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And Away We Go!

In half an hour I head for the airport to board the flight from Narita to Chicago, where Ruth and I will hook up and continue on to Boston where we will be participating in the Democratic National Convention.

Heard a great pep talk from former Hanoi Hilton resident, Congressman, and Ambassador to Vietnam Pete Peterson last night. A big theme was how the Repugs will be playing the threat level up and down to steal news cycles and try to keep the public in a panic.

As I was listening to this, it occurred to me it's no accident: The colors they will show us (never the green or the blue) are all shades of yellow. How appropriate for a party whose aim is to turn America into a nation of cowards.

posted by John 8:14 PM

AmBush Marketing the Democratic Convention

According to this AP report, the Republicans are setting up a "war room" in Boston to counter any claims by the Dems that are "disconnected from reality." They have a list of Republican "celebrities" all lined up to supposedly counter what the Dems are saying, but in reality, to co-opt the already limited Dem airtime.

This is what is known in the ad biz as "ambush marketing," when a corporation tries to co-op a major event that they have not sponsored, but their competitor has.

American Express pioneered the practice in 1992, when it launched ads around the Olympics, of which VISA was an official sponsor, pointing out that you did not need a VISA to travel to the games. This practice is legal, but considered a low blow even in ad circles.

Note the comments from RNC spokesman Jim (as if!) Dyke: "We understand we're swimming upstream here," referring to their attempt to limit the convention bounce with this practice. But someone at the RNC told AP that they expect this bounce to be around 15 points, which from what I read, is far from realistic.

This is a classic Bush tactic at work: sandbag the expectation level so that when the actual number, say a bounce of 7 points, is delivered, you can claim "victory."

What should the Dems do? Well, for one, they should be screaming bloody murder to the press and nailing this practice for what it is. Calling it marketing would not hurt, either.

Also, they should be setting up a counter, counter tactic, setting up their own celeb-studded press conference for the am hours as well.

Last, but not least, they should turn off the power in the hotel where the Republicans are located. After they have sent a few starlets up to the rooms, with cameras.

posted by Evelyn 5:00 PM

What if Kerry wins II

Evelyn examines this possibility in a post below. I’m following up with a few thoughts… This will be the ugliest transition in the history of the American presidency. The horror stories about missing files, trashed offices, erased hard drives and phone records that came out during the Poppy Bush-Bill Clinton transition will be nothing compared to what’s on tap. Sam Berger’s “sticky fingers” in the document room are only the beginning for the GOP francs-tireurs. There will be plenty casualties in the appointments department… new bobbleheads to replace Zoe Baird, Mike Espy and Kimba Wood. A Kerry popular vote victory will also activate GOP vote challenges, charges of electoral fraud, and yes, even allegations that the Dems hired hackers to jack the vote on those GOP-owned electronic voting machines. Aks Benny Ginsburg for details. Hundred days? What hundred days? If Kerry wins the popular vote without a clear mandate and then the electoral college and Dem pickups in the House and Senate are minimal Jean Le Grand will be relegated to changing the nuts and bolts on the Bush agenda he inherited. Four more years, John Kerry president. Hey, man… show me that I’m wrong on the last part... assuming that the Bushovictim doesn't "postpone" the election.

posted by Groom 4:01 PM

WiFi Under the Bridge

The U.S. Department of Labor announced an initiative today to help homeless Americans "find jobs through mainstream as well as targeted training, education and placement services and to provide a vital link to government-wide resources." The centerpiece of this new initiative is--wait for it--a website.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's announcement of free laptops for the homeless.

posted by jabartlett 3:06 PM

Even Better Yellowcake Reductum

From Matt Yglesias, who asks the question why, as the Butler Report mentions, if the Iraqis did seek uranium from Niger, did they not get it?

posted by Evelyn 2:07 PM

Life After Bush

If all goes well and Kerry is elected in November, will this be cause for celebration?

I was very disturbed to read about the fallout from Linda Ronstadt’s appearance Saturday night at the Alladin, when she urged at the end of her show that her audience see Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911. Apparently some members of her audience, who no doubt had not seen the film, caused a small riot, tearing down her posters. The Alladin manager escorted her from the hotel and publicly declared that she would not be asked back.

Are the folks that caused this “bedlam” simply going to accept a Bush loss in November? Are they going to graciously fold up their tents, as the disappointed Dems did in 2000, and all “just try to get along?” Don’t count on it. Nothing short of Shrub being caught in a video at Abu Ghraib is going to de-tox them from their daily dose of liberal bashing. Fox News isn’t going anywhere soon. The Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, and the Project for the New American Century will be still turning on the lights. And Clarence Thomas will still be waiting for his calls.

If Kerry thought Viet Nam was tough, he hasn’t seen nutthin’ yet. Governing this country is going to be a more difficult task after the election than we can imagine today. As noted below, Seymour Hersh recently spoke to the ACLU and said that we are facing the most important election since 1860. And I worry that the consequences will be equally as grave.

posted by Evelyn 7:12 AM

Comic Relief

Atom Films has a nice little political spoof here.

posted by Evelyn 6:49 AM

Genocide denied

Things would have come down a lot differently if the Turks had let US forces transit their country and establish a “northern front” in Iraq. But, hey, these guys are our valued Muslim allies in NATO and the Bushovictim will do whatever it takes to keep them happy. That includes denying that Turkish genocide killed nearly one million Armenians during and after World War I. Makes you wonder if the Bushovictim and Rove believe the Holocaust took place or if they secretly think it is just more “jewish history” like the Old Testament.

posted by Groom 6:33 AM

Lord Rummy's private Gulag

New evidence of Rummy's network of private detention and torture centers from the BBC. This time it's American "bounty hunters" working the turf in Kabul.

posted by Groom 5:18 AM

More Cat-lick Den Da Pope

So where do American Catholic bishops get off, threatening to deny Kerry communion because he's "pro-abortion" --

-- when the Pope himself gives Italian pro-choice politicians communion in Rome?

posted by Michael 2:21 AM

Indispensible Men

Why is it that one of the lessons us homo saps never quite learn is that the graveyards are filled with indispensible people. Mental giants, leaders of men, national treasures, people without whom the system will unquestionably grind to a halt--they're all there and yet, somehow, we muddle through.

I can only think that when Sandy Berger found out six months or more ago that he was the subject of a criminal investigation for pilfering classified papers from the National Archives he objectively weighed the 99 percent chance that the investigation would become public and greatly embarass the Democratic presidential candidate at exactly the wrong moment against the 1 percent chance that the whole thing would blow over and he might become Secretary of State in a new Kerry administration and decided that he could simply not deprive the American people of the latter, happier possibility. How else could he go on making himself so highly visible as Kerry's go-to guy on foreign policy, writing op-eds and speeches, and laying out great visions of a "Democratic foreign policy."

A lesser man might have considered the extremely likely possibility that those mean Republicans would wait for a moment when they needed a distraction to spoonfeed the press the tired, old "Former Clinton Advisor Hides Classified Documents in Sock" story and stayed as far away from the candidate as possible. Not our Sandy.

Thanks a lot, Sandyman. We owe you.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:04 AM