While Rush brewed up a fresh pitcher this morning for his Kool-aid drinkers, predictably turning on the "Liberal" Media because their polls now show a come-back for Kerry in the face of Bush's disastrous performance last week. To swallow that notion, one would need to ignore all the media's previous polls that showed Bush winning, ignore the poll of WaPo --- one of the favorite "Liberal" media whipping boys --- which still shows Bush leading, ignore the past three and a half years of demonstrably pro-Bush work by the entire Mainstream Media, and a whole bunch of Kool-aid to wash it all down. But Rush has nothing else to rally his supporters with for the moment, so every line old becomes new again.

In the wake of it all, those of us who know the real reason why Bush is heading back to Crawford have had some time to ponder it all.

Here's four enlightening items I think you'll enjoy. All of them very powerful. I suggest you look at each of them. Including the last link with one the best pieces I've seen explaining where we are right now and why the truth about George W. Bush is finally making it through the cracks in the armor.

My buddy, Fin of "What-We-Know", has put together a terrific little video that hits the nail right on the head. He gets it. Most of you already do as well. But this puts a lot in perspective. Check out his "Lone Wolf" video. Especially you Rightwingers.

My other buddy, Jesse, over at the DCCC, has put together a terrific video compendium called "Miserable Failure" detailing Bush's gaffes, lies, misleads, or whatever you want to call them from the first debate. Corrections to Bush's, uh, "misstatements" are provided, along with some great Springsteen music to boot. Check it out. Especially you Rightwingers.

A group calling themselves "Real Voices" puts out an extraordinarily emotional indictment of George W. Bush's war. It's called "A Mother's Tears" and features testimony from the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq - for no apparent reason. It packs a wallop. Please check it out. Especially you Rightwingers.

Finally, Digby puts into perspective precisely why George W. Bush now finds himself exposed and in trouble in a piece called "Two Faces. One Public, One Private. One Phony, One Real." It beautifully sums up the last four years of the Bush scam to a tee and why America may finally be starting to "get it". I can't recommend enough that you give this piece a quick read. (Thanks Bryan for the tip!) You may as well learn the truth now rather than waiting until after the election and wondering what happened. Particularly you Rightwingers!

Despite Bush's invocation of Poland twice at last week's debate, only once correctly, it looks like they've had enough of both Bush and Iraq according to this just in from AFP:

In the first Presidential Debate, Bush had attempted to correct a statement by Kerry...

Well, actually...he didn't Mr. "President". Poland was not there when you rushed in to find no Weapons of Mass Destruction with no plans on how to win your war. Poland didn't add troops to the effort until after Baghdad fell. (After the "Mission" was "Accomplished").

Poland, who's President told reporters last March, "[T]hey deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that's true. We were taken for a ride," now becomes the 10th country (if my count is accurate...it's hard to really tell who was ever in or out) to pull out of Bush's "Miscalculation".

(Thanks AMERICABlog and Counterspin Central for staying on this one!...As silly as it all is.)

I give up. Just saw Condi on This Week. The blog item it would take to detail the number of lies she told in a single interview would crash my server.

Not only can I not believe that woman is still National Security Advisor, I can't believe she's still employed. At all. Anywhere. Couldn't find a transcript for you, but here's a short article on the appearance that covers the tiniest fraction of her utter and complete soulless continuation of misleading America. Apparently not enough bandwidth over at ABC to cover all her nonsense either.

If I have a stomach for it, I'll try to hit some specifics in the morning via comments. Otherwise, see my previous item on her CNN appearance this morning, and Aravosis' detail of just one of her This Week lies this morning. If you have the stomach for it.

And if Gallup says it's tied...[fill in own thoughts here].

...according to Gallup anyway. And we all know that Gallup [fill in own thoughts here].

(Tip of the hat to Fin at "What We Know")

This morning on CNN's Late Edition Condi Rice was asked about her September 2002 statement to CNN, during the buildup to the War on Iraq, when she told America about Iraq's attempts to procure "high-quality aluminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs." (That was the same day she'd also said "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.")

Her reply to being confronted today about that statement two years ago was, of course, to obfuscate the issue by saying "Well, at that time, when I came on your show, I knew there was some debate out there. But I tell you, I did not know the nature of the debate."

Never mind that The New York Times reports today that for a year prior to her initial statement on CNN her office had been told otherwise:

There is a ton of information out there (just search the Whitehouse's website for "tubes" and you'll find the tip of the iceberg) on how they were selling the whole "Saddam/Nuclear Weapons" business to the American people in TV appearances, briefings, speeches and even to the U.N. in addresses by both Powell and Bush. They seemed to always leave the part out about how it was the idea of one junior analyst and was at odds with their Senior nuclear scientists. This White House has never much cared for scientists.

As I'm researching all of this, since Rice seemed to be lying yet again today, I come across this statement at the Whitehouse website. Rice is being interviewed on July 30, 2003 by Jim Lehrer after the end of "major hostilities" in Iraq when no WMD's were showing up. He asks her about Saddam's supposed nuclear weapons programs and the now infamous tubes that helped sell the American people on the war. At the end of what we now know was just more obfuscation and nonsense from her, she says to him:

Isn't that funny? Look what George W. Bush said in his now infamous speech to the U.N. back on September 12, 2002 (just days after Condi's initial lie about the tubes on CNN):

Can anybody explain to me why this woman wasn't fired years ago?! Why they let her out of her cage to continue misleading people on CNN even today? (Both rhetorical questions, we all know the answers by now...if they'd fired everybody they should have for the debacles of these past four years, there would be no Republicans left to run the government.) Unbelievable.

Anyway, we'd expect nothing less from the woman who also said on today's interview, in regards to Bush's debate performance last week: "[He did] a fine job of showing the American people why he is the leader he is and why he is the leader to carry us through."

On that we sort of agree, Condi. He did a fine job indeed.

Four more weeks! Four more weeks! Four more weeks!

If you've missed the latest buzz, the wingnuts, having gone frame-by-frame over last week's debate searching for Bush's credibility, have now decided that Kerry cheated by pulling "something that appears to be white and appears to have a straight edge" from his pocket at the top of the debate in violation of the agreed upon debate rules.

Never mind that Dubya was the only one to clearly break the rules the other night (by talking directly to Kerry), but now thanks to Yelladog who seems to have been able to use some advance technology to zoom in with great detail on the video, the mystery is now over about what Kerry actually pulled out of his pocket.

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?