While I was posting the previous message, a number of counters notched the 1,000th American casualty in Iraq, and some say that this number was actually reached a few weeks ago. It depends on whether you also count reporters and contractors and a few other "miscellaneous" folks. I don't think the exact number is the issue. I mean, it doesn't leap from Small Tragedy to Big Tragedy when you go from 999 to 1,000. The point is that there's a human cost that is often overlooked. One of the reasons that Michael Moore's film had such an impact on some people is that he devoted an awful lot of it to the simple issue of American soldiers and innocent civilians dying as a result of the U.S. military actions.

And yes, there were innocent civilians dying aplenty in Iraq before the U.S. ousted Saddam Hussein and it may have been manipulative of Moore not to focus a bit on that. But if you put the question to most American voters of how many of our soldiers' lives they'd sacrifice to help the Iraqi people, I suspect the average answer would still be pretty far short of a thousand.

The polls are settling down to the point where, depending where you look, George W. Bush either no longer has a double-digit lead or won't have it much longer. For the last few days though, there's been a lot of panic from Kerry supporters who felt the election slipping away from them. A lot of them used the opportunity to lecture Kerry that he needs to be more negative…to get up there and say that Bush has completely bungled the Iraq War. This may or may not be proper election strategy but in some cases, I think they're lecturing Kerry because they've always felt he was being too nice, and maybe that Democrats too often lose because they won't fight as hard as their opponents. A lot of folks feel that the rationales by which Bush declares the war under control and the economy in recovery are fragile arguments that won't withstand a few tough questions that no one is asking.

Not that anyone who can do anything about it is going to see this but I think Kerry's problem is that he often misses the emotional core of a problem. He's right…but he's not right in a way that fires up voters. Here's a statement he issued today that's as good an example of this as anything…

George W. Bush wishes he and I had the same position on Iraq but wishing doesn't make it so. I have said repeatedly that when it comes to Iraq, I wouldn't have done just one thing differently, I would have done almost everything differently. George Bush's wrongheaded, go-it-alone Iraq policy has created a quagmire, costing us $200 billion and counting. As a result, George Bush is shortchanging America on everything from education to health care to job creation — making it more difficult to meet our needs here at home.

I believe that's all true but I also think Kerry is missing the "money quote," the line that will get folks angry enough at Bush-Cheney to do something about it. You know what's missing in the above statement? Nearly a thousand brave American soldiers dead and countless more injured or maimed for life. The $200 billion is bad but the death toll is what wars are ultimately about. Instead of saying that Bush's inept policies have cost us lives, Kerry's turning the war into a bad domestic economic policy. A lot of our citizens want desperately to believe that something Bush has done or will do makes that next terrorist attack less likely, so Kerry needs to remind America that there are, if anything, more people in the world now who think the killing of Americans is a good thing.

By the time you read this, we may have topped 1,000 U.S. service deaths in connection with the Iraq war — an amazing number of those since Bush declared "Mission accomplished" or since Howard Dean was scolded for saying that the capture of Saddam hadn't made the world safer for us. I think Mr. Kerry needs to stop talking about health care and job creation for a few days and mention all those flag-draped coffins the press isn't allowed to photograph. Yeah, it's the economy, stupid, but a lot of Americans are now prepared to settle for a weak economy if they think the guy in the White House can protect them.

Here's an interview with my pal, Paul Dini, discussing his animation and comic book writing.

My longtime pal Tony Isabella has a fine online column that is mostly about comic books but occasionally about the less-real world of politics. The current installment praises this website but that's not the reason I'm telling you how good Tony's column is. It's just the reason I remembered to tell you that.

Nice to hear that Bill Clinton's heart bypass surgery apparently went well. Apart from the natural sadness if it did not, I'm not sure my view of humanity could withstand the celebrations of the "red meat" right-wingers if didn't make it. One wrote me that the former president's hospitalization was an "obvious stunt" timed to allow Clinton to make a dramatic reappearance — climbing out of a sickbed, no less — to stump for Kerry in the closing days of this campaign. I thought this was a pretty nutty theory but it makes a nice companion piece to another being advanced on some ultra-conservative websites; that Clinton deliberately timed his surgery do he'd have an excuse not to campaign for Kerry. The idea is that Clinton wants Kerry to lose, thereby leaving a clear field for Hillary in 2008. Somewhere out there, I'm sure there's someone who's convinced that Clinton is so devious that both are true; that he's simultaneously manuevering to help get Kerry elected and prevent it.

A lot of you have written me to say that you can't get the video clips on the Comedy Central website to play. Neither could I, but I just installed Windows Media Player 10 and now they play fine. Install at your own risk. And don't write to me and say, "But I have a Mac." It reminds me of the years when I had Beta and all my friends had VHS.

Just saw a funny moment on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Steve Lawrence, who ages at about half the rate of Dick Clark, was singing "New York, New York." He wandered out to the bleachers with a wireless mike to get some audience members to join in singing the words, "New York, New York" but the folks in the seats seemed quite non-participatory. That was okay because Lawrence had a "plant" in the front row — a gent in shorts and tennis shoes, who perhaps did not anticipate being on-camera when he put on that outfit. Lawrence thrust the mike in his face and the guy sang "New York, New York" in better voice than Steve Lawrence…so Steve clapped his hand over the guy's mouth to shut him up and hurried off to find an audience member who didn't sing so well.

I know. It was one of those moments you had to see, but it made me laugh and I thought I'd mention it here. I wonder how many home viewers recognized that the guy in the audience was Jack Jones.

I have the Jerry Lewis Telethon on. What do Norm Crosby and Charlie Callas do the rest of the year?

A brief but pithy interview with Professor Irwin Corey. Thanks to John Wendler for telling me so I could tell you.

Michael Kinsley tells us why George W. Bush's "ownership society" is just a fancy label for a bunch of half-formed plans that can't possibly work.

The siege at that Russian school…Hurricane Frances…renewed violence in Iraq…a couple of security scares at Los Angeles International Airport…there's just too much news today.

They're in Hog Heaven on CNN, careening between big boxes and little boxes, groping for those awkward segues that don't make it sound like they're comparing one tragedy to another. And I'd really like someone to explain to me why, theatrics aside, you can't report on a major storm without sending some poor correspondent and camera crew out into the thick of it to be blown around and rained upon. It's like they're out there just to get first-hand verification that, by God, there really is a hurricane.

While I'm dumping on newsfolks: The other day, the Associated Press reported that when George W. Bush announced to an audience that Bill Clinton had been hospitalized with chest pains, the crowd booed and "Bush did nothing to stop them." (Here's a link to one website's posting of the story.) Early this morning, the A.P. moved this correction which says there were no boos or that the booing was minimal…and indeed, an audio file that has been widely circulated on the Internet would seem to bear that out.

I don't think the press (especially the A.P.) is anywhere near as biased as right-wingers complain any time the news isn't phrased to their liking. But in this case, the original story was not only wrong but the line about Bush doing nothing to stop them was a bit much. I'm glad to see the A.P. corrected themselves and I wish more newsfolks would do that. I don't know about you but when an institution of the press owns up to its mistakes, I am more likely to trust them, not less.

Back from vacation, Frank Rich discusses the "macho" posturings of the presidential race.

I thought George W. Bush's acceptance speech was okay but about 48 months late. At times, he sounded like he was pledging to improve on the failed policies of the guy who's been in office the last four years. There was a lot of talk about being resolute, and I've always thought that determination, taken by itself, is a phony value. Is it admirable to be resolute when you're heading in the wrong direction? Isn't there a definition of "insanity" that has something to do with repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting the outcome to be different? I've been led into a lot of disasters by people who were absolutely certain they knew what they were doing…and when it didn't work out, they somehow became more certain.

The thing I don't get is the Republican reliance on really contrived Talking Points. Dick Cheney charged that Kerry only wants U.S. troops deployed with the consent of the United Nations. The proof of this? A quote from an interview Kerry gave the Harvard Crimson in 1970. (Kerry said the opposite in his acceptance speech a few weeks ago. I guess now they'll accuse him of flip-flopping.) Hey, I'm going to vote for Kerry and I could come up with better stuff to use against him than a 35 year old speech. Zell Miller accused Kerry of being weak on defense because he once wanted to scrap the F-14 and F-16 fighter jets…but Dick Cheney, when he was Secretary of Defense, had the same view, as did many Republicans. So what's the point here?