Jeff Goldstein puts forth "Nine more Andrew Sullivan rationalizations for the Democrats' use of Mary Cheney as a gay Presidential debate prop."

Including:

3. "The American people have the right to know that, should George Bush die and Dick Cheney assume the presidency, the White House would be overrun with biker chicks and short-haired women in flannel shirts."

Be good to yourself; read the whole thing.

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Slings and Arrows makes an interesting point on a post entitled "On Lesbians and Diplomacy": Kerry has campaigned on the idea that he will be some kind of Ambassador/President.

Kerry says he was trying to be positive. He says he was trying to point out what strong families do. What he did instead was anger a huge number of people. What we saw in Kerry's comments about Mary Cheney was the extent his diplomatic skill in miniature. And his diplomacy was a miserable failure.

Yup. Kerry appears to me like one of those people who simply cannot see themselves through others' eyes: he appers to genuinely believe he possesses some kind of diplomatic balm that will heal the wounds of the world.

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I'm not much of a national polls girl, because there is a real possibility this year of George W. Bush winning the popular vote, but losing the election in the electoral college—so I've been watching the maps. But the tide has certainly turned again in terms of the popular vote. Via Outside the Beltway, word comes of a new four-point lead for Bush in the rolling three-day Reuters/Zogby poll.

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. "The good news for the president is that he has improved his performance among the small group of undecideds," said pollster John Zogby, who found 6 percent of likely voters are undecided. "Nearly a quarter now say that he deserves to be re-elected, up from 18 percent in our last poll." Zogby said the difference between Kerry's 79 percent support among Democrats and Bush's 89 percent support from Republicans also should be "worrisome" for Kerry in such a tight race. "Kerry needs to close the deal with his fellow Democrats," Zogby said.

Both candidates headed to the swing state of Nevada in upbeat mood on Thursday after their final debate and renewed their battle during separate appearances in Las Vegas over who was best suited to lead the middle class to prosperity. The focus of the race now turns to less than a dozen crucial battleground states, with Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa -- where Bush and Kerry are running neck and neck -- all certain to see plenty of the candidates down the stretch.

The new tracking poll found Bush pulling into a tie with Kerry among Catholics and women voters, and moving slightly ahead with young voters. Kerry still holds a solid lead among seniors.

The poll of 1,220 likely voters was taken Tuesday through Thursday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. The rolling poll will continue through Nov. 1—the day before the election. A tracking poll combines the results of three consecutive nights of polling, then drops the first night's results each time a new night is added. It allows pollsters to record shifts in voter sentiment as they happen.

The poll showed independent candidate Ralph Nader, blamed by some Democrats for drawing enough votes from Al Gore to cost him the election in 2000, with the support of 1.1 percent of likely voters.

On which James comments:

Bush's strong showing among women and the young is especially interesting--although it should be noted that young voters are among the least likely to actually turn out and vote. Bush's lead among Catholics is surprising, too. Not only is Kerry a Catholic but Catholics tend to vote Democrat, valuing the welfare state over abortion and similar issues. Indeed, if Bush is running even among women and Catholics, I wonder whose support he's losing to have him in such a tight race.

James also turned me on to Real Clear Politics, which has political articles, a running electoral vote map, and a summary of what different polls are showing in the battleground states.

At this moment, Real Clear Politics has Bush at 264 electoral votes, and Kerry at 237. But the margins are razor-thin on that—many are within the margin of error on the polls themselves.

So we're still biting our nails. Especially those of us who have been predicting a Bush landslide ever since Kerry was nominated. (I'm sticking with that prediction, by the way: but I do sweat a little in the middle of the night once in a while.)

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Scott Ott, for your dining and dancing pleasure:

Kerry Sorry for Remark About Cheney's Lesbian Child

(2004-10-14) -- John Forbes Kerry, father of two heterosexual daughters, today apologized for referring to the sexual preference of Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter during last night's final presidential debate.

"There's nothing wrong with being one of God's homosexual children," said Mr. Kerry, an openly-heterosexual veteran of foreign war who is also a U.S. Senator, "And far be it from me to pry into the private life of Mr. Cheney's lesbian child, who is gay and a homosexual. People can't choose whom they will love, and so I should not have mentioned that his daughter is a lesbian person, and not a heterosexual, but in fact a gay homosexual woman who is a lesbian with the last name Cheney."

Read the whole thing, before Kerry feels the wrath of Lynne Cheney, and the disgust of moderate voters, who generally see through these types of shenanigans.

This guy won't be electable as dogcatcher after this.

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There is a fine line between discussing Mary Cheney as it pertains to a frank exchange on views of homosexuality, and violating her privacy (and that of the Vice President's family). I think most people felt that John Edwards was coloring within the lines when he discussed the young Ms. Cheney in an intimate setting over a table with the Vice President last week. But John Kerry was out of bounds in the way he talked about Mary Cheney last night: there was nothing germane in bringing up her sexual orientation, and it came off as cheap theatre, a transparent attempt to drive a wedge between the President and his conservative base.

Plus, the fact that both events occurred—that Ms. Cheney was discussed twice in a row—makes it look like there's a strategy afoot. That's just not something that happens naturally.

Apparently, if you don't want your daughter to be used as a political football, it means you are "ashamed" of her. That's how Elizabeth Edwards put it, anyway. What a cunt.

She probably believes anyone who's right-of-center on any issue at all is a hopeless homophobe. (That's why Kerry pulled the stunt in the first place: the presumption is that the GOP base is laced with homophobia.)

God help this country if these creeps get elected. They are the scum of the earth.

I can't stand what's happening to this country, and I can't wait till this election is over.

Ohio, don't fail us.

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It was really hard to be objective about this particular debate, because I know enough about the issues—and John Kerry— to find Kerry's laundry lists of candy and gum he'll be giving us all rather boring and laughable. By the end of the evening I was wondering if I could look up the phrase "stereotypical politician" in a dictionary, and find Kerry's picture there. Those were his better moments: I was also reminded of snake oil pitch men, and used car salesmen.

After watching the tape I'd made of the debate I poked my head into my husband's office and enquired, "did you know that when Kerry gets elected it'll start raining hundred dollar bills?"

"I got that idea," he replied.

"I mean, we'll have so much extra money and government benefits, it'll get downright annoying."

The clincher, though, was the sequence wherein our guys made their closing statements. Bush came up with an image—a painting of a sunrise over a hill in Texas—that evoked two different Reaganesque phrases: "morning in America," and "the shining city on a hill" that Reagan thought America was and could be. I thought it was important for Bush to do something to show that underneath the surface, where he discusses hard realities and Kerry makes endless promises, there is a level on which he is the optimist and Kerry, the pessimist.

This race hinges on how the undecided voters break: some analysts claim they'll break for the challenger, and some, for the incumbent.

I thought Bush did well. I still wish he were fluent in English—but you can't have everything. He's a good man, and he's doing a lot to keep this country safe. I'm convinced he'll do a better job than Kerry on that score, and that he'll be a better facilitator for economic growth as well.

I thought he won the second presidential debate, though the Fox panelists—tough guys, all—scored that one as a tie. This time I thought perhaps it might be a draw, but the Fox guys gave this one to Bush.

It doesn't matter what we think, though. It matter what people in New Mexico and Ohio think.

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Dean Esmay has another interview with a Swiftie up on his site. This one is with Kerry's CO, George Elliott. It's very good. Go read; see you later.

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Kate of Small Dead Animals has a very nice spoof of the old Great White North bit running over at Protein Wisdom. In this version, our heroes interview Teresa Heinz Kerry. Over beer, natch.

Just for grins, I followed Kate's link back to this link about Teresa's latest idiotic statement, and began thinking about that "need and greed for oil" line again. When I first heard it, I remember wondering about Teresa's fortune, and her "need and greed" for tomato sauce. I've read that if she and her husband win this race they'll be the richest first couple in history—richer than the first JFK and Jackie. But, whatever.

What struck me this time was the word need. We can argue all day about how effective it is to install democracy at the point of a gun, though I'm going to have to agree with all the Japanese, Germans, and Afghanis who say it's just fine. But to suggest that this country needs oil, but oughtn't to do anything to ensure that it has a steady supply of it—even when the results are beneficial to the other country involved on a humanitarian level—borders on "let them eat cake" territory. After all, if the economy went into the toilet because our energy needs weren't being met, a lot of people would lose their homes. But Teresa would still have her four. Tra la la.

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Eugene Volokh and one of his co-conspirators, Orin Kerr, discuss John Kerry's odd analogy between terrorism and gambling/prostitution in a series of posts that begins here. Kerr finds a possible explanation in the fact that Kerry spent some time as a prosecutor who tackled gambling related to organized crime.

I found myself thinking about that old canard to the effect that if what you have is a hammer, all your problems begin to look a lot like nails. Kerry's father was a diplomat, and one of the dominant points he's been making throughout his campaign is that he would be a better diplomat than Bush is. He's also signalled that he wants to return to the "law enforcement" model for combatting terrorism.

But both of those measures were used during the 1990s, and they failed miserably. Clinton's administration treated terrorism as a law-enforcement issue, and only emboldened Al Qaeda. And I suspect that Clinton was also one of the best diplomat-Presidents in history, if the tales are true about his level of personal charm and charisma.

Kerry is looking at the problem of terrorism from the perspective of what he considers his strong suits, rather than the perspective of what will work, and he wants to return to the strategies that didn't work in the 1990s.

And better than 45% of the U.S. population appears unable to figure this out. Truly amazing.

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Stephen Green has his latest map up at Vodkapundit. I'd been waiting several days for this, but I wasn't that happy when I saw it: he has the GOP at 271 votes, and the Democrats at 267. Very close. Of course, he gives New Mexico to the Dems, and I still think it will wake up on November 2nd, realize it's a Western state, and vote accordingly.

He also shows us a scenario under which New Hampshire could well determine the fate of the nation. (Check the extended entry—he accidentally clicked Vermont instead of NH, but his point still holds, since the two states are only off by one electoral vote: NH could conceivably become a tie-breaker.)

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Kerry let his true attitude about the War on Terror shine through in a New York Times puff piece.

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. ‘’We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance,'’ Kerry said. ‘’As a former law-enforcement person, I know we’re never going to end prostitution. We’re never going to end illegal gambling. But we’re going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn’t on the rise. It isn’t threatening people’s lives every day, and fundamentally, it’s something that you continue to fight, but it’s not threatening the fabric of your life.'’

ThatÂ’s the difference: Unlike Clinton, Kerry does inhale.

In fairness, the defenders of this remark are suggesting that Kerry isn't saying terrorism is at a "nuisance" level now, but rather that we might get to that place after fighting it for a while—beat it back to where it was before. Unfortunately, where it was before, with the law enforcement model being used during the Clinton administration and the anemic responses to the attacks of the 90s, is how we got where we are today. Terrorism is not a criminal act; it is an act of war. And in the parts of the world where it is used, no respect is earned by treating it like a criminal act: we merely communicate that we are "soft," and encourage more of the same.

Kerry's strategy for dealing with the biggest challenge of our age—one that expressly threatens the Western world itself—is insane.

Via Armies of Liberation.

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William Saletan of Slate discusses the second presidential debate, and concludes (rightly) that Bush won. What's interesting about it is that he's a liberal who believes Edwards won the VP debate. In reading it, one almost gets the feeling that he wants Kerry to be more lawyerly. Naturally, I don't think that would help their side in the least.

But it's a good read, and contains a link to the official GOP platform, which I'd never had a chance to glance through before.

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Bush won. Not in a slam-dunk kind of way, but he won.

Some key moments:

1) When Kerry was trying to address the fact that we haven't had any major terrorist attacks since 9/11. This fact is one of his biggest weaknesses, and he knows it.

2) Kerry's handling of the stem-cell research question and the Federal funding of abortion question. In both instances he professed respect for life, and then essentially told the questioners to fuck off. With a lot of blah, blah, blah added in. This was one of the best opportunities for people to see through his lawyerly talk.

3) That moment when Kerry looked around the room and proclaimed that—from the looks of it—only he, the President, and Charlie made more than $200K a year among the people in that room. It seemed clear to me that he was making a classist judgment about what someone might look like who makes good money. As an Angeleno, I found it rather bizarre that one could presume to tell from someone's dress what sort of income they are pulling down. He might well have been correct, but his methodology was essentially a snobby one, and his outlook was very East Coast.

4) Bush's "timber" joke. It was the best line of the evening, and it broke through the audience's resistance to laughter (I suspect they had been instructed not to audibly react to what Bush and Kerry were saying).

5) The closing statements. Kerry stayed in one place and delivered some sort of little canned speech. In the background, a woman looked like she was slightly too bored to really be contemptuous of him. Very static.

When Bush gave his closing statement he walked around a little, and was animated. His entire demeanor was different from Kerry's.

The format, stilted as it was, played to Bush's strengths.

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Boy. Blogging sure has been light for the past 24 hours around here. I'm afraid this blog is starting to suck.

But, fear not. I have a plan for improving it. A plan!

You feel better already, don't you?

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So here you go.

(Yes, I took the day off. Yes, I'll have something to say about the debate. No, I'm not watching it live. Yes, I might not make it back until tomorrow morning. Enjoy the fine folks on my blogroll, and I'll catch you later when I've caught up on sleep.)

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Turns out that's an oxymoron. Today the Senate voted the most dramatic change to our intelligence services in half a century. The vote was 96-2 in favor of the new framework, based on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Two senators didn't vote. Guess which ones.

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Just three things about this matter of Cheney and Edwards having met before the night they debated:

1) If Cheney's misstatement was done on purpose, it's worthy of condemnation, because I don't want those of us on the libertarian/right side of things to get into the habit of thinking the ends justify the means. (Or that information can be "false but accurate.") That's for some of the other guys.

2) It seems perfectly likely that Cheney just didn't remember. Those of us who aren't in public life probably can't imagine what it's like to have a job that involves meeting people by the thousands, and smiling at them and shaking their hands. And Cheney has spent decades doing this; it might not be natural at all for him to remember one junior senator, before that senator rose to prominence.

3) The best evidence that it was a simple oversight is the fact that Edwards forgot as well. How do we know this? We know it because Edwards didn't say anything about it during the debate. And he would have, too: both men were entirely willing to finish up a previous question before moving on to the one they were asked to speak on at any given moment. It would have been very easy for Edwards to say, "Before I answer that question, let me point out that I met the Vice President at a prayer breakfast." He didn't do that.

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1 Please, of course, Cheney's error was planned before the debate for full effect. That it was a lie - big deal. Cheney and Bush have plenty of lies and plenty of excuses. But no apologies - never. So, to recap, LMA. We went to war over WMDs and you yourself claimed definitive proof of their existence. I urged you repeatedly to send your proof to the President because he needed help. His excuses weren't proving valid. And now - again - no WMDs. No threat to the U.S.. No link to 9/11. Looks like your shepherd's been stretching things a-might and you've been fleeced.

Posted by: littlemrmahatma at October 08, 2004 10:38 AM (BZ0tI)

2 I'm not going to say that the invasion was a mistake, because I don't see it that way. I do think our intelligence could have been better. Naturally, I'm chastened by the fact that your guy has been voting to strengthen our intelligence services over the years. Oh, wait . . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at October 08, 2004 04:34 PM (SuJa4)

3 Ooooh neat! ...Trolls!! Thanks Miss Attila! I thought the exact same thing once I heard they had been at the same prayer breakfast-thing. Edwards damn-sure would have corrected the VP if it had come to mind. Being in the same place, and even mentioning someones's name in a speech doesn't necessarily equate "meeting" someone. Edwards lack of memory of the event proves to me that they never "met" Best Regards!

Posted by: Zoot at October 08, 2004 05:46 PM (35sAZ)

4 I have known people who make such a dramatic impression on people around them that it takes three or four introductions to remember them. Good thing JE was seated stage right so people wouldn't become mesmerized by that mole on his lip.....

Posted by: John at October 08, 2004 10:29 PM (r4/LH)

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My mother used to have an emotionally disturbed dog that yipped at everyone and barked, and jumped up at people—sometimes several feet into the air. It was a little miniature pinscher, and its barking was always somewhat comic in relationship to its size.

That's what Edwards reminded me of last night: a little yipping dog.

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. . . of a good word for George Soros other than asshole.

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Shackleford sums up what he calls Kerry's "Tooth Fairy Diplomacy" plan for Iraq:

To recap Kerry's plan: a) call meetings b) do same thing as Bush only better cause I'm not Bush.

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