Midterms are just around the corner, and I'm still working out the kinks in my work/class/blog schedule. Thanks for bearing with me through these sporadic updates. I'm going to have some very competent co-bloggers joining me in the not-terribly-distant future (though probably not until after the election) and am looking forward to adding their voices and interests.

Last night I attended a colloquium at Graduate Theological Union, "Finding Our Public Voice: Religious Communities in the American Political Arena." The featured speakers were Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, author of Spirit Matters, and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, James Donahue, President of GTU and editor of Religion, Ethics and the Common Good, and Lynne Gerber, a GTU PhD student in ethics. In Gerber's opening statements, she quoted a guy from her local coffee shop: "Religious Left? Now that's not a phrase you hear very often." She discussed the lack of organization in the religious left, noting that a "movement" can't just be a gathering of upset people. And she emphasized the need for visible leadership (from institutions like GTU), and the resources they can offer. Lerner said that the religious left must address "the crisis of meaning" -- that without our religious world view, the left - which arose in response to multiple forms of oppression (including that from religious communities) has little to offer as an alternative to the religious right. Basically, we must be less cautious about proclaiming our religious world view. Finally, Jim Donahue addressed the problems of "civic discourse," noting that very few people are open to having their minds changed; indeed, few are even open to hearing alternative points of view - no matter what kind of data and support can be marshalled. His concern, he says, is in learning what compels human transformation. (Mine, too; that's part of the reason I've redirected myself to study ethics.) The talks went too quickly, but they gave us a lot to chew on in preparation for the "whole new ballgame" that will be the post-November 3 world (no matter what the outcome). We need to be ready: there is real momentum building on the left, and we can't squander it!

Wolcott, on reports about KY Republican Senator Jim Bunning's bizarre behavior:

It's becoming more and more difficult to draw a clean distinction between Republican demagoguery and the onset of dementia. A doctor writing in to The Atlantic has alerted us to telltale signs of presenile dementia in our testy president, and he may just be the tip of the icepack. Perhaps nearly all of the top Republicans are in the middle stages of dementia and their mental deterioration has been able to pass unnoticed because it's been accepted as "the new normal."

No, we're definitely not worthy --
"I’m sorry, but we’ve slapped God in the face and I’m not sure we’re worthy of having a man like George Bush to lead us." Debbie Daniel is upset that even Christians appear to be concerned about Bush's lies and hypocrisies. You just have to read the whole thing. (I found it when I was googling an item I saw - and now can't find - about Bush skipping his annual physical this year.)

Perhaps you've heard there's a debate in a few hours? --
John Edwards has suggested that Bush be patted down before the debate, to check for a hidden radio transmitter. To defend against the mass misinformation attacks likely to occur, Kevin Drum and Paul Krugman have done some pre-emptive fact-checking.

Seymour Hersh (via Tiny Revolution):

"I got a call last week from a soldier -- it's different now, a lot of communication, 800 numbers. He's an American officer and he was in a unit halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. It's a place where we claim we've done great work at cleaning out the insurgency. He was a platoon commander. First lieutenant, ROTC guy.

It was a call about this. He had been bivouacing outside of town with his platoon. It was near, it was an agricultural area, and there was a granary around. And the guys that owned the granary, the Iraqis that owned the granary... It was an area that the insurgency had some control, but it was very quiet, it was not Fallujah. It was a town that was off the mainstream. Not much violence there. And his guys, the guys that owned the granary, had hired, my guess is from his language, I wasn't explicit -- we're talking not more than three dozen, thirty or so guards. Any kind of work people were dying to do. So Iraqis were guarding the granary. His troops were bivouaced, they were stationed there, they got to know everybody...

They were a couple weeks together, they knew each other. So orders came down from the generals in Baghdad, we want to clear the village, like in Samarra. And as he told the story, another platoon from his company came and executed all the guards, as his people were screaming, stop. And he said they just shot them one by one. He went nuts, and his soldiers went nuts. And he's hysterical. He's totally hysterical. And he went to the captain. He was a lieutenant, he went to the company captain. And the company captain said, "No, you don't understand. That's a kill. We got thirty-six insurgents."

You read those stories where the Americans, we take a city, we had a combat, a hundred and fifteen insurgents are killed. You read those stories. It's shades of Vietnam again, folks, body counts...

You know what I told him? I said, fella, I said: you've complained to the captain. He knows you think they committed murder. Your troops know their fellow soldiers committed murder. Shut up. Just shut up. Get through your tour and just shut up. You're going to get a bullet in the back. You don't need that. And that's where we are with this war."

Dana Milbank is feeling his oats --
picking up on Bush's codespeak to Right-to-Lifers in Friday night's debate...

Listeners were puzzled when President Bush, in Friday's debate, said he would not appoint a Supreme Court justice who supported the 1857 Dred Scott decision justifying slavery. Nobody was expecting Bush might appoint a pro-slavery judge, so the remark seemed to be another case of quirky Bush speak, as when he referred to urban brownfields as "sore spots."

But, in fact, the Dred Scott reference was something of a coded message to abortion opponents, who have long likened the injustice of the case to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion. The National Right to Life Committee has said the reasoning in the two cases is "nearly identical" and that "unborn children are now the same 'beings of an inferior order' that the justices considered blacks to be over a century ago." The Christian Medical Association has urged Bush "to emulate President Abraham Lincoln's opposition to the Dred Scott rationale."

Here is more about that codespeak:

"It was a poignant moment, a very special gourmet, filet mignon dinner," said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, a prominent conservative advocacy group based in Washington. "Everyone knows the Dred Scott decision and you don't have to stretch your mind at all. When he said that, it made it very clear that the '73 decision was faulty because what it said was that unborn persons in a legal sense have no civil rights."

Sheldon, who said he confers frequently with Bush and his senior campaign advisors on outreach to religious conservatives, though not in this instance, credited the use of Dred Scott with raising the abortion issue to "a very high level" and "back to the front burner."

"It didn't just slip out by accident," Sheldon said.

Milbank also points out some irregularities in Bush's stump speech that are that are starting to border on the Reaganesque:

Will the "guy" from Ground Zero please identify himself? Bush has had some difficulty with his recollection, used to finish almost every speech about his moment on Sept. 14, 2001, atop the rubble of the twin towers. Back in February of this year, as the Web site Salon documented, Bush remembered "a guy pointing at me and saying, 'Don't let me down.' "

In May, the figure became "a guy in a hard hat" and then "the firefighter." In June, he became an ensemble of "tired firefighters and police and rescue workers," who said, collectively, "Don't let us down."

In July, it was "a fireman or a policeman, I can't remember which one, looking me in the eyes." Presently, Bush added to the tale, saying the guy "grabbed me by the arm." He then added "bloodshot eyes and sweat pouring" to the portrait.

In August, Bush said the fellow, "a firefighter or a policeman," was "looking through the rubble for one of his buddies." The "buddy" morphed into "a loved one" and "somebody that he worked with," then back into a "buddy." By September, Bush had dropped the buddy but developed new recollections about the guy. "I remember a guy grabbed me by the arm, a big old burly firefighter, I guess he was a firefighter. He said: 'Do not let me down.' "

"Will Your Vote Count?" --
That's the cover story on this week's Newsweek. Now whatever would make them say something so inflammatory? Just because Florida is still actively suppressing the black vote, and GOP-hired firms are shredding Democrats' voter registration forms in Nevada and Oregon... Daily Kos has set up a voter fraud clearing house; check in on it from time to time.

Positioning themselves securely in the far left tail of the Bell Curve --
-- the NYT editorial staff turns to Charles Murray for an anti-Kerry editorial. Now there's a credible voice. Atrios suggests cancelling your subscription.

Ooopsie --
Nuclear materials have gone missing in Iraq... since the occupation. And BlairCo retracts their "45 minutes to annihilation" claim. Another big week for the hawky neocons.

Dicey business --
The UK Guardian is asking British readers to write to voters in Clark County, Ohio (where my college alma mater can be found), to express interest in the election.

Are we that desperate for ad income? --
I'm all for (well, actually, kind of for) bipartisan debate, but I've had to choke down two advertisements for Ann Coulter's new book - featuring the Right's near-most compulsive liar all dolled up in her best dominatrix gear - both on Lefty blogs (here and here)! Enough is (more than) enough. This is going to give me a hiatal hernia.

Bush, then and now --
OK, that movie clip I linked to, comparing Bush 10 years ago to Bush today has been out of commission. I found another one last night, but right now it doesn't work. See if you can reach it from Kevin Drum's link.

And now repeat after me --
"We are not worthy."