Bush used earpiece to give his closing statement
Fri Oct 08, 2004 at 12:55:23 PM PDT
Quickie diary in response to
this story and this
video clip of Bush's D-Day speech. Go watch the clip -- Bush is clearly repeating a prerecorded speech (recorded by him) so he doesn't have to use notes.
Now watch Bush give his 2-minute closing statement from the first debate. He pauses after every sentence, just like in the D-Day speech. Was Bush wired just so he could give that 2-minute statement without screwing it up?
Burkett got memos from guy at a rodeo
Tue Sep 21, 2004 at 09:44:52 AM PDT
Cox News Service is reporting that Bill Burkett was called "out of the blue" in February by someone who had seen him on Hardball. The guy said there were some National Guard records that Burkett should see. They arranged to meet at a rodeo in Houston, where the source gave Burkett the memos in a sealed manila envelope.
...Burkett determined that the man who provided them was using the name of somebody who once held a National Guard position that would make him privy to the documents. But Burkett had no way of knowing if the man was who he said he was.
Burkett decided to do nothing with the memos, actually keeping them in a cold storage locker for several months. By August, reporters had somehow found out about the memos and were pressuring him to hand them over. Burkett is now claming he was sweet-talked by CBS into giving them up and never vouched for the authenticity of the documents, instead trusting CBS to do due diligence before going public with them.
The AWOL Project: Bush was a deserter
Thu Jul 08, 2004 at 09:57:35 PM PDT
I saw a post at
Atrios a while ago about
The AWOL Project, which looks at Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard (TXANG) and
what happened after he left TXANG. It's a lot to wade through, so I wrote up this summary of Bush's post-TXANG exploits:
In July 1973, Bush up and decided to quit TXANG with 9 months of his military service obligation remaining; this put him under the authority of the national Air Force Reserves and the Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC). ARPC reviewed Bush's TXANG service record and found that he had "failed to satisfactorily participate" in TXANG (partly because he had "not been observed" at his unit for the previous 12 months).
Kerry: Bush/OPEC should lower oil prices NOW
Thu Apr 22, 2004 at 02:30:16 PM PDT
So the wingers say
this:
Jeff Greenfield of CNN says the most disturbing revelation on "60 Minutes" last night was Bob Woodward's claim that the Saudis plan to flood the international market with oil to bring down gas prices in time for the American election. To which I say "Great!" Why shouldn't the Saudis help out the president who's bravely led a coalition against an enemy on their own border, an enemy who has repeatedly threatened to invade Saudi Arabia?
And Kerry says yeah, why shouldn't the Saudis help out the preznit?
Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry on Thursday challenged President Bush to prove he had not cut a deal with Saudi Arabia by pressuring OPEC oil-producing countries to lower prices now. ...
"I think we have a right to ask OPEC why they're waiting," Kerry said during a campaign swing through Bush's home state of Texas. "What are they waiting for? If they want to help us, this is the time that we need it ... they could up their production tomorrow and we deserve to have them answer us why they won't do that." (Reuters)
I'm likin' it.
What's Clark got except foreign policy?
Sun Dec 14, 2003 at 11:38:46 PM PDT
Saddam's capture today makes Gen. Clark's shortcomings as a general election candidate more apparent. As Clark said in the last
debate:
This is an election that's going to be about national security. It's going to be about facing down George Bush and his failure to perform his duties satisfactorily as commander in chief, his failure to keep the American people safe.
From 9/11, he has taken us into a war without any justification after 9/11. I'm the only candidate on this stage who can take that fight to George W. Bush.
But what if (a) BushCo manages to capture bin Laden and get us out of Iraq before the election, or (b) Americans don't think this election is about national security?
There's some evidence for (b), according to a poll from WMUR (again, from the debate):
General, I'd like to pick up from where you left off, talking about this being a foreign-policy primary — election. We did a WMUR poll just a few weeks ago in which we asked voters: What are your top priorities? They cited the economy, they cited health care, they cited honesty of the candidate. All of those came ahead of anything remarkably close to foreign policy.
So my question is this: Why is Dean's lack of foreign policy experience seen as potentially crippling in the general election, but Clark's complete lack of domestic policy experience isn't?
What if the national security situation improves between now and next November and Bush doesn't look so incompetent? Dean has a record of balanced budgets and health care coverage in Vermont to contrast with the Republicans' endless deficits and the poison-pill Medicare bill. What's Clark got?
