Varifrank

Moving Day

I've Moved!!!

www.varifrank.com

Update your links. By this evening, this site will refer to the new location.

What's Missing From Kerry's Vocabulary?

Once upon a time, someone told me that nothing ever happens in a movie by accident. Every frame is planned, everything that ends up on the screen in the final print is there because someone wrote the scene, someone acted it, someone directed the scene and finally someone edited it. What you see on the screen is a manufactured vision. If you are watching a movie and a small detail occurs at the beginnging, it will almost always relate to something later.

Campaigns for elective office are also like movies, everything you see is a manufactured vision. To see the truth behind the candidate, you have to learn to keep you eyes open for the little details. One thing I like to do is just listen to the candidates. I mean really listen. What words do they choose?, how often do they repeat them. What is it that gets them emotionally engaged?

So for about 9 months, I've been listening to Kerry. I've been trying to put my finger on something thats been bothering me about Kerrys vocabulary and I think I finally figured it out what it was.

Earlier this evening I noticed a parallel between Kerrys Senate testimony in 1971 and something he said today.

In 1971, he said this:

"we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.

Now, bear in mind that when he said this, this was the prevailing world opinion. Communism was something to be tolerated. We had to maintain the status quo.

A great many learned men believed that this was so. It took one man of faith and another of conviction to free the world of the foolish idea that Communism was something that should be tolerated. Today we accept it as a given that Communism has as much relevance in the world as does zoroastianism, but it wasn't always that way.

Today, Kerry said this:

There are 60 countries around the world with al-queda cells in them. Many of these countries have clearer ties to alqueda than did Iraq. Did we invade Russia? Did we Invade China?

Now, to my mind what Kerry was trying to say was obvious. What Kerry said in that little line was the 2004 version of his 1971 defeatist statement.

To paraphrase:
We can't fight Terrorists, and I would have thought we would have learned that by now

Kerry went on to say that sanctions were working and that they did not have to be lifted if we had used the "right diplomacy".

"Right Diplomacy", who talks like that?

And then it hit me, the little nagging thing that had been bothering me for 9 months. It was the word I never heard Kerry use in the context of the Jihadi War.

Kerry does not talk about Victory.

Oh sure, He uses it it terms of himself prevailing over "the evil Bush", but Kerry never discusses the word or the concept of Victory by the Western Democracies. Kerry has said that he would "fight the Terrorists", but Kerry does not use the word "Victory". He has given up before he has started.

Kerry - doesn't believe in Victory. Kerry doesn't believe in us!

This post features a picture of one of my heroes. The man who saved western civilization, Mr. Winston Churchill. He is flashing the "V for Victory" sign. Winston Churchill and his country stood alone against the dark night of fascism, while my country, the beacon of freedom sat on its hands allowing half the world to become engulfed in flames. Churchill stood on the rubble of his capitol and flashed the V for Victory, While Men like Charles Lindberg and Teddy Kennedys father talked at length about our eventual defeat by the superior forces of fascism. Churchill didnt listen to the voices of defeat, and people hated him for it. The adulation that the world feels for him now happened after Victory was assured, I suspect the same will be true of President Bush, after Victory is assured, everyone will say he was always their hero. For now, he lives in the cold exile that results whenever you do the right thing instead of the popular thing.

Back then, Churchill didn't listen to the voices of defeat, Churchill believed in Victory. Today President Bush is not taking council to the voices of defeat, He believes only in Victory.

Kerry believes only in Kerry and says so with his every breath. To Kerry, There's no enemy of America worth fighting and no virtue in America worth defending.

From now till election day, We need to buck up our spirits by playing the first few notes of "Beethovens fifth" we need to flash the "V for Victory". We need to remind everyone what our goal is, and that is Victory. It is only by being victorious over the Jihadis that can we have peace. There is no co-existance possible with these murdering parasites. Senator Kerry has said his strategy is to have a "Summit". I say the only "summit" we should have is on the deck of the USS New York after the last Islamic country has had a free election.

Then, and only then, can we have peace.

I need to find some paratooper crickets, I'm getting a real "Longest Day " vibe going here. Bumper stickers? I want to go into a grocery store and hear paratrooper crickets from every corner, and know what it means while the democrat defeatists shake their heads and wonder what that sound means.

dot-dot-dot-dash. It means your ass, Mr Kerry.

What Do Winners Act Like?

Now, A few people have written me asking if I'm still confident in a Bush Victory as I was back when I wrote the now famous "Farewell John Kerry" Post.

Oh, you could say that. You could also say that any doubt I may have had, as been erased, not by Bush but by the Democrats themselves.

Allow me to illustrate:

This week Union thugs and Democrat Party Muscle have begun a campaign of terror against Republican voters in several states.

Milwaukee,Wi
Huntington, W.Va.
Orlando, Fla.
Tampa, Fla.
Seattle, Wa.

Now, Why would you do this? Frustration? Anger? Righteous Indignation?

Nahhh. There's a better answer if you think about it, and its obvious if you send anytime looking at polls in detail.

These attacks are designed to do one thing, and one thing only, and it's the one thing that Kerry has never managed to do, and that is suppress the Republican vote. Kerry, a candidate who was picked by the Democrats as their second choice, based purely on their belief that as a former military man, he would be found acceptible by the Republican faithful. Talk about your "Stalingrad" sized miscalculations, this one goes in the books.

All they had to do was ask us, we would have told them, give us a Tony Blair, a Joe Lieberman Democrat, and yeah maybe. But this guy. Are you serious? While we may disagree with those other men, we know that both Tony and Joe are on "our side". In the test of his life, Kerry switched sides, and sided with the murdering thugs that took over Vietnam, and no, we havent forgiven him for that, and no, it wasn't heroic, it was opportunistic and dishonest.

Now The question of the day would be this:

"If the Democrats were winning, why would they need to suppress the Republican voters by threats of violence?"

They arent. They aren't even close, and they know it. What used to be a clear Democrat majority in this country has changed to a Republican majority. Since 1994, there has been a "Sea Change" underway. There are still a good number of people who would never announce publically that they have voted Republican, but they do. Since 1994, in Election after Election, we see polls that say " too close to call", but very often after its all said and done its the Republican who shows up the victor. Lori Byrd of Polipundit, makes this clear with her data in this Post

Theres more going in the this election that most of us realize. Whats happening below are very feet is that the political power in this country is about to change places. This election is the last chance by the Democrats to remain relevant as a political power. Their only hope now is to suppress the vote of a party that used to be weak and incapable of winning offices most anywhere. That does not describe the Republican party of today, but its is increasingly a good way to describe the Democrat party.

If you remember the O.J. Simpson Murder Case Verdict, just remember the faces of the white audiences. That is exactly what the faces of the Democrats will look like on November 3rd.

Yeah, I'm confident. I have one other reason why:

Kerry Then:

"we cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now. "

Kerry Now:

On Sudan:
While on BET, Kerry said:

"the United States would have to be in a position in Iraq and Afghanistan to allow that to happen". He also said his options as president would be limited because President Bush has overextended U.S. forces.

"Our flexibility is less than it was," he said. "Our moral leadership is not what it ought to be."

"I don't want to be a country that allows a second genocide in a decade to take place," Kerry said.

But on September 9th, Kerry said:

"The United States should ensure the immediate deployment of an effective international force to disarm militia, protect civilians and facilitate delivery of humanitarian assistance in Darfur," he told the meeting of black Protestant churches here.

"If I were president, I would act now. As I've said for months, I would not sit idly by," Kerry told the group.

On Iraq:
"Kerry said he still believes Saddam was a threat, but that dozens of other countries are capable of producing nuclear weapons or are home to al-Qaida operatives. "Did we invade Russia? Did we invade China?" he said. "

Kerry has decided that Terrorism and Genocide are just too hard to fight, just as Communism was too hard to fight.

To Kerry, There's no enemy of America worth fighting and no virtue in America worth defending.

Construction Dust II

The new varifrank Moveable Type site is coming along nicely, and to quote Stephen Green on the use of Sekimori Design, "She Rocks!.

I dont want to give away the whole show here, but the new look and feel is pretty-damn-cool. One problem is that my oh-so-cutsey masthead " Forget it Jake, It's Chinatown" doesnt really work with the new motif.

So we had to come up with a new masthead, heres a sample on how that conversation went:

Hm. The tagline is too long for that space on the bottom right, so I've had to adjust the bars a bit. See what you think (attached).

Ok let me think, how bout this: "Exterminate The Brutes"

No, that's a bit over the top. Too much English Lit. Besides, it sounds like something for a blog based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. You don't want to give people the wrong idea here.

How about this: "You either surf or you fight".

Well I like it, but I don't think anyone else will get it. That's as bad as the "Chinatown" reference.

Ok, what about: "An epic drama of adventure and exploration"

Come on man, its a blog, written by a guy who can barely spell and got a D+ in English every year in school . Yes its a "2001" reference, but we already had a problem with the length of the Chinatown line and this is even longer. Come back into the light, Frank...

Ok, quickly say the first three words you'd use to describe your personal wish for the world:

Liberty, Freedom , Victory.

Ok, that's better. Let's go with that. Its almost jingoistic enough to put on a flag like "don't tread on me". Simple and to the point.

Stay tuned. (And she does Rock!).

Selective Memory

Golly, I remember the hordes of Democrats that were saying in 2003 that there were "No WMD's in Iraq", because they were the ones saying that "thousands of soldiers were at risk of attack by "Iraq chemical and biological weapons". I also remember the Democrats saying that because they all still voted for the action against Iraq. Clearly all those brave policy makers were just intimidated by the evil Bush administration who holds the puppet strings of government in the US.

I also remember the French, Russian and German Foreign ministers and intelligence services saying that there were "no WMD's in Iraq". I remember because they also issued memos at the time stating the risk to civilian populations from Chemical and Biological Weapons. Why did they do that? Because those three countries still had the receipts for selling Iraq the equipment to build WMD's.

I'm sure the UN said something about WMD's at the time, but I'm also sure the memo started with a rebuke of Israel and its nuclear weapons, so I just tuned it right out.

Let's see how this works. In 1990's Afghanistan was an infected host state giving sancturary and support for a set of bloodthirsty murdering parasitical thugs who attacked the US in Manhattan in 1993, again in Saudi Arabia, and the USS Cole in 2000. What did the US do in the 1990s to stop the terrorist threat from Afghanistan in the 1990's? Did anyone acknowledge that there was a threat? Nope, not a thing and not a word. Why, the're just funny little people, they might blow up a car here and there, but no real threat to the country.. The Result? The terrorist parasites living on the host body of Afghanistan go on to kill 5,000 civilians by using nothing more sophisticated than 19 suicidal dupes and a stack of box knives.

9th Century religious death cult + box knives = mass death : Ergo - WMD's.

Nope, no WMDs here. move along...

In 2003, we have a thugocracy in charge of Iraq that has threatened or attacked every single one of its neighbors and committed genocide in its own country, and is clearly judged by every country in the world to be a terrorist state. It also has a large capacity for the creation of chemical and biological weapons and with their clear demonstrated ability to use them against their own civilian populations they are very dangerous indeed. Iraq also has access to vast amounts of cash. It has also violated every-single-agreement with the UN in regards to abiding by the armistace of 1992 and threw out UN weapons inspectors in 1998, leading everyone to believe that they must have them.

And the answer the Democrats seem to give today is that despite the recent experience that 9/11 taught us, despite Bali and Beslan, we should have just looked the other way when it come to action on Iraq. The Iraq action was a Preemptive War. It was meant to stop Iraq from becoming a bigger threat than it already was. We failed to take action on Afghanistan when we could've stopped 9/11. Afghanistan had no infrastructure, it could only provide sanctuary. Iraq could not only provide sanctuary but access to capital and industrial infrastructure. Should we just let it fall into the hands of the Jihadis? Should we allow its assets to fall into the hands of the Iranians?

19 fanatics and box cutters. Thats the low end of the spectrum for WMD's.

19 fanatics with access to not much more technology and cash than the average crack or meth house has in it and you can kill millions with anthrax bacilli. thats the middle spectrum for WMD's

19 fanatics with access to billions of dollars, access to inport/export facilities, multinational trade agreements, intelligence services/infrastructure/data, aircraft and shipping, international banking letters of credit with the a host state. A host state with an active chemical industry. Thats the high end of the spectrum of WMD's.

Thats what we took preemptive action to stop. The potential threat was there, the expressed threat was there. If you wait for the threat to become a real threat, you are already dead. We learned that on 9/11.

Did Iraq have WMD's? probably not. Do I care?, no. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I didn't need WMD's to decide to take action in Iraq, and whatever reasons I may have put on the table before the invasion, the reality of "Childrens Prisons" removed any other prerequisite. Only people who have lost their moral compass and a good portion of their brain needed the WMD's to be sitting in a big warehouse just waiting to be captured by US forces. By every measure of decency and strategy, Iraq needed to be liberated. From just a strategic sense, Iraq made all the sense in the world as it provides wide access to the border with the next threat, the far more sophisticated and dangerous Jihadi host state - Iran.

Those who decry the invasion and liberation of Iraq are also those who are wondering why we arent in Iran or North Korea. Look at a map, tell me what surrounds Iran? American Troops are on the eastern border, the northern Border and the Western Iraninan Border. We control the seas of their southern ports . Now, Look at a map and tell me what type of geographical feature that is Korea. Korea, is a pennisula. American Troops are on the Southern Korean DMZ against North Korea, side by side with their South Korean Allies. The American Navy has a defacto blockade underway around the Korean shoreline. The Chinese, following a long standing tradition is building large physical barriers ( some might even say its a "wall") on the northern border of their one time client state.

If Bush was "lying about WMD's", dontcha think he could also plant some WMD's? Would it be that hard?
Why didnt he order Iraq to be salted with WMD's? Because, he, like me, didn't care. It wasnt the WMD's, it was the place and the people that needed to be turned into assets against the Jihadis instead of a waiting for it to become a real threat against us.

Bush didnt lie. Some people just didnt hear what he was saying. Afganistan was a threat, it is no longer. Iraq was a threat, it is no longer. The Bush Doctrine says " If you are a terrorist, or if you harbor terrorists, we will make no distinction". The only question you have to ask yourself about the future is how many people have to die before you take action to stop it?

UPDATE: In Response To A Reader of this post, I also wrote this, following a theme on a couple of earlier posts:

Thanks, I appreciate the review and the link.

As far as why people find the Iraq situation so much different than I do, I have no idea. 60 years ago, we got attacked in Hawaii and the first country we invaded in response was Morocco. Why? Because it fit the larger strategy of ending fascist power in Europe. 60 years ago, the smartest man on earth( Einstein ) said we should build an atomic bomb before the Nazis did, it turned out the Nazis didnt even come close to building an atomic bomb. If FDR can be wrong, If Einstien can be wrong, then what can we really expect of the rest of us. There's two ways that history could've come out, One way the Nazis do get the bomb, at which point this email would be written in German or the other way, were we are wrong but alive to say so. I prefer the second version, which is what happened then, and its what happened now in Iraq.

But it also turned out that the Nazis were killing their own citizens, ( albeit an unpopular religious minority, but German citizens none-the-less) so fast that they had to develop new technology to dispose of the bodies. Genocide wasnt why we went to war, but in the end its why everyone fought so hard. The people who fought that war on our side didn't fight for peace, they fought for Unconditional Surrender and Total Victory. We had 7,000 KIA and 18,000 wounded in Iwo Jima, just one battle in the Pacific Theatre of War, in a bigger world war where 52 million people lost their lives, nobody got weepy and said that we needed a damn "summit" with our allies or that we were sustaining all of the casualities.

How that generation survived the great depression, then fought both the Nazis and the Japanese empire then came home and raised an entire generation of whiny little piss-pants quitters, I'll never know. My personal "pet theory" is that this is what really happened when they put fluoride in the water back in the 1950's.

We are at war, thats not conjecture, its a fact. We didnt start the war, but we damn well better win it. Winning does not mean quitting and hoping for the best. Winning means ensuring that the word "Jihadi" has the same resonance as "Nazi" or "Klansman" or any of the other losers in the humanities hall of shame.

Not Watching

I'm not watching the debate tonight. I just want to ask why anyone else is watching? Did anyone ever watch a debate and walk away saying " Gosh , I thought I liked Candidate X, but Candidate Y really showed me his stuff last night ". Sorry, to my knoweldge thats never happened. It's the Sasquatch of water cooler life. Youve heard of it, you know people who swear that they know somebody who knows somebody who... but it just aint so.

Look at what happened last week. Kerry gives the performance of his life, Bush is now at a higher job approval than before the debate. Do you know anyone, anywhere who after last weeks show has now said " I can now switch my vote for Kerry". If you do, just ask them for me what is Kerrys position on the War? Because I've watched the debate, and I've read the transcript 3 times and I still can't tell if he wants to leave Iraq altogether or wants to increase troops and spend more money or give Nuclear weapons to Iran and unilaterally disarm. I can't tell.

My guess is Kerry can't tell either, but it doesnt matter because "he's not Bush", and to about 47% of the electorate and just about every Jihadi on the planet, thats all that matters. Kerry or Edwards could walk out on stage in a chiffon dress, with a string of pearls, and there would be many in the TBM who would accuse any of us that point out that "real men dont wear Chiffon", as just another right wing attack on their patriotism.

Let's be honest. The contest is over, everyone who can breathe has now made up their mind, so all of this outgassing in the last 28 days is for nothing. If you still don't know who you are going to vote for by now, nothing anyone says in the next 28 days will make you go " Oh, THATS a good point, Now I'm definitely all for Mr. fill-in-the-blank, oh Honey! get my checkbook, I'm writing a check to that guy tonight".

And all this stuff about "new voters" is also crap. People dont vote out of a sense of duty, they vote out of habit. Kids ( I was one myself once, so I speak from experience) only have bad habits and are usually so self-absorbed and soaking in bong-water that they hardly ever notice that there's an election going on till after its over anyway. Those that do notice are usually pretentious little do-gooders, who will most likely vote for Nader( as long as the ballot is on biodegradeable stock and only if they can use vegetable based ink and the polling station is "cleansed" before the election by a taoist monk)

The TBM need a good horserace, or you'll be like me, watching whatever else is on, what you've stored on your Tivo or reading "blogs" on that danged computer fer-gods-sake. The TBM will make news even if there is none to report, there has never been a news broadcast in the history of mankind that ended early because there was a general lack of anything interesting going on. Why do I like blogs? - Reason #24: Because if a blogger doesn't have anything to say, they say so, they dont crank out a piece every M-W-F just to keep their editor and publisher happy.

The candidates have made their case and the election is actually over. We are just waiting for the Polls to open so we can get on with it. If the polls opened tommorow are there any of you who would say " I need a little more time to make up my mind"?

Hardly.

We've reached the point in the battle where the 'signal to noise' ratio is so high that weve all reached down into the dashboards in our mental cockpits to turn off our radios and missle warning systems. There's just too much chaff in the air, so it's time to get back to our "seat of the pants" instincts. Most of us made up our minds months ago. Some of us made up our mind on Sept 12, 2001.

The Republic will survive no matter who takes the office of President. If Kerry wins, He gets a Congress where half of it is solidly Republican and the other half is still a majority Republican. This means that a Democrat president will get bubkus done. If this was peacetime, the Conservative in me would be ok with that, but since were not, I'm not. Presidents always enter office all spry and "happening", but Kerry is gasping for air already and he's not through with the campaign ( or is he...?). I would be amazed if he simply survives the first 4 years, but he's not getting anything done during that time anyway, so enjor the ride. I can't wait for Kerry to face the actual need to send troops 'into-harms-way' during his tenure in office. As Spock said in Star Trek, "only Nixon can go to China", but its my guess that "only Kerry can restart the Draft".

If Bush wins, He's going to have to remove about half of his cabinet, as they clearly seem to have left the reservation. Rumsfield, as much as I love the guy, is getting a bit old. Powell looks to me like he is screaming face down into his sofa cushions during most evenings. So, While I still think Bush will win, It hardly means that everything is going to be "happy fun time". The left in this country and the world is not going to roll out the red carpet and support him no matter how many people he liberates and brings freedom. Bush will never get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, while Arafat has one on his mantle. Bush will always be seen as the devil himself, despite the 25 million people who live in freedom today that didnt before he took office. How many people did Carter liberate? Arafat?. Compare and contrast, Reagan and Bush "The Great Liberators", Carter and Clinton, "The Great Prevaricators". Who is more loved and by whom? If I were a Pole, whos father spent 60 days in the Gdansk shipyard, against a tryannical murdering government my answer might be different than that of the spoiled babies in Moveon.org in this country. If being attacked and going to war can't get your oppostion party to back you up, theres not much thats ever going to do it.

For Bush, its another 4 years of sitting at the top of a cultural civil war. For just $225,000 a year, to be called "Worse than Nixon or Hitler", to have every single movement you make scruitinzied, to go to bed every single night knowing what most of us never will know about the ongoing of covert and overt actions around the world, it's no wonder Presidents always look like freshly hammered dog crap after they leave office.

We will survive, we will prevail. Let's not get our knickers in a twist. I dont care how you dress these guys up, they all sound like the Honorable Gov. William J. Lepetomaine so Let's not try to deify these guys too much.

Favorite quote: "Gentleman!, We've got to do something to save our Phony Baloney Jobs !"

So tonight, I see theres a new show called "Wing Nuts" on Discovery channel. I Guess I'll have to check that out. Why the rest of you are watching a "debate", I have no idea. Life is too short for that much bile production.

UPDATE: A lot of people have written to tell me "Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan hasn't made up his mind, so theres still alot of people who havent made up their mind about Bush." . Ok kids, I like Andrew Sullivan, He is a fine writer and his thoughtful on many things he says. He's changed my mind on more than a few things. but those of you who think that he hasn't made up his mind also think that Andy is still just waiting for the right girl to come along. Andy is a one issue voter, and he sees Bush and Cheney on the wrong side of that issue, no debate is going to change his mind on that.

Construction Dust

That noise you hear in the background is the great Sekimori Design studios at work on the new Varifrank.com Site.

Stay Tuned. Regular speed-blogging to resume as just soon as the paint is dry.

The Week To Be

History will record this week as one of the busiest and most significant in recent history.

October 4th - SpaceShipOne to take the X Prize

My heart and mind will be glued to the TV monday morning. That "Pilot Induced Roll" that we've now seen twice has me more than a bit concerned. Mr. Melville, Just get up there in one piece and get back in one piece, I dont give a damn about the prize.

Update I Success. On the anniversary of the Sputnik launch!

Update II Gordon Cooper, One of the Mercury 7 Astronauts, died today.

Update III Best quote:
Mr. Rutan said he had not decided how many more times to fly SpaceShipOne and its carrier plane, White Knight, before donating it to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, which has asked for the spaceship. He did say that he planned to focus his efforts on designing and building Mr. Branson's planes, which he called SpaceShipTwo. "Innovation is what we do here," he said, "because there's not much else to do in Mojave."

October 5th - Vice Presidential Debate

Outgoing Senator John "silky pony" Edwards meets Older-than-dirt Vice President Dick "Big time" Cheney. Corporate CEO vs. Southern Trial Lawyer. Cheney has socks that are older than Edwards. Edwards is used to getting a Jury that he helped seat and he's used to getting a follow on chance to make his case at the "court of appeal". I find Cheney to be the adult in world of infantile children and I didnt think Edwards every held up well under fire during the Democrat nomination campaign. I wont miss this WWF event for the world.

Update I: Not Blogging it.

October 5th - Supreme Court back in action.

Oh, so THAT'S why this election is important!

Update II: Rodney Dangerfield has died. It's got nothing to do with a historical week, but I like Rodney and its my blog.

October 8th - Last Employment Report Prior to Election.

Last test before the election. I expect it to be a disaster,nor because it is, but because so many people need it to be.
Will 3 Hurricanes hitting the south effect the jobs situation?
Does $50.00 a barrel for oil put any sort of drag on the economy?
We shall see.

October 8th - 2nd Presidential Debate.

The second presidential debate will use the town meeting format in which undecided voters, selected by the Gallup Organization, will question the candidates.

Will the audience stuffed with DemocraticUnderground readers? Will there be one "mother of a dead soldier" there to hang around the neck of President Bush like an albatross? Will Bush surprise everyone since having lowered expectations on his ability to deliver, make a strong stand on Kerrys Democrat home turf, the "economy"? We shall see....

October 9th - Australia/Afghanistan Vote.

Will Australia go the way of Spain? Will Afghanistan complete the vote, thus making the most backward of islamic countries also into the most free? Will the people of Pakistan catch the irony? Can it then be argued that since Terrorists were so busy with Iraq that they were spread too thin for Afghanistan?

Oh by the way, theres a volcano about to blow on the west coast of the US. If it is sufficiently strong, it could spread ash clear across the country.

This is a great time to be alive. Take notes, 20 years from now, this will be a week in history that is studied like the movements of the armies at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863.

Teachers Pet?

So, What do we have here?

Senator Kerry pulling what appears to be a sheet of paper out of his pocket and putting it on the podium?

Ok, so what are you saying, Frank?

That Kerry may have received a list of questions prior to the debate, and this is his prepared "Cheat Sheet".

Oh, Come on, Jim Lerher wouldn't do that...

Who said anything about Jim Lerher? However, Jim doesnt work in a "fortress of solitude". Is it impossible to think that one of his PBS staff either helped someone else get the questions or got careless and left themselves open to compromise?

Jeez, do you really think they would go that far to win?

Are you kidding me? What are you, 12 years old?

Come on man, what other evidence is there that Kerry got an early look at the questions in the "debate?"

The only real evidence we will ever have is the debate itself. So, let's go back and watch and listen closely to his answers:

Did Kerry ever give an answer before the question was fully asked?

Did Kerry seem better prepared that is possible in situation where the question being asked is unknown?

Did Kerry give different answers in this session than in previous sessions where similar questions have been asked?

Did Kerry give any indication at all of precognition about what was going to be asked and what point in the debate a question would be asked?

I take my normal stance of remaining skeptical in situations like this, but it does answer what someone said in the initial moments after the debate " Boy, He sure looks polished...".

Yeah he sure did, the question is, did PBS Staff provide the cloth and silver cleaner for the tin man of Massachusetts?

( Mark Metcalf appears in the role of the Metaphysical Senator Kerry, courtesy of his Website, get this man some work people!)

Debate I: After Action Report

Kerry's job for the past 20 years has been to do what he did last night. Talk, followed by more talk, followed by a polite photo op for the folks back home. He's good at it, and as talk goes, it doesn't have any consequences, if it did, he would have been run out of town on a rail a long time ago because of his long standing tradition of consistently being on the losing side of history in every opportunity that history has provided him during his tenure as a Senator.

For all the skill of talking that Kerry has honed over the past 20 years in the forge of the Senate floor, I found Kerry to be almost as incomprehensible as Bush. It's the next day, and I've read the transcripts twice, and I'll be damned if I can figure out what the hell Kerry is talking about.

Bush didn't say very much, and what he did say he didnt say well. If I wanted a company spokesman for president, Kerry would have a shot. However, these are serious times, and serious times aren't times for talk, they are times for action.

I'd give anything for Bush to be able to inspire with a good speech and stagecraft, but Im not willing to trade a man of action for a man of words at this stage in the Jihadi War. Our problem in the West isn't that we dont sound good to the other countries of the world, it's that for too long we have neglected to take action.

Kerrys action plan is a "summit". Wheeee! Doesn't that make your heart just swell up? I'm old enough to remember decades of "summits", and not a damn thing ever changed in the world as a result. Once a President took action to end the Soviet Union rather than try to get along with it, the world changed and it changed for the better.

Oh, and by the way, President Reagan took that action against the advice of the rest of the world, many of his advisors and other countries governments, but he did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do. The lesson was clear, You don't accomodate evil, you end it.

Take Action Now. This is what I want from a president.

( Thanks Punch and Jeff for the Inspiration)

Update: In what is surely a sign of the coming end times, David Brooks of The New York Times covers the same subject, and comes up with another angle but seems to reach the same conclusion.

The Money Quote:

" I suspect that the reason Bush's approval ratings hover around 50 percent, despite a year of carnage in Iraq, is because of the reason many of us in the commentariat don't like to talk about: in a faithful and moralistic nation, Bush's language has a resonance with people who know that he is not always competent, and who know that he doesn't always dominate every argument, but who can sense a shared cast of mind. "

In that simple sentence, David Brooks brings into stark reality the true nature of the American voter versus the European voter. We see polls that constantly say that if it were up to the voters of France or even Europe as a whole, Kerry would win by a wide margin.

Many people in the press, effected by the malarial fever of the Vietnam infection that has ruined the minds of so many of his generation cannot understand how any president taking what he deems to be "great losses" is at 50% approval ratings. Here we are in what he feels is an illegal war, losing troops every day, oil at $50.00 a barrel, everyone hates us around the world, and Bush is at roughly the same point now as the beloved President Clinton was in 1996.

David Brooks puts his finger on one of the key differences between America and the rest of the world, and also puts his finger on why it is that President Bush is also hated by the left. America, despite its obvious decadence, is actually quite a religious nation, much more so than Europe. President Bush is also an expressly religious man. The expression of a religious belief by a politican is anathema to many in the liberal world and the leftist mindset, but to a wide majority of Americans, the expression of religion is a central part of their lives.

I offer by way of a parallel this observation: There are constant jokes about Wal-Mart in the media and our culture at large, but the thing that everyone is missing when they laugh at Wal-Mart is that every Wal-Mart you ever see if chock full of people, and these people tend to think about the world the same way that George W. Bush thinks about the world. Everytime the "commentariat" laugh and deride President Bush, they are really laughing at a large portion of American voters. What must also be truly shocking to those of the left, is that 20 years ago, these same people were reliable Democrat voters, but today, 'Democrats at Wal-Mart' are far and few between. Worse still, Wal-Mart is the fastest growing business is America. What does that tell you about election trends in the long run for Republicans and Democrats? More Wal-Marts equals more Republicans? It sure looks like that to me.

One other cultural difference that I've noted over the years is that in America, we are told repeatedly when we are kids that "Someday, you can grow up to be the President'. The effect of this simple tale is to teach every generation to look at the President as being "just one of us". All Americans get uneasy about a Presidential candidate who is somehow is not a 'Regular Guy". Europeans are taught that there is another class of people who take care of you, the average European is certainly not raised with the phrase "someday son, you too can grow up to be Prime Minister". The result is that "haughtly and snotty" is actually a selling point for a candidate in europe as is shows that the candidate is part of the ruling class, where its a serious drawback here in the US. Most Americans live in dread fear of speaking in public and empathize with President Bush and his inability to put on a good show, while the patrician upper class pacing of John Kerry voice grates on the ears and nerves of many who live in "Wal-Mart America".

In America, anyone can be President, Bill Clinton and George Bush are both proof of that.