Yet another goofy Kerry sports photo-op

Powerline beat me to it. Spoiler: Lurch still can't throw.

Today's Hoot!

The Unabrewer wins the prize, but I'm hard pressed to avoid quoting the whole thing. Here's just the punchline:

I'd settle for him chasing them with the same energy he put into boinking rich widows.

I'm easier - I'd settle for him chasing them with the same energy he put into writing his after-action reports.

Off his meds again

(Hat tip: Arnold Zephel)

MSNBC's Designated Leftoid Ranter, er, "Senior Political Analyst" Lawrence O'Donnell seems to be becoming increasingly unhinged. Last Friday, during the Scarborough Country program he put on quite a show:

O'Donnell's eyes bugged out, he kept on yelling "lesbian, lesbian, lesbian" like a madman.

The transcript tidies up and refers to this as "crosstalk". Indeed.

Well for "crosstalk," it'll be hard to beat last night's performance where he totally lost it and kept yelling "liar, liar, liar" at John O'Neill. The Daily Recycler has video so you can judge for yourself . I hope they are keeping Larry away from sharp objects over at MSNBC.

More from Michelle Malkin and Hoystory. But there's good news for Larry! He's sweeping the field in Polipundit's Liberal Meltdown Contest!

Fooling with The Dark Side

More Frank J. audios.

It's FriDAY, so let's parTAY!

The beloved Empress exhibits the common touch!



Ruh Oh!

(Originals via Drudge) I also kinda like this one too, but it's not really desirable for work.

I won't go there

And Spoons claims he won't either - Hooters Opens in China

They aren't making them any smarter

The Smoking Gun has the details. I really like the deal with the sheets.

Live report from Lurch's goose hunt!

Radio station WBAP has the audio!

Oh No!

Frank J. has sold out!

It's a hootenanny!

Sing it, Lurch!

Captain Ed provides the world premiere of the "Mekong Delta Blues," written and performed by the Sons of the Blogosphere. Be there or be square!

Wankers Wave the White Flag!

Tim Blair has the details. Just like their hero, I guess.

Who would Lurch sell out first?

(Via Betsy's Page) Charles Krauthammer - Kerry's false plan for peace:

The mere appearance of a Europhilic fresh face is unlikely to so thrill the allies that French troops will start marching down the streets of Baghdad. Therefore, you can believe that Kerry is just being cynical in pledging to bring in the allies, knowing that he has no way of doing it. Or you can believe, as I do, that he means it.

He really does want to end America's isolation. And he has an idea how to do it. For understandable reasons, however, he will not explain how on the eve of an election.

Think about it: What do the Europeans and the Arab states endlessly rail about in the Middle East? What (outside Iraq) is the area of most friction with U.S. policy? What single issue most isolates America from the overwhelming majority of countries at the United Nations?

The answer is obvious: Israel.

In what currency, therefore, would we pay the rest of the world in exchange for their support in places like Iraq? The answer is obvious: giving in to them on Israel.

In case you've forgotten:

Do not be fooled by the euphemism ``peace process.'' We know what ``peace process" meant during the eight years Berger served in the Clinton White House -- a White House to which Yasser Arafat was invited more often than any leader on the planet. It meant believing Arafat's deceptions about peace while letting him get away with the most virulent incitement to and unrelenting support of terrorism. It meant constant pressure on Israel to make one territorial concession after another -- in return for nothing. Worse than nothing: Arafat ultimately launched a vicious terror war that killed a thousand Israeli innocents.

When I hear "peace process," I reach for my holster. But was Bubba really that bad? After all, he made Arafat wait in the Rose Garden while he had a Lewinsky.

Ssssh! Be vewy, vewy quiet!

He had to go all the way to Ohio for one? He should have just called Teresa!
(Hat tip: billorites)

Today, Lurch had the big rootin' tootin' shootin' photo-op he had been threatening. There are lots of laughs involved like

McCurry said Kerry is simply doing the things he loves in the final days of the campaign. Asked if it will include windsurfing, McCurry smiled. "It's too cold this time of year," he said.

Sure, Mike! We believe ya! But the biggest laughs are in the pool press report that Drudge is carrying. Sample: things had been slow in the goosing department, but then the nimrods spotted a flock:

There were so many shots in the course of 15 seconds that it was impossible to count the number. Certainly, everybody unloaded their guns and possibly even reloaded (Assuming they were not using some sort of large-capacity assault weapons, which would be thoroughly illegal. But we'll never know.).

Yeehaw! Maybe Yosemite Sam would be a better comparison! Anyhow, after all the birdshot had landed, the Lurchster did a "walk by" of the photographers. All in all it sure was a manly man photo-op!

(Hat tip: stockstrader)

One odd point in the AP article, though:

Kerry returned after a two-hour hunting trip wearing a camouflage jacket and carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, but someone else carried the bird he said he shot.

"I'm too lazy," Kerry joked. "I'm still giddy over the Red Sox. It was hard to focus."

Indeed:

(Hat tip: tamikamaria)

Some of the uncharitable suspect he didn't want to carry the goose in order to not grossly offend his whacko base, even though they know he is just pretending. Even worse - Lurch's mismatched outfit wasn't the usual vision of sporting sartorial splendor that we know and love because the "lifelong" hunter had just bought the coat and hat. But that's OK - he managed not to even get mud on his pants.

Thanks, pals!

In the UK Telegraph - British intervention in poll backfires:

Dan Harkins, a political activist in the vital swing state of Ohio, was excited when he first heard that the Guardian newspaper was recruiting readers to write to voters in his state in the hopes of giving foreigners a voice in the American election.

Yesterday, the first of about 14,000 Guardian readers' letters started arriving in the mailboxes of Clark County, Mr Harkins's home region - chosen by the British paper as a pivotal election district where President George W Bush and Senator John Kerry are neck and neck.

The first letters to be made public all urged Clark County voters to reject Mr Bush. As he watched the reaction of friends and neighbours, Mr Harkins was delighted.

He is the chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, and his neighbours' reaction was outrage. "It's hysterical," laughed Mr Harkins, showing off sheaves of incensed e-mails and notes from local voters.

Some samples:

Terry Brown had received a letter from a Scottish Guardian reader. The navy veteran and retired lorry builder was "offended" as he read the polite note, from Nicola Smith of West Lothian, with its denunciation of the Iraq war as a "farce", and closing plea to remove from power "the parties responsible for this war".

Mr Brown looked out at his front garden, decorated with a US flag on a tall pole, a giant carving of an American eagle and a wooden cross marked: "September 11, 2001".

Smooth move, Ex-Lax.

Less happily, Mr Evans concluded that another Bush victory would so anger the world that Americans would have to "put on a Canadian accent when travelling abroad". His tone so alarmed Ms Coale, a Kerry voter, that she feared the letter came from terrorists. "With so much going on today, you wonder about some of these groups," she said.

They are terrorists, the limp-wristed kind.

Follow the link for more, including a snap of the local paper's headline, Butt out Brits, voters say.

Pols Gone Wild!

POWELL IV BOOZE BASH A POLITICAL HANGOVER:

ALBANY — Harlem Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, accused by two women earlier this year of alcohol-related sexual assaults, is holding a "tequila shots" fund-raiser next week with contributors asked, "How many can you do?"

How many what can you do?

Time for Plan B!

Why not just say the Empress had a problem with her medications?

First she opens her yap and vigorously inserts an appendage:

In an interview published Wednesday in USA Today, the newspaper asked the wife of Democratic candidate John Kerry if she would be different from Laura Bush as a first lady.

"Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good," Heinz Kerry said. "But I don't know that she's ever had a real job — I mean, since she's been grown up."

After her handlers stopped wailing, she distributes an apology:

"I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children.

Awww! But that swell sentiment still manages to offend women who work at home.

And the best part is Teresa's claim in her apology to be have "been both a full time mom and full time in workforce"(sic). Teresa's only time in the workforce was a brief gig as a United Nations translator in Geneva where she snagged her wealthy husband. Since then she's done nothing but spend his money. Kind of like Zsa Zsa Gabor with better aim.

But not to worry, Lurch fans! If Plan B doesn't work, there's always Plan C:

Pond Scum

Best of the Web:

Is the U.N. Worth Dying For?
From an article in today's Washington Post on John Kerry's approach to foreign policy:

Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, "If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no."

So the U.N.--that club of dictators and anti-Semites--is worth dying for, but America isn't? This quote sharply summarizes why the thought of waking up two weeks from today to the news that Kerry is president-elect invokes in us a sense of utter dread.

Once a traitor, always a traitor.

It's nuance boy again!

Supersize it at Sacred Cow Burgers. More drivel from Lurch's interview with Rolling Stone here. One of the highlights is that he says the Swift Boat Vets are "completely discredited". He was interviewed in Cambodia wearing a magic hat and carrying a Chinese assault rifle.

Be careful what you wish for!

Now you're styling!

His natty chapeau is not Photoshopped.

Lurch keeps trying the Hail Mary!

David Brooks in the NY Times - Kerry Off the Leash:

Let's review the string of heavy-handed assaults from the Kerry-Edwards campaign.

On Monday, Kerry told seniors in Florida that Bush is plotting a "January surprise" to cut their Social Security benefits by as much as 45 percent. "That's up to $500 a month less for food, for clothing, for the occasional gift for a grandchild."

As Kerry knows, that's ludicrous - it's a stale and transparent canard that Democrats have brought out in election after election, to less and less effect. President Bush has not entertained and would not entertain any plan that cut benefits to seniors. Bush would sooner give up any Social Security reform than cut benefits.

Kerry's second wild attack is that Bush would reinstate the draft. The administration, which hasn't even asked for trivial public sacrifices in a time of war, does not want to bring back the draft. The Pentagon does not want to bring back the draft. The Republican Party does not want to bring back the draft. Given the nature of military technology, it doesn't make sense to bring back the draft. There may be some in the bureaucracy taking precautions, but it is hard to imagine an attack with less basis in fact.

Kerry's third attack is the whole Mary Cheney thing. That's been hashed over enough. But remarkably, Kerry has not apologized. You use somebody's daughter to attack the father and his running mate. The parents are upset. The only decent thing is to apologize. If anything, an apology would make Kerry look admirable. But Kerry, in his permanent attack dog mode, can't do the decent and politically advantageous thing.

The fourth assault is Kerry's attack on the Bush administration's supposed "ban" on stem cell research. John Edwards's ludicrous statement that if Kerry was president, people like Christopher Reeve would be able to get up and walk was only the farcical culmination of a series of exaggerations about the possibilities of finding cures for Alzheimer's and spinal cord injuries.

Brooks offer theories about why Lurch is making desperation mode plays, but I think a more interesting question is "Why now?" Usually the whacky stuff gets trotted out a few days before the election when there isn't enough time to laugh it off. But since I joined many across the nation and dropped by the county seat to cast my "no excuse absentee ballot" today, I'm thinking that maybe Lurch's handlers feel they can't wait.

We missed the big SPECTRE meeting!

But I guess we weren't invited - Billionaires Secretly Met in Aspen to Defeat Bush:

In the days following the Democratic National Convention in Boston this past August, several billionaire Democratic activists secretly met at the famed Aspen Institute in Colorado.

The purpose of their clandestine meeting was "to use their fortunes to engineer the defeat of President George W. Bush," The New Yorker magazine reports in its most recent edition.

The report from Nicholas Lemann isn't online.

Details of the meeting remain sketchy, but the magazine described the Aspen conference this way: "Five billionaires joined half a dozen liberal leaders in a lengthy conversation about the future of progressive politics in America."

Those SPECTRE meetings are always so cool! All kinds of weirdos sitting around the table!

The Aspen meeting was supposed to have been a top secret within Democratic Party circles.

When The New Yorker inquired about the meeting, an assistant to one of the attendees was surprised by the call.

"No one was supposed to know about this," the aide told the magazine. "We don’t want people thinking it’s a cabal or some sort of Masonic plot!"

I'm sure the Masons will appreciate the comparison, Sweets.

Apparently the leader of the secret cabal is billionaire Peter B. Lewis, chairman of the Cleveland, Ohio-based insurance company Progressive Corporation.

George lets Peter pretend he's the leader, because of all the drugs he's ingested.

Like another attendee, wealthy financier George Soros, Lewis has poured millions into Democratic 527 groups, including Americans Coming Together and MoveOn.org.
...
Another billionaire who attended was John Sperling, founder of the online University of Phoenix.

Also present were Herb and Marion Sandler from California. The couple founded Golden West Financial Corporation, a California bank reportedly worth $17 billion.

And once Number 1 and his minions were all around the table?

"The billionaires spent much of the time moaning the superior powers of the GOP," the magazine said, and the group even needed some cheerleading from Harold Ickes, a former top aide to Bill Clinton who is involved in the 527 efforts.

Those pesky peasants!

There was disagreement about some of the issues and policy positions the group should take.

Sperling, for one, argued that the main target of their efforts should be Wal-Mart. He wants to push for unionizing the giant retailer.

That idea was apparently vetoed by George Soros, who reportedly told the group he had no desire to support union initiatives and that his only single goal at this point was "ousting Bush."

Number 1 doesn't tolerate distractions! He's also a man of action:

The magazine said Soros had planned to keep a low profile in the closing months of the election, but suddenly changed course this summer when he decided to "jettison the strategy in favor of waging his own media-grabbing political campaign."

Soros hired a publicist and began a 12-city, $3 million personal crusade to defeat George Bush.

Sure, that'll work! The leadership of SPECTRE is clearly in good hands. George is even a wit:

More than that, he sees Bush as the face man for a secret cabal. "Bush was just chosen as a figurehead, an acceptable face for a sinister group," Soros told The New Yorker, adding, "Cheney is the Capo."

Clearly, Soros knows a thing or two about secret cabals and capos.

But only a half-wit.

Can you imagine the Mainstream Media headlines if there were a group of Republican billionaires having a clandestine clambake to plot defeat for the Donks?

It had to happen!

The Silky Pony groomingfest video has been set to music by Aaron over at Free Will. As a bonus, the music is from John Kerry and the Electras! Be still, my heart.

It's a twofer!

Bush Secret Plan to Draft Elderly Revealed:

"If George W. Bush wins this election, I warn you that he will kill two birds with one stone," said John Forbes Kerry, the Democrat presidential candidate. "He'll bail out Social Security by sending our nation's grandparents to the front lines in Iraq to die in the wrong war."

Mr. Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator, said, "Senior citizens are patriotic, plentiful and many of them still have their old military uniforms and vintage rifles from World War II and Korea. It's a cynical scheme, and that's why this administration is hiding it until January."

It's ScrappleFace, of course, but heck, as long as Lurch is lying - why not go full pork?

Howdy!

They want to visit and we'd love to see 'em. It's the neighborly way!

Someone let her out again!

Original "Where's the bar?" story here

Heinz Kerry faults Bush on climate pact:

“The planet can’t take it, and we try to make sense of it,” said Heinz Kerry, a longtime environmental advocate and wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Say what?

“There was a time when Republicans and Democrats were across the aisle on many issues,” said Heinz Kerry, whose first husband was the late Republican U.S. Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania.

Someone took the aisle?

Heinz Kerry called President Bush’s decision not to sign on to the Kyoto Protocol, an international compact for reducing atmospheric pollution - “a huge diplomatic blunder.”

She must be unfamiliar with Senate Resolution 98 from the 105th Congress:

Declares that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol to, or other agreement regarding, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of 1992, at negotiations in Kyoto in December 1997 or thereafter which would: (1) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the Annex 1 Parties, unless the protocol or other agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions for Developing Country Parties within the same compliance period; or (2) result in serious harm to the U.S. economy.

It passed the Senate 95-0 and her hubby voted for it.

But I digress - back to the Empress:

“I think this president should have joined this effort” even if it is imperfect, said Heinz Kerry. “Without that we have no leverage and no right.”
...
“Scientists are very conservative” when making their conclusions, Heinz Kerry said. Ignoring their work is “an insult to their nobility of purpose.”
...
“What John wants to do is create healthy communities,” she said. “You guarantee children access to clean safe parks and fields and, of course, healthy communities also mean jobs and time and the freedom to enjoy them.”

What! No cute fluffy bunnies?

Paging the Lurch campaign - get the guys in the white coats rolling!

Ruh Oh!

Kerry Extols Heterosexual Daughter:

Refers to Alexandra as "Bona Fide Missile-Twister"
...
"And confidentially, if you'll pardon my saying so, that dog will HUNT."

And while you're there, don't forget to check out Steve's cookbook.

Suckers

QandO: Spain’s appeasement buys them nothing.

It must one of those high brow programs!

BBC ticked off over bleeping blunder:

It's the sort of on-air ****-up that inevitably ends up as television entertainment. A BBC1 show devoted to exposing embarrassing on-screen mistakes supplied one itself by showing subtitles of the foul language it had bleeped out.

In what the corporation described as a "very unfortunate misunderstanding between departments", it admitted that the pre-watershed show Outtake TV had unwittingly provided the hard of hearing with full details of the profanities it had deemed unsuitable for other viewers.

Viewers who accessed the BBC's subtitling service to watch the show were treated to a stream of swear words, including "f***" and "f***ing hell", as they were uttered by the hapless celebrities who had fouled up.

The BBC has billed the peak-time series, presented by Anne Robinson, as a "newly polished version of the 'bits they didn't want you to see' " which exposes the "embarrassing moments and outlandish outtakes" of its own stars.

I can't wait for it to show up on PBS!

I guess Flipper is against them now, but he used to be for them

Kerry crosses two police picket lines

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Last summer, John F. Kerry refused to cross a police picket line and address the US Conference of Mayors meeting in Boston. Last night he rode in a motorcade that crossed two Florida police picket lines en route to a get-out-the-vote rally in vote-rich Orlando.

Don't get between Michael Moore and the buffet or Lurch and some voters!

Soon to be a TV commercial shown at 2AM!

Chadster has some fun with Kofi's latest bloviations:

(follow the link to supersize)

Hey, I wonder if that's Kim Newsom bait he's holding!

It's too early for this too

(Via Public Interest) The Sun stuns with Fergie to strip for charity. It's likely not safe for work, depending on where you work I suppose. But there is a petition to "Keep 'em on Fergie!"

It's too early in the morning for this kind of stuff!

(Via SondraK) Cut to the videotape - The Silence of the Domes:

"For a guy who's been known derisively to the Bush crowd as the Breck girl," observes Shearer, vice presidential candidate John Edwards seems "way too interested in his hair."

He certainly has the hair toss down pat!

Maybe she's Amish?

Powerline reveals that Teresa Heinz Kerry is actually a legal resident of Pennsylvania and couldn't even vote for the Lurchster in his last Senate race. Click through to see the phony excuses why the reason isn't that the tax rate is half of that in Massachusetts.

Here's good news!

Criminal Probe Eyes Kofi's Son. It's not as good as if it were Pops, but it's OK:

The son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been targeted by a federal criminal probe into corruption of the scandal-scarred Iraq oil-for-food program, sources said.

Top U.N. officials said 30-year-old Kojo Annan is among a handful of individuals and companies whose business dealings with the gigantic U.N. humanitarian aid program are now facing the white-hot scrutiny of a federal grand jury in Manhattan.

I hope it has a happy ending!

Still, U.N. critics say the news that the son of the secretary-general is now being investigated has created a political crisis inside the world body's headquarters.

"This could be another devastating blow to Kofi Annan's personal credibility, and already, I believe, the oil-for-food scandal is big enough to bring Kofi Annan down," said U.N. critic Nile Gardiner, a former aide of British ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Yeah, that's part of the ending I had in mind.

More details by following the link, but:

The younger Annan, a Ghana native who now lives in Nigeria, could not be reached for comment.

Undoubtedly the proper spot for him. I'm expecting an email any day!

I thought their act seemed familiar!

CadetHappy:

Over $2 trillion in new spending without raising taxes? Protect the U.S. from terrorists through U.N. resolutions? Welcome to . . .

Supersize it by following the link and check out the rest of the site for more goodness.

He's Alive!

Artiste Stanley Crouch opines in the NY Daily News:

Now is a good time to observe that John Kerry is beginning to come alive. It has been startling.

Few expected this, because Kerry seemed a professional stiff from every angle. It was impossible to imagine that he could move beyond the Kennedy haircut and the strained imitation of Franklin Roosevelt's tenor voice delivered from a baritone register.

Then there was the burden of the robotic gait that gave strange impressions. He seemed have been assigned to step on caterpillars while attempting to look simultaneously at ease and forceful.

To top it off, close observers became aware of the strange way Kerry had of touching people, of "pressing the flesh." He seemed to step out of his body while that body was left to do the horrific thing of coming in contact with another person.

Not much that had anything to do with the power of life appeared to reside in the unburied carcass of John Kerry, who seemed proof, as they used to say, that "the dead can walk."

Sheesh, with friends like Stanley, who needs enemies?

Anyhow, Stanley is amazed at the revitalized Lurch. I suspect his column is an odd variant of the "Comeback Kid" spin, but maybe the proximity of Halloween has provided Lurch with a jolt to his electrodes.

Chirac, Schroeder, and Kerry Duck Hunting Video!

World Exclusive! Must Credit Country Store!

Sources reveal that the Kerry campaign's duck hunting photo-op, supposedly scheduled for next week, has already been filmed with Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder joining John Kerry on the hunt with the footage soon to appear in a campaign commercial! Production problems have delayed the airing, but rough cuts of the video are revealed publically for the first time here (Windows Media). Breaking hard!

Today's Hoot!

Ruh Oh! OPERATION GUARDIAN GUERRILLA UPDATE:

Having launched a unilateral attack on Clark County, Ohio, The Guardian now finds itself facing an unexpected uprising from insurgents loyal to their tyrannical president.

The Guardian's campaign of liberation, led by an unprecedented shock and awe letter assault, has become bogged down in a quagmire of hostile e-mails and online mockery. Instead of the flowers they'd anticipated, The Guardian's soldiers are being targeted by the very people they believed they were helping.
...
Fears that weapons of mass destruction would be deployed against the invaders have so far proved groundless, although rumours persist of an alleged postcard-powered Doomsday Device. The device is said to be capable of transmitting fatal images to massed Guardian forces within 45 seconds.

"All Guardian journalists will feel the wrath of postcard vengeance!" a resistance spokesman urged on a website opposed to the imperialist takeover. "Images of the Hatted One shall be upon them! Blog is great!"

Based on the comments, the rumored Doomsday Devices are impacting all over the Guardian offices.

More poseur photo-op fun too!

Lurch's Ohio "supporters" gave him another shotgun, but this time they got it right - it's not the type he voted to ban, like the last time. On the other hand, it's undoubtedly stashed in someone else's closet just like the last one.

Then since he was on a roll, the Lurchster dropped by a local grocery store to buy an Ohio hunting license. Hey, maybe he's going to take time out from the campaign to get his "16 point" buck!

Hmmm, go for it, Lurch! That would be the ultimate photo-op and you've got just the vehicle to take it home to the little lady!

Once again, I'll quote Stop the Bleating:

John Kerry, I dare you to produce a hunting license with your name on it, dated 2003 or earlier, from any state. I'll even settle for a photo of you standing over a deer carcass with a gun in your hand, smiling. But forgive me if I don't hold my breath.

It's not that Lurch lies, it's that he does it so often and so badly.

UPDATE: Bummer - it's going to be another bird busting photo-op! From the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch:

In Buchanan, a tiny Pike County village, Kerry stopped at the Village Grocery and asked owners Paul and Debra McKnight, "Can I get me a hunting license here?"

Puhleeze!

He plunked down $140 in cash for a nonresident Ohio hunting license so he can go duck hunting in the Mahoning Valley when he returns to the state Thursday.

I guess the base is less chagrined by him blasting Daffy and Donald than Bambi. It'll sure be interesting to see how many photographers he can fit into a duck blind at the crack of dawn.

At the Wakefield rally, Kerry was given a 12-gauge shotgun and told the crowd he would "balance the rights and responsibilities" of gun owners.

Translation: "If I'm elected, they're screwed!"

Fall Photo-op Fun!

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry holds up the pumpkin he chose at the Garringer Family Pumpkin Patch in Jeffersonville, Ohio October 16, 2004, part of a day-long campaign bus trip through Ohio.

Let's say you're a Presidential candidate and your handlers tell you that you have to have a photo-op picking out a Halloween pumpkin like you're actually going to carve a Jack-O-Lantern and put it in the window of one of your mansions or maybe the campaign bus. What size and shape would you choose?

Well, at least there was time to select a personal gift for Teresa.

(Hat tip: Iowa Presidential Watch for the Hello Weenie.)