Round up of Republicans for Kerry

The Nation's John Nichols pulls together the numerous endorsements of Kerry by lifelong Republicans.

Please note that he also effectively dispatches Zig-Zag Zell as well...

Homecoming

Today Illinois celebbrates the Ninety-Fourth homecoming in Champaign, IL. This tradition was started at the University of Illinois, and whenever any of you celebrate homecoming at your alma mater (and if you're doing so at a tail gate, know that that tradition also began at the U of I), extend the courtesy of tipping your glass and raising a toast to one of the few enduring vestiges of our once great football program.

The Economist endorses Kerry

The intellectually considerate conservatives that I know (all three of them) consider The Economist to be an especially insightful source of news and analysis. I usually agree with them, although I have reservations about what I perceive to be an overly conservative editorial perspective. In light of that perspective I was surprised to read that The Economist endorses John Kerry for president.

To be certain, the endorsement is hardly effusive, the cover of the magazine posits the choice as between 'The Incompetent or The Incoherent.' The editors stretched their thesaurus to its limits (oscillatory, vacillatory) before following Rove's talking points by finally referring to Kerry as a flip-flopper. Indeed, the conclusion of its case against Bush, which is framed entirely in terms of foreign affairs, is that there is no reason to believe that W would be more competent in a second term than he was in the first. And, ultimately, that is why The Economist endorses Kerry. According to them, their confidence in Bush's ability to lead has been shattered.

Beyond Satire

by Tony Auth

Redundant add-on: Ben Sargent gets in on the act too.

Bush's new support of cloning?

In an Ad called "Whatever it Takes" Bush digatilly reproduced soldiers to try to make the crowd look full of cheering military. It is just a pathetic display and just on more example of Bush's lying.

Truth bites Bush in the ass

He must hate being constantly proved wrong by the facts. Here is the video of the IAEA sealed drums of explosives that were there when the U.S. took over Iraq and are now are missing. Do we really wany more of the same?

# 1

Nice to see that Bush still thinks the U.S. is Number 1.

Latest from the state that gave us the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

If you really want to follow the latest in this race, read Eric Zorn.. He has an even larger obsession with Keyes than I do....

Way beyond fair use snippet:

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Your Full Metal Alan moment in last night's televised U.S. Senate race debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Alan Keyes occurred with about 10 minutes to go, when Keyes said:

"The wonderful thing that one learns when one deals, actually, with logic and philosophy is that when I have a point proven over here, the fact that that same point applies in an entirely different circumstance does not prove the error of my logic."

The context of this patronizing, pointy-headed, hair-splitting remark was a back and forth about Keyes' previous statements linking parenthood by gay couples to incest.

KEYES: "It's actually very simple. I have over here two females…those two females are intent on having – quote having – a child. Which they cannot have, obviously, unless you involve a male.

The procedures that are used now by many lesbian couples are procedures that mask the identity of the father, so it will not be known. So it will not and cannot be known who is the father of that child….

Once you have made that effort, you have produced a child who cannot know who its father is. Cannot know that. Now if you don't know and have no way of ascertaining who the father is, then you cannot know who your sisters and brothers are either.

And if you can't know who your sisters and brothers are, there is no way you could avoid having sexual relations with them. So logically speaking--excuse me, excuse me, excuse me--- I know that Sen. Obama sometimes has a hard time getting from A to B. But from A to B is a simple, logical step, which I believe most people in the state of Illinois have the common sense to see."

OBAMA: "According to Mr. Keyes then, that would be true of many adoptions where they often don't know who their parents are. It would be true any time an infertile couple gets a sperm donor to help them have a child. Your logic wasn't that complicated. It was just wrong."

KEYES: "The wonderful thing that one learns when one deals actually with logic and philosophy is that when I have a point proven over here, the fact that that same point applies in an entirely different circumstance, does not prove the error of my logic. It simply proves that that logic may or may not exist elsewhere.

If I have ascertained that a mistake is made over here, telling me that the same mistake may also be made over here doesn't invalidate the logic which identified the mistake. And that's where you're having a problem."

But of course where Keyes has a problem is more in selective application and mean-spirited use of his logic than in the logic itself.

One might say it's as though he were using car accidents caused by drunk drivers to make a case against martinis.

OBTUSION CONFUSION

In the post-debate news conference at WTTW, a reporter asked Keyes, "Do you think you have a chance of winning this election?"

Keyes responded: "I think I am winning this election, and I think it's going to be proven on Nov. 2. But, as I say, this is for God to know and for the obtuse media in Illinois to find out."

He thinks he's going to win, and we're obtuse?

He chatters on and on about how he does God's bidding --- "if you stand in the place where God wants you to stand, the outcome will be according to his will" -- yet he continues running for office even though he's always roundly rejected by voters, and we're obtuse?

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I'm BACK!!!

I now have a computer at home and I am back baby!!!

The Trib endorsed Bush!

I was very disappointed that the Trib endorsed Bush. However, as the paper was the voice of Midwest Republicans during the twentieth century it wasn't a big surprise. More surprising is the terrible reasoning given to support the endorsement. I'm in the middle of finals and don't have time to refute it point by point, but fortunately, the estimable David Corn does. If you only have time to read one, I suggest the David Corn piece.

The New York Times > Magazine > Without a Doubt

Ron Suskind details Bush's analytical style in the NYTimes magazine.

Amusing Snippet:

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In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

A few weeks later, members of Congress and their spouses gathered with administration officials and other dignitaries for the White House Christmas party. The president saw Lantos and grabbed him by the shoulder. ''You were right,'' he said, with bonhomie. ''Sweden does have an army.''

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Remembering the Galloping Ghost

You wouldn't know it judging from the current state of Illinois' football program, but there is, in fact, a storied tradition that includes greats like Dick Butkus and Ray Nitschke.

Long before them, however, the greatest of them all played the best game in college football in history. Red Grange innaugurated beautiful Memorial Stadium by single handedly demolishing the University of Michigan. In that game, Red scored four touchdowns in the first quarter, scored a fifth touchdown later in the game, and passed for another. Total yardage? 402. Prior to that game, Michigan had allowed only four touchdowns total the previous two years.

Don't Forget: Grange was also responsible for the initial survival of the NFL. If it weren't for Grange, it's possible that on Sunday afternoons we would have nothing to watch on TV. Imagine!

GOP group tears up Dem voter reg. forms

We knew they were low but not this low. Turns out a GOP backed voter registration group has been "registering" voters in NV and tearing up all the Dem. voter registration cards. This story is breaking all over the place. The group is called Voters Outreach America. In case you Cons out there think that the GOP had nothing to do with this group look at this job ad.

This ones for all you conservatives in the audience!

Another Doonesbury link, this time an essay in Salon making the conservative case against voting for Bush. I recommend this for our liberal readers too for the next time you have the pleasure of encountering a rabid Bush supporter (hopefully not like Colin's little run-in) and you feel motivated to point out to them why Bush just might not be the greatest president in the history of the world...

Key to Kerry victory? Ohio + 7

Ryan Lizza shows how Kerry need only take Ohio and seven more electoral votes (e.g., Iowa) to win.

Relevant clip:

Assuming a base of 243, if Kerry wins only the biggest of these five states--Ohio--he would still lose the election 275-263. To win, he has to keep his base of 243, prevail in Ohio, and still find seven more electoral votes. He has three options: take back Iowa (7) or Wisconsin (10) from Bush; win Colorado (9); or win two out of the three small toss-ups: West Virginia (5), Nevada (5), and New Hampshire (4).

Rob Rogers nails it...

Rob Rogers depicts the difference between Bush and two presidents who preceded him.

Report from Baghdad

For those of you who don't read the funny papers (poor souls), I'd like to point out that Doonesbury is running a series of cartoons with links to various writings, like the Eisenhower story below, dealing with the present crisis. Today, the strip points us to an e-mail from a WSJ reporter describing how bad things are in Iraq. It is truly discouraging reading and yet another indictment of the Bush regimes craven foreign policy.

John Eisenhower: Why I will vote for John Kerry for President

via Doonesbury

John Eisenhower, son of Ike, explains why he has quit the Republican party after fifty years and will vote for John Kerry.

What could be more cool?

The Illinois senate race (a favorite topic of this blog) has cooled down for the moment. However, the reporters covering still have to earn a living. So, the Trib has a story about the impact that Obama's campaign has had in Kenya, the land where his father grew up. In what has to be one of the best lead-ins I've ever read, apparently the way to order a local beer, named 'Senator,' is to ask for an Obama. I ask you: What could be more cool? I'm not sure if it's necessarily a good thing that Barack Obama has joined the ranks of the Tom Collins and Harvey Wallbangers of the world (at least in Kenya), but I do know that I chuckled when I read about it.

Unrelated sidenote: Dave Mathews is still in trouble for dumping 800 pounds of human waste onto a tour boat as his band's bus was crossing a bridge over the Chicago river.

Bush's Bulges

I won't link to the flight suit bulge that sent Republicon women into a frenzy. I will link to a story showing that W was wearing a wire during the first debate. Given his poor performance, this may not be that big of a story however...

Frank Rich goes to town

Frank Rich nails Baker, Bush and Condi in his latest column. Great reading.

DeLay Draws Third Rebuke from spineless ethics committee

How much longer can Delay hold out? The House Ethics committee, whose republican members are beholden to Delay, managed to vote unanimously in favor of the rebuke.

Update: The Houston Chronicle is reporting that there is a memo personally linking DeLay to the PAC fund-raiser that has already lead to three indictments.

Bush-Cheney flip-flops cost America in blood

Via Mark Goldberg at American Prospect, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joel Connely rmembers Dick Cheney's take on occupying Iraq....

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The words of our future vice president -- defending the decision to end Gulf War I without occupying Iraq -- eerily foretell today's morass. Here is what Cheney said in '92:

"I would guess if we had gone in there, 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."
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Fox News apologises for Kerry fabrication

This one was sent to me by my good buddy Eric: Fox News apologises for Kerry fabrication.

Sample 'quotes' included: "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" and "I'm metrosexual - he's a cowboy."

No word yet on whether Carl Cameron, under whose byline the quotes ran, has resigned yet although a Foxnews spokesman did call the article a stupid mistake and said that Cameron had been 'reprimanded.'

Staying the course...

Do you like political cartoons? Well, if you haven't already guessed, I love them. Thus I present, for your viewing pleasure, Tom Toles' take on W staying the course...

Debate

Kerry 1 Bush 0 Don't really need to say more but I will say this... Maybe next time Bush should come with more than 45 second of material for a 90 minute debate.

Ethics Panel Rebukes DeLay

Read all about it in today's Post.