Journal Archives from theDreamworld ... September 2004

September 2004

September 30, 2004

Well Kerry certainly could have done better, but I still feel that he won the first presidential debate tonight. He clearly got Bush agitated a number of times, and Bush appeared clearly angry and flustered. More importantly, Bush's constantly maintained the same arrogant, unapologetic attitude that fails to admit that there are problems in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere in the world. Is Bush really this delusional or is he truly this bullheaded and stupid? Either way, he is hardly the type of leader we need or deserve.

In other news, Michael, a guy in the Creative Writing program who I've thought was cute for a few years, cut his hair into a short style that I saw in my Poetry Workshop today, and while I thought he was really cute with long hair, he is even more spectacular now with it short. It makes it even more depressing that I've finally realized, only a couple days ago, that Michael is very decidedly straight and that I have no chance of ever getting close to him on any level, regardless. <sigh> At least he's pretty to look at ...

Posted at 12:00 AM

September 29, 2004

It took getting up long before dawn (and please shoot me rather than let me do such a thing again) but I finished that fucking history paper this morning just before leaving for classes. It wasn't my best work (which shouldn't be too shocking considering I finished it at pretty much my last available minute), but I'm fairly pleased with what I turned in as a finished product (but then again I'm sleep deprived, so why trust my judgment?).

Posted at 1:56 AM

September 28, 2004

Okay. I do hate this history paper. A lot. Even if I manage to get it done and turned in on time tomorrow, I will hate it. Hate it with a passion.

Damn history paper.

Posted at 10:23 PM

September 27, 2004

My Myth exam went okay - maybe even well - today. I was one of the very last people there, as is usually the case with me and exams. I actually took 17 minutes more than just the 50-minute class (we had to switch rooms, too), but exams with essay questions just take a whole lot of time. I wrote the essay completely, though, saying all I wanted to, and I even answer five extra credit questions. I'll have to wait to see the actual results, but I'm fairly comfortable with it.

I had spent much of the morning studying for the exam. My sister and her family got packed together and left by 12:30, and I was out the door just shortly after 1 PM. I ate on the road to give myself extra study time this morning, and the extra time probably did help me out, even if just by making me more comfortable while taking the exam.

I get a lot of anxiety with testing or being put on the spot for things, and today was no exception. I was pretty tense when I got out of the exam, and knowing that I was going to be about 15 minutes late for my next class didn't help. I got to my Poetry Workshop okay, though, and probably only missed workshopping one or two poems. The only problem, as it turns out, was that we ran out of time before we could workshop my poem, so we'll have to work on it on Wednesday. That's just one more thing to do on Wednesday, but I shouldn't get too worked up about it. It's nothing to be concerned about at all compared to the history paper I have to finish for Wednesday.

By the time I got to Pop Film I was tired from a long, stressful day, and I was running low on energy from having had little to eat. I had a feeling, too, that Andrew was trying to avoid me, even though he sits in the seat right in front of me, and while it may well have just been my imagination, it brought me down during the class.

The film we watched for today was The Maltese Falcon, a classic film noire whodunnit that I had never seen before. It was interesting on a number of levels, particularly when it was pointed out that the Peter Lorre character, Mr. Cairo, was supposed to be gay, but you had to know that from very subtle hints since the Hollywood production codes of the day didn't allow anything more directly stated. There were a few sloppy editing points, but overall the film was quite well done all around. It was probably the high point in my day, really.

I'm dreading tomorrow and all of the work that needs to be done on that paper, and I have to take my grandma to the dentist as well (which is always a struggle since she is rather afraid of dentists for the most part). Hopefully I'll be past the bout of depression that's clubbing me to death tonight because its more than I really need to deal with. One way or another, I won't have time for any distractions.

Posted at 3:10 AM

September 26, 2004

It's been a busy weekend. Yesterday my sister took her family (and my mom) to Cedar Point's Holloweekends (a scary good time, I am told), and I (miserably) had to stay at the house and work on my history paper because there simply wouldn't have been time to finish it otherwise (and I'll still be working on it for the next couple of days, too. Missing the amusement park was disappointing, but I got a good start on my paper, and I guess that's the way things have to be prioritized.

Today was a bit different. My grandma's 90th birthday is tomorrow, but we arranged a big celebration for her after church in the "fellowship hall" (as they call it). I was up early to collect the cakes I had had made (which were huge and beautiful (and yummy)) and to get everything set up at the church for the festivities. While the rest of the family attended the service, I was back at the house trying to get in some studying for the exam I'll have in my Myth class tomorrow. Then I was back to the church to direct people inside who had been invited but weren't part of the church. The room was packed by the time everyone had arrived. All-in-all I'd estimate 80 to 90 people were there to sing "Happy Birthday" (which nearly brought tears to my grandma's eyes) and to eat cake and visit. Old friends and past neighbors were there as well as relatives we see rarely, and it was a very good time for my grandma (and for everyone, I think).

After the party had broken down, the last few of us (just the family members) went to Damon's for lunch, and not long after we were back I was working on my history paper again and then plugging away at studying for the exam in Myth. I ended up staying behind while everyone else went for a fine dinner at Bay Harbor Inn, but I got a fair amount done and should be able to do enough tomorrow and Tuesday (and Wednesday morning) to get by, even though I expect I'll have less sleep than I'd like.

I'm sort of disappointed about the way things went because I had almost no time at all to spend with my sister, her husband, and my niece and nephew, and I only see them once or twice a year (in fact, this was the first time I'd seen my brother-in-law and his mother in over three years. The timing just wasn't right though, I guess. If for nothing else I'm content with the way everything went because my grandma has truly been overjoyed with everything, and that was, in the end, what it was all about.

Posted at 1:39 AM

September 25, 2004

Damn history paper...

Posted at 12:09 AM

September 24, 2004

My parents arrived in town yesterday - with their dog. Not a big deal, really, if they had told me before hand or if they had any intention of taking care of the dog themselves (which they don't). They are staying in the next town over (since I made it clear that I would be staying in a hotel in Bowling Green if my father was to stay in the house. Any normal person would have arranged a kennel, but my parents, who were well aware that my brother-in-law dislikes their dog immensely and who were also quite clear on the fact that I've been worried about a small animal in the house tripping up my 90-year-old grandma (this is why we decided against getting a kitten), wouldn't even consider a kennel. Naturally, of course, knowing these things means that they will go right ahead and do exactly what will piss off the most people in the biggest way, all just to try to have everything my parents want done their way without the slightest thought of concession or compromise.

My sister, brother-in-law, nephew, niece, and step-mother-in-law arrived today, planning to stay here at the house but unwilling to stay with the dog in the same house. My sister and I were agreed that we would take the dog to a kennel if our parents didn't come up with another solution. My parents whined and moaned incessantly, but the dog is not here as I type. Instead it is staying with my parents where they are staying in nearby Huron (which should have, to most people I think) been the logical state of things from the start. But logic left my parents long ago (the dysfunction just took up too much time to allow logic any more involvement).

And just think, this is just what happened during the first few hours of being together (and actually there's more, but I'm not going to go into greater detail about every level of insanity). I'm sure that there will be more to tell (or scream about) on a daily basis. Stay tuned.

Posted at 11:59 PM

September 23, 2004

White Dove

You never had it easy,
did you little bird?
Long ago caged with a mate
on that fateful voyage
through storm and flood,
then cast away
to find hope,
to find home.

Gaining safe harbor for humanity
should have earned you some respect,
given voice to your cause,
but a bird of peace
must always be prey
to birds of war,
hawkish adversaries against
your basic right to life.

They say it’s nature’s way,
the code of Darwin,
survival of the fittest,
but you and I know better,
know that survival of the most
powerful and vicious does not
ensure the survival of a species,
merely the perpetuation of war.

Posted at 12:41 AM

September 22, 2004

As if being surrounded by gorgeous guys all day wasn't bad enough, today I was actually taunted by them. During my first class, Classical Mythology, the guy sitting in front of me, who's quite attractive, was wearing a t-shirt that said, "I put out on the first date." During my last class, Modern Latin America, the cutest guy in the class, who sits one seat back from me in the next row over, was wearing a t-shirt that read, "I like to score." Granted, sex is actually further down the road than anything I really would want from these guys right now (cuddling and conversation is what I really want,and sex would only come if there was a connection (that's just how I am)), but it's hard to ignore provocative expressions like those when these are really beautiful guys who've already attracted my attention.

I should note that both of these guys, while very attractive, still fall far short of Andrew. They all have different types of beauty, but Andrew is the most perfect to me, even though other people might not feel the same. Of course if Andrew wore a shirt with some sort of provocative statement like that the I would probably collapse and be unable to move, but he seems rather shy and quiet, so I don't imagine that will ever be an issue. That's fine - he's enough on his own.

Posted at 1:04 AM

September 21, 2004

It seems that my hours of effort in the yard on Saturday have taken their toll. I spent quite a bit of time not just working on the lawn but on the flower beds and plants as well. The constant bending, kneeling, and twisting, which didn't seem like anything at the time, must be what is causing my back to be stiff and weak.

The biggest problem with my back comes if I lie flat on my back for a while. For whatever reason, whenever I try to sit up/stand up after lying like that, my back just simply doesn't want to accommodate me - it doesn't want to let me straighten out my back, and I end up trembling as I try to fight it and get upright (and it's not too comfortable in any case). If I lay on my stomach or on my side the I have no where near the problem. I'm still stiff in that case, but I don't have any pain and I can still move fully. Of course if I stand up straight or sit up then I have no problems at all. At least I know what not to do.

The best remedy would be to rest for a day or two and let my back relax and heal, but I don't have the time to do anything like that. Hopefully it will get better and not worse, because it's becoming quite problematic.

Posted at 11:20 PM

September 20, 2004

Four hours. Four hours noticing how perfect his ears are. Four hours admiring the dark auburn color of his hair. Four hours memorizing the perfect lines of his back. Four hours wondering what he likes and where he's from. Four hours. Four long hours. Somebody just needs to beat me over the head; that's all I can hope for now to break me from my insane obsession of Andrew in my Pop Film class.

I spoke to him today. That's a joke, really. You see, he sneezed, and I said, "Bless you" as a courtesy and he responded "Thank you," all without him turning around. This, of course, means absolutely nothing, but my mind wants to think of it as 'interaction' and 'communication' even though the logical part of my brain knows that I'm just insane.

One of my readers, Ted, e.mailed me and told me that I should just say, "Hello," and I might be surprised - Andrew might have been afraid to say anything to me either. Ted is probably right; I should probably at least try. I don't really believe that Andrew's interested in talking to me himself, but there's no reason I shouldn't just try - other than the fact that I'm petrified. I've always been so shy of people that I'm terrified of meeting anyone new. It's odd, really, because I'm fine with people who are introduced to me, and I'm fine with people I've spoken with previously, even if only briefly. I can talk up a storm with people like that. But put me next to someone I've never met, with nobody to introduce me and get a conversation going, and I completely lose all ability to think or speak.

The more I see Andrew the more I want to get closer to him, get to know him, sit next to him. Hell, I only see him on Mondays. This just isn't natural for anyone to be so obsessed.

It's killing me, too. No matter how happy I am when I go into that class or how happy I am from being able to stare at Andrew for four hours, by the time I've left the building after class has finished, I'm extremely depressed (and walking alone to the car for ten minutes doesn't make that situation any better).

It's amazing that I can bring this sort of mind-fuck on myself, isn't it?

Posted at 2:50 AM

September 19, 2004

Today has been very frustrating, but South Park has, as usual, managed to make me laugh in spite of everything (today was the Fun with Veal episode). Isn't cynical, twisted humor great?

Posted at 11:57 PM

September 18, 2004

Mondo bizarro.

Posted at 9:18 PM

September 17, 2004

My time at the main library on campus today was a bust. After an hour and a half I had found nothing usable for either of the possibilities I've considered for one of my upcoming papers, and now I'm left unsure just what to do.

It's days like this that I seriously wonder if I'm getting too old, too impatient, or too stupid to keep going to school. Then I remember that the alternative is working some crappy job for some moron that doesn't give a fuck about me, and I quickly recall that school, regardless of the bad days, will always be the better option.

Posted at 12:32 AM

September 16, 2004

I watched the encore presentation of Jack & Bobby tonight (it will normally be a Sunday show on the WB), and it has a lot of potential. The acting is good, the established conflicts are strong and real, and the premise for the whole show is great.

Jack & Bobby looks at two brothers in current times, one of whom will be the president of the United States from 2040-2048. Each brother, as seen now, has their shortcomings, but they lean on each other and support each other and learn from each other, all within a complicated relationship with their single-parent, college professor of a mother. The show switches between everyday events for the boys and commentaries, supposedly recorded in the future for a history/biography tv show of the former president by his aides, friends, and contemporaries.

This first episode was a strong showing, something exceptional for the first show of any program since the usual presentation of characters and background that often bogs things down was not such a problem. In fact, the introduction of the story and characters was very relaxed and comfortable. That in itself says a lot to me about how well this show can be developed. If this same relaxed, comfortable approach and the great potential storyline continues to be developed (and not screwed up), then this will become a strong program that will gain a following. I would certainly be a part of that group.

Posted at 10:27 PM

September 15, 2004

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate working in groups? If I have, I haven't emphasized it enough.

I understand the desire of professors to break people into smaller groups in the hopes that more people will get involved in discussion, partly because they're part of a small group and not the sole person speaking to the whole class and partly because they'll be almost forced to say something. Well the problem is that most people don't care about whether its a small group or a large one, and they don't feel pressured to talk, they mostly just don't like to talk in class or (and this is the most important and common aspect) they haven't read the materials and therefore have no opinion to express. The bottom line is that the one or two people in the group who have read the materials and are willing to speak are always stuck doing all of the work, even though everyone gets the same credit for things in the end. I hate group work. I went to college to stand on my own, learn on my own, and be evaluated on my own work, and I have yet to find a benefit from working in a classroom group (I make that distinction, classroom group, because I readily admit that I've had great success working in groups in jobs and business ventures - even in organizations - where the dead wood is quickly cast off and the people who remain in the group are productive and interesting. I just haven't had such experiences in college).

So that's my big gripe for the day. Sadly, it looks like this will become a common part of my Modern Latin America class. It's just something the professor likes to do in all of his classes, and he somehow doesn't get that two-thirds of the people are doing nothing and haven't read the materials. Somehow certain professors will always remain blind to such things, even when told about it point blank. I can work in groups - and I will - but I don't have to like it. As you've by now learned, I like to vent my frustrations just to unwind. That's just my way.

~~Posted~~ Written at 1:22 AM

September 14, 2004

I see. Well the same to you, buddy!

Posted at 11:10 PM

September 13, 2004

There's no denying, now, that I've become incredibly infatuated with Andrew, the guy that sits in front of me in my Popular Film class. I should probably call him a kid rather than a guy because I'm sure he must only be about 19, and that makes him half my age. I don't know what I'm thinking, either. He obviously has no interest in me. I don't know why he would either - I wouldn't. He can do a lot better than me, and I'm sure he knows that. He's probably better off that way anyhow.

I was falling into depression long before I got to that class, though. I pretty much woke up feeling exceptionally empty and alone this morning, and it only grew stronger as the day progressed, particularly once I got to campus and had dozens - hundreds even - of beautiful guys everywhere I turned.

I don't know what I expect anymore. I miss Ken so much it hurts, and I can't stop crying as I think about how much I miss him, and I don't think I'll ever get that close to anybody again, not because I don't want to but because I just don't know how to do it, how to talk to someone I'm attracted to and build up a rapport of friendship or camaraderie. I was never any good at that sort of thing. I respond well to people, but I'm horribly dysfunctional about initiating contact, and now I don't even know how to say "Hello" without sounding brain damaged and lame.

I really need somebody to hug and hold, and there's nobody to turn to. I feel like I'm falling apart, and there' s nobody to help hold me together. I don't think I've ever felt so alone, even at the worst moments of my past, and nothing seems to make sense anymore. I don't feel like I can sleep, but I need to try. Sleeping some of this off is my only hope right now, and I can't stand it the way I feel now.

Posted at 2:52 AM

September 12, 2004

Say, "Boom chicka-boom chicka-boom-boom-boom."

Posted at 11:23 PM

September 11, 2004

... and now for something completely different.

Posted at 10:18 PM

September 10, 2004

Ah, Ohio's state flower is in full bloom, those orange barrels rising from the asphalt seemingly wherever you turn, causing passers-by to slow down and stare with wonder at the bewildering display of state-sponsored annoyance.

All sarcasm aside, the construction situation seems only to get worse and worse as even more construction has been spread across all of Sandusky and a whole section of U.S. Route 6, my path to Bowling Green, has been closed for 60 days. All of that while the work still continues on the resurfacing of vast tracts of other parts of Route 6. The timing of all of this does little to help me out. In fact, it has increased my travel times and certainly done plenty to increase my frustration - not that anybody cares.

If I'm lucky all of these various construction projects will be done by the end of the semester, but that just means that they'll be done in time for the snow and ice of winter, leaving me absolutely no time where I'll have a clear, simple drive between here and school.

I'm sure it could all be worse, but I still feel justified in bitching about it. So there.

Posted at 12:28 AM

September 9, 2004

I was immensely pleased today to read a number of news articles and columns condemning the politics of fear being practiced by the Bush administration, most notable recently in the portents of doom from Dick Cheney. My favorite three (1, 2, 3) columns are, not too surprisingly, from the New York Times and the Washington Post, but this one column by Maureen Dowd is by far the best (even just for the title alone).

Cheney Spits Toads

WASHINGTON — George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have always used the president's father as a reverse lodestar. In 1992, the senior Mr. Bush wooed the voters with "Message: I care.'' So this week, Mr. Cheney wooed the voters with, Message: You die.

The terrible beauty of its simplicity grows on you. It is a sign of the dark, macho, paranoid vice president's restraint that he didn't really take it to its emotionally satisfying conclusion: Message: Vote for us or we'll kill you.

Without Zell Miller around to out-crazy him, and unplugged after a convention that tried to "humanize'' him with grandchildren, horses and wifely anecdotes about his inability to dance the twist, Mr. Cheney is back as Terrifier in Chief.

He finally simply spit out what the Bush team has been more subtly trying to convey for months: A vote for John Kerry is a vote for the terrorists.

"Because if we make the wrong choice,'' Mr. Cheney said in Des Moines in that calm baritone, "then the danger is that we'll get hit again. That we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war.''

These guys figure, hey, these scare tactics worked in building support for the Iraq war, maybe they can work in tearing down support for John Kerry. They linked Saddam with terrorism and cowed the Democrats (including Mr. Kerry, who has never been able to make the case against the Bush administration's trompe l'oeil casus belli) and fooled the country into going along with their trumped-up war. So why not link Mr. Kerry with terrorism and cow the voters into sticking with the White House they've got?

It's like that fairy tale where vipers and toads jump out of the mouth of the accursed mean little girl when she tries to speak. Every time Mr. Cheney opens his mouth, vermin leap out.

The vice president and president did not even mention Osama at the convention because of the inconvenient fact that the fiend is still out there, plotting. Yet they denigrate Mr. Kerry as too weak to battle Osama, and treat him as a greater threat.

Mr. Cheney implies that John Kerry couldn't protect us from an attack like 9/11, blithely ignoring the fact that he and President Bush didn't protect us from the real 9/11. Think of what brass-knuckled Republicans could have made of a 9/11 tape of an uncertain Democratic president giving a shaky statement that looked like a hostage tape and flying randomly from air base to air base, as the veep ordered that planes be shot down.

Mr. Cheney warns against falling back "into the pre-9/11 mind-set,'' when, in fact, the Bush team's pre-9/11 mind-set was all about being stuck in the cold war and reviving "Star Wars" - which doesn't work and is useless against terrorist tactics. The Bush crowd played down terrorism because Bill Clinton and Sandy Berger had told their successors that Osama was a priority, and the Bushies scorned all things Clinton. The president shrugged off intelligence briefings with such headlines as "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States'' because there was brush to be cleared and unaffordable tax-cutting to be done.

After the blue-ribbon graybeards declared the Bush administration's pumped-up W.M.D. claims and Saddam-9/11 links bogus, the White House went into a defensive crouch - especially the man in the undisclosed bunker, who had veered wildly between overly pessimistic predictions of Saddam's nukes and overly optimistic predictions of grateful Iraqis with flowers and chocolates.

For a time, it seemed that Americans were realizing they'd been flimflammed by the Bushies. But at the convention, the swaggering Bush juggernaut brazenly went back to boasting about its pre-emption doctrine, tracing imaginary connections between 9/11 and Saddam, and calling all our foes terrorists.

Why should the same group that managed to paint a flextime guardsman as a heroic commander - and a war hero as a war criminal - bother rebutting or engaging with critics?

As the deaths of American men and women fighting in Iraq topped 1,000, and with insurgents controlling parts of central Iraq, the White House trotted out the same old discredited line, assuming it can wear - and scare - everyone down by November.

Posted at 10:32 PM

September 8, 2004

I made a recent trip to South Park, Colorado. Here's a snapshot of me and some cool guys I met.

~~Posted~~ Written at 1:12 AM

September 7, 2004

In the aftermath of the repeated attacks upon gay marriage (and gay rights in general) espoused during the Republican National Convention, the U.S. House of Representatives, having returned just today from their summer recess, will be making more detailed plans to debate a proposal for a constitutional amendment banning not only gay marriage but also gay unions and spousal rights as well. Even after the dismal failure of an even less vitriolic, bigoted bill in the Senate, the Republicans controlling the House hope to use the gay marriage issue as a divisive, news-dominating campaign issue in these last two months before the election. This whole Republican strategy is appalling on all levels, and I sincerely hope it backfires on them in a huge way.

With these thoughts in mind, it is incredibly uplifting to read that the Defense of Marriage Act in Washington state has been ruled unconstitutional by yet another judge in that state. Better still, and what truly warmed my heart, is the language the judge used to support his ruling (which I've emphasized in bold italics). Rulings like this give me hope that sanity may yet prevail.

Washington State Gay Marriage Ban Ruled Unconstitutional

(Olympia, Washington) A second judge has ruled that Washington state's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

A Thurston County judge ruled Tuesday that the state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act violates the civil liberties of gays and lesbians under the Washington constitution.

"For the government this is not a moral issue. It is a legal issue," Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks said in a written ruling.

Hicks acknowledged that the intent of the state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act was very clear: Legislators wanted to limit marriage to a union between one man and one woman. But, Hicks said, that law directly conflicts with the state constitution.

"What fails strict scrutiny here is a government-approved civil contract for one class of the community not given to another class of the community," Hicks wrote. "Democracy means people with different values living together as one people. What can reconcile our differences is the feeling that with these differences we are still one people. This is the democracy of conscience."

The case was brought by 11 gay and lesbian couples from across the state.

The decision is the second victory for supporters of gay marriage in Washington state. A King County judge ruled in favor of gay marriage rights in a separate case last month. (story)

Both cases will now go to the state Supreme Court, where they will likely be consolidated.

Posted at 11:10 PM

September 6, 2004

Boo.

Being alone still sucks.

Posted at 12:58 AM

September 5, 2004

The numbers speak for themselves.

Bush by numbers: Four years of double standards
By Graydon Carter

1 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security issued between 20 January 2001 and 10 September 2001 that mentioned al-Qa'ida.

104 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein.

101 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned missile defence.

65 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned weapons of mass destruction.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden in his three State of the Union addresses.

73 Number of times that Bush mentioned terrorism or terrorists in his three State of the Union addresses.

83 Number of times Bush mentioned Saddam, Iraq, or regime (as in change) in his three State of the Union addresses.

$1m Estimated value of a painting the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and Bush family friend.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses.

1,700 Percentage increase between 2001 and 2002 of Saudi Arabian spending on public relations in the United States.

79 Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia.

3 Number of 11 September hijackers whose entry visas came through special US-Saudi "Visa Express" programme.

140 Number of Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, evacuated from United States almost immediately after 11 September.

14 Number of Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa'ida is active.

$3m Amount the White House was willing to grant the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 11 September attacks.

$0 Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.

$10m Amount Bush cut from the INS's existing terrorism budget.

$50m Amount granted to the commission that looked into the Columbia space shuttle crash.

$5m Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study legalised gambling.

7 Number of Arabic linguists fired by the US army between mid-August and mid-October 2002 for being gay.

George Bush: Military man

1972 Year that Bush walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas National Guard, Nearly two years before his six-year obligation was up.

$3,500 Reward a group of veterans offered in 2000 for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama guard service.

600-700 Number of guardsmen who were in Bush's unit during that period.

0 Number of guardsmen from that period who came forward with information about Bush's guard service.

0 Number of minutes that President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the assistant Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, the former chairman of the Defence Policy Board, Richard Perle, and the White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove - the main proponents of the war in Iraq -served in combat (combined).

0 Number of principal civilian or Pentagon staff members who planned the war who have immediate family members serving in uniform in Iraq.

8 Number of members of the US Senate and House of Representatives who have a child serving in the military.

10 Number of days that the Pentagon spent investigating a soldier who had called the President "a joke" in a letter to the editor of a Newspaper.

46 Percentage increase in sales between 2001 and 2002 of GI Joe figures (children's toys).

Ambitious warrior

2 Number of Nations that George Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into office.

130 Approximate Number of countries (out of a total of 191 recognised by the United Nations) with a US military presence.

43 Percentage of the entire world's military spending that the US spends on defence. (That was in 2002, the year before the invasion of Iraq.)

$401.3bn Proposed military budget for 2004.

Saviour of Iraq

1983 The year in which Donald Rumsfeld, Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East, gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs as a gift.

2.5 Number of hours after Rumsfeld learnt that Osama bin Laden was a suspect in the 11 September attacks that he brought up reasons to "hit" Iraq.

237 Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by top Bush administration officials between 2002 and January 2004, according to the California Representative Henry Waxman.

10m Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets on 21 February 2003, in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, the largest simultaneous protest in world history.

$2bn Estimated monthly cost of US military presence in Iraq projected by the White House in April 2003.

$4bn Actual monthly cost of the US military presence in Iraq according to Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld in 2004.

$15m Amount of a contract awarded to an American firm to build a cement factory in Iraq.

$80,000 Amount an Iraqi firm spent (using Saddam's confiscated funds) to build the same factory, after delays prevented the American firm from starting it.

2000 Year that Cheney said his policy as CEO of Halliburton oil services company was "we wouldn't do anything in Iraq".

$4.7bn Total value of contracts awarded to Halliburton in Iraq and Afghanistan.
$680m Estimated value of Iraq reconstruction contracts awarded to Bechtel.
$2.8bnValue of Bechtel Corp contracts in Iraq.

$120bn Amount the war and its aftermath are projected to cost for the 2004 fiscal year.

35 Number of countries to which the United States suspended military assistance after they failed to sign agreements giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.

92 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2002.
60 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2003.
55 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who were unemployed before the war.
80 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who are unemployed a Year after the war.

0 Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender in May 1945.

37 Death toll of US soldiers in Iraq in May 2003, the month combat operations "officially" ended.

0 Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home that the Bush administration has permitted to be photographed.

0 Number of memorial services for the returned dead that Bush has attended since the beginning of the war.

A soldier's best friend

40,000 Number of soldiers in Iraq seven months after start of the war still without Interceptor vests, designed to stop a round from an AK-47.

$60m Estimated cost of outfitting those 40,000 soldiers with Interceptor vests.

62 Percentage of gas masks that army investigators discovered did Not work properly in autumn 2002.

90 Percentage of detectors which give early warning of a biological weapons attack found to be defective.

87 Percentage of Humvees in Iraq not equipped with armour capable of stopping AK-47 rounds and protecting against roadside bombs and landmines at the end of 2003.

Making the country safer

$3.29 Average amount allocated per person Nationwide in the first round of homeland security grants.

$94.40 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in American Samoa.

$36 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in Wyoming, Vice-President Cheney's home state.

$17 Amount allocated per person in New York state.

$5.87 Amount allocated per person in New York City.

$77.92 Amount allocated per person in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University, Bush's alma mater.

76 Percentage of 215 cities surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors in early 2004 that had yet to receive a dime in federal homeland security assistance for their first-response units.

5 Number of major US airports at the beginning of 2004 that the Transportation Security Administration admitted were Not fully screening baggage electronically.

22,600 Number of planes carrying unscreened cargo that fly into New York each month.

5 Estimated Percentage of US air cargo that is screened, including cargo transported on passenger planes.

95 Percentage of foreign goods that arrive in the United States by sea.

2 Percentage of those goods subjected to thorough inspection.

$5.5bnEstimated cost to secure fully US ports over the Next decade.

$0 Amount Bush allocated for port security in 2003.

$46m Amount the Bush administration has budgeted for port security in 2005.

15,000 Number of major chemical facilities in the United States.

100 Number of US chemical plants where a terrorist act could endanger the lives of more than one million people.

0 Number of new drugs or vaccines against "priority pathogens" listed by the Centres for Disease Control that have been developed and introduced since 11 September 2001.

Giving a hand up to the advantaged

$10.9m Average wealth of the members of Bush's original 16-person cabinet.

75 Percentage of Americans unaffected by Bush's sweeping 2003 cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$42,000 Average savings members of Bush's cabinet received in 2003 as a result of cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes.

10 Number of fellow members from the Yale secret society Skull and Bones that Bush has named to important positions (including the Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum Jr. and SEC chief Bill Donaldson).

79 Number of Bush's initial 189 appointees who also served in his father's administration.

A man with a lot of friends

$113m Amount of total hard money the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign received, a record.

$11.5m Amount of hard money raised through the Pioneer programme, the controversial fund-raising process created for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign. (Participants pledged to raise at least $100,000 by bundling together cheques of up to $1,000 from friends and family. Pioneers were assigned numbers, which were included on all cheques, enabling the campaign to keep track of who raised how much.)

George Bush: Money manager

4.7m Number of bankruptcies that were declared during Bush's first three years in office.

2002 The worst year for major markets since the recession of the 1970s.

$489bn The US trade deficit in 2003, the worst in history for a single year.

$5.6tr Projected national surplus forecast by the end of the decade when Bush took office in 2001.

$7.22tr US national debt by mid-2004.

George Bush: Tax cutter

87 Percentage of American families in April 2004 who say they have felt no benefit from Bush's tax cuts.

39 Percentage of tax cuts that will go to the top 1 per cent of American families when fully phased in.

49 Percentage of Americans in April 2004 who found that their taxes had actually gone up since Bush took office.

88 Percentage of American families who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$30,858 Amount Bush himself saved in taxes in 2003.

Employment tsar

9.3m Number of US unemployed in April 2004.

2.3m Number of Americans who lost their jobs during first three Years of the Bush administration.

22m Number of jobs gained during Clinton's eight years in office.

Friend of the poor

34.6m Number of Americans living below the poverty line (1 in 8 of the population).

6.8m Number of people in the workforce but still classified as poor.

35m Number of Americans that the government defines as "food insecure," in other words, hungry.

$300m Amount cut from the federal programme that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes.

40 Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest 1 per cent of the population.

18 Percentage of wealth in Britain held by the richest 1e per cent of the population.

George Bush And his special friend

$60bn Loss to Enron stockholders, following the largest bankruptcy in US history.

$205m Amount Enron CEO Kenneth Lay earned from stock option profits over a four-year period.

$101m Amount Lay made from selling his Enron shares just before the company went bankrupt.

$59,339 Amount the Bush campaign reimbursed Enron for 14 trips on its corporate jet during the 2000 campaign.

30 Length of time in months between Enron's collapse and Lay (whom the President called "Kenny Boy") still not being charged with a crime.

George Bush: Lawman

15 Average number of minutes Bush spent reviewing capital punishment cases while governor of Texas.

46 Percentage of Republican federal judges when Bush came to office.

57 Percentage of Republican federal judges after three years of the Bush administration.

33 Percentage of the $15bn Bush pledged to fight Aids in Africa that must go to abstinence-only programmes.

The Civil libertarian

680 Number of suspected al-Qa'ida members that the United States admits are detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

42 Number of nationalities of those detainees at Guantanamo.

22 Number of hours prisoners were handcuffed, shackled, and made to wear surgical masks, earmuffs, and blindfolds during their flight to Guantanamo.

32 Number of confirmed suicide attempts by Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

24 Number of prisoners in mid-2003 being monitored by psychiatrists in Guantanamo's new mental ward.

A health-conscious president

43.6m Number of Americans without health insurance by the end of 2002 (more than 15 per cent of the population).

2.4m Number of Americans who lost their health insurance during Bush's first year in office.

Environmentalist

$44m Amount the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and the Republican National Committee received in contributions from the fossil fuel, chemical, timber, and mining industries.

200 Number of regulation rollbacks downgrading or weakening environmental laws in Bush's first three years in office.

31 Number of Bush administration appointees who are alumni of the energy industry (includes four cabinet secretaries, the six most powerful White House officials, and more than 20 other high-level appointees).

50 Approximate number of policy changes and regulation rollbacks injurious to the environment that have been announced by the Bush administration on Fridays after 5pm, a time that makes it all but impossible for news organisations to relay the information to the widest possible audience.

50 Percentage decline in Environmental Protection Agency enforcement actions against polluters under Bush's watch.

34 Percentage decline in criminal penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.

50 Percentage decline in civil penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office.

$6.1m Amount the EPA historically valued each human life when conducting economic analyses of proposed regulations.

$3.7m Amount the EPA valued each human life when conducting analyses of proposed regulations during the Bush administration.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned global warming, clean air, clean water, pollution or environment in his 2004 State of the Union speech. His father was the last president to go through an entire State of the Union address without mentioning the environment.

1 Number of paragraphs devoted to global warming in the EPA's 600-page "Draft Report on the Environment" presented in 2003.

68 Number of days after taking office that Bush decided Not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases by roughly 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States was to cut its level by 7 per cent.

1 The rank of the United States worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
25 Percentage of overall worldwide carbon dioxide emissions the United States is responsible for.

53 Number of days after taking office that Bush reneged on his campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

14 Percentage carbon dioxide emissions will increase over the next 10 years under Bush's own global-warming plan (an increase of 30 per cent above their 1990 levels).

408 Number of species that could be extinct by 2050 if the global-warming trend continues.

5 Number of years the Bush administration said in 2003 that global warming must be further studied before substantive action could be taken.

62 Number of members of Cheney's 63-person Energy Task Force with ties to corporate energy interests.

0 Number of environmentalists asked to attend Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings.

6 Number of months before 11 September that Cheney's Energy Task Force investigated Iraq's oil reserves.

2 Percentage of the world's population that is British.

2 Percentage of the world's oil used by Britain.

5 Percentage of the world's population that is American.

25 Percentage of the world's oil used by America.

63 Percentage of oil the United States imported in 2003, a record high.

24,000 Estimated number of premature deaths that will occur under Bush's Clear Skies initiative.
300 Number of Clean Water Act violations by the mountaintop-mining industry in 2003.

750,000 Tons of toxic waste the US military, the world's biggest polluter, generates around the world each Year.

$3.8bn Amount in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 1995, the Year "polluter pays" fees expired.

$0m Amount of uncommitted dollars in the Superfund trust fund for toxic site clean-ups in 2003.

270 Estimated number of court decisions citing federal Negligence in endangered-species protection that remained unheeded during the first year of the Bush administration.

100 Percentage of those decisions that Bush then decided to allow the government to ignore indefinitely.

68.4 Average Number of species added to the Endangered and Threatened Species list each year between 1991 and 2000.

0 Number of endangered species voluntarily added by the Bush administration since taking office.

50 Percentage of screened workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from long-term health problems, almost half of whom don't have health insurance.

78 Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who now suffer from lung ailments.

88 Percentage of workers at Ground Zero who Now suffer from ear, nose, or throat problems.

22 Asbestos levels at Ground Zero were 22 times higher than the levels in Libby, Montana, where the W R Grace mine produced one of the worst Superfund disasters in US history.

Image booster for the US

2,500 Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further the image of the US abroad in 1991.

1,200 Number of public-diplomacy officers employed by the State Department to further US image abroad in 2004.

4 Rank of the United States among countries considered to be the greatest threats to world peace according to a 2003 Pew Global Attitudes study (Israel, Iran, and North Korea were considered more dangerous; Iraq was considered less dangerous).

$66bn Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 1949.

$23.8bn Amount the United States spent on international aid and diplomacy in 2002.

85 Percentage of Indonesians who had an unfavourable image of the United States in 2003.

Second-party endorsements

90 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2001.

67 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 26 September 2002.

54 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 30 September, 2003.

50 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president on 15 October 2003.

49 Percentage of Americans who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president in May 2004.

More like the French than he would care to admit

28 Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2003, the second-longest vacation of any president in US history. (Record holder Richard Nixon.)

13 Number of vacation days the average American receives each Year.

28 Number of vacation days Bush took in August 2001, the month he received a 6 August Presidential Daily Briefing headed "Osama bin Laden Determined to Strike US Targets."

500 Number of days Bush has spent all or part of his time away from the White House at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, his parents' retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, or Camp David as of 1 April 2004.

No fool when it comes to the press

11 Number of press conferences during his first three Years in office in which Bush referred to questions as being "trick" ones.

Factors in his favour

3 Number of companies that control the US voting technology market.

52 Percentage of votes cast during the 2002 midterm elections that were recorded by Election Systems & Software, the largest voting-technology firm, a big Republican donor.

29 Percentage of votes that will be cast via computer voting machines that don't produce a paper record.

17On 17 November 2001, The Economist printed a correction for having said George Bush was properly elected in 2000.

$113m Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, the most in American electoral history.

$185m Amount raised by the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign, to the end of March 2004.

$200m Amount that the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign expects to raise by November 2004.

268 Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Pioneer status (by raising $100,000 each) as of March 2004.

187 Number of Bush-Cheney fund-raisers who had earned Ranger status (by raising $200,000 each) as of March 2004.

$64.2m The Amount Pioneers and Rangers had raised for Bush-Cheney as of March 2004.

85 Percentage of Americans who can't Name the Chief Justice of the United States.

69 Percentage of Americans who believed the White House's claims in September 2003 that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September attacks.

34 Percentage of Americans who believed in June 2003 that Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" had been found.

22 Percentage of Americans who believed in May 2003 that Saddam had used his WMDs on US forces.

85 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Israel on a map.

30 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map.

75 Percentage of American young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

53 Percentage of Canadian young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

11 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the United States on a map.

30 Percentage of Americans who believe that "politics and government are too complicated to understand."

Another factor in his favour

70m Estimated number of Americans who describe themselves as Evangelicals who accept Jesus Christ as their personal saviour and who interpret the Bible as the direct word of God.

23m Number of Evangelicals who voted for Bush in 2000.

50m Number of voters in total who voted for Bush in 2000.

46 Percentage of voters who describe themselves as born-again Christians.

5 Number of states that do not use the word "evolution" in public school science courses.

This is an edited extract from "What We've Lost", by Graydon Carter, published by Little Brown on 9 September.

Posted at 2:36 AM

September 4, 2004

Woo hoo! Sleeping in rocks!

Sure, that may not be much to you, but this is the first morning in weeks that I haven't either had to get up early to take my grandma to an appointment, get up to get going to school, or get woken up by my grandma (usually for something that could easily have waited). Sometimes it's just a small thing like sleeping in that makes the day start right.

Posted at 12:56 AM

September 3, 2004

Liberals have been responsible for a vast amount of the advances of American society. The following story exemplifies only a small number of the social and cultural improvements that have been driven by liberals, but at the same time this story makes its point - that decrying liberals is ridiculous in the face of historical fact. Without liberals we'd still be in the Stone Age, and it's about time that the conservative penchant for spreading fear of liberals should be ended.

Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn't’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark).

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good (He doesn't’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day). Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

Posted at 1:38 AM

September 2, 2004

Only a Republican could spin issues of hate and inequality as being positive values. As the Republican National Convention ends tonight, George W. Bush has epitomized the deceptions, misdirections, and bold-faced lies that have dominated this convention. While many of his deceptions are now standard fare (i.e., "the war in Afghanistan is won" even though only one city in that country is secure; "Iraq is settling into a new democracy" even though civil war threatens to destroy every last vestige of civilization there; "the American economy is strong" even though millions of people are still out of work and millions more are earning less than they did four years ago and have less health care and other benefits; "No Child Left Behind legislation has been successful" even though failure rates of schools and individual children suggest otherwise; and "the Republicans honor and respect the troops who are in Iraq and who have given their lives" even though those same Republicans have every intention of sending more men to serve and die in a struggle that will last for years and years based on current strategies) - even amid these tired half-truths and outright lies, Bush added possibly his most ridiculously hypocritical comments. Bush once again smilingly made his statements that gay people should not have the right to marry or to have any of the rights of married couples, and then he immediately followed those comments by claiming that, "I am running with a compassionate conservative philosophy: that government should help people improve their lives, not try to run their lives." Funny how he states how he intends to make the government run gay peoples' lives in a segregated, hateful way and yet somehow he's supposed to be compassionate, conservative, and advocating minimal government intrusion in peoples' lives. You don't have to take classes in logic to see that those two statements are mutually exclusive.

But Bush wasn't alone. Every Republican to take the stage over the last four days has used such misdirection and hypocrisy. Consider the line by Arnold Shwarzenegger that he remembered being inspired by seeing Richard Nixon nominated at the Republican Convention years ago, and that Nixon was his inspiration to one day enter politics. Great. Nixon, who was run out of office and nearly impeached for his illegal election-rigging, is hardly the exemplary politician to be inspired by. But then again, this is the Republicans, so illegal activity is a plus, not a negative.

Two of my favorite newspaper columnists have written columns that build upon what I'm trying to express here: Richard Cohen at the Washington Post, and Maureen Dowd at the New York Times. It's all smoke and mirrors, folks. Don't let the pretty set and the fancy performances deceive you.

Grand Old Prevarication
by Richard Cohen

NEW YORK -- On the very day that George Bush changed his mind and said that the war on terrorism was in fact winnable, the following things happened: Suicide bombers killed 16 people in Israel; 12 Nepalese service workers (dishwashers, etc.) were massacred in Iraq; five Afghans were accidentally killed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan; nine people were killed by a suicide bomber at a Moscow subway station, and five more American servicemen were reported dead in Iraq. For worldwide terrorism, it was not a bad day.

Events such as these -- in other words, the truth -- are not permitted to impose themselves on a national political convention, particularly one specifically designed to turn a funeral into a wedding. Instead we get the march of the bromides (Is this a great country, or what?), the standard recitation of distortions (Rudy Giuliani's speech, which was neither fair to John Kerry nor accurate about him) and rhetorical affidavits from the president's own family attesting to his character, his cuteness and the fact that he has, despite all evidence to the contrary, an interior life. Laura Bush says her husband worried about whether to go to war.

All of this is more or less standard stuff, a convention of any organization being a grand opportunity to lie. This is particularly true of our two great political parties, which have not, when you come to think of it, survived for so long by leveling with the American people. But the point does come -- or at least it ought to -- when the gag reflex kicks in. I reached that point when, in speech after speech, the war in Iraq was described as a defensive one in which America had no choice. This total and purposeful misreading of history came out of the mouth of almost every speaker, including the sainted John McCain.

Bush himself sets the party line. No fact changes his conviction that the war in Iraq is justified. It does not matter to him that the stated reasons for it -- those weapons of mass destruction -- did not exist. Without missing a beat, he simply changed his war aims. It is now, in retrospect, the removal of Saddam Hussein. And if you challenge him on that, he comes back with a so's-your-mother response that goes like this: Are you sorry Hussein's gone?

Of course not. But the reasons Bush gave Matt Lauer for the war are sheer nonsense: "Well, because Saddam Hussein had terrorist ties, and he had the capacity at the minimum to make weapons of mass destruction. And he could have passed that capacity on to enemies."

But every government commission under the sun, save ones concerned with inland fisheries, has concluded that Hussein had no relevant ties to al Qaeda. And while he certainly had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction, so do a plethora of countries -- some, such as Iran and North Korea, of the nuclear kind. As for passing such weapons on to our enemies, that didn't happen in Iraq and probably wouldn't have. Hussein was a selfish sort who liked to keep his weapons close. Paranoids usually do.

This war against terrorism may not really be winnable, any more than the wars against cancer or drugs have been. In fact, an argument can be made that we are now worse off than we were on Sept. 10, 2001. Osama bin Laden is still at large, and nearly 1,000 Americans have died in Iraq -- a calamitous diversion in this so-called war against terrorism.

The thinking that links unrelated events or movements into something called worldwide terrorism -- this attempt to make events conform to rhetoric -- is precisely what led the United States into the quagmire of Vietnam. Now, as then, we are being told that we were attacked or hated or whatever because we are free. Not so. Americans died on Sept. 11 because of what Americans had done: established bases in Saudi Arabia and unambiguously supported Israel. It is the right thing to do, but it comes at a cost.

The insistence that something is true does not make it true. The constant repetition of a party line is just hot air. When it comes to terrorism, Bush got it right -- momentarily and probably accidentally -- and then reverted to type. In his view, we are winning the war on terrorism and will win it outright on that great come-and-get-it day. From his mouth to God's ears, as the expression goes -- but, so far at least, the terrorists themselves are not listening.

Cutups and Cutthroats
by Maureen Dowd

always enjoy hearing about how a teenage Dick Cheney stood off to the side with buckets of water to put out Lynne's flaming batons.

But there was an even better moment during Claire Shipman's two-part "Good Morning America" interview at the Wyoming ranch this week. Trying to humanize Dr. No, ABC was let into the inner sanctum to watch Mr. Cheney take his 4-year-old granddaughter on her first solo horsie ride and hear how he's teaching his granddaughters fly-fishing.

Ms. Shipman asked the vice president "his greatest guilty pleasure."

His wife quickly interjected that it was fishing. But we all know, of course, it's global domination.

It's always amusing to watch Republicans try to get down. At convention time, they stop bilking Joe Lunchbox to act like Joe Lunchbox.

How awkward in Columbus, when W., hanging with Jack Nicklaus, noted that his grandfather was born there, so they should "send a homeboy back to Washington, D.C." Do they know a homeboy from a Lawn-Boy?

How you livin', dawg?

And speaking of dawgs, whuddup with that video of Barney debating that French poodle Fifi Kerry about taxes? By the time the twins finished their White House Valley Girl routine, and Karl Rove and Karen Hughes went all giddy in the sendup, the convention's arc was clear.

Highly scripted screwball moments designed to soothe fears that the Bushies are bullies alternate with high-octane, turbo moments designed to stir up fears that we won't be safe without the Bush bullies.

Unlike the arrogant Boston Kerry strategists, who focus-grouped and dial-a-metered their convention to death, scrubbing most of the direct attacks on President Bush, the arrogant Austin Bush strategists have encouraged their non-girlie-men speakers to put the pedal to the metal and flatten the poor Democrat who is windsurfing through his free fall.

Despite the fact that the economy is cratering, Iraq is teetering, Afghanistan is reverting to warlords, Dick Cheney is glowering at the world, the war on terror has created more acts of terror, Ahmad Chalabi is an accused spy for Iran and the Pentagon has an accused spy for Israel, Republicans felt so good about themselves that when Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was inspired to become a Republican by Richard Nixon, they exploded. When Tricky Dick is a hot applause line, they're feeling cocky.

Republicans are political killers. They are confident that Americans, in a 9/11 world, are going to be more drawn to political killers who have made some "miscalculations" on Iraq, as W. put it, than with a shaggy-haired Vietnam War protester whom Bush 41 compares to Hanoi Jane.

"I still have great difficulty with his coming back and making those statements before the Congress and throwing medals away," the president's father told Don Imus yesterday.

Republicans know that plunging ahead with a course of action, even if it becomes obvious it's wrong, is an easier political sell than flip-flopping, even if it's right.

When the president slipped, admitting that the war on terror is unwinnable - perhaps recognizing that terror's a tactic, not an enemy - he had to be saved later by Laura Bush, who fixed his stumble into nuance. Then Mr. Kerry made the mistake of responding in Bush black-and-white, calling the war on terror winnable.

While Democrats whined about the meanies and their Swift boat attacks, the G.O.P. juggernaut rolled on.

Zell Miller, playing Cotton Mather behind the cross-like lectern, made Mr. Cheney seem rational, with a maniacal litany of weapons he said Mr. Kerry had opposed that can destroy any mud hut in any third world country: B-1 and B-2 bombers, F-14A Tomcats, F-15 Eagles, Patriot and Trident missiles, and Aegis cruisers.

Just as the "third party" ad effort has been ferocious and misleading, so have some of the attack speeches here. Dick Cheney stomped on John Kerry the way he's stomped on the world. In fact, he stomped on Mr. Kerry for trying to get along with the world: "He talks about leading 'a more sensitive war on terror' as though Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side." It's nice to know Mr. Cheney remembers Al Qaeda.

As others raged, Mr. Bush flew to New York and went to an Italian community center to eat pizza with Queens firemen. The homeboy was having a ruthless, but effective, week.

Posted at 1:12 AM

September 1, 2004

As you may have noticed, I haven't been commenting about the various speeches of the Republican National Convention, even though it has finished its third of four days today. I will admit that I haven't watched this convention like the Democratic Convention, but heck, I didn't have classes then, and I watched everything on CSPAN from the moment they started each day until the moment they finished.

What I've done instead is catch what I can on CPSAN and surfed through the news reports on CNN, FOXNews, CNBC, and various news programs on other networks. I have noticed, for one thing, that network coverage of the whole convention has been slightly (although not much) more than for the Democrats, which I rather expected. Also, the pundits who had tried to ripa part every single comment made during the Democratic Convention are not even critical of the Republicans; again, I'm not at all surprised, but I still can't help but be disappointed at the lack of any sense of "fair and balanced" reporting.

While I have indeed watched a lot of the convention, I have been reluctant to comment about it because anything I might say would likely turn into an incoherent stream of obscenities. That's what comes out of my mouth as I'm watching the vast assortment of liars and confidence men who've taken the podium. For all of the deception and smoke-and-mirrors that has been produced on that stage you would think it was the Magicians National Convention, not the Republican National Convention. It's disturbing to hear such outright lies, misdirection, and hateful rhetoric as has been coming through the televised coverage, and I find no way to explain how anyone would want to even be considered to be a Republican. It's disgusting television, and I don't have the patience or control to write a Journal entry about the convention with any more detail than this.

Posted at 12:08 AM