From the early reports you would think the families were all horrified by the Bush ads. It turns out that this is another instance of the malcontent-with-a fax-machine phenomenon. Five of the outraged have gone public with gripes against George Bush in the past couple of years, two work for a union that endorsed Kerry, and one of those two campaigned for Kerry. That's the way you dig behind the processed news, and I wish I had done it.

I have only two things to add to Hawkin's fine job. First, this is a typical PR tactic of the Left. The more trivial the complaint, and the more you make the offense one of taste and emotion while still implying that some moral stricture has been breached, the harder it is to make a defense, especially if you believe that facts and logic matter and humility is a virtue. One has to deconstruct the charges to show how silly they are, and that is tough in a TV sound-bite. I say silly advisedly. One of the outraged complained in Salon that Bush is "an action hero" who "when this country was under attack . . . was drinking milk and eating cookies with second graders". What did I say about facts and logic?

Second, Bush really came into his own with his leadership in response to Islamic terrorism, specifically when he grabbed a megaphone to express solidarity with the rescue workers a few days after the bombings. It really is fiendishly clever to try to claim exclusive use of that story and to hobble Bush's legitimate attempts to remind us of the strengths his record.

Gore felt in the pockets of his rumpled, relaxed-fit Dockers. They felt tighter than hot Spandex on a sandy beach. Damn. That Rather blather was starting to get to him.
"TIPPER", he said. "GIVE ME A CIGARETTE."
"But Al", she cried, "haven't you had enough? Look at your sweater." Gore brushed ashes from the soft, muted brown and green knit of his knubbly sweater. "What would Naomi say? And what about the Kyoto treaty?"
"TIPPER", he honked emphatically, "I DO NOT WANT TO FIGHT YOU FOR A LITTLE TOBACCO".

"Mr. Vice President!" Bill Daley interrupted softly but firmly. "I think you ought to call Governor Bush."
"DO YOU THINK SO, BILL?" Gore countered. "MAYBE THE NETWORKS WILL CHANGE THEIR MINDS AGAIN."
"I don't think they could be that wrong twice in one night", replied Daley.
"I SUPPOSE SO", said Gore. "YOU SET UP THE CALL WHILE I CHANGE."

The Vice President was standing in his shirttails, tying a soft red tie under the collar of a fresh white shirt when Daley walked in and handed him a cell phone. "They're ringing the governor's room now."
After a few rings, a man answered, "Y'ellow."
"THIS IS VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE", Gore began. "I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO GOVERNOR BUSH ..." The voice had not stopped. "Yellow", it sang. "Yellow roshe of Texshash, that Ah am go'n' ta see..."
"I WOULD LIKE TO. . . GOVERNOR BUSH? IS THAT YOU? THIS IS AL GORE."
"Yes, shir, Mr. Vishe President. I know why you're callin'. You couldn' wait."
"WELL", began the Vice President. He could feel his adenoids starting to control his timbre. "IT DID NOT SEEM TO ME THAT ANY DELAY WAS INDICATED. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN."
"The votersh? The. Vo. Tersh. HELL!" said Bush. "Y' mean yor' lily-livered cheatin' liberal friends at the networks, you lyin', running-iron, dry hole heifer humper. Declaring you the winner in Florida before the polls closed. An' you can't even wait f' me to call you. You have no more hair on yor' ash than a bonfire in a coonskin cap. If it weren't for the memory of Davy Crockett, I'd have the Texash Air National Guard fly a training mission right up the Chattanooga Choo-choo."

"GOVERNOR, GOVERNOR, PLEASE" persisted Gore. "THERE IS NO NEED TO GET SNIPPY ABOUT IT."
"Shnippy...bippy...damn shkippy", chanted Bush slowly. "I'll bet you ushed to remin' th' teacher to give homework. We had a kid like you at An'over. A prissy little, tight-assed, pissant, goody-goody. We put a firecracker down his pet frog's throat. He looked like Tom Brokaw with frog omelet all over his face..."
Gore flinched under the impact of a flood of painful emotion: partly horrified sympathy for the many species of Ranidae mysteriously threatened by computer simulations of global warming, but mostly the memory of the fate of his beloved Skippy so long ago at Saint Alban's. His pain turned to indignation and anger as he heard the Texas Governor continuing.

"...Ah won' say anything yet. Jeb says the Florida votes are there. It's not over till the fat lady sings."
"LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, YOU... YOU ...LAME-BRAINED N-N-NOTHING", bellowed Gore. "YOUR YOUNGER BROTHER IS NOT THE CONTROLLING LEGAL AUTHORITY IN THIS MATTER. I WILL FIGHT...."
"He's the freakin' governor, you asshole", Bush interrupted. "And his daddy di'n't have to twist his arm to get him there."

The line went dead. Daley came in from the extension where he had been listening. "Wow", he said. "Bush was tighter than the lug nuts on a '57 Chevy." Gore nodded, but as he finished dressing, he couldn't help remarking how under stress Bush's voice had moved smoothly and comfortably down the spectrum from Andover toward his West Texas drawl. His native Foghorn Leghorn accent kept irrupting rudely through the brittle veneer of tight Eastern phonemes.

As Gore left the room to drive to War Memorial Plaza, Dan Rather was eerily declaring "If a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a hand gun".

At the plaza, campaign field director Michael Whouley met the motorcade. "It's turning around. It's turning around", he almost jabbered. "Florida is hotter than a three-alarm fire in downtown Hell. You can't concede. You're just tearing up the pea patch."
"BUT I HAVE ALREADY CALLED BUSH TO EXTEND MY CONGRATULATIONS", said Gore.
"You'll have to call him back and retract", said Daley.

A Bush aide answered this time and called the governor to the telephone. The Vice President heard an off-mike "Jes' a mo'". As he waited, he heard voices away from the hand set.
"'Al-and-Tipper' again, Laurie? How about some DWL-Deep 'W' Love?" There was a brief feminine chuckle, like Tipper used to make when Karenna brought home a bag of Tootsie Rolls at Halloween. Then a moment of rustling, then a brief silence broken first by a woman's umh, umh, umh, then by a baritone sing-song-mmm-mm, mmm-mm, mmm.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Vice President. Wha', wha', whew, what can I do for you?"
"GOVERNOR, SINCE I SPOKE TO YOU AN HOUR AGO, THERE HAS BEEN AN ALTERATION IN THE SITUATION", began Gore. "I BELIEVE THE CHANGE MAKES MY PREVIOUS STATEMENT INOPERATIVE. IT IS THEREFORE IMPERATIVE THAT I RETRACT IT."
"You mean t' tell me, Mr. Vishe President, you're conceding your demand f' my retraction?"
"NO, NO. I NEVER SAID THAT. WHAT I AM SAYING IS..."
"Well, are you flip-flopping, or denying, or not?"
Gore took a deep breath. "WHAT I AM SAYING IS, INASMUCH AS I AM RETRACTING..."
"You're flip-flopping and not flip-flopping. Is thish the same medication you ushed for the second debate?"
"I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT I AM NOT GOING TO CONCEDE THE ELECTION TO YOU."
"I'm not a lawyer, Mr. Vice President, but I don't think the Constitution requires me to be President to have your permission", said Bush. "Now, I may be hollerin' down a rain barrel, but I don't know whether to wind the watch or bark at the moon. Let's just leave it that we have different philosophies."

Gore listened to the hum of a broken connection.
"Al", said Daley, "Al, it's looking better all the time. People are complaining about the ballots in Florida, and we can say voting irregularities hurt us. Don't bet the trailer money yet, but I think you're sitting in the catbird seat."

I have children, and my children have children. They will, perhaps, stumble upon your words, much as one might stumble upon a pile of dog droppings. I do not relish the thought of having to explain that your "experiences" are either a bald-faced lie, or you belong to that less-than-1% of Viet Nam veterans who committed war crimes/atrocities.

California Supreme Court has ruled 6-1 that Catholic Charities must offer its employees prescription contraception as part of their health insurance plan. This decision highlights just about everything that is wrong with this society, except maybe broadcast/cable TV and rap music.

The key point of the ruling is that Catholic Charities is "not a religious employer", which would make it exempt from state requirements for employer insurance plans. Instead, as AP reported , CC is secular

because it offers such secular services as counseling, low-income housing and immigration services to people of all faiths, without directly preaching Catholic values. . . .
In fact, Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote that a "significant majority" of the people served by the charity are not Catholic. The court also noted that the charity employs workers of differing religions.

You would think that if the welfare-statists really had helping people foremost in mind, they would welcome strong and resourceful partners, and even leave the field to them when possible. But no. The welfare-statists are not motivated by charity. They are ideologues, Marxist at root, and their first interest is to subdue any competing source of righteousness and moral guidance.

The statists consider all social welfare--which is to say all provision of benefits that they can manipulate to bring us under their control--to be exclusively a state prerogative. They resist bitterly and lethally any intrusion into that sphere by independent, private agents. This decision demonstrates that behind the soft, sentimental face of the welfare state is the socialist longing for the police state: the police powers collect the taxes and the police keep any free competition under control.

The case also demonstrates that socialism is a substitute religion, and a particularly nasty, totalist kind of religion, that makes no allowance for free will. Like Islam, socialists claim their sacred texts are a complete blueprint for living. They make no distinction between the public and private orders, and they both create totalitarian states in the process of affirming their own righteousness. No wonder liberals are always going on about how rigid and authoritarian and oppressive the Church is. They always clear their consciences by projecting their guilt upon their opponents.

As my sister, the recovering lawyer, says, a complicating factor "with Catholic Charities is that they take Caesar's coin big time". CC might not survive cutting the juncture with government funding; certainly it would not be Catholic Charities as we know it.

But there is another systemic imbecility evident here, namely, employer health insurance (which is really not insurance but prepaid medical services). Catholic Charities could cut this Gordian knot with advantages all around. It could take the money it spends on premiums and give its employees a raise&emdash;a big raise. Then it could offer medical savings accounts and sponsor group catastrophic insurance with a large deductible option.

In response to Daniel Henninger's Feb. 20 Wonder Land: "Why Do Democrats Call George Bush a Liar?":
I don't recall a similar editorial when The Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Republicans were dismantling and demolishing President Clinton. Why now and not then?

In reaction to your Feb. 20 editorial "The Novak Exception": You've missed the point: Plenty of journalists know many things-the identities of CIA agents, for example-that they don't print. In the extreme, no reporter would write a story about troop movements during a war. This is basic, obvious stuff to most folk, not some conservative-vs.-liberal deal. Bob Novak's guilt lies in violating that fundamental Journalism 101 teaching.