Here's What's Left

Would it matter if George W. Bush were a robot? Part II

To clarify a few things that I said in Part I.

Kevin Drum has two posts about what he calls the Issues vs. Character question. here's one. here's the other. Kevin says:

Over at the Prospect, Michael Tomasky suggests that Democrats fight campaigns on issues while Republicans fight them on character. Republican positions on most issues are basically unpopular, so their only hope of winning is a relentless assault on the character of their Democratic opponent.

Here's Tomasky's article, for reference. But later Kevin seems to disagree with Tomasky on certain points:

Now, I happen to agree with Tomasky that Republicans generally go for the jugular more effectively than Democrats, but it's a big mistake for us liberals to kid ourselves into thinking that Republicans win elections solely because they fool people into voting for them. It's not just that this is a debilitating mental attitude — although it is — but it's also not true. Our main problem isn't that this year's campaign has ignored the issues, our main problem is that the #1 issue in this campaign is national defense, and on that issue — like it or not — the majority of Americans favor the Republican position. If John Kerry wants to win, he should focus on the issues, but he has to focus on the issues that matter most in this campaign cycle.

Would it matter if George W. Bush were a robot?

Here are two pieces of (incorrect) conventional wisdom that we've been hearing a lot in this election cycle that I want to examine in the context of the national media:

1) George W. Bush is a strong leader because you know where he stands.

2) John Kerry says that he sees nuances and likes to consider all side of an issue, but he's really a flip-flopper, and will saying anything to get elected.

Something about these two lines came together for me in very disturbing way tonight when I was watching Hardball (transcript's not up yet, so these quotes are from Lexis Nexis). Chris Matthews had on John Fund from the WSJ, and Colbert King from the WaPo. It was mostly a Kerry-bashing session, which was disappointing because Matthews is generally pretty fair, but that's beside the point. Both of the aforementioned bits of conventional wisdom came into the conversation, as they often do:

FUND: But, Chris, George W. Bush has prosecuted this war by fits and starts. But the vast majority of the American people think that he is better qualified to fight the war on terrorism and better qualified to fight the war in Iraq, because John Kerry is completely incoherent. We are in Iraq. We're going to stay. The question is whether or not we win it. And John Kerry is a weather vane on this.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: And what was the best line at the convention from the president?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: My favorite best line was, well, you know where I stand.

FUND: Yes.

Telling slips

There were two such slips on Meet the Press today, and both are very funny. One was Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:

MR. RUSSERT: The vice president of the United States said that no matter who is elected president, there will be another terrorist attack, but the difference is that John Kerry may not have learned anything from September 11 and would deal with it as a criminal act rather than an act of war.

MS. ALBRIGHT: Well, this is just a series of outrageous statements that Vice President Bush has been making and using scare tactics, and it is...

MR. RUSSERT: Vice President Cheney.

MS. ALBRIGHT: Vice President Cheney said that.

(Is that because sometimes it seems like Bush is only the VP, and the other guy is really in charge?)

And possibly the funnier one:

SEYMOUR HERSH: [T]here was a wonderful general, just retired from the Air Force, named John Gordon, who'd been a deputy director of the CIA. And he pushed it. He did the unthinkable in the Nixon White House -- you know, in the Bush White House, because he pushed stuff that they didn't want to hear. He forced a series of meetings.

I don't think that one needs much unpacking.

-- Michael

Right-Wing Media Coverage of the Bush TexANG Scandal

One of the things that I find most striking about the Texas Air National Guard Scandal and the allegedly forged documents is the way in which the right-wing media has reacted to it. Actually, it's really not striking at all, since they reacted hysterically, and made a bunch of outrageous and unsubstantiated claims, which is what they usually do. But nevertheless, it's worth reminding you about.

Not only was there an attempt by sources official ("It's not surprising that you see a coordinated effort by Democrats to attack the President when Senator Kerry is falling behind in the polls") and un- to say that the Kerry campaign and/or the DNC was directly involved (without any evidence -- remember how mad they were when Kerry accused the Bush campaign of collusion with the Swifties? and the Kerry campaign actually had evidence), but there was an attempt to directly implicate CBS in the story. Here's Rush Limbaugh:

If these documents are forgeries, if CBS has been duped, I don't care by who, they were willing -- I don't know if they're willing accomplices, but they wanted the story to be true. They're not victims here. They have been in the tank for Kerry, CBS has been the network, all those 60 Minutes shows, all those books in conjunction with their parent company, all of the lack of attention of the swift boat vets, CBS hasn't given one shred of notice to these people, or very little, and now this. It's going to be hard for them to come out and throw up their hands, "We've tried to do our job!" Now, you wanted this story to be true, CBS did.

In Memoriam

Here's to the innocent people who died in the terrorist attacks three years ago today. Here's to the innocent people who have died in terrorist attacks since then. Here's to the innocent people who have died as a result of our own war on terrorism. And here's to the innocent people who have died because of preventable disease, intolerance, accidental thingyness, stupidity or any of the other ridiculous things that happen in our world. May we do a better job, may we make better progress, and may we have fewer innocent people die from now on.

Forgery or real?

I don't think there's any doubt. This one's authentic. via Daily Kos.

-- Michael

Ghost Detainees

The real stories keep getting lost in all this campaign garbage. The NYTimes tells us:

Army jailers in Iraq, acting at the Central Intelligence Agency's request, kept dozens of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities off official rosters to hide them from Red Cross inspectors, two senior Army generals said Thursday. The total is far more than had been previously reported.

An Army inquiry completed last month found eight documented cases of so-called ghost detainees, but two of the investigating generals said in testimony before two Congressional committees and in interviews on Thursday that depositions from military personnel who served at the prison indicated that the real total was many times higher.

"The number is in the dozens, to perhaps up to 100," Gen. Paul J. Kern, the senior officer who oversaw the Army inquiry, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Another investigator, Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, put the figure at "two dozen or so," but both officers said they could not give a precise number because no records were kept on most of the C.I.A. detainees.

Why does the Bush administration hate international law?

C'mon people, really. Seriously. Don't hide detainees from the Red Cross. Don't torture them. Let them have tribunals to determine whether they're POWs or illegal combatants, as the Geneva Conventions require. Is this too much to ask from the greatest superpower in human history, that prides itself on cherishing human rights, that claims to fight wars for the good of the Iraqi people?

-- Michael

Are they forged?

I don't know. CBS is sticking by its story, but the WaPo (and here's a shout out to all of you that are so fond of crying "liberal media" everytime they publish anything) has a piece questioning their authenticity:

Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.

Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their authenticity.

but the article goes on:

CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified people who saw them "at the time they were written." [...]

A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that "these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda, but was telling other people," the CBS News official said. "Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."

So, the jury's out, and I'm sure the truth will be known soon.

A few notes, though:

1) If the documents are forged, and were in fact done a modern computer, I find that the height of stupidity. If someone was out there to forge a document and make it pass for authentic, you'd think at least they would have done their homework. Which leads me to my next point:

2) If they are forged, the people that forged them are either total amateurs who are hoping to damage Bush and have bungled it, or are people that knew that the forgery would be easily found out and had a different goal in mind. I don't consider either outside the realm of possibility.

3) If they are forgeries, CBS should be ashamed.

4) If they are not forged, I think this chapter represents a successful chapter in the Republican response machine. The idea of them being a forgery has dampened the story for a few days.

5) It's funny to me that the White House did not immediately dispute the findings in the documents, if they are forgeries. Why would they not say, "President Bush has no recollection of this conversation with Lt. Col. Killian"? Why would the White House communications director essentially concede that the contents of the memos are correct if the White House knew they weren't? Is that suggestive of something?

Answers to all of these questions I'm sure will be forthcoming soon. Either that or the story will limp along for weeks, and do no one any good at all.

-- Michael

Texans for Truth, CBS, documents

OK, so here goes. Here is the transcript of the CBS interview with Ben Barnes, the Texas Dem who said he pulled strings back in the day to get Bush into the national guard. Just an excerpt:

BEN BARNES: This is about what the truth is. About the time in which I served and the role I played. Sid Adger (PH), a friend of the Bush family, came to see me and asked me if I would recommend George W. Bush for the Air National Guard. And I did.

And I talked to a Gen. Rose, who was the commander of the Air National Guard. I don't know whether my recommendation was the absolute reason he got in the Guard. He was a Congressman's son. He graduated from Yale. He was a person that would have been eligible.

But there was a long list of people waiting to be, or hoping to be a candidate for the Air National Guard, and for the Army National Guard. That was one route that young men had to go to-- or that was available to a very special few to-- be able to avoid being drafted and being able to avoid going to Vietnam. Although some National Guard people later went to Vietnam.[...]

DAN RATHER: Well, I used the phrase "preferential treatment." Perhaps I shouldn't have. Would you describe it as that? A request for preferential treatment? Or how would you describe it?

BEN BARNES: Oh, I would describe it as preferential treatment. There were hundreds of names on the list of people wanting to get in the Air National Guard or the Army National Guard. I think that would have been a preference to anybody that didn't wanna go to Vietnam that didn't wanna leave. We had a lot of young men that left and went to Canada in the '60s and fled this country.

Jimmy's letter to Zell

The AJC today carried a letter that Jimmy Carter wrote to Zell Miller, which was reprinted on commondreams. You should read the whole thing, but I find the beginning particularly striking:

To Sen. Zell Miller: [lest you think this salutation is cold, it's not; Carter always begins his letters this way]

You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor [of Young Harris] and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as state senator, lieutenant governor and governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust.

Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge and Sam Nunn, disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.