Daily Howler: No one but the New York Times shows such woeful bad judgment. Also: Bush-Kerry II!

It’s embarrassing to see a president stoop to the type of deception displayed Friday evening. In the first half of the Great Debate, Bush was faring rather poorly. And so, in answer to Question 9 (of 18), he turned to a potent, discredited claim. “Let me see where to start,”� he mused. And then he had it! He knew where to start! He started with a fake old deception:

BUSH (10/8/04): Let me see where to start here. First, the National Journal named Senator Kennedy [sic] the most liberal senator — of all! And that’s saying something with that bunch. You might say that took a lot of hard work.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ! Except Kerry isn’t “the most liberal senator” and the National Journal hasn’t said otherwise. Indeed, how misleading was the president’s claim? When Bush began making this claim back in March, the Journal quickly published an article noting that the claim was vastly misleading. Indeed, Kerry’s lifetime voting record doesn’t place him among the Journal’s ten most liberal senators, as the mag pointed out (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/6/04). But so what? Facing disaster on Question 9, Bush went ahead and pimped the charge anyway.

I’ve been meaning to write you for quite some time about the election. I’ll make some points and attach some articles. In the end, if you are still unpersuaded, I will do one more thing: I will BEG you to vote for Kerry. Please vote for Kerry. There is a chance Tennessee will go for Kerry.

There is really so much against Bush. I’m sure you are aware of much of it. Bottom line: he is secretive, he is stubborn and, more than likely, he is deceitful to a degree that exceeds Kerry and prior Presidents (and I hated Nixon just as much). Furthermore, he is a strange version of conservative and an evangelical Christian who believes his Christianity makes him a better American than you or I. Finally, because he’s not interested in all sides of an issue (close-minded), he is probably at the mercy of his inner circle, which is a frightening group of people.

Does this mean I have nothing good to say about Kerry? Not at all. Kerry is clearly smart, thoughtful, considerate, and serious. Kerry is a lawyer (and ours is a nation of laws). He’s a former prosecutor (which isn’t actually a plus to me, but might be to law-and-order types). Of course we know too much about his service in Vietnam (in contrast to Bush’s evasions). Some are troubled, even angry, about him coming back from the Vietnam War and becoming a protestor (and an activist – not just a protestor, but someone working for change). I think it shows he’s capable of recognizing a mistake and working for change; and for standing up for principles. I have no idea what he will accomplish as President. I don’t see how he can easily ‘fix’ Iraq or defeat the terrorists. But I see Bush doing more of the same OR WORSE, and Kerry looking for alternatives – that’s what we need.

As for Edwards, he’s at least as qualified to be Vice President as Quayle was; more than Spiro Agnew was. He’s smart and another lawyer (Republicans hate the thought of two lawyers in charge; Lincoln was a trial lawyer). He balances and complements Kerry in so many ways.

When it comes time to appoint two to four new Supreme Court justices, I want two lawyers who will read all of the opinions written by any potential nominees deciding who to nominate. Not a guy who will depend on a one-page Executive Summary. This is not the only issue, but it’s one that will affect the rest of my life.

Please, please, please vote for Kerry. Don’t be turned off by my hatred of Bush or my whining plea. Look beyond that to the real choice between a guy who had his chance and screwed up in so many, many ways – and has not learned from his mistakes, in part because he doesn’t believe he’s made any – versus a guy who is at least qualified and capable and more respectful of other views and the law. mjh

http://www.DumpBushBlog.com/

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Anti-Kerry film slated to air on eve of election By Elizabeth Jensen, Los Angeles Times

The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose television outlets reach nearly a quarter of the nation’s homes with TV, is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Senator John F. Kerry’s activism against the Vietnam War, network and station executives familiar with the plan said Friday.

Sinclair’s programming plan, communicated to executives in recent days and coming in the thick of a close and intense presidential race, is highly unusual even in a political season that has been marked by media controversies.

Sinclair has told its stations — many of them in political swing states such as Ohio and Florida — to air ”Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal,” sources said. The film, funded by Pennsylvania veterans and produced by a veteran and former Washington Times reporter, features former POWs accusing Kerry — a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester — of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war. Sinclair will preempt regular prime-time programming from the networks to show the film, which may be classified as news programming, according to TV executives familiar with the plan.

Recall that Sinclair blocked the broadcast of Nightline’s reading of the names of war dead. The Radical Right and its corporations will do anything to retain power. YOU have the power to boot them out. mjh

BOYCOTT SINCLAIR ADVERTISERS

Democratic Talk Radio ACTION ALERT

Political Memo: In New Attacks, Bush Pushes Limit on the Facts By ADAM NAGOURNEY
and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

From the beginning of the year, the White House has charted new ground with the sweep of its negative campaigning, starting with an $80 million wave of attack advertisements directed at Senator John Kerry that began the moment he effectively won his party’s nomination last spring.

But the scathing indictment that Mr. Bush offered of Mr. Kerry over the past two days – on the eve of the second presidential debate and with polls showing the race tightening – took these attacks to a blistering new level. In the process, several analysts say, Mr. Bush pushed the limits of subjective interpretation and offered exaggerated or what some Democrats said were distorted accounts of Mr. Kerry’s positions on health care, tax cuts, the Iraq war and foreign policy. …

[A]nalysts, including some Republicans, said Mr. Bush was repeatedly taking phrases and sentences out of context, or cherry-picking votes, to provide an unfavorable case against Mr. Kerry.

“So much of what they are indicting is taken out of context,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and the author of a book on negative campaigning. “It’s a matter of taking sentences out of context or parts of sentences out of context. And it’s hard for journalists to write the context back in because it takes time.” …

The latest line of attacks by Mr. Bush comes during what has been a tumultuous week for him, amid signs that a once swaggering White House was getting worried. …

“[Karl] Rove and [Ralph] Reed were schooled by Lee [Atwater] and he told them that what you do is you rip the bark off liberals.” said Marshall Wittman, a former senior aide to Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, and is registered as an independent. “Even if they’re not liberals you rip the bark off them. That’s what they are doing.“

The Mystery of the Bulge in the Jacket By ELISABETH BUMILLER

What was that bulge in the back of President Bush’s suit jacket at the presidential debate in Miami last week? …

First they said that pictures showing the bulge might have been doctored. But then, when the bulge turned out to be clearly visible in the television footage of the evening, they offered a different explanation.

“There was nothing under his suit jacket,” said Nicolle Devenish, a campaign spokeswoman.

“It was most likely a rumpling of that portion of his suit jacket, or a wrinkle in the fabric.”

Ms. Devenish could not say why the “rumpling” was rectangular.

Nor was the bulge from a bulletproof vest, according to campaign and White House officials; they said Mr. Bush was not wearing one.
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See Is Bush Wired?