This article says that most voters are clueless.

”Particularly significant is the fact that, on many issues, the majority is not only ignorant of the truth, but actively misinformed. For example, 61 percent believe that there has been a net loss of jobs in 2004, 58 percent believe that the administration sees a link between Saddam Hussein and 9-11, and 57 percent believe that increases in domestic spending have not contributed significantly to the current federal budget deficit.”

It’s amazing that Bush is doing as well as he is, when you consider this.

I doubt that this is a new phenomenon, but I’m concerned (as always) about this big push to get people to vote (like the foolish “motor voter” law) without an accompanying push to educate them to the point that they can do so responsibly. Fortunately, most of them still don’t make it to the polls.

…why Kerry continues to refuse to sign SF 180 and release all of his military records. There have been rumors swirling about this for a while, but it’s looking more and more like his discharge from the Navy may have been less than honorable.

And much of his subsequent political career has been spent in attempting to repair that blot on his vital narrative of “John Kerry, Vietnam Hero”

There are a number of categories of discharges besides honorable. There are general discharges, medical discharges, bad conduct discharges, as well as other than honorable and dishonorable discharges. There is one odd coincidence that gives some weight to the possibility that Mr. Kerry was dishonorably discharged. Mr. Kerry has claimed that he lost his medal certificates and that is why he asked that they be reissued. But when a dishonorable discharge is issued, all pay benefits, and allowances, and all medals and honors are revoked as well. And five months after Mr. Kerry joined the U.S. Senate in 1985, on one single day, June 4, all of Mr. Kerry’s medals were reissued.

[2:30 PM EDT update]

More thoughts over at the Beldar Blog.

Even if this isn’t the issue, the question won’t go away–why is Kerry and his campaign stonewalling on the service records? If this isn’t what he’s hiding, is it something else? Something worse?

The anti-First-Amendment types are siccing the FEC on the web. How long before they shut down this site because I occasionally have harsh words for Senator Kerry and his blow-dried running mate? Signing McCain-Feingold was one of the most shameful acts of this administration, and that Supreme Court ruling that it was constitutional was a disaster for free speech.

If they really try to regulate the blogs, it may finally start the needed revolution against all of this campaign finance nonsense.

According to Drudge:

John Edwards: ‘When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again’…

Yes, and He shall cast the loaves upon the waters, and walk out upon them to gather up the fishes, to feed the long-suffering victims of Republican tax cuts. He shall make the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the dumb speak, and cure the afflicted of their poxen. No one will need Viagra.

Feel the power! Let it course through your body!

The lion shall lay down with the lamb, and the Jew with the Jihadist.

Though I walk through the Valley of MOAB and PGMs and missile defense, I shall fear no evil, because The Beast in simian form, George W. Bush, will no longer be president.

Testify, Brother Edwards! Testify!

Truly, these clowns are becoming a parody of themselves.

[Update a few minutes later]

It just occurs to me that, given Mr. Reeve’s current body temperature, Senator Edwards isn’t just claiming that Senator Kerry will cause the crippled to walk–he’s going to raise the dead.

…from Pete Coors on Meet the Press this morning. Not an exact quote, but something like “Why would we want to bring into the coalition countries that have been working with the enemy?”

By the way, has anyone noted the irony of calling the coalition, which consisted largely of countries that weren’t on the take from Saddam and the UN Oil for Palaces program, the “coalition of the bribed”?

…in the debate tonight. Remember the scene in the movie Annie Hall, in which people are arguing in a movie theatre lobby about something that Marshall McLuhan said, and Woody Allen, disgusted, pulls the actual Marshall McLuhan out from behind a counter, who informs them that they don’t seem to understand his work at all?

When (probably not if) Kerry mentions Paul Bremer, or Charles Duelfur, as supporting his position tonight, it would be great if the president could pull them out of the woodwork, and have them tell Kerry, in front of God and the debate audience, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?

I predict that within a few hours of this becoming a major media story, there will be moonbats at DU accusing the perpetrators of being Republicans, out to make Kerry supporters look bad.

Joe Katzman has one of the best explanations that I’ve seen for my reasons in thinking that a President Kerry would be a disaster, even though I too think that it’s vital that we somehow, despite the odds, develop a second major party that has the defense of the country foremost in its mind:

I…understand the impetus to look at two candidates who offer less than the times demand, and see the stakes before us, and tell oneself that Kerry will have to do the right thing.

But you know what? He absolutely does not.

Look at Europe now, or look back into human history – illusion and passivity in the face of real threats is an option, and some leaders and states will take it.

One question: is Kerry one of those people? Simple question. Simple answer.

Kerry’s positions on issues like Iran are clear, and were openly stated in the debate: normalize relations with the world’s #1 terrorist sponsors while they undermine Iraq & Afghanistan, offer them nuclear fuel, propose sanctions the Europeans will drag their feet on in order to stop a late-stage nuclear program that’s impervious to sanctions anyway, and oppose both missile defense and the nuclear bunker-buster weapons that would give the USA defensive or offensive options in a crisis.

Gee, I’m sleeping better already.

Despite the fact that I think that George Bush is in many ways disastrous, and wish that there were a viable alternative, I remain convinced that the only realistic alternative would be even worse. And I think that the best way to slap the Dems in the face, to throw the bucket of icewater on them, to wake them up from their hysterical dreamland, is to repudiate them thoroughly at the polls–to force them to face reality, and shed themselves of their delusions about the enemy we face.

From Wolverine country.

Bo is the former coach of the Michigan Buckeyes, err…Wolverines (I think they play in Lambert Field?), and even in liberal Ann Arbor he’s still revered as a minor deity. His endorsement will carry a lot of weight there, in what’s turning into a close race.

A screed. From Lileks.

Perhaps the