ANOTHER REASON TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE: “France annuls first gay wedding:”

The mayor, Noel Mamere of the Green Party, was suspended for a month after defying government warnings that he would be breaking the law when he wed the two men in the town of Begles.

Justice Minister Dominique Perben had already declared the wedding invalid.

The prosecutor in the case said that the marriage was not in compliance with French law.

I guess Karl Rove’s right-wing influence has been felt even across the Atlantic. . . .

SAY IT AIN’T SO, JON! Jonathan Adler suggests that state attorneys general are showboating peddlers of dubious legal arguments.

HEH. And without even Photoshopping.

SANDY BERGER UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal editorializes:

We’ve all had experience with the office Oscar Madison. Yet notwithstanding Bill Clinton’s transparently insincere effort last week to laugh off the docs-in-socks scandal as a testament to Sandy Berger’s sloppy ways–that Sandy!–the precision with which the former National Security Adviser zeroed in on one specific document in the National Archives suggests focus, not absentmindedness.

Which raises the obvious question: What was in that document that Mr. Berger so badly wanted to keep under his hat, er, trousers? The only way to answer that question is for the Justice Department to release it.

The document itself may, of course, be too sensitive to release in its entirety. But I’d sure like to know what Sandy was trying to remove. Or, perhaps, insert.

MICKEY KAUS: “Do you think that NPR and the rest of the organized press would have made such a huge fuss about the 9/11 Commission report if they’d known the result would be this: An improving economy and the handover of authority in Iraq are among the likely factors influencing these [more favorable voter assessments of Bush]. ”

HMM, THIS IS INTERESTING:

When the Bush administration took over the Pentagon’s beleaguered inspector general office in 2002, officials found something startling: The director’s office, at some point, had been electronically bugged. . . .

Mr. Schmitz finally came on board a year into the Bush administration. He set out to right a ship dogged by charges of corruption and cronyism. But he also had to deal with an electronic bug apparently left over from eight years of the Clinton administration.

I wonder whose bug it was? According to the story, at least, we never found out.

BILL CLINTON gets a good review — but not from everyone.

CATFIGHT!

MULTILATERALISM: Russian divisions to Iraq? “Russian support for US occupation forces would make scorched earth of Senator John Kerry’s attack on the Bush administration’s foreign policy, namely its failure to form effective alliances. For Russian President Vladimir Putin, the chance to make scorched earth of Fallujah is even more tempting.”

Color me skeptical.

MATT WELCH:

But these songs, no matter how interesting individually, say something quite different when placed together consciously by a political party itching to, in Jimmy Carter’s words tonight, “restore the judgment and maturity to our government.” You can imagine that Democrats want to identify themselves with the more thoughtful and edgy protest pop of the sixties generation that produces all their political stars. But, much like the Party’s incoherent foreign policy approach, these songs only know what they’re against, not what they’re for. . . .

Note what’s missing here, and the rest of Gore’s speech — any sense of what a Democratic president might do with Iraq, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia; any sense of just whatever happened to the Al Gore who tried to convince Americans in 1998 that putting the military squeeze on Saddam Hussein was one of the world’s most urgent priorities, and any position whatsoever on the Middle East democratization project.

They’re talking about what they care about. And what they care about is beating Bush.

REINVENTING THE CONVENTION: Jeff Jarvis has a manifesto.

THE CAMERA DOES NOT LOVE John Kerry — though this photo gave me a pang of geek-to-geek sympathy.

ANN ALTHOUSE is simul-blogging the Convention. Excerpt:

A little film about Carter. Carter in the flesh emerges. He served in the military, he informs us, and I slip back into my semi-coma, as it’s clear where this is going. He served under two Presidents, Truman and Eisenhower, who had themselves served in the military, and because of this they had the proper judgment about how to use the military, judgment that is sorely lacking now under Bush. And presumably under Clinton, but let’s not mention that. (And was Carter for Dole?) And let’s not even think about what we would say about this principle of military service if a woman candidate seeks the Presidency some time in the future.

Read the whole thing. For Carter, it’s just more of the same.

UPDATE: Here’s the text of Carter’s speech, which contains this self-contradictory bit:

[W]e cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our country.

Glad you’re not doing that, Jimmy.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More Carter-related thoughts here.

MORE: This hurts:

Jimmy Carter seemd unnatural in the role of doddering pit bull, the last guy in the room who should be yapping about North Korea’s “nuclear menace.”

Ouch.

STILL MORE: Jacob T. Levy: “Still, I’m curious to see whether the mainstream press actually buys the claim that last night wasn’t loaded with Bush-bashing. Even Clinton’s wasn’t hidden; it was just coated in his honeyed voice. Carter’s would have been astonishingly nasty, if I still had the capacity to be astonished by Carter.”

BILL CLINTON on how much gun control has cost the Democrats.

BRENDAN LOY has been blogging C-SPAN and has noted a lot of interesting tidbits.

ANOTHER CONVENTION BLOG that didn’t make the cut initially.

THIS PHOTO OF KERRY at the Kennedy Space Center is not very flattering at all.

Rand Simberg, meanwhile, has comments on what Kerry said.

EUGENE VOLOKH looks at yet another lame “Kerryism” at Slate. Eugene observes: “I’ve criticized Kerryisms many times in the past; maybe I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. But it just galls me to see this sort of stuff — not substantive, not funny, just empty snideness descending into self-parody — in a magazine of Slate’s prominence and quality.”

I agree, and I’d think with Slate up for sale, they’d want to avoid this sort of thing.

LAST WEEK’S KETCHUP TASTE TEST, comparing Heinz ketchup with W Ketchup, led to some complaints that I was ignoring a worthy third competitor: Bush Country Ketchup.

Because this is a Fair And Balanced Weblog, I immediately ordered a bottle from their website. Today, I gave it the test, and included the W Ketchup again to make it a 3-way comparison. Once again, Heinz is the winner, but this time it was actually close. The Bush Country Ketchup is, like W, sweeter. But it’s got a rounder, more tomatoey, less processed flavor. The W ketchup came in third, though it actually seemed better than it was the first time around. Perhaps (as one reader suggested) it simply needed to breathe, like a fine wine. . . .

Anyway, Heinz is still the winner in the Ketchup wars. Any political conclusions you want to draw from that are entirely your own.

SEAN HACKBARTH is rounding up convention-related stuff.

ANDREW SULLIVAN is holding another pledge week.

I recommend that he appear on public radio — the tipjar donations poured in during and after my appearance on Brian Lehrer’s show today. No, really — go figure.

NOT WITH A BANG, BUT WITH AN eBAY: A political dream dies.

HERE’S LOADS MORE ON ORRIN HATCH’S DUMB COPYRIGHT BILL, from Ernest Miller.

BE SURE TO CHECK OUT REASON’S CONVENTION BLOG, which features Matt Welch and Tim Blair. And don’t forget Ken Layne, of course!

What’s the best way to kill the spirit after a fine three days of sunburn, booze, cruel yet majestic mountain hikes and campfire-seared steaks? Just turn on the NBC Nightly News, and feel the joy drain from your heart.

Sounds like Gray Davis isn’t the only dementor in Boston this week. Glad I stayed home!

ANOTHER CONVENTION BLOGGER WRITES:

Unbelievably, Gray Davis is here. He acts as a sort of dementor upon the gathering of otherwise happy delegates and media types. Some folks survive political smash-ups. There was a big party for George McGovern last night, for example, and all the Dems love him. He lost with –in their eyes– honor. But some, like Gray, had such bad exits that they ought to exile themselves for the good of the general mood.

Ouch.