Stand Naked

Daily Boost 9-28

Bush's Hometown Paper Endorses Kerry

The Lone Star Iconoclast, the newspaper in Clueless Leader's "hometown" of Crawford, Texas, which had endorsed CL in 2000 -- has endorsed JOHN KERRY for President this year, saying that Kerry "will restore American dignity."

The editorial, by publisher W. Leon Smith - who had promoted Bush in 2000 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 - focuses on four complaints with CL's "adimistration":

"Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security (news - web sites) system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding Iraq (news - web sites)," the editorial said.

It goes on to deliver a scathing attack on CL's record of broken promises and disastrous mistakes.

Recent Poll Results

The Rasmussen rolling average 3-day tracking poll report for today as Kerry at 46.3% and Clueless Leader at 47.9%, giving CL a 1.6 point lead, which ain't too bad. The really encouraging data from Rasmussen is that CL's lead ahs shrunken dramatically over the past week. In tthe Sept 22nd report, CL led Kerry 48.8% to 44.8%, a 4 point spread (CL had a 4.6% lead on 9-16 and 9-18). In the past 6 days, CLl's total has fairly steadily decreased, while Kerry's has increased.

Other poll results of likely voters from the past few days:

IBD/CSM/TIPP 9/27 Bush 45 -- Kerry 46

CNN/USA Today/Gallup 9/26 Bush 52 -- Kerry 44

FOX/Opinion Dynamics 9/22 Bush 45 -- Kerry 43

Democracy Corps (D) 9/21 Bush 49 -- Kerry 49

Other than the Gallup atrocity (see below) it looks like a pretty tight race.

Don't Believe All the Polls You Read - The Continuing Saga

CNN is crowing about the results of the latest Gallup Presidential poll released yesterday. In this latest propoganda effort, Clueless Leader "apparently" leads Kerry 52% to 44% among likely voters, and 8 point lead which is a significant erosion from the 13 point lead CL supposedly had in the Gallup poll reported 2 weeks ago - although the CNN article today doesn't bother to report this fact.

CNN also doesn't report, nor does Gallup, the incredible bias created in the results from the mix of political party affiliations amongst poll repondents. In response to independent inquiries, Gallup has acknowlwdged that the party idntification of "likely voters" included in this most recent poll was:

Total Sample: 758

GOP: 328 (43%)
Dem: 236 (31%)
Ind: 189 (25%)

Unbelievably, this sample base includes an even higher percentage of Rethugs than did the poll 2 weeks ago that showed CL with a 13 point lead. How skewed is it you ask? Well, exit polls from the 2000 presidential election agreed that the voter mix was approximately 39% Dem, 35% Rep, and 26% Ind. Polls of the general population generally show an ever higher percntage of Dem's. According to Harris, since 1990 Republicans have varied from between 28%, in 1998 and 2003, and 33% of the population, while Democrats varied from between 36% and 38% of the population before dropping to 34% in 2002 and 33% in 2003.

The effect on results from the failure to weight the party ID of respondents to match the characteristics of the voter population can be enormous. Chris Bowers at MyDD did a study comparing the results of 6 weighted and 6 unweighted polls from earlier this month:

Including the CBS poll, I have gathered together Party ID data from twelve recent polls. In six of the polls, the Economist, Harris, ICR, Pew, Rasmussen and Zogby, the samples were weighted to fit demographic and / or previous turnout models. The results of these six polls poll as follows:

Table One
* = likely voters
Bush Kerry Date
Econ 47 46 9/15
Harris* 47 48 9/13
ICR 48 44 9/12
Pew 46 46 9/14
Rasm* 49 45 9/16
Zogby* 47 45 9/9

The similarity between the results in these six polls is remarkable. The race varies from Bush up four to Kerry up one, with no two polls disagreeing about Bush's raw score by more than three points or Kerry's raw score by more than four points. On average, Bush leads by less than two points (47.3-45.5).

For the sake of comparison, I have also been able to track down the internals of six recent polls that do not weight their results according to Party ID or other demographics: ABC, CBS, Fox, Gallup, IBD / CSM and Newsweek. Here is how these six compare to each other:

Table Two
* = likely voters
Bush Kerry Date
ABC 50 44 9/8
CBS 50 42 9/16
Fox* 47 45 9/8
Gallup 52 44 9/14
IDB 44 46 9/12
News 49 43 9/10

These polls show significantly more variance than the other six.

Bowers calculated what the results of the unweighted polls would have looked like had they been properly weighted for party ID:

Interestingly, had Party been weighted in the six most recent unweighted polls, they would look almost exactly like the six recent weighted polls:

Table Five
* = likely voters
Bush Kerry Date
ABC 48 47 9/8
CBS 47 46 9/16
Fox* 46 47 9/8
Gallup 48 48 9/14
IDB 47 47 9/12
News 46 47 9/10

Mainstream Press Starting to Point out Bush Lies

Thankfully, some print media is actually checking up on the facts behind Clueless Leaders FantasyLand picture of progress in Iraq. A Reuters article on Sunday noted:

Many of President Bush's assertions about progress in Iraq -- from police training and reconstruction to preparations for January elections -- are in dispute, according to internal Pentagon documents, lawmakers and key congressional aides on Sunday.

As an example, although CL claimed last week that nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel are already at work, Reuters dug out these facts:

But many of these assertions have met with skepticism from key lawmakers, congressional aides and experts, and Pentagon documents, given to lawmakers and obtained by Reuters, paint a more complicated picture.

The documents show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as "untrained," and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its new goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.

Six Army battalions have had "initial training," while 57 National Guard battalions, 896 soldiers in each, are still being recruited or "awaiting equipment." Just eight Guard battalions have reached "initial (operating) capability," and the Pentagon acknowledged the Guard's performance has been "uneven."

Training has yet to begin for the 4,800-man civil intervention force, which will help counter a deadly insurgency. And none of the 18,000 border enforcement guards have received any centralized training to date, despite earlier claims they had, according to Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee.

They estimated that 22,700 Iraqi personnel have received enough basic training to make them "minimally effective at their tasks," in contrast to the 100,000 figure cited by Bush.

Slamming BushCo for Playing Treason Card

A number of editorial voices around the country have vehemently chastised the BushCo campaign for the desperation theme it has recently been running -- "Kerry's criticism of the Iraq war effort gives aid and comfort to the enemy."

The New York Times set the tone slamming BushCo for what it called "despicable politics" in an editorial on Saturday entitled An Un-American Way to Campaign :

President Bush and his surrogates are taking their re-election campaign into dangerous territory. Mr. Bush is running as the man best equipped to keep America safe from terrorists - that was to be expected. We did not, however, anticipate that those on the Bush team would dare to argue that a vote for John Kerry would be a vote for Al Qaeda. Yet that is the message they are delivering - with a repetition that makes it clear this is an organized effort to paint the Democratic candidate as a friend to terrorists. ... Mr. Bush has not disassociated himself from any of this, and in his own campaign speeches he makes an argument that is equally divisive and undemocratic. The president has claimed, over and over, that criticism of the way his administration has conducted the war in Iraq and news stories that suggest the war is not going well endanger American troops and give aid and comfort to the enemy. This week, in his Rose Garden press conference with the interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Mr. Bush was asked about Mr. Kerry's increasingly pointed remarks on Iraq. "You can embolden an enemy by sending mixed messages," he said, going on to suggest that Mr. Kerry's criticisms dispirit the Iraqi people and American soldiers. ... We think that anyone who attempts to portray sincere critics as dangerous to the safety of the nation is wrong. It reflects badly on the president's character that in this instance, he's putting his own ambition ahead of the national good.

Today the L.A. Times joined in

The suggestion that terrorists support Sen. John F. Kerry for president is ugly, but basically silly. The suggestion that Kerry supports the terrorists is flat-out disgusting. President Bush has allowed surrogates to spread the former idea, but he himself has helped to promote the latter. Last week, Bush declared that Kerry's criticism of him and his Iraq policy "can embolden an enemy" and called Kerry "destructive" to the war on terror. ... Bush's own campaign strategy has put the events of 9/11 and their aftermath at the center of this election. The president asks to be reelected based on the claim that his response to that event has been a success. It would be convenient for him if any challenge to this notion were considered beyond the pale. Increasingly convenient, in fact, as the word "success" seems less and less applicable. But Bush's convenience is not what this election is about.

The Times pulls no punches in laying out its opinion of Cluless Leader's sleazy strategy:

Compared with Kerry, George W. Bush is a coward. This is not a reference to their respective activities during Vietnam. It refers to the current election campaign. Bush happily benefits from the slime his supporters are spreading but refuses to take responsibility for it or to call point-blank for it to stop. He got away with this when the prime mover was the shadowy Swift boats group. Will he get away with it when the accusers are his own vice president, high officials of his own administration (Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) and members of Congress from his own party (House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert or Sen. Orrin Hatch)? The answer is yes: Based on recent experience, he probably will get away with it.

That, my friends, we call "Tellin' It Like It Is!"

The War is Over (or Should Be)

Phil Ochs said it for 'Nam. He's every bit as on target today.
LISTEN!

Unfortunately, Bush's War is far from over. From dailyKos comes this. It's a daily briefing of hostile acts in Iraq for yesterday, September 23, 2004. These "security bulletins", put together by USAID, are distributed to international aid workers and NGOs. :

SECURITY UPDATE - ISSUED 24 SEP 04

BAGHDAD

EVENTS OF INTEREST - 23 SEP 04:

Baghdad

MNF activity in Sadr City recently has resulted in an increase in reported insurgent incidents.

The BIAP Road and 14 Ramadan Street (Routes IRISH and

FORCE respectively) are under sustained attack with the terrorists trying to break into the BIAP. The vehicle borne IED threat remains high in these areas.

There are unofficial reports of criminal gangs in Baghdad conducting activity with a view to kidnapping ex-pats for the bounty offered by terrorist organizations. Currently the threat of kidnapping is extremely high.

Historically, MNF activity in Sadr City has generated reprisal or indirect fire attacks into the International Zone and personnel are warned of an increased likelihood of such attacks in the near future.

The threat of abduction from within the International Zone remains and personnel should check their personal, individual security arrangements accordingly.

0115 hrs Small arms fire attack on an Iraqi Police patrol in Ur District.

0110 hrs IED attack on a convoy in the area of the 14 Ramadan street/Route 10 intersection (Routes FORCE and CARDINALS).

0200 hrs Six IEDs found and cleared in Sadr City.

0808 hrs.Indirect fire attack on MNF facilities in the northern area of the airport.

0937 hrs. IED attack on a patrol on Route PREDATORS.

1132 hrs. Indirect fire attack (mortar) on an MNF base in the Shawra Wa Um Jidir District.

1220 hrs. RPG attack on a patrol on Haifa Street.

OTHER AREAS:
EVENTS OF INTEREST - 23 SEP 04:

NORTH
The high level of activity in the North continues with no immediate prospect of a reduction. A general trend is emerging of attacks spreading into historically less active areas; planners should re-evaluate their movement policy in the light of the changing threat. More attacks on the oil infrastructure and personnel connected with it are expected, as is an increase in sectarian motivated terrorism.

The TAMPA Corridor, which includes the parallel Route DOVER, remains under sustained attack and movement along it should be limited to essential tasks only.

An official report comments on the increase in IED attacks in Diyala Province to the northeast of Baghdad and routes in this area should now also be regarded as at an increased level of threat.

Baqubah

0048 hrs. Small arms fire attack on the Iraqi Police in the Baqubah area.

0120 hrs. Indirect and small arms fire attack on the ING in the Baqubah area.

Ad-Dujayl

0800 hrs. IED found and cleared on Route HEATHER in the Ad-Dujayl area. Duluiyah

1330 hrs. RPG attack on a patrol in Duluiyah.

1405 hrs. Indirect fire attack on a patrol in northern Duluiyah.

Hawija

1230 hrs. Unofficial report: An IED comprising a rocket, det cord and a timer was found and cleared in the Hawija area.

Al-Khalis

0840 hrs. RPG attack on a patrol in the Al-Khalis area.

Mosul

23 Sep 04. Unofficial report: The Deputy Director of Oil Products for the Northern Oil company, Sana Toma Suleiman, was shot dead on his way to work in Mosul.

0126 hrs. Small arms fire attack in the Mosul area.

1250 hrs. Indirect fire attack (mortar) on a patrol in Mosul.

1345 hrs. Small arms fire attack on a patrol in Mosul.

Samarra

0138 hrs. Small arms fire attack on a convoy in the Samarra area.

1408 hrs. Indirect fire attack in the Samarra area.

Tikrit

0800 hrs. Unofficial report: An MNF convoy discovered an IED comprising a 155mm artillery shell at the intersection of Route TAMPA and the Tikrit bypass. A secondary device found in the area proved to be a hoax.

1000 hrs. Unofficial report: An anti-personnel mine was found and cleared on Route TAMPA North of Tikrti.

WEST

The MNF offensive continues in Fallujah and Ramadi. Travel along the Fallujah/Ramadi routes should be avoided.

Fallujah

Untimed. Indirect fire attack in the Fallujah area.

0818 hrs. IED attack on an oil pipeline 30km southwest of Fallujah.

Habbaniyah

0410 hrs. RPG and small arms fire on a MNF helo in the Al-Taqaddam area, near Habbaniyah. Husaybah

1258 hrs. IED attack on a patrol in southern Husaybah.

Khaladiyah

0915 hrs. IED attack on a patrol using Route MICHIGAN in the Khaladiyah area. The device was placed on the northern side of the road.

1315 hrs. IED attack on a patrol in the area of Route MICHIGAN in the Khalidiyah area.

1315 hrs. IED attack on a patrol traveling eastwards on Route MICHIGAN in the Khalidiyah area. The device was placed on the southern side of the road.

SOUTH

The increase in activity in Basrah continues following unofficial reports of an instruction having been issued by the Mehdi command to carry out attacks in the South in response to arrests of senior Sadrists and MNF operations.

The Military is unofficially reported to have issued warnings regarding a threat to the white (civilian) fleet North of Basrah and en route to the airport. A similar warning has been issued regarding the intention to kidnap MNF personnel.

It was also reported that. "A large number of US Army desert uniforms have been smuggled into the country by SCIRI. The guess is these uniforms will be used in an attempt to breech security and get VBIEDs closer to targets. Make sure just wearing a US uniform is not the ticket into your camps, the wearer still needs proper ID. Also need to be suspicious of people wearing US uniforms in situations that don't look right, ie someone in uniform driving a local garbage truck up to a camp check point. Wearing IPS uniforms has been a common tactic for the insurgents and this attempt is a logical next step to improve the tactic.

Most movement restrictions in Basrah have been lifted, however: the situation is subject to change at very short notice and it is most strongly advised to consult the Military before moving.

Basrah

0055 hrs. Indirect fire attack (mortar) on an MNF base in Basrah.

0200 hrs. RPG and small arms fire attack on an MNF patrol in Basrah.

1051 hrs. IED found and cleared in the area of the Shatt Al-Arab Hotel in Basrah.

Suwayrah

0730 hrs. Indirect fire attack (rocket) on an MNF base in Suwayrah.

MEDIA REPORTS.
GENERAL

IED and IDF are the preferred method of attacks, along with drive-by SAF and rolling ambushes, with the trend towards vehicle borne IED increasing. As high value targets become more difficult and with less opportunity, softer targets are expected become the main focus with numbers (mass casualties) being the primary objective to inspire fear and captivate the media.

Kidnapping of Iraqi employees working for Foreign Companies and international staff remain a high threat. Security measures should be reviewed with the aim of conducting awareness training, surveillance detection etc..

Un-American? It's Even Un-Republican!

The GOP has decided to play the treason card. Desparate to silence the searing criticism being leveled by Kerry and Edwards castigating their disasterous pursuit of NeoCon goals in Iraq, BushCo now seeks to equate this dissent with disloyalty. As Dana Milbank puts it in today's WaPo, this tactic "Tests the Limits" of legitimate campaigning.

President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq -- a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.

Appearing in the Rose Garden yesterday with Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry's statements about Iraq "can embolden an enemy." After Kerry criticized Allawi's speech to Congress, Vice President Cheney tore into the Democratic nominee, calling him "destructive" to the effort in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism.

Milbank notes that the treason accusations now being made by BushCo

have been a component of American politics since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and surfaced in the modern era during the McCarthy communist hunt and the Vietnam War protests.

And, finally, the NYT has decided to weigh in with an editorial up today slamming BushCo for this tactic:

President Bush and his surrogates are taking their re-election campaign into dangerous territory. Mr. Bush is running as the man best equipped to keep America safe from terrorists - that was to be expected. We did not, however, anticipate that those on the Bush team would dare to argue that a vote for John Kerry would be a vote for Al Qaeda. Yet that is the message they are delivering - with a repetition that makes it clear this is an organized effort to paint the Democratic candidate as a friend to terrorists.

When Vice President Dick Cheney declared that electing Mr. Kerry would create a danger "that we'll get hit again," his supporters attributed that appalling language to a rhetorical slip. But Mr. Cheney is still delivering that message. Meanwhile, as Dana Milbank detailed so chillingly in The Washington Post yesterday, the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, said recently on television that Al Qaeda would do better under a Kerry presidency, and Senator Orrin Hatch, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has announced that the terrorists are going to do everything they can between now and November "to try and elect Kerry."

This is despicable politics. It's not just polarizing - it also undermines the efforts of the Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency to combat terrorists in America. Every time a member of the Bush administration suggests that Islamic extremists want to stage an attack before the election to sway the results in November, it causes patriotic Americans who do not intend to vote for the president to wonder whether the entire antiterrorism effort has been kidnapped and turned into part of the Bush re-election campaign. The people running the government clearly regard keeping Mr. Bush in office as more important than maintaining a united front on the most important threat to the nation.

Indeed, suppression of dissent by such means is Un-American. In fact it has been utilized by tyrants throughout history. Herman Goering , Nazi Luftwaffe Chief, put it candidly during the Nuremberg trials:

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

In the past though, true American patriots have refused to let such rhetoric silence their dissent .

On Jan. 12, 1848, while the Mexican-American War raged on, a 38-year-old Illinois congressman introduced a measure that would censure former President James K. Polk. During a lengthy speech, that young member of the Illinois House of Representatives called into question Polk's justification for war with Mexico — a war which was, in the words of the speaker, "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced."

The congressman said Polk would have "gone farther with his proof, if it had not been for the small matter, that the truth would not permit him" and noted that the war was "from beginning to end, the sheerest deception." The congressman exclaimed, "Let him answer fully, fairly and candidly. Let him answer with facts and not with arguments." More importantly, "Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation."

The Congressman? Why, Abraham Lincoln, of course, the Republican whom our present Clueless Leader has idolized as the best president in U.S. history. Lincoln, in criticizing the war

realized that he had to distinguish between the role of the military and the policies of President Polk. The army had done its work admirably, Congressman Lincoln noted, but the president had "bungled" his. Polk, he feared, was "a bewildered, confounded and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show there is not something about his conscience more painful than all his mental perplexity."

Lincolon was the first of many Republicans to embrace the vital democratic right of dissent, even during wartime. Teddy Roosevelt vigorously defended the right of dissent.

In 1918, ex-President Roosevelt challenged Woodrow Wilson's sweeping crackdown against dissent after the American entry into World War I. "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong," Roosevelt said, "is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Even after Pearl Harbor, when Americans rallied to the support of their country, Republican stalwart Senator Robert Taft emphasized:

Too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think it will give some comfort to the enemy...If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it...because the maintenance of the right to criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy.

What would Lincoln, or Roosevelt, or Taft say to the present pretenders to the White House who are using tactics that are "morally treasonable to the American public"?

And what would BushCo say to those GOP forebearers who criticized their war Presidents? Would they dare call them treasonous?

We need to join with the NYT and shout out that for BushCo to sink to this level of rhetoric puts them in the company of history's worst tyrants and defiles the legacy of patriotic Americans of both parties who have fought and died for the right of free speech, even speech questioning the policies and judgment of a President at war.

"Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President ...

... Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance."

I just ran across this article written a year ago by Max Cleland.  As the election focus on BushCo's Iraq disaster hopefully intensifies, I think it's important to hammer on the lessons of history.

The president of the United States decides to go to war against a nation led by a brutal dictator supported by one-party rule. That dictator has made war on his neighbors. The president decides this is a threat to the United States.

In his campaign for president he gives no indication of wanting to go to war. In fact, he decries the overextension of American military might and says other nations must do more. However, unbeknownst to the American public, the president's own Pentagon advisers have already cooked up a plan to go to war. All they are looking for is an excuse.

Sound familiar?  Read on -->
 

Based on faulty intelligence, cherry-picked information is fed to Congress and the American people. The president goes on national television to make the case for war, using as part of the rationale an incident that never happened. Congress buys the bait -- hook, line and sinker -- and passes a resolution giving the president the authority to use "all necessary means" to prosecute the war.

The war is started with an air and ground attack. Initially there is optimism. The president says we are winning. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense says we are winning. As a matter of fact, the secretary of defense promises the troops will be home soon.

However, the truth on the ground that the soldiers face in the war is different than the political policy that sent them there. They face increased opposition from a determined enemy. They are surprised by terrorist attacks, village assassinations, increasing casualties and growing anti-American sentiment. They find themselves bogged down in a guerrilla land war, unable to move forward and unable to disengage because there are no allies to turn the war over to.

There is no plan B. There is no exit strategy. Military morale declines. The president's popularity sinks and the American people are increasingly frustrated by the cost of blood and treasure poured into a never-ending war.

Hmmm... Sounds like a quagmire. Could it be ...?

The president was Lyndon Johnson. The cocky, self-assured secretary of defense was Robert McNamara. The congressional resolution was the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. The war was the war that I, U.S. Sens. John Kerry, Chuck Hagel and John McCain and 3 1/2 million other Americans of our generation were caught up in. It was the scene of America's longest war. It was also the locale of the most frustrating outcome of any war this nation has ever fought.

Unfortunately, the people who drove the engine to get into the war in Iraq never served in Vietnam. Not the president. Not the vice president. Not the secretary of defense. Not the deputy secretary of defense. Too bad. They could have learned some lessons.

Perhaps, assuming they had been capable of taking off their ideological blinders long enough to learn anything.  Had they done so, Cleland points to some valuable lessons they might have learned, including:

• If the enemy adopts a "hit-and-run" strategy designed to inflict maximum casualties on you, you may win every battle, but (as Walter Lippman once said about Vietnam) you can't win the war.

• If you adopt a strategy of not just pre-emptive strike but also pre-emptive war, you own the aftermath. You better plan for it. You better have an exit strategy because you cannot stay there indefinitely unless you make it the 51st state.

• If you do stay an extended period of time, you then become an occupier, not a liberator. That feeds the enemy against you.

• If you want to know what is really going on in the war, ask the troops on the ground, not the policy-makers in Washington.

BushCo, however, in an act of monumental hubris, decided to defy history rather than learn from it. The result, as Cleland puts it, is our current "Disaster in the Desert."

Cleland is by no means alone in drawing the parellels between Vietnam and Iraq. Stewart Nusbaumer, founder of Veterans Against Iraq War has provided a similar view of how the Chickenhawks blindly led us into another quagmire:

Iraq is a terrible rerun from a horrible earlier war, Vietnam. If those who arrogantly demanded we rush into Iraq with guns ablazing had been in Vietnam, their bravado would have been tempered, they would have approached the war with caution, with a realization that U.S. military power has limits, with knowledge that Americans die on the battlefield just like Asians and Arabs -- horribly. But George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz (in the infamous words of Dick Cheney) "had other things to do." Vietnam was not a classroom for these men.

Countless others with first-hand perspectives have made the Iraq/ Vietnam comparison;

- Robert McNamara:

What, then, does he think about Iraq? Until now, the former secretary of defense has avoided comment on the actions of that job's current occupant, Donald Rumsfeld. The two are often compared to each other in their autocratic leadership styles and in their technocratic, numbers-driven approaches to war. And their wars, of course, are often likened. But Robert McNamara has insisted in staying out of the fray.

He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself.

"We're misusing our influence," he said in a staccato voice that had lost none of its rapid-fire engagement. "It's just wrong what we're doing. It's morally wrong, it's politically wrong, it's economically wrong."

-  Republican Senator John McCain:

Until now. In a NEWSWEEK interview, McCain for the first time compared the situation in Iraq to Vietnam, where he survived six years of wartime imprisonment, and began openly distancing himself from Bush's war strategy. McCain, aides say, was rankled by what he saw as a useless, Panglossian classified briefing, especially after reading Donald Rumsfeld's now infamous internal memo. In it, the secretary of Defense said that Iraq would be a "long slog," and admitted the government had no "metric" for knowing if it was making net progress in ridding the world of terrorists.

"This is the first time that I have seen a parallel to Vietnam," McCain declared, "in terms of information that the administration is putting out versus the actual situation on the ground. I'm not saying the situation in Iraq now is as bad as Vietnam. But we have a problem in the Sunni Triangle and we should face up to it and tell the American people about it." Also reminiscent of Vietnam, McCain said, was the administration's reluctance to deploy forces with the urgency required for the quickest victory. "I think we can be OK, but time is not on our side... If we don't succeed more rapidly, the challenges grow greater."

- Republican Senator Chuck Hagel:

Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Vietnam veteran, sees "some parallel tracks," including the difficulty of "getting out," and the lack of international support for U.S. policy.

Hagel's quote comes from a November, 2003 article in Salon, which provides additional insight into how "some of the sharpest thinkers of the Vietnam generation see stark parallels with the war in Iraq.."

Perhaps the most important way in which the Iraq war mirrors Vietnam is one focused on by Richard Cohen earlier this year:

We don't know what the hell we're doing.

And, according to Cohen, the most important lesson:

The lesson of Vietnam is that once you make the initial mistake, little you do afterward is right.

Kerry is now correctly hitting on BushCo's Iraq mistakes, and properly describing the quagmire we are in. That description has a long, an d unfortunately oft ignored, history. Fill in the blanks in this indictment of an ongoing war, delivered by a much-revered American during the last month of a Presidential election:

You ask me about what is called imperialism. Well, I have formed views about that question. I am at the disadvantage of not knowing whether our people are for or against spreading themselves over the face of the globe. I should be sorry if they are, for I don't think that it is wise or a necessary development. There is the case of _. I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it -- perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the __ -- but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the __. I thought we should act as their protector -- not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from __'s tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the __, a government according to ___ ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation.

The year?  1900
The war?  The U.S. "liberation" of the Philippines.
The speaker? Mark Twain

When will we ever learn?

Perhaps never, but we can, at the least, take action to repudiate and remove leaders who have arrogantly refused to learn.

Fear of Flying

Via BoP comes a new first-hand account of why Clueless Leader abandoned his post at TANG in 1972:

Janet Linke has been thinking about George W. Bush a lot lately. Thirty-two years ago, her late husband Jan Peter Linke served briefly in the Texas Air National Guard's 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. Bush's service in the same squadron has gotten plenty of mention in an election year when what you did during the Vietnam War is suddenly a litmus test of character. But Linke claims she knows a part of the story that nobody has mentioned.

According to Linke, a Jacksonville resident and artist, Bush's flying career was permanently disabled by a crippling fear of flying.

Linke's husband was admitted to the Texas Guard in the summer of 1972 to replace Bush. President [sic] Bush has said that he stopped flying fighter jets because the Alabama Guard unit didn't have jets, and he wanted to transfer to Alabama in order to work on a political campaign. But Linke says she heard a different story from her husband and Bush's squad commander, the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. Shortly after her husband joined the Texas unit, Linke says, the couple discussed Bush's service with Killian at a social event.

Contrary to some news reports that suggest Killian admired Bush, Linke says the officer didn't have much use for the young Lieutenant. He mentioned that Bush appeared to have a drinking problem, she recalls, but he was most offended by another incapacity: his fear of flying. According to Linke, Killian said Bush was grounded in his fourth year of flying after he became incapable of flying or properly landing a plane.

"He was mucking up bad, Killian told us," Linke says. "He just became afraid to fly."

Wow! That explains a lot. Like why CL spent most of early '72 flying second seat in a trainer rather than solo.

George W. Bush began flying a two-seat training jet more frequently and twice required multiple attempts to land a one-seat fighter in the weeks just before he quit flying for the Texas Air National Guard in 1972, his pilot logs show. The logs show Bush flew nine times in T-33 trainers in February and March 1972, including eight times in one week and four of those only as a co-pilot. Bush, then a first lieutenant, flew in T-33s only twice in the previous six months and three times in the year ending July 31, 1971.

Or why he seemed to be having trouble with landings just before he quit altogether.

The logs also show that Bush, who throughout his career usually landed his jet with a single pass, required two passes to land the F-102A fighter on March 12 and April 10, 1972. His last flight as an Air National Guard pilot cam,e six days later .

Our Hero?

What, No Kerry Iraq Flip-Flop?

Some reporters are actually starting to fact-check the BushCo anti-Kerry "Flip-Flop' mantra. As noted in today's Daily Boost, the WaPo had a story yesterday comparing Clueless Leader's vacillations to the claims about Kerry. Today, Mark Sandalow of the San Fran Chronicle reports the result of an exhaustive analysis he undertook of over 200 speeches Kerry has made about Iraq. His conclusion:

No argument is more central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq.

President Bush, seated beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said Tuesday: "My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.''

The allegation is the basis of a new Bush campaign TV ad that shows the Democratic senator from Massachusetts windsurfing to the strains of a Strauss waltz as a narrator intones: "Kerry voted for the Iraq war, opposed it, supported it and now opposes it again.''

Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation.

As foreign policy emerged as a dominant issue in the Democratic primaries and later in the general election, Kerry clung to a nuanced, middle-of-the road -- yet largely consistent -- approach to Iraq. Over and over, Kerry enthusiastically supported a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even as he aggressively criticized Bush for the manner in which he did so.

Kerry repeatedly described Hussein as a dangerous menace who must be disarmed or eliminated, demanded that the U.S. build broad international support for any action in Iraq and insisted that the nation had better plan for the post-war peace.

Sandalow also correctly describes the context of Kerry's Otober, 2002 vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq:

Kerry, who was one of 29 Democratic senators to support the resolution, said the vote was appropriate to strengthen the president's hand in negotiations, and he draws a distinction between his vote and an endorsement of the March 2003 attack.

"Congressional action on this resolution is not the end of our national debate on how best to disarm Iraq,'' Kerry said on the eve of the vote. "Nor does it mean we have exhausted all of our peaceful options to achieve this goal.''

Republicans ridicule such distinctions and use Kerry's vote as the basis for their assertion that Kerry once favored the war.

"He voted for it,'' said Republican national chairman Ed Gillespie when asked Wednesday to back the charge that Kerry supported the war. "Look at the coverage at the time, it was pretty clear what was going on.''

Yet in the fall of 2002, several months before the air strikes on Baghdad began, Bush himself insisted the vote was not the same as a declaration of war but instead gave him the hand he needed to negotiate the peace.

"If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force,'' Bush said in September 2002. "It's a chance for Congress to say, 'we support the administration's ability to keep the peace.' That's what this is all about.''

Finally.

Daily Boost

Encouraging Poll Results

For those who may have been discouraged by the much-ballyhooed Gallup pole last week, and other polls with similarly flawed methodologies, here are some more recent, and more encouraging results from polls from well-regarded sources.

---Democracy Corps

Kerry 46%, Bush 47%. Poll of 1017 likely voters conducted Sept. 19-21. Margin of Error +/- 3.1%. May overstate Bush vote, in that 51% of repondents reported having voted for Bush and only 43% for Gore in 2000

---Economist/YouGov

Kerry 46%, Bush 45%Bush Approval Rating - Approve 43%, -Disapprove 53%. This is ongoing weekly poll. Last week's results were Bush 47%, Kerry 46%, so this week shows a nice shift. Respondents in 18-24 age group prefer Kerry 53% to Bush 33% (Get those kids to the polls) Poll of 1660 likely voters conducted Sept 20-22. MOE +/- 2%

---American Research Group

ARG is conducting on-going polling of each of the 50 states and weighting the results to derive overall national numbers. The current results, on the basis of polling of 600 likely voters from each state (MOE +/- 4%) during September:

-George W. Bush is at 47% and John Kerry is at 46% in the weighted national popular vote.
-Bush leads outside the margin of error in 17 states with 133 electoral votes.
-Kerry leads outside the margin of error in 10 states with 132 electoral votes.
-Bush has any lead in 29 states with 253 electoral votes.
-Kerry has any lead in 20 states with 270 electoral votes.
-Bush and Kerry are tied in Wisconsin and West Virginia.
-Bush needs to defend small leads in 5 states - Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
-Kerry needs to defend small leads in 5 states - Maine, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

Even the Voice of Darkness (Fox News) has the race at Bush 45%, Kerry 43% in its poll conducted Sept 21-22 of 1000 likely voters (MOE +/- 3%). So don't give up hope!

Who's the Real Flip-Flopper

The media finally seems ready to look at which candidate is more deserving of the infamous "flip-flop" label with which BushCo has been able to tag Kerry. The Washington Post addressed the issue yesterday:

The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed.

The WaPo actually looked at Bush's record and agreed:

The record, however, suggests a fair degree of political calculation has gone into some of Bush's about-faces. During his first term, the paramount goals -- such as cutting taxes or pursuing a confrontation with Saddam Hussein -- have been fixed. But this has allowed room for tactical maneuvering on other questions. In 2000, Bush said he would include carbon dioxide on a list of air pollutants requiring federal oversight, a stand he abandoned within weeks of taking office. A month after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush's spokesman said the president believed a homeland security department that Democrats proposed was "just not necessary." A year after that, Bush had switched course and was lashing some Democrats for not moving quickly enough to approve the agency.

While Bush professes himself a strong free-trader, most other free-trade proponents said he bent on principle in March 2002 when he ordered tariffs on imported steel -- a move that resonated politically in electorally important industrial states such as Pennsylvania. Facing an escalating global trade dispute, he lifted the tariffs at the end of last year.

On CNN Inside Politics today, GOP lap-poodle Judy Woodruff served up the issue to Marc Raicot, Chairman of the BushCo campaign, so that he could deliver an unchallenged response that ignores the question of Bush's changes of position, instead listing Kerry's supposed flip-flops:

WOODRUFF: Well, speaking of changing positions, "The Washington Post" today, a front-page story reporting that, over the last four years, it says the president has -- quote -- "abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution, whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage, changed his mind about the merits of creating a Homeland Security Department, about whether there should be an independent 9/11 Commission" and so on and so on.

The question it raises is, is President Bush every bit the flip- flopper that John Kerry is claimed to be by the campaign?

RACICOT: Well, I think the American people understand that's not even remotely close to accurate.

The fact of the matter is, there are different moments in time in the production of a decision or a vote. And, of course, you go through a public discussion and the marketplace of ideas is considered and then you take a position. The senator and the president have had exactly the same opportunities to take exactly the same positions at virtually every moment in time in reference to Iraq. The senator votes for the use of force aggressively. He votes against the appropriations.

He claims to be an anti-war candidate. He claims then it's the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place. And then he in essence says we're going to admit defeat and retreat from Iraq because we would be safer had it been the other way from what it is that I voted throughout the course of this past several months.

So the bottom line here is, Judy, these are two entirely different people who reflect two entirely different capacities to be leaders and to take this nation to a position of being safe and secure.

WOODRUFF: Governor Marc Racicot, chairman of the Bush campaign, thank you very much.

Woodruff did, at least, later bring on Harris to discuss the Bush flip=flops he had written about in the Post:

WOODRUFF: What about in the president's background, in his record? How much is -- is there any fertile territory there for the Kerry people to exploit at this late date in terms of the president's changing his mind?

HARRIS: Well, I think you put your finger on it by saying at this late date. The president -- and you can point to polls that prove this -- is seen as somebody who's very strong, resolute, to the point of stubbornness.

They tried making this accusation that President Bush is a flip- flopper also, and it just wasn't resonating with the public, because that is not how he's perceived. That's not to say, as I think my article made clear, that the president's perfectly consistent on everything. But political ground it's just not been terribly fertile for Kerry.

WOODRUFF: What has the president changed his mind on? I mean, most prominently.

HARRIS: I sort of put it in two categories. There's issues where he has substantively done what I think we'll call some tap dancing.

He's a free trader, and yet he did in 2002 impose steel tariffs for what looked like political reasons. Then later backed off that.

Things like the Department of Homeland security in 2002. He initially thought it was a bad idea. Then came around to support it. Those are sort of policy positions.

And then rhetorically, even where his goals have been consistent, some of his rationales for those policy goals have changed. Iraq is a great example.

It started off about being about weapons of mass destruction. Now, of course, it's more about democracy building in the Middle East.

Tax cuts is another place where initially the rationale was, because we got a surplus we can afford tax cuts. Then it became, because we've got a deficit and a lagging economy, we need them. So, anyway, there's examples there.

In her interview with Harris, Woodruff had the temerity to ask: "Why do you think that the Bush people, though, have been so better able to capitalize on this thing of changing minds?" As if she didn't know. The reason that these Karl Rove concocted slogans gain credence is because the hacks posing as journalists on the tube are willing to repeat them over and over, without any challenge to their factual basis.

Daily Boost

Zogby Battleground Poll:
Kerry Leads Electoral College 297-241

Someone phone John Kerry. According to John Zogby, Kerry is winning the Electoral College handily 297-241. There is no bad news in this “poll” for John Kerry, he leads everywhere. He’s ahead in these crucial states according to Zogby, Florida, Iowa, Arkansas, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Wisconsin. In fact, I highly recommend that all of the democrats that see other polling data showing Kerry losing ground in many states, only look at this "poll." According to Zogby, Kerry has even taken back control of the race.

Edwards Plays Mortgage Interest Card
In a major speech on economic policy yesterday in Cleveland, John Edwards delivered a stinging attack on the tax reform goals BushCo will pursue if elected for a second term:

George Bush is talking about building an ownership society, but he has spent four years building a debt society for everyone except those at the top. His economic vision has one goal: to get rid of taxes on unearned income and shift the tax burden onto people who work. And he has moved toward that goal with the tax cuts he has passed already.

The President's new "tax reform" is the ultimate expression of his values. We don't know all of the details, but we know a lot of them because of a memo released by his former Treasury Secretary.

We know people who inherit hundreds of millions will pay nothing; firemen and waitresses and working people will pay everything. And we know his plan will take away the most important incentive for the single most important form of ownership: it will eliminate entirely the tax deduction for home mortgage interest.

If this issue gets media attention it could have enormous impact. For Edwards to raise the charge now will force BushCo to confirm or deny their plans for a regressive flat tax.

What if America were Iraq?
Juan Cole provides a sobering look at the realities that destroy Clueless Leader's claims about "progress" in Iraq. An excerpt:

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

New York Times Editorial Slams Bush U.N. Speech

Bush spoke before the U.N. General Assembly yesterday. He got a lukewarm reception from the delegates. He got a scathing review today from the NYT:

President Bush's Lead Balloon
We did not expect President Bush to come before the United Nations in the middle of his re-election campaign and acknowledge the serious mistakes his administration has made on Iraq. But that still left plenty of room for him to take advantage of this one last chance to appeal to an increasingly antagonistic world to help the Iraqis secure and rebuild their shattered nation and prepare for elections in just four months. Instead, Mr. Bush delivered an inexplicably defiant campaign speech in which he glossed over the current dire situation in Iraq for an audience acutely aware of the true state of affairs, and scolded them for refusing to endorse the American invasion in the first place.

Kerry Continuing to Hit Hard on Iraq

John Kerry has turned the focus of the campaign to the BushCo disaster in Iraq. His speech at NYU on Monday (the transcript and video of the speech are available here) laid out a comprehensive indictment of the BushCo record and an outline of what needs to be done to at least stabilize the chaos there. He continued to press the attack in a press conference yesterday, which can be viewed at C-Span, critiquing Clueless Leader's U.N. spiel.

Clueless Leader's response so far ahs been to duck the issues, choosing instead to lie about what Kerry said. This may work for awhile with most of the lapdog media. However Peter Jennings called him on it last night on ABC:

PETER JENNINGS: We were struck today by a very pointed attack by President Bush on John Kerry.

First of all, this is what Mr. Bush said.

[begin video clip]

BUSH: We agree that the world is better off with Saddam Hussein sitting in a prison cell.

And that stands in stark contrast to the statement that my opponent made yesterday, when he said that the world was better off with Saddam in power.

I strongly disagree.

[end video clip]

JENNINGS: And this is what Mr. Kerry actually said. [emphasis original]

[begin video clip]

KERRY: Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in Hell.

But that was not...in and of itself, a reason to go to war.

The satisfaction...that we take in his downfall does not hide this fact:

We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.

[end video clip]

JENNINGS: Trying to keep track of the Iraq debate.

More Later

Daily Boost

Well, it's now September 21, 2004 -- just 6 weeks, a mere 42 critical days, until crunch day. I will be attempting to post an entry each of those upcoming days -- the Daily Boost -- highlighting a few items of note, and hopefully encouragement, for the day.

Stay Tuned.

Hold Them Accountable

The BushCo Iraqi disaster finally has returned to its proper place as a central issue of the 2004 election. For anyone looking for a concise, but extremely well-sourced, indictment of Clueless Leader's exercise in Imperial Hubris, the Fight Back Campaign, a group of "volunteer Democratic activists across the country who are tired of the distractions and diversions used by the Bush Administration to hide the mistakes it has made during the past three years," has produced a website Hold Them Accountable that provides it.

The site lays out a compelling Case Against the Bush Administration:

Our premise is that the seven individuals pictured at the top of this page (from left: President George W. Bush; Vice President Dick Cheney; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Attorney General John Ashcroft; Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz; Secretary of State Colin Powell; and senior Presidential advisor Karl Rove), along with senior colleagues such as National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable by the electorate and by the press for the disastrous situation facing the United States in Iraq, which has already led to the tragic deaths of over a thousand U.S. soldiers, civilian contractors, and support staff.

By politicizing their decision-making, selectively presenting evidence for the war, ignoring the counsel of experts, attacking their critics as unpatriotic, making claims about the success of the war that do not appear to coincide with the facts on the ground, and -- most shamefully -- by exploiting the memory of the September 11th attacks for political gain, the President and the Bush Administration have done a grave disservice to America.

And -- the Administration's claims to the contrary notwithstanding -- there is broad and growing consensus among professional foreign policy experts that the choices President Bush and his advisors made about how to respond to Saddam Hussein, and the disastrous consequences, have left the United States more vulnerable to future terrorist attacks, not safer.

The charges are then separated into four chronological segments:

1. President Bush and his advisors mishandled the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, and their delays and military misjudgments lost an opportunity to bring Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to justice in Afghanistan.

2. Through a systematic information management campaign, President Bush and his advisors misled Congress and the American people into going to war, by selectively presenting evidence based on its political usefulness and by aggressively criticizing prominent military and civilian leaders who spoke out publicly against their assumptions.

3. President Bush and his advisors sent U.S. soldiers into battle undersupported and underprepared for the war and its aftermath, with unrealistic expectations and unclear instructions.

4. President Bush's unwillingness to admit his errors, and his continuing attempt to invoke the memory of 9/11 as a justification for Iraq, virtually guarantee that more Americans will die in a war that has already made future terror attacks more likely.

Each of these points is supported with a separate web page detailing the charges and providing source references. All in all, it's a very neat package.

Hold Them Accountable operates as a 527 project dedicated to building public awareness of the lamentable BushCo record in Iraq. They have produced a very effective 30 second ad spot, entitled Terrible Mistakes, which was slated to begin airing in Wisconsin and West Virginia yesterday. You can see it here, and contribute to help expand its airings.

The site also provides an opportunity to sign and send a petition with suggested questions to the moderators for the upcoming Presidential Debates:

Dear Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifill, and Bob Shieffer The American public deserves to know each candidate's full record. We ask that you make sure the following questions are addressed at this year's presidential debates:

What is the exit strategy for Iraq?
Why has the war been far costlier in terms of lives and dollars than was predicted?
Who has been held accountable for the disastrous decisions that have brought us to the situation today?
What does true accountability mean in an Administration?
Given that a significant number of our troops will have to be stationed in Iraq for the foreseeable future, what is the plan to handle the growing nuclear threat in North Korea? in Iran?
Why do so many experts believe the war in Iraq has distracted us from the true culprits behind 9/11 and made us less safe?

The site is well worth a visit.