2000:NYT on ‘George W Bush - A Reformer With Results:

Mr. Bush in recent days has tried to cut into Mr. McCain’s appeal by calling himself a ”reformer with results” and pointing to his record as governor of Texas. And today he emphasized his record on tort reform and promised to reduce frivolous lawsuits in federal courts. Before Monday, Mr. Bush ( Read more... )

From the WaPo: (read it all)

Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. “I broke my promise to always tell the truth,” McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely ( Read more... )

Going back to my response posts,  I want to stress that I never assume that anyone voting against Obama is a racist, or that Republicans are racists, or that either on the Republican ticket is a racist.  I know better.

I’ve lived with serious racists, had racism and sexism used against me and mine (you do know that I’m a Race Traitor for adopting a ( Read more... )

And reformers can be undone by machines, when they trade their aspirations for power:

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Recently, a good friend of mine who I disagree with politically laid out his concerns and objections around the present electoral cycle. I started to reply as a comment to his posting online, and then I quickly found that what I was saying was waaaaaay too long winded to work as a comment. For one thing, the blogging software in Live Journal ( Read more... )

…and besides, unlike the wife, I’ve never gotten through his works.

Regular readers will note that the tags I put on posts are plentiful and sometimes sound goofy; that may be because it’s conceptual shorthand to me. ‘kubler-ross’, ‘renmin’, or ’sep_reality’, for example. The first has to deal with posts on death and dying, the second has to ( Read more... )

…well, sometimes.

I watched the TODAY show and the very good COUNTDOWN / Olbermann interview of Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary for Bush, and I’m listening to the audio version of his book, and I came to a couple of conclusions.

1. He’s an honest-to-god idealist in politics, whose entire life has centered around political- ( Read more... )

Susan and I recently added HBO onto our cable lineup to catch RECOUNT and the JOHN ADAMS series, amongst other stuff.  The RECOUNT-connected documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY was on, and we found it fascinating and troubling.

The story of the documentary was about a woman who founded a citizen’s group called Black Box Voting, which concerns itself with ( Read more... )

…but I’m not the Republican nominee.

Story: Famous progressive blogger (Arianna Huffington) mentions on her big blog that McCain and Mrs. McCain had told her at a dinner party in 2001 that neither voted for Bush in 2000. McCain campaign says: Huffington is a lib’ral liar. Then several other people who were at that dinner table mention that they ( Read more... )

Time’s blog Swampland dug this gem about Mark Penn (the person who has done the most to wreck the Clinton campaign from within, except maybe the candidate) from when he was forced out by Gore in 2000:

While a bloated, imperial operation could hardly be expected to pick up on warning signs, Gore insiders particularly fault Mark Penn, the lead among ( Read more... )