October 2004 Archives

A lot has been said about the significant percentage of Kerry backers who are not so much voting for Kerry as voting against Bush.

It's true, but I prefer that attitude to the one that is creepily engulfing the Bush campaign.

Check this out:

Chris Suellentrop has a half bizarre/half chilling report from the campaign trail in Florida last night. It's about what seems to be a new feature of the Bush rallies: the pledge of allegiance to President Bush.

"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."

Bush apologists have claimed they didn't have to sign loyalty oaths to attend Bush rallies.

All they had to do was drink the Bush Kool-Aid, right?

(HT to Josh Marshall)

From the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA):

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

Apparently Bush supporters are mistaken about a lot of things:

Seems to me if Bush gets elected, there are going to be two groups of people out there: those that are pissed and those that are rudely awakened.

(HT to Kevin Drum)

"Dick" Cheney (and asscociated Bush apologists) sneeringly calls Kerry's camo-bedecked hunting foray in Ohio on Thursday the "October disguise." But apparently Cheney's got problems with conservation minded hunters.

From the Wall Steet Journal today, via Lunch Lady:

Some outdoor enthusiasts don't see it the same way. At the Outdoor Adventures Hunting and Fishing Show in Albuquerque last February, the New Mexico Wildlife Federation asked 600 sportsmen about their election choice in 2000 and their plans for November. Nearly half said they wouldn't vote for Mr. Bush in 2004, even though most said they had done so in 2000. [emphasis added]

[...]

In Florida, some Republicans disagreed with Bush administration efforts to allow oil drilling off the state coast; the plan was abandoned after public outcry. In the West, some complain about the proliferation of natural-gas drilling rigs on grazing lands they lease from the federal government.

"What's turned me off on Bush is that he is trying to force his way into wild places that should never be industrialized," says 52-year-old Karl Rappold, a rancher on Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, a spectacular meeting of mountain and prairie where the administration has pushed for drilling. Though the administration has stopped work on that plan, Mr. Rappold says he will vote against the president -- as will his wife, their five grown children and at least two other relatives, he says. He says they all voted for Mr. Bush in 2000." [emphasis added]

Howard Dean recognized this connection in Vermont when he got the NRA to support conservation measures because hunters need open land to hunt. Self serving and effective.

Indeed.

I ran this post Saturday morning, but because weekend traffic is low, I've decided to bump it up to the top of the page (at least until Wednesday).

WHETHER IT IS from prior cocaine abuse or from a hereditary heart condition, is it possible that Pres. Bush is so at risk for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) that he has now donned a wearable defibrillator?

Shouldn't the American people be fully informed about their President's health? This would be especially relevant during an election campaign; and doubly so, given that the Vice-President also has a history of heart ailments as well.

How long will it be before an enterprising White House reporter asks the White House these, and other, questions point-blank?

Don't click away until you've looked at the photos...

President Putin of Russia has weighed in on the election:

"International terrorists have set as their goal inflicting the maximum damage to Bush, to prevent his election to a second term," Putin said at a Central Asian summit in Tajikistan.

"If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire antiterror coalition. In that case, this would give an additional impulse to international terrorists and to their activities, and could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world."

He added, however, that he would respect "any choice by the American people."

Gee, thanks, Vladimir. I'd feel a lot better about that if only everything you stood for wasn't a total load of crap.

In a related story, Matt Yglesias lets loose a rant about what he calls the Putinization of America:

• the Sinclair incident,
  
• the threatening letter to Rock The Vote,
  
• the specter of the top official in the House of Representatives making totally baseless charges of criminal conduct against a major financier of the political opposition [shades of Mikhail Khodorovsky],
  
• the increasing evidence that the 'terror alert' system is nothing more than a political prop,
  
• the 'torture memo' asserting that the president is above the law,
  
• the imposition of rigid discipline on the congress,
  
• the abuse of the conference committee procedure,
  
• the ability of the administration to lie to congress without penalty,
  
• the exclusion of non-supporters from Bush's public appearances...

[I realize] terrorist forces operating in and around Chechnya have done some horrible things -- I was in Moscow for the big apartment bombings -- but ultimately the most harmful thing they have done was to enable Putin to tighten his grip on power.

It's what Mark Bowden was saying in May, 2003:

When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country. We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained.

Bush-Cheney: throw the rascals out.

FROM A COMMENT at Kevin Drum's site:

The real Bush choked to death on a pretzel a while back. The Bush we see on the TV is a robot, much like the Disney Animatronics stuff. This is the first result of a secret neoconservative project to replace all powerful public figures with robots, which explains why 'Bush' can't stay on a bicycle or a Segway, or talk in coherent sentences - neocons are inherently incompetent. The Bulge is really the robot Bush's motor-driven ambulatory systems control pack, and also contain s a small bomb which can be detonated in case 'Bush' is outed as a robot.

Okay, maybe not.

Hee.

Wait a minute. What the hell is that thing?