disconnect

I just watched Fahrenheit 9/11 on DVD, and something occurred to me. We and the candidates debate whether or not the Iraq war was justified at the time, or was justified in hindsight knowing what we know now about Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction. Bush claims that it was still the right call because Iraq was planning on starting up its weapons programs again once sanctions lifted, and he was right to invade because Saddam was abusing the oil-for-food program. That's his belief, and we all know Bush is a man of rock-solid conviction, so I wish he would do this: I wish he would go to Lila Lipscomb's house in Flint, Michigan, sit down with her and tell her that her son's sacrifice in Iraq was noble and was for a good cause, because Saddam was abusing the oil-for-food program. I have a feeling I know what her response to that would be, and I want him to get the same response from the family of every single one of the 1068 killed and 7453 wounded soldiers in Iraq. You would think that if there was justice in this life or the next, Bush would have to answer to that.

So... those debate predictions I made? Way off. I guess I forgot that this President is fully capable of not changing much of anything when losing, so he might do largely the same thing he did in the first debate, except with the following changes: 1) Yell a lot. 2) Instead of pursing your lips, blink a lot and wink at people. I have to give him credit though for not stooping to the depths I thought he would sink to tonight. At least he's going down with a little bit of dignity.

I thought Kerry was mopping the floor with Bush again until the last half hour, when Bush mounted enough of a comeback to at least contend he didn't get destroyed again. The Kerry "timber" quote, while actually correct, didn't make much sense and gave Bush some momentum by allowing him to think, "Hey, maybe I'm not getting my ass handed to me now!" And the abortion question was a gift to Bush, though Kerry could've handled it better too. In the end I think I would score it a close Kerry win, made close by a fairly strong closing third by Bush. It's a draw in the sense that both sides will be able to spin it for their guy, and it gives Republicans hope that maybe their candidate isn't completely hopeless. But it's a win for Kerry in that he once again seemed probably more presidential than Bush. Really, it doesn't even matter that much how Bush does in these debates. People know him, know what kind of guy he is, know what he's done and know what he'll do if he gets another four years. A recent Zogby poll shows that only 15% of undecided voters believe Bush deserves to be re-elected. That means there's a huge number of people wanting a change, but they need to feel comfortable giving Kerry the job. Kerry's performance tonight was another big step towards convincing those people that he is a better alternative than Bush. Even if conservatives can walk away from tonight thinking that there were some positives for their guy, independents who don't like Bush can walk away from tonight thinking, "You know, that Kerry seemed alright. I don't like Bush, and I think he'll do better."

On a final note, I liked what Wonkette said about the last question to Bush:

10:28 Q: Name three times you've made a mistake. A: I WAS RIGHT TO GO TO WAR. AND THAT'S A TRICK QUESTION. FUCK YOU.

In last election's town hall debate (transcript here), Bush was folksy, good-mannered, and likeable. He was running on his "compassionnate conservative" line, and complained a lot about all the bickering in Washington, pledging to be a "uniter, not a divider". Gore, on the other hand, at one point walked over to Bush's side of the stage for no apparent reason, looking fairly creepy, and kept demanding to know Bush's stance on the "Dingle-Norwood bill". It was kind of the 2000 election in a nutshell, where Bush was light on substance but heavy on the ol' Texas common sense, and people just seemed to like him better than Gore.

I'm sure Bush would probably go the same route tonight if he could, and he still might, but it's almost impossible now. First off, it would be difficult for him to say anything like ,"You see, in order to get something done on behalf of the people, you have to put partisanship aside, and that's what we did in my state." No one's going to buy that Bush puts partisanship aside this year. And he has a record as a Washington politician to run on this year too, as opposed to in 2000 where he could run as an "outsider". Furthermore, the record isn't very good, so he can't really focus on that either.

That leaves two avenues left for Bush to go to... post 9/11 fear, and attacks and lies against Kerry. Bush has never been as good at the fear-mongering as Cheney, so the more likely option is a heavy diet of attacks. If I were a betting man, and I am, I would bet that Rove has decided to push the attacks as far as they can go, push the boundaries of truth, and then push them some more. Let's say that Bush says something that directly contradicts a Kerry position, like saying that Kerry supports giving other countries a veto over when we use our military. In fact, that's a good one, since Bush already said that this week. First, you might be able to get Kerry flustered if he tires of hearing lies all night. More importantly, people will believe Bush. Even if the lies are thoroughly exposed in the news media after the debate, something that doesn't regularly happen (and when it does, it's usually in a story titled something like "Kerry, Bush Stretch Truth In Second Debate"), there will be a significant segment of the population that doesn't catch the correction. Bush could say something like "Kerry supports raising taxes on the middle class," and then after the debate his spokesmen could claim that that's true because Bush was referring to the middle class of Skull & Bones. Then some middle-class housewife in Missouri whose family makes $50,000 a year and has no health insurance votes for Bush because she doesn't want Kerry to raise her taxes. Mission accomplished.

Quite honestly, if I was Bush, had no scruples, and my desire to get reelected trumped whatever moral capacity I had left, and I was given a chance between being "folksy", talking plainly about my plans and running on my record, or seeing how many false attacks I could get away with, I'd lie my ass off. It's the only way he can get reelected at this point, and clearly everything in his term so far has shown that he doesn't mind his "accomplishments" being based on hypocrisy and lies. That's what I expect tonight and for the rest of the campaign. We're going to see tested the limits of the American public's ability to swallow whatever lies they're given. It's yet another reason why this election is so important, in case we needed another one.

For those who haven't heard yet, September job growth came in with some very disappointing numbers. I'm sure John Kerry will tell you tonight during the debate, but let me break the news to you a bit early. Let me quote this MaxSpeak post for the details:

Today's BLS jobs report shows the labor market is weak. Payroll employment rose by 96,000 in September, well under the 150,000 needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population. Moreover, the revised numbers for the past three months reflect the same weak pattern.

This time there is no help for the Bushoids in the other survey, of households. They used to like to point to it as the more relevant, up-to-date source of inspiration for jobs springing from entrepreneurship, like mowing your neighbors' lawns cause your job has been out-sourced. But that number is much worse -- a net loss of over 200,000 jobs for September.

There's almost no way to spin this to fit the Bush version of reality (that our economy is not fantastic yet but it's "strengthening"). The job "growth" isn't even enough to keep up with the rising population - it's like getting a 2% raise when inflation is 3%, you're actually making less money than before. They can't use the household survey to assert that the primary survey is somehow wrong like they usually do. About the only thing they can hang their hat on is that the unemployment rate stayed steady at 5.4%, as if maintaining an unemployment rate 1.2% higher now than when he took office is the kind of economic strengthening you expect to get from record deficit spending.

Before the White House tries to mute this report with shouts of "9/11 changed everything" or something equally mind-numbing, let me point out that in February, with basically the same economic climate and no huge surprises since then, the administration forecasted 320,000 new jobs a month. Over the past three months, that number has actually been 103,000. So not only can they not create jobs despite borrowing huge sums of money as fast as they can, they can't even predict this happening eight months into the future. Though I guess the Bush administration has never been one to even admit failure, yet alone predict their own.

There's an excellent guest editorial over on Juan Cole that analyzes the candidates positions on Iraq, where the war in Iraq fits into the broader war on terror (or, more accurately, war on what he calls "jihadis") both before our invasion and now during the occupation, Bush-Cheney's pre-war mindset and the feasibility of what could be called the "Kerry plan". It's long, but very good, and needs to be read in its entirety (thus defying my ability to cut and paste snippets here out of context). I highly recommend it to anyone confused about why we went into Iraq, whether or not it's part of the war on terror, and what Kerry or Bush might do about it now that we're there... in other words, I recommend it to everyone. It's very refreshing to read a well-thought-out analysis of the real situation rather than moronic campaign soundbites.

I read an article last night in the Atlantic Monthly about Karl Rove (available online here, but you have to be a subscriber) that was the best synopsis yet of all of Rove's dirty tricks. It basically confirmed what I've thought for months now - that things will get increasingly ugly in the next four weeks. Indeed, Bush's speech yesterday kicked it off in grand fashion. With Dick Cheney and the rest of his cronies not able to inflict enough damage on Kerry, Bush himself goes on the offensive, resulting in meaningless, stereotypical soundbites that must insult the intelligence of even some of his own followers:

My opponent is a tax-and-spend liberal; I'm a compassionate conservative. My opponent wants to empower government; I want to use government to empower people. My opponent seems to think all the wisdom is found in Washington, D.C.; I trust the wisdom of the American people.

Yes, George, John Kerry thinks all the wisdom of this country is found in Washington, D.C.. Clearly the kind of sharp analysis required of someone leading the economy and military of this country for four more years. After showing that he couldn't counter any of Kerry's points during Thursday's debate, Bush resorts to tired old epithets like "tax-and-spend liberal" vs. "compassionate conservative". I guess "nuanced and respected war hero" vs. "borrow-and-spend right-wing nutjob" didn't make the cut. Apparently Bush (and Rove) have decided to abandon any defense of their record at all, simply making the point that they did everything right the first time. In this NY Times article it mentions that Bush has even dropped the standard line he's been using in his speech acknowledging that no WMD has been found in Iraq. Explaining those nagging details away proved to be too complicated in the first debate, and Cheney's sweeping declarations that we were simply right to invade no matter what seemed to carry more weight. If you ignore the reason we went to war, apparently it can't be wrong.

Just before he said the above quote, Bush said that Kerry earned the title of "most liberal member of the Senate" by "voting for higher taxes, more regulation, more junk lawsuits, and more government control over your life." I must have missed last Thursday when Bush brought up Kerry's vote for the "More Junk Lawsuit Omnibus Act Of 1997". Apparently the Patriot Act doesn't count for more government control over our lives, nor do the restrictions coming down on TV and radio by the FCC, Constitutional amendments detailing who can and can't get married, or curtailing of abortion rights. Whatever your position on those, clearly they represent more government control over people's lives. And apparently Kerry is simply rabid for higher taxes, never mind his pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. Bush complains about a "huge tax gap" when Kerry proposes spending more on Homeland Security, but when Bush wants to cut taxes again after he's reelected, that doesn't introduce a tax gap. Bush derides Kerry as "tax-and-spend" when he himself has raised government spending more than Clinton, Bush I, Reagan and Carter. I guess Bush has plunged so far into the negative he's come out the other side into Bizarro World, where negative is positive, up is down, and the most conservative candidate during the Democratic primaries (not counting Joe-mentum) is the most liberal human being in the country.

I made the mistake of going to some hardcore right-wing sites today to see what they thought of last night's debate. Predictably, they thought John Edwards was a little girl and Dick Cheney mopped the floor with him. Since last night's debate was relatively close (in my eyes, anyway), this sort of thing is inevitable - both sides thinking they won and everyone should come over to their side now. I really can't imagine how either side could find any common ground at this point... it seemed like the only thing the two candidates agreed on last night was that Dick Cheney's daughter was gay. That's one reason why I like to try to find moderate Republicans and give them at least verbal praise for not jumping off the deep end, because of how dangerous I think it'll be if the Republican Party completes its journey to the far right-wing, DeLay-Santorum nether regions that it's headed towards.

I take that back, there was one other thing that the two candidates seemed to agree on - a Bush/Cheney win means four more years of the same thing. Edwards said it explicitly at least twice, and Cheney seemed to agree with his assertions that all their policies have been right. Certainly this administration has never admitted its mistakes, and no one has lost their job over any. It seems reasonable to assume that they feel they're doing a great job and they'll continue on the same path if they're elected. At least we can be clear about that. That means there's really two questions to ponder in this election: Can Kerry/Edwards do better, and just what will they have to do to be better? To me, the answer to the first question is almost an automatic "yes" simply because the answer to the second question is "it would be virtually impossible to do any worse."

One other observation I've read today... Bush and Cheney seem to have an air of contempt about them during these debates (and really in any campaign event where they're not surrounded by only their supporters). It's an attitude that seems to bristle at even having to be challenged in this election. Like it's too much of an inconvenience for them, and everyone should just accept the ultimate correctness of their position, as it's obvious to them and should be obvious to us all. The audacity of Kerry and Edwards to challenge them is matched only by the audacity of anyone who agrees with them.

It's funny that after reading people's impressions this morning of the debate last night, a lot of people seem to have the opposite of my views on how it turned out. I thought Edwards started out weak in the foreign policy part of the debate and got stronger later in the domestic section, and others think just the opposite. I think it's difficult for me to judge these things, because I've been following this stuff so much I can practically predict what they're going to say. When Cheney says that he's never suggested there's a connection between 9/11 and Iraq I know that's a huge lie, but I also expect it coming from him, so it doesn't come as a big surprise. When John Edwards repeats a talking point at the start of the debate, I'm disappointed that he's using the same lines Kerry used last week, but perhaps they need to be driven home after three years of Cheney driving home the message that we need him and Bush to keep us safe. I thought Cheney had more outright falsehoods, including the Iraq-9/11 thing and his parroting of the Zell Miller "Kerry voted against the weapons programs" argument. I thought that one was unbelievable, given that he himself had the same position on those weapons programs back then, and Edwards did a good job of finally pointing that out. Other times Edwards didn't call Cheney on enough of his lies, but I don't blame him, as it was hard to keep up with them all.

Given people's impressions of Cheney, him not tearing off Edwards's head and devouring his internal organs has to be a win for the Republican side. He projected a kind of calm rage rather than a seething, frothing-at-the-mouth rage, which is about as good as you can expect from him. One plus for Cheney is that he seemed to me to project more experience than Edwards, giving a better impression that he could step into the role of President. That's not terribly surprising given that he's basically been president for the past three and a half years. He certainly looked more than 12 years older than Edwards, and I think that will probably be viewed as a point for Cheney.

As for Edwards, I didn't particularly think he was a great debater, and he didn't strike me as yet having the experience you'd want a candidate to have. Of course, he's not running for President, and Bush was elected four years ago with the same pedigree. I never really thought he was a great debater during the Democratic primaries either, yet I voted for him anyway, so I guess that tells you how much weight I put in the experience factor.

Cheney is significantly smarter than Bush, and Kerry is more intelligent than Edwards, so a repeat of last Thursday night shouldn't have been expected. As I've watched the campaign since Kerry's nomination, I've gotten to appreciate him as the Democratic nominee. Before the election I was thinking an Edwards-Kerry ticket would be ideal, but now I think Kerry's experience and intelligence is more important to be up front than Edwards's traits. Edwards's lack of experience was on display last night, but I think he did a good job of holding his own against a Vice President with much more experience in government than himself. His advantage is having a general message of optimism that contrasts pretty severely with Cheney's demeanor. I can see why Cheney tries to scare everyone into keeping him in office, because if you didn't think you needed him to protect you, you wouldn't want the guy within 100 miles of you.

There were several moments during the debate that I thought were noteworthy, but to me, the closing statements were a good summation of why I support Edwards and not Cheney. Edwards started talking about hope and the American Dream and wanting everyone to have the potential to succeed in this country. Cheney started talking about terrorists smuggling weapons of mass destruction into our cities. I was joking afterwards that Cheney should have just said, "When your children are incinerated by a nuclear blast, will you wish you'd voted for us?" Cheney's modus operandi has always been "vote for us out of fear", which I think is probably the worst reason to vote for anyone. It would be a terrible reason even if Kerry and Edwards were weak on terror, which they are not. In response to a question about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Edwards delivered about the most pro-Israel answer I've ever heard coming from someone to the left of Tom DeLay. I don't think we have to worry about them appeasing any terrorists.

In the end, I think this was a debate that will be viewed as a success by both sides, so I'm hesitant to spend too much time picking it apart. By that I mean that I can find lots of reasons in the debate that show why I prefer Kerry/Edwards, and a Republican could find lots of reasons why he supports Bush/Cheney. But partisan opinions aside, this won't even be the most important debate this week, so I don't think it will have a terribly large impact on the race.

While Bush is asking what Kerry would say to President Kwasniewski of Poland, perhaps we should look at what Kwasniewski is saying about Bush and his administration?

"That they deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride."

The subject of my post-debate musings, "Don't Forget Poland!", was a reference to Bush's debate rebuttal to the charge that America didn't have allies in Iraq:

BUSH: My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What's he say to Tony Blair? What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?

and later...

KERRY: Secondly, when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better.

LEHRER: Thirty seconds, Mr. President.

BUSH: Well, actually, he forgot Poland. And now there's 30 nations involved, standing side by side with our American troops.

Poor Bush. First the numbers he gave on Iraqi troops trained were wrong, then Lincoln Chafee, Republican senator from Rhode Island, says he won't vote for him. Now even the Polish have deserted him:

Poland may reduce its commitment of forces to the war in Iraq by 40 percent by January 2005 and have all its troops out by the end of that year, Polish officials said Monday.

I mentioned in the original post-debate post that Poland only had 2% as many troops as us in Iraq and was reducing that to 1%. Apparently that'll now be 0%. Even Bush's showpiece allies are bailing. Seems like the kind of leadership we need for another four years, right?

There are countless news articles and blog posts out there about the tide turning against George W. Bush after last week's debate, so I thought I'd post two on here. The first is a letter from someone to Andrew Sullivan, and I will copy the entirety of the post here:

This morning after church services, I sat with several of the older ladies who are faithful members of my congregation. The conversation turned to the Bush-Kerry debate. And I was amazed at the hostility expressed towards Bush! Of the six women at the table -- four over 70, all over 65 -- only one had previously been so outspoken. Today, all of them expressed serious doubts about Bush and five indicated their support of Kerry. To a person, they voiced concern about the war in Iraq and how we are in trouble there.

One of them, born in Canada, but now naturalized, has never voted -- "it didn't seem to matter" -- but is so motivated that she is registering this week for the first time precisely so she can vote for Kerry, against Bush.

What's the difference from the previous week? Frankly, it's their boldness in speaking against Bush. My congregation leans Republican, and many Democrats have been reluctant to speak up, intimidated by the general feeling that criticizing the President is unpatriotic and unsupportive of our troops. But no more. The debate changed their mood. They watched Kerry raise reasonable doubts about Bush's conduct of the war. They watched Bush unable to speak articulately about his conduct of the war. His stumbling emboldened them.

This matters. The prevailing mood of "criticizing the President is unpatriotic" has been crumbling for some months in all parts of the culture, including polite church ladies having coffee after worship on a Sunday morning. When the crumbling reaches this level, a mainline Protestant congregation in a small midwest manufacturing town, something has indeed changed in the debate.

The second deals with the only concrete example of progress in Iraq that Bush gave during the debate - that 100,000 Iraqi troops and police were fully trained and operational, and that total would rise to 125,000 by the end of the year. Turns out that's wrong:

The documents show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as "untrained," and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its new goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.

I'm trying to shy away from the idea that the debate "changed everything". Certainly it's had a large impact on the polls and on the general feeling that the President could be wrong, but nothing really changed. Bush was always this weak before the debate and Kerry was never really in crisis. The debate was momentous simply because it was the first time in half a year that the President had to get up in front of the nation without his handlers and answer for his actions, and all he could offer was canned soundbites, a look of frustration, and a blurb about Iraqi troop strength that wasn't even true. But it's always been this way if you looked behind the curtain. This is just perhaps the first time the curtain was ever pulled away so completely while everyone was watching.

The next 29 days should be interesting. There are still three debates left (two presidential, one vice-presidential) and the impact those will have will be unknown. Assuming no one implodes at any of the debates (which could still happen to Kerry but seems more likely to happen to Bush now, unless he can be successfully reprogrammed before Friday), Kerry will likely head into late-October tied or with a slight lead over Bush (as he has now). What happens then, only Karl Rove knows. I've always imagined that the mud will really start flying if Kerry is at all competitive in October, and I fully expect things to get dirty. I can only imagine what Rove has left in the bullpen after sending out the Swift Boat Vets in middle relief. And of course, world events being what they are, you never know what will happen with regard to Iraq and/or terrorism. The only thing I'm fairly sure of now is that I don't think I'll be getting much sleep on the night of November 1.