Category: Politics

Interesting meme out there today: Bush’s citing of Dred Scott was not some odd piece of prose, but rather code to his anti-abortion followers.

Orcinus has a long historical overview of what “Strict Constructionists” really means. Worth a read.

Kos doesn’t usually indulge in snarkiness (the Diaries do it for him most of the time) but he had a funny bit tonight:

We know you have a choice in Internets, so thank you for choosing this one. Come back and see us again soon, we appreciate your business.

And if I may offer a little advise — stay away from those Canadian Internets (damn third-world hellhole). They aren’t safe.

Closer than the first one, but I call it for Kerry.

Bush did a better job this time in his presentation. He seemed more relaxed, didn’t make squinty faces as much, and although he obviously got excited a few times he did not whine. He fumbled badly the question about whether he had made any mistakes, his response to the environmant question was a joke, and most important – he is having trouble running from his record. Minor snarky side note — he called it “the Internets” rather than “the Internet”. I wonder if he’s ever even used the Internet?

Kerry smacked down the “flip flop” charge at two different times and handed Bush his butt on jobs, the environment, and of course the war. He made a point of remembering questioner’s names, referring back to them later in the event – as compared to Bush, who I think didn’t mention anyone’s name at all. And I think his answer to the pro-life woman about goverment funding of abortion was spot on.

What the audience thought of them both I don’t know. Bush got more laughs than Kerry, especially when he put his “aw shucks” personna on. If they really can’t see through that facade after all this time, then we’re in deep doo-doo on November 2nd. However, not to bash the audience too much, I think the questions were overall very good — as good as the ones Lehrer asked at the first debate and definitely better than Gwen Ifil’s.

Now to see what the pundits have to say.

Guy goes to attend a conference on terrorism, gets arrested — THIS is why we ‘freed’ Iraq?

Meanwhile, a former leading figure in the Iraqi National Congress party – the party led by Ahmad Chalabi – remained defiant after an Iraqi court indicted him Sunday for visiting the “enemy state” of Israel.

Mithal al-Alusi attended a conference there on terrorism last month and was subsequently expelled from the party.

I’m in a pretty foul mood already, reading this didn’t help me any.

In other news, my DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11 arrived today. Maybe this weekend I’ll watch it again.

To be honest I think the VP debate was at best a tie.

Cheney was playing hardball, and unlike Bush, he is capable of speaking in complete sentances and sounding like he knows what he is talking about. He hit hard and often, and of course since he doesn’t care much about truth he had the advantage there. His line about “I’ve never met you before tonight,” although a lie, was a particularly nasty shot that might have legs.

I don’t think Edwards did badly, but I was annoyed a bit by how some of his foreign policy lines were almost verbatim repeats of what Kerry said last week – couldn’t he at least have rephrased it a bit so he wasn’t so obviously repeating talking points? I think he did better in the second half of the debate; he seemed more relaxed (it is not surprisng that he would be more comfortable discussing domestic policy issues). And his complementing Cheney for how his family has handled having a gay daughter was masterful. Cheney had absolutely nothing to say after it. Very nice.

Both sides will spin it as a win for their guy. We’ll see what the CW says tomorrow.

There’s a website that offers a substantial reward to the person who asks George W Bush “How many times have you been arrested?”but that is not the question I most want to ask Bush. Mine’s pretty simple:

“Are there any cases when it is acceptable for the President of the United States to deliberately lie to the American public?”