What wrong with these guys?


We know why the Bushies "can't understand" Kerry's position on Iraq, but what's wrong with Chris "if I couldn't think in clichés I couldn't think" Mathews of Hardball? He's going after the Bushies for distorting a Kerry statement made on his precious show, while at the same time pretending he can't get a straight answer from Kerry---concluding that Kerry isn't a flip-flopper, he's wishy-washy. And a GOPer guest who professes to be or have been a journalist "can't understand" Kerry's position on his vote to authorize the President to use force as a last resort in Iraq, even though a campaign aide to Howard Dean explained it quite clearly while he was sitting there.

Kerry's position is that he voted to give the President the backing needed to get Saddam to take weapons inspections seriously---which was working, by the way, right up to the minute that Bush decided the fact that the inspectors weren't finding weapons meant Saddam really had them, and started bombing. If inspections were blocked, then the authorization of force would focus allies on the question of what to do to compel Saddam to cooperate with inspectors.
Kerry also expected of a President of either party that he would go to war only as a last resort, and only with thorough plans for the aftermath, etc.

Why is that so difficult to understand? No, he didn't vote For the War. He voted to give the President what he said he needed to rid Iraq of WMDs. He didn't say, let's invade Iraq, no matter what those cheese eating surrender monkeys want! He didn't vote to bomb, or invade, or to torture, and he's certainly not now crowing that it doesn't matter if the purpose of the war was a sham, it was a good thing anyway.

So why doesn't Kerry just say that he regrets his vote now---that essentially he shouldn't have trusted Bush's competence or veracity? It would be politically advantageous to do so. It seems pretty obvious from his answer the other day---that no, he thinks his vote was right because a President ought to have had that authority---that the reason he isn't repudiating his vote to give the president authorization to use force, is he wants that kind of flexibility for himself if he is President, though he makes clear he would use it in a far different way. If he says now that the president should be denied such authority, it would be used against him if he asked for it while president. It's the big stick that allows the president to speak softly, to use diplomacy in the real world.

It's no secret to our readers that we opposed giving Bush that authorization, that we suspected he would misuse it, that he and his ideologically rigid and simplistically zealous advisors were bent on war no matter what, that they had no plan and no clue about the aftermath, or the effect of invasion on the region. We more or less predicted it all, so how hard could it have been? Still, while we believe that Congress should have voted against authorizing force, we are pretty damn sure Bush would have gone to war anyway (which is to say, if he hadn't had the votes to begin with, he never would have taken the matter to Congress. He would have found or created the pretext to act on his own authority.) And we are not so taken with force authorizations as a policy for the future. We would like to see the United States institute a Department of Peace.

Our position on these matters differs from Kerry's, but we understand his position, and find it honorable. We can live with it, and we do mean that in several senses.

Now...what's up with John McCain? How can he call for the Bushies to condemn the attack on Kerry's Vietnam leadership and heroism, and when they don't, he campaigns with Bush in Florida anyway? Now he's questioning the Bush plan to take troops out of South Korea and Europe, but he's still the main speaker at the GOP convention?

Supporting a candidate who doesn't agree with all of your policy positions is understandable. But one whose integrity you've questioned? Who you have called to account, and who ignores you? We're beginning to wonder about John McCain.

Everything you wanted to know about pulling the media's chain but were too "sensitive" to ask

can be found here:

Cheney laughed in the voters' faces. But the press--and Kerry's camp--didn't care

well, almost everything...

The Only Fear

Three of the four most recent polls give Kerry an edge (of 5 pts) and while the fourth is within its margin of error, Kerry is also ahead in it (by 3 pts.) The conventional wisdom is becoming focused on the idea that Bush is on his way to defeat. His negatives continue to be high---notably above 50% in some of the bigger categories. Kerry has kept his lead on handling the economy and other domestic issues (with signs of a weakening economy that apparently flabbergasted Wall Street but which this column predicted six weeks ago), is slightly ahead on handling Iraq, and is gaining on ability to handle terrorists.

Bush on the stump is pretty clearly just trying to hang around until events may save him. And the events he's looking for are no secret. Whether the latest terror threat was manufactured for political gain is beside the point---it doesn't matter how credible it is, the indisputable fact is that it was used for political gain: Tom Ridge came right out and said so at his press conference, when he pointedly praised President Bush's leadership. It was otherwise a completely gratutious if not inappropriate addition to his report.

The Bush strategy is pretty clear and pretty focused. Some editorialists have dealt with it at length, as in this article in the Guardian:

Guardian Unlimited US elections 2004 Why Bush could be a fan of terror

But old curmugeon Jack Germond expressed it more succinctly when he opined that Kerry was winning because "Voters don't want Bush anymore" and the only question is whether "Bush can scare people enough to win."

So Bush is again talking about how America is not safe but he's working on it. The idea is that if people are focused on fear, and the headlines stay focused on terrorism, the voters will rally round the president. Same goes for an actual terrorist attack, or conversely, the capture of bin Laden, which Pakistanis have already long since revealed is the political goal of the White House---to capture or kill him before the election.

This White House is incapable of doing anything without increasingly blatant attempts to turn it to political advantage. It is becoming something of a disadvantage, as people become more aware of it. But never underestimate fear as overwhelming judgment.

Still, it is fairly amazing that in August, the only thing Bush can pin his hopes on is winning with intimidation. Nothing else is working. Meanwhile, Kerry and Edwards are solidifying their hold on their best issues and chipping away at Bush strengths. The Kerry-Edwards campaign is geared towards peaking in the debates and in October. As time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult for Bush. The later it gets, the more people will suspect political motives in terror alerts, etc. Still, there is a school of thought that even though undecideds usually break towards the challenger at the end, this may not be the case in a presidential election when fear is such a factor. And nearly everyone believes that Bush will benefit from an actual terrorist attack in America.

Think of it: a president who by every indication the voters don't believe should be re-elected, but who owes his election to the fact that terrorist succeed in blowing something up in the U.S. , and/ or in killing a large number of voters. It's almost as perverse as getting into office by means of voter fraud perpetrated by your brother, and votes by Supreme Court justices appointed by your father.

bubbleheads and bobbleheads

Chris "everything in my head falls immediately out of my mouth" Matthews had a Republican analyst on, talking about the proven effect of negative ads. Do you really think that an undecided person looks at an ad and immediately decides to vote against that guy, Chris sez, what kind of a bubblehead would do that?

The analyst said, the free media (the press) moves voters, not ads, but the ads set the agenda for the press---the negative ads succeed when the press starts talking about the guy in those terms.

In other words, the bubbleheads are the bobbleheads, the parrot-talking media mouths, the snide press boys and selfrighteous press babes, who go for the negative because that's conflict, and the poor dears don't know any other way to tell a story except as good guy vs. bad guy. How about good for the country, bad for the country, good for the world, bad for the world....nah. Too hard.

And since the negative ads are effective in putting little thoughts into the bobbleheads little minds, the campaigns spend millions of dollars on them, which all go to--what fun!--the media.

bumps and bruises

Despite the lack of a big post-convention bump in the head-to-head poll numbers, the Zogby poll (the most accurate in 2000) shows Kerry ahead in 13 of 16 battleground states, his best showing of the year. And the Marist poll confirms that Kerry has a cumulative lead in the battleground states, by about 8 points.

Though margins mostly continue to be very close, Kerry has opened a big lead in Illinois and some polls show a significant lead opening up in Pennsylvania.

Yesterday both Kerry and Bush campaigned in Davenport, Iowa at the same time. With the police otherwise occupied, shrewd political observers held up three banks. So we'd guess there aren't going to be many other towns interested in similiar simultaneity.

convention's end: slam dunk !

What did we tell you?

John Kerry’s nomination acceptance speech did everything the media bobbleheads demanded---and most of them (according to a salon survey) admitted it. A few technical but somewhat important matters: the speech was almost exactly an hour long as delivered, fitting neatly into the single hour 10 to 11 pm network slot—and using EVERY LAST MINUTE OF IT. Plus, as political insider Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out, it was a speech filled with sound bites, which is how most voters will hear it---on the Today show, on local newscasts. And GREAT sound bites at that.

That’s even before we bother saying that this speech was: personal and presidential, subtle and forthright, scathing and idealistic. It was solidly Democratic, yet it reclaimed issues like family values and faith, that Republicans consider their own. AND it’s emphasis on unity, on a positive campaign (but waged just not on issues but on values), on picking an administration of the best people including Republicans, on the American dream, spoke directly to independents.

It was also a damn good speech. In different times, JFK gave a rousing nomination acceptance speech, that had only one memorable section, on the New Frontier. He saved his economical eloquence for the Inaugural. Bill Clinton set the TV age standard with his nomination acceptance speech in 1992. But John Kerry surpassed it (a judgment rendered by none other than a Clinton press secretary.) It may turn out to be a speech of historical significance.

In terms of the convention, Kerry drew themes from previous speakers on previous evenings. He took Obama’s red states/blue states theme (Obama said “United States”; Kerry: red, white and blue states.) He echoed Edwards on middle class plight, using Edwards-like examples. He used a bit of Teresa Heinz Kerry’s “we can and we will” rhetoric, and like her, very effectively quoted Abraham Lincoln. (She read a long passage, very movingly, that contains both the” mystic chords of memory “ and “better angels of our nature” phrases. John Kerry’s quote was in this context:
"And let me say it plainly: In that cause and in this campaign, we welcome people of faith. America is not us and them. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago and I want to say this to you tonight: I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don’t want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God’s side.”

Speaking of Ron Reagan, Kerry picked up from his speech by making stem cell research a priority in this one.” What if we have a president who believes in science so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem-cell research and treat illness for millions of lives?”

There were also the themes of optimism and strength from many previous speakers, the metaphor of the boat and references to battlefield experience. But where other speakers might have been cautious, Kerry was forthright. After hoodwinking the media into believing he was going to tamp down any criticism of the administration he seeks to oust, there was stuff like this:

“ I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the advice of the military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who will uphold the Constitution of the United States.”

He deftly turned one of the dumber criticisms: “Now I know that there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities, and I do, because some issues just aren't all that simple. Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.”

Though he claims not to have seen Michael Moore’s film, he talked about American energy independence with this zinger: “I want an America that relies on its ingenuity and innovation, not the Saudi royal family.”

For those who thought he would drop issues he emphasized in the primaries, he said this in an echo of his stump speech, but in even stronger terms: “And when I am president, we will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy and the connected and the elected - it is a right for all Americans. And we will make it so.” (Star Trek reference there? Captain Kerry to the bridge!)

How deft is this? He talks tough on terrorism as he draws a subtle but real distinction in his approach, which again echoes and strengthens a theme that runs throughout the convention:

" We need a strong military. And we need to lead strong alliances. And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose and we will win. The future doesn't belong to fear; it belongs to freedom. “

He took the values theme away from the Bushie attacker, sharpened it, and stuck it to the assailant:

“We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America. Not narrow values that divide us, but the shared values that unite us - family, faith, hard work, opportunity and responsibility for all - so that every child, every adult, every parent, every worker in America has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential. That is the American dream and the American value.”

On Iraq he said the magic words the left needed to hear: bring the troops home. He actually mentioned peace, which had just about disappeared with all the strength talk. He deftly combined his own experience with what it means on the issue of war:

“And as president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation.
I know what kids go through when they are carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place and they can't tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they're out on patrol at night and they don't know what's coming around the next bend. I know what it's like to write letters home telling your family that everything's all right when you're just not sure that that's true.
As president, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: "I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values against a threat that was real and imminent." So lesson number one, this is the only justification for going to war.

And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.”

But just as Kerry the war hero brings valuable lessons to the presidency, so does Kerry the anti-war hero:
“Our purpose now is to reclaim our democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism, it is the heart and soul of patriotism.”

Finally, something that was personally meaningful to the Baby Boomers among us. John Kerry first attracted our attention as a possible presidential candidate a couple of years ago, when he talked about fulfilling the promise of the 60s and the 60s generation. It was an idea we didn’t hear again and had forgotten. Mostly we thought Kerry had forgotten it, but he hadn’t:

“And when I was in high school, a junior, John Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the beginning of a great journey - a time to march for civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women, for peace. We believed we could change the world. And you know what? We did.

But we're not finished. The journey isn't complete. The march isn't over. The promise isn't perfected. Tonight, we're setting out again. And together, we're going to write the next great chapter of America's story.”

convention glances, third day

Notice there is none of this Convention: Day III around here. Some of us are old enough to remember when we weren't so pretentious. What changed the style? Briefly: a combination of Super Bowl hype (with their roman numerals) and the Iranian hostage crisis at the end of the Carter era, when Ted Koeppel hosted the pre-Nightline update every late night, with portentous theme music, big banner and pretentious title: Hostage Crisis, Day 21, or whatever. Ain't been the same since.

Okay, this is maybe a cover for not very much to say about today in Boston, as we did not watch real assiduously. Life goes on, you know? Anyway, the big deal was the John Edwards speech, which was his well-tested stump speech with some notable extras. The delivery was a bit shaky, a combination perhaps of dry mouth from decongestants (Edwards was said to be fighting a cold) and unfamiliarity with speaking---especially hearing yourself speak---in such a large arena with upwards of five thousand people screaming at your every pause.

But Edwards did what he needed to, and those extras were important: like voicing support for the 9-11 commission while the Bushies still dither, and pointedly saying it won't take three years for John Kerry to fix the intelligence system. He connected well on his middle class and "two Americas" issues; his strength in biography backing his words made even stronger by the presence of his parents---his references to them were skillfully done. His "I'm sick of negative campaigning, aren't you?" should play well with independents. It was also important for a white southerner to take Obama's point against identity politics and show another facet by saying, where should we talk about problems of race? Everywhere.

The only other speech we caught (on replay) was Al Sharpton's, and it was a great speech. It was the rouser the conventioneers were waiting for, and it made some very good points on Bush, and his pathetic attempts to charm away black voters. Yet Sharpton also made strong arguments in favor of Kerry, not only on policy but on character.

We haven't mentioned much so far in these reports about media coverage, and that's partly because we haven't been watching much of it. We've stayed with C-Span for most of the time, getting all convention and nothing but the convention in full. But since we missed stuff earlier we did check in with cable and network a little. What crap! But then you knew that. We just loved the CNN bobbleheads sounding like a bunch of schoolmarms after Sharpton spoke. He went way over time! Oh dear! He improvised and drove the poor teleprompter guy nuts! Tsk tsk. And shame shame, the Kerry people can't be happy that he wasn't just positive and on message. We sincerely doubt that the Kerry people thought they could put Al Sharpton on in early prime time and expect a soporific speech. We think they're smarter than that, and they were just fine with this.

Jesse Jackson spoke earlier (one we missed) but as Sharpton left the stage, when he must have known he'd just had the political moment of his life, we figured he knew exactly what he was doing---he was taking another necessary step. Martin Luther King took one at the March on Washington. Jesse Jackson took a big one in his speeches to Democratic conventions in the late 80s and early 90s, and his candidacies. Jackson was often criticised for alienating other Democrats and dividing the party by essentially being too black for prime time. Notice however that by the time Sharpton spoke at this convention, that no longer was an issue: an absolutely united party loved his speech. What the CNN folks were worried about were the swing voters, the independents and Republicans watching at home. Too black for them, supposedly.

Maybe, but it was a necessary step. ML King knew it--he said "I may not get there with you." Jesse Jackson must have known it. We suspect Sharpton knew it as he left the stage---he wasn't making the speech for his career, he's very unlikely to be a presidential candidate again, he probably knows he won't get there. But it was a necessary step. Maybe for Obama. Who might get there.

For blacks, Sharpton's bio is at least as compelling as Edward's---raised by a single mother who worked as a cleaning woman. He spoke truths that black people know quite well, even if white people aren't around to hear them much. His evocation of the cost in blood of the civil rights won for racial minorities was eloquent. And he was the only speaker we heard so far to bring up the importance of Supreme Court appointments by the next president, as a reason to take this election seriously. His comment was as astute and true as it was funny: "If George Bush had appointed the Supreme Court in 1954, Clarence Thomas would have never gotten into law school."

We know that journalists have to ask dumb questions just to evoke perhaps interesting answers, but come on, Charlie Rose. He asked some Democratic party official, what do you say to people who say they don't know what John Kerry is going to do, on education, on trade, on the environment.... Well, what we'd say (which is possibly why we are not party officials) is: you can try reading his positions on his website, or listen to a speech. What do you expect us to do, inject the information through feeding tubes while these people are watching American Idol?

Edwards talked perhaps more than expected about specific policies and programs, which may suggest that Kerry is preparing to be less programmatic, in both senses. The bobbleheads are debating the expectations they are themselves creating--will Kerry's speech measure up to Obama's or Clinton's? First, it won't have to, because few people outside the hall heard them, and absolutely every speaker in the hall has been talking about what a great guy Kerry is. Second, it will anyway. We expect him to blow all the expectations out of the water. But who cares about speculation? Wait a few hours and find out.

The third night ended with an extended and largely symbolic roll-call of the states. Since this used to be our favorite part of conventions we watched too much of it anyway, but our impatient persistence was rewarded by Pennsylvania. State after state prefaced the announcements of their votes with silly bits of hype for their tourist attractions and politicians. Then PA Governor Ed Rendell stepped up: "Pennsylvania, which will do its talking on election day, gives all of its votes to John Kerry."

convention impressions, second day
 
The night of transition, from elders to the future of the party, from Ted Kennedy (speaking) and Jesse Jackson (watching) to Barak Obama, Janet Napalitano and  maybe even Ron Reagan---before settling down to the party of the present with Teresa Heinz Kerry, and continuing for the rest of the convention.   

After probably the first Star Spangled Banner ever to be sung at a national convention in an American Indian language, historian and best selling author Robert Caro introduced Ted Kennedy in an unusual but fitting and long overdue way: by calling him historically a great U.S. Senator, on a par with the 19th century icons.  Edward Kennedy has been in the Senate continuously since 1962, when he was a young man even his brothers John and Robert thought might not be ready for prime time.  Through thick and mostly thin, and triumph usually wrung from tragedy or at least misfortune, he has been as skilled and internally popular a Senator as the last half of the twentieth century produced.  Though Republicans vilify him on the stump---and he cleary relishes giving them the needle as stylishly as possible---behind the scenes, Republican Senators generally enjoy working with him, and find him a skilled legislator, ready to find or create common ground.  But he deserves most praise for what Caro praised him: for steadfastly championing issues he believes in, whether they are fashionable or not any longer.  They are generally the issues his brothers championed, but he has been willing to both stand up to countertrends and to adapt his proposals to new information and better ways of doing things.  For example, he has been a longstanding advocate for health care reform with the goal of coverage for all Americans, and health care as a right.  He's done this when others supported it, and adapted his ideas when bills might actually pass, but he has also done this when it was not a fashionable issue.  It's about time Ted Kennedy was recognized for his years of service and achievement.  In any case, it's getting harder for Republicans to get much of a rise out of people by holding him up as an example of devilish liberalism.  He's just too much a fixture of American political life.
 
Kennedy's speech to the convention wasn't his best.  His voice broke, and he committed one great howler, when he referred to the "shirt heard round the world."  But his theme of similiarities between Boston during the American Revolution and American political choices today was reasonably effective, and yielded one of the better jokes of the evening: "But today our struggle is not with some monarch named George who inherited the throne, though sometimes it seems that way."  He also smoothly linked "the excesses of Enron" to the "abuses of Halliburton."
 
Kennedy set the theme of Kerry representing hope, against the Bush politics of fear.  Barak Obama picked it up in the keynote address.  Billed as the rising star of the party, this 40 year old multiracial candidate for the Senate from Illinois, met high expectations with the clear language, apt comparisons and economical but memorable rhetorical flourishes, and especially a superior delivery and presence. 
 
Obama referred to the "politics of hope," a specifically Kennedyesque phrase (adapted by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in a JFK era book of the same title) and varied it to the phrase most quickly picked up by the pundits, the "audacity of hope."  He also echoed and expanded a theme of Bill Clinton last night, who pointed out that because Democrats are inclusive and Republicans depend on narrow constituencies of the rich and the far right, that Democrats don't need division, but Republicans do.  Obama scored big with the audience in the hall, and if anyone was watching, probably on TV, by challenging the idea of a divided nation: we worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't want government snooping at what library books we read in the red states; we coach Little League in the blue states, and we have gay friends in the red states.  But most importantly he addressed the Republican stereotype of the Democrats as the party of special interests, that is, of identity politics, by saying directly: we are not black America, Latino America, etc.  We are the United States of America.  
 
He scored in smaller ways, too, as in his description of an idealistic young Marine named Shamus who (paraphrasing) believed in his country and its leaders, and who was on his way to Iraq.  I wondered, Obama said, "are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us?"  In addition to questioning the Iraq debacle, he recited a quick litany of all that Americans owe the troops and their families that shamefully they are not getting from the Bushies.  We think this is particularly important because we believe that there are going to be groups of voters who will tell pollsters they are voting for Bush, but in the privacy of voting will cast their ballot for Kerry---and highest on that list will be military families.  These days that means reservists and National Guard families as well, and maybe in particular.   
 
Obama also scored with a line that we imagine goes over well on his campaign stops, when he referred to America as the land of opportunity, even for "a skinny kid with a funny name" like him.  
 
Other highlights of the night: Ron Reagan's clear and compelling (and very well received) case for stem cell research, and the winningly cute presentation of the 12 year old representative of Kids for Kerry, who suggested that vp Cheney should be given a very long time out for his bad language, and "To summarize: Kerry---American hero, next President."
 
Howard Dean received a rousing reception in the hall, but we missed most of his speech, and Dick Gephardt's.
 
The finale was Teresa Heinz Kerry, introduced by one of her sons and a pretty good but too careful short film (Candy Crowley's bio on CNN, which seemed to use outtakes from this one, was better: it portrayed Teresa as depressed after the sudden death of her husband, Senator John Heinz, who was brought to life again by her relationship with John Kerry. )
 
But while this shed some light on John Kerry and their relationship, the idea of the film was to stress Teresa as her own person.  She does have a compelling biography: brought up under a dictatorship in Mosambique, demonstrating against apartheid in South Africa in the late 1950s, a UN translator who began her speech with greetings in five languages, and an award-winning philanthopist. 
 
It will be interesting to gauge press and public reaction in the next few days, but we could certainly see why many observers say she is a tremendous asset on the campaign trail.  She is especially effective making direct contact in small groups, but she showed here that she can handle speaking to a huge crowd and the television camera with confidence, personality and style.   We imagine most viewers were at least reassured, and possibly charmed or at least had their curiosity piqued.  Various racial constituencies and women, both on domestic and international levels, should be especially impressed.  Her appearance and her speech might let the world know that at last America might be growing up enough to actually elect a man who doesn't have to hide his wife's intelligence and views.
 
The lines likely to be quoted will be those about her outspokenness, but a line that jumped out at us was: we "reject thoughtless and greedy choices in favor of thoughtful and generous actions."
 
                

convention chatter, first day
 
Like traditional societies that begin political councils by reciting their history and the names of their ancestors, the Democrats begin with evocations of their past, relating it to the theme of the future.
 
Quotes resound through the hall from Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy.  The first featured speakers were Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.  
  
An early refrain, that could be a slogan: We can do better.
"voices of HMOs and Halliburtons."
 
Al Gore looked relaxed, perfecting his deadpan delivery of jokes on himself.
"You win some, you lose some, and then there's that little known 3rd category."
Tones down his rhetoric, but gets in a few zingers:
  "Let's make sure the Supreme Court doesn't pick the next president, and this president isn't the one picking the next Supreme Court."
The key to his relaxation?  Among the few people he thanks is Bill Clinton, as he associates himself again--- as well as the Democrats---with an administration of peace and prosperity, jobs and budget surpluses. 
He accuses Bush of ignoring "the climate crisis."  An interesting article advocating that politicans use this phrase can be found here:  
 
Jimmy Carter, showing both his kindly and stern sides, praises Kerry's military service in the context of past presidents who saw the horrors of war and therefore sought peace, like Eisenhower and Kennedy.  Says in this election, nothing less than America's soul is at stake.
 
A speaker concentrates on the health care crisis; a showcase for the nine Democratic women U.S. Senators; Representative Bob Menendez discusses foreign policy towards Latin America in Spanish, and possibly the most powerful moment: one of the crew on Kerry's Vietnam "fast boat"--a black man now a minister---describes exactly what Kerry did and under what conditions to get his medals and purple hearts, in one case by returning under fire to personally pull a shipmate out of the water.
 
Several people---a couple of steelworkers, a Latina, a college student---address the convention from remote locations in Ohio, Wisconsin, CA.  Several taped presentations: one the story of an infant with severe respiratory problems whose parents ran into difficulties which Kerry and his Senate office solved so the boy could receive care at home; another the story of Kerry championing a Massachusetts little league team for disabled kids, that blossomed into a national movement.  Both highlight an often forgotten feature of political office-holders: their services to constituents, to individuals and families that make real differences in their lives, sometimes small but sometimes quite large.
 
Now in prime time, Glenn Close uses her star power to keep the TV attention on the podium for a powerful presentation on 9-11 that is emotional and pointed, without in itself being political.  But it sets a theme---how we were united as a nation and as a world on Sept. 12, both as a model for how things could be and ought to be, and as an example of what the Bushies squandered.
 
Hillary Clinton in a yellow pants suit, jokes upon her reception: I'm almost speechless, a reference to the fact that she was a last minute addition, by popular demand.  She delivers a strong and tough ten minutes, emphasizing that John Kerry is a serious man for serious times.
 
Bill Clinton in a trim black suit with silvery tie, delivers a polished speech for which he had a lot of practice, as it uses themes he's honed on the speaker and book signing circuits.  He makes the case very well, and sets a high standard for following nights.  His zinger, which dovetails nicely with Hillary's speech: " Strength and wisdom are not opposing values."               
 
 
    
Style notes
Is this the first political convention to be run by a multimedia DJ?  Video quotes and short films, and a mix of recorded and live music.  Today heavy on the Motown sound: We Are Family, Dancing in the Street, What's Going On?, Bebe Winans version of the national anthem (Al Gore said it was the best he ever heard, and in our more limited experience we agree), the much-maligned "singing stewardesses" version of Proud Mary done by professional singers, and the night capped by Patti Labelle, a change is gonna come...   The first---but not the last---airing of Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode, and Bill Clinton greeted by Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. 
 
The format did look like the Oscars or Emmys, and apparently it's organized by a producer who did the Emmys on TV.

One of the short films, early on, about the Democratic party used those stylish quick shots of cameras focusing or jerking past the picture.  It reminds us of the style a few years ago for typography:when for the first time word processors gave everyone the ability to use all kinds of professional looking print fonts and produce error-free copy, it became fashionable to use word processors to create ragged lines with mistakes that looked like the work of dirty typewriter keys.  Now that all kinds of video effects and editing are available to pretty much everyone, the fashion is to turn what used to be seen only as amateurish mistakes (camera in the act of zooming or getting the subject in frame) into high style.      

 

pre-convention chatter

If you missed the Conventional Wisdom Commentators over the weekend---their ranks swelled by the Hey, we're in Boston! format pre-convention babble--here is what each and every one of them said:  Kerry must define himself, connect with viewers so they will feel comfortable inviting him to a barbeque, and must leave the convention with a compelling slogan that even TV news anchors can remember.

You've just saved yourself about 18 hours of viewing and reading time.  Don't mention it---the Dash Brothers are here to serve.

The media has talked itself into a common and absolute judgment that Kerry cannot connect on an emotional level.   This apparently is how he won Senatorial elections, including a very tough one against Bill Weld, and won over Iowans in that primary after trailing badly in the polls there for months: by not connecting?  Here the expectations game the GOPers and media play together just might backfire.  Sure, Kerry's campaign speeches to audiences don't come across as well on TV as Bush's relaxed pablum: short declarative sentence (usually an outrageous assertion), grin and long pause, smirk, short declarative sentence (often repeating key words from the sentence before), etc.  But Kerry is well aware that in his nomination acceptance speech he will be addressing millions watching on TV, not so much the convention.   Against these limited expectations, expect him to do well.
 
As the convention came closer, polls seemed to tighten.  While according to AP estimates and a few other polls, the electoral numbers are still extremely close or favor Bush, there are a few analysts---including at least one Republican---who seem to be assuming that Kerry will win the presidency. 

Republicans are saying that if Kerry doesn't get a 15 point bounce from the convention, it's evidence he failed.  This is the Expectations Game, otherwise known as Spin, otherwise known as Bullshit.  A 15 point rise among an electorate that is  less than 15% undecided is very unlikely. 
 
Watch for what GOPers say and do about the 9-11 Report in the next few days.  If they're smart they'll try to preempt Kerry getting a lot of attention for calling for swift action on the Commission's recommendations by taking the lead themselves.  If they don't, Kerry may make this a major element in his speech Thursday.
 
  
 
   

On the one hand

Al Franken's radio talk show has pulled ahead of Bill O'Reilly in the New York City market ratings.

The number one new DVD release in total sales this week was OUTFOXED, the docu-expose of Fox News.

but on the other...

Customers get so angry when Linda Ronstadt mentions Michael Moore's name that she gets thrown out of the hotel where she is a headliner, and millions go ballistic because Martha Stewart got too long/too short of a jail sentence, but not a peep, not a quiver, not an iota of interest greets the finding that seventy percent of American fourth graders can't read or do math to their grade level.

Kerry-Edwards: A FRESH START
Second Unsolicited Advisory to the Kerry Campaign

Media parrotheads are calling for a soundbite, a slogan, a defining blurb to come out of the Dem convention; without it, they say, Kerry can't ride the media waves to the presidency. Maybe, maybe not. But we do have a very simple image to suggest that could help. And it just might help win the election.

It's simply this: A FRESH START. Not just the concept, which is said and implied in many ways now, but the exact words. There are many ways to say it, but most of the formulations have been overused or are too abstract: time for a change, a new day, a new America, etc. But this is better.

Why? Words matter, and these are good words. A FRESH START is fresh, it's more concrete and action-oriented. It has emotional resonance, connotations that are both exciting and warm.

Break it down:

A: An indefinite article. It doesn't directly blame. It doesn't start an argument immediately by claiming too much (such as "this candidate is THE perfect answer to make everything better," which puts a lot of people off.)

FRESH: has good associations, to fresh food, fresh air---something brand new, untainted. Fresh air is bracing, so it's exciting. Fresh bread is warm. FRESH is POSITIVE, in its literal meaning and its emotional message. But it also distinguishes from something that is not fresh, that's old, that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Something that's fresh doesn't directly imply a change from something that's stale or decaying, but it is the desired alternative to something stale or decaying. It has associations of health, of flavor, that it will FEEL GOOD.

START is an action word. Start your engines! It is exactly paired with FRESH in its music.

The literal meaning of A FRESH START has everything to do with now and the future. FRESH is immediate. START implies action that goes on into the future.

But of course it won't work just because the words are good. The words have to be right: they have to convey the right message succinctly and dramatically. And A FRESH START does just that.

All the polls show that the American electorate is clearly heartsick over the Iraq prison scandals and the Bush handling of the Iraq war. They know the reasons given for the war weren't true, and they suspect they were lies. Bush's credibility is in shambles. The public has soured on his economic policies, his leadership, the total bill of goods he sold. They've seen enough of the corruption, the crude rule of the Haliburtons, the political extremism. They are ready to repudiate him and his administration.

BUT he is still the president, and Americans are still in harms way in war zones. This presents difficulties for some voters. How can they get rid of Bush without appearing to be one of the haters, or even unpatriotic?

The answer is: A FRESH START. It repudiates the past without laying blame. It honors the tradition: when people in power make serious mistakes, it's time to give the job to someone else. Everybody understands that. It doesn't have to be personal. It just means A FRESH START.

This is a way for making Bush accountable without being negative. As such, it is event-proof. Bush deserves to be replaced for what has already happened on his watch. He doesn't deserve to be rewarded, and he can't be trusted with the job.

It does several other things for the Kerry-Edwards ticket specifically. It allows them to be positive, which is especially important for Edwards. A FRESH START is entirely future-oriented.

It expresses a lot about the foreign policy objective of repairing our alliances and relations with other nations, as well as about domestic policies of new approaches to health care, education and the economy, and environmental and energy policies. In all cases, A FRESH START means new people with new policies. This is especially potent on relations with other countries. Everyone understands that Bush can't repair the relationships he and his people so arrogantly destroyed. It will take somebody new to credibly say, let's forget about the recent past---let's start over. That's just common sense.

But perhaps its strongest point is that it communicates new leadership even more than new policies. Republicans will argue about what Kerry supported or didn't support, and they will ask exactly what he will do differently in Iraq, and it will all get contentious and, for many, abstruse and over-complicated.

But you can't argue with the meaning of A FRESH START. It means a new president who is markedly different from the old president, and does not have the baggage of that past.

But of course it works equally well on issues (like health care) that are based on a new policy direction or different approaches. And for those predisposed to want a different direction, and those who want Kerry to bring a different direction, they will read all of that into A FRESH START. A FRESH START allows Kerry to be the candidate of change and hope.


A FRESH START appeals to the Democratic base: those who want nothing more than to get rid of Bush. But it can also appeal to independents ready to jump who are troubled, if not appalled. To those who are almost ready to hold Bush accountable for mistakes, regardless of how they feel generally about his policies or his personality.

But the real key is that it can also appeal to OTHER INDEPENDENTS AND EVEN REPUBLICANS who need a nudge to use the secrecy of their ballot to vote for A FRESH START, for somebody new, without the emotional turmoil of admitting they were wrong to back Bush, or without the appearance of being disloyal to their party or ideology or religious congregation.

A FRESH START doesn't require anyone to admit that they fault Bush specifically. They might fault others in his administration. They may not fault anyone---they just want all this bad stuff to go away, and they're afraid that with Bush it could continue. They don't want to see the awful pictures and terrible headlines. They want it all to be over, but they don't want to appear disloyal to a president in wartime. A FRESH START is unthreatening language. It is optimistic, forward-looking, and very American.

A FRESH START works even for those who don't really believe that a change in administration will make much of a difference. But at least it will be a change, a chance that things will be better. Even when people are afraid to criticize, they can be persuaded by the sensible American idea that if things aren't going well, it's time to give somebody else a chance.

That A FRESH START is a good idea, is something a great many people can agree on.

A FRESH START is a tag line to be used relentlessly until everyone knows it, until comedians are making jokes about it. But it is also a concept around which the candidate can build positions, and can show his personality. It turns the fact that many Americans are just starting to know Kerry into an advantage---he is new and therefore fresh, and imagery can reinforce this naturally by showing his family, his friends, his background---all new to the public.

When FDR was first elected, Will Rogers commented that if he had simply burned the White House down, the country would have cheered and said, at least he got a fire started. The electorate isn't that desperate yet. But there is a layer of something like desperation, and certainly deep dissatisfaction and disquiet, that is ready to be tapped. How do you do it without forcing anyone to feel guilty? How do you overcome the fear of change? Just a nudge might do it, just three words: A FRESH START.

The Speech

The Democratic National Convention beginning July 26 will formally introduce the Kerry-Edwards ticket to America, and many voters will see and hear John Kerry at length for the first time, when he makes his acceptance speech on July 29. Many---perhaps a majority---of voters have serious doubts about GW Bush. Some will probably make up their minds about John Kerry, or at least decide to consider him, based on the images of convention week, and the Speech.

There are hundreds of people now at work to make the best use of the scant three total hours of prime time the television networks will grant the convention, since the most important decision in recent American history can't hold a candle to the profits to be made on bread of commercials and circuses of humiliation. There are probably a few score making contributions to the Speech. Our opinions of course are unsolicited. But here they are anyway.

Our core idea, which we've had for at least a year, happens to dovetail nicely with everything the Kerry people have made public so far, including the convention's slogan of "strength at home, respect in the world." For his speech, Kerry will be introduced by former Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam, and who was accused by the Bushies of being unpatriotic with such savagery that Teresa Heinz Kerry, a Republican who had been married to a Republican Senator, changed her registration. Kerry will likely be surrounded by his band of brothers from Vietnam. His wife will have already spoken about growing up under a dictatorship.

In our fantasy, in our plan, Kerry would begin his speech talking about 9-11. He would mention the shock, the anger at being attacked, and the feelings of vulnerability felt by Americans in a new way. But he would also mention the heroism of firefighters and others, and the spontaneous acts of kindness, initiative, responsibility and civic virtue that followed: the kind of American spirit that can still be tapped.

He would speak about the need to protect America, of the new expression in American life: homeland security, and the power of those words. The homeland. Security. In its broadest sense, homeland security is the first responsibility of government, especially the federal government: to protect all its citizens, to protect the homeland.

But there are right ways and wrong ways to ensure homeland security. He would talk about the bad choices made by the Bush administration: bad for America, ineffective in securing the homeland, and at their worst, choices that have made the homeland less safe.

Then he would speak about securing the homeland against terrorist threats, not by subverting civil liberties, or by sowing needless fear and confusion, but by giving local government, law enforcement and emergency workers the information, the guidance, the tools and the support they need. By bringing together the resources and the resourcefulness of the homeland in its own defense. Protecting our vulnerable installations and industries, our ports and facilities, instead of creating new bureaucracies and pouring tax dollars into dubious high tech projects that enrich big corporations. Not by excessive secrecy or sowing mistrust, but by keeping Americans informed of these efforts, and asking their help in specific and meaningful ways: by helping to design ways to watch vulnerable installations, for example; not by watching each other.

He would speak about the proper role of the military, about the mistakes in Afghanistan and the tragic mistakes of Iraq. The war on terror won't be won by grandiloquent and simplistic rhetoric, but by careful groundwork and courageous action, and by understanding the points of view of other cultures, the human needs and aspirations of the many, instead of just the violent intentions of the few.

In this global society, the homeland can only be secure when we value our friends, when we work together. American leadership depends on the respect others have, not just for our economic and military power, but for our integrity, generosity and moral leadership.

But homeland security means much more than protecting against attacks from outside, or threats to our place in the world. Doesn't homeland security mean cities and states able to meet the needs of their citizens? Aren't health care, the safety of food and water, workplace safety, all part of homeland security? Aren't Americans more secure when they can make a decent living, send their children to decent schools? When the cities and states aren't cutting to the bone, and everyone competing for scarce resources while the federal government sends tax money to a few favored corporations in Iraq? Put aside the question of whether Saddam was evil or democracy in Iraq is a good thing. The federal budget is the index of priorities. Where is that money going?

Isn't the homeland more secure when its government protects it from real dangers, and doesn't spend its blood and treasure on false pretenses, committing resources well into the future that we will need to protect us from real threats?

Isn't the homeland more secure when it takes steps to protect itself and the rest of the world from the effects of climate change? When it faces the reality of the end of the oil age and the dangers of dependence on foreign oil, by committing to a renewable energy future and a sustainable energy economy? When it protects its natural resources and natural legacy? When it builds respectful relations with other nations, and helps to build strong international institutions to lessen the threat of war and terrorism? When it reinforces democracy and democratic institutions at home?

Our homeland can only be secure when our economic house is in order. When food and water are safe, when the workplace is safe. Our homeland can only be secure when the homes of our citizens are secure: when they can make a decent living, send their children to decent schools, and when they are safe against being suddenly ruined by health care costs, or not receiving the care they need.

How does health care fit in?

We drop out of the outline of our fantasy speech to zero in on one section of it: on health care. Kerry has made health care a major element of his domestic agenda: to institutionalize the principle of health care as a right, which is where it all has to start, and to institute a health care insurance system which provides quality health care for just about every American.

So of course, a healthy nation is part of a secure homeland. We are secure in the knowledge that we will get the care we need without bankrupting our families and torturing our friends. But to explain this, Kerry must go beyond the abstracts, go beyond the statistics of nearly 44 million uninsured, or the 18,000 Americans who die each year because they don't get care, and they don't get it because they---because we-- have no insurance. He must go beyond even just giving examples of health care horrors, like the "Italian-American man in his early 50s" Katha Pollitt describes in her Nation column (or rather quotes the description of a doctor at Yale-New Haven Hospital), who went $250,000 in debt caring for his wife until she died, then couldn't afford his own care. When the doctor told him he might die if he wasn't treated, he replied, "Doc, maybe that's for the better."

Pollitt asks why there is no "big, irate, energetic movement" for universal health care? She offers a few possibilities, but there is one more: nobody with the public’s attention is talking about it in ways that move and motivate. There are certain words they should be using, and using over and over. One of those words is "suffering." Kerry, or someone, has to say it clearly and repeatedly: not how people are "adversely affected" or "impacted" by health care costs and not having health insurance, but how they suffer. How they suffer when they are denied the right medicine, or don't even seek treatment they know they can't afford. How they suffer pain, how their families suffer watching them in pain and in causing themselves pain in trying to care for them. How a child suffers when a parent loses a job because of untreated sickness, how families suffer when they lose their homes. Let's stop talking about being simultaneously very sick, very poor, unable to care for those you love, homeless and alone, as problems, as if they are temporary inconveniences. This is suffering, persistent suffering that multiplies and feeds on itself and spreads in a widening trough of suffering. It is suffering that no Christian, no moral person, and above all, no American should tolerate, especially when it is needless, when the resources exist to end this suffer without causing anything close to pain for taxpayers or consumers or, as they used to be called, fellow citizens and fellow human beings.

So the security of the homeland is strengthened not only when the people are healthy, but when people are not suffering needlessly and alone, when they know that their fellow citizens and their government will do their best to help heal them. Individuals are stronger, families are stronger, the American society is stronger, the homeland is stronger.


Finale

The speech would wind up with the kind of statements Kerry has been making over the past 7 months or so: about reclaiming a brighter future in which science and technology serve the common interest, in which idealism of service can help America improve the homeland and secure its future. About reclaiming America's future and its soul. He can end it as he likes to end his stump speech, with the Langston Hughes poem. For instance, the lines:


"Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed---
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above."

"O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe."

"O, let America be America again---
The land that never has been yet---And yet must be."

Base playing

At the moment both John Kerry and GW Bush are playing to their electoral bases. It's in the rhythm of the campaign for Kerry to be doing this: solidying support and sparking enthusiasm among Democrats for the upcoming convention. So there's a big ad buy for Latino markets, a conspicuous appearance at the NAACP convention where Bushies fear to tread, etc.

For Bush to be playing so loudly to his base at this point however is not the usual rhythm. It seems desperate. It's desperately loud, too. With the gay-bashing amendment in the Senate, he's trying to appease restless members of the Rabid Right, as his ads distort a Kerry vote, in a kind of Willie Horton move but this time Willie is a Scott who preys on pregnant Lacis.

In pushing the gay-bashing amendment while dissing the NAACP, Bush is desperate enough to risk sacrificing moderate and independents, while announcing that since he is unlikely to get many black or gay votes anyway, he'd damn well better make sure to solidify his hold on white racists and homophobes.

He's just as bald-faced in embracing his corporate base, for example in suddenly opening up protected land in national forests to logging and mining interests. Here's a Seattle take on this:

Proposal would drop forestland protections

Otherwise, two new polls show Kerry ahead by 5 and 6 points among likely voters, despite the revelations in a very troubling study from the Project for Excellence in Journalism. It found that Bush has been getting most of the media coverage, but even though the tone on Bush's character has been negative by a 3 to 1 margin, the media's judgment on Kerry has been negative by a 5 to 1--yes that's FIVE TO ONE margin.

The study also found that "journalists were almost as likely as the campaigns to be the source asserting these character traits about the candidates" and that "more than four in ten character assertions were made with no evidence cited to back them up."
Here's a link to the full study:
Journalism.org - Reports & Surveys - Campaign 2004 - Character and the Campaign

Johnny Be Good

by Morgan Dash

I'll tell you this TRUE story, even if one of my brothers (you know who you are, Theron) doesn't believe me. We'd more or less settled on Gephardt as Kerry's likely choice for vp, though in the days just before the announcement, we were wavering on whether it would be Gephardt or Edwards.

The night before the announcement was to be made, I happened to be up late, and I saw on the net the report attributed to the New York Post that it was going to definitely be Gephardt. My immediate reaction--which surprised me--was: oh, no. That choice is a mistake. It has to be Edwards.

Fortunately it turned out to be Rupert Murdoch's mistake and not John Kerry's. A few hours later Kerry announced that his choice was John Edwards. By the end of the week, it was just starting to become clear what an amazingly good choice it was. If this was (as Bill Clinton described it before it happened) Kerry's first "presidential" decision, it was an incredibly astute one.

It was first of all an immediately popular choice among voters polled, and among both media and non-Bushie politicians. The first rallys with the new duo were dynamic. The ad introducing the team was terrific. Two polls immediately showed Kerry ahead by more than the margin of error, and perhaps most surprisingly, they showed Edwards as the clear favorite over Cheney, even in response to the question of who is more ready to be president.

The week was very well orchestrated, from the announcement in Pittsburgh to the first rally in Cleveland, to the matched messages and the new vocabularly of strength at home, respect in the world. There was also a determined emphasis on reclaiming "values" as an issue--very perspicacious, given the Bush credibility problem. At last the Dems aren't bowing to the pernicious doublespeak of rabid rightist "family values" behind policies that ravage families and have nothing but contempt for values other than hypocrisy and cynicism. Neither are they ceding American values and patriotism to the Bushies, who cut soldiers' pay and benefits, and provide inadequate medical care to wounded veterans.

No wars for oil, they both said. No wars of choice, only of necessity. Then the music plays: Johnny B. Goode.

And Kerry and Edwards immediately seized another image---of optimism---that the Bushies thought they could claim for themselves.

John Edwards connects not only with southern voters---where so many military bases are--- but with midwestern workers and small town voters. He becomes the companion who gets John Kerry invited in. Edwards has young children, and young families are people Kerry must reach. The Bushies want to make Edwards' career as a personal injury lawyer into an issue but as Bill Clinton used to say, that dog won't hunt. People may not love lawyers, until they need one. Representing ordinary people against big corporations is more sympathetic and comprehensible than tort reform.

Two other bits of conventional wisdom may go down in flames. First, that the vice presidential nominee doesn't matter. Hey, turn on your TV. It's the synergy, the image of the two of them that matters. It's what choosing Edwards says about Kerry. Second, that only what happens now or what happens next matters to the voters, not the past. No, what has happened already matters---and voters are not happy about Iraq, about lies and misplaced arrogance. Reaction to the latest nonspecific terror non-alert shows an edgy distrust of anything the Bushies say.

So believe me or not about my reaction, but I have to say: even with my little flash of insight, I never would have bet that the selection of Edwards would get such an enthusiastic reception so quickly.

gaming the blame

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report was significant in that 9 Republicans and 8 Democrats unanimously declared all the major reasons the Bush administration gave for taking America to war in Iraq were untrue. Officially this part of the report blamed the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Democrats added that the intel conclusions were clearly influenced by administration expectations, and outright pressure to come to those conclusions. Even though Republicans did not agree, the report included some damning correspondence from within the CIA that clearly leaves that impression: the Bushies were going to war anyway, so if the CIA knew what was good for it, they'd provide what the bosses wanted to hear.

Specific investigation into how the Bushies handled the faulty intelligence they got was put off until after the election, apparently as the price for getting this part of the report out now. But as several news reporters and pundits pointed out, it is simple enough work to compare the claims the Bushies made publicly with the intelligence they got as described in this report, to see that the Bushies exaggerated it (at best), and combined passing on bad information with additional misleading conclusions. A pretty good summary of all that can be found in a short piece appearing in the Nation:

Capital Games

The report's less than subtle purpose was congressional: now that a clear majority of American voters believe going to war was a mistake, the Congress that voted to give Bush the authority to start it now desperately wants to cover its institutional ass. The committee members emphasized that they, as Members of Congress, were misled by the bad intel. Senator Jay Rockerfeller, the ranking Dem, added that had he known then what he knows now, he would not have voted to authorize Bush's bash, nor in his opinion would the rest of Congress have done so.

This cuts no mustard with Bush, of course. After seizing on the report as proof he was led astray by that bad old CIA, he actually told a PA audience this same day that "we fought them in Iraq so we wouldn't have to fight them here."

The other institutional ass that needs covering is the media. But 'the CIA made me do it' won't quite work, not even if you throw in the Bushie rhetoric. The media--from the goofiest cable news to the most august newspapers---helped mightily in the march off the cliff to war. In his interview with Charlie Rose this week, Michael Moore placed the major blame squarely on the press. We expect politicians to lie, he said. But we expect the press to ask questions, to protect us from political lies. Without the press doing its job, we're vulnerable. And he added a bit ruefully, if the press had asked the kind of probing questions about Iraq that he's been getting about "my little movie," we never would have gone to war.

Those of us outside the power centers may not have realized how much the New York Times coverage aided and abetted the Bush march. With its longstanding reputation for probity and integrity, however tarnished it has gotten over recent years, the Times remains the most important newspaper in America. When the Times echoed the Bushwah coming out of Washington, it made a huge difference---if not directly with the American public, then powerfully with the rest of the media that generally takes its lead from the Times, and perhaps most powerfully, with Congress. The Times helped create a climate in which a vote against authorizing Bush could seem out of touch.

Though the Times recently issued something like an apology, it was nowhere near the full story, especially concerning Judith Miller, the reporter more responsible than any other for the Times and perhaps the media in general lending hysterical credibility to the Bushwar Bushwah.

Amy Goodman and David Goodman of Democracy Now! provide such an account, much of which you can read on the Sentient Times site:

Sentient Times June/July 2004

Don't miss the part about Judith Miller as embedded reporter during the war: "her role in the unit's operation became so central that it became known as the 'Judith Miller team.' In one instance she disageeed with a decision...When she took her protest to a two-star general, the decision was reversed....Later, she played a starrring role in a ceremony in which [the unit's] leader was promoted. Other officers were surprised to watch as Miller pinned a new rank" on this officer's uniform.

This is the most outrageous violation of a reporter's role we've ever heard of, yet as far as we know, she is still reporting for the New York Times. As Michael Moore said, (though not with exactly these words) the news media has blood on its hands. Gaming the blame won't help. There's plenty to go around.

to the point

This short essay in the Nation by educator and activist Deborah Meier is the best summary of issues and opportunities in the truly tragic plight of pre-college education in America we've seen this year:

No Politician Left Behind

It's Kerry Time

It's July, and it's Kerry time. The stage is set: all the polls show Bush severly weakened and usually weakening in all the key areas of perception, from job approval, trust, credibility to direction and specific issues: Iraq, terror, economy. The electorate signals its dissatisfaction and dismay; they'd rather not rehire the guy. Now Kerry has to give them ample reason to hire him.

Kerry time begins with his announcement of a vice presidential candidate, probably next week. Our instincts (and druthers) tell us it's down to Edwards, Gephardt or Surprise! We assume it's a difficult choice between Edwards and Gephardt. Edwards offers instant excitement, a charisma injection at the right moment (though the staying power of his charisma is a troubling open question)especially because Kerry and Edwards look good together, just as Clinton and Gore did in '92. Gephardt offers the experience and depth that Kerry could be more confident would translate to the presidency; he's politically experienced with solid constituencies in the midwest and among organized labor. Gephardt is a more finished person, with depths reflected in the equanimity of his smile and the force of his words. He just doesn't have the media electricity of Edwards. It's too bad these two guys can't be combined.

Surprises for vp are more the rule than the exception but maybe not this year---there is too much riding on media image, and though somebody out of the blue will get a lot of initial attention, if it is a relative unknown,how he or she will perform after that is a crapshoot. Somebody thoroughly vetted by the media like Gephardt, or to a somewhat lesser extent like Edwards, with a media track record, is the wave of the vp future.

With the vp selection and the following days of campaigning together, the media attention turns to Kerry. Then comes the convention, and there has never been a more consequential one, though not for its actual workings. Only two things are important, but they are very important: the convention has to go smoothly (and if anything bad happens, Kerry has to take charge and handle it well) and Kerry's acceptance speech must resonate.

Kerry should come out of the convention with a central theme, something the media and the voters will grasp and hold onto. Then Kerry has to do well in the debates. (His vulnerability is the same as the one that sunk Gore: overconfidence in debating GW. But Kerry is better and more experienced at big stakes debates than Gore was.)

If he does well,all this should get him enough of the undecideds, independents and the leaning towards the devil we know voters. Kerry is not going to lose his base, which is virilently anti-Bush. Bush is vulnerable to losing some of his base at the margins, and maybe more.

There's also Kerry's reputation as a closer, somebody who gets sharper and communicates more of himself as the decision day gets closer.

In the coming days, weeks, maybe hours, our crack team of Dash brothers will provide the kind of wisdom and reccommendations on theme and speech content that the Kerry campaign will be sure to take into consideration, as soon as one of us wins the lottery and buys CNN, or another ten hours are added to each day before the election and the Kerry people get really really bored. Or some major contributor out there among our readers buttonholes one of their Internet watchers and forces them to read us.

Well, for the entertainment value alone, stay tuned.

We'll offer this preview, though: the conventional wisdom is that events in the coming months will determine the election's outcome. Not necessarily, not completely. As we surmised, the trumpeted economic boom is showing signs it's overblown,even phony, and the news will be mixed at best going into fall. Even if Iraq quiets down, it doesn't mean much for Bush in and of itself. People are not happy about what's already happened---about taking us to war on false pretenses, and about the prison abuses and other excesses of an extremist administration that furthermore couldn't shoot straight. If Kerry can provide a solid alternative, and if he can tap into this discontent while being positive, a calmer Iraq might even be to his advantage.

The real wild card is a terrorist attack in the U.S. We hope somebody in the Kerry inner circle is thinking about how to respond to that.

Iraq is a hard place (continued)

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has announced that he must suspend his campaign, now that he has been named as one of the 300 New Englanders and 5,600 American veterans to be sent to Iraq in the ongoing involuntary mobilization.

"It's a management tool," as the Pentagon spokesperson described the practice of hunting down former soldiers with the help of the IRS and forcing them to try to fit into their old uniforms, before being shipped off to Iraq.

Kerry will probably not see combat, as this could prove too embarrassing to the administration. "He'll mostly be unbagging instant potatoes for our Halliburton heroes in the KP," chortled vice-president Dick "Hawk Who Had Other Priorities During Vietnam" Cheney. But of course, all of Iraq is a hard place, the Pentagon pointed out. "Let's see what the 'foreign leaders' over there tell him," chuckled President George "Hawk Who Hid in the National Guard" Bush.

In other news(and we swear this part is true)

the CBS/New York Times poll on whether George Bush is telling the truth about Iraq:
Entire Truth 18%
Hiding Something 59%
Mostly Lying 20%

The numbers are as mind-boggling as the framing of the question.

And for the Nervous about the continuing neck-and-neck race, though this poll showed under 40% trust Kerry to run the country, he scored 20 points higher in the Gallup poll done at about the same time. Still, in this poll, 39% said they still have No Opinion on Kerry yet. In 1992, Bill Clinton got 44% No Opinion.

With such a high number of No Opinion, it stands to reason that many of those who have made up their mind have done so on the basis of Bush negative ads. Kerry has lots of room to go up.

Kerry is in the final weeks of building the substructure of the campaign: raising money (from almost nothing after the primaries, he's now in better financial shape than any challenger in history)and going directly to key constituencies in key states, where his crowds have been very good, and press coverage extensive. Conventional wisdom is that the electorate makes up its mind about the incumbent first, before they move to the challenger after the conventions. The election was Bush's to win in May and June by destroying Kerry's credibility, but he failed to do it. Beginning with July---the announcement of the vice-presidential candidate, then the convention and his acceptance speech--it becomes Kerry's to win. The debates, and events in Iraq and the economy (which we believe will falter again in the coming months)are expected to determine the final outcome---barring wild cards such as a terrorist attack in the U.S, or...Kerry being called up in the involuntary mobilization.

Independence Day?

The stealth transfer of sovereignty in a blank-walled side room of the prime minister's office, the American civilian authorities flying out within hours, without ceremony. It wasn't exactly the helicopters straining off the embassy roof in Saigon as the North Vietnamese advanced on the city, but it was uncomfortably close.

Who knows what in the world happens to Iraq now. On one extreme is civil war. On the other extreme is p.r.-perfect progress to free elections and recognizable democracy---the outcome the Bushies expected, but which is perhaps even less likely than the other extreme.

Our intuitions tell us to watch for a Saddam-like combination of carrot and stick, and an authoritarian if not dictatorial regime. Among the coming attractions could be: how will Americans react to alleged insurgents getting their hands hacked off?

But of course the real mystery that has us all in suspense...what's going to happen to Halliburton??????

Losin it

So at a ceremonial photo shoot, vp Undisclosed Location Cheney goes up to a U.S. Senator, complains about all the heat on Halliburton, and tells the Senator to FUCK OFF.

This is the same guy who on 9-11, as airplanes are crashing into buildings, tells people in the White House he's heard that our guys have shot a couple of them down.

No wonder he believes al Quaeda and Saddam were in cahoots. He gets his news from a whole other channel.

It could start to be like it was with Nixon---people were afraid that if they got rid of him, they'd have Agnew.

Speaking of losing it, in today's news, John Kerry was endorsed by former Bush supporter and Republican Lee Iacocca, and son of former Republican President Ronald Reagan. To be fair, Ron Reagan was not so much endorsing Kerry as endorsing the necessity to get rid of Bush. But he was sure clear about that.

And in the new Gallup Poll, Bush has now lost the war. For the first time, most Americans surveyed say that starting the war in Iraq was a mistake.

Although the "horserace" numbers (as they so delicately put it) are tied, John Kerry's favorable rating has gone up--to nearly 60%---while Bush's has gone down. So $67 million in negative ads hasn't bought very much. No wonder they're losin it.

intel

If our conclusion in the previous post seems extreme, here's something from the Guardian:

"A senior US intelligence official is about to publish a bitter condemnation of America's counter-terrorism policy, arguing that the west is losing the war against al-Qaida and that an "avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked" war in Iraq has played into Osama bin Laden's hands."

The full story is here:
Guardian Unlimited Special reports Bush told he is playing into Bin Laden's hands

Out now is another book, A Pretext for War by James Bamford, a defense analyst, who zeros in on privatization at the Pentagon. He exposes the private contractor army we've been hearing about in Iraq and in connection with the prison scandal, but he adds something else we may have forgotten or not understood clearly: that these contractors were very influential in the Pentagon and circles of power before the war---in fact he says they were instrumental in getting the war started.

We're used to lobbyists writing environmental laws. Now they're writing the orders for soldiers to die, and for us to pay, for wars that will employ and profit them.

Political note: Though several recent polls show the presidential race as essentially tied, and some give a bump to Bush during the Reagan funeral week, the new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Kerry opening up an eight point lead in a two person race. This is sooner than even the Kerry people expected. His good month is supposed to be July, when he gets media for announcing a vp, and is essentially introduced to the mass public by the convention. A ten point lead a month from now would be a reasonable expectation.

Part of the reason for the Bush drop in the ABC/Post poll is that his last bastion is weakening---coincidentally, it's his ratings on conducting the war on terror. He's been losing on domestic issues, then on Iraq, but was holding strong in leadership against terror. The public may actually be beginning to see through the rhetoric and smirky piety to the nightmarish reality.

With enemies like this...


From the Financial Times of London:

"The Bush administration has misled the American people. It has isolated the US, as American diplomats and commanders pointed out this week. And its bungling in Iraq has given new and terrifying life to the cult of death sponsored by Osama bin Laden. Above all, it inspires little confidence it is capable of defeating the spreading al-Qaeda franchise, which always was the clear and present danger."
Link to the complete editorial:

FT.com Search Article

It is worth thinking hard about this now, with another American civilian killed in Saudi Arabia. Bush and Cheney, in duplicate red power ties, condemn the beheading as barbaric and evil. Killing of innocents should always be condemned, though it is not clear that tearing a person apart with bombs or ordnance is more barbaric than beheading, nor that unnecessarily sending the young and patriotic poor of America to be mangled in body and mind if not to their deaths by burning, being crushed to death, bleeding to death, or the hundred other ways humans die in machine-borne war, is any less evil.

It is worth thinking hard about the ramifications of the barbarity suffered upon Iraqis by war and in prisons. About the chaos, violence and suffering that results from starting an unnecessary war in a very dangerous place. Now the oil markets feel the pain of pipelines disrupted. And now Iraq harbors terrorists in numbers it did not before, with American-made video and photos for recruiting more, threatening now to steal oil wealth in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to finance terrorism of truly doomsday proportions.

In ways that are mythically, psychologically as well as politically predictable, Bush and Cheney have become the greatest allies al Qaeda and related terrorists ever had.

Connections

The 9-11 Commission finds no collaboration between al Qaeda and Saddam to attack the U.S. But the Bushie in Chief insists there were connections.

Like what? Like maybe a meeting with Saddam in December 1983, and with Saddam's henchman, Tariq Aziz, on March 24, 1984, the day that the UN released a report on Iraq's use of poison gas against Iran?

No---wait: that was Donald Rumsfeld. The U.S. supplied the poison gas and the training to Saddam, for the first use of chemical weapons anywhere since Vietnam.

Okay, well, then wasn't it Saddam who financed Osama bin Laden as far back as 1986? Not exactly, no, it was the CIA.

Okay. So the White House was connected to Saddam and the CIA was connected to Osama? Yes, that's right. Well, there you go: Saddam and al Qaeda are connected: by the U.S. government. I told you there were connections.

Well, you should know, Mr. Vice President. You were there.

The Catholic Vote

Though it provides pollsters and pundits with fodder to munch, the most important fact about the Catholic Vote in America is that there isn't one.

When John F. Kennedy ran for President, there was a potential Catholic voting block, which in fact materialized in support of his candidacy. It was comprised of mostly Irish, Italian and eastern Europeans, no more than a generation or two removed from the Old Country, mostly working and lower middle class, largely urban. Catholic church membership was at its height in numbers, and Catholic cultural influence was enjoying its last years of prominence---the years of DiMaggio, Bill Mazeroski and Notre Dame football, Frank Capra, Jimmy Durante and Topo Gigio, Sinatra to Perry Como, when songs sung wholly or partly in Italian made the top ten (even when sung by an Irish singer named Rosemary Clooney.)

Both as Catholics and as ethnic minorities, all of these groups had suffered prejudices that at times were nearly as severe as those perennially suffered by black, Latino and Asian citizens. For awhile Italians were considered to be a black race, and some Italians in California were interred as were Japanese during World War II; the jokes substituting Polish for Moron lasted for many more years. These were immigrants recruited for the mines and mills, impoverished peasants seeking a desperate last chance. They often were the backbone of labor union organizing in formative days. Thanks in part to FDR and the New Deal, they were Democrats.

So American Catholics had a lot in common, and lots of reasons to vote and be courted as a block. Kennedy specifically represented them and their aspirations, with his family's history of "No Irish Need Apply" signs in Boston, and their subsequent wealth, power and ascent to the heights of social prominence. The Irish in particular dominated Boston politics and government. But Italian Catholics also began their rise to political prominence in places like San Francisco, New York, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, then Polish and other eastern European Catholics in Chicago, Milwaukee and other cities. Almost always, until the ascent of Frank Rizzo in Philadelphia later in the 60s, they were Democrats.

But these groups, along with Jewish immigrants and their descendants, were already streaming to the suburbs, with good union or white collar incomes. Today they are so variegated that they no longer exist as groups, and certainly not as voting blocks.

The growth in the Catholic church worldwide has been in Africa. In America, Latinos comprise a large proportion now, with a bewildering array of other ethnicities, including Haitians, southeast Asian, Phillipinos, etc. So Catholics are everywhere---north and south, east and west, city and town and suburb---and so more than ever they are a collection of individuals that share church membership in their individual ways.

Catholics have suddenly become a voting category again this year because the Democratic nominee is a Catholic at a time when the positions of the Catholic hierarchy on several prominent "social" or "cultural" issues are closer to the positions of his Republican opponent. With the pronouncements of a few American bishops in particular, the separation of Church and State is again an issue.

According to a recent report, G.W. Bush urged the Pope to instruct U.S. clergy to become more vocal on moral issues, that coincidentally would favor his re-election. Some observers have called this an unprecedented attempt to get the Church to take an official role in the American political process, which the modern Church has learned is an idea better left in the bloody past. There are also reports that the Pope regards Bush as particularly dangerous to the world's future, and in fact he scolded him publicly---in his presence--- for the war in Iraq and the monstrous and officially sanctioned prisoner abuses.

While no group is too small to affect a close election, the number of Catholics who will decide their votes based on whether John Kerry is a Catholic, or whether John Kerry supports the Vatican's exact position on abortion or homosexuality, is likely to be quite small, and may even cancel each other out.

American Catholics, like their forebearers in Ireland, Italy, Latin America and elsewhere, seldom adhere 100% to official Church positions or practice, even when those positions are unambiguous. In particular, the number of Catholics who adhere to the official ban against all forms of contraception is very probably very small. Since the basis for the Church's current position on contraception is nearly identical to its position on abortion, most Catholics accept the need for some inconsistency in their own judgments. That is, they see things in more practical terms, and as more complex. John Kerry's positions on late term abortion (that the law banning them even when the life of the mother is endangered is wrong, but that regulating them in some ways is right) and gay marriage (he is personally against it, but sees the social reality of homosexuals as full citizens and fully human) are probably close to the "average" American Catholic's beliefs.

Right now, the latest polls show that self-described Catholics are about evenly split between supporting Kerry and supporting Bush. However, the one statistic that jumps out in the latest poll is that only a third of the Catholic respondents knew that Kerry is Catholic. This suggests that by election day, Kerry will have an edge. That edge may be further enhanced by Catholics who confront their consciences in the absolute privacy of the voting booth, and look at all the issues that affect their lives and their childrens' futures.

Shock and Disgust

This weekend the New York Times reported that the travesty of the Bushwar on Iraq began at the very beginning. Those who got their news from those embedded TV reporters may recall the air strikes on leadership positions at the start, especially the much publicized precision munition bunker buster bomb suddenly sent to get Saddam and end the war before it began. Only Saddam wasn't there. That's not the news, though. The news it's taken more than a year to report is that the bunker wasn't there either.

This was one of fifty strikes on "high-value" targets, to get the Iraqi leadership. All they got were lots of civilians, and exactly no leaders.

The report says that Rumsfeld required any attack that might result in the deaths of 30 or more civilians to be approved in advance personally by him. The military made requests for some 50 raids. Rumsfeld approved them all.

Human Rights Watch reported, "attacks on leadership likely resulted in the largest number of civilian deaths from the air war." The report was authored in part by the guy who had been in charge of this operation. He said the campaign was "an abject failure...We failed to kill the HVTs and instead killed civilians and engendered hatred and discontent in some of the population."

Perhaps this is one reason that military leaders have joined diplomats, many who served in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, are going to announce this week---probably on Wednesday---that they oppose the reelection of Bush II, for the good of the country.

Both of these stories will make news this week, though they'll have to fight for attention with the ongoing battle between Ashcroft and the Senate Judiciary Committee over memos on the President's right to order torture, the stories saying that the highest ranking U.S. General in Iraq personally approved of torture techniques used against prisoners, and the ongoing violence in Iraq that is thinning out the newly selected government.

Then there are the film premieres---of a documentary showing a very rabid, out of control right wing conspiracy to mount a media coup against President Bill Clinton, and at the end of the week, a 700 theatre release of "Farenheit 911," which will contain the first film footage most Americans have seen of the torture of Iraqi prisoners.

And June is supposed to be Bush's good month.

Update/P.S. And we forgot several other items that each alone would be enough to dominate the news in normal times: VP Cheney on the hot seat for 1)corruption while prez of Haliburton, 2) corruption while VP on behalf of Haliburton and 3)his office illegially outing a CIA agent and endangering her life...

Then Sec. of State Powell had to go on Meet the Press with his mea culpa for the administration's report on terrorism that boasted that worldwide terrorism was down, thanks to their genuis policies, their determination to stay the course, their----what's that? Terrorism didn't go down, it actually went up---like WAY UP? Well, that's different. Never mind.