Weekend Update

By Theron Dash

Dept. of Worst Fears: new national poll showing Bush and Kerry tied at about 45% with Nader at 6%. Why it's not yet time to panic: Nader has high name recognition, maybe higher than Kerry has yet. Six percent is more than double what he eventually got in 2000, when he was on the ballot in most states. It's doubtful he will get on the ballot in many states at all for 2004.

Shot Across the Bow: Relatives of 9-11 victims and firefighters protest Bush's use of 9-11 imagery in his first campaign ads. The Bush campaign so far is defending them, but the publicity isn't good. Strategically this may complicate the Bushies efforts to wrap themselves in the tattered flag of 9-11, which is their main campaign theme.

Subversion in Haiti: by the U.S. .. Columns by Molly Ivins and Columbia University’s Earth Institute director Jefrey Sachs tell the same story: the Bushies wanted Aristide out at about the time they decided to invade Iraq (in other words, Inauguration Day) and didn’t just neglect Haiti but subverted Aristide and democracy in Haiti, for what seems like the same reasons the Kissinger bunch fomented a coup in Chile and were complicit in the assassination of its president, Salvador Allende, and others. Too much of that redistribution of wealth stuff. Stories of Aristide being hustled out of Haiti is just another face of regime change and pre-emption. So when Bush in his commercials says “I know exactly where I want to lead this country” you can trust him, he does.