November 1, 2004
Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson came by Bloggers Corner just a few minutes ago and spoke to the group about liberal Republicanism, the electoral college, the current campaign and its tone, and John Kerry's Senate career. As you might imagine from his press conferences during his tenure in Congress, Senator Simpson spoke directly and even bluntly in responding to our questions. My audio of the interview turned out poorly as Sean Hannity's show insists on blaring out their program over speakers pointed directly at our area, but I can rebuild the important parts. In response to questions regarding the Electoral College, Simpson strongly defended the current structure and explained that any attempt to eliminate it would never pass muster with enough states. Too many smaller states would lose their impact on presidential contests, and as Simpson said, no one would ever see a campaign outside of New York, Chicago, and...
General Tommy Franks announced today that he will support George Bush for president at our blog conference at the Republican National Convention. Q: General, do you support George Bush for President? A: Yes. Q: With regards to consistency, did George Bush hurt himself with his remarks on Matt Lauer that maybe we can't win a war on terror? A: Absolutely not. We won a Cold War, didn't we? And we didn't do that in 15 minutes. Q: Did Ronald Reagan show that kind of doubt in his effort to win the Cold War? A: I don't know that there was any doubt shown at all. I think that we're talking about consistency, and persistency, and anybody who looks at this thing over the last three and a half years is going to have a heck of a hard time trying to point out when he was not consistent or persistent....
John Kerry's campaign has backed off their earlier denials that Kerry was not present for the VVAW meeting in Kansas City, November 1971, where the "Phoenix Project" was brought to debate and a vote: Senator Kerry of Massachusetts yesterday retreated from his earlier steadfast denials that he attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plan to assassinate U.S. Senators was debated. The reversal came as new evidence, including reports from FBI informants, emerged that contradicted Mr. Kerrys previous statements about the gathering, which was held in Kansas City, Mo. in November 1971. John Kerry had no personal recollection of this meeting 33 years ago, a Kerry campaign spokesman, David Wade, said in a statement e-mailed last night from Idaho, where Mr. Kerry is on vacation. The historian Gerald Nicosia, who happens to be a Kerry supporter, released the minutes of the VVAW meeting, as well...
It's Friday, so it must be time for another Captain's Caption Contest! It's the final countdown, so this contest will remain open as long as the polls do -- which means 8 PM CT on Election Night! This weekend, the candidates have to get their voters to the polls -- that means they have to get them motivated, get their energy up, and inspire them to go to the polls in unprecedented numbers. Here's an example of that Kerry/Edwards magic: As always, make sure you put your entries in our comments section -- NO e-mailed entries, please! E-mailed entries will be tied to the leg of Ohio geese and flown over John Kerry's official hunter surrogates. The contest will end on Tuesday, November 2nd at 8 pm CT, when The Anchoress will select the winners. The Anchoress is an excellent writer on Catholicism and her personal spiritual journey; make sure...
Our friend Thomas Lipscomb writes today at the New York Sun that based on records produced at the John Kerry campaign website and military regulations and practice at the time of Kerry's Navy career, John Kerry received a less-than-honorable discharge for his service. Because of Kerry's refusal to make all of his records public and the Privacy Act of 1974, Lipscomb's sources would not go on the record. However, a reserve JAG and a former Navy officer from the Bureau of Personnel have helped Lipscomb build a strong circumstantial case for the negative separation: The "honorable discharge" on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record, according to Mark Sullivan, who retired as a captain in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve in 2003 after 33 years of service as a judge advocate. Mr. Sullivan served in...
The Center for Media and Public Affairs conducted a study confirming what everyone already knew -- the mainstream media gave John Kerry the kid-glove treatment this year, while being unusually harsh to George Bush. What most of us didn't realize is that the amount of positive press given to Kerry set a new record for media brown-nosing, the Washington Times reports: "It's not just that John Kerry has gotten better press than President Bush before this election, he's gotten better press than anyone else since 1980. That's significant," said Bob Lichter, director of the D.C.-based nonpartisan research group. "Kerry also got better press than anyone else in the days before the primaries as well," Mr. Lichter added. In October alone, Mr. Kerry had a "record-breaking 77 percent positive press evaluations," compared with 34 percent positive for Mr. Bush, the study states. The overall treatment of Kerry broke the record of...
The AP reports that Democrats running for state offices around the nation have one thing in common -- a desire to put as much distance between themselves and John Kerry as possible: Democrats running for the Senate in Republican-leaning states want to be more like President Bush clearing brush in Crawford, Texas, than John Kerry windsurfing off Nantucket Island, Mass. Democratic chances of regaining control of the Senate may depend on candidates who run away from their party platform and their presidential contender. "We've got eight or nine really competitive races and just about all are in strong Bush states," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "Democrats have some bad luck here." I'd argue that it has less to do with bad luck than it does from the obstructionist tactics of the Democratic Senate contingent the past four years. Obviously, Democrats got...
John Kerry continues his quest towards self-destruction today in an NPR interview this morning, as he described a radical Islamist currently attacking American troops in Iraq as a "legitimate voice" who shouldn't necessarily be arrested if encountered: In an interview broadcast Wednesday morning, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry defended terrorist Shiite imam Moqtada al-Sadr as a "legitimate voice" in Iraq, despite that fact that he's led an uprising that has killed nearly 20 American GIs in the last two days. Speaking of al-Sadr's newspaper, which was shut down by coalition forces last week after it urged violence against U.S. troops, Kerry complained to National Public Radio, "They shut a newspaper that belongs to a legitimate voice in Iraq." Never mind that this "legitimate voice" used that newspaper to call for an armed revolt against the Coalition and the Iraqi provisional government. John Kerry isn't concerned with that. John Kerry sounds...
Senator John Kerry continues to make odd statements about the Iraq war, trying to reconcile his vote authorizing it with his current anti-war platform: Kerry said that the administration had promised to go through the United Nations first, and then didn't do it, but he added that at the time Saddam Hussein constituted a threat. “From 1991 to 1998, we had inspectors in Iraq blowing up weapons of mass destruction,” Kerry said. “A lot of people seem to have forgotten that. We destroyed plenty of weapons of mass destruction in those 7½ years. We found more weapons than we thought Saddam had, and evidence of a nuclear program. " Kerry is either lying or being deliberately obtuse. Bush went to the UN twice. In December, he pushed through UNSC resolution 1441, demanding immediate and full compliance from Saddam Hussein with the previous 16 UNSC resolutions. Inspectors were supposed to report...
John Kerry, when he first ran for elective office in 1970, told the Harvard Crimson that he was an "internationalist" who felt that the UN should retain command of the US military: "I'm an internationalist," Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. "I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations." Kerry said he wanted "to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care." The Kerry campaign, celebrating primary victories in Virginia and Tennessee last night, declined to comment on the senator's remarks. As a candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of the U.S. military and has never called for a scale-back of CIA operations. When a candidate takes elective office, they swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document does...
Senator John Kerry revealed an ugly and poorly controlled side of himself when he thought he was off-mike this afternoon while speaking with AFL-CIO union workers in Chicago: Sen. John Kerry, all but officially the Democratic presidential nominee, called Republicans he is battling "crooked" Wednesday. ... "Keep smiling," one man said to him. Kerry responded, "Oh yeah, don't worry man. We're going to keep pounding, let me tell you -- we're just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group of people I've ever seen." Simply appalling. In the picture above, you can see a Kerry aide hurriedly trying to disconnect the microphone, to no avail, which leads me to wonder what else John Kerry says when he thinks the mikes are off. Does he speculate on Roswell? Discussing alien abductions? Kerry's campaign immediately retreated into damage control, saying that Kerry was referring to...
Jon Henke at QandO, the essential neolibertarian blog, does some research on John Kerry's oft-repeated assertion that the US "outsourced" its efforts at Tora Bora in order to do war on the cheap. Despite the vehement denials by General Tommy Franks and others within the Afghan operation and the detailed explanations as to why our strategy not only made sense but paid off, Kerry continues to use this canard as a major part of his stump speeches. It should surprise no one at this date that Kerry's position represents a complete reversal from what Kerry advocated at the time of the Afghan operation. Jon notes Kerry's appearance on the Bill O'Reilly show for December 11, 2001, where Kerry not only approved of the Afghan operation as implemented but called for moving our focus to militarily removing Saddam Hussein and leaving the liberation of Afghanistan to the Afghanis. He also made...
In words that echo his 1971 Senate testimony on the Vietnam war, John Kerry told the Washington Post that establishing democracy would not be a priority of a Kerry administration, preferring to work on more pressing issues other than liberty and freedom: Sen. John F. Kerry indicated that as president he would play down the promotion of democracy as a leading goal in dealing with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Russia, instead focusing on other objectives that he said are more central to the United States' security. ... In many ways, Kerry laid out a foreign-policy agenda that appeared less idealistic about U.S. aims than President Bush or even fellow Democrat former president Bill Clinton. While Kerry said it was important to sell democracy and "market it" around the world, he demurred when questioned about a number of important countries that suppress human rights and freedoms. He said securing...
Hindrocket at Power Line directs our attention to a story, with accompanying photograph, from the Cincinatti Enquirer about a moment on the campaign trail where we can remember that despite all of the partisan vitriol and rhetoric, we are all Americans. George Bush, making a campaign appearance in Lebanon, OH, shook hands with the crowd who had gathered to enthusiastically greet him. As he did, the following incident briefly made everyone forget about campaigns and speeches: Lynn Faulkner, his daughter, Ashley, and their neighbor, Linda Prince, eagerly waited to shake the president's hand Tuesday at the Golden Lamb Inn. He worked the line at a steady campaign pace, smiling, nodding and signing autographs until Prince spoke: "This girl lost her mom in the World Trade Center on 9-11." Bush stopped and turned back. "He changed from being the leader of the free world to being a father, a husband and...
Matt Drudge has posted a transcript of the new OBL tape. I'm with my partner on this: OBL has definately been watching too many Michael Moore videos in his cave. As Captain Ed also noted, the emergence of two AQ tapes signals something very, very bad. Apparently federal officials agree. On Fox News, Shepard Smith is reporting that analysts believe the first tape symbolizes brute force and AQs presence in the US while the tone of the OBL video justifies killing of innocents. While that's a plausible analysis, it is also possible (knock on wood) the videos were made because AQ no longer has the ability to attack us here and hopes to influence the election via propaganda. I think it must come down to either of those scenarios. Or maybe he's seeking a larger speaking part in the next Michael Moore mockumentary. UPDATE: Aljeezera has posted the full transcript....
John Kerry has taken to pleading for a return to debate on current issues and more relevant qualifications for the presidency in a bid to bury the debate on his Viet Nam record, which at one time was all Kerry would discuss on the stump. Speaking in New York, Kerry told a crowd that all the Bush campaign had was fear, while he wanted to talk about how he could outperform Bush in areas such as foreign policy. So let's talk foreign policy, as practiced right here at home, by Senator Kerry. Earlier this evening, I had the pleasure of speaking with Bradley Clanton of the law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC, in Jackson, MS and Washington, DC. Brad represents several Vietnamese-Americans who came to the US as refugees of the Communists in their native land. Some of his clients have names that students of the era...
While some voters get calls from an ersatz Norman Schwarzkopf or from the real Bret Favre or Curt Schilling, I've only been fortunate enough to get one call tonight from the GOP. After hearing someone grunt "Please listen," I got this recorded message with a female voice: "Democrats keep accusing Republicans of secretly planning on reinstating the draft. But Democrats are the only ones who have proposed a new military draft ..." It would have been all right if someone like the Bush twins had done the commercial. Heck, since Pete Coors is running for the Senate, maybe they could have had the Coors Twins record it. But no -- all I get is the gosh-darned generic message. I'm already supporting the GOP, of course, but I did feel a twinge of resentment that I didn't get to be phone-spammed by a really cool celebrity. I'd even have settled for...
Who wrote these words about education reform? "It bothers me," the reformer wrote, "that some Democrats have resisted the idea of making educational outcomes the skills and knowledge our kids obtain from the educational system as important as educational inputs the adequate funding, the good facilities and the higher teacher pay we all want." The answer? John Kerry, in his campaign book he published just last year. However, Kerry the Candidate has reversed course and now campaigns against No Child Left Behind because of its "punitive" provisions for schools that fail to raise educational outcomes. The Los Angeles Times' Ronald Brownstein -- who usually acts as a reliable spin doctor for the Democrats -- unspins Kerry on this issue: After voting for President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, Kerry, during his race to the nomination, joined the mob of Democrats condemning the education reform...
I had an opportunity to interview my friend "Mike", the Navy SEAL and private contractor who spent the last three years in Iraq. I wanted to get his perspective since the Al Qaqaa story broke, since part of Mike's work as a private contractor dealt with explosives demolition. Part I of the interview focuses on that issue. Q. What do you know about the ASP at Al Qaqaa and the missing 380 tons of explosives? A. Not much first-hand knowledge That was not one of the sites I was sent to blow anything up or acquire any of the explosives that were there. I had access to a lot of different site maps, and I dont remember seeing it on a site map. It may have been there, but I dont remember it. If it was the size they say it is, I cant imagine that we need to...
A few days ago, John Kerry tried on the Bill Clinton approach to civil rights, noting that Clinton had sometimes been called the nation's "first black President" for his humble Southern beginnings as well as his affinity to African-American leadership, and said that he wouldn't mind being known as the second black President. Oddly enough, having a rich, white, power-born politician describe himself as black didn't sit to well with those who actually are black -- and they're not just giving Kerry disapproving glances: The head of a civil rights and legal services advocacy group wants Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to apologize for saying he wouldn't be upset if he could be known as the second black president. "John Kerry is not a black man he is a privileged white man who has no idea what it is in this country to be a poor white in this...
November 2, 2004
I guess it didn't take me too long to find my post for the day -- in today's New York Times, Jodi Wilgoren and Richard Stevenson report on the "full-throated battle" between the major party nominees after Thursday evening's Democratic fundraiser: A day after a $7.5 million Democratic fund-raiser in New York at which an array of stars harshly ridiculed President Bush, the Bush campaign criticized Senator John Kerry for what it called a "star-studded hate fest." Mr. Bush's campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, demanded that the Kerry campaign release a videotape of the event at Radio City Music Hall, which featured performers including Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg and Jessica Lange. Although Mr. Kerry had told the crowd at the New York fund-raiser that "every single performer" on the bill had "conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country," his campaign on Friday sought to distance Mr. Kerry and...
John Kerry continued his attempt to differentiate himself from George Bush on Iraq policy yesterday in a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, following Dick Cheney's widely-criticized political speech last week at the same venue. The Los Angeles Times reports that Kerry continues to expound on "international cooperation" without explaining how that differs from what the US is doing now: Sen. John F. Kerry challenged President Bush on Friday to engage in personal diplomacy to try to repair relationships with other influential nations and gain their support for an international mission in Iraq. During a 30-minute address at Westminster College here, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee pledged to support his rival's policy in Iraq if Bush pursued that effort. ... He urged the president to form a political coalition with the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and other nations to endorse the effort to stabilize Iraq and back the...
John Kerry talks about strengthening security and fighting terrorists, saying earlier this week that those who plan to attack us should understand that he would hunt them down and kill them, if he became president. However, The New York Times reports today that the foreign policy/national security team he has assembled for his campaign represents a flashback to eight years of the so-called "law-enforcement approach" that culminated in the 9/11 attack: Seated in leather swivel chairs in the glass-walled conference room at Senator John Kerry's Washington campaign headquarters two Fridays ago was a veritable reunion of President Bill Clinton's national security team: Madeleine K. Albright, Samuel R. Berger, William J. Perry and Gen. John M. Shalikashvili. Richard C. Holbrooke joined his former colleagues via conference call from Tokyo. ... Besides the Clintonites and Mr. Biden, those in the loop or on its fringe include former Senator Gary Hart, who ran...
CQ reader Mike Maerten noticed this analysis from the Small Business Survival Committee over at Townhall.com regarding John Kerry's voting record on small-business issues over the past 10 years. Bear in mind my earlier analysis of National Journal's ratings of John Kerry during the Clinton Administration, where his votes skewed more conservative when Bill Clinton occupied the White House than when Republicans held executive power. Even during this more conservative period, John Kerry's voting record displays a remarkable hostility to small businesses: Of the 101 votes in the U.S. Senate that SBSC has rated since the 103rd Congress Senator Kerrys record is unsettling. He has voted on the side of small business a mere 13 times out of the 101 votes that SBSC rated during the past decade giving him a weak 13 percent rating on key small business issues. Senator Kerry voted against small business 94...
Despite having a more consistent record on abortion than any other issue in his career, John Kerry yesterday tried to have it both ways again, flip-flopping on the definition of human life. Kerry tried to pander to Catholics and strict Christians but instead raised far more questions than he answered: But even as he tried to avoid making news Sunday, Kerry broke new ground in an interview that ran in the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald. A Catholic who supports abortion rights and has taken heat from some in the church hierarchy for his stance, Kerry told the paper, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception." Spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said that although Kerry has often said abortion should be "safe, legal and rare," and that his religion shapes that view, she could not recall him ever publicly discussing when life begins. "I can't...
The French press service AFP reports that George Bush has won the traditional Dixville Notch vote at midnight, while Daschle v. Thune liveblogged Senate minority leader Tom Daschle's strangulation of the remnants of his credibility and dignity. From Dixville Notch: A tiny population of 26 registered voters backed Bush by a comfortable 19-7 margin over Democratic challenger Senator John Kerry, according to a tally by the town clerk's office. ... The settlement's 26 voters trooped into the luxury Balsams hotel just after midnight local time (0500 GMT) Tuesday to cast some of the first votes in the 2004 election. Almost half were registered Republicans. The 26 voters included 11 registered Republicans, two registered Democratic voters and 13 independents, according to the town clerk's records. Bush won the key Dixville Notch vote in 2000, but Bill Clinton won it twice before that. As portents go, I'd rank it right up there...
In what must be a crushing blow to those on the Left who crowed about the positive Zogby numbers from the weekend for John Kerry, Zogby revised the numbers last night -- and put the states right back to where they were in 2000: Last night, habitual poll-watchers had new numbers to digest when John Zogby released results for a four-day poll that included some voters surveyed yesterday. That poll showed Mr. Bush with a solid lead in Ohio (49 percent to 43 percent) and also ahead in Nevada (50 percent to 45 percent) and Colorado (49 percent to 47 percent), while Florida was a tie at 48 percent each. According to the final Zogby pre-election survey, Mr. Kerry was leading in Pennsylvania (50 percent to 46 percent), Wisconsin (51 percent to 45 percent), Iowa (50 percent to 45 percent), Minnesota (51 percent to 45 percent), Michigan (52 percent to...
Staff Mate Joseph tipped me off to this early and more significant election result from Ohio (also at Megapundit, if the SoS's site is down). According to the Secretary of State, George Bush has a slim lead over John Kerry in early and absentee voting: Bush: 49.87% with 800,950 votes. Kerry: 49.12% with 788,799 votes The Democrats have made a huge effort into getting their voters to go early or vote absentee, and the fact that Bush still leads after all that effort has to be encouraging. As Megapundit notes, that represents 34% of the Ohio popular vote in 2000. We're not talking Dixville Notch here, and when the rest of Ohio's voters go to the polls today, we can presumably expect a greater share of Republicans than Democrats remain....
Foreign election monitors complained yesterday that they had been assigned to overwhelmingly pro-Kerry events, calling their neutrality into question even as their members lobbied John Kerry to make changes in electoral law: European election monitors touring central Florida were dismayed yesterday at their local hosts' emphasis on Democratic events, saying their schedule of pro-Kerry and left-leaning themes has left little time for similar Republican visits. The day started with a small airport rally for Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, who appeared to promise a senior member of the delegation that he would commit to reforming federal election processes. The four-member delegation of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) also listened to filmmaker Michael Moore address the League of Conservation Voters and visited a polling station in Sanford, Fla., which was the site of voting irregularities four years ago. "I would say we are dismayed," said Bart...
I will be live-blogging the presidential-election results tonight while Mitch Berg, King Banaian and I give quarter-hour updates on AM 1280 The Patriot, starting at 8 pm. I plan to start blogging at 7 pm or so as the Eastern time zone polls close up. Be sure to keep checking back here -- more details later!...
Two days ago, I wrote that John Kerry called John McCain (and just about everyone else at the Republican Convention) a liar, based on a press release at his website. A number of you wrote to tell me that the page had disappeared from Kerry's website, but it had mysteriously reappeared by the time I checked on it. Well, it has disappeared once more, as the Kerry campaign tries to keep its candidate from infuriating the one man who has tempered the criticism from the right in this electoral cycle. McCain, who constantly refers to his friendship with Kerry, might take the gloves off if Kerry impugns his character as he did with the Viet Nam veterans who have campaigned against Kerry. The campaign made a smart move taking down that list, especially since they never bothered to factually refute even one of the 143 statements they listed as lies,...
John Kerry told the Congressional Black Caucus that the Republicans want to suppress the black vote in November, repeating the canard that a million black votes went uncounted in 2000: "We are not going to stand by and allow another million African American votes to go uncounted in this election," the Democratic presidential nominee told the Congressional Black Caucus. "We are not going to stand by and allow acts of voter suppression, and we're hearing those things again in this election." Kerry has a team of lawyers to examine possible voting problems to try to prevent a repeat of the 2000 election disputes. He also has said he has thousands of lawyers around the country prepared to monitor the polls on election day. "What they did in Florida in 2000, some say they may be planning to do this year in battleground states all across this country," Kerry said. "Well,...
On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, John Kerry's inconsistencies seem to be catching up to him on the stump, if not quite yet in the polls. Facing a challenge from Howard Dean on his votes in 1991 against military action in Kuwait and in 2002 to authorize military action in Iraq, Kerry has come up with a novel explanation -- his votes meant the exact opposite of what they were: Kerry said Sunday that he supported the Iraq resolution 15 months ago because he believed President Bush would use force only as a "last resort." "The vote I cast was not a vote to go to war immediately," he said. ... Although Kerry said he "believed we ought to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait," uppermost on his mind in 1991, he said, was public ambivalence about sending U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf. "I said we ought...
The AP reports an "exclusive" on an apparent conflict of interest involving Senator John Kerry from four years ago, when he blocked legislation and later received cash from a beneficiary of his action: A Senate colleague was trying to close a loophole that allowed a major insurer to divert millions of federal dollars from the nation's most expensive construction project. John Kerry stepped in and blocked the legislation. Over the next two years, the insurer, American International Group, paid Kerry's way on a trip to Vermont and donated at least $30,000 to a tax-exempt group Kerry used to set up his presidential campaign. Company executives donated $18,000 to his Senate and presidential campaigns. The colleague was John McCain and the project involved was the Big Dig, a highway project often cited as an example of cost overruns and government inefficiency. McCain wanted some government funding of the Big Dig stopped...
For a man who claims not to be beholden to special interests, John Kerry certainly appears to enjoy thir fruits as often as possible. The Los Angeles Times -- not exactly big boosters of the Right -- reports today that Kerry wrote 28 letters on behalf of a defense firm that filled his coffers with illegal campaign contributions: Sen. John F. Kerry sent 28 letters in behalf of a San Diego defense contractor who pleaded guilty last week to illegally funneling campaign contributions to the Massachusetts senator and four other congressmen. ... Between 1996 and 1999, Kerry participated in a letter-writing campaign to free up federal funds for a guided missile system that defense contractor Parthasarathi "Bob" Majumder was trying to build for U.S. warplanes. ... Kerry's letters were sent to fellow members of Congress and to the Pentagon while Majumder and his employees were donating money to...
Mark asked me a direct question yesterday in response to my post about the laughably transparent Iranian attempt to influence the election Friday: And what do you have against Kerry? Or has Bush really fought to improve your way of life? I wrote later that his question was valid, and rather than point to a collection of earlier posts on various incidents, I think it would be more honest for me to put together a comprehensive argument for my position on this election. I will address this in two parts, just as Mark asked: why I oppose John Kerry, and why I support George Bush. Primarily, I don't trust John Kerry, and I never have. He's spent most of his Senate career carrying Ted Kennedy's water and regularly competes with Kennedy for the most liberal voting record -- a contest he won last year, according to the National Journal. He...
Unfortunately, some people believe that they have the prerogative to determine who can and cannot vote in today's election. In Milwaukee, thirty rental vans that were intended to help GOP voters get to the polls to exercise their franchise rights had their tires slashed, presumably in an attempt to keep Wisconsin from slipping away from John Kerry: The tires of at least 30 cars and vans rented by the Republican Party to carry voters to the polls were slashed, Milwaukee police said this morning. The discovery was made at 6:30 a.m., said Sgt. Mark Wroblewski. The rental cars were parked near a GOP office in the 7100 block of W. Capitol Dr. Wroblewski said "at least" 30 cars were disabled. At least one tire was slashed and in some cases, all four tires were cut. Detectives were on the scene, the sergeant said. Police had no suspects in custody as...