JUSIPER
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Further proof of the ayatollah theory
If you didn't believe that Bush's Christian followers believe him to be both their political and spiritual sovereign, believe now. These come from Michelle Goldberg's Salon piece on Friday's Bush-Schwarzenegger rally in Ohio:
Jesus! Jesus!' screamed 26-year-old Joe Robles, pointing to his Bush-Cheney sign. 'The man stands for God,' he said of the president. 'We want somebody who stands for Jesus. I always vote my Christian morals.' Robles, a student at Ohio State University, told me that Kerry's daughter is a lesbian. I said I thought that was Dick Cheney's daughter, but he shook his head no with confidence.
And what do the ayatollah's followers believe about his opponent?
Robles said that Kerry would make it illegal for preachers to say that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. In California, he informed me gravely, such preaching has been deemed a hate crime, and pastors who indulge in it are fined $25,000, which 'goes to lesbians.'"
11:57 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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What this election is about
Restoring simple decency to our country:
Lisa Dupler, a 33-year-old from Columbus, held up a rainbow-striped John Kerry sign outside the Nationwide Arena on Friday, as Republicans streamed out after being rallied by George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A thickset woman with very short, dark hair, Dupler was silent and barely flinched as people passing her hissed 'faggot' into her ear. An old lady looked at her and said, 'You people are sick!' A kid who looked to be about 10 or 11 affected a limp wrist and mincing voice and said, 'Oh, I'm gay.' Rather than restraining him, his squat mother guffawed and then turned to Dupler and sneered, 'Why don't you go marry your girlfriend?' Encouraged, her son yelled, 'We don't want faggots in the White House!'
The throngs of Republicans were pumped after seeing the president and the action hero. But there was an angry edge to their elation. They shrieked at the dozen or so protesters standing on the concrete plaza outside the auditorium. 'Kerry's a terrorist!' yelled a stocky kid in baggy jeans and braces. 'Communists for Kerry! Go back to Russia,' someone else screamed. Many of them took up the chant 'Kerry sucks'; old women and teenage boys shouting with equal ferocity.
11:48 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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John Edwards
Doing the job, and pitch perfect with two days to go.
11:46 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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George W. Bush, the failed CEO
Randy Schultz' slam in the Palm Beach Post.
7:14 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Colin Powell shocker
In Powellspeak, a confidant is a hired hand who will tell a reporter about the misgivings Powell always had (from the beginning. Really!) regarding a given policy once its failure has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.
It is this kind of duplicity disguised as loyal-soldierdom that has made him one of the most respected figures in Washington.
So what is his latest revelation, "privately told" to "friends?" That the insurgents are winning in Iraq.
We'll all be grateful if Powell's semipublic finding is widely publicized and helps sink his boss. And he'll be able to leave public service with a spotless record, one of utter competence and a barrel of principles he never bothered standing up, not even once, when it counted.
5:07 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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A history lesson for Nader supporters
Upon returning to my parked car this afternoon, I found a very nice copy of the Declaration of Independence, printed on quality bond, pinned under the wiper blade. At the bottom of the sheet, however, were the words "VoteNader.org".
Now, this being Massachusetts, my anger towards Nader canvassers was purely hypothetical. But think about the analogy they're trying to draw between themselves and the founding fathers. It's all mixed up.
Begging your pardon, Naderites, but exactly what country do you think you'd be living in today if your precious Ralph had been around in 1776 to siphon off troops from the colonial minutemen by charging that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson bore too much of a resemblance to their British overlords?
That's right. The land of King George.
4:27 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Get the vote out in Ohio
And from the comfort of your own home, thanks to ACT and Party for America. Help them out.
2:38 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Cheney on Zarqawi
What does Dick Cheney have to say about the Bush administration killing three separate Pentagon plans to eliminate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Check out the transcript of his debate with John Edwards:
Let's look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi. We know he's - was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. We know that when we went into Afghanistan, that he then migrated to Baghdad. He set up shop in Baghdad where he oversaw the poisons facility up at Kirma where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use. We know he's still in Baghdad today. He is responsible for most of the major car bombings that have killed or maimed thousands of people. He's the one you will see on the evening news beheading hostages. He is without question a bad guy. He is without question a terrorist. He was, in fact, in Baghdad before the war, and he's in Baghdad now after the war. The fact of the matter is that this is exactly the kind of track record we've seen over the years. We have to deal with Zarqawi by taking him out, and that is exactly what we'll do.
Whoa. Now we know a CIA report commissioned by Cheney himself specifically states that Zarqawi was in northeastern Iraq, using a satellite phone, during the months before the Iraq war. Cheney's assertion that Zarqawi was running the manufacture of poisons out of Baghdad looks like one more dubious linkage of al-Qaeda allies to Saddam Hussein. The man never stops.
Also, how does Cheney know Zarqawi is in Baghdad now? Wouldn't that be sort of big news? How closely is the U.S. tracking Zarqawi's movements? And is Baghdad itself not secure from the world's #1 terrorist?
I'll say it again. The Bush Administration had no desire to "take Zarqawi out," because eliminating a terrorist threat from inside Iraq's borders would have undermined its case for a full-scale invasion. Zarqawi was a useful excuse for going in then, and he's proving to be a useful excuse for staying in now.
12:24 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Cellphone poll
Zogby reports that 18-29 year old mobile phone users in the Rock the Vote database (yes, weighted for political party, gender and region) are breaking decisively for Kerry, 55-40.
11:19 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thanks, George
For letting Osama Bin Laden become stronger than he's ever been:
The official said 'a political spinoff [of Al Qaeda] is one of the greatest fears' of U.S. counter-terrorism authorities, with Bin Laden and his network following the path of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hezbollah and the Irish Republican Army. Over the years, those organizations evolved from violent militant groups into broader organizations with influential, widely accepted political wings.
Bin Laden faces significant obstacles in any attempt to appeal to a wider audience. For one, he is the world's most wanted man, responsible for attacks across the globe and will always have to operate from hiding. U.S. officials also were skeptical that Al Qaeda would ever halt its terrorist activities, saying that the group was plotting attacks even now.
But, some former U.S. intelligence officials said Saturday, Bin Laden's efforts already have met with some success among a broad spectrum of the global population, Muslims in particular.
[...] Roger W. Cressey, a senior counter-terrorism official in the Bush and Clinton administrations, said Bin Laden began his shift this year, when he tried to drive a wedge between the United States and its allies over the invasion of Iraq.
Al Qaeda criticism of Spain's role in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is believed to have contributed to the Madrid train bombings in March, in which at least 191 people were killed.
Then, in mid-April, Bin Laden offered a cease-fire to other European nations with a presence in Iraq, saying Al Qaeda would not attack them if they withdrew their troops. The offer was rejected, but authorities said the success of the Madrid bombings emboldened Bin Laden into believing that Muslims worldwide would actively support such efforts.
"He has injected a political element into his work and has tried to appeal almost on an intellectual level," said Cressey, now a counter-terrorism consultant. "He's saying, 'I'm here and you better factor me into your calculations, political and otherwise.' "
"If people are concerned that he is evolving into more of a political figure, to a certain extent he already has," Cressey said. U.S. authorities, he added, "should be concerned if [Bin Laden's] message resonates with a broader portion of the Muslim world than his narrower messages of the past, in that he was declaring war. And only time will tell if that's the case.
10:59 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Ohio GOP won't be able to foul up polling places
Fantastic news from Ohio:
A Cuyahoga County judge gave Secretary of State Ken Blackwell until 8 p.m. today to reverse himself and notify all 88 boards of elections in Ohio that no more than one challenger per party will be allowed at polling places Tuesday.
8:41 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Florida
Bush and Kerry are barely setting foot in Florida. Could it be that Republicans, and not the Democrats, have conceded the state? And could that be why their focus has been on Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin? I wonder.
12:42 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The ultimate indignity
From the final Illinois Survey USA poll: Obama leads Keyes among pro-life voters , 47-44.
12:38 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Saturday, October 30, 2004
Troops to "extend" their tours
And guess what comes when a backdoor draft isn't good enough?
The Pentagon has ordered about 6,500 soldiers in Iraq to extend their tours, the first step the military has taken to increase its combat power there in preparation for the January elections, senior Defense Department officials said Friday.
[...] But senior Defense Department officials said they had considered plans that would allow the American military in Iraq to quickly increase its forces by as many as three brigades - a total of as many as 15,000 troops, the combat power of a traditional Army division - but that no steps had been taken other than the extensions discussed Friday.
If Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of American forces in the Middle East, requests even more troops, it is possible that the Third Infantry Division, which led the drive for Baghdad during the war and is set to return to Iraq in January, could speed the arrival of some combat units, officials said. Other options also are under consideration.
Under the extension orders, which have been approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the soldiers whose departures are delayed will still leave Iraq for their home bases before the 12-month deployment limit promised by the Army, as the units had initially been given assignments of less than a year.
1:23 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Josh Marshall: Time to engage
Democrats should tell the truth and not let the media spin recent events into a Bush victory:
The foreign policy focus of the Kerry campaign has long been the president's failure to maintain the focus on al Qaida, as evidenced by his failure to capture bin Laden and dismantle his network. To abandon that message now would be insanity.
If you're a Democrat and you notice your fellow Democrats dipping into these spasms of fecklessness and weak-kneedism, as I've described above, I strongly encourage you to slap them around a few times and tell them to get a hold of themselves. If you're experiencing such spasms, by all means, slap yourself a few times and tell yourself the same thing.
More than 95% of the electorate has already made up its mind. This is all about how those last few percentage points of the electorate break. And that will be determined by which campaign holds the initiative, stays on the offensive for the next three days and who can mobilize their forces to win this on the ground.
Kerry, the candidate, must be forward-looking in these final days. But his surrogates should be hammering the president for his failure to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora and pressing the factual case that his campaign has tried so hard to deny. On hitting the indisputable failures of the president there should be no let up.
At every turn, toughness and fight has been the subtext of this election. Who has it and who doesn't. The Bush message is that all of the president's mistakes pale in comparison to the fact of his toughness and steely resolve. The conceit of the Kerry campaign and the Democrats is that they're every bit as tough as the president and his party, and more.
Now's the time for them to show it.
11:39 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Washington Post, April 17, 2002
Page one:
The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.
Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December.
After-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States. A common view among those interviewed outside the U.S. Central Command is that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's operational commander, misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies and let pass the best chance to capture or kill al Qaeda's leader. Without professing second thoughts about Tora Bora, Franks has changed his approach fundamentally in subsequent battles, using Americans on the ground as first-line combat units.
In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters. Franks did not perceive the setbacks soon enough, some officials said, because he ran the war from Tampa with no commander on the scene above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The first Americans did not arrive until three days into the fighting. 'No one had the big picture,' one defense official said.
12:08 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Friday, October 29, 2004
Berubé
Right on the money. There are few things more irritating than pompous liberals' condescension towards John Kerry, the best nominee for President our political system has produced in decades.
8:38 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The Story That Must Be Kept In The News
Here's the story to focus on during the few days left before the election:
Between the routing of the Taliban and the beginning of the war in Iraq, the United States had three chances to take out Abu Musab Zarqawi, and didn't do it. Not because of questionable intelligence, but because the Bush Administration didn't want to undermine its case for war against Saddam Hussein.
The administration needed a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda to sell its war to the American people and the United Nations. If it had obliterated Zaraqwi's terror camps, Colin Powell could never have included this phrase in his February 2003 speech to the U.N.:
Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants.
Of course, Zarqawi had fled from Afghanistan to a region of Iraq that Saddam didn't control, and which may in fact have been protected from Saddam by U.S. air power. But his survival allowed the administration to argue over and over again that Saddam's regime "harbored" Osama's allies.
So just think about what it means when President Bush says, as he did again on Sean Hannity's radio show the other day, that Zarqawi's recent activities are proof that we are fighting terrorism in Iraq, and that Zarqawi wouldn't be a "shop owner" if the U.S. hadn't invaded. Convenient, huh? First, Bush used Zarqawi as an excuse to invade Iraq, and now as an excuse to continue the war. How unfortunate that in between, Zarqawi has been responsible for the murder of thousands of innocents.
Of course, if the U.S. had been run by a group of men who cared about actually pursuing a war against fundamentalist terrorism instead of fulfilling neocon ideology and revenge fantasies, Zarqawi would be dead.
It's not good enough to list this as just one more complaint in the litany of the Bush Administration's mistakes. The faliure to pursue Zarqawi is the most stunning validation yet of the Richard Clarke-Bob Graham view of the war in Iraq - that it's a gigantic diversion. John Kerry believes this. He's got about 72 hours left to drive the point home.
7:24 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Now that the show lost the Al-Qaqaa scoop
60 Minutes will be turning to more important topics.
5:51 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Second ammo site left unguarded
Unbelievable:
Six months after the fall of Baghdad, a vast Iraqi weapons depot with tens of thousands of artillery rounds and other explosives remained unguarded, according to two U.S. aid workers who say they reported looting of the site to U.S. military officials.
The aid workers say they informed Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the highest ranking Army officer in Iraq in October 2003 but were told that the United States did not have enough troops to seal off the facility, which included more than 60 bunkers packed with munitions.
'We were outraged,' said Wes Hare, city manager of La Grande, who was working in Iraq as part of a rebuilding program. A colleague who also visited the depot, Jerry Kuhaida, said it appeared that the explosives at the Ukhaider Ammunition Storage Area had found their way to insurgents targeting U.S. forces.
'There's no question in my mind that the stuff in Ukhaider was used by terrorists,' said Kuhaida."
4:53 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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New Hampshire shocker
Former Senator Bob Smith, who at one point left the GOP because it was too liberal, has endorsed John Kerry for President.
As someone who worked with you daily for 12 years as a United States Senator, I am acutely conscious of the fact that we disagree on many important issues. Despite our differences, you have always been willing to engage in constructive debate in an effort to forge sound public policy.
I deeply respect your commitment to our nation and your patriotism which, I believe, was forged when you-like I-proudly wore the uniform of the United States Navy in Viet Nam...
Because of the courage and character you demonstrated in Vietnam, I believe you when you say that you'll do a better job than President Bush to win the peace in Iraq, as well as to win the war against terrorism.
President Bush has failed to restrain federal spending, sending our deficit spinning into the stratosphere. I well remember that you were one of a handful of Democrats who crossed the aisle to forge a bipartisan coalition in the Senate to balance the federal budget [...]
John, for each of these reasons I believe President Bush has failed our country and my party. Accordingly, I want you to know that when I go into the booth next Tuesday I am going to cast my vote for you.
4:15 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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That wasn't all Bush left unguarded
Guess what else may eventually find its way into one of the American ports left unguarded by George W. Bush:
Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University expert in nuclear weapons and terrorism, said that although he is concerned by the removal of the explosives, he is far more worried by IAEA reports that large quantities of sophisticated equipment, such as electron beam welders, were looted and removed from Iraq's nuclear weapons program. 'That material, which would be quite useful to a nuclear weapons program, was also well known to the United States, was not guarded and today is probably in hostile hands,' with Iran being a likely recipient, said Bunn, who noted that he has been advising the Kerry campaign but does not speak for it.
11:21 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Florida isn't just in play
As Jim Defede of the Miami Herald argues, it's really, really in play:
If the latest Miami Herald poll is correct, the road to the White House no longer runs exclusively through Little Havana, it now winds its way through the streets of Wynwood and Allapattah and Homestead.
And if that's true, President Bush is in trouble.
The Herald poll shows Sen. John Kerry winning Miami-Dade County with 54.3 percent of the vote to 41.5 for Bush. Four percent are undecided.
Splitting those undecided voters down the middle, Kerry goes to 56 percent, Bush to 43 and Ralph Nader will end up with less than 1 percent.
If Kerry wins Miami-Dade County 56 to 43, then the likelihood of him winning Florida is very high. Here's why:
In 2000, Al Gore beat Bush by almost 40,000 votes in Miami-Dade County.
According to the Herald poll, done by Zogby International, Kerry is positioned to win Miami-Dade by anywhere from 90,000 to 100,000 votes.
A margin that large in Florida's most populous county would be hard for Bush to make up across the rest of the state.
Now I realize if the poll's margin of error were to fall in the president's favor, Kerry would beat Bush, 53 to 46 percent (instead of 56-43). But even then, because of new voters, Kerry would still walk away with 50,000 more votes than Bush.
But here is why the Herald poll rings true.
Between 2000 and 2004, the split between Democrats and Republican is virtually the same in almost every category.
In 2000, an overwhelming majority of Cuban Americans went to Bush and the latest Herald poll shows the same thing happening again.
In 2000, the Jewish and black votes went overwhelmingly for Gore and the latest poll has them doing the same for Kerry. Among Anglos, Kerry is ahead, but Bush has tightened the gap.
The one group that is radically different -- and it is why the poll makes sense -- is a shift among non-Cuban Hispanics, who are backing Kerry almost two-to-one.
Overall, Hispanics -- both Cubans and non-Cubans -- still support Bush, according to the Herald poll, with 62 percent saying they will vote for the president and 35 percent saying they will vote for Kerry.
Nevertheless, that is a tremendous improvement for the Democrats over 2000, when 73 percent of Hispanics favored Bush and only 27 percent voted for Gore.
And almost all of those gains for Kerry have come from Mexicans, Salvadorans, Dominicans, Colombians and Puerto Ricans among others. Many of whom are going to be voting for the first time.
The raw numbers: In 2000, Bush won among all Hispanics by 135,000 votes. Based on the Herald poll, Bush's lead among Hispanics in 2004 will be closer to 95,000 votes.
Narrowing that gap by 40,000 votes between 2000 and 2004 is a huge accomplishment for Democrats and shows the very real impact voter registration groups such as Mi Familia are having on this year's election. In six months, Mi Familia registered 66,000 new voters in Florida, many of them here in Miami-Dade and most of them non-Cuban Hispanics.
11:13 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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David Kay: Videotape proves it
The video came, ironically enough, from the embeds who were supposed to guarantee Bush's election.
David Kay, Iraq weapons inspector for the Bush Administration, just appeared on CNN and was asked by Aaron Brown to review the new video filmed on April 18, 2003, one month after the invasion and 8 days after US Troops first arrived at Al Qaqaa.
He was asked about the video which shows the seal. He said that they are indeed IAEA seals and he's seen nothing else like them in IRAQ. He then went on to say that only the explosives in question would have been sealed because of their potency. He then said that other parts of the video show clearly that these were the types of explosives in question.
He was asked if it was "Game, Set, Match". He replied yes, "Game, Set, Match".
In a final blow to recent conservative spin he was asked if they were classified as WMD. He replied point blank, "absolutely not."
3:17 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Novak heard wrong
Zogby stated once again, publicly, that he believes John Kerry will be our first elected President since Bill Clinton, giving the lie to Robert Novak's allegations in Thursday's column.
12:44 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, October 28, 2004
On the ropes Kentucky GOP: Mongiardo is gay
Proving once again that referring to someone as gay is a slur in Republican circles. Will Lynne Cheney call Bunning an "evil man" now? I'll bet not.
10:09 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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One thousand American troops dead
And one hundred times as many Iraqis. For the GOP base, ridding the world of nonwhite people, even if the majority of them were women and children, is cause for celebration in and of itself. But the rest of the world does not feel that way :
MORE than 100,000 civilians have died as a result of the allied invasion of Iraq in March last year, the first study of mortality in the country claims today.
The research, conducted in Iraq last month by a team of American and Iraqi researchers, will be published on the online edition of The Lancet, the medical journal.
It suggests that most civilian deaths have been due to military activity, with those caused by violence rising sharply in recent months.
The figures far exceed all previous estimates. Their publication just five days before the US presidential election are bound to cause controversy by reinforcing the impression that events are out of control.
The latest estimates by a group of British academics called Iraq Bodycount, which compiles figures from witness accounts and media reports, put the number of civilian deaths at between 14,160 and 16,289.
The British and American militaries keep records of casualties among their own troops, but neither attempts to count how many civilians have been killed. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has used an estimate of 10,000.
9:15 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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No retreat, no surrender
EIGHTY THOUSAND in Wisconsin.
UPDATE: Another account here
7:49 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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"The state is switching from red to blue."
The DNC has just announced its ad buy.
McAuliffe said that the commitment, which is their largest in any Southern state besides Florida, was motivated by their own internal tracking polls, which show the presidential race is a dead heat in Arkansas.
"The state is switching from red to blue," McAuliffe said. "We would not be spending a quarter of a million dollars there if it did not show that we could win."
McAuliffe also confirmed that Bill Clinton will visit Arkansas on Sunday afternoon for a campaign event, although the details have not been finalized. He said it will be Clinton's last campaign stop in 2004 -- the former president will return to to his home in New York from Arkansas.
7:43 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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I wonder where in Scranton those precincts are
Actually, I really don't, since I can guess:
The Republican Lackawanna Board of Elections just changed the voting locations of 21 precincts in the Scranton, PA area.
10 to 15 Thousand PA voters have to go to a new location in order to vote at all. And they don't know this.
The Board is sending a notice, tomorrow, but it's not even printed yet. And who knows if it'll get there or even be read.
7:26 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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A vote for Kerry is a vote for democracy
Fans of the original cyberpunk, from Neuromancer to Pattern Recognition: William Gibson blogged the following observation today after listening to someone from Nader's campaign.
This isn't the election in which to make the quixotic but satisfying point that you'd really rather vote Green, or the quixotic but satisfying point that you'd really rather not have to vote for any more white men in tight blue suits at all.
This is an election in which to vote for *the greater likelihood of there being more elections in the future*.
7:18 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The Boss and the next President of the United States
See the video at johnkerry.com.
5:53 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bush was after Saddam... in 1999
Take a look at this piece about Mickey Herskowitz, who as the would-be author of W's campaign hagiography in 2000, had extraordinary access.
Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.
“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.”
Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father’s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “Suddenly, he’s at 91 percent in the polls, and he’d barely crawled out of the bunker.”
[...] Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush’s ghostwriter after Bush’s handlers concluded that the candidate’s views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.
According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.
[...]According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”
Bush’s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: “They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.”
Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war.
[...] [T]he best material [of Herskowitz' unfinished Bush biography] was left on the cutting room floor, including Bush’s true feelings.
“He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,” Herskowitz said. “That was one of the keys to being a leader.”
5:01 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Ruy's stroll down memory lane
All of us need to take a look at it, stop looking at polls, and do all we can to turn out our vote.
4:46 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Minnesota shocker: Durenberger endorses Kerry for health care
David Durenberger was Minnesota's Republican senator from 1978 to 1995. Imagine the state party's shock to read this editorial Wednesday morning:
Regardless of how voters view the candidates on all other issues, it is clear that the future of health care costs for Minnesotans has already been determined by President Bush's record of accomplishment. As a Republican, with some experience, I sincerely regret having to say the record over the last four years and the prescription for reform the president is proposing give me little confidence that this most challenging of all domestic priorities will be adequately addressed over the next four years.
His Medicare Modernization Act enhances access to prescription drugs for low-income, high-need seniors. It authorizes demonstrations to identify quality of care and chronic care management. But it all comes at a price neither taxpayers nor Medicare beneficiaries will be able to afford.
Drug companies have inflated prices from which "discounts" are derived and the Republican Congress has protected the drug companies from the price competition that Medicare applies to doctors, hospitals, and home health, dialysis and other care providers. President Bush and the GOP Congress have placed the future of Medicare in the hands of America's big health insurance plans and, again, protected them from the reality of competition with a guarantee of up to 123 percent higher payments than traditional Medicare.
The costs of all this will be borne not by those who profit most from health insurance or services, but by seniors and disabled Minnesotans whose Medicare premiums were increased 14 percent this year and will be 17 percent next year. With a budget deficit of more than $400 billion a year, that Medicare premium can only rise faster in the future. Plus, those of us working past age 64 will pay up to 80 percent of the costs to us of a Medicare program we have funded out of family income for the last 38 years.
[...] The president constantly refers to Sen. John Kerry's health reform proposals as "big government." Not true. As one deeply involved in developing alternatives to President Bill Clinton's reform proposals, I must say that what Kerry proposes today for coverage expansion is in line with what mainstream Republican senators like Jack Danforth, John Chafee and I, working with Democrats like Bill Bradley, John Breaux and Kent Conrad, tried to accomplish in 1994.
Indeed, the Kerry plan appears designed to be responsive to those most in need -- people forced out of health care coverage by premium cost increases -- without being disruptive.
By providing employers and health plans with financial relief from catastrophic expenses, it should stabilize and make more affordable the employer-based insurance market. It opens up programs like the Congress' own Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) and the Children's Health Insurance Program, and provides new private health insurance options -- not mandates -- for the uninsured.
By providing extra tax breaks for vulnerable groups like 55-to-64-year-olds, workers in between jobs, and small businesses, it ensures that health care is made even more affordable.
While far from perfect, it both builds on and learns from the past and takes us in a long-overdue new direction.
In this election people are making decisions on the basis of the candidates' stands on many issues. I have access to all of the health care I need through both FEHBP and Medicare. Like many Republicans, though, I believe our national goal is access for all, not just some.
For people who cannot afford the health insurance they need, for people whose access to care is threatened, the issue of which presidential candidate is most likely to come to their aid is their most important national security issue. It is the national security position on which President Bush and Sen. Kerry differ most and the one on which Kerry has the clearer vision for restoring security to all Americans.
Jesse Ventura, in the meantime, has endorsed Kerry, perhaps as a partial amends for losing the Senate for Democrats, perhaps because as a former Navy SEAL it offends him to see a draft dodger be Commander in Chief (he is part of Operation Truth, which has produced one of the most devastating 527 ads this election cycle).
It's hard to see Bush's forays into Minnesota bearing any fruit.
4:34 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Reason #34 for Bush's draft: Iran
This comes from the business section of the Times of London.
Iranian leaders are determined to acquire nuclear weapons (quite understandably, given what happened to Saddam Hussein because he failed to develop an atom bomb). The US and Israel are as determined to stop them. There are two ways to discourage or slow the Iranians. The European approach, and presumably also Kerry’s, is to offer the mullahs inducements: remove Iran from the Axis of Evil, resume diplomatic relations and lift economic sanctions. The alternative, favoured by Bush, is to concentrate on sticks, not carrots.
Since Iran is not going to respond to mere diplomatic pressures, the punitive approach must ultimately mean a military attack, possibly using Israel as a proxy.
If the US or Israel tries to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations out of existence (recall Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981), oil could go to $100 a barrel. But that would probably be a short-lived spike. A military attack on Iran would presumably be accompanied by release of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, (SPR ), which at 700 million barrels could replace all Iranian exports for 300 days.
A plan to attack Iran is probably the best explanation for America’s aggressive build-up of the SPR even in the midst of this year’s global oil shortage. Presumably the Saudis would also try to help with oil supplies in the event of a military attack on Iran, since they are just as frightened as the Israelis of a nuclear Iran. Still, the possibility of a US-Iran confrontation under Bush is pretty disturbing, not least because of Iran’s ability to sabotage any hopes of progress in Iraq.
Maybe that's why some voices in the military admitted that a draft might be necessary in Tuesday's Washington Post.
An Army colonel at the Pentagon, who said he could not speak on the record about the draft without being fired, said that he does not believe a draft is politically possible, but that new crises could make it militarily necessary. "The military right now is stripped down pretty thin," he said. "If the president decided we needed to go somewhere other than Iraq, it doesn't take a mental giant to figure out that we don't have the people to do that."
Iran is mentioned frequently in such assessments. Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, an expert in targeting nuclear facilities, worries that the looming confrontation with that country over its nuclear program could result in a need to greatly expand the military. "The Iran train is bearing down on us quickly," said Gardiner, who recently conducted a private war game on how U.S. forces might attack and destroy Iranian nuclear capabilities. He estimates that "we would need four to five divisions to have a reasonable military option" to do that. The Army has 10 active-duty divisions, and most either are in Iraq, just returned from there or are preparing to go.
Likewise, retired Army Col. Lloyd Matthews, a former editor of the Army War College's Parameters magazine, said he does not foresee any possibility of a draft but also worries about the huge troop requirements that could stem from a new confrontation. "After the election, and after we obtain breathing space in Iraq, we are going to have to get serious about the nuclear situation in Iran and North Korea," he said. "If our responses in any way involve ground troops, we will have to discover new means of raising them."
Even if the military needed huge numbers of troops quickly, predicted Richard H. Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Pentagon first would increase recruitment with new incentives, mobilize all the reserves and take other steps, such as twisting the arms of allies to contribute troops. "At that point, the draft might be instituted, but only after every other work-around possible," Kohn said.
[...] "There is no question that the growing gap between the supply of U.S. ground forces and the actual and potential demands for them is approaching a condition of unacceptable strategic risk, if we are not there already," said Jeffrey Record, a professor of strategy at the Air Force's Air War College.
4:20 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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A picture of George W. Bush
Not the faith based George W. Bush. The real one.
3:24 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Colin Powell lies again
Not for his boss, as he usually does, but for his son.
1:22 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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A small victory in Ohio
With a caveat:
A U.S. District Court judge yesterday effectively ended efforts by Republicans in Ohio to challenge the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters in one of the most closely contested states in this year's presidential race.
Judge Susan J. Dlott in Cincinnati issued an order preventing local election boards from going forward with plans to notify challenged voters and hold hearings until she hears legal arguments tomorrow. But because her ruling means that those election board hearings cannot take place within the time frame state law requires before the election, Dlott's ruling kills the GOP effort that had targeted 35,000 voters, Democratic and Republican party officials said.
David Sullivan, director of the Democratic Party's Voter Protection Program in Ohio, praised the ruling and said the GOP was never able to offer proof that the challenged voters were ineligible. "The Republican assault on tens of thousands of Ohio voters was an unprecedented effort to intimidate voters, especially minorities, but, it has backfired," he said.
On the other hand,
Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, said yesterday's ruling does not prevent the party from going forward with plans to place 3,400 monitors in polling places, particularly in heavily Democratic urban areas. The challenges will take place Tuesday instead of being decided beforehand, he said.
1:21 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Ramadi near collapse
Like the missing explosives, a big problem for those in the reality based community.
1:18 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Um... this better not be the end of the story
And what recourse do people have if they didn't receive their absentee ballots?
1:12 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The Hispanic vote
The Washington Post's final poll suggests that Bush will not improve on his 2000 performance with Latino voters.
12:58 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Univisión Saturday
Guess who'll be having a little visit with Don Francisco on the forever dreadful, eternal Sábado Gigante? John Kerry and George W. Bush.
12:48 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Fake soldiers in Bush TV ad
They tried to find more of them, but the rest of them were in Iraq, in danger of being hit with those missing explosives.
10:54 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Eminem's "Mosh" hits MTV countdown
It's not #1 as Kos suggests, but it makes its debut at #12 (Eminem's "Just Lose It" video may be the one at #1) . In the meantime, Kid Oakland's analysis.
5:17 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Howard Stern confronts Michael Powell
Listen to their conversation here. CNN piece here.
4:14 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Al Qaeda endorses
Like any group, they vote their interests. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that George W. Bush is the best thing that ever happened to them.
4:12 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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We don't approve
In America, after all, we are supposed to resolve our disputes at the voting booth. Massive disenfranchisement, on the other hand, could change the story and lead to new forms of political expression.
3:47 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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MyDD must read
It looks like we have a very good chance to win Florida in a legal election. Here's why.