1) One thing we have learned about the “Wisdom of Crowds” is that it only works if the whole crowd is unaware of what the other members in the crowd are thinking. Because the USA covers many time zones it is possible to influence the results of an election by releasing results before all of the polls close. This can be seen in the “follow the leader” mentality on the website Digg.com.

Voter intimidation is a bad thing and I’m all for putting a stop to it.

As for total vote counts, the president is not elected by the popular vote so that makes the popular vote irelavent.

2) My purpose in disecting the words of Kerry’s apology is that he is not taking the blame for “mis-speaking” but is instead blaming it on the listener.

It’s also strange that he would be talking about Bush when Bush had better grades at Yale than Kerry!

3) As for your third paragraph, we will have to agree to disagree. History will tell whether or not Iraq was worth the cost.

As for Clinton/Gingrich… Gingrich lost his job over it, Clinton did not.

As to your interpretation of Kerry’s apology, isn’t disecting what he said as you have done exactly what started that whole scharade of a news story? He critized the President of the United States–as is his right–botching it midsentence to make it end up sound like he was criticizing the troops. He apologized, however much you may not like the way he did it, and explained what he truly meant by the statement. Haven’t you ever put your foot in your mouth or stumbled over a speech? I know I have.

On the issue of criticizing the military, let’s assume for arguments sake that truly was what he was doing. Big deal. American citizens have not only the right, but the civic responsibility and ethical and moral obligation to question and criticize their leaders and those representing them to foreign peoples when said leadership and/or representation is not in line with popular desire or opinion. I’m not saying I have a problem with the men and women in uniform for my family has been a proud military family for seven generations, but I am saying that even a buck private in Iraq needs to step forward and question why we are still involved in a war that was begun under false pretenses, losing American lives for a people that don’t want us there. This is the Vietnam of the 21st century, and not just due to popular opinion versus the ruling party’s; containment and regime-building policies do not work, however benevolent a mask those enforcing them might wear as history has proved. We didn’t win Korea, we didn’t win Vietnam, we didn’t win in South and Central America and we aren’t winning in Iraq. So the next time you want to gripe about something a politician said remember two things: first, they’re the ones brave enough to put themselves and their families in the media limelight while you sit anonymously at your PC ridiculing them and second, discovering that a member of the opposing political party has some trash to expose doesn’t excuse the trash found back home. Gingrich was calling Clinton out for cheating on his wife while doing the same thing himself–both were wrong…period. Same goes for Bush and the hippocritical, homosexual, alcoholic pedophiles in or pushing for the Republican party–Kerry being disrespectful in his criticism was rude, but it wasn’t immoral or hippocritical. It was honest, which is more than can be said for the party that lost today.