The inherent difficulty in "telling the truth" at this or any time, is that he once knowingly lied to the UN. The truth is not a matter of convenience, its is absolute and it's believability is inhereted by your past.

I had three uncles and a stepfather, who all fought in the Canadian army during the war.

My uncles never talked much about what happened during war, even when pressed by me.

What they did take issue with was anything that glorified it, that championed an ideology.

They would tell me that the war, to the troops on the fields being ripped to pieces by shells was about survival and nothing else mattered. To a man, they had more disdain and anger against the british chain of command that they felt used Canadian soldiers as cannon fodder than they did against the average german soldier, who in reality they probably had a lot more in common with. To thier credit, they never saw good vs evil in pure national terms, as they saw both courage and atrocities commited by all sides, day in and day out.

The one thing that was passed on to me on stepfather's passing was a bloodied copy of Mein Kampf with a picture of a german soldiers wife and baby daughter inside it. Bob found it on the battlefield and it was the only thing he kept from the war, to him it was a reminder that war produces death and not much else.

Reading this from my window of unbiased clarity in Toronto (tongue somewhat in cheek) I wonder about the bigger problem that these e-mails are symptomatic of. Blatant racism and fear mongering aside, I can't help feel that the reason this is an issue, is the damn length of your election cycle. As some of you may know, In Canada, we have a boom-boom out go the lights system. The whole thing takes about a month. As a result we only have time for the big two (the economy and the environment) if time allows we may have a discussion as to what level we'll be funding arts. Every now and then the issue comes up, but it's really just to fill time.

The point being, we simply do not have the cycles for these kind of attacks to make there way in any substantive fashion. It seems to me (so it must be worse for those of you who live in the states) that this thing has been going on forever. I have to believe that if your entire process from nomination to election lasted four weeks, the level of discourse would be raised enough and tightened up to the point where this kind of attack simply wouldn't have the time to be an issue. Right now, the whole thing reminds of that horrific show which my wife seems to love "Big Brother" with nothing to do but kill endless time, everyone sits around and lies about one another. Just a thought........

she was the mayor of a town of a few thousand people in Alaska, and would soon be a heartbeat away from commander in chief of the United States. That's the only thing that needs to be said and repeated every hour for the next sixty days. Even the most die-hard gun totin' republican must be thinking, "jeez that dont seem right to me"

1: What is you name?

2: What is your quest?

3: What is the capital of Assyria?

Of course this would work better if Terry Gilliam would be asking the questions!. And f course we'd need a "Bridge of Death" sign somewhere.

After thinking this through for a while, I have come to the conclusion that it does not matter what question's are asked to her or by whom, the answer's will be the same.

On her lack of world travel

"Listen, unlike Obama, I like to spend my money in the good old U.S of A. Maybe Obama likes to sip lattes with the french, but I think it's more important to understand your own country and I think the good people of (insert small town in either Ohio or Pennsylvania here) feel the same way.

On Every other question.

"Listen, I think the good people of (small town in Ohio or Pennsylvania) are more interested in who is going to reform Washington and stand up for them. John McCain and I are reformers and the good people of (insert state which wasn't used in earlier answer) are looking for real change, not someone whose going to raise your taxes and take away your gun's.

There you go, Mrs Moose scores a home run with her straight talkin' no nonsense approach. I wish I was wrong but I don't think so.

my expectations were so low for this. Now I do not know whether to laugh or cry. She is a bigger lightweight than I thought. She is a small town Mayor and today that was painfully obvious.

The electorate is angry and therefore volatile. In Europe, hundreds of years ago, when the masses brewed that perfect storm of venom, the ruling classes head's would adorn the entrance to the city. Point being, no lead is safe in this climate.

The GOP's mud slinging fest may be vile and repugnant, but it is based on years of fine-tuning the art of character defamation. Everyone knew that if they were losing at this stage of the game, they'd go Nuclear and this, I think is just the start. The boogyman is coming after white middle class america, lock up your daughters and hide your silverware.

As the media just eats this stuff up, the nastier the GOP get, the more the innuendo gets circulated. That's how you take the economy of the front page and replace it with "did Obama mastermind 9/11?".

Wish I was wrong.........