It Looks Like This (sorry, no ice cream) 

Two More Reasons to Vote For Bush

The headline spread across the top of my morning newspaper today read "U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq top 1000." Just below that was the story entitled "Record $422 billion deficit forecast." That's the record this man is running on.

How's That Plame Investigation Coming Along?

Back when the Valerie Plame scandal first broke, what, in July of last year, there was no way I figured that an "investigation" could continue until past our Presidential election this coming November. I guess I underestimated the ability of this administration to stonewall and of our national press to let a story languish and die.

The press seems to have all but abdicated its responsibility to represent those of us down here on the ground, to ask the questions we are not in position to ask and report on those things that affect our lives. Too many publications and networks and the overpaid haircuts working for them have adopted the attitude that if neither the party in power nor the leaders of the "opposition" party push for a story to be covered then there is no market for the story. So a story like this, which only involves questions of national security and probable malfeasance and criminal conduct by somebody working for the Vice-President is allowed to sink beneath the waves.

I get the sense that after the election, regardless of who wins, though particularly if Bush prevails, the "investigation" and the story will be placed permanently to rest.

Bush Love-Child Abortion

I have no way of knowing if any of this is true. At their hate-in last week at Madison Square Garden, Bush and the Republicans demonstrated that they have no sense of decency left. It's time to fight fire with fire. As much of this kind of crap I can find, I will post. You decide whether you want to believe it or not.

Existential Threats...then and now

Adam Gopnik, writing in the August 23 New Yorker with no apparent intended irony, says,

"How a great power at the apex of its influence, with no obvious rivals in sight - the British didn't want a rival navy, but were more or less content with a minor German empire - grew convinced that it was beset by an overwhelming existential danger is difficult for a contemporary American to understand, of course, but somehow that is what happened."

Having seen millions of my fellow citizens mislead to believe that an essentially rag-tag group of foreign terrorists threaten the very existence of our nation, it is not difficult at all to see how Great Britain, at the beginning of the last century, might feel that Germany posed an existential threat. What I find astonishing is that anybody could have missed the parallel.

MSNBC Promo

I was watching hurricane Frances coverage on MSNBC as I got a root canal this morning, when I was struck by one of their self-promos. While extolling themselves for their superb unbiased coverage, they showed footage of the US-staged 2003 toppling of the Saddam statue in a Baghdad square. That probably tells us all we need to know about the kind of coverage we can expect from MSNBC. Sadly, we can expect no better from most other media outlets.

Republicans Honoring Those Who Serve

I've been working on an item about the disingenuousness of the Republicans being so vocal about how they support our troops while being lead by a bunch of military service dodging chicken hawks who habitually question the records of those who did serve (McCain, Cleland, Kerry). Now I've come across this, which says it more succinctly than I would have, and has pictures.

via Atrios

May We Have "Terror" Back?

I know it's a little late for this and I'm probably tilting at windmills, but can we all go back to the time when intelligent people realized that the words terror and terrorism were not interchangeable? Terror cannot be defeated; it will always be with us. Terrorism, perhaps, can be eliminated. A world without terrorists and their acts will still have terror, though. Just saying.

Bush!!!

Decisive Leadership - Republican Style!

Dole Questions Kerry's Wounds.

It's interesting that Dole would do this. In what my be his final significant act as a public figure, he strips all the class from his legacy.

Update:

Now that I've read this, I realize there really wasn't that much class in that legacy in the first place.

Let the Big Dog Off the Porch

Bill Clinton was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight, responding reasonably and eloquently, but passionately, to Stewart's leading questions about the tone of the campaign the Republicans and their surrogates are running against Kerry, comparing it, as many others have, to the campaigns run against McCain in 2000 and Max Cleland in 2002. Clinton's main point was that when the nasties bring out their gutter attacks you have to respond point-by-point and show them up as the low life political scum they are.

The thing is, with his grasp of policy, his personal charm, and the way he manages to respond forcefully without appearing to actually be mad, Clinton is probably the best we have at countering the kind of campaign that is being run by Bush, Cheney, and all the other slithering little republican operatives. He can speak their language while remaning above them. I understand the reticence of the Kerry Campaign to let him loose upon the land. Clinton will always remain a polarizing figure. The way I see it, though, there is nobody out there that Clinton will offend who isn't already opposed to Kerry. There are a great many middle of the road voters, however, who will fondly remember the economic prosperity of the nineties and will respond to what Clinton has to offer. I think we have to take the leash off him.