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David Frum, WH Speech Writer: Bush ‘Just Did Not Absorb Ideas’

Jon Ponder

David Frum is a Canadian-born Republican idealogue who served as a speech writer for President Bush when the “Axis of Evil” State of the Union speech was written. Now he says:

“I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything.”

Was it just two years ago when criticizing President Bush meant you hated America?

Soft Coup: Editorials in Military Papers to Call for Rumsfeld Ouster

Jon Ponder

Breaking: On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann is reporting that on Monday, the day before the midterm elections, editorials will run in the most influential military newspapers calling on President Bush to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The editorials will say they are giving voice to a silent majority of uniformed personnel who are are prohibited from speaking because of respect for the office of the presidency.

The editorials will run in Army Times, Air Force Times, Marine Corps Times and Navy Times, which are privately owned and not affiliated with government.

UPDATE: Here is the complete text from Monday’s editorials:

[…]

NRCC Held ‘Damage Control’ Meeting about Foley Two Days Before Scandal Broke

Jon Ponder

Rep. Tom Reynolds, who chairs the NRCC, may have known about Rep. Mark Foley’s emails to teen-aged pages earlier than he has said publicly.

NRCC staffers are on the record saying that they held a “damage control” meeting about Foley’s emails two days before Foley resigned — which is also two days before Reynolds has said he learned about the emails.

NRCC Communications Director Carl Forti and Reynolds then chief-of-staff Kirk Fordham both took part in the first call the evening of Wednesday, September 27, and one call the next day, Forti and other sources familiar with the call confirmed. Forti’s involvement and the NRCC’s role in the run-up to the Foley scandal add another link between the disgraced former congressman and Reynolds, who has said he knew only indirectly of questionable emails, and that he reported them to his House superiors. They also reflect another moment at which House GOP leadership was aware of concerns about Foley and pages…

The conference call, described by a Hill staffer familiar with its contents as focused on “damage control,” also included Foley’s Florida-based political consultant, Richard Johnston, and his communications director, Jason Kello, according to two people familiar with the call. The participants were unaware of the explicit instant messages that would force Foley’s resignation two days later…

Among NRCC staff, “I was the only one who participated in the conference calls,” Forti said, referring to the Wednesday night call and to another after the first ABCNews report Thursday but before the graphic instant messages surfaced Friday.

Forti said he couldn’t comment on whether either Reynolds himself or NRCC executive director Sally Vastola participated in the early discussions about the first Foley email because both testified before the ethics commission on the case and are forbidden from discussing their testimony. Reynolds’ campaign spokesman, L.D. Platt, declined even to ask the congressman about the issue, citing the ban on discussing testimony.

Foley consultant Richard Johnston and Foley communications director Jason Kello were also on the phone, according to two people familiar with the call.

Fordham, then Reynolds’ chief of staff, and formerly Foley’s chief of staff, played a central role throughout the affair.

“Kirk was involved before the resignation – in the days before – helping, advising Foley with respect to how this would be handled in the context of his reelection campaign,” said Fordham’s lawyer, Timothy Heaphy, referring to the earlier, less damning email. “There were NRCC people involved in that discussion.”

Poll: U.S. Allies Say Bush Ranks Second as World Threat Only to bin Laden

Jon Ponder

Guardian UK:

America is now seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbours and allies, according to an international survey of public opinion published today that reveals just how far the country’s reputation has fallen among former supporters since the invasion of Iraq.

Carried out as US voters prepare to go to the polls next week in an election dominated by the war, the research also shows that British voters see George Bush as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, or the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both countries were once cited by the US president as part of an “axis of evil”, but it is Mr Bush who now alarms voters in countries with traditionally strong links to the US.

The survey has been carried out by the Guardian in Britain and leading newspapers in Israel (Haaretz), Canada (La Presse and Toronto Star) and Mexico (Reforma), using professional local opinion polling in each country.

It exposes high levels of distrust. In Britain, 69 percent of those questioned say they believe US policy has made the world less safe since 2001, with only 7 percent thinking action in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased global security.

The finding is mirrored in America’s immediate northern and southern neighbours, Canada and Mexico, with 62 percent of Canadians and 57 percent of Mexicans saying the world has become more dangerous because of US policy…

Mr Bush is ranked with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety. He is outranked by Osama bin Laden in all four countries, but runs the al-Qaida leader close in the eyes of UK voters: 87 percent think the al-Qaida leader is a great or moderate danger to peace, compared with 75 percent who think this of Mr Bush.

The US leader and close ally of Tony Blair is seen in Britain as a more dangerous man than the president of Iran (62 percent think he is a danger), the North Korean leader (69 percent) and the leader of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah (65 percent).

Pastor Who Resigned over Gay Hooker Claims Is Bush’s ‘Spiritual Consigliere‘

Jon Ponder

Rev. Ted Haggard, who counsels Pres. Bush on a weekly basis and has been called his spiritual consigliere,” resigned today as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and as pastor of the megachurch he founded in Colorado Springs because a gay prostitute says he’s been having sex for pay with Haggard for more than three years.

Rev. Haggard is closer to the president than his better-known rival, Dr. James Dobson, head of the anti-gay nonprofit group, Focus on the Family, which is also headquartered in Colorado Springs:

The press tends to regard Dobson as the most powerful evangelical Christian in America, but Pastor Ted is at least his equal.

Whereas Dobson plays the part of national scold, promising to destroy politicians who defy the Bible, Pastor Ted quietly guides those politicians through the ritual of acquiescence required to save face.

He doesn’t strut, like Dobson; he gushes. When Bush invited him to the Oval Office to discuss policy with seven other chieftains of the Christian right in late 2003, Pastor Ted regaled his whole congregation with the story via email.

“Well, on Monday I was in the World Prayer Center,” New Life’s high-tech, 24 hour-a-day prayer chapel, — and my cell phone rang. It was a presidential aide; “the President,” says Pastor Ted, wanted him on hand for the signing of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Pastor Ted was on a plane the next morning and in the President’s office the following afternoon.

“It was incredible,” wrote Pastor Ted. He left it to the press to note that Dobson wasn’t there.

Mike Jones, the male escort, says he did not know Haggard’s identity until he saw him on television. Jones says he has voicemails and other proof of his relationship with Haggard and will release them tomorrow.

In an interview excerpted on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight, Jones also said that Rev. Haggard used methamphetamines during their sexual encounters.

Haggard was in the news in September when he disavowed his appearance in the controversial documentary “Jesus Camp,” which exposed the indoctrination of children into Christian nationalism at a summer camp in the Midwest.

Florida Prosecutors Might Help Ann Coulter on Her Mission to Go to Jail

Trish

Ann Coulter must want go to jail. She’s cutting off any options for Florida prosecutors but to pursue a felony conviction for her voting fraud in a Palm Beach election earlier this year.

Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said his office has been looking into the matter for nearly nine months, and he would turn over the case to the state attorney’s office by Friday…

Anderson’s office received a complaint in February that Coulter allegedly voted in the wrong precinct during a Feb. 7 Palm Beach town council election. Since then, Anderson said he has made repeated attempts to resolve the matter with Coulter and her attorney but has been rebuffed.

Anderson, a Democrat, said an initial letter was sent to Coulter on March 27…

Three more letters were sent to Coulter and her attorney over the next several months, but she has yet to respond with the information requested, Anderson said.

As you may or may not recall, Coulter said at the time that she can’t reveal her true address for fear she’ll be killed by the people she tries to destroy in her books. “Should we get my stalkers on the line with my address and apartment number?” she asked on the Sean Hannity show.

The problem is that the law doesn’t actually make exceptions for hateful harpy skanks that need to be protected from their own hateful harpy skankiness. Covering up your address to vote in a different precinct, or more than once, or where you like best is still a third degree felony that’ll get you up to five years in prison.

Macaca Thugs: Sen. Allen Blames Opponent for His Goons’ Assault on Mike Stark

Jon Ponder

This is rich:

Allen blamed Webb’s campaign, not his supporters, for the incident [in which men wearing blue “Allen for Senate” stickers wrestled a bogger named Mike Stark to the ground after Stark asked Allen to confirm or deny reports that he spat on his first wife].

“It was typical of the Webb campaign, wanting to provoke an incident,” Allen said. He did not say why he believes the Webb campaign provoked the stunt.

Webb denied involvement.

“I don’t even know what happened yesterday. I don’t even know this individual. But I certainly regret the conduct of certain people there yesterday,” Webb said.

Video of the incident was shown often on cable news networks and circulated widely on the Internet, posing a late-campaign distraction for Allen just as he was trying to make his final push to the Nov. 7 election.

Stark, the blogger, filed a criminal complaint Tuesday with police in Charlottesville, but said he did not know the names of his attackers.

He had signaled his intent to provoke Allen on two left-of-center blogs before the incident. On the liberal Daily Kos blog, he noted his involvement in stunts intended to embarrass Republicans. “Recently I’ve been thinking about how to put these `guerrilla tactics’ to use where it matters: winning elections.

Republicans Fail to Fool Blacks; Democrats Just Plain Fail Them

Trish

They gave it their best shot, using everything from fear-based radio ads telling blacks that Democrats want to “snuff their seed,” to trotting out the tiny numbers of black Republicans at campaign stops and displaying them prominently. But new polls show the GOP hasn’t really reached black voters.

It seems like white Democratic candidates get healthy black support but the reverse is not always true

Black voters are far less likely to approve of the way President Bush is doing his job than voters generally and they are more likely to feel that the country is on the wrong track…

In what could be a particularly bad sign for Republicans in next week’s midterm elections, black voters also are more likely to say that the Iraq war was a mistake and that recent disclosures of scandal and corruption in Congress will be very important to their vote, according to an Associated Press-AOL Black Voices poll conducted Oct. 23 through Monday.

You can’t blame the Republicans for trying. Many black Democrats feel taken for granted and ignored so Repubs hoped they were ripe for picking.

And having personally just worked on a campaign for a black state representative, I have to say it seems like white Democratic candidates get healthy black support but the reverse is not always true. Unless you’re talking about Barak Obama, of course, and then people of every hue can’t gush enough.*

But black Democrats find themselves in the same pickle as white fundamentalist Christians — what cha gonna do? No matter how much the Republicans take evangelicals for granted, or how pissed off the Christian right gets, it’s not like they’re going to come over to our team instead.

So we’re all stuck. The Democrats are stuck with morons like John Kerry and the candidate Republicans love to hate most — Hillary Clinton. The Republicans are stuck with George Bush and John McCain and George Allen. And third parties keep coughing up hairballs like Ralph Nader. We’re all screwed.

* Including me.

John Kerry Does It Again

Buck Banks

Lost loser: Okay, so it was supposed to have been a joke, John. Right. Instead, it gave the Repugs something to beat on that just might motivate the morons to vote against every damn Democrat in every damn race in the Benighted States of America.

So why couldn’t he just stand up there and read the script? Didn’t he learn anything from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin’s infamous “chocolate city” off-the-cuffer? Didn’t he learn anything from blowing his presidential bid two years ago?

Apparently not.

To John Kerry from all of us who are sick and tired of Bushco’s lies and incompetence — JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR THE NEXT FIVE DAYS!

Wingnut Crackpot Encourages Crystal Balling – Flood his Web Site, Please

Buck Banks

Right of right: Our favorite Goldwater conservative, Richard Viguerie, has issued a challenge to the dozen or so idiots who subscribe to his e-mail newsletter (disclaimer: I just do it for Pensito Review) to gaze deeply into their crystal balls and predict the outcome of the midterms. If you’re a good prognosticator, you’ll get your name posted on Viguerie’s Web site (a dubious achievement sure to wreck your future career opportunities, love life and social network).

So, gentle reader, go to the Vig’s site and lodge a ludicrous prediction (Mark Foley ascends to the presidency! John Kerry doesn’t blow the election for the Democrats!) to consume bandwidth and hopefully aggravate Richie’s hemorhoids. Come on, it will be fun! Let’s get out there and betray some conservatives, kids!

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Regardless of how you’d like the November 7th election to come out, what do you think the results will actually be?

Go to the Conservatives Betrayed website at http://www.conservativesbetrayed.com/survey_110106.php and make your predictions on the key races around the country for Senator, House of Representatives, and Governor.

The top five predictors can have their names and pictures on the websites to recognize their abilities and election seers.

Good luck in predicting the outcome of the elections!

Cordially,

Richard A. Viguerie