From Slate : In the Bush-Cheney worldview, all foreign adversaries blur into one: "the enemy." All U.S. options simplify to two: "offense" or "defense." Going on offense shows "strength" and defeats the enemy. If the president starts running with the ball, and you criticize him, you show "weakness" and invite terrorism. But what if there's more than one enemy? What if the enemy we're "fighting back" at isn't the one that struck or threatened us? What if the president turns away from the t...

From Yahoo News : President Bush, who accuses his Democratic rival of keeping his budget plans secret, has yet to offer plans of his own for funding his campaign promises and cutting the deficit in half, fiscal conservatives said on Friday. "While it's true that Kerry hasn't provided a detailed plan, neither has the president," said Heritage Foundation budget analyst Brian Riedl. William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute, said Bush's warnings about Kerry's spending plans were "i...

Quad-City Times : Indicators measure the nation’s unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says it misses the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay. “That’s a source that didn’t even exist 10 years ago,” Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. “Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.” San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc. is an Internet auction site where anyone can sell just about anyt...

How cool is this?

From the Los Angeles Times : Pentagon investigators believe the CIA has held as many as 100 "ghost" detainees in Iraq without revealing their identities or locations, a much greater number than previously disclosed, a senior Defense Department official told Congress on Thursday. However, the precise number of undisclosed prisoners and the conditions in which they have been held remain a mystery, said Army Gen. Paul Kern, because CIA officials have refused to cooperate with Pentagon invest...

From Rasmussen Reports : Electoral College: Bush 213 Kerry 175 As part of the Bush Convention bounce, Michigan and New Jersey have moved to the Toss-Up column in our Electoral College projections. Both states had been leaning in Kerry's direction. The first Rasmussen Reports state polling data released after the Republican Convention showed Minnesota remaining firmly in the Toss-Up column. President Bush now leads in states with 213 Electoral Votes while Senator Kerry leads in state...

For those who are interested, there's an enormous debate across the Blogosphere regarding the authenticity of the National Guard documents released by CBS yesterday (and highlighted in an earlier post of mine). The documents are supposed to be personal files of one of Bush's superior officers, showing unhappiness with Bush's performance and making reference to pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's service. Strong arguments have been made that the papers look all too similar to modern Microso...

From the New York Times : Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the nation was more likely to "get hit again" by terrorists if John Kerry was elected was one of the toughest attacks launched in a presidential election in 40 years. But Mr. Cheney's latest assault on Mr. Kerry, which startled Democrats and Republicans alike, raised a central question even in this notably ferocious presidential campaign: Is it possible for a candidate to go too far, and alienate the very voters he is t...

From the Washington Post : President Bush failed to carry out a direct order from his superior in the Texas Air National Guard in May 1972 to undertake a medical examination that was necessary for him to remain a qualified pilot, according to documents made public yesterday. According to "60 Minutes," [Bush's superior officer] Killian's personal files show that he ordered Bush "suspended from flight status" on Aug. 1, 1972. National Guard documents already released by the White House a...

From the San Francisco Chronicle : After weeks of media scrutiny of Democrat John Kerry's record in Vietnam, Bush was broadsided by several challenges to his account of his six-year stint in the air guard in Texas and Alabama, including: -- A CBS "60 Minutes" interview in which a former Texas speaker of the House said he helped secure a pilot's position for Bush in the Texas Air National Guard to keep him from being drafted. -- New memos obtained by CBS News suggesting that Bush's squa...

From the Independent : The US army does not count the number of Iraqis killed since the invasion in March 2003. The most conservative figure for the number dead is 10,000 as calculated by private groups. It is rising every day. The US military claimed that on Tuesday alone it killed "100 militants" in air strikes on Fallujah on top of a further 33 people killed in fighting in Sadr City in Baghdad. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, proudly claimed on Tuesday that US forces had, ...

From USA Today : The presidential campaign spiked to a new level of rhetorical heat Tuesday when Vice President Cheney warned that a vote for Democrat John Kerry could bring terrorist attacks on the USA. Speaking to supporters in Des Moines, Cheney called it "absolutely essential" that on Election Day voters "make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating." Cheney said the nat...

From the Boston Globe : In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transfe...

These are the Bush backing papers that have beat the drum to war, and questioned the patriotism of those that argue Bush has bungled the reconstruction of Iraq. You'll see they casually overlook the men and women who've died for Bush's incompetence: The Washington Times : Fox News corporate sibling the New York Post : Meanwhile, the "liberal" newspapers that are smeared by the Bush attack squads as betraying the troops, prominently recognized those who have died for thei...

From CNN : Their faces, smiling or solemn, have become all too familiar in newspapers and on television. The roster, a somber roll call -- Smith, Falaniko, Ramos, Lee -- seems to grow daily. Now, 1,000 American military personnel have died in the Iraq war. They are teens who went from senior proms to boot camp and battle and middle-aged men who put aside retirement and grandchildren for a war zone. What does the number mean? Conclusions of the 9-11 Commission : No weapons of mass ...