Although Iraq was a major topic of conversation during the presidential debate there was little difference between the candidates on the subject. They both had the same opinions regarding Hussein before the war and they both have the same remedies after the war. Train troops, secure borders, have elections and be committed to doing the right thing in terms of bringing democracy to Iraq.
The clear difference between the candidates was the discussion on North Korea. Kerry asserted that Korea gained nuclear weapons on Bush's watch and that as president he would immediately begin bilateral negotiations with Korea to address the proliferation issue. Bush responded that this was a clear mistake. China, South Korea, Japan and Russia all had major stakes in the issue and ought to continue be involved to a great degree in these talks. He also stated the obvious in that China has influence with the North Koreans. Its no secret the Chinese saved the North once before.
Kerry misses on this one in a big way. We need only go back to the bilateral talks and agreements that the Clinton administration reached with North Korea to see the mistake in ever pursuing that strategy again. Clinton had concluded an agreement that allowed for tons of food aid, light water reactors and many tons of fuel oil as payoffs to the North Koreans to keep them from building nuclear weapons. Guess what? They enriched uranium and built them anyway. It was the Bush administration that called them on this deception.
North Korea is a very dangerous character and they are most dangerous to the well being of the Chinese. The Chinese are well on their way towards modernization and realizing tremendous economic gains for their population and can ill afford to have that derailed by regional instability. These two countries along with Japan have a long history of dislike for one another and since North Korea has limited delivery capability, the people who are threatened most by the North's weapons are in the neighborhood.
If the North Koreans continue to be belligerent and continue to be a threat, how long do you think it will be before Japan understands the need to have nukes as well? Do the Chinese want a nuclear powered Japan to have to deal with? Make no mistake about it, from a technology standpoint, the Japanese could go nuclear in a heart beat.
Kerry harped on the idea of building alliances and agreed that nuclear proliferation is the major challenge facing the world yet when faced with an effective alliance working on the North Koreans he wants to go with a unilateral approach by the United States.
China and Japan are the major players and this problem is directly in their sphere of influence. Its time for the US to take a back seat and let the nations that have most to lose begin to sort out the solutions. Bush is clearly right and the Kerry solution was already practiced and proven a distinct failure
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Senators don't win
If you have been following presidential politics for the past 40 years, there is one undeniable conclusion that can be arrived at. Senators do not win in contests for the presidency of the United States. Since the Kennedy election in 1964 it has been one unsuccessful attempt after another in trying to ascend to the most powerful political position on earth. The only other former senator to become president since Kennedy was Johnson and of course that was as a result of assassination
The list is long and unimpressive in terms of election results. The only senators who have come close are those that first served as vice president before attempting a stab at the top job. Humphrey, Mondale and Gore have made reasonable runs and were oh so close to getting the job. Those who were without the vice presidential mantle were crushed. Goldwater, McGovern and Dole were all dispatched with relative ease.
The winners of the presidency fit into two categories, vice presidents with 8 years experience as number 2 man, Nixon and Bush Sr. and governors. The second group of winners is Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr. Each of them had served as governors and brought executive experience to the top job. That lack of management experience would seem to be the primary factor as to why John Kerry will be defeated in his quest for the presidency.
Look at Kerry's resume and you find very little in the way of management experience. He served in the Middlesex County D.A.'s office and as Lieutenant Governor in Massachusetts. A state by the way in which half the population can barely remember who the Lt. Governor is.
Other than lack of management experience there are other factors that weigh on a senator. The senate is usually compared to the house of lords. A lot of rich white guys get together and talk long and civilly about legislation. In Kerry's case that talk has resulted in virtually no legislation he can call his own. If the economy and health care and social security are all issues dear to his heart you would think he might have actually had some legislative initiatives to address those issues. Another draw back is the congressional record. Unfortunately for Kerry, words that he has spoken on the floor of the senate has come back to haunt him in this election cycle.
Oration is supposedly one of Kerry's strong points and Bush's weakest. We will see tomorrow night whether or not Kerry can capitalize in this area. It would seem however that both history and his own debate negotiations are stacked against him. The chosen topic for tomorrow night is foreign policy and Kerry's recent actions in trying to undermine Allawi as well as his continuously changing positions on Iraq do not leave him much opportunity for scoring against Bush.
The list is long and unimpressive in terms of election results. The only senators who have come close are those that first served as vice president before attempting a stab at the top job. Humphrey, Mondale and Gore have made reasonable runs and were oh so close to getting the job. Those who were without the vice presidential mantle were crushed. Goldwater, McGovern and Dole were all dispatched with relative ease.
The winners of the presidency fit into two categories, vice presidents with 8 years experience as number 2 man, Nixon and Bush Sr. and governors. The second group of winners is Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr. Each of them had served as governors and brought executive experience to the top job. That lack of management experience would seem to be the primary factor as to why John Kerry will be defeated in his quest for the presidency.
Look at Kerry's resume and you find very little in the way of management experience. He served in the Middlesex County D.A.'s office and as Lieutenant Governor in Massachusetts. A state by the way in which half the population can barely remember who the Lt. Governor is.
Other than lack of management experience there are other factors that weigh on a senator. The senate is usually compared to the house of lords. A lot of rich white guys get together and talk long and civilly about legislation. In Kerry's case that talk has resulted in virtually no legislation he can call his own. If the economy and health care and social security are all issues dear to his heart you would think he might have actually had some legislative initiatives to address those issues. Another draw back is the congressional record. Unfortunately for Kerry, words that he has spoken on the floor of the senate has come back to haunt him in this election cycle.
Oration is supposedly one of Kerry's strong points and Bush's weakest. We will see tomorrow night whether or not Kerry can capitalize in this area. It would seem however that both history and his own debate negotiations are stacked against him. The chosen topic for tomorrow night is foreign policy and Kerry's recent actions in trying to undermine Allawi as well as his continuously changing positions on Iraq do not leave him much opportunity for scoring against Bush.
Monday, September 20, 2004
The Strip Mall (local)
There seems to be some general agreement that the town needs a 190,000 square foot strip mall on the Wayside Road site. Yes, it is enormous. Envision the beginning of the site at the corner of Wayside Road and Route 3A being completely leveled all the way up to South Bedford Street. All 16 acres will either be roof tops or parking lot. Its not a strip mall the proponents argue but a "lifestyle center" complete with pedestrians and outside dining. When was the last time you saw a pedestrian on Mall Road or South Bedford Street?
I happened to catch both Open for Discussion in which the hostess simply gushed over the proposal and Editor's Roundtable which had at least a little more analysis of the project yet still seemed to be coming down on the side of passage.
The general consensus seemed to be that this retail space would somehow be much different than the current retail space already in town and that it would attract new business, offset the office vacancy rate and lower the residents tax burden.
Unfortunately none of this is true. The residential tax rate has risen primarily because there has been an enormous increase in residential home values. Couple that with the fact that the Selectmen did not shift the classification ratio and that is why the average tax payer had an 8% tax increase last year which was equal to the second highest increase over the last thirty years.
Several town officials have been parroting the developers statements relative to the vacancy rate in town as 36%. Where exactly can that number be verified and who can authoritatively say that this is as bad as it has ever been? Certainly we have had recessions which have been much worse, including unemployment rates well over 7% in times gone by. We recovered from those recessions and we will recover from this one as well. Building this huge strip mall will not reduce the office vacancy rate and in fact an argument can be made that it will increase retail vacancies and reduce retail values because this project will certainly be competing against existing retail space in town. The developer says "oh no" because this is a different "product".
What's so different about it when they can't tell you what if any tenants are currently likely to come here? What tenants will they have that the Mall, Crossroads or Middlesex Commons couldn't attract? What is more likely to happen is that a glut of retail space will have the same impact on the retail market as a glut has had on the office market. Couple that with a huge new mall that has been approved one town over in Tewksbury and we can consider that our all of our retail space is likely to feel some heavy competitive pressure over the next few years.
There are other substantial impacts that a retail project of this magnitude can have on the community which no one seems to want to mention. Certainly the water consumption, water pressure and sewer outflow will all be impacted greatly. The numbers of car trips are estimated to be near 10,000 per day. One can only guess what havoc that will wreak on route 3A. How about the other baggage which comes with a mall of this size? Crime will be a major component as car thefts are always part of a strip mall as are shop lifting and surplus television set scams. Additionally with that many car trips there will be a corresponding percentage increase in accidents in that area.
What about the jobs that will be created? Well that doesn't appear to be much of a bonus either since most of the jobs will be retail and with the except of management those jobs are generally not very high paying.
What positive impact can be garnered by having three more liquor licenses in town? Will that lower the office vacancy rate? Or will it likely result in more DUI's?
One of the items which should be a dead give away that this is a bad idea is that the developer has offered a "concession" via a covenant that will prevent "big box retailers".
As you know over the last few years the town has not done to well with developer covenants or agreements. We still haven't gotten the state barn land the Selectmen said was coming from the Sun Deal. Both Sun and Oracle are not in compliance with the TIF agreements, the three way landswap resulted in three lots which apparently aren't worth as much as we thought because they have wetlands on them and the SMOC group who we were told would build the affordables fell through. In addition we nearly lost one of the military houses after we found out the banks were protected not the town.
The original zoning of the town in the early 50's allowed for the concentration of retail establishments far away from this area of the town. The South Side of 128 was always thought to be preserved for high quality development. This plan was somewhat derailed in the early 80's by contamination from the original industrial development. Now that problem is behind us, let's not change our vision and accept a short sighted proposal that we will be stuck with for the next 40 years.
I happened to catch both Open for Discussion in which the hostess simply gushed over the proposal and Editor's Roundtable which had at least a little more analysis of the project yet still seemed to be coming down on the side of passage.
The general consensus seemed to be that this retail space would somehow be much different than the current retail space already in town and that it would attract new business, offset the office vacancy rate and lower the residents tax burden.
Unfortunately none of this is true. The residential tax rate has risen primarily because there has been an enormous increase in residential home values. Couple that with the fact that the Selectmen did not shift the classification ratio and that is why the average tax payer had an 8% tax increase last year which was equal to the second highest increase over the last thirty years.
Several town officials have been parroting the developers statements relative to the vacancy rate in town as 36%. Where exactly can that number be verified and who can authoritatively say that this is as bad as it has ever been? Certainly we have had recessions which have been much worse, including unemployment rates well over 7% in times gone by. We recovered from those recessions and we will recover from this one as well. Building this huge strip mall will not reduce the office vacancy rate and in fact an argument can be made that it will increase retail vacancies and reduce retail values because this project will certainly be competing against existing retail space in town. The developer says "oh no" because this is a different "product".
What's so different about it when they can't tell you what if any tenants are currently likely to come here? What tenants will they have that the Mall, Crossroads or Middlesex Commons couldn't attract? What is more likely to happen is that a glut of retail space will have the same impact on the retail market as a glut has had on the office market. Couple that with a huge new mall that has been approved one town over in Tewksbury and we can consider that our all of our retail space is likely to feel some heavy competitive pressure over the next few years.
There are other substantial impacts that a retail project of this magnitude can have on the community which no one seems to want to mention. Certainly the water consumption, water pressure and sewer outflow will all be impacted greatly. The numbers of car trips are estimated to be near 10,000 per day. One can only guess what havoc that will wreak on route 3A. How about the other baggage which comes with a mall of this size? Crime will be a major component as car thefts are always part of a strip mall as are shop lifting and surplus television set scams. Additionally with that many car trips there will be a corresponding percentage increase in accidents in that area.
What about the jobs that will be created? Well that doesn't appear to be much of a bonus either since most of the jobs will be retail and with the except of management those jobs are generally not very high paying.
What positive impact can be garnered by having three more liquor licenses in town? Will that lower the office vacancy rate? Or will it likely result in more DUI's?
One of the items which should be a dead give away that this is a bad idea is that the developer has offered a "concession" via a covenant that will prevent "big box retailers".
As you know over the last few years the town has not done to well with developer covenants or agreements. We still haven't gotten the state barn land the Selectmen said was coming from the Sun Deal. Both Sun and Oracle are not in compliance with the TIF agreements, the three way landswap resulted in three lots which apparently aren't worth as much as we thought because they have wetlands on them and the SMOC group who we were told would build the affordables fell through. In addition we nearly lost one of the military houses after we found out the banks were protected not the town.
The original zoning of the town in the early 50's allowed for the concentration of retail establishments far away from this area of the town. The South Side of 128 was always thought to be preserved for high quality development. This plan was somewhat derailed in the early 80's by contamination from the original industrial development. Now that problem is behind us, let's not change our vision and accept a short sighted proposal that we will be stuck with for the next 40 years.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Watershed event
Its Wednesday night about at 5:43 EST and I am eagerly awaiting the newest CBS statement regarding the Bush National Guard memos. At this time it would appear to be a foregone conclusion that Rather and company will finally come clean and admit that the documents are forgeries. At this point they would seem to have little choice since the wave of doubt and criticism seems to be growing by the hour. Despite digging in his heels and his protestations that people with agendas are promoting the forgery theory, Rather and CBS president Hayward can longer prolong the inevitable.
Virtually no one who has been involved with the authentication of the original documents for CBS has stood by them. Two of the original experts contacted, as late as last Wednesday night had urged CBS not to go forward with the story as they had serious doubts about their authenticity. The two alleged experts who had stood by CBS have also had problems as one has said that he was a handwiritng expert and could not vouch for the text of the documents. The other who was a former typewriter salesmen who was arguing the point that the New Times Roman script could have been produced on a vintage 1972 IBM Selectric has subsequently been completely discredited. The Texas National Guard officer who was quoted in the CBS 60 Minutes segment admitted that he thought the notes were hand written not typed and he only said the language sounded like something Lt. Colonel Killian might have written. He hadn't actually seen anything written. Add to this the cacophony of criticism in the blogosphere and now the Johnny come latelys of the main stream media and you have an overwhelming negative verdict on CBS's conduct in this affair. The result is that Rather and the network are backed into a very small corner and how they react may indeed result in their being relegated to the cheap seats of American media.
There are any number of questions which are brought to mind over this entire sordid affair. How could a national network the size of CBS with its enormous resources have been taken in so badly? Were they duped or was it a partisan effort by Rather and company to off set the damage done to Kerry? What concern should we have for our system in general if journalism is being replaced by rabid partisanship?
From my perspective the answers to those questions are relevant but in terms of the over all picture of the American election process it will not have significant impact. The reason for this can be stated in the simplest terms. The Web!
This might have been a watershed event in many areas of American political and journalistic life. The web to this point has revolutionized many areas of American life. Web games, EBay, Etrade, Email, homework, dating, training, chat rooms, Napster, we can go on and on using examples of how it has changed our life. Politics and its coverage by the media has now been impacted just as dramatically.
It began this season with the Swiftvets. A relatively small and underfunded 527 group was able to forcibly alter the debate, force attention from the mainstream media and negate tens of millions of dollars in traditional political advertising because it caught attention in the blogosphere. Now to demonstrate even more influence the blogosphere has taken a network and brought it to its knees and forced it to adhere to its own self proclaimed standards. All as the result of a huge network of people from all walks of life with all different view points simply trying to find out whats really going on. The American media will never be the same.
Virtually no one who has been involved with the authentication of the original documents for CBS has stood by them. Two of the original experts contacted, as late as last Wednesday night had urged CBS not to go forward with the story as they had serious doubts about their authenticity. The two alleged experts who had stood by CBS have also had problems as one has said that he was a handwiritng expert and could not vouch for the text of the documents. The other who was a former typewriter salesmen who was arguing the point that the New Times Roman script could have been produced on a vintage 1972 IBM Selectric has subsequently been completely discredited. The Texas National Guard officer who was quoted in the CBS 60 Minutes segment admitted that he thought the notes were hand written not typed and he only said the language sounded like something Lt. Colonel Killian might have written. He hadn't actually seen anything written. Add to this the cacophony of criticism in the blogosphere and now the Johnny come latelys of the main stream media and you have an overwhelming negative verdict on CBS's conduct in this affair. The result is that Rather and the network are backed into a very small corner and how they react may indeed result in their being relegated to the cheap seats of American media.
There are any number of questions which are brought to mind over this entire sordid affair. How could a national network the size of CBS with its enormous resources have been taken in so badly? Were they duped or was it a partisan effort by Rather and company to off set the damage done to Kerry? What concern should we have for our system in general if journalism is being replaced by rabid partisanship?
From my perspective the answers to those questions are relevant but in terms of the over all picture of the American election process it will not have significant impact. The reason for this can be stated in the simplest terms. The Web!
This might have been a watershed event in many areas of American political and journalistic life. The web to this point has revolutionized many areas of American life. Web games, EBay, Etrade, Email, homework, dating, training, chat rooms, Napster, we can go on and on using examples of how it has changed our life. Politics and its coverage by the media has now been impacted just as dramatically.
It began this season with the Swiftvets. A relatively small and underfunded 527 group was able to forcibly alter the debate, force attention from the mainstream media and negate tens of millions of dollars in traditional political advertising because it caught attention in the blogosphere. Now to demonstrate even more influence the blogosphere has taken a network and brought it to its knees and forced it to adhere to its own self proclaimed standards. All as the result of a huge network of people from all walks of life with all different view points simply trying to find out whats really going on. The American media will never be the same.
Friday, September 10, 2004
Bernie's laughing somewhere
On February 13, 1996 Bernard Goldberg, a veteran of 30 years at CBS had the audacity to write an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that was titled Networks Need a Reality Check. The essence of the article was that Bernard believed a left leaning liberal bias permeated the networks. He detailed an example of this in an examination of a piece his own network had done on then presidential candidate Steve Forbe’s flat tax plan. The piece masquerading as a news report was actually a very snide and denigrating attack on Forbe’s as presenting a “wacky” idea. The essence of Mr. Goldberg’s comments was that “the old argument that the network and other media elites have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it is hardly worth discussing anymore”.
As you might imagine in a business as concerned about facts and fairness and having a reputation for introspection that his criticism was received good naturedly and it touched off a critical examination of his concerns within the industry. NOT!
What actually happened is well documented in Goldberg’s book Bias. In it he painstakingly describes how that article turned him into a pariah within CBS an ultimately cost him his job. In a business that reacted joyously to promoting the agenda of any whistleblower, Goldberg’s assertions were met with hysteria. Take this for example, a quote from the book from Andrew Heyward CBS news president. When Goldberg told him that he had written the piece about media bias in the Journal, Heyward screamed at him that was like “raping his wife and kidnapping his kids”. Wow, quite a reaction to criticism by a hardened newsman.
Of course the real meat of the story has to do with Dan Rather’s reaction to Goldberg’s assertions in his book. Dan of course was Bernie’s boss at CBS and was one of the primary targets of the book. “The real Dan Rather is a man who regards criticism of liberal bias as treason”. Bernie details just how insulated these network stars are from what America really thinks and why American's are turning the station selector away from these people with great delight. I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you but I will get to the point.
Somewhere tonight Bernard Goldberg is laughing his ass off. The reason of course is that it looks like Dan’s overwhelming desire to promote Kerry and trash Bush has led him to perhaps make a career ending decision.
As you know the Kerry campaign has been in complete disarray after having been slammed numerous times with direct hits from the Swift Boat Vets. Despite this, the networks for the most part have ignored their story, the large print media led by the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe have acted with out right hostility. Despite having had an overwhelming number of stories about Bush’s national guard service, apparently all of them felt that the guard story still had legs and could heal some of the damage done to Kerry if it continues to be front-page news. The Globe this week has had front-page coverage three days in a row, including an alleged expose by their vaunted Spotlight team.
Well the CBS news program Sixty Minutes and Dan Rather had to get into one upsmanship with a report on a collection of four new memos found in the file of one Colonel Jerry Killian of the Texas Air National Guard. Needless to say the memos are not very complimentary to Mr. Bush. The problem at this point is that it seems as though there is some pretty damn good evidence that the memos are forgeries. Though the Colonel is deceased, Colonel Killian's wife and son are still around and they reject the idea that these are a factual documents. In fact, the wife is quite complimentary to Bush as to how her husband felt about him as a young flier.
Check out this site at The American Spectator for a full explanation of the alleged origins of the memos. www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7096
Now that you know the origins of the documents take a look at http://powerlineblog.com/ to find out just exactly how they have been determined to be fakes. So what is the Dan’s response to these revelations? The following is a transcript of Dan’s appearance on CNN today
DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that
the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air
if they would not have been. There isn't going to be -- there's no -- what
you're saying apology?
QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or...
RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I
want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story
is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which
is where those who don't like the story like to put the emphasis, the more
important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the
story, which I just gave you earlier.
This item was taken from the Drudgereport this afternoon:
CBS NEWS executives launched an internal investigation into
whether its premiere news program 60 MINUTES aired fabricated documents
relating to Bush's National Guard service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
"The reputation and integrity of the entire news division is at stake, if we
are in error, it will be corrected," a top CBS source explained late
Thursday.
In any event, the story will soon unfold but two things are sure, if the documents are fake Dan Rather won’t be trusted to go to the store for milk and instead of helping Kerry, he will have put another nail in the coffin of his candidacy.
As you might imagine in a business as concerned about facts and fairness and having a reputation for introspection that his criticism was received good naturedly and it touched off a critical examination of his concerns within the industry. NOT!
What actually happened is well documented in Goldberg’s book Bias. In it he painstakingly describes how that article turned him into a pariah within CBS an ultimately cost him his job. In a business that reacted joyously to promoting the agenda of any whistleblower, Goldberg’s assertions were met with hysteria. Take this for example, a quote from the book from Andrew Heyward CBS news president. When Goldberg told him that he had written the piece about media bias in the Journal, Heyward screamed at him that was like “raping his wife and kidnapping his kids”. Wow, quite a reaction to criticism by a hardened newsman.
Of course the real meat of the story has to do with Dan Rather’s reaction to Goldberg’s assertions in his book. Dan of course was Bernie’s boss at CBS and was one of the primary targets of the book. “The real Dan Rather is a man who regards criticism of liberal bias as treason”. Bernie details just how insulated these network stars are from what America really thinks and why American's are turning the station selector away from these people with great delight. I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you but I will get to the point.
Somewhere tonight Bernard Goldberg is laughing his ass off. The reason of course is that it looks like Dan’s overwhelming desire to promote Kerry and trash Bush has led him to perhaps make a career ending decision.
As you know the Kerry campaign has been in complete disarray after having been slammed numerous times with direct hits from the Swift Boat Vets. Despite this, the networks for the most part have ignored their story, the large print media led by the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe have acted with out right hostility. Despite having had an overwhelming number of stories about Bush’s national guard service, apparently all of them felt that the guard story still had legs and could heal some of the damage done to Kerry if it continues to be front-page news. The Globe this week has had front-page coverage three days in a row, including an alleged expose by their vaunted Spotlight team.
Well the CBS news program Sixty Minutes and Dan Rather had to get into one upsmanship with a report on a collection of four new memos found in the file of one Colonel Jerry Killian of the Texas Air National Guard. Needless to say the memos are not very complimentary to Mr. Bush. The problem at this point is that it seems as though there is some pretty damn good evidence that the memos are forgeries. Though the Colonel is deceased, Colonel Killian's wife and son are still around and they reject the idea that these are a factual documents. In fact, the wife is quite complimentary to Bush as to how her husband felt about him as a young flier.
Check out this site at The American Spectator for a full explanation of the alleged origins of the memos. www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7096
Now that you know the origins of the documents take a look at http://powerlineblog.com/ to find out just exactly how they have been determined to be fakes. So what is the Dan’s response to these revelations? The following is a transcript of Dan’s appearance on CNN today
DAN RATHER, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I know that this story is true. I believe that
the witnesses and the documents are authentic. We wouldn't have gone to air
if they would not have been. There isn't going to be -- there's no -- what
you're saying apology?
QUESTION: Apology or any kind of retraction or...
RATHER: Not even discussed, nor should it be. I want to make clear to you, I
want to make clear to you if I have not made clear to you, that this story
is true, and that more important questions than how we got the story, which
is where those who don't like the story like to put the emphasis, the more
important question is what are the answers to the questions raised in the
story, which I just gave you earlier.
This item was taken from the Drudgereport this afternoon:
CBS NEWS executives launched an internal investigation into
whether its premiere news program 60 MINUTES aired fabricated documents
relating to Bush's National Guard service, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
"The reputation and integrity of the entire news division is at stake, if we
are in error, it will be corrected," a top CBS source explained late
Thursday.
In any event, the story will soon unfold but two things are sure, if the documents are fake Dan Rather won’t be trusted to go to the store for milk and instead of helping Kerry, he will have put another nail in the coffin of his candidacy.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Can you spell Landslide?
Only a fool would be so bold as to suggest at this juncture in the campaign that either candidate would be building such as a lead as to create a landslide. Color me foolish!
Two items come to mind this morning that may bring more attention to an issue that may contribute to a growing George W. Bush lead over John Kerry. Apparently, Douglas Brinkley, the historian who has written Kerry's biography, Tour of Duty, has called for the releasing of the 100 pages of Kerry's military record. Brinkley has been increasingly criticized by conservatives for writing a "hagiography" which according to Webster's is the "biography of saints or venerated persons". Apparently Brinkley is feeling the attack on his credibility as an historian.
In an almost identical request is Nat Hentoff's op-ed piece in the Washington Times, which is entitled "the opaque John Kerry". Hentoff makes the very clear argument that despite Kerry's campaign claims to the contrary, the full military record of Kerry has not been released. He goes on to wonder why the mainstream media has not made an issue of this.
I have to wonder the same thing when I look at AOL headlines this morning and one of the items is gaps in Bush's National Guard Service. Again this is being brought out as to highlight that Kerry served in Viet Nam but GW Bush didn't. That's fine, but why no reference to the 100 pages? What if anything is in the 100 pages that Kerry has felt the necessity to keep private?
My neighborhood paper was busy with a couple of Kerry pieces. The Globe magazine section has a nice puff piece with the temerity to list the who's who of the new Kerry administration. Written by John Sedgwick, the piece is notable for its first paragraph which talks about the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority which, "isn't exactly a pool of national-caliber political talent". What sewer department in the country is? We find that it is mentioned first because apparently one of the employees boasted to the executive director that "if Kerry was elected he was going to be named as an administrator to the EPA and is wife was going to be Kerry's chief of staff". According to Sedgwick one of the participants said "but can you imagine if Kerry heard that? He would be thinking "You have been totally indiscreet. We can't even trust you now." Since later on in the article it mentions that Mary Beth Cahill is likely to be named Kerry's chief of staff, we can assume that there is a Mr. Cahill and Sedgewick wanted to stick a dagger in him with the Kerry camp.
The Monday piece by Patrick Healy discusses the strategy behind using Kerry's war record as the primary platform of his candidacy. Once again the Globe completely dismisses the veracity of the Swiftvets, instead referring to the comments of the Kerry staff of charges of McCarthyism and charges this is the Bush family playbook of dirty tactics. No mention of the numbers, 256 of anti Kerry Swiftvets vs. the 9 who are on the trail with him.
It's a pretty interesting piece but it makes no effort to explain why Kerry is in deep trouble over the Swiftvet issues. One telling quote is that "Kerry did not respond" to the Swiftvet "smearing" of Kerry as "Hanoi John" in part because he felt that discredited veterans, not political equals, were making the attacks and they were not worthy of his response.
According to Healy, the Swiftvet attacks "have stunned many in the camp and have left Kerry frustrated that the media have not dismissed the charges as unsubstantiated".
The Kerry camp still believes they have "an extraordinary story of heroism to tell Americans" The Swiftvets insist he is an extraordinary serial embellisher who sold out his fellow servicemen.
Two items come to mind this morning that may bring more attention to an issue that may contribute to a growing George W. Bush lead over John Kerry. Apparently, Douglas Brinkley, the historian who has written Kerry's biography, Tour of Duty, has called for the releasing of the 100 pages of Kerry's military record. Brinkley has been increasingly criticized by conservatives for writing a "hagiography" which according to Webster's is the "biography of saints or venerated persons". Apparently Brinkley is feeling the attack on his credibility as an historian.
In an almost identical request is Nat Hentoff's op-ed piece in the Washington Times, which is entitled "the opaque John Kerry". Hentoff makes the very clear argument that despite Kerry's campaign claims to the contrary, the full military record of Kerry has not been released. He goes on to wonder why the mainstream media has not made an issue of this.
I have to wonder the same thing when I look at AOL headlines this morning and one of the items is gaps in Bush's National Guard Service. Again this is being brought out as to highlight that Kerry served in Viet Nam but GW Bush didn't. That's fine, but why no reference to the 100 pages? What if anything is in the 100 pages that Kerry has felt the necessity to keep private?
My neighborhood paper was busy with a couple of Kerry pieces. The Globe magazine section has a nice puff piece with the temerity to list the who's who of the new Kerry administration. Written by John Sedgwick, the piece is notable for its first paragraph which talks about the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority which, "isn't exactly a pool of national-caliber political talent". What sewer department in the country is? We find that it is mentioned first because apparently one of the employees boasted to the executive director that "if Kerry was elected he was going to be named as an administrator to the EPA and is wife was going to be Kerry's chief of staff". According to Sedgwick one of the participants said "but can you imagine if Kerry heard that? He would be thinking "You have been totally indiscreet. We can't even trust you now." Since later on in the article it mentions that Mary Beth Cahill is likely to be named Kerry's chief of staff, we can assume that there is a Mr. Cahill and Sedgewick wanted to stick a dagger in him with the Kerry camp.
The Monday piece by Patrick Healy discusses the strategy behind using Kerry's war record as the primary platform of his candidacy. Once again the Globe completely dismisses the veracity of the Swiftvets, instead referring to the comments of the Kerry staff of charges of McCarthyism and charges this is the Bush family playbook of dirty tactics. No mention of the numbers, 256 of anti Kerry Swiftvets vs. the 9 who are on the trail with him.
It's a pretty interesting piece but it makes no effort to explain why Kerry is in deep trouble over the Swiftvet issues. One telling quote is that "Kerry did not respond" to the Swiftvet "smearing" of Kerry as "Hanoi John" in part because he felt that discredited veterans, not political equals, were making the attacks and they were not worthy of his response.
According to Healy, the Swiftvet attacks "have stunned many in the camp and have left Kerry frustrated that the media have not dismissed the charges as unsubstantiated".
The Kerry camp still believes they have "an extraordinary story of heroism to tell Americans" The Swiftvets insist he is an extraordinary serial embellisher who sold out his fellow servicemen.
Friday, September 03, 2004
The battle is joined
The preliminaries are finally over and now we are headed straight for the main event. Much to the surprise of many in the media it is a much different field of play than had been anticipated.
The conclusion of last night’s Republican convention is quite a contrast to what the Kerry team might have predicted. Immediately following the Democratic convention the Kerry forces were comfortable and cocky in the war hero great leader theme that the Kerry team had tried to strike. However after months of battering President Bush with Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Fahrenheit 911 and 63 million dollars in soft money attacks, the Kerry team is now clearly behind, in some disarray and without a clear turning point is headed for defeat in November. Some cracks can be seen in the Kerry support with a big media outlet columnist at the New Times throwing Kerry under the bus by calling him lame and other outlets leaking stories of dissatisfaction and suggesting needed change with senior operatives in the Kerry campaign and with its core strategy.
Conventions now as a rule are simply marketing vehicles complete with music and cheerleaders and a unified theme keeping everyone on message. The Bush team succeeded in all of that while keeping anything ugly like platform disagreements from diverting attention from the Bush strong leader anti terrorism theme. The cast of speakers was primarily centrist and included the highly visible rising stars in the Republican party. The major damage done to Kerry happened as a result of turncoat Democratic Senator Zell Miller striking the opposite chord of the Bush theme against Kerry. In a scathing attack, Miller essentially said Bush is strong and then gave a list of reasons why Kerry is weak and vacillating.
Kerry has still not developed an effective strategy to deal with the Swiftvets. The new ads are past questioning Kerry’s war record and now are focused on his more potentially devastating congressional testimony. What I believe ultimately will be the most effective criticism of Kerry is his Paris visits with the Viet Cong leadership while we as a nation were still involved in combat and had people held as captives.
Current events outside the country are not helping Kerry either. The recent taking of a Russian school, downing of two airliners and a bomb at a Russian bus station allegedly by Chechan terrorists only further preys on the fears of the average American. If Islamic terrorists will stoop to murdering school children who can fault Bush for wanting to take a hard line everywhere against them?
Despite all of this Kerry’s chances are not hopeless. The Bush 43 Achilles heal could be the exact same one as Bush 41. If Kerry can focus the electorate on the economy and if upcoming economic numbers are unfavorable to Bush then perhaps Kerry can roll out the very successful “it’s the economy stupid mantra”. This may be difficult since today’s employment number is positive, oil prices are falling from previous highs and a steep drop in interest rates over the last 2 weeks do not seem to be Kerry friendly.
The conclusion of last night’s Republican convention is quite a contrast to what the Kerry team might have predicted. Immediately following the Democratic convention the Kerry forces were comfortable and cocky in the war hero great leader theme that the Kerry team had tried to strike. However after months of battering President Bush with Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Fahrenheit 911 and 63 million dollars in soft money attacks, the Kerry team is now clearly behind, in some disarray and without a clear turning point is headed for defeat in November. Some cracks can be seen in the Kerry support with a big media outlet columnist at the New Times throwing Kerry under the bus by calling him lame and other outlets leaking stories of dissatisfaction and suggesting needed change with senior operatives in the Kerry campaign and with its core strategy.
Conventions now as a rule are simply marketing vehicles complete with music and cheerleaders and a unified theme keeping everyone on message. The Bush team succeeded in all of that while keeping anything ugly like platform disagreements from diverting attention from the Bush strong leader anti terrorism theme. The cast of speakers was primarily centrist and included the highly visible rising stars in the Republican party. The major damage done to Kerry happened as a result of turncoat Democratic Senator Zell Miller striking the opposite chord of the Bush theme against Kerry. In a scathing attack, Miller essentially said Bush is strong and then gave a list of reasons why Kerry is weak and vacillating.
Kerry has still not developed an effective strategy to deal with the Swiftvets. The new ads are past questioning Kerry’s war record and now are focused on his more potentially devastating congressional testimony. What I believe ultimately will be the most effective criticism of Kerry is his Paris visits with the Viet Cong leadership while we as a nation were still involved in combat and had people held as captives.
Current events outside the country are not helping Kerry either. The recent taking of a Russian school, downing of two airliners and a bomb at a Russian bus station allegedly by Chechan terrorists only further preys on the fears of the average American. If Islamic terrorists will stoop to murdering school children who can fault Bush for wanting to take a hard line everywhere against them?
Despite all of this Kerry’s chances are not hopeless. The Bush 43 Achilles heal could be the exact same one as Bush 41. If Kerry can focus the electorate on the economy and if upcoming economic numbers are unfavorable to Bush then perhaps Kerry can roll out the very successful “it’s the economy stupid mantra”. This may be difficult since today’s employment number is positive, oil prices are falling from previous highs and a steep drop in interest rates over the last 2 weeks do not seem to be Kerry friendly.
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