The new GW Bush ad is up at georgewbush.com. I like it, but I hope it's a series because I don't think this one alone hits hard enough. I would cut another using the quote from the Times magazine and say something like this:

"John Kerry had a twenty year record of being soft on defense and strong on talk [show headlines of votes, factoids etc]. He fought Ronald Reagan when Ronald Reagan was fighting for America and freedom. Kerry voted to cut funding for the military and intelligence.

When America was attacked on September 11th, Democrats and Republicans said everything changed. We had to be strong. Go on offense. Protect America.

But not John Kerry.

He said just this month that September 11th didn't change his thinking about foreign policy at all.

Weak and wrong on America's security before September 11. Weak and wrong now."

From a reader:

Jonah -

How do you ask a goose to be the last goose to die for a mistake?

Do we know who will eat the goose that paid the ultimate price for John Kerry's need to look like a regular guy? Perhaps coming in the same week as THK's meal of crow, Kerry may not have the stomach for it.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe the only way to get anything anybody in the administration says portrayed accurately in the press is to get them out on the campaign trail? With the present state of affairs, Condi Rice as National Security Advisor could hold a press conference and declare that we had just received an offer of uncondtional surrender from the terrorists in Falluja and it would make maybe the 35th page of the NYT and would not even rate mention on ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. unless they were to portray it as some sort of desperation move on the part of the Administration to start "negotiations" with the "insurgents". But if she's out in front of a crowd on the campaign trail what she says will at least get covered in local media, and maybe even accurately. Think about it.

I love 'em. I wish I could write back more than I do. But I try to answer thoughtful questions from readers when I can, where I can. Often readers send questions that would require a five page essay to answer honestly or even close to comprehensively. Such questions usually meet with silence, I'm afraid. However there is one kind of question that really annoys me. I know most of the time they're asked harmlessly and in good faith. But I really can't stand it when people ask me questions that google can answer better. A half dozen people have asked me where's Wabash college (where I'm speaking next week). It's Indiana. But you could learn that faster and more reliably from other sources. Ditto all sorts of questions about finding transcripts from Hardball, or locating a speech by the president. I wouldn't complain except I am having a very hard time -- every day -- keeping my email box from overflowing. And these sorts of things seem like an easy place to start economizing.

An explanation from a reader:

Jonah, I suspect they're doing this to make a controversy over her, which highlights for everyone that the Bushies have a prominent African-American woman on their team. Cynical, yes. Open to criticism, yes. But this is a matter of taste and manners. Clinton sent out Janet Reno on the stump, and few complained that it made her look partial. You can see why they might not send a Tony Lake or Sandy Berger.

I have to say I do think it's a bit unseemly to use the National Security Advisor on the stump as a political surrogate. I have no problem with touting her in ads and the like, if the point is to reach out to blacks or soccer moms. But for someone everyone thinks will be the next Secretary of State it just seems inappropriate and opens the White House up to criticisms like this one.

KLO, Full disclosure: I am not a religious nor faith-centered person. Yet it is totally perplexing to me that rational people would actually think, nevermind say, that Catholics, or any other religious person, should not impose their beliefs on the rest of us. I suppose the basic principle, if there is one, that is being argued is that of the often misused "separation of church and state"?

Generally speaking, who cares how you have come to believe what you do? In an argument about beliefs and principles we can discuss the merits without worrying about the basis for them. It may be useful in an evaluation of your principles and credibility to understand how you came to believe what you do, but otherwise the source is irrelevant to the rightness or wrongness of the issue being discussed.

If you believe that abortion is murder it doesn't matter if it is because you are simply accepting the teachings of your church or because you are a philosopher who believes the unborn have moral status. I cannot figure out why people don't get this - unless they are simply disingenuous and looking for any counter-argument that might work.

The theologian Karl Barth once said, "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."

That saying comes to mind as the election approaches and I hear more lectures about how Roman Catholics must not "impose their beliefs on society" or warnings about the need for "the separation of church and state." These are two of the emptiest slogans in current American politics, intended to discourage serious debate. No one in mainstream American politics wants a theocracy. Nor does anyone doubt the importance of morality in public life. Therefore, we should recognize these slogans for what they are: frequently dishonest and ultimately dangerous sound bites.

This reader makes a point I've mulling for a while:

Just read Chafetz' response. It's the final sentence that bothers me. In the immortal words of Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven," "deserve ain't got nuthin' to do with it." This isn't a friggin' job interview. The ONLY question is who has the "right stuff" to deal with the security issues before us. Whether Bush receives an A or and F in his handling of foreign policy really has no bearing except to the extent that it gives us a sense of what the future may bring. In that respect, does Chafetz actually believe that Kerry will perform better than Bush? Sure doesn't sound like it from his response. The point being: grading the President retrospectively is only useful if it gives a clue to the future, specifically in the context of his opponent. In this instance - i.e., an existential war - voting against Bush because he doesn't "deserve" it is silly.

From a reader:

There is a reason Cheney has been here twice in the last 5 days, Condi Rice is scheduled to make a speech in Detroit and the Bush campaign has said the President will make one more stop in West Michigan. Gore won here by 5, with the traditional turnout among blacks and low turnout in Republican strongholds. We all know what recent polls say about the black vote this go around and if gay marriage is one of the driving issues in that trend, it helps it's on the ballot here. Republican turnout, on the other hand, is expected at very high levels.

By the way, the 72 Hour Plan (get out the vote effort) has been renamed 96 Hour Plan and is now focusing on training poll challengers. This state has the machinery but ask around, they are not enthusiastic about Kerry. I think the local Republicans would tell you they expect this vote to be very close and they are preparing accordingly.

Hi Jonah,

I didn't mean in my post to suggest that Kerry would have more
political capital than Bush. What I meant was this: one of the
strongest arguments for Bush, in my mind, is that, in another Iraq-like
situation, he would probably favor the use of force whereas Kerry would
not. My political capital point was simply that I don't think Bush
would actually be able to use force in another Iraq-like situation,
whether he wanted to or not. It's not a point in Kerry's favor -- it's
simply an explanation of why I don't think that what appears to be a
point in Bush's favor at first glance actually pans out.

I also think that your LBJ analogy is somewhat flawed. While a big
chunk of the Democratic base was, indeed, anti-war, I think it's a
much, much smaller chunk that wants a quick withdrawal now. Some of
them are indeed that irresponsible, but most Democrats seem to be
saying that we should never have gotten here, but now that we are, we
need to do it right. I just don't see Kerry facing LBJ-like pressures
to pull out.

Voting for Kerry wasn't a decision I came to easily or happily. But I
just don't think the Bush Administration has executed foreign policy
well enough to deserve reelection.

Over at the Democratic Underground.

I think Bush looks particularly comfortable doing the Money Walk. Money Walk.

Kerry plans to deliver a new speech on faith this weekend in Florida, McCurry said, focusing on an explanation of his values.

``The fact that Senator Kerry is a person of faith is something that might help voters who are undecided,'' McCurry said.

Kerry has been explaining it more in recent weeks as he campaigns in socially conservative areas like rural Ohio. At a town hall meeting Saturday in Xenia, he talked about taking his rosary into battle during the Vietnam War. ``I will bring my faith with me to the White House and itwill guide me,'' Kerry said.

The faith, the baseball, the hunting all come at the end of a long fight against Kerry's liberal elite image - an image promoted by his political enemies but perhaps aided by Kerry as well. The candidate disregarded concerns from other Democrats that he shouldn't go windsurfing or vacation at his homes on Nantucket and in Idaho's ski country.

My friend Josh Chafetz at OxBlog has come out for John Kerry. Kevin Drum agrees with Josh's reasoning on this point:

I can envision a situation in which I think the United States ought to take military action and in which President Bush would agree, whereas President Kerry, because of his inordinate faith in the legitimizing power of international institutions, might not. But, first, let me note that, in any situation in which military force is clearly called for (e.g., another attack, leading to another Afghanistan), I have complete confidence that Kerry will make the right call. But what about another close call where I think we ought to send troops? It's true, Kerry might not make my preferred decision. But I am also convinced that Bush — even a reelected Bush — would lack the political capital to send American troops into battle again in a close call. In other words, in the primary situation in which Bush's advantage in grand strategy would be an issue, I don't think Bush would be able to put his preferred policy in place, anyway.

Me: If Josh means in the first part that he's sure Kerry would respond with force to another 9/11, I'm sure he's right. To which most people would answer big whup. That hold true of pretty much anybody but Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and Cynthia McKinney. The second point is a more serious and nuanced one and I hear variations of it a lot. Frankly, I don't buy it. I agree that Bush is in a situation where using force the next time -- if there is one -- will be more difficult. But what few people appreciate is how difficult it would be for a President Kerry to govern if he had the right instincts and judgement (something I doubt very much).

A huge chunk of Kerry's base doesn't like him very much -- they hate George W. Bush. An overlapping but not identical chunk of his party is flatly anti-war. This means he would not have anything like the support of his own half of the electorate Bush would have. This sounds like a recipe for another LBJ situation where the center does not hold and the left is determined to tear the whole thing down. Meanwhile, while I will continue to support the war no matter who's in the White House I'm not optimistic that a significant chunk of the GOP won't simply wash its hands and say "it's Kerry's problem now."

A re-elected Bush meanwhile can hold his own party together and get support from a sadly small but still not insignificant slice of middle-of-the-road voters and Democrats. If Josh's concern is who will have more political capital to implement his policies, I am at a loss to understand how charisma-impaired, alliance-obsessed John Kerry with a horribly split party, a hostile Republican opposition which controls the House and Senate will have the more powerful stockpile of political capital.

WOMEN STILL FACE OBSTACLES IN REACHING SENIOR STAFF POSITIONS AT UN – REPORT
New York, Oct 21 2004 12:00PM
The United Nations has given itself a mixed report card for its efforts to reach the General Assembly’s target of equality between the numbers of men and women in professional and managerial staffing....

Not likely, because he remains John Kerry. Consider the statement during his "hunting trip" today in Iowa. Kerry said he was having a hard time focusing because "I'm giddy about the Red Sox." How many baseball fans are describing themselves today as giddy? This can only cost Kerry votes among the regular guys he's trying to appeal to, and it won't get any better because this is the real Kerry and he can't help himself.

From another reader:

Jonah -

I tend to agree that at the end of the day, Bush probably won't win
Michigan. But there are two other factors to consider: Ralph Nader is on
the ballot in Michigan; and, Michigan has a gay marriage initiative. Now I
assume that the Bush people know the internals better than we do, and
they'll spend there if it's really competitive. But if Kerry leads there by
as little as 2-3 points, then given the strength shown by the
anti-gay-marriage folks in Missouri and Louisiana, I'd wonder whether that
turnout, combined with Nader on the ballot, might not be enough to push Bush
over the top.

From a Michigan Reader:

Not gonna happen. I have resigned myself to living in a solid blue state. I will do my part to help with the national popular vote-count, but most people (sadly) in this state think that the President's job is to make manufacturing companies stay in Michigan and bend over for the unions.

According to a Detroit News poll. I kind of doubt Bush will take Michigan, but it's nice to hear.

From a reader:

“Nevertheless, I do hope the Red Sox lose in the World Series. There aren't many curses left in modern society most people still believe in. We've sanitized the culture of such mysticisms.”

I could just call you a jerk and be done with it, but I’m going to take your argument for what it is – a plea to protect whatever vestiges remain of mystery in American culture. Sure, things have gotten super-rational in this modern era – nothwithstanding the lunacy of the American left which by alternate turns believes in hobgoblins and Santa Claus – but how does the Red Sox winning the World Series diminish the curse? A Red Sox victory will be the signal that the curse has taken up a new residency – New York. Depriving New York residents of the joy that comes from winning the World Series seems appropriate. Bostonians have been punished by the Gods long enough for their resentful, morose and eccentric ways. We have been faithful to the Gods and are deserving of at least one victory.

“Lord hear our prayer. Pay no heed to Jonah Goldberg.”

And while we’re at it, it’s tough to deny that it’s time for the Yankee Fans to suffer for their everlasting hubris. Last night, I called a friend of mine from New York and told him “You can f***g keep A-Rod!” Too my surprise, my friend picked up the phone. He had been to the game and left early! He left before the last out! He was back from the stadium in time to take my call at midnight, moments after the game was over! Talk about disloyalty! A Red Sox fan would never in a million years leave before the last out. Such disloyalty and hubris deserves punishment. That and George Steinbrenner is a fat bag of s--t who DID pay too much for A-Rod! Boo-Yeah!

But I digress. Regarding your impulse to let the Red Sox fans suffer for the greater good this demonstrates that you sir, are indeed a leftist and should be ousted forever from the masthead of NRO. One question posited to me in graduate school is “If you could torture one baby forever to bring peace and happiness to society-at-large, would you do it?” I never heard anyone say outright yes, but I know the leftists had to think about it. It’s only a hop skip and a jump from consigning the Red Sox fans to everlasting suffering for the greater good to torturing that baby. Makes me wonder just how committed you are to the pro-life movement! (How’s that for being a bit unhinged? You want the Red Sox to lose the World Series and by extension, are a baby killer!... I need some sleep. I’m starting to sound like Al Gore of Red Sox nation.)

But God I hate the Yankees. The way the Dems hate Bush.

I've got to get work on my syndicated column, but I'll be saving this piece for my thick liberal wishful-thinking file. Mark Schmitt, who was supposed to write a regular column about the intellectual roots of liberalism (prompted by some Corner comments by yours truly) but never managed to follow-through, has written a nearly giddy obituary of conservatism based upon four sets of tea-leaves: Robert George's cover story in the New Republic; Marshall Wittman's latest volte-face for the DLC; Benjamin Wallace-Wells' Schmittian obit; and -- get this -- the blog-quarrels between Andrew Sullivan and Dan Drezner.

Is it me or is this is a bit like tracking the internal Communist party struggles in Bulgaria in 1959 and concluding that they spell the doom of the Soviets in Moscow?

I think Schmitt makes some perfectly fine points (and some real howlers) and I respect all of these guys (though I don't know anything about Wallace-Wells save that the article in question was underwhelming). But the title of the article -- American Conservatism, RIP -- reminds me of Lionel Hutz's declaration "Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film "The Neverending Story." Though since liberals like Schmitt have been writing this sort of piece for forty years, it really is a neverending story.

This isn't sour grapes. I may technically be a Yankees "fan" but it's only out of vestigial loyalty sort of like the way Madonna is still a "Catholic."

Nevertheless, I do hope the Red Sox lose in the World Series. There aren't many curses left in modern society most people still believe in. We've sanitized the culture of such mysticisms. Or we've elevated them to quasi-religions deserving full respect under the rules of political correctness ("Oh? You're a Pagan? Isn't that wonderful! My hairdresser's a Druid!"). The BoSox curse is old but it's not weird. It's a comfortable bit of lore which adds drama to life. If it disappears the magic and mystery of life will be a teeny bit diminished. Except of course for Red Sox fans, who will be whistling dixie out of every orifice for a year. Depriving them of such joy seems worth the price.

Dear Mr. Owens

General Joseph Wheeler, who was in a position to know, counted the losses in all the battles of the seven years of the Revolution as 2,200 killed, 6,500 wounded; of 1812, 1,877 killed, 3,737 wounded; of the Mexican War 1,049 killed, 7,929 wounded; for a total of 19,227 men killed or wounded in all American wars before 1860 (The Causes of the War, speech delivered in the House of Representatives, Friday, July 13th, 1894, published in the Richmond Dispatch, July 31, 1894).

Gen. Wheeler noted that the total of 19,227 men killed or wounded in all wars before 1860 added up to less than half of Gen. Grant’s losses at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania (May 5 to May 12, 1864), "which should really be called one battle". Losses on the Union side alone from that one battle totalled 9,774 killed, 41,150 wounded, and 13,254 missing and never identified.

That's General "Fightin’ Joe" Wheeler (1836-1906) of the Confederate States of America (16 horses shot out from under him), Brigadier General in the Army during the Spanish-American War, Alabama Congressman for 18 years. There’s a statue of him in Statuary Hall in the Capitol in Washington, too.

Sincerely yours,

Kevin Orlin Johnson, Ph.D.

I think Edmund Burke would argue that, as it is traditional that the Red Sox lose, it is therefore right that the Red Sox lose.

This could, of course, be expanded to "lose in a heartbreaker," so after their stunning comeback they could well win tonight, only to go on and lose (in heartbreaking fashion, of course) in the World Series, and still fulfill the conservative requirement.

Dana Milbank told Howard Kurtz he isn't rooting for Kerry (nod to Andrew Sullivan):

KURTZ: But you're a reporter, do you want Kerry to win?

DANA MILBANK: In one sense only, and that is his vacation spot is in Nantucket and in Idaho, and it's not in Waco. So in that sense, absolutely.

I'm getting lots of email like this regarding the editorial from the Times:

How is this scaremongering? For those of us who have to deal with some of these issues, it seems like a very real threat. Gay men have been thrown in jail before for having sex in their own homes; you don't think it could happen again? You don't believe there is the very real possibility that there could be more and more legislation against homosexual activity and that that legislation wouldn't be upheld by a Supreme Court filled with Scalias and Thomases? I'm sure there are conservatives out there who would like nothing more than to see homosexuals legislated right out of existance.

ME: I'm sorry but so much of this is nonsense. No I don't think there's anything like a real possibility there will be stricter laws against homosexual activity. The fallback position of countless conservative and Republican politicians today is to permit civil unions. According to this paranoid imagining the political climate would have to switch to the point where consensual gay acts in the privacy of your own home would be outlawed. As amusing as I would fine a spoof where the guys from NYPD Blue bust down the doors of Will and Grace and arrest Will and his cop boyfriend, I don't think that passes the smell test of plausibility.

Most of the commentary among conservatives who opposed the Supreme Court ruling on sodomy -- and that hardly represented a huge majority of conservative commentary -- was that sodomy laws were constitutional but that they were also bad policy. Even Clarence Thomas said he would vote against such laws if he were a legislator. Most states had long since dropped their sodomy laws and no states were considering new ones. Any new sodomy laws would A) be very hard to pass and B) would probably receive stricter scrutiny from the courts than old laws which had the advantage of already being on the books.

Thought you might get a kick out of an exchange between Schilling and Dan Patrick on Patrick's radio show this morning (assuming you didn't hear it). Patrick asked Curt whether or not he thought ARod's mitt slap was bush-league and Schilling said, "No, it was Kerry-league." He seems to be no fan of ARod or Kerry. Just one more reason to love the guy.

Its been extremely heartening to see some pro-Red Sox sentiment on The Corner. I've always felt a little unwelcome there during Sox-Yankees matchups. I'm challenging 26 Red Sox fans/NROniks to subscribe to NR Digital if the Sox win tonight (that's one for each World Championship the Yankees have won since 1918). I'll be the first. If the Sox do the unthinkable and win the World Series, I challenge them to purchase 86 subscriptions (one for each year of agony since the last Sox championship).

PS I'll also buy a copy of Legacy if the Sox win tonight, to bring some measure of comfort to Rich.

Dear Kathryn,

With some people already casting their ballots, the election of 2004 is now underway, and nothing less than the future of our country is at stake. This is the moment for every Democrat to look in the mirror and ask: "What more can I do to help?"

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of a special group of Democratic donors, every dollar you donate today, to the kickoff of our Countdown to Victory Matching Fund, will be matched, doubling the impact of your Countdown to Victory donation.
https://www.democrats.org/support/kerry.html
With so much on the line, and with so little time remaining, I couldn't let a critical moment like this pass without personally calling on you to act before it is too late. I know how hard you're working, how much you've already given of yourself. But we've got to dig even deeper between now and November 2.

These closing days of the campaign are exciting, no doubt about it. But with so much riding on the outcome of this election, we need to make sure our energy translates into effective action. Every one of us has a chance to play a vital role in deciding who wins.

So please donate now and double the impact of your contribution.
https://www.democrats.org/support/kerry.html
We must leave no stone unturned between now and the moment the last poll closes on November 2. The Republicans are pouring millions of dollars into baseless attacks against John Kerry and the Democrats because they know that's the only way they can win. Don't let them get away with it.
John Kerry, John Edwards, and other Democrats locked in tough races are pulling out all the stops. They're driving toward victory -- but they need your help. We've got two weeks to go and not a minute to waste. Your immediate contribution can help fund final media buys, voter contact, and GOTV operations. These are the efforts that are going to win this election, and we cannot do it without your support.

Let's go for it. America's future is on the ballot this year. Let's use these final days of the campaign to win the victory that is within our grasp, and secure the kind of future we want for our children. I'm counting on you.

Sincerely,

Bill Clinton

Did you guys see this? From Monday's signed editorial by Adam Cohen. Talk about scaremongering:

Abortion might be a crime in most states. Gay people could be thrown in prison for having sex in their homes. States might be free to become mini-theocracies, endorsing Christianity and using tax money to help spread the gospel. The Constitution might no longer protect inmates from being brutalized by prison guards. Family and medical leave and environmental protections could disappear.

It hardly sounds like a winning platform, and of course President Bush isn't openly espousing these positions. But he did say in his last campaign that his favorite Supreme Court justices were Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and the nominations he has made to the lower courts bear that out. Justices Scalia and Thomas are often called "conservative," but that does not begin to capture their philosophies. Both vehemently reject many of the core tenets of modern constitutional law.

Ha! I was going to make a point that it seems Carter actually already made. I was going to say "Well, that makes sense. Carter would love America to be more like Canada and if we hadn't fought the war, that's what we'd be today." But Lo and behold that excerpt on LGF actually shows that Carter made exactly that point. How on earth did a guy like Carter get elected president in the first place?

[That's Democracy for you Mr. Burns]

Shoot your dog, eat your best cold fried chicken, jam your Xerox machine, grope your wife, give nukes to the Crips and the Bloods, raise taxes on the poor to 110%, give Margaret Cho a two hour nightly "comedy" special, replace vegetables with sand on all high school cafeteria menus and require that all women be handcuffed to their basement radiators until they breed the requisite 3 Aryan children this countries needs. If minority women can't churn out the good stuff, they stay handcuffed. And -- oh yeah -- he'll reinstitute the draft.

Why doesn't John Kerry say all of these things instead of merely saying Bush will bring back the draft? I mean whenever he's asked "Why are you saying this when the president has denied it categorically?" He responds, "Well, he also said there were weapons of mass destruction. He has no credibility."

Never mind the asinine cynicism involved in that Kerry also said he thought there were WMDs (don't make me go through the list of others who did as well). But if you aren't bound by evidence and the President's denials don't count, why not really cut loose with some scary scenarios. The president will require that all taco meat be replaced with blue cheese. A 500 foot nude statue of Helen Thomas will replace the Washington Monument -- that towering symbol of our phallocracy. Puppies will burn, kittens will fly, diapers will chafe -- all if George W. Bush is elected.

If the Red Sox come from behind to win this series from the Yanks, after being down 3-0, just look out for the "Comeback Kerry" campaign to co-opt their success. And should the Red Sox win their World Series, and finally shed the curse, it would stand to be even worse. That would be a sickening spectacle for baseball.

I was rooting for the Sox, but now I'm not so sure. If they win the Series, they will finally deserve the full fruits of their victory, not be co-opted by a political campaign of doofuses who couldn't stand in the batter's box to face down my seven-year old niece's patented cut-slowball.

I got this email in response to the column on Kerry and religion. Apparently any email I post must be one I approve of, so I figured I'd better add the above qualifier.

Anyway, from a reader:

Jonah the libertine Jew Goldberg is going to define how one professes Christianity, get real, how would you know the difference between a falsehood and a truth, you know as well as I do Bush is a fascist and doesn’t give a damn about Jew, Muslim or Christian Ideology, like you, he speaks for money Ideology.

Your God is going to fry your a**.

Your messing with some bad mojo there, just put the keyboard down and step away. We love you and The Corner but God bless Shannen Coffin for posting on behalf of the BoSox and trying to counter act you, Lowry and the evil empire. You believe in the triumph of good over evil don't you?

Go Red Sox!

As a New Englander who's voting for Bush, I got the SERIOUS creeps when I read your e-mail about the Sox winning and giving Kerry some momentum somehow. Look, just leave the Sox OUT of this election. Do not talk about them, do not write about them, do not think about them. Leave it alone. You are messing with some seriously bad stuff; I'm talking voodoo stuff, witch stuff. Do not mess around with this, especially not a week and a half before Halloween. You have no idea what sorts of jinxes or hexes you might cause. You don't know what goblins or spirits you might unleash.

Please don't bring it up again.

Schwarzenegger said the one state where he might campaign for Bush outside of California was Ohio, where he owns a gym and sponsors an annual body building competition.

"I said to the president I'm perfectly willing to go to Ohio if he needs me there but I can't travel around from state to state because I'm working for the people of California," he said.

According to the latest Fox poll. Interestingly, if Nader gets on the ballot Bush drops two points and Kerry gains one.

Here's the opener:

Bush leads Kerry by a margin of 49 percent to 44 percent. Independent candidate Ralph Nader (search) is still trying to get on the ballot in Ohio, and when he is included in the vote he garners three percent, Bush 47 percent and Kerry 45 percent.

The new poll shows little change from last month, although Bush has improved his standing slightly compared to polling conducted before the presidential debates. At that time Bush held a four-point lead over Kerry (48 percent to 44 percent), with Nader at two percent.

Men are much more likely to vote for Bush (52 percent to 41 percent), while the vote among women is closely divided and gives only a one point edge to Kerry (46 percent Bush to 47 percent Kerry). Majorities of married men and women support President Bush.

Note Stupid typo fixed

I've gotten some grief from readers who think I'm trying to pull a fast one with my electoral college count posted earlier. Not at all. I was merely using the polling data provided by the LA Times. If you move the mouse over a particular state it gives you their latest polling info. That's what I went with.

Several readers have suggested I use Realclearpolitics.com data instead.
Which you can find here.

Rich - I don't know if this fits in, but Bob Novak's column this week said McCurry was the only senior advisor to say Kerry should apologize for the Mary Cheney thing. That in of itself isn't very interesting. But it could be a sign that McCurry is comfortable leaking to Novak which in turn would be a sign that McCurry is indeed on the outs inside the Kerry camp.

Of course, this is wild Kremlinology.

Kathryn - When do you want all of us around here to start making them?

After "blegging" for a conservative/NRO to address the Mary Cheney thing on his terms (does Sullivan know "bleg" is a word coined by John Derbyshire? The horror, the horror) Andrew Sullivan chooses to ignore my column on the issue and instead cite an email I posted "approvingly" which is far more convenient to his increasingly shrill story line that conservatives are bigots when they disagree with him. For the record, the email was in response to someone else's email. I do this often (but I'll stop if readers think it's tedious). But that hardly means I agree or disagree with the content or phrasing of a particular email. That is, of course, unless I say something along the lines of "I agree with this guy" or some such.

From a reader:

Mary Cheney's comment was a short-term political gaffe and if it costs Kerry the election I would feel extremely depressed.

Now, if Kerry wins, his bringing up Mary Cheney's gayness will surely make a
little more difficult for the Republicans to take on gays the way they are
doing this year.

I know, I know, your article was on Kerry's political instincts, and you may
be right. Conceded. But for someone that constantly appeals to the
morality of this and that you seem particularly focused on your enemies'
(how else could I call them) flaws and totally blinded to your guys flaws.
For you not to have rejected in clear terms to the wave of homophobia that
your guys have unleashed throughout the country for clearly political
purposes is beyond anything. You are going to sh*t on this because
naturally you have the right to decide what things are outrageous to you and
what aren't. But people can see through... I believe you are a smart and
insightful writer, but you could really spare us your sermons.

And sorry, what you guys on the right did to the Clintons is ignoble and
unforgivable.

From a reader:

Just thought I would mention in response to Drum's "After all, before 9/11 George Bush and his advisors had little concern for terrorism and expressed frequent contempt for things like nation building and democracy promotion."

Bush has changed his world view in light of 9/11. Prior to it, he was
opposed to nation building because the U.S. did not discern a major threat
to its survival in the world. 9/11 changed that and Bush reacted
accordingly.

Kerry has also changed his worldview. Prior to 9/11 he was for removing
Hussein, after 9/11 he was against it (I'm being generous about his
consistency post 9/11). Before 9/11 remove Saddam, afterward retreat.

I know everything's in flux and many sites claim Kerry's in the lead, got the big Mo etc. But I just decided to go through the LA Times map thingy again. I gave every state that Bush was leading in to Bush and every state that kerry was leading in to Kerry. Many of these margins were tiny and some of the polls were old -- Tennessee's is a month old -- but the final tally was 289 to 206 for Bush. I left PA, IA and NJ out because they are exact ties. But even if you give all three to Kerry Bush still wins.

For what it's worth.

From a reader:

The reader who felt that naming Mary Cheney was harmless since she was out anyway and there's nothing shameful about being gay has missed the point: Kerry and Edwards were throwing it in her parents' faces. We don't know what pain they may have gone through, and accepting something is a far cry from not wishing one bit that it were otherwise. There are some things you just don't bring up to people. If they want to bring it up, that's different. Everybody in the room may know that someone present has a family member who is profoundly retarded, or--less innocently--a drunken gambling addict cheating on a spouse. But you don't bring it up. When Cheney thanked Edwards for his kind remarks, I think he was just doing the gentlemanly thing. He rightly perceived it as the overly personal remark it was. Where on earth did these two supposedly upper-class men learn their manners?

According to this poll by the Newark Star Ledger:

Two weeks before Election Day, the odds that President Bush will pull an upset and grab New Jersey's 15 electoral votes are growing slimmer, a Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll shows.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry leads Bush by 10 points, 48 percent to 38 percent, among registered voters and by 13 percentage points, 51-38, among likely voters, according to the survey of 805 registered voters conducted by telephone Oct. 14 to 17.

Kerry's lead had been as small as 4 percentage points in early September, just after the Republican National Convention in Manhattan. That gap was close to the poll's 3.8 percent margin of error, and prompted the GOP to declare the state "in play," even though it has gone Democratic in the last three presidential elections.

Subsequent polls have increasingly favored Kerry, said Patrick Murray, the poll's acting director, and the new results give the Democrat his widest margin in New Jersey since August.

From a reader:

Jonah,

I normally agree with much of what you say. But I think this time you're off
the mark.

You're argument that Kerry was using Mary Cheney's sexual orientation as a
weapon is predicated on the notion that being gay is a bad or shameful
thing.

That's where I have the problem with all this fuss over the comment.

If Kerry, as I do, truly believes that there is nothing wrong or shameful
about being gay, then why is it politically calculated or disingenuous to
point out that the republican policies concerning gay marriage are even
hurting some of their own?

Mary Cheney is out. She is actively campaigning for her father and the
president. Gay marriage is an issue that the BUSH candidacy placed on the
table. It seems to me an obvious point to make that Mary Cheney is a human
being who has rights like any other american, democrat or republican. And
that the Republican party has cruelly discounted even some of their own in
pursuit of this constitutional amendment.

I think a better example would be if Cheney's daughter happened to be a
convert to Islam or Judaism, and the Bush administration was pursuing laws
that somehow limited the rights of religious expression. (I know we're
playing with some way out there hypotheticals right now, but bear with me.)
If Kerry pointed out that Jews/Muslims were human beings with the right to
express their religious affiliation and pointed to Cheney's daughter as an
example of that, would that be shameful? There's nothing wrong with being a
member of a religion, and there's nothing wrong with being gay. The
difference in opinion on this issue stems from whether people think being
gay is shameful, embarrassing, or unfortunate in the first place.

To me, debates are meant to point out weaknesses or inconsistencies in an
opponent's position. Kerry simply did that. It wasn't spiteful. And it
wasn't calculated.

Nonetheless, thanks for your articles. I always enjoy them. Keep writing.

Me: Nice note, thanks. But I disagree. Kerry may or may not think there's nothing wrong with being gay. We don't know the answer to that. As I noted in my column, I don't think it really matters to this controversy. What matters is if he thought he was bee-bopping and skatting off of somebody else's family for political gain. His campaign manager said Mary was "fair game" for a reason. Look, I don't think this whole story is as huge as some are making it. But I do think a lot of people saw a glimpse of the kind of man Kerry is at that debate. Not just during the Mary Cheney part, but when he agonized over how to say nice things about his wife and how he created a rhetorical Rube Goldberg machine to explain how religion influences his policies.

I think that man turned off a lot of voters even though they were willing to concede he's a better debater. That's why I predicted in my column that Bush would go up in the polls after the debate. I was right (which is sufficiently rare in my record of predictions that I don't mind mentioning it). I don't think it's all about Mary Cheney, but she's come to symbolize the man and the performance.

As the Guardian continues to pester the voters of Clark County, Ohio, here is part of the letter that film director Ken Loach is proposing to send:

"You have the chance to do the world a favour. Today, your country is reviled across continents as never before. Because of your president, and some who have preceded him, you are seen as the greatest bully on earth."

Ken, old chap, I'm not convinced that's going to do the trick.

It turns out she saw that item on the Corner and drove over here just to say hi and keep up the good work at NRO etc. It was pretty cool.

From a Philly Guy:

Jonah, First please don't use my name or e-mail address (maybe Philly guy will suffice) I play basketball every Monday night with about 15 or so regular guys. Politics for the most is not part of the evening. Last night was an exception. We are all hard working guys, family comes first, The NBA is not scouting us types. We are also Democrats! Son's of Catholic, Union, Blue collar workers. We all went to collage and have good jobs. And we're ALL voting for Bush. Why? Because the days of Bob Casey are gone. The days of the Democrats nominating someone with a spine are over. We also believe (because either our Fathers, Uncle's served in the military) that these murders want to kill our children, wives and us! GWB is the only candidate willing to do what it takes. Interestingly enough for the most part we all voted for Gore (ugh!) We (I) won't make that mistake again.

BTW: NRO, The Corner and The Kerry spot are great reads. I enjoy starting my day with you guys, eating my lunch while reading NRO and a little catching up (Corner & K Spot) before I leave the office. Absolutely great stuff.

Best Regards,

[Name withheld]

Jon - Yeah, a bunch of people have sent me that excerpt. I wish I'd mentioned it. It certainly hollows out the case that Kerry should be left off the hook because 9/11 changed everybody.

But what's also noteworthy is how terrible it makes Kerry look. First of all, what arrogance! He can't admit that he was wrong in the 1990s? For all the grief Bush gets -- sometimes rightly -- for not admitting his mistakes, he's at least conceded that we were all wrong in the 1990s.

Moreover, if Kerry knew these trends were in the works, why didn't he do something? He wrote a book about the international mafia, not international terrorism. He didn't berate the Clinton Administration for ignoring Osama Bin Laden. Raproachment with Vietnam is nice, but if he knew this was on the way, paving the way for cheap shower shoes from Hanoi could have waited. He didn't do anything except plan a run for the Presidency. If Kerry was so prescient, how come I haven't heard him cite a single example of his Churchillian warnings about the gathering storm? That would be a big story and big rationale for his candidacy but I've never seen any evidence of it. Surely Drum and Andrew Sullivan would be invoking such examples if they existed.

When I asked Kerry how Sept. 11 had changed him, either personally or politically, he seemed to freeze for a moment. ''It accelerated -- '' He paused. ''I mean, it didn't change me much at all. It just sort of accelerated, confirmed in me, the urgency of doing the things I thought we needed to be doing. I mean, to me, it wasn't as transformational as it was a kind of anger, a frustration and an urgency that we weren't doing the kinds of things necessary to prevent it and to deal with it.''

From a reader:

Jonah:

You touched on this, but I think we have to look again at Kerry's unfortunate remark about getting "back" to the place where terrorism is a nuisance. The word "back" is telling, and defnes clearly and precisely the difference between Bush and Kerry with regards to the war on terror. On 9/12 everyone was fond of saying "everything has changed" and "nothing will be the same" and the like. So much is true. But the Kerrys of this world (extreme left Democrats) are dangerously nostagic for 9/10, and they want to go "back" to it. We can't.

It's true that on 9/10 terrorist attacks were a nuisance. Other than the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, we didn't take seriously any other terrorist attacks perpetrated against us -- not Khobar Towers, not the U.S.S. Cole, not the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, etc. etc. etc. They were treated as nuisances. And what did it get us? 9/11. At that point, the American public woke up and realized that terrorism isn't just a nuisance, it's deadly serious stuff. And we went to war, against Al Quaida, and the Taliban, and against "terrorism" {I'm with Andrew McCarthy on the ufortunate use of that phrase). But 9/10 is what Kerry wants to go "back" to. In other words, he wants us to shut our eyes and go back to sleep, pretending that everybody loves us, is afraid of us, and wouldn't dare plot to murder us on our own turf. This is the nostalgia of the deluded and dangerous, and is evidence that Kerry did not have a fundamental change of worldview after 9/11.

Best Regards,
[name withheld]

Maybe this was posted already. But I missed it if it was. Here's a long profile of our own Michael Ledeen.

Link history: Blogger Dan Drezner says he's worried about Kerry's 30 year record. Blogger Kevin Drum tries to explain why he shouldn't. Blogger Andrew Sullivan basically agrees with Drum. Here's Drum:

[O]bsessing over Kerry's entire 30-year public history is probably unproductive. After all, before 9/11 George Bush and his advisors had little concern for terrorism and expressed frequent contempt for things like nation building and democracy promotion. Does that affect how we feel about Bush today?

It shouldn't, because we accept that 9/11 fundamentally changed his view of the world. We judge Bush by how he's reacted after 9/11, not by his advisors' long records before taking office — and I'd argue that we should do the same with Kerry rather than raking over nuclear freeze minutiae and Gulf War votes from over a decade ago. Obviously Kerry's past illuminates his character to some degree, but a lot changed on 9/11 and I suspect that ancient history is a poor guide to his view of how to react to the post-9/11 world.

Me: This is a good point as far as it goes, but it's a better debater's point.

First of all, ignoring Kerry's pre-9/11 record only makes sense in this analysis if there's overwhelming evidence that Kerry's changed his worldview since 9/11. I've seen no such evidence. He ran on his Vietnam record before 9/11, he runs on it now. He's offered no apologies nor revealing introspection for his anti-war efforts and his opposition to the Reagan administration. He surrounds himself with Clintonian foreign policy advisors and others to their left. He touts his decidedly pre-9/11 book on global crime as a training manual for post 9/11 world in which hunting terrorists is a "law enforcement issue" and terrorism is something he hopes to get to the nuisance level. His pre-9/11 views on diplomacy, defense and intelligence don't really seem to have gone away -- or gone away for long. He invokes the same idiotic story about De Galle trusting the United States, he worships the UN, he voted against the $87 billion for ever-changing reasons, but none of them seem to be the result of an epiphany about the dangers of the 9/11 world. To this day the only use of force he's said wouldn't be subject to a global test and that he could be counted upon to administer would be a response to an attack. Woop-dee-frickin' doo.

During the primaries, when asked if he'd call himself a war president the way Bush does, he responded: "I'd see myself first of all as a jobs president, as a health care president, as an education president and also an environmental president."

This is a man who's changed because of 9/11? In fact, I thought Kerry's appeal to folks like Sullivan and Mickey Kaus was that he'd offer a "resting period" after all of Bush's big changes.

Second, as for Bush's change of heart since 9/11, I think he certainly had one. He campaigned on the promise of a "humble" foreign policy after all. Sullivan writes: "Bush in 2000 was adamantly against nation-building, paid little attention to terrorism as a threat, and wanted to spend less on the military than Gore. Should he be held to account for that today? Not really. So why should Kerry?"

That's all fair to a point. But in 2000, the world did seem a different place and Bush's response to 9/11 shows a change of heart while, at best, Kerry's show a change of tactics.

Still, if someone had told me that Bush had had Kerry's positions on the Cold War during that struggle I would have been very concerned. Moreover, if Bush had been anywhere near as wrong as Kerry was on the Cold War, Bush wouldn't have gotten the nomination. People forget now, but Tom Ridge probably lost the VP nomination in 2000 because of conservative opposition to his squishiness on foreign policy in the 1980s (thanks to John Miller's reporting, if I recall).

The most telling thing about this whole line of argument is how much it reveals John Kerry's record is dead weight. There's a reason Kerry focused on Vietnam at his convention, a reason bolstered by 20 years of political reporting in his home state and in Washington: Kerry's done almost nothing to be proud of in two decades of work in the Senate. With the exception of the reconciliation with Vietnam, what is there? Why has the Democratic Party burped up one of the least qualified men in its party to deal with the greatest threat to the United States since the Cold War? The urge to say Kerry's a "new man" is a direct response to the inconvenient fact that the old man was so worthless.

I know that the media and the Kerry campaign are invested in the fact that those tracking polls said Kerry won the final debate and that Bush's gain has everything to do with cynically exploiting the Mary Cheney thing. And I know that I'm invested in saying that Bush was the real winner of that debate (I predicted Bush would rise in the polls after the debate even as the polls said he'd lost the debate). Well, nevertheless, I think I'm right. Bush's gains couldn't possibly be attributable solely to the Mary Cheney flap. This Colorado poll has him surging with women (from 7 points behind to 2 ahead), reclaiming independents (from a 30 point deficit to a 7 point one) and bolstering his stance with his base (plus 4). That's pretty broad momentum to attribute solely to Kerry's Lesbian gaffe. Kerry proved once again he was the better debater that last night. Bush proved he was the better candidate.

From a reader:

Unless you're writing for the National Enquirer, there's little to say about O'Reilly. If the woman is telling the truth, he's a pig and his career at FOX should be over. If she's lying, he is being unfairly maligned and his reputation will probably never be fully restored. Why would NRO or any objective journalist render speculation or judgment at this point?

I think that summarizes my last word. If O'Reilly did it, he should lose his job or resign from it. If he didn't, he should win his counter-suit and perhapos she should even go to jail. If it's something in the middle, well, we'll have to make up our mind then.

I like this one:

Mr. Goldberg Perhaps my analogy is faulty, but while reading your Corner posting on stem cells (the one with the letter attached), I was reminded of a conversation I had with an English professor I admired while I was an undergraduate. We were discussing the "Alive," the movie about those soccer players who survived a plane crash in the Andes. The survivors resorted to cannibalism for food. While addressing the subject of eating one's friends for nourishment, my professor said to me, "You and I never would have found ourselves in that moral dilemma; we'd have started walking out of that mess immediately just to avoid the problem." Sometimes walking away well before one steps into a moral quagmire is the right answer. Merely because the road of embryonic stem cell research may lead to cures and new organs does not mean it is the high moral path. Maybe we need to avoid that road altogether.

A few emails:

Jonah, I'm surprised that anyone could honestly make the sort of argument you posted. It sounds great until you realize the implications: the exact same logic would condone pretty much ANY ethically dubious enterprise which might produce positive results. We made use of Japanese biological research following World War II despite the fact that it was obtained using human test subjects, but does that in any way condone the detestable methods which produced those results? Should we now throw up our hands and say, "Well, we used the Japanese data, might as well carve up Muhammed here to see if this new idea works!". Also of concern is the old debate over whether unethically obtained data should be published and used or not. This is largely irrelevant and purely hypothetical, however, as any beneficial research is still only theoretical. No matter which side of that debate one takes, their argument still manages to completely avoid any of the truly important areas of debate surrounding this issue as it stands today while simultaneously saying something quite disturbing about their views on research ethics.

And....

I read your entry in the Corner about people emailing you the same arguments. These nutcases need to know: 1) Stem cell research is not illegal. 2) The Feds have been providing funding. 3) Stem cell research is not illegal. 4) The Feds will stop providing funding. 5) Stem cell research is not illegal. 6) A Google Search for "donate to stem cell research" produces 76,000 English hits. 7) Stem cell research is not illegal. 8) Here's just one place accepting donations http://www.stemcellresearchfoundation.org/Give/give.htm 9) Stem cell research is not illegal. "Donations to the Stem Cell Research Foundation are tax-deductible under the Internal Revenue Code of the Internal Revenue Service for computing income and estate taxes. The Stem Cell Research Foundation is a program of the American Cell Therapy Research Foundation, a federally recognized 501(c)(3) non-profit, tax-exempt organization."

And...

Jonah,

The main problem with your e-mail flood regarding stem cell is exceedingly (non-existent?) flawed logic. If embryonic stem cells do work their usage would still be immoral (at least in my self-righteous, sanctimonious, moral, religious-type view). I could solve the need for kidney dialysis by kidnapping people - checking them to see if their kidneys were healthy and then harvesting their healthy organs without their consent and transplanting them into those needing dialysis. Problem solved - under that line of thinking. Following your correspondents' line of logic, we could solve drug addiction by shooting drug addicts - after all bullets are cheaper than rehab. I guess functionality is the key to morality. And those nimrods compare Bush to Hitler!

And...

Jonah -

Just reading the e-mail you posted calling out us "religious, moral, sanctimonious" people called to mind a conversation I had the other day with a friend of mine. He's mid-40's, confined to a wheelchair with MD. He told me point-blank that if it came down to choosing between a life-saving treatment derived from embryonic stem-cell research or dying, he would, with God's help, choose death. This comment comes from someone who's actually facing the choice, if it ever comes. His dignity and quiet, Christian faith in the face of death inspires me every day that I live. I guess your e-mailers don't understand that there are some people who can still look beyond themselves. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Sorry for venting. Appreciate all you do for the cause.

A friend of mine just got this email-letter from the folks at Rock the Vote. It manages to be galling, lame, offensive and silly all at once:

Dear [Name Withheld],

We just received an outrageous letter from the Chairman of the Republican Party, demanding that we stop talking about the issue of the military draft.

He said that the draft issue is just an “urban myth” and Rock the Vote’s
effort is being conducted with “reckless disregard for the truth.”

The truth is that we still haven’t received acceptable answers from the candidates to real questions affecting our lives. The possibility of a draft is not a hoax. It’s a real issue that deserves real answers.

An attempt to silence us by any politician—Democrat, Republican, Whatever—is unacceptable. This is one of the most important issues affecting our generation. And that’s why we need to stand up and make our voices heard right away.

Below is the letter that Rock the Vote sent back to the Chairman. Please read it.

If you like what we are saying, sign our petition to the Chairmen of both
the Republican and Democratic parties asking them to answer some key questions that we have about the draft:

http://www.rockthevote.com/draft

We’re not going to stop talking about the issue of a draft simply because it makes the politicians squirm. We’re not going to let Congress think that a phony vote against the draft settles the matter.

By sending thousands of email draft cards and talking to your friends about the possibility of a draft, you ignited a national dialogue. If you have any doubt, just look at the last two presidential debates—both of which included questions for both candidates on the draft.

Click here to tell both parties that we need answers to some fundamental questions affecting our lives:

http://www..rockthevote.com/draft

Sincerely,
Jehmu Greene
President

PS. And please donate now to support our efforts to make the candidates address this issue. Donate to our campaign today.

http://www.rockthevote.com/rtv_donate.php

I've gotten ten emails basically saying this today. Maybe there's a blog or something out there encouraging it. But it's odd how all of a sudden everyone feels compelled to make this identical argument to me:

Jonah, I wonder if all these religious, moral, sanctimonious people will stick to their guns if embryonic stem cell research does bear fruit. Can you imagine: Doctor: Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we are able to give your child a new liver, but it would involve using embryonic stem cells to grow a healthy one or we could simply use research procured from embryonic stem cell research to repair his diseased liver. Mr. Smith: Sorry Doc. We are morally against embryonic stem cell use so we must wait and put our child's fate in God's hands. Yeah right. I suspect they'll take the new liver and pray for forgiveness later. Sort of like all these anti-gun whackos who are against firearms until a nice big 9MM fired by a police officer saves their life or until their precious loved ones (ahem, Rosie O'Donnell) need protection. Honestly, who knows if embryonic stem cells will ever produce anything meaningful. If the people "protesting" this research now pledge to never use any technologies derived from it for themselves or their children, I say keep on marching. But if new treatments are developed all of these hypocrites will be among the first in line for treatments (even if they successfully keep their tax dollars from supporting this research). And they know it. For that reason alone they ought to shut up.

Al Franken must be the happiest man in America.

If the charges are true, I think O'Reilly is done. It would be no great loss for conservatives, or America. What more is there to be said?

Drudge is teasing a story with the following headline: "MAN GIVEN CRACK COCAINE TO REGISTER VOTERS ARRESTED IN OHIO... DEVELOPING..."

Ah....democracy.

Update: here are the details

Vox Day is frothing at the mouth about Bill O'Reilly and the silence of conservatives about him. Frankly, I don't have a lot of patience with arguments like his which boil down to the suggestion that if I don't write what he wants and when he wants it, then it must be because I sold out. It's a shabby form of argumentation bordering on bullying someone into trying to prove a negative.

As for the substance, the comparison to Bill Clinton is faulty at countless turns, for reasons that should be fairly obvious. As for my motives for not writing about O'Reilly, they're pretty straightforward. I don't care very much about the guy. I'm not a fan of O'Reilly and I've said so countless times in print. I have a contract with CNN so I couldn't appear on O'Reilly's show even if wanted to. Actually, I wouldn't mind appearing on the show for the fun of butting heads with him. But I don't care enough about the guy or the story to spend much time following his shennanigans, sexploits or whatever. However, should he run for president of the United States, I will pay much closer attention.

From a reader:

Jonah-

On one level I am pleased that the President is coming to Jersey today and hope his speech will have a good impact on the nearby Philly media market as well as the national race. But from my worm’s-eye view reflecting life as a relatively lonely W. supporter in a fairly deep blue part of the state,

I hope there is not too much wishful thinking in this campaign move. Having seen the pathetic state of the NJ GOP first hand over the last three years

(walking away from Christie Whitman’s legacy, looking impotent in the Torricelli/Lautenberg/Forrester fiasco in ’02, losing out in the legislature

races of ’03, and the complete ineffectiveness in making hay of McGreevey’s political implosion) this seems to me singularly unpromising territory for

a Bush surprise. From my amateur perspective, the Prez should be living in the more realistic close/tossup states (Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc.)

in the next two weeks, not wasting time in blue-state offense (like the California trips of ’00 that would’ve been much better spent in Florida).

Feel free to pass that on the Bush/Cheney - no charge (maybe exactly what it’s worth).

Don't worry, I won't be droning on about neoconservatives all day. But Andrew Sullivan's "Quote of the Day" leaves me a bit flummoxed. Here's the whole post:

"Neoconservatives used to give two cheers for capitalism; now four or five seem hardly sufficient. They once promoted a hard realism in foreign policy, to counteract the pacifist idealism they saw among Democrats in the Seventies; now they flirt with an eschatological faith in America's mission civilisatrice, to be fulfilled by military means. They once offered a complex view of bourgeois culture in its relation to economic and political life; now they are in the grip of an apocalyptic vision of post-Sixties America that prevents them from contributing anything constructive to our culture. How these eschatological and apocalyptic ideas about America can exist in the same breast, without some effort at reconciliation, remains a mystery to every outsider who glances at a neoconservative magazine today. They appeal, though, to political Straussians, whose hearts beat arhythmically to both Sousa's [Stars and Stripes Forever] and Wagner's [Gotterdammerung]." - Mark Lilla, in the second of two brilliant essays in the New York Review of Books. Lilla is a big defender of Leo Strauss' life and thought, which makes his critique of what has become of "Straussianism," especially in its current Washington life-form, all the more damning.

ME: Lilla's a smart guy and all that. And since I don't subscribe to the New York Review of Books I can't get through to the whole article. But this strikes me as a honeycomb of non-sequiturs and stolen bases. Since when has neoconservatism ever been synonymous with Straussianism? Maybe Lilla defines his terms better in the full article, but this quote makes it sound like that's what he's saying and if it is, that's just dumb. And it's unfortunate for Sullivan to offer tacit approval of that sentiment by offering this quote as a stand-alone statement.

Also, if some neoconservatives -- like Irving Kristol -- once practiced a "hard realism" in foreign policy others, like Norman Podhoretz and Ben Wattenberg, were also profoundly idealistic. Sure, they were hawks, but idealistic hawks. Speaking of Irving Kristol, one gets the sense that Lilla is saying that Irving Kristolism, Straussianism and neoconservatism are all the same thing. Given Lilla's history with the Kristol family, that's interesting but it's not exactly persuasive.

Because in John Kerry's America -- thanks to stem cells -- things like this won't happen.

Obviously, it's still a stretch to think Bush could win New Jersey. But if he did, it's fairly easy to see how he could win without Ohio or Florida.

I know this because I'm fairly addicted to the LA Times' electoral vote map doohickey. I can't like to it because it's a pop-up thingamajig. So go to the LA Times home page and scroll down until you see the map. It's very well done.

There's also electoral-vote.com which is pretty good too.

Update Here's the LA Times doohickey link.

John - I particularly like this part from the review: "Miller is well known for his talent as a polemicist, but he probably wasn’t sufficiently versed in obtuse history to write this book alone. He therefore teamed up with a Harvard lecturer, Mark Molesky, thus gaining, in the eyes of some, a certain intellectual respectability."

I always knew you weren't versed in obtuse history.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a lower court to reconsider a Texas congressional map that could give Republicans six more seats in Congress in upcoming elections and help the GOP protect its majority.

James Wolcott doesn't like me (Apparently Wolcott has a blog now). His specific gripe is that I use what he calls the "Jonah Goldberg Limited Take Back."

It works something like this. First I say something like: "James Wolcott is an aging precious writer for Vanity Fair whose work is best known as the pointless filler between the articles spoiled wives in the Hamptons actually read."

Then, I say something like this, "Okay, that was a bit unfair."

In tribute to Jimmy I won't say the second part. Though I must say I'm flattered that he's reading my column regularly. That's a lot more than most of us can say about his.

As for the "substance" of his criticism (lest someone think I'm ducking). His first example -- when I wrote "John Kerry is a sphincter. Okay, that's a bit juvenile." -- is fair enough. But at least I was recognizing my "rhetoric" was tongue in cheek. In other words, I don't take myself too seriously. James Wolcott on the other hand could write a grocery list and be disappointed he didn't get a Pulitzer.

As for his second example, one needs to see it in the context of the article I wrote. I think it stands on its own merits and I don't apologize for it. Perhaps Wolcott's real problem is with lively writing. That would certainly explain a lot.

Yesterday I wrote about the Bruce Bartlett quotes that open the New York Times Magazine’s cover story on Bush’s faith. Today I’m writing about the rest of that story, by Ron Suskind. In short, it’s a mess.

Suskind’s central examples don’t demonstrate what he thinks it does. He tells a story about how Bush, in conversation with Rep. Tom Lantos, confused Sweden and Switzerland, said that the former was a neutral power without an army. When Lantos tried to correct him, Bush persisted in his belief—and only in a later meeting conceded that he had been wrong. Now this is certainly an embarrassing story, and perhaps a disturbing one. But it does not show that Bush is a man of arrogant certainties who relies on his faith rather than on facts and refuses to reconsider his views. It shows that he is a man who sometimes has his facts wrong and will briefly persist in error. I have known very, very intelligent people, whose theological views and psychologies are quite different from those of the president, who have had similar conversations.

Suskind talks a lot about Bush’s relationship with Jim Wallis, the left-wing evangelical writer. Bush at first was warm to him, but then lost interest when Wallis explained that he had to lead a fight against poverty around the world to win the war on terrorism. Does this show that Bush is uncomfortable with intellectual challenge? I should think it shows him to be unwilling to waste time with people who give him daft advice.

An anonymous Bush aide tells Suskind, hubristically, that Suskind belongs to a “reality-based community” that comments on the world while the administration goes about changing reality. Later, he quotes Mark McKinnon, Bush’s ad guy. McKinnon is saying that Suskind thinks Bush is an idiot. “[Y]ou do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don’t care. You see, you’re outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don’t read the New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. . . . They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it’s good for us. Because you know what those folks don’t like? They don’t like you!” Suskind adds, “In this instance, the final ‘you,’ of course, meant the entire reality-based community.”

It did? McKinnon hasn’t, "of course," said anything to echo the anonymous aide’s comments. His remark seems to be suggesting that a handle on reality—or at least the realities of American life—is precisely what the New York Times and its peers lack. This is just liberal self-congratulation.

As is the article as a whole. Bush may very well have too much certainty, and too little empiricism. He seems, for example, to have jumped rather alarmingly quickly from the idea that all people have a God-given right to be free to the conclusion that all peoples are capable of exercising that freedom immediately. But when Suskind concludes by quoting Wallis on how true faith never yields “easy certainty,” you wish that he had done a little bit less catering to the easy certainties of the typical Times reader.

[My reply]

Dear Sir or Madam---If you read the preamble to my piece, you will see that this story comes from newspapers published in an alternate universe I was able to visit by use of the syllogismobile.

Actual details of the syllogismobile are, for antional security reasons, not available for disclosure to unauthorized members of the public. However, if your organization is willing to pay me an appropriate fee -- $250,000 is the amount I usually suggest -- I can arrange for one of your staff to take a trip on the syllogismobile with me. For reasons to do with the time-space distortions involved when crossing to alternate universes, the most appropriate persons to send on these trips are attractive, single young women, blondes for preference. Several weeks of training sessions will be necessary.

Please let me know when you would like to explore alternate reality, and I shall begin the necessary arrangements.

Sincerely,

John Derbyshire

"There are many people who think that the destruction of Iraqi life is as direct an assault on the sacred as is the taking of unborn life. There are many people who regard the death penalty as an admission of the smallness of our nature rather than evidence of our greatness."

"God bless you. Win, will you?" Hummer told Kerry after mass ended.

Would you ever change your mind regarding same-sex marriage?

I have my view, and my view is my view. I can’t tell you in 20 years or whenever, if someone made a persuasive argument, the world changes. You know, George Bush just changed his mind on a national security director, and he changed his mind on raiding Social Security, and he changed his mind on homeland security. So I don’t predict the future. What I tell you is that my position is what it is.

A few hours later, a Roman Catholic priest in nearby Chillicothe praised his religious beliefs at a Saturday afternoon service arranged for the traveling candidate.

"If dare we say by the grace of God the brother should be the one chosen to lead, it is our hope he will one day come back to us and celebrate with us as president of the United States, not in this small room, but in the church where we will do it openly, publicly, proudly," the Rev. Lawrence L. Hummer of St. Mary's said on Saturday.

The religious divide, not unlike the political one, comes down to siding with liberals in the church over the more orthodox conservatives. Kerry, for example, has broken with some Catholic leaders who say it is a sin for a politician to support abortion rights. In the final debate, the Democratic candidate made it clear he opposes abortion as an "article of his faith," but would never appoint a Supreme Court justice who favors overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision establishing a woman's right to an abortion.

’Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come,’ Kerry intoned Sunday morning at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church. ‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.’ He told the crowd of 1,500 he wasn't there to preach but went on to, well, preach about the Good Samaritan, the emptiness of a faith devoid of deeds and God's high calling to love one another -- before criticizing from the pulpit President Bush over Social Security and jobs.

Seems so:

"Abdullah Mehsud, the commander of the Islamic militants who kidnapped two Chinese engineers in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, spent 25 months in custody at the US base in Guantanamo Bay before his release in March."

Just talked to him. He says that he talked to Suskind (the Times Magazine writer) every once in while over a few months. He didn’t realize that Suskind was working on a story until a week ago, and never gave him a formal interview. He emphasizes that he’s not complaining about Suskind’s treatment of him, but is just explaining that in his conversations he was “just saying whatever popped into my head.”

He neither remembers specifically nor disputes the quotes Suskind attributes to him. He does think Suskind got the context wrong a few times. Suskind quotes Bartlett as predicting a “civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3” and then says that Bartlett sees it as “the same [conflict] raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion.” Bartlett says that “civil war” may have been hyperbolic. He adds, “My discussion of the civil war within the republican party had absolutely nothing to do with religion.” He meant only that conservatives upset with Bush’s record on, say, spending but not eager to hurt him before the election would feel freer to complain on Nov. 3—and that the presidential contest for 2008 would also bring out complaints from people to Bush’s right.

What about the quote about Bush’s being “just like” the enemy in the war on terrorism? “When I was talking about how Bush was like Al Qaeda, I didn’t mean that in a negative sense.” [I’ll let him continue, but you have to admit it’s a pretty funny line standing alone—RP.] “I think it is a source of strength to have a leader who understands his enemy so well. What I mean is that—someone who is of a secular nature, their inclination is to believe everyone can be reasoned with. For somebody who has deep faith, they understand that you cannot reason with some people. I mean, you cannot be reasoned with about your [own] faith. Knowing your enemy is an important part of defeating them and if you understand that these people cannot be reasoned with because his faith is as deep as your faith, the only thing to do is to kill them.”

The quote in the magazine makes it sound as though Bartlett thinks that Bush, like “Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalists,” is an “extremist,” “driven by a dark vision.” I don’t believe that the argument he made to me is sound. I think he is exaggerating the unreasonableness of faith, and I think plenty of secular people are capable of seeing religious people as unreasonable—all too capable, in some cases. If the quote is accurate, he could have found a better way to say what he meant (but remember, he didn’t think he was going to be quoted). But I do think that what he told me is what he meant.

Via The Spectator

“Iceland’s most famous novelist, Halldór Laxness, won the Nobel Prize with a book called Independent People. That phrase — Sjalfstætt Folk — has a resonance on the island that is difficult for foreigners to grasp. Icelanders believe that self-government is the natural condition for a sturdy, free-standing citizenry. They understand that there is a connection between living in an independent state and living independently from the state. They have no more desire to submit to international than to national regulation. That attitude has made them the happiest, freest and wealthiest people on earth. Long may they remain so.”

Time to visit, I reckon.

And no, that is not always a good thing.

The Guardian, an always dependable source of the asinine, has launched a scheme to spam the luckless voters of Clark County, Ohio with advice about the upcoming election.

Blogger Tim Blair is not impressed.

In Iraq, the search for mass graves continues but apparently European teams who worked on Bosnian mass graves are not helping because of their concerns that Saddam could face the death penalty.

Just as well, I suppose, that we’ve got those pesky Nuremberg trials all over and done with.

Marta Andreassen was the EU’s former accountant, suspended for going public with her fears about the vulnerability of the EU’s budget to corruption, something to remember at a time when the EU bureaucracy is proposing additional regulations on company accounting.

Andreassen has now been formally fired. No surprise there, but the EU’s Commissioners have now become so comfortable in their unassailability that none of them – not one – bothered to ask her a single question at the final hearing on her case.

From the Sunday Telegraph: “Back in Alexandra Palace, the climate has already changed to pouring rain. The outdoor "Cultural Space," situated at the edge of the car park, is not proving popular. Inside a large, draughty marquee, the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign musicians are struggling to find anyone to express their solidarity with. In front of the stage, six desperate delegates sway half-heartedly to the frenetic pan-pipe tunes, clapping politely at the end of each song. A desolate barbecue, providing soggy veggie-burgers to the masses, has no customers. The impression is that of a doomed village fete rather than an invigorating global revolution."

Cost to London taxpayers: GBP 400,000.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone was endorsed for re-election by the Economist.

The latest festival of Bush-bashing in the NYT Magazine opens with a quote from him. "This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them." I find it hard to believe that Bruce would really say something this contemptible.

Bruce goes on to say, "This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts. He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence." Is this really the main problem with Osama bin Laden's religious views? That he is not an empiricist?

Karl Rove gave his view (at some length) as to how undecideds break, in an interview with FNC's Brit Hume. And it's not "for the incumbent" or "for the challenger." Plenty more on…[how to look] at conventional polling of undecided voters as well. Of course, I cannot say whether or to what extent Mr. Rove was giving some spin, but it's interesting reading.