And, when Clinton embraced the death penalty, welfare reform, and middle-class tax cuts, suddenly the issues the GOP had used to pulverize generations of hapless Democrats were off the table. Republicans, saddled with unpopular stances of their own (on issues like health care, education, and the environment), suddenly had little choice but to run on character.

But the charge of flip-flopping always plays a central role for a very important reason: It's the natural parry to the Democrats' post-Clinton centrism. The moderation that has characterized the Democratic Party since Clinton has the natural advantage of avoiding unpopular stances. It also has two disadvantages. First, as the party has shifted right, it has forced Democrats in its mainstream to shift along with it. (Hence Kerry's flip-flop on the death penalty.)

Second, New Democrat-style centrism saddles its adherents with positions that straddle the political divide. Kerry supported developing missile defense but not deploying it immediately; he supported nafta, which had labor and environmental provisions, but opposed a trade bill that did not. When your position on many issues is "neither too much nor too little," you can appear inconsistent even if you're not. Sure, it doesn't help that Kerry has trouble explaining himself. But even a gifted communicator like Clinton, remember, was widely seen as a waffler.

Republicans, at this point, are far more advanced than Democrats in circulating the kinds of damaging anecdotes that political reporters will repeat, and that can make the leap into the popular culture. First, they have a more sophisticated understanding of how narratives about candidates are established and how to play into them. Second, they have access to a partisan media network that Democrats are only in the formative stages of reproducing.

posted by Evelyn 3:58 PM

Stupid Revisited

We’ve batted around the issue of w’s smarts or lack thereof. I have, er, flip-flopped my opinion on the matter, migrating from a belief that w is stupid to w is smart playing stupid to w is stupid and his handlers have played the anti-intellectual card to the voting public while playing w as a puppet. The lead LA Times editorial revisits the issue today.

After conceding that “you don’t go through America’s top schools, serve as governor of a major state and occupy the presidency with even mixed results if you’re not reasonably smart” the editors assert:

The issue might better be described as one of mental laziness.

Does this man think through his beliefs before they harden into unwavering principles? Is he open to countervailing evidence? Does he test his beliefs against new evidence and outside argument? Does his understanding of a subject go any deeper than the minimum amount needed for public display? Is he intellectually curious? Does he try to reconcile his beliefs on one subject with his beliefs on another?

It's bad if a president is incapable of the abstract thought necessary for these mental exercises. If he is capable and isn't even trying, that's worse. It becomes a question of character. When a president sends thousands of young Americans to kill and die halfway around the world, thinking about it as hard and as honestly as possible is the least he can do.

I think this description of symptoms is correct - is there any answer but no to all of the questions asked - but the diagnosis only half right. The laziness I would associate with w’s unrigorous intellectual approaches to complex issues and his inability to understand if not necessarily assimilate opposing views, those very things many of us consider a weakness, he considers a strength. His is a righteous laziness, a faith-based laziness, a laziness of the religious zealot who is religiously incurious, who can cite scripture but will not examine it beyond the interpretation he already believes and who believes any other interpretation not only to be deviant but evil.

I have no idea how much w has examined his own faith beyond its utility, but for some the utility is enough. The very same questions that the LA Times asked of w’s thought processes towards public and foreign policy issues can just as easily and revealingly be asked of his religious thought processes. In the NY Times today there’s an article about Kerry and faith written by the hacktacular tag team of Wilgoren and Keller that attempts to criticize Kerry for his lack of public disclosure about his faith. It depicts a man of quiet and private faith who has a complex and, yes, nuanced view of his religion (though Wilgoren and Keller imply that this is another sign of, well, you know). One man uses his faith to avoid examining life’s complexities, another uses his faith to help him understand and navigate life’s complexities.

w may or may not be inherently stupid, but he is inherently incurious and lazy and has adopted a theological belief that has at its core a dogmatic resolution that any questioning of its tenets is itself sinful. Sounds very much like his position on any disagreement with his presidential policies.

posted by Blackdogred 11:13 AM

One flu over the cuckoo’s nest…

Stumping in Ohio yesterday the president told the crowd that a vote for him is a vote to “get government out of peoples’ lives.” This pathological 19th century laissez-faire attitude is why the Bush administration figured it could get by with only two flu vaccine manufacturers, and why, with only half the vaccine supply available more than the projected 36,000 Americans will die this flu season. That’s what happens when you get government out of peoples’ lives. Just last week Chiron topper Howard Pien gave jacked testimony to the Senate Committee on Aging that a record amount of flu vaccine would be available this year and that his company still planned to ship 46 to 48 million doses of vaccine this month. Pien knew full well in late August that the contamination problems could not be controlled or reversed. The Brits, who procure flu vaccine from six manufacturers, have suspended Chiron from supplying vaccines in the UK. The Chiron botch is just the latest in a series of bad vaccine to come out of the Liverpool, England plant that Chiron acquired to manufacture product. None of this is new to CDC capo Anthony Fauci, who is now telling Americans to expect more shortages of flu and other vaccines in the near future. West Nile virus. Asian “bird flu” now transmitted human-to-human. Hantavirus. Dengue fever moving up the Rio Grande valley. Forget public health. Vote for George W. Bush and “get government out of people’s lives.” I’m Groom Lake and I approve this message.

posted by Groom 9:38 AM

Thursday's Open Thread

The latest Zogby, out this morning, has Bush down to a 2-point lead. What do you think Bush will do differently in tomorrow night's debate to try to regain the momentum? What does Kerry have to do to counter?

posted by Jerry Bowles 7:23 AM

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Blue Flu... new Bu$h disenfranchisment technique

Wake up on Election Day with that achy feeling, watery eyes, stuffed nose, dizzy, ready to vomit, too weak to walk to the john... too sick to go to the polls and vote. It's going to happen to thousands of American voters in a few weeks thanks to the latest Bu$h administration flu vaccine botch. Because of this latest screw-up only half the vaccine supply planned for will be available. You'd think that Bob Graham would be banging on the White House door with all the at risk seniors in his state but he's too busy covering his buddy Porter Goss' back. Why aren't Barbara Boxer and Granny Feinstein calling for CDC topette Julie Gerberding and HHS Secretary Tommy Thomson to take a walk... because vaccine maker Chiron is based in Bezerkeley, California. The CDC has more process control problems than NASAs space program and topette Gerberding's best shot is to suggest that adults "voluntarily" not get their shots this season. Her crew screwed up big time last season too. Millions of Americans paid for worthless flu shots thinking they would be protecting their families. But the vaccine last year was not a "match" with the bug. Around 1,100 US troops have died in the "war of lies" in Iraq. Last flu season 36,000 Americans died from the flu, and there were 114,000 hospitalizations. Every Dem candidate everywhere- Kerry and Breck Boy included- should be pointing their finer at Bu$h, Cheney and their own GOP opponent- these fuck-ups have happened on the Bu$h watch. There is nothing of substance the GOP can come back with; I can just see Bu$h suggesting we privatize the CDC to a "faith based scientific organization." Elder Ashcroft can hold prayer meetings for his staff asking the man upstairs to spare them from the flu. I don't know about you, but I voted by mail yesterday. Hope you aren't too sick with the Bu$h flu to go to the polls. It's already too late in most states to ask for a "vote by mail" packet.

posted by Groom 5:45 PM

Republican Rhetoric 101

I've begun to notice a particular Republican flourish that crops up in their unscripted rhetoric. Cheney used this expression four times last night, and I have heard Karen Hughes use it as well. And it usually precedes a real whopper.

The expression is "without question." Which I suppose is a fairly effective way of affirming your unwarrented veracity but perhaps also very revealing since it would appear that questioning is something that the Administration does spectacularly "without."

Perhaps "without question" is the new "Let me make one thing perfectly clear"?

posted by Evelyn 3:02 PM

Missed Opportunity

In his eagerness to get in a commercial about the Kerry/Edwards health plan, Breck Boy gave short-shrift to the most important question of the evening--the last one about healing the great political divisions that separate the electorate. While he did say that the increased bitterness was the result of the administration's policies he missed a great opportunity to spell out just how big a lie Shrub's promise to be a uniter, not a divider has really been. From backing out of global treaties that most Americans supported, rushing into a war that a large portion of populace thought was unnecessary, and pushing tax breaks for the weathiest to favoring energy companies over consumers and environmentalists and stacking scientific groups with religious nuts, every single action Bush has taken has made the chasm between progressive and conservative Americans wider and deeper. This is the most challenging problem we face right now and Edwards should have given it the weight it deserved.

posted by Jerry Bowles 2:40 PM

Too Good to Be True
One of the lesser lies to spill from Dick Cheney's curled lips last night was the mention that further facts about his supposed exhoneration of any financial wrongdoing at Halliburton CEO could be found at "factcheck.com."

Apparently, he meant to say "factcheck.org" a web site run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which does have information about the Halliburton investigation and according to NPR, does not exactly let Cheney off the hook.

But here's the brilliant part: if you do load factcheck.com, you are forwarded to Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich's favorite drug-pusher, George Soros' home site for his anti-Bush effort.

Can this be coincidence? Josh Marshall says that it is.

But it makes one wonder: did Cheney actually tell Bush to invade Iraq? Or perhaps he meant Iran?

posted by Evelyn 2:24 PM

Why This Lie?

Everyone knows by now of Cheney's big lie about meeting Edwards for the first time last night. What's puzzling to me is why tell this lie, a line that was obviously scripted and planned? It could easily be checked for accuracy by anyone with Lexus/Nexus and google, but beyond that, as Elizabeth Edwards showed when she confronted Cheney after the debate, people who were at the prior meeting would remember. I understand the context of what Cheney was trying to do - that Edwards missed Senate votes and is therefore, the logic goes, irresponsible - but Cheney's line about meeting Edwards at the debate and his laughable assertion that he weekly presides over the Senate (when in fact he goes to Republican-only lunches to plot strategy) can be so easily fact-checked he had to know he'd be caught.

I mean, here are the choices: he didn't think he'd get caught; he wanted to get caught. I don't believe the first for an instant.

The least reprehensible reason I can think he wanted to get caught was to imply that Edwards is such an inconsequential person that hell, Big Dick may have met him but Edwards made so little impression as to be literally forgettable, and no doubt this will be the spin put out by GOP gumflappers. But here's a theory: it was a signal that from here through the election it is perfectly permissible - no, not just permissible but urgent - that any pretence of fairness, honesty, shamefulness can now be ignored. I know, I know, but not everyone sees what we see, and though it's scary to contemplate we haven't seen the full depth of Bushco deceit.

posted by Blackdogred 2:24 PM

Why Kerry's Alleged "Global Test" For Use Of American Power Sounds Familiar

The GOP talking pointy-heads have steered clear of pointing this out, but Kerry's announcement in Debate One that America's warmaking should have to meet a "global test" sounds eerily familiar -- like our having to explain, on a world stage, our taking up arms to defend ourselves, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind."

Now we see who's filling Kerry's mind with this internationalist garbage -- that goddamned wine-swilling, world-travelling, French-speaking, church-and-state-separating, Unitarian-believing hippie commie liberal, Thomas Jefferson!

posted by Michael 1:01 PM

Wednesday's Open Thread

I thought Edwards won by eight furlongs but Cheney definitely gained ground in the clubhouse turn. Common wisdom is saying dead heat. What did you think?

posted by Jerry Bowles 8:18 AM

Without the sound… Cheney looks crooked, talks crooked, is crooked

From the hand wringing to the glancing down and the head and body listing off to one side Dick Cheney looked guilty as sin of lying to the American people. Add to that the pallid complexion and the droopy left mouth and you wonder if the veep is a well man and whether all the time spent at the “undisclosed location” has as much to do with medical issues as security. The result of the negotiated “sit down” PBS-style interview format was that candidates were seen not talking directly to the American electorate, as they should, but to moderator Gwen Ifill. In the mind's eye, the stakes of the election and the seemingly acrimonious statements by both men were toned down by the format. John Edwards succeeded somewhat at overcoming the format obstacles. Cheney did not. In the pseudoscience of body language, Cheney, like Bush was the ultimate anal-retentive Goy. Just looking at his contorted movements in the chair, his crooked head and torso, makes you wonder why Karl Rove or Lou Libby didn't send him a case of magnesium citrate and a few boxes of Ex-lax to purge the bilious behavior. After further review, more American voters will get the picture and tell de-facto president Dick Cheney to “go fuck yourself.”

posted by Groom 5:40 AM

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Yes!!

The debate is still on but it sure looks to me like Breck Girl is cleaning Cheney's clock.

posted by Jerry Bowles 9:35 PM

Tuesday's Open Thread

To win the debate tonight, Edwards must 1) be his usual cuddly self; 2) get in touch with his inner junkyard dog, or 3) what?

posted by Jerry Bowles 10:26 AM

Cheaters, Liars, Dopes

Bushco using federal employees and military as stage props.

CIA reconfirms Bushco's deceit on Al-Q and Saddam.

Bushco's handpicked ambassador to Iraq says Bushco screwed up.

posted by Blackdogred 9:35 AM

Klepto redux... discredited Goss CIA pick now "senior adviser"

Michael "the klepto" Kostiw has removed himself from consideration as #3 at CIA. According to Walter Pinkus at the Washington Post "nonpartisan" DCI Porter Goss is keeping the former Chevron lobbyist on as a "senior adviser" to perform many of the same CIA duties... without approval from Congress. The gaffe over Kostiw raises anew the question as to whether Goss will be nothing but a "caretaker" CIA director. You don't have to check the Harrah's sports book for odds that a lot of "real people" at CIA would be happy if John Kerry demands Goss' resignation on day one of his presidency.

posted by Groom 6:50 AM

The back side of the “tax cut”… more debt

A $146 billion tax cut on the eve of a presidential election without any budget cuts or offsets. What, me worry, says the prez… tack it onto the $53 trillion national debt... translating from Bu$hanese, the tax cut will help working Americans become “independent” and start small businesses (2/3rds of which bust out in 3 years). Just ask George W. Bu$h, the man who started Arbusto and Harken Energy how couldn'te run a small business without bailout bucks from the Bin Laden family. Heck, we’ve blown at least $146 billion in a cockamamie attempt to “democratize” Iraq.

On the hustings, John Kerry just told a gathering of working Americans “I got your back.” But he’s been pretty quiet about the “twin towers” of foreign trade and deficit spending. There's no better opportunity than the "town meeting" for Kerry to out this Bu$h blood libel as another chapter from the Protocols of the Elders of Rove designed to weaken the “social contract” and transfer wealth won by hard working Americans to the Bu$h Rangers at the top of the economic pyramid.

posted by Groom 2:32 AM

Powell Quits: "Apres Moi, Le Deluge"

We've got us a significant leak, folks:

from salon.com:

A veteran Foreign Service officer warns that when Colin Powell departs in a second Bush term, America will lose its last bulwark against the radical ideologues who are planning more Iraqs.

Editor's note: "Anonymous" is a veteran Foreign Service officer currently serving as a State Department official. The views expressed are personal and not related to his official position.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Anonymous

Oct. 4, 2004  |  Secretary of State Colin Powell is not staying for a second Bush term. When he goes, the last bulwark against complete neoconservative control of U.S. foreign policy goes with him. The implications are enormous, yet the American electorate appears to be blinded by the Bush campaign's deliberate manipulations of 9/11.
. . .
Powell is leaving. We need to repeat that. When this reality sinks in, we will finally understand what we are getting ourselves into in a second Bush term. A handful of conservative columnists, Republican senators and a few other GOP luminaries are trying to reclaim a traditional conservative Republican foreign policy approach. But it is clearly too late.

Further evidence the Bush kakocracy is beyond redemption.

posted by Michael 1:17 AM

Monday, October 04, 2004

Playing to the Big Jury

The rules are that Dick and John (how American is that?) need to sit down during the whole debate so that slick Dick doesn't look his age if they are standing side by side.

What would you think might happen tomorrow night if Edwards were to take this little pieces of advice from us: At the most outrageous point or charge from Dick Cheney (maybe that a vote for Kerry is an invitation for more terrorist attacks), Edwards stands up, pounds the table and simply says, "This is an outrage and Mr. Vice President, you know better and it needs to stop, starting tonight."

Then sits back down.

posted by Josh 9:49 PM

The First Annual Ancient Thespians Farewell Reunion Tour

Josh Hammond and I have been missing in round one of the Shrub Unravels saga but we have a good excuse. Six or seven years ago--long before the concept of "social networking" was hot--I started a little e-mail club called The Ancient Thespians composed of 25 or 30 interesting men I had met in my travels around the world. It's impossible to maintain much more than Christmas card exchange-level contact with that many people on a one-to-one basis but I discovered that if you throw out some interesting ideas about music, films, travel, aging, sex, drugs and rock n' roll, ban jokes and girls, and insist that people respect opinions they disagree with, you can create a community that is alive in the moment. People that I worked with once or twice and see rarely are now part of my daily routine and my life is a lot richer for it.

Because of the nature of my work, most of the ATs are photographers, writers, editors or business consultants of one stripe or another. The oldest is 80, the youngest is around 45. Geographically, they are scattered from Australia to England and Europe to Japan and the U.S. The only common connection for most is that they know me personally; many have never met each other except via e-mail.

Last Thursday, we did something risky; nine of us--representing Europe, America and Australia--got together for three days of fun and male bonding in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for The First Annual Ancient Thespians Farewell Reunion Tour. Thirty five bottles of wine, several great Cuban cigars (don't tell Ashcroft), and many unforgettable memories and laughs later I can tell you that the virtual world and the "real" world are not incompatible and that online friendships translate easily into greatly enchanced real world friendships.

I can also report that Wyoming produces spectacular sunsets that almost compensate for having produced Dick and Lynn Cheney.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4:30 PM

"What About Poland?"

Another ship leaves the sinking rat.

posted by Evelyn 1:25 PM

George W Bush, Heroin Enabler

Here are the first two paragraphs from the lead story in today's LA Times:

"Afghanistan's opium poppy crop this year is set to break all records, surging past the peak levels reported under the Taliban regime, top American and international counter-narcotics officials said.

"At the same time, U.N. and U.S. officials are increasingly worried by signs of a nascent drug trade developing in Iraq, where smugglers are taking advantage of the continuing chaos and unguarded borders."

Although Kerry mentioned this problem in last Thursday's debate it deserves to be hammered again and again. The issue touches on both domestic and foreign policy, but more than that, it is another example of w's mishandling of affairs in everyfuckingthing.

An aside: with this article and yesterday's NY Times article on prewar lying about WMD perhaps, just perhaps, some in the media have rediscovered their spines.

posted by Blackdogred 9:47 AM

Narcocratic elections in Afjackistan... let 1,000 poppys bloom

Five days until a major Bu$h war on terror "victory" in Afjackistan. Thanks to druglords and drug mullahs narcocrat Karzai is getting 75% of all the media coverage. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is pulling the puppet strings. Funny how when there's no oil on the line, there's no traction from Jimmy Carter and his Carter Center election observers. Ditto Jim Baker and his Baker Center vote geeks. Maybe prospective #3 CIA klepto Mike Kostiw, a "South Asian" expert, can provide some secret testimony to Congress on how to steal an election...

posted by Groom 5:32 AM

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Here's a question I'd like to see someone pose to Bush

at the next, "town hall" forum debate:

If your performance in the Oval Office over the past four years is the result of all your "hard work" (as you reminded us seven times at the last debate) -- if you're giving us what I assume are your "best efforts" now -- why should we expect that you're even capable of the increased effort that will obviously be necessary just to start to improve things?

posted by Michael 10:20 PM

Goss picks klepto to run day-to-day CIA

After lying to the Senate that he would be a non-partisan DCI Porter Goss has packed the top positions at the agency with senior GOP staffers from his congressional committee including former Chevron lobbyist Michael V. Kostiw. Walter Pincus at the Washington Post throws some sunshine on the man who will be #3 at CIA. After developing a case of "sticky fingers" shoplifting at Langley and a subsequent problem with a polygraph test Kostiw fell in with Chevron who had him ride herd over their operations in Latin America and West Africa, dealing with military juntas and butcher boy dictators supported by the Reagan administration. As a lobbyist for Chevron and as a Goss legman, Kostiw was tight with Rice-a-roni, who served on the board of the big oil company before becoming the madam of the NSC. Kostiw will probably not make the final cut; a sacrificial lamb will send the phony message that Goss is running an "independent" CIA and that big oil doesn't own his or the agency's ass. We know Boss Goss was meeting with the top Al Qaeda paymaster in Washington on September 11, 2001. What cookie jar was Kostiw dipping into on that day? If John Kerry becomes president he should have Goss' resignation on his desk day one.

posted by Groom 7:20 PM

Don't blame me for security mistakes -- I'm only the National Security Advisor!

The only question anyone should be asking about or to Condi Rice is: Why is your only defense for why we went to war on bad information your own incompetence?

"I knew that there was a dispute. I actually didn't really know the nature of the dispute," Rice told ABC's "This Week."

Rice said she learned of objections by the Energy Department only after making her 2002 comments.

Remember this?

DR. RICE: First of all, the CIA did clear the speech in its entirety and George Tenet has said that. He’s also said that he believes that it should not have been cleared. And we apparently, with the—in October for the Cincinnati speech, not for the State of the Union, but the Cincinnati speech, George Tenet asked that this be taken out of the Cincinnati speech, the reference to yellow cake. It was taken out of the Cincinnati speech because whenever the director of Central Intelligence wants something out, it’s gone.

MR. RUSSERT: How’d it get back in?

DR. RICE: It’s not a matter of getting back in. It’s a matter, Tim, that three-plus months later, people didn’t remember that George Tenet had asked that it be taken out of the Cincinnati speech and then it was cleared by the agency. I didn’t remember. Steve Hadley didn’t remember. We are trying to put now in place methods so you don’t have to be dependent on people’s memories for something like that.

MR. RUSSERT: Did you ever read the memo that I referenced?

DR. RICE: I don’t remember the memo. It came after it had been taken out of the speech, and so it’s quite possible that I didn’t.

Let's remind our undecided friends about this: the only people in this administration who have lost their jobs over Iraq (other than George "Fall Guy" Tenet) are the people who did their jobs well, predicted accurately, and told the truth. In what universe is this okay?

posted by Opus 7:01 PM

An even bigger loss for Bu$h...

Now that the spin has vanished, losing the first "debate" looms even greater for Bu$h when you consider that the guidelines both campaigns agreed to after intense negotiations set up a very restrictive playing field that clearly favored the president and his known disdain for facing the public in "impromptu" situations. It should have been as easy for Shrub to chalk up a win as it was for Babe Ruth to pop a home run down the 298 ft. foul line at old Yankee Stadium. But even with Jim Baker's corked bat, his shit was weak. Let's see what kind of fat pitches Charlie "Mr. American Gothic" Gibson of ABC's "Good Morning America" will serve up to our unraveling leader at the "Town Hall" event.

posted by Groom 1:27 PM

In London and Paris... the momentum shifts to Kerry

When the French say sombody's got elan they're talking about a winner. When Bush and Rove talk about elan it's that Cuban youngster that Janet Reno sent back to evil Fidel Castro. In London The Independent is headlining Kerry's "shock lead" over Bu$h. After seeing the BBB (bad Bu$h body language) on the BBC the Brits know that padded shoulders and a Saville Row suit can't cover up the emperor's new clothes.

posted by Groom 4:33 AM