Touched by the Hand of Something

On Tavis Smiley’s “People’s Debate” this morning, a man declared that he was voting for Bush because the president has “the hand of God on him.” He made his case by highlighting the fact that when Bush’s father lost his run for Congress years ago, he was then appointed an ambassadorship: God’s hand. All these blessed events in the Bush family, to this man, make the president, in a way, holy.

I Laughed Out Loud.

Later on the show, Cornell West gave an unintentional rebuttal to this concept:

“If President Bush was a black man,” West said, “he would be running a pawn shop in Texas.”

*

An insidery-on-Kerry’s-campaign-plane story from the Boston Globe today has these nice bits:

''Wake me up if Mike McCurry comes back here with his pants off," quipped one reporter, so tired she didn't care about getting news from Kerry's spokesman.

[and]

Bleary-eyed reporters, for their part, are knocking over laptops, breaking cellphones, and misplacing digital tape recorders. After Kerry's 8 a.m. speech yesterday in Green Bay, a Kerry aide found a notebook left behind by one journalist -- or ''by one of the kids," as she put it.

''Kids?" replied Shanan Guinn, another campaign aide.

''The children -- you know, the reporters. That's what I call them," the aide said.