Election

The Freeway Blogger

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I hate to be the one to point this out, but the Iraqis hit the thousand-soldier mark in the first day of bombing. By the time Commander Codpiece landed on the Lincoln, they’d lost over 28,000 soldiers. 28,000 dead soldiers and god-knows-how-many civilians… just to get one guy. And the wrong guy at that.

Somebody please explain to me how this is going to make us safer, because I don’t see it.

Western Swing – AZ NM CO

Here’s My Offer: I’ll match every sign you put up in your state with three of my own. If Arizona sends me pictures of 25 signs, I’ll go there and put up 75. Same for you New Mexico. You too Colorado. This offer valid for hand-painted signs only.

As citizens of swing states, please bear in mind that the point here is to win people over, not put them off, so let’s try and soft pedal the “Bush = Hitler” stuff, okay? (There’ll be plenty of time for that after he cancels the election and declares martial law.)

Remember, the only difference between me and the rest of you is cardboard, paint, and a willingness to use them, and I think we can all agree that that’s not very much of a difference.

This offer expires October 15th.

Dump Duhbya

‘a flaming disaster of a president’

DodgeGlobe.com:Chalt: Cement sack, yes, but with concrete ideas By Jonathan Chalt

If [Kerry] can’t run a campaign, the argument goes, he would never have been able to run the White House.

That sounds reasonable enough unless you consider the fact that George W. Bush is a highly competent campaigner but a flaming disaster of a president. And it is exactly those things that make him so ruthlessly effective on the stump – centralized authority, party discipline, total disregard for the truth – that have created a hermetically sealed petri dish in which bad policies come to life and are carried out unchallenged. …

[A] president who struggles to enact decent policies is surely better than one who easily enacts awful policies.

Dump Duhbya

Too Late

War is peace SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

As U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said prior to Bush’s address, “Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it, and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it.”

Despite Bush’s invasion of Iraq in what Annan now calls an illegal war, the president said yesterday that U.N. members must “do more” to help in Iraq.

“Each of us alone can only do so much,” Bush said. “Together we can accomplish so much more.”

For a president who waged pre-emptive war in Iraq in defiance of the United Nations, citing now disproved weapons threats and now discredited terrorist connections, it seems a lesson learned too late.

Election

Bush’s Little Bombs

Bush in ‘Nature’ on New Nukes by John Fleck

There’s one question in particular — on nuclear weapons — that’s of direct relevance to the New Mexico scientific enterprise:

Do you support research into new nuclear-weapon designs in the United States? If not, how do you see the future role of the three nuclear-weapons labs? …

Kerry’s response to Nature’s question was clear and unambiguous: “I would end the pursuit of a new generation of nuclear weapons.”

[Bush’s response:] “The Nuclear Posture Review released by my administration in January 2002 noted that the nation?s nuclear infrastructure had atrophied since the end of the cold war and that the evolving security environment requires a flexible and responsive weapons-complex infrastructure. To that end, my fiscal-year 2005 budget reflects an increase over 2004 in weapons activities.”

I think it is good of John to bring this issue up again. Do you vote for your pocketbook or saving the world from ‘tactical nuclear weapons’ (as in, ‘we have them, why not use them?’ and ‘oops, we’ve misplaced several.’) Just how smart are those lab rats?

On the other hand, I disagree with John; Bush couldn’t be more clear — he will build little bombs and use them. It is funny to see Bush take a hundred words to say something and Kerry only a dozen. mjh

[Follow the link above to John’s blog entry and from there to his original article and the Nature questionaire submitted to Bush & Kerry.]

Dump Duhbya

‘security moms’

Why women are edging toward Bush By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

A growing group of ‘security moms’ puts national safety at the top of their list, weakening a traditionally Democratic base. …

[D]ata show the traditional breakdown between men and women. The latest American Research Group poll shows Bush beating Kerry 51 percent to 42 percent among men, while Kerry beats Bush 50 percent to 42 percent among women.

But no Democrats are resting easy, as long as some polls show Kerry with trouble retaining women’s votes. They know that in a race that remains close, they must turn out their base voters – and that there’s little margin for error. According to Lake, 66 percent of undecideds are women.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams