The cover to Sports Illustrated at the beginning of the baseball season:

Sports Illustrated was being cute. What I imagine happened was that he editors of Sports Illustrated had a board meeting where they tossed together a list of the teams with an above .600 record from the previous season, and decided on the team that that would grab the largest circulation and attention.

Thus, the Cubs Win World Series. (Against Miami???) After all, they were five outs away from the World Series last season, when that outfielder chased the ball into the stands where the Cubs fan grabbed the ball away from the Cubs player. (Which was the beginning of 15 Minutes of Fame and Hell that the Cubs fan wishes he didn’t have to endure.)

But the fact that they were five outs away is kind of the point. The Cubs had a reasonably strong season, and were playing for a playoff spot until the final days of the season. But they still suffer from the Curse of the Goat… and, for good measure, they suffered from the Sports Illustrated Cover Curse too. (A Curse that’s easily explained by comparing teams that make the cover of Sports Illustrated with stocks that rise and fall in Stock Market Bubbles.)

Today I notice in the blogosphere the election day predicting parlor game is kicking into gear. How many electoral votes to each candidate, the makeup of the new House, the makeup of the new Senate, the most surprising state to go to one or the other candidate… things like that. I’m thinking that I will put something in the backburner, and not leave it in the backroom until after the election. I don’t want to jinx anything should I predict things that I want to happen, and I don’t want to look like I’m rooting for something should I predict things that I don’t want to happen.

But above all, to anyone who wants to go predicting these things: Don’t try to be cute like Sports Illustrated.

Or do. I don’t care.

It’s a bit too easy to focus on Bush at the Debate– what with “Anybody But Bush” sentiment sweeping the nation and all that. So what struck me about Kerry? Well, it looks to me like my post “Drew Bledsoe” is pretty well moot.

Bob Shrum lives!

I could dig into the transcript of the debate and focus attention on the particular moments where I thought “Bob Shrum”. It’s not so much actual content, as I think the actual themes worked on by … say… a Paul Begala is probably fairly similar to Bob Shrum’s palette. But it’s this sort of sensibility, with a weird sort of vaccuousness to it.

It stood out like a sore thumb in a clip I heard at a rally with John Edwards after the vice-presidential debate. “Did I fight enough for you?”

Because… you know… all of Bob Shrum’s clients are Fighting for YOU!, or fighting for (name of state)’s Farmers (or name of blue collar profession that is indigenous to district or state.)

The George Will comment that Al Gore would have won the election had he not sighed during the debate, but Al Gore was incapable of not sighing bounces to the top of my mind.

Somewhere in the middle of yesterday’s debate, I murmured “There it is again.” Bush was becoming irritable, and the visual flubberations were returning.

To paraphrase former Texas Governor Ann Richards on his father “Poor George, he can’t help himself. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

And now it occurs to me: the Law of Diminishing Returns has taken hold. Divorced from all context and without considering the actual content of what anyone said, last night’s debate was a draw.

But to use sports metaphors: this is the continuation of a game, not a whole new game. If Kerry beat Bush by a whopping 10 runs to 0 in Debate 1, if you desire to give Debate 2 to Bush by a run, in the playoff mode we’d have the Deciding Debate 3. (Where we toss the vice presidential debate in, I don’t know. That totally throws off the “Best of Odd Number”, doesn’t it?)

The first debate hangs over everything — the debate held before the baseball playoffs started, the debate watched by the greatest number of viewers, the debate that provided a sort of “first impression”. Everything from here on out is seen through the prism of the first debate.

And Al Gore sighed in the first debate.

Likewise, it has been theorized around the place that… Cheney made Bush look bad, and even if he had managed to perform a bit better (say if Cheney hadn’t just mailed in the domestic side of his debate), he would not have made Edwards look bad. Throw a Martian observer in to examine the debates, and the Martian would conclude that Kerry is the presidential nominee, Edwards is the vice-presidential nominee; and Cheney is the president, and Bush is the vice-president.

(Regarding the rumours of Bush having a feed into him, a story that has reached the NY Times and whose photograph is apparently not photoshopped together — I’ll demur to the Reason blog and post this Reagan-era SNL sketch transcript.)

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Alternately, how much wood could a woodchuck chunk if a woodchuck could chunk wood?

And how much wood could a woodchunk chuck if a woodchunk could chuck wood?

How much wood could a woodchunk chunk if a woodchunk could chunk wood?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

One in the Bush is worth two in the barrel.

That was… bizarre.

I wish that Kerry was the Democratic nominee in 2000… just so that I could see how Nader’s speech before the Tomb would’ve played four years ago when he had enough relevancy so that the speech would’ve been covered, and someone out there would’ve dissected it a bit.

Though then it probably would’ve been tossed into the “whacky feature” bit.

As it is, we have to content ourselves to the small pebble that it throws into the blog O sphere.

As it is, the people who are most annoyed are not Kerry and Bush or any of the people in government and industry who used the Old Boys’ Network Skull and Bones connections to get ahead, but the actual current roster of Skull and Bones — the students living in the Tomb — who are sitting there, while right outside their house, Nader is yelling and raving.

I’ve probably disappointed any number of web-surfers, looking up “Skull and Bones” and getting just another Democrat-leaning blog. I apologize to all those web-surfers.

Trina Robbins was on Coast to Coast (the Art Bell replacement — the ever underwhelming George Noory) the other night, going over her research into Skull and Bones and her new book on Sororities. Went undercover for that book, apparently, and passed herself off as eight years younger than she was. That, along with various interviews, lead her to conclude that some sterotypes are true, and even that there is a certain amount of truth in the Porn-version of events.

Fluff for the course, I’d have to say. Skull and Bones is creepier, as those things go.

Yesterday the Dalfouer Report came out. Chemical Weapons Programs abondoned in 1995. Biological Weapons abondoned in 1996. Nuclear program rapidly deteroiting, not advancing, and was crap anyways. AND… somewhat ignored, had no interest in giving wmd to anybody but himself, and wanted to feign their existence for the decade as a defense against Iran and Israel.

Theoretically, I guess, this means that the US would have ended up back buttressing the Saddam Hussein regime back up, in the same way that we buttress up Pakistan’s government, to keep those weapons of mass destruction away from terrorists. (But, no, my imagaination is getting away from me.)

It did go into some details of the “Oil for Food Scandal”, which Fox News will continue to beat on and on about.

Whatever to the two above paragraphs.

Bush has released a new ad showing various quotes from Kerry… the “flip flop” charge. ‘Tis an effective advertisement, though I scoff at the “vote for before I voted against” charge. But I have to laugh at the inclusion of “We might still find weapons of mass destruction.”

I scoff at that because it’s better he said that then than if he had said it NOW

Geniuses them all.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said: “We didn’t have to find plans or weapons to see what happened when Saddam Hussein used chemical and biological weapons on his own people. So just because we can’t find them and Saddam Hussein had 12 years to hide them doesn’t mean he didn’t have them and didn’t use them.”

“There was a risk — a real risk — that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks,” Bush said. “In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take.”

I saw this, and I saw it again on various websites:

Because Mr. Bush chose to act, we know what capabilities Iraq did — and did not — possess, and we’ve learned how difficult it is to occupy and attempt to reconstruct that country.

We needed to go into Iraq, so that we could learn how difficult it is to occupy a foreign nation. Put it in the Bush stump speech, please!

When I find a transcript of the impomptu debate between Senators Durbin and Steven on the Senate floor, I’ll post it here. The best I can get there is an audio clip from NPR found here. In the meantime…

the debate is coming up. A few stray comments I’ve seen around:

Yeah Bush is a masterdebater all right. I just wish he’d confine himself to masterdebating in private, instead of fucking with everybody else.

Debate tomorrow night will be cancelled due to unconfirmed rumours of activities related to rumour mongering. You heard it here first.

Not only do I not know how things are playing over in the proverbial Peyoria, I don’t know where and what that proverbial Peyoria is at the moment.

In the past couple of days, we’ve been witness to three moments of RNC clean-up duty, as the Republican Party detects a distinct shift in momentum away from them. The House Republicans saw the need to hold off on what was quickly becoming the sleeper issue of the election season, the mother of all water-cooler issues. It must have been a disappointment for them that gay marriage or flag burning was taking a back-seat to… THE DRAFT.

The Giant White Elephant in the room that everybody was ignoring comes into full view, everybody glances at it, and then goes back to ignoring it.

Alan Keyes has come out for compulsory service. He’s about the only one. Sometimes there’s an advantage to being fifty-points behind in your race!

The question plagues everybody’s mind, though: over-stretched military… stop-gaps… recruitment shortfall… “muscular military policy”… something has to give. What and where?

Jump over to the veep debate. I don’t know how this figures into the great picture. The punditry and spinsters dig in for the couple of sound bytes that demonstrate who… won… the vice-presidential debate. Immediately, the RNC trumps two moments as being the markers of Cheney’s greatness… the moments of “Bool-YAH!”. “If Kerry is unable to stand up to Howard Dean…” and “Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of the Senate, the presiding officer. I’m up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they’re in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.”

Kieth Olberman, the next best thing to Jon Stewart, does a “blow by blow” bit, and calls it a narrow Cheney victory… provided the comment about never meeting Edwards is true.

Which makes the great “BOL-YAH!” moment a great dud.

The rest of Cheney’s statement, as if it matters, is untrue. As it relates to a later question, a stupid ass question, Cheney has no interest in “uniting” anybody, and hob-nobs with basically the Republicans… and toss in Zell Miller while you’re at it.

The essential truth of Cheney’s statement is if not true, at least essentially true. (Wheels within wheels.) Edwards’s suit looks empty to me. This spurs the thought: Good thing he’s not the presidential candidate. Who’s their guy on that front?

We also learn from the debate that there’s a Spam-parker who’s a huge fan of George Soros. Cheney accidentally flubs the name of “factcheck.org” and says “factcheck.com”, the URL parker immediately redirects his page to George Soros. (For its part, factcheck.org weighs in on Dick Cheney’s comments, calling Cheney a liar. This is comedy gold.)

MSNBC’s debate panel announces that Cheney clobbered Edwards. Somewhat ridiculous, but the reasoning makes sense: it was impossible to call the presidential debate for Bush, and you can’t appear to be favouring anybody… thus one sideclobbers the other in one, the other does so in the next.

Today, Bush announces a major policy speech, insisting that the cable news networks are obliged to cover it. It’s a fifty-minute campaign stump speech, replete with the loyalty-oath signed audience and blistering attacks on John Kerry.

Debate prep, of sorts. And largely Debate clean-up. It’s easier to clock your opponent when he’s not there… and he needs to do something.

Thus… 50 minutes on Fox News and MSBC. CNN, evidentally, cut it off after a few minutes.

The positive here, of course, is that the ratings for the cable networks are crap anyways, and the lack of “major policy” sucks the sound-clips somewhere after the story of the Duelfer Report — which said exactly what we knew when this explains the situation well enough.

I come back to the question: “What does it all mean?” As far as I can tell, it means that Bush better get his schtuff together for Friday’s debate, or it’s all over. As far as I can tell, Cheney looks “presidential” (albeit an evil type of presidential) and Bush doesn’t. Perhaps Edwards looks “vice-presidential”? I don’t know.

And the Republican Party are scared spitless of the Draft issue.

(Other news: Republicans are threatening to sue because Michael Moore for giving away free underwear, and the perfect storm that might take out Tom DeLay continues to gather… we’ll see.)

I probably should have written this down somewhere so I could prove it so, but I predicted two ads coming out of the Patty Murray – George Nethercutt Washington Senate Race.

First Nethercutt would have an ad showing footage from a December 2002 Murray speech where she talks about Al Qaeda’s public works programs — Murray positing on why the Muslim World is enthralled with Osama Bin Laden. Then Murray would have a counter-ad, making sure to include a Veteran, of a “Have you no shame” response.

The ad would pretty much have to come out, since Nethercutt is slated to lose by… oh… 12 points, and needs something to peg his gain traction with.

In case you’re curious, here’s the transcript for the Nethercutt ad:

Announcer: When most Americans think of Osama bin Laden, they think of this. (Image of World Trade Center ruins.) Patty Murray has a different view of Osama bin Laden.

George Nethercutt: I’m George Nethercutt and I approved this message — because winning the war on terror means fighting terrorists — not excusing them.

As this article points out, Patty Murray was largely incorrect in her assessment. Al Qaeda really isn’t that good on the Public Works sector.

If you want a terrorist group that is good with their public works outreach program, you have to turn to Hezbollah. Now they get results!

………..

(Some odd factoids about Murray: In her first Senate bid, the political prognasticator Charles Cook, who looks into all the races and interviews every campaign, dismissed her as a lightweight. She won, of course, off of Clinton’s coattails, keeping the “Mom in Tennis Shows” image. In the annual Congressional Aide surveys, she is consistently neck and neck with Rick Santorum for title of “Dumbest”. That might well be partisan sniping, though… with a bit of a bias against “Moms in Tennis Shoes”.

The book on Nethercutt? Beat the (entrenched) Speaker of the House in 1994, off of a strong Term Limit Pledge. The pledge mysteriously disappeared from his website before the election before the election where he broke that pledge, and became a career politician.

I particularly liked when Cheney told Edwards “You’re no Jack Kennedy”, and when Peter Comejo opened up with “Who am I? Why am I here?”

They both “did” okay, and in the end it doesn’t matter much. Later on I’ll parse the transcript to show how often Edwards mentioned Kerry, and how infrequently Cheney mentioned Bush… these things don’t happen by accident, and allow yourself to figure out what that’s about yourownself. If Dick Cheney seemed to pretty much mail it in for the second half of the debate, the domestic agenda, you can excuse that with the simple factor that Dick Cheney could care less about Domestic issues.

The degree of significance to this debate can be ascertained by its showing on… CSPAN 2. They show dodgeball tournaments on ESPN 2… they show vice-presidential debates on CSPAN 2.

Clicking around, I see that NBC News brought on the blogger behind Wonkette and a contributer to Politicalwire blog. For some reason, I must roll my eyes. The bloggers are all the rage these days. Yes. Guy (or Gal) With A Website. Very profound movement that is, the Blogs.

For the record: to the degree that I can have such strong emotions (maybe this is a weak example of this emotion?) I hate wonkette.com.

Joseph Biden says that Edwards won the debate. Lindsey Graham says that Cheney won the debate. It’s funny how that happens.

I click over to PBS, which is concluding their “Newshour” and will show the debate at 9:00. Here, they show footage from previous vice-presidential debates for a documentary that they’re going to air sometime in the near future concerning the various debates of lore.

I do remember Bob Dole’s explanation for his “Democrat Wars” comment, and it probably comes up once every four years. “It was in the 400 page Debate Prep that the Ford Administration sent me, and I probably should have used better discretion.” Yes indeedy.

What we forget about the Quayle bit is that the panelists — Tom Brokaw and Brit Hume included, kept asked him three times variations of the question “You? YOU?”. Quayle looked pretty muffed in trying to articulate a coherent response. This was also at a time when the audience could react. Quayle insists that he saw the Bentson comment coming, but wasn’t really expecting the crowd to get into as much as it did. (He had his partisans who responded in kind to his response… something along the lines of “You should be ashamed at yourself.” At any rate, Quayle insists it’s a victory of emotionalism over facts (the fact being, he has as much experience as John Kennedy did in 1960.)

1992, and you begin to feel sorry for Stockdale. The thing here is that he might have represented himself a heck of a lot better with today’s format, as it would have given him more time to get something in edge-wise. As it was, Quayle and Gore were allowed to engage in a sort of rapid-fire exchange… which has its merits. (For one thing, there’s better opportunity to respond to other’s charges… today we get one candidate making a comment, and the other having to short-shift a later question to get to a response to that question.) Stockdale ain’t a politician, and was exasperated by the scene of two politicians going off on one another.

I have this feeling of dread at seeing Ferraro’s, then and now… and I don’t quite know why. Similar to seeing Mondale’s face… perhaps it has to do with “lost 49 freaking states.” Evidentally, she won her debate against Bush — winning seeming to be distilled to “getting in the soundbyte that everyone talks about the next day.”

The PBS show apparently couldn’t manage to dredge anything up for 1996 or 2000. As I said earlier: does anyone remember anything at all happening at those shows?

Oh. You were wanting a look at the content of the debate? (Well… the terrorists in El Salvador were our guys, but… beyond that. Hm.)