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This is priceless: [Via Atrios]:
A humorous side note, the GOP held a "conference call" with Ken Mehlman in which campaign "Team Leaders" call in to be told what to think and get their talking points for the debate. Atrios, bless his heart, posted the number and the password to be accepted to the conference call. I got in without a problem and, after enduring ten minutes of painful smooth jazz, got to hear firsthand how the Bush campaign was going to spin this.
Mehlman said Kerry started with a credibility gap and ended with a credibility canyon, and babbled in and around this point for five minutes or so. Then they announced that they were going to take three questions. The first was from a "young Republican in Washington." She proceeded to say that Kerry was very credible and that she had decided to vote for him. The second caller said she thought Kerry would make a credible Commander in Chief and the third call took Bush to task for not mentioning the al Quida members not captured.
Mehlman apologized to the Bush supporters listening and acknowledge that the call had obviously attracted some Democrats. We had, essentially, hijacked their own spin distribution and thrown it in the GOP's face. A small, yet hilarious victory for the blogosphere.
Check out Saletan while you're at it:
How can we ask our troops to die for a mistake? We can't. . . Bush can't imagine it, either. So, he offers himself—and you—a way out . . . Therefore, these reports must be rejected. They must be judged not by evidence, but by their offensiveness to the assumptions we embraced when we went to war.
Update: Debate review from the National Review's weblog, the Corner:
KATE, YOUR WORDS GET AROUND [Peter Robinson]
Just appeared on the Fox affiliate out here in San Francisco, discussing the debate with Phil Angelides, the state treasurer and a co-chairman of Kerry's campaign in California. Angelides's opening remark? "Kerry won the debate, but don't take my word for it. Kate O'Beirne, who writes for the very conservative National Review magazine, said she thought Bush was repetitive and tongue-tied."
I was prepared to attack Angelides, of course, but attack the Blessed Kate? I found myself reduced to stammering an agreement that Bush had had better nights.
Let the record show that Kate O'Beirne owes Peter Robinson a beer.