Me: there was a scheduled campaigning blackout

Tom: Kerry has money [non sequiter, by the way]. Kerry campaigning makes polls worse. Press loves Kerry. Democrats hate Bush. Democrats have dirty tricks lined up. The press is out to get me.

Your actual quote: ...they mentioned that there would be a campaigning blackout for about a one month period. In order to conserve funds.

My pointing out that he has plenty of money is not a non-sequitor in this instance. It shows that the reason given is not a valid one. The fact that the press has been smoothing Kerry's road for him is self-evident. Pretending I'm imagining it is not a valid argument either. The rest of the post is a prediction. Let's see how it pans out, shall we?

Me: Looks like Kerry was doing more than windsurfing today after all (in a joking manner). Ambiguous tease about the heroic Bush flight (sorry, can't help myself).

Tom (falling for my ambiguity): Bush flew planes.

Thought you were talking about his Guard duty, not the flight to the carrier. Not my fault you're ambiguous.

"As for the troop rearrangments, Kerry supported it before Bush actually did it." Where did this come from? Thought we were talking about either campaigning or extra-curricular activities. "As for the troop rearrangments"? Did I ambiguously bring it up, somehow?

The entire article you linked to was on that specific subject. Maybe a bit off topic on my part.

"As usual, his political stance appears to be 'I would do exactly what Bush is doing, only it wouldn't be Bush doing it.' Actually, for a lot of his supporters, that's all they need."

OK, I'll indulge. Any two different presidents will *not* handle things the same way. If you really believed that Kerry will do things exactly like Bush, then you would not campaign for Bush.

What Kerry says is what he thinks he needs to say to get elected. Period. And damn little of what he's saying now matches what he has actually done during his political career. Whatever else you might say about Bush, you know what you're getting after his first four years, and it's fairly obvious that most of it is not driven by polls.