Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

3rd Debate 1st Thoughts

Posted on October 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

The questions were limp. Ever hear of the environment? John Ashcroft?

If Bush could have bottled his best ten minutes he would have defeated Kerry's worst. But it's a 90 minute event. And Kerry stumbled only once that I caught (I think the Congressional Black Caucus has been in the White House1). Bush stumbled often, looking lost. That smirk crept back. And he got caught out badly on jobs, on how students are losing their lunches. Kerry had several zingers, on jobs, minimum wage, health care. For example, the line about telling union workers that he can't stop all outsourcing is pretty obvious but it will play well.

Bush at his best was better than in the previous debates—notably in pointing up Kerry's opposition to the First Gulf War authorization; but for the middle part of the debate he looked alternately lost, scared, smirky. It was odd. The line about not trusting the press oh never mind was not just unpresidential, it was strange. Bush ducked the Roe v. Wade question, and it showed. That helps with the base, but I don't think it helps with the nation as a whole. Kerry also nailed the guns question after Bush said he ducked supporting the assault weapons ban because he didn't think it would pass—Kerry said that was a failure of leadership, and he could do what Clinton did: pass the bill with the help of law enforcement officers who support it.

In my view, Bush was better than before — but so was Kerry. He looked like a President, and I think he actually inspired, yes John Kerry inspired, when he talked about fairness. Bush will have scored points talking about faith, but I'll take works please. [It's interesting that the candidates' debate reflects the fault line in US Protestantism regarding faith vs. works, the tension that famously destroyed the hegemony of the Puritan divines in Massachusetts shortly after the American Revolution. It's also interesting to hear Catholic Bostonian Kerry giving the salvation through works line, while it's unchurched Protestant Southerner Bush, the man whose works are not working, is in essence arguing for blind faith. Sociologists of religion will be quoting this stuff for years.]

But it doesn't matter what I think, what matters is what the country thought.

[Update 10/14: Insta-polls say Kerry won big. ]

1 [Update 10/14] Well, yes and no. See the details at The Carpetbagger Report

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 10 Comments

First Lie Spotted Two Minutes In

Posted on October 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

The brought out the genial bush for the start of the debate… Kerry stuck to the talking points. I think playing the same tape three times is boring.

I'm not going to try to live blog this, but I can't help noting that it was only 2 minutes and we had our first lie: Bush denied he had ever said he wasn't worried about Osama bin Laden.

Not true

President Bush said Tuesday in West Virginia that he is not worried about finding Osama bin Laden as he cannot hide from the U.S. forces forever.

snip
“There are only so many caves he (bin Laden) can hide in,” said Bush in arrival remarks at Yeager Airport in Charleston, W.Va. The United States, he said, is winning the war on terrorism, even if the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks is still at large.

“He's the one who needs to be worried. But I want to assure you the objective is not bin Laden. We'll get bin Laden. “We want him dead or alive … but we are not too worried about him. … He is the one who needs to be worried,” Bush said.

Update: Kevin Drum has a better quote:

I don’t know where he is. Nor — you know, I just don’t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you. I….I truly am not that concerned about him.

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 1 Comment

Jokes to Get You Through the Debate

Posted on October 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

From the “Yuks” mailing list by Gene Spafford

“President Bush announced he has a five-point strategy for getting out of Iraq. Points six through 10 will be handled by the Kerry administration.”
— David Letterman

“President Bush's campaign is now attacking John Kerry for throwing away some of his medals to protest the Vietnam War. Bush did not have any medals to throw away, but in his defense he did have all his services records thrown out.”
— Jay Leno

“President Bush says in the last month he has created 300,000 new jobs. Yeah, they're called Kerry campaign workers.”
— Craig Kilborn

OK. Time to be serious….

Posted in Completely Different | Comments Off on Jokes to Get You Through the Debate

Operation Truth Seems Like a Good Cause

Posted on October 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Operation Truth, the makers of this video, seems like a good cause.

In the unlikely event you have a few dollars to spare…

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on Operation Truth Seems Like a Good Cause

Wow. Low Even for Monsanto

Posted on October 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Boing Boing: Monsanto stole patented wheat from Indian farmers:

Cory Doctorow: Monsanto had taken out a patent for a “genetically modified” strain of wheat. Today, they lost that patent in Europe, after Greenpeace proved that the wheat in question had in fact been selectively bred by Indian farmers and had not emerged from Monsanto's labs.

The European Patent office in Munich had granted a patent to Monsanto on May 21, 2003. The patent covered wheat exhibiting a special baking quality that Monsanto claimed to be its invention.

However, Greenpeace proved in its opposition that the wheat variety was bred by Indian farmers for improving its baking quality and it was not a genetically-engineered invention as claimed by Monsanto.

Link

I hope this sort of theft of intellectual property is a criminal offense in the EU.

Posted in Law: Everything Else | 3 Comments

What if the Real Polls Don’t Matter

Posted on October 13, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

One more reason polls don't matter: people who think they are registered to vote may not be. In Nevada, a GOP-financed firm purported to register voters, but secretly ripped up the forms submitted by people who wanted to register as Democrats.

There are dirty tricks in every election, but this is down there among the slimiest. Thousands of would-be voters may be effected. And it's not the only such story from this electoral cycle. See this voter fraud roundup and the one at Angry Bear.

The US doesn't have a great history on this subject, and I don't mean just the 2000 election. There's substantial evidence, for example, that JFK, LBJ and then-Mayor Daley stole the 1960 election by stuffing ballot boxes in Texas and rigging the vote in Chicago…mitigated only somewaht by some counter-evidence of GOP vote fraud that year. Arguably, Nixon's finest hour was taking that defeat relatively quietly; the counter-argument is he knew what skeletons were in his closet. (You know, this lot makes me miss Nixon. At least when Nixon and Kissinger committed a war crime, they had a somewhat plausible theory motivating it.)

This year, however, the reported evidence of fraud — not to mention the potential for rigging voting machines — leans very heavily one way, and suggests a pattern of voter intimidation (aimed at Blacks and Native Americans) and outright fraud that may continue on to election day.

How many fraud stories leaning the same way, in how many states, does it take before the validity of this election is so much in doubt that we need to ask if we still have a democracy in the real sense of the word?

And if we should conclude that we have failed Benjamin Franklin's test — a Republic, if you can keep it — then what do we do? The mind boggles. One wants to think about something else. Novels. Getting out the vote. The new Chumbawumba CDs that arrived in the mail. Work.

Is it best not to think about it until we know the result of the election? (Even if some Republicans are already laying plans to claim, as they did with Clinton, that only Republicans can be legitimately elected?) After all, it might not be close, and blowout one way would quiet criticism, espeically if it wasn't the party in power that had access to the paperless electronic voting machines.

Or, perhaps, is it already too late in the game?

Updates: Kos1 and Kos2

Posted in Politics: US | 20 Comments