This is absolutely devastating. O’Neill was lying about what happened in Vietnam, and he knew it. It was all on Nightline last night, and there’s no longer any doubt: These self-described do-gooders who are magnanimously going out of their way to enlighten us about the evil nature of John Kerry — they’re simply full of shit. Period, full stop, end of story.

Not that I didn’t always know this, but it’s nice to see it proven through good old-fashioned investigative journalism. Long, long overdue. Read the entire post and then enjoy the comments — some are quite wicked.

Yesterday drudge ran with a wicked story that claimed:

The Kerry/Edwards campaign and the Democratic National Committee are advising election operatives to declare voter intimidation — even if none exists, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

Of course, this was pure BS, as Jesse points out — the memo drudge was citing said nothing even close to that — but that didn’t stop the wingnuts from runing with it as if it were gospel.

I’m going to venture a guess that this is a pre-emptive dirty trick. The Republicans have embarked on a formalized and well-organized campaign to rob millions of US citizens of the right to vote and a huge protest is inevitable — it’s already started (on to that in a moment). So what does Rove do? Create a powerful meme designed to neutralize all those moonbat complaints of being kicked off the voter rolls: “The Democrats are planning to claim voter fraud even though it doesn’t exist!”

And that’s the message Drudge started and that’s seeped into a large portion of the national psyche. I always said they were better at communications than we are.

Nevertheless, I wonder if anything can neutralize a crime of this magnitude — voter fraud on a level so vast it simply boggles the mind. It is as though we aren’t in America anymore — in order to ensure victory, the bad guys are simply trying to take away people’s right to vote. Especially the poor and the disenfranchised — and of course, the blacks. Florida revisited, but many times worse.

Paul Krugman today manages to summarize the breathtaking scope of this GOP-sanctioned criminality. It’s a great column and absolutely rquired reading.

Earlier this week former employees of Sproul & Associates (operating under the name Voters Outreach of America), a firm hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters, told a Nevada TV station that their supervisors systematically tore up Democratic registrations.

The accusations are backed by physical evidence and appear credible. Officials have begun a criminal investigation into reports of similar actions by Sproul in Oregon.

Republicans claim, of course, that they did nothing wrong – and that besides, Democrats do it, too. But there haven’t been any comparably credible accusations against Democratic voter-registration organizations. And there is a pattern of Republican efforts to disenfranchise Democrats, by any means possible.

Some of these, like the actions reported in Nevada, involve dirty tricks. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired an Idaho company to paralyze Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts by jamming the party’s phone banks.

But many efforts involve the abuse of power. For example, Ohio’s secretary of state, a Republican, tried to use an archaic rule about paper quality to invalidate thousands of new, heavily Democratic registrations.

That attempt failed. But in Wisconsin, a Republican county executive insists that this year, when everyone expects a record turnout, Milwaukee will receive fewer ballots than it got in 2000 or 2002 – a recipe for chaos at polling places serving urban, mainly Democratic voters.

And Florida is the site of naked efforts to suppress Democratic votes, and the votes of blacks in particular.

It’s a coordinated nationwide effort, there’s no way around it.

The important point to realize is that these abuses aren’t aberrations. They’re the inevitable result of a Republican Party culture in which dirty tricks that distort the vote are rewarded, not punished. It’s a culture that will persist until voters – whose will still does count, if expressed strongly enough – hold that party accountable.

I don’t know; is it just me? Can we simply accept that it’s acceptable for government officials to intentionally and blatantly work to prevent their citizens, American taxpayers, from voting? Shouldn’t there be a tidal wave of outrage — or has bush simply desensitized us to outrage after committing so many?

If our government is using our tax dollars to throw citizens off the voting rolls in what amounts to a power grab, I really have to question whether I want to live in America.

Update: Josh Marshall has some wonderful posts about this national cancer (and lots of other hot topics — he is on a roll this week).

Kerry wins, bush gets by okay simply by emerging alive. He still blinked and smirked, and if he were judged by normal standards he’d get a C — still his best performance so far. The media will most likely call it a draw. Kerry was superb throughout, but unfortunately there was no “You’re no John Kennedy” moment.

Just heard Karen Hughes ranting on CNN about how glorious bush is. If there’s anyone in whose mouth I’d love to struff a rag, it’s she.

Oh, good — CNN is playing the bush clip from last year in which he says he’s “not that concerned” about Osama! Hoisted on his own petard. Sweet.

UPDATE: Looks like I was wrong. The pundits are saying this was a huge victory for Kerry, who Bill Schneider (!) on CNN just called “the clear winner.”

Could be, since they just endorsed Kerry in the most ringing terms — and they had endorsed shrub four years ago!

.. if Bush partisans could turn aside disagreement with a brusque “elections have consequences” in 2001, it turns out today that governing has consequences, too.

One of them should be that Americans elect John Kerry president in November.

Bush’s term in office has been marked by two major failures. One is his conduct of the war in Iraq. The other is his stewardship of the nation’s fiscal health
….
We believe the White House’s policy-makers approached the war with preconceived notions about success based on what the president later called “just guessing.” They brushed aside warnings and contrary opinions. They chose ideology over expertise. This arrogance led to a series of military, political and diplomatic blunders and, we believe, resulted in the unnecessary deaths of many brave Americans.
….
In almost every area, deliberate gaps between the administration’s rhetoric and reality have become routine. Last year’s misinformation about the cost of Medicare drug coverage is just one example.
….
When George W. Bush took office in a deeply divided nation, he promised to reach out to unite the country. If anything, he has helped make the rifts deeper. That may be his real failure as president.

John Kerry can do better.

No kidding. This is from Mark Kleiman, who asks, “Does anyone know of a media outlet or commentator that supported Gore in 2000 and is supporting Bush today?” I suspect he’ll be hard pressed to find any.

In the past two days Kerry has also picked up endorsements from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Portland Press-Herald in Maine.

This is really ugly. Welcome to the age of bush Republicanism — threats, harrassment and vengeance.

We expected that perhaps a few readers might cancel subscriptions, and maybe even ads, but have been amazed at a few of the more intense communications, some of which bordered on outright personal attacks and uncalled-for harassment.

We have been told by several avid Bush supporters that the days when newspapers publish editorials without personal repercussions are over. As publishers, we have printed editorials for decades, and have endorsed candidates, both Republican and Democrat. When Bush was endorsed four years ago, the Gore supporters did not respond with threats, nor did Democrats when we endorsed Reagan twice. Republicans did not threaten us personally or our business when we endorsed Carter and Clinton for their first terms.

[…]

When you think about it, editorials are often displayed in people’s yards with campaign signs. These are endorsements by residents. Is it proper to persecute them for stating their opinions in this manner if you disagree with their choices? Should they be harassed and threatened? We don’t think so.
Unfortunately, for the Iconoclast and its publishers there have been threats — big ones including physical harm.

Too, some individuals are threatening innocent commercial concerns, claiming that if they advertise in The Iconoclast, they will be run out of business. We consider this improper in a democracy.

How did this happen? How did we let politics make us so mean and deranged? I know many papers will endorse the Republican ticket, and I won’t urge you to boycott their advertisers or threaten them with physical harm. But somehow this mentality has become routine among bush Republicans. Those who disagree are bad and they need to silenced, and then punished.

There were a couple of examples of Democrats being assholes last week, when a Republican office was ransacked. That’s equally reprehensible. But when it comes to harrassing those who disagree and reacting with thuggishness, I’m afraid the Republicans definitely take most of the prizes. For doubters, Orcinus has been chronicling examples of this all year — there is abundant evidence.

Link via Hoffmania.

Digby says it better than I can.

Have we ever had such an angry, privileged, snotty, immature president in the history of this country?

Bush can still not give even one example of a mistake he’s made — except appointing certain people he appointed that he won’t name. (It must be Paul O’Neill and Larry Lindsay because they are the only ones he fired.)

As he has always been, he remains, a piece of shit.

Shrub was obviously better prepared tonight and he didn’t lose it. He did infinitely better than last week. But that just means he was dreadful, not spectacularly dreadful. Kerry was amazing. He was even better than the first time, and there’s no comparison between the two men. One’s a real leader, the other’s a nobody.

Of course, bush will get high marks simply because, unlike last week, he came out alive. But just barely. Listening to him talk about his environmental achievements made me want to cover my face, it was so pitiful. And that’s just one example.

And was I imagining it, or was bush SHOUTING during the first half hour?? I thoiught he was going to lunge out and attack somebody.

Here’s the list of online polls we all need to visit. And don’t forget this one.

I’ve read that a lot of pundits are predicting bush will redeem himself tonight and undo the didsaster of last week. At the risk of raising expectations for Kerry and being very embarrassed in a couple of hours, I’ll predict that Kerry will win once again. I can’t believe they could take bush away for a few days and transform him from the stuttering, smirking chimp he was last week into a knight in shining armor.

I’ve also seen him giving speeches the past few days and he’s been powerful but surly, angry and nasty. I saw no evidence of the face of a uniter, of a man who can inspire confidence and warmth. Can he really change that persona at the drop of a dime and project himself in an endearing and inspiring way? We all saw him disintegrate under the pressure of being naked in front of the world, without Karen or Karl to prop him up. Has he grown into an adult over the past week? I’m skeptical.

Which face will bush show? What is his real face? Does he even have a face? Or is he just the empty pathetic shell we all saw last Thursday? I think we all know where I stand on the subject.

We know the tide has turned when perennial bush apologist Howard Fineman says his man is appearing desperate and hopeless, caught between Iraq and a hard place.

George Bush’s real political enemy now isn’t so much John Kerry as it is the flow of the news. Not long ago, Kerry’s decision to attack the president as commander-in-chief (remember all those Swift Boat vets in Boston?) was dismissed by analysts (including me) as naïve at best, folly at worst. Well, it may turn out to have been the move that wins this race.

Presidential campaigns take on a life and shape of their own in the last stretch and this one now has. It’s the president desperately trying to tear down Kerry as the news tears down the president. Good things are happening in the war on terrorism — the voting in Afghanistan, for example — but they are all but unnoticed in the rising flood of stories from and about Iraq.

As things now stand, Bush is left with only one argument and justification for having launched a war that has cost 1,000 lives, $150 billion and whatever goodwill America had won in the aftermath of 9/11. His last-resort reason: Saddam Hussein might have developed weapons that he might have given to terrorists that might attack the United States. And even that reasoning is undermined by the new report of the Iraq Survey Group, which says that Saddam’s capacities, whatever they might have been, were withering, not “gathering,” under the weight of inspections.

So no we all know: the war was a hoax, and we were all hoodwinked, myself included. And not even shrub’s most forgiving critics can ignore that sad fact. When you screw up so colossally, so grotesquely, so completely, you are rarely given a second chance. It is becoming increasingly impossible for Americans to consider rewarding bush for his ineptitude and stupidity with yet another four years to lay waste to the country, and to the world.

Fineman doesn’t see a way out, not when the news about bush’s needless war is so horrifying. Simply by being on the other side of the political fence gives Kerry the upper hand.

The second and third presidential debates will shift the focus — the second, part way to domestic matters; the third, all the way. Bush’s aim will be to paint Kerry as an unpalatable liberal who accumulated nothing but bad Big Government ideas during his 19 years in the Senate. Kerry will answer, essentially, “I’m a Democrat.” In normal times that would not be a good enough answer, but if the tide of dissatisfaction with Bush as commander-in-chief rises high enough, being a Democrat — in other words not George Bush — may be good enough.

I don’t see that tide lowering any time soon, and it may well buoy Kerry to victory. And then we can truthfully proclaim, “Mission Accomplished.”

Or so contends former Republican attack dog who’s seen the light Andrew Sullivan. Just scroll down and see all the reasons he says Cheney got pulverized. While Cheney’s performance no doubt delighted his base, it was, Sullivan maintains, a dramatic defeat in terms of reaching swing voters. Also, a commenter here has compiled a list of all the flash polls, which show either that Edwards blew Cheney out of the water or that the Dems were much better at getting their people to participate (probably a little of both). You’ll also find a good chronicle of Cheney’s lies here.

I feel under the weather and probably won’t post again tonight. But it’s wonderful to watch the tables as they continue to turn on our miserable little president. In the wake of all the good reviews Edwards was winning, it was hardly surprising to see shrub announce a “major policy address” today in Pennsylvania. Too bad it was just a regurgitation of his stump speech and tired attacks on kerry. This was a despicable trick, and unfortunately the media fell for it.

[Photos via the mighty Poor Man.)

Just like last week, there’s a buzz going around that the Republicans will win the debate tonight. That’s always a good thing, as it lowers the bar a bit for our man, John Edwards, though I think he’ll do well no matter where the bar is set. But I won’t assue anything; it’ll be a mean, tough debate.

I watched a rerun this weekend of Cheney’s 2000 debate with Joe Lieberman and was reminded that Cheney is a damn good debater. I think a lot of Dems have misunderestimated him as an angry, hot-headed curmudgeon. He’s not. He’s shrewd, calculating and well spoken. He came off brilliantly, and he kicked Lieberman’s ass (Lieberman was polite and gentle to the point of being lovey-dovey).

But events of the past couple of days have perhaps stacked the odds in Edwards’ favor, at least from my perpective. Foreign policy is seen as his weakest length, and that’s where Cheney was going to beat him. BUt over the past 24 hours we’ve had 1.) Rumsfeld’s famous statement that there’s no hard evidence of a significant relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein (followed by a huge flip-flop, of course), and 2.) Paul Bremer’s amazing admission that he was appalled at Baghdad’s lawlessness when he arrived, and that he begged for more troops to be sent. (White House response to these charges: [chirp].)

These two statements give Edwards tremendous ammunition when Cheney tries to tie Iraq to the war on terror (the cornerstone justifying the war), and when he defends America’s waging of the Iraq war. A godsend. Now Edwards can point to the government itself, the leaders of the Defense Department and the Iraqi occupation — their own words blow them out of the water.

The sense in America right now is that this will be the most important vice presidential debate ever. Right now I’m cautiously optimistic that the good guys will win. Cheney must be on the verge of hysteria now that he’s had to rewrite all his talking points at the last minute — twice!

UPDATE: Too tired to blog about it, but I can safely say it was a draw in terms of style and substance, with a slight edge to Edwards, especially on jobs and the domestic economy. But that represents a major victory for Edwards, as this was the test to see whether he could stand up against “the experienced guy” — and he did that, and one better. So while the bush people didn’t lose points for this — indeed, it’s a big help to them after the fiasco of bush’s performance last Thursday — the Kerry team came out way ahead. Special thanks to Bremer and Rumsfeld for all their help!