Amensia over War versus “Send Me” The GOP reactions to last night speeches at the DNC in Boston are already contradicting themselves. While the RNC is saying two-thirds of the comments were negative, Tucker Carlson ranks the criticism of Bush an “F”. Maybe Tucker was expecting Bob Novak type snarls and his own pattern of […]

Voting for Kerry Looking for reasons to vote for Kerry, instead of simply against Bush? Read this piece by Thomas Oliphant in the current issue of The American Prospect. Kash

Sullivan Coming Around I’ve always said a few things about Andrew Sullivan: smart and a good writer, but sadly, roughly equal parts misguided and disingenuous. Today, in a scathing analysis of the Bush administration, he displays the first two characteristics admirably. Here’s a sample, but the rest is similar and well worth reading: There has […]

The Million Billionaire March Wondering what the group Billionaires for Bush is up to during the DNC in Boston? True to the grassroots nature of their crusade to hold on to the hard-fought advances that billionaires have enjoyed over the past 3½ years, they are holding a protest march. I wish them well – may […]

Speaking of Michigan and Nader Josh Marshall links to this from ABC News: Consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s quixotic presidential campaign says it submitted about 5,400 signatures to get on the Michigan ballot, far short of the required number of 30,000. Luckily for him, approximately 43,000 signatures were filed by Michigan Republicans on his behalf, more […]

Swing State Numbers The latest Gallup/USA Today poll shows Kerry even in Missouri, down 4 in Florida, and up 5 in Ohio — with Nader in the race.(*) Since Gore barely lost in 2000 while carrying none of these states, and Bush seems unlikely to win any states he didn’t carry in 2000 (the possible […]

Bush Tells Urban League Employment is Rising   After George Bush snubbed the NAACP, he appears before the Urban League with another partisan attack at the Democrats with lines like: “I know plenty of politicians assume they have your vote. But did they earn it, and do they deserve it?” and “Have the traditional solutions […]

Perspective Kuffner puts things into perspective nicely today: …I have a few words to say about the attempt by the Republicans in Congress to force DOMA-related lawsuits out of the federal courts. I just can’t decide if I find this sort of behavior outrageous or pitiable. I mean, for crying out loud, we’ve just had […]

The National Archives I’m not sure what to make of the Sandy Berger kerfuffle, other than that it’s strange. But Bob Somerby has a pretty good idea: Meanwhile, add the National Archives to the list of deeply dysfunctional agencies. Apparently, they only keep close watch on their documents after they think that some are missing. […]

Rumsfeld’s Pentagon Before 9/11 My earlier post excerpting Chapter 8 portrayed the Commission’s findings regarding Attorney General Ashcroft prior to 9/11. Chapter 6 paints a similar picture of (probably benign) negligence in the case of Rumsfeld. The confirmation of the Pentagon’s new leadership was a lengthy process. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz was confirmed in March 2001 […]