Will Bush have pressers everyday now up until the election? He told us really nothing new and his style is getting angrier by the minute. He heavily accents the words and phrases he thinks are new and important, but winds up sounding like an angry parent chastising his unresponsive child.

Froomkin:

At a surprise press conference this morning, President Bush acknowledged the nation's grave concerns about the war in Iraq."I know many Americans are not satisfied with the situation in Iraq," Bush said, 13 days before a mid-term election that will in large part be a referendum on the war. "I'm not satisfied either."

"I think I owe an explanation to the American people," he said. But Bush didn't have much new to say today, other than endorsing yesterday's already largely debunked announcement in Baghdad of a "new plan" that sounds very much like the old plan...read on

The Reality-Based Community: The masters of terror

Talk 2 Action: David Barton barnstorms Ohio churches for GOP to mobilize fundies for mid-term elections. In the past, these efforts have been paid for by the RNC

Norwegianity: Americans have a responsibility to oppose uniformity and lock-step ideologies

Sooner Thought: Another FEMA f#ckup?

The Olive Ream: Watch it, bloggers

The Opinion Mill: Jacob Bronowski and the need for uncertainty

...there's an easy fix: Blame George Soros:

Over the last couple days they've dusted off a well worn line, which they never fail to trot out when things are looking particularly bleak for the GOP: George Soros is behind this.

Why Soros? [..]In the minds of some Republicans, Soros, the billionaire financier and philanthropist who has donated generous sums of his fortune to democratic candidates and causes, is the kingpin behind a vast conspiracy to dismantle the Republican Party. So, in their thinking, it would follow that Soros and the watchdog groups that are funded by his Open Society Institute, such as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), are pulling the strings on a well-timed effort to taint the Republican Party just before the mid-term elections by leaking Foley's emails to the press.

"The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros," Hastert (who has previously intimated that Soros' philanthropic efforts may be funded by "drug money") told the Chicago Tribune yesterday. On Fox last night, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly were also preoccupied by this prospect. Interviewing Brian Ross, the ABC reporter who broke the scandal, O'Reilly said, "Now the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a far left group. George Soros gives a lot of money to it through his Open Society Institute. They apparently are the ones that drove this thing behind the scenes. Is that what you're hearing?"

"I'm not familiar with them," Ross responded. "They didn't drive us."

Read on...

You can watch Bill O'Reilly grilling Neal Cavuto on Soros here and Hannity and Coultergeist blaming Soros here .

Newsie8200's Penndit: Media News Monday

Suburban Guerrilla: Don't leave elections to GOP pols. They don't really don't want people to vote...

The Satirical Political Report: Bushies revoke cloning ban; claim they 'need' another Zarqawi

The Enigmatic Paradox: If Bush can claim toppling Saddam was “Mission Accomplished,” Democrats should frame the forthcoming (mid-term elections) troop withdrawal as “America's Victory” and take every opportunity to remind voters how the Bush administration misled the country into supporting the war.

The Reality-Based Community: Another Bushista plot...

Liberal Country Fan: "This site aims to provide a home and a voice to us Roosevelt-lovin' Rednecks."

Pacific Views:

It looks like Bush's No Child Left Behind plan, like all of his other plans, becomes less popular the more people know about it

The 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools indicates that between a 65-80% majority agrees that: Charter and private schools should not be funded at the expense of the public school system, that they would rather see schools improved than students transferred out of them and don't think the testing regimes now in place fully measure the performance of their schools.

Interestingly, while the "nation's schools" got low marks, "schools in the community" were well thought of by 69% of parents.

Yet again, another Republican policy is proving unpopular and their hatred for a public institution, in this case public schools, has been proved to be outside the mainstream. The majority of public opinion on any of the questions asked would represent a solid election victory. If only there was a party who shared the public's sensibilities on this issue and was willing to make skillful use of this in a political campaign, they might be able to make some serious gains in the upcoming mid-term elections.

"If there were two sides to every issue, the Republicans would have an opposition party." - Bill Maher

It looks like Bush's No Child Left Behind plan, like all of his other plans, becomes less popular the more people know about it

The 37th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools indicates that between a 65-80% majority agrees that: Charter and private schools should not be funded at the expense of the public school system, that they would rather see schools improved than students transferred out of them and don't think the testing regimes now in place fully measure the performance of their schools.

Interestingly, while the "nation's schools" got low marks, "schools in the community" were well thought of by 69% of parents.

Yet again, another Republican policy is proving unpopular and their hatred for a public institution, in this case public schools, has been proved to be outside the mainstream. The majority of public opinion on any of the questions asked would represent a solid election victory. If only there was a party who shared the public's sensibilities on this issue and was willing to make skillful use of this in a political campaign, they might be able to make some serious gains in the upcoming mid-term elections.

"If there were two sides to every issue, the Republicans would have an opposition party." - Bill Maher