Al Gore is no Richard Nixon

As political junkies well know, Richard Nixon had ample justification to challenge the results of the 1960 Presidential Election.

John Kennedy won by an exceedingly slender margin and there were serious allegations of election fraud in LBJ's Texas and Mayor Daley's Chicago. There were "irregularities" in other states including perhaps Hawaii where Nixon at first won and after a recount, lost.

Instead of contesting the election, Nixon swallowed hard and presided over the counting of the electoral votes in his role as Senate President. Why did he choose this path? Afterall Nixon was nothing if not a bulldog who when bitten would bite back harder.

I have long felt that Nixon's reasons were two-fold. In which order or in which amount I'll leave for others to decide .

The first reason is the one Nixon himself always (naturally) cited: He did not want to put the country through a long and bitter fight, it would have been dangerous to subject the nation to possible instability at that point in the Cold War etc etc.

The second reason is a cynical/practical one. Nixon realized it would be a longshot to overturn the results and if he failed he would be finished as a national political force. Americans hate a sore loser, preferring fighters that take their lumps like a man. But we Americans also like an underdog, a guy or a team who makes a stirring comeback. In 1960 Nixon was only 47, plenty young enough to wait a few years for another shot at glory.

I strongly suspect the truth was a mixture of the two. Nixon probably honestly felt a legal challenge would not serve the national interest AND he likely understood that the smart political move was to take his medicine and bide his time for another shot at the golden prize.

Al Gore would have done well to have studied Nixon's behavior and actions. Four years ago when Gore "won the popular vote" (why I set that in quote marks I'll explain later) but lost Florida and the Electoral College, Gore put his selfish interests first, last and always.

I in no way blame Gore for asking for a simple recount of the Florida vote. Recounts are fairly common and don't generally cause an untoward amount of problems. It is highly reasonable for a candidate to ask for a recount when only a few hundred votes out of millions cast, are the difference

But Gore went farther, much, much farther. He and his party started a highly sophisticated campaign to discredit the entire election process in Florida. No one was safe, as even officials who were DEMOCRATS (remember Theresa LaPore?) were routinely accused of high crimes and chad abuse.

Gore chose to drag the country though a month long temper tantrum, as he vainly tried to win through political and legal machination, what he lost fair and square at the ballot box.

And make no mistake, GORE LOST FLORIDA in 2000. EVERY count, every recount, even the major media circus that re-re-counted the ballots, all showed that George W. Bush received more votes than Al Gore. No matter how they twisted and turned logic, no matter how they tortured common sense, the answer kept coming up the same: Bush won.

Gore and his fellow travelers like to slyly comment that Gore "won" the 2000 election. They "base" this on two very weak reeds, one of which is the Florida excuse that has been completely debunked.

The other is the fact that Gore "won the popular vote". It is certainly true that Gore received more votes nationally than George W. Bush. It is also true that the Yankees won more regular season games then the Red Sox did this year. Those two facts are almost perfect bookends.

The Gore Whiners pretend that winning the popular vote is filled with some deep meaning and importance. For starters, since "winning the popular vote" was not and is NOT the object of the game, one can't draw any real conclusions from the fact that Gore got 48.4% and Bush 47.9%.

Had "winning the popular vote" been the object of the game, the game would have changed. The game would have been played differently. To use another analogy, the Gore complaint is identical to a football team that loses 21-20 and then yells "Yeah but we had 23 first downs and you only had 22". The dishonesty of the Gore 2000 Revisionism is breathtaking in its scope and chutzpuh.

Gore lost a heartbreakingly close election, but he DID lose. That he will be tortured by it until the day he departs this vail of tears, I fully understand. If he had borne his pain with strength and dignity he could have been an American hero, a shining example for a nation who needs more statesmen. By his self pitying words and actions, he put this nation at risk and damaged our institutions in ways we won't fully grasp for decades.

If America continues it present downward spiral into ever more bitter public discourse, filled with angry words and gestures of violence, we will have Albert Arnold Gore Jr. to thank most of all.

Post Script: I have been working on this piece for a couple of days, both in my mind and on "paper". Imagine my surprise when I saw this on Powerline today while still working on this post. As soon as I publish this I am going here to read the column by Joseph Perkins of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Good news on the poll front.

Just as a reputed GOP Insider predicted, President Bush has now nudged out to a 3-5 point lead nationally.

Rasmussen has it 50-48, WaPo 49-48, Gallup 51-46, Fox 50-45, and Battleground 51-46. The Battleground poll is huge given that it too pushes Bush up over 50%, and confirms a definate move in the President's direction AND shows him with a 53% approval rating.

Have a GREAT weekend!

A Note on Zogby

Not wanting to be accused of sour grapes, I am purposely timing this post at a point where John Zogby shows Bush leading in the national vote.

Simply put, I think Zogby is full of it, but what bothers me more is how the media fawns over his PREDICTIONS as though he is an oracle.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, Zogby is at best a very good pollster. Frankly I don't even believe that, but I'm willing to cede it for the sake of argument. However, being a very able pollster does not in any direct way qualify you as a political expert or soothsayer.

As a pollster Zogby can perhaps tell you who is leading RIGHT NOW but this does not enable him to reliably predict who will actually win on November 2. Political prognostication is part information, part art and part knowledge.

By information I mean such things as how many new voters have registered in Locality X, how did locality X vote in 2000 or 2002 or 1998 etc.

By knowledge I am referring to a well rounded understanding of political history, past trends, and how various factors affect voting patterns etc.

The art comes into play in how one combines the information with the knowledge and then leavens the concoction with an accurate sense of the mood and temper of the voters. This last part is VITAL to having a meaningful opinion. Will Republicans vote in higher numbers than 2000? Lower numbers than 2002? Will Bush get 9% of the Black vote or 12%? 18%?

John Zogby has not shown that he has any expertise beyond polling, thus it is a waste of everyone's time for TV talking heads to ask him who he THINKS will win on Election Day.

Zogby has wavered all over the map, saying months ago that Kerry would win, then apparently telling Robert Novak that Bush will win, and now evidently doubling back and saying Kerry will win. None of his predictions matter because he is a pollster not a prophet.

If it LOOKS like Desperation...

and SMELLS like Desperation, there is a real good chance it's DESPERATION.

I am referring to NYTrogate and the "missing explosives" that John Kerry has made such a huge deal of the past couple of days.

Kerry's harping on this story was raw political opportunism but it was also incredibly stupid. Handed an "issue" like this, the Kerry campaign should have relied on outside operatives to press the "Bush is a futz" line. The candidate should have looked grave and concerned, indicated that he did not feel he should discuss such a vitally important event until all the facts are known, and gone about his business of pressing his CORE issues.

What Kerry did was drop all the talking points he has honed over the past month (that seemed to be working to some degree) and allow himself to crawl WAYOUT on a limb to make a dubious charge out of rumor and hearsay. Dick Morris strongly points this out in today's NY Post.

Now he is starting to pay for this blunder. I suspect the polling numbers will start to move decisively in W's direction the rest of the way. This was one flop by Flipper too many.

Rasmussen Update

Yesterday I showed the last several days worth of the Rasmussen tracking poll that appear to show a Bush Trend. Today's numbers don't belie that notion.

Date Bush Kerry Movement Cumulative
Oct 22 49.1 45.9 Baseline
Oct 23 48.0 46.7 Bush -1.9
Oct 24 47.6 47.2 Bush -0.9 -2.8
Oct 25 46.4 48.4 Bush -2.4 -5.2
Oct 26 47.8 47.8 Bush +2.0 -3.2
Oct 27 48.8 47.1 Bush +1.7 -1.5
Oct 28 48.9 46.9 Bush +0.3 -1.2

So the "Bush Trend" continues as the President has regained a 2% lead on Kerry and putting the race back to within 1.2% of where it was last Friday. Compared to Monday's numbers, Bush has gained 4% relative to Kerry. When "leaners" are included Bush goes to 49.7 tantalizingly close to the magic number of 50%.

The reason I key on Rasmussen is simply because he is there. I don't personally put a great amount of faith in this or ANY poll, when the numbers are this close. However a trend is a trend is a trend.

Strengthening Rasmussen's case is the fact that both TIPP (47B-44K) and Zogby/Reuters (48B-46K) are showing almost identical numbers.

I don't have much faith in ANY of these three polls but I'd rather be leading in all three than trailing in all three!

Polls and predictions.

This bit of information comes from over at CrushKerry.com and purportedly are the words of a longtime Republican insider who worked in the Reagan campaigns:

"In the next couple of days you will see a trend that shows Kerry taking a small but consistent lead against President Bush. I'm talking one or two points. And then, almost without warning or explanation, you will see the President open up a four- to six-point lead on or around Thursday. And that trend will carry the President through Election Day."

What is interesting to me is that this was in a post from this past Friday. So far he is hitting it pretty close. Kerry in fact did inch ahead in several polls released Sunday and Monday. Now we are starting to see Bush re-gain some traction.

Take Rasmussen for example. Many people swear by him and just as many swear at him, but as far as I know he uses consistent methods from poll to poll and thus while he may or may not be accurate, you can at least compare his polls to each other and get a sense for how things MAY be moving.

Let's look at his numbers for each day, starting on Friday (the day of the prediction by the GOP insider) and through today October 27.

Date Bush Kerry Movement Cumulative
Oct 22 49.1 45.9 Baseline
Oct 23 48.0 46.7 Bush -1.9
Oct 24 47.6 47.2 Bush -0.9 -2.8
Oct 25 46.4 48.4 Bush -2.4 -5.2
Oct 26 47.8 47.8 Bush +2.0 -3.2
Oct 27 48.8 47.1 Bush +1.7 -1.5

So what you see is a very clear movement toward Kerry and then just as clear a movement back toward Bush, just as predicted by Mr. Insider. Bush relative to Kerry is still 1.5% behind where he started on Friday, so the next two days of polling will be highly interesting to see.

One cautionary note, I have been told that Rasmussen had one day of polling that was clearly an anti-Bush outlier, however over that period from Friday to Monday, there was steady movement that went well beyond a single "bad poll day".

Very striking is the fact that the Rasmussen poll shows a huge 3.7% swing in just two days, from Kerry +2 to Bush +1.7.

When Rasmussen adds in the "leaners" the numbers go to Bush 49.5 and Kerry 48.1 meaning that Kerry is getting roughly 63% of undecideds who admit which way they are leaning.

Another 1.9% say they are still completely undecided and according to Rasmussen probably 50% of those will not even bother to vote. All of which, if correct, makes for a VERY steep hill for Kerry to climb.

All of that for what it is worth.

New links with more politics!

Just recently I've stumbled across a couple more excellent blogs. The Horse Race Blog is simply incredible. Jay puts a lot of effort into breaking down the various polls and inspecting their methods and numbers. I am very anxious to see how correctly he predicts this election. His statistical analysis is fascinating stuff and strikes me as likely to be closer to the real world numbers than anyone else's. His blog is crammed full of outstanding stuff for the political junkie.

The other new link is to Daly Thoughts, another really interesting site. It is chock full of electoral polls and predictions and Gerry updates each state as new polls roll in. The site layout is a little bit quirky but well worth the time it takes to learn your way around.

Both of these blogs seem to be well grounded and not prone to going overboard with the optimism or pessimism. Two really fine sites that I heartily recommend.

A full weekend.

Not many years ago weekends were mainly a down time in the news cycle. Sure there were the Sunday morning network political shows and the Sunday paper, but otherwise Saturday and Sunday were given over to yard work, BBQ's, family outings and watching football or baseball on TV.

In the new age of the Internet(s?) the news ( and most importantly the campaign news) just barrels ahead without the slightest pause. I spent a good part of Sunday sifting through a lot of information and opinion and I am left with a very good feeling for where this presidential race is headed.

To cut to the chase, President Bush is ahead and probably becoming more unbeatable with each passing day. John Kerry is just too much of an opportunistic and plastic man to win the office. The Washington Times this morning broke a story that reveals again that Kerry suffers from a debilitating case of Algores Syndrome. In other words he exaggerates (lies) about what he has done and who he has talked with etc.

Kerry is probably the least accomplished major party candidate since Warren G. Harding in 1920. In fact Harding at least ran the family newspaper fairly well. What has Kerry EVER accomplished aside from winning elective office? Now winning an election IS an accomplishment, but Kerry has NEVER done anything once he got into office. Nothing. Twenty years in the U.S. Senate and NOTHING to show for it. The man is a cipher, a chameleon, the sole actor in a one act play entitled Me Me Me.

I have a lot of respect for David Broder. Broder is a throwback to a time when reporters and pundits behaved in manner Lawrence O'Donnell could never understand. While Broder is unquestionably left of center, he is honest and generally fair. His latest column is damning for John Kerry. At first blush Broder seems to diss both candidates, but it becomes clear when one sums it up, that while Broder considers George W. Bush to be greatly flawed, he finds John Kerry to be COMPLETELY lacking in the essential qualities needed to be President.

The closing paragraph of Broder's column is telling: "Viewed in this light, the choice for the country becomes one of confirming an executive with visible and even fundamental shortcomings or entrusting the presidency to a man whose habits of mind and of action are far removed from the challenges of the White House." That, my friends, is a stake through John Kerry's election hopes.

For a concise reason as to why Broder (and millions more) feel this way about John F. Kerry, ponder the quote in the concluding paragraph in the Times UN story:

"In an interview published in the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Kerry was asked what he would want people to remember about his presidency. He responded, "That it always told the truth to the American people." "

While certainly "truth" is a laudable goal for any politician, I wonder what Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, or Ronald Reagan would have thought of Mr. Kerry's choice?

Good news a plenty.

Almost all the polling numbers being released today are good for the President. The fact that he is still campaigning in Pennsylvania is also a good indication that Karl Rove sees strong movement in the GOP's direction.

Naturally Pennsylvania could be a feint intended to force Kerry out of Ohio and Florida to defend a Gore state. However I doubt it. I strongly suspect that Rove senses weakness and is moving aggressively to exploit it.

Remember, in order to win, Kerry MUST capture Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes, Bush doesn't.

The most shocking poll today is the Detroit News showing Bush with a four point lead in Michigan. If Michigan is truly in play, John Kerry is in deep, deep, trouble. A possible explanation for the Bush lead is the fact that "state ballot Proposal 2 defining marriage as strictly between one man and one woman [is] winning easily, with a 67 percent to 24 percent margin."

If 67% of Michigan voters are opposed to same-sex marriage, then it much more likely that this poll is not the outlier it is being treated as.

Hell hath no hissy like a Sodomite scorned

Andrew Sullivan is widely linked to by conservative blogs because he has obtained a reputation as a not totally anti-GOP homosexual. Some of Sullivan's impulses are in a logical direction, so this earned him quite a bit of attention from some conservatives.

It is time those conservatives drop back and reassess. Sullivan is a typical liberal screw who is simply not quite as mindless as some of his fellow travelers. Sullivan actually indicated early on in the campaign, that he was likely to support Bush. However, once George W Bush came out against same-sex marriage, Sullivan has been throwing a massive temper tantrum and attacking the President at every turn.

Now Sullivan has decided that Pat Robertson (of all people) is telling the absolute truth and is correct to the tiniest detail, on the idiotic notion that Bush thought there would be no casualties in Iraq. If anyone doubted what a disgusting person Sullivan was before, this episode should clear up their confusion nicely.

Like most Republicans I don't care what two consenting adults do in their free time. Whatever my personal opinion of morality, the habits of other adults are for God to sort out not me. But there comes a moment when a great political party MUST take a stand on the major issues of the day. Freedom of speech. Slavery. Abortion. Deviant sexual behavior.

The time is well past that Republicans should waste any time coddling the homosexual lobby. Call sexual deviancy by its correct name and then just get on with life. Presumably the GOP opposes adultery, but that certainly does not preclude adulterers from being Republicans. Any whinny brats like Sullivan who decide to put the issue of acceptance of their bedtime jollies ahead of national security, deserve the Democratic Party and vice versa.

Good riddance girls and boys.

Two weeks and a day

Man, this waiting is killing me. I have never been on pins and needles over a presidential election like this one. The polls are gyrating like I have never seen them before. Zogby for instance goes from Kerry ahead by 3, to Bush up by 4, to Even, all in one week!

What does it all mean? For one thing I feel fairly strongly that some funny business is going on with SOME of the polls. One poll that seems much more even is Rasmussen. He has had the race within Bush up 2 - Kerry up 2, for weeks now. That is likely where the race actually is.

The most famous poll, Gallop, seems to be as loony as any, going from Bush way up to Even to Bush way up again. I just find it hard to believe that the electorate is THAT undecided. In fact I think 95% of the voters are "decided" and another 3-4% are virtually "decided". I suspect only 1-2% are still actually unsure of who will get their vote.

MaryGate continues to generate news and comment. While I doubt that many Kerry voters will switch to Bush over this issue, I do think it could cause some of his soft support to stay home or vote for Nader.

I base this observation on what I think is one of Kerry's and the Democratic Party's biggest weaknesses. His support is made up of dozens of splinter groups. What's left of the Unions, what's left of the feminists, radical gays, peaceniks, what's left of the civil rights era black groups, tree huggers, trial lawyers, various socialist nuts organizations, ditto utopian dreamers organizations, and 10 or 15 pre-Carter Democrats who never got around to leaving the Party 25 years ago.

Some of these people are very weird. They move about in a world where up and down are the same thing. Common sense and practicality are constructs with which they are unfamiliar. Little comments like Kerry's Mary Cheney gaffe will cause some of them to throw their hands in the air, stomp off in a dander and vote for Nader or maybe just stay home and be sad on Election Day.

From news reports and from my own experience, the people most offended are women. I spoke with one woman over the weekend who is a life-long Democrat and she was withering in her criticism and denunciation of Kerry.

Ticking off women is the last thing Kerry needs at this point.

17 Days

Just over two weeks away and the election is seemingly tight as a tick on flea bitten hound dog.

Here is a quick synopsis of how I THINK we got here.

1. 2000 election extremely close and controversial, thus 2004 likely to be also.

2. 9-11 refocused Americans' minds and priorities.

3. Bush did very well in the months following 9-11 and gained much respect and support.

4. Americans generally supported both Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

5. When the Iraq war continued after the 4th Quarter ended, inevitably many left of center Americans started getting cold feet and backed off from their "support" for the President.

6. As the Democratic Party went through its nomination process, many more Democrats returned to the fold and made this a close race.

7. The Democratic Convention was in hindsight a mess, but it gave the Kerry campaign a brief appearance of momentum and perhaps a small lead.

8. August was an unmitigated disaster for Kerry, with the Swift Boat Vets dominating the news.

9. The GOP convention was a distinct success and Bush started to build a lead.

10. RatherGate further damaged Kerry and boosted Bush into a considerable margin of from 6-12 points.

11. The first debate badly damaged Bush. Perhaps his greatest strength is his folksiness as contrasted with Kerry's aloofness. In the debate Bush appeared to many as grouchy, rude, and petty, and the polls were suddenly showing a near dead even race.

12. In the last two debates Bush recovered nicely and while perhaps "losing" on style, actually won on substance. Most Americans can tell the difference and Bush opened a 1-3 point lead.

13. MaryGate jumped up out of the bullrushes to bite Kerry's posterior and give Bush a further nudge of perhaps another full point.

That is where we stand today.

I think Bush currently has something between a 2-4 point lead. More importantly he appears to lead in enough states to reach 270 electoral votes.

The next two weeks will be most interesting.

They have no shame

My wife had ABC's morning show on TV as I gulped my coffee at about 8:15. I was lending only half an ear to the background noise until I heard this:

"Teresa Heinz Kerry is benefiting from the Bush tax cuts" blah blah blah.

So, in a story revealing that zillionaire THK paid a paltry percentage in federal taxes, she is neatly left off the hook because it is all George Bush's fault.

Apparently ABC is hewing closely to Mark Halperin's edict to screw the Bush campaign no matter where the truth lies.

Media Bias

If there is a more objectionable person, posing as an unbiased member of the media, than Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, I'll be a Deaniac if I know who it is.

Last night on "Scarborough Country" with guest host Pat Buchanan, I got my first, and with luck last, look and listen to O'Donnell. Also joining the discussion was Bob Zelnick, former ABC News Pentagon correspondent and presently the chairman of the Journalism Department at Boston University.

I have always liked Zelnick and considered him an honest broker of the truth in his years at ABC. I assumed it would be a fairly straightforward discussion about the final debate.

You can read the transcript by using the link above and scrolling down, so I won't bother with a blow by blow description. Instead here are some of O'Donnell's most absurd words for your perusal. Keep in mind that O'Donnell is billed as "MSNBC SR. POLITICAL ANALYST".

The following comments are regarding John Kerry's "Mary" answer Wednesday night.

Totally Unbiased Major Media Guy Lawrence O'Donnell:

"I don't think he crossed the line.
There's a Gallup poll that indicates that his win in the third debate was just about the same size as his win in the first debate, enormous win, 52-39. Now, that's who is judging the debate. It doesn't matter what we think.

.....that line did not seem to jar the public, who gave a huge win to Kerry in the polling on this debate."

In response to a question about Lynne Cheney's angry-mom comments:

"That's a 100 percent political reaction, 100 percent. She was sent out there to say that, and she did it. "

"Her response has no substance."

And then this incredible exchange:

BUCHANAN: She does not think her daughter's sexuality ought to be brought up by a presidential candidate in a national debate.

O'DONNELL: It wasn't brought up by a presidential candidate.

(CROSSTALK) .

O'DONNELL: It was brought up by Bob Schieffer.

A barefaced lie pure and simple.

And then O'Donnell crawls inside the brain of George W. Bush:

O'DONNELL: "It's pretty clear that this president has never had a conversation with any gay American anywhere on the question of, is this a choice? "

So for the President to have a valid opinion he first must have "a conversation with a gay on the question of is this a choice"? What a clueless twit.

Maureen Dowd of all people, says in today's New York Times:

"Mr. Kerry showed the bite in his overwhitened, overeager "I'm smarter than you but I'm trying not to show it" grin when he strategically dragged Dick Cheney's gay daughter back into the debate, a dead-wrong thing to do."

Irrefutable evidence that someone farther removed from reality than Miss Dowd actually exists.

Other than the absurdity of his words, the most striking thing about O'Donnell was his almost zombie like appearance and delivery. If he had been hypnotized and instructed to defend Kerry no matter the cost, he would not have looked differently. He hardly even reacted to Zelnick's comments (which were pitched almost perfectly in my opinion) but stuck to the line that essentially equaled "Kerry Good, Bush Bad".

And people wonder why Fox clobbers MSNBC every night.

Unprecedented?

Probably not, but the 2004 presidential elections continues to surprise with it twists and turns. The race now appears to be......well, all over the place. National polls are coming out daily that flatly contradict each other. Today Gallop has Kerry up by 1 while WaPo/ABC has Bush up 6. Yesterday Rasmussen had Bush up 4 and Zogby had Kerry up 3.

These all (except WaPo/ABC) fall within the MOE and the "internals" become all the more vital. There are all kinds of yak-yak going on about which polls are "fair" and the methodology of each poll.

My sense is that Bush is still ahead but that we are at a tilting point. Think of the election as being balanced on a pivot. Currently Bush controls the action, but any miscalculation could see Kerry move out in front, and not just by a little. If Kerry ever starts to actually surge, look out. Thus far Kerry has not polled above 50%.

I still believe that Karl Rove knows what he is doing. The only elected incumbent Republican to lose a re-election effort since 1932 was GHWB, and he lost because he had no Karl Rove. Lee Atwater died between the '88 and '92 campaigns and the contrasting results showed how valuable Atwater was.

In the final "debate" Bush needs to continue the progress he made in second one, and if he does so, he will be well positioned to win on Election Day.

The race tightens

Recent polls continue to show the margin narrowing between President Bush and John Kerry. This was expected and predicted by most pundits and experts and thus is slight cause for gnashing of teeth by Republicans.

When the polls are disected and their internals sifted, and then applied to the reality of the individual state polls, it becomes ever more apparent that GWB is headed for a narrow but decisive victory.

Tomorrow night's debate is important. It gives Mr. Bush a chance to beat back the impression that Kerry clobbered him in their first encounter. While I don't believe that the debates will determine who wins or loses, they may well have a considerable impact on the final margin. For instance, I would now say that my prediction of a couple weeks ago of perhaps a 55-45 landslide seems out of reach. 52-48 seems more likely from this post-debate vantage point.

The time grows short, with less than four weeks till Election Day.

Post Debate thoughts

I did not watch the debate. I have read, extensively, the opinions of those who did see it. Putting those comments together with the early post-debate polling data, I've reach a few conclusions.

Kerry stanched the bleeding and probably saved himself from complete embarrassment on Election Day. Bush appears to have been poorly prepared which just flat out amazes and angers me. No excuse for it.

Karl Rove should have grabbed W by the ears and shouted in his face after that performance. Showing "annoyance" by making faces and behaving like a high school freshman is incredibly immature and stupid.

Come on Mr. President, be the man you have been since 9-11, not the irresponsible party boy you were 40 years ago.

I like George W. Bush, but he needs to rise above the limits of his father and become a true man of the people. A man who can take a poke in the rhetorical nose, maintain his calm and use his sense of humor to diffuse the moment.

This is still W's race to lose. I think the polls will loosen back up over the next few days, but the President needs a solid performance in the next debate to regain lost momentum.

Is a Landslide possible?

I think the answer is emphatically YES!

Political campaigns are deeply bound by tradition and generally follow along well worn paths. Many folks are reluctant to break out of habits well learned until they actually step into the voting booth. An election that illustrates this very well is 1980.

All through that campaign, the polls showed a relatively tight race. Reagan was considered by the chattering class as too much of a cowboy, dangerous, reckless etc. Many Americans thus kept their intention to vote for him to themselves. I have long felt that this explains why polls generally under count the GOP's support.

On election day Reagan destroyed Jimmy Carter. Reagan got 51% of the vote in a three way race and lead Carter by 10 percentage points. With the exception of Reagan's dismantling of the hapless Walter Mondale four years later, no presidential election since then has seen a margin anywhere near that large.

George W. Bush came into office under less than ideal conditions. He lost the popular vote (for what that is worth, more on that in a future post), and he won the electoral vote by the barest of margins and only after a several weeks long Gortantrum. Many pundits along with the Democratic Party, assumed this would cloud Bush's chances for a second term.

Then September 11, 2001 happened. In a single morning of horror, the earth shifted and politics as we knew it ceased to exist. That single fact, barring a bizarre and unprecedented meltdown by George W. Bush in tonight's debate, will re-elect the President and by a margin outside that which is suggested by current polls.

When voters across the nation enter the voting booth and prepare to pull the lever (or punch the screen, or whatever) the last thought they will have, the last image they will contemplate will decide their vote.

It won't be Social Security, or unemployment, or gay marriage, or tax cuts, or Vietnam. Enron won't matter nor will Halliburton or Damn Rather. Milk price supports, wind surfing, idiots from Hollywood, and gas prices won't matter.

What will rise before the mind's eye and fill Americans with resolve, will be two towers burning and falling, a national symbol with a plane embedded in one of its five sides, an open field in Pennsylvania where good men confronted evil.

I believe that when Americans make this most important of choices, a surprisingly large number of them will vote for George W. Bush. In five weeks we will know for sure, but at this moment I suspect the president will gather something on the order of 55% of the popular vote, well over 300 electoral votes, and John Kerry will join George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis as men who ran for the wrong job against the wrong man at the wrong time.

The Road to 270

Alabama 9 Bush 9
Alaska 3 Bush 12
Arizona 10 Bush 22
Arkansas 6 Bush 28
California 55 Kerry 55
Colorado 9 Bush 37
Connecticut 7 Kerry 62
Delaware 3 Kerry 65
District of Columbia 3 Kerry 68
Florida 27 Bush 64
Georgia 15 Bush 79
Hawaii 4 Kerry 72
Idaho 4 Bush 83
Illinois 21 Kerry 93
Indiana 11 Bush 94
Iowa 7 Bush (a switch) 101
Kansas 6 Bush 107
Kentucky 8 Bush 115
Louisiana 9 Bush 124
Maine 4 Kerry 97
Maryland 10 Kerry 107
Massachusetts 12 Kerry 119
Michigan 17 Kerry 136
Minnesota 10 Kerry 146
Mississippi 6 Bush 130
Missouri 11 Bush 141
Montana 3 Bush 144
Nebraska 5 Bush 149
Nevada 5 Bush 154
New Hampshire 4 Bush 158
New Jersey 15 Kerry 161
New Mexico 5 Kerry 166
New York 31 Kerry 197
North Carolina 15 Bush 173
North Dakota 3 Bush 176
Ohio 20 Bush 196
Oklahoma 7 Bush 203
Oregon 7 Kerry 204
Pennsylvania 21 Kerry 225
Rhode Island 4 Kerry 229
South Carolina 8 Bush 211
South Dakota 3 Bush 214
Tennessee 11 Bush 225
Texas 34 Bush 259
Utah 5 Bush 264
Vermont 3 Kerry 232
Virginia 13 Bush 277*****
Washington 11 Kerry 243
West Virginia 5 Bush 282
Wisconsin 10 Bush 292
Wyoming 3 Bush 295

Bush 295
Kerry 243

These are very close to numbers I put out back in January. I have moved New Mexico back into Kerry's court, while switching Nevada back to Bush. Both states have five votes and thus offset each other.

The huge news, and the only changes I have made from the 2000 results, is Iowa and Wisconsin moving strongly into the Red State column.

Several states are really too close to call, including Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. I would not be shocked to see all four go to President Bush on election day.

In my next post I will explain why I believe the President will actually win by an even larger margin.

Hilarious

http://www.beecy.net/frank/

And-so-well-done!

Misled?

CBS and Dan Rather have now brought themselves to allow as how maybe they were misled.

What poppycock. "Misled" of course gets them cleanly off the hook. After all, slick salesmen "mislead" people. When your Granny paid $2000 to that fellow to asphalt her driveway and then she never saw him again, she had been misled. Get it? It was NOT her fault!

By merely admitting to being "misled" and expressing "regret" CBS continues to try to ignore, sidestep, and spin this whole imbroglio.

CBS needs to admit they committed a major journalistic mistake and then compounded it by refusing to admit any wrongdoing until today.

Then, they need to open themselves up to an independent investigation to address the appearance of improper practices.

Don't hold your breath. With their behavior over the past two weeks, CBS has shown total disregard for truth, honesty, fairness, and accountability.

Only their name is to be trusted. When you watch Dan Rather and the CBS Evening News, you do indeed see BS.

A dime's worth of difference.

Someone famously said that "there's not a dime's worth of difference" between America's two major parties.

While perhaps true at one time or another, today there are stark differences between the donkeys and the elephants.

After boiling all the yap-yap blather down to the bare bones, I find two extremely important differences.

The Democratic Party thinks most Americans are victims, of one kind or another, who must be "protected" from everyone (except maybe terrorists). Since the beginning of the Democratic Party in the 1820's, one of the overarching prime principles they have argued for is that "the people" are a weak lot, helpless, hapless, taken advantage of and powerless to fight back.

In contrast, the Republican Party has maintained from its genesis, that America is made up of individuals, and thus INDIVIDUAL liberty and responsibility is the only true hope of this nation.
Democrats used this difference to their advantage for most of the 20th Century. They convinced large segments of voters that THEY were for the little guy, while the GOP was for the rich. The facts are somewhat different.

Both parties actually favor "the rich". Life on this earth itself is geared toward the powerful. Money and power have many more options than poverty and weakness. This outstanding essay from William F. Buckley illustrates this beautifully.

Where the difference resides is in that while the Democrats would eternally enslave poor people and ensnare them in a net of never ending dependence, the GOP insists that EVERYONE be given a chance to stand or fall on their own.

As a core principle, Republicans believe that only through rigor can there be vigor. Patting folks on the head and giving them something today, does not prepare them for tomorrow, and more importantly does not allow them to become valuable and contributing members of society and co-owners of America's wealth and power.

The Democratic Party of 2004 finds itself firmly stuck in the ideas and problems of the 1930's. Because many Americans needed help during the Depression, the Democrats think they always will need that same level of "help". They have never caught on to the fact that the patient is much better and no longer needs the level of services that the New Deal provided.

To his ever lasting credit, Bill Clinton largely ended welfare (as we knew it for roughly 30 years) but his party can't seem to learn the lesson and move on to the new world.

The other clear and huge difference between the two parties is related to foreign policy and the use of America's power. Unlike the first difference, this one is of much more recent vintage.

Partisan squabbles are supposed to end at the water's edge, and generally speaking did for many decades. That is not to say that there weren't violent arguments about war and peace down through the ages, but through it all one principle was agreed to by America's leaders: American power should be used justly, wisely, sparingly, but at all times.....In America's Best Interests.

Today's Democratic Party is dominated by people who believe that American power is bad. Not just bad but evil. (What amazes me is how any GOP criticism of John Kerry's positions, immediately brings counter charges that the Republicans are "questioning my patriotism". Huh? No what Republicans and conservatives are "questioning" are your loony ideas. Ideas that if put in practice would endanger our nation and freedom around the world.)

Kerry Spot at NRO (scroll down to the 9/16 5:37PM entry) has referenced a Pew Research finding that suggests that 51% of Democrats blame the United States for 9-11.

That's what I'm talkin' about. Incredible.

The Democratic Party of FDR, Truman, Scoop Jackson and Joe Lieberman, no longer exists (Joe has not figured that out yet). In its place we have a pasty faced pack of fools who, riddled with guilt and cowardice, tries to appease murdering thugs by scorning the nation of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan, and you.

George W. Bush's Republican Party is too liberal and too wedded to big government, but on the two items discussed above, the GOP is still the only choice for conservatives.

Goodness!

It has been almost six months since my last post. I promise that won't happen again. I will be posting each Monday and Thursday and otherwise as the spirit moves me.

I have had a very hectic Spring and Summer but now I am ready to get down to it again.

The presidential race is shaping up much as I thought it would. The Kerry campaign however has been much more incompetent than I could have hoped.

I really am beginning to suspect that it is being systematically sabotaged from with-in.

My prediction from back in January still stands. Bush in a narrow but clear victory.

I will be reevaluating my state by state predictions before the end of the month.

Kerry begins his fall

As I have steadfastly maintained, John Kerry is looking less "presidential" every day.

The fact is that Bill Clinton has more class and grace than this product of Bahstan blue bloods.

John Kerry is a jerk. A self centered, ego maniacal, me first, jerk. Now he has added cussing a Secret Service agent for bumping His Highness, to his resume.

He brings NOTHING to the table beyond his desire to be important. A Kerry presidency would be a disaster that would make conservatives long for the Clinton Administration.

In fact I will go farther: President John Kerry would make Jimmy Carter look good.

Again, barring some horrific event, this election will be won by George W. Bush. What I have seen of the Bush campaign thus far, convinces me that Karl Rove is in full possession of his faculties, and will roast Mr. Kerry as he richly deserves.

A double dose of good news for the President.

The economy continues to roll as the fourth quarter numbers have been released and show a growth rate of 4.1%.

This paragraph buried deep inn the AP story is enlightening:

"The economy's performance in the second half of last year marked the best back-to-back quarterly performance since the first two quarters of 1984."

In other words, since Ronald Reagan was president. Or put another way, better than Slick Willie ever managed. Do you suppose Peter Jennings will point that out on the news this evening?

The second bit of happy news is that the National Journal has just released its rankings of the members of the U.S. Congress, and one John Kerry is the MOST LIBERAL Senator. Yep, more liberal than Teddy K and more liberal than Barby Boxer. This is stunning stuff and Karl Rove MUST be drooling with thoughts of the ads he can run this Fall.

I will say it again, Bush will win re-election, and he will do it fairly easily.

Four More Years.

I am increasingly of a mind that George W. Bush will sweep back to power with a much larger win than 2000.

A race between two non-incumbents is much more unpredictable than when an incumbent is present.

Public opinion polls that purport to measure approval and disapproval can be tweaked in any way the poll taker wants the results to go. However the more questions that are asked, the harder it is for a dishonest polling effort to cover its tracks.

For instance, a poll that shows President Bush has only a 48% approval rating on foreign policy, yet also shows 65% support the Iraq War, almost by definition is unreliable.

When reading poll results, always read the full list of questions, find out what the sample number were (how many Dems, how many GOP etc), and when the poll was taken.

George W. Bush will win in November barring some huge disaster. My earlier prediction of a very narrow victory for Bush is still operative, but I now think Bush will collect closer to 350 electoral votes than the minimum of 270.

Drudge claims in question.

The news that Wesley Clark has now endorsed John Kerry calls in to strong doubt the Drudge Report story regarding possible Bimbo Eruptions in the ultra-liberal Senator's campaign.

Drudge had quoted Clark as predicting that "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." It seems very unlikely that even a quack like Clark would endorse Kerry if he thought he was going to "implode".

As I noted yesterday, Drudge and facts often go their separate ways and this may well be the latest spat between the two.

Here we go again.

I thought it was odd that Howard Dean was attacking Kerry with such ferocity the past few days. Given that Dean racked up 8% or so of the votes in states like Virginia and Tennessee while Kerry was at or over 50%, I naturally expected the other candidates to start kissing up to the apparent nominee.

I chalked Dean's comments up to the fact that he is Dean. Now however, it looks like there may be more to it than that. The Drudge Report has a high wattage alert that suggests that John Kerry's campaign is about to blow up over charges of "recent alleged infidelity".

Drudge admittedly has an uneven track record. There have been numerous times when he has totally missed the fact train. However, this report has a whiff of believability to it. Among other things, it maintains that "A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked."

The next few days may well turn the Democratic race on it ear. Again.

The love that won't shut up..

That is a hilarious line in a recent Powerline post from The Big Trunk.

Ever so often a short and simple phrase will sum up your feeling in way that 10,000 words could not.

The Good News that is all bad.

We live in strange times. Take this report from the AP for instance.

Unemployments drops to 5.6%, 112,000 new jobs added last month as opposed to only 12,000 added in December, yet it is bad news.

Why?

Because economists were PREDICTING that even more jobs would be added, that's why.

So because some economists misread their crystal ball, we should all wring our hands in despair. Right? Well not really.

The economy continues to exhibit signs that it is in a moderate but steady march in the right direction. Brick by brick the recovery is being built. By Summer I believe John Kerry will be twisting and turning in the strong wind of a full blown expansion.

The Fat Lady warms up.

Last night's win of five states by John Kerry pretty well finishes the race. John Edwards needed to win at least two states in order to maintain a strong position. He barely missed doing so in Oklahoma, losing by less than 1500 votes out of over 300,000 cast.

I still feel that Kerry is probably the weakest frontrunner that I have seen over the last 30 years. By this I mean that a TON of voters still chose someone else last night. Edwards and Clark drew respectable numbers and so did Dean and Lieberman considering they were the 4th and 5th place duo.

With only Lieberman dropping out, this race still has possible pitfalls for Kerry, but I suspect he will manage to avoid them. When preaching to the choir an experienced pol like Kerry will manage to hold the lead 99% of the time.

What was most impressive for Kerry was the fact that he carried states in all regions. Delaware, Missouri, Arizona/New Mexico and North Dakota.

Given the way this race has unfolded, I think a Kerry-Edwards ticket is very likely, with one caveat. IF the Democrats decide to "give up" on the South (except for Florida), then Edwards is far less attractive and Kerry may opt for a more experienced face from a swing state.

I still believe that Kerry has a record that the Bush Campaign will simply destroy, and I expect that 10 months from now the Democratic Party will once more be plunged into a round of intensive navel contemplation.

A pair of ninnies

Two very bad political decisions came to light today.

First, Howard Dean has announced that he will run no TV ads in the seven states voting on February 3. Instead he will save his dwindling resources for Michigan, Washington, and Wisconsin. Bad idea.

Kerry has a huge head of steam built up. If Dean does not knock it down ASAP then it's Katie Bar The Door.

Dean's best (in fact only) chance to win in the latter three states, is to exceed expectations on Tuesday. No way will he do that if he does not run all out in the next round.

Second, President Bush's horrible decision to up the funding for the execrable National Endowment for the Arts. This may well be the straw that breaks the conservative camel's back (or rather its spirit). It is amazing beyond my ability to manipulate the English language, that W is repeating the same politically stupid arc that his father did.

Like the Adams, it appears the Bush family is intent on a double dose of single terms.

Incredible.

The Fat Lady Has Not Yet Sung

Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina. That is a daunting mixture of states if you are a liberal from Massachusetts who can easily be linked with the most famous liberal from Massachusetts.

While John Kerry has clearly earned "frontrunner" status, I think maybe we should all step back and take a deep breath.

For starters, Kerry has yet to break the 40% barrier, and if you combine the vote of Dean, Edwards, and Clark, you reach exactly 50%. (In the FINAL count, Dean edged up to 26%, 12% behind Kerry.)Put another way, 62 percent of John Kerry's next door neighbors refused to vote for him.

John Kerry and his ultra-liberal track-record, will not play in those seven states I listed above, like he has in Iowa and New Hampshire. North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, are in the most conservative tier of states. Arizona and New Mexico have been trending more in the Democratic direction in recent years, but they are a completely different kettle of fish than either Iowa or New Hampshire. Delaware is solidly Democratic and the most likely one to be a pushover for Kerry. Missouri will be VERY interesting, especially if Richard Gephardt decides to make an endorsement.

The biggest point in Kerry's favor is the fact that his strongest opponent till now is also a liberal from New England. Howard Dean will also be on unfriendly terrain.

Clearly this coming Tuesday is THE big chance for Edwards, Clark, and Lieberman to make a strong showing. Lieberman is being written off by just about everyone, but he still has a chance to play the spoiler.

The expectation game is also a worry for Kerry. What if in a state like Oklahoma, Kerry comes in 4th? Or 5th? How will that play in the national media if results are mixed across the other states?

If I had to bet the ranch, I'd bet on Kerry, but given the choice I wouldn't wager on this race at all.

New Hampsire in their rear view....

With John Kerry's strong showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire, we now move into the meat of the primary season. The question on everyone's mind is: Can Kerry be stopped?

I suspect the answer is NO. While Dean has money, he has lost the traction he generated early on. Michael Barone made an interesting case on Fox last night, when he traced the beginning of Dean's collapse to the incident on January 11, when he had a run in with a questioner in Iowa.

The older gentleman, who was described as a Republican, requested that Dean treat "his neighbor" George Bush, with more kindness. Dean wound up telling the man to shut up. According to Barone, the tracking polls the very next day showed Dean losing support.

Edwards also has the money to go on, but I agree with many others who have pointed out that there is something about Edwards that seems less than ready for prime time.

Clark is hopeless. Arrogant and stupid is a bad combination.

Lieberman may actually begin to finish ahead of Clark when the action shifts to the more conservative South and Midwest.

At this point I think a Kerry-Edwards ticket seems a very likely outcome.

The Great New Hampshire debate

I watched (or more accurately listened to) a fair amount of last night's debate while installing a phone jack in the island of our kitchen.

The clear winner I thought was Kerry. He was smooth and believable. He did not come off as arrogant or puffed up after his sudden change of fortune.

Lieberman did well but it is doubtful it really matters.

Edwards did well on certain questions but stumbled around on others. I did note that he took at least one opportunity to kiss up to Kerry. It is never too soon to start positioning for Veep.

Clark showed further evidence of his loony cluelessness. This guy is easily the scariest of the five "serious" candidates.

Dean did fine, but he is in deep trouble and "fine" probably won't do more than stop the bleeding. He may have held onto to second place but I don't think he will mount a serious challenge to Kerry.

I thought Kucinich and Sharpton came off even loopier than I anticipated. My opinion of Peter Jennings ticked up a notch in light of his question to Sharpton regarding the Federal Reserve. Clearly Jennings used that question to reveal the Reverend Al to be the buffoon we all knew he was.

One moment that I thought was hilarious was when a member of the panel asked Kucinich about the "No Child Left Behind Act". The questioner started asking the question and then as an aside said something like "The No Child Left Behind Act" which I think you voted for" he then kind of paused to get a response, and the camera showed Kucinich with a look like a deer caught in headlights. Kucinich barely nodded his head, agreeing that he voted for the act. However, I suspect he really was not sure. When you are involved in thousands of votes, many times voting on several different versions of the same bill, it is easy to lose track of how you voted on the final bill. But no one would want to admit on national television that they don't remember how they voted. Not even Dennis Kucinich.

Return to the Electoral College

It has oft been said that if George W. Bush simply wins the same states he won last time, he will increase his margin due to the impact of the 2000 Census on the Electoral College.

I have done a quick overview of the states and find that this election in my mind will again be very close. Assuming John Kerry is the Democratic Nominee, I see very few states changing hands. Below is a list of the states, their 2004 Electoral Votes, who I pick to win, and a running tabulation of each candidate's total vote.

Alabama 9 Bush 9
Alaska 3 Bush 12
Arizona 10 Bush 22
Arkansas 6 Bush 28
California 55 Kerry 55
Colorado 9 Bush 37
Connecticut 7 Kerry 62
Delaware 3 Kerry 65
District of Columbia 3 Kerry 68
Florida 27 Bush 64
Georgia 15 Bush 79
Hawaii 4 Kerry 72
Idaho 4 Bush 83
Illinois 21 Kerry 93
Indiana 11 Bush 94
Iowa 7 Bush (a switch) 101
Kansas 6 Bush 107
Kentucky 8 Bush 115
Louisiana 9 Bush 124
Maine 4 Kerry 97
Maryland 10 Kerry 107
Massachusetts 12 Kerry 119
Michigan 17 Kerry 136
Minnesota 10 Kerry 146
Mississippi 6 Bush 130
Missouri 11 Bush 141
Montana 3 Bush 144
Nebraska 5 Bush 149
Nevada 5 Kerry (a switch) 151
New Hampshire 4 Bush 153
New Jersey 15 Kerry 166
New Mexico 5 Bush (a switch) 158
New York 31 Kerry 197
North Carolina 15 Bush 173
North Dakota 3 Bush 176
Ohio 20 Bush 196
Oklahoma 7 Bush 203
Oregon 7 Kerry 204
Pennsylvania 21 Kerry 225
Rhode Island 4 Kerry 229
South Carolina 8 Bush 211
South Dakota 3 Bush 214
Tennessee 11 Bush 225
Texas 34 Bush 259
Utah 5 Bush 264
Vermont 3 Kerry 232
Virginia 13 Bush 277*****
Washington 11 Kerry 243
West Virginia 5 Bush 282
Wisconsin 10 Kerry 253
Wyoming 3 Bush 285

Bush 285
Kerry 253

You can see that I have only three states switching from their 2000 result. Nevada moves to the Democratic side and New Mexico and Iowa go for Bush. If we take New Mexico and Iowa away from Bush and give them back to Kerry it makes the vote:

Bush 273
Kerry 265

Under that scenario imagine that New Hampshire, which went for Bush by only 7000 votes (Bush got 48% to Gore's 47%), switched its 4 votes to Kerry. That would bring about this result:

Bush 269
Kerry 269

I suggest we all fasten our chin-straps, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The issue that dare not speak it's name.

Of the many special interest groups who exist today on the U.S. political stage, homosexuals are one of the most unusual.

How a person feels about homosexuals is a product of upbringing and personal belief. The coalitions in favor of and opposed to, according homosexuals full rights in American Law, are both made up of unusually diverse groups.

The time draws near when the Republican Party will need to come out of the closet and take a stand one way or the other. For many years, the unofficial position of the GOP has been one that is against homosexual rights, while at the same time carefully avoiding making that a major issue in any campaigns.

The reasons for this are obvious. Most importantly, many swing voters are of the belief that what two adults do is their, and their alone, business. Also, there are homosexual conservatives, and naturally the GOP has desired holding on to their votes and money.

The homosexuals however are getting restless. The time is near when there will be a major push to legalize marriage between two men and between two women. When that moment comes, there can be no fence straddling by the Republicans. The decision made at that point will define the future of American politics for many years.

If the GOP comes out against homosexual marriage, they will lose virtually every homosexual vote from that point forward. Additionally, they will lose a good size chunk of cultural liberals/fiscal conservatives who will be uncomfortable supporting an anti-homosexual Republican Party.

If the GOP instead takes a stand in favor of homosexual marriage, the party will lose massive amounts of support from Bible believing Christians, and many other cultural conservatives. Additionally, they will fail to pick up support from traditionally Democratic, but culturally conservative groups, who might move toward the Republicans if homosexual marriage becomes an issue that defines the differences between the two major parties.

Andrew Sullivan, a homosexual and sometimes conservative, illustrates the impatience that ever more characterizes the homosexual lobby. On his blog he writes:

".....the president wants the credit of being tolerant without talking the real talk, let alone walking the real walk. If gay people have dignity and value in God's sight, why are we unmentionable? Why are we talked about as if we are some kind of untouchable? Why in three years has this president not even been able to say the word 'gay' or 'homosexual'? The reason: because Bush will not confront bigotry outright. He wants to benefit from it while finding a formula to distance himself from it. That's not a moral stand. It's moral avoidance."

Sullivan is correct that President Bush is still attempting to finesse the issue. No surprise there, since politicians of all stripes finesse as many issues as possible. But Sullivan points out a very important fact. President Bush has to date failed to take an up or down position on homosexual marriage, and he likely will be able to continue with that non-position through the 2004 election.

In future national elections however, it becomes increasingly likely that the Republican Party will be forced to take a stand. Just as it did on abortion a quarter century ago. Just as it did on slavery a century and a half ago.

Moral issues don't go away. Moral issues can't be ignored forever. Moral issues eventually demand that both major parties take an official stand.

The decision made by the Republicans on homosexual marriage will be the most defining position taken by the Party since it became the defender of the unborn in the late 70's and early 80's.

Looking back at Iowa

I have spent the past 40 hours cogitating on the result in Iowa. I was thoroughly flabbergasted over the last week as Kerry and Edwards surged from the basement to the penthouse.

I still am not sure that anyone really has explained what happened. Many pundits point to this or that and proclaim the answer found. I think they are all right and all wrong.

Let us consider the fact that of the four serious candidates in Iowa, two moved up and two moved down. Had it simply been a case of John Kerry catching fire (something that is hard to imagine) then one might think that this was nothing more than outstanding political operations on his part. But Edwards too? And how to explain the tandem free-fall of Dean and Gephardt?

The major factors that I think brought about the current alignment are as follows:
1. Dean began imploding in December, with his idiotic statements on various international issues.
2. The capture of Saddam Hussein hastened the process as Dean began to look loony even by liberal standards.
3. Gephardt paid dearly for his unstinting (for a Democrat) support of the Iraq War.
4. Old-line union support ain't what it used to be.
5. Kerry and Edwards were the comfortable middle ground left between the old hat, boring, pro-war Gephardt and the manic, angry, anti-war Dean.

Americans are moderate when gauged against worldwide standards of conduct, even our loony left. In the end the Iowa voters opted for what they saw as the calmer, nicer, liberal but not nutty, against the war but not totally, choices.

Then, Howard Dean proved that they were right about him. He proceeded to go nuts and act like a mad dog. Caucus night he bounced out on stage, whacked Sen. Tom Harkin a violent high-five, handed Harkin his coat, yanked the microphone from him, and went into an enraged tantrum of weird behavior before the nation's eyes.

Dean is finished. At this point a Kerry-Edwards ticket seems likely. Stay tuned.

This commentary induced by the recent PBS series on the Civil War, is the first really disappointing piece I have read on Powerline.

It is bellicose in tone and ignorant in content. I won't bother to refute Deacon's comments point by point but I will use a couple for illustration. He mentions a certain "Marshall Twitchell, a union officer who installed himself in upper Louisiana after the Civil War, became a wealthy planter, saw most of his family killed by a white gang, and lost both arms in an assassination attempt before escaping to the North. PBS found the great-great grandson of the leader of the gang that drove Twitchell out. This guy couldn't suppress his pride in his ancestor or his glee in Twitchell's fate. I couldn't help wondering whether there was any way to prosecute this yahoo for his great-great grandaddie's crimes."

Whoa! This type of namecalling and anger toward "this yahoo" is more in line with how liberals view the world than the conservatives on Powerline. What Deacon casually ignores is: How did a union officer "install himself"? Was it legal? Or was Twitchell just another crook using the cover of war to enrich himself? That he "installed himself" AND became a "wealthy planter" suggests that Mr. Twitchell was no saint. Perhaps he richly deserved what the yahoo's ancestor dished out.

Deacon's treatment of Andrew Johnson is also execrable, referring to him as "the racist egomaniac Andrew Johnson". While Johnson will never rate high on anyone's list of great presidents, he in fact carried out much of Lincoln's plan for the South. To make anything out of the fact that he was "racist" is absurd. Virtually every white person on Earth was racist in that time. Abe Lincoln himself was racist. When judging the people of the 1860's, one can not superimpose modern day feelings about race. In the time he lived, Johnson was a moderate who sided with the Union in spite of being a border state Democrat.

Finally, Deacon exhibits a pollyanna mentality when viewing the "white Northerners" of the Civil War period. Read any good book on the presidency of Lincoln, and you will find that "white Northerners" darn near drove him over the edge. Nothing Lincoln did made more than about 30% of the "white Northerners" happy at any one time. You had the abolitionists who demanded that Lincoln free the slaves NOW!, regardless of how many border states that action might deliver to the Confederacy. You had the other extreme, who demanded he NOT free the slaves because they believed the North would be flooded with Negroes (although that is not the "n" word they typically used). And there was a middle ground that disliked slavery, and wanted it contained to the South, but were unwilling to accept blacks as anything approaching equal.

The Civil War was brought about by stupidity and greed. On both sides. The vision of Lincoln was to preserve the Union, heal the wounds and get back to "normal" as soon as possible. Lincoln understood that it was slavery and the South's leaders who were rotten, not the common people. Cut off the corrupt head and the average people could be brought back into the fold.

What liberals (and seemingly Deacon) want, is to forever re-fight the war. Continue to punish the South and rub its defeated nose in the dirt. Pretend that the North was all sweetness and light, and the South was all venal and greedy.

Perhaps the most puzzling thing is why Deacon would swallow PBS's version of any serious subject matter in the first place.

Clark is cooked.

If this report just put out by Drudge is correct, it is difficult to imagine Wesley Clark surviving this revelation.

Clark is really worse than Dean. More unprincipled and more of a liar. I would imagine that it is unprecedented for a "serious" contender for a major party nomination, to be so clearly undeserving of it.

I am not a Democrat, but I hope that if I was, I would be grossly offended by this man's deceit and bald opportunism.

This combined with what is starting to come out about Howard Dean's past opinions on use of force, should make Gephardt and Kerry look like principled statesmen by comparison to the Wes & Howie vaudeville act.

The Race Tightens

I am shocked at the latest set of polls coming out of Iowa. Not so much that Howard Dean is falling back, but that John Kerry is apparently surging. The new numbers from a Zogby Poll reported by WHO-TV in Des Moines, show Kerry is now in the lead at 22 percent. Dean and Dick Gephardt are tied at second place with 21 percent. John Edwards is fourth with 17 percent. The margin of error is +/- 4.5%

My assumption all along was that Dean would move back and Gephardt would take the lead. I thought Kerry was dead, done for, toast. If Kerry can win in Iowa, he suddenly turns this contest into a very interesting race.

How Does Dean Aim To Win? Conclusion

My impression of Howard Dean (have you noticed that the N.Y. Times almost ALWAYS refers to him as Dr. Dean?) leads me to suspect that while he is clearly a savvy politician, he falls into an all too familiar trap: He believes his own PR.

I think Dean really believes that he has caught lightening in bottle. That he has found something no one else knows about, and that he is therefore unstoppable. Dean has the ability to come across as "honest", but as with many "honest" people, you quickly realize that honesty in this case is just Howard saying whatever pops into his skull.

Suggesting President Bush knew about 9-11 ahead of time was not honest, it was stupid.

Prattling on about his fight with a church over a bike path was not honest, it was stupid.

Saying the U.S. was not safer because Saddam Hussein was captured was not honest, it was stupid.

Going to some pains to defend Osama Bin Laden's right to a fair trail was STUPID.

Saying it did not matter who tried Bin Laden, was STUPID.

Howard Dean is a walking talking trash can who can't help himself. What should terrify all intelligent Democrats is the prospect of a Dean/Clark pairing. That would rival Mondale/Ferraro and McGovern/Shriver as the worst major party ticket of the last 100 years or so.

Now back to the issue of how Dean might run after sewing up the nomination. My educated guess is that:

1. He will track back toward the center on one or two major issues. Gay marriage is a likely target, along with maybe a pronouncement on race echoing Bill Clinton's Sister Soulja episode during 1992.
2. He will move his few moderate positions such as guns, front and center, and harp on them incessantly.
3. He will continue to hammer President Bush on the Iraq war, the deficit and tax policy.
4. He will maintain a number of very liberal policy positions to keep his base fired up AND because he actually thinks that helps him.

Now the match-up. I think Bush vs Dean is an outstanding match-up for Bush. Beside Dean, Bush will appear very serious and presidential. I think Dean's manner will wear on the American Public after a while. Actually I think his star is starting to dim already, ten months before the election. Chihuahuas can be fun but their constant yapping gets on your nerves after a while.

As has been pointed out by many, if Bush wins the same states as in 2000, he will increase his margin due to reapportionment. At this point in the game, my assumption is that Bush *will* win every state he carried in 2000. By the same token I simply don't see Dean holding every Gore state. Thus I see comfortable victory for Bush if no cataclysmic event intervenes.

Bush will win on LIKEABLE, QUALIFIED, and IDEAS. A clean sweep. Dean has not a prayer except prayer, and I seriously doubt that anyone will be listening to him.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Pompous Ass Fired

The book by Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury Secretary, is a prime example of how cheap and dirty the political culture has became. Lacking the decency to wait till Bush was out of office to indulge in his temper tantrum, O'Neill is now causing the President a slight amount of discomfort, while making a remarkable fool of himself.

I doubt the damage to GWB will be that extensive or long lasting, but O'Neill has pretty thoroughly destroyed any paltry reputation he had left after his disastrous turn as Treasury Secretary.

I find his pontificating on Iraq and WMD particularly galling, given the fact that he was the Treasury Secretary. I was never aware that war and peace was part of the Treasury Secretary's portfolio. I realize he was a member of the National Security Council, but it still strikes me as a bit like the boy with the Gatorade squirt bottle, dramatically announcing that he had no advance warning that Joe Gibbs was coming back.

Mr. O'Neill is a fly-speck on the roll of former government officials, and it is sad that he had to prove it in such a tacky, trashy way.

Emanations and penumbras

Useful political discourse usually involves hard work. "Live free or die" is pretty simple and probably was not the product of an all night skull session, but such easy nuggets are few and far between.

However much of what is wrong, cockeyed, and out of whack, with political thought in this country, is HARD to explain in short, easy to understand ways.

The boys over at Powerline have done the hard work and produced a brilliant essay on Hugh Hefner's influence on American thought. "Hugh Hefner" in this case serves mainly as a metaphor for the broader problems present in today's America.

They very carefully draw the picture dot by dot, and show that much of what passes as serious thought in this country is devoid of...well...seriousness.

Texas Redistricting

When assessing redistricting efforts I attempt to retain my objectivity. Whether I support the map for partisan reasons or not, I want to be honest about whether it is a map drawn up within reasonable bounds.

The fight that has stood Texas on its ear the past couple of years seems to finally have been resolved in favor of the Republicans. The Dems will undoubtedly appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court but that likely will not lead to a reversal of the present ruling.

I realized today that I have never seen any of the maps, old, new, proposed. None. So I went hunting. Here is the "old" map and here is the "new" map.

My guiding principle is that gerrymandering is fine, but it should not extend to ridiculous shapes that wind back and forth like pretzels, and that as far as possible localities should not be split up.

Looking at the old and new together I would rate the new Republican plan as slightly more ugly than the old plan. Both of them however leave a lot to be desired, and neither party has any room to call the kettle black.

The good news? The GOP will likely pick up 6 seats in this November's election.

How Does Dean Aim To Win? Part 2:

In 1988, you had a terrible personality match up. George H.W. Bush and Mike Dukakis were both lacking in the charisma and warmth departments. LIKEABLE thus was not the main factor. I think this was a clear case of people deciding that Bush was simply the safer choice. Dukakis had some fairly nutty ideas and came across like a snotty math teacher. Bush merely pledged to continue Reagan's policies, and thus IDEAS (Reagan's in this case) carried the day. Bush clearly had better QUALIFIED credentials, but Dukakis also met the minimum requirements. Chalk Bush's win up to the enormous popularity of Ronald Reagan and his eight years in the White House. Along with 1976, keep this race in mind when considering 2004.

1992. Do we HAVE to discuss this one? Actually I already have in the first post of my dissertation on George Soros. Boiling the campaign down to its essentials, Bill Clinton clobbered GHWB in the LIKEABLE column. Bill Clinton is a likeable guy! Think what you will of his policies and his personal life, BC would be a fun person to hang with. Enough people decided that was important enough to earn their vote. Clinton was easily on top in IDEAS (GHWB never had many to begin with), and with Ross Perot swinging from the rafters, Clinton also appeared QUALIFIED.

1996 was more of the same as Bob Dole was simply crushed in the LIKEABLE line item, while failing to bring any IDEAS to the table. QUALIFIED was pretty much a wash, since few people are going to question a sitting presidents ability to do the job at at least a minimal level.

Then there was 2000! This was the first election since 1960 where someone who probably lost tight contests in QUALIFIED and IDEAS was able to pull out the win due to LIKEABLE. What I am really saying is that Al Gore lost because hordes of people could not stand him. Gore was the better speaker, he had more experience, and he had more ideas (liberal yes, but not off the scale) that he could discuss in great depth. What Gore lacked was a scintilla of humanity.

LIKEABLE only takes you so far and this is why Bush barely won, while losing the popular vote. He appeared at times to have a very shallow grasp of foreign affairs. His habit of mangling the English language was embarrassing. And finally, let's admit something else, GWB has a certain kind of goofiness about his physical movements sometimes. Some guys LOOK like THE PRESIDENT, while others don't. Frankly GWB too often looks like a freshman congressman more than the President. However, George W. Bush has humanity. He is able to touch people and relate to people in a way Al Gore can only dream of. So in 2000 LIKEABLE brought GWB the presidency.

Next, how does Howard Dean expect to win?

How Does Dean Aim To Win?

It is widely assumed that after Howard Dean wraps up the Democratic Nomination, he will veer sharply right for the General Election. But some folks maintain that Dean has become a "true believer" in the liberal causes he is now supporting, and will hew to that path all the way to November 2.

I believe Dean desperately wants to win and will tack in which ever direction he thinks he needs to, in order to succeed.

Presidential politics is a wondrous world where managing PERCEPTION is more important than anything else.

While the political game is multifaceted, the three most important PERCEPTIONS that a presidential candidate MUST score well in are A) Is the candidate QUALIFIED to be president? and B) Are the candidate's IDEAS in line with the majority of voters? and C) Is the candidate LIKEABLE? Remember that we are discussing PERCEPTION, not reality.

Let us begin with 1952. Ike vs Adlai . Dwight D. Eisenhower clearly passed on all counts. Adlai Stevenson passed on the first count, but failed badly on the second count. He also got less than high marks on the last count. While he was not a candidate that we think of as being disliked in particular, he WAS viewed as being rather much of an egghead, and against Eisenhower that was the kiss of death. 1956 was naturally the same PERCEPTION match-up except now Eisenhower had shown beyond doubt that he was QUALIFIED for the job.

In 1960 John F. Kennedy suffered from two things. First he was Catholic, and second he was thought to be inexperienced, a light weight. Nixon on the other hand was neither. But Nixon was hurt in the LIKEABLE category, an area where Kennedy scored high. The election was very close because of this mixed bag. What saved JFK (besides Mayor Daley and LBJ) was that by election day he had convinced enough people that he was at least marginally QUALIFIED to be president, his IDEAS were not greatly different than Nixon's and he scored well above Nixon in the LIKEABLE contest.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson probably would have won against any Republican, but he lucked into Barry Goldwater. Goldwater managed to fail in all three categories. People questioned his stability, they were scared of his position on issues, and he came across as stern and forbidding. LBJ just smiled his way to an electoral and popular landslide.

1968 is a bit of an oddity. Nixon was back in a more mature and less threatening form. Hubert Humphrey was generally liked but viewed as very liberal, and George Wallace was the wild-card/spoiler. Superimposing my template on the race, I would conclude that Nixon slightly outscored Humphrey on QUALIFIED and IDEAS, while managing to appear acceptably LIKEABLE, especially with Wallace providing contrast.

In 1972 (and this is where I think we enter the truly MODERN age) McGovern ended up being looked at as a clown. He completely failed on the QUALIFIED and IDEAS requirements, and under those circumstances nobody cares if you are LIKEABLE or not.

Due to Watergate, 1976 was a year when any Democrat should have had a major advantage, but Jimmy Carter almost managed to blow it. I suspect the two candidates scored a near tie in all three areas, with perhaps a slight edge to Carter in IDEAS. Keep this race in mind when evaluating 2004.

1980 saw the fruition of a long slow drift toward the Republicans. Ronald Reagan was easily the most LIKEABLE and his IDEAS were more in tune with the country than Carter's. The area where he was weakest was QUALIFIED, but he had the great fortune to be running against Jimmy Carter who had spent four years proving beyond a doubt that he (Carter) was not QUALIFIED.

In 1984 Reagan was still LIKEABLE, his IDEAS were more popular than Walter Mondale's, and Reagan had shown that he was also QUALIFIED. Mondale's stupid insistence on staking out far-left positions, only solidified his inferior position in all three categories.

To be continued.....

A post this morning on one of my favorite blogs, Powerline, led me to this site .

I first took the 9 Question quickie and like Hindrocket I came up as a Saddam Hussien knock-off. Finding this less than acceptable, I went back and took the 18 Question version. This time I saw this:

What Famous Leader Are You?

I decided to quit while I was not a murderous has-been.

Soros Part 5

Speaking slowly so even the dullest among us can understand, Soros explains the history of terrorism and allows that while it is annoying, it certainly is nothing to get overly excited about. He calmly assures us that "The most powerful country on earth cannot afford to be consumed by fear. Moreover, by allowing terrorism to become our principal preoccupation, we are playing into the terrorists' hands. They are setting our priorities."

Somehow I never would have supposed that the REAL objective behind 9/11 was to undermine the Talaban and Saddam Hussein. Osama Bin Laden must indeed be pleased to see his plans play out so brilliantly on the world stage.

Finally, Soros lays out his support for a "cooperative effort to improve the world by engaging in preventive actions of a constructive character. The United States is uniquely positioned to lead the effort. We cannot just do anything we want, as the Iraqi situation demonstrates, but nothing much can be done in the way of international cooperation without the leadership-or at least the participation-of the United States."

So the United States is "uniquely positioned" to "lead the effort" to rid the world of evil, but we need the permission of everyone else in order to act. In other words, the United Nations.

Of particuler interest is that here Soros endorses "preventive actions", meaning that he agrees with George W. Bush that pre-emptive measures must be taken.

It is fascinating to realize that even a liberal flack like Soros apparently knows that the UN is for all intents and purposes, dead. Otherwise why dress it up in new clothes and pretend it is a "third way" to approach international disagreements?

Lastly I must point out that Soros to the end is detached from reality. "We cannot just do anything we want, as the Iraqi situation demonstrates". While it is true that "we cannot just do anything we want" this is in no way demonstrated by the "Iraqi situation".

This piece was a disappointment to me. I had hoped that Soros would have something new to add to the opposition discourse. Instead I found a well written (I wonder which liberal wordmeister ghosted it for him?) but intellectually bankrupt rehashing of standard Democratic Party bromides.

If this is Soros' best shot, George W. Bush can rest easy. George Soros is no Ross Perot.

The (Weak) Liberal Mind

I remember back in the late '70's how the Democrats tried to paint Ronald Reagan as some gunslinging cowboy who would engulf us in war on his second day in office.

Happily, the American people saw through the foolishness and twice elected Reagan as President. I thought of RR when I read this piece by Richard Reeves.

Reeves is drenched in his own drool as he hyper-ventilates about George W. Bush. To Reeves, GWB is an awful person and worse President, who has done nothing but chase off our allies and further entrench our enemies.

What is remarkable about Reeves' words are the utter lack of ANY and ALL context. Reeves just makes up this and that and then bashes President Bush for it. For instance Reeves says "The president is a bold, decisive and overconfident crusader, a self-righteous leader, a dangerous man. He changed the rules, ignoring the post-World War II history of alliances, multilateral institutions and containment." What facts does Reeves use here? If you answered "None" you would be close. He got "bold, decisive" right and nothing else.

How has Bush ignored "post-World War II history of alliances, multilateral institutions and containment" ?

We have the help of numerous allies in Iraq. Japan, Britain, Spain, Poland, and Australia to name five off the top of my head. So that is Reeves' Lie #1.

We repeatedly tried to utilize the ultimate "multilateral institution", the United Nations, going through the laborious process for twelve years and umpteen "resolutions". So that is Reeves' Lie #2.

We appealed to Saddam Hussein over and over to do the right thing. We put him under a decade long embargo, chased him back inside his own borders, used no-fly zones etc, to "contain" him. None of it worked. That is Reeves' Lie #3.

One paragraph, three lies.

Liberals like Reeves have no respect for truth. Their only concern is attacking those with whom they have political differences. Reeves dislikes the use of the American Military, therefore he lies and obfuscates, pretending that George W. Bush is some satanic combination of Nero and Napoleon.

Soros Part 4

Next Soros frets about our Iraqi operations because, "there are more places than ever before where we might have legitimate need to project that power. North Korea is openly building nuclear weapons, and Iran is clandestinely doing so" .

So the real problem is that Bush should have invaded North Korea and Iran? But how much support could we expect from the UN on THOSE invasions? Along about here, Soros essentially leaves behind all attempts to be coherent and reveals himself to be (SURPRISE!) a common everyday Liberal Democrat. Therefore, anything Bush does is wrong, and anything he doesn't do is right.

Soros tells the reader that the war on terrorism is going badly and that in fact war is no way to end terrorism. "Police work" is what is needed. 9/11 should have been treated as a criminal act and implores us to "Imagine for a moment that September 11 had been treated as a crime. We would not have invaded Iraq, and we would not have our military struggling to perform police work and getting shot at."

He fails to mention some other likely results of sending Joe Friday chasing after Bin Laden and friends. Things like ever increasing terror attacks on U.S. soil and militant Islam busting a collective gut laughing at the stupid Americans and their "police work".

"Military action requires an identifiable target, preferably a state. As a result the war on terrorism has been directed primarily against states harboring terrorists. Yet terrorists are by definition non-state actors, even if they are often sponsored by states."

This is of course absurd. Terrorists by definition seek to create terror. States can do this just as well, and often better, than "non-state actors"

Trying to follow Soros' reasoning is an exercise in futility that leads to general frustration and frequent outbreaks of the heebeejeebees. Basically the Soros tenet is as follows:

We shouldn't wage war against terrorists, because a war requires an opposing state, and terrorists CAN'T be opposing states, and even though they can be SPONSORED by opposing states who presumably you COULD wage war against, you still shouldn't wage war to fight terrorists because war requires an opposing state and terrorists and so forth.

Tomorrow the conclusion......

Contemptible Judges

In recent days, two more egregious examples of liberal judicial law making. First, the ruling regarding snowmobiles in Yellowstone and now this one dealing with the Clean Air Act.

When liberals lose elections they don’t lick their wounds and try to figure out what went wrong. Instead they go to court where it is beyond easy to find a judge or three willing to stand the Constitution on its ear.

We have elected officials to make these policy decisions. Judges need to be taught to keep their damn opinion out of their opinions.

SOROS PART 3

Soros continues: “ The invasion of Iraq was the first practical application of the Bush doctrine, and it has turned out to be counterproductive. A chasm has opened between America and the rest of the world.”

As proof of this assertion Soros states:

“The United Nations promptly endorsed punitive U.S. action against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. A little more than a year later the United States could not secure a UN resolution to endorse the invasion of Iraq.”

He goes on the mention elections in Germany and South Korea, but boiled down to the nut, his point is that when the U.S. and the UN disagree, the U.S. is wrong.

Next Soros launches into a boring and unsuccessful attempt to relate economic “bubbles” to current events. He confidently says, “The quest for American supremacy qualifies as a bubble. The dominant position the United States occupies in the world is the element of reality that is being distorted. The proposition that the United States will be better off if it uses its position to impose its values and interests everywhere is the misconception. It is exactly by not abusing its power that America attained its current position.”

Here again you will notice important disconnects between sentences. Under Soros’ magical touch, America’s “dominant position” morphs into America “abusing its power”.

Soros asks “Where are we in this boom-bust process? The deteriorating situation in Iraq is either the moment of truth or a test that, if it is successfully overcome, will only reinforce the trend.”

This is neatly put. Under The Rules According to Soros, if Iraq blows up in George Bush’s face, he deserved it. If instead the Iraqi occupation works out fine, then it only leads us further into the quagmire. From atop Mount Soros the oracle has spoken: George Bush can never be right, only temporarily lucky.

Soros never shies away from stating opinion as fact. “Whatever the justification for removing Saddam Hussein, there can be no doubt that we invaded Iraq on false pretenses.” Like Ross Perot, Soros lives in a world where his conclusions equal truth.

But now Soros completely runs off the tracks of reality by asserting that “The gap between the Administration's expectations and the actual state of affairs could not be wider. It is difficult to think of a recent military operation that has gone so wrong.”

Where does this man get his information? James Carville and The New York Times?

To Be Continued....