What Kerry meant to say

* kathleen: "Terrorism, thy name is Bush."

* AP:

" Signaling retreat, House Republicans are scaling back television advertising in three highly contested races, officials said Tuesday, including Rep. Curt Weldon's bid for an 11th term in Pennsylvania and open seats in Colorado and Ohio.

Some of the funds will be spent to help other Republicans in races that remain competitive.

In contrast to the Republican strategic retreat, House Democrats are expanding the number of districts where they are advertising, an indication of confidence that the election is moving their way. In recent days, they have moved into districts in Kansas and Nebraska that have long been in GOP hands."

* tristero:

"Sigh. Once again, intelligent liberals are making the dangerous mistake of attributing their own intellectual acumen and worldview to other Americans, who think and live very differently than themselves. I share with Yglesias and Rosenfeld a thorough disgust with both the ideas and the lifestyle of the christianists. I find it hard to believe they take their theology seriously as a religion: as Yglesias points out, it's nuts to believe in an absurd religion that consigns Gandhi to hell. And like them, I find the unique cultural trappings of christianism - the crass materialism and cynical marketing of religious belief - repulsive. How can anyone be suckered into this bullshit?

But the fact that I find christianism utterly repulsive when it's not just silly doesn't take away from the fact that many, many Americans are deeply attracted to it. Many more Americans have trouble distinguishing between the more diluted versions of christianism and their own desire to have a meaningful place for religion and national pride in their lives.

It is a serious mistake to underestimate these people. They have more cash, and more followers than we do. More importantly, they know, as we yet don't, that they are in a culture war. And they know, as incredible as it surely sounds to Rosenfeld and Yglesias, that the culture war is a continuation of the ancient struggle between the priests and the philosophes and ideals of the Enlightenment. Go ahead, Matt and Sam, read what they actually say. Listen to their speeches. That's what this is about.
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The notion that America was founded by christianists is now so widespread that scholars have been working overtime churning out books to remind this country that there is absolutely no truth to the meme. The war against fucking continues unabated, with serious people actually debating the utility of abstinence-only sex education and the "ineffectiveness" of condoms. The assault on embryonic stem-cell research is a national disgrace. And most important of all, the meta-myth of christianism - that a good leader should not listen to reason but to his heart - is so much the norm in America's concept of politics that very few dare question it in public. Indeed, Bush may not be a perfect christianist, but he embodies their ideal of leading from the depths of a soul at one with God.*"

* jeralyn:

"What Kerry meant to say:

"I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just Ask President Bush." - Senator John Kerry.

What Kerry said:

If you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well, if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.