Do you suffer from the anguish of

conservative co-workers, republican relatives, or other folks who just won't believe anything Democrats say? I have a co-worker who thinks every major news outfit except Fox is liberal-controlled (if only!) and another whose opinions are similarly conservative.

For these people, a book by a registered Republican Air Force veteran who voted for Reagan should be practically gospel. He's been part of the story on outing some of Bush's service lies from the beginning. I haven't read the whole thing, but what I've read and know about sounds right. The guy is sincere, cares about our country, plus he's persistent as hell; it's hard to discount him.

http://www.phonyfighterpilot.com

Pass it on and see what happens. In my office, we have a (mostly) friendly exchange of political news, views, and opinions. I'm going to pass this on; I'll let you know what happens. I'm not expecting a conversion, you understand, but it should be interesting to see their responses. One was raised in an Air Force family; I'll be interested to see if that link strikes a chord with him.

The last word on forgeries

As Rich noted in a comment on my earlier post, CBS has replied to the charge and quite forcefully too. That's good. There's more on the story in the link below. The important part is the lengthy diary entry at the top of the page. The commentary, while not without interest, can be skipped if you're not as obsessed with this as I am.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/213416/348

The whole forgery story is just a distraction though. Now the president needs to respond to questions about those memos. That may never happen if he skips the second debate. That would be a pity.

Want a Gmail account?

Gmail is Google's web-based email offering. They'll let you keep up to a gigabyte of mail. I have a few invites left. Contact me if you want one.

You'll have to promise to use it only for good, never for evil.

Don't fear the polls, part 2

Bush's 2 point bounce worse ever for an incumbent president. Ruy Teixeira digs into the polls to tell you how they get their numbers and what's wrong with with which polls here:

http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=203

I mentioned before how polls are primarily of interest to the press as a means for demonstrating that there's still a horse race going on. The party in the lead has a strong interest in emphasizing that lead with the most favorable polling data they can find. Why? To discourage the opposition from voting. You win by getting your side out to vote and by convincing individual voters on the other side that their single votes won't matter. Don't fall for it. Remember Florida. 500 votes was enough. And remember the shabby tricks they pulled there to block people from voting.