November 2004 Archives

You know, it is stories like this one that make me glad the Republicans who run our govenment consistently choose irresponsible tax cuts over, say, strengthening our public health system.

A pandemic of human influenza could kill up to 100 million people around the world, a World Health Organization official said today, significantly raising the agency's earlier estimates of the number of deaths in such a catastrophe.

As Lindsay Beyerstein writes over on her Majikthise blog: "As a rule, I pay close attention to stories that include the phrase "The W.H.O. does not want to scare the planet, but..."

Why did the Rev. Jerry Falwell lie on Meet the Press about his offensive remarks following the September 11 terrorist attacks?

The New York Times editorializes against Republican proposals to eliminate the Senate filibuster, and points out how radically some GOPers' views on the practice have changed now that they are in the majority:

Judicial nominees have never been immune from filibusters. When Republicans opposed President Lyndon Johnson's choice for chief justice, Abe Fortas, they led a successful filibuster to stop him from getting the job. More recently, in the Clinton era, Republicans spoke out loudly in defense of their right to filibuster against the confirmation of cabinet members and judicial nominees. Republican senators, including Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Mike DeWine of Ohio, used a filibuster in 1995 to block President Bill Clinton's nominee for surgeon general. Bill Frist, now the Senate majority leader, supported a filibuster of a Clinton appeals court nomination. Senator Christopher Bond, a Missouri Republican, was quoted in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1993 saying, "On important issues, I will not hesitate to join a filibuster."

Now that Republicans are doing the appointing, they see things very differently. Dr. Frist recently declared on "Fox News Sunday" that preventing votes on judicial nominees is "intolerable." Among the proposals Republicans are floating is the so-called nuclear option. According to Senate rules, changing the filibuster rule should require a two-thirds vote. But in the "nuclear option," Vice President Dick Cheney, as Senate president, would rule that filibusters of judicial nominees could be ended by a simple majority.

I love how this batch of so-called conservatives loves to destroy traditions and institutions. Their attempted 51 Percent Revolution continues...

During his appearance on Meet the Press, the Chairperson of the 9-11 Commission wisely decided to put a little pressure on the White House. The Associated Press reports:

WASHINGTON - It will take pressure by President Bush on the Republican-controlled Congress to ensure passage of bottled-up legislation to overhaul intelligence agencies, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission said Sunday.

With the overhaul stalled after months of negotiations, the crucial question “is whether it will pass now or after a second attack,” said Tom Kean, a former Republican governor from New Jersey.

So, the question is: does the president want intelligence reform? Or, as Chairman Kean put it, would he rather play politics until we are attacked again?

Catching up on some reading, I see that Salon's Joe Conason has noted how a newly declassified briefing transcript clears Richard Clarke of the de facto perjury charge made by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist in the aftermath of Clarke's testimony before the 9-11 Commission.

Yes, someone took the time to write about this instead of the basketball fight. Hard to believe, isn't it? Conason reports:

Short memories confer immunity on politicians, who are rarely accountable for the opportunistic, irresponsible or dishonest remarks they so often utter. In Washington's fetid culture of personal destruction, the powerful and privileged can trash an adversary's reputation without concern that the truth will embarrass them when it emerges months or years later. Consider the case of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Last March, Frist rose on the Senate floor to demonstrate his fealty to the White House by attacking Richard Clarke in the ugliest and most personal terms. Seeking to discredit the former counter-terrorism chief after his stunning appearance before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Frist essentially accused the former counter-terrorism chief of committing perjury.

But now we know who was telling the truth and who wasn't, thanks to the release of a newly declassified document. That document is the transcript of Clarke's testimony before a closed, joint congressional hearing in June 2002, when he discussed "the evolution of the terrorist threat" leading up to 9/11 with members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. While the declassified text contains lengthy redactions, it also shows conclusively that Frist slandered Clarke last spring.

Telling the truth? Not so much. And making an apology? I won't hold my breath.

You really should read this Daily Kos diary: Darfurian Women Face Rejection After Rapes Make Them Pregnant.

Professor Juan Cole runs down some statistics about the state of the situation in Iraq.

No. The situation is not good. When, for example, "94 percent say Baghdad is more dangerous than it was before the war," I find it hard to believe we are turning a corner.

Basking in the glow of their 51 percent victory in the presidential election, ultra right-wingers are taking off the gloves and going public with their revolutionary plans.

Can you guess who would say something such as this?

"When the courts make unconstitutional decisions, we should not enforce them. Federal courts have no army or navy... The court can opine, decide, talk about, sing, whatever it wants to do. We're not saying they can't do that. At the end of the day, we're saying the court can't enforce its opinions."

Actually, the person who said is a Member of the United States Congress, a certain Rep. John Hostettler.

Apparently some won't rest until this nation resembles a theocracy. And these people dare call themselves conservatives...

(Hat tip: It Affects You)

Really, must we listen to lectures about family values from officials at top levels of a government that creates problems such as this one? As Alternet's Rachel Neumann writes:

Berly Feliz never got a chance to say goodbye to her eight-year old daughter, Virginia. Within hours of trying to be responsible and handing in some completed paperwork to the federal immigration headquarters in New York, she was handcuffed and deported to Honduras. The New York Times reports that there are tens of thousands of children left behind every year who lose a parent to deportation. Only the most hypocritical could find any "family values" in deporting parents who are guilty of nothing but wanting to be with their families and leaving children who often, as in Victoria's case, start to have troubles in school and mental health problems soon after their parents' departure.

In abundance.

The New York Times story to which Neumann links shows just how immoral this situation is:

After her 1996 marriage, when she applied for a green card, federal immigration officials not only issued her an official work authorization several times, but also allowed her husband, as an American citizen and new stepfather, to sponsor the teenage son she had left in Honduras.

Now that son, Cesar, is 24 and a lawful permanent resident with his own American child, while his mother is back where she began, without a job or her children.

"I don't have peace because I'm not with my little girl," she said in Spanish, breaking down. "I don't eat. I don't sleep. I can't be without her - I have no life."

The hardest part, she said, is that in telephone calls her daughter sometimes tells her, "You didn't take me with you; you're a bad person."

"I can't handle that," she said.

Tell me what values system would celebrate this result?

From my friend Howie: just how many video game sounds can you remember from class 80s and 90s games?

I was able to get 14 out of 18 correct. Which probably means I should have spent more time working on making my wiffle ball pitches not quite as hittable as they always were...

More cool stuff is on the web site for this PBS show on the Video Game Revolution.

Writing in The Guardian, Sindey Blumenthal reports on some boorish behavior exhibited by President George W. Bush at the opening of the Clinton Presidential Library earlier this month.

Yes, it apparently went beyond Bush trying to push past Clinton to go out of a door first. Blumenthal writes:

Bush appeared distracted, and glanced repeatedly at his watch. When he stopped to gaze at the river, where secret service agents were stationed in boats, the guide said: "Usually, you might see some bass fishermen out there." Bush replied: "A submarine could take this place out."

and

At the private luncheon afterwards, in a heated tent pitched behind the library, Shimon Peres delivered a heartfelt toast to Clinton's perseverance in pursuing the Middle East peace process. Upon entering the tent, Bush, according to an eyewitness, told an aide: "One gulp and we're out of here." He had informed the Clintons he would stay through the lunch, but by the time Peres arose with wine glass in hand the president was gone.

(Hat tip: The Left Coaster.)

Keith Olbermann notes today's top ironic statement:

It was a spectacular irony - a Republican senator using the word “fraud” about the presidential election. More spectacular still, he was visiting his condemnation of apparent election manipulation on the incumbent party. And beyond all that, he and others based their conclusions largely on the incredible disparity between the last exit polls and the vote count itself. Of course, Indiana’s Richard Lugar was talking about the presidential election in the Ukraine. But in so doing, he underscored that once again, the exit polls appear to have fulfilled the time-honored international tradition of the canary in the mine shaft. If only we could have used them in that way here.

Dave Johnson over at Seeing the Forest is all over the right-wing machine's attempt to spread a lie: that a school has banned the Declaration of Independence.

Check out Johnson's post so you can refute this fantasy if a friend or family member tries to run it past you this holiday season.

Are some of your family members conservative? Worried about getting in a heated political conversation with them this Thanksgiving or over the holidays?

Then check out George Lakoff's handy article with his advice on responding to conservatives, an excerpt from his latest book "Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate".

Jim Gilliam exposes the latest "political public service message brought to you by Clear Channel Outdoor."

I guess now we are going to see some of our corporations seek to create a cult of personality around our leader. And you thought you lived in a nation based on laws, not personalities.

James Wolcott once again is right on target:

Juan Cole, who kindly mentions me today, had a post yesterday rounding up the international protests against the U.S.'s Fallujah campaign. Clicking through the cable news channels, I've seen nothing about this, though they seem to have endless clock to replay the "basketbrawl," explore the ramifications of Dan Rather's retirement announcement, and flash the eBay auction listing for grilled-cheese Virgin Mother. So once again Americans are kept blinkered to how more and more of the world is rallying against us in condemnation. Anything, anything, to preserve our "innocence." Until the next time we lose it.

My colleague T.L. made an interesting observation today, one I think worth sharing.

As we all know, President George W. Bush has repeatedly denied that he would seek to institute a military draft.

Yet, we know that our military needs more troops. The resulting recruiting efforts reportedly include offers of significant incentives, such as:

So, recruiters are getting creative by offering anything from cash bonuses to college tuition, hoping to attract new recruits, like David Hoang of Alameda.

He just got out of high school and was thinking about going straight to college until an Army recruiter offered him $2,000 in cash and $50,000 for college.

So, the military needs more troops, but the Bush Administration wants to avoid a draft at all costs.

Which leads T.L. to wonder: was the Republican leadership's decision to allow changes in the Pell Grant formula, changes that reportedly will result in the elimination of Pell Grant awards to 84,000 students who were eligible for them before, partly a way to entice more young people to join the military? By making it harder for some to stay in college -- while offering significant back-end college funding support that may be even more difficult to refuse?

Is this a new part of the back-door draft? Should some of our Democrats be looking to connect a few dots here?

The Republicans' are considering building on their rather comprehensive record of fiscal irresponsibility by moving forward with a horrendous idea in the Social Security reform debate. As the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman writes:

Republican budget writers say they may have found a way to cut the federal deficit even if they borrow hundreds of billions more to overhaul the Social Security system: Don't count all that new borrowing.

As they lay the groundwork for what will probably be a controversial fight over Social Security, Republican lawmakers and the Bush administration are examining a number of accounting strategies that would allow the expensive transition to a partially privatized Social Security system without -- at least on paper -- expanding the country's record annual budget deficits. The strategies include, for example, moving the costs of Social Security reform "off-budget" so they are not counted against the government's yearly shortfall. (emphasis added)

How freaking moronic.

The idea of adding private accounts to Social Security is one that should not be rejected out of hand. But everyone who is serious about the policy knows that there are large transition costs involved in moving from today's pay-as-you-go system to something that is partially funded.

Ignoring those costs does not improve the debate or ensure better policy.

It just shows that the Republicans do not really care about adding a trillion or two dollars to the debt with which our children, grandchildren, and future generations will have to contend -- as long as they do not have to face the political consequences today.

I would really love to have someone in the GOP explain to me the moral values structure which allows saddling future generations with such a hidden bill.

So, now we learn from Republican House leaders that soothing their hurt egos is more important than intelligence reform efforts in this post-September 11 era. The Associated Press' Jesse J. Holland reports:

WASHINGTON - Defying President Bush, Reps. Duncan Hunter and James Sensenbrenner — who led opposition dooming legislation based on the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations — said they won't change their minds without Senate concessions.

"It'll be tougher now because the well got even more poisoned by the senators and their supporters thoroughly criticizing Duncan Hunter and myself by name on the talking head shows yesterday," Sensenbrenner told The Associated Press on Monday.

Brad DeLong asks a necessary question:

We've spent $10,000 per Iraqi on the war, and we can't even get Iraqi children fed?

The article to which DeLong links includes a chilling quote:

“Believe me, we thought a magic thing would happen” with the fall of Hussein and the start of the U.S.-led occupation, said an administrator at Baghdad’s Central Teaching Hospital for Pediatrics. “So we’re surprised that nothing has been done. And people talk now about how the days of Saddam were very nice,” the official said. (emphasis added)

We knew that. Or at least should have known it. The fact that we reportedly continue to fail to provide these necessities makes our nation's situation grow more dangerous by the day.

Update: Eric Alterman adds:

So the next time some one asks you if you’re glad that we’ve removed Saddam Hussein from power, you might want to ask them if they’re glad that, after we’ve spent 200 billion dollars and killed tens of thousands of people, 400,000 Iraqi children are now suffering from acute malnutrition. That and oh yeah, the world hates us and the pool of Al Qaeda recruits has been vastly increased.

President George W. Bush speaking about the failure of the intelligence reform bill to pass after Republican leaders blocked it:

"I was disappointed the bill didn't pass," Bush said. "I thought it was going to pass up to the last minute."

He added that both he and Vice President Dick Cheney talked with key members of the House and "it was clear I wanted the bill passed."

Sorry, I am finding it hard to believe you when the people who kept it from passing were members of your party. Where were the cabinet members running around the House floor, as with the Medicare bill?

We can tell the difference between being in favor of something rhetorically and the White House putting real effort into getting it done.

Perhaps the president should consider spending some of his vaunted political capital to make this happen?

During the debate about the omnibus spending bill, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-ScandalTexas) said:

"I'm very proud of the fact that we held the line and made Congress make choices and set priorities, because it follows our philosophy."

A potential boon for Bush himself, $2 million for the government to try buying back the former presidential yacht Sequoia.

Update: As Atrios notes, the DNC should be all over this earmark. As he writes, If you can't figure out how to play this one...

I think some Congressional Republicans may be letting some of this "mandate" talk get to their heads.

With potentially scary consequences. For us. As the Associated Press reports:

Congress passed legislation Saturday giving two committee chairman and their assistants access to income tax returns without regard to privacy protections, but not before red-faced Republicans said the measure was a mistake and would be swiftly repealed.

You should be shocked by this. Imagine: Republican committee chairpersons with the power to look at any tax return without any consequences.

This is just outrageous. I guess some Republicans would have liked to return us to the bad old days of using tax information against political opponents. Thankfully some Democrats noticed it late in the game.

Josh Marshall has been all over the story today. As he writes here:

This weekend Congress was working on a massive $388 billion omnibus spending bill that will cover all manner of federal spending. But at the request of Rep. Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, chairman of the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee, a special provision was inserted into the bill which allows the Chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees or their "agents" to review any American's tax return with no restrictions whatsoever.

It's just the hypocrisy, stupid. But we have nothing to fear from our all right-wing Republican government.

Nothing at all...

Leading Republicans have killed an intelligence reform effort, legislation that was based on the 9-11 Commission's recommendations.

That's okay. After all, we all know that just the mere statements that Republicans care about national security will be enough to protect us from terrorists.

Actions are apparently not necessary.

Thanks to the irresponsible policies advanced by President George W. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress, these self-righteous GOP politicans -- who claim that they would never raise taxes -- were forced to vote this week on a tax increase on our children and future generations of Americans.

That's the practical effect of an increase in the national debt, now allowed by an increase in the national debt ceiling.

But hey, the Republicans don't care about future generations -- fulfilling their irresponsible ideological credo on this issue is a far more important priority.

Look at the bright side, this increase in the national debt ceiling soon will allow the Republicans to pass another irresponsible tax cut...

Earlier this week, Baltimore Sun editorial cartoonist Kevin Kallaugher drew up a innovative way to get the Bush Administration to focus on climate change.

One wishes it were only satire...

Apparently not. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorializes:

The Penn Hills School District asked Sen. Rick Santorum a $38,000 question. That is whether his children are residents of the municipality to the point that their educations should be paid for by Penn Hills taxpayers.

On Wednesday he gave his answer and it was no.

...

The senator's office issued a statement two days ago saying he and his wife, Karen, are withdrawing their children from the cyber school. But that doesn't mean they'll be attending any of the brick-and-mortar schools of the Penn Hills district either. The commute from the Santorum home in Leesburg, Va., would be onerous.

All of which begs a much bigger question: Is Rick Santorum R-Pa. or R-Va.? No one should represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate because he once lived here or because he visits all 67 counties every year. A traveling salesman can do that.

There is, unsurprisingly, a hypocrisy issue issue. As the Post-Gazette continues:

It's a strange case of political turnabout. In his initial House race against Rep. Doug Walgren in 1990, challenger Santorum attacked the incumbent from Mt. Lebanon for buying a house and raising his children in McLean, Va. Now Rick Santorum of Leesburg, Va., is saying that he is and he isn't a resident of Pennsylvania.

This is about personal responsibility and honesty, Senator Santorum. Where do you live?

And if it is not in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, are you willing to take some of the personal responsibility about which you and your fellow GOP leaders often talk -- and resign?

(Link via Atrios.)

George Lakoff frames the Democratic progressive message in terms of the fundamental American values these policies represent:

We are the 55 million progressives who came together in this election, voted for Kerry and rejected the Bush agenda.

We came together because of our moral values: care and responsibility, fairness and equality, freedom and courage, fulfillment in life, opportunity and community, cooperation and trust, honesty and openness. We united behind political principles: equality, equity (if you work for a living, you should earn a living) and government for the people--all the people.

These are traditional American values and principles, what we are proudest of in this country. The Democrats' failure was a failure to put forth our moral vision, celebrate our values and principles, and shout them out loud. (emphasis in original)

Even if you are skeptical of the "Democrats have trouble taking about values" analysis, I hope you can see the benefits of framing our issues in the context of these fundamental values.

People in the red states care about "care and responsibility, fairness and equality, freedom and courage, fulfillment in life, opportunity and community, cooperation and trust, honesty and openness."

So, it would not hurt if our candidates and party leaders started talking about how our policies are far better examples of these values than what the Republicans offer.

Media Matters for America has compiled an excellent report outlining how the media is assisting the Republican Slime Machine in its efforts to defame Travis County, Texas, District Attorney Ronnie Earle -- the man investigating House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his associates.

If you look at the Media Matters report, you can see how the so-called liberal media is repeating the GOP talking point that Earle is going after DeLay only for partisan reasons.

Of course, you aren't hearing that Earle has prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans. Such a fact does not fit the narrative, after all.

But, as Media Matters notes:

While Earle is an elected Democrat, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, a June 17 editorial in the Houston Chronicle commended his work: "During his long tenure, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has prosecuted many more Democratic officials than Republicans. The record does not support allegations that Earle is prone to partisan witch hunts." This assertion supports Earle's own claim about his record; a March 6 article in the El Paso Times reported: "Earle says local prosecution is fundamental and points out that 11 of the 15 politicians he has prosecuted over the years were Democrats."

Let's be clear: despite the conservative media's talking points, there is no evidence that Earle is a partisan hack. There is, however, much evidence that DeLay and many of his supporters -- especially those who rolled over and changed the rule prohibiting people under indictment from holding GOP leadership positions -- are.

Well, well. Now we see what compassionate conservatism looks like in a second term. The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum report on the Bush Administration's latest irresponsible tax cut plans:

Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said. (emphasis added)

At a time when the number of people without health insurance is a growing crisis, the Bush Administration proposes taking away the major incentive businesses have to provide health insurance in order to pay for a internet, dividends, and capital gains tax cut.

I suppose these Republicans will argue that taking steps to ensure our families have health insurance to protect them from the financial ruin one illness can bring is not a moral value.

But this plan really highlights just how morally bankrupt their policies can be after an election.

(Thanks to mmmm, brains for pointing this out.)

The Bull Moose rightly endorses redistricting reform, based on the nonpartisan Iowa model.

The House of Representatives in our system of government is supposed to be the chamber that reflects the political passions of the American people. That's why the election for House seats are held every two years.

Instead, thanks to partisan gerrymandering, it reflects little more than the results of each decade's redistricting battles.

It's time to bring back competitive Congressional elections and districts that do not look like abstract art. The Bull Moose correctly makes a note of this need.

Mark Kleiman takes note of the House Republicans' decision to change their conference rule prohibiting an indicted person from serving in the leadership (to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay) and writes:

The contemporary Republican Party has demonstrated a complete lack of scruple and no sense of limits in either taking power or using power. (The current "purge" -- their word, not mine -- of the Directorate of Operations at the CIA to rid it of those not personally loyal to GWB is just the latest example.)

If they keep playing football and we keep playing croquet, guess who's going to keep winning?

Pelosi and Reid, and the rest of us, need to take a page from the Republican playbook of 1993-2000. No surrender, no compromise, no bipartisanship, no civility, no reaching out to Republican officeholders (as opposed to detachable Republican voters): nothing but scorched earth from here to victory.

Yes, we have to work on our message. We have to learn to reframe the debate.

In the meantime, we should fight with the Republicans. We won't win many of those battles, but the time has arrived to show we won't roll over for everything.

Perhaps I'm a bit eccentric, but am I the only person who thinks that we probably should not have a National Security Advisor about whom the following can be written?

Despite his low public profile, Mr. Hadley has been closely associated with the flawed intelligence before the war in Iraq and with what some have criticized as inadequate planning for the postwar period. Despite telephone calls and memos from the Central Intelligence Agency questioning the claim about Iraq's pursuit of uranium, he admitted in July 2003, he did not have the reference removed from the State of the Union speech.

Mr. Hadley wrote an opinion piece for USA Today in June 2004 arguing that the administration had been right before the war to link Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq, a claim largely rejected by the commission studying the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Perhaps most significantly, he led the National Security Council's planning for postwar Iraq, which has turned out to be deadlier and far more difficult than anticipated.

Now, I realize that the Bush Administration never makes mistakes. But, I have to wonder whether there is anything other than loyalty that President Bush values.

Anything at all?

More proof of why blogs can be quite cool: Keith Olbermann writes on his to announce that he hasn't been fired or suspended for being one of the original few to report on the vote tampering controversy, he's just on vacation.

Olbermann also reports that the Greens and Libertarians have apparently raised enough money to force a recount in Ohio.

Just when you thought you had seen enough chads in your life...

Via the Left Coaster, here's another horrible story from the current back-door draft that has been implemented by the Bush Administration because of its Iraq mistakes. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Dennis Roddy writes:

Three years after he was honorably discharged from the Army, Frederick Pistorius was surprised to learn he was a deserter.

But there it was, on his doorstep: a letter from Barry W. Kimmons, Deputy Chief, Deserter Information Point Extension Office of the Army Reserve Personnel Command.

"On 12 July 2004 you were involuntarily mobilized to active duty in the United States Army," the letter says. "To date you have not reported to your mobilization station as required by your orders." Possibly Pistorius had not responded for two reasons. The Pistorius family had moved from the address in Sharon, Pa., to which the Army had sent its first letter. More saliently, having served honorably in not one but two branches of the U.S. military, with no additional obligation showing on his discharge papers, Pistorius would have had no reason to think he was subject to anything but his civilian job at a local steel plant.

Over on Altercation, Charles Pierce highlights a whopper of a delusion being spread by the Bush Administration as it justifies the impending purge of the CIA:

"The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

And there it is. Courtesy of a former (you freaking bet!) top-level spook, as relayed by Knut Royce of The Baltimore Sun yesterday, the single dumbest notion yet to leak out from under the Mayberry Machiavellis. I have enormous respect for the Newsday guys, and I have no illusions that this would ever happen in any major newspaper, but ought not the next piece of the story read something like this?

"Of course, as history and common sense would tell us, this perception no more conforms to reality than it would if the White House perceived the CIA to be a pod of humpback whales, an exaltation of larks, a gathering of the Inuit tribes, or an alternative rock band from Pullman, Washington. Sources have declined comment on whether or not the White House political operation has stopped its brief experiment with psilocybin mushrooms."

My friend Tony sent me a link today to an interesting story that goes against conventional wisdom.

Over at the Moderate Independent, Betsy R. Vasquez makes a novel argument: that John Kerry is fighting for every vote, only from the background. She writes:

Flash forward to today. Following the election, there was a problem apparent. The exit polling didn't match the ballot count, and many reasons for that began to become apparent.

John Kerry was faced with three options. One, fight on publicly rather than conceding and put the nation into a media frenzied limbo. Two, concede and go on with his life, turning his back on his promise to his supporters to ensure that “every vote will be counted.”

Most people are assuming that John Kerry opted for the second of these while John Edwards, his runningmate, opted for the first, and since Kerry was the big dog, he won out. But people who think this are thinking in Bush terms, all or nothing, either you are for the war or against it, that either Senator Kerry was for recounting the votes or he was against it.

The reality is, John Kerry has chosen a third, much smarter course – just as he said he would all along.

Nick over at Blogborygmi is one of the few people following what should be an important national story: how and why did Boston Police kill Red Sox fan Victoria Snelgrove in the chaos following the Red Sox's Game 7 victory against the New York Yankees?

Nick has links to some interesting analyses about the situation -- from CodeBlueBlog's ideas about the potential mechanism of death and a list of questions the media, and the Boston District Attorney, should be asking.

As Nick points out, the major media have largely dropped the ball on this story. Such a tragedy is unacceptable. That is why it is so important to find out how this happened and to bring to account those responsible for it.

Perhaps the media, now that the Scott Peterson trial is over, might now bring a little more effort to this task?

Digby links to this story about Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer who was missing for several days during the Battle for Fallujah.

By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.

"U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house," he said.

Hussein said he panicked, seizing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River, which flows on the western side of the city

"I wasn't really thinking," he said. "Suddenly, I just had to get out. I didn't think there was any other choice."

In the rush, Hussein left behind his camera lens and a satellite telephone for transmitting his images. His lens, marked with the distinctive AP logo, was discovered two days later by U.S. Marines next to a dead man's body in a house in Jolan.

AP colleagues in the Baghdad bureau, who by then had not heard from Hussein in 48 hours, became even more worried.

Hussein moved from house to house dodging gunfire and reached the river.

"I decided to swim … but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."

He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."

As the Boston Phoenix's Dan Kennedy writes about the announcement that Secretary of State Colin Powell has resigned:

Now the election's over, and Powell is gone, which should surprise no one. If you voted for Bush because you thought he was finally going to start listening to the sanest of his advisers, guess what? You were taken again.

Atrios points to an absurd statement in today's column by New York Times public editor Dan Okrent:

Reporter Jodi Wilgoren provoked a flood of complaints when she described John Kerry in April as "a social loner" without attributing her characterization to anyone - as if her own experience covering the senator, and discussing him with scores of his friends and associates, were not evidence enough.

Perhaps we complain because we find it hard to see how a person with "scores of friends and associates" can be a social loner. You know?

Could someone please bring some realism to the FCC? Electablog's Dave Pell writes about another media tragedy:

A lot of ABC affiliates around the country have decided not go ahead with advertised plans to air an uncut version of Saving Private Ryan on Veteran's Day. The station owners said that they were concerned over possible fines from the FCC because of the violence and profanity in the film.

Over at the Left Coaster, Steve Soto makes a wonderful observation: how does George W. "Moral Values" Bush nominate Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General and keep any credibility on morality issues?

After all, Gonzales has a part in the prisoner abuse scandal, withheld information from then Governor George W. Bush as he considered death penalty cases, and has some other questionable dealings.

Has Bush nominated Gonzales, who many people believe is on Bush's Supreme Court short-list, for AG in order to have a lower-key initial nomination fight? Is Bush nominating him now in order to get a 70-30 or better confirmation that Republicans can then try to turn into an easier Supreme Court nomination that overlooks this background?

Could be. All the more reason to get Gonzales to focus on Abu Ghraib and these other issues now.

I'm sure it is only a coincidence that the Department of Homeland Security has lowered to yellow the terrorism threat level for financial institutions -- just a little over a week after the election.

John Hoke wonders what it says about our leaders' priorities when the Pentagon is spending $7.5 million to investigate psychic teleportation while many of our troops are left to purchase their own body armor.

Josh Marshall is doing an excellent job of highlighting the Republicans attempt to transform a close election into a mandate for radical conservatism. (See here and here.)

We really need to debunk the idea that 51 percent of the popular vote equates to one of the largest victories in our nation's history.

Remember what Charles Pierce reminded us: a mandate is "...something you claim. It is something you are granted, usually by people who ought to know better. It's a vast and enormous bluff."

Those of us who oppose this Administration, therefore, need to do what we can to stop this mandate talk from becoming the frame through which political debates are fought over the next four years.

Matthew Gross highlights a story about how Howard Dean is considering a run for Democratic National Committee chair.

I hope he runs for it.

Dean, regardless of his failings as a presidential candidate, understands message. His campaign brought new activists into the Democratic ranks. His campaign explored the early stages of the potential that new technologies could bring to party organizing.

We don't need a Clinton or a member of the punditocracy. We need someone willing to do the hard work of building the party organization and energizing it.

Bill Hillsman, the brilliant consultant who helped the late Paul Wellstone win his Senate seat, gives the Democratic Party leadership the blame it so richly deserves for last week's failure. He writes:

But the Democratic Party has been getting away with this for far too long. There is a lack of accountability -- to funders, to volunteers and, most of all, to their voters -- that is breathtakingly irresponsible.

The bottom line for this election is simple: Individual citizens and independent groups, taking the burden upon themselves, did a superlative job of cultivating national dissatisfaction with the president and his policies. But the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party could not provide an acceptable enough alternative. They could not close the deal with America's swing voters.

As Keith Olbermann notes, stories about official election day vote counting fraud are beginning to jump from the blogosphere to "mainstream" media outlets.

Stories like this one:

Stories like these have filled the web since the tide turned against John Kerry late Tuesday night. But not until Friday did they begin to spill into the more conventional news media. That’s when the Cincinnati Enquirer reported that officials in Warren County, Ohio, had “locked down” its administration building to prevent anybody from observing the vote count there.

Suspicious enough on the face of it, the decision got more dubious still when County Commissioners confirmed that they were acting on the advice of their Emergency Services Director, Frank Young. Mr. Young had explained that he had been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of Homeland Security.

Gotcha. Tom Ridge thought Osama Bin Laden was planning to hit Caesar Creek State Park in Waynesville. During the vote count in Lebanon. Or maybe it was Kings Island Amusement Park that had gone Code-Orange without telling anybody. Al-Qaeda had selected Turtlecreek Township for its first foray into a Red State.

Getting back to the bigger story here, I am not sure what to think about all of these vote fraud stories. I doubt there's any chance enough wrong-doing will be uncovered to put the presidential outcome in doubt.

But could we agree, more than four years after the Florida 2000 fiasco, that we must take seriously the need ensure we have vote counting procedures all of us can trust?

Please?

(And if you are not sure what these vote fraud stories are all about, read this Thom Hartmann commentary to get a quick overview.)

The Bull Moose examines Tim Russert's suck-up job to Karl Rove on yesterday's Meet the Press and rightly observes:

Nothing prompts our media to forgive like success. Vicious personal campaigns? Vile attacks on opponents? Underhanded under the radar nastiness? No problem - all is forgotten if the operative, however base and immoral, is victorious. Media mavens merely bow and scrape in Rove's presence. On Sunday, the lion of the Sabbath gabfests, Tim Russert, purred like a pussy cat to the political piranha.

"Please, more access, My Lord."

A new Association Press poll indicates that American people have different priorities than the issues outlined by President Bush in his post-election press conferences. Will Lester reports:

As President Bush mulls what to do after winning re-election, voters say his first priority should be resolving the situation in Iraq, where the fighting is growing more intense. They also want Bush to cut the deficit, which ballooned under his watch, rather than pushing for more tax cuts, according to an Associated Press poll taken right after the election.

The voters' concerns stood in contrast to the priorities Bush cited after he defeated Democrat John Kerry. Bush pledged to aggressively pursue major changes in Social Security, tax laws and medical malpractice awards. Terrorism was a chief concern both for Bush and many voters in the poll.

The question, as always, is whether Democrats will be able to take advantage of them.

Paul Glastris has some troubling news over at the Washington Monthly:

Thousands of Iraqi surface to air missiles are now missing, according to The New York Times. Note that we are hearing about this now, after the election, from unnamed government officials talking on Friday, so as to bury the news in the Saturday papers. This is hardly surprising, because the news is very, very worrying.

Shoulder-fired missiles are built to shoot down aircraft.

It looks like Democrats made some small gains on Tuesday in State Legislatures across the nation. As the National Conference of State Legislatures reports:

NCSL's initial analysis of the 2004 elections give Democrats a slight edge in gaining political ground, picking up a few more legislative chambers than their GOP counterparts. They also overtook the Republicans in total state legislators. Before the election, Republicans had 64 more legislators. Now, the Democrats lead by 12.

By the slimmest of margins, Democrats claimed the most political chamber switches of the night. Based on unofficial results, the Democrats won the Colorado House, Colorado Senate, Montana Senate, North Carolina House, Oregon Senate, Vermont House, Washington Senate. In the case of the Colorado and Washington chambers, the margin of victory is only one seat, and recounts are expected in several districts.

Remember all of that conservative whining about 527 groups a month or two ago?

Now we know why we are not hearing those same whines today. The Washington Post's Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Thomas B. Edsall report:

In the final three weeks of the campaign, independent "527" groups backing President Bush bought nearly $30 million worth of television and radio ads, three times what their Democratic counterparts spent, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity.

Using a different methodology, Public Opinion Strategies found that voters in six battleground states were most deeply influenced by three sets of commercials, all either pro-Bush or anti-Kerry: the Swift boat ads, the "Ashley" commercials and "Wolves," an ad produced by the Bush campaign using film of a wolf pack to suggest the threat of terrorism. (emphasis added)

Silly conservatives. Using the old area size trick in a chart or map is a really obvious way to manipulate data.

That's why it is so pathetic that, among others, Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, and Bill O'Reilly have resorted to using it by pointing maps like this one and declaring this an overwhelmingly Republican nation.

Yes, many counties with few people in them voted Republican. But, that's really not what matters. The number of people matter.

So, you can still use the maps if you adjust for population density. Electoral-vote.com adjusts the state sizes in this map so they reflect population size. That provides a more fair and balanced view.

Not that FOX News' Hannity or O'Reilly would really care about that principle.

Frankly, I cannot blame President Bush from trying to claim a broad mandate with his election victory.

That's just smart politics. If I were advising him, I would be telling him to try to claim as large a mandate as possible.

I can blame the media and Democrats, however, if we let him take it.

Fifty-one percent of the popular vote gets you a majority win (among those who voted). It does not represent a broad mandate. It does not mean that Democrats need to roll over and allow a radical conservative agenda to pass through Congress without opposition.

In what appears to be his last post over on Altercation for a while, Charles Pierce does an excellent job of explaning this:

But, before I disappear for a while, a word about mandates. A mandate never really exists, not even as a result of an actual landslide. It is not something you win; just ask Tom DeLay and the Impeachers, if you don't believe me. It's something you claim. It is something you are granted, usually by people who ought to know better. It's a vast and enormous bluff. Quite simply, if the Democratic senators follow Recommended Plan A above, then C-Plus doesn't have a mandate, no matter how hard Little Russ stamps his feet when Jack Welch whistles. And anybody who thinks 51 percent is license to end the progressive income tax, chloroform Social Security, create a permanently troglodytic federal judiciary, invade Teheran, and generally take the national polity back to the 1890's is betting heavy behind a low pair. Don't fold. Don't call. Raise.

Democrats also need to offer comprehensive alternatives to what Bush is pushing. So what if the bills lose, or the Republican leadership fails to allow votes on these alternatives.

Saying no, however necessary it may be, is not enough. One lesson from the 2004 election is that we have to be more than the "not-Bush" party.

We likely cannot stop the Republicans from winning many legislative battles over the next two years. We can, however, make sure that the American people see that the Democrats offer a positive alternative in 2006.

As President Bush and his team and supporters celebrate their victory on Tuesday, future generations of Americans are "celebrating" the new $50.62 billion added to the national debt in the month of October.

The national debt has grown by $1.701 trillion since President George W. Bush took office.

We are immorally leaving this burden to our children, grandchildren, and future generations. It's Republican family values in action!

So...I guess it's time for some more tax cuts, right? (sigh)

Josh Marshall is right: this victory does not earn President Bush a fresh start, and 51 percent is not, as Vice President Cheney argued today, "a broad, nationwide victory." As Marshall writes:

And yet he plans to use this narrow victory as though it were a broad mandate, starting right back with the same strategy that has already come near to tearing this country apart.

But, I suspect that he is not. I hope I am wrong about this. I just have a hard time swallowing this "uniter, not divider" rhetoric after seeing the Bush in action the past four years.

Over on Altercation, Eric Alterman and Charles Pierce write important things about yesterday's election debacle.

Here's a bit of Alterman:

he problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the “reality-based community” say or believe about anything.

Pierce adds:

They showed up. The Republican base, that is. The people who believe that their marriages are threatened by those of gay people, the people who believe there were WMD in Iraq and that Saddam waved a hankie at Mohammed Atta, the people who believe His eye is on every embryo. They all showed up, and there are more of them than there are of us. This was a faith-based electorate and, for whatever reason, their belief was stronger than our reality. This is a country I do not recognize any more.

I think the burden is on we Democrats to crack the code. Otherwise we will continue to feel disappointed and shocked on future election nights.

Well, that hurt.

The voters have spoken. I don't like their message. More important, it is clear that in many states the voters do not care for what the national Democratic Party is saying.

So, while we need to clean house at the top of the party apparatus, the focus will be best placed on what Democrats need to do going forward to make some gains in 2006 to set the stage for something better in 2008.

As someone who predicted that John Kerry would accumulate 311 electoral votes, I realize that my analyst credentials are a bit frayed today. That said, I take three big lessons from yesterday's debacle.

1. Stop relying on the exit polls. That's two elections in a row where they have been way off the mark. Shame on me for being taken twice. I don't plan on making this mistake a third time.

2. It's the war on terror and homeland security, stupid. John Kerry occasionally talked about these to great effect. But then he would start talking about other issues, taking the focus away from these. Democrats need a simple and effective message to battle against the Bush Administration's mistakes. The good news is that much work in this area has been done -- by many Democrats, including Kerry. Now is the time to make this a bigger issue -- every time the Bushies do something illogical on homeland security and the war on terror, we need to say it. Loudly. And Repeatedly.

3. Start talking about values and morality. Okay, Democrats. It's time for us to stop allowing the Republicans to dominate these issues. We need to start talking about values. We need to reframe the debate in ways that show we understand what Americans feel. Democrats are the party of the American Dream. We are the party of the fair deal. We are the party of giving leaving our children a better country in which to live than the one we had. There's a whole lot more in the Bible than homosexuality and abortion. It's time we reminded the red states of these points.
   

Crises -- and being unable to defeat George W. Bush despite his baggage represents a huge crisis -- provide opportunities. But only if we are willing to seize them and make some real changes.

The excellent Charles Pierce offers a reason for voting for John Kerry in this Altercation post from Monday:

It occurred to me over the weekend that I haven't given a good reason why I will vote for John Kerry, and why I would vote for him even if he were running against, say, John McCain. (And even if McCain still had a political soul, which I've come to doubt.) Once, in Iowa, Kerry dropped in on a group of Vietnam veterans. Some of them liked him. Some of them didn't, largely because of the whole VVAW thing. (And, trust me, this was my first beat at the Boston Phoenix, and I discovered that the politics within the various Vietnam veteran's groups were desperate and bloody.) Kerry dismissed the staff, locked the door, blew off the rest of the schedule, and sat there and talked and argued with these guys until they were all exhausted. He wanted to talk to the people who disliked him more than he wanted to talk to anyone else. He gave them the respect of open debate.

Imagine the incumbent doing that. Imagine him sitting down in a room where half the people truly loathe him and everything he stands for, him and his ticket-only rallies, and his coddling staff, and his use of the Secret Service as cheap sidewalk bouncers. Imagine him hearing them out, debating them, giving them the respect of his knowledgeable disagreement. It is inconceivable. One can more easily imagine C-Plus Augustus's flapping his arms and flying to the top of the Washington Monument. Imagine that "character" is even at issue between these two men.

And, if you want to see just how different the two campaigns treat those who disagree with their candidate, check out this ABC News story. The Kerry-Edwards campaign looks quite good in this comparison.

Since the weather could potentially play a role in this election's battleground states by having an influence on voter turnout, you may want to check out the weather forecast summary compiled by Taegan Goodard's Political Wire.

James Wolcott provides some vital perspective about the state of our nation entering tomorrow's election, including this powerful paragraph of analysis:

The truth is, as Scott Ritter writes in an important article linked to by Antiwar.com, the war in Iraq has made moral cowards of us all. To focus on whether or not the Bin Laden tape would give Bush a boost while thousands upon thousands of Iraqis die and Fallujah is about to pulverized without the slightest debate in this country is an indictment of our media, our political class, and the phony Christianity that so many of our dumpling patriots profess.

It's time to choose. As you can see from the map, I am predicting that Senator John Kerry will win the presidency by a 311-227 electoral vote margin of victory.

Yes, I am predicting that Kerry will win the three big toss-up prizes: Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

I think the wind is a bit at Kerry's back, and that a high turnout and new registrations will give the Democrat a larger-than-expected victory.

Am I, however, worried that certain shenanigans, especially within Florida, might upset this prediction and election?

Yep.

(If you are interested in making your own prediction, you can use the handy electoral college calculator on the PBS Newshour web site.)