Here’s a look at the infamous GOP mailer that I wrote about the other day (via Andrew Sullivan) :

Like I’ve said previously, I pity the more moderate Republicans right now. Their party is being run by witch-burning lunatics. If you’re a conservative and you despise this sort of thing, the best thing that could possibly happen for your party is for Bush and his rogues gallery to be defeated. If you have any hope of regaining control of your party, you need to lose before you can win.

And to clear up a caustic statement I made in my earlier post, I have no problem with anyone who holds “traditional values”. As far as I’m concerned, you can go to church every day and give every penny you make to those money changers on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. As a liberal, however, I’m deeply offended by those who are inclined to bear false witness against me and claim that I want to ban the Bible.

What’s even more disappointing about this sort of thing is that it works. The reason it works is because one of the realities of far-right Christianity is a persecution complex. Watch TBN for a while and you can see what I’m talking about. Televangelists will preach about liberal attempts to subvert “Christian” values, their news is dominated by stories of Christians being murdered for their beliefs, and the talk about Jesus’ tolerance, love, and forgiveness is marred by the hateful attitude toward homosexuals. The reason this Bible banning bullshit works is because the intended audience already believes people like me want to hurt them.

To take this back to politics, these lies are from the Republican party. Their involvement in the divisive politics of victimization that I described above are enough for me to never give them my vote. As far as Democrats are concerned, their choices are to either write off this portion of the electorate when stumping for votes or to adjust their message in an attempt to pander to these voters. Considering how deep-seated the hatred of liberals is, I stand by my earlier statement : “Fuck those voters.” At least, as far as the election is concerned. There’s nothing John Kerry could do or say that will convince them that he isn’t a dangerous hippy who wants to replace their Bibles with the Koran.

Despite the fact that I’m an atheist, I’ve got friends and family members who I love very much who are part of this world. Because of the extremity of our respective beliefs, we both know that the subject of religion is probably best left untouched. Nevertheless, it’s hard to avoid thinking about the fact that their religious leaders are filling their heads full of crap about how much I want to destroy them. So, forgive me if I’m a little pissed off here.

Every time I hear one of the President’s supporters insist that the “coalition of the willing” is a broad international effort, I’m reminded of Paul McCartney’s insistence that Wings was just another rock band. Just like nobody bought a ticket to the Wings Over America tour because they wanted to see Linda and that guy from the Moody Blues, the willingness of Estonia and Latvia to support the war doesn’t change the fact that this is a United States led occupation.

For a good example of the U.S. control over Iraq, check out this anecdote from George Will (via Matt Yglesias):

After “This Week” arranged with Allawi’s office for Sunday’s interview, the State Department called ABC to say that the office of U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte in Baghdad had decided that the interview would not happen until this coming Sunday, after Allawi’s U.S. visit. This attempt by the U.S. Embassy to exercise sovereignty over the prime minister raised interesting questions about just what was actually transferred on June 28 when sovereignty was supposedly given to the Iraqi government. The White House recognized the inconvenience of such questions. The interview occurred.

If you think Iraq is controlled by an international effort, ask yourself if John Howard is allowed to set the schedule for Iraq’s “prime minister”. Or better yet, ask any Iraqis if they even know who the hell John Howard is.

Looks like Bush trotted out this familiar canard at his U.N. speech today :

Coalition forces now serving in Iraq are confronting the terrorists and foreign fighters so peaceful nations around the world will never have to face them within our own borders.

Here’s my question : Where did Bush get the idea that fighting terrorists abroad means we won’t have to fight them at home? He can’t honestly believe this shit, can he?

Considering that we’re fighting an enemy that hijacked four airplanes simultaneously, I kinda doubt the President’s assurance that al Qaeda is incapable of attacking us on multiple fronts. The fact that it only took 19 men to pull off the 9/11 attacks means that we’re dealing with an enemy that can mount a massive attack with a small amount of men and resources. And unlike Mr. Bush, our enemies are flexible enough to adjust their plans to changing conditions, patient enough to wait until their attacks hurt the most and are least expected, and determined enough to sacrifice their lives in order to hurt us. Terrorism scares the hell out of me and this politically-motivated, Tinkerbell act isn’t helping.

I don’t know what’s worse : A President who lies to us when he insists that the worse the fighting gets in Iraq, the safer we are at home….or a President who really believes that having our troops bogged down in a foreign quagmire is the best way to protect us from terrorism.

Kerry’s been making the rounds on some talk shows over the last couple days and it’s given him the chance to really lighten up. Quips like this one could really help endear him to undecided voters (via MyDD)

Why did it take so long for the Bush and Kerry campaigns to agree on a debate schedule? Sen. John Kerry had the answer for television’s Regis Philbin, who has hosted the quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”

“The big hang-up was George Bush wanted to get life lines, you know, so he could call somebody,” the senate candidate for president quipped Tuesday while appearing on “Live With Regis and Kelly.”

Kerry also got a good one-liner last night on Letterman :

Kerry’s best shot at narrowing the race will come in the presidential debates, which begin on Sept. 30 at the University of Miami. Letterman and Kerry joked about the negotiations that led to Monday’s announcement of an agreement on debate scheduling and format. Kerry said the campaigns had argued over seating arrangements for the vice-presidential debate. “I wanted to have John Edwards stand,” Kerry said. “Dick Cheney wanted to sit.” Letterman asked about a possible compromise involving squatting. Kerry said that wasn’t the deal. “Well, now what’s gonna happen is, well, we compromised and now George Bush is gonna sit on Dick Cheney’s lap.”

Like I’ve mentioned before, Kerry’s in danger of falling into the Gore-bot trap if he’s not careful. What little I’ve seen of him “breaking character”, he seems like a really likeable guy. Hopefully he’ll keep it up and let the American people get to know him a bit in the next six weeks.

Seriously, if you haven’t watched or read it yet, Kerry’s speech was really, really good. Every bit of the speech is quotable, but lemme just point out a few good bits :

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: we have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.

The President has said that he ?miscalculated? in Iraq and that it was a ?catastrophic success.? In fact, the President has made a series of catastrophic decisions ? from the beginning ? in Iraq. At every fork in the road, he has taken the wrong turn and led us in the wrong direction.
. . .
By one count, the President offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.

His two main rationales ? weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda/September 11 connection ? have been proved false? by the President?s own weapons inspectors? and by the 9/11 Commission. Just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged the facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that the earth is flat.
. . .
The President now admits to ?miscalculations? in Iraq.

That is one of the greatest understatements in recent American history. His were not the equivalent of accounting errors. They were colossal failures of judgment ? and judgment is what we look for in a president.

This is all the more stunning because we?re not talking about 20/20 hindsight. Before the war, before he chose to go to war, bi-partisan Congressional hearings? major outside studies? and even some in the administration itself? predicted virtually every problem we now face in Iraq.

This President was in denial. He hitched his wagon to the ideologues who surround him, filtering out those who disagreed, including leaders of his own party and the uniformed military. The result is a long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences.

The administration told us we?d be greeted as liberators. They were wrong.

They told us not to worry about looting or the sorry state of Iraq?s infrastructure. They were wrong.

They told us we had enough troops to provide security and stability, defeat the insurgents, guard the borders and secure the arms depots. They were wrong.

They told us we could rely on exiles like Ahmed Chalabi to build political legitimacy. They were wrong.

They told us we would quickly restore an Iraqi civil service to run the country and a police force and army to secure it. They were wrong.

In Iraq, this administration has consistently over-promised and under-performed. This policy has been plagued by a lack of planning, an absence of candor, arrogance and outright incompetence. And the President has held no one accountable, including himself.

In fact, the only officials who lost their jobs over Iraq were the ones who told the truth.

It seems like every time Kerry gives an awesome speech, the next day he’s talking about something completely different. Hopefully this time he’ll follow the advice of LiberalOasis (and many, many others) and keep the attacks strong. He should just give this same exact speech every damn day (with some minor variations to respond to Bush justifications and to keep it fresh). The more Kerry repeats these points, the more the media will be able to pick out soundbytes that hit Bush where it hurts.

Awww…looks like baby Bush grew up a little over the weekend. Good for him.

Negotiators for President Bush and Democrat John F. Kerry agreed Monday to three 90-minute debates beginning Sept. 30, including one town-hall format with questions from undecided voters in the audience.

The two campaigns essentially went along with recommendations by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. However, the topic for the first debate will be foreign policy and homeland security rather than the economy, as the commission had suggested.

The final debate, which the commission had said should be about foreign policy, will be about the economy.

So what’s the deal here? Was the Bush campaign’s wishy-washy act a ploy to lower expectations? Or did they realize that you can’t run as a tough guy if you’re gonna act like a chicken?

The one big change here is the flipping of the two debate topics. I wrote previously that I think the schedule favored Kerry a bit, since he hadn’t even started his attacks on Iraq yet. Now that he’s got a week and a half to get some cred on Iraq, you can see why he gave such a badass speech this morning. If Kerry knows what’s good for him, he’ll give a speech that tough every day until the debate.

As far as the third debate, the momentum going into it is a toss-up right now. The last employment report prior to the election is gonna be on Oct. 8th. If it’s good news for Bush, he could ride a wave of “we’re turning the corner” into the confrontation and try the old “don’t change horses mid-stream” trick. It’s more likely that the numbers will be lukewarm and not really help or hurt either side. If those numbers don’t help, I’d advise Kerry to seize on the state unemployment figures like I did in this post and this post. The economy still sucks in some of the states that Kerry needs to win.

What about the middle debate? Well, on paper I’m one of those who think Bush’s speaking style is especially suited for the townhall format. Any time Bush doesn’t have to use big words, he’s got an advantage. On the other hand, this will probably be one of the handfull of times over the last four years in which he’s had to ask any hard questions. Considering that the audience can ask any question they want, the possibility of Bush getting thrown off-balance by a question he doesn’t expect is pretty high. Personally, I wanna hear someone ask him “Mr. President, how much money have you personally made from your tax cuts and how much do you stand to make if they become permanent?”

Remember that cartoon my friend and I made? Well, I’ve been pretty lax about keeping you guys informed about it, so here’s a few things to watch out for :

If you’re a subscriber of the Dish Network, we’ll be on the Free Speech T.V. channel’s show “SourceCode” all this week. Click here for details. (Note : The version appearing on the program is a special three and a half minute edit. Yeah, I think that’s kinda weird too…)

Tom’s heading up to Canada to represent our short at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Among our competition in the “New Media” category are “The Meatrix” and some guys who call themselves JibJab.

We’ve still got DVD’s for sale. At cost. Cheap. (and you get a free poster too).

We’re still trying to get this thing to other animation and/or political film festivals. If you know of any that we should enter, lemme know.

Guess where this massive Kerry/Edwards rally from July took place….

…nope, that’s not Central Park, it’s North Carolina. If a state they’ve never had a chance of winning can generate a crowd like that, I can’t help but think there’s a groundswell of support out there that isn’t being counted in the polls. The key is to make sure that enthusiasm doesn’t die (it may already be on life support).

By the way, how long do you think it would take the Bush/Cheney campaign to get all those people to sign loyalty oaths?

In the grand scheme of things, Tucker Carlson is a pretty good conservative pundit. He’s not rabidly shrill like the guys at Fox and he’s not a mumbling, traitorous sack of shit like Bob Novak. A show like Crossfire tends to bring out the worst in both sides of the aisle, but Carlson doesn’t bother me as much as most right wingers.

Nevertheless, there are a couple things about him that really piss me off. Everyone’s got a debating tactic or two that they resort to when backed into a corner and Tucker’s were on full display Friday. For those who ever find themselves in a debate with Mr. Bowtie, keep an eye open for the following :

Putting words into his opponent’s mouth:

BEGALA: Would that President Bush listened to the generals who warned him about going to Iraq.

CARLSON: I’m all for listening.

BEGALA: Like General Anthony Zinni, the four-star general who said — in fact, he described…of going into Iraq as — and I quote him here — “a brain fart.”

CARLSON: Bush is evil. No, I know. Bush is evil. You’ve got that right.

BEGALA: No, he’s not. But he should listen. He should listen. And I want a president who’s smart enough and tough enough to listen to good advice.

CARLSON: You agree with me. OK, You agree with me. The campaign is a disaster.

BEGALA: No, it’s not.
. . .
BEGALA: I think the president should tell the truth. The president should tell the truth.

CARLSON: No, I know he’s evil. You’re right.

BEGALA: No, he’s not evil. He should tell us the truth.

CARLSON: That’s right. He’s a liar, evil. All the same.

BEGALA: Should he tell the truth?

CARLSON: No, he’s evil, actually.

BEGALA: Should he tell the truth?

CARLSON: He’s evil.

BEGALA: Should he tell the truth?

Asking questions to which he doesn’t want to know the answer

CARLSON: Now, Paul, I asked you a minute ago a pretty simple question. Does John Kerry think the war was justified? You couldn’t answer it.

BEGALA: I don’t work for John Kerry.

CARLSON: No, no. I’m just interested. I ask the question every day. I’m going to continue to ask the question until I get an answer.

BEGALA: I think it’s unjustified. I think the president lied about it.

CARLSON: Hold on. My next question, should we leave our troops in Iraq? Should we pull them out? John Kerry hasn’t answered that either. What do you think?

BEGALA: I think that he should listen to experts who tell him that he’s misleading the country. The intelligence experts briefed the president

(CROSSTALK)

(BELL RINGING)

CARLSON: OK, OK. I know Bush is evil. But should we pull the troops out?

Tucker’s right on one count. He does ask the same question every damn day. If he really wanted to know the answer to that question, he could go to JohnKerry.com and see Kerry’s plan for himself :

We must change course in Iraq. Having gone to war, we cannot afford to fail at peace. The United States must take immediate measures to prevent Iraq from becoming a failed state that inevitably would become a haven for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the Middle East.

John Kerry and John Edwards will forge a new policy to promote stability, democracy, protection of minority and women’s rights in Iraq, and peace in the region. John Kerry and John Edwards will work to gain new military and financial commitments from other nations so America isn’t carrying the burden and risk virtually alone.

John Kerry and John Edwards will make the creation of a stable and secure environment in Iraq our immediate priority in order to lay the foundations for sustainable democracy. They will:

Persuade NATO to Make the Security of Iraq one of its Global Missions and to deploy a significant portion of the force needed to secure and win the peace in Iraq. NATO participation will in turn open the door to greater international involvement from non-NATO countries.

Internationalize the Non-Iraqi Reconstruction Personnel in Iraq, to share the costs and burdens, end the continuing perception of a U.S. occupation, and help coordinate reconstruction efforts, draft the constitution and organize elections.

Launch a Massive and Accelerated Training Effort to Build Iraqi Security Forces that can provide real security for the Iraqi people, including a major role for NATO. This is not a task for America alone; we must join as a partner with other nations.

Plan for Iraq?s Future by working with our allies to forgive Iraq?s multi-billion dollar debts and by supporting the development of a new Iraqi constitution and the political arrangements needed to protect minority rights. We will also convene a regional conference with Iraq’s neighbors in order to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq’s borders and non-interference in Iraq?s internal affairs

Is Kerry’s plan not detailed enough? Is it too optimistic? Is it just plain stupid? There are plenty of ways to criticize Kerry’s ideas on Iraq, but saying over and over again that he doesn’t have a plan is a goddamned lie.

Do the political analysts for CNN even bother watching the news they’re being paid to interpret??

WHITFIELD: So we’ve been hearing both camps say they want to focus more on the issues, the issues as of late, voters have said they want to hear more about the economy. They want to hear more about the wars, the ongoing wars on terrorism and the war in Iraq. So if that’s the case, then why does it seem that whether it’s the latest intelligence document or whether it’s the latest reviews on Congress, all paint a very pessimistic view of the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. It seems as though Americans are still very much in support of the way the Bush administration is handling things. Doesn’t it seem like a contradiction?

SCHNEIDER: Well, think of it this way. There are three different issues that are dominating this election: the economy, that’s John Kerry’s issue. He does very well on that, although recently Bush has made some gains. The war on terrorism, clearly Bush’s issue and the Republican convention really made that central to the message they wanted to send out. Bush will be strong in fighting terror.

Iraq is a key. The Iraq issue has been helpful to Kerry because voters who vote on Iraq are dissatisfied with the war and unhappy with the way things are going. But their numbers were diminishing. The White House did a very smart thing. At the end of June, they staged a very elaborate ceremony in Baghdad where the United States, the occupying power, handed over power to the Iraqi government. Ever since the end of June, Iraq has diminished in importance as a concern to American voters.

What the hell is he talking about? If this dude had been paying attention, he’d remember that the news about the Iraqi handover was that the “elaborate ceremony” never happened because everybody was afraid of getting blown up. The closest thing they had to a ceremony was Paul Bremer speeding to the airport and Bush writing “Freedom Kicks Ass” on a bar napkin.