I hope everyone enjoyed all the posts. I'll be doing another Q&A Friday in a month or so. See you on Monday & have a nice week-end!

Question: "Your job is to save the Kerry campaign from implosion and lead it to victory in November - what three actions would you take?

For fun - let's suspend reality for a second and try and limit your activities to those strictly "above board". -- WriteWinger

Answer: You know what Kerry's problem is at this point (aside from the fact that Kerry is a terrible candidate who has run an incoherent campaign based around the fact that he's "not George Bush" and that he served in Vietnam)? His campaign keeps getting caught in monkey traps...

"The "South Indian Monkey Trap" was developed by villagers to catch the ever-present and numerous small monkeys in that part of the world. It involves a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be seen through a small hole. The hole is just big enough so that the monkey can put his hand in, but too small for his fist to come out after he has grabbed the rice.

Tempted by the rice, the monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped. He is not able to see that it is his own fist that traps him, his own desire for the rice. He rigidly holds on to the rice, because he values it. He cannot let go and by doing so retain his freedom. So the trap works and the villagers capture him."

Kerry has talked about Vietnam so much that even his own supporters have started to cringe when he does it and the Swift Boat Vets have battered him on the issue, but he refuses to stop talking about it because he thinks his service looks good in comparison to Bush's time in the National Guard.

Kerry's supporters keep demanding that he "fight back" despite the fact that the left has already gone so far over the top, for so long, that nothing they're going to say at this point is going to hurt Bush. I mean once you've accused Bush of being AWOL from the National Guard, using cocaine during his father's administration, invading Afghanistan and Iraq for oil, and being a Nazi, you've done about all you can in the negatives department.

Then there's the war on terrorism. This is the issue that motivates a large part of Kerry's base and they're practically demanding that Kerry bash Bush on the issue. However, it's a losing issue for Kerry because the majority of American people support the war on terror, Kerry doesn't have any sort of coherent policy, and people overwhelmingly trust Bush, not Kerry to handle the war. It's an issue Kerry can't win, but he just can't stop himself from talking about it.

Given what I've just said, if I set aside my partisan feelings and advised Kerry, what would I tell him to do? Three things...

1) Have a press conference and announce that he's not talking about Vietnam anymore because, "This campaign has focused too much on things that happened 30 years ago and the American people want to talk about issues that are relevant to them today", send the "Band of Brothers" home, and just move on. I say that because...

A) Just about everyone knows Kerry was in Vietnam
B) Just about everyone knows Bush was in the National Guard and has formed an opinion on whether he was "AWOL" or not...and incidentally, I've seen no evidence that the "AWOL" issue has ever hurt him at the polls.
C) People are just plain bored with the topic of Vietnam and would rather talk about something else.
D) By refusing to talk about Vietnam, Kerry could do regular press conferences and interviews again without having to worry about coming up with excuses to dodge embarrassing questions about his war protestor days or allegations brought up by the Swift Boat Vets for Truth.

2) Then I'd tell Kerry to shut up about the war and stop going negative. The war is a losing issue and the more Kerry talks about it, the more he reinforces the idea that it's the most important thing for people to consider on November 2nd.

Furthermore, going negative at this point isn't hurting Bush and it may even be hurting Kerry. Here's a guy who isn't considered very likable in the first place and he's rambling on about Haliburton, Dick Cheney's deferments, and Saudi Arabian influence on the Bush administration. Kerry is coming across a lot like "Michael Moore lite" these days which may make the more rabid members of the base happy, but it's not going to appeal to most people.

So instead of going negative or talking about the war, my advice would be to find three big domestic issues and beat them into the ground. Talk about them constantly, at every opportunity. Start out every conversation by saying something like, "I want to become President so that I can..." and hammer these issues home. Kerry can't win on the war, but if he can change the subject to domestic issues, that's a different matter.

Of course, the problem is: what are these 3 issues going to be? Kerry not only needs issues that people care about, he needs issues that allow the American people to clearly differentiate between his position and Bush's position.

Health Care would be a no-brainer, as long as Kerry keeps it vague, because the base would love it, and the American people want changes. Of course, the GOP will quickly blunt the issue by pointing out the flaws in socialized medicine, but we're almost in the home stretch here, so it's worth a shot.

Finding the 2 other key positions is going to be tougher, because the other hot topics are all considered conservative issues. I'm talking about things like an illegal immigration crackdown, some sort of Balanced Budget Amendment, and perhaps even Term Limits.

Sure the base won't like it, but ya gotta figure most lefties this year are going to be voting against Bush, not for Kerry, so I'd say go for the anti-immigration crackdown and a Balanced Budget Amendment. It may not make the lefties in the party happy, but they may be willing to live with it if they can get rid of Bush.

Of course, Kerry would be accused of flip-flopping on these issues, but what else is new? If he talks about them incessantly and doesn't go off message, people may start to believe he's serious by November the 2nd.

3) Practice, practice, practice -- prepare, prepare, prepare for those debates. In fact, treat the debates like they're winner-take-all for the presidency because they're the last, best shot Kerry will have to make a connection with the voters.

Maybe those suggestions sound a little radical, but we're less than 60 days out from the election and nobody knows what Kerry stands for, people don't like him, and I'm guessing that JFK is about 6 points behind. So if you ask me, the "same old, same old" probably isn't going to produce a win unless Kerry gets lucky. So trying something a little different probably isn't the worst idea in the world at this point...

Question #1: "where can I send a donation for your site? (it won't be very big so don't expect much... maybe 20 bucks or so)." -- bambam5

Question #2: "What happened to the old logo at the top of the page? Did you change that voluntarily or did you get complaints?" -- ndistops

Answer #1: On the left hand side of the page, in the support section, there's a button you can click on to donate money to RWN or buy things for me off of my wish list if you're so inclined. Donations are always appreciated.

Answer #2: When my designer Obi, who's a total genius by way, designed the page, I asked her for a red, white, and blue color scheme. She delivered exactly what I asked, but it turned out to be a "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it sort of thing". Not that I didn't like it, I did, but I just thought it looked "OK" because it didn't quite mesh with the rest of the page.

A guy at work must have agreed, because out of the blue, he designed a graphic for me. After a little bit of back and forth on what I wanted, and a couple of changes, he came up with the pic that's in the top left corner now. I made another little color change up top to go with it and wha-la, there's the new look. So there were no complaints, I just thought the changes improved the design of RWN and made it look more cohesive...

Question: "John, What is your take on the difference in the latest polls? Gallup showing a 13 point lead and another one very close?" -- possum11

Answer: When it comes to polls, my philosophy is,

"You can trust the polls, but you can't trust any one poll."

By that I mean that some polls lean one way or the other (Zogby leans towards the left for example), sometimes pollsters oversample either Democrats, Republicans, or Independents and it causes the poll to skew, and you also have to remember that no matter what happens, there's always a margin of error that means the poll may be off a few points in either direction.

So, when I see a poll, like the Gallup poll, that shows a large amount lead for one candidate or the other, I tend to be suspicious of it unless other polls show about the same margin.

In this case, if you take a look at all the latest polls at the invaluable Real Clear Politics, you'll find that Bush is beating Kerry on average by 5.6 points in a three way race, and by an average of 5.8 points head to head.

My sense is that's about right, that Bush is up nationally by about 6 points, which is bad news for Kerry since all the bounce that Bush got from the Republican National Convention has probably already faded about as much as it's going to fade.

However, don't get overconfident just because Bush has finally opened up a moderate lead and the Democrats are starting to act as if they think Kerry is doomed. There is still time for Kerry to pull it out (and I'm not just saying that), particularly given that we have debates coming up. Although the electoral count is leaning Bush's way, Kerry is still well within striking distance, and is capable of winning this election....

Question: "Following MaryAnne or Ginger....Stacy Keibler or Trish Stratus?" -- TigerBomb

Answer: Being asked to choose between Trish (left) & Stacy (right) is like winning the lottery and deciding whether you want the money in one lump sum or in payments over 20 years. In other words, whichever way you go, you come out a winner.

This is a really tough call for me, but in this case I'd have to go with Stacy.

That being said, if Stephanie McMahon were included, I'd pick her over either of them.

Not only is she really hot, she also helps run the business & write the scripts, so you know she's sharp. No question about it, Steph would be my #1 choice...

Question: "How can conservatives best hope to reverse the flow of increasing liberal bias in the media?" -- Schroman2002

Answer: Schroman my man, we have already reversed the flow. Heck, even 10 years ago the Swift Boat Vets for Truth would have made almost zero impact and Rather would have gotten away with those forged documents. But, today? Conservatives can use Fox, talk radio, and the internet to counter the left.

Sure the left still has a significant advantage over us since liberals have a potent net presence and runs ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, & CNN, the overwhelming majority of the influential papers, but slowly yet surely, things are going our way.

In fact, over the next decade or so, I wouldn't be surprised to see the big 3 networks lose so many viewers that they'll get out of the news business all together. And as they bleed viewers, Fox and the internet should be able to pick up the slack, which is only going to help conservatives level the playing field.

I can't tell you exactly when it's going to be, but I truly believe the day is going to come when the conservative media is going to reach parity with the liberal media. And when that day comes, the left is going to be in deep trouble because a friendly mainstream media is probably the biggest advantage that they currently have over us...

Question: "MaryAnne or Ginger?" -- WriteWinger

Answer: Dude, that's easy -- Mrs. Howell. Look how much money she has...oh wait, was I not supposed to answer as John Kerry ;D?

J/K JFK...ehr sort of.

Actually, I'd take Mary Ann. No question about it...

Question: "It seems (and I stress seems) as though the US occupational forces in Iraq have been slacking off on their job of providing security in the region. Why do you think this is? Is it because of waffling on part of the transitional government in pursuing operations against insurgency? Or do you think it has to do with rising timidity on part of US offensive strategists in the face of potential uprising? Or perhaps the age old money problem?" -- The_Big_Fat_Lobster

Answer: In my opinion, while our performance certainly hasn't been perfect, the current violence in Iraq has more to do with the "insurgents" desperately trying to ramp up the number of attacks in order to hurt Bush's chances of getting reelected, and in order to stop the January elections, than it does with anything we are or aren't doing.

Adding to that, there are several different keys to lessening the level of violence in Iraq.

-- A Bush victory would help dishearten the resistance because he has shown he isn't going to back down, whereas a Kerry victory would give them hope that America would cut and run.

-- National elections, which are scheduled for January, will make things tougher for terrorists because once Iraqis have their own elected leaders running the country, they'll start to view terrorist attacks as attacks in a different light. It's one thing for terrorists to attack foreign soldiers, but Iraqi police and soldiers who are working for a Democratically elected government? The outrage level over attacks will escalate dramatically.

-- Unemployment is high partially because of security issues. But, because of security issues, it's more difficult for outside companies to come in and provide jobs. It's a vicious circle.

This is also the area in which I think we've done the poorest job. Only about 6 percent of the reconstruction money approved by Congress last year has been spent. That's nuts. Spending that money buys goodwill in Iraq and men who have jobs are going to be much less inclined to take money to fire potshots at American soldiers.

-- They key is, was, and has always been for the Iraqis to be able to handle their own security without a lot of American help. That should occur at some point next year (estimates vary). When it does, then they'll use the carrot (oil money and US contracts for areas that cooperate) and the stick (Iraqi troops doing raids and crackdowns in the areas that don't) to beat the "insurgents" that are still alive into the ground. Time is on our side, not theirs.

Also, keep in mind that despite the impression you get from the papers, the worst of the violence is still confined to the Sunni Triangle and is being driven by terrorists, criminal gangs, and Sunni dead-enders who are still holding out for a return to a Sunni run dictatorship.

Furthermore, as Donald Rumsfeld has said before, multiple times, the violence is probably going to continue through the Iraqi elections in January...

"There's no question but between now and the end of the year, the terrorists are determined to try to prevent the elections from taking place, and from taking place on time. They're going to be going after coalition countries; they're going to be looking for weak spots; they're going to be going after people who are running for office."

Personally, I'm still very confident that we're on track towards an Iraqi Democracy. It may not be as quick and easy as we'd like, but nothing worth doing ever is. We're just going to have to stick it out and do the job we went there to do...

Today will be Q&A Friday #5 at RWN.

So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective, heck it can even be about movies, music, TV, and film if it's interesting enough and I'll try to root through the questions and start answering more of them around 5 PM EST tonight.

My posts will probably be a little shorter than normal and I won't be able to get to every question (so don't even bother asking fluff like "what is your favorite color" or "How often do you clip Patton's nails"), but expect at least twice as many posts as normal today.

So ask away and let's see how this goes...

Three-year-old Sophia Parlock cries while seated on the shoulders of her father, Phil Parlock, after having their Bush-Cheney sign torn up by Kerry-Edwards supporters on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004, at the Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards made a brief stop at the airport as he concluded his two-day bus tour to locations in West Virginia and Ohio. (AP Photo/Randy Snyder)

Good Lord, what is wrong with these people?

*** Update #1***: Apparently the father pictured in this column, has done this sort of thing before -- which of course still would not excuse anyone from ripping up the little girl's sign.

Furthermore, there's also what the author claims is a family pic on this page and while the pic is fuzzy, I notice that one of the sons bears more than a passing resemblance to the guy holding a piece of the sign. I'm not sure it's him and I find it hard to believe that the guy would be dumb enough to do this as a publicity stunt if it's his kid since a scam like that would have no hope of holding up. But, I thought I would pass it along just in case...

*** Update #2***: I love the speed of the blogosphere. From the incomparable Michelle Malkin...

"Just got off the phone with Phil Parlock, who is amused by desperate liberal rumor-mongering (endorsed here) that the man wearing an IUPAT t-shirt and holding a piece of his little girl's Bush/Cheney sign is his own son.

Meanwhile, Parlock's toddler is fine."

This is just classic John Kerry....

"John Kerry yesterday said he now can see no reason why the United States went to war in Iraq, yet added that he still stands by his vote to authorize the war.

But Mr. Kerry's answers left Mr. Imus, who frequently describes himself on air as a Kerry supporter, flummoxed.

"I asked him a number of questions about Iraq, and I can't tell you what he said," Mr. Imus said after Mr. Kerry hung up."

Just trying to make sense of what Kerry said on Imus is almost impossible because he twisted himself into a rhetorical pretzel. But

John Kerry says he was right to vote to authorize the war and that Saddam had to be held accountable, but even though Saddam defied the world and wasn't accountable, Bush was wrong to go to war.

What is he talking about?

Moreover, as per usual with Kerry, he's directly contradicting other things he has said before. In this interview, Kerry said that his vote was all about the WMD and Bush distorted the issue.

"Not under the current circumstances, no, there are none that I see," the Democratic presidential nominee said when asked about the justification for the war by radio talk-show host Don Imus. "I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The president distorted that, and I've said that."

But wait, how can John Kerry, who was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee (although he often didn't bother to show up) and was briefed by the CIA, accuse the President of distorting the danger of Saddam's WMDs when Kerry was at least as adamant about the dangers of Saddam's WMDs as the Bush administration, if not more so, before the war....

"The Iraqi regime's record over the decade leaves little doubt that Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and to expand it to include nuclear weapons. We cannot allow him to prevail in that quest. The weapons are an unacceptable threat." -- John Kerry, 10/9/02

"(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." -- John Kerry, 1/23/03

"If you don't believe ... Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me." -- USA Today on 2/13/03

Furthermore, Kerry is today saying that it's all about the WMD. But back on 12/15/03 John Kerry was saying Iraq was critical to the "war on terror"...

"Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that..."

What has become plain is that John Kerry is willing to put political considerations above success in the war on terrorism. Today he says one thing, tomorrow he may say the exact opposite. It's all about polls and misleading people about what he really believes, not about defeating terrorists, protecting America, or making sure that we succeed in Iraq.

How can John Kerry be trusted to fight the war on terrorism when his position is constantly shifting like a weathervane in a windstorm? Putting a weak reed like John Kerry in the White House while we're still in the middle of the war on terrorism would lead to disaster...

Famous brooding internet intellectual Joshua Micah Fauntleroy Mellencamp Heinz-Marshall (apologies to Ace) has put his finger on the root of John Kerry's electoral dysfunction -- inadequate slogans! -- and solicits suggestions. We aim to please, Josh.

I Will Keep Our Enemies Guessing, Too

Projecting American Strength Through Intricately Complex Nuance

The Thinking Man's Self-Confessed War Criminal

Vote For Me or My Running Mate Will Sue

Those Atrocity Stories? Dude, I Was Just Sh*tting You

I Will Do For You the Many Wonderous Things I Have Done For Massachusetts

Fear Not, America, I Have Deigned to Lead You

I Will Never Recuse My UN Ambassador from the Vote to Ask for a Permission Slip to Defend This Country

The Next Time America is Attacked, I Promise To Open Up a Carafe of Whup@ss

Post-Emptive Leadership For A Safer World

I Have Three Words For George Bush -- Bring It On

I Have Five More Words For George Bush -- Call Off Your On-Bringers

Restoring America's Seat At The Global Popular Table

Come Home Again, America... No Wait, Stay There Again

There Once Was A Man From Nantucket, If You Get My Drift

Some Look at Things As They Are And Say, 'Why?' Others Look at Things As They Are Not And Say, 'Why Not?', And I Suppose A Few Might Look at Things As They Are Not, And Say 'Why?', and Vice-Versa, and So Forth, And One Might Be Tempted To Look at These People Looking at Things And Ask 'Who?' But This Would Not Be Constructive, Because The Important Thing To Realize Is That Some People Like To Look At Things, And This Is Precisely My Point

If you enjoyed this satire by Iowahawk, you can read more of his work here.

CBS reporter Dan Rather plans to reveal copies of documents on tonight's Evening News that demonstrate that John Forbes Kerry may have sought to evade service in the U.S. Senate due to his privileged position as a presidential candidate.

The documents, all dated within the past year, show a record of scores of missed votes and missed committee hearings. In addition, copies of payroll records appear to indicate that Mr. Kerry continued to draw his senate salary during the time of his absense, according to an unnamed CBS source.

Mr. Kerry responded to the allegations by saying, "Is there any American who still trusts Dan Rather?"

"Mr. Rather is a Texan like President Bush," said Mr. Kerry. "This is just another mean-spirited partisan attack orchestrated by Karl Rove with the cooperation of the biased media. Mr. Bush doesn't want to talk about substantive issues, like how I defended this country as a young man in Vietnam."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

CBS Newsman Tops Voters’ Concerns in New Poll

The reelection bid of President George W. Bush received some positive news today in the form of a new poll showing voters giving him high marks in the war on CBS newsman Dan Rather.

The poll, with a margin of error of five percentage points, asked likely voters, “Who do you trust more in the war against Dan Rather, President Bush or Sen. John Kerry?”

According to the survey, 97% chose President Bush while only 2% said Mr. Kerry was better equipped to fight the war on Rather.

Perhaps even more encouraging to the President -- and potentially more troubling for Mr. Kerry -- a majority of voters now says that the war on Rather is their number one concern, topping such other election-year issues as Iraq and the economy.

One such voter, Ray Pauling, 56, expressed a typical view: “President Bush leaves you feeling like he’ll do everything in his power to destroy Dan Rather, but Kerry doesn’t even talk about it.”

But even as voters express confidence in the President’s ability to fight and eventually eradicate Dan Rather, there are lingering concerns among likely voters that Mr. Bush might be distracted by another war: the war on Kitty Kelley.

“We’re spreading ourselves too thin if we think we can fight Dan Rather and Kitty Kelley at the same time,” Mr. Pauling said.

If you enjoyed this satire by Andy Borowitz, you can read more of his work at The Borowitz Report.

(*** I wanted to try something a little different. So for this post, I'm going to cover a variety of different topics in three sentences or less ***)

-- The Kerry campaign seems to still be obsessively attacking Bush on Iraq and National Security, which is a really dumb move if you ask me. Kerry is NEVER going to measure up to Bush on National Security and if that remains the big issue in the public's mind, Bush will be tough to beat. That's why Kerry should try to change the public's focus to domestic issues where he stands a chance instead of continually playing up an issue he can't win.

-- This memogate scandal is bad for Kerry in more ways than one. Not only would it be damaging if it were traced back to the Kerry campaign or the DNC, but it's sucking up all the political oxygen. As long as people are consumed with finding out if these documents are legal, they're not going to be paying attention to Kerry and that's bad news since he's trying to come from behind.

-- I'm not sure if it's because of the memogate scandal or what, but traffic has been way up this month. If I simply do as well for the 2nd half of the month as I did for the first, I'll beat last month's total by 30,000 daily uniques.

-- We have Dan Rather standing by fake memos, a Kerry fundraiser like Ben Barnes who has been called a liar by his daughter being treated like a credible source, Kitty Kelly and Seymour Hersh making outrageous allegations based on anonymous sources, and staggering levels of Democratic partisanship being displayed by supposedly "unbiased" sources like the New York Times & CBS, and the guys over at Editor & Publisher are worrying about the influence of blogs? If the MSM did its job, no one would turn to blogs for information in the first place...

-- It looks like Michele Catalano from A Small Victory is back in biz after taking a few weeks off to rest and recuperate. Welcome back Michele..

-- Dana Rohrabacher has introduced a Constitutional Amendment that would allow anyone who has been a U.S. citizen for 20 years to run for President. I'd strongly oppose such a measure because only someone who was born in the United States should be eligible to become the POTUS. That's an important provision of the Constitution, designed to prevent foreign powers from having an inordinate amount of influence on our country and it would be wise to keep it in place.

-- I opposed the assault weapons ban so I'm pleased that it expired. Assault weapons were only used in a small percentage of crimes before the ban went into effect and many of the weapons covered under the ban were impacted for cosmetic reasons (In other words, this was "feel good" legislation for the anti-gun crowd). In any case, it's nice to crawl back up the slippery slope once in a while.

-- Anyone know of a cheap way to get LexisNexis access? I'd love to have that as a resource, but who can afford $75 a week?

-- I've been looking hard at the Real Clear Politics battleground state polls and things look pretty good for Bush. But, with Michigan trending towards Kerry & Ohio trending towards Bush, I think the election could very well come down to the two most hotly contested electoral rich states, Pennsylvania and Florida. If the race stays tight, I believe Kerry will need to take both states to win and right now he is leading in neither...

-- There's a lot of political money flying around this campaign season and if there are any rich guys out there who want to make a big difference, how bout sending me $20k? Along with the money I make off of advertising, I figure that would be enough to let me go full-time -- for good. You wouldn't get anything for your money except the knowledge that I'd have more time to do what I do, but hey, over the long haul, I think I'll make a bigger impact for conservatism than a few ad buys during this election.

It has been more than 3 months since I last ranked the best opinion columnists in the business, so I figured it was time to do it again. So here's my current faves in order...

35) Tony Blankley
34) Cal Thomas
33) Heather Mac Donald
32) Linda Chavez
31) William Kristol
30) Mona Charen
29) Brent Bozell
28) John Leo
27) Bill O'Reilly
26) Joe Scarborough
25) Michael Barone
24) Larry Elder
23) Brendan Miniter
22) Kathleen Parker
21) Jack Kelly
20) Hugh Hewitt
19) Byron York
18) Rich Lowry
17) Robert Novak
16) Jeff Jacoby
15) David Limbaugh
14) Dennis Prager
13) Michelle Malkin
12) David Horowitz
11) Thomas Sowell
10) Ralph Peters
9) Charles Krauthammer
8) John Podhoretz
7) James Lileks
6) Dick Morris
5) Walter Williams
4) Victor Davis Hanson
3) Jonah Goldberg
2) Ann Coulter
1) Mark Steyn

The world is a wondrous place, isn't it?

No, it is not.

In fact, the world is extremely boring and always has been. Yeah, when the continents shifted apart, that was notable. That advent of advanced forms of life was worth some interest. Other than that, really nothing of note has happened. Early man just sat around doing boring things like making clay pots, and early journalists told stories about how everyone was sitting around doing boring things like making clay pots. It was horrible.

Then came the advent of forged documents

The first forged document dates back to 21,000 B.C., though the people showing it at the time said it was written in 21,034 B.C. It's a cave painting of hunters taking down a woolly mammoth (an animal which never actually existed). Some at the time pointed out how the brownish-red paint used for the mammoth had not been invented back in the 30's (21,030's, I mean). Those people were quickly shouted down, and the legend continues to this day.

From then on, there have been tons of great stories in human history... all fraudulent. One of the best examples is the Bible. Any handwriting expert worth his salt will admit that the source material for the more exciting parts of the Bible does not match up with documents known to have been penned by the hand of the Almighty. The original Bible simply wasn't selling very well, so the faithful decided to spice it up. Most likely, the Israelites happened to find boats when they reached the Red Sea, but the obviously forged sea parting story was considered much more exciting.

Another great example comes from paleontologists. All extinct animals they discovered were just more boring variations of living lizards and rats. So, in 1858, William Parker Foulke made a fossil out of plaster which was later named a "dinosaur." Because this increased interest in biology many more "fossil finds" soon followed (today's dinosaur fossils are made from a much more sophisticated plastic).

Then there's American history. All documents about the supposed “Revolutionary War” used penning techniques that were not available until the early 19th century. What really happened was that the colonists said that they wanted to be their own country, and Britain was like, "Aight." Later on, this simply didn't seem like an interesting way for a country to be founded, so the whole war with the British tale was invented which got great play in the media.

I could keep going on, but the point is that any interesting story you ever heard is based on a forged document and never happened because the world is an extremely boring place. Now, with the advent of blogging, we have all these wiseasses in pajamas suddenly pointing out documents are forged and ruining everyone's fun. If you're wondering why Rather's documents are such crude forgeries, it’s because it used to be taboo to point such things out.

So there is the choice we have now; we can have a rich history full of grand epics, or we can pat ourselves on the back for how smart we are for showing how the Dead Sea Scrolls were made with WordPerfect. And just one final thing for those who think it was so great to prove the documents saying Bush was AWOL are forged: There was no Vietnam War! There isn't even a country called Vietnam! Journalist decided a war would work great for the news cycle, and then some wise ass thought it would be a neat twist if we loss in the end. All the people who thought they were in "Vietnam" were actually in the jungles of Brazil. John Kerry got all three purple hears hurting himself in a pool in a sound stage in Hollywood. I have a co-worker who claimed to have escaped Vietnam with his family when the war ended, but, after badgering him, I got him to admit he was actually Korean and was paid by NBC to say that story to keep the "Vietnam War" story alive.

Now that you know the truth, do you feel happy? No you don't. So stop questioning any more documents the media presents you unless you want the news to be filled with stories about people making clay pots.

---

Frank J. is a syndicated columnist whose columns appear worldwide on IMAO.us and is the author of such books as "Cool Pictures of Stuff on Fire" and "A Big Thick Book to Hide a Gun In" (with a foreword by Charlton Heston).

If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J., you can read more of his work at IMAO.

According to RWN reader Harvey Stewart,

"I saw your title.jpg on CNN last night. They were talking about blogs and the Bush memo thing.

I forget the exact context, something along the lines of: "...and some blogs make no secret of their political leanings"

... or something like that."

Thanks Harvey. I always appreciate it when people let me know when RWN is mentioned in the MSM or on talk radio. Did anyone else see the segment or better yet, does anyone have a copy of it?

*** Update #1***: RWN reader Jon Sanford has the details,

John,

The home page logo of RWN was shown in a video clip as a backdrop to the
following transcript:

"SIEBERG: Some lean slightly right or left. Others lean really right or
left. And candidates even have their own blogs."

As I recall, it was displayed in sync with "others lean really right"

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0409/14/pzn.00.html"

That's a small mention, but I'll take it...

Of course, there has been an enormous amount of chatter about the forged memos Dan Rather is trying to pass off as real, not only in the blogosphere, but in the mainstream press. In fact, there has been so much discussion of this subject, with so many people trying to come up with unique angles on the story, that my guess is that a lot of people are probably getting confused. Most people seem to believe they're forgeries, but some people say they're real, then there are all of these sources who're changing their stories, and you have words like "kerning" and "proportional spacing" getting tossed around that 99% of the general public is unfamiliar with....it's confusing.

Therefore, I thought it might be useful just to streamline the argument a bit and break it down so that it's easy to understand why so many of us in the blogosphere are absolutely convinced that these documents are forgeries.

1) The documents, which were supposedly written 30 years ago, match up EXACTLY with the default settings of Microsoft Word.

I cannot stress to you how unlikely it is that someone using a 30 year old typewriter, by chance, punched up documents that match the font, spacing, line breaks, etc, of a program that most of the people reading this post now have on their own computers. It's like someone claiming that they found a 50 year old Coke can that is an exact duplicate of a can you can buy on the shelf today. Maybe it was technologically possible or maybe it wasn't, but in either case, it would be extraordinarily unlikely that someone made something like that back then.

Even if you just considered this factor and NOTHING else, your level of skepticism about the legitimacy of these memos should be VERY HIGH.

2) There are also legions of very credible "experts" coming out of the woodwork to declare that these memos don't appear to be legitimate. There are literally dozens of examples I could cite, but here are just a few to give you a feel for what the experts are saying...

-- "At the heart of the dispute is whether any typewriter existed in 1972 that could have produced the documents, with their distinct type style, even spacing, and the tiny raised "th" known as superscript.

"This machine is not the culprit for these documents," said software engineer Gerry Kaplan."

-- "I am personally 100 percent sure that they are fake," said Joseph M. Newcomer, author of several books on Windows programming, who worked on electronic typesetting techniques in the early 1970s. Newcomer said he had produced virtually exact replicas of the CBS documents using Microsoft Word formatting and the Times New Roman font.

Newcomer drew an analogy with an art expert trying to determine whether a painting of unknown provenance was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. "If I was looking for a Da Vinci, I would look for characteristic brush strokes," he said. "If I found something that was painted with a modern synthetic brush, I would know that I have a forgery."

-- "Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts for the Adobe company in Seattle, which helped to develop the modern Times New Roman font, disputed Glennon's statement to CBS. He said "fairly extensive testing" had convinced him that the fonts and formatting used in the CBS documents could not have been produced by the most sophisticated IBM typewriters in use in 1972, including the Selectric and the Executive. He said the two systems used fonts of different widths."

-- I find this one to be particularly devastating since CBS actually HIRED THIS WOMAN to check the documents. Moreover, I have a lot of difficulty understanding why in the world CBS would have even run the story given what she told them...

"Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.

"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said."

Now if you simply take into account that these memos match up with Microsoft word and the expert testimony you've just read, I think any reasonable person would be HIGHLY SKEPTICAL of the validity of these documents. But wait, there's more...

3) Even if these documents had been actually typed on a typewriter that had been around in the 1970s instead of in Microsoft Word, this one discrepancy alone should have thrown up a huge red flag...

"One CBS memo cites pressure allegedly being put on Killian by "Staudt," a reference to Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, one of Bush's early commanders. But the memo is dated Aug. 18, 1973, nearly a year and a half after Staudt retired from the Guard."

Common sense tells you that a guy who retired a year and half before this memo was written wasn't going to be in a position to pressure anyone. Again, this should have raised a lot of questions about these memos at CBS -- if they even caught the forger's error.

Now, if you simply consider these three things, you've got to know that there's almost no chance that these documents are real. Moreover, while there are quite a few other details that undermine the authenticity of the memos, here are another couple that I think are particularly poignant...

-- "The son of President Bush's former squadron commander,...Gary Killian said Thursday that he doesn't believe the newly discovered documents are legitimate.

...Killian said his father "thought well" of Bush's abilities as an Air National Guard pilot assigned to fly the F-102."

-- "Of more than 100 records made available by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents. Nor did they use a superscripted "th" in expressions such as "147th Group" and or "111th Fighter Intercept Squadron."

So let's put it all together.

We have copies of memos, not the originals, that were provided to CBS by an anonymous source. The documents, which are supposed to be more than 30 years old, appear to have been written by someone using Microsoft Word. There are plenty of top experts in the field saying the documents are fake. No other documents from that era, in that National Guard unit, seem to be written in the same style as these documents. The son of the man who supposedly wrote the documents thinks they're a forgery, says his father could hardly type, and did not maintain an office at home where these documents would have been stored (which of course makes you wonder where the anonymous source told CBS the documents came from). On top of that, one of the memos makes reference to pressure being put on the writer of the memo by a man who retired a year and a half earlier.

Given all of this, I'm not sure what CBS could even do at this point to prove that the memos were genuine. Maybe if they had a high quality videotape that actually showed Killian typing the memos on some sort of experimental typewriter and you could actually see the words as they were being typed, that might be enough. But, it would actually take something like that to do it.

So if CBS has some sort of smoking gun that they haven't released yet, now is definitely the time to do it. If not, they should come clean, admit the documents are frauds, and reveal where they came from. To try to hold out when even other mainstream media outlets are now openly pointing out that the memos are not just forgeries, but crude forgeries, is just delaying the inevitable.

There are few things that get liberals more excited than the idea of socializing medicine. Just imagine all the new regulations they could use to boss people around, all the new government workers who'd probably vote Democratic, how much they could raise taxes, and the enormous growth of government that'd result. It's like the holy grail of liberalism!

But socialized medicine isn't working out so well for our old buddies up North in Soviet Canuckistan according to this article from Reuters....

"Canada often boasts its universal health care program shows it is more caring than the United States, but the system is creaking alarmingly, with long wait lists for treatment, and shortages of cash and doctors.

"Meanwhile, financial pressures are increasing as our population ages, as medical knowledge...expands, and as beneficial but expensive new treatments become available," he told a top-level meeting designed to rescue medicare."

Boy, it really sounds like socialized medicine solved all of Canada's health care problems doesn't it?

"Medicare eats up C$85 billion ($66 billion) a year in public funds alone and the provinces continually demand more money, with no strings attached. Ottawa says it is prepared to contribute more but insists the provinces agree to benchmarks to ensure the funds are being spent properly."

Let's see, 66 billion dollars a year for what everyone admits is poor service (more on how poor later in this post). Plus, you have to remember that the US has roughly 9.5 times as many people as Canada. So if we spent about the same amount per person as Canada, that means the government would spend about $627 billion dollars a year on health care. Then toss in our out of control, lawsuit happy culture, the fact that we don't have presciption drug price controls like Canada, and the fact that it would cost a little more to get a system like this started than it would after it had been running a few years, and let's figure it would be about....oh...$700 billion a year (and somehow, someway, knowing what I know about how government programs work, I'd bet it would end up being a lot more). Given that we're already running more than a 400 billion dollar deficit a year, that would mean we'd have roughly a trillion dollars a year to make up for somehow. That doesn't sound like such a great deal, especially when you get this kind of service...

"As the politicians bicker, Canadians spend more time waiting in line. A study by the right-wing Fraser Institute this month said that average waiting time for treatment in 2003 rose to 17.7 weeks from 16.5 weeks in 2002.

"When I started work 30 years ago it took three weeks to get a patient into a specialist's office. Now it can take six months. There is a lot of inhumanity built into the system," one unhappy family doctor told Reuters."

Just imagine having a severely injured knee. You're walking around on crutches, you're slamming down Tylenol like tic-tacs just to take the pain, and you have to wait TWO YEARS to get it fixed. You also have to keep in mind that it's only going to get worse...

"Experts say the shortage of doctors will only get worse as an increasingly elderly physician population starts to retire over the next decade. And as medical expertise becomes ever more sophisticated, so will the demand and the expense."

Don't let liberals snow you. Despite the problems with our current health care system, socialized medicine would be a huge step backwards from what we already have.

Ah, it's a heady time to be a blogger! Here we are influencing the presidential election, taking down Dan Rather, and finally starting to get the recognition we deserve.

But blogging isn't just about sitting around in your pajamas examining 30 year old memos to see if they're written in Microsoft Word. It's also about getting email -- email from angry liberals, lunatics, and white supremacists, all of whom are furious about things you wrote =D

You want to see what it's like? Well, welcome to my inbox bub! And remember, all of these emails are real...

---

From: Steve Fossler
Subject: At first I thought this was a joke

and then I realized that your site is not meant to be funny, but a serious news site. How sad. Are you really that stupid to believe some of the crap thats up there or are you just a blind partisan? In particular, the interview with John O Neill got under my skin. Mr O neill and the rest of the swift boat liars have been thoroughly and completely discredited. If you are interested in having a substantive discussion of issues that matter today, why would you listen to these losers. Maybe your readers are dumb enough to listen and believe that sort of crap, but many other people are not, and it is not helpful to the cause of conservatives to give the swift boat vets the time of day, much less to try and promote their agenda. Shame on You! You are on the wrong side. You are supporting liars and crooks. Bushco. is the worst thing to happen to this country and to see people like you support them with all of your patriotic themes is vulgar and obsene. F*ck you rightwingnews. you're wrong. you're rightwingnuts.

---

From: Sam Lane
Subject: You know....

Your kind...your whole white bread conservative nazi bullsh*t.....I really hate them. And I hate you. And your stupid little website.

Keep up the work.

---

From: David Wilson
Subject: white people

I have read your smears of white websites and pro-white candidates for office. What's your problem with white people? It doesn't sound like you're very "right wing" to me.

---

From: phil_thrift@yahoo.com
Subject: American Daily column feedback

Re: John Kerry Didn't Support The Troops In His Post-Vietnam Days

You are admired in the Nazi community for your views! You are one of them.

---

From: joana_ribeiro@******
Subject: American Daily column feedback

About "Take My Word for It, Jews Don't Rule the World"

Here it is another example of the compulsive tendency to subtly say that anti zionism and anti-semitism are the same thing. WRONG. Every time one raises his voice to critize the State of Israel and the connections with the american zionists (who do have decisive influence, yes), some others try to pass the idea that the natural, eternal and undeniable hostility towards jews is once again out there. WRONG. Why don't many support Israel? Because we like to blame jews for daily problems?!!! Let me tell you this. The jewish question has been a fascinating subject to me since I can remember. It goes back to the days when I was 13 and first heard, in a History class, the word "anti-semitism"; since that day I've been in love with learning more about the jewish culture and I've always had true simpathy for the jewish people; been in many places and forums discussing the Holocaust, with people that firmly believe it was all a story made up by evil jews; been trying to understand the multiple reasons why jews have been persecuted for thousands of years. I don't blame jews for my problems, though I live in an enterely catholic country (Portugal), and I don't think jews are leading a world conspiracy. And still I do believe that the State of Israel and its expansion (often violating the International Law and the palestinian human rights) is a terrible mistake (let's just remember that 'till the foundation in 1948, the jewish communities living in Palestine were very small in number. Now I don't know what you americans call that, but I know that we europeans, with centuries of history behind, don't consider it a good thing); and the same way it is seriously wrong to say anti-zionism is anti-semitism, I also know that not every jew is a zionist or a supporter of Israel. Do me a favour: please stop making it seem as if criticizing Israel is automatically attacking the whole of the jewish community in the world. IT'S WRONG. What do you call the several jewish orthodox groups that stand against not only the israeli government's actions but also the existence of the State of Israel itself? Are they self-hating jews, as I've heard somewhere?... Ridiculous...

As for things as the big influence of jews (secular, atheist jews, many neoconservatives) on american media and government, I don't think it's possible to hide it. It's obvious and anyone can see it. I'll just leave you with a quote that needs no comments, because it says pretty much everything:

"I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about american pressure on Israel, we the jewish people control America, and the americans know it". - Ariel Sharon to Shimon Peres, October 3rd, 2001, as reported on Kol Yisrael Radio

---

From: laandt@yahoo.com>
Subject: American Daily column feedback

How the f*ck do you think we liberals feel?

Happy?!! F*ck no, we hate Bush's f*cking guts!!

Angry you were at the 2000 stolen election (the one where Bush was appointed)? Liberal media? AW, BULL-GODD@MN-F*CKING SH*T!!

How do you feel about your f*cking chimp now?

Lost anyone in Iraq?

---

From: covert74@******
Subject: American Daily column feedbac

I love the example about the pentagon crash. So in your view, Lee Harvey Oswald must have acted alone because the other shooters were never arrested and were not identified by people who were there. How about some facts then. Just after the pentagon was hit there were pictures taken of the building still standing with no more than a sixteen foot hole at the point of impact. Remember a 757 has a total width of 125ft. The offical government story claims the 757 came in at ground level and hit the first floor of the pentagon. In those same pictures taken in the first few minutes after impact there was no damage to the lawn of the pentagon or the construction supplies that sat directly in the planes path. The pictures could not have been faked because they were taken by an "eyewitness" which is all you need to hear right. The offical government story also claims that most of the plane vaporized and that would explain the lack of wreckage. The offical government story also claims that the dna from every passenger aboard the plane was recovered. So the crash site was hot enough to vaporize aluminium and steel but was not quite hot enough to destroy organic matter. For the record I believe something crashed into the pentagon that day but it was not a one hundred ton 757. Here is one more fact. There was a security camera that pointed at the very area where the crash took place. Hooray!!! Mystery finally solved!!! Oh wait. Sorry. The security system at the pentagon captured absolutely nothing. Isn't that great.

Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today said the lead that President George Bush has taken in the polls since the Republican Convention is "the wrong bounce at the wrong time and it's wrong for America."

"The W in George W. Bush still stands for wrong," said Mr. Kerry, renewing his latest campaign slogan. "It's wrong to mislead Americans into choosing you in presidential preference polls. It's wrong to let ideology, character and so-called 'principles' blind you to the subtlety and nuance of modern statesmanship. It's wrong to dominate your adversary in a way that makes him feel bad about himself and his future."

Mr. Kerry, a Vietnam veteran and distinguished anti-war protestor who is also a U.S. Senator, said the "polls don't mean anything to me right now."

"A couple of months ago when I was leading Mr. Bush, the polls were clearly an accurate barometer of public sentiment," he said. "But now they're wrong, wrong, wrong."

The Democrat candidate said he if he were conducting the polling research, "I wouldn't have just done some things differently, I would have done almost everything differently. As a consequence, we wouldn't have had some of America's finest men bogged down in this unwinnable conflict--dare I say, this quagmire."

President Bush, asked to respond to Mr. Kerry's latest attacks said, "The W stands for 'whatever'. That's my response. Next question."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

A devastating memo written more than 30 years ago by John Kerry has come into RWN's possession. This memo will forever change the course of this year's election! Just take a look at it and you'll see what I mean!

Of course, as we've learned from watching the scandalous attacks on Dan Rather, partisans may come forward and claim that this memo isn't genuine! So in order to prove the memo is authentic, RWN is adhering to the same standards CBS is using for the Bush memos.

-- Some people may point out that despite the fact that this memo appears to be more than 30 years old, it appears to have been written using the default settings of Microsoft word. But as we've learned from CBS, that's certainly no reason to question the document's authenticity.

-- You'll also find that like one of the CBS memos, this document has a signature on it. And while RWN hasn't consulted any handwriting experts, I think you'll find that if the signature on this document were a little larger, it would match up -- and I mean EXACTLY -- to this copy of John Kerry's signature which I found on his blog.

-- Now I don't have the original documents, nor will I reveal the source I received this document from, but as we've learned from watching CBS, you don't need to have that information.

-- Last but not least, you'll just have to trust this is a real document -- despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary -- because RWN says so. That's how the real journalists do it, right Dan?

For all the humorless lefties out there, the memo is of course satire. Too bad Dan Rather didn't say that about his report on the Bush National Guard memos.

The most amusing thing about the Dan Rather forgery scandal to me is that if Dan Killian, the man who was supposed to have written the forged memos, was alive and saying something negative about John Kerry instead of George W. Bush, the mainstream media would have immediately written him off as untrustworthy.

That's what has happened with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. You have this enormous array of vets who knew John Kerry, fought beside him, and were in his chain of command all saying he's lying about his record. Moreover, Kerry has been caught in lies about the "No Man Left Behind" incident & Cambodia. His own biography contradicts his accounts of how he got some of his medals. The Navy is investigating Kerry right now, he's refusing to release his records, and he is dodging Swift Boat vet related questions from the press.

Yet, the mainstream media reaction to the Swifites has been pure skepticism. Not only are they refusing to buy into what the Swift Boat Vets are saying, they're treating it as lacking in credibility to such a degree that they don't believe John Kerry should even have to bother to respond to it.

But, when charges are leveled at George Bush, the media basically adopts "Enquirer" standards as to what are "credible" allegations.

Consider some of the people making allegations against Bush who've been in the news in the last few weeks.

Kitty Kelly, who has a long had a reputation for making wild & unprovable allegations with no proof to back them up is accusing George Bush of using cocaine during his father's tenure in the White House. However, the supposed source of her allegations, Sharon Bush, is denying that she ever told Kelly that and she's now considering suing Kelly for libel.

Ben Barnes has once again been trotted out by the media to claim he helped George Bush get into the National Guard. However, Barnes is a Vice-Chair of the Kerry campaign who raised more than $100,000 for John Kerry and has personally introduced him at a fund-raiser. Moreover, his OWN DAUGHTER has been calling talk radio shows and admitting that her father told her that he's lying about George Bush for political purposes and to sell a book.

Next up are the obviously forged "George Bush National Guard" memos that Dan Rather is currently peddling at CBS. Not only were they written in Microsoft Word, experts have been coming out of the woodwork to point out these memos aren't genuine. There are literally DOZENS of examples I could use, but here's a fairly typical piece of testimony about the authenticity of these memos that was given to the Washington Post...

"I am personally 100 percent sure that they are fake," said Joseph M. Newcomer, author of several books on Windows programming, who worked on electronic typesetting techniques in the early 1970s. Newcomer said he had produced virtually exact replicas of the CBS documents using Microsoft Word formatting and the Times New Roman font.

Newcomer drew an analogy with an art expert trying to determine whether a painting of unknown provenance was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. "If I was looking for a Da Vinci, I would look for characteristic brush strokes," he said. "If I found something that was painted with a modern synthetic brush, I would know that I have a forgery."

Despite an overwhelming mountain of evidence to the contrary, Dan Rather is still claiming that these memos are real.

The new, hot, anti-Bush book that's starting to get attention is written by Seymour Hersh, the Kitty Kelly of mainstream journalism. Hersh's book, "Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib," tries to tie the Bush administration to the Abu Ghraib scandal. Here's how the The Seattle Times describes Hersh's sourcing...

"Hersh's account is based on anonymous sources, some of them secondhand, and could not be independently verified."

Secondhand anonymous sources, huh? That sounds ironclad. Especially coming from the guy who quoted an anonymous source"the war was now a stalemate" and that "The only hope is that (our troops) can hold out until reinforcements arrive" during the middle of our three-week long invasion of Iraq.

If you want an explanation of why the media throws all standards out the window when George Bush is involved, you need look no further than this...

"The New York Times conducted an informal poll of journalists at the recent Democratic convention that showed they favor John Kerry for president over President Bush by 3 to 1, while reporters based in Washington, D.C., support the Massachusetts senator by 12 to 1."

The mainstream media is full of liberals and they're ready to report almost any negative story about George Bush whether the sources are credible or not...

Liberals often complain that they're unfairly pegged as being unpatritic. But of course, the reason liberals have that reputation is because so many of them ARE UNPATRIOTIC. That's not to say ALL LIBERALS are unpatriotic, that's certainly not true, but the "I hate America crowd" has definitely found a home on the left.

For example, take a look at a thread called "All Things Considered... Are You Proud To Be An American?".

As of the time that I'm writing this post, 33% of the DU said they were "mostly" or "definitely" proud to be an American. On the other hand, 64% of the DU said they were not really" (45%) or "definitely not" (19%) proud to be Americans.

Now read what some of Duer's who'd likely fall in that "not proud to be an American" category have to say about the country that they "love". Not too impressive...

Bryan: "Not really". I've almost developed a certain shame about being an American over the past few years. When I talk with foreign citizens, no matter the subject, I become withdrawn and almost apologetic; there's no way I can justify the things that have been done in our collective name by this administration.

I do, however, feel lucky to be an American, and I look forward to a time when I won't be ashamed to say that I'm American."

dumpster_baby: "Pride in Country/Patriotism is just manipulation by the elite institutions. I have moved beyond all that crap. I have no pride in my country, not really. I see myself as an owner of America, along with my fellow citizens. I think America should be run for the benefit of the majority of the people.

Uh, f*ck that sh*t..."

bandera: "I got over patriotism some time in the early '60s. Between being in the marines and enduring the brainwashing BS they put out and watching the civil rights marchers being attacked by dogs and redneck cops, I got the idea that the good old USofA wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. The war in Vietnam, which I was asked to extend my enlistment to participate in, (I refused), was the capper for me.

"Patriotism is the most foolish of passions, and the passion of fools." Schopenhauer."

starroute: "I stopped being proud of being an American somewhere around 1959. When I realized most of the rest of the world didn't like us very much -- and for good reason.

Since then, it's been a matter of holding on tight and hoping that the country doesn't fall to the dark side entirely."

Shiru: "Definitely not. I didn't choose to be here, and if I had a choice I wouldn't be here."

Dangerman: "I voted "Definitely not". Bush invaded a defenseless country under false pretexts, our soldiers and innocent Iraqi are murdered over there everyday, the administration and Homeland Security scared us sh*tless with orange-level terror alerts, half the country have been brainwashed by FAUX NEWS, and or course the Patriot Act.

For now, it's more "ashamed" than "proud" to be an American."

Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry will develop a “clear, concise, consistent” Iraq policy by “no later than 2024,” a campaign memo stated yesterday.

The memo will be an “unmitigated disaster” for Kerry’s campaign, Republican strategists said.

“We were hoping Kerry could settle on a plan for Iraq by 2015,” one anonymous campaign aide said yesterday. “But this 2021 business will cement our boy’s reputation as a flip-flopping, weak-willed waffler.”

The memo also contained quotes that Kerry speechwriters “wisely excluded,” including the line, “If the American people elect me for two straight terms, I can guarantee that my plan for Iraq will be complete eleven years after I’ve left office...and if the Iraqis are fortunate, and I really decide to tackle the issue, it’ll be only four or five years after I’m outta there.”

Kerry also planned on articulating that if he “was in office during World War I, the Germans would’ve heard from us by the mid 1920s,” but that was also excluded because there were only 14 non-Vietnam related seconds of his acceptance speech.

The memo had Kerry “furious...wait, maybe not furious…let’s say perturbed” about the memo and that “he’ll figure out an Iraq policy by 2012 at the latest.”

If you enjoyed this satire by Matt Myford, you can read more of his work at Broken Newz.

If you're talking about John Kerry's record, then regrettably, you must begin by discussing his time spent in Vietnam since he obsessively brags about it at every opportunity. While John Kerry certainly deserves credit for going to Vietnam and getting shot at after his deferment was turned down, he has also been caught in a number of rather significant lies about his service.

For example, although John Kerry has told numerous stories about his "Christmas in Cambodia" over the years and said the memory was "seared in me", his own campaign now admits that wasn't the truth. Furthermore, another frequently told story, about how John Kerry's boat turned into an ambush to save a man in the water while all the other "swift boats (were) evacuating from the area" has been revealed to be untrue as well. In fact, as the Kerry campaign now admits, all the other boats stayed while John Kerry's boat temporarily left the area. (Cont)

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