Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Kerry’s Ground Game in Miami

It wasn't as easy as it should have been to find a place to get a Kerry-Edwards yard sign. The local office I got via Google gave me a second number for the “field office”…but either they said it wrong or I wrote it wrong. My next call was to an office with nearby address, but it just had an answering machine saying it was the “finance office”.

There wasn't an obvious way to find the local Miami offices from the front page of the main Kerry-Edwards web page, at least not without filling in a form. They have a link to a page that would sell me a Kerry-Edwards yard sign …but they'd have to mail it, and it didn't come with wires to hold it up.

Going deeper down the Google list, however, I found Miami for Kerry, which boasts an impressive number of local offices. I called the closest — answered on the third ring which was not encouraging, but may be excusable on Debate Day given the office is very near the campus. The person answering the phone was not nearly as good as Rebecca, but she told me what I needed to know.

Last night the K-E people did a great job of getting students with signs to dominate the campus, and dominated the backdrop for the live outdoor MS-NBC broadcast, although I don't know what the cameras chose to show.

I'm trying to decide if I even want to venture onto campus today.

Posted in Miami | Comments Off on Kerry’s Ground Game in Miami

Lying With Impunity

Repetition and a docile media are all it takes to get away with telling a little lie or a big one these days. Here's yet another sample of how little GW Bush cares about the truth, brought to you by Orcinus. …and how reporters don't fact check even the obvious whoppers.

If I may repeat myself, the biggest reason that we should care about Lt. Bush's National Guard service is that 30 years later he still can't own up to the truth — the same tenuous relationship to reality that is the cause of so many recent US casualties in WMD-free Iraq.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 4 Comments

For Florida Residents Only: Cast Your Presidential Ballot Online

Due to the increasing doubts about the reliability of the Deibold voting machines, Jeb Bush & Co. have made available a more secure alternative voting platform, the Florida Election Ballot online. Now, if you are a registered Florida voter or know how to impersonate one online, you can cast your 2004 vote for President using this new service.

Posted in Completely Different | 1 Comment

More Top 10 Lists

CBS News: Bush's Top Ten Flip-Flops. My favorite:

During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush argued against nation building and foreign military entanglements. In the second presidential debate, he said: “I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'”

The United States is currently involved in nation building in Iraq on a scale unseen since the years immediately following World War II.

During the 2000 election, Mr. Bush called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from the NATO peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. His administration now cites such missions as an example of how America must “stay the course.”

[I think this one is actually a double-flip-flop since we're now abandoning nation-building in Iraq.]

NPR: Top 10 Secrets They Don't Want You to Know About the Debates, including,

(7.) The secretly negotiated debate contract bars Kerry and Bush from any and all other debates for the entire campaign.

CBS News: Kerry's Top Ten Flip-Flops. Most pandering and damning,

In October 2003, Kerry said Israel’s unilateral construction of a security fence was “a barrier to peace.”

“I know how disheartened Palestinians are by the decision to build the barrier off the Green Line,” he told the Arab American Institute National Leadership Conference. “We don't need another barrier to peace. Provocative and counterproductive measures only harm Israelis.”

But less than a year later, in February 2004, he reversed himself, calling the fence “a legitimate act of self-defense,” and saying “President Bush is rightly discussing with Israel the exact route of the fence to minimize the hardship it causes innocent Palestinians.”

Posted in Politics: US: 2004 Election | 2 Comments

Gonzo Quicktime

Quietly gonzo, with weird resonances of bad Shakespearean hamming and of those annoying little films in Myst, Nigerian spam used as Quicktime soliloquy (spotted via Boing Boing).

Posted in Completely Different | Comments Off on Gonzo Quicktime

Talkleft Has a UM Student Blogging the Debate Experience

TalkLeft: Blogging the Miami Debate, written by a UM student living in the dorms.

A little taste:

Secret Service will be searching my apartment and the apartments surrounding the Convocation Center on Thursday morning, so I have to wake up early so they can do their jobs; but with my paranoia I'm taking my lap top and all personal documents out of my room just because well, that's just me.

Posted in U.Miami | 1 Comment