well, the party mascot is an ass.

A snapshot of the Donkey Party, five weeks before this thing is finally over.

Noted previously: John Kerry's claim of owning a Chinese assault rifle, a souvenir from his time in (where else?) Vietnam. Never mind that Kerry has long held such weapons ought be illegal—double standards for me, though not for thee—it now turns out that, gosh, it seems that it ain't really one of those awful things, after all.

Senator John Kerry's campaign said yesterday that Mr. Kerry did not own a Chinese assault rifle, as he was quoted as saying in Outdoor Life magazine, but a single-bolt-action military rifle, blaming aides who filled out the magazine's questionnaire on his behalf for the error.

Michael Meehan, a spokesman for the campaign, said Mr. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, owns two guns, a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun and the rifle, which Mr. Meehan said Mr. Kerry “keeps as a relic” and had never fired. Mr. Meehan said the gun had no make or model markings on it and that Mr. Kerry “got it from a friend years ago,” adding that such rifles were first manufactured in Russia more than 100 years ago and were used by the North Koreans and the Vietcong. […]

Though the comment was presented by Outdoor Life as part of an “exclusive interview with the two presidential candidates,” four pages that included many long, conversational answers using first-person pronouns, Mr. Meehan said Mr. Kerry's portions were written by his staff. A public relations representative for Outdoor Life did not respond to a message seeking comment.

To recap: It isn't an assault rifle; it isn't a war trophy; and the Senator blames more tall tales of his formative four months and twelve days on his hapless staff. Michelle Malkin takes it away.

In case you missed the latest tranzi outrage, next month's election will have international observers. Apparently that is just peachy with one James Earl Carter (last seen proclaiming Fahrenheit 911 as equal in his affections with Casablanca).

The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: “Why don't you observe the election in Florida?” and “How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?”

The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

Cited evidence includes the listing of Ralph Nader's name on absentee ballots before the state Supreme Court (remember them?) had weighed in. Not for the first time, capital-D Democrats interpret anything that might damage their electoral prospects as a danger to small-d democracy. And of course, the fact that said Court ruled Nader's inclusion legitimate was not deemed worth mentioning by the most stultifyingly self-righteous of our former presidents.

One of John Kerry's oft-repeated (and infuriatingly mendacious) claims is that the Bush Administration is “unilateral.” He would do better—a pronouncement that passes his lips almost as often as variations on “While I served in Vietnam…”

Part of this doing better, he says, will be more involvement by our oh-so-alienated allies in rescuing us from what he says is the quagmire in Iraq. But the Financial Times notes that the road just got rockier.

French and German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2.

Mr Kerry, who has attacked President George W. Bush for failing to broaden the US-led alliance in Iraq, has pledged to improve relations with European allies and increase international military assistance in Iraq.

“I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops, whoever becomes president,” Gert Weisskirchen, member of parliament and foreign policy expert for Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party, said in an interview. […]

Michel Barnier, the French foreign minister, said last week that France, which has tense relations with interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, had no plans to send troops “either now or later”.

That view reflects the concerns of many EU and Nato officials, who say the dangers in Iraq and the difficulty of extricating troops already there could make European governments reluctant to send personnel, regardless of the outcome of the US election.

Duh?

MORE: French perfidy knows no bounds.

France said Monday that it would take part in a proposed international conference on Iraq only if the agenda included a possible U.S. troop withdrawal, thus complicating the planning for a meeting that has drawn mixed reactions.

Paris also wants representatives of Iraq's insurgent groups to be invited to a conference in October or November, a call that would seem difficult for the Bush administration to accept.

“Seem difficult”? Is that, like, an attempt at irony? (Via AllahPundit.)