I love it when I’m in the beginning stages of writing a post and find out that someone else has already done all the research for me. In this case, the folks at FactCheck.org have cut through the bullshit behind George Bush’s new ad (which I parodied yesterday). The most deceitful thing about the John Kerry quotes from “Searching” is that, when taken in context, they illustrate Kerry’s consistency on Iraq. (emphasis added)

“It was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision I supported him.”

Q: And Senator Kerry, the first question goes to you. On March 19th, President Bush ordered General Tommy Franks to execute the invasion of Iraq. Was that the right decision at the right time?

Kerry: George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.

“The winning of the war was brilliant.”

Q: All this terrorism. If you were president, how would you stop it?

Kerry: Well, it’s going to take some time to stop it, Chris, but we have an enormous amount of cooperation to build one other countries. I think the administration is not done enough of the hard work of diplomacy, reaching out to nations, building the kind of support network.

I think they clearly have dropped the ball with respect to the first month in the after — winning the war. That winning of the war was brilliant and superb, and we all applaud our troops for doing what they did, but you’ve got to have the capacity to provide law and order on the streets and to provide the fundamentally services, and I believe American troops will be safer and America will pay less money if we have a broader coalition involved in that, including the United Nations.

“I have always said we may yet even find weapons of mass destruction.”

Q: But isn’t it, in a realistic political sense going to be a much harder case to make to voters when you have that extraordinary mug shot of Saddam Hussein…looking like he’s been dragged into a police line-up?

Kerry: Absolutely not, because I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable. I knew we had to hold him accountable. There’s never been a doubt about that. But I also know that if we had done this with a sufficient number of troops, if we had done this in a globalized way, if we had brought more people to the table, we might have caught Saddam Hussein sooner. We might have had less loss of life. We would be in a stronger position today with respect to what we’re doing.

Look, again, I repeat, Chris, I have always said we may yet even find weapons of mass destruction. I don’t know the answer to that. We will still have to do the job of rebuilding Iraq and resolving the problem between Shias and Sunnis and Kurds. There are still difficult steps ahead of us.

The question that Americans want to know is, what is the best way to proceed? Not what is the most lonely and single-track ideological way to proceed. I believe the best way to proceed is to bring other countries to the table, get some of our troops out of the target, begin to share the burden.

The last punch in the ad is Bush’s old standby “I actually did vote for the 87 billion…”. Yawn. Nevermind the fact that Bush opposed “funding our soldiers” during a war before he didn’t. If you actually read Kerry’s speech on the senate floor during the $87 billion debate, you’d see that his position then is consistent with everything he’s said for the last two years.

Ever since the Bush Administration began launching their “new product” in the fall of 2002, John Kerry has been steadfast in his position on the war. He believed the President’s promises that the Congressional resolution didn’t mean war was inevitable, that he wouldn’t rush to war without ample support from the international community, and that he’d let the weapons inspectors complete their work before deciding whether to invade. When Bush broke his promises to Congress and the American people, it was his position that changed, not John Kerry’s.

Here are a few odd excerpts from the White House’s transcript of a tour that Bush gave reporters on his ranch in Crawford a couple weeks before 9/11 :

Q: Shouldn’t you be doing that with an axe?

THE PRESIDENT: I’ve got my earplugs in.

Q: Oh, lucky.

THE PRESIDENT: What?

Q: I was just asking, shouldn’t you be doing that with an axe?

THE PRESIDENT: No, that was Abraham Lincoln.

Q: My mistake.

[. . .]

THE PRESIDENT: This is what we call the cathedral. This is where — hey, look, average campers. (Laughter.)

Q: What do you know?

THE PRESIDENT: I’m interested in these trees. This place you learn to fall in love with trees.

[. . .]

THE PRESIDENT: Anyway, be careful of poison ivy, if you have shorts on.

Q: What about snakes?

THE PRESIDENT: You’re okay for snakes. Avoid this plant right here. Like you.

Q: I’m not allergic.

THE PRESIDENT: You’re not? Then you’re in good shape.

[. . .]

THE PRESIDENT: And that’s one of the benefits of being the President, the cook comes with you. (Laughter.)

Q: Noticed a lot of animal droppings. Can you identify them?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, no. I can’t. Good question, though.

Q: I’m a Brooklyn boy, and I don’t —

THE PRESIDENT: I’m better on trees than I am on animal droppings.

[. . .]

THE PRESIDENT: I’m going to give you a little tour to get out of here, so everybody can see this. Woo-baby. I may be going in the whining pool. (Laughter.)

Q: Can we come?

Q: Can we all come?

THE PRESIDENT: I must confess, it was a great addition.

[. . .]

Q: I’ve got to ask, who does your laundry? Because that’s pretty filthy.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it is.

Q: I can’t imagine Mrs. Bush wants that stuff in her —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ve got a washer — the washer-drier room is right off the porch. And so I’m not saying I strip down outside on the porch or anything, but I am saying I don’t traipse this stuff into the house, either. (Laughter.)

[. . .]

Q: THE PRESIDENT: No, I’m not going to hunt the turkeys.

Q: The pigeons? Do you hunt the pigeons?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we don’t have any pigeons — yes, the doves.

Q: The doves, I mean.

THE PRESIDENT: Dove season is September 1st.

[. . .]

Q: Have any of your guests gotten poison ivy or snake bites or anything like that from walking around?

THE PRESIDENT: Not yet.

Q: But you’re hoping some day?

THE PRESIDENT: I hope they’re not.

Q: Just kidding.

It’s getting more and more difficult to believe Bush gave up drinking…

Mark Green is having a contest for people to speculate on the Bush Administration’s / Campaign’s (same thing, really) “October Surprise”. Here’s a long version of my entry :

With a week remaining until the election, the Bush campaign holds a press conference to reveal that they’re turning over to the FBI a memo supposedly misplaced by the Kerry campaign that details senate plans to rig the election in Florida by disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of black and elderly voters. The news of campaign impropriety drives reports of a “mysterious mushroom-shaped cloud spotted near Fallujah” off the front pages.

On election eve, Bush appears on the Dennis Miller show to deliver the quip “First my opponent wanted to play by the rules, but now he’s trying to cheat. If I weren’t here, John Kerry would be running against himself.” Miller agrees, saying that Kerry’s dwindling poll numbers are “like Oscar Wilde spending spring break playing Pop-o-Matic Trouble with Wilt Chamberlain and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man”. Bush laughs while secretly wondering to himself if Oscar Wilde is related to the guy from Sesame Street who lives in a trash can.

The next day, Bush is re-elected in a landslide. News anchors call the race for Bush before the polls are even closed on the west coast. Pundits openly speculate about what would have happened if the American people hadn’t “found out about what Kerry was trying to do”. During his acceptance speech, Bush credits the American people for taking back democracy from “those who wish to steal it”.

Epilogue : Six months later, a source at the FBI reveals that they never received any memos from the Bush campaign. Nobody notices.

If you’re interested in entering, you’d better hurry. They’re announcing finalists either tomorrow or the next day.

Our steadfast leader just lost the hearland :

A tiny weekly newspaper that bills itself as President Bush’s hometown paper has endorsed John Kerry for president, saying the Massachusetts senator will restore American dignity.

The Lone Star Iconoclast, which has a weekly circulation of 425, said in an editorial dated Sept. 29 that Texans should rate the candidates not by hometown or political party, but by where they intend to take the country.

“Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding Iraq,” the editorial said.

The Iconoclast, established in 2000, said it editorialized in support of the invasion of Iraq and publisher W. Leon Smith promoted Bush and the invasion in a BBC interview, believing Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda,” the editorial said.

The newspaper praised Kerry for “30 years of experience looking out for the American people” and lauded his background as “a highly decorated Vietnam veteran.”

My hope is that this tiny newspaper is the media equivalent of this brave little boy :

The emperor marched in the procession under the beautiful canopy, and all who saw him in the street and out of the windows exclaimed: ?Indeed, the emperor?s new suit is incomparable! What a long train he has! How well it fits him!? Nobody wished to let others know he saw nothing, for then he would have been unfit for his office or too stupid. Never emperor?s clothes were more admired.

?But he has nothing on at all,? said a little child at last. ?Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child,? said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. ?But he has nothing on at all,? cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, ?Now I must bear up to the end.?

And Emperor Bush, realizing that the crowd was right, continued saying to himself “Things are getting better in Iraq…”

Digging around in my archives recently, I found a post that contains one of the only predictions I’ve ever gotten right. The $87 billion was a trap and Kerry fell into it.

Then again, Bush wandering into a guerrilla war when he expected a cakewalk was a trap too. And like the $87 billion, that one was also predicted early :

U.S. intelligence agencies warned in two prewar reports to President Bush and Congress that an invasion of Iraq could increase support for terrorist organizations and lead to a violent postwar occupation, a U.S. official with access to the classified documents said Monday.

The reports were prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), senior intelligence analysts who pool assessments from across the nation’s 15 intelligence organizations. The council reports to the CIA director. The official who described the contents of the January 2003 documents insisted on anonymity because they remain classified.

Congress, which received the reports at the same time they were presented to the White House in early 2003, had authorized Bush in October 2002 to use military force against Saddam Hussein’s regime.
. . .
One focused on near-term risks within Iraq posed by the aftermath of an invasion. The other assessed mid- to long-term potential problems across the Middle East that could be sparked by an invasion and occupation.

The NIC advised that a U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam could unleash violence among Iraq’s internal political and ethnic factions that would require a substantial force to suppress.

The primary warning in this report was about unrest among Iraqi factions, not so much violence directed at the occupying force. In fact, the intelligence report said occupying forces would be needed to suppress civil strife.

But this report also warned of an insurgency aimed at the new Iraqi government or U.S. and allied forces, possibly involving surviving elements of Saddam’s regime.

In the broader report on regional implications, the council warned that a U.S.-led occupation could increase sympathy across the Middle East toward terrorist groups pursuing a militant Islamic agenda.

The warning makes this bit from an article about Bush’s stupidity even more troubling :

The most obvious expression of Bush’s choice of ignorance is that, at the age of 57, he knows nothing about policy or history…Well into his plans for invading Iraq, Bush still couldn’t get down the distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the key religious divide in a country he was about to occupy.
. . .
A second, more damning aspect of Bush’s mind-set is that he doesn’t want to know anything in detail, however important. Since college, he has spilled with contempt for knowledge, equating learning with snobbery and making a joke of his own anti-intellectualism.

And now we’re in an untenable quagmire because the leader of the free world wouldn’t pay attention to the people who knew the most about warfare and the region that he was about to invade.

This anecdote from the Washington Post is a perfect metaphor for Ralph Nader’s candidacy :

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is taking his election run very seriously, perhaps too seriously. On Thursday, Nader was on a jammed shuttle bus at Dulles, heading out to the midfield terminal to catch a US Airways flight to Louisville.

He sat straddling two seats on the bus as it filled up. He kept his head down, perhaps focusing on the speech he was to give at the University of Kentucky that day. Or perhaps he was totally engrossed in studying for his debate prep for next week should he get an invite? Taking one of his power naps?

Two women well on the far side of 60 couldn’t find seats and were standing. Ditto an elderly gentleman. Another passenger standing next to Nader says he nudged him and asked: “Do you think it’s necessary to take up two seats?” No response from Nader.

Nader is so convinced that he’s doing the people’s work, he hasn’t even bothered to look up and see that the people are pleading with him to stop. Hell, Ralph’s two most prominent supporters from 2000 begged him to quit, and it didn’t even register with him. It’s hard to be considered a man of principle when you’re engaged in a devil’s bargain with your ideological enemies.

Regarding GWB’s new ad, I agree with Political Wire when I say “touch?“. Here’s the script :

John Kerry:

“It was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision I supported him.”

“I don’t believe the President took us to war as he should have.”

“The winning of the war was brilliant.”

“It’s the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

“I have always said we may yet even find weapons of mass destruction.”

“I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars before I voted against it.”

Graphic:

How can John Kerry protect us?

?when he doesn’t even know where he stands?

Of course, this ad doesn’t mean the Kerry campaign can’t cherry-pick a bunch of Bush quotes to make the same point :

George W. Bush :

“We are in a war on global terror, and because of you, we’re winning the war on global terror.”

“I don?t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world”

“We will tear down the apparatus of terror, and we will help build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.”

“I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called ‘nation building.’”

“America and the world are safer because Saddam Hussein sits in a prison cell”

“I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”

“I’m a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind.”

“Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president.”

Graphic:

“President Bush has two faces…

is either one telling the truth?.”

Flip, flop, flip, flop, flip, flop….

Atrios brings up a good idea for John Kerry…

Tomasky tell us that it appears to be working and suggests that Kerry go after Bush on his supposed “strength” by contuing to point out that OBL, who was the Evilest One before Saddam became the Eviliest One, is still out there.

I would suggest he can start by reminding America of this quote by George Bush, a mere 6 months after the events of September 11th.

I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.

…but Kerry needs to be very, very careful when leveling this sort of attack.

If Kerry talks about bin Laden, it could work to Bush’s advantage if he’s captured as an “October Surprise”. While it’s a damn good idea to criticize Bush for not mentioning bin Laden by name for almost two years, I would temper any discussions with the caveat that capturing Saddam didn’t make things in Iraq better by any stretch of the imagination. The important thing to do is make sure the criticism is of Bush’s overall failure to continue chasing al Qaeda, not his failure to capture a specific man.

One thing I’ve been seeing pop up recently (and expect to see more and more this week) is pundits making reference to Al Gore “winning” the 2000 debates. As someone who avidly watched those matches and enthusiastically supported Gore (mostly based on his performance in the debates) let me say that pundits giving him credit for victory are full of shit. Anyone who props up Gore is just trying to lower the expectations for Bush.

I clearly remember my frustration immediately following each debate when my friends and I would switch from channel to channel searching for anyone who agreed with us that Gore kicked ass and Bush avoided every question that was asked. Though a few pundits would concede that he “technically” won, the most compliments he usually received were the dreaded “he did what he needed to do…”

With Bush, however, the line of pundits waiting to fellate him must have been a couple miles long. They’d give him points for being a straight talker when he obfuscated for 90 minutes, throw in slaps like “we all know Gore’s got a problem with the truth” even though Bush took credit for a hate crimes law that was passed over his veto, and they’d constantly talk about how “likeable” Bush is.

To take this into the realm of analogies for a minute, the debates are a lot like a boxing match. While a skilled boxer can outsmart his opponent, have impeccable rhythm, and know exactly what type of punch to throw and when to throw it, all it takes is a loutish brute like Mike Tyson to remind us that somebody hitting really, really hard can cut through all that Marquis of Queensbury bullshit. Al Gore may have scored more points with the judges, but Bush knocked him out.

Now why am I mentioning this now? Although there’s a part of me that’s concerned that Bush will let the “soft bigotry of the low expectations” carry him to another debate victory, I’m more annoyed that so many are talking him down when they were slamming Gore in 2000. The fact is, if Gore had won the debates, he would have won the presidency by an un-steal-able margin. He didn’t in large part to the pundits’, moderators’, and public’s willingness to let Bush break the rules. To say otherwise is politically motivated historical revisionism.

Does this mean I think Bush will beat Kerry? Maybe. While 2000 taught us that the “average Joe” thing shouldn’t be underestimated, I also think that the beating Kerry has taken for the last two months could really work to his advantage, having set the bar so low that anyone could clear it. I think Bush’s favorability ratings point to an electorate that wants to be reassured by Kerry, and candidate they don’t really know yet, but I’m not willing to count Bush out until the morning of November 3rd.

UPDATE : MyDD is all over this one as well here and here.

Forgive me if I already wrote about this, but here’s a little scenario that I’d love to see during the upcoming debates. Before I do that, lemme give you this quote from Bob about the debate rules that prompted this post :

The candidates are forbidden from asking each other any direct questions of any kind, nor can they challenge each other with proposed pledges. Thus, much of the skill used in actual debating is explicitly forbidden. Point for Monkey.

No pre-written notes of any kind will be allowed, nor can candidates use any props or have anyone in the audience to point to (like, say, Allawi) to examplify their rhetoric. Point for Kerry.

In the “Town Hall” debate, audience members will ask their moderator-screened questions, but they won’t be allowed any follow-up, and if they deviate from approved levels of free speech, they will be silenced. Candidates will therefore be able to a) change the subject entirely, b) misleadingly paraphrase the question (one of Monkey’s best tactics), or c) stall by following-up an earlier point, especially since their opponent is forbidden from asking any direct questions in response. Huge point for Monkey.

Now, having watched a few Bush debates and press conferences, there’s one thing we can be 100% sure will happen. He’ll completely avoid answering the majority of questions. With that being a certainty, here’s what I’d love to see happen :

MODERATOR : President Bush, there are some that would say that Iraq is like an airplane falling from the sky and would liken your handling of the war to an inexperienced pilot pulling back on the handle and sending it into a sharper dive. Others might liken the war to a cancerous tumor that you’re trying to treat with asbestos and cigarette smoke. My question is, what the hell were you thinking??

BUSH : Ummm…well…I’m glad you asked that question….it’s an important one…y’see…Freedom is a wonderful thing. Our enemies don’t share our optimism….

[continues pre-scripted horseshit until he runs out the clock]

MODERATOR : Senator Kerry, same question to you.

KERRY : Well, I supported the President’s use of force as a last resort, but he pulled out the inspectors early, alienated and mocked our allies, and then set a deadline as if he were a damn cowboy. From that point on, every decision he’s made has been the wrong one.

[Addresses the moderator]

Since I’ve got thirty seconds left and, by my count, this is tenth question that the President hasn’t answered at all, I’d like to yield the rest of my time back to the President so that he can continue answering the question : “What the hell were you thinking??”

That isn’t against the rules, is it??