John Kerry, smarting from the Swift Boat Veterans flap, has challenged President Bush to a series of weekly debates. It's a pretty typical stunt to try to make oneself seem to be taking the high road, and as usual the challengee, Bush, has declined the offer.

On the one hand I'm sympathetic to the desire to focus on the issues, though it's a bit rich hearing the suggestion come from a man whose entire campaign has been based on the fact that he briefly fought in Vietnam.

On the other hand, I doubt that Kerry's proposed debates would actually work to focus the campaigns on the issues. Presidential debates make a mockery of the word "debate." The candidates don't engage with each other's ideas. They just look for ways to segue from the question into a canned spiel made up of focus-group-tested sound bites.

Wow, I heard about this guy who did a pretty good job yesterday of attacking the President's decision to go to war in Iraq and defending John Kerry against the Swift Boat Veterans. Here's what he said about the war:

The president made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be" after U.S. troops went to Iraq

And here's what he said about Kerry:

"I think Senator Kerry should be proud of his record," he said. "No, I don't think he lied."

Who was this new liberal spokesman? Max Cleland? Nope. John Edwards? Nope. Kerry? Nope. It was President Bush himself. Who knew?

I used to be a corporate PR flack. I'm not proud of it, but it paid the bills, it was legal, and I learned a few things.

For example, my PR experience tells me that G.W. Bush is getting exactly what he wants out of the whole Swift Boat controversy by calling for an end to "527" ads just before MoveOnPac.Org is scheduled to drop its "Real Americans" ad during the upcoming Republican Convention.

This is a guest post from Jeff Softley.

Rock the Vote (RtV), the MTV-themed campaign to channel youthful energy into electoral politics through the power of celebrity and the cachet of cool has proven over its nearly fifteen years of existence to be useless. A simple comparison of RtV’s mission statement and the voting statistics for young voters during the election cycles in which RtV has participated tells the story.

Youth voting has actually declined since RtV has been in existence. Only in 1992 did youth voting tick upward from its continuing downward descent (but so did all other age groups that year). Voter turnout among 18-24 year-olds was around 45% in 1990, RtV’s first year in business, but by 2000, this age group was voting in the range of 38%. There were about 27 million young people aged 18-24 in 1990 and around 29 million in 2000. That means around 11 million young people voted in 2000, and 12.1 million young people voted in 1990, for a net loss of one million young voters.

I have another entry up in my Ann Coulter series, this one covers the war in Iraq. More tomorrow.

This is a guest post from Larry S. Rolirad.

People that are of more of a danger to our country than outside terrorists are corporate criminals. Our country is being destroyed by them. Yes, I am FOR going after people who are actual terrorists, but I am also against the wholesale corruption in corporations all across America. These corporate thugs are worse than terrorists. They destroy lives just as terrorists but they don't face the same wrath as terrorists. Corporations own our government, own our representatives, and write our laws. We the people don't control our country. It is corporate parasites who have stolen our country with their vast reservoirs of money. And when they aren't stealing money from our government and from our pockets they are invading our lives and our privacy. Our privacy should be protected by our Constitution and Bill of Rights, but is no longer. Our privacy is for sale to the highest bidder. And once they have every bit of information about us they can control us. To fight homegrown corporate terrorism I have proposed the following to become law, "Forfeiture Laws for CEOs."

I finally have the latest installment of my Ann Coulter series up. This one is an attack on the Los Angeles Times. More tomorrow.

Question: What do you do when you have absolutely nothing new to say?

Answer: You link to someone who does.

Stentor Danielson is as usual witty, sharp, rational, and heterodox - in particular, go read his posts on Marxism, Nader haters, and locking doors.

Over the next four years, the president will have to deal with:

• A regrouping al-Qaida terrorist network
• North Korea building nuclear weapons
• A quagmire in Iraq
• Skyrocketing oil prices
• A crushing federal budget deficit
• Global climate change
• Continued pushes for marriage equality
• Possibly the appointment of one or more Supreme Court justices
• Ensuring Americans have access to health care
• Restructuring Social Security to bear the weight of retiring Baby Boomers

And yet the biggest issue of the campaign is what John Kerry did or did not do three and a half decades ago in Vietnam?

It's not an illusion - Part 4 of Freedom of Slavery is here.

Everybody knew that in order to keep communists and other undesirables from overthrowing liberty and forming a government that was so tyrannical it spied on people’s everyday lives, the Cartel investigated everything that might be construed as anti-capitalist activity and monitored mail, the Internet, phone lines, and even what programs suspicious people watched on television or listened to on the radio.

Sebastian Holsclaw lists a few left-wing, pro-Kerry, or anti-Bush movies and says that it means Hollywood is liberal. Further, he says, talk radio is a reaction to liberal Hollywood, so liberals shouldn't bitch about "how to combat conservative talk radio shows." Maybe he's right. But even if he is, the evidence he presents in the linked post is anecdotal. Some of you might remember my Liberals vs. Conservatives article, where among other things I attacked the use of anecdotes given without context, and Sebastian does just that.

There's a way to determine what Hollywood's political orientation is. We can do a study of all movies released in the last 10 years that grossed over 50 million dollars in the USA. Each of these movies we will categorize as "very liberal" (e.g. Mercury Rising, The Day After Tomorrow), "mildly liberal" (The Matrix Reloaded, Godzilla), "neutral or apolitical" (The Matrix), "mildly conservative" (Independence Day, every Halloween-inspired horror movie), or "very conservative" (The Passion of the Christ). Michael Moore's movies are a class in itself. That way we can compare. Listing a few movies, some of which would probably end up in the "neutral" category in such a study because their politics are so weak or unimportant, and then calling this evidence of Hollywood's liberalism is futile.

A scary quote from OSP member Drucilla Blood: "Being a member of the white race, and living in a society in which the white race is the race of privilege, I am, in fact, a racist."

Funny, I thought a racist was a person who thought that some races were superior to other races... But that's so (in Clueless accent) old left, apparently. Even Malcolm X eventually admitted that not all whites were devils.

P.S. Chapter 3 of Freedom is Slavery will be posted very, very soon.

There's been some buzz recently about remarks made by now-Senate candidate Alan Keyes back in May about September 11. Keyes' theory is that the terrorist attacks were a wake-up call from a God angry about abortion. It's nice that he managed to narrow it down so well, since the last time we heard this theory, Pat Robertson was attributing the attacks to the whole suite of conservative bogeymen, from pagans to feminists.

Keyes isn't painting a terribly flattering picture of God. Being omnipotent, God is usually able to target his punishments a bit more effectively. He promised Abraham he'd let the whole city of Sodom off the hook if he could find 10 righteous people in it. And when he couldn't, he still took the time to evacuate Lot and his family. So knocking down the World Trade Center and the Pentagon sounds like a pretty ham-handed strategy. Perhaps Keyes thinks that 4,000 pro-choice WTC employees were warned to stay home on September 11.

Ambush in Ramadi

Whether or not you support the war in Iraq, there should be little debate as to the yeoman's work being doing by our sons and daughters and husbands and wives in uniform. Roughly 1000 Americans have died in combat in Iraq, and many have also died in Afghanistan serving their country.

Whether or not these soldiers believed in the war they were fighting, they have by and large done their duty professionally and competently. The nature of war, though, is that people die- regardless of how professional, well-trained, and competent they may be.

This is the story of Echo Company. It's a story of death and pain and suffering, both for the soldiers and those they left behind.

On all sides of the intersection that marked the Ramadi marketplace, Iraqi fighters with AK-47's and rocket-propelled grenade launchers had taken positions on the roofs of the one-story buildings. A heavy .50-caliber Russian-made machine gun was on one corner rooftop, where the gunner could sweep the street. Other fighters were hidden behind trees just beyond the market stalls.

About 50 well-armed insurgents were waiting for Wroblewski and his Marines.

This is not a story with a happy ending, but it is a story about sacrifice and duty and honor. Those are not Progressive or Conservative values. They're American values. When you read this story, remember that all of these people volunteered to be soldiers. Then reach for the Kleenex.

Due to the increasing size of this list (I update it whenever a particularly good resource pops up on my radar) and the fact that our Movable Type system is being a punk, I'm reposting this anew.

Just a quick post to show some of the more pertinent information on this Swift Boat crap. Not a real posty-like post, but a list of resources one can use to research the story a little further. No submissions from Free Republic, Human Events Online, or Drudge. Enjoy.

• Republicans' Dishonorable Charge by Joe Conason
• Scott Swett, Swiftboat Hatriot from the DKos diaries
• CNN Trifecta
• Who is Jerome Corsi, co-author of Swift Boat Vets attack book? from Media Matters
• Below the belt from the Guardian
• John Kerry Urban Myths from Snopes.com
• Swift Boat Veterans for a Big Lie by Matt Gunn
• Kerry’s accuser remembered it wrong. But so what? The Globe didn’t tell you from the Daily Howler
• Allow me to cut to the chase.. from Skeptical Notion
• Where Were You on Christmas, 1968? from CJR Campaign Desk
• Good guy vs disgrace to pond scum everywhere from the Left Coaster
• Update: Man Kerry Rescured Calls Swift Boat Ad False: Gives Vivid Account of Rescue Under Enemy Fire from FactCheck.org
• Spinning swiftly from Spinsnaity
• Holiday In Cambodia from Matthew Yglesias
• On Cambodia from The Island of Balta
• Lower Than Low by Digby
• Kerry in Cambodia by Kevin Drum
• Kerry, SOG and the war in Cambodia by Steve Gilliard
• Lost in the Fog of War Records from CJR Campaign Desk
• Records Counter a Critic of Kerry from the Washington Post
• Confronted with MMFA research, O'Neill denied $7,000 in contributions to Republicans from Media Matters
• Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad from the New York Times
• Credibility Stretching...Stretching from Pandagon
• Connections and Contradictions (graphic) from the New York Times

The post where I promised to post chapter 3 of Freedom is Slavery by the 8th doesn't exist - it's just the Matrix messing with your mind. Even if it exists, my original goal is a chapter per 2 weeks, obviously not including compensation for the loooong time I didn't write any FIS.

Anyway, there's a place on the Blogosphere called The Iron Blog. It's kind of the Iron Chef of Internet debate - there are four Iron Bloggers (OSP members Jay Bullock and Dru Blood, Libertarian Vinod Valloppillil, and Republican Big Dan), and people can decide to challenge them. The chairman of IB then picks up a topic, and the battle begins - both sides then submit opening arguments at the same time, then the challenger and the Iron Blogger submit rebuttals twice each, and then sumbit closing arguments at the same time.

This looked promising. It still looks promising. And it has the advantage of being a forum where people can debate controversial issues without going down to the level of flames you see on Free Republic and Democratic Underground. Unfortunately, it has several problems limiting the critical exchange of ideas. Because the chairman picks the topic, the issues that are discussed are only reviewed by one person, who doesn't even do the debating. In less moderated debate forums it's customary for the debate to be between two people, usually but not always of equal stature, and for the two people to decide on the debate topic. That's how it works when the debate evolves spontaneously, and also how it works on the infidels.org forums.

God damn, that's funny:

[Bob Novak] really is a Douchebag of Liberty.

Ah, the latest attacks are flimsy. Just like the initial attacks, of course.

As Fox sees it, that 36-year-old government denial casts doubt on Kerry's stated remembrances. But given the mudded history of Vietnam, an official government stance should hardly translate into certain fact -- especially now that it's known that the U.S. government conducted numerous secret operations throughout Cambodia during the Vietnam War as early as 1967 (as PBS's "Frontline," among myriad others, has reported).

It's just a coincidence that nearly every reference on the web to the so-called Big Lie seems to have been posted in the last day or two.

Sounds like a typical Republican tactic: throw fabrications and falsehoods at the target, hope that something sticks. When it doesn't, then let's really start looking for slip-ups!

The President, in his younger days, showing us physically then what the Republicans do verbally now.

Props to This Modern World for the heads-up.

Michael Kinsley points out what I have been saying for a long time and what Kenneth Quinnell has been proving probably longer: Republicans are just plain bad for the economy:

It turns out that Democratic presidents have a much better record than Republicans. They win in a head-to-head comparison in almost every category. Real growth averaged 4.09% in Democratic years, 2.75% in Republican years. Unemployment was 6.44%, on average, under Republican presidents, and 5.33% under Democrats. The federal government spent more under Republicans than Democrats (20.87% of GDP, compared with 19.58%), and that remains true even if you exclude defense (13.76% for the Democrats, 14.97% for the Republicans).

What else? Inflation was lower under Democratic presidents (3.81% on average, compared with 4.85%). And annual deficits took more than twice as much of GDP under Republicans than Democrats (2.74% of GDP versus 1.21%). Republicans won by a nose on government revenue (i.e., taxes), taking 18.12% of GDP, compared with 18.39%. That, of course, is why they lost on the size of the deficit.

Go on, now: school ‘em!

E.J. Perkins over at azcentral.com has given us a basic rundown of the service records of prominent folks on the left, the right, and in the middle. It doesn't really make any judgments regarding the folks who did serve (except Schwarzenegger's single year in the Austrian army he spent bodybuilding)

So, without further ado, here is the condensed list (just the ones who served; the full list is at link provided above) of Who Actually Served in the Military:

My latest projection of the electoral college results is up and Kerry clearly shows a post-convention bounce. He's up to 303-207, definitely the highest total I've projected for him yet. That being said, the lead is tenuous, as many states are still within the margin of error. The numbers show, though, that most of the battleground states are strongly Kerry or within striking distance. The remaining states are either tied or I still have not found poll data for them. I have also included a large number of meaningless national polls as well. Here are some other projections:

• Electoral Vote.com: Kerry 307-231
• Hedgehog Report: Kerry 296-242
• Rasmussen Kerry 232-197
• Election Projection Kerry 327-211
• Robert Silvey Kerry 274-264

Note that sevearl of these are conservative bloggers that had previously shown large leads for Bush but had to switch because of reality. The last on the list says that without including Fox News polls in his projection, the tally switches to Kerry 301, Bush 237. Based on all the other projectors, I get the feeling that the Fox data is suspect at best.

When the president of the United States says things like this:

Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. You're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.

Thank the heavens we're firing the bastard.

(Thanks to Brad DeLong for the heads-up.)

You don't need to worry about John Kerry's sperm suit when the Torturer in Chief gives you photo ops (cough) like this one eating uncooked, unpeeled sweet corn:

I do believe that I owe Get Donkey and Iowa Populist a shout out for catching this most delicious picture!

There's some hoopla lately about Kerry's purple hearts and military service record. About half an hour ago (it's now 22:10) I considered writing something like "Am I the only one who doesn't give a damn?" but then realized that on OSP only one person seriously delved into this, so the answer to my question was most certainly in the negative.

A purple heart is a medal you get for being wounded in combat. Rational people will do their utmost to avoid getting a purple heart for obvious reasons. But patriotism is not rational, so people turn soldiers into heroes for getting a purple heart. In a war, the idea is to get the other side as many wounded as you can, not to get wounded yourself. As such, discussion on whether Kerry deserved his purple hearts or not is futile. It takes a seriously twisted person to think that getting wounded in combat is a good thing, or indeed one that shows heroism (it only shows the enemy's ability...).

Besides, all this talk about Kerry's military service record is not relevant whatsoever. He's up for president, not swift boat commander. Whether he went along well with his fellow officers won't change anything in his presidency. What does matter is that he enlisted in Vietnam like a good sheep, killed Vietnamese civilians, and then said he was against the war. Then he voted for the war on Iraq that killed Iraqi civilians and said he was against it. He's like the Catholic church - he'll shoot you and then say he's sorry; whether he means it or not is irrelevant to you when you're dead.

Why can't we have another president with Bill Clinton's military record?