Dick Morris’s punditry always stikes me as… off.

He’s picked up on this meme.

The implications of his opinions are startling:

So… No terror attack means that Osama wants Kerry to be the president. Odd, since Bush partisans are always quick to say “We haven’t had a terror attack, so re-elect Bush!”

But, and we all know where I’m going, follow me here:

So, the key issue is whether America is at war or at peace. And Osama bin Laden has more to say about that than any other person. If he ratchets up the terror threat to the United States and has us looking over our shoulders and thinking twice before we fly, we will feel at war and will back Bush. But if he lets up and backs off for the election, we will revert back to our peacetime posture and likely elect the Democrat.

Replace the name Osama with Bush.

And George Bush has more to say about that than any other person. If he ratchets up the terror threat* to the United States and has us looking over our shoulders and thinking twice before we fly, we will feel at war and will back Bush.

* Up to “Orange Alert”, you see… and release 4 year old information if you must, you see…

Still, Dick Morris does suggest that Osama might “want” Bush… “Hardliner” against “Hardliner”. He can rationalize the “Spain Situation” (“Appeasement”, he and the NY Post readers believe) as part of the Grand Osama Strategy.

Still, if there were a Terrorist Attack a week or two after the election of John Kerry — the Dick Morrises — or more potently the Dick Morris readers of the world– would have their heads explode, the idea being that Osama wants Kerry, and post-poned their attack to mock us.

And the Election Deserves to go the other way, you see, because we must be strong… as so Kerry Must Be Strong.

It gets a little absurder all the time. I tend to think that one Infidel Crusading Zionist, from the vantage point of Bin Laden, is as bad as another Infidel Crusading Zionist — but we have notes saying that Al Qaeda prefers Bush and we have notes saying … well, I think we have notes saying they prefer Kerry…

Though those notes are lessons in reverse-psychology.

Unless they’re lessons in double-reverse psychology.

Alan Keyes comes out swinging , advocating abolishing the 17th Amendment which took the election of Senators away from State Governments and gave it to the popular vote.

“The balance is utterly destroyed when the senators are directly elected because the state government as such no longer plays any role in the deliberations at the federal level.”

Unfortunately, when Alan Keyes serves this first term in office, he probably won’t have many Senators lining up to attach their names to this Constitutional Amendment. Zell Miller is retiring, after all.

Barack Obama issued a statement:

I certainly trust the people of Illinois to choose who they want to represent them in the U.S. Senate. That is the very basis of our democracy.

But that’s just pandering…

(Of some interest is this biographical jottings for the four black Senators in US History… a list Obama will join next January.)

Like it or not, he does make for an interesting election year story. Having his name indexed in my blogoroll, the split is pretty even between Republicans who think he’s the bee’s knees and Democrats who think he’s slime.

If you want to catch him discussing politics, well… there’s about a 1 in 3 chance that Zell Miller is on today’s Sean Hannity’s show (either his tv show or his radio show).

He helped make Bill Clinton. He moved the Georgia primary up before the 1992 primary battles, seemingly for the sole purpose of helping Clinton get some momentum for the Super Tuesday states. I guess his paltry reward was the keynote speech at the DNC Convention … Which, we’ll get to compare with his 2004 RNC Convention speech. (Not sure when Kid Rock performs.)

I guess I should read his book to see if I can gain any sympathetic understanding of his political path from moderate Democrat to Conservative Democrat to Right-Wing Zealot. Considering my puzzlement over some of his statements: (while this one has some vague logic to it this one just makes no sense at all.

… This blogger points out some Zell Miller self-aware symbolism: his Senate website has a photograph of Miller next to two yellow dogs. Twice the potency, I suppose.

It’s up to Cooter from Dukes of Hazard to sort out Zell Miller…

Forget everything, though.

In case you’re looking for a reason to vote for Kerry, and not simply against Bush, here it is:

“What people need to understand is that this is just a moment in time. This is just one election,” Miller said. “And after the Kerry defeat, I’m going to be around to put this party back together again.”

Forget the “Republican Lite” that Dean gained traction campaigning against, I’m not terribly interested in seeing Zell Miller create the party into his own image — Republican Heavy, if you will…

Sure, Sure, Sure. Everyone knows that Dick Cheney said this: America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive. Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed. AND President Lincoln and Gen. Grant did not wage sensitive wars. Nor did President Roosevelt or Gens. Eisenhower and MacArthur. […] A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans. … The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity.

WOO-HOP, everyone. WOO-HOP!!

In response to John Kerry saying this: I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history.

Just before Cheney took the stage, with wife gazing at him lovingly, and followed by wife saying “I just kind of shook my head when I heard that. With all due respect to the senator, it just sounded so foolish. I can’t imagine that al-Qaida is going to be impressed by sensitivity.”

— as everyone knows, George Bush said shortly after John Kerry spoke of sensitivity,… well…

Jon Stewart is my hero.

Actually I haven’t had a chance to see if that’s the clip I want, but nevermind… as we all know, Bush said thiseth:

Now in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is – we need to be very sensitive on that.

And Cheney said this.

But that’s too easy.

How about typing “sensitive” and “sensitivity” into the search engine at whitehouse.gov and seeing how many times Bush Administration used the words in matters of warriordom? Here’s a start, or maybe a finish.

In honour of the minor controversy about John Kerry’s whereabouts on a Christmas Day near, in, or at Combodia (go to right wing radio, or Free Republic, or such sources for more information of some sort)… here’s The Dead Kennedys:

So you been to school for a year or two
And you know you’ve seen it all
In daddy’s car thinkin’ you’ll go far
Back east your type don’t crawl
Play ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin that you know how the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul

It’s time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear

It’s a holiday in Cambodia
It’s tough kid, but it’s life
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Don’t forget to pack a wife

Your a star-belly sneech you suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch so you can get rich
But your boss gets richer on you
Well you’ll work harder with a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers til you starve
Then your head skewered on a stake
Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need my son:

Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people dress in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll kiss ass or crack

Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot [etc.]

And it’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll do what you’re told
A holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul

I Fought the Law (and I Won)
Drinkin’ beer in the hot sun
I fought the law and I won

I needed sex and I got mine
I fought the law and I won

The law don’t mean shit if you’ve got the right friends
That’s how the country’s run
Twinkies are the best friend I’ve ever had
I fought the law
And I won

I blew George & Harvey’s brains out with my six-gun
I fought the law and I won

Gonna write my book and make a million
I fought the law and I won

I’m the new folk hero of the Ku Klux Klan
My cop friends think that’s fine
You can get away with murder if you’ve got a badge
I fought the law
And I won
I am the law
So I won

Tommy Franks made him do it. (And I thought it was Rove…)

NOVAK:

The general wanted to declare the fighting over in hopes other countries would send troops to Iraq. You can hardly blame the president for following the advice of his general. Sadly, the Europeans did not send any troops to Iraq, and they won’t unless they get their price.

He declared victory to try to get other countries to send in their troops.

So, Bush did that stunt to fool the French into thinking that the war was over so that they’d send their kids die in our unjustified war?

I’m confused.

Tim Russert spoke before a grand jury on the matter of the Vallerie Plame leak. Matt Cooper of Time Magazine did likewise.

Here’s, in hindsight, a surreal interview Russert had with Bob Novak, begging the time worn question: What is this — some kind of circle jerk?

Never mind though.

Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan’s cover was blown.

Don’t worry about him though, because — you know — we have plenty of moles within the Al Qaeda organization. And I hear that Al Qaeda is an easy organization to infiltrate anyway.

Let’s, um… go ahead and change horses. Even though we’re in mid-stream and all that…

The golden rule of politics is that you always need to run as though you’re five percentage points behind. And, if you’re five percentage points behind, you run as though you’re ten percentage points behind.

That’s the cautionary note that one shoves into the back of one’s mind whenever prognastications of this type come up. Forget for a moment the confusing USA Today (or was it AP) account from a couple weeks ago that said that Bush was ahead in the electoral college — confusing because the polls did not match the reality of the news story…

And go laugh at the accounts of the “Baby Bounce” — the supposedly meager and historically tepid post-conveion bounce in the polls that Kerry barely mustered.

The internals for Bush… are not good. Never mind that he’s below the magical 50% mark in public approval, the amount that history says an incumbant must hurdle over. Never mind that the latest economic news is sour, sour, sour. And never mind that Kerry beats Bush on all but one measure on individual issues — and is gaining parity on that odd one out “security”. The internal that destroys Bush — Bush’s approval rating amongst the undecideds is in the 30s.

Thus, the professional pollsters, ever since Zogby announced that this was Kerry’s election to lose, are coming to the fore with prognastications such as this one.

“He (Bush) really will need a miracle to win, and the last miracle was for Harry S. Truman,” Sabato said in an interview after his speech. Truman pulled his upset presidential victory in 1948.

He said that if Bush hadn’t ordered the U.S. invasion of Iraq last year, he likely would be leading in 45 states and heading toward a landslide victory.

Indeed. Thinking ahead to a post-election post-mortem pin-pointing the precise moment when Bush lost the election, I’m convinced that history will record it as being the moment Bush … stood in front of an air-craft carrier, with a banner saying “Mission Accomplished” behind him. This is an administration that must stick by their story — in fact, even now Bush is basing his presidency on being “Resolute” “Staying the Course”… suddenly, the situation in Iraq becomes an open and shut case for the Bush Administration, and with such high expectations set an with that expectation as the rock-solid narrative truth…

Sabato called Kerry a cross between a funeral director and Lurch, the stiff butler on the old TV comedy “The Addams Family.”

“Only in a year like this could John Kerry be elected. He can’t connect with people. He’s way to the left of the American mainstream,” Sabato said.

God damned it, I want Howard Dean back!!

Sabato said Bush’s best chance to win is to focus on “hot-button social issues” and try to paint Kerry as too liberal on issues such as gay marriage, gun control, abortion and the death penalty.

Sabato said Bush’s father used such “wedge issues” to beat Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. But that was a time of peace and prosperity, Sabato said. “Now you’ve got war and an economy that is rocky.”

That’s part of it, but unless some Gay Marriage Ban Initiatives that are in the ballot in various swing states spur out the right-wing base, this doesn’t appear to be working as of yet. Actually, Bush’s strategy should be pretty clear by now. This is the issue Kerry focused in on his convention — I think if he wanted to get a big but superficial “bounce” out of the convention, he might have focused on something a little less difficult.

The third component of the campaign against John Kerry, reminiscent of the campaign against John McCain, manifests itself with “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”… which may just end up being the most obnoxious of boomerangs thrown from the Bush camp at the Kerry camp. I almost feel sorry for some of these individuals — who can begrudge them for festering a grudge through 30 years at Kerry’s post-war war protests and inability to reconcile that with fighting in Vietnam, thus resulting in a breakdown of viewing reality. If Kerry had come out of Vietnam as hawkish as them, I doubt these individuals would have much problem with Kerry.

What spurred this post? Go to the sidebar, and see my list of states up for grabs. And go to electoral-vote‘s list of states.

Here’s the conventional wisdom, and probably true, way that one oughta watch the Election 2004 Coverage, as we sweep across the nation. “Landsliders” means that if that candidate wins that state, it’s a landslide. “Breakers” means that it’s not necessarily a landslide, but it’s a clear indication that that candidate will win the election relatively handily. And “close winners” means that if things go according to expectation… they’ll win. I took this from the Blogging of the President Blog…:

Kerry Landsliders: Virginia, North Carolina.
Kerry Breaks Bush Back: Ohio
Kerry Close winners: New Hampshire, West Virginia, Tennessee

Bush Landsliders: New Jersey
Bush Breaks Kerry’s Back: Pennsylvannia
Bush Closer Winners: New Hampshire, Deleware

Central Time Zone:

Kerry Landsliders: Arkansas, Louisiana
Kerry Backbreakers: Missouri
Kerry Close Winners: Iowa

Bush Landsliders: Minnesota, Michigan
Bush Backbreakers: Wisconsin, Iowa
Bush Close Winners: Missouri

Mountain Time Zone

Kerry Backbreakers:Colorado
Kerry Close Winners: Nevada

Bush Close winners: New Mexico

Pacific Time Zone

Bush Breaks Kerry’s Back: Washington, Oregon

Pennsylvania and Michigan fall out of Bush’s grasp. Virginia, Colorado, and Arkansas fall into Kerry’s grasp. The fact that you can put Tennessee into the “close Kerry” category suggests a further trend: it wasn’t too long ago when the punditry were saying that the only Southern states the Democrats were respectable with were Arkansas and Louisiana (the last state only because they’re quite good at electing conservative Democrats) — I mean, Gore lost his own homestate, after all!

Now, all an arm-chair political prognasticator can do is try to dream up scenarios that could alter this basic political landscape at a moment’s notice… Use your imagination.

Well, since the good man is running for the Senate in Illinois against Barack Obama, it gives me a good excuse to re-play this moment from the 2000 Republican Presidential nomination fight:

Gary Bauer: Alan, a couple of weeks ago, you criticized my good friend John McCain because he expressed some support of or interest in a controversial music group (Nine Inch Nails). In view of that, I was a little surprised this week to see you fall into a mosh pit while a band called the Machine Rages On, or Rage Against the Machine, played. That band is anti-family. It’s pro-cop killer, and it’s pro-terrorist.

It’s the kind of music that the killers at Columbine High School were immersed in.

Shaw: Question.

Bauer: I don’t know, don’t you think you owe an apology to parents and policemen on that one?

Alan Keyes: Actually I don’t, because I was in no–accusing me of having some complicity in that music would be accusing me of, I don’t know, being responsible for the color of my skin.

When you can’t control things, Gary, you’re not morally responsible for them. And I was not morally responsible for the music that was playing as I stepped out of my rally…. And until you told me this fact, I had no idea what that music was–contrary to our friend John McCain, who expressed the view that [Nine Inch Nails] was his favorite rock group….

To do it in a lighthearted way, rather than having it imposed on you by circumstances of which–over which you have no control is something that I think is totally unacceptable. So I think that I would beg to differ with you. I had nothing to do with that music, disclaim any knowledge of it.

Admittedly, I was willing to fall into the mosh pit, but I’ll tell you something. You know why I did that? Because I think that exemplifies the kind of trust in people that is the heart and soul of the Keyes campaign. It’s about time we got back to the understanding that we trust the people of this country to do what’s decent. And when you trust them, they will in fact hold you up, whether it’s in terms of giving help to you when you’re falling down or caring for their own children.

So I thought that, as an emblem of that trust, it was the right thing to do. And anyway, my daughter thought it was a good idea.

Bauer: Well, daughters are extremely important.

Al, let me read a quote from you. You said that one of the most important things is the dignity of the presidency. In fact, you said that it’s important that those of us that aspire to be president not act like guests on “The Jerry Springer Show,” which is incompatible with the dignity of politics.

Now, I’ll concede from your answer you didn’t know about the music. But nobody made you jump in the mosh pit. Do you think that’s consistent with…

Keyes: Oh, that’s very true.

Bauer: … do you think that’s consistent with the dignity of the presidency?

Keyes: Well, I would leave that to the judgment of the American people. I do know that when I got down, one of the folks who was there with one of the news crews looked at me and he said, “You know, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen dive into a mosh pit and come out with his tie straight.”

And I think that . . . do you know the real test of dignity? The real test of dignity is how you carry it through hard times. I think I learned that from my people. We went through slavery, when we didn’t have the outward signs of what others would call dignity, because we understood that dignity comes from within. And that whatever circumstance you are going through, you can carry that dignity with you, and no one can take it away.

So I think you may have a misunderstanding of dignity. It doesn’t come from what you do in a mosh pit. It comes from what you do as a result of the convictions of your heart. And I’ll leave it to the American people to judge the convictions of my heart.

……………
Gary Bauer did have a point there. What’s a man blasting a fellow candidate for praising the music of Nine Inch Nails (like, we all believe John McCain there) doing in a mosh pit for Rage Against the Machine? He can afford integrity — after all, what with a constituency of 2% of the Republican Party (his general average during the campaign.) [ The answer — in case you’re curious: going after the support of Michael Moore. Literally, that was the reason.]

It’s a sign of integrity – problems that just showed up with his run for Illinois Senate. In 2000, he blasted Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate carpet-bag run as an assault on “Federalism” — now, of course, he’s pretty much doing the same thing — moving from Maryland to Illinois.

Joshua Micah Marshall on Alan Keyes V. Barack Obama:

Keyes is something else to watch on the hustings or in a debate. But calling him a master debater is rather like saying Dolly Parton has a dynamite bod or Lou Ferrigno is toned — or, perhaps mostly aptly, that the Tasmanian Devil from the Bugs Bunny cartoons is quick on his feet. In other words, impressive in his own way, but also a bit cartoonish and rather less than subtle.

If and when these two guys debate what we’re going to hear are rants from Keyes — both spellbinding and inane — about how tort reform is necessary to bring America back into compliance with natural law, how drug reimportation is incompatible with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and how gun control has been outlawed by God.

The irradiated thoughts of Jerome R. Corsi, PhD., co-author of Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.

April 11, 2004: The LIMOUSINE LIBERAL candidate, JOHN KERRY, has a problem — nobody wants to run with him. It’s like even the RATS see him as a ship going down and they know that if they got on, they’d have to jump off in the end. Maybe he can run with a dead Communist guy, like John Lennon:

IMAGINE THERE’S NO KERRY.

04/11/2004
The LIMOUSINE LIBERAL candidate, JOHN KERRY has a plan to deal with the Islamofacists — CAPITUALTE to them because they are ANTI-AMERICAN. He’s done it before: And he’ll do it AGAIN: (Kerry/ Fonda 2004)

03/14/2004 Kerry is a Manchurian Candidate, he wants to capture the White House to promote his anti-American, Communist-leftist agenda. Any victory for the enemies of the USA, will be perceived as a victory for him. Kerry has supported Socialists and Communists since he got back from Vietnam.

03/02/2004 JaneFondaKerry is being heavily funded by Iranians — check out how Gore was funded by the Chinese in 2000. May not come out until after the election but when it comes to JustForKerry the old rule applies in every aspect of his life — “FOLLOW THE MONEY.”

11/05/2002 May the Holey Month of BOMBadan drone beyond Yemen to pursue all violence loving mothers and fathers of this hateful psuedo-religion.

A real wiener. I suspect that this “Vietnam Veterans For Truth” is a Kerry front group. What a better way to come out swinging on a major campaign theme (“Did you know that I was in Vietnam?”) than by setting up an absurd straw-man to destroy. At the same time, they can remind the anti-war Left that he fought against the war in Vietnam without unsettling too many “patriots” — some cultural Southerners in rural Ohio that he needs to make inroads with (notice how his anti-war past was glossed over in all tellings of Kerry’s biography at the DNC Convention), by setting up his Vietnam – era enemies’ gutteral vitrol. (“He’s a Commie! See — here he is standing next to John Lennon!!”)

…………
hee hee hee hee. Via Scoobie Davis.