Letters to the Editor
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Always to the point, Sidney
The old "magic" has really only ever been a cheap parlor trick, as crude and ignorant as the ad against Harold Ford, when it suggests that Ford wants Canada to deal with North Korea -- "They're not busy." Or the speech he gave when he said that Democrats want therapy for Osama. The leadup to the war was simply capitalizing on the moment of national unity by forcing a vote before the elections, thereby giving Democrats a Hobson's Choice and a record to quote on them if the war changed their minds.
I hope he comes down hard, but time will tell. I get the sense they might be playing defense well enough to keep the Senate.
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And what I say to myself almost every day is...
...can you believe he's the fucking president?
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"Fight, Beat 'Em, Win"
"Fight, Beat 'Em, Win!" That's not a strategy, that's a cheer. There is a reason cheerleaders are on the sidelines.
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tactical vs. strategic
This sentence in this article sums up a lot of the problems this country has right now:
"His tactical successes have laid the groundwork for strategic failure. "
Sad to say, but so many decisions these days, from government, corporations, and even individuals, reflect short-term tactical thinking rather than long-term strategic thinking.
Some top-of-the-head examples: Torture. Oil-based energy policy. Quarterly earnings reports. Offshoring of manufacturing. Credit card debt. Even celebrity culture could fall under this sad banner. (It's the old saw: we should idolize and overpay doctors and scientists and teachers rather than movie, music, and sports stars.)
I wonder if a leader with true strategic vision can lead us out of the messes we're in. I hope so, and I hope he or she appears soon.
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Bush Addressing Half-Empty Arenas?
In an article on the role of the war in the election, today's New York Times (Nov. 1) may have given away a big piece of the game:
"Mr. Bush, speaking to a cheering crowd at a campaign rally late Tuesday afternoon in a half-empty arena at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry, said..."
Half-empty?
This comes hard on the heels of a Laura Bush appearance in New Hampshire that drew only about 150 people to a half-empty ballroom. Or half-full if you're Rove.
Either the GOP advance men have unlearned their trade (Larry O'Brien said you always hire a hall that is too small, so the crowd is always "overflowing") or even in the supposedly solid GOP districts Mr. Bush is campaigning in, the crowds are staying away in droves.
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Half-Empty Arenas? You can't attend if you're not invited
It's time to put an end to the fiction that Mr. Bush appears at public events. Whether he's fundraising in Podunk or Peoria, his "appearances" are not public. Whether he appears at an arena, a senior center, or the cozy salon of the local Petroluem Club, only people who have been selected and vetted by the local Republican organization are allowed in.
You can't even watch his limo and entourage pass by on the street! Last year, when Bush "appeared" (to a select Republican few) at the Bear Canyon Senior Center in Albuquerque, a couple of miles from our house, my husband was returning from a run, and was stopped by police. Now, this is way out in the far North East heights, half a mile from the edge of town, and probably the most Republican, raving right-wing part of the city (it's the zipcode that gave the most to Congresswoman Heather Wilson, aka "Bush's Babe"). The police warned him to get off the streets, NOW, because "The President" would be passing through. No pedestrians or vehicles would be allowed on the route Mr. Bush's motorcade would travel.
I've heard there's some concern about terrorists, but frankly, given the location, that's just silly. Even a fear of demonstrators would have been overblown - although, had I reacted quickly enough, we could have run down to Montgomery Blvd with our 4' x 8' "John Kerry" sign...
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I Piss On Bush
There's nothing left to say. I piss on the rotten corpse of Bush's Presidency. He's beneath conetmpt. Totally worthless, just like his followers. Fuck all of them. America is moving on.
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Let's get it right on our side
I'm good and tired of the Republicans' standard practice of deliberately misrepresenting someone's words to gain political advantage. I'm disappointed that the Left is often just as shoddy with the facts. Bush never stated in his recent interview that he had never "said" Stay The Course. His statement was that they've never "been" Stay The Course. Immediately, all the leftwing media elements ran compilation tapes of Bush saying Stay the Course. Blumenthal gets it wrong in his article, too. Let's get the facts right and analyze from there.
I'd love to see the focus group results the White House must have done on the slogan Stay The Course. The phrase Stay The Course was the minor element allowing the contrast to the key slanderous phrase Cut And Run. Imagine sitting at the conference table with the Bush insiders as they looked at the polling data showing that Stay The Course, reflecting on the daily 2 or 3 dead US troops and dozens of dead Iraqis, had a higher negative rating among US citizens than Cut And Run. Imagine these whack jobs dissecting that seismic shift. It must have dawned on some of them that they're toast in this election.
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Public appearences
So when Georgy nitwit appears to speak before a selected audience his heavily armored limo and escort are rushed in and Joe Q Public is stopped by the police before he gets to the street of passage, I had to think of a picture I saw recently in "Der Spiegel", English net edition, of his fascist forerunner standing in an open Cabriolet beside the driver with crowds on both sides of the street. Bushit and Rove tactic is to spread fear and they seem to succed when their audience in spite of screening the invitees can only fill half the space, supposedly rented to small for the crowd expected. The fear evidently reached its originators as well.Me thinks something went wrong along the way.
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Diebold
That's the trump card in next Tuesday's election. Exit poll after exit poll will declare Democrats winners in races all over the country.
However, the Trojan Horses installed in various Diebold election machines around the country will declare otherwise.
And after reading about how easy it is to do (www.arstechnica.com), I'm convinced that something is going to go down on Tuesday, November 7 that we will soon not forget.