Via Powerline.  It's possibly the weirdest I've ever seen.

Now look at that ballot REAL good.  Which ballot holes would you pick in order to vote for each candidate?

If you picked #6 for Kerry, #10 for Peroutka, #12 for Badnarik, and #14 for Bush, congratulations.  You chose the same ones I would have chosen.

You're also only two for four.

You see, the arrows are misleading.  You would think the boxes they point to would be the ones to vote in, but it isn't.  The number that is beside the arrow tells you the proper one to vote.  And had you voted in one of those boxes anyway, you would have gotten only two right - John Kerry, the Democratic Presidential candidate, and Michael Peroutka, the Constitutional Party candidate.

The ones you would have gotten wrong is President Bush's ballot, which is all the way up at the #4 box, which is colored red, and Michael Badnarik - the Libertarian Party candidate - had box #2.

What you are looking at is the absentee ballot for Cugahoya County, which is Ohio's most populous county.  That means that hundreds of these ballots have been given to our servicemen underseas. 

Now, both Powerline and the Associated Press state that all of them could be misaligned if the voter tries to line up the ballot card to the punch card.  Eh.  They're right about that.  But at the very least we're going to see lawsuits if Ohio is within a thousand votes or so.

It's situations like this along with the mass amounts of voter fraud we've heard about in Ohio (including the NAACP's "Crack Rock the Vote" campaign) that makes me think that Bush will probably get robbed out of Ohio.  No matter, because I still think he'll win Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and possibly Michigan.  We'll see in about 9 days, folks.

Another column that I wrote for the Northern Arc.

It should be up sometime over the weekend...

---

The many faces of John Kerry.

By Expertise

I took a trip home over the weekend, due to my father being admitted into the hospital (Minor heart attack. He’s fine.).

My family rarely talks about politics. In fact, I don’t recall ever talking to them about it, although my mom has been a poll worker during several elections. She’s voted Democrat every time, as far as I‘ve known. In fact, I recall one time going with her into the voting booth and pushing one button - a straight Democratic ticket.

So, imagine my surprise on Sunday night when we were asked by my sister who we planned to vote for in the presidential election, and my mom said she was tempted to vote for Bush!

It definitely shocked the hell out of me. And when my sister asked why, the answer was real simple; Kerry and Edwards would say and do anything to get elected.

Of course, she’s right. Living in NC, we know what Edwards is all about; and that’s nothing but hype. The former tort lawyer was nothing more than a Johnny-come-lately that came in and snuck into the U.S. Senate spot as an unknown. The then-incompetent senator, Lauch Faircloth, fell in the same trap and refused to even debate Edwards due to his supposed debating prowess, and stupidly allowed the race to turn into a virtual referendum in a state where close Senate races are the norm and not the exception. And he’s been running for President ever since, mainly because he knew he would have an uphill battle being reelected to the Senate.

But John Kerry is the one who really insults the intelligence of the voters. If you were to believe his campaign, a 35-year time warp occurred from the moment he stepped onto American soil from Vietnam to the day he won the Democratic Presidential nomination. The 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s never existed, therefore no record of his activities existed.

Running for Congress on the platform of deconstructing the military? What are you talking about? His anti-war activities, including accusing fellow vets of war crimes? Lies peddled by Bush lackeys. Meeting with the North Vietnamese twice during a time of war? Never happened. Lying about throwing his medals over the White House lawn? Just the media doing the Bush Campaign’s bidding. Running for the U.S. Senate on the premise of cutting military funding during the Arms Race that eventually destroyed the Soviet Union? You’re challenging his patriotism.

Kerry says he opposes the war in Iraq (at least right now) because he claims there is no coalition. But when there was a coalition and U.N. approval to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991 he opposed it. A few years later, you would have thought he had a grudge against Saddam, as he was on the floor of the Senate and on the political shows advocating stronger actions taken against him, even questioning the motives and backbones of Russia and France when they failed to hold Saddam in contempt for violating resolutions. Even as late as 2002 Kerry was advocating unilateral force in Iraq even if the U.N. Security Council didn’t sign on to the resolution.

So, why would Kerry all of a sudden take different stances? It’s simply because it was politically expedient at the time. Kerry was strong on Iraq when a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was pushing for accountability for Hussein’s actions in the Middle East and eventually thumbed his nose at U.N. inspectors. And after September 11th, Kerry was right back at it using the fear of Hussein transferring WMDs to terrorists in order to advocate confrontation.

However, once the Democratic primaries came around, it was quite apparent that in order for one of the candidates to become the presidential nominee, he would have to at least criticize the cause for war. It’s no secret that a majority of Democrats oppose the war, as 85% of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention opposed the war on Iraq. So from the summer of 2002 to now we’ve seen a metamorphosis of John Kerry from staunch advocate of Iraq confrontation to anti-war candidate.

In December, the primary frontrunner was anti-war candidate Howard Dean. John Kerry was trailing in fourth in most of the polls. Succumbing to and eventually using Howard Dean’s rhetoric, Kerry is now in a position to capture the White House. As Dick Cheney stated in the VP debate, if John Kerry can’t even stand up to Howard Dean, how can the American people be confident that he will stand up to terror?

This is the reason why my mother, as well as several other long-time Democrats like Zell Miller, Ed Koch, Dick Morris and others have questioned Kerry’s leadership qualities. The fact is that he really hasn’t shown any.

Before I get into that, hey...who says Karl Rove, the Darth Vader of American politics, doesn't have a sense of humor?

Ha.  I wonder if Rice got salty at that.

---

Moving on....

Peter Jennings made some interesting comments yesterday during a televised interview with a local tv affiliate in Kansas City:

Jennings said the media is now under the hot lights.

"I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective," Jennings said.

Jennings said that everyone -- even journalists -- have points of view through which they filter their perception of the news. It could be race, sex or income. But, he said, reporters are ideally trained to be as objective as possible.

"And when we don't think we can be fully objective, to be fair," the anchorman said.

Interesting.  You see, I am taking a broadcast management class that's discussing media objectivity now.  In fact, this morning we watched the rest of "OutFoxed", a leftist documentary which tries to paint Fox News as being a mouthpiece for the Republican Party and the Bush Administration (I'll talk about my experiences in this class and others at this school later).

But this statement kind of confuses me.  My argument is that objectivity is an abstract concept that really does not exist in journalism or the media.  But "fair" is one of those terms that is blurry, too.  What is the standard of fairness, or objectivity?  You need something to compare these things to in order to accurately judge them.  So when someone states that Fox News is biased, I simply ask, "biased in comparison to whom?"  It's quite easy to be seen as more conservative than PBS, CBS, NBS, ABS, CNNBS, and MSNBS.

Of course, then you can ask how someone determines bias.  Well bias in journalism can be weighed on the content within the story that either was left out and unreasonably hurts another point-of-view in the story, or was added that can distort the story altogether.  Organizations like the Media Research Center (who's probably the best at this) usually focuses on the statements and information journalists make.  So does Powerline, who's really become a thorn in the side of the Associated Press and CBSNews.

Here's how Jennings responded to public opinion on media bias:

Jennings maintains those polls may be driven by groups with an agenda.

"There's a whole industry of conservatives saying, 'Ah, it's those damn liberals,' and a whole group of liberals saying, 'It's all those damn conservatives,'" Jennings said.

The problematic response, Jennings said, is the way people tailor the way they consume news.

"If you tailor your news viewing, as some people are now doing, so that you only get one point of view, well of course you're going to think somebody else has got a different point of view, and it may be wrong," Jennings said.

Well, if you feel Pew Research and Zogby are biased, then fine.  But both show that the public believes more than ever that the media is biased, particularly on the heels of the CYA Scandal.  He's somewhat right, however.  Your political leanings will lean to your belief of what sort of slant the media has.  But to try to paint those pollsters as being driven by an agenda is wrong.

Also, the last quote comes off as a bit condescending.  You see, people decide what is news and what isn't, not the journalists.  And it definitely shows in the ratings, as more and more people are turning off the broadcast networks and watching more of the cable ones, particularly Fox News.   So if more people are doing it, then something should tell the mainstream media that perhaps there is something wrong with you, and not them.

Also, unless you're only listening to selected talk radio show hosts, it's quite hard not to get another point of view within the media.  Very few media outlets give one view of the news, albeit one of the views are terribly weaker than the other, which gives root to bias.  Considering that a majority of people still get their news from the mainstream media (which is, of course, what makes them mainstream), Jennings comes off as pretentious in making such a statement.

Then again, with the big three, that shouldn't surprise anyone.

Found an interesting tidbit over in Canada today (via Reynolds):

More than 30 Canadian internet pharmacies have decided not to accept bulk orders of prescription drugs from US states and municipalities.

The move delivers a potentially serious setback to US politicians most notably Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry campaigning to give Americans easier access to cheap drugs from Canada.

For some odd reason, I never thought of this.  But I should have.

The reaction by these companies is real simple; Canada and other countries that engage in socialist health care are barely able to do so because those countries place price caps on their drugs.  Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies that are international are able to get back any loss of profit by selling it for a higher cost here, because we don't have it.

Therefore, if they allow Americans to buy drugs from other countries for that capped-off cost, they lose revenue, and it hurts their business.  That means less money to do research for new drugs, lobby Congress for new regulations, etc.  And the ones that can't get their drugs from Canada will have their drug prices inflated again.

So to stop all of that, this is a pretty logical reaction.  While Kerry and others would more than likely try to punish those companies in some fashion for refusing to sell the capped drugs here, they can only go after those that do business in this country, and then they would have to be held accountable when drug prices rise after whatever stunt they pull.

Canada will be pissed (as if that matters) because this will happen:

But growing concern in Canada that growing exports to the US could lead to rising prices and shortages north of the border has prompted the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (Cipa), whose members include several of the biggest internet and mail-order drugstores, to act. “We don't want to give Americans the impression that we have unlimited supply for them to tap into on a commercial basis,” said David Mackay, the association's executive director. Americans, he added, “can't get everything from Canada. We can't be your complete drugstore”.

And considering Canada already has numerous problems with their socialist healthcare, they are going to back up the companies.  This was a really stupid idea by the Democrats from the beginning.  Senate Republicans told them this was going to happen, and that it would be a bad idea all around.

Things like these show that John Kerry - nor any other Democrat, for that matter - can not be leaders.  Kerry has pretty much been debunked on the ally building, as France and Germany are poised to block any NATO and U.N. resolution. 

It's one thing for a president to fail one some of the goals for the term, but these guys are failing before they get into office.  It simply shows the shortsightedness and lack of vision within the Democratic Party.

The blogosphere, particularly on the left, is in a tizzy over Jon Stewart's little stunt on Crossfire.

JON STEWART: ... And I made a special effort to come on the show today, because I have privately, amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows, mentioned this show as being bad.

[LAUGHTER]

PAUL BEGALA: We have noticed.

STEWART: And I wanted to -- I felt that that wasn't fair and I should come here and tell you that I don't -- it's not so much that it's bad, as it's hurting America.

[LAUGHTER]

TUCKER CARLSON: But in its defense...

[CROSSTALK]

STEWART: So I wanted to come here today and say...

[CROSSTALK]

STEWART: Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys.

CARLSON: Yes.

STEWART: Stop.

[LAUGHTER]

STEWART: Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.

Later on....

STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our lawns.

BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we're too rough on them when they make mistakes.

STEWART: No, no, no, you're not too rough on them. You're part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.

And he was pretty serious the whole time.  But at the same time, you could tell he was playing for the crowd.  And it's quite sad when your studio audience is enjoying watching a guest insult the hosts of the show.  I'm sure that made both Begala and Carlson feel real good.

But then, Carlson decided it was time to get a little tough on him, and it showed right at the end:

CARLSON: I do think you're more fun on your show. Just my opinion.

[CROSSTALK]

CARLSON: OK, up next, Jon Stewart goes one on one with his fans...

[CROSSTALK]

STEWART: You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

I think it's obvious that Stewart is taking himself a WEE bit too seriously.  Now sure; he's got a good show, gets good ratings, has a cult following (Although I don't think I've watched an entire episode.  I've seen a few minutes and changed the channel.  However, I did catch that lame interview he did with Clinton.  You would have thought it was an infomercial for the Democratic Party.).

But I think political satire has gone off the deep end, particularly in the last few years.  There are funny things that happen in politics.  But politics in and of itself isn't funny.  And nowadays there are too many comedians and entertainers that want to try to gain attention by getting on their soapbox while telling us what's wrong with the world and calling it comedy.

Political comedy has become a virtual half-step (c) Doug E. Fresh for the problem that exists within an apathetic electorate in this country.  Yeah; a lot of people like The Daily Show, and it's probably got them more interested in politics than previously.  Yeah; they like Al Franken, Jeanne Garafolo, Colin Quinn, and several others.  But these people are doing nothing but making politics worse, because they're giving uninformed opinions based off of superficial reasoning.

John Kerry may be boring and uninspiring and injects himself with botox, but that's not why I dislike him.  Bush may not be the best public speaker, or a Rhodes Scholar, but that's not why I like him.  There are so many issues that coincide within the surface of each candidate and the comings and goings of Washington political infrastructure that it's ridiculous to simply focus on the surface.

I don't like watching Crossfire that much, but at least they do analyze different issues and viewpoints and everyone on the show is challenged to give a coherent reason.  As Carlson asked Stewart, what kind of questions are those softballs he was giving both Clinton and Kerry?  At least when the candidates are on David Letterman or Jay Leno the hosts don't try to act as if they are covering the scene.

If Stewart is going to cover politics, cover politics.  If he's going to do comedy, do comedy.  But if he's going to do comedy, don't pretend that his show is an integral part of the political process, because it isn't.  Unless he's admitting that it does make things worse.

But that's only one part of the problem.  The other part is the idea that someone that is invited on your show feels they have the right to tell you how to do it - and right on the air, no less.

What if someone got on Stewart's show and said:

"Jon, your show is kinda bad.  It's lacking, your 'correspondents' come off as real corny, and - I'm sorry, dude - but you're not that funny.

And you inspire a lot of comedians, because you're in a good spot in your life right now, and so they want to get what you have.  But right now you're in the pocket of the executives of Comedy Central, and you come off as plain and, well, a corporate hack.

So what you're going to have to do is get you and your writers to put in a few more hours burning the midnight oil and juice up your show a bit.  Maybe get some new correspondents - a black one would help, yanno - and cut out the cheap jokes.  Because right now, you'd be better off calling this The Dork Show rather than The Daily Show.

Would Jon react to this?  Maybe.  He might try to add to it.  But either way, it would be inappropriate.  It's like someone coming to your place of work and telling you how to do your job.  And then when things get heated you're going to call him a dick?  Please.

Carlson and Begala are better than I am.  I wouldn't have asked him back for a second segment.  I would have told him to get lost. 

Does the Vice-President and his wife have a good reason?  Well, lets see:

Debating President Bush Wednesday night, Kerry referred to Mary Cheney when asked whether homosexuality is a choice.

"We're all God's children," he said. "And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not a choice."

But both the vice president and his wife went after Kerry with strong words.

"You saw a man who will do and say anything to get elected," Cheney told a rally in Fort Myers, Fla. "And I am not just speaking as a father here, although I am a pretty angry father."

He told a local TV station: "I thought it was totally inappropriate."

Mrs. Cheney was even sharper as she denounced Kerry after a debate party in the Pittsburgh suburb of Coraopolis, Pa., Wednesday night.

"This is not a good man," she said. "Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick."

Well, this race is getting personal.  It's definitely a lot more personal than Bush/Gore was in 2000, although it was said that neither was wild about each other back then.

When I heard Kerry mention Cheney's daughter, I gave the tv a gas face.  I mean, why bring her up?  But I wasn't hot about it or anything.  I just thought it was a cheap debate trick.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Edwards pulled that same stunt during the VP debate, to which Cheney refused to give a rebuttal during the debate.  And Kerry has been guilty of alot worse during this election season.

But I did get hot at this:

Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, was harsher, suggesting that while Mrs. Cheney has been "a wonderful advocate" for her daughter, she also might be ashamed of her.

"She's overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion. I think that's a very sad state of affairs," she told ABC radio. "I think that it indicates a certain amount of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences."

Now if I was Mrs. Cheney, I'd have a problem with that, and I'd make it very clear that Elizabeth Edwards needs to mind her damned business.

Anyone who's kept up with this election knows that the Cheneys are not ashamed of their daughter.  In fact, she's been right with them on the campaign trail.  Now I would have said they were overreacting, but after seeing Elizabeth Edwards's pathetic statements it's obvious as to what they were trying to do, and that's make the Cheneys look like homophobic hypocrites.

It's no wonder these people are having such a hard time getting people to believe they are genuine.  They will say and do anything to get elected, no matter how personal they get.

But here's an email by Brian Erst to Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit:

A proper analogy would be if President Bush was asked a question about the issue of divorce. If, in reply, he said, "I believe divorce is very hard on children. Senator Kerry's daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa, know how painful and heartbreaking the divorce of their parents were to them. That's why I believe that we should have a program of marriage counseling that should take place prior to any divorce, to see if we can bridge the gap that has grown between two people who at one time, obviously loved each other. If it can't, then the divorce, however painful, may have to take place, but at least we have tried to minimize the damage to the children."

The inclusion of Kerry's daughters in the above quote would be crass. The matter is one of public record and I believe it has been spoken of to some extent during the campaign, but it still is using another person's family to score a cheap political point. . . . This one was obvious - especially after Edwards made the same point in his debate as well. Add Elizabeth Edwards' cynical psychoanalysis ("I find it sad Lynne Cheney has such a problem accepting her daughter...") and you get the Democratic equivalent of the old Republican tactic of wink-and-nod race baiting.

Precisely.  There is no need to bring the private life of a family into this, unless it directly involves corruption.  Kerry and Edwards could have easily made their argument without bringing the Cheneys' daughter into this.

Do I really need to tell you it's from the AP?

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is considering whether the United States is out of step with the rest of the world, and with national and global standards of decency, by allowing teenage killers to be put to death.

Gee, Gina....tell us how you REALLY feel.

Someone tell me how hard is it to write this:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether juvenile executions should be deemed unconstitutional.

Now tell me what's wrong with that statement?  Hell; I should be doing her job, and get that AP money.

Now Holland knows that the Supreme Court is not considering whether or not "the U.S. is out of step with the rest of the world".  They are looking into arguments that juvenile executions are legal under the Constitution.

Or at least they are supposed to:

The Supreme Court has looked increasingly at international opinion, and its four most liberal members have gone on record against a practice they said was "a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society."

Well it looks like Holland is already up four points.  This isn't surprising, but the idea that leftist jurists look toward international opinion in order to make constitutional decisions simply disturbs me.

The final sentence of Holland's report disturbs me as well:

Justice John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer have said that it is shameful to execute juvenile killers.

Really?  How ironic that all four jurists would use the same word..."shameful".  It sounds like Holland is actually using her own feelings to imply how the judges feel.

And the sad thing about the AP is that this is almost expected.  Their articles serve more as quasi-op-eds rather than actual news briefs.

The Democrats got themselves in a tizzy over a documentary that will be aired by Sinclair Broadcasting stations discussing John Kerry's anti-war activities when he came home from Vietnam:

The documentary, "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," chronicles Kerry's 1971 testimony before Congress and links him to activist and actress Jane Fonda. It includes interviews with Vietnam prisoners of war and their wives who claim Kerry's testimony — filled with "lurid fantasies of butchery in Vietnam" on the part of U.S. troops — demeaned them and led their captors to hold them longer.

The Democratic National Committee planned to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday contending that Sinclair's airing of the film should be considered an illegal in-kind contribution to President Bush's campaign. Also, 18 Democratic senators sent a letter to the Federal Communication Commission asking that it investigate whether Sinclair's plan was an improper use of public airwaves.

This is something they did NOT want to get out.  They don't want the public to be informed about Kerry's anti-war actions when he returned home from Vietnam.  Why?  Because they know if Americans found out the truth, they would tune out.

It's bad when 18 Senators - no doubt they aren't up for reelection - have to save their candidate from the truth. 

Here's some funny comments from Kerry's boys:

Chad Clanton, a Kerry campaign spokesman, said, "Everything is on the table but it's hard to take an offer seriously from a group with such a fierce partisan agenda, a group that's clearly not interested in the truth."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said the company was acting as a mouthpiece for the Republican Party rather than a legitimate news outlet.

"In this election cycle, they have put their money where their right-wing mouths are," he said. "Sinclair's owners aren't interested in news. They're interested in pro-Bush propaganda."

I KNOW they aren't talking.

I swear these people act as if history just started yesterday.  Do they remember the stunts they've been playing with CBS over the last year, using 60 Minutes as a platform for the Kerry campaign?  When did they bother to review the Swiftboat Vet's book "Unfit for Command"?

The media hasn't bother to report this because they feel the only news worth talking about is the stuff they bring up.  If they don't create the story, then the source is biased or partisan.  That's how they treated the blogosphere after the CBS CYA Scandal and that's what they are doing now with Sinclair.

If the FCC or the FEC tries to interject themselves in this Sinclair affair, then they need to investigate each of the big three networks - ABS, NBS, and CBS.  I can guarantee you I can find at least 10 examples of media bias in their news reports in the last year, particularly in their respective newsmagazines. 

And Joshua Marshall, of all people, is making a fuss about this:

Unlike cable programming, local broadcast licenses aren't 'owned' -- courts have always been clear on this. The right to broadcast over a given slice of spectrum is public property on loan to the broadcaster in exchange for providing programming in the public interest. This move is but a paler version of the de-democratization we're now seeing in Russia as the standing government asserts increasing control over a nominally independent media.

It's not a 'fairness' or a free speech issue. It's a massive and quite public case of election and campaign finance fraud.

It's the sort of thing that, if it happens, will put the legitimacy of the entire election into doubt.

First of all, the phrase "public property" has always been a misnomer.  It really should be called government property, because the bureaucrats are the ones acting as if they own it and are making decisions on who gets access to the airwaves on their own whim. 

Second, Marshall is a hypocrite.  This is the same guy who worked with CBSNews to create a story about the Bush Administration's handling of the Niger documents, which was no question going to be a highly partisan and one-sided story. 

The only thing that stopped CBS from airing that story was the CYA Scandal.  After all, it would have been quite stupid if CBSNews would have criticized the Bush Administration for using fake documents, when they themselves got busted for using fake documents as well.  And I guarantee you that Marshall had no intentions of informing the viewers that the man originally found to have dispersed those documents actually admitted to working for France.

Therefore, why should Marshall's story air on broadcast television, yet Kerry's story shouldn't?  Marshall is just as partisan as any of the Vets or any of the other Bush bashers that have been highlighted by the media.

The answer is because they know that the Swiftboats hurt Kerry pretty bad in August, and them being able to have access to national television could do the same thing again.  But Marshall and the rest of those dopes don't realize that they are only bringing more attention to the story than it otherwise would have.  They are better off just keeping quiet about it. 

Besides, they know they're only b.s.'ing when they try to invoke the FCC into this matter anyway.  Marshall knows there isn't any election fraud involved in this broadcast, any more than CBS had when they worked on that Niger story with him, or worked with Bill Burkett and Ben Barnes on that forged documents story, so he isn't fooling anyone.

It's so funny to watch leftists squirm.

The more I hear John Kerry speak, the most frustrated I get.

I think yesterday can be summed up as a pretty good day.

In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard and his coalition fought off all of his leftist challengers and won reelection with over 52% of the vote as well as increasing their seats in the Australian legislature.

Most pundits claimed Howard's job was in danger, as his coalition was to surely lose seats, but no one knew how much.  As usual, they were wrong.

And there is a clear Kerry connection, as they were trying to run interference for the Labor Party:

``John Kerry's campaign has warned Australians that the Howard government's support for the U.S. in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists.'' So reports The Australian (Sept. 18). 

 Americans Overseas for Kerry is the Kerry operation for winning the crucial votes of Americans living abroad (remember the Florida recount?), including more than 100,000 who live in Australia. Its leader was interviewed Sept. 16 by The Australian's Washington correspondent, Roy Eccleston. Asked if she believed the terrorist threat to Australians was now greater because of the support for President Bush, she replied: ``I would have to say that,'' noting that ``the most recent attack was on the Australian embassy in Jakarta.'' 

She said this of her country (and of the war that Australia is helping us with in Iraq): ``We are endangering the Australians now by this wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels.'' Mark Latham could not have said it better. Nor could Jemaah Islamiah, the al Qaeda affiliate that killed 11 people in the Jakarta bombing.

This Kerry spokesman, undermining a key ally on the eve of a critical election, is no rogue political operative. She is the head of Americans Overseas for Kerry -- Diana Kerry, sister to John. 

Once again, it shows the disdain and disrespect John Kerry shows towards the allies that are on our side right now.  I wonder if the Aussies heard about these comments and got pissed as well.  

I'm also quite irked that President Bush did not bring attention to her comments.  I'm quite sure that a spokesperson for a presidential campaign actually trying to influence an election of another country is unprecedented.  It's little things like this that allow the American people to see what's really going on.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan millions come out for Election Day, and there were only minimal attacks:

Millions flocked to polling stations set up in remote mountain hamlets, dusty refugee camps and in thousands of bullet-pocked schools and hospitals in every corner of the nation. Electoral officials said turnout appeared to be high - a victory itself in a nation with no experience at direct elections.

On Sunday, ballots were being brought to eight counting centers around the country, and election workers were beginning the tally. Officials say very initial results could come out late Sunday or early Monday, but that nothing approaching a full count is likely for more than two weeks.

"I don't think we will see a trend as to who is leading for about a week," said electoral spokesman Aykut Tavsel.

In Mazar-e-Sharif, election officials said Sunday they had not yet received the ballots from five northern provinces that are supposed to be flowing in. They said it could take until Tuesday or Wednesday for the ballots to arrive and counting to begin in earnest.

Threats by the Taliban to disrupt the vote never materialized. Though the rebels did manage a smattering of deadly assaults around the country, they themselves took the biggest hit, losing 25 men in a clash with U.S. and Afghan forces in the south.

U.S. Commander Gen. David Barno told The Associated Press in  phone interview that the election could mark the death knell for the rebels.

"The Taliban basically didn't show, they had very limited attacks," he said. "Yesterday was a huge defeat for the Taliban."

"I think the election and political process will fracture the Taliban and they will eventually look for ways to reconcile with the government that comes in," the general said.

This is all very good news, and once again, the skeptics were wrong, saying there would be mass violence around the country because we supposedly had not contained the Taliban.  It should be quite interesting to see if John Kerry continues to repeat that Tora Bora b.s. that he has for the past two debates.

Of course, the Associated Press wasn't satisfied with that, because that means Bush would receive credit for the peace.  Hence, the initial headline "Opposition Alleges Afghan Election Fraud".

And the fraud arguments is based off of idea that the ink that was supposed to be hard to take off of your thumb was supposedly too easy to get off:

Election officials said workers at some voting stations mistakenly swapped the permanent ink meant to mark thumbs with normal ink meant for ballots, but insisted the problem was caught quickly.

The boycott threat cast a pall over what had been a joyous day in Afghanistan, where millions of Afghans braved threats of Taliban violence to crowd polling stations for an election aimed at bringing peace and prosperity to a country nearly ruined by more than two decades of war. The Taliban was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

Expect this to be John Kerry's spin over the weekend if/when he's asked about these elections.  And the AP and other media outlets will go right along with him on it.

Is it me, or is John Kerry the American political equivalent to SNL's "Debbie Downer"?

Now don't get me wrong; the voter fraud allegations are a problem - as most elections do have problems - and it definitely should be addressed.  But this came out a lot better than most would like to think it would have.  Having said that, Karzai should announce that he will face the number 2 challenger in a runoff election regardless of whether there is a majority or not, so they can get it right.