perfidy

It's important not to let hate stop you from doing the right thing. At least I think that's the argument behind kerryhatersforkerry.com.

Are you going to vote for John Kerry even though you find him unpleasant, annoying, arrogant, waffling, misguided, or just generally unappealing in some profound way? Then you've come to the right place! We're Kerry Haters for Kerry -- perhaps his largest constituency! No need to hide in the Kerryhating closet anymore while you pretend to everyone that he'll be a great president. Here you are among friends. You can speak freely and honestly. You can admit: 'He's awful! And I'm for him!

Like the bumper sticker says-- "John Kerry: He'll Do."

Thanks to Loyal Reader #2.71828183, Mapgirl, for the tip.

Loyal Reader #0017, EDog, submits for our approval this (possibly satirical) map which overlays the county-by-county electoral results from the 2000 election in Florida with the paths of the various hurricanes to hit the state this season. I think you will agree the results are... intriguing.

(I hate to pick on Florida, but they (the proverbial they) make it so easy!)

Below the fold (click image for a zoomable full-size version).

Loyal Reader Mapgirl picks apart the debaters on parliamentary grounds. Oooh no, I think it's a beating!

Due to a medical emergency in the Buckethead clan, Buckethead, Mrs. Buckethead and Sir John-the-actually-quite-well-behaved-in-the-car-considering-he's-been-in-a-car-seat-for-fifteen-hours lit out for the wilds of Massachusetts. As it turns out, all is well and Buckethead's beloved mother was sightseeing again two days after a heart attack thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the puissance of the Cape Cod Medical Center's staff.

So, unlike most of the politically addicted citizens of this great nation, we listened to the great debate on AM radio. No cable news, no cspan, nor even streaming interweb video. It was a challenge to create an accurate mental image of the debate. Where do I insert my mental jpeg of Kerry sticking his tongue out for maximum verisimilitude? Was Bush clenching his forehead or smirking as he made that comment? As of this moment, I have not seen any replays of the debate on TV, so my impressions are purely based on what I heard driving through the smelliest bits of Eastern PA in the rain.

I think that the debate was a draw - Kerry had more debating style fu, and scored a few hits. Bush was his typical aphasic self at times, but pulled out the heavy artillery on the flip-flopping. Here are some of thte things I was thinking during the debate:

• Kerry repeatedly said he'd do better, but failed to actually say how he'd do better. The very few times he actually offered specifics, it was something that the administration is already planning or doing. His theme for the debate seemed to be, "Anything you can do, I can do better." Armchair quarterbacking is a hell of a lot easier than actually throwing a pass in the big game. Something bloggers should be well aware of, btw.
• Is it just me, or was Kerry being hypocritical for bitching that we were insufficiently multilateral in Iraq, but then saying we should ditch the laboriously arranged six party talks in North Korea to go it alone?
• Mrs. Buckethead made the insightful comment as the debate was winding down that all of John Kerry's suggestions for defense policy revolve around the good wishes of others. Getting the French and the Germans to participate. UN approval. ICC. Summits. "Global Tests" for American use of military force. Those good wishes are far from guaranteed, especially in the case of the the axis of weasels and the UN. I really, really, really have a hard time believing that France would be willing, next January, to reverse their policy and send troops to Iraq, or share the costs of reconstruction just because John Kerry's phiz is staring back across the negotiating table. Which leaves us in the same situation, with the added bonus that an incoming president Kerry would have little goodwill from the allies we do have given what he has said of them so far.
• Kerry used a lot of his time attacking Bush. Bush used a lot of his time quoting Kerry to Kerry. I think Bush was more effective with his tactic.

Kerry needed to do something spectacular, or at least have Bush commit political seppuku, to have an effect on the larger campaign. Neither happened. Which leaves Kerry where he was, five to ten points behind in the polls. Four years ago, Al Gore deeply unimpressed the electorate with his debate performance, and it had an effect on the election. Here, a tie does nothing to gain Kerry back the ground he's lost since August. There is a chance that he may achieve something in the next two debates, but given that the Kerry campaign had settled on Iraq as "the" issue, this was their shot to change the dynamics of the race. The economy is steadily if slowly improving - and certainly not in the middle of a meltdown. Domestic policy is taking a back seat to the war on terror because of both reality and the decisions of campaign managers on both sides. I don't think Kerry supporters will have much to do but pray for Bush to screw up in some truly miraculous way, and evil genius Karl Rove will likely manage to prevent that.

As a side note, I have to say that the post debate conversation on AM radio was entirely pathetic. It left me with a craving for the blogosphere I stronger than I have ever felt. Compared to the jackassery running rampant over the AM dial, I would even have been happy watching Chris Matthews on Hardball. Callers to talk shows are almost universally ideologically driven incarnate talking points. Not one in ten actually said anything about the debate per se, instead merely repeating DNC and RNC party lines. Dreadful.

Yeah, I watched the whole thing. No, I wasn't impressed.

Neither candidate had a defining moment, neither had a campaign-winning turn of phrase, neither made a real effort to crush the other. Last night was a meeting engagement between two belligerents, and not a decisive battle. Matter of fact, it was almost boring- it even took the edge off the episode of G-String Divas that aired on HBO afterward.

But it could have been something much more.

From where I was sitting (horizontal, couch-bound, serving as heated mattress for Miss Fuzzle Kitty), it seemed Kerry really could have crushed Dubya on Iraq but held back. But his rhetoric was clearly having the desired effect on the president, who was oftentimes visibly irritated by it. Furthermore, his irritation came through in his voice, which actually sounded whiny at times. Similarly, when Bush went off-script he would either freeze completely or fumblingly toss off a statement he'd already said and was only slightly relevant at that point. Overall, Kerry came across as more knowledgeable and with that, more capable. If I knew nothing about either of the men, I'd go Kerry.

The president could have, and should have, made alot more out of Kerry's internationalism. Wariness of foreign influence is a theme that resonates strongly with the right, and Bush missed several chances to capitalize on that. Kerry derided the contribution of allied forces in Iraq, but said he wants more allies. He said there has to be a "global test" of American involvement in foreign conflict, but that will never seek permission to defend America. He said that he would kill terrorists wherever they are, but wrote a book, which he clumsily plugged, about the need for an international organization to fight crime. Bush really could have pressed him on this stuff, and called him on whether Kerry is the world's president or America's, something like that.

So, missed opportunities all 'round. Seemingly the best thing to come from this event was that no one especially embarassed himself, and that's a shame. It could have been alot more.

Oh, and for those of us wondering which accent Kerry was going to use for the debate: he eschewed his Brahmin, Thurston Howell sound for a more standard drone. I think he went with accent 2b, "officious everyman", but I may be off.

Andrew Sullivan (who else?) notes that when Massachusetts Speaker of the House Tom Finneran leaves office this week, resistance to gay marriage in the state legislature goes with him. The new Speaker, Salvatore DiMasi, is far more socially liberal and his ascendency is expected to defuse what little resistance remains. Even the resistance thinks so.

A key legislative backer of the proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage and establish civil unions yesterday all but declared defeat, saying that Finneran's exit from Beacon Hill was the final straw in an effort that already was in trouble because the state has legalized same-sex marriage with little of the uproar predicted by opponents.

"It is pretty much over," said Senate minority leader Brian P. Lees, a Springfield Republican who cosponsored the amendment with Finneran and Senate President Robert E. Travaglini. The House and Senate, sitting in a constitutional convention, must vote a second time in the next session before it could go to the voters on the 2006 ballot.

"In fact, there will be a question as to whether the issue will come up at all," Lees said. He said the issue has faded to the "back burners of Massachusetts politics," because few problems have surfaced with the implementation of the Supreme Judicial Court's decision to legalize gay marriage.

Observes Sullivan,

The real reason is that the change has become a non-event. The relatively small number of marriages for same-sex couples has barely made a dent in the social fabric and the upheaval of a constitutional amendment seems to many too big a deal for such a minor social change.

This is dead on. Outside the media-visible enclaves of downtown Boston, Cambridge, and Amherst/Northampton, Massachusetts is a part-Catholic part-postPuritan blue-collar state with a large population of recent Latino immigrants and a traditionalist streak a mile wide. In short, most of the state falls into the general category of "people who might really hate this gay marriage thing." And yet, it's here, they're queer, and from what I can see everyone is, in fact, used to it. Outside your fire 'n' brimstone pulpit parties where I'm sure the issue still surfaces any time a preacher needs some shorthand for "worldly depravity," nobody freaking cares. Non-issue. Whoopeedeedoo.

In short, my question to the dozens of states who have either passed or are trying to pass anti-gay[marriage] legislation is: Where's the fire, Mary?

The gnomes down in the DOTTSNB (known around here as "dotsnib," or colloquially "The Ministry of 'My Eyes! My Eyes!'") have submitted the following for your approval.

Three prefatory notes for my readers.

1) Be warned that the "way too goddamned much Perfidy" link does, in fact, take you to way too goddamned much Perfidy indeed.

B) Move all scissors, pens, pencils, keys, knives, letter openers, and pointy objects of any kind out of arms' reach.

III) If you're like me, you never noticed before that John Kerry kind of looks like Sarah Jessica Parker. Or that John Edwards has some serious knockers.

...so to speak.

The RNC has 'fessed up to being behind the mailing sent out last week to West Virginia Republicans. Remember? The one about how the bible will be Banned! and Gay Marriage will be Icky! and Allowed! if the Liberals win?

There goes the last shred of a chance that I was going to endorse even a single GOP candidate this year. Forget it, guys. You lost me.

(on the same page: Hey Democrats: John Kerry? Are you effing kidding me?!?)

[wik] I love the New York Times. In true natural-born elitist fashion, they dug up the nuttiest people possible to close their expose' article on Republican perfidy. I call it gilding the lily when the story itself is damning enough. Check out the capper:

But Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, argued, "We have the First Amendment in this country which should protect churches, but there is no question that this is where some people want to go, that reading from the Bible could be hate speech."

Still, Mr. Land questioned the assertion that Democrats might ban the whole Bible. "I wouldn't say it," he said. "I would think that is probably stretching it a bit far."

Witness as the redneck furrows his brow in an effort to concentrate! Aren't you glad you're not like him, dear reader of the Grey Lady?

[alsø wik] Let's be perfectly clear about this next part. The RNC was, so to speak, caught with the meat in their mouths and liking it. The statement about the mailing from RNC spokesflack Christine Iverson contained no apology but instead a defense of sorts. Sez Miz Iverson:

"When the Massachusetts Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage and people in other states realized they could be compelled to recognize those laws, same-sex marriage became an issue. . . These same activist judges also want to remove the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance."

How, exactly, does that ball of unsupported assertions, generic FUD, and outright lies clarify, explain, or excuse the mailing? 'Cos I don't see it. So far, I see one state that has ok'd gay marriage, many more very much against it (viz. Virginia, where gay couples have fewer rights than my cat), and one Defense of Marriage Act. On the other issue, I see one failed bid by a libertarian dickweed to get the Supreme Court to nix "Under God," and an outrageous grandstanding conservative Republican timewaster of a bill stripping the SCOTUS of jurisdiction to hear any more such cases (real classy guys. I'm sure Abraham Lincoln, wherever he is, is damn proud.)

All I see is a lot of heat, no light, and a partisan political process that every day wallows deeper into the muck.

This is really, really goddamned funny.

[wik] Iowahawk's list of suggested Kerry campaign slogans is also a bit of a hoot. I liked these:

Projecting American Strength Through Intricately Complex Nuance

Those Atrocity Stories? Dude, I Was Just Shitting You

Fear Not, America, I Have Deigned to Lead You

The Next Time America is Attacked, I Promise To Open Up a Carafe of Whupass

Howard Wolfson, a representative of the DNC, was just interviewed on Fox News. He was attempting to explain how a Kerry-run Iraq war would ease the burden on the United States. Fox News' Linda Vester asked for details. How, exactly would Kerry do this? I kid you not, the man said, "We can bring in our allies." Vester: "Like who?" Wolfson: "Like France."

You could hear the entire audience doubling over in laughter.

Watched the CBS evening news for the second time in ten years today. The first time was last week. I think that Rather's performance can be summed up thusly:

I accept full responsibility, but not the blame.

The good faith bit at the end seems really out of place considering the complete lack of thoroughness or even common sense CBS displayed. Even cutting them maximum slack, you have to assume that they thought this story was so sexy for its potential to damage Bush that they ignored all the warts, VD, and surplus-to-requirements facial hair. Call it the partisan journalistic analog of beergoggles. They ran with it in spite of all their friends telling them, "hey, that chick's really fat!" And now, the inexorable logic of beer goggling leads them to the coyote ugly moment. But Rather is still trying to pass it off, "No dude, she is hot."

While I was watching, I snorted my Diet Dr. Pepper when I heard the Dan say that they went to Burkett. Oh really? Then the big question is of course, if you went to Burkett, who told you to go there? Who is the unimpeachable source that you are protecting? Why are you protecting anyone? Not that any sort of journalistic ethics (even the rather thin and underfed ethics CBS has exhibited so far) would prevent you from turning on a source that rolled you.

The fact that two high level Kerry aides have now admitted to speaking with Burkett before the 60 minutes piece suggests some stinky going on. A lot of evidence is pointing in the direction that at least some in the Kerry campaign knew of the material that ended up in the 60 minutes report before CBS did. The timing of the "Fortunate Son" campaign that even used footage from 60 minutes suggests foreknowledge. If memogate gets connected to the Kerry campaign, he's really, really toast.

The homunculi down in the Department for Endogenous Perfidy Tracking (known internally as the DEPT Dept.) have clipped this little piece of stink and sent it upstairs for my review.

Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee (news - web sites) warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November.

The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "ALLOWED." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said Friday that he wasn't aware of the mailing, but said it could be the work of the RNC. "It wouldn't surprise me if we were mailing voters on the issue of same-sex marriage," Gillespie said.

The flier says Republicans have passed laws protecting life, support defining marriage as between a man and a woman and will nominate conservative judges who will "interpret the law and not legislate from the bench."

"The liberal agenda includes removing `under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance," it says. . . .

Gillespie said same-sex marriage is a legitimate issue in the election. President Bush (news - web sites) has proposed amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage. Democratic Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) also opposes gay marriage but said a constitutional amendment is going too far.

The RNC also is running radio ads in several states urging people to register to vote.

"There is a line drawn in America today," one ad says. "On one side are the radicals trying to uproot our traditional values and our culture. They're fighting to hijack the institution of marriage, plotting to legalize partial birth abortion, and working to take God out of the pledge of allegiance and force the worst of Hollywood on the rest of America."

"Are you on their side of the line?" the ad asks before making the plea to "support conservative Republican candidates."

Shit, Phyllis! They're onto us. You conservative toads have literally no idea what you're in for if the Liberal Party wins in the Fall. And I do mean Fall for those of you of a pentecostal bent. Our hate for this nation will go unchecked like a drunken slavering invert bound for perversion on a Saturday night in lower Manhattan. Nothing but wall to wall gay sex (and bondage!) on TV 24/7. Public schools will teach nothing that has not been thoroughly cleansed (some would say purged, but that's such an ugly word, don't you think?) of all racial, ethnic, religious, or non-New-York regional overtones. Private schools will be banned-- in fact, isn't private property as a concept just a bit louche these days? Abortions on demand for everyone! Little plastic flags for the rest! Congress will become a rump for the International Homosexual Caucus (get it... rump?). Your guns will all be rounded up and melted down to make prisons for fundamentalists. With bondage.

It's not you we hate. It's your freedom.

Within ten years, every city from Biloxi to Boise will become a haven for the expensive-coffee-and-cardigan-over-the-shoulders-oooh!-oooh!-are-those-John-Fluevog-shoes crowd. In fact, you will all be that crowd. The national language will be French. The national sport will be volleyball. Men's volleyball. Your precious "700 Club" will be yanked from the air and replaced with a daily "666 Club" hosted jointly by Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand (with musical guest Michael Jackson). We plan to introduce legislation outlawing heterosexuality forever and mandating the more esoteric sides of BDSM. The national currency will feature an engraved depiction of the "dirty Sanchez." We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. Your kids will meditate in school. Your kids will meditate in school. Your kids will meditate in school. Your kids will meditate in school.

[wik] ... or maybe the mouthbreathers who circulate this tripe are the right's equivalent of the Larouche Democrats, and nobody takes it seriously. Is it too much to hope that absolutely nobody will take this stuff seriously?

[alsø wik] Why oh why do I hate freedom so dang much?!?

[alsø alsø wik] Not that I'm all that much of a flaming liberal anyway. Indeed, I'm a self-described economic centrist and social libertine (... I mean libertarian), but if some part o' the GOP designed the foregoing noxiousness to be exactly on message for some portion of the country, then I should probably revise my notion of where exactly the center is.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] In fact, does it make anyone else a little ill that Ed Gillespie, the administrative head of one of our two major political parties purporting to represent half of all of us and what we all think in a normal non-hallucinatory state, did not run screaming from this dose of poison, but rather shrugged complaisently and said "sure. maybe. It sounds like something we'd do."? As Patton said in the comments, "May a pox descend on all their houses, the fuckers."

[see the løveli lakes...] Then again, the GOP let Sheri Dew open their national convention. Sheri "At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family—but maybe not" Dew. That's some big-ass tent the GOP have got if they can make room for the terminally insane. Yay, America!

[the wøndërful telephøne system...] Buckethead has since posted on the possibility that "memogate" may be linked to the Kerry campaign. Query: would that be worse, or just different, than telling the voters in West Virginia that the Liberals, who are apparently the true backers of John Kerry, are dead set on banning the Bible?

[and mäni interesting furry animals...] I should have mentioned before that Norbizness is the fount of this outrage. Thanks, Texas, for giving us a President, a Norbizness, and Kelly Willis!

From Silflay Hraka, a post short and pithy enough that I will excerpt the whole damn thing:

Why John Kerry Is Doomed: An Exercise in Metaphor

Jimmy Carter in 1980: "America needs to take its cod liver oil."

Walter Mondale in 1984: "America needs to take its cod liver oil."

Mike Dukakis in 1988: "America needs to take its cod liver oil."

Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996: "Ya'll want a beer? I'm buying, and you have got to see the jugs on this waitress."

Al Gore in 2000: "America needs to take its cod liver oil."

John Kerry in 2004: "America needs to take its cod liver oil."

By way of Tim Blair, this gem of a Kerry interview on the Imus in the Morning program:

KERRY: I mean, what you ought to be doing and what everybody in America ought to be doing today is not asking me; they ought to be asking the president, What is your plan? What's your plan, Mr. President, to stop these kids from being killed? What's your plan, Mr. President, to get the other countries in there? What's your plan to have 90 percent of the casualties and 90 percent of the cost being carried by America?

IMUS: We're asking you because you want to be president.

At least someone gets it.

Imus later said,

"I was just back in my office banging my head on the jukebox," Mr. Imus said. "This is my candidate, and ... I don't know what he's talking about."

Mr. Blair also regales us with this story:

Emerson College professor Jeffrey Seglin is frightened by blogger exposure of Memogate:

"The mainstream press is having to follow them," said Jeffrey Seglin, a professor at Emerson College in Boston. "The fear I have is: How do you know who's doing the Web logs?"

Beats me. Read them? Would that work?

I don't think that means what you think it means. Everyone raves about the political savvy of Begala, Carville, and all the other ex-Clinton campaign consultants who have recently joined the floundering Kerry team. But think about it - these people never got Clinton as many votes as Gore received in '00, and never even close to a majority. In '92, the man who beat the elder Bush was Perot, who took nearly a fifth of the electorate - mostly by poaching Republican voters. Clinton managed 42%, a bare plurality. Perot's support in '96 was much lower, but still significant and a major drain on Dole's support.

Perhaps Kerry should consider hiring Perot to run for President.

I have watched from the sidelines as many members of the blogosphere (or pajamahadeen as some are now calling themselves) have taken aim at the tiffany network, and put shot after shot right through the unwinking eye. Within hours of the broadcast, the nitpicking had begun. By midday Thursday, most of what we know about the memos had already been determined - that there were a wide array of inconsistencies and anachronisms that could be sorted into three broad categories - typological, formatting and character. The story in infinite detail can be found all over, in fact you can hardly swing a cat in the blogosphere without hitting minutely detailed commentary on Rather/Memogate. I’ve been following it mostly at Allah Pundit, Wizbang, Ace of Spades and The Kerry Spot. Here are the highlights:

The first began with the superscript "th" but quickly metastasized. Bloggers focused on the font - Times New Roman, the proportional spacing of the letters, evidence of kerning, and most of this was captured in LGF blogger Charles Johnson's experiment. He typed the text of one of the memos into Microsoft word, using the default settings, and the result was a near perfect match. While I can't personally vouch for the validity of other criticisms of the memos, these analyses are compelling to me. I am a professional technical writer, and I work with this stuff every day. The likelihood that any typewriter in 1973, no matter how capable and advanced, would generate an exact match of the settings of a word processor from three decades in the future is vanishingly slim.

Other bloggers with experience of matters military weighed in on other inconsistencies. Improper formatting of titles, incorrect references to regulations, and improper use of acronyms were among the many factors that led them to independently conclude that the documents were bogus. Finally, both bloggers and non-CBS mainstream media have tracked down witnesses who have something to say about just how improbable it was that Bush's superior officer would have composed (let alone typed and saved) a memo like this. Among the critics were Killian's widow and son, along with several other guard officers.

Over the last week, many newspapers and networks have hired their own document forensics experts, and the consensus is that they are indeed forgeries. Most recently, CBS' own experts have also come forward saying that the memos are bogus. Yet CBS and Dan Rather persist in defending the authenticity of the memos. [Pauses to check a couple blogs –ed.] This in spite of the fact that in just the last few minutes, it has been discovered that the memos were faxed from a Kinko’s in Abilene, Texas. Bill Burkett – a prime suspect in the eyes of many bloggers – lives very near Abilene, and in fact has an account at that very Kinko’s. Will wonders never cease?

This story gets worse for Rather and CBS every five minutes. But what is the final answer? What will come of all of this? Blogger Beldar has taken a hard line on the Rathergate scandal:

CBS, through its affiliates' licenses to use broadcast frequencies that belong to the public, is a repository of the public trust. Its employees, acting within the course and scope of their actual and apparent authority, have deliberately and knowingly abused that trust for the most venal of motives - motives that are antithetical to the function of the press in a free and democratic society.

For all the focus on the minutia of the forged memos, the larger story is really this: a major media network - possibly with foreknowledge and intent - passed a forgery on the public intended to defame a sitting president and influence an election. Dan Rather’s bias is well known, but up until this point I never allowed myself to believe that it would lead him to forego all journalistic integrity just because the story had to be true. CBS’ most recent defense of the story is basically that no matter what issues are raised about the authenticity of the documents, they remain essentially accurate. This is so lame that it almost beggars description. The fact that the story is based on forged documents invalidates the story, period. Just because you really, really believe that the story must be true does not make it so. If that were the case, I would have a billion dollars in my bank account, a light saber hanging on the wall in my office and Ingrid Bergman waiting patiently in bed for me to finish blogging.

This gets us to the interesting bit. Even if the source of the memos is never connected to the Kerry campaign (though there are rumors that Kerry staffers knew about the memos before the original broadcast) this scandal would at minimum totally discredit any further attacks on Bush’s service in the guard. But, in a stunning display of pigheaded stupidity, the Kerry campaign linked itself to the scandal by beginning a series of ads using clips from the CBS story.

It is completely beyond my comprehension why the Kerry campaign insists on lashing itself to the mast of a sinking ship. It has been evident for some time now that focusing on Vietnam was not doing Kerry any good. Besides the fact that most of the voters don’t care about what happened thirty years ago, that focus actually opened Kerry up for massive criticism both on the basis of his service and much more significantly on his actions after returning from the ‘Nam. Compounding that stupidity by trying to convince the electorate that Bush’s service in the guard somehow disqualifies him from getting the job he already has is even more pointless. Attempting that right after some democratic hack attempts a thumbfingered forgery to drive home the point is stark raving insane. Double plus uncunning, in fact.

A broad coalition of the pathetic is vying for the title of least helpful Kerry supporter. The smart money was originally on the unknown forger, who by rendering a whole line of attack on the incumbent politically radioactive through his transparent forgeries seriously hindered the Kerry campaign. But coming up on the backstretch is Dan Rather and CBS, who (at best!) through daydreaming gullibility combined with mulish arrogance first ran the story and then refused to admit that they had been rolled. In so doing, they kept the story front and center for a full week. Combined that with a convenient Karl Rove masterminded media hogging hurricane, John Kerry has barely appeared on the TV at all. This with only weeks left before election. But entering the final turn, several others are leaving the pack and gunning for the lead: the Clintonistas who joined the Kerry campaign and seem to be the driving force behind the foolish ‘fortunate son’ attack campaign, any Kerry staffer who knew about the CBS memos ahead of time and made any record of it, and finally Kerry himself, who can’t seem to focus his campaign no matter how dire the need.

New polls are showing that Bush might have a lead in New Jersey, and that Minnesota and even fricking Illinois are in a statistical dead heat. If Kerry is to have the slightest chance, he can’t have his base moving into the ‘battleground state’ category. And if he wants to prevent that, he’s running out of time to try something else besides running a campaign based in the early 1970s.

Fearmongering headline seen this morning in the Boston Globe: "Influx of assault guns feared as federal ban lapses". (The link goes to the less hysterical but still debatable headline that appeared in the actual paper: "Influx feared as arms ban ends"). The head as written above appeared on the front page of boston.com. Surely a paper perpetually pursuing national noteriety need not stoop to such sensationalistic strategies!

This headline is especially unfunny considering that 2004 is becoming known as the Year of the Brazen Daytime Shootings in and around Boston. The city's murder rate is twice what it was last year at this time, even without so-called "Assault Weapons."

This may not be that unlikely:

On a lighter note, the AP also reports that Kerry has resorted to making fun of the president's middle initial: "The 'W' stands for wrong," Kerry said of Bush's middle initial. "Wrong choices, wrong judgment, wrong priorities, wrong direction for our country." Wow, there's a compelling argument. Of course, turnabout is fair play. Maybe Dick Cheney could adopt a similar slogan: "The 'F' stands for . . ." Ah, never mind.

Ken Hall has posted a revealing candidate quiz.

Brendan Miniter of the Opinion Journal is predicting a big win for Bush in November. He doubts that Kerry will even get as many votes as Dukakis. Like a similar forecast I linked to a while back (21 Reasons Bush will win, by the same entity that does the election projection site) this article lays out some thinking point by point. Here are some of them:

Central to Mr. Kerry's campaign is his promise to raise taxes. Walter Mondale had a similar idea, and he went down in a landslide defeat at the hands of the last Republican president to be re-elected. Similarly, the last Republican president to lose his re-election bid, George H.W. Bush, lost partly because he raised taxes. When skeptical voters--otherwise known as independents--are worried about taxes, they are looking for an unequivocal position. They know that promises to only tax the "rich" almost always morph into taxes on the middle class. Mr. Bush is already capitalizing on this. In his speech Thursday night, he noted that Mr. Kerry is "running on a platform to increase taxes--and that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps."

And the electorate does know where Bush is on taxes.

Americans may be the most highly scrutinized and studied electorate in the world, but there's still plenty of activity going on under the radar. Voter turnout is going to be crucial to this election. Indeed, presidential adviser Karl Rove is banking on it. As many as four million evangelical Christians--a group that overwhelmingly supports Mr. Bush--sat out the 2000 election. Getting them to the polls will likely make the difference in several key states. Meanwhile perhaps another 80 million eligible voters didn't cast ballots in the last presidential election. After a close election in 2000 and a sense that this year will be a "historic election" because it will decide whether the nation aggressively pursues terrorists, many are predicting a record turnout in November. Mr. Kerry may be hoping for an anti-Bush surge, but concern for national security is a better motivator for new voters.

The Bush campaign back in '02 used special teams that went into action in the last 72 hours before teh election. By all accounts, they were very effective. They will certainly be in use in November.

Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are swing states with strong unions, but many of the union members there are actually Republicans or are the kind of Democrats who will find it hard to pull the lever for Mr. Kerry. These are the union Democrats who drink beer, watch Nascar and own guns. They have no cultural affinity for a Northeastern liberal who spends his time on the Idaho ski slopes outside one of his billionaire wife's many mansions or windsurfing off Nantucket. Pennsylvania's Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, picked up on this and told a reporter: "I might have gone windsurfing--you certainly have a right to clear your head. But I'm not sure I would have taken the press with me." Look for all three states to show up red on election night.

Ohio and West Virginia are already in the Bush side of the ledger, as are Wisconsin and Missouri. Pennsylvania is a statistical dead heat.

Which brings us to the final reason Mr. Bush is probably going to walk away with the election: Mr. Kerry is not a very good politician. He's cultivated a reputation as a fighter, a good "closer," because of his last-minute surge past William Weld to win re-election in 1996. But that was in Massachusetts. Why was a two-term Democratic senator having trouble beating a Republican challenger in the only state George McGovern carried? One reason is that unlike Ted Kennedy, Mr. Kerry is not seen as a man who can get things done. No significant legislation bears his name.

Interesting stuff, as is the list of 21 - still relevant after all these months.