Mr. Nuance

A quick break from conference blogging to point out yet another reason, via Mark Steyn, in the wake of the exposed lies of Joe Wilson, why I can’t even consider voting for Kerry:

Some of us are on record as dismissing Wilson in the first bloom of his unmerited celebrity. But John Kerry was taken in — to the point where he signed him up as an adviser and underwrote his Web site. What does that reveal about Mister Nuance and his superb judgment? He claims to be able to rebuild America’s relationships with France, and to have excellent buddy-to-buddy relations with French political leaders. Yet anyone who’s spent 10 minutes in Europe this last year knows that virtually every government there believes Iraq was trying to get uranium from Africa. Is Kerry so uncurious about America’s national security he can’t pick up the phone to his Paris pals and get the scoop firsthand? For all his claims to be Monsieur Sophisticate, there’s something hicky and parochial in his embrace of an obvious nutcake for passing partisan advantage.

A comment from someone at Roger Simon’s site, with which I have some sympathy (though I came to that realization during the 1990s, not as a result of the latest lying and viciousness in the war):

I ask myself why I feel such animosity towards the Democratic party, a party that I belonged to for so many years. Betrayal is the word I come up with, I feel betrayed by the triviality, immaturity, and sheer lunacy of the party. It’s not like some other party, say the Republicans, whose oddities I can tolerate as the eccentricity of the neighbors, no, it’s like finding that my wife has run off with a derelict with whom she had a long standing secret affair. Not only do I feel betrayed, but I wonder how I could have been such an idiot, overlooking all the signs and clues.