disconnect

Wow. These two excerpts are from a NY Times article principally about Bush saying Kerry didn't lie about Vietnam but refusing to denounce the Swift Boat ad. The interview that he gave moved into other topics however...

Mr. Bush deflected efforts to inquire further into what went wrong with the occupation, suggesting that such questions should be left to historians, and insisting, as his father used to, that he would resist going "on the couch" to rethink decisions.

Um, can someone tell Bush that troops are still in Iraq? Maybe it might be "prudent", as his father would say, to inquire further into the situation in Iraq, given that the occupation, which Bush wants to leave to the historians to discuss, is not yet history? I guess one of the reasons why he might not want to rethink decisions is that before you can rethink, you have to think first.

But that wasn't the best part...

On environmental issues, Mr. Bush appeared unfamiliar with an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global warming.

The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, "Ah, we did? I don't think so."

Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, said later that the administration was not changing its position on global warming and that Mr. Bush continued to be guided by continuing research at the National Academy of Sciences.

The report they're talking about is discussed here (non-NY-Times link here). No wonder Bush won't take a stronger look into what's happening in Iraq - he doesn't even know what his own administration is up to.

It's funny, the technology behind a national missile defense is suspect and may not work correctly. But that's OK, we'll spend billions of dollars to deploy it against a threat which really doesn't exist. Meanwhile, the research behind human contributions to global warming is growing and accepted by a large number of scientists. But we're not really 100% sure, so we won't do anything against a possible looming threat, because it might cost us billions of dollars.

People who dispute global warming are fun. Sometimes they seem to be divided as to whether or not global warming exists. Then if it exists, it's not caused by humans. But even if it was, it's not that bad. The site globalwarming.org says its mission is to "to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis". Their news section currently has a link to a Reuters article with the headline "Global warming means more frost-free days". Yay! Cuz frost is bad, I guess. Except the article then says global warming will bring "more severe and common heat waves in cities such as Paris and Chicago," and in California, "higher temperatures would threaten the dairy and grape industries. Also, it says, "the European Environment Agency predicted that cold winters could disappear almost entirely from Europe by 2080 and that heat waves and floods would become more common." So wait, is global warming happening? And it's good because of the frost thing? Or bad because of the flood thing. I'm confused. Is this article a "flawed risk analysis" or is it good, because they posted it on the front page of their website? Maybe the part about lower frost is good, but everything else is flawed. It makes sense though that if you're underwater and/or it's 80º in November, you'd have less frost.

It also has a section on "Kyoto & You", attacking the Kyoto Protocol, which would seek to reduce carbon emissions. Under "Seniors", it links to an article with the synopsis, "Senior citizens will be the ones really burnt if this foolish Kyoto Treaty is implemented – burnt with higher energy costs for fuel in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, both of which are essential for their health." It's kind of funny how they needed something to scare seniors with, so they came up with this one which doesn't actually specifically target seniors at all. And I seem to remember my heating costs already rising a ton in Minnesota without the Kyoto Protocol in effect, just because of the fact that we're using way more natural gas and oil than we have, so energy prices go up anyway. Apparently over-consumption of fossil fuels is "anti-seniors".

Another group that I hear attacking global warming research in ads on the radio is the Greening Earth Society (don't you just love these names?). Their site bashes global warming research even harder than the last site I showed, but their ads focus on how great it would be if we had lots of CO2 in the atmosphere, because crops, trees and other plants would grow so much better given that they breath CO2. Unfortunately, the article about the administration's report yesterday said, "[T]he accumulating emissions pose newly identified risks to farmers, citing studies showing that carbon dioxide promotes the growth of invasive weeds far more than it stimulates crops and that it reduces the nutritional value of some rangeland grasses." Whoops. I'm sure this won't stop the Greening Earth Society though... and why? Because they're "funded and controlled by the Western Fuels Association, an association of coal-burning utility companies." But ignore what those scientists have to say... they're biased.

I'd like to pass on a request from my father-in-law, Bob, to visit zellout.com and register your disgust at what Zell Miller's become. Bob says he's voted for Zell Miller three times in his political career since he's from Georgia, where Miller used to be governor, so he's one of the people that Zell is directly betraying in all this.

I used to think the guy was free to have his own opinions on stuff and call himself a Democrat; I mean, you're not going to kick the guy out of your party because he's pro-life or has some different stances on things. But with the "Democrats For Bush" thing and now with the keynote address at the Republican Convention he's gone too far. The very title of "Democrats For Bush" tells you all you need to know about what's going on here. Zell Miller can support Bush all he wants, I don't care. But he's actually using the fact that he was elected as a Democrat as a weapon against Kerry. You know what the message is going to be at the convention: "The Democratic Party has swung so far to the left that reasonable Democrats like me have no choice but to support this great president being unfairly attacked by liberals." Except Zell Miller cannot be considered a Democrat by any criteria and was divorced from the party by a county in Georgia. Other than Bush and Cheney, Zell Miller will be the most conservative speaker in prime-time at the convention.

Without that "D" tag next to his name, he's just another crazy conservative up there complaining about the Super Bowl halftime show and prayer not being in public schools. That's fine if they want to have that message delivered, but that won't be the message. The message will be that the Democrats have gone mad, I'm deserting ship to George W. Bush and so should everyone else. When in reality it's just one crazy rat jumping off the ship when it's sailing along fine.

When Ron Reagan Jr. talked at the Democratic Convention (you may not remember it because it was in the unfortunately slot directly after Barack Obama), he just talked about stem cell research and that we need to elect Kerry in order to get the research moving again. He didn't get up there and say, or even imply in my opinion, "Hey, I'm a Reagan, and this Bush administration is so kooky that even Reagans are supporting John Kerry!" Let's see what Zell says, assuming I can stomach his speech.

Here are a couple of links to sites with interesting maps and graphics about the upcoming election:

The New York Times 2004 Election Guide
This has swing state maps, an interactive electoral vote calculator, graphs of the money race and lots more. For someone who reads the NY Times regularly I hadn't tried this until today. I like when you switch the map from geography to electoral votes and the states morph based on how valuable they are. Yes, I've seen it before, but I'm easily amused. Another nice tough is that it gives you a list of which candidate won each state and by how much, going back to Kennedy-Nixon.

Wall Street Journal/Zogby Battleground States Poll
I originally meant to write a post about this yesterday; this is basically a map showing poll results in the battleground states with a little extra info about the poll results, the states polled and past poll history. The reason I was going to bring this up is not the vast amount of blue on the map in the most recent poll, though that is nice, but to mention my current home state of Tennessee, currently colored blue. How it's swung from 18% pro-Bush in late June to slightly Kerry-ish in the last three polls is beyond me, but there it is. Like 13 of the other 16 states, it is within the margin of error, but the fact that it's even that close would have been shocking three months ago. Of course, a year ago, when it was assumed Bush would cruise to a second term, the tightness of this whole race would have been shocking too.

Before I talk about more Swift Boat Vets stuff, I wanted to say that for a while, I had thought about banishing this subject because of its utter stupidity. The more the focus is on where John Kerry was on Christmas in 1968, the less it's on whether or not you'll have a job in three more years, something I feel is slightly more important. But as this post will continue to show, this whole saga is actually pretty revealing as to what it shows about Bush and the whole right-wing attack machine. Of course the main point of this blog is to convince people who might not already be convinced to vote for Kerry (and, given the percentage of people reading this who are already convinced, some preaching to the choir when appropriate). While that means touting the good things Kerry brings to the table, that also means showing all the bad things Bush brings, and few examples are as good as this one. Some of you may not like Kerry all that much, and I know several Democrats who don't like him (I personally do). What I think we should be able to agree on is that four more years of Bush is certainly much worse and that whatever good qualities anyone might give Bush credit for (and there are some), they are heavily outweighed by the negative ones.

Here are some more examples of this, but today my surrogates fight the battle for me because Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo says it better than I ever could. The first post I want to link to is regarding the new ad Kerry has put out, featuring part of a debate between McCain and Bush. I'll let TPM take it from there:

[T]he entire ad is a brief exchange from a debate from February 15th 2000 (which the political junkies among us probably remember) in which John McCain -- then in the thick of Bush's smears -- told Bush to his face to stop getting others to smear him over his war record. He ends by telling him he should be ashamed. The camera focuses on Bush and catches him not knowing how to respond, with what I think even his supporters would have to agree is a callow, trapped look on his face.

I say this is exactly where the Kerry campaign needs to go because it very powerfully captures a truth about President Bush -- namely, that he's a coward who truly lacks shame.

I don't say he's a coward because he kept himself out of Vietnam three decades ago. I know no end of men of that age who in one fashion or another made sure they didn't end up in Indochina in those days. (I quickly ran through both hands counting guys I talk to on a regular basis.) And they include many of the most admirable people I know.

He's a coward because he has other people smear good men without taking any responsibility, without owning up to it or standing behind it. And when someone takes it to him and puts him on the spot to defend his actions -- as McCain does in this spot -- he's literally speechless. Like I say, a coward.

As I said earlier, this is vintage Bush. And it's also a subtle nod to all the ways that Bush is someone who's always gotten by with help at all the key moments from family friends, retainers and others similarly hunting for access and power.

There's another element to this ad that we'd be remiss not to note too. It puts McCain on the spot and pulls him right back to the center of this battle. Given the fervor of his words, he can hardly disavow them or complain of their use. But there's something else too. If you listen to the ad you'll see McCain hangs his demand for an apology on a letter signed by five senators, each Vietnam vets, calling on Bush to apologize for his smears against McCain.

The five, as reported by the Times on February 5th, 2000: Senators Max Cleland of Georgia, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Charles S. Robb of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Then there's quite a longer post which sums up what was said in that last post and what I've been getting at in pretty harsh terms. Of course, pretty harsh terms seem now to be unavoidable in this election.

I've said several times over recent days that it is an example of the president's moral cowardice that he has such a long record of having others savage his opponents -- for sins of which he is usually more guilty than they -- and then denying any responsibility for what's happening. It's like the moment captured in that recent Kerry campaign spot where John McCain tells Bush to stand by his attacks or apologize, and the now-president is painfully caught off guard, bereft of the protective phalanx of retainers.

He's not used to having to stand behind what he's done. And when McCain comes at him one on one he's jelly. His life has always been a matter of others doing his dirty work for him, others bailing him out. And in that moment it shows.

The current debate about these two men's military service has put the spotlight on physical courage. But that really is a side issue in this campaign, if we're talking substance. The real issue isn't physical bravery but moral cowardice.

President Bush is an examplar of that quality in spades. And it cuts directly to his failures as president. Forget about thirty years ago, just think about the last three years.

Before proceeding on to that, one other point about the two men's service. On the balance sheet of moral bravery, as opposed to physical bravery, the two men are about as far apart as you can be on Vietnam. On the one hand you have Kerry, who already had doubts about whether we should be fighting in Vietnam before he went, and put his life on the line anyway. On the other hand, you have George W. Bush who supported the war, which means he believed the goal was worth the cost in American lives. Only, not his life. He believed others should go; just not him. It's the story of his life.

That is almost the definition of moral cowardice.

The rest of the post gives examples of moral cowardice in the last three years of his administration, which are spot-on but too long to excerpt in this already-too-long post. That's why they invented hyperlinks anyway.

Porter Goss, President Bush's choice to head the CIA, "sponsored legislation that would have cut intelligence personnel by 20 percent in the late 1990s." Excerpt from the Washington Post registration-only article:

The Bush reelection campaign has been blasting Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry as deeply irresponsible for proposing intelligence cuts at the same time. A Bush campaign ad released on Aug. 13 carried a headline: "John Kerry . . . proposed slashing Intelligence Budget 6 Billion Dollars."

But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry and specifically targeted the "human intelligence" that has recently been found lacking. The recent report by the commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks called for more spending on human intelligence.

The point of bringing this up isn't so much to suggest that Goss isn't suited to head the CIA. People more qualified that myself will make that decision. The point is to once again expose how the Bush administration's attacks on John Kerry are based on smear tactics and fear-mongering rather than substantive arguments that actually matter in 2004.

First it was the ad (and message on his web site) harping on Kerry's idea for a 50-cent increase in the gas tax in 1994. ...Except the chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers pushed the same idea in May, 1999. Now the problem with Kerry is that he proposed cutting the intelligence budget in 1996. ...Except the guy Bush just picked to head that department proposed cutting it even MORE the same year, and cutting it in places that have been found to be especially lacking.

So obviously Bush doesn't have a problem with people who proposed gas tax increases or intelligence budget spending in the past, since he hand-picked them for positions in his administration. Then what is the point of running these ads criticizing Kerry for these things other than to try to mislead people into thinking that Kerry's ideas about these things have been way-way-extreme-far left, or even that he still wants to raise the gas tax or cut intelligence? To criticize your opponent for proposing legislation or raising ideas at the same time that you promote individuals who sponsored the same legislation and raised the same ideas is the height of hypocrisy and exposes the motivation behind these attack ads.

Apparently my comments have been having problems for the past day or so - sorry to those of you who haven't been able to post any.

Edit (4:02 PM): Seems to be working OK now.

Allow me to make a hypothetical analogy about the smear campaign currently underway against John Kerry that I talked about in my last post. I've been told in the past that my analogies suck, so hopefully it makes sense.

In today's New York Times, there's an op-ed letter by Glen G. Butler, a major in the Marines currently piloting a helicopter over Najaf. He describes himself as a right-wing conservative and says several things I disagree with, including that Saddam Hussein was a "grave and gathering threat" before the war, and that the fact that there have been no attacks on America since 9/11 means that Bush has made our country safer. Still, I respect the hell out of him, and think his letter was fantastic. I admire his bravery in a war zone, I admire how obviously well thought out his letter was, and I admire him risking his life for my country. He seems like the kind of guy you could disagree with but still would like to sit down and have a chat with over a beer. At the very least, he is proof that not all right-wing conservatives are evil. ;)

Now imagine yourself 35 years in the future. Major Butler has parlayed his obvious intelligence and desire to serve his country into a seat in the United States Senate, and has won the Republican Party's nomination for president. Suddenly, a group calling itself "Apache Helicopter Veterans For Truth" runs an attack ad against him. It disputes his assertion in the letter that "I have not shot one round without good cause," producing a pilot who says he was flying near Butler's helicopter when it shot up some Iraqi civilians. Furthermore, it asserts that a hypothetical crash by Butler was caused by him goofing off in his helicopter, and that he lied about facing RPG fire from Iraqi insurgents in the cemetary of Najaf.

Now imagine that "Apache Helicopter Veterans For Truth" turns out to be funded by Democratic supporters, and that none of the assertions that they made were backed up in any way by the men Major Butler served with, or by the official record of any events in Iraq. In fact, members of the group have contradicted themselves several times in the past and seem bitter and jealous about Butler's conduct (perhaps because he wrote to the evil, liberal New York Times).

Having just read Butler's op-ed and told you what I thought of it, I can tell you that the idea of such an attack on him and his conduct in Iraq would be shameful and reprehensible. Not only is there no evidence (in his letter, and presumably anywhere else) that he lied or did anything cowardly in Iraq, everything points to the opposite, except for the hypothetical Apache veterans group. I would certainly be ashamed to be a supporter of a party behind this attack.

I should hope by now that the analogy between Glen Butler and John Kerry is obvious. I just want to make explicit what was implied in my last post, which is that a vote for Bush in November is, in effect, a vote condoning these kinds of attacks. Yes, I know he didn't personally "endorse this message", but the very least he could do is condemn it, and he has refused to do even that. Plus Republican surrogates like John O'Neill and others continue to make the rounds pushing their Swift Boat Vets case. Besides which, Bush has used these kinds of attacks in the past, and has to keep his distance in this case only because of the callous nature of the attacks and the concern that it might introduce questions as to what exactly he was doing in the 20 or so years of his life from the late 60's to the late 80's, and if there was anything in there that might shine an unfavorable light onto his character and qualities as a leader. And yes, of course there's more to consider in your vote than whether or not you approve of these kinds of attacks, but among the things you should consider are whether or not this is acceptable behavior for a candidate, and the extent to which your vote for the person doing it will reward them and encourage more of this in the future.

Finally, I want to link to this story in the American Prospect Online, which points out how the larger story of Kerry volunteering for service while Bush slipped into the National Guard and Cheney slipped out of everything is completely overshadowed by all this. Really, Bush and Cheney not fighting in Vietnam is largely a non-issue now in 2004, but it is certainly a bigger issue than how much fire Kerry's boat was taking when he saved Jim Rassmann's life.

I just wanted to say something regarding everything that's in the news regarding Kerry and Vietnam. The Republicans say that this is all fair, since Kerry made his Vietnam service a major issue in his campaign at the convention. That's true, but what's been going on goes way past any reasonable definition of "fair". I won't waste my time talking about how the Swift Boat vets first ad (and their organization as a whole) is a bunch of crap, as it has already been covered extensively.

What I want to cover is this new Swift Boat ad. It uses testimony Kerry gave in front of the Senate on April 22, 1971 against him, saying "The accusations that John Kerry made against the veterans who served in Vietnam was just devastating." If you read the testimony yourself, and I highly recommend that you do, you'll see he wasn't making accusations, he was repeating what other soldiers testified to doing. He prefaces the war crimes stuff with "They told the stories," talking about these other soldiers' testimonies in the ongoing "Winter Soldier" investigation, and the reason that he does is given in what he said just prior to that: "I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony." He's saying these things about atrocities because he was the one chosen to say them for all those who personally witnessed them. So that's misleading point number one.

Just as an aside, are these commercials supposed to be asserting that no war crimes took place in Vietnam? That none of the things Kerry talked about ("cut off ears, cut off heads", etc) ever happened? Even if Kerry was personally asserting first-hand knowledge of these events, which he was not, it seems a stretch to believe that they didn't happen. But I guess if it did happen, apparently it was Kerry's fault, because he told Congress about it.

The reason this is so infuriating is not that it's taking focus off important issues, or that it's potentially damaging to the Kerry campaign, although those are annoying too. It's the principle of smear campaigning. You saw it against McCain in 2000, you saw it against Dukakis in 1988, and I guarantee you'll see it again if it works. Read the transcript, it's pretty amazing. At one point, he's interrupted by applause and the Chairman of the Senate committee says, "I hope you won't interrupt. He is making a very significant statement. Let him proceed." Nixon, his chief of staff (Bob Haldeman), and Henry Kissinger talked about Kerry afterwards discussing what a great job he did. I mean, if you think about it, it was really something for someone to come back from the war taking this kind of stand against the very war they had been fighting in, and to do such a great job trying to get people's attention focused on these issues. But now these very things that we should be seeing as positive traits in a leader are being twisted around into fodder for attacks. Apparently, saving someone's life in Vietnam, serving your country heroically in a war, and being chosen to testify in front of Congress (and doing an excellent job at it) are less honorable than serving in the Texas Air National Guard (assuming that Bush really did serve).

I mean, you read those transcripts of Nixon and his staff talking about Kerry and they're trying to attack him even then. His chief of staff even said, "We've got some interesting dope on Kerry." You would think that if his medals were bogus or if he was lying about war crimes they would have brought it up.

And with that, you realize that in 2004 we've seen the Republicans in their campaign stooping lower than Nixon would. A speech that even Nixon admitted was "extremely effective" given by a guy whose service was unassailable even by that administration is now being tarnished to the point where you're supposed to look at Bush's National Guard service and Cheney's deferments as better credentials for leadership in a time of war. If this works, what won't? If you can paint someone with three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star as a traitor and a coward, what can't you do?

The fact that these people would try to portray Kerry's service and this speech as negatives is sickening. The fact that it could actually work is downright appalling and one of those things that makes you question the world we live in.