Well I guess I was one of the lucky ones that got to read all the posts on the dead horse exchange, it pays to check back often!

You know, I really don’t remember people I should from college. I remeber Wallstreet though and glad he checks in from time to time.

Ok M of A
I checked your Kevin Drum thing and here is my take.
I don’t think he is as unbiased as he intended to be. He consistantly scores most of Bushes statements with higher intent and accuracy and importance. Where as he dismisses a lot of Kerry’s statements and scores them low.
He really uses a “ends justify the means” attitude toward Kerry’s statements (like the un-biased Dan Rather).

Here some examples
1 This is only a modest exaggeration. Kerry’s main point, that total employment has decreased, is correct
Well its modest to Drum… not to me. IT is beneficial to Kerry to have big numbers here so he uses them. I would rate higher than 1 .

‘Shinseki wasn’t ‘retired,’ he filled out his full term as Army Chief of Staff.’
Well if he wasn’t retired, then there is an intent to decive here. Rate it higher than 0!

Kerry got one number slightly wrong, but there’s nothing seriously misleading here.
Well when Bush got the numbers wrong he scored 2 or 3 points… fairness????

‘It’s not clear if Kerry’s numbers really add up’.
coupled with
This is fairly ordinary political puffery
When talking about Kerry showing how he will pay for his programs.
Now the Repubs are trying to label him as a tax and spender, so if his numbers don’t add up its IMPORTANT! Yet it only got a 1 and 1.

The other thing is that unfortunately, Bush was on the defensive. If the debate would have been more about Kerry’s ’stellar’ career in the Senate, than I think he would have higher numbers.
I could go on. But I wont.

Here is the deal on the troop request. (my take anyway) I think we had enough troops to do what we needed to do. Proven by the fact that we took Bagdad so quickly. We have had a very tough line to walk though because if we had moved in immediately with 500,000 troops, that would not have looked good either (to the Iraqis). Should we have been able to predict that the Iraqis would sack their own cities? Should we have been able to predict that every Muslim with an axe to grind would head to Iraq to fight us? Maybe so. But most of our guys are not being killed with bullets. They are getting whacked by explosive devices stuck by the road or suicide bomber blowing themselves up with everyone else.

500,000 more troops might just mean 500,000 more targets for suicide bombers.

You yourself stated that politicians can’t admit they were wrong. Now would certainly be a bad time for Bush to say it. I personally do NOT think he is wrong though.