] Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the
] door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect
] George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address
] Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and
] prosperity is finally over."

[ This is *awesome*! This Onion article ran in January of '01 -- and it's frighteningly prophetic, though at the time surely would've been classified as over the top, like most Onion humor.

Well, Mr. Chak decided to fill in the blanks and hyperlink passages in the Onion bit to real news stories which match up with them in real life. It's well done, and so so sad. -k]

The Onion / CHAK | Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

] The board of Log Cabin Republicans, the largest group for
] gay men and lesbians in the party, voted overwhelming
] last night against endorsing President Bush for
] re-election because of his support for a proposed
] constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
]
]
] The decision ends six months of soul-searching as the
] group, which endorsed Mr. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in
] 1996, wrestled with its divided loyalties.

[ It's about damn time. -k]

Gay Activists in the G.O.P. Withhold Endorsement

] Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has said Diebold
] deceived California with aggressive marketing that led to
] the installation of touch-screen voting systems that were
] not tested or approved nationally or in California.
]
]
] Lockyer's office issued a statement noting he has
] authority to intervene in and take over false claims
] cases involving vendors to state.
]
]
] "Lockyer determined sufficient evidence existed to go
] forward with a false claims lawsuit against Diebold," the
] statement said. The state's top lawyer earlier had
] dropped a criminal investigation of Diebold.

Yahoo! News - Calif. to Sue Diebold Over False Claims

] The text of a letter former President Carter sent to Zell
] Miller over the weekend ...
]
]
] You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats
] elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal
] Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected
] you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a
] loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high
] positions in the state government when you were out of
] office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who
] appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of
] office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty,
] you have betrayed our trust.
]
]
] Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past,
] including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman
] Talmadge, and Sam Nunn disagreed strongly with the
] policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John
] Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and me, but they remained loyal
] to the party in which they gained their public office.
] Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or
] the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at
] least had the decency to become Republicans.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall

] The U.S. budget deficit will balloon to $2.29 trillion
] over the next decade, congressional analysts said on
] Tuesday, a worse outlook than previously forecast and one
] likely to stir election-year debate about President Bush's
] economic policies.
]
] The forecast from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget
] Office (news - web sites) compares to the outlook for a
] $2.01 trillion deficit for 2005-2014 it provided in March
] under current economic policies.

[ If you're a fiscal conservative -- a real one, not a closeted right wing fascist -- you simply *cannot* vote for Bush. He is blatantly and unapologetically irresponsible with our money, and worse, our childrens and grandchildrens money. No one paying attention can call republicans the party of small government or fiscal responsibility any more, if the ever could. It's another lie they've managed to build into conventional wisdom... forget it. -k]

Yahoo! News - Congress's Analysts See Worsening Deficit

] In a fresh blow to John Kerry's flagging presidential
] campaign, the Pentagon has ordered an official
] investigation into the awards of the Democratic senator's
] five Vietnam War decorations.
]
] ...
]
] The highly unusual inquiry is to be carried out by the
] inspector-general's office of the United States navy, for
] which Sen Kerry served as a Swift Boat captain for four
] months in 1968, making two tours of duty.

[ You've got to be fucking kidding me. We *STILL* haven't seen the records proving that this irresponsible fool in command *right now* didn't go AWOL. If it wasn't so fucking despicable, I'd been impressed. How is it that the right can consistently bury it's own wrongdoings while hyper-exaggerating or outright fabricating those of their opponents.

I swear to fucking god if i hear much more newspeak out of my leaders, i'm gonna have to leave the country. I can't fathom how gullible people are. So damn sad. -k]

Telegraph | News | Pentagon to check Kerry war record

] For many months we've been warned by tut-tutting
] commentators about the evils of irrational "Bush hatred."
] Pundits eagerly scanned the Democratic convention for the
] disease; some invented examples when they failed to find
] it. Then they waited eagerly for outrageous behavior by
] demonstrators in New York, only to be disappointed again.
]
]
] There was plenty of hatred in Manhattan, but it was
] inside, not outside, Madison Square Garden.
]
]
] Barack Obama, who gave the Democratic keynote address,
] delivered a message of uplift and hope. Zell Miller, who
] gave the Republican keynote, declared that political
] opposition is treason: "Now, at the same time young
] Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the
] mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart
] and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession
] to bring down our commander in chief." And the crowd
] roared its approval.

[ Krugman weighs in. -k]

Op-Ed Columnist: Feel the Hate

] "Taking advantage of the panic, hostages began to
] escape," a spokesman for North Ossetia's president, Lev
] Dzugayev, said in an interview, referring to the initial
] blasts. "The bandits began shooting them in the back. The
] special forces on our side had to cover the fleeing
] hostages. This is unfortunately how it happened."
]
] The number of dead and wounded far surpassed the number
] of hostages that were even reported being held, prompting
] accusations here that the authorities deliberately
] underplayed the severity of the crisis. Today, a
] presidential adviser said for the first time that as many
] as 1,200 hostages might have in fact been held.

[ In case this doesn't propagate thru the major channels in the midst of all the RNC and hurricane Frances stories, I thought I'd post it here. A sad ending to a horrible situation -- this story reports at least 120 dead and over 5 times that many injured. -k]

Soldiers Storm Russian School; Fate of Many Hostages Is Unclear

] I will add one thing more. And that is the personal
] sadness I feel that this president who praises freedom
] wishes to take it away from a whole group of Americans
] who might otherwise support many parts of his agenda. To
] see the second family tableau with one family member
] missing because of her sexual orientation pains me to the
] core. And the president made it clear that discriminating
] against gay people, keeping them from full civic dignity
] and equality, is now a core value for him and his party.
] The opposite is a core value for me. Some things you can
] trade away. Some things you can compromise on. Some
] things you can give any politician a pass on. But there
] are other values - of basic human dignity and equality -
] that cannot be sacrificed without losing your integrity
] itself. That's why, despite my deep admiration for some
] of what this president has done to defeat terror, and my
] affection for him as a human being, I cannot support his
] candidacy. Not only would I be abandoning the small
] government conservatism I hold dear, and the hope of
] freedom at home as well as abroad, I would be betraying
] the people I love. And that I won't do.

[ I also thought it was very telling that while Cheney's daughter was present at the convention, with her partner, she was very obviously not invited on stage with the rest of the family. Disgusting.

Upthread of what i quoted here, Sullivan makes some good points on both sides of the debate... there are ways in which this was a good speech, and may have won some people. But he also points out the very blatant way in which the republicans have renounced their plank of small government and done so in the most irresponsible way possible. He talks about "big insolvent government" (Bush) versus "big solvent government" (Kerry) and points out that if you're a real fiscal conservative, Bush just isn't your guy (something i've thought was obvious for a long time now).

I've got friends who describe themselves as fiscally conservative but socially liberal. I've always thought that was kind of a bullshit cop out in the first place -- felt like saying, "I'm all for helping people, but I'm sure not paying for it." Regardless though, allow for a second that you can be both of those things in one. How do you vote for a candidate who's neither?

As Sullivan says above, you can't, not without losing your integrity. -k]

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish

] For $2.4 trillion, guess what word -- other than "a,"
] "and," and "the" -- occurs most frequently in the
] acceptance speech George W. Bush delivered tonight.
]
] The word is "will." It appears 76 times. This was a
] speech all about what Bush will do, and what will happen,
] if he becomes president.
]
] Except he already is president. He already ran this
] campaign. He promised great things. They haven't
] happened. So, he's trying to go back in time. He wants
] you to see in him the potential you saw four years ago.
] He can't show you the things he promised, so he asks you
] to envision them. He asks you to be "optimistic." He asks
] you to have faith.
]
] ...
]
] Recession. Unemployment. Corporate fraud. A war based on
] false premises that has cost us $200 billion and nearly a
] thousand American lives. They're all hills we've "been
] given to climb." It's as though Bush wasn't president. As
] though he didn't get the tax cuts he wanted. As though he
] didn't bring about postwar Iraq and authorize the
] planning for it. All this was "given," and now Bush can
] show up, three and a half years into his term, and start
] solving the problems some other president else left
] behind.
] My favorite moment was when Bush touted the No Child Left
] Behind Act. No more social promotion, he promised. "We are
] transforming our schools by raising standards and focusing
] on results. We are insisting on accountability."
]
] Wasn't this speech, full of unfulfilled promises and
] appeals to good character, basically a plea for social
] promotion? Isn't that the message of the entire Bush
] campaign? Shouldn't the president have to show results,
] too?

[ Saletan positively destroys Bush's speech. -k]

Back to the Future - What Bush would do if he were president. By William Saletan