From General Clark:

The American public should simply accept no distractions. In our democracy, it is our duty to hold our elected leaders accountable. We do it at the ballot box. And we should do it not on the basis of personalities or stereotypes, but on the basis of results. Our men and women fighting in Iraq are held accountable for their performance and their conduct.

On duty and off, twenty-four hours a day. They're fighting for us, for our safety, our rights, and our freedoms. Surely, we owe it to them to push aside the distractions and bring the focus back to the essence of this election:

Iraq.

. . . John Kerry made a mistake trying to joke about "getting stuck in Iraq." But this election isn't about John Kerry; he isn't running. But, for a crazy day or two, his gaffe has provided a powerful distraction to an election shaping up to be a referendum on the President's national security policy, and his mission in Iraq, in particular. We can not allow the most powerful country in the world to get sidetracked when American lives and the future of our leadership in the world is at stake.

You're doing a heck of a job Rummy:

President Bush reaffirmed his support for two of the most polarizing figures in his administration today, saying he wanted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as well as Vice President Dick Cheney to remain until the end of his presidency.

The president’s verbal embrace of Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney, offered during an interview with The Associated Press, seemed to be another reflection of Mr. Bush’s belief in the basic wisdom of the Iraq war and his determination not to back away from it as the Congressional elections approach.

Mr. Bush praised Mr. Rumsfeld’s supervision of the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and his attempts to revamp the Pentagon bureaucracy. “I’m pleased with the progress we’re making,” Mr. Bush said during the interview in the Oval Office.

How about an apology for this?

House Majority Leader John Boehner: Wolf, I understand that, but let's not blame what's happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld.

Wolf Blitzer: But he's in charge of the military.

House Majority Leader John Boehner: But the fact is the generals on the ground are in charge and he works closely with them and the president.

Amnesty International took their video camera to the street and asked Americans about torture, indefinite detention, impunity for war crimes and enemy combatants. Their responses were illuminating -- check them out here:

As TalkLeft reported here, the Republican candidate in Nevada's gubernatorial race is under investigation for allegedly assaulting a casino waitress. Jim Gibbons claims that surveillance tapes will clear him (a friendly court ordered them released yesterday) but TPM Muckraker explains why the tapes might lack any evidentiary value. This comprehensive AP report discusses the political impact of the accusation.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas, hoping to compete against the Catholic church in the Rio Grande Valley, provided three pastors with $1.3 million in seed money to establish Baptist churches. The pastors claimed they set up 258 churches, but the Convention can only find five to ten.

It found that some monthly new church reports, which were used to obtain funding, were fabricated. In some cases, the money was used to enhance other mission projects unrelated to the new churches; in other cases, where the money eventually went remains unknown.

Complaints from parishoners and an FBI probe failed to motivate the Convention to conduct an earlier investigation. Even after the investigation, no disciplinary action has been taken against the pastors who received the money.

Chris Bowers is a treasure. But he is prone to this type of knee jerk nonsense:

Democrats are once again showing weakness in the face of attack, an eagerness to apologize for calling the right-wing names, and a willingness to close Daou's triangle on themselves.

Just look at the latest AP headline:

Some Democrats join Republicans in pressing Kerry for apology. Game over. So much for showing strength in the face of attack. Once again, we are weak, divided, and grovelling for forgiveness. The triangle is officially closed on this now. Well done, Democrats. My only remaining hope is that this story goes away quickly.

This is dumb beyond belief. Chris, it was game over the moment Kerry pushed this thing big with his stupid press conference. There is no reason for Democrats to have to go to bat for John Kerry in THIS ELECTION!! The Left Blogs have been dumb as hammers on this one. There was one thing to do with this story for the word go - hope the story went away quickly. MY gawd, Chris wanted to fight on the issue of whether John Kerry insulted the troops?

Now Stoller joins the dumb act. What is it with these guys? Kerry misspoke AND apologized. So what the heck is there to defend now? Honestly, stupid pills abound.

Here's an obnoxious idea: make all tenants obtain the government's permission before renting an apartment. Hazleton, PA enacted an ordinance that does just that, with the notion that permits to rent apartments will be denied to those who can't prove their citizenship -- and to those who can't afford the permit.

The ordinance also requires every business in town to obtain a permit, and denies permits to those businesses that employ undocumented aliens. The likely result: businesses won't hire anyone who looks Latino, for fear that job applicants are using forged documents to establish their eligibility to work, jeopardizing the business' ability to survive.

Federal Judge James Munley issued a temporary restraining order that blocks enforcement of the ordinance.

"We find it in the public interest to protect residents access to homes, education, jobs and businesses," he wrote in a 13-page opinion.

America is less secure. So if you see commercials telling you to be afraid of terrorism, remember, it's because of Iraq."

Great ad from VoteVets.

This is all nice stuff but can we get back to the elections please? So John Kerry, please keep your word:

"I'm coming back to Washington today so that I'm not a distraction, because I don't want to be a distraction to these campaigns." -- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), on the Imus in the Morning radio show, after canceling several campaign appearances today in the wake of his botched joke.

So we can talk about this:

A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.

. . . The slide includes a color-coded bar chart that is used to illustrate an “Index of Civil Conflict.” It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad.

. . . The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.

John Cole writes a powerful piece:

I just thought I would go on record stating that the last few weeks and months have really sucked for me. I spent my whole life in the GOP- starting in 1984 with county meetings, going to Teenage Republican camp (my friends called it Hitler Youth Camp, proving that Nazi/Republican quips are no new development), and spending the better part the fall of 1984 going door to door for John Raese in his race against Rockefeller (Raese, as you know, lost). Now, 22 years later, I find myself not only refusing to support Raese against Robert Byrd (the man who for years has embarassed me with his pork), but I have come to the conclusion that the Republicans are so corrupt, so dishonest, so beholden to special interests and fanatical lobbying groups that Byrd not only looks to be the better option, but the entire Democratic party looks better.

I wouldn't label either Brian Williams, Katie Couric or Charles Gibson "rookies," but the Wall St. Journal (free link) offers a preview of the major networks' election night coverage. I'll agree, the stakes are high, but these are all seasoned journalists.

The planned departures from prior election year coverage are interesting.

In a change from the 2002 midterm elections, the networks promise they won't project a winner in any state until after all of that state's polls are scheduled to close. In a first, each network has also agreed to send two representatives to a "quarantine room" at an undisclosed location in New York City to comb through exit-poll data. The goal: to prevent early exit-poll data -- which is often unreliable -- from leaking to the Internet, and to monitor the results in a vacuum, without access to a bank of TV screens tuned to various pundits predicting outcomes.