Best of the Blogs

Kissinger it good-bye

The Kissinger.. oops Kean "9/11" Commission is history, having fulfilled its presidentially mandated mission to the benefit of... who else, the president, providing him with plenty more "rope-a-dope" material to wear out his opponent. The Beltway bandits who make a business out of being "professional" appointees to a variety of government "commissions" are fading into the woodwork, waiting for their next call to "public service." In an effort to project leadership on "homeland security," John Kerry said "yes" to all of the recommendations. But that was just "part one" of the report. While four encilary "reports" to "part one" will be released in the coming weeks, the vaunted "part two," which was supposed to examine the leadership roles played by the president and the vice president during the 9/11 "crisis" seems to have fallen off the radar screen. It is common knowledge that a deal was made to postpone the release of "part two" until well after the November election (if we have one). Has there been another deal to just say "fuhgeddaboudit" on "part two?" Maybe a Kerry volunteer will get the bright idea of asking one of the Commission members during their "dog and pony show" around the nation. The Great Pontificator needs some live ammo. Time to scrap Metro vs. Retro and deal with Stud vs. Dud.

posted by Groom 5:14 PM

Romeo is Bleeding

The Kerry campaign's cynical policy of not punching back until a poll doctor certifies that the candidate is actually bleeding may be backfiring just enough to tilt the election to Bush. The Slime Boat Veterans for Bush ads are having an effect and Kerry's failure to hit back immediately makes him look not "undivisive" but weak. Americans frequently mistake motion for movement, tough words for decisive action. At a time when Americans are looking for strong leadership, impersonating a door mat cannot be good strategy.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:53 AM

My god’s bigger than your god

Freudians call it penis envy. But in the case of deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, it’s just “violating regulations.” Boykin wore his army uniform on twenty occasions giving speeches in which he declared that Satan was the enemy in the war on terror and that God had put President Bu$h in the White House. His name might ring a distant bell as a key military point man during the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas. Boykin is just the kind of guy one can visualize running around with a military “truth squad” looking for “Satanic Americans” after Ridge “postpones” the election and Bush signs a waiver on posse comitatus. It’s more likely to happen than the Red Sox winning the World Series… or John Kerry calling for Boykin to step down. Maybe Wes Clark can offer Kerry a few suggestions on how to do that.

posted by Groom 7:13 AM

Friday, August 20, 2004

The Hero's Homecoming

GQ currently features a terrific article by Wil S. Hilton about Joseph Darby, the American soldier who alerted military higher-ups to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. We haven't heard much about Darby since his name came to light this past spring. There's a reason for that. Although he's back in the United States, he has been in protective custody with his family ever since his arrival. In fact, his family was hustled away from their Pennsylvania home shortly after his involvement in the story broke. And this is why:

It was no coincidence that Joe lived only a short drive from many of the men and women in those photos from Abu Ghraib. It was no coincidence that he knew Lynndie England and Jeremy Sivits, who lived just a few miles from his house. They were in his local unit, the 372nd Military Police Battalion. They trained together, deployed together, lived together on assignments, and when they finally came home on leave, passing through the streets of their small towns in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, the flags and banners that hung from storefront windows were there for all of them.

Outside these communities, in most of America, the pictures from Abu Ghraib met with instant outrage and contempt, and Joe Darby became a hero. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised his actions as "honorable and responsible." The House Armed Services Committee praised him for risking his career in pursuit of "what is right." But inside the little towns of Jenners and Somerset and Windber and Johnstown, many neighbors weren't so quick to celebrate. Abu Ghraib became a litmus test of the American mood; reactions split along political and economic lines. On campuses and in the halls of government, even within the upper echelons of the military command, few would question what Joe had done. But in his own hometown, plenty of people did. Some had seen the face of battle themselves and had made their own moral compromises, which were easier not to remember. Others had family members who served in the first gulf war and had a hard time feeling sorry for Iraqis. Still others had relatives in Iraq this time, some of whom would never come home. So if a few prisoners got beaten up, if they were humiliated or even abused, well, shit happens all the time. War is war. Joe Darby's decision didn't make him honorable; it made him a traitor.

Good stuff.

posted by jabartlett 4:32 PM

They Don't Give Up

The Los Angeles Times reports that rather than admit the obvious--there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--the CIA is preparing a final report on its search that will speculate on what Saddam might have had in several years if left alone. The object, of course, is to make the CIA--and the Bushies--look less like the schmucks they are.

Not that it matters. A survey out today says more than half of Americans -- 54 percent -- believe Iraq had WMDs. The same poll also finds half believe Iraq was either closely linked to al-Qaida before the war -- or was directly involved in Nine-Eleven.

Folks, the Republic is doomed.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:15 AM

Kerry falls for more "rope-a-dope"

The nuclear threat posed by North Korea is the biggest red herring of this political season. But the Great Pontificator is rattling his paper saber at Bu$h... "Why," Senator Kerry asks, "are we unilaterally withdrawing 12,000 troops from the Korean Peninsula at the very time we are negotiating with North Korea, a country that really has nuclear weapons?" Maybe he ought to have his foreign policy guru Jamie (Mr. Christiane Amanpour) Rubin knock on the door of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Washington and ask them... they're the folks who live next door and the ones who should really be worried. Beijing prefers quiet negotiations and doesn't buy in on Kerry's grandstanding to a VFW convention audience, which is designed to get him a bump in the polls.

The bottom line is that North Korea doesn't have the missile technology to deliver a nuclear weapon that can threaten the United States. The "South" Koreans weren't born yesterday either... the KCIA has the intelligence capabilites to track this "nuclear threat." And if Kerry's reference to "a country that really has nuclear weapons" suggests that Little Kimmy has or can produce a "dirty bomb" for use by "terrorists," the same can be said for about five other nations. Nuclear weapons technology getting loose isn't a "terrorism" or "homeland security" issue. It is the aggregate of a weak nonproliferation regime that has been given lip service by both GOP and Dem administrations. A distraction that keeps Kerry from attacking on issues that can really damage Bu$h... we all know what they are but tracking poll logic says they are "too divisive." Worse yet, it makes him look disingenuous because he's trying too hard to make America believe he is the "foreign policy" president. It's amazing that a figther with superior height and reach can't deliver a knockout punch. Makes you wonder if any of his advisers have been working secretly with El Brujo Safire, trying to channel Adlai Stevenson...

posted by Groom 7:27 AM

Little Minds That Think Alike

Thanks to Shaun at Upper Left for the pointer to the following item by Sandreep Kaushik on Stranger.com. He's desecribing Al-Sadr, but....

You know his type: He's a divider, not a uniter. He's an intellectual lightweight, incurious about the world outside his own narrow experience. He's unaccomplished, achieving his prominence by cashing in on the power of his far better respected father. He is rigidly certain of himself, believing that God is on his side. And he's a bellicose hothead with a penchant for apocalyptic rhetoric and unseemly eagerness to sacrifice the youth of his country in the pursuit of his ends. "I told the Mahdi Army that I'm one of them... I will resist, and they will resist with me.... It is an honor to me to fight the Americans," he said on Monday. Bring 'em on, he says of his enemies. He reminds me of somebody, but I can't quite recall who....

posted by John 12:06 AM

Swift Boat Veterans for Bush

Is the Bush campaign really behind the slimy attempt to smear John Kerry's war record. The New York Times reports; you decide:

A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library.
>snip<

But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

posted by Jerry Bowles 12:03 AM

Thursday, August 19, 2004

A Billion Here, a Billion There, Before You Know It, It's Real Money

The Army will not, we are told, hold up payments to Halliburton despite massive accounting discrepancies. And now, this morning, from Reuters via Truthout

$8.8 Billion in Iraqi Funds Missing
    Reuters

    Thursday August 19 2004

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At least $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds that was given to Iraqi ministries by the former U.S.-led authority there cannot be accounted for, according to a draft U.S. audit set for release soon.

    The audit by the Coalition Provisional Authority's own Inspector General blasts the CPA for ``not providing adequate stewardship'' of at least $8.8 billion from the Development Fund for Iraq that was given to Iraqi ministries.

Where's the outrage? I just feel numb.

posted by John 11:39 PM

Pretty Fly For A Dem Guy

It turns out Sen. Ted Kennedy has now made the airline "no fly" watchlist. Hey, maybe they'll extend it to all Democratic Senators (or maybe just Senators from Massachusetts).

That ought to make the last weeks of the campaign more interesting, no?

posted by Michael 6:45 PM

The Price You (Don't) Pay

There's an excellent piece here by Greg Mitchell, Editor of the trade publication, Editor and Publisher, on the Washington Post's failure to adequately report on the buildup to the Iraq War and the mea culpa from Len Downie, WP's executive editor.

Basically, Mitchell nails the Post's excuses as "weak," across the board. Interestingly enough, those few brave reporters who dared challenge the Post's "hawkish" coverage were veterans, most notably Walter Pincus, who has been at the paper 32 years. (Does anyone recall my much earlier post about how today's radicals are white hairs, not long hairs?) Perhaps the staff today is a little short on institutional memory, given the quote that one reporter, Karen Young, gave Post media columnist Howard Kurtz:

"We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power." --
Reporter Karen Young.

But the question I have for the Post, and of course, for the New York Times, is, what do you plan to do about this monumental failure? Where is the accountability? I assume Judith Miller at the Times is polishing her CV, but may get a reprieve since she was subpoenaed in the Robert Novak Tells All case. Call me naive, dear reader, but shoudn't there be a few changes at both news organizations reflecting the gravity of this error, certainly of more consequence to the world than either the Janet Cooke or Jason Blair oversights?

Or is this failure simply another headlong rush away from accountability that seems to plague other institutions in our land as well?

posted by Evelyn 4:40 PM

There's a riot goin' on...

You wouldn't know it from reading the bought-and-paid-for media. The bloodbath at Abu Ghraib yesterday makes anything in Brazil or Attica look like childsplay and with "the contractors" involved, the Dems should be all over Cheney like white on rice. Polls indicate that those who will bother to vote in November (if the election is not "postponed" after neuro-linguistic programming set up by "Homeland Security Awareness Month") are fixated on the "war of lies" in Iraq. Nobody seems to want to remind Americans that Bu$h will attempt to create a neo-Nazi Supreme Court, or that real wages are declining like they do in "third world" countries. The price for 1 lb. of "bone in New York steak" is $6.99 at most super markets... that's three gallons of $2 gasoline. From and Shrum and the "brain trust" are forgetting that "it's the economy, stupid." Remake... it's what for dinner. If not, there might be another kind of riot goin' on.

posted by Groom 3:22 PM

I was wrong about Cheney

If I weren't first, I was among the first over a year ago to say that Dick Cheney would not be on the ticket because Bush did not need to have the Cheney/Halliburton baggage to cart around. I was wrong about that, and for reasons that strike me as inexplicable.

Are Kerry and Edwards saving the Cheney/Halliburton disgrace for the 11th hour, or will Cheney continue to get a free pass? Is everyone in the Kerry campaign taking Edwards happy pills? Is the strategy to try to have Mr. Inexperience, the Eagle Scout, trump Mr. Experience, the Scout Master, in a one-night-stand debate? Will Edwards skip his happy meds for one night and show up as a pit bull, confounding everyone with a change in style (think the new Al Gore), or will stay on the Roy Rogers Happy Trail and show up as a Lab puppy so thrilled to be there that he might just pee on the carpet?

It’s beneath Kerry to comment on Cheney, but where is Edwards? Why has Kerry let the debate be about him and Bush rather than about him and the Bush team? Everyone knows that Bush is not the president, but Kerry is making him the president by exclusively focusing on Bush, making it a choice of personality rather than a choice of policy and practices. Dahlia Lithwick’s op-ed piece, “Babies and Bath Water,” in today’s NYT, makes much the same point.

Kerry/Edwards will not win the Us vs. Bush race, but he can win the Us vs. Them race. With the press keeping the Rummies, Ashcrofts, Wolfowitzes in camouflage mode, it is up to Kerry to talk about the kind of administration he will have and the kind of people he will appoint, to talk about why his team will be different than the Bush team, to talk about his principles of stewardship and governance.

I was wrong about Cheney being on the ticket. I hope I am equally wrong about Kerry.

posted by Josh 10:47 AM

Infantilizing Bush

Dahlia Lithwick, in today's NYT, says that claiming that Bushco is stupid "plays to every stereotype of liberals as snotty know-it-alls who think everyone in a red state is anti-intellectual or simple-minded." I agree, but what's wrong is the implication that the portrayal of 43 as a dope is strictly the screeching of the left.

I myself waver between thinking 43 is a mindless puppet or an evil political genius. Whether one or the other or somewhere in between, what seems clear to me is that someone in Bushco understands the dynamic that Lithwick presents and has deliberately courted the Bush as dope portrayal. Hence the demonization of the word "nuance" and its sneering use in describing Kerry's positions, as if having grown-up, sophisticated thought processes is a sign of weakness. The left may call 43 a child, but Bushco calls Kerry much worse: an adult. Bushco is making the comparison.

Lithwick writes: "Furthermore, the campaign to cast Mr. Bush as a bumbling child ignores the very grown-up machine that stands behind him. Infantilizing the president shifts the focus away from the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Ashcrofts and Wolfowitzes. These are the men who promised us short, easy wars and painless little suspensions of the Geneva Conventions. These are the men of the secret energy-policy meetings. They aren't a bunch of rowdy juveniles. They represent one of the most secretive, powerful administrations in recent memory. Whether the president could outscore your kids on the SAT is a distraction from that fact."

Think Bushco doesn't know this?

Update: this article from this past May also examines the issue of Bush's willful stupidity.

posted by Blackdogred 10:25 AM

Metros 1, Retros 0

For the past week or so, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Washington Times have been running a mysterious series of "Retro vs. Metro" advertisements that pit Newt Gingrich, Mel Gibson, oil derricks and a map of Alabama - with "Metro" ones - Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael Moore, solar-powered windmills and a map of California. A Web site called retrovsmetro.org promised that something called "The Great Divide" would arrive on Thursday.

Well, it’s Thursday and the secret is out: "The Great Divide” is a book by John Sperling, a Cambridge-trained economist and billionaire Democrat (that makes at least three if you count George Soros and Theresa Kerry), and four co-authors who contend that there are two America. "Retro America," made up of the South, the Great Plains and Appalachia, is Republican-dominated and religious, contributes 29 percent of the country's federal tax revenue and represents only 35 percent of the population. Because it is heavily Republican, Retro America now controls all three branches of government.

"Metro America,” on the other hand, consists of the coasts and the Great Lake States, is progressive and relatively secular, pays 71 percent of the country's tax revenue and represents 65 percent of the population. It is also primarily Democratic.

Bottom line: NASCAR dads can go wallow in pit grease. We don’t need them if we—the Democratic Party and independent progressives—can get our act together. The book goes on sale today only on Amazon for $39.95. Or, in true “Metro vs. Retro” spirit, you can download it for free at the retrovsmetro.org web site.

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:12 AM

Advice To GOP: Don't Assume The City That Never Sleeps Has Got Your Back

New Yorkers read the papers; plus they've got looong memories.

What was that Oedipal saying about payback again? Oh, yes!

posted by Michael 12:31 AM

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Headline at Drudge:
Former Kerry Lover Launches Web Site

Well, Matt, this one's for you:

Drudge picked me up at a friend's house in the Hollywood Hills in his red Geo Metro, arriving with an impressive bouquet of yellow roses. Jesus, I thought, Drudge thinks we're going on a date. After dinner at the famed West Hollywood restaurant Dan Tana's, he suggested we go bar hopping along the gay strip on Santa Monica Boulevard, which Drudge navigated like a pro. ... (Six months hence, I received the following e-mail message from Drudge, under the subject heading "XXX." Drudge wrote: "Laura [Ingraham] spreading stuff about you and me being fuck buddies. I should only be so lucky. ") David Brock in Blinded by the Right

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:43 PM

Barney Fife, Attorney General

If you need further proof that John Ashcroft is really Barney Fife after an extreme makeover gone horribly wrong, consider the Justice Department's most recent blunder. You'll recall that a couple of weeks ago the FBI rounded up with the usual fanfare two poor dumb schmucks in a sting operation at an Albany mosque. Prosecutors told the judge they were given information from the Defense Department that a notebook with one of the guy's name and address had been found in "a terrorist training camp" in the western Iraqi desert near the Syrian border. They said that a word in the notebook, written in Arabic, had referred to him as "commander." As it turns out, the word is Kurdish and means not "commander" but "brother" or "mister." Big difference.

Entrapment is, in my view, a slimy form of law enforcement because it often induces people to commit crimes they never would have thought of on their own. While Norman "Little Old Ladies Might be Dangerous, Too" Minetta has been railing about the need to avoid "racial profiling," Ashcroft's crusaders have been leaning aggressively on Arab-Americans in what might be described as an American jihad. You'd think they could, at least, get their facts straight.

posted by Jerry Bowles 5:07 PM

No pain, no gain

Thousands of homes destroyed... no water, no electricity, no communications, public health risks... sounds a lot like innocent victims of US and "coalition of the willing" attacks in Iraq. Well, it's Punta Gorda, Florida and other retirement burgs on Florida's Gulf Coast that were victims of Hurricaine Charlie. Many of these folks live in the Congressional district of prospective CIA director Porter Goss. Like the people of Iraq, these folks were innocent victims. They never did nothin' to nobody and bingo... now they know what it feels like to be an Iraqi. Funny that the bought and paid for media hasn't put two and two together to make the comparison. Cost of Hurricaine Charlie damage $12 billion. Monthly cost of Bu$h "war of lies" in Iraq $6 billion.

posted by Groom 2:13 PM

All the News That's Fit to be Buried

The big news in the New York Times today is buried--not deeply, but curiously disguised as a feature story--in a piece by Alex Berenson and John Burns on the Najef crisis. As Berenson and Burns tell it, the whole confrontation was escalated to its current dangerous level by some new gung ho Marine commanders without the permission of either the putative Iraqi government or the Pentagon in response to what started as a minor firefight.

What this suggests to me is that the Pentagon has washed its hands of the whole mess, the State Department--which now has major responsibility for Iraq--doesn't talk to the military and nobody is really in charge. That means combat commanders on the ground are now making the kind of policy decisions that could send the entire Middle East up in flames. Somebody better get a grip...and fast.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:40 AM

Tailights at the End of the Tunnel

Is the best way out of the Iraq quagmire simply to threaten to pull out our troops and leave? Edward Luttwak thinks so and he makes a pretty convincing argument in today's New York Times.

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:53 AM

A Hell of a Town

I live 23 blocks directly upwind from Madison Square Garden so the prospect of my peaceful little hometown being invaded by thousands of rowdy Republican conventioneers and hundreds of thousands of rowdier protestors does not exactly fill the old ticker with joy. Somewhere in the back of my rapidly fading brain, the images of Chicago police beating and macing protestors at the Democratic Convention in 1968 are still all too indelibly etched. Those were scenes no responsible American should ever want to see repeated.

And I don't think they will be--at least, not here, not now. New York has the biggest, best-trained and best-disciplined police force in the world. Like any organization of its size, it has a few bad apples but they don't last long. No police force has more experience in gingerly handling large crowds; New Year's Eve in Times Square is the textbook example of big crowd containment.

Our cops and emergency workers have been preparing for weeks. If you want to see how thorough they are, try driving a U-Haul or any other rental truck into Times Square or anywhere near the Garden between now and the convention.

Many of our neighbors are going away during the convention and the number one topic of elevator conversation is "Where are you going?" My wife and cat and I are staying right here. As I like to tell my skittish friends, "If you go to Fire Island, it means the Republicans have won."

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:50 AM

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

One Incredibly Cool Grassroots Action Idea

I can't help sympathizing with the small business owners who will be hurt by this action, but "Damn" Shut It Down is one incredibly simple and, if it comes off, dramatic form of peaceful protest.

posted by John 11:18 PM

Winning Hearts and Minds—Anyone Remember a Fellow Named Diem?

According to Mike Francis in The Oregonian,

When members of the Oregon National Guard attempted to stop the new Iraqi government from abusing civilian prisoners, they were told to back off by their own generals.

When will America learn that, "Let the others do the dirty" isn't just immoral—it's a losing strategy?

posted by John 11:02 PM

People Get Ready

The Department of Homeland Security has made September "National Preparedness Month," which will be announced by Tom Ridge on September 9, right after the Republican Convention coverage has played out.

(Did anyone ever read "Martha's Calendar," now gone, in Martha Stewart Living? Martha used to publish her daily plans for rapt readers for each upcoming month. It was loaded with entries like "August 16: hand iron all everyday table napkins." I imagine a better one would be "Karl's Kalendar," a monthly plan of the roll-out for Bushco, culminating with a September 30 entry "Today we launch the October Surprise." Let's see if we can get that published.)

You may wish to cruise over the "On the Media" Transcript from last weekend in which Brooke Gladstone interviews Bob Harris from Ths Modern World on this topic. Absolutely do not miss, however, the "rebuttal" from Susan Neely, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, in which she refers to the canine Preparedness Month Mascot, I kid you not, as an "American Shepherd."

posted by Evelyn 6:35 PM

Regulatory Terrorism

Government regulations are like the caves of Afghanistan--dark labyrinths, winding and torturous, impenetrable by outsiders who don't know the local terrain or the language. Hidden from public scrutiny by their sheer inaccessibility, they are the perfect place for small groups of dedicated evildoers to launch devestating attacks against civilization.

If you've been following the series of major articles in the Washington Post called "The Fine Print" or read Joel Brinkley's New York Times piece Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations, you know that that is precisely what the Bush administration has been doing. By selectively re-interpreting existing regulations, the Administration has succeeded in reversing or greatly minimizing the impact of hundreds of laws intended to protect consumers and the environment from destructive business practices. As Brinkley explains:

Health rules, environmental regulations, energy initiatives, worker-safety standards and product-safety disclosure policies have been modified in ways that often please business and industry leaders while dismaying interest groups representing consumers, workers, drivers, medical patients, the elderly and many others.

Take a particularly destructive form of coal mining called "mountaintop removal," which means exactly that. The top of a mountain is scraped off and the debris dumped into the valley below, clogging or burying streams and rivers. Hundreds of mountains have been flattened in this way in Appalachia over the years but by 1999, lawsuits and contamination of the water supply has brought the practice to a standstill. But, as Joby Warrick reports in a piece called Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule Change in today's Washington Post:

Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the practice of dumping mining debris into streambeds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable "waste" to legally acceptable "fill."

The "fill rule," as the May 2002 rule change is now known, is a case study of how the Bush administration has attempted to reshape environmental policy in the face of fierce opposition from environmentalists, citizens groups and political opponents. Rather than proposing broad changes or drafting new legislation, administration officials often have taken existing regulations and made subtle tweaks that carry large consequences.

Another example cited by Warrick is that when the Environmental Protection Agency announced proposals last year to control mercury emissions, it also downgraded the "hazardous" classification of mercury pollution from power plants. That seemingly minor change effectively gave utilities another 15 years to implement the most costly controls.

This is the kind of important information that seldom gets reported by the mainstream press, mainly because it's not sexy or easily explained in a sound bite. The Times and the Post should be commended for their efforts. Like bin Laden's holy warriors, the environmental and safety terrorists of the Bush administration depend on the near certainty that no one will shine a light into the caves where they plot their nefarious deeds. We need to show them that they are wrong.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:05 PM

Best Campaign Ad So Far
And It Ain't From Our Guys

Ronnie must be smiling down from heaven about this one. Taking a page from Reagan’s classic “Good Morning America” re-election ads, the Bush people have produced the best ad so far in the campaign. It’s called Victory.

Using the Olympics as a backdrop, the ad begins with a woman swimmer on the starting blocks and continues in dramatic color and action. A woman’s voiceover says words to this effect, “In 1972 there were 40 democracies in the world. Today there are 120. Freedom is spreading throughout the world like a sunrise. This Olympics there will be two more free nations and two fewer terrorist nations. [Pictures of the Afganistan and Iraqi flags are superimposed on the swimming picture.] With strength, resolve and courage, democracy will triumph over terror and hope will defeat hatred.”

Of course, in 1972 Kerry was asking the question, “How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake?” The ad doesn’t mention that: and it doesn’t have to.

Ouch. The Bush campaign has won the early gold.

posted by Josh 9:59 AM

Damn, I like this man

Just popped over to the Democracy for America site where among the new Dean Dozen I found Al Weed, who is running for Congress in the fifth district in Virginia. Talk about one impressive candidate.

posted by John 9:07 AM