A sampling of stuff I've read online today...
Jonathan Last - If Kerry can reach down deep, he could do one last service for the Democrats: Break the fever. If Kerry graciously and promptly concedes, reaches out to Bush, and reaffirms that our true enemies are the Islamist monsters committed to the destruction of Western civilization, he could help push the Democrats out of the fever swamp and back into the mainstream. He could position Democrats so that their political interests no longer run counter to American success in Iraq and the war on terror.
William F. Buckley -Two years after Dukakis was hailed as Democratic liberator, I had to ask a companion who was the unprepossessing but faintly familiar figure sitting at the other end of the table. Yes, it was Dukakis, of course. Kerry will be recognized more easily because his face is more distinctive, though if the events of Tuesday make his face more drawn than it now is, Teresa should will the cadaver to the Smithsonian.
Rich Brookheiser - It is a shame that the election was jeopardized by Bush's stubbornness and cockiness, and the inarticulacy arising from them, in the presidential debates. He is an excellent schmoozer one on one, and he can give good set-piece presentations. But he feels no need to, and has very little skill in, keeping up an argument. We suffer from this in other ways, apart from elections - in our diplomacy, chiefly. This won't change, because Bush can't change; we must take the bitter with the sweet. But we should acknowledge it.
Silflay Hraka - John Edwards lost the race for vice-president, and his vacant Senate seat was filled by a Republican. I call this "adding insult to personal injury."
John Derbyshire - The big gloat...must be directed at our enemies. How they wanted Kerry to win! How they must be sunk in gloom in their caves and hideouts and seedy rented rooms! They knew that, for all his podium salutes and tough talk, Kerry would be another Jimmy Carter, another groveller, another guilt-addled cringing apologizer for America's sins, past and present. Now, instead of a boneless wonder, they are faced with a resolute and determined opponent, a commander-in-chief who actually inspires his troops, and who knows that, as Winston Churchill usefully noted, you can't win wars without fighting.
David Horowitz - What this election shows is that the reign of the Cronkite media is over. Maybe it's talk radio; maybe it's Fox; maybe it's the Internet. But whatever it is, the American people have an alternative information source to the leftwing fog machine that has dominated our national life since the war in Vietnam. This is good news for the American future.
Dick Morris - Why did the exit polls show such a Democratic win when the Republicans were ahead all along? Why did they bias the coverage in the favor of the Democrats when Bush was winning from the beginning?...
...Exit polls are almost impossible to get wrong this way... So why were the exit polls wrong?
That an exit poll is always right is an axiom of politics. It is easier to assume that a compass is not pointing north than to assume that an exit poll is incorrect. It takes a deliberate act of fraud and bias to get an exit poll wrong. Since the variables of whether or not a person will actually vote are eliminated in exit polling, it is like peeking at the answer before taking the test.
But these exit polls were wrong. And the fact that they were so totally, disastrously wrong is a national scandal. There should be a national investigation to unearth the story behind the bias.
Jonathan Last - The 2004 election may not be over, but it is finished, and Wednesday-morning quarterbacking always makes results look perfectly rational. At every point in the campaign (save the first presidential debate) John Kerry was the candidate who had the embarrassing iconic moments: windsurfing, botox, fake-tan, Swift Boats, Mary Cheney, $87 billion, saying "fuck" in Rolling Stone, "global test," goose hunting. Every Dukakis-in-a-tank moment in this campaign belonged to Kerry. And when you lose a race, all anybody ever remembers are the Dukakis-in-the-tank moments.
Andrew Leonard in Slate - As I survey the wreckage of the lefty blogosphere Wednesday morning, it is easy to wonder: How could I, how could we, have been so wrong? How could the confidence and jubilation generated by the thriving communities at blogs like Atrios' Eschaton and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga's Daily Kos so thoroughly have evaporated into self-recrimination and despair?...
I enjoyed following the commentary on such sites during the presidential debates almost as much as I enjoyed watching John Kerry win them. And there's no question that the lefty blogosphere proved to be an effective fundraising mechanism. But I feel now much like a kid who ate too much Halloween candy -- there's a taste in my mouth that tells me I overdosed. I fell victim to one of the Internet's most seductive illusions: the false reassurance of the echo chamber.
Ed Morrissey - ...Pelosi's leadership has been the ruin of her party. She has helped perpetuate the poisonous atmosphere in DC, and her ungracious comments today as well as her knee-jerk reaction to blame everyone but herself for her failure will not appeal to a campaign-weary American electorate. The Democrats need to quit demanding bipartisanship and start exhibiting it, and they need real leaders willing to work across the aisle rather than spit across it. If the Democrats want to compete in 2006, they need to jettison the Pelosis, McAuliffes, and Carvilles of their party now.
I'll thank Mr Derbyshire not to speak for me in the future. This is one "troop" who is thoroughly unispired by his commander in chief.
Posted by: Al at November 5, 2004 12:10 PM