In any good tragedy, the source of the drama is the tragic fault of its hero. In any good comedy, the source of the grim humor is absurdity. John Kerry's campaign has been both. But with serious issues at stake, the audience doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

From the article:

"It took Bill Clinton nearly six years in office before he gave the culture a phrase that became synonymous with evasive dishonesty: 'It all depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.' John Kerry has already achieved this feat months before election day, giving our culture the phrase, 'I voted for it before I voted against it'--which has now started to turn up as a standard formula in jokes on late-night television. "

• Anti-Bushites for Bush
by Robert Tracinski

George W. Bush cannot be trusted to fight the war properly, but John Kerry _can_ be trusted to retreat and surrender. TIA's recommendation: support Bush for re-election--then prepare to fight him, demanding stronger action abroad and opposing his religious agenda at home.

From the article:
"The issue, at this point, is not whether we will fight the war properly. It is not, despite the rhetoric at this year's Republican National Convention, whether we will be 'fierce and relentless,' 'firm and unyielding,' and so on. The issue is whether we will fight at all--whether we will regard this war as a necessity that cannot be avoided and which we cannot afford to lose, or whether we accept the claim that taking the offensive against terrorist regimes is a fatal moral and diplomatic blunder that has turned America into a 'rogue nation.'

"Readers of TIA know our opposition to the policies of George W. Bush--from his diplomatic efforts to save Yasser Arafat in the Spring of 2002, through his elaborate year-long charade of seeking UN resolutions to justify the invasion of Iraq, to the most disheartening events of all: his endorsement of disastrous deals that allowed insurgent leaders to remain alive and defiant in Fallujah and Najaf. If Bush faced a pro-war opponent, a politician who promised to crush the insurgents and confront their sponsors in Iran and Syria, we would endorse him without hesitation.

"The Democratic Party was unable to produce such a candidate."