Was a sunny day, not a cloud was in the sky

Why the good mood, despite the darkness all around us?

Because despite my proclamations of dismay and pessimism concerning this year's election last night over beers, things seem to be looking up.

For one thing,


In the NYTimes this morning was a 3.5 page (as printed; 15 pages online) article by David Barstow, William J. Broad, and Jeff Gerth about the pre-war intelligence on Iraq's imagined nuclear program, detailing the debates in the intelligence community about whether there was any evidence for the idea that Iraq was ramping up to develop nuclear weapons, and about how the Bush/Cheney administration ignored the complexity of those debates in order to march forward to attack Iraq. A login is required at the NYTimes site, but it's free and worth it, if you haven't read this article in print.

For another thing, and this is what has really made me smile, Reuters reports that Kerry has pulled ahead of Bush in a Newsweek poll, thanks to the debate.

Cound this mean that Americans are actually taking time to think and analyze what they are hearing, that when you move away from the half-sentence level that seems to favor Bush and toward the longer statements, Kerry can actually be convincing.

Oh my gods and goddesses, I hope so!