A personal-ish side note...Over the last couple of months, traffic to the BRAD BLOG has steadily increased tremendously. And with it, much more of my time has been devoted to keeping readers here up to date with the latest and hopefully most interesting, enlightening and entertaining information and links as I come across them.

While we've had enough traffic here for some time to warrant the addition of Advertisements on the site, I've been somewhat loathe to do so for several reasons. For a start, I kinda enjoy the independence of being beholden to no one concerning content. Could I still enjoy that --- and the appearance of same --- if, for example, the Kerry Campaign decided to place an ad here? I also think it's nice to have a clean and simple format not cluttered up with a bunch of ads, though I'd like to believe I could add them in a way that wouldn't be too distracting from the content.

The time and focus it now requires to stay on the ball --- particularly between now and Nov 2nd --- continues to grow however. Thus, I've added the target="paypal">"SUPPORT THE BRAD BLOG" link where you can click to make a personal contribution via PayPal if you're so inclined. Feel free, of course, to use it any time! It's up on the top-right over there! Here it is again...

Beyond that however, do you, BRAD BLOG readers, have any thoughts on the issue of Advertisements here one way or another?

The personal donations are great, when they come in, but they are currently a far cry from what is needed to keep this place up and rolling as I believe it's important to do. Ads might fill some of that gap, but I would like to hear if any of you have any thoughts about it before I go any further along that direction. Feel free to comment here or email me your thoughts.

A couple of fun videos for an easy Sunday...Click and enjoy...

"HOW BUSH DID - The essence of his performance, in strict chronological sequence". A hysterical compilation from last week's debate. Click to view. (Requires Windows Media Player)

"How do you run a convention on a record of failure? 9/11 baby!" The Republican Convention and GOP Platform summarized in one swell compilation. Click to view. (Requires QuickTime)

Bush/Cheney '04: Don't forget Poland!

Can you spot the picture of George W. Bush on the front page of the GOP's website?

How about here at George W. Bush's own official website?

Ironically, the Right has been charging for months that the only thing Dems have going for them is that their candidate is not Bush. Yet, what do those two graphics tell you about how the Republicans hope to defeat Kerry? It certainly ain't by publicizing their candidate!

(Feel free to compare to Kerry's official site, or that of the DNC.)

I realize it's somewhat "off-message" to raise expectations for this Tuesday's Veep Debate in St. Louis, but I try to call 'em as I see 'em.

While the Lamestream Media has been carrying the water for the Right by echoing the "Where's John Edwards?" mantra of late, the fact is Edwards has been out there campaigning every day. But the Media has chosen to show pictures of John Kerry's tan, Dick Cheney's smarm and George W. Bush's misleading ads instead.

I had the good fortune to tune into ABC News Now last night (this morning) at around 4am where they were carrying a John Edwards rally in Ohio uncut and unedited. And lemme tell ya, it was a stemwinder! Edwards had the facts down hard and the crowd leaping to their feet every three minutes.

Anybody who thinks Edwards' is an empty suit with nice teeth is likely gonna be in for yet another surprise this Tuesday. He absolutely knocked the cover off the ball in that rally.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a link to the video of rally over at C-SPAN. If anyone has it, feel free to share.

(REMINDER: Once again we'll be having an Open Thread here during the debate on Tuesday! Please join us to toss in your play-by-play impressions during the big show!)

A few months ago, I reported on the obit I'd found while in Washington state of a WWII veteran whose last request was to defeat George W. Bush this fall.

Looks like it's now officially a trend. The obituary of a Wisconsin woman, Jane Buffett, has just done the same:

And while researching the story, I came across the story of another woman in Wisconsin who did similarly and who was apparently an inspiration for Ms. Buffett. Sally Baron's obituary from August of 2003 concluded:

Let's remember to properly honor the dead this November 2nd, shall we?

Click to view ad. Requires Quicktime.

A few moments from the debate the other night were just bizarre. Here's just a few that I recall:

Bush on Parental Advice...

Bush on the widow of a man killed in Iraq (is the woman an OB-GYN, by any chance?)...

Bush on Iranian mullahs...Transcript modified here to demonstrate Bush's actual pronunciation of the word...

And finally, Bush accidentally tells the truth...(thanks Amir for this one!)

Got any other favorites? Share 'em in Comments. Here's the official Debate #1 Transcript for your reading pleasure.

As Kerry whips past Bush in the polls, it's certainly no thanks to the supposedly "Liberal" media who have stacked everything against the Democrat as usual. I'm catching up on a few items today from this week when our server went down. So, with all the media bias (read the previous 9 or 10 items here!) against Kerry, here's one take on that from an E.J. Dionne column last week:

The first full post-debate poll is in. From Newsweek. Kerry up 49% over Bush's 46% in a two- man race. And Kerry 47% over Bush's 45% in a three-man race with Nader factored in.

In the previous Newsweek poll, Bush had led Kerry by 5 or 6 points (depending on Nader in the question) and now Kerry leads Bush by 2 to 3 points. You can do the math.

Of course, the "Liberals" over at MSNBC, who run the Newsweek website, have the headline on their front page "KERRY BOOST: Poll Shows Democrat Even with Bush after Debate". Sigh...

After reading this Fox News story on "Gaffs Could Prevent Voting in Florida" as Jeb Bush's hand-picked Election Surpervisor Glenda Hood gets to work, please keep in mind last week's statement from Jimmy Carter.

The esteemed former President Jimmy Carter, who's Carter Center has monitored some 50 elections under difficult circumstances around the world, was asked after 2000 to head a Blue Ribbon commission with Gerald Ford to study what went wrong in Florida, and how to fix it.

The Carter/Ford recommendations were made, but yesterday he said in The Washington Post that the recommended reforms have still not been implemented.

As well, he pointed to continued rampant bias from top Florida Election officials who are also a part of the Bush/Cheney campaign, the purging of thousands of ballots in 2000, and the "fumbling attempt" that was "made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons."

Read the whole piece, it's short and to the point. But his final words, are certainly of note:

Consider the "maximum public scrutiny" under way, Mr. President. And thank you again for being a great --- and honest --- American! Now prepare to be disparaged, disrespected called a liar and an America Hater by anyone who doesn't like what you had to say.

It's really unbelievable. If you've read anything here of late on the many out and out lies of Fox News, it's incredible that not only are they not held accountable as a "news organization" for those lies (not mistakes, mind you, as in the Rather case, but simply bald-faced lies) that they are never held accountable for anything. Even by those folks who were so "outraged" by the Rather case and called for his resignation and suggested that CBS no longer has credibility about anything.

Well, guess what? Even after Carl Cameron (Chief campaign correspondent for Fox, wife works for George W. Bush, and assigned by Fox to cover Kerry's campaign) simply made up fake Kerry quotes and posted them to the Fox website yesterday, he's still at it today as Atrios notes.

Yes, a known 527 parody group set up by Republicans is calling themselves "Communists for Kerry" was interviewed by Cuticle Carl who filed a report today filled with quotes from this fake group such as: "Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush ... The North Koreans are my comrades to a point, and I'm sure they support Comrade Kerry, too."

It's just amazing. See the Atrios story --- especially you Rightwing hypocrites who dare read this Blog and yet still offer your bullshit mock outrage about Rather --- for full details. Anything to win. No moral compass necessary.

Are there any wingnuts here with the stones to publically call for the immediate resignation of Carl Cameron who has been allowed to continue covering Kerry even after both of these stories?

...As it might have sounded if George W. Bush had been a Democrat and Karl Rove was in charge of the Fox News broadcast.

Very funny. Give it a look. (Thanks to Amir for the link.)

As a sidebar to the previous item, I'd add that C-SPAN rocks. We were able to view the entire debate again last night in re-run via C-SPAN's "Debate Podium Watch", a single split-screen shot of both candidates at the same time throughout the entire debate without cut-aways.

C-SPAN has that version of the debate online via this link if you care to watch. On a second viewing, with this split-screen, it was instructive to be able to watch the body language of both men. Dubya's continuous drinking throughout the night from the same empty water glass was a hoot. As was his continued "blinking like a baby bird", as the Jimmy Kimmel Show referred to it.

Watching C-SPAN's unedited cuts and open mics from Spin Alley afterwards, without media commentary, was also rather addictive. Most notably, watching Karl Rove repeatedly attempting to sell his planned pre-debate spin ("Kerry was inconsistent, a flip-flopper, incoherent, has no clear beliefs" etc.) to the stultified media guppies was informative. The lines he was attempting to sell, in light of the reality of the debate and the very clear positions expressed by Kerry, became simply inoperable after the debate. Yet Rove, surprisingly, didn't yet have anything else to sell.

One other point to watch in the next debate; Fox News was in charge of the pool cameras this time around, and they managed their camera angles so that both Bush and Kerry appeared to be the same height as they stood at the podiums in close-up. Kerry is about four inches taller, yet the split-screen view from C-SPAN clearly shows how the framing of the two candidates was different in order to make them appear the same height. Watch for the tiny mic that Bush had versus the long one that Kerry had (fill in your own joke here). It'll be interesting to see if the framing is similarly skewed in the next podium debate when Fox isn't manning the cameras.

The one thing I've repeatedly heard since last night after the first debate of the season are various versions of "He didn't appear anything like I'd expected him to."

The refrain has come most often from folks on the Right last night and today about both Bush and Kerry. They thought John Kerry would be appear as a confused, weak, prolix flip-flopper and they expected that Bush would demonstrate himself to be strong, resolute and in command of the Foreign Policy debate (which the Bush campaign fought hard to have as the first, and historically most-watched, evening).

Why the surpise from those folks? Apparently, they really have been able to convince themselves of their own spin, and that of the media. The picture that has been painted of these two guys for months is exactly the opposite of reality. Last night, without the media filter in place, the spinners, the quotes taken out of context, and with someone who was actually able to respond to the nonsense Bush spouts every day at his rallies, the picture was vastly different than the distorted mythology the Right has worked so hard to create.

The Bush camp has for months kept their man isolated from reality and opposing positions everywhere from the Campaign Trail to the White House itself. So much so, that he simply floundered like a fish out of water without his usual protective filters in place. Anyone who's paid attention to what Bush has actually said and done was not surprised at all by his appearance last night. Most Americans, who haven't been able to see through the media filter, saw something that hadn't seen before.

For Kerry's part, the media had done a superb job of joining hands with the Republican Media Masters to create a picture of Kerry as something he isn't. And again, in a situation where he couldn't be quoted out of context, or simply misquoted and tendentiously "defined" by the opposition, it came as a shock to many when they actually had the opportunity to see John Kerry with their own eyes instead of Karl Rove's, Rush's or Drudge's.

As a result, last night's Debate was a terrific victory for Democracy, even in light of the attempts made by the candidates (mostly the Bush camp according to reports) to squeeze as much reality out of the process as they could. Both reality --- and the American people --- won out in the end.

Mind you, when Reagan was running for re-election, he too lost the first debate in a big way, but came back to win. As well, the consensus after Gore's first debate in 2000 was also that he won. So there's still a long way to go here before the celebrations should begin. But with two more chances to see both candidates without the filter, Americans should have a much better chance of overcoming the obstacles that the Republicans have erected in order to keep Americans from learning the truth about both of these men.