NASCAR is on, a big race this afternoon. I've had the sound down and Dick Buckley on the radio although it looked as though driver Michael Waltrip might have died so I turned the sound back on.

This is terrible but Bush is at the track, shaking hands in the pit before the race and I thought how devastating it would be if Bush attended a NASCAR race where a driver died. I mean, that would suck so bad for the White House to have a nice, flattering photo op ruined by death. And the opposition could call him a death cloud, bringing destruction wherever he goes. If the republicans are going to paint John Kerry as a North Eastern weirdo who is to the left of Ted Kennedy, I think the Dems really have to hammer Bush as somebody who leaves every campsite a little worse than he found it.

I feel bad about being opportunistic over the death of Michael Waltrip but it does seem to me that the Bush strategy is to pretend that his approaches to Afghanistan and Iraq have actually been successful and have actually completed some goal rather than simply laid the ground for some big-ass screwups in the future. And lots of folks are dying getting THAT done.