"If I know Republicans and their grass-roots operations, they'll spend most of their time trying to phone bank the Amish," said Kerry spokesman Mark Nevins.

Other significant events that happened on this day?

- The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

- Karenna Gore, M. Night Shymalan and Soleil Moon Frye were born.

- Bush couldn't glean from a memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside America" that Osama bin Laden might be determined to attack inside America.

Note that since Jesse is half my age, he cites co-birthdayists (to coin a word) who are actually still alive.

"I deeply resent the destruction of federalism represented by Hillary Clinton's willingness to go into a state she doesn't even live in and pretend to represent people there. So I certainly wouldn't imitate it."

Alan Keyes today:

Alan Keyes . . . has agreed to accept the nomination as the Illinois GOP nominee for Senate and plans a public rollout for his campaign on Sunday, several Republican sources said Thursday.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown:

Keyes lives in Maryland and has no known connection to Illinois[.]

A funny thing happened after the United States transferred sovereignty over Iraq. On the ground, things didn't change, except for the worse.

But as Matthew Yglesias of The American Prospect puts it, the cosmetic change in regime had the effect of "Afghanizing" the media coverage of Iraq.

He's referring to the way news coverage of Afghanistan dropped off sharply after the initial military defeat of the Taliban. A nation we had gone to war to liberate and had promised to secure and rebuild - a promise largely broken - once again became a small, faraway country of which we knew nothing.

Incredibly, the same thing happened to Iraq after June 28. Iraq stories moved to the inside pages of newspapers, and largely off TV screens. Many people got the impression that things had improved. Even journalists were taken in: a number of newspaper stories asserted that the rate of U.S. losses there fell after the handoff. (Actual figures: 42 American soldiers died in June, and 54 in July.)

The trouble with this shift of attention is that if we don't have a clear picture of what's actually happening in Iraq, we can't have a serious discussion of the options that remain for making the best of a very bad situation.

The military reality in Iraq is that there has been no letup in the insurgency, and large parts of the country seem to be effectively under the control of groups hostile to the U.S.-supported government.

. . . .

One thing is clear: calls to "stay the course" are fatuous. The course we're on leads downhill. American soldiers keep winning battles, but we're losing the war: our military is under severe strain; we're creating more terrorists than we're killing; our reputation, including our moral authority, is damaged each month this goes on.

So am I saying we should cut and run? That's another loaded phrase. Nobody wants to see helicopters lifting the last Americans off the roofs of the Green Zone.

But we need to move quickly to end our position as "an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land," the fate that none other than former President George H. W. Bush correctly warned could be the result of an invasion of Iraq. And that means turning real power over to Iraqis.

. . . .

Should we cut and run? No. But we should get realistic, and look in earnest for an exit.

 

Bush flip-flops all the time. If he had been in public life as long as Kerry has, his flip-flops would be as legion as the fish in the sea.

But it is the areas in which Bush's convictions have not changed that are the most troubling, and this includes a religiosity that comforts him in his intellectual inertness and granite-like beliefs that are impervious to logic, such as his tax policy and his relentless march to war in Iraq. Flip-flopping, like beauty, is in the mind of the beholder. It can be an indicator of an alert mind, one that adjusts to new realities, or it can be evidence of ambition decoupled from principle. With Kerry it's a mix of both. With Bush, who changes his positions but never his mind, it is always the latter.

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.

 

They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

At a Monday night rally in Milwaukee, Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, introduced her husband. At times their speeches were interrupted by chants from Bush supporters using a megaphone on a nearby street to shout, "Four more years."

Heinz Kerry responded, "They want four more years of hell." The candidate threw back his head with a laugh, and the partisan, pro-Kerry crowd roared its approval, chanting, "Three more months, three more months," referring to the time remaining before the Nov. 2 election, with Heinz Kerry joining in.

Illinois Republican leaders asked Alan Keyes, an East Coast conservative who says out-of-state candidates aren't a good idea on principle, to be their U.S. Senate candidate Wednesday. But like a string of previous possiblities, Keyes said he needed a few days to think about it before deciding.

It's been a laborious six-week search as Republicans have sought a candidate willing to the tackle of daunting task of taking on Democratic rising star Barack Obama in the race for U.S. Senate.

'I'm Daniel Vovak. I'm running for senator. I'm the guy with the wig." That tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the process used Tuesday by the Illinois Republican Party to try to pick a nominee for the United States Senate.

. . . .

"It attracts attention," Vovak explained when asked about his George Washington colonial hairpiece, which at that moment was still tucked away in his backpack because Vovak said he "didn't want to have an unfair advantage" over the other candidates.

An amazing 13 individuals presented their credentials to the Republican State Central Committee in a closed-door meeting at the Union League Club. . . .

. . . .

Following the stir created by the appearance of Vovak, "the guy with the wig," the news media jumped to attention when they saw the "the guy with the beard.''

The guy with the beard was candidate Raymond Defenbaugh, a wealthy agribusinessman from Biggsville in western Illinois. Nobody had heard of him, which wasn't Defenbaugh's fault, but when we asked to see a copy of the resume he'd brought, Defenbaugh demurred.

"I'm not sure whether that would be safe or not," he said.

Defenbaugh's scraggly gray beard reached all the way to his necktie bar, which caused reporters to inquire as politely as possible whether the beard had some religious significance, guessing he might be Amish.

The reticent Defenbaugh explained even more politely that the purpose of his beard was to draw attention away from his right arm, severed below the elbow from a farm accident when he was young.

My first reaction was to look for his arm, which sure enough I hadn't noticed wasn't there, so transfixed was I by the beard.

. . . .

Wig guy Vovak said he's lived out of his car since moving to Illinois a month ago, which is one month more than Keyes has lived here.

The two finalists the party settled on after that meeting were Keyes and Andrea Grubb Barthwell. Who's Barthwell, you ask?

Some party insiders were surprised at the selection of Barthwell as a potential replacement for Ryan, who stepped down amid allegations he once took his wife to sex clubs. Barthwell has been the subject of a series of embarrassing revelations.

Republicans learned she contributed to Democrats and voted in Democratic primaries until 2001 when President Bush called her to ask her to serve as a deputy director at the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

And an internal probe found she "engaged in lewd and abusive behavior" by joking about an underling's sexual orientation.

"Are you f------ kidding me?" one GOP strategist close to the negotiations asked when told that Barthwell was in the top two.

Even more surprising to some was the ideological differences between Keyes and Barthwell. Barthwell has told the Sun-Times she supports abortion rights and opposes Bush's proposed amendment banning gay marriage.

Keyes is a staunch opponent of abortion and gay rights.

But [Illinois GOP Chairman Judy Baar] Topinka insisted "they are not necessarily on the opposite ends of the political spectrum."

State Sen. Dave Syverson, a panel member from Rockford, conceded the two clearly differ.

"It shows the diversity of party and the diversity of the state central committee," Syverson said.

He insisted the committee did not choose the two because both are African Americans, like Obama.

. . . .

"It just turned out to be that way," Syverson said. "We don't look at color the way the Democrats do. We look at the candidate and where they stand on the issues and their ability to articulate the issues," he said.

Sure, Dave. You look for a candidate who's strongly pro-choice or pro-life, and strongly supportive of, or opposed to, gay rights. And the Illinois GOP has put forward plenty of African-American candidates in the past. Such as . . .  well, OK, no one I can recall. The Chicago Tribune reported:

While some committee members said the issue of race was not specifically discussed in the meeting while they selected Keyes and Barthwell, one committee member said Keyes' race "obviously" played a role in his being seriously considered.

Josh Marshall has a hilarious piece about Keyes and Barthwell that you really should read in its entirety. Among other choice bits, he explains the sexual harassment charge against Barthwell:

In the words of the Associated Press, "In front of her staff, Andrea Grubb Barthwell made repeated comments about the sexual orientation of a staff member and used a kaleidoscope to make sexually offensive gestures ..."

The staffer in question later told the investigator that he found her comments "lewd, derogatory and called into question his heterosexuality."

A kaleidoscope, you ask?

Thus the AP ...

The lewd and abusive behavior finding stemmed from a Dec. 19, 2002, staff gathering. Barthwell made comments about a staff member's sexual orientation after the staff member misspoke in an earlier conversation, the memorandum said.

"Dr. Barthwell made reference to this staff member sitting on men's laps. A kaleidoscope pointed upward was placed on a chair by Dr. Barthwell as the staff member was about to sit down," it said.

"Dr. Barthwell suggested that the staff member would want to cut the cake available for the gathering because the knife was 'long and hard' and he might 'enjoy handling it.' When the cake was cut, Dr. Barthwell referred to the pieces as 'most' or 'beefy' and she said to the staff member, 'I know you like it big and meaty.'"

Notwithstanding the strong social skills one might infer from that anecdote, the report also said that Barthwell's staff "almost uniformly stated their fear and discomfort with what they consider to be unusual behavior patterns and displays of temper."

Josh has a lot to say about Keyes, too. Remember when you're reading his post that these are the two best candidates the GOP was able to come up with.

The [SEC] did not say that Mr. Cheney acted improperly, and the papers released by [it] did not detail the extent to which he was aware of the change or of the requirement to disclose it to investors. The S.E.C. said that Mr. Cheney had testified under oath and had "cooperated willingly and fully in the investigation conducted by the commission's career staff."

The blogosphere's usual supects have their customary excellent analysis of this, and are, to say the least, highly skeptical that Cheney didn't know about the accounting change. Billmon has the most thorough discussion. Here's Josh Marshall:

[N]ot surprisingly, in the article, Cheney's lawyer, Terrence O'Donnell is trumpeting the results of the investigation as a clean bill of health for Cheney.

Now, with a whitewash, you might at least expect that Cheney would be denying knowledge that this took place, as implausible as it might sound. But he won't. After taking down O'Donnell's crowing about the results of the investigation, the Times asked whether Cheney "had been aware of the effect of the accounting change on the company's profits." But O'Donnell wouldn't answer.

So here you have the Vice President of the United States. His company gets caught in about as clear a case of cooking the books to inflate profits as you can imagine during the time he was CEO. (His salary and bonuses are tied to company profits.) And he won't even go to the trouble of denying that he was aware of the wrongdoing.

Can we have some more aggressive reporting on this one?

And Kevin Drum:

All I can say about this is that it must be mind-numbingly frustrating to be an SEC investigator. Dick Cheney — like most CEOs in cases like this — is off the hook because there's no smoking gun. But anybody who's spent even a few minutes in the executive suite of a large corporation knows that of course Cheney knew about this. Not only did he know, but this over-budget project was almost certainly a subject of considerable interest to him, the cost overruns were probably a subject of numerous status reports, and its effect on Halliburton's earnings was surely a frequent source of conversation. There is nothing that a CEO pays more attention to than his company's quarterly and yearly earnings reports. Nothing.

So Cheney knew. But as long as his former CFO and controller are willing to fall on their swords for him, there will never be any proof. And we will all go on pretending that when FY98 earnings turned out to be 46% higher than expected, Dick Cheney just scratched his chin, said "I'll be damned, things turned out OK after all," and then went out and played a round of golf. When he got back, nobody on his financial team, nobody in sales, nobody on the board, none of the analysts who follow Halliburton, and nobody in operations ever mentioned the subject of surprisingly high corporate earnings in his presence again.

And they all lived happily ever after.

God, I'm sick of this stuff. During the Clinton administration, nothing Bill or Hillary did before Bill took office (Whitewater) or after (Filegate, Travelgate) was too inconsequential for the Republican Congress, their attack dog Ken Starr, and a compliant media to blow it up into a huge scandal. Nor was anything too personal and unrelated to the duties of office (Monica) to warrant such treatment. Today, it seems that there is nothing anyone in the Bush administration can do, however criminal, venal, or in breach of the public trust, that it can't be swept under the rug.

It may be, as Kevin says, that it's too difficult in a case like this for the SEC to prove what Cheney knew and when he knew it. But shouldn't the media and Congress have some interest in this? I'm sure that they would have reacted with much more than a collective yawn if the company of which Vice President Gore had been the CEO had been fined for the same behavior. And shouldn't President Bush, who professes to believe deeply in corporate responsibility and personal responsibility, be calling for reforms that would make high corporate officials liable for malfeasance that they knew or should have known about?

John Kerry Volunteered for Vietnam, Commanded a Swift Boat, and was Decorated for Heroism. John Kerry volunteered for service in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War, where he served two tours of duty -- one tour as commander of a Navy Swift Boat in the Mekong Delta. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Combat "V", three Purple Hearts, the Presidential Unit Citation for Extraordinary Heroism, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, three Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medals and the Combat Action Ribbon. Following his service in Vietnam, Kerry served the United States Naval Reserves through 1978. [John Kerry’s official U.S. Navy service records. Available online at JohnKerry.com]

is more impressive than Bush's military record.

Americans Coming Together is easily the most important 527 of the cycle, and may very well hold the future of the party in its hands. Predicated entirely on grassroots organizing, voter registration and turnout, ACT has been active in battleground states since November 2003, eight months before any Kerry (obviously) or party organization (surprisingly) was on the ground.

Armed with palm pilots, the army of ACT workers and volunteers are building a voter database that rivals the much heralded Demzilla database built by the DNC.

I have a rough thesis that there is nothing the party can do, that private 527s, PACs, and other organizations can't do better, cheaper, and/or more efficiently. ACT is exhibit A.

Duncan B. Black holds a PhD in economics from Brown University. He has held teaching and research positions at the London School of Economics; the Université Catholique de Louvain; the University of California, Irvine; and, recently, Bryn Mawr College. He also has been involved with grassroots political activism. Black is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America. (mis-capitalization corrected by me)

(CNN) -- A former Air Force chief of staff and one-time "Veteran for Bush" said Saturday that America's foreign relations for the first three years of President Bush's term have been "a national disaster" but that the president's Democratic rival was "up to the task" of rebuilding.

Retired Gen. Tony McPeak, the Air Force chief of staff during the first Gulf War, delivered the Democratic radio address supporting implementation of the 9/11 commission's recommendations for national security.

"As president, John Kerry will not waste a minute in bringing action on the reforms urged by the 9/11 commission," McPeak said of the Massachusetts senator nominated by the Democrats this week. "And he will not rest until America's defenses are strong."

The president, on the other hand, "fought against the very formation of the commission and continues to the present moment to give it only grudging cooperation, no matter what he says," the general said. "Why should we believe he will do anything to institute the needed change?"

. . . .

McPeak, a former fighter pilot who campaigned for Bob Dole in 1996 as well as Bush in 2000, said Bush's inability to craft a true allied coalition was a serious deficiency.

"The report of the 9/11 commission makes this clear: Fighting terrorists alone just doesn't work," he said. "If our enemy hatches a terror plot in Rome, we will need help from the Italians. If German intelligence knows the whereabouts of a senior al Qaeda member, America must have that information."

Instead, he said, Bush has "alienated our friends, damaged our credibility around the world, reduced our influence to an all-time low in my lifetime, given hope to our enemies."

McPeak said he backed Bush in 2000 because he "had hoped this president could provide" the leadership needed to face modern threats. But disillusionment, he said, has led him to change his voter registration from Republican to independent and shift his support to Kerry.

. . . .

"We who have some experience -- who have seen war close up and sent troops to battle -- know that victory is not won by single combat," he continued. "War is not like that. War is a team sport.

"We built the team that won World War II. We put together the great team that won the Cold War. That's why what has happened over the last three years is such a tragedy, such a national disaster. Rebuilding the team won't be easy." (link via BuzzFlash)