last night when he got a jab in on Kerry/Edwards when he said that Edwards’ “two americas” included a country where Kerry would vote for one thing, and then flip flop and vote against it.

“John Kerry’s record of inconsistent positions on combatting terrorism gives us no confidence he’ll pursue such a determined course,” Rudy said to applause.

So I wonder what he will say today, a day after Bush was grilled for saying that we will not win this war on terrorism, and then this morning saying that we will… and that we’re winning it.

what a difference a day can make.

so is this a flip or a flop?

do flip flops matter when it comes to Bush. is it a b-lip and not a flip?

does anything matter when it comes to dubya?

not finding wmd’s didnt matter.

not finding his guard records didnt matter.

the $455 billion deficit didnt matter.

not finding Osama didnt matter.

not really winning the election didnt matter.

is this two americas: one where Kerry would get crucified if he would have said that we couldnt win the war on terrorism, crucified again if he flip floped – but Bush can change his whole outlook overnight without criticism?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – President Bush said Tuesday “we will win” the war on terror, seeking to quell controversy and Democratic criticism over his earlier remark that victory may not be possible.

In a speech to the national convention of the American Legion, Bush said, “We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win.

That statement differed from Bush’s earlier comment, aired Monday in a pre-taped television interview, that “I don’t think you can win” the war on terror. That had Democrats running for the cameras to criticize Bush for being defeatist and flip-flopping from previous predictions of victory.

– Associated Press

can the swift-boaters bail bush out on this one?

will instapundit totally ignore this like he ignored the president yesterday?

what will jeff jarvis say now that he agreed with what the president said yesterday about the futility of winning with war by saying “of course we cant (win the war on terrorism).”

a sentiment that was echoed by two commentors of this blog. our pal the Unsomnambulist said yesterday, “So, now I’m as equally distressed that our lesser of two evils morons known as ‘The Johns’ have decided to take up the mantra and say that THEY can win this bogus war on terror.

Idiots.

Now I’m tempted to vote Nader.”

does that mean that bush is an idiot for thinking we can win it?

wasnt communism and fascism crushed in its day?

what makes terrorism undefeatable? because it actually happened on our turf?

threaten to vote for ralph all you want Unsomnambulist, but i agree with kerry/edwards (and now Bush) that we can beat terrorism, and we are winning the fight.

greatest country in the world can defeat anything.

except lithuania in olympic hoops, apparently.

it was sk smith‘s birthday on saturday!

raptor blog + psychotic normalcy + metafilter + fags for bush

the number one republican blogger of all time had 35 posts today.

he began at 8:35 am and stopped at 11:26 pm.

fifteen hours of mostly political blogging for your ass. more than two posts an hour on this, the first day of the republican national convention.

the convention that among other things will rally the troops to re-elect the president of the united states, george bush.

and yet prof. reynolds mentioned “Bush” a mere half dozen times today, on what for even the prolific blogger was an impressively productive day.

what were the six times the blogfather mentioned bush? once to link the spoof Cheerleaders For Truth webpage; twice to get last night’s MTV Video award booing story wrong three times (could it be that i was the only person who actually watched the stupid thing?); once to link to a blog that speculates that the president somehow got an olympic bounce; twice in reference to a blog that reported that there were some absurd obscure leftists in the quarter million protestors yesterday including “a coven of conspiracy theorists” who had signs that accused the president of having advance warning of 9-11.

so cheerleaders for truth, the mtv booing, the olympic bounce and yesterday’s protesters saying that bush knew

35 posts and yet not one about what the President actually said today?

Did he say anything today?

yes, fellow readers of the instapundit, my favorite blog, he did.

George W. Bush began his morning on the Today show where he told Matt Lauer that we cannot win the war on terrorism.

Lauer: “You said to me a second ago, one of the things you’ll lay out in your vision for the next four years is how to go about winning the war on terror. That phrase strikes me a little bit. Do you really think we can win this war on terror in the next four years?”

Bush: “I have never said we can win it in four years.”

Lauer: “So I’m just saying can we win it? Do you see that?”

Bush: “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world –- let’s put it that way.

sen john edwards put that little quote in a press release at 1:30pm and later declared, “John Kerry and I believe that this war on terror is winnable; they don’t.”

in 35 posts, the worlds most popular blogger mentioned “Kerry” eight times. (swift boat, “distance itself from Kerry“, daughters getting booed, kerry lied, kerry mia, kerry should take speech-making lessons from mccain)

but strangely nothing about kerry and edwards saying that the war on terror was winnable.

earlier in the interview, the president explained how the $455 billion deficit was pretty good… or something

Lauer: “Let me ask you about deficits –- this year $445 billion. That’s ballpark? You think that’s pretty good?”

President Bush: “Yeah. I do. I do.”

Lauer: “Alright –- and by the way less than projected –- at that time we were projecting…”

President Bush: “Five.”

Lauer: “Five-hundred and fifty.”

President Bush: “Yeah, something like that.”

Lauer: “Does the deficit matter?”

President Bush: “Well, I think it does in the long run. I really do. And I think it’s very important for those of us running for office to explain how we’re going to deal with the deficit. I’ve laid out a specific plan that shows the deficit being reduced by half in five years. It’s going to require fiscal sanity in Washington, D.C.”

Lauer: “If the deficit does not come down, if you can’t pay it down in half by 2008, will you raise taxes?”

Bush: “It’s going to come down in half. That’s the goal. I mean I …”

Lauer: “If it doesn’t?”

Bush: “There’s no need to answer a hypothetical, cause it is going to. That’s what we’ve got in place and that’s what we’ve got in mind. Raising taxes now would be a disaster.”

because a $455 billion deficit after a $5.8 trillion surplus somehow isnt a disaster?

i suppose it all depends on what your definition of disaster is.

the president’s Time magazine interview might very well turn out to be… not so good. today it was embarrassing twice for him, but you’d never know if you only read the instapundit’s 35 posts.

according to the australian, the interview includes president bush admiting they hadnt planned properly for the iraq war, a “catastrophic success”, he called the $130 billion venture and cause of 975 US military deaths, 6,323 american wounded soldiers, and 12,000 iraqi civilian deaths

edwards, the australian reports, also jumped on that quote as well. handilly.

thirty five posts today, and yet the instapundit hasnt mentioned edwards once in three days.

president bush also unfurled a beautiful gem when he said “I’m not the historian – I’m the guy making history.”

Iraq success ‘catastrophic’: Bush

by Roy Eccleston

The Australian

August 31, 2004

[NEW YORK] George W. Bush has admitted the US failed to plan for a speedy victory in Iraq, describing the sudden collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime as a “catastrophic success”.

In a rare concession from the President, who dislikes admitting error, Mr Bush told Time magazine that his planners had not considered the prospect of a quick collapse.

“Had we to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success – being so successful, so fast, that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in, escaped and lived to fight another day,” he said.

Mr Bush sought to blame the prolonged war – in which 969 US troops have been killed so far – on an over-quick victory that meant the US ended up having to fight “a third more” of Hussein’s Baathist supporters than military planners had expected.

Democrat vice-presidential candidate John Edwards seized on the comment, made as the President prepares for a high-profile week with the Republican Party’s national convention in New York.

“President Bush now says his Iraq policy is a catastrophic success,” Senator Edwards said yesterday. “He’s half right. It was catastrophic to rush to war without a plan to win the peace.”

Mr Bush said he believed the war on terrorism would be a long-lasting ideological struggle, but he declined to call it a fourth world war, saying: “I’m not the historian – I’m the guy making history.”

indeed.

ken layne + jim gilliam + fimoculous is back, thnx buzzmachine + flagrant airways

if he was running for president this time out i would have a hard time not voting for him. it’s safe to say i probably would.

Here are two excerpts.

Remember how we felt when the serenity of a bright September morning was destroyed by a savage atrocity so hostile to all human virtue we could scarcely imagine any human being capable of it.

We were united.

First, in sorrow and anger.

Then in recognition we were attacked not for a wrong we had done, but for who we are – a people united in a kinship of ideals, committed to the notion that the people are sovereign, not governments, not armies, not a pitiless, inhumane theocracy, not kings, mullahs or tyrants, but the people.

In that moment, we were not different races.

We were not poor or rich. We were not Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. We were not two countries. We were Americans.

All of us, despite the differences that enliven our politics, are united in the one big idea that freedom is our birthright and its defense is always our first responsibility.

All other responsibilities come second.

We must not lose sight of that as we debate who among us should bear the greatest responsibility for keeping us safe and free. We must, whatever our disagreements, stick together in this great challenge of our time.

My friends in the Democratic Party – and I’m fortunate to call many of them my friends – assure us they share the conviction that winning the war against terrorism is our government’s most important obligation. I don’t doubt their sincerity.

They emphasize that military action alone won’t protect us, that this war has many fronts: in courts, financial institutions, in the shadowy world of intelligence, and in diplomacy.

They stress that America needs the help of her friends to combat an evil that threatens us all, that our alliances are as important to victory as are our armies.

We agree.

And, as we’ve been a good friend to other countries in moments of shared perils, so we have good reason to expect their solidarity with us in this struggle.

and then later he took a jab at Michael Moore who was in attendence (who had been kicked off the floor earlier because of “lack of credentials”, and later allowed to return, although “roped off“).

After years of failed diplomacy and limited military pressure to restrain Saddam Hussein, President Bush made the difficult decision to liberate Iraq.

Those who criticize that decision would have us believe that the choice was between a status quo that was well enough left alone and war. But there was no status quo to be left alone.

The years of keeping Saddam in a box were coming to a close. The international consensus that he be kept isolated and unarmed had eroded to the point that many critics of military action had decided the time had come again to do business with Saddam, despite his near daily attacks on our pilots, and his refusal, until his last day in power, to allow the unrestricted inspection of his arsenal.

Our choice wasn’t between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war.

It was between war and a graver threat. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad.

Not our political opponents.

And certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam’s Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls.

Whether or not Saddam possessed the terrible weapons he once had and used, freed from

international pressure and the threat of military action, he would have acquired them again.

The central security concern of our time is to keep such devastating weapons beyond the reach of terrorists who can’t be dissuaded from using them by the threat of mutual destruction.

We couldn’t afford the risk posed by an unconstrained Saddam in these dangerous times. By destroying his regime we gave hope to people long oppressed that if they have the courage to fight for it, they may live in peace and freedom.

we need more leaders, from both side of the aisle to speak in these sorts of even terms. (even if theyre wrong.)

reason’s convention blog + moore’s usa today column today + lemon odor + found on floor

when i was in Hell last year they have an orientation that i was forced to attend.

unfortunately there wasnt a video clip of the Bush twins behind me. the room of evil people really did razz me.

here’s the post incase you forgot:

when i was in the orientation meeting everyone had to stand up and introduce themselves.

hi, my name is tony. i was an undercover superhero in hollywood, california, earth, and now im here.

everyone booed.

down here that means hi.

it also means boo.

what were my hobbies?

i liked model planes, horticulture and reading the Bible.

they booed louder.

tony was also a very popular blogger.

this made them stop booing.

and slowly

they started to laugh.

hysterically.

one guy was crying he was laughing so much.

soon someone knocked at the door to see what was happening, someone told the guy and they pointed at me. then they both started laughing and patting each other on the back.

then i started laughing cuz it was pretty funny.

then everyone settled down.

then some lady chuckled.

then another lady gafawwed.

a dude snorted.

then everyone laughed again.

i laughed, farted, then laughed harder.

someone tried to ask me a question, but busted out laughing.

then everyone joined in again.

a fat guy turned blue and wheezed while catching his breath, his buddy opened his shirt a little and waved some air at him. he took out his asthma thing and blew some air in his lungs and stopped looking blue.

then he coughed.

then he went back to laughing.

then he ripped a little fart.

then everyone started laughing all over again.

ah, memories

melting dolls has some tips for the terrorists + jaime + kool keith

blook II.

some people have no problem going back at what they write and editing it and thinking about how smart they were way back when, but not me.

it is such a painful process you have no idea.

i know i talk about myself and my life in this, my journal, but i dont go back and read. i just write more. and hopefully in better ways.

before my vacation, which is now about to expire, i printed out the 150 pages that sepi so dilligently put together for me about 9 months ago. the plan was to go through each entry and give it a grade.

only the ones that got A- or better would get into this new book.

in a week i have probably read a total of 20 entries.

its so sad.

not because i hate them, i just hate ME. hate is a strong word. its just so dull. the past. all these stories about anna and ashley and the others. i see where i disguised the names of some of the ladies who ive never named and its just so

ugh.

what i need is the help of karisa j.

or someone. but hopefully her.

i need her help with this.

i want to put out this book before the world series so that chadly j chicken will get off my back.

but also because i seriously think that i could publish it somewheres.

no offense to the others who have written books about blogging, but

none of them have the busblog.

none.

and i hate myself.

old flame from long ago called me this morn to ask me if i wanted to go to church.

this was one of the wildest girls ive ever known.

when she invited me to church of all places i thought she was gonna tell me that she was a nun, cuz you know, sometimes people do that.

she said she just wanted some spirtuality in her life and i was all, why dont you come over and we’ll read from the bible.

she said if she came over we would never get to the bible

and i was all, im the luckiest man ever.

until she told me she was married.

to a man who barely touched her any more.

only a year and a half have they been together but their “schedules” didnt line up right since hes a commerical airline pilot and shes semifamous.

i was all, baby, even if i wanted to you wouldnt have let me say no to anything less than three times a day, whats up with your man?

she said, its just different tony, and only women say those things.

this is the woman who dared me to spank her hard.

bent over with the heels of her stillettos sparkling in the glow from her tv which was always on and why i really loved her.

i hit her as hard as i could and she said mmmmm do it again.

that girl.

she said tony we barely do it three times a week now.

how could all this sweet fruit just ripen and waste on the vine.

i know how, but how can these intellegent women just let it waste there, as if youth lasts forever. as if breaking is hard to do. as if the second you like someone you have to make them your boyfriend or husbland.

so we sighed on the phone and she asked me what i was up to and i said

procrastinating.

cuz i like to let my shit ripen and mildew in the shadows of the fruit tree too.

and now tomorrow i have to go to fucking work like the tool ive become.

and this post definately would not have gotten even a B.

blair in nyc + bukkake in boston + flagrant is somewhere but i never know where

the rnc convention protest on cspan all morning

#1 chant: fox news sucks

funniest chant: four. more. months!

yahoo pictures + buzznet pictures

we’re going to malibu to eat shrimp. im watching slacker on trio and thinking about the last craig kilborn show that i just rewateched on tivo.

kilborn was so in love with himself that it was painful to witness.

he was sel conscious that it would make you self conscious.

youd think, im not really that disgusting am i?

and how are you going to compete with conan, who is actually the best late night talk show host on tv. and the funniest. and the most creative.

and has the most edge.

why fox hasnt spent the money to get conan and put him on after the news

like a real network

is beyond me. we’re going to neptunes net where the bikers are on the weekends.

surfers during the week. i had a root canal yesterday, the last day of my vacation.

it wasnt as bad as you’d think. and after i ran into an old girlfriend.

maybe youve heard of her. anna kournikova.

she agreed to walk with me to popeyes but she wouldnt hold my hand and she wouldnt let me put my arm around her.

tony, what if it gets out in the press?

i was all, you mean what if enrigay finds out.

if he broke up with me i would be shattered.

i ate the firecracker shrimp. a man in front of me had asked for free food as he had just gotten out of prison and had no money and had been thinking about popeyes when he was in there.

if i had even a quarter i would have given it to him.

you could see his plastic ID wrist bracelet from the twin towers of la county jail.

and his clear plastic bag of personal belongings.

i couldnt keep my eyes off of annas crotch area

or her breasts.

it was so ungentlemanly.

i couldnt because there i was so close to where i had been

and yet so far.

like putting dog food in the dog bowl two hours before you always do and tell your dogs no!

maybe later but not now.

we sat there and i tried to look at her devistating eyes but she wouldnt look at me.

and i said

there needs to be a day where you could have sex with any one you want,

and there would be no reprocussions.

free love day.

and she was all, there really should be.

and we walked back down the street to her limo and after awhile she said, ok you can touch me if you want.

and i said really?

and she nodded.

and i put my hand on her ass and

held it there for a second as we walked.

like old times.

bicycle mark + wisdom goof + wisdom goof’s latest photo essay!

“John Kerry said today he wants to debate President Bush once a month. Hey good luck, if Bush couldn’t make it to the National Guard once a month, he’s not going to show up for this.” —Jay Leno

“The Bush campaign for re-election has officially begun. They’re actually running television commercials. Have you seen any of the television commercials? In one of the commercials, you see George Bush for thirty seconds. In another commercial, you get to see George Bush for sixty seconds — kind of like his stint in the National Guard.” —David Letterman

“In Louisiana, President Bush met with over 15,000 National Guard troops. Here’s the weird part, nobody remembers seeing him there.” —Craig Kilborn

“The White House has finally found one guy that kinda remembers serving with President Bush in the National Guard. Now they just need to find someone who remembers Bush working on an economic plan. … I think the White House spent more money looking for this guy than finding weapons of mass destruction.” —Jay Leno

“The White House has now released military documents that they say prove George Bush met his requirements for the National Guard. Big deal, we’ve got documents that prove Al Gore won the election.” —Jay Leno

“There was an embarrassing moment in the White House earlier today. They were looking around while searching for George Bush’s military records. They actually found some old Al Gore ballots.” —David Letterman

“There’s this huge controversy over the fact that President Bush apparently received credit for National Guard service in Alabama in ’72 and ’73 even though his commanding officers are saying he never reported. I think what’s even more disturbing is that he received enough credits to graduate from Yale.” —Jay Leno

“Bush did have an explanation, he said he did go to Alabama but when he didn’t find weapons of mass destruction, he went back to Texas.” —Jay Leno

“As John Kerry sails toward the Democratic nomination, new questions are emerging about President Bush’s service in the National Guard, like where he was for six months in 1972 and why he refused to take a routine physical. President Bush has vowed to get to the bottom of this right after Election Day.” —Craig Kilborn

“President Bush stopped off at a bass pro fishing store to pick up a fishing reel, some line and some rubber worms. He’s going to disappear and go fishing. So he must think he’s back in the National Guard.” —Jay Leno

“Critics are now saying that his dad got him out of going to Vietnam. However, his dad did get him to go to Iraq.” —Jay Leno

“Ironically, the possibility that the president dodged his military service has increased his approval ratings with Democrats by 80 percent.” —Craig Kilborn

“President Bush is not fazed by other candidates’ war records. He said, I may have not fought in Vietnam, but I created one.” —Craig Kilborn

“The big story now is that President Bush is coming under attack for his service in the National Guard. The White House said, ‘no no,’ that they have payroll records to show that he served in the National Guard. But today, the commanding officers can’t remember seeing Bush between May and October of ’72. President Bush said, ‘Remember me? I’m the drunk guy. Remember me?'” —Jay Leno

“”They are having a panel look into the intelligence failures in Iraq. It is a seven person panel and it will include Senator John McCain, but the findings from this panel will not be issued until after the election. President Bush says the commission can go off and report back in a year, you know, the same way it works in the Texas National Guard.” —Bill Maher

lifted from metafilter + happy birthday prof. reynolds, say what you will, he dominates over you