I actually fell asleep in front of the computer last night, so my bit on Kerry, Miller and the weapons systems didn't make much sense. In Kerry's first Senate campaign, he opposed every major weapons system in the Reagan buildup--or to be concise he opposed the Reagan buildup. Kerry was a member and a leader of the nuclear-freeze, pro-Sandinista, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador left, trying to make sure that American foreign policy in Central America would fail just as it had in Southeast Asia, and Communist dictatorships sprout in Nicaragua and El Salvador just as they had in Vietnam and Cambodia. (This is overstated by about 20%.)

BArak Obama is OK by just about everyone. Phony robocalls are bad. (Political dirty tricks are a very old story. They're either roguishly clever or should be felonies, depending on whether they're played on you or not.)

For any abortion legislation, the "exception for the health of the mother" has been a huge loophole that negates the ban. "Health" gets re-read to mean mental health, and having a baby you don't want is stressful, which is bad for your mental health. Every player in the game knows this.

The question of political churches is real. One of Clinton's (very white) aides in 1992, when asked their religion, said, "I don't know, I guess AME Zionist lately." No one in REpublicanland wants to deal with the $#!+storm of trying to take away a black church's tax exemption, but they want to level the playing field. As a heathen arch-infidel, I'm not happy about it, but that's the state of play.

As they said, the Roman Catholic church is not a democracy, never has been. [Esoteric qualifiers about early Church Councils deleted] As for the claim that this has never been done before, BS. This pops up all the time in the Northeast.

As for Casey, Begala is as shameless a hack as Rove, but the account sounds plausible. {PAuse to Google} The New Republic is not a hack organ. Research rules. For what it's worth, there are more visible pro-choice Republicans than pro-life Democrats, but I think that local factors explain that. (Republican leaders in California and New York are automatically national figures without having to run a southern, conservative Christian gauntlet.)

I'm sympathetic to three strikes and you're out marriage. Pennsylvania archconservative Senator Rick Santorum might be, too.