Watching the debates over the last few weeks, it's occured to me how nice it'll be to once again have a real President of this country, instead of somebody who's playing "President".

This embarrassing passage from Ron Suskind's New York Times' Magazine article on Bush today sorta sums it all up. It's from a meeting in the Oval Office in December of 2002 where Bush was discussing "The Road Map for Peace in the Middle-East" with lawmakers. On the topic of which army could be trusted as peacekeepers by both Israelis and Palestinians, Hungarian born Holocaust survivor Congressman Tom Lantos, a Democrat, spoke up:

Vote November 2nd. Dear God, please vote! And take as many friends with you as you can. Please?

Following up a BRAD BLOG article from Oct. 6th...

During the Vice-Presidential Debate Dick Cheney accused John Edwards of being "dead wrong" when Edwards asserted that "we've taken 90 percent of the coalition casualties." Cheney argued that we've only taken 50 percent because Edwards, apparently, was not counting Iraqis as part of the "Coalition".

To fact-check that, I went to the White House website to see who they counted as part of the "Coalition" and came across a page at the site from a special "RENEWAL IN IRAQ" report they have online. The page was entitled "The Coalition".

On the page was a sidebar (pictured at right) with a link to a document named "Who are the Coalition Members?" Clicking that link lead to an error page that said "The file you have attempted to access cannot be found..."

Thanks to Google's cached archive of the White House site, I was able to find the document originally linked there which listed some 40 countries as "Members of the Coalition". None of them were named Iraq.

A Bush supporter Emailed me that accidents like that happen all the time, and I shouldn't presume, simply from a broken link, that the White House was trying to hide something. Especially since I had also asked in my original article "what other official pieces of information once posted to the White House website (theoretically owned by the people of the United States of America) have been scrubbed as well from the historical record?" He told me that he'd written to the White House Webmaster to tell them about it, and he suggested I give them a week or so to fix the link before crying foul. He had a point, and so I too emailed the webmaster to ask what was up.

That was almost two weeks ago, and I've not received a reply from the White House webmaster on the topic. However, you'll be glad to know they fixed the link. By removing it. The updated sidebar on the same page (pictured at right) no longer features a link to "Who are the Coalition Members?" It's just been scrubbed entirely.

The White House can no longer be given the benefit of the doubt here, since someone had to actually change the linked graphic in question. Historical documentation on the people's web site has been removed. Period. Who knows what else is no longer there, removed after it was no longer political useful to the White House to have it online? (And are they supposed to be using the tax payer supported White House website for political purposes?)

For the record, since the Iraq War began, America has taken 1,100 military casualties. All other countries combined in the "Coalition" (whoever they may be) have taken a total of 138 military casualities. America's share of "Coalition" casualties: 89.5%.

Bush/Cheney '04: Will Say Anything to Win.

UPDATED THOUGHT: Remember how critical the Right was of Michael Moore for showing all those happy Iraqi children playing peacefully in Saddam's Iraq in Fahrenheit 9/11? Well, here's the White House's banner graphic for their special "Renewal in Iraq" report on their website:

It should be noted that some 21,800 Iraqi civilians, many of them children like the ones above, have been killed in Iraq since America started the war there.

LATE UPDATE 10/18/04: Audio and Video now being removed from White House Website as well! See this update - "More Scrubbing of White House Website!!! Audio & Video Removed!"

MUCH LATER UPDATE 10/22/04: Hooray! Mainstream media finally picks up on this story!

WAY LATER UPDATE 10/25/04: The Washington Post finally picks up the story today! Twice!

MUCH MUCH LATER UPDATE 10/29/04: BRAD BLOG SUCCESS! WH restores Audio/Video! Though much still missing...

Calculating Bush's "miscalculation"...As of the morning of 10/17/04:

Number of Gay Americans who may be used as Campaign Issue:
10.5 million est.

Number of Gay Americans who may not be used as Campaign Issue:
1

U.S. Military Killed in Iraq in the past Week:
30

U.S. Military Killed between "Mission Accomplished" and hand-over of "Sovereignty":
1.89 per day

U.S. Military Killed since hand-over of "Sovereignty" (111 days ago)::
2.4 per day

Total U.S. Military Killed since hand-over of "Sovereignty" (111 days ago):
246

Total UK Military Killed since hand-over of "Sovereignty" (111 days ago)::
8

All other "Coalition" Military Killed since hand-over of "Sovereignty" (111 days ago)::
12

Number of Countries in "Coalition":
Unknown
(White House Removed "Who Are the Coalition Members?" document from their Website. See this BRAD BLOG article for more info.)

Total U.S. Military Dead in Iraq since start of War:
1,100

U.S. Military Amputees, Wounded, Injured & Psychologically Disabled,
All now evacuated from Iraq:
28,850 est.

Iraqi Civilians Killed since start of War:
21,800 est.

Iraqi Military Killed (prior to end of "major hostilities"):
28,000 est.

Total Iraqis Killed (Civilian and Military) in Iraq War:
49,800 est.

Population of Iraq:
25 million

Total Killed in the US on 9/11:
2,973

Population of US:
293 million

Stockpiles of WMD's found in Iraq so far:
0

Sources: Iraq Coalition Casuality Count, U.S. Dept. of Defense, McLaughlin Group, Avert.org

Yup. He actually said it.

And in the same way he's told us over and over that Kerry "would require a permission slip from the U.N. before defending America", I believe Bush meant it.

Seriously, look at the picture, isn't there something wrong this guy?

The Bush Legacy hit another milestone today as the 1100th American troop was killed in George Bush's "catastrophic success"...

That's the bad news. But in good news, according to AP, we brought this little terrorist insurgent bastard to justice!

Mmmm...Can you smell those fumes of liberty spreading?!

Once again, the Bush/Cheney Campaign demonstrated at a Rally in Oregon on Thursday their respect for their beloved U.S. Constition:

Apparently "obscenity" is subjective, Ms. Tong.

A response from a Democrat News Release on the matter:

Any questions?

Kudos to the great patriot Freeway Blogger for his successful National Freeway Free Speech Day! Here are a few of the highlights! (Click any of the pictures to see more!)

I'll let you determine the reliability of Republican pollster Frank Luntz. But this is what he said in his editorial yesterday entitled "Its time for Bush to get worried":

Did ya hear the really funny one about the WMD's?! Check out the hysterical video!

Oh, I'm still crackin' up it's so incredibly funny!

Asshole.

Wow. I told you this thing was gonna get ugly. John O'Neill implodes on live TV on Thursday, and on Friday, live on CNN, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart blows up Tucker Carlson, CNN and Crossfire. Finally!

Watch it, or read the highlights below. It's funny, sad, true and incredible LIVE television!:

I don't usually like to quote this much text, but if you missed the show, you've got to read some of this that I pulled from the full transcript...

Wow. And bravo, Mr. Stewart.

Holy-moly, don't know how many of you saw Nightline last night, but after months of whining that Swift Vet Master Shill, John O'Neill was not getting the network exposure that he thought he somehow deserved (how anyone could suggest that group didn't get enough exposure is beyond me, but anyway)...O'Neill finally got his chance last night. And, man, was it one for the record books!

O'Neill had a complete meltdown on live TV! The Nightline report began with a difficult trip up river into Vietnam to the very location of the disputed Kerry Silver Star incident to speak to the eyewitnesses in the village from that day. They remembered it well. Every witness that Nightline spoke to, none of whom seemed to know who the hell John Kerry was, corroborated every bit of the Navy's original account of the event.

The report completely destroyed O'Neill's thesis on this one particular event (the only one this Nightline report focused on), and his charge that there was no enemy fire on that day, and that Kerry shot some lone little 12 year old kid in the back as he was running away.

O'Neill was interviewed by Koppel after the report and he simply imploded with an incoherent rambling explanation of how Nightline had it all wrong, was trusting in those evil Commie's who love John Kerry (never mind that this village was hours up river into the middle of nowhere, and none of those interviewed had even heard of the man!), and how the accounts of the eye-witnesses had to be wrong because they were at odds with the Boston Globe's story on the matter.

It was amazing. O'Neill kept holding up the opened pages from the Boston Globe book, Kerry's autobiography a Kerry Biography (ed: correction made. O'Neill called it a Kerry autobiography, but he was misleading there.) and his own anti-Kerry polemic. Switching back and forth between the books (at least 5 times each!) flashing the unintelligable-on-television pages that he wanted people to read. No matter what Koppel did, he couldn't bring this guy back to his senses. It was an extraordinary thing to watch! O'Neill, in the bargain, blew any and all credibility he might have had left in a single network interview.

Unfortunately, Nightline doesn't offer free video online (they have it, but it costs money). Their "What They Saw..." report, from the eye-witnesses will have to suffice, if you even care about that story at this point. UPDATE: Full Nightline show from last night available here in Windows Media Player format! O'Neill's implosion is last 10 minutes or so of show.(Thanks, Chuck for the link!)

(Prepare now for the wingnuts to repeat, in comments, the defenses that Rush offered them this morning for last night's embarrassing affair. Ignore them. It's more smoke and mirrors...O'Neill simply blew himself up with a devastating self-inflicted wound. It was a live televised disaster. Period.)

This video, from my buddy, Fin, absolutely kicks ass and should be the rallying cry between now and Election Day for everyone in the world who wants Bush out of office!!!

Send this link around to as many friends, as often as you can between now and November 2nd!

It's crunch time folks, don't count on anyone else other than you to do what's necessary to take your country back, make your world a better, safer place, and put an end to our long national nightmare!

Get angry! Get busy! Let's Start Over!!!