The evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson set off a partisan firefight Wednesday after telling a television interviewer that President Bush had serenely assured him (in March 2003) that, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties" in the invasion of Iraq.

... Robertson, a former Marine who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, said he had had "deep misgivings" about the war but that the president looked "like a contented Christian with four aces," as Robertson put it, using a quotation from Mark Twain.

"I mean, [Bush] was just sitting there like, 'I am on top of the world,' " Robertson said

"The president never made such a comment," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

Senior Bush campaign adviser Karen Hughes, a longtime confidant of the president, said she was "certain" Bush would not have said anything like that to Robertson.

"Perhaps he misunderstood, but I've never heard the president say any such thing," Hughes said on CNN's "Inside Politics."

You knew Tom DeLay had to be one, right?

"'The House doctor recommended that members get the flu shot because they would be in a position of carrying or passing along the virus,' DeLay spokesman Jonathan Grella said. 'Particularly in this season of (campaign) visits to nursing homes and senior centers, we can't afford to take that risk.'"

Columnist Coulter hit with custard pies
2 men arrested after attack at University of Arizona

The Associated Press
Updated: 8:34 a.m. ET Oct. 22, 2004

TUCSON, Ariz. - Two men ran onstage and threw custard pies at conservative columnist Ann Coulter as she was giving a speech at the University of Arizona, hitting her in the shoulder, police said.

University police arrested the men but did not release their identities.

In her half-hour speech Thursday night, Coulter trashed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and derided liberals and Democrats while saluting conservative students who attended her speech.

Coulter writes a column for Universal Press Syndicate. Her appearance was sponsored by the UA College Republicans.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned yesterday that terrorists in Iraq are stepping up their insurgency in hopes voters will remove President Bush from office but that Americans are "wise enough" not to give in to the provocation.

[edit]

Secretary Powell, speaking at the State Department, noted that casualties in Iraq have increased in recent months and that the situation probably will become "more difficult" as Nov. 2 draws closer.

But "the American people will not shrink from the task that is before us, and the American people are wise enough to put this into their calculation as to who they want to elect as president," he said.

The African Union recommended a four-day postponement of peace talks over Sudan's Darfur region on Thursday after a transport mix-up left delegates stranded across the continent.

As she ran across the powdery soil toward her flimsy hut, praying her rapist wouldn't give chase, Awatif Abdallah's face was bloody, her left eye swollen and her clothes tattered, according to witnesses and a medical report.

She felt shame. She felt fear. But instead of keeping silent, she took a path that countless violated women in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region rarely take: She sought justice.

Rwandan and Nigerian soldiers will arrive in western Sudan this week as the first deployment of a five nation 4,500 strong peacekeeping force dispatched from the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa to stem the violence in Darfur. Providing logistical support for the mission will be two private contractors from California, both of whom have mixed records carrying out similar enterprises in the past.

[edit]

Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Bittrick, the deputy director of regional and security affairs for Africa at the State Department, flew to Addis two months ago to hammer out an agreement to support African Union troops by committing to provide housing, office equipment, transport, and communications gear. This will be provided via an "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity" joint contract awarded to Dyncorp Corporation, and Pacific Architects & Engineers (PAE) worth $20.6 million.

The two companies are already recruiting new staff to send to the region. A "resourceful retired military officer who has a through understanding of logistics" is being sought for $85,000 a year as well as security chief to lead "40-60 personnel daily" at a salary of $53,750 a year.

The State Department has assigned the work to DynCorp even as the same agency officially rebuked the company last week for its employees "aggressive behaviour" doing guard duty for Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and despite PAE's record of allegedly overcharging the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

This tendency of Bush supporters to ignore dissonant information extends to other realms as well. Despite an abundance of evidence--including polls conducted by Gallup International in 38 countries, and more recently by a consortium of leading newspapers in 10 major countries--only 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the US having gone to war with Iraq. Forty-two percent assume that views are evenly divided, and 26% assume that the majority approves. Among Kerry supporters, 74% assume that the majority of the world is opposed.

Similarly, 57% of Bush supporters assume that the majority of people in the world would favor Bush's reelection; 33% assumed that views are evenly divided and only 9% assumed that Kerry would be preferred. A recent poll by GlobeScan and PIPA of 35 of the major countries around the world found that in 30, a majority or plurality favored Kerry, while in just 3 Bush was favored. On average, Kerry was preferred more than two to one.

The fight against terrorism takes decisiveness. It takes continued support for our troops and first responders. But most importantly, it takes courage and inspirational leadership in the White House. In these critical times, our President has had the courage to stand up and do what's right.

For that and for his unwavering character, we choose George W. Bush as our President for the next four years. He is a leader we can depend on to make the tough decisions and the right decisions. Please join us in supporting a candidate of courage, President Bush--a leader who backs our troops defending our nation and shares our values.

Zoe,

I know it's late in the campaign day, but I've been mulling this one since
the last debate. We all knew that Bush was going to dust off the old "tax
and spend liberal" charge, but Kerry didn't have a good comeback. I have a
comeback, I had it at the time, and I think it's better to be late *before*
the election than after. Here it is:

"Credit Card Conservative"

It's simple, it's accurate, it's catchy, it's something that everyone in
this country can understand and cringe at. It will make the morning news
clipshows.

Example:

My opponent calls me a "tax and spend liberal." I believe that we should pay
for what we get; it's called fiscal responsibility. My opponent, on the
other hand, is a credit card conservative, "spend now, pay later." And we
will pay. So far he's spend $# of our money on special interests and
boondoggles that we'll pay for, and our children will pay for, for years to
come.

Any idea how to start seeding a phrase like this?

-Pandora Ohio

Democrat John Kerry is the winner, and the rest of the country should pay attention because the vote on Nickelodeon's Web site has correctly chosen the president of the United States in the past four elections.

Nearly 400,000 children and teens voted, and the results were released Wednesday. Kerry received 57 percent of the vote; President Bush got 43 percent.

The vice president seized on a statement Kerry recently made about returning to a time when terrorism was just a nuisance. "It said to me that he didn't understand the scope and nature of the problem," Cheney said. "When was it that terrorism was ever a nuisance?"

"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."

"...victory is going to be measured by what doesn't happen as opposed to what does happen. When Americans can go to malls and shopping centers and not have to worry about being hit by terrorists, and we don't think that on any moment there might be a suicidal airplane attack, then we'll know that we've dealt with it."

"Rape is used as a weapon to terrorize individual women and girls, and also to terrorize their families and to terrorize entire communities. No woman or girl is safe. It is a very effective tool of war. It is a war crime," UN News quoted her as saying.

These realities make fully clear the answer to any question about whether there will be a robust international humanitarian intervention tasked with saving hundreds of thousands of vulnerable civilians: there will not. This acquiescent decision has been made by political leaders at the UN, in the European Union, and in Washington. Though there has been no fully honest acknowledgement of this decision, it has all too clearly been made.

Certainly if present genocidal horrors are not sufficient cause for intervention, then it is impossible to imagine some future galvanizing development in Darfur that might be the final spur to action. 300,000 have died, and mortality rates are obscenely high; more than 2 million have been displaced within Darfur and into Chad; more than 2.5 million people are now directly affected by the conflict and in need of humanitarian assistance, and this number only grows. The Janjaweed continue their "reign of terror" in the rural areas and in the camps; many of these war criminals have now been recycled into the ranks of "police." Agricultural production is coming ever more fully to a halt, and food is becoming scarcer all the time. The social and cultural destruction of the African tribal groups of Darfur steadily increases, even as camps for the displaced look more and more like human warehouses.

And yet this is not enough to justify humanitarian intervention. That this is so, that massive, deliberate human destruction---animated by ethnic/racial hatred---is insufficient cause for intervention, must be stated fully and explicitly, rather than allowed to slip by as tacit acquiescence in genocide by a morally bereft "international community." Such abysmal failure cannot be judged by history alone: we must say it to ourselves, now.

A child suffering from malnutrition where it is being treated at the therapeutic feeding centre run by Doctors Without Borders, a non-governmental organization based in Belgium.

The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.

Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.

"We haven't seen anything good from Democrats," Rowhani told state-run television in remarks that, for the first time in recent decades, saw Iran openly supporting one U.S. presidential candidate over another.

Though Iran generally does not publicly wade into U.S. presidential politics, it has a history of preferring Republicans over Democrats, who tend to press human rights issues. [bold mine]

Tawhid and Jihad, the Iraqi militant group of terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, apparently has changed its name two days after announcing its merger with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.

An Internet statement released Tuesday under the purported new name, al-Qaida of Jihad in the Land of Two Rivers, claimed responsibility for an attack on a U.S. military convoy west of the Iraqi city of Fallujah the same day. The two rivers in the new name refers to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Iraq.

Article reports that And For the Sake of the Kids, the interest group running ads attacking incumbent West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw for being soft on crime, has revealed that it collected $2.5 million from 12 donors between Aug. 20 and Sept. 30, 2004. One of the largest donations came from Don Blakenship, the chief executive officer of Massey Energy Co., who gave $1.7 million. Commenting on his donation, Blakenship said that the current Supreme Court is scaring away business and jobs from the state. He did not mention the sex offender case for which And For the Sake of the Kids has criticized Justice McGraw. According to the article, Massey Energy Co. is facing a number of lawsuits that could end up before the West Virginia Supreme Court, leading Justice McGraw supporters to claim that business interests are trying to buy a seat on the state Supreme Court.

The militant group led by terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, believed to be behind many deadly attacks in Iraq, has declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden, citing the need for unity against "the enemies of Islam."

The declaration, which appeared Sunday on a Web site used as a clearinghouse for statements by militant groups, said al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group and al Qaida had been in communication eight months ago and "viewpoints were exchanged" before the dialogue was interrupted.

"God soon blessed us with a resumption in communication, and the dignified brothers in al Qaida understood the strategy of Tawhid and Jihad," said the statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed.

The statement ran a Quranic verse encouraging Muslim unity and said al-Zarqawi considered bin Laden "the best leader for Islam's armies against all infidels and apostates."

Many of the 1.694 million uninsured veterans in 2003 were barred from VHA care because of a 2003 Bush Administration order that halted enrollment of most middle income veterans. Others were unable to obtain VHA care due to waiting lists at some VHA facilities, unaffordable co-payments for VHA specialty care, or the lack of VHA facilities in their communities. An additional 3.90 million members of veterans’ households were also uninsured and ineligible for VHA care.
...
David U. Himmelstein, M.D., study author and Harvard Medical School Associate Professor, commented: “This administration professes great concern for veterans, but it’s all talk and no action. Since President Bush took office the number of uninsured vets has skyrocketed, and he’s cut VA eligibility, barring hundreds of thousands of veterans from care. Our president has put troops in harm’s way overseas and abandons them and their families once they get home.

When President Bush took office, the nation's abortion rates were at a 24-year low, after a 17.4% decline during the 1990s. This was an average decrease of 1.7% per year, mostly during the latter part of the decade. (This data comes from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life using the Guttmacher Institute's studies).

Enter George W. Bush in 2001. One would expect the abortion rate to continue its consistent course downward, if not plunge. Instead, the opposite happened.

I found three states that have posted multi-year statistics through 2003, and abortion rates have risen in all three: Kentucky's increased by 3.2% from 2000 to 2003. Michigan's increased by 11.3% from 2000 to 2003. Pennsylvania's increased by 1.9% from 1999 to 2002. I found 13 additional states that reported statistics for 2001 and 2002. Eight states saw an increase in abortion rates (14.6% average increase), and five saw a decrease (4.3% average decrease).

Under President Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected before this change of direction.

How could this be? I see three contributing factors:

First, two thirds of women who abort say they cannot afford a child (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Web site). In the past three years, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a presidency until the current administration. Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation. With less income, many prospective mothers fear another mouth to feed.

Second, half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life). Men who are jobless usually do not marry. Only three of the 16 states had more marriages in 2002 than in 2001, and in those states abortion rates decreased. In the 16 states overall, there were 16,392 fewer marriages than the year before, and 7,869 more abortions. As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.
Third, women worry about health care for themselves and their children. Since 5.2 million more people have no health insurance now than before this presidency - with women of childbearing age overrepresented in those 5.2 million - abortion increases.
...
What does this tell us? Economic policy and abortion are not separate issues; they form one moral imperative. Rhetoric is hollow, mere tinkling brass, without health care, health insurance, jobs, child care, and a living wage. Pro-life in deed, not merely in word, means we need policies that provide jobs and health insurance and support for prospective mothers.

"The chances of post-election litigation affecting the outcome of this election are in fact small -- probably well under 10 percent. It is not that Election Day problems are unlikely -- I think they are guaranteed -- but they would have to occur in a place where the resolution of the problem could affect the outcome of the election. Think battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Colorado. We should hardly find that statistic comforting: Even a small probability of a big disaster is worth concern."

"The high price of oil seems set to last and economic leaders now acknowledge that it is beginning to weigh on the world economy by lowering growth forecasts for next year."

"What I think the president ought to do [when gas prices spike] is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots .... And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price."

Today, President Bush signed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2005 to provide much-needed funds for our Nation's homeland security activities. ... This bill reflects the President's commitment to defend America ..."

Mr. Bush's hardened rhetoric comes as polls give mixed signals about the mood of the electorate. With a little more than two weeks to go before the election, polls show dissatisfaction with Mr. Bush's handling of domestic affairs; the president's approval rating hovers below 50%. The latest Time magazine survey found only 49% of Americans approved of Mr. Bush's job performance. Although that normally would mean trouble for an incumbent, Mr. Bush either is tied with Mr. Kerry or slightly ahead of him in most national polls -- including Time's -- emphasizing how voter concerns about Iraq and terrorism are scrambling traditional election calculations and playing to the president's advantage at a crucial time.

In a revealing illustration of just how complicated the situation has become, American diplomats now harbor almost as much rancor for the rebels in Darfur as they do for the government in Khartoum. In recent months, the S.L.A. has repeatedly stalled peace talks being brokered by the African Union by setting unrealistic preconditions or quibbling over such details as where the talks should be held; for its part, the Justice and Equality Movement faction had, until recently, boycotted the talks altogether.

''The first notion anyone's got to disabuse themselves of,'' the same State Department official said, ''is that there are any good guys in this. There aren't. The S.L.A. started this war, and now they and the Justice and Equality Movement are doing everything possible to keep it going. The S.L.A. has never stood up to the army the way the S.P.L.A. did in the south. Instead, they've been very content to sit back, let the village burnings go on, let the killing go on, because the more international pressure that's brought to bear on Khartoum, the stronger their position grows.''

Referee Rene Temmink suspended play 10 minutes before full-time with PSV leading 2-0 in The Hague after the local fans took up a chorus calling for him to be gassed and accusing his wife of being a "whore".

City mayor Wim Deetman then ordered the match to be abandoned, news agency nu.nl reported.

The Premier Division club had only just reached a settlement with the Dutch soccer association KNVB after problems were reported at the 12 September ADO-Ajax Amsterdam clash, in which ADO fans continually chanted that the referee's girlfriend was a whore.

Temmink decided to end the match in the 80th minute. "I was associated with an illness under which very many people suffered and died. 'Hamas, Hamas, Temmink to the gas' was also unacceptable."

The referee said later that he refused to put up with such abuse. "If you don't have guts and you don’t dare to intervene, you only make it more difficult. Football is a beautiful game and so many people enjoy it. But this beautiful game will be destroyed by something like that," he said.

[snip]

The KNVB [Royal Dutch Football Association] wholeheartedly backed Temmink's decision, with association director Henk Kesler saying it was completely in line with the new protocol. "The KNVB applauds this," he said.

The chairman of the ADO board of commissioners, Ruud de Boer, said that he could "totally understand" Mayor Deetman's decision to abandon the match.

"I was not elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation."

"The president of the United States is the president of every single American, of every race and every background. Whether you voted for me or not, I will do my best to serve your interests, and I will work to earn your respect."

The Democrats appear to be gaining the upper hand in the battle to sign up new voters in the all-important swing states, an Associated Press analysis suggests.

The AP analysis of the most up-to-date figures from across the country found that, in every state where complete data is available, the Democrats have registered more new voters than Republicans. They have the edge in Arizona, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada and New Hampshire.

Only in Florida is the story different. Registration tallies from more than half the counties show that the Republicans and the Democrats are virtually tied in the race to increase their share of voters in the state that decided the presidential election four years ago. In those counties, the Republicans have signed up just a few thousand more.

As for the two other big prizes among the swing states -- Pennsylvania and Ohio -- Pennsylvania's numbers are too scant to draw any conclusions, and Ohio does not register voters by party.

An Anglican Church commission issued a report in London today that sharply rebukes the Episcopal Church U.S.A. for ordaining an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire and for blessing same-sex unions. The report calls for a moratorium on both practices "until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges."

The commission asked the Episcopal Church, the American branch of Anglicanism, to apologize for creating pain and division in the global Anglican Communion. With 77 million members in about 164 countries, the Communion is the second-largest church body in the world.

The report also calls for the bishops who consecrated V. Gene Robinson a bishop in New Hampshire a year ago to consider withdrawing from Anglican "functions" until they offer "an expression of regret."

... The report issued today says that given the "widespread unacceptability" of Bishop Robinson's ministry in provinces around the world, the Archbishop of Canterbury should "exercise very considerable caution in inviting or admitting him to the councils of the Communion."

"I can regret the effects of [Robinson's ordination], but at the same time be clear about the integrity of what I've done," Bishop Griswold said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says terrorist attacks in Iraq are aimed at preventing the re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush and that a Bush defeat "could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world."
...
"Any unbiased observer understands that attacks of international terrorist organizations in Iraq, especially nowadays, are targeted not only and not so much against the international coalition as against President Bush," Putin said.

"International terrorists have set as their goal inflicting the maximum damage to Bush, to prevent his election to a second term.

"If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition," Putin said.

"In that case, this would give an additional impulse to international terrorists and to their activities, and could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world."

Putin noted that American voters will not decide the election just on Iraq.

"Because of this we must take a realistic approach and be prepared for any development of events," he said. "We respect any choice the American people will make."

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."

President Bush on Monday accused Democratic rival Sen. John Kerry of "shameless scare tactics" by suggesting that the president would jeopardize Social Security for older Americans and bring back the military draft for young people.

Bush, in an Associated Press interview, said of Kerry, "He's trying to scare our seniors. It is wrong to try to scare people going into the polls."

[I]t's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.

New pictures on the Internet last week showed protuberances under Mr. Bush's T-shirt at his ranch and again under his coat at the second and third debates. Some theories had the bulge as a bulletproof vest or a tracking device to help the Secret Service locate Mr. Bush should he be kidnapped.

The White House flatly denied it all, and continued to insist that the bulge wasn't there, or that it amounted to nothing.

"I think it is about the most ridiculous story of the campaign,'' said Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary.

"Listen, I'm there when he puts his coat on, I'm there when he takes it off, I've never seen it,'' said Mark McKinnon, Mr. Bush's chief media adviser.

"I know that the Internet claims it was all different things, but to my knowledge, it was just a poorly tailored suit,'' said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff.

"The box was one of those shock collars,'' said Ken Mehlman, Mr. Bush's campaign manager, who was joking.

But now there's a new mystery that some eagle-eyed viewers noticed just after the debate between Vice President Cheney and Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.). It happened while the families were up on the stage, congratulating and hugging their candidates and then wandering about desperately pretending they don't despise one another.

Cheney, we're told, reached into his pocket and appeared to pull out a pill and swallow it. Given his ticker ailments, might this be a nitroglycerin pill for his heart? Tums? A jelly bean? The bloggers doubtless were gearing up for Pillgate.

A Cheney campaign spokeswoman said Friday it was a "breath mint."

You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

"Months ago, I urged the president to call the crisis in Darfur, Sudan, by its rightful name: genocide. The Bush Administration finally did so in September, but shamefully it has done nothing effective to halt this genocide. Words without deeds are meaningless - especially when people are dying every day.

"Rarely have the costs of the Bush Administration's inaction and failed leadership been clearer. Attacks on innocent civilians continue. The death toll in Darfur is quickly mounting. At least 70,000 civilians are already dead. Close to 1.5 million people have been displaced, and nearly 300,000 have been forced to flee to refugee camps in neighboring Chad. More than 200,000 people were forced from their homes last month alone. This week, the deteriorating security situation forced the United Nations' World Food Program to scale back its critical relief operation. A senior USAID official recently warned that 'the crisis has not yet peaked. We have not yet seen the worst,' and acknowledged that another 250,000 innocent civilians may die before the end of the year.

"What has been President Bush's response? Toothless U.S.- sponsored UN Security Council resolutions. These empty threats serve mainly to embolden the Khartoum government and underscore the Administration's loss of international moral authority. The Bush Administration's lofty praise for the African Union amounts to little without providing it the financial and other support it needs, right now, to deploy more troops to Darfur. The Bush administration has also contributed needed humanitarian assistance, but it is not enough to put a band-aid on genocide.

"As president, I will hold the Sudanese government accountable for this genocide. Either the Khartoum regime relents, or I will work with our European allies and others in the UN Security Council, to immediately impose tough sanctions on that government. These measures should include freezing the assets of the Sudanese Government, its leaders and business affiliates, prohibiting arms sales or transfers to Sudan, and banning the purchase of Sudanese oil. If the UN refuses to act, we will lead our partners outside the Security Council to sanction Khartoum, just as we did the apartheid government of South Africa. I will also work with Congress to strengthen existing U.S. sanctions on Sudan by prohibiting foreign companies doing business in Sudan from trading on U.S. public stock exchanges. At the same time, my Administration will swiftly provide robust logistical, financial and other support to the African Union to enable it to disarm militias, protect civilians and help humanitarian agencies reach those at risk.

"As President, I will restore U.S. moral authority and leadership in the international community. I will not substitute words for deeds in the face of genocide. I will do what is necessary to halt the genocide and punish its perpetrators."

The results show that in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Spain and South Korea a majority of voters share a rejection of the Iraq invasion, contempt for the Bush administration, a growing hostility to the US and a not-too-strong endorsement of Mr Kerry. But they all make a clear distinction between this kind of anti-Americanism and expressing a dislike of American people. On average 68% of those polled say they have a favourable opinion of Americans.

The 10-country poll suggests that rarely has an American administration faced such isolation and lack of public support amongst its closest allies. The only exceptions to this trend are the Israelis - who back Bush 2-1 over Kerry and see the US as their security umbrella - and the Russians who, despite their traditional anti-Americanism, recorded unexpectedly favourable attitudes towards the US in the survey conducted in the immediate aftermath of the Beslan tragedy.

[snip]

The ICM survey shows that if the British had a vote in the US presidential elections on November 2 they would vote 50% for Kerry and only 22% for Bush. Sixty per cent of British voters say they don't like Bush, rising to a startling 77% among those under 25.

... while Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam was first over-promoted and then over-pilloried, his entire life has been devoted to public service, from the war to a series of elected offices. He strikes us, above all, as a man with a strong moral core.

There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure. Nearly four years ago, after the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency, Mr. Bush came into office amid popular expectation that he would acknowledge his lack of a mandate by sticking close to the center. Instead, he turned the government over to the radical right.

Mr. Bush installed John Ashcroft, a favorite of the far right with a history of insensitivity to civil liberties, as attorney general. He sent the Senate one ideological, activist judicial nominee after another. He moved quickly to implement a far-reaching anti-choice agenda including censorship of government Web sites and a clampdown on embryonic stem cell research.

... When the nation fell into recession, the president remained fixated not on generating jobs but rather on fighting the right wing's war against taxing the wealthy. As a result, money that could have been used to strengthen Social Security evaporated, as did the chance to provide adequate funding for programs the president himself had backed. No Child Left Behind, his signature domestic program, imposed higher standards on local school systems without providing enough money to meet them.

... The president who lost the popular vote got a real mandate on Sept. 11, 2001. With the grieving country united behind him, Mr. Bush had an unparalleled opportunity to ask for almost any shared sacrifice. The only limit was his imagination.

He asked for another tax cut and the war against Iraq.

... Mr. Bush and his attorney general put in place a strategy for a domestic antiterror war that had all the hallmarks of the administration's normal method of doing business: a Nixonian obsession with secrecy, disrespect for civil liberties and inept management.

We have specific fears about what would happen in a second Bush term, particularly regarding the Supreme Court. The record so far gives us plenty of cause for worry. Thanks to Mr. Bush, Jay Bybee, the author of an infamous Justice Department memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique, is now a federal appeals court judge.

... The Bush White House has always given us the worst aspects of the American right without any of the advantages. We get the radical goals but not the efficient management. The Department of Education's handling of the No Child Left Behind Act has been heavily politicized and inept. The Department of Homeland Security is famous for its useless alerts and its inability to distribute antiterrorism aid according to actual threats.

... Mr. Kerry has the capacity to do far, far better.

MR. RUSSERT: In a previous debate, Mr. DeMint, you were asked a question, and this was your answer about teaching in South Carolina.

(A video clip is shown from a DeMint-Tannenbaum debate on Oct. 3, 2004 in which DeMint states, "If a person is a practicing homosexual, they should not be teaching in our schools.")

MR. RUSSERT: Why not?

REP. DeMINT: Well, I apologize for that remark because I really regret distracting from the main issues of this debate.

MR. RUSSERT: Well, do you apologize because it's a distraction or do you apologize for what you said?

REP. DeMINT: No, I apologize for distracting from the real issues of this debate. This is...

MR. RUSSERT: So do you -- wait, but let's clarify. Do you believe that gays should be able to teach in the public schools of South Carolina?

REP. DeMINT: I believe that's a local school board issue and the voters of South Carolina want me to talk about how they're going to be safer, how they're going to have better jobs, how I'm going to save Social Security.

MR. RUSSERT: But you said they shouldn't be. And the Republican Party in South Carolina's platform...

REP. DeMINT: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...said they should not. Do you believe that gays should be able to teach in the public schools?

REP. DeMINT: I believe that's a local school board issue.

(Moments later)

MR. RUSSERT: You also, when asked about your comments about gay teachers, said this: "I would have given the same answer when asked if a single woman, who was pregnant and living with her boyfriend, should be hired to teach my third-grade children." Do you also still believe that, that a single mom should not be a teacher in South Carolina schools?

REP. DeMINT: I believe that's a local school board issue. And, Tim, I was answering as a dad who's put lots of children in the hands of teachers and I answered with my heart. And I should just say, again, I apologize that distracted from the real debate.

MR. RUSSERT: But you apologize for distracting but are you apologizing to gay teachers or to single mom teachers?

REP. DeMINT: No. I'm apologizing for talking about a local school board issue when the voters want us to talk about how we're going to make them safer, win the war on terror, how we're going to create jobs ...

(Moments later)

MR. RUSSERT: But you're making judgments about gay people or about single moms and, in effect, disqualifying them. Are you certain that you never had a gay teacher?

REP. DeMINT: Listen, I have my personal beliefs, Tim, but I honestly believe that the teachers should be hired by local school districts. They should be making the decisions on who should be in the classroom.

MR. RUSSERT: But don't the voters have a right to know about whether or not you still stand by comments you made in the campaign? Do you stand by your comments?

REP. DeMINT: I apologized for answering a local school board question.

MR. RUSSERT: No, you're apologizing for the distraction, but it's a simple question. Do you believe that gays should be able to teach in South Carolina schools?

REP. DeMINT: Well, Tim...

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that single moms should be able to teach?

REP. DeMINT: It's a very simple answer. I think the local school board should make that issue, not Senate can -- I mean, make that decision.

At least 16 Republican Party officers and volunteers from across Wisconsin were involved in a secretive signature drive to get presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot by claiming to be supporters and keeping quiet about their GOP affiliations.

... Nader's Wisconsin coordinator, Bill Linville, said he didn't turn the signatures over to the state Elections Board because the head of the drive, UW- Madison student Matt Holsen, refused to say who was behind it. The Wisconsin State Journal has learned that Holsen is a regular volunteer at the Republican Party of Wisconsin headquarters in Madison and is a member of College Republicans. Holsen, who personally collected an estimated 583 signatures, didn't return repeated telephone and e-mail messages.

Linville said Holsen posed as "someone who liked Ralph Nader" when he approached Linville just days before the signature deadline. Linville said Holsen gave him about 100 signatures. After promising to bring more signatures, Holsen met Linville outside a Nader campaign meeting on Sept. 6 -- the night before the petition deadline. Linville said he was "shell-shocked" to see Holsen carrying hundreds of pages of names.

"I asked him where he was from. I started asking him some questions, and he just ran away," said Linville, noting that Holsen wore a "Keep Milwaukee Green" T-shirt.

Linville said he quickly rejected the petitions because, "You don't collect 3,000 signatures between you and your friends unless you're in an organization. These came from all over the state. You can't coordinate this without having some type of structure. It would have to be some coordinated Republican Party effort."

As required by law, each circulator signed a statement on the petition swearing, "I intend to support these candidates." The form warns that anyone submitting false information on the petition could be guilty of a felony. Some circulators contacted by the State Journal said they had no plans to vote for Nader, but most said they supported his right to be on the ballot - primarily as a way of benefiting Bush.

"I wholeheartedly support President Bush," said Nicole Marklein, chairwoman of the UW-Madison College Republicans, who gathered 11 signatures for Nader.