Dear Friends,

Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, "Oh, it's all over! We are finished! Bush can't win! Waaaaaa!"

Hell no. It's never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished -- they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.

They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself "Republican," yet the Republicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the planet.

Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!"

No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.

Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter, kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for president -- Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah just gave 300 women a... Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and moaning and screaming, "Oh God, NOT a friggin' Pontiac!" Of course not, they were happy. The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You want more than that, well, I can't help you. I had a Pontiac once and it lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year.

My friends, it is time for a reality check.

1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people. Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.

2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.

3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the mainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off the TV! (Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a sugar-coated lie).

4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11" (the fear of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing in Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have noticed, has descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There is no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags will sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original war vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their deaths -- and Mr. and Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was in the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize an immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered to Iraq was that plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.

So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush people need you to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into your easy chair and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate another four years of George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a candidate who didn't windsurf and who was just as smart as we were when WE knew Bush was lying about WMD and Saddam planning 9/11. It's like Karl Rove is hypnotizing you -- "Kerry voted for the war...Kerry voted for the war...Kerrrrrryyy vooootted fooooor theeee warrrrrrrrrr..."

Yes...Yes...Yesssss....He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting now...what I need is sleep...sleeep...sleeeeeeppppp...

WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault weapons are back on the street -- and 54% now believe the war is wrong. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS -- YOU JUST HAVE TO GIVE THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU DO THAT?

Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our hands. Not another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you want about how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had the courage to stand up for something. Personally, I think that kid is still inside him. Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold out a hand to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat the forces of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice?

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

posted by John 11:51 PM

Blue state special

Somewhere in the Southwest I walked into Wal-Mart store #1291 and noticed a display of “Unfit to Serve” books right behind the greeter with the fabric softener, cookies, mouthwash and other “markdown” items. Aren’t the Swiftie books moving? Or is the low price leader trying to tell America they want anybody but Kerry? Will Kitty Kelly’s tome get “equal time” in the promo slot? Anybody else seen the Swiftie book up front at their local Bu$h-Mart?

posted by Groom 9:58 PM

Dan Rather Should Resign

If he were an anchor in Japan, he would already have done a hari-kari sparing us and himself further embarrassment. More likely, he'll stay on for the rest of the year as a compromise and the notion of personal responsibility that Bush ran on in 2000 takes another hit, since personal responsibility only applies to those not in power. Thanks Dunce Dan, you just kept a stupid story alive for the next few weeks. You've cost Kerry a lot of votes. You’re a big joke and Walter should get his cowboy boots on; George Bush is not the only one who needs to have his ass kicked back to Texas.

posted by Josh 7:14 PM

I'm George W. Bush and I'm Al Qaeda's best recruiter

That's what Sir Ivor Roberts, Britain's ambassador to Italy said about our messianic non-alcoholic beer drinking leader at a "closed door" conference at an "undisclosed location" the International Herald Tribune reports. Maybe Joe Allbaugh had the records of Recruiting Sergeant Bush destroyed too.

posted by Groom 7:02 PM

Who Put the Hoots Back in Chutzpah?

CIA-agent outer and America-hater Robert Novak states the obvious in his column this week which is that the Bush administration plans to see the Iraq mess through to the Iraqi elections, declare a victory for democracy, and then cut and run. Novak admits that this would mean "an end to the neoconservative dream of building democracy in the Arab world," and adds this little jawdropper: "The United States would be content having saved the world from Saddam Hussein's quest for weapons of mass destruction." (I'm not sure how many thank-you notes that's going to generate.)

The logic is that whoever is president in January will have three choices: increase the number of troops to actually win the war (like we did many times in Viet Nam); try to maintain the current situation with the same number of troops, or, bring them home. The Bush administration is just brazen enough to abandon the whole catastrophe and call it victory. As Novak explains the preemptive inside rationalization:

This messy new Iraq is viewed by Bush officials as vastly preferable to Saddam's police state, threatening its neighbors and the West. In private, some officials believe the mistake was not in toppling Saddam but in staying there for nation building after the dictator was deposed.

Of course, Kerry would be smart to take the same course but the thing that scares me most about him is the fear that he might think he can fix it. A piece of advice, JFK, in the increasingly unlikely event you need it: Never ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake.

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:53 PM

Damn the October Surprise

I've no doubt in my mind why 43 won't mention Osama Bin Laden by name, and since you don't either I'll spare us all the recitation of reasons why 43 doesn't. But why doesn't John Kerry slip in OBL's name, say, very very often? Here's a smart article from the Village Voice.

Conventional paranoia of all things Rovian has led to speculation that American troops or their Pakistani allies have already captured OBL and are secretly holding him until the precise time Puppeteer Karl gives the wink and Fox News breaks the story. I think that OBL's capture would be an uncontainable story; Bushco may control the US media, but they're still working on co-opting Al-Jazeera. Unquestionably there's pressure on the Pakistanis to produce Al-Qaeda's sultans, but so far OBL continues to moon 43 from his tunnels in Afghanistan.

And this is why when Kerry attacks Bushco on Iraq it must be in the context of how Iraq, beyond being a failure in and of itself, diverts attention from the signature failure of 43's War on Terror. Is Kerry is afraid to make OBL the centerpiece of his attacks on Bushco's foreign policy because he fears if he does so and OBL is captured (or his prior capture is announced) in October then 43 will win? If so Kerry needs to consider this: if OBL is presented on a platter to the American public in October Bush will win whether Kerry had made this an issue or not. But if OBL is still free on November 2 and Kerry hasn't reminded the voters multiple times daily then he has missed the most potent meme at his disposal.

posted by Blackdogred 9:43 AM

The Gas Bag Factor

The way they wrote it:

"You deserve a president who will not play politics with national security, who will not ignore his own intelligence while living in a fantasy world of spin, and who will give the American people the truth about the challenge our brave men and women face on the front lines."

The way he said it:

"I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild that truth, or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence, who isn't going to live in a different world of spin, who will give the American people the truth, not a fantasy world of spin, but a world where we challenge our brave men and women to be able to meet the test of our time."

What the Kerry campaign needs most is someone who will smack him whenever he does this.

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:40 AM

Tiger Woods meets Jim Crow

Tiger Woods wouldn’t dare cheat on his Ryder Cup scorecard. So why would he hook up with an outfit that cheats democracy by disenfranchising African-American voters? That’s what Bermuda-based Accenture seems to have done in Jeb Bu$h Florida… wittingly or unwittingly. It’s not a new story. Just the back side of the E-vote issue. As Katherine Harris, Marc Racicot and Ed Gillespie well know, when you control who gets to vote the less you have to dirty your hands jacking elections. For those of you with short memories, Bermuda-based Accenture is the reincarnation of Andersen Consulting, which was hived off from “big eight”… oops “big four” accounting giant Arthur Andersen in the wake of the Enron scandal. Chicago-based Arthur Andersen was the firm that messed things up so bad when examining “Kenny Boy” Lay’s cooked books that former Fed head Paul Volcker had to be called in to clean up the mess. They appear to have done some good things in France. But like all consultants their brief is basically doing what the client asks them to do. One has to wonder how a culture that allowed an Enron to slide by, even in its reincarnation, should be trusted with the task of "auditing democracy."

Accenture’s aggressive marketing strategy seeks to E-register voters world-wide, positioning them, effectively, as the registrar of voters for the entire Global Economy. They are already running their E-registration programs in Pennsylvania, Oregon and other states. And they're working with Lord Rummy's Pentagon on SERVE, the "secure electronic registration and voting experiment" here in the US. Maybe they’ll get the contract for issuing the Global Economy passport that will replace the US Passport, and the individual identity cards for residents of “the homeland,” the ones that Henry Kissinger recommended that Nixon issue prior to Watergate. If Bu$h does lose, maybe Rummy, Rove and, uh… Poindexter will cruise off to Bermuda. I’m sure Accenture could use a few good men of their stature working the 19th hole at selected golf clubs around the world. Maybe Tiger will show up for a cameo at selected undisclosed locations to help them close deals...

posted by Groom 2:16 AM

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Who's Lying Now?

posted by Jerry Bowles 3:37 PM

All the E-votes fit to jack

Its official… the New York Times has declared that it’s too late to make any significant changes in electronic voting tabulation before the November elections (if not postponed due to terrorism or weather). They could have made the same statement in March 2001 if it weren’t for the fact that the issue has helped them sell newspapers, which is Job #1. Meanwhile, Lord Rummy’s Pentagon posse is setting up the jacking of the overseas troop voting with “backdoor draft” mobilizations in key “battleground states” that channel military- and civilian DOD- voters through “voting assistance offices” and a vote tabulation firm that, in spite of part of its business being sold off to- you guessed it... Accenture- continues to be controlled by Bandar Bush buddies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That’s 6.5 million popular votes, roughly the population of the state of Indiana. How does that stack up with Democrats Abroad, John McCreery? And let’s not forget Bermuda-based Accenture Corporation, who has picked up some fat contracts to “maintain” voter registration lists in key battleground states like Florida and Pennsylvania.

posted by Groom 3:32 PM

Ships Deserting the Sinking Rat

From the Observer:

The British Army is to start pulling troops out of Iraq next month despite the deteriorating security situation in much of the country, The Observer has learnt.

The main British combat force in Iraq, about 5,000-strong, will be reduced by around a third by the end of October during a routine rotation of units.

posted by Jerry Bowles 11:38 AM

The Oprah factor

In a presidential election that has done little to ignite the interest of women getting the endorsement of TV talk show personality Oprah Winfrey could mean the difference between victory and defeat. That’s ironic considering that Fortune rates Condoleeza Rice as the world's most powerful woman... that question was muffed by the finalists in last night’s Miss America pageant. In campaign 2000, Oprah gave George Bu$h the opportunity to project himself as a “moderate,” Buzzflash reminds us. But righty-tighty wingnut Brent Bozell claims she gave the Dems $15,000 that year. Two years ago she stiffed the White House when they asked her to head a delegation to Afghanistan ostensibly to celebrate the gains made by women due to the Bu$h “democratization” efforts; that dog and pony show was scrapped. Oprah will have only her conscience to live with if she stays on the sidelines. Telling the world it’s anybody but Bu$h could be quite a transformational experience for America’s most influential woman.

posted by Groom 8:59 AM