There could be worse things than a flight to Kabul. Like maybe an attack on Iran.

Doesn't he worry about looking like a dingbat? These stunts succeeded in the past because his poll numbers made him a media darling. In a more skeptical environment, anything that might open him to ridicule seems pretty foolish.

i am infrequent visitor here and want to preface my comments by noting that i did vote for bush in 2000. i will not repeat that choice and will hold my nose and cast my vote for kerry/edwards.however when i travel these websites i am constantly amazed at the level of paranoia which resides here.this kind of posting is akin to wild eyed postings at right wing sites which posit the end of civilization as we know it if gay marriage receives benediction from the state.both sides are kooky in my humble estination.jjj

i am infrequent visitor here and want to preface my comments by noting that i did vote for bush in 2000. i will not repeat that choice and will hold my nose and cast my vote for kerry/edwards.however when i travel these websites i am constantly amazed at the level of paranoia which resides here.this kind of posting is akin to wild eyed postings at right wing sites which posit the end of civilization as we know it if gay marriage receives benediction from the state.both sides are kooky in my humble estination.jjj

Bush lied to his family in 2003.

The press kept Bush's secrets.

...so, let's wonder: He's done NAVY. He's done ARMY. Will it be Marines, Air Force, or Coast Guard?

john, i'm aware of all the tinfoil in the left blogosphere, but when a candidate takes a day off 12 days before an election, something's up. (Personally, I think it's a medical thing.)

While it wasn't plastic, the turkey was only meant for display at the cafeteria line.

Oh, and we wouldn't be so paranoid if the current secretive, power-consolidating, fear-mongering, war-profiteering, environment-scouring administration and its attendant whore-media didn't give us so many reasons to be so.

How about an anouncement that we have finally captured Bin Laden? I'll lay good odds that Bin Laden is found right before the election....and...Bush was wired!

I tend to believe that either benjoya (and Atrios) that something's physically wrong with Dubya, or that they whole sordid crew will spend the day in Crawford plotting and planning for the end game, which includes post-election spin, possible foul play, and legal action. I just can't picture Dubya showing up in Kabul and/or Baghdad. What would be the justification? "Just visiting the troops" would be a transparent political ploy even to the SCLM. I don't believe they have Osama or al Zarqawi either. No doubt they've got something foul cooking, but I don't think it involves Bush flying off to another country.

Just in case anyone doubted it, here it is in black and white:

The blind leading the blind

Even if they don't like to say it out loud, lots of Democrats think that George Bush's supporters are a horde of ignoramuses. Now comes evidence that they're right! A remarkable new report titled "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters" from PIPA, the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, suggests that rank and file Republicans are more benighted than even the most supercilious coastal elitist would imagine.

Analyzing data from a series of nationwide polls, the report finds that a majority of Bush supporters believe things about the world that are objectively untrue, while the majority of Kerry supporters dwell in the reality-based community.

Here's the link:
Linked text

If Bush pulls a silly stunt, we *will* call him on it. Just as we were able to marshall a movement directed at Sinclair, we will be able to give the media some coordinated hell if they pretend that Bush is preforming anything other than a crass, craven pre-election stunt that it will be. Let's get ready to pull out our post-debate action plans...

Maybe he's trying to patch things up with the fundies...

jj. I don't think the speculation is that far-fetched. They are basing it on fact (the thanksgiving surpise) and as a student of Texas politics, having studied and observed Rove's tactics for 20 years. It is consistent with his tactics. Granted, it might be a diversion that he has cooked up, but it does raise suspicion.

Does his schedule take him out to the Midwest or West on Sunday or Monday? If it does, it wouldn't be that suspicious.

Maybe they are doing it for security concerns. Who knows.

Hopefully it is nothing.

Personally, I think it may be time to change his batteries and give him an overhaul. The bulge was some kind of auxiliary power supply or something.

REMEMBER:
Bush's aides said they would turn the plane around if word of the visit leaked out before he landed.

Bragan, I'm with you thinking is gives them an isolated place to plot out the last week. If they are watching the early voting patterns, they are very concerned.

Early voting in indicating a much higher turnout that in 2000. In Texas, for the first three days of early voting, 500K votes have already been cast, mostly in counties that Gore won or narrowly lost in 2000. The increase in turnout ranges from 20% in Dallas county to 55% in El Paso county.

Other states are reporting the same heavy turnout for early voting. Another consistent theme is the large number of young and first time voters. Kerry's advantage with young voters is around 15%.

The Democrats were hoping for a turnout of over 115 Million. Looks like it might happen which tilts the election in Kerry's favor.

EGON
The structure of this roof cap is exactly like the kind of telemetry tracker that NASA uses to identify dead pulsars in deep space.

RAY
Cold riveted girders with cores of pure selenium.

RAY
The architect was either a certified genius or an aesthetic wacko! The whole building is a huge super-conductive antenna that was designed and built expressly for the purpose of pulling in and concentrating spiritual turbulence. Your girlfriend, Pete, lives in the corner penthouse of Spook Central.

PETER
She's not my girlfriend. I find her interesting because she's a client and because she sleeps above her covers. Four feet above her covers! She barks, she drools, she claws...

EGON
It's not the girl, Peter, it's the building! Something terrible is about the enter our world and this building is obviously the door. The architect's name was Ivo Shandor. I found it in Tobin's Spirit Guide. He was also a doctor. Performed a lot of unnecessary surgery. And then in 1920 he founded a secret society.

PETER
Let me guess. Gozer worshippers.

EGON
After the First World War, Shandor decided that society was too sick to survive. And he wasn't alone. he had close to a thousand followers when he died. They conducted rituals up on the roof, bizarre rituals intended to bring about the end of the world, and now it looks like it may actually happen!

WINSTON
Hey! Hey! Hold it! Now we going to actually going to go before a federal judge and say that some moldy old Babylonian god is going to drop in on Central Park West and start tearing up the city?

RAY
Sumerian, not Babylonian.

PETER
Yeah, big difference!

WINSTON
No offense, guys, but I gotta get my own lawyer.

Outside Ivo Shandor Building
LOUIS walks by. Shocked. Looks up to the top.

Remnants of DANA's apartment

LOUIS
I am the Keymaster!

DANA
I am the Gatekeeper.
they kiss, then go up the stairs to the Temple of Zuul

Maybe Bush is going to Crawfish because of the same reason he was in a FLA kindergarten on 9/11. They may have set up another terror strike for DC......by the way, where is Kerry supposed to be on the weekend? Hard to believe Rove would let Kerry run unopposed in FLA, or Ohio or Pennsylvania for two days so close to election time. I wonder if Bush isn't close to a nervous breakdown, or some other medical issue. Also, remember he started travelling to strange places (campaign-wise) in the final days before the 2000 theft.
These Crooks and Liars could be up to anything.

I loathe Bush as much as anyone, but nowhere in the refrenced story does it say he's going to Crawford. It says he's going to Pennsylvania this weekend, and he's gone there more this year than he's going to Crawford.
It's all about reading comprehension people.
We have to move the truth around, not just keep repeating lies. That would make us Republicans.

Here I read, "He will be back in Texas on Saturday for his 41st visit since he was sworn into office in 2001."

...third paragraph.

I'm not that concerned about the October Surprise. Anything they do now will thrill the Kool-Aide drinking base but will be seen for what it is by the undecideds, a shallow political move.

I'm all for giving them more Kool Aide.

Moscow is more likely than Asia. He can look like a wold leader discussing Iraq (Putin pledges a division for Iraq that he will never need to deliver), a protocol on uranium to Iran (already signed by Iran and Russia), and some announcement about a joint approach to North Korea. All looks very intercontinental.

Though the medical theory makes a lot of sense. Is Jim Bunning planning to stop by, too?

Umm, flying food to North Korea? Naaah, definite tin-foil hat there!

Uncle Dick is planning a BIG October surprise, and it will probably surprise W more than anyone. Cheney knows W is going down, and this is the only way he can hope to pull it out. W will, in fact fly to Iraq or Afganistan, but unfortunately, Airforce One will go down under hostile fire. Then Uncle Dick will go on national TV and pull a "Manchurian Candidate" move, declaring that he must be elected president lest the terrorists win.

Alan S
I like that one. You get the prize for most imaginative plot.

I have no idea what the October surprise is but I am sure that it is coming. With Tenent admitting that Iraq was "wrong" this administration is starting to unravel. I beleive they are panicing as it is strating to dawn on them that if they are out of office there is a real potential that everything will come out and jail is not out of the question.

Ron in Portland

Thank you. You need a lot of imagination to figure out the lengths to which this organizaed crime family will go.

I'm not one for dancing in the endzone before the final whistle, but I think Bush has the electoral votes to win. I hope that the trip to Crawford isn't an acknowledgement that this thing is in all reality over. I'd rather see them close it out strong and just make it a landslide on election tuesday.

Kerry sounds a little desperate the last few days. I'd love to see a hidden webcam version of the DNC meeting where they go over their internal polling numbers.

Congrats to Steve Soto. Good catch, whatever it may mean.

When Gary Powers went down in a U-2 over Russia, then V.P. Nixon was campaigning in the countryside. WaPo carried a small one-paragraph item at the bottom of an interior page to the effect that top federal officers were paricipating in a "practice" bomb shelter drill and the White House was trying to reach Nixon "on the campaign trail" to include him.

The truth emerged a day or two later when Eisenhower admitted we had been spying on the U.S.S.R. and one of our planes had been shot down. (Even Kruschev was astonished at this breach of international diplomacy -- nations just aren't supposed to admit such things.)

I'll start hunting for my duct tape if Cheney is called to Crawford, too.

I agree with MuckDog: Bush knows his time is up, and he'd just rather spend his last few days on the Ranch, just before the mortgage comes due and Bush's got nothing and no way to pay.

hmmm

"He will be back in Texas on Saturday for his 41st visit since he was sworn into office in 2001."
Could this be an error? Bush's recent visit to PA was his 40th. Maybe they went Pennsylvania.

Oh, and Bush should be worried, considering this from the Pew Research Center.
Just under half of Americans (49%) approve of how the president is handling terrorist threats, down from 62% in early September.

ok, my bad. Although it did say Texas, not Crawford. Could this be for sometime of fundrasier/rally with a candidate. Although I guess it is late for that.

Bush Not Going to Crawford

He was. Changed his schedule. Going to FLA on Saturday. NM on Sunday.

Reported at Slate:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2108513/

Well Hell MazeDancer, I was going to pose: W is visiting his dressmaker in Crawfie for a fitting.

Ok. next conspiracy theory since we all know Karl is cooking something up.

Bushco will be "downed" trying to visit somewhere, then will be "rescued" by a special black ops team on halloween. Think Old Shoe, from 'Wag the Dog'.
(Hat adjustment) Let's just hope he don't find someone with a ..purdy mouth.. and get shot during the operation.

wow, he bailed on going to texas from just a little blogosphere tinhattery! he's easily spooked.

Boo!

As of 10/22/04 it says he plans two nights at Crawford now

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/10/22/on_the_stump_bush_slows_pace_to_his_liking/?rss_id=Boston.com%20/%20News%20/%20Politics%20/%20Recent%20Globe%20coverage