Eric, I was following along pretty well until the last paragraph about the press holding both sides accountable. I think if it weren't for this relatively new technology that I'm sitting in front of right now, we would never know that Dan Rather tried to pass off fraudulent documents or that ABC has decided to critique one candidate more than the other on this particular issue of the 2 candidates distorting each others views.

I don't think the press is afraid. I think they're to biased to do the right thing!

Andy, The Note is ABC News's blog of sorts and a lot of what they do is report on what the rest of the press is doing. They are just saying both campaigns are distorting and misrepresenting and that it is the duty of the press to report this and point it out when it happens, and if one side is more egregious in its distortions, the press should be willing to report that too.

There was never question in my mind that Eric Olsen would vote for Bush. Yet, he has not offered any convincing reason for doing so in my opinion. I think that, for him, like many voters, it comes down to maintenance of the status quo. In Olsen's America -- white, upper-middle class, suburban, no kids headed for Iraq -- things are fine. So, he sees no reason for change. If he were capable of looking beyond his own individual interest at what the entire country needs, I believe he would.

My intention in writing about politics isnt' necessarily to convince anyone of anything, but to expalin myself to myself in as logical a manner as possible.

I do not think everything is fine, and I disagree with Bush on many things, which I have explained in some detail. I have been white, more or less upper-middle class, suburban all my life and I have neve before voted for a Republican for president. So it goes beyond that in my particular instance, which I have tried to explain.

I have simply tried to articulate what I believe and why.

"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

so then if all you have is a screwdriver..is it just screw everything???

andy marsh: I think if it weren't for this relatively new technology that I'm sitting in front of right now, we would never know that Dan Rather tried to pass off fraudulent documents...

Yeah, and you would never know that the former Senate majority leader endorsed Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential platform. And you probably still don't know that Bush passed up the opportunity to kill al-Zarqawi before the invasion of Iraq.

...or that ABC has decided to critique one candidate more than the other on this particular issue of the 2 candidates distorting each others views.

Maybe that's because one candidate is doing more of the distorting.

maybe so...or that bill clinton was offered bin laden before 9/11...

and you'll conviently bring up republican white trash but leave guys like robert byrd off the list...

maybe so...or that bill clinton was offered bin laden before 9/11...

The media covered that.

and you'll conviently bring up republican white trash but leave guys like robert byrd off the list...

Old news; predates the internet(s), in fact.

(If you want to talk about Robert Byrd, how about those empty freeways he's building all over West Virginia? Not that it's partisan issue, but it's got to deserve more coverage than it's getting.)

so does strom...1948??? and I guess you're much more knowledgable than I am, because I didn't know the Robert Byrd was a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan until a few years ago. But then you miss a lot of news on those 7 month deployments

Eric, if you read The NYTimes, then you must have read the Magazine article on the voodoo based presidency.

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Stop exaggerating, Andy. Byrd was a member of the Klan in his youth, not an official. So were the fathers and grandfathers of many a person in the South and Midwest. (And, yes that includes participants in Blogcritics. It would be interesting to check the rolls for certain last names. ) People act as if the Klan was considered reprehensible by most white folks back then. It was not. Even less so for its less strident, but equally evil brother, the White Citizens Council. As recently as the '80s, the Klan still met regularly right outside Atlanta, and most white people there looked the other way. Many of the folks pointing out Byrd's brief membership, which he regrets, had relatives in the Klan who were not so brief and have no regrets.

Just wanted to set that straight. Feel free to return to bashing liberals in other ways.

I've never heard him regret it...I'm not "bashing" anyone. I'm just throwing the same stuff out that gets thrown at me...

Eric, this analogy occurred to me, you're sitting in a closed garage, and you opt to keep the engine running so you can listen to the radio.

I quickly read through the article - Suskind, who wrote the Paul O'Neil book, is hardly a neutral observer who was astonished to find what he found: he miraculously found what he set out to find. he was on with Chris Matthews last night and Matthews basically told him he was full of shit and that he didn't buy his premise.

I don't particularly care what Bush's sense of destiny regarding the war on terror is based upon, simply that he has that sense.

I have read that byrd said he would never serve along side a black man...of course he didn't use that word...I also heard him say something aobut meeting white , you know the word, I've also read that he said AFTER he let his membership in the Klan laps, that the KKK was needed more than ever..but you're right, I'm exagerrating. Why is it that it's ok to get on teh case of Trent Lott for something he did in 40's but it's an exaggeration to get on the case of a member of the KKK from the 50's?

Not taking any particular sides, but I heard Byrd on Terry Gross fairly recently and he flat-out stated the membership was a mistake that he regretted, that it was an outgrowth of his upbringing, that he saw the light and renounced the membership and regrets it every day. He also apologized.

Fair enough, but my other question still stands, why are "youthful indescretions" accepted for one and not the other?

I think it's a very fair point - I suppose the deciding factor is what has each done since the "youthful indiscretion"? Lott recently called the nation's failure to approve the segregationist policies of Strom Thurmond a mistake.

Yeah, I should have written, "(Lott) recently endorsed Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential platform". And when he did, it was bloggers who picked up on it, not the media.

All I'm saying is that the press is perfectly willing to fall down on the job when covering either side.

Andy, I slept too much this weekend and got up real early this morning. (The Pacific Northwest rains have set in. Never fails to make me sleepy.) But, you are the one sounding groggy. Surely, you did not mean that Trent Lott made his remarks in the '40s? I could have sworn the famous faux paus occurred in 2002. It was what brought me into the blogosphere, since I had plenty of material about the neo-Confederate movement in my files.

And, since you are repeating every false claim about Byrd made at far Right sites, I will join Eric in defending him. Byrd has expressed regret for his brief membership in the Klan for years. He did not support the Dixiecrats. He chose not to flee the Democrats for the Republicans as part of the Southern Strategy, unlike most of his Southern peers. Byrd is a man who made a mistake and repudiated it. Lott is a man who has yet to realize he is mistaken and is still treading the path of segregationism.

Youthful indiscretion? Trent Lott is, and has been, the poster boy for the increasingly extremist Sons of Confederate Veterans for years. He is featured in their recruitment video. Other segregationist groups, including the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens have used his influence (and John Ashworth's) to their advantage. You could not have chosen someone more representative of the neo-Confederate influence on American politics if you had tried.

If you read all my comments on this thread diva, you'll see that I did call him white trash.

My point is, that democrats can get away with the same stuff that republicans get attacked for. Robert Byrd using the "n" word regardless of whether he put white in front of it was wrong, but no one attacked him. I guess it's ok for a crazy old white boy to use that word, as long as it's in context. I heard Byrd say that on Fox Sunday, so it's not something I'm picking up from a web site.

I've been gob-smacked a couple of times this week, first this article by Eric, then by Ed Koch on The Daily Show, then on The National on CBC last night with a piece on voters in Las Vegas voting for terror. Remember terror is a state of mind, it is not a country or organization.

So, why is it that otherwise seemingly sane people who bear the brunt of mis-management and shenanigans, as soon as you say the trigger word, "war on terra" start saying: George W. Bush is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

I must say I'm very, very disappointed with you if you vote for Bush out of fear. Here's a white feather, wear it with shame.

Jim, I appreciate your concern and am flattered to have so disappointed you. But I don't see it as voting for fear at all, quite the opposite, I see it as voting for a pro-active approach to the very real problem of terror and the world that generates it. I am voting offensively (pun intended)

I see it as voting for a pro-active approach to the very real problem of terror and the world that generates it

The problem with that statement is it needs to be backed up with facts and results. There's a joke here in Canada,

Q: how do you make a small fortune?
A: inherit a large fortune.

that's not how you change 8.2 into 2.2...you swap it straight up, american for canadian dollars!!!

oh yeah...then pay canadian income taxes on it!!!

Normally, Andy, I'd just attribute your comments to the effects of environmental pollution, lead-based paint and being a crack-baby. However, in this case, those were US dollars, laundered through off-shore family trust loop-holes.

And I don't necessarily see taxes as punitive, I instead look at them like a mortgage, sure, I don't like paying, but I get a livable home.

Of course, if you prefer to live in cardboard box and panhandle, that's your choice. Certainly given the number of bums I see with cardboard signs attesting to their status as "veterans", I guess we just have to call it a "lifestyle choice".

Any hunter could have told Bush that to be pro-active about terrorism, you don't paint a target on your chest and head into the jungle.

Using American sooldiers as decoys to bring in the terrorists strikes me as the nadir of cynicism.

Do you think the "visionary president" may have misinterpreted one of his visions?

This brings to mind a visionary leader, a simple person, without culture or much education who rallied the people, united a nation against a reign of terror to become a symbol for the nation.

Jeanne d'Arc, burned at the stake by the English for witchcraft. And the English held onto a significant portion of France, and over several hundred years of war, managed to triumph, while France sank into corrupt decline, even backing those losers in the New World.

A crack baby! I love it!

Is the real war on this thread? I've been missing out.

See, nobody loves me! I want to play & everyone runs off to play without me. All this KKK, Robert Byrd, crack babies & stuff. I live for this stuff. I don't have any friends on the internets.

You said it Andy, when you called me Charlie Brown. That's me on the mound with a rain cloud pouring over my head, or getting the football pulled away from me.

If I'm Charlie Brown, Mac Diva is Lucy. Thanks for moving the ball!

"Byrd was a member of the Klan in his youth, not an official."

I find this astonishing. A Black Nationalist is DEFENDING a Klan member. Why? Because he's a Democrat.

Sad...

George Wallace saw the errors of his ways in the end. Malcom X say what he was preaching was wrong too. Why is it that if one sees the error in judgement they made it's too late depending on who is judging you back. Yes Robert Byrd sucks Donkey parts for what he did. But he's making up for it the best he can. Its better than the Bush family Nazi connections before/during WWII & the continuing legacy of GWB!

Peter Jennings said it best when it was a defeat for the Bush Administration when Gitmo prisoners received constitutional rights to defend themselves. A defeat if some one has rights! Fuckin' pigs!

9/11 is Bush's, buddy!

The only reason Peter Jennings is on ABC is because ABC wants to make sure they don't violate those Canadian rules about a certain percentage of programming being Canadian in nature!!!

Andy, did your mother make you an idiot?

If I supply her with the wool, can she make me one too? Just wondering, because that consistent level of ignorance and self-incrimination can't be all natural.

For the record, Jennings became a USA citizen several years ago. He just couldn't make in Canada, what a loser.

I'm going to Mexico to become a news anchor

LOL...I love this place!!!

I'll ask Jim, but I think she may still be making my brothers..


Can you speak Mexican Eric?

See...that's proof the right is not trying to keep the liberals out...they let Jennings in!!!

I can read the copy off el telepromtero

"Momma's don't let yer babies grow up to be cowboys...."