Verdict:

Bush didn't do his homework. (Par for the course, by his own admission.) It was a foreign policy debate. Policy, not platitudes.

Kerry 65
Bush 35

There will be a lot of surprised network hairdos tomorrow. Looks like Mathhews Scarborough et al are already floored.

Debate Time

A few impressions:

Bush is frantic. Started semi cool.

Kerry's staying on time, clear. So much for Mr. Windy. Bad luck for Bush: he's just paraphrasing himself while Kerry's got umpteen varied examples of failure to outflank the plattitudes.

And what's up with the split-screen bumping up Bush's podium so their head's are level? The rules were explicit: no artificial stagecraft, standing on milkcrates etc. The juxtaposition is so obvious that it's gonna have the opposite of the desired effect. Bush's unease only makes the shrinkage more notable.

more later.

[update]

9:56 "Outsourced the job to Afghan warlords."

9:58: Kerry needs to talk to the camera, Bush has that factor right.

10:00: DeGaulle: "The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me." Nice example, but, umm, wasn't he French?

10:11 Do you have issues with Sen. Kerry's character? Landmine!

10:12 "Mixed Messages" Find a new message.

10:12 On daughters. Did I hear right? Bush: "I try to put a leash on 'em." Kerry:" I've learned not to do that." Ouch. Gender Gap! Daughter radar on alert.

10:20: Bush is not relating America well to the war on terror.

Personal toiletries: Dove® or Safeguard® or Lava®?

500 upscale shoppers, Household income 60k+

Survey says:

50% : Lava
30% : Safeguard
15% : Dove
05% : Garden hose and a wire brush

"Damn, what's wrong those women?" we say to the survey firm.

"Whadaya mean?", they say.

Well, they do all the shopping, right?

Yeah.

So what's with the Lava action? And, wire brushes?

Uh, you wanted us to include women in the sample?

-------

From Steve Soto:

Why You Should Ignore The Gallup Poll This Morning - And Maybe All Of Theirs

This morning we awoke to the startling news that despite a flurry of different polls this week all showing a tied race, the venerable Gallup Poll, as reported widely in the media (USA Today and CNN) today, showed George W. Bush with a huge 55%-42% lead over John Kerry amongst likely voters. The same Gallup Poll showed an 8-point lead for Bush amongst registered voters (52%-44%). Before you get discouraged by these results, you should be more upset that Gallup gets major media outlets to tout these polls and present a false, disappointing account of the actual state of the race. Why?

Because the Gallup Poll, despite its reputation, assumes that this November 40% of those turning out to vote will be Republicans, and only 33% will be Democrat. You read that correctly. I asked Gallup, who have been very courteous to my requests, to send me this morning their sample breakdowns by party identification for both their likely and registered voter samples they use in these national and I suspect their state polls. This is what I got back this morning:

Likely Voter Sample Party IDs – Poll of September 13-15
Reflected Bush Winning by 55%-42%

Total Sample: 767
GOP: 305 (40%)
Dem: 253 (33%)
Ind: 208 (28%)

Registered Voter Sample Party IDs – Same Poll
Reflected Bush Winning by 52%-44%

Total Sample: 1022
GOP: 381 (38%)
Dem: 336 (33%)
Ind: 298 (30%)

In both polls, Gallup oversamples greatly for the GOP, and undersamples for the Democrats. Worse yet, Gallup just confirmed for me that this is the same sampling methodology they have been using this whole election season, for all their national and state polls. [more]

True Lies? False truths?


Colin Powell and Dan Rather: Forgery victims.

What a mess. Powell seems to have reached his peace with bad WMD intel. Is Rather far behind?

Are the memos later computer- or typewriter-transcribed versions of hand-written orginals? Whose originals? Fake memos, but accurate and dispositive of Killian's mind and that of other TANG higher-ups at the time? Some of whom said "yes, that's what I recall" before seeing the actual memos or hearing of their new-found doubtability and formatting challenges. Somebody ain't talkin', and some are. But the one's who were talking are clamming up, and new players are seemingy popping up to fill the vacuum.

Drudge has found COL. Killian's secretary:

The DRUDGE REPORT has found Lt. Col. Jerry Killian's former secretary who claims that the Texas Air National Guard documents offered by CBS in its 60 MINUTES II report filed by Dan Rather last week are indeed 'forgeries'.

"I did not type these particular memos. I typed memos like these," Knox told the DRUDGE REPORT from her home in Houston.

"I typed memos that had this information in them, but I did not type these memos. There are terms in these memos that are not Guard terms but that are Army terms. They use the word 'Billets'. I think they were using that to refer to the slot. That would be a non-flying slot the way we would use it. And the style... they are sloppy looking."

But Marian Carr Knox stands by the accusations contained in the allegedly fraudulent documents that Bush skirted a medical and flight exam without suffering institutional repercussions.

Knox is now 87, so many are going to "wonder out loud" how reliable her memory is.

After a radio interview, theNY Daily News has:

First Lady Laura Bush told an Iowa radio station on Monday the documents "probably are altered and they probably are forgeries." When the story broke last week, the White House did not question the veracity of the Killian memos.

And, after her interview was aired in Iowa and on CNN, the White House was quick to point out that that is the First Lady's opinion "not an 'official' White House statement.

Geez, is that pushing the limits of non-denial-denial or plausible deniability? "Is your product really better than your competitors? Yes, but you can't quote me and I'll deny that's my company's stated belief because we don't know." How encouraging.

USAToday seems to be on top of the central storyline of this--if that's even possible.

So far, neither the White House nor former officers in the Texas National Guard have challenged the central assertions in the documents: that Bush's performance as a pilot was under scrutiny by commanders beginning in 1972 and that Killian, his supervisor, was unhappy with him.

Oh, yeah, by the way. It's been a horrendous week of "catstrophic success" in Iraq.

As Dick Morrris wisely noted, slimy as he may be, "If you want to call yourself 'a War President,' you have to be winning the war." I personally like less generic talk about "War" and more specific, reasonable doable talk about "Winning" and what it takes. So far, this ain't it.

Turbocharged entropy. Battlefield mess.

WaPo

Key General Criticizes April Attack In Fallujah

FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The outgoing U.S. Marine Corps general in charge of western Iraq said Sunday he opposed a Marine assault on militants in the volatile city of Fallujah in April and the subsequent decision to withdraw from the city and turn over control to a security force of former Iraqi soldiers.

That security force, known as the Fallujah Brigade, was formally disbanded last week. Not only did the brigade fail to combat militants, it actively aided them, surrendering weapons, vehicles and radios to the insurgents, according to senior Marine officers. Some brigade members even participated in attacks on Marines ringing the city, the officers said.

The comments by Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, made shortly after he relinquished command of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force on Sunday, amounted to a stinging broadside against top U.S. military and civilian leaders who ordered the Fallujah invasion and withdrawal....

Guardian

Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row

A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq.

Powell's extraordinary outburst is alleged to have taken place during a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The two became close friends during the intense negotiations in the summer of 2002 to build an international coalition for intervention via the United Nations. The 'crazies' are said to be Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz....

Indeed, The grown-ups are in charge.

Look what we're arguing about. Now, ask why

That's a pretty good formula to compare to any news story of note. Follow the ambition trail: 'Who can win, or come out on top'?

Following on your wise observation, should be, "Who stands to gain from this particular conversation.?"

Swift boats? Because Kerry, by virtue of his US Navy-endowed medals, was demonstrably more of a steely 'action-hero' than George Bush. 'Swift boats' had to happen. Kerry's anti-war testimony? Obviously, he paid his dues, and had earned his right to speak out and against an ineffective war. Therefore: he must be shouted down. [for lots of reasons - we'll cover this in a later post.]

But this does bring up a current point: $87 billion? Flip flop?

Remind yourself, those aren't arguments; not legitimate 'purchase order' statements, they're diversions from the point: Why do we have to spend this money? Why are we in this predicament?

87 billion dollars? Vote yes, then no? A joke?

A gun with no bullets is not persuasive. So I voted "yes." I voted to give George Bush bullets--with a requirement: 'Pay for them, and find a posse.' He chose not to do either. He picked the top 2% of America that are his "loyal base" and asked You--the other 98%-to pay for the bullets, with money and souls. His tax cuts to friends were more important than his commitment to serious National Security or his understanding of America in her time of need.. So I vetoed... I voted No. And I'd do it again. Twice if you dared me.

That's how I'd say it. But he's not MY candidiate.

In many cases, my job [helping companies get past short-sightedness, mis- or malfeasance] bumps into this challenge of blame-shifting or mental chess borne out of the desire to not seem so ridiculously manipulable. To not 'feel' like we were played.

The 'truth' is, we're all manipulable. We get played becase the players know we inherently want to 'Hope.' But, Hope's not a bad thing. In fact, it's a great thing, misused by those who know its power.

That's why we need cops, and journalists. It's why we need "ethics" courses and Grandma's knee, not more seminars on 'how far you can push it.'

"Who wrote it?"
"Was that an 'official' document?"
"IBM Selectric®, or not?"

Know what? If we're having this conversation, there's something seriously wrong already. Whether forgery of not, we're looking at a busted, illegitimate organisation. This week - or, 30 years ago - people don't take the time to duplicate [repeatedly] the duplicity or incongruity that they've witnessed inside a company unless there's some really creepy shit going down. True, or false, as a leader, if I've got folks consistently making shit up to undermine me, I'm categorically not "Leading.' I'm probably 'herding.' or 'scaring.'

You know the phrase, "where there's smoke, there's fire."

Let the 'Typographers' wail. Just don't make up your mind based on the laziness of a few quasi-professional interests or bored , confused journalists. Anyone can do that... See, we're experts in my office, too...



Did he or didn't he? Who knows, besides the now-dead Killian? Where's 'Harris'? Hodges? Staudt? The secretary who wrote these? The acquisitions-personel who ordered the typewriter?

Interesting questions, not about the provenance of the documents, but about their contents.

But we're talking about the materials, again, aren't we?

It works, doesn't it? What are you talking about? What are we taking about?

Notice the vacuum being created? Save Jesus! True or false, it bears reminding that we haven't had so many professionally interested, questioning people on tinterhooks since Richard Milhous Nixon was telling us "Peace was just around the corner." Or that there was "A light at the end of the tunnel."

That's a problem for a nation.

Especially for a country like America, built, as we are, on "Truth" and "Justice."

And on real ambitions, like Hope.

Pushing product: All the President's Brand Attribites.

Landor:

Presidential ImagePower® Study Compares Bush and Kerry to Well-Known Brands
Branding and the U.S. Presidential Candidates

August 30, 2004 – New York, NY – The Presidential ImagePower study released jointly by branding firm Landor Associates and research firm Penn, Schoen and Berland reveals how Bush and Kerry's respective supporters, as well as how undecided voters, perceive the two candidates.

How do Bush and Kerry stack up? See the leading brands associated with each candidate.

Starbucks or Folgers? Ford or Chevy? Diesel or Levis? I'm dyin' here, let's go!

A step precedes a jump. A jump avoids a smite. A bow sidesteps Armageddon.

A simple and relatively painless gesture that has always dumbfounded me in its ringing abscence, while its clarity and necessity has always been obvious for things to progress to equity.

Step #1:World Tribune

Muslim group takes responsibility for 9-11: 'We are so sorry'

This September 11 marks the third unforgettable anniversary of the worst mass murder in American history.

After September 11, many in the Muslim world chose denial and hallucination rather than face up to the sad fact that Muslims perpetrated the 9-11 terrorist acts and that we have an enormous problem with extremism and support for terrorism. Many Muslims, including religious leaders, and “intellectuals” blamed 9-11 on a Jewish conspiracy and went as far as fabricating a tale that 4000 Jews did not show up for work in the World Trade Center on 9-11. Yet others blamed 9-11 on an American right wing conspiracy or the U.S. Government which allegedly wanted an excuse to invade Iraq and “steal” Iraqi oil.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As to apologizing, we will no longer wait for our religious leaders and "intellectuals" to do the right thing. Instead, we will start by apologizing for 9-11 . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------

After numerous admissions of guilt by Bin Laden and numerous corroborating admissions by captured top level Al-Qaida operatives, we wonder, does the Muslim leadership have the dignity and courage to apologize for 9-11?

If not 9-11, will we apologize for the murder of school children in Russia?

If not Russia, will we apologize for the train bombings in Madrid, Spain?

If not Spain, will we apologize for suicide bombings in buses, restaurants and other public places?

If not suicide bombings, will we apologize for the barbaric beheadings of human beings?

If not beheadings, will we apologize for the rape and murder of thousands of innocent people in Darfour?

If not Darfour, will we apologize for the blowing up of two Russian planes by Muslim women?

What will we apologize for?

What will it take for Muslims to realize that those who commit mass murder in the name of Islam are not just a few fringe elements?

What will it take for Muslims to realize that we are facing a crisis that is more deadly than the Aids epidemic?

What will it take for Muslims to realize that there is a large evil movement that is turning what was a peaceful religion into a cult?

Will Muslims wake up before it is too late? Or will we continue blaming the Jews and an imaginary Jewish conspiracy? The blaming of all Muslim problems on Jews is a cancer that is destroying Muslim society from within and it must stop.

Muslims must look inward and put a stop to many of our religious leaders who spend most of their sermons teaching hatred, intolerance and violent jihad. We should not be afraid to admit that as Muslims we have a problem with violent extremism. We should not be afraid to admit that so many of our religious leaders belong behind bars and not behind a pulpit.

Only moderate Muslims can challenge and defeat extremist Muslims. We can no longer afford to be silent. If we remain silent to the extremism within our community then we should not expect anyone to listen to us when we complain of stereotyping and discrimination by non-Muslims; we should not be surprised when the world treats all of us as terrorists; we should not be surprised when we are profiled at airports.

Simply put, not only do Muslims need to join the war against terror, we need to take the lead in this war.

As to apologizing, we will no longer wait for our religious leaders and “intellectuals” to do the right thing. Instead, we will start by apologizing for 9-11.

We are so sorry that 3000 people were murdered in our name. We will never forget the sight of people jumping from two of the highest buildings in the world hoping against hope that if they moved their arms fast enough that they may fly and survive a certain death from burning.

We are sorry for blaming 9-11 on a Jewish or right wing conspiracy.

We are so sorry for the murder of more than three hundred school children and adults in Russia.

We are so sorry for the murder of train passengers in Spain.

We are so sorry for all the victims of suicide bombings. We are so sorry for the beheadings, abductions, rapes, violent Jihad and all the atrocities committed by Muslims around the world.

We are so sorry for a religious education that raised killers rather than train people to do good in the world. We are sorry that we did not take the time to teach our children tolerance and respect for other people.

We are so sorry for not rising up against the dictators who have ruled the Muslim world for decades.

We are so sorry for allowing corruption to spread so fast and so deep in the Muslim world that many of our youth lost hope.

We are so sorry for allowing our religious leaders to relegate women to the status of forth class citizens at best and sub-humans at worse.

We are so sorry.

For more information visit our website at: www.freemuslims.org

The power that's available is the power you give up.

Next?

[im]perfect storm. Week one.




Call him Ishmael.

Hurricane Neocon

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq Pass 1,000

Hurricane Kitty

Media View Kitty Kelley's Bush Book With Caution

It is the book that some Republicans have been worrying about for weeks, filled with lurid allegations by a celebrity biographer whose controversial reputation has only boosted her sales.

Kitty Kelley's volume on the Bush family won't be published until next week, but the White House communications director yesterday dismissed the book as "garbage"...

Peter Gethers, vice president of Random House and Kelley's editor, said the publisher's chief counsel and Kelley's own lawyer went over the book "with a fine-toothed comb."

"It was as extensive a legal read as a publisher could give," Gethers said. "Some things didn't make it, and we're 100 percent confident of the things that made it in. We erred on the side of caution because we knew how hard she was going to be hit."

Hurricane Peruvian Flake

Though she is not regarded as a serious biographer by any stretch, Kelley is undeniably a bestseller. The initial print run for the book is 600,000 copies, and anticipation about its contents sent a frisson through Republicans at last week's convention.

And, after a highly effective campaign to smear the wartime record of John Kerry, the Kelley biography is seen as an occasion for Democrats to sling some mud of their own against a Christian president who claims to stand for conservative values.

Hurricane Southern Comfort

After weeks in which John Kerry's military record has been picked to pieces, President George Bush now faces a double blast of scrutiny over his own past, raising new questions over his avoidance of the Vietnam draft and his alleged use of drugs.

The first salvo is due to be fired on CBS tonight, when Ben Barnes, a Democrat and the lieutenant governor of Texas in 1968, will explain his role in securing for the 22-year-old Yale graduate Bush a coveted place in the state's Air National Guard - a unit so full of the sons of Texas's rich and powerful that it was known as the "Champagne Unit".

Hurricane Froomkin

Bush's Youth Under Scrutiny

After weeks in which the political discourse was nearly dominated by the scrutinizing of Sen. John F. Kerry's conduct in the Vietnam War era, President Bush now may find himself under the microscope and on the defensive for actions in his past.

Hurricane Alamo, Tropical Storm Gannett

'Texans for Truth' ad challenges Bush on Guard service
A group called Texans for Truth will release a TV ad today in which a former lieutenant colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard says neither he nor his friends saw George W. Bush when the future president was supposed to be with their unit in 1972.

Hurricane Richard

"[Cheney] blamed the Clinton and Reagan administrations for teaching terrorists that 'they could strike us with relative impunity' and that 'if they hit us hard enough, they could change our policy.' Mr. Cheney cited the attack on United States Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983, in the first Reagan term, along with the 1993 killings of American soldiers in Somalia, a 1996 truck bombing at a housing complex in Saudi Arabia where many Americans lived, the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in East Africa and the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000."

Hurricane Dick

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.

If Kerry were elected, Cheney said the nation risks falling back into a "pre-9/11 mind-set" that terrorist attacks are criminal acts that require a reactive approach. Instead, he said Bush's offensive approach works to root out terrorists where they plan and train, and pressure countries that harbor terrorists.

Hurricane Marcus Welby

Medicare Premiums To Rise By 17.5%
Percentage Increase Biggest in 15 Years

Health insurance premiums for senior citizens enrolled in Medicare will rise 17.5 percent in 2005, bringing the total monthly payment to $78.20, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

Hurricane Safer World

MOSCOW – Russian investigators said Arab operatives linked to Al Qaida played a major role in the takeover of a Russian school in which 400 people were killed.

Russian officials said authorities have determined that 10 of the 32 suicide attackers who took over a high school in Beslan in North Ossetia last week were nationals from several Arab countries. Most of the attackers were Chechens and Ingush who had been trained at Al Qaida camps in Afghanistan.

The 10 Arab nationals came from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, officials said. They said security forces seized notebooks in Arabic in the school taken over by insurgents. Officials said survivors told authorities that some of the captors spoke Arabic during the three-day hostage ordeal.

Hurricane Safer World II

Russians Find Same Explosive in the Wreckage of Both Planes

MOSCOW — Residue of the same type of explosive found in the wreckage of one of two Russian airliners that crashed last week has been found in the second, authorities said Saturday.

"Traces of hexogen were found in the course of an additional investigation of fragments of the Tu-134 airplane that crashed in the Tula region," Sergei Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, told the Russian news agency Interfax.

The FSB, the main successor to the KGB, announced Friday the discovery of traces of hexogen in the wreckage of the other plane, which crashed in the Rostov region in southern Russia. Ninety people died in the crashes after both jets took off from the same Moscow airport Tuesday night.

Heavy squalls. Lots of asymmetical gusts. There were always lots of reasons why Swift Boats wouldn't be like Willie Horton. Somebody really should tell Karl Rove "people who live in glass houses..." Some of the above is doubtless gonna be "teacup tempest." Doesn't matter. Brands can't fake their core. Famed advertising legend Bill Bernbach said it well: "Great advertising will only kill a bad product quicker."

As noted below, fear makes us do ill-considered things. And even lazy reporters can only be gamed and fluffed and dared so much. Even they can't ignore the fact that, sometimes, the shit is coming down so heavy, you need a hat. Or a harpoon. White whale time, batten down the hatches.

A message from your Creative Director, Lord of the Flies

I've never been one to buy into the rubbish that "character" doesn't matter in election of leaders. The divining of "Brand Character" follows the same metric for me--it imbues a moral sense into the practice of commerce and builds true customer loyalty. I do, however, disagree with those seem to portray character as blind loyalty or blindness to truth. Character is shown in the grace and humlity with which we all recover from our inevitable imperfections and failings. And, how readily we are willing to admit them, rather than gloss over them or commit sins of ommision. Anyone who practices "customer service" knows this to be Gospel Truth. And "Truth," as someone once said, "Will set you free.

Yes, negative advertising works. And, no, all negative advertising is not "Bad." But context--a moral calibration like the legend or mileage ruler on a map--must be ever present, to preclude your wandering from a central shared standard of decency. The challenge comes in what you are advertising against--is it narrow standards of ethics and interest and gain, or a broader shared standard of wrong and right.

Slate

Credentials and committees don't make you ethical. Principles do. Those principles have to make sense. You have to apply them consistently or rethink them if you can't stomach their implications. And the easier you make them, the less they matter. The slickest way to make yourself look ethical is to narrow the definition of ethics so that it won't interfere with what you want to do. But that won't make you ethical. It'll just make you an ethicist.

The problem comes when your country or your company ceases to function accountably and predictably because of the use of those tactics. You reap what you sow. Your ulcers and the permanent crick in your neck from looking over your shoulder are your legacy. You die an insignificant, petty failure when you'd really hoped for more. You "destroyed the village to save it." Ironic, huh?

Over the rest of the campaign, we're going to attempt to go for the jugular with words and pictures; to try and simplify things into their basest and most brutal essence. Neither side is immune.

That is all.

I like Disc 9, Track 4: Woodstock Morning, Shades of Porto-Let^®



Scentstories

The Scentstories player and disc themes work much like a music CD player. Just insert one of the themed discs and push play. The player then rotates through five scents on each disc, one by one, with a new scent every 30 minutes. The player shuts off automatically after all five scents have been played. You can stop the player or skip through the scent tracks at any time. Together, the Scentstories player and disc create a new-to-the-world scent experience.

I'm sure this is what Edison was really shooting for. Starring Shania Twain as spokes-aromatherapist. No foolin.

Link via Boing Boing, of course.

For you yung-uns out there...

...now you know exactly why everybody is so impressed by that nice Martin Luther King Jr. fella.

Mr. Zigzag Zell and his friends used to talk just so about uppity folk like Dr King what wanted a piece of that Mr. Schwarzenegger's Amercan Dream.

You just had a trip in the wayback machine to 1962.

Why, sure, some say, "he's a Democrat." Sort of. He's the Dixiecrat version, class of '48, pal of Strom. A guy who said of Lyndon Johnson--and other supporters of the Voting Rights Act: "He sold his soul to the negroes." Miller's right, the Democratic party did leave him. 50 years ago.

Now, here's the problem: Those weren't Democrat eyeballs rolling back in ecstasy at the Garden, nor "liberal" fists pumpin the sky, cheerin him on as he made enemies of the state out of the 50% of the country who currently don't buy that George Bush is Alexander the Great and George Washington rolled into one. Swing voters just love that kind of stuff.

Desperation makes you do unwise things. The BC-04 OODA Loop is cut.

Seems these guys agree:

Eric Zorn-Chicago Trib has transcripts of Miller's just-short-of-clinically-insane interviews on MSNBC and CNN right after his speech.

William Saletan goes nuclear: this is no longer just an ordinary election, he says, it's "becoming a referendum on democracy."

NewDonkey: "Not since Pat Buchanan's famous 'culture war' speech in 1992 has a major speaker at a national political convention spoken so hatefully, at such length, about the opposition. At the dark heart of the speech was the same old tired litany of lies and mischaracterizations about Kerry's Senate votes on military spending and weapons systems that BC04 has been retailing for many months."

From a time machine, Zell Miller himself criticizes his speech. Here's what he had to say in 2001: "John Kerry has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington....John has worked to strengthen our military."

Andrew Sullivan: "[Miller's] speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric....The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude."

Jonathan Cohn in the New Republic: "It was one of the most vile political speeches in recent American history, every bit as offensive as Pat Buchanan's infamous call in 1992 for "religious war" and, perhaps, a little more disturbing. Buchanan's speech, after all, was an assault on decency. Last night Miller declared war on democracy."

Matt Yglesias, who was in the hall when Miller spoke: "I don't believe I've ever heard a more disgusting speech delivered in the English language. The fact that I couldn't see a single person on the floor who seemed to feel anything less than the utmost enthusiasm for that lunacy was, well, a bit disturbing."

Links via Washington Monthly