My student Sean Hayes writes:

Just read your post on the absentee ballot in Ohio. I voted yesterday by absentee for Ohio--I'm from Dayton, which is in Montgomery county. The same complaints from Cuyahoga are present on the Montg. County ballot.

Your student is right: the ballots are not confusing. Yes, the numbers don't line up, some candidates are deleted, and in my voter booklet, the senate candidate race wasn't even part of the book, but just a loose sheet of paper.

Overall though, the concept is simple: find your candidate, find their number on the ballot; punch the hole. It blows my mind that people smart enough to complain about the ballot being a violation of their rights are too stupid to figure out what amounts to a voting inspired version of Chuck E. Cheese's Whack-A-Mole Game.

This is nothing more than the press feeding its need to have a story, and "Florida could happen again!" is much more exciting than "Voting Procedures Understood By People of Average Intelligence."

I think well-designed ballots should be understandable even by people of below average intelligence -- there are quite a few voters like that, and one doesn't want them to be confused, either. More to the point, ballots should be understandable by people who are intelligent but who are distracted, or who don't invest much time in following directions closely (especially on matters, such as voting, where there's little tangible personal benefit at stake).

Still, it sounds like the ballots might well not be very confusing even to the distracted or easily confused. I'm happy to trust Sean Hayes' and Patrick Lewis's judgment on this, since they saw the complete ballots from a voter's perspective, and I didn't.

One of the items in today's Slate begins:

Bush Speech Bush Speech Popping a spring in Saginaw. By Timothy Noah Posted Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004, at 12:37 PM PT

President Bush gave a speech today in Saginaw, Mich., in which, judging from the White House transcript, he repeated whole paragraphs twice, like a malfunctioning Stepford wife.

The column then goes on to give four examples -- but then, the author continues:

I'm told by a reporter who was there that this was some sort of hiccup in the White House transcription, and that Bush did not actually give lengthy portions of the same speech twice. The repetitions do not appear in the transcript prepared by the Federal News Service, a private company.

What I can't figure out, though, is why the botched White House transcript shows occasional slight differences in the first and second versions of the repeated text. "The issues vary, the challenges are different every day" becomes two (more grammatical) sentences on the second go-round: "The issues vary. The challenges are different every day." The phrase "blow in the wind" becomes "blow in the winds." The line, "A President must follow the—must not follow the path of the latest polls" gets applause the first time, and no applause when it's repeated. The same thing happens with "A President must lead based on conviction and conscience."

This isn't machine error. It's human error. Did a White House transcriber pop a spring?

I'm not sure I quite get it. The column begins by speculating that President Bush is behaving mightly oddly. Yes, it does say "judging from the White House transcript," but certainly my first impression was that the author thinks the transcript was indeed accurate. And otherwise the matter hardly seems terribly newsworthy, no? (Yes, I know that I blog about pickled herring and who knows what else, but Slate for obvious reasons tends to stick to more generally interesting items.)

But then it turns out that the eyewitness account suggests that President Bush wasn't remotely "like a malfunctioning Stepford Wife," but that there was a transcription glitch. I suppose there's some innuendo that perhaps the transcript is accurate, but, boy, this is mightly slim evidence, especially when one has squarely contrary testimony from someone who was actually present (and presumably a trustworthy professional, who probably would have noticed the speaker repeating four separate paragraphs). Where's the news about that?

Of course, if the original Slate piece simply ended after the four quotes, and then the article was updated based on the eyewitness's account, that would explain why the original story seemed newsworthy (Bush is coming undone) but the revised version is not really newsworthy (some transcriber erred) and the second half is inconsistent with the suggestion in the first. But wouldn't it have been nice to make clear (if this is indeed what happened) that the second half was an update to the first, rather than a single story, and perhaps also explicitly take back at the outset the "malfunctioning Stepford Wife" item? Or am I being too picky here?

Dan Gifford passed along a link to a funny and sweet OpinionJournal.com article about a recent appearance by Yogi Berra; here are some particularly nice lines:

It's a lucky few who get to visit a museum and talk with the person it's named after. As Yogi Berra himself said at the 1998 dedication of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center here: "This is a great honor. Usually you have to be dead to get something like this." . . .

Q: "Yogi, what did Ted Williams say to you when you tired to distract him by talking?"

A: "He'd say, 'Shut up, you little Dago.'" ("But," adds Yogi, "Ted was a great guy.") . . .

"Yogi," someone asked toward the end of the evening, "is this going to become an annual event?"

"Well, yeah," replied the Hall of Famer, "if we do it every year."

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, whose factual accounts I've always found trustworthy reports the following:

The University of New Hampshire has evicted a student from housing for posting fliers in his residential hall joking that freshman women could lose the "Freshman 15" by walking up the dormitory stairs. The public university found him guilty of violating policies on affirmative action, harassment, and disorderly conduct, and has sentenced him to mandatory counseling and probation along with his eviction. See the flier here.

In appealing his sentence, student Timothy Garneau explained that the flier was intended to make light of the common frustration with people who delay the elevator by taking it for just one or two floors instead of taking the stairs. UNH rejected his appeal, and Garneau was ordered to move out of his dormitory. Garneau reports that he is currently living out of his car. . . .

The "offensive" flier included a cartoon picture of a woman in outdated workout gear and the following message:

9 out of 10 freshman girls gain 10 - 15 pounds. But there is something you can do about it. If u live below the 6th floor takes the stairs....Not only will u feel better about yourself but you will also be saving us time and wont be sore on the eyes. [sic]

Garneau posted copies of the flier in the elevators of his dormitory, Stoke Hall. According to Garneau, a resident assistant had removed all of the fliers within less than two hours. When Garneau was approached by the Stoke Hall Director and accused of hanging the fliers, he initially denied responsibility, fearing that he would be punished harshly and embarrassed in front of his peers. However, Garneau soon admitted to posting the flier and was charged with offenses including: "acts of dishonesty"; violation of "affirmative action" policies; "harassment"; and "conduct which is disorderly, lewd."

Within a week of the incident, and prior to his hearing, Garneau posted a written public apology for unintentionally offending others in his residential hall and apologized in person to students that he knew had complained.

At an October 8 hearing, the university found Garneau guilty of all charges. Despite Garneau's offers to voluntarily atone for his actions through community service, social awareness projects, and other activities, the university sentenced him to immediate expulsion from student housing and disciplinary probation extended through May 30, 2006. He was also required to meet with a counselor to discuss his "decisions, actions, and reflections" about the incident, to write a 3000-word reflection paper about the counseling session, and to submit an apology letter to the residents of Stoke Hall to be published in the hall's newspaper. . . .

The flyer is juvenile -- I can certainly see why some people might be offended. And the university would be entitled, I think, either to (1) ban all posting of flyers in elevators and corridors (which are in the category of government property that is a "nonpublic forum," in which the government may impose reasonable, viewpoint-neutral restrictions), or (2) impose a viewpoint-neutral though content-based ban on fleyrs that are genuinely "lewd" (if those terms were defined precisely enough). It could also punish students for being dishonest when questioned about flyers they posted, if it is doing so solely because the student was being dishonest, and not actually because of the flyer's viewpoint.

But here it's pretty clear that the university banned the flyers precisely because they expressed a viewpoint that the university found offensive -- likely that women ought to care about losing weight and not being "sore on the eyes" by being somewhat overweight, or (less plausibly) that women ought to take the stairs while men take the elevator. Pretty clearly a First Amendment violation. This particular speech is hardly momentous or deeply important; but if such speech may be banned from university dorms because of its viewpoint, then it's hard to see how other offensive viewpoints would remain protected.

Rick Hasen (Election Law blog) notes the following:

Electoral-Vote.com notes the following:

Stupidity news: One of Kerry's electors in Ohio, Rep. Sherrod Brown, is a congressman. Unfortunately, the constitution forbids federal office holders from being electors. It is possible that if Kerry wins Ohio, Brown's right to cast an electoral vote will be challenged in court. Whoever picked a constitutionally ineligible elector needs to get his or her mental software ungraded to the latest release.

Brown is indeed listed as a presidential elector: see here on page 11.

I assume that this would be an issue to be taken up, if necessary, in Congress when it counts electoral votes. . . .

UPDATE: A reader writes: "My understanding (from Rep. Brown's office) is that Rep. Brown has resigned and that the chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party will be able to appoint another elector." I'll let you know if I receive confirmation of this report.

If you wonder how clear the prohibition is on Representatives being electors, check out article II, section 1, clause 2 of the Constitution:

[N]o Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

UPDATE: Pepperdine lawprof Mark Scarberry writes (some paragraph breaks added):

3 U.S.C. section 4 provides: "Each State may, by law, provide for the filling of any vacancies which may occur in its college of electors when such college meets to give its electoral vote." I suppose Rep. Brown could resign (or be removed?) [FURTHER UPDATE: it turns out that he has resigned], and then Ohio could fill the vacancy, if Ohio has provided for filling vacancies in its election laws. A very quick Westlaw search suggests that Ohio has so provided, in Ohio Revised Code section 3505.39. That section treats an elector's failure to show up in the state capitol to vote as creating a vacancy. The electors who do show up can choose the replacement elector, who must be of the same party as the elector who did not show up. Here is the statutory language . . .: ". . . [Each] elector shall give notice to the secretary of state before nine a.m. of that day whether or not he will be present at the appointed hour ready to perform his duties as a presidential elector. If at twelve noon at the place selected by the secretary of state presidential electors equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state may at the time be entitled in the congress of the United States, are not present, the presidential electors present shall immediately proceed, in the presence of the governor and secretary of state, to appoint by ballot such number of persons to serve as presidential electors so that the number of duly elected presidential electors present at such time and place plus the presidential electors so appointed shall be equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the state is at that time entitled in the congress of the United States; provided, that each such appointment shall be made by a separate ballot, and that all appointments to fill vacancies existing because duly elected presidential electors are not present shall be made before other appointments are made, and that in making each such appointment the person appointed shall be of the same political party as the duly elected presidential elector whose absence requires such appointment to be made. In case of a tie vote the governor shall determine the results by lot. "The electors making such appointments shall certify forthwith to the secretary of state the names of the persons so appointed and the secretary of state shall immediately issue to such appointees certificates of their appointment and notify them thereof. All of the state's presidential electors, both those duly elected who are then present and those appointed as herein provided, shall then meet and organize by electing one of their number as chairman and by designating the secretary of state as ex officio secretary and shall then and there discharge all of the duties enjoined upon presidential electors by the constitution and laws of the United States. . . ."

A reader of Article III Groupie properly admires one of our cobloggers. But, seriously, can this coblogger hold a candle to this one?

My former student Patrick Lewis writes:

Took four pics of the absentee ballot today down at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. I also have the absentee voter booklet (but not the absentee ballot itself) in my possession. I'm waiting on our tech people to pull the pics off the digital camera . . . .

The conclusion: the Cuyahoga County absentee ballot is not significantly confusing. It's possible someone might get thrown by the user-unfriendly layout of the ballot card (it's the same card you shove in the voting machine), but I highly doubt that many people will be lining arrows up to cards.

Why do I think that?

1. The ballot is 12" long and roughly 4" wide (so, just a bit longer than a standard #10 envelope), whereas the booklet (that contains the list of candidates and the alleged arrows) is 5" x 7". I doubt that most ordinary people would attempt to line up a multi-page booklet with a single sheet ballot card, especially when the card is of a radically different shape and size, and the layout of the card doesn't match the layout of the booklet.

2. There is a cover page to the ballot, and on the second page (behind the cover page) is a sheet of instructions that clearly state to use the number on the ballot. The instruction sheet makes no mention of the arrow whatsoever. Most ordinary people are smart enough to figure out "to vote for #2, punch #2."

3. It would become immediately obvious to any voter that he or she is doing it wrong because, on 3/4 of the booklets, a higher-numbered choice goes above a lower-numbered choice for the Presidential ballot, whereas on the actual ballot card, the numbers are sequential. The Cuyahoga County ballot cycles the candidates for the different elections. For example, on my booklet, the list of Presidential candidates are:

DISQUALIFIED / DISQUALIFIED (I imagine that used to be Ralph Nader) PEROUTKA/BALDWIN 10 BADNARIK/CAMPAGNA 2 BUSH/CHENEY 4 KERRY/EDWARDS 6

It's kind of hard to line the arrow up to the 10 with 2 appearing below it.

(And on another absentee booklet, the order went Kerry, Disqualified, Pertouka, Badnarik, Bush; it's not random, but it is a cycled, alphabetical list).

Take care! I'll get you the pictures when I can.

Dahlia Lithwick in Slate has an interesting article on why the Justices will likely stay away from any possible election-related litigation; I'm not sure she's right but she makes a good argument.

The one item that puzzled me in the piece, though, is this:

Justice Stephen Breyer's supremely weird confession this weekend at Stanford -- that he was never truly certain he was being impartial about his vote in Bush v. Gore -- doesn't sound like the words of a man itching for a do-over. "I had to ask myself would I vote the same way if the names were reversed," he told the law students. "I said 'yes.' But I'll never know for sure -- because people are great self-kidders -- if I reached the truthful answer."

I wonder what's "weird" about Breyer's statement. Seems like most people who are thoughtful and aware of the errors that they (as well as other decent but fallible people) can make would say the same thing, if they are in the mood to be maximally candid. Breyer wasn't confessing that he was swayed by the parties' identities; he was saying that he tried not to be swayed by it, and that he thinks he succeeded. But he was also admitting that, being human and fallible, he might have failed. What's weird about that? Is it just that this sort of public candor is rare?

Patri Friedman (Catallarchy) has thoughts on a talk I gave yesterday on slippery slopes.

Michael Totten, guest-blogging at InstaPundit writes:

BUSH ON CIVIL UNIONS: President Bush said today that he favors civil unions for gays, or at least that he doesn't agree with the Republican Party platform that opposes them. This is news to me. How can he be in favor of civil unions and also back the Federal Marriage Amendment? He can't, at least not consistently. The FMA would ban civil unions as well as gay marriage. This is a flip I'll take, as long as he doesn't flop back on it.

President Bush's position is actually consistent with the FMA (whether or not either is right). President Bush said that "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so" — that, in the Times' words, "the matter should be left up to the states."

The Federal Marriage Amendment would not block a state from recognizing civil unions. It provides (I quote the Mar. 22, 2004 version, S.J. Res. 30) that "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

The first sentence would indeed ban same-sex marriages no matter what a state thinks. The second sentence probably bans state and federal courts from holding that a state legislature must recognize a same-sex union (which is what the Vermont Supreme Court did); and it probably bans voters from recognizing same-sex unions via constitutional amendment, though it's not clear whether the drafters intend this, and whether the provision would be interpreted this way. But neither sentence bans state legislatures — or state voters, via initiative statute rather than constitutional amendment — from recognizing same-sex unions.

So if the FMA is enacted (and note that, as I've blogged before, I do not support its enactment), the result will be almost exactly what Bush suggests: A state could still "choose to" recognize "a civil union" as "a legal arrangement." It would have to do so via a statute — just as most family law is defined by statute — not via a court decision or (probably) a constitutional amendment. But it would indeed be free to make such a choice.

UPDATE: The text I quote above is also the text of S.J. Res. 40, July 22, 2004; you can find both by searching for "federal marriage amendment" at thomas.loc.gov. An UPDATE to the original InstaPundit post reveals that Michael Totten was likely referring to an older version of the FMA -- the version I quote above seems to be the current one.

Readers have asked about my evidence for the proposition that conservatives are generally better informed about politics than are liberals. I was likely recalling the following chart, posted on the VC several months ago:

Political Knowledge by Strength of Party Identification
2000 National Election Study
Self-Described Party Alignment / Average Political Knowledge Score
(Average number of correct answers on 31 point scale)
"Strong Republican / 18.7
"Independent-Republican / 15.7
"Strong Democrat / 15.4
"Independent-Democrat / 14.2
"Weak Republican/ 14.1
"Weak Democrat / 13.3
"Independent-Independent / 9.5

If being a strong Democrat is highly correlated with being liberal, and being a strong Republican is highly correlated with being conservative, than based on this data, my statement was likely correct, though I am open to a contrary showing.

John Fund writes in the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary about the new confusing-ballot controversy. Apparently absentee ballots in Cuhayoga County, Ohio (which includes Cleveland) "have arrows designed to be used with voting machines, where the arrows line up correctly with the candidate's name. But when used by an absentee, the ballot instructions tell absentee voters to punch the corresponding number but don't specifically say to disregard the arrows." Here is the relevant portion of the ballot:

Fund reports that "Either John Kerry or George W. Bush's arrow could be misaligned, depending on the order in which the names appear on the ballot."

UPDATE: A couple of readers have e-mailed me to suggest that the story may not be accurate, and that the image cited above may have a "1" removed from before the "2" and the "4." I don't have the time to investigate the matter closely, but I just want to flag that there's some uncertainty about it. Here, though, is the original source, an AP story.

FURTHER UPDATE: Reader Douglas McKinnie writes:

Re: readers suggesting that the image cited may have a "1" removed from before the "2" and the "4." I am a Cuyahoga County absentee voter. My ballot looks exactly like the one in your image, except that below section 1-3 for president there is section 2-11 "Official Office Type Ballot" for US Senator and for representative to congress, 10th District, with similar randomization of names/numbers. The numbers appear to be assigned in alphabetical order for each office by surname of candidates. I punched the card and posted the ballot back a week ago and didn't think the funny numbers or superfluous arrows to be worthy of any note.

The number for Badnarik-Campagna is 2, the number for Bush-Cheney is 4, that is right. Senator Voinovitch is 21, followed by Democrat challenger Fingerhut who is 20. Congressman Kucinich is 25, followed by Ferris(i) 23 and Herman (r) 24.

Many thanks to readers Arthur Einhorn and John Broughton, who have answered my question about how to put the endnotes before the index in Word. I've tested their suggestion, and it works great -- it basically involves (1) configuring endnotes so that they go at the end of each section and then (2) using the little-known Page Setup / Layout / Suppress Endnotes feature so that the endnotes don't in fact go at the end of each section (which I don't want) but all bunch up at the end of the second-to-last section, right before the index. Here's Arthur Einhorn's explanation, which I know works in my Word 2002:

1. Add a new section break at the end of your document. 2. Change your endnote settings so that the endnotes are displayed at the end of each section. 3. Select all the sections in your document except the last two. 4. Open the "Page Setup..." dialog box. On the Layout tab, check the "Suppress endnotes" check box. This will move all your endnotes to the end of the second-to-last section (i.e., the end of your text). 5. Insert an index in the (recently added) last section.

Blackstone was the leading late 18th century commentator on English law, and highly influential in the colonies, and this is what he had to say about why the English common law was better than the Continental civil law:

The English law is less embarrassed with inconsistent resolutions and doubtful questions, than any other known system of the same extent and the same duration. I may instance in the civil law: the text whereof, as collected by Justinian and his agents, is extremely voluminous and diffuse; but the idle comments, obscure glosses, and jarring interpretations grafted thereupon by the learned jurists, are literally without number. And these glosses, which are mere private opinions of scholastic doctors (and not, like our books of reports, judicial determinations of the court) are all of authority sufficient to be vouched and relied on; which must needs breed great distraction and confusion in their tribunals.

A reader, responding to my post criticizing the Guardian column writes:

[F]or a Professor of Free Speech, you don't seem very enamoured with the concept of free speech.

Actually, as a professor of free speech, I rather like exercising my own free speech. Part of my free speech rights is the right to criticize others. I think the Guardian should have the legal right to print disgusting statements like the one it printed, or for that matter disgusting Nazism, Stalinism, racism, or whatever else. And then the rest of us should condemn it for what it's doing.

Not everything that may be printed should be printed. That Hustler has the right to publish vile diatribes against Jerry Falwell doesn't mean it's good for the press to stoop to that level. Nor is there anything wrong with the public's criticizing such speech. Public criticism is not the equivalent of government censorship -- it's the proper alternative to government censorship.

So I'm being quite consistent. My correspondent, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be consistent. He seems to be implicitly saying that free speech demands that I not criticize the Guardian for what it publishes, or suggest that the Guardian shouldn't publish it. And yet he's criticizing me for what I publish, and is implicitly suggesting that I not publish it (since presumably I ought not be publishing what he sees as anti-free-speech and misguided criticisms).

I think I'm with David Bernstein on this. I suspect that voters of all political stripes have many misperceptions; and of course their misperceptions align with their political views — they're more likely to believe things that they'd like to be true.

My guess, for instance, is that more Democrats than Republicans erroneously think that by not renewing the assault weapons ban, Congress (1) legalized automatic weapons — it didn't, since the ban was only on semiautomatics, guns which are not materially different from guns that have been legal throughout this time — or that (2) assault weapons play a role in the majority or even a large minority of crimes (the actual number seems to be around 4% or less). That's just an example; my point is simply that Republicans have their likely errors and Democrats have theirs.

Any such errors are of course unfortunate; but I have no reason to think that the errors generally are more common among one side than to another. It's possible to show that one side of the political divide is indeed more prone to such errors than the other: You'd need to do a study which includes errors that would seem appealing to each side, and then see whether Republicans fall for the errors that would tempt them, and the Democrats resist those that would tempt them. But I haven't seen any such study, and the study cited in the post below certainly doesn't try to do this sort of balanced analysis.

UPDATE: Kaimi Wenger (Tutissima Cassis) has more.

The Guardian (U.K.) publishes a columnist's piece filled mostly with abuse of Bush, culminating with "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr — where are you now that we need you?" Disgusting.

Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.

UPDATE: The Guardian has posted the following at the page formerly associated with the column:

The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer. "Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action -- an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

Heady times. The US election draws ever nearer, and while the rest of the world bangs its head against the floorboards screaming "Please God, not Bush!", the candidates clash head to head in a series of live televised debates. It's a bit like American Idol, but with terrifying global ramifications. You've got to laugh. Or have you? Have you seen the debates? I urge you to do so. The exemplary BBC News website (www.bbc.co.uk/news) hosts unexpurgated streaming footage of all the recent debates, plus clips from previous encounters, through Reagan and Carter, all the way back to Nixon versus JFK. Watching Bush v Kerry, two things immediately strike you. First, the opening explanation of the rules makes the whole thing feel like a Radio 4 parlour game. And second, George W Bush is... well, he's... Jesus, where do you start? The internet's a-buzz with speculation that Bush has been wearing a wire, receiving help from some off-stage lackey. Screen grabs appearing to show a mysterious bulge in the centre of his back are being traded like Top Trumps. Prior to seeing the debate footage, I regarded this with healthy scepticism: the whole "wire" scandal was just wishful thinking on behalf of some amateur Michael Moores, I figured. And then I watched the footage. Quite frankly, the man's either wired or mad. If it's the former, he should be flung out of office: tarred, feathered and kicked in the nuts. And if it's the latter, his behaviour goes beyond strange, and heads toward terrifying. He looks like he's listening to something we can't hear. He blinks, he mumbles, he lets a sentence trail off, starts a new one, then reverts back to whatever he was saying in the first place. Each time he recalls a statistic (either from memory or the voice in his head), he flashes us a dumb little smile, like a toddler proudly showing off its first bowel movement. Forgive me for employing the language of the playground, but the man's a tool. So I sit there and I watch this and I start scratching my head, because I'm trying to work out why Bush is afforded any kind of credence or respect whatsoever in his native country. His performance is so transparently bizarre, so feeble and stumbling, it's a miracle he wasn't laughed off the stage. And then I start hunting around the internet, looking to see what the US media made of the whole "wire" debate. And they just let it die. They mentioned it in passing, called it a wacko conspiracy theory and moved on. Yet whether it turns out to be true or not, right now it's certainly plausible - even if you discount the bulge photos and simply watch the president's ridiculous smirking face. Perhaps he isn't wired. Perhaps he's just gone gaga. If you don't ask the questions, you'll never know the truth. The silence is all the more troubling since in the past the US news media has had no problem at all covering other wacko conspiracy theories, ones with far less evidence to support them. (For infuriating confirmation of this, watch the second part of the must-see documentary series The Power Of Nightmares (Wed, 9pm, BBC2) and witness the absurd hounding of Bill Clinton over the Whitewater and Vince Foster non-scandals.) Throughout the debate, John Kerry, for his part, looks and sounds a bit like a haunted tree. But at least he's not a lying, sniggering, drink-driving, selfish, reckless, ignorant, dangerous, backward, drooling, twitching, blinking, mouse-faced little cheat. And besides, in a fight between a tree and a bush, I know who I'd favour. On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?