You know, things aren’t going that poorly. I was listening to Dennis and Callahan on WEEI this morning on my way into work; unsurprisingly, they did an hour or so on the gay marriage issues. Dennis was sympathetic, by which I mean he told Callahan that he was a closed-minded idiot for yelling at pro-gay marriage callers, and by which I mean that he said he thought the term “marriage” was important and would strengthen gay couples. ...
Kevin Drum does a nice job of shedding light on the AWOL issue. He has a document which shows Bush reporting for duty, presumably in Alabama, on October 29th, 1972. That covers Bush’s comments on Meet The Press last Sunday. He also has a document which shows no Texas service after May of 1972, which also matches. One begins to wonder why Bush hasn’t released his military records, considering this. Drum speculates that Bush was put on paper duty as a punishment; that would match with Bush’s refusal to take a physical. There’s going to be some mystery around this until and unless the records are released. Still, he’s clear on the AWOL/deserter issue and it would behoove us to acknowledge that lest we appear shrill and partisan.
Kerry has a 23 point lead in Virginia polls and a 24 point lead in Tennessee polls. Edwards needed to win those states, and it’s looking very unlikely. Kerry also has a fairly commanding lead in the latest polls out of Wisconsin. There’s still a chance someone could turn it around there, but it’s unlikely.
President Bush says, regarding his National Guard service in Alabama: There may be no evidence, but I did report; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been honorably discharged. In other words, you don’t just say “I did something” without there being verification. Military doesn’t work that way. I got an honorable discharge, and I did show up in Alabama. This really simplifies the question. It’s not about the honorable discharge, or whether or not it was OK to miss some service as long as you got the OK from your CO, or any of that. It’s about whether or not he showed up in Alabama. This isn’t a matter of missing documentation, either; it’s about documents which show no service in Alabama in 1972.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court just ruled (original) that civil unions won’t satisfy the constitutional requirement to permit gay marriage. This guarantees that a Massachusetts constitutional amendment will wind up on the state ballot in 2006. Despite all the whining about judicial activism, this is the only way Massachusetts voters were going to get to vote on the issue — the Massachusetts legislature wasn’t going to go out of their way to put a constitutional amendment allowing gay marriage on the ballot. Seems to me that a) the judges acted correctly, fulfilling their obligation to rule on Constitutional questions and b) their actions have made it possible for the matter to be considered by the voters. Ironic.
According to Sistani’s office, there was no assassination attempt. That’s a distinct relief.
Look! Consequences. Consider this as, perhaps, retribution for the suicide bombings up in Kurdish territory.
So, how’d I do on predictions? Arizona I said it’d go Kerry, Clark, Dean in that order. It did. Missouri I said Kerry, Edwards, Dean. Yep. Oklahoma I said it’d go Clark, Edwards, and Kerry in a tight race. (Polls had Kerry ahead of Edwards for second.) Yep again. South Carolina Edwards won it pulling away, as per prediction. Delaware I said Lieberman would come in second to Kerry and then quit; I was right but only by a couple of hundred votes. Edwards nearly beat him. Lieberman did quit. ...
Welcome to your handy guide (biased and slanted) to today’s primaries. We have seven primaries today, which will greatly affect the chances of three and a half candidates. (If Kucinich, Lieberman, or Sharpton win any of the primaries, that will have an effect as well, but I’m dubious about their chances. Which is a shame, at least in one case.) Dean’s strategy is to spend all his money on Michigan and Washington in an effort to win both of those states. Winning Michigan would put him solidly back in the race. However, he’s not expecting to win anything today. ...
Just as a reminder: Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? ...