Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Or for a more rousing debate, he should train with Dennis Miller. Did anyone see Miller's excellent, kick-ass Pro-Bush rant on the Tonight Show last night (10/5)? Very cool! He said he was voting for Bush and proceeded to severely trash Kerry and the audience was totally with him, cheering all they way!

Posted by Kelly at October 6, 2004 07:51 PM

>>What He Should Have Said Then

You really don't get it do you? Ok, I'll tell you why.

Dumbya has proven himself INCAPABLE -- again and again -- defending his record as president WITHOUT SCRIPT. Attacking Kerry in a speech written by someone else, after having failed to do so during the LIVE debate, is exceptionally pathetic. And Rand, I'll tell you something else; it's also quite pathetic to wish dumbya had said "the many things that he should have said in last Thursday's debate".

Posted by Canute at October 7, 2004 03:03 AM

More on the "speech" at: http://slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2107847&

Title:
You Call That a Major Policy Address?
"In a week of devastating revelations about his Iraq policies, Bush has nothing new to say."

Excerpt
-------------------------------------------------

"Did CNN and MSNBC get hoodwinked this morning? Yesterday, the White House announced that President Bush would be delivering a "major policy address" on terrorism today. The cable news networks broadcast it live and in full. Yet the "address" turned out to be a standard campaign stump speech before a Pennsylvania crowd that seemed pumped on peyote, cheering, screaming, or whooping at every sentence."

"So, President Bush may well need to deliver a major policy address on all this sometime soon. Today, though, he just told the cheering throngs that he's strong and resolute while his opponent's a flip-flopper."
--------------------------------------------------

Yea, it's certainly nice and comforting for your unarticulate president to stand before a prescreened audience.

Rand, why don't you enlighten yourself in experiancing some real political discourse and take a trip to London, England to watch a REAL politician like Tony Blair defend his polices in the House of Commons.

Posted by Canute at October 7, 2004 04:01 AM

A classic Bush hit.

Tell the networks that you have a major policy speech and spend it on a partisan attack speech.

Distort Kerry's proposals: fail to mention that the key part of Kerry's plan - get the Arab nations onside to train the Iraqis away from suicide bombers; insist that removing the possible (and we know now, purely hypothetical) threat presented by Saddam and screwing up the liberation of Iraq are the same thing; pretend that 35 U. N. workers represents a real presence three months before an election involving millions of new voters; and this statment;
"He sent the signal that America's overriding goal in Iraq would be to leave, even if the job isn't done. "
which is an out-and-out lie. Kerry said that troop withdrawal could begin in mid '05 if everything went to plan.

This is desperation at its finest. Fox News is reduced to literally making stuff up, Cheney goes for the lies per minute record in the debate, and now the president beats the crap out of a strawman in front of the nation.

The scary thing is that it might work.

Posted by Duncan Young at October 7, 2004 04:25 AM

What He Should Have Said Then

Yes he should, but he didn't - which suggests that there's not all that much to him doesn't it.

At this stage I still think he'll win but I'm looking forward to my November US trip, I'm landing on the west coast around 4pm, so I'll have something to keep me awake 'till bed time.

Posted by Daveon at October 7, 2004 05:08 AM

No, Dave, all it suggests is that he isn't a great debater. Of course, being a great debater is not necessarily a critical skill to be a president (though it unfortunately can be one to become one).

We've abundant experience to know that the skill set for being a good presidential candidate and for being a good president don't necessarily overlap. But I think that Kerry would be at least as bad a president has he's been a candidate, so it's fortunate that he's such a bad candidate.

Posted by Rand Simberg at October 7, 2004 05:26 AM

Quote from Canute: Dumbya has proven himself INCAPABLE -- again and again -- defending his record as president WITHOUT SCRIPT. Attacking Kerry in a speech written by someone else, after having failed to do so during the LIVE debate, is exceptionally pathetic. And Rand, I'll tell you something else; it's also quite pathetic to wish dumbya had said "the many things that he should have said in last Thursday's debate"."

No I think the Pres was being quite cautious during the initial debate. Like a pair of heavy weights fighting for the first time they had seen eachother on tape several times and practiced their hearts out to prepare but never really know the other guy is going to do or say until they actually do it. I'm sure the Pres. had several of these thoughts going through his head during the debates, he did explain his looks of consternation after all. He just didn't want to start blurting out counter points without making sure his thoughts were together and straight.

I've seen reports on the TV a while back where they were criticizing the President for micro managing his campaign and controlling every little detail. In fact making it a point that the campaign was possibly taking to much attention away from the war in Iraq. Now which is it Canute? Does he just sit around and get trained what to say or does he micro manage all his affairs as even the media claims.

Posted by Josh "Hefty" Reiter at October 7, 2004 05:29 AM

>>No I think the Pres was being quite cautious during the initial debate

Cautious?

What I saw was a man who often responded to Kerry with incoherant babbling, and in several desperate moments, needed to run out the clock by repeating stock phrases ad infinitum and ad absurdum.

>>Now which is it Canute? Does he just sit around
>>and get trained what to say or does he micro
>>manage all his affairs as even the media claims.

Well Josh, according to an article at capitolhillblue.com ((http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4636.shtml)), nr. 43 seems to be somewhat single minded when he's "micromanaging" at the White House:

"Aides say the President gets “hung up on minor details,” micromanaging to the extreme while ignoring the bigger picture. He will spend hours personally reviewing and approving every attack ad against his Democratic opponent and then kiss off a meeting on economic issues."

Surely this doesn't sound like he's micromanaging "all" his affairs, does it?

Some More Excerpts:
--------------------------------------------------
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings have the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.

In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”

Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.

“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”
--------------------------------------------------

Posted by Canute at October 7, 2004 06:23 AM

all it suggests is that he isn't a great debater.

I disagree, I thought he did a much much better job against Gore and looked credible. He was in command of the key issues, relaxed and came over well - at least in the one I watched the whole way through.

His failures at the 1st debate went far more than his debate skills, they came over as core competance.

What I'm curious to see if he does better on the domestic agenda stuff. My expecation, at least before the first one, was he was going to cream Kerry in a foreign policy debate and then hope nobody was interested in the later ones. I'm not sure, at this stage, if Kerry can keep a lip on his verbose tendancies for the rest of the debates.

If he can then I think this might actually be a contest rather than the walk over I was expecting in September.

Posted by Daveon at October 7, 2004 06:24 AM

Canute, that Capitol Hill Blue piece is a crock. It's unsourced, and unvalidated by anyone else, anywhere. I think that Thompson was off his meds when he wrote it. I'm sorry you felt a need to pollute my comments section with it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at October 7, 2004 06:32 AM

Well, you can't accuse Thompson of being a clintonista, can you?

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/dtbio.asp

"Thompson took a sabbatical from newspapers in 1981 and moved to Washington and work on Capitol Hill, where he served as press secretary to two members of Congress (Rep. Paul Findley of Illinois and Rep. Manuel Lujan of New Mexico), Chief of Staff to a third (Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana) and then Special Assistant to the Ranking Member of the House Space, Science and Technology Committee (Lujan again). He also worked on the Reagan-Bush '84 re-election campaign, managed successful Congressional campaigns, did field work for both the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee and served as Vice President for Political Programs Administration for the National Association of Realtors from 1987-1992. He later joined The Eddie Mahe Company, a Washington, DC, strategic communications firm, as senior communications associate and remained affiliated with the firm until it was acquired by Foley-Lardner in 2002

Posted by Canute at October 7, 2004 06:50 AM

No, as I said, I accuse him of being off his meds. Is that your best response? Do you have any other source (a credible one) for that nonsense?

Posted by Rand Simberg at October 7, 2004 06:54 AM

Why Bush is wrong on Iraq:

He is writing checks America cannot cash.

He has gone several bridges too far (a reference to Operation Market Garden and the airboen assault on Arnhem in 1944).

Saddam was a cancer. Okay fine.

But now, given the way we cut out that cancer, we are committed to stay for a very long time with too few troops on the ground.

Today, a top aide to Sadr was released. Why? To purchase calm in Sadr City. Sadr is an Iranian backed thug. Even Sistani wanted him dead, thats why Sistani went to London.

So what are we doing? Appeasing Sadr.

Rand, today US policy is to appease Iranian backed thugs. How does that help the War on Terror?

Posted by Bill White at October 7, 2004 07:30 AM

Bill, regardless on how poorly you (or even I) might think that the administration is doing in Iraq, there's no reason to believe that Kerry will do any better. He doesn't even seem to believe that we are at war. If he thinks that the central front in our war against Islamic fundamentalism is a "distraction," then I have zero--no--make that negative confidence in his willingness or ability to prosecute the war.

Posted by Rand Simberg at October 7, 2004 07:33 AM

I found it interesting Canute uses Tony Blair as a model to show how to defend ones policies. What no Democratic example? Can't be Kerry, he has no executive experience and 20 years of following others in the Senate so he has no policies to defend. Clinton? He showed us how to lie convincingly on television. It seems his only consistent policy was one of sexually exploiting women. Carter? Let's not even go there. You have to go back 40 years to LBJ to get a Democrat with policies to defend. I'll stick with someone who puts America first and can take a firm stand, not someone who changes his mind with the polls and focus groups.

Posted by Bill Maron at October 7, 2004 07:33 AM

This guest editorial by Jospeh White at Juan Cole's site (no relation) expresses my views quite well.

Before regime change, Saddam was NOT significant for the War on Terror. Today, Iraq is front and center in the War on Terror.

A Bush refusal to acknowledge a misunderstanding of HOW to fight a necessary war and his re-election will galvanize the "pull out now" people.

Kerry isn't exactly correct on Iraq either but without the legacy of the Bush mistakes, America can buy some breathing room from the pressures of the far Left, the pacifist Left. Pressures we must resist.

= = =

This may be far too dangerous a strategy, but if we want greater international participation is sharing the expense and casualty burden, threatening to pull out may very well persuade other nations they need to contribute.

So long as America shoulders the burden, the rest of the world can ride for free even though the development of a failed state in Iraq is bad for everyone.

Posted by Bill White at October 7, 2004 07:46 AM

>>No, as I said, I accuse him of being off his
>>meds. Is that your best response? Do you have
>>any other source (a credible one) for that nonsense?

Look, I don't know the guy, but I would guess that someone with that amount of experience working for republican lawmakers at Capitol Hill, would have built up a relatively large network of political acquaintances around Washinton DC. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to assume that several of his political aquaintances are working within the WH, and that Thompson may have obtained some "insider" information from them.

Since he's running Capitol Hill Blue as his own political news site, I can't see why he's got to have any other source than himself. If it had been Reuters, AP or any other major news organization that had printed this story, I would have agreed with your premise.

This story will of course only be "verified" if any insiders of todays White House corroborates Thompson's story over the coming years.

Posted by Canute at October 7, 2004 07:49 AM

This story will of course only be "verified" if any insiders of todays White House corroborates Thompson's story over the coming years.

If and when that happens, I will take it seriously.

It is far too dangerous a strategy, and it's naive to think that it would work. There are too many nations with a stake in failure in Iraq (including Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia).

Posted by Rand Simberg at October 7, 2004 07:53 AM

Is Iraq as a focal point for the war on terror a bad thing? Terrorists are most effective in small group or single person attacks at undefended civilian targets. If these people want to fight an organized battle against the best army in the world I say that's a good thing. Look at how poorly Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups do in direct confrontation with Israeli soldiers.

Posted by Bill Maron at October 7, 2004 08:08 AM

Can you win every battle and still lose a war?

=IF= you wear down the will of those fighting you.

Who are we fighting in Iraq?

al Qaeda? Sure. But not only al Qaeda.

al Qaeda gives $50 and an RPG to some 17 year old kid who likes to see explosions. He fires it at a Hum-vee. He misses. The Marines kill the kid and 3 by-standers.

The families of the dead swear vengeance. Now who are we fighting?

= = =

Are we winning? Today, we released a top Sadr aide in the hope of promoting calm in Sadr City.

Winning in Iraq will not end the War on Terror.
Losing in Iraq will be disastrous.

IMHO that is a bad bet. Heads we lose. Tails we keep fighting. But its water over the dam since we are there already.

As Joseph White writes, expecting assistance is "pie in the sky" but since Bush and the neo-cons have made so many operational mistakes already, if they continue to run the show, very few foreign nations will agree to put their soldiers under US command.

And if we do not get foreign assistance we will need for infantry and more special operations warriors. For Iraq, and Sudan, and Pakistan if the President is assasinated, and Syria and Iran, if a popular revolt occurs.

40,000 new infantry and double the special ops forces? Hey, didn't John Kerry say that many months ago?

Posted by Bill White at October 7, 2004 08:27 AM

Mea culpa. This got reversed.

Can you win every battle and still lose a war?

=IF= you wear down the will of those fighting you.

Can you lose every battle and still win the war?

=IF= you wear down the enemy's will to fight.

Posted by Bill White at October 7, 2004 08:28 AM

If not Iraq then where? I don't want to fight here and I don't want to fight it in the countries supporting us. This is the hardest kind of war to fight but the more organized you make it the better for traditional forces. The 17 year old with $50 and an RPG is NOT doing it because he likes explosions. He may not think he will get killed but he knows what he's doing. Having raised 3 through that age I imagine 17 year olds are pretty much the same everywhere. They have a false sense of consequences. The military side is pretty simple, find the enemy and kill them. An organized fight makes that simpler. The political side is the hardest part and the answer, while simple, is hard to execute. Once Iraqis get a sense of controlling their own destiny, our job will be easier. I know that is not going to happen overnight but we have to finish this and Kerry has shown NO ability to do a better job.

If you are buying Kerry's stump speech he can get help from the Oil For Food scandal crowd, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you. They want us to fail almost as bad as the Islamists. Their interests are served best by our losing. None of those countries are looking past their own national interests. More toops with Kerry? That will idea will disappear faster that my tax cuts if he is elected.

It sounds as if you think we will march across the Middle East. A popular revolt in Iran would be a good thing. Syria is qustionable but both are unlikely given the control of their military by the government. We won't go into Sudan. We will try to kick the UN in the butt and get them to do something but as a world body, the UN is ideologically bankrupt.

Posted by Bill Maron at October 7, 2004 09:12 AM

The US didn't think the Vichy French would fire on US troops in the N Africa invasion during WWII and they slaughtered several hundred. We won that war despite an "operational mistake". Your point?

Didn't OBL live in the Sudan for awhile? The Ganjaweed already claim to be getting help from the government so I think they are sponsoring genocide which might fall under the state sponsored terrorism umbrella yet, the UN yawns and goes on looking for the next bribe,er hand out. As Dennis Miller said, "The UN would make a glacier want to take Ritalin."

I guess because he doesn't look good in one. Maybe the Queer Eye For The Staight Guy crowd can help him out. I hear they are in the UK now.

Posted by Bill Maron at October 7, 2004 09:45 AM

Bill, what is your opinion of Afghan opium production? Are large amounts of those funds flowing to al Qaeda, or not?

Its NOT a conventional war and never will be.

bin Laden's goal is to unify all Muslims under his banner. If we show we cannot distinguish between them (all Arabs look alike, right?) we become bin Laden's best recruiting sargeant.

Posted by Bill White at October 7, 2004 10:02 AM

In order to promote meaningful and productive discussion, explaining why Juan Cole is more often wrong than right will do more to persuade me than repeating the usual talking points of either party.

Islam is a widely fractured entity not the unified monolith Cheney appears to believe it is. bin Laden is yet another fanatic chasing the dream of Arab unity.

bin Laden hates the Shia as apostates and he hated Saddam as a secular infidel. Sistani is a Shia who is not terribly fond of Iranian influence.

bin Laden attacked America as a tool to rally Arabs towards hating us more than each other.

Most Islamic people dislike or hate Israel, now that much is true, but American strategy will work better (and Israel will be more secure) if we use Islamic divisions to divide them and not allow bin Laden to unite them.

Iraq has five main factions as I see it:

Kurds;
Suni/Baath;
Sadr Shia;
Sistani Shia; and
The Exiles.

Groups 1 through 4 share a hatred of the exiles so why did we Americans try to stand up the exiles as the "true" Iraqi government?

Posted by Bill White at October 7, 2004 10:38 AM

In order to promote meaningful and productive discussion, explaining why Juan Cole is more often wrong than right will do more to persuade me than repeating the usual talking points of either party.

Islam is a widely fractured entity not the unified monolith Cheney appears to believe it is.

In order to promte meaningful and productive discussion, please stop clogging my comments section with your bizarre fantasies.

Posted by at October 7, 2004 11:01 AM

Bill,
Since opium production has been occurring in Afghanistan for many years, are you talking about its expansion during the Clinton years? I imagine some of that money ended up in terrorists hands as protection payments. How much is anybodys guess. My original point was fighting terrorists in Iraq instead of the US isn't a bad thing. President Bush kicked over the anthill after 9/11. These people didn't just appear overnight. The supply and logistics for these groups have been in place for a long time. The more conventional the war in Iraq becomes, the better for us. No defensive measures ever won a war. You only win by attacking. Approximately the same number of people were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor as died on 9/11. The new enemy has the same goal, change our way of life. It was easily understood then I don't know why it is so hard to understand now.

Posted by Bill Maron at October 7, 2004 01:21 PM

I'll ignore the heavy-breathing talking-points exposition to post the simplest and most likely explanation Bush did so poorly in the first debate. He was exhausted. He had just spent the entire day touring hurricane damage, speaking to hundreds of people affected, coordinating with FEMA and other officials, and being updated constantly on world-wide events. The man works even while he campaigns, and it shows.
Kerry had his nails done. Oh, and decided this week he'd skip a vote and take a day off.
Yep, Bush still has my vote.

Posted by at October 7, 2004 02:18 PM

My original point was fighting terrorists in Iraq instead of the US isn't a bad thing.

No al Qaeda operative with the skills (English speaker) and credentials to enter the United States (passport, green card etc. . .) will be deployed in Iraq. Unless bin Laden is stupid as well as evil.

President Bush kicked over the anthill after 9/11. These people didn't just appear overnight.

Yup. And all I am saying is that we need more boots on the ground to stomp those ants.

And Paul Bremer agrees with that.

Posted by Bill White at October 7, 2004 03:17 PM

I've said this before but it's worth saying again. If someone produced UBL's head on a stick tomorrow it would do zilch as far as the war on terror. Kerry's insistance that we dropped the ball by not focussing on UBL and disregarding everything else, BY ITSELF, disqualifies him as CinC.

Posted by ken anthony at October 7, 2004 05:59 PM

Ken,
If someone produced UBL's head on a stick tomorrow it would do zilch as far as the war on terror. Kerry's insistance that we dropped the ball by not focussing on UBL and disregarding everything else
Thats not the point. The point is that we could of had the entire AQ leadership wrapped up 2-3 years ago, but the Bush Adminstration decided to go Saddam-hunting. The cancer has now metastasized.
Rand,
If he thinks that the central front in our war against Islamic fundamentalism is a "distraction," then I have zero--no--make that negative confidence in his willingness or ability to prosecute the war.
There is abundant evidence that Iraq was not the central front in the war in terror as of March 2003. It was a distration at that time, and it is Bush's decision at that time that Kerry is critizing. Dont conflate now and then. (Of course there is the neo-Wilsonian argument about building YugoArabia, which the Bush Adminstration screwed up by not being realistic about the troops required). If Iraq is now a primary front in the "war on terror", it is because the Bushies decided to create one there, on terrain not favourable to victory.

Posted by Duncan Young at October 8, 2004 03:12 PM

Post a comment