Where was the outrage?

Last month, Illinois Republican Senate candidate Alan Keyes called Mary Cheney a "sinner" engaging in "selfish hedonism." Keyes referred to the VP's gay daughter by name, using those adjectives.

And here's the indignant response from Lynne and Dick:

" "

That's right -- none. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not one yelp of righteous indignation from the Cheneys.

Somebody's using Mary Cheney to play "cheap and tawdry political tricks," all right -- but it's not John Kerry.

We have a winner in John Kerry

Thomas Oliphant in the Boston Globe:

This was...John Kerry's third opportunity to increase his standing with the American people, and he once again took full advantage of it. Challengers who have a chance to talk unfiltered and unchallenged before a mass audience about the future, who can joke about their wealth as well as make a clear and specific commitment to raising the minimum wage by 40 percent, are on the way to being called incumbents.....

When he was asked to talk directly to a worker who had seen his job outsourced, Bush talked about public school reform. When he was asked a direct question about his civil rights record, he covered his dodge-and-duck response with another dissertation on the benefits of public school reform. With other direct ones -- like whether he wants the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights overturned, he simply didn't answer.

To get reelected, Bush's strategy is to bury Kerry in a blizzard of attacks via his speeches and paid television advertising. Two weeks ago it was to bury Kerry with a strong performance in their first debate. Bush failed, opened the door, and Kerry has come storming through it.

As my friend Tina said this morning:

"My answer to anything is 'No Child Left Behind.'"

Bush had a lot of bad moments last night. He told a whopper regarding his lack of concern about Bin Laden -- which is getting lots of exposure today. (I would dearly love to ask Barbara Bush if she EVER disciplined her children when they got caught lying. Evidently there were no consequences for lying in that household. Compare that to my middle-class parents, who would have worn my backside out.)

When asked about the minimum wage, Bush didn't even try to answer the question -- he just went right back to his favorite subject, the underfunded mandate known as "No Child Left Behind."

But the single most devastating moment may have been his clueless comment directed to the unemployed worker who'd seen his job outsourced. Talk about out of touch....this guy makes his famously out-of-the-loop father look like Dr. Phil.

Last night -- as in the previous debates -- the American people saw a forthright, decisive, well-informed, well-qualified leader in action.

His name is John Kerry.

Take action

By now you know that the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group plans to air an anti-Kerry smear disguised as a "documentary" in its 25 TV markets around the nation.

One of the things I love about this election year is that those of us on the center-left have learned to stop taking it on the chin and FIGHT BACK.

So go sign this petition.

You'll note that the petition is going not just to Sinclair Broadcasting, but to its ADVERTISERS. Clearly, the people who organized this effort know what they're doing.

Their Web site also includes a database of Sinclair's national advertisers -- and I've politely made my feelings known to those I patronize, like Best Buy, the Melting Pot, Wachovia, Long John Silver's, Papa John's and Miller Brewing. I've informed them that if they continue to support Sinclair with
their advertising dollars, I'll have no choice other than to "vote with my feet" and take my business elsewhere.

Money talks, y'all.

'Hire the guy who looks most like he’s up to the job'

In which case it's Kerry by a landslide. You just gotta love Charlie Pierce. More at Altercation:

What Kerry is, was, and always will be is someone who can always make the other guy on the stage look like he’s applying for a night manager’s job at a Gas ‘n Sip somewhere.  I think they’re discovering what every one of Kerry’s opponents always discovers – that there is too much substance to the guy to cover with easy labels. Sooner or later, people just decide to hire the guy who looks most like he’s up to the job.   I mean, look at the answer to the “How does faith inform what you do?” question, in which Schieffer served up a bigger meatball than the one Pedro left over the plate against Olerud last night.  One guy rattled off some vaguely faith-based talking points as though he were doing calisthenics.  The other guy sounded like Teilhard de Chardin with PAC money.