The Hill is reporting on the newly founded "New Politics Institute" (NPI) founded by Simon Rosenberg and with Joe Trippi and Kos as advisors.  It's going to be a politics (not policy) think tank for democrats.  Kos' choice quote.

Zuniga [Kos] was dismissive of the existing progressive thinks tanks' capacity to change the debate or influence elections in the Democrats' favor. "Policy think tanks are pretty useless," he said, without naming any in particular.

"All the great policy white papers aren't going to do any good," he added. NPI will be focused on "building a Democratic Party that is focused on winning."

I must say I completely disagree.  What I don't like about democrats is their complete lack of policy unity.  Democrats need 3 strong policy positions that create a message.  Politics=Pandering.  The Republicans have managed to find a few core issues and then sell the hell out of them.  We must find those issues before we start selling.  Otherwise we'll end up doing nothing but pandering...

Thoughts?

Chalabi claims to have secured enough votes to become the next Iraqi Prime Minister.  Analysts agree that it is highly possible given structure of Shiite coalition.

The AP writes in Chalabi battles Jafari to lead Iraq that:

While aides to Jafari were predicting victory, people close to Chalabi said he had gathered enough votes to secure the post. Chalabi's aides said they planned to call for a vote of the alliance's 140 likely assembly members at a meeting today.

At least on paper, Chalabi appeared to have a chance. Although Dawa and Sciri are the largest parties in the Shiite coalition, known as the United Iraqi Alliance, together they have only about one-fourth of the 140 seats captured in the election. The rest of the winning candidates are members of other parties or are politically independent.

The notorious Chalabi appears to be one of two candidates left standing for the Iraqi Prime Minister role.

The AP is reporting that Shiites Fail to Agree on Nominee for Iraq's Top Post and

After meeting for hours with Shiite cleric and politician Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, members of the United Iraqi Alliance agreed to hold a secret ballot to choose between two former exiles, Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Ahmad Chalabi, said Ali Hashim al-Youshaa, an alliance leader who attended the meetings. The vote is expected Friday.

As Democrats sleep or scuffle with themselves, the Bush administration is positioning itself as the "reform" party ready to tackle a broken system.  The Washington Post today
covers the strategy:

In the wings...

Via a Washington Post article on it...Rex Hammock (aka "Hammock Man" by Bush), who is best known for blogging a closed-door meeting with President bush last February, got into another Whitehouse holiday shindig. This time he photoblogged it.  Boy did he get the goods.  As part of the whitehouse decoration, Hillary Clinton's involvement in the Whitewater land deal is publicly mocked. Under her official portrait:  a gingerbread replica of the whitewater properties.  Classy.  The picture is below the fold.

I know this is a tad premature.  But I disagree strongly with those that say Kerry should fight till the bitter end.  It will hurt Kerry and our country.

If Kerry is still down by 100k votes in Ohio (and other states give Bush a confortable lead), we should be realistic.  There is simply no way provisional ballots and lawsuits are going to overcome 100k votes in Ohio and 3 million nationally.  It was 500 in florida; that's a big difference.

Don't make our country the mockery of the world by pretending the election is illegitimate unless it really is.

Zogby interviewed by Washington Post about todays unreleased numbers.  Penn, OH look very good.  Minn and Wisc breaking towards Kerry. AND KERRY HAS LEAD IN FLORIDA!

Zogby:

For now Pennsylvania looks good for Kerry so does Ohio. Minnesota and Wisconsin look like they are breaking for Kerry right now. My new Reuters numbers will show Kerry moving into the lead in Florida.

If you have the actual number please post.

The DNC has a great new ad out "Eagle."  To see it: http://www.democrats.org/

It is a very effective counter the the hideous Wolves ad the Bush campaign just released.

The NYT reports that both campaigns have been sitting on these ads for a long time so it isn't a reactionary response.  The DNC will be spending about $20 million on this ad starting next week -- making it one of the biggest ad purchases yet.

Another excellent counter to the wolves ad was posted in this dairy by bppk.  It's a great pdf poster saying "The Republicans cried wolf in Iraq.  Now the're doing the same thing in America."

What do you think about Wolves, Eagles and the bppk poster?

The DNC just released a new video putting together Bush's silly facial expressions during the debate. Great rapid response:

Watch "Faces of Frustration" real format, or windows media

According the the newest Boston Globe article the most likely typewriter used in to write memos is the IBM Selectric Composer.  It has all the features needed to produce the memo with all it's specific characteristics.

As it so happens, this typewriter is available on EBay.  As you can see, it's not a particularily fancy typewriter and I imagine it was quite common around 1973.

In fact, the seller writes:

In response to many questions on the age. There is a sticker on the bottom that says "REAPPLIED, AUSTIN" in type then written on the line below it says 10-1-70.So it no newer than a 1970.

So there you go, this typewriter was in Austin TX, before 1973!  It might have even been used to write the Bush memo.

I'm in Boston, and hour or so away from the seller.  Anybody want to buy this typewriter and have me type of a copy of the memo for $10,000?

Update [2004-9-11 16:59:7 by tristan]: According to this blog there is reason to doubt the IBM Selectric Composer. Anybody got a response?

No doubt Kerry needs a better way to explain his position on the war on terror and call Iraq the distraction that it is.  So why not challenge Bush on "Where's Osama?"  "Where's Ayman al-Zawahiri?" "Why haven't you focused on Al-Qaeda?"  This line of attack ties into a greater narrative that is a) true and b) simple.

The main argument against this attack is that it's too risky.  That's balloney!  If Bush gets Osama in the next 50 days, he wins regardless.  Even if you think Kerry could still win, the chance that Bush will get Osama is almost 0.

Kerry should take a risk and challenge Bush.  It's a legitimate issue and ties in nicely with why Bush's entire FP has been crap.

Plus stories like this:
Ayman al-Zawahiri statement, provide an opportunity to hammer away.

Maybe he'll pull this line out at the debate.  Afterall, with less than a month before the election there's hardly a chance Osama will be caught in time.

As part of the GOP's latest attack memo on Kerry/Edwards, they quote "Democratic" Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Problem is Senator Cornyn is actually a Republican.

How long will it take for them to stop lying and change this money quote:

Sen. John Cornyn (D-TX) Called On Kerry And Edwards To Release Their Attendance Records At Closed Door Hearings Of Intelligence Committee As Well.

Is Zell Miller not enough?  Now they have to pretend Republican sentors are Democrats in order to get credible sounding quotes?  What's next?

Bush announced today his support for a counterterrorism czar.    He differed with the 9/11 comission however by not supporting their recommendation that the post be housed in the executive branch.  Here's the AP report:

Sept. 11 commission chairman, Republican Thomas Kean and Democratic vice chairman Lee Hamilton have insisted that a national intelligence director and counterterrorism center be placed in the executive office of the president to give it White House clout in dealing with all the nation's intelligence agencies.

But the president's task force advised against that.

"You've already heard us talk about how we believe it's very important to make sure that the intelligence is independent and that we even look at ways to strengthen that independence," McClellan said. "We've also talked about the importance of making sure there is not undue influence on the intelligence .... undue political influence."

Given the complete failure of the WMD claims, it strikes me as a good idea to keep intelligence away from the political meddling of the executive branch?  I know it isn't totally independent now, but more so surely.  Imagine if every four years this top post got filled with the likes of Rumsfeld or Cheney -- political animals with strong predispositions. Was Bush right for once?

Bush campaign talkings points were seen in full force today at Ridge's Homeland Security press conference:

RIDGE: This kind of information is the result of the President's leadership in the war against terror. The reports that have led to this alert are the result of offensive intelligence and military operations overseas, as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world, such as Pakistan. Such operations and partnerships give us insight into the enemy so we can better target our defensive measures here and away from home

Note the use of "military operations overseas" and "partnerships with allies".  You couldn't have a better rebuttal to the DNC.

In the questions that followed, Ridge reemphasized these Bush campaign talking points.  Unfortunately I don't yet have the transcripts. Thoughts?

Dean's message to the democratic party has been simple.  Stop focusing on swing voters and work on turning out the vote -- especially the younger crowd.  The latest Zogby poll suggests he might be right.  Kerry is leading 2-1 (50% to 25%) among voters who didn't vote in 2000 and by a landslide in the 19-29 age category:

Among young voters - 18-29 year olds - a group Al Gore only won by 2 points in 2000, Kerry is winning in a landslide, 53% to 33%.

There are three factors contributing to Senator Kerry's lead in the electorate; first is President Bush's eroding base, second is his failure in outreach to swing groups and base Democratic constituencies, and third is Mr. Kerry's strengthening of his base.  Mr. Kerry also has the potential to open a bigger lead in two areas.  First, among the undecided voters, if Mr. Kerry can sell himself as a viable alternative to Mr. Bush, he stands to make large gains amongst the small, but significant chuck of undecideds. Second is in the turnout arena, Mr. Kerry's large leads amongst Hispanics - who will potentially make up a great portion of the electorate than they did in 2000 - and young voters - who numerous non-partisan groups like Rock the Vote and MTV are targeting - will stand to boost his total share of the vote with every point their turnout increases.  Mr. Kerry is showing a 2-to-1 lead (50% to 25%) amongst voters who didn't vote in 2000, while winning three-quarters (75%) of Ralph Nader's voters and stealing twice as many (8% to 4%) of Mr. Bush voters in 2000 than Bush is stealing of Gore voters in 2000.

I'm not sure the going hard against the war (especially given Kerry's votes) is the best course to do this, but it does make clear the importance of groups like ACT and Democracy for America and suggests where grassroots action should be focused.

Before you get in a tizzy about Drudge latest (faux)-exclusive claiming that Kerry staged his vietnam exploits for film, read an old Daily Howler story on the subject.  Included is this choice quote from the NYT's Bill Keller:

KELLER: The first thing to be said is that the senator's movies are not self-aggrandizing. Kerry is hardly in the film, and never strikes so much as a heroic pose. These are the souvenirs of a 25-year-old guy sent to an exotic place on an otherworldly mission, who bought an 8-millimeter camera in the PX and shot a few hours of travelogue, most of it pretty boring if you didn't live through it.

According to the Swift Boat Sailors Association, a group of veterans who manned those "Apocalypse Now" riverboats in Vietnam, lots of enlisted men did the same. Senator Max Cleland has hours of film from his service in the First Air Cavalry, which he has had edited into a three-minute meet-the-senator video.

This kind of smear seems to work so well in this TV age.  I read the drudge piece and it is convincing.  Pundits pick it up and spread it. It takes some effort to find out that it is all total crap.  Does the Kerry campaign have the ability to counter this kind of garbage effectively?

Nader is demanding an apology from Cogressman Watt for his rather blunt portrayal of Nader.  According to Nader's apology plea, Watt said the following at the Congressional Black Caucus meeting:

Congressman Watt: You're just another arrogant white man -- telling us what we can do* -- it's all about your ego - another f * * * ing arrogant white man.

At least he's not calling you fat! (Like Nader called Moore)

Visit votenader.org and check out all the latest Nader news... Half of it's him whining about Dean, the CBC, Kerry, and Moore.  What's become of this man?

I would like to ask the dKos community about their interest in a election TV clip archive.  I have access to 2000 GB/month of free bandwidth and am considering creating an archive of news clips.  To stay within Fair Use guidelines it would be mostly clips of the candidates and their interviews.  It would avoid most commentary (except 30 second spots perhaps).  Hopefully we could create something like http://www.us4clark.com/mediaclips.html which archives every clark appearance.

What do you think?  Would anybody be interested in helping find clips?  I'd be willing to set up a system that records all the major stations TiVo style, but I would need help finding the times for all the good clips...

I know I'd love such a resource? Would you?  Would you donate to help cover bandwidth costs?