OUCH: “All hat, no Cambodia.”

Another ouch, here.

And yet another ouch, here.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: And good riddance.

SOFIA SIDESHOW has a number of interesting posts on the Russian massacre, including thoughts on Al Qaeda connections thereto, what it means for Putin, and the Zell Miller angle.

UPDATE: Striking photo here. And there’s lots of coverage at The Command Post — just keep scrolling.

BLOGOSPHERIC INPUT into Bush’s speech? Hmm. Could be. [LATER: And maybe here, too.] Meanwhile, Virginia Postrel writes:

After hearing Bush compared to Reagan, Churchill, and Roosevelt all week, I was ready for him to look embarrassingly small by comparison. He did better than that. The speech was competent and at times moving. It just wasn’t inspiring, at least not to me. But it wasn’t addressed to me, and it seems to have done quite well, at least among the punditocracy. John Kerry made Bush look even better with his petulant and rambling midnight address. What was he thinking? Doesn’t Kerry have advisers to tell him not to give poorly prepared speeches that project desperation?

Apparently not. (Mickey Kaus: “That’s the way the coccoon crumbles.”) I blame the staff!

UPDATE: You should read all of Stephen Green’s wrapup, but here’s an excerpt:

There was no overriding theme to President Bush’s speech, except for the unspoken one: “This is who I am.” No, wait — let me amend that. The unspoken theme was, “This is who we are.” As Americans.

For all its faults, for all its overtly- and overly-religious tones, this small-l libertarian prefers George Bush’s America to John Kerry’s. I don’t care for NASCAR. I’m not much for country music, Sundays at church, blue-eyed soul, or faith-based initiatives.

But Bush made me feel welcome all the same. No, wait – let me amend that statement, too. Bush made me feel like his place is somewhere I’d like to spend some time and get to know the locals. You know — down a few beers, chat up the natives and learn their quaint customs.

I don’t feel as welcome, as at home, in the America Kerry painted for us tonight.

Read the whole thing, which zeroes in on what’s likely the key contrast in the campaigns. Meanwhile Rick Richman parses the language and notes a surprising JFK parallel.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Eric Olsen has a wrapup post on where the election stands.

Meanwhile, Ann Althouse pans Kerry’s late-night appearance:

So, your big answer, after all of these attacks, is that you somehow “will not have” any questions. I simply will not have it. You hear that? He does not want to be questioned. He went to Vietnam, and therefore, he simply will not have any questions about whether he has the qualifications to be President. Come on, that’s a roar, isn’t it?

And by the way, any man who didn’t volunteer to go to Vietnam who was of age at the time–all you Baby Boomer men who had student deferments or even if you served in the National Guard, I mean were in the National Guard–you were all refusing to serve.

Boy, Kerry’s staff sure is doing him a lot of harm, making him say things like this.

IT’S A MEDIA TIME-TRAVEL ROUNDUP!

A REMINDER OF THE STAKES:

Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) — Russian troops stormed a school in the country’s south, after hostages started fleeing the building where armed terrorists had been holding as many as 1,500 people captive for two days in Beslan, North Ossetia.

More than 200 wounded were taken to hospitals, Interfax said, citing Lev Dzugayev, spokesman for North Ossetia’s government. Russian broadcasters NTV and Rossiya showed children escaping and gunfire and explosions could be heard during the broadcasts.

That could be happening here, and sooner or later it will if we don’t win this war first.

UPDATE: Well, this isn’t especially good news, though I suppose it could have been much worse:

Commandos free children

September 03, 2004
AT LEAST five people are dead and more than 300 people, including children have been injured after commandos stormed a school in southern Russia where up to a thousand hostages were being held, news agencies have reported.

The 10 victims, children and adults, have been taken out dead on stretchers, an AFP correspondent reported.

At least six children, all very badly wounded and some with their limbs ripped off and their backs torn open, were also evacuated by civilians and members of the Russian emergency ministry.

Troops were pursuing the hostage-takers, and gunfire continued to ring out in Beslan, Russian news agencies said.

Five militants were killed but 13 others escaped, the ITAR-Tass news agency said, and were holed up in a local residence surrounded by troops, the Interfax news agency said.

The Russians do not take a “zero defects” approach to these things.

THE POKER GAME was fun. Poking around the blogs below, I’d say that Bush gave a pretty good speech, but not a barn-burner. Of course, for President Bush, a pretty good speech is a barn-burner.

I HAVE A POKER GAME TONIGHT, and I’ve decided to go play instead of staying here and blogging. I’ve pretty much overloaded on politics this week, and I don’t want to suffer from the perspective-loss that seems to have hit some quarters of the media and blogosphere.

Stephen Green will be liveblogging, and I suspect that Ann Althouse will be too, and PeakTalk. Along with comments from Wizbang, Ed Morrissey, RedState, Power Line, Oxblog, and a bunch of the other RNC bloggers, no doubt.

Besides, what do you need me for? Thanks to the wonder of Laphamization(tm) ABC and the Independent have already covered the event:

It was a prime-time, nationally televised climax to a gathering that has in effect been a four-day party political broadcast for the Republicans, depicting the President as uniquely able to protect America, and belittling John Kerry as a “flip-flopper” who could not be trusted to protect US national security. . . . Immediately after his acceptance speech at a delirious Madison Square Garden, the President left New York to resume campaigning.

So there you are. Lacking a time machine, how can I compete with that? And don’t miss The Belgravia Dispatch’s report card for Bush on Iraq. Mixed grades, and some thoughts on Kerry.

TOM MAGUIRE has several interesting posts.

TIM BLAIR has a lengthy review of Zell Miller’s speech. Excerpt:

Actually, compared to the themes routinely hauled up by the anti-Bushites – Hail to the Thief, Halliburton, Bush Lied, Bush Knew, BusHitler, etc. – Miller’s speech was an exercise in elegant restraint. Maybe Zell should’ve punched it up a little.

No, I think his measured approach was best. Meanwhile Ralph Peters reviews Kerry’s American Legion speech.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse wonders why talking-head types are calling Zell Miller’s speech a personal attack, when it wasn’t personal. It was just business:

The Kerry campaign and the various people who support it, like Matthews, spend a lot of time expressing outrage that their opponents are fighting hard. But it is a political fight. Fight back! Don’t whine that it’s somehow unfair for Miller to point to your record. Defend your record. Presumably, you’ve got arguments. If you don’t, you deserve to lose.

Indeed. Virginia Postrel has some additional observations about Zell.

THE REALLY NEW Media.

THEY SAID THAT THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION would bring hate-spouting politicians to New York — and I guess they were right!

U.S. Rep. Major Owens, a New York Democrat, warned a crowd of feminist protesters that the Bush administration is taking America “into a snake pit of fascism.”

Owens also said the Bush administration “spits on democracy” and is leading the country down a path reminiscent of “Nazi Germany.”

Owens made his remarks in New York City’s Central Park at a National Organization for Women rally on Wednesday night.

And then there are all the hate-spouting theocrats. (Via Bryon Scott).

ABC APPROVES ZELL MILLER’S CONVENTION SPEECH: “ABC’s Mike Schneider saluted it as an instance of Democrats ‘engaged in the time-honored tradition of attacking the opposition.'” Of course, that was the 1992 speech. . . .

HUGH HEWITT has thoughts on OODA Loops and campaigns. He says the Kerry campaign doesn’t understand this stuff. No, but Joe Trippi does. Too bad he doesn’t work for them.

UPDATE: Terry McAuliffe, on the other hand, certainly knows how to deploy a rapidly evolving position.

MORE FIRSTHAND REPORTING from New York City, at Best of the Web.

ISN’T THIS KIND OF OUTSOURCING illegal?

MICKEY KAUS: “The emergency Kerry ‘We’re-Not-in-A-Crisis’ crisis meeting for the press was a bit of a bust, I’m told.* Lots of Kerry cooks–including Lockhart, Devine, Cutter, Sosnick. No clear leader. . . . *kausfiles was not allowed in. Illustrative of Kerry’s stodgy and troubling ignorance of new media! (Hey, isn’t that allegedly what got him into trouble with the Swiftys in the first place?**)” More evidence that he should have hired Joe Trippi!

I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE that our immigration policy seems to be designed to hassle honest people while letting actual terrorists slip through. This would seem to be the latest example:

Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss scholar known for his work on Islamic theology and the place of Muslims in the modern world, was supposed to start teaching last week at the University of Notre Dame. But after he got a visa from the State Department, it was revoked at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, which apparently sees him as a danger. Why is anyone’s guess, since the department declines to spell out the reasons he’s been barred. . . .

If the U.S. government has grounds to think Ramadan has worked with Al Qaeda to further its bloody ambitions, he should certainly be denied entry. But no one has produced tangible evidence that he is personally involved in such activities, and the law doesn’t require such involvement. If he is being refused permission to teach in this country purely because of his views, the government has an obligation to Notre Dame and the American people to acknowledge that–and to specify which of his opinions endangers public safety.

Nothing that has come to light so far suggests that Ramadan endorses terrorism. His defenders say that on the contrary, he is known for urging a more modern understanding of Islam and for firmly denouncing anti-Semitism. It’s not likely that Notre Dame’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies would knowingly grant its imprimatur to an apostle of violence.

Okay, given the dubious history of “peace studies” that last probably doesn’t carry much weight.

Daniel Pipes thinks the exclusion is justified. Ramadan replies here.

As Eugene Volokh notes, this is entirely legal. But is it a good idea? Unless there’s more to this story than we know so far, I’d say that it’s not a good idea.

Here’s an email I got from a Muslim law student at Northwestern with whom I’ve corresponded for a while:

I’ve met Professor Ramadan myself and I can say with full candor that he is anything but a radical Islamist who wishes to bring terror to our shores.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always believed that any change that moves the worldwide Islamic community as whole away from fundamentalism and Islamism is going to come from the West. But we, the ‘West,’ are going to have to be smart about it. . . . The greatest move we can make is to bring people like Professor Ramadan to our shores to let the world know that we the Americans are taking the lead in cultivating a moderate, progressive, and intellectual form of Islam, now that Islam in the Middle East and other parts of the world has been hijacked, in large part, by radical, anti-Semitic wackos who call themselves Imams yet understand nothing of the faith of Islam.

I certainly agree with “constructive engagement” here. I’m all for toughening up immigration in ways that keep terrorists out, but unless Ramadan is a terrorist, I don’t see the reason for excluding him.

LOOKS LIKE DAN RATHER WILL RIDE TO THE RESCUE of the Kerry campaign.

JON HENKE rounds up reactions to Zell Miller’s speech from around the blogosphere. Meanwhile reader Allen Baruch emails:

Did not see it live, but saw the video. I’m way too young to know, but I’d guess that once upon a time a speech like that at the *Democratic* Convention could have given us a better candidate…

Indeed. But personally, I’m just sad that the Republican Convention became such a hatefest:

A featured performer at a National Organization for Women rally accused President Bush of having “savagely raped ” women “over and over” by allegedly stealing the 2000 presidential election.

Poet Molly Birnbaum read aloud to a crowd of feminists gathered in New York’s Central Park on Wednesday night, as part of a NOW event dubbed “Code Red: Stop the Bush Agenda Rally.”

“Imagine a way to erase that night four years ago when you (President Bush) savagely raped every pandemic woman over and over with each vote you got, a thrust with each state you stole,” Birnbaum said from the podium.

No doubt Chris Matthews will be interviewing her shortly.

MORE: Another roundup of reactions here.

A WHILE BACK, Noah Millman wrote the speech he’d like to see Bush give tonight. How will the real speech compare?

UPDATE: Frank Martin emails:

Do you get the feeling that in “newsrooms” across America there are reporters with their fingers hovering over the enter key, just waiting to file their stories on how “President Bush in his speech this evening”:

“failed to close the sale”
“showed intolerance”
“failed to mention his appalling record”
“alienated women and minorities”
“failed to rebuke Ashcroft and Rumsfeld”

Well, Lewis Lapham already mailed it out.

I’VE POOH-POOHED the Kerry medals issue, but this new article by Thomas Lipscomb is likely to give it some legs.

ROBERT TAGORDA notes an outbreak of protectionism and unilateralism.

WILL COLLIER is looking at Kerry’s Senate record.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ryan Pitts explains what Kerry ought to say.

Kerry’s getting a lot of good advice from outside the campaign

STILL MORE EVACUATIONS in Florida, ahead of Hurricane Frances. It’s up to 1.2 million now.

UPDATE: Juan Paxety emails:

One thing that folks don’t think about with hurricane evacuations is the terrible, terrible traffic. Since early this morning, I-95 here in Jacksonville has been bumper-to-bumper as folks flee south Florida. I would think I-75 is the same. We’re hundreds of miles north of the projected striking point. If you’re in the southeastern US try to avoid the major interstates.

Don’t wait until the last minute!