October 2004 Archives

Over on Lean Left, Kevin takes note of a Republican strategist saying that the Osama bin Laden tape was "a little gift" for the president and asks a wonderful question:

You know, if we really had a liberal press, someone would ask the obvious question: if having OBL on the loose is good for Bush's campaign, then why should the American people expect Bush to take capturing OBL seriously?

By the way, it's only been 1,140 days since President Bush said he was going to catch Osama bin Laden, "dead or alive." Nice job, Mr. President.

I'm in the camp that thinks it is a big deal that the Bush Administration allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora.

Was it because the Bushies had other priorities?

Joshua Micah Marshall points to this helpful timeline by Mike over at TopDog04.com. The calendar reminds us that General Tommy Franks was asked to start planning the Iraq invasion while the Tora Bora battle was underway.

Did it make sense to distract our military leaders with the Iraq planning while the battle to capture or kill Osama bin Laden was underway?

I think not. It is an inexcusable error. It should be, by itself, more than enough reason to change presidents.

Just to review (from Factcheck.org):

A new Bush ad claims Kerry supported cuts in intelligence “so deep they would have weakened America ’s defenses” against terrorists, and shows a pack of hungry-looking wolves preparing to attack. Actually, the cut Kerry proposed in 1994 amounted to less than 4 percent, as part of a proposal to cut many programs to reduce the deficit.

And in 1995 Porter Goss, who is now Bush’s CIA Director, co-sponsored an even stronger deficit-elimination measure that would have cut CIA personnel by 20 percent over five years. When asked about that at his confirmation hearings he didn't disavow it. (emphasis added)

Okay, I know it is. Just noting the latest example indicating that Tim Russert's toughness factor is somewhat overrated...

It appears that there is yet another government report that is being held up until after the election. The New York Times' Jim Dwyer reports:

One last chapter of the investigation by the Sept. 11 commission, a supplement completed more than two months ago, has not yet been made public by the Justice Department, and officials say it is unlikely to be released before the presidential election, even though that had been a major goal of deadlines set for the panel.

Drawing from this unpublished part of the inquiry, the commission quietly asked the inspectors general at the Departments of Defense and Transportation to review what it had determined were broadly inaccurate accounts provided by several civil and military officials about efforts to track and chase the hijacked aircraft on Sept. 11.

Have you noticed how many probes/inquiries/investigations/important stories are being put off until after the election? Somehow, it's gotten into the heads of various government gumshoes -- and, worse, into the heads of some important journalism types -- that popping a big story before the election is somehow "unfair," and might "unduly influence" the outcome.

Hello?

These kind of things are supposed to influence the election.

To be a bit fair, I can understand why the Bush Administration would put the breaks on potentially negative reports. Politics is politics after all.

I do not understand, however, the so-called liberal media's excuse for playing along.

Conservatives are already making excuses for a possible Bush loss.

As James Wolcott explains, one front they'll use is to blame the biased media.

Yes. That biased media. The one (to take just one example) that thought that John Kerry's comment about Mary Cheney in the third presidential debate was more important that George W. Bush's exaggeration lie about how much attention he pays Osama bin Laden.

Showing how little shame Bush apologists have, Rudy Giuliani this morning went out of his way to blame the troops for not securing the explosives at Al Qaqaa.

Over on Atrios, you can follow a link to a video capture of Rudy's slur.

Can George W. Bush take the blame for anything at all? Or is the lesson of the first MBA president that a Bush makes no mistakes because no bucks stop in the Oval Office?

Plus, I look forward to the White House's spin on this video captured by embedded reporters for KSTP television in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

I wanted to congratulate the Red Sox on ending their 86-year-long curse with their sweep of the Cardinals.

As a Cubs fan who went to high school and college in New England, I will miss the many debates I had with my Red Sox fan friends over which of our teams was more pathetic...

Josh Marshall catches President George W. Bush taking reality and trying to twist it into a wild claim.

I'm sorry, Mr. President. Your Administration's failure to catch Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora is not a wild claim. It is a sad reality. And more than enough reason to see to it that you do not receive another four years in office.

Over on The Left Coaster, Steve Soto points out that the Bush Administration's fear mongering about pre-election terrorist threats appears to have been overblown. As Dan Eggen and Barton Gellman write in the Washington Post:

But five weeks after the effort began, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say they have found no direct evidence of an election-related terrorist plot. Authorities also say that a key CIA source who had claimed knowledge of such plans has been discredited, casting doubt on one of the earliest pieces of evidence pointing to a possible attack.

What's this "authorities have been instructed not to talk publicly about the issue before the elections" business? If you ever wanted proof that the Bush Administration wants to maintain a climate of fear up to the election to help its election prospects while preventing any development or news that would reduce such fear, now you have it.

Hey, when you only have one policy position that unites everyone in your party, you got to keep going back to that well. The Associated Press reports:

President Bush showered $136 billion in new tax breaks on businesses, farmers and other groups Friday, quietly signing the most sweeping rewrite of corporate tax law in nearly two decades.

Or not.

Our children and grandchildren will enjoy getting the bill for this continued fiscal irresponsibility.

Or not.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)/Knowledge Networks study released earlier this week shows that Bush supporters and Kerry supporters appear to be living in different worlds.

One, based on facts (Kerry). The other based on, well, perhaps a cult of personality. If Bush says it, then his supporters believe it must be true -- regardless of the evidence.

How bad is it? Mmmm, brains summarizes the findings and provides other useful information.

If someone, despite all the evidence that is available, continues to insist that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the Al Qaeda attacks on September 11, there's likely little we can now do to reason with him or her.

Over on Altercation, Charles Pierce gets at the heart of the latest hypocrisy being offered by the Bush/Cheney team with their distortions of John Kerry's "nuisance" comments about the fight against terrorism:

As we all keep moving along through the Nuisance business, it behooves us to remember that C-Plus Augustus told us all to do exactly that in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 atrocities. Remember? Go to Disney World! Take a plane trip! Hit the malls! What is that but treating terrorism like a "nuisance" and not like a "war"? The Avignon Presidency is not interested in allaying fear. It is interested only in its political utility. For three years now, it has arrogated to itself not only the right to tell us when we should be afraid, but also the right to tell us how we should respond to that fear. (Shop! Re-elect us! Invade Iraq!)

Were you one of the many people somewhat confused by President Bush's decision to speak about the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision? Were you wondering what the point of that was?

Well, Paperwight's Fair Shot has an interesting explanation: that what the president was doing was sending a big signal to his base.

Some people seem to be a bit boggled by Bush's Dred Scott remark last night. It wasn't about racism or slavery, or just Bush's natural incoherence. Here's what Bush actually said:

If elected to another term, I promise that I will nominate Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. (emphasis in original)

Remember during last night's debate when President Bush snarkily denied owning any interest in a timber company as part of an attack on Senator Kerry's tax plan?

KERRY: And you know why he gets that count? The president got $84 from a timber company that owns, and he's counted as a small business. Dick Cheney's counted as a small business. That's how they do things. That's just not right.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: That's news to me.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: Need some wood?

(LAUGHTER)

Did you wonder what was going on? Did you wonder if Kerry was right?

No need to wonder. Kerry was correct. Factcheck.org explained in this September 23 analysis. (So it should not have come as such a surprise to the president.)

During the debate, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was scoring the debate round-by-round. At the end, he noted that Kerry won on points, but that intangibles made it an essential draw. But, Olbermann warned:

In the middle of its evaluation of Bush-Kerry II, the Hooey from St. Looey, the Scorer's Table warned Mr. Bush during the course of the thirteenth round that if it proved Mr. Kerry was correct in his assertion that the President derived $84 of income from part-ownership of a timber company, the President would be severely sanctioned.

So is all of this timber talk nitpicking? No.

Using the misleading-statement-to-deflect-a-charge strategy is becoming something of a habit for Bush and Vice President Cheney during this campaign season. And, after what was done to former Vice President Al Gore four years ago, some nitpicking at the Bush-Cheney ticket should be in order here.

If President Bush wants to exaggerate to attack Kerry's proposals, then Kerry should be able to respond with facts about the president's record.

Will our media hold Bush to the same standard to which they wrongly held Al Gore? Probably not, given the pass given to Cheney for his (for example: I've never met John Edwards before) debate whoppers.

What is it within President Bush's makeup that makes him unable to admit a mistake?

Last night, he was asked to admit three mistakes from among the decisions he has made as president.

This should be a question for which the president was prepared given the impression that was left when the president refused to respond to a similar question near the end of his April 13, 2004 press conference.

Well, he still won't admit a thing.

GRABEL: President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision, and what you did to correct it. Thank you.

BUSH: I have made a lot of decisions, and some of them little, like appointments to boards you never heard of, and some of them big.

And in a war, there's a lot of -- there's a lot of tactical decisions that historians will look back and say: He shouldn't have done that. He shouldn't have made that decision. And I'll take responsibility for them. I'm human.

But on the big questions, about whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan, the big question about whether we should have removed somebody in Iraq, I'll stand by those decisions, because I think they're right.

BUSH: That's really what you're -- when they ask about the mistakes, that's what they're talking about. They're trying to say, "Did you make a mistake going into Iraq?" And the answer is, "Absolutely not." It was the right decision.

The Duelfer report confirmed that decision today, because what Saddam Hussein was doing was trying to get rid of sanctions so he could reconstitute a weapons program. And the biggest threat facing America is terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

We knew he hated us. We knew he'd been -- invaded other countries. We knew he tortured his own people.

On the tax cut, it's a big decision. I did the right decision. Our recession was one of the shallowest in modern history.

Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV.

(LAUGHTER)

BUSH: But history will look back, and I'm fully prepared to accept any mistakes that history judges to my administration, because the president makes the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility.

Update: In his debate analysis, Slate's William Saletan points to another example of Bush's refusal to take personal responsibility -- one that undermines the claims that Bush supports our troops and provides an example of a classic missed opportunity for Kerry:

Two questions later, Bush tossed another fat one over the plate. While arguing that it's better to be right than popular, he allowed, "I've made some decisions that have caused people to not understand the great values of our country." A politician who understood the language of values—Edwards, for example—would have pounced on that quote, saying something like this: "There is no excuse for failing to make clear to the world the values of our country. The way to make others understand our values is to live out those values. And that starts with telling the truth, so that other nations will believe us." But Kerry doesn't understand values. So, instead he called Bush's answer "more of the same" and repeated that Bush had screwed up Iraq.

At this point, Bush uttered an amazing reply:

I remember sitting in the White House looking at those generals, saying, "Do you have what you need in this war? Do you have what it takes?" I remember going down to the basement of the White House the day we committed our troops as a last resort, looking at Tommy Franks and the generals on the ground, asking them, "Do we have the right plan with the right troop level?" And they looked me in the eye and said, "Yes, sir, Mr. President." Of course, I listen to our generals. That's what a president does. A president sets the strategy and relies upon good military people to execute that strategy.

The president of the United States had just blamed the military for screwing up the war. Surely Kerry would seize this chance, before tens of millions of people, to point out that Bush was refusing to reciprocate the loyalty of his troops. But no. Here's what Kerry said: "You rely on good military people to execute the military component of the strategy, but winning the peace is larger than just the military component." (emphasis added)

George W. Bush does not make mistakes. It is only those around him who do. The era of personal responsibility apparently does not start at the top.

John Kerry should hammer Bush's blaming of the military for screwing up Iraq over the next few days. Seeing and reading the exchange the second time highlights Bush's blame shifting in a way that I, and perhaps many others, missed on first viewing.

There should be commericals. Speeches. Talking points. Everyday. Make sure the American people see the character (or lack thereof) revealed in Bush's reply!

This should be a big, big deal. Will it be?

There were many important exchanges between President Bush and Senator Kerry during tonight's debate.

But here's a vital one for voters to consider closely.

The candidates were asked about what they would do to ensure our safety from terrorists.

Kerry, as he did in the first debate, listed many security initiatives that he would implement -- and that Bush has ignored. The president did not respond to the substance of that Kerry list, but instead used the misleading justification that he had "tripled" homeland security spending.

Kerry, thankfully, pointed out the folly in the president's response:

KERRY: Folks, the test is not if you've added money; the test is that you've done everything possible to make America secure. He chose a tax cut for wealthy Americans over the things that I listed to you.

GIBSON: Mr. President?

BUSH: Well, we'll talk about the tax cut for middle class here in a minute. But yes, I'm worried. I'm worried. I'm worried about our country. And all I can tell you is every day I know that there's people working overtime, doing the very best they can. And the reason I'm worried is because there's a vicious enemy that has an ideology of hate.

George W. Bush has chosen, and continues to choose, irresponsible tax cuts over necessary homeland security spending. He's now announced this choice in both of their presidential debates.

And people remain undecided?

The Bush-Cheney Administration has completed another fiscal year by piling up another huge amount of debt for future generations.

Congratulations to us on the new $595,821,633,586.70 (that's 595.8 billion) in new debt that the Bush-Cheney Administration recorded in the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2004.

Nice work there.

Oh, since Bush-Cheney entered office, we've added $1.65 trillion to the national debt.

Future generations will not thank us for such gross fiscal irresponsibility.

Well, the never-met-Edwards lie was not the biggest misrepresentation uttered by the Vice President tonight.

That would be this denial: "I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11."

Oh, really?

I guess we all missed the hidden meaning from this Vice Presidential response on the September 14, 2003 edition of Meet the Press:

If we’re successful in Iraq, if we can stand up a good representative government in Iraq, that secures the region so that it never again becomes a threat to its neighbors or to the United States, so it’s not pursuing weapons of mass destruction, so that it’s not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11. They understand what’s at stake here. That’s one of the reasons they’re putting up as much of a struggle as they have, is because they know if we succeed here, that that’s going to strike a major blow at their capabilities. (emphasis added)

He's just flat out saying it.

The Vice President is hoping the media are so caught up in their examination of gravitas that they do not notice his lies.

Like his claim that he had never met John Edwards until tonight.

Then explain this picture, a video from the National Prayer Breakfast on February 1, 2001.

Liar.

(Hat tip: Truthout.)

Before the Fox News Channel could get over Carl Cameron's fake John Kerry news story, Atrios reports that FNC has run a serious segment about a satirical "Communists for Kerry" group that is actually run by a Republican organization.

Nice job, FNC. As Atrios asks, "Is anyone ever going to hold this network to any standard?"

Seems unlikely.

For the second time in five years, the House Ethics Committee has criticized House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). Could, as Norman Ornstein has said, the "drip, drip, drip" of scandal leave DeLay finally vulnerable?

Steve Clemons explains how removing DeLay from power would help a host of moderate to progressive causes.

These past few years, I've had the opportunity to speak about a very wide set of policy topics -- often to very liberal and progressive audiences concerned about some specific policy area -- like global environmental sustainability, wealth distribution, a more progressive foreign policy agenda, and lots of other less lofty policy initiatives.

After a while, I began to realize that if there was a "silver bullet" answer to making many of these areas they and I cared about better, it was the removal of Tom DeLay from his leadership position in the House and his party. Nearly all policy arenas improve with DeLay's resignation.

So, my message has been to try and focus on legally challenging the man -- suing him for his misdeeds -- highlighting the lengths he has gone to undermine the checks and balances of the American political system and to controlling and corrupting many of the civil society institutions that surround policymakers.

For me, the most interesting point of the first presidential debate between President Bush and Senator Kerry was this exchange, where the president essentially argued that the nation cannot afford sensible homeland security measures.

LEHRER: We'll come back to Iraq in a moment. But I want to come back to where I began, on homeland security. This is a two-minute new question, Senator Kerry.

As president, what would you do, specifically, in addition to or differently to increase the homeland security of the United States than what President Bush is doing?

KERRY: Jim, let me tell you exactly what I'll do. And there are a long list of thing. First of all, what kind of mixed message does it send when you have $500 million going over to Iraq to put police officers in the streets of Iraq, and the president is cutting the COPS program in America?

What kind of message does it send to be sending money to open firehouses in Iraq, but we're shutting firehouses who are the first- responders here in America.

The president hasn't put one nickel, not one nickel into the effort to fix some of our tunnels and bridges and most exposed subway systems. That's why they had to close down the subway in New York when the Republican Convention was there. We hadn't done the work that ought to be done.

The president -- 95 percent of the containers that come into the ports, right here in Florida, are not inspected.

Civilians get onto aircraft, and their luggage is X- rayed, but the cargo hold is not X-rayed.

Does that make you feel safer in America?

This president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. Those aren't my values. I believe in protecting America first.

And long before President Bush and I get a tax cut -- and that's who gets it -- long before we do, I'm going to invest in homeland security and I'm going to make sure we're not cutting COPS programs in America and we're fully staffed in our firehouses and that we protect the nuclear and chemical plants.

The president also unfortunately gave in to the chemical industry, which didn't want to do some of the things necessary to strengthen our chemical plant exposure.

And there's an enormous undone job to protect the loose nuclear materials in the world that are able to get to terrorists. That's a whole other subject, but I see we still have a little bit more time.

Let me just quickly say, at the current pace, the president will not secure the loose material in the Soviet Union -- former Soviet Union for 13 years. I'm going to do it in four years. And we're going to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.

LEHRER: Ninety-second response, Mr. President.

BUSH: I don't think we want to get to how he's going to pay for all these promises. It's like a huge tax gap. Anyway, that's for another debate.

That's quite a platform on which to run, Mr. President.