Blogging from New York: Day Two -- What McCain left out of his speech last night

From Johnny Apple’s Convention Almanac today:

[W]hen we talked over a drink the night before (last), Mr. McCain grew agitated about the television commercials sponsored by a group of Vietnam veterans who question the war record of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee, and specifically his entitlement to the medals that he won. He found the advertisements "completely nauseating," Mr. McCain said.

Mr. McCain and I have been friends since I flew from Saigon in July 1967 to report on an accident on the aircraft carrier Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin, in which a Zuni rocket accidentally detonated and set fire to the 400-gallon fuel tank of his A-4D Skyhawk, parked on the flight deck. More than 100 men were killed in the inferno that followed.

Afterwards, he came to stay at my house in Saigon for a week or so, and we enjoyed the bright lights of the wartime capital together. Only three months later, he was shot down and held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi for five long years.

Is this really the best we can do, Mr. McCain asked, almost 30 years after the fighting ended? Are we fated to go over this ground again and again, looking backward instead of forward? Won't we ever get over that war? He said he "hated the way this issue is dominating the campaign," and I thought I detected deep frustration that he had managed to do nothing about it.
"If they question Kerry's medals," he said, "they question everybody's medals. All those men who found it so hard to come home, who found so little gratitude for their sacrifices when they got here, are going to feel mistreated again. The families of the people whose names are on the monument in Washington will feel wronged, too. The painful wounds we all worked so hard to close will all be reopened.

"We've got to get that garbage off the air as soon as we can."

… But Mr. Bush has never specifically condemned the Swift boat commercial, confining himself to a mild statement that Mr. Kerry served honorably.

Mr. McCain's comments on Sunday night were so much more vehement than any I had heard him make before that I asked him whether he thought the president had acted sufficiently boldly on the issue of the commercials. Not yet, he said. In that case, would he bring the matter up again with Mr. Bush?"Yes, I will," he said, "probably this week, but not in quite the same terms. You and I were there, and he wasn't, and he's the president of the United States, and he is entitled to be treated respectfully."

More GOP Convention -- Day One

As you watch this convention, keep in mind that not a single one of the Republicans' featured speakers ever stands a chance to be its nominee for president. The party's so-called moderates are being trotted out to paper over the fact that this administration is the most conservative since Ronald Reagan. Oh some of them are probably laboring under the assumption that they have a chance at the nomination in 2008. But they would be kidding themselves.

And what about those Republican “Celebrities”? OK, they’ve got Aaa-nold, but is anybody else wondering about the Republicans’ celebrity lineup for the convention? Ron Silver? Isn’t he a little, well, intense?

From Rob Long’s piece today in Slate (he’s a Republican but he’s not a Red State Republican):

According to the most recent RNC press release, conventioneers will be treated to country music acts such as Brooks & Dunn, Lee Ann Womack, Darryl Worley, and Donnie McClurkin. They'll be joining Michael W. Smith, Daniel Rodriguez, Daize Shayne, Sara Evans, and Dana Glover on the podium. Sounds exciting, no?

I'm aware that I'm going to sound like one of those liberal Democrat media snobs—which is unfair, because I'm a conservative Republican media snob—but who are these people? I live in Venice, Calif., so I happen to know who Daize Shayne is—Google her yourself, if you're interested—but most of the other names are drawing big blanks. There are rumors, of course, that Britney Spears is a closet Bushie—which might be true; she's from Louisiana, right?—and we've all seen Ted Nugent's Republican spiel.

But the sad truth is, the real difference between Democrats and Republicans is that their celebrities are, like, actually famous and ours are, well, singing weirdly erotic songs about Our Savior. Metaphorically, anyway. It's not so much that Republican celebrities are all Christian rockers, it's that they all pretty much adhere to the Christian Rock Principle—it sounds like rock, for about one second you think it's rock, but it isn't quite. Something's off. The performers and celebrities who will appear at the RNC certainly sound famous—they have Grammys and awards and huge followings, apparently—but they aren't, quite.

Blogging the Convention, Not. Day One.

Not in New York --

Actually, you couldn’t pay me to attend another Republican National Convention, even as a loyal opposition blogger. I have already been to a Republican convention, as a kid, and it left such an impression that I’m really not sure I’ve ever been quite right since.

It was 1976 in Kansas City, and the Reaganites were still trying to wrest the nomination away from President Ford. The Hall, so bright with TV lights and all the white faces that I had to wear shades, was filled with two of my favorite types of white people:

• Country club CEO-types and their blue-hair wives (not many women were actual delegates) who complained incessantly about how high income taxes and government regulations were squeezing the rich. “It’s just not fun being rich in this country any more, daa’ling,” one women said as she patted me on the head. “It’s that damned OSHA,” chimed in her husband.
• And then there were the minions of the Chreeest-yin Right, making their first appearance at a GOP convention, supporting Ronald Reagan. These were primarily cheap-suited anti-abortionists from the south and west, wearing sincere smiles, carrying around Bibles and asking you to come to their prayer group after the convention session. I immediately translated the words “prayer group” as “no booze”, so I never bowed my head in prayer with them. At first glance, they could be mistaken for “nice guys,” but then something like “Gerald Ford is a baby-killer” would come out of their mouths and you would just want to back away, slowly. What really creeped me out was that these people assumed that I, as a cheap-suited young teenager, was probably one of them. “Is your daddy a pastor?” one of them asked me, patting me on the head. These were the people who rode Nelson Rockefeller out of the party on a rail that year, forcing Ford to dump Rocky as his V-P and put Bob Dole on the ticket, and in so doing, stamped out the last vestiges of the liberal wing of the Republican party.

Rocky and I went way back – to 1968 when he was for a time a stop-Nixon candidate for the GOP nomination. I had switched to Rockefeller after RFK was killed as the best hope for an anti-war liberal to win the White House. Of course, I was only 8 at the time and to this day I’m not sure whether Rocky was anti-war or not. In any event, I urged my dad to take me out to the Rockefeller rally at the Wichita Municipal Airport and there we stood, waving a pre-made sign, and surging forward in the crowd to shake his hand. “How ya’ doin’ young fella?” Rocky asked me, as he patted me on the head. So I was seething that night when Reagan delegates shouted down Nelson Rockefeller.

I spent much of the convention trying to sneak into areas I wasn’t supposed to be in. I got to sit right next to Ford’s kids on the final night, while I read my advance copy of the speeches which I had picked up in the press area. Anyway, the night Rocky was treated so poorly by all those nice Chreeest-yin folks, I exited through one of the restricted doors only to find Rocky himself sitting there outside the hall. He was by himself, a half bottle of Jose Cuervo sitting beside him, smoking a cigarette. He patted me on the head, motioned toward the bottle, and with a look of disbelief that a Rockefeller had been treated the way he had by Republicans(!), he grabbed the bottle away from me and told me to get the hell out of there. “Don’t walk, run. Don't look back. There’s nothing for you to see here.” I took him at his word. I got the hell out of there.

Not long after, Nelson Rockefeller was dead, and so was the liberal wing of the Republican party. I never looked back. I’ve never supported a Republican since. (OK, I wasn’t even a Republican back then, but if I had been, I would have never supported a Republican again.)

The Big Three: Missouri, Ohio, and Florida

No reason to pay any attention at all to national polling numbers this year. They mean nothing in an election to be decided by a few swing states. But what's a swing state and what isn't? The list keeps expanding and contracting. Washington, Oregon, and New Hampshire were on everyone's list at the beginning of the campaign, but all seem pretty safe for Kerry. On the other hand, Colorado and Arizona have moved from pretty safe for Bush into swing state territory.

Bottom line: you don't really need to keep track of all the swing states. The election will come down to three states: Missouri, Ohio, and Florida. Kerry needs one of the three to win; Bush needs a sweep.

Here's how the numbers work. Give Kerry every state that Gore won in 2000, plus New Hampshire, where Bush won by less than the number of Nader votes. Kerry has consistently led in New Hampshire and all the Gore states so far, although there is no doubt that some, like Wisconsin and Iowa, are very close. Those states will give Kerry 264 electoral votes, six short of election.

Bush starts with a base of 151 solid red-state electoral votes. He has to win a number of states that he took in 2000 that remain close at this point in the campaign: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. This looks like a tall order inasmuch as the candidates appear to be deadlocked in all of these states except for North Carolina, where Bush holds a clear but narrow lead. But so long as the current dynamic of the campaign remains intact, it's hard to see Bush losing any of these states. That would give Bush 216 electoral votes.

And that brings us to Missouri, Ohio, and Florida. If Bush takes them all, he gets past 270. If Kerry wins one, he goes over the top. In Ohio, Bush seems to be leading, and is pushing the margin of error. In Missouri, the two candidates have been practically deadlocked throughout the summer. In Florida, same thing. Neither candidate has had a lead outside the margin of error in any trial heat.

Now to alternate scenarios. Two of the Democratic swing states that Bush has the best chance to win in are Iowa and Wisconsin. If he takes those two states, he almost surely would also win Missouri. If Bush won these two states in addition to Missouri, Ohio wouldn't matter, but Bush would need Florida to win the election.

Or perhaps Bush comes back to win Pennsylvania. If he did that, he almost surely would also win Ohio. In this scenario, Missouri wouldn't matter, but Bush would still need Florida.

As for Kerry, if he were to pull off a "Western Swing" and win either Arizona or Colorado, the election could be over even if he didn't win any of the Big Three. Or if Kerry could pull off an upset in Arkansas or Tennessee, he wins without the Big Three.

And then there is the deadlock scenario. Give Bush all of the Big Three, but give Kerry either Nevada or West Virginia's five electoral votes. The result: 269-269.

A tie would throw the contest into the newly elected House of Representatives on January 5. Each state delegation gets one vote. Currently, Republicans control 30 state delegations, Democrats 16, and four are tied. The makeup of the new House will likely not change much, so a tie favors Bush.

Check out the LA Times interactive electoral college feature and play with your own scenarios.

Check out swing state polling at www.realclearpolitics.com and www.electoral-vote.com. The Wall Street Journal (subscribers only) and Newsweek have swing state features using various polling results.


MOST RECENT BIG THREE POLLS:
Florida:
Kerry 47
Bush 49
Nader 2
Und 2
(Aug. 24, 500 likely voters, margin of error +/- 4%)
www.Rasmussenreports.com

Missouri:
Kerry 44
Bush 46
other 1
Und 9
(Aug. 24, 580 registered voters, moe +/-4%)
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/timespoll/la-na-poll27aug27,1,1350122.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Ohio:
Kerry 44
Bush 49
other 1
Und 6
(Aug. 24, 507 registered votes, moe +/-4%)
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/timespoll/la-na-poll27aug27,1,1350122.story?coll=la-home-headlines

News flash: Latest Swift Boat Vets ad claims Bush the real hero

Perhaps clearing up nagging questions surrounding George W. Bush's Vietnam-era service, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's latest barrage of ads claims that, far from being AWOL in the Alabama National Guard, the president was actually a special forces operative who piloted Navy swift boats up the Hong Na River on top-secret missions at the behest of his father, George H.W. Bush, who was then Director of the CIA.

"Over the years, many Americans have seen the movie, Apocalypse Now," intones the narrator. "In 1971, George W. Bush lived it."

The ad then features retired Admiral Roy Hoffman, saying:

"Nobody could believe their eyes. Here was this pimply faced kid who not only went to Yale, but had been a cheerleader at Yale. A male cheerleader. OK? And he was piloting that swift boat past nests of snipers, bullets snapping into the boat's hull, zig-zagging to avoid mines, and diving into the snake infested river to save several of his fellow soldiers, one of them a tall gangly fella with a humongous jaw who we thought was French. Some said he must have been drunk to have piloted that boat up the river into the heart of darkness that day. But I said then, and I'll say now, 'Cheerleader, my ass.'"

News flash: New Swift Boat Vets ad claims Kerry wasn't even in Vietnam!

Emboldened by the success of their first barrage of ads questioning John Kerry's combat record in Vietnam, the Swift Boat Veterans Against John Kerry today unveiled their newest ad, which claims that John Kerry never served in Vietnam at all.

The ad quotes a "high-ranking" senior Bush administration official (shown concealed in silhouette) who claims that while he was stationed with the Alabama National Guard, he remembers "a tall gangly fella that I recognized from a secret society I belonged to at Yale. He had this humongous jaw and liked to speak French, and I would run into him when we'd come to the base to sign the attendance sheet. We'd give each other a wink, and then we'd get outta there before anybody else saw us."

It doesn't matter that the attacks on Kerry's war record are false, it makes for a damn good story

Even so-called objective reporters treat stories like the Republican attack on Kerry's war record not as something factual to be gotten to the bottom of, but as a "controversy" that merely requires equal time be given to both sides. So even though the facts strongly support Kerry's version of events, that's not the overall impression one gets from following the story in objective news organizations.

Many of these same media outlets have actually done some investigative reporting (see yesterday's post) that strongly support Kerry's version of events, but yet refuse to label the GOP Swift Boat Veterans claims as false. In Tuesday's Chicago Tribune, for example, the lead story was about Bush's (weak) denunciation of all 527 group-sponsored ads. There was not a single evaluative comment on the truth or falsity of the claims against Kerry. Only buried in an accompanying news analysis piece emphasizing that both candidates may have overplayed the Vietnam issue do we finally get this telling comment:

"For now, though, the president's backers have dominated the conversation, and it might not matter who is ultimately correct, even if the facts as are known today seem to heavily favor Kerry's version of events."

So much for journalists shedding light on the truth.

And while the so-called objective journalists obscure the truth, the conservative media echo-chamber at Fox News and on talk radio have no pretensions to objectivity, so for them, it's all Swift Boat Vets Against Kerry All the Time, as the following New York Times article details:

On Cable, a Fog of Words About Kerry's War Record
August 24, 2004
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

There is the fog of war and then there is the fog of cable.

Over the last few weeks, 24-hour news networks have done
little to find out what John Kerry did in Vietnam, but they
have provided a different kind of public service: their
examination of his war record in Vietnam illustrates once
again just how perfunctory and confusing cable news
coverage can be. Facts, half-truths and passionately
tendentious opinions get tumbled together on screen like
laundry in an industrial dryer - without the softeners of
fact-checking or reflection.

Somehow, on all-cable news stations - CNN as well as Fox
News - a story that rises or falls on basic and mostly
verifiable facts blurs into just another developing news
sensation alongside the latest Utah kidnapping or the Scott
Peterson murder trial. (It is particularly confusing on Fox
News, where so many of its blond female anchors look like
Amber Frey.)

Fox News, which delivers its news with "Fight Club"
ferocity, has relished the controversy the most, seizing
hungrily on charges that Mr. Kerry lied to gain his medals.
Those accusations, which have not been substantiated, were
made in the book "Unfit for Command," co-written by a
former Swift boat commander and longtime Kerry critic, John
O'Neill. Fox News has pushed the story early, often, and
sometimes even late.

Yesterday, President Bush denounced all third-party
campaign ads, including the ads by a group called Swift
Boat Veterans for Truth, and called his opponent's war
record admirable. Fox anchors made note of that
development, then raced back to the disparaging remarks
former Senator Bob Dole made to CNN on Sunday about Mr.
Kerry's Purple Heart medals. ("Never bled that I know of,"
said Mr. Dole, who was badly wounded in World War II.)
Fox News showed, again, a clip of Mr. Dole complaining that
it was hypocritical of Kerry, a former opponent of the war,
to run now as a proud Vietnam veteran. The Fox anchor
Laurie Dhue then turned to her liberal guest, Elaine
Kamarck, a former Gore campaign adviser.

"I mean, this does make it sound like he speaks from both
sides of his mouth on this," Ms. Dhue said. "Could this
hurt the Kerry campaign?"

Ms. Kamarck disagreed.

Fred Barnes, the executive editor of The Weekly Standard
and a regular Fox commentator, ardently defended the Swift
boat critics of Mr. Kerry, saying on Fox that a majority of
the senator's Vietnam brethren believed that Mr. Kerry
"fabricated or exaggerated his record." Mr. Barnes added
that "the entire chain of command above Kerry have said the
same thing." He did not mention any notable exceptions in
that chain of command, including Senator John W. Warner,
Republican of Virginia, a former secretary of the Navy who
said Mr. Kerry fully merited the Silver Star. Mr. Barnes's
hyperbole went unchecked.

CNN showed less relish over the Swift boat clash, but it
was not much more helpful in separating fact from friction.
Wolf Blitzer's interview with the tart-tongued Mr. Dole
made a lot of news on Sunday, but CNN allowed him to make
misleading assertions without pointing out where he was in
error. Mr. Dole suggested that Mr. Kerry was in a rush to
obtain his Purple Hearts to meet a regulation that allowed
soldiers to leave the war zone after winning three. "I
mean, the first one, whether he ought to have a Purple
Heart - he got two in one day, I think. And he was out of
there in less than four months, because three Purple Hearts
and you're out." ( Mr. Kerry did not receive two Purple
Hearts for events of the same day. He received them for the
events of Dec. 2, 1968; Feb. 20, 1969; and March 13, 1969.)

Finally, yesterday afternoon, Mr. Blitzer spoke to Mr. Dole
by telephone and asked him if he regretted any of his
statements. Mr. Dole said he did not.

"I wasn't trying to be mean-spirited," Mr. Dole said. "I
was just trying to say all these guys on the other side
just can't be Republican liars."

That kind of air-kiss coverage is typical of cable news,
where the premium is on speed and spirited banter rather
than painstaking accuracy. But it has grown into a lazy
habit: anchors do not referee - they act as if their
reportage is fair and accurate as long as they have two
opposing spokesmen on any issue.

Fox commentators like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are
famous for their informal, intemperate manner of speech.
But the debate on programs like "Crossfire," on CNN, is
often as heated - and as full of hot air. On an Aug. 12
edition about the Swift boat debate, a program regular,
Robert Novak, the conservative columnist, called Mr.
O'Neill and his fellow anti-Kerry veterans "the real
patriots to rise to the surface this election year."
James Carville, Mr. Novak's liberal counterpart, challenged
Mr. O'Neill's co-author, Jerome Corsi, charging that Mr.
Corsi's blog is "scabrous." When Mr. O'Neill tried to
change the subject, Mr. Carville shrieked at him.

At best, cable news programs swing into action when a
crisis or major news development occurs, marshaling their
resources to give viewers instant, live access. At their
worst, they amplify the loudest voices and blur
complexities. People can blame the confusion of combat for
some of the discrepancies over Mr. Kerry's war record, but
cable has done little to clear the air.

Bush's Scurrilous Campaign

Lacking the "vision thing," the Bushes have always been down and dirty, nasty campaigners, because the only way to win an election without your own agenda is to thoroughly trash your opponent. Bush Senior famously did that to Michael Dukakis in 1988 by claiming Dukakis was a ridiculous, dangerous liberal who let convicted murderers and rapists out of prison so they could murder and rape again.

Those Willie Horton ads were not official Bush Sr. campaign ads, but they nonetheless were just as coordinated with the campaign as are the Swift Boat ads with the current Bush campaign. (I know the campaign finance laws, thank you. And just because we don't have official coordination – that would be illegal! – doesn't mean we don't have it with a wink and a nod.)

Dubya himself spent a lot of time in 2000 trying to tar Gore with the liberal brush and benefited from the concocted storyline that Gore was some kind of serial exaggerator, a story made from whole cloth and amplified by the conservative commentary echo chamber until it became something like convention wisdom. In the 2000 primaries, Bush attacked John McCain's war record, which is why McCain is always gritting his teeth like he's just taken a giant spoonful of castor oil whenever he says anything about Bush.

So now we have the Bush campaign – let's just call it the extended Bush campaign to acknowledge that the Swift Boat ads are not directly paid for by the official Bush campaign – trying to knock holes in Kerry's Vietnam record on the basis of ZERO EVIDENCE, but on the basis of statements made by people who have hated Kerry for years for his opposition to the war once he returned home.

Read for yourself the pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune. Curiously, nothing yet in the Wall Street Journal trying to get to the truth of the matter.

Here's the politics behind it all: As long as the Bush campaign doesn't explicitly renounce the attack ads, the impression is left that there is some truth to them, because the so-called liberal media, following its ideology of objectivity, generally refuses to take sides.

Case in point is today's Wall Street Journal headline, "Kerry Moves to Contain Damage From Attacks on His War Record." It doesn't say "False Attacks," just "Attacks." Today's Chicago Tribune, which in other pieces has indeed written of the falsity of the claims, nonetheless reports on the political story with this headline: "Sniping escalates on war service." All of this leaves the impression that the ads attacking Kerry's record are not false; that it's just a "he said/he said" kind of an issue and that's what we get from our "objective" so-called liberal media.

Kerry has fired back with a new ad, that you can view here.

Let's keep Keyes under 30%!

Latest Trib poll: Obama 65%, Keyes 24%, undecided 12%.

Why W doesn't listen to his old man

"Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible.... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq.... There was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
- George H. W. Bush, A World Transformed

Correction: Keyes not completely insane; he's a smelly toad

OK, so Keyes was talking about O'Hare expansion -- a big issue for Illinois of which he knows absolutely nothing -- but he could have been talking about himself:

"It's a little bit like you're standing in a room, and off in the corner of the room there is a deeply smelly toad that is filling the room with a nasty odor," he said. "And everybody's holding their cocktails, and they're wearing their ties and they're fastidiously not talking about the smelly toad. But the room is filled with the stink of it."

The quote is weird enough, but you should have seen it on video. Right before he said "smelly toad," he bulged out his eyes and said it with exaggerated disgust. It was truly scary.

Did I mention before that Alan Keyes is completely insane?

Right after 9/11, Jerry Falwell claimed – more or less in agreement with the terrorists themselves – that God visited the murderous terrorist attack upon us because of our own moral depravity.

You remember the quote, delivered on The 700 Club with Pat Robertson sitting right beside him, head bobbling in agreement and grinning that kooky grin of his? Here it is:

"I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians ... the A.C.L.U., People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen."

Falwell apologized, but blamed the outraged liberal media for taking his quote "out of context," even though that was the entire quote. Here are some possible contexts brought to you by the liberals at alternet.org that perhaps the liberal media failed to take into account. Placing each possible context before or after Falwell's quote makes it much more understandable:

1. "...NOT."
2. "You know, I'm really high right now, so this may not make any sense, but..."
3. "Keeping in mind that today is Opposites Day, I emphasize that..."
4. "My son showed me this cool thing on Alta Vista, where you type something in English and then have the computer translate it into French and then into Spanish and then into German and then back to English-it's kinda like 'Telephone,' you know?-and something that made sense at the beginning will come out sounding like..."
5. "If an infinite number of monkeys typed on an infinite number of typewriters, one of them would write..."
6. "I want to take a break from the grim events of this week, and salute the brave people who've spent years making America a better and more tolerant place. Who's done this, who's helped this happen? Well, I'll tell you: ..."
7. "An insane man off camera is pointing a gun at my head and forcing me to read this statement. Quote,..."
8. "Please join me in praying that, in the wake of this horrific tragedy, Christ's message of peace will prevail, our entire country can unite in compassion, not aggression, and that no misguided person will state..."
9. "I truly believe that if Osama bin Laden had been born in America, right now he'd be saying..."

But I digress.
Alan Keyes, Illinois Republican candidate for U.S. Senate is still making this argument!

In a May 2004 speech, Keyes said:

"Now, you think it's a coincidence that on Sept. 11th, 2001, we were struck by terrorists an evil that has at its heart the disregard of innocent human life? We who have for several decades killed not thousands but scores of millions of our own children, in disregard of the principle of innocent human life -- I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a warning. I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a shot across the bow.

"I think that's a way of Providence telling us, "I love you all; I'd like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?"

Keyes refused to apologize for these remarks, thereby establishing himself as to the right of Jerry Falwell, telling Chicago Sun-Times reporters yesterday:

"What distinguishes the terrorist from the ordinary warrior, is that the terrorist will consciously target innocent human life. What is done in the course of an abortion? . . . Someone consciously targets innocent human life. "As I often point out to folks, the evil is the same. And that means, quite frankly, in fighting the war against terror, as I have often put it to audiences, the evil that we fight is but the shadow of the evil that we do."

That's Alan Keyes, folks, Conservative Nut-Job For Senate From Illinois, er, Maryland …wherever. Vote Republican!

Bushonomics: According to the CBO

August 13, 2004
Report Finds Tax Cuts Heavily Favor the Wealthy
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 - Fully one-third of President Bush's tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday.

The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, while households in the middle 20 percent of earnings - averaging about $57,000 a year - were getting an average cut of only $1,090.

The new estimates confirm what independent tax analysts have long said: that Mr. Bush's tax cuts have been heavily skewed to the very wealthiest taxpayers. Those are also the people, however, who pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes...

William G. Gale, a longtime tax analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the new Congressional report was consistent with his own calculations on the distribution of benefits from Mr. Bush's tax cuts.

"It's not just that lower-income people are getting smaller benefits,'' Dr. Gale said. "It's also that these tax cuts will eventually have to be paid for with either spending cuts or tax increases, and those are likely to be less progressive than the taxes they are paying now.''

Link to CBO Report.

Bushonomics: In His Own Words

WHITE HOUSE WATCH: Bush's New Views On Taxes, Deficit
By ALEX KETOAugust 9, 2004 4:48 p.m.
A Dow Jones Newswires Analysis

WASHINGTON -- In an unscripted exchange with supporters during a campaign stop, President George W. Bush Monday offered new, and at times contradictory, views on taxes and the deficit.

Among the points he made while visiting Annadale, Va., was that the "real rich" don't pay their fair share of taxes anyway, and that the tax cuts he pushed through Congress have helped worsen the budget deficit.

Despite the comments, Bush remained committed to his overall campaign message that his tax cuts should be made permanent, and said letting the tax cuts expire would harm the economy. Nevertheless, the president's remarks likely caused his political handlers to cringe.

In his most remarkable points, Bush argued that if Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry wins the election, small businessmen and women will bear the brunt of any tax hikes he institutes.

"Just remember, when you're talking about, oh, we're just going to run up the taxes on a certain number of people - first of all, real rich people figure out how to dodge taxes," Bush said.

"And the small business owners end up paying a lot of the burden of this taxation," he added.
Kerry has said he wants to raise taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 a year as a way to increase government revenues and to bring the deficit back under control.

Bush has said his top-end tax cuts were primarily aimed at helping small businesses retain more of their profits, but statistics don't bear him out on this claim. This is because only a small number of small businesses ever earn more than $200,000 a year.

In addition to arguing the wealthy are dodging their fair share of the tax burden, Bush also said he simply has something against the idea of boosting taxes for the wealthy.

"I want to make another point. We shouldn't be taking more than 35% of anybody's money, anyway," Bush said.

The president did reiterate his core argument that when he pushed for tax cuts, he wanted to see everyone who pays taxes get relief.

"When we provided tax relief, we said, if you pay taxes, you get relief. That's not the way sometimes tax relief works in Washington. Sometimes it's, we're going to make sure only certain people get tax relief. If you're going to provide relief, it's only fair that everybody ought to get relief. That's why we reduced all rates, which seems to make sense," Bush said.

The president also said for the first time that the tax cuts he pushed through Congress helped deepen the deficits before, a few minutes later, arguing the tax cuts actually boosted government revenues.

In talking about the deficit, Bush cited the usual suspects blaming the shortfall in federal revenues both on the recession that hit during his first year in office and the cost of fighting the war on terrorism.

"Thirdly, part of the reason we have this deficit is because I believed in order to get the economy moving forward, there should be tax relief," Bush said. "And it's working."

While many economists have argued the president's first and second round of tax cuts were well timed for optimal effect, the president wasn't satisfied to leave the matter alone.

In a minute or two later, Bush reversed course and said that far from deepening the deficit, his tax cuts have resulted in an increase in federal revenues.

"The tax relief helped us generate more revenues," Bush said. As proof of this, Bush said the latest budget forecasts from the Office of Management and Budget predict the fiscal year 2004 budget deficit will be only $445 billion, down from the February estimate of $521 billion.

Certainly there's a train of economic thought that argues if you lower taxes, you ultimately achieve higher government revenues due to increased economic activity. However, there is no economic argument that states lower taxes can both reduce and raise government revenues at the same time.

As far as the deficit goes, Bush said he was optimistic if only because the economy is growing once again.

-By Alex Keto, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256; Alex.Keto@Dowjones.com

Bush sucker punch photo

Jim Sleeper in the LA Times on W's character and its frat-boy appeal:

"I am looking at a photo of the George W. Bush that you've probably never seen before. It's a sports-action close-up of him at Yale, over a caption written prophetically by a fellow undergraduate more than 30 years ago: "George Bush delivers illegal, but gratifying right hook to opposing ball carrier...

"Being that kind of bad boy may be OK if you're cutting a history class or smirking behind your hand at some radical grad student leading your discussion section — but not when you're staging a commander in chief's flight-deck landing or a Thanksgiving Day pop-up in Baghdad."

Bush's choice for CIA chief

From Altercations:

As David Sirota of the Center for American Progress notes, there are plenty of reasons this Goss nomination could turnout to boomerang into Bush’s face.

Among them are these:

Goss Blocked Efforts to Investigate Abu Ghraib
As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Goss led a party-line vote to reject an amendment that would have "Increased oversight and investigated alleged prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib." [Congressional Quarterly, 6/17/04]

Goss Blocked Efforts to Investigate Ahmen Chalabi
As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Goss led a party-line vote to reject an amendment that would have authorized an investigation into "U.S. dealings with Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi." Even after allegations that Chalabi has leaked U.S. military secrets to Iran, Goss said, "I would say that the oversight has worked well in matters relating to Mr. Chalabi." (Congressional Quarterly, 6/17/04)

Alan Keyes is completely insane

From my friend Trilbe:

I spent this evening doing some research on the Illinois' new Republican US Senate Candidate, Alan Keyes. And, let me tell you, I read some real GEMS online. Like, about how Alan Keyes had to resign from his foreign service post with the Reagan Administration because his colleagues felt that he was too outspokenly SUPPORTIVE of Apartheid in South Africa. Dude, what!?! When the REAGAN ADMINISTRATION thinks you're being too supportive of Apartheid in South Africa at that point you, seriously, do not like Black people! I mean, how is that even possible?
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Apparently, there's this whole "gay conspiracy" out there. And they have a big, gay plan to take over the world! And hate crimes laws are all part of their sneaky plan to make people be nice to homosexuals. Why haven't my gay friends told me about this clever scheme? I, for one, would like to help them! - T

Alan Keyes, WorldNetDaily "The trouble with ‘hate crimes’" Oct 16, 1998
"The whole push with respect to hate crimes legislation is an effort to create a body of law that allows the government to coerce opinions, and to punish people because of their opinions. In this particular case, the opinion that is going to be punished is the opinion that homosexuality is immoral and against the laws of God. That opinion is now going to become a crime. And this whole push with respect to hate crimes is an effort to establish that agenda. "
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Forget about expensive drugs, plentiful medical facilities and widely available condoms. The only thing preventing the United States from being as crippled by AIDS, as is the continent of Africa, is "the moral education of our children." - T

From Christopher A. Szechenyi, Boston Globe Jul 25, 2000 :
Keyes blasted as immoral a Massachusetts education program that teaches tolerance for homosexuality. [But] Keyes declared that he does not harbor ill will toward gays and lesbians.

"I am not standing here today because I hate anyone," Keyes said. "I am standing here today because of the most fundamental love society depends on -- the love of parents for their children."

Keyes went on to invoke the Constitution and his own Christian religious beliefs to condemn state-sponsored programs such as the Safe Schools [program, in which teachers] spoke graphically with students about a variety of sex-related issues.

Keyes warned the crowd, which interrupted him several times with loud applause, about how AIDS is sweeping Africa and could do so here -- if the state continues to interfere in what he called "the moral education of our children."
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Oh, speaking of the AIDS crisis and Africa, we should just let them all die. Alan says that the disease is incurable and that money does not equal compassion. You should realize that! - T

Alan Keyes, GOP Debate in Michigan Jan 10, 2000:
Q: Should we appropriate $300 million out of the surplus to help fight AIDS in Africa?
Alan: The premise of your question [is that we] measure compassion is by how much money we’re going to throw at some problem, regardless of whether the problem is susceptible to being dealt with by all the money. After all, asking whether we should spend $300 million to cure an incurable disease is kind of an academic point, and you should realize that.
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Oh, NOW I see why we should let them die. This next quote explains his point a bit better. They have a disease because they're evil. This so-called "medical crisis" they're having is all just a result of their sick, evil ways. In this case then, instead of just passively letting them die, when the army is done in Iraq maybe we should invade disease-stricken Africa and just kill them all. - T

Alan Keyes, GOP Debate in Michigan Jan 10, 2000
On spending US funds to fight AIDS:
"The spread of that disease is rooted in what? Is rooted in a moral crisis. Is rooted in a pattern of behavior that spreads that death because of a kind of licentiousness, right here in our own country and around the world. This whole discussion is based on a premise that reveals the corruption of our thought. Money cannot solve every problem. Sometimes we need to look at the moral root of that problem and have the guts to deal with it."
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Time to change the topic. I think he's saying here that gay people go to bed gay and then wake up straight, or vice versa. In the second paragraph, actually, I think he's saying that gay people go to bed gay and wake up pedophiles. I like this quote, though, because he lets us inside the Mind of Alan Keyes. He tells us how he goes to bed Black and then wakes up still Black in the morning. This may be significant because, judging by his stance on Apartheid, he prays and prays all night to wake up white. Alas, poor Alan, it hasn't worked yet. - T

Alan Keyes, Our Character, Our Future, p. 18-9 May 2, 1996
"People tell us that for purposes of discrimination, sexual orientation--or, more accurately, sexual behavior--must be treated like race. Is that at all legitimate? When I got up this morning I was a black guy. When I go to bed tonight, I will still be a black guy. If we are going to say that sexual orientation is to be treated like race, then we’re saying that sexual orientation--read, behavior--is like race, a condition beyond the individual’s control.

"If we accept this kind of reasoning, why should we expect to draw the line at sexual passion? If we’re going to have special legal protections for homosexuals, shouldn’t everybody else’s uncontrollable sexual orientations be protected? Shouldn’t adulterers, pedophiles, rapists, and other sorts of sexual aberrants be eligible for the same benefits? If we were to accept this convoluted logic we would be left with the concept of a human person which accepts strict external regimentation: we are basically people out of control."
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According to Alan, our "true heritage" as Black Americans is slavery not Africa. Oh, I see. Oppressive, slave-owning psychos are at the root of our heritage and our identity as Black Americans. Well, that makes sense. How ridiculous of me to think that our group identity would come from within the group! I would email this to may dad, but I think he would actually have a heart attack if he read statements from a Black guy saying this. As an added bonus Alan also points out that the only reason that Black people are interested in Africa is because we're all ashamed of slavery. - T

Alan Keyes, Our Character, Our Future, p. 41 May 2, 1996
"Too many black Americans look to Africa to find a basis for their identity because they cannot find it in themselves to claim their true heritage with pride. They are ashamed of their slave ancestry, all the ordinary folk who simply lived as best they could under the yoke. They apparently haven’t yet realized that the survival of black people in America, through slavery, racist assaults, and economic deprivation, is one of the greatest sagas of the human spirit the world has ever seen.

When will we stop looking for glorious empires along the Niger or the Nile, and begin to truly appreciate the more lasting monument of values, endurance, and faith that black Americans built along the Potomac and the Mississippi? That moral legacy, not race or skin color or any other material thing, is the strong foundation of the black American identity. Isn’t it time we began to reclaim and build upon it?"
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Alls I'm saying is that you have to be pretty bad to make me like George W. Bush more than I like you. Especially since I'm a Catholic who is pretty sure that W is the anti-Christ. But the following exchange actually makes me think that George W. Bush is slightly less of a jackass than Alan Keyes. - T

GOP Debate in Johnston, Iowa Jan 16, 2000
KEYES [to Bush]: [A Texas town] passed an ordinance saying that all business is to be conducted in the Spanish language. A lot of us look at that sort of thing as an assault on our linguistic unity that is dangerous to the future union of this country. What action do you plan to take to show the people that you stand for one nation, one language rather than a nation linguistically divided?
BUSH: No es la verdad.
KEYES: Es la verdad, senor.
BUSH: One, I expressed concern about it--I don’t want this town’s business being conducted in Spanish, it ought to be conducted in English. Secondly, I’ve talked to [Texas’] attorney general to make sure that this town was conforming to all the laws of Texas. I’m for what’s called English Plus. English is the great language that provides freedom and opportunity. Plus we respect other people’s heritage in this country.
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Maybe his Senate campaign slogan should be, "Alan Keyes: He likes to scare little children." Dude, this psycho just goes into a fifth grade class and tells them that their government wants to "bash their heads against the floor"? What an ODD choice for US Senate candidate, don't you think? - T

Boston Globe, p. A27 Jan 28, 2000
[Keyes offered] a civics lesson to fifth graders at a NH school today. "If I were to lose my mind right now and pick one of you up and bash your head against the floor and kill you, would that be right?"
A chorus of "No."
"It’s wrong to kill children, isn’t it? At what age is it right to kill children? Think it was OK to kill you when you were 6?," Keyes asked one child. The child shook his head no.
"Think it was OK to kill you when you were 6 months? You sure? Because we live in a country right now where according to some of our courts and some of our politicians, it is OK," Keyes said.
"Our rights come from God. We human beings don’t have the right to take away that right from any human being, including the human beings who haven’t quite got here yet. Because we have denied freedom to children in the womb who haven’t yet gotten to this world, freedom will be denied to you and to your brothers and sisters and to your children."
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I like this one for a couple of reasons. First of all, I love that he thinks that seeing porn on the internet can "destroy our children's lives and souls." I mean, if seeing some naked boobs is THAT dangerous to our youth, maybe we out to look into passing some legislation against breast feeding. I also like the fact that he proudly states that his children do not have the right to freedom of speech. I imagine that's to prevent them from saying something like, "My dad is a freakin' nutjob." - T

Alan Keyes, GOP Debate in Michigan Jan 10, 2000
Q: In free-speech terms, do people have the right under the First Amendment [to view anything on the Internet, or] should they be kept from that right on these computers?
Alan: I don’t think it’s a free speech issue. It’s an issue of public decency. Anyplace you let our children into ought to be subject to standards of public decency that make it clear that they are not going to be polluted with garbage. Don’t use the First Amendment as some excuse to destroy our children’s lives and souls. It doesn’t have to be -- it’d be easy as pie to put a few computers off in a room you don’t let children in and let adults have access to them? You can solve the problems if you want to. The libraries right now are egregiously ignoring their responsibility to our kids, trying to claim free speech rights. I’ve got to tell you something. My kids don’t have the right to free speech. And they don’t need to have it until they grow older.
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This quote, on the surface, isn't really all that bad. Except that you and I both know that he means, "We need more white people moving into the US, from acceptable countries, and fewer damn Mexicans." - T

Alan Keyes, 1996 National Political Awareness Test, Project Vote Smart Jul 2, 1996
"Legal immigration should be maintained or expanded; illegal immigration should be curtailed. No national identity card."
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He thinks that the reason we have violence in schools is because we have sex-ed programs teaching children to use condoms. He thinks that instead of that dangerous practice, we should have programs in the high schools that will, instead, teach kids something safe and wholesome, like how to use GUNS. I will admit that the kids do seem to have a problem with accuracy. Those boys at Columbine really shot the place up, but they only killed, what, a couple dozen other kids. Alan Keyes program could help correct that. With the proper training those kids could, maybe, have taken out a whole grade level! - T

Alan Keyes, Our Character, Our Future, p. 33-5 May 2, 1996
"The problem [causing crime and violence] is control all right, but it’s self-control not gun control. External violence is the symptom and consequence of internal lawlessness and self-indulgence. I wonder if [liberals] understand the intimate connection between violence on the streets and violence against unborn children?

"Crime and violence aren’t just social facts--they are moral realities. Moral problems can’t be addressed with external solutions such as gun control or condom distribution. They need internal remedies. Though we shy away from the subject these days, most decent people know in their hearts that the only solution to these moral problems is moral education. The basic principle of all moral education is respect for our moral faculty, i.e., the human capacity to act rationally, to discipline passion in order to prevent immoral consequences. Lawless ideas have lawless consequences."
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Boston Globe, p. A23 Dec 17, 1999
Speaking at the Gun Owners of New Hampshire’s presidential forum, Keyes’ proposal that high school students be taught how to use guns went over well.
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Alan Keyes, WorldNetDaily "Standing on principle" May 14, 1999
"The premise of the gun control agenda is that people can’t control things, but that things control people. At the root of the gun control agenda, as with the sex education agenda and so many other liberal agendas, is a denial of our moral nature. And that denial of our moral nature rests ultimately on a denial of the existence of God and of a relationship between God and human things. So the gun control agenda is a natural outcome of the agenda of godless materialism."
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I really like these last two quotes in relation to each other. Because first he's all about how giving special attention to minorities is patronizing and how that it's harmful to them. But then, on the other hand, he's all about how Black males need "special attention" and how "Liberal policies" are not giving it to them. So, to paraphrase, a system that acknowledges the problems of a certain group and tries to level the playing field a bit is bad. But a system that acknowledges the problems of a certain group and tries to segregate them away from the general population is good. What a jackass! - T

Alan Keyes, www.keyes2000.org/issues/affirmativeaction.html 1/6/99 Jan 6, 1999
Preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country. It is merely another government patronage program that secures money and jobs for the few people who benefit from it, and breeds resentment in the many who do not. It divides us as a people.

Alan Keyes, Our Character, Our Future, p. 63-5 May 2, 1996
"The Detroit school system wanted to try the idea of all-male academies, aimed especially at young black males. A District Judge decided that this would discriminate against the city’s young females and struck down the idea. The judge should have shown some respect for the judgment of the people who live with the daily life-and-death crisis [of urban life].
Inner-city black males need special help and attention. Is it better to give it to them in all-male schools, or in the all-male prisons they now populate in disproportionate numbers?
[Liberals] supported the creation of a welfare state that helped to destroy the social infrastructure of the black community. Not they want to quash community-based efforts to correct their disastrous handiwork. This is wrong, stupid, and unfair. In Detroit and elsewhere, the dogmatic liberal judges and ideologues should get out of the way and let communities seek answers to their problems. Let the people go."

View Will Ferrell Bush Ad

Check out this ad starring Will Ferrell.

A big "Thank You" to Illinois Republican leaders

It was hard to believe but there he was, sweating profusely, eyes bulging, a man whose unpleasantness I thought I would never have to encounter again after the 2000 Republican primaries where his presence served to make his fellow candidates look like raving moderates -- and that's hard to do.

Yes, it was Alan Keyes, he of the santimonious wing of the "Creestyin" fundamentalist faction of the extreme right wing of the Republican party. A man whose views and rhetoric have never been moderated by the possibility of winning an election. A man who will now be allowed to blather publicly throughout the state of Illinois because of the breathtaking incompetence of the state Republican party.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would think that so-called moderate Illinois Republican leaders are getting kickbacks from the well-financed Obama campaign to help put him in office. After all, Obama is such an attractive candidate that the state GOP could be forgiven for trying to bask in his glow. They should have simply given Obama the GOP nomination so he could be elected by acclaimation!

So here is the whole ridiculous chain of events:

First, "state Republican leaders" were highly insulted to find out that the candidate actually selected in the Republican primary by the voters, Jack Ryan, had lied to them by telling them before the primary that there was nothing juicy in his sealed divorce papers.

So, that was a lie. But big deal, the guy wanted to act like an international playboy while he was married to "TV actress" Jeri Ryan, and she brought it up in the divorce proceedings. So you are a "state Republican leader" and you're pissed that he didn't give you the whole juicy story before the primary so you could determine whether it would play in Peoria.

So what do you do? You and your colleagues throw a collective hissy fit and jettison the guy from the race before you have any idea who would replace him on the ticket? In so doing, you elevate Obama to "shoo-in" status, thereby helping him get selected as the Keynote speaker of the Democratic National Convention, which elevates him to "superstar" status, thereby absolutely guaranteeing that no one -- repeat, no one -- will take your worthless nomination for the Senate.

So in your secret College of Cardinals selection process, you cede the nomination to the right-wing extremists of the party who haven't been able to win a Republican primary, much less a statewide race, because they decided to go out of state to shake the bushes for someone who would actually take a worthless nomination. And in a nation of nearly 300 million people, there was bound to be someone who would actually take the thing.

Enter Alan Keyes. A career speechifier who operates at the extremist margin of conservative circles only because of the color of his skin. He'll use the publicity generated from the campaign to re-energize his modest fund-raising base, which is what earns him his livelihood. He is not campaigning FOR the job; the campaign IS his job -- the job of publicizing Alan Keyes.

As for the race itself, if the Republicans had wanted to select a candidate that would turn the liberal-leaning Obama into a flaming moderate, thereby further burnishing his image as a national figure, there is no better choice than Alan Keyes.

B(log) O(f) T(he) D(ay)

OK, it's not really a blog, but Jonathan Alter, writing in this week's Newsweek:

Bush's Iraq policy is a textbook illustration of why the sword works best when it's sheathed. The mythical giant up in the hills loses his power when he lumbers down into daylight. Now the whole world knows that American military forces are stretched thin and not as infallible as advertised. The war on terror is known as "asymmetrical combat," where the weak—a few men with box cutters—can humiliate the strong. So old-fashioned definitions of power don't mean as much. As the 9/11 Commission reported, our new world requires a more resourceful approach, with fresh attitudes toward intelligence, diplomacy and international education as important as anything coming out of the Pentagon. This will demand an eye for complexity, not a line in the sand.

B(logs) O(f) T(he) D(ay): The Kerry Bounce

Maybe no one cares about this, but news media, whether it's the New York Times or Fox News, don't seem to understand how to interpret the post-convention polls, so here are some thoughtful takes -- all of which argue that Kerry comes out of the convention more favored in the polls than before the convention and that Kerry's current standing with the electorate spells big trouble for Bush in November.

See William Saleton in Slate and Ruy Teixeira in DonkeyRising for analyses of the polls themselves, and MediaMatters for America for a critique of how Fox News and the New York Times reported recent polls.

Also, see this piece in Slate for an explanation of how pollsters differentiate "likely voters" from registered voters.

The Bounce Beneath the Surface

Micky Kaus and his pal Adam Nagourney seem to be in agreement that the lack of a significant Kerry bounce from a very good convention is some kind of a setback for the Democratic ticket.

Well, it would have been if Kerry were at 35% in the polls with a huge slug of undecideds, which is a more typical scenario for a challenger.

Or if the networks had decided to cover the convention. The lack of network coverage of the convention not only depressed viewership, it sent an important signal to the public that the convention was not important.

Or if Kerry had waited until the convention to announce his running mate.

But if you look beneath the surface (candidate head-to-head questions), voter perceptions of Kerry appeared to improve markedly coming out of the convention. And those perceptions will help deepen the commitment of Kerry voters, tilt undecideds toward Kerry, and weaken the commitment of weak Bush voters. Keep in mind that undecideds almost always break in favor of the challenger.

Also, keep in mind that an incumbent who can’t get to 50% in the polls in a two-way race is an incumbent in trouble. A president whose reelect and job approval numbers are below 50% is in trouble.

Kerry leads in almost all national polls, although within the margin of error, and he is in better shape than Bush in state-by-state polls.

Hardly a reason for the Democrats to panic.