Cranberry Walnut Scones

I've been baking scones for five years, and this is the combination of ingredients I like the best. This is your basic ur-scone. Preparation instructions are adapted from THE CHEESE BOARD COLLECTIVE WORKS.


PREP TIME UNDER 1 HOUR. MAKES ABOUT 8 SCONES.

2 1/3 cups unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
2/3 cup dried cranberries
2/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup half-and-half
1/2 cup buttermilk

Topping

1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper. Sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder together in a large bowl. Add salt and sugar to the bowl and stir with a wooden spoon. Add butter by cutting it in with a pastry cutter or 2 small knives until they are the size of peas. Using the spoon, mix in the cranberries and walnuts. Make a well in the center and add half-and-half and buttermilk. Mix briefly until ingredients come together, with some flour remaining at the bottom of the bowl. You can also use a stand mixer to achieve the same results.

Gently shape the dough into balls about 2 1/2 inches in diameter and place them on the prepared pan about 2 inches apart.

For the topping, mix sugar and cinnamon together with the loose flour in original bowl. Sprinkle mixture atop scones. Bake in oven on middle rack for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Transfer scones to wire rack to cool.

Presidential mad libs

Our Journey Is Not Done

The voters hand _____ a historic victory but send a message, not a mandate: work with the _____

(TIME, November 6, ____) -- A nation born of a distrust of kings won't easily forgive a President who behaves too much like one. And so every four years, the people give a test: first we hand someone the most powerful job in the world. Then we demand that he not be too proud of himself for having it, too desperate to keep it or too sure that he alone knows what to do with it. And then we sit back and watch, until it's time to decide whether to re-elect him.

In four years _____ learned that it is not enough to be smart or charming or plump with vision. His triumph on Tuesday night, for all the records it broke, was a victory for studied modesty; for a willingness to swallow his pride to preserve his power, embrace his enemies to steal their ideas and march into history as the first two-term _____ since _____, not with great leaps forward but one baby step at a time.

The President in question is Bill Clinton, and the year was 1996. Clinton defeated Dole by 8 percent - "NOT A MANDATE". The year is now 2004. Bush's margin of victory is less than 3 percent. I'm curious to read what TIME will write next week. We already know what Bush thinks. How does less than half of a non-mandate equal a mandate? Easily, when you hold a degree in fuzzy math.

And the day after that

My last thoughts on Tuesday. Well, just stuff collated from daily newspapers. Good stuff.

In The Day the Enlightenment Went Out, Garry Wills calls it William Jennings Bryan's revenge for the Scopes Trial:

This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution.

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz collates a few more post-mortems (of democracy?) in Media Notes. Most of them aren't very insightful. Kurtz summarizes the New York Times editorialas saying that Bush is a uniter in "part of the country". That's like saying a someone is partly male. Either you're a uniter or a divider! Thwe LA Times reports that Democratic strategists and political analysts (quoting oneself, eh?) claimed that the Kerry campaign lacked one thing: "a boldly rendered portrayal of himself and his vision for the country." Well, for one thing, that's two things. And the first is not accurate. Kerry did have a boldly rendered portrayal of himself, as a man dedicated to service and country all his adult life, and committed to making American safer at home and respected in the world. The second part could have used more fleshing out. He needed to be more aggressive about the Bush administration's character flaws. Not personal flaws, though many they may be. But the administration's pathology, its refusal to listen to other voices (be they other countries or others in the administration itself), and connect that with the failures of intelligence. When you believe something ideologically, it's that much harder to consider the evidence impartially. Unfortunately, that's also a flaw of many Americans - "faith-based intelligence" is not an insult to them. Or at least not the same kind of insult. The Chicago Tribune notes that the war and poor economy made people cling even more to Bush. This sidestepping of reason I can understand better - fear is a evolutionary motivator. I just find it ironic that we are rewarding someone for putting us at risk both at home and abroad. What are we, scared yet dependent 16-year-old child brides in polygamous marriages? Such thinking does not become citizens in a democracy, only subjects in an authoritarian regime. I can be patient for regime change. Four years, or even forty - then all the militant fundamentalists whether in America or abroad will be dead. But global warming, nuclear proliferation, and imminent challenges of social justice require attention today.

Harold Meyerson writes in The American Prospect:

"The Democrats' America looks increasingly like a discontinuous ghetto -- the Northeast, the Pacific Coast, the industrial and upper Midwest, minus (it seems) Ohio. These states are home to the interesting, and promising, demographic changes in the U.S. They are the focus of much Latino immigration, and it's to these states that college-educated young professionals tend to move. Unfortunately, though these developments may make blue states bluer but they also make red states redder."

Aside from the terminology ("discontinous ghetto" is an oxymoron, and in fact ghetto better describes the red state folk, the half of America who live within 50 miles of their birthplace), I think Meyerson alludes to an important point. Many educated people are fleeing the red states, which only makes them less cultured and less amenable to change. But blue states are not inherently blue - "blueness" instead is the result of migration, immigration, the interaction, toleration, and education that is a glad consequence of such movement. And that is a climate change I'm proud of.

Some morning after thoughts

Atrios says "Move On-ward":

People tend to take a loss like this as "proof" that their personal pet peeve about the campaign was correct, and too much discussion of it reinforces the tendency to try to keep trying to fight the last campaign. Elections are not deterministic things, and the binary nature of their outcomes tends to obscure the underlying complexity. What matters isn't what was done wrong, but what needs to be done right for the '06 elections.

Josh Marshall calls on the president to be a uniter, not a 51% divider:

It would be up to the president...to show concrete signs of a willingness not to govern in the divisive and factional spirit from which he's governed in the last four years.

And then there's this from his comments today: "We've worked hard and gained many new friends, and the result is now clear -- a record voter turnout and a broad, nationwide victory."

This is the touchstone and the sign. A 'broad, nationwide victory'? He must be kidding. Our system is majority rule. And 51% is a win. But he's claiming a mandate.

"A broad, nationwide victory"?

It would almost be comical if it weren't for the seriousness of what it portends. This election cut the nation in two. A single percentage point over 50% is not broad. A victory that carried no states in the Northeast, close to none in the Industrial midwest is not nationwide, and none on the west coast is not nationwide.

And yet he plans to use this narrow victory as though it were a broad mandate, starting right back with the same strategy that has already come near to tearing this country apart.

Margaret Cho takes the, ahem, larger prespective:

Although it might be said that we can't expect change overnight, there really was a very rapid shift in the way we view politics. We have become unafraid of voicing our opinions, using our power, pooling our resources, and allowing our differences to aid us instead of keeping us apart.

These new ways of looking at ourselves politically redefine what it means to be an American. It takes what used to be a very passive identity and turned us all into revolutionaries. In a short time, we activated activism, something that lay dormant in many of us and had not been awakened until now.

The Bush administration will be sorry they won this battle, for they now look forward to losing the war. Ultimately, a government cannot defeat its people

Dante Chinni, who is not seeing red:

some of the party's social moderates - the last holdouts against Democratic realignment such as Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island and both of Maine's senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins- are not happy with direction from the top. Given the Republicans' present course, one can only wonder how much longer they will stay in their party, or how much longer those seats will stay in the GOP column in the Senate.

And then there is the question of what the cultural issues mean to the nation's well-being. If cultural issues are going to be the hallmark of the next four years, it's probably safe to assume the divisions that were there in 2004 are only going to be deeper in 2008. When it comes to dividing a nation, tax cuts have nothing on values.

A Daily Kos reader reveals the so-called "moral values" for what they are:

This is not about Republicans or Democrats.
This is not about the war.
This is not about the economy.
This is not even about counting the votes.

This is the final step in the 20-year creeping coup by the theocrats

And finally, read Katrina vanden Heuvel's incisive affirmation of America's split personality. She quotes John Dos Passos from his USA Trilogy:

America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul

their hired men sit on the judge's bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the power plants
they have built the electric chair and hired the executioner to throw the switch

all right we are two nations."

America is in many ways composed of words: a few old documents; certain speeches by Presidents and religious leaders; our neon vernacular of lyrics, showtunes, sales pitches. And common words are imbued with sacred meaning in this land. I am proud of the words that give America its shape and color. But the dark forces in our country have taken the sacred - "family", "moral values", even "America" and made those words as slimy and foul as they are.

Jeb + Jeanne = Florida

So I "miscalculated" the election results. But I am right about Kerry and Bush.

THE CONSERVATIVE CASE AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH

Subject: THE CONSERVATIVE CASE: 41 Republican reasons

PLEASE send this message to your Republican and conservative friends. It's an updated version of the Orange County Weekly list of 33 reasons. Alas, the list keeps growing and growing... This is my last election forward. Y'all have been great! - Phil

THE CONSERVATIVE CASE: 41 REPUBLICAN REASONS TO REJECT GEORGE W. BUSH AND VOTE FOR JOHN KERRY:

"To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."

-Theodore Roosevelt, "Lincoln and Free Speech", Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918

1. "George W. Bush is no conservative, and his unprincipled abandonment of conservatism under the pressure of events is no statesmanship. The Republic would be well served by his defeat this November. . . . American conservative politics championed private property, an institution sacred in itself and vital to the well-being of society. It favored limited government, balanced budgets, fiscal prudence and avoidance of foreign entanglements. . . . The policies of this administration self-labeled ‘conservative’ have little to do with the essence of tradition. Rather, they tend to centralize power in the hands of the government under the guise of patriotism. . . . For an American conservative, better one lost election than the continued empowerment of cynical men who abuse conservatism through an exercise of power unrestrained by principle through the compromise of conservative beliefs. . . . George W. Bush is no conservative, no friend of limited, constitutional government—and no friend of freedom."

—William Bryk’s "The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush", New York Press, August 4, 2004

2. "The American people are not going to absorb this kind of chaos for several years. I know this country; I know myself. If I’m seeing 10 bodies a weekend over the last weekend in October, that’s going to influence my vote."

—Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, in early April

3. "The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, served notice that a cruel and relentless set of enemies desires to do damage to the United States. It should also be noted that they represented a massive failure by the government agencies sworn to protect us and a defeat (one may hope only temporary) for the free American way of life. Since those attacks, no government agency leader has been fired. Failure was rewarded with larger budgets. And instead of undertaking a pinpoint yet relentless counterattack on those who actually planned the attack, the government has frittered away resources and credibility in a war against a country that was not involved in the attack. That war bids fair to continue for years, diverting precious attention and resources from the stateless terrorists who may well be planning the next attack even now. Those are sobering thoughts, but three years on Americans should be ready—must be ready—for a dose of realism. Realism is essential in the task of remaking intelligence gathering, its leadership and its execution, essential to understanding the uneasyrelationship between liberty and security and the public policies that mediate the two. It was not an abstraction called ‘terrorism’ that attacked America but a specific group of terrorists. Instead of engaging in a vague crusade to reshape the world, why not renew America’s resolve to inflict damage on those who inflicted damage on us?

—From the lead editorial in The Orange County Register, September 10

4. "I’m dismayed that the campaign turned out, when he was running for president, turned out so different from the policies. And as a politician, your credibility is everything. And to run as a compassionate person—and someone who said in the
debate to the question—"How will you conduct your foreign policy?"—and he answered as a candidate, "It’s important to be humble, and if we are arrogant, countries will resent us." And then be the absolute opposite. I don’t think anybody would argue that there is an air of arrogance about this, about our foreign policy, it’s very deliberate. And so that’s my criticism: that if you are going to run, tell the people exactly how you are going to govern and don’t do something differently."

—Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-Rhode Island), Providence Phoenix interview, July 26, 2003. Chafee recently said he probably won’t vote for Bush

5. "The philosophical collapse of the GOP came with the 2000 campaign of George W. Bush, who ran without calling for a single spending cut, much less the elimination of programs, agencies, or departments. Worse, neoconservatives moved to fill the philosophical vacuum created by the supply-siders. The neocons openly support big government and consider FDR to have been a great president. They are the intellectuals who came up with the ‘faith-based initiative’ and like to frame the political debate as one between people who want religion in the political square and the secularists who don’t. The neocons are the ones who pushed Bush to call for greater federal government involvement in K-12 education than any president in American history. And now the neocons are calling for American Empire. We have, indeed, come a long way from Reagan and Goldwater."

—Edward H. Crane, Cato Institute President, "The Rise and Fall of the GOP", December 2003 Cato Policy Report

6. Reagan family spokeswoman Joanne Drake said Tuesday that permission is needed for anyone to use Reagan's likeness in an ad because doing so implies that he endorsed one candidate over another. "No one has requested the permission to use his image in an ad, nor would we feel it appropriate to give such permission at this juncture," Drake said. "We protect his image very carefully, particularly as it relates
to politics."

—"Reagan's Family Criticizes Use of Reagan in Anti-Kerry Ad", Associated Press, June 15

7. "Reagan was a religious man and a social conservative, but he never tried to get the federal government into the business of funding religion, as Bush has done with his steady push for ‘faith-based initiatives.’ Reagan’s opposition to California’s
anti-gay Briggs Initiative in 1978 stands in stark contrast to the homophobia of the Bush campaign. . . . [Reagan’s] eloquence on behalf of limited government and his success in slowing the growth of government are sorely missed today. I met Ronald Reagan. I campaigned for Ronald Reagan. I was inspired by Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush is no Ronald Reagan."

—David Boaz, executive vice-president of the Cato Institute, in "Reagan’s Heir," an editorial in the August 2004 Cato Policy Report

8. "George W. Bush is not only not a good Republican, but he hasn’t been a good president. President Ronald Reagan said, "Trust but verify." President George W. Bush started a war based on, at best, a one-sided reading of badly flawed intelligence. Doesn’t the president owe it to the American people to check his facts before starting a war?"

—From RepublicansforKerry.org

9. "This is the Republican Party that has embraced as its own every liberal initiative, from Lyndon Johnson’s Medicare to Jimmy Carter’s Department of Education to Bill Clinton’s AmeriCorps. This is the Republican Party preparing to enact a Medicare drug benefit that would represent the largest expansion of the welfare state in 40 years. This is the Republican Party that is increasing federal education spending as if doing so had something to do with the quality of local schools. This is the Republican Party that is increasing spending faster than during the Clinton years. . . . [D]espite occasional exceptions, the Bush administration, backed by the Republican-controlled Congress, has been promoting larger government at almost every turn."

—Doug Bandow, syndicated columnist and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, in "The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush" in the Dec. 1, 2003, The American Conservative

10. "The answer, alas, is that this president has decided [same-sex marriages] will help him politically to tear us apart. His base is restless over spending and Iraq, and this is a means to placate and energize them. If that means turning a tiny minority into a lethal threat to civilization, so be it. If that minority’s sole crime is to seek to live up to the same responsibilities as everyone else, to uphold the family, to support responsibility, then that also is beside the point. In this battle, the president has shown his true colors. He is a divider, not a uniter."

-Andrew Sullivan, in a July 20 essay for conservative British newspaper Sunday Times

11. "When the president endorsed this constitutional amendment against gay marriage, conservatives should have asked, ‘What’s conservative about it?’ He jealously guarded state prerogatives as governor but now wants to nationalize marriage and family law to create a ‘no-homo-need-apply’ exception to the Constitution. What happened to the president’s reverence for 50 individual state laboratories? When the president chastises so-called ‘activist judges’ in Massachusetts and California, someone should remind him that activist judges put him in the White House.

—Brian O’Leary Bennett, Republican Congressman Robert K. Dornan’s chief of staff from 1977 to 1989, in a March 14 op-ed for The Orange County Register

12. "Then the president uses the phrase ‘if Congress is wise with the people’s money.’ But the point is that, in the past three years, the Congress has, by any measure, been grotesquely unwise with the people’s money. And the president vetoed not a single spending measure. In fact, his own budgets exploded spending on both war and homeland security and every other government department, from Labor to Agriculture, before the pork-sniffers in Congress even got started."

—conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan, in the Feb. 9 New Republic

13. "No one should be surprised when economic or budget forecasts coming out of Washington are influenced by politics, especially during an election year. But when economic history is rewritten -- with political consequences -- that's going too far. President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, chaired by Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, is trying to get away with exactly such revisionist history. Instead of using the accepted start date of March 2001, the CEA announced that the recession really started in the fourth quarter of 2000—a shift that would make it much more credible for the Bush administration to term it the ‘Clinton Recession.’. . . [Not only is this ploy dishonest, it] masks an attack on one of the few remaining bastions of economic neutrality. For almost 75 years, the start and end dates of recessions have been set b the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private nonpartisan research group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts."

—Michael J. Mandel, "Bush's Council of Economic Advisers re-writes economic history to blame Clinton for recession", in the Feb. 23’edition of BusinessWeek

14. "This regime—and I will now call it a regime—has gotten absolutely bizarre. Between Ashcroft and Cheney . . . and their puppet Bush and Powell and his son [FCC chairman Michael Powell] . . . I mean, this has gone berserk. I mean, I’ll be off the air, and I won’t be able to talk to you about it anymore, but, listen, it’s bad. This is the most unbelievable thing, what’s going on, where people are being thrown off the air without a trial. . . . These fascist, right-wing a-holes are getting so much freaking power, you gotta take back the country. [Those are] my last words to you. I don’t know how many more days I have [left] on the air."

—Radio personality Howard Stern, a former Bush supporter, on his Feb. 26 show

15. "It’s possible that the vice president has spent so little time studying the terrorist phenomenon that he doesn’t know about the successes in the 1990s. There were many. The Clinton administration stopped Iraqi terrorism against the United States through military intervention. It stopped Iranian terrorism against the United States through covert action. It stopped the al-Qaeda attempt to have a dominant influence in Bosnia. It stopped the terrorist attacks at the millennium. It stopped many other terrorist attacks, including on the U.S. embassy in Albania. And it began a lethal covert-action program against al-Qaeda; it also launched military strikes against al-Qaeda. Maybe the vice president was so busy running
Halliburton at the time that he didn’t notice."

—Richard A. Clarke, former head of counterterrorism for the National Security Council under George W. Bush, responding to a question by Salon.com’s Joe Conason regarding Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion that no U.S. administration had ever responded to the terrorist threat

16. "[I] left the Republican Party because I feared the Bush administration and the GOP-controlled Congress were moving too far to the right and not listening to moderate Republicans such as myself. Much of what we have seen since then has only confirmed those fears. We are in a war that we shouldn’t be in; the wealthy get tax cuts while our schools get shortchanged; the deficit grows by the day while millions of jobs are lost here at home. Meanwhile, the White House tries to placate the far right by supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, diverting the nation’s attention from where it should be focused. We are headed on the wrong course, and it troubles me deeply."

—Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords, former Republican and now an independent, speaking to Salon.com on March 26, 2004

17. "I’d like to know more about exactly what has been happening. Was this an isolated incident. Was it a pattern of misconduct? Who was involved? Was it military, CIA, reservists, people on contract with the government? We don’t know the answers to all that yet. But, frankly, Joe, that’s one of the problems. Apparently, this investigation and a report have been in the process for weeks. Nobody in Congress seems to have been notified that this was going on. The conduct was totally ridiculous, intolerable."

—Senator Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) , on the May 4 broadcast of MSNBC’s Scarborough Country regarding the Administration’s withholding information on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal

18. "Since the conclusion of the war, the Bush administration has shown a dismaying capacity to believe its own public relations. . . . Ultimately, even if our choices now can help or hurt, it is Iraqis who have to save Iraq. It is their country, not ours. In coming weeks and months, we will have to defer to the authorities we hope will eventually take control, in the process endorsing compromises that we will consider less than ideal. But it is time for reality to drive our Iraq policy, unhindered by illusions or wishful thinking."

—"An End to Illusion," an editorial in the May 3 National Review

19. "During George W. Bush’s keynote address to the 40th anniversary black-tie banquet of the American Conservative Union last week, diners rose repeatedly to applaud the president’s remarks. But one man kept his seat through the 40-minute oration. It was no liberal interloper, but conservative stalwart Donald Devine. As ACU vice chairman, Devine was privileged to be part of a pre-dinner head-table reception with President Bush. However, Devine chose not to shake hands with the president. . . . What most bothers Devine and other conservatives is steady growth of government under this Republican president. If Devine’s purpose in devoting his life to politics was to limit government’s reach, he feels betrayed that Bush has outstripped his liberal predecessors in domestic spending."

—Conservative columnist Robert Novak, in his May 20 column

20. "I would not have voted for [President Bush’s] taxcut based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the most benefit. . . . Too often, presidents do things that don’t end up helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won’t tell them their actions stink on ice."

—Former Republican North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, in an interview with a North Carolina business magazine via Salon.com’s "War Room ’04" feature

21. "In the lead-up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw, at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility; at worst, lying, incompetence and corruption. False rationales presented as a justification; a flawed strategy; lack of planning; the unnecessary alienation of our allies; the underestimation of the task; the unnecessary distraction from real threats; and the unbearable strain dumped on our overstretched military."

—Retired General Anthony Zinni, former commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, in his book "Battle Ready"

22. "For all their brilliance, [Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken] Mehlman and Karl Rove (who no doubt vetted this lineup) have made a very serious mistake with this convention’s lineup. It is one that the rank and file should not tolerate. If the president is embarrassed to be seen with conservatives at the convention, maybe conservatives will be embarrassed to be seen with the president on Election Day."

—Paul M. Weyrich, in a July 12 article for newsmax.com, criticizing the Bush administration’s decision to bar true conservatives from addressing the Republican National Convention in favor of free-spending RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki

23. "We are fighting undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an open-ended war against terrorism worldwide. If the president claims extraordinary wartime powers, and we fight undeclared wars with no beginning and no end, when if ever will those
extraordinary powers lapse? Since terrorism will never be eliminated completely, should all future presidents be able to act without regard to Congress or the
Constitution simply by asserting, ‘We’re at war?’ Conservatives should understand that the power given the president today will pass to the president’s successors, who may be only too eager to abuse that unbridled power domestically to destroy their political enemies. Remember the anger directed at President Clinton for acting above the law when it came to federal perjury charges? An imperial presidency threatens all of us who oppose unlimited state power over our lives."

—Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) on the libertarian website www.antiwar.com

24. "Retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action, especially without a broad and engaged international coalition.
The cost in casualties is already large and growing, and the immediate and long-term financial costs are incredible. Our country’s reputation around the world has never been lower, and our alliances are weakened. From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force. Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world."

—Representative Doug Bereuter (R-Nebraska), a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the Select Committee on
Intelligence who voted for a House resolution authorizing the president to invade Iraq, in an Aug. 18 letter to his constituents

25. "As Republican former governors, senators and public officials, we urge our party to renew its allegiance to the proven, common-sense values that unite America. Instead of partisan ideology—which increasingly has led moderates to leave the
party—what’s needed is a speedy return to the pragmatic, problem-solving mainstream. Here’s how the president and Republican-majority Congress can send that clear signal to the nation:

•Stop weakening environmental law—and once again protect our air, water and public lands as Teddy Roosevelt and other great Republican leaders intended;

•Restore fiscal responsibility—with ‘pay-as-you-go’ budget discipline to end record deficits that jeopardize economic growth;

•Put the health of millions first—and clear the way for embryonic stem cell research;

•Appoint mainstream federal judges—and respect the Constitution;

•Make America safer—and protect cities and towns, still vulnerable three years after Sept. 11, by securing chemical and nuclear plants and shipping containers;

•Rebuild our alliances—with real partnerships and restore America’s standing in the world.

•By returning to the mainstream in these ways, our party can regain the trust of a divided nation and earn a vote of confidence in November."

—Statement signed by 17 former Republican governors, senators, state attorney generals, and members of the Nixon and Ford administrations that appeared in a full-page ad if the Aug. 30 New York Times

26. "It’s because of the influence of [neo-conservatives] on the president that Mr. Bush may have ‘overreacted’ to the threat of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, said Mr. Scowcroft, and that the ‘preoccupation with terrorism’ meant that ‘we are maybe not paying enough attention to other problems in the world that have nothing to do with terrorism but are really significant.’ Mr. Bush had squandered opportunities to avoid war in Iraq, said Mr. Scowcroft, who also speculated that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass destruction because it provided ‘the only reason which you could use to propel a war [in] a particular time frame.’ He fretted that the ongoing fighting in Iraq made it impossible for the administration to confront nations much closer to actually acquiring nuclear weapons, like Iran. Most of all, Mr. Scowcroft reiterated his skepticism about the prospects for gunship democracy in the Middle East—outlining the kind of realism for which George W. Bush’s father was known around the world. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe Iraq is capable of democracy,’ said Mr. Scowcroft. ‘But the notion that within every human being beats this primeval instinct for democracy has not ever been demonstrated to me.’"

—From a Sept. 6 New York Observer profile on retired General Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to George H.W. Bush

27. "Log Cabin has proudly supported the President’s firm leadership in the war on terror. As principled Republicans, we believe in our Party’s commitment to a strong national defense and a confident foreign policy. We especially applaud the President’s leadership in cutting taxes for American families and small businesses, his belief in free market principles and his compassionate and historic leadership in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. . . . At the same time, it is impossible to overstate the depth of anger and disappointment caused by the President’s support for
an anti-family constitutional amendment. This amendment would not only ban gay marriage, it would also jeopardize civil unions and domestic partnerships. . . . Some will accuse us of being disloyal. However, it was actually the White House who was disloyal to the 1,000,000 gay and lesbian Americans who supported him four years ago. Log Cabin’s decision was made in response to the White House’s strategic political decision to pursue a re-election strategy catered to the radical right. The President’s use of the bully pulpit, stump speeches and radio addresses to support a constitutional amendment has encouraged the passage of discriminatory laws and state constitutional amendments across America. Using gays and lesbians as wedge issues in an election year is unacceptable to Log Cabin."

—Excerpts from a Sept. 8 press release by the Log Cabin Republicans, an advocacy group for gay GOPers, announcing it was withholding endorsement of President
Bush’s re-election

28. "Anyone who was involved in the 2000 McCain campaign, as I was, knows exactly who is responsible for the ‘Swift boat’ slime attack on Senator Kerry—in Bush World, all low roads lead to [Karl] Rove. When I was at the Christian Coalition, I witnessed first-hand the alliance of the deregulation, no-tax crowd with the religious conservatives. Ironically, the rank and file of the religious right are hardly the country club set. They are largely middle-class Americans who don’t rely on trust funds or dividend checks for their livelihoods. But the leaders of the religious right have betrayed their constituents by failing to champion such economic issues as family leave or access to health insurance, which would relieve the stresses on many working families. The only things the religious conservatives get are largely symbolic votes on proposals guaranteed to fail, such as the gay marriage constitutional amendment. The religious right has consistently provided the ground troops, while the big-money men have gotten the goodies.

—Marshall Wittmann, who ran the "Bull Moose" website before leaving to work for John McCain. A Teddy Roosevelt fan and McCain Republican, he says he’s voting for John Kerry

29. "The fact is a crisp, sharp analysis of our policies are required. We didn’t do that in Vietnam, and we saw 11 years of casualties mount to the point where we finally lost. We can’t lose this. This is too important. There’s no question about that. But to say, ‘Well, we just must stay the course and any of you who are questioning are just hand-wringers,’ is not very responsible. The fact is we’re in trouble. We’re in deep trouble in Iraq. We need more regionalization. We need more help from our allies. We need the Iraqi people to come around us in a more supportive way. That means more jobs, more development. The hearings we held this week in the Foreign Relations Committee were an eye-opener on the long side of this.

—Nebraska Republican Senator and Vietnam veteran Chuck Hagel, on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sept. 19

30. "We have to have better coordination between our people who are doing the bombing and the military side and the Iraqis who are doing the police work so that we do not alienate further the Iraqi people by intrusions that are very difficult and are costly in terms of lives. We’ve got to get the reconstruction money out there. That was the gist of our hearing this week, that $18 billion is appropriated a year ago and only $1 billion has been spent."

But why isn’t that happening?

"Well, this is incompetence in the administration."

—Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on ABC’s This Week, Sept. 19

31. "I think President Bush needs to get the message from people across this country, including Republicans, that his strategy in national security and his economic policies need revisiting."

—South Charleston, West Virginia Mayor Richie Robb to the Wheeling News-Register on Sept. 10, explaining why he might not cast his Electoral College vote for Bush

32. "As son of a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election
of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and
barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry."

—John Eisenhower, in a Sept. 28 guest column in the Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News

33. "Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers,
and his continuous mistakes regarding Iraq."

—From the Sept. 29 lead editorial in the Texas Iconoclast endorsing Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Based in Crawford, President Bush’s hometown, the paper endorsed his 2000 presidential bid and the war on Iraq. That was a mistake, it now acknowledges: "Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda."

But wait, there's more!

34. "Republicans used to believe in balanced budgets. Republicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility, limited international entanglements and limited government. We have lost our way. We have come loose from our moorings. The Medicare reform bill is a good example of our lack of direction, purpose and responsibility. If we don't get some control over this out-of-control spending and policy-for-the-moment
decision-making, we will put America on a course that we may not be able to recover from."

- Chuck Hagel, "This Meaure WIll Not Strengthen Medicare", editorial for American Conservative Union Foundation, November 26, 2003

35. "I have no problem with war in principle. I kind of enjoy it, and I'm good at it. What I don't like and what drove me out of the Republican Party was carelessness and slipshod work of the kind we've seen from this administration."

- Retired General Merill "Tony" McPeak, Air Force chief of staff during Persian Gulf War and co-chair of Oregon veterans for Bush-Cheney 2000, "Ex-Air Force chief critical of Bush's Iraq policy", the Oregonian, August 31, 2004. McPeak now advises John Kerry.

36. "Though the disappearance of police is a universal condition of most post-conflict situations, the Bush administration completely failed to anticipate that, and it should have..... If we had gone into Iraq with the understanding it would take [an extensive] level of commitment, we might accomplish something. That is
not the case. The Bush administration's lack of planning underscores the lack of seriousness with which the war was undertaken".

- Francis Fukuyama, New Perspectives Quarterly interview, March 29, 2004. Fukuyama, a founder of the
neo-conservative movement, declared in July he would not vote for Bush, and has called on Rumsfeld to resign.

37. "If John Kerry wins the presidential election, he can thank Donald Rumsfeld."

- Bill O'Reilly, on BillOReilly.com, October 28, 2004

38. "It's painful for me... and for many other Republicans to oppose our President. But loyalty has to be earned, not just expected."

- Tom Pelikan, board of directors for REP America, the national Republican organization for environmental protection.

39. "This president has pursued policies pandering to the extreme right wing across a wide variety of issues and has exacerbated the polarization and the strident, uncivil tone of much of what passes for political discourse in this country today....


My Republican Party has always been a party that stood for fiscal responsibility. Today, under George W. Bush, we have the largest deficit in the history of our country -- a deficit that jeopardizes economic growth that is so desperately needed in a nation that has lost 2.6 million jobs since he took office."

- William Milliken, Republican Governor of Michigan from 1969 to 1982 and Kerry supporter, Why I'll Vote for John Kerry", Detroit Free Press and other newspapers, October 19, 2004.

40. "Although I'm a lifelong Republican, I will vote for John Kerry on Nov. 2. The choice seems simple under traditional principles of the Republican Party.


I first met John Kerry in the spring of 1971. Each of us was just back from Vietnam -- he as a Navy officer and I as a member of Congress -- and were appalled by what we had seen there. I found Kerry to be idealistic, courageous and, above all else, truthful to a fault. He demonstrated courage in Vietnam, but as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said, the courage to speak against prevailing opinion in civil strife is
often greater than that demanded on the battlefield....


A return to the ``speak softly but carry a big stick'' philosophy of Teddy Roosevelt should be far more effective than the bluster, bravado and ``shock and awe'' firepower of the neocon advisers who have commandeered White House foreign policy....


In truth, John Kerry and John Edwards come far closer to the Republicanism of Teddy Roosevelt, Earl Warren, Barry Goldwater, George Bush the elder and, yes, even Richard Nixon, than does the present incumbent.


Ending secrecy and bringing truth and honesty back to the White House are reasons enough to elect Kerry and Edwards."

- Pete McCloskey (R-CA), member of Congress from 1969 to 1983 and decorated Korean War veteran, "If you're a true Republican, you'll vote for Kerry", San Jose Mercury News, September 10, 2004.

A wonderful evening

About 100 people turned out in Irvine's Democratic headquarters on Friday night to watch John Kerry explain his domestic plans and reiterate his incisive criticisms of Bush's foreign policy. Last week over 300 they were anxious, but in a good way. Tonight, they were loose and confident. What a difference a few days can make.

They also got to see more of the same from Bush. Same tired and lame defenses of the Iraq invasion. Same phrases, working hard, run but can't hide, wrong war wrong time, as if they were conjunctions to his infrequent thoughts.

My thoughts? I think that Bush struck back more often, but at times seemed out of control.

In the walking and talking style, he got kinda uncorked after being told by moderator Charlie Gibson a second or third time (the firm warning) that they were moving on (Bush had had his reply already), but Bush cut him off (they were talking over each other for about five seconds) and then kept talking. This is Charles "Good
Morning America" Gibson. I could not believe my eyes. So this is the bullheaded young man who wanted to go "mano a mano" with his dad.

You can run an ideological presidency, but you can't run an ideological election. Particularly if the ideology and ideologues have led you, and the nation, down the garden path. And Bush simply doesn't understand when slightly over half the country doesn't see things his way. Facts never seem to change his thinking, or his "values" as he likes to call it.

"When a drug comes in from Canada, I want to make sure it cures you and doesn't kill you."

"I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of the land."

"He's got a record. He's been there (in the Senate) for 20 years. You can run, but you can't hide."

Articulate lie, un-credible opinion, non sequitur. Take your pick. (You can run, but you can't hide?? He says that a second time when it makes even less sense.) The crowd laughed, jaws dropped, and people went home happy and charged for the final stretch. Thanks George, for reinforcing our low opinion of you.

When voters ask you a question, they're saying "Convince me." A pro-life woman asked a question about embryonic stem cells, another about federal funding for abortion, and Kerry said in both cases, first, I respect your belief, or I respect the faith
behind that question. I am a Catholic. But I don't put my faith over the laws (i.e., Roe v. Wade) And if it's lawful we shouldn't bar people an important
choice just because they're poor. I thought that was a great answer. A long one, but now he's so on message and more concise that the long ones sound okay
too. In contrast, Bush was asked, what could be changed about the Patriot Act, given the violations of civil liberties. And he completely rejected the premise of the voter, which is unheard of. Later, a woman asked him to name three mistakes that he made as president, and he all but said he didn't make any mistakes, except he implied in some appointments (I'm assuming people who later had a falling out with him).
The woman wasn't an opponent, just a questioner. And then it hit me, everyone who questions him becomes his enemy. At the very least, the GOP's spectacular success at limiting ordinary voter access to Bush has backfired, created a hothouse flower that has wilted under the white light of the electorate.

Hidden in most news reports and in the above summary were some interesting moves about Kerry's domestic agenda - his health care plan, his pledge not to raise
taxes on incomes under $200,000. As well as the lack of principle behind Bush's "values" - even on his own terms. Take the ethics of stem-cell research. Bush opposes using embryos on moral grounds, but supports existing lines that were developed from embryos. What's his response? Well, they already died! That's a justification, but it's not a moral one. And it's also consistent with using
embryos that doctors will destroy in the future. Am I right about that? What do you think?

In other news: in their zeal to cover the Nick Clooney-Geoff Davis campaign for Congress, the Los Angeles Times and Houston Chronicle mistakenly referred to Fourth District incumbent Ken Lucas as Kentucky's lone Democratic representative. That assertion might surprise Democrat Ben Chandler, who in February won a special election to the Sixth District. Now I know that there are 435 members of Congress, but it's not too much to ask the LA Times to fact-check Kentucky's delegation. Especially as Chandler was running for the only open seat in February.

Bush has 'wrong impression' about Philippines

from the Manila Bulletin Online

Recto hits Bush remarks

Sen. Ralph Recto yesterday tagged as "false" the claim of US President George W. Bush that the Philippines is a major battleground in the war against terrorism.

This incorrect description made by Bush during a televised 90-minute debate with Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry meant the country’s already bruised reputation suffered another beating, added Recto.

"This is a global effort. But the front on this war is more than one place. The Philippines...we’ve got help...we’re helping them there to bring...to bring an Al Qaeda affiliate to justice," Bush said in response to a question on how he was going to pursue the fugitive Osama bin Laden.

But Recto’s reaction: "Well, the world’s most powerful man had just told a worldwide TV audience of half a billion, to the effect, that the Philippines is a major battleground in the war against terror.

"This is not the kind of publicity that we want. First, it is false. If Mindanao is being referred to, all is quiet in the Southern front; in fact, it’s not a front anymore. Guns have long been turned into ploughshares in that area. Peace is about to be won."

Recto added "we’ve been hit as collateral damage in the Bush-Kerry verbal war. There is no Al Qaeda presence here as there are no atomic bombs in Iraq."

He then said there is no Philippine intelligence report tagging the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as an organization of having direct links with the Al Qaeda.

Recto expressed hopes that people planning to visit or invest in the Philippines would not be scared of by the "imprecise remarks" of Bush and get the "wrong impression that the Philippines is an Al Qaeda hotspot." (Mario B. Casayuran)