] For those who are interested, there's an enormous debate
] across the Blogosphere regarding the authenticity of the
] National Guard documents released by CBS yesterday (and
] highlighted in an earlier post of mine). The documents
] are supposed to be personal files of one of Bush's
] superior officers, showing unhappiness with Bush's
] performance and making reference to pressure to "sugar
] coat" Bush's service.
]
] Strong arguments have been made that the papers look all
] too similar to modern Microsoft Word documents, in terms
] of the font and default tabbing and spacing. While at
] first it seemed strange that the government produced its
] own copies of the same documents, it's now clear that
] those copies were faxed to the government by CBS, the day
] before.
]
] I will update this story as more information become
] available. I invite readers to link or repeat any
] information they've seen.
]
] Thanks.

My Galaxy is Milky Way Adjacent - JoeUser.com: Damaging Anti-Bush Guard Records May Be Forgeries

] As the election approaches, the attacks grow more bitter,
] from both sides. Personally, I think the Bush aligned
] forces have made the more specious claims so far -- the
] anti-Kerry Swift Vet claims have been large disproved by
] nearly every major newspaper in the country -- but I
] don't think there's anything inherently Republican or
] Democratic about baseless vicious campaign techniques.
] Next election, or next week, Democrats may make the more
] bogus charge.
]
] The media finds it easier -- and more importantly,
] cheaper and thus more profitable -- to turn every charge
] into a "he says, she says" story. Voters say they don't
] like negative ads, but people assume that where there's
] smoke, there's fire; and studies have repeatedly shown
] people respond strongly to negative campaigning. Analyses
] of the substance of the attacks are buried deep inside
] the newspapers, while the inflamatory rhetoric of the
] charges are put above the fold, on the front page.
]
] As long as this tactic works, candidates and their
] surrogates are not going to avoid outrageous charges.
] Such avoidance would be irrational, since it would just
] lead to them being defeated by candidates who have no
] such scruples. The way to take the air out of these smear
] tactics is to focus on the truth of claims, and to
] quickly dismiss stories that are contradicted by the
] evidence. That should be on the front page. Candidates
] whose surrogates repeatedly resurrect already disproved
] charges should be criticized. Repeatedly. On the front
] page.

My Galaxy is Milky Way Adjacent - JoeUser.com: When an Explosive Charge Is Not Handled With Care

] Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the nation
] was more likely to "get hit again" by terrorists if John
] Kerry was elected was one of the toughest attacks
] launched in a presidential election in 40 years.
]
] But Mr. Cheney's latest assault on Mr. Kerry, which
] startled Democrats and Republicans alike, raised a
] central question even in this notably ferocious
] presidential campaign: Is it possible for a candidate to
] go too far, and alienate the very voters he is trying to
] court?

Political Memo: When an Explosive Charge Is Not Handled With Care

] In a back and forth yesterday, Sharon Bush, the former
] wife of the president's brother Neil and a central source
] for the book, issued a pre-emptive retraction after a
] British newspaper printed an article on the book, quoting
] Ms. Bush as saying that Mr. Bush used cocaine at Camp
] David while his father was in office.
]
] "I categorically deny that I ever told Kitty Kelley that
] George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David or that I ever
] saw him use cocaine at Camp David," Ms. Bush said in an
] unsworn statement distributed by her lawyer, David Berg.
] "Although there have been tensions between me and various
] members of the Bush family, I cannot allow this falsehood
] to go unchallenged."
]
] Doubleday, the book's publisher and part of the Random
] House division of Bertelsmann, said it stood by Ms.
] Kelley's reporting. The publisher said in a statement
] that Ms. Kelly met with Ms. Bush for a four-hour lunch on
] April 1, 2003, where an unnamed third party heard the
] conversation, and that Ms. Kelley's editor, Peter
] Gethers, discussed the same material with Ms. Bush over
] the phone.
]
] Lou Colasuonno, a former publicist for Ms. Bush,
] confirmed that he was the third party at the lunch and
] contradicted her denial. "I have not seen the book, I
] have only seen news reports," Mr. Colasuonno said.
] "According to what I have seen, what has been reported, I
] would not dispute that."

Book Unflattering to Bush Draws His Campaign's Fire

] After weeks of media scrutiny of Democrat John Kerry's
] record in Vietnam, Bush was broadsided by several
] challenges to his account of his six-year stint in the
] air guard in Texas and Alabama, including:
]
] -- A CBS "60 Minutes" interview in which a former Texas
] speaker of the House said he helped secure a pilot's
] position for Bush in the Texas Air National Guard to keep
] him from being drafted.
]
] -- New memos obtained by CBS News suggesting that Bush's
] squadron commander in Texas was under pressure from his
] superiors to give Bush a strong performance review, which
] he refused to do.
]
] -- A Boston Globe investigation that concluded that Bush
] missed training assignments in Alabama and Massachusetts
] despite twice signing statements that warned that he
] could be put on active duty for two years for doing so.

Renewed focus on Bush time in military / Ex-official says he helped politician's son avoid Vietnam

] The US army does not count the number of Iraqis killed
] since the invasion in March 2003. The most conservative
] figure for the number dead is 10,000 as calculated by
] private groups. It is rising every day. The US military
] claimed that on Tuesday alone it killed "100 militants"
] in air strikes on Fallujah on top of a further 33 people
] killed in fighting in Sadr City in Baghdad.
]
] Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, proudly
] claimed on Tuesday that US forces had, last month, killed
] between 1,500 and 2,500 Iraqi insurgents. He did not note
] an ominous trend that, for the first time, more Americans
] were probably killed by Shia fighters than by Sunni
] guerrillas. For the US, it is now a war on two fronts.

News

] These are the Bush backing papers that have beat the drum
] to war, and questioned the patriotism of those that argue
] Bush has bungled the reconstruction of Iraq. You'll see
] they casually overlook the men and women who've died for
] Bush's incompetence

This is from my blog. I feature images of some newspapers' front pages.

My Galaxy is Milky Way Adjacent - JoeUser.com: Pro-Bush Newspapers Ignore 1000 War Dead Milestone

] Electoral College:
]
] Bush 213 Kerry 175
]
] As part of the Bush Convention bounce, Michigan and New
] Jersey have moved to the Toss-Up column in our Electoral
] College projections. Both states had been leaning in
] Kerry's direction. The first Rasmussen Reports state
] polling data released after the Republican Convention
] showed Minnesota remaining firmly in the Toss-Up column.
]
] President Bush now leads in states with 213 Electoral
] Votes while Senator Kerry leads in states with 175.
] Neither man, however, can yet count on the 270 Electoral
] Votes needed for victory in November. States where the
] candidates are within five percentage points of each
] other are considered Toss-Ups.

Rasmussen is one of the best at poll analysis. He correctly predicted the size of the Bush convention bounce, days before recent polls showed that Time and Newsweek signifcantly overestimated it.

Rasmussen Polling Reports

] TradeSports Exchange Ltd is an online marketplace that
] trades contracts on various assertions, including
] contracts on political races. Its brick and mortar
] location is in Dublin Ireland. It is similar to a sports
] betting website but operates more like a futures market.
] The data for this projection comes from the
] state-by-state contracts for the assertion "George W.
] Bush to win this state in the November 2004 Election." A
] point costs $0.10 and a winning contract pays $10. In
] other words, the results depicted here are the collective
] judgments of a nation of betters who are willing to put
] their money where their mouth is.

Some of you may already know about TradeSports, a sports and politics trading market. This link is to a map of the United States, and projects the state electoral college results (in November) based on the TradeSports market price data for each state.

Since polls only tell you what the election would be like if it happened now, this TradeSports prediction is in some ways a more accurate projection.

TradeSports.com Electoral Vote Projection

...And neither of the Bush campaigns specifically repudiated the controversial spots...

Two Political Ads Share More Than Fame and Controversy (washingtonpost.com)