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KerryHaters was first to blog on the Christmas-in-Cambodia lie, way back on May 21. Too bad the elite media hadn't cast their net widely enough. They'd have had a scoop long ago.--Hugh Hewitt

Our friends Pat and Kitty at Kerry Haters deserve the blog equivalent of a Pulitzer for their coverage of Kerry's intricate web of lies regarding Vietnam.--Crush Kerry


Saturday, October 16, 2004
 
Caption It Yourself
- Pat, 10:50 PM
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The Dumbest Reason to Vote for Kerry

Andrew Sullivan has been floating this, errr, floater.

It's a simple argument and it goes as follows. One reason to vote for Kerry this time is that, whatever his record, he will, as president, be forced by reality and by public opinion to be tough in this war. He has no other option. You think he wants to be tarred as a wimp every night by Fox News? Moreover, he would remove from the Europeans and others the Bush alibi for their relative absence in the war on terror. More important, his presidency would weaken the Michael Moore wing of the Democrats, by forcing them to take responsibility for a war that is theirs' as much as anyone's.

Tom Maguire demolishes this very silly argument.
- Pat, 1:54 PM
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More Cheney Backlash

The New York Times publishes five letters to the editor on this topic; not one of them chastises Kerry for his obvious attempt at gay-baiting or his obvious lie about making the comment in the context of expressing admiration for the love the Cheneys had for their daughter.

Bill Kristol speculates that the Kerry campaign had an excuse all prepared, but the International Man of Apology blew his lines.

Kerry's desperate attempt at next-day spin was also revealing. It showed the way he had been supposed to bring up Mary Cheney--the way he and his staff had planned to pull off this maneuver. Kerry was supposed to do what his more skilled and cleverer debating partner, John Edwards, did. He was supposed to sugarcoat his use of Mary Cheney more effectively. Edwards prefaced his answer to Gwen Ifill's same-sex marriage question in the vice-presidential debate with, "Let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter; the fact that they embrace her is a wonderful thing."
- Pat, 10:12 AM
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Kerry Camp Asks For Equal Time

Perhaps not the smartest idear.

In a letter to Sinclair chief executive David D. Smith, the Kerry campaign's top lawyer said that the planned airing of "Stolen Honor" "constitutes an attack on Senator Kerry by supporters of President Bush" and that Sinclair "must provide a similar opportunity for Senator Kerry's supporters" on its 62 stations.

Let me tell you, they could broadcast 40 minutes of Kerry campaign commercials and it would not come close to offsetting the effect of showing Stolen Honor. Nobody but the most committed Anybody But Bush voter could watch this movie and vote for Kerry.
- Pat, 8:46 AM
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ROCK THE VOTERS


Bobby Muller, cofounder with John Kerry of Vietnam Veterans of America , still good friend of John Kerry was caught sending fake draft emails through his Vietnam Veterans of America front group Alliance for Security. Both groups are intimately linked.

Red Crabtree, at AmericanGazette, has done a bit of excellent research into
John Kerry, the Draft and the threads of 1971

"With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft. Because if we go it alone, I don't know how you do it with the current overextension" of the military, Kerry said.

In 1971 John Kerry was a member of the Vietnam Veterans against the War, I think the vast majority of those who have taken the time to really look at the presidental candidates know this. Of course much of what caused anger against the war in Vietnam was the draft. One could do a post regarding the various people who were leaders in the VVAW but I would prefer to focus on just one.
Bobby Muller.
…
Now the only people who have purposed a draft have been democrats, the bill was voted down in the last week with even the man who wrote it voting against it. One would think this is now a dead issue, but apparently John Kerry, self righteous demagoue screeching about Republican Fear Mongoring, feels it necessary to continue squealing about a draft. And his friend Bobby Muller as well as nonpartisan Rock the Vote were happy to help spread fear to young people who often look no further to ascertain the reality of the situation. It is also notable that some of the rock stars who are participating in Rock the Vote have helped with Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, highlight Bruce Springsteen. There are threads that pull Bobby Muller, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, Alliance for Security, Rock the Vote and John Kerry all together. And they all are using the fear of a draft to attempt to elect a man that spit on his fellow vets as well as the military in general.

- Kitty, 5:47 AM
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Mr Spaceman

- Pat, 1:38 AM
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Friday, October 15, 2004
 
Hugh Hewitt's Weekend Symposium

The question for this weekend is as follows:

How deep a hole have John Kerry, Mary Beth Cahill and the Edwards dug for themselves? How lasting the damage?

I'd love to say Dandy Don is starting to sing "Turn Out the Lights", but I don't know. One caller on Hugh's show suggested yesterday that this was the Wellstone Funeral. Maybe, but it's a little far from the election to sustain the sort of rage that we felt in 2002. I do think it's something that will energize the base and win over some of the undecideds. I don't think it bought Kerry a single vote and it will cost him quite a few to President Bush.

Is it the end? No, but it may be headed that way with some of the other stuff on the horizon. It's hard to see how Kerry gets his traction back with the debates over, especially with "Stolen Honor" coming up. If that gets seen widely in battleground states, Kerry will be cooked.

I'll have some more thoughts later, but for now, I'm heading out to see Hewitt in person.
- Pat, 4:04 PM
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Blogger Roundup

Our buddy Bill from In Bill's World has moved. He's now known as Small Town Veteran. Same great stuff, different newsstand.

The Blogspirator has a first person report of Democrat thuggery along with links to many other similar and disturbing stories. The good news is it's because they're losing.

Cadet Happy has a look at the new headquarters of the Kerry/Edwards Campaign.

Fausta discovers that John Kerry has finally met his match in debate theatrics.
- Pat, 1:32 PM
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Got Loads of Cash???

May I make a donation suggestion?



Football Fans for Truth have proof that your money will be well spent.



Please donate by clicking on Kerry's butt below...


- Aaron Matthew Arnwine - LifelikePundits.com, 1:09 PM
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Kerry Sinking Again in Iowa Electronic Markets

Looks like they've priced in the Mary Cheney gaffe on Kerry's part. As of midnight last night, the prices were about 55 cents a share for Bush, 45 cents a share for Kerry. As of this afternoon, they're about 59 cents a share for Bush, 41 cents for Kerry (combined totals of both contracts for each candidate). The most valuable shares in the market today are those where President Bush gets over 52% of the vote.
- Pat, 12:11 PM
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LIES & LYING LIARS II

Despite defeating a draft bill by a 402-2 vote just this month, Kerry is still out there on the campaign trail TODAY, suggesting that Bush will reinstate the draft! This is desperation on their part.

Kerry: Potential great for return of draft
There is "a great potential" for a military draft in the United States should President Bush win re-election in November, Democratic challenger John Kerry said Thursday during an interview with The Des Moines Register.
"With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft," Kerry said during a meeting with Register reporters and editors before headlining a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.
- Kitty, 11:17 AM
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Could Daschle Have Forfeited South Dakota Citizenship?

Here's an interesting post from Power Line on the subject.

Hat Tip: Chuck, aka Phillies' Fan
- Pat, 10:57 AM
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Kerry Tries the Old "It Was a Compliment" Defense

And the AP's Laura Meckler tries to amplify the message.

Kerry said in a statement Thursday that he "was trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with the issue."

Mary Beth Cahill exposed the fraudulence of that claim when she replied that Cheney's daughter was "fair game" after the debate. That shows that not only were they attacking her (nobody has to say that somebody they're complimenting is fair game) but that they expected some criticism.

The rest of the article tries to muddy the issue by saying that the Cheney's have talked openly about their daughter's sexuality in the past. But of course, this ignores what Kerry's purpose was in bringing up the topic, which was to scare away some Christian conservatives from the Bush/Cheney ticket. Cahill's comment shows it was no accident, no intended praise. It was a crass attempt to exploit homophobia that has backfired badly on Kerry.

This is just another self-inflicted wound by Kerry as a result of his own stupidity.
- Pat, 10:41 AM
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Effective Anti-Kerry Ad

Kerry mentioned Ronald Reagan in the third debate:

But I pledge this to you, America: I will do it in the way that Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and John Kennedy and others did, where we build the strongest alliances, where the world joins together, where we have the best intelligence and where we are able, ultimately, to be more safe and secure.

The second debate:

I'm going to run a foreign policy that actually does what President Reagan did, President Eisenhower did, and others.

And yes, the third debate:

I believe that Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, and the others did that more effectively, and I'm going to try to follow in their footsteps.

Here's an ad that effectively shows that John Kerry is no Ronald Reagan.
- Pat, 10:32 AM
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THOSE PESTY TERRORISTS


Hat tip Blue!
- Kitty, 9:51 AM
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Profile of Carlton Sherwood

The producer of "Stolen Honor" gets the once-over from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Carlton Sherwood's credentials suggest a journalist of considerable skill.

The shared 1980 Pulitzer Prize on his resume testifies to that.

But there's no law saying good reporters can't also be angry. And make no mistake: Sherwood, who worked for the old Philadelphia Bulletin, Gannett News Service and Washington Times, is angry at Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president. Has been for more than three decades now, he says.

As I've mentioned before, the Democrats are quite smart in trying to stop this film from being aired on the Sinclair stations, although it probably won't work. This film will destroy John Kerry if it is seen widely.
- Pat, 9:30 AM
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SOMETHING ABOUT MASSACHUSETTS


- Kitty, 8:36 AM
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Heh, Any Allies in a Storm

Ryan Lizza writes what must surely rank as one of the silliest sentences of this campaign season:

As scary as it may be, on the Nader campaign trail, the LaRouchies are the voice of reason.

Why? Because they support John Kerry, of course!

But that's not all. Listen to this litany of Kerry supporters:

Most surprising, and most infuriating to Nader, what might be called the radical left establishment has also abandoned him. More than 70 of his most influential supporters and advisers from 2000--people like Noam Chomsky, Studs Terkel, Cornel West, and Howard Zinn--have signed a letter advising progressives to vote for Kerry in closely contested states.

Ah, yes, the Hate America First crowd of Chomsky and Zinn support John Kerry. What a surprise!
- Pat, 8:30 AM
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HAVE BALLOTS, WILL VOTE & VOTE & VOTE …

How can they cheat if they don’t have an overabundance of ballots? Duh!
Doyle joins rift over ballot supply
The Milwaukee election ballot flap escalated Thursday, with Gov. Jim Doyle calling for a state probe and County Executive Scott Walker agreeing after a noisy protest to reconsider the City of Milwaukee's request for more ballots.
…
Doyle said later, however, that he wanted the state Elections Board to promptly investigate and determine how many ballots are needed by Milwaukee, which requested 938,000 from the county. The county agreed to provide 679,000, noting that the city had only 382,000 registered voters as of September.
…
Rashad Younger, president of the Marquette University Black Student Council, told Walker that he and other first-time voters might mess up their ballots and need to revote. Ballot supplies should reflect that, he said.

- Kitty, 7:56 AM
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Kerry's Comment Backfires

Reuters shows the President moving to a stronger four-point lead after the final debate, with improved job ratings among undecideds.

Bush led Kerry 48-44 percent in the latest three-day tracking poll, which included one night of polling done after Wednesday's debate in Tempe, Arizona. Bush led Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, by only one point, 46-45 percent, the previous day.

An improvement in Bush's showing among undecideds and a strong response from his base Republican supporters helped fuel the president's rise.
- Pat, 7:56 AM
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LIES & LYING LIARS



For those of you who don’t know, Charles Krauthammer is a doctor who is a quadriplegic from an accident he suffered when he was a med student. He sits on The President's Council on Bioethics and knows this subject as well as anyone.

An Edwards Outrage
By Charles Krauthammer
After the second presidential debate, in which John Kerry used the word "plan" 24 times, I said on television that Kerry has a plan for everything except curing psoriasis. I should have known there is no parodying Kerry's pandering. It turned out days later that the Kerry campaign has a plan -- nay, a promise -- to cure paralysis. What is the plan? Vote for Kerry.
…
In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately, for personal gain, raising false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable.
…
[T]he implication that Christopher Reeve was prevented from getting out of his wheelchair by the Bush stem cell policies is a travesty.
George Bush is the first president to approve federal funding for stem cell research. There are 22 lines of stem cells now available, up from one just two years ago. As Leon Kass, head of the President's Council on Bioethics, has written, there are 3,500 shipments of stem cells waiting for anybody who wants them.
Edwards and Kerry constantly talk of a Bush "ban" on stem cell research. This is false. There is no ban. You want to study stem cells? You get them from the companies that have the cells and apply to the National Institutes of Health for the federal funding.

- Kitty, 6:47 AM
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Stop the Presses!

The New York Times finds that something that works against the Democrats is unfair.

The Sinclair Broadcasting Group, one of the nation's most powerful television conglomerates, has a sad record of using its public license to promote Republican causes. Earlier this year, Sinclair tried to censor an installment of "Nightline" on its 62 stations when Ted Koppel announced plans to read out the names of soldiers killed in Iraq. Now the company, owned by financial backers of President Bush and other Republican politicians, plans to actively join the re-election campaign.

One suspects that the Times has less concern about SeeBS' sad record of using its public license to promote Democrat causes.
- Pat, 6:46 AM
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Thursday, October 14, 2004
 
The Job Interview

Muckdog has an amusing post on what would happen if we all interviewed for a job the way the Presidential contenders do.
- Pat, 9:44 PM
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Will Kerry Apologize?

Hugh Hewitt says he has to, but I tend to doubt it. Hugh points to Howard Fineman of Newsweek, who had the following to say:

But do you like one who mentions someone else’s child to make a nasty political point? There were no laughs but gasps in the press room when Kerry noted that Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter, Mary, was a lesbian.

Hugh agrees with my earlier point:


It isn't about Mary Cheney. It is about John Kerry's character, and his ruthlessness. "He is not a good man," Lynne Cheney said three times today. She could have said it thirty times. "Integrity, integrity, integrity?" I wonder what the elder Mrs. Kerry would have said about using an opponent's child as a wedge issue?

Peter Beinart gains back a little of the credibility he has lost with me this election season by admitting (on Hugh's show) that Kerry's comment was a cheap shot.
- Pat, 7:50 PM
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Kerry Unlikable

Jonah Goldberg says the President won the Mr Personality battle last night:

All of that changed Wednesday night. Not only did Bush beat Kerry on most questions of substance — I thought — but he came across as the infinitely more decent and genuine guy. When Kerry was asked questions about the minimum wage or health care, he switched to autopilot. Bing, bam, boom: Here's my four, five, six, seven-point plan to do this, that, and the other thing. But when Kerry was asked questions about his convictions, about his moral sense, about the kind of man he is, he wandered around like a drunk looking for his car in the wrong lot, bitterly muttering about how Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian. Bush talked about his faith, his wife, his moral center comfortably. He made fun of himself.

BTW, a lot of people are saying this is about Mary Cheney. It's not. It's about Kerry trying to alienate religious conservatives from President Bush.
- Pat, 3:47 PM
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Democrat Rage

Doug Anderson writes in the Seattle P-I:

As a Seattle Democrat openly declaring for George W. Bush in November, I've experienced my share of over-the-top, anti-Republican, anti-Bush fury. I've been cut by lifelong friends, become the family joke and last year got assaulted by anti-war peace thugs. Through all this I have wondered: Why don't Democrats demonstrate a love for Kerry equivalent to their hatred of Bush?
- Pat, 2:05 PM
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shhh...let's keep this on the downlow

The Washington Post is talking to folks in New Jersey and finds responses like this:

Walk up to Carol Del Tufo in the parking lot at Pier 1 Imports and ask about her presidential preferences and her voice drops, confidential-like. She is a middle-age teacher and lifelong Democrat, and her usual preoccupations are education and jobs. Except this year.

"I had a neighbor who lost her husband in the attacks," she said. "It was so scary. I've got kids. I don't want another attack." She purses her lips and makes her confession: "Look, I'm voting for Bush. He's very strong, and there's no 'maybe' in his voice."
- Aaron Matthew Arnwine - LifelikePundits.com, 1:36 PM
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What Is Teh-RAY-za Staring At?

The Blogspirator has the answer.
- Pat, 1:10 PM
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Elizabeth Edwards Channeling Andrew Sullivan?

ABC News notes that Elizabeth Edwards is trying to deflect criticism of John Kerry for his mention of Vice President Cheney's (oops--I meant Cheney's daughter's) sexual orientation. (Unfortunately, the story link there doesn't work). Edwards reportedly said:

"She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs… I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences… It makes me really sad that that's Lynne's response."

The issue is not that it's shameful to have this discussion. The issue is that Kerry mentioned it in an obvious attempt to sway voters who might be offended by homosexuality. If you listened to Kerry, this was an obvious attempted smear.

Andrew Sullivan is so far sold on Kerry that he also interprets the Republican backlash against Kerry's comment as homophobia.

The only way you can believe that citing Mary Cheney amounts to "victimization" is if you believe someone's sexual orientation is something shameful. Well, it isn't. What's revealing is that this truly does expose the homophobia of so many - even in the mildest "we'll-tolerate-you-but-shut-up-and-don't-complain" form. Mickey Kaus, for his part, cannot see any reason for Kerry to mention Mary except as some Machiavellian scheme to pander to bigots. Again: huh? Couldn't it just be that Kerry thinks of gay people as human beings like straight people - and mentioning their lives is not something we should shrink from?

I guess Kaus is a homophobe now?

Nobody's saying it's shameful. Most of us have known about Cheney's daughter for years. But Kerry's mention was clearly a planned attempt to turn off voters who might think it is shameful.

This from the people who keep assuring us that Bush mentioned McCain had an adopted "black" baby (black is in quotes because, IIRC, the child is actually from Bangladesh) as some sort of code to the bigots in South Carolina. Sorry Andrew and Elizabeth, but this one was obvious and disgusting.
- Pat, 11:44 AM
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CONGRATULATIONS CRUSHKERRY!



Our good buddies at CrushKerry are proud as peacocks, as well they should be. They recently passed the 2 MILLION visitor mark, half of which happened in the last 7 weeks! Yesterday, they announced that the site will continue after the election, but with a new name. Since they are confident that Bush will be re-elected, thus making their name outdated, beginning after the election, they will be known as AnkleBitingPundits. Don’t worry, they assure us, the old address will still get you there.
WE KNOW WHAT YOUR ASKING - WHAT'S THE STORY WITH THE NEW NAME? HERE'S WHY. AFTER THE BLOGGERS NAILED DAN RATHER ON THE FORGED MEMO STORY, THIS NEWSWEEK COLUMN WRITTEN BY ELITE MEDIA SNOT STEVE LEVY BASICALLY SLAMMED THE BLOGOSPHER FOR AMPLIFYING THE FAULTS OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, NOT IMPROVING THEM. WELL BOO F-ING HOO. HE THEN WENT ON TO SAY THAT THE WEB WAS "LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKE A NATION OF ANKLE BITERS". THAT DESCRIPTION SOUNDED GOOD TO US, SO WE'RE RUNNING WITH IT.

- Kitty, 11:21 AM
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Proof Kerry Does Believe in Pre-Emptive Strikes

Against Republicans, anyway.

Hat Tip: John at My Take on Things
- Pat, 11:02 AM
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Dean's Draft

Howeird Dean continues to fan the fears of a draft. I received an email from the Vermonster himself this morning:

Last week 60,000 of us demanded honesty about the draft—and people took notice. Cable news channels and major newspapers have been buzzing about the draft ever since.

Other organizations also heard. MoveOn and a group called Win Back Respect produced a TV ad about this issue. Over a million young people will see it on The Daily Show, MTV, and ESPN.

You can add to this momentum even more—sign the petition demanding honesty about our military commitments:

www.democracyforamerica.com/nodraft

We still need to get the message out. The mainstream media coverage has focused on unsubstantiated rumors of some "secret plan" for a draft. They are missing the point.

It's not about a secret plan—we should be concerned about a draft because, when it comes to meeting all of the military commitments he has made, George Bush has no plan.

He says he will "stay the course". But if we stay the course with this president, he will face a choice: drastically reduce our commitments or reinstate the draft. Add your voice to the growing numbers asking which one he will choose.
- Pat, 10:30 AM
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KERRY/EDWARDS HEALTH CARE PLAN

LoanCat has been providing me with some great audio clips, including the hilarious
HEEL!
- Kitty, 9:09 AM
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Poll Fault

Jim Geraghty has a great post over at Kerry Spot showing why the current polls are wrong. He makes a powerful case.

In 2002, pollsters used that same turnout model, expecting high turnout among Democrats and disappointing turnout among Republicans. And they got burned by that model.

I have been impressed with the GOTV efforts of the GOP the last couple of election cycles. I am about as reliable a voter as you can imagine; the only election I can remember missing was a special election a couple years ago, where they snuck in a transit tax by scheduling a vote between the Republican primary and the general election. In 2000 and 2002 I received calls starting at 9:00 AM and continuing every hour until the time I actually voted, when the calls promptly stopped. I have received three calls from Republican headquarters this cycle (all pushing the early voting, which I decline to use and would love to see rescinded).

I think Geraghty's right; as long as the President's tied or ahead in the polling we're in good shape. That said, the fraud does convince me that we need to do everything we can.
- Pat, 8:17 AM
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Lynne Cheney Not Happy With Nuancy Boy

She appears to have read Kerry's comments about her daughter the way I did. Looking at the text, it doesn't look all that bad, but there was something in the way Kerry said it.

Mrs. Cheney made clear she thought Kerry had crossed a line into family privacy when she introduced her husband to a supportive crowd of 800 after a debate-watching party in the Pittsburgh suburb of Coraopolis.

"Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man," she said.

"Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."
- Pat, 7:58 AM
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MY TAKE

I didn’t watch it last night. I simply couldn’t take watching the cadaverous Kerry hip-hop in place like a dancing skeleton (am I the only one who notices this?), hearing Kerry lie, being suffocated by Kerry’s pessimism, and then having to endure, by the MSM, how well Kerry performed. And that’s all it is: a performance. DogMan and I have this “disagreement” about how well Kerry debates. DogMan is a first rate speaker whose style is similar to that of Bush. He truly believes that Kerry is a great debater; I don’t. The reason why is that Kerry is so robotic and he lacks any discernible warmth. He thinks a thunderous voice equals conviction; he believes his towering stature proves he’s presidential. Yet his body movements remind me of a marionette. Cue smile. Extend arm. Turn head left. Nothing about him convinces me that he sends the mercury anywhere near 98.6. He wears his elitism like a badge of honor. Even his manner of speaking leaves much to be desired. The guy puts people to sleep! And this is a great debater? Bush, for all of his alleged syntax errors, is engaging, optimistic, funny and, dare I say, interesting! Kerry went to Yale? Yeah, well Bush also went to Yale, and then he went to Harvard where he earned an MBA. So there! Ridiculing Bush as stupid does not bother me in the least. I’ve seen snippets of the debate … Bush certainly appeared to have done extremely well! … and I’ve heard it dissected by the likes of the twerpy Ellis Henican on Fox. After two debates (three counting the VP debate), this Bush babe had better use for her time. So, last night I watched the season finale of RESCUE ME with the dishy Denis Leary.

INTERESTING WORD COUNT
I searched for the word “win”:
Bush 10:

“keep the economy growing” (4)
“allowing citizens to participate in the process”
“Lewin report” (3)
“winning the war on terror” (2)

Kerry 1: “$139 billion windfall profit to the drug companies”

Aaron links to an article that reminds us that the military is solidly Bush:
The best way to support our troops is to support their vote. 72% of the people who will face war and fight for our lives support Bush.

- Kitty, 7:36 AM
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Carrying Kerry

While Bob Schieffer editorialized his questions too much, the most telling scene was during the last question:

SCHIEFFER: We've come, gentlemen, to our last question. And it occurred to me as I came to this debate tonight that the three of us share something. All three of us are surrounded by very strong women. We're all married to strong women. Each of us have two daughters that make us very proud.

I'd like to ask each of you, what is the most important thing you've learned from these strong women?

BUSH: To listen to them.
(LAUGHTER) FROM THE AUDIENCE!!!
To stand up straight and not scowl.
(LAUGHTER) FROM THE AUDIENCE!!!

Then we get to Kerry...

SCHIEFFER: Senator Kerry?

KERRY: Well, I guess the president and you and I are three examples of lucky people who married up.
(LAUGHTER) AUDIENCE DEAD SILENT; SCHIEFFER LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY!!!
And some would say maybe me moreso than others.
(LAUGHTER) AUDIENCE DEAD SILENT; SCHIEFFER LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY!!!
But I can take it.
(LAUGHTER) AUDIENCE DEAD SILENT; SCHIEFFER LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY!!!
- Aaron Matthew Arnwine - LifelikePundits.com, 6:42 AM
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Senator Gasbag
By George Neumayr
Like John Edwards, John Kerry takes a very keen interest in the nocturnal life of Dick Cheney's daughter. Kerry at this point is almost beyond Saturday Night Live's parody of him -- the robotic gesticulating, the "I have a plan" emptiness, the name-dropping and celebrity-chasing (as if American politics couldn't get any phonier, Kerry planted Michael J. Fox next to his wife) was as tiresome in Kerry as ever.
For all his bragging and chest-thumping, Kerry shows little passion about his "idears," often abandoning them in mid-answer lest he fail to mention this or that poll-tested hedge.
…
Kerry says that his mom said "integrity, integrity, integrity" to him. Using her deathbed musings as a prop in a debate probably wasn't what she had in mind. And notice that she had to use the word three times with him, not usually a good sign between moms and sons. No words of wisdom from Teresa Heinz Kerry were imparted by Kerry last night, though he did very tactfully mention that he "married up" into a higher tax bracket. Even Bob Schieffer couldn't believe his ears, giggling almost uncontrollably at Kerry's faux pas. The windy senator had finally been undone by a question beyond his powers of fakery.

- Kitty, 6:27 AM
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Hey Kerry-You Just Got ''Whacked'' By President Bush
We told you not to believe the hype about this topic being Kerry's home turf - because tonight proved it wasn't. If tonight is the last impression people got of these candidates then the President served himself extremely well this evening. Let's just hope they weren't glued to the baseball games. For whatever reason the President seemed to pull it all together tonight and it was perhaps his best performance in his 6 Presidential debates.
- Kitty, 6:24 AM
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Kerry on the Ropes
By Wlady Pleszczynski
The immediate consensus on the Fox right was that Bush had hammered the Tall Guy rather decisively -- this from the same hard-to-please folks who had felt Bush hadn't done too well in last Friday's rather successful townhall debate. The ABC left preferred to call last night a draw, though one could detect a lack of confidence on that score. On Nightline George Stephanopoulos conceded Bush was "much more likable and human" than Kerry -- this in reply to a question from Ted Koppel fretting at why Kerry had "failed to ignite" his campaign. Not the sort of comments one might expect from media libs confident their guy had carried the night. Even Nightline guest John Edwards came off churlish. Why else would he have claimed that last night's debate was less important than the first two if not because his guy had lost and thus his own political career was entering its lameduck phase?
- Kitty, 6:16 AM
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The Man Who Was Unchanged
By Max Boot
I am by no means a reflexive Bush backer. I voted for John McCain in the primaries four years ago, and still suspect that he would have made a better commander in chief. As a blue-stater, I am more liberal than President Bush on social issues such as stem-cell research and gay marriage. As a fiscal conservative, I'm not happy about his free-spending ways. And I share some of the common dismay about Bush's inarticulateness and abrasiveness.
Yet, in the end, I'm a one-issue voter. Having seen firsthand the collapse of the twin towers, my vote is predicated upon this question: Who would do a better job of defending America over the next four years?
…
Bush gets it; he was transformed by 9/11. His policy implementation has been shaky, to say the least, but at least he has shown a sense of urgency in combating terrorism and weapons proliferation that was missing in the 1990s. Kerry claims a similar sense of purpose, but he told the Times that the attacks on America "didn't change me much at all." That's a lot scarier than having a president who's clueless about "the Internets."

- Kitty, 6:13 AM
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Fall fashion preview: Cowboy boots in, flip-flops out
By Ann Coulter
During the second presidential debate, John Kerry said: "I ask each of you just to look into your hearts, look into your guts. Gut-check time. Was this really going to war as a last resort?"
How about this for "gut-check time": When you close your eyes, can you see the Democrats defending America? Because I can't see it.
These are the people who are obsessed with getting the French to like us. They call terrorism a "nuisance," like prostitution and other petty crimes. ("Hundreds of Children Killed in Chechnya by Nuisance," "British Civilian Beheaded by Annoyance," "9-11: What a Hassle!") They babble about nonexistent civil liberties violations under the Patriot Act.
If Gore had been elected president, right now he would just be finding that last lesbian quadriplegic for the Special Forces team.
- Kitty, 6:11 AM
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The Third Debate
By Joel Mowbray
Spinning facts and figures is as old as politics itself, but last night, Sen. John Kerry marshaled a mountain of distortions in his indictment of the Bush administration.
Here’s the rundown, reserved for purposes of clarity and brevity to the areas of economy and jobs, health care, and college costs ...
- Kitty, 6:08 AM
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Debate Afterthoughts

Did anybody else notice that Kerry claimed that rescinding the tax cut on the top 1% would save Social Security, yet he did not offer that as his prescription? He's got other plans for that money.

Kerry claimed in the debate he has stated how he would pay for his college tuition tax credit.

Kerry: Every plan that I have laid out — my health-care plan, my plan for education, my plan for kids to be able to get better college loans — I've shown exactly how I'm going to pay for those.

In fact, his website discusses the tax credit here.

200,000 Americans serving full-time for two years and getting four years of college aid in return. These Americans will serve in some of America's toughest jobs, including:

75,000 young people helping educate children in troubled schools
25,000 young people improving our homeland security
Some 100,000 young people serving in other critical areas, from building affordable housing, to helping seniors live independently, to keeping our water and parks more clean

300,000 Americans in college serving part-time and teaching our children while at the same time earning help to pay for school, including:

100,000 more young people preparing toddlers for school
100,000 more young people helping children learn to read
100,000 more young people helping older students find the path to college

Anybody think 100,000 college students are required to help seniors find the path to college? And of course this sort of thing would require a huge bureaucracy to manage, but Kerry seems to think it can be done for chump change:

Every Penny Paid For, With Money to Spare. The Kerry-Edwards plan requires roughly $13 billion in new resources over 10 years and is paid for by their new initiative to eliminate the subsidized and guaranteed profits for banks making student loans. Today, bank profits are set in statutes written by lobbyists. John Kerry and John Edwards will require banks to bid in an open auction for the business of student loans. They will take billions that now pad banks' earnings, and instead direct those resources to young people who want to serve America and pay for college, with money left for other service and education initiatives.

That's hilarious. They are going to squeeze $1.3 billion a year out of the banks? And what are these young people going to live on for the two years that they're volunteering? Kerry's plan budgets $2,600 per person total, so it's obvious they're not getting paid.

Kerry calls this telling us how he's going to pay for it?
- Pat, 12:30 AM
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Wednesday, October 13, 2004
 
Coded Message?

John F. Kerry, 10/13/04: We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as.

John Edwards, 10/6/04: Now, as to this question, let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her.
- Pat, 11:52 PM
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Swift Boat Vets Ads

Wow! I didn't get a chance to watch these earlier with everything going on today, but if those ads appear on Monday Night Football, Kerry's going to lose a couple of percentage points overnight. The first ad, "They Served" was subtle. The second one, "Why?" was a punch to Kerry's gut. These ads are effective with a capital "E".

Also, be sure to check your local listings for when Stolen Honor is going to be playing on a Sinclair Broadcasting station near you, and invite some friends over who might be on the fence. It's a short film, only about 40 minutes long but you will want to tape it to watch again--it's very moving and powerful. The wives of the two POWs are absolutely compelling.
- Pat, 10:50 PM
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Debate Coverage

I got to the point where I couldn't listen to Kerry's whining anymore. Crush Kerry calls it a rout by the President; they also have the announcement of things to come after Kerry's Crushed.

Captain Ed live-blogged the debate with about 600 of his friends at a downtown hotel. He says the President brought his A game and Kerry got nastier as things went on (this was certainly my impression, which was why I turned it off. Kerry knows he's doomed unless he scores big tonight, but it looks like he's he's being shut out just like the Red Sox (as of this moment).

I can't get through to Hugh Hewitt's site this evening, but I'm sure it will be clearing up pretty soon. Hugh's not exactly an impartial observer, but he catches things a lot of people miss.

Today was very busy for me, with a complicated assignment at work and company arriving any minute now for the evening. I apologize for the small number of posts. Tomorrow should be fairly normal, at least after the morning.
- Pat, 7:58 PM
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Pay As You Go

Translation: He's going to raise taxes in order to pay for his plans.
- Pat, 6:17 PM
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Arizonians?

It's Arizonans, Senator.
- Pat, 6:14 PM
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ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING



- Aaron Matthew Arnwine - LifelikePundits.com, 4:57 PM
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Do Not Fret (too much)

Here's my take on these voter registration scandals: I think they actually help the Bush/Cheney campaign.

What we have are people being paid $2 by ACT, ACORN, etc., for each registration they complete. So we have starving college students, the unemployed and perhaps teenagers that need some new Timberlands sitting at home--cheating--filling out dozens of fake voter registration forms to get some cash.

But what happens on election day? These people are not going to openly admit they scammed agencies out of money...therefore, even though some tens of thousands of phoney people were registered, that just means tens of thousands of people the Kerry/Edwards campaign is hoping will show up won't.

This hurts the Kerry/Edwards campaign because they are heavily relying on these 527s to do the legwork for them. So they will have a false sense of security thinking they registered 100,000 people in Ohio, but only 20,000 people show up to vote because the other 80,000 don't exist.

What do you think?
- Aaron Matthew Arnwine - LifelikePundits.com, 3:45 PM
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The Faith Healer

Lots of commentary on Edwards' bizarre claims that the paralyzed will be able to walk again thanks to stem cell research once Kerry is elected.

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to get up out of that wheelchair and walk again," Edwards said on Monday.

Frist (R-Tenn.), a key Bush ally, said there are 120 to 140 stem-cell therapies now in use for paralyzed people. All involve adult-type cells from bone marrow and none involves stem cells.

Many scientists see stem cells as a potential cure for a host of diseases. None, however, has claimed, as Edwards did, that paralyzed people could walk again in just a few years.

If there were malpractice suits for empty political promises, this would be a natural.

Rush Limbaugh has much more.
- Pat, 2:20 PM
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Can't See the Forest for the Trees--Updated!

That's my impression of this WaPo piece.

But rather than "set a course and lead," as Codinha described, Kerry has lurched from course to course, periodically switching drivers and road maps -- and messages -- as he reacts to more and more information and advice. "His strength is that he listens," said a regular recipient of Kerry's late-night phone calls. "The problem is he's listening to too many people."

I have often thought that this is one reason why many apparently bright people are unsuccessful in life; because they can see too clearly the risks involved with action, and so they become bogged down in analysis paralysis.

Update: Superhawk has a much more detailed analysis of this article, which I highly recommend.
- Pat, 11:26 AM
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NRA: Lock and Load

Gotta love the NRA:

Billboards now seen in at least 10 key states show a prancing French poodle, its fur fancily clipped for show, wearing a pink ribbon and a blue Kerry-for-president sweater. The text says: "That dog don't hunt." And: "For 20 years John Kerry has voted against sportsmen's rights." As Election Day approaches, the National Rifle Association is clearing its throat, ready to roar.
- Pat, 10:13 AM
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THAT DOG DON’T HUNT


Buy

Who is John Kerry?

- Kitty, 10:02 AM
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SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE?


U.S. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry speaks during a service
at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Miami, Florida, October 10, 2004.
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are also pictured.
- Kitty, 9:14 AM
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Kerry Unchanged by 9-11

Michael Goodwin is appalled.

During long interviews on the subject with The New York Times Magazine, Kerry seemed to play down terrorism. He even made the shocking claim that 9/11 "didn't change me much at all."

That's one dumb thought a wanna-be commander-in-chief ought to keep to himself.

The article is a devastating portrait of the candidate as an empty suit. In it, Kerry doesn't have much to say about terrorism, nor does he seem even to think much about it.

Of course he doesn't think about it much. It's just a nuisance.
- Pat, 8:50 AM
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Mystery Discharge

Tom Lipscomb is on the case again. Lipscomb was the reporter who ferreted out the news that John Kerry had attended a meeting of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which the assassination of US Senators was discussed. Now he covers the curious case of Kerry's 1978 honorable discharge from the Navy.

An official Navy document on Senator Kerry's campaign Web site listed as Mr. Kerry's "Honorable Discharge from the Reserves" opens a door on a well kept secret about his military service.

The document is a form cover letter in the name of the Carter administration's secretary of the Navy, W. Graham Claytor. It describes Mr. Kerry's discharge as being subsequent to the review of "a board of officers." This in it self is unusual. There is nothing about an ordinary honorable discharge action in the Navy that requires a review by a board of officers.

According to the secretary of the Navy's document, the "authority of reference" this board was using in considering Mr. Kerry's record was "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163. "This section refers to the grounds for involuntary separation from the service. What was being reviewed, then, was Mr. Kerry's involuntary separation from the service. And it couldn't have been an honorable discharge, or there would have been no point in any review at all. The review was likely held to improve Mr. Kerry's status of discharge from a less than honorable discharge to an honorable discharge.

Many folks have wondered why Kerry, who signed up for a six-year hitch in 1966, should be shown as having an honorable discharge in 1978. It is unlikely following his VVAW protest days that Kerry went on to re-enlist, and even more unlikely that the Navy would accept him. Lipscomb's article makes it seem likely that Kerry was saved from a less than honorable discharge only by virtue of a pardon from then-President Jimmy Carter.

There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry's medals were reissued.
- Pat, 7:29 AM
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DEADLY POLITICAL GAMES



Duelfer and the Dullards
By Marina Malenic
So what is the significance of the Duelfer report? Is the answer:
"The president didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Or is it:
"What Saddam Hussein was doing was trying to get rid of sanctions so he could reconstitute a weapons program, and the biggest threat facing America is terrorists with weapons of mass destruction."
Incidentally, which of these answers from the two Presidential candidates reveals the intellectual ability to grasp the nature of the threat the U.S. faces in a post-9/11 world?

- Kitty, 6:50 AM
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TONGUE-TIED



Things a President Can’t Say
By Lawrence Henry
[C]onsider President Bush's situation -- the situation of any President in wartime, faced with an ad-lib partisan debate. There are far more things he can't say than those he can, because the President actually is in the game of world politics. What he says could fracture alliances, end relationships, start wars. And some of his best ripostes are barred to him because of that.
In two debates, for example, Senator Kerry has insisted that he would eliminate the "nuclear bunker buster bomb program" from the United States' arsenal. Unfair, don't you know. Asking those other countries like Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear arms programs, and then we go ahead developing new H-bombs. Hardly sporting, what? Not diplomatic.
Everybody in the world -- take that literally -- knows why the United States is developing those bombs. But can the President say something like, "You want to eliminate nuclear bunker buster bombs, Senator? What are we going to do about rogue nuclear powers when sanctions don't work? I haven't noticed they're too responsive to talk."
Even implying that threat in a public forum could cause an act of war.

- Kitty, 6:35 AM
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BWANA JOHN, MASSACHUSETTS NIMROD



SPORTSMAN JOHN
By HOWIE CARR
ON top of everything else, Sen. John F. Kerry is an out doorsman, although he wouldn't be so politically incorrect as to refer to himself in anything other than gender-neutral terms. So he's an "outdoorsperson."
…
There's not much Kerry can do about his 20-year anti-gun voting record. (Just last year, he supported a Ted Kennedy measure to tax ammunition.) And the National Rifle Association is already running ads showing that despite his windy rhetoric, in reality he is about as pro-Second Amendment as he is pro-life.
…
"I track and move and decoy and play games and try to outsmart them."
He was presumably referring to deer, not voters. But Kerry, a "former law-enforcement person," as he is also wont to describe himself, seems to have forgotten that the use of decoys is forbidden under Massachusetts law. Just using a decoy deer can mean a fine of up to $100, 30 days in jail, and/or loss of hunting license.
…
Then there's marathon running. Kerry claims to have once run the Boston Marathon. This is proving as hard to verify as the 1968 Christmas in Cambodia that he said "seared, seared into my memory." So far, he has told more versions of his Marathon run than Rosie Ruiz.
…
Most runners can remember every major marathon they've run, not just the year, but their time, and where they finished. But John Kerry doesn't even recall the decade in which he ran the biggest race of his life.

- Kitty, 6:09 AM
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Tuesday, October 12, 2004
 
Bum Rap

Here's a link to a funny Kerry song.

Hat Tip: Rancor (in the comments), via John Kerry the New Soldier blog
- Pat, 8:13 PM
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Kerry Sandbagging the Op-Ed Pages!

Lawrence Kaplan reveals in this week's New Republic that the Kerry is counseling his advisors to not disclose their ties to his campaign, as they submit articles for publication on oped pages praising Kerry's stance on the issues.

The campaign has concerns other than intellectual integrity, foremost among them the "amplification"--a term favored at Kerry headquarters--of its foreign policy message. Hence, in messages from Kerry aides to members of the campaign's advisory teams, the stipulation holds: Go forth and spread the word, but say it's your own. As a result, when these scholars take to the airwaves and the newspapers in agreement with Kerry's positions, they do so under their own names and affiliations. This leaves readers completely unaware of an expert's affiliation and makes it impossible to disentangle a scholar's views from the campaign's. "If you've signed on to a campaign, even in an unpaid capacity," says the Center for Public Integrity's Bill Allison, "and you don't disclose your affiliation when writing about campaign issues, you're misleading the public."

Hat Tip: My friend Ava, who called with this one.
- Pat, 6:08 PM
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Goofus Rides Without a Helmet and Talks On the Phone

- Pat, 4:39 PM
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A Followup to Aaron's Post

Aaron (aka STCA) put up a great post below on what you can do this weekend to help reelect President Bush.

Just to emphasize the point that it's important to work hard, here's part of an email I received from the Democracy for America jerks (aka the Deaniacs):

This election is within our reach -- and I am proud to announce a major initiative to get the votes to win. Democracy for America is partnering with MoveOn in a massive get-out-the-vote effort called Leave No Voter Behind.

Here's the plan: 500 paid organizers will mobilize thousands of volunteers in 10,000 key neighborhoods in battleground states. Together they will turn out 440,000 new voters for John Kerry and Democrats at every level. Work has already begun -- organizers are calling tens of thousands of DFA supporters in swing states.

I'd love to tell you that the Deaniacs are going to fall flat on their faces the way they did in Iowa. But I don't think that's going to happen. If you think this election is important, please, please, please do something productive. If you have a neighbor who supports Bush but might not get around to going to the polls, make a pact that the two of you will go vote together. Do what you can, and if you can't do it yourself, send money!
- Pat, 4:10 PM
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Forward Lateral?

Frank Warner, the liberal for liberation, has another superb post on why the International Man of Diplomacy is wrong about bilateral talks with North Korea.

The multilateral approach is infinitely preferable, and it’s not because it recognizes South Korea’s equal status. It’s because the multilateral approach confronts North Korea with so much more power that it has a real chance of a peaceful outcome.

Along the same lines, Michael Totten (who's decided to vote for Bush) points out that liberals and conservatives have switched sides on the question of support for the oppressed masses living under brutal dictatorships. I tend to think the big difference is that the oppressed masses are not being represented by charismatic Marxists these days.

And just to seal the point, check out this clip from Celsius 41.11 (warning, graphic violence shown) where a couple of pretty dimwitted "peace" activists say: "When you talk about a dictator, there's pros and cons. If they provide health care, a dictator, provides free health care, I like that dictator! If he provides university and education for everyone, I like that dictator!"

Hat Tip for the video: John at My Take on Things
- Pat, 3:10 PM
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Nuclear Fuel for Votes?

Scary Kerry for Dictator has an excellent post tying together some loose ends.
- Pat, 1:40 PM
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More Fraud

KH reader David pointed us to this article, where Le Fraude's buddies are committing, errr, le fraud.

Most of the fraud has come from registration drives, where people at grocery stores or on the streets ask you to sign up. 9News has learned many workers have re-registered voters multiple times by changing or making up information about them. 9News has documented 719 cases of potentially fraudulent forms at county election offices show fraudulent names, addresses, social security numbers or dates of birth in Denver, Douglas, Adams, Boulder and Lake counties. Information from other counties is still coming in.

Who's involved?

Some of the registration drive workers earn $2 per application or about $10 an hour. One woman admitted to forging three people's names on about 40 voter registration applications. Kym Cason says she was helping her boyfriend earn more money from a get-out-the-vote organization called ACORN or Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN works with low or moderate-income families on housing issues. Cason said her extra registrations earned her boyfriend $50.
- Pat, 1:07 PM
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POUND PAVEMENT FOR THE PRESIDENT!

The George W. Bush re-election effort is asking all his supporters to participate in a Walk-the-Vote event this weekend. Here's all the information you need to turn two hours of exercise and calorie-burning into fulfilling your civic duty:

1. Visit http://www.georgewbush.com

2. Register as a Bush volunteer (only takes an email account, home address and a phone number)

3. Click on "Party for President" in the left column

4. Click on "Walk for President" and follow the on-screen instructions

5. Be prepared to give out the email addresses of family members and friends who will participate so they can be notified.

6. After a few hours, you will receive a confirmation email verifying your home address where they will send you a packet of goodies AND the addresses of swing voters in your area with talking points.

7. Have a great time! What a great weekend to watch the leaves change!

If you're in the MD, NoVA, DE, WV or DelCoPA area and are interested in doing more, leave me your email address in the comments section and I can help you get started!
- Aaron Matthew Arnwine - LifelikePundits.com, 1:01 PM
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SNAKE OIL SALESMAN



Edwards is a despicable person.
Reeve passing doesn't change facts on stem cell debate
Yesterday John Edwards said, "When John Kerry is the president people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk again!" implying that Christopher Reeve could have been helped by embryonic stem cell research.
Embryonic stem cell research has not helped one single person or contributed to the relief of any ailment; to imply such a thing misses the point of how a civilized culture should respond to a human person who appears permanently crippled.
All who have seen Christopher Reeve battle his injuries could see he was an invaluable man filled with hope for his own future. When he would hear of someone like him that suffers from a similar malady, he would call them and cultivate hope for an enjoyable life despite being so limited.
To sacrifice a human embryo for the sake of some medicinal profit is to insult us all, especially Christopher Reeve, who, like a human embryo, has limitations on their existence. Both are unique and irreplaceable and should never be purposefully destroyed for the profit of others.

Political overtone of stem-cell debate a disservice to Reeve's battle
Columnist Charles Krauthammer recently quoted Ronald McKay, a stem-cell researcher with the National Institutes of Health, when it comes to these terrible conditions: "People need a fairy tale."
Well, Charles Krauthammer doesn’t. He’s been confined to a wheelchair for the last 32 years due to a spinal-cord injury he suffered as a 22-year-old medical student.
He wouldn’t mind seeing embryos discarded by fertility clinics included for use by federally-funded researchers. But being someone who knows a little about medicine, he knows that it is incredibly unlikely that he will live long enough to see the kind of advancement in treatment that would lead to him ever walking again.

- Kitty, 10:06 AM
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Hilarious Video from Kerry Waffles

There are sometimes when I just shake my head in wonder at the amazing stuff that some people can put together. Our buddy Chris over at Kerry Waffles has just gone from strength to strength in posting fabulous multimedia pages.

Now he takes on everybody's favorite Kerry Supporter, Ilana Wexler. She's the founder of Kids for Kerry and was given an evening speaking slot at the DNC. Why is she everybody's favorite Kerry Supporter? Because she's 12 years old and can't vote!

Chris has put together a very funny video of Kerry as Dr Evil and Ilana as Mini-Me. What I'm particularly amazed at is how the photos used synch with the music. Great stuff. (Click on the link and choose "Open").
- Pat, 9:50 AM
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Madelaine Dim-Bulb Makes a Funny

And some columnist in Maine falls out of his seat laughing.

"It´s a very simple issue. Bill Clinton lied, but nobody died," Albright said when asked, during a rally for Democratic candidate John Kerry, about her support for Clinton during his impeachment.



Clinton a liar, says Albright.
- Pat, 9:30 AM
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As We Come Down to the Stretch

I've been thinking the last few days that what we at Kerry Haters could really use is a plan of action for the last three weeks. It is now apparent to me that this is not going to be a laugher, that we are going to have to fight hard to win this election. So I was hoping that somebody--Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Hugh Hewitt--would tell us what we need to be doing to help ensure the President's reelection.

And then it hit me. That's old-style, top-down thinking. We've got a highly-educated, politically savvy group of readers here at Kerry Haters. Why not ask them?

So here's your chance. What do you want to see more of in the next few weeks? Should we be attacking Kerry's position(s) on the issues? Should we be putting up more silly pictures of Nuancy Boy doing goofy things? Should we be exhorting you folks to contact your local Republican party headquarters and volunteer for the final 72-hour push? Should we recommend that you all pack up and move to Ohio? What are the most effective things we can do? What's not worth bothering with?

Bloggers, here's another chance for a link-fest. I'll link to anybody who puts up a serious post on this issue.
- Pat, 8:33 AM
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More on the Thuggery

The Canton, Ohio office was burglarized; yet another in a string of "unsolved" mysteries.

Someone smashed a window Sunday night at the Victory Center for Bush-Cheney offices, then ran after grabbing a purse, a laptop computer carrying case and a portable radio.

These guys are just the most corrupt, you know, crooked gang I've ever seen.
- Pat, 8:06 AM
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A LEGEND IN HIS OWN MIND



Senator von Munchausen and the One That Got Away
By H.D. Miller
JOHN KERRY IS NOT a regular guy. He's a Swiss-boarding-school-educated man who's bagged a billionairess widow woman, and as a consequence could spend all of his summers from here to eternity tracking the truly big ones up in the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho, a comfortable family-owned SUV drive from his wife's opulent ski chalet. But he doesn't do that. And because he's not a real hunter, he doesn't know enough to say that that mythical sixteen pointer was spotted on a guided hunt in Montana, or Idaho, or Wyoming, or anywhere but Massachusetts, where the largest buck ever taken measured out at only 12 points.
So he lied about a hunting trip. Who hasn't? In fact, the more I looked at what John F. Kerry said about himself, the more apparent it became that John F. Kerry is a man given to puffery. Like some insecure drunk you meet at happy hour in a cheap bar, he has a bad habit of gilding the lily where his own accomplishments are concerned.

- Kitty, 7:14 AM
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YOUR LESSON FOR TODAY

Pat Hynes, proprietor of CrushKerry, senior account exec and copy writer for the GOP campaign consulting firm Marsh Copsey &Scott, as well as author of the book "How To Write Copy That Gets Votes" has a very instructive article today called: "How to Write A Negative Ad." He mentions the now (in)famous wind-surfing ad as not the best example of how to use humor. Personally, I absolutely loved the ad, thought it was effective, especially with Strauss’ “Blue Danube” as the background music. All in all, this was a good, informative read.

How to Write a Negative Ad
[N]ot all negative ads are created equal (indeed some are not ‘negative’ at all … some are contrast spots, some are just plain mean! And none, of course quite compare to mine.) Many of these negative spots will do no measurable harm to their intended target. Still others may end up doing more harm to the campaign running the ads, so overstretched are the messages, so harsh is the language and imagery, or so strained the degrees of separation between crook and politician.
So I thought I’d sit down and bang out some organized thoughts on how to write a negative ad. Or at least how I go about writing a negative. It’s not as easy as you might think.

- Kitty, 7:01 AM
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KERRY & THIS “NONSENSE” ABOUT WAR

'NUISANCE' NONSENSE
By Dick Morris
It isn't hard to smash a gang. It is very, very difficult to topple a foreign government and then restore the country to order. But it is only by going nation-by-nation and getting rid of those regimes that sponsor and promote terror gangs that we can be successful. President Bush began with Afghanistan and Iraq. While terrorists are still at large and causing damage in both places, they don't control either country, and can't use them as bases for global operations.
Bush flipped Libya by his aggressive and successful action against Saddam. Now he must use a robust American presence in Iraq to intimidate Syria and Iran and to get the Saudis to be tougher on terror. Then, with a successful track record behind him, Bush (along with China, South Korea and Japan) can begin to close in on North Korea.

The American Chamberlain
By William Tucker
All this tells you what's about to happen if John Kerry is elected the next President. Not only does he not have the fortitude to fight the war on terror, he doesn't even believe we're in a war. Terror will be explained away as "crime" and ultimately "an aberration." Councils of world leaders will sit around mulling over the problem -- just as the U.N. now talks circles around itself while ignoring the situation in Iran and the Sudan.
Meanwhile, al Qaeda or some offshoot will continue burrowing until they accomplish their goal – another major terrorist attack on our soil. At that point, Kerry will have an explanation similar to Neville Chamberlain's: "Everything would have worked if only Hitler had kept his promises."

Kerry clueless on military transformation
By Bruce Thompson
John Kerry seems to be adopting a consistent theme on our involvement in Iraq. Briefly stated, it is that Iraq is a diversion from our war against al Qaeda. He sometime seems to feel that we should have devoted those resources to Afghanistan. This is nonsense. And it illustrates his complete lack of insight into the challenges of transformation of the military.
…
One might assume John Kerry would have some acquaintance with the tactic of light forces, supported by tacair, from his Swift boat days with CTF-115 in Vietnam. Maybe he got out of country too soon for the lessons to take hold! There is no doubt such tactics were used.
...
So one of the most critical issues for the next commander-in-chief are beyond the ken of John Kerry. He lacks an elementary grasp of the basis for the successful restructuring of the American military’s projection of power. As to Edwards’s acquaintance with the subject, it's best not to ask!

- Kitty, 6:42 AM
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Edwards Weighs In On a Crucial Issue to Rural America

Ethanol? Commodity futures? Farm subsidies? No, methamphetamine.

NEWTON, Iowa - Sen. John Edwards on Monday called for a range of measures to stem methamphetamine abuse in rural areas, including boosting money for police and limiting the sale of cold medicines used to process the illicit drug.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate called methamphetamine "a cancer on rural areas and small towns" and promised that if elected, he and Sen. John Kerry would crack down on drug laboratories and dealers.
- Pat, 6:20 AM
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Monday, October 11, 2004
 
Moron Novelists

Slate decided to look at a group of novelists to see exactly whom they were planning on voting for. You can guess the answer, 25 for Kerry, 4 for President Bush (including blogger Roger L. Simon, who pointed me to this story). The good news is that two of the novelists who are voting for Bush this time around (Card & Simon) voted for Gore in 2000, so in that tiny demographic, support for the President has doubled!

But read the reasons and try to keep from snickering at the folks who are supposed to be among the brightest writers in America.

Russell Banks

I'll vote for John Kerry. His election won't reverse our nation's rush to establish a fascist plutocracy, it's too late for that. But it may slow the process enough to let us over the next few decades build a viable alternative to the two nearly interchangeable parties that together in the last few decades have essentially stolen the republic. It's the only way we can avoid the necessity down the road of a Second American Revolution—a thing I'd dearly love to see, but I clearly won't live that long.

Ya say you want a revolution, we-ell, you know....

Jane Smiley

I am voting for John Kerry. Would George Bush steal the election if he thought he could get away with it? The evidence is that he has (disenfranchising black voters in Florida in 2000) and wants to again (attempting the same trick already this year). That such a man, an amoral prevaricator and ruthless opportunist, actually has supporters in his bid to wreck American democracy appalls me. I think that the coming election will result in a constitutional crisis of unprecedented danger. I consider a vote for Bush a vote for tyranny.

Three cheers for tyranny!

Jonathan Franzen

Kerry, of course. He's the candidate whose defeat Osama Bin Laden (if he's alive) is praying for. I trust him not to pour additional gasoline on the fires that Bush has set overseas. Also, since he's a Democrat, I trust him to exercise a modicum of fiscal sanity and to show a little compassion for the unlucky. Also, his wife is hot hot hot. She'd be a first lady for the ages.

Jonathan, you might want to get that eyeglass prescription checked!

Check out the article for more of the same. The intelligentsia loathe Bush almost as much as they loathed Nixon. And they're going to be moaning come November 2nd!
- Pat, 11:17 PM
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Rudy, Rudy, Rudy

Rudy Giuliani's remarks got a lot of play on the afternoon drive.

"For some time, and including when I spoke at the Republican Convention, I’ve wondered exactly what John Kerry’s approach would be to terrorism and I’ve wondered whether he had the conviction, the determination, and the focus, and the correct worldview to conduct a successful war against terrorism. And his quotations in the New York Times yesterday make it clear that he lacks that kind of committed view of the world. In fact, his comments are kind of extraordinary, particularly since he thinks we used to before September 11 live in a relatively safe world. He says we have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.

"I’m wondering exactly when Senator Kerry thought they were just a nuisance. Maybe when they attacked the USS Cole? Or when they attacked the World Trade Center in 1993? Or when they slaughtered the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972? Or killed Leon Klinghoffer by throwing him overboard? Or the innumerable number of terrorist acts that they committed in the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, leading up to September 11?

"This is so different from the President’s view and my own, which is in those days, when we were fooling ourselves about the danger of terrorism, we were actually in the greatest danger. When you don’t confront correctly and view realistically the danger that you face, that’s when you’re at the greatest risk. When you at least realize the danger and you begin to confront it, then you begin to become safer. And for him to say that in the good old days – I’m assuming he means the 90s and the 80s and the 70s -- they were just a nuisance, this really begins to explain a lot of his inconsistent positions on how to deal with it because he’s not defining it correctly.
- Pat, 10:45 PM
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Kerry's Tort Reform Plan

Kerry at the debate Friday night:

KERRY: Very easily. John Edwards is the author of the Patients' Bill of Rights. He wanted to give people rights. John Edwards and I support tort reform. We both believe that, as lawyers — I'm a lawyer, too. And I believe that we will be able to get a fix that has alluded everybody else because we know how to do it.

It's in my health-care proposal. Go to johnkerry.com. You can pull it off of the Internet. And you'll find a tort reform plan.

Well, let's just do what John Kerry said and go to John Kerry's website and look at his health-care proposal.

Hmmm, not seeing anything about tort reform there. Okay, so maybe John's got it elsewhere on his site? So I did a little search on his website for "tort reform".

Here's the "plan" from a press release:

Their plan will:

Eliminate the special privileges that allow insurance companies to fix prices and collude in ways that increase medical malpractice premiums,

Ah, that's why malpractice insurance is rising! Those sneaky insurance companies are fixing prices and colluding!

Require that individuals making medical malpractice claims first go before a qualified medical specialist to make sure a reasonable grievance exists,

Meaningless. Anybody remember Doctor Nick from the Simpsons?

Require states to ensure the availability of non-binding mediation in all malpractice claims before cases proceed trial,

Not sure what this really means. The availability of something does not guarantee that anybody will use it.

Support sanctions against plaintiffs and lawyers who bring frivolous medical malpractice claims, including a “three strikes and you’re out” provision preventing lawyers who file three frivolous cases from bringing another suit for 10 years,

Let me see if I can guess who decides what is a frivolous case... lawyers and judges? Can you say, nothing will happen for the same reason that sharks don't eat lawyers; out of professional courtesy?

Oppose punitive damages – unless intentional misconduct, gross negligence, or reckless indifference to life can be established.

Are punitive damages allowed in lawsuits where those criteria are not established? And notice that it's couched as "oppose" punitive damages; not eliminate, not ban, not abolish. They're just going to "oppose" them.
- Pat, 3:44 PM
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