Everyone has heard William Bennett's telling remarks about aborting black babies.  There is a real sad and reprehensible story here, but I fear that we are missing it.  

I am listening to Mike Malloy on Air America, and he has said several times this morning that Bennett "advocated" or "recommended" aborting black babies.  While Bill may or may not think such a course of action would be virtuous, he certainly did NOT say so in his ill-conceived statement last week.  To throw around such patently false and incendiary charges not only puts us in bed with the right-wing nuts who have been guilty of misstating facts for rhetorical effect for decades, but it obfuscates the truly despicable point of Bennett's statement.

Al Sharpton has been the voice of reason on this topic, arguing that Bennett's true colors shined through in equating black people with crime.  He is absolutely right.  For 30 years, we have been saying on the left that crime is a result of poverty, structural decay of our urban centers, and racISM.  Bennett apparently thinks that crime is a result of RACE.  This is the revealing, simplistic and sad conclusion of the self-proclaimed moral expert/gambling addict.  If African Americans think for a minute that the supposed "reaching out" of the Republican party to black people is genuine, look no farther than Bennett's statement.

It is tempting to take such a ridiculous statement as Bennett made and twist it into something even more inflammatory.  But the statement is damning enough on its own without sacrificing our credibility to turn it into something it was not.  

America needs to wake up to the cluelessness and deceit that this president has visited upon our great country.  The latest proof is utterly damning, but I don't see the MSM pointing out the baldface lie the president told yesterday, or what that lie tells us about the president's unforgivable disconnection to what was happening in New Orleans.

Yesterday, Bush attempted to "clarify" his widely ridiculed statement after the storm that no one anticipated the levees breaching.  Here's what he said yesterday:
"When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, 'Whew.' There was a sense of relaxation. And that's what I was referring to," Bush told reporters in New Orleans Monday. "Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation at a critical moment."
Here is the original quote by Bush on Good Morning America that he is attempting to "clarify":

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."

So let's get this straight.  Bush now says that when he spoke on GMA in the immediate aftermath of the storm, what he meant to say was that AFTER the storm hit, no one anticipated the levees to breach, because New Orleans had "dodged a bullet." But look at his actual quote from GMA.  "I don't think anybody anticipated a breach of the levees.  THEY DID ANTICIPATE A SERIOUS STORM but..."  This second sentence makes it absolutely clear that on GMA, he was saying that before the after hit, people anticipated a serious storm, but that no one anticipated the breach of the levees.  

That, my friends, is our president in a blatant lie.  Where is all the indignation from the right about lying presidents now?

It occurs to me that there are some parallels between what happened with Katrina and the bungled rescue attempt of the American hostages in Iran in 1980 (dubbed Desert One).  In both cases, there were federal rescue actions set in motion by the president, but executed by federal agencies and/or the military.   In both cases, the rescue efforts failed badly.  There are two points that are potentially interesting:

1.  President Carter, that very day, announced to the nation that the effort failed, and that he took PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.  He didn't blame the military (even though though we have subsequently had unproven hints that the military wanted the effort to fail to ensure Reagan's election), or anyone else for that matter.  Facing the Katrina resue effort disaster, on the other hand, Bush has tried to SHIFT RESPONSIBILITY every chance he gets.

2.  I don't have access to Lexis/Nexis, but I would be curious whether there are any quotes from the 1980 campaign (from the press, Congressmen, Reagan, or best of all, Bush Sr.) that criticised Carter's leadership of the resue effort, even though the failure of execution was likely the weather (sandstorm) and the military planning.  Might there be some quotes out there that can be juxtaposed with current defenses of Bush's leadersip through the crisis?  
   

I hate to rehash an old conspiracy theory, but wasn't it painfully obvious that W had a wire in his ear last night?  Now, there's nothing necessarily WRONG with it if he did--it's not like a debate where you are not allowed to have help.  But it is still interesting.  Is it typical of presidents to be wired during press conferences?

I didn't even see the whole talkie, but there were at least 2 places I saw where it was obvious.  One was where he paused abruptly in mid-sentence, and his eyes darted away as if he was listening to something.  The other was when he, again in mid-sentence, corrected himself for saying that the Lebanese ambassador was from Syria.  He did this after e had moved on, and there was no rational reason why the need for a correction would have popped into head at that moment, other than that someone signaled him somehow.

We should be exposing W's and the Extreme Right's hypocracy on this life issue.  Can anyone seriously argue that we sometimes get death penalty cases wrong and that innocent people have died and will continue to die on death row in this country?  Where is the screaming to "err on the side of life" in these cases?  

Nightline was PRICELESS tonight.  They sent a producer and camera crew to the village where the Kerry Siver Star fire fight occurred.  They interviewed 6 or 7 peasants, all but one of whom had never heard of John Kerry, and they pretty much backed up Kerry's and the official version of the incident.  But it gets better!

Swifty O'Neil (Unfit for Command) was interviewed after the tape, and he was totally off his rocker.  Steam was comming out of his ears, and he was practically babbling.  Ted was half frustrated and half amused by his antics.  Obviously, the interview was great TV because they let the show run long.

I ran up to my computer hoping that this would be all over the internet by now--but virtually nothing....  I hope it's just a lag, becuase if the media doesn't give this EYEWITNESS report refuting the Switfies signigicant play, I will be furious.

We'll find out tomorrow.

I was puzzled by this tantalizing tidbit in ABC News's blog The Note today:  "Finally -- and quick!!! -- which presidential campaign knows more about another upcoming, politically potent New York Times Magazine story for this weekend that is already on the street????"

Apparently, the answer is Bush.  Here's waht it must have been referring to (fresh off Drudge): "A quote attributed to President Bush in next Sunday's New York Times has ignited prepublication sparks, the Drudge report has learned.  Former WSJ reporter and best-selling author Ron Suskind quotes Bush as telling a private luncheon of top supporters: 'I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's throat.'"

Would ANYONE be surprised if Bush really said that?  

In light of the barrage of conflicting poll numbers that we've been seeing, I thought it would be interesting to recall how the polls fared in 2000 (in the final pre-election poll):

Zogby: Gore 48, Bush 46, Nader 5
CBS: Gore 45, Bush 44, Nader 4
Gallup: Bush 48, Gore 46, Nader 4
ABC/Wash Post: Bush 48, Gore 45, Nader 3
Battleground: Bush 50, Gore 45, Nader 4
USA Today/CNN: Bush 49, Gore 43, Nader3

As you all know, the final results were:  Gore 49, Bush 48, Nader 3

I would point out that in 1996,  Zogby came within one-tenth of 1 percent of the presidential result - by far the best performance turned in by any of the pollsters that year.

Zogby's latest 2004 tracking poll has Bush and Kerry even at 45.