Kevin Drum nailed it, I think. Scandal earns the day. History, the President’s first term, and the current political dynamic are brimming with evidence for this, as Drum points out:

Consider the highlight reel of reelected presidents over the past 50 years. Ike won a second term and watched in dismay as his chief of staff was forced to resign over a vicu

OK, it’s essentially official. Even if, by some miracle, legal battles in Ohio throw the outcome of the election into question, President Bush will remain President Bush until the year 2008. Half the networks have called Ohio for Bush, enshrining him as the victor in the sleepy minds of many. And as my one true love, the Supreme Court, informed us in 2000, we mustn’t disturb our fragile national psyche with silly questions of absentee whozits or civil rightamajiggies or provisional whatnots. If the people think Bush won, he won.

And they do, so he did.

I had expected this outcome long ago, but there’s one disappointment I wasn’t numb to. Justice Rehnquist. The evidence suggests his thyroid cancer is fatal. I can’t imagine he’ll be returning to the Court for any real tenure. Sure, he’d love to attend to his legacy, but you know, can’t cheat death and taxes ‘n’ all.

To me, the Supreme Court is a fragile miracle. It’s my favorite thing in our entire government. Even Scalia and Thomas, the big lugs. After all, lose them, and you lose the legitimacy of the Court in the eyes of much of America. And America, despite its lack of faith in all else, somehow continues to believe in the Court.

I don’t think the Court will turn drastically conservative or anything, but I think it could lose its progressive edge if the balance is tilted by a Bush nominee. And then it would become just another muddy, stale brick in the wall.

Last week’s PIPA survey has gotten quite a bit of play in the press. In short, red and blue America live in different worlds. Red America (that is, over three-fourths of President Bush’s supporters in this election) sees a world where Saddam Hussein was the shadowy figure behind al Qaeda and 9/11, where somewhere in the crannies of Tikrit there sits a yet-undiscovered stash of weapons of mass destruction, and where most of the world cheers our efforts in Iraq. Blue America believes the opposite on all counts.

When it comes to what people believe about their candidates, majorities of the President’s supporters misperceive his foreign policy positions, while majorities of Kerry’s supporters perceive his positions accurately, weeks before an election where foreign policy is supposedly the biggest issue on the table.

But the survey respondents who give me the most hope for democracy are the 18-Percenters. Eighteen percent of Bush supporters still believe Iraq had WMD or a major WMD program even though they know that the Duelfer report concluded otherwise.

Hans Blix. David Kay. The Senate Intelligence Committee. Charles Duelfer. Either invisible to faith-based America, or simply wrong.

So this is what it comes down to. We march to the polls a week from today armed with completely different truths, answering completely different realities. How are we supposed to build a democracy together? And what could possibly be done about this divide?

I’ll join the chorus of handwringing on the Internet for the lack of an online version of David Owen’s article in last week’s New Yorker. I could write about it, but Tim’s already done that quite well enough for the both of us. So I’ll go the crowd one better, and reproduce a few paragraphs for your pleasure and edification:

Most Americans, including most New Yorkers, think of New York City as an ecological nightmare, a wasteland of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams, but in comparison with the rest of America it’s a model of environmental responsibility. By the most significant measures, New York is the greenest community in the United States, and one of the greenest cities in the world. The most devastating damage humans have done to the environment has arisen from the heedless burning of fossil fuels, a category in which New Yorkers are practically prehistoric. The average Manhattanite consumes gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasn’t matched since the mid-nineteen-twenties, when the most widely owned car in the United States was the Ford Model T. Eighty-two per cent of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. That’s ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for residents of Los Angeles County. New York City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were granted statehood, it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy use.

“Anyplace that has such tall buildings and heavy traffic is obviously an environmental disaster

Jaysus, what has Nick Denton been up to? I mean, we all knew about Gawker and Wonkette and Fleshbot and Gizmodo (and we maintained a dim awareness of Defamer, although clearly not a bookmark), but apparently someone fed the Denton media empire after midnight and dropped it in the swimming pool (*), because his blogs have been spawning while no one was paying attention.

Screenhead? Jalopnik? Kotaku?

I predict that Denton’s reputation as the savvy, overmarketed blog-trepreneur soon turns a corner and his little Web empire collapses, ooooor possibly you’ll find me outside the Gawker Building in Times Square begging for a correspondent’s gig. Only time will tell.

That November evening marked the beginning of what would become one of the most sensational child abuse cases the Bay Area has seen. In the investigation that followed, it was revealed that the four women — Carol Bremner, then 43; Deirdre Wilson, 37; Mary Campbell, 37; and Kali Polk-Matthews, 19 — were part of a mom-and-pop cult led by a dreadlocked, self-styled mystic named Winnfred Wright. Together, the women had borne him 13 children, who, investigators found, had been living in almost total seclusion in the family’s rented house in Marinwood, north of San Francisco. The children didn’t go to school, or to the doctor or dentist; they ate a strict, nearly vegan diet. Many of them were suffering from rickets, a disease caused by a vitamin D deficiency. A few of the children were in advanced stages of the illness and had noticeable bone deformities. …

Far from being monsters, Wright’s wives were actually smart, gutsy, warmhearted people. Bremner and Wilson had been popular student leaders at the center of their respective college-activist communities. They had been, those who knew them said over and over again, critical thinkers and independent women, the last people you’d imagine getting suckered into a cult. Campbell had been a vivacious Manhattan secretary; her family had always believed she would become a teacher because of her love for children. There was no sign she could become the kind of mother who’d let her baby die of malnutrition.

These people certainly weren’t part of the reality-based community.

I caught the tail end of the debates last night on an airport TV screen, trying to discern the political orientations of those around me from their facial expressions. Everyone just looked mad.

From what I could tell, the big gaffe out of the debate was forecasted to be Bush’s “I never said I wasn’t worried about Osama” line, which pundits predicted would drench the airwaves tomorrow, juxtaposed with some video of that one time he said he wasn’t worried about Osama.

Wrong. The Fran-Drescher-esque drones of CNN Headline News today focused their incessant banter on a different “story” out of yesterday’s debate — Kerry had the utter gall to identify Dick Cheney’s daughter as a lesbian.

It’s not that Kerry just blurted this out of the blue; he’d been asked whether he thought homosexuality was a choice. This was his response:

We’re all God’s children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was, she’s being who she was born as.

It’s not that Mary Cheney isn’t out and proud.

It’s not that Kerry’s answer contained even a tinge of disrespect for Mary Cheney.

It’s that a savvy Bush campaign adviser realized that the Osama thing was going to be all over the news today and selected his own brilliant little dodge. The entire Cheney family (except for Mary) was out in full force today, shocked, SHOCKED!! that Kerry could have mentioned their daughter to “score political points.”

Lynn Cheney:

I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more. And the only thing I could conclude is this is not a good man. This is not a good man. And, of course, I am speaking as a mom and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick.

Father Cheney:

You saw a man who will say and do anything in order to get elected. And I am not speaking just as a father here, though I am a pretty angry father. But I’m also speaking as a citizen.

Even other-daughter Liz was trotted out on Paula Zahn to share her family’s suffering, poor wounded lamb.

Feel free to look at Kerry’s statement one more time.

The media bought this???! News directors/editors everywhere actually swallowed the notion that a campaign run by Karl “No Smear’s Too Queer” Rove was outraged that an opposing candidate had affirmingly mentioned the sexuality of a profoundly public lesbian?? We’ve lost our marbles.

The only logical way to interpret Kerry’s statement as any sort of a swipe at Mary Cheney is to grant that homosexuality is tainted. Andrew Sullivan can take it from there.

Color me disgusted. Not at the Bush/Cheney campaign — all’s fair in love and politics — but at the journalists who swallowed, digested, and shat this sham into our diet of news.

Segway 2.0 is here. I predict new sub-genera of homo sapiens will develop merely to perfect its use. Entire new languages will sprout only to describe it. For one shining moment, all the fighting and the violence in the world will stop so all humankind can admire its life-giving gleam. And it will put an end to cancer and world hunger. Let me be the first to say, this thing is going to be bigger than God.

A little “Ginger” nostalgia.

All right. We’re here, we’re queer, we’re ready to blog. Aaaand, we’re already on the first question, so I’m just going to cut to it.

9:04 p.m.: Clearly, Dick Cheney is just going to bring it. In his first answer, already he’s restating that Saddam and Al Qaeda were connected. Which fact, I believe, was thrown into doubt last week by the CIA. And, er, Donald Rumsfeld.

9:06 p.m.: Johnny’s clearly going to bring it right back. We’ve lost more troops in September than we have in August, he says, More in August than in July, more in July than in June.

9:11 p.m.: Second Cheney answer, second doubtful assertion … The situation in Iraq is one where you’ve got terrorists and you’ve got all the weapons of mass destruction that [Saddam] had been building up, and you’re in danger of the two coming together. There’re those pesky WMD that don’t appear to exist. I think there were about 420-some pages on this in the New York Times this past Sunday, in fact.

9:15 p.m.: Cheney’s strategy, at this point, is clear. Screw the facts. Harsh? Absolutely. But come on. Third answer — third severely questionable assertion. Ten million registered voters in Afghanistan, almost half of them women. Oooor:

The tally of registered voters in Afghanistan, over 10.5 million in an overall population of 26 million, is now believed to be significantly inaccurate, the result of widespread multiple registration by voters. As explained here, pronouncements by Afghan and international officials boasting that 40 percent of registered voters are women ignores the likelihood that tens of thousands of women have been registered more than once (some believing their voting card would entitle them to benefits or food rations), and masks regional variation in the figures, including data from some southern provinces showing that less than 10 percent of those registered are women. Several election officials in Kabul acknowledged to Human Rights Watch in late September that the number of Afghans expected to vote on October 9 could range as low as 5 to 7 million.

That study came out like last week. It’s not like D.C. hasn’t seen it.

9:20 p.m.: Ya-ZOW! Cheney to Edwards: … random piece of legislation, yadda yadda … you probably weren’t there to vote for that, Senator. Da-HANG!

9:29 p.m. Johnny is a pitbull. This is the height of hypocrisy. ZING! I love it! These guys are, like, verbally all over each other. I would tell them to get a room, but them getting it on would actually be kind of gross, and Dickie might have a coronary.

9:34 p.m.: Gwen Ifill? LOVE her.

9:39 p.m.: D.C.: I could respond, Gwen, but I’ll need more than 30 seconds. *smug grin* Gwen: Well, that’s all you’ve got. (Beeyotch.) This woman is fierce. Whatever the pundits say, they’re wrong. Gwen Ifill won this debate.

9:44 p.m.: Sooo, it may seem somewhat discordant that Robin’s blogging in Pacific Standard Time and I’m blogging in Eastern Standard Time. And, also, odd, given that I’m currently in California, where it is in fact 9:45 p.m 6:45 p.m.. (Ahem.) But — I dunno — it seems wrong that an event that is clearly transpiring in prime time is somehow happening at 6 p.m.

9:50 p.m.: I don’t even see Johnny rifling through papers. How does he remember all these FACTS?? Don’t get me wrong, Cheney also has an impressive grasp of boatloads of info, but Edwards is like frickin’ Tron.

10:01 p.m.: Gay marriage, blah, blah, blah. Oh wait, hold on, was that a tender moment between Messrs. Eddie and Chen-Chen? Dickie’s all, Thanks, Johnny. That was really sweet, you know, what you said about Mary. *batting of eyelashes, exchange of long, loving glance*

Don’t be afraid to speak your love, guys. We all know Don’t write discrimination into the Constitution is just pol-speak for J.E. + D.C. 4evr.

10:10 p.m.: Oooh, yeah, speak health care to me, Johnny. Fifty years old, Matt. FIFTY. YEARS. OLD.

10:14 p.m.: Gwen to Johnny: You have no experience. Why are you here? Johnny: Ummm … look into my eeeeyes. Am I not beautiful? Is my jawline not perfect? Does the 1950s part in my shiny, gorgeous hair not convince you of my earnestness? Don’t question me, Argwentina.

Good answer.

10:19 p.m.: Cheney: Wait, Gwen, you want to know why I’m different from John Edwards? Whoa, I’m totally not. I’m, like, the son of a mill worker. And I’m prettier than he is.

10:21 p.m.: Edwards: How am I not like Cheney? Well, let’s see, I’m actually John Kerry. What??

10:26 p.m.: Kevin Drum think Johnny sounded too negative in the foreign policy part of this debate. I’d disagree, and not just because he’s hott. Not hot. Totally un-hot. Old enough to be my father. OK, well, maybe partially because he’s hott. Really, harsh criticism coming from him sounds completely un-harsh.

10:36 p.m.: Oh, snap. John Edwards started his final statement by thanking Gwen and Cheney. Cheney, somewhat pointedly, I thought, started his statement with, Gwen, I want to thank you. *Thudding silence.* No nookie for Johnny-boy tonight.

Pre-spin closing thoughts: I actually thought this debate was really interesting in the foreign policy segment, then faltered off as domestic policy took over. Not only were the two men quite snarky to each other at first, but they were engaging in a substantial back-and-forth on the merits of the policy and the strengths and weaknesses of its execution. Facts (and, yes, largely unfounded assertions) were flying left and right, and it was meaty and absorbing, I thought.

It wasn’t that either of them started doing worse as the debate wore on, it just kind of ground down into predictable ruts when it got to domestic policy. (Cheney: Look at all the great stuff we’ve done. Edwards: Look at all the great stuff we’ll do.) That’s partially because the domestic situation is just murky right now — could be better, could be worse. A lot of scathing criticisms could be made of the situation on the homefront these past four years, but there’s nothing there quite as shimmeringly catastrophic as Iraq.

All Edwards had to do was sit there and be charismatic. And he did, but he was sharp about his facts and his logic, too, so he definitely did well. Cheney, sadly lacking the charisma chromosome, did the best he could against such an opponent. I don’t think either won or lost this one, but Edwards may have continued the momentum Kerry earned last week, while Cheney didn’t quite reverse the falling fortunes of his set, I’d imagine.*

Now, onto the real fight. Will Laguna Beach’s L.C. wrest Stephen from the wily arms of her competitor Kristin? We’ll find out at 10:30 p.m. / 9 p.m. Central.

*Although I still think his set is going to win.