Purple States....

It's Been Fun

2004-05-29T11:06:00.000-04:00

Purple States has moved to Oveis.com

Obama for VP

2004-05-25T11:29:00.000-04:00

Could Barack Obama be Kerry's VP? I'm overstating it (his 1999 Congressional run failed when he "decided to challenge four-term Representative Bobby Rush"), but he's hot right now. For months he has been the darling child of bloggers everywhere, but he's now starting to make waves in mainstream media.

Polls show Obama with a solid lead in the Illinois Senate race-the latest figures give Obama an eight point lead. And when your opponent claims victory with an eight point deficit, you know things are looking good.

TNR praises Obama, saying his speeches “would make John Edwards blush. Obama's success, according to Noam Scheiber, comes from his popularity among both black and white voters.

And finally, his opponent has had enough. “Republican Jack Ryan has assigned one of his campaign workers to record every movement and every word of the state senator while he is in public.” That includes following Obama to the bathroom door, and waiting at the exit. Hmm, maybe things have gone too far.

Zinni on Bush

2004-05-25T11:23:00.000-04:00

Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of U.S. Central Command and Middle East special envoy for the Bush administration, has come out with Battle Ready, a critique co-authored by Tom Clancy. Read Zinni's insightful remarks from the Director's dinner at the Center for Defense Intelligence on May 12. It's a lesson in mismanaged nation building.

"Abu...Guh...rrab"

2004-05-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

Ouch. It seems everyone else noticed Bush's mangled "Abu Ghraib." "[W]orst of it was the way Bush got stuck on the word, parsing out the syllables lamely, as though he'd never read or heard them before."

Forget Reggie the Registration Rig

2004-05-25T11:16:00.000-04:00

More on Strippers for Kerry. The Campaign Desk has this synopsis of the Wisconsin strip club/voter registration story. They point here and here.

Bush's Fall

2004-05-25T11:13:00.000-04:00

The headlines should read: "Bush Falls to 'Beautiful Mind.'" Hopefully we'll see that in November, but nonetheless, it was true last night when all the networks aired their previously-scheduled programming, including "Beautiful Mind" on ABC.

Daily Kos noticed that the Bush administration felt it was even necessary to lie about the bike fall. White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters, "It's been raining a lot and the topsoil is loose. You know this president. He likes to go all-out. Suffice it to say he wasn't whistling show tunes."

Each sentence is sillier than previous one. But Kos points out, "May 13th saw some serious rain, but other than some sprinkles on the 14th, Crawford saw nothing but sun. In the last week alone, the temperature was in the high 80s the entire time."

Swing State Update

2004-05-25T11:12:00.000-04:00

The American Prospect has this detailed analysis of the swing states. Despite those reports that say Bush leads in swing state polls, the Prospect's report looks good for Kerry.

Jersey Goes Red

2004-05-25T11:10:00.000-04:00

What's going on with New Jersey. Polls are showing and neck-and-neck race in the garden state, and it's now being considered an official swing (or purple) state by pundits.

How? Please tell me, how did this happen? And will it last?

This Reuters piece checks out Jersey and some of the weak spots on the Democratic side:

"Republicans are looking at New Jersey, a Democratic state that Gore won by more than 16 percentage points in 2000, and tiny Delaware, which Gore carried by 13 percentage points.

"Bush has been running even with Kerry in the polls in both states, giving his campaign new hopes there, and Bush has been running advertisements in Delaware, which is relatively cheap and sees many of the ads that are run in nearby Philadelphia.

'"As long as you're advertising in Pennsylvania, you might as well throw some money at Delaware," Rebovich said."

But then read this brilliant analysis from The Campaign Desk at the Columbia Journalism Review:

"To begin with, a number of other polls have shown Kerry ahead of Bush. In early April the Newark Star-Ledger found that, counting leaners, 49 percent of registered voters supported Kerry, while 40 percent supported Bush. Then in late April, a Rasmussen Report poll showed Kerry with a double-digit lead over Bush, 51 percent to 39 percent.

"More importantly, however, the New-Jersey-as-battleground hype ignores the fact that, in 2000, while Gore ultimately crushed Bush, early polls 2000 depicted a close race. In early May of that year, American Research Group found Gore receiving 45 percent, Bush 44 percent, and 11 percent undecided. In June 2000, a Quinnipiac poll had Gore at 41 percent, Bush 37 percent, and Nader 7 percent. That same month Mason-Dixon Polling & Research released a poll that measured Gore's support at 42 percent, Bush's at 40 percent, and Nader's at 4 percent, and a Gannett New Jersey Poll suggested a Bush victory with the Republican out dueling Gore 35 percent to 34 percent (29 percent were undecided).

"Then, in August 2000, Gannet measured Bush's lead at 8 percent, before the numbers miraculously shifted in the middle of month giving Gore a 10 percent lead.

"Simply stated, the early polls out of New Jersey have not proven to be accurate forecasts of the November vote. Rather, they have proven to be entirely unreliable. (This holds for non-presidential elections also. For example, in 1996, a Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers Poll administered just days before the election depicted a dead heat between the Republican candidate Dick Zimmer and the Democratic candidate Bob Torricelli at 41 percent and 42 percent, respectively. But, when the votes were tallied on Election Day, Torricelli defeated Zimmer by a ten-point margin, 53 percent to 43 percent.)

"New Jersey is a "weird state," according to John Hassell, the chief political writer for the Newark Star-Ledger, who added that "polls show things close and tend to break Democratic in the end." Likewise, Cliff Zukin, director of the Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll said, "New Jersey has been considered a solid Democratic state in the last few presidential contests, and it looks like that will probably be the case this year ... Unless there is some dramatic foreign happening that causes a rally for the president, Kerry will probably increase his lead as he becomes better known after the Democratic convention."'

Fox News, Again

2004-05-25T11:07:00.000-04:00

The Pew Research Center released today the findings from a study on the liberal-conservative presence in the media. According to the report, journalists were five times more likely to identify themselves as liberal (34%) than as conservative (7%).

But one item in particular caught my eye:

"The poll also discovered that while the reporters, editors, producers and executives have a great deal of trouble naming a "liberal" news outlet, they had no problem seeing a "conservative" outlet, with an incredible 69 percent readily naming the Fox News Channel."

Yes, Fox News the proud source of so much conservative propaganda. Looks at this example taken from Dave Copeland. Mr. Copeland found this entry on ProfNew, a site where news agencies can find "experts":

TODAY/EDUCATION: LIBERAL BIAS AT COLLEGES - FOX NEWS CHANNEL (US)
I'm looking for academic "experts" who can speak about the "liberal bias" at college campuses and/or the dominance of liberal professors at colleges. I prefer someone who has written a book about this topic. No phone calls, please.
Need leads by 03:00 PM US/Eastern MAY 20
Monitored by eWatch

Elisa Cho elisa.cho@foxnews.com

Wow.

Cheney's News Source

2004-05-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reports that Cheney endorsed Fox News in a conference call to tens of thousands of Republicans on Thursday night:

"The comment came as Cheney took questions from supporters at 5,245 parties that were held in 50 states to energize grass-roots volunteers building a precinct-by-precinct army for President Bush's campaign.

'"It's easy to complain about the press -- I've been doing it for a good part of my career," Cheney said. "It's part of what goes with a free society. What I do is try to focus upon those elements of the press that I think do an effective job and try to be accurate in their portrayal of events. For example, I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they're more accurate in my experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many of the other outlets."'

It's an unusual move for a public official to endorse a specific news source, but it's even more unusual for a public official to endorse a news source that's been known to mislead its viewers. One study from the University of Maryland showed that Fox News viewers had a disproportionately higher rate of misunderstanding the ties between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Eighty percent Fox News views had inaccurate impressions of the war, as oppose to the 23 percent of PBS viewers. Thanks to the Center for American Progress for pointing this out.

Need a Job?

2004-05-24T12:06:00.000-04:00

If you're wondering why the CPA has mismanaged so much in Iraq, read this article from the Washington Post. The piece looks at the recruiting practices for the lower-level positions within the CPA. Instead of recruiting experienced "nation builders," the U.S. government has selected a bunch of young, untested twenty-somethings who are looking for some overseas experience. And surprise, surprise...they're Republicans:

"For months they wondered what they had in common, how their names had come to the attention of the Pentagon, until one day they figured it out: They had all posted their resumes at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank."

The rest of the article is just as fascinating. Thanks to Atrios for picking up on this. He also points to this story in Slate and this Washington Monthly article.

Outsourcing Bush

2004-05-24T11:41:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration has had a less-than-stellar history with outsourcing. Earlier this year, the White House's chief economic advisor Greg Mankiw suggested that outsourcing was healthy for America's economic growth (he was probably right, but the timing of his statements were disastrous). Then in March, it was announced that the Bush team was using outsourced labor to manufacture campaign merchandise. What made this story even worse was that the Bush/Cheney fleeces in question were made in Myanmar, a country that's on the list of banned importers. According to this New York Times piece:

"The merchandiser, Ted Jackson, said his company, the Spalding Group, sold up to 10 Bush-Cheney pullovers made in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Each cost $49.95.

"Last summer, Mr. Bush signed legislation that barred imports from Myanmar to pressure that country's military dictatorship to take steps toward democracy."

The Hindustan Times now reports that Bush-Cheney fundraising and out-sourcing was performed out of call centers in India. From New Dehli:

"[T]his was handled by two call centres located in our own friendly neighbourhood in Noida and Gurgaon.

"For 14 months between May 16, 2002 and July 22, 2003, HCL BPO Services —the 100 per cent-owned subsidiary of Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Technologies — had some 125 agents working in seven teams soliciting financial contributions for the Republican Party. US presidential elections are slated for November 2004.

"The mandate for the teams was to mobilise support for President George W. Bush and solicit political contributions ranging between $5 and $3,000 from lakhs of registered Republican voters. The voters' database was provided by the Republican National Committee (RNC), the party's premier political organisation."

Strippers for Kerry

2004-05-24T11:19:00.000-04:00

I've seen this mentioned in a few paces: Wisconsin strip clubs are entering this political fracas this year. They're asking their patrons to fill out voter registration forms and to vote for Kerry.

A Misunderstood al Qaeda?

2004-05-21T02:06:00.000-04:00

Jason Burke addresses some common misperceptions of al Qaeda in this article for Foreign Policy. It's worth reading.

The Paper of Record

2004-05-21T01:56:00.000-04:00

Whoops. From the New York Times' Corrections page:

"An article on Monday about the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that ended school segregation misstated a word in a paraphrase from President Bush, who attended a ceremony in Topeka, Kan. He called for a continuing battle to end racial inequality — not equality."

Bush's Standing

2004-05-21T01:38:00.000-04:00

Bush trekked up the Hill yesterday to shore up support among Republicans, and the visit couldn't have come at a better time. Reports say moderates and conservatives are both dissatisfied with the administration, and Bush will have to work hard to earn their allegiance in November. The New York Times had this story, in which Trent Lott pleads for the return of Karen Hughes. (Is she insane? Salon thinks so.) According to the paper of record, Republicans can only find reassurance in the fact that it's May and not October.

And conservative stalwart Robert Novak issued an equally discouraging assessment. Here are his comments:

"...Furthermore, he is one of about 20 percent of Republicans that polls classify as not committed to voting for Bush's re-election.

"The conventional wisdom portrays the latest Zogby Poll's 81 percent of Republican voters committed to Bush as reflecting extraordinary loyalty to the president by the GOP base. Actually, when nearly one out of five Republicans cannot flatly say they support Bush, that could spell defeat in a closely contested election. When Don Devine is among those one out of five, it signifies that the president's record does not please all conservatives.

...

"What most bothers Devine and other conservatives is steady growth of government under this Republican president. If Devine's purpose in devoting his life to politics was to limit government's reach, he feels betrayed that Bush has outstripped his liberal predecessors in domestic spending. A study by Brian Riedl for the conservative Heritage Foundation last December showed government spending had exceeded $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II. Riedl called it a "colossal expansion of the federal government since 1998."'

Two weeks ago, liberal pundits were screaming over Kerry’s silence. (And yes, he has finally settled on a campaign slogan: "Let America be America again." Hmm, we'll see if that one lasts.) But no matter what happens with Kerry, it seems Democrats are more united than ever been before. This report from the American Prospect demonstrates this point: a liberal and a New Democrat unite to write a piece on the fusion of the two groups. Read Donkey Rising's review of the piece.

Censorship Runs Rampant

2004-05-21T00:58:00.000-04:00

Common Cause has just issued a report examining the improprieties and misconducts surrounding last year's Medicare bill. Much of what's said in the report has already been reported elsewhere: the vote was left open for three hours, instead of the normal 15 minutes, as Republican leaders begged for votes. The most damaging account came from Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI), who said Republican leaders had offered him a bribe on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Smith claims he was offered $100,000-plus in contributions to his son’s campaign, if he were to switch his vote from nay to yea.

But there was one new element that surfaced in this report:

"In an interview on the 25th anniversary of C-SPAN’s television coverage of Congress, the head of C-SPAN, Brian Lamb, noted that the congressional leadership has always controlled the cam-eras in the House and Senate chambers, generally focused on whoever is speaking, but also panning across the chamber to show activity on the floor. Lamb pointed out how the leadership’s control of the cameras can subvert C-SPAN’s studiously nonpartisan, objective coverage of Congress.

"Lamb said:

'"You saw what happened in the middle of the night over the vote on Medicare on the floor of the House of Representatives, when they controlled the cam-eras. And I noticed that the camera wasn’t moving from — it usually moves constantly from side to side. For almost the entire two or three hours that they had it open, the camera was showing the Democratic side. And that’s where people don’t get a fair shot."

"In other words, the Republican leadership of the House intentionally diverted the C-SPAN cameras away from the Republican side of the House floor. Consequently, there is no visual record of who was talking to who that night while votes were sought by the leadership."

In other censorship news, Tim Russert was involved in yet another instance of interrupted interviews. This time, it was Russert's people who were cutting the interview short. You'd think they'd be more sensitive to this sort of behavior.

How to Get Fired with a Blog

2004-05-21T00:20:00.000-04:00

This story finally breaks into the printed media. A woman known as Washingtonienne had maintained a blog that detailed her sexual escapades through the nation's capital. Hot stuff, that is, until her employer found out. The staffer in Sen. Mike DeWine's office was fired shortly after Wonkette broke the story.

Jews for Bush

2004-05-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

I've discussed in earlier posts the weak spots in Bush's support. Some people are saying that conservative voters have doubts over Bush's Iraq policy; others say that moderate Republicans could jump ship, and join Kerry.

A few reporters a now flipping the analysis and are looking at the Democrat’s soft underbelly: the Jews.

Over the weekend, the New York Times had this piece on the Bush campaign's efforts to court Jewish voters. And the Los Angeles Times followed that up with its own analysis.

From my perspective, the threats of a Jews for Bush campaign are exaggerated. First, Jewish voters have other concerns than just Israel. They consider a host issues, including healthcare and education—issues on which Kerry is seen as the stronger candidate.

If you do accept that some Jewish voters will slide to right, the distribution of Jewish voters favors Kerry, or at least does not help Bush. Most Jewish voters live in the Northeast, which will undoubtedly go to Kerry. Were those Jewish votes to live in swing states, I’d be more concerned.

But wait. You may ask, what about those retired Jewish voters in Florida? Healthcare is a top concern for the elderly, and Bush's Medicare package has been thoroughly thrashed by liberals and conservatives alike as a big pharma aid package.

All in all, I say, don’t worry.

More History

2004-05-20T11:09:00.000-04:00

There are three ways to look at this informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted by George Mason University's History News Network: either, A) Bush will be left with a miserable legacy; B) historians are inherently liberal; or C) the pollsters only spoke to historians from Berkeley or Hampshire College.

Obviously, I appreciate the results of the study, but I'd be wary of what they say. There's a reason why historians study the past and not the present.

Here are some of the study’s findings:

"Of 415 historians who expressed a view of President Bush's administration to this point as a success or failure, 338 classified it as a failure and 77 as a success. (Moreover, it seems likely that at least eight of those who said it is a success were being sarcastic, since seven said Bush's presidency is only the best since Clinton's and one named Millard Fillmore.) Twelve percent of all the historians who responded rate the current presidency the worst in all of American history, not too far behind the 19 percent who see it at this point as an overall success.

"Yet it seems clear that a similar survey taken during the presidency of Bush's father would not have yielded results nearly as condemnatory. And, for all the distaste liberal historians had for Ronald Reagan, relatively few would have rated his administration as worse than that of Richard Nixon. Yet today 57 percent of all the historians who participated in the survey (and 70 percent of those who see the Bush presidency as a failure) either name someone prior to Nixon or say that Bush's presidency is the worst ever, meaning that they rate it as worse than the two presidencies in the past half century that liberals have most loved to hate, those of Nixon and Reagan. One who made the comparison with Nixon explicit wrote, "Indeed, Bush puts Nixon into a more favorable light. He has trashed the image and reputation of the United States throughout the world; he has offended many of our previously close allies; he has burdened future generations with incredible debt; he has created an unnecessary war to further his domestic political objectives; he has suborned the civil rights of our citizens; he has destroyed previous environmental efforts by government in favor of his coterie of exploiters; he has surrounded himself with a cabal ideological adventurers . . . ."

"Why should the views of historians on the current president matter?

"I do not share the view of another respondent that "until we have gained access to the archival record of this president, we [historians] are no better at evaluating it than any other voter." Academic historians, no matter their ideological bias, have some expertise in assessing what makes for a successful or unsuccessful presidency; we have a long-term perspective in which to view the actions of a current chief executive. Accordingly, the depth of the negative assessment that so many historians make of George W. Bush is something of which the public should be aware. Their comments make clear that such historians would readily agree with conclusion that then-Democratic presidential hopeful Richard Gephardt pronounced a few months ago: the presidency of George W. Bush is “a miserable failure."

"The past presidencies most commonly linked with the current administration include all of those that are usually rated as the worst in the nation's history: Nixon, Harding, Hoover, Buchanan, Coolidge, Andrew Johnson, Grant, and McKinley. The only president who appeared prominently on both the favorable and unfavorable lists was Ronald Reagan. Forty-seven historians said Bush is the best president since Reagan, while 38 said he is the worst since Reagan. Almost all of the historians who rate the Bush presidency a success are Reagan admirers. Indeed, no other president (leaving aside the presumably mostly tongue-in-cheek mentions of Clinton) was named by more than four of the historians who took a favorable view of the current presidency."

The Truman Factor

2004-05-20T10:42:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I made a pathetic attempt to compare George Bush's current standing to Harry Truman's in 1948 (the thought was inspired by Mary Matalin's comments on "Meet the Press.").

Well, Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center of Politics, has made a much intelligent analysis of the Bush-Truman comparison in his Crystal Ball memo:

"Overall, George W. Bush is battling history. First, the Adamses, the only other father-son pair to hold the presidency, were each defeated for reelection; the Bushes are already halfway there. Second, all three previous Presidents who lost the popular vote (John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888) served a single term in the White House. And, every President since 1932 has either been well ahead in the polls by May and won reelection handily--or been defeated in November. Oh wait, there's one exception: Harry Truman. The patron saint of underdogs, Truman was so far behind throughout almost all of 1948 that the key pollsters of the day stopped surveying in early autumn, so certain was the victory of Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Yet a late surge by a determined "Give 'Em Hell" Harry produced one of the most eye-popping surprises of presidential campaign history. Truman beat Dewey 49.6% to 45.1%, with 2.4% each for Henry Wallace of the Progressives and Strom Thurmond of the Dixiecrats. (The electoral vote was 303 Truman, 189 Dewey, 39 Thurmond, and 0 Wallace.)

"How did Truman do it? Partly, the FDR Democratic coalition was still strong and dominant--with no parallel on either side in 2004. But there was another, perhaps more critical, factor. Truman took to the campaign trail with an intensity and heartfelt belief in his record that overwhelmed the opposition and won him grudging respect from voters who had earlier concluded that, in the phrase of the day, "To err is Truman." Like Bush, Truman was controversial and considered not up to the job of President. Like John Kerry, Thomas Dewey projected a bloodless chill and aristocratic bearing."

And That's the News

2004-05-19T12:42:00.000-04:00

Once again, I've amassed too many links to post separately, so once again, I'll let you, the reader, sift through the mess.

1. Two months ago Ted Kennedy declared that Iraq would be Bush's Vietnam. To find out what's accurate and what's not among all the comparison, why not consult the experts? Two researchers from the U.S. Army War College have put out a 76-page report on the similarities and differences between Vietnam and Iraq. Their findings suggest that the military dimensions of the two wars are worlds apart. But they say the parallel political situations are worth noting.

"It is, of course, far too early to predict whether the United States will accomplish its policy objectives in Iraq and whether public support will 'stay the course' on Iraq. But policymakers should be mindful of the reasons for U.S. failure to create a politically legitimate and militarily viable state in South Vietnam, as well as for the Johnson and Nixon administrations' failure to sustain sufficient domestic political support for the accomplishment of U.S. political objectives in Indochina. Repetition of those failures in Iraq could have disastrous consequences for U.S. foreign policy."

2. In case you haven't heard this yet, conservatives have been out-maneuvering liberals for the past 30 years. (I would point to Barry Goldwater as the decisive moment in conservative mobilization.) This outstanding editorial from the New York Times looks at the history of the movement and comments on how far liberals are behind their conservative counterparts. However, there is a smaller glimmer of hope:

"Now, perhaps, a few liberals are waking up to the task that confronts them. Americans Come Together, a group backed by the billionaire George Soros, already has 20 offices and 450 employees in Ohio alone. John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, has founded the Center for American Progress, which Democrats are calling "the liberal Heritage." But it still seems that liberals are purely reactive. Barry Goldwater may have been strong meat, but at least he had ideas. By contrast, Americans Come Together's entire raison d'etre (like that of the John Kerry campaign) remains negative: to send Mr. Bush back to Texas.

'"There is no such thing as spontaneous public opinion," Beatrice Webb, the great British leftist, once said. "It all has to be manufactured from a center of conviction and energy." The American Conservative Union is just one of many such centers on the right; it's a lesson that liberal America seems unable to learn.'

The piece correctly points out that Bush's defeat will not solve the problem of conservative hegemony. Conservatives have worked for 30 years on building a formidable infrastructure, and it won't vanish with a Kerry victory. But liberals are starting to catch up (the liberal 527s I think are encouraging).

3. Oh, the irony. Last April, President Bush visited the Timken Company in Canton, OH to speak on the successes of his economic policy. And on Monday, the company announced that it would be cutting 1,300 jobs from its workforce. A number of sources have commented on this story, but I’ll take this from the Progress Report:

"On 4/23/03 President Bush visited the Timken Company in Canton, OH, and touted the company as a demonstration of the success of his economic policies. Bush said "the future of employment is bright for the families that work here, that work to put food on the table for their children." Yesterday Timken announced it is slashing 1300 jobs from its work force, a quarter of its employees in Canton. Bush said that Timken would be successful because "high productivity that comes from steady innovation and skilled workers gives our economy a tremendous edge." But, announcing the layoffs Timken revealed that "production at the Canton bearing plants has declined 27 percent over the last five years." Timken employee Shawn Higgins said "How can I afford to get married, afford a house payment, maybe kids, if I don't have a job?" Timken went forward with the massive cut even though the major "job creation" programs the President highlighted in his speech last year – an income tax cut, a dividend tax cut and a small business tax cut – subsequently became law. The Timken announcement was "just the latest in a northeast Ohio area hit hard by the loss of manufacturing and other jobs." Overall, Ohio "has lost about 155,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush took office."

4. Is anyone surprised by this? The Boston Globe reports that professors favor Kerry over Bush. According to the piece, employees from four-year colleges have given $1.32 million to the Kerry campaign, whereas Bush has received only $512,000. "Strong antiwar sentiment on campuses appears to account for at least some of the shift in contributions away from Bush and also for the overall increase in contributions from those who work in higher education, which still represents a modest sum for a presidential campaign."

Here are some interesting points I noticed in the article: Though Bush only raised $512,000 this year from college professors, it marks a significant improvement over 2000's $355,020.

Also, the Ivy League has shown remarkable dislike for Bush. "Kerry enjoyed big fund-raising advantages over Bush in the Ivy League ($269,385 to $28,851) and the Big 10 Conference ($134,861 to $31,500), which is dominated by large state universities in the Midwest. About half of Kerry's Ivy League money came from Harvard. From Yale University, which both candidates attended, Kerry collected $33,800 in contributions, Bush's $1,000." I wonder if that $1,000 came from the soon-to-be alumna Barbara.

5. Finally!!! The U.S. government has stopped its $335,000 monthly payments to the Iraqi National Congress, the group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were the sharks that fed the CIA and Pentagon a whole bunch of trumped up intelligence in the lead up to the war.

6. More Iraq comparisons, but this time with the intervention in Kosovo "Of all the historical precedents that paved the way for President George W. Bush's war against Iraq, the most directly relevant was Bill Clinton's 1999 bombing of the rump Yugoslavia." Matt Welch in this review for Reason asks why the architects of Kosovo are so opposed to the war in Iraq. Thankfully Welch dismisses most of arguments put forward by the formerly pro-interventionist critics.

7. The House International Relations Committee rarely meets to discuss African issues. However, last Thursday, the committee spoke with Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Charles R. Snyder on the Darfur crisis. According to this article from all.Africa.com, "the unusual and powerful coalition of conservatives and liberals that keep a watchful eye on that beleagured east African nation is now calling Darfur's conflict 'the world's worst humanitarian crisis.'"
Also on Thursday, Human Rights Watch issued a 77-page report on the Darfur region. The report accused Sudan’s government of "extensive use of attack aircraft - mainly Antonov supply planes dropping crude but lethal 'barrel bombs' filled with metal shards, but also helicopter gunships and MiG jet fighters - in many areas of Darfur inhabited by Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa civilians. It has bombed not only villages, but also some towns where the displaced have congregated."

8. Here are two items from Amazon. First, you can play out your own presidential campaign with this new board game.

The author of this book may have confused President Carter with the devil. From the review: "Jimmy Carter: America's best ex-president? Only if you're not bothered by the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism (which started on his watch), the shamefaced foreign policy of Bill Clinton and John Kerry (ditto), and think that ex-presidents should travel the world coddling dictators and bad-mouthing America a la Jesse Jackson. Jimmy Carter has been given a free ride from the liberal media, liberal historians, and even the American people, who excuse his political delinquencies and disasters on the grounds that he is a "good" man. But as bank robber Willie Sutton said of Carter: "I've never seen a bigger confidence man in my life, and I've been around some of the best in the business." It's time to set the record straight."

9. None of this should come as surprise to readers. The Washington Post reports on how Bush contributors have profited from their donations to the campaign. Perhaps the most shocking portion of the piece:

"Of the 246 fundraisers identified by The Post as Pioneers in the 2000 campaign, 104 -- or slightly more than 40 percent -- ended up in a job or an appointment. A study by The Washington Post, partly using information compiled by Texans for Public Justice, which is planning to release a separate study of the Pioneers this week, found that 23 Pioneers were named as ambassadors and three were named to the Cabinet: Donald L. Evans at the Commerce Department, Elaine L. Chao at Labor and Tom Ridge at Homeland Security. At least 37 Pioneers were named to postelection transition teams, which helped place political appointees into key regulatory positions affecting industry."

10. The Hill explains how Republican legislators plan to smear Kerry's record in upcoming votes: make Kerry's vote useless, and blame him for the outcome.

"The one-vote defeat of an extension of unemployment benefits last week has sparked fear among Democrats that Republicans have developed a legislative model that will cast Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) repeatedly in a bad light before the election.

"The extension needed 60 votes to pass in the Senate, and 12 Republicans made sure the final tally was 59-40, with only one absentee, presidential candidate Kerry.

"At least one Republican senator, Elizabeth Dole (N.C.), was prepared to switch to a "no" vote to make sure the measure was defeated even if Kerry returned to cast his vote, a Democrat charged.

"Even if Dole had stood firm, observers on both sides believe the GOP leadership would have been able to turn other Republicans to ensure defeat.

"But by calculating the vote to a nicety, the GOP managed to make Kerry appear to be responsible for the defeat because he was a no-show."

Evangelicals and Bush

2004-05-19T10:24:00.000-04:00

What sort of access do Christian evangelicals have to the Bush administration? For the answer, read this piece in the in the Village Voice. Rick Perlstein cites an email summary he received that discusses a two-hour meeting between NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams and the Apostolic Congress. (If I’m thinking of the same Rick Perlstein, he also wrote this outstanding biography of Barry Goldwater.)

Read on:

“It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.

“But now we know.

‘"Everything that you're discussing is information you're not supposed to have," barked Pentecostal minister Robert G. Upton when asked about the off-the-record briefing his delegation received on March 25. Details of that meeting appear in a confidential memo signed by Upton and obtained by the Voice.

“The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.”

Vanishing Support, Part II

2004-05-19T10:04:00.000-04:00

Last week I wrote on the dissatisfaction that’s building among conservative Republicans over the Bush administration’s record. Surely the Bush campaign remembers the nightmare of 1992, when conservative voters decided to stay home rather than vote for the moderate, internationalist, Episcopalian, Bush I. But still, the campaign continues to hemorrhage their conservative support.

From Reuters:

“Concern among evangelical Christians over the course of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) is opening a crack in their strong bond with President Bush (news - web sites) and the Republican Party, political analysts who track this powerful voting group said.

...

‘"I know there are a lot of evangelicals who are disillusioned with the war and worried about a lot of things, the Woodward book, the Clarke book ... (and) how we got into this thing," said Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., referring to recent books on the al Qaeda threat and the Iraqi war and occupation.

“Compounding that is the growing scandal about prisoner abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq.

“Evangelical Christians are still expected to vote overwhelmingly for Bush, but the erosion of support could reduce their turnout on election day, a potentially ominous development for the incumbent president.”

What's Going On

2004-05-17T13:14:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to post a number of these items for the past week.

1. The latest installment from Seymour Hersh is up on the New Yorker’s website. Each week Hersh takes the Abu Ghraib scandal one step further, and this time he points directly to Rumsfeld, saying the Defense secretary encouraged “physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence.” He also writes that Rumsfeld's interrogation policies were part of his “long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the CIA.”

Newsweek also blames Rumsfeld.

2. With the Reform Party’s endorsement of Ralph Nader, the Independent Party candidate receives a spot on the ballot in seven states, including Michigan and Florida. At the same time, he’s struggling to find his place on the ballot in some less relevant states, like Texas (hmmm, I wonder how that state will vote in November?).

Nader says he’s offering free, weekly advice to the Kerry campaign. Meanwhile, the Kerry team looks to schedule a sit-out with the Nader people.

3. Ever pseudo-historian is offering their interpretation to this year’s election. Will it resemble Carter’s failed reelection campaign in 1980? Or will conservatives stay home again this year, as they did with Bush I?

Conservative strategist Mary Matalin said something on last week’s “Meet the Press” that reminded me of another election: Truman’s 1948 reelection campaign.

From the transcript:

“MS. MATALIN: This is a contest and the campaigns are about a choice. So yes, the American public is disturbed right now, they're anxious right now about the war in Iraq, about the global war on terror. But this is the first president--this has been a problem for two decades, and this is the first president that's doing something about it. So we have to stay the course. He's being steady in the face of turbulence around the world.

"So we have an education challenge in front of us to explain how Iraq fits into the global war on terror. It's not enough to just go to Afghanistan and close down the camps, which had we done that decades ago, there wouldn't have been tens of thousands of these terrorists running around the world. But we have to transform a region that is breeding this kind of terror and extremism. That's going to require a generational commitment. That's gonna cost a lot in terms of treasure and American sacrifice.”

What struck me was the line, “...this is the first president that’s doing something about it.” Truman was the first Cold War president, and he faced the challenge of “educating” the public on the threat of the Soviet Union. He also had the problem of constructing a comprehensive policy to address the threat of a new type of war, while trying to convey that policy to the American public. Sounds like Bush, doesn’t it? Truman, of course, squeaked through with a slim victory. Thankfully as John Gaddis says in his new book Surprise, Security and the American Experience, history rarely repeats itself.

4. From the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. This is far and away the most intelligent discussion I’ve seen on the Abu Ghraib fallout.

5. McCain resurfaces as a top contender for the VP spot, despite the senator’s Sherman-esque rejections. It began again with the Abu Ghraib scandal, when some pundits thought it would be wise for Kerry to have a former POW on the ticket. Then the New York Times had a cover article on the possibility of a draft McCain movement. And yesterday, on “Meet the Press” Senator Joe Biden directly asked McCain to serve his country once again.

In other “Meet the Press” news, a State Department aide tried to pull Secretary Powell in the middle of an interview. Powell apologized later to the Russert.

6. The New York Times took a look at Kerry’s high school days, in Saturday’s paper. Apparently, Kerry had a reputation as an outsider and an over-achiever. His blatant ambition and middle-class, Catholic upbringing didn’t make him popular among his classmates. Too bad the Times piece was almost an exact duplicate of the New Republic’s “Teen Wasteland,” article from April. Both piece suggest that Kerry's high school habits could haunt him in the 2004 election.

7. GOP 527s are now trying to catch up with their liberal opponents like moveon.org.

8. Some New York papers have updates on convention plans. First, the New York Post says some business near Madison Square Garden are telling their workers to either work from home or at satellite locations during the convention. And Newsday claims that “Democratic operatives are buzzing that the Boss has been talking about staging a free concert somewhere on Sept. 2, when President Bush is due to address the Republican National Convention."

Dean's Dozen

2004-05-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

Democracy for American (the offshoot of Dean for America) has announced its endorsements for the 2004 elections. There are some obvious choices, like Barack Obama, who has generated a lot excitement over his Senate campaign in Illinois. But there are also some odd ones on the list; read DailyKos’ reaction.

Compassionate Conservative a.k.a We Like Blacks

2004-05-17T10:49:00.000-04:00

If you take a look at the Bush/Cheney campaign website, you’ll notice that the administration has confused “compassion” with “giving a nod to African-Americans.” Nearly all of the 21 photos in the “Compassion Photo Album” relate in some way to African-Americans. There’s George reading to a classroom of black children. There’s George visiting an African hut. There’s George speaking to the Urban League. Nineteen of the 21 pictures relate in some way to blacks.

Thanks to Lawrence Weschler, head of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, for picking up on this remarkable presentation. In the Los Angeles Times, he writes:

“And now, there he is again, reading to a different roomful of black schoolchildren. It's amazing — photo after photo, 19 in all, and almost every single one of them giving further testimony to the astonishing capaciousness of the guy's Compassion, by which we are given to understand: He just has no trouble at all touching black people! Hammering with them, bagging groceries, tottering alongside them on weirdly high stools.

”It's like Ben Hur among the lepers — the guy doesn't hesitate, he just goes and does it! Why, the Compassion page even includes a photo of him standing next to his own secretary of State, Colin Powell!

”I mean, bracket for a moment some of the actual facts concerning the fate of blacks and other people of color across the years of the Bush administration. How, for instance, tax cuts massively skewed toward the wealthy favor whites, while the huge resultant deficits necessitate service cuts massively disfavoring the poor, a group that includes proportionally more blacks.”

Bush's Vanishing Base

2004-05-14T12:42:00.000-04:00

Liberals aren’t the only ones unhappy with Bush’s record. In recent months, both moderate and conservative Republicans have voiced (or mumbled) their concerns over the direction of Bush’s policies. This Knight-Ridder article looks at some of the disparaging remarks that have been made by influential conservatives:

“President Bush is facing sharp dissent from his conservative base that could force him to change course on the war in Iraq and other issues or risk losing critical support for his re-election campaign.

"The complaints are rising from the traditional conservative wing of the Republican Party — including such influential voices as Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois and columnist George Will, who are challenging the "neo-conservative" doctrine that the United States can remake the Middle East by toppling Saddam Hussein and nurturing a democracy.

"It would be foolish, not to say ruinously arrogant, to believe that we can determine the future of Iraq," Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said yesterday.

...

“Days earlier, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested Bush's vision of America's role may be unrealistic and unwise.

'"We need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts, a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy, by force if necessary," Roberts said in a speech.

...

‘"There's a growing split between conservatives and neo-cons," said a senior House Republican aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. "From day one, traditional conservatives did not believe that the United States could deliver democracy to Iraq."

“Unlike traditional conservatives, who are wary of big government, budget deficits and foreign entanglements, so-called "neo-conservatives" believe that America has an opportunity and even a duty to export its concept of liberty. Some in the administration thought Iraq would be Exhibit A of how readily Western democracy would take root.

“Will, who is influential with traditional conservatives, recently scorned such neo-conservative thinking. Conservatism, he wrote, means seeing the world as it is, not as it should be.

‘"Traditional conservatism," Will wrote. "Nothing 'neo' about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix."’

And from the center, this Salon piece makes the case for a moderate backlash among centrist Republicans in the 2004 election. “[T]here's little doubt that behind the scenes, some moderate Republicans are rooting for the other side. If Bush wins, one aide to a moderate Republican says privately, "that would be the worst possible situation."

The Bush campaign has been working to reassure its core constituents (the memory of the Bush I reelection fiasco is still fresh in their minds) by having Cheney speak at NRA and Right to Life conventions. And last night, Bush delivered a speech at the 40th annual meeting of the American Conservative Union in Washington.

No wonder so many Republicans taken issue with the Bush agenda. Look at the Republican Party Platform from the 2000 convention. These clips were compiled by MattS at DailyKos, and they illustrate how Bush resembles Clinton in the eyes of some Republicans. (Can you believe it? Bush mirrors Clinton?)

"The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration's diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries." [ed. this is referring to Clinton's administration]

"Gerrymandered congressional districts are an affront to democracy and an insult to the voters. We oppose that and any other attempt to rig the electoral process."

"Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments. A Republican administration working with the Congress will respect the needs and quiet sacrifices of these public servants as it strengthens America's intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities and reorients them toward the dangers of the future."

"The current administration has casually sent American armed forces on dozens of missions without clear goals, realizable objectives, favorable rules of engagement, or defined exit strategies. Over the past seven years, a shrunken American military has been run ragged by a deployment tempo that has eroded its military readiness. Many units have seen their operational requirements increased four-fold, wearing out both people and equipment."

"The rule of law, the very foundation for a free society, has been under assault, not only by criminals from the ground up, but also from the top down. An administration that lives by evasion, coverup, stonewalling, and duplicity has given us a totally discredited Department of Justice."

"Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness."

Visit DailyKos to see more examples.

The Digital Age

2004-05-14T00:53:00.000-04:00

I try to avoid making the Vietnam comparison, but sometimes it fits too well to pass up. Take the case of “war in the digital age.” We’re just beginning to understand what it means to fight in a world of instant communication. First, we were hit by the digital photographs from Abu Ghraib. Next, it was the video of Nick Berg’s decapitation fed to us over an al Qeada-allied website. And today, “senators…read despairing e-mails from U.S. soldiers in Iraq…Troops are sending emails home to their congressmen, and they don't tell happy tales. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois read Rumsfeld an e-mail from a career officer in Iraq, saying troops were "appalled and ashamed" over Abu Ghraib. "Nobody wants to compare this to Vietnam," the email said. "But it's starting to feel that way on the ground. Everybody just wants to finish their year, get the hell out and forget they were ever here."’

Thirty years ago, the American public was dealing with a similar struggle. At that time the new medium was television, and each night families would turn to the nightly news to see American soldiers killed in their living room. It was difficult to swallow, and those images helped galvanize the American opposition to the war.

In other digital-age news, the June issue of Reason magazine will be dedicated to “the database nation.” Each subscriber will receive a customized cover that features a satellite photograph of their home. “Inside, the personalization continues. Subscribers can find out how many of their neighbors are college educated and what percentage of kids in their zip code are being raised by their grandparents.” Supposedly the purpose of theme is to educate readers on the disappearance of privacy in the digital age. Good to know.

Fantasy Camps

2004-05-14T00:11:00.000-04:00

I found this on Wonkette. Is this a sick joke, or is it real? Either way, it's almost as offensive as the real Abu Ghraib prison.

Torture

2004-05-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

Months ago I read this fascinating article in the Atlantic Monthly on the use of torture and intimidation in interrogations. The subject of article is obviously quite relevant to today’s discussions on Abu Ghraib.

While re-reading the piece, this question came to mind: what would happen if Osama bin Laden were captured before the election? This topic has disappeared from the media in recent weeks, but it’s certainly worth considering. Is this the only thing that can save Bush from his plummeting poll numbers? Or would there be a backlash? Would people ask, “Why didn’t we catch him three years ago instead of chasing after Saddam Hussein?” Who knows.

Hip-Hop

2004-05-13T23:37:00.000-04:00

Hip-Hop enters the presidential campaign. First, Dan LeRoy writes in the Weekly Standard on the Democrat Party’s absurd history with rap. Meanwhile Kerry tears up listening to a song dedicated to him. These stories are pretty embarrassing for the Democrats; they come off as middle-aged white guys who don’t understand the genre but pander to the community anyway for their votes. Still, I’d say it’s better than pandering to the NRA and to fundamentalist Christians, as the Bush campaign has.

Kerry in Florida

2004-05-13T12:20:00.000-04:00

Kerry as he lands in Jacksonville, Fla. on May 11, 2004. From CJR Campaign Desk.

Swing States

2004-05-12T23:39:00.000-04:00

The New York Times tells us again that the battleground states will be important in November. Is this news? Tell me, who did not this?

According to the Times, twenty-two states are up for grab this election, including a few unusual ones like Arizona, Colorado and Louisiana. This map is one-third larger than the one that existed during the 2000 election. Here are some interesting excerpts (and it looks good for Kerry):

“Arizona is one of the states that has caught the early attention of the candidates as they adjust to this new terrain. The changing demographics here - in particular, the increasing number of Hispanic voters - has made it more Democratic since 2000, when Mr. Bush defeated Mr. Gore by six percentage points, campaign aides said. A poll of Arizona voters conducted by KAET-TV and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University in late April found that Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry were effectively tied.

“Ms. Napolitano said that in 2000, Mr. Gore virtually ignored Arizona, which for a generation was identified with the conservative icon Barry Goldwater. She said the only nod to Arizona she could recall from the Gore campaign was a visit by Hadassah Lieberman, the wife of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, who was Mr. Gore's running mate.

“By contrast, Mr. Kerry was here for two days last week, and he and Mr. Bush are running television advertisements. "Bush has been here twice since the primary," said Ms. Napolitano, who has tracked the moves by the Republican opposition since the state's Democratic primary in February.

…

“Analysts outside the campaigns said there appeared to be less feinting than in any recent election. Mr. Kerry, for example, spent nearly $2 million last week on advertising in Colorado and Louisiana. Those are two states that had not been considered particularly competitive because Mr. Bush won them by more than seven percentage points in 2000. And Mr. Kerry campaigned in Louisiana on Friday and Saturday.

‘"It's an objective fact we have expanded the battleground," said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Kerry. "And we intend to further expand it."’

Personals

2004-05-12T23:22:00.000-04:00

More from the dating front: “Brutally Honest Personals.” Thanks Elise.

The Ilusion of War...

2004-05-12T23:03:00.000-04:00

It’s difficult at times to determine what’s accurate and what’s not among all the pessimistic view of Iraq. John Brady Kiesling, a 20-year veteran of the Foreign Service who resigned in protest to the war in Iraq, had an intelligent piece in this Sunday’s Washington Post.

“The deadliest illusion about warfare is that the aim of war is military victory. The true aim of war is to accomplish the political, economic or security goals for which it was fought. In a war competently waged for rational ends, one could rationally expect that America's aims would best be achieved through dominance on the battlefield followed by the dignified establishment of a new and better order. But in a war like the one in Iraq, which is based on assumptions since proven false, we cannot win by being victorious.

“Any selfish motives aside, America's war aim remains the creation of a viable Iraqi state. Ideally, that state would serve as a democratic model to its repressive neighbors, but at a minimum American interests require that the new Iraqi state not harbor terrorists or pose a threat to its neighbors; that it renounce nuclear weapons, long-range missiles and nerve gas; and that it exercise an effective monopoly on violence within its own territory.

“My resignation from the U.S. Foreign Service in February 2003 was driven by my conviction that this minimum aim was unachievable. I was certain that the Iraq of 2004 would bear no resemblance to the Germany or Japan of 1946. Long before the publication of the awful photos from Abu Ghraib, we Americans lacked the legitimacy in the eyes of the Islamic world to be accepted as liberators rather than occupiers. Nor did we possess any magic toolbox of democracy-building to substitute for the slow, bloody evolution of democracies elsewhere. There was no external enemy -- no Red Army at the gates -- to validate us as the lesser of two evils. Iraq's internal schisms were too deep for quick fixes, and the highly touted Iraqi George Washingtons who trailed behind our tanks were irrelevant or fraudulent.”

The rest of the piece is worth reading.

The only part that I disagree with is the line: “Nor did we possess any magic toolbox of democracy-building to substitute for the slow, bloody evolution of democracies elsewhere.” Many people including myself believed that Saddam Hussein’s regime was a “slow, bloody evolution.” And we believed that the Iraqis were a people starving for democracy.

These things are still true. Iraq was “ripe” for democracy; the Bush administration, though, completely mishandled the war’s aftermath.

The Election is Kerry's to Lose

2004-05-12T22:36:00.000-04:00

Zogby has made some pretty memorable blunders in the past, but in my mind he restored all credibility with his predictions in Iowa. He has just made another prediction: “John Kerry will win the election.” Let’s hope he’s right again.

From Zogby:

"I have made a career of taking bungee jumps in my election calls. Sometimes I haven't had a helmet and I have gotten a little scratched. But here is my jump for 2004: John Kerry will win the election.

"Have you recovered from the shock? Is this guy nuts? Kerry's performance of late has hardly been inspiring and polls show that most Americans have no sense of where he really stands on the key issues that matter most to them. Regardless, I still think that he will win. And if he doesn't, it will be because he blew it. There are four major reasons for my assertion:

"First, my most recent poll (April 12-15) shows bad re-election numbers for an incumbent President. Senator Kerry is leading 47% to 44% in a two-way race, and the candidates are tied at 45% in the three-way race with Ralph Nader. Significantly, only 44% feel that the country is headed in the right direction and only 43% believe that President Bush deserves to be re-elected - compared with 51% who say it is time for someone new.

"In that same poll, Kerry leads by 17 points in the Blue States that voted for Al Gore in 2000, while Bush leads by only 10 points in the Red States that he won four years ago.

"Second, there are very few undecided voters for this early in a campaign. Historically, the majority of undecideds break to the challenger against an incumbent. The reasons are not hard to understand: voters have probably made a judgment about the better-known incumbent and are looking for an alternative.

"Third, the economy is still the top issue for voters - 30% cite it. While the war in Iraq had been only noted by 11% as the top issue in March, it jumped to 20% in our April poll as a result of bad war news dominating the news agenda. The third issue is the war on terrorism. Among those who cited the economy, Kerry leads the President 54% to 35%. Among those citing the war in Iraq, Kerry's lead is 57% to 36%. This, of course, is balanced by the 64% to 30% margin that the President holds over Kerry on fighting the war on terrorism. These top issues are not likely to go away. And arguably, there is greater and growing intensity on the part of those who oppose and want to defeat Bush.

...

"Finally, if history is any guide, Senator Kerry is a good closer. Something happens to him in the closing weeks of campaigns (that obviously is not happening now!). We have clearly seen that pattern in his 1996 victory over Governor Bill Weld for the Senate in Massachusetts and more recently in the 2004 Democratic primaries. All through 2003, Kerry's campaign lacked a focused message. He tends to be a nuanced candidate: thoughtful, briefed, and too willing to discuss a range of possibly positions on every issue. It is often hard to determine where he actually stands. In a presidential campaign, if a candidate can't spell it out in a bumper sticker, he will have trouble grabbing the attention of voters. By early 2004, as Democratic voters in Iowa and elsewhere concluded that President Bush could be defeated, they found Governor Howard Dean's message to be too hot and began to give Kerry another look. Kerry came on strong with the simplest messages: "I'm a veteran", "I have the experience", and "I can win". His timing caused him to come on strong at the perfect time. As one former his Vietnam War colleague of told a television correspondent in Iowa: "John always knows when his homework is due."

Trans-Gender Golf Pros

2004-05-12T22:29:00.000-04:00

The headline pretty much says it all: “Man Raised As a Girl Commits Suicide.” I try to avoid posting novelty news items, but there’s something about this case that shocks me.

Henry Hyde's European Adventure

2004-05-12T22:18:00.000-04:00

It seems Republican Representatives aren’t as concerned about discretionary spending when it comes to their own traveling expenses. Here’s an egregious case of a “staff-heavy, seven-day, two-nation jaunt”

Commencement

2004-05-12T12:03:00.000-04:00

This is all too typical. I give the Bush administration a bit of credit for some honorable deed, only to find out later that their actions were politically motivated.

Take the case of the Bush daughters’ commencements. When it was announced last week that neither Bush parent would attend the ceremonies, “White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the president and first lady decided to spare families the rigorous security measures that go along with a presidential visit.”

However, this gesture is not as honorable it appears. Unfortunately for the Bush daughters, neither Connecticut nor Texas is a battleground state. Bush will instead be dedicating his commencement-related activities this year to Louisiana, Colorado, and Wisconsin—all states that will be close in November.

“Mr. Bush turned down an invitation to speak at the Texas ceremony. But he will give a commencement address at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and at Concordia University in Mequon, Wis.”

Single Republicans

2004-05-12T11:11:00.000-04:00

If you’re a lonely conservative, you may find this dating service helpful. Unfortunately, for lonely Democrats, www.singledemocrats.com only offers this message: Meet quality conservative American Singles at SingleRepublican.com. Is being "American" a common prerequisite among single conservatives?

VP Update

2004-05-12T10:35:00.000-04:00

Bloomberg says it knows who the top-five VP choices are for the Kerry campaign:

“Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is focusing on five potential running mates, including former party nomination rivals Senator John Edwards and retired General Wesley Clark, according to campaign and party officials familiar with the selection process.

“The others under consideration are Representative Richard Gephardt of St. Louis, Senator Bob Graham of Florida -- both of whom also made bids for the Democratic nomination -- and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. Kerry won't name his choice until next month, the officials said.”

UPDATE: Here’s a piece on last weekend’s VP auditions.

Human Rights

2004-05-07T13:04:00.000-04:00

It’s well known that President Bush prides himself on having the strongest human rights record of any American president (or at least that’s what he likes to say).

Contrary to his claims, this release from the State Department sums it up:

Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
May 4, 2004

Postponement of Release of “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003-2004”

The release of “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003-2004” scheduled for May 5, 2004 has been postponed for technical reasons that have held up completion of the report. We will announce a new date for the release of the report once it reaches the final stage of printing.
2004/489

[End]

Released on May 4, 2004

Apologies

2004-05-07T12:44:00.000-04:00

Over the past few weeks, I’ve posted a number of items on the use of apologies in modern politics. It started last month with the president’s press conference, when reporter after reporter asked Bush to speak on the administration’s failures. No luck there. Bush denied that there were any problems, and continued to speak on the coalition’s success in liberating Iraq. Unfortunately for the administration, the subject didn’t die with the press conference.

The Abu Ghraib affair strikes at the heart of this issue and it will serve as a character test for the Bush administration. So far it has done a miserable job, but yesterday the president muttered a few words—one of them being the dreaded “s” word. Finally!!! I’d count it as a miracle.

TNR and Salon’s War Room have both done a thorough job following the “apology” case. Read how Chris Strohm in TNR ranks the most recent apologies:

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt
Kimmitt, spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, yesterday gave the most sincere apology of any American to date: "My Army's been embarrassed by this," he said. "My Army's been shamed by this. And on behalf of my Army, I apologize for what those soldiers did to your citizens. It was reprehensible and it was unacceptable. And it is more than just words, that we have to take those words into action and ensure that never happens again. And we will make a full-faith effort to ensure that never happens again."

Army Major General Geoffrey D. Miller
Miller, who was brought in last month to replace Brigadier General Janis Karpinski as the superintendent of prisons, also directly apologized to Iraqis Wednesday. "I would like to personally apologize to the people of Iraq for the actions of the small number of leaders and soldiers who violated our policy and may have committed criminal acts. We are investigating those acts as rampantly as possible and will bring those responsible to the bar of justice."

Both Miller and Kimmitt get extra credit for their compelling use of the second person in addressing Iraqis directly--rather than talking generally about how terrible the abuses were, as others have done.

President George W. Bush
In interviews with Al-Arabiya and Al Hurra satellite television networks yesterday, Bush said the actions were "abhorrent" but offered no apology. "We've discovered these abuses. They're abhorrent abuses," he said during the Al Hurra interview. "The actions of these few people do not reflect the hearts of the American people. The American people are just as appalled at what they have seen on TV as Iraqi citizens have. The Iraqi citizens must understand that."

Bush's statement falls short on a few counts. First, he didn't apologize. (Of course, as we know, he never does.) Then, rather than speaking to Iraqis directly, he spoke about them in the third person: "The Iraqi citizens must understand that." Sounds more like a command than an expression of contrition.
Finally, worse than not bothering to apologize himself, Bush let his spokesman apologize for him. "We've already said that we're sorry for what occurred and we're deeply sorry to the families and what they must be feeling and going through as well," Scott McClellan said later in the day. "The president is sorry for what occurred and the pain that it has caused."

Reporters pointed out that Bush hadn't actually apologized. "The president is deeply sorry," McClellan restated. "I'm saying it for him right now." Well, that settles it.

Colin Powell
Powell pulled the exact same move as Bush--declining to apologize, and letting his spokesman do it for him. "We are all terribly distressed and shocked by those photos and by what those photos said about the manner in which the troops there were doing their job," he said. "And as you've heard the president, you've heard Secretary Rumsfeld, myself and others say, it's unacceptable. We are a nation that believes in justice. We are a nation that's governed by the rule of law, and nowhere is that more the case than in the armed forces of the United States."

On Saturday, Powell's spokesman, Richard Boucher, had offered the State Department's apology, saving his boss the indignity of having to do it himself. Boucher told The Boston Globe that the United States is "very sorry" that the abuse occurred, and will do everything in its "power to make sure it doesn't happen again."

John Kerry
Kerry ranks low on this list because, given the chance to show how he might have handled this situation better than his rival, he simply demurred. He was, to be sure, critical. "The horrifying abuse of Iraqi prisoners, which the world has now seen, is absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable," he said. "And the response of the administration, certainly the Pentagon, has been slow and inappropriate." But he remained noncommittal when pressed by reporters on whether Bush should apologize to the Iraqi people or whether he would apologize if he were president. He said the investigation first needs to determine how high up the chain of command responsibility goes. "The person who speaks on behalf of [the United States], the president of the United States, needs to offer the world an explanation and needs to take appropriate responsibility," he said. "And if that includes apologizing for the behavior of those soldiers and what happened, we ought to do to that."

Joe Lieberman
Not to be outdone by Kerry, Lieberman went ahead and made himself an apologist for Bush's failure to apologize. Asked about Bush's remarks, he said: "It sure seemed to me that the tone of all of this was that we regret it. It was effectively an apology."

Donald Rumsfeld
Never the best at owning up to mistakes, Rumsfeld seems to believe that an apology from the United States should be assumed or implied. When prompted for an apology, Rumsfeld gave one of his typical responses: "Oh my goodness. Anyone, any American who sees the photographs that we have seen has to feel apologetic to the Iraqi people who were abused, and recognize that that is something that is unacceptable and certainly un-American." It's as if he's saying that what took place was so terrible, so obviously worthy of an apology, that it would be beneath him to actually offer one. Classic Rumsfeld logic.

End result: no apology.

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski
The most blatant failure to apologize has come from the person who probably should be taking the most responsibility. Karpinski, who was in charge of the prison system when the abuses occurred, has not apologized and even resists accepting blame for the incident. "I certainly take the responsibility for some of this because those soldiers were assigned to a company under my command," she told CNN on Tuesday. "Blame? I don't think that the blame rests with me or with the 800th MP Brigade. In fact it's unfair because we had 3,400 soldiers and 16 facilities and this was the only facility where interrogation operations were taking place and this is the only facility where there were infractions."

Jeopardy

2004-05-07T12:17:00.003-04:00

I already have my Ti-Vo set for next week’s "Jeopardy." What a lineup: Ari Fleisher vs. Aaron Brown, Bob Woodward vs. Tucker Carlson. Oh boy, I can’t wait. My money’s on Tim Russert.

Disgusting...

2004-05-07T12:01:00.000-04:00

For all those wishing to fulfill their sadomasochistic fantasies, visit these sites:

1. You too can become an interrogator at an Iraqi prison. And you can escape that pesky Code of Military Justice by working as an independent contractor. (The latest I’d heard, those two contractors implicated in the scandal were still working in Iraq.)

2. Before there was the Abu Ghraib affair, there were the doctored/un-doctored photos of the American soldier with his offensive and inappropriate sign. Now you can fill out that sign anyway you like. Some of the samples are pretty funny.

Rummy

2004-05-07T01:09:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, there was a leak from within the White House; it was said that President Bush reprimanded Rumsfeld for his handling of the Abu Ghraib affair. Bush apparently told the Defense secretary that he he was unhappy with Rumsfeld's performance and that we wish the secretary had notified him sooner.

But hold on a second. There was actually a leak? It’s well known that this administration does all it can to prevent leaks. And at such a critical moment, someone broke that sacred barrier?

I doubt it. To me, it looks as though this was a politically motivated move. The administration has put this message out in order to save its credibility and take some of the heat off Rumsfeld. What it says is that, “Yes, we’ve punished Rumsfeld. He knows he’s been a bad boy. Can we now move on?”

Since Kerry sealed the nomination, the media has raced through a scandal a week—sometimes two in a week. It’s nearly impossible to keep up. But you’ll notice this—each of the key players in Bush’s war cabinet has been under the spotlight at one point or another: Rice saw her moment of crisis with the 9/11 commission; Powell took some heat for his stubborn obedience to Bush in the lead up to the war, despite his “Pottery Barn” objections; and Cheney’s Westminster College speech was severely criticized by the school’s president.

No wonder the administration believes it can ride this one out. All the others have escaped punishment.

Yes, they’ll hold onto Rumsfeld—until he becomes a threat to Bush’s reelection. If the Abu Ghraib affair continues to grow, and continues to draw hash attacks, then Rove will have to consider its effects on the reelection campaign. And once Rove has doubts, you can probably say goodbye to Rumsfled.

Plenty of people are already saying that Rumsfeld should leave. For those views, read the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Tom Harkin. And there’s a petition.

From the Fringe

2004-05-05T12:56:00.000-04:00

It’s time for an update on those fringe candidates. I’ve been praying, praying, praying that “Ten Commandments Judge” Roy Moore will jump into the race. He’d be a nice antidote to the Nader threat.

Read this recent piece in Salon:

“Meanwhile, the 57-year-old Moore is acting more and more like a candidate as he crisscrosses the country, speaking at gatherings of Christian rightists, home-schoolers and state conventions of the far-right Constitution Party, which was on 41 state ballots in the 2000 election, and is courting Moore to head its ticket. If he ran on the Constitution Party ticket, he would probably be on more state ballots than Nader this year. With 320,000 members it is the third-largest party in the U.S, in terms of registered voters.”

At the same time, Nader has struggled to get on state ballots. The Washington Times says:

“Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's campaign workers say they have been prevented by city ordinances from gathering signatures to get their candidate on the presidential ballot in Texas and other states.

“The impediment comes on the heels of a failed effort to use a simple ballot-access procedure in Oregon and highlights the difficulties that Mr. Nader, who announced his independent candidacy in February, is having getting his name on state ballots.

“He is not officially on the presidential ballot in any state yet, though Nader campaign officials say the process is still in its early stages.”

I’m still amazed that Nader attracts 6% of voters in the most recent Quinnipiac Poll. How can this be?

Christopher Hayes in TNR gives an excellent analysis of Nader's supposed support. According to Hayes, those voters who say they support Nader aren’t necessarily liberals or progressives; most likely they’re independents (roughly a third of all voters identify themselves as independents), who respond favorably when pollsters labeled Nader as an independent.

Here’s what Hayes writes:

“In fact, the more credible possibility is one that few Democrats seem to have considered: that the folks supporting Nader aren't progressives--or, for that matter, potential Kerry voters--at all; rather, they're largely apolitical types who, when queried by pollsters, default to any available third-party candidate.

“If you believe the first theory, then Nader's current support is coming mainly from those who backed Kucinich in the primaries and other left-wingers. These voters want a higher minimum wage, a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, and universal health care.

…

“If you believe the alternative theory about Nader's support, then 5 percent of voters aren't choosing him because they agree with his politics, or even because they know that much about him. Rather, they say they're voting for Nader because he is referred to by pollsters as an "independent," and they are independents. "I think you basically have people that are not paying that much attention," says liberal pollster Ruy Teixeira, "and they're asked a horse race question: Would you vote for Republican George Bush, Democrat John Kerry, or independent Ralph Nader? And people say, 'What the hell, independent Ralph Nader.'" This doesn't mean that they are going to actually vote for Ralph Nader when the time comes. Says Teixeira, "My feeling is that it is a very light preference." (For the record, the ABC and Newsweek polls both identify Nader as an "independent"; the CBS poll does not, but it does identify Kerry as "the Democrat" and Bush as "the Republican," so it seems reasonable to guess that most voters infer Nader--the only candidate of the three not identified with a party--to be an independent.)”

Backlash

2004-05-05T11:56:00.000-04:00

Last week, the liberal establishment went nuts, asking, why hasn’t Kerry’s responded to Bush’s attacks? where are the counter-attack ads? when will Kerry launch his campaign message? and so on. Well, there’s a backlash.

Chuck Todd in the Washington Monthly thinks Kerry has a chance of winning by a landslide. Is Bush the new Carter? Maybe.

Modern elections tend to work as referendums on the sitting president, and incumbents tend to win or lose by large margins. Polls for the 2004 campaigns say the race is remarkably tight, suggesting that Bush will not win by a large margin. The assumption then is that he’ll lose by a large margin.

“If you look at key indicators beyond the neck-and-neck support for the two candidates in the polls--such as high turnout in the early Democratic primaries and the likelihood of a high turnout in November--it seems improbable that Bush will win big. More likely, it's going to be Kerry in a rout.

“In the last 25 years, there have been four elections which pitted an incumbent against a challenger--1980, 1984, 1992, and 1996. In all four, the victor won by a substantial margin in the electoral college. The circumstances of one election hold particular relevance for today: 1980. That year, the country was weathering both tough economic times (the era of "stagflation"--high inflation concurrent with a recession) and frightening foreign policy crises (the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). Indeed, this year Bush is looking unexpectedly like Carter. Though the two presidents differ substantially in personal style (one indecisive and immersed in details, the other resolute but disengaged), they are also curiously similar. Both are religious former Southern governors. Both initially won the presidency by tarring their opponents (Gerald Ford, Al Gore) with the shortcomings of their predecessors (Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton). Like Carter, Bush is vulnerable to being attacked as someone not up to the job of managing impending global crises.

“Everyone expected the 1980 election to be very close. In fact, Reagan won with 50.8 percent of the popular vote to Carter's 41 percent (independent John Anderson won 6.6 percent)--which translated into an electoral avalanche of 489 to 49. The race was decided not so much on the public's nascent impressions of the challenger, but on their dissatisfaction with the incumbent.
“Nor was Carter's sound defeat an aberration. Quite the opposite. Of the last five incumbent presidents booted from office--Bush I, Carter, Ford, Herbert Hoover, and William Howard Taft--only one was able to garner over 200 electoral votes, and three of these defeated incumbents didn't even cross the 100 electoral-vote threshold: --1992: 370 (Bill Clinton) to 168 (George H. W. Bush) --1980: 489 (Ronald Reagan) to 49 (Jimmy Carter) --1976: 297 (Jimmy Carter) to 240 (Gerald Ford) --1932: 472 (FDR) to 59 (Herbert Hoover) --1912: 435 (Woodrow Wilson) to 88 (TR) to 8 (Taft)”

Tim Grieve in Salon also diagnoses the hysteria as “premature panic”:

“Yes, the Kerry campaign has been slow to organize itself, to get campaign operations up and running in could-be-crucial states like Ohio and Arizona, to define Kerry and to set him apart from Bush on the critical question of Iraq, to respond to -- or to take the high road above -- the incessant smears from the White House and its waves of surrogate attackers. But the race is young, Democratic strategists say, and this Bush is as vulnerable as the last one was.”

Bush's Race Politics

2004-05-05T11:14:00.000-04:00

What the hell is he talking about? After last month’s press conference, a few critics ridiculed the president for his comments on skin color and democracy. It was probably an attempt to brand pacifists as racists; but still, it made no sense (Is anyone saying that Iraqis can’t govern themselves because they have darker skin? Does Bush believe that white is America’s official skin color?)

You would think that the race/democracy argument would be placed on the backburner after its disastrous debut. But no, Bush decided to recite it again last Friday while speaking with journalists in the Rose Garden.

According to the Washington Post:

“President Bush said yesterday that people who have skin that is "a different color than white" are capable of self-government.

...

‘"There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern," Bush said.

‘"I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern."

...

“White House press secretary Scott McClellan was peppered later with questions about what Bush meant. Bush never says who the people are who think that, and McClellan did not, either.”

Salon’s War Room responds to Bush’s comments to by pointing out:

“Actually, many others in the world join with the president in believing non-whites and Muslims can take part in democracy. In fact, the world's largest democracy is India where 125 million Muslims are among the more than 1 billion participating in self-government. And there's Bangladesh, a democracy with a Muslim majority. And let's not even start rattling off all the democracies where people with skin "a different color than white" live and vote. According to Freedom House, 121 of the world's 192 governments, or 63 percent, are electoral democracies, although the range of freedom and openness varies.”

Drugs

2004-05-05T10:50:00.000-04:00

Marijuana’s up while LSD is down.

Sudan Update

2004-05-05T00:40:00.000-04:00

I’ve offered plenty of criticism on the New York Times in the past, but occasionally the paper does deserve some credit. No other major paper or news source has covered the Sudan crisis as thoroughly as the Times.

The Sudanese government has permitted a band of Arab henchman to carry out a genocide in Darfur in the southern region, and the U.N. and the world community have turned their backs. The Times had a picture similar to this on its front page:

Today there were more stunning developments, as Sudan won reelection to the U.N. Human Rights Committee. I’m speechless (then again, with the U.N.’s record, maybe it shouldn’t be so surprised.)

And the U.S. walks out. Read this article:

'"Sichan Siv, the U.S. delegate to the council, accused Sudan of having no right to sit on the rights commission because of ethnic cleansing in Darfur where government troops are accused of backing Arab militia which pillage black Africa villages, raping and killing. The Khartoum government denies it is involved in ethnic cleansing.

'"The United States will not participate in this absurdity,'' said Siv before briefly walking out of council chambers. "Our delegation will absent itself from the meeting rather than lend support to Sudan's candidacy.'''

Sadr

2004-05-05T00:07:00.000-04:00

Moqtada al-Sadr has been a dreadful nuisance for the U.S.-led coalition in recent weeks. Before he burst onto the scene back in April, few Americans knew about this man and his heritage. If you’d like to learn more about him, read this impressive profile by the Christian Science Monitor.

On April 24, the New York Times reported that Sadr was holed up in Najaf with some unhappy neighbors. According to the piece:

“But the soldiers he denounced were not Americans but members of the ragtag Shiite militia known as the Mahdi Army. Dozens of them, bristling with Kalashnikovs and grenade belts, surrounded the shrine even as Mr. Kubanchi spoke.

“They and their young spiritual leader, Moktada al-Sadr, had brought their war with the Americans to Najaf nearly three weeks ago, when they retreated here after a short-lived revolt against the occupation forces. More than 2,500 American soldiers have encircled the city in an attempt to flush out Mr. Sadr -- and the residents here are caught in the middle.

“''It's not brave to take refuge in the house or the mosque or the markets and use women and children as human shields,'' Mr. Kubanchi said of the Mahdi Army. ''They are people who are trying to cheat you, and they are people from the regime of Saddam Hussein, former intelligence officers. They want to drag you into battle to be destroyed. If that happens, the soldiers will attack Najaf, and our enemies will happily see our blood flow.''

“The standoff in Najaf has turned into a showdown between the clerics of the city and Mr. Sadr, as the religious and tribal leaders here try to nudge their unwanted neighbor out of town.”

Sadr’s neighbors have now had enough. Reuters says that some Shiite leaders are speaking out, voicing their criticisms of Sadr’s tactics. From Reuters:

“Iraqi Shi'ite political leaders called on Moqtada al-Sadr to disarm on Tuesday and vowed to forge a domestic solution to the brewing crisis involving the anti-U.S. cleric and the country's holiest cities.

“The move is the first collective effort by Sadr's political rivals to try to avoid further violence in Najaf and Kerbala, and regain political ground lost to the firebrand cleric, whose nationalist brand of Islam has gained him support.

‘"It is a shame to ask the occupation forces to solve this problem," Shi'ite leader Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum told a meeting of Shi'ite parties, including those on the Governing Council.”

I’d guess that this is part of the fall-out from those disastrous and devastating prison photos. The U.S. coalition is now launching a major overhaul its PR image. In addition to releasing hundreds of detainees from prison, the CPA is probably encouraging Shiite clerics to assume more control. Who knows, this may bring some sort of resolution.

Al Franken's Competitors

2004-05-04T20:57:00.000-04:00

It’s well known by now that Air America Radio has had some trouble paying its bills. Yes, the liberal news market hasn’t fully developed.

But that hasn’t stopped two well-known Democrats from entering the worlds of journalism and commentary.

Dean is in Hollywood this week, talking with Paramount Domestic Television. It’s rumored that he may get his own show.

And today, Gore announced that he had bought Newsworld International. He hopes “to build youth-oriented cable television network he hopes will become an independent voice in a media industry dominated by large conglomerates.”

Who knows. There’s still hope for liberal media.

Chickenhawk

2004-05-04T20:47:00.000-04:00

It’s old news, but I get a kick out of the picture.

Links

2004-05-04T20:42:00.000-04:00

Here are two useful sites I’ve found.

1. NGOWatch: A site that monitors non-government organizations. It looks good, but beware: it’s “a project of The American Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society.”

2. MilitaryCity.com: A memorial to those killed in Iraq.

Cheney and the Draft

2004-05-04T20:31:00.000-04:00

The Times takes a look at Cheney’s neglected deferment history. This excerpt is unbelievable:

“On Oct. 6, 1965, the Selective Service lifted its ban against drafting married men who had no children. Nine months and two days later, Mr. Cheney's first daughter, Elizabeth, was born. On Jan. 19, 1966, when his wife was about 10 weeks pregnant, Mr. Cheney applied for 3-A status, the "hardship" exemption, which excluded men with children or dependent parents. It was granted.”

Read the rest of the piece to find out how Cheney secured the other four deferments (“Five deferments [in total] seems incredible to me," said David Curry, a professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who has written extensively about the draft…” )

Conservatives for Kerry

2004-05-04T20:10:00.000-04:00

While liberal pundits have been shouting and screaming over the Kerry campaign, two conservative have come out and said, "Kerry is on task" (or Bush is off task). David Brooks wrote an excellent piece for yesterday’s Times. I would agree with nearly everything he said, except for the line “Nobody is passionate about John Kerry.”

Democrats, though, will have their confidence restored with Brooks' message: the Kerry campaign is realigning itself for the general election. Part of that means taking on a more moderate and centrist tone. It also means listening to both the liberals and moderates within the party.

"They should relax. John Kerry is doing exactly what he should be doing right now. He is in a post-primary molting season. He's emerging from the shadow of Howard Dean and becoming more like the policy twin of Joe Lieberman: a pro-trade, fiscally conservative centrist Democrat who is willing to pour more troops into Iraq to win the war.

"If Kerry had charged ahead with a primary-season message, he would have come out as the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He would have still been wailing about Benedict Arnold C.E.O.'s and Iraq's descent into a new Vietnam. He would have stressed the evils of globalization, and blamed the Bush administration for exaggerating the terror threat to stoke a climate of fear.

"That's a one-way ticket to McGovernsville. Even liberals know liberalism doesn't win general elections; that's why they decided not to nominate Dean in the first place. So Kerry is absolutely correct to take some time off, retool the message and play the quadrennial game that smart nominees play: Shaft the Left.

…

"Kerry now insists he is not "a redistributionist Democrat." He flees from the word "liberal." He is quick to mention his support for the Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing bill. His Clintonesque "Contract With the Middle Class" speech last week was straight out of the gospel of the Democratic Leadership Council. His speech on Iraq on Friday, while a tad vacuous, sounded more like a Bush speech than a Ted Kennedy speech.

…

"Nor is the process over. Compared with the Gore effort, this is a pretty inclusive campaign. The Kerry people take input from all wings of the Washington Democratic establishment. And all the factions recognize that Kerry can't just present a laundry list of policies. He has to come up with a narrative in which he casts himself as an Andrew Jackson-style populist reformer, incorporating the policies of the center with the anti-plutocrat language of the left. That's what the big brains are working on now."

Then today, in the Washington Post, George Will offered some advice to the Bush team: start “seeing the realities of Iraq.” Will takes the campaign to task for the mindless comments on skin color and democracy, and says Bush better develop a more sophisticated and insightful understanding of Iraq:

‘“That is one way to respond to questions about the wisdom of thinking America can transform the entire Middle East by constructing a liberal democracy in Iraq. But if any Americans want to be governed by politicians who short-circuit complex discussions by recklessly imputing racism to those who differ with them, such Americans do not usually turn to the Republican choice in our two-party system.

“This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).

“Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color.

…

“Ron Chernow's magnificent new biography of Alexander Hamilton begins with these of his subject's words: "I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be." That is the core of conservatism.

“Traditional conservatism. Nothing "neo" about it. This administration needs a dose of conservatism without the prefix.”

This is similar to what I said yesterday in regards to the no-apology policy; if Bush has any hopes of winning reelection, he better work on restoring his credibility.

And The Award Goes To Kofi Annan..

2004-05-03T23:09:00.000-04:00

What are U.N. ambassadors discussing these days? The oil-for-food scandal? The upcoming transition in Iraq? The Sudan crisis?

No, they’re trying to get their acting careers off the ground. It seems some ambassadors are upset that they’ve excluded from the upcoming Sydney Pollock-Nicole Kidman-Sean Penn film, which is set at the UN.

From the BBC:

“Jordan's UN ambassador, Prince Zeid Al Hussein, said: "It's a great shame we weren't allowed to have bit parts in this movie because we're very familiar with the setting.

‘"We're very familiar with the work of interpreters... and we feel well attuned to do that sort of thing."

“Mr Arias added: "My opportunity to have a nomination for the Oscar next year went away because of some stupid regulation."’

I hope he’s joking.

Veeps

2004-05-03T22:45:00.000-04:00

Why do I do this? Everyday I post another update on the Veeps race. I know, as does everyone else, that it’s pointless to speculate on the contest. When the candidate is announced a week or two before the convention, most people--even the pundits--will be surprised by Kerry’s choice. Who would have guessed that Gore would choose an Orthodox Jew for a New England state? With Clinton, it was a risk to have two, young Southerners on the same ticket. And Cheney couldn’t offer a state saturated with electoral votes. So why shouldn’t we expect another unlikely candidate this year?

Fine. Now that we know it’s all fun and games, why not speculate a bit? My NCAA picks went out the window after the first weekend; maybe I’ll have better luck with CNN’s VP bracket.

And Robert Novak made the case today for Sen. Biden, who, over the past year, has made himself into a high-profile Democrat with a respectable foreign relations background. I still don’t know why he didn’t run for the No.1 job.

The Apology

2004-05-03T22:03:00.000-04:00

So much has already been said about the Bush non-apology policy. That wave of interest probably reached a peak the night of President Bush’s press conference, when a number of journalists asked Bush to comment on his earlier mistakes. Of course, Bush stonewalled them, saying his presidency had a spotless record.

Nothing infuriates me more about the Bush administration than this policy of non-apology. It’s blatant intellectual dishonesty. It reminds me of Bush’s history on certain scientific and environmental issues: the administration will distort facts to the benfit of its own policies. Honesty and integrity will always be sacrificed for some political gain (though, in the case of the non-apology, the gain is marginal, if not nonexistent).

Jacob Levy in TNR summaries it best when he says: “Why is the administration's non-apologetic line so disastrous? In part because taking responsibility would strengthen its hand considerably. The White House has lost credibility in Iraq as well as with the American public about its seriousness in the project of stabilizing the occupied country. That loss of credibility is now spiraling.”

A presidency can longer survive once it loses its credibility. And slowly but surely, the American public is waking up to the fact that Bush's credibility gap has turned into a credibility canyon.

On the subject of political apologies, read John Leo’s piece in the Daily News. He describes the types of apologies employed by politicians. There's the misdirection conditional (Sen. Dodd), the accusatory nonconditional (Richard Clarke), and so on. It’s a very intelligent piece.

Buffet Joins Kerry Team

2004-05-03T12:26:00.000-04:00

You may remember that Warren Buffett advised Arnold Schwarzenegger on economic matters during Schwarzenegger’s run for the governorship. It worked for the Terminator, and now Buffet is advising Kerry. It’s a good move for the Kerry camp.

Africa Update

2004-05-03T11:45:00.000-04:00

I promised last month to provide a weekly summary of the news from Africa, and by now, the second installment is long overdue. As you’d expect, there’s much to report.

1. Nigeria: Tensions between Nigerian Muslims and Christians have been on the rise for the past few weeks. On Friday, Reuters reported that more than 100 people were killed and 1,000 injured in clashes between rival tribes. Also last week, the northern Nigerian state of Zamfara installed Sharia as state law. And today the BBC says the police broke up opposition protests that were scheduled in Lagos and Abuja.

2. Tanzania: Police arrest and question a militant Islamic cleric on his involvement with various arson and bombing incidents.

3. Uganda: Civil war continues to plague northern Uganda.

4. South Africa: Last month, the A.N.C. increased its presence within the South African government. Just days after the election, a whites-only enclave, Orania, started issuing its own currency. The act can only be interpreted as a move towards self-governance and independence. And Salon asks us to "Meet the Buppies,” South Africa’s new black elite.

5. Sudan: Amnesty International says fighting continues in the Darfur region, despite the April 8 ceasefire agreement.

Condi Update

2004-05-03T11:15:00.000-04:00

Last week I posted on Condi’s recent slip at a dinner party (‘"As I was telling my husb—" before abruptly breaking off and correcting herself: "As I was telling President Bush."’). Laura Kipnis at Slate gives a more in-depth look at the incident, and explains how it relates to today's scandal-driven media:

“If the media get whipped up when politicians make slips of the tongue, lining up to play the interpretation game, it's like co-dependents handing a corkscrew to an alcoholic: a form of complicity. Bush and Rice assure us that we're winning the war as the body count mounts, the administration vastly expands presidential power and executive secrecy, and the press keeps busy parsing sentences and monitoring slips, including jumping all over Bush for stumbling on the dumb press conference question about his "biggest mistake" since 9/11. As if there were one mistake that could be singled out?”

WHCD

2004-05-03T10:52:00.000-04:00

Leno missed some and hit some at Saturday’s White House correspondents’ dinner. But that’s as far as I got. CSPAN’s coverage only showed the dinner itself, and all the action apparently takes place later in the night at the Bloomberg after party. I was told that my invitation was lost in the mail. Here’s the Times’ summary:

“The Bloomberg party is where C-Span meets "Access Hollywood" to create a nerdier stepsister of Vanity Fair's Oscar fete. (Celebrities expected to appear this year include Drew Barrymore, Anna Kournikova and Drew Carey, though not Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York, who as a public official is now significantly distanced from the company he founded, Bloomberg L.P.) It's the most desired ticket in a town where other much-sought invitations include those to Alan Greenspan's Fourth of July rooftop bash and the White House Easter Egg Roll.

…

“Bloomberg extends only 700 invitations, which, when all is said and done, inflate to 1,000 guests. Those automatically included are senior White House officials, top political appointees and the members of Congress who are expected to be at the dinner. After that, it becomes a capricious free-for-all that leaves some of Washington's most recognized names stranded on the sidelines.

“The groveling e-mail, cajoling voice mail messages and gift baskets start flowing from Capitol Hill and from newsrooms weeks in advance. Their destination: anyone who has an association with Bloomberg, even friends of people who once worked for Bloomberg.”

Kerry Biking

2004-05-03T10:30:00.000-04:00

Kerry falls off his bike. A metaphor for his campaign? He left uninjured, so that’s a good sign.

Edwards

2004-05-02T23:53:00.000-04:00

Bob Edwards, you’ll be missed. For years and years, I listened to Morning Edition as I got ready for school. I have too may fond memories to select just one.

Scammer Update

2004-05-02T23:32:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I linked to a site that has one man’s correspondences with a group of Nigerian con-artists. Having read those emails, I was shocked to read this story: a Harvard professor fell for the scam. The guy not only destroyed himself, but he lost savings given to him by co-workers. The co-workers put up the money, thinking it was going to a SARS charity. Read this story; it’s unbelievable.

"Former Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researcher and Harvard University professor Weldong Xu, 38, was contacted by the lads from Lagos and promised $50m in quick profit.

"We assume that the usual "unforseen expenses" scenario soon kicked in, since Xu began to solicit funds for his philanthropic far-eastern venture.

"Among the 35 individuals who fell for the scam was a friend who remortgaged his house to support Xu's initiative. Boston police detective Steve Blair noted: "These are co-workers who trusted him and believed in him and took him for his word."'

RoveHos

2004-05-02T23:22:00.000-04:00

For all those Karl Rove fans out there, here’s the site for you.

Brock

2004-05-02T23:05:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reports that David Brock “will start a new Internet site this week that he says will monitor the conservative media and correct erroneous assertions in real times.” (Sounds like the Center for American Progress’ “Claim vs. Fact” database.) The project is funded with $2 million given in donations to Brock by liberals contributors.

If you’ve forgotten Brock's career as a conservative, Clinton basher turned vengeful Democrat, read these pieces: David Horowitz’s “Believe David Brock at your own risk” and Christopher Hitchens' "The Real Dvid Brock."

The Veep Race

2004-05-02T21:18:00.000-04:00

Larry Sabato with the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia gives his views on the strongest candidates for Kerry’s VP slot. The Sabato analysis seems sound: look at the few battleground states, look at which candidates would bring his (yes, most of them are men) battleground state into the Kerry camp, and look at which states mean the most for Kerry’s electoral count.

Till now, I’ve said both Sen. Evan Bayh and Gov. Bill Richardson would make good picks, and both men do make Sabato’s list. Also top candidates, according to Sabato, are John Breaux, Dick Gephardt, Jay Rockefeller, and Sam Nunn as a wild card choice.

Here’s his reasoning:

“Sophisticated polling is needed to determine which ones have the best chance to guarantee a Kerry victory in their states. Richardson is a sure bet for New Mexico, but the prize is small and would likely go Democratic anyway. Could he also carry Arizona? Jay Rockefeller, we'd bet, could tip West Virginia to Kerry. John Breaux in Louisiana and Evan Bayh in Indiana have tougher tasks in their very pro-Bush states--but what a prize either state would be! How would Bush recover? Dick Gephardt has never run statewide in a Missouri election, so Kerry would be right to demand some Show-Me evidence that the congressman could perform the trick. If Gephardt can pass the test, he would be golden for this ticket.

“The wild card would make for a fascinating race in the Peach State. At one time the king of Georgia's political mountain, Nunn has been out of the news since leaving the Senate in early 1997. Does he still have the old magic? Could he force Bush to spend real money in a dark-Red state? Would his encyclopedic knowledge of foreign and domestic policy--not to mention the national security issue--outweigh his vote against the 1991 Persian Gulf War (reinforcing Kerry's own anti-war vote)?

“So many questions, so little time for the Kerry campaign to answer. Yet the choice of Kerry's VEEP is more critical than many would concede. It will significantly help to fill in the many blank spaces Americans have in their portrait of the Democrat who would be President.”

Bush Likes To Eat Mints While Naked?

2004-05-02T20:55:00.000-04:00

Bush, the mint lover? Bush, the naked debater? Two separate pieces I read this weekend described Bush in those situations.

First, the New Republic retells a portion of the Woodward book, in which Bush hordes the mints placed out before a meeting of the Joint Chiefs. You’ll get a chuckle when they compare Bush to Homer Simpson.

Then today the Times gave a summary of a supposed debate that took place between Kerry and Bush in the locker room at Yale. The debate was over “busing,” but it’s unclear what sort of busing they were discussing: busing children to wealthier school districts or the Freedom Rides. The real question though is whether they were naked or not, according to the Times.

Corzine

2004-05-02T20:22:00.000-04:00

Sen. Corzine got a favorable job assessment in today’s Times. No longer is he the man who bought his way into the U.S. Senate. Now he’s the man bringing in the money for the Senate’s Democrats.

The piece also teased Democrats with a beautiful yet delusional vision: a Senate in the hands of Democrats:

“[Corzine] got the job for a simple reason, said Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader: nobody else asked for it.

"That was in December 2002 when, Mr. Daschle said, "the prospects for success looked less than encouraging." But the party has gotten some lucky breaks. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Republican of Colorado, unexpectedly decided to retire. Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, faces a tough primary challenge. And the Democrats have recruited strong candidates in unlikely states, like South Carolina.

"Some independent experts now say the idea of a Democratic Senate, while still a long shot, is no longer so far-fetched.

'"I would say right now Republican chances of holding onto the Senate have dropped from 80 to 90 percent to, say, 60 percent," said Charlie Cook, publisher of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "Five or six months ago, you might have said, `Corzine, he's working hard, but he got dealt a bad hand of cards.' But he's got to have a real spring in his step today."

"Mr. Corzine, 57, does not have a spring in his step; he has been hobbling around on crutches, plagued by what his doctors say is an old football injury or gout. But he has been relentlessly cheery about Democratic prospects, telling contributors that if the election were today, the Senate would be 52-to-48 Democratic. Republicans call it fuzzy math, especially in light of Senator Arlen Specter's victory in Pennsylvania's Republican primary this week."

Kerry Hysteria

2004-05-02T20:06:00.000-04:00

This Sunday, the hysteria over the Kerry campaign finally reached the front page of the New York Times. The piece raised the same issues and asked the same questions we’ve heard time and time again: where's Kerry? why hasn’t he set his campaign message yet? and why doesn’t he counter Bush’s attacks with stronger responses?

Not to worry, I say. The report briefly discusses the view advanced by some calmer Democrats:

“Mr. Kerry's aides and some Democrats outside the campaign described the concerns as overstated, and said that any drift that might be taking place now would have little meaning next fall. They said Mr. Kerry had used the spring to raise money and that a war room and offices in Ohio and other battleground states would open shortly. And they noted that independent organizations had picked up a lot of the slack so far with big expenditures on television advertising and get-out-the-vote operations.
"This campaign has got six months to go," said Steve Elmendorf, a deputy campaign manager. "He goes out daily and talks about his vision for the country and his vision for the future. You have to take the long view here. You're not going to win every day, and you're not going to win every week."

“Mr. Elmendorf added, "I know people are feeling anxious timing-wise, but you have to build a national campaign."

“Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said Mr. Kerry was "doing better than he's perceived to be doing," adding, "He's starting to get his sea legs."

‘"I'm not worried — I really am not," Mr. Biden said. "Democrats are so, so, so hungry to defeat Bush that they get so up when things look up and get so down when things look down."’

Ryan Lizza in the New Republic offers an excellent analysis of the Kerry strategy. Kerry is taking the heat now with the belief that the Bush’s message and resources will wear out later. This will ultimately allow Kerry to offer a move effective message late in the campaign. Hence, the Rope-a-dope. It’s a reckless move, buy the strategy could pay off.

From Lizza's "Rope-a-dope":

“But, whatever the explanation, the Kerry strategy may not be so bizarre. Indeed, after absorbing the full brunt of Bush's most concentrated attack for eight weeks, the race is essentially tied. And that is before Kerry has really started to return his fire. When I asked one of Kerry's most influential advisers about the criticism of the campaign's decision to lay low through March and April, he sharply dismissed the complaints and pointed out that just because Kerry has been almost invisible over the last eight weeks doesn't mean the campaign hasn't been doing anything. He pointed to the Iowa caucuses, where the campaign quietly laid the groundwork for victory even as the press dismissed Kerry as a goner and hinted at a similar effort this time around. "I'm not paying attention to you guys anymore," he said.

“So what has Kerry been doing in the weeks since clinching the nomination? Raising money--more money than any presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, has ever raised in a single quarter. While Bush burned through over $50 million in the last two months, almost one-third of the total he has raised, Kerry banked $55 million.

“The Bush strategy was to use the ad blitz to put the race away by the end of April. But Kerry's money has exposed several flaws in the Bush campaign's assumptions about the race. First of all, the White House originally assumed that a bloody Democratic primary would force the eventual nominee to spend so much money that he would be hemmed in by restrictive spending caps that come with taking federal dollars. But, following Howard Dean's lead, Kerry opted out of that system and its rules for the primaries.

“More important, the White House assumed the Democratic nominee would simply have no money to spend. But, within 48 hours of Super Tuesday, March 2, Kerry raised $4.6 million online. The money never stopped pouring in. Kerry raised $42.8 million in March alone, fueled by 200,000 individual online donations. "That allowed us to bridge the gap as we got into the traditional fund-raising," says Michael Meehan, a senior Kerry aide. On March 29, Kerry pivoted to wealthier donors and embarked on a monthlong fund-raising tour to hit up $2,000-check-writers in 20 cities. As Tad Devine, a senior Kerry strategist, pointed out in an April 21 call with reporters, Al Gore had just $9 million to spend from Super Tuesday to the convention. John Kerry will have about $100 million.”

Gaddis Book

2004-05-02T15:14:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, I bought a copy of John Gaddis’ new book, titled Surprise, Security and the American Experience, and since then I’ve been reading it alongside Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. There’s no real connection between the two, but both are great works. For the Gaddis book, read this Commentary review.

Gaddis argues that Bush’s policies of unilateralism, preemption and hegemony are not new trends within American foreign policy, but they’ve in fact been the dominant forces in shaping America’s relations with the rest of the world for centuries. Most of his argument is based on his rendition of the history and effect of unexpected invasions on America soil (British invasion of Washington in August, 1814 and Pearl Harbor). His points are intriguing and convincing. I’d highly recommend reading this book.

Need a New Pair?

2004-04-30T12:25:00.000-04:00

If you want the shoes, go to ebay.

The reviews are in, and plenty of people are unhappy with the flag. Either it’s too Israeli (the white and blue) or it’s not Arabic enough (where’s the red, black and green?).

Iraq At a Glace gives a positive look:

“As you know, the white color represents the peace, the two blue stripes represent Tigris and Euphrates, the yellow strip for the Kurds ( according to the color of the star on the Kurds’ flag), and the blue crescent represents Islam, I like the idea of the crescent, not because of what it represents, but you know there’ll be some people crying for the ‘God is greatest’ statement which was on the old flag, so this crescent will do the work!

“The flag is fine, at least this is the first step to get rid of Arabic thoughts of battles, revenge and other useless things, as in a poem that describes the old Iraq flag, the poet enthusiastically wrote about the red color on the flag that represents the BLOOD and sacrifices, the black color for the enemies’ lands that would be turned to DARK and gloomy lands ( power and ability to fight any enemy), the green is the color of the beautiful Arabic lands and the white as they’d make peace with those who want peace.”

For a summary of the blog community’s reaction to this week’s Iraq news, go to Soundfury.

Manneken Pis

2004-04-30T11:53:00.000-04:00

Cute little fella. From AFP, "Brussels' landmark statue Manneken Pis is dressed up as former President of South-Africa Nelson Mandela."

The Kerry Malaise

2004-04-30T00:30:00.000-04:00

Democrats are freaking out over Kerry’s inability to respond to the Bush onslaught. Mickey Kaus cites Broder, Ridgeway, Anson, Cohen, and Tina.

But, as I’ve said before, the hysteria is completely unwarranted. Yes, Kerry is screwing up. Critics rightly blame him for bungling his counter-attacks and “failing to connect.” But haven’t we heard this before? Remember Weld in ’96? And it’s astonishing that the press has forgotten the Kerry of four months ago, a Kerry that had completely bottomed out in the Iowa polls.

Nonetheless he always manages to come through in the end, inspiring a last-minute reconsideration among uncommitted voters. Why should we expect anything else?

Also, look at the vast gap between Kerry’s campaign resources and Bush’s. Kos points out:

“Kerry has reached his 2004 fundraising goal of $80 million from 400,000 contributors. The campaign has now set a new goal of $100 million, a goal they should easily surpass (he raised $42.8 million in March alone).

“On March 1, Bush had $110 million cash-on-hand, while Kerry had $2 million. Things have been looking up ever since.”

With the media blitz that Bush has launched on Kerry, it’s surprising that Kerry’s poll numbers have remained mostly unaffected. The ads would lead you to believe that Kerry is Satan’s cousin, but so far, voters haven’t bought it. And soon, Kerry will have the money to deliver the counter-punch.

Hughes Update

2004-04-29T23:56:00.000-04:00

Hughes’ appearance on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer was the source for two of this week’s most heated controversies. We’ve all heard plenty about the medals and ribbons scandal. The Kerry team cites Hughes as a one of the earliest supporters of Medal-gate. From the Washington Post:

“Stephanie Cutter, Kerry's communications director, said she believes the Bush campaign orchestrated the story, noting that former presidential counselor Karen Hughes raised the issue of Kerry and his medals Sunday on CNN and that within an hour two news organizations called her about the subject. "Things like this don't happen by coincidence," Cutter said. Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt responded that the Kerry controversy "is of his own making."’

Now Planned Parenthood is launching a full-scale assault on Karen Hughes. The organization is upset that Hughes “equated pro-choice advocates to terrorists in her attempt to defend President George W. Bush’s anti-choice policies.” They’ve started a petition and letter writing campaign, asking the spokeswoman to apologize for her comments.

All of this controversy from the woman who crafts the president’s message? The force who supposedly brought the soccer moms into the Bush camp? Maybe she has lost her touch.

If you read this site regularly, you may have noticed that I truly dislike this woman. I’m not surprised that she has caused such acrimony.

The Sinclair Case

2004-04-29T23:31:00.000-04:00

For anyone wondering why the proposed changes to the FCC media ownership regulations are so dangerous, look at the Sinclair case.

“Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. ordered its ABC affiliates to preempt tomorrow's broadcast of ``Nightline,'' which will air the names and photos of U.S. military personnel who have died in combat in Iraq, saying the move is politically motivated.”

For more, go to Atrios.

Spammers

2004-04-29T23:16:00.000-04:00

My favorite piece of spam mail has always been the wealthy Nigerian offering millions of dollars. All I'd have to do is chip in a bit and assist with some banking transactions. I’ve always wondering who the other person is on the other side of that email. Anyway, one man posted his exchanges with the scammers. Brilliant.

Freeways

2004-04-29T12:34:00.000-04:00

and

and finally

Visit FreewayBlogger. Here are some of my favorites.

Today's News

2004-04-29T12:01:00.000-04:00

Some interesting items:

1. The Kerry campaign is criticized for the low representation of minorities among the top position.

2. Sisyphus has found at job at the Center for American Progress, where they’ve formed a “Claim vs. Fact” database “to chart the dishonesty and lies of conservatives.” They ask, “If we're missing a lie or distortion you know of, please submit an entry. If it checks out, we will gladly add it to the database.”

3. Moviegoers will want to check out this summer’s preview list.

4. The next two come from Andrew Sullivan. First, the new Hamlet in London has received rave reviews. And an unknown 23-year old makes a name for himself. Here’s an excerpt:

“This is the kind of evening of which legends are made, one of those rare first nights that those who were present are never likely to forget.

“No theatre has boasted a more illustrious line-up of Hamlets than the Old Vic, among them Gielgud, Olivier, Burton, Guinness, Redgrave, O'Toole and Jacobi.

“Last night, 23-year-old Ben Whishaw spectacularly earned his place in such distinguished company.

“Ben who?, you may well be asking, and you would be entirely within your rights to do so. Whishaw only left RADA last year and was last seen playing bit parts in the National Theatre's Christmas production of His Dark Materials.

...

“Nunn's daring modern dress production works superbly. Hamlet's youth is mentioned repeatedly in the play, and he has interrupted his studies at university to attend his father's funeral and his mother's "o'erhasty" remarriage to his uncle.

“Whishaw, with his light, tremulous voice, painfully thin body, and the kind of cheekbones that will have adolescent girls swooning in the stalls, presents the most raw and vulnerable Hamlet I have ever seen.

“He has all the gangliness of adolescence and the unbearable pain of a once bright and happy scholar who returns home to find that his family has imploded and nothing makes sense any more.

“No wonder that this inadequate prince finds it so hard to revenge. Whishaw brilliantly captures an adolescent deep in the depths of clinical depression, whose feigned madness sometimes slips terrifyingly into the real thing.

“Yet he is also the most lovable of Hamlets. During the soliloquies he genuinely seems to be confiding in us, the audience, with a rare, bruised candour that catches the heart.”

5. An article on blogs as pamphleteering. It even mentions one of my favorites: Theodore White. His book Making of the President 1960 is a must-read. “Theodore H. White grew so close to John F. Kennedy that he ended up writing campaign speeches for the Democratic nominee even as he reported The Making of the President 1960. Somewhere out there in the infinite spaces of the Internet floats a site called bloggingofthepresident.com, whose homepage declares: "The Blogging of the President (or BOP) is dedicated to the great writer Theodore H. White, whose documentary series of books, The Making of the President, inspired generations of journalists.... We believe that the story of how America chooses its leader is fundamental to how America conceives of itself, and something about this story changed in 2004. Somehow, HTML and 'blogs' are now pillars of the republic; indeed, a whole new way of doing politics seems emergent and potentially dominant."

It continues:

“The entries, sometimes updated hourly, are little spasms of assertion, usually too brief for an argument ever to stand a chance of developing layers of meaning or ramifying into qualification and complication. There's a constant sense that someone (almost always the blogger) is winning and someone else is losing. Everything that happens in the blogosphere — every point, rebuttal, gloat, jeer, or "fisk" (dismemberment of a piece of text with close analytical reading) — is a knockout punch. A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. They are also nearly without exception men (this form of combat seems too naked for more than a very few women). I imagine them in neat blue shirts, the glow from the screen reflected in their glasses as they sit up at 3:48 a.m. triumphantly tapping out their third rejoinder to the WaPo's press commentary on Tim Russert's on-air recap of the Wisconsin primary.

“All of this meta-comment by very bright young men who never leave their rooms is the latest, somewhat debased, manifestation of the old art of political pamphleteering, a lost form in this country through much of the 20th century. The modern American idea of journalism as objectivity, with news and editorial pages strictly separated, emerged in the Progressive Era with books like Walter Lippmann's classic Public Opinion. For most of the last century, this idea anointed political journalists as a mandarin class of insiders with serious responsibilities; access was everything. At some point during the Reagan years, this mandarinate lost interest in politics as a contest of beliefs and policies with some bearing on the experience of people unlike themselves. Instead, elite Washington reporters turned their coverage into an account of a closed system, an intricate process, in which perceptions were the only real things and the journalists themselves were intimately involved. The machinations of Michael Deaver and Roger Ailes, followed by Lee Atwater and James Carville, became the central drama. We've grown so familiar with this approach that today you can open the New York Times and be unsurprised to find its chief political correspondent, Adam Nagourney, writing about polls and campaign strategies day after day.

“Blogs came along to feed off this fascination with the interior mechanics of politics. Many bloggers emerged from the ranks of the press itself; unlike the elite press corps, though, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can blog. This is potentially the most radical innovation of the form: It opens up political journalism to a vast marketplace of competitors, reminiscent of earlier ages of pamphleteering.”

Found

2004-04-28T13:06:00.000-04:00

Visit this site. As it says, Found Magazine collects “Found stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills” and so on. You’ll see some fascinating stuff there.

Also, you can buy the book here.

Understanding Arab Anti-Americanism

2004-04-28T12:58:00.000-04:00

In Fog of War, Robert McNamera explains the importance in understanding the enemy. It’s 30 years after McNamera’s time, but his advice is still pertinent. Read this outstanding article on Slate.

The Asian Male Boom

2004-04-28T12:32:00.000-04:00

No matter how simplistic the argument is, Bill Maher may be onto something when he says al Qaeda is just a bunch of guys desperate for women and sex. Michelle Tsai sent me this interesting article, “A Dangerous Surplus of Sons?,” that makes the same point from a different angle.

“In a new book, Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population (MIT Press), Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer warn that the spread of sex selection is giving rise to a generation of restless young men who will not find mates. History, biology, and sociology all suggest that these "surplus males" will generate high levels of crime and social disorder, the authors say. Even worse, they continue, is the possibility that the governments of India and China will build up huge armies in order to provide a safety valve for the young men's aggressive energies.

’"In 2020 it may seem to China that it would be worth it to have a very bloody battle in which a lot of their young men could die in some glorious cause," says Ms. Hudson, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University.”

Some Middle East experts and sociologist blame the current troubles in the Middle East on a demographic disorder. Many countries in the region (Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are the cases I’m most familiar with) have very, very large populations of young, uneducated men who are desperate to improve their lives. Jobs are scarce, and without the means to support a family, unemployed men have a difficult time finding wives. (Polygamy also drains the pool of available brides.) No man in this condition would be able to turn down the promise of a harem.

Could this be Asia’s fate?

Related Note:

For a while, I’ve said that China's one-child policy would produce disastrous effects in the coming decades. Imagine what will happen once that generation—a generation of only children—grows up and assumes control in China. Imagine their diplomatic behavior. Now that’s frightening.

Today's News

2004-04-28T11:06:00.000-04:00

Here are the must-reads for the day:

1. Watch “Nightline” this Friday. Koppel will “dedicate [the] entire broadcast to a reading of the names of American servicemen and women killed in action in Iraq.”

2. VP speculation is back, and Altercation says Gephardt is a safe choice. The L.A. Times also gives a roundup of the rumors. Should Kerry announce his VP choice sooner rather than later? Some say it would be helpful to have another voice deflecting the Bush/Cheney onslaught. I say, don’t waste the political capital. It’s early in the race and he’ll want the momentum of a VP candidate going into the convention.

3. Kerry’s Chief of Stuff. An interesting look at the man behind man.

4. And the Specter/Toomey race finished with moderate Specter winning out over conservative Toomey. “Specter had 51 percent (524,020 votes) and Toomey had 49 percent (507,777), with 99 percent of precincts reporting.“ Though it was a tight race for Specter, he knows as well as every other politician that a win is a win. MyDD explains why Toomey lost.

5. A Homeless NYU student finally gets housing.

6. The Secret Service questions a high school student in Prosser, Washington on his anti-war drawings.

7. Protestors plan a Trojan Horse for the Republican convention.

Conservativs for Kerry

2004-04-27T23:53:00.000-04:00

Here’s an interesting argument for why conservatives should vote for Kerry: a balance in government restricts federal spending, and considering that Congress is a Republican stronghold, the White House should be handed over to the Democrats.

Specter/Toomey

2004-04-27T21:07:00.000-04:00

I’ve been meaning to comment on the Specter/ Toomey race for weeks. It has been hyped as the most important election of the year, other than November 2. For those who don’t know, here’s a summary:

Sen. Arlen Specter, a leading Republican moderate, has been fighting a surprisingly tough primary battle against Rep. Pat Toomey, who is a conservative’s conservative. Specter, of course, has all the resources of a four-term senator, including the money and the support of the big names in the Republican Party. However, Toomey has captured the hearts of conservatives around the country, and so far, his poll numbers have been rising steadily.

Today is primary day. I can assure you that Rove has been carefully watching this race, and Bush’s campaign message will certainly be crafted in response to the tonight’s outcome.

Drudge has this update: 33 of 9,416 precincts reporting - 0 percent. Arlen Specter, 910 - 56 percent. Pat Toomey, 720 - 44 percent

So much great material has been written on this race. Political State Report has this nice, brief analysis of the race and its possible consequences. And the New Yorker had this wonderful piece on Specter, Toomey and all forces surrounding the race. Here are some of the best sections:

"Specter holds a prized seat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and if reëlected he is in line to ascend to the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee—the sort of political real estate that should make winning renomination in a primary a cinch. But Pennsylvania’s Republican primary is “closed” (only registered party members can vote), so the contest will be decided by an especially narrow slice of the general electorate: those who care most passionately about core Republican issues. For Specter, that means having to write off as much as a third of the primary vote in advance, on account of his steadfast pro-choice stand on abortion rights. Specter is an old-style centrist, one of the last of an aging and embattled breed of Republican moderates in a party that has moved steadily to the right in recent years. To some Republicans, like Paul Weyrich, a founder of the Heritage Foundation, who is regarded as one of the godfathers of the modern conservative movement, the thought of the Judiciary committee chairmanship going to Specter—a man who helped block Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court—is a horror to be vigorously resisted...So, while the White House and Senate leaders have endorsed Specter, his challenger, a third-term congressman from the Lehigh Valley named Patrick Toomey, comes armed with the blessings and the cash of Republican grassroots activists and heavyweights—including Bork, Weyrich, Edwin Meese, and Steve Forbes—who don’t mind bucking the Bush machine in the hope of hardening the party line.

"Pat Toomey is a conservative Republican of rigorous doctrinal purity: anti-abortion, anti-taxes, anti-spending (except for defense); a fiscal hawk, appalled by big deficits, a crusader for school choice, tort reform, Social Security privatization, and a smaller federal government. Before going to Washington, he was an owner of bars and restaurants in Allentown and, before that, an investment banker in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. He is forty-two, a Catholic, the son of working-class Democrats and also a Harvard man, blond, meticulously groomed, with unnervingly white teeth and scrubbed pink skin.

"Toomey’s voting record in Congress has won him nearly perfect scores on the ideological litmus tests of the American Conservative Union, the National Taxpayers Union, and Citizens Against Government Waste. The latter organization issues an annual “Pig Book,” listing Congress’s profligate pork-barrel spenders, whose sins have multiplied madly in recent years, in large part because President Bush has never used his veto power. Arlen Specter was named “porker of the year” for 2003 in honor of his habit of signing off on appropriations bills packed with seemingly gratuitous, and often comical-sounding, federal handouts.

"Pat Toomey’s energies in Congress have been devoted almost entirely to trying to impose fiscal discipline on the federal budget. Last November, he was prominent among several dozen conservative Republican congressmen who opposed Bush’s hug Medicare-reform-and-prescription-drug bill The four-hundred-billion-dollar price tag struck Toomey as too high, besides which he didn’t trust the figures. He was proved to be prescient when the White House was accused o suppressing the real estimate, which was well over five hundred billion dollars...That opinion is shared and frequently amplified in the conservative press, particularly in William Buckley’s National Review, which last year labeled Arlen Specter “the worst Republican senator,” citing his pro-choice politics, his rejection of Bork, his refusal to vote to impeach President Clinton, and his resistance to several nominees for federal judgeships.

"In the absence of a Republican Presidential primary contest, the Toomey-Specter race, by exposing rifts in the Republican ranks, has, for better or for worse, taken on national dimensions as a struggle to define the party’s brand of conservatism. Last month, National Review ran a photograph of Toomey on its cover, declaring him “the right choice” in “a battle for the GOP’s future.” Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at the magazine, wrote that the Toomey-Specter primary was arguably “the second most important election” of 2004, and an opportunity for “conservatives who generally support President Bush but are concerned about the Republican party’s drift under his stewardship” to send the White House a message. “Criticism of Bush is often deserved, and often useful,” Ponnuru said, adding, “If you are a conservative upset about the Republican establishment’s big spending and accommodationism—especially if you’re upset enough to be thinking about boycotting Bush’s re-election—there is no excuse not to be supporting Toomey.”

Don't Count Out Kerry

2004-04-27T20:48:00.000-04:00

More and more pundits are asking, Where is John Kerry? With the crisis in Iraq and the controversies surrounding the 9/11 commission, people have expected John Kerry to speak out and criticize the administration. But he has been silent.

The Village Voice points out:

"With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party's got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can't exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.

"With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner."

Well, it continues. The media still underestimates John Kerry. He’s a candidate who consistently does poorly in the early stages of a campaign, but reemerges to squeak through with a victory (see 1996 race against Governor Weld, see Iowa caucuses). Maybe I’m just a hopeless optimist, but I see the current Kerry malaise as just another phase in the well-tested Kerry campaign cycle.

Women in Government

2004-04-27T12:11:00.000-04:00

The reports from this weekend’s women’s rights march in Washington have described the event as a smashing success. With a moderate message and inclusive attitude, the protest was the largest pro-choice rally in Washington since 1992. I didn’t go; I chose to watch it on C-SPAN.

But I didn’t hear much on women in government. On Saturday, the New York Times had an article on the A.N.C. victory in South Africa’s elections. This segment caught my eye:

'“The number of women in Parliament has risen by 10 percent, to 131, from 120. South Africa is now 11th in the global ranking of women in Parliament, coming slightly ahead of Germany, according to a women's advocacy group, Gender Links. Rwanda is No. 1, with 49 percent.

'"The next president of this country will be a woman," shouted a woman from the group dancing in the Assembly courtyard."

The full chart on women in government shows the United States coming in at 57, tied with Andorra. Europe dominates the top of the list, but plenty of non-western countries—countries that are typically associated with male-dominated societies—place higher on the list (e.g., Pakistan at 31, Uganda at 26, and Turkmenistan at 23) than the U.S.

One way to ensure that abortion rights are protected is to make sure women have a stronger voice in government. How to achieve that, I’m not sure, but there should have been more discussion on this topic in Washington this weekend.

Hughes on Blitzer

2004-04-27T11:18:00.000-04:00

Hypocrisy has reached new heights within the Bush administration. Last week the administration defended its policy over the Dover photographs by saying the soldiers’ families deserve privacy. But that’s a very different message from what the administration said a month or two earlier, when the Bush team was airing advertisements that featured flag-draped coffins from September 11.

This Sunday, Karen Hughes appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s Late Edition to promote her new book, Ten Minutes From Normal. You'll find another priceless moment of hypocrisy in the transcripts. Congrats to Blitzer for this beautiful setup.

BLITZER: All right. Let's talk about one quote that I found intriguing. There are a lot of quotes intriguing, but this one I thought was important. "I worry that the obsessive interest in a candidate's past prevents too many good people from running for public office."

And I raise that issue because of all of the look-back, right now, of John Kerry's past, going back to the Vietnam War and his behavior after he returned from Vietnam.

Are we taking too much -- going back too far into Senator Kerry's past?

HUGHES: Well, let me divide that into two parts, because, first of all, I do worry about that. I remember, during our own campaign, there was all kinds of gossip and innuendoes and rumors, and many of them were reported, and they were put on the Internet, and then the mainstream media thinks they have to pick them up. And I think that's very troubling to people. It's almost as if you have to disprove a negative, rather than -- a candidate has to disprove a negative, rather than someone has to come forward and make a charge against the candidate. And I worry that does prevent good people from entering the democratic process.

And, after all, our democracy is only as good as the people who agree to step up and run for office. And I think they deserve a little more respect from all of us, because it's very hard to run for office these days. It's a very negative environment. It's a very hostile environment. And the critics are quite critical. They bandy about words like "liars" and "crooked," and, as Senator Kerry has already said about President Bush, which again I think is just beyond the pale. It's not the kind of thing that should take place in our national discourse.

Now, let me turn to the issue of Senator Kerry and Vietnam, because I found it interesting this week that his campaign said that they were going to position his presidential campaign in the context of his service in Vietnam, and I find that very interesting, that a candidate for the future, running to be the next president of the United States, would look back to a 35-year-old war to try to position his candidacy.

And, you know, Senator Kerry served for four months in Vietnam, and served very honorably, as everything I can tell. My father was also in Vietnam for more than a year. He was in three wars, as I mentioned. I think what troubles a lot of people, my father and veterans and people like me, I remember watching Senator Kerry, back when he was against the war, when he came home, and I was very troubled by the kind of allegations that he hurled against his fellow veterans, saying that they were guilty of all kinds of atrocities.

He now appears to be backing off that statement somewhat. But as someone whose father was over there fighting, I don't appreciate that. I resent that. I know my father was not guilty of any atrocities. And I really find that that's an irresponsible kind of charge to make.

And I also was very troubled by the fact that he participated in the ceremony where veterans threw their medals away, and he only pretended to throw his. Now, I can understand if out of conscience you take a principled stand and you would decide that you you were so opposed to this that you would actually throw your medals. But to pretend to do so, I think that's very revealing.

BLITZER: Karen Hughes, unfortunately, we have to leave it right there.

I will point out that last Sunday on "Meet the Press" Senator Kerry did express regret, saying that, looking back now, he wishes he wouldn't have used that word, "atrocities," as he used when he did come home from Vietnam. He was a younger man. He was clearly passionate at the moment...

HUGHES: But I wish I knew...

BLITZER: ... in his opposition to the war.

HUGHES: I agree with that. He did say that. I saw him say that. And I wish we knew a little bit more about that. I mean, did he think he did commit them or not? And who else did? And what was he really saying? Was he totally exaggerating? Was he making it up?

I think that the press ought to follow some line of inquiry about that.

BLITZER: Well, he will also say, and his supporters will point out, that he's more than happy to compare his military record to President Bush's military record. I don't know if you want to go down that road.

HUGHES: Well, I will, because President Bush served very honorably for six years in the Air National Guard. I took a trip to Afghanistan earlier this year, and I was flown home by some outstanding officers who were serving in the Air National Guard.

And so I think duty -- service in the National Guard is honorable. We should honor that sacrifice. We have a lot of members of our National Guard overseas right now fighting and dying to protect this country.

Negroponte

2004-04-27T11:00:00.000-04:00

The New York Review of Books has pulled from its archives a fascinating piece on John Negroponte. For those concerned over Negroponte’s nomination to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, this article will not offer much reassurance. In fact, the Negroponte that’s described in this article from September 20, 2001 could potentially be the worst possible match for Iraq. His tendency to distort the facts to fit the illusion in his head would be devastating for Iraq. Here’s an excerpt:

"Honduras Negroponte exercised US power in ways that still reverberate throughout that small country. His most striking legacy, though, is the Honduras of his imagination. Most people who lived or worked in Honduras during the 1980s saw a nation spiraling into violence and infested by paramilitary gangs that kidnapped and killed with impunity. Negroponte would not acknowledge this. He realized that the Reagan policy in Central America would lose support if truths about Honduras were known, so he refused to accept them.

"By nominating Negroponte as ambassador to the United Nations, the Bush administration is sending at least two clear messages. The first is addressed to the UN itself. During his years in Honduras, Negroponte acquired a reputation, justified or not, as an old-fashioned imperialist. Sending him to the UN serves notice that the Bush administration will not be bound by diplomatic niceties as it conducts its foreign policy.

"Negroponte's nomination is also part of a concerted effort to rehabilitate those who planned and organized the Nicaraguan contra war of the 1980s. When last heard from, these men were objects of public opprobrium and, in some cases, criminal indictments. Bush administration officials believe that they were shamefully mistreated and that they ought to be honored for their much-maligned service. No one is more worthy in their eyes than Negroponte, whose work made it possible for the United States to turn Honduras into a staging area for the contra war."

Polls

2004-04-23T20:49:00.000-04:00

For those concerned over the recent poll figures, which show Bush with a slight advantage over Kerry, read Ryan Lizza’s column in the New York Times. Lizza, who's an associate editor at the New Republic, points out:

“But Democrats should pause before they give up — and Republicans shouldn't celebrate quite yet. President Bush's vulnerabilities remain, even if they were not as apparent in this week's polls as they were in previous surveys; the question is whether Mr. Kerry can exploit them.

“In none of the polls this week that purported to show the Bush surge does the president have majority support. Any politician running for re-election sweats when a poll shows him under 51 percent. Voters who say they are undecided almost always end up opposing the incumbent — they know him well, and if they were going to vote for him, they would have already decided. Thus support for Mr. Bush should be seen more as a ceiling, while support for Mr. Kerry, the lesser-known challenger, is more like a floor.

“President Bush's overall job approval rating should also be cause for concern. He is trailing behind the last two presidents to be re-elected. Ronald Reagan was at 54 percent at about this point in 1984, while Bill Clinton clocked in at 56 percent in April 1996. Mr. Bush is hanging by his fingertips with a 51 percent and 52 percent rating in two polls released Tuesday. And remarkably, after one of the most concentrated television advertising campaigns in political history, Mr. Bush has seemingly failed to shift a single voter's view of him personally. What pollsters call his "favorability rating" is almost exactly where it was before his ads began.”

The Dover Test

2004-04-23T20:28:00.000-04:00

Bush defends the policy of restricting photographs from Dover Air Force base by saying the families of fallen soldiers deserve privacy. That’s a very different message from Bush’s defense of the flag-draped coffins used in his first advertisements.

Now, the Right is back on the attack. The Drudge Report explains:

“Russ Kick of thememoryhole.org filed a Freedom of Information Act requesting 'all photographs showing caskets (or other devices) containing the remains of US military personnel at Dover AFB. This would include, but not be limited to, caskets arriving, caskets departing, and any funerary rites/rituals being performed. The timeframe for these photos is from 01 February 2003 to the present.'

“But Kick appears to have assumed all the photos given to him were of the WAR ON TERROR/IRAQ dead!

“On Thursday NASA claimed more than 70 photos featured in Kick's war dead -- were photos of Space Shuttle Columbia's crew! The shuttle blew up on 2/1/03.

“'An initial review of the images featured on the Internet site www.thememoryhole.org shows that more than 18 rows of images from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware are actually photographs of honors rendered to Columbia's seven astronauts,' NASA said.”

Those photographs were posted on Russ Kick’s thememoryhole.org site on Thursday. But earlier in the week, on Sunday, the Seattle Times published a photograph that was sent to them by amateur photographer and contract worker Tami Silicio. (Go to the Seattle Times for coverage on the Kick and Silicio stories.)

Since then, Silicio has been fired and sent home. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo gives a good summary of the mud-slinging and slandering that has gone on since the pictures were published:

“The picture got into the Times' hands because Silicio sent a copy to her friend Amy Katz. Katz sent it to theTimes; and then the Times published it after getting Silicio's permission.

“It turns out that Silicio and Katz also worked as contract workers for a Halliburton subsidiary in Kosovo in 1999. And they are the two who sued Halliburton -- and Dick Cheney in his capacity as CEO -- for sexual harassment and also for the firm's policy of having separate toilets for Americans and for locals -- something that garnered a bit of attention during the 2000 election.

“Right-wing talk radio seems to be making something of this, arguing that it discredits the two in the whole matter of the photograph. But it seems equally plausibly to credit them -- at least in my mind. Though I suspect that no more defense contracting work is in line for either.”

Anti-Semitism At Home

2004-04-23T19:52:00.000-04:00

You don't have to look to the Middle East or Europe for the typical, Jew-hating rhetoric. Anti-semitism is alive and well on America’s campuses. At Rutgers, a campus paper published a cover-page cartoon with the punch-line, ”Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar! Really! No, REALLY!” The editor Ned Berke gives a hollow defense of the cartoon. From the AP:

‘"It took a serious situation and made it ridiculous," he said.

“Berke, who is Jewish, said he had relatives who died in the Holocaust.

‘"Humor is a way of honoring them and trying to get over it and to laugh," the journalism major said. "The Holocaust has been taboo for years.’"

Times Watch

2004-04-23T19:35:00.000-04:00

Another slip-up at the Times. This time the paper "misidentified GOP Senate candidate Pete Coors as a Ku Klux Klan member who murdered a black sharecropper."

Iran-Contra

2004-04-22T21:26:00.000-04:00

The Vietnam comparisons running rampant these days are ridiculous. But Iran-Contra? There may be something here. As the Progress Report puts it:

“Imagine that the U.S. administration deliberately hid money from Congress to invest in a war in the Middle East, potentially crafted secret deals with an oil-rich Middle Eastern country that has ties to terrorism, and appointed ideologues to be the key diplomatic emissaries to a war-torn region. Think you are back in the 1980s living through the Iran-Contra scandal? Think again. Over the last two days, new revelations by journalist Bob Woodward and actions by President Bush have evoked memories of a previous scandal and an old foreign policy/national security strategy gone wrong. Yesterday, new details emerged about the Bush administration's deliberate circumvention of Congress to divert $700 million into a secret war plan, and about the potential manipulation of U.S. elections by the Saudi Arabian government. Meanwhile, President Bush nominated key Iran-Contra figure John Negroponte as the new Ambassador to Iraq.”

Sidney Blumenthal expands on these points in his piece for Salon. He also writes on Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s extraordinary privileges and Colin Powell’s astonishing absence:

“Iran-Contra involved a network of aides outsourcing U.S. foreign policy like a separate government to circumvent the separation of powers, by selling missiles to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. The Iraq war was not conceived by aides but by the president and his war Cabinet in an apparent effort to evade constitutional checks and balances. In Iran-Contra, the NSC, CIA and Pentagon were stealthily exploited from within; in Iraq, they were abused from the top. When the Iran-Contra scandal was revealed, Reagan's administration was placed into receivership by the old Republican establishment. Neoconservatives and adventurers, criminal or not, were purged, from Elliott Abrams to Richard Perle. Now they are at the center of power, and they have pushed the likes of Colin Powell to the margins.

“In the absence of congressional investigations and hearings, as the Republican Congress acts to shield the executive branch in the spirit of one-party government, books like Woodward's, and former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke's, have become the only countervailing instruments.

“Woodward reports that in July 2002 Bush ordered the use of $700 million to prepare for the invasion of Iraq, funds that had not been specifically appropriated by the Congress, which alone holds that constitutional authority. No adequate explanation has been offered for what, strictly speaking, might well be an impeachable offense.

…

“While Bandar was treated as a branch of government or ex officio member of the war Cabinet, Secretary of State Colin Powell was carefully kept in the dark. "Mr. President," National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice gently suggests, "if you're getting to a place that you really think this might happen, you need to call Colin in and talk to him." So after Bandar had been told of the battle plan, Bush decided to inform his secretary of state, a frequent squash-playing partner of the Saudi prince. After all, he was bound to learn anyway. Powell had sought to warn Bush on Iraq: If you break it, you own it. "Powell wasn't sure whether Bush had fully understood the meaning and consequences of total ownership," Woodward writes.

…

“Asked if he seeks advice from his father, the former president, Bush says: "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher Father that I appeal to."

“A largely overlooked new book, "The Bushes," by Peter and Rochelle Schweizer, two scholars at the conservative Hoover Institution, attempts to be a glowing multigenerational saga. But its centerpiece is the tortuous Shakespearean story of the father and his wastrel son. Even after the younger Bush attains the presidency, the elder statesman frets. When the son seeks to demonstrate by force of arms that he can exceed his father and correct the error of his rejected presidency, the father once again is consumed with anxiety and disapproval. Then the father's closest associate, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, openly writes an article expressing his opposition before the war, which is widely interpreted as expressing the senior Bush's views. The Schweizers quote George W. Bush directly: "Scowcroft has become a pain in the ass in his old age."”

Unhealthy Poets

2004-04-22T12:42:00.000-04:00

Who knew? Poets die younger than novelists and playwrights.

Homegrown Terrorists

2004-04-22T12:19:00.000-04:00

I first came across the trend of homegrown Islamic terrorism in Bernard-Henri Levy’s Who Killed Daniel Pearl. In his book Levy describes the fervor with which certain Muslims born in England pursue terrorism and violence to express their religiosity. These Western Muslims, according to Levy, pose a much greater threat than their Middle Eastern- or Asian-born counterparts. They tend to have more radical views (trying to overcompensate for their Western roots) and they have the financial resources to undertake major operations.

Andrew Sullivan has picked up on the subject, and has linked to a shocking article by David Cohen in the Evening Standard. Here are some excerpts:

"Four young British Muslims in their twenties - a social worker, an IT specialist, a security guard and a financial adviser - occupy a table at a fast-food chicken restaurant in Luton. Perched on their plastic chairs, wolfing down their dinner, they seem just ordinary young men. Yet out of their mouths pour heated words of revolution.

""As far as I'm concerned, when they bomb London, the bigger the better," says Abdul Haq, the social worker. "I know it's going to happen because Sheikh bin Laden said so. Like Bali, like Turkey, like Madrid - I pray for it, I look forward to the day."

…

""I agree with you, brother," says Abu Yusuf, the earnest-looking financial adviser sitting opposite. "I would like to see the Mujahideen coming into London and killing thousands, whether with nuclear weapons or germ warfare. And if they need a safehouse, they can stay in mine - and if they need some fertiliser [for a bomb], I'll tell them where to get it."

"His friend, Abu Musa, the security guard, smiles radiantly. "It will be a day of joy for me," he adds, speaking with a slight lisp.

…

"Until recently, nobody took the fanatical beliefs of al-Muhajiroun too seriously, believing that a British-based group so brazenly "out there" could not be involved in something as "underground" as terrorism. The group is led by the exiled Saudi, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, from his base in north London. Yesterday, in a magazine article, Bakri warned that several radical groups are poised to strike in London.

"For all its inflammatory rhetoric, al-Muhajiroun has never been linked to actual violence. Yet, with the discovery last month of half-a-tonne of ammonium nitrate fertiliser - the same explosive ingredient used in the Bali and Turkey terror attacks - and with the arrest of eight young British Muslims in London and the South-East, including six in Luton, extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun are under the spotlight like never before."