Category: Edgewise
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Quote of the Day
From Molly Ivins: “Sometimes, I get the feeling the whole country is being run by Paris Hilton.”
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The “Ties” That Blind
AFP The White House insisted there were ‘ties’ that linked the former regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to the Al-Qaeda terror network. DKo: Even if there weren’t any actual Al-Qaeda-ties, there were certainly Al-Qaeda-ties-related-program-activities. And actual Al-Qaeda ties could have been deployed within 45 minutes.
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Best Analysis of a Politician Ever
Digby deconstructs the “two faces of Bush” meme.
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Rathergate a ‘reverse judo backflip’?
At Blue Lemur (White House fueled CBS ‘memo-gate’ by withholding document; Was it all a set-up?) there’s more evidence that the “forgery consensus” about the Texas Air National Guard scandal was carefully cultivated from the top. It sure put Bush’s questionable behavior and avoidance of fulfilling his cushy responsibilities off the table through November. I…
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Tom DeLay is toast
Journalist Amy Rozen fills us in on Washington scuttlebutt in her War and Piece weblog. Couldn’t be happening to a nicer guy.
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Bremer echoes Kerry’s criticism of Iraq planning
From the Post, via MSNBC.com: Bremer’s comments were striking because they echoed contentions of many administration critics, including Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry, who argue that the U.S. government failed to plan adequately to maintain security in Iraq after the invasion. Bremer has generally defended the U.S. approach in Iraq but in recent weeks…
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Will the Hip-Hop Nation Stand Up?
I think it will. I have been among the eldest citizens for years (though my attention has drifted lately). I have felt it was a unique dialectic of candor that would turn out to be redemptive for the United States. The OG’s (“Original Gangstas”) of my own generation are on tour right now for the…
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Brace for it
It’s been a pretty solid 20 hours (and counting) for John Kerry. But the Cheney/Bush team are industrious folks. We don’t know exactly what’s brewing. Not yet. But you can hear the shouting behind closed doors at the White House. And the clippity-clop clippity-clop in the evening fog. Something nasty this way comes. Brace for…
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Bipolar polling
I just took a Pew Center online poll designed to gather the views of people involved in the Dean primary campaign. It seemed like a decent polls but when we were asked for our opinions on some key issues, I felt that the either/or choices offered were subliminally slanting the issues in a media-inflected way…
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Kerry seemed ‘on’
In the spirit of balanced analysis, let me offer this counter-point to xian’s crafty post-debate “spin.” Yes, fine, I’ll grant his central thesis: Sure. OK. Bush was off. But leave us not forget: Kerry was on. Really, the guy had a job to do, and dang if he didn’t nail it. He was smart, strong,…
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Bush seemed ‘off’
Watched the debate tonight. Bush seemed to be off his game. His timing was off. I had the distinct impression he was waiting for the audience-response he gets at his handpicked rallies and was nonplussed when his repeated lines and that hangdog mugging he does were met with silence. Kerry did good. Tonight was important.…
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developing: President Bush is a habitual onanist
On the eve of the first presidential debates, some say President Bush has developed an unhealthy addiction to onanism. Sources close to the President have recently noticed that his hands are never more than 6 feet from his guy-parts. Never. Not during cabinet meetings. Not playing with his dog. Not watching “Jimmy Kimmel” on the…
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From the Washington Times, no less
Found this on the redoubtable Buzzflash. Considering the source, Arnaud de Borchgrave of the Washington Times, it’s a remarkably cogent summary of the situation. Also a little off-message, especially the bullet point that “the war on terror” is a political fiction – “a misnomer tantamount to rhetorical disinformation.” Bleepin’ A, Arnie!
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The fine line between clever and stupid
Bush bringing Allawi from Iraq to the US to do a joint press conference with him: Not politicizing the war. Kerry accusing Bush of misleading the country about the true scope of problems in Iraq, and disputing statements made at the Bush/Allawi joint press conference: Politicizing the war. Any questions?
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Bush: “Taliban no longer is in existence.”
“That’s why I said to the Taliban in Afghanistan: Get rid of al Qaeda; see, you’re harboring al Qaeda. Remember this is a place where they trained — al Qaeda trained thousands of people in Afghanistan. And the Taliban, I guess, just didn’t believe me. And as a result of the United States military, Taliban…
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A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people, singing John Lennon songs, here. (this has been out for a little bit, but I’m late to the party, and I figgered there might be others who are likewise a lil bit behind the times. nod to xian for pointing this out to me over the weekend.)
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We get trolls
and we fisk them with extreme prejudice (when we’re bored).
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Allawi may have been a terrorist
Hey, but at least he was “our” terrorist, kinda. He seems to have played every side of the street, according to a dossier rounded up by Ken Layne. The rundown on Allawi makes Chalabi sound relatively straightforward. I suppose in the interests of stability, if not democracy, a CIA-installed strongman ruling Iraq does make some…
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Friday pick-me-up
A little down about the state of the election? There’s a nifty collection of current polls plus some comparisons to a few prev. elections, here. Puts things in some helpful perspective. And really, given the fantastic month Bush has had and the mess that we’re told the Kerry campaign is, given all those heart-tugging John…
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How does he know? They told him so.
From Thursday’s Bush/Allawi press conference: Q: do you believe, given the situation on the ground and Fallujah and other northern cities in the Sunni triangle, that elections are possible in four months? BUSH: I do, because the [Iraqi] prime minister [Allawi] told me they are. He’s interested in moving this country forward. And you heard…