August 15
Nick Coleman has a disturbing column in today's Star Tribune. He writes about crack downs on free speech during presidential campaign events. He includes people being arrested for wearing opposition t-shirts, the Secret Service posting photos of known dissidents, attendees required to sign loyalty oaths as a requirement for admission (I've heard elsewhere that the oath includes permission to use the signer's name in campaign advertising), and protestors restricted to zones far from the event and hidden by fences. Coleman tried to be non-partisan about it, condemning restrictions on free speech. He did mention where each incident happened, and mentioned it was a Bush campaign event.

It's perhaps nothing so insidious as the Bush campaign trying to crack down on dissent in general (though John Ashcroft's comments about criticism in wartime being helpful to the enemy could lead one to suspect such a motive), but rather the trouble Bush has in front of unfriendly audiences. He can't say he doesn't know something, can't admit a mistake, and doesn't do well at putting together sentences on the fly. Those things together can be disastrous, as when at a conference of minority journalists, he stumbled through a question about Indian tribal sovereignty in a way that showed he didn't even know what the question was about, but wouldn't admit it. Some in the audience (it was an audio clip, so I've no idea how many) outright laughed at his answer. Admittedly it sounded like it was written for someone playing Bush on Saturday Night Live, but the laughter was rude. That would make anyone skittish. On the other hand, like one of Coleman's sources says, "If those who disagree never get to listen to the other side, they lose the opportunity to change their opinion. What if someone listened, and changed their mind?" Of course, campaign events aren't really intended to persuade an undecided or disagreeing hearer. The purpose is the energize the base, impress the locals with the presence of the candidate, and provide the sound bite for the evening news.

Speaking of sound bites, the newest I've heard from Dick Cheney is critical of John Kerry for wanting to be more sensitive towards terrorists. That's both misleading and ironic. The ironic part is several people in the administration, including Bush himself, have talked about being more sensitive towards other countries, or towards various groups in Iraq. The misleading part is, and no one should be surprised by this by now, Kerry didn't actually say that. At that same minority journalists' convention mentioned above, Kerry said, "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." It's pretty plain he's talking about other countries, not terrorists. Feel free to disagree with him, but twisting his words so he seems to have said something else is a lie. It seems bizarre Bush and Cheney keep resorting to these smears when they keep getting caught in lies (like the swift boat ad), but I guess it's worked so often they have faith in the tactic. What I don't get is why anyone would vote for people so blatantly dishonest. Even if they say they share your values, how do you believe them.

August 13
The Acting President was on Larry King Live tonight. Responding to a question about why he went to war without much in the way of allies, he said some people think it's a coalition only if the French are included. The next remark surprised me. Perhaps he was just trying to show that he is able to get French support, but for whatever reason, he mentioned that the French helped us in Afghanistan and Haiti, and just disagreed with him on Iraq. It's good he acknowledges that, but why didn't he say so when so many on his side of the political spectrum were busy bashing the French?

He said something he has said a number of times before. Justifying being so completely wrong about Iraq's support of Al Qaida and WMDs, he said the whole world thought the same. Of course they did George: they got it from you! Of course, given how the war had popular support nowhere but here, and not many more governments behind it, maybe they didn't believe it, but supported the sanctions because they suspected what Sadaam would do without the screws on him.

Another CNN program, American Morning, interviewed Alan Keyes Wednesday. He was a prime example of something that bothers me about the religious right: that it's all right to do things that are wrong because they're doing God's work. He was asked if he sticks by his criticism of Hillary Clinton for running for senate in a state where she had no connection now that's he's running in Illinois, where his connection is between planes at O'Hare. He said he does think the criticism was right, because Clinton was running for personal ambition, while he's running in a righteous cause. How he knows her motives he didn't say. He did say she went shopping for a state, though as I recall the New York Democrats approached her. He then said he has a "calling from the people of Illinois." Clinton must have forced herself on New York. That's a neat trick, considering she had to go through the whole nomination process and then win a majority of the whole state. Keyes was picked by Republican Party leaders. No endorsement process, no primary, just right to the general election.

Despite this joke about Clinton, I figure if a party wants to nominate from out of state, and if voters want to elect from out of state, that's their right. I've no problem with Keyes running in Illinois. I do have a problem with the rules not applying to you if you're religious enough.

August 12
The recent arrests of Al Qaida suspects in Britain is actually annoying to the British. They had to make the arrests when they wanted to continue surveillance, and the arrests were made with potential danger to civilians. Why the hurry? Because the identity of the source that led to the arrests was leaked by the Bush administration.

Why? Because of last week's orange alert. They told the public there was an immediate threat to certain buildings. With the reasons for the alert not revealed, some people, most prominently Howard Dean, asked whether the alert might be less because of a threat and more for political purposes. It looked fishy that it came when John Kerry was trying to pick up momentum coming out of the convention. The alert, of course, took over the headlines. To refute suspicions the alert was political, Tom Ridge said Homeland Security doesn't do politics (though his announcement of the alert pointedly praised the leadership of the acting president). Homeland Security also revealed that when the source was captured just a couple days earlier, they found surveillance as recent as January 2004. Unfortunately, revealing the source meant a bunch of bad guys knew they were about to be caught, thus screwing up every related investigation.

The cliche being used to excuse the alert is "damned if you do, damned if you don't," meaning if something had happened without the alert, they would have been blamed for doing nothing. It might be used to excuse the leak too, meaning if the source wasn't revealed, the Bush administration would be criticized for not revealing sources and faking the whole alert. The problem is the leak avoided the central question about the alert, once we knew about the old intelligence: why was there a threat NOW? If the last surveillance of the targets was January, what led them to think the attack was about to happen? They've never answered that. They could have said they had a source that indicated attack was imminent, but didn't. Either they've completely mishandled a terrorism problem (again), or there was no reason to think the attack was set for last week, which would mean the alert was political. Interestingly, I recently saw a chart (I've tried to find it online for a link -- if anyone knows what chart I mean and can find it, please send me a link) that put Bush's popularity rating over the terror alerts. With each alert, his popularity spiked. It then continued the downward trend it's been on since 911.

This does not prove the alert was politically motivated. It does demand an answer to the question, what led to the alert right then?

August 11
Al Franken has been talking about the Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth" (quotation marks mine) ad on his radio show. A caller suggested that the point of the ad is to distract us from real issues. I can understand why she would think that, though I'm not sure there's a difference between doing that and trying to smear someone, at least in this case. I hope the Kerry campaign doesn't take her advice, because too often Democrats have reacted to these smear campaigns by some variation of "I won't dignify that with an answer." That's fine if a candidate is heard to say that -- that is effectively a denial of the charge -- but when the candidate is not heard to deny the charge, it is widely taken as true. Michael Dukakis handled Bush Sr.'s Willie Horton ads that way, and he found himself during a debate having to seriously answer a question about how he'd feel if his wife was raped and killed. Al Gore found his alleged exaggerations were getting more attention than the lies Bush was already telling. This time, Kerry needs to be blistering in his counterattack on the Swift Boat Vets for Smears (altered name mine).

Which leads to another subject. The lies of the Bush administration aren't just annoying, aren't just a way to make them look bad or make the left feel superior. More so than any administration in my lifetime (and I remember Nixon) this adminstration lies like it's a reflex, and that in itself is a legitimate issue. The lies are how Bush went into office (remember how much they talked about the vandalism by Clinton's outgoing staff? Which turned out to be completely untrue), got us into war (we know right where the weapons are), led us to think he'd handled 911 more competently than he did (no one expected a highjacking, though it was in the presidential briefing) , and led people who got screwed to think they got a big tax cut (most goes to the bottom -- well, maybe if he meant the bottom 99%). So absolutely, differences on policy matters aside, the mere fact Bush can't be trusted is itself an issue. It's why it's so hard to find help with Iraq. It's why we need international observers for our election. It's why if Bush "wins" because of touch screen machine screw-ups, he'll remain illegitimate.

August 10
A Time reporter is being held in contempt for not revealing his source in the Valerie Plame story. She's the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who investigated reports Iraq was buying fissionable material from Niger, found they were false, and denounced Bush for using the false information in his case for the war in Iraq. Plame was revealed to be an undercover CIA agent, putting her in danger and ending her work on WMD. The leaker is someone high in the White House. Reporters need to be able to grant confidentiality, but the odd things here are that only Robert Novak used the information, so why is anyone else protecting the leaker? And if the source lied about what Plame did, as Novak claims, saying he was told she was an analyst and it turned out later she was an agent, then why does the promise of confidentiality hold? The leaker may have committed treason, so Bush should be anxious to get rid of this person, but is protecting him or her by at least not investigating. Something else that needs investigating is why Ashcroft told the White House staff to preserve all evidence, but he gave them two days warning the order was coming.

That may seem a small event in the context of the war, but endangering someone's spouse in revenge for their revealing what they know about the Bush administration is an attempt to silence others who may know something. That's a serious abuse of power, and if it turns out Bush knew, or deliberately didn't investigate, that's grounds for impeachment. For Bush to do nothing but blow it off should be reason enough to remove him on election day.

August 9
If I may digress from politics a moment, though it's still about some rich people screwing over people who, well, aren't. Namely, fans who stuck by the Montreal Expos despite ownership that ran the team into the ground. The current owner is Major League Baseball (MLB) itself, which tried to contract the team, sells off each decent player like it's a farm team for the other teams, and keeps trying to move the team. So obviously it's the fans' fault for not supporting the team. I mean "obviously" in the sense of the complete opposite of obvious, and only idiots could think so. MLB has narrowed the search for a new location to either Washington D.C. or Northern Virginia. At least Washington would make up somewhat for two teams being yanked away, so since Washington getting a team again would help put right something wrong, I'd bet on Northern Virginia.

OK, back to politics. In this article, Barry Gottlieb expresses his disdain for conspiracy theories, a disdain I share. I do however explain why I think something deserves to be called a conspiracy theory or why someone deserves to be called a conspiracy theorist when I make such an accusation. Mr. Gottlieb did not see fit to do likewise, naming Oliver Stone and Michael Moore, who frequently get this accusation thrown at them. I don't know about Oliver Stone. I haven't seen JFK, and I suspect Mr. Gottlieb hasn't either based on easily he throws accusations around. I have however seen Fahrenheit 911, and I don't see the conspiracy theory. If these pundits who throw this accusation around so freely would just say what part was "conspiracy theory" they could be answered. Maybe that's the point: they can repeat the charge like it's accepted truth while never being held accountable. See more on this here. The other accusation thrown easily is that Bill Clinton is a conspiracy theorist for claiming the right wing was out to get him. Like Gottlieb says, it's hard to believe a large number of people could plan that and everyone keep it secret. The problem with this example is it wasn't secret. The people who went after Clinton were pretty up front about doing anything at all to get him. They didn't have to be acting in concert either to do what they did. Lots of people, including me, are trying to get Bush out of office, but we're not one organized group. He could rightly claim a bunch of the left is out to get him. That wouldn't make him a conspiracy theorist.

August 8
CNN's Capitol Gang finishes the program with panelists giving their "Outrage of the Week." Kaite O'Beirne expressed outrage that Democrats insisted during the convention that Al Gore won the election. She then cited vote counts that gave Florida to Bush. This is a lie by ommission, because it leaves out some things that gainsay the intended point. First, the one vote count that should matter, which counts every vote where the intent is clear, showed Gore won (Gore made a huge blunder by not insisting on this standard from the beginning, though that may not have helped). Second, the Supreme Court stopped the count and declared Bush the winner before the results were known. Third, O'Beirne does what Republicans always do, leave out the roughly 40,000 voters misidentified as felons. These voters were overwhelmingly Black and presumably Democratic. Had every voter gotten to vote, and gotten it counted, Gore would have won; not by a comfortable margin in a state the size of Florida, but by a four or five figure margin. If O'Beirne is wondering why Bush is considered illegitimate, that's why. If she's not going to tell the truth, maybe she should stop bringing it up and motivating those of us who consider Bush a thief.

Besides, she committed her own outrage during the program. She brought up Kerry's vote against $87 billion for Iraq as an example of his perfidiousness. She left out, another lie by ommission, that there were two bills (why doesn't anyone in the press ever ask how he voted both for and against one bill?). The first paid for the war by rescinding $87 billion of Bush's tax cut. The second didn't pay for it, but just added to the deficit. Kerry voted for the first and against the second. Not one Republican voted for the first, so they also voted both for and against, yet they're not accused of flip-flopping.

It also bugs me that this alleged flip-flip is supposed to be equal to stealing an election, getting us into a war on false premises, or just sitting for seven minutes and staying at the elementary school another 20 minutes when news came of the second tower being hit.

August 7
There has been one benefit to having such a devious bunch occupying the White House. I had no idea just how much the mainstream media, known perjoratively as the "liberal" media, are surprisingly inaccurate when it comes to reporting things in such a way as to make their supposedly beloved liberal look bad. The latest example is Kerry's quote about how he would have reacted had he been reading The Pet Goat when he got the word about 911. He's being widely portrayed as having brought it up himself, as if it had been in a stump speech, and he's come in for criticism for politicizing 911. What goes unmentioned in most reports is he was responding to a direct question about how he would have handled the situation. Here's an example. How much work would it be to add the preparatory clause, "Responding to a question about how he would have reacted if he'd been in the classroom when he received the news, Kerry said..."?

August 6
As I said in this article, I'm a fan of Michael Moore. He's a favorite target of the conservative media, with lies being their preferred ammunition. A prime example is yesterday's column by Kathleen Parker, in which she takes umbrage at some wacky things Moore said in Fahrenheit 911. There was the slight problem that he didn't actually say those things, but I guess it's easier to make up denouncable things than to see the film and risk discovering that he's right. Details here.

And speaking of elections, which I was in the introductory paragraph I put at the top of the page, here's some details to explain that bit about Florida Republicans being up to election rigging again. Last Spring, the state government again purged the voter registration role in such a way as to exclude Blacks but not Hispanics, who in Florida are overwhelmingly Cuban and considered a Republican constituency. They didn't want to show the list to anyone, preferring that marvelous sense of surprise when voters are turned away at the polls. Then they backed down a bit, allowing individuals to check for their own name, but no one could make a copy or take notes. When a Freedom of Information Act request got the list released, the problems were promptly discovered, and the state said it wouldn't use the list at all. But that's not all Jeb and Co. got up to.

Gov. Jeb Bush, who happens to be the brother of the acting president, rejected criticism of the electronic voting machines Florida will be using and said they had no problems. His brother said he considered Florida a model of how to run an election, in part because of these nice modern machines. They were undercut when the state Republican party sent a notice to supporters telling them to ask for absentee ballots because of the unreliability of the machines. I've heard Jeb's name was on the letter, but I don't know that for sure. I've also heard he apologized. Of course, he still plans to use the machines. I work with computers, and those things scare me. I have a bad feeling a bunch of states will have unreliable election results, and cause the declared winner to be subject to charges of election theft.

See the archives for earlier entries.