GOP Convention goes NEGATIVE, in one of the nastiest displays I've seen

This is absolutely incredible. I'm watching the GOP convention, Zell Miller is speaking in prime time at 10PM Eastern, and this is the most horrendous screed I have ever heard. The ENTIRE Miller speech is Kerry-bashing, like I have never seen. He even linked Kerry to flag burning! Flag burning!

I can not even begin to control my rage. This is offensive. It is outrageous. It is mean-spirited. It is filled with lies.

I'm quite serious. Everyone needs to read this speech when the transcript comes out. Practically the entire speech is horrendous, HORRENDOUS, Kerry-bashing. Miller even invoked the name of Paris, France, to suggest that Kerry would let - eh gads - the French decide when America could go to war.

Folks, the Republicans smeared the Democrats for making one or two comments at Paul Wellstone's funeral that were partisan, and now we have an entire evening devoted to the nastiest political rhetoric of this campaign - certainly the nastiest political rhetoric from anyone speaking officially on behalf of the campaign.

If we do not rally against this speech. If we do not find a way to ensure that this speech lives in infamy, and is exposed for the hate-mongering that it is, then we do not deserve to win this election. Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING NEWS: Mary Cheney and her lover, Heather Poe, spotted on GOP convention floor

SiriusOutQ's Mike Signorile has just reported in from the GOP Convention floor and HE HAS FOUND MARY CHENEY. According to Signorile, Mary and girlfriend Heather Poe are seated ten feet away from Mike on a small dais raised a bit above floor level. According to Mike, Mary is quite aware that Mike and SiriusOutQ's Corey Johnson are eyeing her intently. This is interesting news as Mary has been in hiding for months, let alone she has been in hiding at the convention. But for her to appear at the convention tonight to see her dad's speech, WITH HER LOVER IN TOW, is a big deal. Read the rest of this post...

AUDIO: Hear Alan Keyes call Mary Cheney a selfish hedonist sinner, and about the proper use of "genitals" (not kidding)

Courtesy of Sirius OutQ satellite radio I have the audio from Mike Signorile's Sirius OutQ interview with Illinois Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes. As you know, Keyes went off on Mary Cheney, in what is quickly becoming a pretty large scandal for the GOP, and a media firestorm. You can hear the entire Sirius interview here, and the "selfish hedonism" snippet too (I'll have that shortly). I'm also attaching, below, the entire transcript of the interview - there are other real gems in there. (If you link to the mp3, please link to this blog entry itself so I get the credit :-)

- MP3 audio of entire Signorile interview with Alan Keyes

And this is the entire transcript of the interview:

Signorile
“I am speaking with Alan Keyes, and you’ve come to the Republican convention to support President Bush I presume”

Keyes
“Oh certainly, I think that President Bush needs to be reelected for the sake of this countries security, he has provided that kind of leadership that we are going to have to have if we are going to confront and defeat the challenge of terrorism that has already claimed so many American lives”

Signorile
“What did you think of Vice President Cheney last week coming out and saying he doesn’t agree with the President on the federal marriage amendment, seems to be a break with the party, do you think he is sending a mixed signal?”

Keyes
“I don’t know, I think he is entitled to his personal convictions, but I think that the party’s position is the correct one. We have to stand in defense of the traditional marriage institution in order to preserve its basis in procreation and make sure that we retain an understanding of family life that is rooted in the tradition of procreation, of child bearing and child rearing now in the essence of family life.”

Signorile
“Now, Vice President Cheney, of course, has a daughter. She is gay. He used the word gay. He says he has a gay daughter, he seems very proud of his gay daughter. It seems like real family values and certainly seems like preserving the American family. Is his family un-American?”

Keyes
“No, the point of the matter is that marriage as an institution involves procreation. It is in principle impossible for homosexuals to procreate, therefore they cannot marry. It is a simple logical syllogism and one can wish all one might, but pigs don’t fly and we can’t change the course of nature.”

Signorile
“One can wish that Bob and Liddy Dole would have a child but that’s just impossible.”

Keyes
“Pigs can’t fly. That is incidental and point of fact Bob and Liddy Dole can have children. They incidentally face problems that prevent them from doing so. In principle…”

Signorile
“Don’t homosexuals incidentally face problems too?”

Keyes
“No, you don’t understand the difference between incident and essence. Homosexuals are essentially incapable of procreation. They cannot mate. They are not made to do so. Therefore the idea of marriage for two such individuals is an absurdity”

Signorile
“But one or the other in the couple can procreate?”

Keyes
“No the men can donate their sperm, the women can have babies. The definition of understanding of marriage is that two become one flesh. In the child, the two transcend their persons and unite together to become a new individual. That can only be done through procreation and conception.”

Signorile
“But what about a heterosexual couple who cannot bear children and then adopt. They are not becoming one as flesh, they are taking someone else’s flesh.”

Keyes
“They are adopting the paradigm of family life. But the essence of that family life remains procreation. If we embrace homosexuality as a proper basis for marriage, we are saying that it is possible to have a marriage state that in principle excludes procreation and is based simply on the premise of selfish hedonism. This is unacceptable.”

Signorile
“So Mary Cheney is a selfish hedonist, is that it?”

Keyes
“Of course she is. That goes by definition. Of course she is.”

Signorile
“I don’t think Dick Cheney would like to hear that about his daughter.”

Keyes
“He may or may not like to hear the truth, but it can be spoken.”

Signorile
“Do you really believe that Mary Cheney…”

Keyes
“By definition. A homosexual engages in the exchange of mutual pleasure. I actually object to the notion that we call it sexual relations because it is nothing of the kind.”

Signorile
“What is it?”

Keyes
“It is the mutual pursuit of pleasure through the stimulation of the organs intended for procreation, but it has nothing to do with sexuality because they are of the same sex. And with respect to them, the sexual difference does not exist there, and therefore are not having sexual relations.

Signorile
“Mr. Keyes, then how can you support President Bush then, because if something were to happen to him the President would be Dick Cheney, who has a daughter who you say is a hedonist, and a selfish hedonist, and the President would be supporting that at that point?”

Keyes
“It seems to me that we are supporting a ticket that is committed to the kinds of things that are necessary to defend this country and we are all united in that support in spite of what might be differences on issues here and there.”

Signorile
“Thank you for speaking with us.”

Read the rest of this post...

Chicago Tribune: Backlash builds against Keyes' remarks

Oh, the story builds and builds and builds. I keep harping on this because a) it's a lot of fun, but more importantly, b) this is becoming THE breakaway story from the convention. The story that ahs finally broken through the Republican noise machine, and a story that's really really really off-message. :-)

From the Chicago Tribune:

U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes stridently defended his statements about the vice president's gay daughter today even as Illinois Republican leaders expressed reactions ranging from dismay to disgust.

Keyes told a New York radio station Monday that homosexuality is "sexual hedonism." In response, the show's host asked if Mary Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, was a "sexual hedonist." Keyes replied: "Of course she is."

"I think those views are not only extreme but offensive," former Gov. James Thompson told reporters during a state delegation breakfast today.

"I think the people of Illinois will find those remarks offensive," Thompson said, "and I think it's an offense to the political process that we have to suffer a candidate on our ticket who says things like that."

None of the state Republican leaders at the breakfast went as far as to say Keyes should bow out of the race, but several expressed dissatisfaction with how the Maryland native has handled himself on the campaign trail.

They want Keyes to stay on message by talking more about job creation and health care and less about divisive social issues such as gay rights and abortion.

"I wish those comments weren't made," said state Sen. Dave Syverson, a Rockford Republican who pushed to get Keyes on the ballot. "Those were personal comments and better kept to himself. But now, having said that, hopefully here on out he will stick to the issues that are important to this campaign."

Keyes blamed the media for personalizing his comments about Mary Cheney.

"Do I know whether or not the daughter of the Cheneys is engaging in such acts? It is not for me to know," Keyes said. "I only know the argument I have made. It is for others to draw the conclusion."

Judy Baar Topinka, the state party chairwoman, today railed against Keyes, calling his remarks about Cheney "idiotic."

"I think it's nasty, and I don't like nasty politics," she said. "You don't pick on people's kids. Kids are off limits."

Topinka added the state central committee, which selected Keyes as its candidate, should have known what it was in for.

"This is not somebody that likes a bit in his mouth," she said. "He does things his own way. He has built a career on being controversial."

State Rep. Tom Cross, the House Republican leader, joked with reporters about the length of Keyes' lease on his apartment in Calumet City.

"My suspicion is we will see and hear from candidate Keyes for the next 60 days, and after that he'll probably be out of Illinois," Cross said.

Liz Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's other daughter, bristled today when a CNN interviewer asked for her reaction to Keyes' "selfish hedonist" remark.

"I'm surprised, frankly, that you would even repeat the quote, and I'm not going to dignify it with a comment," she said.

A spokesman for the vice president could not be reached for comment today, but Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said, "We're not going to dignify these comments with a response."

Dan Allen, communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said that sometimes the way candidates present an issue is not reflective of the party's message.

"Alan Keyes is going to have to run his own race, and we're not going to tell him how to do it," Allen said. "He feels very passionate about certain issues, and whether we agree or disagree is not for us to decide, it's going to be the voters of Illinois."

Funny, because the National Republican Senatorial Committee is run by an openly-gay man. Glad to see they have no problem with gay-bashing. Read the rest of this post...

Chicago Trib calls Michael Reagan "homophobic"

Holy shit. This is the Chicago Tribune actual headline:

"Reagan's `homophobic' 1st son steps up to counter brother"

Man, tell us what you REALLY think, Chicago Trib. Seriously, this article about Michael Reagan shows what a total bigoted freak this man is. He either thinks rape causes homosexuality, or all gays are a danger to children, or something. Either way, the man is fucked up, and needs a good session with a psychologist a lot more than a national audience.

For years, Michael Reagan, the older son of Ronald Reagan, felt unloved and unwanted. His parents divorced when he was 3. Two years later he was packed off to a boarding school where, he says, he was so lonely he cried himself to sleep. Sexually abused at age 7, he felt shame and self-loathing, compounded by Bible passages that convinced him he would never go to heaven....

Then, he says, he found salvation through the love of his family and his "adoption" by God. He embraced conservative values and became a syndicated talk radio host who today tells listeners: "I am homophobic."

Reagan has become a strong opponent of same-sex marriage, saying its validation of homosexuality will push young people into sex that will inflict the "guilt and pain that I have lived with all my life."....

Reagan was 7, hungry for fatherly attention, when an after-school camp counselor sexually molested him, he says. The man took nude photographs of him and showed them to him in a darkroom.

Reagan says he worried for years that the photos would someday embarrass his family. Thus began a life of secrets and shame, Reagan says in his new book, "Twice Adopted," which will go on sale this fall.

His book suggests that same-sex marriage could place young people at an increased risk of the kind of trauma he suffered.

"If same-sex marriage becomes accepted as having equal validity with traditional heterosexual marriage, what kinds of social pressure will our children and grandchildren have to face?" he writes.

"That's why today I can honestly say on my show, I admit it; I am homophobic,' " he writes. "If I wasn't homophobic before, I am today."

Read the rest of this post...

IL GOP demands Keyes apologize for his "idiotic" statement about Mary Cheney

LOL, man I am LOVING this. Read the rest of this post...

AP discovers the culture wars burning bright at the GOP convention

The Associated Press did a great job today finding all the brewing culture wars behind closed doors at the GOP convention. As AP notes, they're acting all nice and moderate on stage, but at all of their private meetings, they're bashing gays, abortion and banging the drums of the culure war.

Moviemaker Michael Moore is the "anti-Christ." Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter is a selfish hedonist. Cultural wars need fighters from here to Oklahoma. These are the views of President Bush's political core here — delivered quietly and mostly offstage so GOP convention cameras don't see and swing voters don't hear.

Prime-time speeches are reserved for poll-tested words about Bush's wartime leadership and "compassionate conservative" agenda. Cultural conservatism is shunted to the sidelines. The right gets to wing it, but only when the network cameras are turned off or the media are banned.

As when Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas told an invitation-only Bush rally for Christian conservatives, "We must win this cultural war." He offered an agenda strikingly different from anything voters will hear from the convention platform, including a proposed requirement that pregnant women considering abortions be offered anesthesia for their fetuses.

Democrats said Republicans aren't kidding anybody by softening the hard right.

Read the rest of this post...

Feeling safer yet? Protesters break RNC security

What a pathetic joke the RNC security setup is. And these are the people telling us how secure they're making the world? They can't even make MSG safe for their own people. I thought they were supposed to be professionals but apparently that's not the case.
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Dem's fighting back! Yes! We have some fighters now!

I was starting to wonder if the Dem's wanted this election or not. Karl Rove is going to wish he never brought up the Vietnam issue.

President Bush's father says claims he used his influence to keep his son out of the Vietnam War are "a total lie." Former Sen. Bob Kerrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran, says the current president should condemn ads claiming the Democratic presidential candidate fabricated elements of his wartime service.

"They keep saying that and it's a lie, a total lie," former President George H.W. Bush said. "Nobody's come up with any evidence, and yet it's repeated all the time."

Kerrey, a member of the Sept. 11 commission that investigated the attacks and suggested an overhaul of the nation's intelligence structure, also said Republicans are coming close to exploiting the tragedy for political gain. In particular, he said, parts of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's speech to the Republican convention were "right on the edge."

Read the rest of this post...

New and improved Kerry?

With all of the recent talk about changes in the Kerry campaign it sounds as though perhaps he's kicking it up a notch or two. We need him to get tough and quit taking punches. Talking about issues that matter sounds like a good idea. Coalitions? Health care? Excellent news.

"Our differences couldn't be plainer. And I have set them out consistently. When it comes to Iraq, it's not that I would have done one thing differently, I would've done almost everything differently."

He added: "I would have built a strong, broad coalition of our allies around the world. And, if there's one thing I learned from my service, I would never have gone to war without a plan to win the peace."

"In an interview two days ago, the president said we can't win the war on terror," Mr. Kerry said. "I know he said something different to you yesterday, but I absolutely disagree with what he said in that interview in a moment of candor. With the right policies, this is a war we can win, this is a war we must win, and this is a war we will win because we're the can-do people and there's nothing we can't do if we put our mind and our muscle into it."

Then, to cheers and applause, he added: "It is the first proposal that I will send to the United States Congress next January. We will make health care affordable and accessible to all Americans."

Read the rest of this post...

Great Schrock editorial, from a Virginia paper no less

The News Leader:

It appears, based on Schrock's sudden change of course, that the Congressman was not only living a double life but lying to the exclusive constituency he pretended to represent and be part of....

Schrock's downfall illustrates what happens when one group attempts to be so exclusionary that they place themselves above all others. From their lofty perches, these perfect beings preach the gospel of unworthiness to all those below them -- until the inevitable day when human imperfection rises to the top and exposes them for what they are -- mere mortals, acting out roles in a vast, unscripted play.
The fall, when it comes, is often long.

Read the rest of this post...

Homophobic bigot becomes Republican Senate candidate from Florida (helped along by his openly-gay senior staff)

You know our movement has matured when openly-gay men can serve at the most senior levels of a political campaign whose main focus is the radical gay agenda. Makes me all misty.

I hope some gay group in Florida plans on dogging this homophobe and his treasonous staff for the next two months. If Martinez thinks the gay agenda is wrong then he needs to fire his senior gay staff who support that agenda. Read the rest of this post...

Karl Rove thinks Vietnam was a fabulous war, and the 800 year old conflict in Northern Ireland has been a success as well

It's the only explanation for Rove's AP interview today in which he attacks Kerry for pointing out the truth that our soldiers did some very bad things in Vietnam. Apparently the Bush team denies that any atrocities happened in Vietnam, and thinks that Vietnam was in fact a great war, done extremely well and effectively, which goes a long way towards explaining why they think Iraq is going so well. Well, why they THOUGHT Iraq was going so well until this past Monday when the president informed us that war on terror is unwinnable under his watch.

But perhaps my favorite part of the interview is Karl Rover explaining that Northern Ireland is the administration's model for fighting the war on terror. So Bush's model for the war on terror is a battle that's been going on for, oh, somewhere between 400 and 800 years in an increasing spiral of violence in which both sides simply blunder towards more and more butchery and chaos?

I'm feeling better already. Read the rest of this post...

And I was just asking where former Illinois Senate candidate Jack Ryan had gone...

;-) Read the rest of this post...

My Pet Convention

I'm sorry, but I'm officially bored to death. This convention is BO-RING. I went to the convention floor yesterday and the most exciting thing on it was Anderson Cooper (pics to come :-) Seriously, by late afternoon there was NOT A SOUL in the hallway outside the convention floor. At the Dem convention, those hallways were THE HUB BUB of attention, all the whos-who and whos-that were there, and all of us gawkers, et. al. This convention, NO ONE. I assume they're all at the private little events set up by all the corporate interests. But still, it's just boring. Add to that all the security - if one more security guy comes up to me AFTER I've already made it through all of security and asks me to flip my badge around WHILE I'M TALKING ON THE PHONE, I'm gonna scream. Love security, really do, don't want to die, but this convention is more like living under a Stalinist police state where all the citizens are missing than attending an actual political pow-wow.

Anyway, have spoken to some of the other big bloggers, and they agree. So I'm off to get coffee and lunch and will shortly hit the bloggers alley - the REAL bloggers alley, not the one the Repubs set up for all their loony-toon right-wing bloggers. At least we can all hang out together and share stories about how simply useless this entire event is. Read the rest of this post...

Alan Keyes is a liar, but this isn't news

Wash Times:

"[Alan] Keyes took to the airwaves again Wednesday to try and put the remark in context. WBBM-AM, Chicago, reported he denied the comment was meant to slam Mary Cheney and blamed the media for taking a generalization and making it personal. Keyes said if he had a lesbian daughter he would love her but tell her she was sinning. "

Gee, you say that homosexuality is "selfish hedonism." Then you get asked if that makes Mary Cheney a "selfish hedonist" and you say "by defintion, of course she is." Then you get asked if her dad the VP might get upset at your comments, and you say too bad, it's the truth. NOW you say that IT'S THE MEDIA THAT IS SPINNING YOUR WORDS AS ATTACKING MARY CHENEY?

Are you stupid, crazy, a liar, or just a typical Republican? Read the rest of this post...

See, no santorum on this hand

No, I can't show you the other one.


Read the rest of this post...

Bush surrogates accuse Soros of getting his billions money from drug cartels (with no proof, of course)

This is when a man worth a billion dollars ought to file a few lawsuits :-)

And speaking about illegal drugs, when will President Bush finally answer the question as to whether he ever used cocaine? Read the rest of this post...

Bush twins speech a DISASTER at the GOP Convention

Howard Kurtz, who is often criticized for being too conservative, villified the Bush twins in today's column.

I don't want to be unfair to Jenna and Barbara. Growing up in a fishbowl isn't easy.

But to paraphrase what Jay Leno said to Hugh Grant after his little escapade with a street hooker: What the hell were they thinking?

And what was the person who vetted their speech thinking?

Sex jokes about former first lady Barbara Bush?

I've been covering conventions a long time, and this might have been the weirdest moment since George McGovern gave his acceptance speech at 3 a.m.

I mean, it looked like a video you would make in your basement, and then show only to your closest friends. To judge by the reaction of the scribes around me, already pumped up by Arnold, it was cringe-inducing. Maybe they were trying to appeal to the Paris Hilton crowd. Imus says he took his hearing aid out until the twins had left the stage.

Fortunately, their mom gave a nice speech to round out the evening.

I thought I must have been living on a different planet when Fox's Chris Wallace started gushing over how the young women had been funny, sexy, intelligent and so on. The reviews were not so kind on the other channels, or in the morning papers.

Take the Los Angeles Times: "The Bush daughters, fresh from their booing this week at the MTV Video Music Awards in Miami, came onstage at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night and introduced a new strategy in the war on terrorism: giggling. . . .

"The strategy Tuesday, apparently, was to have sisters Jenna and Barbara humanize and soften the grim-faced Politburo image that dogs the Bush-Cheney campaign, which hasn't made much of an effort to court those young Americans who call it a good day if they've remembered to TiVo 'The Simple Life.' So here they were, girlie and giggly and glammed-up (Jenna in some kind of Juicy couture-looking track suit top over white pants, Barbara in a black cocktail dress).

"They told slightly off-color jokes, apparently to drive home the point that, supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage aside, their parents weren't totally freaked out about S-E-X. Her grandmother, Jenna said, 'thinks "Sex in the City" is something married people do but never talk about,' getting the show's name wrong. Barbara said, 'Jenna and I are really not very political.' She's the one who graduated from Yale.

"The Republicans, you were reminded, are really good at chest-thumping and flag-hugging, but they ought to stay away from showcasing their privileged, Prada-wearing first daughters until the campaign is over. After the speeches were over, even CNN's talking heads seemed to be struggling to make sense of the sisters' sister act. Judy Woodruff stammered, 'I'm not sure what that was about,' while an incensed Jeff Greenfield called the appearance a 'frankly discordant moment.'"

The New York Post, which likes the Republican convention better than it liked the Democrats'--"CONAN THE AMERICAN" is today's banner headline--finds no socially redeeming value in the daughters' shtick:

"The Bush twins made their national television debut last night -- with a string of weak one-liners that drew cringes from the crowd and at one point brought a soft rebuke from their grandparents.

"The twins, Barbara and Jenna Bush, had the job of introducing President Bush, who in turn introduced First Lady Laura Bush.

"For much of their brief time on stage, the twins seemed to amuse themselves more than the crowd."

Read the rest of this post...

Liz Cheney asked about Mary on CNN

Yes!!! CNN actually had the balls to ask Liz Cheney, Mary's straight sister, about Alan Keyes' slur of Mary the other night. This is great. Guaranteeing that the gay issue remains a very nice off-message controversy at this convention.

Illinois Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes labeled homosexuality "selfish hedonism" and said Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter is a sinner.

The former talk show host who has made two unsuccessful runs for the White House made the comments Monday night in an interview with Sirius OutQ, a satellite radio station that provides programming aimed at gays and lesbians.

After saying homosexuality is 'selfish hedonism,' Keyes was asked if that made Mary Cheney 'a selfish hedonist.'

'Of course she is,' Keyes replied. 'That goes by definition.'

Liz Cheney, Mary's sister, refused to comment Wednesday during an interview on CNN.
'I guess I'm surprised, frankly, that you would even repeat the quote, and I'm not going to dignify it with a comment,' she told the interviewer. "

Read the rest of this post...

Alan Keyes says Mary Cheney is a selfish hedonist

I'd mentioned this yesterday in my audioblog. The LA Times has now picked up the story. Man, you can't even make this shit up :-) Read the rest of this post...

GOP trashing compassion, Cheney set to take the stage

Goodbye compassion, hello Dick!

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Bush & twin daughters "looking for something to do for the next few years"

Hmm, let me think about that one for a minute. Those twins really electrified the crowd, didn't they? Personally I'm still laughing. On that issue though of looking for something to do though, well the economy is shaky and new jobs are in short supply so that does make it tricky. I guess the twins could do the patriotic thing and join the military to help fight that war on terror but that does leave George out of the picture. Any ideas out there about what George might do for the next few years?
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Chechnyen Terrorists Seize School With Hundreds Of Children

Chechnyen people yearn to break free from Russia and establish their own nation. Fine. They claim Russia's military control over their country is a holdover from the days of the Soviet Union. Fine. I don't claim to know the tortured history of it all and I'm certainly no big fan of strongman Putin and his autocratic hold on power in the devolving Russia.

But in this day and age of international media -- where even you and I are familiar with Chechnya and at least their basic goal -- there is ABSOLUTELY no justification for grabbing control of a school and holding hundreds of children and teachers hostage.

This is completely and utterly immoral and cannot be defended on any grounds for any reason for any cause. I don't necessarily approve, but attack cops, attack government buildings, attack military installations -- but never target innocent civilians. It's wrong in Russia, it's wrong in New York City and -- yes -- it's wrong in Israel. Why is it so hard for people to completely and utterly reject such vile tactics and to demand that any group -- however sympathetic you may be to their cause -- END THEM COMPLETELY or lose your entire support? Why do you condemn Al Qaeda, condemn Chenyen terrorists but defend Hamas and the PLO? NOTHING justifies these actions. Nothing justifies the vile Iraqi Islamic militants who have seized workers and threatened to slaughter them unless France ends its ban on scarves, for goodness sake. Nothing justifies flying planes into buildings. Nothing justifies seizing a school and holding little children hostage. And NOTHING justifies putting someone on a bus or in a cafe in Israel with explosives strapped to their chest and blowing them up. Whenever you refuse to condemn one of these acts, you encourage them all.
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Afghan democracy update: More voters registered than actual voters

Yesterday Bush had an interview with Rush Limbaugh where after he flipped and flooped around on the "we can't win the war on terror" line, he said the following:

Afghanistan, I don't know if you've discussed this on your program, but there are over ten million people who have registered to vote in Afghanistan, which is a phenomenal statistic when you think about it.

Perhaps what is truly a phenomenal statistic is that while the number of ten million is correct, the actual number of eligible voters is less than ten million, as Mathew Ygleysias is writing. Voter fraud seems to be running rampant in that democratic showcase that Bush is promoting. And Iraq? Tell us more Mr. President. We're looking forward to some proof that it is not the messy quagmire that we predicted.
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Saletan: What does 9/11 tell us about Bush? Nothing.

When Bush was riding the wave of record ratings, I was wondering why. I saw cowardice on 9/11 by Bush and then plenty of fear mongering followed by scapegoating in Iraq. Since Bush wants to make 9/11 such a central theme of his campaign, he is now opening up that period for debate. Perhaps because I live abroad and was not saturated by the full propaganda machine I didn't buy into the hero myth. It's great to see that his record on 9/11 and afterwards is now being reviewed seriously. It's time to pick apart this silly myth and bring him back to the stubborn, arrogant, little man that he is. He was not a leader on 9/11 and never will be. My Pet Goat.

As John McCain put it last night: "I knew my confidence was well placed when I watched him stand on the rubble of the World Trade Center with his arm around a hero of September 11 and, in our moment of mourning and anger, strengthen our
unity and our resolve by promising to right this terrible wrong and to stand up and fight for the values we hold dear."

Pardon me for asking, but where exactly is the heroism in this story? Where, indeed, is the heroism in anything Bush has done before 9/11 or since?

As Giuliani explainedto the convention audience:

When President Bush came here on September 14, 2001, the Secret Service was not really happy about his remaining in the area so long. With buildings still unstable, with fires raging below ground of 2,000 degrees or more, there was good reason for their concern. Well, the president remained there. And talked to everyone. ... [A construction worker] grabbed the president of the United States in this massive bear hug, and he started squeezing him. And the Secret Service agent standing next to me, who wasn't happy about any of this, instead of running over and getting the president out of this grip, puts his finger in my face and he says to me, "If this guy hurts the president, Giuliani, you're finished."

This is Bush's heroism? Showing up three days later, "remaining in the
area," and enduring a hug?

The only moment of physical bravery any of last night's speakers could find in Bush's life was his secret trip to Iraq. "As I think about his leadership,"Kerik recalled, "I think of the courage it took for our commander in chief to land on an airstrip in the dark of night, a world away, to be with our troops on Thanksgiving."

Thanksgiving? You mean, six months after we captured the airport and Bush declared victory? And isn't "the dark of night" normally a term we use to describe the preferred arrival and departure time of people who aren't exactly overflowing with courage?

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Bush described as a man who "doesn't waver, does not back down" and keeps reading My Pet Goat

Big deal, he is stubborn and pigheaded. Considering how wrong he has been with the economy and Iraq, is being stubborn really a positive thing? Do we really want a president who can not accept mistakes and learn and adjust? I just don't see this as a strength when he's been shown to be wrong so many times.

Since Afghanistan and Iraq are being described as "50 million more men, women and children to live in freedom" I would like to see Laura Bush actually do some visiting over there to truly taste the freedom first hand. Just don't let Laura drive though. The death toll is high enough already. Maybe when she does visit those freedom loving nations she can take a few minutes to read them a story. My Pet Goat, perhaps? George seems to like that book during times of trouble.
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US-Iranian double agent with connection to White House survives assassination attempt

Ahmad Chalabi managed to survive Wednesdays attempted assassination attempt in Baghdad. I'm sure that the neocons who gave him millions of taxpayers dollars, invited him to sit with the First Lady at the State of the Union address and then secret US intelligence data on Iran before discovering that he appears to have been a double agent, must be pleased that he will be around and able to talk more openly about the allegations of spying for Iran. This guy is really a survivor.
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Iraq in Flames?

The talks to disarm Sadr's rebels in a Baghdad City ghetto have collapsed. Meanwhile, a militant Islamic group has slaughtered 12 Nepalese laborers. And a Sunday New York Times front page story detailed with depressing vividness how two other major cities -- Falluja and Ramadi -- are firmly in the hands of Islamic militants who are imposing a Taliban-like rule of law. Yep, they're lashing and beheading common criminals, and anyone considered a stooge for the US is publicly humiliated and THEN beheaded. The videotapes of these are on sale in the local marketplace for 50 cents. The US military is a bystander in all of this. And these cities are strategically crucial for control of Iraq. US officials now concede elections in January are a dim possibility at best. Did we mention the already paltry oil production has been halved by attacks on oil pipelines and other locations? Of course, no one mentions Afghanistan - the Korean War of our day -- where the Taliban is firmly ensonced in the countryside and by some accounts controls one-third of the country along with warlords.

Hey, John Kerry. Try this: when Bush mocks you for not extolling the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, mock him back. Beheadings? A third of Afghanistan in control of the Taliban and its allies? Islamic militants mocking the US in major cities in Iraq and gaining control of more and more territory? Maybe that's Bush's idea of "Mission Accomplished" but it sure isn't yours or the American peoples.
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Protests In NYC Continue

The New York Times reports that police have arrested at least 900 protestors in NYC. That seems appropriate, since the death toll in Iraq among US personnel is at 975. And rising.
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Hackers Breach Defense Dept. Computers

Spammers -- those low-tech geeks using "zombie" computers to spit out email offering Viagra and penile enlargements -- hijacked HUNDREDS of Defense Dept. computers to do their dirty work. Boy, now don't you feel a lot safer?
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Michael Moore, Thoughtful and Reasonable??!!

It may be a sign of the Apocalypse, but Michael Moore penned a pretty moderate, thoughtful opinion column for USA Today arguing that the far-right politics like Bush, Ashcroft and Cheney do not represent the beliefs and desires of most Republicans.

One good passage:

"I asked one man who told me he was a 'proud Republican,' 'Do you think we need strong laws to protect our air and water?'

"'Well, sure,' he said. 'Who doesn't?'

"I asked whether women should have equal rights, including the same pay as men.

"'Absolutely,' he replied.

"'Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?'

"'Um, no.' The pause — I get that a lot when I ask this question — is usually because the average good-hearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend.

"I've often found that if I go down the list of "liberal" issues with people who say they're Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don't want America to be the world's police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don't think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body."

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