Another catchup post

A grab-bag of Presidential election stuff I just now got around to looking at:

(Disclaimer: some of these may require registration)

On the choice of running mate

Kerry is trying out a new ad in New Mexico.

Unhappy with Bush but not keen on Kerry

Here's something new: an AP poll that finds, among other things, that 51 percent of those polled said it's time to give someone else a chance to be president.

So much for a Reagan bounce

On the popularity of political toys (Am I just a pervert or does that sound vaguely dirty?)

On the Reagans and Bush

I'm probably glad I didn't have to look at Bush in his undershirt, but still...

On "Mr. Major League Potty Mouth" (and whether the administration is losing its grip)

Remember the group of 26 former diplomats, etc. who spoke up against Bush? Well, here is their statement, which I have never seen anywhere else. (Maybe I just wasn't looking very hard.)

Jack Ryan is offering refunds to his donors.

(Most of these come from White House 2004 mailing list, which, in case I haven't pimped it before, is really good for this kind of stuff.)

War powers

The first reports I saw on today's Supreme Court decisions called it a clear victory for the administration. But SCOTUSblog seems to think differently. (There's another view here from TUS regular GregM, who is a law professor.)

Regarding our esteemed VP

Cheney lets loose with some foul language on the Senate floor. Interesting...

And in other Cheney news, who was really in charge on 9/11?

Dreamin' my life away

I never did see the news yesterday, so I didn't know about this. I know it's par for the course, but it's kind of sad that partisan maneuvering is more important to the powers-that-be in the Senate than getting any work done.

(Yeah, I know, I'm a dreamer. Isn't that what being a liberal is all about?)

Also, I love PJ O'Rourke. I can't help it.

Polls, etc.

An ABC/WP poll says that Bush no longer has an advantage over Kerry on the terrorism issue.

Ted Kennedy is giving a speech today in which he is expected to attack the administration for making us more vulnerable to nuclear attack. I'm going to be interested to see how much play that one gets on the evening news.

Look, I finally found The Note's archives! They were hiding in plain sight like I figured all along they would be. (Well, actually, "in plain sight" is not really what I'd call the very bottom of their pages, since The Note tends to be somewhat ridiculously long. I rarely get all the way to the bottom, quite frankly. Which I guess was the problem.) Anyway, the thing I was wanting to link to was Ways Kerry Can Still Blow the Election. It's toward the top of that page.

Did you know that the NYT said Bush should apologize? I completely missed that one.

From the Sunday papers

This is really appalling (I can't think of another word for it): Spoiled votes. Found via Kick the Leftist.


And on a slightly lighter note: Gay marriage opponents frustrated at lack of grass-roots support.

Some light weekend reading

Scalzi on moral relativism.

The United States shouldn't be torturing anyone. Not because we have an inappropriate allegiance to the Geneva Conventions, but because we're the United States, and we're better than that. The old saw says that morality is what you do when no one else is looking; on a national scale, morality is what you do even when there's no treaty.

Good point, and it's sad that it needed to be said in the first place.

And, The New Republic reexamines its support for the Iraq war. (And their conclusion isn't quite what you might expect.)

News of the day

A new accusation against Donald Rumsfeld says he ordered a prisoner held off the books in violation of international law.


Plus, Has the Republican Congress lived up to its 'Contract with America'?

...in the late 1980s, a Republican congressman from Wyoming named Dick Cheney called the House speaker "a heavy-handed son of a bitch" and accused him of doing "anything he can to win at any price, including ignoring the rules, bending rules, writing rules, denying the House the opportunity to work its will."
Now vice president, Cheney is no longer complaining. But Democrats are.

The Note is not archived, as far as I've ever been able to figure out, so here's another quote from today's edition:

It might SEEM like a slow and steamy summer day, but all over the place, the unbelievable is happening.

To wit:

For insiders and GOP-savvy members of the Gang of 500, the most unbelievable passage to appear in any newspaper in America in ages is this from today's Washington Post story about how John McCain (who co-chairs the president's re-election campaign in Arizona) will unbelievably campaign with the president at the end of this week!!

(And they go on in this vein for some time.) Apparently the reason it's so freaking unbelievable is because Karl Rove had a big blowup with McCain's senior advisor over the 2000 campaign. I didn't know Rove ever mended fences with anybody, so maybe they're right with the "unbelievable!" at that.

Old news

Ron Reagan thinks Bush is mixing politics and religion too much. (My first reaction to that is a big, "Well DUH!" -- Because I am eight, you know.) While it seems to me like an odd place to bring the subject up, I guess maybe it was a smart thing to do in a way. After all, you have to assume that a majority of the audience for the funeral was Republican, and they're the ones who really need to hear that message. Whether they'll actually listen is another issue.

I was looking back at old entries earlier - on June 1st, I didn't know what "41@80" meant, but I do now, don't you? Unless you've been in a closet all weekend, you probably do! -- And also related to that 6/1 entry, here's an article on '527' organizations - turns out that like 501(c)(3) organizations, they are named after the section of of the tax code that allows them. Which, since I've been involved in 501(c)(3)'s since grad school, would have been my first guess.

Also, the long entry - I think it's May 22 - where I talk about the Reagan administration being preferable to the Bush administration looks oddly prophetic, now. At least, a lot of people have spent a lot of time in the last 10 days discussing just that subject.

Things I haven't had time to read yet:
Bush's 'Him-Too' Strategy
Burning Bush (about Fahrenheit 9/11)
On road to White House, we haven't come a long way, baby

One nation (under God?)

The Supremes declined to rule on the Pledge of Allegiance case on a technicality.

Hmm. I haven't read all the opinions linked to there, yet, but it sounds like they were just avoiding having to rule on this one. Can't say I blame them, really.

This film contains fantasy violence and scary monsters.

The advisory above is from this SFGate review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Yay for scary monsters.

Note from the NCAA Super-regionals: I hate the sound of aluminum bats. I say that about this time every year, and every year, I rediscover it again. Other than that, college baseball rocks.

Back to the grind

I'm finally recovering from Las Vegas (if you want to hear about it, there are multiple journal entries covering it in rather excruciating detail starting here), except for the cold that I brought home with me. So, back to this.

I'm fairly impressed by this one: the Houston Chronicle calling Bush on the infamous "rule of law" memo:

The United States' moral authority to call for the rule of law and respect for human rights has been undermined by legal machinations the Bush administration undertook to justify torturing prisoners taken in the war on terror.

Administration officials have attempted to downplay the significance of a March 6, 2003, Justice Department memorandum that concluded that, as commander in chief in time of war, President George W. Bush is bound neither by federal law nor the tenets of the Geneva Conventions that ban torture as a means of extracting information from detainees.

(Found via Talking Points Memo, not because I actually read my local newspaper or anything.) (Yeah, I know, I gotta start doing that...)

The Greatest Generation?

Like the Second World War, our present conflict began with a ruthless, surprise attack on the United States. We will not forget that treachery, and we will accept nothing less than victory over the enemy.

From the President's speech at the Air Force Academy - here.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

Is Wonkette trying to out the president? Because this sort of sounds like it:

...it's not like being homosexual leads to being interested (in) politics. If that were the case, don't you think Bush would have started paying attention by now?

Hmmm. Interesting.

I'm all about the politics

Wow. The Democrats have decided to work together.

More from CBS news: Can Bush survive Iraq?

Bush's advantages in the race vs. Kerry's. Since that's from The Note at ABCnews and will presumably be gone tomorrow, I will quote.

Bush's advantages:

1. The war on terror serving as a potential trump issue, a la the communist threat during the Cold War.
2. Incumbency in a time of national crisis will seem safe(r) to a lot of voters.
3. The sustaining value of the "Bush brand" (highlighted again this month with 41@80).
4. The likeability and accessibility stops haven't even been pulled out yet.
5. Laura Bush.
6. An improving economy and seemingly successful POTUS projection of "if even one American is looking for work, that's too many" caring.
7. The rise of the Republican 527s.
8. Candidate confidence and rapid response confidence.
9. The political press' general belief the Kerry probably won't win, and inclination to scrutinize the Kerry "record" more than the Bush "record."
10. Most imaginable October Surprises favor the President.
11. The skew of the Electoral College.

Kerry's advantages:

1. An energized base which (we are now ready to say) viscerally dislikes President Bush as much as the right disliked Clinton. (Although no accusations of domestic murders yet . . .)
2. Stew of wrong track, events in Iraq, gas prices, and other only semi-controllable factors.
3. Famous capacity to close strong.
4. Potential week or more of positive coverage if he picks a good running mate.
5. Don't forget health care.
6. The regularity of the circularity of history (one-term Bush presidencies featuring a war victory in Iraq, stratospheric poll ratings, and, then, decline . . . ).
7. The head start of the Democrat 527s.
8. Unchallenged in key Blue States such as California, Illinois, and New York.
9. Daughters, stepsons, vets unveiled big time in Boston.
10. In what would be a Bush irony (and The Note tries exceedingly hard not to misuse the term), the President's team's apparent* belief that Kerry is a phony, liberal, hypocritical Francophile might just blind them so much to his appeal to voters that they (mis)underestimate him all the way through November, and never take him seriously enough to stop him.
11. The political press' general preference for (a) underdogs; (b) challengers; (c) change; (d) Democrats; (e) good stories.

Sounds about right to me, although I'm not sure what all that adds up to.

(Incidentally, I have no idea what a 41@80 is, but I do know what a 527 is, I think - it's organizations like MoveOn.org.)