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[However, Kennedy adjusted the numbers to account for undecided black voters, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, and said the runoff election currently stands in Blanco's favor. With that adjustment, Blanco would get 53 percent of the vote, compared to Jindal's 47 percent]
Republican Primary Trial Heat (among Republican voters): Cecil Underwood 30% Robin Capehart 8% Sarah Minear 8% Dan Moore 3% Monty Warner 3% Doug McKinney 2% Other 3% Undecided 43%
Democratic Primary Trial Heat (among Democratic voters): Joe Manchin 46% Darrell McGraw 11% John Perdue 5% Jim Humphreys 4% Lloyd Jackson 3% Jim Lees 3% Spike Maynard 2% Robin Davis 2% Other 1% Undecided 25%
"Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?"
Right Track: 38% (42%) Wrong Track: 50% (44%)
* * * * *
Ipsos-Reid 9/16 - 18
"Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?"
Right Track: 37% (39%) Wrong Track: 57% (56%)
* * * * *
Fox News 9/23 - 24
Who should control congress?
Democrats 41% Republicans 36% Neither/Unsure 23%
* * * * *
Democracy Corps 9/14
Who should control congress?
Democrats 47% Republicans 42% Neither 1% (unch) Not sure 11%
Friday, March 21, 2003
Did the Bush Administration Want Diplomacy to Work? Alt: Criticize the Critic
Daschle has finally stepped up to the plate and belted Bush with the truth. Daschle said President Bush had:
''failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war.''
Of course the GOP spin machine went into hyperdrive before Daschle could even finish his sentence. They said that Daschle's statement was ridiculous. In fact it was Saddam who created this war
Just in case you missed this, in a stinging letter of resignation, senior U.S. diplomat Brady Kiesling says the Bush Administration has squandered U.S. legitimacy through a "swaggering and contemptuous" approach to foreign policy.
U.S. Diplomat John Brady Kiesling Letter of Resignation, to: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ATHENS | Thursday 27 February 2003
"Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7.
I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. Interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.
It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.
The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.
The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate error and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect Americans.
We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead.
We have a coalition still a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has "oderint dum metuant" really become our motto?
I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?
Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America's ability to defend its interests.
I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share."
This eloquent acknowledgement by Keisling is just one more piece to a puzzle that illustrates the fact that the Bush Administration and it's policies, foreign and domestic, are controlled and promoted by a handful of neoconservative extremists, an unsurprising result of the despicable usurpation of Democracy in 2000.
Unfortunately, the administration is very effective at creating smoke screens and diversions to their numerous and egregious lies. Thus it is up to us to ensure that the masses learn the truth about the Administration's policies, motivations and lies.
So what can we do about it? Ask yourself what you can do to spread the truth. Answer yourself and then take action.
1041 GMT - An estimated 20 percent of the Republican Guard is defecting, British officials told Fox News on March 21.
1012 GMT - A U.S. official said there are intelligence reports indicating that Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday, was killed in the first missile strike, The Washington Times reported March 21. Separately, the Associated Press reported that no one appears to be exercising overall command of Iraq's armed forces.
1001 GMT - A convoy of U.S. tanks is rolling unopposed through the southern Iraqi desert toward Baghdad, CNN reported at 0913 GMT March 21.
0955 GMT - The Bush administration is urging governments around the world to expel Iraqi diplomats and shut down Iraqi embassies until a new Iraqi leadership is installed in Baghdad, according to BBC. The U.S. State Department said 56 countries have Iraqi embassies and six also have an Iraqi interests section. A principal aim of these expulsions is to persuade senior Iraqi figures to defect, and bring with them information on Baghdad's weapons programs. The Iraqi diplomats are being told they can either defect or wait for the United States to capture Baghdad and face the consequences under a new Iraqi government.
0951 GMT - One Marine reconnaisance unit that entered Iraq from Kuwait has already advanced more than 125 miles inside Iraqi territory, according to BBC.
0927 GMT - U.S. Marines have raised the U.S. flag over Umm Qasr in southern Iraq, according to Reuters.
0847 GMT - The Kuwaiti National Guard reports that Iraqi troops set fire deliberately to 15 oil wells in southern Iraq near the city of Basra, according to CNN. Pentagon officials told CNN those fires were at well heads and not in oil-filled trenches. At least 60 percent of Iraq's oil comes from its southern fields.
0836 GMT - U.S. special forces troops may have secured the Kirkuk oil fields in northern Iraq, according to BBC World television. However, the report could not be confirmed. A U.S. official said recently that Iraq had placed explosives at the Kirkuk oilfields to prevent them being captured in the event of a U.S. invasion. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters have encircled the city of Kirkuk, which is heavily defended by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces
0831 GMT - Scores of Iraqi troops have surrendered to British Royal Marine commandos operating in southern Iraq, according to BBC.
0830 GMT - BBC reports that the Kirkuk oil fields in Iraq have been seized by U.S. forces. However, Turkish sources told Reuters that the pipeline that supplies oil from Kirkuk to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan is still operating and carrying crude oil, but no tankers are waiting to be loaded. The pipeline is the only outlet for Iraqi crude exports after U.N. oil inspectors left Iraq following suspension of an oil-for food program, effectively halting exports via Mina El-Bakr on the Gulf.
UPDATE: It is just a vehicle fire! Do not be alarmed 8:19 am
Looking out my window at the Manhattan bridge, just north of the Brooklyn Bridge, I see billowing smoke from something on the bridge. Don't know what it is. Large fire but probably NOT anything associated with terrorism and the like. I say this with confidence because the subway trains which travel on the lower level of the bridge are still allowed to go by the fire. If this is some sort of attack, all trains would have of course been halted, so don't be alarmed if someone spreads the rumor that a New York Bridge has been attacked.
--Developing 8:15 am EST
posted by Thomas Ball 8:16 AM
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Sun Tzu Files 
and 
indicate whether the poll numbers are up or down from the previous poll. Incumbents are in italics. (prior results in '()')