Presidential Race T-2

1. Osama full-tape was 18 minutes, edited to 6 by al-jazeera: Osama bin Laden doesn't seem nearly so cocky in the unedited version of a videotape aired on al-Jazeera, complaining that the manhunt against him has hampered al Qaeda. AFP/Getty ImagesBin Laden the impotent / Opinion: Page 27 Osama bin Laden's newest tape may have thrust him to the forefront of the presidential election, but what was not seen was the cave-dwelling terror lord talking about the setbacks al Qaeda has faced in recent months.
   Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape — of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday — bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.
   On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military's unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border. (nypost)
2. BBC correspondent Plett sheds tear for Arafat: Yet when the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry... without warning. In quieter moments since I have asked myself, why the sudden surge of emotion? (bbc)
3. Bob Kerrey's bumbling defense of Kerry on Meet the Press: a) This is the old view that bin Laden is a criminal -- like Dahmer, but with more victims -- who needs to be arrested. Of course, this chimes with recent statements of John Kerry's.
   b) I cried out in pain when Kerrey said "They don't give a damn about the war in Iraq." What a bunch of selfish louts Kerrey imagines the people of small town Ohio to be! In Galena, those people can't even imagine the wider world. They're all about "where's my money .. where are my benefits?" I know how badly you want to win Ohio -- really, Ohio is practically the whole game, now, isn't it? -- but in your eagerness to please them, you reveal your contempt for them! (instapundit)
4. Picture contrasting Hollywood actresses and Afghan women voting (jessicaswell)
5. Justifications for backing Kerry fall flat (mark steyn)
6. Broken-glass Republicans battle to the end (guardian uk)
7. Bush Leads(in polls), Uncertainty Reigns (cbsnews)
8. NY Daily News (liberal paper) endorses Bush (ny daily news)
9. America cannot afford Terry Kerry(by reporter told to "shove it") (pittsburghlive.com)
10. CBS: Explosive charge failed (Jack Kelly Ohio Post-Gazette)
11. Liberals, please embrace the 'L' word again (houston chronicle)
12. Kerry campaign threatens Fox news (throw off plane) (california yankee blog)

Other

1. Kerry's non-honorable dischargeExclusive: Earl Lively makes solid case senator left Navy under a cloud There is overwhelming evidence that the Navy gave John Kerry either a dishonorable discharge or an undesirable discharge – which is the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge without the felony conviction – and that, as a result of such discharge, he was stripped of all of his famous but questionable Navy awards and medals. And the kicker? The evidence is on his website! (Earl Lively is a former colonel who was assigned as Director of Operations of Headquarters, Texas Air National Guard when George W. Bush was a lieutenant in the Air Guard.) (worldnetdaily)
2. Early voting fraud file (foxnews)]
3. John Kerry late night jokes (about.com)

Presidential Race ctd 10

1. The Osama Litmus Test: Kerry did say that we are all united in the fight against bin Laden, but he just couldn't help himself. His first instinct was to get political.
   On Milwaukee television, he used the video as an occasion to attack the president: "He didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down Osama bin Laden. He outsourced the job." Kerry continued with a little riff from his stump speech, "I am absolutely confident I have the ability to make America safer."
   Even in this shocking moment, this echo of Sept. 11, Kerry saw his political opportunities and he took 'em. There's such a thing as being so nakedly ambitious that you offend the people you hope to impress. (david brooks, nyt)
2. Bin Laden Adopts Democrat Talking Points: In a remarkable geopolitical meeting of minds, the pre-election address of top global terrorist Osama bin Laden shows he has adopted many of the Democratic Party's talking points.Transcripts of the address released late Friday reveal such stunning similarities that it's obvious bin Laden has been following the U.S. presidential race very closely - and he agrees on issue after issue with domestic critics of the Bush administration. (newsmax)
3. Impact Of Tape On Race Is Uncertain, Dueling Spin Over October Surprise (wapo)
4. Osama bin Laden's invitation to Pres. Kerry to negotiate a truce (beldar)
5. Liberal blog Buzzmachine: Bin Laden remixes Fahrenheit 9/11 (buzzmachine.com)
6. The Bush Reelection Imperative (jewishpress)
7. Colorado teacher kicks student for wearing GOP shirt (sfgate.com)
8. Kerry's October surprise
   While John Kerry is running around claiming President George Bush and our troops overseas failed the American people by not guarding an explosives dump without explosives in it, documents have been uncovered at Texas Tech University that show Kerry was following Vietnam War protest guidelines from North Vietnamese communists in the early 1970s.
   (missippi press)
9. Pew Internet & Politics survey (pdf)
10. CRONKITE: KARL ROVE BEHIND BIN LADEN TAPESat Oct 30 2004 16:31:19 ET Former CBSNEWS anchorman Walter Cronkite believes Bush adviser Karl Rove is possibly behind the new Bin Laden tape.Cronkite made the startling comments late Friday during an interview on CNN.Cronkite said he is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing."Interviewer Larry King did not ask Cronkite to elaborate on the provocative election eve accusation. (drudge)
11. Close & bitter election: But there can be a backlash to vitriol, as Minnesota Democrats discovered after the bile unleashed at Paul Wellstone's funeral in 2002. Demo-crats, living in a cocoon where Bush hatred is universal and unexceptionable, failed to anticipate that. Have they made the same mistake again? (barone, usnews)
12. IT'S TIME FOR A LONG LOOK IN THE MIRROR
    First, is there any doubt that some bootleg DVD or videotape of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" made it to a remote mountain village somewhere near the Afghan-Pakistan border?
    I could be proven wrong, but I now have drastically revised my prediction of what's going to happen on election night. A Bush landslide is now exponentially more likely, as every voter walks into the voting booth with the topic of terrorism on his or her mind. It's far and away Bush's strongest issue.
    The far left hates George W. Bush with a raging fury. So does al-Qaeda. Was it really so shocking that the rhetoric of the former would eventually be taken up by the latter?
    No, this tape should cause many on the left to stare into the mirror for a long time and ask, “What have I turned into? How did I become so reflexively partisan, so blinded by rage, so intemperate in my rhetoric that my own arguments are being echoed by a man who planned and enjoyed the mass murder of Americans?”(nationalreview)
13. Please, no post-election heroic measures , nasty Gore precedent (signonsandiego)
14. Importance of Bush: is Remnant enough to carry the day: Kerry is unconscionable. He is a shameless, vindictive, wack-left extrem- ist - a crypto-pacifist. A Kennedy acolyte. A mountebank, a charlatan, a fraud. A con- summate, congenital liar. A self-serving, self-righteous, self-pro- moter - and insufferably arrogant. A fabricator, an embellisher, a credit-taker surpassing even Al Gore. (Ross Mackenzie)
15. Abortion issue on everybody's mind: In April 2004, Kerry took a rare timeout from the presidential campaign to appear on the Senate floor to vote against a bill that would make it a crime to harm a fetus during an assault on the mother — a bill supported by two-thirds of senators. Kerry also joined a Senate minority in voting against a ban on partial-birth abortion.
    The pro-life constituency that would be most crushed by a Kerry victory is Catholics. No other group has so doggedly led the fight to halt abortion, and a potential Catholic president stands poised to undermine that progress. What Pope John Paul II has described as the Culture of Death may be abetted by no less than a practicing Catholic in the Oval Office. That is what is at stake on Tuesday. (Kengor, National Review)
16. Battle Cry of Faithful Pits Believers Against the Rest (nyt)
17. Hispanic Democratic group in Fla. rejects Kerry endorsement, citing moral issues (bpnews)
18. Telegraph UK endorses Bush: "Kerry isn't the answer" (telegraph)
19. Comment: Rod Liddle: Even the Democrats don’t fancy Kerry (timesonline.co.uk)
20. Kerry's Legacy: No One Who Has Aided the Enemy Deserves to Become President: Kerry's legacy isn't that he has the same initials as John Fitzgerald Kennedy or that he motored around the rivers of South Vietnam in a small boat for four months before asking to leave the war early. His legacy is more along the lines of Benedict Arnold's. The only difference is that Benedict Arnold was a successful soldier before he committed treason. I doubt Benedict Arnold would have much success running for President today. Are we to believe that someone who aided the enemy in time of war is worthy of becoming President?(richmond times-dispatch)
21. UK Historian Paul Johnson endorses Bush: I cannot recall any election when the enemies of America all over the world have been so unanimous in hoping for the victory of one candidate. That is the overwhelming reason that John Kerry must be defeated, heavily and comprehensively. (hispanic american center)
22. A shoddy October Surprise: The late-breaking story about missing explosives in Iraq should bother all those people who keep saying that mainstream journalism is better and fairer than ever ... Isn't this journalistic malpractice? (john leo)
23. MN Senator Rudy Boschwitz on Bush: Since 1980 not a single country has turned from democracy to tyranny, but dozens have turned from tyranny to become open societies and that trend continues. The election in Afghanistan -- the first ever in that country -- was a truly remarkable event. If it can happen in Afghanistan, it will surely happen in Iraq and taken together, a profound change will occur in the Middle East that will change the course of events there.
    Tyranny has been commonplace throughout my life. I was born in Germany two years before the advent of Adolph Hitler as Reich Chancellor on January 30,1933. On that day my Dad came home and told my Mom we would leave Germany forever. Six months later we were gone. Of my family that remained on the continent of Europe, only one survived Nazism.
    During my lifetime, few leaders or so called statesmen looked tyranny and evil in the eye and said: you can't do that and if you persist we're going to act and take you out. Most sought to negotiate, appease, buy off or not confront the evil-doer. But there were exceptions and those leaders made the world a better and safer place.
    I very much believe in President George Bush's capabilities in leading this nation and the world in this fight, whether in concert with the full array of nations or without them -- and leadership by definition is sometimes alonely project. (powerlineblog)

Other

• What Bills or Laws John Kerry got passed (volokh conspiracy)
• Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. 78% of their clinics are in minority communities. Blacks make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America. Are we being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant. Did you know that the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a devout racist who created the Negro Project designed to sterilize unknowing black women and others she deemed as undesirables of society? The founder of Planned Parenthood said, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated." Is her vision being fulfilled today?(blackgenocide.org)
• Osama bin Laden 1971, second from right, on a family outing in Falun, Sweden (picture)
• Interactive Electoral College Map: swf (pbs.org)
• New URL Spoofing Flaw Found in Internet Explorer: A new spoofing flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser allows an improperly coded web link to send users to a diffferent URL than the one displayed in the status bar. (netcraft)
• 'Image is all' for PLO leader's fashion-loving young wife If anything was guaranteed to annoy the Palestinians, it was a comment made by Yasser Arafat's wife after the birth of their daughter, Zahwa. As Suha Arafat proudly showed off the Palestinian leader's only child at the £1,100-a-night hospital in Paris in July 1995, she declared: "Our child was conceived in Gaza, but sanitary conditions there are terrible. I don't want to be a hero and risk my baby."
  Her remarks highlighted the widening gulf between the Palestinian "first lady" and her people - many of whom live on little more than £3 a day per family. (telegraph uk)

Presidential Race ctd 9

1. Kerry Admits He Lied About His Records:
   a) John Kerry made an interesting admission last night on NBC Nightly News in an interview with Tom Brokaw. Despite having claimed for months that he had released all of his military records, Kerry admitted last night that he'd lied about it (emphasis mine):
   Brokaw: Someone has analyzed the President's military aptitude tests and yours, and concluded that he has a higher IQ than you do.
   Kerry: That's great. More power. I don't know how they've done it, because my record is not public. So I don't know where you're getting that from.
   b) Kerry has responded repeatedly that all of his records have been made available at his website. For instance, here's Kerry on Don Imus on September 15th:
   IMUS: A Freedom of Information Act request by "The Washington Post" regarding your military records produced six pages of information, while a spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command said there were at least 100 pages of information available, but he was not authorized to release them. Why can't we see this stuff?
   KERRY: We've posted my military records that they sent to me, or were posted on my Web site. You can go to my Web site, and all my -- you know, the documents are there.
   IMUS: So is -- everything's available?
   KERRY: To the best of my knowledge. I think some of the medical stuff may still be out there. We're trying to get it.
   c) Kerry was also explicitly unequivocal on "Hardball" last April when discussing Bush's military records, before the Swiftvets began their public campign showing how much Kerry had deceived people about the nature of his service: KERRY: He ought to answer that question.
   MATTHEWS: Why?
   KERRY: Because I‘ve answered the questions. I released all my military records. Mr. Gillespie thought it was important enough to go travel to another state, make a big speech, demand that I release my records. I did. Everything. All of it. Including my officer fitness reports. (captainsquartersblog)
2. Navy Secretary Kerry received other than honorable discharge (polipundit)
3. Kerry's Military Discharge. What's Kerry Hiding? (humaneventsonline)
4. On the dismaying egregiousness of John Kerry: And the liberal Marty Peretz, editor of the liberal New Republic magazine, says this about the egregiously liberal John Kerry: "There seems to be some personal anxiety underlying almost everything Kerry thinks about U.S. foreign policy. He craves the approval of Europeans, as if he were some American 'arriviste' right out of a Henry James novel. (Ross Mackenzie, Townhall)
5. Kerry's serial LIES (Mark Alexander, Townhall)
6. THE PENTAGON BRIEFING: I was only able to catch part of the Pentagon briefing, but the earliest story on it is here. Short version: Major Austin Pearson said a team from the 3rd Infantry Division took about 250 tons of munititions and military material from the Al-Qaqaa munitions base soon after Saddam Hussein's regime fell last year. (kerryspot, nationalreview)
7. IAEA Seals In ABC Report Don't Match Missing Explosives (captainsquartersblog)
8. VITAL CONTEXT IN MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY (nationalreview)
9. Munitions Issue Dwarfs the Big Picture: There is something truly absurd about focusing on 377 tons of rather ordinary explosives, regardless of what actually happened at al Qaqaa," Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an assessment yesterday. "The munitions at al Qaqaa were at most around 0.06 percent of the total." (Washington Post)
10. Kerry's Afghan Amnesia: Easy? In 2001, we had nothing there. What had the Clinton administration left in place? No plausible military plan. Virtually no intelligence. No local infrastructure. No neighboring bases. The Afghan Northern Alliance was fractured and weak. And Pakistan was actively supporting the bad guys.
    Within days of Sept. 11, the clueless airhead president that inhabits Michael Moore's films and Tina Brown's dinner parties had done this: forced Pakistan into alliance with us, isolated the Taliban, secured military cooperation from Afghanistan's northern neighbors, and authorized a radical war plan involving just a handful of Americans on the ground, using high technology and local militias to utterly rout the Taliban.
    This is all barely remembered and barely noted. Most amazing of all, John Kerry has managed to transform our Afghan venture into a failure -- a botched operation in which Bush let Osama bin Laden get away because he "outsourced" bin Laden's capture to "warlords" in the battle of Tora Bora.
    Outsourced? The entire Afghan war was outsourced. How does Kerry think we won it? How did Mazar-e Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar fall? Stormed by thousands of American GIs? They fell to the "warlords" we had enlisted, supported and directed. It was their militias that overran the Taliban.
    "Outsourcing" is a demagogue's way of saying "using allies." (Isn't Kerry's Iraq solution to "outsource" the problem to the "allies" and the United Nations?) And in Afghanistan it meant the very best allies: locals who had a far better chance of knowing which cave to storm without getting blown up. (Krauthammer, Washington Post)
11. Saddam's killing fields and death penalty opponents: TNR's Marty Peretz (freedomstruth)
12. Cape Cod Times endorses Bush (capecodonline.com)
13. Germany's largest newspaper Bild endorses Bush (medienkritik.typepad)
14. Donald Rumsfeld writes: No Draft ! (Nationalreview)
15. Victor Davis Hanson: Willpower: In short, the more sophisticated, the more technological, the more hyped and televised war becomes, the more pundits and strategists warn us about "fourth-generational," "asymmetrical," "irregular," and "new dimensional" conflict, the more we simply forget the unchanging requisite of the will to win that trumps all other considerations. John Kerry has no more secret a plan than George Bush — because there is no secret way to pacify Iraq other than to kill the killers, humiliate their cause through defeat, and give the credit of the victory, along with material aid and the promise of autonomous freedom, to moderate Iraqis. Victory on the battlefield — not the mysterious diplomacy of "wise men," or German and French sanction, or Arab League support — alone will allow Iraq an opportunity for humane government. (nationalreview)
16. Kerry - just like hunting Vietcong: In the final days of the campaign, John Kerry is desperately attempting to make the case that he, not President Bush, can better defend the United States in the global war against radical Islam and its terrorist tactics. One of Mr. Kerry's most extraordinary attacks came last weekend in Colorado, where he told a Pueblo audience, "With the same energy... I put into going after the Viet Cong and trying to win for our country, I pledge to you I will hunt down and capture or kill the terrorists before they harm us." (Kudlow, Washington Times)

Other

• Does Arafat have AIDS? (David Frum, Nationalreview)
• NEA Gave Over A Million To Kerry, Faces IRS Audit: The National Education Association has been busy this election cycle, the Washington Times reports. The teachers union has spent over a million dollars in direct support for John Kerry and $2.78 million supporting Democrats overall, prompting the IRS to investigate its tax-exempt status:
  The National Education Association (NEA) pumped more than $1 million into 67 mailings for the Kerry-Edwards presidential ticket and against President Bush in the past four months, Federal Election Commission reports show.
  Twenty-one NEA mailings in behalf of the Kerry campaign, produced by an Arlington firm whose clients include the Democratic Party, went out to hundreds of thousands of public school employees across the country this month at a cost of $468,333. The union paid for all the mailings from its general operating budget, not its political action committee, the reports show.
  Now that presents two problems. First, using the same production firm as the DNC indicates possible collusion (termed "illegal coordination" by McCain-Feingold) in advocacy efforts. Second and more to the point for the IRS, spending the money out of the NEA's general budget instead of its political-action committee violates campaign-finance regulating the influence of corporations and unions, I believe. (captainsquartersblog)
• Leftist cant at CSU-Long Beach: What passes for an appropriate paper topic in Professor Clifton Snider's English 100 course at California State University, Long Beach? Mr. Snider offers his students 56 suggestions on his university Web site (www.csulb.edu/%7Ecsnider/argument.html). Our favorite is No. 52: "What evidence do we have that Bush and his cronies lied to the American people and the world in promoting the war with Iraq?" A close second is No. 41: "George W. Bush's time in the National Guard presents important questions about the character of a man who has sent hundreds of Americans to their deaths in war and killed and maimed untold thousands of others." Discuss. (washington times)

Presidential Race ctd 8

1. Red Sox Mike Timlin "neocon" (powerlineblog)
2. Red Sox Schilling going to NH w/Bush (union leader)
3. Senate hopefuls avoiding Kerry (washington times)
4. Alleged American Al Qaeda member warns of terror attacks (abcnews)
5. US Division Commander at Al Qa Qaa theorizes on weapons (phillyburbs.com)
6. Kerry wrong numbers on Iraq situation: Stolen Munitions. Wow, 380 tons of munitions at 1 munition dump 20 miles south of Baghdad are missing. Forget the fact that these munitions went missing before our troops captured that dump. What's 380 out of the 400,000 tons already recovered at 1 dump out of 10,000 dumps already identified. Paul Bremer says that Saddam purchased almost 1,000,000 tons of munitions, mostly from France, China and Germany. Now, John Kerry calls for Bush's scalp for the 380 tons. Numerically brain-dead.
   Deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wow, we have conducted and won two wars and lost less than 300 soldiers in the hot portion of those wars. Apparently the hand-wringers are in a catatonic fit about it. Forget that we lost 58,000 in Vietnam, 50,000 in Korea and 300,000 in WWII. It goes to show that if the NYT has the immaterial and insignificant to blow into a worldwide controversy, they will lie, deceive and omit the issue to their anti-American end. (The Right Scale)
7. CBS / NYT "Roarback" hit piece on Bush:
   WHAT WILLIAM SAFIRE SAID ABOUT THE AL QAQAA STORY last night on the Larry King Show:
   Let me ... see if I can move the story of this story al Qa Qaa forward a little bit.
   We now know from CBS's admission that CBS planned to broadcast this story, which we call in journalism, a keeper, one that's kept for its greatest impact. They planned to broadcast it next Sunday night, 36 hours before the polls opened. That is known as a roar back. That's a last-minute, unanswerable story, and it would have been all over the papers Tuesday morning as people went to the polls. Now, I think that's scandalous. (instapundit)
8. THE NEW ENEMY OF HUMANITY:CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS on our REAL biggest threat: al-Zarqawi (mirror.co.uk)
9. Discrepancy found in explosives amounts: The information on which the Iraqi Science Ministry based an Oct. 10 memo in which it reported that 377 tons of RDX explosives were missing — presumably stolen due to a lack of security — was based on "declaration" from July 15, 2002. At that time, the Iraqis said there were 141 tons of RDX explosives at the facility.
   But the confidential IAEA documents obtained by ABC News show that on Jan. 14, 2003, the agency's inspectors recorded that just over three tons of RDX were stored at the facility — a considerable discrepancy from what the Iraqis reported. (abcnews)
10. Pile of Qa Qaa (washingtontimes)
11. Clifford May (nationalreview)
12. Al Qaeda formally endorses Kerry (ace.mu.nu)
13. Kerry: Iraq Is Equivalent To Bay Of Pigs (captainsquarters)
14. Brave men spin in their graves, Mr. KerryThere are old men in my family, very esteemed and revered men, who served in the Brigade 2506 during the Bay of Pigs (balubalublog)
15. Humalia Akrawy: An Iraqi Woman Speaks Out (windsofchange)
16. Black vote not necessarily for Kerry (husseinandterror)
17. Is the U.N. Meddling in the U.S. Presidential Election? (heritage.org)
18. Worst Media Hits of 2004 (mediaresearchcenter)

Presidential Race ctd 7

1. NYT's October Surprise collapses (truthlaidbear)
2. Invitation to a defrauding, take 2
   In today's Qaqaagate installment, the New York Times mentions that it is "working working with the CBS News program 60 Minutes" on the story: "No check of bunker, unit commander says." The Times interviews the 101st Airborne Division commander whose unit spent the night at al Qaqaa on April 10, 2003, but (according to the story) failed to search the site.
   Too bad the Times couldn't trouble itself to take a look at the story CBS filed on the 3rd Infantry Division's search of the site a week earlier: "U.S. searches 'suspicious' Iraqi site." (powerlineblog)
3. The Vanishing Story (nationalreview)
4. The Late Hit (john podhoretz, ny post)
5. U.S. Searches 'Suspicious' Iraqi Site: filed April 4, 2003! (cbsnews.com)
6. February 2003 U.N. Report: Saddam Moving Explosives From Al-Qaqaa
   The United Nations nuclear watchdog group first reported that Saddam Hussein had begun moving stockpiles of explosives from his Al-Qaqaa nuclear weapons facility a month before the U.S. invaded Iraq. (newsmax)
7. Urgent Warning on Iraqi Cache Issued in 1995: ignored by IAEA (ny sun)
8. Edwards Parrots New York Times' Fiction; '60 Minutes' Busted (newsmax)
9. 60 MINS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION EVE: News of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crisis mode.Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold..." (drudgereport)
10. Holbrooke: "I Don't Know the Truth" Even his campaign's senior foreign policy adviser can't vouch for the New York Times's "explosive" explosives story. But that isn't stopping John Kerry from using it as a political prop. (kristol, weeklystandard)
11. PBS Frontline: Spying on Saddam -- a defector's revelations: Iraq had a big problem on its hands, because it needed a new explanation for [Kamel's revelations]. And the explanation they hit upon was, "We are shocked, shocked, to discover that under our very noses, Kamel all this time has been hiding all kinds of weapons and documentation. We've discovered it on his chicken farm, and here it is. You may have it all."
    And they deliver to UNSCOM one million pages of newly-declared documents, which show a lot of biological weapons programs, which show a lot more chemical weapons programs, which show material shortfalls, which show missile stuff, which show nuclear stuff. But -- and it took a long time to do this -- as UNSCOM went through these million pages of documents, and hundreds of crates, they found that there were interesting gaps.
    For example, all the biological stuff was described as research. There was nothing on weaponization, that is to say, nothing on taking what you know to be a toxic bug -- anthrax say -- and putting it into a warhead that can be used as a military weapon. That's a big part of the problem. ... So in each case, Iraq kept back something important. Usually the most important thing.
    Hussein Kamel's defection tells UNSCOM that not only have they been missing something, but they've been missing a huge, huge amount of what they were supposed to be finding. Way more than they had ever suspected. Their worst nightmare scenario was eclipsed by the documents on this chicken farm, and it meant the beginning of a major new phase of biological, missile, chemical, and nuclear investigations. (pbs.org)
12. TERROR TAKES A STAND: "Kerry's rhetoric is giving the bad guys a thread to hang on," he wrote. "They're hoping we lose our nerve. They're more concerned with the U.S. elections than with the Iraqi ones." Let's review what's actually happening in Iraq.
    The terrorist stronghold of Fallujah is increasingly isolated. Night after night, precision weapons and raids by special-operations forces kill international terrorist leaders. Terrified, the local troublemakers are trying to play the negotiations card. They know the U.S. Marines are coming back. And this time the Leathernecks won't be stopped short. Allah's butchers are praying that they can bring down our president before terror's citadel falls.
    Meanwhile, the Iraqi people have been revolted by the terrorists' barbarities. They may not want U.S. troops in their streets forever, but they do not want to be ruled by fanatical murderers. Kidnapping aid workers and lopping off heads on videotape horrifies decent Muslims. The slaughter of 50 unarmed Iraqi recruits did not win hearts and minds.
    Every day, Iraqis are more engaged in defending their own country. Elections are still on track. The suicide bombings continue, but they haven't deterred Iraq's new government. Nor have they been able to stop the Coalition and Iraq's expanding forces from cleaning out one terrorist rat's nest after another.
    Muqtada al-Sadr is quiet as a mouse. Najaf is being rebuilt. Two-thirds of Iraq's provinces are quiet. We never see any headlines about our Kurdish allies in northern Iraq — because they're building a successful modern society in the Middle East. Good-news stories aren't welcome in our undeniably pro-Democratic media. (nypost)

Other

• John Kerry: few charitable contributions: As it happens, I have picked this particular bone with Kerry before. During his Senate re-election campaign in 1996, I wrote a column contrasting his denunciation of Republican greed and heartlessness with his own record of charitable giving. During the previous six years, it turned out, Kerry had given less than $5,000 to charity -- a minuscule seven-10ths of 1 percent of his gross income for the period. In some years he had given nothing at all; in others, his charitable donations added up to only a few hundred dollars. During the same six years, his Republican opponent, former Governor William Weld, had donated to charity nearly $165,000, or more than 15 percent of his gross income. "There is something very wrong with a man who makes more than $120,000 a year," I wrote then, "and gives only scraps to help those who are less fortunate than he." In the years since that embarrassing revelation, Kerry's charitable donations have increased significantly. On his tax return last year, for example, he reported giving $43,735 to charity. (jeff jacoby, townhall)

Presidential Race ctd 6

1. Hanoi Approved of Role Played By Anti-War Vets: The communist regime in Hanoi monitored closely and looked favorably upon the activities of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War during the period Senator Kerry served most actively as the group's spokesman and a member of its executive committee, two captured Viet Cong documents suggest. (lipscomb, ny sun)
2. Discovered papers:Hanoi directed Kerry: Recovered Vietnam documents'smoking gun' researchers claim: The first documentary evidence that Vietnamese communists were directly steering John Kerry's antiwar group Vietnam Veterans Against the War has been discovered in a U.S. archive, according to a researcher who spoke with WorldNetDaily.One freshly unearthed document, captured by the U.S. from Vietnamese communists in 1971 and later translated, indicates the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese delegations to the Paris peace talks that year were used as the communications link to direct the activities of Kerry and other antiwar activists who attended. (worldnetdaily)
3. Vietcong document (wintersoldier.com)
4. Report: Explosives could not be found when U.S. troops arrived
   NBC News says its crew was embedded with soldiers at time: The mystery surrounding the disappearance of 380 tons of powerful explosives from a storage depot in Iraq has taken a new twist, after a television news crew embedded with the U.S. military during the invasion of Iraq reported that the material could not be found when American troops arrived.
   NBC News reported that on April 10, 2003, its crew was embedded with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division when troops arrived at the Al Qaqaa storage facility south of Baghdad.
   While the troops found large stockpiles of conventional explosives, they did not find HMX or RDX, the types of powerful explosives that reportedly went missing, according to NBC. (cnn.com)
5. Incoming RMX "missing" explosives boomerang (hugh hewitt)
6. NBC BLOWS A HOLE IN THE KERRY ATTACK ABOUT THE EXPLOSIVES: Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News pretty much dismantled the New York Times attack on behalf of Kerry today. (nationalreview)
7. THE TIMES’ BOTCHED STORY ON MUNITIONS, DAY TWO:
   As the LA Times notes in Tuesday's paper, it's just not particularly credible ...
   Given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity at sites suspected of concealing nuclear and biological weapons. "You don't just move this stuff in the middle of the night," said a former U.S. intelligence official who worked in Baghdad. (nationalreview)
8. The Media Gulps Down More Crow: "Missing" explosives (jayreding)
9. CBS had Iraq explosives story, just not enough time: CBS News' "60 Minutes" landed a major story last week: the disappearance in Iraq of a large cache of explosives supposed to be under guard by the U.S. military. But the network nevertheless found itself in the journalistically awkward position of playing catch-up when it wasn't able to get the piece on the air as soon as its reporting partner, the New York Times, which made the report its lead story Monday.Breaking the story would have been a welcome coup for CBS News as it seeks to emerge from the cloud cast by its use of unverified documents in reporting on President Bush's 1970s military service.Instead, CBS was relegated to airing a report Monday evening, and "60 Minutes" merely got credit in the newspaper, which ran an unusual box noting that the article "was reported in cooperation with the CBS News program '60 Minutes.' '60 Minutes' first obtained information on the missing explosives." (latimes)
10. Kerry's 'Explosive' Charges Called Baseless and Ironic: "But now, after calling the administration incompetent and blundering, it turns out that John Kerry's charges Monday, as usual, were based on false assumptions," Cornyn said."I hope my colleague will now apologize to the brave men and women in Iraq who are working every day to secure Hussein's vast arsenal. And I hope that I am not the only one who sees the irony in the Kerry campaign complaining about the dangers of weapons that, if John Kerry had his way, would still be under the hair-trigger control of Saddam Hussein."Sadly, John Kerry is all too quick to criticize our men and women in uniform for short-term political gain before he has the facts. This is not a quality America needs in a commander-in-chief during a time of war." (cnsnews)
11. Researcher Alleges Potential Plagiarism in 11 Passages of Kerry's Writings (ny sun)
12. JOHN KERRY -- GOD TOLD ME TO BE A LEFTIST. (hayekcenter)
13. Kerry's Whopper Grows: Not Russia or China (indcjournal)
14. How Jews should vote? (dennis prager, jewishworldreview)
15. Why Jews should vote for Bush (Samuel Blumenfeld, worldnetdaily)
16. How dare the N.Y. Times offer advice on Iran (Ed Koch, WorldTribune)
17. New TV Special Says Kerry Should Have Been Relieved of Duty... Or Court-Martialed (humaneventsonline)
18. Pro-Life Group Says Planned Parenthood Desperate To Help Kerry Win PA (talonnews)

Other

• John Kerry UAt Harvard, a few of us stray from the "herd of independent minds." (wsj)
• The media vote: Regardless of who wins next Tuesday's election (and no matter how long it takes to get the results following expected lawsuits and ballots cast by ineligible voters), this may well be the last election cycle in which the Big Media are taken seriously or regarded as influential.The Big Media (let's abbreviate and call them BM) have gone over the top with this election. They have ripped off their final layer of faux objectivity, revealing their ideological nakedness for all to see in a desperate effort to get John Kerry elected. (Cal Thomas, Townhall)
• How the US media lost the plot: America's voters just don't trust mainstream news coverage of the election, says Rageh Omaar (independent.co.uk)
• Westin Blasts Opinion in Media: ABC News President David Westin warned against the proliferation of opinion commentary in the news media at the Institute of Politics’ John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum yesterday night.
  “The more time we express our opinions, the less time we have to talk about the facts,” Westin said. “Unfortunately, opinion is driving out facts too often in most of what we see on television today.” (harvard crimson)
• Good news from Iraq - Part 13 (chrenkoff.blogspot)

Presidential Race ctd 5

1. Iraq--First-Hand Update ("Terrorists' center of gravity..here in Iraq") (freerepublic)
2. Security Council members deny meeting Kerry: U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq. (Joel Mowbray, Washington Times)
3. Globe interview with John Kerry 10 Dec 2003: Secondly, I spent a lot of time before the vote looking at this issue. I went up to the United Nations at the request of some friends. And I met with the entire Security Council in a room just like this at a table like this. I spent two hours with them. (inaudible), just me and the Security Council, asking them questions. (boston globe)
4. A Less Than Ideal Choice (David Broder, WaPo)
5. No time for Kerry's Europhile delusions: There are legitimate differences of opinion about the war, but they don't include Kerry's silly debater's points. On the one hand, the Tora borer drones that Bush "outsourced" the search for Osama bin Laden to the Afghans, though at the time he supported it ("It is the best way to protect our troops," he said in December 2001. "I think we have been doing this pretty effectively."). But, on the other, he claims he's going to outsource Iraq to the French and the Germans, though neither of them wants anything to do with it. (Mark Steyn, Chicago SunTimes)
6. The Hate-America Left: Many of the doubts that hover over Sullivan's case for Kerry are rooted in the value system widely shared among Democrats: Most people are basically good; wars are caused not by evil motives but by misunderstandings that can be talked out; conflict can be overcome by more tolerance and examining of our own faults or by taking disputes to the United Nations. As a personal creed, these benign and humble attitudes are admirable. As the foundation of a policy to confront terrorists who wish to blow up our cities, they are alarming. (John Leo, US News&Wrld)
7. Houston Chronicle endorses Bush (chron.com)
8. Kerry refuses interview by Bob Woodward -- 22 questions: At the end of last year, during 3 1/2 hours of interviews over two days, I asked President Bush hundreds of detailed questions about his actions and decisions during the 16-month run-up to the war in Iraq. His answers were published in my book "Plan of Attack." Beginning on June 16, I had discussions and meetings with Sen. John Kerry's senior foreign policy, communications and political advisers about interviewing the senator to find out how he might have acted on Iraq -- to ask him what he would have done at certain key points. Senior Kerry advisers initially seemed positive about such an interview. One aide told me, "The short answer is yes, it's going to happen."
   In August, I was talking with Kerry's scheduler about possible dates. On Sept. 1, Kerry began his intense criticism of Bush's decisions in the Iraq war, saying "I would've done almost everything differently." A few days later, I provided the Kerry campaign with a list of 22 possible questions based entirely on Bush's actions leading up to the war and how Kerry might have responded in the same situations. The senator and his campaign have since decided not to do the interview, though his advisers say Kerry would have strong and compelling answers. (wapo)
9. Guardian says sorry, call for assassins was just a tasteless joke: The Guardian has taken a remarkable step by replacing a column in which the writer appeared to call for the assasination of George W Bush with an apology. (national biz review)
10. For Catholics, the stand for life is challenging to take (Tim Chavez, Tennessean)
11. Desperate times call for desperate fissures: Separate from the campaign itself, but still relevant as a symbol of the Democrats lack of ability for any self-expression not involving some form of slop, Ann Coulter's speech at the University of Arizona received a tasty interruption as a couple of bongwater bathers threw custard pies at the conservative columnist. Like most liberal points, they mostly missed their mark. Conservatives are often labeled heartless and mean, but the left is usually the one oppressing free speech, even if it requires two men hurling baked goods at a hundred pound woman – probably the greatest exhibition of masculinity those two pinheads will ever engage in. (Doug Powers, Worldnetdaily)
12. N.C., S.C. may share up to 60,000 voters: As many as 60,000 people may be registered to vote in both North and South Carolina, according to an investigation by The Charlotte Observer and WCNC-TV. A computer comparison by the news organizations found more than 60,000 people who appear to be registered to vote in both states, one of several instances of possible voter fraud cited in an Observer article Sunday.(freerepublic)
13. Kerry will put more pressure on Israel: Kerry senior advisor (kristol, weeklystandard)
14. Ed Koch & Rudy Giulani ad for Bush (nypost)
15. Kerry Says Missing Explosives in Iraq Illustrate Bush's Failures (nytimes)
16. HEY, WHAT ABOUT THE 248,000 TONS OF EXPLOSIVES DESTROYED OR CAPTURED? (kerryspot, nationalreview)
17. Bush I.Q. higher than Kerry's (nytimes)
18. Stephen Morris: Danger man John Kerry (theaustralian)
19. New Yorker endorses Kerry (newyorker.com)
20. Ghosts of 2000 (americanspectator)
21. KERRY'S BABE-HUNGRY BACKERS: WHILE John Kerry passes himself off as a family man these days, the Democratic presidential nominee's inner circle of friends working overtime to get him into the White House are mostly single, fiftysomething, skirt-chasing lotharios with an appetite for twentysomething babes. (nypost)
22. Mark Steyn: Guardian assassinate Bush "joke": Brooker's ironic assassination target, being famously moronic, is deluded enough to believe that, when one takes a position on something, one is expected to act on it. But in the "entire civilised world" that's no longer necessary: "Sneer globally, act fitfully" is the watchword. Because Belgium opposes the Iraq war, its foreign minister makes a few anti-Bush cracks and various lesser figures attempt to indict Rumsfeld and co for war crimes - but they know nothing's going to come of that; it's an empty gesture. (telegraph uk)
23. President Bush? Yes!Those who would replace President Bush are working to shore up the enemies of America and the Iranian populace (iranian.com)
24. Teresa's Favorite Green Groups Using Contributions for Anti-Bush Attacks(humanevents)
25. In final push, Kerry tries to close a perceived 'God gap' (csmonitor)
26. Muslim retracts bomb remark: anyone over 18 in Israel is ok target (toronto sun)

Other

• You’re a Republican??? (self-financed $100k ad in WaPo)
• AEL leader Abou Jahjah says 'every dead American, British or Dutch soldier I see as a victory' (freerepublic)
• Four . . . More . . . Years? The Left Contemplates the Unthinkable: The outcome of the race remains in doubt, of course, but there are huge implications for the media -- especially its openly liberal branch -- if President Bush is reelected next week. (Kurtz, WaPo)
• Calls to Reinvent a Party: So it seems fair to say that should Senator John Kerry lose to President Bush - which many Democrats insist is highly unlikely - the Democratic Party would be in for another bout of recrimination, self-examination and transformation. Such an exercise might seem familiar for the party, given recent experience. Yet the aftermath of a Kerry defeat might turn out to be even more traumatic than the ritualistic bloodletting that political parties undergo after a tough loss. (Nagourney, NYT)
• Marine snipers reclaim city from insurgents (usmc.mil)
• Palestinian TV: talking animal promotes massacre with AK-47 (imra.org)
• 25,000 Rat neurons used to pilot F-22 (wired)

Presidential Race ctd 4

1. John Kerry's real record as anti-war activist (weeklystandard)
2. Election integrity at stake (george will, wapo)
3. Lawrence O'Donnell loses it on Scarborough (indcjournal)
4. Double votes taint Florida, records show (orlandosentinel)
5. Kerry’s Dilemma: Or, how to lose an election. (victor davis hanson, nationalreview)
6. Two Visions, Two Styles in One Race to the Finish For better or worse, stump speeches give way to ad-libs as he reaches out to the uncommitted: Citing former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki's 2003 warning about low troop levels in Iraq, Kerry stumblingly described how the military commander spoke "to Congress and the American people through the Congress." Then, after he larded an extended passage on his healthcare proposals with long, tortured minutes of eye-glazing figures, Kerry arrived at a climactic applause line.In his prepared text, Kerry was supposed to snipe at the president's stance on healthcare by mocking his advice to Americans: "Don't get sick."Instead, he blurted out: "And don't get sick, just pray, stand up and hope — wait — whatever. We are all left wondering and hoping — that's it."Only the instant prompting of campaign staffers, clapping furiously around the room, sparked enough applause to rescue the candidate from dead air. (latimes)
7. If Bush loses, the winner won't be Kerry: it will be Zarqawi : Understandably exasperated by the feeble multilateralism that had permitted genocide in Bosnia in the 1990s and hampered effective war in Kosovo, he did not see that determined unilateralism requires more, not less diplomacy. And whereas some conservative leaders resonate internationally (Margaret Thatcher was the patron saint of taxi drivers in six continents), George W Bush doesn't travel, literally or metaphorically.
   But he has got the big idea. There is a global problem with Islamism. There is a problem of alliances between bad states and terror organisations that reach beyond state boundaries. There is an almost universal rottenness in the politics of the Arab world. There is an atrocious weakness or, as the UN oil-for-food scandal shows, worse than weakness, in many of the Western nations and international organisations that are supposed to help guarantee our security. And it is the duty of the most powerful nation on earth to do something about it.
   The only big free country that has retained the untrammelled capacity to decide for itself has been decisive. The greatest terrorist hope about America - that it was not serious - has gone. And a huge, partly covert programme has begun to catch our foes and make us safer. It tempts fate to say it, but it is not mere chance that neither Britain nor America has suffered terrorist attack since 2001. (charles moore, telegraph uk)
8. Guardian advocates assassination of Bush (Charlie Brooker, Guardian UK)

Other

• The President's Brain: Karl Rove (mark steyn, telegraph)
• Blood donor has mad-cow disease (iht)

Presidential Race ctd 3

1. Catholic Wars: Archbishop Chaput, in the Oct. 12 New York Times, is quoted after an interview with two of the newspaper's reporters: "If you vote this way [for a candidate like Kerry], are you cooperating in evil? And if you know you are cooperating in evil, should you go to confession? The answer is yes." That is interpreted in the story as asking Catholics to vote for George W. Bush. (Robert Novak, Townhall)
2. Think Again: November 2's religious dimension: Most important, Bush apprehended the theological basis of the battle with radical Islam. His own faith gave him insight into the diabolical power of a deformed Islam.
   He understood that there can be no compromise between the lovers of life and the lovers of death. Islamists lay claim to every inch of land ever under Muslim control, and seek the imposition of Shari'a (Islamic law) over the entire globe. Those goals are non-negotiable. The battle between Islamism and the West will be determined as much by will as by firepower. (Jonathan Rosenblum, Jerusalem Post)
3. Christian Conservatives for Bush (Marvin Olasky, Townhall)
4. Media gave Kerry a pass in the debates (Larry Elder, Townhall)
5. The Media for Kerry: "Absolutely," most reporters want John Kerry to win the election, declares Newsweek's Evan Thomas, commenting on the media bias he says translates into "maybe" five extra points for the Democratic ticket at the polls. That's down from the 15 points Mr. Thomas first predicted Fourth Estate favor would bestow on Kerry-Edwards, but even five points could tip a race as close as this one. Which is a chilling thought, but also a golden opportunity. It means that a vote for Bush-Cheney is not only a vote against Kerry-Edwards, but also a vote against Kerry-Edwards-CBS-CNN-New York Times. Are you incensed over Dan Rather's crude attempt to influence the presidential election with a sheaf of pathetic forgeries? Appalled by "Nightline's" Ted Koppel for using dictatorship-vetted sources in communist Vietnam to contradict the testimonies of decorated American veterans? Outraged by ABC's head-office directive to its reporters to go easier on John Kerry than George W. Bush, and not "reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable"? (Diana West,. Washington Times)
6. John Kerry Wasn't Hunting - He Was Killing (cnsnews commentary)
7. Pool report on Kerry's hunting trip (freerepublic)
8. Kerry on Hunting Photo-Op to Help Image: "We want people to have a better sense of John Kerry the guy," explained Mike McCurry, a senior campaign spokesman, saying the coming days would bring more outdoor activities that "show people the kinds of things he likes," like baseball and hockey.
   Asked whether final-stretch photo opportunities might include windsurfing, the hobby that has helped tag Mr. Kerry with an elitist's image, Mr. McCurry said, "It's too cold this time of year." (nytimes)
9. Kerry Campaign Shifts Its Focus to Southwest: Except for Florida, Democrats have all but given up on the South, an unprecedented move. Once the party of the "Solid South," Democrats this year are not actively contesting any state in the region except Florida in the presidential campaign. Instead, Kerry has shifted his attention west, mounting major efforts in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and, at one point, Arizona. (latimes)
10. Yearning for the Mud: The Kerry-Heinz Ticket and the Psychotic Party Platform: I lived in France for a number of years. I have a lot of French friends. My daughter was conceived in France. I lived in Aix, Paris, and along the Western Front. Unlike others, not all my thoughts of France are negative. But when I consider what the Democratic Party's perverted primary process disgorged as their offering in this year's election, and when I listen to half of it spout execrable French and the other half denigrate mothers and librarians after a career of hunting billionaires to extinction, it brings out the French in me. When I hear Kerry-Heinz speak, I think "Ah,nostalgie pour la boue." They say that their campaign is about the future. It's not. It is about the past; about nostalgie pour la boue. The Kerry Campaign is not some expression of deep American values and ideals, but an expression of the lowest realms of American Political life, something that has always been part of our politics -- the subconscious yearning for American defeat. (americandigest.org)

Other

• No Diversion: The Case Against the War in Iraq Has Weakened: And Gen. Michael DeLong, former Deputy Commander of the US Central Command, is among those who still do not believe it. “There was WMD in Iraq before and during the war,” he says. “You have multiple-source intelligence. Also, from other Arab leaders -- as Tommy Franks [the general who led the U.S. operation to liberate Iraq] says in his book -- King Abdullah said Saddam has WMD. President Mubarek of Egypt said … Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Other leaders who have chosen not to be named said the same thing. We had technical intelligence that saw the same thing."
  What happened to those weapons? General DeLong recalls: “Two days before March 19, 2003, we saw quite a number of vehicles going into Syria. We could not go after them because we said we'd give Saddam 48 hours. A lot of (Iraqi) leaders went into Syria, and a lot of WMD went into Syria. We've gotten indications some went into Lebanon, and probably some went into Iran. …We've done calculations that you could probably bury 16 Eiffel Towers or Empire State Buildings and never find them in the desert.”
  He added: "Biological Weapons, you could put almost your whole program in a suitcase. You could probably put your whole chemical weapons industry inside a van. Yes, they did have it." (Clifford May, Townhall)
• The Florida Lie: What happened in Florida in 2000 is some voters spoiled their ballots, voting for two candidates or not making a discernible mark on their ballot. This happens in every election, but these mistakes were magnified in Florida because of the scrutiny that came with Bush's 500-vote margin. Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and a one-man truth squad about the Florida controversy, estimates the rate of spoilage in Florida at roughly 3 percent. That is similar to the 2.6 percent rate in 1996, when Democrats failed to scream about disenfranchisement. The spoilage rate in heavily Democratic Chicago in 2000 was almost 6 percent, double that of Florida. The sad fact is, according to Kirsanow, ballots tend to be spoiled more in low-income areas (white or black), areas where many people haven't graduated high school, and areas where there are a large number of first-time voters.(Rich Lowry, Townhall)

Presidential Race ctd 2

1. Sacrificing Israel: The centerpiece of John Kerry's foreign policy is to rebuild our alliances so the world will come to our aid, especially in Iraq. He repeats this endlessly because it is the only foreign policy idea he has to offer. The problem for Kerry is that he cannot explain just how he proposes to do this.
   What single issue most isolates America from the overwhelming majority of countries at the United Nations?
   The answer is obvious: Israel. (krauthammer, washingtonpost)
2. Jewishpress endorses Bush (jewishpress.com)
3. Boston Herald endorses Bush (bostonherald.com)
4. Foreign Kerry endorsements: Arafat, Kim Jong Il, Castro, Mahathir (ibd - biz.yahoo.com)
5. Kerry on UN military missions: Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no." (washingtonpost.com)
6. Some Kerry ad spots never make the air: VNRs Now it turns out that some of the Kerry commercials are being written, edited, produced and put on satellites for the purpose of generating news articles. They have not actually aired on any network or local station -- except in reports about the Democrat's campaign. (washingtonpost.com)
7. Bush is looking good! (hugh hewitt, worldnetdaily)
8. Heinz in a Pickle: Teresa's comments on Laura (nypost)
9. A 'Real Job'? It Works for Laura Bush: But here Heinz Kerry just stepped into it deeper. Again, she was repeating that Laura Bush only had a job when she had a paying job, and not during all those years she was raising the twins, or supporting her husband, or being first lady, or all those other things one is not allowed to define as the opposite of job. (washingtonpost)
10. Mama T on Moms: Teresa Heinz Kerry pulls off the rare and amusing triple gaffe (Hugh Hewitt, weeklystandard)
11. Citizen-journalist blogs (podhoretz, nypost)
12. Bush taxcuts unfair ... to the rich (slate)
13. Guardian calls it quits in Clark County fiasco (telegraph_co_uk)
14. NY Times favorable review of "Stolen Honor": Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," the highly contested anti-Kerry documentary, should not be shown by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. It should be shown in its entirety on all the networks, cable stations and on public television. (alessandra stanley, nytimes)
15. The Money Man: Can George Soros’s millions insure the defeat of President Bush? (Jane Mayer, The New Yorker)

Other

• Hoover Institution docs on Hussein & Terror
• John Kerry 1971 testimony to senate (cspan)
• Bush IQ vs. Kerry IQ (vdare.com)
• Ann Coulter Interview #1 (rightwingnews.com)
• Ann Coulter Interview #2 (rightwingnews.com)

Presidential Race ctd 1

1. Yasser Arafat endorses Kerry: "The president [Arafat] is frustrated with Bush's policies," he said. "The president [Arafat] thinks Kerry will be much better for the Palestinian cause and for the establishment of a Palestinian state." (worldnetdaily)
2. Arafat's last best hope (powerlineblog)
3. An army brat's case against John Kerry, part 1: What John Kerry and his political backstabbers did in the early ‘70s took no courage. It simply took a ringleader with access to Teddy Kennedy and the willingness to sacrifice truth and honor. More than any other person, that ringleader, Kerry, was responsible for the atmosphere of hatred and disdain you all came home to. (powerlineblog)
4. An army brat's case against John Kerry, part 2: (powerlineblog)
5. Ashley's story: Bush comforts daughter of 9/11 victim: (www.ashleysstory.com)
6. John Edwards' unusual interest in own hair: "For a guy who's been known derisively to the Bush crowd as the Breck girl," observes Shearer, vice presidential candidate John Edwards seems "way too interested in his hair." He tries to straighten it with his fingers. A makeup technician approaches with a comb, but the senator likes it just so and does the combing himself. He signals he's ready for hair spray by closing his eyes expectantly, like a child. Then Edwards and the technician straighten a little more with their fingers. Please don't tell me that thing in his hand is a compact. Oh, dear. It is. (slate)
7. Bush's stealth Democrat supporters (brendan miniter, wsj)
8. October surprise: African-Americans for Bush: Biblically, good black religious leaders are forced to balance the demands of personal morality (righteousness) and justice (social action). Republicans are historically weak on justice, while the Democrats tend to encourage freedom of the individual without strong moral mandates. (Harry R. Jackson Jr. washingtontimes)
9. Evangelicals redeem the vote: President Bush's re-election campaign is getting a boost from powerful Christian groups, which are enlisting entertainers such as actor Jim Caviezel of "The Passion of the Christ" to cajole millions of evangelicals into voting. (sammons, washingtontimes)
10. War of Words: Tommy Franks admonishes John Kerry (nyt)
11. Kerry Off the Leash: So nobody could imagine how incompetent, crude and over-the-top Kerry has been in this final phase of the campaign. At this point, smart candidates are launching attacks that play up the doubts voters already have about their opponents. Incredibly, Kerry is launching attacks that play up doubts voters have about him. Over the past few days, he has underscored the feeling that he will say or do anything to further his career. (David Brooks, NYT)
12. The Lincoln Of Our Age (freedomstruth.blogspot)
13. Democrats prefer exploiting voter fraud: The Democrats believe that illegal immigrants, non-citizens, citizens who lack enough interest in politics to register, and even convicted felons ineligible to vote are likely to be in their column. So on Election Day the cry goes out from the local Democrat HQ: ''Round up the usual suspects -- and drive them to the voting booth.''
    Hence, whenever any attempt to expose or halt voter fraud is attempted, someone like Maria Cardona of the Democratic National Committee will step forward to claim that ''ballot security and preventing voter fraud are just code words for voter intimidation and suppression.'' A civil rights leader will throw in a reference to Jim Crow. A spokesman for La Raza will add that asking for evidence of citizenship discriminates against Hispanic citizens. And a federal judge will rule that any disputed votes should be counted first and maybe examined later. (John O'Sullivan, Chicago SunTimes)
14. Russ Smith on Kerry candidacy (nypress.com)
15. Why I cannot vote for John Kerry: But there are many other reasons for what can fairly be described as a hatred bordering on the hysterical: President Bush claims to make his decisions based on the values informed by his Christian faith; he is a Texas -- read "cowboy" -- Republican; he has no regard for the gods of the Left -- in particular the news media and academia; and most important, he believes the United States is morally superior to the United Nations and therefore fully justified in acting alone at times. (Dennis Prager, Townhall)
16. Kerry's misguided approach to the Americas: In 1985 John Kerry, just a few months into his first Senate term, accompanied fellow Vietnam era radical Senator Tom Harkin on an unauthorized free-lance “fact-finding” mission to Nicaragua where they both met with communist strongman Daniel Ortega. The two “negotiated” with Ortega and returned to the US with a fanciful “peace” proposal co-authored with Ortega.
    Kerry’s effort to disarm the Contras was ridiculed by many of his fellow senators, but the House of Representatives shortly thereafter gave Kerry his wish and voted against aid to the Contras.
    A week after the vote Daniel Ortega figuratively slapped Kerry and the US House in the face when he flew to Moscow and received $200 million in Soviet military and other assistance. An embarrassed American Congress quickly reversed itself and approved Reagan’s request for Contra funding. Part of Kerry’s problem seemed to be a reflexive affinity for communist groups; the other was his obsession with Vietnam. (Paul Crespo, Townhall)

Other

• Seven freed Guantanamo prisoners resume terrorism (outsidethebeltway)
• Campaign literature mistakenly sent home with third graders (montana's news station)
• Who pays the taxes: Finally, the data show that the rich are not only paying tax rates as high as they were during the Clinton administration, eve after large tax cuts in 2001 and 2002, but they are doing so even as their incomes have fallen. The aggregate income of the top 1 percent was down 26 percent between 2000 and 2002. In 2000, the income threshold for getting into the top 1 percent was $313,469. By 2002, that figure had fallen to $285,424, reflecting the slow economy and weak stock market. (Bruce Bartlett, Townhall)

Presidential Race ctd

1. Mark Steyn on Australian Prime Minister Howard (theaustralian.news.com)
2. Chicago Tribune endorses Bush (chicagotribune)
3. Putin urges voters to back Bush (cnn.com)
4. Mary Cheney Remark: The Lowest Blow (safire, NYT)
5. Mary Cheney: For Kerry, a Few Words That May Be Debatable (nagourney, NYT)
6. Kerry the Clueless: No Israel Plan (Martin Peretz, Latimes)
7. Police Call on Kerry to Stop Misrepresenting Their Support: F.O.P. (usnewswires.com)
8. Kerry's insincere faith: misunderstands salvation (washingtonpost.com)
9. Palestinian Authority endorses Kerry (jerusalem post)
10. Belgravia Dispatch supporting Dubya (belgraviadispatch.com)
11. Outside View: Why George W. Bush? "The clear choice for president of the United States for the American Jewish community is Gov. George W. Bush of Texas." (Dan Cohen, Washington Times)
12. The "nuisance" issue (Scripps Howard News)
13. SEN. JOHN KERRY “EXCOMMUNICATED,” ACCORDING TO VATICAN RESPONSE (defide.com)
14. DNC is crying wolf for voters (denverpost)
15. Schumer vs. Kerry (nysun)
16. Kerry's plan no way to battle terrorism (uwire.com Univ Pitt)
17. Pimpin' the pulpit (Ambra Nykol, seaspot.com seattle)
18. Teresa's Fair Share - 12% tax (wsj - freerepublic)
19. 9/11 Weighs Heavy on N.J. Voters' Minds (apnews.myway.com)
20. Kerry's Canards in 3d debate (joel mowbray, townhall.com)
21. Backward thinking Kerry unfit to lead U.S. (mark steyn, suntimes)
22. Kerry can't hide from liberal label (caldwell, sandiego uniontrib)

Other

• 2650 academics praise Jacques Derrida (humanities.uci.edu)
• Profile of Maureen Dowd of NYT (Chicago Sun Times)
• Criminal Probe Eyes Kofi Annan's Son (nypost)
• Command-post speech to AP MSM editors on blogging phenom (command-post)
• Republicans have better sex than Democrats; also, font-resize feature (abcnews)

Presidential Race

1. Kerry Draft Charge (boston globe)
2. Kerry backed off draft threat (powerlineblog)
3. Kerry refuels my mistrust (ann althouse)
4. Canadian drug importation doesn't solve the problem (nyt)
5. Austin - Birthplace of Bush Paranoia (weeklystandard)
6. Scouring Teresa's Taxes (nypost)
7. Dems Cry Theft Already - Allege vote fraud (nypost)
8. Kerry Team Demand's Equal Time: Sinclair Broadcasting to air movie (washingtonpost)
9. Poll shows disapproval of Cheney daughter reference (washingtonpost)
10. Poll: Most Condemn Kerry Debate Comment -- Cheney daughter (abcnews)
11. Why this rabbi will vote for bush (Elliot B. Gertel, American Thinker)
12. Bushes leave a lasting imprint: overnight stay in Jacksonville: The president brought his own coffee, but requested two coffee pots in his room. "He gets up at 5:30, reading five or six newspapers," Evans said, pointing to a stack of newspapers sitting on the coffee table. (mailtribune)
13. NYT Endorses Kerry (nyt)
14. I'm a Democrat for Bush: Sarah Baxter is a life-long Labour voter in Britain and a registered Democrat in the United States. So how come she wants George W Bush to remain president?Perhaps I can enlighten him. I will be one of the millions voting for Bush because I trust the president’s judgment on the war on terror more than Kerry’s. In this election, I am a single-issue voter. It is that simple. Even in the New York metropolis, there are more of us out there than he imagines. (freerepublic)(timesonline.co.uk)

Other

• Pictures from Iraq MSM will never show (album)
• Teacher reprimanded after showing F9/11 clips (kinston free press)
• Teacher reprimanded after showing'Fahrenheit 9/11' clips (lucianne thread)
• Leaked Iraqi intelligence documents connect Saddam Hussein to prominent terror leaders, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden. (worldmag)
• Saddam Al-Qaeda link documents (freedomstruth)
• Duelfer report: Oil-for-food scandal (milwaukee journal sentinel)

Presidential Debate 3 ctd

1. Anything to get elected - Edwards remark on Christopher Reeve: I'm not making this up. I couldn't. This is John Edwards on Monday at a rally in Newton, Iowa: ``If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.''
   In my 25 years in Washington, I have never seen a more loathsome display of demagoguery. Hope is good. False hope is bad. Deliberately raising for personal gain false hope in the catastrophically afflicted is despicable. (wapo)(charles krauthammer, townhall)
2. Dr. Charles Krauthammer is a paraplegic (endeavor.med.nyu.edu)
3. Australian op-ed mistaken attacks on Krauthammer: Master race? What, as in Nazi? Adams must have had a good chuckle penning that line, given that Krauthammer is a Jew. Then there's the bit about Krauthammer being one of the "most hawkish of the Bush chickenhawks." Piggy wants us to picture Krauthammer as the archetypical armchair general, hiding comfortable and safe behind a desk while others march off to die. Actually, Krauthammer wouldn't be much use on a battlefield. He's a paraplegic. Fact is, he's not even a Republican. As Piggy could have found out if he cared as much about truth as he does for the sound of his own voice, Krauthammer is a Democrat. And not just any Democrat, either, but Walter Mondale's former speechwriter. (bunyip.blogspot)
4. Krauthammer bio (washingtonpost)
5. Tommy Franks for Bush: "I know a commander in chief when I see one and there's only one on the ballot" (yahoonews)
6. Winning over Samarra (freedomstruth.blogspot)
7. Military letter from Iraq (vodkapundit)
8. Poll: GIs, Families Trust Bush Over Kerry (yahoonews)
9. Soldier: God is in this place: Just like the Vietnam War, the public thinks we are losing, but just like the Vietnam War, we in truth are winning. We have won every conflict, every skirmish, every fire fight but the media wants the great American people to believe this is a losing cause. It isn't....
   Today I was able to go to church, it was held at the base theater. With a laptop computer, a one eye (projector), two speakers and a microphone the chaplain played some praise music. I sat there and watched--watched the Marines, Soldiers and Sailors walk in and greet each other, all different ranks from the a Navy Captain all the way down to a Marine Private, and all perfect strangers but all brothers and sisters. As I listened to the music, I began to notice, an awesome presence. God was in this place. I have been in a church where I felt the presence of God but not like this, I fought back the tears. Can't have the young warriors see a Marine Captain cry. Overtaken by His Presence, I began thinking about all the info you all see on the news and what the newspapers tell you about this place. I was wrong, God is in this place. (lauraingraham)
10. Clintons ruined U.S. Vaccine Industry: What all this did was screw up the whole private sector mechanism of manufacturing and distributing vaccines. In 2001, the private sector cost of immunizing children with the 20 recommended doses of vaccines was $600 per child. The government price was just $400 per child, with the vaccine makers swallowing the difference. What has this achieved? Vaccination rates for two-year-olds have stagnated at about 74% for the past several years while adult rates are significantly lower, and with the profit margin squeeze to practically zero, some manufacturers have simply said, "We're not making the stuff anymore. It doesn't make sense. We've got this government program that tells us the maximum we can charge, regardless what it costs to make, we're going to be threatened with lawsuits the first time somebody gets sick for whatever vaccine. Screw it!" (rushlimbaugh)
11. Dignity of Whitehouse - Loathsome remarks about Mary Cheney (nypost)
12. John Kerry first marriage (Joseph Curl, Washington Times)(moveonnow.org)
13. Kerry's divorce papers: A ticking time bomb (worldnetdaily)

Other

• Heinz Kerry reports nearly $2.3 million income, $800,000 in taxes: Heinz Kerry, who is tied for last on Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans, paid $628,401 in federal taxes in 2003 and $171,670 in Pennsylvania state taxes on a total federal adjusted gross income of $2,291,137. Most of the income was from investment dividends.
  She also reported $2.78 million of tax exempt interest income from state, municipal and public entity bonds.
  According to the Kerry campaign, Heinz Kerry was responsible for more than $4.6 million in charitable contributions distributed primarily by the Heinz Family Foundation, which she created with her late husband, Sen. John Heinz.
  She and her husband file separately. Earlier in the year, Kerry released 2003 tax returns showing he had paid federal taxes of $102,152 on adjusted gross income of $395,338. (apwire)
• A President's Prayer: Montana logger in tears (McCaslin, washingtontimes)
• Leveling the media playing field: Is The New York Times a liberal newspaper? "Of course it is." – Daniel Okrent Public editor, The New York Times (joseph perkins, san diego union tribune)
• A British newspaper finds a late-term conspiracy between country's largest abortion provider and a Spanish clinic. (christianitytoday)
• Guardian UK attempt to spam Ohio Clark County voters (timblair.spleenville)
• Archive on voter fraud (billhobbs.com)
• Saddam bankrolled Palestinian terrorists (scotsman)
• DNC Voter Fraud: If Drudge has it right, then the Kerry-Edwards campaign is going to do its damnedest to turn our fine nation into a banana republic. (vodkapundit)
• Why This Lifelong Jewish Liberal is Voting Republican (command-post.org)
• Ted Koppel bested by Swiftvet O'Neil: When Koppel asked O'Neil to respond to the villagers who he, in an overstatement, said backed Kerry's claims, O'Neil -ever the trial lawyer- did what I did not think possible. He laid Koppel on the canvas.
  O'Neil held up his book and read the part where he claimed there was only one VC soldier. THEN he held up the Boston Globe biography of John Kerry and he read the part where IT said there was only one VC solder... Then in a coup de grâce, John O'Neil held up John Kerry's own AUTObiography and read the part where Kerry himself says he was glad there was only one VC soldier because he was not sure what would have happened if there had been "2, 5 or 10 of them." (wizbangblog)