WaxWorks
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Saturday, March 06, 2004
What Have You Been Doing All This Time?
I know exactly where I want to lead this country; I know what we need to do to make the world more free and more peaceful. I know what we need to do to make sure every person has a chance at realizing the American dream. I know what we need to do to continue economic growth so people can find work, to raise the standards at schools so children can learn, to fulfill the promise to America's seniors. Americans are hard working, decent, generous people.
Are these John Kerry's words in his latest TV ad as he tries to unseat the President? Words from John Edwards on the stump? Nope, these are incumbent President George W. Bush's words, trying to make people forget that HE'S been President for the past four years and has a miserable record on all the things he claims to want to fix in this ad.
J-E-T-S...
Sometimes it's just so frustrating being a fan of a team. As a lifelong Jets fan, I've gotten used to their idiocy in personnel moves, but this one takes the cake. The Jets have been desparately in need of a big receiver ever since they traded Keyshawn Johnson to the Bucs in 2000. Some fans thought that perhaps Terrell Owens might be an option when he became a free agent, only to be disappointed when TO's agent blew that.
Then I see that the Ravens were able to acquire TO from the Niners for their second round pick, #51 overall, and that the Jets were involved in negotiations for TO, but those negotiations didn't progress.
Well, I'm a little bit puzzled by this, because the Jets had an earlier second round pick than the Ravens. So then I'm assuming that the Jets thought it was too steep a price to give up the 44th pick in the the draft for TO (which seems crazy to me.) Now, tonight, I see this: the Jets have traded that same second round pick that they didn't offer for TO to the Titans for Justin McCareins.
Let me get this straight -- we wouldn't give up the pick for Terrell Owens, but we're willing to trade the same pick for JUSTIN MCCAREINS. Yes, the great Justin McCareins.
Sigh. Now I know why we haven't been in the Super Bowl in over 30 years.
Friday, March 05, 2004
The Sunshine State Again
ARG has a new poll out that shows Kerry ever so slightly ahead of Bush in Florida, 45-44, with Nader polling at 4%. I think this is very good news for Kerry, as CW was that Bush had dramatically improved his standing in Florida since 2000. The Nader numbers, I believe, are also good news for Kerry. Good news, you ask, what are you thinking?
Well, it looks to be very difficult for Nader to get on the ballot in Florida this time around, without the Green Party apparatus to help him. He would need to collect 93,024 signatures (1% of the registered voters) by July 15. And I'm assuming, although the ARG poll does not entirely bear this out, that most of that Nader vote would go to Kerry.
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Won't Get Fooled Again
Here's my take on the criticism about Bush's use of 9/11 imagery in his ads, and why I think it is critical to maintain that criticism.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Democrats, including the most powerful Democrat at the time, Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, rightfully rallied around the President and supported him unconditionally as he planned the U.S. response to Al-Qaida. They did not discuss the President's unbelievably shaky response in the initial hours and days after the attack (does anyone else remember the President holding a televised conference call with Pataki and Giuliani on September 12 or September 13 where a clearly overwhelmed Bush just kept repeating the same rote phrases like a mantra, such as "this is a different kind of war. They understand that it's a different kind of war. It's a different kind of war. What you need to understand is that it's a different kind of war." ) Essentially, politics went to the wayside as we acted as one America and supported the President, uncritically, as he attacked the Taliban.
Then, once the Democrats had the temerity to criticize the President again, once the smoke had subsided, Republicans (and, yes, Karen Hughes, who today defended Bush's use of 9/11 in his ads) accused the Democrats of politicizing 9/11. Any criticism of the President about the war on terror was off limits. Republicans kept repeating that Bush was a strong, decisive and popular leader enough that it became the conventional wisdom, without any counter or oppositon. After 9/11, Republicans even chose New York as their convention site, but assured a slightly skeptical public that it would not politicize the tragedy for political gain. They maintained that the Democrats who attacked the President were unpatriotic. Criticism of Bush's leadership became off limits and his handling of the war on terror was never cross-examined.
And Democrats, cowered, backed off again and again, until the President was able to pound them with a mallet in the 2002 election. Then Democrats began to realize they had been snookered, and that all the support they had provided the President in the name of America was being used for political gain by Rove, Cheney and Co. Out of this realization the rise of Howard Dean was born and the expression of Democratic anger and frustration over being had.
Democrats finally got their groove back and began to fight back, and finally had to guts to say to the American public that the emperor has no clothes. And, unlike the past two years, people finally began to realize that he didn't. The lies and exaggerations about WMDs, the budget deficit, the Plame affair. Suddenly things didn't look so good for the President.
So that's where the Republicans stand now and that's why 9/11 is so very very important to them in their ads. It's the one unblemished thing that they have been entirely able to only tell their side of the story. (Why do you think that they've stymied the 9/11 Commission so much?) They were able to raise a shaky, illegitimate President up by using his response to 9/11, and the Democrats, since they didn't challenge him at the time, will be hard pressed to do so now. So Karen Hughes and Karl Rove are now taking the huge leap, after declaring 9/11 to be off limits for politics, to essentially declare that it was only off limits for Democrats who criticized the President back then. Since there was no criticism of the President, they say, it is central to who he is as President, and thus must be shown to explain his Presidency.
But Democrats shouldn't let themselves get snookered again. This is a test. The Republicans are trying to push the envelope and see how far they can take it. I'm not suggesting that these ads are particularly over the top, but it is the precedent. Give an inch and they'll take a mile. If this is okay, then maybe an ad with the speech at Ground Zero with the firefighter is okay, and on and on. And imagine what would happen at the convention in New York. Once we agree with Karen Hughes and others that it is perfectly acceptable for the President to capitalize politically on the death of 3,000 innocent Americans, then what is to stop them from having Bush go to Ground Zero, or to even give his acceptance speech there?
This is the true slippery slope and Democrats need to cut it off right now. The families of 9/11 victims have spoken out about this, and they are right. This day should go beyond politics, just as the Republicans said back then. Let Bush make his case as a leader, but leave the images of the World Trade Center and those who died on that day out of it.
Gut Courses
How come there weren't courses like this where I went to college? Here's Georgia Bulldogs assistant basketball coach Jim Harrick, Jr.'s final exam in his Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball Class in 2001, featuring such challenging questions as "how many points is a 3-point basket worth?" And it's multiple choice, no less.
Ignorance is Bliss
A few more thoughts on the Bush ad barrage. Bush's political advisors are trying to take a page out of Clinton's highly successful ad campaign in early 1996, when the DNC ran ads linking Dole and Gingrich, defininig Dole and effectively deciding the election. (These ads were done with soft money, and supposedly with some Clinton involvement, which eventually led to the passage of McCain-Feingold, which now forbids such use of soft money by the parties.)
Bush is running ads just like Clinton did, trying to define his opponent early, while he has a money advantage (Bush and Kerry will be at financial parity after their respective conventions, since both will get $75 million from the gov't to fund their general election campaign.) But one element of Clinton's ad campaign in 1996 that was so effective was how it happened completely unnoticed by the mainstream media, and by the Dole campaign. Everyone now says that Dole didn't have the money to compete with Clinton, which is true, but the RNC could have followed suit, if only it had caught on to what Clinton was doing. As a result of running ads in crucial states, but outside of big media markets, so they would be unnoticed by the mainstream media, Clinton was able to define his opponent and make his case for reelection without any real response from the Republicans until it was too late. They simply did not know what had happened because it was done under the radar.
In contrast, here Bush is trumpeting when and where he is running his ads. In part, he's doing that to also get some free media out of it in the states where he is not up and running. (And maybe some bad free media the way he is politicizing 9/11 in the ads, while still styming the 9/11 commission.) But I think in some ways it's a bit of a strategic mistake, because unlike in 1996, there are Democratic groups out there like Moveon.org, ACT, and Harold Ickes' media outlet, the Media Group, that are ready and waiting with millions of soft money dollars to swoop in and counter Bush's ads in those very same markets. So, even though Kerry is just as broke as Dole in 1996, Bush's ads won't go unanswered because of these outside groups. I think that's an important factor to consider when we later evaluate how effective they were.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
The Best Defense is a Good...
Here's a very original defense to a manslaughter charge by a woman who is charged with driving a car that killed a man. The woman claims she couldn't have been driving because she was, uh, otherwise occupied.
The Cost of the Iraq War
Have you heard conservatives make the argument that Clinton missed the chance to get Bin Laden because his Administration debated to death all the plans to go after him. A friend has alerted me to this article, which shows that the Bush Administration has done the same thing. Oops. Cross that argument off the list of reasons to blame Clinton for 9/11...
And the answer is: 0
The question: How many Bush/Cheney '04 ads will air before they use footage of the WTC?
The first ones out of the chute have got the flag in front of a hollow bottom shell of the WTC.
Imagine what the New York convention is going to be like.
Oh, and here's the Moveon.org ad that is going to be airing to counter Bush's ad buy, along with the winner of its ad contest, Child's Play.
UPDATE:
Josh Marshall has a great take on the message of all of Bush's new ads: It's not my fault.
Yes, there are all sort of bad things going on. The economy's been rough. The deficit is deepening. Job growth is barely registering. There's all sorts of chaos on the international stage. But it's not my fault. When I got here there was a recession already, which I didn't have anything to do with. That's was Clinton's fault. And the same with all the corporate scandals. And then Osama bin Laden got involved and that wasn't my fault either. And that Iraq thing didn't completely work out. But that's the CIA's fault. So if there's anything that's bad now it's not because of anything I did. It's because of 9/11. And if it's not because of 9/11 then it was already broken when I got here. So don't blame me.
Now, I think that does pretty much sum up what the president and the White House are telling the public. But it's important to draw back and recognize that up until this point that argument has largely worked. Now, however, I think people are beginning to question the argument.
The Fix Is In?
Now we learn about this:
When the Supreme Court denied review in a little-noticed case involving the Republic of Croatia in October 2002, Croatia's lawyer in the case remembers doing a double take when he saw the Court's order.
The order indicated that Justice Antonin Scalia had recused in Kahvedzic v. Republic of Croatia, No. 02-5917, and Tomislav Kuzmanovic was mystified. "I still have absolutely no idea why he did that," says Kuzmanovic, a Milwaukee-based partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson, who represented Croatia. As far as he knew, nobody connected to the case, which involved a property dispute in Bosnia, had any connection to Scalia.
Scalia did not explain his recusal -- justices rarely do -- but his motivation may have been revealed in a financial disclosure form he filed the following year: Scalia reported that he had been reimbursed by Croatia for a trip to meet Croatian judges in July 2002, just before the case came before the Court. The trip to Zagreb was one of 15 subsidized trips Scalia took that year.
It's starting to look like a) Scalia's is being ridiculously stubborn by not recusing in the Cheney case or b) there's some funny business going on...
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Thumbing Their Nose
Why isn't the Bush Administration's constant attempt to stymie the 9/11 Commission a bigger story?
The federal panel reviewing the Sept. 11 attacks has scheduled interviews with former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore this month but is struggling to get similar cooperation from President Bush and administration officials.
Members of the bipartisan commission said they were considering a subpoena to force the public testimony of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. She has declined to appear at the panel's two-day hearing later this month.
"The commission wants to go back in the court of public opinion and appeal to the administration for them to reconsider their first stand," said commissioner Timothy Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. "If we don't get that kind of cooperation, compelling Dr. Rice to come before us is an option."
...While Clinton and Gore have consented to private questioning without a time constraint, Bush and Cheney have agreed only to private, separate, one-hour meetings with the commission's chairman and vice chairman, instead of the full panel.
First, they initially refuse to support giving the Commission an extension to present its findings. Now this. It sure looks to me like they've got something to hide. And maybe for good reason, as 9/11 victim's families have noted in this Salon.com article:
Some of the 9/11 families wonder why Bush would want to shine a spotlight on 9/11 at all, since they insist it highlights a massive breakdown of his government to prevent the attack. "It's a symbol of failure," said David Pototari, co-director of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. "The president is charged with defending this country, and literally nothing was done during the two hours of attack to defend the county. I've never been able to understand how Republicans have turned this tragedy into a victory."
"Everything that could go wrong went wrong," says Lori Van Auken, who also lost her husband on 9/11. "Every defensive measure failed."
The recent speculation about the convention and the suspicion of Republican motives arise against the backdrop of bitter wrangling between the 9/11 commission and the Bush administration. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was established by Congress to study the nation's preparedness before Sept. 11, 2001, and its response to the attacks and to make recommendations for the future. From the start, the White House opposed the creation of the commission and has battled over funding as well as access to key documents.
"If you're proud of your actions, you explain what happened," says Van Auken. "If you're not proud, you do it behind closed doors with two commissioners for one hour."
I couldn't have said it better myself.
The Cavalry
Help is on the way. While Bush tries to help his sagging poll numbers by beginning his $150 million ad barrage, the Democratic line of defense is stepping in to help the eventual Democratic nominee. Moveon.org, which along with ACT is creating a critical independent attack on Bush, is putting on $1.9 million of its own ads.
The MoveOn.org Voter Fund has been airing commercials assailing Bush for months in several swing states, but its $1.9 million effort will be its most far-reaching. The ads will ensure that there is a Democratic presence on the TV airwaves in key states as Bush begins to make his case for re-election.
John Kerry, the Democratic front-runner, is considering a modest response designed to put the White House on the defensive, advisers say, but the Democratic National Committee is waiting until there is a nominee before it starts running ads. That leaves outside groups like MoveOn, acting independently of the campaign, as the primary Democratic voice.
In most states, MoveOn will run a new ad that takes Bush to task for his economic policies, including overtime pay and outsourcing jobs. In others, the group will run a previously released spot that shows images of children toiling on a grocery line and in a tire factory coupled with the text, "Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?"
"We're really stepping up our efforts to make sure our members' voices are heard," Wes Boyd, the group's founder, said Tuesday. "We are trying to get these messages out about these fundamental issues.
Ads will run over five days in 67 media markets in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Also, the FEC is not going to start its rulemaking process on regulating these groups until May. By that time the regulations will be too late, since these groups will have already aired their ads and provided a much needed assistance until the Democratic nominee gets his general election $$$.
How Far Right is Far Right contd.
This speaks volumes of President Bush's position supporting a consitutional amendment banning gay marriage (and, if you read the fine print, civil unions as well): former Chief Judge Roy Moore opposes it. As quoted on politics1.com:
You can tell the proposed constitutitional gay marriage ban is in big trouble when even "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore (R) -- the ousted Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice -- has now announced his opposition to the amendment. "I don't think you can make a constitutional amendment for every moral problem created by courts that don't follow the law of their states ... I think it's a problem to establish morality by constitutional amendments made by men when the morality of our country is plainly illustrated -- in Supreme Court precedent and in state-law precedent and in the common law -- as coming from an acknowledgement of God," explained Moore in an interview yesterday with the NY newspaper Forward.
Wow.
Primary Day
Well, it's Super Tuesday and I voted this morning. I have to say that I was quite impressed with the new electronic touch-screen voting machines here in Maryland, although I hear that there may be some technical glitches with them now. They were easy to use and it shows you what you've selected before you cast your final vote, avoiding a Palm Beach County repeat.
The one thing I was curious about, and didn't get a chance to ask about because I needed to head to work, was whether or not there was a paper backup made of each vote. These machines, as reports in Georgia have shown, can be easily hacked and misused for partisan purposes, and the CEO of main producer of these machines wrote, in a fundraising letter, that he would do everything he can to deliver Ohio to Bush.
The one question, I suspect, that will remain after today is whether or not a Kerry/Edwards ticket will become a reality. (The proportional system of awarding delegates just makes it too hard for an underdog to come from behind unless the frontrunner does something absolutely outrageous. Even if Edwards wins 45-30, Kerry still gets 30% of the delegates.) An article in today's New York Times seems to suggest not, although the headline and opening paragraphs set a more pessimistic tone than the article as a whole. I heard Kerry on Imus this morning talk about their relationship and he claimed that it was a good relationship and he noted that he and his wife were also fond of Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, something I had heard before.
Personally, I'm not so fond of someone like Gephardt being the Veep in a plan to get Missouri or Ohio, because I think such strategic thinking focuses too much on picking up one state and not on the multi-state benefits that Edwards could bring to the ticket. I think the party may need to lean on Kerry a bit and force him to make a decision like Kennedy in 1960 -- certainly that JFK's relationship with LBJ was no better than Kerry's with Edwards, even if you believe all of the press.
Monday, March 01, 2004
Chutzpah
Maureen Dowd has a great line about Bush's shabby treatment of the 9/11 Commission, given his not-so-subtle desire to run for reelection on all things 9/11:
It is a triumph of chutzpah for Mr. Bush to thwart the investigation into 9/11 at the same time he seeks re-election by promoting his handling of 9/11 and scaring us with the specter of more terrorism. He's even using 9/11 memorials as the backdrop for his convention in New York.
As upset as I am that Judge Silberman is chair of the commission investigating the intelligence failures, since he's as strong a member of the right wing conspiracy as any and someone clearly violated judicial ethics throughout the Clinton Administration, is chair, is as happy I am that McCain is on there:
Mr. McCain said he's expecting the same administration "obfuscation and delay" when he sits on Mr. Bush's hand-picked intelligence review board. "That's why I made sure I got subpoena power," he said. "No bureaucracy will willingly give you information that may be embarrassing to them."
Especially not such a secretive, paranoid and high-handed administration. Bush officials act as though they own 9/11, even while refusing to own up to any 9/11 mistakes.
Because of 9/11, they think they can suspend the Constitution, blow off investigators, attack nations pre-emptively, and keep Americans afraid by waging a war against terrorism that can never be won.
The Best Defense is A Good Offense
The Bush campaign has made clear that it is going to attack Kerry's record on defense in an effort to paint him as a stereotypical Massachusetts liberal. But, as this article notes, Kerry's record on defense stands up pretty well when you put his votes in context and compare with statements made by liberals like Dick Cheney and George H.W. Bush at the same time.
Kerry's got this defense ready. So either his staff reads the same stuff I do or they leak to the people who write the same stuff.
Underdogs Need Not Apply
The Oscars certainly were a hobbit-fest last night. But more significantly, considering LOTR wasn't nominated in any acting categories, there were no upsets at all. This was about the straightest Oscars we'd had in a long time. It's the equivalent of the higher seed winning each game in the 1st Round of the NCAA tournament.
Tim Robbins was very non-political, which probably made the producers happy. Sean Penn made a slight dig at WMDs, but come on, everybody but Dick, George and Rummy have made those kind of jokes. Michael Moore got a lot of heat for his speech last year, but, in retrospect, what exactly was he wrong about?
We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president.
We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.
