Administative update

dear third aveuners,

as you might notice, I have added a few more links on the side (groan, you have way too many already). Two of them are blogs, one is of an acquantince of mine from my past job at the DLC called New Donkey, which is being pushed by Josh Marshall and other mainline Democrats. It seems to be Ed Kilgore unplugged, but I am not sure who exactly is writing it. I must say though, allowing commentary would be nice and not seem so comperable to George Bush's campaign site.

The other blog is of a High School friend of mine, called the Guatemalan Word Project. He writes the most amazing emails from all his world travels and adventures, and so a couple of us indenpendently convinced him to start a travel dairy of sorts. I think he would make a great addition to the New York Times Travel page. He is the kind of soul that is brilliant, but restless and traveling is perfect for him. And if you are reading this, happy birthday buddy!

Lastly, there is PolticalWire, who gave us all such great scoops on exit polls and other gossip. Oh and This is Rumor Control has been on there for awhile but I didn't plug it. Basically, it is a group of disgrunted but anonymous journalists who can see the U.S. lurching towards another war with Iran. I sure hope they are wrong.

Motto of the week

For the Company Taco Time, a mexican fast-food resturant

Taco Time, it sure is

Remorse

Well, I just back from a great film Garden State and just one thing bothers me: what is the name of that song that they use in the commercial and end credits? It is so good, although I can't understand a word of the lyrics. That film is kind of an extreme version of what everyone my age kind of goes through. I am doing a mini-Beehive State right now.

The dad (the dude who played Bilbo Baggins) in the movie feels that the son should feel remorse for accidently paralyizing his mother when he was 9. But as a result, the dad (who's a shrink) pumped up the son (played, written and directed by Zack Braff) on drugs since then that he can't feel anything. Who should feel sorry?

Well I will tell you someone who feels sorry former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes who says in this video that he helped George W. Bush get into the guard when he was LG and he feels bad about it now looking back at how he helped donors and rich people (daddy was a congressman at the time). If that link doesn't work, try this raw link http://69.59.167.160/Barnes%20on%20Vietnam.mov

Lap it up. By the way, Barnes is a Democrat and has endorsed John Kerry, but Texas Democrats and Texas Republicans are usually more civil towards each other, its a Southern thing.

Going through the motions

Sorry for not posting yesterday, I had a pretty busy day of class non-stop. I also woke up 2 minutes before one of my classes was to start so I had no time to brush my teeth and put on deodorant etc. So I felt really gross all day.

Today I got a bit more sleep and more organized. My fiancee is out getting the car tuned up because her and her dad worry about every little thing. But I guess he has a car from 1985 that is still running well, so it is worth it I suppose.

I watched Kerry's Daily Show appearance in rerun last night, and I came away with a couple impressions. He is still basically the guy I didn't want to have win in 2003; a charmless stereotypical politican who would vote against his own shaddow if it would help him win. On the other hand, he does have some good ideas for reform in the system and he will throughly investigate the wrongdoings of the current investigation.

Kerry dragged out this SBVT story another day by sending up his parapalegic former colleague and "Brother in Arms" Max Clelland to hand a letter by Democratic Senators asking Bush to condem the ads. Of course, Bush has his own surrogate block him from getting there, despite claiming that Max "wheeling around so fast." That stunt was cheap, but it forced Bush's spokesman said BC04 is joining McCain in his lawsuit against 527s (but not joining McCain in specifically condeming the Switfies ads).

As the Post points out

The action promised today by McClellan is largely symbolic. There is virtually no chance that a lawsuit could be resolved before the Nov. 2 election. But the Bush campaign is eager to regain its footing on the issue after Benjamin L. Ginsberg, the chief outside counsel to the campaign, resigned Wednesday after revealing that he had done work for the Swift Boat group. The campaign had denied any ties between it and the Swift boat veterans group.

Bush et al is trying to kill this story before it drowns out his nice little propaganda fest called the GOP convention. However, whenever the nat'l conversation has been Bush-focused, we've seen Kerry bump up in the polls. And it is this phenomenon that presents an interesting problem for the Bushies going into next week. Why is this so? Because if the media did its job, most people other than die-hard conversatives would still vote for Georgie if they knew about all the bad things he has done, or left undone.

First Real Day

So this morning I decided to ride my bike to campus for the first time and see if that was nice. I don't know if I will do it again, maybe if I want to get back and forth quickly. Anyway, class was pretty OK today. I had a bit of trouble spotting my TA for our lunch meeting. I am in a group with 3 people whom I have all the same classes with: Mikelle, Mike, and Justin. All of them seem nice, including the TA. I am annoyed with the LDS Law Student Association already. (LDS stands for Latter Day Saints which is what Mormons call themselves, their church is called the church of jesus christ and latter day saints) Why you ask? They sent out an email announcing their lunch meeting to the entire student body. If I am not a mormon, nor a mormon who wants to join this group, why do I care about this meeting? Personally, I don't like people's religion being shoved in my face and being made inferior or impious for not doing something. These holier-than-thous can, in the famous words our hopefully future first lady "shove it"

My fiancee's family left this afternoon but their flight is tied up by a rare case of rain/thunderstorms in the SL Valley.

On to other news, Kerry's team were a bit slow this month, but the last two weeks they have really made up for it, putting Bush on notice that Kerry will not be bullied by Georgie's thugs and thug-tatics. His appearance on the Daily Show tonight is recognition that if you want to reach out to young and/or informed voters, this is how you do it. You are not going to convince anyone by appearing on a Sunday talk show or softball Larry King Live at this point.

Equally pleasing is the tough response ads Kerry is running this week and the tough talk by the candidate himself in Boston and NYC. The Bush family is famous for its underhandedness (See Horton, Willie) and out-and-out lying to get what they want, a win (see South Carolina primary, McCain). The right wing can keep trying to smear him, but Kerry has put them on notice that he won't take it lying down and he will force the media to evalute their claims (instead of pretending to be "balanced" by saying people can disagree about what happened). Their are facs as to what happened: Naval Records, 3rd party accounts (AKA not people Kerry puts on his ads), etc. There are also arbitors of what smells, namely John McCain, who had the same experience Bush proxies with even flimsier evidence against him in 2000.

I am off to CostCo for some shopping. Let me know if you need a barrel full of mayo.

A day dream for the GOP

I was just thinking the other day about what would have happened had Al Gore won the recount battle. So just play along with my scenario and write a comment if you think something is missing or off.

Gore faces a incredibly hostile congress who is sure that he cheated Bush out of the presidency; as a result, almost none of his agenda or appointees move. In the spring of 2001, moderate Republicans in the senate from Rhode Island and Vermont are so fed up with their colleagues that they both leave the party and form their own moderate caucus, thus giving control of the Senate to the Democrats. Gore's appointees move on, and some of his agenda is passed, although his health care initiative is stalled in the house.

After 9/11, America rallies around Gore but the media quickly asks why this wasn't prevented by the Clinton-Gore administration. Clinton administration alums are paraded up to the Hill to explain themselves. Gore uses temporary popularity to dethrone the Taliban in Afghanistan and convince Pakistan to join in the hunt. By December, Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden have been caught. Gore's State Department begins negotiations with UN for financial and security assistance for newly democratic Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Gore dispatches Clinton to Israel/Palestine to help restart the peace process (and Carter to North Korea to get a better deal than the 1994 agreement). Not much progress is made on either front, but the Infedada that started after PM Ehud Barak's loss the winter of 2000 ends and tensions are relatively low.

Gore's popularity hovers around 55-60%, due to the lingering animosity from the right wing over Florida and moderate voters doubts about the Clinton administrations culpability in 9/11.

During the GOP primaries, all the usual right wing nut jobs seem to do well at first, only to flop in Iowa to "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani. The former NYC mayor has used his post-9/11 popularity to overcome his pro-choice stance and overwhelm his GOP opponents. Media pundits talk endlessly how the GOP party has radically changed to become more moderate, but Rudy's nomination has made many party groups uneasy and nervous about turn out. Although Giuliani's first choice is John McCain, he instead chooses Senate Minority Leader Bill Frist (Lott still gets dethroned for his comment at Strom's b-day party) from Tennessee. Frist is perfect, a radical conservative with a moderate tone, good looks, and a "Doctor" to boot [IMHO he is as much a doctor as Bill Clinton is a lawyer]. Frist helps neutralize the Democratic advantage in health care, even though he owns an HMO.

On November 2, 2004 Al Gore loses due to an unexcited Democratic base and moderate undecided voters moving towards America's Mayor and America's Doctor. Frist gets lots of publicity when he saves the life of a man in Iowa while campaigning. GOPers win NY, TN, IA, and PA to score a convincing electoral vote win.

That evening, Governor George W Bush sits in his ranch in Texas and shakes his head, wondering what might have been.