Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Nurse Ratched’s got an interesting tip for the American voter. It appears that FOX News is reporting that the terrorists have endorsed Bush.

The London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi said on its Web site that it had received a statement from “The Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri (Al Qaeda)” in which the group reiterated its responsibility for the March 11 attacks that killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 1,600. [...] “We change and destroy countries,” the statement said. “We even influence the international economy, and this is God’s blessing to us.”

The statement tells American voters that Abu Hafs al-Masri supports the re-election campaign of President Bush: “We are very keen that Bush does not lose the upcoming elections.”

The statement said Abu Hafs al-Masri needs what it called Bush’s “idiocy and religious fanaticism” because they would “wake up” the Islamic world.

Of course, many of us have known all along that the answer to, “Who would Osama vote for?” is clearly, “George W. Bush.” In fact, the BushGame [NOT SAFE FOR WORK] (NOTE: Game contains strong language, sexual content, and crude humor – not suitable for all audiences) dramatizes it nicely in a scene featuring a showdown between George W. Bush and Jesus Christ.

Registered to vote in Nevada? Are you sure?

There’s tricks, dirty tricks, and there’s the kind of tricks perpetrated solely by lowlife scum.

In case you missed the icon going up, it’s time once again for NaNoWriMo – the continuing story of a quack who’s gone to the dogs.

The pressure is on this year for me, as I run the risk of backsliding. I actually managed to finish last time around, and as much as I’m trying to keep expectations low, I know I’m going to stress if I don’t finish this year. So, unlike last year, I am now compiling notes. Yes, notes. Blargh.

If it’s all right with you, I’ll beg off on plot summaries for the moment. Instead, you can read some of Mac’s ideas.

More on this story as it develops.

Dan De Luce at WeNews discusses the myth of the Security Moms. Isn’t it convenient that we all fall into these nice categories when it comes to politics? What would we do without analysts telling us that we’re soccer moms/NASCAR dads/security moms and that we’re the hot demographic this year? Me? I consider myself a “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Bachelor,” myself.

So if you’ve been living under a rock, “Security Mom” is the new demographic that the Republicans decided to appeal to after Bush didn’t do so hot attracting the so-called “NASCAR Dads.” Security Moms are supposedly young- to middle-age women with children who have become increasingly concerned with national security post-9/11. The theory is that these moms will vote Republican because they feel that somehow – despite getting America embroiled in an unnecessary war, issuing multiple unfunded mandates, and allowing Al Qaeda to fall back and regroup – Bush is strong on security. It’s the kind of demographic you’d just like to reach out and shake.

Except that it may not really exist.

The term may have taken hold in the news media, but opinion polls show no such trend or special voting bloc. According to pollsters, married mothers do not place a disproportionate emphasis on terrorism compared to other voters, ranking the issue as a priority along with the war in Iraq and the economy.

Affluent White Women Voting Republican

Women who fit the “security moms” description are merely affluent white women who were voting Republican long before Sept. 11, 2001, said Debbie Walsh at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“A lot of the women who fit into this category are Bush supporters to begin with,” Walsh said. “It’s a false concept.”

It’s a false concept that’s been helped along by web sites like Security Moms 4 Bush and by the media’s desire to find a demographic to watch. Last time around, it was the Soccer Moms. Now they’re pushing Security. See, it’s like “Soccer Mom,” only with less “occer” and more “ecurity.” Which brings to mind a recent exchange I saw on CNN Headline News. A reporter was asking people around New York who they supported. In the interest of accurately communicating the sense of this exchange, I should point out that the punctuation is not grammatically correct. Rather, I have chosen to punctuate the sentences the way they were spoken.

Reporter: So. As an average New York mother. With two kids. What’s the major issue for you this election year is it security?

(pause)

Mother: Oh, yes. Definitely.

Headline News: Give us 30 minutes, we’ll give you cruddy journalism.

Poor Bush. Apparently, nobody ever told him that you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

I finished watching the debate tonight, and I feel much better about the elections in November – provided that Bush doesn’t wind up getting the world blown up before then. Kerry is proving more and more that the image the GOP is painting of a weak-kneed flip-flopper is pure fiction and that he will make a great leader – both on civil issues and as a commander-in-chief.

Bush, meanwhile, proved tonight that he was volatile, disrespectful, violent, and petty. He clenched his jaw, he blinked rapidly, he leapt to his feet, interrupted the moderator and demanded that he be allowed a thirty-second rebuttal (which was only supposed to be granted at the moderator’s discretion). Bush suffered meltdowns tonight – and that cannot be something that we expect from a leader. He was not only disrespectful to the moderator and to his opponent, but to everybody who had a question to ask and everybody else who was guilty by association.

Tonight’s debate shows us that Kerry is the clear choice for President. His clear, concise answers to difficult questions were honest and well-constructed. Bush, meanwhile, only succeeded in appearing paranoid and dangerous.

It appears that Bush’s francophobia has worn out its welcome.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice denied Sunday that Bush was holding France up to ridicule for saying in a campaign speech that Kerry would let “countries like France” decide when to use American force.

Bush’s audience in Allentown, Pa., booed at the mention of France.

“There’s no ridicule here. It’s a statement of fact: The French didn’t agree,” Rice said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Of course he wasn’t ridiculing France. He was merely drawing on the image of the French as “surrender monkeys” to suggest that an America that sought the help of the international community would be weak and eat lots and lots of cheese while drinking wine and wearing berets.

If there’s one thing Americans love, it’s a good “France surrenders” line – which is honestly unfair, given France’s military and social history. France may not have lasted long against Germany in World War II, but few countries would have tried to make a stand when they were in as bad a shape as France was when Hitler’s troops marched across the border. The French military was still devestated from WWI, in which France had suffered incredible casualties. The surrender of France was an attempt to survive long enough to affect change, which France did by mounting the strongest underground resistance to Nazi Germany of any of the nations and people to fall.

All of that aside, however, you realize you’ve gone too far when you have to send somebody to defend your French-bashing in America. The fact is that Bush has made a history of bashing and ridiculing the French, using everything from replacing the word “French” in food names with the word “Freedom” to dubbing Kerry “the French candidate” – which has to make you wonder if Bush has any real issues to talk about at all.

Which might be one of the reasons that even Bush’s hometown newspaper won’t endorse him this time around (same news story, second half).

The editor of the Crawford, Texas, weekly that bills itself as Bush’s hometown newspaper says he has no regrets about endorsing Kerry, even after a dozen business pulled their advertising from the publication.

“I’d do it again,” Leon Smith, publisher of the Lone Star Iconoclast, told the Waco Tribune-Herald in Sunday’s editions.

The Iconoclast, which endorsed Bush in 2000, said it now supports the Democrat because of disillusionment with the war and Bush’s actions on Social Security, the economy and other issues. An editorial dated Sept. 29 accuses the president of having a “smoke-screened agenda” and leading the United States into a “quagmire” in Iraq on flimsy pretenses.

A local is quoted as saying that Leon Smith hurt the feelings of Crawford citizens because, “Bush is our neighbor.” Right. And we want to send him back to Crawford so he can resume being their neighbor as soon as possible.

Then again, Bush supporters have kind of sold the moral high ground on hurting feelings after one particularly fervent supporter said he hoped an old woman who recently died of cancer would burn in Hell because her obituary encouraged people to vote for Kerry.

If you live in Virginia and you haven’t registered to vote yet, there’s still time: the Virginia deadline is October the 4th. Register.