DEFEAT
Krugman:
It’s Ayad Allawi week. President Bush, starting with his address at the U.N. today, will try to present Mr. Allawi - a former Baathist who the BBC reports was chosen as prime minister because he was “equally mistrusted by everyone” - as the leader of a sovereign nation on the path to democracy. If the [...]

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FREQUENTLY WRONG BUT NEVER IN DOUBT
Because after all, it all worked so well with Iraq:
With Iran policy in a state of flux, there is a drive among conservatives to reach out to Iranian dissidents and exiles seeking to overthrow the government, much as efforts were made with Iraqis in the 1990’s. Senator Rick Santorum, a [...]

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MEMOS FROM HEAVEN
Bill Burkett says he was given the CBS memos by a stranger who called him after seeing him on TV. Come on, this one has Karl Rove’s fine hand all over it - you know, the man who bugged his own office and called a press conference “exposing” it:
Burkett got a call “out [...]

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SLACKER UPRISING TOUR
Michael Moore appeared in Camden NJ last night; I found out too late to attend.
In an appearance that was part stump speech and part standup routine, Moore didn’t stay subtle for long, criticizing his preferred presidential candidate as well as the incumbent.
“It’s debilitating to have a candidate who does not seem quite clear [...]

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BITTER
Not all the troops want to see Bush reelected:
WASHINGTON – Inside dusty, barricaded camps around Iraq, groups of American troops in between missions are gathering around screens to view an unlikely choice from the US box office: “Fahrenheit 9-11,” Michael Moore’s controversial documentary attacking the commander-in-chief. “Everyone’s watching it,” says a Marine corporal at an [...]

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NEXT WEEK: THE MAGIC 8-BALL
Here’s another good chuckle from BC04:
What do President Bush’s top education advisor and a 9-year-old whiz kid/youth journalist who knows everything there is to know about Presidential history have in common?
Give up? They’re both coming online this week to chat with you.
The Honorable Rod Paige, Wednesday, [...]

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OH. MY. GOD.
This is the best story, via Sideshow:
This morning I had the most bizarre subway ride. I board the Number 3 train at Grand Army Plaza after 9 a.m. Find a seat, then settle into reading Henry James for class. I hear a woman’s voice gradually rising in volume. She is preaching the “Lord’s” [...]

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QUITCHER WHINING
Michael Moore rallies the troops:
My friends, it is time for a reality check.
1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead — and another poll had them both tied. There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are [...]

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SAINT CLINTON

Go to Saintclinton.com and buy yourself some holy artifacts. (Wingnuts hate them!)

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SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES - AND LUNGS
This is the main reason I eventually stopped performing in bars (not to mention the severe smoke hangovers):
TRENTON - If you’re wondering whether a smoky bar or a city street filled with diesel truck fumes is more harmful to your health, you might want to skip your next [...]

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SIC ‘IM
Kerry gave a great speech on Iraq this morning:
I would have concentrated our power and resources on defeating global terrorism and capturing or killing Osama bin Laden. I would have tightened the noose and continued to pressure and isolate Saddam Hussein – who was weak and getting weaker — so that he would [...]

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A BRIEF RANT
I was at a friend’s house last night. She kept telling her 8-year-old to take his shower and get ready for bed - seven times (I counted) over a 45-minute period. It was all I could do not to say, “You keep telling him, but you don’t do anything to make it happen.” [...]

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LIFE ABOUT ABU GHRAIB
From the Guardian, a story of an Iraqi businesswoman who was turned in because she refused to pay off an extortionist:
Alazawi says that US guards left her sitting on the chair overnight, and that the next day they took her to a room known by detainees as “the torturing place”. “The US [...]

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BOWING TO THE INEVITABLE
Imagine how bad it must be for them to admit this:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leading members of President Bush’s Republican Party on Sunday criticized mistakes and “incompetence” in his Iraq policy and called for an urgent ground offensive to retake insurgent sanctuaries.
In appearances on news talk shows, Republican senators also urged Bush [...]

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CHILL OUT, WILLYA?
From the Wall St. Journal (paid subscription) via Kos:
WASHINGTON — Widely divergent poll results in recent days underscore a paradox of the 2004 presidential race: Despite all the surveys, it may be the toughest election in memory for anyone to track.
Opinion polls themselves had been getting harder to conduct long before the matchup [...]

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STEALTH VOTERS
Am I really supposed to believe it’s the prospect of voting for Bush that got young people so excited?
Officials at Rock the Vote a nationwide campaign aimed at young people say they expect registration numbers to surge as deadlines in many states approach. In the first two weeks of September alone, more than 163,000 [...]

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AND YET, THEY PULLED DOWN A STATUE
Gee, now who would have predicted this?
LONDON, England (CNN) — Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has warned that “terrorists” are flooding into his country from across the Muslim world.
His comments on Monday echoed those of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair who said the day before that Iraq was [...]

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BUSINESS PROFS TO AMERICA’S CEO: YOU’RE FIRED
A group of business school professors think it’s time to show Bush the door:
The Bush administration has issued a regulation that denies millions of workers their right to overtime pay. The formation of the Department of Homeland Security has carried a huge price tag in compromised civil liberties, including [...]

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TECHNICAL FOUL
I feel like I’m living in an alternative universe. Because on what planet does the authenticity of the CBS memos invalidate what is already known about George Bush’s half-assed service (or lack thereof) in the National Guard?

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MORE
Paul Lukasiak says it looks like Bush’s Guard records may have been altered. Go read.

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CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
So who didn’t already know this?

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CLARITY
New Fafblog:
“Giblets cannot be lost! Giblets sets forth with purpose an clarity an bestrides the narrow world like a collosus an stuff! He does not get lost!”
“It’s not so bad bein lost,” says me. “Bein lost is like takin a vacation from knowin what you’re doin.”
“Giblets always knows what he’s doin!” says Giblets. “He traverses [...]

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CAN I GET AN ‘AMEN’?
Digby addresses the “tsk, tsks” being heaped on Dan Rather over the National Guard memos:
But, I can’t help wondering why this orgy of recriminations is happening over this incident when there have literally been thousands of even worse examples of the press willingly acting as partisan tools over the past 12 [...]

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INSIGHT
World-class quote from Al Gore in the current New Yorker:
“The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office. He’s [...]

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BACK TO THE OLD DAYS?
It’s not looking too good for Russian democracy now:
“Putin is now past the point where his regime can be removed peacefully by democratic means. There is no way for democratic transition,” said Vladimir Kara-Murza of the pro-democracy Committee 2008 organization. “There’s no independent media, there’s no parliament to speak of, there [...]

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A LOOK IN THE MIRROR
Frank Rich has a long, dense essay on the failings of the media in national politics:
The W.M.D. flimflam was hardly the last time that government propaganda supplanted journalism. Though the chagrined major newspapers have since worked hard to compensate for their prewar lapses, the electronic media that give most Americans their [...]

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WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: “Where Will The Words Come From”, Roseanne Cash, “Seven Year Ache“: Where will the words come from when I tell you/ I don’t love you anymore/ I command my lips to say it’s over now please go away/ Will the words be there or will they fail me/ Like they’ve always [...]

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SETTING AN EXAMPLE
I missed this a few days ago. Funny as hell, because Republican State Rep. John Perzel (who happens to be the leader of the GOP-controlled state house) wrested control of the Parking Authority from the city a few years ago, denying Democratic claims that the GOP wanted the patronage. He said it was [...]

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Like a bird on the wire/ Like a drunk in a midnight choir/ I have tried/ In my way/ To be free. - “Bird on the Wire,” Leonard Cohen. 

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ONE NATION, UNDER GOD
Okay, this is some seriously scary shit. A group of senators (including nutcase Zell Miller) trying to pass a bill that would exempt any laws they make citing Biblical authority from review by the federal courts. It’s called (with that wonderful sense of irony that’s the hallmark of their breed) the Constitution [...]

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