Statesman Endorses Kerry

Editorials - The Idaho Statesman - Always Idaho

Way to Go Idaho!!! Green is the way from Red to Blue!

Kerry has raised almost as much as Bush in Idaho

Democrat tallies 815% more than Gore got in 2000

The Idaho Statesman Edition Date: 10-24-2004
In the month leading up to the election, Democrat John Kerry is doing the impossible.

He has raised, dollar for dollar, almost as much money from Idaho donors as Republican President George W. Bush.

The latest Federal Election Commission statistics show that Kerry has raised $356,261 to Bush's $362,310 from Idaho people, PACs or companies giving $200 or more.

And Kerry's money has come from about 25 percent more individual donors.
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The New York Times: Feeling the Draft

How else can you implement the "Bush Doctrine?" The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Feeling the Draft

NYTimes Endorsement of Kerry

The New York Times > Opinion > John Kerry for President

The New York Times > Magazine > Without a Doubt

''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . .

''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.''

This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue, based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the decision-maker. Nothing could be more vital, whether staying on message with the voters or the terrorists or a California congressman in a meeting about one of the world's most nagging problems. As Bush himself has said any number of times on the campaign trail, ''By remaining resolute and firm and strong, this world will be peaceful.''

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

George W. Bush, clearly, is one of history's great confidence men. That is not meant in the huckster's sense, though many critics claim that on the war in Iraq, the economy and a few other matters he has engaged in some manner of bait-and-switch. No, I mean it in the sense that he's a believer in the power of confidence. At a time when constituents are uneasy and enemies are probing for weaknesses, he clearly feels that unflinching confidence has an almost mystical power. It can all but create reality.

Whether you can run the world on faith, it's clear you can run one hell of a campaign on it.

George W. Bush and his team have constructed a high-performance electoral engine. The soul of this new machine is the support of millions of likely voters, who judge his worth based on intangibles -- character, certainty, fortitude and godliness -- rather than on what he says or does. The deeper the darkness, the brighter this filament of faith glows, a faith in the president and the just God who affirms him.

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

A regent I spoke to later and who asked not to be identified told me: ''I'm happy he's certain of victory and that he's ready to burst forth into his second term, but it all makes me a little nervous. There are a lot of big things that he's planning to do domestically, and who knows what countries we might invade or what might happen in Iraq. But when it gets complex, he seems to turn to prayer or God rather than digging in and thinking things through. What's that line? -- the devil's in the details. If you don't go after that devil, he'll come after you.''

The New York Times > Magazine > Without a Doubt

OREGONIAN Endorses JK - What a Difference 4 Years Makes

Kerry for president
The Democrat could help rebuild the United States' standing in the world while restoring balance at home

When George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001, he and his team moved quickly to push government hard to the right.

This effort came even though Bush campaigned as a moderate and his narrow, contested election was anything but a mandate for sweeping change.

But if Bush partisans could turn aside disagreement with a brusque "elections have consequences" in 2001, it turns out today that governing has consequences, too.

One of them should be that Americans elect John Kerry president in November.

Bush's term in office has been marked by two major failures. One is his conduct of the war in Iraq. The other is his stewardship of the nation's fiscal health. Bush ran for president as a "compassionate conservative." But true conservatives don't choose to go to war without proper planning or pursue fiscal policies leading to the deepest federal deficits in our nation's history.
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Presidential Footwear

Casual footwear

If John Kerry is being likened to a pair of 'flip-flops,' it makes sense that President Bush could be likened to 'sneakers.'

Rob Branch, Boise
Letter to the Editor, Idaho Statesman 10/14/04

Bush was WRONG to Invade Iraq accuses 26 Year Nebraska GOP chair of House Intel Committee

With friends like these....

Doesn't Bush have enough enemies already?

Retiring GOP congressman breaks ranks on Iraq
Nebraska's Bereuter calls war 'a mistake'
From Ted BarrettCNN Washington Bureau

Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Nebraska, sent a letter to constituents criticizing the war in Iraq.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Breaking ranks with his party and reversing his earlier stance, a senior Republican lawmaker who is retiring said Wednesday the military strike against Iraq was "a mistake," and he blasted a "massive failure" of intelligence before the war.

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action, especially without a broad and engaged international coalition," Bereuter wrote in a four-page letter to his constituents.

"The cost in casualties is already large and growing, and the immediate and long-term financial costs are incredible."

Bereuter was particularly critical of the prewar intelligence, which described an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But no such weapons have been found since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Bereuter voted in support of an October 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, but he said that vote was based on what he had been told about the weapons threat from Iraq.

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," Bereuter said.

He also said the administration was wrong to ignore military leaders who warned many more troops would be needed in Iraq to maintain the postwar peace.

"Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world," Bereuter said.

Bereuter said it was important for the executive and legislative branches of government to learn from the "errors and failures" relating to the war in Iraq and its aftermath.

More of the CNN Story

Full Letter to Editor that he wrote.

Addicted to 9/11

Great editorial (as always) by Thomas Friedman. This guy forces you to think.

If only more Americans exercised that most unique, but seemingly atrophied muscle in our body.

Imagine a stronger America, not just phsyically and militarily, but... intellectually. Imagine our future with John Kerry as President. Now get to work and read this.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Addicted to 9/11
I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where "terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance." The idea that President Bush and Mr. Cheney would declare such a statement to be proof that Mr. Kerry is unfit to lead actually says more about them than Mr. Kerry. Excuse me, I don't know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives.

If I have a choice, I prefer not to live the rest of my life with the difference between a good day and bad day being whether Homeland Security tells me it is "code red" or "code orange" outside. Somewhere along the way we've gone over the top and lost our balance.

That's why Mr. Kerry was actually touching something many Americans are worried about - that this war on terrorism is transforming us and our society, when it was supposed to be about uprooting the terrorists and transforming their societies.

The Bush team's responses to Mr. Kerry's musings are revealing because they go to the very heart of how much this administration has become addicted to 9/11. The president has exploited the terrorism issue for political ends - trying to make it into another wedge issue like abortion, guns or gay rights - to rally the Republican base and push his own political agenda. But it is precisely this exploitation of 9/11 that has gotten him and the country off-track, because it has not only created a wedge between Republicans and Democrats, it's also created a wedge between America and the rest of the world, between America and its own historical identity, and between the president and common sense.

By exploiting the emotions around 9/11, Mr. Bush took a far-right agenda on taxes, the environment and social issues - for which he had no electoral mandate - and drove it into a 9/12 world. In doing so, Mr. Bush made himself the most divisive and polarizing president in modern history.

Lastly, politicizing 9/11 put a wedge between us and our history. The Bush team has turned this country into "The United States of Fighting Terrorism." "Bush only seems able to express our anger, not our hopes," said the Mideast expert Stephen P. Cohen. "His whole focus is on an America whose role in the world is to negate the negation of the terrorists. But America has always been about the affirmation of something positive. That is missing today. Beyond Afghanistan, they've been much better at destruction than construction."

I wish Mr. Kerry were better able to articulate how America is going to get its groove back. But the point he was raising about wanting to put terrorism back into perspective is correct. I want a president who can one day restore Sept. 11th to its rightful place on the calendar: as the day after Sept. 10th and before Sept. 12th. I do not want it to become a day that defines us. Because ultimately Sept. 11th is about them - the bad guys - not about us. We're about the Fourth of July. More.

Sounds like Tony Soprano to me...

Bush Reveals Secret Debate Strategy To: "Keep My Foot On John Kerry's Throat"
WASHINGTON, DC – In a forthcoming New York Times Magazine article President George W. Bush reveals his secret debate strategy: "I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's throat." [Air America 10/13/04]

"George Bush's secret debate strategy reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of this entire administration," said Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe. "Every American watching tonight should keep the President's secret strategy in mind as they judge him and his promises."

Democrats raise more than GOP in key races

Battlegrounds include districts in Boise, S. Idaho

Idaho Democrats lead in fund-raising in several crucial legislative contests throughout Idaho. Campaign finance statements filed with the secretary of state's office Tuesday show more than $745,000 had been raised through Sept. 30 in the Boise metro area.

The reports also show Democrats with the financial edge in at least half a dozen contests where Republicans hold or have held a seat. The battleground districts are in Boise, Pocatello, Lewiston and south-central Idaho. More

Voter fraud isn't just for Florida anymore, Dem registrations trashed in NV & OR

In Nevada, employees of a GOP-funded voter registration company say they watched their supervisors rip up Democrats' registration forms -- and that hundreds and maybe thousands of Democrats' forms have been trashed.

"Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats." More.

The Race to control the Senate

Interesting analysis of US Senate Races across the nation

FEC Comish Reaction to Sinclair Misuse of Public Airwaves

Commissioner Michael J. Copps reacted to reports that Sinclair Broadcast Group will preempt more than 60 local stations across the country to air an overtly political program in the days prior to the Presidential election.

Copps stated: "This is an abuse of the public trust. And it is proof positive of media consolidation run amok when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology -- whether liberal or conservative. Some will undoubtedly question if this is appropriate stewardship of the public airwaves. This is the same corporation that refused to air Nightline's reading of our war dead in Iraq. It is the same corporation that short-shrifts local communities and local jobs by distance-casting news and weather from hundreds of miles away. It is a sad fact that the explicit public interest protections we once had to ensure balance continue to be weakened by the Federal Communications Commission while it allows media conglomerates to get even bigger. Sinclair, and the FCC, are taking us down a dangerous road. "

Mike Simpson would rather be governor, but he'll settle for Congress

Otter, Risch and now Simpson. This could be interesting...

But if Kerry wins, were does that leave poor ol' Dirk?

Could he get Craig to start singing the NRA Anthem?

Story.

Bullies at the Voting Booth

In some states, Republicans are threatening to conduct widespread vote challenges in heavily minority areas. In others, recent events suggest that poll workers may wrongly turn away voters. In still others, new laws passed or enforced by Republicans have erected hurdles to trip up the minority vote. And on Election Day itself, say advocates, Republicans may direct numerous tricks at Democratic districts in an effort to confuse or frighten voters.

Here's a rundown of what's happening in several swing states.
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An "FUGW" Sign Can Get You Arrested

McCarthyism Watch

Bush's Scorched-Earth Strategy

After a terrible week for his campaign, Bush has one agenda between now and Election Day: attack Kerry

The rationale for war in Iraq has collapsed, so President George W. Bush has declared another war, this one on John Kerry. Bush's blistering attack on Kerry as weak and wavering on war and the worst kind of tax-and-spend liberal foreshadows the next four weeks. Get ready for a scorched-earth campaign from the Bushies... The dirty little secret is that Bush, if elected, is more likely to pull out of Iraq once elections are held in January.

Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill know that Iraq is a mess. A few brave senators like John McCain, Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar have spoken out, but most are staying silent in solidarity with their party. They’ll tell the truth after the election. The incompetence, hubris and arrogance of this administration has cost American lives and treasure, and left whoever is president over the next four years a situation that will be almost impossible to correct. "If we could hear the inner deliberations of this administration, it would scare us," says a former Republican operative, who knows how the Bushies play the game. "They know they've been caught. Their strategy is to throw up enough monkey dust to get through the next four weeks."

This is the moment of truth for American foreign policy. Will Bush's bald-faced lies carry the day? Can Cheney con the American public into four more years? The Duelfer report this week "shows Bush jumped the gun," says Allen Holmes, a policy analyst who served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush I in the State Department, and under President Bill Clinton in the Defense Department. "A lot of people told [Bush] we didn't need to go to war. He wasn't listening. He created a battlefield in Iraq. The jihadists love it, particularly when innocent women and children are killed. It's a recruiting tool." Holmes never found the case for going to war in Iraq a compelling one. He thinks Bush wanted to finish the job his father started, which he finds ironic because "in dad's book, he says the reason he didn't go to Baghdad is he didn't want to own the chaos we're involved in today."
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Spin Around - Will Media Declare A Bush Victory In Next Debate For Balance?

This time four years ago, relentless media focus on Al Gore’s sighs had managed to convince the voting public that the vice president had actually lost a debate that the majority of viewers believed he had won. So, it shows just how soundly John Kerry beat George W. Bush last Thursday that instead of spending the last week declaring victory, the Republican spin machine spent its TV time claiming that defeat didn’t mater.

And to add insult to injury, Bush’s spinners have been forced to defend the president’s sighs and mannerisms -- things they were all too happy to blast Gore for in 2000.

By Monday, as the media’s attention was shifting from the post-presidential debate analysis to previews of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, it was clear not only that Bush had lost to Kerry but that his talk-show surrogates -- who had done little except play defense for three days -- had lost the battle to spin public reaction in their man’s favor.

Of course, it took a media cycle or two for the Bush campaign to get past the initial denial phase and recognize that there was no spinning the president’s stumbling performance into a perceived victory. In the immediate aftermath of the debate, the efforts to cast Bush’s performance as something better than it was ranged from the desperate:
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Bush Court: Be Afraid, Very Afraid

Democrats haven't made much of what would happen to the courts should Bush win a second term. This is curious, because you'll remember that the Gore campaign was virtually tattooed with the slogan "Two words: Supreme Court." Maybe the undecideds of Ohio don't know the President nominates judges, and nobody wants to tell them. After all, when you have a system in which the voters who matter most are the ones who know the least, care the least and pay the least attention, you're taking a risk if you give them too much information at once. They might explode! The conventional wisdom is that only college-educated liberals care about the courts, and they're already on board, but I wonder how true that is. What about those soccer moms, torn between tax cuts and abortion rights, or Arizona's Republican women, who are beginning to revolt against their party's hard-right turn, as Salon's Sidney Blumenthal recently reported? And is it wise to assume that everyone who cares already knows? A friend of mine recently met a Yale senior who supported Kerry, but not enough to register to vote; when she pointed out that Bush would have four years to pack the courts, the young genius acknowledged that this thought had never occurred to him.

The truth is, there is hardly an area of life that will not be affected by the judicial appointments made in the coming years. Will the courts continue to dismantle your right to sue state governments in federal courts? By 5 to 4, the Supreme Court decided that federal protections against age discrimination don't apply to state workers. (More recently it upheld the Americans with Disabilities Act – insofar as it applied to the right of citizens not to have to crawl up the courthouse steps.) On the same states' rights theory, by 5 to 4 it threw out parts of the Violence Against Women Act. The Patriot Act? Immigrants' rights? The environment? Ballot issues, à la Florida? Whom do you want in charge of choosing the men and women who will decide the big questions sure to arise?
Right-wing legal activist Clint Bolick has said, "This election could be a twofer – we win the White House and the Supreme Court." Let's make it a twofer for civil liberties, civil rights – and counting every vote.
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Political shenanigans threaten minority votes - BSU Arbiter Online

A Republican state representative from Troy, Mich.,said, “If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we’re going to have a tough time in this election cycle.” Detroit is 83 percent black. More.

AtomFilms: Mock The Vote

Great funny streamable political shorts, including "This Land" and "Good to be in DC" by JibJabAtomFilms: Mock The Vote

LOS ANGELES TIMES COLUMN: BUSH WORST PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY

Fri Oct 08 2004 09:46:43 ET

In a LA TIMES column, Jonathan Chait blasts: 'To say that I consider Bush a 'bad' president would be a severe understatement. I think he's bad in a way that redefines my understanding of the word 'bad.'

'I used to think U.S. history had many bad presidents. Now, my 'bad' category consists entirely of George W. Bush, with every previous president redefined as 'good.'

'There's also the fact that, on a personal level, I despise him with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. What I'm saying is, advocating Bush is kind of tricky.' But 'what I'll argue instead is that his very awfulness is the reason he deserves reelection. Begin with the premise that a second-term Bush administration is unlikely to make things a whole lot worse.' Bush's presidency 'is a great mass of contradictions. There's an enormous gap between his purported values - fiscal discipline, toughness against terrorists, a commitment to social conservatism - and his true record.

'Sure, it would be emotionally satisfying to see Bush rejected by the voters once again. But maybe, for this president, defeat is too kind a fate.' "

Ridenbaugh Press on Idaho Races

Battlegrounds

As the nation has its battleground states in this presidential election, so Idaho has its battleground legislative districts.

Not many of them, to be sure. But there are a few. More.: "

Thousands in Florida may be rejected at polls

Check and double check to make sure the voter registration cards are filled out rightUSATODAY.com - More

The Race is On - With voters widely viewing Kerry as the debate’s winner, Bush’s lead in the NEWSWEEK poll has evaporated

Among the three-quarters (74 percent) of registered voters who say they watched at least some of Thursday’s debate, 61 percent see Kerry as the clear winner, 19 percent pick Bush as the victor and 16 percent call it a draw. After weeks of being portrayed as a verbose “flip-flopper” by Republicans, Kerry did better than a majority (56 percent) had expected. Only about 11 percent would say the same for the president’s performance while more than one-third (38 percent) said the incumbent actually did worse that they had expected. Thirty-nine percent of Republicans felt their man out-debated the challenger but a full third (33 percent) say they felt Kerry won.

Kerry’s perceived victory may be attributed to the fact that, by a wide margin (62 percent to 26 percent), debate watchers felt the senator came across as more confident than the president. More than half (56 percent) also see Kerry has having a better command of the facts than Bush (37 percent). As a result, the challenger’s favorability ratings (52 percent, versus 40 percent unfavorable) are better than Bush’s, who at 49 percent (and 46 percent unfavorable), has dipped below the halfway mark for the first time since July. Kerry, typically characterized as aloof and out of touch by his opponents, came across as more personally likeable than Bush (47 percent to the president’s 41 percent).

In fact, Kerry’s numbers have improved across the board, while Bush’s vulnerabilities have become more pronounced. The senator is seen as more intelligent and well-informed (80 percent, up six points over last month, compared to Bush’s steady 59 percent); as having strong leadership skills (56 percent, also up 6 points, but still less than Bush’s 62 percent) and as someone who can be trusted to make the right calls in an international crisis (51 percent, up five points and tied with Bush).MSNBC - More