Monthly Archives: October 2004

ROFL

Posted on October 19, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Talk about two cultures divided by a common language. Wonkette channels the Guardian's followup to its letter-writing campaign directed to Clark County, Ohio in So Long and Thanks for All the Castles:

Americans respond to the Guardian's call for Britons to lobby Ohio voters against Bush. Mostly, they are not pleased, though some are more polite than others:

I used to visit the UK every year. I love the history and culture of your country. But after I heard about your campaign to influence our elections, I've decided that neither myself, nor my family will ever visit again. I'm offended by your campaign and because of it, I'm remembering more of the negative aspects I've seen in the UK than the positive ones. Though I still love the castles!

Versus, say:

Who in the hell do you think you are??? Well, I'll tell you, you're a bunch of meddling socialist pricks! Stay the hell out of our country and politics. And another thing, John Kerry is a worthless lying sack of crap so it doesn't surprise me that a socialist rag like yours would back him. I hope your cynical ploy blows up in your cowardly faces, you bunch of mealy-mouthed morons!

Our take: Yeah! Imagine that! A foreign power trying to, you know, assert control over a sovereign nation by writing letters. Why don't they just hand-pick a ruling coalition like a real empire would? Pussies.

Dear Limey assholes [Guardian]

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election, UK | 4 Comments

Krugman Feels a Draft

Posted on October 19, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

One of Krugman's best columns ever (where's that Pulitzer?): Feeling the Draft, makes exactly the right analogy:

Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits four years ago, when President Bush began pushing through his program of tax cuts. Back then he insisted that he wouldn't drive the budget into deficit – but those who looked at the facts strongly suspected otherwise. Now he insists that he won't revive the draft. But the facts suggest that he will.

There were two reasons some of us never believed Mr. Bush's budget promises. First, his claims that his tax cuts were affordable rested on patently unrealistic budget projections. Second, his broader policy goals, including the partial privatization of Social Security – which is clearly on his agenda for a second term – would involve large costs that were not included even in those unrealistic projections. This led to the justified suspicion that his election-year promises notwithstanding, Mr. Bush would preside over a return to budget deficits.

It's exactly the same when it comes to the draft. Mr. Bush's claim that we don't need any expansion in our military is patently unrealistic; it ignores the severe stress our Army is already under. And the experience in Iraq shows that pursuing his broader foreign policy doctrine – the “Bush doctrine” of pre-emptive war – would require much larger military forces than we now have.

This leads to the justified suspicion that after the election, Mr. Bush will seek a large expansion in our military, quite possibly through a return of the draft.

Mr. Bush's assurances that this won't happen are based on a denial of reality.

The poignant part of this is that four years ago when Krugman pointed out that the Bush economic policies didn't add up, the GOP slime machine started calling him shrill and suggesting he was out of the mainstream (which is code for something like 'commie' or 'we don't have to listen to him').

But Krugman was right about the deficit.

Posted in National Security | 21 Comments

Speak Truth, Lose Job

Posted on October 19, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Not an unusual circumstance in the working world: speak the truth, criticize the boss, lose your job. Somewhat odder when the job is allegedly journalism.

Sinclair DC News Bureau Chief Fired After Publicly Criticizing Management on Kerry Special.

But it's not about journalism, is it?

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 4 Comments

Voter Suppression Attempt in Philly

Posted on October 19, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Philadelphia Daily News, GOP fails in effort to move polls:

REPUBLICAN OPERATIVES working to re-elect President Bush submitted last-minute requests in Philadelphia on Friday to relocate 63 polling places.

Bush's Pennsylvania campaign staff filed the requests, using the names of two Republicans running for the U.S. Congress and seven Republican ward leaders.

Of the 63 requests for changes, 53 are in political divisions where the population of white voters is less than 10 percent. …

Bob Lee, voter registration administrator for the City Commission, said the requests appear to be “discriminatory” and were filed too late to be eligible for a hearing on Wednesday.

“They're trying to suppress the vote,” Lee said of Republicans. …

Lee, who has worked for the commission for 21 years, said he became suspicious of the requests because of the last-minute timing, the unusually high number and the locations. …

Requests are sent to hearings before the City Commission after public notices are posted for five days at the polling place, the proposed new polling place and three other places in the division.

Lee said the City Commission on Wednesday will hold its last hearing on polling place changes before the Nov. 2 election.

Since the requests came in on Friday afternoon, he said, there is not time for the public notices.

Then, the understatement of the week,

The requests could potentially confuse voters. The city has already ordered postcards mailed to 1.1 million registered voters before Election Day, directing them to polling places.

Which is of course the whole point. Undoubtedly, Philadelphia is not the only place this will happen. And in Florida, if you vote in the wrong place, your vote will not be counted (FWIW, the court reached the only possible conclusion given the wording of the state legislation).

Meanwhile, in Michigan, the Justice Department has just moved to block a Democratic lawsuit challenging a similar rule blocking the counting of 'provisional ballots' when a registered voter appears at the wrong precinct.

Why can't we allow people to vote in Post Offices or something? And why, in this computerized age, is it necessary to force people to vote in a given precinct?

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 3 Comments

Is This The Smoking Gun on Bush National Guard Record? And Why You Should Care

Posted on October 18, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

[Amended at 22:05]
Forget your highpowered TV networks, with their big staffs that fall for phoney documents. Enter Paul Lukasiak, a lone researcher—not even a trendy blogger—just a guy with some web pages. A guy who has been doing detailed archival work reconstructing GW Bush's service records. A guy who may have found something, and who's put it up on the web.

And what a set of web pages. I've linked to the AWOL Project often in the past, because it's meaty and detailed and explains its reasoning. So far as I'm aware, Mr. Lukasiak's conclusions have held up well. Admittedly, much of the Project, especially in its early days, was written in a detailed, quirky style that isn't all that media-friendly. Which is why, I think, the press has only lately begun to appreciate the AWOL project for what it is.

Today the AWOL Project unveils what may be its biggest blockbuster. [Regrettably, the site works much better in IE than in Firefox — in IE you can see excerpts of all the key documents, but in Firefox you cannot.]

Back in February I started blogging about the mystery of GW Bush's missing separation codes (also known as SPN codes). In the saga of the Bush National Guard career, the absence of any mention on any of the documents of the separation codes that normally give the reasons for a military discharge have always struck me as the biggest and strangest hole in the story, especially because during the period in which Bush served, Army SPN codes were remarkably detailed and chatty—and often very derogatory. Were the same or similar codes used in the National Guard? It seemed at least possible.

Now it seems as if Lukasiak has found and partly decoded Lt. Bush's separation code. The records released to date include Bush’s NGB-22 (.pdf), his “Report of Separation and Record of Service in the Air National Guard of Texas and as a Reserve of the Air Force.” That document has a section called “Reason and Authority for Discharge” (section 31, near the bottom). And therein is found a mysterious code, PTI 961.

Mr. Lukasiak theorizes that PTI 961 was a code which

indicates that he was being thrown out of the Air National Guard for failing “to possess the required military qualifications for his grade or specialty, or does not meet the mental, moral, professional or physical standards of the Air Force.” In other words, despite the fact that Bush had an unfulfilled six year Military Service Obligation, he was discharged from the Air National Guard not because he moved to Boston, but because he failed to meet his obligation to maintain his qualifications as an F102 pilot.

Getting to that conclusion takes a little bit of work.

Continue reading →

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 9 Comments

Strange, Sad Priorities

Posted on October 18, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

The Carpetbagger Report: The media has its priorities; are they yours?

Words devoted to the Mary Cheney “story” in the Washington Post over the past three days: 1,099

Words devoted in the Washington Post over the past three days to the fact that the president's top political aide testified before a federal grand jury on Friday as part of an ongoing criminal investigation of the Bush White House: 438

The New York Times' ratio was even worse. The manufactured Mary Cheney flap has generated 3,074 words since Saturday (from two news items and two op-eds) in the paper of record; Rove's testimony's received 813 words.

Meet the Press, meanwhile, devoted 1,055 words to Mary Cheney yesterday; Rove's grand jury testimony wasn't mentioned at all.

The Washington Post even polled on the Mary Cheney “story” on Friday (64% said Kerry's comment was “inappropriate”). There were no questions in the poll about the ongoing criminal investigation of the White House.

I'd like to see a poll about whether Bush saying he never said he didn't care about Osama was “inappropriate”. No. How about a poll asking if invading Iraq with no plans at all for winning the peace was “inappropriate”?

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 2 Comments