Unless I'm mistaken, I recall two distinct visits by Bush to Florida (swing state) in the aftermath of Hurricanes Charley and Frances. The "President" cared so much, he was photographed handing out bags of ice and cases of water with his brother Governor Jeb to Florida's bereaved voters victims.

Then came Hurricane Ivan, as powerful as Charley, as big as Frances, which hit Alabama (solid red state) and killed some 42 people.

George W. Bush will be spending some down time this weekend at his family's compound in Kennebunkport, ME. No scheduled compassionate fake conservatism visits to Alabama to survey the damage and help the victims there currently on the "Presidents" calendar.

Bush/Cheney '04: Cynicism in Motion

Would Republicans actually do this?

So does that sound like the Republicans? The same group who called South Carolina voters during the 2000 primary to ask what they thought of John McCain fathering a black out-of-wedlock baby? Oh, yes. It sounds a lot like them. Gillespie's inability to deny it, of course, seals the deal. Your Republican Party: Anything to Win.

(If anyone finds a scanned graphic of that mail, please let me know!)

Guess what? More documents on Bush's Guard Service released by the Pentagon just now! This despite previously claims by the White House (several times) that they've released everything on the matter.

Also note this release comes late Friday (when they release info they wish to bury from the mainstream media) and a few days after White House Spokesman, Scott McClellan had hinted that more could be coming. I guess he already knew.

Developing...

UPDATE: .PDF of letter from George HW Bush here. .PDF of Press Release about young Bush and the fact that he is son of U.S. Congressman here. (Most ironic line from the release: “George Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed. Oh, he gets high, all right, but not from narcotics.”)

(Thanks to BRAD BLOG tipster Jaime!)

In a victory for Republicans hoping to win by getting Ralph Nader on as many ballots as possible, in lieu of confidence that their man is good enough to win on his own, the Florida Supreme Court has just ruled that Nader can be added to the ballot because the Florida Legislature's law was not clear enough to determine the matter one way or another. So they decided to rule in favor of inclusion on the ballot.

That's nice. But wouldn't that seem to go against the Republican's argument from 2000 that the Florida Supremes were all Democratic activist judges, and that a lack of clarity in the law concerning ballot counting meant that the law should be ignored in favor of not counting every ballot?

Apparently judiciaries are only biased "activists" when they rule against what Republicans want.

Hypocrisy in the Republican party?! Say it ain't so!

Just now Brit Hume's Special Report showed a few Jeno Leno jokes from "our friends at the Tonight Show". Included in the jokes they showed:

But here's one they didn't show from Wednesday's monologue for some reason:

More on the surprisingly "liberal" Jay Leno here.

At this time, the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Dept. believes Federal Big Government trumps States Rights and the Choice of the Voters in these matters.

Bush has been speaking lately to the American people of "making progress" in Iraq since handing over "sovereignty". Hopefully he's not referring to this kind of progress since handing over "sovereignty":

JUL '04: 1.87 US Troops killed per day (54 total)
AUG '04: 2.42 US Troops killed per day (66 total)
SEP '04: 3.24 US Troops killed per day (51 total) ~

~ = So far, just 17 days into month. Making September '04 deadliest month of the last six. Source: Iraq Coalition Casualties

Bush, in the meantime, while criticizing Kerry for offering no Exit Strategy in Iraq, has offered no Exit Strategy from Iraq. As of this post, 1,029 (update) 1,030 US Troops have been killed in Bush's "miscalculation" so far.

"Mission Not Accomplished"
(Several different videos available there.)

"Halliburton and Cheney"

George W. Bush today in Minnesota:

The press gaggle on Air Force One on Monday:

UPDATE: Though the White House doesn't credit who the speakers of the "Q's" are, it may be safe to assume that the questioner here is Ron Fournier of the AP. As much as I bash the press, it's only fair to try and give credit to those who don't roll over for the White House!

Wake up folks! The latest Harris Poll released today shows what I've been trying to tell you! The race is on with Bush ahead of Kerry nationally by just 1% (well within the margin of error).

As I've said, those national polls mean almost nothing. It's the Battleground states that matter most. Other than in the perception of how things are going. So if I hear one more Liberal or Democrat whining about how "uh, oh, we may lose!" I'm gonna hurl.

Just because they are better liars, doesn't mean Americans will buy it! They didn't buy it during Clinton, and the packs of vicious lies constantly thrown at him, and they don't need to buy it now! But if some of you folks roll over and give up they just might!

That's not the only poll out there saying the same thing. But the Republicans, and the lazy Mainstream Media that reports whatever they say, are hoping to give a different impression. If you make enough noise, perhaps they (at least the Media) will knock it off!

In another remarkable failure of the Bush Justice Dept., and their "War on Terror", yet another "enemy combatant", Yaser Hamdi, is being set free after three years of detention with no access to an attorney and not a single charge ever filed. He was also an American citizen. From Newsweek:

Again.

Really, the only person living (that we know of) who knows for certain whether the information in the Killian memos is substantively accurate would be George W. Bush himself.

So CBS delivered these incriminating memos to the White House and the White House then released them to the press. Begging the question...If the information they contained was not accurate, why would they release them at all? At least without some caviat that they suspected them to be forgeries, or at the very least inaccurate or misleading or untrue?

Yet here is Scott McClellan from Wednesday's White House press gaggle:

What reason would the "President" and the White House have to believe they were "authentic"? Wouldn't Dubya know that the information was inaccurate? Yet McClellan says twice that they believed they were "authentic", had "every reason to believe" it in fact.

If CBS had given them memos in which someone had said George W. Bush had sex with hamsters while in the National Guard, would they have simply passed them on to the press without comment?

Nobody in the press corp, however, bothered to ask McClellan about either that strange point or, more importantly, the substance of those "believed to be accurate" memos.

Nonetheless, for those who feel that the information in the memos must also be ignored if the docs themselves were frauds, I'd point you towards Kevin Drum. He has 5 salient and supported points, based on the White Houses' own released records, which show that Bush, at best, has yet to come clean on his "proud service" in the Air National Guard. And at worst, that there has been some serious skullduggery concerning those released records.

Apparently, however, the press corp is selective as to when they pay attention to the blogosphere and when they don't. Perhaps they're waiting for Fox News to ask the first question, and then they'll jump on in.

They may be waiting a while.

Since February, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau has been offering $10,000 to anyone who can come forward and demonstrate that they actually served with, or saw George W. Bush serving his required time in the Air National Guard in Alabama. As he said in his strip: "So if you served with Mr. Bush --- even if only in the officers' club --- we want to hear from you right now!" So far, no takers.

Now the ante is upped. Texans for Truth is offering $50,000 to anyone who can prove that George W. Bush fullfilled his required duties in the Alabama National Guard from May of 1972 to May of 1973.

Now if he actually did perform that service, there should be plenty of folks, and plenty of documentation that he did so. Not to mention, the idea of winning $50k, showing up those "terrible mean partisans" at Texans for Truth, and proving once and for all that Bush did fullfill his required duty, should be more than ample incentive for anyone who could actually prove it to be the case.

We'll let you know if anyone is able to do so.

And again, speaking to why this is relevant today, Texans for Truth founder Glen Smith said in a statement announcing the reward: "Bush's dishonesty about missing from service during Vietnam goes to the heart of his presidency. He was dishonest then just as he is misleading us about why we went to war with Iraq. He dodges responsibility then just as he dodges responsibility for Iraq today."

Remember folks, when Clinton was "caught" with his pants down, the conventional wisdom was "See? We knew he was a philanderer before we elected him, so why should we be surprised that he still is?!"

That question goes precisely to the heart of the Bush "Presidency" where, with virtually every decision he has made, he has either mislead, told only partial truths about, or lied completely and attempted to quash or discredit any information that didn't support his point of view. Had the media, and America, looked a bit closer at Bush's Air National Guard record before placing him into office, they would have been able to see precisely the kind of guy he was:

He has done all of those things in his "Presidency", and America is paying the price. We should have known. And perhaps if the media had done it's job then (or even started doing it now!) America would be better able to make informed decisions about it's leaders.