NYC + RNC = GTHC
Get The Hell out of the City
That's what most NY'ers wish they could do next week (I'm making it a reality, yea!). But a quick memo to the Bush-bashers while I'm away:
Shut the fuck up. I know you want to hang banners on the Plaza, stand nude in Times Square, form human chains on Wall Street, march on MSG. I know how bloody satisfying it would be to get your bullhorn and shout at delegates about what dickweeds the Bushies are.
But if you give a damn at all about getting Bush out of office, you'll temper your desire to be heard, because whatever you do, no matter how tame is going to only solidify Bush's support. The more aggressive you are, the more people with sympathize with Bush and the GOP for having to endure your bullshit.
So, stay at home. Drink a wheatgrass smoothie and shout at the TV with your friends. It'll be like you're a Red Sox fan for a week, and it'll be a hell of a lot more fun than getting roughed up and arrested only to see Bush win because of it.
Vacation
Wow. I go on vacation and so does everyone else.
Oh well, I'll get back into it this weekend, so stay tuned.
And I'll be as nasty as ever!!
The Swift Boat Candidate
I pointed out last month how eerily remniscent of the brainwashed vets in The Manchurian Candidate Kerry's omnipresent combat buddies seemed to be. Once again, the GOP has proved to be exceptionally adept at using attacks on them against their attackers, and they've managed to somehow legitimize my point by mobilizing their rabid fringe to suggest that Kerry actually wounded himself in order to insure his "war hero" status.
Abandon all hope, ye Democrats who enter here.
"What we're dealing with here is a complete lack of respect for the law"
Texas Gov. Rick Perry hopped on his Harley-Davidson one July weekend and went on a scenic ride — at speeds estimated up to 75 or 80 mph, according to a constable's account released Wednesday.
A Travis County deputy constable who spotted, but didn't recognize, Perry cruising on scenic, hilly Southwest Parkway on July 3 didn't pursue him to issue a ticket but pulled over a trailing security car instead, which also wasn't ticketed.
"You have a nontraffic stop on a nonspeeding citation," spokeswoman Kathy Walt said.
YeeHaa!!! Sweet Texas Justice. It's all who you know, isn't it?
How to Change Your Tune Without People Noticing:
Run against a Democrat. These poor SOB's are so unorganized that they can't hit Bush in any of the most obvious places.
In 2000, he was clear on only a few issues, and one of them was being an anti-interventionist. He picked away at concepts like nation building, and insisted that he would be a president that didn't allow America to be the world's policeman.
In 2004, he's actually running ads that feature Olympians from Afghanistand and Iraq and boasting that "At this Olympics there will be two more free nations -- and two fewer terrorist regimes."
It's enough to turn your stomach, if only the Dems could get people to notice.
Falwell School of Loony Law
The Rev. Jerry Falwell will open a law school this month in hopes of training a generation of attorneys who will fight for conservative causes. Graduates of the law school -- part of Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, which is affiliated with his Baptist ministry -- could tackle such issues as abortion rights and gay marriage, Falwell said.
"I'd love to fight Roe v. Wade," said incoming law student Heidi Thompson.
Well, isn't that special!
Bush Wins with 58%
So says Ray Fair, an economist who's developed a vote equation, which is accurate in predictions up to 97.5%.
The dismal job report which was just released lowered Bush's margin of victory to its current 58%, according to Fair's model.
What's a Kerry supporter to do? First off, hope that JK starts spouting something other than positions that he thinks voters want to hear. Secondly, take solace in the fact that you have to go back to GWBI to find a President who won more than 50% of the vote, and all the way back to Reagan v Mondale to see anything as high as 58%.
NASTYBOY replies:Wow, I've only seen a couple polls with Bush around 50%. In the latest Zogby poll, Kerry leads 47% to 43%. The latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows Senator John Kerry with 48% of the vote and President George W. Bush with 46%. And RealClearPolitics shows a polling average of 48.3 Kerry and 46.3 Bush.
Those are nowhere near 58%.
jodru admonishes:Remember, this isn't a poll. This is a mathematical model which predicts the outcome of presidential elections. It uses factors from the economy in order to determine the outcome, and it does so with only a 2.5% margin of error. You can read Fair's original paper, which was published in 1978, and see how he's tinkered with the model a few times to greatly increase it's accuracy.
Polls in August are almost useless. There is still a great deal of time before people begin to pay attention to this election, which is when the polls become more helpful. That being said, for Bush to add 12-15 points between now and the election would be pretty surprising.
NASTYBOY questions the admonishment:
I understand that it wasn't a poll. My point was that Bush doesn't even come close to 58% and, quite certainly, never will.
Who really cares?
Back in 1986, John Kerry recalled on the floor of the US Senate that he had spent Christmas under fire in Cambodia in 1968. An intense muckraking campaign, which the Republicans have barely distanced themselves from, has revealed that Kerry's recollection is incorrect, despite Kerry's claim that the memory was "seared" into his consciousness. Kerry has had to retract his claim, and if you're a Republican you want to string him up for it at the same time as you vindicate Bush for being evasive on his own service record.
But the fact of the matter is that no one really cares. Can you remember where you were on Christmas Eve 18 years ago? Combat memories are tricky enough as it is. Even the muckrakers admit that Kerry was probably only a few miles away from Cambodia, and that he was in Cambodia on another occassion.
Reagan lied about the Contras. Clinton lied about a lot of stuff but mostly women. Americans have shown time and again that they will vote for liars and scoundrels. Two guys whose memories are a little foggy about their service records are the least of our problems.
Gotta look sharp
The men and women protecting America's airlines have been instructed to look sharp during the Republican convention. Between Aug. 29 and Sept. 3, "all New York federal air marshals will be required to wear coat and tie on all domestic missions," wrote New York Special Agent-in-Charge Felix Jimenez in an E-mail to marshals on Friday.
But some marshals - who object to the overall policy of looking official instead of undercover - were outraged.
"They want all these people going to the convention to know there are marshals on the flights," said one of the sky cops. "It's just a big public relations stunt."
Who's Blacker?
Well, it was inevitable that a race between two black men would descend into a contest of who is the blacker. Alan Keyes took the low road early, saying that, as a descendant of African-American slaves, he is a truer representative of his community. Obama paid lip service to the speciousness of the argument, but didn't hesitate to offer up the fact that his father was a British servant in his native Kenya.
NASTYBOY replies:
Forget who is blacker. It's an insignificant sidebar to a more important question.
"Where is the uproar from the people that complained about Hillary Clinton being a carpetbagger? Isn't Alan Keyes doing the exact same thing?"
More hypocritical crap!
COUNTERPOINTby jodru
What's more uproarious: accusations of carpetbagging or racial elitism? Both issues are shamefully idiotic. What Hillary Clinton did in NY was just as distasteful as what Keyes is doing now. None of it's pretty, as we like to say around here.
NASTYBOY replies:
I consider the racial elitism to be a foofaraw. I'm still waiting to hear the uproar over the carpetbagging of Keyes by the same ones that complained about Clinton.
(chirp chirp)
Updates to post 9/11 Survival Guide
For those that purchased, When the Shit Hits the Fan: Your Post-9/11 Survival Guide , please note the following changes:On page 12 the sentence reading, “A massive power outage across many sections of the grid can only mean one thing: Armageddon” should actually say, “Most power fluctuations are the result of antiquated equipment and should be dealt with in a calm and rational manner.” The authors regret this typo and apologize for any undo anxiety it may have caused.
Chapter 2 (“Don’t Open That Envelope!”) gave many helpful tips regarding safe disposal of unread mail. The authors would now suggest that such drastic steps be taken only if the mail in question is ticking or appears to be associated with a Public Television fund drive. NOTE: On page 24, the sentence reading, “Be sure never to send foot powder through the Postal Service, even in jest” should now read “Never go swimming in a Maryland pond.”
Pages 55 through 59, including the sections entitled “Dissent Is Treason” and “A Corpse Has No Civil Liberties” have been removed from the latest edition of the Survival Guide.
You can read more of the changes here.
"Sovereignty means...er..uh...you're sovereign."
Is that so, Kimosabe? Please explain more."Tribal sovereignty means just that; it's sovereign. You're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity."
Thanks for clearing that up.
"But he's so mean!"
A conservative Web-based group has targeted cartoonist Ted Rall with protest letters sent to more than a dozen newspapers that publish his work as well as his syndicate, Universal. Rall has responded by denouncing the "Borglike hive-mind of reactionary Republicans."
"Stuff like this is the result of a point-and-click blogger subculture. It's only something that started when the Bush administration took power. The right is reactionary. They like to indulge in censorship. The First Amendment is not really their friend."
The letters e-mailed and faxed were identically worded, according to The Aspen (Colo.) Times, which received about 100 of them, and called for the axing of Rall's work on grounds that it is "melodramatically ideological, simple-headed, snarling, and tasteless." The letters identified the source as laptoplobbyist.com, billed as "America's First and Foremost Online Conservative Community."
Just another case of the Republicans trying to censor something they don't like.
Pot, Kettle. Kettle, pot.
Yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney lashed out at Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) for suggesting that America needs to fight "a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror."
"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive."
On 4/13/03, Cheney said,"We recognize that the presence of U.S. forces can in some cases present a burden on the local community. We're not insensitive to that.
Well, which is it, Dick? Do you want to be sensitive or insensitive?
Yucca Mountain
Oh dear. If you are at all in favour of John Kerry, stances like this really should frighten you. He's decided to court Nevada's 5 electoral votes by taking a hard stance on Yucca Mountain, which is where the nation stores all of its nuclear waste. At his web site, he's posted some of the more specious spin that his campaign has yet produced in a piece titled, "The Truth on Yucca Mountain".
His argument? Bush promised to base his decision on storing waste at Yucca Mountain on "sound science". Kerry maintains that Bush broke that promise by ignoring the General Accounting Office (that's right, "Accounting"), which was worried that implemenation wouldn't go as planned. And as for hard science, Kerry cites the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board which forewarned that Yucca Mountain had not adequately anticipated the possible complications over the 10,000 year life span of nuclear waste.
So, because Bush approved Yucca Mountain despite two minor concerns amidst a sea of scientific approval, Kerry is hoping to win in Nevada.
Remember how Tyson used to leave his feet to throw a knockout punch? If that punch landed, you were a goner, but in order to brutalize his opponents, Tyson left himself so vulnerable that even the most pathetically competent fighter, like say Buster Douglas, could knock him down. Kerry's got to stop cherrypicking political opinions in an attempt to beat Bush. Each week that passes with more poorly thought out positions sees Kerry provide more footholds for the Bush war machine.
"I will not become a Republican.........er......uh, never mind!"
A letter explaining why he could never join the Republican Party sent by party-switching U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander in March "unequivocally" came from the congressman, his former chief of staff said Thursday.
The letter, sent to labor groups in Louisiana, castigates Republicans as anti-worker and says it would be "impossible" for him to join their party — the party Alexander unexpectedly joined last week.
"After discussions with members of the Republican Party who understand the need to support our nation's workers, I have come to the conclusion that it would be impossible to join a party that not only ignores the people that make this country great, but also pressures their members to vote against any and all bills that are supported by unions,"
I guess he now wants to pressure other members to vote for bills that will bust the unions.
Leave it to them...
Only the Republicans can be such bastards. The NJ GOP is asking for Democratic governor, Jim McGreevey, to resign immediately instead of the promised Nov. 15 deadline. Nothing like beating a guy when he's down, huh? You gotta hand it to these guys, they make no bones about being complete pricks.
The thinking here is that if McGreevey goes before September 15, there has to be an election for the governorship. Anyone miss that quaint phrase, "the politics of personal destruction"? Oh, how I do.
Genetic research and the American edge
The UK just granted its first license for human cloning techniques to be used in a research experiment. Singapore is completing Biopolis, which is drawing in great scientific minds who are not free to cross certain lines in their home countries. By disallowing cloning and stem cell research, the US has lost precious ground in the great scientific race of our age, and it will only continue to lose more as we plant our heads firmly in the sand.
John Kerry has cherrypicked a pro-stem cell research stance, but as usual, he has declined to offer any substance to his opinion and seems content to try it out for its simple opposition to GWBII. As limpdicked as Kerry's position is, it's a start, at least. He'd do well to stump about how American ingenuity is being eroded by a latent Puritanical superstition. It would be nice if he'd talk about the economic potential of patents and job growth in a sector which will only boom for the forseeable future. He could nicely expand on his similarly vacuous health care position by talking about how the costs of diseases like diabetes and cancer could well be mitigated by genetic experimentation.
Will he do any of that? Of course not. We're lucky to have a major candidate who is even mouthing his support of stem cell research, or rather, I should say, we're lucky that GWBII is opposed to it, because that has stimulated the usual anti-Bush stance by the cypher that the Dems are running for the White House.
It started at a young age.....
Isn't there a point where you take a step back and realize how specious something like this is? Or do you really rest easy in the comfort that a thirty-year old photograph confirms your hypothesis that GWBII is an unethical man?
Hey, if it's just for entertainment value, then by all means, let's post as many silly old pictures as we can find. How about a pic of John Kerry leaving his wife? Oooh, or how about some audio clips of that fake-ass English accent that Kerry used when he was in his twenties? That would show him to be the real, blue-blooded elitist that he is.
Or we could just agree that both these guys are chumps, and debate what really matters: their policies.
NASTYBOY replies:- I didn't take the picture.
- I didn't right the caption underneath.
- I only provide what is out there.
- Politics ain't pretty, but it is pretty funny!
Do you have a picture of Kerry leaving his wife? It must be a hoot. Send a copy my way. I'd love to post it. This site is all about the ironic, hypocritical, and downright stupidness of Politics.
Taxes? What taxes?
With logic like this, why even have taxes?President Bush claimed yesterday that rolling back tax cuts for those earning over $200,000 per year is unnecessary because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."
COUNTERPOINT by jodru
That's idiotic. I wonder if he ever goes home at night and beats himself up over the stupid things he says. The past two stabs at supply-side have just resulted in immediate defecits, but only someone who has entirely no exposure to economics would assert that the current economy is the result of the current president. The prosperity Clinton inherited was built under the Reagan years.
That being said, taxes should be cut across the board, but most of all, for middle and low-income Americans. Why is anyone who makes less than $20K a year paying income tax? That's just insane. The income tax is a vile creation which our founding fathers would have abhorred.
Partisanship II
In his review of the new novel Checkpoint, which depicts an assassination attempt on GWBII, Leon Wieseltier lets loose on the dreary state of political discourse these days:
"...the virulence that calls itself critical thinking, the merry diabolization of other opinions and the other people who hold them, the confusion of rightness with righteousness, the preference for aspersion to argument, the view that the strongest statement is the truest statement--these deformations of political discourse now thrive in the houses of liberalism too. The radicalism of the right has hectored into being a radicalism of the left. The Bush-loving mob is being met with a Bush-hating mob. Liberals are forgetting why liberals are not radicals."
Of course, mobs meeting mobs makes for great entertainment, too.
Vouchers for this?
A chain of private California schools that taught immigrants there are 53 U.S. states and four branches of the U.S. government was ordered to stop handing out phony diplomas this week, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said on Friday.
Students learned that Congress had two houses -- the Senate for Democrats and the House for Republicans; that the U.S. flag had not been updated to reflect the addition of Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico to the "original" 50 states; that the federal "administrative" branch oversees the Treasury Department and that World War II occurred from 1938 to 1942.
COUNTERPOINT by jodru
I certainly hope that you are advocating for education reform by implication, as opposed to just merely decrying the poor performance of a singular charter school.
Millions of kids are home-schooled, and I'm sure there are just as many cute misinformation stories to be garnered from that sector. Of course, there are exponentially more misinformation stories to be garnered from the public education system. Remember that a shocking number of American students can't even identify the US on a world map?
Our schools are in really rough shape. Saying no to vouchers isn't any better a solution than saying yes to them. Saying no to vouchers with a real commitment to education spending would be a start on a long journey towards real reform.
COUNTERPOINT by NastyBoy
There are many reasons why some public schools are not doing as well as they should. The top 2 reasons: - The parents are not paying attention.
- The kid's do not want to learn.
The reason that I brought this charter school to everyone's attention is to show that private schools are not the 'be all to end all.' The biggest reasons that Private Schools are being pushed by the Republicans are the religious factor, along with the fact that private schools can pick and choose who they want as students, which obviously keep out certain "types."
The fact that a child might not know where the United States is on a map is considerably different than being taught that there are 53 States. One is because the child did not want to learn and the other is something that is being taught.
"Of course, there are exponentially more misinformation stories to be garnered from the public education system."
Can you provide me with an example? I was never taught that Congress had two houses -- the Senate for Democrats and the House for Republicans. Or that there were 53 States. I can only go on my personal experience, though.
COUNTERPOINT by jodru
Honestly, is it my job to catalogue all the horror stories that come out of the US school systems? If you've honestly never heard of any of these stories, then what can I possibly say to that? I thought I countered with one, but apparently, it's not up to snuff. To me, not knowing where the US is on a map is just as bad as not knowing that there are 50 states.
More important than a battle of anecdotes, though, is your point about what's wrong with the school system, and there I've got ya dead to rights: Parental inattention and a lack of student motivation are not the problem. Lack of funding is the problem.
Classrooms are overcrowded. Teachers are underpaid. Let me throw one stat at you. I ran an afterschool program in a Baltimore school that took in 1000 ninth-graders and only graduated 250. That's 75% of a student population which is not graduating. You know why? Because there were 50 kids in a class. Because instead of funding more teaching positions, the state threw its money into creating a standardized testing system which skewed the curriculum to a point where kids who couldn't keep up got left behind.
COUNTERPOINT by NastyBoy
Who asked you to catalogue anything? I asked for one example, because I can't think of one. I can only go on my personal experience, as I stated above. Being TAUGHT that there is 53 States is totally different than not being willing to LEARN where the US is on a map. Can you really not see the difference in that?
As for why Public Schools are not doing as well as they should, I only gave 2 reasons, which I believe are important. There is no doubt that schools are over-crowded and that teachers are under-paid. That is not the argument. The original point of my post was to show that Private Schools are not infallible. Not by a long shot!
COUNTERPOINT by jodru
True enough, but no school is infallible, which is my counterpoint. And, I'd go on to say that your projection onto the two geographical horrors we've described is just as valid as anyone else's. You say the publicly educated students simply don't care to know where the US is on a map. I say that they probably weren't taught where it is on a map, and that not teaching is the same as misteaching (A lie of omission is still a lie, after all). Jack and Jill on the street may say that they don't get enough vitamins in their USDA lunches, and therefore, can't retain what they are taught. Who knows. Your hypothesis is as good as mine.
King of all politics?
Some analysts predict that syndicated radio host Howard Stern and his legions of listeners, most of whom are young male swing voters, will tip the presidential election in favor of Democratic nominee John Kerry.
This is not the first time the self-proclaimed "King of All Media" has used his program to play kingmaker. He has promoted successful Republican campaigns, including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, New York Gov. George Pataki and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
COUNTERPOINT by jodru
Big Stern fan here. Pataki was a huge success of Stern's, probably his biggest. He was the guest of honour at Pataki's inauguration. Christie Todd Whitman was the other. She named a rest stop in NJ after Stern in gratitude for his help with getting her elected. She was more of a long shot than Pataki.
Either way, Stern does indeed have the power to sway the swing voters. But the thing is, in an election like this, anything could be the kingmaker. When you sit down with the numbers, it could be the gun lobby, it could be the pro-life movement, it could be soccer moms. The last election came down to 600 votes in one state! The two elections before that were so evenly split that Clinton never even won a majority of the vote. So, with an election that's this close, anything could be the factor that decides it.
Too bad Kerry isn't offering policy up on the trail. He keeps swinging for the fences on the personality front, and that just ain't gonna do it, folks. You better hope and pray that he starts talking about the issues.
Going Down
Sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.........
.....Thanks to Bryan Zepp Jamieson
There was this guy, a Vietnam Vet, who was approached in 1971 by Charles Colson, who was then one of Nixon’s nastiest hatchetmen. The guy, one John Ellis O'Neill, had formed a group called "Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace." This group was formed to counter the much vaster "Vietnam Veterans Against the War," who had basically taken over the anti-war movement in recent years. Nixon was dismayed, both by the size of the anti-war movement, and the fact that they had found a charismatic and fearless representative to expound their views before Congress, Lieutenant John F. Kerry.
Colson wanted O’Neill to do anything possible to discredit Kerry. He wrote, "Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader." Colson did everything he could to boost O’Neill and his group of vets (the term, "Astroturf political groups" didn’t exist yet, but the VVJP definitely fit the description). They even arranged a meeting with the President so they could shake hands and Nixon could tell them what brave patriots they were and all the rest of it. O’Neill’s moment of glory came when he got to debate John Kerry about the war on the old Dick Cavett Show. The tone taken by each man is illustrated by the following quotes:
O’Neill: "Mr. Kerry is the type of person who lives and survives only on the war weariness and fears of the American people. This is the same little man who on nationwide television in April spoke of, quote, crimes committed on a day to day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."
Kerry: "We believe as veterans who took part in this war we have nothing to gain by coming back here and talking about those things that have happened except to try and point the way to America, to try and say, here is where we went wrong, and we’ve got to change."
In the end, the disgraceful war staggered to a disgraceful end, and the disgraceful Nixon presidency also staggered to a disgraceful end. Kerry went on to law school and then became a prosecuting attorney. O’Neill clerked for William Rehnquist for a year, and then wound up in the law firm of Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson and Fulkerson. His partners included Margaret A. Wilson, who was George Putsch’s general counsel, and the late Tex Lezer, champion of conservative causes and, like O’Neill, a permanent Kerry enemy. He, in turn, was married to one Merrie Spaeth. Her name will appear several times more.
For the next 25 years, O’Neill was a generally apolitical and obscure cog on one of the right wing’s legal apparatuses, while Kerry went into politics and eventually became a United States Senator.
In April, when it became clear that Kerry was going to be the Democratic nominee in the Presidential elections, the right wing blew the dust off O’Neill’s container and led him, blinking and scowling, into the light to square off once again against his foe from thirty years past.
O’Neill, still steaming over the effrontery of Kerry in describing war crimes and other atrocities committed by US troops (Colin Powell described the same things, but apparently it’s ok if a conservative does it) was more than up for the task of rekindling his thirty year feud, and, in conjunction with Gannon Industries, a big Putsch supporter, set up "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." This groups’ existence was announced in May, when right wing operative Merrie Spaeth (remember Merrie? Widow of the late Tex, O’Neill’s late law partner) arranged a press conference, seeing to it that outfits such as Drudge, Fox, NewsMax, Free Republic, Washington Times and Regnery Publishing were there.
At this point, there’s nothing unusual about the story. The right wing is constantly dragging old warriors back for carefully orchestrated promotions in the right wing echo chamber of newly-founded astroturf groups. In the normal course of events, the group would get a blaze of publicity from the Scaife, Aielles and Murdoch empires, along with the Drudge Report, and they would hope the real media would notice and report on it. Eventually, a right wing hack or two would write a book about the group for Regnery Press, Scaife or someone would make bulk purchases in order to push the book into the top twenty sales, and a new right wing propaganda piece would be born. These carefully orchestrated hit pieces have been run, over and over, attacking the Clintons, and any and all liberals and moderates that the right thinks needs to be destroyed.
And sure enough, Hannity and O’Reilly and Limbaugh and Scarsborough and all the rest praised the group to the skies, incorrectly describing them as "crewmates" and superior officers of Kerry, and assuring one and all that Kerry was a phony who didn’t deserve the medals he threw away.
This time, things went catastrophically wrong.
First, questions were raised about the group’s basis for their claims. A group of people who said they were Kerry’s crewmates had appeared at the Democratic convention, and a quick check showed they WERE his crewmates, and the people at "Swift Boats" were not. In fact, most of them didn’t even know Kerry over in Vietnam, hadn’t heard of him until he appeared before Congress in 1971. None of them – not one – had actually served with Kerry on Kerry’s boat.
Then there was the nature of the accusations. Claims were made that Kerry had somehow put in himself for his medals, that he had received purple hearts for minor scratches, even that he had self-inflicted wounds in order to get medals. Talk like this doesn’t sit well with vets, and to top it off, here were Kerry’s real crewmates, staunchly defending their Lieutenant.
Then one of the star witnesses to the entire Kerry affaire, one George Elliott, had said that Kerry, who was then under his command, didn’t deserve the silver star. According to Elliott, Kerry "lied about what occurred in Vietnam. . . for example, in connection with his Silver Star, I was never informed that he had simply shot a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back."
This was tried out on the under-the-media-radar area of Free Republic, Usenet, and other internet conversation areas, and while people asked why Elliott, as commanding officer, put Kerry up for a silver star he felt he didn’t deserve, right wingers noted approvingly that the accusation caused consternation among the hated liberals and Democrats. They decided it was good to go, and made a TV ad and had a hack "co-write" [ghost-write] a book for Regnery Publishing.
At which point, the whole smear job blew apart. Elliott, in an interview with the Boston Globe, said, "I still don't think he shot the guy in the back. It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one in trouble here."
Reporters quickly discovered that none of the group had actually served with Kerry. Some never even met him under any circumstances. The ones who had were all at the convention, supporting him. Ooops.
John McCain, Republican Senator from Arizona, said of the ad, "I deplore this kind of politics. I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable." He went on to say he couldn’t believe the President could be involved in such a cheap stunt. The White House hurriedly put out a memo denying any involvement with the ad while failing to condemn it, which is their usual feint-and-jab response when called on dirty tricks.
Alert reporters noticed that Merrie Spaeth, along with the law offices of Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potham, had been involved in the smear campaigns against John McCain in the South Carolina primary in 2000, and the Max Cleland campaign in 2002 in Georgia. The woman apparently doesn’t mind pissing on war vets if it’s for a good, partisan cause. McCain himself drew a sharp focus on the White House by reminding everyone that he had been subject to the same sort of smear in 2000, when he was accused of, among other things, betraying his prison mates to the North Vietnamese in return for favors.
Then there was the matter of the BOOK. "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." Everyone knows that O’Neill is the supposed author. But the fellow who "co-wrote" it was one Jerome R. Corsi, PhD. And Corsi, it seems, is what can be best described as a vicious right wing crackpot. Media Matters, David Brock’s outfit, looked into Corsi, and discovered that he was an active participant in the lunatic-fringe "Free Republic" website. Posting under the name "jrlc" he opined that Kerry was secretly Jewish (apparently this is a grave character flaw in Corsi’s eyes) and usually referred to the Senator as "John F*ing Commie Kerry" (For full details about this guy and a list of the utterly insane stuff he posts , go to http://mediamatters.org/items/200408060010 ).
Not only has this smear attempt backfired and made all the right people look stupid and ridiculous, but if Putsch doesn’t condemn it in strong terms, he will lose a lot of military votes, and it almost certainly will ruin any hope he has of winning this election. It may put him so far behind he won’t even be able to steal it.
Others on the right wing may have already realized this. When researching for material about Corsi and his book, I went to Regnery’s Press website. I found no mention of the book anywhere on the site, which is a very strange omission for a publisher to make regarding a book where all the other promotions, including TV ads and interviews on Faux, are in full swing.
But then, this isn’t the first time Regnery Press has engaged in the Stalinesque habit of making books and authors "unhappen." You can search in vain for their all-time best selling author, the man who wrote three of their top five best sellers: David Brock.
That Regnery has dropped the promotion is the best evidence yet that this is a smear job that backfired. My prediction: if you hear anything more about the Swift Boat Veterans, it won’t be from the GOP and their vast right wing echo chamber.
Why all politicians are idiots, including the left:
Especially the left, in my opinion, but let's set that aside to talk about Alan Keyes.
When Hillary carpetbagged it to the biggest media market she could get her grubby little paws on, Alan Keyes was one of many people on both sides who condemned her shamelessness, which seemed a dim evocation of that of her husband.
Only four years later, Keyes is moving to Illinois to establish residency only three months before the Senate election in that state. There's a sickening sense that the GOP ran out and found the first dynamic black candidate they could find to run against the Dems new star, Barak Obama, but Denny Hastert assures us that it's nothing so dreadfully superficial. He simply points out that no one else had the money to run for the seat. Keyes had the requisite millions of dollars; so, he got the bid.
Bake sale for bombers
Remember this bumper sticker?"It will be a fine day when schools have too much money and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
Well, it looks like that time has come.
COUNTERPOINTby jodru
I know the basic orientation here is anti-Bush/conservative; so, let's assume this quaintly specious blurb was posted as yet another jab at the current administration.
Remember when the Cold War ended, we tried to cash in on the peace dividend. There was a fallacy, that remains to this day, which held that Reagan won the war by outspending the USSR in the arms race. So, with the USSR in collapse, we can cut back on our military spending and go back to being the huffing-puffing, inventive isolationists that we always wanted to be.
The problem comes exactly at times like these. Prior to WWII, our military was smaller than Romania's! We were by no means ready to fight, let alone win, a two-front war with three countries. We all know how that turned out, and no small part of our success was due to the millions and millions of Americans who did the exact equivalent of what's posted here as some sort of indictment. Remember gas rations? Food rations? Pennies weren't made out of copper anymore, because we need that for wiring.
Should the government be spending more on the military? Yes. Is it the end of the world that the private sector is helping out our soldiers? Of course not, that type of support was crucial to us winning the most important war in history.
COUNTERPOINT by NastyBoy
I don't think that anyone can deny that the people in this country are spoiled. The mood of the country has changed since the 2nd world war. We're an impatient lot. We want things done now.
No one is questioning the fact that the private sector is, or should be, helping the soldiers. That is a great thing. But what is disturbing is having a President that ran as a War President, not fully supplying the troops with the right gear.
Protect & Serve
A former Arkansas state trooper who said years ago that he arranged sexual liaisons for former President Clinton while Clinton was governor has pleaded guilty to a felony in an unrelated federal civil-rights case.
In 1993, Clinton’s first year as president, Patterson was one of two state troopers quoted in an article in The American Spectator as saying they arranged sexual trysts for Clinton while he was governor. Five years later, a conservative fund raiser from Chicago said he paid the troopers, Patterson and Roger Perry, $6,700 each after the articles were published.
GOP's newest favorite son
An unabashed racist will represent the Republican party in the November election for a congressional seat after a write-in candidate failed to derail his effort.
Republican Family Values
Let's return to our regular scheduled program, Republican Family Values. In this new episode, Sinthea, played by Cynthia Henderson, sleeps around on her husband with Jeff. Hilarity ensues when her husband catches them in bed together and threatens both with a crowbar. You'll split a gut, as Sinthea's former boss Jeb Bush tries to explain this mess to his right-wing hypocritical buddies.
Don't ask, don't tell
I'd hide my identity, too. The Republican Party of Florida, citing security and privacy concerns, has refused to release a full list of the 112 delegates who will attend the party's convention in New York.
What is it with Florida and anything do to with elections?
SBVT...........WTF?
Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service "dishonest and dishonorable" and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.
"I deplore this kind of politics," McCain said. "I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam."
The Kerry campaign has denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, saying none of the men in the ad served on the boat that Kerry commanded. Three veterans on Kerry's boat that day -- Jim Rassmann, who says Kerry saved his life, Gene Thorson and Del Sandusky, the driver on Kerry's boat, said the group was lying.
COUNTERPOINT by Jodru
Manchurian Candidate, dude.
WWJKD?
Well, that was faster than I thought: John Kerry attacked Bush today for staying too long in the classroom after he was told about the second plane hitting the WTC. I figured he'd hold off on this until the debates, and try to pretty it up a little.
But no. True to form, he simply did what so many bloggers and bulletin board posters did, and spun a valiant image of how his actions would have been far more noble and presidential.
Great. Good for you. We'll test that scenario when you're President during a massive terrorist attack, John.
But in the meantime, is this how anyone wants a candidate to run? Monday-morning Quarterback scenarios based on extreme propaganda?
I held my tongue at his veiled reference to F9/11 in his convention speech, because it was well-disguised. His throwaway line about the Saudis is very much how I figured his campaign would approach the classroom footage: refer to it obliquely, and use it as part of a more solid, reasonable argument.
Unfortunately for Kerry, he's decided to try a full-frontal approach. Much like his F-bomb in Rolling Stone, he'll see how it plays, and go from there, and I'm here to say, that if he's your man, you better be worried.
[Cue the Bush-should-have-left-right-away-Counterpoint:]
COUNTERPOINT by NastyBoy
Bush should have left right away!
So simple, isn't it? Yet, the Prez couldn't even pull that off.
Internet Surveillance
The ACLU is urging action on the FCC's approval of Ashcroft's request to expand existing phone surveillance powers so that they apply to the internet. Of course, they see this as an invitation to government snooping; whereas, this is the logical next step of regulations that already exist.
It's unfortunate that the pace of federal action is so slow in this arena. Instead of dicking around with creating a secondary intelligience branch, the government should hunker down and address the critical issues of the cyber age: copyright law, identity protection, surveillance, network security.
F the Vote
Want to find a creative way to keep GWB II from his court-appointed second term? How about screwing him out of office? The good folks at Fthevote.com, are proposing just that. They are encouraging liberally minded left-wingers to boff conservatives in exchange for a signed agreement that said conservative will vote for anyone except GWB.
Sure it's ridiculous. But he kicked off the hilarity by stuffing his nutsack into that flightsuit.
COUNTERPOINT by NastyBoy
God forbid any Presidential candidate who tries to have a little fun on the campaign trail. So what if his nutsack was stuffed into a flightsuit. Are you now going to make fun of astronauts?
Speaking of signed agreements. The following is a letter written to a Springfield, Mo. newspaper by a reader named Gary Tetrick
"How many Ozarkers were aware that a public profession of loyalty to George W. Bush was a requirement to gain admission to his July 30 speech in Springfield? Being an independent voter, I was under the illusion that Bush-Cheney had targeted like-minded individuals as the key to victory in a close Missouri election.
Stepping into Republican headquarters to procure my required ticket, I was transformed to the days of Joseph McCarthy and his loyalty tests. Two questions were asked requiring a yes answer to obtain a ticket: 1. Do you believe the president is doing a good job? 2. Will you support and vote for the president?
I felt like a reluctant Berliner in 1940, saluting my Fuhrer to gain inclusion. I can honestly answer yes to this question: Should Bush be given a one-way ticket to Crawford, Texas?"
Thanks to ORV from Banned on the Run
COUNTERPOINT by jodru
Yo, hombre! We're sprechen sie the same lingety! I'm talking about GWB stuffing his nutsack into that flightsuit in the laughable, even when it was remotely plausible, "Mission Accomplished" fiasco.
But, since you brought up the Cheney Loyalty Oath: this was a campaign rally. It's standard procedure to corral dissenters in today's image-retarded political world. Only last week, the Dems herded dissenters into a holding pen underneath a highway. You didn't see them handing out convention passes to the Black Tea Society so that they could protest during Kerry's speech.
Once and again, I feel compelled to point out that comparing ANYONE, let alone a one-term American President, to Adolf Hitler is so sophomoric as to be shameful.
COUNTERPOINT by NastyBoy
You caught me off guard there, bro. Wrong nutsack. When you wrote that, I was picturing Kerry in his yellow NASA suit. While laughable, I certainly will cut him some slack for that. After all, he does need to appear affable and loose. It's just something that you have to go through during an election year.
Right-Wing Flip-Flop
In a previous post, I showed you a photo that Rush Limbaugh's website doctored in order to show John Kerry in a bad light. Actually, the alteration was kind of stupid and pointless, but coming from him that is not a surprise.
Now we have the fine folks over at the Drudge Report doing the exact same thing. Why this one was altered is a complete mystery. The first photo was taken outside the fleet center by Tom Tomorrow, showing Michael Moore and Bill O'Reilly. The 2nd photo shows the doctored version on The Drudge Report. They changed a red traffic light to green and flip-flopped the image.
Speculation is that Drudge changed it so that he wouldn't have to give a liberal site photo credit. Oh, those wacky moralists!
