Good closing words by the Prez, decent comments from Kerry. President Bush clearly has the advantage in presenting his closing comments last.

Overall it was a good debate. Obviously very foreign policy-oriented, though, I don’t know how this is going to help Kerry.

I do think President Bush was a bit too repetitive with messages such as “hard work,” etc. Kerry may actually gain a few points from this debate… but it’s very hard to tell.

It will certainly take a week or two before we’ll see the overall results.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Regarding Russia and Putin’s decision to bring more of the government under his control. I think this issue will neither hurt nor help either candidate.

Now more wrangling on Iraq. I don’t think voters are going to walk away with all those kinds of details in their heads. I will, but then, I’m geeky that way.

Here is Kerry’s problem, all he can do is say, “I disagree with the President,” and “I will do better.” But that is just talk. The President has been doing all the things that Kerry said he will do if elected. This argument will help the President.

ongoing…

Kerry just promised to shut down bunker busting nuclear weapons!!! He’s showing his true stripes.

I wish the President would have responded that those weapons are being designed to root out enemies who hide in caves and deep bunkers as bin Laden and Saddam have done in the past.

ongoing…

Does he really? He keeps saying that, but the points he uses are just opinions, nothing more.

ongoing…

Both Bush and Kerry are now getting into more detail on issues. I think it helps for both candidates to an extent.

Kerry said, “he’s done it more than I have… the Presidency.” Huh?

ongoing

Kerry is trying to say that Bush allowed North Korea to go nuclear. The President responded that he wanted a multinational effort, not a unilateral one. Exactly right. Kerry complains that Bush acts unilaterally, this is a specific example where he does not. Then he springboards onto Iran, saying this is the solution for them as well…

Kerry’s rebut on Iran is that “we could have done better.” He says that a lot. He responds that North Korea reactivated their nuclear program on Bush’s watch, but Bush responds fairly well.

ongoing…

Kerry wants to undercut the President’s credibility by saying we didn’t get bin Laden and that Saddam was not a threat. He’s doing fairly well in sticking to his points and I think he is looking pretty solid. Is he concentrating on the RIGHT message? We’ll have to wait a week or two to see.

ongoing…

Kerry has made some good points, but the President is really coming on strong. I think Kerry’s desire to go after the President on Iraq was a huge tactical error. I think Bush is going to win some additional hearts and minds right here at home tonight.

ongoing…

Kerry of course brings Viet Nam up and his service there, which is fine. I think the President is pulling ahead a bit on the points he’s making. He’s acknowledged to the entire country that HE is the one who sent the troops into harm’s way and HE is the one responsible for losses.

Kerry rebutted well with comments mentioning Colin Powell’s statement, “if you break it, you own it.” But does Kerry know that Iraq has been broken for 12 years? It’s on its way to repair now, but could never have been on its way before Saddam was removed.

ongoing…

Why is Kerry nodding and smiling so much when the President responds to questions in the debate? It makes it look almost as if Kerry agrees with the President, but its obviously because he is eager to respond. This structured debate is driving Kerry crazy!

ongoing…

President Bush is thumping the podium a bit too much. It shows his deep feelings on the subject, but is a bit distracting.

Lehrer asks Kerry to give examples of where the President “did not tell the truth” about the war in Iraq. Kerry refused to use the word “lie,” but Lehrer did. Kerry’s response was all talking points; well delivered, but will they score?

ongoing…

Kerry has just accused the President of showing favoritism to Haliburton (sp?). A cheap shot and the President did a very good job of gently and respectfully chiding Kerry for his statements regarding our current allies in Iraq.

ongoing….

Interesting issue here. Bush just outlined exactly WHY Afghanistan is not the only front on war, that Iraq is a part of that war. Fine, true… well made point. Kerry’s response sounds fairly negative, but he is on-point. The problem is, his responses sound fairly wooden and rehearsed, they don’t quite jibe with what the President said.

Overall, though, both men are doing fairly well. A good calm debate. Kerry continues the negativity, but I just don’t feel any power in what he says. His points are not necessarily false, but they are also a bit hollow.

Ongoing…

Bush has made very good and strong points regarding the war on terror in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Kerry’s rebuttal is not too bad, but now he’s talking about military persons who support him… Bad choice and then he delivers what he hopes is a zinger, that Bush “outsourced” the war on terror. Isn’t Kerry the one who insists that we outsource the war in the form of getting more allies into Iraq?

Continuing…

Well, unfortunately, I could not get my live blogging script set up in time, but I will provide running commentary.

It is 9:04 and the debate has begun. Kerry has the first question and started fairly well but sounds a bit out of breath and hoarse. He sounds good though and is stating his case and came in right on time with his first answer. The President’s 90 second rebuttal sounds very relaxed and he is stating exactly what HAS been done and is talking very evenly and calmly.

Kerry needs to do one of two things if he is to have any chance of winning on November 2nd:

1. Fire ALL of his so-called advisors, or

2. Start listening to his advisors!

I can’t figure out which is the right course of action because I’m not sure if his advisors are the reason for Kerry’s constant blunders or if Kerry himself has decided to adopt more than just Howard Dean’s anti-war stance. As you know, Dean was known as the guy who liked to “shoot from the lip” during his campaign. It ultimately proved to be his undoing and the Kerry Campaign just doesn’t seem to have absorbed that lesson.

So, what has Kerry done THIS time? Well, he appeared on [url=http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Vote2004/Kerry_Sawyer_040929-1.html]Good Morning America[/url] today where he said this of his now famous statement, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”

It was a very inarticulate way of saying something and I had one of those moments late in the evening when I was tired in the primaries and didn’t say something clearly. But it reflects the truth of the position, which is, I thought, to have the wealthiest people in America share the burden of paying for that war. It was a protest. Sometimes you have to stand up and be counted.

What?! Stand up and be counted? Forget the fact that he actually [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A64607-2004Mar16¬Found=true]made that statement BEFORE he made that statement[/url], and forget the fact that he voted against the $87 billion just a week or two after he asserted on Face the Nation that NOT voting for the funding would be irresponsible, and even forget the fact that most of the country already knows that he voted the way he did (as did Edwards) because he was desperately trying to catch up with Howard Dean in the primaries.

Instead, lets just assume for one second that Kerry was trying to stand up and be counted. Lets talk about what he stood for when he made this so-called “protest” vote.

In voting against the $87 billion, Kerry voted against funding for our TROOPS! He voted against reconstruction efforts in Iraq, against better body armor, weapons, ammunition, and a host of other supplies that today helps our troops on the front lines as well as the fledgling Iraqi democracy.

A protest vote against a bill with tons of pork in it is one thing, but a bill to fund troops standing in harms way? Is he crazy?

SANITY CHECK!
To the Kerry Campaign, I would like to humbly offer up some insight as to why this statement is such a monumental blunder.

By calling this vote to fund the troops and our ongoing struggle to bring peace to Iraq and, just maybe, democracy to the Middle East, a “protest” vote, you’ve just given a whole new level of credibility to the [url=http://swift2.he.net/~swift2/index.php]SwiftVets[/url]. While I think its a mistake to attack anyone’s service record, many of the SwiftVets latest ads have wisely shifted the focus to Kerry’s time as a member of [url=http://www.vvaw.org/]Vietnam Veterans Against the War[/url].

Now Kerry has once again, right at a pivatol point in the campaign, become an anti-war protester. Though Kerry claims that his “protest” vote was really about the need for America’s wealthy to pick up the tab for the war (sure, that makes sense to me considering the top 50% of wage earners already pay 96.4% of all taxes), most Americans will simply focus on Kerry’s desire to offer up a protest vote that, at the very least, is a slap in the face to our troops now in the field.

I have only one question… Which statment of Kerry’s is MORE inarticulate, the one regarding voting for the $87 billion before he voted against it, or the one where he calls a vote to fund our troops a “protest” vote.

Feel free to leave me a comment if you have an opinion.

David Flanagan
[url=http://www.viewpointjournal.com]Viewpointjournal.com[/url]

THE BLOGOSPHERE AS “OPEN SOURCE MEDIA”
Is “Major” Media on the wane? Will competition with cable news, radio and the Internet, force network news shows into oblivion or, at the very least, obscurity? Is this post already sounding too much like the closing seconds of a 1970’s episode of Batman?

Personally, I think the answer to all of the above is a resounding “NO!” It can be argued that the media as a whole in America is more powerful and vigorous than ever. And the Blogosphere? It is nothing more or less than a new and powerful facet of the modern media world.

Some may disagree, but there is no doubt in my mind that the Blogosphere has become a new media force in the world. But, with that said, I don’t like the idea of calling the Blogosphere the “new media,” or even the “alternate media.”

Those titles just don’t describe what we are well enough. In reality the Blogosphere is something never before seen in the world; it’s a form of “Open Source” media.

What do I mean when I call the Blogosphere the “Open Source Media?” Let me explain.

“OPEN SOURCE” EXPLAINED
Ever heard of Linux? If you are part of the IT world, as I am, you almost certainly have. Linux is an “Open Source” operating system, built by thousands of independent software developers who, at one point or another, voluntarily donated their time and their talents to the design and construction of a new operating system which, over the years. has become very popular.

With the rise of the Internet, open source software development communities have become legion. Most open source software is free of charge, and easily found on websites such as the Free Software Foundation. The general rule of thumb is that the original creator of an application should always be credited for their work.

In the Open Source development world, software is easy to find and available to fit the numerous needs of consumers. Unfortunately, the quality of the software you find there may also be very low, even detrimental to your computer’s performance, and consumers must be on their guard when downloading and using some of the available software they find.

Regardless of the risks, open source development has begun to transform the software industry. That hundred, thousands, even tens of thousands of talented developers can loosely collaborate to rapidly create and enhance thousands of different software applications, then distribute them freely on the Internet is a new paradigm in the development world with implications that we have only just begun to realize.

QUEUE THE WESTERN THEME MUSIC
And now there is a new open source community in town… Open Source Media; A.K.A, the Blogosphere!

In using the word “media,” I do not mean to imply, as others have, that I am referring to audio, video, or other such types of “mass communication” tools. I mean, “the Media” as defined on Dictionary.com:

media (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The group of journalists and others who constitute the communications industry and profession.

In other words, we have the traditional media, the new media, and now, the Open Source Media. And the open source media community, AKA, the Blogosphere, has become a force to be reckoned with.

BLOGOSPHERE=OPEN SOURCE MEDIA (OSM)
So, what leads me to believe that the Blogosphere is the open source media community that I’m claiming it to be? Here are two pieces of evidence:

1. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of journalists and radio and/or TV personalities have their own blogs. For them, blogging is fun. They can write what they want, when they want to, and the way they want to write it. They are a one-person newsroom. A good example of this is with Hugh Hewitt, a popular radio personality whose Blog has become quite popular and whose articles and comments are often cited and published on various news sites. Another blog I enjoy reading is Michelle Malkin’s personal blog. Michelle is an author and a regular commentator for Fox News.
2. Both traditional and new media is increasingly aware of and willing to draw on content gleaned from the Blogosphere. For example, James Taranto’s “Best Of The Web Today” column, which is posted weekdays on Opinionjournal.com, the Wall Street Journal’s online opinion column. Taranto uses a network of bloggers for many of his stories. Inversely, bloggers use his material constantly when posting information to their sites.

Ultimately, there is a continual flow of information from mainstream and alternate media into the OSM community, and then, in some select cases, back again into the mainstream and alternate media. I predict that as the Blogosphere continues to grow in both content and in respectability, the flow of OSM content to mainstream and alternate media will grow as well.

So, why is this new “Open Source” media community worthy of respect?
previously, the existence of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of professionals with expertise in every major field who can read, analyze, and comment on information flowing out of every major and minor media channel in existence.

What are some strengths and weaknesses of the open source media community? If you read through the lists below, you’ll see that this community possesses some of the same advantages and disadvantages as the open source .

Personally, I think the OSM is one of the most democratic forms of the media ever to appear. The blog is the early 21st century’s version of the printing press, and the implications, socially, politically, and economically, are just now being felt.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Dan Rather how HE feels!

But, finally, let me focus for a minute or two on the political implications of the OSM community…

POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE OSM COMMUNITY
Bloggers don’t pretend to be free of bias. Quite the opposite. We bloggers live and breathe our biases. First of all, it’s more fun and, secondly, it tends to generate more readers and greater overall traffic.

Which is why the Blogosphere is a powerful political tool already, and destined to become far more powerful still. It’s the new campaign frontier.

So what should political parties do to take advantage of this new frontier?

First of all, they should seek to strengthen their network of bloggers, offering blogging tools, features and even space on the Internet for active supporters. From there, mining these sites, and opposition sites as well, for ideas and data on a daily basis becomes paramount.

What stories are popular among bloggers? What are common themes? What opinions are being expressed? What input can be given to the community to help spread commentary and news favorable to one campaign and detrimental to the other? How can the OSM community reach out to help shape some of the content in the traditional and alternate media communities? These are just a few of the questions a campaign should ask when reviewing OSM content.

In addition, Political parties should NOT assume that keeping their own blog, mining the Blogosphere for content and ideas, and connecting to supporters via the Internet is enough. Face-to-face activities are still necessary, only, now it is an opportunity for junior campaign members from each party to go on tour as well in order to reach out to bloggers.

They can maintain online campaign resources, schedule events, send message, mine the OSM world for new ideas and information, and get out on the trail themselves to help turn virtual campaign support into real votes on election day. It’s a fun new challenge for partisans, one that will help bring younger supporters to prominence in their respective parties and create real and strong relationships with the movers and shakers of the OSM world.

Parties should identify some of their strongest supporters from the OSM community in each state, arrange special events, and then SPECIFICALLY INVITE bloggers to those events. Corporations have learned that you can add tremendous value to virtual activities, such as meetings and training sessions, simply by using the tried and true method of identifying and inviting employees to virtual events in a selective manner rather than en masse, and then augmenting virtual events with live events.

Political parties and campaigns should learn from corporate America and do the same. Political parties and campaigns should also treat members of this community as both traditional campaign supporters AND members of the media.

Bloggers literally do live in both worlds, therefore, it makes sense to interact with the Blogosphere on both levels. In terms of cost, these efforts are likely to cost very little. In terms of garnering enthusiastic support, these efforts are likely to yield huge benefits.

So, don’t just feed news to the Blogosphere, or passively watch and mine datea from this community. Instead, treat them as a new type of media and partner with those in the community who want to actively support a party, a candidate, and/or a campaign.

Will this kind of active solicitation of and partnering with the open source media community become a central feature of future campaigns? Time will tell.

One thing that political parties of the future cannot afford to do, however, is to allow their rivals to get a head start. The 2006 mid-term campaigns may not see a huge increase in campaign activity via the Internet, but the party that underestimates our value in 2008 may well be plowed under by the opposition.

Okay, yes, I am a pajama-wearing partisan blogger. What can I say, PJs are just more comfortable for blogging. Maybe I should put a bumper sticker on my car: “Bloggers do it in their pajamas!” What do you think?

Seriously, though, this is a warning that ALL parties should heed. The open source media community is here to stay and pajamas or no pajamas, we continue to grow in influence and effectiveness.

Ignore us at your own peril… And stop asking me what I’m wearing.

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

Politics can get ugly, but how ugly is it when [url=http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040917-010155-8041r.htm]Kerry supporters pick on a three-year-old girl[/url] and her father at a rally?

Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards made a brief stop at the airport as he concluded his two-day bus tour to locations in West Virginia and Ohio.

Just in case you were wondering what was going on in this picture, the lady behind the father and his daughter, to the right, is still screaming at the little girl. They all look like they feel very powerful after harassing a defenseless child and her father. These folks must be part of the liberal peace movement.

Now, don’t go telling me that little children holding Kerry/Edwards signs never show up at Bush rallies. Just a month ago, a four-year-old girl was at a rally for the President holding a sign that said, “My Grandfather lost his job, now it’s your turn.” No one harrassed the girl or her family there.

As it turns out, the [url=http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/whisphome.htm]President heard about what happened[/url] and saw some of the pictures and sent her another sign, autographed this time, with a note thanking her for her support and signed it, “To Sophia, Best wishes from me and Barney.”

David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com

[url=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=arrogance]arrogance[/url]

\Ar”ro*gance\, n. [F., fr. L. arrogantia, fr. arrogans. See Arrogant.] The act or habit of arrogating, or making undue claims in an overbearing manner; that species of pride which consists in exorbitant claims of rank, dignity, estimation, or power, or which exalts the worth or importance of the person to an undue degree; proud contempt of others; lordliness; haughtiness; self-assumption; presumption.

Well, the “Bush Guard Memo,” piece, which aired on “[url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/08/60II/main641984.shtml]60 Minutes II[/url]” last week purporting to present newly discovered documents refuting some of what President Bush has claimed and previous documents have supported about Bush’s record in the Texas Air National Guard, seems to be crumbling at an exponential rate. Earlier today, Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian’s supervisor at the Grd and one of the sources that CBS News claims helped them authenticate the documents is crying foul.

Here is what ABC News is reporting:

Retired Maj. General Hodges, Killian’s supervisor at the Grd, tells ABC News that he feels CBS misled him about the documents they uncovered. According to Hodges, CBS told him the documents were “handwritten” and after CBS read him excerpts he said, “well if he wrote them that’s what he felt.” [emphasis mine]

Hodges also said he did not see the documents in the 70’s and he cannot authenticate the documents or the contents. His personal belief is that the documents have been “computer generated” and are a “fraud”.

CBS responds: “”We believed Col. Hodges the first time we spoke with him. We believe the documents to be genuine. We stand by our story and will continue to report on it.”

This statement jibes with statements made by family members and associates who claim that Lt. Col. Killian was not a typist and never kept copious notes. Killian had no home office and his son, who also served in the National Guard until 1991 pointed out that creating such memos was something that “noone in their right mind would do in the military.”

What Killian’s son was referring to was the fact that the military reserves the right to audit personnel files at any time for any reason. Finding documents such as these in an audit would like have ended the Colonel’s career.

[url=http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200409100809.asp]Byron York, of National Review Online [/url]also points out that it was Killian’s habit never to type up the evaluation documents. Instead, his habit was to simply sign off in this manner: “I concur with the comments and ratings of the reporting official,” and then would sign his name.

So why would Killian go to all the effort to type up four additional memos when he never liked to type in the first place? And why would these “recently discovered” memos contradict the reports that went into Bush’s official records?

And most important, why has CBS not offered to turn the original documents over to anyone for final verification? Again I ask, what are they afraid of?

Today, [url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12809-2004Sep10_2.html]Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post[/url], reporting on CBS’s defense of the Bush Guard Documents, noted at one point that:

“The Dallas Morning News cast fresh doubt on the documents by reporting last night that the officer named in one memo as exerting pressure to “sugarcoat” Bush’s military record was discharged a year and a half before the memo was written. The paper cited a military record showing that Col. Walter “Buck” Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972, while the memo cited by CBS as showing that Staudt was interfering with evaluations of Bush was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

The [url=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationalpolitics/2002032742_bushguard11.html]Seattle Times also reported[/url] on this recent discovery today:

The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to “sugarcoat” George W. Bush’s military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo supposedly was written, his service record shows.
An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter “Buck” Staudt was honorably discharged March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers’ negative evaluations of the future president’s service was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Bush sought special treatment as a pilot, failed to carry out a superior’s order to undergo a physical exam and was suspended from flying for failing to meet Air National Guard standards.

A CBS staffer stood by the story, suggesting Staudt could have continued to exert influence over Guard officials. But a former high-ranking Guard official disputed that, saying retirement would have left Staudt powerless

The credibility of these documents continues to get thinner by the minute… As does Rather’s defense of them.

[url=http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60II/main3475.shtml]Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick….[/url]

David Flanagan
[url=http://www.viewpointjournal.com]Viewpointjournal.com[/url]