Let the spin begin

First of all, I'm no fan of Presidential debates. They're not really debates, and to even call them superficial and meaningless to to give them way too much dignity. But in our superficial electoral process, they are important. So when George Bush walked quickly onto the debate stage Thursday night, and met John Kerry more than halfway, on Kerry's half of the stage, thereby asserting dominance in some proto-Jungian sense, that becomes important. Or the fact that Bush is several inches shorter than Kerry, and cast a gargoyle-like presence as he peered over the top of his lectern, becomes important. Call me a purist, or a utopian, or a perfectionist, but shouldn't "debates" be about issues?

Now that I got that out of the way, several things struck me about last night's Thrilla in Vanilla. Yes, Kerry did seem Presidential, and I hope that means he puts to rest the manufactured charge that he can't make up his mind about anything. I also appreciated the way he didn't once go over his alloted time for speaking, although I did wince when, at one point, Kerry seemed to be winding up in one response, glanced down at the lights on the podium, then said "I see I have some time left, so I want to say one more thing." That's a little like your proctologist saying "I've completed my examination of your sigmoid colon, but I have one more large, shiny object that I haven't inserted yet, so here it goes." Memo to Kerry: if you've already made your point, don't make another one.

I wanted to thrown a large, shiny object at the television screen when Bush attacked Kerry for criticizing his prosecution of this costly and badly managed war. Democracies don't win wars despite the fact they afford their citizens free speech. We win because of the liberties guaranteed to us. To say it is damaging to the war effort to call Allawi a US puppet is ludicrous. It is doubly ludicrous when you realized that the Bush campaign actually wrote the speech that Allawi gave to a joint session of the house and senate earlier this week. I wish Kerry had pointed that out, but he was probably too busy preparing for the beauty contest to read this Washington Post article from yesterday.



So it looks like Kerry "won" the pseudo debate, which could give him a much need lift in the "polls", which really don't track anything. Kerry supporters, of which I am one, need to spread the gospel of Saint John so the leather-wings members of the Rove death-machine don't have us all convinced that Bush actually "won". So write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Click on a meaningless on-line media poll (CNN.com, for instance). Stop reading this stupid blog and go to JohnKerry.com, and volunteer to do something, anything.


Why does the 82nd Airborne hate freedom?

"Last night about 40 minutes into the debate my son, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, called from his barracks room. He let me know Kerry had just earned 5 votes from him and 4 other troops watching the debate in his room. He got back from Iraq in April. He was at a FOB just south of Fallujah when he was there."
An email sent to Andrew Sullivan


Poles pulling out of Iraq



President Bush dazzled a national audience last night with his knowledge of Poland, a staunch Operation Iraqi Freedom ally, even correctly naming the Polish President, Aleksander Kwasniewski. It was a stern rebuke to upstart Kerry, who failed to credit brave Poland for its contribution to bringing peace and freedom to the Middle East. Yes, it is a wonderful coalition that our President has assembled.

And now that the mission has been accomplished, Poland is planning to bring its troops home.

Long live the coalition of the willing!

(cue Polish National Anthem)
1.10.04 15:48


Master Debater

It's common knowledge among political handlers that the first Presidential debate attracts a large national audience, that debate number two doesn't do quite as well, and that debate number three does only slightly better than Telemundo soccer matches. So why, oh why, did the Bushies do such a miserable job of prepping their man for debate number one? After all, the debate topic, international affairs, played to the President's supposed strengths. And the subsequent debate on domestic affairs, which plays to Kerry's strenghts, doesn't attract such a large audience. So you would think Karl Rove would at least tell Bush stand up straight and try not to scowl.

Why oh why indeed? Or did we see the real Bush last night, in what Andrew Sullivan calls the President's "man behind the curtain moment"? Stripped of his adoring, loyalty-oathed crowds, and softball questions from Fox News, did we at last see the man who led the US into what has to be the dumbest war in the last 100 years (Remember the Maine, anyone?).

Wolcott nails it, as usual:
Frankly, I'm amazed by this reversal of fortune. Bush let Kerry get to him. I truly thought Bush would stick to the Reagan playbook and genially shrug off Kerry's criticisms with a grin and a quip, but he's a greater mass of insecurities and arrogant entitlements than even I imagined. I pity the fools who have to prep Bush for the next debate. Because they're sure going to have one pissy pupil on their hands.
It's a sign of monumental arrogance that Bush thought he could get away with playing fast and loose with the truth the other night. Or was it confidence that the Republican echo chamber would drown out the namby-pamby liberal fact checkers who point out that the US has not trained 100,000 Iraqi security forces? Or that Poland plans to pull out altogether by the end of the year?

How out of touch is this guy?
2.10.04 02:12


Justice DeLayed

The Republican dominated House Ethics Committee has admonished House Majority Whip Tom DeLay for coercing a Michigan lawmaker to vote for a health care bill last year. A sub-committee report concluded that DeLay, who is arguably the most powerful member of the US House, went too far in trying to secure a victory.

DeLay told one GOP lawmaker that if he failed to vote for the health care bill, then the party would not support the lawmaker's son, who would soon run to succeed his dad in the House. His son lost the election.

"The promise of political support for a relative of a member goes beyond the boundaries of maintaining party discipline, and should not be used as the basis of a bargain for members to achieve their respective goals," the committee said in its report, saying there was evidence to find Mr. DeLay in violation of House rules.

The report also said it was inappropriate to trade hookers and crack cocaine for votes, or to threaten con-compliant party members with naked pyramids and mean dogs.

In a statement, Mr. DeLay said that he had not meant to violate House rules and that the panel had never ruled on this type of activity before.

"In this report the committee has provided guidance regarding a novel and very specific subject matter,'' he said. "I accept their guidance."


This is a test. This is only a test.

Conservative weblogs are yucking it up after John Kerry's reference to "a global test" during Thursday's debate. Instapundit readers are all over this:

1. Is the U.S. President a Republican?
2. Could this action possibly stabilize oil production?
3. Are France and Germany supplying the intended target with weapons or advice?

You get the idea.

Here's another question for the Instacomics: Does President Bush know who he appointed as US representative to NATO? I bet Kerry does. His name is Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns, and last spring he said:

The defining feature of this globalized world is that these transnational threats flow under, over and right through our national boundaries.  No oceans, mountains or fences are impervious to them. No country, including the United States of America, can sit back in isolation from them.

This is the great, global test of our time--how do we cope with this new set of challenges? The only way I know to spread the bright side of globalization and to fight the darker side is to join forces on a global basis in concerted international action. No one country, however powerful, can combat these incredible problems on its own. We need strong and purposeful global cooperation to defeat complex, global ills.
Thanks to Jerome Armstrong at MyDD
2.10.04 19:30


Triangle Y Ranch

This is the start of my second year as a Y Tribes dad, and we kicked off the season last night with an induction ceremony at the Triangle Y Ranch, near West Bend, Wisconsin. I must not get out of Milwaukee enough, because I had forgotton how beautiful the Wisconsin countryside is. Nature reaches a tipping point this time of year, when the glorious sunshine and heat of summer has seemingly spun out of control, having lost its purpose, and gives way to an onrush color and cool breezes that signal the end of another cycle. The lush green hills and fields at the Circle Y seemed to stand firm against the spinning place where we live, and as if to say "One more day. You get one more day of sunshine and frolic." We gathered the kids in on a ball field, and played simon says and duck duck goose, then walked to a campfire where the great chief made parents promise to give time to their children, and for the children to be patient with their parents. On the way home, Mrs. Heraldblog and I stopped at an empty tavern just outside of Grafton. While the Heraldblogettes play with the video poker machines, and I drank a Pabst, and chatted with the 19-year-old bartender. She said she was voting for Kerry. "We're not supposed to talk about who we're voting for, because, like, 90 percent of the people who come here vote for Bush."
3.10.04 17:23


She's smoking for two, now

From PlanetDan:



She also says those Kool Menthols help steady baby's nerves.

Thanks to Tarp.
4.10.04 03:17


Super Star

In the US, we call the show American Idol. The Arab world has its own wildly popular version called Super Star. The idea is about the same: the public watches individual performances, and then vote on their favorite singer.

So is this Democracy, or anything like it? Writing in the WSJ Opinion Journal, Tyler MacKenzie, who teaches English in Syria, thinks Super Star quenches a thirst for participatory government in the Middle East. He writes:
"Thanks to the Internet, mobile phones and satellite TV stations operating beyond the sphere of government control, Arabs from every nation can watch a Lebanese television show and take responsibility for its outcome. In effect, "Super Star" provides the only common platform for popular participation in the Arab world--the only accessible, properly "democratic" institution in a region dominated by authoritarian elites."
Is this the yearning for freedom that beats in the heart of every human?

Possibly, but that's quite beside the point. There's a whole lot of steps a nation needs to take between voting for the cute babe with the seductive soprano voice, and taming armed Islamofascists to not kill cute babes with seductive soprano voices. It's like saying if I can carry an egg from the refrigerator to the kitchen sink without dropping it, then that proves I can raise kids.

At the heart of every argument that Democracy can be forced on the Middle East is the assumption that people will always act in their best interest. They don't. People, including Americans, can be wildly irrational and selfish. If Super Star was truly representative of the Mid East political culture, then Arab Paula Abdul wouldn't be allowed to talk at all, Arab Randy Johnson would opely solicit bribes for favorable comments, and Arab Simon Cowell would shoot bad singers instead of insulting them. Then he would shoot their families, too.


Reviving the draft

There's only one thing that terrifies George Bush more than having to explain himself to the American people, and that's talk of a military draft. The Bushies insist that the all-volunteer forces are adequate to meet the challenges of fighting Islamofascism. Donald Rumsfeld has gone so far as to say draftees add no value to the military, that they are effect more trouble than they are worth.

Now, along comes David Hackworth, decorated Korean and Vietnam War veteran and contributing Newsweek writer, who says the draft is a certainty:
Right now, with both our regular and Reserve soldiers stretched beyond the breaking point, our all-volunteer force is tapping out. If our overseas troop commitments continue at the present rate or climb higher, there wonít be enough Army and Marine grunts to do the job. And thin, overworked units, from Special Forces teams to infantry battalions, lose fights.

Clearly, this war against worldwide, hardcore Islamic believers will be a massive military marathon, the longest and most far-flung in our countryís history. By Christmas, more troops could be needed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but wherever the radical Islamic movement is growing stronger, from the Horn of Africa to Morocco, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen and across Europe ñ remember Spain?! ñ to Asia.

Accordingly, we need to bring our ground-fighting and support units to about the strength they were before the Soviet Union imploded, especially since the proper ratio of counterinsurgent-to-insurgent in places like the Middle East should be around 15 to 1. You don't have to be a Ph.D. in military personnel to conclude we need more boots on the ground.

The Bushies' real problem with a draft is it forces accountability for the administration's abysmal foreign policy, which will turn more people against the war. It's easy for country club Republicans to support the Iraq war when when they have no skin in the game. But nothing dulls that hawkish glow like watching your 18-year-old son leaving for boot camp instead of college.

Old hands like Rumsfeld and Cheney remember that opposition to the Vietnam War dropped off considerably in the early 1970s when Nixon discontinued the draft. College students in the sixties were talking give peace a chance, but what they really meant was "give us a chance to finish college and get a job."

The Republican faithful will support Bush's war as long as someone not related to them has to fight it.
5.10.04 16:39


Live blogging the debate

Gwen Ifil is explaining the rules. Why are there so many rules? And does it bother anyone else that the audience is supposed to be silent? What's the point of having an audience? Or that supposed to be a metaphor for this election?

First question: Did we go into Iraq with enough troops? Cheney goes first. He starts off by linking Saddam to the "overall war on terror." Nuance. Cheney says the administration started by assuming that Iraq was the nexus between al Qaeda and WMD.

Edwards goes on the attack: "Mr. Vice President, you're still not being honest." Split screen. Cheney pretends to write something so he doesn't have a Bush/Tourettes moment.

Cheney responds by saying we've made significant progress in Iraq. Well manned, well underway,

Back to Edwards: There's no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam.


Cheney's first lie!

Well, for tonight anyway. Or since 8 pm, CST. "The senator has his facts wrong. I have never said there is a connection between Saddam and Sept. 11." Time to pour a beer, this is going to be fun.

Now Cheney is talking about the wonderful progress in Afghanistan. He's trying to avoid responsibility for letting Osama live.

Now Cheney's drawing a comparison between El Salvador and Afghanistan. "I was there 20 years ago." Killing nuns, no doubt.

The global test

Edwards is on the defensive now, explaining that a global test is not the same as letting the Russians determine US foreign policy. Ifil is getting a little pissy: "What is a global test if not a global veto?" I think she's reading the RNC's talking points.

Cheney is calling Edwards on the phony $200 billion claim for the cost of the war. Why is it even necessay to exaggerate? Cheney is comfortable with a $120 billion figure. That makes me feel better. What a bargain.

Another Cheney lie!

"Senator Kerry voted against a number of weapon systems that were crucial in winning the cold war." Yeah, the same systems you were dissing.

Edwards zinger: "A long resumé is not the same as good judgement."

Cheney: "Well Gwen, I think the record speak for itself." Is this guy for real? What does that mean? If that were true, we could just wheel the record on stage, and everyone could shut up and go home.

Counting Iraqis

Cheney says Edwards is demeaning our Iraqi allies by not counting Iraqi casualties when he says that the US has born 90 percent of the war's casualties. Is Cheney counting all the Iraqis we greased during the invasion?

Cheney is unusually snarly.

Israel

Edwards is taking a hawkish stand on the Palestinian situation. Good. Israel has a right to self defense.

Cheney attacks Edwards for missing so many senate votes. To paraphrase: "I am president of the US Senate, and the first time I have ever met you is when you walked on the stage tonight."

Cheney: "I think his records speaks for itself." Good one. He shoots he scores. How will Edwards ever recover from... oh, wait, Edwards just recovered.

Cheney now says Kerry has voted for tax increases 98 times during his Senate career. I thought it was 325 times?!?

My daughter, the lesbian

Now Cheney is defending discrimination against gays. And it's the fault of (gasp) liberal judges in Massachusetts!

Edwards is back on tax cuts now, and Cheney is smirking. He thinks he's not going to have to talk about gay people anymore. Ohhh, no such luck. Edwards says it's wonderful that Cheney and his wife can hug their gay daughter. Ewwww! Now Edwards is attacking the FMA as divisive. And all Cheney can do is to thank Edwards for his kind comments about his daughter. He's obviously uncomfortable with the line of questioning, and Edwards is respecting Cheney's privacy. Hmmmm.

We're coming up on the 70 minute mark, when fatigue sets in and candidates start sounding like George Bush. We'll see what happens.

AIDS

Ifil: What should the governments role be in ending AIDS in America? (Cheney voted against AIDS research funding in the 1980s.) Blah blah blah. Cheney thinks AIDS is bad, and he's proud of the Bush Administration's record.

Edwards is losing his mojo. It's the 70 minute curse! Cheney is looking dour and troll-like. That has nothing to do with the 70-minute curse. It's just fun to write.

Now Edwards is telling us about the KE agenda. He says he wants to find terrorists and kill them. I'm not buying that line. Edwards is too bright and sunny to go around killing people. It's like hearing Papa Smurf say "I'm going to cut you up, sucka." It just doesn't work. Maybe Edwards needs a new verb. "We're going to find terrorists and rip their still beating hearts out of their chests." Cheney doesn't have to say he's going to kill someone - you can see it in his eyes.

Closer

Edwards: He's proud of his dad, the millworker. "I grew up on the bright lights of America, but that light is flickering tonight. The President and Mr. Cheney don't see it."

Cheney: Sept. 11. Threat. Leadership. "The only viable option for winning the war on terror is to use military power." My God, one side of his mouth starts clear up by his ear. The mother of all smirks. He has a face meant for radio. He'll win debate points just for looking at the camera.
6.10.04 03:08


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