DEAD LETTER OFFICE: GeorgeWBush.org: Bush/Cheney in 2004!

So the people who own georgewbush.org aren't working for the BC/04 campaign. They used the website to post a satire of Bush's campaign, but the real gold mine appears to be their catch-all email account combined with some republicans' error-prone addressing skills. Any GOP email mis-sent to anyone@georgewbush.org -- a lot of CCs -- ended up in the satirists email box, and they've posted the best of for all the world to see.

The Daily Kos is covering the kind of scandalous revelation that a lot of county people in Washington state think they're violating campaign finance law. This is a pretty serious accusation, actually. You know, I have friends who work for the Democratic party, and I don't really get to talk to them all that much any more except by reading their public blogs. We sweat this sort of thing because it is a legal liability; and it's kind of, you know, "wrong" for people to be "breaking the law" and "know it."

May I request that you or someone on your staff send directions regarding what Counties can and cannot do as it pertains to newsletters and phone banks usage for federal candidates.

There is a great deal of ignorance out here and many counties are violating the campaign law as I understood it from you. God help us if the Democrats find out.

That seems to be the proverbial "Money Quote." It's an ugly term, but it's a fine one in this case; what's been uncovered here is the political equivalent of pornography. Who knows how the mainstream will react, but for addicts it's one more spectacle to wank over.

Personally I'm actually more interested in some of the odd attachments, the more "human interest" type stuff like internal phone-bank reports, attack manuels from Newt Gingrich, photos of young republicans frolicking in New York during the convention, some guy saying he'd look good with Bush's hotter daughter (Barbara, obviously)... none of it's terribly shocking or sensational, but it's very interesting to peek into much more honest communications from GOP people. It's the literary erotica of the situation, I like to think.

I'm sure on some level my personal email would hold a similar morbid curiosity for some of them, assuming they don't have friends in the FBI who can let them read it already. That's sort of a joke; they can read your email if you send it unencrupyed (fix that, if you like), but I doubt very much that mine's interesting enough in a tactical sense to risk inappropriate coordination between the FBI and a politcal campaign. On the other hand, I hope for the sake of the future that the Kerry campaign uses PGP.

I'll post some more about the offbeat stuff that's in the archive later if I find anything really interesting.

Abu Aardvark: The Election Made Simple. It's bushian simplicity, but I don't think it's inaccurate:

For or against?

The Talent Show can explain in more words why it really is that simple. For those of us who actually care about human rights or our international reputation, I think this election was decided for you when torture was considered and then legally authorized, probably originally presented via a powerpoint presentation sometime in early 2002 along with the coffee and krispy kremes.

Oh, and we invaded a country for no good reason.

Tucker Eskew is an advisor/spokesperson for the Bush/Cheney campaign, and seems to have started a blog. Unlike the Bush (or Kerry) blogs, this seems to actually be a blog, rather than a series of press releases. Kudos to Tucker for venturing out with a more open kind of spin, disagree with it though I might.

I'll probably pick some of the messages apart later.

I emailed Jay Rosen about the poll of Bush supporters below. He's head of NYU's journalism school, so I figured he'd have an interesting take. He said it's complecated, and that it's hard to make a story out of journalists jaws dropping. The best quote:

Strange as it sounds, we're going to have an election to settle this "reality" thing.

Here's hoping that it works.