Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

It’s only been one hour but NightLine is pretty much declaring it a draw despite their own polling. They look a little tortured doing it but that’s just what they are doing. That’s the best spin the president could hope for out of the aftermath of the debate and damn it, that’s just what he’s getting. What’s in store for tomorrow?

John Kerry
Thursday, September 30, 2004

Amen brother.

Is there any doubt who won? A good portion of the punditry seems to be on board with reality but how long will that last? Just saw Andrea Mitchell whoring for her boy. Could well be a sign of things to come. Also caught Russert playing the “on the other hand” game with GWB getting pumpkin head’s favorite hand. I’m off. Savor and enjoy.

Ha. That would be pretty funny. The only people who would even see it would be me, my wife and my cat. Come to think of it, my wife and cat are probably going to be mighty annoyed that we’re watching the damn thing to begin with and would, no doubt, boycott anything I might have to write on the subject.

Anyway, I was pretty happy to see that Will Bunch will be doing some live coverage. I’m starting to feel like a bit of a Campaign Extra groupie since just about every post I write is based on something Mr. Bunch has written. Let’s just say I’ve been impressed.

Well here’s my debate preview: The president will pull out his half assed everyman routine and damn near every man woman and child in the press corps will salivate like so many stray dogs who just found a can of tuna. The “strong leader” thing will go over like gangbusters too. Can’t forget that. Nothing else will matter.

Savor and Enjoy

Will Bunch has had a couple of posts over the last few days quoting two different
foreign corespondent discussing their experiences in Iraq. The first
comes from photojournalist David Swanson of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"As a photographer, I couldn’t find one positive image in Iraq. Isn’t
it obvious that there were no positive outcomes to this war?"

You can see some of Swanson’s pictures here.

The second set of comes from a letter sent home by Wall Street Journal reporter
Farnaz Fassihi. She sent this to family or friends and was not intended for
publication. Here are some of the passages that struck me but read the whole
thing:

It’s hard to pinpoint when the ‘turning point’ exactly began. Was it April
when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada
and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home
to ten percent of Iraq’s population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans?
Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni
triangle to include most of Iraq? Despite President Bush’s rosy assessments,
Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a ‘potential’ threat, under
the Americans it has been transformed to ‘imminent and active threat,’ a foreign
policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young
men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt
a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put
an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped.
He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every
ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the
walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy
gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love
America for liberating Iraq.

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If
any thing, it is growing stronger, organized and more sophisticated every day.
The various elements within it-baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda-are
cooperating and coordinating.

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of
us on the ground it’s hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from
its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been
unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can’t be
put back into a bottle.

There’s nothing I can add to this other than to speculate how these observations
will square with the type of rhetoric we will be hearing from the debate tonight but I won’t bother. It’s too obvious.

Beware! Stupidity ahead.

I had a stupid thought the other day while I was riding the bus to work. What if the Eagles don’t lose before November 2? I just took a quick look at their schedule and there’s a pretty damn good chance of that happening. The only team of any real consequence they face between today and election day is the Baltimore Ravens. Could this have an effect on the election?

Now Philadelphia is an alcohol drenched, sports crazed town that hasn’t seen a team that looked as good as the 2004 Eagles since…well, forever and a day. We haven’t had a championship here in any sport since 82 and the last time the Eagles won anything was over 40 years ago. What if this entire city on election day has a thorzine stupor-like, football induced false sense of well-being? Do they show up or do they instead choose to see the world through midnight green glasses, declare all is well in the world, pound a few more Yuenglings and stay home to tout the virtues of Donovan McNabb’s passer rating. What then?

Well Kerry can kiss PA goodbye that’s what. Hell, New Jersey and Delaware might even be a stretch under that scenario.

Okay okay. I know this is super stupid but if Chris Mathews gets paid untold fortunes to spew a whole herd’s worth of bullshit about which candidate the American people would prefer to have a beer with I may as well throw some completely baseless bullshit of my own around for free.

Savor and enjoy!

So I figured I’d take a cue from Athenae over at First-Draft.

Besides, my town doesn’t look half bad in this picture.

Charming thoughts from Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman from the Washington Times(I know I Know);

President Bush’s campaign manager yesterday accused Sen. John Kerry’s campaign of parroting the rhetoric of terrorists, signaling a new level of aggressiveness in advance of tomorrow’s presidential debate.

But Mr. Mehlman yesterday was unapologetic about rhetorically linking the Kerry campaign with terrorists who have killed hundreds of Americans in Iraq. It was not clear whether Mr. Bush planned to go that far in the debate.

Did this guy put repugnant fear monger on his resume?

“And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?” Cheney said then in response to a question.

“And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we’d achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.”

Link

[Update] Campaingn Extra has the full quote here.

After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore’s sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush’s lies. Link.

I wonder if we’ll be seing anything like this on Friday morning?

From tomorrow’s Washington Post:

Majorities say Bush is a strong leader, has taken a clear stand on issues, has an appealing personality and will make the country safer. A plurality gives Bush the edge on who is honest and trustworthy and who “shares your values,” while the two receive roughly equal marks on who understands “the problems of people like you.”

Needless to say Bush has a pretty healthy lead in this week’s Washington Post/ABC News poll, 51 to 45 percent among likely voters. Once again, others can deconstruct the polling methodology and tell you whether or not these results are meaningful. My question is this. What strange universe is this where a paragraph like the one I quoted above is a reasonable assessment of public sentiment? I’m not saying that it’s not, I really don’t know. I just know that I don’t get it. Do you?

I’m beginning to get that same old feeling I had during the run up to the Iraq war where everything I hear in the media and everything I see in that same media in terms of polling makes me believe that public opinion is skidding dangerously towards irrationality.

Back to the Milbank article:
Appearing in the Rose Garden yesterday with Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry’s statements about Iraq “can embolden an enemy.” After Kerry criticized Allawi’s speech to Congress, Vice President Cheney tore into the Democratic nominee, calling him “destructive” to the effort in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism.

Does a sitting President of the United States of America who says that his opponent’s campaign is emboldening the enemy really “share your values”? Does he? When a senior United States senator, serving as that President’s surrogate says that al Qaeda is “going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry” is that really an accurate reflection of the values of the American people? Unless it’s Ann Coulter channeling McCarthy I sure as hell hope not. That’s nothing but batshit crazy.

Calling incompetence incompetent, which is what Kerry has been doing of late, doesn’t harm America. Incompetent leadership and bad policy harm America. Pointing out that this administration failed to plan for war and its aftermath, failed to listen to its top military leaders prior to said war, and chooses to live in a fairy tale where progress is on the march, is just stating the obvious. The truth will never hurt America. A failure of a president with batshit crazy policies and fairy tale beliefs will.

So what is going on here? Where do these perceptions of a “strong leader” who shares “your values” come from? Is it the half assed everyman act? Who is that blind? I’ll probably say it a million times between now and November 2nd but I just don’t get it. I think we have an excellent candidate, many of whose values I do personally share, who I think is a clearly superior choice in every way. I don’t get how this president isn’t down 40 points let alone up by a bunch.

To end this ramble of a post let me say this. I’m not down on John Kerry’s chances one bit and I’m not trying to get anybody else down (not that anybody is reading this anyway). The more weirdness I see the harder I want to work to get him elected and to do the right thing for our country, even if my personal contribution is tiny and mostly worthless in the grand scheme of things.

I had a peak at pollingreport.com this morning and I must admit to being just a bit disturbed. Not that the numbers are at all bad, most of the polls collected show just a three or four point lead for Bush, which doesn’t seem like an unreasonable place for Kerry to be if he is going to win. A number that really disturbed me was the Time poll showing Bush’s reelect at 47%. Now I’ll leave it to Ruy Teixeira and Kos and MyDD to explain the internals, problems with sampling, etc but even taking into account polling problems, what the hell is going on. I mean really, who the hell are these people and where can I find one? What on earth are they thinking?

Now I live in Center City Philadelphia which is the left wing core of an overwhelmingly Democratic town so I guess that explains some of my confusion. Other than hearing a few vaguely pro Bush conversations on the bus once or twice my only other contacts that I know of with Bush voters are second or third hand. You know, some guy a friend of mine met once or a few of my sister in law’s friends. I think my boss may be pro Bush, but I don’t talk politics at work so It’s really just a guess.

Just to give an example of the political climate, I was at my local pizza place during the president’s last prime time news conference, you remember the one where he couldn’t think of any mistakes he had made, and the whole place was laughing at him. I mean really belly laughing and calling him any number of unkind things.

As another example, I went to the Philadelphia inaugural of Drinking Liberally last Tuesday and had a very nice experience but the whole time I was thinking that this really wasn’t all that much different than going to any bar here in town on any night of the week. I mean, you really have to struggle just to find a Republican and the ones that I have run into are not what you would call Bush voters.

Anyway, that 47% reelect number is startling. What are they thinking and why? Now as a progressive I really don’t have any insight into conservative ideology so I’m not the right guy to answer but let me ask a few questions;

• If you believe in sound fiscal policy why would you ever vote for Bush?
• If you supported the war in Iraq and even if you still think it was a great idea, what about the way it has been and is being conducted makes you the least bit comfortable with Bush?
• If criminalizing abortion is the most important thing to you; is abortion any more illegal or any less available than it was in January of 2001? Is it even any less common?
• If you believe that character trumps all else when voting for an elected official, what about this man’s character makes you think he’s your guy?
• If you believe in small, unobtrusive government why on earth would this be your guy?

Let me put my sunglasses on so I can see what they aren’t seeing. Shoot. Didn’t work.

[Update] The polls are probably a little worse than I indicated.

In the unlikely event that you somehow stumbled on this site please keep in mind that I’m still trying to get the hang of this. I was going to go through and delete some of the really bad posts, that homeland security one was a real clunker, but I decided against it. I might as well keep a record of my flops around so that in the unlikely event I ever write anything worth reading I can have one those swell “gee wiz look how far I came” moments. Anyway, if you happen to read any of this and are thinking to yourself “wow, that guy’s a dope”, try again in a month or so, it should get better.

Publius takes on the Milbank article I wrote about below:

I’ll tell you what undermines our troops – getting troops killed undermines troops, Mr. Hatch – not criticizing the failed policies that got them killed in the first place. Bumbling an occupation and having no plan undermines troops. And Mr. Cheney, I’ll tell you what’s destructive to our effort in the global war on terror – your invasion of Iraq, which was Osama’s wet dream. And Mr. Bush, I’ll tell you how to embolden an enemy – invade the second-holiest land of Islam for no reason and then execute the war without a shred of competence. Lying about our progress also sends the wrong message to the people who are actually fighting your terrorist-aiding war. Let’s not forget that. We know exactly who – and what policies – have emboldened our enemies and undermined our troops. And it’s not John Kerry, or his criticisms of your failure. Nice try, though.

I’ll never say it that well. Read the whole thing.

I’m
really enjoying the two faced Bush image that’s showing up everywhere (link,
link, link,
link) The concept
really does captures our dear leader’s essence.

In keeping with the theme I thought I would throw out a well known example.
Bush proposes, congress passes and he signs the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit.
Now this is a play for the retiree vote in 2004 and is the largest new government
entitlement since the Great Society, which is sure to piss off the deficit hawk
part of his base. Hmm. I wonder if he made any promises to them in 2000.

Anyway, the package includes a truly remarkable restriction keeping the government
from using its massive buying power to negotiate for lower prices from the drug
companies, artificially inflating its cost. Well that can’t make Andrew Sulivan
or his deficit hawk ilk happy. No sir. Not one bit. Now of course this remarkable
bit of incompetence is little more than a sweet sweet love song to the pharmaceuticals
industry (big big business).

Now big business craves stability and low taxes almost as much as it craves
sweet sweet Bush lovin’ and it’s sad to say government insolvency does nothing
for the long term prospects of either stability or low taxes. OOPS he did it
again. Hey Smith Klein Beecham, better stow away those government checks for
that rainy day. Those clouds sure do look dark.

So it looks like this was just some piss poor, irresponsible policy that helps
nobody much other that dear old Bush. Retirees do turn out at the polls in remarkable
numbers after all. Sadly, they really seem to have picked up on what a steaming
sack of shit they were handed. Seems like at least a few of those faces wound
up getting a little randy and screwing Bush. To bad we all got screwed in the
process..

From Kerry’s speech today at Temple: “we all understand it’s difficult to protect everything but there are certain places where there’s a chance for much greater catastrophe than others.”

This quote speaks to a fundamental truth, which congress and the president seem unable to grapple with. Certain places in this country are more important to the economic, social and psychological health of our nation than others and are therefore more attractive targets to terrorists. Most of us can name them without a moment’s hesitation; New York, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.

While I would never pretend to understand the thinking of al Qaeda, they certainly seem to understand how and where to hurt us where we will be most wounded. What none of us should understand and what should enrage all of us is that homeland security funding is not disproportionately directed towards those cities at most risk. Instead that funding is distributed inversely to actual risk.

Let me speak to NYC specifically. While I’m not one of them, I understand that a great many people who don’t live there really don’t care for New York, however we should all understand its singular importance to our country’s well-being. As someone who deals professionally with corporations located across the country and across the world I can testify to the fact that even a single day’s snowstorm in NYC has very real and tangible ripple effects across the entire economy. One need only look up which corporate entities have their headquarters located in New York City to get some understanding of what I mean.

In my mind a “strong and resolute” leader would be able to speak truth to the powers that be within his own party and direct counter terrorism funding to those places where terrorism is most likely. Unfortunately our president has been incapable of such. A truly strong leader who was truly interested in the protection of his nation would have no such problem and homeland security (and yes I hate that term) would be something more than an excuse to dole out the pork.

Some relevant links: Link Link Link Link

Friday and cats. I’ve never understood but whatever. Here’s my chubby little cat.

As you can see she’s made a well informed choice for president.

Via Josh Marshall, this Dana Milbank article gives a nice catalog of recent Republican attempts to link opposition to the president to giving aid and comfort to “the enemy”.

• On Tuesday, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said terrorists “are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry.” On Fox News, Hatch said Democrats are “consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there.”

• The previous day in Warsaw, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said terrorists in Iraq “are trying to influence the election against President Bush.”

As John Stewart said “How dare the Democratic party field a candidate? In an election year?”

For some reason I thought he was against this kind of thing.

This kinda makes me wish I had an anonymous domain. Oops. Maybe next time.