After a couple of days of hemming and hawing and "Who us?"-ing, the Republicans have come "clean" on the story we mentioned here and then here a couple of days ago, wherein we predicted this came from the same filthy bag of dirty tricks that the Republicans used to slime their own John McCain in 2000.

As reported in tomorrow's NY Times:

In case you missed it the first time, here's the thoughtful mailing being sent out in Arkansas and West Virginia to help voters understand the "issues" at stake this year:

Just wait though. There's plenty more to come, I predict, from their filthy bag of tricks. So hold your nose and stay tuned. That rancid smell is the boyz just getting warmed up in the pig pen. These things get easier and easier, you know, when there's no troubling moral compass by which one needs to measure ones self.

A rather brilliant piece from Juan Coles...I'll give ya the first few grafs, please drop by to read the rest:

Inform yourself and pay attention.

I just saw an ad on Fox from (I believe) the "Progress for America Voter Fund" that was almost identical to the Bush Campaign's own silly "Windsurfing" ad.

I can't find the PFA's ad online, but if someone out here in the blogosphere has more info on it I'd appreciate it. Along with an explanation of how an almost identical ad was released by a 527 for Bush the day after the Bush campaign themselves released a virtually identical ad when the campaigns and political parties are not supposed to be coordinating with 527's.

Anyone have any info on that? It was during the 5pm PT / 8pm ET O'Reilly show if anyone happens to have it TIVO'd. I'd love to make sure it was from PFA and/or get their website address and/or compare the ads online!

UPDATE: Okay, the ad ran again during Hannity & Colmes and I got the website address. It's from the "Progress for America Voter Fund" at www.pfavoterfund.com. Both ads show Kerry windsurfing, both ads use the text "whichever way the wind blows". Take a look:

+ Bush's "Windsurfing" ad here
+ PFA Voter Funds "Surfer Dude" ad here (Large Version / Small Version)

"[F]rankly, [the sanctions on Iraq] have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." - Colin Powell, February 24, 2001

"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." - Condoleeza Rice, July 29, 2001

For more on the many stunning flips, flops, mixed-messages and more flops of Bush Iraq Policy, click here for documented details.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

Well said by "nostalgic about my future":

The irony, no doubt, is wholly lost on the irony-impaired Rightwing Kool-aid crowd.

The only thing Bush can say for himself is that, aside from the successful Anthrax attacks and the terrorists who perpetrated it who, like Osama bin Laden, run free, there haven't been any "major" terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11.

It's also a fact that the systematic round-up of hundreds and thousands of "suspected terrorists" have yielded not one successful prosecution that I know of. Yassir Hamdi, who was held for three years in solitary confinement, and considered "too dangerous" to even meet with a lawyer, was freed yesterday without charges.

The military interrogator who was supposedly a muslim spy of some sort, had his charges similarly dropped. Systematically, the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department has been a failure at catching terrorists in this country, and has shit all over the constitution and "due process" in the bargain of achieving that failure.

But it's not just on that count that they have failed, as the Republican US Congressman from Florida, John Murtha recently pointed out. Murtha, chairman of the House aviation sub-committee, described the screening situation in U.S. Airports as "absolutely horrendous".

The head of Bush's own watchdog group for the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin, called said that "it may take some horrific wake-up call to get attention" on the failures of the Bush Administration to properly screen travellers at U.S. airports for the type of explosives that recently took down two Russian airplanes.

"Some horrific wake-up call?" Pardon me, but didn't we supposedly already get one of those horrific wake-up calls on 9/11? What the hell is still going on here, three years after 9/11?!

And what kind of "horrific wake-up call" are you Bush supporters going to need to figure out how you've been played for chumps?

From USA Today:

And Mica is a Republican! From Florida! In an Election Year!

How many more Americans need to die before you Republican Bush Worshippers realize how you are being played? The messages above are almost precisely like those that came out, and were subsequently ignored by the Bush Administration, in the weeks and month prior to 9/11!

Hello??? Is this thing on???

From Media Matters:

The full clips are even worse. The whole story --- with actual sourcing, audio, explanations and substantive and verifiable background links, instead of tweaked, out-of-context, misleading, lying bullshit --- right here.

Reason #864 to vote against Bush: Demonstrate to that sick, America-hating fuck, Rush Limbaugh what real patriots think of him and his sick, twisted, demented ilk.

If, like me, you don't live in a swing state, you may be unaware of the new TV spots from the Kerry Team. Their new "Juvenile" ad hits back hard at Bush's silly new "Windsurfing" attack ad.

Perhaps it's just me, but I think it might be nice to have a serious person in the White House during some rather serious times.

Most importantly, the Kerry Team got this one out quickly in rapid response! Perhaps they're starting to get it. If I can turn out a video ad in an afternoon with no resources, cheap lifted graphics and a free video editor, I'd think they could do much better! And it looks like they're finally starting to!

After checking out the "Juvenile" spot, be sure to check out some of Kerry's other recent TV spots that you may not have seen! Impressive and lookin' much better!

Special thanks to Alan Colmes (Yes, Alan Colmes!) and Fox News (Yes, Fox News!) for tipping me off to the ad by showing it tonight in immediate response after playing the Bush ad! It's nice to see a bit of actual "Fair and Balance" from Fox! And Colmes delivered some of that tonight!

Though I may have a few things to say about O'Reilly a bit later...

Something from the good folks at the DCCC's Stakeholder...
Dedicated to the great Americans on Enron's trading floor, Tom DeLay, Kenny-Boy Lay, the former Governor of Texas and Big Dick Cheney! All set to a beat you can dance to! HIT IT!

Looks like our "Take Your Country Back" video featuring Jimmy Swaggart may be having an effect out there!

It appears that the good Christian minister and admitted prostitute frequenter who, as you can hear in the BRAD BLOG video, advocates both voting for Bush and killing homosexuals, has taken down the original video of his sermon featuring that lovely suggestion!

It was previously available online at mms://www.freedomstream.net/jsm/jsm_091204.wmv but for some reason is no longer there!

The Archive Page at Mr. Swaggart's website where one can view all of his shows, no longer lists the link to his show from the week of September 12, 2004, in which he spoke of killing homosexuals and telling "God they died" if they looked at him the wrong way. That show is now missing from the list!

Apparently then (unless someone has a cached copy) the only place you can hear it, is right here:
https://BradBlog.com/TakeYourCountryBack.htm - So please keep passing that link around!

We don't usually discuss hit numbers here, but let's just say however many hits you think that spot has gotten here, it's gotten several thousand more than that thanks to you all! Keep spreading the word!

Please direct any questions about the original tape or it's content to Mr. Swaggart's Feedback Page.

UPDATE: The video of the pertinent section is right here from the original broadcast. It's in Windows Media Player format via Oliver Willis' site! Glad he was able to save it, since I wasn't! Thanks to Rev. Meier for the link!

ANOTHER UPDATE: AMERICABlog has a story that may explain another reason the original video was taken down. Hint: Canadians actually have their own version of the FCC, but with more important concerns than Janet Jackson's nipple.

Following up on my essay yesterday on the disingenuous and hypocritical charge by partisan Republicans that there is such a thing as a "Liberal" media bias. My article detailed loads of recent examples of bias from the so-called "Liberal" media that were never challenged by Republicans because, as it turned out, those "mistakes" from such "liberal" bastions as The New York Times and The Washington Post and CNN etc. actually supported (and in fact drew from) the Republican Talking Points of the moment.

Such numerous mistakes and/or bias was just fine by them when it just happened to support their policies. It's only a problem for them when, as with the CBS story, the errors are in a story that may hurt them. At which time they start yipping and yapping, "See?! That's what we've been saying all along about Liberal medial bias!!!"

What complete phonies these guys are.

Anyway, while the stories I pointed to were recent examples, here's a few more historical examples of same from Gene Lyons (link via Atrios):

Yup.

Republican phonies (like frequent BRAD BLOG commentors Paul and Ed) may now start clucking their nonsense again here in the Comments section. Or, as is more likely, they'll avoid comment on this article as they are want to do when they have run out of Rush-approved Talking Point explanations, apologies, justifications and outright lies.

(To be fair, it's not just Paul and Ed who are willfully blind phony parroting stooges, they just happen to be the BRAD BLOG's own personal willfully blind phony parroting stooges, so we like to give them full credit where credit is due.)

This is a scan of a mailing being sent out in Arkansas from a GOP return address. Apparently the mailing, which I blogged about a few days ago as going to West Virginians, is now being sent out to voters in multiple states.

The full brochure was procured, scanned and made available by Steve Clemons of The Washington Note.