Does a second term corrupt absolutely?

** Interesting observation in a truthout.org article.

If despair and despondency still color your world after the election, remember this: Every second-term President since Eisenhower has met with a blizzard of shame and disgrace before they left office. Nixon didn't get to finish his term and needed Ford to keep him out of prison, Reagan needed Bush Sr. to pardon a whole mob of cretins to kill the Iran/Contra scandal, and Clinton was impeached for lying about consensual sex.

NOT a mandate - by the numbers

** From anotherliberalblog

Some historical perspecitve on the election

Yes, I'm devastated by Kerry's defeat as well, but I take some solace in the fact that it was a pretty pathetic victory for an incumbent. Bush and the Republicans will claim a great victory (a mandate, even), but the numbers (from 1900 on--see below, download the Word or PDF version) tell a different story:

Assuming Bush gets New Mexico and Iowa, he will have gotten the lowest percentage of electoral votes (54%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Wilson. If those two states should swing Kerry's way (NM might), it'll be even lower.

He will have won with the lowest percentage of the popular vote (51%) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (well, technically since Clinton, but he also ran against Perot, who was a more significant 3rd-party candidate than Thurmond and Wallace were in '48)

He will have won by the lowest margin of the popular vote (3.5M) of any incumbent running for reelection since Truman (2.1M, and back then only 50M voted).

He will have won the three states that put him over 270 (OH, NM and IA--assuming the last two go his way) by only 161,989 (not counting the provisional ballots, absentee, etc.).

So, this is NOT a smashing incumbent victory like those of Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, LBJ or FDR. It was a bit pitiful for an incumbent, frankly, especially after 9/11. There's really no mandate here; this is still basically a 50-50 country, and we'll live to fight and win another day.

The coming culture war

** With the Bush victory comes the prospect of religously-based governance. Is Federalism the answer?

From Josh Marshal's Talking points memo

-- What we're seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well. It is unsurprising, of course, given the uncertainty of today's world, the devastating attacks on our country, and the emergence of so many more liberal cultures in urban America. And it is completely legitimate in this country for such views to be represented in public policy, however much I disagree with them. But the intensity of the passion, and the inherently totalist nature of religiously motivated politics means deep social conflict if we are not careful. Our safety valve must be federalism. We have to live and let live. As blue states become more secular, and red states become less so, the only alternative to a national religious war is to allow different states to pursue different options. That goes for things like decriminalization of marijuana, abortion rights, stem cell research and marriage rights. Forcing California and Mississippi into one model is a recipe for disaster. Federalism is now more important than ever. I just hope that

Republican federalists understand this. I fear they don't.

Why the Electoral College?

** Every election kicks off another round of jabs at the Electoral College system. Informative article on kuro5hin.org fills in the background on why it was favored over Direct Election. The main reasons had to do with the limitations on communication in the 18th century, limitations that no longer exist. If there's going to be a change in the EC it needs to start with being informed, and this article does a good job.

Framing the Electoral College

OBL's escape well noted at the time

** In an October 27, 2004 article, The Christian Science Monitor discusses the Kerry allegations that Osama Bin Laden was allowed to escape from Afghanistan because of US negligence. Though the administration calls Kerry an "armchair general," the article cites several news reports at the time that would seem to back Kerry's allegations. Included in the accounts is the Monitor's own. Here's an excerpt:

The Christian Science Monitor was one of the first news sources to report bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora. In a December 11, 2001 article the Monitor reported that there were "growing signs ... that bin Laden ... and other Al Qaeda leaders may have fled the besieged mountain base at Tora Bora."

A December 7, 2001 Monitor piece reported this:

By all accounts, about two-thirds of the original 1,500 to 2,000 of Arabs, Afghans, and Chechens may have fled. ... In addition to the original number of Al Qaeda fighters, hundreds of Al Qaeda family members have escaped the siege of Tora Bora in the past three weeks. Most of those leaving have tapped into an "underground railway" of sympathetic Afghan families at the base of Tora Bora, whose men had long been on bin Laden's payroll.
Though Mr. Rumsfeld has said that the two dozen or so US Special Forces are helping to block exit routes, that number of US military personnel can only be considered a token of the real figure needed to cut off all the mountain passes surrounding the mountain enclave.

A March 4, 2002 Monitor article reconstructed "how bin Laden got away" from Tora Bora.
As the US intensified its airstrikes on Tora Bora, US and Afghan helicopters started to arrive with supplies for the Afghans. Also - as was its pattern elsewhere in Afghanistan - the US began enlisting local warlords. Two - Hazret Ali and Haji Zaman Ghamsharik - would become notorious in the battle for Tora Bora. ...
The rift between the two men would seriously hinder US efforts to capture Al Qaeda's leadership. Although backed by the United States, the Jalalabad warlords would have to determine by themselves - while sometimes arguing fiercely - how best to go after Tora Bora's defenders.

... somewhere between Nov. 28 to Nov. 30 - according to detailed interviews with Arabs and Afghans in eastern Afghanistan afterward - the world's most-wanted man escaped the world's most-powerful military machine, walking - with four of his loyalists - in the direction of Pakistan.

What the polls said in 2000

From Daily Kos

CNN Monday, November 6, 2000 Via Lexis Nexis:

BLITZER: And now, let's take a look at the latest poll numbers. The new CNN/"USA Today" Gallup Tracking Poll results are being released at this hour. It shows George W. Bush with 48 percent, Al Gore 43 percent, Ralph Nader with 4 percent, Pat Buchanan with 1 percent. And those numbers are similar to other tracking polls. Take a look: ABC's poll has Bush at 49 percent, Gore at 45 percent; The Washington Post, Bush at 48 percent, Gore at 46 percent; the NBC-Wall Street Journal tracking poll, Bush at 47 percent, Gore 44 percent. And both the CBS and MSNBC-Reuters-Zogby tracking polls have Bush at 46, Gore at 44 percent.That was the day before Gore won the popular vote.

Explosives disappeared after war - Video

10/29/2004 4:00:00 PM GMT

ABC News on Thursday showed video that confirms that the 330 tons of explosives that went missing in Iraq, didn’t vanish until after the invasion, when the U.S. took control of the depot where those explosives were stored.

Explosives disappeared after war- Video -