Good one
From salon.com, check out this response from Joe Lockhart.

"You may have seen the headlines this week: "Top Dem rips Kerry campaign." The "top Dem" in question is Tony Coelho, the former House majority whip who resigned early on from running Al Gore's campaign in 2000. He is also known for taking charge of the 1994 congressional midterm elections for Dems, only to suffer the worst defeat in decades. But when he says publicly that the Kerry campaign is in chaos, people listen, especially reporters.

Coelho's complaints about the Kerry campaign were frank and cutting. There's no national message. There is noone in charge. And most recently, the Kerry campaign's addition of Clintonistas like James Carville, Paul Begala, Joe Lockhart and Mike McCurry, who are at odds with campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and strategist Bob Shrum, will only make things worse, Coelho charges. "You have these two teams that are generally not talking to each other," he said. The internal strife is fueled by money, Coelho says. "Because in the Democratic Party the consultants get paid for the creation and the placement of [advertising]. Republicans only pay you for the creation."

Needless to say, the Kerry campaign has not received Coelho's comments warmly -- and say they aren't taking them seriously, either. In a jab that sounds a lot like recent murmuring about Bob Shrum, Lockhart tells Salon: "We get a lot of advice from a lot of quarters. We tend to take it from people who won something."

Giving his father the finger...
This is from www.dailykos.com. Guess who said it?

"Had we gone into Baghdad -- we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours -- and then what? Which sergeant, which private, whose life would be at stake in perhaps a fruitless hunt in an urban guerilla war to find the most-secure dictator in the world? Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho? We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous."

That would be the first President Bush, in a 1998 speech to Gulf War veterans.

Everyone's an expert
If you were drowning and there was a Democrat nearby, chances are he'd throw you a cinder block. Check out these helpful quotes about John Edwards in today's New York Times:

"He needs to put a little Tabasco in his message," said Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's campaign for president in 2000. "He needs to go out, and he needs to do the attack. There needs to be some sharper contrasts, and John Edwards can make that case."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a friend and an adviser to Mr. Kerry, criticized the tenor of Mr. Cheney's assaults on the Democrats but said that they were "probably helping the president."

"We've got to give him hell and tell the truth," Mr. Biden said, "and that requires laying out the obvious lies of Cheney and calling him on that. Somebody should be doing that."

Asked if it should be Mr. Edwards, Mr. Biden responded, "Theoretically, yes."

And Tony Coelho, a Democratic strategist who also, early on, ran the Gore campaign in 2000, said: "The Bush camp is using Cheney in a much more aggressive way than the Kerry camp is using Edwards. What they do with Cheney is go out there and be the hammer, when necessary, but also the validator."

"It doesn't seem that Edwards is in it all the time," Mr. Coehlo said, "They use him a little bit as a hammer, but not a lot. I don't understand it. They need it."

Geez. Biden once ran a go-nowhere campaign for President, while Brazile and Coelho had their fingerprints on the failed Gore campaign. Some experts.

Paging Mr. Rove...
I don't really care much about the possibly forged National Guard documents. There's plenty of evidence elsewhere (see US News and World Reports) that shows W didn't fulfill his duty.

But where do you think those documents came from? Hmmm. Let's look at Karl Rove's history: in an earlier race he managed for the Texas governor's seat, he called a press conference the day of a crucial debate, claiming a security company he hired to sweep his office found a listening device. Rove blamed the opposing campaign. Representatives from the security company refused to go under oath to explain how they found the bug. Wonder why?

Then during the 2000 election, an unsolicited videotape of Bush debate prepping showed up on the Gore campaign doorstep. They turned it over to the FBI, but Rove cried, "Foul"!

But why would he set this whole document shebang into motion? First, he knew that several media outlets were sniffing around Bush's service and that there were real problems with his record; second, he knew he could rely on a group of right-wing media waterboys to carry the ball for him in helping to claim the documents were false and the Democrats had forged them.

Think about it: within hours of the "60 Minutes" report, a bunch of righty website were claiming the documents were forged. Were they all really experts on typography? Please.

And what's the controversy about now? Not W's service; it's about the documents. And think about who wins that debate: Rove.

Compare and contrast
Think about those sick bastards in the Pentagon and White House -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle -- living in luxury after they retire. Now think about those poor bastards who went to war and ended up with limbs blown off, eyesight gone, or debilitating traumas that will last their lifetimes.

And right-wingers call the hatred of Bush "irrational"? Say what you will about Clinton, but there aren't any poor kids learning how to walk on artificial legs because he had to prove himself by jumping into a fake war.

This is from the UPI wire service:

"Among veterans from Iraq seeking help from the VA, 5,375 have been diagnosed with a mental problem, making it the third-leading diagnosis after bone problems and digestive problems. Among the mental problems were 800 soldiers who became psychotic.
A military study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July showed that 16 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq might suffer major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. Around 11 percent of soldiers returning from Afghanistan may have the same problems, according to that study."

Get ready to rumble...
Maybe now, Kerry's campaign will start chucking some elbows. This comes from Paul Waldman on www.gadflyer.com.

"Here's an excerpt from the Salon.com review of Kitty Kelly's book:

George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara dismissed Bill Clinton as a pathetic hillbilly when he challenged the incumbent in 1992. But, Kelley writes, Clinton was one of the few Bush opponents who knew how to back them down. As colorful stories from Clinton's sexual past in Arkansas began to surface during the campaign, a Clinton aide began digging into the senior Bush's own robust adultery. This included, writes Kelley, two long affairs -- one with Jennifer Fitzgerald, Bush's White House deputy chief of protocol, who, as the Washington Post once slyly put it, "has served President-elect George Bush in a variety of positions," and one with an Italian woman with whom he set up house in a New York apartment in the 1960s.

The Clinton aide told Kelley, "I took my list of Bush women, including one whom he had made an ambassador, to his campaign operatives. I said I knew we were vulnerable on women, but I wanted to make damn sure they knew they were vulnerable too."

After the eruption over Clinton's mistress Gennifer Flowers died down, sexual infidelity did in fact become a moot issue in the campaign.

This tells you a little something about why John Kerry is calling on Clinton's people. They know who they're dealing with, and they know how to play hardball."

Sorry, Grandma...
After the Bush Administration lied about the cost of the prescription drug benefit and squashed an employee who felt Congress was entitled to know the real cost, this should come as no surprise.

Courtesy of USA Today:

"With a new Medicare drug benefit set to begin in 2006, Americans 65 and older can expect to spend a large and growing share of their Social Security checks on Medicare premiums and expenses, previously undisclosed federal data show.

Information the Bush administration excluded from its 2004 report on the Medicare program shows that a typical 65-year-old can expect to spend 37% of his or her Social Security income on Medicare premiums, co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses in 2006. That share is projected to grow to almost 40% in 2011 and nearly 50% by 2021.

Unless Congress does something to hold down costs confronting seniors, the official projections suggest that health spending will consume virtually the entire amount of Social Security benefits when children born today reach retirement age."

Run Bill run
I've heard internet rumors that Bill O'Reilly is thinking about running against Hillary Clinton for U.S. Senate. Please, Bill, do it! Can you imagine what a thin skinned psycho like O'Reilly will do when he has to answer questions from the media and he can't order his flunkies to unplug their mikes?

I'm betting even money that his head will explode about midway through the campaign.

Shocking double standard
Whew! The jackasses on cable television are really getting themselves worked up because Paul Begala and James Carville might be advising the Kerry campaign while retaining their seats on CNN's "Crossfire."

Excuse me?

Not a peep out of the cable clowns when Joe Scarborough proudly sat on the stage between Bush at a Florida rally. Not a peep out of them when Sean Hannity actually narrated an RNC video during the Republican convention.

Lead Fox crybabay O'Reilly was more upset than everyone. Of course, O'Reilly didn't mention his fellow right wing whores who were doing the same thing for President Bush. I guess when you're bent over in the same position, it just looks normal.

Bush the Scared Rabbit, Matt the Water Carrier
Did you see Bush yesterday when some reporter had the temerity to ask him why he didn't do anything about the assault weapons ban? GW was on the front porch of a country store and he whirled around to take the question and then he froze when the reporter spoke up. He then skulked away while one of his press agents jumped in front of the camera.

Can't the President answer one goddamned unscripted question? I swear, his face looked just like it did when he sat in the classroom, reading with children, while the country was under attack.

And Matt Lauer turned up the whore-meter to 10 yesterday and today when he interviewed Kitty Kelly about her new Bush book. He admitted he had been called by the White House and boy did he carry their water. Kelly had no chance to explain herself; instead, he hopped all over her, acting like a bad ass. Even so, I was left with the distinct impression that she was a lot smarter and tougher than him.

Everything she said, he jumped right to the response from either the White House or Saudi Arabia to discredit her. "What do you think the White House is going to say?" she asked. I liked when she said the Bush family image is that of a postcard a/la Donna Reed but in reality, there is plenty of the Sopranos mixed in there.

And if she is such a vile liar, why is the "Today" show having her on three mornings in a row?