Kerry Haters: We're Not Fonda John

 
John F. Kerry, Liberal

Podhoretz notes that Kerry reacts to it like a vampire to a cross:

And therein hangs a fascinating tale for the rest of the campaign. Kerry found it necessary to back away, time and again, from the president’s pointblank description of him as a “liberal” — a description the president sourced to National Journal, the Washington magazine that named Kerry the “most liberal” member of the U.S. Senate in 2003. This, he said, was a “label” — and if you think he doesn’t like being labeled, you got that right. The first time, he said: “The president is just trying to scare everybody here with throwing labels around . . . I mean, seriously — labels don’t mean anything. What means something is: Do you have a plan?” The second time, he said:

“Let me just say to you, number one, don’t throw the labels around. Labels don’t mean anything.” The third time, he said: “Labels don’t fit, ladies and gentlemen.

 
Kerry Judicial Gaffe?

This one hasn't gotten any attention yet as far as I know in the post-debate analysis. When asked about judges, Bush said:

I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.

Kerry, on the other hand:

I want to make sure we have judges who interpret the Constitution of the United States according to the law.

Aren't we supposed to have judges who interpret the law according to the Constitution?

Hat Tip: My friend Ava, who called me up this morning and told me about this one.

 
ABC Takes a Side

They're trying to couch it like both sides are lying, but only one is doing it unfairly.

The Halperin memo specifically cites two articles supposedly backing up this point.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Okay, so let's go back to the original sources. I'll start with Fineman. The only thing I could find on the MSNBC website recently was this online chat, which was web-only. I read the whole thing and can find no place where Fineman strongly states that the Bush campaign is doing anything much different than the Kerry campaign. At times he acknowledges they are doing it better.

As for the Nagourney/Stevenson piece it is hilarious. They note:

To cheers in Michigan, Mr. Bush asserted that under Mr. Kerry, the nation would have to "wait for a grade from other nations and leaders'' before acting to protect itself. Mr. Kerry has repeatedly said that he would not give up the right to act pre-emptively "in any way necessary to protect the United States,'' but has suggested that any president would need to demonstrate legitimate reasons for such an action.

This is one place where Kerry actually benefits from his flip-flopping; because when accused of one position, his defenders can always point to the other. Suppose the Bush campaign had come out after the first debate and said "Kerry's a unilateralist! He said that he'd never wait for approval from any other nation before engaging in a preemptive war!" Nagourney would be able to write the same column, but this time he'd defend Kerry with the opposite point; after all, hadn't Kerry said he would insist on a global test?

"Rove and Reed were schooled by Lee and he told them that what you do is you rip the bark off liberals.'' said Marshall Wittman, a former senior aide to Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, and is registered as an independent. "Even if they're not liberals you rip the bark off them. That's what they are doing. "

Rolling my eyes here. Kerry is not a liberal? In five out of the last six years, the Senator that Kerry has voted most like, according to the Americans for Democratic Action, is Ted Kennedy.

Halperin may think he's just being fair by accepting Nagourney's piece at face value, but in fact he's swallowing Kerry campaign spin.

 
Steyn Popeils Edwards

One of the funniest columns in a couple weeks.

I don't care about Edwards' dad and his heartwarming, sepia-hued vignettes any more than I cared about the mythical ''coatless girl'' he used to cite in his primary speeches: a wee shivering thing whose coatlessness was supposedly a result of Bush-Cheney reducing her parents to poverty. I offered to buy a coat for any authentically coatless girl the campaign managed to produce. Not the most generous offer on my part -- girls' winter coats are $9.99 at Wal-Mart -- but the Edwards camp never took me up on it. Do you recognize this Dickensian image of America? It's true there are some folks who are having a tough time finding work in certain Rust Belt states. In 2003, the U.S. unemployment rate was 6 percent, which is considered high. In Canada it was 7.8 percent; France 9.7 percent; Germany 10.5 percent -- and in the last two cases these levels are permanent features of the landscape, as they would be in America if the Democrats ever get the opportunity to impose the Franco-German high-cost social welfare/government health care system John Kerry admires so much. America's ''bright light'' isn't ''flickering.'' It's Europe where the lights are about to go out, permanently.

So, when John Edwards starts doing his John-Boy Walton routine, I say put a sock in it. If necessary, borrow a sock from the coatless girl, if her dad hasn't sold her socks to raise the trolley-car fare to send her for an interview for the chimney sweep's job at the robber baron's mansion on the other side of town.

I think the Edwards smarmarama is ridiculous. It's all about oil, as the anti-war lefties say, and on Tuesday night the oiliness was practically oozing through the TV screen and all over the floor. If every Democratic candidate was as unctuous and oleaginous as Edwards, gas would be 50 cents a gallon and we could tell the Saudis to go to hell.

This is one to put down the coffee for; you don't want to be wiping it off your monitor when you burst out laughing.

 
Congrats to the Aussies!

They appear to have elected John Howard to a fourth term as Prime Minister.

Opposition Leader Mark Latham needed to win 12 seats going into the election to win power.

But the ALP has lost two seats in Tasmania in a voter backlash against Mr Latham's plan to save the old-growth forests.

Labor was also struggling in other key marginal seats.

Liberal party powerbroker Michael Kroger said Mr Howard had won the election.

"The show's over - John Howard has been re-elected," Mr Kroger told the Nine network.

Labor MP and strategist Stephen Smith said his party lacked the momentum to win the required number of marginal seats to secure government.

"It's grim with a capital G, and trouble with a capital T," he told ABC TV.

This is a win for the coalition, a win for the President, and a win for the Australians. The losers are the backsliders, the folks who want to go back to chasing terrorists with subpoenas instead of killing them.

 
Bush Wins, Kerry Not Much Damaged

It was obviously a much better debate for the President. I still wonder why he didn't hit Kerry on bunker busting nukes and nuclear fuel for Iran; basically Kerry is saying that he trusts the mullahs more than he does the United States.

Crush Kerry scores again with their prediction that Bush would come out hard on Kerry as a liberal. Now's a good time to look again at my comment about Kerry voting most like Ted Kennedy out of all the Senators.

 
STONE COLD LIBERALISM

John Kerry's press conference yesterday only underscores why Democrats cannot be trusted with our security. The DNC and Kerry campaign spent hours skimming past all the information in the Dalfour report that spoke of Saddam Hussein's ties with North Korea, Russia, France and Germany in obtaining banned weapons technology and his intention to go around the sanctions to begin developing more WMDs...only to find the one liner, "No Weapons of Mass Destruction."

So hear you have it. Saddam Hussein wasn't dangerous enough. He didn't pay enough money to homicide bombers. Hussein didn't harbor enough terrorists (i.e. Saddam Hussein was not bunking with Usama). Saddam Hussein did not slaughter enough of his own people.

How does a candidate in the United States of America stand on the side of murderous dictators by calling their removal a mistake?

Some say 9/11 was punishment for a sinful nation. I disagree. 9/11 was a test to see if our nation is still deserving of God's blessing.

This election is that test: vote for the person who can lie to your face with a straight face taking no responsibility for any of his actions or role in our government for the last 30 years; or vote for the man who has made mistakes, who is flawed, but spends every waking moment trying to improve our security by actively seeking citizen and divine support.

The choice is clear: if you cannot get around your mythologizing about the republicans in order to secure our freedom then whatever happens next we do deserve.

 
BUSH TOTALLY WON. I CANNOT THINK OF A PUNDIT WHO IS HONEST WHO THINKS OTHERWISE.

 
AMAZING: Supreme Court judges come up.

Bush blew this one by not bringing up obstructionists in the Senate and the gay marriage.

Kerry goes the women's right to choose route. He should lose on that one if there is a rebuttal.

No rebuttal! Grrrr.

 
WOW! I love Elizabeth! Adult stem cells are offering real scientific progress and no embryonic stem cells have cured no one. Thank God for someone who KNOWS WHAT SHE IS TALKING ABOUT!

Kerry is totally wavering on this question; he is just listing celebrities that he knows.

Bush is the only person to bring up the word Ethics!

But Bush is not hammering home what he should: Where is the end of this? Should we just create clones and harvest organs would have been a great rebuttal.

 
Domestic Issues:

Bush is doing a fine job. Kerry is throwing out 20 year old bombs (like the 20 year old WMD in Iraq) and the people are not buying.

TAXING JOB CREATORS! Excellent.

I am surprised at the great level of non-partisanship of the questions and the scope of the questions.

I am glad the Patriot Act came up...I hope Bush hammers this one home as a terrorist finding tool.

 
John Kerry is looking like Frankenstein.

 
No slouch in Bush. Kerry hamming it up too much!

The light is too bright on the candidates, makes Kery look dead.

Flip flop is the first question. Kerry does so-so. Bush does very well.

The second question brings out the best in Bush. Kerry is making him irritated and he is laughing this time. Perfect!

Kerry keeps talking about Allies! Wonderful!

 
LIVE CONVENTION BLOGGING TONIGHT

I slept through the VP debate--frustrated with W's performance in the first. But when I woke up the next morning it was like Christmas! And Dick Cheney was Santa Claus spreading good will to all republicans that the adults are, in fact, in charge.

I return tonight with a more reserved expectation for the President. He better do well! I suspect he will.

Pat reported earlier that Crush Kerry was tipped off by a DNC insider that they were able to get some bomb throwers into the debate room. I will look for them and let's hope they show up in all their Kerry-circa 1971-glory.

 
The Sliming of Allawi Continues

Just read this over at the Kerry Spot.

William Kristol’s editorial, “Disgraceful” (Oct. 4), lives up to its name by failing to note that Prime Minister Allawi’s “impressive speech” to Congress was likely drafted by political operatives for President Bush’s reelection campaign.
Can we count on this prime minister to honor the election results here
in America if Sen. Kerry wins?

Mike McCurry
Senior Adviser, Kerry-Edwards 2004
Washington, DC

The Kerry Spot says that the Weekly Standard confirms that the letter is authentic and came from McCurry. You think this could be more Clintonista sabotage of the Kerry Campaign? Why would he say "likely"; doesn't that make it obvious that he doesn't know?

 
Newly Discovered 1968 Letter from John F. Kerry to Ted Kennedy!

Kerry Haters is pleased to announce that it has been provided with a faxed copy of a faxed copy of a 1968 letter that appears to be from John F. Kerry to Ted Kennedy, by an absolutely unimpeachable source (C.R. Mote). Our handwriting and typography experts identified it as having been typed by the same miraculous typewriter than produced the Texas Air National Guard memos that CBS and Dan Rather so courageously reported a few weeks ago.

As you can see, this letter sheds new light on young Lieutenant Kerry and backs up his claim of having been in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968. The text of the letter is as follows:

December 25th, 1968

My Dearest Senator Kennedy,

Here, at the helm of my trusty swift boat, a modern “PT109”, on a nameless tributary somewhere in the depths of Cambodia, dodging a deadly maelstrom of Khmer Rouge and friendly fire, I find myself thinking of better times ahead. I curse Nixon for getting us into this quagmire. Although we have yet to face the test of fire, my two purple hearts to date are a painful reminder of the dangers of firing point blank into the nearby rocks or rice piles. I must confess that although I was once technically “for” this war, knowing what we now know, I’m clearly against it. It’s the wrong war at the wrong time with a capital “W”, and when I too become a member of Congress, be assured that I will follow your lead in voting against military funding of any kind. Just one more purple heart and I’m out of here. Please join me in praying that this can be achieved without serious injury requiring hospitalization.

Enclosed is an Soviet-made AK47 assault rifle captured from a fleeing Viet Cong guerilla I killed yesterday, a bush hat given to me by an admiring Green Beret as I dropped him off in Cambodia, an extra set of decorations, and several 8mm re-enactment films documenting my heroism. My personal favorite shows me windsurfing under intense fire on the Mekong Delta. Could you please keep these in a safe place until my return? Also enclosed is a case of your favorite Scotch obtained on the Saigon black market. Speaking of Saigon, you would adore the hookers here. They love you long time for just a few Dong, never hold press conferences, and are very strong swimmers. In an effort to foster harmony between us and the less fortunate types, I’ve even taught some of them a little English, such as “Bring it on!” and “Oh John, you Numbah One Big Stud-Man”.

My tenure as Student Body President at Yale, Captain of the rugby squad, Grand Master of the Skull & Bones Society, and big game hunting prepared me well for commanding legions of lesser men in battle. Nevertheless, the brutal atrocities, rapes, torture, beheadings, lynchings, hate crimes, ear cuttings and homophobia I hear about on a daily basis and popularity of the anti-war movement back home have convinced me that once I’m safe back in the U.S., I’ll speak out. If providence wills that I return safely, could you perhaps arrange for me to testify before Congress? I’ll wear my uniform shirt and ribbons and make you proud.

The most frustrating part is that my so-called commanders here don’t seem to understand or care that I have a plan to win this war. If I could simply meet with the fraternal North Vietnamese leadership, preferably in Paris, I’m certain I have the credibility to build a united coalition of nations to peacefully defeat the capitalist enemy in Washington. Many foreign leaders and celebrities enthusiastically support my plans and want me to succeed. Just the other day, a high ranking politician from an influential country told me how much they need me to run for high office for the good of all mankind. My French is a bit rusty, but I’m certain this is what he said. I cannot divulge his name due to security concerns. Anything you could do to arrange such a mission of peace would be gratefully appreciated. By the way, if you run into anyone from a group called the “Vietnam Veterans Against the War”, make sure they know you’re the “ANTI-WAR Senator from Massachusetts”. Many of them are heroin addicts or psych cases, so you’ll need to very clear on this point. I’ll explain later.

The steely-eyed combat hero speaking to you today is a far cry from the starry-eyed innocent who so eagerly reported for duty those many months ago. Ah, how I long for those carefree summers in the Irish quarter of our beloved Massachusetts, working in my Irish immigrant Father’s Planned Parenthood clinic. There, I learned to recognize inherited wealth as the bedrock of any loving relationship (or civil union) between a man and women. By the way, I’m sorry to hear about your sister’s impending divorce. Could you please forward her address and phone number so I can offer my heartfelt comfort and support when I get back to the States?

Well, I need to write some after-action reports and medal recommendations, so I’ll close for now. As you well know, no job is complete until the paperwork is done. Merry Christmas to you, Joan and the kids.

Your Faithful Servant and Admirer Always,

Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kerry

PS – Sorry to hear about that unfortunate Chappaquiddick incident. Please know that I have written a formal letter to the Boston Globe calling for a public holiday in recognition of your selfless heroism in repeatedly attempting to save that secretary. I personally attested to the fact that you were not “drunk”, not having an “affair”, and that delirium from a serious head injury is what prevented you from notifying the police until the next day. I shall stand firmly by your side in the face of the right wing smear tactics being leveled against you, and look forward to the day that we can work together, arm-in-arm, to forge a new America.

 
Get Out Your Hankies!

A very moving post on President Bush can be found here.

 
Voter Fraud Watch

I'm afraid that we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg here.

After confirming that information on almost all of the forms was either fake or wrong, election officials contacted SLED (State Law Enforcement Division), which in turn contacted Clements.

According to the arrest affidavit provided by SLED, Hines was employed by the South Carolina Progressive Network.

The Progressive Network's Web site describes the organization as a broad-based coalition of advocacy groups and individual activists from across the state who have joined forces to promote social and economic change in South Carolina.

Here's the Progressive Network's website. They claim to have turned the culprit in, although the newspaper story does not indicate that. (Correction: The newspaper story does indeed say that the Progressive Network turned in the culprit; that's what I get for not reading the whole story).

 
Goober What?

Chris at Kerry Waffles is back up again, we hope for the duration. He's got another one of his amazing emails from the Heinz Center, this time with a very special secret word: Goobernaculum!

 
Faulty Intelligence? Who's to Blame

Oak Leaf and Lorie Byrd at Polipundit have another great post on Senator Kerry that asks, "who was responsible to assure that the appropriate departments and agencies of the United States provide informed and timely intelligence necessary for the executive branch to make sound decisions affecting the security of the Nation?"

The answer is the Senate Intelligence Committee.

And who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, (not that you'd know it from his attendance record)?

 
From CadetHappy:

JOHN KERRY STILL HIDING MILITARY RECORD
What kind of discharge did he receive upon leaving active duty? Did he receive a dishonorable discharge? Was he AWOL? Things just get curiouser and curiouser....
Hat tip Blogs4Facts!

 
Kerry Magazine Story Contest Results

We put up a post on Wednesday pointing out that some of Kerry's weirdest lies have come from him attempting to come up with a story that fits the particular magazine. In Runner's World, it was his Boston Marathon, in Field & Stream his encouter with the largest buck in Cape Cod history. We suggested a contest whereby bloggers and commenters could come up with a new fantastic "experience" that Kerry could talk about that would suit a particular magazine.

The results were rather amazing. We had 34 comments on the post and five trackbacks, both of which I believe are records for Kerry Haters. Thanks to all the blogs that linked us, especially Tim Blair, Betsy's Page, Crush Kerry and Polipundit.

I decided to make up a judging scorecard rather than try to remember so many entries at once. I graded the posts from 5-10 points on the magazine selected, with higher ratings for real but obscure publications and lower ratings for common or imaginary publications. I graded the posts from 1-10 on humor, and also on the "tall tale aspect", and also on the extent to which the story tied into other facts/patterns about Nuancy Boy (lots of memories "seared--seared" in his brain). I added 1-5 points for including evidence within the story that Kerry was lying. And finally I added up to 5 points as a bonus for entries that went a step beyond; more on those later.

When I added up the scores, the best entry was pretty obvious, scoring 44 points out of the 50 possible. No other entry scored over 41 points, so I feel comfortable in awarding the grand prize to Carnivorous Conservative, for his entry, appropriately enough, on Kerry's Gold Medal at the Olympic Games.

Second prize goes to Tim Blair for his entry from The Hat Magazine. Paul Z and Bill S split third prize overall for their entries (in the comments section) for Dell Math Puzzles and Logic Problems and Model Railroader Magazine.

Best Magazine goes to Quincy in the comments for AA Today. The funniest entry was from Everything Under the Sun for Kerry's reminiscences of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series for Sports Illustrated. The tallest tale goes to Director Blue for his entry for True Windsurfing Magazine.

Special bonus awards to GOP & the City for his hilarious cover of Cowgirl Monthly, David N in the comments for his mention of Bertie Wooster (one of my five favorite characters from literature), Fatman for loads o' links in his Mountain Astrologer post, Dorkafork for his Time Tunnel photo gag for Isaac Asimov's Sci-Fi Mag
and Quincy in the comments for multiple amusing submissions.

Thanks to all the other bloggers who participated with their entries to the following mags:

Manifest Content Popular Mechanics

Blue States for Bush MAC World/PC World

Ipse Dixit Hinduism Magazine

 
October Surprise from the Swiftees?

We've all heard the rumors that the Swift Boat Veterans have one more trump card remaining, that they're holding back until it can be played with maximum impact. Is it, as some have suggested, photos or film of John Kerry burning or otherwise defacing an American flag, which would surely demolish the Kerry campaign?

Developing....

 
ABOUT TONIGHT’S DEBATE



DNC Soucre: Rumor that Radicals Have Penetrated Town Hall Debate
In a not-too-surprising development, Democrats and their allies in the more radical elements of political activism believe they have penetrated the town hall forum and will be represented in the audience of so-called “swing voters” at tonight’s debate.
According to the Gallop organization, who was responsible for selecting the voters in tonight’s debate audience, the participants may have opinions about the candidates. They may be leaning to one candidate or the other. But they must also have told a Gallup representative that they might still vote for the other guy. The participants were chosen at random through phone interviews conducted by Gallop.

 
KERRY’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURES: THE MOVIE!



Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry
Reviewed by James Bowman
[I]n George Butler’s Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry, I think we have a winner. This paean to the Democratic standard-bearer as a Lincolnesque figure, a war hero and also a hero of the (Vietnam) anti-war movement, actually might change some minds — those of wavering Kerry supporters who may well be persuaded by it to vote for Bush.
…
Butler himself must have a dim appreciaton of the fact that he is doing Kerry no favors by associating him so closely with the anti-war movement, since he leaves out Kerry’s bout of hysteria — which he now professes to regard as nothing but a poor choice of words — in accusing his fellow veterans of the most appalling atrocities and war crimes. Nor is there any mention of the fact that the Winter Soldier hearings in Detroit, at which we see Kerry as an observer, were subsequently discredited, or of his disloyal if not positively treasonous trip to Paris for separate talks with the North Vietnamese. Maybe there were some excesses. Mistakes were made. But if Kerry now thinks that any of his activities at the time were mistaken, we do not hear about it from George Butler. Not only Kerry but the movement with which he was so closely identified receive not a word of criticism here.

Going Upriver (the movie):
Directed by: George Butler
Writing credits: Douglas Brinkley (novel) & Joseph Dorman

Going up the (virtual) river with Kerry (the online game):
John Kerry and the men of Swift Boat PCF-94
Silver Star
Mekong Delta, Vietnam 1969

 
Democrats Just Too Dumb

That seems to be the common thread linking two seemingly unrelated stories today.

In Duval County (Jacksonville), Florida, there is bitterness about how many black votes were thrown out in 2000 due to double voting.

The biggest problem, though, was the ballot. Elections Supervisor John Stafford printed the lengthy list of mostly obscure presidential candidates on two pages. Many, including first-time African-American voters mobilized by church and union groups, cast a vote on the first page and another on the second. A ballot with two presidential votes is invalid and not eligible for recount examination.

Meanwhile, over in SoCal, some Democrats could not wait for the Vice Presidential Debate to begin. They were in such a rush to email their impressions of John Edwards' performance to the LA Times, that they sent them before the debate even began.

The e-mails were all sent Tuesday, before the 6 p.m. debate began, but they lauded Democratic Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards' performance. They criticized Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, and some warned against the GOP's post-debate spin.

 
Voter Fraud: Coming to a Notorious County in Florida

Palm Beach County is getting its second 15 minutes of fame.

Theresa LePore vowed to close the Palm Beach County elections office at 5 p.m. Monday, the final day to register to vote in the Nov. 2 election, but a young man who arrived about 15 minutes after the deadline managed to drop off 550 applications on behalf of a group of Muslims determined to oust President Bush.

LePore, no stranger to confrontations, said the man demanded she accept the bundles of voter registration applications attached to slips of paper identifying them as having been collected by Voting Is Power, which goes by the acronym VIP and is an offshoot of the Washington-based Muslim American Society.

 
Peace, Man



Nothing more pathetic than an old hippie.

 
Kerry's Character

Hugh Hewitt has asked bloggers to submit their takes on the following question:

"What do Kerry's answers to today's press inquiries tell us about Kerry's worldview and character?"

Hugh posted the questions and answers here.

I'll take the second part of the question first. Kerry's answers to today's press inquiries tell me nothing about Kerry's character. Nothing, that is, that I did not know before.

Kerry is a one-cookie kid. Many years ago there was an experiment where they gave small children (say around 5 years old) a cookie. The children were told that they could eat the cookie whenever they wanted, but if they waited for five minutes, they would be given a second cookie. Of course, a fair number of children promptly put the first cookie in their mouth and started chewing.

Then they followed the kids as they aged. Very quickly it became apparent that the one-cookie kids were more likely to get in trouble with school and the law, to get pregnant, etc. This is not surprising; a lot of getting ahead in life involves delayed gratification, but a lot of people are not interested in waiting.

Kerry seemingly was a two cookie kid early on. While not a diligent student (according to his own account), he put in his time at Yale, then went off to Vietnam. But somewhere during his second tour of duty, he decided that he wanted to have that cookie now, and so he began his medal collection. People talk about him accumulating so many medals in 4 months, but really he acquired all of his medals except the first Purple Heart in the course of 23 days, from February 20 to March 13, 1968!

When he got home Kerry at first seemed disinterested in the antiwar movement. It was only when his sister got him to fly Adam Walinsky around to events that Kerry saw the opportunity to grab for the cookie. He obviously harbored political ambitions; how better to gain the name recognition that would serve him well than to get out in front of the antiwar movement?

And at first, Kerry seemed to have succeeded spectacularly. He testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he appeared on Meet the Press and the Dick Cavett Show. He seemed to be on a glide path to Congress in 1972, after winning the Democratic primary. But the Lowell Sun scorched Kerry with front page editorials branding him a carpetbagger (which he was) and out of touch with the working class of his district (gee, ya think?).

So Kerry seemingly went back to being patient. He went to law school, then took a job as a prosecutor, and also (oddly enough) started a small cookie store. But even here he was taking bites out of the cookie. He sought and got the assistant prosecutor's job only a few months out of law school, over experienced prosecutors. And the plans for the cookie company were reportedly stolen from a company that franchised very similar cookie stores.

To summarize, Kerry has always pursued short term advantage, sometimes quite myopically at the expense of greater long term success. This can be seen in his support for the nuclear freeze movement, a one-cookie phenomenon of the 1980s. It continued with his embarrassing performance in Nicaragua, where he was photographed shaking hands with Daniel Ortega.

Kerry's continual lying about his exploits is classic one-cookie behavior. The liar gains short term adulation at the dinner party or in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or reporters easily impressed with tales of a magic hat. But long term he finds that his fantastic tales earn him the scorn of honest men and women who don't appreciate being lied to or about.

Kerry helped himself to a cookie when he got overconfident in the debate last week, and got long term headaches in the form of his asinine comments against nuclear bunker busting bombs and in favor of a global test. And he has reached in the cookie jar again with the idiotic comments today about Shinseki and comparing Iraq to Lebanon. Kerry hopes that he can get such stuff on the air and in the papers and it will go unchallenged by his friends in the liberal media.

Sorry, John, but the pajamahadeen won't let them get away with it anymore. And not just the pajamahadeen. Look at Hugh's post. It contains a lot of quotes from CNN, Fox and the Washington Times demolishing Kerry's assertion that Shinseki was fired early for voicing unpopular thoughts.

As for Kerry's worldview, it is bleak and weak. He cares not a whit that he sabotages Iraq's potential for future success with his frequent carping about Allawi and the ridiculous comparison to Lebanon. JFK, Just For Kerry.

 


'Bucket Mouth' Urges Democrats to 'Vote Often'

"Vote early and vote often" has long been the Democrat establishment's slogan. Now, as the party cranks up its election fraud machine more zealously than ever before, [Terroreza] Heinz Kerry has a slight update:

"Vote often and vote well."

That's what the aspiring first lady said during a recent appearance in Minneapolis. When readers first alerted us, we found the claims too outrageous to believe, but we tracked down her quotation in the liberal St. Paul Pioneer Press.

There is one positive aspect to the appallingly cynical comment: At least she didn't say it in a Chicago cemetery.

Thanks, Newsmax.

 
Real Cheeseheads Vote Bush



Not guys who refer to the frozen tundra as "Lambert Field".

 
Senator Gone

Kerry Haters reader (and my sister) Carol sent us this editorial from the Pilot Newspaper, the small North Carolina newspaper that Vice President Cheney mentioned on Tuesday during the VP debate had taken to calling John Edwards "Senator Gone". The Pilot, apparently embarrassed at being cited in this fashion, wrote in an editorial that they'd only called Edwards that once.

"I don't think it was at all accurate to say we have 'taken to calling' the senator anything," Bouser said. "Remember, this was a one-time reference in an editorial that appeared 15 months ago."

Here's the beginning of the 2003 editorial:

During his 30 years in Washington, Jesse Helms was known as Senator No. Four and a half years into his first term, John Edwards is becoming known as Senator Gone.

That's because Edwards, North Carolina's senior senator, has developed a habit of missing floor votes while on the campaign trail in pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination. He missed every vote last week, and since the beginning of June, he has cast 14 votes while missing 16.

 
Blogger Roundup

If you didn't notice her posts this morning, Kitty is back in her jammies again! You can hear about her road trip here.

Superhawk over at Right Wingnuthouse has an excellent and passionate post (strong language) on the Duelfer Report.

When Flip Flop says he continuously told the President to put more troops into Iraq, he's lying.

When he says he's had one consistent position on Iraq, he's lying.

When he says that he has a plan for Iraq and the President doesn't, he's lying.

On a lighter note, Cadet Happy has been busy. I wanted to link to this picture the other day, but it got mentioned on the Hugh Hewitt show, and the resulting traffic made it hard to get the pic to come up. You have to scroll down a bit to see the pictures, but it's worth it! He's also got a look at that sunny optimist, John Kerry. You know, I link to Cadet Happy a fair amount because I love his photoshop gags, but he can write as well.

Chicago Ray, whom I should link to more often, has a good caption for one of the strangest pictures of Kerry we've seen yet.

Cactus Road reminds us that one of these losers comes along every decade.

 
Moo-On Versus the Swiftees

KH reader Grant (who provides us with links to 4-5 wonderful stories daily as well as the editorial we published below on the Australian election) pointed us to this article on Mark Steyn's website, comparing the effectiveness of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to the impotence of MoveOn.

The Swiftees rarely get cited as an example of a new energizing force, only as the umpteenth coachload of “Republican-funded smear merchants”. But they changed the dynamic of the Presidential race. They paralysed the Kerry campaign, deprived it of its only theme and left it floundering in search of another. They forced John Kerry himself into hiding from interviewers for over a month. They led to mockery of his Vietnam campaign strategy by mainstream Republicans like Bob Dole and criticism of it by mainstream Democrats like Bill Clinton. They prompted Kerry to hire hundreds of new advisors to add to the thousands of old ones, and thereby obliged the snooty old media, who’d barely given the Swiftee “Republican liars” the time of day, to start running stories on the crisis in the Senator’s campaign. As the icing on the cake, one of Kerry’s medals is now the subject of an official US Navy investigation.

That last point has been superseded by events (the Navy decided not to investigate), but the rest is true. MoveOn has turned out to be a classic paper tiger, great at raising money but ineffective at using it to change the national debate. Indeed, as Steyn points out, they are hindering Kerry's campaign by making it difficult for him to tack towards the center. Can anybody remember any time MoveOn made a splash, other than when they were embarrassed when it was found that they had ads comparing the President to Hitler on their website?

On the subject of the Swiftees, here's another good article from the Washington Times.

 
Guest Column from Australia

Kerry Haters reader Grant from Australia reminds us that the US is not the only coalition partner going to the polls soon; the folks Down Under hold elections this Saturday. Grant mentioned that he was thinking of doing an editorial, and I immediately offered to post it to our audience. The details are specific to Australia, but there are some broad themes throughout the piece that should resonate here.

Some of the references will be unfamiliar to American readers, so I will explain. First, Labor is the left party in Australia (comparable to the Democrats) while the Liberals are the center-right party (comparable to the Republicans). The "children overboard affair" refers to a suspect allegation in 2001 by the Howard government that illegal immigrants en route to Australia had thrown their children overboard (apparently in order to get the Australian Navy to rescue them). The "ladder of opportunity" is a catchphrase used by the Labor Party leader Mark Latham.

Here's Grant's editorial:

Do I think John Howard lied to the country about the “children overboard affair”? For me the answer is not clear, but if I had to put my money on one side or the other I am enough of a realist to expect I would get better odds for the case that he did than for the case that he didn’t.

I am also enough of a realist to know that politicians through the ages and from all sides of politics and all walks of life are less than forthcoming with the facts when it suits them. But does any of this mean that on Election Day on October 9 I am going to do anything other than what I would have done every other election since becoming eligible to vote? Absolutely not: I am going to vote for John Howard and the Coalition Party to lead the government for another 4 years.

Does it bother me that I am voting for someone who more possibly than not lied to the nation in the last election campaign about refugees throwing their children in the water to force Australia’s political hand? No it does not; I am not that hell bent on exacting retribution on a virtual stranger to satisfy some sort of need for personal affirmation.

For a stranger is something John Howard largely is to me and a stranger I hope he largely remains for the rest of my life along with all other Prime Ministers and politicians for that matter. You see politicians are not an important factor in the success or otherwise of my life – that is my responsibility – which is why I consider politics to be extremely important.

So whilst the character of John Howard as a politician is of little if any consequence to my personal feelings of well-being, the character of his politics is.

As the country flirts with the prospect of electing a Labor government after eight years of the Liberal/National coalition, I often wonder at what point in the progression and evaluation of a conservative party’s time in office does the majority of the voting public forget why they appointed them in the first place.

Mark Latham’s “ladder of opportunity” might evoke visions of an Australian society for which we would all most likely want to aspire. And it might also resonate more with individuals who contrast his “macro” visions with the more “micro” approach to policy that Howard takes.

But therein lies the key difference between the two leaders: Latham who puts his vision first and leaves others to sort out the details; and Howard who puts the detail first and empowers the individual to his or her own vision of how best to take advantage of it.

Eight years of empowering individuals to make their own choices and create their own opportunities can – and has – left the Howard government susceptible to the Opposition’s charge during that time that they have had no major achievements.

By contrast, over the last 30 years the Australian public can point to many memorable achievements of Labour governments; Medicare, free higher education and a centralised wage system to name just a few. It is revealing that Latham wants to re-visit all of these issues but it is especially that after 3 decades the first of these institutions, Medicare – which was designed by Latham’s mentor Whitlam to provide free health care for ALL Australians is now being repackaged with the free component only available to those over 75. The second of them also designed by Whitlam to make higher education available to everyone irrespective of wealth, would, under Latham, result in individuals missing out on places at university irrespective of wealth.

Perhaps it is difficult to point specifically to tangible evidence of what Howard’s government has “done” but perhaps the more appropriate question to ask is what has Howard’s government allowed the individual to do? After all, as Ayn Rand often pointed out, throughout the history of mankind there is a high correlation between the concentration of political power and government sponsored monument building: would individuals with their own money in their own hands have been inspired, as England’s “New Labour” Prime Minister Tony Blair was, to build the Millennium Dome?

Whilst Latham has grand visions of building his ladder of opportunity he fails to point out that there is only one ladder for everyone to climb and that it is the only way to access the opportunities at the top of the ladder – that is the price we must all pay for having government build the ladder in the first place.

And what of those who, under Howard, have chosen to build their own ladder – or for that matter some other form of elevation device that may function better (or worse) than a ladder? A cursory look at Latham’s social and economic policies is all that is needed to realise that these custom built devices would no doubt be rendered incompatible and would most likely end up on the scrap heap and their owners forced to the bottom of Latham’s ladder (read unemployment) to wait their turn (if they are lucky) to climb a few rungs at some later yet-to-be-determined date. By contrast, Howard’s policies do not pretend to provide the end – note Latham only talks of there being one ladder – just the means.

So the question of whether or not I believe Howard on the “Children Overboard” affair is not nearly as relevant to me as the question of whether it MATTERS to me: and the answer to that question is “NO”. This is the harsh but accurate conclusion of someone who assesses it politically from an individualists perspective. That is not to say that the issue was not important for some individuals but, like the policies of Howard and Latham there are contrasting means by which individuals might respond: one demands the empowerment of the individual to make choices and act; the other demands that others act on the individuals behalf.

Irrespective of who wins the election on Saturday, I understand that life demands action on the part of the individual to further his or her own cause and interests. Those who defer that obligation to others ultimately fail. Knowing that, the choice of Prime Minister is a choice between some-one whose policies are designed to empower individuals to pursue their own path of progress or someone whose policies are designed to give the individual no other option but to get in line and wait their turn.

So on Saturday when given the opportunity to choose between Howard and Latham, the fact that the former may have not been entirely truthful about an incident that occurred nearly 3 years ago matters little to me whilst the fact that I believe uncategorically the future intentions of the latter matters a great deal.

(Pat again: Great article, Grant! We'll be crossing our fingers for John Howard on Saturday!)

 
Kerry's Liberal Voting Record

Crush Kerry advises us that is going to be the theme for the next few weeks, so I thought I would take a look at Kerry's votes and see whom he votes most like. As a reference source, I used the Americans for Democratic Action's website, which is considered the gold standard for liberalism in America. The ADA has compiled voting records for each member of Congress since 1947.

I looked year by year, vote by vote. I ignored any votes where Kerry was not present.

For example, in 2003, Kerry scored an 85 by the ADA ratings; he was dinged for three votes for which he was not present. On the 17 votes where he was present, he voted exactly the same way as Ted Kennedy. Therefore, for 2003, Kerry is most comparable to Ted Kennedy. Working the same way in each of the following years, Kerry was most comparable to the following Senators (Percentage of agreement in parentheses):

2003: Ted Kennedy (100%)
2002: Joe Lieberman (100%)
2001: Ted Kennedy (100%)
2000: Ted Kennedy (100%)
1999: Ted Kennedy (100%)
1998: Ted Kennedy (100%)

Are we beginning to see a pattern here? For those six years, over the course of 120 votes, Kerry cast exactly three votes (among those considered crucial by the ADA) opposite from Ted Kennedy, and all of those were in 2002 when Kerry was running for reelection. I couldn't read the 1997 ratings (looks like they scanned in a copy of their bulletin), but in 1996 (another reelection year for Kerry), he also cast three votes opposite from Teddy the K.

1996: Russ Feingold (100%)

Before that the ADA does not show the individual votes to do an exact comparison.

Conclusion: If you consider Ted Kennedy's voting record very liberal (as I assume most of my readers do), then John Kerry's voting record is also very liberal.

 
Not Enough Body Armor for "All" The Troops? Not an Issue

Lorie Byrd and Oak Leaf expose the nonsense of Kerry's claim that the Bush Administration "sent 40,000 American troops into Iraq without the body armor they needed."

One must first understand that in the Army, “equipment” is either individual equipment (personal property) or organizational equipment (unit property). Individual equipment would include such items as a uniform, while organizational equipment would include things like canteens, compasses, helmets and yes, body armor.

As Lucianne would say, this is a MUST READ piece. Oak Leaf and Lorie have been doing a magnificent job this election season, but never better than this.

 
Contest Update

Crush Kerry was kind enough to link to our contest this morning, so I am going to set the deadline for entries at 5:00 PM my time, which is 8:00 PM eastern time. I'll post links to all the blog entries on Friday morning along with my selection of the winner. We've had a lot of great entries so far, so put on your lucky hats!

 
Why Kerry Gets Tied Into Knots

It's pretty simple, really. It's because he's not telling the truth. People who tell the truth don't find themselves facing logical inconsistencies.

Look at Iraq. Kerry voted for the war in Iraq, but voted against the $87 billion package to equip our troops with body armor and rebuild the country. Although much of the criticism of Kerry has been over that $87 billion vote, at least there he was being honest and representing the activist base of his party. The vote in favor of the war was a dishonest vote on his part, a political strategy designed to maintain his viability.

Sam Nunn famously voted against the first Persian Gulf War. As one of the few Democrats with credibility on national defense, Nunn gave cover to his more dovish fellow partisans. Kerry, of course, voted against that war, as he has consistently voted against projections of American power around the globe. Nunn remarked in his book that particular vote had quashed any chance he had of becoming President.

The lesson was not lost on his fellow Democrats. This time around, all the donkeys with national aspirations (which is half of the House of Representatives and all of the Senators) voted in favor of the war: Kerry, Biden, Daschle, Clinton, Gephardt, Lieberman, Edwards, etc. But it was a dishonest vote for most of them, a vote where they placed their political ambitions above their own instincts.

Then came Howard Dean, and all of a sudden their political ambitions were in danger of being flushed down the toilet. So Kerry and Edwards hurriedly got on the other side by voting against the body armor and reconstruction funds. A despicable vote, but at least it represented their convictions.

Since then Kerry has been like a weather vane, turning with each gust of wind. When Saddam was captured, Kerry proudly noted his vote against the war. As casualties mounted, Kerry proudly noted his vote against the troops.

There is nothing consistent in Kerry's statements or his votes on the war, except this: that they have always been gauged with a gimlet eye towards what will do the most to help John F. Kerry. Not what will do the most to help America, not what will do the most to help the world. As we have commented many times, JFK stands for Just For Kerry.

 
FROM CRUSH KERRY



Two good pieces from our buddies at CK:
While John Kerry and his girlfriend John Edwards denigrate the first free and fair elections in Afghanistan and Iraq and erroneously accuse Republicans of trying to suppress the black vote, their own minions have begun to turn to violence, intimidation and the destruction of private property. Call it righteous frustration. Call it street justice. Call it childish behavior. Call it the acts of desperate criminals. Whatever. We call it TERRORISM, unadulterated. What other word describes shootings, physical intimidation and criminal trespass with the intent to cause bodily harm? And we ask, again … Why hasn’t John Kerry been held to account!?
E-mail the Kerry campaign. Tell them to denounce these brutal, petty acts of terror.

October is Shock and Awe Month on Kerry's Liberal Record
A veteran GOP operative in daily contact with, and in some cases working side by side with, high level "Bush/Cheney 2004" campaign officials has told www.crushkerry.com that October will be "shock and awe" month on Kerry's liberal voting record. Read the strategy behind what you will see in the last month of the campaign, as well as why this strategy wasn't deployed earlier.

 
Thursdays 'R' for Thune

Let's make sure this is how Tom Daschle looks on Election Night as he gives his concession speech:



Thune is up four points in the latest poll. Fortunately, the momentum is on his side, as the last poll showed Thune up by three, and the prior one had Daschle in the lead. Unfortunately, the margin is not large enough that Daschle can't shake the graveyard for a few votes.

Show your support for President Bush's second term agenda by donating to John Thune. If you prefer, you can make a check out to John Thune for U.S. Senate and send it to:

John Thune for U.S. Senate
P.O. Box 3308
Sioux Falls, SD, 57101

Thanks to all who have contributed in the past.

 
INTERNATIONAL MAN OF BUPKIS

Oy vey! ‘Tis a wee bit of honesty from L’Fraude.
TWO STUNNING BITS OF NEWS ABOUT KERRY
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry conceded yesterday that he probably will not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if he is elected president.

Hat tip to CrushKerry!

 
Kerry Compared to Another Sitcom Character

It never ends. This time it's in the context of Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra, who did a documentary about the Democrats' primary battles.

The most human Kerry ever seems in Diary is when he finally, about two-thirds of the way through, looks straight at Pelosi, smiles in resigned recognition, and manages a "Hello, Alexandra" that does sound sincerely friendly, even if it comes off rather like Mr. Wilson caught by Dennis the Menace in a less-grumpy-than-usual mood. There's one other (relatively) relaxed moment near the end, when Kerry grabs the camcorder and starts interviewing his interviewer.

So why does she think Kerry became the Democratic nominee? "He had the most stamina and he was the most politically savvy, and I think he had the best organization," Pelosi said. Or at least, that was as good a reason as she could offer. In the end, Kerry remains as much an enigma to her as he does to voters.

"The truth is," she says at the end of Diary, "after a year on the road, I know why the other guys lost. But I still don't know why John Kerry was the winner."

Because he was electable, heh.

 
"Progressives" Get Panties In a Wad

This is pretty funny.

Swift Boat Veterans for Nader? A handful of donors to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, an organization that has run controversial ads attacking Democrat John F. Kerry, have also given money to independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

"If Nader wishes to have any credibility left with progressives, he must give back all right-wing money," said Robert Brandon, co-founder of anti-Nader United Progressives for Victory, which unearthed the contributions.

 
If Kerry Had Been President...

The House of Payne notes that John Edwards admitted something that he'd tried to avoid.

Good to see the House of Payne blogging again!

 
The Muslim Connection

Kerry Haters reader Grant sent us the link to this explosive article.

One little-noticed reason why the Kerry campaign has used every dirty trick it could devise to keep Ralph Nader off state ballots is not only that he siphons away leftwing voters but also that this Lebanese-American siphons off Arab-American votes. Nader on the ballot likely would win between nine and 20 percent of the votes of his fellow ethnic Arab-Americans. But despite these anti-democratic Democrat dirty tricks, Nader is presently on the ballot in Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Money may explain some of Kerry’s support among Muslim-American activists. The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), for example, has pocketed grant money from the leftwing Tides Foundation. The Tides Foundation, wrote FrontPage Magazine’s Ben Johnson, has been generously supported with fungible money from the Heinz Endowments controlled by John Kerry’s wife Teresa.

This is an excellent article, with lots of shocking stuff. I'm going to try to find some pictures of Kerry with the "keffiyah" ties, but right now Yahoo's news images aren't coming up.

 
Kerry Fesses Up: No French or German Help on the Way

From the belated honesty department:

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry conceded yesterday that he probably will not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if he is elected president.
The Massachusetts senator has made broadening the coalition trying to stabilize Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign, but at a town hall meeting yesterday, he said he knows other countries won't trade their soldiers' lives for those of U.S. troops.
"Does that mean allies are going to trade their young for our young in body bags? I know they are not. I know that," he said.

Not even if you get down on your knees and beg their forgiveness? Not even if you promise to pass Kyoto?

 
Wrong Word in Quotes in This Headline

The Washington Times reports "Allies 'resisted' stopping oil ploy".

The governments of France, Russia, China and Syria blocked U.S. efforts within the United Nations to stop Saddam Hussein from misusing the oil-for-food program, a State Department official told Congress yesterday.

Shouldn't that be "'Allies' resisted stopping oil ploy"?

 
More Democratic Thuggery

The Commissar has a roundup of news stories on this theme, as has the Kerry Spot. It is apparent that they know they are losing and so they're lashing back in the only way they know how.

 
Hillary Under Investigation

For possible fund-raising violations.

The Republican-run Justice Department is setting its sights on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign in pursuit of possible fund-raising violations. In targeting a rising star in the Democratic Party, prosecutors are trying to gain the cooperation of an indicted businessman who raised the allegations, interviews and documents indicate.

The FBI has told a U.S. magistrate in Los Angeles it has evidence the former first lady's campaign deliberately understated its fund-raising costs so it would have more money to spend on elections, and prosecutors allege one of her fund-raisers helped because he wanted a pardon from her husband.

Notice that even though this comes from NewsMax, they can't resist pointing out that the Justice Department is run by Republicans, and that Hillary's a rising star.

Hat Tip: John at My Take on Things

 
Edwards Gaffe on Tax Rates for Combat Troops

Oak Leaf over at Polipundit points out a rather interesting mistake that John Edwards made at the debate last night. He said, "A millionaire sitting by their swimming pool, collecting their ……..dividends, pays a lower tax rate than the men and women who are receiving paychecks for serving on the ground in Iraq.
Now, they may think that’s right. John Kerry and I do not."

Turns out that the tax rate for troops in combat situations (including ALL troops in Iraq and Afghanistan) is 0%. The tax rate on dividends is 15%.

 
Kerry Haters Contest! Welcome Polipundit & Betsy's Page Readers!

Some of Kerry's weirdest gaffes have come as a result of him telling magazines about some exploit of his that particularly suits that source. In Field and Stream, it's Kerry's encounter with a 16-point buck. In Runner's World, it's his first Boston Marathon. When contacted by the Humane Society, he told them the VC the Flying Dog story.

Beginning to see the pattern? Okay, here's the contest. Come up with a John Kerry submission to some magazine, real or imaginary, about some rather incredible incident that Kerry "experienced" that would be of interest to that magazine's readers. For example, in Stamp Collector's Monthly, it could be Kerry's finding of a "Guiana Penny Black" (IIRC, the most valuable stamp in the world) on a letter from home during Vietnam, or in Mountain Climbing World, his ascent of K-2. If you have a blog, blog it and put a link in the comments, if you don't have a blog just post the story in the comments (no three posts in a row rule suspended for this thread only). I'll put up a post tomorrow morning with links to all the blog entries and my selection of the best. Obviously humor helps, a really tall tale helps, and a legitimate magazine helps also.

 
The Big Contest



For more Sean Delonas cartoons, click here.

 
Debate Roundup

I listened to it on the radio, but not closely. I thought Cheney, with his understated but authoritative speaking style did very well. Edwards did better than I expected, but his voice and his constant negativity were grating. Then again, I tend to think that Edwards was looking at this as his big chance to get a jump on the 2008 nomination, so therefore, he wasn't speaking to moderate Republicans like me, but to the rabid partisans at the Democrats' base.

Crush Kerry says Dick Cheney teed up the Breck Girl and drove him 300 yards down the center of the fairway.

Hugh Hewitt has his debate scorecard up; lots of strong grades for Cheney.

GOP & The City says the lights are flickering at DNC headquarters after John-boy got schooled.

Allah links to dozens of blogs with their debate analyses. So far the predictable result is that conservative bloggers think Edwards got taken to the woodshed, while liberals insist that the Silky Pony held his own.

 
Soros Bombs in Pittsburgh

Being a billionairre doesn't mean folks will show up for your speeches.

John Carlisle, leader of the Soros Truth Squad, reports from Pittsburgh today that the first stop on Billionaire George Soros’ speaking tour was poorly attended and received limited media coverage.

Carlisle, who stood outside after being ejected from the event at the University of Pittsburgh, counted less than 100 persons entering the room.

Carlisle was told to leave the event by University security officers. Carlisle said, “So much for the ‘open society.’ Soros speech was supposedly open the public. But when someone who disagreed with Soros showed up, it suddenly became a closed event.”

 
Kerry's Union Goons Making More Trouble

This time they're facing charges.

Local 6 News reported that several people from the group of 100 Orlando protestors face possible assault charges after the group forced their way inside the Republican headquarters office.

While in the building, some of the protestors drew horns and a mustache on a poster of President George W. Bush and poured piles of letters in the office, according to the report.

Local 6 News learned that most of the protestors were from the AFL-CIO and were taking part in one of 20 other coordinated protests around the country.

A spokesperson with the AFL-CIO told Local 6 News that the Orlando protest did not go as planned.

A protest similar to Orlando's demonstration was held at a Bush-Cheney office in Miami at the same approximate time, Local 6 News reported.

Nice folks, these Democrats.

 
Football Fans for Truth Score!

They've got a billboard up:



The Washington, DC-area group that paid for the billboard says it started as a few guys having fun, but they're serious about swaying Wisconsin voters away from the Democrat, and they're using a high-traffic section of West Mason Street to do it with a 12-foot by 24-foot reminder of Kerry's gaffe.

A local organizer says Kerry's misspeak of Lambeau Field is funny and worth remembering.

"It's important to football fans that they have a president that is in touch with the interests of his country," Anne Johanski of Football Fans for Truth said.

 
John Deer

Another tall tale from Kerry, this one apparently inspired by The Deer Hunter.

From this month's Field and Stream comes this tidbit in an interview with John "The Fabulist" Kerry.

F&S What's the biggest deer you ever killed?

Kerry: Probably an 8-pointer, something like that. Nothing terribly big...I once had an incredible encounter with the most enormous buck - I don't know, 16 points or something. It was just huge. And I failed to pull the trigger at the right moment. I was hunting down in Massachusetts, on the Cape.

Read the post at the link for the rest of it. Unfortunately Kerry does not describe crawling through the underbrush with his shotgun.

You know, this is just plain the weirdest stuff. Kerry's indeed a fabulist, a Baron von Munchausen, as we've commented many times in the past. The deer encounter may have been described before, although not in the context of hunting. Back in March Slow-Mo Dowd wrote about Kerry as a gentleman of the renaissance. It was clear that she was assuring her readers that Kerry was one of us, the intelligentsia.

He not only reads poetry — "I love Keats, Yeats, Shelley and Kipling" — he writes it. "I remember flying once; I was looking out at the desert and I wrote a poem about the barren desolation of the desert," he said. "I wrote a poem once about a great encounter I had with a deer early in the morning that was very moving."

Of course, it would not have been as moving to the urbane Dowd if Kerry had confessed at the time that he was trying to kill that deer!

 
You Might Be a Liberal...

GOP & The City has the fourth instalment of this amusing series. I also loved this report of Kerry questioning a young man wearing a "Titanic Swim Team" tee-shirt what event he swam. Yep, he's pretty dumb. Anybody remember the kid on the MTV special that asked Kerry what his "X" hat meant, and Kerry fumbled a bit wondering if it was the Roman numeral for 10?

 
A Typical Kerry Supporter

This is a pretty sick woman.

Kerra Fowler is a mother of four who decided to wear her opposition to President Bush (news - web sites) on the back of her head. She offered up on eBay her shaved skull for an anti-Bush message and received a tattoo of a large W, complete with a cowboy hat, with a red slash across it after a sympathetic buyer bid $103.50.



Fowler did accept the money, gave half to the tattoo artist and used the rest to buy beer, pay part of a bill and buy a gift for her children.

 
Legion Members At Work



We salute you, fellow Kerry Haters!

 
Kerry Packing Them In



Word is he locked up the scarecrow vote with this appearance.

 
If Only The US Were As Advanced As Botswana

That's the impression I get from an email I received from my good buddy Governor Howard Dean.

America elects fewer women to Congress than the average country in sub-Saharan Africa.

It's not just countries like Sweden, New Zealand, and Argentina that elect twice the percentage of women. Among the 60-plus nations that elect a higher proportion of women than we do: Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana.

 
Kerry: No Nukes for US, Okay for Iran

Henry Sokolski looks at Kerry's proposal to provide nuclear fuel to Iran.

Under almost any scenario, implementing Kerry's proposal would not only bring Iran closer to having a bomb, it would also help Iran get a large arsenal — two things the U.S. and its allies are rightly eager to prevent.

Read it all.

 
The Quotable Ann Coulter

John Hawkins has a year's worth of Ann Coulter quotes. My favorite:

"The problem with a suck-up press for Democrats is that with no adversary press to call them on it, Democrats develop wilder and wilder Walter Mitty fantasy lives until finally one day, when they are at the zenith of their political careers, someone notices that they're not Irish, they didn't deserve their war medals, 254 swiftboat veterans hate them, and they didn't spend Christmas Eve, 1968, in Cambodia."

:)

 
Them Twins!

The Rinse Cycle was nice enough to send me a little thank you note for being one of his top referrers this month, so I popped over to his site and (being a Monday Night Football fanatic) just loved his parody of the "Twins" commercials.

 
Poll Fault

Crush Kerry has a look at the polls that the lamestream media can't resist claiming indicate a strong move towards Kerry.

Largely ignored in all this hoopla is the fact that just as many polls show that the debates had little change on the race. First, the new Washington Post poll shows the President's lead holding steady at 5 points, the Pew Poll showing that the numbers are virtually the same; the Zogby poll - the "real" one, not the BS "interactive one- shows Kerry gained 2 points (and none in a 3 way race);the Rasmussen poll showing Kerry gaining only 1 point; the LA Times poll of debate watchers that showed no change; and most strikingly, the Democracy Corps poll, which is run by James Carville and Stan Greenberg, showed Kerry got at most a 2 point gain.

 
Pundits a Day Late

The storyline coming out of the op-ed columns today is that Kerry really helped himself with the debates, that it's a horse race again. I bet a lot of columnists wish they had waited until after the WaPo/ABC and Pew Polls came out, because now they're going to have to write the "I was right the first time!" columns.

John Podhoretz:

My blindness may have been due to the fact that I am a passionate supporter of the president's and therefore inclined to view him charitably. But then, what explains the fact that Kerry campaign worker-bee Joe Lockhart said right afterward that the "consensus is the debate was a draw"?

What explains the fact that, while almost every insta-commentator (including me) said John Kerry did well on Thursday night, most of us also thought Bush had won on substance — and that Kerry had hurt himself by making reference to a "global test" for U.S. action and criticizing U.S. military research into an anti-proliferation weapon?

Short answer: John, you were right, but then you listened to the Newsweak poll, which confirmed what the liberal media had been claiming, that Kerry won easily on all cards.

Meanwhile poor Tom Oliphant is busy laughing triumphantly at the Bush team for distorting Kerry's Global Test.

The Bush campaign put all of its post-Coral Gables eggs in one basket, called the Kerry Doctrine -- a made-up, cartoon version of the senator's foreign policy views. By contrast, Kerry was able to keep the debate going about credibility in the wars (which he finally managed to separate) inside Iraq and against terrorism worldwide, while focusing on the domestic policy themes that will be more prominent in the days ahead.

The "Kerry Doctrine" is classic Bush campaign think -- the belief that in the modern age of electronic communication and short attention spans, enough money and enough repetition can create any image, even a position that unlucky target does not hold.

Of course, Oliphant wants to believe that Kerry would never wait for the Global Test, but in fact, Kerry has already expanded it in remarks yesterday:

"But I can do a better job of protecting America's security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere."

So now it's not just limited to the globe, but elsewhere? Do the Martians and Saturnians have to sign on?

 
Kerry Should Blame Carter for North Korea, Iran

A little history lesson on the two remaining ends of the Axis of Evil:

When Islamic radicals threatened the Shah of Iran during his administration, Carter treated this staunch U.S. ally with the same contempt Kerry seems to hold for another U.S. ally, Prime Minister Allawi of Iraq. Like Kerry, Carter sent mixed signals about our commitment, and emboldened Islamic radicals toppled the shah.

Carter's self-declared "principles of patient negotiation" prolonged the Iranian hostage crisis and produced 444 agonizing days of American humiliation on the world stage. That in turn strengthened the hand of the Iranian mullahs and helped spread Islamic fundamentalism.

Since leaving office, America's Neville Chamberlain has continued to pursue peace in our time by kowtowing to nearly every terrorist and dictator on earth, embracing Yasser Arafat and being the first U.S. ex-president to pay homage to Fidel Castro in Havana.

It was in 1994 that Carter, the man who was surprised that the Soviets would lie to him after they invaded Afghanistan on his watch, jetted off on his own to North Korea, the last Stalinist nation on earth. There, he would broker a deal whereby North Korea would forgo weapons of mass destruction (sound familiar?) in exchange for a host of goodies.

Worst. President. Ever. And a lousy ex-President to boot, except for Habitat for Humanity.

 
The Mouth of the South

 
NY Times Bias On Display

Jeez, catch this one by Elisabeth Bumiller:

On the eve of the vice-presidential debate, with polls showing that Mr. Bush lost ground after his debate with Mr. Kerry on Thursday, the pressures on the White House to regain the upper hand appeared to be mounting.

That always reliable source, "appeared".

"In 1991, when my dad was president, he saw a threat, and that was that Saddam Hussein was going to overrun Kuwait," said Mr. Bush, who appeared relaxed and in good spirits at an Ask President Bush forum despite the generally negative reviews of his debate performance.

One gets the feeling that Ms Bumiller expected him to show up unshaven and clearly depressed. But that's some stinkbomb she threw in at the end to counterbalance the fact that he was relaxed and in good spirits.

And catch her careful explanation on another bill that Kerry supported before he voted against it:

In fact, Mr. Kerry has supported the three tax breaks that Mr. Bush extended, but he voted against them in 2001 because they were part of a broad tax-cut bill that he opposed. Mr. Kerry voted against the overall legislation on the ground that it primarily benefited the wealthy. When the tax cuts are fully in place, more than 50 percent of the savings will go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers.

Awfully noble of him, don't you think? Look, Elisabeth, it's fine if you want to mimic Kerry's rapid response team, but it might make you at least appear to be upholding some semblance of nonpartisan journalism if you could put the spin in somebody's mouth at the DNC rather than reciting it as settled fact. The settled fact is that Kerry voted against the tax cuts.

 
I Kill You, Dr. Frankenstein!

 
THE NEW SOLDIER!



The complete book is now online in PDF format. Download it, print it, distribute it.

TRAITOR

 
Kerry Clears Up Global Test

At least, that's what he's trying to do:

Asked during a town hall meeting in Hampton to explain what he meant, the Massachusetts senator said, "It's almost sad; it's certainly pathetic, because all they can do is grab a little phrase and try to play a game and scare Americans."

He added, "They're misleading Americans about what I said. What I said in the sentence preceding that was, 'I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country.' No one gets a veto over our security. No one.

"And if they were honest enough to give America the full quote, which America heard, they would know that I'm never going to allow America's security to be outsourced. That's the job of the president.

"But I can do a better job of protecting America's security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere. (Special Report: America Votes 2004, the issues)

"If you do things that are illegitimate in the eyes of the other people, it's very hard to get them to share the burden and risk with you."

No fooling, Sherlock. And that's exactly how I feel about France especially and Germany and Russia to a lesser degree. They did things that were illegitimate in my eyes. The French shared our confidential discussions with Saddam, purchased oil illegally from him at discounted prices, distributed phony documents on Niger, and lately have been obstructing investigation of the Oil for Food scandal. That's acting pretty illegitimately, and yet, clearly France is the #1 country Jean Kerree would like to beg forgiveness from on his International Tour of Apology.

But Kerry cannot realistically declare that he supports unilateral preemptive action, when all spring and summer he has angrily denounced the President for not getting another resolution from the UN and a coalition force along the lines of the first Persian Gulf War.

 


New Nickname for Mamma T

Can I get suggestions for a new nickname for Te-RAY-za? Her gaffes of late should warrant something new.

My vote is for: Tevita. What are yours?

 
WaPo, Pew show President Leading by Five

The bounce for Kerry either didn't last or didn't exist. The Pew Center confirms the results. Both polls show only a 1 point net gain for Kerry over their prior sampling.

 
The Record Gets Suckered

My first job was as a paperboy for the Bergen Evening Record (now just called The Record), a newspaper published in Bergen County, New Jersey. I delivered papers for a couple of years. It was a good experience, and I got to know a large percentage of the residents of my hometown because I frequently traded up to larger routes or combined routes.

The Record was then, and is still, a reliably liberal paper, which endorsed George McGovern in 1972. They got snookered yesterday, publishing not one, but two letters from an organized Democratic letter writing campaign.

Here's the relevant passage of Kate Swan of Teaneck's letter:

I wanted to hear John Kerry lay out his plans for Iraq and for winning the war on terror. I wasn't disappointed. Kerry staked out a strong plan to bring peace to Iraq and to refocus our efforts to fight terrorists around the world.

Norman Kailo had eerily similar thoughts:

John Kerry staked out a strong plan to bring peace to Iraq and to refocus our efforts to fight terrorists around the world.

Hat Tip: Best of the Web Today, which reports a couple other papers got stung by the letter-writing campaign, but none others were stupid enough to publish it twice on the same page.

 
Blogger Roundup

Scary Kerry has a great post on comparisons between Kerry's proposals on how to handle Iran, and how Jimmuh Carter handled the mullocrats during the Iranian hostage crisis.

Superhawk at Right Wingnuthouse has a very thoughtful post on what's going on in Iraq. I don't think anybody will confuse this post with cheerleading; it does a good job of presenting informed commentary from both sides.

Dean Esmay scores an exclusive interview with Van O'Dell, one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. O'Dell comes up with a pretty good reply to those who say that the Swiftees (except Stephen Gardner) didn't serve on the same boat with Kerry:

But really, our boats served in combat together, we went on missions together, we knew each other intimately and fought together. This is like saying Major Reno and Captain Benteen did not serve with General Custer because they did not ride on the same horse with him.

Lorie Byrd has some questions for John Edwards in tomorrow's vice presidential debate.

Hat Tip: Citizen Smash for the Van O'Dell interview.

 
Who Left The Attic Door Open?

Teresa escaped long enough to babble a bit.

The war in Iraq has cost America the respect of her allies and the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan, Heinz Kerry said at a dinner at the Sheraton Four Points in Greensburg.

"On 9/12 every single newspaper in the world said 'We are all Americans.' Today it is not the case," she said.

Jeez, imagine that, EVERY SINGLE newspaper in the world? The Palestinian Times? The one paper that did say that, Le Monde (a Parisian newspaper), used the line as a jumping off point to bash the US.

But the reality is perhaps also that of an America whose own cynicism has caught up with. If Bin Laden, as the American authorities seem to think, really is the one who ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, how can we fail to recall that he was in fact trained by the CIA and that he was an element of a policy, directed against the Soviets, that the Americans considered to be wise? Might it not then have been America itself that created this demon?

Back to the Ketchup Queen:

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was not a hotbed on terrorism, but it is now, she said.

"No American boy or girl should lose their lives for oil," she said.

They're not boys and girls, Teh-RAY-za. They're men and women, and they are not losing their lives for oil, despite your fantasies.

 
Kerry's Foreign Friends Disagree

Over at Mudville Gazette, Grim has posted an excellent series of quotes from Nuancy Boy on all the things he's going to do with his foreign pals, compared to what they say.

John Kerry:
"I'm going to immediately set out to have bilateral talks with North Korea."

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing:
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, standing at [Colin Powell's] side, said the "entire international community" agreed that the six-nation approach was the best way to deal with the problem.

Don't worry, he won't get away with this nonsense.

Hat Tip: In Bill's World