Edgewise

Bush-Clarke: Seventh-Inning Stretch

At first sight, a Newsweek poll suggests that the counter-attack against Richard Clarke has been surprisingly effective:

Half those surveyed in the poll after Clarke's testimony Wednesday said they thought he was acting for political and personal reasons, while a quarter said they feel he's acting as a dedicated public servant.

...while Bush himself has been surprisingly impervious.

While 65 percent said Clarke's testimony has not affected their views of Bush, 17 percent said it made them view him less favorably and 10 percent said more favorably.

However, the way that arithmetic works out, the 17% is really quite a lot. Almost all of the 10% “More Favorably” may be assumed to come from Bush voters, while to 17% “Less Favorably” would include a substantial number drawn from his current support.

However, public views supporting President Bush's handling of terrorism have dipped from 65 percent to 57 percent in the last month, according to the Newsweek poll.

Nevertheless, the crucial question is which of two messages will end up as the net "take-away" of Clarke's critique.

The weak one is that Bush didn't care enough about terror: It's mushy, vague, "who can know?", etc.

Two-thirds said the Clinton administration did not take the threat of terror seriously enough, while six in 10 said the Bush administration has taken the threat as seriously as it should.

The message that needs to come through is that the Iraq war displaced terror as the main concern. That's not very mushy. There is no doubt in people's minds that Bush did focus on Iraq; we did go to war. Even Fox News has been magnifying that. So then it turns on whether the war helped harmed our security against terror. (Even the CIA, in a under-reported study that could be resurrected, said it increased the risks.)

For Bush it is crucial that that question should not be effectively posed in the first place; it is not a good question for people to even be considering. It is immediately plausible that the war was an obsessive-compulsive blunder. And if it is a blunder, it is a colossal blunder.

So in every article I read, I look for the second critique. I find in about 60% overall. I am just hoping that it starts to tip over to become the central point

Tangential to "The Art of the Possible"

(Greetings from a newcomer!)
Back in the day, I wrote: The liberal committment: "If it is possible, it can be arranged." The radical: "If it is necessary, it can be achieved."

Condi Rice's foreign policy priorities, circa early 2000

Absolutely excellent post here from talkingpointsmemo.com's Josh Marshall. It discusses a Condi Rice piece in Foreign Affairs, from early 2000, laying out what she saw as the countries five key foreign policy priorities. Marshall writes:

Only the last made any mention of terrrorism and it was: "to deal decisively with the threat of rogue regimes and hostile powers, which is increasingly taking the forms of the potential for terrorism and the development of weapons of mass destruction."

As Marshall points out, Richard Clarke's testimony shouldn't really be all that controversial. Clarke's key points are perfectly in synch with what we've heard from the administration, before 9/11 and since.

Howard Dean's humanity

When I read in the Times that Dean's teenage son said to him (I can just imagine thte exact tone of voice) "I can't believe you ran for president!" and Dean said that it made him laugh, I liked all the more, all over again.

Last night the local DFA organizers in Berkeley and Oakland met with our Kerry and Kucinich counterparts and found kindred spirits with a wide range of overlapping goals. They still need to learn that we continue to cohere against all odds, have plans that go beyond November. We will help them. They are welcome to join us. This is coalition politics now. Human politics. Humble politics. The politics of listening.

And it's nuance by a nose

I've boiled down the messages of the last three viable presidential candidates in this election. Eventually, I got it down to one word each, so here they are:

Dean: Truth
Kerry: Nuance
Bush: Lies

Kerry the redeemer

I think I've got the storyline that wins the election for Kerry. (Caveat: I've been out on limbs before.)

Taegan Goddard notes that Kerry has thus far successfully targeted veterans.

Here's how I see it. Kerry served. He did his duty. Like all thinking people of his age group in that time, he had doubts about that war, but he went to war in his turn. What he saw there convinced him that the criticisms of the war were correct and after completing his service with distinction, injured and awarded, he used his unique platform to oppose the war as someone who saw it up close.

The George Bush people want to contrast Kerry's abiity to see both sides of a problem with Bush's death grip on his received wisdom, but I think this is Kerry's great strength. He did the right thing in terms of the traditional values of the WWII generation, and he also stood with integrity against the war when out of uniform.

Face it, this country is still riven by the divide that erupted in the '60s. And even though only one in five people associate Jane Fonda with Vietnam protest, the division in our society has continued to play out through other cultural proxies, but Kerry will be the healer off this festering wound.

Kerry has stood on both sides of the divide, and in him we can elect someone who will put that history behind us and move forward with a reintegrated society, a sort of truth- and- reconciliation movement of the mind.

I think we're going to win if we remember not to cower in fear when they brandish their talismans of hate at us.

This is the way the wheels come off

Great comment from a reader of Kevin "CalPundit" Drum's new Political Animal blog / column at The Washington Monthly:

A lot of my family are conservatives and they are turning on W. Some are just upset about deficit spending, but most are learning that lying about your sex life is nothing when compared to lying about why we should go to war. Plus, we've got family that was in Iraq for the invasion and will be going back soon, so war in Iraq is a very personal thing for the whole family. On the other hand, Clinton's sex life isn't our business.

Is it just me?

Or has Jim Lehrer been kicking Bush's ass all week?

Bush and Kerry blogs

Cool/Lame has built a simple-brilliant website that compares the last five entries from the Bush and Kerry blogs side by side. It's called Bush and Kerry Side by Side or Bush/Kerry for short.

[via Scripting News]

Bush and Kerry ads

Interesting article by former Clinton pollster Mark Penn here.
His point in short: both Kerry and Bush have it exactly wrong. Their initial wave of ads are designed to reinforce their respective strengths, when they should be focused on shoring up their weaknesses.

John Kerry's first true test

IMDB.com reports that Chevy Chase and Jon Voight will be starring in an upcoming film called "The Karate Dog."

But wait: The Karate Kid's Pat Morita co-stars.

But wait: It's from the director of Baby Geniuses. And the writer of The Million Dollar Kid, which was that rarest of rare flowers: a Corey Feldman / Estelle Getty vehicle.

Did I mention? Chevy plays the voice of Cho-Cho. Who I have to assume is the dog.

Primary's end

Just a quick note as we end this primary season:

Whatever happens from here on out, this is a primary that truly tested the nominee and left him and the party far stronger than they were when the process started up.

Too many times over the last several years, it's felt like the Democratic Party was a bunch of well intentioned fumblers. Sabotaging themselves and each other. Misreading the public. Misplaying the media.

It could all easily come crashing down again before November, but today at least, the party and its major candidates strike me by and large as smart, serious, disciplined, mature politicians, playing to win.

cel-e-bra-yate....