2.  Kerry is a liberal Democrat, but in this campaign he is running as a reactionary: one who wants to reverse course -- to go back to the attitudes and practices that guided US policy when Clinton and the elder George Bush were in office. The younger Bush may be a Republican, but he is running this year as a radical. Profoundly transformed by 9/11, he sees the old playbook as feckless and is set on a revolutionary new course.

3.  Almost everyone in America, thanks to the presidential election mess of 2000, knows that the Constitution provides that the president will be selected by an Electoral College, not by direct popular vote. Only 538 persons, representing the slates of electors chosen by voters in the fifty states and the District of Columbia, actually vote directly for president. The person receiving a majority of the votes of electors becomes the president. In the event that no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the decision falls, under the 12th Amendment, to the House of Representatives.

4.  Bush’s actions on September 11 have been the subject of lively debate, mostly on the internet. Details reported that day and in the week after the attacks—both the media reports and accounts given by Bush himself—have changed radically over the past 18 months. Culling hundreds of reports from newspapers, magazines, and the internet has only made finding the “truth” of what happened and when it happened more confusing. In the changed political climate after 9/11, few have dared raise challenging questions about Bush’s actions. A journalist who said Bush was “flying around the country like a scared child, seeking refuge in his mother’s bed after having a nightmare” and another who said Bush “skedaddled” were fired. We should have a concise record of where President Bush was throughout the day the US was attacked, but we do not.

5.  WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush said Friday that while the current economic crisis has sent shock waves around the world, he believes steps taken by his administration have "laid the groundwork for a return to economic growth and job creation" early in the administration of President- elect Barack Obama.  "The American economy has consistently proven its strength and resilience" Bush wrote in his final economic report to the nation.  He said this resilience has continued despite multiple blows to the economy.  Bush's statement came at the beginning of the annual report of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.