I would hate to think John Kerry would lose the election but I'd really hate to think he'd lose the election because of the "Swift Boat Veterans" campaign. Just as I hated the thought that Michael Dukakis lost because a lot of Americans believed he would give prison furloughs to convicted murderers or that Al Gore lost because folks thought he was a liar who claimed to have invented the Internet. I'd have a lot less problem with George W. Bush winning if it seemed like voters knew exactly what each man was all about and preferred him.

This is not to say I think Kerry is going to lose. I think it's going to be up and down for a month or two, in the press if not the polls, and we seem to be entering a "down" time for the Democrats. This will change when the campaign gets back to issues of the economy and Iraq. (It will have to. There's too much airtime to fill before Election Day.)

The thing that bothers me most about the Swift Boat Veterans campaign is the blurring of the line on two separate matters. There is the question of whether Kerry deserved those medals…and it seems to me the evidence is pretty overwhelming that he did. Then there's the question of whether his activities after he left the service honored or dishonored the war effort. I think he was pretty heroic and more accurate than will ever be admitted by some who've never come to terms with how the Vietnam war turned out, and who was to blame for that. But certainly, I can understand that there's another, deeply-held opinion on that point.

On the first question, the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" have a handful of witnesses with no physical evidence and very dubious accounts. On the second question, they have a few hundred folks who say they "served with John Kerry" (many, only in the sense that they were in the same war at roughly the same time) and they're only really relevant to the second question. I wonder how many Americans — because the campaign seems calculated to induce this impression — think the few hundred had personal experiences with Kerry in combat and therefore can attest that he was a craven, lying leader who didn't deserve those medals. It would be interesting to see a poll on that number…because if the Swift Boat Vets are doing any real damage to Kerry, I think it's predicated on that bit of misdirection.

This evening around 8:00 Eastern time, C-Span will be running John Kerry's 1971 testimony before Congress with regard to the Vietnam War. I recall watching this when it first aired, which was at a time when I was making a difficult transition. I had been a supporter of that war, or at least a person who felt the protesters were misguided and not helping things. By '72, I was one of those protesters, even working with the leadership of a group that was more or less behind all the marches and demonstrations within a few miles of U.C.L.A. I don't recall Kerry's speeches or his appearance before the committee having any impact on my conversion but when I saw excerpts of it a few weeks ago on some channel (probably C-Span), what struck me was his restraint and maturity. Since it is now divorced from all the other Vietnam rhetoric of 1972, it may seem exaggerated and excessive. My sense is that on the topic of that war, darn near everything said on either side in 1972 was drenched in hyperbole and overstatement, and that Kerry was calmer than most. I also suspect that he was more accurate than will ever be admitted by those who are still angry at how Vietnam ended and somehow want to blame it more on Jane Fonda than Robert McNamara.

I think some people have forgotten — or are in denial — as to how much government wrongdoing has been uncovered and even admitted. McNamara started his book, In Retrospect, by saying, "We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who participated in the decisions on Vietnam acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of this nation. We made our decisions in light of those values. Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why." It was a stunning confession when he made it, as were many in that volume, but almost no one wanted to hear McNamara cleanse his conscience and "explain why." Everyone on both sides had long since made up their minds about the history of that unfortunate war and there was no room in anyone's version for new evidence. I wish more folks would follow the example of Kerry and John McCain when they worked together to try and put Vietnam behind them. In fact, I wish they'd do more to follow their own example.

In a way, I'm sorry C-Span is running Kerry's testimony now since it won't be viewed as an important part of history, nor will it be judged against things like McNamara's confessions of ineptness and deceit. It's just there so the anti-Kerry voters can use it to promote the notion that it was treasonous to say what he said, and so Kerry's backers can see what it is they have to defend. I believe Kerry's testimony is completely defensible and depending on your definition, maybe even heroic. But in the current environment, it will just be a question of whether sound bites are being taken out of context or whether what actually occurred is being accurately summarized. So far this year, the past has just been something that can be judiciously excerpted and spun, one way or another, to maybe win an election.

December 7 may turn out to be a date that shall live in infamy for animation buffs trying to not spend money on DVDs from the Warner TV animation library. That's when they plan to release boxed sets of the complete run of Top Cat, the second season of The Flintstones, Volume 1 of Superman: The Animated Series, Volume 2 of Batman: The Animated Series and a one-disc release of the movie, A Man Called Flintstone. How much will all these run you? Well, let's do some math. If you pay the manufacturers' suggested retail price for Top Cat, The Flintstones and Batman (which you won't), you'll spend $44.98 apiece. The Superman set is $26.99 and the Flintstones movie is $19.99. So right there, you have $221.90 if you pay sticker price which, like we said, you're not going to do. Not unless you're a dum-dum. Based on usual discountings, I'd say these six releases will run around $130…and there's a special rebate coupon where you can get five to ten bucks back if purchasing multiple volumes.

Should these sets sound expensive, let's note that the Time-Warner video folks have lowered their price structure. The Jetsons collection released a few months ago contained 24 episodes and a few extras for a list price of $64.98. The Top Cat set has 30 episodes and more special features for twenty bucks less.

Now, the bad news: You may remember appeals on this website to locate prints of the original Top Cat end titles. A number of you responded and the people assembling the DVD located and received a few nuggets of the lost footage. For reasons I'm not sure I can explain, this material will not appear on the set. It has something to do with lawyers and legal problems and I'm just as annoyed about it as you are. But there will be some other wonderful bonus goodies, including interviews with all the surviving members of the voice cast and a look at a storyboard drawn by the late, great Harvey Eisenberg.

Lastly, I should note that the second volume of Garfield and Friends is also scheduled for a 12/7/04 release. This will give DVD patrons an ample chance to get sick of yours truly. A Superman episode that I wrote is on the Superman set, I'm heard on the commentary track of the Top Cat set, and I wrote or co-wrote everything on the Garfield collection. Last few times I've been with Leonard Maltin, I've razzed him about how he is now on more DVDs than Jimmy Stewart. If this keeps up, he'll be able to use my own line on me.

As we mentioned not long ago, the Game Show Network is shuffling its Black-and-White Overnight bloc. The only dangling mystery from that report was what would replace the reruns of What's My Line? that they've now been through at least twice.

'Tis a mystery no longer. The replacement for What's My Line? will be…What's My Line? Reruns of Play Your Hunch will be in that slot for a week or two, then GSN will start running What's My Line? again, starting with the very first episode from February of 1950.

That takes care of the second half of the Black-and-White Overnight hour. In the first half, reruns of Password are currently airing weekdays with the world's worst game show, Beat the Clock, airing on weekends. On September 27, Password gets replaced by The Name's the Same, which was a not-bad show that originally aired from 1951 to 1955. It's often a good deal of fun, especially during the period Carl Reiner was on the panel, but it often suffered from very blatant "gambitting." That was the practice on some game shows of the period of setting up the panelists with questions that seemed innocent but were riotously funny if you knew the secret they were trying to guess. Like if they had to guess that the contestant's product was steer manure, the producers would not tell the panelists the answer but they'd have one of them ask, "Is this something I might have all over my living room?" It often got pretty obvious but the shows are worth watching, nonetheless. We're hoping they can dig up some from the season when it was hosted by Bob and Ray.

Dana Milbank offers a list of Kerry quotes and the way Bush seems to have distorted their meaning in response.

Mark Thorson, who is one of my band of loyal readers who instantly catches my every typo, writes to ask…

By the way, I may have failed to notice it, but a few months ago you had some articles on a possible impending Writer's Guild strike, and I don't remember that being followed up by an explanation of how that was resolved. Is it still impending or has the danger passed?

Rather amazingly — because no one in the industry would ever have imagined either side would allow this to occur — the Writers Guild is working without a contract and it has been since the old one expired May 1. Under the old "paradigm" (to use a noun that seems to be in vogue these days), we would have gone on strike soon after the expiration and/or the producers would have threatened to lock us out if we did not accept their "final offer." (I put that in quotes because…well, you know why I put that in quotes.) Neither a strike nor a lockout has happened. In fact, the WGA hasn't even taken a strike authorization vote. The leaders of the WGA decided to just go on, keeping the town and everyone working, waiting to see what would happen. The producers either haven't been able to get a lockout vote among its members — who must agree unanimously if there is to be a lockout — or they've decided to wait and force the issue at a moment that seems more advantageous to them. Smart money has it that they won't wait too long. If it gets around towards the middle of next year, that's when the current contracts expire for the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America.

It has long been presumed that the studios' worst nightmare would be for the three above-the-line guilds to link arms and make joint demands at the same time. It's always seemed easier to beat one union (usually ours) into submission and rollbacks, then go on to the next. The bloody negotiation or strike intimidates the other unions and the producers then argue that "pattern bargaining" dictates that the other unions accept the same rollbacks. So logic and custom would suggest that in the next month or three, at a point where it would no longer disrupt the Fall TV schedule, the producers will press the issue with the WGA. This would, they hope, give them a momentum of union-stomping before they have to face SAG and the DGA. On the other hand, logic and custom would have dictated that we'd never go this long without a contract. So we're all in uncharted waters here and all we can do is hope for the best, brace for the worst and expect something in-between.

Know what today is? Okay, right, Wednesday. But this particular Wednesday marks 91 years since the birthing day of Walter Crawford Kelly, Jr. He wasn't much of an artist then but before long, he grew up to become one of the most honored, quoted cartoonists of all time. Those who know Pogo love Pogo and those who don't know Pogo…well, they don't know Pogo. Which is their loss. They've missed out on the best damn comic strip any newspaper ever offered its readers. But don't pity those folks…at least not today. Today, go out and hug a swamp critter, say something witty, sing a happy song and think about Walt Kelly. Even folks who never met him miss him.

Did John Kerry fib about spending Christmas Eve in Cambodia a few decades ago? Since I think all politicians utter the occasional untruth, it wouldn't be a big deal to me if he did lie, particularly about something so relatively unimportant. I certainly can't understand someone getting worked up over that but giving George W. Bush a pass on some of the whoppers he's tossed our way.

However, if it does matter to you whether or not Kerry's anecdote is absolutely accurate…well, here on the news from me page, we like to break precedent on the Internet and showcase two sides to a controversy. Even a small controversy. Here's an article that says Kerry's account doesn't hold up to scrutiny and here's an article that says it does. What I find interesting about the two pieces is not what they say about John F. Kerry but what they tell us about how two apparently bright men could research the same event and come to such different conclusions.

…but nobody does anything about them.

A clever and brave man named George Kirgo has died at the age of 78. George had a long and very happy career as a writer and occasional producer of TV and movies. His credits in motion pictures included Spinout and Don't Make Waves. In television, he wrote for The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Nichols, The Governor and J.J. and a short-lived but very fine series called Another Day. It is unmentioned in obits like this one but George also had a brief career as one of the first movie reviewers on television (mostly on local New York stations) and this led to a run of appearances on TV talk shows, including Jack Paar's. He also worked for a time with Harvey Kurtzman.

I got to know George because he kept turning up in the office next to mine. When I was doing Welcome Back, Kotter, George was next door producing Another Day. When I was writing The Bay City Rollers Show, George was in the next office writing and producing a TV movie called Side Show for the same producers. (It's absent from his Internet Movie Database listing.) But I really got to know the guy and to respect him when he was President of the Writers Guild during its long, anger-filled 1988 strike.

All strikes are messy but this one, which lasted 22 weeks, was way messier than the norm. George Kirgo, as president of the Guild, somehow managed to be president of all WGA members through a difficult period and keep members of varying positions together. Now and then on the picket lines, some writer, panicked about losing his home, would start screaming at George and look as if he might take a swing at this gentle, witty man. A couple of us taller folks became George's unofficial bodyguards but we weren't needed. Kirgo never flinched and Kirgo never feared, and on two or three occasions, I saw him take a frantic striker aside, talk calmly to him and dispell the terror and frustration. I greatly admired his leadership, his compassion and his willingness to give maximum effort for this elected position. The strike ended badly but it would have been a lot worse without George Kirgo. Today, the whole world is.

Matt Drudge just posted the story I had up here yesterday morning about the phony tornado prediction for Los Angeles. Given his usual record for accuracy, maybe we're both wrong.

I think I agree with Thomas Oliphant in his take on the whole Swift Boat controversy.

The New York Times, which has never run comic strips, offers this article about troubles in the newspaper comic strip business.

Well, I'm glad to see that Campaign Finance Reform has done such a fine job of protecting us from "attack ads." I haven't seen any negative commercials…have you? Making candidates say "I approved this message" has also been very successful in preventing them from not taking responsibility for the irresponsible bashing of their opponents.

We all knew this election was going to get dirty but somehow, I didn't think it would be this nasty until a week or two before Halloween. Here's what I see as the new timetable…

WEEK OF AUGUST 23: MoveOn.org runs commercials showing Bush not only reading My Pet Goat to school children on 9/11 but dressing up in actual goat costume to do so.

WEEK OF AUGUST 30: Governor James McGreevy holds shocking press conference to announce support for John Kerry because he has "hair to die from" and there are rumors he may be French. McGreevy also reaffirms that he is gay and that he will resign his office as soon as he finishes redecorating it.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 6: Democrats reveal that for the last month, Dick Cheney's "undisclosed location" has been the only movie theater in the country still showing the film, Catwoman. Cheney admits to more than 435 viewings of what he calls "an unfairly-maligned classic of the cinema" but denies reports that, confused and infatuated, he awarded a seven billion dollar "no bid" contract to Halle Berry.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 13: In reponse to relentless questioning from Helen Thomas, White House press secretary Scott McClellan says Bush will not comment on 527 ads that insist Kerry sang back-up vocals on 1974 pop hit, "Billy, Don't Be a Hero." McClellan adds gratuitous insult about Thomas's bra size.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 20: Kerry sticks tongue out at Bush, inserts thumbs in ears, waves fingers and goes, "Pookie-pookie-pookie!" Bush, during campaign swing through Ken Lay's living room, responds with old "I'm rubber, you're glue" line. Ralph Nader pulls ahead in most polls and celebrates by buying a second suit.

WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 27: In unexpected development, Gallup organization locates "likely voter" in Illinois who supports Alan Keyes. Poll is described as having a "margin-of-error of plus or minus one looney."

WEEK OF OCTOBER 4: Kerry campaign releases documents that prove that Bush spent missing months of his National Guard commitment appearing on TV sitcom Bewitched as the little-remembered third Darrin.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 11: The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth all suddenly remember Kerry bragging in 1969 about someday nailing a ketchup heiress and "scoring them big burger-basting bucks." The group's leader, John O'Neill, begins to show signs of fatigue when he goes on The O'Reilly Factor and accidentally spends forty minutes attacking the character of Jim Carrey.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 18: New York Times breaks exclusive story that contrary to public perception, there is still a war going on in Iraq. Article appears on page D-23, between a report on the economy and an article on nuclear proliferation in Korea.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 25: Bush accuses Kerry of cross-dressing, robbing a liquor store and running a crack house out of at least one of his eleven mansions. Kerry accuses Bush of molesting small animals, being on the grassy knoll during the Kennedy assassination, and quietly selling three of the blue states to Red China. In an even more scathing exchange, John Edwards accuses Dick Cheney of being Bush's running mate while Cheney accuses Edwards of being on the Democratic ticket. All four deny all charges while John McCain, speaking at Bush rally, repudiates everything Bush has said, then hugs and endorses him.

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 1: America's voters, disgusted by months of negative campaigning and lies, decide en masse that they don't want any of these guys. No one goes to the polls or mails in an absentee ballot but Bush somehow manages to get several million votes in Florida and any state serviced by Diebold voting machines. United States Supreme Court is on vacation but they have left behind instructions that, by a 5-4 margin, any election challenges are to be decided in favor of the Republican. Population of Iraq decides that if this is democracy, they'd rather have Saddam back. Instead, since he isn't available, they elect Alan Keyes who moves there just in time to qualify as a resident. U.S. Democrats declare they're angry and vow to fight harder next time. Or maybe the time after.