Bush campaign in trouble with the IOC again

Back in August the Bush campaign used the Olympics as a backdrop in a campaign ad (the context being that wasn't it great that Iraq and Afghanistan could participate as free countries?). The International Olympic Committee is very possessive of the Olympic name and asked the campaign to stop it. The Bushies, of course, refused.

Well, they are doing it again:

President Bush's campaign failed to respond Friday to a request from the U.S. Olympic Committee to shut down a John Kerry parody on its Web site that uses the word "Olympics."

The whimsical cartoon game, "John Kerry's Flip Flop Olympics," asks players to guess Kerry's stances on issues. A "judging panel" consisting of Howard Dean and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy gives players a score based on their guesses.

USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said the use of the word "Olympics" is barred under a federal law, the Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act, that makes the USOC the only entity in the United States authorized to use Olympic marks and terms.

The rule with the Bushies is this: if they can get away with something once then it is okay for them to do it again and again.

Was Bush wearing a wire in the first debate?

Or was it something else?

(link)

In all seriousness, it was probably just a bullet-proof vest that explains the lump on his back. Speculating on this stuff may be fun but I think it is a distraction from the work at hand.

Howl!!!

Josh Marshal has more on the "threat to schools" story from yesterday. As in past instances of exclamatory lupine identification (crying wolf), the facts quickly begin to call into question the reason for the alert:

1. The disks that showed floor plans for U.S. schools was found with a alleged insurgent captured way back in July, yet the report of the threat is only being made now.
2. It is not clear whether the alleged insurgent actually does have any ties to terrorism, but he does have connections to civic groups planning new schools in Iraq, thus giving a benign explanation for his having the floor plans.
3. Interestingly enough, the floor plans are for schools primarily in swing states.

Hmmm....

Not all Michigan Republicans are idiots

Criminal Scofflaw Michael Moore escapes prosecution!

The harshest reaction came from the two Republican prosecutors, Antrim County's Charles Koop and Isabella County's Larry Burdick. ...

"Alleging that a person is attempting to buy votes is a serious allegation, and one that is taken seriously by this office. However, your request to prosecute Mr. Moore trivializes the intent of this section of the election code," Koop said Thursday in a letter to Greg McNeilly, executive director of the state Republican Party.

Burdick said he chooses "to devote our resources to prosecuting those who are delivering cocaine to our young people rather than underwear."

Update

In reference to the last post, I give you this post from Josh Marshal:

AP: "The Education Department has advised school leaders nationwide to watch for people spying on their buildings or buses to help detect any possibility of terrorism like the deadly school siege in Russia. The warning follows an analysis by   the FBI and the Homeland Security Department of the siege that killed nearly 340 people, many of them students, in the city of Beslan last month. 'The horror of this attack may have created significant anxiety in our own country among parents, students, faculty staff and other community members,' Deputy Education Secretary Eugene Hickok said in a letter to schools and education groups ... The Education Department sent its letter by e-mail Wednesday to school police, state school officers, school boards, groups representing principals and many other organizations." (emphasis added)

Pretty much on schedule, right?

Here's the thing: the essence of this warning sounds legitimate to me. We should be concerned that terrorists might take a cue from what happened in Russia and try something like that here.

Yet even a level-headed individual like Josh Marshal treats the report with skepticism, a skepticism born of the rampant lying of this administration.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could actually trust this report to be true and not just an example of "stoking the fears of terrorism"?

"Forgive Us For Not Believing What You're Saying"

Watch this video!

Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH17) speaks as clearly as possible about the fundamental problem with the Republicans: you simply can't believe ANYTHING they say.

How can we ever trust these people with the REAL threats that face us when we can't even tell if they telling us the truth?

How can we know whether a real wolf is attacking if our leaders have been repeatedly caught crying wolf?

We need to trust our leadership.

We cannot trust Bush.

It's time for a change.

Kerry Leads!

Kerry leads Bush 50-46 among likely voters.

Hitting the magic 50 is an extra bonus.

If Bush does only marginally better tomorrow than he did last Thursday then I think we may begin to see Bush hemorrhage votes.

Bush campaign admits they are deliberately "stoking fears of terrorism"

We all knew they were doing it, but who would have imagined that they would actually admit it? (link to Washington Post, kudos to AMERICAblog for pointing it out).

The strongly worded speech, which indicted Kerry as a "tax-and-spend liberal," was timed to deflect criticism of Bush's Iraq policy from such key sources as former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. weapons inspector and the State Department. A Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race with more biting attacks on Kerry's record and trustworthiness and on what Bush charges is Kerry's reluctance to use U.S. military force to defeat terrorism. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry's ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush's image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said.

Spread it around!

Laughable advice from Dick Morris.

Read this debate advise from Dick Morris to George Bush and see if you can spot the bad assumption on Dick's part (courtesy Political Wire):

Saying President Bush inflicted "massive damage" on his campaign during the last debate, Dick Morris says "the strategy required for coaching a president for a debate is the exact opposite of that you have to use to prep a challenger. Challengers need to learn as much as they can to prepare for all questions and become conversant with every area of policy. A president is already informed; the coach's job is to help him sift through what he knows and hone from it a coherent response to challenges from his adversary."

If you said "A President is already informed" then congratulations, you win the no-prize.

The problem with George W. Bush is that he isn't informed. His father was criticized for being out of touch with the feelings of the people of America. He was, but at least he understood what was going on.

His son doesn't understand and is probably seriously confused by all the negative reports he is hearing about his debate performance. He has been living in a bubble of yes-men and sycophants for the last four years (especially since 9/11) and, until he had to stand on equal ground with John Kerry, he probably has never seriously considered any of the criticism he has received over his term in office.

The idea that Bush is informed about what is going on in his administration is laughable. His people don't inform him because he doesn't want to know the details. He just wants to know where he can go to bask in the glory of his victories.

I pray to God that Bush is following Morris' advice.

Bush: Kerry is at least as good as me

It occurs to me that Bush has a fundamental problem with his defense on the Iraq issue. Typically, whenever the Democrats have taken his administration to task for it (such as in the first two debates), Bush and his people have tried to deflect the attack by saying, "But Kerry voted for it."

I don't want to get into a discussion of whether Kerry voted for the war or whether he just voted for the authority to go to war (that gets us bogged down in legalistic arguments that are political losers). But I think it is significant that the major defense offered by Bush is not that the invasion of Iraq was a good idea but that, if it was bad, then Kerry is equally culpable in the mistake.

That's going to be a tough sell. It requires us to believe that one Senator, saying yeah to a measure that gives the President the authority to go to the UN and put the squeeze on Saddam Hussein is equivalent to said President actually giving the "GO!" command to his generals in the field.

In other words, even at its best, Bush's argument is that he, Bush, is at best no better than Kerry and quite possible a whole lot worse.

Is this a winning argument?