Tour of Duty

My brother-in-law is now in Iraq. He had been preparing to go since early this summer as a member of the Louisiana Army National Guard. He will be stationed in Baghdad for the next year.
Lee is a fellow Aggie (Class of ‘86) and Corps member who first met my sister when they were both active with the A&M Wesley Foundation. He is currently a Major in the Army Guard and will be working out of one of Saddam’s former palaces.
Some of my readers will be pleased to know that Lee is politically conservative and is very much in support of President Bush and his war efforts. In addition to being active in the Guard, Lee is a volunteer deputy sheriff with the Arcadia Parish. He is a big time gun owner and NRA member. The first and only time I’ve ever had the opportunity to fire an assault rifle was while visiting their crawfish farm some years ago.
He and my sister have four children all under the age of 10. I will be counting the days until he can come home again and hopefully not have to turn around and go back anytime soon.
Needless to say I am proud of Lee’s service to our country and I wish him all the best during his tour of duty.

Abolish the electoral college

If the tables had been turned in 2000 and Al Gore had won the electoral vote and lost the popular vote rather than George W. Bush, I believe Republicans would have launched a huge campaign to do away with the electoral college. A constitutional amendment to do just that would have breezed through the Republican-controlled House and Senate and a state-by-state campaign to get it passed would have been backed by every right-wing radio host along with the rest of the VRWC.
And I would have joined in as well.

Driving to work this morning I overheard the end of an interview on NPR with Texas A&M political science professor George Edwards about his new book “Why The Electoral College Is Bad For America.”

Edwards evicerates the lame arguments put forward by people like George Will who fret that straight popular voting would not provide enough legitimacy for a strong government.

Drawing on systematic data, Edwards finds that the electoral college does not protect the interests of small states or racial minorities, does not provide presidents with effective coalitions for governing, and does little to protect the American polity from the alleged harms of direct election of the president. In fact, the electoral college distorts the presidential campaign so that candidates ignore most small states and some large ones and pay little attention to minorities, and it encourages third parties to run presidential candidates and discourages party competition in many states.
Edwards demonstrates effectively that direct election of the president without a runoff maximizes political equality and eliminates the distortions in the political system caused by the electoral college.

I would love to get this book sometime soon and read it. In the meantime, here are some articles that extrapolate on the ideas in Edward’s book.

Second-Guessing the Founders, Dissing the Electoral College

Mr. Edwards’ greatest objection to the Electoral College is that it violates the principle of political equality. His case is compelling: Since the electoral votes of each state equal the number of Congressmen and Senators from that state, small states have a much larger percentage of the electoral vote than larger states. Nor does every ballot carry the same weight. In 2003, one electoral vote in Wyoming corresponded to 167,081 persons, and to 645,172 folks in California. What happened to the Supreme Court doctrine of "one man, one vote"?

The winner-take-all system in place in every state but Maine and Nebraska (where a few electors are chosen in districts), Mr. Edwards adds, disenfranchises millions of voters and depresses turnout. What incentive was there, really, for a Bush voter in New York or a Gore voter in Texas to come to the polls? In effect, their votes went to the winner.

This is exactly right. There is not much incentive for me to vote in the presidential election other than the satisfaction that it will help drive up Kerry’s popular vote total.

The Indefensible Electoral College

Most of the original arguments in favor of an electoral college system are no longer valid. The electoral college was partially a concession to slaveholders in the South, who wanted electoral clout without letting their slaves actually vote. (Under the electoral college, slaves counted towards a state's electoral vote total.) The framers also thought that ordinary people wouldn't have enough information to elect a president, which is not necessarily a concern today.

The 100

Here is my list of 100 people who have most influenced me or made a difference to me in some way during the course of my life (excluding friends and family).

In alphabetical order

Hank Aaron
Richard Adams
Mortimer Adler
Woody Allen
Louis Armstrong
Isaac Asimov
Stephen F. Austin
J.S. Bach
The Beatles
Ludwig van Beethoven
Bix Beiderbecke
Johnny Bench
Duncan Black (Atrios)
Sidney Blumenthal
James Bowie
Berkeley Breathed
George Burns
Ken Burns
Lewis Carroll
Jimmy Carter
Johnny Cash
Noam Chomsky
Jesus Christ
Roger Clemens
Bill Clinton
Davy Crockett
Bing Crosby
Charles Dickens
Walt Disney
Bob Dylan
Clint Eastwood
Albert Einstein
Duke Ellington
Harlan Ellison
Julius Erving
Harrison Ford
Al Franken
Benjamin Franklin
John Kenneth Galbraith
Mohatma Gandhi
Henry B. Gonzalez
Benny Goodman
Al Gore
Billy Graham
Cary Grant
Gary Gygax
Jim Henson
Katharine Hepburn
Alfred Hitchcock
Buddy Holly
Bob Hope
Sam Houston
Molly Ivins
Jesse Jackson
Thomas Jefferson
Bob Keeshan
John F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Edward M. Kennedy
John Kerry
Martin Luther King Jr.
Michael Kinsley
Paul Krugman
Hans Kung
Dalai Lama
C. S. Lewis
Abraham Lincoln
George Lucas
Nelson Mandela
Thurgood Marshall
Steve Martin
Groucho Marx
Amadeus Mozart
Paul Newman
George Orwell
Thomas Paine
Edgar Allan Poe
Elvis Presley
Ann Richards
Gene Roddenberry
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Pete Rose
Nolan Ryan
Carl Sagan
Charles M. Schulz
William Shakespeare
Steven Spielberg
Bruce Springsteen
Roger Staubach
Jimmy Stewart
Sting
Oliver Stone
J.R.R. Tolkien
Garry Trudeau
Harry S. Truman
Mark Twain
George Washington
John Wayne
Robin Williams
Dalhart Windberg

Bush campaign chair concedes Kerry won debates

I guess when you have the chairman of the President’s election campaign conceding that John Kerry gained ground in the three debates the spin game as to who won is pretty much over.

Sen. John Kerry gained ground in the race for the White House in the trio of campaign debates, a top official in President Bush's campaign conceded Thursday...

All of the snap polls had Kerry in front on the third debate...

CNN/USA Today/Gallup: Kerry wins 53%-39%.
CBS News poll of uncommitted voters: Kerry wins 39%-25%
ABC News: Kerry wins 42%-41%, even though their audience leaned heavily Republican.
Democracy Corps: Kerry wins 41%-36%.

So the clear consensus is that John Kerry swept all three debates. Meanwhile the tidal wave of bad news for President Bush just keeps coming...

Blasts Kill Five in Baghdad's Green Zone

Trade Deficit Soars, Jobless Claims Up

AP: Report Finds Lavish Spending at TSA

Just imagine if that last one had happened during a Democratic administration! Imagine the outcry from conservatives.

Heroes of my youth

While cleaning out some old files recently I came across a list of people (I’ve always loved making lists) I had put together around the time when I was a freshman in college. I recall at the time I was listing people who I admired or who had influenced my thinking in some way. I wasn’t considering family or friends for my list, just famous people and historical figures. The list was an odd mix of childhood heros and current-day influences from history, entertainment, music, sports and literature. Here is the list in the order it was written:

Mohandas Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.
C.S. Lewis
Hans Kung (Catholic theologian)
Paul the Apostle
The Beatles
Bob Dylan
Johnny Bench
Pete Rose
Roger Staubach
Ludwig Von Beethoven
Amadeus Mozart
J.S. Bach
John Wayne
Elvis Presley
J.R.R. Tolkien
Abraham Lincoln
Thomas Jefferson
Davy Crockett
James Bowie
Sam Houston
George Patton
Bruce Springsteen
Don Williams (country singer)
Ronald Reagan
John F. Kennedy
Steve Martin
Humphry Bogart
Dustin Hoffman
Charlton Heston
Gary Gygax (creator of Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game)
Henry Thoreau
Willie Mays
Hank Williams
Harrison Ford
Franklin D. Roosevelt
George Washington
Charles Schultz
Berke Breathed
Alfred Hitchcock
Woody Allen
Edgar Allen Poe
Donald Sutherland
Bobby Jones (Philadelphia 76ers)
Julius “Dr. J” Erving
Moses Malone
Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Cary Grant
Buddy Holly
Kingston Trio
Sting
Walt Disney
Robin Williams
Yul Brynner
Orson Welles
Gene Kelly
Bob Hope
Richard Pryor
Benjamin Franklin
William Shakespeare
Eddie Murphy
Bill Cosby
Mr. T

At some later point (in a different ink color) I made the following additions:

Jesus Christ
Charles Dickens
Mark Twain
William Barrett Travis
Clint Eastwood
Kirk Douglas
Jimmy Stewart
Richard Adams (author of “Watership Down”)
Jackie Sherrill (Texas A&M football coach)
William F. Buckley
Stephen Spielberg
Billy Graham
George Lucas
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Charles Bronson
Paul Newman
William Shatner
Leonard Nimoy
Tom Petty
Sylvester Stallone
Robert E. Howard (author of Conan the Barbarian)
Stevie Nicks
Lucille Ball
Katherine Hepburn
Fritz Lieber (sci-fi/fantasy author)
John Belushi
Dan Akroyd
Prince
Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey)
Chip Young (Blondie)
Cathy Guisewitz (Cathy)
John Adams
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
St. Augustine
Francis Bacon
Winston Churchill
John Denver
Hershel Walker (Cowboys runningback)
Kevin Murray (Aggie quarterback early ‘80s)
Abigail Van Buren
Ann Landers
Mike Scott (Houston Astros pitcher)
Benny Hill
Paul Simon
Billy Joel
Lewis Carroll
Douglas Adams (author of “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”)
Hank Aaron
Mel Brooks
Monty Python
Robert DeNiro
Al Pacino

In a future post I will put together a list of the 100 people I would include on a similar list today.

Bush’s Howard Dean moment

The tide has definitely shifted against President Bush and I don’t see it going back his way before election day. The news reports continue to be all bad here on the day of the third debate: Stocks plummet as oil prices continue to climb; five more U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

Bush will try to turn the focus on John Kerry by calling him a liberal who will raise taxes, but with an 0-2 record in the debates so far it is not likely that Bush is going to make up any ground in a forum that looks mainly at domestic issues which are not his strong point.
Paul Krugman has already fact-checked in advance most of the points that Bush is likely to raise during the debate.

The turnaround in fortunes for Kerry as evidenced by the polls that show him making up as much as 14 points since the first debate are reminiscent of his rapid ascent during the primary campaign after Howard Dean flamed out in Iowa. For Dean it was his post-Iowa “Yeaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!” speech that proved his undoing. For Bush, I believe it was his overall performance in the first debate, that will be remembered years from now as the point when his bubble burst. Since then the independent voters in all of the polls have been favoring Kerry.

I’m not ready to declare the race over at this point, but I’m not sure what it will take to turn things around for Bush. His was a failed presidency that did not accomplish the things it set out to do. There is no way they can put a positive spin on something like that with the daily rat-a-tat-tat of headlines such as the ones above.

Christopher Reeve and stem cell research

Christopher Reeve’s sudden death was very upsetting for many people including myself who admired his courage in dealing with his paralysis. Some people might have just faded from view and become symbols of pity. But Reeve’s star began to shine brighter after his accident and through sheer force of will he used his celebrity and his circumstances to become a cultural icon and a powerful voice for people with disabilities.

The timing of Reeve’s death has brought the issue of stem cell research back to the forefront of the political debate. Many on the right are critical of Reeves for his advocacy of embryonic stem cell research in the belief that this somehow promotes and encourages the killing of unborn children. But this view is based on an extreme religious axiom that I and many other religious people reject. I don’t presume to know what God’s intentions are for each egg and sperm that meet but I do know that we are provided with hundreds of thousands of eggs and countless millions of sperm with which to constantly replenish the human population.

Fertility clinics create thousands of human embryos every year as a matter of course that go unused and are ultimately thrown out. It seems a tragic waste to not take advantage of these stem cells to advance medical science in a way that could benefit thousands of people suffering from everything from spinal paralysis to Parkinson’s disease.
Michael Kinsley makes the point that people who oppose embryonic stem cell research should by the same logic also be opposed to fertility clinics...

If stem-cell research is morally questionable, the procedures used in fertility clinics are worse. You cannot logically outlaw the one and praise the other.

Yet, as Kinsley points out, Bush praised fertility clinics in the same speech in which he banned stem cell research.

President Bush’s decision to ban federal funding for stem cell research is a serious impediment to the hopes of finding cures for these and many other ailments. The argument that privately-funded research can still go forward ignores the fact that most labs today rely on some degree of federal funding through NIH grants and other means. If a lab decides to pursue stem-cell research today it risks losing or being blocked from recieving any other federal funding even for unrelated work because of the complications and possibility of mixing funds.

Dan Cook's America

Recent polls have shown that something like 66 percent of Republicans believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11. That would explain why Bush still has a base of support in spite of all that has gone wrong during his administration.

Obviously Dan Cook, the former sports columnist for the Express-News, falls into that category. This Sunday, Cook wrote an op-ed for the paper in which he lamented the fact that the country is not unified in its support for President Bush's foreign policy in Iraq. He recalls how when he was a child the country fell in behind FDR after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and supported his decision to take the country into WWII.

What Mr. Cook forgets or fails to see is that the country did fall in behind President Bush after 9-11 and supported his decision to go after al Qaeda and their state sponsors in Afghanistan. It was only after Bush decided to divert our military resources to go on an extended snipe hunt in Iraq that significant numbers of people started to turn against the president.

Imagine if FDR had pulled something like that during WWII. Rather than going after the Japanese and their Axis allies in Europe, what if he had suddenly decided to divert U.S. troops and launch a massive invasion of Mexico. Don't you think people might have questioned the wisdom of such a move, especially in the midst of a war? And what if then FDR's excuses for invading Mexico turned out to be all wrong? Would the American people have remained unified behind him?

What do you think, Dan? Is the U.S. really that different today?

Anemic job growth

The new job numbers are out just in time for the second presidential debate tonight and boy are they lousy.
Economists were predicting 150,000 net jobs, which is a poor figure to begin with, but the actual number came in 50,000 short of that. Wall Street reacted to the news by taking a dive.

"I wouldn't want to be in President Bush's shoes," Ken Mayland of ClearView Economics told the Associated Press. "He had better prepare himself for an onslaught . . . The reality is that a 96,000 increase in a work force of a 131 million base is an anemic rise, and is in no way a satisfactory increase."

The Bush administration was naturally full of excuses - hurricanes, high oil prices, etc. - and of course lots of Orwellian doublespeak which has been a regular feature of this administration. Here is Labor Secretary Elaine Chao spinning the new figures: “(They) show the strength and resilience of our economy and that the labor market continues to improve,” she said.

Four years into his administration and we are nearly a million jobs short of where we started which is unprecedented since the time of Herbert Hoover. But look for Bush tonight to tout all these low-paying service jobs that have been ladled out over the past year in place of high-paying manufacturing jobs as evidence that his tax cuts are working.

Newspaper endorsements

From Editor & Publisher here is a running total of presidential newspaper endorsements including circulation figures:


JOHN KERRY
Detroit Free Press (G): 354,581
The Seattle Times (B): 237,303
The Philadelphia Daily News: 139,983
Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) (G): 109,592
The Day (London, Conn.) (B): 39,553

Total Daily Circ: 881,012

GEORGE W. BUSH
Las Vegas Review-Journal (B): 170,061
Mobile (Ala.) Register (B): 100,244
The Pueblo (Colo.) Chieftain: 52,208
Amarillo (Texas) Globe-News (B): 51,105
The Sun (Lowell, Mass.) (B): 50,369
The Courier (Findlay, Ohio) (B): 22,319

Total Daily Circ: 446,306

Update: Bush picked up two more papers today giving him 6 endorsements to Kerry's 5, but he still lags in circulation totals. E& P is also noting how the papers endorsed in 2000 with a (B) for Bush and (G) for Gore, so the big news here is the switch by the Seattle Times.

Bush just can't catch a break

Everyday the news gets worse and worse for President Bush.

Take today, for example. First we have news that the U.S. chief weapon’s inspector in Iraq (the one who took over for David Kay, who took over for Hans Blix and the U.N. group) is issuing his final report that not only says there were no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq when we invaded, but “Saddam Hussein did not vigorously pursue a program to develop weapons of mass destruction after international inspectors left Baghdad in 1998.” No WMDs and no WMD programs. As the
The Associated Press points out, this seriously undercuts the Bush administration’s latest rationale for invading Iraq.

Then we have news that Iran has produced "a few tons" of the gas needed to enrich uranium, confirming that the country has defied international demands and taken a necessary step toward producing nuclear fuel - or nuclear weapons.

Talk about Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time!

Then there was this lovely economic news just a few days ago as a precursor to the job figures that will be released on Friday.

The number of job cuts planned by U.S. employers jumped in September to the highest level in eight months while hiring announcements fell sharply, a job search firm said Tuesday.

Combine this news with this Open Letter to President that was just released by a group of 163 college business and economics professors taking Bush to task for his failed economic policies.

As professors of economics and business, we are concerned that U.S. economic policy has taken a dangerous turn under your stewardship.  Nearly every major economic indicator has deteriorated since you took office in January 2001.  Real GDP growth during your term is the lowest of any presidential term in recent memory.  Total non-farm employment has contracted and the unemployment rate has increased.  Bankruptcies are up sharply, as is our dependence on foreign capital to finance an exploding current account deficit.  All three major stock indexes are lower now than at the time of your inauguration.  The percentage of Americans in poverty has increased, real median income has declined, and income inequality has grown. 

The rest of the letter doesn’t get much more encouraging but go and read the whole thing. It is very informative.

So the only surprising thing at this point in the election is that Bush is not 20 points down in the polls. I chalk this up to the massive amount of corporate money they have amassed and spent during the campaign, the tidal wave of right-wing distortions flowing through our so-called-liberal-media, and the vicious and unfounded attacks on John Kerry by groups such as the Swift Boat Liars for Bush.

But lies and distortions can only do so much to obscure reality and unfortunately for President Bush he just can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to the truth of what is really going on.

Checking up on Cheney

From last night's VP debate:

CHENEY: Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to throw up a smokescreen. They know the charges are false. They know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com, an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton.

I hope that everyone will do as Vice President Cheney requested and check out www.factcheck.com. Go ahead.

Oops. I think he meant, factcheck.org. Oh, well.

Cheney: Hussein not worth additional U.S. casualties

Here's Dick Cheney’s whopping double backward flip-flop with a triple twist on the Iraq War.

This is what Dick Cheney had to say about the prospects of invading Iraq and overthrowing Hussein in a speech in August 1992. (via Tapped)

"I would guess if we had gone into Iraq I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.

And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.

And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq..."


Now the thing to remember here is that immediately before the Gulf War is when Hussein was at his peak of power. His military might was drastically cut by the war and the sanctions that followed. Also, most of the atrocities that are associated with Hussein took place during this period as well. The use of “weapons of mass destruction” against his own people. The mass graves. All of this took place before and immediately after the Gulf War.
So the case for overthrowing Hussein was never stronger than it was then, but Cheney was opposed because it wasn’t worth the additional U.S. casualties.

So what changed? Republicans will tell you it was 9/11. But Hussein had nothing to do with it and Al Qaeda was not active in Iraq before the war. So what could have possibly led Cheney to do such an incredible flip-flop if not political expediency?

I hope John Edwards uses this in the debate!

Mushroom clouds and aluminum tubes

"I knew that there was a dispute," she said. "I actually didn't really know the nature of the dispute."

That is how Condoleezza Rice sums up the process by which she determined that Iraq was using aluminum tubes it was acquiring to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. So Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor, knew there was a dispute among intelligence officials on the matter, but didn’t bother to find out what it was all about.

Instead, Rice went on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002 and warned that we had to invade Iraq or risk a nuclear holocaust:

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

But now, as this exhaustive New York Times story details, it was clear long before the start of the Iraq war that those aluminum tubes were intended for use for small artillery rockets, not nuclear centrifuges.

The dispute that Rice refers to involved one junior-level CIA analyst on one side, and all the government’s foremost nuclear experts on the other side.
And yet, the Bush administration championed the shaky and ultimately incorrect analysis of the one junior CIA analyst over all the other expert opinions because it fit neatly with their predetermined conclusions. The case against the tubes for nukes theory was devastating long before the Bush administration latched onto it to lead our country to war. Just read the NYTimes story. The only question that remains is whether the Bush officials were grossly ignorant or grossly deceptive.

As I have noted here before, the Bush administration’s blind adherence to ideology over science is one of the chief reasons why it is imperative that they not be granted four more years to mislead this nation down the wrong path.

Two can play at that game

I was both flummoxed and appalled when I saw this ridiculous story circulating on the Internet via the Drudge Report.
It just shows how desperate the right-wing is to excuse Bush’s pathetic debate performance that they would show pictures of Kerry taking a pen out of his pocket and claim he is getting a “cheat sheet.” I’m sorry, but Kerry is not the one who needs a cheat sheet in these debates.

Now today, I see the liberal bloggers are striking back raising questions
about whether or not Bush was using an earpiece to have his answers fed to him during the debate. Their suspicion centers on a point in the debate where Bush suddenly barked out “Let me finish” when no one was interrupting him.
Digby notes that such a statement is an intimidation tactic that Bush commonly uses to restrain the press. I had noticed it in the interview I did with Bush in 1994 so it is obviously nothing new. But it was strange to hear him say it in the middle of the debate when he still had plenty of time left and no one was trying to cut him off.

Now I think the earpiece thing is kind of a stretch, although I wouldn’t put anything past Karl Rove. But you have to think that if he actually did have help during the debate, it wasn’t very good. Did the person feeding Bush his lines stammer and stutter and repeat themselves as much as Bush did?

Unchallenged assertions

Bush has been back on the campaign trail after getting his clock cleaned in the first round of debates. A new Newsweek poll – the first post-debate poll released – now has Kerry up 49 to 46 after having Bush ahead by 13 points after the Republican convention.

Republican talk radio yakkers have their new marching orders now and are claiming that Bush actually won on substance if not on style, which is simply ridiculous. One local Rush Limbaugh clone was on the other day saying that Bush sounded so much better the day after on the campaign stump than he did during the debates. Well, of course he does. That’s because he doesn’t have someone standing next to him who will counter and knock down each of his flimsy, unsupported arguments. That’s why Rush Limbaugh can sound so authoritative. Because he never has to answer to anyone for his lies and distortions and he never has to defend his statements. If you had Rush Limbaugh on at the same time with Al Franken you would see a much more reserved and deflated blowhard because he couldn’t get away with spouting off so many unchallenged assertions.

A good example is this canard about Kerry voting against funding for the troops. The Bush campaign repeats this charge over and over simply because Kerry voted against the fiscally-irresponsible Republican-version of the funding bill. What they neglect to say is that there was a Democratic version that would have paid for the war by temporarily removing Bush’s tax cuts for those making more than $400,000 per year. This measure failed after Bush threatened to veto it. So you could make the exact same charge against Bush that they are making against Kerry. He threatened to veto funding for our troops after sending them into harms way!

Seriously, what would have happened if Kerry’s no vote on the Republican-backed funding bill had prevailed? Would it have meant that our troops would have gotten no funding? Of course not! The issue was never about whether to fund the troops or even about how much to send. It was about how to pay for it. The Republican plan simply charges the whole thing on the government credit card so that our children and grandchildren will end up paying for it rather than us.

Another example was in a speech today in Columbus, Ohio, where Bush was talking about his plans to privatize Social Security. Bush said "(Kerry)'s decided to put his faith in the wisdom of the government. I will always put my faith in the wisdom of the American people."

Well, that certainly sounds good. Too bad it is complete nonsense. Last I checked, we were still a government of the people, by the people and for the people. What Bush is really saying is that he puts his faith into private corporations which don’t want to be accountable to the government or the American people.

Taking Social Security out of the control of government and handing it over to private entities is essentially taking the control away from the American people. It is a monumentally stupid idea, especially in light of all of the recent corporate scandals and bankruptcies.
Bush should not be allowed to pretend that he is some kind of down home populist while pushing an agenda that is so diametrically opposed to those same ideals.

Round 1: Advantage Kerry

You know the debate went badly for Bush when even his most ardent supporters are unwilling to make the claim that he won.
I guess the fallback position when you know your candidate lost is to claim that it was a tie. That is the argument that Beldar and Owen at Boots & Sabers gamely try to make.
Daily Kos also has a long list of conservative bloggers who admit that their guy pretty much blew it.

The insta-polls all support what should have been obvious to anybody watching the debate last night. Kerry won the debate hands down and not because he turned in a spectacular performance. He did as well as I would have expected for someone with his background and experience. It was the awful performance by Bush that clearly made the difference.

Bush looked like a malfunctioning automaton at Disneyworld, repeating the same stock phrases over and over again.
I mean, what can you make of a statement like this...

“In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard.
It's-and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work.
We're making progress. It is hard work.
You know my hardest, the hardest part of the job is to know that I committed the troops in harm's way...”

As one snarky blogger noted in response: "Thinking and speaking is hard work Jim, very hard work, hard, hard, hard work."

Bush kept harping on Kerry’s statement that Iraq is the “wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I thought Kerry answered the charge well the first of the 15 times Bush said it, but what I really wanted to hear Kerry say - and he was obviously too polite to do so - was ask what message it sends to our troops to have their commander-in-chief stand up and taunt the enemy by telling them to “Bring it on!” That was perhaps the most irresponsible and regrettable statement ever made by a U.S. president.

I thought one of Kerry’s best lines was when he said that his message for the troops is that “Help is on the way.” Bush’s arrogance and his diplomatic incompetence has placed 90 percent of the burden of reforming post-war Iraq on the U.S. Kerry is our best hope for changing that imbalance.

The media pundits are all claiming that there was no major gaffe during the debate and thus no knockout punch, which I assume is defined today as Lloyd Bentsen decimating Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice-presidential debates. But my impression is that Bush’s weak performance was the equivalent of one big long gaffe. To have a sitting president who can’t seem to think on his feet and must constantly refer back to campaign slogans and catch phrases is at best embarrasing and at worst is scary.

The best review I have seen of the debate so far is from Tom Shales of the Washington Post.

John Kerry came off as more presidential than the president last night as the two candidates met for their first face-to-face debate, televised live on all the networks from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla. President Bush did not appear to have a firm grasp on the major issues being discussed, opting instead for the repetition of sloganlike remarks and repeated attacks on his Democratic challenger.

An interview with George W. Bush - circa 1994

The following is an interview I conducted with George W. Bush on April 7, 1994 when I was a reporter for the Kerrville Daily Times and he was running for governor the first time against Ann Richards. I recorded the interview and transcribed it in entirety shortly afterwards. Excerpts from the interview ran in the next day's paper.
I never got to interview Ann Richards as there wasn't much point in her campaigning in solidly Republican Kerrville which boasted the highest percentage of Republican voters in the state.
There is nothing scandalous or inflammatory in the interview. If you don't like Bush or if you disagree with his politics you can probably find something he says that will irritate you. But overall it is a good example of his standard campaign spiel from that period.

I am posting this now mostly for its historical significance but also because the debates are focusing a lot of attention on Bush's speaking style. Some have even questioned whether his frequent misstatements and fumbling over big words is a relatively recent phenomena or if it is just getting more attention now that he is in the White House.
My impression was that Bush was a very good politician even then. He was very personable and had a folksy, good-old-boy style that made him easy to like. He was also very confident and very focused on getting his message out, as you can see from the interview.

My questions and comments are in bold while Bush's are in regular type.


Kerrville Daily Times
April 7, 1994

What qualifications or experience do you have to serve as governor?

I am a business person, I run a fairly significant business, a sports business - Texas Rangers baseball team - which is a business, it's got over $70 million of revenue. I started and founded several energy companies based in Midland, Texas in the past.
Understand that I am a capitalist and my beliefs in capitalism stem from actual experience, having met a payroll. I know what it means to set realistic goals and hold people accountable for achieving these goals.
I have just ended up seeing to it that the greatest baseball park ever is built in Texas, a public-private partnership between Arlington and the Texas Rangers. That was done because of a vision, a sense of daring and an ability to attract good people. A lot of credit goes to a lot of people other than me, but they were put in place by the partnership which I run.
I'm a dad. I’ve got 12-year-old twin daughters. Every community I have lived in I have contributed to my community. I ran the United Way fund raising drive, I’ve spearheaded church fundraising drives, I've been involved in the governance of different private non-profit organizations that help make people’s lives better.
And you say what is the relevance of that? The relevance is that I realize that governments can't provide love. Love has to come from grassroots organizations, the wellspring of good and decent honorable people willing to volunteer to help make others’ lives better.
I also have a philosophy - a set of core beliefs that are essential if one is to be a good governor. I’m a capitalist. I know that governments don’t create jobs. Small business people and entrepreneurs are the backbone of job creation in Texas, so all government policy has got to understand that. I believe in the marketplace. I believe in individual accountability and individual responsibility and all public policy has got to understand that. I believe in open and honest government. That is why, for example, I have taken the current governor and people in Austin to task on the lottery. Everybody thought the lottery was going to go strictly for public education and it didn't. All government has got to be open and honest.

I guess this kind of leads into my second question...

I'm not through yet. Family is very important. And finally results, we ought to have a results oriented government. Have you achieved your results, have you done what you said you would do not only at the political level but at the bureaucratic level. Now you can ask your second question.

Since most people know you as the son of the former president...

No, most people know me as the owner of the Texas Rangers, but go ahead.

Okay, but as far as your political views, people are more familiar with his views than with yours, so how then would you distinguish yourself and how are your views similar to or different from his?

I don’t care about distinguishing my views from him. I care about distinguishing my views from Ann Richards. She is the liberal in the race and I am the conservative in the race. People will get to know me over the course of this, that is what this is about, me talking to you and me standing in front of 165 Kerrville residents at nine in the morning and then fixing to go meet with all kinds of education officials. Part of a campaign is for people to get to know what I am about. I don’t care and people shouldn’t care about the differences between me and my dad, they should care about the differences between me and Gov. Ann Richards.
Let me point out some of those differences for you: I'm for welfare reform, she's not. She hasn't said a word about it in four years. I'm for rewriting the family code so that we have a tough juvenile justice code. She hasn't done anything. I'm against the Ruiz decision which runs our federal prison system, that allows the federal government to run our prisons. I'm against that settlement, she's for it. I'm for total local control of schools. She is for granting TEA (Texas Education Agency) waivers to school districts which means there are no local controls, it's top-down controls. I was against “Robin Hood,” she was for “Robin Hood.”

On education, is one of your proposals to abolish the TEA?

No, it is less control for the TEA. I never said to abolish TEA. There are some functions for TEA. The TEA should be around to certify teachers, to distribute federal monies and to administer a measuring system. What I have said is that the TEA’s ability to regulate districts ought to be diminished. People ought to be allowed to design the programs that best suit the local needs so I have developed what is called “home rule education districts.” A voluntary program and in a nutshell it allows a district to become free from state control, so long as one doesn’t escape funding. Obviously, it doesn’t escape the federal laws on segregation and matters such as that. And finally, the district must show improvement towards a standard of excellence. We define what their goals are, and the district must show improvement toward those goals. So there is a measurement function. You can't just exist out there without the state understanding that you are achieving the results we expect, which is excellence.

If you are elected, how will you go about implementing your goals, especially if the Legislature remains Democratic?

Texas, in my opinion, has not been led in four years. There has been no agenda set by the governor, she hasn’t even submitted a budget. In my opinion, step one is for the governor to lead, particularly one that just won election. People will say why did you win, George? How could you have beaten someone who was supposedly unbeatable? By the way, I am going to win. And the answer is, I'm a conservative person and so is Texas. And so one shouldn't view the legislature based on Republican or Democrat. One should view it from the philosophical perspective - conservative versus liberal. Mine will be a conservative agenda which got me elected in the first place and which most members of the Senate and House will subscribe to.
Now there are ways to utilize party as well to effect change, one is the veto. I think I will have a veto proof House. In other words, I think there will be more than 50 members of the House that will be willing to support a Governor Bush agenda. And secondly is in the senate I will have over a third of the senate members allows for there to be some leverage on how bills work their way through the senate.

One of the concerns in the Kerr community is quality of drinking water and protecting the Guadalupe River. So what views do you have on environmental issues?

I am absolutely a clean water person, but I do believe it is best controlled by local citizenry. Here is my biggest concern, that the environmental pendulum will swing so far to the left that property rights will be violated and industry will be shut down. But I share the goals of clean water. Take for example the endangered species act - great concept - the problem is when it is extended all across the board to every kind of little critter, mankind suffers. So the pendulum in my opinion has a tendency to swing too far to the left on environmental issues and I want it to be a balanced approach where both man, nature and industry can coexist. But I am a clean water guy.
Is there a specific instance that has recently caused people alarm over their water?

There are issues here that come up constantly, one example is the UGRA (Upper Guadalupe River Authority) wants to put in various management plans such as now they want to put in a moratorium on building in the watershed.

I think those issues should be decided locally.

Should a body like UGRA be the entity that would have ultimate authority or could a local group override their decision?

There are some common, obviously if something up the river effects Kerr County, that is where the authority should come in when it crosses jurisdictional boundaries. It depends on the issue. There are some issues that should remain local. Take the Edwards Aquifer issue for example, nothing wrong with getting the ball started at the state level. It should not be run by the federal government. The state ought to put and it has put in place the mechanism for local entities to decide their future and their fate. Take for example the Ogallala Aquifer, the South Plains Cooperative manages the Ogallala Aquifer, that is a cooperative across county lines, so in some instances it makes sense to have a larger regulatory authority - generally locally driven to help Kerr county and surrounding counties to achieve common goals. But my point is it should not be driven, and the tendency in environmental matters is that the federal government runs it. And that is wrong in my opinion.

In your business activities now is most of your time with the Texas Rangers or are you still on the boards of Harken Energy Co.?

No, I'm not on Harken.

You are not on that, or affiliated with them at all?

No. Tom Brown, I'm on its board, an oil and gas company. But being on the board of directors of a company takes very little time. I mean its quarterly meeting so that is four days out of a year. So to answer your question, I am spending most of my time campaigning but if it weren’t campaigning it would be the Texas Rangers as my sole, my main employer, where I spend my time on the job.

What should be done about the supercollider?

Bill Clinton failed. He has got a majority in the Senate and a majority in the House and they run the White House and they failed. What I will ask in this campaign as it progresses is - Governor, how come you didn’t get your president, your buddy, to get it passed for Texas and the country?

But what would you propose doing once you are governor?

I would propose having it pass in the first place. Now that I’m in I will at least collect the money that the state is owed, $600 million.

Through a suit against the federal government?

Absolutely, whatever it takes to get the money back. We are owed the money and I would be curious to see, but this is a federally run project. The best the state can do now that it has failed is to begin filling it in. I think it was a bad mistake.

Juvenile justice has been an issue here. We have a private company - Recor - that recently sealed a contract to build a facility in Kerr County. Do you have thoughts on private...

Yes, absolutely. I'm for competition and if they can do it better that the state can then you bet. I'm assuming the officials here in Kerr County decided that they could do it better than the state or the county could do it. So I think it's great, I applaud it.
But Kerr County residents have got to understand that nothing has been done from the state perspective on juvenile justice for four years, actually for a long time. We live with an antiquated juvenile justice code in which the word ‘punishment’ does never appear.
The whole concept is let us try to rehabilitate rather than punish, and I believe so much of criminal behavior is a result of people not having risk clarified in their mind. The risk must outweigh the rewards of committing a crime. And that is clearly not the case with our children today.
So I propose a plan that is exhaustive in thought put together by a whole bunch people that are very much involved in juvenile justice which essentially says we are going to hold you accountable for what you do, young person. If you choose crime we are going to bust you for it, because we want it clear in people's minds that criminal behavior is not acceptable in society. There is a difference between the governor and me.


Following our formal interview, Bush and I had the following exchange which I also recorded.

I want to thank you for your interest. I appreciate it. How long have you been here?

About 8 months.

Great, where'd you come from?

Oh, I grew up in South Texas and went to school at A&M and then went up to Connecticut for about three years.

Really, what were you doing there?


My wife was working for Bristol-Myers. She is a chemist.

Fabulous! What city did you live in?

Branford, right next to New Haven

Yeah, I went to Yale.

Yeah, I knew that.

So I’m kind of familiar with Branford. New Haven is a little bit of a disaster zone. It’s not a very pleasant place, is it?

I enjoyed it while we were there. It was a lot of fun.

Would you like to raise your children there?

Well, I know a lot of people that do.

I don’t mean in Branford. I meant in New Haven, so...

Oh

Yale is locked up. Yale is under siege it looks like. When I went there it was a wonderful pastoral kind of setting in the early '70s. No locks on the gates. It looks like its a war zone now.

Thanks, good to meet you. Come over to the George Bush Library at A&M sometime.

Do presidents ever lie?

My small cadre of readers have called me to task for the previous post in which I accuse President Bush of telling a lie.
I guess it depends on what the definition of a lie is. If the president says:

"We'll make sure the children's health care program for low-income families
is expanded and families take advantage of that."

Like he did the other day in a speech at the Midwest Livestock and Expo Center in
Springfield, Ohio, is it a lie if the children's healthcare program contracts rather than expands as a result of his policies?

If the president says:

"We will lead an aggressive effort to enroll millions of poor children who are eligible but not signed up for the government's health insurance programs. We will not allow a lack of attention, or information, to stand between these children and the health care they need."

As he did in his convention speech, is it a lie when the state officials, budget analysts and children's advocates discover that there actually is no new money set aside for the children's health insurance program?

If the president says he is going to give children's health programs $1 billion with one hand, but takes away $1 billion with the other hand, is he lying or is he just being disingenuous?

Maybe president's are like the Vulcans in Star Trek - incapable of telling a lie, but they can always exaggerate. Maybe Bush was just exaggerating how much he was planning to give the CHIP program by about a billion or so.

This study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities spells out the whole history of the CHIP program and explains how and why the $1 billion surplus came into being and how if the Congress does not pass legislation (that Bush opposes) by Sept. 30 it is going to go away for good.The original $40 billion over 10 years will suddenly turn into $38.8 billion over 10 years. And, as the study details, even the full $40 billion isn't going to be enough as medical costs continue to spiral out of control.

Leaving lots of children behind

President Bush lied. Again. That's about the only thing that can be concluded from this story.

In his convention address in New York, President Bush announced a new $1 billion initiative to enroll "millions of poor children" in two popular government health programs. But next week, the Bush administration plans to return $1.1 billion in unspent children's health funds to the U.S. Treasury, making his convention promise a financial wash at best.

The loss of $1.1 billion in federal money means six states participating in the State Children's Health Insurance Program face budget shortfalls in 2005; it is enough money to provide health coverage for 750,000 uninsured youngsters nationwide...

I guess they have to pay for those tax cuts somehow.