Ezra Klein has published a wonderfully articulate explanation over on Pandagon of his case for John Kerry. I am especially taken with his description of the differences between Kerry and Bush. Of Bush he says:

I forgive Bush his failings, I forgive him his mistakes, I forgive him his transgressions and his lies and his misjudgments and miscalculations and messes. What I don’t forgive — what I will never forgive — is that he ran for president in the first place. And the reason, dear reader, that I can never forgive him for that, is because he fought to ascend to an office he didn’t understand.

And of Kerry:

Righteousness, as a habit, rejects certainty; in fact, the angels have a troubling predisposition to wander around issues, which makes sticking in their camp a matter of ideological flexibility as much as judgment. There’s no chasm greater than the one Kerry bridged to go from Vietnam war hero to the war’s most prominent opponent, but he was right to serve his country and right to fight for an end to the misguided slaughter. It’s a lesson he’s refused to unlearn, and one he’s spent a lifetime applying. And we need it.

Although lengthy, the whole entry is well worth the read.

Salon reports that Dr. Robert M. Nelson, a NASA research scientist who is currently involved in analyzing digital photos of Titan, agrees with me that Dubya’s back bulge cannot be due to a bad suit or a wrinkled shirt. Nelson went as far as wrinkling his own shirts in an attempt to recreate the infamous bulge. His conclusion:

I’m putting myself at risk for exposing this. But this is too important. It’s not about my reputation. If they force me into an early retirement, it’ll be worth it if the public knows about this. It’s outrageous statements that I read that the president is wearing nothing under there. There’s clearly something there.

Bruce Hapke, Professor Emeritus of Planetary Science in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh, reviewed the Bush images employed by Nelson. He agrees that the bulge is not a wrinkled shirt.

[Nelson’s processes are the] exact same methods we use to analyze images taken by spacecraft of planetary surfaces. It does not introduce any artifacts into the picture in any way.

[…] I would think it’s very hard to avoid the conclusion that there’s something underneath his jacket. It would certainly be consistent with some kind of radio receiver and a wire.

Dubya cheats. But then we’ve known that since the 2000 election.

The article is worth sitting through the ad if you don’t subscribe to Salon.

Awhile ago I blogged about Yes Bush Can, an interesting team that was asking the blogging community to debunk certain false documents. Today I received the following email from the guys at Yes Bush Can:

A week ago, we sent you an email asking for help debunking anti-Bush
documents. After receiving hundreds of responses, it become clear that
all the documents were actually real: the Bush/Cheney DUIs, the Ken Lay
letters, and even the bin Laden memo. For more information visit the
documents page:
http://www.yesbushcan.com/falsedocs.shtml

We also received hundreds of emails from concerned bloggers that
eloquently expressed the problems with the Bush administration. And as
we traveled across America campaigning for Bush, we learned more than
we wanted to know about Bush’s policies. We came to see that this
administration is a catastrophe for most people.

As a result, we are abandoning our support of Bush and officially
endorsing John Kerry for President. You can read more at the Yes Bush Can web site:
http://www.yesbushcan.com/
We deeply regret our misguided support and apologize for our previous
email. This will be the last email we will send directly to bloggers.
If you want to join us in supporting Kerry, you can find out more here:
http://www.yesbushcan.com/act.shtml

Thank you for your understanding,

Yes Bush Can

I have only one thing to say… 😆

I’m still sorry that I missed these guys when they came through Portland. The Yes Men Movie is currently playing downtown at the Fox Tower 10. Here’s the writeup:

“Yes Men” follows a small group of prankster-activists as they gain worldwide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization on TV and at business conferences around the world. The bizarre story begins with Andy and Mike setting up a website that mimics the World Trade Organization. When their satire website is mistaken for the real thing, Andy and Mike play along with the ruse and soon find themselves invited to important functions as WTO representatives.

Today on Good Morning America, Bush blamed a poorly made shirt on the jacket bulge noticed during the first debate. Quote Dubya:

I don’t know what that is. I mean, it is — I’m embarrassed to say it’s a poorly tailored shirt.

[…] I guess the assumption was that if I were straying off course they would … kind of like a hunting dog, they would punch a buzzer and I would jerk back into place. That’s just absurd.

No… I think the assumption is that someone was feeding him answers.

But what I’d really like to know is… where does Dubya buy his shirts? Good grief! It must be poorly made, and super-starched to boot, to make a box-shaped bulge under a tightly-stretched jacket. Can’t be very comfortable. One would think that the President of the United States could afford better shirts, eh?

Consumer confidence down:

Consumer confidence fell in October to its lowest level in seven months. The downturn is fueled mostly by soaring energy costs, sluggish hiring, the war in Iraq and an increasingly nasty election. Analysts worry that the downturn in confidence will result in less spending by already debt-laden consumers.

“Consumers are more concerned about the future than they are about current conditions and I think that has a lot to do with the high oil prices we’re seeing and probably some of the election rhetoric,” said Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis.

Consumer confidence in hiring is up very slightly, but businesses remain cautious about hiring workers given the record oil prices and the rise in health care costs.

“While consumers’ assessment of the labor market showed a moderate improvement, the gain was not sufficient to ease concerns about job growth in the months ahead,” Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center, said in a statement.

This is not good new… especially here in Oregon where we still face the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

The election

Today I listened to both David Wu and Goli Ameri in person. It’s no surprise that Goli Ameri runs a negative campaign in person also.

Some other things I noticed:

David Wu never refered to Goli Ameri, either by name or indirectly, until just before he left. He did hand out a paper showing the differences in their positions, but he didn’t refer to it. He talked about what he has done in Congress, what he plans to do during the next term, and what his ideas are for issues of interest to Oregonians like high unemployment and trade.

Goli Ameri didn’t discuss her plans. She mostly discussed how David Wu is “wrong.” When asked how she would address our leaky borders, she replied that it’s a tough issue and a Congressional study needed to be funded. She picked up the sheet that Wu had left behind showing the differences in their positions and insisted that “he has it all wrong.” And, yet, when she went down the list to “explain” her position, he pretty much had it correctly.

For example, Wu said that Ameri is “for privatization of Social Security.” “No I’m not,” she said, “Because that would be ridiculous.” But she is for letting some Social Security contributions be voluntarily added into a fund to be invested in the stock market by the Social Security Administration. (Oooo… that’s who I want investing my money! U betcha!)

Another example: She insists that she would never vote to “deprive a woman of her right to choose.” But she promises to vote to make it damn hard. (i.e. 24 hour waiting periods, parental notification, voting to outlaw some medical procedures) From where I’m sitting, there’s not a lot of difference there.

My vote had already gone to David Wu. But had I not voted yet, this would not have changed my mind.