drat fink

no comment

"Republicans admire predators and prey on what they see as weakness -- for example, openmindedness and fairness. They worship private property, but if you let them do so they will squat on your property and laugh in your face. And they really enjoy making bullshit arguments about free speech when you threaten to delete them -- not because they believe what they're saying, but because they think that it's funny when they use liberal ideas against liberals.

Matt and Kevin, of course, have been blessed by the print establishment, and both have stated that the blogosphere is really no big deal. And certainly, comments section aren't anything very important. So it's quite possible that pretty soon Kevin's comments will close down too, and one more common good will fall to the attacks of the angry, starved ghouls."

twin engines

"On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act," according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004."

dominant gene

"Liberals in the United States have been losing political debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are also simple:

Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.

Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the modern world."

mill town

"About the workings of the right-wing propaganda mills in Washington and New York I knew enough to know that the numbing of America's political senses didn't happen by mistake, but it wasn't until I met Rob Stein, formerly a senior adviser to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, that I came to fully appreciate the nature and the extent of the re-education program undertaken in the early 1970s by a cadre of ultraconservative and self-mythologizing millionaires bent on rescuing the country from the hideous grasp of Satanic liberalism. To a small group of Democratic activists meeting in New York City in late February, Stein had brought thirty-eight charts diagramming the organizational structure of the Republican "Message Machine," an octopus-like network of open and hidden microphones that he described as "perhaps the most potent, independent institutionalized apparatus ever assembled in a democracy to promote one belief system.""

running numbers

vanity fair's graydon carter does bush by the numbers.

arabian knights

"AP - Cantor Fitzgerald Securities, a bond trading firm that lost two-thirds of its workers in the World Trade Center attack, has sued Saudi Arabia for allegedly supporting al-Qaida prior to the Sept. 11 attack through financing, safe houses, weapons and money laundering."

if you had to choose...

i case you were wondering about that Time poll which gave bush the big bounce, here is a look at the questionable methodology.

you suck, balls

its no easier pinning chris matthews down to an answer than it is the politicians he reportedly interrogates. and he is just as likely to begin sprouting his own personal talking points when pressed for an honest response. for the third time this week ive heard him bluster "my show is called hardball, not success magazine," as if stating it made it true. maybe he was still just too giddy from his made for tv movie encounter with senator zellfire to be trifling with questions about the failures of the fourth estate. that and he seems to be scared of running afoul of the republicans. message to chris matthews: the republicans are watching fox in a big way. how about a show for the rest of us. theres a reason the daily show draws better numbers than you and its not just because its funny.

taxing situation

""Bush in a kind of very secretive way has been moving us one step at a time toward a flat tax," Stephen Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth, told me last month. My piece "Hidden Agenda," from the October issue of the Prospect, gets into this in more detail."

ad count

richard linklater ad from move on. also, i think the dnc's " broken record" ad is pretty effective.