I'm watching Countdown with Keith Obleman on MSNBC and he's got Bush Campaign Senior Advisor Tucker Eskew on. Keith just showed him the picture of Bush's back during the debate with the unidentified object on it and asked him whether it was a radio pack.

Tucker responded: "Not wearing a radio pack. What do you have on that side of George W. Bush? A strong backbone. That's about all. The rest is baloney."

Keith asked him again, "That one particular spot is backbone as opposed to a piece of equipment or some kind of protective device?"

To which Tucker replied, "You betcha."

So, the official response from the Bush camp is that the strange bulge and what looks like a wire going up Bush's shoulder are "a strong backbone" and "baloney" and that he wasn't wearing any other device like a brace or a bullet-proof vest.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I'm left baffled by how Bush could have such a deformed backbone and still stand up straight, and also why he would be keeping baloney in his jacket.

We all know that Bush was arrested at least once for drunk driving, so why not use this as an analogy to describe his dangerous policies.

Bush is is like a drunk driver, recklessly careening in the wrong lane straight into oncoming traffic.

In doing so he endangers not only himself but the American citizens trapped inside his car as well as those drivers he is careening towards (the rest of the world). And like a drunk driver he blindly keeps driving at full speed, even though the traffic is coming right at him.

No amount of blind certainty on his part will reverse the basic fact that he is driving wrecklessly in the wrong lane and it is just a matter of time before he causes a terrible, terrible accident. In the real world someone who speeds in the wrong lane while intoxicated is arrested, imprisoned and is not allowed to drive for a long, long time. It's high time we removed Bush from office, elected a real leader with wisdom and good judgement, and kept Bush from causing so much harm to our country ever again.

I think this is a good metaphor and we should spread it. Not only does it clearly understand the extreme danger of Bush's actions and the fallacies of Bush's logic, but it also reminds people that Bush really was arrested for drunk driving on at least one occasion.

Bush, the drunk driver speeding headlong into oncoming traffic. Spread the meme.

Well... I'm going to be completely honest here.

I walked out of watching the debate half-way through because I was so frustrated with Kerry. It wasn't that Bush did well, it was that Kerry should have done better.

I felt every single question in that first half was a perfect opportunity for Kerry to hit a grand slam but ended up hitting doubles instead. Granted, he DID hit doubles, but he SHOULD have been hitting grand slams on every single one of those questions.

I have a masters degree in international law and I absolutely love debating. During that first half I would have been overjoyed to come across either Bush or Kerry as a debate opponent because they would have both gotten wrecked. Honestly... both of them had so many good opportunities and just flubbed it. In our debates at my university we had 40 students from all over the world, many of them experienced policymakers and international lawyers/human-rights lawyers, going at it tooth and nail. It is absolutely essential to be at the top of one's game at all times and to pounce on any weakness or inaccuracy whatsoever, to be clear, direct and go for the jugular by letting the facts speak the truth. Kerry let the facts speak the truth, and won because of it and because of an extremely weak opponent, but he was nowhere near the top of his game. I expected more from the captain of the Yale debate team (I should expect more from Bush as well, but he has done a pretty good job at lowering our expectations over the last four years).

A new 527 organization "MoveOnForAmerica.org", run by Jeb Bush's former press secretary, is about to begin airing a series of absolutely brutal, sickening smear ads against Kerry in the DC area and  in swing states. The group promises to run the adds non-stop until the election.

According to the moveonforamerica.org website,

"the first ad will feature John Kerry's role as a private attorney in 1982, when he secured freedom and parole for his client George Reissfelder who pled guilty to attempted murder of a police officer, bur never served his 15-year sentence because Kerry successfully secured his parole. The parole was in Florida because Mr. Kerry's client had escaped during a furlough, just like Willie Horton. Once a free man, thanks to John Kerry, Kerry's would-be cop killer client brazenly continued his life of crime as part of a Mafia-controlled drug ring."

Salon.com is running a superb article entitled " THe Truth Isn't Out There", documenting the lies told during the RNC. Read it here: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/02/cheney_convention/print.html

Here's an excerpt:

The truth isn't out there
From Dick Cheney on down, the Republican convention's speakers haven't let the facts get in the way of their partisan ferocity.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Tim Grieve

Sept. 2, 2004  |  NEW YORK -- Arnold Schwarzenegger told adoring Republican delegates this week that the Democrats should have called their Boston convention "True Lies." But in speech after speech inside Madison Square Garden, Schwarzenegger's Republican colleagues have shown themselves to be truth-challenged. On big points and small, in policy arguments and personal anecdotes, Republican convention speakers have misrepresented, misconstrued, dissembled and dipsy-doodled. You can argue that they weren't lying, exactly, but you can't say they told the whole truth, either....

Read the rest: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/02/cheney_convention/print.html

Someone recently posted in a diary that a liberal website was being subpoenad by Ashcroft. There was some speculation it might by KOS. It turns out the target Indymedia.

The entirity of the following is from Indymedia.org :
BREAKING NEWS: The FBI and the US Secret Service is again engaging in a fishing expedition to route out dissenting viewpoints, harass people who are simply exercising their free speech rights, and intimidate others from exercising their right to protest in connection with the Republican National Convention. To quote one indymedia volunteer, regarding New York Indymedia:
"It has come to my attention, that our hosting provider, Calyx Internet Access, has been under harassment and scrutiny by the United States Secret Service in a blatant attempt to disrupt our relationship. Furthermore, it has been revealed to me that my contact information, was required to be disclosed to the government, presumably to begin directly harassing me. The SS did not contact the IMC directly in relation to this matter, but instead felt it prudent to put a strain on a place which we do business with. The agents attempted to circumvent Indymedia by contacting Calyx by phone, originally without a warrant or subpoena, in order to obtain user connection logs regarding a particular post on an Indymedia site. The post in question is a repost by an anonymous person containing information that is already available all over the Internet, and publicly available in other forms."

JuliusBlog has posted a brilliant chart demonstrating a positive correlation between negative ratings dips/negative headlines for Bush and the subsequent announcement of new terror alerts.

From the JuliusBlog analysis:
"There are few things that are quite evident from the chart:

• Whenever his ratings dip, there's a new terror alert.

• Every terror alert is followed by a slight uptick of Bush approval ratings.

• Whenever there are many unfavorable headlines, there's another alert or announcement (distraction effect).

• As we approach the 2004 elections, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing, to the point that they collapse in the graphic. At the same time, Bush ratings are lower than ever."

Check out the complete chart and analysis here:
http://juliusblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_juliusblog_archive.html#109174332697993966

Make of it what you will... I know exactly what I make it of: manipulation of the people through fear for political gain. Thankfully, the American People seem to be becoming just as fed up with this deceipt as I am, as reflected in the newest figures from the Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 - which, as of today, has Kerry at 307 and Bush 231, with Kerry taking Florida. Woo hoo!!!

Find the Electoral Vote Predictor here: http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Chris

CNN is running a story with the title "Bush Says He Never Authorized Illegal Interrogations". CNN plays the story off as if Bush denied authorizing torture. Instead he only denied breaking the law. However, as is typical of the Bush administration, Bush did not deny authorizing torture at all. Instead, he avoided answering the question and instead made a statement that can be summarized as "I didn't break the law." When asked whether he would authorize torture, he said, "The authorization I issued was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations...What I've authorized is that we stay within U.S. law."
This is NOT a denial of authorizing torture, it is only a denial that Bush thought he was breaking the law. The non-denial amounts, essentially, to an admission that he did indeed authorize torture. But torture is universally, unquestionably prohibited under international law,  so how could Bush authorize torture without thinking he was breaking the law?

Earlier today I posted my comments about an article written by Paul Sperry, formerly Washington bureau chief of Investors Business Daily, in regards to his article posted on Anti-War.com in which he defended the use of torture against detainees at Guantanamo. I sent my thoughts to him as a letter, and he reponded:
"you obviously don't live in NYC or DC, or have friends who died in those attacks. I'd be losing sleep if we WEREN'T surfboarding known AQ like KSM to get them to cough up info about future attacks. The Iraqis are a completely different story. Best, PS"

Mr. Sperry's rebuttal speaks for itself.

First, Mr. Sperry chooses to discredit me based only the fact that I don't live in NYC nor DC and don't know anyone who died in the attacks. Following Mr. Sperry's own logic, he is incompetent to comment on abuse in Abu Ghraib prison because he doesn't know anyone who was tortured there. His comment also makes the false assumption that everyone who does live in NYC or DC or did know someone killed on September 11 does support the use of torture at Guantanamo. This is clearly a baseless and rediculous claim.

Second, he ignores my arguement that we don't even know whether the detainees at Guantanamo are al Qaeda, nor does the Government. He simply repeats the same assumption that I questioned him about earlier, the groundless assumption that all detainees at Guantanamo are not only al Qaeda but have committed crimes.

Thirdly, he flat out restates that he, without question, does support torture in Guantanamo. In doing so he completely ignores the fact that torture is absolutely, totally, blatantly illegal under international law and national law, and that not only is illegal but morally, ethically and strategically wrong.

I've responded to Mr. Sperry and I await his response.

I hope some of you will take the opportunity to let him and AntiWar.com (which posted his article) know your thoughts on the matter.

You can read the original article here: http://www.antiwar.com/sperry/?articleid=2786

"Though licensing torture is a ghoulish first for America, so was 9-11. So I'm not losing any sleep over any al-Qaeda torture victims at Gitmo," writes Paul Sperry in his July 10 article "The Torture Working Group", posted on AntiWar.com.

Sperry condemns torture in Iraq but makes an exception for it when used against "al Qaeda" in Guantanamo. Sperry's is the logic of torturers themselves and the tyrants who enable them.

In a single sentence Sperry makes several critical mistakes. First, he assumes that those being held at Guantanamo are al Qaeda. First, we don't know that those held at Guantanamo are truly al Qaeda, nor whether they are guilty of any crimes. Reports from the ICRC show that 90% of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib were innocent. Why should we not expect a similar level of innocence at Guantanamo? Afterall, the prisoners held at Guantanamo have been held without charge, without trial, without legal councel and without contact with the outside world. Assuming their guilt is to resort to a policy of "guilty until proven innocent", the antithesis of our most fundamental legal principle. Certainly, prisoners at Guantanamo could be forced into confession of crimes (whether true or not) by the use of torture, but what value does a forced confession hold, especially when obtained under intense pain? Does not using torture to extract a confession which is then used to justify the torture represent a sick and twisted self-fulfilling prophesy? Consider also that the US military offered cash rewards to those who handed over "al Qaeda" and "Taliban" to US forces in Afghanistan. Reports indicated that many groups kidnapped and handed over innocent people, against whom they held grudges, for revenge and the cash reward. How many of those handed over by the Northern Alliance and other groups were truly innocent? Without fair charges, investigation, trial and legal representation we will never know.

The bottom line is that torture is outlawed in international and national law under all circumstances. Period. There is not a scenario where it becomes justified. Justifying torture against one group in one situation, as Sperry has done, opens the door to justifying torture against other groups in other situations. This is the path to the darkside - a one way road that can only result in evil, pain and suffering. It is the road the US government has taken and it is now clear to all where it leads.

Please urge Mr. Sperry to reconsider his statements. The entire article can be found here: http://www.antiwar.com/sperry/?articleid=2786