THE LAST STRAW

I understand the tendency to want to instant-analyze a dramatic event like the Bin Laden tape in regards to its impact on electoral prospects – we did that here. But there is a certain tone to the Bush Co. response that is, well, rather unseemly – seeing as this is the murderer of 3000 Americans we’re talking about. And, to me, it captures the essence of their deeply cynical and hypocritical approach to politics. Specific policies and decisions aside, does ANYONE want four more years of this?

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/247753p-212149c.html
"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."…A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."…He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/more-republicans-celebrating-proof-of.html
"It's very helpful to the president," contended Bush ally Sen. John McCain

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/perverse_incent.html
According to the Bush campaign, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush." Are people who think this way likely to improve, or degrade the personal safety of the American people?…Can a group of people who believe the continued existence of the threat is vital to their political viability be relied upon to eliminate -- or even reduce -- the threat?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/misunderestimating_bushcos_shamelessness.php
That's right. Mr. Bush, having let bin Laden escape from Tora Bora and then having said publicly, and publicly denied saying, that he didn't much care where he was, is now delighted to have bin Laden's assistance in scaring the voters into voting for him…And no one in the mainstream press is going to call him on it, either.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003857
Bush team calls bin Laden's tape a "little gift."…Not to flog a dead horse, but what would be the response if a Kerry campaign advisor made a similar or analogous comment?

Pretzel logic

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/opinion/31dowd.html?oref=login&oref=login&hp
[Maureen Dowd] The Bushies' campaign pitch follows their usual backward logic: Because we have failed to make you safe, you should re-elect us to make you safer. Because we haven't caught Osama in three years, you need us to catch Osama in the next four years. Because we didn't bother to secure explosives in Iraq, you can count on us to make sure those explosives aren't used against you.

One way to spin this is that Bin Laden WANTS Bush to win: after all, his policies and “Crusade” rhetoric have been a boon to terrorist recruitment and growth around the world

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_digbysblog_archive.html#109916566189002283
George W. Bush is the single best recruiting tool that Islamic terrorism has ever had. The American media may be too dumb or too insular to know this, but [Bin Laden] certainly does.

Don't take my word for it though. Here's a guy with a few years of expertise on the subject under his belt, Richard Clarke. He agrees with me:

CLARKE: …I think it's obvious he's trying to affect the U.S. Election. This is the second audio/visual tape we've received in the last week from al qaeda, addressed to the american people. And he attacked the president in the way that, I think, is designed to get the american people to move to bush's side. He's a smart guy, osama bin laden, and he knows if he attacks bush that will strengthen bush. Why does he want bush as president? Because Bush, as president, gives him the symbol that gets all these people joining al qaeda. Bush is the symbol that has increased recruitment for al qaeda, and has increased money flow for al qaeda. Bush is the symbol for all of the jihadists throughout the muslim world who hate america.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,642825,00.html
If, indeed, there is a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, it may not be the kind the Bush campaign is likely to dwell on. The same day the President spoke, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies released its annual survey that found, among other things, that far from dealing a blow to al-Qaeda and making the U.S. and its allies safer, the Iraq invasion has in fact substantially strengthened bin Laden's network and increased the danger of attacks in the West. And the London-based IISS is not some Bush-bashing antiwar think tank; it hosted the president's keynote address during his embattled visit to the British late last year.

The IISS reported that al-Qaeda's recruitment and fundraising efforts had been given a major boost by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It estimated that bin Laden's network today commands some 18,000 men, of which about 1,000 are currently inside Iraq. After almost three years of President Bush's war on terror, the IISS offered the following assessment of the movement's prospects: "Although half of al-Qaeda's 30 senior leaders and perhaps 2,000 rank-and-file members have been killed or captured, a rump leadership is still intact and more than 18,000 potential terrorists are still at large, with recruitment accelerating on account of Iraq."

http://bottleofblog.typepad.com/bottleofblog/2004/09/bush_administra_3.html
Britain’s ambassador to Italy described President Bush as “the best recruiting sergeant” for al-Qaida…Sir Ivor Roberts…was quoted as telling an annual Anglo-Italian gathering in Tuscany, “If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush, it’s al-Qaida.”…Roberts also told the meeting of British and Italian policy-makers, “Bush is al-Qaida’s best recruiting sergeant."

Here’s another way to look at it: Bush and Bin Laden’s co-dependency relationship

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108870/fr/rss/
The two men turn out to be well-matched. Bin Laden pisses people off and drives them into the arms of Bush. Bush pisses people off and drives them into the arms of Bin Laden. Bush keeps Bin Laden in business; Bin Laden keeps Bush in office…Bin Laden has shown up on the eve of our election, full of the same impenetrable self-assurance Pat Robertson noticed in Bush.

Deeper analysis of Bin Laden’s actual statement: Is he trying to refashion himself from terrorist to political figure?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-binladen31oct31,0,3539236.story?coll=la-home-headlines
In fact, what has caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community is the strangely conciliatory nature of bin Laden's new message, according to some government officials and outside experts…These experts say bin Laden appears to be intensifying his campaign to "re-brand" himself in the minds of Muslims worldwide, and become known more as a political voice than a global terrorist…The U.S. official said "a political spinoff (of al-Qaida) is one of the greatest fears" of U.S. counter-terrorism authorities, in which bin Laden and the terror network follow the path of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah and members of the Irish Republican Army. Over the years, those groups evolved from having an emphasis on committing terrorism into broader organizations with influential, widely accepted political wings.

http://www.peterbergen.com/clients/PeterBergen/pbergen.nsf/Web00002Show?OpenForm&ParentUNID=E69B67BE850A3CE785256F3D005C577E
A key visual message of the tape was how it presented bin Laden as an elder statesman, rather than as the leader of a paramilitary organization. That message was communicated by the fact that for the first time in one of his videotaped statements there was no weapon by bin Laden's side. That non-belligerent visual message mirrored what bin Laden said when he made a direct appeal to the American people saying that al Qaeda would suspend its attacks if there was a change in US foreign policy in the Muslim world. This appeal mirrored a similar kind of offer that bin Laden made following the terrorist attacks in Madrid in March when he offered a "truce" to European members of the coalition in Iraq if they followed Spain's lead and withdrew from Iraq. This past year bin Laden has increasingly tried to present himself as a strategically-minded political leader although he stepped on that message somewhat in Friday's tape by directly admitting for the first time his leadership role in the 9/11 attacks.

Voters say: tape “changes nothing”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/politics/campaign/31voices.html?ex=1256965200&en=d543903f11aaa274&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
[I love this quote!] "It doesn't have anything to do with the election," said Mr. Christene, an aircraft supervisor from Walford, Iowa. "I will stick with Bush."

But guess what, instant-tracking polls right after the tape release show a DROP for Bush (even Fox News)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003860

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000960.html
Stan Greenberg has also released a memo on the stability of this race, and on the trendlines revealing the actual impact of the OBL tapes:

The Saturday respondents (250 interviews) were asked the following question: “I'm going to read you a pair of statements about the release of Bin Laden's videotape. Please tell me which one comes closer to your view.

It makes me think that George Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan and diverted resources to Iraq.

It underscores the importance of George Bush's approach to the war on terrorism.

By 10 points (46 to 36 percent), voters were more likely to think that Bush took his eye off the ball.

And the key number across almost all the polls: Bush can’t break 48% (very bad news for an incumbent)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/30/7562/1074

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/30/23933/479

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000962.html

Except: Newsweek poll (6 point Bush lead), which follows Gallup’s methodology of oversampling Republicans

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/30/15125/398

Labor Dept (using government funds for campaign purposes – press yawns) generates a laughable prediction on the election outcome (Bush: 57.5%) – which turns out to be as reliable and nonpartisan as all their other economic and employment numbers (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041029/D8619VG81.html

Electoral College summary

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108925/fr/rss/
According to the polls, it's still a statistical dead heat, but now that Sen. John Kerry has the lead in elector-rich Pennsylvania, the campaigns have focused with furious intensity on Florida and Ohio. If either candidate carries both of those states, he wins. But if Bush takes Florida and Kerry takes Ohio, as is more likely, then the conventional wisdom has the winner carrying two of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.

Senate and House prospects looking questionable

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12453-2004Oct30.html
Democratic hopes of overturning the Republicans' shaky 51-vote majority in the Senate are unlikely to be realized. Democratic candidates would have to win all four tossup races and defeat one favored Republican to emerge with 50 seats and a tie that John Edwards could break if he and Kerry win. Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D) is fighting for his political life in South Dakota against former representative John Thune (R), a race that both sides expect to be won or lost by fewer than 2,000 votes…In the House, few analysts see Republicans losing more than three seats net from their 24-seat majority or adding more than that number.

Voter suppression: Wisconsin edition

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003869

US generals in Iraq (perhaps this should have been the lead story): situation on the ground is worse than you’ve been told

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/international/middleeast/31command.html
Senior American military commanders and civilian officials in Iraq are speaking more candidly about the hurdles that could jeopardize their plans to defeat an adaptive and tenacious insurgency and hold elections in January.

Outwardly, they give an upbeat assessment that the counterinsurgency is winnable. But in interviews with 15 of the top American generals, admirals and embassy officials conducted in Iraq in late October, many described risks that could worsen the security situation and derail the political process that they are counting on to help quell the insurgency.

Commanders voiced fears that many of Iraq's expanding security forces, soon to be led by largely untested generals, have been penetrated by spies for the insurgents. Reconstruction aid is finally flowing into formerly rebel-held cities like Samarra and other areas, but some officers fear that bureaucratic delays could undermine the aid's calming effects. They also spoke of new American intelligence assessments that show that the insurgents have significantly more fighters - 8,000 to 12,000 hard-core militants - and far greater financial resources than previously estimated.

Perhaps most disturbing, they said, is the militants' campaign of intimidation to silence thousands of Iraqis and undermine the government through assassinations, kidnappings, beheadings and car bombings. New gangs specializing in hostage-taking are entering Iraq, intelligence reports indicate...

In some cases, senior officers say, their goals could inadvertently act at cross purposes. For example, Iraq cannot hold meaningful national elections if militants still control major Sunni cities like Falluja. Negotiations there have broken down and many officers predict a military offensive. But hard-line Sunni clerics say they will call for an election boycott if American troops use force to put down the insurrection.

[As Joyce Atkinson points out, the real news here is not just the story, but why military leaders are giving comments like this on the eve of the election, knowing the damage it will do to Bush]

Nine Marines killed, worst day since May

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109920854721950383

Why Al Qaqaa shouldn’t really have been much of a surprise

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003858
After all, almost all of Iraq's nuclear facilities -- containing both equipment of use to nuclear programs, partially enriched uranium, and other goodies for baddies -- were similarly looted at around the same time.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-anderson29oct29,1,6065314.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
[Jon Lee Anderson] It now seems highly likely that a group of well-organized looters made off with the missing cache of 380 tons of powerful explosives at Iraq's Al Qaqaa military site after it was visited by invading U.S. troops in early April 2003.

For myself and other reporters who were on the ground in Baghdad during those days, this oversight does not seem surprising. Coinciding with the arrival of the Americans, Baghdad succumbed to an orgy of looting and, eventually, to wholesale sabotage, all of which took place under the tolerant and overwhelmed gaze of the newly arrived U.S. soldiers. That U.S. troops could have visited Al Qaqaa, inspected the explosives and then moved on without securing them — evidently unaware of the high-level importance of the site — seems completely in keeping with the extraordinary lack of coordination between senior commanders and their troops in the field that we witnessed on a daily basis.

[NB: Makes you wonder, doesn't it, with all those embedded journalists running around with the troops, why we didn't hear more about this at the time?]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6363063/site/newsweek/
[Eleanor Clift] The failure to guard the aptly named Al Qaqaa is emblematic of everything Bush is doing wrong. The administration clearly didn't send enough troops, and now 380 tons of the most dangerous munitions are out there for possible use against U.S. troops.

The Bush team’s response is also emblematic. First, they deny a charge that is undeniably true, that they went into Iraq with insufficient forces. Second, they slime the person telling the truth. Kerry wasn’t faulting U.S. troops for not finding and securing the missing weapons, as Bush asserted. Kerry was attacking the chicken-hawk civilians who brushed aside pleas from the military for more manpower. Third, Bush falls back on the tried and true, pointing to evidence of a cache of deadly explosives to say this proves Saddam really was dangerous. It’s still heresy to say it, but Americans were safer when Saddam was in power. He guarded his high-grade-weapons sites, and just days before the U.S. invasion, the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency had monitored the site, warning the Bush administration about the potential danger.

The hunt for Zarqawi begins?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.main/index.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/005020.php
WHY BUSH LET ZARQAWI GET AWAY....What's the real reason that the Bush administration failed to go after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi back in 2002 when it had the chance? We may never know for sure, but Daniel Benjamin, author of The Age of Sacred Terror, suggests that it's yet another example of the Bush circle's outmoded and dangerously blinkered fixation on state-sponsored terrorism…

Bush Co. still stiffing Supreme Court on Guantanamo prisoners

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008519.html
Could there be any more reasons not to vote for George W. Bush Tuesday? Here's another one, as set out in this LA Times editorial today:

Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the 600 foreign terror suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base were entitled to lawyers and the chance to challenge their imprisonment. But in the months since, Pentagon and Justice Department officials have simply acted as if the high court's decision didn't exist, blocking efforts by detainees to meet with their lawyers and insisting on onerous conditions for those meetings.

Last week a federal judge and former federal prosecutor wrote an opinion blasting the Bush administration over its policies at Guantanamo:

The government's foot-dragging, appeals and prevarication, she wrote, are "attempts to erode this bedrock principle" of attorney-client privacy with a "flimsy assemblage" of arguments....The judge scoffed at administration claims that detainees can adequately represent themselves before military tribunals or rely on non-lawyer advisors…

The Times says a constitutional crisis is brewing:

The opening proceedings last summer of the ad hoc military tribunals Bush ginned up to sort out who's dangerous and who's not proved a disaster. The interpreters were incompetent and even commission members were confused about the rules. The Pentagon is now scrambling to reorganize and restaff the panels in a doomed effort to salvage any credibility…As the administration continues to stonewall judges doing what the founding fathers intended — ensuring that the president doesn't overstep his authority — it is not a stretch to say that Americans are witnessing the makings of a constitutional crisis.

Bush has lately taken to quoting Tommy Franks (who has his own reasons for saying so) to the effect that Iraq advance planning had nothing to do with the mishandling of Tora Bora which resulted in Bin Laden’s escape. Here is why the Web is such an incredible place: someone (unlike the mainstream media) has gone to the trouble of reconstructing the actual sequence of events (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)

http://www.topdog04.com/000781.html

Going in exactly the opposite direction of the 9-11 Commission’s recommendation, the Dept of Defense continues to expand its independent intelligence and clandestine operations, separate from the CIA and unified oversight

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-forces31oct31,1,7841621.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Pentagon geniuses develop a new long-term “plan” for Iraq, which as near as I can tell translates into: “foment civil war” (Given their track record, this should be a roaring success too)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12434-2004Oct30.html

Why the Intelligence Bill failed

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008514.html

Blair, anticipating election results, makes overtures to the Kerry camp (thanks to Blog Left for the link)

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=577867&host=3&dir=62

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/005023.php

Follow-up on the story of Young Republicans scamming money out of retirees

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003864

Small print in new GOP bill would ban voter registration, recruitment, canvassing, etc, in public housing (hmm… who lives in public housing?) (Thanks to Jessica Wilson for the link)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/30/104557/16

Good question: does Jeb have an early readout of e-voting trends in Florida?

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_30_bestof.html#109914031349345202

Bonus item: site with free downloads of recent documentaries, including “Fahrenheit 9-11,” “Control Room,” “Outfoxed,” “Bush’s Brain,” PBS videos – send a copy to someone you think needs to watch it

http://www.independentmediasource.com/video.htm

[I HOPE this is legal and legit – the info given was a bit ambiguous about that]

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:39 AM

 
BAIT AND SWITCH

Well, silly me for thinking the KSTP video, showing HMX and RDX at the Al Qaqaa site, in bunkers still sealed by IAEA tags (and dated April 18), settled the question of whether these deadly explosives were still there after the US took over in Iraq, and would stop the lies of Bush Co. And no one still has addressed the question of what happened to THEM. Instead, the Pentagon finds a soldier to claim that his team destroyed a couple hundred tons of “munitions” at the Al Qaqaa site (a huge site) on April 13, which is good to know BUT WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STUFF THAT WAS STILL THERE FIVE DAYS LATER!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9244-2004Oct29.html?nav=rss_nation

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/dear-media.html
There is a big difference between "explosives" and "munitions." Comparing the weights of the two is a meaningless exercise

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003839
At a few minutes after noon, I'm watching Mr. Di Rita giving yet another round of spin about al Qaqaa. Uncharacteristically, he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack through most of his introductory remarks. And with what followed, it's not hard to see why. The line Di Rita led off with (and I just jotted this down from hearing it once over the air, so perhaps I've got a word or two wrong) was this: "It has not been our desire to tell a particular story, only to tell the facts."

Please…I believe this man protests too much.

The only thing accurate about this claim is that it's true that Di Rita has not been intent on telling a particular story. He's been willing to tell any story -- and has -- so long as it's a story that exonerates the White House. Even if it's a different story every day.

It's…time for someone to start making the point that the Pentagon Public Affairs office isn't supposed to be used as a formal arm of the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. And for that matter if Di Rita's going to use it that way, he should at least be doing a better job of it.

Today Di Rita brought out an Army major who says his unit removed and destroyed roughly 250 tons of equipment, ammunition and explosives from somewhere in the al Qaqaa facility in early April 2003 -- that would be after the first US troops arrived but prior to the arrival of the news crew that apparently filmed much of the explosives on April 18th.

Was it the stuff in question? Di Rita kept trying to answer the questions on the major's behalf. But the major made clear that he had no idea. Did he see any IAEA seals? No, he said, he didn't…

The other reporters on hand, apparently weary of being lied to all week, preferred to put their questions to the major directly, rather than to Di Rita. And he, the major, was straightforward enough to say that all he knew was that he had taken stuff from somewhere at al Qaqaa and destroyed it.

What does that mean? Almost nothing.

This was an unfortunate stunt, put on by Di Rita and the politicals at DOD Public Affairs. And given how it turned out, I suspect it's one they quickly regretted.

And don't trust media reports, like this one, that don't tell you the crucial five-day difference in dates until the very end

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/29/iraq.explosives.ap/index.html

More comment

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109906976577919924

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/ammunition.html

And this incredible aspect of the story. The US was told well in advance how dangerous the stuff at Al Qaqaa was, but they didn’t allocate guards to protect it. Why?

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/politics/10040891.htm
In a new disclosure, the senior U.S. military officer and another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that an Iraqi working for U.S. intelligence alerted U.S. troops stationed near the al Qaqaa weapons facility that the installation was being looted shortly after the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003…But, they said, the troops took no apparent action to halt the pillaging…"That was one of numerous times when Iraqis warned us that ammo dumps and other places were being looted and we weren't able to respond because we didn't have anyone to send," said a senior U.S. military officer who served in Iraq…

Al Qaqaa was on a classified list of Iraqi weapons facilities that the CIA provided to Pentagon and military officials before the invasion, said the U.S. intelligence official…But when the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command produced their own list of sites that a limited number of U.S. "exploitation teams" should search, priority was given to those identified by exiled Iraqi opposition groups, he said. Al Qaqaa wasn't one of them.

[Chalabi strikes again -- with a big assist from his credulous allies in the DoD]

But, anyway, none of that matters any more: HEEEERES SAMMY!

The new Bin Laden tape. All that matters is the race to “frame” it and give it meaning. Clearly you could play it either way

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/29/binladen/index.html
Round 1 in the bin Laden spin game goes to the Kerry camp. Immediately after CNN aired the new video, showing the remarkably composed, healthy-looking, and elegantly robed al-Qaida leader sticking it one more time in Bush's eye, Kerry foreign policy advisor Richard Holbrooke stuck it in the president's other eye. The video, Holbrooke told Wolf Blitzer, "raises the troubling question about why this grotesque mass murderer is still out there" thumbing his nose at America. As Blitzer tried to counter by pointing out that polls show most Americans think Bush will do a better job of protecting them against terrorism, Holbrooke quickly shot back, "If Bush is so much more effective, why is bin Laden still on the loose?"…

For a response from the Bush camp, Blitzer turned to the AEI's Danielle Pletka, who seemed overwrought and unable to look directly at the camera. The Bush advisor took immediate exception to bin Laden's hurtful taunt that the president had spent a bit too long listening to the story of the pet goat on the morning of Sept. 11. "I'm glad to hear that Michael Moore is giving aid and comfort to the enemy," she snapped, her eyes darting everywhere but at the camera. Pletka, in keeping with the frenzied, final-days tone of the Bush campaign, then ripped into Holbrooke for trying to "exploit" the tape for political gain. "It's a lie we had bin Laden in our clutches and let him get away. And it's a lie that once we have him, the war on terror will be over."…

[NB: Need I point out that (a) you didn’t need Michael Moore to know about the infamous “Pet Goat” video – which is a matter of public record and has been ever since it was recorded; and (b) insofar as Moore did report this, he was doing nothing more than reveal what actually happened in those first fateful minutes, and if it was a damning disclosure for Bush – which it was – you can’t blame Moore for that. But we all know the “aid and comfort” line is an old standby for governments who don’t want inconvenient information to get out to the American people.]

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/i-heart-danni-pletka.html
[Danni Pletka] was new to me, but let me say that she is truly a wonderfully brilliant spokesperson and I hope the Bush administration puts her out there every possible minute

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/29/18402/974
Regardless of what a shoddy Reuters story may say, there is no way it helps Bush for the American voters to be reminded that Bin Laden is still on the loose. Those voters who are already voting for Bush may be all atwitter because of this tape, but the cynics who don't much like either candidate--and these folks are disproportionately included in the shrinking pool of undecided voters--won't be convinced that we should reelect George Bush because he's the guy who's been President for the last three years of our failure to capture Bin Laden.

The Bin Laden tape does not help Bush. It probably has no significant effect, but if it does, that effect is probably negative toward Bush. The Bin Laden tape does not present any reason for us to be concerned in terms of the election. Our concern should be that Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose, and we need to elect a President who will make it a priority to capture Bin Laden.

More comment: help or hurt? or no big difference at all?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003843

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_29_bestof.html#109909733789444799

http://www.electablog.com/2004/10/if-you-dont-know-me-by-now.html

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109909250653887930

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/005017.php

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/seriously.html

Wonkette gives the best analysis (with a nod to The Princess Bride)

http://www.wonkette.com/archives/im-osama-bin-laden-and-i-approve-of-this-message-024566.php
Ooops: He's alive. And he's condemning Bush. Which of course means that he wants Kerry to win. Unless he really wants Bush to win and is just by default endorsing Kerry in order to get people to vote for Bush out of spite. But then again, if we're smart enough to figure that out, then maybe Osama knows that, too and he really wants Kerry to win, and is endorsing Kerry so that people will at first learn toward voting for Bush but then think that's what Osama wants. . . So confusing. Clearly, we've fallen for one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia"; but only slightly less well known is this: "Do not read about goats when death is on the line."

Unfortunately, this is a classic example of the media saying “this helps Bush if we say it does” (which, itself, of course, DOES help Bush). Perhaps this is their attempt at retroactive balance after giving the Al Qaqaa business such prominent play

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_digbysblog_archive.html#109909374311145623

Bush plays the age-old game of “we’re going to politicize this by accusing you of politicizing this” – and the media plays along

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_digbysblog_archive.html#109910678031200854
This is interesting. The State Department Tried to Stop Airing of Bin Laden Tape...Bush knew about this tape for a while and they obviously were not sure quite how to deal with it. They know that it can break either way for them…It appears that they have decided on a modified "Mary Cheney" --- shock and outrage that Kerry allegedly politicized the issue, when he actually didn't.

[The State Dept story: http://info.mgnetwork.com/printthispage.cgi?url=http%3A//ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB5HREYW0E.html&oaspagename=www.tbo.com/ap/story.htmℑ=tbologo80x60.jpg]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003850
Speaking to reporters outside the campaign rally here, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said that the tape should not affect the way Bush campaigns but that Kerry should have marked a 12-hour truce.

"You would think that there would be a, maybe, 12 hours to let the American absorb what has just happened today," he said.

Prodded on why, if the tape ought not to affect the campaign, Kerry should have stopped criticizing the president, Bartlett revised his statement, saying that the problem was that Kerry's attack had been "discredited."

There's nothing, it seems, they won't game.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008503.html
John Kerry's campaign on Bush's use of the Osama tape as an occasion to make a mean spirited, partisan political attack on John Kerry:

This is a serious issue, and it’s disturbing that the White House seems intent on making it a political issue. The president was briefed on the tape before he delivered one of his most negative and divisive attacks of this campaign.

“America deserves a national security debate on the merits rather, than a president who desperately resorts to distortions, falsehoods and untruths on a regular basis.

“John Kerry was very clear tonight that we will stop at nothing to hunt down and kill the terrorists and that all Americans - Republicans and Democrats - are united in the war on terror. George Bush wasted no time in dividing us again.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/30/politics/campaign/30campaign.html?ex=1256875200&en=13c7b07a9b0177e3&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
For Mr. Bush, who started his day with a speech in which he made his response to the Sept. 11 attacks the central theme of his appeal for another term, the videotape assured that terrorism would dominate the closing days of the campaign.

And, finally, speculation that this tape and its timed release was a Rove operation

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008504.html

Read this. Bush in 1999, talking about how useful starting a war can be in getting your domestic agenda enacted (no, I’m not kidding). Thanks to Susan of Suburban Guerilla for the link

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/article.php?id=761
“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

[“If I have a chance…”]

Running the gauntlet in Ohio

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/hardball-in-ohio.html
Republicans have proven themselves to just be a pack of disgusting thugs. I hope some of them go to jail for this…I sure as hell wouldn't accept a registered letter from the Republican party, and I definitely wouldn't bother to stand in line for an hour at my post office to pick it up if I wasn't home to get it…

When Catherine Herold received mail from the Ohio Republican Party earlier this year, she refused it.

The longtime Barberton Democrat wanted no part of the mailing and figured that by refusing it, the GOP would have to pay the return postage.

What she didn't count on was the returned mail being used to challenge the validity of her voter registration.

Herold, who is assistant to the senior vice president and provost at the University of Akron, was one of 976 Summit County voters whose registrations were challenged last week by local Republicans on behalf of the state party…

The challengers, all older longtime Republicans -- Barbara Miller, Howard Calhoun, Madge Doerler and Louis Wray -- were subpoenaed by the elections board and were present at the hearings. Akron attorney Jack Morrison, a Republican, volunteered to represent the four.

Democratic board member Russ Pry suggested that the four could be subject to criminal prosecution for essentially making false claims on the challenge forms. The form states that making a false claim is subject to prosecution as a fifth-degree felony.

...The angry voters had the Republicans on the defensive.

“Why'd you do it?'' one challenged voter shouted out at Calhoun. “Who the hell are you?'' the man asked.

“What the hell do you care?'' replied Calhoun, an attorney.

What the hell do you care? What a monster.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_digbysblog_archive.html#109906851299827438
What is it about this particular story that is so inflammatory?…After taking a few deep breaths I think I have figured it out. It's that the Republican Party's corruption has extended far into the grassroots. It's not longer just the Nixonian Roger Stones or the Rovian Nathan Sproul's, it's average, everyday, pillars of the community who have joined in doing the sickening dirty work of a party that cannot win a majority legitimately. These weren't operative sharpies. They were older Republicans willing to do the bidding of their corrupt party and they didn't seem to care even when confronted with proof that their scheme was entirely unethical.

More

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/29/ohio_fraud/index.html
"It is an outright case of election fraud in Lake County. The phony letter says newly registered voters signed up by the Kerry or Capri Cafaro campaigns or the NAACP, their registrations are illegal and they will not be able to vote…"'That was not authorized by the Board of Elections,' said Elections Director Jan Clair. 'It was not mailed by the Lake County Board of Elections.'…"Sheriff Dan Dunlap is investigating. 'It will be a federal offense because you have interfered with the constitutionally protected right to vote,' he said.

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/10/gop_deceit_in_p.html
[L]ots of people in Pittsburgh have just discovered that they're not registered - assholes were registering people around campus and in the studenty hangout places, and none of those registrations ever showed up. More bizarrely, lots of people signed petitions to legalize medical marijuana and ended up having their registration switched to republican and their polling places changed! They can still vote, of course, but only if they find out where to go ahead of time....

The ugly IRS attack on the NAACP

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_29_bestof.html#109907022628789639
I've never been able to make up my mind whether Bushco is more incompetent than arrogant or arrogant than incompetent. Are they arrogantly incompetent or incompetently arrogant? In any case, why would you want to energize a voting base whose vote you are energetically trying to suppress?

But the scary part is this: if they are this eager to punish w's critics before he's won the election, consider what they'll do if he wins.

A weird story (ex-boyfriend threatens to kill ex-girlfriend for supporting Kerry), and it’s unfair to hold Bush directly responsible for this, but it does make you reflect on the kind of campaign they’ve run (if you support Kerry you hate America, you are a traitor to patriotism, you are aiding and abetting the enemy, etc.)

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_29_bestof.html#109906475411948193

Four years ago, the latest Gallup tracking poll going into the election: Bush 52, Gore 39

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/29/124640/61

Ugh. More on the morning after

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/campaign/27legal.html?oref=login

The mood in the Bush campaign

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9141-2004Oct29.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
President Bush gave a brief interview to USA Today on Air Force One …"This campaign boils down to a matter of trust: Who has earned the trust of the American people? Who do they believe in? Who do they believe can fight and win the war on terror and keep America secure?" he told Judy Keen.

Of course for Bush, working from talking points on a small white notepad, the answer to those questions was self-evident…"I have shown the American people I can do the job in tough times. I have shown the American people I have a vision, and I have shown the American people I am consistent and true to what I believe," he said.

Keen describes a somewhat tense atmosphere in the flying Oval Office: "His mood wasn't jocular, as it often is in encounters with reporters, nor was he particularly reflective. There was an audience of staffers: longtime adviser Karen Hughes, perched on the arm of a sofa, campaign communications director Nicolle Devenish, White House spokesman Scott McClellan and press aide Josh Deckard."…

Keen also writes: "Asked to compare this campaign to the 2000 race, which ended with the outcome undecided for 36 days, Bush asked, 'Refresh my memory -- how was I feeling four years ago?' Told that he was confident, then reminded of what happened, he said a little testily, 'What did happen is I won.' "

Bob Smith (hyperconservative Republican senator from NH), a “maverick” if there ever was one, endorses Kerry

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/29/13145/365

Of all the Bush endorsement switches (2000/2004), this may be the most revealing and significant: The Economist

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/the_economist_is_realitybased.php

How Bush has helped revitalize progressive popular culture

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108877/fr/rss/

David Sirota, Mr. Reliable, charts the increasingly blurred lines between corporate and political leadership in this country – just in case you thought it couldn’t get any worse

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/10/corporate-colonization.html

He also traces Kerry’s agenda for the first days after taking office

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/10/president-kerrys-signature.html

Bonus item: A new perspective on Bush v. Gore (2000) -- Rehnquist and the Supremes liked to run betting pools on the outcome of elections (no joke)

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002767.html
During an election night party in 2000, Justice O’Connor apparently became upset when CBS anchor Dan Rather called Florida for Vice President Gore, She exclaimed “This is terrible!” and then proceeded, “with an air of obvious disgust,” to walk off to get a plate of food…

Extra bonus: an entirely spontaneous, unscripted online chat with the Bush twins

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2004/10/29/twins/

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:29 AM

 
EXPLOSIVE DEVELOPMENTS

Desperately trying to get on top of the missing explosives story, the Pentagon released a satellite photo from March 2003, which shows two trucks parked outside one of the Al Qaqaa buildings — trucks that could be picking up or delivering, could be there for a thousand reasons or no reason at all — as “proof” that 400 tons of explosives were probably hauled off before the war was over.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136897,00.html

[One little problem: where this photo was taken wasn’t where the explosives were stored! http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/al_qa_qaa-imagery4.htm (thanks to Josh Marshall for the link)]

There was also an amusing tete a tete as a Dept of Defense Under Secretary volunteered the notion that maybe the Russians, who had probably SOLD these weapons to Iraq, possibly in violation of international sanctions, had smuggled them out so they wouldn’t be found. You can imagine the phone call that “Pooty-poot” must have made to his friend George, then suddenly other folks at DoD were denying the story like crazy

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a4bc50c6-2870-11d9-9308-00000e2511c8.html

These hot stories lasted all of a few hours, before modest little KSTP of Minneapolis blew everything out of the water by releasing a video of their news crew, with embedded troops, AFTER the US takeover, going to Al Qaqaa, cutting through the UNOPENED IAEA seals, and revealing hundreds of boxes, all marked EXPLOSIVES. David Kay (US arms inspector), just interviewed on CNN, said they were definitely containers of HMX and RDX, and that only facilities containing those explosives carried the IAEA seals. Boys and girls, wrap up this story, the excuses and lies are all over now

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/28/mn_washtimes/index.html

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S3723.html?cat=1

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003829

Aaron Brown closes out the debate with a great segment featuring U.S. weapons inspector David Kay

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/28/asb.01.html
DAVID KAY, FMR. U.S. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Good to be with you, Aaron.

BROWN: I don't know how better to do this than to show you some pictures, have you explain to me what they are or are not, OK? First, I'll just call it the seal and tell me if this is an IAEA seal on that bunker at that munitions dump.

KAY: Aaron, as about as certain as I can be looking at a picture, not physically holding it, which obviously I would have preferred to have been there, that's an IAEA seal. I've never seen anything else in Iraq in about 15 years of being in Iraq and around Iraq that was other than an IAEA seal of that shape.

BROWN: And was there anything else at the facility that would have been under IAEA seal?

KAY: Absolutely nothing. It was the HMX, RDX, the two high explosives.

BROWN: OK. Now, I want to take a look at the barrels here for a second and you can tell me what they tell you. They obviously to us just show us a bunch of barrels. You'll see it somewhat differently.

KAY: Well, it's interesting. There were three foreign suppliers to Iraq of this explosive in the 1980s. One of them used barrels like this and inside the barrel is a bag. HMX is in powdered form because you actually use it to shape a spherical lens that is used to create the triggering device for nuclear weapons.

And, particularly on the videotape, which is actually better than the still photos, as the soldier dips into it that's either HMX or RDX. I don't know of anything else in al Qa Qaa that was in that form.

BROWN: Let me ask you then, David, the question I asked Jamie. In regard to the dispute about whether that stuff was there when the Americans arrived, is it game, set, match? Is that part of the argument now over?

KAY: Well, at least with regard to this one bunker and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through and there were others there that were sealed, with this one, I think it is game, set and match.

There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken and quite frankly to me the most frightening thing is not only is the seal broken and the lock broken but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean to rephrase the so-called Pottery Barn rule if you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security.

BROWN: That raises a number of questions. Let me throw out one. It suggests that maybe they just didn't know what they had.

KAY: I think quite likely they didn't know they had HMX, which speaks to the lack of intelligence given troops moving through that area but they certainly knew they had explosives.

And to put this in context, I think it's important this loss of 360 tons but Iraq is awash with tens of thousands of tons of explosives right now in the hands of insurgents because we did not provide the security when we took over the country.

BROWN: Could you -- I'm trying to stay out of the realm of politics.

KAY: So am I. BROWN: I'm not sure you can necessarily. I know. It's a little tricky here but is there any reason not to have anticipated the fact that there would be bunkers like this, explosives like this and a need to secure them?

KAY: Absolutely not. For example, al Qa Qaa was a site of (UNINTELLIGIBLE) super gun project. It was a team of mine that discovered the HMX originally in 1991. That was one of the most well documented explosive sites in all of Iraq. The other 80 or so major ammunition storage points were also well documented.

Iraq had, and it's a frightening number, two-thirds of the total conventional explosives that the U.S. has in its entire inventory. The country was an armed camp.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001263.html
"The photographs are consistent with what I know of Al Qaqaa," said David A. Kay, a former American official who led the recent hunt in Iraq for unconventional weapons and visited the vast site. "The damning thing is the seals. The Iraqis didn't use seals on anything. So I'm absolutely sure that's an I.A.E.A. seal."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003838
[L]ook at what one of the reporters who was there when the video was shot said earlier Thursday evening on Paula Zahn's show ...

All I can say with certainty is that, on that day, there were bunker after bunker after bunker of explosives, tons of them, that were unguarded. We went in and looked at some of them. I don't have the sort of expertise to tell you whether or not those were exactly what they're talking about when they say that these -- how many odd tons of explosives went missing.

So, apparently, there was bunker after bunker with the same stuff Kay was sure about in the one bunker he saw video of.

Infuriating. This morning, CNN is still posting a story presenting the Pentagon photo and the video as two equivalent, counterbalancing stories. What’s WRONG with these people?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/28/iraq.explosives/index.html

REALLY bad timing. Bush campaign puts out an ad with doctored crowd images to make the event look more crowded than it was, then has to pull the ad, admit it was falsified, and find some poor low-level shmuck to blame for the whole thing (thanks to Peter Suber for the link)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/28/171257/59

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/bush.ad.ap/index.html

Scary terrorist video, given big play by Drudge, and shown by Fox News BEFORE it could be authenticated, may turn into yet another embarrassment for them

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_digbysblog_archive.html#109900581491319560

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/28/terror.tape/index.html
A U.S. official said there were "real questions about its authenticity."

FBI expands inquiry into Halliburton contracts (ah, more partisan witchhunts…errr….uh….well maybe not in this case)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7606-2004Oct28.html?nav=rss_nation

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-halliburton29oct29,0,7146099.story?coll=la-home-headlines

CIA to produce a new report on the question: did the invasion of Iraq make us safer from terror or not? (Just to initiate the project tells you what their answer will be, but too late for this election)

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/10/another-report.html

The declining state of troop readiness and morale

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003827

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000143.html
He said morale is very low among the troops and that they all want out -- few believe in the war or Bush, and he thinks that many of these troops' negative feelings are being transmitted back to extended family networks that have traditionally been supporters of the Republican Party, like his own family.

It’s really funny. This was the week that Rove had all worked out: there was going to be an Intelligence Bill signing in the WH Rose Garden, Bush would be creating the appearance of inevitable momentum, floating high above controversy like a celestial creature, midway between earth and heaven. Instead, everything has gone to hell, Bush and his people have made unimaginable mistakes, and the entire week has been lost, trying to explain how 400 tons of deadly explosives suddenly showed up missing in Iraq. Look at this list of recent misadventures:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/28/172336/87

[More from Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/29/7046/1820]

Meanwhile, wonder of wonders, Kerry and the Democratic machine have outperformed the magical spinmeisters of the GOP juggernaut

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/28/142012/33

Bush goes on attack, Kerry turns positive

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/10/28/bush_ends_on_attack.html

[Good ad: http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000937.html]

Bush on Kerry: “he’ll say anything to get elected”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136893,00.html

Say anything? Hmmm…

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/005012.php
[Kevin Drum] MIRROR, MIRROR....The Bush team has a — what's the right word? — truly Orwellian talent for saying and doing ghastly things and then turning right around and claiming that it's really John Kerry who's guilty of saying and doing those same ghastly things. A few examples:

• Run the biggest deficit in modern history and then complain that Kerry has a "tax gap."

• Have Dick Cheney do everything but tell voters that they'll be forcibly converted to Islam unless they vote for Bush, and then castigate Kerry for "scare mongering."

• Get your surrogates to explain on national TV that the al-Qaqaa fiasco was actually the fault of troops on the ground, not the president, and then get out on the stump and claim that Kerry is the one "denigrating the action of our troops in the field."

• Gain fame even among your own supporters for relentlessly putting ideology and partisanship ahead of facts on the ground, and then give a speech charging that Kerry puts "politics ahead of facts."

You almost have to admire the chutzpah behind this campaign strategy, don't you? Almost.

Bush sorta appeals to Democratic support, but just listen to him and you can tell his heart isn’t in it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5396-2004Oct28.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
Plante uses a soundbite from Bush's speech in Lancaster County, Pa.: "If you're a Democrat and you want America to be strong and confident in our ideals, I would be honored to have your vote."…"Well, here's the thing," Plante says. "There were no Democrats at any of those rallies where the President made that plea. Those are ticketed events for supporters only."

100,000 CIVILIANS dead in Iraq

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/10/28/100000_civilians_killed_in_iraq.html

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109902941049326214
The troubling thing about these results is that they suggest that the US may soon catch up with Saddam Hussein in the number of civilians killed.

See, and you thought the Dept of Homeland Security was about KEEPING us safe. But it appears that people over there spent a lot more time thinking about how to convince us to FEEL more safe leading up to the election

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7445-2004Oct28.html?nav=rss_nation

[NB: On the other hand, for most of the past couple of years, Tom Ridge has been working to convince us to feel LESS safe through terror alerts designed to calibrate the public anxiety level. Either way, it’s about perception management]

They start breedin’ em young over in GOP-land. College Republicans defraud senior citizens and others out of donations with a scam that would make most pyramid schemes look modest by comparison (thanks to David Noreen for the link)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002075044_repubs28m.html

Creepy. The Stepford Campaign

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108852/fr/rss/
"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."

More diabolical voter suppression strategies (thanks to Megan Boler for the links)

http://www.newdonkey.com/2004/10/rove-mo.html

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/810

In an astonishing development, Bush decides individuals can’t sue over voting rights (gee, why would they be making this policy change right about now?)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-votesue29oct29,1,2443580.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

IRS targets NAACP’s tax-exempt status

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-10-29-naacp-irs_x.htm

Amazing: Nevada is the ONLY state insisting that electronic voting machines produce a backup paper record of votes (for recounts)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004596

[NB: I guess Nevada is one state where they know something about how easily such machines can be jimmied]

I agree with these stories: nothing that has been said by Bush or his people convince me in the slightest that the infamous bulge was anything but a radio receiver. In fact, their “explanations” never rose above ridiculous lies. Nor is there any doubt in my mind that they WOULD do it if they thought they could get away with it. But since the main media seems to have lost interest in this story, we will probably never find out the truth (thanks to Blog Left for the links)

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=18449

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/29/bulge/

Undecideds breaking for Kerry

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=2231
On a percentage-point basis, late-deciding swing voters are leaning toward Kerry over Bush by a three to one margin. That could be the most important statistic you see heading into the final weekend of the campaign.

Good news in Florida

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/28/232843/33

Zogby telling everyone that Kerry will win

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/28/194147/31

OK, things are looking pretty good right now. But let me repeat an item I wrote on September 13. It still causes me sleepless nights

http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_pbd_archive.html#109507971196823183
[NB] "Now, here is my own nightmare scenario. Revelations over the coming weeks damage Bush’s stature. Ongoing events in Iraq show what a failure his policies have been. Kerry wipes the floor with him during the debates. The public sentiment shifts, and on Election Day, exit polls show a decided Kerry victory. But when all the votes are tabulated, Bush is stunningly re-elected. How did it happen? Read on….

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EARLY_VOTING?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=customwire.htm
In an election year when just a few thousand votes in a few states could decide the winner, the growing number of voters who cast ballots weeks before Election Day is transforming the landscape for political campaigns…Somewhere between 15 percent and 20 percent of all voters nationwide cast their ballots early, and that number is expected to rise to 25 percent this year…

In other words, imagine 25% of the vote already locked in, now, when Bush’s popularity is peaking – including a heavily pro-Bush military vote"

2003 Nobel Prize winner prohibited from publishing her book in U.S. (thanks to Laura Rozen for the link)

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20041027005627&newsLang=en

Bonus item: you saw the photo of Bush here yesterday, giving the finger to the camera during a video shoot. It wasn’t doctored, and it certainly wasn’t ambiguous. Look at how that picture was characterized on ABC, and you will understand all you need to know about the sorry state of the news media today

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000942.html
On ABC World News Tonight this evening, in a report on television ads in swing states, Jake Tapper showed this video and said "it is purported to be President Bush making an obscene gesture."

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:11 AM

 
JUMPING THE SHARK?

Ouch!

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/10/good_timing.html

[NB: Ha, ha, ha...no…stop…must…not…get…giddy]

Stop the presses! Bush withdraws himself from consideration

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_27_bestof.html#109889800977247512
Bush on the campaign trail this morning: "A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not who you want as commander in chief."

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/statement-from-wesley-clark.html
[Wesley Clark] Today George W. Bush made a very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected. In his own words, he told the American people that “…a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief.

President Bush couldn’t be more right. He jumped to conclusions about any connection between Saddam Hussein and 911. He jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction. He jumped to conclusions about the mission being accomplished. He jumped to conclusions about how we had enough troops on the ground to win the peace. And because he jumped to conclusions, terrorists and insurgents in Iraq may very well have their hands on powerful explosives to attack our troops, we are stuck in Iraq without a plan to win the peace, and Americans are less safe both at home and abroad.

By doing all these things, he broke faith with our men and women in uniform. He has let them down. George W. Bush is unfit to be our Commander in Chief.

Bush: “To criticize me is to criticize the troops” (is this guy ever going to take responsibility for ANYTHING?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1993-2004Oct27.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
"Now the senator is making wild charges about missing explosives…The senator's denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts," Bush said in Lancaster County, Pa.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/005003.php
Via email from the Kerry campaign, here's what General Merrill McPeak, former chief of staff of the Air Force, has to say about this:

The President seems to think Senator Kerry could not possibly be criticizing him since the President thinks he has never made a mistake. Let’s be perfectly clear: it is the President who dropped the ball. Senator Kerry is being critical of George Bush, not the troops. By embarking on the line of attack, George Bush is deflecting blame from him over to the military. This is beneath contempt.

So, of course now we will hear Bush criticize Giuliani for "blaming the troops," right?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/giuliani-blames-troops.html
Stunning. Giuliani on the Today Show:

The actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?

Uh, George, call for you on the line from Iraq…

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003818
"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," Mohammed al-Sharaa told the AFP. "The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall and I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/international/middleeast/28bomb.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Looters stormed the weapons site at Al Qaqaa in the days after American troops swept through the area in early April 2003 on their way to Baghdad…The Iraqis described an orgy of theft so extensive that enterprising residents rented their trucks to looters…

Two witnesses were employees of Al Qaqaa - one a chemical engineer and the other a mechanic - and the third was a former employee, a chemist, who had come back to retrieve his records, determined to keep them out of American hands. The mechanic, Ahmed Saleh Mezher, said employees asked the Americans to protect the site but were told this was not the soldiers' responsibility.

The accounts do not directly address the question of when 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from the site sometime after early March, the last time international inspectors checked the seals on the bunkers where the material was stored. It is possible that Iraqi forces removed some explosives before the invasion.

But the accounts make clear that what set off much if not all of the looting was the arrival and swift departure of American troops, who did not secure the site after inducing the Iraqi forces to abandon it.

Has the Bush campaign jumped the shark?

http://www.electablog.com/2004/10/bush-campaign-jumps-shark.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003822
President Bush's comments today on the al Qaqaa matter are so telling, disjointed and over-the-top that it's really worth reprinting them in full (with the most rancid or ridiculous passages emphasized courtesy of the TPM editorial staff) ...

Bush promises to “get to the bottom” of the missing explosives story – and we all know what THAT means

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_27_bestof.html#109889757129370252

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/politics/campaign/28bush.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
The exact timing of the disappearance of the explosives is critical to the political arguments of each campaign.

No, it’s not. The key issue ISN’T when 400 tons of high explosives turned up missing from Al Qaqaa specifically, horrible as that is. It’s the following, of which Al Qaqaa is merely a reminder: (1) thousands of tons of munitions ARE missing from all over Iraq, undoubtedly, because they weren’t guarded; (2) these munitions ARE being used to kill our soldiers and Iraqis, every day; (3) the reason the Bush people have no idea what is missing, from where, or when, is because they were primarily concerned with protecting the OIL WELLS first (which were going to generate the revenue to pay for the war and reconstruction, remember?); (4) the reason it was “impossible” to guard all the sites, to use their excuse, is that they CHOSE not to send enough troops in, because Rumsfeld was determined to make Iraq a showcase for his New Military, and to discredit at all costs Powell, Shinseki, and White, all of whom said he was crazy to try to shortchange the troop numbers; (5) these sites STILL aren’t being guarded or inventoried, even now. Everything else is a snow job, a distraction, from the real failures of Bush and his policies.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/qaqaamania.html

One last thing. As I understand it, these sorts of explosives have a “fingerprint” that allows one to test explosions to determine the nature and source of the materials used. One way to infer backwards if these HMX and RDX explosives had gotten into enemy hands would be through tests of the IED’s -- improvised explosive devices – that have been used against our troops. They must do such tests as part of their investigations in every case, don’t they? Oh…hmmm…

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108771/fr/rss/
In a throwaway sentence, the Boston Globe quotes former weapons inspector David Kay as saying that three major insurgent bombing sites tested positive for HMX or RDX. Is that true? When and where were they? Can these bombings be traced to the Al-Qaqaa stockpile?

Remembering the shame of Abu Ghraib

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/opinion/28thu1.html
When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal first broke, the Bush administration struck a pose of righteous indignation. It assured the world that the problem was limited to one block of one prison, that the United States would never condone the atrocities we saw in those terrible photos, that it would punish those responsible for any abuse - regardless of their rank - and that it was committed to defending the Geneva Conventions and the rights of prisoners.

None of this appears to be true.

Let’s see, it’s the FACTS that are drawing Bush’s numbers down, therefore the blame must go to the media that keeps reporting those facts (Why won’t they get with the damn program?!)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003817
Is it all going to be about media bias now?

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/the_sea_was_ang.html
It's clear from a variety of sources that the hawkosphere is once again busy plotting its stab in the back rationalization of the looming defeat of George W. Bush. The theory here is that rather than losing the election because his policies have made things worse, Bush lost because the press (known as "the mainstream media" to the semi-deranged and "the MSM" to those too far gone to even pray for) made it appear that things had gotten worse by, for example, reporting factual accounts of Bushian blundering

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2004/10/premature_ejacu.php
I was switching channels and came across the Fox News chatshow…Diane West, a columnist for, where else, The Washington Times,…was complaining about, what else, liberal bias…The interview concluded with West reiterating that the liberal media could swing the electorate five points to Kerry with their slanted coverage and sarcastic looks.

Are conservatives pre-rationalizing a Bush defeat?…They are taking the first baby steps to denying the legitimacy of a Kerry win, preparing the first batch of sour grapes.

[NB: So, what is going on? First, and always with his group, they’re working the refs, piling on the blame now to cow them into softer coverage in the crucial days leading up to the vote. They certainly aren’t giving up yet. Second, yeah, they want to undermine Kerry’s legitimacy if he wins and attenuate the “honeymoon period” during which he might actually get some things done. But third, and most important, they have a long-term strategy to undermine the mainstream media, whip up resentment among their supporters, and buttress the credibility of “alternative” media sources which they dominate. Why, the next thing you know, they might try going after the bloggers…]

Tom DeLay, in serious trouble himself, responds by casting wild accusations all over the place (including Lyndon LaRouche and the whole paranoid menagerie), and goes out of his way to slander Daily Kos (Markos Moulitsas) one of the True Greats of the blogosphere, and a frequent contributor here, with a completely ridiculous and hateful accusation

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004573

BTW, here’s an example of Kos at his best

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/27/19538/076
When speaking in Republican areas:

In fact, I believe my opponent is running away from some of the great traditions of the Democrat Party…The Democrat Party has also a great tradition of defending the defenseless.

When speaking in swing areas:

In fact, I believe my opponent is running away from some of the great traditions of the Democratic Party…The Democratic Party has a great tradition of leading this country with strength and conviction in times of war.

And when the “it’s the media’s fault” riff loses steam, there’s always the other reliable wingnut standby: it’s the UN’s fault

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001256.html

My god. Not only did Bush Co. tell the Brits five months in advance that they were planning to invade Iraq (while they were still posturing to the American people about using diplomacy, pursuing all possible alternatives, etc): THEY TOLD THEM THE DATE WHEN IT WOULD START

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_27_bestof.html#109891375042743525

Minority voter turnout to decide election

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/005002.php
Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio has just finished a survey of 12 battleground states and finds Bush and Kerry tied with 47% of the vote apiece. But when he weights for minority turnout based on the 2000 exit polls, Kerry is ahead 49.2%-45.7%. And when he further updates the weighting to take into account the most recent census results, Kerry is ahead 49.9%-44.7%.

As Fabrizio blandly puts it, "It is clear that minority turnout is a wildcard in this race and represents a huge upside for Sen. Kerry and a considerable challenge for the President's campaign." More accurately, if Fabrizio is right — that Kerry is ahead by 5% overall in the battleground states — Kerry is a sure winner on November 2.

Suddenly the Bush campaign's obsession with challenging voters in minority neighborhoods makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Their own internal polling is probably telling the same thing that Fabrizio's poll says: unless they somehow manage to keep the minority vote down, they're doomed.

[More: http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000924.html
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004577]

Voter suppression: both sides do it, as long as you give a ridiculous meaning to the term “suppression”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/27/94730/991
[WSJ] Democrats "see suppression efforts in Republicans' well-advertised plans to vigorously check the registrations of those who show up to vote. In their eyes, such efforts are designed to convince voters that trying to cast a ballot will be too much of a hassle."

Republicans "see suppression efforts in Democrats' attempts to sow doubts about Mr. Bush's character and his fealty to social conservatives. They believe Democrats will use the Internet to spread fresh rumors about Mr. Bush's youthful behavior among conservative Christians."

[Kos] So let's review:

A) Republicans are spending untold thousands on lawyer goon squads created with the single purpose of disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of voters, many of whom are first-time voters spurred to participation by Bush's singular failure, and most of whom live in communities that were up until recently subject to statutory disenfranchisement;

B) Democrats are saying nasty, albeit true, things about Bush;

C) Therefore, both sides are engaging in voter suppression.

Even for the WSJ, this is atrocious.

California dumps Diebold machines

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000929.html
The state of California has ordered that 15,000 brand new touch-screen voting machines not be used in next week's presidential election…These electronic machines were manufactured by Diebold Inc., a North Canton, Ohio-based company that also specializes in automated teller machines and electronic security.

California election officials say there are serious flaws with the machines and that Diebold repeatedly misled the state about them…"[Diebold] literally engaged in absolutely deplorable behavior and, to that extent, put the election at risk, jeopardizing the outcome of the election," said California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley.

Some 50 million Americans — about 29 percent of voters in the United States — are expected to use touch-screen electronic voting machines in next week's election…Experts have raised questions about the machines' security features, which some say can be easily defeated, making it possible to manipulate the actual vote count.

"In all of my consulting work and all of my work in industry I've never seen a system that I thought was this vulnerable to abuse," said Avi Rubin, a professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, who, along with other security experts, analyzed Diebold's source code for the electronic voting machines.

Diebold machines used in 37 (now that make 36) states

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00198.htm

Will we see Zarqawi paraded around on a leash Monday morning? Looking more and more like a possibility

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=576803&host=3&dir=75

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008478.html
A series of policy mistakes by the U.S. military and the Bush administration have transformed Fallujah from a shabby, dusty backwater known regionally for mosques and tasty kebabs into a symbol of Arab pride and defiance of the United States throughout the Islamic world.

[NB: Come now, will a military assault on the weekend before the election be represented as anything more than a cynically timed campaign stunt? Given how much everyone has heard about Rove’s “October Surprise,” could it actually backfire?]

Now that Bush won’t be able to use the 9-11 Bill for a pre-election Rose Garden ceremony, and the political benefit is off, GOP conferees no longer consider it very urgent at all to get the bill passed – not that homeland security or safety are sufficient reasons by themselves

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3595-2004Oct27.html?nav=rss_nation
Sense of Urgency Disappears

GOP challenges kids’ volunteer efforts for get out the vote activities

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/10/27/students.vote.campaign.ap/index.html
Young people in the program organized by the Wisconsin Citizen Action Fund take time from regular classes to go door to door in minority neighborhoods and areas with historically low voter turnout, urging people to cast ballots…

Chris Lato, spokesman for the state Republican Party, called the program "a disgraceful use of taxpayer money."…"To spend this time on a clearly partisan effort when these kids should be in school learning is shocking," Lato said…

The children do not wear any partisan buttons or clothing, and they do not encourage people to vote one way or another…Participation is voluntary, and parents are required to give their approval, he said.

Something for the youthful members of the audience: the political significance of Eminem

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/27/1747/1607

Caroline Schlossberg: Mr. President, I KNEW John Kennedy. My father WAS John Kennedy. And Mr. President, you’re no John Kennedy

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008468.html

Welcome to Bizarro World

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/bizarro-world.html
Drudge's latest really helps to illustrate everything that's wrong with the bizarro media world inhabited by conservatives. ABCNews has a terrorist tape which they haven't yet broadcast. This proves they have a liberal bias, you see, because broadcasting credible threats from al Qaeda terrorists who Bush hasn't managed to catch would be good for Bush. Makes sense to me…They have, however, given it over to US intelligence agencies, who also apparently also have a liberal bias, because they haven't released the videos either. Well, except to Drudge of course.

[More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003819]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003823
I just sat down to watch a few minutes of the alternative fact universe that is the Fox News Channel. And it's really quite bracing to see the ridiculousness up close, even from folks who should know better like Mort Kondracke or even Mara Liasson.

I've always been curious what sort of brainwashing they give these otherwise good people before they take up regular gigs at that place.

To hear them tell it, the most likely time the explosives disappeared was before the war started. No one knows otherwise, including the current Iraqi officials, who say they have no way of knowing when the stuff disappeared. For all those reasons, Kerry's in big trouble. And also the NYT-CBS-IAEA anti-Bush conspiracy, did we mention that?

The collapse of the only purported evidence that the explosives were snaked away under Saddam's rule doesn't seem to have gotten their attention. What's more, only a few hours ago former weapons inspector David Kay said he found it highly implausible that the materials could have been carted away in a big fleet of trucks during the brief window of time between the last IAEA inspection and the arrival of American troops less than four weeks later. That's in contrast to the Fox panel that says it's the most likely scenario, despite the absence of any evidence.

Florida poll

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/27/113421/70
The word I hear is that NYT/CBS are not going to release their latest FL survey, because it shows Kerry up by 4 points. Apparently, they [CBS & NYT's] think that is an implausible result, so they are suppressing it. Of course, it's not implausible at all. And imagine the reverse: would they have suppressed a poll showing Bush up 4?

[NB: Let’s see, swing voters, late deciders, first-time voters, minorities, and young voters (undersampled because of cell phone usage) all are breaking decidedly for Kerry: http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/10/27/poll/]

One of the benefits of early voting is that it makes clear right from the start just how bad the violations will be…

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000917.html

…and it gives key voting groups a lot of advance warning to get their votes locked in before the nonsense starts

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004565
This is where President Bush's governing style (partisan and aggressive) and campaign strategy (turn out the hard-core conservative base) begins to provoke a backlash -- essentially, by motivating his opposition to turn out, hard.

[More: http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000918.html]

Senate outlook: a tie is a very real possibility (quick, someone get Lincoln Chafee on the speed dial)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/27/132827/57

Bonus item: Finally, FINALLY, we get an honest answer from Bush in response to the questions about his job performance

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/27/165910/82

[NB: What a guy, what a true prince of a human being he is. I can see why the Christians love him so.]

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:11 AM

 
BUSH: THE OPPOSITE OF MIDAS

Look, everything the man touches turns to crap. He has ruined every business he ever ran. His personal record, throughout his life, is one of mediocrity, sloth, and self-indulgence. He seems to think that optimism and stubborn persistence will turn bad policy into good results. The economy, Iraq, the nation’s international credibility, the social infrastructure, all bear the wounds of his bad decisions. He has surrounded himself with a group of people having the worst possible combination of smug arrogance and extreme, inflexible positions, a tragic reflection of -- rather than a counterbalance for -- his own weaknesses. And now that the consequences of these bad decisions are beginning to become apparent even to his former supporters, his only response is denial of the facts and accusations against the messenger. There is something deeply frightening about this: and not only because of the clear intentions of his second term (banning abortion, privatizing Social Security, using his own deficits as a sledgehammer to decimate social programs, continuing his foolhardy adventurism in the Middle East, and on and on).

Bush Co. starting to back off commitment to democracy in Iraq

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0410260166oct26,1,4870314.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
While publicly emphasizing the need for Iraqis to control their own destiny, the Bush administration is working behind the scenes to coax its closest Iraqi allies into a coalition that could dominate elections scheduled for January…U.S. authorities in Washington and Iraqi politicians confirmed that top White House officials have told leaders of the six major political parties that were on the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council that it would be in their common interest to present a unified electoral slate…The U.S. effort to influence parliamentary elections is highly sensitive, coming at a time when President Bush expresses his desire to bring liberty and democracy to a nation that knows only authoritarian rule…One U.S. official in Washington said the administration believes Iraq needs a "negotiated resolution ... a scaled-back democratic process."…"I see the arguments for stability now outweighing the calls for democracy," said the official, who declined to be identified. The formation of a unified slate would further entrench the U.S.-allied parties, which are mostly led by longtime exiles with dubious popular support.

[More: http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2213]

Bush plans to send more troops to Iraq, extend tours even longer…AFTER the election

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_troops_102604,00.html
Concerned that they won't get enough new troops from allies to help provide security for Iraqi elections in January, Pentagon officials are considering increasing the current U.S. force by delaying the departures of some U.S. troops now in Iraq and accelerating the deployment of others scheduled to go there next year.

Consumer confidence falls for the third straight month

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aEbsn5cX4pIo&refer=home

The NBC report championed yesterday by Drudge and hyped everywhere by Bush’s handlers trying to deflect the Al Qaqaa ammo scandal? It’s falling apart, and Bush Co. is back to smoke and mirrors

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/26/iraq.weapons.nbc.ap/index.html
"There wasn't a search," she told MSNBC, an NBC cable news channel. "The mission that the brigade had was to get to Baghdad. That was more of a pit stop there for us. And, you know, the searching, I mean certainly some of the soldiers head off on their own, looked through the bunkers just to look at the vast amount of ordnance lying around…"But as far as we could tell, there was no move to secure the weapons, nothing to keep looters away."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27bomb.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
White House officials reasserted yesterday that 380 tons of powerful explosives may have disappeared from a vast Iraqi military complex while Saddam Hussein controlled Iraq, saying a brigade of American soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex on April 10, 2003, the day after Baghdad fell.

But the unit's commander said in an interview yesterday that his troops had not searched the site and had merely stopped there overnight…"We happened to stumble on it,'' he said. "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already."

[More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/more-from-nbc.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003805]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003808
[R]emember how yesterday Scott McClellan said that,"the Pentagon, upon learning of [the disappearance of the explosives], directed the multinational forces and the Iraqi Survey Group to look into this matter, and that's what they are currently doing."…CBS talked to the Chief of the Iraq Survey Group, Charlie Duelfer, in Baghdad and he says he hasn't gotten any order like that.

And even if, EVEN IF, the loss of explosives at Al Qaqaa were to be explained away, this story is really just a hint of the much larger looting of explosives that has taken place all over Iraq

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/26/iraq_weapons_caches/index.html?source=RSS
However disturbing this story, what the New York Times and CBS News have overlooked so far is that the missing munitions at Al Qaqaa are only the tip of the iceberg and in all likelihood represent a mere fraction of the illicit explosive material currently circulating in Iraq.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003813
Now might be a good time for a follow-up from Rick Jervis of the Chicago Tribune…Back on September 30th, he wrote a piece about the lawlessness in the Iraqi town of Latifiyah, what the US military calls the "IED [or 'improvised explosive device'] capital of Iraq."…Jervis writes:

The insurgents probably are using weapons and ammunition looted from the nearby Qa-Qaa complex, a 3-mile by 3-mile weapons-storage facility about 25 miles southwest of Baghdad, said Maj. Brian Neil, operations officer for the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, which initially patrolled the area…The facility was bombed during last year's invasion and then left unguarded, Neil said. "There's definitely no shortage of weapons around here," he said.

And not just explosives (thanks to Matthew Davidson for the link)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=2&u=/nm/20041011/wl_nm/iraq_un_nuclear_dc
Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq but neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported on Monday…Satellite imagery shows that entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

The invisible Mr. Bremer

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003810

Bush mum

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003814

The new twist: Bush handlers now playing this as an unjustified liberal media attack to “get” him (60 Minutes redux)

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004554
You have to love the brazenness of this bit of flim-flammery, courtesy of Karl Rove, in today's New York Times:

Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, also contended that The Times had chosen to run the article at the end of the campaign, though he argued that the explosives probably disappeared about 18 months ago. The Times article said it was based on a letter reporting the missing explosives dated two weeks ago, on Oct. 10, sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency by the Iraqi interim government. The Times and CBS confirmed the facts in the letter in an interview with the Iraqi minister of science and technology, Rashad M. Omar.

We already know from Chris Nelson's reporting that it was the Bush administration -- via the Pentagon and other elements in the administration helping with the Iraq occupation -- that was pressuring the Iraqis not to report the missing explosives to the International Atomic Energy Agency in the first place, as they normally would have done long ago…To put it simply: The Bush administration was trying desperately to keep this cat in the bag through the election. And they almost succeeded. Now they're whining that the Times is out to get them by publishing a story on their own covered-up blunder. It goes without saying that if the Bush administration hadn't tried to keep this one under wraps, it would have come out months and months ago.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003809
This evening, Wingerdom is all aflutter about what they now see as the New York Times-CBS-IAEA international anti-Bush conspiracy. But they might do better to focus their anxieties elsewhere.

Like at the Pentagon, for instance.

Who over there is trying to stick it to the president?

Look at two big news stories on Tuesday, the Washington Post report that the White House plans to ask for some $70 billion more in Iraq spending just a week or two after the election and this USA Today piece reporting that the Pentagon is planning to add roughly 20,000 more troops to the force in Iraq in anticipation of the elections in January.

Bush told Brits of intention to invade Iraq five months before announcing it to the American people, and while they were supposedly “still deciding” and “giving diplomacy a chance”

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008460.html

CIA won’t release report said to be critical of Bush admin officials

http://nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/27attack.html

Paul Krugman: “A culture of cover-ups”

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/opinion/26krugman.html?oref=login&oref=login&hp

North Korea’s October surprise? They may be just about to launch a missile

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6340851/

Allawi blames US-led coalition “negligence” for massacre in Diyala

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/international/middleeast/27iraq.html?ex=1256616000&en=3f342da509d7d76e&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
"I think there was major negligence by the multinational forces," Dr. Allawi said before the 100-member assembly. "It was a way to damage Iraq and the Iraqi people."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004996.php
Am I the only one wondering why the Iraqi government suddenly seems to be so eager to release information that's obviously harmful to George Bush's reelection prospects? Has Ayad Allawi had a sudden change of heart about who he'd like to see in the White House next year?

Rampant corruption, infiltration among Iraqi troops and police

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/international/middleeast/27iraqcnd.html?ex=1256529600&en=f457a0531bbec76c&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990009.htm

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108746/fr/rss/
"Western reporters also frequently encounter Iraqi security officers who say they are ready to take up arms against the occupation forces."

Head of Australian spy agency says US Iraq policy has helped INCREASE terrorist recruiting

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/26/au_spychief/index.html

Our “catastrophic success” in Afghanistan

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-10-26-opium-afghanistan_x.htm
Afghanistan is at once the world's newest democracy and its largest producer of heroin: This year, the country had a record opium crop. The narcotic feeds 95% of Europe's addiction and generates an estimated $30 billion in revenue. Most comes from street sales outside Afghanistan…Doug Wankel, a former Drug Enforcement Administration official who is point man for the U.S. counternarcotics initiative at the American Embassy in Kabul, says the opium industry is "financing terrorism. It's financing subversive activities. It's financing warlordism. ... And if it's a threat to the government of Afghanistan, it's a direct threat to the national security interests of the United States."

Wanting to show a Saddam/Zarqawi link, and given a CIA report that shows otherwise, Cheney pops a stent

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004994.php
Cheney reacted with fury, screaming at the briefer that CIA was trying to get John Kerry elected by contradicting the president's stance that Saddam had supported terrorism and therefore needed to be overthrown.

The race for Zarqawi may be about to begin

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/international/middleeast/27marines.html?oref=login&ex=1256616000&

Bush’s gobbledygook about going after Bin Laden

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/revisionist_his.html

Biggest Foreign Policy Screw-up By the Bush Administration…the envelope please…

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004990.php

Colin Powell plays down the fact that he’s leaving the administration if Bush gets re-elected

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6334306/

Bush’s lack of leadership, unwillingness to stand up to the Defense Dept, means he probably won’t have a big fat 9-11 Bill to sign before the election (awwww….)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6193543/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A441-2004Oct26.html?nav=rss_nation

Business leaders lukewarm on Bush

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000451.html

When did Bush find out about Rehnquist’s cancer?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/26/suskind/index.html

And is Bush considering a recess appointment to replace him?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004995.php

Bush’s handlers impose school dress code for visit

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/26/134627/44
A friend with a child in the Richland County, WI high school where George Bush appears today reports the following. Students were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry clothing or buttons or protest in any manner, at the risk of expulsion…The school secretary reportedly said that students had the choice of just staying home if they didn't want to attend the Bush rally…

[Expulsion!?!! Turns out the school Superintendent is married to the local Republican candidate for Congress]

Let’s see, John Kerry says something perfectly nice about Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick and Lynne, and they scream bloody murder. Wonder what they will say about this?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/26/mary/index.html
Today, Concerned Women for America, the veteran right-wing organization founded by Beverly LaHaye, released "About Mary: An Open Letter to Dick and Lynn Cheney." Under the guise of praising the Vice President's daughter -- "Mary is, I'm sure, a fine young woman with many wonderful qualities," it says -- the missive actually uses her to make an argument about whether or not homosexuality is a choice…"Homosexual activists like those working on the Kerry-Edwards team want 'gay marriage' and civil unions…”

Yeah, homosexual activists who call for civil unions…homosexual activists and their lily-livered Washington allies

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/26/131041/99
President Bush said in an interview this past weekend that he disagreed with the Republican Party platform opposing civil unions of same-sex couples and that the matter should be left up to the states.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008447.html
What a hypocrite. Yesterday in Colorado Bush stumped for Marilyn Musgrave, the Republican Congresswoman primarily responsible for the failed Gay Marriage Amendment.

[NB: clearly this is a late – and to my eyes desperate – twist to the center, part of a larger Bush effort to appeal to voters outside his core. But will the timing of this sudden conversion to fair-mindedness on gay rights hurt him with his base?
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004552
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-evangelicals27oct27,1,7368009.story?coll=la-headlines-nation]

Andrew Sullivan endorses Kerry

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=qFFINfAm4eR7PMnY1tkQ2m%3D%3D

AP finally – much, much too late – connects the dots on Bush’s NG service: he stopped flying, skipped training, refused a mandatory health physical, and then took off to work on an election campaign, during which he didn’t even show up for duty at his base, all without permission and without consequence. No, that doesn’t qualify as “serving honorably”

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041026/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_guard

Bush’s evangelical core of support – and why they love him

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108726/fr/rss/
Conservatives are right when they say that the faith-makes-you-irrational idea is a gross caricature. What Bush supporters are less willing to admit is that President Bush has helped to promote this caricature that liberals now exploit.

The president repeatedly says he makes decisions based on "instinct" and "gut" and by looking into the hearts of world leaders. He lets it be known that he doesn't read the newspapers. He seems to discourage dissenting viewpoints. He jokes about his poor command of the English language and his lousy grades in school. He is America's most famous evangelical Christian–and he's proudly anti-intellectual.

This creates a real dilemma for religious believers—especially evangelical Christians. In the past few decades, evangelical Christianity has seen the blossoming of a movement geared toward disproving the idea that faith must necessarily cause closed-mindedness.

In an influential book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, evangelical scholar Mark Noll wrote that anti-intellectualism is sapping the vibrancy of modern Christianity...

Bush finally asked a direct question about the “bulge” – and of course, he has a perfectly logical explanation

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63949-2004Oct26.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing

Newly uncovered memos reveal Florida GOP plans to harass black voters

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/26/153123/52
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals…Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list"…It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."...In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

A GOP spokeswoman in the story acknowledges their poll workers are being instructed to use the challenge rule. The idea is to slow down the pace of voting to frustrate and discourage those in line from voting. The slower the pace of voting, the fewer people will have time to vote…49 of those people live at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville. So apparently, the GOP is targeting some of our service members as well.

More dirty tricks in Florida

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004563

And in Ohio…

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000911.html
This is how it works…You send letters to newly registered voters in Democratic districts. Letters that come back as undeliverable are used to form a list. You send 8,000 lawyers to every polling place armed with that list. When a newly registered (black) voter shows up to vote, you challenge their registration. In Ohio, the poll worker makes the final decision as to whether the challenged voter can cast a ballot. The poll worker is a hard-core GOP partisan. The poll worker says no; the voter is sent home. Frustrated eligible voters in line give up because it's taking forever, and more Democratic voters decide to leave without casting ballots.

Worse than Sinclair: in California, media mogul gives GOP candidates $350,000 worth of free air time (this CAN’T be legal, can it?)

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/and-it-continues.html

Fox News denies being pro-Bush (huh?!)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108743/fr/rss/

Bush hacks dismiss the deluge of newspaper endorsements for Kerry as more “liberal media” same old/same old – but then how do they explain the three dozen, at least, that endorsed Bush in 2000, and now back Kerry?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/26/newspapers/index.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001252.html
Surprises? The Chicago Sun Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and Orlando Sentinel, which has previously "backed every Republican since 1968."

Nader losing support

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nader27oct27,1,1747898.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arabvote27oct27,1,616608.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[Off the ballot in Ohio, Penn: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/10/26/nader_off_ballot_in_key_states.html]

Florida polls: either Gallup is the lone sane voice in the madness, or Kerry is pulling ahead (and Bush CAN’T win without Florida)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/26/124455/58

Nationally…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/elections/2004/charting.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62794-2004Oct25.html
[E.J. Dionne] John Kerry's supporters are more likely than George W. Bush's to believe that this year's election is the most important of their lifetimes…According to Newsweek's poll, 37 percent of Kerry's voters felt this way, compared with only 27 percent of Bush's. Of the rest, 40 percent of Kerry supporters thought 2004 was more important than most other elections, while 35 percent of Bush's backers did.

As a political matter, this intensity gap suggests that even if Bush has been successful in mobilizing the Republican Party's political base, he has been even more successful in mobilizing Democrats…The Bush camp followers are not happy with this state of affairs. They tried to dismiss the strong feelings against Bush as irrational. The phrase "Bush hatred" is invoked to imply a legion of citizens gone mad.

It's an odd argument when it comes from right-wing talk radio and cable television ranters…Anyone else who buys into the notion that the passions Bush has unleashed are primarily the product of unreasoning prejudices misses the central dynamic of this year's election.

The fervent opposition to President Bush is rational, and its intensity is a direct response to Bush's own efforts to discredit all opposition to his policies…

100 perfectly calm and rational reasons to be opposed to Bush (thanks to Matthew Davidson for the link)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=facts

Could Kerry win BIG?

http://www.gregabbott.org/C1911143254/E633500305/index.html
311-227

[NB: This is my chance to pipe in with another complaint about the media coverage. I think there are reasons to think that Kerry's numbers are being undervalued - and not only by Gallup. I absolutely believe that there are more potential Kerry voters out there than Bush voters. So it all becomes about GOTV, which we knew all along.

I suspect that the media knows Bush is in serious trouble, and might very well lose - so why are they pumping up his prospects (calling Kerry lead's "ties" while playing up every Bush surge, etc)? NOT, I think, because they really want Bush to win - Fox News aside - although there is a general tendency to defer to the incumbent. As they say in boxing, you never beat the World Champion on a decision; you have to knock him out.

I think that the very likelihood of Bush losing has the media running scared that they will be blamed for it (I suspect they will be blamed for it whatever they do - that's the way the Repubs play it). So they tilt as much as they can, especially CNN and USA Today, which are trying to "nationalize" themselves, to the Bush party line. Then, whatever happens, they can point to this friendly treatment and say “not our fault.”]

Kerry’s Cabinet

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001248.html

The race for the Senate: helped by some really, really dumb GOP candidates

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/26/senate_races/index.html

Bonus item: fight back against Bush, vote for TRL! What, you don’t know TRL? Yo, dog, where you been?

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/10/get_your_eminem.html

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:57 AM

 
SUNNY GEORGE

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61204-2004Oct25.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
On ABC's "Good Morning America" today, Charlie Gibson asked President Bush if he feels his job is burdensome.

"I'm a sunny guy, so I don't feel burdened at all," Bush replied.

Gibson then asked Bush about his decision to attack Iraq -- and whether it was worth more than 1,100 "dead kids."

Bush's response: That they will only have died in vain if the United States doesn't complete its mission -- i.e. if he isn't reelected.

Welcome to the last full week of the presidential campaign, where by all accounts, the president will be smiling cheerfully as he furiously throws everything he's got at Democratic challenger John F. Kerry.

At the same time, there are some signs that the grim realities on the ground -- in Iraq, in a slew of last-minute newspaper stories, and in battleground states -- may finally be grinding down the Bush campaign's optimism.

In the Gibson interview, Bush said he's not thinking about losing.

"I'm not there yet," he said.

But what does he mean, "yet"? Was it just an innocent slip, or a glimpse into his private thinking?

"That's not me," he said. "I believe we're going to win and I'm campaigning as if we are going to win."

As if?

Sunny George’s very, very, VERY bad week

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/this_weeks_bad_.html

The Aftermath of Al Qaqaa

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/lockhart-statement.html
[Kerry campaign] How did they fail to secure nearly 380 tons of known, deadly explosives despite clear warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency to do so? And why was this information unearthed by reporters -- and was it covered up by our national security officials?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004539
[Bush campaign] The Bush-Cheney rapid-response operation seems to be misfiring, as CNN reports in re: al Qaqaa that "the Bush campaign accused Kerry of using the IAEA announcement to attack the president." Some accusation…What, exactly, is the opposition candidate supposed to do if not cite evidence of incumbent screwups as part of his campaign? Perhaps they'd prefer he take a page out of the Bush campaign playbook and just make things up instead of referencing factual accounts.

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_25_bestof.html#109871036371989233
The news that the U.S. allowed 380 tons of high grade explosives to be looted by insurgents from one of Saddam's most sensitive military installations--despite being warned by the International Atomic Energy Agency, both before and after the invasion, that the weapons needed to be secured--is simply one more example of the most inept occupation in modern history…Next time Shrub is scratching his head trying to think of some mistake he might have made, how about this: not firing Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz the day after Baghdad fell and it became obvious they didn't have a clue about what to do next.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/25/11273/423
In any case, it looks as though the administration's response is to feign ignorance. "We didn't know Al Qaqaa was unsecured!" Problem is, the IAEA informed the US of the need to protect the facility…The fact that the site was not protected is in itself criminally negligent. The fact that Bush administration officials are saying, "Oh well, nothing we could've done" is true to form for the "I didn't do it" crowd.

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/josh_marshall_h.html
But the Bush administration would not allow the [I.A.E.A.] back into the country to verify the status of the stockpile.

What's their explanation for that?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/stunning.html
This stuff was looted 18 months ago, and no one told Rice until a month ago?

[NB: Atrios, Atrios, you assume that this excuse is TRUE? If Bremer was told in May 2004 that they were missing, how likely is it that he didn’t pass this information up the chain?]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003787
Where's Jerry Bremer?

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=2211
How could this have happened? Insufficient military personnel and sustained attention, certainly. But that doesn't explain why the administration didn't devote critical resources to such a dire problem. One likely explanation is ideology. As Bill Keller described in a 2003 article on nuclear proliferation, the Bush administration worries far more about the character of regimes that possess dangerous weapons than about the danger posed by the weapons themselves. That explains, for example, why the administration didn't make securing Russian nuclear material a tier-one priority even after September 11

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003792
In a 45-minute speech in Greeley, Colo., today, Bush ignored the news about the missing explosives, Washington Post staff writer Mike Allen reported. Instead, Bush stuck to his stock assertion: "America and the world are safer with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell."

[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/politics/campaign/26campaign.html?ex=1256443200&en=961dd0bd3fcfd9f3&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland]

For all his talk about WMD, Bush has a miserable record on nonproliferation: another devastating analysis of his tunnel vision, and the consequences

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62727-2004Oct25.html
No other set of subjects divided Bush more sharply from his intelligence establishment. Although the CIA judged, wrongly, that Iraq had resumed efforts to build a nuclear device, U.S. intelligence agencies described other unfriendly states as far more advanced. Assessments throughout Bush's presidency, moreover, said the least likely route to a terrorist nuclear weapon was deliberate transfer by a state.

This examination of the record by The Washington Post explores the priorities Bush set, the beliefs he formed, the choices he made and the ones he left unmade when faced with deadlock among his advisers…

Hey, we found Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction! Oops, now the terrorists have them

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/countdown.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004537
380 tons of RDX and HMX has the explosive charge of 0.6 kilotons of TNT. That's the equivalent of 65 MOABs, the Mother of all Bombs [formally, that's "Massive Ordinance Air Blast"] that are America's largest non-nuclear warheads.

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001241.html
More than 760,000 Pan Am flights 103.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004541
[T]he OK City bomb [was] the equivalent of 150 - 500 pounds of TNT. AQQ = 380 tons of RDX, HMX and PETN…Converted into TNT, the AQQ stockpile equals 646 tons or 1,292,000 pounds of explosives…Convert this back into my OK City metric, and this means that the lost material at AQQ equals betwen 2,584 - 8613 OK City-size bombs.

[NB: Just in the past few hours on CNN and elsewhere I have heard or read an astonishing array of excuses, qualifications, and diversions from Bush Co. These include (a) we don’t really know there ever were explosives there, (b) we’ll ask the Iraq Survey Group to “investigate” (hoping desperately to stall this past the election, (c) the IAEA never told us there were explosives there until they were already gone, (d) we have no idea when they disappeared, (e) they were gone before we got there, etc. I hear desperation]

Somebody’s scared

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/25/iraq.explosives/index.html
A senior administration official told CNN that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was notified about the missing weapons about a month ago. Iraq Survey Group inspectors are investigating, the official said.

The discovery was not made public sooner because standard intelligence practice is not to let the enemy know such information, the official said. [Ha, ha, ha - hey guys, I think the ENEMY already knew about it. It was the US people you tried to hide it from]

There are hundreds of tons of other weapons and munitions missing around the country, and it is impossible for the United States to track down all of them, the official said.

Even so, he conceded, the story is not a good one for the White House, just over a week from Election Day...

The senior administration official downplayed the importance of the missing explosives, describing them as dangerous material but "stuff you can buy anywhere." The official added that the administration did not see this necessarily as a "proliferation risk." [Isn't this assertion in fact all the more damning?]

"In the grand scheme -- and on a grand scale -- there are hundreds of tons of weapons, munitions, artillery, explosives that are unaccounted for in Iraq," the official said. "And like the Pentagon has said, there is really no way the U.S. military could safeguard all of these weapons depots or find all of these missing materials." [So, the fact that EVEN MORE of this stuff could be missing is a reason not to worry about this measly 400 tons of it? And why WASN'T it possible to guard the most important sites? Because you chose not to send in enough troops to do it!]

Somebody’s lying

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136466,00.html
Duffy told FOX that the IAEA didn't inform the U.S. government about the lost explosives until Oct. 15.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/middleeast/25bomb.html?ex=1256443200&en=55e31eff624d4b80&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded...But the Bush administration would not allow the agency back into the country to verify the status of the stockpile. In May 2004, Iraqi officials say in interviews, they warned L. Paul Bremer III, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted. It is unclear if that warning was passed anywhere. Efforts to reach Mr. Bremer by telephone were unsuccessful.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003795
Difficulties keeping the story straight…In this article filed today by the AFP, Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita suggests that the explosives at al Qa Qaa may have disappeared even before American troops arrived on the scene.

"We do not know when -- if those weapons did exist at that facility -- they were last seen, and under whose control they were last in ... It's very possible -- certainly it's plausible -- that it was the Saddam Hussein regime that last had control of these things."

Di Rita went on to say that it is not clear whether the explosives were at the facility when US troops did their initial searches of the place for weapons of mass destruction and related materials.

But another Pentagon official who spoke to the Associated Press seems to disagree ...

At the Pentagon, an official who monitors developments in Iraq said US-led coalition troops had searched Al-Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact. Thereafter the site was not secured by U.S. forces, the official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

Poor Scottie

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041025-1.html
Q The Kerry campaign is hitting you on this story in the New York Times today that a large cache of explosives have gone missing. Is there anything you could have done about that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Maybe the best way to do this is kind of walk you through how we came to be informed about this. The Iraqi Interim Government informed -- told the IAEA -- the International Atomic Energy Agency on October 10th that there were approximately 350 tons of high explosives missing from Al Qaqaa in Iraq…

Q When did the President find out?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I said, we were informed on October 15th. Condi Rice was informed days after that. This is all in the last, what, 10 days now.

Q She was informed days after October 15th?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, and she informed the President. And the first priority, from our standpoint, was to make sure that this wasn't a nuclear proliferation risk, which it is not. These are conventional high explosives that we are talking about. And the President wants to make sure that we get to the bottom of this. Now, the Pentagon, upon learning of this, directed the multinational forces and the Iraqi survey group to look into this matter, and that's what they are currently doing.

Now, if you go back and look at the Duelfer report that recently has come out, according to the Duelfer report, as of mid-September, more than 243,000 tons of munitions have been destroyed since Operation Iraqi Freedom. Coalition forces have cleared and reviewed a total of 10,033 caches of munitions; another nearly 163,000 tons of munitions have been secured and are on line to be destroyed. That puts this all -- that puts this all in context.

Q Prior to the 10th, and the notification by the interim government, whose responsibility was it to keep track of these munitions, the IAEA or the multinational force in Iraq?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think you need to look at the time. I think the Department of Defense can probably answer a lot of these questions for you. But that's why I pointed out what we did to -- literally, there were munitions caches spread throughout Iraq at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. That's why I pointed out the large volume of munitions that have already been destroyed and the large volume that are on-line to be destroyed. The sites now are the responsibility of the Iraqi government to secure.

Q But after Iraqi Freedom, there were those caches all around, wasn't the multinational force -- who was responsible for keeping track --

MR. McCLELLAN: At the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom there were a number of priorities. It was a priority to make sure that the oil fields were secure, so that there wasn't massive destruction of the oil fields, which we thought would occur. It was a priority to get the reconstruction office up and running. It was a priority to secure the various ministries, so that we could get those ministries working on their priorities, whether it was --

Q So it was the multinational force's responsibility --

MR. McCLELLAN: There were a number of -- well, the coalition forces, there were a number of priorities at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And munitions, as I said, were literally spread throughout the country. And we have gone in and destroyed, as I pointed out, more than 243,000 tons --

Q Was it the coalition's responsibility to take care of that --

[Not answered]

Q Scott, did we just have enough troops in Iraq to guard and protect these kind of caches?

MR. McCLELLAN: See, that's -- now you just hit on what I just said a second ago, that the sites now are really -- my understanding, they're the responsibility of the Iraqi forces. And I disagree with the way you stated your question, because one of the lessons we've learned of history is that it's important to listen to the commanders on the ground and our military leaders when it comes to troop levels. And that's what this President has always done. And they've said that we have the troop levels we need to complete the mission and succeed in Iraq.

Q But you're saying this is the responsibility of the Iraqi forces. But this was our responsibility until just recently, isn't that right? Weren't these -- there is some U.S. culpability, as far as --

MR. McCLELLAN: You're trying -- I think you're taking this out of context of what was going on. This was reported missing after -- when the interim government informed that these munitions went missing some time after April 9th of 2003, remember, that was when we were still involved in major military action at that point. And there were a number of important priorities at that point. There were munitions, munition caches spread throughout Iraq. There were -- there was a concern that there would be massive refugees fleeing the country. There is concern about the devastation that could occur to the oil fields. There was concern about starvation that could happen for the Iraqi people….

Q You said Condi Rice told the President days after October 15th. Do you know when exactly he found out about --

MR. McCLELLAN: No. It was in one of his briefings, morning briefings.

Q After --

MR. McCLELLAN: This is really in the last 10 days, Deb.

Q Go through the tick-tock one more time. Allawi tells the IAEA about it October 10th and then --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the Iraqi government told the International Atomic Energy Agency on October 10th that these munitions or these high explosives were missing, because of looting that occurred sometime after April 9th, 2003. And these were subject to -- some of these were subject to agency monitoring, and that's why they informed the IAEA.

Q But, Scott --

Q Who told the White House? I mean, did somebody tell the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and they told the White House?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, no, no. The IAEA informed the U.S. mission in Vienna first. And then -- and then, as I said, Condi was informed days after that and she informed the President…

Q I'm sorry -- these are going to be used against them --

MR. McCLELLAN: And then, so if you look at all those explosives there -- and now the DOD -- now that we've been informed about this, the Pentagon directed multinational forces and the Iraq Survey Group to look into this matter and do a comprehensive assessment of what happened to these munitions. So that's what's happening right now.

Q On the tick-tock, do you know if the missing munitions, if they were looted before or after the handover June 30th? Was this -- happened when the coalition was in control or when the Allawi government --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, no. First of all, I said that they reported that it went missing sometime after April 9th, 2003. Remember, early on -- during and at the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, there was some looting. Some of it was organized that was going on in the country. There were munitions caches spread throughout the country. And so -- but these are all issues that are being looked into by the multinational forces and the Iraq Survey Group.

Q But you don't know yet exactly what --

MR. McCLELLAN: You might want to direct that question to the Pentagon. My understanding is that it went missing sometime after April 9th, 2003. So it's looking more back to that period, that period of time…

Q One last one on the tick-tock. These notices from Iraq to IAEA to U.S. to Condi to President happened over days as opposed to hours. Was there just no sense of urgency that what they had discovered here was really an important --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, just -- no, I think that this has all happened in a -- just the last few days. We're talking about the last 10 days.

Q As opposed to hours. Right. But does that mean folks believed that this was not an urgent, serious matter?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, because the Pentagon became informed -- you can check with the Pentagon when they were informed about it and the coalition forces. Absolutely not.

Q This was an urgent matter, as far as U.S. government was concerned?

MR. McCLELLAN: It's something that's being looked into now. So I don't know how you can characterize it as not. I mean, it's something that the Pentagon, upon being informed about it, immediately directed the multinational forces and Iraq Survey Group to look into this matter, and that's what they're doing.

Q Is there any greater risk to U.S. troops because of these munitions?

MR. McCLELLAN: …But, I mean, we don't know -- I mean, you're assuming things right now. We don't know what happened to these high explosives. That's what's being looked into. So you -- I would urge you not to speculate. We're looking into it to find out exactly what happened to them. And you're --

Q It could be their -- this is what they're using for -- they've been using for these bombs for a year now.

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, that's all that's -- that's what's being looked into. You might want to direct questions like these to the coalition forces and to the Pentagon, who is looking into it. I would not speculate about those matters…

UPDATE: the latest Bush excuse, “they were already gone before we got there” (nope, that ain’t true either – though CNN gobbled it up fast enough]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/26/iraq.explosives/index.html

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008441.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003801

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003800

[Consider the source: http://www.drudgereport.com/nbcw.htm]

Bush will be asking for $70 billion more to pay for Iraq…AFTER the election, of course, since it adds directly to the (record-sized) deficit

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/another-70-billion.html

Zarqawi

http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/10/bushs-global-test-means-zarqawi-still.html
The Wall Street Journal gives more details to how President Bush three times rejected military plans to kill Abu Musab al Zarqawi before the Iraq war.

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/missing_zarqawi.html
[A]gain and again Iraq has caused the U.S. to turn away its focus from the larger enemy, jihadists.

Wild claim

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003796
“Now my opponent is throwing out the wild claim that he knows where bin Laden was in the fall of 2001, and that our military passed up the chance to get him in Tora Bora. This is an unjustified criticism of our military commanders in the field.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62618-2002Apr16&notFound=true
[April 2002] U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight
Failure to Send Troops in Pursuit Termed Major Error

State Dept official: the UN Security Council was “for Iraq”

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/the_security_co.html
The Bush administration dispatched Kelly to brief allied ambassadors. One of them asked whether Bush would seek U.N. Security Council attention for Pyongyang. Kelly replied, according to a diplomat who was present, "The Security Council is for Iraq." Kelly said through a spokesman he does not remember the remark.

Well, they brag about their consistency, and in this case they do seem determined on their course: another internal “ruling” (a NEW one) that prisoners in Iraq are not covered by the Geneva Conventions

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/politics/26detain.html?oref=login&ex=1256443200&

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000141.html

Good morning George

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003786
On Good Morning America, President Bush pushes the idea of a pre-election or an election day terrorist attack: "I am worried about it and we should be worried about it. On the other hand, I don't want people to say, that he knows something I don't know and therefore, something is imminent."

Good night George

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6590369
Bush also told the Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes" show to be broadcast on Monday night that the U.S. government had no "actionable intelligence" pointing to a pre-election attack in the works as happened in Madrid earlier this year to disrupt the Spanish election…He said there was "nothing specific" pointing to a pre-election attack...

Another bipartisan group of professionals challenges Bush policy claims: this time, on health care

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/_/2004/10/health_experts_to_prez_put_up_or_shut_up.php

And most of the Chicago Divinity School challenges Bush’s use of religiosity as a veil for war policies (thanks to Valerie Hoffman for the link)

http://archive.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/10/22/eminem/
"It is often observed that the flag is a scoundrel's last resort, and that even the worst policies can successfully be wrapped in Old Glory. We believe the Bush administration is making similar misuse of religion in its attempt to justify the debacle in Iraq," the statement opens…"As faculty members of the University of Chicago Divinity School, we deplore this attempt to wrap failed policies in religious rhetoric. We call for the repudiation of Mr. Bush's war and his misuse of religion to defend or sanctify it."

Let’s talk about the Supreme Court

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61114-2004Oct25.html?nav=rss_nation

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000900.html

Rasmussen poll analysis, widely accepted as one of the most credible, puts Kerry up for the first time (even better, Bush is stuck UNDER 47%, very bad news for an incumbent)

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000899.html

More poll info

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000901.html
49 percent of likely voters now support Kerry, 48 percent Bush, 1 percent Ralph Nader. Given polling tolerances that's essentially a tie, but it is the first time since Aug. 1 that Kerry's held a numerical advantage, however slight, in ABC News polls.

The important thing to note is that both polls showed Kerry doing the best he's done (in Rasmussen's case, since immediately following the Democratic Convention). That's the break you've been looking for, and it's going to Kerry:

Independents break 52 percent to 43 percent in opposition to reelection. First-time voters also oppose reelection by 58 percent to 37 percent.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004988.php
LA Times: 48/48

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/003100.html
With no concern apparently for its credibility, Gallup has just trotted out its latest CNN/USAT/Gallup poll…CNN just reported that Gallup’s latest poll for them and USAT showed Bush with a 5% lead over Kerry [among likely voters] 51%-46%. This was down from the 8% lead amongst LVs that Gallup claimed that Bush had last week, 52%-44%.

They continue to assume questionable advantages for the GOP over the Democrats…

Likely Voters
October 14-16

Total Sample = 788
GOP: 296 (38%)
Dem: 278 (35%)
Ind: 211 (27%)

October 22-24, 2004

Total Sample = 1195
GOP: 466 (39%)
Dem: 406 (34%)
Ind: 321 (27%)

Note that Gallup has used a sample today that turns a 3% GOP advantage in their LV sample last week into a 5% advantage. Yet Bush's margin went down.

What happens if Bush wins?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/25/kurtz/index.html

What happens if (when) Bush loses?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004536

What happens if (when) Kerry wins?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001242.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52688-2004Oct21.html

Democratic House prospects not as strong as in the Senate

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/25/141633/11

PTI 961 (this is the mysterious code on Bush’s NG record: but it turns out to mean nothing, except “discharged due to change of residence”)

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/10/pti_961_mystery_solved.html

The grueling ordeal of a Fox News interview: how do Bush and Cheney manage the pressure?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/25/fox_news/index.html

Update on the titanic struggle going on at the Cleveland Plain Dealer over its endorsement

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000684430

Bonus item: the URL tells it all (thanks to Eric Umansky for the link)

http://www.bushrelativesforkerry.com/pages/1/

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:39 AM

 
UP IN THE AIR

This is the man who has asked us to put our faith in him to protect us from terror

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=1&u=/nm/20041024/pl_nm/campaign_bush_dc
President Bush said in a television interview the United States was safer from terrorism but whether it can ever be fully safe was "up in the air."

Bush also told the Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes" show to be broadcast on Monday night that the U.S. government had no "actionable intelligence" pointing to a pre-election attack in the works as happened in Madrid earlier this year to disrupt the Spanish election.

"We do believe that they have -- because of what happened in Madrid -- that they do think about whether or not they can try to disrupt our elections," Bush said…He said there was "nothing specific" pointing to a pre-election attack but rather "a kind of general intent."

http://www.sfexaminer.com/article/index.cfm/i/083104b_bush
Asked "Can we win?" Bush said, "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the -- those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_digbysblog_archive.html#109865615879295424
Whoopsie. I think Junior's faith based reality may have slipped a little bit there. I'd call it a gaffe except that he's also said that he doesn't care about bin laden and he doesn't think America can win the GWOT. If this guy is so iffy about our ability to deal with the terrorist threat, I'm not sure he has a rationale for his presidency...

I think it's only fair to wrap these comments around his neck so tight that he can hardly breathe. It would be downright disrespectful to treat him any differently than he would treat us --- ruthlessly and without mercy.

One little teeny consequence of not putting enough troops into Iraq to guard the ammo dumps: and now we know where the bombs that kill our military men and women are coming from

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003777
Some 350 tons of high explosives (RDX and HMX), which were under IAEA seal while Saddam was in power, were looted during the early days of the US occupation. Like so much else, it was just left unguarded.

Not only are these super-high-yield explosives probably being used in many, if not most, of the various suicide and car bombings in Iraq, but these particular explosives are ones used in the triggering process for nuclear weapons.

In other words, it's bad stuff.

What also emerges in the Nelson Report is that the Defense Department has been trying to keep this secret for some time. The DOD even went so far as to order the Iraqis not to inform the IAEA that the materials had gone missing. Informing the IAEA, of course, would lead to it becoming public knowledge in the United States.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/24/223637/75
This is rank incompetence that has directly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of our men and women in uniform, as well as other allied and innocent Iraqis…And a coverup attempt to top it all off.

380 tons. Less than one pound was used to bring down Pan Am Flight 103. The terrorists hit the mother lode, all thanks to Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/middleeast/25bomb.html?ex=1256443200&en=55e31eff624d4b80&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance…

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded…

In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."…One senior official noted that the Qaqaa complex where the explosives were stored was listed as a "medium priority" site on the Central Intelligence Agency's list of more than 500 sites that needed to be searched and secured during the invasion. "Should we have gone there? Definitely," said one senior administration official…

But the Bush administration would not allow the agency back into the country to verify the status of the stockpile. In May 2004, Iraqi officials say in interviews, they warned L. Paul Bremer III, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted. It is unclear if that warning was passed anywhere. Efforts to reach Mr. Bremer by telephone were unsuccessful.

Two weeks ago, on Oct. 10, Dr. Mohammed J. Abbas of the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology wrote a letter to the I.A.E.A. to say the Qaqaa stockpile had been lost. He added that his ministry had judged that an "urgent updating of the registered materials is required."

A chart in his letter listed 341.7 metric tons, about 377 American tons, of HMX, RDX and PETN as missing...By weight, these explosives pack far more destructive power than TNT, so armies often use them in shells, bombs, mines, mortars and many types of conventional ordinance.

"HMX and RDX have a lot of shattering power," said Dr. Van Romero, vice president for research at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, or New Mexico Tech, which specializes in explosives…

A special property of HMX and RDX lends them to smuggling and terrorism, experts said. While violently energetic when detonated, they are insensitive to shock and physical abuse during handling and transport because of their chemical stability. A hammer blow does nothing. It takes a detonator, like a blasting cap, to release the stored energy…

"The immediate danger" of the lost stockpile, said an expert who recently led a team that searched Iraq for deadly arms, "is its potential use with insurgents in very small and powerful explosive devices. The other danger is that it can easily move into the terrorist web across the Middle East."

More worrisome to the I.A.E.A. - and to some in Washington - is that HMX and RDX are used in standard nuclear weapons design. In a nuclear implosion weapon, the explosives crush a hollow sphere of uranium or plutonium into a critical mass, initiating the nuclear explosion.

A crude implosion device - like the one that the United States tested in 1945 in the New Mexican desert and then dropped on Nagasaki, Japan - needs about a ton of high explosive to crush the core and start the chain reaction.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/looted-explosives.html
"Freedom's untidy. And free people are free to commit mistakes, and to commit crimes."
-D. Rumsfeld, on looting in Iraq.

[Comment:
http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109868953200404436

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_24.php#003778]

Meanwhile, the right-wing blogosphere has been buzzing for days about an imminent story in a “major newspaper” that will supposedly destroy Kerry’s credibility and end his campaign. That story hit the Washington Times this morning (major paper?), written by a columnist and opinion hack (Joel Mowbray), and says nothing more than this

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041024-110609-9428r.htm
"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.

Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the "real readiness" of the United Nations to "take this seriously" because he met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."

But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.

The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified…

After conversations with ambassadors from five members of the Security Council in 2002 and calls to all the missions of the countries then on the panel, The Times was only able to confirm directly that Mr. Kerry had met with representatives of France, Singapore and Cameroon…In addition, second-hand accounts have Mr. Kerry meeting with representatives of Britain.

…The revelation that Mr. Kerry never met with the entire U.N. Security Council could be problematic for the Massachusetts senator, as it clashes with one of his central foreign-policy campaign themes — honesty.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/24/21359/463
Man, if you thought the puppies were a big disaster for the Bush campaign, wait 'till you see the BIG STORY the conservative bloggers are pinning their hopes on. Their big October Surprise…The Mooney Times piece is going to state that several of the ambassadors on the Security Council allege that Kerry did not, in fact, meet with them.

So at this point, you are saying, "…So what's the big story?"

But there's nothing else to it. That's the Big Story. The one that will knock the wheels off Kerry's campaign. The one that has the Wingnut blogs wetting themselves. The one that will rescue the Bush campaign from the ineptness of the Bush Administration.

But there is a punchline -- The story is wrong. Kerry did meet with everyone.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/he-forgot-bulgaria.html
What Kerry said was:

So I sat with the French and British, Germans, with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein.

Most likely what he meant was that he met with the permanent Security Council, plus who knows who else. Permanent SC=US+French, British, Russians, China.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008426.html
One other caveat: In the days to come, beware of more articles labeled "news" written by right-wing partisan hacks. They are not news, they are opinion pieces. Google the author and you'll see what we mean.

Digby asks the cynical question

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_digbysblog_archive.html#109867600084572098
Here's a little quiz for everyone. Which of these two stories will dominate the news tomorrow?

…Iraq's Al Qa Qaa bunker and weapons complex had roughly 350 tons of high explosives under IAEA seal. After the war, for whatever reason, the complex was either not guarded at all or inadequately guarded. And all those explosives (primarily RDX and HMX) were carted away…

or this one:

U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

[NB: I don’t mean this flippantly. Will our independent media hold ANYONE accountable for this shocking failure of postwar planning, one that has led directly to the deaths of our own troops, and has transferred lethal weapons into the hands of people who will eventually use them against others?]

More on Bush’s secret authorization to outsource torture

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57363-2004Oct23.html?nav=rss_nation
At the request of the CIA, the Justice Department drafted a confidential memo that authorizes the agency to transfer detainees out of Iraq for interrogation -- a practice that international legal specialists say contravenes the Geneva Conventions.

One intelligence official familiar with the operation said the CIA has used the March draft memo as legal support for secretly transporting as many as a dozen detainees out of Iraq in the last six months. The agency has concealed the detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other authorities, the official said.

The draft opinion, written by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and dated March 19, 2004, refers to both Iraqi citizens and foreigners in Iraq, who the memo says are protected by the treaty. It permits the CIA to take Iraqis out of the country to be interrogated for a "brief but not indefinite period."…

The CIA, Justice Department and the author of the draft opinion, Jack L. Goldsmith, former director of the Office of Legal Counsel, declined to comment for this article.

And who is Jack Goldsmith?

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001235.html
“[T]he idea that a nation can decide which international laws to embrace is not new and should not be controversial. In a world of diverse cultures, political systems, and power relationships, international law derives its legitimacy and efficacy from national consent. And the power to give consent naturally implies the power to withhold it…Spiro describes our position as "anti-internationalist." It is not a rejection of international law, however, to examine whether treaties or customary international rules are consistent with U.S. interests and constitutional standards, or to consider how these international norms should best be implemented within the U.S. system…”

[NB: Written BEFORE 9-11, in March 2001]

Responses

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008423.html
"The thing that separates us from the enemy is our respect for human rights." So says Sen. John McCain, responding to a report that "U.S. intelligence officials secretly transferred as many as a dozen detainees out of Iraq in the last six months, possibly violating international treaties."

Sen. Joe Biden echoed McCain's concern…"I think we...need new leadership at the Justice Department too."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/24/131053/04
What's the Election Really About?
The Rule of Law. There are those who believe in the rules and those who don't. It's that simple.

Here’s how bad it was: John Ashcroft wasn’t willing to go along with parts of it

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/international/worldspecial2/25gitmo.html?oref=login&oref=login&ex=1256356800&
A year later, with no trials yet in sight, some officials at the highest levels of the Bush administration began privately venting their frustration about both the slow pace of the Pentagon's new courts and the soundness of their rules. Attorney General John Ashcroft was especially vocal.

"Timothy McVeigh was one of the worst killers in U.S. history," Mr. Ashcroft said at one meeting of senior officials, according to two of those present. "But at least we had fair procedures for him."…

Interviews with dozens of officials show that the myriad problems ignited an often fierce behind-the-scenes struggle that set the Pentagon and its allies in the White House against adversaries at the National Security Council, the State Department and Justice Department. The friction among officials like Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld; the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice; and Mr. Ashcroft sheds new light on the internal dynamics of an administration that has shown a remarkably united public front…

"Rumsfeld was very clear that he wanted the Department to be driving this bus," said a former Army secretary, Thomas E. White, who was closely involved in the Guantánamo policy. "He reigned supreme in the government. The vice president backed him up, and that was his power base."

[Comment: http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008431.html]

So, to sum up: the past week has seen an almost daily stream of devastating stories documenting Bush’s lies, deceptions, and shocking failures of judgment in Iraq and elsewhere. For Kerry, the worst hits have been his Mary Cheney remarks, and now his Security Council “exaggeration,” if it is even that. Is there an equivalence here? Am I missing something?

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2004/10/24.html#a756
Bush's record of incompetence: The LP version
[Scott Rosenberg] Michael Gordon's three part series on the war in Iraq gives a military expert's view of how the war went awry. It's not partisan and it mostly offers the perspective of military leaders and analysts; much of the material is drawn from the people President Bush chose to lead the occupation of Iraq in its early days…

In the debate over the war and its aftermath, the Bush administration has portrayed the insurgency that is still roiling Iraq today as an unfortunate, and unavoidable, accident of history, an enemy that emerged only after melting away during the rapid American advance toward Baghdad. The sole mistake Mr. Bush has acknowledged in the war is in not foreseeing what he termed that "catastrophic success."

What Gordon's series makes clear is that -- putting aside the debate over weapons of mass destruction and the Bush administration's rhetorical deceptions to shove the nation toward an ill-conceived war -- the administration failed the Iraq test on the simple ground of competence. It used bad information, made bad plans, ignored good intelligence that failed to tell it what it wanted to hear, and found itself in a rapidly deteriorating military situation that it is still scratching its head over.

Then turn to today's Times and you'll find a lengthy piece by Tim Golden detailing Bush failures in the war on terrorism's legal front. In the weeks after 9/11 Bush seized the moment to break from the American legal mainstream in the name of defending the U.S. from new attacks…

Again, the conclusion is not about partisan ideology but about effectiveness: The Bush team said they needed certain powers to prosecute terrorists, but despite getting everything they asked for, they've failed miserably in finding and charging actual terrorists. The thread that runs through both series is how a band of ideologues seized the Bush administration's reins after 9/11 and enacted pre-existing agendas (invade Iraq, mock international law and bolster the federal government's power) that ended up undermining the war on al-Qaida rather than strengthening the U.S. hand.

Incompetence on the field, incompetence in the courts -- it really has no end, and yet the cornerstone of the Bush campaign remains the promise that the current guys can best protect the nation. These articles are lengthy, dispassionate presentations of the factual record based largely on interviews not with critics from across the aisle but with insiders (many of them, understandably, disillusioned). I can understand that Bush supporters might not embrace the Kerry campaign's criticisms of the president, but I wish every Bush voter would sit down and read these pieces and then see whether their man's record matches his rhetoric of strength by any standard of reality.

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/10/mistakes_incompetence_and_coverup_beyond_fevered_imaginings.html
[Michael Froomkin] In my opinion, all you need to know to decide to vote against George Bush is that his administration has presided over a destruction of the rule of law unimagined since the Alien and Sedition Acts…

But perhaps you think this concern with fundamental legality and minimal human decency is some bleeding-heart luxury this nation can no longer afford now that 9/11 ‘changed everything’. So let’s agree to disagree as to the extent that the nation should pervert itself in its drive to teach others that we lack the guts to uphold our fundamental values when challenged. Instead, let’s work with that claim that all that matters in this election is which candidate will better preserve our physical safety.

If all that matters is our safety and security, then today’s news makes it clear beyond peradventure that the Bush administration is horribly dangerous to our national security.

Josh Marshall’s blog today runs an extensive quote from the Nelson Report regarding a staggering disaster which occurred in the early days of the US occupation of Iraq: someone stole 350 tons of RDX and HDX, highly specialized explosives…But that’s not the really bad news. The really bad news is that these specialized explosives are what countries use to make nuclear bombs…

And that’s not all. What was the administration’s reaction to this debacle? It only gets worse. Having loosed this enormous stash of high explosive on the world, this enormous enabler of WMD-fueled terrorism, what did the administration do? It covered up. It didn’t even report the problem to the International Atomic Energy Association. And it pressured the Iraqi authorities to keep quiet, forestalling any disclosure by them until very recently, which means presumably that other countries were not on notice about this new threat

Army to Halliburton: you cheated us, but go ahead and keep the money anyway

http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/22/news/fortune500/halliburton.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes
The Army is laying the groundwork to let Halliburton Co. keep several billion dollars paid for work in Iraq that Pentagon auditors say is questionable or unsupported by proper documentation, according to a report published Friday…According to Pentagon documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the Army has acknowledged that the Houston-based company might never be able to account properly for some of its work…

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101041101-733760,00.html
In February 2003, less than a month before the U.S. invaded Iraq, Bunnatine (Bunny) Greenhouse walked into a Pentagon meeting and with a quiet comment started what could be the end of her career. On the agenda was the awarding of an up to $7 billion deal to a subsidiary of Houston-based conglomerate Halliburton to restore Iraq's oil facilities…

Then several representatives from Halliburton entered. Greenhouse, a top contracting specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers, grew increasingly concerned that they were privy to internal discussions of the contract's terms, so she whispered to the presiding general, insisting that he ask the Halliburton employees to leave the room…Once they had gone, Greenhouse raised other concerns. She argued that the five-year term for the contract, which had not been put out for competitive bid, was not justified, that it should be for one year only and then be opened to competition. But when the contract-approval document arrived the next day for Greenhouse's signature, the term was five years. With war imminent, she had little choice but to sign. But she added a handwritten reservation that extending a no-bid contract beyond one year could send a message that "there is not strong intent for a limited competition."

Greenhouse's objections, which had not been made public until now, will probably fuel criticism of the government's allegedly cozy relationship with Halliburton and could be greeted with calls for further investigation. Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) subsidiary has been mired in allegations of overcharging and mismanagement in Iraq…

More on the failure to get Zarqawi in 2002

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB109866031609354178-IdjgYNhlaR3n52paIKIaKmGm4,00.html

Intelligence bill progress report

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59784-2004Oct24.html?nav=rss_nation
"It would take three days to get Congress back for a vote, so if there is no quick agreement, then it won't happen," a senior Democratic staff member said yesterday.

Guards kept Abu Ghraib diary

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59556-2004Oct24.html?nav=rss_nation

Anti-gay bigotry in South Dakota

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004984.php

Interesting commentary from Doug Kellner on the conservative ascendancy in the media, and the progressive fight against it

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/2004/10/big-winners-washingtonpostcom.php

Bush finds a new way to diss military making exceptional sacrifices in Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57435-2004Oct23.html?nav=rss_nation
Capt. Steve Gventer is still picking shrapnel out of his right shoulder. It became lodged there last month when a rocket-propelled grenade sailed over his head and exploded against a wall, splattering him with hot metal.

That attack came two weeks after an insurgent in Sadr City, the Baghdad slum, shot Gventer through his left calf with a machine gun.

Gventer's street fighting would appear to qualify him for one of the U.S. Army's most prestigious awards, the Combat Infantryman Badge. The award recognizes soldiers whose daily mission is to pursue the enemy, primarily on foot, and engage in close combat.

But Gventer won't get the award -- at least not under current rules. Normally a tank company commander, Gventer was retrained as an infantry officer before he was deployed. He and his men have fought furious street battles in one of Iraq's most perilous corners. But because they are technically tankers, they are ineligible for an award that for six decades has distinguished those who fight at ground level, where war is most lethal…

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/were_killing_ou.html
This afternoon, I watched the three-part documentary, Off to War, about an Arkansas National Guard Unit that headed to Iraq this spring. It should be renamed Scenes From an Overstreched Army. Or maybe, How We Screw Our Citizen-Soldiers…"I have no idea why the United States Army would make us deploy with this old crap," says one officer. "And I think that they're going to quickly understand that when half of it breaks down to [our base in Iraq] that it's not a good idea to deploy a National Guard Unit with Vietnam-era equipment."…In another scene, the soldiers go to secure a Iraqi ammo dump--that has been left unguarded for a year. "I don't why somebody hasn't been on top of this," says one officer. "By not securing this we're killing ourselves."

Why does George Bush hate America?

http://gadflyer.com/articles/index.php?ArticleID=247
[Paul Waldman]
Fantasyland, October 25, 2004 – Today John Kerry opened up a new line of attack on President Bush, charging that his policies and positions are a product of Texas, a state whose political culture lies far outside the American mainstream. "The former governor of Texas has governed like, well, like a former governor of Texas," said Kerry to the laughs and hoots of the crowd. "He's so far out on the right wing, he fell off the plane."

Kerry also brought up Tom DeLay, the ultra-conservative congressman from the Lone Star state. "George Bush makes Tom DeLay look like a Texas moderate!"

The new line of attack came as an independent liberal group began airing a new ad in which an elderly couple says, "George Bush should take his NASCAR-loving, tobacco-chewing, trailer-park-living, redneck freak show back to Texas, where it belongs."

Of course, we've never seen a story like this one – like all Democrats, John Kerry knows that if he criticized one state or one region of the country, the press and the Republicans would come down on him like a ton of bricks, charging him with being a Northeastern elitist who doesn't want to be the president of all Americans.

But the rules are different on the other side of the aisle. In today's politics, it is acceptable for Republicans to traffic in ugly stereotypes and assert outright that people who come from some areas of America are not really American. Some might remember the ad to which I referred, aired by the conservative Club for Growth, which said, "Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs."

And now George W. Bush has gone on the offensive against the Bay State. To hear him tell it, Massachusetts is not a state now on its fourth Republican governor in a row or one with one of the lowest tax burdens in the country, as the Boston Globe recently reported, but some sort of Sodom on the Bay, with 90% tax rates, mandatory Wicca ceremonies in public schools, and an anarcho-syndicalist majority in the state legislature. How could "real" Americans be expected to accept a candidate from such a place?

Bush is hardly the first Republican to use this attack; when the DNC decided to hold its convention in Boston, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey said, "If I were a Democrat, I suspect I'd feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in Boston than, say, America."

But Bush has added new gusto to the assault. His stump speech now includes a joke attacking Kerry, delivered identically to every audience: "In 20 years as a senator from Massachusetts, he has built a record of - [pause for comedic effect] - of a senator from Massachusetts." This is greeted with loud guffaws from the crowd of true believers. When he's in the West, Bush will say, "My opponent says he's in touch with the West, but sometimes I think he means Western Massachusetts." If he's criticizing Kerry's spending proposals, he'll say, "His spending promises will cost about four times that much, more than $2.2 trillion. That's with a ‘T.' That's a lot even for somebody from Massachusetts."

Why does Bush get away with this? Because the press corps buys the Republican argument that the areas of the country where there are lots of Republicans are "really" American, and the areas of the country where there are lots of Democrats aren't.

Jimmy Carter: Bush has exploited 9-11 for political gain

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1335333,00.html

Bush advisers privately admit their internal polls are more discouraging than the ones you read about

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/24/153457/95

More post-election warnings

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook25oct25,1,1329462.column?coll=la-headlines-nation

Kerry picks up 35 endorsements from newspapers that supported Bush in 2000

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/25/1632/8777

Follow-up: apparently the Cleveland Plain Dealer is reconsidering its Bush endorsement

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/24/124613/78

Bonus item: Bush channels the Village People

http://www.thetalentshow.org/archives/001382.html

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:45 AM

 
BIG TROUBLE

H.R. 10, the Intelligence bill, currently on life support

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008411.html

Remember “extraordinary rendition” (the rule that allows the US to send prisoners to other countries to be tortured so we can keep our hands clean)? When Hastert added this to the bill, the WH initially backed it, then ran away when they saw the outrage it caused. Well, it turns out (no surprise) that this already was the policy of the Bush admin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57363-2004Oct23.html
CIA officials have not disclosed the identities or locations of its Iraq detainees to congressional oversight committees, the Defense Department or CIA investigators who are reviewing detention policy, according to two informed U.S. government officials and a confidential e-mail on the subject shown to The Washington Post.

[NB: And yes, it is a violation – in fact, a “grave breach” - of the Geneva Convention]

Another blockbuster story on the rewriting of military rules under Bush

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/international/worldspecial2/24gitmo.html?oref=login&ex=1256270400&
In early November 2001, with Americans still staggered by the Sept. 11 attacks, a small group of White House officials worked in great secrecy to devise a new system of justice for the new war they had declared on terrorism….[O]fficials bypassed the federal courts and their constitutional guarantees, giving the military the authority to detain foreign suspects indefinitely and prosecute them in tribunals not used since World War II.

The plan was considered so sensitive that senior White House officials kept its final details hidden from the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and the secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, officials said. It was so urgent, some of those involved said, that they hardly thought of consulting Congress.

White House officials said their use of extraordinary powers would allow the Pentagon to collect crucial intelligence and mete out swift, unmerciful justice. "We think it guarantees that we'll have the kind of treatment of these individuals that we believe they deserve," said Vice President Dick Cheney, who was a driving force behind the policy.

But three years later, not a single terrorist has been prosecuted. Of the roughly 560 men being held at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, only 4 have been formally charged. Preliminary hearings for those suspects brought such a barrage of procedural challenges and public criticism that verdicts could still be months away. And since a Supreme Court decision in June that gave the detainees the right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court, the Pentagon has stepped up efforts to send home hundreds of men whom it once branded as dangerous terrorists…

Many of the Pentagon's experts on military justice, uniformed lawyers who had spent their careers working on such issues, were mostly kept in the dark. "I can't tell you how compartmented things were," said retired Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter, who was then the Navy's senior military lawyer, or judge advocate general. "This was a closed administration."…On Friday, Nov. 9, Defense Department officials said, Mr. Haynes called the head of the team, Col. Lawrence J. Morris, into his office to review a draft of the presidential order. He was given 30 minutes to study it but was not allowed to keep a copy or even take notes.

The following day, the Army's judge advocate general, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig, hurriedly convened a meeting of senior military lawyers to discuss a response. The group worked through the Veterans Day weekend to prepare suggestions that would have moved the tribunals closer to existing military justice. But when the final document was issued that Tuesday, it reflected none of the officers' ideas, several military officials said. "They hadn't changed a thing," one official said.

In fact, while the military lawyers were pulling together their response, they were unaware that senior administration officials were already at the White House putting finishing touches on the plan. At a meeting that Saturday in the Roosevelt Room, Mr. Cheney led a discussion among Attorney General Ashcroft, Mr. Haynes of the Defense Department, the White House lawyers and a few other aides…According to two people involved in the process, Mr. Cheney advocated withholding the draft from Ms. Rice and Secretary Powell.

When the two cabinet members found out about the military order - upon its public release - Ms. Rice was particularly angry, several senior officials said. Spokesmen for both officials declined to comment.

Mr. Bush played only a modest role in the debate, senior administration officials said. In an initial discussion, he agreed that military commissions should be an option, the officials said. Later, Mr. Cheney discussed a draft of the order with Mr. Bush over lunch, one former official said. The president signed the three-page order on Nov. 13.

The latest Bush Co. lies about Bin Laden not being in Tora Bora don’t even comport with their own statements at the time

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003772
[Josh Marshall] Looking over various reporting on Tora Bora from the winter and spring of 2001/2002, it seems clear that most major news outlets ran stories which flatly contradict what the Bush campaign is now saying on the subject…

I'd be curious whether, in reporting the Bush campaign's current denials about what happened at Tora Bora, any major news outlet has made reference to their own earlier reporting which makes it clear that, as nearly as such things can be known, what the president is saying is simply not true.

Indeed, not only is what the president's campaign is saying not true, but as the April 2002 WaPo piece, discussed here, makes clear, what Kerry is charging is backed up to the letter by the administration's own formal and informal after-action analyses and reports about the mistakes made at Tora Bora.

It's really that clear cut.

[More details
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003773

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003767

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003769
Kerry tries to make what is arguably the biggest screw-up in the war against al Qaida into a centerpiece of the last weeks of the campaign. And what's the Bush campaign's response? Lie about it. Say it never happened.]

Massive corruption, misuse of US funds to Iraq under the CPA

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000138.html

Today in Iraq: bad, very very bad

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/24/7521/0511

Aftermath of the PULL article yesterday on Bush’s community service – no, he wasn’t “volunteering” and no, he wasn’t any more responsible about this than he was about any other of his obligations. Rumors persist that this was part of a plea bargain for a drug bust, credited somehow against his NG obligations, and details of this story certainly support that inference. But whatever the truth about all that, this does show at a minimum that Bush has LIED about the affair

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_17_digbysblog_archive.html#109857517608840716
"I was working full time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project P.U.L.L.," Bush said in his 1999 autobiography, "A Charge to Keep." "My friend John White ... asked me to come help him run the program. ... I was intrigued by John's offer. ... Now I had a chance to help people."…But White's administrative assistant and others associated with P.U.L.L., speaking on the record for the first time, say Bush was not helping to run the program and White had not asked Bush to come aboard.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/pull-this.html
It's incredible that all signs point to his being a volunteer working off some community service time. Instead of just claiming to be a volunteer, he claimed he was asked to "help run the program."

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008405.html
"We didn't know what kind of trouble he'd been in, only that he'd done something that required him to put in the time," said Althia Turner, White's administrative assistant.

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2004/10/there_he_goes_again.php
The story has a fascinating detail, not emphasized by the reporters, that stongly suggests George W. Bush was in fact on some sort of formal diversion program: even though he wasn't getting paid, he had to sign in and out…Why has no reporter asked the White House Just One Question: how many times has George W. Bush been arrested, and on what charges?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003770
[D]ozens of Washington reporters have spent years dismissing the community service story. You'd think that some of the them might now pick up the phone to find out whether they'd gotten played one more time.

Boy, Georgie just can’t avoid trying to play soldier, can he? Meanwhile, his people are starting to worry

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57458-2004Oct23.html
President Bush turned his Marine One chopper into a campaign prop Saturday and used it to drop in on huge crowds at three stadiums around Florida, at a time of concern in his campaign about his failure to gain a decisive lead in the most crucial battlegrounds…The commander in chief landed at the ballparks to the strains of the "Top Gun" theme, his most dramatic use of a military asset since he rode a fighter jet onto an aircraft carrier 17 months ago to declare the end of major combat operations in Iraq…Bush-Cheney spokesman Scott Stanzel said the campaign will reimburse the government a charter rate determined by the White House Travel Office, but he would not disclose the estimate…

One Republican official described the mood at the top of the campaign as apprehensive. " 'Grim' is too strong," the official said. "If we feel this way a week from now, that will be grim."

Here’s why they are worried

http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=2208
Let's look again at our remaining ten swing states. Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Hampshire are leaning towards Kerry. Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and West Virginia are leaning towards Bush. That gets Kerry to 262 electoral votes and Bush to 254. I wrote recently that Kerry's path to victory--270 electoral votes--was "Ohio plus 7." But since then, New Hampshire has shifted toward Kerry and New Mexico has shifted away from him, resulting in a net loss of one electoral vote. So now it's Ohio plus 8.

The states to watch over the next few days are Wisconsin (10), Iowa (7), and New Mexico (5), the three states that Bush will be hitting Sunday through Tuesday as he tries to make up for the potential loss of Ohio's 20 electoral votes.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/24/82352/233
That Republican official said polling for Bush showed him in a weaker position than some published polls, both nationally and in battlegrounds. In many of the key states, the official said, Bush is below 50 percent, and he is ahead or behind within the margin of sampling error -- a statistical tie.

"There's just no place where they're polling outside the margin of error so they can say, 'We have this state,' " the official said. "And they know that an incumbent needs to be outside the margin of error."

Cheney will say ANYTHING

http://www.electablog.com/2004/10/its-not-just-wolves.html
"One way the world might look if he had been in charge is, he would have ceded our right to defend ourselves to the United Nations…If John Kerry had been in charge, maybe the Soviet Union would still be in business…If John Kerry had been in charge, Saddam might well control the Persian Gulf today…He might well have nuclear weapons. It's a good thing he wasn't in charge."

[NB: Wow, John Kerry would have brought back the Soviet Union!]

More garbage to come

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=FRz0sfS7NJ4Oese735E2Dh%3D%3D
The long-established strategy of the Bushes is that the family takes the high road while underlings of untraceable affiliation do the dirty work…There's still plenty of time for some group to go nuclear with a new anti-Kerry ad…

Bush's strategy for the homestretch is fourfold. First, elevate the attacks on Kerry. This week, Bush and Cheney sounded like they had been trolling the far corners of right-wing websites for talking points...

Besides the case against Kerry, there are three other parts of Bush's strategy in these final days. After getting knocked around by Kerry's attacks on Iraq just prior to, and during, the debates, Bush is returning to his convention theme, attempting to wrap himself in September 11…Bush was also reviving Karl Rove's theory of the bandwagon effect. In 2000, Bush famously toured New Jersey and California in the closing days of the race because Rove believes some undecided voters will jump aboard whatever campaign looks like a winner at the end. In an e-mail to supporters, Bush strategist Matt Dowd also emphasized one recent poll that showed a majority of voters think Bush will win. The Bushies believe such sentiments can be self-fulfilling.

Since so much of Bush's current strategy is based on negative--often erroneous--attacks on Kerry, there are two other pieces to his endgame. One is to soften his image to counter the rising unfavorable ratings his attacks produce. This is being done by Laura Bush--whose speeches are testimonials about her husband…

The final component of the strategy is unprecedented. One reason BC'04 risks using Bush to deliver its toughest attacks is that, at this point in the campaign, the volume of information bombarding voters is so overwhelming that it takes the power of words straight from the president's mouth to break through the clutter. But the White House has always relied on the press to convey Bush's message to readers and viewers in a relatively unmediated fashion. That has proved more difficult this year due to a surge in coverage that fact-checks what the candidates are saying. This development has hurt Bush more than Kerry because the president's strategy is to destroy his opponent's credibility, a tactic that, ironically enough, has relied disproportionately on false statements. The Bushies have become so frustrated by the fact-checking of the president's statements that a spokesman told The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, "The Bush campaign should be able to make an argument without having it reflexively dismissed as distorted or inaccurate by the biggest papers in the country."

In response to the media's new obsession with truth-squading the candidates, the Republican National Committee's opposition research department has started to do something remarkable: going negative on the press…

I have mixed feelings about this, but good news politically: the growing list of Republicans for Kerry

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Republicans_for_Kerry_2004

http://www.republicansforkerry.org/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/republicansforkerry04/

http://www.republicansforkerry04.com/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/23/9719/3774

There is ambiguity and rule-bending in any campaign, but this is just despicable

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/9989544.htm
Arizona-based Sproul & Associates is under investigation in Oregon and Nevada over claims that canvassers hired by the company were instructed to register only Republicans and to get rid of registration forms completed by Democrats…Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register people to vote. He quit after two hours. "They said if you bring back a bunch of Democratic cards, you'll be fired," Banse contends. "At that point, I said, `Whoa. Something's wrong here.'"

Nathan Sproul, a former head of Arizona's Republican Party and the state's Christian Coalition branch, denies any wrongdoing and accuses Democrats of making things up…Sproul declined to name the states in which his company conducted registration drives. His political consulting firm was founded last year and has received nearly $500,000 from the RNC since July, according to federal election records.

Former canvassers such as Banse have come forward in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Oregon in the past two weeks alleging they were told to register only Republicans and to "walk away" from people who said they intended to vote for Democrat John Kerry…Some said Democratic registration forms had been thrown out or ripped up.

November 3: the morning after

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/10/23/will_it_end_up_in_court.html

Inside story of the Cleveland Plain Dealer endorsement

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/23/17432/600

Congrats to all on forcing Sinclair to back down – and the Right is apoplectic over the lost opportunity

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/23/143857/06

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003768

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/22/21187/159
“Sinclair has caved to the pressure. Very obvious that they're running scared. They letting the Kerry camp spout the same old BS without challenge.”

“It looks more like a Kerry campaign ad about half the time. I agree with you. It's pretty bad. Right now they're going after the President's military records. Pul-leeze.”

“They're trying very hard to show both sides. So far, Kerry doesn't have much about which to complain. It's pretty softball.”

“It came on here on MD @8pm, I turned it off after 40 minutes. Honestly the POW Story that Sinclair put together makes Kerry look very sympathetic.”

“I just quit watching this travesty. I am furious! More attention was given to Kerry's movie and it's director, George Butler, etc. than any of the Stolen Honor movie. When they belittled Bush's guard service, that was when I gave up on this crap. I am so disgusted I can barely type. I will be contacting Sinclair. It was a damn ad for Kerry!”

“Are you watching the Sinclair presentation, or the video? We're talking about the Sinclair presentation. It was a waste of time. Folks need to see the video, never mind Sinclair.”

“This is just another Kerry ads. They sold out. They owe the GOP an hour too. They simply make me sick. Seems this could be the October Surprise from the DNC...this certainly won't hurt Kerry. It seems that they show no respect at all for the POW or Swiftees.”

“This thing sucks. Anything positive for the POWs and vets is "BALANCED" by whack jobs for Kerry. Now they're doing the Bush AWOL thing - I am blocking SINclair on my box - what a setup! - It's on tape but I think I'll burn it. ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!”

“I just quit watching this travesty. I am furious! More attention was given to Kerry's movie and it's director, George Butler, etc. than any of the Stolen Honor movie. When they belittled Bush's guard service, that was when I gave up on this crap. I am so disgusted I can barely type. I will be contacting Sinclair. It was a damn ad for Kerry! YOU ARE 100% CORRECT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so mad that I have to leave to go somewhere and I said to my boyfriend "Oh wait I am pissed I have to go on FR and let people know what crap 'A POW's Story' is, then we will leave." LOL whew this board is therapy!”

Closing in on Zarqawi?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/23/iraq.main/index.html
A newly promoted associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was arrested in Iraq on Saturday, the U.S. military reported…

[NB: Man, you don’t want to be this guy – lord knows what they’re doing to him now to find Zarqawi’s whereabouts]

Worse than a draft: broken promises to soldiers who have already served

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008407.html

DeLay’s trouble just beginning

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/23/142644/28
Ronnie Earle has clearly set his gunsights on DeLay, but apparently determined early on that a pre-election indictment could be easily dismissed as partisanship. Earle doesn't give a shit if DeLay wins on November 2nd, he wants an indictment that will stick. Corruption must be punished.

John O’Neill (chief of the Swifties and long time Republican hack) finally gets the treatment he should have gotten from the very beginning

http://www.dailyrecycler.com/blog/2004/10/breakdown.html

Further thoughts on the “wolf” ad

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2004/10/the_three_central_facts_about_bushs_puppies.php
1. Kerry's proposal to cut the intelligence budget came after the 1993 WTC attack (and, more importantly, in the wind-down of the Cold War), not after 9-11.

2. The amount involved was about 3% of the intelligence budget.

3. Porter Goss, tthe former CIA officer and Congressman just appointed by GWB to run the CIA, proposed bigger cuts at the same time.

…Now will the mainstream media blow the whistle on this, or roll over and play dead? Remember, this is the ad that the Bushites say they're counting on to bury Kerry.

Bonus item: in response to such devastating criticisms, Bush Co. has pulled the ad and re-edited it. Here's the new version…

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003338.html

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:46 AM

 
GONE TO THE WOLVES

Bush’s new ad is being spun by his handlers as a brilliant, devastating, killer of an ad – reminiscent of the famous “If There is a Bear” ad from the Reagan era

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2004/10/if_there_is_a_w.html
I just watched the new Bush ad -- "Wolves." The species has been changed to protect the innocent, but otherwise the video, depicting a pack of wolves moving quietly through the woods and then assembling for attack, is a slavish copy of a Reagan ad from 1984: "If There is a Bear."…one of the most striking political ads of all time, weird and ironic, one of a handful of political ads ever to operate purely on metaphor.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/22/schlossberg/index.html
The "back story" of the Wolves ad, as the Bush team tells it, is that the ad was tested months ago in focus groups and was so powerful -- so persuasive -- that BC '04 held it close to the vest and is only now unveiling it to deliver the big KO to Kerry-Edwards. Trumping up the ad in the hopes of fooling people into being impressed by it, rather than appalled, the Bush team is painting the Wolves ad as a kind of unpleasant October surprise for John Kerry, rather than a sign of their own desperation. Clearly, Judy got the memo.

In her interview, Woodruff asked Schlossberg about the "Wolves" ad in breathless tones that suggested she was also convinced Kerry had a serious problem on his hands here. "What do you say about this ad?" Woodruff said, and we're paraphrasing. "A Bush adviser said they tested the ad and it was so powerful they decided to run it in the final days of the campaign, that it shows a weakness of John Kerry's."

Just three little problems with this scenario. Number one: the content isn’t subtle and metaphorical, but riddled with easily documented falsehoods and distortions

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108598/fr/rss/
The key phrase here is "after the first terrorist attack on America." At first viewing, I took this as a reference to the aftermath of 9/11. (Millions of other viewers probably did, too; no doubt the scriptwriters meant us to make the connection.) This puzzled me, because nobody proposed cutting intelligence after 9/11. On second viewing, though, I realized that the phrase was a veiled reference to the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2004/10/22.html#a755
[T]he larger framing of the ad is an outright, intentional deception to make viewers think that Kerry voted against intelligence funding after 9/11. It's not subtle, or debatable, or fuzzy; it's a blatantly bogus attempt to spread misinformation.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/22/wolves/index.html
Bush's choice for CIA chief, Porter Goss, proposed a much larger cut in intelligence funding before Kerry made his proposal. And that same year, when Congress cut $1 billion from the intelligence budget, it wasn't the brainchild of "liberals in Congress," it was a Republican proposal.

Number two: the iconography is absurd

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_22_bestof.html#109848568173438143
[I]t lends itself to too many unfortunate metaphors ("Boy King again cries wolf," anyone?). Third -- and I hope Kerry mentions this about every 30 seconds or so, in the next eleven days -- no human being has ever been killed by a wolf in the continental United States -- ever.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003760
I have to say that I didn't find it all that effective. I can't point to any one thing; it's just not that scary, not even that effective by the special standards used to evaluate lying right-wing slime and scare-mongering, a whole artform worthy of careful critical study…In some ways actually, the piece typifies the administration. The entire ad is built around an entirely intentional and fairly transparent attempt to deceive viewers…That really does capture the whole Bush administration right there: trying to scare people by tricking them into believing something they know isn't true.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=2205
First of all, Hal Riney's classic spot for Reagan was not cluttered up with graphics and numbers about budget cuts and legislation. If you recall, it was all conceptual from beginning to end…Second, the female voice-over is over-the-top. Hal Riney had a serious but warm tone, almost grandfatherly in "Bear." This voice is the sound of acting, achingly dramatic…Third, the wolves just don't look very scary.

Number three: CNN advance release audience…gasps in horror?…no, laughs

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/priceless.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/22/schlossberg/index.html
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, looking a little confused and amused about the whole wolves thing, brought a moment of clarity and yes, a moment of zen, to Woodruff's program: "I can't believe anyone would make up their mind based on an ad showing a bunch of animals running around," she said.

Already, a wolf pack satire page

http://www.wolfpacksfortruth.org/

Real news: as it turns out, there was no real basis for the repeated warnings about a pre-election attack here (but it’s the Dems who are ”scaring America” for political purposes)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55597-2004Oct22.html?nav=rss_nation

Pay no attention to the deficit, unemployment, economic stagnation, the environment, lousy schools, eroding civil liberties, the threats to Social Security and Medicare, or the future of the Supreme Court…

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Campaign-Rdp.html?oref=login&ex=1256184000&
Bush Says Security Trumps Other Issues

[Well, he has to HOPE it does]

Bush transfers vote-cheaters out of South Dakota, just before they get indicted, and installs them to run the voter suppression effort in Ohio

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003763

And what an effort in Ohio

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/campaign/23vote.html?oref=login&ex=1256270400&
Republican Party officials in Ohio took formal steps yesterday to place thousands of recruits inside polling places on Election Day to challenge the qualifications of voters they suspect are not eligible to cast ballots.

And in Pennsylvania and Oregon

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/pp/04296/399788.stm
Scores of college students in Pennsylvania and Oregon have had their voting registrations switched by teams of canvassers circulating bogus petitions and, in some cases, partially concealed voter registration forms students were requested to sign.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003765
It's an unlovely fact. But it's a key Republican strategy, in almost every closely-contested election, to deny as many people as possible the right to vote. True enough, it's not wholly an equal opportunity affair. Voting for Republicans is generally encouraged. But since high turn-out elections almost always favor Democrats, Republicans often use a mix of voter suppression tactics to nudge the totals back in the other direction.

[NB: This is becoming one of the major media failures of this campaign: clear and systematic Republican voter fraud (Sproul, etc) in multiple states, while the media chooses to frame it as “controversies” on both sides. CNN has been particularly craven on this score: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/22/florida.registration/index.html]

So, we seem to be on the verge of the ugliest election day (and aftermath) in memory

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20041022.html
This next presidential election, on November 2, may be followed by post-election chaos unlike any we've ever known…

[More: http://www.newdonkey.com/2004/10/two-three-many-floridas.html]

“Custer Battles” – why this isn’t a bigger story, I don’t know

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/23/politics/23whistle.html?ex=1256270400&en=3e71e6c63d8161d5&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland

[First to pick up on its significance: Mark Kleiman http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2004/10/crony_capitalism_and_the_occupation_of_iraq.php]

Since Bush Co. seem to be pushing hard to capture or kill Zarqawi now, this is a good time to be reminded that…

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004979.php
[D]id you know that George Bush had a chance to take out terrorist mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi back in 2002 but didn't do it because he was afraid it might weaken the case for invading Iraq?

The new coordinated WH effort to claim that Bin Laden wasn’t in Tora Bora, and they never had a chance to get him

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003764

[NB: they must be REALLY worried about this accusation]

Pentagon reportedly knows where Bin Laden is even now

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008400.html

[NB: He’s also reportedly getting a million dollars a year from his family. His family? You mean the ones who got airlifted out of the US after 9-11? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/30/archive/main313048.shtml]

The flu vaccine shortage: will Bush finally be held accountable for something?

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ats-ap_health10oct23,0,2908966.story?coll=ny-leadhealthnews-headlines
The flu vaccine shortage is causing widespread worries among a substantial group of Americans -- the four in 10 who are in families with a member at high risk of getting the flu, an Associated Press poll found.

http://democrats.reform.house.gov/investigations.asp?Issue=Flu+Vaccine+Crisis
Rep. Waxman criticizes FDA for failing to release key documents about whether the flu vaccine crisis could have been prevented and asks Chairman Davis to issue an immediate subpoena…Rep. Waxman releases four new fact sheets that explain (1) how the Administration ignored years of expert recommendations on vaccine supply; (2) how the Administration failed to invest in efforts to strengthen the vaccine supply, (3) how FDA failed to respond to warning signs at the contaminated facility; and (4) how liability concerns are irrelevant to the current crisis.

Chiron’s lobbying efforts

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_23_bestof.html#109852504706825511

I don’t really believe this: a Rose Garden “intelligence bill” signing ceremony is too important to Bush for Rove to let the opportunity slip by, but right now it looks as if it may not happen

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55411-2004Oct22.html?nav=rss_nation

Porter Goss – even worse than you could imagine

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/23/23749/994
Porter Goss' initial moves as CIA director appear to herald a post-election purge at the already troubled spy agency, according to current and former top U.S. intelligence officials…Most observers agree the CIA, along with the rest of the U.S. intelligence community, is in need of reform…But the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said they were concerned by the partisan affiliation of Goss' team.

Astonishing – how can this be?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/23/31410/449
The federal government has begun [!!!???!!!] conducting background checks on all foreigners seeking to attend U.S. flight schools, the Transportation Security Administration said Friday…The expanded security measures, aimed in part at preventing potential terrorists from taking pilot lessons here as some of the Sept. 11 hijackers did, now apply to any foreigner seeking flight training in the United States, not just those learning to fly larger aircraft.

Sinclair airs its show, reframed as a media critique

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-review23oct23,1,3441525.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The Republican-leaning Sinclair Broadcasting Group ended up compromising with itself. Sinclair forced 40 of its 62 stations to air as a "news event" part of the factually dubious excoriation of Kerry's antiwar activities "Stolen Honor" — in a junky-looking, scattershot hour of political raw hamburger…"We believe in covering all sides of the story," anchor Jeff Barnes said at the outset.

What you “missed” if you didn’t watch the show

http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/22/232320/07

Was the anti-Kerry film “Stolen Honor” underwritten by the NRA?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/stolen-honor-funded-by-nra.html

Bush’s “community service” comes back under scrutiny

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9990590.htm

American Conservative (yes, you heard that correctly) endorses John Kerry

http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_10_22_bestof.html#109849799706836735
"George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism."

A good site for election detail and analysis, including a cool interactive electoral vote counter

http://www.mydd.com/

[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004516]

Why your vote matters even in a “safe” Kerry blue state

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004519

Visualize this: the next Sect’y General of the UN?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/10/22/clinton_eyes_un_post.html

Bonus item: God endorses George Bush

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/sigh.html

Extra bonus item: Fox News scoops everyone, declares Bush the winner! (thanks to Elizabeth Heilman for the link)

http://www.dailyprobe.com/

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:46 AM

 
ECHO CHAMBER

“The economy is strong, and getting stronger”

February 10, Washington
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/politics/10BUSH.html?ei=5070&en=40a9f89afa550d2d&ex=1098504000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1098407376-EgIOrR0w17CasFvObOCc3w

March 9, Texas
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/2004-03-06-bush-economy_x.htm

April 4, West Virginia
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115952,00.html

August 6, Washington
http://economy.news.designerz.com/bush-says-us-economy-strong-and-getting-stronger.html

September 7, Missouri
http://www.news-leader.com/today/0907-BushEconom-173004.html

October 20, Wisconsin
http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=938464&tw=wn_wire_story

Wow, it must be getting REALLY strong by now, eh?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003749
[AP] The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a widely watched barometer of future economic activity, edged lower in September for the fourth month in a row, indicating a slowing in economic growth, a private research group reported Thursday ... Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein called the September decline a 'clear signal that the economy is losing momentum heading into 2005.'

http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/archives/2004/10/11/strong-and-getting-stronger/
The mantra of President Bush and all his lackies on the US economy is that it is “strong, and getting stronger". The phrase itself appears countless times in the speeches and press conferences of Bush’s economic advisors such as Greg Mankiw and John Snow as well as from the President himself. The latest figures released by the Labor Department suggest a rather different interpretation.

How polls get reported

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000877.html
Why is it that when Kerry leads within the margin of error, the headline reads "tie," but when Bush enjoys the same point spread, it's a "lead"?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/stupid-poll-reporting.html
One would have to do a careful bit of research to be sure, but obviously I'm not the only one who has noticed that slight Bush leads in polls are called "leads" while slight or even bigger leads for Kerry are labelled "ties."

The annoying thing, though, is that most people writing these stories still don't appear to understand what the margin of error implies. For a poll with an X point margin of error, the difference between the two candidates has to be, approximately (there's a slightly more accurate formula but for numbers around 50% it's close enough), 2X before the difference between them is outside the margin of error.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041021/ap_on_el_pr/president_ap_poll&cid=694&ncid=1963&sid=96378798
President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are locked in a tie for the popular vote, according to an Associated Press poll, while a chunk of voters vacillate between their desire for change and their doubts about the alternative…The result is deadlock. In the survey of 976 likely voters, Democrats Kerry and Sen. John Edwards had 49 percent, compared to 46 percent for Republicans Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/21/144623/93
AP Poll: Bush, Kerry in Dead Heat
…the Democratic ticket of Kerry and Sen. John Edwards got support from 49 percent of those who said they were likely to vote, and the Republican team of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney got 46 percent, within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Reuters Poll: Bush Grabs One-Point Lead on Kerry
President Bush opened a slight one-point lead on Democratic rival John Kerry in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

[Kos] So to recap, a three-point Kerry lead is a "dead-heat", but a one-point Bush lead is a "slight lead".

George Tenet: the war was “wrong”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/21/tenet/index.html
Tenet told the Michigan audience that the Bush administration's war in Iraq is being "rightly challenged," but insisted that the CIA was making progress in the overall war on terrorism. He also conceded that the agency "did not live up to our expectations as professionals" when it came to protecting the country against the 9/11 attacks and informing the public about the absence of WMDs in Iraq.

[More: http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2004/10/21/news/news1.txt]

Great Kerry speech, reframing the entire Iraq/terrorism question and showing where Bush went wrong (thanks to FUGOP for the link) – and thanks to CNN for giving Kerry free air time to show this important speech in its entirety (NOT!)

http://www.cfr.org/campaign2004/pub7465/kerry/speech_on_iraq_and_terrorism.php

More great news from Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/middleeast/22insurgents.html?ex=1256184000&en=45bf161210ddb258&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Senior American officials are beginning to assemble a new portrait of the insurgency that has continued to inflict casualties on American and Iraqi forces, showing that it has significantly more fighters and far greater financial resources than had been estimated.

When foreign fighters and the network of a Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are counted with home-grown insurgents, the hard-core resistance numbers between 8,000 and 12,000 people, a tally that swells to more than 20,000 when active sympathizers or covert accomplices are included, according to the American officials.

These estimates contrast sharply with earlier intelligence reports, in which the number of insurgents has varied from as few as 2,000 to a maximum of 7,000. The revised estimate is influencing the military campaign in Iraq, but has not prompted a wholesale review of the strategy, officials said…

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/10/insurgents-infiltrated-iraqi-national.html
Insurgents infiltrated Iraqi National Guard
The AP, reporting "new details" from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers:

In some cases, members of the Iraqi security services have developed sympathies and contacts with the guerrillas; in other cases, infiltrators were sent to join the groups, the official said.

The official pointed to a mortar attack Tuesday on an Iraqi National Guard compound near Baghdad as a probable inside job. The attackers apparently knew precisely when and where the unit's members were gathering and dropped mortar rounds in the middle of their formation. At least four Iraqis were killed and 80 wounded.

U.S. military analysts foresee little chance of the insurgency evaporating during the next few years, the official said. Attacks have increased by about 25 percent since the beginning of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month that began last weekend, with most of the attacks car bombs and strikes on civilians, rather than direct assaults on U.S. forces.

The assassination attempt on the commander of the ING also appears to have had inside coordination

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001226.html
You knew it was bad in Iraq, I know. I did too. But still, reading this, I am struck yet again with the enormity of the disaster:

Hoping to contain the damage, the Army offers the press a tour of the prison…When the bus arrives, the reporters file off and approach a massive expanse of tents, each housing twenty-five prisoners. A soldier screams, "No talking to the detainees!" But as soon as the prisoners catch sight of the press corps, pandemonium erupts. Dressed in rags, the Iraqis press their bodies against double layers of barbed wire. There are hundreds of them: shouting, holding up crude signs or crutches. Several wave prosthetic legs. "Where's the freedom?" they shout in Arabic. "Is this the freedom?" A prisoner with a bullhorn denounces Americans in English: "They've taken away our freedom, our liberty, our rights!" The military's staged press tour has devolved into unscripted chaos…Farnaz Fassihi of the Wall Street Journal stands frozen. "I feel like I'm in a bad dream," she whispers. "God, what have the Americans done?"

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109841417352485733
AFP reports that interim Iraqi Minister of Petroleum Thamer Ghadban says that sabotage and lack of refining capacity has cost Iraq $7 billion since March, 2003…Iraq's production has fallen to such low levels that it actually has to import oil, paying $200 million per month for it, or nearly two and a half billion dollars a year!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52674-2004Oct21.html
Leaders of Iraq's religious parties have emerged as the country's most popular politicians and would win the largest share of votes if an election were held today, while the U.S.-backed government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is losing serious ground, according to a U.S.-financed poll by the International Republican Institute.

Why Bush’s approach to Al Qaeda (“75% of their known leadership caught or killed”) was a mistake from the start, and why Al Qaeda is even stronger now for it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52673-2004Oct21.html

Now THAT’S a tough ad

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003755

You’ve read a lot here over the past few months about Doug Feith, one of the truly bad and dangerous people in this administration (but still a name known only to political junkies): Carl Levin tries to change that

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003754

[Highlights: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001225.html]

A great site that documents the ongoing WH effort to erase inconvenient histories

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/21/185745/21

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00000795.htm

How the Dems plan to win Florida (and how the GOP plans to stop them)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/21/dem_handbook/index.html

Bush could win popular vote, lose Electoral College (and of course, if that happens they will graciously concede, right?)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/21/gore04/index.html

A weird scenario: W. Va. GOP delegate may refuse to cast his vote for Bush (thanks to Mathew Gross for the link)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51909-2004Oct21.html?nav=rss_politics/elections/2004

Kerry, on the other hand, WILL NOT let himself be Gore’d again

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/20/the_art_of_stealing_elections?mode=PF
[Robert Kuttner] Here is a flat prediction: If neither candidate wins decisively, the Bush campaign will contrive enough court challenges in enough states so that we won't know the winner election night…The right stumbled on a gambit in 2000, which could become standard operating procedure in close elections: If the election ends up in the courts, all courts eventually lead to the Supreme Court, which, as we learned, can overrule state courts -- and pick the president.

This year is even more ripe for abuse, because the 2002 Help America Vote Act, a "reform" written substantially to Republican specifications, toughened ID requirements. It also gave voters a right to cast "provisional" ballots if their names are missing from the rolls. Good impulse, but someone, ultimately a court, must decide whether they should have been permitted to vote, and that's almost impossible to resolve on Election Day.

In addition, states are experimenting with a variety of new voting systems, to avoid a repeat of the technical glitches that made it easy for Republicans to steal Florida in 2000. And experiment is the right word; much of this technology isn't ready for prime time…In our voting systems, we now have a witches' brew of 19th-century local amateurism married to 21st-century technology that is not yet reliable. The technical mess functions as an enabler of the assault on voting.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2004/10/21/kerry_maps_postelection_plan/
Senator John F. Kerry, bracing for a potential fight over election results, will not hesitate to declare victory Nov. 2 and defend it, advisers say. He also will be prepared to name a national security team before knowing whether he has secured the presidency.

In short, the Democratic presidential candidate has a simple strategy for Nov. 3 and beyond: Do not repeat Al Gore's mistakes.

The Democratic vice president prematurely conceded the 2000 race to George W. Bush in a telephone call, then had to retract his concession after aides said Florida was not lost. He never declared victory, an omission Kerry's advisers -- many of whom worked for Gore -- now think created a sense of inevitability in voters' minds about Bush's presidency.

Gore did not plan for the legal showdown, although few could have predicted it before Election Day. And he watched as Bush seized political advantage during the 36-day recount by publicly discussing a transition to the White House. Not this time, promise Kerry's advisers. If there is doubt about the results, they will fight without delay.

An interesting angle on the Bush/Robertson “there won’t be any casualties” flap: why did Robertson bring it up now?

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004504

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003315.html

PIPA: many Bush supporters misinformed about facts (well, if they’re Fox News watchers, who can blame them?)

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/html/new_10_21_04.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/000714.html

Bonus item: remember when the Texas Dem delegation left the state to avoid a vote on reapportionment, and DeLay got the FAA to try to track them down by posing it as a national security threat? Here you can get the transcript of his lies

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003750

http://www.epic.org/open_gov/txdemocrats/
The May 12, 2003 audio recording of telephone conversations between the FAA's Washington Operations Center and various FAA field employees clearly indicate that the FAA employees were misled into believing that the request from DeLay's office was part of 1) a formal Congressional investigation; 2) a formal Congressional inquiry; and 3) part of a Congressional hearing process. In addition, the FAA was not made aware of the reason for DeLay's interest in the aircraft…Some FAA employees can be heard expressing concern about the propriety of their actions.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004507
"This is a cheap publicity stunt on something that has no connection to Tom DeLay," Jonathan Grella, a DeLay spokesman, said Thursday. "It's a frivolous matter that's already been rendered moot and everyone should consider the source."

Don't DeLay's spokesmen get bored after awhile repeating the same line everytime their guy gets in trouble?

On an unrelated matter, DeLay in trouble AGAIN

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004502

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:23 AM

 
NOW WHAT?

Michael Weissman offers a thoughtful critique of
http://www.electoral-vote.com (and suggests some alternatives)

Actually, that site is highly unstable because it uses ONLY the latest poll in each state no matter how many near-simultaneous polls there are, what their statistics are, etc. A much more sophisticated site is here: http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/pollcalc.html. This site does currently assign most undecideds to Kerry, a historically justified but maybe wrong assumption, but it also provides the info to undo that assumption. Another site, not very sophisticated about probabilities but very reasonable about estimating percentages, run by a crazy right-winger, is here: http://www.electionprojection.com/. Despite their very different methods and opposite personal biases these two sites give similar predictions. Before Wang (Princeton) started tossing in the weighted undecideds there was a day on which he estimated that an across the board shift of 0.7 % margin to Kerry would shift the electoral odds to him, while the right-wing site estimated that an across the board shift of 0.5% to Kerry was needed to swing the closest state (Ohio) and hence the election. It's an interesting lesson in the fairly good ability of scientific methods to overcome bias.

[NB: Let me boil it down: all three sites agree on this, as things stand now. It all depends on Ohio and Florida. If things remain as they are, Bush must win both to win, Kerry needs to win one or the other.]

Sproul and Associates at it again: this time in PA

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04294/398767.stm

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004495
Once again, you have workers who say they were told only to register GOP leaners -- and who were stiffed on pay -- and a Republican National Committee spokesman spinning feebly… And why aren't the big newspapers covering this every single day?

The fight over overseas ballots

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/politics/campaign/20cnd-military.html?oref=login&ex=1256011200&

Federal judge again rejects Bush policies on Guantanamo prisoners

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49155-2004Oct20.html?nav=rss_nation
In a scolding opinion…

Ho-hum, more civilian casualties in Iraq

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=2&u=/nm/20041020/ts_nm/iraq_dc

Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of House Intelligence Committee together call on CIA to release report

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/20/144946/56

Is there any doubt that Condi Rice is the most politicized (and hence compromised) National Security Advisor ever? Now she’s giving campaign speeches…and if I had a copy of that CIA report that reportedly damns her, it would be getting awfully warm in my hands right now (on the other hand, this shows that the Bushies are pretty confident it won’t come out before the election)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46231-2004Oct19.html

Bush tells Pat Robertson before Iraq war, “we’re not going to have any casualties.” In a sane world, this would be a cause for outrage. In this world, Bush flacks try to find a way to call Robertson, head of the Christian Coalition, a liar without calling him, you know, a liar

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/hughes-says-pat-robertsons-liar.html
Hughes: Judy, I cannot imagine that that conversation would ever take place. I've never heard the president say anything of the sort.... So I can't imagine whether he misunderstood, or what happened. But I'm certain that the president did not say that remark.

Woodruff: So Pat Robertson is lying or wrong or something?

Hughes: Well, again, Judy, I don't know. Perhaps he misunderstood.... It just doesn't sound consistent with the facts as I knew them at the time.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/mcclellan-calls-pat-robertson-liar.html
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Of course, the president never made such a comment."

[NB: Is there really any doubt that this is EXACTLY the kind of thing Bush would have said? http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109833763823529343]

Once again, Mark Kleiman and I are drinking the same Kool-Aid. Why ISN’T this Bush quote a howling front-page scandal?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2004/10/did_he_really_mean_it.php
Q: If the people in Iraq, in a free, democratic election, someday choose an Islamic fundamentalist government, is that all right with you?

BUSH: I will be disappointed, but democracy is democracy…if that's what the people choose, that's what the people choose.

Does the leader of the free world really understand so little about the meaning of democracy that he thinks an elected religious tyranny is a democratic form of government? Or that 1000 American lives was a fair price to pay for creating a second mullocracy next to Iran? Or that an Islamist Iraq would be less of a threat to the United States than Ba'athist Iraq?…George W. Bush just stuck a knife in the back of every Iraqi working for a truly republican form of government and a truly democratic way of life for his or her country.

Bush’s approval rating for his STRONGEST suit (antiterrorism) drops below 50%

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041020/pl_afp/us_vote_poll_041020215606

Bush’s broken promises: quantified

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004967.php

Is Kerry distorting Bush’s position on Social Security?

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000419.html

Who would have thought, given all that has transpired, that a shortage of flu vaccine would become one of Bush’s biggest pre-election crises?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/flu_vaccine_/2004/10/the_facts_about_flu_from_henry_waxman.php

[NB: Drudge tries to make a scandal out of the fact that Clinton just got one. HE JUST HAD HEART SURGERY, YOU TWIT! http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003738]

Speculation city: why is Bush taking a day off in Crawford? Is something afoot?

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000872.html

As I said, not an ordinary case of insubordination – not at all

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/20/iraq.reservist/index.html
An Army captain has been relieved of his command following several reservists' refusal to drive a fuel convoy on a dangerous mission last week, Pentagon officials told CNN Wednesday…Pentagon officials said the officer was relieved because of a loss of confidence in his leadership ability following a breakdown of discipline in the unit. They would not release the captain's name, citing an announcement expected Thursday in Iraq.

Five other soldiers who refused the mission have been transferred to other units, an Army official said Monday…

A coalition spokesman in Baghdad said "a small number of the soldier involved chose to express their concerns in an inappropriate manner, causing a temporary breakdown in discipline."

Of all the mistakes in post-war Iraq, this was the one that started it all – and most people still aren’t aware of its significance

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/international/21war.html?oref=login
The role of top Bush administration officials in approving the plan is unclear. Mr. Slocombe said the decision was the subject of extensive consultations with senior Defense Department officials in Washington. A draft of Mr. Bremer's decree abolishing the army, he said, was sent to Mr. Rumsfeld before it was issued…Lawrence Di Rita, Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman, said in an e-mail message that the issue was not taken up by cabinet-level officials and was "definitely not one that the secretary of defense decided."

Laura Rozen gives her prediction about the October Surprise

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001221.html
Here's my bet: the Marines, assisted by the Iraqi Security Forces, will nab Zarqawi, who has been built up as the new Osama, from a basement in Fallujah somewhere.

[Hey, can I brag? I said this three weeks ago: http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_pbd_archive.html#109707416183566348]

Abu Ghraib soldier pleads guilty, starts giving evidence against military and civilian officials

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008378.html

Bad news for the all-volunteer army. Now what?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008379.html
We already knew that the Army National Guard fell short of its recruitment goals this year by 5,000. The Wall Street Journal now adds that the Reserves fell 45% Short of their goal while the gap in regular signups was 30% of the military's target…

Sinclair boycott: still on

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003734
Put simply, this isn't over. Not even close.

Sinclair made a largely cosmetic retreat. They won't show 'Stolen Honor' in its entirety -- only, presumably, the most inflammatory parts, along with some padding whining about media bias…Despite the fact that they've moved the program to Friday and later in the evening, they're still forcing most of their stations to turn over an hour of the airwaves to what seems certain to be an hourlong anti-Kerry smear just before the election.

Unfortunately, I sense they have fooled many into thinking they've backed down. But they haven't.

[More: http://www.boycottsbg.com/]

Bush’s bulge: a comprehensive guide (and if this is all there is, then the story is over – but the photo collections sure do raise a question)

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108354/fr/rss/

Growing list of former Nader supporters are abandoning him, calling for him to step aside and help defeat Bush

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/20/nader_raiders/index.html
“We believe there is nothing more important than defeating George W. Bush. Ralph argues that he is creating an independent political voice. In 2000, when he ran as the Green Party candidate, that may have been true.

In 2004, as the candidate of the increasingly reactionary, anti-immigrant Reform Party, and the recipient of financial and political support from right-wing funders and operatives, it is not credible. Unfortunately, Ralph is party to a disingenuous effort to split the progressive vote in key states.

With the major party candidates in a dead heat, Nader is poised to tip the election to Bush -- again. We do not agree with Ralph that there is little difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. We know that the country cannot afford another four years of Republicans controlling the White House, both chambers of Congress, the Supreme Court and the entire federal Judiciary. The price of a protest vote is too high for families who live from paycheck to paycheck, for those concerned about the realities of war, for those who lack decent jobs and access to health care, and for the environment.”

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:39 AM

 
ON THE ROPES

This could finish them: buried CIA report specifies administration intelligence failures, and the individuals responsible. The Dems (and the media) have to make its release a national imperative – now, not after the election

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer19oct19,1,6762967.column?coll=la-util-op-ed
The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."…

When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said…"We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report"…According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush.

The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress…"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000854.html
Surely Condi is one of the people pointed to in the report…

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cia20oct20,1,7991083.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
The report was drafted in response to a demand from Congress nearly two years ago for the CIA to conduct an internal inquiry into the performance of agency personnel before the attacks. The agency was asked "to determine whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable" for intelligence breakdowns cataloged in a joint congressional investigation of Sept. 11…A U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday that the document had not been provided to Congress because it was not complete. "The report is just a draft," the official said. "It's not yet finished, and the matter is still under review." The official declined to elaborate.

[NB: In other words, they're fighting like hell internally to get it watered down]

Bush and Cheney, feeling the heat, ramp up their lies and fear mongering: Kerry will let your kids be blown up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44763-2004Oct19.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
Most major media outlets now routinely do a good deal of fact checking when covering Bush's speeches…So, for instance, Milbank and Romano write: "In several instances, Bush took liberties in characterizing Kerry's positions. Although Kerry has said he would always reserve the right to use preemptive force, Bush charged that Kerry's position is otherwise, saying: 'Senator Kerry's approach would permit a response only after America is hit. This kind of September the 10th attitude is no way to protect our country.' . . .”

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cheney.html?ex=1255924800&en=53ec96e8b79d9d51&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday raised the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such a threat…"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.

[More:http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df10192004.html]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003727
President Bush accuses Kerry of using "shameless scare tactics."

[Shameless, indeed. Another lesson in Bush 101: always accuse your opponent of precisely what you are doing yourself]

Bush’s culture of responsibility: but it always seems to be some else’s responsibility

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003718
"I know there are some here who are worried about the flu season. I want to assure them that our government is doing everything possible to help older Americans and children get their shots despite the major manufacturing defect that caused this problem."

Translation: We're working on getting some more shots. But the important thing to understand is that it's not our fault.

Update on the missing WH web page identifying the members of the Coalition of Whoever is Left: now not only is the page not there, the whole link has disappeared

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000408.html

[Notice that Brad DeLong has also joined the proud membership of the Reality-Based Community]

In Iraq: this is not a simple case of insubordination

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/national/19reservists.html?oref=login
Members of the Army Reserve platoon in Iraq that disobeyed orders to deliver fuel to another base last week had tried to persuade their superiors for hours to cancel the mission, relatives of the soldiers said Monday…That defying an order had become an option for 18 members of the 343rd Quartermaster Company seemed to signal a worsening of the low morale that had plagued the unit.

The banality of body counts

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/international/middleeast/19casualties.html?hp&ex=1098244800&en=02eed0d5c5b53d7f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Comment

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000129.html

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004479

Bush’s horrifying self-delusions

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/10/pat_robertson_b.html
The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going to have any casualties."…Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."…”I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said…

"And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.'"

Robertson said the president then told him, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

What the Iraqi elections (whenever they have them) hold in store

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109816965872688207
AFP/ ash-Sharq al-Awsat report that a spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani said Monday that the spiritual leader supports the formation of a committee of "independents" to form a party ticket to contest the elections scheduled for January. Hamid al-Khaffaf warned that the grand ayatollahs would not hesitate to bring people into the streets for the sake of a good result in the elections such that the righteous win their rights.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2004/Oct/20041019News024.asp
If free and open Iraqi elections lead to the seating of a fundamentalist Islamic government, "I will be disappointed. But democracy is democracy," Bush said. "If that’s what the people choose, that’s what the people choose."

[NB: This is a stunner – we went to war for THIS?]

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109825017118363638
[Juan Cole] I suppose we should just check with Iyad Allawi as to whether "if free and open American elections lead to the seating of a fundamentalist Christian government," he would be willing to "accept" that…Really, the president cannot help patronizing the Iraqis. A while ago he talked about them taking off their "training wheels," as though high-powered Iraqi physicists, lawyers and physicians were somehow reduced to little children just because the US has 138,000 troops in their country…I think it can be fairly argued that the Bush "war on terror" has actually spread Islamic fundamentalism.

He doth protest too much: Bush so frantic to counter draft talk that he is reduced to making promises NO ONE believes

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003726
In an interview Monday with the AP, Bush accused Kerry of scare tactics and insisted he would not bring back the military draft, even if there were a crisis with North Korea or Iran…"I believe we've got the assets and manpower necessary to be able to deal with another theater should one arise," Bush said…The chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence T. Di Rita, said Monday: "It is the policy of this administration to oppose a military draft for any purpose whatsoever. A return to the draft is unthinkable. There will be no draft."

[Josh Marshall] Unthinkable?…Categorically, there will be no draft?…Then why do we have a Selective Service exactly? Why do we have the contingency plans discussed in the Times article? The draft is always possible, depending on various possible national security threats and contingencies, particularly those that might persist for some time.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004481
As [Justin] Logan writes, "This is insane. Everybody -- right, left, neocon, libertarian, paleo, whatever -- acknowledges that we're stretched about as far as we can go."

How the draft would work

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/draft_mechanics.html
They'll assign a number 1-365 to each day of the year, with people drafted according to birthday…They'll take 20 year-olds first. If they need more people, then they start in with the 21 year-olds. Then 22, then 23, then 24, then 25, then 19, then 18…No more student deferments! You get to finish the semester or, if you're a senior, finish the year. Then it's off to war you go…And no women.

Plus, possible conscription for medical personnel (thanks to Sarah McGough for the link)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/politics/19draft.html
The Selective Service has been updating its contingency plans for a draft of doctors, nurses and other health care workers in case of a national emergency that overwhelms the military's medical corps…In a confidential report this summer, a contractor hired by the agency described how such a draft might work, how to secure compliance and how to mold public opinion and communicate with health care professionals, whose lives could be disrupted.

How sincere is Bush’s “faith”?

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8790

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_17_digbysblog_archive.html#109821443083550487
He doesn't know the bible except in the most rudimentary way. He doesn't attend church. He doesn't follow any of the most basic tenets of Christianity.

Scientists, the ultimate reality-based community, take aim at Bush’s know-nothing policies

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/science/19poli.html?ex=1255924800&en=37c9580f6b928050&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004474

RBCPHD’s

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/10/someone_with_a_.html

Who is Ron Suskind, and why does Bush Co. hate him so much?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/20/ron_suskind/index.html

A very handy website, if your nerves can stand it: daily updates on the ups and downs of the Electoral College race – a few days ago Bush had a decided lead, today Kerry has it, with many borderline states currently tilting toward him, and a few formerly Bush states now in play (thanks to David Blacker for the link)

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Sinclair: The Big Hurt

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/19/141038/24
[WSJ] The shares dropped amid fresh concerns on Wall Street, with analysts fretting over what looms as a loss of advertising revenue for Sinclair. Some securities analysts, who demanded not to be quoted on record, said that they're concerned about the potential development.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/19/sinclair_stock/index.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/sinclair-advertiser-update.html
Boycottsbg.com says approaching the 80th advertiser pullout...

Stockholder frenzy

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/lerach-press-conference.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/more-sinclair.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/more.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003719

Sinclair’s backing off (a bit, sort of, maybe…but no, not really)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003720
Sinclair Broadcast Group announced today that on Friday, October 22, 2004 at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. central time) certain television stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. will air a special one-hour news program, entitled "A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media.”…The news special will focus in part on the use of documentaries and other media to influence voting, which emerged during the 2004 political campaigns, as well as on the content of certain of these documentaries. The program will also examine the role of the media in filtering the information contained in these documentaries, allegations of media bias by media organizations that ignore or filter legitimate news and the attempts by candidates and other organizations to influence media coverage.

Contrary to numerous inaccurate political and press accounts, the Sinclair stations will not be airing the documentary "Stolen Honor" in its entirety. At no time did Sinclair ever publicly announce that it intended to do so. In fact, since the controversy began, Sinclair's website has prominently displayed the following statement: "The program has not been videotaped and the exact format of this unscripted event has not been finalized. Characterizations regarding the content are premature and are based on ill- informed sources."

[Josh Marshall] Hmmm. Inaccurate stories based on statements of Sinclair executives. Truly, where do they get these clowns?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003722
As nearly as I can figure it, from their press release, what Sinclair now plans is an hourlong special which is based largely on the material from 'Stolen Honor' but also frames this in a larger 'context' of liberal media bias and how bad it is that all the other networks haven't run 'Stolen Honor' and presumably what a rough shake Sinclair's gotten for trying to run 'Stolen Honor.' That's balance.

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/10/excellent_analy.html
What they planned all along was to air selected portions of the anti-Kerry propaganda and intersperse that with studio elements of former POWs and other veterans bashing Kerry. Think Swift Boat Unfiltered. This is far worse as a smear than if they had just aired the documentary. It reinforces the "message" of the documentary and updates it with the panel to make the charge seem fresh and alive…You see, all of this will be framed as a discussion about how the liberal media, following the lead of the Kerry campaign, has systematically ignored these claims and "filtered" the news. That's how they will claim that this is "news" and not just a recycling of old anti-Kerry smears

The lesson of all this: boycotts work – don’t stop now

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004480

Bonus item: more fake documents!

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/10/call_for_conservative_bloggers_to_prove_antibush_documents_are_fakes.html

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:20 AM

 
THOSE STUBBORN FACTS

More on the RBC (“Reality Based Community”). What’s interesting about this issue is how Bush Co. is attempting to combine a radical epistemological relativism (there are no facts: reality is what we make it to be) with a radical ethical absolutism (good vs evil, with us or against us, extreme and inflexible stands on abortion, etc). It used to be that conservatives were the enemies of all relativisms — viewed as a legacy of “the Sixties” and murky European ideas creeping into American intellectual life. But suddenly they’ve found relativism a handy political tool

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/the_widening_re.html

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/kerry_reaches_out_to_the_realitybased_community.php
[John Kerry] "This guy is never in doubt but frequently in error. When it comes to reality, George Bush has a simple strategy: Ignore it, deny it, then try to hide it.''

Michael Kinsley nails it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37013-2004Oct15.html
The distinction between how you want things to be and how they really are seems to be a particularly tough one for President Bush himself. But to count on voters to share this confusion is pretty courageous…The media -- with an undiscriminating appetite for issues and a professional commitment to be fair and balanced between Republicans and Democrats, true and false, good and evil, crunchy and creamy, or any other dichotomy the news confronts them with -- were helpless to resist.

"Pooty-poot" endorses pal Bush (always good to have a former KGB official in your corner)

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/10/18/putin.iraq/

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/the_kgb_backs_bush.php
Congratulations to the Bush campaign on this coup. After all, what would Putinization be worth if you didn't have Putin himself on your side?

Another Soviet-style attempt to erase history: WH cuts clips of Bush saying “I never said I wasn’t worried about Bin Laden” from their video of the debate

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003713

The human cost of Bush’s October Surprise

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/fallujah_and_november_2.php

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/bonus_track_fro.html

How to read the Bin Laden/Zarqawi “merger”

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/zarqawi_and_bin.html

UN keeps its distance from the sham of Iraq elections

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43378-2004Oct18.html

Trying to catch up with Knight-Ridder, NYT launches its own three-parter on terrible decisions made in Iraq

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/international/19war.html?oref=login&ei=5094&en=9d3f7169463b6f23&hp=&ex=1098158400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all&position
"John Abizaid was the only one who really had his head in the postwar game," said [Former General in charge of Iraq] Garner. "The Bush administration did not. Condi Rice did not. Doug Feith didn't. You could go brief them, but you never saw any initiative come of them. You just kind of got a north and south nod. And so it ends with so many tragic things."

Florida voting begins, and within minutes the system starts breaking down

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041018/D85PUJCG0.html

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oId=17265

Five ways the 2004 race could end up in court

http://slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2108339&

GOP bungles a particularly blatant and inept effort to suppress votes in Philadelphia

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/10/voter_suppression_attempt_in_philly.html

Justice Dept dragging its feet in prosecuting vote fraud from the 2002 election (thanks to TPM for the link)

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041018/OPINION01/110180075

DeLay’s attempt to hijack the Texas Congressional delegation proves too much even for the Supremes

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scotus19oct19,1,6386069.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

The Senate race: looking pretty good right now

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/18/124830/90

Gore’s blasphemy

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000841.html
"Truly, President Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what rightfully belongs to the American people and give as much of it as possible to the already wealthy and privileged," he said.

From Walter Feinberg

“On the Suskind article. While I tend to avoid psychological explanations…Bush's behavior is very consistent with that of ex alcoholics who have not delved deeply into the reasons for their problems. They fear changing their mind on one thing will weaken their resolve on the main thing. Often this behavior serves them well and is functional. In Bush's case it has led to disaster.”

More on Bush as a “dry drunk”

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020924Bisbort.html

http://www.counterpunch.com/wormer1011.html

http://www.counterpunch.com/mccarthy1019.html

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/03/10_drunk.html

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0127-11.htm
Earlier several other writers and I likened Bush's personality characteristics to those of a person who, in AA parlance, is "dry" but whose thinking is not really sober. Grandiosity, rigidity, and intolerance of ambiguity, and a tendency to obsess about things are among the traits associated with the dry drunk. The dry drunk quits drinking, but his or her obsession with the bottle is often replaced with other obsessions.

Sinclair stock drops 8% in one day

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/down-781.html

And more bad news for Sinclair

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004464

Sinclair’s Washington bureau chief fired for questioning the wisdom of airing the anti-Kerry video (maybe he has some internal memos to share with us)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003714
But my strongest impression is simply the outlandish quality of this drama. It's like we're a banana republic suddenly. Or it's like the late 19th century in some unruly part of this country where the local papers and most of the legislators were owned by some railroad boss or some similar honcho or tycoon.

http://www.electablog.com/2004/10/ever-have-that-sinclairing-feeling.html
Man, now we've got so-called news organizations that don't care about freedom of speech. How low can they go? I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

Krugman on the draft: sure, Bush promises not to do it – but he promised not to take the budget into deficit too

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/opinion/19krugman.html?hp

More news on how badly the US screwed up the flu vaccine supply

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003715

They did it again: cable networks give Bush an hour of free air time

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_17_digbysblog_archive.html#109812216181243279

Kerry, despite ridiculously overblown Mary Cheney “controversy,” keeps momentum

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/kerry_inches_ahead.php

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/complete/la-na-fifty18oct18,1,6292808.story

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/18/polls/index.html
"Many who still claim to be 'undecided' are in fact leaning to Mr. Kerry and are about ready to commit." For Bush to win, Luntz claims, "he will need to turn in a perfect performance every day from now through the election -- perfection that has eluded him so far."

A grain of salt about polls: check out these **2000** polls just two weeks before the Bush-Gore “tie”

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000843.html

[Gallup: 10 point Bush lead, ABC: 5 point Bush lead, etc]

NO, I’m not ready to give this up yet: new Bush NG document release includes a very revealing document

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/10/is_this_the_smoking_gun_on_bush_national_guard_record_and_why_you_should_care.html
Back in February I started blogging about the mystery of GW Bush’s missing separation codes (also known as SPN codes). In the saga of the Bush National Guard career, the absence of any mention on any of the documents of the separation codes that normally give the reasons for a military discharge have always struck me as the biggest and strangest hole in the story, especially because during the period in which Bush served, Army SPN codes were remarkably detailed and chatty—and often very derogatory. Were the same or similar codes used in the National Guard? It seemed at least possible.

Now it seems as if Lukasiak has found and partly decoded Lt. Bush’s separation code. The records released to date include Bush’s NGB-22 (.pdf), his “Report of Separation and Record of Service in the Air National Guard of Texas and as a Reserve of the Air Force.” That document has a section called “Reason and Authority for Discharge” (section 31, near the bottom). And therein is found a mysterious code, PTI 961.

Mr. Lukasiak theorizes that PTI 961 was a code which

indicates that he was being thrown out of the Air National Guard for failing “to possess the required military qualifications for his grade or specialty, or does not meet the mental, moral, professional or physical standards of the Air Force.” In other words, despite the fact that Bush had an unfulfilled six year Military Service Obligation, he was discharged from the Air National Guard not because he moved to Boston, but because he failed to meet his obligation to maintain his qualifications as an F102 pilot.

[More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004947.php]

Bonus item: Teachers escorted from Bush rally for wearing subversive T-shirts

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/18/liberties/index.html
Our question is, why does the Bush-Cheney campaign assume people wearing shirts that say "Protect Our Civil Liberties" are opposed to the president's re-election?

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:03 AM

 
A FEW REALITY-BASED REMINDERS

Bush: I have given my generals in Iraq everything they asked for (NOT!)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40321-2004Oct17.html?nav=rss_nation

Deeper reflections on the meaning of the Suskind article

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004937.php
[T]he record of the past four years doesn't leave much doubt that Bush has little use for inconvenient data and disdains anyone who fails to immediately see the things that seem so obvious to him — often with disastrous results. More interesting, though, is why Bush acts this way, and to understand that you have to read Suskind's piece pretty carefully.

At first glance, Suskind seems to be saying that Bush's character is driven by an almost unnatural, faith-based confidence in his own instincts — a sort of Mao-like faith, as Juan Cole puts it. But he's actually saying just the opposite: that Bush's actions over the past four years are those of a person with a startling lack of self confidence, someone who's afraid that even a fleeting contact with an opposing idea will deflate him completely. Deep down Bush knows perfectly well that the facts don't always back up his instincts, and that's why he avoids them. He's afraid he might change his mind.

Why is he afraid to change his mind? I don't know. But he sure does go to nearly neurotic lengths to avoid hearing anything that might cause him to doubt his own beliefs. That's hardly the sign of a man with genuine confidence in himself, is it?

http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2004/10/the_bad_ceo_get.html
What interested me most about the article was that it resolved a puzzle about the administration that seems to have come up in a half-dozen conversations recently. I've tried to expand on the managerial argument for the profound domestic and international failures. Based on no knowledge at all except what I've read in Suskind, Woodward, etc, I have always imagined that the president is one of those bad managers who is so focused on making the decision ("I'm the one who decides") and on short, conclusive meetings that he doesn't allow a full airing of information to come out, or to hear disagreements. The meeting that in the Clinton White House would have stretched into two hours, blowing the entire day's schedule but ultimately leading to a smarter result, is in the Bush White House "resolved" when the CEO speaks, and everyone leaves the room, most of them a little doubtful about the choice but loyal to the commander-in-chief. A lot of people I've talked to think that managerial analysis is short-sighted: "It's religion. It's got something to do with religion and fundamentalism," they respond…Suskind's article largely confirms my speculation about Bush's managerial style: Doesn't ask many direct or penetrating questions. Limits sharply the number of people who have access to him. Reaches decisions abruptly, and then treats doubts or alternative views as disloyalty, etc. And as a result, he has wound up way, way over his head…

So that's the answer: It's the bad CEO, first, but his solution for the crisis he's created is a turn to an ever more absolutist religious certainty. Religious faith is not a constant anchor in his life, as it was for Jimmy Carter and to a lesser degree Clinton and I think also, based on his fascinating answer the other night, Kerry. Rather, it is a quick fix for an untenable situation, with one piece of religion -- Calvinist certainty -- pulled out of the whole and used to deal with a secular problem. I don't sleep better knowing that, but I'm a little less confused.

http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200443#958
Bush's belief that he is literally God's instrument is periodically denied yet far more often asserted, in ways subtle and not-so-subtle. In fact, Bush's approach to governance is virtually impossible without this belief. When you don't ask for facts, for understanding, for knowledge - indeed, when these things become your enemy - you can only proceed if you believe that your instincts are beyond questioning. If God is working through you, then your every whim is divinely sanctioned. In June 2003, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that Bush told then-Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, "God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

In Suskind's article, we hear yet more quotes from Bush supporters who assert without embarrassment that God installed George W. Bush in the White House, and Bush is merely acting out God's will. There are doubtless many people, perhaps millions, who agree. So here's my challenge to them: If John Kerry wins this election, will you have the courage to proclaim that God now has decided that John Kerry should be president, and George W. Bush should not? Will you devote yourself to aiding Kerry in his work, since if he wins it is God's will? Or do you only believe God has intervened in American elections when you like the result?

Kleiman, Yglesias join the “reality-based community”

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/the_realitybased_community_vs_putinization.php

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/the_widening_re.html

[NB: Sorry guys, “Reality Based Community Blog Digest” (RBCBD) is too much of a mouthful for me. But I’m with ya]

The future of Social Security (if Bush is re-elected and follows through on his promises)

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/privatizing_social_security.php
“The January Surprise”

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000401.html
[T]he Bush administration is making two inconsistent arguments…

On the one hand, they are saying that private accounts are a good deal--even after one factors in 0.5% per year additional fees deducted from your balance--because large-scale market failure in the financial markets makes stocks a better investment than Treasury bonds. Stocks are risky, yes, but because financial markets overvalue that risk shifting Social Security's resources from the Treasury bonds of the Trust Fund to the stocks of equity-heavy private accounts generates a free lunch for young workers.

On the other hand, they are saying that financial markets work so well and are so nearly perfect that an extra $100 billion of Treasury bonds sold at auction each and every year will have no effect on interest rates.

These two arguments are inconsistent. The Bush administration should not be using one set of assumptions about how financial markets work to calculate returns to investors, and another to calculate costs to the government. This kind of "fuzzy math" is anathema to those of us in the reality-based community.

There is a bigger, unmentioned reason to be against private accounts. Ten years down the road or so, there will be pressure on Congress to allow people to borrow against their private accounts, or to withdraw them to buy a house, or to use them to meet unexpected medical expenses. Congress will bow to that pressure--it's their money, after all. And in the end a lot of people will hit 70 having drained their Social Security private account dry. The rest of us will then have to decide whether to let them starve on the street, or tax ourselves a second time to give them Social Security benefits. As Dick Schmalensee says, "You have to ask yourself not just, 'Is this good policy?' but 'Will this still be good policy after Congress does its worst to it?'" The Medicare drug benefit and the corporate tax boondoggle are powerful evidence that the Bush administration holds no leashes to use to control what this Congress does to policy proposals, while lobbyists can make this Congress roll over and beg.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/more-social-security.html
This is of course true, but it is just one of many many many pitfalls, current or inevitable, with privatizing Social Security. I'm wonky enough to think about these things when I'm walking down the street, and this particular issue makes my brain hurt as problem after problem come to mind.

The point of Social Security is, after all, to guarantee an absolute minimum income for seniors no matter what bad luck befalls them or bad choices they've made. There's nothing magical about either the current benefit levels, aside from the fact that they aren't all that generous, or the precise levels of the payroll tax/income cap. We can add a mandatory investment account system without changing the existing rates/benefits at all if we want to. It isn't an either/or proposition.

But, the basic issue I keep returning to is -- how do you devise a loot-free system? How do you devise a system which, either in its initial form or after expected later congressional tinkering, can't be looted to a large degree by the fund managers? I can't come up with one. Then, we're back to the issue of what do we do about a bunch of destitute 70 year olds? And, that's why we have Social Security in the first place...

A little story, big in its implications

http://www.intel-dump.com/archives/archive_2004_10_14.shtml#1098022068
The Los Angeles Times provides a long report in Sunday's paper on the deployment of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, dubbed "Blackhorse" for the stallion on its shoulder patch, to Iraq for a year of combat duty. The regiment has long served as as the opposing force, or "OPFOR", for units from other installations coming to train at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. Now, with the Army stretched to practically its breaking point over the Iraq and Afghanistan missions, the Army has turned to the Blackhorse regiment for help.

Is torture an official, if covert, govt policy?

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008331.html

Al Qaeda, Zarqawi’s group merge: and we’ve driven them together

http://www.juancole.com/2004_10_01_juancole_archive.html#109807195204474563

Knight-Ridder quietly becoming the best source for real reporting on Iraq

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001208.html

“The Putinization of American Life”

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/threats.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004940.php

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/10/the_creeping_putinization_of_american_life.html

Why the draft talk won’t go away

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/will_bush_bring_back_the_draft.php
Is it a legitimate issue? After all, GWB says he's against it…[But] being against a draft doesn't do much good if you pursue policies that will make one necessary.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003699
"The best way to avoid the draft is to vote for me."

Those were George W. Bush's words yesterday on the campaign trail…There's no better example of the tactical flexibility achieved when you completely cut campaign rhetoric off from reality.

As we've noted earlier, President Bush's policies don't necessitate a draft. But to claim that his policies make a draft less likely than John Kerry's policies is simply irrational.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/another-fake-major-speech.html

Another ridiculous example of phony media “even-handedness”

http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2004/10/17.html#a748

Tom Tomorrow gives the best summary so far of the state of the campaign (thanks to Diane Koliarakis for the link)

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2004/10/18/tomo/index1.html

Is the media catching on to the fact that their “even-handedness” is just another field of play being used manipulatively by Bush and Co.?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004938.php
It's good to see reporters starting to wake up to this. Exaggeration and oversimplification are the stock in trade of all politicians, but the Bush/Cheney campaign has relied on outright deception far more than the Kerry/Edwards campaign, and it's time to say so. It's not enough to simply write a laundry list article that points out, say, five serious lies by Bush in a debate and two moderate ones from Kerry, with 90% of it unread anyway because it's on the jump on page 23. If that's what the story says, the headline and the lead should clearly reflect it.

The media is allowing its own conventions to be used against it, and this won't stop unless politicians pay a price for doing so. Nor is this a merely partisan issue. After all, if the Bush administration's disdain for the truth and more general disdain for the press works — and so far it's worked pretty well — do they really think a President Kerry won't learn a few lessons from it?

The Rove “band-wagon” theory: a reminder from 2000

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2000_11_12.php#001828

The hidden bad news in Bush’s “good” poll numbers

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fifty18oct18,1,6920665.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108328/fr/rss/

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: told about problems with the felon list, chose to ignore them (hmmm…I wonder why?)

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008328.html

Oh, man…this election is shaping up to become an ungodly mess

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/18/politics/campaign/18monitor.html?oref=login&ex=1255838400&

http://vote2004.eriposte.com/

Interesting methodological issue with phone polling (though who knows what it means): heavy cell phone users, who tend to be younger, aren’t included

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/10/17/do_cell_phones_make_polling_irrelevant.html

Bonus item: “Hard Work” (thanks to Michael Weissman for the link)

http://www.harryshearer.com/clips/hard_work.mp3

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:19 AM

 
VERY SIMPLE

Simple postings today. Please read this article. Share it with everyone you know who is or might be voting. Ron Suskind gives us horrifying insight into the man running this country, how he thinks, and what he plans to do with four more years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html
Without a Doubt
By RON SUSKIND

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.

''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .

''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''

Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'''

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. ''My instincts,'' he said. ''My instincts.''

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. ''I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'''

The democrat Biden and the Republican Bartlett are trying to make sense of the same thing -- a president who has been an extraordinary blend of forcefulness and inscrutability, opacity and action.

But lately, words and deeds are beginning to connect.

The Delaware senator was, in fact, hearing what Bush's top deputies -- from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his ''gut'' or his ''instinct'' to guide the ship of state, and then he ''prayed over it.'' The old pro Bartlett, a deliberative, fact-based wonk, is finally hearing a tune that has been hummed quietly by evangelicals (so as not to trouble the secular) for years as they gazed upon President George W. Bush. This evangelical group -- the core of the energetic ''base'' that may well usher Bush to victory -- believes that their leader is a messenger from God. And in the first presidential debate, many Americans heard the discursive John Kerry succinctly raise, for the first time, the issue of Bush's certainty -- the issue being, as Kerry put it, that ''you can be certain and be wrong.''

What underlies Bush's certainty? And can it be assessed in the temporal realm of informed consent?

All of this -- the ''gut'' and ''instincts,'' the certainty and religiosity -connects to a single word, ''faith,'' and faith asserts its hold ever more on debates in this country and abroad. That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge. But faith has also shaped his presidency in profound, nonreligious ways. The president has demanded unquestioning faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision -- often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position -- he expects complete faith in its rightness.

The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions. Since 9/11, those requests have grown scarce; Bush's intolerance of doubters has, if anything, increased, and few dare to question him now. A writ of infallibility -- a premise beneath the powerful Bushian certainty that has, in many ways, moved mountains -- is not just for public consumption: it has guided the inner life of the White House. As Whitman told me on the day in May 2003 that she announced her resignation as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: ''In meetings, I'd ask if there were any facts to support our case. And for that, I was accused of disloyalty!'' (Whitman, whose faith in Bush has since been renewed, denies making these remarks and is now a leader of the president's re-election effort in New Jersey.)

The nation's founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties of Europe's state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall between organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that seems like a long time ago. George W. Bush -- both captive and creator of this moment -- has steadily, inexorably, changed the office itself. He has created the faith-based presidency.

The faith-based presidency is a with-us-or-against-us model that has been enormously effective at, among other things, keeping the workings and temperament of the Bush White House a kind of state secret. The dome of silence cracked a bit in the late winter and spring, with revelations from the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke and also, in my book, from the former Bush treasury secretary Paul O'Neill. When I quoted O'Neill saying that Bush was like ''a blind man in a room full of deaf people,'' this did not endear me to the White House. But my phone did begin to ring, with Democrats and Republicans calling with similar impressions and anecdotes about Bush's faith and certainty. These are among the sources I relied upon for this article. Few were willing to talk on the record. Some were willing to talk because they said they thought George W. Bush might lose; others, out of fear of what might transpire if he wins. In either case, there seems to be a growing silence fatigue -- public servants, some with vast experience, who feel they have spent years being treated like Victorian-era children, seen but not heard, and are tired of it. But silence still reigns in the highest reaches of the White House. After many requests, Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, said in a letter that the president and those around him would not be cooperating with this article in any way.

Some officials, elected or otherwise, with whom I have spoken with left meetings in the Oval Office concerned that the president was struggling with the demands of the job. Others focused on Bush's substantial interpersonal gifts as a compensation for his perceived lack of broader capabilities. Still others, like Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat, are worried about something other than his native intelligence. ''He's plenty smart enough to do the job,'' Levin said. ''It's his lack of curiosity about complex issues which troubles me.'' But more than anything else, I heard expressions of awe at the president's preternatural certainty and wonderment about its source.

There is one story about Bush's particular brand of certainty I am able to piece together and tell for the record.

In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. ''You were right,'' he said, with bonhomie. ''Sweden does have an army.''

This story was told to me by one of the senators in the Oval Office that December day, Joe Biden. Lantos, a liberal Democrat, would not comment about it. In general, people who meet with Bush will not discuss their encounters. (Lantos, through a spokesman, says it is a longstanding policy of his not to discuss Oval Office meetings.)

This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue, based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, ''By remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful.''

He didn't always talk this way. A precious glimpse of Bush, just as he was ascending to the presidency, comes from Jim Wallis, a man with the added advantage of having deep acuity about the struggles between fact and faith. Wallis, an evangelical pastor who for 30 years has run the Sojourners -- a progressive organization of advocates for social justice -- was asked during the transition to help pull together a diverse group of members of the clergy to talk about faith and poverty with the new president-elect.

In December 2000, Bush sat in the classroom of a Baptist church in Austin, Tex., with 30 or so clergy members and asked, ''How do I speak to the soul of the nation?'' He listened as each guest articulated a vision of what might be. The afternoon hours passed. No one wanted to leave. People rose from their chairs and wandered the room, huddling in groups, conversing passionately. In one cluster, Bush and Wallis talked of their journeys.

''I've never lived around poor people,'' Wallis remembers Bush saying. ''I don't know what they think. I really don't know what they think. I'm a white Republican guy who doesn't get it. How do I get it?''

Wallis recalls replying, ''You need to listen to the poor and those who live and work with poor people.''

Bush called over his speechwriter, Michael Gerson, and said, ''I want you to hear this.'' A month later, an almost identical line -- ''many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do'' -- ended up in the inaugural address.

That was an earlier Bush, one rather more open and conversant, matching his impulsiveness with a can-do attitude and seemingly unafraid of engaging with a diverse group. The president has an array of interpersonal gifts that fit well with this fearlessness -- a headlong, unalloyed quality, best suited to ranging among different types of people, searching for the outlines of what will take shape as principles.

Yet this strong suit, an improvisational gift, has long been forced to wrestle with its ''left brain'' opposite -- a struggle, across 30 years, with the critical and analytical skills so prized in America's professional class. In terms of intellectual faculties, that has been the ongoing battle for this talented man, first visible during the lackluster years at Yale and five years of drift through his 20's -- a time when peers were busy building credentials in law, business or medicine.

Biden, who early on became disenchanted with Bush's grasp of foreign-policy issues and is among John Kerry's closest Senate friends, has spent a lot of time trying to size up the president. ''Most successful people are good at identifying, very early, their strengths and weaknesses, at knowing themselves,'' he told me not long ago. ''For most of us average Joes, that meant we've relied on strengths but had to work on our weakness -- to lift them to adequacy -- otherwise they might bring us down. I don't think the president really had to do that, because he always had someone there -- his family or friends -- to bail him out. I don't think, on balance, that has served him well for the moment he's in now as president. He never seems to have worked on his weaknesses.''

Bush has been called the C.E.O. president, but that's just a catch phrase -- he never ran anything of consequence in the private sector. The M.B.A. president would be more accurate: he did, after all, graduate from Harvard Business School. And some who have worked under him in the White House and know about business have spotted a strange business-school time warp. It's as if a 1975 graduate from H.B.S. -- one who had little chance to season theory with practice during the past few decades of change in corporate America -- has simply been dropped into the most challenging management job in the world.

One aspect of the H.B.S. method, with its emphasis on problems of actual corporations, is sometimes referred to as the ''case cracker'' problem. The case studies are static, generally a snapshot of a troubled company, frozen in time; the various ''solutions'' students proffer, and then defend in class against tough questioning, tend to have very short shelf lives. They promote rigidity, inappropriate surety. This is something H.B.S. graduates, most of whom land at large or midsize firms, learn in their first few years in business. They discover, often to their surprise, that the world is dynamic, it flows and changes, often for no good reason. The key is flexibility, rather than sticking to your guns in a debate, and constant reassessment of shifting realities. In short, thoughtful second-guessing.

George W. Bush, who went off to Texas to be an oil wildcatter, never had a chance to learn these lessons about the power of nuanced, fact-based analysis. The small oil companies he ran tended to lose money; much of their value was as tax shelters. (The investors were often friends of his father's.) Later, with the Texas Rangers baseball team, he would act as an able front man but never really as a boss.

Instead of learning the limitations of his Harvard training, what George W. Bush learned instead during these fitful years were lessons about faith and its particular efficacy. It was in 1985, around the time of his 39th birthday, George W. Bush says, that his life took a sharp turn toward salvation. At that point he was drinking, his marriage was on the rocks, his career was listless. Several accounts have emerged from those close to Bush about a faith ''intervention'' of sorts at the Kennebunkport family compound that year. Details vary, but here's the gist of what I understand took place. George W., drunk at a party, crudely insulted a friend of his mother's. George senior and Barbara blew up. Words were exchanged along the lines of something having to be done. George senior, then the vice president, dialed up his friend, Billy Graham, who came to the compound and spent several days with George W. in probing exchanges and walks on the beach. George W. was soon born again. He stopped drinking, attended Bible study and wrestled with issues of fervent faith. A man who was lost was saved.

His marriage may have been repaired by the power of faith, but faith was clearly having little impact on his broken career. Faith heals the heart and the spirit, but it doesn't do much for analytical skills. In 1990, a few years after receiving salvation, Bush was still bumping along. Much is apparent from one of the few instances of disinterested testimony to come from this period. It is the voice of David Rubenstein, managing director and cofounder of the Carlyle Group, the Washington-based investment firm that is one of the town's most powerful institutions and a longtime business home for the president's father. In 1989, the catering division of Marriott was taken private and established as Caterair by a group of Carlyle investors. Several old-guard Republicans, including the former Nixon aide Fred Malek, were involved.

Rubenstein described that time to a convention of pension managers in Los Angeles last year, recalling that Malek approached him and said: ''There is a guy who would like to be on the board. He's kind of down on his luck a bit. Needs a job. . . . Needs some board positions.'' Though Rubenstein didn't think George W. Bush, then in his mid-40's, ''added much value,'' he put him on the Caterair board. ''Came to all the meetings,'' Rubenstein told the conventioneers. ''Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years: 'You know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something else. Because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company.' He said: 'Well, I think I'm getting out of this business anyway. And I don't really like it that much. So I'm probably going to resign from the board.' And I said thanks. Didn't think I'd ever see him again.''

Bush would soon officially resign from Caterair's board. Around this time, Karl Rove set up meetings to discuss Bush's possible candidacy for the governorship of Texas. Six years after that, he was elected leader of the free world and began ''case cracking'' on a dizzying array of subjects, proffering his various solutions, in both foreign and domestic affairs. But the pointed ''defend your position'' queries -- so central to the H.B.S. method and rigorous analysis of all kinds -- were infrequent. Questioning a regional supervisor or V.P. for planning is one thing. Questioning the president of the United States is another.

Still, some couldn't resist. As I reported in ''The Price of Loyalty,'' at the Bush administration's first National Security Council meeting, Bush asked if anyone had ever met Ariel Sharon. Some were uncertain if it was a joke. It wasn't: Bush launched into a riff about briefly meeting Sharon two years before, how he wouldn't ''go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon. . . . I'm going to take him at face value,'' and how the United States should pull out of the Arab-Israeli conflict because ''I don't see much we can do over there at this point.'' Colin Powell, for one, seemed startled. This would reverse 30 years of policy -- since the Nixon administration -- of American engagement. Such a move would unleash Sharon, Powell countered, and tear the delicate fabric of the Mideast in ways that might be irreparable. Bush brushed aside Powell's concerns impatiently. ''Sometimes a show of force by one side can really clarify things.''

Such challenges -- from either Powell or his opposite number as the top official in domestic policy, Paul O'Neill -- were trials that Bush had less and less patience for as the months passed. He made that clear to his top lieutenants. Gradually, Bush lost what Richard Perle, who would later head a largely private-sector group under Bush called the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had described as his open posture during foreign-policy tutorials prior to the 2000 campaign. (''He had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much,'' Perle said.) By midyear 2001, a stand-and-deliver rhythm was established. Meetings, large and small, started to take on a scripted quality. Even then, the circle around Bush was tightening. Top officials, from cabinet members on down, were often told when they would speak in Bush's presence, for how long and on what topic. The president would listen without betraying any reaction. Sometimes there would be cross-discussions -- Powell and Rumsfeld, for instance, briefly parrying on an issue -- but the president would rarely prod anyone with direct, informed questions.

Each administration, over the course of a term, is steadily shaped by its president, by his character, personality and priorities. It is a process that unfolds on many levels. There are, of course, a chief executive's policies, which are executed by a staff and attending bureaucracies. But a few months along, officials, top to bottom, will also start to adopt the boss's phraseology, his presumptions, his rhythms. If a president fishes, people buy poles; if he expresses displeasure, aides get busy finding evidence to support the judgment. A staff channels the leader.

A cluster of particularly vivid qualities was shaping George W. Bush's White House through the summer of 2001: a disdain for contemplation or deliberation, an embrace of decisiveness, a retreat from empiricism, a sometimes bullying impatience with doubters and even friendly questioners. Already Bush was saying, Have faith in me and my decisions, and you'll be rewarded. All through the White House, people were channeling the boss. He didn't second-guess himself; why should they?

Considering the trials that were soon to arrive, it is easy to overlook what a difficult time this must have been for George W. Bush. For nearly three decades, he had sat in classrooms, and then at mahogany tables in corporate suites, with little to contribute. Then, as governor of Texas, he was graced with a pliable enough bipartisan Legislature, and the Legislature is where the real work in that state's governance gets done. The Texas Legislature's tension of opposites offered the structure of point and counterpoint, which Bush could navigate effectively with his strong, improvisational skills.

But the mahogany tables were now in the Situation Room and in the large conference room adjacent to the Oval Office. He guided a ruling party. Every issue that entered that rarefied sanctum required a complex decision, demanding focus, thoroughness and analytical potency.

For the president, as Biden said, to be acutely aware of his weaknesses -- and to have to worry about revealing uncertainty or need or confusion, even to senior officials -- must have presented an untenable bind. By summer's end that first year, Vice President Dick Cheney had stopped talking in meetings he attended with Bush. They would talk privately, or at their weekly lunch. The president was spending a lot of time outside the White House, often at the ranch, in the presence of only the most trustworthy confidants. The circle around Bush is the tightest around any president in the modern era, and ''it's both exclusive and exclusionary,'' Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative policy group, told me. ''It's a too tightly managed decision-making process. When they make decisions, a very small number of people are in the room, and it has a certain effect of constricting the range of alternatives being offered.''

On Sept. 11, 2001, the country watched intently to see if and how Bush would lead. After a couple of days in which he seemed shaky and uncertain, he emerged, and the moment he began to lead -- standing on the World Trade Center's rubble with a bullhorn -- for much of America, any lingering doubts about his abilities vanished. No one could afford doubt, not then. They wanted action, and George W. Bush was ready, having never felt the reasonable hesitations that slowed more deliberative men, and many presidents, including his father.

Within a few days of the attacks, Bush decided on the invasion of Afghanistan and was barking orders. His speech to the joint session of Congress on Sept. 20 will most likely be the greatest of his presidency. He prayed for God's help. And many Americans, of all faiths, prayed with him -- or for him. It was simple and nondenominational: a prayer that he'd be up to this moment, so that he -- and, by extension, we as a country -- would triumph in that dark hour.

This is where the faith-based presidency truly takes shape. Faith, which for months had been coloring the decision-making process and a host of political tactics -- think of his address to the nation on stem-cell research -- now began to guide events. It was the most natural ascension: George W. Bush turning to faith in his darkest moment and discovering a wellspring of power and confidence.

Of course, the mandates of sound, sober analysis didn't vanish. They never do. Ask any entrepreneur with a blazing idea when, a few years along, the first debt payments start coming due. Or the C.E.O., certain that a high stock price affirms his sweeping vision, until that neglected, flagging division cripples the company. There's a startled look -- how'd that happen? In this case, the challenge of mobilizing the various agencies of the United States government and making certain that agreed-upon goals become demonstrable outcomes grew exponentially.

Looking back at the months directly following 9/11, virtually every leading military analyst seems to believe that rather than using Afghan proxies, we should have used more American troops, deployed more quickly, to pursue Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora. Many have also been critical of the president's handling of Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 hijackers; despite Bush's setting goals in the so-called ''financial war on terror,'' the Saudis failed to cooperate with American officials in hunting for the financial sources of terror. Still, the nation wanted bold action and was delighted to get it. Bush's approval rating approached 90 percent. Meanwhile, the executive's balance between analysis and resolution, between contemplation and action, was being tipped by the pull of righteous faith.

It was during a press conference on Sept. 16, in response to a question about homeland security efforts infringing on civil rights, that Bush first used the telltale word ''crusade'' in public. ''This is a new kind of -- a new kind of evil,'' he said. ''And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.''

Muslims around the world were incensed. Two days later, Ari Fleischer tried to perform damage control. ''I think what the president was saying was -- had no intended consequences for anybody, Muslim or otherwise, other than to say that this is a broad cause that he is calling on America and the nations around the world to join.'' As to ''any connotations that would upset any of our partners, or anybody else in the world, the president would regret if anything like that was conveyed.''

A few months later, on Feb. 1, 2002, Jim Wallis of the Sojourners stood in the Roosevelt Room for the introduction of Jim Towey as head of the president's faith-based and community initiative. John DiIulio, the original head, had left the job feeling that the initiative was not about ''compassionate conservatism,'' as originally promised, but rather a political giveaway to the Christian right, a way to consolidate and energize that part of the base.

Moments after the ceremony, Bush saw Wallis. He bounded over and grabbed the cheeks of his face, one in each hand, and squeezed. ''Jim, how ya doin', how ya doin'!'' he exclaimed. Wallis was taken aback. Bush excitedly said that his massage therapist had given him Wallis's book, ''Faith Works.'' His joy at seeing Wallis, as Wallis and others remember it, was palpable -- a president, wrestling with faith and its role at a time of peril, seeing that rare bird: an independent counselor. Wallis recalls telling Bush he was doing fine, '''but in the State of the Union address a few days before, you said that unless we devote all our energies, our focus, our resources on this war on terrorism, we're going to lose.' I said, 'Mr. President, if we don't devote our energy, our focus and our time on also overcoming global poverty and desperation, we will lose not only the war on poverty, but we'll lose the war on terrorism.'''

Bush replied that that was why America needed the leadership of Wallis and other members of the clergy.

''No, Mr. President,'' Wallis says he told Bush, ''We need your leadership on this question, and all of us will then commit to support you. Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism.''

Bush looked quizzically at the minister, Wallis recalls. They never spoke again after that.

''When I was first with Bush in Austin, what I saw was a self-help Methodist, very open, seeking,'' Wallis says now. ''What I started to see at this point was the man that would emerge over the next year -- a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn't want to hear from anyone who doubts him.''

But with a country crying out for intrepid leadership, does a president have time to entertain doubters? In a speech in Alaska two weeks later, Bush again referred to the war on terror as a ''crusade.''

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community? Many of the other elected officials in Washington, it would seem. A group of Democratic and Republican members of Congress were called in to discuss Iraq sometime before the October 2002 vote authorizing Bush to move forward. A Republican senator recently told Time Magazine that the president walked in and said: ''Look, I want your vote. I'm not going to debate it with you.'' When one of the senators began to ask a question, Bush snapped, ''Look, I'm not going to debate it with you.''

The 9/11 commission did not directly address the question of whether Bush exerted influence over the intelligence community about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. That question will be investigated after the election, but if no tangible evidence of undue pressure is found, few officials or alumni of the administration whom I spoke to are likely to be surprised. ''If you operate in a certain way -- by saying this is how I want to justify what I've already decided to do, and I don't care how you pull it off -- you guarantee that you'll get faulty, one-sided information,'' Paul O'Neill, who was asked to resign his post of treasury secretary in December 2002, said when we had dinner a few weeks ago. ''You don't have to issue an edict, or twist arms, or be overt.''

In a way, the president got what he wanted: a National Intelligence Estimate on W.M.D. that creatively marshaled a few thin facts, and then Colin Powell putting his credibility on the line at the United Nations in a show of faith. That was enough for George W. Bush to press forward and invade Iraq. As he told his quasi-memoirist, Bob Woodward, in ''Plan of Attack'': ''Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. . . . I'm surely not going to justify the war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray to be as good a messenger of his will as possible.''

Machiavelli's oft-cited line about the adequacy of the perception of power prompts a question. Is the appearance of confidence as important as its possession? Can confidence -- true confidence -- be willed? Or must it be earned?

George W. Bush, clearly, is one of history's great confidence men. That is not meant in the huckster's sense, though many critics claim that on the war in Iraq, the economy and a few other matters he has engaged in some manner of bait-and-switch. No, I mean it in the sense that he's a believer in the power of confidence. At a time when constituents are uneasy and enemies are probing for weaknesses, he clearly feels that unflinching confidence has an almost mystical power. It can all but create reality.

Whether you can run the world on faith, it's clear you can run one hell of a campaign on it.

George W. Bush and his team have constructed a high-performance electoral engine. The soul of this new machine is the support of millions of likely voters, who judge his worth based on intangibles -- character, certainty, fortitude and godliness -- rather than on what he says or does. The deeper the darkness, the brighter this filament of faith glows, a faith in the president and the just God who affirms him.

The leader of the free world is clearly comfortable with this calculus and artfully encourages it. In the series of televised, carefully choreographed ''Ask President Bush'' events with supporters around the country, sessions filled with prayers and blessings, one questioner recently summed up the feelings of so many Christian conservatives, the core of the Bush army. ''I've voted Republican from the very first time I could vote,'' said Gary Walby, a retired jeweler from Destin, Fla., as he stood before the president in a crowded college gym. ''And I also want to say this is the very first time that I have felt that God was in the White House.'' Bush simply said ''thank you'' as a wave of raucous applause rose from the assembled.

Every few months, a report surfaces of the president using strikingly Messianic language, only to be dismissed by the White House. Three months ago, for instance, in a private meeting with Amish farmers in Lancaster County, Pa., Bush was reported to have said, ''I trust God speaks through me.'' In this ongoing game of winks and nods, a White House spokesman denied the president had specifically spoken those words, but noted that ''his faith helps him in his service to people.''

A recent Gallup Poll noted that 42 percent of Americans identify themselves as evangelical or ''born again.'' While this group leans Republican, it includes black urban churches and is far from monolithic. But Bush clearly draws his most ardent supporters and tireless workers from this group, many from a healthy subset of approximately four million evangelicals who didn't vote in 2000 -- potential new arrivals to the voting booth who could tip a close election or push a tight contest toward a rout.

This signaling system -- forceful, national, varied, yet clean of the president's specific fingerprint -- carries enormous weight. Lincoln Chafee, the moderate Republican senator from Rhode Island, has broken with the president precisely over concerns about the nature of Bush's certainty. ''This issue,'' he says, of Bush's ''announcing that 'I carry the word of God' is the key to the election. The president wants to signal to the base with that message, but in the swing states he does not.''

Come to the hustings on Labor Day and meet the base. In 2004, you know a candidate by his base, and the Bush campaign is harnessing the might of churches, with hordes of voters registering through church-sponsored programs. Following the news of Bush on his national tour in the week after the Republican convention, you could sense how a faith-based president campaigns: on a surf of prayer and righteous rage.

Righteous rage -- that's what Hardy Billington felt when he heard about same-sex marriage possibly being made legal in Massachusetts. ''It made me upset and disgusted, things going on in Massachusetts,'' the 52-year-old from Poplar Bluff, Mo., told me. ''I prayed, then I got to work.'' Billington spent $830 in early July to put up a billboard on the edge of town. It read: ''I Support President Bush and the Men and Women Fighting for Our Country. We Invite President Bush to Visit Poplar Bluff.'' Soon Billington and his friend David Hahn, a fundamentalist preacher, started a petition drive. They gathered 10,000 signatures. That fact eventually reached the White House scheduling office.

By late afternoon on a cloudy Labor Day, with a crowd of more than 20,000 assembled in a public park, Billington stepped to the podium. ''The largest group I ever talked to I think was seven people, and I'm not much of a talker,'' Billington, a shy man with three kids and a couple of dozen rental properties that he owns, told me several days later. ''I've never been so frightened.''

But Billington said he ''looked to God'' and said what was in his heart. ''The United States is the greatest country in the world,'' he told the rally. ''President Bush is the greatest president I have ever known. I love my president. I love my country. And more important, I love Jesus Christ.''

The crowd went wild, and they went wild again when the president finally arrived and gave his stump speech. There were Bush's periodic stumbles and gaffes, but for the followers of the faith-based president, that was just fine. They got it -- and ''it'' was the faith.

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

The bond between Bush and his base is a bond of mutual support. He supports them with his actions, doing his level best to stand firm on wedge issues like abortion and same-sex marriage while he identifies evil in the world, at home and abroad. They respond with fierce faith. The power of this transaction is something that people, especially those who are religious, tend to connect to their own lives. If you have faith in someone, that person is filled like a vessel. Your faith is the wind beneath his or her wings. That person may well rise to the occasion and surprise you: I had faith in you, and my faith was rewarded. Or, I know you've been struggling, and I need to pray harder.

Bush's speech that day in Poplar Bluff finished with a mythic appeal: ''For all Americans, these years in our history will always stand apart,'' he said. ''You know, there are quiet times in the life of a nation when little is expected of its leaders. This isn't one of those times. This is a time that needs -- when we need firm resolve and clear vision and a deep faith in the values that make us a great nation.''

The life of the nation and the life of Bush effortlessly merge -- his fortitude, even in the face of doubters, is that of the nation; his ordinariness, like theirs, is heroic; his resolve, to whatever end, will turn the wheel of history.

Remember, this is consent, informed by the heart and by the spirit. In the end, Bush doesn't have to say he's ordained by God. After a day of speeches by Hardy Billington and others, it goes without saying.

''To me, I just believe God controls everything, and God uses the president to keep evil down, to see the darkness and protect this nation,'' Billington told me, voicing an idea shared by millions of Bush supporters. ''Other people will not protect us. God gives people choices to make. God gave us this president to be the man to protect the nation at this time.''

But when the moment came in the V.I.P. tent to shake Bush's hand, Billington remembered being reserved. '''I really thank God that you're the president' was all I told him.'' Bush, he recalled, said, ''Thank you.''

''He knew what I meant,'' Billington said. ''I believe he's an instrument of God, but I have to be careful about what I say, you know, in public.''

Is there anyone in America who feels that John Kerry is an instrument of God?

"I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's throat,'' George W. Bush said last month at a confidential luncheon a block away from the White House with a hundred or so of his most ardent, longtime supporters, the so-called R.N.C. Regents. This was a high-rolling crowd -- at one time or another, they had all given large contributions to Bush or the Republican National Committee. Bush had known many of them for years, and a number of them had visited him at the ranch. It was a long way from Poplar Bluff.

The Bush these supporters heard was a triumphal Bush, actively beginning to plan his second term. It is a second term, should it come to pass, that will alter American life in many ways, if predictions that Bush voiced at the luncheon come true.

He said emphatically that he expects the Republicans will gain seats to expand their control of the House and the Senate. According to notes provided to me, and according to several guests at the lunch who agreed to speak about what they heard, he said that ''Osama bin Laden would like to overthrow the Saudis . . .then we're in trouble. Because they have a weapon. They have the oil.'' He said that there will be an opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice shortly after his inauguration, and perhaps three more high-court vacancies during his second term.

''Won't that be amazing?'' said Peter Stent, a rancher and conservationist who attended the luncheon. ''Can you imagine? Four appointments!''

After his remarks, Bush opened it up for questions, and someone asked what he's going to do about energy policy with worldwide oil reserves predicted to peak.

Bush said: ''I'm going to push nuclear energy, drilling in Alaska and clean coal. Some nuclear-fusion technologies are interesting.'' He mentions energy from ''processing corn.''

''I'm going to bring all this up in the debate, and I'm going to push it,'' he said, and then tried out a line. ''Do you realize that ANWR [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] is the size of South Carolina, and where we want to drill is the size of the Columbia airport?''

The questions came from many directions -- respectful, but clearly reality-based. About the deficits, he said he'd ''spend whatever it takes to protect our kids in Iraq,'' that ''homeland security cost more than I originally thought.''

In response to a question, he talked about diversity, saying that ''hands down,'' he has the most diverse senior staff in terms of both gender and race. He recalled a meeting with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany. ''You know, I'm sitting there with Schroder one day with Colin and Condi. And I'm thinking: What's Schroder thinking?! He's sitting here with two blacks and one's a woman.''

But as the hour passed, Bush kept coming back to the thing most on his mind: his second term.

''I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in,'' Bush said, ''with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security.'' The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us ''two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck.''

Joseph Gildenhorn, a top contributor who attended the luncheon and has been invited to visit Bush at his ranch, said later: ''I've never seen the president so ebullient. He was so confident. He feels so strongly he will win.'' Yet one part of Bush's 60-odd-minute free-form riff gave Gildenhorn -- a board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a former ambassador to Switzerland -- a moment's pause. The president, listing priorities for his second term, placed near the top of his agenda the expansion of federal support for faith-based institutions. The president talked at length about giving the initiative the full measure of his devotion and said that questions about separation of church and state were not an issue.

Talk of the faith-based initiative, Gildenhorn said, makes him ''a little uneasy.'' Many conservative evangelicals ''feel they have a direct line from God,'' he said, and feel Bush is divinely chosen.

''I think he's religious, I think he's a born-again, I don't think, though, that he feels that he's been ordained by God to serve the country.'' Gildenhorn paused, then said, ''But you know, I really haven't discussed it with him.''

A regent I spoke to later and who asked not to be identified told me: ''I'm happy he's certain of victory and that he's ready to burst forth into his second term, but it all makes me a little nervous. There are a lot of big things that he's planning to do domestically, and who knows what countries we might invade or what might happen in Iraq. But when it gets complex, he seems to turn to prayer or God rather than digging in and thinking things through. What's that line? -- the devil's in the details. If you don't go after that devil, he'll come after you.''

Bush grew into one of history's most forceful leaders, his admirers will attest, by replacing hesitation and reasonable doubt with faith and clarity. Many more will surely tap this high-voltage connection of fervent faith and bold action. In politics, the saying goes, anything that works must be repeated until it is replaced by something better. The horizon seems clear of competitors.

Can the unfinished American experiment in self-governance -- sputtering on the watery fuel of illusion and assertion -- deal with something as nuanced as the subtleties of one man's faith? What, after all, is the nature of the particular conversation the president feels he has with God -- a colloquy upon which the world now precariously turns?

That very issue is what Jim Wallis wishes he could sit and talk about with George W. Bush. That's impossible now, he says. He is no longer invited to the White House.

''Faith can cut in so many ways,'' he said. ''If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness -- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection.

''Where people often get lost is on this very point,'' he said after a moment of thought. ''Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want.''

And what is that?

''Easy certainty.''

For us “reality based” folks, this video made by Bush for the Iraq Survey Group will be fairly disturbing: “your job is to find out the truth about Saddam Hussein….and here is the truth we expect you to find”

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/things_that_mak.html
I have a hard time believing this video of Bush addressing the Iraq Survey Group is real. But it's obviously real, you just can't fake something like that. But it's so…weird. Disturbing, really.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000395.html
The first thing that makes this certain evidence that something has gone very, very wrong here is that the White House sent it out--either nobody thought that they could get a better performance out of Bush, or nobody dared say, "Hey, this is really bad. We need to either get a better take or simply cancel the whole thing."

So now we know: planning for post-war Iraq was “nonexistent”

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9927782.htm
In March 2003, days before the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American war planners and intelligence officials met at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to review the Bush administration's plans to oust Saddam Hussein and implant democracy in Iraq.

Near the end of his presentation, an Army lieutenant colonel who was giving a briefing showed a slide describing the Pentagon's plans for rebuilding Iraq after the war, known in the planners' parlance as Phase 4-C. He was uncomfortable with his material - and for good reason.

The slide said: "To Be Provided."

Tommy Franks acknowledges disastrous Iraq decision-making, but blames everyone in the world except his boss

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004935.php

[More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/to-be-provided.html]

More news on just how horrible Guantanamo was

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/politics/17gitmo.html?hp

I agree with this Bush lawyer: knowing the election results in a close race will drag on for weeks, maybe even longer if there are multiple lawsuits (as seems likely)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36805-2004Oct15.html

http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/2004_10_10_americablog_archive.html#109793937925824655
How's this for a positive optimistic message to send America. I just got an email from the Bush campaign this morning asking me to donate money to "prepare for the recount." The best part is that they claim that in 2000 it was all of us who tried to "steal" the election:

In 2000, I was in Florida for the recount and remember the attacks we had to fend off in order to protect the result of a fair election from the efforts to steal it.

But more important is what this email reveals. Bush is preparing to challenge the results of this election. He's preparing, as his own campaign says in this email, for "the" recount. I for one don't want another recount. I don't want candidates who are actively planning in advance to use recounts to question the election. George Bush is planning to put us through the same turmoil we went through four years ago.

What this means

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/weekinreview/17brod.html?oref=login&ex=1255665600&
"A repeat performance [of 2000] would do irreparable damage to the good will and forbearance so essential to a functioning democracy"

NYT endorses Kerry

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html?ex=1098590400&en=627b8cc815d24103&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

Despite debate sweep, Kerry still behind in polls?

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108323/fr/rss/

http://www.electoral-vote.com/oct/oct16.html

These kinds of things get overquoted – yes, he’s an inarticulate goofball, but let’s stick to what he REALLY means

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/16/214841/18
“I made it very plain we will not have an all-volunteer army.”

Zarqawi, Zarqa...oops, never mind

http://fugop.blogspot.com/2004/10/zarqawi-captured.html

Behind-the-scenes of the Supreme Court on Bush v. Gore – the true story won’t surprise you much

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38758-2004Oct16.html?nav=rss_nation
"We feel that something illegitimate was done with the Court's power, and such an extraordinary situation justifies breaking an obligation we'd otherwise honor," one clerk told [Vanity Fair] magazine. "Our secrecy was helping to shield some of those actions."

Bonus item: Jon Stewart on “Crossfire”

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf.01.html

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:32 AM

 
LEAKING OIL

If you needed any clearer evidence that the wheels are coming off the US glory parade in Iraq, it is this: troops are now starting to disobey orders out of concern for their safety

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/international/middleeast/16platoon.html?oref=login&ex=1255665600&

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35972-2004Oct15.html?nav=rss_nation

Skyrocketing oil prices

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/15/gas_prices/index.html
Wasn't Prince Bandar supposed to take care of this for Bush? Some friend.

Iraqi President backs off January election date (of course – how can ANY reasonable person believe they will be ready for free and fair elections by then?)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-delay15oct15,1,5368543.story?coll=la-home-world

Meanwhile, conditions for a free and fair vote in Florida aren’t looking any better

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/15/florida_voters/index_np.html

In fact, it is becoming increasingly clear that in a close election, the country will be criss-crossed with lawsuits after the voting, and the govt has NO plan for coping with it.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1520&ncid=1520&e=8&u=/afp/20041014/pl_afp/us_vote_politics_fraud_041014213734

[NB: I don’t think I am exaggerating in saying that we are on the brink of a crisis for the legitimacy of democratic voting itself. The growth and abuse of absentee and pre-election day votes, the increasingly sophisticated (though sometimes crude) strategies for voter suppression, the myriad doubts about electronic machines, and a general tendency toward litigiousness, all are casting doubt that any close election vote can ever be trusted again.

Let me add one other thing I’ve been meaning to discuss here. I believe that national media are actively pushing the closeness of national elections – even in some cases compensating in their coverage for whoever is behind, or focusing tougher attention on whoever is ahead, to keep things close. Why? Two reasons: by emphasizing the closeness of the race they can never be accused of bias (i.e., this is a part of their general approach of “objective” he said/she said journalism). Further, it is good for THEM: close races mean more viewers, more horserace assessments, more breathless poll analyses, more viewers for the debates, more airtime for the punditocracy. Our electoral system is being turned into a reality tv series for the increasingly entertainment-oriented news media.

What happens when you put these two trends together? We are about to find out.]

“Banana Republic” indeed (thanks to Kathy Martin for the link)

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Banana_Republicans:_How_the_Right_Wing_Is_Turning_America_Into_a_One-Party_State

Rove brought before Plame grand jury

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35713-2004Oct15.html?nav=rss_nation

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/15/rove/index.html
That special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald called Rove to testify before the grand jury suggests -- at a minimum -- that Fitzgerald thought Rove had something to say that the grand jury ought to hear.

“The most amazing quote of the 2004 campaign”

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108251/fr/rss/

Zarqawi, Zarqawi, Zarqawi…

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=3&u=/nm/20041015/ts_nm/security_treasury_zarqawi_dc

[Why are they just getting around to freezing his assets NOW?]

I am in a state of stunned disbelief: What was so wrong about Kerry’s comment about Ann Cheney in the debate? WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THIS?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/15/wapo_poll/index.html
Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, according to CNN today: "Kerry was 'not wise' to refer to the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney during the answer to a question about homosexuality during a presidential debate Wednesday night. But [Guerriero] said Republicans 'who are expressing outrage at the debate comments really have been outrageous themselves. The reality is the type of outrage that is being expressed by some Republicans should be expressed at themselves. They've decided to use gay families as wedge issues across America in swing states -- that is truly outrageous,' he told CNN's 'American Morning.'"

[NB: Everyone not on the moon already knows she is lesbian. Nothing Kerry said was anything other than kind and generous toward her. It was a PRO-GAY statement, for goodness sake! (Unlike the relentless gay bashing of the Republican hate machine.) And the Cheneys haven’t given any real reason for their carefully calculated “outrage.”]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/15/mary_journal/index.html
[T]his morning the [Wall Street] Journal published its obligatory editorial on the matter as Journal editors played dumb, trying to dress up Kerry's mention as a wildly offensive piece of character assassination. The column, aiming for moral outrage with its over-the-top headline of "Outing Mary Cheney," managed three obvious deceptions in just the opening two sentences.

1. "If Americans didn’t know it before Wednesday night's debate, they know it now: Dick and Lynne Cheney have a gay daughter," wrote the Journal…Not know Mary Cheney is gay? She may be the most famous Republican lesbian in the entire country, but the Journal pretends it was Kerry who broke the news to America. Here's a very small list of news outlets -- taken from just the last six weeks -- that have made reference to Cheney's homosexuality, and did it before Kerry ever brought it up: The San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Fox News, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, The Tennesseean, Philadelphia Daily News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Sun-Times, Newsday, Washington Times, CNN, Financial Times, CNBC, USA Today, and Orlando Sentinel.

2. The Journal writes Mary Cheney is a "low-profile member of the Vice President's family." She is in fact director of vice presidential operations for the Bush-Cheney campaign and often serves as a surrogate for her father.

3. The Journal wonders how Cheney's daughter is "relevant to the election," conveniently ignoring the fact Kerry brought her up in the context of a debate about the rights of homosexuals.

With less than three weeks to go before the election, partisan Journal editors must be privately shaking their heads that they're writing editorials attacking Kerry for being too tough on gays.

Thank you

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108318/fr/rss/
[Tim Noah] Kerry Didn't Gay-Bait
He used Mary Cheney to shame Bush for gay-baiting.

And where was the Cheneys’ outrage when…

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004460

Sinclair boycott is working in Wisconsin (thanks to David Noreen for the link)

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/index.php?ntid=14032&ntpid=0

As goes Maine, so goes the nation…

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/maine-advertisers-pulling-out-of.html

More on Sinclair

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003693
A Lehman Brothers Equity Research analyst report dated October 15th, 2004…”In our opinion, Sinclair's decision to pre-empt programming to air 'Stolen Honor' is potentially damaging -- both financially and politically. In a best case scenario, we believe that this decision could result in lost ad revenues.

Sinclair stock dropping

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/10/oof.html

More from the Josh Green article on Rove’s history of dirty tricks: and at least one of them seems to be resurfacing already in this year’s election

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003688

Bush suddenly buddying up to the WH press again (though he still won’t hold a real press conference)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/10/15/bush_surprises_press_corps.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35246-2004Oct15.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing
Bush insisted he is unworried. "I feel great about where we are," he said…But his very appearance was interpreted by reporters as a sign of how eager -- possibly even desperate -- Bush is to put the debate phase of the campaign behind him….

(It didn’t help)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/15/flailing/index.html
[A]ll he got for his trouble was a Los Angeles Times article suggesting that his rare visit was yet another sign that he is nervous about his chances on Nov. 2…And he's not alone in that, apparently…

IS Bush in real trouble now?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_10_digbysblog_archive.html#109788045429126687

Listen to them squeal: Bush defenders complain that THEY are being misrepresented (on the draft)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/15/mehlman/index.html

Why simple math tells you that draft talk won’t go away

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003696

It’s Friday, must be time for another National Guard document dump (weeks after vowing to have released “everything”)

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/003282.html

Bonus item: Brent Scowcroft, Daddy’s National Security Adviser, comes down very hard on Junior

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cb066858-1d7f-11d9-abbf-00000e2511c8.html
A leading Republican says President George W. Bush is "mesmerised" by Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, and that the Bush administration's recent co-operation with the United Nations and Nato in Afghanistan and Iraq is a desperate move to "rescue a failing venture"…"Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger," Mr Scowcroft said. "I think the president is mesmerised."…

Mr Scowcroft said the US's initial failure to take up Nato offers of assistance in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 was a "severe rebuff". "We had gotten contemptuous of Europeans and their weaknesses," he said. "We had really turned unilateral."…He said US engagement with the UN and Nato in Afghanistan and Iraq was "as much an act of desperation as anything else ... to rescue a failing venture"…"This is a man who's really driven to seek re-election and done a lot of things with that in mind," he said

***If you enjoy PBD and believe in what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can, especially leading up to the election. I persist in believing that this campaign will still be decided by people knowing the stakes of the choice between Kerry and Bush. I think those stakes are monumental.***


- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:10 AM

 
WORSE AND WORSE

Now it is official: Bush is running the government just like he has run every other business he has been involved with (into the ground)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1152&slug=get%20Deficit%20Summary%20Box
The federal deficit for 2004 has soared to $413 billion, easily surpassing the previous record in dollar terms the revised $377 billion shortfall of 2003. When inflation is factored out, the 2004 deficit is the largest since World War II.

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=akgTO2BB5RdA&refer=us
The U.S. government reached the $7.384 trillion legal limit on how much it can borrow, forcing the Bush administration to shuffle funds among accounts and prompting fresh Democratic criticism of the president's economic policies…To avoid exceeding the cap, the Treasury said it would temporarily suspend contributions to a government pension program…

“Given current projects, it is imperative that the Congress take action to increase the debt limit by mid-November, at which time all of our previously used prudent and legal actions to avoid breaching the statutory debt limit will be exhausted,'' Treasury Secretary John Snow said in a letter to congressional leaders. [Note: AFTER the election, of course]

[Do you know people who shuffle their debt, transferring balances from credit card to credit card, piling up even bigger interest fees in the process? This is the kind of enlightened fiscal management Bush Co. has given us]

The state of things continues to deteriorate in Iraq

http://slate.msn.com/id/2108248/fr/rss/
The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal world-wide newsbox, and New York Times lead with yesterday's two bombings inside the Green Zone, which killed six people, including four American security contractors, and wounded about 20. It was the first major attack inside the guarded area apart from rockets and mortars. Two GIs were also killed in separate attacks…There have been signs for weeks of deteriorating security in the Green Zone. A bomb was found last week in the same restaurant where one exploded yesterday. One Iraqi told the papers (in what seems to have been a group interview) that security has gone down ever since Iraqi guards took over some responsibility at checkpoints…

Most of the papers mention there were increased airstrikes and artillery strikes on targets in Fallujah, including what the military says was a "key planning center" for Zarqawi. The so-called insurgents' council in town has suspended peace negotiations, saying they won't or can't comply with the demand to turn over Zarqawi and other foreign fighters. "Zarqawi does not exist in Fallujah," said a council spokesman….The NYT's James Glanz went on raids with Marines south of Baghdad and notices a new trend: Again and again whole villages were empty, with signs people left right before the Marines arrived. "Something happened," said one sergeant. "They knew we were coming."

Okay, before you read this, press your hands on the side of your head to keep it from exploding…the new GOP tactic is to accuse those raising questions of voter fraud and intimidation of being antidemocratic!

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/10/so.html
"the Kerry-Edwards campaign is going to do its damnedest to turn our fine nation into a banana republic”

Meanwhile, the scope of REAL voter fraud and intimidation continues to spread

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/14/fraud/index.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/10-14-2004/news/politics/story/241937p-207495c.html[thanks to Matthew Davidson for the link]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html
[Paul Krugman] Republicans claim, of course, that they did nothing wrong - and that besides, Democrats do it, too. But there haven't been any comparably credible accusations against Democratic voter-registration organizations. And there is a pattern of Republican efforts to disenfranchise Democrats, by any means possible…Some of these, like the actions reported in Nevada, involve dirty tricks. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired an Idaho company to paralyze Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts by jamming the party's phone banks…But many efforts involve the abuse of power. For example, Ohio's secretary of state, a Republican, tried to use an archaic rule about paper quality to invalidate thousands of new, heavily Democratic registrations….That attempt failed. But in Wisconsin, a Republican county executive insists that this year, when everyone expects a record turnout, Milwaukee will receive fewer ballots than it got in 2000 or 2002 - a recipe for chaos at polling places serving urban, mainly Democratic voters…And Florida is the site of naked efforts to suppress Democratic votes, and the votes of blacks in particular…Florida's secretary of state recently ruled that voter registrations would be deemed incomplete if those registering failed to check a box affirming their citizenship, even if they had signed an oath saying the same thing elsewhere on the form. Many counties are, sensibly, ignoring this ruling, but it's apparent that some officials have both used this rule and other technicalities to reject applications as incomplete, and delayed notifying would-be voters of problems with their applications until it was too late.

And the GOP is directly involved: links to Sproul and Associates

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003676

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004446

More links between the GOP and local vote fraud (but they say it’s the Dems who are turning the US voting system into a banana republic)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003684
The unindicted co-conspirator in a 2002 election fraud case, which has already yielded two felony guilty pleas, is none other than Jim Tobin, New England regional chair of Bush-Cheney 2004, according to court documents filed Thursday by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and now reported by the Manchester Union Leader.

The Bush assault on a free press

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/14/172542/34

(Except for Sinclair, of course)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/14/sinclair/index_np.html
The right-wing network's decision to force its affiliates to air anti-Kerry propaganda is one of the lowest moments in the history of television news, says the former head of the FCC. And it may unleash a backlash.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/008292.html
The Federal Communications Commission won't intervene to stop a broadcast company's plans to air a critical documentary about John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities on dozens of TV stations, the agency's chairman said Thursday…."Don't look to us to block the airing of a program," Michael Powell told reporters. "I don't know of any precedent in which the commission could do that."

Would the FCC block this?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003682
[Josh Marshall] I understand that George Soros is a rather wealthy man. Perhaps he should announce that he is interested in buying 90 minutes of prime time air time on Sinclair Broadcasting to show either Fahrenheit 9/11 or, even more appropriately, Going Upriver, the new movie out about John Kerry during the Vietnam era…If Sinclair won't sell the time, they're exposed for what they already clearly are. If the FEC won't allow it, on the premise that it amounts to a de facto campaign contribution to the Democrats or the Kerry campaign, then the folly of our current campaign laws is exposed.

More on the Sinclair boycott

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/11/163831/07(thanks to Matthew Davidson for the link)

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17871

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6198935/#041014d
[Joe Trippi] In my book “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” I talk about how the bottom-up empowering nature of the Internet is going to change how many of our top-down institutions wield power or lose it in the future…And I suspect that the top-brass at Sinclair…are getting a taste of what I mean…Corporations, broadcasters, government, and political parties are all top-down institutions. Those at the top make the big calls and we at the bottom have had little power (until now) to effect their decisions.

My view for some time has been that the Internet is changing that. That the Internet is the first medium that allows thousands (sometimes millions) of Americans to come together and combine our power to challenge top down institutions that are failing us and our country…

Sinclair Broadcasting Inc.’s top brass does not understand this. So when they made the decision to air the anti-Kerry documentary “Stolen Honor” they made one of those top-down decisions they thought the rest of us would simply accept. Wrong…Instead websites and blogs are starting petition drives calling on advertisers to halt advertising on Sinclair Broadcasting owned stations. Viewer boycotts are being organized, and Sinclair is being taken to task from the bottom-up.

We are not in the Information Age—we are in the Age of Empowerment. Sinclair Broadcasting and a lot of other institutions will learn the hard way just exactly what that means.

Phony baloney outrage: Cheneys furious with Kerry for saying what everyone already knows, and which they talk about openly, that their daughter is a lesbian

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/14/lynne.cheney.ap/index.html

Here is the terrible slur that Kerry actually uttered

Debating President Bush Wednesday night, Kerry referred to Mary Cheney when asked by moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News whether homosexuality is a choice…"We're all God's children," Kerry said. "And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as.”

Discussion

http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002681.html
What a monster! How could he….er, actually, this doesn’t “dis” Mary Cheney in the slightest—it’s positive in tone and substance—unless you think there’s something wrong with being gay.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004437
The fact that Lynne regards it as some kind of smear says more about her -- or the social circles she travels in -- than about anything Kerry (or Edwards) has done wrong.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004925.php
Are all three of the major national newspapers (NYT, LAT, Post) seriously writing stories about Dick and Lynne Cheney being upset that Kerry referred to their daughter Mary as a lesbian at last night's debate? And doing it without asking either of them exactly what they're upset about?…So I'll ask: what are they angry about? Shouldn't someone find out?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/10/14/kerry_mary/index.html
Kerry didn't out Mary Cheney -- she has used her homosexuality publicly, to her own career advantage. And the Republicans -- who cynically pushed their gay marriage constitutional amendment when they knew it wasn't necessary and couldn't pass -- hardly have room to complain about anybody using homosexuality as a political issue.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003681
Mary Cheney isn't simply the vice-president's daughter. She's managing her father's campaign. She's Bush-Cheney '04's 'Director of Vice Presidential Operations.'

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/10/where_is_mary_cheney.html
Seriously now. What relevance does the attitude of uber-partisans Dick and Lynn Cheney about Kerry’s debate mention of their adult daughter have?…Can’t she speak for herself? After all, she’s working on her father’s campaign. Or is the GOP ban on Mary Cheney camera-presence still in effect?…Where is Mary Cheney?

And a simple question: why is the media making this Kerry comment the echoing “gaffe” from the last debate, and not Bush’s more clear-cut and consequential lie about not being worried about Bin Laden?

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/bush_liberates_poland_no_one_notices.php
[Mark Kleiman] I'm confused. The President of the United States, on national television, flatly denied ever having said something he's on videotape saying, and characterized his opponent's truthful charge that he had said what he had in fact said as "one of those exaggerations." And the remark in question was about whether capturing Osama bin Laden is, or is not, important: which seems itself like an important question.

And yet, despite the DNC's rapid work in getting up a devastating video spot, the buzz today is not about that, but instead about whether John Kerry did something awful by publicly identifying a woman who is not merely "out" as a lesbian privately, but used to have a job doing outreach to the gay and lesbian community for Coors, as what she is: not in any critical way, but merely to make the point that sexual orientation isn't "chosen" and that good parents accept their children for who they are.

Most of the post-debate fact-checking mentioned the Bush whopper as only one misstatement among many, and ABC News's The Note didn't mention it at all, while devoting 27 paragraphs to Kerry's comment about Mary Cheney.

Another revealing moment from the debate: Bush’s weird, inappropriate laughter

http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/10/ooooof.php

How Rove operates: a must-read from Josh Green in The Atlantic (available online)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004926.php
The most repellent anecdote is toward the end. It concerns Mark Kennedy, a Democratic judge in Alabama who went up against Rove in 1994:

Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children....At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.

Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children. "We were trying to counter the positives from that ad," a former Rove staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. "It was our standard practice to use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign information," the staffer went on...."What Rove does," says Joe Perkins, "is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship. Mark is not your typical Alabama macho, beer-drinkin', tobacco-chewin', pickup-drivin' kind of guy. He is a small, well-groomed, well-educated family man, and what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take."

Now, what was that again about Mary Cheney?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_10.php#003678
As Josh Green writes…Rove's trademark is ferocious dirty-tricksterism in the final few weeks of dead-even campaigns...

http://www.ericumansky.com/2004/10/a_pretty_lame_o.html
Sources said the Bush campaign is developing television ads to raise anti-Kerry rhetoric even further. One potential development that could benefit Mr. Bush is the airing of a videotape of Mr. Kerry telling a collection of Hollywood entertainers that they represent the "heart and soul of our country." Those images would likely fire up the conservatives Mr. Bush needs to come out in droves. A top Republican close to the campaign suggested the tape, long sought by Bush aides, is likely to "magically leak out" just ahead of the election.

Bubble Boy

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/10/index.html#004445
[Nicholas Lemann] Bob Woodward told me that, during an interview he conducted with Bush in December, 2001, he asked the President whether he ever sought advice about the war on terror from distinguished figures outside his Administration, such as Brent Scowcroft, his father’s national-security adviser. Woodward told me that Bush said to him, “I have no outside advice. Anybody who says they’re an outside adviser of this Administration on this particular matter is not telling the truth. First of all, in the initial phase of this war, I never left the compound. Nor did anybody come in the compound. I was, you talk about one guy in a bubble.” Bush said, “The only true advice I receive is from our war council,” and he added, “I didn’t call around, asking, ‘What the heck do you think we ought to do?’”

So that explains it…[T]his quote actually confirms most of what we’ve long suspected to be true…Another important question here is, why in the world would Bob Woodward decline to publish such a revealing nugget in either of his books?

[More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_10/004918.php]

The opposite of accountability: key Abu Ghraib figures praised, promoted

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-sanchez15oct15,1,5366181.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Rumsfeld and others recognize that Sanchez remains politically "radioactive," in the words of a third senior defense official, and would wait until after the Nov. 2 presidential election and investigations of the Abu Ghraib scandal have faded before putting his name forward.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33568-2004Oct14.html
The Army's intelligence chief said yesterday that he has "great confidence" in the ability of Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the highest-ranking intelligence officer tied to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, to lead the Army's intelligence school…"In my opinion, she's a great officer and we ought to put her in command," Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, said in a breakfast interview with defe