My letter to the editor will probably never see the light of day in these parts, so I’m posting it below, as promised:

I’m in town for only a few days to visit family, but I couldn’t let Mr. Ken Jenkins’ letter (”Dems will need to re-package”) of 7/29 go uncorrected. He used a number of “talking points” that come straight from the RNC (try this at home: “google” some of the his facts, verbatim, and see how many “hits” you get), many of which have gone completely unexamined and unchallenged by the “partisan press.” So yes, let’s look at some facts, because if we drill down a little, we’ll see that Mr. Jenkins’ facts are far less persuasive.

“In 2003, Kerry voted with extreme left-wing Kennedy 93 percent of the time.” Without some context, this is, I’m sure, bone-chilling to the average conservative voter. But I looked at Project Votesmart, where you can examine congressional voting records. On a number of those votes, Kerry did indeed vote with Kennedy, and also with Republican colleagues! For just a couple of examples: he joined Kennedy, and Republicans John McCain and Olympia Snowe, in voting against the fiscally irresponsible tax cuts of 2003. And he joined Kennedy, along with numerous other Republicans and Democrats, to pass the Supplemental Fiscal Support Package for Afghanistan and Iraq, and for the Defense Authorization bill.

“Kerry Voted At Least 350 Times for Higher Taxes.” Mr. Jenkins wrote that in capitals, so it must be a doozy in his book. The “fact” is cleverly written to sound like Kerry voted to increase taxes 350 times, when in fact, fully 283 of those votes were for keeping taxes the same, instead of voting for an irresponsible tax reduction that could not be paid for.

“Kerry voted for the biggest tax increase in American history under President Clinton.” Well, that’s just plain wrong. The biggest tax increase in American history was Roosevelt’s in 1942. Even Ronald Reagan’s Tax Equity Act of 1982 created a larger tax increase.

“Kerry has voted against balanced budget amendments…” Well, I have to hand you that one: if we had a balanced budget amendment in place, then President Bush would not have been able to hand us the record-setting 450 billion dollar deficit budget he created this year. That record-setting deficit budget, by the way, does not include most costs for the ongoing war in Iraq (but it’s probably difficult for the budget office to project how much Halliburton will overcharge the Pentagon in a fiscal year).

Mr. Jenkins also gives us one example of a Kerry “flip-flop.” Let’s look at a few of Bush’s:

* He opposed creation of a Department of Homeland Security until the day FBI whisteblower Colleen Rowley was scheduled to give her damning testimony of FBI failures to Congress, when he suddenly announced - to great fanfare - that he was creating said department.

* In Sept 2000 he told us he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive;” in March 2002, trying to justify his war on Iraq, he announced about bin Laden: “I don’t know where he is…I am truly not concerned about him.” (How many devastating bombings has bin Laden orchestrated since then, by the way?)

* In 2000 Bush supported mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. In 2003, facing an irritated base, in opposed them.

* In May 2002 Bush opposed creation of the 9/11 Commission. In Sept 2002, facing increased public criticism, he announced that he was in favor of it.

* In Jan 2004 Bush refused an outside investigation into WMD intelligence failures. In Feb, facing increased public criticism, he created one by executive order.

Now, to me, those are the worse kinds of flip-flops: the kind born of political expediency. But how about a few more facts? Fact: Bush took a budget surplus and turned it into a 450 billion dollar deficit and still insists on permanent tax cuts. Fact: Bush is on track to be the first president since Hoover to have a net job loss in his term. Fact: one spring job report showed that the fastest growing job segment was (ready for this, small government advocates?) THE GOVERMENT. Fact: George Bush sent our service men and women to war in Iraq, and then asked Congress to cut their wages, reduce the budgets of army base schools, and cut benefits to veterans. Fact: Terrorism INCREASED this year.

Yes, let’s do consider the facts.

Greetings from the battleground state of Ohio. If it brings you any cheer, I’ve had conversations with two diehard Republican voters who have decided to either vote Kerry or sit out this election.

But I’m staying up late tonight to write a rebuttal to this letter-full-of-RNC-talking points, the longest letter printed in today’s Courier:

DEMS WILL NEED TO RE-PACKAGE

During the DNC convention the Democrats have a big job ahead of them, repackaging John Kerry, again. It’s quite a dilemma, when you consider all the flop flops he has had. Instead of buying into the hype and partisan press, let’s decide for ourselves who John Kerry is. The best way to know a person is by looking at what a person has done. Here are some facts about John Kerry, not my opinioin, but facts to help one form an opinion.

In 2003, Kerry voted with extreme left wing Kennedy 93 percent of the time.

Kerry claims he is for fiscal responsibility, but here is his record.

Kerry Has Voted At Least 350 Times For Higher Taxes.

Kerry voted for the biggest tax increase in American history under President Clinton.

Kerry voted against President Bush’s historic 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

Kerry has voted against balanced budget amendments at least five times.

Kerry has voted against major tax relief at least 29 times.

Kerry has said he is personally against abortion. Really? Kerry voted at least six times against banning partial-birth abortions. Kerry has voted at least three times against requiring parental consent/ notification for minor’s (sic) abortion. Kerry voted to allow federal funding of abortions and to provide abortion counseling in federally-funded clinics. So he may be personally against it, but not man enough to stand up against it.

On flip flopping, here is one example:

In the first Democratic debate, Kerry strongly supported the president’s action in Iraq. Kerry said: “George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.”

Kerry later claimed he voted “to threaten” use of force in Iraq. “I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations,” Kerry said. Later when asked by Chris Matthews if he was anti war, Kerry said, “I am - yes.” Does he know what he really thinks?

Ken Jenkins, Findlay

So I’m up tonight, googling Mr. Jenkins’ talking points, and writing my response. It probably won’t get printed in the Courier when it’s done, so I’ll post it here, too. I hope to have it done by tomorrow afternoon.

With apologies for the skimpy content this week, here’s something to chew on until I catch up…

First, here’s an entertaining summary of Dick Cheney’s impressive “accomplishments” to date…

Second, if you read nothing else today, please read Paul Krugman:

It’s election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger’s campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

This isn’t a paranoid fantasy. It’s a true account of a recent election in Riverside County, Calif., reported by Andrew Gumbel of the British newspaper The Independent. Mr. Gumbel’s full-length report, printed in Los Angeles City Beat, makes hair-raising reading not just because it reinforces concerns about touch-screen voting, but also because it shows how easily officials can stonewall after a suspect election.

Some states, worried about the potential for abuse with voting machines that leave no paper trail, have banned their use this November. But Florida, which may well decide the presidential race, is not among those states, and last month state officials rejected a request to allow independent audits of the machines’ integrity. A spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush accused those seeking audits of trying to “undermine voters’ confidence,” and declared, “The governor has every confidence in the Department of State and the Division of Elections.”

[...]

This year, Florida again hired a private company - Accenture, which recently got a homeland security contract worth up to $10 billion - to prepare a felon list. Remembering 2000, journalists sought copies. State officials stonewalled, but a judge eventually ordered the list released.

The Miami Herald quickly discovered that 2,100 citizens who had been granted clemency, restoring their voting rights, were nonetheless on the banned-voter list. Then The Sarasota Herald-Tribune discovered that only 61 of more than 47,000 supposed felons were Hispanic. So the list would have wrongly disenfranchised many legitimate African-American voters, while wrongly enfranchising many Hispanic felons. It escaped nobody’s attention that in Florida, Hispanic voters tend to support Republicans.

[...]

Let’s not be coy. Jeb Bush says he won’t allow an independent examination of voting machines because he has “every confidence” in his handpicked election officials. Yet those officials have a history of slipshod performance on other matters related to voting and somehow their errors always end up favoring Republicans. Why should anyone trust their verdict on the integrity of voting machines, when another convenient mistake could deliver a Republican victory in a high-stakes national election?

This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Think about what a tainted election would do to America’s sense of itself, and its role in the world. In the face of official stonewalling, doubters probably wouldn’t be able to prove one way or the other whether the vote count was distorted - but if the result looked suspicious, most of the world and many Americans would believe the worst. I’ll write soon about what can be done in the few weeks that remain, but here’s a first step: if Governor Bush cares at all about the future of the nation, as well as his family’s political fortunes, he will allow that independent audit.

Here is the Andrew Gumbel story Krugman mentions.

I’ll be finishing What’s the Matter with Kansas? on the plane today. More later!

Latest GOP “Block the Vote!” efforts –

A Michigan state representative says the GOP needs to “suppress the Detroit vote” in order to win. The Detroit vote happens to be 83% black and largely Democratic. Meanwhile, Ohio has begun purging its voter rolls. Is anyone supervising? And Jeb is at it again, this time eliminating the form that ex-felons use to request reinstatement of voting rights so that they have to call Florida’s Office of Executive Clemency to request a hearing. (See here, too. Thanks, C.) He must be very handsomely rewarded for his tireless and creative efforts.

Living on Pennies –

I should have been linking to this series all along, but now all six installments are available. The Los Angeles Times has been running a very important and moving series on the brutal basics of daily life in Africa, “Living on Pennies.” Hurry up and read it while it’s free. Here are the six segments:

Part 1, Eking out an income

Part 2, Staving off hunger

Part 3, Settling for castoff clothes

Part 4, Living in 100 square feet

Part 5, Locked out of school

Part 6, Surviving AIDS

The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party –

Wasn’t that Senator Paul Wellstone’s classic line, originally? We’ve been reading quite a bit in recent weeks (of course I haven’t been saving the links; feel free to post examples in the Comments section if you have!) about the relative quiet from the left wing of the Democratic party, which is being attributed to the unprecedented unity of purpose binding us all this year: removing Bush from his appointed office. Perhaps we’re learning something. Among the observations EJ Dionne Jr. makes in his book Stand Up, Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge (which, alas, is a little heavy on the observations and light on remedies, and is - in any case - not the fire-breathing call to arms its title suggests) is that “because Republicans are so certain about whom and what they represent, they are better able to compromise when necessary…” Democrats have finally found something they can all agree on - the need to compromise this year. But where does the party go after (we pray) Kerry and Edwards are safely in office? One of the messages that seems to be coming from writers like Thomas Frank is that the Democratic party lost its soul during the last 30 years — trying to counter conservatives on all the wrong terms. THEIR terms. For some reason, Democrats got embarrassed about being the party that agitates for fair wages and safe working conditions, that protects the environment, that cares for the disadvantaged… I wonder if we can get that party back? (Body and Soul misses it, too.) Mark Green lays out his vision for revival here (the final pages of Dionne’s book describe a similar vision “progressive patriotism”).

Why-oh-why-oh –

For a week, beginning Tuesday, I’ll be visiting family in northwest Ohio. Posts will be sporadic, but inevitable, since I can’t stop myself from looking at the infuriating Findlay Courier when I’m there and will probably need to vent. Findlay, for those who don’t know, is the home district of the ethically challenged Rep. Mike Oxley.

It’s dahlia season at the Conservatory of Flowers, Golden Gate Park… 

Bush’s missing National Guard payroll records have miraculously been found!

Like records released earlier by the White House, the newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months.

But, further on in this WaPo story, we’re told these records “do not give any new information toward determining whether Bush kept his National Guard commitments during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend.” Hmm. For months, various folks have been saying that the payroll records would prove whether or not Bush served, which is what made their absence all the more suspicious. Now we have the payroll records, indicating that, indeed, Bush was not paid during the months in question. How is that not informative? What am I missing?

Bear with me! I’ve got stuff to post here, but I’m swamped at work and at home this week. More later today.

How the other half thinks? –

The Village Voice’s Rick Perlstein spends some time with Bush’s True Believers and shows us how deep it goes. No, I don’t think all of “the other half” feel the way these Believers do. I suspect that some of them know Bush is a contrivance, but as long as he’s making them money, they’ll sing as loud as anyone. Still, I am mystified that Bush carries as many as he does. I’m hoping What’s the Matter With Kansas? will clear this up for me.

Army rations to include pee soup? –

No, that’s not a typo.

Berger Brouhaha –

Interesting item from Josh Marshall re: Berger’s illegal retention of copies of secure documents and notes he used for testimony to the 9/11 commission. Seems the FBI has known about it for MONTHS, and the news was just conveniently leaked this week.

A lot of people fear that Ohio will be the Florida of 2004 –

and here’s another reason to be worried.

The Incredible Shrinking Paycheck –

I missed this item Sunday. While the prez is out touting the booming economy (ie, the economy that regained a small fraction of the jobs he lost so far), the NYT gives a snippet of real life (via Ruy Teixeira): real wages are not keeping up with inflation. And it’s pretty much an employer’s market; that NYT story mentions 600-700 people showing up to apply for 70-80 restaurant jobs. Where’s the incentive to provide competitive wages?

Kinda funny – Except that I can’t get the refrain out of my head.

Good to know they’re focusing on the important stuff. The flag-burning amendment flares up again, and a close vote is expected.