Every once in a long while in this blog, I've mentioned my fondness for the Empire State Building . For as long as I can remember, I've been twisting my neck to look up at it, and have gone up to its observation decks many many times. Over the years, I've come to think of it as sort of the center of my world. Even now, my jogging route takes me by it, just to its west, underneath its soaring tower. This summer, I was annoyed that the Republican National Convention decided to incorpo...

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is probably the deadliest terrorist in Iraq. Analysts think he's responsible for the deaths of thousands. Until recently, his group was apparently acting independently of any larger terrorist organization. A month or two ago he announced that he was now going to start coordinating his actions with al-Qaeda. That's yet another dismal product of the Bush's failed strategy in Iraq: it's actually made al-Qaeda stronger. Iraq had no strong connection to al-Qaeda until ...

The Bush campaign says its critics are simply gloomy naysayers, and that if you remove the "liberal" media spin, we're actually winning the war in Iraq. Someone might want to get the word to Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to Newsweek, Powell has been confiding to his friends that the insurgents are winning the war . You can thank Bush's incompetence for that. Of course, Bush has yet to ever admit that things in Iraq are going badly, so of course he's not going to admit his ...

Obviously Bush's handling of the War on Terrorism and Osama bin Laden are relevant to judging Bush's presidency, and I have no real problem with either candidate talking substantively about it. But it's creepy when Bush strategists say things like this: "We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us." A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervo...

The flyer is being distributed in black neighborhoods in Milwaukee. How disturbing is this ?

You might think that with the election only days away, and with widespread concerns regarding the handling of voters and the ballots in Florida and Ohio, that the Bush administration would be wary of appearing to favor blocking voters access to the voting rights that were established in the wake of the 2000 fiasco. You'd be wrong . The Bush administration has filed briefs in three battleground states arguing that only its own Attorney General, John Ashcroft -- not...

One of our regular topics here is whether the Bush government gave Halliburton a "sweetheart" contract for work in Iraq. Along with the old news that Pentagon is probing whether it was overcharged by the oil services company, it came out today that the FBI has now begun investigating possible criminal misconduct in the granting of the contract , and its "no bid" signing.

The news has been percolating all day that ABC affiliate KSTP had video, from an imbedded reporter, that show the presence of explosives at what is probably the Al-Qaqaa storage facility, immediately after the invasion -- when the site was under American control. Reuters is now reporting that this video shows the presence of the dangerous explosive HMX , with IAEA and UN markings that show this site was inspected immediately before the war. In other words, the explosives w...

Yesterday, I mentioned that Bush inaccurately claimed that Kerry had blamed the troops for the missing explosives in Iraq. In fact, Kerry blamed George Bush, and Bush was the first person to suggest the idea of blaming the troops. Well, this morning, after first saying the explosives were probably looted before the invasion -- this may be contradicted by an American television station that says it apparently has post-invasion video of explosives at the site -- Rudy Giuliani took the...

Just when you think it can't get more surprising when it comes to endorsing Kerry, The Economist has come out for him. The Economist has a long history of articles that are intelligent and balanced until the final few paragraphs, at which point they almost invariably weigh in on the side of the Republicans (when talking about American politics). As I've said, the most serious problem with Bush isn't his policies, it's his incompetence. The Economist agrees. Here's the money quote...

According to Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, Kerry will win if minority voters turnout at the level at which they did in 2000. In other words, current polls are working with a model of turnout that wouldn't accurately describe the vote in 2000, and may not be accurate now. In fact, since a larger percentage of Americans identify as minority members than did in 2000, Kerry may benefit more than Gore. This may explain why it appears that Florida Republicans are targetting minoritie...

As has been documented by several JoeUsers, it appears that nearly four hundred tons of explosively mysteriously disappeared from a site in Iraq, apparently after the US took over the country. To many of us, this seems like somewhat of a mistake on Bush's part, and naturally enough, Kerry has pointed out that Bush handled this poorly. After all, Bush was warned by the International Atomic Energy Agency, before the invasion, that this site was very important. After days of silence, Bush...

How can we be doing this? Do Bush supporters really believe everything's okay as long as we're better than the terrorists? It's somewhat old news, now confirmed, that America has been hiding Iraqi prisoners from the Red Cross, Congress, and the prisoners' families. In other words, except in the view of their holders, these prisoners have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Now it appears that some of these prisoners are being moved outside Iraq for "interrogation." This is a bi...

If Kerry wins, I can see that all the conservative and indepedent endorsements coming Kerry's way will cause us problems down the road. I can just see it: in 2008, Republicans will quote all these conservatives, "[Generic conservative] supported Kerry in 2004, so why has he turned against the President?" I guess we liberals will deserve it, after so benefitting from conservative disillusionment with Bush this year. Anyway, these are the concerns of the victor... and hopefully will be ...

Wow, I was pretty shocked by this one. Sure, lots of conservatives have come out against Bush, and Andrew Sullivan -- who once proved that one could be gay, conservative, and support Bush -- finally endorsed Kerry, but Christopher Hitchens? Hitch has spent years as one of the most hawkish of the Iraq hawks. It never occurred to me that he would endorse Kerry... he's spent the last four years defending Bush against most of his critics. In the end, Hitch -- who's still no fan of Kerry -...