This week's NOW w/ Bill Moyers - crying foul about campaign ads, more...

With some of the deadliest fighting yet in Najaf and the cost of the war by some estimates at $128 billion and growing, Iraq remains the flagship issue in this final stretch of the presidential campaign. If, as some polls suggest, Americans are losing patience with the war, what will it mean in November? Bill Moyers gets the insight of author and political analyst Kevin Phillips. Phillips was the chief political strategist for Richard Nixon's victory in 1968 and wrote the bombshell book EMERGING REPUBLICAN MAJORITY. Ten years ago his best-selling book on the politics of rich and poor influenced the 1992 elections and his recent WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN RICH looks at how big money and political power are the invisible hand in the hidden story of the American experience.

This week, as the parties’ political machines crank out ads, both campaigns are crying foul. But with the most polarized electorate in recent memory, are these ads changing the way Americans think about Bush and Kerry? David Brancaccio asks Kathleen Hall Jamieson, one of the nation’s most respected media and political analysts. Jamieson is director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and author of EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT POLITICS... AND WHY YOU’RE WRONG.

more...
http://www.pbs.org/now/thisweek/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/phillips.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/electionincome.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/jamieson.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/campaignads.html
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/electionads.html

Eleanor Clift has an insightful article in Newsweek suggesting that a main goal of the Swiftboat group may be to divert attention of voters and the media from Bush's failed international policies. She calls it fighting a "Phony War" instead of the real battles in the here and now that Bush doesn't have answers for.

See it at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5772260/site/newsweek/
(How do you make links?)

The attacks and lies against Kerry have to be agressively answered but lets do everything we can to put the attention on Bush's record of abandoning the middle class in favor of his big business and oil buddies, failure to plan and lead in Iraq, his failure to complete the job in Afganistan, his failure to protect the environment (additional favors for business buddies) and his enormous deficit (I'll give back by tax break if he'll repeal his).

infected by neonazicons and PNAC'ers. It's the best.