“THE BETTER BET”

The pro-war, increasingly centrist Washington Post endorses Kerry.

QUOTE OF THE DAY I: “I supported the war on the basis of what I believed to be the case and I am not moving away from that now. I do think that many people around this country would be very wary indeed of taking this government’s word on another occasion if a further military adventure seemed likely, given the history of what has happened on this occasion. That is very worrying,” – former British prime minister, and George H.W. Bush’s close ally in the first Gulf War, John Major, on the current occupation in Iraq. Agree with him or not, I think it’s empirically true that the United States will not be able to rely on even Britain in any coming military intervention. Any future pre-emptive wars under the current president will have to be unilateral, if they can occur at all. And that’s why the stark contrast now being drawn by some about the future differences between Bush and Kerry are, in my view, over-drawn. Bush has ensured that we are ham-strung in any future engagements: no troops left, no allies remaining. And people are worried about Kerry.

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: “People will often be misled into thinking someone is brighter if he says something complicated they can’t understand,” – professor Linda Gottfredson, an I.Q. expert at the Unioversity of Delaware, on why people might be surprised to find that Bush may have a higher I.Q. than Kerry.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Forgive me for correcting a minor misstatement you made on the Matthews Show this morning. I recall that you said that we do not have close re-elections for President in this country. Not since 1888, we don’t, but in 1888, the incumbent Cleveland was defeated for re-election by Harrison. Out of 11,000,000 popular votes, Cleveland won by a mere 104,000 (but he lost in the Electoral College, 168-233). The next one, in 1892, a re-match, was almost close. Cleveland defeated the incumbent Harrison by 350,000 votes out of 12,000,000 (and won in the Electoral College, 277-145-22, the latter being a Populist candidate).” The movie- perfect scenario this time around, of course, is for Bush to win the popular vote but to lose in the electoral college. History is ironic, of course. But rarely that ironic.