ANOTHER REASON I'M OPTIMISTIC ABOUT KERRY

I fully expect John Kerry to be the next President of the U.S. In the coming weeks, I'll be working on a suggested concession speech for Bush for the night of November 4th, [or 2nd, rather] or for whatever day the results are finally deemed official by whatever authority has the legitimacy to do so.

In 2000, many folks thought that the presidency didn't really matter. After all, in the late 1990s we were prosperous, mostly respected in the world, and strong enough to be able to afford spending months worrying about whether to impeach and remove President Clinton over an irrelevant ethical lapse that had been magnified through the looking glass of rabid partisan hatred and well-meaning but misguided right-wing moralism.

The burning issues of 2000 were -- well, what, again, exactly? How to spend budget surpluses? The "tone" in Washington? When your biggest problems seem to be 1) how to divvy up money among competing valid claims, and 2) the fact that angry men and women tried to bring down a President whom they disliked because of his political skill and his policy priorities, then why not go for the affable but slow-witted and tongue-tied Baptist Methodist Prince Hal from Texas?

The President as beer-buddy choice has died a pretty horrible death over the past few years, though. The last few years have awakened us out of our surplus-induced slumber and made plain the fact that the President is both the commander-in-chief of the most powerful army in the world, and an important player in policy debates that will have long-lasting and potentially devastating impacts.

With respect to Bush in particular, he is not as affable as he seemed -- the first debate showed us a petty, angry, isolated man who doesn't like to hear himself criticized -- and his slow wit probably leaves him vulnerable to being influenced by impassioned ideologues and subject to the power of his official subordinates. Self-criticism is obviously neither Bush's strong suit nor an element in his preferred public persona, but we all know that ongoing adjustment is vital to success in any important venture.

Bush is quite possibly the only incumbent President in recent history who appears less qualified to be President now than he did when he took office, and in 2000 Bush was arguably barely qualified to begin with. Even worse, we'll be living with the effects of his bad choices in fiscal policy and in security and foreign policy for years to come.

The polls look good for Kerry. Organization on the ground seems to favor Democrats, although no one can tell for sure. Dems have also done a great deal of prep work for the inevitable legal battles over election results in swing states. And on and on. I haven't even begun to list the reasons why I like Kerry in particular (I'll leave that for another day).

But the real reason why I'm optimistic about Kerry is this report that indicates that the crucial interdimensional shape-shifting lizard caucus is having doubts about Bush.

Divide and conquer, folks.