Nightmare on Conservative Street

Following the revote in the Ukraine and the completion of the vote counting in Washington state, one has to wonder if a number of conservatives aren't getting a good night sleep these days.

It's not that they aren't sleeping well because they fear that Sen. John Kerry will be able to overturn the results in Ohio, rather they may not be sleeping well because of the fear that the day is coming where the mantra "count every vote and every vote counts" becomes an accepted standard in the United States.

Afterall, if the state of Washington and the country of Ukraine can work to make sure that the will of the voter is respected then that kind of view could spread to every state, county city and township in America. No longer will it be acceptable to stop counting before all votes are counted.

One can only imagine the nightmares conservatives have. One would be that it's November 2000 and the presidential election won't be settled until all the votes are counted. Deep down in most conservatives' hearts they know exactly what that means and one can only imagine the cold sweat that causes.

What Would the RIght Done to Gore?

Ever wondered what would have happened if Al Gore had been allowed to win the Presidential election in 2000? Afterall, only extremist challenge the fact that Al Gore got more votes nationally than George Bush. It was only through Jeb Bush's assistance in Florida that Bush was able to edge ahead by around 530 votes and "win" Florida's electoral votes, despite leaving nearly 180,000 votes uncounted.

What if those 180,000 votes were counted? GOPers point out that Bush would have won if the four county recount was allowed to continue, however that ignores the fact that Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis, who was overseeing the recount, would have allowed more of the 180,000 ignored votes to be counted. And the result according to the review - Gore wins.

Al Gore was the choice of Florida’s voters -- whether one counts hanging chads or dimpled chads. That was the core finding of the eight news organizations that conducted a review of disputed Florida ballots. By any chad measure, Gore won.

So Gore won. What would the Right have done next? One only needs to look to Ukraine where the "winning" side apparently is pulling a page out of the Right's 2000 playbook. For those who forgot, GOP congressional aides staged a fake riot in Florida in order to stop the recount Miami Dade County.

Seeing how well that worked, in a story in the Washington Post, Ukraine Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych said that he would not accept a victory by his opponent in the Dec. 26 rerun of Ukraine's contested presidential race and that his supporters were likely to turn out into the streets en masse to block such an outcome.

"Even if Mr. Yushchenko wins, he will never be a president of Ukraine," Yanukovych said in a 45-minute interview at his campaign headquarters in Kiev. "The people who voted for me, they will never recognize him. They are talking about it even now."

Yep, that's what conservatives would have done in America. Right and wrong were, and are, never important to conservatives, only winning. They would have fought tooth and nail to capture what they didn't win, despite the harm it would have done to the country they allegedly love.

So were the Democrats right not to fight? While it may have protected America in the short term, in the long term it may allowed 9/11 to occur, it allowed Bush to turn the world against us, and it pushed the country financial chaos. So in an attempt to be "good Americans," Democrats allowed great damage to be done to the country.

Why We Count

A few conservatives who apparently don't understand democracy or what happened in Florida in 2000 are wondering why some Democrats and others are pushing for recounts in Ohio.

The Wall Street Journal's online OpinionJournal said some of its readers "have written us asking if there is a possibility that the Democrats actually will manage to steal the election." (You mean like the GOP did in 2000?) No, the Journal blamed the vote recount effort on bitterenders not willing to accept Bush as president;others pushing to establish permissive standards for future close elections; and an attempt by Democrats to go after promising conservative blacks like Ohio's Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

In the Journal's proud tradition of turning a blind eye to reality, the Journal misses the point.

Yes, some people (i.e. most of the world) have a hard time accepting that a majority of Americans could be so foolish that they would vote for Bush. And permissive standards are only bad if you believe the idea that in America it is vital that every vote count, and that every vote be counted is radical or unAmerican. But it is the conservatives and the GOP who are playing the race card so that Republican Hispanics and blacks can not be criticized, for if Democrats dare to do so, then they are racists. So Clarence (beating inmates in Louisiana isn't cruel AND unusual) Thomas and Ken (sorry, that's only 70 pound paper) Blackwell can not be criticized

But the real reasons people want to count all the votes is the knowledge that because not all votes were counted in Florida in 2000, George Bush was installed as president. Despite Jim Baker's false protestations that the vote in Florida was fully counted and then recounted, a number of counties only checked their totals and did not recount the vote and Bush ended up ahead by around 600 votes while 180,000 were left uncounted. If all votes were counted, Gore would have won.

The Journal had the right idea that one party is trying to set standards for future elections, except that it is the GOP that is trying to set a bad standardsfor future elections. If the GOP can intimidate Democrats into not standing by the idea of "count every vote and every vote counts" then it will be easier to steal future elections.

Yes, Kerry was right on that also....

George Bush is trying to soothe the damage uncovered by the recent Q&A with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by troops in Kuwait. The major damage is that this is yet another episode (luckily after the election) of how the Bush Administration has messed up again.

After Rumsfeld was bombarded with criticism from U.S. soldiers based in Kuwait, Rumsfeld promised more would be done to protect military forces. Bush U.S. troop concerns about inadequate equipment for Iraq combat are being addressed

As Reuters reported the latest complaints put the administration further on the defensive. Bush had rejected charges from Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry in the campaign for last month's election that military forces in Iraq did not have sufficient protection.

Of course the Bushies tried to say Kerry voted against body armor by pointing out that Kerry voted against the $87 billion defense bill covering Iraq after seeing his admonition making the rich pay for the war defeated. So was the vote against armor or the payment scheme? The following is what Kerry said:

When say I voted for it, I was willing to vote for the $87 billion providing we paid for it! Providing we asked Americans to sacrifice, all of us together. So Joe Biden and I...brought an amendment to say, Hey America—rather than have a $690 billion tax cut for everybody over the next ten years who are earning over $200,000, why don’t we take just $600 billion, and that way we pay for the war right up front and not add it to the deficit. Guess what? George Bush said no. The Republicans said no.

Oh yeah, we were wrong on that also

On his way out the door, Tommy Thompson, soon to be former Director of the Health and Human Services, decided to say the Bush administration is screwing things up.

Anyone not wearing Blindfolds for Bush isn't surprised and most GOP true believers no longer pay enough attention to the news, or listen to FOX News, so there will be little questioning of the administration..

So what did Thompson say? Besides Sen. John Kerry was right? Lets see, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post pointed out that Thomson said he wished Congress had given him the authority to negotiate with drug makers for lower prices under the new Medicare prescription bill. This was only a central question in the debate over the far-reaching legislation. Billions of dollars in potential savings were at stake. But the White House line was that this would lead to price controls, so Thompson waited until the bill was law and he was halfway out the door before sharing.

So the government will have to pay a great deal more for drugs, increasing the deficit and possibly raising taxes long term. The VA is able to negotiate on prices, just not HHS.

This is a major example of the incompetence of the Bush administration for which the American people will have to pay for years. But no matter, but gay marriages for people like Mary Cheney won't be permitted.

Failing the Global (Credibility) Test

In discussing America's right to preemptively attack another country, Sen. John Kerry said during the 2004 debates that "you've got to do it in a way that passes the, the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people, understand fully why you're doing what you're doing, and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

Republicans were quick to make fun of Kerry claim for a need for presidential actions to pass a credibility test but recent actions have shown that the Bush administration has failed the global test.

Consider what Jefferson Morley of the Washington Post said regarding Iran (one of three members of the Axis of Evil) and the European Unions attempt to restrain Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The EU's problem is that they don't trust the Bush administration approach on Iran. Even Bush's most reliable ally, Tony Blair, has jumped ship on this one. The real-world effect of the failure to find WMD in Iraq is on display in today's agreement. In the face of U.S. skepticism, most nations want to bolster the United Nations not bypass it. With little credibility and many skeptics, the Bush administration is effectively on the sidelines now. This is ironic because the Iranian nuclear ambitions more developed than Saddam Hussein's. But because of the invasion of Iraq--and its chaotic aftermath--the world is even less willing to check it.

So as a result of Bush's failure to pass the global (credibility) test of getting his countrymen and the world to accept his actions, the world is less safe. Congratulations George and Karl.

Calling Natalya Dymitruk

Anyone listening to Red Radio or Fox News who doesn't buy into the GOP storyline must wonder why someone like Natalya Dymitruk can't work for those networks. And network officials must be nervously wondering if there is a Natalya Dymitruk among their midst.

Who is Natalya Dymitruk? Acording to the AP, viewers watching state-run Ukrainian television after last week's presidential runoff heard the official declaration of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's victory. But the hearing-impaired got a radically different message.

"The results announced by the Central Election Commission are rigged, do not believe them," Natalya Dymitruk told UT-1 viewers when asked to relay the declaration in sign-language.

State run media in Ukraine have been pushing the Red State, Soviet backed candidate, over the Blue State, western backed candidate. Looking at how the media played the election, one has to wonder if they viewed Karl Rove's and the GOP's playbook and decided to model their coverage after Red Radio and Fox News.

Blue vs. Gray

For all the talk of Blue and Red states, questions about voting in Alabama over a constitutional amendment and a map of the states won by Kerry and Bush make me believe that we should be talking Blue and Gray and not Blue and Red.

Voters in Alabama apparently rejected a proposed amendment would delete unenforced sections of the constitution that mandate racially segregated schools and allow poll taxes, once used to discourage blacks from voting.

As Newsday put it When voters refused to approve a constitutional amendment that would have erased segregation-era wording in the state constitution requiring separate schools for "white and colored children" and referring to poll taxes that once disenfranchised blacks, Alabama was dragged into a confrontation with its segregationist past that illuminates the uneasy race relations of its present.

The amendment had two main parts: removal of the separate-schools language and the removal of a passage - inserted in the 1950s in an attempt to counter the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling against segregated public schools - that says Alabama's constitution does not guarantee a right to a public education.

Leading opponents, such as Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles, said they did not object to removing the passage about separate schools for "white and colored children." But, employing an argument ridiculed by legal experts, Giles and others said guaranteeing a right to a public education would have opened a door for "rogue" federal judges to order the state to raise taxes to pay for better schools.

If anyone thinks this thinking is limited to Alabama, consider these maps, which basically show that Bush won the slave states and Kerry won the free states. The only changes were that Kerry barely lost Ohio and Iowa, picked up Maryland and Deleware but lost Indiana.

One has to wonder what has gone wrong in Indiana.

Florida - Good, Ukraine - Bad

On his way out of office, and too late to do any good, Secretary of State Colin Powell has discovered his backbone. Unfortunately it's four years too late for America.

On Wednesday Powell, who apparently in 2000 had no problems joining an administration that cheated to get power, challenged Ukrainian leaders "to decide whether they are on the side of democracy or not," adding that the United States cannot accept the results of elections in Ukraine.

Apparently Viktor Yushchenko, the Blue State, French sounding candidate, got more votes than Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the Red State, Soviet supported candidate, but state supported election officials gave the victory to the Red Stater.

"We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards" and allegations of fraud hadn't been investigated, Powell said at a news conference.

Right. And I suppose the fact that Bush's 2000 election "victory" was tainted and allegations of fraud weren't investigated prior to awarding Florida by Gov. Jeb Bush to his brother, George Bush are just complaint by ill-informed Democrats.

When the 2000 election was stolen by the GOP, many people said that the US would have no credibility with the world in complaining about election irregularities. That day has come and only because of the power the United States has as a nation does anyone pay any attention to our hypocritical comments.

Surely diplomats in foreign countries have to look in disbelief when someone from the US complains about election, thinking to themselves, "you of all people have no business talking on election irregularities."

Perhaps if the US had sent Katherine Harris over to the Ukraine to monitor the election our complaints would be believable. If anyone knows how to rig an election, its her.

What the Democrats should have done in 2000

Looking at the protests in the Ukraine over the disputed election, as a Democrat, one can only wonder if that's what we should have done in 2000. Instead Democrats tried to play by the GOP rules and got screwed.

After all, even if the GOP had allowed for a full counting of votes in Florida which would have shown Al Gore had won. Either the Florida legislature or the US House of Representatives would have stepped in to ensure the will of the people was ignored. Instead the Supreme Court stepped in to take the heat.

Al Gore spoke of the people versus the powerful in 2000 and it was the powerful that decided the election. Yet the powerful pretended to be the people as a number of legislative officials complained about Florida officials attempting to count votes.

On Nov. 22, 2000, the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot” of Republican activists helped stop a vote recount in Miami -- and showed how far George W. Bush’s supporters were ready to go to put their man in the White House.

With the media bending to wishes of George Bush and the GOP, they urged Gore to concede because the nation was being disrupted. That shallow thinking in the end will lead to eight bad years for the United States. What a trade a couple of bad weeks for eight really bad years.

Here's to the protestors in the Ukraine. Keep the faith because once you concede, you concede a lot more than you think.

Rules to live by

Among the many columns resulting from the recent election were a number from Red Staters attempting to explain to Blue Staters why John Kerry lost the election. Included in these explanations were tips for Blue Staters to use in future elections.

However most of these tips assume people buy the GOP’s view of history. Any Blue Stater who know the facts behind the issues like the Swift Boats Veterans for Truth and Kerry’s alleged flip-flopping, will surely question the motives of these “helpful” people.

However, in a rush to figure out why they lost, some Blue Staters may take their “advice.” But before doing so, here are 10 things Blue Staters must understand.

1.) The Media is NOT the Democrats friend. Red Staters who complain about the CBS National Guard story forget that it was the New York Times, Washington Post and other “lefty” media that promoted the GOP’s agenda in pursuing the “War Against Gore,” the Whitewater investigation, and campaign against Kerry.
2.) The media is clueless. The media makes mistakes because they (i.e. CBS) won’t do the work to fully investigate political stories.
3.) Facts don’t matter. A University of Maryland study, The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters, found that Bush supporters believed Iraq had WMD’s or a major program, that WMD’s had been found and that experts also share these views. Few Kerry supporters held these fictitious beliefs.
4.) The media is uncomfortable going after the GOP. Mark Hertsgaard’s “On Bended Knee” showed how the Reagan administration tamed the media and transformed it into its willing mouthpiece. With Bill Clinton in the White House, the media attacked, shown by Joe Conason in “The Hunting of the President.” With the GOP back, expect a sequel from Hertsgaard.
5.) Fight fire with fire. In Elliott Ness, Sean Connery’s character said the way to fight Al Capone was if "they pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."
6.) Strong and Wrong beats Weak and Right. George Bush is weaker but his obstinance was portrayed as determination.
7.) Honesty and integrity apparently are not GOP values. Jeb Bush helped steal an election; Neil Bush, as member of the Board of Silverado, was part of one of the largest savings and loans scandals; and George W. Bush ran one of the most dishonest campaigns in recent history.
8.) Democratic values are America’s values. For all the celebratory talk about Bush’s victory, the GOP is ditching his values to change the constitution so in 2008 they can nominate Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a pro-choice, pro-stem cell research, and domestic partnership supporter.
9.) It's not who votes that counts - it's who counts the votes. Joseph Stalin said it but Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris figured it out in 2000.
10.) You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. This may be the Blue Stater’s last, best hope.

None so blind as those who choose not to see

The 2004 election results, which by a tiny majority will allow George Bush to remain in the White House, are evidence that that the war on knowledge and thinking has escalated.

Rather than elect someone who was familiar with, and understood the issues, 51% of the public went for the candidate with strong beliefs. Strong beliefs and faith are important and may help people get through troubled times, but they don't pay the bills nor solve the nation's problems.

As John Kerry said, just because George Bush says something is so doesn't make it so. But the people in the middle of the country are willing to accept that it is so. One only has to look at the results of an University of Maryland survey which showed that many conservatives believe that Iraq had WMDs, the world is behind Bush and that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks.

None of those statements were true, but was unimportant to the "Value Voters." To them, understanding more than one side of an issue is either unimportant, unnecessary or just plain wrong. One wonders how they survive in business.

Can one imagine what would have happened to Microsoft if it had kept to the belief that the Internet was not going to be that important. Instead they evaluated the data and changed their ways, an approach that is anathema to the right. To the value voters, there is only one way and that way is always right, even if it is wrong.

After the election, one person asked "how bad do things have to get." Apparently pretty bad.

Game, Set, Match?

When George Bush and Dick Cheney look back at the election and wonder when it all went wrong, the answer may be October 28. After declining to discuss the missing weapons story for days, perhaps encouraged by right wing radio, TV and internet bloggers yelling "John Kerry is wrong," on Thursday Bush and Cheney crawled from beneath their rocks and challenged Kerry.

"Senator Kerry will say anything to get elected," Bush told 6,000 supporters.

The right reacted happily, perhaps thinking this would be the event that turns the corner for Bush. In fact, during the 6 p.m. hour on the east coast Charles Krauthammer on Fox News was going on about how the missing weapon story was now hurting John Kerry.

Unbeknownst to them, a thousand miles away in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a battleground state no less, KSTP was broadcasting a story from a reporter who was in actually in Iraq at the weapons site and saw the weapons, showing a tape, which shows U.S. military personnel examining the weapons, which they later left unguarded.

The KSTP crew witnessed soldiers using bolt cutters to get into bunkers. Inside, they found many containers marked "explosives." At least one set of crates carried the name "Al-Qaqaa State Establishment."

So much for the Bush complaint about speaking without the facts. On CNN Newsnight, Aaron Brown asked former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay if this was "game, set, match" on ending the debate on Kerry's claims. Kay's response - "I think it is game, set and match."

While Bush was speaking before 6,000, Kerry attended a rally in Madison, Wis., that attracted more than 80,000 people, drawn by Bruce Springsteen. A fire marshal said the crowd, near the state capitol, was the largest ever to assemble for a single event in the city.

In a close election, everyone was looking for the tipping point. Was this it, or the latest Halliburton relavations, or the doctored ad? Whatever it was, it was bad

How soon we forget

When the New York Times broke a story on how some 380 tons of explosives, powerful enough to detonate nuclear warheads, were missing from a former Iraqi military facility that was supposed to be under American control, conservatives immediately worked to discredit the story.

Currently the accuracy of the story is up in the air. In the end it will probably be accurate, just overplayed. But will the Kerry campaign suffer for jumping all over the story? Liberals who end up disappointed that the Times let them down on an important story, just as CBS did with the National Guard story (destroying a good story with sloppiness), only have themselves and a short memory, to blame.

During the 1990s the New York Times waged a sloppy, inaccurate war against Bill Clinton but because liberals don't fight as hard as conservatives, many of the stories stuck in the public's mind. From the Times initial inaccurate story/headline on Whitewater to the Wen Ho Lee story, which the Times had to apologize for, the Times established a poor journalistic standard.

The Times, and the Washington Post, refused to apologize for their poor Whitewater coverage and yet liberals still thought they were "their" newspaper. Early on in the Bush administration John Harris of the Post pointed out that the new administration were being subject to the same treatment. Harris wrote this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. Take it from someone who made a living writing about those uproars.

So why did the liberals get fooled again? They thought the Times and Post were just going after the current administration rather than just practicing bad journalism. The Post and the Times may be interesting reading, unfortunately one may have to treat them like the Washington Times, Interesting, if true.

Fair & Balanced? The Right says NO!

If anyone has any doubts that the media has been co-opted by conservatives, one only has to look at the media's recent debate "truth squads" and the reaction to the press questioning whether truth checks should be comprehensive rather than artificial balance.

After each of the recent debates the networks, and many news organizations, ran truth checks of what the candidates said during the debates. The media would usually run through an equal list of questionable statements by each candidate, giving the impression that both candidates were equally stretching the truth.

ABC's political director Mark Halperin wrote a now-leaked memo saying there is no need for artificial balance in truth-squadding the claims and charges of the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

USA Today reported, Halperin stated in his memo, "though both sides need to be held accountable, it doesn't mean “we reflexively and artificially hold both sides ‘equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that.”

As the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz said "In other words, if one side is using a howitzer and the other a popgun, you don't have to portray them as both firing ammunition, without making distinctions."

Imagine that, rather than just running a top five or so list of questionable claims by each candidate, Halperin suggested putting the number of claims in perspective. Sounds sensible, but apparently conservatives disagree.

Rightwing radio talk show host Laura Ingraham said the memo “is blatantly an expression of partisanship on the part of ABC News,” according to USA Today. “Halperin should make it official and move down to Washington to join the Democratic National Committee.”

Gee, what if the public were to find out that Bush, to us the words William Safire once used on another White House occupant, is a congenital liar? Is it appropriate for the press to say “Kerry exaggerates but Bush tells a number of whoppers?” Apparently Ms. Ingraham and conservatives demand the “both candidates made questionable claims” line instead.

Fox anchor Chris Wallace said: "An ABC News memo has been leaked that suggests the network is holding President Bush and Senator Kerry to different standards." He's right. Bush gets to fib as much as he wants but will only be held accountable to the same extent as Kerry.

What a deal, and as blogger Josh Marshall points out, Ingraham is not alone in her reaction.

"The most noteworthy thing I've seen in the right-wing response is that there seems to be little effort to deny or engage the question of whether the Bush campaign is being qualitatively more dishonest than the Kerry campaign. All the whining is focused on the fact that any news organization would have the temerity to try to distinguish between them."

Wall Street Journal Hypocrisy

When Dick Cheney lied about never meeting Sen. John Edwards, Opinion Journal.com, the Wall Street Journal’s web site, covered up for Cheney, saying he was "mistaken" and implied the meeting must have been forgettable for Cheney not to have remember it.

The Journal did point out, “It turns out Cheney was mistaken, as the Associated Press reports,” but followed that with a blogger's comment that somehow compared Cheney to a high school football player.

But when Al Gore made a "mistake" in a 2000 debate and said he visited a Texas disaster site with the head of FEMA, how did the Journal react?

If Al Gore can't tell the truth as a candidate, how can we trust him to be president? Maybe if this Presidential thing doesn't work out for Al Gore, he can get a job doing Burger King commercials for The Whopper.

Which was worse, not remembering meeting a senator or traveling with a federal agency director?

So, will the Journal ask: "IF DICK CHENEY CAN'T TELL THE TRUTH AS A CANDIDATE, HOW CAN WE TRUST HIM TO BE VICE PRESIDENT?" Don't expect an answer. Perhaps the Journal editorial staff is hoping that its page is so forgetable that no one remembers the 2000 article.

Also, according to the dailykos, Cheney said he didn’t meet Edwards until last night despite being as the Senate every Tuesday. Small problem, apparently Cheney presided over the Senate a grand total of TWO times over the past four years – the same number of times as Edwards presided over the Senate.

So TWICE in FOUR YEARS Cheney actually showed up to be presiding officer of the Senate and he didn't meet Edwards. What are the odds?

Liar, Liar

There was no A Few Good Men moment last night, probably because in a debate there is no judge to make sure the debaters are telling the truth and no real sanctions if one side lies.

As a result, Dick Cheney revised his role he plays on right wing radio, spewing forth a torrent of lies that the moderator was unwilling to question and Edwards had limited amount of time to dispute. To many, the lies played well. One only has to look at the Washington Post's TV coverage to see the impact. Tom Shales, in his debate review, nearly led with Cheney's zinger that "The first time I ever met you was when you walked on this stage tonight."

Just one problem. IT WASN'T TRUE!!!!!! The Los Angeles Times (subscription required) pointed out that "It was perhaps the most surprising tidbit of new information during the debate — that Vice President Dick Cheney had never met Sen. John Edwards until Tuesday night. Except it wasn't true."

Less than two hours after the debate ended, aides to Edwards and Sen. John F. Kerry distributed a photograph from the Feb. 1, 2001, National Prayer Breakfast showing Edwards and Cheney standing side by side.

The Times also pointed out that in January 2003 Edwards escorted the newly elected senator from North Carolina, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, onto the Senate floor for her swearing-in by Cheney.

The problem is that people will remember the lie and not the truth and that was what Cheney/Bush was hoping for. After all, that is a staple of right wing radio, spew lies knowing that very few will be uncovered and very few people will ever realize they are lies. The Right likes to complain about 527s but right wing radio is little more than free campaign ads for Republicans.

A Few Good Men: the Sequel

With all the talk of what the Vice Presidential debate will be like tonight, one thing to keep in mind is question of whether life imitates art. One only has to think about the movie A Few Good Men and the final courtroom scene and imagine John Edwards playing Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and Dick Cheney as Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson)

Will we see the "moment" where Edwards catches Jessep/Cheney in "the lie" on Iraq? Will Cheney turn like a cornered rat like Jessep? Will Cheney finally tell the truth and thereby sink the Bush/Cheney ship?

In the film Kaffee puts together a case showing how Jessep lied about ordering the code red on Private Santiago, much like Edwards should do to Cheney regarding how he lied about the prewar intelligence on Iraq, lied about a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and badly estimated the reaction to the Iraqi response to the US.

One only has to look at recent news to see that the administration lied on prewar intelligence; that, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, there was no connection between Iraq and Al Quida; and as Presidential Envoy to Iraq Paul Bremer said, the administration was warned that more troops were needed to go into Iraq to maintain order.

Confronted with his lies, all Jessep could say was "You little bastard," which seems right up Cheney's alley. One can imagine Cheney saying "You want Answers" and Edwards saying "I want the Truth!"

Jessep's final reply seems eerily like something Cheney would say.

You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

The problem is that just as Santiago probably posed little threat, so too may have Iraq if sanctions, inspections, and international pressure remained. Unfortunately, Jessep, like Cheney and Bush acted on their convictions rather than reality. In the movie, such convictions cost at least one American his life. In reality in Iraq, it has cost more than 1,000 American their lives.

Accurate Forgeries?

The latest saga in the 60 Minutes documents drama is that Marian Knox, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian secretary tells CBS that the documents appear to be forgeries but they accurately reflect the views of Kilian.

So, like NBC who in 1993 rigged explosives to make a truck explosion story on Dateline look better, CBS may have used fake documents to solidify a story. However how many people are going to remember that the story is accurate, that George Bush used connections to get out of service and that he didn't fulfill his commitments, that he went AWOL?

Knox's claim is backed up by a report in USA Today that said "Another former Texas National Guard officer, Richard Via, also said that the documents were fakes but that their content reflected questions about Bush that were discussed at the time in the hangar at Ellington Air Force Base, where he had a desk next to Killian's."

Conservatives will point to Knox's statements that the documents are fake but will they also include her statement that the information is accurate? One can only assume they will credit her with the fake claim but call her misinformed on the accuracy claim.

Dan Rather: George Bush's MVP

There is a lot of talk on the Internet on the accuracies of the documents Dan Rather and CBS used as supporting evidence in a story on whether George Bush completed his required duty in the Texas Air National Guard.

The CBS story came out at the same time serious and exhaustive stories by the Associated Press and Boston Globe came out questioning many of the assertions Bush had made over the years regarding his service. The CBS story appeared to be the coup de grace.

Instead, questions over some of the documents have dominated the story, eliminating any discussion of the rest of the story. For that the White House must be very pleased with Dan Rather. A perceived villain of the right, Rather can now be the poster boy for alleged liberal media while providing needed cover for Bush to duck the story.

So a series of stories that show Bush did not fulfill his duties will be questioned by the controversy around documents used in the CBS story and potentially damage John Kerry.

As the Dallas Morning News put it: "The story is now about CBS and what looks like its sloppy reporting, not Mr. Bush and what he did during the Vietnam era.Which is not entirely fair, really, because Mr. Bush has not been entirely forthcoming about his Guard record...

CBS' bungling of this story with only seven weeks to go in the presidential race probably means that any further reporting on Mr. Bush and the Guard, however well sourced and documented, will be received by many Americans as mere political mudslinging."

So could the White House and Karl Rove be behind this? The Palm Beach Post reported that Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said "I can unequivocally tell you that no one involved here at the Democratic National Committee had anything at all to do with any of those documents," but added "If I were an aspiring young journalist, I think I would ask Karl Rove that question."

According to the Post, Rove has declined to comment.

If George Bush were facing a set of documents that could destroy his presidency, wouldn't he do what ever it took? He did it with the vote in Florida in 2000 and ended up in the White House. Should anyone really be surprised if he did it again in 2004?

A lie too many

After a month of dishonest stories about John Kerry, the organizers of the Republican National Convention must have thought they had free reign to lie about anything and everything and they did their best to live up to that belief.

However they may have gone too far as the media, similar to a sleeping bear, may have woken up. A series of stories examining the accuracies of statements made by the Swift Vets, GOP convention speakers, and even Bush & Cheney's speeches and Vietnam War era actions have made their way in the paper. In addition, a new book about George Bush and his youth by Kitty Kelley will be released soon.

Over the next few days and months, with these stories finding their way into the press, the Right will cry "liberal media." The reason they will cry is that conservatives demand conservative coverage and cry when the coverage is balanced. Liberals expect balanced coverage and complain when the coverage is conservative.

If the media were to wake up and actually ask questions, coverage actually might be balanced. But will the media really do so?

Last week Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, while interviewing Chris Matthews, all but got on his knees and begged him and the media to ask tough questions of politicians.

"Why is so hard in this day and age for people like yourself to question the politicians," Stewart asked. "Can the press maybe take a stronger stand and, what's the word I'm looking for - fact check? Can they do that now?"

While that got laughs, Stewart pressed his main point - "Everyone should be questioned on these stupid, and pardon my french, f#@&ing talking points and we should have a normal conversation."

While all Matthews could respond with was whether Stewart asked John Kerry about his position on Iraq (which Stewart put back in his face saying "No, but here's the thing, I'm a comedian.")

So will the media wake up and do their jobs? The early returns look better but not convincing.

Had Enough?

After four years of lying to the American public and the press acting as his accomplish, the media may have decided they have a backbone. A few in the media are starting to question whether they should question a politician when they are making obviously dishonest statements.

That idea has to be of utmost concern to Republicans who rely on the press to push their manufactured statements which have no basis in the truth. The question is whether this will be a fleeting thought or reality.

If it is a fleeting thought the Democrats are going to have to decide if they are willing to get in the muck the GOP and fight. Susan Estrich, who saw her candidate in 1988 lose by not fighting back said "You can't just answer the charges. You can't just say it ain't so. You have to fight fire with fire, mud with mud, dirt with dirt."

The trouble with Democrats, traditionally, is that we're not mean enough. Dukakis wasn't. I wasn't. I don't particularly like destroying people. I got into politics because of issues, not anger. But too much is at stake to play by Dukakis rules, and lose again.

Over and over this year we heard that this wouldn't be a repeat of 1988. Too often it seems like it is. The only way to beat Bush is to play by his rules. In the movie The Untouchables, Sean Connery plays Malone, the old hand who teaches Elliot Ness how to beat the mob - "They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."

Advice John Kerry should take.

Zell - Before he stabbed John Kerry in the Back

Democratic Party of Georgia's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner March 1, 2001
Selected remarks of Sen. Zell Miller
(The full remarks are available at Sen. Miller's web site - if they haven't taken them down out of embarrassment.)

...My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders – and a good friend.

...In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington.

Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so.

John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment. Business Week magazine named him one of the top pro-technology legislators and made him a member of its "Digital Dozen."...

Zell Miller meets Pat Buchannan

After a disastrous 1992 convention in New Orleans where conservative Pat Buchanan's primetime speech turned America off and helped elect Bill Clinton Presidentthe Republicans have worked hard to hide the red meat segment of their party, evidenced by the choice of speakers for the first few nights of the convention.

However that may have changed Wednesday night with the speech by Zell "zellout" Miller, supposedly a Democratic senator from Georgia. In a speech that may have frightened more undecided voters than converted, Miller set about to trash a man he had only a few years ago called a hero.

Falling under the traditional Republican spin, Miller used half truths and distortions to make his point. Using a single vote by Kerry against weapons systems Miller denigrated himself by questioning Kerry's commitment to the military. Left unsaid, as the Right traditionally does, was the lack of mention that Dick Cheney wanted DEEPER cuts in the military. If that made Kerry bad does that mean Cheney is an idiot?

Commentators were surprised by the venom from the podium. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) issuing a written statement saying, "There was a lot of hate coming from that podium tonight."

Looking at Miller's eyes one had to wonder if he had gone over the deep edge. For the GOP the bright spot was that Miller made Cheney look rationale.

W stands for Weak

If you've ever wondered what the W in George W. Bush stands for, it stands for Weak.

How else would you explain when offered the option of two bills that would provide $87 billion for troops Bush would support the one that doesn't require any sacrifice of its constituents?

If Bush was truly a strong leader he would have told his supporters that in a time of war it was not fair to ask only the troops to sacrifice, that they too must help the effort.

Kerry supported the other bill, the one that would have paid for the war effort through higher taxes on those most able to pay. Instead Bush decided he couldn't do that, apparently he was too weak to do so.

Supporters claim that Bush's unwillingness to admit mistakes or ask the rich to help out America is a sign of strength. Instead it is a sign of weakness. A strong leader would lead all Americans into battle, not just send some off to war and then reward those who stayed behind.

The Unwatchable Convention

Since someone in the GOP had the bright idea to have an "extreme makeover" of the face of the Republican convention and promote speakers with little in common with the average Republican delegate, apparently conservatives in the party responded by putting together a convention that is akmost unwatchable.

From possibly the worst stage setup in recent convention history to speakers whose reception by the audience that was limited, one can only imagine people turning off CSPAN in droves.

Perhaps the idea was to force people to turn to FOX and other news channels where GOP talking heads parroting GOP talking points.

However, the first thought that went through ones head while attempting to watch the convention is "who designed that piece of $#&@ stage." For those who didn't see it, it's basically a high school woodshop podium in front of a giant video screen. Both are in front of a set of steps so steep that anyone under 40 shouldn't attempt going down.

If you got past the stage and listened to the speakers, such as McCain, who for the most part got polite applause, it seemed like people were putting up with him rather than endorsing him. New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani did give the crowd what they wanted with factless sarcasm aimed against Kerry and factless praise of Bush, comparing him to Winston Churchill.

So with a preseason NFL game as competition, it was easy to turn off the convention. One just wonders if that was the goal or an unintended consequence?

Do those in the know favor the guy who knows?

Conservative media are all upset that surveys have shown that a majority of the media support Sen. John Kerry for President.

So let's see, reporters who, through their job, are most familiar with the issues, prefer Kerry. Somehow that's bad.

If that's bad then if an auto mechanic (who works on all sorts of cars) says he wouldn't buy a type of car, should one not pay attention to him because his working on cars makes his opinion's biased?

How is that logical?

On the other side, conservative commentators, who aren't known for being strong on accuracy, support Bush.

One would think that people might respect the views of those in the know. Instead, for some reason its bad. And people, despite claims, haven't shown that the journalists' views impact the reporting.

In the end conservatives expect reporting to be conservatives and get upset when it's moderate. Liberals expect reporting to be balanced and get mad when it's conservative. That's why conservatives like FOX, which is unfair and unbalanced, and liberals like NPR which is fair and balanced.

Election Hypocrisy

Nearly four years after George Bush was installed in the White House after questionable results in a state run by his brother the Wall Street Journal and other conservatives have finally decided that some elections need to be questioned.

Not of course the US 2000 Presidential election where Bush "won" by 537 votes after tens of thousands of democratic votes were not excluded but hundreds of GOP votes were included.

No, the WSJ is concerned that the election in Venezuela where Hugo Chávez won a recall vote by 58%-42% should be questioned, claiming "widespread allegations of fraud are casting serious doubt on the results."

One could only imagine what the WSJ would have said if, oh say Chavez's brother ran the election and had his cohorts decide which ballots to count. No the Journal repeats a claim that "evidence is growing that the software of the touch-screen voting machines had been tampered with." [Exactly the concerns Democrats have on Florida this year.]

President Jimmy Carter said his own quick counts coincided with the electoral council's figures in Venezuela. Compare that to what he said in 2001 about Florida.

I was really taken aback and embarrassed by what happened in Florida. If we were invited to go into a foreign country to monitor the election, and they had similar election standards and procedures, we would refuse to participate at all.

The idea that conservatives are concerned over the fairness of elections is laughable. Their concerns only arise when the results don't go their way. From the 2000 US election to redistricting Texas which allow them to choose many of the states representatives, conservatives believe in elections to extent that they like the results. Why else would elected officials try to place limits on voters and draw boundaries based on politics rather than community?

Cheney slams Bush

After hearing comments by Dick Cheney recently, the debates this fall should not be between George Bush and John Kerry but between George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Cheney has criticized the use of the term "sensitive" in regard to United States foreign policy, a term George W. Bush has used several times in terms of US foreign policy.

Bush said in 2001 at the christening ceremony of the USS Ronald Reagan that ‘‘precisely because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence."

At the recent UNITY: Journalists of Color convention Bush said "Now, in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is -- we need to be very sensitive on that."

Cheney, on the other hand, apparently has a very different view.

‘‘America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive,’’ Cheney said. ‘‘President Lincoln and General Grant did not wage sensitive warfare — nor did President Roosevelt, nor Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur. A ‘sensitive war’ will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more.”

One might think that Cheney would be fired for so forcefully criticizing his boss. Well of course he won’t. The White House is full of hypocrites and Cheney was in full hypocrite mode when he made the comment.

Sen. John Kerry had said at the same UNITY meeting "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history."

Cheney couldn't question Kerry regarding fighting a war more strategic, more proactive, or thoughtful so he jumped on sensitive, the EXACT same word George W. had used at the SAME convention.

Cheney was going for cheap laughs and expected that the public would never figure it out. And he's probably correct, although a few media people are starting to show some life. In a New York Times article which some other papers actually carried, included Bush's use of the word, although far down the story.

Lack of Convictions

The latest scurrilous line the Republicans are using in their sick and twisted campaign against Sen. John Kerry is that he lacks convictions. Perhaps they are right.

Afterall George Bush was arrested for DUI and Dick Cheney had two DUI arrests yet one never hears of Kerry having any convictions. And that doesn't even bring up the rumors that Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972.

Texas author J.H. Hatfield quotes a former Yale classmate who told him: "George W. was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972, but due to his father's connections, the entire record was expunged by a state judge whom the older Bush helped get elected. It was one of those 'behind closed doors in the judges' chambers' kind of thing between the old man and one of his Texas cronies who owed him a favor ... There's only a handful of us that know the truth."

Throw in the theft of the presidency in 2000, the "clerical mistake" Bush's lawyers made in failing to disclose an $848,560 stock sale in a timely fashion, as required by federal law, when he was on the board of directors of a Texas oil company in 1990; and his going AWOL from military service one gets a good picture of the type of convictions the Bush Cheney team hold.

Shh! Nixon resigned 30 years ago, pass it on

Thirty years ago Richard Nixon resigned the presidency following a determination that he had lost support among his own party following the Watergate break-in and resulting coverup.

On June 17, 1972 five employees of Nixon's re-election campaign were arrested breaking into the Democratic National Party Headquarters at the Watergate and later convicted of burglary. Two years later the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend three articles of impeachment against Nixon for obstructing justice in connection with the Watergate investigation.

However to too many Republicans there is a belief that Nixon either didn't do anything wrong or did nothing more than any president and that the media forced him out of office. Yet 30 years later there is little coverage marking the anniversary of the scandal.

The Washington Post, in it series on past eventful summers touched Watergate in July with an article about a Kansas Republican who learned civics that summer. They also did a story on "the summer of Monica" but managed to run that story the day after former President Bill Clinton spoke to the Democratic convention.

The Post's Metro editor tried to explain it away by saying "I don't think anyone thought of the juxtaposition of the long-planned summer of Lewinsky with Clinton's appearance before the convention."

So no one the Metro desk of the nation's top newspaper wasn't following the news closely enough to notice that it would appear the same day as a review of Clinton's speech? They managed to not run the Watergate story during the Republican National Convention but figured out a way to run the Monica story during the democratic Convention, and by chance on the same day President Clinton's speech was reviewed.

As the Church Lady would say "How convenient."

Distorting the Record

At the Democratic Convention and on the road this week Republicans have been sent forth to spread their lies, excuse me, "talking points" on John Kerry and John Edwards.

The most pervasive, and questionable is the claim that John Kerry has been ranked the most liberal senator and John Edwards was the fourth most liberal. In reality, those rankings represent only votes the National Journal tracked in 2003 when both candidates missed a number of votes as they were campaigning.

As Media Matters points out Edwards's average National Journal "liberal score" during his five years in the Senate (1999-2003) is 75.7 percent, "a number that puts him in the moderate wing of his party," and is almost 20 points lower than the 2003 rating that Republicans are touting with the help of the conservative media.

Unfortunately, it has been left up to web sites like Media Matters, the Daily Howler and TV shows like the Daily Show to point out the facts, or even just the full story. The Daily Howler was one of the few to run the definitive part of Richard Cohen's article in the National Journal.

The bigger picture presents a more nuanced view of the two senators on the Democratic presidential ticket. Since joining the Senate in 1985, Kerry has compiled a “lifetime average” composite liberal score of 85.7 in NJ's vote ratings. Ten other current senators have a lifetime composite liberal score that is higher than Kerry’s. Meanwhile, Edwards, who first joined the Senate in 1999, has a lifetime composite liberal score of 75.7, a number that puts him in the moderate wing of his party.

But all people remember is one and four. Is it any wonder people like Bush end up in the White House?

Jebbing the Vote, Day 1162

With the election only a few months away and Florida expected to play an important role again in 2004 it is not surprising that a state that couldn't count votes right is still having problems.  Despite spending millions to improve the process, voters may still go to the polls in November without confidence that their vote will count, or be counted.

As the New York Times  said in an editorial today - "Millions of Florida voters will cast ballots this November on electronic voting machines that do not produce paper records. State election officials have insisted that the machines have safeguards to ensure that votes are accurately recorded and counted, including a computerized audit function. Recently, however, Miami-Dade County officials admitted that almost all of the audit records from a disputed 2002 primary had been accidentally destroyed. This is disturbing news and casts serious doubt on Florida's ability to run a fair election this fall."
 
Much like the pundits and GOP told the public to "get over it" regarding the 2000 voting count disaster, state officials are saying the problems are no big deal. Perhaps they should listen to the Times.

"Florida's secretary of state, Glenda Hood, has insisted that the voting technology is thoroughly reliable and that the critics are simply stirring up trouble. Ms. Hood should drop this head-in-the-sand approach and quickly provide the protections the voters need. The most urgent would be a review by a team that includes independent computer experts. Florida's election system was a national disgrace in 2000, and it is well on its way to becoming one again."
 
Perhaps Florida voters will actually get to tell the nation who they voted for this year rather than having the Supreme Court and the GOP tell them who they voted for. But for too many people there is a concern that Florida will return to the days of 2000 where, as a one comedian commentator put it, "for a brief shining moment we were Guatemala."

The Real "Extreme Makeover"

After methodically planning a convention that hides the voices of the true nature of the Republican party, a GOP hit squad, led by Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, has the gall to accuse the Democrats of "going through an extreme makeover."

Um, Mr. Gillespie, what about the GOP convention where traditional Republicans are few and far between?

Even conservative Kate O'Beirne noted that "The decision to showcase rogue elephants as representatives of the modern Republican party is not the mark of a self-confident party establishment. If the lineup is intended to make an overwhelmingly conservative party attractive to swing voters, it does so by pretending to be something it's not."

Now that's an Extreme Makeover. But Boston Globe Columnist Alex Beam has an even better example.

"The most astonishing transformation of recent times is George Bush's journey from Yalie drunk to the leadership of what still passes for the free world. That is an extreme makeover."

Gillespie and the GOP are in Boston to fill gullible reporters with GOP talking points, which many are only too willing to use. Brit Hume of FOX News went straight to his computer after Ron Reagan's talk for the latest GOP talking points last night in order to rebut the speech.

The GOP has tried to hide its presence in Boston but CNN said that "Democrats had discovered the location and sent a costumed character named "Enron Ed" to poke fun at Gillespie's past work as a lobbyist for the troubled energy trading company."

I'm sure "Enron Ed" is more than willing to question Kerry's values. Maybe someone should questions his and the GOP's, "pre-extreme makeover."

Much ado about nothing

Republicans and conservative media are in full attack mode over Teresa Heinz Kerry telling a "journalist" to "shove it" and the media is buying it, hook, line and sinker.

Considering “Vice President” Dick Cheney recently told a senator to ”GFY” this is much ado about anything, unless the Republicans are successful with their chant “Act like an American, not like a Republican.”

The person who asked the question was NOT a reporter but the editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which has a mean-spirited editorial page which has attacked the Heinz family in the past.

Mrs. Heinz Kerry in her speech said -"We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics." The “writer” repeatedly pressed her about what she meant by "un-American activity."
"You said something I didn't say, now shove it," Heinz Kerry said.

So Heinz Kerry said “un-American traits.” The writer claimed she said “un-American activity.”

Is that the same thing? Was she right in pointing out he changed her quote and then refused to answer for a quote she didn’t make?

The New York Daily News pointed out that the paper - which in the mid-1990s notoriously promoted the theory that Clinton White House lawyer Vince Foster's suicide was really a sinister murder plot to protect the political interests of Bill and Hillary - is owned by reclusive right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. Richard Mellon Scaife is behind the “newspaper,” and James Carville in 1999 called him "the archconservative godfather in [a] heavily funded war against [Clinton]."

As one web site wrote In his 2003 book Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), Al Franken said that the abusive tone of rightwing zealots like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter can be traced back to Scaife, and in particular to one episode in 1981 when Scaife verbally assaulted a reporter. When the reporter, Karen Rothmeyer of the Columbia Journalism Review, asked Scaife about his funding of conservative groups, he replied, "You fucking communist cunt, get out of here." Franken writes that Scaife "went on to tell her that she was ugly and that her teeth were 'terrible.' Of Ms. Rothmeyer's mother, who was not present, he said, 'She's ugly, too.'"

I suppose Mrs. Kerry should be nice to everyone, including those who hate and unfairly attack her. The key to whether this incident hurt the Kerry’s is whether most people will learn the truth of the incident. Unfortunately, based on how the media acted in 2000 during their “War on Gore,” I expect only a few people will know the full story.

Lack of imagination

Among the areas of fault the 9/11 Commission found, as pointed out by Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, was that those in government had "a lack of imagination" and that "was the most important failing."

However, the Commission also had a failure of lack of imagination. One of the most important questions theCommission considered was whether anything could have been done to prevent the terrorist's attacks on 9/11. However one of the major events that might have played a part in allowing the 9/11 attacks was barely mentioned in the report.

In November 2000 the American people selected Al Gore as the 43rd president, however thanks to the efforts of Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, numerous Republicans, and a politically motivated group of US Supreme Court justices, Gore was denied the presidency.

As the 9/11 report states on page 198...The dispute over the election and the 36-day delay cut in half the normal transition period. Given that a presidential election in the United States brings wholesale change in personnel, this loss of time hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees.

The thing was, there didn't need to be a major transition. If allowed to win, Vice President Al Gore probably would have kept a number of Clinton appointees. In addition, as the one who lead the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security (also known as the Gore Commission) which investigated terrorism in the 1990s, Gore had a greater understanding of the importance of the issue and undoubtedly would have placed a higher level of importance on the topic.

Unfortunately, the GOP and Supreme Court thought they knew what was best for the country and denied Gore the Presidency. As attorney Mark H. Levine explained in A LAYMAN'S GUIDE TO THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IN BUSH V. GORE, the Surpreme Court stopped the counting of the votes in Florida because "if America knows the truth that Gore won, they won't accept the US Supreme Court overturning Gore's victory."

This was an important issue but one no one was willing to discuss. Some may find it distasteful to ask if a Gore Presidency could have prevented 9/11 but in reality not asking that question showed a lack of imagination.

Second thoughts

One of the keys to the GOP "winning" the 2000 presidential election were overseas ballots from military personnel. Bush was able to "gain" enough of a margin through those ballots that Florida called the state for him.

However, close to 700 of the military ballots were improper, according to the New York Times. Military ballots are viewed as favoring Republicans so they were probably responsible for the 500-plus "win" by Bush.

"Citing the Florida Department of State's web site, the Times reports that without the overseas ballots counted after election day, Gore would have won Florida, and thus the White House, by 202 votes."

So four years later one has to wonder how many of those soldiers are having second thoughts

In a Knight Ridder story (registration required) one soldier put it "I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here. I don't know what the (goal) is, and I don't think our commanders do, either. I feel deceived personally," Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean.

Another added "A lot of times I look at this place and wonder what have we really done. When we first got here, we all wanted to change it and make it better, but now I don't (care)," he said. "What am I here for?"

Sounds like Democrats should do better at the polls in 2004. In 2000 the Bushies "won" on military ballots (well actually the Times found that it was more like Republican military ballots, a number of which shouldn't have been counted) so you have to wonder this time whether the Bushies will decide to limit the number by saying "only legal ballots should be counted"?

Lies, lies and more lies

After seeing the GOP parade their officials out on Thursday in an effort to divert attention from the 9/11 commission report one has to wonder if they believe what they are saying or do they know they are lying and don't care.

GOP officials said the the investigation of Samuel R. Berger regarding missing document raised questions about whether Berger was trying to keep information from the 9/11 commission. That was flatly denied by both Berger and one of the commission members, who called the charge ''ridiculous."

"Berger's allies rallied behind him, questioning whether the Bush administration leaked news of the 10-month-old probe to deflect attention just days before the commission is set to publish its findings from its inquiry into the suicide jet attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

''None of our work is affected in any way," said the panel member, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ''We have many copies of it. He did not have access to anything that wasn't in duplicate. It can't have been to deprive us of information."

Hidden Agenda

What do you do when you are afraid of being called to task for mistakes. Blame someone else of course. With the release of the 9/11 commission set for this week, a months old investigation into whether Samuel Berger, the former White House national security adviser removed inadvertently took copies of several versions of an after-action memo on the millennium bombing plot from the Archives last fall.

Note the important word - Copies. Got that. Copies. Not originals.

The vein-bulging wild eyed groupies on the right immediately went into full "throttle" mode.

Tom DeLay, the House Republican leader, called it "a third-rate burglary", a reference to the Watergate scandal. "Berger's theft and destruction of classified documents is not 'sloppy', it's gravely serious," he said. "It is a national security crisis right now."

Un huh. Copies of copies are missing and it's a national security crisis. Makes you wonder what he would think if say a "president" didn't pay attention to security memos. I'm sure that's ok, but misplacing copies, now that's something to be concerned about.

If this is a "third-rate burglary" does that make what happened in Florida a FIRST RATE FELONY?

Democrats questioned the timing of the leak, which came months after the investigation began, on the eve of the Democratic convention and the final report of the September 11 commission.

"I do think the timing is very curious, given this has been under way now for this long," said Tom Daschle, the Senate Democratic leader. "Somebody leaked it, obviously, with an intent, I think, to do damage to Mr Berger, and I think that's unfortunate."

Second Choice

The Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign team (notice they don't use the word re-election) recently announced the release of a television advertisement ("First Choice") which "features John Kerry’s first choice for a vice presidential running mate, United States Senator John McCain. In the new ad, John McCain discusses his support for the President and the leadership President Bush has provided in the War on Terror. "

Two questions - One - how come the ad doesn't reference that Al Gore was America's FIRST CHOICE in 2000 for President. "Gore Got More," votes that is, winning the election by a half million votes. Bush was only able to get his way into the White House thanks to his father's friends on the Supreme Court and nifty moves in Florida to throw out thousands and thousands of votes.

Second how come the ad didn't mention that McCain disagrees with a lot of Bush's policies? Also, wasn't Dick Cheney was Bush's SECOND CHOICE for Vice President, McCain being his first?

So since Bush likes nicknames so much, how about calling him George "Second Choice" Bush?

GOP admits Gore won Florida

In planning strategy for the 2004 election both parties look at the results of the 2000 election to give them idea of where they stand. For Republicans, Iowa, New Mexico and Wisconsin are states they lost narrowly and they are working hard to overcome those losses.

Apparently the GOP has added Florida to the list of states that they lost in 2000 and must to more to win this year

Robert Novak, best known for outing a CIA operative, recently wrote "Florida Republicans also are worried that the new voting machines may give Sen. John Kerry some 15,000 votes that Al Gore lost in 2000 because of ''overvotes.''

So there you have it. The GOP views Florida as a state they lost by 15,000 (yes, thousand) votes in 2000. The GOP will try to argue that the votes were properly thrown out and that they won. That's kinda like a convicted felon freed on a technicality claiming innocence.

Don't blame us - we didn't elect him

Apparently the White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with George Bush. The reason - as John Nichols of the Madison Capitol Times put it, "Bush had an unpleasant run-in with a species of creature he had not previously encountered often: a journalist. He did not react well to the experience..."

"Apparently under the mistaken assumption that reporters in the rest of the world are as ill-informed and pliable as the stenographers who "cover" the White House, Bush's aides scheduled a sit-down interview with Carole Coleman, Washington correspondent for RTE, the Irish public television network...Unfortunately, it appears that Coleman failed to receive the memo informing reporters that they are supposed to treat this president with kid gloves. Instead, she confronted him as any serious journalist would a world leader."

In evaluating the complaint, the Irish government must understand that Mr. Bush is not representative of the United States and was NOT elected president, rather installed through the actions of his brother in Florida and his father's appointees on the Supreme Court. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and was behind in the electoral vote when he and his brother's actions allowed him to ignore the wishes of the American people and take the presidency.

Unfortunately, the American press has too often stood by and not questioned his actions and it has taken the foreign press to ask him tough questions. To that end the American people owe a debt of gratitude to Ms. Coleman and possibly an apology for the administration's reaction.

Lying with impunity

One of the reasons the right wing and the GOP have been successful in defining the issues of the day is that they have figured out that in today's sound-bite mentality they can lie and not be called on it.

On Larry King's show former President Bill Clinton said "Some of the right-wing Republicans -- Rush Limbaugh, a lot of the other talk show people -- immediately said he was murdered. It was -- it was a mad time where you could say anything you wanted about the president or anybody that had the misfortune to know me."

So on the CNN media watch show Reliable Sources, how did rightwing talk show host Laura Ingram respond to Clinton's statement?

"I never heard Rush Limbaugh say anything of the like. And I'm certain he didn't say that."

When pushed about it she said "It wasn't Rush Limbaugh. .. No, he didn't say anyone - that the Clintons murdered anyone."

So just what did Limbaugh actually say?

OK, folks, I think I got enough information here to tell you about the contents of this fax that I got. Brace yourselves. This fax contains information that I have just been told will appear in a newsletter to Morgan Stanley sales personnel this afternoon.... What it is is a bit of news which says...there's a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park.

So is Ingraham correct, that Limbaugh didn't actually allege that Foster "was murdered" by just repeating someone else's story "that claims that Vince Foster was murdered" or was it a lie? To me it's a lie. And did Ingraham get called on this lie? No, host Howard Kurtz replied "We'll have to revisit that another time."

I'm sure Ingraham smiled, knowing she and her ilk got away with another one.

Who's the Slimeball?

Former President George H.W. Bush said he had "total disdain" for Michael Moore and called Moore a "slimeball." Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, is likely to open eyes and help the current join his father as a "former" president.

But considering the slimy presidential election campaign George H.W. Bush ran in 1988, he should be the last one to criticize someone else for sliminess (or does he believe it takes a slimeball...).

For anyone who has forgotten, Bush (along with his RNC Chairman Lee Atwater) led one of the most disgusting and dishonest campaigns in recent memory, utilizing questionable advertising and speeches. Following the election, many news organization instituted Fact checks of candidates advertising to prevent future politicians from benefiting from lies the way Bush 41 did in 1988.

As one media outlet put it, Atwater was a "protage of the late South Carolina segregationist senator, Strom Thurmond, and personal Machiavelli to George Bush Sr. He's the man credited with coining "wedge issue." On his deathbed, he apologized for saying of Dukakis that he'd "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate." His repentance made good press at the time of his death from a brain tumor in 1991, but his methods are still a blueprint for how we the living can run and win a nasty campaign."

Maybe the lack of grace and ethics is a family thing. After the 1984 vice presidential debate which pitted Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York against George H.W. Bush, Barbara Bush said she could not say on television what she thought of Ferraro, but "it rhymes with witch."

This from a woman whose family's accomplishments included sons (Jeb and Neil) who were involved in savings & loans that went under, and sons (Jeb & George) who possibly stole a presidential election.

Yeah, George you've got real moral authority to call someone a slimeball...

Never Mind - The Media as Emily Litella

A lot of people call journalism the first draft of history, unfortunately those first drafts are rarely changed and the public is left with inaccurate version of history. And the media is loathe to criticize itself on a real time basis.

So four years after the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, and after years of right wing inspired attacks, Time magazine (subscription required) finally came around to reviewing the media's coverage of President Bill Clinton and Special Persecutor Kenneth Starr.

"In retrospect, it is clear that there was no substance to the Whitewater allegations and the other White House scandalettes—the travel-office firings, the FBI files, the death of Vince Foster—except, of course, Lewinsky. It seems clear that Starr conducted an unseemly and irresponsible investigation filled with "abuses of power," as Clinton contends, illegal leaks to the press and barely legal coercive tactics against prospective witnesses. And it also seems clear that the press was way too credulous about Starr's allegations and didn't pay nearly enough attention to his methods."

As Emily Litella would have said, "Oh. That's very different. Never Mind."

While Time Magazine may have finally admitted what went on, it's difficult to imagine that the Washington Post's Susan Schmidt or the New York Times' Jeff Gerth (or the Wall Street Journal's Robert Bartely from the grave) will apologize for its biased coverage.

The next question is when will the press apologize for it's biased War on Gore coverage of the 2000 Presidential election. It is truly amazing that right wingers complain about the media when the MAIN reason George Bush is in the White House today is the biased coverage Gore received in 2000.