Warning

It appears that paying too close attention to the Bush administration can lead to outrage fatigue. I'm not there yet, but you never know. There is a lot of outrage to go around.

Special Announcement

Ladies and Gentlemen I am pleased to announce the public unveiling of Craigorian Chant a (mostly) Daily Web Log written, edited and published by Craig Baracco. Providing the most cutting edge political commentary on the web is the stated goal of Craigorian Chant. It is a goal we will never even come close to, but attempt should be funny.

Political junky? Come to Craigorian Chant to get your fix! Don't follow politics? I'll watch Meet the Press so you don't have to! Want to follow the election but turned off by all the crap? We provide a protective layer of snark to help you digest the news easier! Hate politics? Um, then I really don't have anything for you. We might add movie reviews or some other stuff.

Craigorian Chant is a fully interactive experience. If you like or hate something I post you can leave a comment saying so. We are also hiring reporters here at Craigorian Chant. You can join United Kingdom Bureau Chief Chris-Callison Burch and Senior Mid-West Corespondent Tyler Allen and send in stories, cool links and spelling corrections.

So in conclusion, please come to the blog. I'm literally spending minutes a day working on it and you would just hate to see that time wasted wouldn't you? If you could forward this e-mail to anyone you might be entertained or outraged by what I write, it would be much appreciated.

What was that web address again?

It is Craigorian Chant.

http://craigorianchant.blogspot.com/

Thank you for you time and remember if you don't visit Craigorian Chant the terrorist will have already won.

Oh and don't forget to vote. They win if you don't vote.

Human Rights and Iraq

Now that the Senate intelligence committee has destroyed the WMD argument and the 9/11 commission has destroyed the al-Qaeda link the only way now left to justify the Iraq war is a human rights argument. That Saddam killed and oppressed his people and that we are right to go to war to stop that. This causes me much more problems than bogus 9/11 links. I support the idea of humanitarian and human rights based intervention. I supported the US intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo and fully expect to support it the next time the US has to bomb some asshole dictator to stop killing a people we never heard of before. This brings me to some quotes I stole from other, better blogs. First via Iraq'D Pat Robert's (Republican chair of Senate intelligence committee) answer when asked if he would support the war in light of the committee's findings:

As far as my vote, in regards to authorize of war, I think the war would have been different. I think it would have been based more on something like Kosovo or Bosnia. President Clinton indicated we should have certainly intervened in regard to Rwanda. You can make the same case, if you go back several decades, to Cambodia. You can make the same case in World War II in regards to the Holocaust...

Now I am very open to this kind of argument. However this is not the case that was made was it? I now steal Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy secretary of Defense and chief architect of the Iraq war via Political Animal.

....there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people....The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.

So they never made the human right argument and they never believed it to be enough. They are merely grasping for anything they can come up with, now that the reasons they actually used to justify war have been blown all to hell.

I will have a post later on why I fear Bush and company may have screwed up the case for real human rights based intervention for years.

Roundup

Total Coalition casualties in Iraq now 1,000.

Tough break: Records that could shed light on Bush's military service were destroyed.

Bush's CIA gave false information on Iraq.

Bush administration putting pressure on Pakistan to produce Osama by date of Democratic Convention.

Friday is traditionally a PR "dump day" You put out bad news on Friday and no one reads about it Saturday. Lucky for us the Bush admin produces enough bad info on Friday to last all week.

Iraq Handover a great Success!

Turns out that whole handover thing was a brilliant stratigery. The U.S. Coalition was taking on average 1.89 deaths per day in Iraq in the time period from the flight deck stunt to the handover. After the handover coalition deaths have dropped to 2.6 deaths per day. What's that you say? 2.6 is higher than 1.89? Not with Enron accounting it's not.

Bush's Biggest Donor Does the Perp Walk.

Not that Bush has ever heard of the guy. Enron is responsible for the greatest corporate scandal in history, the California energy crisis and the jet that Bush used to fly around in 2000. I'm no Bob Woodward but really, if we use the standard of proof the Bushes used to get us to war, I think we can say that Bush and Lay had a "longstanding collaborative relationship." Bush and Bush people are massively linked to Enron! Read about some of it here or here. I mean really people, Teresa Kerry has less links to the Heinz Corporation than Bush does to Eron.

An Unexplored Issue

So today we get the classic Kerry/Edwards family photo op. Everybody holding hands, family, country, apple pie and so on. A though occurs to me that there is an issue that we have yet to explore here at Craigorian Chant: The fact that the Kerry daughters are pretty hot. Alex(Blond) and Vanessa(brunette) have been a part of the campaign and Alex seems to be the talker of the pair, doing more speeches and MTV sound clips and so on. Now I must say that the Kerry daughters do not reach the epic level of hotness reached by the Gore daughters. That said the Kerry daughters are lookers. The effects that this might have on the outcome in November will continue to get the attention that it deserves here at Craigorian Chant.

John Loves John 4 Ever

We now know who the next Vice-President of United States is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Finally

Here we are Paul Krugman in the NYTimes:

There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration's use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11. Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?

Let's be clear here. Reporters are only on the side of angels, doing their part for democracy, and all that when then speak truth to Power. When they ask hard questions of Power. Moore is not Power. Bush is Power. Ask hard questions of him, why don't you.

Key Sign of the Day

Today's key sign of the day (from the Note):

Nearly every political reporter in America is having the same experience — they keep finding Republicans who say they will never vote again for President Bush (over the the war and the deficit, usually) but they have a heck of a time finding anyone who voted for Gore in 2000 who are now certain that they will vote for Bush (and Gore apparently won the popular vote).

This is a key sign of two things:

1. We are going to Win!
2. Reporters cannot bring themselves to report an objective fact that favors the Democrats. If a large number of Republicans are going to switch and Dems are not, report that! Reporter always feel the need for "balance" with one quote from a former Gore voter and one from a former Bush voter. There are no former Democrates this cycle. Dems are pissed and are coming home.

My New Book

I have a new book I'm writing. It's a Sci-Fi/Action/Romance but I'm thinking of calling it "Republicans are Pricks" with a sub-title of "Sean Hanity and the Fox News team can kiss my ass." Someone then should sue my ass or try and block the book from coming out, or go on Crossfire and denounce me. The ensuing publicity will rocket me to stardom al la Moore and Franken. If I don't get controversy, I'll just come up with a better title.

Moore Fights Unfair!

I am a strange duck in that I watch Cable News shout shows to relax. This unfortunate habit has lead me to be exposed to a lot of critiquing of Michael Moore. The leading one is "cheap Shot!" What exactly is the difference between a cheap shot and a "good" shot never gets spelled out. The next is "Moore has failed to muster enough logic to prove that Bush is, in fact Satan." So I'm on Political Animal and I read:

Take the first half hour of the film, in which Moore exposes the close relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saudi. Sure, it relies mostly on innuendo and imagery, but then again, he never really makes the case anyway. He never flat out says that the Bush family is on the Saudi payroll. Rather, he simply includes "9/11," "Bush," and "Saudi Arabia" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that George Bush is a bought and paid for subsidiary of the Saudi royal family.

Which is all remarkably similar to the tactic Bush himself used to link Saddam Hussein to 9/11. He never flat out blamed Saddam, but rather made sure to include the words "9/11," "Saddam Hussein," and "al-Qaeda" in as many sentences as possible, thus leaving the distinct impression that Saddam had something to do with it.

So now I wonder:

Is there a greater link between Bush and the House of Saud or Between Saddam and Al-Queda? Or is asking this question a cheap shot?

Everything is just cool in Iraq part 77

So we just handed over "power" a couple of days early. I'm sure it's because everthing was going so well we were ahead of scedual. Of maybe not. Maybe this is just a deperate ploy to avoid the images I was talking about: Bremer speech/bombs going off. Pandagon makes a good point about the PR hit they are going to take:

But even I didn't expect this. Not only did the Bush Administration sacrifice the political benefit of the transfer, they did themselves harm. Pushing it up two days and conducting it in a tiny room with few watching leaves the media with no relevant spin save "they were afraid of insurgent attacks". Stunningly, they essentially admitted that they can't protect the country and they've no control over the events.

No speeches, no brass band, no flags, No two week "bounce" in the way people view the war.

Little Bits of Everything

TAP has Green Party convention here. This convention, unlike the two "major" party convention may make a difference.

The Vice President "Fuck Yourself" on the floor of the U.S. Senate. What will we tell the children?

Man is driven from U.S. Senate race for wanting to have sex with his wife. The world is mad. By the way lets take a look at that wife.

Everything is fine in Iraq part 45

So a series of attacks in Iraq today kill 89 people, including 3 U.S. soldiers. It is now 6 days till the "handover" of "power" to the Iraqi "Government." If this thing keeps up, do you think the Bushies will go ahead with the pomp and circumstance, brass bands, ceremonially flag raising and all that on the handover date while hundreds continue to die on the streets of Baghdad? But could they afford to postpone the handover in light of massive civilian casualties? Just think of a CNN split-screen. Paul Bremer given his handover speech with the new Iraqi PM on one side of the screen, with a burning Iraqi police station and wreaked U.S. Humvee on the other.

Craig: Movie Pundit

Michael Moore's 9/11 is going to break huge tomorrow. I think it has a real chance to be the #1 movie in box office sales this weekend. The amount of publicity that the movie has received is massive and the movie is not going have much compitition. I checked the other movies coming out and I don't think White Chicks is going to be a real money-maker. I think that we could safely say that a movie deticaded completely to the attacking of George W Bush being the #1 movie in America will be taken by the conventional wisdom as a bad sign for Bush. CW is more important than people think, especially for the way reporters cover the campaigns. If polls and other indicators show a guy is up in a race, look for stories about big crowds, exciting speeches and so on. If CW says that a guys is losing, look for stories on "campaign in chaos" or "struggling to find a message." If reporters think that Kerry is doing well and Bush is in trouble, then the reporting will reflect that.

A Simple President is not a Good Thing

"You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." - President George W. Bush, September 2002

Bush cannot tell the difference between al Qaeda and Saddam. It is too complicated for him to wrap his mind around the difference. Let us have no more talk of how "simple and direct" the man is. Simple is not good.

Optimism: It's Worst Than We Thought

There are several things I see in politics than bug me a some level, but not on the level where I can express a real thought. All the talk about Reagan the optimist, and Bush and Kerry with their dueling optimism campaign messages was bugging me, but I wasn't sure why. Michael Kinsley has written why this bugs me. The big finish:

And if forced to choose between a leader whose vision is clouded by optimism and one whose vision is clouded by pessimism, there is a good case that pessimism is the more prudent choice. Another name for pessimism is a tragic sensibility. It is a vivid awareness that things can go wrong, and often have. An optimist thinks he can pop over to Iraq, knock Saddam Hussein off his perch, establish democracy throughout the Middle East and be home in time for dinner. A pessimist knows better.

In other news John Kerry is up 53-45 and is rated higher on the issues of Terrorism(!!) and Taxes(!!!). I am feeling optimistic, how about you?

Nader Has VP

Nader has picked a running mate and I must say its a pretty good pick. Crap. Peter Camejo is a long-time Green party guy, which should help Nader get the Green party nod and access to a lot more state ballots. Camejo ran for CA governor during the recall and did not embarrass himself in the debates and was pretty effective at outlining a very pure, pie in the sky lefty policy platform. All and all pretty smart move. Crap.

Beating of Breasts and Wrending of Cloths at TNR

It does my heart good to see some second thinking at The New Republic. I like reading the magazine a lot. It represents the rightward end of my brain on most political issues, see my permalinks for the full spectrum. TNR is the voice of liberal hawks and laid out a good case for war with Iraq based on human rights and changing the status quo in the middle East. That said, Bush did not wage their war and they should righfuly feel screwed. In order to have a liberal hawk war you need a liberal hawk. Clinton became a liberal hawk, Gore would have been and Kerry should be. Bush will never be a liberal hawk and it is good for TNR to realize it. He invaded Iraq for his own reasons not TNR's and did so very badly.

Breaking News

This just in to Craigorian Chant. Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th president and beloved statesman is still dead. His condition remains unchanged at this time. Craigorian Chant will continue to update this story as it progresses. We now return you to you regular program.

More on Target Selection

The logic I outlined in the last post can be applied to WMD as well as 9/11. The Bush administration has managed to pick the one hostile country in the world that did not have a WMD program. Libya and Syria have chemical weapons. Iran is working to get nukes. Pakistan has nukes and is one Islamic revolution away from becoming massively hostile. North Korea has nukes and is already massively hostile. Why do we attack Iraq? Even by the reasons Bush outlined it makes no sense.

Picking your Targets

So now we have a back and forth between the White House and the 9/11 commission on links to Iraq and 9/11. The fight seems to be between the White House claiming some (small, vague) link between Iraq and Al Qaida and everyone else in the world saying there is no link. I think this is framing the issue the wrong way. Even if some guy with Al Qaida ties met with some guy with Iraqi ties does not justify the Iraq War. If you drew up a list of countries with links to 9/11 will all available evidence Afghanistan would clearly be #1 with Saudi Arabia second and Pakistan a close third, next Egypt and so on. Iraq would rank somewhere below Germany. Why on earth did we pick Iraq as the second country to target as part of a global war on terrorism?

Jobs You Don't Want
Iraqi Postman.
Iraqi Oil Worker.
The U.S. General in charge of Iraqi.
An Iraqi Official of any sort.

Bush Begs Pope for Help

What the heck? As a (fallen) Catholic I am outraged that Bush is calling on the Pope to mess with U.S. domestic politics.

Talking points has good background on the subject here.

Just a little Reagan Bashing

Not to speak ill of the dead, but we here at Craigorian Chant (Now with new, improved Tagline!) we feel in the interest of balance must link to people saying bad things about this Great Man. Here is Christopher Hitchens completely out of his body. Nothing beats a Brit to call someone stupid. Reagan as liberal here. Finally, some of TNR on Reagan here. We do this with great reluctance and merely to balance the current attempt to make the man a saint.

Ah gee, That was quick

So I read a headline, post, go to the gym and bam, my prediction comes true. So now it is clear I have magic powers to sense impending death, everyone should take my predictions on political matters seriously. Prepare yourself for the epic figh over WHAT REAGAN MEANS.

Reagan Children Grathering

Not a good sign. Looks like we might be in for a whole round of "What Reagan Means to history/America/conservative politics/Peggy Nonan" when the old guy finaly lets go. I myself look forward to the (repectfull) takedowns offered in TNR and TAP and the disrespectfull ones offer by The Nation and Atrios.

The Coming Kerry Storm

Read all about it here.
Even Pro-Bush Web site predict crushing Kerry Victory.

We here at Craigorian Chant are all about the optimism.

Why Rummy shouldn't resign

Look, if we start by holding one member of Bush's administration responsible for his actions, where's it all gonna end?"
The Onion

Vice President Jokes

There is something about the office of VP that just leads itself to good jokes. John MaCain has a good one on Conan.

O'Brien: "There is, first of all, a lot of speculation lately — rumor, speculation? — that you might be a vice presidential candidate with John Kerry, form kind of a bi-partisan juggernaut. Any truth to that at all?"

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz: "I spent several years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, in the dark, fed with scraps. You think I want to do all that all over again as vice president of the United States?"
Via ABC News.

The VP job could be the worst in DC, just something to keep in mind as play the veepstakes game.

Rewriting History Games

The thing about rewriting history is that you have to get it anywhere it appears. China has censored a game I've played on PC called Hearts of Iron. It's a World War 2 grand strategy games. China pulled it because it showed (historically) that Tibet, Manchuria and Xinjiang as independent nations, as well as Taiwan as occupied by Japan during WW2. The Chinese government said that the game was "distorting history and damaging China's sovereignty." Keep in mind the game is historically accurate. I guess China in trying to get a claim on Tibet and Taiwan has rewritten history so that they were always part of China. You can get all the textbooks, but can you get everything? It boogles the mind.

Just Wondering

Is there some kind of Anti-American militia weapons program that gives out one RPG free with every 10 AK-47 that you buy. I swear that everybody we fight these days seems to have that mix of weapons.

More Clancy

TNR's Alan Wirzbicki writes up the Clancy switch just like I did, only he uses complete sentences and stuff.

Bush is losing Tom Clancy

I know he is a right wing kind of guy (The domestic politics parts of Executive Orders made me bang my head against a wall.) but I have always had a soft spot for Tom Clancy. His books both fiction and non have taught me much about the technical side of military issues. Its good to hear that he is having second thoughts about Iraq.

More Sucky Bush Poll Numbers

I just love to post these things. CBS has his job approval rating at 41% with John Kerry kicking his ass 49 to 41. If you look at the demographic breakdowns you find that Bush is losing support mostly with Republicans the Dem numbers have not changed.

Chalabi

American Prospect has a good roundup of all thing Chalabi here.

What I want to know is if he's passing secrets to Iran, then why was he on every single Sunday morning talk show?

Prove it


Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

George Bernard Shaw

Cans Open, Worms Everywhere

So our dear friend in Iraqi a "formery close advisor to the pentagon," and close person guest of the First Lady has had his home and party headquarters raided. Chalabi is of course the main guy as far as "sure Iraq has WMD" and "the people of Iraq will welcome us with open arms." I think now would be good time to revisit the massive stupidity that led the administration to believe this man.

Iraq as Vietnam part 4

Crooked Timber has Chris Hitchens going off the rails making comparisons to Vietnam.

Local Kid Dies

So in my random news surfing I con across that a 19 year old kid from Arroyo Grande died in Iraq. AG is a small (16,000) town south of SLO. I was helping out with a public workshop there just last month. Knowing small towns the way I do, I a pretty sure a lot of people will know about the death of Pfc Michael A. Mora. Other kids who went to high school with him and their parents, and their parents friends. I think more and more towns are going to lose a kid as this thing drags on. More every day. Here are the towns that have lost somebody.

Can't Get Any Worst

You know how in movies someone always says "At least things can't get any worst" just before they do? I really think there is someone in the White House who's job it is just to keep saying "Well at least things can't get any worst in Iraq." Every day he says this, just before the news comes in.

Iraq as Vietnam part 3

Hey want to read a 70-something page report comparing Iraq to Vietnam? Yeah me neither but here it is anyway.

Bush Panic

So at what point do Republicans panic over Bush. His rating are going down. (By the way Franklin did this thing with a penny whisle and the history of Bush poll numbers on his show, very funny.) TNR notes that Bush is losing ground on both the War on Terror and Iraq as well as losing Jobs, Heathcare etc, etc, etc. Donkey Rising has Kerry winning in the battleground states. The founder of USAToday has called on Bush to drop out. Kaus over at Slate has a Dem panic watch going so why not a Republican panic watch?

Good Sign

So this paper in Wisconsin was not getting any pro-Bush letter for their letters to the editors page so they call for people to sent in Pro-Bush letters so the paper can be fair and balanced. This in an area the went for Bush over Gore 52 to 43. The paper is now in trouble over seeming Pro-Bush, but I think that the important point is that no one in the town of Appleton can bring themselves to speak up for Bush.

Poll Questioned

In the latest CNN poll 46% of people do not think Bush is doing a good job as president but 48% would vote for him. 2% of the American people think that Bush is doing a bad job but want him to continue to have that job.

Not One Thing Right

So I read this column by Fareed Zakaria (international relations guy for Newsweek and ABC News) and I get to thinking has the Bush administration said one thing about Iraq that turned out to be true? WMD? Democracy? Electricity? Cost? Anything?

Babes against Bush.

This is good. Something I surf for politics, sometimes for pictures of hot chicks now you can do both at once.

W is a Stupid.

George W Bush is clearly not a fit man to be President.

That is the short version. The long version can be found here.

No Worries

Kerry to win in landslide, news at 11:00.

Worst. PR. Ever.

Can anyone possible think of something can could make us look worst in Iraq than pictures of US troop torturing Iraqis in an old prison of Saddams? How about we burn down a mosque with women and children in it with an Al Jareeza camera filming the whole thing. There may not be much left for Kerry to salvage by the time he takes over in Jan 05.

SLO Has Air America

One of the local AM stations here has just switched to Air America the new liberal radio network with Franken and company. I was tuned in a bit of the Randi Rhodes show on my way out of town on Thursday. She really kicks ass. I think this might be the public discourse form of crack. Not good for your mind, not good for the republic, but sure is fun to hear. Another interesting thing is that the station AM 1340 used to have all conservatives. It didn't have Rush but it did have Sean Hanity the conservative (and better looking) part of the FOXNEWS debate show. There used to be 3 conservative AM stations and a FM Sports/News station that had Bill O'Reilly. I guess 1340 didn't want to be the #3 conservative station when it could be the #1 liberal station. So the good people of SLO now have "Left Coast Radio." The forces of light gain a little ground.

Iraqi as Vietnam part 2

Acording to the CBS/NYTimes poll as many people think that Iraq is a mistake now - 48% as did in 1968 that Vietnam was a mistake. Also Bush job aproval lowest in his term for that poll and Kerry-Bush match-up at 46-44

Dark Victory

Salon has up a book excerpt from a new title called "Dark Victory." It lays out a very good case that Iraq is a massive fuck-up (my words, not his, his are better) It sounds like it is by far the best case against the war, not in a winning Michael Moore, blood for oil, can't we a just give the world a hug way. It is a I've been a defense analysis for thirty years, I teach at the WAR COLLEGE, trust when I say that Iraq is a strategic blunder on an epic scale, way. If I had one of those Amazon ad things I'd put Dark Victory on it. If I had 20 bucks I would buy it myself.

Body Counts

One of things that the army has been very reluctant to do in recent years is keep a count of enemy body counts. There are several good reasons for this. One of the lessons of Vietnam and later Somalia is that the US can rack up a massive kill ratio and still end up in a bloody defeat. So I have to think that the recent move to include body counts in the stories that the military puts out can't be good.

Wal-Mart Sucks

Snug in the heart of City Planning acedemia there is no truth more certain than Wal-Mart is the root of all evil. Here are some good numbers via CCB and counterpunch. The long and the short of it is you cannot live on what Wal-Mart pays. I think the real telling stat is how much the Government has to fork over just to keep Wal-Mart employees and their families alive with food, housing and energy subsities. I think this produces a whole new catagory of corporate welfare. Most times corporate welfare takes the form of tax breaks or other direct subsities. What Wal-Mart is doing is using social safety net programs to pay their employees even less. Wal-Mart Sucks.

Secret Oil Deal

Oh sure the crazy guy on my bus who talks about secret oil deals and vast conspiracies between Bush and the Saudis for months gets ignored but here comes Johnny-come-lately Bob "Robert Redford played me in the movie" Woodward with the same story and it gets all kinds of attention.
Frankly I own crazy guy on the bus an apology. Talking Points has the press gaggle.

Historic Metaphor
I love to deploy historic metaphor in political debate. I really think a big part of the campaign this year will be Kerry trying to be Kennedy and Bush trying to be Churchill, While their opponents try and make them Dukkasis and Herbert Hoover respectively. The next battle of historic metaphor is

Iraqi as Vietnam

Yes it is.
No it is not.

Must...Write...Something

Just crapy crapy news from Iraq, What to do what to say?

Kerry ain't so great. You read Slate don't you Craig?


Also, I know its been awhile, but before the NCAA tournament is completed, I just wanted to say how utterly disappointed I am in Stanford's absolutely atrocious showing. How can they loose to a team that dropped 12 games in the regular season? I'll tell you why: A cupcake schedule that didn't prepare them for intense tourney play, a lack of toughness, no sense of urgency and a soft, ineffective defense . Alabama was hungry, they wanted it. Stanford has got to be the most overrated "number 1 ranked team" in the last 10 years. PAC 10 has got to play a tougher pre-league schedule.

Movie Quote

I am a firm believer that I can talk about all political issues using pop culture. So as I see the really bad news from Iraqi today. I started thinking about a quote I heard from "Hunt for Red October" I used imdb to pin it down.

"A war with no battles, no monuments... only casualties."

Its Sean Connery talking about the cold war but I think this applies to what we have today.

Music Note
Apple's I-tunes costs 99 cents a song.
Walmart's music service costs 88 cents a song.

However, Walmart's music is sung, recorded and uploaded by 12 year old Guatemalan orphans.

Bush's Own

Lets Review -
1. Bush's own Treasury Secretary says he was all wrong about economy and taxes.
2. Bush's own Weapon Inspector says he was all wrong about WMD.
3. Bush's own head of Anti-Terrorism says he was all wrong about the War on Terror.

Kerry can stay on the slopes as long as he wants. The former members of the current administration are making his case for him.

Moveon Moves In
Moveon is going to run this video as a 30-second spot.

Rumsfeld, Liar

Tom Friedman nails Rumsfeld on the "I never said that the Iraqi threat was immediate"
video here
TNR's Iraq'd is holding a remix contest for the footage here.
Kudo to CCB for the hot tip.

The View From the UK:

Here is the latest dispatch from our Senior UK correspondent:

Things are going well in the United Kingdom, it's paper writing season,
so that's why I've been mum for a while. I have this to report:

I attended a lecture at the
University of Edinburgh given by Hans Blix, the former chief UN weapons
inspector. His talk was "The means of reducing the spread of weapons
of mass destruction" wherein he advocated the use of apolitical,
multinational weapons inspectors as an appropriate route to detecting
weapons. He was impressively dispassionate and reasonable for a man
who had been ousted from his job, despite pleas for more time, and who
was eventually vindicated in his claims that there was no evidence that
Iraq had WMD.

Despite my obvious antipathy towards Bush, I would like to adopt Dr.
Blix's reasonable dispassionate and suggest this strategy for to Tyler for
casting his vote. I believe that the War in Iraq (and by extension the
war on terror) is central to deciding whether to re-hire Bush as
president, just as he does himself. My thinking is this:

In retrospect it seems that we were totally wrong in our stated
motivation for the invasion: that Iraq presented an immediate danger to
the USA. There are only two reasons why this could be. Either:
1# The Bush Administration manipulated the intelligence that they were
presented with in order to justify a war that they wanted for their own
ends, or
2# Intelligence was wildly inaccurate.

From these two reasons I draw the following conclusions.
If #1 is true, then Bush should not be re-elected.
$100,000,000,000 in taxpayer costs plus 500+ US casualties is not in
any way justifiable, and we should not trust this man to make future
decisions.
If #2 is true, and we do have inherently flawed intelligence in the
most important of matters, then it does not matter who the
commander-in-chief is. No matter how gung-ho our leader is he will not
be able to fight the war on terror any better than anyone else. In
which case we need to turn to other issues, like the economy.
I therefore conclude that Bush is either not fit to run the
country, or no more fit than John Kerry. Ergo, John Kerry is the safer
bet.

Craig,

I'm the ultimate swing voter. Not only do I not know who I'm going to vote for yet, I'm not even sure what I need to hear inorder to make a decsion on who to cast my vote for!

I have some time. There'll be 8 months of rhetoric and mud slining. I'll have to see who does better in the debates. Also, I suppose reading, etc. a detailed plan on Kerry's Defense strategy, and long term forigen policy goals wouldn't hurt either.

So whatever happened to UK? Doesn't he have any strong feelings on anything lately? I want to see the The Passion of the Chris

Kerry is Going to Win

I think it time to start getting overconfident. Donkey Rising has the goods here.

T-Dog: Swing Voter

So Tyler what will it take for the Forces of Good (Kerry Democrats) to win your vote. You being one of the more perfect centrist political types I know should be a pretty good indicator as to what it would take to win. You even live in a swing state now! Consider yourself a focus group of one.

There are many people out there who've already annointed Kerry as the next president. Some things to note though: 1. Bush has at least $100,000,000 more to spend on his campaign. 2. Kerry has a long liberal voting record (which Bush can use against him). 3. Bush is still a more relaxed, laid back guy.

If Kerry is smart he won't use the smug I'm-smarter-than-you routine that Gore used four years ago during some of their debates. It backfired on him.

If Kerry is going to be able to match Bush $ wise, how much time is he going to have to spend fund raising? While Bush is running ads, Kerry will be running for more money.

P.S.
One day I'll put in one of those links....

New Counter

Please Note our new Stylish Bush Countdown Counter the latest addition here at Craigorian Chant.

Oh God Nader

George Bush, Man of Peace

A great article in Slate here. Chatterbox makes the case that GWB can't fight any more wars. The best point:

He doesn't have the credibility. When President Bush justified military action in Iraq by stating that Saddam Hussein harbored chemical and biological weapons, nearly everyone believed him. Even people who opposed the war believed him! The United Nations assumed Iraq possessed stores of chemical and biological weapons; so had the Clinton administration. But no such weapons have turned up in significant quantities, making it all but certain that this prewar intelligence was incorrect. Thus Bush's first credibility problem: Next time, nobody will trust even the most fair-minded and dispassionate interpreters of intelligence data to weigh the danger accurately. Even though this may well mean the intelligence community will underestimate the danger, lest it repeat its Iraq mistake, the public will remember that these folks screwed it up last time.


I think that a great point the Kerry, or Edwards or Kerry-Edwards campaign can make is that they can restore the credibility of the US government. Regardless of why Bush was wrong about WMD he was wrong. If we dump Bush the US can just say that the liars/fakes/idiots are gone so you (The World, The US People) can trust us when the next crisis comes along.

Incumbent Presidents are hard to Beat?

The thing I keep hearing from pundits is "Incumbent Presidents are hard to Beat." Historical this is a rather questionable statement. After WWII , Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were incumbents who won a second term. Bush I, Carter, and Ford all lost reelection (in Fords case election). Johson and Truman did not run for a second term. Leaving out Kennedy thats only 4 out of 9 winning a second term or about 44%. Now compare that to the 80-90% of members of congress that get reelected and "Bush is an incumbent" is not so overwhelming.

New New Election Theory

Bush is Crushed by 9 points. The Dems carry 400 electoral votes and win both the Dakotas just like Bartlet in West Wing. As the 2008 election nears pundits realize that a Republican hasn't won a popular vote for President in 20 years and begin to question the national viability of the Republican Party. Everyone grows confused because we now have two Presidents who can be referred to as JFK.

New Election Theory

I have a new election theory: There is a family somewhere in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, the husband wants Bush, the wife wants Kerry. This election will be close like T says. Whoever wins Ohio will win the electoral College and whoever wins the argument between my theoretical family will cast the swing vote in Ohio. Its all going to come down to them. By the way the (theoretical) Wife is winning but the (theorectical) Husban is getting tired of talking about WMD and is going to start bringing up tax cuts at dinner tonight.

More Dem Abroad Info

CCB Check the link here.

Indeed Kerry has momentum, but Bush is probably going to have over a $150,000,000 at his disposal for the general election. I've seen two poles from TIME and CNN. TIME had carry by 5 points and CNN had Bush by two. Its going to be close!

Kerry Wins Again

The other guys are in real trouble if they can't stop headlines like this.

UK Correspondent Alert!

Look at this.

Key Quote:

More than 500 voters packed the American Church in Paris for the vote to pick delegates to regional and world caucuses of Democrats abroad to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in late March.


CCB you got to get on this.

I think the Advocate does put (generally) pro-gay politicos on its cover from time to time. I got agree with the Senior Midwest reporter on the Kerry v. Bush outcome here. Does the Senior UK Reporter want to make the case for Dean? Note: MI and WA are voting today and Kerry could nearly double the number of delegates he has if he wins big.

Just posting to see if this works.

By the way, I saw Wes Clark on the cover of The Advocate at a groccery check out last weekend. Has any candidate ever done something like that before with that type of magazine? Never seen any politician do anything like that, but if it gets him votes its worth it I suppose. Although at this point, it looks like its Kerry v. Bush for November.

Anyone but George W. Bush

And now the lastest from Craigorian Chant Senior Midwest correspondent T-Money with the word on the street from the now key primary State of Missouri:


Anyone but George W. Bush.
That’s the Missouri pulse from the news pieces I’ve read. Gephardt's decision to drop out made it a little more difficult for many Missouri voters, particularly in St. Louis (Where ole Gephy is from). According to the local St. Louis paper:

A Research Missouri Poll, conducted for the Post-Dispatch and KMOV (Channel 4), polled 804 likely voters from Wednesday through Friday. It found that 19 percent of the people questioned about their plans for Tuesday's Democratic primary said they were still undecided.

"Since he (Gephardt) is not in the running, everybody is sitting back and saying: 'Show me what you're about, so I can make a decision,'" said Mary "One" Johnson, 47, a real estate agent and broker in St. Louis. "Everybody comes out and talks loud. I don't get excited by that. I like to find out what is really going on, because I take my vote seriously."

Beth Daubel, 38, said she wanted a president who could be a strong world leader; “Bush hasn't measured up”

The comforting thing about that is Clark, Dean, Edwards and Kerry could accomplish that goal (of beating Bush),” said Hunter Beckham, 33. "Hopefully, a couple of them will team up at the end of the game and take back the White House."

“It really kind of bothers me when I see them putting all that energy over there in Iraq tearing it down and building it back and then we got all the issues that we have here," said Cosandra Eddington, 48.

Few people have strong feeling for re-electing W. Much of this has to do with Bush’s foreign policy. A lot of them will most likely make up their minds on the way to the polling places. As in other states the candidates "electability factor” will probably hold more weight than other considerations. I guess Dems would rather just plain win, then have the right man win. They want W. out

Another tactic at least two of the candidates are trying is minority outreach. Kerry and Edwards have met with prominent black pastors. The Post Dispatch reported that Kerry met with18 members of the St. Louis Clergy Coalition, a predominantly African-American group of pastors whose endorsements carry a lot of weight in the black community. The meeting went well prompting the Rev. Earl Nance Jr., one of the Clergy’s members to say "I think he has all the makings of a winner in this thing, he connected with many of us."

Edwards received an endorsement from Rev. Emanuel Cleaver, a former Kansas City mayor. According to the St. Louis post dispatch, this type of out reach is important because while blacks are only 11% of Missouri's population, they make up 20 of Missouri’s Democratic vote. They’re tremendously devoted to the party in Missouri. The Missouri Primary is expect to have a fairly low turn out.

Call Them on It
Watched a bit of the political Sunday morning shows. It seems like everyone is now on the "no WMD" train. The line from the right/Bush defenders seems to be that Bush was the victum of bad intelligence from the CIA. If this is really the case why does George Tenat, head of the CIA still have a job? Kerry has already called for his head and I think the other Dems should follow up. Call the bluff. The headline will either be the "White House bows to political pressure" or "CIA fails President, keeps job"

Local People

A couple of key grafs first from TNR:

For example, the idea of flying thousands of twentysomethings into Iowa to help organize the state for Dean--Trippi's so-called "perfect storm"--proved to be a colossal, money-draining failure. As Ryan Lizza has reported, these twentysomethings turned out to be incompetent amateurs who got their hats handed to them on caucus night--not only by the professional organizers of rival campaigns, but by these campaigns' more dedicated volunteers. Worse, the perfect stormers probably scared off a significant number of Iowans, who took one look at their nose-rings and their died hair and decided that they had nothing to talk about. In retrospect, it would have obviously been wiser for Trippi et al to rely on local volunteers to beef up his Iowa ground game--something that worked reasonably well in New Hampshire (at a fraction of the cost).

And second this reply to a Dean letter that Craigorian Chant chief UK reporter Chris C-B wrote to a South Carolina Democrat , :

Subject: post card

You and Howard Dean have lost your minds. My dog wouldn't vote for
Howard Dean, and I hope you stay in Scotland with your anti-American
ideas.

I think when the full history of the Dean campaign is written the "remote campaign" will be shown to be a no go. I just don't think it works to have people from halfway across the county try and persuade people to vote for Dean. You can convince your neighbors to vote for someone, you know the issues, what people talk about. Lets say the unnamed Dem in SC above lived in a town where a plant closed. A local Deaniac could talk about jobs, trade, whatever would reach them. A campaign can't focus it's internet supporters on a local. You have take your internet supporters and use them where they are. Use your Iowa Deaniacs in Iowa, your New Mexico Deaniacs in New Mexico and so on. If Dean people have blue hair and piercing then they should be on college campuses getting dragging apathetic 20-somethings to the polls.

BBC reminded: You are a state-run media

The Hutton report did not go at all like anticipated in my earlier post. Lord Hutton decided that the issue of the government's interpretation of intelligence about Iraq was beyond the scope of his inquiry. Instead, he concentrated on this issue of whether anyone was culpable in the death of Dr. Kelly. His report astounded me. He exonerated Tony Blair and his former spin Doctor Alastair Campbell saying that they had not behaved in a "dishonorable, underhanded or duplicitous manner" in revealing Dr. Kelly's identity to the media. Instead, Lord Hutton slammed the BBC for its behavior in reporting Kelly's comments in the first place.

Lord Hutton's report

• said that reporter Andrew Gillagan made a 'grave allegation' when he reported that the dossier that Tony Blair used to motivated the war had been 'sexed up' by the government.
• condemned the BBC for allowing its reporter to say government knew that its '45-minutes' claim was unfounded (The 45-minutes claim was a point that was added to the Iraq dossier which stated that Iraq had the means to deploy a chemical weapon attack within 45-minutes of an order by Sadam Hussien. It was added after Alastair Campbell had read an initial draft of the document which was provided by intelligence services, which did not contain the claim).
• declared that because it had failed to censor its reporter's allegations against the government, the BBC editorial system was 'defective'.

BBC chairman Gavyn Davies has resigned. His parting words could be interpreted as a parting jab towards the Prime Minister's stacking the House of Lords and various judicial panels with his own friends and supporters:

I've been brought up to believe that you cannot choose your own referee and that the referee's decision is final. There is an honourable tradition in British public life that those charged with authority at the top of an organisation should accept responsibility for what happens in that organisation.

BBC director general Greg Dyke has also quit, apologizing "unreservedly" for any errors in the David Kelly affair. The 11 remaining BBC governors have been considering whether they should follow Mr Davies and quit. Reporter Andrew Gilligan will likely tender his resignation soon.

The irony is, of course, that there is no evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, as was claimed in the government's dossier.

This is a sad day for free-thinking journalism.

Stuff to Watch
Thanks to Craigorian Chant's senior UK correspondent Chris with that report. Shoes are dropping all over the place now. It seems to me that Bush is in real trouble. The Dems are getting all the coverage, and they are all attacking Bush. The State of the Union went thud and the conservative troops are discontent. I'm not saying the forces of good will win, but things are looking better.

Fallout from manipuated intelligence in the UK

The issue of whether the government cooked intelligence about Iraq's WMD is also getting a lot of attention in the UK this week. Lord Hutton, a British judge, has been leading an inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly, a prominent scientist who worked for the Ministry of Defense as an expert on biological weapons. After a BBC reporter ran a story quoting an anonymous security expert as having said that the government had "sexed up" intelligence about Iraq's weapons program, Tony Blair's press officer gave Dr. Kelly's identity to the press apparently in retribution for his stance. This action was similar to the (still undisclosed) senior member of Bush's cabinet who outted Valerie Plame to punish her husband for exposing the administration's flagrant lies about Nigerian uranium. However, it is not quite as serious since Dr. Kelly was not an undercover operative, so exposing him didn't put him in any immediate danger. His death was due to suicide after the government ruined his reputation, and he was dragged before the press and a parliamentary hearing to defend his statement.

The Hutton inquiry was to determine whether the government acted inappropriately in revealing the identity of Dr. Kelly, but may have a wider scope by lending credibility to Dr. Kelly's claim that Blair cooked evidence to motivate the war. Lord Hutton's report will be issued on Wednesday. The Guardian speculates about the potential fall-out if the report is critical of Blair:

The Prime Minister, who has said that if Hutton finds that he lied over either the naming strategy or WMD he would resign, suffered a fresh blow yesterday after David Kay, the head of the Iraqi Survey Group, quit on Friday night, saying there were no large WMD stockpiles in Iraq. ... Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, challenged Blair to admit the war had been a mistake. Cook, who resigned before the war began, said Blair had been driven by 'evangelical certainty'. ... 'It is becoming undignified for the Prime Minister to continue to insist that he was right all along when everybody can now see he was wrong,' he said.

It seems unlikely that the Hutton report will damn Blair enough to force his resignation, but hopefully this will lead to a wider knowledge that the UK and the US mislead us about the need to go to war with Iraq.

No WMD
You can read about it here. No WMD. No WMD. No WMD.

Weapons of Mass Destruction-Related Program Activity

What?

State By State Deaths

Here is something that I haven't seen before: the deaths in Iraq by State. Because of course we now run everything through the Blue State/Red State thing, here is my back of the envelope math:

Bush States: 261
Gore States: 235

I put American Samoa and Puerto Rico in with the Blue states and Florida with the Red. I'm really not sure what these numbers mean, I leave it to smarter people than I to say.

Predictions are Hard Especially about the Future

Really what I meant to put in the last post was Kerry will win, Edwards a strong second, Dean third and Gephardt will be finished. Darn Iowa Kill one campaign. But really Gephardt would not even be in this race if Iowa didn't come first. Live by the all white Mid-West state die by the all white Mid-West State.

Predictions

Someone will win the Iowa Caucuses! But three other guys will claim moral victories! And they will all have a case! I really think the most important thing is that canidates don't get knocked out of the process so dam early. There is a lot of Pundit talk of Iowa killing Gephardt or New Hampshire finishing off Kerry. Why on earth should Iowa and New Hampshire be able to eliminate canidates? California and New York should be the ones to crush the hopes and dreams of these guys. Little states should only be alowed to scare and hurt them.

And Then There Were Eight

Bye, Bye Carol. You know there are several women who could be president. Carol Moseley Braun is not one of them. There are something like 13 women in the US Senate and Hillary is not the only one who could be a credible candidate. Braun was by far the weakest of the senate class of 92, the "year of the woman." She got bounced after one term by a candidate so weak he only lasted one term. But enough on Braun. Who's Next?

TPM Goes Off
Josh is doing his thing here I just love this O'Neill stuff. It's time to tee off on Bush.

Bush Planned Iraqi War Before 9/11
Wow
This is really something. This is not some web site. This is not Michael Moore. This is Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. Look, in any cabinet the only jobs that really matter are SecDef, SecState and SecTreasury. If O'Neill starts talking like the this, the damage will be huge for Bush. Much has been made about how loyal the W administration has been and how little they leak. We really have very little inside stuff on these guys. O'Neill could be the jackpot. I guess I have to watch 60 minutes on Sunday.

Dean Meetup Report
Well that sucked! I don’t think that could possible be a part of the “Dean phenomenon” Two guys in need of hair cuts sitting around talking politics do not a movement make. I must say that SLO in January is not a hotbed of political activism but come on! I could get a better turn-out for a Craig for President meet-up with a six pack of beer. Well anyway I’ll try again in a few weeks maybe a location that isn’t the sixties retread coffee shop will show more promise.

Dean Meetup
So I'm going to my first Dean Meetup Wednesday. Mostly I just want to get back into politics again. But I would not mind meeting a nice liberal girl. Maybe someone like Michelle Cottle. You know smart, fairly liberal, and really really good looking.

Go Michelle Go
This is pretty good stuff. The only quibble that I would have with Michelle is to argue that even lib bomb-throwers are more accurate than conservative ones. If you read Michael Moores entire book carefully you can find errors, distortions, ect. If you pick any random page of Ann Coulter's book you can find an outright lie and toe curling invective. I've yet to find anybody who can find factual mistakes in Al Franken's books.