I certainly don’t always agree with him, but he is sure right-on today.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear the president and vice president slamming John Kerry for saying that he hopes America can eventually get back to a place where “terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.” The idea that President Bush and Mr. Cheney would declare such a statement to be proof that Mr. Kerry is unfit to lead actually says more about them than Mr. Kerry. Excuse me, I don’t know about you, but I dream of going back to the days when terrorism was just a nuisance in our lives.

If I have a choice, I prefer not to live the rest of my life with the difference between a good day and bad day being whether Homeland Security tells me it is “code red” or “code orange” outside. To get inside the Washington office of the International Monetary Fund the other day, I had to show my ID, wait for an escort and fill out a one-page form about myself and my visit. I told my host: “Look, I don’t want a loan. I just want an interview.” Somewhere along the way we’ve gone over the top and lost our balance.

That’s why Mr. Kerry was actually touching something many Americans are worried about – that this war on terrorism is transforming us and our society, when it was supposed to be about uprooting the terrorists and transforming their societies.

It’s a nation utterly obsessed. Everything is terrorism. It’s all terrorism all the time. And for Kerry to say it should be our goal to turn terrorism into the nuisance it once was in America, something you didn’t have to agonize over day and night — well isn’t that what we all want? But of course, the bushies took it all out of context (can you imagine that?), making it sounds as though Kerry was saying terroism is just a nuisance. Hell, he could say the sky is blue and Rove would make it sound like an outrage.

Read the column. Friedman makes the case that bush, by politicizing 911, turned us into “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” A country all about anger, and not about hope. Kerry’s vision sounds like Paradise. But bush has to ridicule and condemn it, because once you stop obsessing about terrorism, you may just notice how bush has used terrorism to achieve his political ends.

Usually we hear about species evolving upwards. But shrub continues to break all the rules. Click to enlarge.

Funny.

Kerry wins, bush gets by okay simply by emerging alive. He still blinked and smirked, and if he were judged by normal standards he’d get a C — still his best performance so far. The media will most likely call it a draw. Kerry was superb throughout, but unfortunately there was no “You’re no John Kennedy” moment.

Just heard Karen Hughes ranting on CNN about how glorious bush is. If there’s anyone in whose mouth I’d love to struff a rag, it’s she.

Oh, good — CNN is playing the bush clip from last year in which he says he’s “not that concerned” about Osama! Hoisted on his own petard. Sweet.

UPDATE: Looks like I was wrong. The pundits are saying this was a huge victory for Kerry, who Bill Schneider (!) on CNN just called “the clear winner.”

Caught in his own lie. Again.

(To those of you not watching the debates, bush denied a few minutes ago that he ever said he wasn’t concerned about Osama Bin Laden, as Kerry said he did. Liar.)

Via Atrios.

Update: In his own words:

Q: Mr. President, in your speeches now, you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? […]

BUSH: … I don’t know where he is. Nor — you know, I just don’t spend that much time on him really, to be honest with you […]

Q: Do you believe the threat that bin Laden posed won’t truly be eliminated until he is found either dead of alive?

BUSH: As I say, we hadn’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, you know, again, I don’t know where he is.

I’ll repeat what I said: I truly am not that concerned about him.

…with this superb and epic story of three former friends in Anhui Province who banded together to protest the abuses of their local CCP cadres. (Their story was also highlighted in the now-banned but available book, An Investigation of China’s Peasants.)

In painstaking detail Kahn tells each man’s story and how they met, and where they are today. In so doing, Kahn sheds a good deal of light on the plight of China’s rural poor and the fate that can await those who seek justice.

I saw this powerful ad on TV this morning, and it really took me by surprise. It certainly makes you think about Iraq, and all those maimed American youth who sacrificed their limbs for…for…(sorry, the words just aren’t there).

“Oh my god” is all I could say after reading this and this. You simply won’t believe your eyes.

And go here for even more.

Kos has several absolutely alarming cases of documented voter fraud throughout the US. One guess which political party is behind all the cases? This is amazing, especially that last example — it’s unabashedly criminal. It’s Florida 2000 all over again. Only one thing can possibly save us from a political trainwreck, and that’s a Kerry landslide that’s so huge it’d be pointless to dispute it. Luckily, it appears we may really be headed in that direction.

This is hilarious. Thanks to the reader who sent it to me.