White Boy's Off Beat
Topic: politics
The national media got the memo that John Kerry is trying to emphasize his religious "beliefs":

Faith Increasingly Part of Kerry's Campaign

Kerry invokes God to appeal to the faithful

I actually caught Kerry's singing performance live on C-SPAN - it was so off-beat, I think it qualified as a hate crime.

Of course, there's already a (real) religious guy running for president, but he's crazy! ... right? If you haven't read the NYT Magazine piece on Bush's faith, there isn't much new - just the usual litany of Bush is dumb stories recast as Bush is a zealot stories. The best part is a brief glimpse outside of the cocoon:

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!''

Marc