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Watching Crossfire and some other "argument" shows this afternoon — you know, the kind of programming that didn't exist before Phil Donahue — I was struck by this thought: Is anybody buying this?

I mean this kind of sudden role-reversal…Democrats talking like Republicans did just a few years ago and vice-versa.  Not so long ago, every time some investigation failed to indict Bill or Hillary, the G.O.P. response was (a) the investigation was incomplete, (b) the investigation was a whitewash and/or (c) just because the inquisitors couldn't find a prosecutable violation of law, it absolutely did not mean that no crime had been committed.  Did you ever hear one Clinton foe ever say, "Well, I guess this charge was unfounded"?  Me, neither…and, of course, Democrats said what you'd expect them to say — usually, some kind of mealy-mouthed, keep-your-distance defense.

Now, the exact same Repubs who insisted that Whitewater, Vince Foster and other "scandals" be investigated over and over are insisting that Bush's stock dealings are "old news," that it's all been fully-investigated and that he's been exonerated.  And Democrats are arguing (a), (b) and/or (c).

We all understand about "spin" and about trying to sell your interpretation of a given event.  That doesn't even bother me anymore.  But now we're down to "spin" as a means of denial.  Every single politician and pundit saying "Bush was cleared" knows full well it was a thin inquiry performed largely by folks whose careers depended on his family.  They also know there will be more of these supposed scandals coming as Democrats and reporters delve into other Bush business practices, to say nothing of Mr. Cheney and other cabinet officials.  They're saying "It's old news" because they don't like the new news and are afraid of it.

I don't know if Bush and his gang did break any laws.  It would not surprise me if the laws of the land have been skewed to be so pro-business that the C.E.O. of a failing company could cook the books and reap millions without breaking any statutes — an outrage for which I would blame both Democrats and Republicans.  But I do know that everyone's saying, not what they believe but what they hope will work to their political advantage.  And I also know that no one's buying it.  No one.

Word on the street is that one of my favorite shows, Dennis Miller Live, has been cancelled by HBO.  Further gossip suggests that while it will be announced as Miller's choice, it is anything but.  And while I haven't heard anything about this yet, you have to wonder if this has anything to do with rumors about Bill Maher dickering for a new home on some cable channel.

Speaking of talk: MSNBC keeps sending me e-mails promoting the new Phil Donahue show (starts Monday) and describing him as "The man who invented TV talk."  Does anyone really think that "TV talk" by any definition started in 1967?

The Grand Guru of Marvel, Stan Lee, cancelled out on a scheduled appearance at a comic convention over the July 4th weekend due to illness.  This has apparently prompted some Internet rumors that he's at death's door.  He is not. I ran into him this afternoon and he seems to be completely recovered and in perfect health.  Matter of fact, I'm convinced he got one of those Captain America injections and will outlive us all.

Ward Kimball was that rarest of animals…an animator who was as colorful and interesting as anything he drew.  He was also a writer and director of live-action films, a musician and the proprietor and engineer of his own small-scale railroad.  He was also, from all accounts, a genuine eccentric…and that was always said in the nicest, most admiring sense.  Last December, he and two other of Disney's legendary "nine old men" attended an event at the Motion Picture Academy where their work was screened and applauded.  The scene chosen to represent Kimball's animation was the title song from The Three Caballeros, which is widely hailed as one of the finest pieces of frantic and funny cartooning ever achieved.

I got to meet him briefly that evening and for that, I am grateful.  But I'm even more grateful that he was there so he could hear several generations of animation buffs and creators stand and applaud his career.

He passed away in peace this morning…with full knowledge, I suspect, of how his work will be viewed and appreciated forever.

About a dozen of my old POV columns have been removed from this site.  Some were taken away because I decided I didn't like them.  Others were the opposite: I liked them enough to include them in my forthcoming paperback collection, Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life (see below).  Most of these have had little improvements added so I wanted to retire the old versions.  A few more columns, new to this website, will be posted in the coming weeks.

I mentioned a few days ago, my belief that most Americans would come to regard as fact, the concept that Al Gore actually won Florida…or perhaps I should have said, "…should have won Florida."  This prompted a number of folks to bombard me with "evidence" and facts, all about various press recounts and how many overseas ballots were counted without postmarks and such.  Actually, I've read all this stuff and it led me to the conclusion that, based on the count, the final totals could go either way.

A lot of the tallies involved votes for which the rules are unestablished and arguable, and the Bush people did a better job of getting their arguments accepted by a state government that, after all, was controlled by their candidate's brother and their candidate's campaign manager.  There is a reasonable interpretation of the balloting that makes Bush a slight victor, just as there's a reasonable interpretation that would have given the state to Gore…and anyone who thinks their guy "definitely" got more votes is, I think, believing what they want to believe.

Actually, my belief that Bush's victory will become more and more tainted is based on following the stories about the vast numbers of Florida voters — most of them, black and Democratic — who were denied their right to vote at all.  That story is not going to go away and, even if it is ultimately viewed as a paperwork screw-up and not an intentional act, I think it's going to become accepted that Bush would not have come close to winning the state, but for that screw-up.  And, of course, a lot of people will never accept that it was not an accident…

For more on the matter, check out the website of Greg Palast.  He's the B.B.C. reporter who broke a lot of this story.  Here's a link to an article he did for Harper's that lays it all out in some detail and, elsewhere on his site, you'll find the text of Katherine Harris's rebuttal, which merely argues that the errors were not intentional.  I'm not arguing that they were or weren't.  I believe that the fact that they were made at all will be accepted as the only reason Bush didn't decisively lose the vote total in Florida.

I still believe that the next presidential election will turn almost wholly on how well the war on terrorism has been fought.  But I also think that Bush will lose the argument that he was fairly elected in 2000, as he and Cheney are starting to lose the argument that their past business dealings were always Kosher.  The press pounced on the assertions that Clinton had committed crimes in Whitewater and that he was humping interns in the Oval Office.  Future terrorist attacks notwithstanding, they'll pounce on the assertions that Bush and Cheney reaped millions in shady stock deals and that black, Democratic voters in Florida got screwed.

A few years ago, I posted this item about my pal, Chuck McCann.  I mentioned we'd be having lunch soon and that prompted a flurry of e-mails from folks who said, "I love Chuck McCann.  Please tell him I'm a huge fan of his."  Several elaborated on watching him over the years and one or two, on brief meetings with the man.  All wished that I convey their affection and admiration to him and, today, we lunched and I did.  Matter of fact, after turkey sandwiches, Chuck followed me back to my house and I showed him all the e-mails.  So if you sent one, know that Chuck got to read it and that he was quite pleased.

And at least three of you will be excited at this news: Chuck mentioned that he'd had dinner the previous night with Don Knotts, and Don said he'd just finished recording an audio commentary for the DVD of The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

And how did you spend your Independence Day?  My friend Carolyn and I spent much of ours doing the final proofreading for Comic Books and Other Necessities of Life, the forthcoming paperback collection of 34 of my POV columns about comic book collecting and creation.  Only nine of the 34 are available on this site and even they underwent some minor rewrites to take out some of the stupid comments and, probably, add stupider ones.  The book had to go to press today (7/5) in order to be out in time for this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego.  You need this in your collection.

I'll be hawking it at the San Diego con (in-between the thirteen panels I'm moderating) and it'll be available in all the usual places, including the website of its publisher, TwoMorrows Publishing.  They don't have it on their order page yet but they will.

Hope you're having a safe-and-sane Fourth.  I dunno if the shooting at LAX today qualifies as another actual terrorist attack in the spirit of 9/11.  Still, it's going to keep us nervous for a couple of weeks.  If our enemies don't do a decent job of terrorizing us, we're quite willing to terrorize ourselves.

Sunday night….well, actually, Monday morning at 1 AM…the Cartoon Network begins another season of The Popeye Show, a fine series that does everything a cartoon program ought to do: It takes great old cartoons, strikes off new prints with their original titles and runs them without cuts.  This is always good but it's especially wonderful in the case of The Sailor Man, since of all the great animated characters, he's probably suffered the most.

His best films — the ones made by the Fleischer Studio — have too often been unavailable, or available in well-spliced, retitled and faded prints.  Matter of fact, as various batches of Popeye cartoons were later made by other studios, the quality went steadily down and the availability became greater.  The worse a Popeye cartoon was, the better your chances of seeing a good print of it.  Nice to see Cartoon Network reversing the trend.

Tom Galloway, who is rarely wrong about anything, suggests I point out that the second part of the Mike Peters article is another page.  Here's a link to that page.

My friend Mike Peters is a Pulitzer-class political cartoonist and the creator of the highly-successful newspaper strip, Mother Goose & Grimm.  You'd think that would be enough for the guy…but no.  He wants to be Superman.  He's always wanted to be Superman.  He has been known to run around in a Superman costume.  If you're ever with Mike and you want to hear one of the funniest stories I've ever heard, get him to tell you about the time he dressed up as the Man of Steel.  And in case you never get to meet Mike, you can get an inadequate (but still very funny) version here.

You can also see some of Mike's wonderful work on his website, the address of which is www.grimmy.com.  All of his political cartoons are terrific and, on occasion, he nails an issue better than all the verbose commentators in the business.

The hardcover edition of The Life of Groo and The Death of Groo (both in one volume, collected back-to-back) is now out.  So is a new, 20th anniversary Groo t-shirt…both from Graphitti Designs.

I haven't posted the schedule yet of panels I'm hosting at the Comic-Con International in San Diego.  This is because we're still switching around time slots as it turns out that certain guests are not available at certain times.  All should settle down by the middle of next week…however, let me say again that we have some incredible events.  I'm emceeing 13 because I couldn't turn any of them down.  You'll see why when I post the list next week.

The DVD of the movie 1776 is out and being reviewed all over the Internet.  My copy is in a box of stuff I ordered from Amazon.Com that, last time I looked at the UPS tracking page, was sitting in a warehouse in Fernley, Nevada.  If it doesn't get here in a few days, I may drive up to Fernley and watch it there.

Thursday evening, The Tonight Show With Jay Leno is a rerun.  The comedy bit after the first commercial involves silly phone callers, one of whom identifies himself as a master magician named "Earl the Magnificent."  That's the voice of one of my best buddies, Earl Kress, a multi-talented fellow I met via the late, multi-talented Daws Butler.  Earl is a writer (with an Emmy for Pinky & The Brain) and he's an actor and a cartoon expert and a fellow Laurel and Hardy enthusiast, and he even claims to know was much about the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World as I do. This last claim is, of course, ridiculous…but we sometimes humor him and allow him to believe such a thing.

You can see some of Earl's comic book writing (he does all sorts of things) in recent issues of DC's Looney Tunes book, and you can hear him on Jay's show from time to time, and — most impressive — he and I are having dinner, some night this week.  At least, I think it's most impressive.  He's probably prouder of some of that other stuff.

A lot of news reports on how everyone stayed away from public events and large buildings for fear of a terrorist attack…and nothing happened.  This will happen again for September 11, 2002.