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Lord Black of Fleet exchanges letters with Roger Ebert.

With less than one week until the U.S. election, PBS is airing Frontline: Rumsfield’s War tonight. Will John Kerry be using quotes from this show tomorrow? From the press release:

“I think to a degree, he’s stubborn. Being stubborn, holding to your convictions is good to a point, but when the evidence around you indicates your position is not tenable, then you ought to start adapting to the situation,” says retired USMC Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper.

…

Former CENTCOM Commander-in-Chief General Joseph Hoar (Ret.) tells FRONTLINE, “Today we find over fifty percent of the United States Army, the regular army, ten divisions, committed overseas. It’s not sustainable.”

Also on PBS this week: Independent Lens: The Political Dr. Seuss. What links, if any, will the program make between Dr. Seuss’s allegories, and the war in Iraq? In fact, Theodor Seuss Geisel was critical of those who opposed U.S. intervention against foreign tyrants (see cartoon, and mention of Charles Lindbergh.)

Surprisingly, the Detroit News tracking poll again shows Bush in the lead in Michigan 47-42. Neither side seems ready to believe this, but theories about the factors that led to Bush’s rise include gay marraige, and Kerry’s debate snub of Poland.

The latest RCP Electoral College prediction has Bush at 234 (including leaners like IA,NV &CO) , and Kerry at 211 (with PA & HI). Tossups include If Bush takes Michigan, that puts him at 251, which leaves needing just 19 more electoral votes from the 76 in the other tossup states: FL (27 ), OH (20), MN (10), WI (10), NM (5), NH (4).

Winning combinations with MI, and without FL are:
OH (20)
MN (10) + WI (10)
MN (10) + NM (5) + NH (4)
WI (10) + NM (5) + NH (4)

Bob Woodward had 22 questions he wanted to ask Kerry about how he would have handled Iraq differently. After initially saying they would agree to the interview, and being provided with the questions in advance, Kerry’s campaign has now decided not to. Read the questions that the Kerry campaign decided were best left unanswered.

Mark Steyn in today’s Chicago Sun-Times: No time for Kerry’s Europhile delusions

After much stonewalling, the Province of Quebec’s Health Department announced this week that in the last year some 600 Quebecers had died from C. difficile, a bacterium acquired in hospital. In other words, if, say, Bill Clinton had gone for his heart bypass to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, he would have had the surgery, woken up the next day swimming in diarrhea and then died. It’s a bacterium caused by inattention to hygiene — by unionized, unsackable cleaners who don’t clean properly; by harassed overstretched hospital staff who don’t bother washing their hands as often as they should. So 600 people have been killed by the filthy squalor of disease-ridden government hospitals. That’s the official number. Unofficially, if you’re over 65, the hospitals will save face and attribute your death at their hands to “old age” or some such and then “lose” the relevant medical records. Quebec’s health system is a lot less healthy than, for example, Iraq’s.

One thousand Americans are killed in 18 months in Iraq, and it’s a quagmire. One thousand Quebecers are killed by insufficient hand-washing in their filthy, decrepit health care system, and kindly progressive Americans can’t wait to bring it south of the border…