frontline: the choice 2004 | PBS
Still can't see any difference in the two candidates?
Go watch Frontline's documentary The Choice 2004. It's a interwoven biography of both candidates. You can watch the entire program online in streaming video. This is good the way Fox News isn't.
The American Street » Wellstone Memorial II
It occurs to me that the Bush campaign knows it could lose. They've said so, and the way the debates played out, it's a real possibility. The Bush campaign risks alienating its base of evangelical voters if the support of Mary Cheney by her loving family is revealed, and the Cheneys are outraged that people might blame the subject of their daughter for their campaign's loss this November.
After all, there are so many other reasons for Bush to be losing. Iraq's a bloody mess, the administration is harboring felons in the Vice President's office, they lied the country into war, they tossed out reconstruction contracts among their buddies like Mardi Gras beads, and their presidential candidate is a blinking, slobbering, incoherent deer under the headlights of real debate and dissent. To isolate Mary Cheney among all these other reasons is just shameful, and we should only expect a mother and father to lash out at the possibility.
Democratic Underground
I didn't see it, but Nightline has exposed the Smear Boat Vets for the liars they are. Nightline went to the actual location where Kerry earned his Silver Star and the Vietnamese villagers back up his story. The Viet Cong had sent insurgents to that village; they were firing on the Swift Boats. The Viet Cong that Kerry shot was not a teenager; he was 26 or 27 years old, and his name was Bat Tan.
So now Kerry's crewmates back up his story, the official records back up his story, and the Vietnamese villagers present at the event back up his story. How many lies does a person have to tell before you can just say, "Liar," and be done with them?
Okay, I'm admitting to an Apprentice obsession. I've watched every episode but the first so far (the only one the guys have lost so far).
The women's team invariably suffers from the pecking order phenomenon. One person is isolated (this week it's Elizabeth) and if they lose, the women will speak with one voice and have her fired. The only reason they didn't get Stacey the first week she went to the boardroom is that Trump really was agitated at Bradford's stupid waiver of immunity.
The men's team has been critical of the one woman assigned to their team. Last week she became project manager of the women and was fired. Now this week they're designing women's clothing and they chose a designer who's so much like Pamela, it's insane. There's probably some psychological reason for that...
However, it's clear that the men are headed to the boardroom this week. Their clothes look awful, and the women are totally together. And odds are it's John the project leader who's taking the bullet. He's in over his head.
October 12.
Many things happened on this day, besides my being born. Columbus (or one of his crewmen) sighted land in the Americas today, initiating a brutal period of European colonization. Al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in 2000 (in my family, I'm the lucky one - my brother's birthday is September 11th). And Matthew Shepherd died today in 1998.
On the other hand, Oktoberfest kicked off today in 1810. Desmond Doss won the Congressional Medal of Honor - he was a conscientious objector who volunteered as a medic, and he was honored for his bravery at Okinawa.
Luciano Pavarotti was born today (yay!), as was Chris Wallace (ick), Kirk Cameron (ewww), Dick Gregory (yay!), and Marion Jones (yay!). And last but definitely not least, Hugh Jackman.
CNN.com
Sinclair stations refused to air Bush-critical advertisements earlier this year. They also refused to air a Nightline segment on their ABC stations when it featured a reading of the names of soldiers killed in Iraq. The DNC has filed a complaint with the FEC, the first ever by them against a media organization.
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Until after the election, that is:
Several themes emerge from this study. Specifically, this examination will show that the administration’s statements frequently do not match its actions. Its civil rights promises often suffer for lack of funding and ineffective implementation. To his credit, President Bush has not dismantled some good programs that previous administrations had implemented. However, he has also not comprehensively advanced them or demanded accountability for their outcomes. And finally, through the views of his executive and judicial appointments and his own professed priorities, President Bush redefines civil rights, at times by promoting unrelated initiatives under a civil rights banner.Though the report Redefining Rights in America is available at the USCCR website, it's only a draft copy. That's because Republicans protested the timing of this report.
DRUDGE REPORT 2004®
Had to link to Drudgie for the memo. It's ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin, telling his staff to bust the candidates for lying and distorting the other's record without regard to some nutty "'equally' accountable" canard. Here's the memo, reprinted from Drudge:
It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite graveI understand what Halperin is saying, but this sentence could have been stated a hell of a lot more clearly: We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
I do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.
The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.
Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.
We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.
I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.
It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.
Mr. President, you said that American corporations were cooperating with Saddam Hussein in the oil-for-food scandal, but mentioned no names. Since only American oil corporations would be involved in such a scandal, how many of the cooperating companies were also part of your Vice President's invitation-only meetings to develop your administration's energy policies in early 2001?A hobbit can dream...
BartCop
Bartcop quotes a Freeper:
I had that feeling that Kerry had the questions beforehand.This guy is so used to building Bush up into SuperLeader, that someone with a grasp of the facts and communications skills is a surprise to him. It must be a fix! It just couldn't be that Kerry knows what he's talking about, and knows how to say it effectively...
He seemed to have his answers right on target.
Bush seemed like he was surprised by the questions.
I wish they could investigate to see if the DNC got a hold of the questions beforehand.
Did I just see William Hung warming up the crowd?
Well, why not? I mean, Wolf is carrying water for the Bush campaign. He's terminally unable to understand Kerry's position on Iraq. The CNN crew has fully developed the "make or break for Kerry" meme - "historians will be writing about this for many years to come..."
Goody Jim Lehrer, the Debate Nanny, has just deputized Laura Bush and Teresa Heinz-Kerry as hall monitors. Ai-yi-yi.
Begala just pointed out that as easy as this format is, we should have no mercy on anyone that makes a mistake tonight. From your mouth to Wolf Blitzer's ear, Paul.
ABCNEWS.com : Bush, Kerry Prepare for Debate in Fla.
I'm all for labor-saving devices, though. Maybe they could go ahead and print the election results and save us a lot of grief.
Slate.com
Mr. Norquist believes that the generation which pulled itself out of the Great Depression and fought WWII was "un-American".
Mr. Norquist, if you don't like this country, you can leave.
After he received the documents in Houston, Burkett said, he drove home, stopping on the way at a Kinko's shop in Waco to copy the six memos. In the parking lot outside, he said, he burned the ones he had been given and the envelope they were in. Ramirez was worried about leaving forensic evidence on them that might lead back to her, Burkett said, acknowledging that the story sounded fantastic. "This is going to sound like some damn sci-fi movie," he said.My first position on this was that the documents were forgeries. I backed off of that, because I saw how well they fit in with official documents, and technology of the time could have produced those documents. But when Marian Knox gave her testimony, that was that for me. She was in the position to know, and she declared them fake.
In his remarks, Kerry laid out the steps we must now take. First, the president must secure international support. Second, we must commit to a serious effort to train Iraqi security forces. Third, we must carry out a reconstruction plan that brings benefits to the Iraqi people, and fourth, we must take the necessary steps to hold elections next year.Kerry made a very good point: one of America's true strengths in the past is our good relationship with other nations. Bush has strained these relationships and made America weaker. If the Iraq intervention had been a truly international effort, the insurgency would have been denied a potent propaganda device. America would not be shouldering the costs of this war, both money and blood.
CBS News
As I've been saying for a couple of days now, the memos are forgeries. CBS News is trying hard to recover from this, but they're going to take a big hit over this. Their recovery will be down the road.
Burkett is completely destroyed as a source. He's evidently refusing to tell CBS where he got the documents. Okay, then. He's got to expect that people will assume they came from his own hand then. It's a reasonable assumption.
This will overwhelm the whole AWOL story for a while, but real questions are still being raised by many different media outlets, questions that have never relied on these memos. The truth will out, as CBS has learned the hard way.
washingtonpost.com: The Paper Trail
As Kevin Drum says, this is a devastating page for the authenticity of CBS's Killian memos.
However, I'm going to take issue with their four "content" points, because there are several people who verify the content of these memos.
First, the forged 19 May 72 memo claims Bush is going to work on another campaign for his dad. The Post notes:
Bush was working on the campaign for family friend, not his father.This doesn't take the recent testimony of the widow of the family friend, who says that Bush's father asked her husband to find Bush a place on the Alabama campaign. Since Bush's father was the initiator, this is a perfectly understandable statement from Bush under the circumstances.
Staudt retired in March 72, 17 months before memo was written.This is something that Killian's secretary, Marian Carr Knox, confirmed. Staudt was a well respected officer in the Texas ANG. He remained a political player after his retirement, and the idea that he lost every scrap of influence in the Texas ANG after retirement is ludicrous.
Aug. 18 was a Saturday. It is unlikely that ANG conducted business with "Austin" on Saturday."Austin" is headquarters for the entire Texas National Guard. Since drills were conducted on weekends, I find it unlikely that someone wasn't at Austin to take or make phone calls.
Frist won't bring drug import legislation up for vote - Tennessean
What a whore. What a whore.
But I digress. The legislation concerns drug reimportation. Drugs are made in America, shipped to Canadian companies, who could then concievably ship the drugs back into America and still sell them for less than the same drugs simply being sold in America.
Does anybody not see how screwed up this is??
Frist cites "safety" concerns, cites he. There is no way to verify that these drugs are actually coming from Canada and that they haven't been tampered with, says he. He counsels us to remember the Tylenol scare in 1982, counsels he.
So if there were some way to verify that the drugs are actually being driven over the border and back without being tampered with, we might could have the legislation and get cheaper prices on prescription drugs? Sounds like a plan to me...
Hey! Here's a bright idea. Why don't we just sell the drugs here for less money in the first place? I mean, if the pharms are cutting Canada such a deal that they can afford to ship our own exports back to us and make a profit underselling the big pharms, why can't the pharms just cut Americans the same break?
Hmmm?
Salon.com
Don't mean to be hawking Salon.com's day pass all the time, but here's another mustread.
1. In Vietnam, we didn't have as much at stake.
2. Iraq is far more volatile.
3. We're in much worse shape with our allies.
Oh, yes. According to one source in this story (General Joseph Hoar), all signs point to an attack on Fallujah after Election Day.
Is that going to be win or lose, Mr. President?
