Barefoot And Naked

Bush Speech Exceeds Expectations: He Didn't Drool on Himself

Yes, the title is snarky, but hey: if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm not a fan.

New Bush slogan: Okay I failed at this twice already, but this time I think I can do it right.

The speech itself was well delivered, and Bush looked good doing it. He did a good job invoking 9/11 and binding himself to the emotion of that event without going over the top. In his emotional closing he got appropriately misty-eyed while discussing our brave troops without appearing cloying. I think he did a very good job uniting the GOP and appealing to his base.

It was a fabulous speech - if what he needed to do was:

1. rally his base,
   
2. show that he remembers 9/11,
   
3. eliminate suspicion that he doesn't respect our troops, and
   
4. prove he was determined to fight terrorism.
   

The problem is that what he actually needed to do was:

1. demonstrate he cared about people who are struggling economically and lay out some new policies that will stimulate the economy,
   
2. prove he has a plan to reduce the deficit,
   
3. explain how his policies have made America safer from terrorism, and
   
4. show he has a freaking clue about how to successfully complete the war in Iraq.

Given what he needed to accomplish, I think he failed.

The LA Times editorial page sums it up as well as anyone could:

Los Angeles Times - Editorials, Commentary, and Letters to the Editor

"I am running for president with a clear and positive plan to build a safer world and a more hopeful America," President Bush said Thursday night. His well-written speech would have been more convincing if he had not actually been president for the last four years.

Let me address each of the goals he needed to accomplish individually.

#1: Demonstrate he cared about people who are struggling economically and lay out some new policies that will stimulate the economy.

As far as speaking to all of those who are struggling or worried, this is all he had to say about their situation and fears:

This changed world can be a time of great opportunity for all Americans to earn a better living, support your family, and have a rewarding career.

Oh! The compassion for those laid off! Suck it up people, this is an opportunity. I'm shocked Bush didn't claim that the Chinese word for "crisis" is the same as the word for "opportunity". Nothing makes a swing voter feel better about their situation than a good dose of patronizing rhetoric. At least he didn't call them Girlie Men.

Bush then laid out a laundry list of policy proposals most of which are not new. When they were new, one had to wonder why a Republican President with a Republican Congress and a Republican Senate hadn't actually passed one of these ideas into law? In fact of the Bush's proposals, 5 describe already existing programs, he fails to explain how he will pay for any of them, and well, most of them would have been more convincing if he had not actually been president for the last four years.

I run down every one of his domestic proposals in the "continue reading" section below.

#2 Prove he has a plan to reduce the deficit.

Ha Ha Ha Ha! Wait, no! That's a good one. Needless to say he failed to do this - Bush never even spoke the word "deficit" last night.

#3 Explain how his policies have made America safer from terrorism.

All Bush could do was claim (3 times) that the war in Iraq has made America safer from terrorism. That's it - no other policies were mentioned. Just the assertion that the war in Iraq has made us safer from terrorism. Polls show that most of the swing voters do not believe the Iraq war has made us safer. Simply saying it has will convince no one. Bush really failed to make his case here. By failing to address the concerns of the swing voters, Bush concedes the issue.

#4 Show he has a freaking clue about how to successfully complete the war in Iraq.

He didn't address this at all. He's referred to Iraq as a "catastrophic success". In my history classes we used the synonym "phyrric victory". Polls show that swing voters are very concerned that the war in Iraq has no plan and is not proceeding well. By failing to address this perception, Bush lets it fester.

Like I said before, Bush failed to achieve what he needed to in this speech. Coupled with Ahnold's disappointment and the travesty that was Zell's speech, I would say the convention was a big flop for Bush. This race is going to come down to those swing voters, and unless Bush begins addressing their concerns soon he's going to lose.

In the "continue reading" section I go through all of Bush's domestic laundry list. Check it out.

Continue reading "Bush Speech Exceeds Expectations: He Didn't Drool on Himself"

Clinton Suffers Heart Attack

Yahoo! News - Clinton in NY Hospital for Heart Surgery

Apparently the big dog had a heart attack.

I hope he recovers, and pray for him and his family.

The Question That We Most Want Asked

The World's Shortest Blog may be short, but it deserves a lot more attention.

The World's Shortest Blog - Just One Question...

The one and only post is priceless, and any W fans should avoid it.

Check it out.
Via Alan.

What Was The Romney Surprise

After hyping Mitt Romney's speech by promising a "big surprise", many have been left wondering what the surprise was.

BAN is on the story! After exhaustive research, we can now reveal that the surprise was that Romney sure has a purty mouth.

Cole Explains Bush in Corporate Terms

The good Prof. Cole does a nice job framing the question undecided voters are struggling with. Bush needed to take his moment in the spotlight and lay out a plan for addressing these questions the voters are struggling with.

Later, I'll discuss whether he succeeded. For now, check out Prof. Cole's post:

The CEO Test for Bush

Let us imagine you had a corporation with annual gross revenues of about $2 trillion. And let's say that in 2000, it had profits of $150 billion. So you bring in a new CEO, and within four years, the profit falls to zero and then the company goes into the red to the tune of over $400 billion per year. You're on the Board of Directors and the CEO's term is up for renewal. Do you vote to keep him in? That's what Bush did to the US government. He took it from surpluses to deep in the red. We are all paying interest on the unprecedented $400 billion per year in deficits (a deficit is just a loan), and our grandchildren will be paying the interest in all likelihood.

What if Bush wins?

The Washington Monthly has a series of short articles by various writers on the likely effects of George W. winning a second term, and by and large they're very good. However, it's up for grabs which of the following is filled with more wishful thinking:

"W Goes For Global Warming", by Gregg Easterbrook, which turns into, wouldn't it be nice if W went for global warming?

"The Democratic Party is Toast", by Grover Norquist, who somehow manages the whole article without the line about hearing the lamentations of their women.

...or, saddest of all...

"Bush Becomes A Moderate, Really", by Mickey Edwards and Nancy Sinnott Dwight, who seem like very nice centrist Republicans; I can only assume that the tensions between hating Bush but not wanting to vote Democratic have led them to divorce themselves from reality altogether.

Zell Miller *likes* America

Instapundit endorses what strikes me as the absolute lamest media criticism I've heard in a while (although admittedly, I haven't been reading Instapundit for quite some time, and found this post through Matthew Yglesias):

John McCain was on NBC immediately following Miller's speech. He said something to the effect that it was wrong for Miller to question Kerry's patriotism, even though Miller explicitly stated that he was not questioning Kerry's patriotism. Brokaw, of course, did not correct him

Now, let's look at Zell Miller's speech and play the game of He's Not Questioning Kerry's Patriotism, But...

So he's not questioning Kerry's patriotism, but "while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief."

...but "today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator."

...but "Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending."

...but "he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far away."

...but "[f]rom John Kerry, [the terrorists] get a "yes-no-maybe" bowl of mush that can only encourage our enemies and confuse our friends."

So, still a patriot, just one of those patriots who blames America first, weakens America, sees America as an occupier, and hates its military. You know, *that* kind of patriot.

Best Pic of Protesters Yet

Courtesy of RNC Protester Sarah at Pinktalk:Go home, RNC.: Protest7

Go say Hi.

Who Needs Buchanan? The Gopers Have Zell!

For crying out loud, the man was scowling while he spoke of his great-grandchildren!

It's a dangerous game asking crotchety septuagenarian to speak at a convention. The Gopers found that out last night. Oddly, I don't think they even realize the damage Zell did to their cause.

Georgia Senator Zell Miller gave the keynote address at the Goper convention last night, and really captured the essence of this convention: a lot of anger, an irrational hatred of John Kerry, and absolutely no information whatsoever about what plans the Gopers might have for a second term.

I think the Zell pretty much let everyone know what he, and the Gopers, are about with this memorable line from his speech:

Look at you [Kerry]. You used to be so cocky! You were going to go out and conquer the world! You once called me a warped, frustrated old man. What are you but a warped, frustrated young man? A miserable little clerk crawling in here on your hands and knees and begging for help. No securities –– no stocks –– no bonds –– nothing but a miserable little five hundred dollar equity in a life insurance policy. You're worth more dead than alive. Why don't you go to the riff-raff you love so much and ask them to let you have eight thousand dollar? You know why? Because they'd run you out of town on a rail!

All kidding aside, the Gopers seem to have forgotten that the audience for their convention is really the undecided voters. As I pointed out yesterday, these voters are looking for a reason to keep the President in office. The poll numbers show clearly they are not happy with the status quo, and want to hear a plan for the next four years.

Serving up a big steaming pile of "Kerry is an evil man who kills kittens for fun" may seem like fun to the delegates in Madison Square Garden, but it doesn't do anything to assure voters that things will get better if they keep W in office. Offering 4 more years of the same old thing isn't going to get it done for Bush. The swing voters are dissatisfied with the direction of the country - they want to hear how Bush/Cheney will make things better.

In 1992, Pat Buchanan's speech was well received by the delegates, but it scared the pants off the swing voters who were not happy to hear the angry, scowling rants of a culture warrior. Zell's speech was well received by the delegates (and I must say part of that is that Republicans are notoriously lacking in rousing oratory - so Zell seemed quite inspiring by comparison). But I'm afraid that the swing voters were most likely put off by the angry scowling speech. For crying out loud, the man was scowling while he spoke of his great-grandchildren!

Watching the speech, I thought I could hear the sounds of thousands of TV channels changing over to watch reruns of CSI-Miami. You know what I was doing, Eddie? I was giggling my motherlovin' ass off!

Bush Twins Not Drunk: Just Performance Art

I previously blogged that I suspected the Bush twins were drunk last night. It turns out I was wrong. Their's was a sublime work of performance art, and not, as I originally thought, a pitiably embarrassing speech:

Michael Bérubé Online

Next up were the twins, Barbara and Jenna. And here, I think, is where my new party revealed a genius I didn't know it had. For years, progressive-left literary types like me used to taunt Republicans: "nyah nyah, nyah nyah," we suggested, "you don't know anything about surrealism, nyah nyah, never heard of the European avant-garde, la la la la la la." We thought we were the last word in urbane sophistication, and that Republicans could not begin to comprehend– or even catch– our allusions to figures like Bréton and Bataille. But then along come the Bush twins, and ooh la la, surrealism is born anew! "My Dad already had a chief of staff– and his name is Andy!" said Jenna. It is beyond humor, it is beyond your petty-ironic Democrat understanding. "Our parents' favorite term of endearment for each other is Bushy," they said, following this with "we had a hamster too, but our hamster didn't make it." What does this mean? you ask. Foolish liberal Democrats, fretting about "what does this mean, this strange talk of bushes and lost hamsters." It is not about meaning. It is about the irruption of the unconscious into the very fabric of everyday life, where the eye becomes an egg and the hamster disappears into the bushy undergrowth, there to be transformed into the heart and soul of America. Hah! Now we find that Republican diversity is even more diverse than Michael Steele and Arnold Schwarzenegger– it extends even to the domain of live performance art, where Barbara and Jenna Bush evoke Bréton and Bataille and Beavis and Butthead in an intertextual performance that leaves you girlie-men cultural-studies Democrats gasping for air. I especially liked the bit about how their parents taught them to respect everyone. Except the people we run against-- them we slime! Heh. Heh heh. Heh.

Ahnold Insults America

Ahnold was entertaining as he alienated thousands of swing voters. But before I address Ahnold's speech, I have a nagging question: Were the Bush girls drunk?

Most of the speakers inspired only mild irritation , but Jenna and Babs left me feeling profound pity. Their performance was so embarrassing, I couldn't laugh, I could only feel profoundly sorry for them - that was the most painful political television I've seen since Gerald Ford insisted that China was a democracy.

The Republicans said I was a Girlie Man for worrying about how to provide for my family - and if you worry about providing for your family you also are a Girlie Man. They said I was a Girlie Man because I worry about how to put the Minigrouch through college - and if you worry about how to pay for your child's education you also are a Girlie Man. They said I was a Girlie Man because I worry about how to pay for Mrs. Grouch's medications - and if you worry about your family's health care you also are a Girlie Man.

Rising political star with no place to go, Arnold Schwartzenegger addressed the GOP delegates last night. It was the first speech of the convention broadcast on all national networks. It failed.

On the whole it wasn't a bad speech. It'll probably turn out to be the best the Gopers can manage. It had good energy, it had some self-deprecating humor, it was mildly and reasonably partisan, it had obvious references to 2 of the Dems' better speeches. (The "Don't you believe it" line verbatim from Clinton's speech; and the "Scrawny kid with a funny accent" line echoing Obama's "Skinny kid with a funny name")

Despite that it failed. It failed because Arnold was addressing more than the delegates - he was the first Goper to address the nation. And when he had the nation's attention with an otherwise good speech, he went and insulted a good proportion of the voters.

When an incumbent seeks re-election, the public first decides whether the incumbent deserves re-election, and after that decision is made, they begin to consider the challenger.

It is the issue of whether the incumbent deserves re-election that the Gopers should be addressing, but it is this issue where Arnold, at least, failed. The nation has serious qualms about W. A majority of the polls show the public feels the country is headed in the wrong direction. Bush trails Kerry in most polls on questions like: Who can best handle the economy? Who can best handle Iraq?

Perhaps the most critical question when it comes to winning swing voters is this: Who cares about the needs of people like you? On this question W trails Kerry by 5 to 15 points depending on the poll you look at.

And this is where Arnold failed, and failed spectacularly: "To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: 'Don't be economic girlie men!"

Recent polls show that the economy is the number one issue for voters - nearly twice as many people claim it as the top issue as the second most frequent response (Iraq). Couple that stat with the fact that recent polls show a majority disapprove of W's handling of the economy. It seems to me, these are not the voters you want to call "Girlie Men".

The Democrats were almost embarrassing in their zeal to reach out to these voters. Kerry, Edwards, and Clinton (wealthy men all) all went out of their way to say they recognized that not all Americans are faring well in this economy. They said, in other words, "I feel your pain." They also talked about actual policy proposals to help out: eliminating the tax incentive to ship jobs overseas, and reducing health care costs by providing federal re-insurance and popular buy-in to the Congressional health plan.

Did your eyes glaze over on the wonkish policy proposals? Maybe, but you, and everyone else, also heard the Dems say the concerns were valid and they had proposals to address them.

The Gopers, through Arnold, offered no proposals other than do nothing, and they questioned the sexuality of anyone who is concerned. How is that good politics?

I keep hearing about what a genius Karl Rove is, but how can this be if he allows his convention speakers to insult swing voters?

When I got laid off in 2001, It was a very difficult blow. I have difficulty describing how horrible it felt to lose a job and be rendered unable to provide for my family. The situation caused me to doubt my abilities, and, to be honest, left me feeling scared and powerless. I've got a job again, and I believe it to be as secure as any, but I still worry about losing it. I still worry about providing for my family.

I expected to hear the Gopers say they would help me by cutting taxes. Now I don't believe that policy will help, but it would have at least been a policy proposal - the Gopers could at least claim to be trying to help. But that's not what they did.

Instead, the Republicans said I was a Girlie Man for worrying about how to provide for my family - and if you worry about providing for your family you also are a Girlie Man. They said I was a Girlie Man because I worry about how to put the Minigrouch through college - and if you worry about how to pay for your child's education you also are a Girlie Man. They said I was a Girlie Man because I worry about how to pay for Mrs. Grouch's medications - and if you worry about your family's health care you also are a Girlie Man.

I wasn't going to vote for Bush, no matter what Arnold said. But there are still undecided voters in this nation, and I don't think it was a good idea to insult them like that.

Republican Family Values

Today's read comes courtesy of the Village Voice. They have set up a blog for a cocktail waitress at a swank Manhattan strip club so she can blog about her interactions with deegates to the Goper convention. Nothing here is shocking, but it is entertaining. It's also work-safe.

The Village Voice: Hot Girls, Frisky Delegates: RNC Diary of a Strip-Club Waitress

But one man there was more subtle in his allegiance. He was dressed in an understated suit with no visible patriotic accessories, his black hair slicked back neatly. Only by looking at his cuff links—silver things punctuated by black stars—could you tell that he was a Pioneer, meaning he'd raised at least $100,000 for the president's re-election. (Of course, he showed them to me within five minutes of making my acquaintance, so he wasn't all modesty.)

He was clearly at ease in the club. I was a good waitress, he told me, and he knew how to tell them: He had owned a strip club. He kept a dancer at his side and bought several dances from her.

After three dances, she separated from Mr. Pioneer and found me. At this point we had the classic waitress-stripper exchange of information—how much money did this guy have? And was he cheap?

"I don't know if it's going anywhere with him," she said. "I know he has money, but I'm not going to sit here all night for $60. He's married. With children." I wasn't much help. He hadn't tipped me yet. But I could confirm the married bit. There was a nice silver band on his left hand. It went rather well with the cuff links, actually.

Before long, though, she had attained what is every stripper's nightly goal: He took her into a private room. The rooms rent for anywhere from several hundred to a thousand dollars an hour.

Thanks to Blah3 for the scoop.

Saving Zarqawi...

If Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the most dangerous terrorist currently working, an assertion I've heard which, given Osama bin Laden's current inability to either fund or coordinate attacks, may well be true, those who pretend to be tough on the war on terror have a lot to answer for. In what is a textbook example of the difference between talking tough about terrorism and being tough about terrorism, it appears that the group of neo-conservatives who were pushing for regime change in Iran (if you haven't been following the story, the basics are here) helped to scuttle a deal with Iran where they proposed to turn over to us five al-Qa'eda members, including al-Zarqawi (also nobodies like bin Laden's son and al-Qa'eda's third in command).

Considering that it is probably members of this same group who ended up giving sensitive intelligence to Iran via Ahmed Chalabi, the justification that they wanted to stand tough against radical Islamism rings a little hollow, no?

Fallujah and Ramadi

Commenter Robert Dicks seemed less than impressed with my arguments about Allawi, and perhaps that's because I haven't made clear that I think this is a self-defeating as well as an immoral strategy. Here's an snippet from the NY Times story on the latest setback from western Iraq:

The American rationale was that military victory would come only by flattening the two cities, and that the better course lay in handing important government positions to former loyalists of the ousted government, who would work, over time, to wrest control from the Islamic militants who had emerged from the shadows to build strongholds there. The culmination of that approach came with the recruitment of the so-called Falluja Brigade, led by a former Army general under Mr. Hussein, and composed of a motley assembly of former Iraqi soldiers and insurgents, who marched into the city in early May, wearing old Iraqi military uniforms, backed with American-supplied weapons and money.

But the Falluja Brigade is in tatters now, reduced to sharing tented checkpoints on roads into the city with the militants, its headquarters in Falluja abandoned, like the buildings assigned to the national guard. Men assigned to the brigade, and to the two guard battalions, have mostly fled, Iraqis in Falluja say, taking their families with them, and handing their weapons to the militants.

The militants' principal power center is a mosque in Falluja led by an Iraqi cleric, Abdullah al-Janabi, who has instituted a Taliban-like rule in the city, rounding up people suspected of theft and rape and sentencing them to publicly administered lashes, and, in some cases, beheading. But Mr. Janabi appears to have been working in alliance with an Islamic militant group, Unity and Holy War, that American intelligence has identified as the vehicle of Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist with links to Al Qaeda whom the Americans have blamed for many of the suicide bombings in Baghdad, which is just 35 miles from Falluja, and in other Iraqi cities.

The videotapes showing the killing of the guard commander, the humiliation of the governor, and the beheading of the Egyptian all display the black-and-yellow flag of the Zarqawi group as a backdrop, and the passages of the Koran chanted as an accompaniment to the killings are drawn from passages of the Muslim holy book that have accompanied some of the videotaped pronouncements by Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden. Iraqis who have watched the Falluja tapes say the Egyptian's executioner speaks in a cultured Arabic that is foreign, possibly Jordanian or Palestinian.

It's striking that, like the Taliban, al-Janabi has taken control because the old rulers (Americans and the Ba'ath Party, in Iraq's case; Communists and the warlords for Afghanistan) had shown themselves to be unwilling or unable to establish order and peace, and much like the Taliban, they did so with an alliance with a foreign terrorist group who gives them radical credibility (al-Zarqawi rather than bin Laden). It appears that working with the least credible segment of Iraqi society has helped to strengthen the most radical and dangerous.

As an aside, between this and the newest revelations about Iran, I'm amazed that anybody's still voting for Bush.

Tyranny in Iraq

It's understandable to wonder exactly what sort of leader Adnan al-Zurfi, the American-appointed governor of Najaf, is; it's not just his... shall we say forceful relationship with journalists, as he's already been responsible for firing on some and forcing another batch to attend a press conference at gunpoint. According to Christopher Allbritton:

These [the police] are Najaf's finest. They're like the old regime, only less disciplined. They're terrifying and they're the most dangerous element in this conflict. ...the police here have been engaging in a systematic intimidation of us [i.e., journalists] for three weeks now. The governor of Najaf has reportedly threatened to jail journalists who don't write down exactly what he says when he says it in interviews.

That practice is in keeping with the Allawi regime's decision to ban "unwarranted criticism" of the Iraqi government.

That would be bad enough, if the Najaf police weren't (as reported by Juan Cole and Spencer Ackerman, among others) also killing supporters of the Ayatollah Sistani, under the claim (made by Najaf police chief Ghalib al-Jazairi) that they are being co-opted by al-Qa'eda.

This is not only morally disgusting, but incredibly self-destructive as well; both al-Jazairi and al-Zurfi appear to be reckless enough to wish a confrontation with the Sistani protestors themselves, which would be absolutely disastrous for both American interests and the local regime.

I doubt that the US is behind these attacks, but they should have been anticipated; installing people with despotic instincts who want to stay in power and feeling easily threatened by a genuine mass movement (due to their own lack of popularity) would naturally put them in opposition to people like al-Sistani, who have a lot of pull with the Iraqi people.

It would have been smarter to put in not-so-democratic folks with ties to Sistani, folks who wouldn't feel the need to be as repressive because they could rely on the support of a good number of the Iraqi people, if not all of them. But here we are, having apparently set up a situation where an unpopular and undemocratic governor with an itchy trigger finger is spoiling for a fight with a popular leader with genuine appeal... and we're supporting the despots.

Sistani and the end of American Iraq

The must read article for today comes courtesy of the good professor Juan Cole. Don't go looking on the US media for the story - they are worried about the truly important issues like whether John Kerry can produce corroboration for his "alleged" service in the US Navy.

Informed Comment

Sistani's return raises many questions. Note that he did not fly into American-controlled Baghdad but rather to Kuwait, traveling overland to Basra. Since Basra is in British hands, with a Shiite governor that seems pro-Sistani, it seems possible that Sistani's people coordinated his return with the British and with the Basra authorities rather than with the United States and the Allawi government. Indeed, America's most militant asset in Najaf, governor Ali al-Zurfi, seems dead set against Sistani returning with crowds this way. You have to wonder if the British MI6 and military are showing some insubordination toward the Americans by allowing all this, as a mark of their disapproval of the gung-ho Marine attacks in Najaf, which have caused trouble in the British-held South and endangered the British garrisons. Likewise, one wonders if Basra governor Hassan al-Rashid is entirely loyal to Allawi. A lot of southern Shiites would be pretty upset with the way Allawi and his two main henchmen, Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib and Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan have been reviving old Baathist stereotypes about the Shiites and pursuing iron fist policies in the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

If Sistani does lead a popular march of the sort the press is describing, it might be the most significant act of civil disobedience by a religious leader since Gandhi's salt march in British India. And it might kick off the beginning of the end of American Iraq, just as the salt march knelled the end of the British Indian empire.

Check it out.

I'm no fan of the war, and especially not the incompetent way it has been prosecuted by the Bush administration. But even I do not want to see a broad and popular Shiite uprising. This clearly is not in our best interests.

More News from Afghanistan

12 challengers to Hamid Karzai, including the most prominent, Tajik Yunus Qanuni, have threatened to boycott the upcoming Afghan elections. The PakTribune recounts "widespread vote-rigging" efforts before the elections in October, along with the killing of election officials and simple ignorance on the part of many rural Afghans who aren't entirely sure who they are voting for.

Since Hamid Karzai, the most likely winner, will be ruling essentially by decree from October at least until parliamentary elections can be held in April of next year, and since Karzai is already seen as frankly insufficient by many Afghans (although nobody can agree on his replacement, it's especially important that this election is seen as legitimate by the people of Afghanistan. And because of stories like this, they almost certainly won't.

Meanwhile, instability is on the rise in Pakistan also, thanks to increased efforts to topple Pervez Musharraf. Those who will recall Spencer Ackerman's report that the US government had recently insisted that Pakistani troops be sent in increased numbers into Waziristan to capture al-Qa'eda leaders (as part of the "July Suprise" intended to overshadow the Democratic convention) should note this:

More and more Wazir tribesmen appear determined to resist the government's attempt to capture or kill their al-Qaeda guests.

Pashtun politicians and experts have voiced fears of an anti-army insurgency spreading across the semi-autonomous Pashtun tribal belt that lies on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Part of me suspects that this is more important than the current business about SBVT and whether or not Kerry was in Cambodia in 1968, but then I think... Sean Hannity and Wolf Blitzer can't both be wrong, can they?

John Kerry Vs. John O'Neill

30 years ago John O'Neill, currently one of the people behind the "Swift Boats Veterans for the Truth Bush" debated John Kerry on the Dick Cavett Show. C-Span has a streaming video of the show.

Check it out.

Click this real player link:

Or input this address in Real Player: rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04_rwh081504.rm

I must say, the longer it goes on, the sillier O'Neill looks and sounds.

Why the Street Economists Are So Very Very Wrong

Shorter Barry: The old models no longer apply because the ceteris ain't paribus.

Barry at Big Picture has a nice post that sheds some light on the "rob from the poor and give to the rich" tax cuts of the Bush administration. He explains how some of the changes in the tax code enacted by Bush encouraged the substitution of capital for labor instead of encouraging hiring of more labor, and how it encouraged the channeling of profits away from labor income into dividend income.

The Big Picture: Economists vs. Job Creation: Why the disconnect?

Since most economists I know are only mildly delusional (at least, they appear that way to a non-economist) we should consider another possibility: A major factor unaccounted for by mainstream economists -- has contributed to the present recovery cycle's unprecedented long delay in job creation.

The Grouch sez: the economy relies mainly on consumer spending. Consumer spending is tied directly to wage income. The way to increase consumer spending (and hence the growth of the economy) is to increase wage income. That can be accomplished by hiring more people at the prevailing wage, or raising the prevailing wage, or some combination of the two. As Henry Ford used to say, he had to pay his employees well enough that they could buy his cars.

Neither is happening right now. In the first 2 years after the Bush tax cuts, employment fell. Now that employment is rising, although at a rate well under the historical average, we see wages falling behind inflation. It's not realistic to expect a growing economy under this situation. Indeed even "Kryptik Shorty" Alan Greenspan, perhaps better referred to as the whore of Babylon, believes the economy is poised for robust growth because he believes the labor market will recover.

But, as Barry points out, if the tax incentives are such that dividend income is raised at the expense of wage income and that industry seeks to substitute capital for labor, we cannot expect to see either employment or wages rise at a healthy rate. In essence, the tax cuts have no stimulative effect - we get the burden of structural deficits without the benefit of stimulus.

Make no mistake, large structural deficits (as opposed to cyclical deficits) have heavy burdens in the form of higher inflation or higher interest rates - or some combination of the two.

A tax cut can stimulate the economy by putting some cash in consumer's pockets to spend. Indeed we saw GDP jump in the quarters following the rebate checks. If the resulting bump in GDP results in additional hiring, a positive feedback loop is created. Essentially, this is the practical application of the adage: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for the rest of his life.

If the tax cut goes to the very wealthy, that money is saved instead of spent, and we see no benefit. If the tax laws also change to discourage employment and wage increases, then we have a negative feedback loop. This is the practical application of the adage: Build a man a fire and you keep him warm for a night, light a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.

It seems the consumers are on fire right now.

Alabama National Guard Veterans for the Truth

We can say Bush never served with the same certainty we can say that the city of Atlantis, the alchemist's stone, supply side economics, and bigfoot are merely figments of a fevered imagination.

Hundreds of Vietnam Vets remember Kerry's service. Even those angry partisan Goper vets who are out to smear him remember Kerry. Heck, even some angry partisan Goper vets who were in other units, or who served at a different time, seem to remember his service. Yes, some of these men are even contradicting their own citations in order to smear Kerry, but they remember where he was.

Why is it that not one single person in this nation remembers George W. Bush serving in the Alabama National Guard? Not one.

The U.S. Navy has hundreds of documents that clearly demonstrate that Kerry served. (These documents also clearly show that his medals were earned exactly as Kerry has claimed) On the other hand, the National Guard itself can find no records verifying George W. Bush served.

Enough. I hereby declare that George W. Bush did not serve in the Alabama National Guard. We can say Bush never served with the same certainty we can say that the city of Atlantis, the alchemist's stone, supply side economics, and bigfoot are merely figments of a fevered imagination. It may not be possible to "prove" a negative - but at some point the lack of evidence becomes overwhelming.

So the choice this fall, for those who vote solely on the candidates' military service, is between a man who failed to fulfill his duty to his country, or a man who did his duty and suffered three wounds sufficient to win purple hearts but not sufficient to win the respect of the Republican party.

Of course, I don't vote on that basis. I'm voting for the only candidate with a workable plan to make health care more affordable and extend coverage to all Americans: John Kerry.

Olympians Coming Out

"This is a real coming out party for the South Koreans."

Those were the words spoken by NBC sportcaster Al Trautwig.

Is there any doubt that Trautwig is the worst hack on the air. That may be too harsh, after all his cohorts on air were worse. But Trautwig is a broadcaster while the other two are former athletes.

Yes, we had to endure Trautwig talk about Paul Hamm's "deflated balloon" and his speculation about whether Hamm had enough "air in his lungs to blow it up again".

I hope with all my heart he was ad-libbing his endless tortured metaphors, and not using some he had though up previously. Ugh.

The only redeeming feature of Trautwig's coverage of Men's gymnastics was the humor Mrs. Grouch and I shared over his indavertant sexual inuendos.

If you want more than inuendo, you can check out Alan's ongoing coverage of whom on the Olympic team is gay.

A Political Ad We Can Relate To

When Will Ferrell left Saturday Night Live, many of us were left whining, "but who will impersonate our illustrious prez now?" Fortunately for us, Will has reprised that role by doing a spoof of W's Crawford, TX "I'm a common man" political ad. Sponsored by ACT (America Coming Together), it shows what we all suspect goes on behind the scenes when W attempts to make a speech.

Ya gotta check it out: Behind the Scenes at White House West

Sessions Steals

The must read for today comes from the "Be careful what you wish for" department.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: August 15, 2004 - August 21, 2004 Archives

Now -- and I promise, this is actually going somewhere -- Sessions, not surprisingly, responded that his campaign had done no such thing and demanded that the Frost campaign come forward with any proof that his campaign was involved in stealing signs or any other such disreputable sign-related activity.

Well, the Frost campaign seems to have done him one step better.

Late this afternoon the Frost campaign sent out a press release with a police report from a few days before the 2002 mid-term election (Oct. 27th 2002) in which a Dallas police officer, Jana A. Brewster, caught Sessions -- then a sitting member of congress -- and an aide on a late-night sign stealing run.

Too funny. Check it out.

More on the Keyes Train wreck

Keyes is actually trying to win votes by claiming Obama isn't "black" enough.

Obama, Keyes Meet In Tense Exchange

During an earlier appearance on a national television talk show, Keyes said Obama can't relate to other blacks because he is not from the same heritage as most African Americans.

I think this is a very poor strategy for a Republican to pursue. The moderate Gopers will be offended at the race-baiting and negativity - and will therefore be less likely to vote for Keyes. The "conservatives" (as we euphemistically refer to them in Texas) will not vote for a person of color, so adopting a "blacker than thou" strategy will cause Keyes to lose valuable support among "conservatives."

Think I'm kidding? Ask Bobby Jindal.

In any case, the loss of those "conservatives" who have been recruited into the GOP through their southern strategy won't make a big difference in the Illinois senate race. Keyes is going down hard, and may very well take the remainder of the Illinois GOP with him. But at least he's entertaining.

BTW, this is the photo that accompanied the story:

Take note of the hands holding up the Keyes signs...

He's Back!

I've been away for a while, for personal reasons (vacation, moving, loss of Internet access for approx. a month, and feeling the need to catch up on the news before I felt qualified to comment again), but now I'm back; you may remember that I was looking into the set-up of the Iraqi national government before I left, and I noted how key positions were being given to members of the old Ba'athist military/intelligence complex, what Billmon just called "Saddam Lite".

Now we can see something of the fruits of that; this is a report I found that's over a week old but which didn't get a lot of play in the bigger blogs (Yglesias, Kevin Drum, JMM, etc.) and which I think needs more attention, on an incident that occurred on June 29th, the first day of Iraqi sovreignty.

Some of the less pleasant details:

"There were several rooms within the building," Southall said. "One room, about 20 by 20 feet squared, contained even more prisoners, all in the same sad shape as the prisoners found in the outer area. There were about 78 prisoners crowded in this little room with no available furniture, no air conditioner, no water or food or restrooms available."

Southall said one prisoner claimed the Iraqi police arrested him at a market and confiscated his passport even though he had "paid a tremendous bribe" to the arresting officer. Others, many of whom appeared to be non-Arabs, said they had been detained for lack of proper identification.

...

As U.S. soldiers continued to fan out in the building, they found more bound-and-gagged prisoners, and "hoses, broken lamps and chemicals of some variety," which could have been used as torture devices, Southall said.

Hendrickson radioed up the chain of command in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, relaying what he had seen and asking for instructions. As the soldiers waited, Southall said, the Iraqi policemen began to get "defiant and hostile" toward the Americans.

It wasn't long before the order came: Stand down. Return the prisoners to the Iraqi authorities and leave the detention yard.

That order infuriated the Oregon guardsmen, who viewed themselves as protectors of the abused prisoners. Nonetheless, the soldiers obeyed.

This little torture chamber was done under the rubric of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which is in the hands of Iyad Allawi ally Fallah Hasan al-Naqib, and obviously with the cooperation of the US government.

Some Jobs! Some Jobs! My Kingdom For Some Jobs

I saw the payroll report come over the wire last week and I thought it was a typo. "32,000," I thought, "Someone forgot a zero." But no, 32K was the real number for July, and June was revised downward to 78K.

WTF?

The street was expecting around 230K. How did so many people get this wrong?

Well, I think it's because the current economic situation is unprecedented in recent history. That is, it's a whole new ball game - trite but true.

What's new about it? The collapse of the manufacturing employment base.

The US economy has been slowly shifting to a service based economy through the growth of the service sector. In 1970, there were about 17.8 million manufacturing jobs and 48.8 million service sector jobs in this nation. By 2000, there were still 17.3 million manufacturing jobs, but the number of service jobs had grown to 107.1 million. So when economists say the economy was becoming more of a service based economy, they didn't mean that manufacturing jobs were disappearing and being replaced by service jobs, they meant that so many new service jobs had been created that the relative percentage of manufacturing jobs had fallen by quite a bit.

In fact, as you can see from this chart, the number of manufacturing sector jobs in this country has waxed and waned with the business cycle, but has remained fairly constant over 3 decades near the 17.5 million mark - until 2001.

After 2001, the number of manufacturing jobs declined sharply falling nearly 17% since 2000. This is really worrisome.

First, the jobs lost in manufacturing tend to be higher paying than the jobs gained in the service side. The Economic Policy Institute studied those sectors losing jobs over the last 4 years and found that they paid, on average 9.5% more than the average job in growing sectors (study here). To be precise, the EPI was not limiting it's study to manufacturing jobs, but the trend is clear.

It also makes intuitive sense: if you are a skilled machine press operator pulling down $50K (obviously a Union shop) and you get laid off, you ain't gonna get a new job as a database administrator. If you can't find work in your trade, you're gonna have to take a job at Home Depot or Burger King. While those may be fine companies, they ain't paying you 50 large.

It's also worrisome because all of the expectations we have about how the economy performs are predicated on a fairly stable manufacturing employment base. Economists are happy to point out that this recovery isn't behaving like our historical precedents. Well after GDP has moved positive (and very positive through much of the last year) we still aren't seeing jobs being created like we would have in prior recoveries. Here's a chart from EPI that demonstrates this well:

But hey, I probably didn't have to tell you that times are tough. That would only come as news to those Republicans living in their gated communities with armed security patrols. What I don't understand is why Bush isn't trying to do something about this. He seems to have bought into his own excuse that the "president can't affect the economy." While there may be some truth to that, his party controls both houses of congress as well as the white house and that combination can affect the economy. Yet they haven't done a damn thing.

For the sake of all of you struggling to get by on less, I hope things change in Washington - and soon.