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N.Z. Bear weighs in on a Glenn Reynolds post:

Bush is no prize. But he’s the devil we know, and a devil who, for all his flaws, takes seriously the threat facing our nation and appears to be trying to do something about it. With Bush, I expect I will have four more years to quibble with and argue about his tactics in the conduct of this war. With Kerry, once the campaign was over, I fear I’d have a difficult time convincing him there was a war at all.

The InstaPost in question can be found here.

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If Nevada Democrats are confident that John Kerry will win the state come November, why in the world are their party bosses freaking out?

The Nevada Democratic Party has filed suit in Carson City, demanding that Ralph Nader follow the rules here in Nevada in his presidential campaign. The Democrats say the Republicans are behind the efforts to put Nader on the ballot, the GOP says that’s false.

Brian Scroggins, with the Clark County Republican Party, said, “The Republicans did nothing official to get him on the ballot. We just weren’t involved in it.” Scroggins defends his party from Democratic charges.

But Jon Summers, with the Nevada Democratic Party, says, “Ralph Nader is becoming a tool of the Republican party. The Republicans are trying to steal votes from the Democratic Party, from John Kerry using Ralph Nader.

The Nevada Democratic Party says a campaign to get Nader on the ballot here was funded by a number of local Republicans – something the local GOP disputes. […]

The Nader campaign says they are following the rules to put their candidate on the ballot, and feel Nevada Democrats are worried about John Kerry’s chances this November. “The Democrats are doing their best to prevent voters from having a choice. They fear if voters can choose they will not pick their candidate.”

That’s funny. I thought the Dems were pro-choice. Guess not.

Little by little, their fear is showing to the point where they now want to futz with the election ballot. Are they going to go after the other third-party candidates next?

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It’s a sad commentary on part of the Kerry campaign that they had to exploit a former senator and disabled veteran for a backfired a publicity stunt.

Former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland tried to deliver a letter protesting ads challenging John Kerry’s Vietnam service to President Bush at his Texas ranch Wednesday, but neither a Secret Service official nor a state trooper would take it.

The former Georgia senator, a triple amputee who fought in Vietnam, was carrying a letter from nine Senate Democrats who wrote Bush that “you owe a special duty” to condemn attacks on Kerry’s military service.

“The question is where is George Bush (news - web sites)’s honor, the question is where is his shame to attack a fellow veteran who has distinguished himself in combat?” Cleland asked. “Regardless of the political combat involved, it’s disgraceful.”

Encountering a permanent roadblock to Bush’s ranch, Cleland left without turning over the letter to anyone.

“I have a letter signed by nine members of the U.S. Senate, all of whom have served honorably and I’d like to hand it to a responsible officer here on the gate,” Cleland said as he tried to deliver it to security personnel at the roadblock. He accused a member of the president’s security detail of trying to evade him.

“I am just going to return the letter and make sure it gets in the mail,” Cleland said as he returned to his car.

In their letter, the senators said, “This administration must not tacitly comply with unfounded accusations which have suddenly appeared 35 years after the fact, and serve to denigrate the service of a true American patriot.”

A Texas state official and Vietnam veteran, Jerry Patterson, said someone from the Bush campaign contacted him Wednesday morning and asked him if he would travel to the ranch, welcome Cleland to Texas and accept the former senator’s letter to Bush.

“I tried to accept that letter and he would not give it to me,” said Patterson. “He would not face me. He kept rolling away from me. He’s quite mobile.”

If John Kerry was really adamant about defending his service record, he should’ve showed up in Crawford himself demanding a meeting with the president. Instead, he’s ducking and sending surrogates to do his dirty work.

Fortunately, another well-known disabled vet brought the smackdown:

[Former senator Bob] Dole told Kerry, “I’m not trying to stir anything up, but I don’t believe every one of these people who have talked about what happened are Republican liars.

“And very frankly, Bush is my guy, and I’m tired of people on your side calling him everything from a coward to a traitor to everything – a deserter.”

Dole said he urged Kerry, “Why don’t you call George Bush today and say, ‘Mr. President, let’s stop all this stuff about the National Guard and Vietnam – and let’s talk about the issues.”

Dole said Kerry responded, “I haven’t spent one dime attacking President Bush.”

But the Republican war hero shot back: “You don’t have to. You’ve got all the so-called mainstream media, plus you’ve got MoveOn.org and all these other groups that have spent millions and millions of dollars trying to tarnish Bush’s image.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what some of these people are doing,” he told Kerry.

“Everybody likes quiet heroes,” Dole added, saying he told Kerry, “John, everybody knows you were in Vietnam and the less you say about it, the better.”

And the Swift Boat Vets are still standing their ground. Good for them.

(links via Jay Caruso)

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Chris Lynch has a rundown of the progress (or demise?) of the Kerry campaign since the Democratic convention.

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James Hudnall has a link roundup uncovering Democrat hypocrisy over their castigation of GWB’s alleged association with a 527 organization.

Though Bush has expressed his opposition to all 527 TV commercials, don’t expect John Kerry to accept his invitation to help stop the ads.

In Kerry’s eyes, Swift Boat Veterans bad, MoveOn and Media Fund good.

After all, Kerry mustn’t disappoint his masters…

Related: From Day By Day:

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Commments in the previous entry concerning the Motorola V710 mobile phone and Verizon Wireless have warranted a follow-up.

Michael Demmons noted in response to the link I cited from Russell Beattie’s blog, “your link about the problems with the V710 has mostly been updated to say he was wrong.”

In fairness, Russell did make a correction to his post, now confirming that the V710 does support dial-up networking via Bluetooth (in addition to headset support).

However, it is a fact that the V710 currently does not support the OBject EXchange protocol (or OBEX, for short) – which is also a Bluetooth component. OBEX is crippled on the phone. For Bluetooth users, OBEX is a nifty feature used for wireless data transfer between other Bluetooth devices such as PDAs and other Bluetooth-enabled phones.

In an effort to confirm the facts on my part, I personally visited a Verizon store and performed functionality tests on both a live demo phone and on the store manager’s phone. While I could pair my Palm Tungsten T3 with the V710, I could not transfer data files or use the PDA’s autodialer.

I also reviewed Motorola’s specifications for the V710, which stated that the phone currently supports only wireless headsets and DUN. Since the phone is produced mainly for Verizon Wireless, I have reason to believe that OBEX was deliberately disabled, being that Verizon would rather have their customers pay extra for their GetItNow service and their propietary sync tools.

In feedback, some felt that I was being extremely harsh on Verizon Wireless. I’ll concede to having taken the matter personally, as I helped petition VZW to offer Bluetooth phones with their service. While I find the lack of full Bluetooth support on their current offering to be disappointing, hopefully they will consider full BT support in the future. High marks for wide coverage and customer satisfaction mean nothing when a certain demographic is being alienated by not offering fully functional products.

So, for now until further notice, my VZW account remains active (I’m currently not locked into a contract). However, I will not upgrade my VZW phone until fully-enabled Bluetooth products are offered. And for the time being, all of my incoming calls from my Verizon number will continue to be forwarded to my Sony Ericsson T610 from T-Mobile.

Related: Jonathan Zdziarski at Nuclear Elephant goes into the nuts and bolts of the V710.

Update & Mea Culpa (8/23/04): According to information posted at HowardForums, Motorola released the V710 to production without OBEX (via Michael D.).

Verizon Wireless is not at fault for the lack of BT data connectivity in the V710, and apologies go out to VZW for the misunderstanding.

I’ll wait patiently for the next BT phone to be added to VZW’s lineup. In the meantime, I’ll be having crow for dinner tonight.

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[The original post has been heavily corrected. In summary, Mototola is to blame for the lack of Bluetooth data connectivity in the new V710 cell phone, and not Verizon Wireless as previously suggested. Please read the most recent entry regarding this issue. –Ed.]

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Although I’ve been lax in linking to the weekly Carnival, I’m surprised – and pleased – to discover that the 100th posting is online today.

Head on over to Fringe and check out the submissions.

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James Hudnall has 8 cold, hard reasons why I’m not feelin’ that Kerry/Edwards vibe.

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I haven’t said much about the former ambassador’s entry into the Illinois senate race as the GOP candidate, because enough has already been said about it. Also, to the chagrin of Republicans, I predict that Barack Obama will be elected to the U.S. Senate by a landslide, being that nobody loves a carpetbagger (plus Keyes is too far-right for most Illinois GOPers).

As if Keyes’ carpetbagging from Maryland to Illinois wasn’t hypocrisy enough, he’s now pandering to black voters on the reparations issue:

Keyes proposed that for a generation or two, African-Americans of slave heritage should be exempted from federal taxes–federal because slavery “was an egregious failure on the part of the federal establishment.” In calling for the tax relief, Keyes appeared to be reaching out to capture the black vote, something that may prove difficult to do, particularly after his unwelcome reception at the Bud Billiken Day Parade Saturday.

The former ambassador said his plan would give African-Americans “a competitive edge in the labor market,” because those exempted would be cheaper to hire than federal tax-paying employees and would “compensate for all those years when your labor was being exploited.”

Under Keyes’ plan, African-Americans would still have to pay the Social Security tax, because “it’s not a tax in the strict sense,” said Keyes, calling it instead a payment to support a social insurance program.

Keyes has discussed reparations before with statements that seem to contradict Monday’s comments.

In 2002 on his short-lived MSNBC show, “Alan Keyes is Making Sense,” he argued with one of his guests, an advocate of reparations, asking, “You want to tell me that what they suffered can actually be repaired with money? You’re going to do the same thing those slaveholders did, put a money price on something that can’t possibly be quantified in that way.”

And in a 2002 column titled “Paid in Blood,” Keyes called lawsuits on behalf of slave descendants against large corporations an “effort to extort `reparations’ for slavery from their fellow citizens” and said that “the truth of the Civil War is that the terrible price for American slavery has been paid, once for all,” when Americans gave their lives on the battlefield to end slavery. “The price for the sin of slavery,” Keyes wrote, “has already been paid, in blood.”

What few shreds of respect I once had for Keyes is gone. The Illinois Republican Party should also hang their heads in shame for not finding anybody in their home state to challenge Obama.

The local dog catcher would’ve fared better.

(link via Michelle Malkin)

Related: Joe Gandelman comments.

Related #2: Baldilocks comments.

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