Quick follow-up on how independent voters reacted to Bush last night: Gallup says independent voters preferred Kerry (original) by a margin of 53% to 37%. Hear me now and believe me later! Bush is going to spend the next month firing up his base and relying on voter turnout to win this election. But Kerry still has a better get out the vote operation.
An interesting observation about the Duelfer Report: it lists a bunch of people from France, Germany, and Russia who profited illegally from the food-for-oil program. However, the Houston Chronicle notes that (original) “No U.S. companies or individuals were named, but that does not mean they were not involved. A CIA spokesperson cited U.S. privacy laws to explain why no U.S. companies or individuals were listed.” Well, shucks. I suppose that’s fair, as long as all we bloggers remember that the corruption wasn’t limited to Europe. ...
I’ve heard already twice, listening to the post-debate spin, that Republicans were relieved by Bush’s performance during this debate. That’s telling. It’s not the Republicans Bush needed to relieve; he needed to relieve the undecided voters. I think Bush did a great job of making his base happy, but he simply can’t win unless he can get the same moderate voters who liked compassionate conservatism four yeas ago.
For Matthew (original): Kerry 52%, Bush 48%, Nader 0%. Electoral College: 300 Kerry, 237 Bush.
If you’re curious about Going Upriver, the documentary about Kerry’s time in Vietnam and his protests afterwards, you can now download it for free. Figure at the least you’ll get more footage of his testimony to Congress than either party will show you in soundbites.
Judicial Watch is now identifying itself as a “ conservative public interest group (original).” This is a change from their previous branding as a “ nonpartisan public interest group.” This change comes as they call on Republican Tom DeLay to step down. I don’t know if they’ve decided to generally admit that they’re conservative and partisan (which is not a dirty word), or if they just think they’ll have more weight in this instance because they’re calling on someone who’s theoretically a fellow traveller to step down. Either way, good for them.
There’s a backstory, but it’s too late in the evening for me to write it up. This is for Jeff.
Last night during the debate, Cheney suggested that you could find out the truth about his connection with Halliburton by visiting factcheck.com (original). At the time, factcheck.com was a spam site with ads for various and sundry scams; Cheney meant factcheck.org. Sometime in the last 12 hours, the owner of factcheck.com redirected all traffic to that site over to georgesoros.com. That’s pretty impressive reaction time; either the owner is partisan or Soros got to him and offered him enough money to make the swapover really quickly. It’s also very Internet-savvy. ...
So here’s the campaign. This is Mike’s fault. It’s a little known fact, but once you’ve been President of the United States, you don’t get to die. You live on in eternal unlife after your death; sure, you leave a corpse, because everyone likes funerals, but your Ka goes on. Yes, Ka. Just like in Egypt. Look at the dollar bill; you think the pyramid isn’t there for a reason? You are bound to the country. You can speak to the current President, but each sentence you speak takes a year of his life. That’s the real reason why Presidents age in office. Once a President leaves office you lose your connection to them, but you’ll be there to welcome them to the afterlife, oh yes. It’s the only excuse you have for a party. ...
The Barry Hughart pages (original) are small yet worthy of study; for those who don’t wish to study, well, the original draft of Bridge of Birds is here (original). There, that was easy. (Via Kip.)