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The contretemps between the Bush and Kerry camps over Ohio dominated the television results last night and this morning. But while the networks focused obsessively on the presidential race and a handful of Republican scalps in the House and Senate, some underlying voting patterns did not get the coverage they deserved.
True story: Your humble scribe once got sucked into a conversation with a guy who thought his own taste in music should settle the argument for what is good and hip and cool. A few minutes in, I let slip that I enjoyed the songs of the late lamented crypto-Christian rock group Creed, which launched my friend on a whale of a rant.
Back from his near-death experience, Osama bin Laden emerged to make an anti-Bush ad in the form of an address to the American people. The bearded one closed with the warning: “Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked.” Leading up to this statement, however, he took a series of swipes at George H.W. Bush and President Bush:
In the final chaotic moments of the frat-classic “Animal House,” a well-endowed young woman with very little on is catapulted from a parade float and just happens to fly through the open window of a young boy who is secretly reading “Playboy,” landing safely on his bed. Stunned by this miracle, the boy looks to the heavens and says, “Thank you, God.”
Jimmy Swaggart has apologized, in the classic “I’m sorry if anyone was offended” style, for saying about gay men, “If one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died.”
At first glance, it was a simple hard-news lead for a follow-up story on the deadly path of the remnants of hurricane Ivan into the misty blue ridges of Western North Carolina. Reporters Kristin Collins, Michael Biesecker, Josh Shaffer and Andrea Weigl of the Raleigh News and Observer wrote:
GetReligion readers who dig into the comments pages (thank you, commentators) may have noticed that some people do not share my conviction that journalists must cover debates within Islam over the tactics — the slaughter of civilians and children, in particular — being employed by many generic “nationalists” and “rebels.”
The power is back on here in West Palm Beach (or at least in our neighborhood) and the flood waters are receding — only to be replaced by a flood of email and news. I hardly know where to begin, especially on the hellish reality that has emerged in Beslan.
While I hesitate to jump-start the no-way-to-win debate about abortion opinion polls, I owe it to people on both sides of that stat fight to pass along a Newsweek article by Karen Fragala entitled “A Fight for the GOP’s ‘Heart and Soul.’ ” It includes this amazing summary:
