Aaron's Blog

College Student 4 Kerry

Despite rumors that there is some kind of conservative tide washing over American college, College Students Overwhelming Support Kerry and they totally plan to vote, dude.

It should be no real surprise that the people who are going to have to live longest under the crushing failures of the Bush administration are more pro-Kerry than older folks. Older people might still be able to enjoy their social security benefits, a planet with some trees left on it, and the memory of America being a great international leader. The college kids, what do they have to look forward to? An outsourced economy, a hostile international environment, a government that spies on them, and debt (on the personal and national levels) out the friggin' wazoo.

who is tim ryan?

tim ryan is a house rep from ohio. and he's the winner of the best speech i've ever seen from c-span, about why young people are afraid of the draft despite republican assurances we'll maintain an all-volunteer army:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/7/195645/549

another good video

here's some wishful post-debate thinking: perhaps w's miserable failure of a performance will signal the end of the kind of robotic, mind-programming, talking point repetition that has passed for national discourse for the past four years.

in my heart of hearts, i'm hoping that people watching the debates not only thought "hey, kerry looks more presidential" but they also thought "hey, kerry is making logical arguments, and the other guy is just repeating the same words over and over no matter what the question is-- he isn't actually saying ANYTHING AT ALL!"

if you don't know what i'm talking about, you need to watch this amazing video from the GOP convention. it's all talking points, all the time. (and guiliani looks like a total psycho-- watching this, his presidential aspirations look dim. the guy couldn't be less "presidential" if he wore a clown nose).

http://home.earthlink.net/~houval/gopconstrm.mov

wordsworth v bush

if you haven't seen this one yet, check it out:

http://www.slambush.net/video/

Debates

Man, those debates were something. All of a sudden, Bush's vaunted "clarity" looked a little cheap, seeing as he couldn't string together a single cohesive thought. To my surprise, even the conservative punditry agreed:

(from DKos):

Mort Kondracke: "This is the President's turf, this is the place that the President is supposed to dominate, terror and the war in Iraq. I don't think he really dominated tonight. I think Kerry looked like a commander-in-chief."

Kate O'Beirne, National Review Online's the Corner: "I thought the President was repetitive and reactive."

Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online's the Corner: "The Bush campaign miscalculated on having the first night be foreign policy night."

Bob Schieffer: "The President was somewhat defensive in the beginning"

Mark Shields: "The President showed a few times obvious anger"

Bill Kristol, Weekly Standard: "I think Kerry did pretty well tonight, he was forceful and articulate."

Bob Schieffer: "Kerry got off to a very good start."

Joe Scarborough: "It was John Kerry's best performance ever...As far as the debate goes, I don't see how anybody could look at this debate and not score this a very clear win on points for John Kerry." (MSNBC)

Andrea Mitchell: "This is the toughest we've ever seen John Kerry. He attacked the very core of the President's popularity. He's basically saying, who do you believe?" (MSNBC)

Tim Russert: "Tonight he seemed to find his voice for the Democratic view of the world."

Fred Barnes on FNC: "Kerry did very well and we will have a Presidential race from here on out."

Kerry did a fine job-- he was superbly clear and well-spoken-- and the real surprise was how incredibly bad Bush was. Kerry could of been a cardboard cut out and looked more presidential that Dubya. The guy was awful. He looked like spoiled prep school kid who got caught tp'ing his teacher house. John Kerry would criticize him and he'd get these expression where I half expected him to blurt out "Your momma's a colossal mistake! Wah!"

God I can't wait until Nov 3rd, waking up to President Kerry.

The Polls

Check this LA Time poll report
(registration or bugmenot.com req'd)

Amazingly, almost half the country still doesn't understand that the re-election of the W will probably result in the end of the world. This, friends, is why we must register, register, register.

Every time I start feeling overwhelmed by outrage fatigue I run across something like this. Somehow, the Pentagon lost 1.2 billion dollars of the money it spent in Iraq. Lost it. 1.2 billion. That's "b", billion. The article contains this telling tidbit:

"Another Pentagon agency mistakenly sold chemical warfare suits on the Internet for $3 each while a separate office was struggling to fill shortages with new suits it bought for $200 each."

They also spent 34 million dollars hiring people to fix their accounting. Which is to say, they had to spend an amount of money I can barely comprehend just to keep track of how much money they lost.

Isn't this the military that can't afford to buy body armor for its soldiers? I also suspect that somehow, somewhere, a Halliburton employee is smirking like a chimp about this report. I mean, the 1.2 BILLION DOLLARS had to go somewhere, right? Really shakes off your outrage fatigue thinking about stuff like that.