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2004:08:31:13:23. Tuesday. 144 KINGS. 144 delegates to the Republican National Convention are active duty military personnel, a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I just sent the following to the local Wisconsin State Journal:
For some reason the Republican Party has no problem violating laws when it makes them look good for the cameras. According to DOD Directive 1344.10, "A member on active duty shall not...Participate in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions (unless attending a convention as a spectator when not in uniform)." This directive was most recently updated on August 2, 2004, and is signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. But according to an August 16, 2004, Associated Press story titled "Veterans Set for Republican Convention," which the GOP has recently removed from their convention website, 3% of the RNC delegates are "active military personnel." These delegates are in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that violation is being encouraged by the Republican Party. I think we need to ask ourselves how much longer we are willing to put up with a President who uses the military for political purposes at every possible opportunity.
Keep in mind, this is also the Party that's mocking wounded vets by wearing Band-Aids with little purple hearts on them.
2004:08:27:19:55. Friday. FRANNY.
This is our new, bought-on-a-whim green-cheeked conure, Franny. He (or she?) seems to be quite a bit of fun so far, but is not yet hand-trained, so we're working on that. In addition, here is a picture of Ezra wearing a fez.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:08:27:12:31. MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH. Let's stipulate, for a moment, that John Kerry is going to win, if not a mandate, a decisive victory on November 2 -- somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 electoral votes. In this scenario, there will be post-election jostling, no room in which to pull another Florida miracle. Kerry wins, Bush loses, Bush packs up his shit and takes it back to the ranch. Then what? Where does George Bush go from here? If you think his lack of "gravitas" has been a liability for him as a candidate and a President, just think how it will hamper him as an elder statesman. He's got nothing -- NOTHING -- to offer the country or the world after he leaves office. He could hit the lecture circuit, I suppose, speaking to more audiences of hand-picked well-wishers. But really, that just puts him in a class with former football players and dotcom execs. Can he walk onto the stage at the 2008 Republican National Convention to the kind of ovation that Bill Clinton got back in July? Can he carry even the kind of weight that Richard Nixon was able to find again in his last years? I don't see how he can. Without him on TV every day, American acceptance of this awkward fool will wain, and the GOP will start looking to more personally presentable (if just as ideologically over the rainbow) folks as Bill Frist, George Voinovich, maybe even Elizabeth Dole. Ten years from now, will he have anything on his schedule other than reading The Pet Goat to his grandkids and still being glad that it's finally all over? I doubt it.
2004:08:24:09:55. Tuesday. SLEIGHT OF HAND. When did it become de rigeur for national-level politicians to explain their strategies in public? I wonder this because it appears to have become the S.O.P. for the Bush campaign. In mid-summer, chief strategist Matthew Dowd let everyone who would listen know that the campaign expected John Kerry to have a 15-point lead coming out of the convention. This was ridiculous, frankly, and everyone with half a clue knew it, but setting the expectations high may have fueled the mini-story that there was "no convention bounce." Lately, a couple more odd pieces of the GOP playbook have become part of the public record. First, Dowd has revealed that the Bush campaign will stop targeting swing voters.
But the Bush campaign's strategy is focused much more on the possibility that the race will be decided primarily by mobilizing the party faithful in closely fought states, not persuading swing voters.
"Motivating Republicans this year is as important, or possibly more important, than reaching the persuadable voters," said Matthew Dowd, the Bush campaign's chief strategist. Indeed, Dowd said one of the campaign's top goals is to ensure that Republicans cast as large a share of November's vote as Democrats. Typically, Democrats outnumber Republicans in presidential elections. What? In an election that's been polling within or nearly within the MOE for six months? In a situation where your guy needs to pick up votes to add to 2000's second-place finish? If this were actually true, they'd know that they'd be better off closing up shop, conceding the race and saving their warchest for whatever yahoo the Republican establishment decides to push in 2008. If Bush loses the "independent vote," even by a little, he loses the election. There are simply not enough Republicans in the country to overcome that. If this is truly the Bush campaign's strategy, it means they're expecting that John Kerry will win close to 60% of the popular vote. So, obviously, this is not the Bush campaign's strategy. True, they continue to run invitation-only, loyalty-oath-obligating rallies, but those aren't for the voters on the ground, they're for the voters at home. Everything about the Bush Administration has been made for TV, and these rallies are no exception. Now, it's true that they don't really know how to target undecided voters beyond offering them advances on their tax returns and telling them they're about to get blown up, but that's a failure of execution, not design. Meanwhile, Republicans are very publicly planning to link any violent demonstrations at the GOP Convention with the Democratic Party.
Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.
This one I don't get. It's true that if things get out of hand in the streets of New York it will probably help Bush, so why risk opening yourself up by making claims that everyone knows are patently false? The Democratic Party is going to stay as far away from the protesters as possible, precisely because street violence will help Bush and because, to be honest, why protest a convention where it's so likely that Bush will just continue shooting himself in the foot? After all, they've already told us that the point of the convention is to make fun of John Kerry, which is only going to highlight the fecklessly negative campaign they've run from the start. I've long believed that Karl Rove's political vision is the equivalent of John Gotti's entrepreneurial genius. I still stand by that. He's a thug, and not a particularly original one. It'll be interesting to see if Republicans find the time in their next four years off to relearn the art of subtlety.
2004:08:23:22:08. Monday. THE OLD WEST. Fantasy G. I wince, I hate the G calls because they are supposed to be non-explicit. Let me tell you, if you are saying cock and pussy and fuck for hours on end it takes a lot of effort to NOT say those words. I usually forget and start swearing up the gazoo anyways, then I sit nervously, wondering if my bosses heard me and was I going to get in trouble. But it didn�t really matter because this was a call very different from the others. The guy tells me he has a fantasy he wants to act out. SCORE! He knows what he wants, great for me, all I have to do is listen and respond, I don�t have to fish around for what he wants to do. He tells me that we are each the leader of a group of outlaws in the Old West. His group has him plus five more guys, one being his younger brother. My group has me plus five girls, one being my younger sister. Our groups are rivals and one day their group had us cornered, boxed into a canyon, no way to escape. posted by 2004:08:15:19:09. Sunday. MOVE. Moving tomorrow. DSL down until Thursday. See you soon.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:08:13:23:00. Friday. PISSSSSSSSSSSSSS....... Fantasy X. Ding dong. �Hello?� I ask. �Hi.� It is a chick! This happens sometimes and they usually hang up in less than two minutes (which doesn�t count into my average call length) so I suspect it is my bosses checking in to see I�m really doing what I�m supposed to. posted by 2004:08:13:17:32. BUT WILL YOU LOVE ME TOMORROW? I just realized, reading this post by Josh Marshall, what I'm dreading. Gallup's latest poll shows George Bush at 50% of "likely" voters; his job approval is at 51%. It should be noted that Gallup has been something of a pro-Bush outlier this year, but let's stipulate that it's legit enough. A significant portion of the "swing" voter category has swung against Bush. I say "against Bush" and not "for Kerry" because an election with an incumbent is necessarily a referendum on that incumbent. Voters in the middle are much more likely to vote for Kerry based on displeasure with Bush than on admiration for Kerry. For whatever reason, a bunch of them think that Bush is screwing up right now. And when I say "right now," I mean right now, as in, Iraq is a shithole at this very moment, and millions of people are living hand to mouth today. "Right now" is elastic, but it's not indefinite, and I'm concerned the voting populace is not interested in holding Bush accountable for his past performance if things turn around on any major issue or issues. If, for example, a foreign policy solution is found to the conundrum Marshall cites, notably lowering American casualties before the election, will voters let Bush off the hook for his incompetent performance throughout the recent past? What if that solution is substantively similar to a Kerry proposal? We keep hearing that a six-figure troop requirement must be met in Iraq for the foreseeable future; I don't buy that. Given the rumbling about Iran lately, I can see a large-scale withdrawal that would allow us to focus on Iran in the context of a foreign threat to Iraq, leaving the internal policing to Iraqi forces. The insurgencies would probably heighten under that scenario, but we would appear to be giving Iraq some real sovereignty at the same time that we would be taking our soldiers somewhat out of harm's way. Maybe that's this year's October Surprise -- a little 24th anniversary trip back to Iran. "Our intelligence indicates that Iran poses a grave and gathering threat to the democracy and freedom of Iraq." Whatever happens in the next 90 days, whatever corners it appears we've turned, the last three and a half years are still his fault. Don't believe his lies.
2004:08:13:10:57. STORE GUY, AGAIN. Fantasy X. Ding dong. �Hello?� �Hey, who�s this?� �Kelly. Who�s this?� �Oh, hey, Kelly. This is Jay. We�ve talked before.� �We have??� �Yeah, I�m the guy who tries to get women to take advantage of him by giving them money.� posted by 2004:08:12:08:55. Thursday. WHO WILL WATCH THOSE WHO WATCH THE WATCHMEN? The 9/11 Commission reported that "neither in 2000 nor in the first eight months of 2001 did any polling organization in the United States think the subject of terrorism sufficiently on the minds of the public to warrant asking a question about it in a major national survey." Wrong:
At the start of the new millennium, CBS News asked: "Would you say you personally are very concerned about a terrorist attack in the United States, or not? Would you say you are somewhat concerned about a terrorist attack in the United States or not at all concerned?" Responses: 37 percent very concerned, 39 percent somewhat concerned, 22 percent not at all concerned.
As President Bush took office in January 2001, Newsweek asked: "Which one of the following do you think should be Bush's top defense and national security priority? Should his top priority be: Developing a high-tech missile defense system to protect the United States from nuclear attack (34 percent); reconfiguring US military forces so they can move more quickly to deal with crisis situations around the world (29 percent); or improving our ability to identify and counteract terrorist threats (31 percent)?" And in May 2001, the Pew Research Center asked: "Do you think that international terrorism is a major threat, a minor threat, or not a threat to the well being of the United States?" Prescient answer: 64% major threat, 27% minor threat, 4% not a threat. Whoops. Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to kiss these guys' asses.
2004:08:05:18:04. Thursday. KINGS OF FEAR.
The day we left New York, heightened security went into effect due to the "new" "revelations" about potential terror attacks. We didn't realize it at the time, but the armored cops we saw at the NYSE were probably part of the lead up. Now, we know that the attack information was, at best, shoddy. It gets worse. Ken Layne has this:
After getting through the insane security at CitiBank Headquarters -- caused by four-year-old Evidence of Terror Plans released Sunday to scare the bejesus out of you -- you get to say "Hi" to Laura Bush in the lobby! That's neat.
It's true. Laura Bush was in the Citibank building during the time when the Bush Administration supposedly believed it was about to be blown up. Layne has a picture. Meanwhile, we are now told the attacks are really scheduled for September 2, the last day of the Republican convention -- no, seriously! Can any reasonable person continue to believe that these warnings are legitimate? That anything the Administration says has any relation to truth? No.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:08:04:20:45. Wednesday. YOUR LIPS TOUCHING MINE IN THE PHOTOBOOTH.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:08:04:12:30. BURROS TO THE CANYON FLOOR.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:08:03:13:36. Tuesday. MAKE IT ANYWHERE.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:08:01:00:44. THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN CONEY ISLAND.
Somebody left a wireless network open near our hotel. Whoops!
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra |
