THE KERRY AS DUKAKIS MEME seems to be taking off. Jay Reding has further thoughts.

Hey, it’s better to be compared to Dukakis than to Hitler, right?

WHEN, OH, WHEN, WILL WE GET A DECENT PRESS CORPS? Today’s New York Times contains an article by Kate Zernike with this passage:

Like the helmeted Michael Dukakis peeking out of the tank, or the first George Bush bewildered at the grocery scanner, the photo of Mr. Kerry windsurfing played into the negative stereotype his opponents are trying to play up – in this case, that of the out-of-touch, elitist Massachusetts liberal.

Maybe she copped that from Juan Gonzales in the Daily News a couple of days earlier, who wrote: “Can we ever forget the look of utter amazement on Bush, the father, the first time he found himself facing an electronic scanner at a supermarket counter 12 years ago?”

Of course, as Snopes notes, the story isn’t true. And it’s even a famous error by The New York Times itself:

Claim: During a photo opportunity at a 1988 grocers’ convention, President George Bush was “amazed” at encountering supermarket scanners for the first time.

Status: False. . . .

One of the exhibits Bush visited was a demonstration of NCR’s checkout scanning technology, an event New York Times reporter Andrew Rosenthal turned into a chiding front page story about Bush’s lack of familiarity with the details of ordinary life in America. . . . Then the details of the story started to dribble out. Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Times hadn’t even been present at the grocers’ convention. He based his article on a two-paragraph report filed by the lone pool newspaperman allowed to cover the event, Gregg McDonald of the Houston Chronicle, who merely wrote that Bush had a “look of wonder” on his face and didn’t find the event significant enough to mention in his own story. Moreover, Bush had good reason to express wonder: He wasn’t being shown then-standard scanner technology, but a new type of scanner that could weigh groceries and read mangled and torn bar codes.

Dana Milbank has recycled this urban myth, too. (“Recall George H.W. Bush’s wonderment in the 1992 campaign upon coming across a supermarket scanner.”)

Good thing they’re not sloppy, careless, incapable of research, and prone to spout urban legends and bogus reports of events they didn’t even witness, like us bloggers.

UPDATE: In a related development Ann Althouse shows up Joe Klein, through the miracle of counting! “That took less than five minutes to figure out. Come on, Klein!”

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Economist isn’t looking so good, either. What’s going on here?

MORE: Reader Bob Kingsbery emails:

Glenn,

One reason I got a degree in journalism was because it required the fewest math classes.

This explains a lot, actually.

BOI FROM TROY has an article on blog fatigue that’s worth a look.

IF ANYONE GOES TO THE CLUB SPACE hurricane relief party tonight, send me a report, preferably with pictures.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH would like your help on a movie project involving Neal Stephenson.

WILL HUTTON: “With all eyes fixed on the American presidential elections, the scale of the looming crisis in France and Germany has gone largely unremarked.”

Well, the blogosphere has been remarking on it. But Hutton hasn’t given up yet. And neither (quite) have I, though I suspect I differ from Hutton on many particulars. (Via Custos Morum).

UPDATE: Another election loss for Gerhard Schroeder. I guess anti-Bush sentiment isn’t enough to sustain a party.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Read this article on Europe’s foreign policy problems, too.

And David Carr has more thoughts about Hutton’s article.

INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE from StrategyPage:

American combat losses continue at a historically low level. Since March, 2003, American troops have suffered 7,900 casualties (including 976 dead.) This is an unprecedented killed to wounded ratio of 1:8. In past wars, the ration had been 1:4 or 1:5. American combat deaths over the Summer were 42 in June, 54 in July and 66 in August. There are the equivalent of three American combat divisions in Iraq, each running several hundred patrols and other combat operations each day. Never have combat divisions, operating in hostile territory, kept their casualties this low. The news media, concentrating on any losses as the story have generally missed the historical significance of the low casualties. The American armed forces have developed new equipment, weapons and tactics that have transformed combat operations in an unprecedented way. This is recognized within the military, but is generally ignored, or misunderstood, by the general media.

Well, that last is no surprise. . . .

FRANK RICH WRITES: “Though the major newspapers, including this one, did vet and challenge the Swifties’ claims, aggressive reporting on TV was rare.” Hmm. I don’t remember the Times “vetting” the Cambodia claim. I remember them ignoring it, then burying the Kerry campaign’s admission that it was true.

But now there’s some more serious vetting going on:

The Pentagon has ordered an investigation into the awarding of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s five Vietnam War decorations.

The highly unusual inquiry is to be carried out by the Inspector-General’s Office of the US Navy. Senator Kerry served as a Swift boat captain for four months in 1968, serving two tours of duty in Vietnam.

Hmm. No wonder Doug Brinkley seems to be hedging.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, apparently this counts as “vetting” at the Times.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here. And what happened to the promised Brinkley New Yorker piece?

And more thoughts on Rich’s column here. “Issues matter guys!! That’s what elections are about. . . . It’s not acting or what the stages look like. At the end of the day, it’s issues — and the NY Times hasn’t gotten it for a long time.”

POWERLINE NOTES MORE MISREPORTING from the AP.

UPDATE: Maybe they’re just being “filters for truth!”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire has more on the AP’s misreporting of Schwarzenegger — which makes it seem as if he lied when he didn’t, by misstating what he said — and is led to observe: “So often I find myself wondering – is this true, or was it just something reported by the Associated Press?”

Harsh, but we’re looking at two serious and inexcusable errors over the course of a weekend, both of which serve to undercut the Bush campaign. Coincidence? Maybe, if you believe that the AP is so sloppy that errors like this aren’t unusual.

THE SLAUGHTER IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE: Mark Steyn writes that being sad isn’t enough.

IT’S DUKAKIS ALL OVER AGAIN: Once Al Gore dropped out of the race in 1988, I became a — not terribly enthusiastic — Dukakis supporter, and I remember that as the campaign looked worse, people were investing a lot of hope in the notion that rumors of an affair involving George H.W. Bush would emerge and deep-six his Presidency. Lots of people tried to give the stories traction, to no avail. I even remember the night of the election, on the way to the ghastly “Dukakis Victory Party” in D.C., passing a crowd of people near DuPont Circle holding up a big banner with the alleged paramour’s name. (Nowadays it would be a MoveOn commercial, which is ironic if you think about it. . . .)

Now, between former Dukakis campaign manager Susan Estrich’s wild threats of dirty tricks and Kevin Drum’s related thoughts, I think it’s fair to say that Kerry supporters are in the same unhappy place.

At any rate, Stephen Bainbridge notes that, this time around, it’s hard to argue that the Kerry campaign’s problems stem from fighting too fair. Bainbridge offers a rather lengthy list of reasons why fairness has not been at the forefront of their efforts to date.

Meanwhile, speaking of Dukakis, Eileen MacNamara of the Boston Globe notes the return of Dukakis henchman John Sasso, now in the capacity of Kerry hitman:

The problem with soliciting contributions to end the “smug and arrogant tactics of misinformation” that Sasso’s letter rightly attributes to Republicans is that it only works when the purveyor holds the moral high ground. That would not be Sasso, he of the attack video that torpedoed the presidential campaign of Democratic Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware in 1987, he of the audiotape that ridiculed the physical disabilities of the wife of Edward King, Michael Dukakis’s gubernatorial primary opponent in 1982. . . .

I agree with Prof. Bainbridge that the Kerry campaign’s problem isn’t that it has been too reluctant to sling mud. In fact, I agree with Chris Dodd, who says that Kerry’s real problem is that he hasn’t given people any sort of positive vision of a Kerry presidency.

UPDATE: The Estrich link above was wrong before; fixed now. Meanwhile Polipundit observes: “It has now been one month and four days since John Kerry last answered questions from a real reporter.”

In a non-Dukakis vein, the Los Angeles Times is channeling its Gray Davis coverage. Kerry aides are increasingly confident! But Mickey Kaus isn’t panicking yet.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Is Doug Brinkley abandoning ship? Sounds like he’s at least got a toe in the water.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Trouble for Kerry in Ohio. And now he’s on vacation again. And LaShawn Barber notes bitterness at the New York Times. Hugh Hewitt observes: “When the lefty pundits start bringing up Jerry Voorhis and Helen Gahagan Douglas, you know they are whipped. . . .Today’s New York Times piece is a desperate plea by party regulars for Kerry to play a ‘keep-it-close-so-the-party-doesn’t-get-annihilated’ campaign, like Dole in 1996.” Don’t get cocky, Hugh!

A READER SENDS THIS BBC LINK FROM BRITAIN, with the following observation:

“State of the Union” is the spot which has replaced Alistair Cooke’s “Letter From America”.

Radio 4 provides a listen again function (which you will get if you click on the link above) and ordinarily runs a transcript of the latest talk in the “America” news section of their website.

No transcript this week.

This is perhaps because the 10-minute feature looks at current war heroes, who have not made any brags about their injuries, have not asked to go home, and have more or less no chance for promotion — or, what is more to the point, self-promotion.

Give it a whirl. You’ll be glad you did.

I did listen, and it’s quite good.

ROBERT TAGORDA worries about the future of Harvard undergraduates. Yale people have been doing that for years!

BRIAN GOEBEL WRITES:

Although homeland security appears to be one of the dominant issues in the upcoming election, there has been relatively little meaningful debate between the candidates or the two parties on most issues.

True enough. And too bad.

N.Z. BEAR HAS A POST on 527 money and where it’s going next.

UPDATE: Some interesting related stuff here.

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The most-wanted Saddam Hussein aide in Iraq, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was captured in the town of Tikrit on Sunday, Iraq’s defense ministry said.

The ministry said Ibrahim was captured by members of Iraq’s national guard backed by U.S. forces. Tikrit was Saddam’s hometown and one of the powerbases of his regime.

Iraqi Minister of State Wael Abdul al-Latif told Reuters it was “75 to 90 percent certain” the captured man was Ibrahim. He said 70 of the man’s supporters were killed and 80 captured when they tried to prevent him being seized.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Wizbang: “I question the timing.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Izzat him? Maybe not, according to this report. But it must have been somebody important, if they put up that much of a fight, I’d think.

MORE THOUGHTS ON CHECHNYA AND TERROR, over at Winds of Change.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here:

Obviously, we must eliminate terrorists wherever we find them, but we must also provide an example of moral leadership and devote resources to transforming education in the Muslim world, replacing the odious madrasahs that are the breeding grounds for hate. These so-called religious schools are often financed by Saudi Arabia, which has halfway awakened to the fatal disease it has incubated, but Shiite Iran remains the greatest threat. It is radically ideological, seeks nuclear weapons, and sponsors Syrian terrorism as well as most of the terrorism in Iraq. If that weren’t enough, it also sponsors and arms most of the face cards in terrorism’s unholy deck–Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah. Iran, truly, is the problem of the future. So we must promote political democracy whenever we can in the region. Remember what Abu Musab Zarqawi, the ruthless terrorist leader in Iraq, wrote in his memo to al Qaeda? “Democracy is coming. There will be no excuse thereafter for terrorism in Iraq.”

Perhaps we can start democratizing Iran next.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Simon notes the politics of Pirandello at the New York Times.

DONALD SENSING has an interesting roundup of news.

UPDATE: Lots of interesting stuff at Brothers Judd, too.

SEE, THEY COULD HAVE LEARNED THIS sooner (and cheaper) by reading the right blogs:

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, an influential Democrat from Connecticut, said his party’s standard-bearer had “a very confused message in August, and the Republicans had a very clear and concise one.”

Mr. Dodd was one of several Democrats who said they now thought Mr. Kerry had made a mistake at his convention in July by talking mainly about his history as a Vietnam War veteran and criticizing Mr. Bush’s policies, without offering a vision of what a Kerry term would be like.

“We did not adequately lay out the contrast, compare and contrast what a Kerry administration would do and what the Bush administration has done,” Mr. Dodd said of the Democrats’ convention in Boston. “That was a mistake. Vietnam, in terms of John Kerry’s service, that was a good point to make, but making it such a central point sort of invited the kind of response you’ve seen.“

Gee, do you think? Check out this timeline for more perspective, though it doesn’t include the Thursday night debacle. (Emph. added).

UPDATE: More blog wisdom for the Kerry campaign, here. And here.

THE FOLKS AT CLUB SPACE IN MIAMI tell me that they’ll be having a hurricane relief party tonight. Wish I could be there.

FROM Rockwood.

QUEER EYE for the Bush guy.

MARK STEYN writes that Kerry can’t take the heat:

There was an old joke back in the Cold War:

Proud American to Russian guy: ”In my country every one of us has the right to criticize our president.”

Russian guy: ”Same here. In my country every one of us has the right to criticize your president.”

That seems to be the way John Kerry likes it. Americans should be free to call Bush a moron, a liar, a fraud, a deserter, an agent of the House of Saud, a mass murderer, a mass rapist (according to the speaker at a National Organization for Women rally last week) and the new Hitler (according to just about everyone). But how dare anyone be so impertinent as to insult John Kerry! . . .

Sorry, man, that’s not the way it works. And if he thinks it does, he’s even further removed from the realities of democratic politics than he was from the interior of Cambodia. Instead of those military records the swift boat vets are calling for, I’d be more interested in seeing his medical ones.

I don’t think a Kerry administration would work out well.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here:

By now, much of the sturm und drang of the Swiftboat controversy has passed. Yet, one man seems intent on keeping it alive. His name is John Kerry and he’s from Massachusetts. At a rally here in Ohio, Kerry denounced Bush for questioning his patriotism, and mocked Cheney for not serving in Vietnam (in contrast to, say, John Edwards?). Beyond sounding petty in light of the larger campaign issues, this tirade reveals some fundamental flaws in Kerry as a presidential candidate. These flaws range from the personal, to campaign strategy, to larger misunderstandings about America’s cultural dynamic.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ouch: “The only thing that was bad about the convention week was that it kept Kerry out of the public eye. Thanks to the Kerry Magic, the more the public sees of him the better we do. Answering our desperate pleas Kerry made an unprecedented midnight appearance last night, holding a rally to answer the charges hurled at him by the Republican Convention speakers.”

MORE: Still more Kerry pans here.

BELDAR offers first impressions on Mike Kranish’s Kerry book. Kerry was “severely wounded in combat?”

ROGER SIMON IS OUTING NEWSDAY:

An interesting (but small) example is how I have been distorted. In tomorrow’s Newsday there will be a number of quotes from those who blogged at the Republican Convention. . . . They asked permission to excerpt my blog, without providing the excerpts they had in mind (a normal and professional thing to do – I would have). I smelled a rat, but gave them permission to do so as a test. And guess what? They chose the most anti-Bush remarks I made, highlighting my firm opposition to the President on the social issues. You would have to read these excerpts very closely to realize that I unequivocally support Bush in the election and would no more vote for John Kerry for President in an era of terrorism than for a protester on Seventh Avenue.

Stuff like this just keeps happening, and yet people in the media seem surprised and offended when that pattern is noted.

UPDATE: David Adesnik says he had a different experience.

TOM MAGUIRE has lots of interesting stuff. Just keep scrolling.

“SHUT UP,” they explained.

HEH: “We humans are downright irrational beings – witness the fact that the possibility of a cure for baldness arising from stem cell based regenerative medicine garners just as much interest as a cure for heart disease using the same technology.”

BLOGGER JULIE FIDLER is working on a book, and would like you to help her by filling out a questionnaire. Explanation and link here.

DAVE KOPEL HAS THOUGHTS on what to do about schoolhouse terrorism.

AIRPORT TERROR? LAX has been shut down and there are reports of an explosion. It’s not clear yet what’s going on. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Now people are emailing me that Fox says there was no explosion.

BOUNCE UPDATE: Guess the Time poll mentioned below wasn’t a fluke, because the Newsweek poll shows a similar bounce:

President George W. Bush leads his Democrat opponent John Kerry by 11 percentage points according to a poll immediately after the Republican National Convention in New York, Newsweek magazine reported.

Bush is supported by 54 percent of the 1,008 registered voters surveyed Thursday and Friday, compared with 43 percent support for Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator. Independent candidate Ralph Nader polled 3 percent. . . .

The president’s job-approval rating rose to 52 percent, the first time it’s been above 50 percent since January, Newsweek said. A 53 percent majority wants to see him re-elected, the highest since May of last year, the magazine reported.

Seems pretty consistent. Polls only mean so much, of course, and we still have nearly two months left until the election, but this can’t be bringing joy to the Kerry camp. I’m wondering, though, if there isn’t a connection between these poll results and this observation: “It has now been one month and three days since John Kerry last answered questions from a real reporter.”

UPDATE: According to this table, Bush’s lead increased dramatically between Thursday and Friday, presumably as a result of his speech Thursday night (and perhaps Kerry’s response at midnight Thursday):

9/3 only 54 38 4 4
9/2 only 49 43 3 5

As you can see, Bush picked up 5 points between 9/2 and 9/3. Assuming that this holds up when we see other polls, it represents a rather dramatic effect for a single speech.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I guess we can call this an informal Democratic focus group:

Near the end of the night’s broadcast, I took a poll. How many people thought Kerry was going to win?

The room contained liberal and Democratic voters of different races, national origins, incomes, professions and generations. Not a single solitary one raised a hand.

My stomach did a little flip-flop. I’d underestimated the depth of John F. Kerry’s problem, his lack, to quote a phrase from the Bush I years, of the “vision thing.” No one can win the presidency without mobilizing the base, and Kerry’s base, uninspired and dispirited, is weakening.

Ouch. (Via PoliPundit).

And Ryan Sager reports a similar experience:

I watched President Bush’s acceptance speech tonight at a sushi bar on the Lower East Side with a group of reporters from a prominent Washington, D.C.-based publication. The whole time: heckling. Every. Single. Line.

Now, we’ve all seen the polls (or read about them) where the press corps routinely leans Democratic by a factor of about ten-to-one. Still, it was a bit shocking.

It was a little like Mystery Science Theater 3000, but with reporters instead of robots.

Every line of the speech, every item on Bush’s laundry list of domestic candy (yuck, too sweet), they had something snide to say. More money for community colleges? Somehow not good enough. Education? Bush sucks — and any school showing improvement under No Child Left Behind is just fudging its numbers. Iraq? Don’t get them started.

But here’s the clincher:

The punch line here, however, is this: Everyone at the table expected Bush to win. No anger. No denial. Just acceptance.

And that’s before the polls came out.

(Longer story on the poll here.)

And CrushKerry says that the Newsweek poll is overweighted toward the GOP. Hmm. Okay. But it’s still pretty consistent with the Time poll.

MORE: Mickey Kaus: “Obviously there are plenty of swing voters because Bush just swung ‘em!”

HERE’S A HURRICANE BLOGGER from Melbourne, Florida, pretty close to where the hurricane is expected to hit.

I GUESS THESE ARE ANALOG BROWNSHIRTS: “A shot apparently was fired at the Republican Party headquarters in downtown Huntington while President Bush’s speech accepting the GOP nomination for president was being televised.”

THE LATEST CARNIVAL OF THE RECIPES is up.

RALPH PETERS: “Did any of those protesters who came to Manhattan to denounce our liberation of 50 million Muslims stay an extra day to protest the massacre in Russia?”

INTERESTING PICTURE from the scene of schoolhouse slaughter today. Note the t-shirt. More information here.

This is what we’re dealing with, for those who have forgotten.

UPDATE: GayPatriot asks: “First NYC/DC, then Madrid, now Russia faces its own “9/11″. How many more will have to die until Europe, and ostriches here in the US, wake up and realize we are in a World War?”

Beats me. But David Kaspar has some helpful advice on how to think about acts of terror.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Oliver Willis sees this as some sort of attack on Democrats’ patriotism, full of “slander” and “bile.” To me, he seems awfully, well, defensive. When pointing out that we’re at war, as a remedy to September 10th thinking, is considered partisan, well. . . .

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Don’t worry — there’s a solution: “The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya.” David Kaspar’s advice is already taking hold!

MORE: Matthew Yglesias emails to say that I’ve misquoted him above, and demands an apology. Er, except that the quote — done via cut-and-paste, natch — is accurate. Here it is again, cut-and-pasted, again. “The situation, clearly, can only be resolved by Russian concessions on the underlying political issue in Chechnya.”

I guess that Matthew means it’s out of context, or misrepresents his post. Maybe it misrepresents what he meant to say. Follow the link and decide for yourselves. But I can’t figure out what Matthew could have meant that would make the statement above a misrepresentation of his meaning.

Chechnya, of course, is a mess, and there’s lots of blame to go around. But the news reports are that quite a few of the terrorists in this incident were Arabs, not Chechens, and this seems to me to fit quite well into the general Al Qaeda assault on, well, everybody else — especially after the two airliner bombings, etc. Does Matthew really think that this is something that can be negotiated away via Russian concessions to the Chechens? Judging from his email, I guess not. So why did he write the above? I guess you’ll have to ask him, as his email didn’t provide any guidance on what he did mean.

In a later post, Yglesias writes “Fuck you, Glenn.” And he still says I misrepresent him. I don’t think I did — at least, it’s hard for me to figure out what he meant that would have made my (accurate) quotation misleading. And Yglesias doesn’t tell us, preferring to substitute profanity for clarity, I guess.

I will note, however, that I managed to respond to Yglesias’ implications that I was a Nazi who was inciting “mob violence” against the New York Times without resorting to profanity.

I’m guessing that Matthew’s comment in the section below — which I believe appeared after my post — contains the best clarification he’s got:

Pardon me, but I’m not advocating capitulation to the terrorists. As I wrote: “in the wake of this sort of outrage there will not only be no mood for concessions, but an amply justified fear that such concessions would only encourage further attacks and a further escalation of demands.”

I’m not advocating anything, that’s why I wrote that “I don’t see any way out for Russian policymakers nor any particularly good options for US policymakers . . . no one should claim it’s obvious what the right way to proceed is.”

Does that clear things up? Not to me. The only solution is concessions, which we can’t make? Okay. Except that I don’t think concessions — even if we could make them — are any solution at all, because I don’t think the people involved care about concessions in Chechnya.

Obsidian Wings also says I misrepresented Matthew’s post, though there at least I’m given credit for it not being intentional (Matthew’s initial post, he observes, “was not a model of clarity.”) There’s also this observation:

From this post, Yglesias seems to suggest that he doesn’t believe that he’s in a debate. If that’s his belief, then he’s wrong — and, since I don’t want to be told to do the anatomically impossible (as Yglesias has instructed Reynolds), I’ll explain why. The notion that the “underlying problem” can be solved by Russian concessions is based on a fundamentally incorrect premise. The “underlying problem” is that of terrorism directed at civilians, and it can only be solved by making terrorism an unacceptable method of political action. No “concessions” on this point are possible.

So if I understand Matthew’s post better now — and I’m not at all sure that I do — my understanding is that it translates as “Jeez, what a mess.” True enough, and I certainly don’t disagree. My own sense is that the way this mess will be resolved won’t be through actions at the periphery — such as concessions involving Chechnya — but by addressing Islamist terror at its sources, which chiefly mean Iran and Saudi Arabia. I don’t know what Matthew thinks about that. Perhaps he’ll manage a non-profane post on that subject.

At any rate, I honestly didn’t think my quotation was a misrepresentation of Matthew’s position — which I still don’t understand. But anyone who wanted to read the whole item had only to follow the link and — as it was presented — wouldn’t even have known it came from Matthew unless they followed the link, in which case they would unavoidably have read the whole thing. So I don’t really see how I can be accused of mistreating him here. Certainly, if his meaning was so clear that I shouldn’t have misunderstood it myself, that couldn’t have left any misimpression on the average reader.

MORE: Maybe this is another case of “‘misleading-without-lying’ in the sense that someone, somewhere, might have misunderstood him?”

Eric Muller emails:

The trouble is obviously that Yglesias contradicted himself in his own post. In the sentence you quote, he asserts what the solution “clearly” is, and in the last sentence, he says “no one should claim it’s obvious what the right way to proceed is.” I guess he wanted you to post his full self-contradiction.

Yeah. I wasn’t trying to misrepresent his view — I just thought that the concessions bit was the key point because, well, it looked that way to me.

Pierre Legrand has further thoughts.

FINAL NOTE: Armed Liberal, who started all this, has thoughts here.

POWER LINE HAS MORE ON THE BOGUS-BOOS REPORT FROM AP, mentioned below.

UPDATE: Here’s a firsthand report from a blogger who was there. No boos:

As I said, there was no boo’ing when President Bush made the announcement about Clinton’s hospitalization and made wishes for a speedy recovery. The crowd was very gracious.

The only boo’ing to be heard was when Bush reviewed Senator Kerry’s voting record in the Senate.

Do I trust this blogger I’ve never met more than the Associated Press? Yes, yes I do. And she’s got the audio.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More from a reader:

Prof. Reynolds:

We live in Lake County, Illinois, a few miles from the Wisconsin border. Two of our neighbors drove up to the event today at which AP said the booing occurred. One is a retired Army officer and the other is his adult daughter. They are good friends of ours and very trustworthy. They were outraged when they read the AP story, because they say the crowd did not boo when President Bush asked for their prayers and support for Bill Clinton. On the contrary, they applauded President Bush’s well-wishing for Clinton, and many bowed their heads in prayer. From their account, there was no way to mistake their cheers for boos.

This AP story is one of the most blatant examples of press bias I have seen in a campaign season that has featured the most partisan media coverage in memory.

Best,
Evan

____________________________________
Evan McKenzie
Political Science Department
University of Illinois at Chicago

This seems quite outrageous. I wonder if it’s one of those “dirty tricks” that Susan Estrich was threatening?

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Apparently, this story is not by Scott Lindlaw, as earlier reported, but by Tom Hays. Jonathan Last has more on this, and observes:

So the AP: (1) Puts out a story with falsified reporting; (2) Pulls the story; (3) Removes the faulty reporting; (4) Makes no note of its mistake; and then (5) Pulls the byline of the reporter who made the error. If you were going to impute bad faith to the folks at AP–and at this point that’s not unreasonable to do–you might suspect that they have pulled Tom Hays’s byline to protect him.

Behold the power of Lexis-Nexis. The AP was able to cover their tracks on the web, but Lexis-Nexis keeps all versions of stories which carry different time-stamps. The Hays original is preserved there in its entirety.

He’s got it. He also observes: “This is a fine time for Romenesko to be on vacation. Let’s hope he digs into this story on Tuesday. Paging Howie Kurtz . . . ”

MORE: Still more here.

STILL MORE: Video here. Article from Editor and Publisher here. Amusing comment from CQ, linked above:

This has been the AP style for as long as I’ve been aware of them.

Start of the newsday: BUSH EATS GROUND FOETUSES.
and by the end of the newsday: PRESIDENT HAD SCRAMBLED EGGS FOR BREAKFAST.

Heh.

MORE STILL: Jonathan Last has a followup:

First of all, good for the AP for fixing the faulty reporting and including what seems to be an accurate description of the Republican crowd’s reaction to bad news about President Clinton’s health.

But the AP’s conduct with regards to the rest of this story is not reassuring. We have an un-bylined bit of faulty reporting which was incorporated into the bylined work of another reporter without accreditation. After being confronted by the blogosphere, the AP pulled versions of the bad reporting from the web and the first instance of it from Lexis-Nexis. After it was revealed here at Galley Slaves that the bad reporting lived on in other versions of the story in Nexis, the AP went into Nexis and disappeared it from there, too. Then, they inserted a cleaned-up version with no time-stamp whatsoever. By the time media reporters like Jim Romenesko and Howard Kurtz and Jack Shafer get back to the office on Tuesday, there will be no story, because the AP will have completely altered all of the evidence.

In fact, as it stands right now, the only evidence that the AP ever made this enormous error is on blogs, such as this one, which copied the offending stories–remember, Lexis-Nexis does not page-cache the way Google does.

The AP’s conduct reminds me of the famous Soviet picture of the Bolshevik leaders sitting on the couch. It began with the entire high command, and over the years, as individuals fell out of favor and were disappeared, was airbrushed over and over until, in the end, it showed only Lenin and Stalin, who were mysteriously seated on opposite ends of an enormous sofa.

Correcting errors is good. And “stealth corrections” can be OK. But the AP has published a damaging falsehood, which was spread widely — reaching the BBC and numerous other sources — and has now destroyed the evidence. That seems wrong to me.

RAND SIMBERG IS HURRICANE BLOGGING — from a secure alternate location.

IF YOU WANT TO HELP the victims of the Russian school massacre, go here.

CLINTON’S HAVING BYPASS SURGERY; Bush called to wish him well. My grandfather died of complications from bypass surgery when it was very new; fortunately, it’s now as nearly routine as anything involving surgery on your heart can be. I hope he comes through well, and wonder if he’ll be able to give up the Big Macs.

LAYING OUT THE BUSH DOCTRINE.

JOHN FORBES DUKAKIS?

DOES THIS sound like somebody who’s winning?

Maybe it was just a reaction to this nightmare.

ANTI-SADR PROTESTS IN NAJAF:

In Najaf, scores of demonstrators took to the streets in the battle-scarred heart of the city near the Imam Ali shrine to protest the presence of al-Sadr and his militia and to back Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, who brokered last week’s peace deal. The agreement called for the Mahdi Army to give up its arms, but many militia members in Najaf are thought to have kept them, hiding them at home or elsewhere.

“The demands of the demonstrators in general and for the people of Najaf especially are to ensure safety and security and to have stability back,” said one protester, 38-year-old Abu Mohammed al-Najafi, identifying himself with a nickname.

Demonstrators shouted chants denouncing al-Sadr, including one that equated him with deposed dictator Saddam Hussein.

I’m surprised this isn’t getting more attention.

“KIDS. SHOT IN THE BACK”

MADE-UP BOOS at the AP? Hmm.

UPDATE: An update to the post above says that the story was by the AP’s Scott Lindlaw, seen here previously with distorted reports of Bush visits to military bases and NASCAR races — the latter of which got characterized as a “cheap shot” by the Columbia Journalism Review.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The report that it was Scott Lindlaw seems to be in error. Jonathan Last reports that it was Tom Hays, but that AP pulled the byline. Quite appalling.

I GOT YER BOUNCE RIGHT HERE: The folks at Time send this, though there’s no hyperlink, dangit:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 3, 2004

TIME Poll: Campaign 2004

BUSH OPENS DOUBLE DIGIT LEAD,
ACCORDING TO NEW TIME POLL
—
AMONG LIKELY VOTERS, 52% WOULD VOTE FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH, 41% WOULD VOTE FOR JOHN KERRY,
AND 3% WOULD VOTE FOR NADER

New York – For the first time since the Presidential race became a two person contest last spring, there is a clear leader, the latest TIME poll shows. If the 2004 election for President were held today, 52% of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W. Bush, 41% would vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry, and 3% would vote for Ralph Nader, according to a new TIME poll conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2. Poll results are available on TIME.com and will appear in the upcoming issue of TIME magazine, on newsstands Monday, Sept. 6.

Most important issues: When asked what they consider are the most important issues, 25% of registered voters cited the economy as the top issue, followed by 24% who cited the war on terrorism as the top issue. The situation in Iraq was rated the top issue by 17% of registered voters, moral values issues such as gay marriage and abortion were the top issue for 16% of respondents, and health care was the most important issue for 11% of respondents.

Bush vs. Kerry:

The economy: 47% trust President Bush more to handle the economy, while 45% trust Kerry.
Health care: 48% trust Senator Kerry to handle health care issues, while 42% trust Bush.
Iraq: 53% trust Bush to handle the situation in Iraq, while 41% trust Kerry. Terrorism: 57% trust Bush to handle the war on terrorism, while 36% trust Kerry.
Understanding the needs of people: 47% said they trust Kerry to understand the needs of people like themselves, while 44% trusted Bush to understand their needs.
Providing strong leadership: 56% said they trust Bush to provide strong leadership in difficult times, while 37% said they trust Kerry to provide leadership in difficult times.
Tax policy: 49% trust Bush to handle tax policy, while 40% trust Kerry. Commanding the Armed Forces: 54% said they trust Bush to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, while 39% said they trust Kerry.

Bush on the Issues:

Iraq: Half (50%) of those surveyed approve of the way President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, while 46% disapprove. In last week’s TIME poll, 48% approved of the way Bush was handling the situation in Iraq and 48% disapproved.
Terrorism: Almost two thirds (59%) said they approve of how President Bush is handling the war on terrorism, while 38% disapprove. Last week’s TIME poll found 55% approved of Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism, while 40% disapproved.
The Economy: Survey respondents were split on the President’s handling of the economy. Almost half (48%) said the approved of Bush’s handling of the economy, while 48% said the disapproved.

Other results include:

Was U.S. Right Going to War with Iraq? Over half of those surveyed (52%) think the U.S. was right in going to war with Iraq, while 41% think the U.S. was wrong to go to war.

Have the United States’ actions in Iraq made the world safer? Almost half(45%) think the United States’ actions in Iraq have made the world safer, while 45% think the world is more dangerous. In a similar TIME poll taken Aug. 3 –5, over half (52%) said the world was more dangerous, and 38% said the world was safer.

Note the pro-Bush movement on many issues. How much of this is due to the convention? Beats me. Given the dates involved, I’d say not all of it. I’m not that big on polls, generally, and especially pre-Labor Day polls, but this shift seems rather striking, particularly when compared to Kerry’s non-bounce from the Democratic Convention.

UPDATE: Ask, and ye shall receive — link here. And more poll news here.

DARFUR UPDATE: “The Canadian general who watched helplessly while genocide raged in Rwanda has launched a tirade against Western countries for their ‘lame and obtuse’ response to unnervingly similar horrors unfolding in Sudan.”

There will be a Rally in New York City on September 12th to address this. I hope it does some good.

UPDATE: Just noticed that John Kerry is calling for strong action on Darfur. That’s good. Unfortunately, what Kerry seems to think of as strong action seems a bit weak:

He called on Mr. Bush to “stop equivocating” and declare the attacks a genocide, and to release the findings of a State Department investigation of the crisis. Two dozen experts hired by the department spent a month interviewing refugees and confirming widespread atrocities, and their report, which includes 1,200 interviews, is on the desk of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

Mr. Kerry also said the president should press the United Nations to create a commission to investigate possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

He urged Mr. Bush to press the Security Council to impose sanctions on the Sudanese government in Khartoum. . . .

On the question of military intervention, Mr. Kerry said the administration should push the United Nations to deploy an international force and to authorize it to use all means necessary to disarm militias, protect civilians and allow aid to get through.

As the article notes, that’s not likely to happen given that Security Council members like France and China — which have oil interests in the region through the current government — would veto or sabotage any effort.

I guess Kerry’s not willing to call for unilateral action (that is, action not approved by France), here, but that’s what we need. Some special forces trainers and some weapons to organize the victims in Darfur (and across the border in Chad) would go a long way toward ending this genocide. But if you think that Security Council approval is essential for legitimate military action, then there’s not much that can be done here.

CATHY SEIPP looks at Bill Maher in Hell, and finds it thin gruel.

OUCH: “All hat, no Cambodia.”

Another ouch, here.

And yet another ouch, here.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: And good riddance.

SOFIA SIDESHOW has a number of interesting posts on the Russian massacre, including thoughts on Al Qaeda connections thereto, what it means for Putin, and the Zell Miller angle.

UPDATE: Striking photo here. And there’s lots of coverage at The Command Post — just keep scrolling.

BLOGOSPHERIC INPUT into Bush’s speech? Hmm. Could be. [LATER: And maybe here, too.] Meanwhile, Virginia Postrel writes:

After hearing Bush compared to Reagan, Churchill, and Roosevelt all week, I was ready for him to look embarrassingly small by comparison. He did better than that. The speech was competent and at times moving. It just wasn’t inspiring, at least not to me. But it wasn’t addressed to me, and it seems to have done quite well, at least among the punditocracy. John Kerry made Bush look even better with his petulant and rambling midnight address. What was he thinking? Doesn’t Kerry have advisers to tell him not to give poorly prepared speeches that project desperation?

Apparently not. (Mickey Kaus: “That’s the way the coccoon crumbles.”) I blame the staff!

UPDATE: You should read all of Stephen Green’s wrapup, but here’s an excerpt:

There was no overriding theme to President Bush’s speech, except for the unspoken one: “This is who I am.” No, wait — let me amend that. The unspoken theme was, “This is who we are.” As Americans.

For all its faults, for all its overtly- and overly-religious tones, this small-l libertarian prefers George Bush’s America to John Kerry’s. I don’t care for NASCAR. I’m not much for country music, Sundays at church, blue-eyed soul, or faith-based initiatives.

But Bush made me feel welcome all the same. No, wait – let me amend that statement, too. Bush made me feel like his place is somewhere I’d like to spend some time and get to know the locals. You know — down a few beers, chat up the natives and learn their quaint customs.

I don’t feel as welcome, as at home, in the America Kerry painted for us tonight.

Read the whole thing, which zeroes in on what’s likely the key contrast in the campaigns. Meanwhile Rick Richman parses the language and notes a surprising JFK parallel.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Eric Olsen has a wrapup post on where the election stands.

Meanwhile, Ann Althouse pans Kerry’s late-night appearance:

So, your big answer, after all of these attacks, is that you somehow “will not have” any questions. I simply will not have it. You hear that? He does not want to be questioned. He went to Vietnam, and therefore, he simply will not have any questions about whether he has the qualifications to be President. Come on, that’s a roar, isn’t it?

And by the way, any man who didn’t volunteer to go to Vietnam who was of age at the time–all you Baby Boomer men who had student deferments or even if you served in the National Guard, I mean were in the National Guard–you were all refusing to serve.

Boy, Kerry’s staff sure is doing him a lot of harm, making him say things like this.

IT’S A MEDIA TIME-TRAVEL ROUNDUP!

A REMINDER OF THE STAKES:

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Russian troops stormed a school in the country’s south, after hostages started fleeing the building where armed terrorists had been holding as many as 1,500 people captive for two days in Beslan, North Ossetia.

More than 200 wounded were taken to hospitals, Interfax said, citing Lev Dzugayev, spokesman for North Ossetia’s government. Russian broadcasters NTV and Rossiya showed children escaping and gunfire and explosions could be heard during the broadcasts.

That could be happening here, and sooner or later it will if we don’t win this war first.

UPDATE: Well, this isn’t especially good news, though I suppose it could have been much worse:

Commandos free children

September 03, 2004
AT LEAST five people are dead and more than 300 people, including children have been injured after commandos stormed a school in southern Russia where up to a thousand hostages were being held, news agencies have reported.

The 10 victims, children and adults, have been taken out dead on stretchers, an AFP correspondent reported.

At least six children, all very badly wounded and some with their limbs ripped off and their backs torn open, were also evacuated by civilians and members of the Russian emergency ministry.

Troops were pursuing the hostage-takers, and gunfire continued to ring out in Beslan, Russian news agencies said.

Five militants were killed but 13 others escaped, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, and were holed up in a local residence surrounded by troops, the Interfax news agency said.

The Russians do not take a “zero defects” approach to these things.

THE POKER GAME was fun. Poking around the blogs below, I’d say that Bush gave a pretty good speech, but not a barn-burner. Of course, for President Bush, a pretty good speech is a barn-burner.

I HAVE A POKER GAME TONIGHT, and I’ve decided to go play instead of staying here and blogging. I’ve pretty much overloaded on politics this week, and I don’t want to suffer from the perspective-loss that seems to have hit some quarters of the media and blogosphere.

Stephen Green will be liveblogging, and I suspect that Ann Althouse will be too, and PeakTalk. Along with comments from Wizbang, Ed Morrissey, RedState, Power Line, Oxblog, and a bunch of the other RNC bloggers, no doubt.

Besides, what do you need me for? Thanks to the wonder of Laphamization(tm) ABC and the Independent have already covered the event:

It was a prime-time, nationally televised climax to a gathering that has in effect been a four-day party political broadcast for the Republicans, depicting the President as uniquely able to protect America, and belittling John Kerry as a “flip-flopper” who could not be trusted to protect US national security. . . . Immediately after his acceptance speech at a delirious Madison Square Garden, the President left New York to resume campaigning.

So there you are. Lacking a time machine, how can I compete with that? And don’t miss The Belgravia Dispatch’s report card for Bush on Iraq. Mixed grades, and some thoughts on Kerry.

TOM MAGUIRE has several interesting posts.

TIM BLAIR has a lengthy review of Zell Miller’s speech. Excerpt:

Actually, compared to the themes routinely hauled up by the anti-Bushites – Hail to the Thief, Halliburton, Bush Lied, Bush Knew, BusHitler, etc. – Miller’s speech was an exercise in elegant restraint. Maybe Zell should’ve punched it up a little.

No, I think his measured approach was best. Meanwhile Ralph Peters reviews Kerry’s American Legion speech.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse wonders why talking-head types are calling Zell Miller’s speech a personal attack, when it wasn’t personal. It was just business:

The Kerry campaign and the various people who support it, like Matthews, spend a lot of time expressing outrage that their opponents are fighting hard. But it is a political fight. Fight back! Don’t whine that it’s somehow unfair for Miller to point to your record. Defend your record. Presumably, you’ve got arguments. If you don’t, you deserve to lose.

Indeed. Virginia Postrel has some additional observations about Zell.

THE REALLY NEW Media.

THEY SAID THAT THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION would bring hate-spouting politicians to New York — and I guess they were right!

U.S. Rep. Major Owens, a New York Democrat, warned a crowd of feminist protesters that the Bush administration is taking America “into a snake pit of fascism.”

Owens also said the Bush administration “spits on democracy” and is leading the country down a path reminiscent of “Nazi Germany.”

Owens made his remarks in New York City’s Central Park at a National Organization for Women rally on Wednesday night.

And then there are all the hate-spouting theocrats. (Via Bryon Scott).

ABC APPROVES ZELL MILLER’S CONVENTION SPEECH: “ABC’s Mike Schneider saluted it as an instance of Democrats ‘engaged in the time-honored tradition of attacking the opposition.’” Of course, that was the 1992 speech. . . .

HUGH HEWITT has thoughts on OODA Loops and campaigns. He says the Kerry campaign doesn’t understand this stuff. No, but Joe Trippi does. Too bad he doesn’t work for them.

UPDATE: Terry McAuliffe, on the other hand, certainly knows how to deploy a rapidly evolving position.

MORE FIRSTHAND REPORTING from New York City, at Best of the Web.

ISN’T THIS KIND OF OUTSOURCING illegal?

MICKEY KAUS: “The emergency Kerry ‘We’re-Not-in-A-Crisis’ crisis meeting for the press was a bit of a bust, I’m told.* Lots of Kerry cooks–including Lockhart, Devine, Cutter, Sosnick. No clear leader. . . . *kausfiles was not allowed in. Illustrative of Kerry’s stodgy and troubling ignorance of new media! (Hey, isn’t that allegedly what got him into trouble with the Swiftys in the first place?**)” More evidence that he should have hired Joe Trippi!

I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE that our immigration policy seems to be designed to hassle honest people while letting actual terrorists slip through. This would seem to be the latest example:

Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss scholar known for his work on Islamic theology and the place of Muslims in the modern world, was supposed to start teaching last week at the University of Notre Dame. But after he got a visa from the State Department, it was revoked at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, which apparently sees him as a danger. Why is anyone’s guess, since the department declines to spell out the reasons he’s been barred. . . .

If the U.S. government has grounds to think Ramadan has worked with Al Qaeda to further its bloody ambitions, he should certainly be denied entry. But no one has produced tangible evidence that he is personally involved in such activities, and the law doesn’t require such involvement. If he is being refused permission to teach in this country purely because of his views, the government has an obligation to Notre Dame and the American people to acknowledge that–and to specify which of his opinions endangers public safety.

Nothing that has come to light so far suggests that Ramadan endorses terrorism. His defenders say that on the contrary, he is known for urging a more modern understanding of Islam and for firmly denouncing anti-Semitism. It’s not likely that Notre Dame’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies would knowingly grant its imprimatur to an apostle of violence.

Okay, given the dubious history of “peace studies” that last probably doesn’t carry much weight.

Daniel Pipes thinks the exclusion is justified. Ramadan replies here.

As Eugene Volokh notes, this is entirely legal. But is it a good idea? Unless there’s more to this story than we know so far, I’d say that it’s not a good idea.

Here’s an email I got from a Muslim law student at Northwestern with whom I’ve corresponded for a while:

I’ve met Professor Ramadan myself and I can say with full candor that he is anything but a radical Islamist who wishes to bring terror to our shores.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always believed that any change that moves the worldwide Islamic community as whole away from fundamentalism and Islamism is going to come from the West. But we, the ‘West,’ are going to have to be smart about it. . . . The greatest move we can make is to bring people like Professor Ramadan to our shores to let the world know that we the Americans are taking the lead in cultivating a moderate, progressive, and intellectual form of Islam, now that Islam in the Middle East and other parts of the world has been hijacked, in large part, by radical, anti-Semitic wackos who call themselves Imams yet understand nothing of the faith of Islam.

I certainly agree with “constructive engagement” here. I’m all for toughening up immigration in ways that keep terrorists out, but unless Ramadan is a terrorist, I don’t see the reason for excluding him.

LOOKS LIKE DAN RATHER WILL RIDE TO THE RESCUE of the Kerry campaign.

JON HENKE rounds up reactions to Zell Miller’s speech from around the blogosphere. Meanwhile reader Allen Baruch emails:

Did not see it live, but saw the video. I’m way too young to know, but I’d guess that once upon a time a speech like that at the *Democratic* Convention could have given us a better candidate…

Indeed. But personally, I’m just sad that the Republican Convention became such a hatefest:

A featured performer at a National Organization for Women rally accused President Bush of having “savagely raped ” women “over and over” by allegedly stealing the 2000 presidential election.

Poet Molly Birnbaum read aloud to a crowd of feminists gathered in New York’s Central Park on Wednesday night, as part of a NOW event dubbed “Code Red: Stop the Bush Agenda Rally.”

“Imagine a way to erase that night four years ago when you (President Bush) savagely raped every pandemic woman over and over with each vote you got, a thrust with each state you stole,” Birnbaum said from the podium.

No doubt Chris Matthews will be interviewing her shortly.

MORE: Another roundup of reactions here.

A WHILE BACK, Noah Millman wrote the speech he’d like to see Bush give tonight. How will the real speech compare?

UPDATE: Frank Martin emails:

Do you get the feeling that in “newsrooms” across America there are reporters with their fingers hovering over the enter key, just waiting to file their stories on how “President Bush in his speech this evening”:

“failed to close the sale”
“showed intolerance”
“failed to mention his appalling record”
“alienated women and minorities”
“failed to rebuke Ashcroft and Rumsfeld”

Well, Lewis Lapham already mailed it out.

I’VE POOH-POOHED the Kerry medals issue, but this new article by Thomas Lipscomb is likely to give it some legs.

ROBERT TAGORDA notes an outbreak of protectionism and unilateralism.

WILL COLLIER is looking at Kerry’s Senate record.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ryan Pitts explains what Kerry ought to say.

Kerry’s getting a lot of good advice from outside the campaign

STILL MORE EVACUATIONS in Florida, ahead of Hurricane Frances. It’s up to 1.2 million now.

UPDATE: Juan Paxety emails:

One thing that folks don’t think about with hurricane evacuations is the terrible, terrible traffic. Since early this morning, I-95 here in Jacksonville has been bumper-to-bumper as folks flee south Florida. I would think I-75 is the same. We’re hundreds of miles north of the projected striking point. If you’re in the southeastern US try to avoid the major interstates.

Don’t wait until the last minute!

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS’ PIECE from last week looks prophetic now:

Comes the next question—should it only be veterans or potential veterans who have a voice in these matters? If so, then what’s so bad about American Legion types calling Kerry a traitor to his country? The Democrats have made a rod for their own backs in uncritically applauding their candidate’s ramrod-and-salute posture. They have also implicitly subverted one of the most important principles of the republic, which is civilian control over military decisions.

Choosing Kerry as the Democratic nominee was a mistake. Choosing to campaign this way was a disaster. It’ll be a disaster even if he wins. And it didn’t have to be that way.

BOUNCE?

THE JACKSONIAN PERSUASION: Michael Barone’s column on Zell Miller’s speech is worth reading:

Until Wednesday night, I was under the impression that Andrew Jackson had died in 1845. But on Wednesday night he appeared at the podium of the Republican National Convention under the guise of Georgia Senator and former Governor Zell Miller.

Read the whole thing. He even mentions David Hackett Fischer.

UPDATE: Tom Bevan liked the speech, while Power Line looks at how the press is trying to spin things.

DARFUR UPDATE: An interesting look at %20&id=3440&pubtype=DailyArticles”>conspiracy theories in the Arab world.

INDEED:

As President Bush’s acceptance speech tonight closes the Republican convention and sends us full speed into the final electoral push, would it be too much to ask one tiny favor of TV’s anchors, analysts and pundits?

In the name of all that’s holy, shut up.

When exactly did the primary goal of journalists become not talking to news-makers, but talking over them?

Did I already say “Indeed?”

UPDATE: Hardball with Harry Caray?

CAN ANYONE HERE PLAY THIS GAME? I’ve been pretty critical of homeland security before, but I do have to admit that I never thought we’d go this long after September 11 without another major attack in the United States.

On the other hand, then you get stories like this one:

In one of the most significant setbacks for the Bush administration’s war on terror, the Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Detroit to set aside guilty verdicts against three Middle Eastern men who were convicted last year on terrorism-related charges. . . .

The Justice Department decision came after a lengthy review of the Detroit prosecution, in the wake of repeated defense complaints that prosecutors withheld evidence that could have helped the defendants. In its filing, Justice officials acknowledged that prosecutors failed to disclose matters “material” to the defense, and “allowed an incomplete and, at times, misleading record to be presented” on key issues.

The department was harshly critical of the lead prosecutor, Richard Convertino. Officials said they have provided Convertino with documents from their internal review, and that he responded to their questions with “information that is at odds” with the evidence and testimony.

In its filing, the government said that Convertino and his supervisor and co-counsel, Keith Corbett, had assured Judge Rosen that they would abide by his order to notify him of evidence that might be exculpatory to the defense. But, time and again, the government said, they defied his order and withheld evidence.

Withholding exculpatory evidence, sadly, is not all that unusual. And I guess the positive note here is that the management at the Justice Department has stepped in to try to fix things. But this is still disgraceful, and it bespeaks a problem with criminal prosecution in general. What’s more, convictions in cases like this one need, even more than regular criminal cases, to be obviously fair. This is a serious black mark.

I GUESS THIS WOULD BE A BIGGER DEAL if anybody paid attention to what Dennis Hastert says, but Eugene Volokh is right to note the sliminess of Hastert’s almost-claim that George Soros is financed by drug dealers.

Like me, Soros favors drug legalization. That makes him (as Volokh notes, linking a post by Jesse Walker) a natural enemy of drug dealers, whose profit margins would be shot to hell if drugs were legalized. And Hastert’s followup explanation doesn’t make sense anyway.

While I’m (sort of) on this topic, why doesn’t the United States address the Afghan opium trade by just buying the stuff up? Presumably, farmers would be just as happy to sell their poppies to us, and that would keep them off the market, as well as depriving bad guys of a revenue source. Am I missing something here?

UPDATE: Reader Jacob Proffitt emails:

If you do this, you actually end up increasing opium production as farmers move to a guaranteed crop (all the profit, none of the uncertainty). It’d be better if we guaranteed purchase of an alternative crop at opium production profit levels for the farmers…

Hmm. I don’t know if this would work or not.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI AT THE WEEKLY STANDARD has a look at the Swiftboat Vets charges against Kerry, and gives it a mixed report: the Kerry campaign has admitted that the Christmas-in-Cambodia story was false, but Continetti has a rather involved review of the purple-heart issue and says the Swiftboat vets’ evidence is inconclusive. (Nothing about the Swiftvets’ ad regarding Kerry’s Senate testimony, etc., but then there’s not much to argue about there, I guess, on the facts).

What’s striking to me is that Continetti does a better job of making Kerry’s case for him than the Kerry campaign has done. This seems to puzzle Continetti, and it should. I don’t understand why Kerry doesn’t release his records, and answer the criticisms. He should have done it a month ago.

UPDATE: Reader George Ditter emails:

It’s just speculation on my part, but it would seem that if the records supported the circumstantial evidence set forth in the Weekly Standard article you would expect the Kerry Campaign to release the records. The logical (and legal) inference from a failure to present evidence in your control being? The same applies to Kerry’s failure to release his educational test scores. We know what Bush’s are, inference that can be drawn from Kerry’s failure?

Yeah, when you don’t release the records, you always look as if you’re hiding something. Doesn’t the Kerry campaign know that?

ANOTHER UPDATE: I wasn’t supposed to talk about it, but my own connection with the Swiftboat missions has now been exposed.

MORE: Reader John Jorsett emails:

I was reading accounts of Kerry’s “fury” with his staff for dissuading him from counterpunching on the swiftboat ads, and the subsequent tales of a staff shakeup. This led me to ask myself if Kerry might be dumb enough to counterpunch now, at 3 weeks into it, resulting in a reinvigoration of what should be a waning issue. And then when I saw today that Max Cleland and Bob Kerrey were calling for Rove’s resignation over this issue, the answer was obvious: of course Kerry’d be that dumb. The entire party is freaking out about it, so why not Kerry? I wonder if his new staffers will be able to talk him out of it?

If they can’t it’ll be their fault!

THIS seems like a moment of some significance:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Fox News cable channel made a bit of television history by drawing more viewers than any of the Big Three broadcast networks on the opening night of major coverage of the Republican convention, according to figures issued on Wednesday.

Fox News’ presentation of Tuesday’s speeches by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Laura Bush drew 5.4 million viewers, more than broadcasters ABC, CBS or NBC.

That marked what is believed to be the first time a cable channel has grabbed the biggest audience for a telecast of a single event covered by all the networks, Fox said.

I’m not sure exactly what it means, except that the old media folks have no business being complacent.

HUGH HEWITT is wondering about constitutional arguments that would let Arnold Schwarzenegger run for President.

I don’t think it’s going to happen.

HMM. THIS IS INTERESTING:

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 1 — The United States and France introduced a Security Council resolution Wednesday demanding that 20,000 Syrian troops “withdraw without delay” from Lebanon and that Syria stop meddling in the country’s November elections. It threatens to consider unspecified “additional measures” against Syria to ensure compliance.

The resolution reflects mounting frustration by Washington and Paris that Syria is seeking to rewrite Lebanon’s constitution to guarantee that the country’s pro-Syrian leader, President Emile Lahoud, can remain in power after his six-year term ends on Nov. 24.

Very interesting.

I’LL BE ON C-SPAN in just a minute or two.

UPDATE: Well, that was bizarre. They introduced me as a “credentialed blogger from the Republican Convention,” even though I had explained to their producer that I wasn’t one, and even though they called me in Knoxville. That led to a somewhat strained conversation. . . . But the host recovered quickly enough.

UH OH:

Two explosions were heard near the site of the Russian school siege today not long after President Vladimir Putin pledged to do everything possible to save the lives of more than 350 hostages including children.

The blasts were about 10 minutes apart and rang out from the area of the cordoned-off school, followed by a billowing cloud of black smoke rising from the vicinity of the site.

The suicide gunmen and women who seized the school yesterday morning had threatened to blow it up if any rescue attempt was made.

Stay tuned. This is certainly a reminder of what’s at stake. I wonder if Michael Moore will analogize these folks to the Minutemen.

INSTAPUNK joins the long list of those (including a bazillion female emailers) who say that my reaction to the Bush daughters speech was totally wrong. Hey, could be — I promise only to give you my honest reactions, not that they’ll be right. Remember, I’m the guy who thought Carter won the Carter/Reagan debate. I’m the guy who voted for Bill Clinton in the hopes he’d make the White House more ethical. And I thought George W. Bush might shrink the government.

PREDICTING THE ELECTION, with a Commodore 64.

ANDREW SULLIVAN is calling Zell Miller a “Dixiecrat.” Actually, given that the Dixiecrats were a movement that briefly took place within the Democratic Party back in 1948, when Miller was 16, that seems rather misplaced. And if Miller’s history is so bad, why did Bill Clinton choose him as his keynoter in 1992?

But I think the answer to this formulation appears as a question, when you search “Zell Miller Dixiecrat” on Google.

UPDATE: Some readers, who seem to think that I was being “coy” in my earlier discussion of Miller’s speech want to know what I thought about it. I was most struck — as I said in my post before, and as Virginia Postrel noted as well — by the unvarnished Jacksonianism of the speech. As Virginia says:

Zell Miller sure is pissed off at John Kerry–and at the entire post-Vietnam Democratic party. His speech was, as Glenn says, a pure expression of Jacksonian America, complete with unashamed accent (an accent that probably is like fingernails on a blackboard to lots of folks north of the Mason-Dixon line). . . . I’m guessing Miller’s been mad for a long time.

I suspect the style was a bit offputting to some people who aren’t familiar with (old-fashioned) southern politics, since you normally only see someone speak that way in the movies if he’s an Elmer Gantry style bad guy. In fact, it’s not that way: Many of the old-line Democratic heroes in Tennessee (none of whom were “Dixiecrats”) spoke that way. I’m too young to have seem anything but the tail end of that generation of politician: people like Ned Ray McWherter, Doug Henry, and John Jay Hooker. But they — especially John Jay — could give that kind of a stem-winder too, and it’s only bigotry or ignorance that associates that sort of speaking style with racism and nothing else. This was probably the last speech in that style we’ll ever see on the national political scene.

On the merits: It was hard-hitting. There’s a legitimate question (which Chris Matthews might have succeeded in raising if he had been less ham-handed and insulting) about how much you can tell from legislative votes, which often as not are structured to allow people to conceal or misrepresent their true leanings, and which are thus easily misrepresented by opponents. On the other hand, we’re told that people aren’t supposed to criticize Kerry’s Vietnam or post-Vietnam antiwar actions because doing that is a “smear,” so if you can’t talk about his Senate votes either, what’s left? His time as Lieutenant Governor? Kerry’s defenders seem a bit quick to call any kind of criticism unfair.

The upside of being a Senator running for President is that you get easy access to the national media, and to national money. The downside is that you have to explain your votes. You have to take the bitter with the sweet, and Kerry’s already taken the sweet. This was pretty bitter, but it’s part of the deal.

How well did it work for the Republicans? Beats me, but this may be an indication. And Luntz’s swing-voter focus group liked it more than I expected last night, because it did seem a bit harsh to me. (But I’m often wrong about these things). There are a lot of Jacksonians out there. Best line, from the item linked above:

Emerging theme of the Democratic response to the Republican convention speeches:

Schwarzenegger is not a Republican
McCain is not a Republican
Zell Miller is not a Democrat

Heh. I’m not particularly a fan of Jackson (partly because of my Cherokee ancestry, but more because of, well, who he was). But, you know, the Democrats are supposed to be the party of Jackson. Zell Miller delivered that, but what he really seems upset about is the absence of Wendell Willkies.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Read James Lileks’ take, too. There are a lot of Jacksonians out there, even in Minnesota.

MORE: A reader asks for an explanation of “Jacksonian.” Guess I shouldn’t have taken that for granted. Here’s an interview with Walter Russell Mead, who coined the term as part of an explanation of four traditions of American foreign policy. Short summary: “[The idea is]: “Don’t bother with people abroad, unless they bother you. But if they attack you, then do everything you can. . . . When somebody attacks the hive, you come swarming out of the hive and you sting them to death. And Jacksonians, when it comes to war, don’t believe in limited wars. They don’t believe, particularly, in the laws of war. War is about fighting, killing, and winning with as few casualties as possible on your side. But you don’t worry about casualties on the other side. That’s their problem. They shouldn’t have started the war if they didn’t want casualties.”

A much more sophisticated discussion can be found in Mead’s book, Special Providence. It’s also worth looking at David Hackett Fischer’s book Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America — which meshes rather interestingly with the 4 styles of foreign relations that Mead identifies.

STILL MORE: Dead Parrots has the Kerry response. No word on whether he voted for this stuff before he voted against it, but presumably that will all come out.

TIRED OF POLITICS? Go to Michael Totten’s and look at the many great pictures from his cross-country drive.

HALF A MILLION EVACUATED in Florida ahead of Hurricane Frances.

HOW DID IT GO? Peter Jennings and George Stephanopoulos look unhappy.

DICK CHENEY: After the almost preacher-like delivery of Zell Miller, Cheney comes across as very quiet. Interesting strategy, letting a Democrat stoke the fires and a Republican bank them. “How can you call us warmongers? Did you hear Zell Miller? He’s a Democrat, you know.”

The crowd applauded when Cheney said we honor Kerry for his Vietnam service. It also applauded when Cheney took a negative view of Kerry’s post-Vietnam activity.

“We have already been attacked.” Good line.

Also: “There is a difference between leading a coalition of many nations, and seeking the permission of a few.”

“Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. And that makes the whole thing mutual — America sees two John Kerrys.”

I liked the hair joke. Text here.

Ratherbiased has images of the protester who tried to disrupt things.

Last word goes to Ann Althouse: “He lays it out. And you can take it or leave it. He’s not doing the twist. He’s Dick Cheney.”

LYNNE CHENEY: Good thing she stopped with the repeated “Dick did not” line before it got a bit, er, counterproductive.

ZELL MILLER: It’s funny that the purest voice of Jacksonian America at this Republican convention — in fact, at either convention — comes from a Democrat. There was a time when it wouldn’t have been surprising at all.

UPDATE: Here’s the text. Zell Miller’s obviously been unhappy with the direction of the Democratic Party for a while, and this was his chance to make that unhappiness clear. He took it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mara Liasson on Fox: “Who would have thought that the angriest speech of the Republican convention would come from a Democrat.” Speaking as someone who was a card-carrying Democrat, and unhappy with the party on that front for a long time, I can understand it.

MORE: Wolf Blitzer asks him why he’s angry, and why he’s still a Democrat. Miller laughs at being angry, and says “I’ll die a Democrat. . . . But there’s nobody that welcomes a conservative Democrat in the party anymore.”

Democratic spin from Tad Devine: It’s the politics of fear. (It must be: he looks afraid.) Jeff Greenfield: How can Kerry be the leader of a strong wartime America when so many Democrats are against the use of force? Devine: We’ll defend the nation if attacked, and use force without anyone’s approval. This Administration has a record of failure. Then he started talking about Halliburton. Blitzer: What about voting for and against the $87 billion? Devine: More Halliburton. And Dick Cheney wasn’t in Vietnam.

STILL MORE: Now Miller’s on Hardball. Chris Matthews asks him if Kerry really only wants to defend America with spitballs. Matthews calls him a “conservative Republican.” Oops! Miller: I knew you were going to be coming at me with all that stuff. This is a bunch of baloney that doesn’t have anything to do with what I said. He’s right. I change channels. [LATER: By changing channels, I missed seeing Zell nearly challenge Matthews to a duel, and Matthews backing down, according to several reader emails. Jacksonian America indeed! Reader Daniel Wilkins sends: "Chris M. looked like a dog getting a bath. I've never seen him so humbled."] [LATER STILL: Wizbang has a link to the video.]

MORE STILL: Reader Andrew Morse emails:

John McCain was on NBC immediately following Miller’s speech. He said something to the effect that it was wrong for Miller to question Kerry’s patriotism, even though Miller explicitly stated that he was not questioning Kerry’s patriotism. Brokaw, of course, did not correct him.

Of course not.

FINAL NOTE: Just went back to Hardball and saw Matthews dissing Miller and blogs. Dude, you’ve got a blog.

The Luntz swing-voter focus group loved Zell Miller’s speech. They liked it that he was a Democrat and an ex-Marine talking about national security. And the “spitballs” line did well.

Over at Begging to Differ: “It was political theater, no question. But it was also the opening salvo in what will surely be a substantive attack on Kerry’s voting record. . . . Zell Miller was more effective tonight than any Republican could have been. John Kerry will have to answer, if he can.”

ANN ALTHOUSE is liveblogging the convention again. She doesn’t like Rick Santorum, or Barney the Dog. (No connection as far as I know).

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey is liveblogging, too.

So is Peaktalk.

HERE’S SOMETHING on Kerry’s post-Vietnam political career: his time as Michael Dukakis’ Lieutenant Governor. (Via Newsfeed).

ED MORRISSEY NOTES the arrest of a deep-cover spy, “living undercover in the US for eleven years, awaiting orders from his IIS handler that apparently never came.” Interesting.