Among the bumper stickers for the presidential election of 2004, my favorite:

"Four More Wars"

Oh this is too good. I must share. The White House Press Corps is finally found its courage again and is challenging the Bush Administration to prove its assumptions rather than just reporting what they say. Maybe they have been hit too many times over the head with a newspaper and told to stay under the table. But the dog is out and it's hungry.

Thejob forecasting question led to some amazingly contentious back-and-forth at yesterday's press briefing, with NBC's David Gregory taking a major role. Here's an excerpt from the full transcript:

"Q But it would appear, though, that people very high up in this administration didn't have a whole lot of faith in the forecast of the report that went up to Congress just a week ago in terms of the job creation numbers.

"MR. McCLELLAN: Again, it's an annual economic report that is put out by the administration based on the economic modeling and the data that's available at that point in time.

"Q Can you answer the specific question, though? Was this report -- was the prediction of this many jobs, 2.6 million jobs, vetted prior to publication by the entire economic team?

"MR. McCLELLAN: It's an annual report, David. It goes through the usual -- it goes through the usual --

"Q That's not the question. Was it or was it not vetted by the entire economic team?

"MR. McCLELLAN: It's an annual report. It goes through the usual --

"Q So you don't know, or it was, or it wasn't?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Can I get -- can I finish that sentence?

"Q When you answer the question. Let's hear it. What's the answer?

"MR. McCLELLAN: The answer was, it is an annual economic report and it goes through the normal vetting process. And if you would let me get to that, I would answer your question.

"Q -- the full economic team vetted the prediction --

"MR. McCLELLAN: It's an annual economic report. It's the President's Economic Report. But again, the President --

"Q Just say yes or no --

"MR. McCLELLAN: -- it goes through the normal -- it goes through the normal vetting process.

"Q So the answer is, yes. I'm not done yet, I've got another one.

"MR. McCLELLAN: Okay.

"Q Why -- if you're suggesting that people will debate the numbers, that's kind of a backhanded way to say, oh, who cares about the numbers. Well, apparently, the President's top economic advisors do, because that's why they wrote a very large report and sent it to Congress. So why was the prediction made in the first place, if the President and you and his Treasury Secretary were going to just back away from it?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, one, I disagree with the premise of the way you stated that. This is the annual Economic Report of the President and the economic modeling is done this way every year. It's been done this way for 20-some years.

"Q So why not -- why aren't you standing behind it?

"MR. McCLELLAN: I think what the President stands behind is the policies that he is implementing, the policies that he is advocating. That's what's important.

"Q That's not in dispute. The number is the question.

"MR. McCLELLAN: I know, but the President's concern is on the number of jobs being created --

"Q My question is, why was the prediction made --

"MR. McCLELLAN: -- and the President's focus is on making sure that people who are hurting because they cannot find work have a job. That's where the President's focus is.

"Q Then why predict a number? Why was the number predicted? Why was the number predicted? You can't get away with not -- just answer the question. Why was that number predicted?

"MR. McCLELLAN: I've been asked this, and I've asked -- I've been asked, and I've answered.

"Q No, you have not answered. And everybody watching knows you haven't answered.

"MR. McCLELLAN: I disagree."

Damn, now these are the days when I truly miss not being a part of UPI. It's time for the press to finally call Bush the Shrub that he is. This could be one of the most exciting campaigns in the history of campaigning.

Oh, and perhaps you don't know this - I know that I didn't - but the "chairs" in the press room are assigned by the White House, and not by the White House Press Association. So there are a lot of questionable "journalists" mixed in with the traditional reps. Consider the Talon News. You haven't heard of that publication? It has a front row seat, and when the questioning gets hard, the press secretary (or the President when he gives one of his few news conferences) always waves to them. Incoming SOFTBALL question with a very prepared answer.

So who or what is the Talon News. Look it up on the internet. It's a website sponsored by GOPUSA. It also purports to be "fair and balanced."

When will the madness all stop? Hopefully in November.

Score another victory for the White House advance team (and probably Rove, our Rasputin) for providing Bush yet another perfect backdrop - thousands of cheering National Guardsmen. The Associated Press, however, pointed out that the White House advance team even had the National Guard break military tradition. The soldiers are supposed to snap to attention when the President comes in, but the advance crew convinced the military authorities that it would be best "to keep them seated and cheering." And then to ensure a perfect perfect backdrop, they proceeded to practice cheers with the soldiers prior to Bush's entry.

Does this not remind you of "1984." Perception is everything, I guess.

There are moments when I think I definitely need to add Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War among one of myfuture books to read. I haven't picked up Thucydides since college, but I stumbled on this passage while reading Thomas Cahill's "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter." Thucydides had no truck with oracles and omens. Gods are entirely absent from his narrative. He had incredible insight into how his war - and all wars including our more recent conflicts - causes the degeneration of society. Note this following passage, and you can see the prelude to our most recent Gulf War situation:

"Practically the whole of the Hellenic world was convulsed, with rival parties in every state - democratic leaders trying to bring in the Athenians, and oligarchs trying to bring in the Spartans.

"To fit in with the change of events, words too had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was not regard as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defense. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect.

"As a result, there was a general deterioration of character throughout the Greek world. The plain way of looking at things, which is so much the mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist. Society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow."

Incredible insight from a man living in Greece's Golden Age with Pericles at the head of his city's government. You should also explore Pericles' speech over the first war dead. It sounds very much like a long winded (thought beaufiful) Gettysburg Address. In fact, Lincoln borrows liberally from some of his points, including Lincoln's phrase "the last full measure of devotion."

He is so right on. Another reason why one should worry about a president who does not read, has no understanding of history and bases all of his understanding of what's happening in the world on the summaries his aides prepare for him.

As Cahill notes in a footnote aside: Rumsfeld allegedly commissioned a study of how empires worked to preserve their hegemony. It would probably have been better time and money spent if he had also commissioned a study about how empires LOST their empires. The Greeks entered the Peloponnesian War at the heighth of its power. But the Athenians shunned all of their allies who spoke against it, thinking they would have no problem defeating Sparta. For 30 plus years Athens fought without benefit of allies, and eventually succumbed to Sparta (after first losing their democracy internally).

Cahill says Athens losing to Sparta would be like the U.S. losing to North Korea.

I am not a negative person. I would like to think of myself as a realist, and America's going it alone in this so-called War Against Terrorism has me extremely nervous.

The new job report is out, and it continues to be bad - far fewer than even the most conservative analysts had predicted. Ironically, an Ellen Goodman column is out that nails the problem right on the head. Read on:

Fellow members of the unpaid labor force
Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe

Published February 4, 2004

BOSTON -- Have you seen those economists scratching their heads trying to understand the jobless recovery? Every time they run the numbers they end up with a question mark: How is it possible that only 1,000 new jobs were created in the past month?

Well, maybe it's time we let them in on our little secret. The economy has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs. Only they aren't in the manufacturing sector. They aren't even in the service economy. They're in the self-service economy.

Companies are coming back to life without inviting employees back to work for one simple reason: They are outsourcing the jobs to us. You and I, my fellow Americans, have become the unpaid laborers of a do-it-yourself economy.

It all began benignly enough a generation ago when ATMs replaced bank tellers. The average American child knows that money doesn't grow on trees; it grows out of walls.

The ATM was followed by the self-service gas station. At first, in the classic bait and switch, we were offered a discount for being our own gas jockeys; now we have to pay a premium to have a person fill 'er up.

Now, gradually, we are scanning our own groceries at the supermarket, getting our own boarding passes at airport kiosks and picking up movie tickets from machines that don't call in sick, go on vacation or require a pension.

People who used to have secretaries now have Microsoft Word. People who used to have travel agents now have the Internet. People who used to drop off their film to be developed have been lured into buying new cameras for the joy of printing or not printing pictures themselves.

We also serve (ourselves) by being required to wait longer for the incredible shrinking support system. When was the last time you called your health plan? The service consists of a hold button, a list of phone options and the strategic corporate decision that sooner or later a percentage of us will give up.

Remember 4-1-1? If you actually want information from a phone company today, you have to pay someone in Omaha to give you the new number of a neighbor in your town.

If the phone breaks, you may have to dial fix-it-yourself. A new chapter in the annals of the self-service economy comes from a friend who was told by Verizon to go find the gray box attached to her house and test the line herself. The e-mail instructions told her merrily: "You don't have to be a telephone technician or an electrical engineer." Next they'll be telling her to climb the telephone pole.

Then of course there is the world of computers. We have all become our own techies. A Harvard Business School professor actually told a reporter recently that we fix them ourselves because: "There's a real love of technology and people want to get inside and tinker with them." My friends have as much desire to tinker with computer insides as to perform amateur appendectomies.

But tech support has become less reliable than child support checks from an ex-husband. Consumer Reports shows that 8 million people a year contact the tech support lines at software companies and one-third of them don't get any help. These same companies have laid off more than 30,000 support workers and replaced them with messages telling us to fix our "infrastructure migration" by performing an "ipconfig/release" and "ipconfig/renew."

As for online help? If my Web server was managing 9-1-1, I would still be on the floor somewhere gasping for breath. The only part of the self-help economy that keeps us aloft is a battery of teenagers fed and housed solely because they can get the family system back up.

Oh, and if we finally find someone to perform a so-called service call, we end up with an alleged appointment for that convenient hour known as "when the cows come home."

I don't know how much labor has been transferred from the paid to the unpaid economy, but the average American now spends an extraordinary amount of time doing work that once paid someone else's mortgage. The only good news is that the corporations can't export the self-help industry to Bombay. Or maybe that's the bad news.

People, actual human beings who work and interact, are now a luxury item. The rest of us have been dragooned into an invisible unpaid labor force without even noticing. We scan, we surf, we fix and we rant. To which I can only add the motto of the do-it-yourself economy: Help!
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It is Regime Change time.

Alright. Let's talk about Howard Dean.

It's surprising that any words of wisdom would ever come out of the mouth of a Republican, but for one brief shining moment, it did. I won't give his name, because it doesn't really matter. And it was just that one time that he will ever say anything particularly insightful. But I digress.

Howard Dean. Early on, he was catching my attention because he seemed to be the ONLY Democratic candidate other than the periphery bottom feeders in the pack who would call Bush the idiot he is. And so, I gave him some consideration. But as the voting time drew near in Iowa, and my interest in this campaign heightened, I caught Kerry and Edwards on C-Span giving full speeches to their respective rallies. No soundbites. Full speeches. And I was quite impressed. Prior to that, I thought Kerry was rather boring and too Senatorial (Senate-speak). Of Edwards, I had no opinion at all, but that he likely had no chance against Bush at all. But I was intrigued, so much that when the polls suddenly shifted away from Dean and more to Kerry, I was not surprised at all.

Tuesday I voted for Kerry. Two months ago I would probably have voted for Dean. I voted for Kerry primarily because I felt he had a better than good chance to defeat Bush - which is the No. 1 priority of the nation, I hope. I really don't know all his positions. I am not happy with his vote regarding the Iraq war. I think his position on "marriage" by gays is a cop-out. I still think his wife is slightly loony. BUT I THINK HE CAN WIN.

And that's the story, Howard. You created a lot of excitement early, but no one seriously wanting Bush defeated believe that you can do it. THAT is why your numbers are falling dramatically. You ran a good campaign Howard, but you better save what's left of your money and reputation. Go out with a smile, and support Kerry and/or Edwards heartily. And no, you are not a serious vice presidential candidate either.

Here's why, Howard, and this is where I add in the Republican insight (am I really saying that?).

The extreme wing of any party gets high attention early. It's what that evil portion of our heart really likes - taking an extreme political positions (ok, maybe just some of us). And the extreme side always believes that their position is the RIGHT ONE, and that people will inevitably flock to it ONCE they grasp the truth. But no, that is not reality. That is exactly what the Republican Party had happen in 1964 with Barry Goldwater ("In your heart, you know he's Right" was the slogan). Democrats countered with, in your heat, you know he's crazy. His campaign almost destroyed the GOP and worst still, ensured that Lyndon Johnson would escalate the war in Vietnam. We have a very moving memorial in Washington, D.C., now we can thank for that campaign.

And then there was McGovern. It is not quite the same as Goldwater, but similar. There were OTHER good candidates, but McGovern's anti-war, full-tilt liberalism sucked the Democratic Party in to thinking that people would follow him "as soon as they grasp the truth." They didn't. He scared them.

And that sums up Dean. Long term, he scares us. And for good reason. We ducked a bullet. We actually have a chance to defeat Bush, but we would have thrown it away with Dean.

That doesn't mean we dislike you Dean. Thanks for getting that early message out there that Bush and all he stands for is so un-American. But please go gently into the night.

Wednesday, the 4th of Feb

I think we can defeat George Bush.

I would not have said that even a month ago, but I think we can defeat George Bush. The media have finally had enough of the three years of evasion. Democrats are finally standing up on their hind legs and saying enough is enough. And the general populace seems to have finally discovered that there is really very little there there.

Questions I have seen posed lately by the media:

1. If there is really nothing to what the Democrats are saying about the "missing" National Guard year, why not produce some documents, pay slips, any body who served with him, or anything to prove that George actually was in Alabama with the National Guard?

2. Why can't you admit that if there were no WMDs, then perhaps we went to war on false pretenses?

3. In light of the absence of WMDs thanks to bad intelligence, is the "preemption" doctrine dead?

4. Isn't this current budget estimate rather deceiving in that it does not take into affect the Iraqi and Afghanistan expenditures?

5. Explain to me how this budget with its cuts to major service programs, including education, qualifies as "compassionate conservatism."

6. Whether or not athletes take steroids, why does this merit attention in the State of the Union?


Kerry wins easily in Missouri (thanks to my vote). I would feel very very comfortable with a Kerry-Edwards ticket, but we definitely need to get Dean and his youthful supporters committed to the '04 campaign. Dean got us where we are today by being the gadfly we needed. Now we need him to be a part of the team - just not on the ticket.

Tuesday, the 3rd:

Primary day in Missouri. Dean or Kerry? I'll vote tonight for Kerry and for these reasons:
1) I think Kerry can win. And I think there is a very good chance that Bush actually can lose. I didn't necessarily feel that way entering the New Year, but Bush's rather ineffective State of the Union Address coupled with more disaster in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then the final admission that WMDs were a figment of someone's imagination (CIA or the Administration? Now that will be a fun mystery to solve) I think leaves him vulnerable.
2) I have caught Kerry on C-Span three times in the last two weeks and his addresses to large groups of people is excellent. I fail to see the boring aspects of his personality that some pundits have labeled him with. There is animation. There is passion. And he no longer seems afraid to attack Bush directly. That is what initially enamoured me with Dean. Kerry has won me over.
3) Dean's over-the-top response to the voting in Iowa really made me thing: is this truly the guy I would want carrying the Democratic standard?

Well, here we go. My optimism is very high today. I hope it lasts through November and beyond. We have to end this administration if this country has any real hope for the future.

By the way, the trip to the farm was great. Ice, snow, cold wind and lots of fine whiskey. But I am still without my first wild turkey. It will come.

Monday, the 2nd:

Typical. We actually have a great football game, one of the greatest Super Bowls ever according to some, and the day after no one is talking about the game but rather Janet Jackson's boob. I wish Bush would stop worrying about "terr-a-rists" and focus on America's No. 1 problem - the Family Jackson. I thought Janet's career was in decline when she went to snakes, but apparently not.

It was more silly than disgusting. I was spared the episode because I never watch the horrendously overdone Super Bowl halftimes (why do they fire off explosives in a domed stadium - the start of the second half looked like the players were playing in a San Francisco fog). But when I returned for the second half, that was all the commentators had to talk about. A rapid channel selector through the news stations showed that FOX was nearly hysterical with it, running the scene every five minutes.

Oh, and the Patriots won. Great game, New England, though I doubt that anyone could give the score today. Even the sports stations were talking about Janet (all were seemingly appalled and concerned that it took away from the game, but boy were they talking about it).

Meanwhile, in the real world, the death toll continues to rise in that little Mideast country we pacified. And George Bush says now we should investigate (well, maybe) that our intelligence was erroneous, not he ever was concerned about WMDs when he REALLY decided to invade Iraq. I bet his mommy and daddy are so proud.