by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, October 19, 2004 3:53 P.M. EDT

Behind Kedwards' Gay-Baiting
MSNBC.com reports on a new survey of black Americans:

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based research group that focuses on issues concerning blacks, found in a poll released Tuesday that Kerry enjoys a 4-1 margin among blacks, down a tad from the backing Al Gore received in 2000.

Bush enjoys stronger support than in 2000 from those age 50 and older and those who consider themselves "Christian conservatives."

That has helped the president narrow the still sizable gap with Kerry among blacks, who preferred the Massachusetts senator over Bush, 69 percent to 18 percent. The group's poll before the 2000 election found Gore with a 74 percent to 9 percent lead over Bush.

The poll results, in PDF form, are here. Eighteen percent support among blacks may not seem like much, but a shift of 9% of the black vote translates into about 1% of the total nationwide vote, which in 2000 would have been enough to give Bush a popular-vote plurality.

Note that the explanation for the shift centers on older black voters and Christian conservatives. Is anyone still obtuse enough to believe it's mere coincidence that Kedwards have been shouting from the rooftops that Dick Cheney has a homosexual in the family?

Why Republicans Control Congress
An ABC News poll finds that Republicans have better sex lives than Democrats:

• Of those involved in a committed relationship, who is very satisfied with their relationship? Republicans--87 percent; Democrats--76 percent
  
  
• Who is very satisfied with their sex life? Republicans--56 percent; Democrats--47 percent . . .
  
  
• When asked whether they had ever faked an orgasm, more Democrats (33 percent) than Republicans (26 percent) said they had.

ABC attributes these results to the "gender gap," claiming that "men are more likely to say they are sexually satisfied and enjoy sex 'a great deal' " and that "the poll results show that women are more likely to fake orgasms." Well, maybe. But most political polls show the gap between married and single voters is much greater than that between men and women. Since married people are much more likely to vote Republican, we'd bet this is behind much of the partisan disparity in congress.

A Reuters story, however, illustrates the dangers of reaching across the aisle:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Monday that his speech backing President Bush at the Republican Convention in August resulted in a cold shoulder from his wife, Maria Shriver, a member of the famously Democratic Kennedy family.

"Well, there was no sex for 14 days," Schwarzenegger told former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta in an on-stage conversation in front of 1,000 people.

Apparently politics also unmakes strange bedfellows.

Hey, Get a Room!
"Poll: Candidates Neck and Neck"--headline, ABCNews.com, Oct. 18

From the Crack House to the White House
Police in Defiance County, Ohio, have charged 22-year-old Mark Staton with a felony for allegedly submitting false voter registrations:

Defiance County Sheriff David Westrick said that Mr. Staton was working on behalf of a Toledo woman, Georgianne Pitts, to register new voters. She, in turn, was working on behalf of the NAACP National Voter Fund, which was formed by the NAACP in 2000 to register new voters.

Sheriff Westrick said that Pitts, 41, of Toledo, admitted she gave Mr. Staton crack cocaine in lieu of cash for supplying her with completed voter registration forms. The sheriff declined to say how much crack cocaine Pitts supplied Mr. Staton, or to say whether Pitts knew that the forms Mr. Staton gave her were falsified.

Meanwhile, High Times carries an editorial under the headline (caps theirs) "HELP, I'M STONED, WHO SHOULD I VOTE FOR?":

Short Answer: John Kerry . . .

John Kerry has promised to end the raids on medical marijuana gardens, immediately, and will have a policy towards marijuana and other drugs that makes sense. The alternative, four more years of Bush, is a continuing disaster for the rights of pot smokers (and many other Americans).

Dude, we'd vote for Kerry, but we're too zoned.

Playing to Type
"John Kerry, condemned by some Republicans as 'French looking,' promised on Monday to help Haitian immigrants in Florida, saying: 'Je vais aider les Haitiens.' " If we're not mistaken, that translates as "By the way, I served in Vietnam."

Meanwhile, Slate has a hilarious (and hilariously long) video outtake of John Edwards fussing with his hair. It's part of a collection assembled by comedian Harry Shearer, now on display at a Washington art gallery. Slate's comment on the Edwards clip:

"For a guy who's been known derisively to the Bush crowd as the Breck girl," observes Shearer, vice presidential candidate John Edwards seems "way too interested in his hair." He tries to straighten it with his fingers. A makeup technician approaches with a comb, but the senator likes it just so and does the combing himself. He signals he's ready for hair spray by closing his eyes expectantly, like a child. Then Edwards and the technician straighten a little more with their fingers. Please don't tell me that thing in his hand is a compact. Oh, dear. It is.

Michael Moore, of course, used footage of administration officials primping or being made up before TV appearances to mock them in "Fahrenheit 9/11." We'll admit, though, we're a little mystified by all this. We've done a fair amount of television in the past few months, and normally the makeup is applied in a separate room. Are there hidden cameras in the makeup room, or do big-shot pols get made up separately from us humble pundits? We hope one of our readers in the TV news industry will enlighten us.

He Prides Himself on His Humility
You've got to love this passage from a Chicago Tribune story about John Kerry:

"Teresa and I were talking about that the other night--about the hopes that people have," Kerry, referring to his wife, said in an interview with the Tribune. "People are crying at some of these rope lines. They're hurting so much. They want a change.

"You feel that. The transfer of hope, of 'Get it done for me, help me, I need help, I need health care, I don't have a job,' " he said. "And I want to come through, not so much for me. I don't want to let them down."

Bill Clinton could say "I feel your pain," and he seemed sincere even if you suspected it was bunk. But Kerry is just too haughty to fake sincerity convincingly.

Won't That Distract the Men?
"U.S. Navy Makes Skirts Optional for Women"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 17

But Look Out Below
"Wild Parakeets Splash Color on Seattle's Gray Skies"--headline, Reuters, Oct. 18

Gravity Might Also Have Played a Role
"Altitude's Role in Crash Considered"--headline, Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, Oct. 18

It's the Eponymy, Stupid
"Georgia man facing arson charges for burning his own home is blaming nine or 10 beers, and a disaster movie," reports the Associated Press. It happened in Crisp County.

Great Moments in Higher Education
Clifton Snider, a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach, has posted on the university's Web site guidelines for students writing persuasive essays in his English 100 class. The most telling guidelines come under "subjects to avoid":

Topics on which there is, in my opinion, no other side apart from chauvinistic, religious, or bigoted opinions and pseudo-science (for example, female circumcision, prayer in public schools, same-sex marriage, the so-called faith-based initiative, abortion, hate crime laws, the existence of the Holocaust, and so-called creationism).

We're with him on Holocaust denial and female genital mutilation (which he euphemistically calls "circumcision"). But the rest of the topics Snider lists are the subject of serious debate in America. That Snider declares them off-limits illustrates the insularity of academic culture in America--a point he reinforces by responding to a critical column by TownHall.com's Mike Adams with this notice atop his page:

Notice to my students: someone has published illegally in what purports to be an "article" material from my web site, that is, portions of my assignments. . . . The "article" uses vindictive, rude language, language that is entirely unprofessional and inappropriate in a scholarly article. Furthermore, in a second "article" this person has quoted in full a private e-mail from me to him without my permission. This clearly violates the U.S. Copyright Law. This person's site is an excellent example of an unauthorized web site that has no place in logical discourse.

Meanwhile, at Duke University, the Chronicle, a student newspaper, yesterday published a viciously anti-Semitic op-ed piece by one Philip Kurian:

It is well known that Jews constitute the most privileged "minority" group in this country. Among the top 10 universities, Jews enjoy shocking overrepresentation. . . . What Jewish suffering--along with exorbitant Jewish privilege in the United States--amounts to is a stilted, one-dimensional conversation where Jews feel the overwhelming sense of entitlement not to be criticized or offended. . . . After World War II, overt anti-Semitism gradually subsided, in part because of American response to Hitler's murderous regime, but largely due to Jewish association with whiteness and the privileges white skin affords. In short, Jews can renounce their difference by taking off the yarmulke. Clearly, this is not a luxury enjoyed by all minority groups.

Yikes! Looks as though the Chronicle editors could use a list of "subjects to avoid."

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Desperate Kerry tries to scare seniors.
• Brendan Miniter: Will Kerry's weakness on national security cost him part of his base?
• David Hobstetter: Too few architects see the light about the importance of daylight.