THE BAD, SKIPPING RECORD
Back in the day, we used to listen to music on something called a turntable. A primitive device invented (I think) by Thomas Edison in the early 1900s, the turntable produced sounds by spinning a vinyl disc with tiny grooves imprinted on it at various speeds on a round platform; then placing a thin needle in the grooves, causing it to vibrate in ways that somehow recreated sounds from a recording.
The repeated scraping of the needle over the plastic grooves, mishandling of the vinyl itself, age and normal wear-and-tear would often result in a deterioration of sound – a scraping noise, pops, (unplanned) distortion. In the worst of conditions, the "record" would "skip", meaning that the needle would actually jump out of the grooves and repeat that which had gone before. The result was always annoying and rarely comical. If more weight on the needle – say, a nickle taped to the arm – didn’t solve the problem, the disc was worthless – a "broken record", as it were – often (in "red" states) thrown into the air and pelted with BBs from a juvenile air gun.
I have been amazed how much the Bush message throughout his campaign has sounded like a broken record. He has literally had nothing new to say since his nominating convention, and even that was a rehashed refinement of the illogical, twisted-fact Kerry-bashing that has gone on since Kerry took control of the Democratic nomination in February. The hobgoblin of intractable consistency, even (especially) when wrong, has been characteristic of his disastrous regime and is supposedly a source of strength for his supporters. But the trait/tactic has not worked all that well for a campaign that has been surprisingly unable to adjust to the shifting sands of an increasingly restless and skeptical electorate that is trying to overcome Bush’s unfair, 24/7 smearing of Kerry to walk into the voter’s booth on Tuesday and throw Junior and his band of elitist radicals out of office.
For weeks now, Kerry has proved the better campaigner and the better campaign, reacting to every smear and daily low blow within hours and keeping the appointed president on the defensive by merely reciting Bush’s many failures in office. This week, some very powerful weapons came up missing in Iraq, at what everyone knew (or should have known) was a key weapons depot. Apparently, nobody told the Army unit that used the facility for a pit stop on its way to Baghdad – I mean, it’s not like it was an oil field or something important to the Bushies like that.
Since then, some roving bands of Iraqis or, worse, foreigners with bad intentions have made off with the tons of explosives to god-knows-where to do god-knows-what. Hearing stories like this, I can’t help but think of Iraq as not unlike the post-nuclear Australia of the Mad Max movies, with the U.S. as Mel Gibson (of course), mocked and humiliated by the bigger, stronger warriors who know the land better than he does, who laugh at his go-gooder intentions as they brush him aside and play king-of-the-hill turf wars among each other.
As candidate/robotron Bush stayed on message, the Bush Surrogates played their usual game when faced with bad news, starting with, always, attacking the messenger. In this game, the New York Times is accused of an "October Surprise", knowingly and manipulatively springing a story in the last week of the campaign to affect its outcome. Thus does the issue get diffused from "is it true and how could such a thing happen on your watch?" to "why now?" and "consider the source". In this game, the Times story is lumped with other "mistakes" of the mainstream press – such as the wildly-exaggerated memo faux pas at CBS – to show an overall bias.
Next, anything Kerry says about it – and he rightly jumped right on it as an example of Bush’s incompetence – is "doing and saying anything to win" and is calling the troops "incompetent". Of course, there is a difference between calling Bush incompetent and calling the troops incompetent – a difference lost on the Bushies, who are always looking for anyone but themselves to blame. In fact, it was their own guy today, Rudy Giuliani – by all accounts, a decent guy who needs to get away from the losers he is currently running with ASAP – who directly blamed the troops today. And all Kerry is "doing and saying" to win is telling the truth.
Finally, get your Surrogates in the Pretend Media at Fox News, the Moonie Washington Times and the Drudge Report to tell lies about the missing weapons and try to divert attention from this, well, uncomfortable issue. The embarrassing MW Times floated a fabrication this morning from a "deputy undersecretary of defense for international security technology" (!) who claimed the Russians helped the Iraqis steal away with the stuff before the war. Right. Before (during and after) the invasion, every inch of Iraq was under satellite surveillance 24 hours a day. Not only would our snoopers have noticed (and ordered air strikes) against any such movements before the invasion, they also would have noticed such a giant excavation any time after. Or, at least, you'd hope they would. It makes much more sense to assume that the weapons were picked away by looters, as were so many important sites in Iraq that were pick-pocketed by profit-seekers and worse after the invasion.
After getting hit over the head for three days, Rove, Inc. finally gave Junior himself a script to read about how dangerous it was for Kerry to be "jumping to conclusions" and how "we don’t know what happened". Never has ignorance been so celebrated than with this bunch. Sheesh.
And the sewer-dwelling Drudge can always be counted on to throw curve balls at the all-too-compliant major media simpletons. He’s had his ridiculous spinning-light icon up at least three times in the past couple of days (including right now), trumpeting a "terror tape" given to ABC News, who gave it to the FBI ("BUT NOT ALL OF IT!", claims the non-journalist). Drudge can always be counted on for a hyped info-dump useful to the GOP. It gives the Bushies a chance to remind us all how fearful we should be about terror and changing horses in midstream and the weak will of the senator from mass-a-choo-setts who will seek approval from the Global Test as we wait for the attack that is sure to come because he won’t take proactive action, etc.
But the Bushies have lost the "dangerous world" issue, anyway. They convinced everyone a long time ago that this is a dangerous world that needs serious leadership. And they have proved throughout their regime that they are entirely un-serious radical zealots who will risk our children’s lives and fortunes and the basic structure of world peace for their own nutty purposes.
That’s why they are losing.
5:01:15 PM 
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