Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill never met, but the two great conservatives have much in common; not the least of which are the vanquishing of the 20th century's two most evil empires.

Steve Hayward looks at the Churchillian roots of Ronald Reagan's philosphy.

(Via Power Line, which was extensive coverage of today's convention events.)

My latest Electronic House newsletter is now online.

Ann Althouse blogs about Dijla, the first all-talk radio in the newly free Iraq and what its callers are saying about its conditions and their concerns.

Think about it for a few minutes: one year and half after Saddam Hussein fell, people feel free enough to call in, go on the air, and not have to worry about ending up here.

That's staggering progress.

Assuming he passes his physical, 37 year old Deion Sanders will be playing safety for the Baltimore Ravens this year, marking his return to football after a three year absence.

Another military man who isn't very enamored with Senator Kerry.

Update: Transcript here.

In his article on Rudy Giuliani, uploaded early--very early--this morning, Richard Brookhiser writes:

Giuliani won a smashing reelection in 1997. Higher things seemed to beckon. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Senate seat became vacant in 2000, and Giuliani, the most unsenatorial person in the world, sought it.

Suddenly, everything went wrong. Giuliani’s second marriage, to Donna Hanover, an ambitious harridan, blew up. Giuliani paraded his mistress, Judith Nathan (now his third wife). Hillary began her Anschluss. Giuliani got prostate cancer, the disease that felled his father. He pulled the plug on his own race.

If Rudy ran for the presidency, that might come back as an issue. However, Brookhiser is wrong when he writes:

Then there is the personal baggage. The last presidential candidate to have had cancer was Paul Tsongas, who lied about being cancer-free in 1992, and who has since died. We know the worst about Giuliani, but how much better is that?

Tsongas wasn't the last presidential candidate to have had cancer. In 2002, The Washington Post wrote:

On Wednesday, Kerry will undergo elective shoulder surgery for a slight tear, marking the second time the Democratic candidate has missed time on the hustings for an operation. In 2003, shortly after announcing his campaign, Kerry had his prostate removed to cure early-stage cancer.

No wonder he's never released his medical records.

Update: Welcome Kerry Spot readers from National Review Online.

Orrin Judd has a good benchmark for knowing when we're really winning the War on Terror:

You obviously can't end terrorism--it's been around for hundreds--if not thousands--of years and is a useful tactic for folks who can't take on their enemies on the battlefield.

Nor can you wipe out Islamicism any more than winning the Civil War and WWII brought an end to white supremacist ideology and neo-Nazism. You can render it nugatory though, as those other pathologies are today. That will require the radical transformation of the Middle East towards liberal democratic protestant capitalism. There won't be a V-I Day we can celebrate, where Islamicism officially surrenders, but it will be obvious to everyone that those militants who remain represent only a very marginal part of otherwise healthy and decent societies.

Perhaps this is an appropriate measure: we'll have won when they get to the point where when they have an Oklahoma City Bombing of their own--and they will--their populaces hold such an action to be unacceptable and insist that their elected leaders hound the perpetrators and their fellow travelers the same way we did.

Nick Schulz (my editor at Tech Central Station) coins a new word for the media's tendency to writeup a story before it occurs: Laphams:

[Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham] wrote about the GOP convention speeches before anyone even stepped to the podium. Lapham has apologized for what he's calling a "rhetorical invention," use of "poetic license," and a "mistake."

But the only "mistake" Lapham made is in revealing for all to see what has long been known by anyone who pays attention to the news: the major media routinely bring to their coverage of significant political events a predetermined storyline -- you might want to call it a "Lapham". Facts that undermine the storyline are ignored or explained away as aberrations to The Truth. For the editor of Harper's and other establishment press figures, it really makes no difference to them what will be said at Madison Square Garden because the Laphams are already set, loaded in the scribblers' word processors and television anchor tele-prompters and ready to go.

We at TCS have seen Laphams at work at a number of gatherings we've covered over the years.

Read the rest for some examples.

A comment posted on the Brothers Judd blog sent me Googling for this item from November of 2002:

The Democratic Party has chosen Boston over New York City for the site of the party's 2004 presidential nominating convention.

"The choice for the Democrats in 2004 is the city of Boston, the shining city on the hill," said Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe after the Democratic National Committee's site selection committee voted unanimously for Boston after also visiting New York, Detroit and Miami earlier this year.

It will be Boston's first national political convention. The Massachusetts city won because Democrats didn't want to share the same venue with Republicans, who are considering New York.

"New York was the only city that wouldn't sign an exclusivity agreement," McAuliffe said.

"That has been a big stumbling block," said New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton.

So even before the liberation of Iraq, when there were still numerous remnants of the bipartisan feeling of the period after 9/11, rather than a level playing field, the Democrats gave up having Ground Zero in the background, because it would also be there for the Republicans' convention?

What on earth were they thinking?

Richard Brookhiser has nothing but kind words about Rudy Giuliani's knockout speech. But he's got mixed feelings about Rudy in the White House: "On social issues he stands with Barney Frank. On security issues he stands with Douglas MacArthur."

Still, Brookhiser writes, "I owe Giuliani my vote, whenever he asks, for whatever he wants it, including Miss America. We will see how he fares with conservatives and Republicans at large."

We may very well, in the fall of '08.

The convention that Jeff Goldstein and Michael Hendrix are watching sounds like much more fun.

In the past five weeks the New York Times has taken quite a one-two punch. First, its own ombudsman admitted what conservatives have tried and failed for decades for the Times to exclaim: that "of course it is" a liberal paper.

And on Monday, our 41st president, and a pretty moderate guy, just told Paula Zahn of CNN that he's "given up on them":

BUSH: It's consistently liberal. It consistently opposes the president on almost everything editorial. Most of their editorial comment on the op-ed page is extraordinarily liberal.

The thing that troubles me is in my opinion their news columns are getting to show a certain bias. There is a new way you do it now -- Reporter's notebook. And then that gives you a little chance to be an advocate in the news column. Or Washington Whispers or something like that, and that relieves the reporter of objectivity, objective reporting.

And so, you know, I expect we'll get a big argument about this, but I'm absolutely certain of it. I've given up on them.

ZAHN: Has the president given up on them?

BUSH: I don't know. He might be like his mother; she won't read it anymore.

Add to that the current President Bush's admonishment to the press in general, and you'd think the Times might sit up take notice.

They might. But like most newspapers, they won't, of course. Which is why John Podhoretz wrote yesterday that the media is "worried the bell is beginning to toll for them, and they're right."

As a prominent new media guy might say, heh.

Update: Talk about cliched headlines. As Jim Geraghty writes, "Day by day, the New York Times is becoming impossible to parody."

Star Parker notes that this Saturday will mark the 41st anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s landmark "I Have a Dream" speech.

(For earlier in the day, click here.)

I don't agree with several of John McCain's policies, but man, what a great speaker he is. And nice touch opening with a quote from FDR, then taking the mickey out of Michael Moore (who's in the audience, soaking up the boos) in the middle of the speech.

Update (7:45 PM PST): Moving tribute to the Americans killed on 9/11, ending with "Amazing Grace".

Update: Here's a transcript of McCain's speech. And some thoughts on it from Jim Geraghty.

Rudy Giuliani's on now. More in a little while.

Update (7:56 PM): Rudy's talking about terrorism going back to 1972. His line about the Germans releasing the Palestian terrorists from the 1972 Olympics after only serving three months is damning.

Brilliant--he just mentioned Arafat winning the Nobel peace prize.

He just mentioned the Bush Doctrine. Check out Norman Podhoretz's recent article for more--lots and lots more--on that.

Update (12:33 AM): The above were just off the cuff remarks, made as I was watching McCain and Giuliani in realtime. Orrin Judd, James Lileks, and Power Line each have some thoughts about tonight. Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt makes a key point about Senator Kerry:

[Author Richard Wirthlin] judged "the salute" to have been too obvious and too great a stretch from the reality of Kerry's rather complicated Vietnam story to the picture he was trying to present. The salute remained on the public's mind even as the public was reminded of Kerry's '71 testimony and the truthful charges of exaggeration were surfaced and authenticated. Candidates cannot overreach in that fashion without alienating the electorate, and Kerry has.

Probably The Last Update: the great Roger L. Simon has the last word.

A second toy found packaged with candy appears to depict Osama Bin Laden standing between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

and I'm sure its design is purely as coincidental as the design of the previous toy that we linked to on Friday.

Hey, I do love rock & roll, but its current state does little to inspire me to buy new music.

This headline tells you all you need to know about it:

"Dave Matthews Band Offers DNA To ID Waste" On the other hand, it's tough to get more counter-countercultural than this, found via the great Jay Nordlinger.

Jonah Goldberg has a few thoughts on the pretzel logic of the far left.

Flashback to the mid-1960s, when LBJ, at liberalism's zenith, escalated the Vietnam conflict into a full-fledged war. In the early 1970s, the new, baby boomer-driven far left declared it an illegitimate, evil war (in large part, thanks to John Kerry's 1971 speech to the Senate). Three decades later, the left is now rehabilitating the Vietnam War as a noble cause, to run a war hero candidate against President Bush.

Back on July 30th, James Lileks quoted a line in Kerry's acceptence speech, and parsed its incredible implications:

"I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as President."

This really intrigues me. I agree that Vietnam was a defense of the United States, inasmuch as we were trying to blunt the advance of Communism. So: only Nixon can go to China. (Only Kirk can go to Chronos, for you Star Trek geeks.) Only Kerry can confirm that Vietnam was a just war. This completely upends conventional wisdom about the Vietnamese war, and requires a certain amount of historical amnesia. Why does this get glossed over? The illegitimacy of the Vietnam war (non-UN approved, after all) is a key doctrine of the Church of the Boomers; to say that service in Vietnam was done in defense of the United States is like announcing that Judas Ischariot was the most faithful of the disciples. Imagine if you were a preacher who attempted such a revision. Imagine your private thrill when everyone in the congregation nodded assent.

As Jonah notes:

And forget the fact that if they like war heros so much more than "draft dodgers" they should have supported the first President Bush over Bill Clinton in 1992. But the entire antiwar crowd’s playbook is based upon their view of Vietnam as an evil and corrupt war. How can Kerry’s decorated service in that war – and not his protests of it – be central to any honest leftwinger’s support for Kerry?

Ultimately, the “draft-dodger” stuff is just an insult. But it’s not even an insult these aging hippies would find insulting if directed at them, which just underscores how shabby it is.

Lileks: "The past was more malleable than you had ever expected."

Bill Clinton is lecturing Republicans on the Ten Commandments.

As Paul of Wizbang writes, "Does Bill Clinton really want to get into a debate about breaking any of the Ten Commandments?"

In Europe, ultra-fast broadband is here.

As we've been writing about for the last four or five years, it's coming to the US, as well.

This is an absolutely disgusting image. (Note the photos of additional Bush cabinet mebers in the cockpit CRTs).

I don't recall the Freepers or any other conservative group making similar images of President Clinton being responsible for the WTC bombing in '93 or the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing two years later to protest a Democratic presidential convention.

Meanwhile, as we linked to earlier today, Kerry supporters are slugging Bush supporters.

This isn't how winners act, folks.

Read More »

Senator John McCain says his fellow Senator's anti-war protests are fair game for debate:

Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's anti-war activities after he returned from Vietnam are an appropriate subject for political debate.

McCain, 68, of Arizona, said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation,'' that he disagreed with Kerry throwing his ribbons from his medals on the steps of the U.S. Capitol when he returned from the war.

"Every American is entitled to protest,'' McCain said. "Whether he did that appropriately'' is a legitimate subject for debate, he said.

Whether or not McCain is still bitter about President Bush beating him in the primaries in 2000, he's not enough of a free agent to disrupt the president's reelection chances in 2004. He's also been a staunch supporter of the War on Terror, from what I've read.

And given that McCain is the dino-media's favorite Republican, this may also be the signal that it's OK for them to examine and criticize Navy Reserve Officer Kerry's protests from the early 1970s as well.

Steve Green is writing a possible media mantra for late November.

(Speaking of Steve, Max's Diner is missing a golden marketing opportunity by not opening a branch in Colorado Springs.)

The Internet (or as James Lileks' daughter calls it, "the Intanet"), is celebrating its birthday today.

Michael Graham, the author of the very funny (and very serious) Redneck Nation, is in great form today:

Listening to John Kerry complain about the scrutiny his Vietnam record is getting is like Pamela Anderson complaining about the fact that guys keep staring at her breasts. What the hell did you expect?

David Letterman should pay Graham royalties--that's a great bit of comedy.

There's more:

When you turn the Democratic National Convention into a four-day screening of Apocalypse Now--complete with the candidate's own home movies; when you stride to the podium with a crisp salute and a "reporting for duty"; when your political entourage has more military uniforms in it than the coatroom of a Subic Bay bordello; in short, when you base much of your campaign for president on two tours of duty in 'Nam--you, sir, have no right to complain that your opponents are too obsessed with the past.

If there were ever a candidate who is getting exactly the campaign treatment he deserves, that man is John F. Kerry.

What I, a former GOP political flak and campaign lackey, can't figure out is what genius in the Democratic Party looked at John Kerry and said, "Yeah, Vietnam--that's the ticket!" Why not get Scott Peterson to run for attorney general as the pro-life candidate?

There are people in American public life for whom Vietnam would be a worse campaign issue than it is for John Kerry. Jane Fonda, former members of the Kent State National Guard, Lt. William Calley of My Lai...

That's about it.

No it isn't--click over and read the rest.

(Via Power Line.)

Newsday writes:

"Look, the AFL-CIO and others have been organizing Democrats to go to New York to protest," Karl Rove, the senior White House political tactician, told Fox News last week. "That's their right. If that's the face of their party that they want to portray, that's fine. But look, that's democracy."

The Republican party is taking out ads in New York papers this week in which Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie says, "Many of Sen. Kerry's supporters in the government employee unions and radical environmental movement, and abortion activists and anti-war protesters who support him, will be out in full force."

The Democrats are doing their best to fight back. "Ed Gillespie is cynically trying to make the connection, but the fact is we want people to watch the convention so they understand how Bush-Cheney have failed America," said David Chai, a Democratic Party spokesman in New York.

"We can't control thousands of people who want to protest the Bush administration," Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe said last week somewhat plaintively.

Actually, they could have: Senator Kerry missed a perfect "Sista Souljah" moment by not saying something like:

I'd like to say a few words to those planning to protest my distinguished opponent's convention next week in New York.

Many of you going to New York are young and impassioned and eager for change. One thing I learned when I came back from fighting in the jungles of Vietnam and started marching in protests of my own, is that when it comes to protests, violence isn't the answer. So I urge you, if you're planning to visit New York next week, carry a banner if you like, but remain calm. Think of what Gandhi would do, and how much he accomplished without violence.

Now, the hardcore would ignore all that and still go berserk. But Kerry would look great. The press would go crazy over a speech like that, and even if Kerry lost the election, he'd have a terrific speech to put in his archives, or trot out for his senatorial reelection campaign.

Instead though, we get Terry McAuliffe making lame quotes like, "We can't control thousands of people who want to protest the Bush administration".

Nice try. By playing it safe, you missed a golden opportunity here.

Update: On the other hand, with supporters like these, I can see why Kerry would be reluctant to try to keep them under control. (Via Polipundit.)

Another Update: Even the liberal Canadian press is noting that "Lefties' protests may backfire onto Democrats".

Doug Giles says the party's not looking very good at John Kerry's frat house:

Remember, Senator Kerry is their plan B. Plan A was Howard Dean. He was el Salvador right up until his Exorcist, watch-my-head-spin, moment in Iowa and then their party collectively said, “Holy Schnikeys! We’ve got to get someone else!!!”

The problem was when they turned to look to another candidate, the choices were … pretty thin. It must have been like arriving at a party a little late where the only thing left to drink is a hot, half-empty can of Schlitz, the only thing left to eat is a half-chewed pickle, and the only girl left to hit on is Courtney Love who’s passed out in the fireplace.

Why yes, I have been to parties like that. And they're not pretty.

(Warning, badly conceived segue coming. Proceed with caution!)

But there's often a back room poker game going on at a party like that, and Mark Steyn (wow, can he crank out the material or what??) says President Bush holds all the aces:

At the beginning of the year, Thomas Lifson, who was at Harvard Business School with George W Bush, made an interesting observation about the President. He notes that young George "was a very avid and skillful poker player" when he was a Business Administration student and that "one of the secrets of a successful poker player is to encourage your opponent to bet a lot of chips on a losing hand. This is a pattern of behavior one sees repeatedly in George W Bush's political career".

Indeed one does. In the months following Mr Lifson's observation, the President sat back, as John Kerry's consultants, the Iowa caucus voters, the Democratic Party at large, and the media convinced themselves that the one card that trumps Bush's leadership in the war on terror was Kerry's four months in Vietnam, and bet everything on it. They have just lost that hand.

Steyn adds that they've lost a few other hands as well. Bring a six pack of Heineken, a box of Monte Cristos and fresh deck of cards over to read the rest.

Update: Thomas Lifson beat Steyn to the "Bush as poker player" theme back in February. Advantage Lifson!

Jonathan M. Stein explains the New York Times' strong ties to Senator Kerry's campaign. Stein's article certainly lends further creedence to Evan Thomas' statement in July.

The Times is owned by "Pinch" Sulzberger:

Pinch was a political activist in the Sixties, and was twice arrested in anti-Vietnam protests. One day, the elder Sulzberger asked his son what Pinch calls, "the dumbest question I've ever heard in my life." If an American soldier runs into a North Vietnamese soldier, which would you like to see get shot? Young Arthur answered, "I would want to see the American get shot. It's the other guy's country." Some Sixties activists have since thought better of their early enthusiasms. Pinch hasn't.

No wonder he's sympathetic to a guy whom Mark Steyn calls "the first self-confessed war criminal in the history of the Republic to be nominated for president" in tomorrow's Chicago Sun Times.

This is one media-savvy group of sailors. But while they claim that they served on the same boat as Kerry, they may not quite survive the scrutiny of the press as well as the Swift Boat Vets have.

Saul Bellow's son Adam explains how he accidentally joined the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Bellow is far from the only member of the intelligentsia to move from right to left. What's surprising is how fewer migrate in the opposite direction, as Jonah Goldberg noted in 2001.

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

Charles Johnson writes that Kerry's plan to handle the charges of the Swift Boat Vets, was to simply assume:

“the media wouldn’t have the nerve to come at us with this kind of stuff,” says the source. “The senior staff believes the media is committed to seeing us win this thing, and that the convention inoculated us from these kinds of stories. The senior guys really think we don’t have a problem here.”

Ironically though, while the Swift Boat Vets have been fighting Kerry over the events of Vietnam and immediately afterwards, they've demonstrated that they understand how the new media works far better than his campaign does. The anonymous staffer that Charles quotes above is quite right: initially, the dino-media didn't have the nerve to go after their man with these charges. But they've lost their role as information gatekeepers. And the Swift Boat Vets seem to understand that intuitively.

Mark Steyn, that is, who's really been on a roll, on both sides of the pond. In the Chicago Sun Times, he writes:

In his testimony to Congress in 1971, Kerry asserted a scale of routine war crimes unparalleled in American history -- his ''band of brothers'' (as he now calls them) ''personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads . . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.'' Almost all these claims were unsupported. Indeed, the only specific example of a U.S. war criminal that Kerry gave was himself. As he said on ''Meet The Press'' in April 1971, ''Yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I used 50-caliber machineguns, which we were granted and ordered to use.''

Really? And when was that? On your top-secret Christmas Eve mission in Cambodia? If they'd taken him at his word, when the senator said ''I'm John Kerry reporting for duty,'' the delegates at the Democratic Convention should have dived for cover.

But they didn't. So Kerry is now the first self-confessed war criminal in the history of the Republic to be nominated for president. Normally this would be considered an electoral plus only in the more cynical banana republics. But the Democrats seemed to think they could run an anti-war anti-hero as a war hero and nobody would mind. As we now know, a lot of people -- a lot of veterans -- do mind, very much. They understand that, whether or not he ever mowed down civilians with his 50-caliber machinegun, Kerry is responsible for a lot of wounds closer to home.

Read the rest.

Captain Ed, linking to a Chicago Sun-Times article notes another Navy man disputing Kerry:

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman has no idea where a Silver Star citation displayed on Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign Web site came from, he said Friday. The citation appears over Lehman's signature.

"It is a total mystery to me. I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me," he said.

That's in addition to the Swift Boat Vets, the anonymous Navy release from yesterday, and the statement by Rear Admiral Schachte.

As Captain Ed writes:

So now we have more than just a few disgruntled Viet Nam veterans disputing Kerry's narrative and records. We've now added a former Secretary of the Navy, a man whose bipartisan credentials were sufficient for Congress to get him named to the 9/11 Commission in disputing Kerry's version of events. How will the Kerry campaign react to this? Can they paint Lehman as a partisan hack after his painfully obsequious behavior towards the Democrats during the commission hearings?

Just when I think this story may lose momentum, it just grows new legs. The Torricelli option continues to beckon the Democrats the longer Kerry refuses to release all the records and put an end to all the speculation -- assuming that the records haven't already been doctored, as Lehman's statement today seems to indicate.

Mark Steyn nails it (as usual):

A few months back, I bought a DVD set of an old TV variety show, black and white but digitally remastered. A bit too digitally remastered, as it turned out. It would be ungallant to name the lady artiste in question, but in several alarming close-ups it's all too clear she's come back from lunch a little the worse for wear, and in one scene she looks as if she's just been woken up after sleeping in the park for a week.

Not her fault. The make-up guy was making her look good enough for 1960 monochrome UHF lines. He couldn't have foreseen that 40 years on they'd have big-screen satellite TVs and DVD players and technology that would make that little facial pimple look like Mount Krakatoa about to blow through your screen.

That's what happened to John Kerry. For 25 years, he told The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, the United States Senate, and all manner of other well-known saps about his covert Yuletide operations inside Cambodia gun-running to anti-communists with his lucky CIA hat. To verify any of this would have required a trip to specialist reference libraries, looking up stuff on eye-straining microfiche, etc. So it was easier to let the old blowhard yak away and just nod occasionally.

Read More »

Andrew E. Busch of the Ashbrook Center has some thoughts on where Senator Kerry's bid for the White House stands.

This may be a first:

The Kerry campaign has repeatedly stated that the official naval records prove the truth of Kerry's assertions about his service.

But the official records on Kerry's Web site only add to the confusion. The DD214 form, an official Defense Department document summarizing Kerry's military career posted on johnkerry.com, includes a "Silver Star with combat V."

But according to a U.S. Navy spokesman, "Kerry's record is incorrect. The Navy has never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star."

Has any branch of the service ever publicly called a presidential candidate a liar before?

On the other hand, has anybody who ever did this while in the service ever run for the White House before?

Update: Speaking of the Navy, retired Rear Admiral William Schachte has released a statement describing the events of December 2-3, 1968, when Kerry received a minor shrapnel wound for which he was awarded the Purple Heart:

In March of this year, I was contacted by one of my former swift boat colleagues concerning Douglas Brinkley¹s book about Senator Kerry, "Tour of Duty." I told him that I had not read it. He faxed me a copy of the pages relating to the action on the night of December 2-3, 1968. I was astonished by Senator Kerry's rendition of the facts of that night. Notably, Lt. (jg) Kerry had himself in charge of the operation, and I was not mentioned at all. He also claimed that he was wounded by hostile fire.

None of this is accurate. I know, because I was not only in the boat, but I was in command of the mission. He was never more than several feet away from me at anytime during the operation that night. It is inconceivable that any commanding officer would put an officer in training, who had been in country only a couple of weeks, in charge of such an ambush operation. Had there been enemy action that night, there would have been an after action report filed, which I would have been responsible for filing.

I have avoided talking to media about this issue for months. But, because of the recent media attention, I felt I had to step up to recount my personal experiences concerning this incident.

Read the rest.

The North American news editor for Reuters, supposedly one of those "non-biased" news organizations, explains where he--and safe to say, the rest of the quotation mark-obsessed "news" organization stand on abortion.

Paging Bernard Goldberg...Mr. Bernard Goldberg to the white courtesy phone.

I'm sure this toy is purely coincidentally reenacting 9/11, right down to the purely coincidental higher roofline of the building on the right, ala the broadcasting antenna atop one of the WTC towers. And the purely coincdental serial number of "9011".

(It's entirely possible that the importer ordered a bunch of candy bags with toys inside not knowing their contents. But wouldn't you check a sample before distributing them?)

Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" is up. Just keep scrolling.

Update: It's especially useful for those who need a fix of poppin' fresh links wile Glenn Reynolds is celebrating his Insta-birthday today. Happy birthday!

Pete Peterson of The American Spectator writes that the Vietnamese enclave in Southern California's Orange County is none-too-thrilled with Senator Kerry.

Gee, I can't imagine why.

Articles like this make me think that the Vietnamese in Northern California can't be too crazy about him, either.

(Via Power Line.)

Update: More here.

Just stunning:

Heinz Kerry said she can't speak directly to the ads because she refuses to watch them. "I'm very proud of his service," she said. "I believe that discussions or attacks on his service undermine the peace of mind not only of Vietnam veterans but of those now fighting for their country. Let us hope that if they volunteer for service their reviews are not going to be so nefarious in the future."

As Jim Gerehty writes:

I do not understand it. I just do not understand it. How can Kerry's testimony in 1971 — "war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" — how does that not "undermine the peace of mind of Vietnam Veterans", but the Swifties' accusations specifically about Kerry do? How can one, indicting all members of the military except John Kerry, be acceptable, but the other, which focuses specifically on Kerry, be an unacceptable attack on all veterans?

James Lileks' take on how the Kerry camp has responded to the Swift Boat Vets perfectly sums up their tone-deaf tone:

John Kerry wants to be president because he is John Kerry, and John Kerry is supposed to be president. Hence his campaign's flummoxed and tone-deaf response to the swift boat vets. Ban the books, sue the stations, retreat, attack. Underneath it all you can sense the confusion. How dare they attack Kerry? He's supposed to be president. It's almost treason in advance. . . . Inconsistencies are irrelevant, because he's consistently John Kerry. And he's supposed to be president.

Or as the headline in Australia's The Age said when the first Swift Boat Vets' ad aired/went online:

"Anti-Kerry ad mars presidential campaign" Has any previous presidential candidate--especially one with baggage like Kerry's--ever thought he could just walk in without any resistance?

Charles Krauthammer goes apoplectic, so you (hopefully) don't have to.

You know, for a guy who's gone out of his way to portray himself as a great sportsman and all around (to borrow Glenn's phrase) "badass mofo", Kerry's sure had his share of sports-related gaffes:

The "I don't fall, the sonofabitch knocked me over!" skiing gaffe.

The lame hunting photos.

The sure, regular guys blow $250 on plane tickets to go windsurfing all the time! gaffe.

The if it's Tuesday, it must be Ohio--except when it's Michigan gaffe.

And now...The Frozen Tundra of Lambert Field!

I wonder if his handlers have pointed these out to him?

Mark Steyn takes a swift boat upriver into Kerry’s quagmire:

The Kerry campaign’s bumbling ineptness this last month is a bit of a stunner to those of us who followed Bill Clinton for eight years. The Democrats may not know how to run a school district or a highway department, but they’re supposed to be able to run scandals.

Ouch. RTWT, as the man says.

One of the dangers of a president trying to appeal to all people, is that he ends up alienating more than had he stuck to his core beliefs in the first place.

Take these conservative vistors to New York, already encamped at the Plaza Hotel in anticipation of next week's Republican convention. They're clearly concerned that President Bush has gone to far to the left to appeal to undecideds, moderates, and liberals. So they're gently reminding him that the truth is often located in a more conservative destination.

Well, that's the message I got out of it, anyhow....

I missed this episode of Hardball last night. If he's getting guests like this, maybe it's time to start tuning in again on a regular basis!

James Lileks calls Roto-Rooter. Hilarity ensues.

Power Line has an excerpt from Dr. Stanley Renshon's new book, In His Father's Shadow: The Transformations of George W. Bush. Renshon's excerpt makes a nice double feature with Jonathan Rauch's "The Accidental Radical".

The Washington Times notes that the Protest Warriors are fueling rage on left--and are getting ready to join them in Fun City next week.

Will they get the same discounted theater seats and restaurant prices from Mayor Bloomberg that the leftwing protestors are promised?

Rich Lowry writes:

There is now a definitive link between President Bush and the attacks against him. This link is as direct as most of the links that have been highlighted between Bush and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: Bush gave a $136,000 job to one of his attackers and a key member of Kerry's "band of brothers." By the logic of most of the press corps, this means George W. Bush must be responsible for the activities of Kerry campaign's band of brothers.

The man that President Bush gave a $136,000 a year job to: Max Cleland.

Lowry writes, "Who knows what deep game is being played here, but somebody should call the New York Times."

Read the rest, while you can. Karl Rove's evil tentacles are everywhere!

A tale of two presidential endorsements.

Reuters invents its own new name for the Swift Boat Veterans.

Get it while you can: a PDF version of John Kerry's early '70s book, The New Soldier, complete with an upside down flag on the cover.

Good post on Instapundit on Kerry, John O'Neill and Cambodia.

UPI reports that "U.S. prisoners of war and their families...are launching a Web site and documentary that will likely further fuel election campaign rancor":

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Wait a second--this is about a letter from an actual professor at Rutgers?? Get out of here!

Tony Blankley has picked up on something first noted back on August 17th by Hugh Hewitt: that reporters condemned the Swift Boat Vets without actually...reporting on the story:

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Steve Green, writing in Tech Central Station, says get ready for "The Big Angry" from the media, if their main man loses on November 2nd.

(Sorry for the lack of posts today--I only posted the horrible news out of Russia because I didn't see it getting much coverage at the time--but I had an article of my own to rewrite, and polish with whatever the Microsoft Word equivalent of Lemon Pledge is, before sending it off to one of my editors.)

One airliner has crashed, another reported missing, and a bomb exploded in an Russian bus station today.

Charles Johnson has several links to the actual news stories.

Jimmy Page, the guitarist and mastermind behind Led Zeppelin, is the first to have his handprints immortalized in concrete, in London's version of Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line writes:

Senator Kerry is basically pleading with President Bush to protect him from attacks by his band of brothers. In a sense, he's running to daddy, who also happens to be his opponent in a race to determine who will be in charge of defending America. (Am I the only who hears echoes of Kerry's approach to the war on terror -- run to the French and Germans for help -- here?)

What's even more damning is Ann Althouse's suggestion that Kerry's people "convinced each other that what they wanted to believe was true, and, as a consequence they never had a plan for how to deal with the attacks that they should have known were there."

Which seems preposterous at first glance: given the senator's background (four months in-country, followed by a decade--much of which was spent as a sailor in the Navy Reserves--of denouncing his fellow servicemen for "killing women and children") that he--or at least his handlers--had to know attacks such as those by the Swift Boat Vets were coming.

And yet, Kerry and his enablers in the press have been so flustered, that Althouse's conclusion has to be true: "they never had a plan to deal with the attacks that they should have known were there".

And this is somebody who wants the nation to believe he's fit to defend the country during a time of war?

George McKelvey, the mayor of Youngstown, located in the key battleground state of Ohio, has endorsed President Bush.

Like former New York City mayor Ed Koch; Randy Kelly, the current mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota; and Senator Zell Miller, each of whom has also endorsed George W. Bush, McKelvey is a Democrat.

(Remember August 11th, when ABC's The Note "reported" that they still can't find "a single American who voted for Al Gore in 2000 who is planning to vote for George Bush in 2004"?)

Did someone from the Democratic Party--the party that gave us a draft dodging "I loathe the military" former president, really just say on Hannity and Colmes that "George Bush betrayed his country by not fighting in Vietnam"?

Apparently.

Nice way to write off the vote of every reservist--and not very smart maneuvering in an election year--but then August can be the cruelest month.

In a post titled, "You Think You're Tired Of Hearing About Vietnam Now--Just Wait", John Hawkins writes that there's a whole lot of 'Nam left in the campaign:

The Republican National Convention will tear the spotlight off of the Swiftees for Truth, but only temporarily.

You know why I say that? Because there's blood in the water...John Kerry's blood.

The SBVFT have already caught Kerry in a lie about Cambodia and that damaged him. Furthermore, the fact that Kerry is refusing to release his military record and is stonewalling the charges made against him, despite all the attention they're getting, is making him look dishonest. On top of that, if the Swift Boat Vets for Truth can convince that public that John Kerry is telling a number of lies about his record or even more importantly, can deliver the coup de grace and show that he lied to get one of his Purple Hearts, this campaign is as good as over.

Personally, I think that there is a lot of "there there" to the charges made by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and unless Kerry can put this whole issue to rest by releasing his records and coming up with plausible answers to some of the tougher questions the SBVFT are putting to him, his run at the presidency is going to be crippled.

It didn't have to be this way, of course.

Jeff Goldstein is tanned, rested and ready for New York. Very hip Medium Cool reference, to boot.

(But he really should watch out for those stoner pea coat-wearing dolphins.)

Bob Dole gentlemanly rebukes (a.k.a. rhetorically sticks a shiv into) John Kerry today. As Glenn Reynolds writes, "Maybe Dole's mad because Democrats sneered that his World War II wounds were self-inflicted back during the 1996 campaign."

Command Post notes "a 20-page batch of documents" was removed from the Kerry campaign's Website yesterday.

Wonder why?

(Via Allah, who has an amusing illustration to accompany his link.)

Lorie Byrd has some thoughts on the current state of the new media.

Update: These posts by Hugh Hewitt and Power Line from late last week dovetail nicely with the above.

Kurt Vonnegut compares President Bush to--well, you know the rest.

Update: Taking a page from Mr. Vonnegut, North Korea also likens Bush to Hitler. I guess they'd prefer he'd be more like their own Kim Jong Il.

...Or, how The Wizard of Oz tormented the Führer of Germany.

I was scrolling through my archives, and came across one of Lileks' Bleats from February. Scroll past the stuff about Patrick Stewart for a Nostrodamus-like sneak preview of where we're at in the election season.

And for a glimpse could have been (had then been a little more--well, it would have taken a lot more, actually--Joementum this winter), click on this Spock's beard-style post from the Blogfather.

Steve Green compares telling anecdotes about two different--very different--Vietnam vets.

Jim Geraghty notes a contradiction in the press's sudden love of Chicago Tribune editor William Rood:

Swift Boat Vets: Kerry was a egomaniacal jerk who turned three minor cuts and abrasions into three Purple Hearts, wasn't trusted by his fellow officers, and stabbed his "band of brothers" in the back by calling them war criminals when he got back.

Kerry defenders: You don't know that! You weren't on the boat with him!

Swift Boat Vets: We were on boats right next to him. And Steven Gardner was.

Kerry defenders: Gardner doesn't count! And you guys don't count! Only the people on the boat really know what Kerry was like in Vietnam!

Chicago Tribune editor William Rood: I was on a boat next to him on one important day, and I say Kerry's story is true.

Kerry defenders: See, the matter is settled!

Swift Boat Vets: Wait, he was on the next boat over. Why is his testimony trustworthy, but not ours?

Kerry defenders: Only Rood's testimony counts! Everybody else who wasn't in the boat with Kerry doesn't count!

Meanwhile, it's game, set and match for the Swift Boat Vets: as Orrin Judd notes, John O'Neill has effectively trumped Kerry's Make. Them. Stop. mantra very simply: don't like it? "Sue me".

Update: More here, here, and here.

Charles Johnson writes, "After inviting George W. Bush to Bring ... It ... On, John F. Kerry is now begging him to Make ... Them ... Stop."

There's just one problem, and Kerry knows it: "according to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, it would be illegal for the Bush campaign to try to influence a 527 group like the Swift Boat Veterans, either to continue or to stop."

Looking at this post though, you have to wonder how close the Kerry campaign is to the 527s on the left.

Meanwhile, Frank Martin wonders what's caused the press to go from treating Kerry as if he's a joke, to carrying his water. They can really turn on a dime, huh?

Update: Speaking of 527s, this graphic puts the funding of the Swift Boat Vets and the 527s on the left into stark perspective.

Mark Steyn notes that one of the delicious ironies located where the Hollywood and the Kerry campaign intersect:

Having the most popular figures in popular culture on your side can seriously damage your popularity.

Two phrases come to mind: Heh, and read the whole thing.

(Indeed.)

Update: That Steyn quote above is especially prescient given the story that Drudge is reporting today: "Janet Jackson: Bush White House used my boob to distract from Iraq".

That's some boob!

Sean Hackbarth, Hugh Hewitt and (not surprisingly) Glenn Reynolds have link-filled round-ups of the what the Kerry camp and the press (but I repeat myself) have been up to this weekend.

"Alright. Here's how it works. It order to be rich enough to dream of fighting the United States, you have to become the United States. Of course, by that time you won't want to fight the United States. You don't want to become the United States? Not to worry: plenty of room on the ash-heap of history."

--Lou Gots, via the Brothers Judd.

John Podhoretz has a few friendly words for those stopping by New York next week to protest the Republican convention, and take advantage of the many discounted shows and dining opportunities offered by Mayor Bloomberg.

Update: Meanwhile, The New Criterion looks at one protestor who can't make up her mind. As Stefan Beck writes, "So is it arson and vandalism you want, or suffocating bureaucracy? Total anarchy . . . or Canada?"