But they're not coordinating

The Republican web of lies and smears is sustained by a web of so-called independent groups. They even have the nerve to call themselves "non-partisan."

Yeah, like the Swift Boat Liars were in 2004...

(h/t Mark Sumner on DailyKos)

Good faith torture

There is no end to the base corruption of our American ideals by the Bushist war criminals. CNN unhelpfully fails to link to the documents obtained by the ACLU, which are comically redacted almost to nothingness. Given what the Bushists admitted, it's hard to imagine what they censored.

The interrogator's "good faith" and "honest belief" that the interrogation will not cause such suffering protects the interrogator, the memo adds.

Jay Bybee thinks lack of specific intent to cause severe pain is exculpatory. Even if so, what about the second use? The torturers can hardly claim ignorance of the pain they're causing.

"Your honor, even though he screamed the first thirty-nine times I waterboarded him, I was sure it wouldn't hurt him the fortieth time."

Insane. Like the reasoning of a Soviet lawyer. Or a press release from Kim Il Sung.

And specific intent is inextricably a part of the first torture, too. The torturers specifically intended to use torture to force a prisoner to answer a question. For those of us who understand cause and effect normally, there's no separate proof: They chose these methods to elicit a response. It's not as though they just happened to waterboard prisoners because they didn't have anything else to do that day.

For this service to the Bushists, Bybee received a Federal Appeals Court judgeship. The least we can do is impeach the SOB for his crimes. And I don't care a whit if the Judiciary Committee glossed over them in 2004.

More than a day late

Now the Swifties are concerned with their good name. Where were they in 2004 when it mattered, when the Swift Boat Liars were everywhere? Why aren't they all pillorying T. Boone Pickens, Texas bullshit artist?

T. Boone Pickens, lying sack of shit

Pickens's promises are worth exactly as much as the hot air he makes them with. The swiftboating financier said that:

he would give $1 million to anyone who could disprove a single charge the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made against Mr. Kerry.

Oops, now there are conditions and a narrowing of what counts as a charge to just the advertisement. By doing so, Pickens acknowledges that the Swift Boat Liars lied.

Obama had better be ready. They'll be coming after him next. It's what the Republicans do. Since their programs are unpopular, it's all they've got.

Poor non-competitive Republicans

Mitt Romney's campaigned hard in 2004 to put more CEOs into the Massachusetts legislature. He directed an unremittingly (ha) negative campaign, but he failed utterly. I live in one of the Senate districts that he targeted with laughably nasty mailings at the rate of several per week, and it turned people off.

My Senator won 60/40.

Now the Republican Party is having trouble recruiting candidates. Boo-hoo.

They're going to run on the argument that their electoral failure is the best reason to elect more of them. Yeah, right.

Massachusetts has had Democratic government for two years, and the world has not fallen apart. Taxes haven't gone up. There are still checks and balances here, unlike Washington before 2006. Democrats aren't the monolithic blocs that Republicans are.

Re-media-tion

Originally a comment on Eschaton.

Watergate was 30 years ago, when America really did have independent media. Not a good model for 2004.

Job one for President Kerry is to reverse the media concentration. Otherwise, his win would merely be a rear guard victory in a long retreat.

Even so, at the same time he works to betray their betrayal of the country, Kerry will have to suck up to the press. Nicknames have been done already, but a little high school level flattery should do just as well. If he can't compartmentalize well enough, he'll need proxies.

Tactically, Kerry will need to forestall immediate moves from right-wing media outlets (Fox, Wash Times, WSJ, Rush, Drudge, etc.) to start the death of a thousand cuts. Yes, he needs to manage the press, and that means driving a wedge between the VWRC echo chamber and the lapdogs formerly known as the mainstream media.

The lapdogs are going to continue to put the right's smears into play. Kerry's press operation will have to kill those smears directly or through proxies. The important thing is to catch them while they are small. That means not waiting but instead framing them before they reach the public. This needs to be done in deadly earnest but using humor and ridicule. The end result should be the destruction of the right-wing media's credibility.

The first thing for Kerry to do on Wednesday, Nov. 3, is to talk about how he's going to make his honeymoon period work for America. He should use that exact term. The way this works for him is that he can put a date on it to frame the length of that honeymoon. He should aim high, The previous administration had four years to break the war on terror and the economy. I think it's only fair that I should have until July 4th [or the third anniversary of Sept. 11] to show progress on them.

Then, Kerry should propose some doable steps, some that he can accomplish alone [a ground-up reorg of the FBI (lots and lots of firings), a return to more or less honest accounting for budgets and deficits] and some that he can beat up Congress over [real funding for port security, the end of perverse tax incentives to corporations for sending jobs overseas]. Once he has implemented at least the first set, he can stop talking about his honeymoon but he should continue to expect (that is, demand) fair treatment for as long as he keeps hitting his targets. Oh, and lobster rolls for the press corps would be a good idea from time to time because so many of them are miserable toadies.

If we win the Senate, this will be easier to do. If we win the House, even easier - because the New England three in the Senate Republican caucus can be swayed into a working majority. If we win both houses, hallelujah.

When liberal and moderate groups get out of hand (and it will happen), Kerry needs to stay on target because there are only two issues that matter. He needs to say, I hear you, and I support some of your goals, but I must govern by the priorities of all Americans in contrast to the previous administration. When we have the war on terrorism and the economy back on track, we will consider your longer-term needs. Until then, I can only offer ...

Cult of personality

Originally two comments here on Eschaton.

It is unfortunate that a key part of modern mass media politics is the cult of personality. You don't think Duhbya "won" in 2000 on policy, do you? More voters make their decision on likability than on ideology, at least more of the persuadable middle.

The Texans have spun Duhbya into a nice guy that everyone would like to have an alcohol-free beer with, but the truth is much different. He's a spoiled, self-entitled, self-righteous, willfully ignorant, mean, cavalier bastard. This story and stories like it dent that likability and are important, sad to say, to whipping his no account butt back to Crawford - for at least as long as it takes for him to sell his vanity ranch.

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I want a reason to vote for Kerry but i just can't...

Bring honor and respect back to the White House. It didn't work the first try, but we owe it to ourselves as patriotic Americans to try again.