Dick Cheney - inveterate tax-hike fiend

So, GOP, let's play by your rules on tax-hike votes. Dick Cheney in the house voted 144 times to increase taxes. As Jon Chait says, according to George W. Bush's logic, this puts Dick somewhere in the neighborhood of Che Guevara on taxes.

You'd think with all those tax-hikes he supported, Dick would think the government had money to afford all those defense programs he wanted to cut, the same program's John Kerry's opposition is such a problem for the republicans.

Of course, you'd also think that having said "Thank you, .....Senator Edwards for being here." would be something the VP would remember having said (and thus remember having sat next to John Edwards at a 2001 prayer breakfast) before claiming never to have met John Edwards on any of the (decidedly fewer than every) Tuesdays he was at the Senate.

Or you can just vote to get this bloody farce of an administration out.

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Poland shall not be forgotten

Enough said.

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Posting Comments Anonymously - How all your Internets can work for you.

Several readers (first time I get to mention readers, yeahhoo!!!) have expressed their concern that they have been unable to make a comment without signing up on Blogger. Arcbender appreciates your concerns, and as someone who wishes to bend arcs towards justice, I wish to take action. Thus, here is a short guide to Posting Comments Anonymously.

• Click on "Comments" link just beneath the post you wish to Comment on. This will take you to a page which shows the Full post
  
• On this page, scroll down to the bottom, there will be a link to "Post a comment"

.....

• Okay, hopefully everybody had a little time there to figure out that to comment, YOU CLICK ON THAT LINK(but just to give a little advice on my own personal experience, make sure you've read the full post before blasting it.).
• The next page will prompt you to enter a username and password. This is for people who are users on Blogger, mostly other Bloggers like this guy (actually, he's not just some guy, he's my brother, his blogs been kind of comatose lately, but if you like what he writes - and unlike me, he's trained to do this - you should use your new found skills to demand he write more.)
• So, what do you, you poor, poor souls that are not wasting your time throwing snark out into the multiple conflagrations of the INTERNETS, and thus are not a blogger user, DO?!?!!?!!?
• Well, Read down the page and you will notice the "Or Post Anonymously" link just under the prompt to enter user and password info. Click on this.
  
• There, you now have the privilege to post a comment, whatever you want.

Fire away. unlike Michael Stipe, I don't think "Silence means approval"

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Debate thoughts

Not quite live-blogging, and not quite complete, but here are my initial impressions of the debate, snarky and all.

• Mr. President, September 11th changed things. Like, for instance, when discussing your efforts at protecting the homeland, shaking your head and shrugging your shoulders a couple of times IS A REALLY BLOODY INADEQUATE RESPONSE!!
  

• "I don't know where to start" Yes, George, we've figured that out.

• Pledge question - Pledges are for losers. Any voter that needs a pledge on tax policy to get their vote, should be given a pacifier in return for their registration. Kerry shouldn't have taken it, though a Democrat can get away with dropping that promise, to some extent.
  

• President on Brownfields - this pause is so I can change the frequency on the ear piece.
  

• Considering the names the Bush Administration puts on Environmental measures (Clear Skies, Health Forest) shouldn't the war have been called Operation Silk Sheets and Bed Mints for Saddam?

• Okay Kerry's Red Sox reference...that was bad.
  

• Wow, when voters actually ask the questions rather than reporters trying to ask a question they "just know" the voters might ask, you don't get many ridiculous, "character" questions do you?

• Bush on judges - I oppose anyone who would have sided with the majority on Dred Scott? As Jon Stewart would say, WAAAAAH? Let's see, he's opposed to a judge who's too liberal, such as one who would follow the tenor of previous Supreme Court decisions and rule that "One nation under God" in fact probably means something about religious beliefs, and therefore teachers shouldn't be required to ask their kids to say it. On the other hand, a judge who's so conservative he thinks a black slave doesn't have the right to seek justice in our courts to remain in a free-soil state, he'd oppose that too. That's pretty middle of the road.

• FINALLY, Kerry explains the $87 B vote.
  

Overall, I think it was a pretty close debate. Bush was clearly unhinged on the war. At one point I thought he might have a freak moment. His eyes looked like (if the president ever had actually done cocaine, which of course, I'd never say he did) they were having a coke-related relapse. But after the domestic questions came in he calmed down, and held his own. A weird thing has happened this year, Democrats sound more secure talking about the war than about Domestic issues. Kerry never hit Bush for continuing to act as if he has added jobs with the 1.9 M new jobs over the last 13 months. This amount is less than is necessary to keep up with the increase in the job-seeking population, and today's released figures for September were pathetic, much smaller than necessary. Kerry didn't take advantage of that.

Still, Bush's albatross is Iraq, and it only got nastier today. He might have held ground, but it is clearer than ever that Mr. Bush needs to gain ground in the next few weeks to win.

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Boom, up in your face, Mr. Bush

Here is a link to a speech on the House Floor today from Tim Ryan, a first-term Ohio Democrat. He replaced one of the most disgusting (unfortunately Democrat) representatives in our history, Jim Traficant who was removed from office by Congress after being convicted of federal crimes.

But what makes this worth checking out. This is one of the quickest, cleanest and powerful indictments of the Bush administration I have ever seen. Spontaneous applause arose on the Houes floor. Trust me, watch it, and your pulse will quicken. Traficant was a lunatic, and his diatribes were often patently self-interested. No doubt Ryan knows he's just bought a boatload of free publicity. But it's nice to see a powerful calling out of the President for his continuing deceptions regarding the war.

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Well, not that about Poland.

Was it something I said?

Poland is withdrawing from Iraq.

El Salvador, Madagascar, you're day as key allies is a comin'.

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Cocooned away

Another reason why Bush didn't look tolerant of Kerry's thoughts during the debate is because of the cocoon in which he operates. You not only have to be a Bush support to see him on the campaign trail, you have to be ready to volunteer for his campaign in many instances. This means, when Bush goes on the road, he's not seeing America, he's seeing his volunteers.

But in the debate, he had to be America's President again, not his supporters'. And in a country as diverse and individualistic as ours, that means putting up with dissent. Unfortunately, he rarely has made much effort to expose himself to America. Thursday, it showed.

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Yeah, but what about Poland?!!

I've been out in Colorado the last few days, unable to post. But luckily I did get the chance to watch a tape of the debate Thursday night.

So, it's official, David Brooks is essentially conceding it, the polls clearly show it - Kerry thoroughly beat Bush. And Bush may have a debater-acting-badly problem because he spent so much effort in making painful faces while Kerry was speaking. (This may be where the six-year-olds and the ball head, though I haven't had much time to watch TV to find out)

Truth is, I didn't notice Bush's faces so much (maybe I just wasn't surprised). But paying more attention to his words, my major question after the debate for Bush is, when the hell did Poland become a top-flight ally? I couldn't believe during the debate that he spent more time talking about Poland's support and Lybia's "disarmament" (which was no great feat) than he did talking about North Korea and Iran.

My overriding impression of the debate was that while Bush is certain, his certainty seems less secure than Kerry's "uncertainty". Bush believes he's right, but it's pretty clear he doesn't know why he's right. Kerry on the other hand, knows the facts on the ground, and while his answers are more nuanced, he knows why they need to be. Hopefully enough voters disagree with Brooks "he sounds like me, and I'm a dope, so it's okay he's a dope too" theory on electoral decision making and will realize that we have a choice - between a candidate who knows we made a mistake and wants to try to fix it, and one who won't admit we made a mistake and thus can't begin to fix it.

Overall, I thought Kerry's performance was solid, and became excellent, especially in comparison to Bush, as the night moved on. Kerry needs though to emphasize more that Bush just doesn't react well to reality.

Finally, the Bush campaign made a mistake holding an all-foreign policy debate. Foreign Policy is Bush's strong point, but it is because he gets to fly to aircraft carriers and made platitudes about sacrifice and character, not because he can defend his positions. During the beginning of his favorability decline, Bush went on Meet the Press and talked mostly about foreign policy and his ratings dropped, because he said mostly the same thing for an hour. Apparently the campaign thought Kerry would look worse than Bush, but why? Kerry has been in the Senate for over a decade, on several committees related to foreign relations and national security. Instead of an all-encompassing debate, where Bush would only have to repeat himself for several questions on foreign policy and other issues might become grist for the media mill, Bush had to stand toe-to-toe with a war veteran, son of a diplomat who has voted on every major foreign policy issue of the lat 20 years. I know they put everything into Kerry's being a flip-flopper, but they should have also realized that to the extent he flops, it's because he's constantly learning about the subjects he votes on.

Well, I've got a hike, so this is all you get for now.

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