ARNOLD KLING: “If employers bear the cost of health insurance, then I’m the Easter Bunny. . . . The right way to think about health insurance is not as something that employers provide but as something that employers sell to their employees. Your employer is an intermediary between you and the insurance company.”

JON HENKE IS FACTCHECKING FACTCHECK.ORG AGAIN: “FactCheck.org has a good point–one I’ve made here–that some atrocities similar to what Kerry described did occur. But FactCheck.org fails miserably in claiming that Kerry ‘was not claiming to have witnessed those atrocities personally’.”

IN THE WASHINGTON POST:

Most of the debate between the former shipmates who swear by John Kerry and the group of other Swift boat veterans who are attacking his military record focuses on matters that few of us have the experience or the moral standing to judge. But one issue, having nothing to do with medals, wounds or bravery under fire, goes to the heart of Kerry’s qualifications for the presidency and is therefore something that each of us must consider. That is Kerry’s apparently fabricated claim that he fought in Cambodia. . . .

Two weeks ago Kerry’s spokesmen began to backtrack. First, one campaign aide explained that Kerry had patrolled the Mekong Delta somewhere “between” Cambodia and Vietnam. But there is no between; there is a border. Then another spokesman told reporters that Kerry had been “near Cambodia.” But the point of Kerry’s 1986 speech was that he personally had taken part in a secret and illegal war in a neutral country. That was only true if he was “in Cambodia,” as he had often said he was. If he was merely “near,” then his deliberate misstatement falsified the entire speech.

And, the article notes, Kerry biographer Doug Brinkley’s new, improved account has now been contradicted by the Kerry campaign’s newest version. (It’s a bad week for Brinkley, as Brinkley’s Tour of Duty was also the proximate cause of the Swift Boat Vets being organized, according to Michael Novak today.) Fred Kaplan’s effort to salvage Kerry’s credibility on this issue isn’t very persuasive, either — he’s starting to sound like Atrios — and Bill Adams says he’s gone into the tank. (“What Kaplan can’t explain is why Kerry would stop boasting and deny crossing the border on that particular day once people began looking into the facts of the matter. So Kaplan doesn’t even mention that Kerry’s staffers have issued this denial and rendered Kaplan’s whole thesis pointless.”) He certainly seems to be stretching — turning “in” to “near” even though that makes nonsense of Kerry’s claims, and then arguing that, well, other people went into Cambodia, so Kerry might have, too. Would Kaplan stretch so far for anyone else? I don’t think so. I guess he’s one of Kerry’s fans in the press. (“But what is true for most people is true for journalists, too: When you want something badly enough, it shows.”)

DEPLOYED IN FARCE: Greg Scoblete is observing the NYPD pre-convention presence and he isn’t impressed: “I’ll tell you what the majority of the ones I see are not doing: carefully observing their surroundings, stopping people to check bags, or otherwise doing much of anything other than standing around bullshitting with each other.” Sounds like a management problem.

DARFUR UPDATE: The Washington Post editorializes:

Darfur already has become a synonym for dithering by outside powers in the face of genocide. Soon it may also deliver another grim verdict on the ability of the Security Council to back up its own resolutions. Hamstrung by the unwillingness of veto-wielding members, such as China, to intervene, it delayed action for months, then watered down the language it finally adopted on July 30 to omit any direct sanction against the Sudanese regime. Days after that, an agreement between U.N. and Sudanese officials further weakened the pressure on Khartoum: Among other things, it converted a requirement that the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia be disarmed into a Sudanese promise to provide a list of those it admits to controlling.

Not surprisingly, oil interests appear to be behind Chinese and French foot-dragging here.

HERE’S MORE ON STEM CELLS, from Gina Kolata:

But while the work here and elsewhere has touched off a debate reaching into the presidential campaign, a tour through these labs shows that the progress of research is both greater and less than it seems from a distance.

One idea, the focus of about half the nation’s stem cell research, involves studying stem cells that are naturally present in adults. Researchers have found such cells in a variety of tissues and organs and say they seem to be a part of the body’s normal repair mechanism. There are no ethical issues in studying these cells, but the problem is in putting them to work to treat diseases. So far, no one has succeeded.

The other line of research, with stem cells from embryos, has a different obstacle. Although, in theory, the cells could be coaxed into developing into any of the body’s specialized cells, so far scientists are still working on ways to direct their growth in the laboratory and they have not yet effectively cured diseases, even in animals. . . .

As the two lines of research proceed along parallel paths, researchers say it is far too soon to bet on which, if either, will yield cures first. “It’s not either-or,” said Dr. Diana Bianchi, chief of the division of medical genetics at Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston.

Faster, please. And this is why I think that (1) Kerry’s right to criticize the Bush funding limitation on embryonic stem cell research, even if he exaggerates its extent, and (2) why I don’t buy the argument that adult stem cells will take care of everything. That’s just not clear yet. And, since I don’t believe that life begins at conception, the embryonic aspect doesn’t bother me much either. [Dude, you’ve got, like, no chance at a Bush judicial appointment now! — Ed. I’ve got no chance of a date with Salma Hayek, either. No, Drezner’s got that one nailed down. — Ed.]

JAMES LILEKS: “I had explained the internet the other day: you didn’t need a disk to play it. It’s like a game that’s in the air. I rather like that description, actually, as does she.”

VIETNAM BOOMERANG: “Having first questioned Mr. Bush’s war service, and then made Vietnam the core of his own campaign for President, Mr. Kerry now cries No mas! because other Vietnam vets are assailing his behavior before and after that war.” He should have thought about this earlier.

MICHELLE MALKIN HAS POSTED the latest installment in her back-and-forth with critics of her book. As I noted earlier, the blogospheric discussion is a lot more civil and factual than, say, the Hardball treatment.

MICKEY KAUS on the non-Internet-ready Kerry campaign:

Let’s assume that a certain amount of hype is standard procedure in military write-ups, especially when medals are involved. The problem is that Kerry is running for president on this official hype of a more-than-honorable record (one reason he’s constantly referring reporters to his official medal citations). He’s not only running on the hype but pushing it to the limit, milking it for all it’s worth. That’s dangerous in, yes, the Internet era! Obsessive fact-checkers can smoke out the exaggerations and get them past the ex-gatekeepers.** Unfortunately, it’s more or less all Kerry’s got. It wouldn’t be so important if Kerry had a) a discernable ideology; b) a political message; c) a record of achievement; or d) an appealing personality!

As Ann Althouse notes, below, somebody should have thought this through. I wonder how many of the problems in this timeline of woe stemmed from not taking the Internet seriously? It’s not too late to hire Joe Trippi!

UPDATE: ANOTHER BACK-PEDAL? “Kerry’s campaign has said it is possible his first Purple Heart was awarded for an unintentionally self-inflicted wound.” It’s that dang Internet striking again!

TRAFFIC: Over 260,000 pageviews yesterday, which is a new record, I believe. Now if I could just get a dollar for each one. . . .

ANN ALTHOUSE:

So it seems that Kerry’s idea for how to deal with this huge Swift Boat Veterans problem is to churn up a swirly mass of impressions and imputations and then hope that he is the one who looks clean in the end. The Kerry people seem to be hoping that people are too dim to understand that a group of Bush supporters could operate independently or conspiracy-minded enough to think they all coordinate behind the scenes in plain violation of the law. There is a separate point Kerry has made that Bush should openly denounce the ads and that his failure to do so signifies a willingness to reap the advantages they bring him. That’s the clean point, but it has been made, and it apparently hasn’t done well enough, because we now see the campaign boat steering over the border into right-wing-conspiracy land.

But what is the solution for Kerry? I’m sure his people are racking their brains now. But they should have thought this through earlier, back when they were so sure that if the candidate stood up at the convention as a war hero that he would be greeted with candy and flowers. They convinced each other that what they wanted to believe was true, and, as a consequence they never had a plan for how to deal with the attacks that they should have known were there.

Indeed.

MORE LOCALITIES SHOULD FOLLOW THIS EXAMPLE: “Boulder decided last spring to replace its three-decades-old punch-card voting system with a system that, in some respects, is even more antiquated. Primary voters were handed a 81/2-by-11-inch sheet with candidates’ names and told to fill in the squares with a ballpoint pen.”

As I’ve said for a while, it’s the way to go.

JAY ROSEN IS SAD THAT WE’RE STILL TALKING ABOUT VIETNAM — and he’s also sad that Douglas Brinkley isn’t talking:

This is sad because Brinkley (who is said to be writing an account for the New Yorker) should be in the business of giving out knowledge, and that doesn’t include eluding the press when you so often use the press to broadcast your work.

I agree, on both counts. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Several readers email that Brinkley — who was, as Rosen notes, dodging the press — appeared on Hardball tonight, where he did yeoman duty as a rather vigorous defender of Kerry. Maybe Mark Steyn flushed him out by remarking that “hagiographer Douglas Brinkley, after an intriguing interview with the Telegraph’s David Rennie, seems to have entered the witness protection programme.”

MERYL YOURISH notes a very American response to disaster.

HMM. DOESN’T SOUND LIKE MORALE is suffering:

The largest Alabama Guard unit to return from Iraq, the 877th Engineer Battalion, had its first weekend drills earlier this month at its northwest Alabama armories. And at those drill sessions, only 19 of the 555 soldiers who attended said they wanted to hang up their helmets or were seriously considering it. . . .

Of the 19 soldiers who may leave, about half had served more than 20 years and were eligible for retirement, while the others had reasons to leave that ranged from job conflicts to their desire to spend more time with their families, Holland said.

When Guard units such as the 877th were deployed for up to a year in and around Iraq, many of their members had never been away from home for such a lengthy period, and more than a few vowed to get out once they got home.

Apparently, some of them changed their minds. (Via The Mudville Gazette.)

I WONDER IF HIS POSITION HAS CHANGED? Roger Simon points to this story from March on New Jersey Governor James McGreevey’s opposition to gay marriage.

TRASHING A CANDIDATE’S WAR RECORD: In 1992.

THE DISAPPEARING TOM HARKIN: The real mystery, of course, is why he ever appeared on that issue, given his history. What was the Kerry campaign thinking?

527 COORDINATION? American Thinker has some observations, and an example. (And here’s more — along with this “web of connections” that you’ve probably already seen).

Meanwhile Bush is denouncing ads by outside groups:

Bush’s campaign heatedly denied any connection with the anti-Kerry group, and called on the Democratic challenger to join the president in a call for all outside groups to pull their ads.

Bush has himself been subjected to a multimillion-dollar barrage of attack ads aired by groups seeking to help Kerry win the White House.

If this election doesn’t prove anything else, it seems to me that it’s proven campaign-finance “reform” to be even more damaging than the critics feared. And yes, Bush deserves part of the blame for signing it instead of vetoing it as he should have.

UPDATE: Reader Brett Bellmore is much more unhappy with Bush:

Seems to me, Bush has earned more than just a little part of the blame; I’d originally put his signing the BCRA to his inexplicable phobia about vetoing legislation,. (Last President to go this long without vetoing anything was John Adams.) but with his recent statements, it appears obvious he’s bought into the whole campaign censorship cause, and become as enthusiastic an enemy of the First amendment as McCain. He’s lost my vote over this, I can tell you; I always thought he was at best the lesser evil, but with his embrace of censorship added to everything else, (The steel tarrifs which practically bankrupted my employer, lying in order to get his Medicaid program passed, sabotoging the Armed Pilots program, I could go on in this vein for some time…) he’s just not enough “lesser” for me to stomach voting for anymore. I just can’t bring myself to care all that much which of the major party candidates wins.

I’m no fan of the steel tariffs, or the foot-dragging over armed pilots, or — God knows — campaign finance “reform.” (I don’t know much about the Medicaid issue). But I’m pretty much a single issue voter here. If Kerry had given me something to work with, I might be comfortable on the fence, or even voting Democratic. But that sure hasn’t happened so far.

ANOTHER UPDATE: N.Z. Bear has more thoughts on the 527 issue. And Powerline offers this thought: “President Bush is doing the politically smart thing. I just don’t think he’s doing the principled thing. Signing McCain-Feingold was smart, but not principled, in exactly the same way. . . . The battle for free speech is one that will have to be fought someday, by a different President. President Bush has enough battles for the moment.”

All sorts of people (not me) supported campaign finance “reform” when the bill passed. It’s certainly interesting to see the bien pensant crowd turn on McCain-Feingold as this election progresses. Bush’s endorsement may serve to accelerate this process. [When life hands you lemons, make lemonade! — Ed. Only if life also hands you water and sugar. . . .]

HERE’S AN NPR COMMENTARY BY AUSTIN BAY from Baghdad. Follow the link for audio and a photo, taken by Austin with the digital camera I sent him. (Your donations at work!)

It’s also worth reading this New York Times oped by a Marine in Najaf:

When critics of the war say their advocacy is on behalf of those of us risking our lives here, it’s a type of false patriotism. I believe that when Americans say they “support our troops,” it should include supporting our mission, not just sending us care packages. They don’t have to believe in the cause as I do; but they should not denigrate it. That only aids the enemy in defeating us strategically.

Michael Moore recently asked Bill O’Reilly if he would sacrifice his son for Falluja. A clever rhetorical device, but it’s the wrong question: this war is about Des Moines, not Falluja. . . .

No, I would not sacrifice myself, my parents would not sacrifice me, and President Bush would not sacrifice a single marine or soldier simply for Falluja. Rather, that symbolic city is but one step toward a free and democratic Iraq, which is one step closer to a more safe and secure America.

Read the whole thing.

DALE FRANKS HAS A PEACE PROPOSAL:

In order to move the presidential campaign away from what happened or didn’t happen in Vietnam 35 years ago, I offer a suggestion. Since the Kerry camp wishes to argue that official Navy records are conclusive proof that Kerry served honorably and with distinction, I suggest that those of us opposed to Kerry offer to accept that argument, as long as the Kerry people accept the logical corollary: the official Air Force records indicating George W. Bush was honorably discharged from his service is conclusive proof that he properly met his obligations as well.

Sounds fair to me. But will the MoveOn folks go for it?

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting argument that Kerry’s problems stem from violating the Vietnam truce that had prevailed for years in American politics.

ECONOBLOGARAMA: This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up!

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

Financial support for al Qaeda and the size of its operating budget have plummeted in the three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the network “continues to fund terrorist operations with relative ease,” according to new findings released Saturday by the 9/11 commission.

The report from the panel also says that the Saudi government provided lackluster cooperation in the effort to stanch the flow of money to al Qaeda for two years after the attacks, but began to respond more aggressively after several al Qaeda strikes in the kingdom last year.

Al Qaeda’s annual budget appears to have shrunk from about $30 million a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to as little as a few million dollars per year now, the commission reported.

I’m surprised that it’s not getting more attention.

MSNBC: “Why Kerry’s War Record Matters,” from Roger Franklin. Note the LBJ comparison. Great minds think alike, I guess.

UPDATE: Though it’s of largely historical interest, here’s some background on LBJ’s Silver Star — which, unlike Kerry’s, seems quite clearly fraudulent.