry's been studying those polls, and he has some good news! -- he just saved a load of money on Teresa's SUV insurance. Both candidates are preparing for tomorrow's debate by watching "The Fear Factor." And, all through the campaign, New Jersey has struggled with who it really is, and so it's truth is that it's a battleground state-American.
The "Out of Eagles' Front Pages?...We're Just Gettin' Warmed Up!" edition: Apparenty, DN front-page designers aren't the only ones abandoning politics for football -- now Ed Rendell wants to do it, too. Meanwhile, Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Signe Wilkinson takes you inside the electronic voting machine. Don't be so sure that you're registered, either. And Bush's recent trip to King of Prussia makes a reader's stomach churn. But then, King of Prussia has a way of doing that to people.
You know you've entered the bizzaro world of American politics when the lead op-ed piece in the New York Times is called "How to Debate George Bush" -- and it's written by Al Gore.
Sigh.
Actually, Gore himself makes the mandatory, self-deprecating "sigh" joke at the end of the piece -- if you dare read through the rest of it.... something about "substance," blah, blah, blah. But frankly, we wish Gore had given more thought to this topic in, I dunno, maybe 2000.
But Campaign Extra! spoke with some sources at the New York Times editorial board, and we learned that the Gore piece is actually the first installment of an ongoing series of advice columns. Among the pieces we can expect to see in the weeks ahead:
"How to Win the NFC Championship Game," by Andy Reid.
"How to Maintain Your Virginity," by Paris Hilton.
"How to Defeat John Street," by Sam Katz.
"How to Maintain Your Composure," by Howard Dean.
"How to Become a Better Player Through Practice," by Allen Iverson.
"How to Make It Big Without Anyone's Help," by George W. Bush.
"How to Make Your Marriage Last," by Britney Spears.
"How to Verify Historical Documents," by Dan Rather.
and, "How to Beat Your Foe -- Fairly and Squarely," by Karl Rove.
UPDATE! Faithful CE reader (and Mets fan!) Larry Shapiro adds: "How to Remain Calm at All Times," by Larry Bowa...why didn't we think of that? Feel free to add you own suggestions in the comments.
If you're like us, you probably don't spend a lot of time lurking on georgewbush.com. Unfortunately, we had to figure out just what exactly Bush's future plan for Iraq is, because (under duress) we're doing a chart for Thursday's newspaper. In fact, the difficulty in figuring out W.'s Iraq policy is why we're still here so late at night.
The president's foreign policy agenda, such as it is, is in a document entitled: "Defending American Lives & Liberty." (Who could be against that?) How often does this mention Iraq?
Twice.
1) "Fifty million people have been liberated from despotic, totalitarian regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. "
2) "Supported by coalition allies, the men and women of our Armed Forces have brought Saddam Hussein- a declared enemy of America and supporter of terrorism (but not al-Qaeda -- CE) who had the capability and a proven willingness to produce and use weapons of mass destruction (but didn't actually have any -- CE)- to justice. The brutal regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. An interim government is leading the Iraqi people to freedom. "
Plans for Iraq in a second term?
Zero.
Oh, and mentions of Osama bin Laden?
Zero.
When Sydney H. Schanberg talks, people need to listen. Schanberg, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for international reporting while at the New York Times, is one of the true living lions of journalism. His life-or-death reporting from Cambodia led to the movie "The Killing Fields." Back home, he has a reputation for truth-telling -- and (as a result) annoying the living hell out of his employers.
In this week's Village Voice, he takes a whack at the ills of modern political journalism and truly nails it. He writes:
We in the news business are part of a real struggle now about what kind of future this nation is to have, about whether we are to descend into toxic partisan warfare and suppression of dissent. We can't shy away from the fight out of fear of being called names, such as unpatriotic. This is no game of beanbag at recess. We have to be adversaries of imperial presidencies—responsible adversaries, loyal adversaries.
One of the reasons this nation is in such a fix now is that the mainstream press, Big Media, failed to be sufficiently aggressive or determined at the start in examining this president's rationale and premises for going to war. We have been much too compliant in serving as stenographers to the powerful.
Everyone agrees that the 2004 race has been crude -- but how come they're not talking about crude -- oil that is, black gold, yadda, yadda. (If you must know where Bush and Kerry stand on energy, read this for a crude comparison.) Matt Drudge weighs in on the complexion of the race -- skin complexion, that is. The Bush campaign has a new way to coerce -- er, recruit -- campaign volunteers. Paul Krugman handicaps the inept debate handicappers, with this great line about how it played in 2000: "The lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies." John Edwards is using "the L-word," too. Bush, meanwhile, is accusing Kerry of "changing positions." Heh heh.
Journalism is an old business, and so we have a lot of old sayings. One key one is: "If you haven't heard it, it's news to you!" Campaign Extra!'s editors live by that rule.
Now, they've heard there's this newfangled thing called the World Wide Web. Wow. What's more, there's some kind of funny joke that plodded its way, slowly (very slowly) into their awareness zone -- something about the Florida hurricanes, God, and Bush voters from the 2000 election. The fact that Campaign Extra! wrote about this online (what is this?) on Sept. 24 had no bearing, apparently, on their decision to hype this joke for the front page of the newspaper (what is this?).
So, ever the contrarian, we decided to head for the debunkers. Our special investigative report follows.
A FEW YEARS back, reporters at the Washington Post used to joke about the file of stories that were "too good to check."
In other words, the juicier the rumor, the more likely it would fall apart if you actually tried to get the story in the newspaper.
That's why we can't stand the people at Snopes.com, the Internet site that's devoted to debunking (and on rare occasions verifying) rumors and urban legends.
Now they're trying to take all the fun out of the funniest thing on the Internet for the past week - the map suggesting God is punishing pro-Bush counties in Florida. As you can see, the counties are done up in red for those carried by President Bush, and blue for those for Al Gore.
Superimposed is something close to the actual paths of the first three hurricanes to slam the Sunshine State this year - Charley, Frances, and Ivan. As if by an occult hand, each seemed to batter the Bush-backing bastions while sparing the guardians of Gore.
An unknown blogger named Bob Morris called it "an unmistakable message from God."
Except that it is mistakable. As the Snopes site notes, hundreds of millions of dollars in damage were done by Hurricane Charley in places like Orlando, Daytona Beach and St. Lucie County, all of which backed Gore in 2000.
Of another Democratic stronghold on the Gulf Coast, it notes: "After lashing Pasco County for most of the day Sunday, Tropical Storm Frances damaged mobile homes, toppled trees and left roughly 52,000 people without power."
Democrats can't take much solace from this weekend's Hurricane Jeanne, either. The storm cut a swath similar to Frances, smoting mobile home parks of Democrats as well as Republicans.
We knew it was too good to check.
Inside today's Daily News -- it's five days 'til the next Eagles' game, so politics rules! That's not T.O. but J.B. -- our political columnist John Baer -- who's going deep, showing how an Electoral College quirk in Broncos territory could swing the race. Is Ralph Nader on Pennsylvania's ballot? Do you really care at this point? Why does a nun have a crush on Arlen Specter, and why is that important in the Pa. Senate race? On the editorial page, humorless conservatives from Texas call Kerry a cheese-eating surrender monkey (we think...we couldn't get through the whole thing) while Carol Towarnicky wonders about W's weird science. And we actually agree with today's main editorial -- Tony Orlando and Gilbert O'Sullivan need to join Cat Stevens on that watch list for terrorizing people.
A couple of weeks ago we got a lot of comments about our post on whether the Democrats were capable of pulling "a Rove" -- i.e., attacking Bush's supposed strength, which (so they tell us) is the war on terror. Now -- first called to our attention by Atrios -- Michael Tomasky of the American Prospect has picked up the baton.
Now, beginning with this Thursday's debate, Kerry should strike right at the dark heart of Bush's national-security failures. Where, he should ask, is Osama bin Laden? We sent about 12,000 troops to Afghanistan. We removed the Taliban, but the man who orchestrated the September 11 attacks and then delivered to the world a videotape gloating about them slipped away. Then -- boom -- we sent 130,000 troops to Iraq, which was somehow more important than getting the man who killed 2,700 Americans. Bin Laden still circulates.
"Why must we take this painful road? Why must this nation hazard its ease, and its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away? We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure."
Sound familiar? Those words were uttered by the president of the United States.
But the date was April 7, 1965. The president was Lyndon B. Johnson. And the subject was Vietnam. The speech was just 77 days after the start of the second Johnson administration, after the American people gave him a near record landslide with 61 percent of the vote.
By the end of the first year of Johnson's elected term (he served the last 14 months of John F. Kennedy's term after the November 1963 assassination), the number of American troops in Vietnam soared from 23,000 to 184,300 -- an eight-fold increase. Monthly draft calls were doubled in 1965. Car bombs exploded outside hotels, oil tanks were blown up, and mortar fire rained down on American bases. Insurgents controlled roughly half of the country. Casualties soared.
Now, just like in 1964, a president seeks another term in office while softpeddling the need to increase troops in a foreign conflict. This time, it's Iraq. There are some major differences -- major combat has already taken place in the Persian Gulf, and Iraq casualties are already much higher than they were in Vietnam six weeks before the 1964 vote. But for the most part, the parallels are downright frightening.
Already, there is open talk by the Pentagon of a major offensive against the insurgents in Fallujah in late fall. Already, members of Congress are learning of plans for a new mobilization of troops. Just like LBJ's escalation in Vietnam, these moves aren't planned until after the election, and after voters have rendered their judgement.
Here's a merged timeline of Vietnam in 1964-65 and Iraq in 2004-05. The Vietnam events are in italics, and the Iraq events are in bold. Most of the Vietnam entries come from an excellent timeline compiled by Vietnamresearch.com, a Veterans' project.
Keep in mind what another president, Abraham Lincoln, once said. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." But also keep in mind what The Who said in 1971, while Vietnam still raged:
"We won't get fooled again."
Aug. 4, 1964: The Johnson administration cites two unprovoked attacks by North Vietnamese gunboats against the USS Maddox and another American ship as a pretext for war. Only later is it learned that the Maddox was supporting covert raids by South Vietnamese commandos and that it was highly unlikely a second attack took place at all.
2002-March 2003: The Bush administration cites the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the regime's alleged ties to global terrorists like al-Qaeda as a pretext for war. Only later is it learned that there are no stockpiles of unconventional weapons in Iraq and that no substantive links with al-Qaeda existed.
Aug. 7, 1964: Congress, at the behest of President Johnson, overwhelmingly passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution put forward by the White House allowing the President "to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force" to prevent further attacks against U.S. forces. The resolution, passed unanimously in the House and 98-2 in the Senate, grants enormous power to President Johnson to wage an undeclared war in Vietnam. Among those voting to support the resolution are future Democratic presidential candidates George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, and Hubert Humphrey.
Oct. 11, 2002: Congress, at the behest of President Bush, overwhelmingly votes to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions. The measure, passed 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate, grants enormous power to President Bush to wage an undeclared war in Iraq. Among those voting to support the resolution are future Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry, John Edwards, and Richard Gephardt.
Fall 1964: President Johnson campaigns for a new term by telling voters he will not escalate the war by sending more U.S. troops. He says: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."
Fall 2004: President Bush promises voters that he will work to bring home troops from Iraq as soon as possible, saying they will only stay "as long as necessary, and not one day longer."
Nov. 3, 1964: President Johnson is elected to a full-term as president in a landslide over Republican Barry Goldwater.
Nov. 2, 2004: The U.S. presidential election. Currently, many polls show President Bush with a slight lead over Democrat John Kerry.
Dec. 1, 1964: President Johnson's top aides, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, and Defense Secretary McNamara, recommend a policy of gradual escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
Nov.-Dec. 2004: American military commanders in Iraq are planning an escalating series of major assaults to retake control of Fallujah and other cities held by insurgents. "We need to make a decision on when the cancer of Fallujah is going to be cut out," an unidentified senior US commander tells The New York Times . "We would like to end December at local control across the country."
Dec. 24, 1964: Viet Cong terrorists set off a car bomb explosion at the Brinks Hotel, an American officers' residence in downtown Saigon. The bomb is timed to detonate at 5:45 p.m., during 'happy hour' in the bar. Two Americans are killed and 58 wounded.
July 29, 2004: A suicide car bomb tears through a downtown shopping area northeast of Baghdad as young men lined up to apply for police jobs, killing as many as 68 prospective recruits, commuters, and other civilians in the deadliest attack since the Iraqi government regained sovereignty. It is one of a rash of suicide bombings against Americans or Iraqis supportive of the U.S.-backed regime.
Jan. 20, 1965: Johnson takes the oath as president and declares, "We can never again stand aside, prideful in isolation. Terrific dangers and troubles that we once called "foreign" now constantly live among us..."
Jan. 20, 2005: Presidential inauguration.
Jan. 27, 1965: National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, send a memo to the President stating that America's limited military involvement in Vietnam is not succeeding, and that the U.S. has reached a 'fork in the road' in Vietnam and must either soon escalate or withdraw.
September 2004: Foreign policy experts agree that for the Iraqi operation to be a success that the U.S. must escalate or withdraw. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the American commander in Iraq, told Congress "we will need more troops than we currently have to secure the elections process in Iraq that will probably take place in the end of January."
Jan. 30, 1965: Gen Nguyen Khanh stages a military coup against the already unstable South Vietnamese government, stalling efforts to bring democracy to the nation.
January 2005: Many experts are dubious that nationwide Iraqi elections can be held as scheduled, a development that would stall efforts to bring democracy to the nation.
Later in 1965: Viet Cong destroy two million gallons of fuel in storage tanks near Da Nang.
Sept. 15, 2004: Saboteurs wreck a recently repaired pipeline junction Tuesday and the fire sets off a cascade of power blackouts -- underlining the frustrations faced by U.S. engineers trying to upgrade northern Iraq's creaky oil facilities in the face of relentless bombings.
July 28, 1965: Monthly draft calls are doubled to 35,000 as part of a major troop escalation. "I have asked the commanding general, General Westmoreland, what more he needs to meet this mounting aggression. He has told me. And we will meet his needs. We cannot be defeated by force of arms. We will stand in Vietnam."
Sept. 17, 2004: Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha says Pentagon officials told him that "at the beginning of November, the Bush administration plans to call up large numbers of the military Guard and Reserves, to include plans that they previously had put off to call up the Individual Ready Reserve.''
End of 1965: Up to 50 percent of the countryside in South Vietnam is now under some degree of Viet Cong control.
Sept. 7, 2004: Top Pentagon officials say that insurgents controlled important parts of central Iraq and that it was unclear when American and Iraqi forces would be able to secure those areas.
1963-1975: More than 58,000 Americans, and many more Vietnamese, die in the Vietnam War. Ultimately, U.S. troops withdraw without victory, clearing the way for a Communist takeover of South Vietnam. The war leads to violence and unrest at home, and a loss of American prestige abroad.
2003-?: Iraq War. It is not too late to change the course of history.
In today's Daily News, we took an in-depth look at a fascinating phenomenon in the 2004 race: The increasingly high profile involvement of Iraq military families -- including those who've lost loved ones -- and 9/11 relatives on the campaign trail.
Here's our report:
When the Republicans talked strong on defense at their convention in New York last month, the John Kerry campaign fired back with one of its most potent weapons: A 56-year-old political novice, a mother of two and lifelong Republican from the Philadelphia suburbs.
Nita Martin told reporters how the second of her two Marine sons to fight in Iraq had to spend his own money to buy an expensive helmet before he left - because the ones issued by the Pentagon don't stop bullets from an AK-47.
Before this year, Martin, who lives in Wallingford, Delaware County, had volunteered to work for only one candidate - the president's father, George H.W. Bush.
But since the military mom hooked up with the Democrats this summer, she's found herself in a political vortex that led to her introducing Kerry to a screaming throng Friday at the University of Pennsylvania campus.
 |
| Jessica Griffin / Daily News |
| "I wouldn’t presume to say we shouldn’t have gone there [Iraq] - that’s not my call. But we shouldn't have gone there based on a lie - and George Bush lied about it." - NITA MARTIN (above, center), who introduced Kerry Friday at the Penn campus. |
Martin is on the cutting edge of a political phenomenon that's taking center stage in a dead-heat presidential election just 36 days away. With Iraq and the war on terror looming large, both Kerry and President Bush are calling on relatives of front-line soldiers and of those who died in Iraq or in the 9/11 attacks.
Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia expert on the presidency and the media, says the personal approach would not have worked as well in the Vietnam era, but is a good fit in modern times.
"In 1972, we weren't in the 'I feel your pain' political era," Sabato said. "We've been conditioned by all the talk shows and 'Dr. Phil' and 'Oprah,' which means that it fits in and doesn't seem artificial."
Indeed, some mothers of soldiers killed in Iraq have achieved a kind of celebrity that might not have been possible a generation ago. First there was Lila Lipscomb, the Flint mom whose agony over her son's death in Iraq propelled Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." She has since spoken out at several anti-war rallies.
Then came Sue Niederer, the Hopewell, N.J., mother who - wearing a T-shirt that read "President Bush Killed My Son" - was arrested recently for shouting during a Laura Bush event in South Jersey.
Other family members have become involved in the presidential race in less confrontational ways. And the approaches of the two campaigns have been very different.
The Kerry campaign has been eager to tour its support not only from military families but from 9/11 survivors like the so-called "Jersey Girls," a small group of women who lost husbands in the World Trade Center and who've been critical of Bush's handling of the terror war.
Most experts think that surrogates like Nita Martin, with her personal stake in the war, make a better case for Kerry on the Iraq issue than traditional anti-war activists. In a way, her story echoes that of Kerry himself, who volunteered for Vietnam but opposed the war after seeing it firsthand.
Of course, Bush also has a lot of support from military families, who by nature are more likely to back the use of American might overseas. But they have tended to be quieter this year - for obvious reasons.
While a mother who lost a son in Iraq could be a poignant voice on behalf of the president, she would also risk reminding voters of the human cost of the war and of the argument that things have not been going well recently.
On the day that Martin was speaking at the Kerry rally in Philadelphia, Carol Fahnestock was putting a Bush-Cheney sign on the lawn of her yellow-frame home in Carlisle, Pa.
Her 27-year-old daughter, Kimberly Fahnestock Voelz, was killed in Iraq by a booby-trapped explosive device last December. She was the first American female explosive ordnance disposal expert killed in the war, and she died in the arms of her husband, who served in the same unit.
The loss of her daughter has made Fahnestock, who operates a horse stable on her 12-acre property, even more resolute in support of both the war in Iraq and of the president.
She said Carol's death "is all the more reason for us to win over there, so that my daughter would not have died in vain. War is not nice, and freedom comes with a cost - look at the Civil War."
The Bush campaign has also received some low-key support from 9/11 relatives like Deena Burnett, who lost her husband, Tom, on Flight 93, which crashed in western Pennsylvania. She spoke at the recent Republican convention, but not in particular partisan tones.
"The most fitting memorial we could build would not consist of marble, glass or fountains," she told delegates. "It would be a living memorial - carved in our hearts and actions by faith, courage and integrity."
And Bush's most active military surrogate has nothing to do with Iraq. It's Scott O'Grady, the Air Force pilot who captured headlines in 1995 when he survived being shot down over Bosnia. At a recent event sponsored by the Bush campaign, O'Grady accused Kerry of "treason" for his anti-war efforts in the early 1970s after returning from Vietnam.
Frederick Shiels, an international affairs specialist at New York-based Mercy College, called the involvement of the military and 9/11 families in the political campaign "a healthy development."
"People are making that connection that when you're talking about war and talking about foreign policy, you're talking about somebody who has to go and fight these things," Shiels said.
Still, for many family members it's a tough call.
"I know the mother of a Navy SEAL, who is afraid to speak out against the president - because she doesn't want to hurt her son," said Mary Ellen Balchunis-Harris, a professor of political science at La Salle. "Yet, she is working hard for Kerry. She feels that he will work harder to bring her son home safely."
Martin said she was so upset about the course of both the nation and the war she felt she had to get involved - even to the point where she's stopped working at her advertising job.
"This year, I am so scared right to my core that I'm doing anything and everything I can for John Kerry," she said.
What's the tone of the presidential race going into Thursday's debate? Increasingly shrill. But does it matter when the Bush administration says we're all going to die before Nov 2. anyway? Indeed, Dick Cheney's so weighed down by doom-and-gloom on the trail that the campaign may wish he was back in his undisclosed location. Ted Kennedy says if we are all going to die, it's Bush and Cheney's fault.
Teresa Heinz Kerry is already going nuclear -- on hecklers. It could be worse -- we could be voting in Iraq, where officials promise the vote counting will be as good as...Florida. Speaking of the Sunshine State, now that Jimmy Carter's back from Indonesia he wants to observe elections there.
Today's DN takes us a few miles closer to Jacksonville. What does our editorial board think about the abortion issue? Here's a subtle clue: "Bush's War Against Choice." Do you know any blacks supporting Bush? Our letters page does.
A child, however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage. "The Emperor is naked," he said.
"Fool!" his father reprimanded, running after him. "Don't talk nonsense!" He grabbed his child and took him away. But the boy's remark, which had been heard by the bystanders, was repeated over and over again until everyone cried:
"The boy is right! The Emperor is naked! It's true!"
Nine-year old Essence Cheatham, of Columbus, Ohio, makes it no secret that she's a big Kerry supporter. So big, in fact, that she hosts a pro-Kerry group every Tuesday at her school.
The students in the group research and discuss campaign platform issues and even do a little "Bush-bashing." "That's why I actually kind of started this group, because I wanted to kind of like make a difference in this school," said Cheatham.
"This is a student that I think that comes around once in a lifetime," said Mike White, her teacher and group advisor."She's so driven and passionate about her beliefs."
Cheatham started the effort last year after she read a magazine article about George Bush that she didn't like.
John Ashcroft has already done a lot of things I would have never thought possible (like, uh, endangering the U.S. Constitution). But I never thought that he -- or anyone -- would be capable of this: Reviving the career of Cat Stevens. Thanks to the ineptitude of the war on terror, "The Very Best of Cat Stevens" has soared to No. 47 on the Amazon.com chart. I wonder how much of this new windfall he'll donate to "Islamic charities."
Bloggers are changing the shape of politics -- but you already knew that! Meanwhile, the "Old Media," as Donald Rumsfeld might call them, weigh in with some ponderous state-of-the-race pieces -- the L.A. Times one is the best. Kerry leads again in Pensylvania, but like everything else in that paper there's a margin of error. Jonathan Alter thinks Kerry could lead for good if voters focus on the possibility of a military draft. The NYT must think Kerry can win, since they're profiling his leadership style. The always-must-read Frank Rich ponders what Philip Roth and Charles Lindbergh have to do with the 2004 race. Maureen Dowd has a little ditty for Iraqi leader Ayad Allawi: "I'm Your Puppet." In other music news, Cat Stevens is apparently not a terrorist. Oops!...nevermind.
A story in the New York Times with a really bad headline has some really good news for the John Kerry campaign. The headline says: "Both Parties See a Big Increase in New Voters."
Yet directly underneath, the story begins: "A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows."
With the polls still showing a close race -- maybe a dead heat, maybe a small Bush lead -- it's becoming more and more likely the voter turnout will decide the race. Taking that further, voter registration is the key. Both sides are spending tens of millions on getting their "people" to the polls. And voter registration could also confound the already befuddled pollsters, since new voters are not going to be counted as likely voters.
So....under that unfortunate "fair and balanced" heading, the NYT story by Ford Fessenden (a former colleague we have a lot of respect for) then goes on to show how in two of the three most critical states, Ohio and Florida, it's really just the Democrats seeing the "big increase."
To wit:
"The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas."
"A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas."
It that truly holds, then (warning: only diehard Philadelphia Phillies fans will get this allusion): "Put those states in the win column for the fightin' Dems."
If you want to discuss the New York Times' headline writing approach with their public editor, Daniel Okrent, his email address is: public@nytimes.com.
UPDATE: The initial headline that appeared on the early, online version was changed slightly for the print edition. It now reads: "A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States." Unlike the first headline, it's technically accurate -- but still hides the actual point of the story, which is Democrats outregistering Republicans. Is this the "CBS Syndrome," or just lousy headline writing?
There've been two notable, wildly different comparisons between conditions in Iraq and conditions in the United States this week. Read them for yourself and see who you think is closer to the truth.
The first is from Donald Rumsfeld:
"We had something like 200 or 300 or 400 people killed in many of the major cities of America last year. Is it perfectly peaceful? No. What's the difference? We just didn't see each homicide in every major city in the United States on television every night. It happens here in this city, in every major city in the world."
"Across Europe, across the Middle East, people are being killed. People do bad things to each other. The idea that we'd have to stay there till that place was peaceful -- as I think you said, or something like that -- and everyone goes happily on their way, or whatever you said."
The second is from our favorite Iraq expert, Juan Cole. Here's a link to the entire piece, and an excerpt:
"What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target 'safe houses' of 'criminal gangs', but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?"
"What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire."
Maybe this explains why the Kerry campaign is struggling. From another Philadelphia newspaper:
Gates will open at 10:30 a.m. Free tickets are available at Victory 2004 Headquarters, 1528 Walnut St., 11th floor. Tickets are not necessary, campaign officials said.
(October) Surprise! Teresa Heinz Kerry says out loud what you've been thinking: that Bush already has Osama in the bag (scroll down). Is Teresa's husband becoming the "closer" he promised he'd be? The Washington Post thinks so. Dana Milbank says the GOP is going over-the-top in its overheated response to Kerry's new aggressiveness on Iraq. So does the NYT's Paul Krugman. Bush predicts his own brand of October surprise: Another terrorist attack. Atrios highlights the, um, interesting language that W. used to make his case yesterday. And the British press has some harsh words about his new best buddy, Iraq's Ayad Allawi. In response to all this, the U.S. government is thinking of adding Elton John to that terrorist watch list with Cat Stevens.
Inside today's DN: The commander-in-chief of Daily News world is a new dad. It's a girl! And there's a clear leader in the race for the open 13th Congressional seat in Northeast Philly. It's a gi...er, woman! (the Democratic one.) Gar Joseph's Clout has the poop for political junkies, including a link between the president and our favorite Philly charter school. Does John Kerry need any more advice? Well, Elmer Smith has some...on Iraq.
In spite of all the bashing (a fair amount of it deserved) of the not particularly ept Kerry campaign, the largest national poll around was released yesterday...and it shows that the Democrat would defeat Bush if the election were held today.
The American Research Group polled 660 people in every state. It found that Kerry has a lead in states with 270 electoral votes -- exactly the number needed for victory, while Bush leads in states with 253 electoral votes. But the race in many states is within the margin of error. That list includes Pennsylvania, where Kerry leads 47-46. A total dead heat: Wisconsin (home of "Lambert Field") and West Virginia.
However, the poll also finds Bush leading in the popular vote, 47-46 -- which would probably mean we'd have to listen to four years of people calling President Kerry "unelected fraud."
A couple of weeks ago, Campaign Extra! told you about the lightning strike in Scranton that knocked the "60 Minutes" National Guard expose off the air, and we wondered if God was taking sides. (In hindsight, He may have just been weighing in on the proportional spacing issue.):
But now, evidence that God is actually supporting Kerry is burning up the blogosphere. Check out where He's been dispatching hurricanes so far this season, and you'll start to wonder if, when God dispatched his prophets Ivan, Frances and Charley, He wasn't trying to suppress the GOP vote in the one-time Sunshine State.
UPDATE: Reader Chuck Peterka (who's not a relative) writes: "It now seems that God ( or whoever ) is sending his wrath against Texas -- "And on the 2nd day (Monday) He re-created IVAN and sent him to smote Texas". And according to the forecast ( www.wunderground.com - The Weather Site!) on Sunday it will be over Crawford, TX area.
Wouldn't you love to see this guy as a talking head (pun intended) on MSNBC (called to our attention by Suburban Guerrilla):
I felt we had been misled. I felt they had been fundamentally dishonest and had frightened and manipulated the American people into war. And as the saying goes, "The first casualty of war is truth." I felt that the Bush doctrine of pre-emption was dangerous foreign policy. I don't think it has made America safer.
Look at what is going on now: We are quickly closing in on what looks an awful lot like the Vietnamization of the Iraq war. John McCain is saying we could be there for ten or twenty years, and John Kerry says four years. How many of our best young people are going to die between now and that time, and what exactly for?
-- Bruce Springsteen, speaking to Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner.
UPDATE: Today is the Boss's 55th birthday! Happy birthday, Bruce.
"Morning Has Broken," and the presidential race seems about two seconds light on news today. Maybe that's because John Kerry's voice is matching his face: A little hoarse. Perhaps Kerry caught cold when he felt a draft coming on. But the Bush campaign, in a new attack ad, claims the candidate's ailments can be traced back to windsurfing. Ironically, the Washington Post says it's really Bush who shifts back and forth with the political winds. Mo Do (that's Maureen Dowd for the allusively challenged) seems to agree, saying Kerry's speech on Iraq, "unlike W.'s toxic cotton-candy spin, has the additional advantage of being true."
In another irony, it seems the CBS phony document scandal prevented "60 Minutes" from a report on an important phony document scandal -- Bush's bogus claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. While everyone's fighting about Dan Rather, Washington is making the rich richer, and the poor poorer. And Andy Borowitz has the final word on the Artist Formerly Known as Cat Stevens.
In today's DN: George W. Bush somehow manages to go to King of Prussia and avoid the mall. The rest of the paper doesn't have a lot to say about the race today, but our letter writers do.
If you've been cruising the blogosphere for the last day or so, you've probably heard what the New York Post calls "the hot rumor" (scroll down) that Roger Stone -- a prominent Republican consultant long accused of dirty tricks -- had something to do with the allegedly forged Bush-National Guard documents that aired on "60 Minutes."
Now, if you live in Philadelphia, you can listen for yourself. Michael Smerconish, the morning talker on WPHT (1210) here in the city, plans to have Stone on tomorrow (Thursday) morning, sometime between 7 and 9 a.m.
If you're expecting a confession, you may be disappointed. He's told USA Today: "I have nothing whatsoever to do with this. I'm a firm believer in political hardball, but I draw the line at forged documents."
Roger Stone has an interesting history. He's been around forever, but his most famous moment recently came in Miami, where he's based, and where he was linked to a riotous crowd at the height of the 2000 Florida recount. And put on your tin-foil hat before you read about Stone's strange ties to the 2004 campaign of Democrat Al Sharpton.
In liberal circles, he's also famous for this, which probably won't come up on the Smerconish show.
CBS announced today that it was naming former attorney general and Pennsylvania governor Richard Thornburgh as one of two heads of a panel to investigate the Sept. 8th "60 Minutes" report on George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. The story was based on those famous documents that now appear to be fake.
We can understand why CBS would want to be hard on itself. And of course, Thornburgh is a Republican who worked in the administration of Bush's father. But for reasons beyond that, Thornburgh seems like an odd choice.
That's because CBS News was at the very heart of the biggest controversy of Thornburgh's tenure in D.C. -- an episode that led the attorney general to issue an unusual statement calling the network "unfair." The flap caused a top deputy to quit, and forced the removal of two key aides that Thornburgh had brought to D.C. from Pennsylvania.
The Justice Department spent $224,000 in 1989 in an attempt to identify the federal officials who in May of that year leaked confidential information to CBS News that then-Philadelphia congressman Bill Gray was under investigation.
In an unusual public statement issued shortly after CBS aired its story, Thornburgh said Gray actually had been cooperating with FBI agents looking into the alleged hiring of one or more "ghost" employees at his Philadelphia office and that the CBS characterization that Gray was under investigation was "unfair." No one was ever charged.
But there was testimony at a congressional hearing that Thornburgh had blocked efforts for a more detailed probe of the leak. Eventually, he demoted two other close aides from Pennsylvania, former Philadelphia journalist David Runkel and Robert Ross, for their involvement in the disclosure of information to CBS. Thornbugh's top aide, Donald Ayers, quit at the height of the controversy.
Thornburgh left Washington in 1991 to run for Senate from Pennsylvania, and lost. He has a reputation as a tough prosecutor. Just how tough will be on CBS?
Matt Drudge, who's never been wrong, is reporting that the Britney Spears wedding was a fake!!! We are stunned, and dismayed (although happy for the young man in question). First the Dan Rather memos, and now this. I'm beginning to wonder if all news stories are fake.
No, seriously. I mean, my God, the next thing the media will be reporting is that Bush, in fact, was not decisive on 9/11, or that the 9/11 hijackers didn't mostly come from Iraq, or that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction or links to al-Qaeda.
LOL, maybe they'll report that Bush in fact was not elected president in November 2000.
Of course, maybe the Drudge item about Britney Spears is a fake -- we're so confused!
The allusive edition: Cat Stevens is being followed by a moonshadow...oh, wait -- it's the U.S. government. New bombshell: The Inquirer will report new charges about W. and coke...oh, wait, that's the Enquirer -- never mind. Clean or sober, the Washington Post wonders if Bush is "clueless" in Iraq. Meanwhile, John Kerry has a woman problem. Do you believe the central Jersey woman whose son was killed in Iraq was an actual threat to the prez? The Secret Service apparently does. Oh, and that big lead that Bush has in the polls? -- it isn't. Who do you think would win if these people -- millions of em' -- could actually vote?
Today's DN is Kearsed! -- Eagles superstar Jevon Kearse, that is. Dave Davies warns Philly on new Bush and Kerry visits -- ain't no stoppin' them now! Ellen Gray trys to get inside Dan Rather's head. Did you know that John Kerry has a plan to win the war in Iraq? -- our editorial board does.
As a public service to any of our Philly readers (yes, we have those, too) who were watching the Eagles instead, here's the Top 10 list that John Kerry read on David Letterman's show last night. It's pretty funny. Do you think he wrote it himself?
"Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals"
10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.
9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.
8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.
7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.
6. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.
5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.
4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa (Heinz Kerry) to cover the whole damn thing.
3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.
2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it "nuclear" instead of "nucular."
1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.
Campaign Extra! has just been flamed! A regular reader (yes, we have those) writes:
"I wanted to say, as a faithful reader of the blog, I wish you would be just a little less allusive in the short takes (e.g. "30 seconds" and "Daily (News)." I click on a lot of the references, but not all, and I am sure that few readers do click on all of them. But often I need the references to make any sense of what you are talking about. Today's "30 seconds" was a prime example: The "We're all going to die!!!" edition: Luuuuuuucy! Ay caramba! totally confused me until I looked at the X-refs. "
"Also, forgive me, but I have forgotten what the frequency Kenneth wanted (was that the dentist working on Dustin Hoffman's tooth? not sure any more). Anyway, I still did not understand after reading the other Web site. Maybe it is just old age."
The email was from Bryan Bunch.
Thanks, Dad....and people wonder how Campaign Extra! got to be the way we are. He did recommend this awesome column by Jimmy Breslin, however. It is a week old, but we decided to indulge him.
The "We're all going to die!!!" edition: Luuuuuuucy! Ay caramba! Former National Guardman Bill Burkett claims he's the second biggest patsy in Texas history. Could this be the elusive Lucy Ramirez? The White House looks to the debates and wonders: "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" In a matter unrelated to anything else going on in the presidential race, John Kerry slammed George W. Bush over Iraq. Paul Krugman piles on. Bush, meanwhile, was busy counting his money. Are you shocked that campaign-finance reform isn't working?.
Who is Philadelphia's Scott Robinson? And is he an ultra-conservative Protest Warrior?
Scott Robinson is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, who's been active in conservative causes like the National Taxpayers Union and as a poster on right-wing Web sites.
Now, he's at the very center of the biggest controversy on the World Wide Web.
Although he has insisted that it's not him, the Daily Pennsylvanian, Reason Magazine, and several other popular Web sites have named Robinson as the young Republican who was caputured on film kicking a fallen, female AIDS protestor at an event during the recent Republican National Convention in New York. No one has been charged.
"Having seen Scott at a number of events, and having seen the video, I think it looks like him," Stephanie Steward, a Penn senior and chairwoman of the College Republicans there, told the campus newspaper. "But I can't say absolutely positively." Reason Magazine claimed that eight friends of Robinson confirmed his identity on the film.
Our efforts to reach Robinson by email and through a phone call to his parent's house in Carlisle, Pa., have so far been unsuccessul, though we will post anything he has to say as soon as we reach him. But he's insisted to Reason and to others that, while he was indeed in New York for the convention as a volunteer, he'd slept late on the morning of the event and wasn't even there.
But what Campaign Extra! wants to know about is Robinson's involvement with a young, ultra-conservative group called Protest Warriors. The group seeks to shadow liberal protests, such as the ones at the RNC, with signs, slogans, and noise.
Protestwarrior.com calls itself "a website created to help arm the liberty-loving Silent Majority with ammo -- ammo that strikes at the intellectual solar plexus of the Left." The site posts a number of pictures of the group's counter-demonstration during an antiwar march on the Mall in Washington last October. In one photo, one of the Protest Warrior activists on the right of the shot bears a strong resemblance to Robinson.
In a June posting on a web site for Koch Fellows, a conservative-oriented intership program, Robinson asked people to "join our U of Penn chapter" of Protest Warrior. He wrote of liberal protesters: "Many people wouldn't believe some of the radical tactics that many of these maniacs employ. When the mob mentality sweeps over them, they are so full of hatred and a wreckless disregard for truth, reason, and couth."
But friends insisted to Campaign Extra! that Robinson was not affiliated with Protest Warrior at Penn. One who didn’t want to be named called the allegations, in an email, "a wildly unfounded, politically-motivated smear campaign perpetrated by members of the left-wing blog community and political opponents of Mr. Robinson at Penn."
UPDATE: This morning's Daily Pennsylvanian reports that that the woman who was kicked, 26-year-old Clare Martin of Berkeley, Calif., is contemplating legal action.
In today's "Golden!" DN: Hurricane Terrell is already bearing down on Jacksonville. Pulitzer-Prize winner Signe Wilkinson puts the whole CBS scandal in its appropriate light. The editorial board raises a toast to John Kerry's health. And in a stunning development, Daily News letter writers are mad....about something.
So, at the last minute the Ten Stone, which is located at 21st and South, snatched victory away from the Nodding Head to become the official site for the newly formed (as of Friday) chapter of Drinking Liberally. The (hopefully) weekly gathering will start this Tuesday (also known as tomorrow) at 6 p.m.
This is the event where like-minded liberals can talk sensibly about politics at the start of the evening and make about as much sense as conservatives at end of it. Campaign Extra! (yes, that's what we prefer to called these days) can't be there at 6, but hopes to pick up any stragglers in the 8-8:30 time zone.
Feel free to RSVP in the comments below -- or just show up!
And the Emmy for the show that most resembles the presidential race goes to...."The Fear Factor"! At least they're not afraid to take on each other, mano a mano, at the debate table. John Edwards isn't afraid, either, but he is starting to feel a draft. As for his better half John Kerry, you know things are getting bad when William Safire starts giving you advice. George W. Bush was AWOL from the campaign yesterday. And whatever the polls say about the race, don't you believe it! Just pray that John Ashcroft lets you get to vote at all.
In today's (E-A-G-L-E-S...Eagles!) Daily News: Chris Brennan tracks down the undisclosed location of John Edwards, and finds out that he's mad as hell. Our editorial board gets action on the presidential debates -- before their piece is even published! And Penn professor Steven F. Freeman goes to Vietnam.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi insisted elections will go ahead as scheduled in January despite a surge in violence, promising Sunday that the vote would be a "major blow" to the insurgency, as U.S. warplanes and artillery pounded the guerrilla stronghold of Fallujah.
Is bad news for Iraq good news for John Kerry's struggling campaign? Apparently, not yet. Mo Do has a message for all you security moms out there: Get real! And at least one 9/11 widow seems to understand. Of course, it won't matter whom security moms support if electronic machines miscount their votes. They've already lost some votes in Florida -- and it's only September! Dick Cheney has a stalker -- and it's a reporter for the New York Times! Guess which candidate is guilty of "fuzzy math" this time around? And in the most stunning development of the day, Frank Rich agrees with the Fox News Channel.
Uttered by Carol Lin:
"CNN is going to present nuclear terror in just a moment."
We always thought that was something Fox News Channel would do.
In the many days since Campaign Extra! was launched, we've been looking for a cause we can make our own. It just seemed that all the worthy ones were taken. But now, Campaign Extra! has been alerted to a community-betterment program we can truly get behind 100 percent.
It's called Drinking Liberally. While that's something we've always supported -- with a small "l" -- this is different. Explain the founders: "Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics."
Incredibly, while these groups have formed in New York, San Francisco, Oakland and even Houston, no one in Philadelphia -- a world-renowned city for hard politics and hard drinking -- has stepped forward. But it can happen here -- especially now that Atrios is on board.
There have already been some good suggestions on his board -- although you'll be shocked to learn that mainly people are suggesting the bars closest to their house. In that mode, we'd certainly suggest the Daily News bar, Westy's, but also what seem to be the two best choices up so far on the Atrios board, the Nodding Head and the Tritone. And since Atrios can't do Wednesday and Campaign Extra! can't do Thursday, we suggest Tuesday.
But we want people to vote! Also, please make your own alternative suggestions below. We'll try and sort through the whole mess this weekend.
Of course, Campaign Extra! is officially non-partisan (no laughing) so we'd be happy to help out conservatives who want their own thing. We even promise to show up and argue with everybody.
But, still.....Drinking Conservatively? Doesn't sound like much fun, somehow.
The hurricane winds of scandal are whipping around the presidential race on this gray Friday afternoon. The bombshell disclosure: That George W. Bush has a secret plan to call up thousands of reservists, national guard members, and ex-soldiers as a result of the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq. Democrats are charging that the Bush administration has already planned the call-up -- but won't announce it until after Election Day.
The most important source is a Pennsylvania congressman: John Murtha, who put out a statement today aimed at exposing the alleged plan. Murtha is no source to be taken lightly. Hailing from the hotbed of "Reagan Democrats" in western Pa., Murtha is a pro-military Vietnam vet and ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
"I have learned through conversations with officials at the Pentagon that at the beginning of November, 2004, the Bush Administration plans to call up large numbers of the military guard and reserves, to include plans that they previously put off to call up the Individual Ready Reserve."
"I have said publicly and privately that our forces are inadequate to support our current worldwide tempo of operations. On November 21, 2003, a bipartisan group of 135 members of the House of Representatives wrote to the President urging an increase in the active duty army troop level
