musings

Loving the Media

I'm watching the media this week, tracking to see how things get reported, any sudden stories that smack the President, etc. We had the NYTimes story about the bombs yesterday, which was widely reported. What wasn't widely reported is that NBC had a reporter embedded with the unit that took that base three weeks into the conflict and the explosives in question were not found there. Why wasn't this widely reported? You tell me.

The media shows every bad thing in Iraq, but absolutely NOTHING good. Only Fox shows the school openings, etc. CBS had the forging documents thing. ABC had Mark Halperin telling his people to hold Bush more accountable than Kerry for their respective records. CBS had the aforementioned munitions story, and was planning on putting it out right before election day. Jennings said last week that he was concerned that people expect them to be objective.

Tell me there is not a media bias. The media does NOT want Bush in office for 4 more years. They will do whatever they can to make it so. Expect more stories this week that will try to swing the vote. The head of Newsweek said this week that he believes the bias will add at least 5 points to Kerry this election.

Update: this sort of crap really gets my blood boiling. Sources are coming out that the IAEA put out this letter to get the media to go after Bush because Bush does not support Mohammed El Baradei, the head of the IAEA for a second term. And from Drudge comes this:

News of missing explosives in Iraq — first reported in April 2003 — was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crisis mode.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that “our plan was to run the story on October 31.”

Elizabeth Jensen at the LOS ANGELES TIMES details on Tuesday how CBS NEWS and 60 MINUTES lost the story [which repackaged previously reported information on a large cache of explosives missing in Iraq, first published and broadcast in 2003].

The story instead debuted in the NYT. The paper slugged the story about missing explosives from April 2003 as “exclusive.”

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq. According to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story.

The LA TIMES claims: The source on the story first went to 60 MINUTES but also expressed interest in working with the NY TIMES... “The tip was received last Wednesday.”

CBSNEWS’ plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged.

“Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up,” the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.

President Kerry

I'm fairly certain at this point that GWB will not win this election. Too much is going against him. I fully expect over the next week that every piece of bad news that can come out of Iraq will come out. The media is going to have a field day. Last election, it was the DUI thing, and I expect this year will be no different. Some bombshell will come out, some big event that is bad, and Bush will sink because of it.

There is little upside that could happen this week aside from UBL being killed or captured. So, I will be stuffing my mattress with money and wait for my taxes to go up under a new President Kerry. Sorry mom, no new house for you!

How times change...

"I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq - Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991." -- John Kerry, 7/29/02

"It's the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." -- John Kerry, 9/06/04

And the best:

"I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations." -- John Kerry, 1970

Dirty Politics (a rant)

This period is when I hate politics the most, because it becomes the dirtiest. And my friends on the left can say what they will, but Democrats seem to do the most of the slinging when it comes down to the wire. In the last days of any election for president, you can count on the Republican being accused of wanting to take away social security, hating old people, wanting to get rid of Roe v. Wade, etc. And yet, each time a Republican wins, none of that stuff happens. Ever. Yet they keep doing it.

Voter fraud is also something that is a longtime Democratic tradition going all the way back to Mayor Daley in Chicago, JFK's dad stuffing boxes and winning against Nixon, etc -- it's an amazing legacy. And it's no different now. Paying people to do false registrations using crack as your currency, putting things like "even if there is no fraud, claim so" in your playbook...it's all par for the course with the Dems who really believe winning is the ultimate prize.

It's why I could never vote Democratic.

I worked on a campaign in California once -- a senate campaign. Bruce Hershenson vs. Barbara Boxer. Bruce was leading all the way into the last two weeks of the election. Bob Mulholland of the Democrat Party in California decided to leak a rumor that Bruce was into porn and frequented a magazine shop where he would get his porn. The shop owner said this was patently false, but it didn't matter -- the damage was done, Bruce's machine was not ready for it, and he ended up losing in those last two weeks. Bob was "fired" by the Democrat party, then rehired scant weeks after Boxer won.

That experience taught me a lot about who we were up against. I have carried that with me to this day as I listen to people throw around words like "moron," "incompetent," "evil," etc.

I watch it now as Kerry out and out lies about Bush doing a draft. Lies about a January surprise around (again) Social Security. It's called "scare the young so they vote for me" and "scare the old people in Florida so they vote for me."

And, yes, I am well aware that there are probably Republicans who resort to dirty tricks. But I will say this: in the last election, a Senator lost to a dead man, which was impossible. Had he gone to court, he would have won and would have been a Senator again. But this Senator did not do that. He felt that the widow of his opponent had been through enough, and he wasn't going to add to it. That man, John Ashcroft, will never get credit for that from the Left (because they don't understand it and never would do that), and instead he will forever be painted as Evil.

That is where we are in American Politics. That is what we have become.

Tonight

I'll unfortunately be missing the debate tonight. I'll only get to see the aftermath coverage when it's all over. However, I have had a few things on my mind as I have watched the candidates go back and forth over the past few days. In no particular order:

Jobs. Yes, jobs were lost and if you look at the graph of when they started to go bye-bye it started after 9/11. I find it hard to believe that the average person doesn't get that when John Kerry says "this President has lost more jobs than any President in history" that, fucking DUH, of course he has. This President also had something happen shortly into his term that no other President had to worry about. Clinton had spooge on a dress to contend with, Bush had whackjobs fly into buildings with airplanes. Things are a bit different. The rules are different. We're not in a "normal time" right now, and I might be wrong (hint: i'm not), but I remember hearing this President TELL US that this was going to be a long, long fight with setbacks and successes that we never hear about. Did people forget that?

WMD's. Here is what I would say if I were the President. It's really two things:

Yes, we were wrong on WMD's. Totally, 100% wrong. And that pains me. However, so was the rest of the world. Every major intelligence agency in the world also thought Saddam had WMD's. And as much as he says otherwise, my opponent, presented with the same information as me, would have done the exact same thing as President because it would have been his job. To not do so would be impeachable. We live in a different time, and we can't afford to be wrong even just once. Remember: we have to be right 100% of the time, they only have to be right once. That's what having this job is all about. My opponent argues that we should have given sanctions a bigger chance, that we should have waited and somehow gotten France and Germany on our side. As the report showed yesterday, this theory is now dead. As we had long suspected, Saddam was using money from the food for oil program to BRIBE members of the security council in an effort to get the sanctions lifted. And it was working, my friends, it was working. France was arguing for a lifting of those sanctions. So, under the Bush doctrine, we have a world without a Saddam. With a Kerry doctrine, we would not only have a world with a Saddam, he would most likely be living under no sanctions and well on his way to acquiring WMD's. I prefer my way. Am I happy we went to war? Of course not. No President, Republican or Democrat, is happy about making the decision to send young people off to die. It pains me. It is something I have to live with every day of my life. But this is the job, and I have to worry about the needs of the many over the needs of the few. This war will continue, our enemies will continue to come after us, and only with focus can we defeat them. Do I regret taking Saddam out, even if the reasons for doing so turned out to be wrong? No, because in the long run, it's still the best thing for us.

That is what he should say. He won't, but he should.

Kerry. I really don't like him. He's on fire now, mainly because he replaced his people with Clinton people. But I can't stand people who waver in the wind and change positions based on polls. The Kerry that ran against Dean is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the Kerry running against Bush. And if you do not believe me, go back and watch what Kerry was saying to Dean's anti-war rhetoric. You would think you're watching Bush. Then, after he took the nomination, he switched tactics to being Dean-esque. That is what bothers me -- saying what you need to say to get elected. Think what you want about GWB, but at least you know where he stands and you know he'll take that with him even if he loses. He's not going to base his opinion on what will make him win or make him popular. That is something I respect. Even if I disagree with him on an issue (Stem Cell, for example).

Class Warfare. I also can't stand people who bash "the rich." Let's say Kerry gets his way, he wins and he raises taxes on the over 200K crowd. Okay. So what do rich people do that makes them rich? They defer income, they raise prices in their businesses (passing it on to the sub-200K crowd), etc. Net revenues do not go up. If I were a Democrat, I'd be a JFK Democrat. His economic policies were "trickle down" economics (and if you don't believe that, I'll pull out the relevant documentation for you...he was), because he understood that only by empowering employers do you generate more revenue. He understands that more money in my pocket means I take care of my mother's rent. Less money in my pocket means the government does.

I fear for tonight. Too many undecided voters out there who are going to base their opinions on a performance tonight, not content. Kerry will come out and attack attack attack because he knows he is good at this stuff. Bush, who is not good at the spontaneous stuff will look like a deer in the headlights. And as such, people will assign to him a lower intelligence than Kerry, even if it's not true.

The medium is the message. Abraham Lincoln could not get elected in today's environment. A man in a wheelchair (FDR) would not get elected today. That is what we have become. Two great Presidents in history wouldn't make it in today's environment. Good Stuff.

Election Issues

I am going to have real issues this November. I think the administration has really fucked up this entire Iraq thing. The fact that Rumsfeld still has a job amazes me. He should be gone -- and he will need to be gone in order for me to cast a vote for Mr. Bush.

Don't mistake me, I won't vote for Kerry -- no way could I ever do that; I simply will not vote for Bush. I will do a non-vote as a point of protest.

Having said all of that, I have one comment for the media: you spend way more of your time showing what Americans do to others and not enough time showing what others do to Americans. Some lady smiles and points at the naked crotch of an Iraqi? On TV 24/7. Some terrorist cuts off an American's head? Nope, can't show that. Etc. Yes, what happened in that prison sucks -- but it's not even NEARLY as sucky as what is happening around the world to people who stand in the way of Islamists. We all need to keep our focus on that. Doesn't excuse the behavior of bad Americans in any way.

It will be very sad for me to have to live under a Kerry nation, mainly because I really believe he has no center, no real core value system. I am also bothered by his insistance that "the rich" (as defined by him as anyone over $200K a year) pay more while at the time his mega-rich wife won't show her tax returns. I imagine we are going to find she pays less than I do in federal taxes every year.

Dammit.

Panic in the streets

I must say I find it somewhat amusing to see everyone running around in panic that Ahnold is now the gov. of California. People need to relax, take a big deep breath, and remember the visual image from last night.

There was Arnold, surrounded by a sea of Democratic Kennedy's. It was comical. Call this a "coup of the right" if you want to, but at least be intellectually honest about it -- he's not a member of The Right.

So everyone get ahold of your knickers and hunker down. If you were a Davis supporter, now is the time to sit back and try to figure out why he lost, and why California is in a shitty state. That is a better place for your energy to be focused, IMHO.

The Recall

Ah, the recall. That's all anyone is talking about on TV. Recall -- Recall -- Recall. At least it's better than Iraq -- Iraq -- Iraq. Good Lord.

Thoughts on the recall: First, I think recalls are weird, quite honestly, especially so close after an election. That said, I'm not a huge fan of Davis. However, all of these folks up in arms about Ahnold...here's a little secret with a bonus.

Ahnold is really a Democrat calling himself a Republican.

and

Clark is really a Republican calling himself a Democrat.

What a wacky world we live in, eh?