Tide Turns Against Bush?

After three whole days ignoring reporters questions on the issue, Bush finally responds to concerns about 380 tons of missing explosives from Al Qaqaa in Iraq. Bush says Kerry is jumping to conclusions and insists that "the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site."

Hogwash. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear watchdog said the site was never secured by the U.S. military after the March 2003 invasion. And now even Iraqi ministers are saying their officials have signed declarations to the effect that the explosives were intact when the facility was handed over to US forces.

"It is impossible that these materials could have been taken from this site before the regime's fall," Mohammed al-Sharaa, who heads the Science Ministry's site monitoring department, said.

"The officials that were inside this facility (Al-Qaqaa) beforehand confirm that not even a shred of paper left it before the fall.

"I spoke to them about it and they even issued certified statements to this effect which the US-led coalition was aware of."

Bush is also making a desperate appeal to Democrat voters:

"I want to speak directly to the Democrats. We're proud Republicans. But I believe my policies appeal to many Democrats. In fact I think my opponent is running away from some of the great traditions of the Democrat Party... If you're a Democrat and you want America to be strong and confident in our ideals, I'd be honored to have your vote," Bush said.

Is it possible there is a single Democrat in the USA who would vote for Bush? I guess there could be, but there are surely more Republicans who are pulling the wool off their own eyes in these final days of campaigning. This morning I got an email from a group called Yes Bush Can, claiming they were a pro-Bush campaiging team who had switched sides and were now supporting Kerry.

Before breaking with Bush, the Yes, Bush Can team worked earnestly to support him. They went to the Pacific Northwest to promote Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative--and discovered it was enabling the logging industry to cut down our last old-growth forests. They visited a nuclear power plant in Ohio to promote Bush's domestic security policies--and found no one in the guard booth to meet them. In western Pennsylvania, while promoting the President's energy policy, they learned that it allows coal emissions which kill 23,000 people a year. Finally, while defending Bush's war on terrorism, they found out that even Donald Rumsfeld feels the Iraq War has made the world a more dangerous place.

After many similar discoveries and much internal turmoil, the Yes, Bush Can group arrived at the difficult conclusion that they could not continue their work. At a press conference Tuesday, in order to demonstrate how profoundly they are rejecting their former boss's ideas and policies, they defaced and abandoned the campaign bus they had purchased and outfitted.

It sounds a bit suss, to be honest... possibly a bunch of Democrats with a sense of humor. But full marks to them anyway.

And if that sounds suss, what about this? A new FBI terror alert shows a geeky US kid with a half-assed effort at a bin Laden beard - is this the new Face Of Evil? The CIA supposedly has a tape, but is not taking this joker too seriously at the moment.

What next? I think it's almost time for Karl Rove to make his move. And the waythings are going, it could be a big one. Imagine for example if Kerry and other Democrats ridicule this geeky-looking "terrorist" and then, the next day, a bomb goes off in a shopping mall and the kid is arrested? That "fall guy scenario" would fit into previous patterns of CIA-run civilian terrorism of the domestic front - think Lee Harvey Oswald, or the attempted assasination of Reagan - and public opinion would swing sharply against the Democrats just on the day it mattered.

Expect something. Be alert, but not afraid.