Blogswarm - Online Political News Magazine

Viacom, the media mega-corp with a monopoly on youth-culture channels and a CEO who's backing Bush is refusing to air political advertisements that go beyond simply encouraging voting "just because" and step up to address the issues.

Wanna do something about it?

It's a moment to take a stand against media consolidation and against corporate elites who patronize and dumb-down our generation by trying to screen them from real political content.

Here's the story. There's this little venture that wants to do youth-oriented political advertisements. They're called Compare, Decide, Vote. The ads are a little cheeky, but they're certainly no more offensive than any candidate ads, and a damn sight less creepy than any of that Swift Boat nonsense. They point out where Kerry and Bush differ on issues that might matter to younger voters -- college costs, minimum wage, Iraq -- and urge the viewer to compare, decide, and vote.

The idea was to run them during the Daily Show, TRL, Chapelle, etc; get some good issue-based content out there to remind us tykes there are real choices at stake on Nov 2nd. Pretty simple, right? Well, Viacom, with it's near-monopoly on young-adult oriented programming (MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, BET) is refusing to allow the ads to air.

Let me explain exactly why this is TOTAL BULLSHIT. First of all, Sumner Redstone (the tycoon in charge) is a Bush supporter by virtue of W's pro-consolidation platform. Suspect.

Secondly, they've given no real reason why they're not going to air the ads. They probably believe they have a right to refuse to run political content because they give space to 501c(3) orgs like Rock The Vote and Declare Yourself, which urge people to vote more or less "just because."

But here's the thing: becoming an engaged participant in civic life and the political process isn't something you do "just because." It's about formulating and acting upon opinions, and that's about information. Participation starts with making choices based on your (hopefully informed) judgement as to which candidate(s) will best protect and advance your interests, not printing a voter reg form off the internet because a celebrity implied that it was cool. While I'm glad (super glad!) that Rock the Vote and Declare Yourself exist and are registering gobs and gobs of people to vote, they do not in and of themselves express or constitute an informed political consciousness.

Viacom apparently believes that their channels, which reach millions of potential young participants, are not an appropriate forum for additional data which might set their viewers down the path towards forming such a consciousness for themselves.

On the other hand, if an ad promotes getting drunk (Bass, Guiness, Baileys, Coors Light), flashing your tits (Girls Gone Wild), getting regular boners (Enzite), or even just staying in and playing video games it's all good.

So, yeah. The message is clear. Consumerism, intoxication and sex are great, but don't try and spread the raw materials from which people might form some political opinions. We oppose that. We will not take your money to run ads which do this.

Can you think of anything more condescending than that? Anything more patronizing? Anything more un-American? Our future is on the line -- our jobs, our education, our health, the looming spectre of widening warfare and compulsatory military service -- and the corporate masters of our media universe want to keep us in a happy haze. Viacom really wants to be the opiate of the masses.

That and they want to hide the fact that Bush's record and agenda sucks ass from the youth perspective. Sumner Redstone is clearly trying to help his man out by keeping Bush's record on education and the minimum wage off the airwaves. My response? Fuck you, Sumner. I will burn you down.

So lets make a stink. I'm tired of the anesthetization of our generation by the broadcast giants. This is bullshit, and we shouldn't stand for it. If we can put the screws to Sumner and his Viacom cronies, maybe we can get them to re-think their position.

Let US Decide Campaign

Calling on Viacom to lift its political advertising ban

Action center at: www.comparedecidevote.com/viacom

Join millions of young people telling Viacom to let US decide… place a free call directly to CEO Sumner Redstone on 800-421-0245 … visit the action center at www.comparedecidevote.com/viacom

Who we are

Let US Decide is a new campaign launching on Tuesday, bringing together the country’s leading youth, civic and political organizations to call on media giant Viacom to stop banning legitimate political advertising to young people on its networks. The coalition, representing millions of members, will use advertising, email and phone campaigns, combined with protest demonstrations and a Viacom advertiser boycott to pressure the company to promote free speech on its youth channels. Visit us, join us and join the fight through the Let US Decide Action Center at www.comparedecidevote.com/viacom

Coalition members include Compare Decide Vote, Music for America, Downhill Battle, Project Billboard, People for the American Way, 21^st Century Democrats, Stonewall Democrats, New Democrat Network, Young Voter Alliance, The Youth Project, American Progress Action Fund, Network Progress and the Participatory Politics Foundation

The issue

Viacom is abusing its near-monopoly position by banning ads that talk to young people about the issues they care about. The company has a civic responsibility to allow debate on its powerful channels.

Most recently, the media giant rejected a message from non-profit group Compare Decide Vote, an organization urging young people to compare presidential candidates across a range of issues and to vote in this year’s election.

The ad, addressing the issues of college funding, minimum wage and the Iraq war was banned by Comedy Central, citing Viacom’s unpublished policy to refuse any ads that don’t come from official candidates. View the banned ad at www.comparedecidevote.com.

What we’re asking for

We’re asking Viacom to do the right thing: stop banning free speech on your networks – let young people decide for themselves on the important issues they care about.

• Tell Viacom to let US decide: call 800-421-0245 – we’ll put you straight through to Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone’s office where you can leave him a message telling him to lift the company’s ban on free speech
• Send top Viacom execs an email through the Let US Decide action center at www.comparedecidevote.com.
• Join our coalition: contact us at lisa@comparedecidevote.com
• Most importantly, make sure Viacom doesn’t stop you from deciding: Compare, Decide and Vote in this election.

Banning meaningful debate

Viacom has been banning substantive advertising that engages young people on issues they care about most.

Poll after poll show young people want to hear more about issues they care about and feel that this year’s presidential candidates don’t address their concerns. Viacom has duty to help by letting young people – their audience - decide for themselves on substantive issues. Hip voter registration drives are important, but they’re just not enough – you’ve got to engage on real issues to get young people interested.

Viacom claims it accepts ads from candidates or parties, but that’s a hollow promise – this year more than ever, presidential candidates are ignoring the big issues young people care about. And campaign finance laws make it harder than ever for organizations who want to air advertising and spur debate.

Viacom is the gate-keeper to young people

If you want to speak to young people on television, all roads lead to Viacom. The company has massive reach over young Americans. Its subsidiary, MTV Networks has even been investigated by the Justice Department for antitrust violations and its channels negotiating tactics have been compared to the mafia.

• MTVN beats every network in market share to young people – New York Times
• The MTV channel alone has been the most watched channel by young people for over a decade, reaching more than 86 million households nationwide – Los Angeles Times
• Comedy Central, another subsidiary, runs two of cable’s most watched shows – Los Angeles Times

Here’s what independent sources have said about Viacom’s dominance over the youth market:

• "Very few people have come to grips with how culturally significant MTV Networks is... We should be paying closer attention to people this powerful." Robert Thompson, head of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television

• “MTV Networks … has given Viacom more influence over the fickle young audience coveted by Madison Avenue than any other media giant.”  Los Angeles Times

• “Whether MTV's programming is producing a more tolerant generation is arguable, but few would disagree that MTV influences the trends and social norms of today's youth.” Washington Post

• “With this type of … access to teenagers, MTV has the potential to mold the opinions of its viewers.” Washington Post

Viacom is putting dollars before democracy

Let’s not forget why Viacom makes massive profits every year: by delivering the youth market to big advertisers. Viacom is perfectly happy to accept advertising dollars from numerous corporations – including highly polemic companies like Halliburton – but won’t take substantive ads on issues that really affect its audience. Why? Are they scared of angering some of their big corporate donors? With profits like these, Viacom can afford to put the audience first:

• According to the Los Angeles Times MTV has “generated some the biggest profit margins in the media world” - an estimated 56% in 2003 on sales of $929 million.

• With cash-flow margins exceeding 50%, MTV is five times more profitable than most broadcast networks and beats the typical cable outlet by 15%, analysts say.

The President said: "Forget all this talk about the DRAFT".  Here's why you shouldn't. On October 4, Tom Delay attempted to defuse fears about a Bush Draft by calling for a vote on Democrat Charlie Rangel's protest legislation to 1) expand the draft from men 18-25, to women and men 18-34 and 2)reinstate the draft immediately.  Not only was the legislation defeated by a vote of 402-2, Rangel voted against his own bill--a House first.  The Republicans are saying that since the Rangel legislation has been defeated, no one need worry about a re-instatement of the draft if President Bush is re-elected.

The truth is that any President can go to Congress under the Military Selective Service Act, the current registration law, and ask for re-authorization of the Combat Draft.  All Congress need do is pass a 1-page "trigger resolution" and the Combat Draft for men 18-25 is back.  At the same time, the Medical Draft is automatically activated for men and women, 18-44, with no deferments for health reasons.

The main worry for young people is that beyond Iraq, Bush and Cheney are following the neo-con plan that would involve the invasion of still more countries, such as Syria and Iran.  In fact, Wes Clark charges in his book Winning Modern Wars, that a senior Pentagon official told him in 2001 that there was a 5-year plan to topple 7 countries: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.  Assuming Libya is now off the list, that still leaves five countries.

Diaries :: RegenerationMan's diary ::

Very worrisome to those in the anti-draft movement was the Family Circle July 13 "Could Your Child Be Drafted?", in which Rick Jahnkow, program coordinator of the nonprofit Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities, had found out that `Karl Rove polled Republican members of Congress on how they felt about the draft. They said they'd support the President.'"  Despite Family Circle's circulation of 23 million, this charge was never refuted by the White House, no doubt because the moderate Republican Congressmen who told Jahnkow would then come forward.

But there are also concerns about actions the Bush Administration and the Selective Service are quietly taking behind the scenes, to not only make the Combat and Medical Drafts ready but also to gear up a new kind of draft: the Skills Draft.  

Here are the facts on the Skills Draft.  This account is confirmed by 1) the internal Agenda document recovered through the Freedom of Information Act, now posted on the Web and acknowledged as real by the SSS and 2) the statements of the Pentagon, Selective Service Congressional liason Richard Flavahan and Acting Director Lewis Brodsky.

We now know that on February 11, 2003, Charles Abell, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and William Carr, Deputy Undersecretary for Military Personnel Policy, met with Lewis Brodsky, the Acting Director of the Selective Service, Flavahan and some other officials.  This is the highest-level meeting you could have about the draft, outside of Rumsfeld and his inner circle.  The proposed changes discussed in this meeting include:

• Allowing a non-combat draft for shortages in critical skills, without calling a combat draft.  This non-combat skills draft would induct men and women ages 18 to 34.

• Fill labor shortages of all kinds throughout not only DoD but the Dept. of Homeland Security and other agencies as well, especially high-paying professionals like computer networking specialist or linguist.   However, truck drivers, cooks and several hundred other skills are also considered "critical".  

• Create a single-point, all-inclusive database, in which every young person would be forced to send in a "self-declaration"--like an IRS form--of all of their critical skills, chosen from a long list o f several hundred occupations like the Air Force Specialty Code with Skills Identifier.  The usual penalties of imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine would apply to all non-registrants.  

• Upgrade the Medical Draft so that it collected data on skill sets and other information in the same way the Skills Draft would.

• Reduce induction time from being able to deliver all inductees in 193 days down to just 90 days for skills and medical inductees.

"With known shortages of military personnel with certain critical skills, and with the need for the nation to be capable of responding to domestic emergencies as part of Homeland Security planning, changes should be made in the Selective Service System's registration program and primary mission."

And goes on:

"Defense manpower officials concede there are critical shortages of military personnel with certain special skills, such as medical personnel, linguists, computer network engineers, etc. The costs of attracting and retaining such personnel for military-service could be prohibitive, leading some officials to conclude that while a conventional draft may never be needed, a draft of men and women possessing these critical skills may be warranted in a future crisis, if too few volunteer."

So the Agenda document proposes:

"In line with today's needs, the SSS structure, programs and activities should be re-engineered towards maintaining a national inventory of American men and (for the first time) women, ages 18 through 34, with an added focus on identifying individuals with critical skills."

The head of the Selective Service then explained to the Deputy Undersecretaries how the Skills Draft would work:

"... In addition to the basic identifying information collected in the current program, the expanded and revised program would require all registrants to indicate whether they have been trained in, possess, and professionally practice, one or more skills critical to national security or community health and safety. This could take the form of an initial "self-declaration" as a part of the registration process. Men and women would enter on the SSS registration form a multi-digit number representing their specific critical skill (e.g., similar to military occupational specialty or Armed Forces Specialty Code with Skill Identifier), taken from a lengthy list of skills to be compiled and published by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Individuals proficient in more than one critical skill would list the practiced skill in which they have the greatest degree of experience and competency. They would also be required to update reported information as necessary until they reach the age 35. This unique data base would provide the military (and national, state, and municipal government agencies) with immediately available links to vital human resources...in effect, a single, most accurate and complete, national inventory of young Americans with special skills."

In short, if a Skills Draft and Medical Draft are authorized by Bush and the Republican Congress in 2005, nearly 40 million young people and a somewhat overlapping 13.5 million doctors, nurses and specialists ages 20-44 will have to go to their local Post Office and register with the IRS.  The form will have on it a list of several hundred skills for the skills draft, and at least 61 medical specialties for the Medical Draft form, probably along with a host of other medical occupations, from dental lab technician to health forms processor.  Under penalty of a $250,000 fine, these tens of millions of Americans will "self-declare" their name address and all of their skills--and they could be drafted for any one of them--by writing down the coded number for that occupation.  Recently, the DoD asked the IRS to help them track down the whereabouts of 50,000 Ready Reserve soldiers they had lost track of, so not registering could be very problematic in 2005.

But this new FOI-recovered document and the actions that the SSS admits they are taking in 2004 proves that at the very least, a Skills Draft and Medical Draft are being quietly readied for 2005--"just in case".

From the FOI document, we now know at the end of the Feb. 11 Agenda document the Head of the Selective Service presented the Pentagon with three 3 Options.  Option 1 was to maintain the status quo of male-only registration and the not-quite ready Medical Draft.  Option 2 was to put the whole Selective Service into "Deep Standby" with reduced funding.  From all indications, and from the statements of the SSS itself (see timeline above), the Pentagon has obviously decided to go ahead with Option 3a and Option 3b, which read:

"Next Step A.  #3. Restructure the SSS and shift its peacetime focus to accommodate DoD's most likely requirements in a crisis. Plan for conducting a more likely draft of individual with special and critical skills.

a. Minimum requirement: SSS mission guidance and time lines must be redefined promptly by DoD to allow more relevant pre-mobilization planning and funding for the possibility of a critical skills draft at M+90 or sooner (M+ is the number of days from authorization of a draft to delivery of the manpower to the DoD -ed.). Peacetime registration of men 18 through 25 would continue, but consideration would also be given to identifying men with certain critical skills among these year-of-birth groupings. A post-mobilization plan would also be devised and computer programming accomplished for a full-blown critical skills draft. The HCPDS program is completed, brought to the forefront of SSS readiness planning, and tested through exercises...

b. Expanded pre-mobilization requirement. SSS peacetime registration expanded to include women and men, 18 through 34 years old, and collects information on critical skills within these year-of-birth groupings..."

Note that the memo is recommending that a minimum requirement for going forward would be a "post-mobilization plan would also be devised and computer programming accomplished for a full-blown critical skills draft. The HCPDS program is completed, brought to the forefront of SSS readiness planning, and tested through exercises"

From all signs, the Selective Service was quietly asked by the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, to undertake Option 3a and 3b of the Agenda memo over a year ago.   The possibility of a Skills Draft or Combat Draft, and the apparent attempt of Donald Rumsfeld, Selective Service spokesman Amon and Acting Director Brodsky to mislead reporters and the public on this issue deserve full debate before the election.

Instead of after it.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the Bush Administration could add several billion dollars to the Defense budget and add two active-duty divisions to the military to save the Volunteer Army.  John Kerry is actually proposing just that in his $7 billion plan to add the 2 divisions, and strengthen the military with increased benefits, a doubling of Special Ops and several other programs like his volunteer Civilian Stability Corps (kind of a Peace Corps on steroids).  

Yet instead Bush is stretching the Army so thin, they are now calling up the retired Individual Ready Reserve--and they have even sent Company B of the Arlington Color Guard to the Mideast, giving them real bullets instead of the blanks they were firing at military funerals.  If they want to preserve the Volunteer Army, as Bush said in the first debate, and not have to reinstate the combat draft, why has the Bush Administration not added the several billion needed to avoid having to call a draft?  Out of the $200 billion allocated for Iraq, not one penny was ever allocated to do this.

Timeline of activity on Skills and Medical Drafts

Feb. 11 2003 --Top-level meeting between the head of the SSS and Deputy Undersecretary Abell in charge of Personnel and Readiness of the DoD on a new type of draft, the Skills Draft. This is the meeting recorded in the unpublicized Agenda Document, revealed by a Freedom of Information Act request in May 2004, which recommends a Skills Draft and an upgrading of the Medical Draft.  The memo proposes the SSS be able to call up any number of several hundred skills the Pentagon and even the Dept. of Homeland Security might be short of.  Option 3 of the agenda's "Next Steps" outlined moving "promptly" to change the mission of the SSS, to actively plan and prepare for the massive datbase needed to track men and women, "virtually every young American" under 35 and their skills (more details below).  The SSS goes back to the drawing board after this meeting, encouraged enough to do some more planning.
http://www.blatanttruth.org/selective_service091304.pdf

Summer 2003 --A drive begins to start filling Draft Board vacancies by asking current board members to find new ones. (Salon, "Oiling Up the Draft Machine")

July 25, 2003 - World Net Daily article on plans for the medical draft (HCPDS). System could draft up to 80,000 doctors, nurses and specialists, men and women.
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33754

Fall 2003 - In its July 13th , 2004 article, "Could Your Child Be Drafted?", Family Circle reported that in the Fall of 2003, "Karl Rove polled Republican members of Congress on how they felt about the draft. They said they'd support the President."  Despite Family Circle's circulation of 23 million, this charge was never refuted by the White House. http://www.oregonparentsunited.org/article..._be_drafted.htm

Fall 2003 --DoD announces critical skills shortages in linguists, computer experts and engineers. SSS Director Brodsky orders the designing of the SKILLS DRAFT procedures, the registration card, and the massive database needed to track every young American under the age of 35 AND their skills (the first step in creating a database is to decide what data fields are needed). The two-year process to gear up SKILLS DRAFT starts a  year ago, in Fall 2003, meaning a skills draft could be ready in late 2005 (a new law would have to be passed by the Congress and signed by the President along the lines suggested in "Next Steps" at the end of the Skills Draft Agenda document).

September, 2003 - Acting SSS Director Brodsky, misleads J. E. McNeil, the head of Center on Conscience & War, a Conscientious Objector support and information group, telling her that in February of 2003 the SSS had to "justify their existence" before a hostile committee and that the Skills Draft "planning" was just a way to keep the Selective Service funded for another year.  In reality, the SSS and DoD were having the Skills Draft meeting in that same month of February and he himself had just started designing the new draft registration cards and procedures, making it his top priority when the Pentagon announced the critical skills shortages. http://www.nisbco.org/UAA/03152004.html

September 23, 2003 - Draft Board Recruitment ad appears on Defense.Link site. First public ad for Draft Boards in decades. Page scrubbed within a few days of being noticed by some media in early November. Spokesman says there is "no plan" to reinstate draft, that it must be authorized by Congress.  Public concern over new draft begins. "If a military draft becomes necessary," the notice explained, "approximately 2,000 Local and Appeal Boards throughout America would decide which young men, who submit a claim, receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on Federal guidelines."
http://www.thememoryhole.org/mil/draft-boards.htm

November 2003--Draft board ad scrubbed.

Nov. 12, 2003 - "If President Bush is re-elected, it is likely that he will reinstate the draft. The war on terrorism will not end in Iraq, but instead will proceed into countries like Syria and Iran," said Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame.

Dec. 2003 -- Acting SSS Director Brodsky announces the Skills Draft to be the "top priority" of the SSS in the Winter 2003 newsletter The Register, talking of rapid progress to come on the Skills Draft. As with the health care draftees, no medical deferments are allowed in the Skills Draft except for total disability. Startling inside information is revealed: "SSS officials consulted with DoD planners to learn that medical personnel, computer specialists and linguists are difficult to recruit and hard to retain.  There are also fears that lengthy and repetitive activations of Guard and Reserve members will boost Reserve Component attrition rates.  So a principal objective of PIP-2003 is to shift the Agency's focus away from maintaining a high state of readiness to execute a large draft of untrained manpower and toward preparing for a much smaller draft of trained personnel possessing critical skills needed for military service in a national crisis."  This is a direct statement the Selective Service is focused on "preparing" a Skills Draft, that it is not just a planning paper or "food for thought".  In addition, there is the internal Pentagon fear that the Guard and Reserves will not meet re-enlistment rates, despite public statements by DoD spokesmen and Rumsfeld himself that a draft is not needed.
http://www.sss.gov/PDFs/NovDec2003-Register.pdf (go to P. 6)

March 13, 2004 -- Word of Skills Draft leaks out in a SF Chronicle story--the SSS admits it but tells reporters it's just a "planning contingency." In a misleading statement to allay fears, the SSS also says it would take 2 years to gear up and work the kinks out of a Skills Draft and that there is no funding for it.  In fact, the SSS admits 6 weeks later that it has been actively designing the procedures and the data fields to be used on the Skills and Medical Registration cards since Fall of 2003 when the Pentagon announced shortages in liguists, computer experts and engineers.  And SSS Spokesman Richard Flavahan contradicts spokesman Amon saying: "We want to gear up and make sure we are capable of providing (those types of draftees) since that's the more likely need," Eric Rosenberg, the reporter on the story, finds out about the Feb. 11 meeting agenda document and files a Freedom of Information Act request to get a copy.

SF Chron

May 1, 2004 -- Eric Rosenberg's writes an article on the Skills Draft Agenda memo with the memo in hand--but fails to mention several key points: skills conscription would be expanded to fill labor shortages throughout the Dept of Homeland Security, which is 1/3 of the whole government, the Skills Draft can be called without a combat draft, Skills induction will take a mere 90 days of reauthorization, the SSS wanted to "promptly" change the very MISSION of the SSS, and so on. The article does, however, reveal many major points of the sweeping plan. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html

May 2, 2004 - Second Rosenberg article with memo in hand. ""These ideas were only being floated for Department of Defense consideration," Amon said. He described the proposal as "food for thought" for contingency planning." "Nonetheless, <SSS spokesman and Congressional liason> Flahavan said, "the agency has begun designing procedures to conduct a targeted registration and draft of people with computer and language skills, in case military officials and Congress authorize it."  In actuality, however, the SSS was right then designing the cards and data fields needed for the entire Skills Draft and upgrading the Medical Draft based on that design work, they were not just working on a draft for computer and language skills.  http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/20404.php

Summer, Fall, 2004 -- Mock Combat Draft Lottery held, and sample medical exam report orders issued to sample addresses with mailing list software. Alternative Service is geared up for first time in 31 years.  Papers to place Conscientious Objectors with employers as Alternative Service Workers are actually drawn up. With the Alternative Service for the first time geared up in the culmination of a 5-year readiness plan, the SSS is brought up to 95% operational capability.  Full Medical Draft capability is set for 2005, and all DRAFT BOARD vacancies are to be filled by Spring 2005, according to column by Ted Rall.  The SSS must report to the Director on March 31, 2005, that the entire system could be operational within 75 days.  This means that all 1,980 local draft board offices would be open by June 15, 2005.  Theoretically, the first draft lottery for Combat for 20 year-olds and older Skills and Medical registrants could then take place. http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004

Sept 13, 2004 -- Agenda memo of key Feb 2003 meeting posted on the Web.  The .PDF file reveals the full scope of the Feb.11 agenda and, in the context of the statements by Flavahan and Brodsky, makes clear the SSS was told by the Pentagon a year ago to go ahead with the Skills Draft.  What Option 3a and 3b at the end of the memo indicates for the future of "virtually every young American" can now be read by everyone, so each person can decide for themselves what it may mean to them.

Sept 27, 2004 - When the Rocky Mtn News noted the Feb. 11 memo itself was circulating on the Internet, SSS Spokesman Amon "said the memo was authentic, but he called it nothing more than a `food for thought kind of thing' that was largely rejected inside the Pentagon."  These were the same exact words he used in early 2004, despite Flavahan's "gear up" statement, and the revelation that the SSS had been "designing procedures" and data fields for the Skills Draft since Fall of 2003. <ROCKY MTN NEWS> http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elec...3212279,00.html

October 7, 2004  - Rock The Vote posts Feb. 11 Agenda memo on their Blog!
http://blog.rockthevote.com

HANG UP THIS FLYER EVERYWHERE!!
Printable pdf: http: http://somnamblst.tripod.com/draftalert.pdf

More: http://blatanttruth.org/draft.php

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Andrew Sullivan: "There were moments early on... when he seemed to me to be close to shouting; and his hyper-aggressiveness, having to respond to everything, went at times over the line of persuasiveness."

Ron Forunier, AP: "As he fought to keep his emotions in check in a testy, personal debate with Sen. John Kerry, the president asserted 'That answer almost made me scowl.'... Several answers brought Bush's emotions to the surface, for better or worse, as he sought to curb Kerry's momentum.... Bush was the most aggressive, at one point overrunning moderator Charles Gibson's attempt to pose a question.."

David Niven, political science professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton (from the above article):"Bush seemed wound a bit too tight. He was a little like Nixon sort of jumping out of his suit... He looked bad on the TV close-ups.""

Jonah Goldberg, National Review: "WHY DOES BUSH... Sound like he's angry at the guy asking about making drugs cheaper?

UPDATED with more:

Paul Begala, CNN: "Good debate. The press will say it's a draw, but I think Kerry bested Bush -- or rather Bush made a few errors. Two words for President Bush: anger management. He spent much of the debate nearly yelling at the audience."

John Whitesides, Reuters: "An angry Bush at one point cut off moderator Charles Gibson to upbraid Kerry for criticising the size of the coalition backing the United States in Iraq, saying it denigrated allies like Britain and Poland."

Beth Gorham, CBC News: "It all added up to a major challenge for the president, who appeared angry and defensive during attacks from Kerry in a tense sparring match on Sept. 30 that was watched by some 62 million Americans."

Oliver Willis: "BUSH FLIPS OUT: Click here to watch your President flip out of his gourd. I've never seen anything like it.

Billmon (back from the dead): "If Kerry and the Dems can't make an issue out of the fact that the president of the United States is utterly incapable of controlling his hairtrigger temper, they don't deserve to win this election... I mean, the man is a walking time bomb."

UPDATED again:

David Paul Kuhn, CBSNews.com: "BUSH MAD, KERRY COMPOSED... Though Mr. Bush was more composed than in last week's first presidential debate, all agreed his tone was sometimes antagonistic and he again appeared uncomfortable being challenged. Kerry, on the other hand, was viewed as measured and articulate. " ---