Saturday, September 4, 2004

I've been trading e-mails with one of my cousins the last few weeks and after ole Zell's performance at the RNC, Scott had some nice things to say about him.  I responded with a quick note to the effect that "the boy ain't right" and got taken to task for attacking him rather than saying what I disagreed with.  I decided that was not an unreasonable criticism, so here's the response I sent to Scott last night.  Except where otherwise noted, the quotes are from Miller's keynote address at the RNC.  The italicized comments are mine.

"Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander-in-Chief."

Did he forget that we're having a Presidential election? While the party in power attacks Kerry and Edwards, they're supposed to just sit there and take it? Did Nixon not run against Humphrey saying that he was going to end the war and bring the boys home? How is running for President somehow a manic obsession for one guy and not the other? We have elections every four years, even if there's a Republican in office.

"Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator.

And nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators."

"No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home."

You know, of course, that President Bush called our troops occupiers.

"Together, Kennedy/Kerry have opposed the very weapons system that on the Cold War and that is now winning the War on Terror.

Listing all the weapon systems that Senator Kerry tried his best to shut down sounds like an auctioneer selling off our national security but Americans need to know the facts.

The B-1 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, dropped 40% of the bombs in the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom.

The B-2 bomber, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein's command post in Iraq.

The F-14A Tomcats, that Senator Kerry opposed, shot down Khadifi's Libyan MIGs over the Gulf of Sidra. The modernized F-14D, that Senator Kerry opposed, delivered missile strikes against Tora Bora.

The Apache helicopter, that Senator Kerry opposed, took out those Republican Guard tanks in Kuwait in the Gulf War. The F-15 Eagles, that Senator Kerry opposed, flew cover over our Nation's Capital and this very city after 9/11.

I could go on and on and on: Against the Patriot Missile that shot down Saddam Hussein's scud missiles over Israel, Against the Aegis air-defense cruiser, Against the Strategic Defense Initiative, Against the Trident missile, against, against, against.

This is the man who wants to be the Commander in Chief of our U.S. Armed Forces?

U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?"

Fred Kaplan at Slate.com did a pretty effective job of skewering this bit of foolishness:

"Here, one more time, is the truth of the matter: Kerry did not vote to kill these weapons, in part because none of these weapons ever came up for a vote, either on the Senate floor or in any of Kerry's committees.

This myth took hold last February in a press release put out by the RNC. Those who bothered to look up the fine-print footnotes discovered that they referred to votes on two defense appropriations bills, one in 1990, the other in 1995. Kerry voted against both bills, as did 15 other senators, including five Republicans. The RNC took those bills, cherry-picked some of the weapons systems contained therein, and implied that Kerry voted against those weapons. By the same logic, they could have claimed that Kerry voted to disband the entire U.S. armed forces; but that would have raised suspicions and thus compelled more reporters to read the document more closely.

What makes this dishonesty not merely a lie, but a damned lie, is that back when Kerry cast these votes, Dick Cheney—who was the secretary of defense for George W. Bush's father—was truly slashing the military budget. Here was Secretary Cheney, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 31, 1992:

'Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend.'

Cheney then lit into the Democratic-controlled Congress for not cutting weapons systems enough:

'Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M1s, F14s, and F16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them.'

I'm not accusing Cheney of being a girly man on defense. As he notes, the Cold War had just ended; deficits were spiraling; the nation could afford to cut back. But some pro-Kerry equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Zell Miller could make that charge with as much validity as they—and Cheney—make it against Kerry."

It's also worth noting comments made by Miller about Kerry just 3 years ago - I've quoted them in more detail below, but in short he said that Kerry has "worked to strengthen our military".

"Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations."

That's a lie - he's never said or implied anything like that.

 "As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military. And nothing shows that more sadly and more clearly than his vote this year to deny protective armor for our troops in harms way, far-away."

And of course voted FOR a competing bill that funded all of the same weapons and equipment for the troops (including protective armor) but didn't have the same provisions for no-bid contracts designed to benefit the President's backers. But then I'm sure you knew that.

"John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday's war. George Bush believes we have to fight today's war and be ready for tomorrow's challenges."

Because, of course, Bush and his VP and secretary of defense couldn't, uh, be bothered to fight the last one.

This is what Zell had to say about John Kerry in 2001 (it is still up on Miller's website):

'My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders – and a good friend.

He was once a lieutenant governor – but he didn't stay in that office 16 years, like someone else I know. It just took two years before the people of Massachusetts moved him into the United States Senate in 1984.

In his 16 years in the Senate, John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington.

Early in his Senate career in 1986, John signed on to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Bill, and he fought for balanced budgets before it was considered politically correct for Democrats to do so.

John has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment. Business Week magazine named him one of the top pro-technology legislators and made him a member of its "Digital Dozen."'

--------------------------------

We don't even need to get into Miller's performance when members of the press finally started doing their job after his convention speech and asked him to back any of this up - he challenged Matthews to a duel instead of answering. That's the insane part I was referring to. He's a liar and a bad one - unable to even stay consistent with his own story (not unlike a few Swift Boat vets I could name). So support him if you like, Scott, but I'll lightheartedly call him a crazy man but more seriously call him a liar.

I doubt I've said anything to sway Scott's opinion, but I'm not willing to let lies like these go unchallenged and I hope we continue to see more actual journalists go after the truth themselves.

Friday, September 3, 2004

JennySlash and I were talking about acquiring some yard signs from the Demo HQ yesterday at lunch and after she suggested a David Price sign I made a flip comment about not caring to have a Mike Easley sign in my yard.  I've been pretty amazed (and annoyed) at how fast and far he seems to be running away from the Democratic Party, which isn't exactly making me feel like providing a whole lot in the way of active support.  After lunch I hopped in the car to drive into the office on one of my incredibly infrequent visits and tuned in "The State of Things" on WUNC in time to catch some local commentators (including blogdom's own Ed Cone) talking about some of the state races and pretty much predicting the kind of reaction to Easley that I'd just had.  I'm not saying he's been a bad governor, but he sure as heck has been an invisible one.  Patrick Ballentine doesn't have much statewide name recognition yet, but it won't take much and as long as he keeps the creepy blond girl out of the rest of the TV ads, he's going to gain on Easley quickly.

There was another very astute comment on the program by Mike Munger (chairman of the political science dept at Duke) to the effect that Patrick Ballentine and Richard Burr are running "against" each other, since Burr has to make the case the the economy is improving and things are looking up so the Republicans need to maintain control of the Senate while Ballentine needs to say that the economy and job situation sucks so he needs to be governor instead of Easley.  I'm not sure how they're going to resolve that without nuance, and we all know wingnuts don't do nuance...

Wednesday, September 1, 2004

I caught JennySlash checking the Canadian government's website for its immigration policies last night.  I too have thought about that from time to time, although for all of Ottawa's charms, it's still too darn cold.  And Mexico is relatively cheap.  Then I woke to find Josh Marshall's particularly well-timed post:

"...today I realized -- somehow suddenly -- that what had been a congealing sense that the second half of August had been a bad couple weeks for Kerry had turned into a galloping panic that his campaign is in disarray and hope for his candidacy may be close to over.

 

There are articles about a possible shake-up among high-level staffers, blind quotes from Democratic insiders saying that after a couple more days it may be too late; and I've gotten a slew of emails from readers either asking me if I still think there's hope or ranting that they've had it with Mary Beth Cahill or Stephanie Cutter or someone else.

 

All I can say is, really, really, shut up and calm down.

 

Politically, this is one of the worst things about Democrats -- and it has many sources. As a group they seem to have a great tendency toward becoming disheartened, turning on their candidate, doubting his strategy, doubting his advisors, and so forth. Unfortunately, the candidates and advisors have an equal tendency to be open to that kind of fretting. And with the media playing the handmaiden to the synergizing anxiety, the whole thing can become very demoralizing and damaging for campaigns.

 

...

 

But the difference between the race today and where it was two, three or four weeks ago is still very small. The difference in the national polls is very slight. The last nine major national polls have ABC (tied), ICR (+3 Kerry), Time (+2 Bush), Fox (+1 Kerry), CNN (+2 Bush), NBC/WSJ (+2 Bush), LAT (+2 Bush), NPR (+4 Kerry), IBD/CSM (tied).

 

(Those numbers are from the graphic on the front page of Pollingreport.com.)

 

Let me be clear: Those polls tell me the momentum of the race has clearly moved in the president's direction. And some of the state-by-state numbers (like PA, for instance) show that even more clearly. For all that, though, it is difficult to say that Kerry has lost the race when it's not even clear that he's behind.

 

Again, this is not a Pollyannaish post. The Kerry campaign needs to get control of the debate back from the president. And they need to start hitting much harder. But Democrats themselves need to be a lot tougher and hardier about the cycles campaigns go through. And that applies to self-serving Democratic 'insiders' too.

 

Discipline pays rewards."

Josh is absolutely, positively, 100% correct.  The wingnuts have shown an uncanny ability to stay "on message" in the face overwhelming evidence that they are wrong or that they are lying.  And I'm not talking about just this campaign - this goes back decades.  The Democrats, on the other hand, have been played like trout, letting the Repuglicans lay claim the flag, corrupt the word "values" and make the word "liberal" a curse.  It's got to stop - liberals, moderates... hell, people of reason have got to take the national debate back, take the flag back, take the language back.  But more importantly, we've got to stop whinging every time an opinion poll swings against us (and I do mean we - I've been way to guilty of this myself).  A little context here - it's two months to the election and we've got an incumbent that has fucked up so badly he's blown one of the highest approval ratings in history and is now in a race for his life with a guy most people had barely heard of six months ago.  This despite a media that ranges from being outright and overtly right-wing (including apparently now all three cable news networks) to being so afraid of looking biased one way or another that they give voice to every crackpot with a lie to tell without bothering to check the veracity of their claims.  It's two months to the election and the reelection campaign is so afraid of the challenger that they've already resorted to dirty tricks early enough in the campaign that there's lots of opportunity to recover from them and for them to backfire.  Most of the polls are still in within the margin of error, so it's going to come down to who can best mobilize people to get off their asses and vote and I see little real enthusiasm for W.  So listen to Josh - stop whining and go put up another damn yard sign!

To lighten your mood a little, via the Poor Man comes the Pleasure Boat Captains for Truth:

"George W. Bush says he gave up drinking in 1986.    That's a lie. I remember a night back in 1980 when he gave up drinking, after only three or four beers. I asked if everything was okay, and he nodded. Another lie, because then he threw up all over the deck. When I asked him to help clean it up the next morning, he started crying so hard that I figured, just forget it."

--Wilbur Buckley, Skipper, S.S. Xanadu

And this Daily Show exchange last night between Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on the RNC:

JS: Well, Steven, let me ask you this: what is tonight's theme?

 

SC: Tonight, Jon, they took last night's theme, A Bush Victory Would Bring Closure to the 9/11 Families, and built on it with a theme of Compassion. We heard from widows, orphans, the enfeebled, the limbless, all raising their voice in support of the president whose compassion, like the Olympics, triumphantly springs forth every four years. You see, it all goes with the overall theme of this convention: A Time for Unmitigated Gall.

 

JS: But Steven, to be perfectly fair, aren't all political conventions manipulative?

 

SC: No, Jon. To call this convention manipulative is to call Marcel Marceau a little quiet. These people are artists operating at the peak of their abilities. For example, take Thursday night's theme: Fuck You, What Are You Going to Do About It?

 

JS: That can't be right. Steven, that sounds absolutely awful.

 

SC: Yeah but, you know, fuck us. What are we gonna do about it?

Uhm, we're going to throw the sonsabitches out - that's what we're going to do about it.

Monday, August 30, 2004

"Remnants" would appear to be a perfectly good word, but I typically see it used these days only in two very specific instances.  One is to describe the tail-end of the cloth on a bolt - the stuff that gets heavily discounted since there's not enough of it left for most people's needs.  The second is to describe what's left of a hurricane or tropical storm as it heads inland and weakens.  I don't think it's even possible anymore for anyone at the Weather Channel to talk about such a storm without using that word.  I say that as I sit in my home office while the "remnants" of Tropical Storm Gaston pound away.  The other hurricanes and tropical storms this season have so far had little affect on us and Gaston is primarily just dumping some rain here, but at least we got some gusty winds early today so that we knew this was something other than your run-of-the-mill rainstorm.  Folks down East weren't as fortunate - I believe there were some tornadoes spawned last night, but I haven't heard anything about damage yet.  I'll check the rain gauge this afternoon - I'm guessing 2.5-3 inches when it's all done.  The worst of it already seems to be past us and I'm hoping it did little other than screw up my running schedule.

So, as I said, I'm working away this morning wearing my "Mama Kwan's Tiki Bar and Grill" t-shirt from Kill Devil Hills, wishing I was there sucking down some mahi tacos (yeah, I know I'm a vegetarian, but sometimes...) or sitting on the porch of the condo we usually rent at Pirate's Cove on the east end of Roanoke Island, watching the rain pound the Sound over towards Nags Head.  It's not that I like to be out at the Banks during hurricanes - it's just that it feels like late September outside today and this is the first year in a long time that we don't have an OBX trip planned for my birthday.  This year has had much more of a mountain flavor than beach, but I'm feeling a real urge to see ocean.  I never spend all that much time actually in the surf (much more time on the water on the sound side in the kayak), but there is something infinitely calming about sitting on the beach looking at the ocean (regardless of the time of the year) and I could use some calming. Big doings at work coming over the next few weeks, including some changing of job responsibilities for me that are going to involve me getting into areas of the business that I have zero experience with.  The good thing (actually the thing that makes it even possible) is that it'll all still be with the same customer (I guess I should explain for those that don't know that I work in management at a large IT outsourcer) - I wouldn't have even considered this otherwise.  I'll probably end up going into the office more often, probably one or two days a week instead of one or two days every couple of months like it's been - but I can live with that.  I'll also probably end up working a lot more hours, at least for the next few months, but it's not like I haven't worked that kind of schedule before.  Big change is just stressful, not necessarily negative.  Maybe a few hours paddling around Cane Creek Reservoir or Jordan Lake this weekend would help.

We actually needed a little rain, but JennySlash and I both noted a few days ago that we can't remember a late August this green around here.  Usually, even in non-drought years, by mid-August the grass has gone dormant, the trees get this kind of gray look like they're covered with gravel dust and despite the humidity of the air, everything else is withering.  Not this year - Chapel Hill looks more like the way 50's pulp science fiction writers used to portray Venus - steamy, vine-covered tropical rainforests (I'm convinced that kudzu is near sentient and is capable of grabbing small dogs off the path on the Bolin Creek Greenway to munch on). I wasn't around for the great drought of '77, the one that spawned dirtiest car contests, co-ed showering and pithy slogans over toilets suggesting that flushing wasn't always required.  But summer-time water restrictions have been a fact of life around here almost every summer since then so this year and last have been quite a relief.

Enjoy the remnants of your summer!

Sunday, August 29, 2004

My post yesterday was both introspective and colored by fatigue and Dead Guy ale.  After some more reflection, I wanted to revisit it a little more (this still probably won't be my final attempt to discuss it - even after almost 36 hours, it's still being absorbed).

The caliber of people in that auditorium Saturday was astounding.  It's not often that in a room full of people, I feel like the dumbest guy there, but Saturday, well...  In addition to folks like Ruby and Todd who I've read for years and well-known bloggers and writers like Ed Cone and John Hood, we had Matt Gross from the Howard Dean and now the Erskine Bowles campaigns, best-selling author Jerry Bledsoe, Eric Muller for the UNC Law School (whose critique of Michelle Malkin's book on the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans got LOTS of national attention) and probably a lot of other people that I should have recognized but didn't.  I was very impressed with Chapel Hill City Councilperson Sally Greene and her thoughts on blogging as an office holder (not just as a campaign tool) - and she did a tremendous job of taking (and publishing) notes on at least the first couple of hours of the conference.  You should go read it here (that way I don't have to try to recap the whole thing myself).  Ed's got a list of participants up - I suspect that by tomorrow, most of us will have posted at least something about the con.

It was remarked at least once that we seemed to be beyond "blog euphoria" - there were no attempts by anyone to claim for blogs the solutions to world hunger or other vital problems.  They were viewed much more realistically as yet another (incredibly cheap) tool for campaigning, fund-raising, finding and communicating with volunteers and communicating with constituents.  My personal feeling is that blogs and websites are not going to win an election for anyone but the lack of one (or maybe worse, a badly conceived one) might cost someone an election.  I also think that the focus in the con on local elections was very significant - it's so difficult to get one's message and platform out in local races.  It won't replace walking into every diner and coffee shop and shaking every hand, but it's a good adjunct.  (And one of these days someone's going to have to tell me whether anyone has studied whether yard signs have any discernable effect on local elections - I just find them annoying.)  I think blogging is already at a point that it can be a factor in smaller (particularly affluent) communities like Chapel Hill. Again, check Sally's blog for some of the discussions - very interesting stuff.

The other main focus was on blogging and its place as part of, as opposed to, or as a subset of more traditional media.  Read the blogs of some of the folks that were there (see link above).  I may have some comments later but for now let me just applaud again the Greensboro N&R's early adoption of blogs as, among other things, a way to increase the feedback that they get from their readers.

More later - gotta go walk the dog...

It was touching and I think fitting that Mia Hamm was voted by the US Olympic team to carry the US flag during the closing ceremonies today.  She really has been the Michael Jordan of women's soccer (or maybe more appropriately Michael was the Mia Hamm of pro basketball) - acknowledged as the best player in the sport for fifteen years.

If you think about it, for the last few years some of the most recognizable athletes internationally were from UNC - the three Ms; Michael, Marion and Mia.  With Jordan's retirement a couple of years ago, Hamm's retirement now and Jones's problems off and on the track, it really is the end of a special time for UNC athletics.

Side note:  it hit me watching the closing ceremonies tonight that North Carolina ought to bid on the Olympics.  Not Charlotte or Raleigh, but the I-85 corridor - Metrolina, if you will.  Between the stadiums in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill and Raleigh, the Coliseums in Charlotte, Greensboro, Chapel Hill and Raleigh and many smaller venues from Gastonia to Raleigh, building could be kept to a minimum.  I know, it'll never happen, but it's an interesting thought.  Mountain biking events at Tsali - woo-hoo!!

I understand that the Bush campaign's refusal to stop running an ad featuring Afghani and Iraqi Olympians along with trademarked Olympic symbols has prompted at least one member of the IOC to state that while New York's chances at hosting the 2012 Games had been slim, they've now become none.