Wonkette, Kos, Powerline Live in Bethlehem PA: Blog the Vote!

[UPDATE: I made a few corrections in response to a reader. FURTHER UPDATE: Here is the Morning Call's coverage of its own event.]

Theme for the evening: Where's the link? (explained below)

This was an impressive this event overall. The Morning Call is not really a paper one thinks of as being cutting-edge, but clearly they have some engaged folks working for them these days. The event was held in what is normally a concert hall on the south campus of Moravian College (right in downtown Bethlehem), and was sponsored by the Morning Call newspaper under the rubric "Blog the Vote."

The Morning Call may be on the ball, but Bethlehem sure isn't. The room was only about a quarter full. There were about five or six laptops out (free Wi-Fi) that I could see. Also, most of the crowd was older -- the average age was 45-55 -- but that's typical of a baseball/school night. The average age in Bethlehem, despite the presence of two colleges, is probably about 50 -- it's virtually a retirement community. The whole component of politically active young people one thinks of as active in the blog-world... well, they don't live here.

There were no major blow-ups. The only significant tension in the room was early on, when Kos talked about his statements in March about the contractors (he called them "mercenaries") who were killed in Falluja, and then strung up in public for display. Kos (Markos Moulitsos Zuniga) was raised in El Salvador (hence his dislike for mercenaries), and also served in U.S. armed forces during the first Gulf War -- though he wasn't actually called to go to Iraq. Also a little tense was the discussion of Sinclair Broadcasting. Kos supports the movement against their advertisers; Jon Hinderaker of Powerline tried to make it an issue of free speech, saying that the left is very wishy-washy when it comes to free speech that says things they don't like. IMHO Hinderaker's wrong: free speech is not the issue here; what's really at issue are FCC regulations about equal time, and about Sinclair's accountability to its advertisers. Wonkette also sided with Kos here, and against Sinclair.

But overall, the vibe was remarkably comfortable. Though Kos had referred to his co-panelist Jon Hinderaker of Powerline as a 'wingnut' before the event, in person all three were quite a bit tamer than their online personalities would suggest. No references to wingnuts or moonbats! The normally potty-mouthed Wonkette tried to avoid repeating the name Jon Stewart called Tucker Carlson on national television! (Kos stepped up and said it)

They also pretty much agree on what blogging is, and how it works as a medium.

In addition to what I record below, topics covered include: Rathergate (which Powerlineblog apparently broke -- I didn't know that before), the current left-blogger movement against the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the tawdry spectacle of post-Presidential Debate "spin alley," Jon Stewart on Crossfire, the hidden slang meaning of "Santorum," what it was like to blog the conventions, campaign finance reform, voter fraud scam stuff, community-building through blogging, the limitations of blogging vs. 'real' political organizing, the cross-over between radio/TV talk shows and blogging, and why blogger credibility or responsibility is a non-issue. In short, a potpourri that was exactly what you would expect.

Kos (which, to my surprise, is pronounced "koss" rather than "Chaos") revealed that he's thinking of writing some books, and also told some interesting stories about his early involvement in the Dean Campaign. But he also says he feels that blogging is made for him -- it's his ideal medium. Wonkette says she's happy doing what she's doing for now, too, even though she did do a stint for MTV at the DNC back in July. Hinderaker is a lawyer, so he probably doesn't need to blog. But I got the feeling that he definitely wants a job in politics down the line.

Wonkette and Kos disgreed on Jon Stewart. Wonkette thought that Stewart's repeated claims that he's just a comedian begin to ring hollow ("He can't keep just saying that his lead-in show is a show where puppets make crank calls"). In fact, his performance on Crossfire shows he does take himself just a wee bit seriously. And after calling Crossfire "bad for America," as he did on Friday, it's likely that the mainstream media will start thinking of him as less of a court jester and more of a "figure." Kos, in contrast, buys Stewart's line that he's just a comedian. I tend to agree with Wonkette -- Stewart can't make serious criticisms of the system of individuals in it and then wiggle out of accountability on the basis of "Crank Yankers." But then, I'm not sure that this little tempest in a teapot will be on anyone's mind in a week or two.

On responsibility and credibility, Kos made the best points about why bloggers don't have to worry about those issues so much, since popularity rules: blogging is a free market of ideas, and people will vote with their clicks. All three panelists all agreed: major bloggers as a whole are actually more accountable than the current mass-media, because everything has to be documented (motto: Where's the LINK?). And when mistakes are made, they are instantly corrected.

Each of the three bloggers on the panel made the point somewhere along the line that the real hope of political blogging (even satirical political blogging) is that people will become more critical about what they hear and read in the media. Everything can turn out to be wrong, whether it's the New York Times or Rising Hegemon.

Wonkette was the most interesting on her experiences at the conventions, especially the DNC in Boston, which she and Kos were both covering. Surprisingly, they found themselves to be the center of the story ("Look, there are bloggers here!"), rather than part of the apparatus that actually cover the event. She was also quite good on recognizing that the conventions may be theater -- but audiences (aka, "voters") actually expect just that. And they want to be entertained. Audiences/voters judge conventions by how well they're organized: "why would you vote for someone if they can't even make the balloons fall on time?"

Hinderaker's best point was on campaign finance reform, which he opposes on the grounds of the first amendment. The most recent round of reforms (McCain/Feingold) have led to, well, more of the same. What is the real difference between soft money contributions to political parties and the ads by the new '527' groups, which can be funded by billionaires on either side? Kos -- in a certain kind of way -- agreed with Hinderaker, with the qualification that he thinks the reforms are an improvement, because now the money is going directly to the ideas and the ideologies of interest, rather than to the political parties. 527s may have the same effect as 'soft-money' ads to people who watch TV in swing-states like Pennsylvania -- but they make a world of difference when it comes to the potential for corruption inside politics.

Enough said; here is a very partial and inaccurate transcription of tonight's event at Moravian.

[All quotations are approximate.]

First question: How did you start blogging?

Wonkette: It's unusual in that I was asked. I was Nick Denton sent me an email: "how would you like to blog for money?"

Hinderaker: We're Three guys who are all older, and lawyers.

Kos: [missed this: he felt urgently he wanted to express himself in response to the build-up to the Iraq war in 2002]

Second question: Credentials.

Wonkette: I don't call myself a journalist. I think of what I do as more commentary and analysis. I hate facts. I hate calling people, I hate being here right now.

I would much rather stay home in my room and make fun of people. There are people like Josh Marshall who are journalists but who like to blog. What blogging has done is open up journalism to something more fluid.

People shouldn't believe what they read just because it's written by a journalist. They should bring critical faculties to bear.

Powerline: There's an enormous amount of diversity in the world of blogging. At powerline what we do is comment on the news. We're commentators.

Kos: I did journalism for a couple of years and I dont' want to go back. I'm an activist. I use it as a tool for activism. Some people may use it to let people know what they're baby's up to. It's a tool, nothing else.

Question 3: Filtering, editing. Don't you guys need editors?

Wonkette: Just because something's bland, doesn't mean it's true.

One thing people appreciate about blogs is their passion and their immediacy. Of course, things could also be wrong.

But they can also correct what's wrong. I think on the balance the lack of editing on a blog is made up of the thousand editors you have outside your home.

Powerline: I debated this with Jonathan Kline on a TV show a few weeks back. There are some things as bloggers we can do that newspapers can't. At powerline we never just spout our opinions. We link to a source, and you can verify and decide whether you agree with our interpretation of it.

And there was much more. But as I said, I got tired of typing!

Still, it was a pretty fun evening. Probaby the most fun I've had in town since I got to have dinner at a table with Salman Rushdie a year and a half ago.

More on Anupam Kher: The Hindu

Via Locana, I saw this Editorial in The Hindu, on Anupam Kher.

It basically reiterates the points that people have already made (including many good points made by readers in response to my earlier post), but adds a couple of other incidents to the list of indictments of Kher's tenure:

It has taken decisions that have shown it up as being too priggish (example: it objected to Nagesh Kukunoor's Hyderabad Blues because the word "blue" could be misleading), too arbitrary (Mahesh Bhatt's Zakhm, which went on to win an award for national integration, was initially refused a censor certificate on the ground it could promote `communal disharmony'), and too confused (double entendres and titillating dance sequences are routinely cleared while a close embrace between two adults may attract the scissor). The second issue relates to the need to ensure that appointments to Censor Boards are apolitical and that their functional autonomy is not impaired in any way.

But they also criticize the way in which he was fired, and worry about the continuing potential for political censorship by the Congress Party.

They've outdone themselves: Dishoom

Badmash's latest, a U.S. election satire with some surrealist desi in-jokes thrown in.

Probably the best one they've ever done.

Pledge Protection Act: Latest from Republican Congress

A friend gave me a tip about the Pledge Protection Act, which the House Judiciary Committee has just sent to the full house for a vote.

Marci Hamilton at CNN breaks it down for us:

The Act -- a bill that has many cosponsors -- would deprive all federal courts, even the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to the "under God" Pledge of Allegiance.

This is only the latest attempt by Congress to force a pluralist society into a one-size-fits-all set of beliefs.

This is a remarkable violation of the separation of powers and the Establishment Clause. If the Act were to become law -- and if it were, itself, to be upheld as constitutional -- only state courts would be able to hear constitutional challenges to the pledge.

We would therefore have a 50-state collection of views as to what the Free Exercise Clause, and the Establishment Clause, mean in this context. And that would be constitutional lunacy.

Moreover, we would have Congress making its actions that involve compelled speech and religious viewpoint unreviewable!

I have a feeling that the lemmings in the House will pass this, and I'm sure George Bush would sign it. But I don't see it getting through the Senate...

DailyKos and Wonkette in Bethlehem, PA

Uber bloggers DailyKos and Wonkette will be in Bethlehem, PA tomorrow night for a panel discussion on political blogging. A conservative from Powerlineblog -- never heard of it -- will be there too. It will be happening at Moravian College, which is just up the street from Lehigh.

I'm psyched... I hope I can get into the hall where it's happening... If I can, expect a report on the event.

(Thanks for the tip, Anjali.)

Chinua Achebe rejects award

According to BBC, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has rejected a high honor from his government as a protest against the government's failure to stabilize the country.

Olusegun Obasanjo has been in power for five years, and was hailed as a huge step for democracy when he came into power. But things have not turned out exactly as planned:

"Nigeria is a country that does not work," he said: "Schools, universities, roads, hospitals, water, the economy, security, life." There was a four-day national strike last week over a rise in fuel prices, while more than 10,000 people have been killed in communal clashes since Mr Obasanjo was elected in 1999.

Motorcycle Diaries micro-review; Che Guevara on the web

We saw Motorcycle Diaries last night. It's a lyrical film about self-discovery, but its also a bit strange, in that its "Che as tourist" angle is also an excuse for the film itself to engage in some cultural-historical tourism.

One probably shouldn't watch it entirely seriously. For one thing, the actor playing Che Guevara is way too good-looking. At certain serious moments in the film, when he puts on his ponderous, 'something's not right', thousand-yard stare, he reminds me of nothing other than a male model -- Abercrombie and Fitch, not Guevara and Castro. Granted, I know that Che in real life was incredibly dashing, but it's probably not quite what Walter Salles was aiming for.

On a more serious note, I have to say my earlier liberal, warm-and-fuzzy appreciation for charismatic revolutionaries has given way to that dreaded sign of adulthood, anti-charismatic pragmatism.

Also testing my faith in Che is Paul Berman (author of Terror and Liberalism, and one of the more influential and interesting liberal hawks) whose trashing of Che in Slate pulls no punches:

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale.

Yikes. I didn't know about these later statements of Che, or the firing squads, or... really very much of substance at all. The Che Guevara I've been exposed to is mainly the punk rock t-shirt, "stick it to the man" variety.

On the internet, I did find a quote or two verifying Berman's point about Guevara's turn to the party line. He started saying things like this, for instance:

Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people's unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear, that another hand may be extended to wield our weapons, and that other men be ready to intone our funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine guns and new battle cries of war and victory.

Maybe that sounds stirring, but the lyricism is grotesquely misplaced. Whenever poets start to praise the "singing of machine guns," I start heading for the door.

I have to admit I've never read the Diaries (you can get them pretty easily on Amazon and in bookstores). Berman has a definite advantage here, when he says:

The movie in its story line sticks fairly close to Che's diaries, with a few additions from other sources. The diaries tend to be haphazard and nonideological except for a very few passages. Che had not yet become an ideologue when he went on this trip. He reflected on the layered history of Latin America, and he expressed attitudes that managed to be pro-Indian and, at the same time, pro-conquistador. But the film is considerably more ideological, keen on expressing an "indigenist" attitude (to use the Latin-American Marxist term) of sympathy for the Indians and hostility to the conquistadors. Some Peruvian Marxist texts duly appear on the screen. I can imagine that Salles and his screenwriter, José Rivera, have been influenced more by Subcomandante Marcos and his "indigenist" rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico, than by Che.

Pro-conquistador? The film glossed over this pretty egregiously.

As much as his critiques ring true, perhaps Paul Berman overreaches just a bit at some points in his essay. This is a film about human fellowship and the discovery of the largeness of the world (and of injustice in the world). It's not explicitly a film about ideology. You don't need to be a Marxist to enjoy Motorcycle Diaries, but you do need to have some idealism left in you.

Despite my real reservations about the politics of the film, I still recommend it. It certainly made me want to close the lid of the copier (the copier is an excellent metaphor for the tedium of academic life), put the books back on the shelf, and go out and do something proactively and concretely helpful in the world. Helpful in the interest of making a small but actual difference -- certainly NOT in pursuit of a rigid ideological line or economic abstraction.

Some links

Wikipedia site on Che. Quite thorough.

A detailed chronology.

An archive of mainly speeches by Che.

Recently Declassified information on the death of Che. (Not sure if this is 100% believable).

Che Guevara quotes

Ron Suskind's damning quotes

Has anyone read this long New York Times piece by Ron Suskind, author of The Price of Loyalty?

The things he quotes George Bush as saying are pretty horrifying. I'd never seen most of them before. My "favorite" is probably the following:

In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

Yes, folks, that is your President talking.

Big win for secular/left parties in Maharashtra

The Congress-NCP alliance in Maharashtra has done quite well in the recent state elections there. The two parties together have 141 seats, just shy of a majority. The pundits (the real ones -- the Indian ones) are reading this as a positive development for the Congress, and for the Manmohan/Sonia government. Maybe they'll still be in power a year from now!

The BJP and Shiv Sena parties both lost seats. Most of the national coverage (on Outlook, for instance) has focused on this as a defeat for the BJP. But one news article I found suggests that the bigger question is the future of the Shiv Sena.

The Hindu radical Shiv Sena won only 62 seats in the 288-member state assembly, down seven from its previous tally. The party's electoral rout in state capital Mumbai, its traditional stronghold, came as a major blow. It won only nine seats in this city of 14 million people, billed as the country's financial and entertainment hub, as against 12 in the previous state polls in 1999.

One should probably note that a loss of three seats in Mumbai is not quite a rout.

The stakes were particularly high for Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, who was looking for a win to stem squabbling within his party that is threatening to erode his authority. Many Shiv Sena leaders had quit the party in recent months and fought the poll as rebel candidates. Experts said the discord between the two heirs to the Thackeray throne -- his son Uddhav and nephew Raj -- would only intensify in the days ahead with the Shiv Sena failing to do well in the elections.

Once known as the most powerful man in Maharashtra with a fanatical following, Thackeray -- referred to by his acolytes as "Tiger" -- is also fighting a battle to prove that he may be physically frail but the roar is very much in place. Poor health had forced Thackeray, 78, to cut back on his election campaign. He addressed only two public meetings in the run-up to the polls to boost the prospects of the Shiv-Sena BJP combine. The Shiv Sena was trying hard to regain its base in Mumbai as it searched for a leader to take over the mantle from Thackeray, a cartoonist turned politician.

Gossip, folks. Isn't it more interesting than predictable headlines like "BJP Scratches Head" or "Singhal Blames Departure from Agenda of Ethno-religious Hatred for Loss" ?

Censorship in India: Documentary filmmakers condemn the CBFC

I got this Press Release ("Campaign Against Censorship/Films for Freedom") from SACW. They do make some attempt to balance their criticisms of Kher and the BJP when they also criticize the censoring of Prakash Jha's film on J.P. Narayan (which is critical of Congress, naturally).

I haven't had time to verify their version of Kher's role in the censoring and then (this was a surprise to me), the ultimate approval of The Final Solution. However, quite apart from Kher's culpability, the CBFC looks both profoundly corrupt and seriously incompetent in this account, especially with the "regional panels."

Mr. Anupam Kher led one of the most repressive censorship regimes of recent times . Under the short one year tenure of Anupam Kher as Chairman, the CBFC already mired in controversy, has gone through one of its darkest periods. The targeting of films that dealt with the Gujarat massacres of 2002, which the previous government had in particular a vested interest in stopping, exposed the partisan, authoritarian, and irresponsible use of the powers given to the CBFC. Mr. Kher and other officials of CBFC were directly responsible for the harassment faced by Rakesh Sharma (dir. of Final Solution). Final Solution went through a bizarre process of preview by CBFC. To begin with it was not even being accepted for preview on various pretexts; then it was denied a certificate for public exhibition with Mr. Kher making statements to the media defending the denial of certification and asserting that the film could not be publicly exhibited. The film was finally reviewed under immense public pressure and a certificate with no cuts was granted and now Mr. Kher claims it was his intervention that got the film a certificate! There are many other films that are still stuck with the CBFC.

The process began when the Regional Panels of the CBFC were stacked with political appointees with direct political links to the party in power (and mostly with no connection/interest in cinema). There was harassment of filmmakers at the censor board, and eventually the unprecedented step of the CBFC taking an aggressive and proactive stand in stopping screenings of "uncensored" films, often in collusion with right-wing political fronts. All of this happened with the knowledge of Shri Kher, if not at his behest. Mr. Kher was personally involved in attempting to disrupt the Films For Freedom festival in Bangalore earlier this year. He was aided in this attempt by members of the Hindu Jagran Manch who also claimed to be members of the regional board of the CBFC.

At least one thing in the above seems a little fishy to me. How do we know whether Kher was involved in the attempt to disrupt the film festival?

We also condemn the political censorship being imposed by Prasar Bharati on film-maker Prakash Jha's recent film on Jayaprakash Narain (especially regarding those sections in the film that have critical references to the Emergency that was imposed by the Congress government). This clearly reiterates our belief that important public institutions like the CBFC and Prasar Bharati have been stripped of their independence and continue to be used by political parties to simply further their narrow agendas.

To ensure freedom of expression and to strengthen democratic institutions there is therefore an urgent need to totally review the censorship laws under the Cinematograph Act as well as the functioning of the CBFC.

Indian Film Censor Board chief fired; threatens to sue

After the Indian Communist Party made some disparaging comments about Anupam Kher, the veteran actor who runs India's film censorship board, Kher was summarily fired.

Kher is threatening to sue Harkrishan Singh Surjeet and the CPI for accusing him of being an "RSS man." But the Communists have responded by saying that they never called him an RSS man. They simply want him out because he was appointed by the BJP; his removal is part of "de-saffronization."

Michael Moore fans should be pleased; Kher and the censor board recently decided to ban Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in India (not that it isn't already available everywhere as a 100 Rupee VCD!).

'Who you callin' a lesbian?' Bush-Cheney team wins post-debate spin

Bush and Cheney have dominated the post-debate spin with a weird, fake outrage about Kerry's invocation of Mary Chaney's sexual orientation. Fake it may be, misplaced too. But even with the mysterious nature of Kerry's offense (their problem is that he mentioned her at all, not what he said about her), Bush and Cheney -- with normally trophy-ish wives transformed into supporting attack-dogs -- have owned the post-debate story. If you check news.google.com's stories about the most recent debate, a clear majority are about the Cheneys' outrage about Kerry's use of the word "lesbian."

Bush and Cheney are playing a little with a slippage in how conservatives and liberals talk about this issue. Non-homophobic people ("liberals") use words like "gay" and "lesbian" objectively, value-neutral. Homophobes don't do this. To say the word "lesbian" is for them always a slur, and so Dick and Lynne Cheney can accuse Kerry of insulting their daughter in the debate. Kerry thought he was merely describing her, reminding America of her existence. Bush and Cheney have efficiently capitalized on this linguistic gray zone.

(Where is Mary Chaney, by the way? I wish she would step forward and say something)

Granted, Kerry was still probably wrong in mentioning Mary Chaney. The invocation of a personal connection can be a useful way to blunt the edge of the rampant homophobia of Conservative Christians, but that's not what Bush was espousing in his response to the 'is homosexuality a choice' question. Bush was talking about respect and dignity, (even if he didn't mean it), so Kerry's statement seemed to come out of the blue. And mentioning family members is always a little stinky. Kerry must have been aware that there's a difference between Edwards' reference to it with Cheney across the table, and his own reference to it out of the blue.

It's depressing, because after re-reading the transcript of the debate, I'm feeling more and more that Kerry did a good job. But in the national print-media especially, I'm seeing very few references to Bush's huge "I never said I didn't care about Osama Bin Laden" flap. Sorry, Chris Suellentrop, wrong on this one. No one except a few thousand bloggers here and there seem to have noticed. In small and medium-sized papers all around the country, the story is "Cheney says, 'Kerry, how could you?'"

The absurdity of Bush on several other subjects has been quickly forgotten in the national consciousness. No one is talking about his stupid response to the loss of jobs question (more "Education"!), his lame excuse for not signing an assault weapons ban, and his freaky justification for defacing the U.S. constitution with a hateful, bigoted amendment banning gay marriage (it would have "the benefit of allowing citizens to participate in the process. After all, when you amend the Constitution, state legislatures must participate in the ratification of the Constitution.").

It won't help that 50 million people watched the debate despite the lure of watching Pedro Martinez prove yet again that the Yankees are his daddy. It won't help that 50 million Americans saw a bit of spit lingering on the President's lip for 90 minutes. It won't help that Kerry "won" the debate, because the other side has successfully -- if spuriously -- have ruled the follow-up.

Pillow Fight Club

Pillow Fight Club (via Ishbadiddle)

We need to import this to the U.S.

Software can't solve everything...

From Reuters.

Forget Ideology -- it's classroom politics time.

I think Michael has a point about the importance of tone, style, voice, image...

This isn't about democrats or republicans, it's about 6th grade classroom politics. Kerry is the kid who did his homework; Bush is the affable slacker. Who does the rest of the class like more? It comes out 50-50.

This election will probably come down to random exigencies like voter-turnout, and tiny victories and losses in swing-states. If Bush wins, he will probably again lose the popular vote. Unless something major happens, I think we are looking at another nail-biter.

Still, I did think Kerry finally made some noises that will energize his base, particularly among women and African-Americans. He'll need that to get people to care a little more.

Then again, maybe none of this matters. Weren't most people watching the Yankees-Red Sox last night? (Fortunately, neither New York nor Massachusetts are swing states! Interesting...)