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Every now and again, I feel good about our city’s main paper, The Plain Dealer. Today was one of those days; they published a Spinsanity-like piece that dissected the distortions coming from both U.S. presidential candidates. I was going to lnkblog it, but it turned out they’d split the piece in two on the Web, so I’ll link to them here.

• Whom Do You Believe? Bush?
• Whom Do You Believe? Kerry?

I’d have linked to the printer-friendly versions, except they contained a window.print call, and I wasn’t sure if they’d force a print in some browsers or not. At the least, they’d call up a print dialog, which is kind of annoying.

The views I expressed in Partied Out are just deepened by this sort of thing. I know, it’s nothing new. That doesn’t make it any less depressing.

I’m just throwing this out as a general advisory: if you have any interest in the American Presidential campaign, or in analyses of spin and distortion in general, make it a habit of stopping by Spinsanity. Or you could subscribe to their RSS feed. I’ve had to fight the urge to just repost links to everything they write, so consider this a recommendation. They do a great job of analyzing rhetoric from both campaigns, pointing out inaccuracies in media reporting on politics, taking on books and documentaries, and more. The non-partisan stance and rigorous insistence on getting to the truth come as a welcome antidote to, well, just about everything else about the campaign.

Recent favorites:

• CBO report spun by both sides (8/24)
• The myth of Kerry knowingly volunteering for dangerous duty lives on (8/24)
• From technically true to blatantly false (8/24)

Heck, they’re all good. Right now, the site’s authors are pushing their new book “All The President’s Spin” pretty hard, which probably lends to the perception that they’re a left-wing group. I haven’t seen any leftward shift in their posts, though; they’re still taking on both sides and the media itself.

So like I say, if you’ve any interest in these sorts of things, go sign up for the feed or add them to your bookmarks. The lessons in spin, deception, and media distortion you’ll receive are well worth the investment of your time.

By rights, I should be a Republican. No, I’m not kidding. Bear with me for a moment.

If the Republican Party actually carried through on the core principles it espouses, I’d pretty much have to register that way. I’m all for a decrease in government’s interference in the personal lives of its citizens, and that goes for silent intrusion as well as active meddling. I’m all for the government being as small as it needs to be, and no smaller. I believe that the government provides a number of critical services, and those should be funded, but that there should be intelligent restrictions on its growth. I also believe in fiscal responsibility, in eliminating deficits, and in returning any surplus to the taxpayers (once all debts are paid off and services are funded).

So what do we have instead? A party that proposes amending the Constitution to prohibit some kinds of marriage, that keeps increasing the size of the government, and that runs up massive debts while cutting off income. Their leaders and highest-profile supporters tend to be the most annoying brand of hypocrite: preaching morality and decency while not acting in accordance with those ideals, publicly or privately.

As for debates about national security and terrorism, the more often I hear right-wingers respond to questions and criticism with accusations America-hating, the more I start to think that they have no rational policy, and their lame rhetorical attacks are meant to obscure this weakness. It’s probably an unfair perception, but it’s hard to avoid.

Then, of course, we have the Democrats. They’ve traditionally been in favor of increasing spending in order to provide expanded social services, which in any sane fiscal environment requires an increase in taxes. Thus the old cliché of “tax-and-spend liberal”. (To which I usually reply, “Well, duh, if taxes are levied then the money should be spent”.) But the last Democratic president, faced with a surplus, used it to get government debt under control. He didn’t try to blow it all on entitlements, at least not after the universal health care proposal died, or try to fund some massive boondoggle. He actually used it to reduce the fiscal burden on future generations.

The usual argument is that he didn’t do this of his own volition, but was forced into it by a Republican Congress. I no longer accept that claim, because I’ve been watching the current Republican Congress. No real signs of fiscal discipline there, I’m sorry to say. So it would seem that the party of smaller government and fiscal responsibility is, in reality… the Democrats. Say what?

As for national security, the left has been great about asking tough questions, but not all that good at formulating a decent policy—or, if they have one, then they’ve done a terrible job of promoting it. It’s one thing to criticize what’s being done, and quite another to propose a workable alternative.

And that leads us up to the 2004 Presidential election. I’m reminded of the 1988 election, when I seriously considered flipping a coin to determine my vote. Neither choice really made me happy. Same thing here. I’m no fan of President Bush or his policies, but I’ve yet to see that Kerry is a worthwhile alternative. I know some people who say “Anyone but Bush,” but I categorically refuse to pick the leader of the country that way. I know some people claim nobody could be worse than Bush, and I’m glad they do, because it makes their reality-distortion tendencies more obvious. There’s plenty of people who could be worse than Bush. The question in my mind is whether or not John Kerry would make a better leader than George W. Bush.

It would be nice if I could get a clear picture along those lines. So far, any hope of finding out has been obscured by the fountains of venomous bile the two sides keep spewing at each other. Back in late 2000, I wrote:

…I’m finding that every time a campaign spokesman from either side opens his mouth, my opinion of him drops. Every time. That’s just, you know, depressing.

It’s no less true, or for that matter less depressing, at present. And pundits wonder why voter apathy runs so high. I honestly think it’s because most of us just don’t want to waste any more time listening to the shrill schoolyard taunts that pass for political debate.

It doesn’t help that most taunts are equally applicable to both sides, thus deepening the sense of futility. To take just one example, the Republicans keep painting John Kerry as a “flip-flopper”. How droll. He has been a senator long enough to have voted in myriad ways, it’s true. In some cases, it’s because one bill is worth supporting, and another is not, even though they’re ostensibly about the same thing. In others, it might be that he’d changed his mind. Most humans do, at some point.

Thing is, Bush is no less a flip-flopper. He’s been against trade barriers like steel tariffs, and then for them. He’s been against education reform, and for it. He’s been against nation-building, and for nation-building. He’s been against independent inquiries into the 9/11 attacks, and for them. He’s been against negotiating with the North Koreans over their nuclear program, and in favor of negotiating with them. Those are some pretty major changes of position. And I’m generally okay with that; a pragmatist must sometimes change stance to get things done, and any intelligent person will change their mind if new and compelling information comes to light. I will gladly accept a leader who changes his mind when it makes sense to do so, or even when they have become convinced of the need to do so. Still, doesn’t it seems rather hypocritical of Bush and Cheney to excoriate Kerry for changing positions when W and company have been doing the same thing in fairly big ways?

It’s hard to take either party seriously any more. I sometimes wonder if there will be a serious political party in my lifetime—either because one of the existing parties grows up, or due to a serious-minded third party actually gaining traction and becoming a force in national politics. Both seem about equally unlikely.

And so I face the prospect of forcing myself to the polls, participating in the election process only because abstention is unacceptable to me. Thus a right and a duty becomes a frustration and a chore.

That’s probably the worst part of all.

Okay, Ronald Reagan died. I got it the first six hundred times. I grew up in the Eighties; I remember the Reagan years quite clearly. He did a lot of good things, a lot of bad things, and a lot of ambiguous things while President, just like every other President I can remember, but frankly, at this point I think people are starting to go a little overboard. As usual, Jon Stewart nailed it squarely (if I may paraphrase): “The ones I pity in all this are Ford and Carter. Because they’re watching this and thinking, ‘When I die, no way am I getting that.’ My advice to them: die while saving a baby.”

Still, I think the way the Liberal Media has totally ignored his death is just a travesty, don’t you?

I was back in the training groove this week, and on Monday morning one of the attendees had to duck out at one of the breaks. “I have to talk with Brian, who’s consulting for us.” I must’ve looked blank, because he said, “Brian Foy. Do you know him? Works with Randall Schwartz.”

I’ve been reading Brian’s missives from Iraq on the O’Reilly Network for a year now, and was really psyched to meet him. As it turned out, we both were planless on Monday night, so I picked him up at his hotel and blundered around the neighborhood until we found a Thai restuarant. Over appetizers, Brian told me his wife (an opera singer) has been doing her own Web design for a while now, and was getting into CSS. Then he mentioned buying the O’Reilly CSS book for her, and as he talked about why he’d bought it, I quickly realized that he’d picked it up because it was an O’Reilly book, and recommended. He literally didn’t know he was having dinner with its author.

After a couple of minutes, I finally told him who’d written the book. I should probably feel bad about not admitting it right away. I wasn’t going to say anything here either, but he already blogged it, so… what the heck.

It was very interesting to talk about Iraq with someone who’d been there. I was able to ask him the question I’ve wanted to have answered for a while: “How does the news coverage compare to what’s really going on over there?”

“It’s horrible,” he said. “We got CNN and Fox on the Armed Forces Network and they were both just terrible.” He said that he’d literally been present for things that were being covered on TV by the time he got back to the barracks, and nobody ever accurately represented what had happened. Not even close, apparently. Brian made the observation that images are so overwhelming, so powerful, that the story was always driven by whatever footage had been shot. Not by the actual event in its totality, nor the context. Just the visual.

It wasn’t surprising to hear that, but it left me saddened and frustrated.

Thinking conservative Keith Burgin points out that the presence of a sarin-containing shell means far more than a single incident on an Iraqi road side. What it would mean is that there is very likely more such material out there, and the media is effectively teaching future attackers how to better use that material. I agree. I thought that was understood, but upon reflection I was negligent to leave it implicit.

We could always hope that this is an isolated incident, a freak use of a single forgotten shell left over from the first Gulf War period, but that doesn’t seem very likely, I’m afraid. And I mean that literally.

“WMDs Found in Iraq” ran the headline across the top of FoxNews.com last night. I flipped over to CNN.com, where the headline was “Busy hurricane season ahead”. What? A coverup by the vast left-wing media conspiracy? Um, no.

Even this morning, where the top Fox News headline is “Bremer: June 30 deadline stands” there’s a sidelink to “Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq“. When you go to that article, it starts off with:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent (search) recently exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday.

Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas (search) was also recently discovered.

Then, just a few paragraphs later, the very same article says:

…Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the [sarin] results were from a field test, which can be imperfect, and said more analysis was needed. If confirmed, it would be the first finding of a banned weapon upon which the United States based its case for war.

So at best, there is strong suspicion that a sarin round has been discovered, which kind of belies the top-of-article claim. I’m not saying there is no sarin, mind you; there may well be. I’m saying that the article (and headline) are at best misleading.

As of this writing, you do have to dig a bit into the CNN, ABC News, CBS News, and MSNBC sites to find information about the possible sarin incident, and none of them mention mustard gas at all. Interesting that Bush adminsitration officials would tell Fox News about a possible mustard gas find but not share that with anyone else, but never mind that now. By looking at various sites’ information about the possible sarin-laced round, it appears that the current thinking is that even if it was a sarin round, the person who used it to create an improvised explosive device probably had no idea it contained sarin. I’d tend to agree with that assessment, since if I were fighting an occupation force and knew I had such a weapon, I wouldn’t use it in an attempt to blow up a convoy; instead, I’d detonate it upwind of the occupying force’s headquarters. (If you don’t like my word choices in the previous sentence, then if I were a terrorist trying to strike at U.S. forces… same result, different motives.)

These kinds of inconsistency are bothering me more and more as we approach the serious phase of the Presidential campaign, to which I intend to pay attention once the party conventions are over. It seems like one has to do more work than should be necessary just to try to figure out what’s really going on—a subject to which I’ll be returning in a near-future post, as it happens. To paraphrase a signature file often seen in a newsgroup where I hang out, I must be getting annoyed because I’m starting to pay attention.

Oh, one other thing. While I was wandering around through various articles, I found something interesting, if unsurprising. Most every time I mention Fox News and how I think they tilt right, I get e-mail from folks who say that actually, Fox News is fair and balanced and they just look right-wing compared to the Liberal Media, like CNN. Bad news, guys: given the advertising links I came across, the free market seems to have reached a different conclusion.

On this, the day on which citizens of the United States owe their income taxes, it’s worth reflecting on the effects of tax-code changes over the past few years. After all, President Bush claims that those changes are responsible for an economic recovery, while Senator John Kerry insists the economic situation is miserable and that the tax situation is making things worse. The truth, as ever, appears to lie between those views. And, of course, both views can be supported by citing specific facts while not giving attention to others.

What it comes down to, in effect, is that things have changed very little; tax cuts and the economic slump have basically balanced each other out, leading to a very minor drop in median household income. There was one interesting statement:

At least part of the reason for the decline in median income at the same time that average income rose is that the wealthy have seen more gains from both the tax cuts and the overall economic climate, according to economists.

It left me wondering exactly what definition of “wealthy” is being used in this context. I also found this passage to be of interest:

“The debate about tax cuts shouldn’t be whether they helped or not — they clearly helped taxpayers,” said Vitner. “The debate should be whether we can afford them and whether they can lead to a sustained recovery in economy.”

That’s long been my concern. I’d like to see an interactive budget-and-tax simulator, something that would let you adjust spending levels and find out how much tax revenue would be required to cover your budget. Oh, look, there is! Well, not exactly, but hey, it’s a start.

I’d actually like to see a simulation that doesn’t let you run a deficit—one where tax receipts must match expenditures. That would deliver a much better idea of what taxes should be in order to support the budget. It would be even better if you could plug in what you owed this year and see what you would actually owe if the government couldn’t rack up huge debts. Or, conversely, just how much would have to be cut in order to keep your taxes from increasing. Let’s put it this way: if the budget deficit were divided equally in classic flat-tax fashion, every man, woman, and child in the country would owe somewhere around $1,250. I got that by dividing $350 billion by 280 million. So my household would—one might even say should—owe an extra $3,750 this year.

For some reason, instead of crowing that I got away with something, I find myself concerned about the long-term consequences implied by those figures. I’m trying to imagine how many years of budgetary surplus would be required just to fill in the hole we’re digging, and I don’t like the answer.