I know you guys analyze these things more than I do (and it’s probably not a new point), but I did find these Kerry comments to be incredible during the debate…

I simply had to write after perusing "The Corner." Your conservative circle-jerk never fails to amuse. Bush "won"? How? By not peeing in his pants again? Check the debate polls, Kathryn. The real ones, ABC, CNN, SUSA. Try -- for once --to be objective in your heart of hearts at least. Bush looked like the petulant, hothead aging frat boy he has always been. Try to explain away your man's bizarre, antic parry toward Gibson and his maniacal yelling. Live with it.

Have a nice day.

I was at the breakfast where President Bush spoke this morning, and he was on fire. He exuded lots of energy and enthusiasm. He also displayed lots of optimism (something Kerry never does).

He used the "run, but not hide" line on several different Kerry votes. He also said that America could never pass Kerry's "global test", because we didn't pass it in 1991, when Kerry voted against removing Saddam from Kuwait.

"On issue after issue, my opponent showed why he's earned the ranking of most liberal member of the US Senate. Several of his statements just don't pass the credibility test. With a straight face, he said 'I've only had one position on Iraq.' He must think we've been on another planet.'''

He once called it the right decision. "Now he says it's the wrong war.''

"Who's he trying to kid? He can run, but he cannot hide.''

Listening to all this, "I did all I could not to make a bad face.''

Dear Kathryn,Two presidential debates and two clear wins. John Kerry is going to be the next president of the United States, and more people know it now than just two short hours ago. Tonight, George Bush had another chance to make his case to the American people. Again he failed. · Again, he showed that he is out of touch with reality on Iraq. · Again, he offered no plan for jobs and no plan for cutting the cost of health care. · Again, he pretended that our problems don't exist. · Again, he refused to level with the American people.

George Bush just doesn't get it, so he can't fix it.

John Kerry held George Bush accountable for the failures of the last four years. He demonstrated the strength and character we need in a president. He made it clear he could lead as commander in chief.

John Kerry offered real solutions to real problems. He told America the truth, and offered a plan for a fresh start on the economy, Iraq, and the war on terror. Simply put, he was presidential. Ironically, the president was not.

Right now, I'm here on the front lines in St. Louis. Down the hall is what they call the "spin room." It is where Republican operatives are trying to put their best face on what was another clear victory for John Kerry. I've done this a few times before, and I can tell you firsthand that my job is a lot easier when our candidate has a big night like John Kerry did tonight.

I know, and more importantly John Kerry knows, how hard YOU are going to work to make sure the Bush campaign doesn't spin this debate. Here is what you can do:

1) Call into talk radio http://volunteer.johnkerry.com/speakout

2) Write local newspapers http://volunteer.johnkerry.com/speakout

Sincerely,Joe Lockhart

Senior Advisor

Hi K-Lo,

Hillary's making the news rounds, giving it up for Kerry like he was the Second Coming. It's hard to think she's ever genuine (how would one tell?), but assuming she IS feeling happy now post-debate... I've gotta believe it's because she realizes that tonight's disaster plus cratering in Debate 3 will doom Kerry, re-elect Bush, and clear the decks for her run in 2008... If she really thought Kerry won, she'd be much more strained in her praise of him.

Want to see who won? Read Hillary's spin. She's happy 'cause she thinks Bush smashed Kerry like a bug.

For my money, Chief Two Stones opened a whole case of whup-a** tonight. Notice how quickly time flew by? It always does when it's enjoyable!

Cheers!

Josh Marshall, who said that Edwards didn't strike a single false note in the VP debate, now says that tonight's debate was a draw. On the one hand, you could say that if Josh Marshall thinks it was a draw, Bush must have won. On the other hand you could say given his judgement on the Cheney-Edwards debate he could just be way wrong.

According to most readers, like this one:

Dear Jonah: Man, the conservative punditry sure was shook up from the first debate. So much so that you guys can't even seem to grasp how big the president won tonight. It's almost comical watching how much you guys are missing it. The president was presidential and respectfully condescending to a senator that frankly doesn't seem credible unless you're impressed by machine gun answers that no one, and I mean no one, has any way of knowing the accuracy thereof or a "the sky is falling" scampaign. Even conservatives are far too impressed with the litigator debater. The guy's fraud...and it showed.

From a reader:

You are looking at the debates all wrong.

Bush needs to show he cares and be likeable nothing more.

You want Bush to confront Kerry on a point by point basis and eliminate
Kerry from the race. Bush is just not a good enough debater to do this. At
best Bush can repeat big talking points about Kerry and score an occasional
body blow. If Bush attempted to do what you want for 90 minutes he would
most likely leave himself open for easy attack.

Bush has to let his ad campaign do the real damage.

Summary

Bush was out of material after 45 minutes into the first debate. Kerry was
out of material 45 minutes into the second debate. Bush can live on his
charm. Kerry cannot.

From a reader:

Dear Jonah:

I just watched the debate live on Swedish TV (3-5:30 AM!) and I must
say that my impression was that the President ROCKED!

But even the Swedish TV political commentator said that Bush had the
better debate! I thought it would be a cold day in Hades before I heard a
Swede say anything positive about the President, so this is proof enough
for me that it was a *whopping* victory for W!

David [Name withheld]
Uppsala, Sweden

Kerry 44

Bush 41

Draw 13

I'd like to make two points.

First, for every email I get which says I'm nuts and Bush won hands down, I get one email from another -- equally conservative -- reader saying I'm nuts for thinking Kerry didn't destroy Bush.

Second, I do wish readers would stop trying to read my mind as to why I'm offering my opinions. I get a lot of psychobabble from people who think I'm deliberately hard on Bush to maintain my credibility with liberals or some such nonsense. Believe me, it's nonsense.

If I was scoring this as a debate coach, I guess I'd give it to Kerry. But the first rule of presidential debates is that that's the last way to judge them. In the first half Bush was too defensive, I thought. In the second half I thought Bush gained on Kerry. On taxes, abortion and the environment I think Bush won to one extent or another.

But on the more important issue of who was the more likable guy, I think Bush had Kerry beat. The crowd, it seemed, like Bush a lot more. Not only did the crowd not laugh at Kerry's jokes, but Kerry didn't make any.

However, on the question of whether Bush did everything he needed to tonight, I don't think so. I think he helped himself, but Kerry leaves these debates energized. If you think back to just ten days ago, Kerry was falling apart. That trend was turned around in the last debate and this one didn't change that.

Bush beat Kerry, hands down.

The only thing I would have added, I think the best way to keep abortion from dividing Americans is to keep the federal government from spending your tax dollars on a procedure you consider to be akin to murder.

From a reader:

Jonah,

I don’t have cable TV, and up here in Canada I was unable to find the debate on radio, so I have been following it via the postings on the Corner, and on the debate comments section created on Little Green Footballs.

I’ve noticed something very interesting – the professional observes like the fine folks at NRO (which is my all-time favorite web-stop, incidentally) generally had unhappy reactions to tonight’s debate, while the regular citizens at LGF were much, much happier about it. Both groups are equally partisan towards the President; both groups are equally disdainful of John Kerry; and the regular citizens at LGF -- although not professional politicos like the NRO staff -- are reasonably well informed people who have followed the election avidly. And yet the reactions between you guys and them are miles apart (more or less).

I wonder if the burden of being a pundit alters your view of what is transpiring on that debate stage, and in thus handicaps pundits when it comes to assessing how these things will play to regular folks. I don’t mean that as an insult – I have a lot of respect for you and your compatriots’ opinions, and I read NRO and The Corner every day both to be informed, and to keep my spirits up while the West tries to wage a war against terror. It’s a great place, and you guys do great work. But, I wonder if your perspective is a bit skewed by your profession, and your legitimate concern over the election. Mark Steyn has commented on a number of occasions that in the last election, most pundits were sure that Gore won the debates, only to wake up and find Bush up by a few points the next day. Maybe we will see that here.

Anyway, thanks for all the fine work you NRO folks do, and keep it up. And for once, don’t take offence when I say: I sure hope you guys are completely out of it!

Regards,
Rob C
Toronto

Bush looks commanding, credible, and confident.

Kerry looks like a carping, weak little whiner.

If Bush shakes his head and asks the crowd, “Would you buy a used car from this guy?” I’m naming my firstborn Dubya.

"My health care plan will provide..."

"Over the last 13 months [?] we've created 1.9 million new jobs..."

"We've got 40 million dollars going to Bermuda..."

"He voted 98 times to raise taxes..."

"I've got a plan to increase the wetlands by 3 million..." [3 million WHAT?
Private landowners jailed for moving a pile of sand from one end of the
garden to the other?]

Does anyone really care about this wonky stuff? Does anyone believe it?
Does anyone REMEMBER it for more than 5 seconds?

Man, you guys, why are you so depressed? My wife just said that during the first debate Bush lost because all he could do was spout talking points. This time, Kerry is vomiting the talking points and Bush is looking strong and real. I think you guys need to take a step back and asses this from an independent voter's point of view and stop getting so vexed when the president doesn't hit every orthodox conservative talking point. Swing voters could care less. Bush is definitely the alpha male tonight.

9/11/01 – 10/8/04 None

2001 WTC

2000 USS Cole

1998 embassies in Kenya and Tanzania

1996 Khobar Towers

1993 WTC

That’s only a partial list but the point is from 1993 to 2001 direct attacks against the US were carried out on a regular basis – with impunity. No terrorists camps destroyed. No terrorists masters toppled.

What matters is if you have a plan. Or so says John Kerry.

Um, what if I label the plan? Does it still mean something?

Why haven't we been attacked since 9/11?

And Kerry's answer was awful. I can't tell you because it's classified!

First answer Kerry truly tanked on.

A second marked characteristic of the liberal-in-debate-with-the-conservative is the tacit premise that debate is ridiculous because there is nothing whatever to debate about. ... Many liberals accept their opinions ideas and evaluations as others accept revealed truths, and the facts are presumed to conform to the doctrines, as any dutiful fact will; so why discuss the fact?

Sullivan has just blogged that he thinks the presidential race won't be as tight as the CW holds. He's quoting an email on the track record:

"On 20 occasions, the incumbent President has been re-elected. Median margin of victory in the electoral college is 66%. That would require Bush to get 447 electoral votes. On 11 occasions, the incumbent President has lost his bid for re-election. Median margin of loss in the electoral college is 37%. That would require Kerry to get 366 electoral votes. If you want to define an electoral 'landslide' as being 10% or more difference, then of the 31 occasions described above 29 were landslides (Adams lost by 5 in 1800 and Wilson won by 5 in 1916). If you want to define it as 20% or more, then 27 were landslides (19 of the 20 wins and 8 of the 11 losses)."

Sullivan then adds: "See my point?"

Actually, I don't--or rather, I don't see his correspondent's point. Because most presidential races with incumbents have not been close, we're supposed to believe that this one is unlikely to be? Why can't we just conclude that the electorate is more evenly divided than it has been for most presidential elections? I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction: Neither Bush nor Kerry is going to get over 55 percent of the two-party vote. Clinton didn't in 1996.

Or is Sullivan's correspondent using "a 10% difference" to mean that one candidate will get 10 percent more votes than the other? In that case, the candidate would have to clear around 52.4 percent of the two-party vote and thus beat the other guy by 4.8 points. I'll agree that one of the candidates could do that. That would probably mean an absolute percentage of the vote that qualified as a landslide by post-1988 standards (since nobody has gotten an absolute majority during this period). But it wouldn't be a landslide by historical standards.

Were we better off during Saddam’s time? - A question to which many outsiders are very keen to know our answer. Well, in many respects the streets are much more insecure, yet the security that existed in Saddam’s days was like someone quietly waiting for certain death; like a cancer stricken individual carrying the disease in his guts with no hope or attempt at cure. Yes, the pain and torture may be much more terrible when the surgeon has operated and the disease is tackled; but at least there is hope of recovery and healing, and the prospect of life saving. And this is not allegory, nor a parable; this is coming from someone whose house has been standing in the midst of bombs and explosions for so long now, protected by none but the mercy and grace of the Lord; from someone who has suffered robbery, kidnapping and constant daily danger.

And here we are, trying to organize elections, trying to control the security situation, trying to restart the reconstruction, able to talk, able to think, able to watch satellite T.V., use the internet, the mobile etc. – in short everything that we have been forbidden to do before. And without the slightest hesitation, we hail with Love and Gratitude our giant U.S. friend and his allies, standing with us shoulder to shoulder, braving the elements, braving death, calumny and hatred, shedding blood; to help us heal, to help us reach the shores of safety. And make no mistake, the campaign is winning and will achieve its objectives. Make no mistake; you have already created an allied nation in the very heart of the M.E. despite all appearances, which will produce all the long term benefits and consequences so many times reiterated by President Bush, to the ridicule and insults of the profoundly mistaken, of the profoundly hating.

America, stay the course - God, Decency, Honor, Hope and everything that is virtuous and right is on your side, beside the majority of the Iraqi people. America do not waiver, for you have never waged a more noble and just campaign in your entire history. America, we are winning, God’s willing, and Victory is coming sooner than many might think.

Nice email:

As usual, you put the fake "antiwar" liberals who dupe the left in their place. I opposed the war, as a pacifist, as a left winger, who also opposed Clinton's wars (which were perhaps worse - since Milosevic was no Hussein, as you point out - and further he sided with NEONAZIS in Croatia, imagine what ems would be saying about that).. Good show.

I by the way would like Kerry to win because of domestic issues, but I sure as hell think he's as sleazey and more phony than Bush. I'd be a Nader voter in a safe state. It took Edwards to make Cheney seem charming (and it seems that Dems are trying to outhawk them on Palestine - something to exploit perhaps?)

This week, in Orlando, Florida, approximately 100 protestors stormed and ransacked the local Bush-Cheney headquarters injuring one campaign staffer who suffered a broken wrist and causing considerable damage.

According to news accounts, similar "protests" occurred yesterday across the country in Miami, FL; Tampa, FL; Kansas City, MO; Dearborn, MI; St. Paul, MN; Independence, MO; and West Allis, WI. All of the "protests" appear to be a coordinated effort by members of a major labor union to intimidate staff and volunteers of the Bush-Cheney campaign. The AFL-CIO took credit on their own website for these protests that included thousands of workers in 17 cities across the country.

In what is apparently one of those coordinated "protests", the Bush-Cheney headquarters in West Allis, Wisconsin was invaded by more than 50 protestors who disrupted campaign activities and intimidated campaign workers and volunteers. According to the Associated Press, over 100 union protestors physically stormed their way into Bush-Cheney headquarters in Miami, Florida and intimidated volunteers inside. In what could be a related incident, although the perpetrator has not yet been identified, the Knoxville, TN Bush-Cheney office was hit by gun-fire on Tuesday morning, shattering the plate-glass front doors before volunteers showed up for work.

These attacks are not conduct protected by the First Amendment. The activities were carried out on the same day throughout the country, apparently organized by the same national organization. The lack of any notice and the pattern suggest a plan to intimidate volunteers who were supporting their candidate in the upcoming Presidential campaign.

While this may be a little bit inside-baseball-y, you can argue that jobs actually rose about 330,000, as per the latest report from the Labor Department. A portion of the September report (that the media will probably ignore) points to benchmark revisions that BLS does every year to its payroll employment estimates. Without getting into any of the details, the revision this year will add about 236,000 jobs to the estimate. Technically, it will be added to the March 2004 jobs estimate and not be incorporated in the jobs report until February 2005.

Just as a side note, it's been said that the July-August increase in jobs dropped from 144,000 to 128,000. The job estimates for any month are revised twice after they're originally reported, so both July and August estimates were revised in this latest report. July was revised up by 12,000, while August was revised down 4,000. So while it might look like jobs were lost, there is actually a net increase of 8,000.

And just a final note -- as your eyes glaze over: With this report the July job estimates are considered final. When it was originally reported, the

June-July increase in jobs was 32,000. Looking at the final revised estimates, job growth between June and July was 85,000.

Kerry apologists argue that it's unfair to criticize Kerry for voting for $87 billion for operations in Iraq after the war. Kerry was willing to vote for the money, they say. He just wanted to raise the top tax rates to pay for it. This defense has never struck me as very persuasive: So Kerry wanted to fund the troops, but raising taxes was a higher priority? KerrySpot makes an additional sound criticism. But there's yet another weakness to this Kerry defense: Kerry himself foreclosed the possibility of making it.

Here's Kerry being questioned by Doyle McManus on the Sept. 14, 2003, edition of Face the Nation:

Kerry: "Senator Biden and I are introducing an effort to try to link the $87 billion to the reduction of the Bush tax cut at the high end, and we're doing that as a matter of shared sacrifice. . . . I think we need--I think we need to roll back the top end of the Bush tax cut."

McManus: "If that amendment does not pass, will you then vote against the $87 billion?"

Kerry: "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to--to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible. What is responsible is for the administration to do this properly now. And I am laying out the way in which the administration could unite the American people, could bring other countries to the table, and I think could give the American people a sense that they're on the right track. There's a way to do this properly. But I don't think anyone in the Congress is going to not give our troops ammunition, not give our troops the ability to be able to defend themselves. We're not going to cut and run and not do the job" (emphasis added).

So: Is it fair to say that for the senator to vote against the bill because his tax-hiking amendment failed was irresponsible? That it amounted to abandoning our troops and not giving them the ability to defend themselves? That it was reckless? Kerry himself seemed to think so, before the primary heat was turned up.

Here’s some more on Jelinek. She's not what you’d call a cozy read.

A writer’s politics, whatever they might be, or might have been, should not, of course, intrude into the decision whether or not to award him or her the Nobel Prize, but do we think – even for a moment – that Jelinek would have been awarded that prize if she had been a member of a fascist party between 1974-91?

The Guardian has yet more details. We learn that Jelinek’s latest play, Bambiland “is a full-throated attack on the US-led invasion of Iraq,” a fact that will have played no part, of course, in the decision to award her the prize. Her publisher meanwhile describes Jelinek as ‘a dissident figure’, an unfortunate description, perhaps, of someone who was a communist in the Brezhnev/Andropov era, and hardly an accurate way of talking about a writer who seems to subscribe to the crackpot orthodoxies of many a minor European university. "Boringly conventional", would, I feel, be a more appropriate label.

But perhaps that's already implied by the Nobel.

In Britain, Ofcom is the broadcasting industry’s designated nanny. It’s now come up with some proposals designed, naturally, to protect ‘the children’. The BBC is, quite rightly, none too impressed, and is complaining that the suggestion that young viewers should be protected from "potential or actual moral, psychological or physical harm" is far too vague. The BBC's argument that this code could lead to banning Bambi before the watershed hour of 9pm may seem far-fetched, but I seem to recall that ET once ran into problems with Swedish regulators for similar reasons. Other highlights of the Ofcom proposals include, apparently, the suggestion that religious programming should carry some sort of warning, as well the culturally illiterate suggestion that demonstrations of exorcism or the occult should also be prohibited before 9pm, thus, of course, denying kids a rich source of the spooky chills and thrills that can do so much to feed their imaginations. More prosaically, the BBC asked where this proposal left the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Harry Potter.

Where indeed?

John - That's awesome. I just love Communists who waited until it was absolutely clear the Soviets weren't going to invade their home countries and install a brutal dictatorship before they quit the party. I mean you wouldn't want to quit the CP in, say, 1989 when there was still a remote chance the hardliners -- er, I mean Heroes of the Proletariat -- would mount a counter-offensive, shoot both Gorbachev and Yeltsin and then come sweeping across Mittel Europa to destroy the decadent bourgeoise regimes of Western Europe and, later, -- fingers crossed! fingers crossed! -- crush the evil Americanskis!

A reader responds:

Good explanation of your position, J, and I respect it. But the sad truth is the sanctions regime (however corrupt and imperfect) would have kept Saddam boxed up at least a few years or so, during which we could have captured Bin Laden and the Taliban leader (he’s also still on the loose), cleaned up terrorists cells in Pakistan, closed down the money trail leading out of Saudi Arabia, and hopefully worked on the Israel-Palestinian problem. And don’t forget Korea. Instead, we are consumed with this huge problem that has eaten up our resources, stretched our army to the brink, thrown us deeply into debt, divided our nation, alienated our allies, and which lacks an end-game or clear sense of mission. And that’s when I’m feeling optimistic…..

Sorry I missed this. After a long quote from Slate's Will Saletan which jibes with Sullivan's view that Edwards "eviscerated" Cheney, Andrew Sullivan writes:

On all the critical questions in this election - why is Osama bin Laden still at large? why did we invade Iraq? why has the Iraq occupation come unglued? why the poor jobs record? why the record deficits? - Cheney had almost no answer at all. If you're already a committed Bush voter, it must have felt great to see a candidate articluate and aggressive. But any undecided voter would have sided with Edwards. That's what matters. (Btw, here's what Jonah said last night, after calling me "batty" for believing that Cheney was eviscerated: "I'd go so far as to predict that Sullivan is the only big name/mainstream pundit in America who has that opinion." Hmmm. Does the political correspondent for Slate count?)

Fair enough. However, while Will Saletan is a smart and good guy and I'm happy to say I'm friends with him, I think he's also been drinking too much anti-Bush Kool-Aid over the last year. For quite a while his writing has been fairly unqualified in its anti-Bush fervor. I'm sure it's sincere, but that also suggests where he's coming from.

Moreover, my main point that night was that I thought Andrew's description of Cheney as "roadkill" was batty. Here's his original quote:

Boy was I ever wrong. If last Thursday night's debate was an assisted suicide for president Bush, this debate - just concluded - was a car wreck. And Cheney was road-kill. There were times when it was so overwhelming a debate victory for Edwards that I had to look away.

This, I think, is still batty. One can reasonably argue that Cheney lost. You can even reasonably argue that Cheney lost badly, even if I think that's incorrect. But I don't think you can reasonably say what Andrew said above -- as a matter of political analysis. Sure, if you personally think Edwards fired on all pistons, you should feel free to say so. But as I noted that night, commentators are also supposed to watch these things for their political significance beyond what we personally think happened. And I think the fact that Andrew's spent the last two days trying to clarify his initial reaction in the face of readers, the journalistic consensus and the polls shows that I was right about the battiness, but wrong that he would be alone in it.

So says this reader coming to my defense:

The spammers hitting you over the report clearly have not read it, or are just spouting talking points. If you dig in to the report, you find that:

(1) Saddam had every intention of restarting his WMD programs as soon
as the sanctions were gone. The nuclear scientists were there, the
biological lab people were there, much of the infrastructure
was intact, or in pieces and hidden securely away.

(2) The sanctions were eroding as early as 1999, and likely would
not have lasted much longer.

(3) Massive bribery of government people in France and other countries,
including parts of Chirac's inner circle, was the reason for (2).

(4) Bribery of _journalists_ ensured coverage of the sanctions was
slanted in the way Saddam wanted it. I wonder why the MSM does not
want to highlight this part, eh?

(5) The money for the bribes in (3) and (4) came right out of the
oil-for-food program. Wonder why the MSM does not want to highlight
this?

Folks, you really need to stop relying on the same people who are
calling Dan Rather a journalist for information on this scandal.
The pajamadheen are on this...little green footballs has info,
Clayton Cramer has been reading and posting impressive facts
http://www.claytoncramer.com/weblog/blogger.html
and I'm sure there are others.

Now as to Bremer's comments: as I read them, he was addressing the
issue of security in Baghdad right after the collapse of resistance.
The 3rd InfDiv was spread out all over the place and did not have
nearly enough troops to guard everything that needed guarding.
The 4th InfDiv was supposed to be there as well, arriving from the
north, but they were instead (ahem) "elsewhere", because Turkey
decided that the US had not passed its version of the "global test"
and refused to allow 4th ID to transit its territory.

Thus Bremer's remarks are telling with regard to the Kerry
Doctrine, NOT with regard to the Bush Doctrine.

From another reader:

I know this is getting a bit technical, but the Security Counsel resolutions come under two basic headings, those under Chapter 6 and those under Chapter 7 of the UN charter. From what I can tell, the resolutions involving Israel, including the one referenced in your posting in the Corner, are Chapter 6 resolutions. The Iraq issue was handled under Chapter 7.

To simplify it, Resolutions under Chapter 6 are "sense of the Council"
resolutions ( I use that term loosely). Chapter 7 resolutions are binding
obligations of the parties. Therefore, your original point still holds
true, although your terminology was off a bit.

I'm getting inundated with very snide email from folks who think that I should apologize, recant or otherwise grovel because of the Duelfer (ISG) Report or Bremer statements. I'm going to write one response here so I can send a link to all future such emails.

These are really two different things, so let me be very clear.

As for the Bremer comments, fair enough. I don't know anyone who disputes that the post-war planning has gone swimmingly. To the extent that Bremer's comments about not enough troops go to legitimate criticism of the postwar efforts, that's fair game, even if smart people may dispute Bremer's account.

But, as for the ISG report: so what? I don't mean that the report's not important or that the failure to find WMDs isn't a huge failure. How many times do I need to write that it constitutes the biggest intelligence blunder since Pearl Harbor for people to think I mean it?

No, when I say So What? I mean who's surprised? What does it change? Nothing in this report -- from what I've seen -- changes the argument of the last year at all. All of these asinine emails saying this proves Bush lied could have been -- and were -- written after the Interim ISG report. They could have been -- and were -- written after the failure to find WMDs the first month after the fall of Baghdad. I've written countless times that I don't think you can make a credible argument that Bush lied to get us into war, because I don't think you can make a credible argument that he wasn't positive the WMDs were there. Obviously he was wrong, but so were France, Germany, Russia, the Clinton Administration and the United Nations. To say that now, because we are sure there are no WMDs, that we have the proof Bush lied is an intellectual stolen base. For him to have truly lied he'd have to have known something that his CIA Director, Defense Secretary and those holding similar offices in Europe and in the previous administration thought not to be the case. And then he would have to have been such a brilliant liar that he could have concealed that he knew Saddam had no WMDs from his whole cabinet and the world. These emailers who think Bush is a moron are in effect saying he's the greatest genius in the world.

Moreover, I never, ever, made the WMDs to be my central case for why Saddam needed to go. You might say as countless emailers have in the past, "Who cares what your rationale for war was, you aren't the Commander-in-Chief!" That's fair enough. Except all of these name-calling bozos are insisting that I recant my position because there are no WMDs. Well, since WMDs were only a small part of my case and I think I was perfectly intelligent for thinking there were WMDs I see no reason why the ISG report should cause me to change my position at all.

The problems we've faced since the war, as I said, are a different issue. But that has nothing to do with the ISG report and nothing to do with the childish taunts from these emailers.

By the end of the battle, the SAS [the elite British force] was certain that it knew where bin Laden was: in a mountain valley, where he could have been trapped. The men of the SAS would have been happy to move in for the kill….

It did not get the chance. The SAS was under overall US command, and the American generals faltered. Understandably enough, they wanted Delta Force [an elite American unit] to be in at the death….

It seems unlikely that bin Laden could have been bagged without casualties. The men on the ground did not quail at that prospect; the generals on the radio did. They wanted Delta Force to kill bin Laden; they were not prepared to allow their men to be killed in the process. They would not even allow USAF ground-attack aircraft to operate below 12,000 feet.

[In] David Hare's dreary documentary-play "Stuff Happens", which just opened at the National Theatre….Tony Blair is shown pleading with Bush over the phone to allow British special forces to go into the cave to slip on the handcuffs. I've been waiting for some authoritative Westminster figure to stomp all over this, but to the best of my knowledge nobody has, so no doubt it will soon become the conventional wisdom.

Like Tora Bora, the concept of Op Anaconda was to catch AQ [al Qaeda] as they were retreating into Pakistan. There were a couple of problems with the op that resulted in a number of AQ being able to escape.

Item: the op was launched prematurely, having been triggered by a Chinook being downed. This meant that not all of the cut-off teams were in place on all of the known escape routes at h-hour. They were generally replaced by massive air bombing, but in the mountainous terrain of the region this was much less effective.

Item: the Afghan allies used as clearing force were not as effective as desired, coming in slower than anticipated in the plan.

Item: being subjected to effective enemy fire limited the ability of the cut-off teams to call in indirect fire and air/ aviation….

Something that people forget, particularly because the US army is so good, is that the other side does fight back, and that plans often do not go off without a hitch because the enemy invariably reacts to what you're doing. This is particularly true when dealing with an experienced enemy working on his turf, and amplified by the fact that the terrain in question is complex.

[R]emember that Eric Rudolph [who was being sought for the murder of an abortionist] hid in the back woods of North Carolina for nine years [emphasis mine] despite massive searches by government officers. He was caught only when he ran out of food.

This reader offers a clarification:

FYI, it is not accurate to say that all the UN resolutions with which Israel does not comply are non-binding General Assembly resolutions. SC resolution 446 requires an end to settlement activity in areas over the Green Line. (http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/ba123cded3ea84a5852560e50077c2dc?OpenDocument)

Israel was also, from 1978 through 2000, in violation of SC 425,
calling for its withdrawal from Lebanon.

For what it's worth.

He can't pass his own global test. So says Glenn Reynolds.

From a reader:

Now, don’t laugh, but I just came up with a suggestion:

What if Dubya – during tomorrow night’s debate – tell’s the audience in the hall in St. Louis that after the debate, as they are leaving, they can pick up a copy of the ISG report outside in the lobby to take home and read…”read it, read it all, and then make your own conclusions” Dubya might say…”don’t let this man (pointing at Kerry) make your conclusions for you…he doesn’t really want you to know what’s in this document, so take it home if you like”…

Crazy?

My column on Iran has elicited some interesting email. But more interesting is a trend. I've gotten quite a bit of hostile email from Iranians living in Britain who think the Mullahs are great and the Revolution was the "greatest thing since the birth of Islam" in one fellow's words.

Now, the greatest thing since the birth of Islam is a pretty high compliment for a devout Muslim. But one thing none of these correspondents can answer for me is, If Iran's so hot, why aren't you living there?

This is a classic email from Poppa Goldberg (I don't think he intended publication):

Of course Americans knew what conkers are; we just never called it by that name. We called it, simply, "chestnuts." In my set, we didn't drill holes through the chestnuts (too dangerous) but simply tied the chestnut with string and then smashed it against our foe's chestnut, trying to split it. I won several times and have been basking in the glory all these years. The chestnut "season" lasted a couple of weeks or so in the fall. It went hand in h and with a game called "Land," in which you mark off a square and drop a pen knife into it, demarking your territory and then letting your competitor drop his pen knife and taking away part of your land, until you have nothing left. This is how we occupied our time, foregoing pouring lighter fluid on homeless people and setting them on fire.

Interesting comment in The Scotsman on the Iraq Survey Group Report, raising once again the question as to how much the hope (and, to an extent reality) of French support led Saddam to take the line he did in the run-up to the war, a line, which (whatever your views on the war) did end up making conflict more, not less, likely.

Tony Blair's comment is also worth repeating here:

"Just as I have had to accept that the evidence now is that there were not stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions weren’t working."

Memo to Self:

Buy Island

Name it "Conker Republic"

Appoint John Derbyshire "King of Conker Republic"

Market Island in Conjunction with Single-Malt Dark Substance of Choice

Start "Annual International Conker Championship

Rake in Millions

I saw the commercials last night for this new teeny-bopper soap called "Life as we Know It." Looks like Dawson Creek 90210. But one thing is just absurd. Kelly Osbourne seems to play the sexy love-interest of some dreamy boy. As the Brits might say, Not bloody likely!

Unless, that is, the culture's changing in ways beyond my ken and Don Rickles is slated to be the new love interest on "The OC."

From a reader:

Dear Sir,

After reading your review of the aforementioned debate, I cannot escape an
overwhelming feeling that you are something of a penis, and, like all other
Bush voting Americans, can't quite grasp the concept that you can only
'defend yourself' against individuals, regimes and countries who actually
attack, have the ability to attack or indeed any inclination to attack you.

Hell, if you want to go after countries who break UN resolutions, you'd have
to go after Israel. They're ranking #1 on that chart and have been for
years. In fact, if you'd done that, the Arabic world wouldn't despite the US
so much in the first place for financially and militarily backing illegal
Israeli aggression and occupation of the Gaza Strip!

But hey, what does it matter once you've taken enough oil to power all those
SUVs onwards into Iran? I am aware there are millions of intelligent,
socially conscious and worldly-aware Americans living in the US of A. They
don't vote Bush. And at the moment they're a little embarrassed of their
nationality.

Still.. only one month of Dubya to go.

Yee-haw, cowboy.

Me: Aside from the super-brilliant all-Bush-voters-are-penises-and-ashamed-of-their-country argument, one might also note that the resolutions against Israel are from the non-binding general assembly, not from the Security Council. But, hey, that just gets steam-rolled by the power of his main argument.

Not good news for the administration, but not politically terrible since it does nothing but confirm the thrust of reporting for the last year. That said, The Washington Times account plays up important bits that the MSM might well be down playing.

It is not "outsourcing" when Indigenous people help to fight a war IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY….The complaint by Kerry and Edwards re: Tora Bora and "outsourcing" actually shows a consistent approach by them -- it shows their utter disdain for the people of the Middle East. At a time when we are cultivating the Middle East and trying to gain footholds of democracy, they discount and "demean" the contribution of the Iraqis in the war in their country and they disparage the contribution of the Afghans in the war in their country. Bush and Cheney should defend their contribution as important and meaningful.

I'm in the 82nd Airborne and trained with some SF [special forces] guys who were in Afghanistan from the beginning and were featured in Robin Moore's “The Hunt for Bin Laden.” They did not have a high opinion of the book. It's my understanding that 5th SF Group has officially distanced itself from it. Note also that Idema, the clear protaganist of the book who was everywhere doing everything magnificently, is now in an Afghan prison accused of torturing prisoners.

I think you will find re Tora Bora and anything involving Special Operations that almost everyone who actually knew what the plan was cannot talk about what the plan was. Operational security is a possible explanation for the administration's reticence.

The UN rank-and-file want to pull out their 35 people in Iraq:

In a joint letter to Mr Annan, the staff organisations cited a dramatic escalation in attacks in Iraq and said the UN regrettably "has become a direct target, one that is particularly prone to attacks by ruthless extremist terrorist factions".

"Just one staff member is one staff member too many in Iraq," they said.

"We ... appeal to your good judgment to ensure that no further staff members be sent to Iraq and that those already deployed be instructed to leave as soon as possible."

Mr Annan pulled all UN international staff out of Iraq a year ago, following two bombings at UN headquarters in Baghdad and a spate of attacks on humanitarian workers. The first bombing, on August 22, last year, killed the top UN envoy, Sergio Viera de Mello, and 21 others.

But this snippet says it all:

"If some of the UN staff want to go against the wishes of Sergio Viera de Mello, we would hope the secretary-general would recognize that the UN exists to help governments in crises, like the 10,800 UN peacekeepers in the Congo or the 35 UN workers in Iraq," he said.

Yep, 10,800 UN peacekeepers in Congo. Thirty-five "workers" in Iraq. Sounds like the right distribution.

DeLay Statement on Unanimous Dismissal of Bell Complaint

WASHINGTON- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today released the following statement:

"The Ethics Committee has done the right thing in dismissing Mr. Bell's embellished allegations with bipartisan unanimity. While the allegations were dismissed, I accept the Committee's guidance. Mr. Bell displayed contempt for Congress by manipulating the ethics process in pursuit of his personal vendetta, and today's dismissal says more about Mr. Bell's conduct than it does about anything else.

"The Committee was forced to complete its work in a highly divisive atmosphere fostered by politically motivated individuals and entities who have attempted to tamper with and influence the congressional ethics process for partisan gain.

"For years, Democrats have hurled relentless personal attacks at me, hoping to tie my hands and smear my name. All have fallen short, not because of insufficient venom, but because of insufficient merit.

"Mr. Bell's allegations, coordinated with one of these groups, intentionally misstated law and facts and violated the spirit and letter of House Ethics Rules. Although I believe this filing should have been thrown out immediately, I have spent the last four months cooperating with the Committee fact-finding. To expedite this matter, I even offered to waive my rights to bring this matter to closure. I'm glad this matter has been brought to its conclusion.

"I would invite my political opponents to engage the battle of ideas instead of misusing the congressional ethics process or abusing the legal system in a misguided attempt to settle scores.

"I'll continue to work hard to advance the cause of Republican governance, which I believe is critical to America's security, prosperity, and families."

From a reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg;

Look, none of us that support Kerry are the least bit concerned about his
so-called flip-flops on Iraq. Our loathing of George Bush--his personality,
his politics, and his crackpot religiosity--has made us pragmatists one and
all.

Sure, Kerry supported the war. He had to. Three fourths of the country at
that time actually thought Saddam Hussein committed 9-11. And the war
itself would be a probable cakewalk.

Miss the boat on two straight feel-good cakewalks, you can say bye-bye to
any chance of being elected President. And Kerry, famously, wants to be
President. But we all know he did not REALLY support the war, and we all
know it would NEVER have happened on his watch.

Does that make him--and us-- cynical? Sure. But no more cynical than the
Bush administration's slimy, deceitful, intentional conflating of Iraq and
9-11.

Oops, I forgot. Dick Cheney never said anything like that. Perish the
thought. (Here's a tip for Cheney: If you're going to be a lying,
insinuating, demagogue, don't do it with the cameras on).

Thank you. I hope this clears things up.

New Washington Post poll has it a statistical tie.

He wins 44-40 with 16% saying it was a draw.

Prof Bainbridge questions my suggestion that Cheney is the more authentic conservative. He writes:

What I don't understand is why Jonah thinks these two aspects of Cheney's ideology are the "more pure" version of Republicanism. To be sure, the small-l libertarian side of Cheney no doubt appeals to many bloggers and their ilk in electronic MSM outlets like NRO. Yet, popularity among such groups standing alone cannot be enough to privilege a particular subset of a widely diverse political philosophy. What about social conservatives? Anti-government populists? Supply-siders? War liberals? Or, even. the dreaded neocons? In this big a tent, it is very hard to decide who is the most pure.

Me: he makes a perfectly fine point -- and one I would not quibble with -- that there are different, equally "pure," brands of conservatism/Republicanism out there (whatever "pure" means in a philosophy largely opposed to the purifying impulse). But, so what?

In the end I think his whole argument is fundamentally gratuitous. In fact, he provides my own answer for me. I wasn't trying to "privilege" Cheney-ism above other isms. Indeed, I try not to use the word "privilege" as a verb at all. But, as he notes, bloggers and "MSM" conservative journalists are more likely to be sympathetic to Cheney's point of view than Bush's "compassionate conservatism." Which was exactly my point. Bainbridge makes a fair point that I spoke too broadly of "conservatives" rather than explicitly about the conservative pundits and bloggers scoring the debate. But since it was obviously implicit that I was doing precisely that, I think he protests too much.

From a reader:

Hi Jonah!

As a conservative Democrat, I obviously have been despressed for sometime
to see what's happening to my party. Since my man Joe Lieberman is out I
can't in good conscience vote for Kerry-Edwards so while I admit to
rooting for Dick Cheney I am hardly a partisan. I decided to do a little
informal poll of folks I know (here in Ohio) who aren't firmly in the Bush
or Kerry camp.

I called a few friends right after the debate and talked to other
uncommitteds right after they came into work. The results were startling.
Everyone of the uncommitteds thought Cheney won. However, as of this
writing after lunch those here at works whose personality isn't what I
would call particularly strong, who initial thought Cheney won, now aren't
so sure. I ask why and was told that they heard others at work and still
others on the net thought it might have been a draw or even a Edwards win.
Talk about the influence of the media!

The only defense I've seen of the handling of Tora Bora was offered by Tommy Franks when he was interviewed just after the First Debate.

His excuse was, in a nutshell, that intelligence at the time indicated a lot of places where Bin Laden might have been, and surrounding Tora Bora might have meant missing him somewhere else (he mentioned a lake near Kandahar as an alternate report of the time).

This falls short in at least two ways. One, we know that lots of Al Qaeda were at Tora Bora, so even if OBL wasn't it still didn't behoove us to let the hundreds of other AQ get away. Two, even if it was uncertain that OBL was there, it would have been worth trying, wouldn't it? If there were a handful of possible locations, trying all of them makes for a better excuse than trying none of them.

Flip through Robin Moore's 'The Hunt For Bin Laden' until you find the portion on Tota Bora/bin Laden and you'll see why Bush and Cheney let it pass w/o comment.

As I recall, it was the higher-ups at CENTCOM in Tampa that f'ed the deal up when they asked the SF[Special Forces] guys in the field to 'wait' before whacking OBL so they (who'd been largely cut out of the mission in lieu of an SF-centric expedition by Rummy) could get some folks over there to 'share in the credit glow' of such a major WOT coup.

Badmouthing that crowd [Centcom in Florida] may explain things, but does Bush no good.

At a convention on the subject of "Pluralism in Islam" which took place in late August, 2004 at the Egyptian Journalists' Union in Cairo, Sheikh Dr. Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and one of the most important religious authorities in Islamist circles, issued a religious legal opinion permitting the abduction and killing of American civilians in Iraq in order to pressure the American army to evacuate its forces. Al-Qaradhawi stressed the fact that in his view, "all of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation. The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately. The mutilation of corpses [however] is forbidden in Islam."

From a reader:

Did you watch the debate?

Did you see when Edwards said something like, "Gwenn, Our country has never been so divided in our history."

Cheney should have said, "Actually, it was more divided during the Civil War, when Democrats from North Carolina were waging war on the United States in an attempt to keep people like Gwen Ifill enslaved."

That would have showed him.

Note: This was by no means an invitation to open up a Corner debate on the war between the states.

Todd Seavey is a smart guy, but he has written a silly critique of my position to embryonic stem-cell research—or rather, of what he takes my position to be. His method is to explain part of the basis for his own beliefs about the moral status of the early-stage embryo, and then to speculate about the alleged religious basis for my differing take. Let me try to clear up a few things.

1. I wrote that reflective pro-lifers oppose embryonic stem-cell research, abortion, and similar acts not because they destroy “potential life” but because they destroy actual lives. Seavey says that he has known pro-lifers who do make the argument from potential personhood. So have I. But I don’t think this casts much doubt on the accuracy of my description of the case that the pro-life movement makes. One of its most popular slogans has been that “life begins at conception,” after all, not that “potential life” does. Now I suppose it is possible that some pro-lifers who say this mean, “Life begins at conception, but that life doesn’t yet qualify as a person, but even potential persons deserve protection.” But I don’t think that is true of most pro-lifers.

2. Seavey argues that you have to have a mind to be a person. “There is a reason, after all, that we think someone who loses an arm is still a person while someone who loses a head ceases to be one, and it's not just the fact that it’s much harder to keep someone's heart and lungs pumping when he loses his head. It’s that his mind—which is what made him a person rather than just a big lump of flesh and blood—is gone.” If “we” thought what Seavey claims we think, then we would use cerebral death as the criterion for death. Instead, we count people as dead when their whole brains have died. When someone dies, we do not have an organism of the human species who is no longer a person (which is what Seavey thinks the early embryo is). We don’t have an organism any more. The implicit parallel doesn’t work.

3. My argument, boiled down, is that human organisms have an intrinsic right to life because they are human organisms, and that denying that right to some class of them because of accidental qualities they happen to possess is wrong and dangerous. (Moreover—although this is not central to my argument—I don’t believe that anyone would believe that the early human embryo is anything other than a human being if we did not see advantages in denying the proposition.) That’s the basic argument. Stated in that way, it’s open to various objections, all of which, I believe, could then be knocked down. But at no point does my argument either invoke or depend on any religious revelation. I do not believe, and have never claimed, that the Bible yields a definitive answer to the ethics of stem-cell research (although it may well be that it has something to say about the subject when read in light of a previous conviction on the issue that was reached for extra-biblical reasons). I do not believe that my church teaches that ensoulment happens at conception.

But Seavey, for whatever reason, wastes a lot of space suggesting that “what Ponnuru really thinks is that he knows exactly when God puts the magic in the blastocyst and knows that it's the magic, not any mind, that makes a person” and that I should “come clean” (italics his). I suppose it is possible that there are various connections between my religious convictions and my views on the ethics of killing human embryos—just as it is possible that some people on the other side have allowed their hostility to certain religions, or other things, to distort their reasoning. But for what it’s worth, my convictions about embryo-killing predate my embrace of theism. And my actual view on ensoulment is this: It is because I think human embryos are human beings that I suspect they have souls, not the reverse.

4. Seavey says he has a “loftier vision of what a person is” than someone who thinks that “a microscopic ball of cells is a person.” I think what he’s getting at is something I’ve heard from other people on his side of the embryo-killing debate: Personhood has to mean something more than just having the right string of proteins, etc. People like me are “reductionist.” I don’t think so. The early embryo is a member of the human species. I think it’s Seavey is reductively redescribing it as a “microscopic ball of cells.” And I would rather not have a “lofty” vision that ends up sanctioning a lot of unjust killing.

A fan from Canada writes re today's G-File:

Sir, Glad to see that you think Dick Cheny is a "man of principle" for voting against Martin Luther King Day and the release of Nelson Mandela. No, more likely, he's a fat, white, intolerant, racist well-heeled assh*le - just like yourself. With people like Cheney in office, do you wonder why the world hates you?

Regards,

Name withheld]- Toronto Canada

Lots of email about Josh Marshall's inability to find a single false note in Edwards. This one's got feeling:

I too was brought up short by this sentence from Josh Marshall:

"But my basic impression was that Edwards didn't strike a false note for the entire 90 minutes. And I say this having been critical of him in the past."

The fact is, every single note Edwards struck was false...because he is a 24-carat phony.

How this wasn't immediately obvious to at least 90% of television viewers last night escapes me. I can't get over how smarmy and vain Edwards looked, particularly in the reaction shots while Cheney was talking. The way he puckered his lips and fluttered his eyelashes...his awful too-wide plastic smile...the constant search for the perfect upturned-chin angle from which to be half-looking at the Vice President...even the way he took a drink of water drove me crazy.

The man's a phony from the top of the perfect hair on his head to the soles of the $1500 loafers on his feet. Hate. Him.

I really do think Cheney won on the merits last night, politically by a little substantively by a lot.

However, I think the disparity between pro-Bush and anti-Bush pundits (there are so few pro-Kerry pundits it's silly to create a category for them) might be partially explained by an interesting dynamic. Principled conservatives and principled liberals like their Veeps better than their presidents. I don't think there's a writer at Slate, Tapped, TNR or the Washington Monthly who wouldn't prefer Edwards as the presidential nominee (and I think their debate analysis reflects this). In fact, I think many of them have said so. Similarly, I don't think there are that many conservatives who don't feel the same way about Bush-Cheney.

Both Cheney and Edwards, for good and ill, are simply better standard-bearers for the more pure strains of our respective philosophies. So, in a sense, it's easier to score the presidential debates "honestly" than it is the veep debates.

Again, I really think I'm taking my biases into account when I say Cheney won, but I suspect that this dynamic affects both sides to one extent or another, myself included.

The Bush campaign is sending out scads of emails compiling pro-Cheney blurbs. Here's the text from "volume 5" of the serires:

NBC's Tim Russert: Edwards "Was Not Entirely Successful" In Laying Out "A Coherent Vision" For Iraq. "The bigger issue for John Edwards is: can he lay out a coherent vision which is contrary to Dick Cheney's, which is consistent with his votes? I think he made a start last night, but he was not entirely successful." (NBC's "Today," 10/6/04)

The Arizona Republic: "Who Won This Debate Is Easy. Cheney Took Command Early And Rarely Let Up. If The Republican Strategy Was To Take The Fight To The Democrats, Cheney Followed The Battle Plan." (Editorial, "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em," The Arizona Republic, 10/6/04)

Radio Host Don Imus: "I'm Supporting Senator Edwards And Senator Kerry. That's Who I Intend To Vote For. [Edwards] Got Killed." (MSNBC's "IMUS In The Morning," 10/6/04)

MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "I Thought Cheney Won The Debate. I Don't Know How You Could See It Any Other Way." (MSNBC's "IMUS In The Morning," 10/6/04)

MSNBC's Chris Matthews: Edwards "Had That Look On His Face That He'd Been Smacked, That He Was Hurt…It Didn't Look Too Good For Him Last Night." (MSNBC's "IMUS In The Morning," 10/6/04)

Des Moines Register's David Yepsen: "Cheney Came Across As A Strong, Substantive Leader." (David Yepsen, Op-Ed, "Format Is The Winner In Even Debate," Des Moines Register, 10/6/04)

The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan: "But Just To Flip Flop Over To Edwards For A Moment, What Was With His Inability To Follow Simple Instructions?" (Maureen Ryan, "Flying Fur And Pointing Fingers," The Chicago Tribune, 10/6/04)

Wake Forest University Political Scientist Allan Louden: Vice President Cheney "Showed What Experience Looks Like--And That's Pretty Persuasive." (Billy House And Jon Kamman, "Cheney, Edwards Score Points For Their Teams," The Arizona Republic, 10/6/04)

Former Clinton Aide Dick Morris: "If Edwards Acted Like A Lawyer, Cheney Acted Like A Judge. The Democrat Proposed, But The Vice President Disposed. There Was No Doubt As To Who Was In Charge." (Dick Morris, "Deer In The Headlights," The New York Post, 10/6/04)

Frank Luntz's Focus Group Gave Vice President Cheney An Overall Victory In The Debate. "With each person in GOP consultant Frank Luntz's focus group using a sophisticated joystick to record his/her opinion of the candidates during the 90-minute debate, participants actually gave Edwards the edge on the computer. But they gave the victory to Cheney when asked afterward by Luntz to pick the winner." (Ian Bishop, "It's Dick's Substance Over Style: Undecideds," The New York Post, 10/6/04)

Washington University Political Scientist Wayne Fields: Vice President Cheney "Controlled The Pacing Of The Debate." (Yvonne Abraham, "Some Hard Punches, But No Knockout Blows," The Boston Globe, 10/6/04)

But one of my regular readers makes the following case:

Among other things, I'm sometimes a little bit of a tax lawyer.

A few things you ought to know:

S corporations whose shareholders also perform substantial services ("shareholder/employees"), such as Edwards, must pay those shareholder/employees "reasonable compensation."

The only question is whether $600,000 a year in 1996 and $540,000 in 1997 is enough compensation, or should have been more.

You might ask, "But what stopped him from paying salaries or bonuses of, say, the whole $5 million in each of those years?" The answer is, if he characterized too much as salary, the excess could (should) be recharacterized for tax purposes back to exactly how he treated it -- a dividend (or, more precisely, an S corporation distribution). There are restrictions on paying excess compensation built into the tax code.

So I ask you -- how much should any "small businessman" take as an annual salary in a business that shows distributable profits in the $5 million range annually? More particularly, how much should any small businessman who is a trial lawyer take out of a legal business?

The real problem is that dividends are not "earned income" subject to FICA.

Dick Cheney is totally out of touch with reality in Iraq and totally out of touch with the struggles of the middle class. This is nothing new to a man with a lifetime record of protecting the powerful and well-connected. He came across as smug, arrogant, mean and defensive -- but his trademark distortions and scare tactics didn't work. John Edwards refused to let him play the politics of fear and forced Dick Cheney to confront his administration's record of failure.

Americans are tired of growls and scowls from our leaders, and John Edwards and John Kerry offer America hope and optimism.

I confess I didn't watch the veep debate all through. Life's too short, 10
o'clock's my bedtime, and it was too b--o--r--i--n--g. (And if it was
boring to me, a person professionally interested in high politics, what on
earth did Joe & Suzy Citizen think of it?)

My impression was that Cheney was off his game and Edwards was an ignorant
jerk.

Who won? Far as I'm concerned, the sandman.

Josh Marshall -- who scores some fair points overall -- has this interesting appraisal:

As I did last week, I flipped off the volume on the television after the debate ended so that I could put down some unmediated impressions before hearing the spin and CW in the process of formation.

I hesitate to say this. But my basic impression was that Edwards didn't strike a false note for the entire 90 minutes. And I say this having been critical of him in the past.

Not one false note Josh? Not one?

I got the seventh and eighth posts of the day!

Andrew Sullivan now realizes that his opinion was different than the norm. But the turf he seems to be defending is quicksand. It's too late and I'm too tired to get into the weeds on it. But he seems to be suggesting that conservatives think Cheney won because they "need" to think that. Andrew quoted the Corner serveral times when we pretty much all agreed that Kerry won the first debate. Now we all pretty much think Cheney won this debate -- either by a lot or by a little. But now -- without invoking the Corner by name -- the argument is that conservatives are merely giving-in to their psychological needs and "Republican bias." In other words, Kate O'Beirne, Ramesh, Brookhiser, Lowry, myself and others were willing to say the guy at the top of the ticket lost. But we're too in the tank to admit that Cheney didn't? I'm sorry, that's simply not the case here. Cheney won, on substance by a wide margin and politically by a small one. I think he probably lost on points in the second half. But he racked-up enough points in the first half that it didn't matter. If Cheney looked too tired or too somber, I don't think anyone but Sullivan noticed or cared. Cheney always looks tired and somber. But, yes, as Andrew says, We'll see, won't we?

Speaking out - but not about her tax returns (any news on that, Teresa?). Here's a sample of what she said the other day in Pennsylvania.

"The Taliban is back running Afghanistan."

No, Teresa, there's a lot to do in Afghanistan, but the Taliban are not back in charge. Here's what the BBC's John Simpson, no friend of the administration’s foreign policy, had to say about the situation last weekend and, he, Teresa, was there.

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

Blood for oil, again.

"On 9/12 every single newspaper in the world said 'We are all Americans.'

No, Teresa, they didn't. While there was an enormous upsurge of sympathy across the world for the victims of 9/11, that did not necessarily translate into support for American policies. The belief that it did has become a modern myth. For a contrary view, lets take a quick look at what some in the media elite in the UK, the country closest to the US, were saying in the immediate aftermath of September, 11th 2001. Check out, for example, what Guardian columnist Charlotte Raven had to say on September 18th, 2001 or take a look at the goings-on at the BBC on September 13th - just two days after the slaughter of 9/11. There’s much more of the same for anyone who wants to look.

"Seldom do we think of security in terms of one's job, one's health care benefits, education."

We Teresa? That's easy for a billionairess to say. Most people in fact do think about their job, their healthcare and their children’s education, and they do so most of the time.

She’s not an asset, I feel.

I agree with Cliff that the real fight is in the next day or so. The spin matters more than the debate, alas. Kerry won last week, but his victory was much, much smaller than the media has since made it out to be.

Personally, I thought Cheney won, clearly and decisively. I have always believed that Cheney would make the better president -- if getting elected weren't a prerequisite. Cheney demonstrated that he's classier, smarter, more in command of details, less pandering and over all infinitely more qualified to hold public office than John Edwards (or John Kerry or George Bush) is. I've always been embarassed for liberals who tout Edwards' substance when it's obvious -- to me at least -- that they like his style.

That said, opinion is different than punditry -- a point some readers and friends of NRO sometimes, I think, forget. I don't think this was a homerun for Cheney in the sense that it will be of much political significance. Cheney won, but not so clearly or by such a wide margin to matter that much. Political junkies cared about this debate more than average Americans. And among non-political junkie average Americans who watched this thing all the way through, I suspect this will be something of a draw. Cheney won on foreign policy and Edwards won narrowly on domestic policy --- politically. Substantively, I think Edwards lost on almost every point.

I like this:

Cheney goes after Edwards on a tax loophole.

Edwards comes back with more Halliburton.

I'm coming to this conclusion:

If I ever need to sue somebody, I’ll call John Edwards.

If I ever need somebody killed - like, you know, terrorists trying to kill me or my family - I’ll call Dick Cheney.

From a reader:

If Edwards is doing 1 thing right, he seems to take advantage of the format of the debate.

In the exchange, he saves his more contentious attacks for his last 30 seconds – when he gets the last words.

He is saving his prepared one-liners/attacks for those segments even if they aren’t on-topic … rehearsed.

Donde esta El Salvador? Posted: 9:26 p.m.

Okay, Cheney's making me look bad. Instead of doing what I thought he'd do -- and what he should have done, which is to push the Bush attack on Kerry's "global test" statement, he rambled on about the elections in El Salvador 20 years ago.

All over this country, people are asking out loud, "Where the hell is El Salvador?"

when Edwards says "the reality is..." take a shot.

when Cheney says "the fact of the matter is..." take a shot.

I'm three sheets to the wind already.

Andrea Mitchell summarizing the Cheney-Leahy debacle told Chris Matthews, "It's ironic because everyone knows Patrick Leahy is one of the nicest, friendlist senators."

I just saw Ramesh and Kathryn's posts re Marshall Wittmann. As one of them noted, longtime readers of the Corner may recall that when we started this thing, Rich and I had quite a bit of fun with Wittmann's various declarations. Then Wittmann stopped his "moose bleats" and the party was over. It now turns out that he's back -- quite unsurprisingly for some of us -- writing for the Democratic Leadership Council. Now for all the ribbing we gave him, I agree with Kathryn and everybody else that Wittmann's a smart and decent guy. Still, I for one think this piece is argued in bad faith -- a tendency which got us poking fun at the Bull Moose to begin with.

Wittmann condemns Bush for overspending on the "corporate welfare state" but he also condemns Bush for not spending enough on the plain old welfare state. Pull the cord on each and every bad thing Bush has allegedly done and there is Karl Rove twirling his mustache behind the curtain. He trots out the "What's the Matter with Kansas" thesis which says the rank-and-file religious right are amiable dunces who get Christian opiates in exchange for the economic shaft.

Wittmann says that Rove is responsible for the Swift Boat ads. He offers no evidence, save for one attempt at guilt-by-association aimed at his old boss, Ralph Reed and the aforementioned theory of Rove is the Father of All Evil. Well, Rove may in fact be more responsible than the evidence shows, but there's another culprit who is far more provably guilty for the Swift Boat ads than Rove: John McCain, Wittmann's saint and mentor. If it weren't for his campaign finance "reform" we would not have these evil 527s. Oh, wait, 527s aren't evil. Just 527s which criticize John Kerry are evil. Nevertheless, the evidence is clear: John McCain is more responsible for 'em than Karl Rove is.

Ramesh's point about Wittmann's support of Buchanan raises an interesting point for another day. Wittmann's not an ideological conservative and probably never was. He's a rightwing populist, and populists of all stripes always end up being statists when they try to translate their views into a political agenda.

If Dick Cheney came out tonight and spoke in fluent jive like Mrs. Cleaver in "Airplane!"?

A lot of Republicans have worried about the Colorado ballot initiative to allocate the state's electoral votes in proportion to the state's vote for president. The initiative is written to take effect immediately, so there is a scenario in which Bush wins the state, gets 5 of its electoral votes to Kerry's 4, and loses the presidency because of it. The initiative is a bad idea. But I think it may very well fail. Or it may backfire: Kerry seems to think he can win Colorado, in which case the initiative would give Bush extra electoral votes.

Even if Bush wins the state, the amendment passes, and the electoral-vote race is very tight, the initiative still might not achieve the result its backers wanted. The initiative is supposed to take effect as soon as it becomes law. But when does it become law? The secretary of state is supposed to certify its passage by November 24. The governor has to proclaim it to be law within 30 days of that event. The electors meet on December 13. You do the math. This is a very poorly-conceived initiative.

When I first met Marshall Wittmann, he was supporting Patrick Buchanan's 1996 presidential campaign. (He later switched to Phil Gramm.) In 2000, he was an adviser to John McCain. Now he says he's voting for Kerry.

He explains his evolution as a process of disillusionment. He came to see that the Republican party was merely a servant of corporate interests, and used social issues only to advance those interests. I take it that he is in some sense still a social conservative, but doesn't believe that there is any practical difference between the parties on those issues. But he thinks that there is room in the Democratic party for a smarter hawkishness than Bush has provided, and believes the Democrats' positions on economics to be superior to the Republicans'. If you accept Wittmann's beliefs, assumptions, and priorities, the conclusion is certainly reasonable.

But Wittmann's article is too laced with bitterness at Bush over the 2000 South Carolina primary, and especially at Wittmann's former employer, Ralph Reed, to be able to determine where the political convictions end and the hurt feelings begin. (Would Wittmann view the campaign against Max Cleland so negatively if he didn't have this prior experience with Reed and McCain? I doubt it.) Whatever dirty tricks Bush's forces played in South Carolina--and I've seen considerably more in assertion than in evidence on that point--it is just a delusion of McCain's supporters that they lost South Carolina because of dirty tricks. They lost the state largely on the tax issue, and the general (and accurate) perception that McCain wasn't as conservative as Bush. I can see why McCainiacs would take this view. They ran a largely personality-based campaign, and they believe their guy was slimed--so of course they take it personally.

Wittmann also believes that President Bush sacrificed national unity by pushing for tax cuts. Now it may be that Bush would have built support for the war on terrorism by acquiescing in a temporary tax increase, as David Frum has argued. I doubt it. But it is pretty clear that Bush's positions on social issues and his foreign policy have been far more divisive than the tax cuts have been. The Republican campaign to eliminate the estate tax drives liberal writers, and Wittmann, to distraction. But it has not been a major source of voter alienation from the GOP. Quite the contrary, which is why Democrats run scared on the issue.

All that said, I hope Wittmann is influential among the Democrats in his new job at the DLC. A Wittmannized Democratic party would be a better one.

WASHINGTON, DC, October 4, 2004 – Election night will mark the first of many sleepless nights for nearly half of Americans, according to a recent poll of registered voters conducted for the Better Sleep Council by the polling company™, inc.

When asked which candidate – George W. Bush or John Kerry – would likely cause them more sleepless nights as president for the next four years, the results were almost evenly divided. Of voters polled, 42 percent pointed a tired finger at Bush as the candidate who would cause the most sleepless nights and a close 40 percent stated Kerry would deny them needed zzz’s.

Additionally, given the delayed results of the 2000 election, more than half (57 percent) of respondents agreed that it is worth sacrificing a good night’s sleep on November 2, 2004, to stay up and find out who is elected president.

“The results of this poll demonstrate that many Americans are so invested in this election that they are willing to make personal sacrifices, such as losing a good night’s sleep,” said Kellyanne Conway, president & CEO of the polling company™, inc. “Although the voting public may be polarized in its decision for presidential favorite, 80 percent of respondents agree that the outcome of the election will affect their sleep during the next four years.”

Iain Murray is, quite correctly, not impressed:

"The Tories, quite simply, have failed to present a message to the public that is worth listening to. On the war, their message is "Tony Blair ran rings around us, the swine," which confirms an impression of incompetence (even John Kerry has a better story than that, marginally). On public services their message appears to be "We'll keep up public spending while reducing it at the same time!" and for their next trick they will ride two horses going in opposite directions. On their image, the message is "We're not nasty, but we're sorry we were, and, erm, why won't anyone listen to us?" This isn't useful. I've said it before here, and I'll say it again, that the whole nasty party idiocy is what has kept the Tories down in the electoral doldrums."

Read the whole thing.

"The two newest appointees to the Supreme Court of Canada were sworn in yesterday, filling important gaps on the court's ideological spectrum as it enters the troubled waters of a reference case on same-sex marriage. At an emotional ceremony attended by the cream of the Canadian judiciary, Madam Justice Rosalie Abella dabbed occasionally at tears and Madam Justice Louise Charron praised a Supreme Court that has become the most gender-balanced in the world."

From the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Via The Monger

The talk last night seemed to go pretty well. Not a single heckler-type, which really surprised me. More than a few NRO-niks showed up which is always nice. The Cornell Review guys -- who helped sponsor this thing -- were a good bunch of guys. Though they seemed uninterested in post-oratory libation, which is always a dissapointment for me, personally and philosophically.

They put me up in the Statler -- the Hotel school's hotel. Nice place, though the officiousness of the staff sort of surpasses the niceness of the rooms. The staff is pretty much comprised of Cornell students (though the hookers are from Ithaca College, I'm told). The view is great.

I'll let my correspondent have the last word: "Ramesh, I think you're missing my point. I am not at all saying that it is illegitimate to discuss how perceptions of candidates' personal qualities including their masculinity affect the way voters feel about them. I think it is legitimate to criticize candidates based on such qualities. It depends on the way it's done. That Edwards is boyish, light as air, unserious, is a legitimate target. For example, when he said in his acceptance speech, addressing the terrorists, 'We will destroy you,' that was the biggest moment of faux toughness I've ever seen in politics. It was laughable.

"This is not the nature of the Rhoads article at NRO that I was criticizing. This was a low-level, adolescent, insulting attack of a kind I have never seen at NR. 'Not manly enough.' Failing the 'testosterone test'? Not having a 'deep' enough voice, and therefore lacking 'manly strength'? This is stupid and childish. Does Bush have a deep voice? Are all men with high voices unmanly? Are all tenors to be expelled from politics? Lincoln had a high pitched voice according to all reports."

has an interesting column for Newsweek online. She is arguing for a kind of updated seamless-garment approach to "life issues." She writes, "If it is above our pay grade to opt to terminate life in the womb—and, for the record, I think it is—then it is also wrong to decide when inconveniently comatose spouses or brutal murderers should be 'terminated.' Either life and death is up to us or it is not."

Also: "A number of readers have said they disagree with my view of the environment as a powerful moral issue and argue that 'saving the babies’ is more important. But why should we have to decide between the two? Isn’t saving children who are already in this world from mercury poisoning our responsibility as well? We should never have to pick and choose which lives to value, or when. But while we’re mulling the options left to us, we do have to worry about saving the planet, too … or we’ll have nowhere to fight about abortion."

I share Henneberger's opposition to abortion and the death penalty, and her belief that protecting the environment is morally obligatory. But I don't think that it is true that the death penalty and abortion are the same issue--that is, that it is somehow inconsistent or hypocritical to oppose abortion but not the death penalty (as she suggests elsewhere in the column). The religious tradition from which she is drawing (and which I share) does not analyze these issues identically. If the statement that "either life is up to us or it is not" were enough to resolve these questions, it would also be enough to yield pacifism.

One gets the impression, also, that Henneberger is treating the moral imperative to protect the environment as the end of an inquiry rather than the beginning of one. But it's so refreshing to read something like this in Newsweek, of all places, that I shouldn't nitpick. It would be nice if somebody like her were writing a column in the New York Times. People would certainly talk about her columns.