Not to be a wimp,

[whometense]

but this truly makes me want to weep.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Newsmax_Rove_promises_GOP_insiders_October_0921.html

Conservative websites claim Rove has been promising GOP insiders an 'October surprise'

RAW STORY
Published: Thursday September 21, 2006

According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an "October surprise" before the midterm elections.

"In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an 'October surprise' to help win the November congressional elections," reports Ronald Kessler for Newsmax...

Not that it's a shock or anything - god knows, the idea of an "October surprise" is far from news. Still, sometimes I despair that we will ever see the end of these bastards to whom the country and even the world is just a chessboard set up for their amusement and profit.

[ProSense]

1. I wish the all Democrats would heed these words

Kerry urges Democrats to fight back
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060921/ap_on_el_ge/kerry_swift_boats

[beachmom]

2. Did anyone else find this paragraph to be questionable?

In 2004, the Swift Boat group, backed by Texas businessman Bob Perry, made unsubstantiated allegations about Kerry's Vietnam War heroism. The presidential nominee's slow and uncertain response is blamed for helping doom his White House bid.



I just don't agree, but I guess it's "conventional wisdom" now. The rest of the article was good, but something so ingrained means he's going to have to answer for it over and over again if he runs.

[karynnj]

5. It's not all bad - when you think about it

Look at the first sentence:

Decompose it:
SBVT backed by TEXAN Bob Perry

made

UNSUBSTANTIATED allegations

Kerry is more than half the way there. They are acknowledging that the media accepted UNSUBSTANTIATED allegations. As to Kerry's response - the media had Kerry's military records in the Spring. NO ONE EVER SAID THEY WERE FAKE. They also played the Nixon tape that spoke of investigating Kerry and finding nothing they could use. As the historical record was on Kerry's side, the media had the responsibility to ask the SBVT (who were known to be linked to Bush) for SUBSTANTIATION.

It also seems that Kerry intends to deal with this well before the primary season per the NYT article speaking of the stuff Kerry friends were collecting. (It should also help that both Doug Brinkley and the daughter of Judith Droz (for a totally different reason) interviewed many of these swiftboat people. Both were done before it became a huge political issue - so they are more likely true. The latter may be especially interesting - Droz and Kerry were together on many things, so I assume some stories taped then, when there was absolutely no reason to distort anything, could be interesting.

Like the Pepperdine speech - Kerry is trying to correct caricatures of himself created by malevolent people. It won't be easy - but as a Kerry friend said about the need to clean up these issues completely - they would do it even if he was leaving political life.

[wisteria]

3. You know, Rove could just be calling our bluff. Maybe he does'nt

have an October surprise, but just by suggesting he does, he may expect that many Democrats will cower and not take on the Republicans on Natl security and Iraq. Think about it, what can he do? I think we have already experience the worse of him. If he pulls anything, it will be one of his tired old tricks. Like you though, I long for the day I know they are all no longer in power and Rove fades away.

[beachmom]

4. According to Time magazine, and further speculated by Josh

Marshall, it's war with Iran. That's really sick if war is Karl Rove's electoral dream. He should look at how Israel's war in Lebanon went, and be cautious about that.

[karynnj]

7. I really really hope that they are wrong

[karynnj]

6. I think Oct surprise in a misnomer, Rove is up to dirty tricks as normal

Things are getting nasty here in NJ. They seem to be going after every dirty Democrat - and NJ has lots of dirty Democrats and dirty Republicans. It seems that all they have on Menendez is that he was a "boss" in Hudson County (Newark, Jersey City etc), which is a corrupt place.

A Republican Prosecutor - a superstar from my county is investigating something that at least from every fact printed looks normal to me - and I hate sleazy deals.

-Menendez owned a building that was rented by a non-profit
- The non-profit had gotten federal funding for years before Menendez was in Congress
- Menendez sponsor legislation to get funding for it - (it was in his district)
- They paid basic market-rate rent
- Menendez says he had gotten VERBAL approval from the ethics committee

Other than the fact that, in retrospect, WRITTEN approval would have been nice - I don't see the problem.

[ginnyinWI]

8. it's not a surprise if everyone is expecting it!

Dems need to scream foul loud and long if anything like this comes up. If it even has a whiff of Rove, cry fraud! This is something that every Dem from Reid, Pelosi, and Kerry to people like you and me can do. Call BS on them!