PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

"JUST ONCE

I would like to hear a candidate for president answer a question by saying, "Sorry, the Constitution limits the role of the federal government -- the issue you're asking about is one for the states or the private sector, not Washington." There was no talk of limited government last night. Instead there was talk of: firehouses not having enough firefighters, a shortage of flu vaccine, the rise in health insurance premiums, how laid-off workers should attend community college, the need for more grade-school math and science, the high price of gasoline and medicine, a minimum wage for unskilled workers, education for parents who don't speak English -- and those are just the ones I managed to scribble down. There was even a mention of ceiling fans from China. Where does the Constitution say that any of these are properly the concern of the federal government?"

-- Jeff Jacoby.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

on the despicable John Edwards.

AND THE WINNER WAS . . .

my little boy, who turned off the TV and played cars with his daddy.

Tonight it was my wife's turn to watch the debates -- she caught the last 45 minutes of the debate and really thought George Bush did well, much better than John Kerry. She's always liked Bush, and liked him tonight. On a number of social issues my wife agrees more with Kerry than Bush, but she wasn't much impressed with Kerry, and didn't find him very likeable. She liked Bush's answers on religion and the women in his life.

I take it this is all good news for George Bush.

No word yet from the lefty sister-in-law.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt has a round by round analysis and PoliPundit has great stuff, including a video clip of the President laughing at the credibility of network news.

Patterico picks up the wife theme:

Bush had a great answer on the wife question! .. This is a good example of why people like Bush .. Kerry doesn't really seem to want to talk about his wife. Don't blame him.

Kerry Haters might enjoy this Betsy Newmark pull quote from KerrySpot.

Bill Dyer channels PrestoPundit (I caught the first few minutes of the debate):

CBS News should have just dropped any pretense of fairness and sent Dan Rather to moderate this damn thing. The questions couldn't have been much more slanted if Michael Moore had been the moderator.

He also caught these, which I missed:

Take-away lines from the transcript, one from Dubya, and one from Kerry that Dubya & Co. will exploit: "A plan is not a litany of complaints." And "I think it makes sense, I think most Americans in their guts know, that we ought to pass a sort of truth standard." (Picture Chirac administering a lie detector test at the U.N., after he's graded the global test.)

And here's the wife thing again:

An aside, purely speculating, regarding Kerry's joke near the end: "Well, I guess the president and you [referring to Bob Schieffer] and I are three examples of lucky people who married up. And some would say maybe me moreso than others. But I can take it." In the next camera shot of Theresa, she looked like the furies of hell had swirled up inside her; she had the kind of grim smile a hungry tigress displays before she sinks a claw into a gazelle's liver. And fer pete's sake, besides saying she was "strong," which Shieffer's question practically required him to say, and the crack about her being rich, Kerry couldn't come up with another thing to say specifically about THK.

And Bill has more from The Corner on the same matter (scroll down).

Baldilocks live blogged the debate via streaming Internet feed (I think she said the other day she would be working tonight). If you skipped the debate, these are excellent Cliff Notes. Smash also live blogged the debate. Here's his post-debate analysis:

Kerry was confident, but he didn't bring anything new to the table. But Bush brought his "A Game," and he definitely outshone Kerry in style and substance. Bush did not stumble, and kept hammering his points home. He kept Kerry on the defensive. His whiney voice was gone. The President came armed with facts, and supreme confidence. Kerry made two big gaffes in this debate, that I noticed. First, he brought up Cheney's lesbian daughter, seemingly out-of-the-blue, which came across to me as a lame attempt at a low blow. Second, and most importantly, Kerry's finish was lame.

InstaPundit does the wife:

THE WIFE QUESTION: Both do the best of the evening so far. But Bush hits it out of the park. Kerry hits a double. Bush's problem -- is anybody still watching?

Tom Maguire also does the wife:

some of the early questions were absurdly pro-Kerry, all was forgiven with Bob Schieffer's last question about how Bush and Kerry have been affected by the strong women in their lives. This was a hanging curveball for Bush, since we all love Laura. At the other podium, Kerry did not mention Teresa by name; instead, he made the pivot to his belated mom, which is always defensible, but a bit awkward for his current wife. Fine, we are sure she polls badly, but now even Kerry is running away from her?

And has this on the men:

Kerry had a brief stretch for which his debate coach must have been Dr. Kevorkian - who in the Kerry camp thought it would be a good idea for Kerry to push the assault weapons ban and affirmative action back to back? Hard luck with the order of the questions, as disgruntled white guys everywhere lock and load for Bush.

Well time for bed. The kids exhausted me today.

HEAD PATTING

millionaire John Edwards lacks "disability etiquette." (via PoliPundit).

IF YOU WATCHED

the last Presidential debate you might enjoy this Michael Ramirez Cartoon.

A GREAT MORNING in the blogosphere with

Hewitt, Scrappleface and InstaPundit.

KERRY WAS A RELENTLESS, SOULLESS KILLING MACHINE -- AND A LOSER.

Kerry was utterly relentless. On the attack on every front in the most forceful manner possible. At some point this began to work against Kerry. He seems like a relentless -- and soulless -- killing machine, like a Mike Tyson or a shark. And at some point this no longer impressed -- what it began to do is suck all sense of sincerity out of Kerry's incessant attacking. The pile upon pile of double-barrelled attacking seems to have no other theme or depth than personal victory itself. Not a passion for the victory of America, not a passion for the security of the people in the audience, but a passion instead for the personal victory of John Kerry. And this is not the impression you want to leave with America. It was as if John Kerry were a defense attorney with no real care for the fate of his client, but who wanted to crush some witness for the sake merely of his own personal victory -- a transitory victory for the attorney which well could cost the client his liberty. The President tonight assured America that he does forcefully and sincerely care about America and its security. John Kerry did not.

UPDATE: Here's an entertaining scorecard of the debate from the Weekly Standard.

THE PRESIDENT

can take a punch and hit back hard. That's what America wanted to see and that's what it got. To this American the country feels more secure than it did even just a few hours ago. More later.

UPDATE: PoliPundit has already called it .. not only the debate but the 2004 election.

Read the debate transcript here. The President won the debate in the first round with this forceful series:

Two days ago in the Oval Office I met with the finance minister from Iraq. He came to see me. And he talked about how optimistic he was and the country was about heading toward elections. Think about it. They're going from tyranny to elections.

He talked about the reconstruction efforts that are beginning to take hold. He talked about the fact that Iraqis love to be free. He said he was optimistic when he came here, then he turned on the TV and listened to the political rhetoric, and all of a sudden he was pessimistic. This is a guy who, along with others, has taken great risks for freedom. And we need to stand with him.

My opponent says he has a plan. It sounds familiar because it's called the Bush plan. We're going to train troops, and we are. We'll have 125,000 trained by the end of December. We're spending about $7 billion. He talks about a grand idea; let's have a summit; we're going to solve the problem in Iraq by holding a summit. And what is he going to say to those people that show up to the summit? Join me in the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place? Risk your -- risk your troops in a -- in a war you've called a mistake?

Nobody is going to follow somebody who doesn't believe we can succeed and somebody who says the war where we are is a mistake. I know how these people think. I meet with them all the time. I talk to Tony Blair all the time. I talk to Silvio Berlusconi. They're not going to follow an American president who says "follow me into a mistake."

Our plan is working. We're going to make elections, and Iraq is going to be free, and America will be better off for it.

Kerry was utterly relentless. On the attack on every front in the most forceful manner possible. At some point this began to work against Kerry. He seems like a relentless -- and soulless -- killing machine, like a Mike Tyson or a shark. And at some point this no longer impressed -- what it began to do is suck all sense of sincerity out of Kerry's incessant attacking. The pile upon pile of double-barrelled attacking seems to have no other theme or depth than personal victory itself. Not a passion for the victory of America, not a passion for the victory of the people in the audience. A passion for the personal victory -- rhetorical, political, moral -- in this particular debate for John Kerry. And this is not the impression you want to leave with America. It was as if John Kerry were a defense attorney with no real care for the fate of his client, but who wanted to win on some legal side issue or who wanted to crush some witness for the sake merely of his own personal victory -- a transitory victory for the attorney which well could cost the client his liberty. The President tonight assured America that he does forcefully and sincerely care about America and its security. John Kerry did not.

UPDATE II: Here's Allah's blogosphere debate roundup.

This question shouldn't have been a hard one for the President:

President Bush, during the last four years, you have made thousands of decisions that have affected millions of lives. Please give three instances in which you came to realize you had made a wrong decision and what you did to correct it.

Correct answer: Yes I have made three mistakes as President -- and they were all named Paul O'Neill. Solution? I fired his ass.

But the President couldn't say that, could he?

This is the sort of question that Bill Clinton excelled at with zero pretence of credibility for those with any firm hold on the real world. Of course he did make the soft headed ones swoon. The President tonight did not.

UPDATE III: John Kerry, a man with a plan. See also this.

THE PRE-DEBATE CONSENSUS

looks like this -- if Bush wants to really help himself tonight he needs to lands some serious blows on Kerry. If he continues to play defense -- with hands tied behind -- he'll continue to lose ground in this race. People want the President to respond forcefully. When a man repeatedly calls you a liar, you don't take it lying down. And if you never call the man on these lies, well, the questions however bogus begin to take on a life of there own. The lies spread from the moonbat left and over time become part of the political culture among the badly informed "undecided" voting block. The President and his administration have a history of letting the lies go unanswered. Tonight's the night to squash some of those lies with dead-to-rights blows the average voter can understand. Land a couple of those round-houses on the "hit me" chin of John Kerry (as the VP did on Edwards) and this thing will be on its way to "fini" as John Kerry might say.

AMERICA

is experiencing something new -- the left has gone mainstream via the Universities, radicalized unions, mass media, and the Democratic party. Where you have swamps you will also have snakes -- and so with the left. Were you have leftists you will also have violence, a pattern as predicable as clockwork and as old as the French revolution.

So we now have a mainstreamed, mainstreet leftist culture, from city to city across the nation, and we shouldn't at all be surprised that many of our fellow citizens captured by this ideology are violently attacking the rest of us.

It's what leftists do. Their ideology sanctions it. There culture encourages it. Their repressed bloodlust for violence demands it. It's going to get worse before it gets better, folks.

THE POWER

of the Democrat dominated news media:

The kids all seemed to think that Cheney was scary .. The most common description of him was as Darth Vader .. I asked them why they thought he was scary and one girl said, "Well, that's the way the media always portrays him."

DICK

WON. Gwen Ifill did a much better job than Jim Lehrer. I loved the VP's "Senator Gone" flooring of John Edwards .. who did better than expected.

But enough VP debate analysis. The kids brought home a cold and I'm under the weather. Blogging will be light until I'm feeling better.

UPDATE: Here's how PoliPundit called it. And here is Hugh Hewitt's blow-by-blow analysis.

And Michelle Malkin has this on Gwen Ifill:

Gwen Ifill deserves strong praise for her role as moderator. Unlike the mess that Jim Lehrer presided over, Ifill asked focused, firm, relevant, and useful questions of both candidates. One major complaint is that Ifill neglected to ask a single specific question about the most pressing domestic homeland security matters of our time--illegal immigration/border control.

OH, THAT LEFTIST MODERATOR:

When people .. note that Bush "seemed on the defensive," they ought to acknowledge that it was, at least in part, prompted by Lehrer's failure to ask Kerry questions that would put him on the defensive.

-- More Tim Graham.

A SIMPLE TEST

FOR UNDECIDED VOTERS.

31% OF "UNCOMMITTEDs"

in a CBS poll of "uncommitted voters" actually already preferred John Kerry for President. Scroll down here to see poll and the data.

EVERYTHING BUSH

could have said, but didn't -- Bush/Cheney '04 fact check John Kerry's debate claims.

JIM LEHRER.

Unbalance and unfair -- Ace of Spades reports:

I have to preface this by noting that I didn't see the first half hour of the debate; I heard it-- or most of it. I missed the second half hour, and watched the third. I'll catch up on it all later. But I saw/heard enough to have an opinion ..

I had assumed that all the tough-on-Kerry questions were asked during the half-hour I missed. How does he explain his ever-shifting position on Iraq? Etc.

I said to a friend, "We must have missed the part where Lehrer grilled Kerry on his changing positions." "Maybe not," the friend said. "Maybe he never asked." "No," I said. "They couldn't do that.""Couldn't they?" was the answer.

Well, it turns out, gee willickers, they could simply ignore the all of the toughest questions for Senator Kerry. The debate resembled a Katie Couric interview -- tough questions with follow-ups for the Republican like "Please explain why you lied or screwed up so badly," while the Democrat is offered his own "tough questions," like "Please explain why your opponent lied or screwed up so badly."

I don't know why Bush keeps agreeing on Jim Lehrer as a moderator. I hope no other Republicans ever make that mistake again.

But we can cry bias all we like. The fact is, Lehrer asked Kerry very easy questions for him, tossed up high fat hanging curve balls, and Kerry, predictably, knocked them high and far and true. The net result is still that, in the public's mind, Kerry seemed more comfortable with the questions. As was Jim Lehrer's design.

(via Discerning Texan, who always has the best cartoons.)

YOU KNOW

the debate didn't go well for George Bush when you get a post-debate phone call from your lefty Yalie sister-in-law. In my estimation, the winner of the debate was Jim Lehrer, who threw soft-balls and curve-balls to the immense advantage of Kerry, while no one noticed. For an example of a biased question, try this last question of the debate:

Mr. President, this is the last question .. It's a new subject, new question and it has to do with President Putin and Russia. Did you misjudge him or are you - do you feel that what he is doing in the name of anti-terrorism by changing some democratic processes is O.K.?

To get a sense of the bias, imagine a parallel question, circa 1940, for FDR -- "Did you misjudge Hitler or do feel its ok to kill Poles by the hundreds of thousands?"

A second example of bias? John Kerry talked again and again of his "plan" for Iraq, but he gave exactly zero specifics. In fact, a big part of the political buzz in recent weeks has been that fact that everyone knows he really has no special plan. As far as anyone can tell it's a Nixonian "secret" plan. But Jim Lehrer -- who stopped several times to ask for clarifications and specifics -- never stopped to ask Kerry to get specific about his constantly referenced "plan".

The bottom line is that a a conservative or a classic liberal would not have given you a debate environment so overwhelmingly favorable to John Kerry -- and a Republican certainly would have asked a very different array of questions than did MSN Democrat Jim Lehrer.

Here's the transcript of the debate.

Blogosphere commentary:

PoliPundit -- excellent and to-the-point analysis from the Poli crew. Quotable:

I�ve been watching the debate for five minutes now. Despite my partisan inclinations, I have to admit that Kerry has won this debate. And not just in the high-school debate-coach sense of the word. Kerry comes off as the prosecutor accusing Bush of incompetence. Bush comes off as his Meet-The-Press, press-conference version - dogged, arrogant and unlikable.

Hugh Hewitt -- he's got a round-by-round analysis of the debate, and nearly flawless pro-Bush spin. Quotable:

Bush gets a big win, by hitting all his messages over and over again. He wins on substance. Biggest mistake by Kerry: "The Global Test."

UPDATE: N.Z. Bear sees it the way I did:

I'm not hypersensitive about such things. But these questions are turning out to be extraordinarily biased. Every question seems to be "so, let's talk about the mistakes Bush has made...".

And Jim Geraghty puts words to my thoughts:

Every time Kerry opened his mouth, conservatives thought of the eight different responses and attacks that they wanted to see, and Bush mostly didn't use them.

Bush's slow, mostly fact-empty and halting speaking was aggravating. The President was emoting and repeating "core principle" talking points, but he wasn't engaging the detailed substance of the debate. Compared to this, Ronald Reagan in '80 and '84 was a think tank wonk brimming with facts, arguments, details and specifics.

John Derbyshire got it right: "The President is a dismally poor public speaker."

But don't get too excited about John Kerry -- more people than you imagine will have noticed things like this.

The post-debate verdict is in -- Jim Lehrer did turn in a more biased even than expected performance last night. N.Z. Bear has a blow-by-blow account.

(Note to INDC -- next time read PrestoPundit before you write something like this.)

Wish I'd know about this drinking game before the debate.

Smash goes multi-tasking while live-blogging last night.

AND FINALLY, don't miss Hugh Hewitt's "MEMO TO PRODUCER DUANE". Kerry may have won the debate, but he's going to get his ass kicked in the all-importnat post-debate round.

CARTOON --

"The three podiums."

FROM THE LEFT --

tonight's debate questioner Jim Lehrer, who pitched questions from the left throughout the second Presidential debate in 2000. Have no fear, Hugh Hewitt is on alert and has a warning for the government sponsored broadcaster.

"The audience is made to feel stupid."

Freshmen take a look at John Kerry's rhetorical skills. (via dislogue, who has more.)

And compare this from ANN ALTHOUSE.

MARK HATFIELD'S OREGON --

IN PLAY FOR BUSH-CHENEY. Bush leads Kerry 47% - 43% in Oregon (Mason-Dixon).

THIS

BOB DOLE might have made a good President.

MICHAEL NOVAK --

"ZELL'S ANGELS". This is the read of the day people.

BUSH LEADS KERRY

by 22 points among military households according to a new Newsweek poll. And the Swift Boat controversy is having a serious impact on John Kerry's overall numbers. Quotable:

For the first time, as many voters say that his military service make them less likely to vote for him as say it increases their likelihood of voting for him (19 percent versus 15 percent).

QandO BLOGS

the President's speech so I don't have to.

My thoughts? The best part of the speech was the video with pitch over the plate in Yankee stadium. For me, the speech was long and the President had trouble catching my ear and holding my attention -- I was dealing with the kids, blogging and doing some cleaning during the speech (a long speech).

So I'd have to call it a rhetorical letdown after the home-run speeches by the Mayor, Schwarzenegger and the Senate Democrat colleague of John Kerry. But what do I know -- Chris Matthews really liked it. The tale of the tape will come in the debates. John Kerry has spent his lifetime debating -- in high school, college, about Vietnam, in the Senate, running for office. The President better have his powder dry and his guns loaded, because this little election contest isn't going to get any prettier anytime soon (see below).

ZELL MILLER'S SPEECH --

-- the long version.

CALL IT

"Moore's Disease."

DEMOCRATS IN THE PRESS

suddenly discover Zell Miller's past.

It took a few years, but on Wednesday Al Hunt on CNN, and Chris Matthews on MSNBC, fulfilled a prediction made in the July 5, 2001 CyberAlert: That if Democratic Georgia Senator Zell Miller "becomes a Republican the national media will then suddenly find it newsworthy to highlight what they have so far skipped over -- his segregationist history."

-- MRC's CyberAlert.

ZELL MILLER VS. THE "WON'T LET GO OF VIETNAM" DEMOCRATS:

Where are such statesmen today? Where is the bipartisanship in this country when we need it most?

Now, while young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrat's manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief.

What has happened to the party I've spent my life working in? I can remember when Democrats believed that it was the duty of America to fight for freedom over tyranny. It was Democratic President Harry Truman who pushed the Red Army out of Iran, who came to the aid of Greece when Communists threatened to overthrow it, who stared down the Soviet blockade of West Berlin by flying in supplies and saving the city.

Time after time in our history, in the face of great danger, Democrats and Republicans worked together to ensure that freedom would not falter. But not today.

Motivated more by partisan politics than by national security, today's Democratic leaders see America as an occupier, not a liberator ..

No one should dare to even think about being the Commander in Chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators abroad and defenders of freedom at home.

But don't waste your breath telling that to the leaders of my party today. In their warped way of thinking America is the problem, not the solution.

They don't believe there is any real danger in the world except that which America brings upon itself through our clumsy and misguided foreign policy.

It is not their patriotism -- it is their judgment that has been so sorely lacking. They claimed Carter's pacifism would lead to peace.

They were wrong.

They claimed Reagan's defense buildup would lead to war.

They were wrong. And, no pair has been more wrong, more loudly, more often than the two Senators from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry ..

Newsday.com - 2004 Republican National Convention

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

-- a stunning speech from America's most popular Republican.

UPDATE: "Don't know nothin' about h i s t o r y .. ". Magna cum laude Harvard leftie Matthew Yglesias proves once again that the elite universities are failing the country with this deeply ignorant attack on Arnold Schwarzenegger. The simple fact of history is that the Soviets occuppied one quarter of Austria and jointly occuppied Vienna until 1955, when Austria once again became a sovereign country.

A bit of remedial history for our Harvard genius. "During the occupation, the primary objective of the Soviet Union seemed to have been the exploitation of the Austrian economy. Although the Western Allies had successfully prevented the exaction of outright reparations from Austria, they agreed to give the Soviet Union "full and unqualified title" to all German assets in eastern Austria, that is, the part of Austria under Soviet occupation. Soviet leaders put the broadest possible interpretation on the term German assets and dismantled and removed to the Soviet Union much of the movable industrial equipment. Fixed installations were formally confiscated and put into production to serve Soviet interests. When the occupation ended with the signing of the State Treaty in May 1955, the Soviet Union had under its control some 450 firms with 50,000 employees -- some 10 percent of the Austrian industrial labor force."

And this: "Within the limited scope of economic matters left for Austrian determination during the occupation, two major developments carried over into the postoccupation period and had significant influence on the future course of the economy. The first was the nationalization of a large segment of Austria's heavy industry. The second was the establishment of a mechanism for coping with inflationary pressures through joint agreements on wages and prices reached by the representatives of business, agriculture, and labor .. Although the Soviet Union objected to the nationalization laws insofar as they applied to former German properties, the other Allies were able to override Soviet efforts to block these laws. The Soviet Union did prevent their application in the Soviet Zone. As a result, about half the enterprises there, including the entire petroleum industry, were kept from Austrian control until after the occupation ended."

For the years 1945 and 1946 the situation in the Soviet Zone was even worse: "Birgit Schwarz .. recalled the situation that prevailed in 1946 .. the country was effectively governed by Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. Each occupation zone was for all intents and purposes economically autonomous and each was loosely attached to the respective occupation areas in Germany (U.S. and France), Italy (Britain) and Hungary (USSR)."

UPDATE: James Joyner has more.

PAGEANT BABE

IMPRESSES BLOGGERS. Who woulda guessed?

LILEKS:

"Watching Rudi G throw down for the Dub. Opening line says it all: �Welcome to the Capitol of the World.� .. Quel cowboi, non? Everyone knows the capitol of the world is Brussels .. ". -- More.

THE REPUBLICAN REVOLUTION

will be blogged. Matt at Blogs for Bush is clearly having a ball -- and providing shockwave audio of blogger interviews with political honchos and other celebrities. He's even got a scoop -- Al Franken and Air America are still one the air. Who knew? And he has photographic proof. Well, at least Franken has a mic, a headset and some wires -- there's actually no real evidence that all this stuff is plugged into anything.

More great Republican Convention blogging here, here, and here.

More about the blogging of the Convention here, with links for many more bloggy choices.

NEW POLL --

BUSH OVER KERRY. Quotable:

The encouraging signs for Bush came as Kerry's Vietnam War record was under attack by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The attacks .. appear to have contributed to the slippage in Kerry's numbers on national security issues.

SCHWARZENEGGER & BUSH

-- a tense relationship? Let me suggest that it's mostly press hype here -- and politicians taking care of their own business with an eye on a quite different voter constituencies. Don't forget, these are two very different men. Schwarzenegger is a penny-pinching balance-the-budget fiscal conservative, while Bush is a free-spending fiscal "liberal" with little care about balanced budgets. They differ on social issues as well ..

Schwarzenegger and Bush appear together Thursday in Santa Monica.

SIX OF 10 VOTERS

in battle ground states have seen or heard about the Swift Boat Veterans "Unfit for Command" TV spot.

THE NETWORKS

are following the Kerry campaign talking points memo to the letter -- and they are even re-spinning the history of the Democrat Party over the last 35 years: "On Sunday night, ABC's World News Tonight, which has yet to utter a syllable about the charges from the members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, having ignored both their May 4 press conference and TV ad released last week, made time for a 30th anniversary look back at President Richard Nixon's resignation from the point of view of George McGovern who, ABC's Bob Jamieson relayed, "believes history vindicates him" on the Vietnam war. Jamieson painted Democratic reluctance to show off the war service of their candidates, not their left-wing, weak defense policies, as what has hurt the party's image on national security. Jamieson insisted, over video of Michael Dukakis in the tank: "Democrats have paid a price for that mistake ever since" McGovern failed to play up his World War II service."

Contrast the Demo spin of ABC News with this from Joshua Muravchik: "Nothing [John Kerry] has done since [1968] sustains the claim that he would be an effective leader in the war we face today � any more than George McGovern's 35 combat missions in World War II, which won him the Distinguished Flying Cross, qualified him to lead us in the Cold War."

The vast majority of American's knew this about George McGovern in 1972 -- and his service in WWII was no secrete either. ABC News is giving us revisionist history of the fantast variety. These are the middle-aged wet dreams of onetime members of "Youth for McGovern" -- now manning every nook and cranny of the "mainstream" newsmedia.

OUR FIRST ELECTION

without the protection of the First Amendment.

THE ORIGINAL, UNVARNISHED, FULL-STRENGTH

"TWO AMERICAS" convention speech.

WHY REAGAN REPUBLICANS

might cheer a Bush defeat.

A MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS

of the Democratic National Convention.

TERESA KERRY.

�I half expected her to break out into �Don�t Cry For Me Argentina.�� -- Chris Wallace of Fox News.

THE LA TIMES

is all over the blogosphere's coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Who woulda thunk.

TED KENNEDY

threatens to drown George Bush in a car.

ANDREA MITCHELL:

"The word is out: the liberal wing of the party is being told to avoid any harsh rhetoric. That could already be affecting tonight's headliners: last night, AL GORE'S speech was basically torn up, according to two sources, and is now being rewritten, presumably to fit more closely with the party line."

From the MSNBC/Harball blog.

A longer version of Mitchell's posting can be found here.

THE FLADEN EXPERIENCE

scores a well deserved InstaLaunch with this excellent take down of Bill Clinton and his big speech before the Demo convention in Boston.

RADLEY BALKO --

"I paid for all those damned balloons." And no doubt more than that.

THOSE INSUFFERABLY SUPERCILIOUS BOSTONIANS.

Michael Barone has the deep background on the Kerry-Kennedy Democrats -- "Since the mid-1960s both [Yankee Protestants and Irish Democrats] have embraced a Massachusetts [left-wing ideology] that is a lineal descendant of colonial Puritan folkways and out of line with most of the nation."

Don't miss the whole thing.

CLINTON

RIPS BUSH, taking off the gloves in a mean-spirited and disingenuous interview with the LA Times-Democrat.

Clinton plays for keeps. The Bush family doesn't seem to get it -- they prefer pretend they're in a game of "no harm, no foul" bean bag -- not to be taken too seriously at the end of the day. They aren't.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

By day he drives American businesses offshore through bogus mega-million torts, by night John Edwards invests in the foreign companies who benefit. Quotable: John Edwards, "invested between $1 million to $5 million .. into the American Funds EuroPacific Growth Fund [which] allocated 80 percent of [its dollars] into giant foreign pharmaceuticals and commercial banks in Europe and Japan ..".

MAKE-BELIEVE

and pretend characters turn up at the center of John Edwards' stump speech to SoCal hispanics. Edwards promised to give his pretend character a big hug -- and a fat government hand-out at the expense of taxpaying workers. This robbing of Peter to enrich Paul was termed "hope" by the Senator, who made a $100 million fortune suing health care providers and dodging Medicare taxes.

UPDATE: Saturday Edward put on a $1,000 a plate fundraiser at the exclusive Balboa Bay Yacht Club in Newport Beach. Yes, we too have our fair share of million dollar malpractice attorneys right here in good old Orange County.

MEET JOHN EDWARD'S

brother. This bubba ain't no pretty boy.

KARL ROVE

visits California , meets with Schwarzenegger's staff.

THE LEFTIST MEDIA

puts is money where its heart is -- in the coffers of the Democrat Party.

"I WAS THERE, AND IT DIDN'T HAPPEN."

Another Vietnam vet serving with John Kerry says Kerry was lying about Americans committing atrocities. Why this isn't a bigger campaign issue only the Leftist press corp can explain.

WHAT THE KERRY ADMINISTRATION

will look like.

James Rubin is one Kerry guy I really admired on September 11, 2001. He was the first person I heard say it was a war not a legal case.

"FOR FISCAL CONSERVATIVES,

the choice this election could hardly be more depressing." MORE Jeff Jacoby, "A contest between big spenders." Quotable:

"Wiping out the Bush tax cuts in their entirety would raise a grand total of $164 billion -- enough to cut the current deficit by only a third .. Bush's tax cuts aren't driving the deficit. Bush's reckless expenditures are."

TEN REASONS TO FIRE

George W. Bush, and ten reasons to believe these are week reasons.

Meanwhile, contemplating all this, Daniel Drezner is moved to say, "I can't remember an election in my adult lifetime when I've been less enthused with my menu of candidates."

BUSH WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT

again and that's the best sign so far that he'll win this thing. If you want something, you have to ask for it, and the President, smartly, is doing it:

THE PRESIDENT: Hi.

Q I'm 18, and this will be my first time I can vote.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, let me stop you right there. I'm the first guy to ask for your vote. (Laughter and applause.) Remember that when you get in the booth. (Laughter.)

In a speech yesterday Bush asked 8 times for listeners to vote for him.

By ommission Bush II learned some important lessons from his father. If you want something, let people know you actually want it. It makes a difference to voters that a President desires to be President. That's something Bush I didn't communicate very well when he ran for re-election in 1992. Bush II clearly won't be making that mistake.

JOHN EDWARDS

looks to have the Clintonian capacity for -- shall we say -- self fabrication.

"IF JOHN KERRY WINS

the presidency, his household will be the richest ever to occupy the White House. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, controls a vast fortune estimated by a Los Angeles Times study to fall somewhere between $900 million to $3.2 billion. Through a series of entirely legal maneuvers, Kerry is attempting to conceal from American voters the full extent of his wife's wealth and her corporate holdings � and the fact that she apparently manages to pay a remarkably small amount of taxes .. Legitimate concerns extend beyond wondering just how rich Mrs. Kerry really is, and whether she paid her fair share of taxes. There are also questions about power, influence, and conflict of interest .. Already Kerry's economic proposals seem tuned to serve his wife's economic interests. His proposal last March to end tax breaks for U.S. corporations that do business overseas was designed with a loophole that would let the H. J. Heinz Company � the centerpiece of Mrs. Kerry's family fortune � keep its overseas tax breaks, and get a lower domestic tax rate at the same time .. ". MORE Donald Luskin -- "Teresa Heinz Kerry & Taxable Income".

"Trouble is" ..

"If not murder, John F. Kerry and John Edwards have accused President Bush of something close to criminally negligent homicide in Iraq. "They were wrong and soldiers died because they were wrong," Kerry said of the Bush administration over the weekend .. The trouble is, both Sens. Kerry and Edwards voted yes on the resolution authorizing the war in Iraq .. ".

MORE LA Times "Kerry-Edwards Stonewall".

The consequences of voting.

Tyler Cowen has sensible thoughts on first, second and third party voting.

Ramirez.

"What sets him apart from other politicians is he is a rich lawyer."

A dramatic drop in Bush support among Hispanics.

George Bush's "hispandering" has been a big flob -- the CBF's Berkeley bloggers report on a new Gallop poll.

Sowell on Sen. John Edwards.

"Senator Edwards has already shown the same blithe disregard for facts as a politician that he showed as a lawyer .. John Edwards must know that "hunger in America" claims are bunk, but he obviously doesn't care .. ". MORE -- Thomas Sowell.

Andrew Sullivan -- the "Bush Republicans".

"What is a "Bush Republican"? I think it has to be a combination of the social policy of the religious right (the FMA, bans on embryo research, government support for religious charities, etc), the fiscal policy of the Keynesian left (massive new domestic spending combined with "deficits don't matter"), and the foreign policy of liberal moralism (democratization as a policy in the Middle East) .. The sad truth is that if Bush Republicanism exists, it's one of the most ramshackle distillations of political expediency ever tarted up as an "ism" .. ".

MORE -- Andrew Sullivan on the "Bush Republicans".

The Dems & the New New Left.

"The trial lawyers represent a whole different strain of activism, which people haven't really figured out yet. Unlike public-policy-preneurs, the new breed of legal sharks are private-sector entrepreneurs operating within the government, although with few checks and balances. These lawsharks learned their profit-maximizing craft not in a legislature, but in a law school. Nobody votes for them, except for juries, and yet most people instinctively cheer for them, because these attorneys pose as champions of the "little guy," and people haven't yet figured out that a) other little guys end up paying the bills for such lawsuiting; and b) the legal tycoons typically keep a third of what they rake in.

In other words, we are all poorer so that a few trial lawyers can get really rich. But until that weird process of upward-redistribution is better understood, Edwards can pose as Mr. Underdog. And he can take pride in his "accomplishments" -- not legislating in the Senate, but litigating in the South, most notably against doctors and auto companies. According to The New York Times, from 1985 to 1997 he racked up $175 million for his plaintiff-clients from 1985 to 1997; his personal fortune is estimated by North Carolina Lawyers Weekly to be at least $38 million.

To be fair to Edwards, he's not just in it for himself; he's in it for other trial lawyers, too. In the Senate, he was Their Man. Not only did he oppose caps on malpractice awards, he supported legislation to allow new lawsuits against HMO's .. After 9-11, he even helped defeat an amendment to the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, an amendment that would have limited on trial lawyers' ability to sue in wake of a terrorist attack. In other words, Al Qaeda attacks the US -- and after the attack, the trial lawyers can go in to shoot wounded companies ..

According to the Manhattan Institute: "'Trial Lawyers, Inc.' behaves like the biggest of businesses, as it generates cash from traditional profit centers (like asbestos, tobacco and insurance), explores potential growth markets (like lead paint, mold and regulated industries), and develops new products (like suits against the fast-food industry) ..

"Out of total U.S. tort costs of over $200 billion -- more than 2% of GDP -- Trial Lawyers, Inc. grosses $40 billion per year in revenues, or 50% more than Microsoft or Intel and twice those of Coca-Cola."

These big-dollar figures made by big-bucks barristers have taken the favored vehicle, the Democratic party, light-years away from its origins among the sons of toil; the new leading men are sophists of tort. In fact, the Edwardsite trial lawyers have wiped out jobs in whole factories and industries, from tobacco to aviation to construction, as they made their millions and billions ..

MORE -- James Pinkerton.

John Edwards & decency.

Andrew Sullivan labels trial lawyer John Edwards "a decent man". Well, you be the judge.

Here's a thumbnail of the case against Edwards -- quotable:

"[John Edwards' book] Four Trials .. discusses the first of Edwards's many lawsuits against obstetricians and hospitals on behalf of babies born with cerebral palsy�perhaps his most lucrative specialty. But the book does not mention the growing medical consensus that in the overwhelming majority of cases, this severe form of brain damage is not the fault of botched deliveries, but instead relates to causes long before birth .. Nor does the book mention the evidence that fear of such lawsuits has spurred doctors to order millions of medically unwarranted Caesarean deliveries in recent decades ..

.. it was never any secret that the tort system does nothing for the vast majority of babies with cerebral palsy, because their cases don't look like winners to lawyers. A North Carolina state legislator proposed, unsuccessfully, to address this inequity in 1991 by creating a special fund for all such families to share, while limiting malpractice awards. Edwards opposed the bill, according to The New York Times, calling it a baby tax. But a baby tax already exists: the malpractice premiums paid by obstetricians. And Edwards did much to increase those premiums."

Who's changed

-- Michael Moore or the Democratic Party? Andrew Ferguson reports.

�Why should the government have given you the money in the first place?�

Can this story possibly be true? Don't miss Monday's Lileks (scroll down).

Schwarzenegger.

Call him Governor Prime-Time.

F--- yourself Sen. Leahy.

I think we can all cheer this.

If Bush could work up the manhood to say it to -- well, how about Al Gore? -- he'd win re-election in a walk-away. It would be the "I payed for this microphone" moment Bush dearly needs to re-establish his leadership cahonies, the ones he displayed just after 9/11 at the World Trade Center.

InstaPundit is a NAZI.

"The Administration works closely with a network of "rapid response" digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for "undermining support for our troops."" So says former Vice President of the United States Al Gore.

Not your grandfather's Democrat party.

"A party that hates America so much that it cannot see the difference between the 9/11 terrorists and the liberators of Iraq cannot lead a nation in war .. ". .

Club for Growth donors stiff Bush.

"Major donors to the Club for Growth, a principal fund-raising engine of the conservative movement, have said they plan to sit out this year's presidential election to protest what they see as the administration's big-government tendencies .. ". MORE "Some Big Conservative Donors, Unhappy With Bush, Say They Won't Back His Campaign".

"NASCAR Nazis".

Instapundit has picked up the "NASCAR Nazis" story I posted on Wednesday.

Reaganite defections fuel Bush poll decline -- Bruce Bartlett.

"I do not believe that Kerry�s gains in the polls have come as the result of Iraq. Rather, I think President Bush is paying the price for having abandoned conservative principles on too many occasions over the last three and a half years, which has sapped his support among the Republican party's base. Poll data support this analysis. According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, almost all of Bush's decline in support has come from his base. He is not losing support from moderates, nor is Kerry gaining at his expense. Rather, Bush is simply losing his own people. I believe this has nothing to do with Iraq. I think it is because conservatives have slowly come to the conclusion that he is really not one of them .. ". More BRUCE BARTLETT.

Is there a dimes worth of difference

between Bush and Kerry? Radley Balko investigates.

The politics of Mars.

President Bush has chosen the middle of his re-election campaign as the best time to stump for his $100 billion dollar plus manned mission to Mars. As far as I've been able to make out, no one has come up with a rationale for the proposal -- other than Bush's own re-election effort. And I do wonder if anyone ever bothered to brief the President on this little problem -- how the heck will humans make it back off the Red planet once they have landed? Or is the idea simply to land folks there and then have them spend their last days on Mars?

John Kerry -- unfit to serve.

"In 1971, I debated John Kerry, then a national spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, for 90 minutes on "The Dick Cavett Show." The key issue in that debate was Mr. Kerry's claim that American troops were committing war crimes in Vietnam "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." Now, as Sen. Kerry emerges as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, I've chosen to re-enter the fray.

Like John Kerry, I served in Vietnam as a Swift Boat commander. Ironically, John Kerry and I served much of our time, a full 12 months in my case and a controversial four months in his, commanding the exact same six-man boat, PCF-94, which I took over after he requested early departure. Despite our shared experience, I still believe what I believed 33 years ago--that John Kerry slandered America's military by inventing or repeating grossly exaggerated claims of atrocities and war crimes in order to advance his own political career as an antiwar activist. His misrepresentations played a significant role in creating the negative and false image of Vietnam vets that has persisted for over three decades.

Neither I, nor any man I served with, ever committed any atrocity or war crime in Vietnam. The opposite was the truth. Rather than use excessive force, we suffered casualty after casualty because we chose to refrain from firing rather than risk injuring civilians. More than once, I saw friends die in areas we entered with loudspeakers rather than guns. John Kerry's accusations then and now were an injustice that struck at the soul of anyone who served there.

During my 1971 televised debate with John Kerry, I accused him of lying. I urged him to come forth with affidavits from the soldiers who had claimed to have committed or witnessed atrocities. To date no such affidavits have been filed. Recently, Sen. Kerry has attempted to reframe his comments as youthful or "over the top." Yet always there has been a calculated coolness to the way he has sought to destroy the record of our honorable service in the interest of promoting his political ambitions of the moment.

John Kennedy's book, "Profiles in Courage," and Dwight Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" inspired generations. Not so John Kerry, who has suppressed his book, "The New Soldier," prohibiting its reprinting. There is a clear reason for this. The book repeats John Kerry's insults to the American military, beginning with its front-cover image of the American flag being carried upside down by a band of bearded renegades in uniform--a clear slap at the brave Marines in their combat gear who raised our flag at Iwo Jima. Allow me the reprint rights to your book, Sen. Kerry, and I will make sure copies of "The New Soldier" are available in bookstores throughout America.

Vietnam was a long time ago. Why does it matter today? Since the days of the Roman Empire, the concept of military loyalty up and down the chain of command has been indispensable. The commander's loyalty to the troops is the price a commander pays for the loyalty of the troops in return. How can a man be commander in chief who for over 30 years has accused his "Band of Brothers," as well as himself, of being war criminals? On a practical basis, John Kerry's breach of loyalty is a prescription of disaster for our armed forces.

John Kerry's recent admissions caused me to realize that I was most likely in Vietnam dodging enemy rockets on the very day he met in Paris with Madame Binh, the representative of the Viet Cong to the Paris Peace Conference. John Kerry returned to the U.S. to become a national spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a radical fringe of the antiwar movement, an organization set upon propagating the myth of war crimes through demonstrably false assertions. Who was the last American POW to die languishing in a North Vietnamese prison forced to listen to the recorded voice of John Kerry disgracing their service by his dishonest testimony before the Senate?

Since 1971, I have refused many offers from John Kerry's political opponents to speak out against him. My reluctance to become involved once again in politics is outweighed now by my profound conviction that John Kerry is simply not fit to be America's commander in chief. Nobody has recruited me to come forward. My decision is the inevitable result of my own personal beliefs and life experience.

Today, America is engaged in a new war, against the militant Islamist terrorists who attacked us on our own soil. Reasonable people may differ about how best to proceed, but I'm sure of one thing--John Kerry is the wrong man to put in charge". JOHN O'NEILL, decorated Vietnam veteran.

UPDATE: "A group of Vietnam veterans will charge today that Sen. John F. Kerry [related, bio] is ``unfit'' to be commander-in-chief because of his claims that U.S. soldiers committed widespread atrocities during the war. Roy Hoffman and John O'Neill, both known Kerry opponents, said they will be joined by at least a dozen swift boat veterans today in releasing a letter saying he is unfit to serve. The drafters of the letter, a new group calling itself ``The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,'' claims it will be signed by ``a substantial majority of all known Swift boat veterans.'' MORE.

Bush vs. Kerry.

"Whichever one is elected, we're going to get a moderately social democracy with a moderately multilateralist foriegn policy, with moderately increasing levels of spending and regulation of high-profile industries, and roughly level taxation. From a [liberal] perspective, worrying excessively about whether an elephant or a donkey overseas it all is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic .. ". more Asymmetrical Information.

John Kerry.

John Kerry and the Phoenix Project make the Boston Globe, sort of.

John Kerry.

Kerry uses scripture to rip President Bush.

John Kerry.

Fails to remember many of the most memorable episodes in his anti-war career.

Money Map. The Red State - Blue State Divide.

Fundrace 2004 Red State Blue State national county-by-county map. And don't miss the national city maps. Patterico investigates his neighborhood here. Do your own neighborhood search, or type in a few Cambridge, MA area zip codes and find the Harvard Law professor who contributed money to race hustler Al Sharpton, convicted not so long ago of defamation when he spearheaded the destruction of a prosecutor's life by means of an ugly sham in which the false claim was made that the prosecutor raped a black 15 year old girl. At Harvard Law such behavior not only gets a pass, it also gets a big check in the mail -- for good work done, I guess.

And is Hollywood the very heart of the Left Coast? You be the judge.

And don't miss this. Harvard University, like a thermal nuclear device, is ground zero of megabuck Democrat fundraising in the Boston area. Harvard professors give cash hand over fist to the Democrat party left -- so if you're wondering where all those alumni contributions, tuition payments and tax dollars are going, well, a hefty pile of the money is being shuffled along to the coffers of Democrat party politicians.

Is it Hayek?

"America is in, [Jim DeMint] says, "an eleventh-hour crisis" of democracy because it recently reached a point where a majority are "dependent on the federal government for their health care, education, income or retirement." Tax reforms, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, have removed many Americans from the income tax rolls: "Today, the majority of Americans can vote themselves more generous government benefits at little or no cost to themselves." DeMint asks: "How can any free nation survive when a majority of its citizens, now dependent on government services, no longer have the incentive to restrain the growth of government?" it's JIM DEMINT as quoted by GEORGE WILL.

"grinding condescension and babble"

"sheer mindless demagoguery" "bombastic lordly presence". The WSJ's Dorothy Rabinowitz on John Kerry -- from a Dorothy Rabinowitz profile.

John Kerry -- Senator from Europe.

".. in the biographies of both Roosevelts, JFK, and the two Bush presidents, you find that these men had had deep immersion into the political rhythms of America .. [John] Kerry has none of this in his bio .. The "Swiss-educated son of a foreign service officer," as Time magazine described Kerry, has never had to try and talk with and connect to the sprawling, chaotic tens of millions ..". more HUGH HEWITT. And this: "Kerry suffers from "Senatitus" -- the strange condition affecting long-serving United States Senators which proceeds from years and years of no one telling you to your face that you are making no sense whatsoever."

John Kerry.

Like father, like son.

Dick Cheney vs. John Kerry.

The Vice President kicks John Kerry in the family jewels -- transcript.

John Kerry.

FOXNEWS has a clip up of its interview with John Kerry's former shipmate Steve Gardner.

Bush Lied.

More on how Bush & his team covered up the truly massive costs of socialized drugs.

Powell to Kerry.

Put up or shut up.

Krauthammer.

"It is not John Kerry's fault that he is endorsed by a Frenchman .. But Kerry has made the major -- indeed, only discernible -- theme of his foreign policy ``rejoining the community of nations'' and being liked abroad once again. Which is why he does not just court foreign support, he boasts about it. ``I've met foreign leaders, who can't go out and say this publicly,'' he told a Hollywood, Fla., fund-raiser, ``but boy they look at you and say, `You gotta win this one, you gotta beat this guy.''' For the world. For France." more Charles Krauthammer.

Kerry - I was brainwashed.

Out comes the truth -- I was brainwashed!.

John Kerry.

"When Kerry joined me in the Senate, I already knew about his record of defamatory remarks and behavior criticizing U.S. policy in Vietnam and the conduct of our military personnel there. I had learned in North Vietnamese prisons how much harm such statements caused. To me, his remarks and behavior amounted to giving aid and comfort to our Vietnamese and Soviet enemies. So I was not surprised when his subsequent overall voting pattern in the Senate was consistently detrimental to our national security .. ". more SEN. JEREMIAH DENTON.

John Kerry - an "opportunist."

Says former Kerry shipmate Steve Gardner . Quotable. "I don�t care how much John Kerry�s changed after he moved off my boat, his initial patterns of behavior when I met him and served under him was somebody who ran from the enemy, rather than engaged it .. ". more Gunner�s Mate Stephen M. Gardner.

UPDATE: Kaus comments: "Unfortunately, Time's story is written by Douglas Brinkley, about the last man you'd want to assess Gardner's credibility. Brinkley, after all, has a whole lot invested in his Tour of Duty tale of Kerry heroism and leadership. He's also publicity-mad. ... Maybe Gardner's not to be trusted. But I don't trust Brinkley to be the one not to trust him."

"Terry will say anything."

"That's your nutshell, folks: the two most valuable assets of the current head of the Democratic party are 1) his ability to raise tons of dough and 2) his willingness to go on national television and spin with little or no regard for the facts or the truth .. ". more RealClear Politics.

If Bush loses, its his own damn fault.

" it is difficult to think of a single instance during his time in office that George W. Bush has said anything stinging or even partisan about the party that has demonized him without pause for three and half years .. ". more MONA CHAREN

Two Americas. Hugh Hewitt on The Two Americas.

Bush 2004. It's not often you hear a big time campaign manager reduced to stuttering incoherence -- but that's what happened to Bush Campaign manager Ken Mehlman when grilled by John & Ken of KFI-LA about Bush's amnesty plan, WMDs and truly massive Federal overspending. The President and his people are off their game -- due in no small part to self-inflicted wounds. It's be interesting to see how or when they ever get their game back.

John Kerry. "Mr. Kerry has already confessed his complicity in killing civilians as �accidents of war.� However, he has offered a classic Nuremberg defense that this was not only a commonplace occurrence throughout the Vietnam War, but he was carrying out a policy �with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.� His commander of naval operations in Vietnam, who specifically designed the mission that Mr. Kerry and the other Swiftboat commanders executed, Admiral Zumwalt, clearly disagreed. An examination of the truth behind this disagreement is not an attack on Mr. Kerry. It is a matter of vital historical interest .. ". MORE Thomas Lipscomb.

John Edwards & the coatless girl. The drama of John Edwards' stump speech reaches its emotional peak with the heatbreaking story of a 10-year old girl "somewhere in America," who's gone to bed, "praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today, because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm."

Worth contemplating -- Presidential candidate John Edwards could personally buy a coat for ever girl in severe poverty between the ages of 0 and 18 years and he'd STILL have more than $51 million dollars to play around with. If he's really so passionate about the problem, why doesn't he solve it -- like tomorrow?

GW Bush. "Time and again, on matters ranging from abortion to affirmative action to gay rights, George W. Bush has refused to play the wedge-issue game .. Bush is no culture warrior, and those who are accusing him of it are simply trying to change the focus of the discussion .. ". more JOHN PODHORETZ.

John Kerry. "Perhaps more than any other presidential candidate in recent memory, Kerry seems to be living in another time, playing a movie of Vietnam over and over in his mind ..

Kerry told reporter Charles Sennott the oft-repeated story of the February 1969 firefight in which Kerry attacked the Viet Cong who ambushed his Swift boat. Kerry won the Silver Star, as well as a Purple Heart, for his efforts. But the story wasn�t about the firefight itself. It was also Kerry�s reaction to it. The future senator was so �focused on his future ambitions,� Sennott reported, that he bought a Super-8 movie camera, returned to the scene, and re-enacted the skirmish on film .. In John Kerry�s home entertainment center, it�s always 1969. It�s sometimes that way in his campaign, too ..

This man is living in a time warp. No wonder Kerry sees any conflict � Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Gulf War II � as a potential Vietnam. In Kerry�s world, Vietnam is running on a continuous loop on that big-screen TV � with Jimi, Kris and Peter, Paul and Mary singing in the background.

Some people become stuck in the time period in which they had their most intense experiences. Others, perhaps with more mental or emotional flexibility, move on. Kerry seems to be the former.

At 60 years old, Kerry seems to be obsessed with the past in ways that the 57-year-old George W. Bush isn�t.

And Kerry seems far older than, say, the 71-year-old Donald Rumsfeld � a man who is always moving ahead, not inclined to lecture about the way things were 30 or 40 years ago.

Kerry�s penchant for looking back would not a good trait in a president who will have to deal with a distinctly 21st century, post-Sept. 11 world .. ". More on John Kerry, stuck in a Vietnam-era time warp.

John Kerry. "The fact is that John Kerry has demonstrated a rather ugly habit of seriously misrepresenting himself and his major choices .. There is, of course, his notorious decades-long impersonation of an Irishman .. ". more ROBERT MUSIL. Lots here on what we know about Kerry's Vietnam service -- and what has been said about it that simply isn't true.

John Kerry. To me this matters.

Kerry. Boston Globe reporters will question Kerry's war record.

Scroll down for more on John Kerry. And don't miss Robert Musil on Kerry's duplicity on the topic of his so-called "military record".

John Kerry. "I was in the [S. Vietnam] Delta shortly after John Kerry left. I know that area well. I know the operations he was involved in well. I know the tactics and the doctrine used, and I know the equipment .. Kerry was in-country less than four months and collected a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. I never heard of anybody with any outfit I worked with .. collecting that much hardware that fast, and for such pedestrian actions .. Something is fishy .. " MORE from retired Marine Master Sergeant X.

UPDATE: Here is an account of Kerry's more famous heroic action saving an overboard shipmate, for which he was given a Purple Heart:

It was in the second of these that he rescued Jim Rassmann, a member of his crew, when his P.C.F.-94 came under a hail of small-arms fire at the same moment that another P.C.F. traveling alongside Kerry's boat struck a mine.

From a NY Times review of Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty : John Kerry and the Vietnam War which the NY Times calls "a campaign book" and " less as a work of history and more as a brief for President Kerry" with "odor of salesmanship that lingers around". Brinkley, of course, is a tenured university professor. And you thought university professors weren't political hacks .. What did you think they were, objective scholars? (It's a joke, people. Of course there are non-partisan scholars in academia. I even know some.)

Krauthammer. It's Friday, here's your Krauthammer. Highlight -- Krauthammer outs a rather dirty case of anti-Bush CNN news bias. OK, their all Democrats on staff at CNN. But still ..

2004. "A 34-year-old flier lists speakers for an anti-Vietnam War rally at Valley Forge State Park, Pa., Sept. 7, 1970. Included were two of that era's most notorious leftist agitators, the Rev. James Bevel and Mark Lane, plus actress Jane Fonda, a symbol of extreme opposition to the war. Leading off the list was a less familiar name: John Kerry .. ". MORE Robert Novak.

Election 2004. Don't miss Alex Tabarrok on John Edwards & his Coatless Girl story, which includes this "clothing has become so cheap and plentiful (partly because of textile imports, which Mr. Edwards has proposed to limit) that there is a glut of second-hand clothing, and consequently most clothing donated to charity is shipped abroad .." -- reporter John Tierney.

Election 2004. Get your Kerry-Fonda bumper stickers while they're hot.

Election 2004. Mrs. John F.'n Kerry -- Bankrolling the Far Left.

Quotable Steyn: "Thanks to Kerry in his Hanoi Jane period, Vietnam was a disaster for America that gave the establishment a wholly irrational fear of almost every ramshackle Third World basket case on the planet. Look at what everyone from Arthur Schlesinger to Chris Matthews wrote about the ''unconquerable'' Afghans only two years ago. That defeatism was the Kerry legacy from the '70s: a terrified, Kerrified America. If he wants to fight Campaign 2004 on Vietnam, then, as he would say, bring it on .. ". MORE Steyn.