I managed to take my eyes off of this site for a few days, when the U.S. casualties in Iraq were only at 1,067. That was last Thursday. One week ago.

I just checked in to find out the number of dead U.S. troops in Iraq is now up to 1,092.

The Green Zone is now under attack (yes, that's it pictured to the right), yet Bush, Cheney and Rove are more concerned that John Kerry referred to Bush/Cheney '04's openly gay 'Director of Vice-Presidential Operations' as gay.

That is, by the way, no mistake on their part. Cynicism defined.

Two pithy items. One from yesterday's LA Times Letters to the Editor section:

The other via Email from Johnhp:

"Leave it to Bush!" - Starring George W. Bush and Gary Busey. Funny. Click on it!.

(Tip of the hat to Krup!)

I wondered about this last night, and was going to do some checking on it today. Looks like Kevin Drum has done the heavy lifting for me...

Read the rest of the sorry story...As expected though, it's just more smoke and mirrors from an increasingly desperate Administration.

Last night Lynne Cheney claimed to be "outraged". Today, Dick Cheney said he was "a pretty angry father right now".

What a bunch of horseshit. Here's the real tale of the tape, prior to the Cheney's realizing they were about to lose this election and needed to say and do anything to try and win this thing.

From a townhall Q&A session with both Lynne and Dick on Aug. 24, 2004...

From the V.P. Debate on Oct. 5, 2004...

But now he's "angry" and she's "outraged"? Puh-lease. Desperation does funny things to folks, doesn't it?

The one big difference in this year's debates was the crowd control. On each night, the moderator gave stern pre-debate warnings to the crowd (as seen on C-Span) that noise of any type would not be tolerated. And it worked well!

That alone made it rather difficult for either of the candidates to have a "There ya go again" or "You're no President Kennedy" moment that pandered to their supporters in the house.

Debates, after all, shouldn't be a game of trash talk and "gotcha" one-liners, but rather a discussion of the issues at stake. With the pre-debate audience admonishments to shut the hell up, the focus has instead been on the candidates and their positions as opposed to the cleverness of their joke writers. A victory for substance over sillyness.

I'd say this series of debates, therefore, has been quite an upgrade over our previous outtings because of it. Kudos to both the debate planners and all four moderators for job's well done! It was a small victory for both America and Democracy at a time that we could well use one!

Our friend, the conservative (real conservative, not Fake "Bush Conservative") Teddy of the Bull Moose Forum, gets it right again. He starts off with a joke:

...And then goes on to compile a devasting summary of some of the top points of interest for Conservatives from last night's debate. Little wonder then, that Teddy is a multi-recipient of the rarely awarded BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative" Award!

This morning, O'Reilly has been on Regis, and then on his own radio show admitting that "this is the worst day of my life".

He continues to not rebut the charges against him, but rather frame the entire thing as an extortion attempt. Even the pre-emptive suit he filed does not rebut the charges, but rather claims the money being asked by the accuser is just too much money for the "crimes" committed. For example, from his claim:

In the meantime, O'Reilly felt it appropriate on his radio show this morning to frame the Presidential Debate as one between "Traditionalists who want America to stay as it is and Progressives who want a new country." He sided, as he has for some time, with the Traditionalists in his strawman debate point.

If you, like O'Reilly, are a "Traditionalist" then I'm wondering how I might also join the club! Here's another nice section from accuser Andrea Mackris' claim against O'Reilly:

Wow! That's some "Traditionalism" I could get down with!

BRAD BLOG's previous "O'Reilly Sex Harassment" coverage:
· "Bad Vibrations for Bill O'Reilly"
· "Big Trouble for Fox & O'Reilly"

I saw this ad last night after the debates on CNN or Fox, I believe. It's really good. Please give it a look, and consider giving these guys some money!

(I've also been sneaking various new vids into the "sticky" item at the top of this page...be sure to check some of the new ones out!)

Personally, I think he's just completely out of touch with reality. Being President will do that to you. Being this President, presiding over his disastrous policies at a moment when he has to pull some kind of defense for them out of thin air in order to be re-upped will really do that to you.

None the less, a case is being made around Blogville that there's something more at work here. The rumors have only been helped along by Bush himself who is refusing to take his annual physical this year for the first time in four years (usually he has it done in August). Add to that his miserable performances in the debates, his drooping lips, his drooling in last night's debate and various out and out bizarre moments over the past several months, and there's now talk of a stroke or pre-senile dementia.

This video compares the Dubya from 10 years ago to the Dubya today. There is a marked difference. You be the judge.

If they can waste your time by hoping to distract you with phony outrage about Mary Cheney being "outted" (Note to Fox News and other similarly "outraged" Fake Conservatives: you can't "out" someone who is already out!) then I can waste your time with this.

As usual, I believe Josh Marshall will be proven right on the money in his insta-analysis of tonight's debate. I suggest you give it a look. He's a great writer and a spot-on analyst.

Do yourself a favor while you're there and scroll on down to the items below that which concern the "Voters of America" program, a Republican National Committee run group that seems to be shredding Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada, Oregon, and possibly in West Virginia.

It's an amazing story that you must inform yourself about, as I admit I haven't covered it enough...what with Bill O'Reilly's Downfall upon us and all.

For the last two Presidential Debates, it seems that Fox News isn't even trying anymore to even give the appearance of "Fair and Balanced".

In both of those debates, their before and after panel of analysts consisted of...

On the Right: Host Brit Hume with Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke and Bill Kristol.

On the Left: nobody.

Nada. No one. Not a single representative from even the Middle-Left was on the panel.

For the first debate the team was the same, but they had Ceci Connelly (Moderate Liberal) to balance the FOUR Conservatives on the panel. Apparently, they did away with her shortly thereafter.

How does Fox continue to get away with that? And continue to have folks in this country still believe that they aren't completely in the tank for the Republicans? And continue to tell their viewers they shouldn't watch CBS and ABC because they are biased?! Are Americans just that gullible?

UPDATE: In light of the above, it's amazing to come across this stunningly hypocritical Brit Hume piece called, of all things, "Unbalanced Election Coverage on Networks?" on the Fox "News" website.