THE JOBS DEBATE: FOREIGN OR DOMESTIC POLICY QUESTION?

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NOW THAT THE BUSH-KERRY DEBATE SCHEDULE IS OUT, one of the irritating facts about these sessions is that they create false divides between policy challenges that need to be considered at a systemic level. Jim Lehrer will moderate the foreign policy debate, and domestic policy will come as the last of the three scheduled exchanges….

NEOCON CIVIL WAR: ACT III

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STAY TUNED. I JUST RECEIVED A COPY OF CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER’S blistering, as yet unreleased counter-attack against Francis Fukuyama for his article, “The Neoconservative Moment,” which appeared in the last issue of National Interest.

PENTAGON UNDER-REPORTING IRAQ CASUALTIES

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THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN PAKISTAN TODAY and reports that 17,000 U.S. soldiers are not listed on the Pentagon’s casualty list. This piece is based on Mark Benjamin‘s UPI article. Benjamin also brought the lariam/suicidal behavior by some U.S. Special Forces to light.

FRAUD AND CORRUPTION: BUSH TEAM SCORES

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ALL MORNING, I HAVE BEEN SEETHING AS FOX & FRIENDS has crowed about the Killian memos, which CBS is apparently about to acknowledge as fraudulent. Bush’s team has been engaged in duplicity, obfuscation, the expansion of official secrecy to anti-democratic levels — and now the critics are undone by fraud on their side.

REAGAN’S DEATH, FARENHEIT 9/11, EDWARDS, SWIFT BOATS

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CLEARLY, THIS PRESIDENTIAL RACE IS NOT SHAPING UP to be about alternative policy choices. It is a race driven by various exogenous shocks. Electoral-Vote.com does a nice job of plotting certain events against the likely electoral college performance of Bush and Kerry since May.