Category: Edgewise

  • And ye shall judge them by what they say about John McCain

    Got an email from the Kerry campaign Monday night pointing out this bit of unpleasantness: One of the groups making the case that decorated war hero John Kerry is actually a cowardly, unpatriotic, Viet Cong-loving liar have also put up a lengthy post making the brutally detailed case for why decorated war hero John McCain…

  • Scoop: Presidential race still tied. Developing…

    Here’s a quick replay of the last several months: Kerry up by 4 — oooh, Bush is really in trouble now. Bush up by 1. Sounds like Kerry’s on the ropes! Kerry up by 2, whatever will Bush do? And all this drama driven by polls that generally have margins of error around 3 or…

  • Geekiest protest sign ever

    I saw this picture or Ross Mayfield’s weblog (he got it from Boing Boing).

  • Bush’s 20 Electoral College “Bonus Votes”

    Here’s a bit of arcane, but consequential US Civics: One of the ways the Electoral College is skewed is that states don’t get Electoral votes in proportion to their population. There are 435 votes allocated by population, according to the number of seats the state has in the Hose of Representatives. Then each state gets…

  • Iraq and Afghanistan – democracies?

    Regarding Bush’s Olympics ad referring to Afghanistan and Iraq as democracies: Don’t you actually have to have at least one successful election before you can call something a democracy? Isn’t it just special that George Bush refuses to remove the ad, contrary to the wishes of the Olympic brass and the Iraqi soccer team, while…

  • John Kerry eats human brains

    Tonight on The Daily Show, John Kerry finally puts all those “was he wounded? did he bleed? really? really?! how much did he bleed? and does he really bleed at all? or is he an undead? a zombie? a creature of the night? a crypt thing?” questions to rest by letting host Jon Stewart puncture…

  • Who’s more negative – officially speaking?

    With the subject of negative ads rearing its ugly head again, I was wondering who is in fact running the most negative campaign (I know, I know – just humor me). With all the so-called 527s obscuring the message, wholly-independent Republican groups and surrogates of Kerry alike, I figured the best way to get to…

  • Keeping it “real”

    A group called RNC Not Welcome in NYC (or noRNC for short) and CounterConvention present Fuck New York (video/quicktime object) (warning: language not work-safe + some may find the satire offensive as it blends racialized language with preppy stereotypes are borders on minstrelsy).

  • Swift Boats for Me, Me, Me!!

    It was nice of Bill O’Reilly to criticize the Swift Boat ads as deplorable. But, as he quickly notes, these sorts of smear ads have been coming from both sides, apparently, equally. In fact, last night he started his “talking points” discussion of the issue by focusing on the democratic side and how they are…

  • Kerry response to swift boat smear

    This remarkably powerful ad from Kerry/Edwards — and the associated petition — are well worth your time.

  • Media Monkeys & Red Star Republicans

    ….as in See No Evil, etc. Has anybody noticed that the Bush campaign stops all seem to take place in the same room? And that the media show only the podium-shots of Kerry and Bush as if they were both addressing actual crowds of people? Have you also noticed that the Bush “campaign speeches” include…

  • This blog, too, kills fascists

    The Thorn Papers

  • It’s happening again…

    Remember when the media spent all that time covering Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater and Travelgate? And then, how after 9/11, looking back, most of us, regardless of party (far far right excepted) thought: “hunh. that may not have been the best way for the media to have used its time — yapping on about that…

  • Doing their homework for them

    Imagine if the press corps, instead of simply parroting the right’s latest talking points and mocking jibes instead did a little research. I suspect that even googling around for the word “sensitive” in the context of the war on terror and the sideshow in Iraq would have turned up some of the examples that LiberalOasis…

  • The gang that couldn’t shoot straight

    They blew it with the mobile phone monitoring of Osama, they outed Plame, and now they’ve burned a turned al Qaeda mole (double agent) for short-term political damage control: Read between the lines, and CNN is suggesting that the outing of Khan has led to greater caution in al-Qaeda and similar groups about using electronic…

  • Opportunity costs

    This op-ed chart from the NY Times compares how the money spent getting Saddam out of power could have been put to other uses in the war on people who hate our freedom. When someone asks you if it was worth it getting Saddam out, ask them “compared to what?”

  • Purple states turning blue

    Diarist Andy at Kos notes that Kerry is now leading Bush in Pennsylvania polls by more than the margin of error, and threatening to do so in a few other battleground states.

  • Uniting liberals and conservatives

    The Left Coaster lays out the conservative case against Bush. I have always been proud to be known as liberal and I agree with many of the goals of the traditional and new left, but I have also always been sympathetic to many of conservative ideals (as stated) and the drives that underlie them. I’ve…

  • Revision watch

    OK, over at the White House’s official transcript it appears that the “misstatement” was spoken as written: Third, this bill meets our commitment to America’s Armed Forces by preparing them to meet the threats of tomorrow. Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm…

  • Freudian much?

    This latest Bush gem sounds like a parody (but apparently it’s simply a flub – what did the speech have in this place as written, I wonder?): Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we,” Bush said. “They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither…

  • When they talk about “Bush hating” remember this

    The headlines over on the drudgereport (again — can’t stand to give him a link, though I suppose — blech — I am giving him “press” by even commenting on this) currently reads “Slaughters Animals. Burns Down Tiny Village.” Who does such things? Why, according to Drudge, John Kerry. (These are those charges from the…