Let's draw a picture

This week's JuliusBlog has some important information on it.

Click on the picture below to view a chart of President Bush's approval ratings transposed against his terror alerts.



An earlier post assembles a timeline (scroll down the posts) of world events against the timing of the terror alerts. I am grateful he did this, because I was in the process of researching the same thing.

The Homeland Security Threat Warning System is clumsy. The means to evaluate the credibility of the warnings are not available to the common observer (you and me). Also, the range of viable actions one can take in response to warnings is limited. The combination of these two factors generates a heightened sense of fear and powerlessness.

I do not have the means to evaluate whether or not terror alerts have been issued with the intent of manipulating the public, warning the public or a combination of the two. We can only observe that warnings have been issued in concert with either positive events for the Democrats or Negative events for the President. I am not one to place my faith in coincidence.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Part II: They Run Aground on Reef of Lies

I wrote an article back in May called, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth not so Seaworthy which is making its way around the web. The gist of that article is that none of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, with the exception of one, actually served with John Kerry on his boat. Their beef with John Kerry revolves around his leadership in the anti-war movement and his testimony about the atrocities he had witnessed and his opposition to George Bush. My conclusion in May was that empirical evidence (Military records, testimony of the men with whom Kerry has actually served, Medals) is completely contrary to the allegations made by the Swift Boat Veterans.

The Swift Boat Veterans upped the ante yesterday by releasing their now infamous advertisement denouncing Kerry's service. Mike Barnicle called the ad "Political Pornography" on Scarborough Country last night. I couldn't agree more.

Far from growing in accuracy or credibility, the Swift Boat Veteran's charges grow weaker. It was with great pleasure that I witnessed a full compliment of pundits and politicians denounce the Swift Boat Veterans yesterday. Carl Cameron, FOX News, stated that much of the criticism "dramatically conflicts with the public record." Swift Boat Veterans Chairman, Roy Hoffmann, has changed his story about whether or not he actually knew Kerry in Vietnam. Lieutenant Commander George Elliott, central figure with the Swift Boat has said in an interview that he had made a ''terrible mistake" in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star. John McCain has thoroughly repudiated the ad, calling it "Dishonest and dishonorable" and a "Cheap Stunt." Swift Boat Veteran John O'Neill has been trying to discredit John Kerry for three decades.

The article and subsequent flurry of activity generated by the release of the advertisement has netted some interesting email. I excerpt some below:

Brian writes:

His testimony stated as fact (not opinion) that US soldiers were raping and pillaging Vietnam. It is not his opinion that is called into question: it is what Mr. Kerry presented as fact which clearly is not.

Actually, Kerry's testimony was consistent with other accounts of atrocities. Do you honestly maintain that no atrocities were committed in Vietnam?

Dan writes:

As a general philosophical construct conservatism observes tight ( some may characterize them as restrictive) moral behavior. Lying is at the very least frowned upon and, when corroborated with fact, spells certain political death. Witness George Bush senior's "read my lips" debaucle.

On the other hand, liberalism is defined by a lack of restrictions ( some may characterize these restrictions as morals). As a result truth is, to a liberal, at best subjective. Witness Bill Clinton questioning the defintions of simple words. Lying to a liberal is simply a reinterpretation of the events in question according to an individuals point of veiw, and those who lie masterfully are seen as clever and open minded.

I do not believe the truth is either conservative or liberal. It is simply the truth. Clinton was lying, ok? So are the Swift Boat Veterans.Conservatisim and liberalism don't have much to do with morals, my friend. I accept the idea that there may be a grain of truth to accusations of the Swift Boat Vets. Most really elegant lies are based on a sliver of truth. For example, I believe some of the Swift Boat Vets were in Vietnam at the same time as Kerry, but not much else. Can you acknowledge the obvious holes in their allegations? It just wouldn't stand up in court.

Dan Continues :

Now let us examine this quote:
"one cannot dispute the fact that he did serve, and by all accounts, served honorably and bravely"

firstly..."one cannot dispute that he did serve" Here we see our protagonist trying to redirect the argument to debate Kerry's service hoping that the mere fact that he served is honorable despite his conduct while in said indisputable service. I'm sorry dykstra, no one is disputing his service, just his conduct while serving.
next..."and by all accounts, served honorably and bravely"...this is a patently false statement. The very ad which is ranted against indisputably contains accounts to the contrary. The trick he wishes to use here is to discredit the testimony of those in the ad by disregarding them as any account at all. He would say, echoing the master, "it depends on what you mean by the term "accounts."....and what you mean by "served with John Kerry"...ect.

You are right, Dan. I should not have said that Kerry served honorably "...by all accounts." I should have said that he served honorably by all accounts given at the time of his service. The accounts given now, 35 years later, by politically motivated hatchet men, do indeed differ substantially from the accounts those same men gave at the time of the incidents. For the record, I do believe the fact that Kerry served is honorable. The record agrees with me.

You may already be free...

Another reminder that the really odious work of of the Bush administration is most often not apparent in their headline grabbing initiatives. It's in the way they do business that they demonstrate their contempt of transparent government and the ideals of free republic on which this country is founded. John Ashcoft has instructed library depositories to destroy documents that give citizens information on how to retrieve items that may have been confiscated by the government during an investigation.

From a statement by American Library Association President-Elect Michael Gorman:

Last week, the American Library Association learned that the Department of Justice asked the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the Department has deemed not "appropriate for external use." The Department of Justice has called for these five these public documents, two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library.

Though the justification for this action will doubtless be one of national security, this has nothing to do with our saftey. This is about power. Power used in this way will make us weaker and more vulnerable. Without the scrutiny of its citizens a republic rots from the top down. Is there any who doubt that power corrupts? Republicans, Democrats, Americans of all colors and sexual orientation can agree on one thing, I think: It is better to be free. But what do you do if you don't know that you are free?

That's why what Ashcroft is doing is actually scarier than an open assualt on transparent governement. He is not even challenging the right of American citizens to retrieve information from their government. He is simply removing knowledge and evidence of the right from public view. What a citizen doesn't know can't be used against the government, right?

I have lost all hope that these characters can lead us to victory in the war on terror. It's impossible to defend freedom when you don't know what it is.

Thanks to the president's leadership in the war on terror, this post is not political

"We don't do politics at Homeland Security," - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Wednesday, July 14, 2004 and Tuesday, August 3, 2004

"We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror." - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Monday, August 2, 2004

You speak, Democrats Listen

Hey Minnesotans, here's an opportunity to tell the Democrats what you think. Take a few minutes to do a brain dump to the DFL at Democrats Listen.

We interrupt this convention bounce to bring you a terror warning

John Kerry and anybody campaigning on his behalf, including Howard Dean, should not say that Ridge's terror alerts are politically motivated. It isn't a provable allegation and if there is an attack, the sound bite will be used to demolish Kerry's presidential aspirations. So I'll stop short of calling them false, because I don't know that they are. Infact,I am sure the intelligence on which the warnings are based is legitimate. It is just three or four years old.

All of us on the consumer side of news should be well aware that these announcements can and probably will be used for political benefit by the administration. With the New Republic's revelations that the US was pressuring Pakistan to capture Bin Laden during the Democratic National Convention, and loosely worded terror Warnings that seem to follow positive democratic announcements or events that reflect poorly on the administration, it is within reason to suspect the administration's motivations for issuing these alerts.

For example, the day after Edwards was chosen to complete the Democratic ticket, Ridge was on TV announcing terrorist activities. I predicted then, in a post in which I raised the national threat level that we would see something around the Democratic Convention. We did. During the convention itself, Pakistan delivered a small reward to Bush in the form of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. Three days after Kerry accepted the nomination, Ridge is back on TV gravely warning us of something that happened three years ago, that might still be happening today, but in reality, is a gigantic shaggy dog story.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad that Pakistan found a cache of ancient Al Qaeda intel. However, the fact that our intelligence agencies are panicking about three-year-old intelligence says a lot about what they know and don't know about what is going on right now. Answer: They don't know much. Ridge's willingness to ratchet up the threat level willy nilly is evidence of the administration's lack of sophistication and general unpreparedness in their approach to dealing with a large, stealthy adversary like Al Qaeda.

The question before us is not whether the threat warnings are politically motivated. Though Kerry can't say so, it seems obvious to this observer that Bush is using the threat warning system to knock the Democrats off balance during the election year. It won't work if Democrats don't take the bait. Kerry was right to distance himself from Dean. Kerry hit the right tone:

We are not going to get into a debate over whether the announcement was politically motivated, because it's clear that the dangers we face are real and that we are not as safe as we can or should be," Brooke Anderson, deputy communications director for Kerry's national security team, said Tuesday.

Enough with the warnings. Get serious about the real threat, Bush. Call Congress back from vacation to get moving on the 9/11 commission's recommendations, as John Kerry suggests.

Will Ferrell plays George Bush...fun on the farm

Here's a little fun, courtesy of Will Ferrell and ACT.

Ron Reagan in Esquire: The case against Bush

Ron Reagan gives us The Case Against George W. Bush. Many have come before him, but the source is compelling.

How to hide in plain sight: Tell the truth

Michael Novak has authored an opinion piece in the National Review Online entitled, "Why the Dems will Lose." Upon reading it, one wonders all over again what mail-order punditry school he attended. But I know the answer. He attended the GOP Talking Points Punditry School. But even with the semi-cogent, artfully advanced GOP arguments as filler, Novak's thinking doesn't gel.

His definitions of what a Democrat believes are remarkably off-base. In the opening paragraph of the article, Novak references an anonymous guru who describes the Democratic irritation with the president as:

paroxysm of hatred the Democrats have been indulging for the last six months is the worst American political delusion he has seen in his entire life.

Oh yes. There is political delusion in this country. But it is not the Democrats who are under the spell of Bush hatred, as Novak, the anonymous source and so many Republicans seem to wishfully think. Democrats are unified by something much stronger than the callow hatred of just one man. We have seen what the style and substance of the Bush administration and the Republican leadership has brought to our country and the world. It's true; we are angry. But we have dealt with our anger and channeled it into action. Now, Democrats are unified by our hopes for a more secure, prosperous, healthy and internationally savvy America. Republican delusion says Democrats are reinventing themselves. To their dismay, the truth is we are merely presenting ourselves.

Pundit after pundit in the So-Called-Liberal-Media remarked on the absence of "Bush-bashing" during the Democratic National Convention, like they had their knives and forks out for the big meal and only got served a cracker. Where was the anger, dammit? Where were the big gobs of spittle flying off the podium from enraged, speakers? Where was the Bush-bashing?

It isn't about Bush anymore. It's about the ideal of America. As Bill Clinton said so well in his convention speech,

Americans aren't that far to the right, our friends have to portray us Democrats as simply unacceptable, lacking in strength and values; in other words, they need a divided America. But we don't.

So let's look at Novak's six reasons why Democrats will lose and shed some light on them without the benefit of delusional Republican hyperbole. In fact, here's the first of six reasons why Kerry will win, in Novak's words:

1. No one — neither his colleagues nor his wife nor his supporters nor he himself — has anything good to say about John Kerry except that he served bravely in Vietnam. The nearly 30 years since then have generated few boasts on his part, few commendations from others, few successes anyone can seem to remember.

Novak is either kidding or just fantastically lazy, or both. Teresa Heinz can't say anything nice about her husband? C'mon. The last part would be a more interesting charge, if it were true. However, according to Kerry's website, 58 bills and resolutions John Kerry has sponsored over the years have passed the U.S. Senate. And I can think of another: Republican Attack Dog, Senator Bill Frist, praised Kerry for his work fighting the spread of HIV/Aids. Said Frist: “The Kerry-Frist bill is a huge step forward”

More interesting insight into Kerry's record can be developed if one looks at it through the lens of his past as a prosecutor. As this Christian Science Monitor article, Kerry in Congress: an investigator's rise, notes,

But his signature investigations were models of dogged, even relentless focus, and may tell more about his persona and likely attributes as a president than anything else he has done in his 19 years in the Senate.

In fact, Kerry's record as a tough, ambitious prosecutor won him critics as well as friends, but mostly it earned him respect.

Novak's second reason:

2. The Democratic elite sitting in convention cannot present themselves as they are to the American people, but must stifle their deepest feelings, be silent about their most passionate aims, and hide their turbulent loathing of George Bush Republicans (lest it frighten independents with its ferocity). The Democratic elite is saying as little as possible about same-sex marriage. And guns. And very little about abortion. And not a word about total withdrawal of American troops from Iraq — quite the opposite. Democratic elites do not want the people to know what they really think. On that ground, they fear they will lose.

This is the heart of the Republican delusion. Republicans like Novak sish with all their hearts that Democrats actually had a hidden agenda of hatred. I guess you'd have to be a Republican to think that way. Really, the innermost feelings of Democrats are an earnest and patriotic passion for a better America. We are not the party of fear. The Democratic elite was on the podium speaking to the nation for a week, speaking about our most passionate aims. We don't need to speak extensively about gay marriage right now because the idiotic attempt to mark up the US Constitution failed miserably. people want to let the states decide the issue. We don't need to preach much about abortion because we already represent the mainstream position. Most voters are pro-choice. We didn't preach total withdrawal from Iraq because our platform and our candidate don't represent that position. As Kerry said recently:

"I have consistently been critical of how we got where we are," Kerry responded. "But we are where we are, sir, and it would be unwise beyond belief for the United States of America to leave a failed Iraq in its wake."

I repeat. Our agenda is out in the open.

Here comes the third:

3. Democrats must hide from the public what they truly think about evangelicals, fundamentalists, and Catholics. They express these thoughts mostly among themselves.

Novak got this information from all those private Democratic meetings he has been attending, right? Here the reader is left to assume that what the Democrats actually think about evangelicals, fundamentalist and Catholics is negative. But here is what we really think: We welcome them with open arms into the Democratic party. I guess Novak must have over looked the fact that our candidate is a devout Catholic.

And now, number four:

4. John Kerry looks sillier in the pale blue NASA rabbit suit than Michael Dukakis did in a tank.

Kerry doesn't look nearly as silly in a clean suit as George Bush does in a flight suit under a banner that says "Mission Accomplished."

The fifth:

5. The months of April, May, and June were so heavy with bad news for George Bush — the huge Sorosian expenditures on anti-Bush ads came at him in torrents — and still he held even with Kerry in the polls. It is hard not to believe that there will be at least a slight change in the roaring winds. When it comes (and the change is already underway), it is bound to push Bush's sails steadily ahead as the weeks roll on.

More delusion. The GOP spent $100 million in the same period in the most negative attack ads in history. None of that brought down Kerry. In the meantime, Bush's approval ratings sank to an all time low and poll after poll has him losing a head to head battle with John Kerry. And that was before the convention. As events continue to slide further out of control in Iraq, the roaring winds of which Novak writes will Blow bush from office.

The last and final:

6. The worst lies told by the Democrats about Bush — those of Joe Wilson, Michael Moore, and others, saying that Bush lied about Iraq — have already been proven wrong by the 9/11 Commission (which was supposed to blow Bush out of the water just before the election, but ended up destroying his worst calumniators). These lies were also proven wrong by the British inquiry. Even the Kerry Convention in Boston ended up taking the Bush strategic line in Iraq, except for one thing: Kerry is wistful about the probability of persuading France and Germany to bear some burden on behalf of liberty in Iraq. Good luck! God knows, Bush and Colin Powell tried.

The 9/11 commission didn't work to destroy either side. Wilson's unscrupulous behavior cancels out Bush's outing of a CIA operative exactly how? European leaders are out in the open about favoring a Kerry presidency. And I am howling over the idea the Bush and Colin Powell actually tried to persuade the UN of anything. They were too busy sticking their fingers in the eyes of our allies and encouraging moronic congressman to edit the menu of the Capitol Cafeteria.

Finally Novak goes into never, never land with the following:

Finally, there is the matter of faith, even of the sort Tom Paine showed in 1776. Paine was no Christian, but he did believe that God had created this vast and splendid universe in order to share His friendship with free women and free men, and for this reason the Creator put freedom at the core of things. Tom Paine had no tolerance for the Bible, and less for Biblical fundamentalists, but he was not so much an atheist, he wrote, as to believe that the Almighty Who made the universe for liberty would allow the cause of people willing to die for it to come to naught. Paine couldn't bring himself to believe that God would favor George III.

In that same spirit, I find it hard to believe that the Creator who gave us liberty will ignore President Bush's willingness to sacrifice his own presidency for the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq — their 50 million citizens, and perhaps their progeny for ages to come. A kind of cosmic justice (which does not always materialize, I recognize) calls for vindication. Especially when the president has been so unfairly calumniated by his foes, domestic and foreign.

First of all, Afghanistan wasn't controversial. In no way did Bush sacrifice anything to remove the Taliban from power and punish them for hiding Osama Bin Laden. Americans overwhelmingly supported that mission and still do. Second, Bush didn't attack either Afghansitan or Iraq to liberate the people. He attacked Iraq because he thought it was a threat to the Security of the US.
There were lots of us who didn't agree with him and were against the war. Even so, a large percentage of people supported Bush in that effort. But Bush has let us down. He turned his back on Afghanistan to invade Iraq. Now the country is more destabilized than ever. As for Iraq, well, you don't have to have a degree from GOP Talkingpoints University to see that we will be there dying for many years. Novak misses the whole point. Novak drinks the Kool-Aid. Novak writes with blinders on. If Bush sacrifices his presidency on the altar of the Middle East, it won't be because he invaded. It will be because he did it so very, very poorly.

In conclusion, Novak writes that:

The theme of liberty in the Muslim world belongs to George Bush.

I can agree with that. The theme of liberty in the Muslim world does belong to George Bush....for about 100 neoconservatives working in the Bush administration and one lonely deluded columnist writing for the NRO. For the rest of us clear-eyed folks, liberty anywhere belongs to us all.

Kerry's message of tough optimism plays in Peoria

The fat lady is far from singing, but Kerry has nudged ahead of Bush where it counts. According to the latest Newsweek polls Kerry/Edwards Leads Bush/Cheney 52 to 44 Percent.

We'll see much more polling information over the next week, but there are some strong markers for Kerry. 58 percent are dissatisfied With direction of Country and 57 percent say the war with iraq has not made the U.S. safer. If Kerry can keep the upbeat, tough, centrist message alive and the party unified behind that message, he can win.

Are you with us? Are you the right color?

Sometimes the differences between the two parties are illustrated in the smallest things. Last week, Susan Sheybani was recorded wondering aloud "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"

This weekend Dick Cheney's staff continued to write the republican story of us vs. them. In the first, The Arizona Star says that Cheny's staff is doing racial profiling on reporters:

President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.

Next, cheny's staff made a couple of democratic attendees at a Cheney speech sign pledges that they support Bush before being issued tickets to the event.

To be fair, there may be stories behind the stories. Still, democrats, as a general rule, don't appear in stories like these. That's because, in general, those kinds of actions are widely considered to be un-democratic.

Personally, I hope Cheney just keeps on being his scowling, paranoid self.He is literally shoveling votes to Kerry.