ABC News' The Note: First Source for Political News

ByABC News
September 16, 2004, 10:41 AM

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 16, 2004&#151;<br> -- NOTED NOW

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Evening Newscasts Wrap

47 days until Election Day14 days until the first proposed presidential debate19 days until the proposed vice presidential debate22 days until the second proposed presidential debate27 days until the third proposed presidential debate

NEWS SUMMARY

President Bush rocks the people of Minnesota with a focus on health care and national security.

John Kerry takes his turn at the tables in Vegas with the National Guard.

Laura Bush becomes a Jersey girl.

And it turns out that the relentlessly optimistic Bush Administration hasn't necessarily been fully reflecting all of the intelligence it has on the likely future of Iraq.

All of which perfectly sets up some questions we want answers to as soon as possible:

Will the alchemy of continued deaths in Iraq and today's boffo New York Times lead by unportly pepperpot Doug Jehl looking at the pessimistic classified National Intelligence Estimate about the conflict lead to a press and public re-focus on the president's conduct of the war? LINK

Who among us has figured out the best way to filter from "registered voters" to "likely voters" in this presidential year of unprecedented bipartisan efforts to sign up new people and turn them out on election day?

Which does the average suburban Columbus, OH housewife spend more time thinking about: the difference between the words "authentic" and "accurate" or the relative influence of Joe Lockhart versus Bob Shrum? (On such things are presidential races won and lost . . .)

Besides the following sentences, what better evidence can America find for the fact that the Associated Press' Ron Fournier is a cross between Ernest Hemingway, John King, Larry King, Solomon, and Gandhi: "For Kerry to prevail, issues need to matter more. Or voters need to think better of Kerry's character and less of the president's." LINK

Did President Bush's debate-about-debate strategy change, and, if so, how come?

Can Mike McCurry sprinkle enough of his charming bonhomie fairy dust to induce a little Stockholm Syndrome in the Kerry traveling press?

Can Steve Schmidt stop that from happening?

Are DNC interns afraid of Michael Whouley?

Can weather news completely blot out "the most important presidential campaign of our lifetime"?

Does John Kerry's decisive win in the most recent news cycle matter in the minds of an Ivan-flooded viewing public?

What the heck is happening with Ralph Nader in Florida?

Will Mark Mellman and Frank Newport ever make up?

Aside from their huge absentee and registration pushes, what other music is BC04RNC orchestrating behind the scenes?

Who taught CBS News' spokesgal Sandy Genelius to have so much grace under fire?

Has the DNC's obsessive National Guard focus worked, backfired, or had no effect?

Are the presidential campaigns and their respective national party committees at all concerned that the political press corps is on the verge of completely tuning out and deleting without reading their e-mailed press releases (with the exception of scheduling information)?

Will Sens. Kerry and Edwards completely avoid being reeled back into the Senate well in the next 40 days?

Today, Kerry speaks to the National Guard Association that received President Bush with overwhelming applause on Tuesday. And it's a sucker's bet that a large amount of the Kerry coverage today will focus on comparing the reception Kerry gets today with President Bush's.

Kerry, who will appear with Gen. Wesley Clark, will not pull his punches; according to the campaign's preview he will tell the "real situation in Iraq":

"More than a thousand Americans have been killed. Instability is rising. Violence is spreading. Extremism is growing. There are now havens for terrorists that weren't there before . . . " (We'll see if the candidate delivers the message that precisely and with passion, and, perhaps, with some references to Doug Jehl.)

In his speech to the group President Bush promised Guard and Reserve members he was "working" on their concerns about the length of and advance notice before their mobilizations. Kerry's campaign promises that he will, as he often does, call the Guard's 40 percent share of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan a "burden" and "talk about the need to strengthen our military so that the men and women of the national Guard are not bearing so much of that burden."

Kerry does not speak to the Guard Association until 3:30 pm ET. He then flies to New Mexico for an 8:15 pm ET rally in Albuquerque with Gov. Bill Richardson.

President Bush will deliver the message that the United States is winning the war on terror, including the war in Iraq, during a bus tour through Minnesota but not without holding a health care-only event in the early afternoon.

Bush comes to the state that Gore won by only 2 percentage points in 2000 with some momentum Republicans think Bush has a small lead in the state compared to a slightly larger deficit before his convention. Bush sandwiches a 10:35 am ET St. Cloud rally and a 5:05 pm ET Rochester rally with a 1:40 pm ET health care event in Blaine.

Elsewhere:

First Lady Laura Bush holds the campaign's first event in New Jersey, which only the most hopeful have so far cited as a battleground, when she speaks at an 11:15 am ET rally in Hamilton.

Vice President Cheney is in Albuquerque and Reno.

Edwards is in Portsmouth, OH before raising coin in Louisville, KY.

Teresa Heinz Kerry is in Pittsburgh.

Elizabeth Edwards is in North Carolina.

After a morning pro forma session the Senate adjourns until Monday afternoon, when it will vote on the military construction appropriations bill.

According to the Labor Department, consumer prices increased just 0.1 percent in August, below consensus estimates of 0.2 percent which means we'll expect to hear that inflation is being held in check in the BC04 talking points and that the Fed may not raise rates in a couple of months, reports ABC News' Daniel Arnall.

Full report: LINK

President Bush and the National Guard: the politics of the documents:

On Wednesday night, just as the first feeds of the evening news broadcasts were ending, CBS released a lengthy statement that: named another document examiner: James J. Pierce said Pierce and Matley still think the documents are authentic acknowledged unspecified "contradictions" in the evidence employed an even-if-the-docs-are-fake-their-content-is-true argument

The statement said, "Numerous questions have been raised about the authenticity of the documents. CBS News believes it is important for the news media to be accountable and address legitimate questions."

More from the statement: "CBS News is not prepared to reveal its confidential sources or the method by which 60 MINUTES Wednesday received the documents. CBS News' reporting determined that the source of the memos had access to the documents he provided and an opportunity to obtain copies of them. Our sources included individuals who had first-hand knowledge of the events in question."

The statement also focused on the producer behind the story: "Additionally, Mary Mapes, the producer of the report and a well-respected, veteran journalist whose credibility has never been questioned, has been following this story for more than five years. She has a vast and detailed knowledge of the issues surrounding President Bush's service in the Guard and of the individuals involved in the story. Before the report was broadcast, it was vetted and screened in accordance with CBS News standards by several veteran 60 MINUTES Wednesday senior producers and CBS News executives."

The statement said that Pierce and James "appeared on a competing network (Tuesday), where they misrepresented their conversations and communication with CBS News."

The CBS statement also asserted that they had asked two more people, an IBM typewriter technician and a computer software expert with "specific expertise relative to the documents," to examine them and they "found nothing to lead them to believe that the documents did not date back to the early 1970s."

The New York Times ' Rutenberg and Zernike write, "Inside the network, Mr. Rather's colleagues expressed growing alarm at questions about the documents' authenticity."LINK

In a telephone interview with USA Today , Rather "said repeatedly in an interview, [no one] has yet disputed 'the heart' of his report. But, he said, a 'thick partisan fogging machine seeks to cloud the core truth of our story by raising questions about the messenger, methods and techniques,'" reports Johnson and Drinkard. LINK

The Washington Post 's Howard Kurtz sits down with Dan Rather and reports, "Some friends of Rather, whose contract runs until the end of 2006, are discussing whether he might be forced to make an early exit from CBS." LINK