John Kerry hasn’t elaborated much as to which foreign leaders hope he will win the election, but it’s an increasingly safe bet that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not among them. Today at a news conference, he told the press that the terrorists want George Bush to lose the election, arguing that the terrorists’ acts are “not as much aimed at coalition forces but more personally against President Bush.” Proving that it does have a sense of humor, the Ass. Press goes on to say that Putin declined to say which candidate he favored in the Nov. 2 election. husly:

“We unconditionally respect any choice of the American people,” he joked said. “I don’t want to spoil relations with either candidate, not even that French-looking wuss al-Qaeda is trying to help into office.”

Kerry’s still down in the polls right now, but just barely. Between this ringing endorsement and his equally strong support from the crack lobby, Kerry might just pull this thing off.

If you love offensive, foul-mouthed Republican marionettes (and who doesn’t?), Team America is a must-see.

UPDATE: Spoons and PoliPundit concur, and Spoons reminds us to sit through the credits for a cool song.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Hawkins ranks it a 14 on a 10 scale.

What would possess John Kerry to trash Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi? Many theories are out there, none of them good. Glenn Reynolds thinks Kerry has given up on the race, and throwing some red meat to help out some of his fellow Democrats further down on the ticket. Roger Simon sees no strategy at all, just the desperate flailing of a campaign that doesn’t have its act together. Ann Althouse thinks it was Kerry’s final mistake.

Those are the “innocent” explanations. Kevin Murphy has a not-so-innocent one.

UPDATE: Bill Quick concurs.

UPDATE x2: Bil Keane, by contrast, dissents.

Last month, when Venezuelan President dictator Hugo Chavez magically “won” the recall election by the same 60-40 margin exit polls suggested he woudl lose it, the left could barely contain its glee. Hugo Schwyzer all but ignored Chavez’s abysmal human rights record, and got giddy over such irrelevancies as Chavez’s race and the fact that his first name was “Hugo.” Credible allegations of fraud were pooh-poohed with a series of credulous links to hard left sites with no credibility of their own. Meanwhile, back on DAI, a reader took me to task for even floating the possibility that electoral fraud might have taken place. The prevailing wisdom appeared to be that if Jimmy Carter didn’t find any fraud, there must not have been any.

Only there now seems to be a 99% certainty (h/t: Matthey Hoy) that there was fraud after all. Of course, the left doesn’t care. To them, “human rights” is just a smoke screen, another tool to bash America and any two-bit dicators who seem remotely friendly to it. When Batista and Somoza cracked down on dissenters in Cuba and Nicaragua, it was a “human rights” crisis. When their commie successors Castro and Ortega did so to a greater extent, it was either no big deal or, in the case of Nicaragua, it was all Reagan and the Contras’ fault. Ditto for Haiti, with and without Aristide, Chile with Allende vs. Pinochet, etc. ad nauseam.

One wonders who many other phony elections Jimmy Carter has fallen for in countries around the globe. Would Daniel Ortega have “won” the election in 1990 if Jimmy Carter had been the only international observer he had to con? How about Manuel Noriega in 1989? The possibilities are almost endless. What I would like to know is this: is there any way to fire, impeach, recall or otherwise terminate an ex-President? Next time a third-world country is scheduled to hold a dubious election, can we please send someone else instead? How about Gerald Ford? He can’t do a worse job than Carter. Hell, even Billy Carter couldn’t be that bad. Or we could send Bush the Elder, or in the “you can’t kid a kidder” spirit, Bill Clinton. Better yet, if you’re big on ex-governors from Georgia, send Zell Miller. He’ll challenge that little tin pot despot Chavez to a duel, and win. Send anybody, please, just not Jimmy Carter. He’s already done far more damage than any one President should be allowed in a lifetime.

UPDATE: Today’s WSJ Opinion Page has more.

Dan Weintraub links to this Frisco Chronicle story purporting to debunk Arnold Schwarzenegger’s childhood memories of Soviet tanks in Austria. Unfortunately, like the Snopies and the Martini Republicans, they don’t do a very good job.

“It’s a fact — as a child he could not have seen a Soviet tank in Styria,” the southeastern province where Schwarzenegger was born and raised, historian Stefan Karner told the Vienna newspaper Kurier.

Neat. It’s also a fact, though, that Arnold never claimed to have seen any Soviet tanks in Styria, and in fact made it quite clear they were not. Had Mr. Karner bothered to read a transcript of the speech before weighing in to debunk it, he would have had his Emily Littella moment upon reading this:

I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Soviet sector.

Granted, Arnold did not come out and say “oh, by the way, for the benefit of you strawtards in the back, the Soviet sector did not include Styria. Thats why we had to cross ‘into’ it. You don’t must cross in, if you are already in, ja? Don’t be a illogical girlyman.” Still, I think his point was clear enough for those who were trying to understand it rather than looking for an excuse to deliberately misunderstand it.

Meanwhile, the Vienna Kurier reports that Austrian Interior Minister Ernst Strasser, a member of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), has responded to Arnold’s description of Austria as a “socialist” country by urging the Governator to learn his history, even while conceding that it was an “understandable mistake” given how badly the Social Democrats have fouled things up in the interim. The theory, for what it’s worth, is that Austria couldn’t have been a “socialist” country when he left in 1968, as the ÖVP, not the SPÖ, was in power then.

This is a problem of transatlantic semantics. As one who spent two years under two “conservative” Western European governments (Germany, 1987-88 and Austria 1989-90), I can assure you that both countries are and were much, much more economically regulated than the U.S. was under its most Democratic leadership. So from an American perspective, or from that of an Austrian national itching for American-style freedoms, Austria was, like most other Western European nations, a “socialist” country, whether or not it happens to be governed by the major party with “socialism” built into its name.

This potential for miscommunication is increased by the fact that Western Europeans, or at least the German-speaking ones, generally refer to members of their center-left party as “Social Democrats,” and not simply as “Socialists.” The latter term is generally reserved for the real socialists, to whoem we ‘Mercuns generally refer as Communists. Remember, Gorby’s evil empire was officially known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, not the Union of Soviet Commie Scumbags. Similarly, the ruling party in East Germany was called the “socialist unity party of Germany” (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland, or SED), not the “communist party” per se (though one of the two parties “unified” into the SED had been previously known by that name). Given that, I can understand why Arnold’s fellow Austrians might have been confused by his description of his former country as “socialist.”

Anyone who’s still unclear as to what Arnold did or didn’t mean when he described Austria as “socialist” should be reminded that he used the term not only to describe Austria, but also to describe the policies advocated by Hubert Humphrey in 1968. I don’t think anyone intepreted that statement as equivalent to calling Humphrey a communist.

Rule 1: The incumbent always receives a majority of the popular vote.

Rule 2: If the incumbent receives less than a majority of the popular vote, see Rule No. 1.

Rule 3: If you had to consult Rule #2 to reach Rule #1, make your lie believable. Claim 100% of the vote, and even your staunchest supporters will not believe you. A 58%-42% landslide is just about as good as it gets.

Via Kim du Toit comes news that Canadians will soon be allowed to watch al Jazeera. Apparently, that’s caused some controversy due to al Jazeera’s reputation for bias in general, and anti-Semitism in particular. I say, no worries. Canada’s proud, freedom-loving tradition can withstand mildy subversive dissent from al Jazeera, as long as they continue to keep the really subversive stuff out. Good thing they have the Royal Canadian Mounted Police – on horseback, presumably – to defend that great nation against those rogue elements who take the law into their own hands and help themselves to a little American-style freedom on the sly.

If you know how to tell the International “Court” of “Justice” how to eff off in a foreign language, please help out. Donkey-shine.

Achtung: Dana.

Move along, people. Nothing to see here. We all know Saddam Hussein had absolutely, positively nothing to do with international terrorism. Except maybe those Palestinian splodeydopes he funded, but that doesn’t count since they only killed joos. What matters is, apart from attempting almost daily to shoot down our planes, ordering a hit on a former U.S. President, etc., what did Saddam Hussein’s government ever do to us?

Generally, I get annoyed when people insist on tempering their outrage over Abu Ghraib by pointing out how much worse the atrocities were on Saddam Hussein’s watch. After all, we’re a 228-year old democracy; our standards are nothing like Iraq’s. Our successes and failures must be judged according to our own history, not to silly comparisons to the worst tyrant to roam the planet since the days of Pol Pot. Everyone knows we’re nothing like the Hussein Administration, so any comparisons and contrasts drawn between us and them are making a point that doesn’t need to be made. Right?

Wrong. Apparently, German anti-Americanism (but I repeat myself) has reached such extreme levels in recent years that occasional Saddam vs. Bush comparsions do need to be made, abroad if not at home. Here, the distinction is obvious: Seymour Hersh writes a credulous story based on hearsay from an accused guard’s attorney, making all sorts of wild, and probably inaccurate, predictions. So what do we do about it? We make fun of Hersh for being an idiot, and move on. That’s it. No prison camps Hersh, no hard labor, no kidnapped relatives. We certainly don’t videotape ourselves sawing his head off or, worse still, saw somebody else’s head off and blame it all on him. Hell, we don’t even make the guy put pantyhose on his head, strip naked, or walk around on a leash held by an ugly female guard who claims her superiors ordered her to attend an orgy. Nothing. But apparently, some Europeans don’t quite grasp that. Below is the text of the linked entry, followed by an English translation:

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