From the Aug 12 – Aug 18, 2004 issue

News

The Stranger Department of Homeland Security

BUSH REELECTION ALERT

It's not the upcoming anti-Kerry book, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, that's got me worried; that'll be dismissed as the hoax it is. Here's the real problem: Despite last week's devastating economic numbers (July's job "growth" fell 84 percent short of expectations, putting Bush on track to be the first president since Depression-era Herbert Hooverville to preside over a net decline in jobs), and despite this week's firestorm insurgency in Iraq led by increasingly popular Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, John Kerry is campaigning on... stem cell research. Look, I'm all for baiting the religious right, and I'm even pro-cloning, but this is not a stump issue. No wonder Kerry's non-bounce is becoming a metaphor about--and the story of!--Kerry's campaign. Meanwhile, Bush is successfully (and astonishingly) reclaiming the war on al Qaeda--something he'd forgotten about for, oh, two years. Bush is perfectly positioning himself for NYC's 9/11 exploitation fest. --JF