News & Comment

This past Saturday, Kerry gave the Democrats' radio address, on the anniversary of 9-11.

Paul Krugman's Tuesday op-ed talks about how the situation on the ground in Iraq is putting the country in danger, and why Kerry should say so, loudly and often.

Over at Seeing the Forest, there's a post on what 'character' means in political terms, the story of how rightwing rumors become news (also mentioned in this LA Times forgery claim timeline), and a pointer to excerpts of a prescient story written in 1935.

In a long overdue development, Talk Left informs us that U.S. prison inmates can sue prison officials over rape in cases where there's evidence that officials allowed abuse or refused to investigate complaints.

The Stakeholder says that even moderate Republicans are impatient with the administration's refusal to implement the 9-11 commission's recommendations, but wonders if that's the only thing that's tickled their consciences.

Pandagon: The truth about trial lawyers. If this story is correct, then the man who pulled strings to get Bush into the guard was later able to blackmail him into granting a government contract to a company he represented in exchange for his silence.

The Sideshow with a meaty entry on what compassionate conservatism means in practice.

Ms. Musings on the current face of feminism.

Under the Same Sun on how marketing turns kids into users.

In case you didn't hear on the Daily Show, Robert Novak now believes that reporters should reveal their sources. Unless, I'm guessing, that reporter is him, and the source in question is a highly placed member of the Bush administration who publicly revealed the name of CIA agent along with a CIA front company for good measure.

MyDD notes that IBM confirms Bush documents could have been produced on their typewriters.

Matt Yglesias shares a Libertarian's case against Bush, and his security issues reading list.

Yglesias also pointed to a Talking Points Memo post on Bush's jump in the polls that, as Matt says, is almost certainly right.

Atrios notes that Bush has been lying about his service record for years, links to an op-ed in PC Magazine where a typography geek explains patiently that being able to imitate a document in MSWord doesn't mean that only MSWord could have produced it, and points to someone who knows what they're talking about when they speak of Bush administration incompetence. Of the many stunning notes in that last article, this one made me jump in my seat:

...Astonishingly, according to information the commission received between the writing of the staff reports and the final report, the secretary of defense, upon learning of the two attacks in New York, simply returned to the work he had already been doing in his Pentagon office. ...

I think we'd all be happy if the comments of this Kos diarist made it into the Kerry campaign's talking points:

"Mr. president, Colin Powell told you about this war that 'if you break it, you own it.' And now you're going around talking about an 'ownership society.' Well, Mr. President, let me tell you what you own. A million jobs lost. You own that. A thousand soldiers lost. You own that. 1.4 million new people living below the poverty line. You own that. 1.2 million less people covered by health insurance. You own that. A seventeen percent medicare increase. You own that. Health care costs skyrocketing. You own that. The tax burden increasing amongst the middle class. You own that. Mr. President, if you want to talk about an ownership society, let's talk about what you own."

Just about sums it up.