Category: Politics

The bounce is already showing up in the Rasmussen tracking poll:

Friday September 03, 2004–For the second straight day, the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows President George W. Bush with 49% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 45%. The Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll is updated daily by noon Eastern

Bush is enjoying a modest Convention bounce. Today marks the first time since March 19 that he has held a 4-point lead on consecutive days. The President’s Job Approval is at its highest level since April and voters now view him a bit more favorably than John Kerry. Data provided to Premium Members shows that in the key Battleground States, perceptions of the President improved each day of the Convention.

My prediction is a five-point bounce, to continue until the debates.

UPDATE: Time shows an eleven-point bounce.

Michael Barone’s commentary on Zell’s speech is worth reading.

It strikes me that this speech marks a turning point in the campaign. Maybe it’s just the beginning of an examination of Kerry’s Senate record, and maybe it’s more than that, so we’ll see.

Hollywood Matt Welch was scared by it, and the Democratic Party’s response ranges from smearing Miller as everything from a racist to a flip-flopper. The racist charge doesn’t hold water and isn’t supported by anything more than Miller’s age and place of origin, and the flip-flopper charge by Miller’s former support of Bill Clinton and some nice words he said about John Kerry’s love for puppies:

As many of you know, I have great affection ? some might say an obsession ? for my two Labrador retrievers, Gus and Woodrow. It turns out John is a fellow dog lover, too, and he better be. His German Shepherd, Kim, is about to have puppies. And I just want him to know ? Gus and Woodrow had nothing to do with that.

I’m pro-puppy myself, so maybe I should re-evaluate Kerry.

Nice editorial about our friends on the leftern side of things.

The Hobbesian Conservative nails the puppet factor in this election, and Truth Laid Bear has more.

The Kerry campaign is already in meltdown, and the campaign season hasn’t even started in earnest. By the time Karl Rove gets through with him, Kerry will be so humiliated he’ll have to leave the country.

What a shame.

See it at Slant Point and check his endorsement of President Bush.

By way of responding to Sen. McCain’s remarks about his vile film, propagandist/gourmand Michael Moore chooses to lie by non sequitur:

The Academy Award-winning documentary maker pointed out that “Fahrenheit 9-11” did not argue that Iraq was an oasis of peace. Instead, Moore noted, his film suggested that the Bush Administration stretched the truth when it argued that regime change had to be forced upon Iraq in order to avert the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction that have yet to be found.

In fact, the only statement the film made about Saddam’s Iraq was a 20-second segment of children flying kites. The message you’re supposed to take away from that was what, exactly, that the Iraqis were living under a crushing tyranny? Hardly.

This point is quite independent of any allegations on Bush stretching the truth, even if they weren’t groundless.

Link via “I drank the Kool-Aid.com”

I really enjoyed the opening night of the Republican Convention. The folks are clearly in an up-beat mood, with the President rising in the polls as the convention opens, and the opposition doing their part in the streets to make the contrast sharper for the undecideds. McCain gave a great speech making a point that gets lost too easily in politics, that the other side is actually sincere in their beliefs and feelings, so we should try and engage them in respectful dialog and all that, but he drew the line at people like Michael Moore who are disingenuous. It strikes me that he hit just the right balance there.

His explanation of the rationale for the Iraq War was sound and convincing. The idea that Saddam had been successfully contained was floated quite a bit by the other side a year ago, but it’s clear to close analysis that the containment was unraveling. Given Saddam’s history, the end of containment would have meant the start of a serious threat, so it was best to deal with him then and there. Even if a mullah-style government were to take over in Iraq — and I don’t see that as likely, just a worst-case scenario — it will still be years before its weapons program could be organized at the level that Saddam’s was right before the last days. And there are the human rights issues, as well.

While McCain gave a good, sound, sober speech that we can all identify with and be proud of, Rudy hit one out of the park, mixing personal stories with political history and the intellectual with the emotional. His was a glowing tribute to the president, from a man of enormous credibility and appeal. The cute remark about Kerry needing Edwards’ Two Americas so each of his positions on any issue could have a home was the great takeaway.

Rudy’s going to make a great president when he’s elected in 2008.

So a couple of French journalists have been taken hostage by Al Qaeda forces in Iraq in order to pressure France to revoke ban on Muslim head scraves:

But Prime Minister Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq said bluntly that the kidnapping proved that France’s position on Iraq ? presumably its opposition to the war and the absence of troops ? offered it no protection from terrorism.

“Neutrality doesn’t exist, as the kidnapping of the French journalists has shown,” Mr. Allawi said in an interview with several European and American newspapers. “The French are deluding themselves if they think they can remain outside of this. Today, the extremists are targeting them too.”

Suddenly, in France as well, there is the realization that its opposition to the American-led war in Iraq has not innoculated it from Iraqi-inspired terrorism. “Nobody is safe,” said an editorial in this afternoon’s editions of the daily Le Monde.

Freedom of religion is good, and so is a strong stand against terrorists. Good luck to the Froggie journos, and may Allah bless them. Turkey has banned head scarves for years, BTW, but the terrorists know better than to mess with them.

Lefty columnist Marc Cooper is dismayed by the Naomi Klein piece romanticizing Al Sadr in The Nation:

Sadness. More sadness than anger is what overcame me when I read the latest Nation magazine column by Naomi Klein. I?ll grant it has a catchy title: ?From Najaf to New York.? But this column by Klein, who has earned the admiration of a new generation of dissidents with a notable intellectual keen-ness, unwittingly reveals the moral confusion that clouds the vision, even the rationality, of much of the anti-war movement.

Make sure you click the link above to read her entire piece and to make sure I do it justice in this critique. (Please also read Norman Geras? take on this column as well). I had several friends call me in disbelief when they read Klein’s manifesto. I read it three times to make sure I got it right.

And, alas, I can only conclude that the column is a forthright apology for the religio-fascist militias of Muqtada Al Sadr. Indeed, it?s damn near a call for the peace movement to join in solidarity with his Mahdi Army.

The loon who mentioned it in my comments should read this.