brainrow

What a creepy feeling to know that George W. Bush is reading my blog. From yesterday’s press conference:

And they just — as I said, they’re dancing in the end zone. They just haven’t scored the touchdown, Mark, you know, there’s a lot of time left. And these candidates are working hard out there. And my message to them is, keep talking about the security of the United States and keeping taxes low, and you’ll come back here.

Here’s what I wrote on Tuesday night:

I visit a lot of anti-Bush blogs these days, and I get that same queasy sensation as I see some bloggers practicing their end-zone victory dance weeks before election day. National polls show Democrats with a big generic edge, but I’ve also see a lot of analysts doing race-by-race totals and concluding that Republicans may very well hold onto both houses of Congress. Bush may get another two years with no checks, no balances, and no Congressional oversight.

Because I’m the only person in the country who uses football metaphors when discussing political topics, I’m thinking of sending Bush a bill for my ghost-writing assistance.

Oh, crap. Now ABC News wants to be “fare unbalanced,” too:

In a report on how recent campaigns advertisements are “getting ugly,” ABC News, unable to point to a single instance of “nasty” attacks from Democratic candidates or their supporters, suggested it is only a matter of time before “the left” begins to “unleash its garbage as well.” ABC News offered no evidence to back up its allegation that Democrats might soon resort to distasteful, negative advertising.

Facts are passé; we’re in a post-reality world now.

Via Crooks and Liars:

It’s never been a “stay the course” strategy.

What a fibber.

CNET has collected images of the worst political web sites.

They all seem to be candidate sites. Maybe that’s why this site didn’t make the cut.

For God Spoke, the filmmakers followed Al Franken for 18 months — starting with the launch of his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, through Fox’s ill-fated lawsuit to prevent the publication of the book, through the launch of Air America Radio, through the 2004 campaign season. They caught him wrestling seriously with the decision of whether to run for Senate in 2008, a decision he still hasn’t finalized, and wrestling hilariously with a backpack that somehow got tangled up with a wheel of an office chair.

The film that was shown last night wasn’t the original version, we were told during a question and answer session. They had filmed a 2004 debate between Franken and Ann Coulter at the Connecticut Forum, but Coulter demanded they remove footage of the debate from the film. Part of what was cut was this exchange:

When [the moderator] asked [Coulter] to name which historical figure she would most like to be, she replied: “(Sen.) Joe McCarthy.” She called him “a great American patriot” who removed “communist spies from the government.” Her second choice, she said, was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “so I could not introduce the New Deal.”

“Then I would be Hitler,” Franken said. “You’d call off the New Deal; I’d call off the Holocaust and World War II. But I’d keep the Volkswagen.”

I can’t imagine why Coulter wouldn’t want that in the film.

I’ve just got back from seeing the new Al Franken movie, God Spoke, introduced by the film’s directors, Chris Hegedus and Nick Doob.

It’s a funny and enjoyable film, but there’s a stretch in the middle that was difficult to watch. Just before the 2004 election, with polls showing John Kerry beating Bush, Franken jokes that the first twenty-four hours after the election should be reserved for pure gloating. He brainstorms with the staff of his Air America radio talk show about how to gloat and still be funny. Then we see him at the “victory party” in Boston, slowly realizing that there will be nothing to gloat about. It’s a sinking sensation that brings back a lot of unhappy memories.

I visit a lot of anti-Bush blogs these days, and I get that same queasy sensation as I see some bloggers practicing their end-zone victory dance weeks before election day. National polls show Democrats with a big generic edge, but I’ve also see a lot of analysts doing race-by-race totals and concluding that Republicans may very well hold onto both houses of Congress. Bush may get another two years with no checks, no balances, and no Congressional oversight.

There’s still an election to win.

If it’s close, they’ll steal it. So we have to win big.

Win first. Victory dance later. Don’t worry about the missed dance rehearsals — after the victory, feel free to improvise.

But first, win the victory.

Several video parodies of Apple’s latest “I’m a Mac” ads, only political.

Via Daily Kos:

Via Crooks and Liars, this report from Bloomberg News:

The United States is tracking a North Korean ship described as suspicious by a U.S. official, Agence France-Presse reported from Washington.

The vessel left a North Korean port and may be carrying military equipment banned under UN sanctions imposed after North Korea carried out a nuclear test on Oct. 9., AFP said, citing a CBS News report.

It doesn’t matter whether there’s any banned material on board. If we can just get some sort of exchange of shots, Karl Rove has his October Surprise.

The Washington Post reports the beginning of the end of law:

Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

In a notice dated Wednesday, the Justice Department listed 196 pending habeas cases, some of which cover groups of detainees. The new Military Commissions Act (MCA), it said, provides that “no court, justice, or judge” can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future.

“No court, justice or judge” can check the president’s absolute power.

Some time ago, I said the Bush Administration wants to roll back not just the New Deal, but the Magna Carta. Now, with the indispensable help of the rubber-stamp Republican Congress, they’ve done it.

A reader at Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo:

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were in the front seat.

They drove the Iraq car off a cliff.

Then they turned to the Dems in the back seat.

And said the Dems couldn’t complain unless they could come up with a plan of their own.

The tragedy is that there is no rational hope for a plan (any plan) that will work well. When you’ve driven the car off the cliff, your range of options is quite limited. We’re in the hands of gravity at this point.

Gravity will do what gravity will do. Seat belts fastened?

The most important thing now is to keep Bush and Co. from driving over any additional cliffs.

I don’t usually watch Jay Leno’s Tonight show, so I’m glad Crooks and Liars linked to a version of this video. That’s what inspired me to go find this one. NBC News White House correspondent David Gregory:

Via Daily Kos, a Missouri Senate campaign ad, featuring Michael J. Fox on stem cell research:

Fox is suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.

One congressman imitates the Saturday Night Massacre and fires investigators looking into ethics issues. Now, via Crooks and Liars, we learn that another is compiling his own enemies list:

E-mails received by CREW [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] have prompted us to ask the Department of Justice to investigate whether Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) violated the law by intimidating government personnel “in the national security field” who support his opponent, Joe Sestak.

The first e-mail describes a “hit list” compiled of Weldon opponent’s supporters. In addition, that e-mail notes the Weldon said something to the effect of “If they don’t think there will be retribution before or after the election, they’re kidding themselves.” The second e-mail states that Weldon had his staff contact Navy personnel to get information on Sestak.

Nixon is not the best role model, guys.

According the Census Bureau estimates, the U.S. population hit 300 million on Tuesday.

Good thing, too. We need as many people as we can get to share the cost of this administration’s war in Iraq.

Let’s see — so far it’s cost 2,788 U.S. lives, but, hey — there’s plenty more where they came from, right?

In dollars, the bill runs about $300 billon. Now, if we all chip in, that’s only $1,000 from each and every man, woman and child in the U.S. right now.

Oops — too late. Make that $1,100. No, make it $1,110. Uh…

More people! Quick! We need more people!