Some things are par for the course on a pre-election blog. A mocked-up photograph of John Kerry as Neville Chamberlain on the unaffiliated but supportive Blogs for Bush should not surprise you so much.
Not surprise you, but it is still not at the highest level of political debate.
Though the reasoning is simple, George Bush is a well known enthusiast for Winston Churchill, the faithful view the war on terror as a second world war re-run and Republican supporters are convinced 1930s-style appeasement was at work when Mr Kerry said Americans needed "to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance". On the plus side, at least no one pasted Jane Fonda in there this time round.
But there are times when even the rough and tumble of electoral passions morph into something further from the truth. It is in this manner, presumably, that the same blog turns abuses at the Abu Ghraib jail into "crude fraternity pranks" and the "anti-US organisation" that (to its mind, surprisingly) approved of the Afghan elections was the United Nations and not the more militantly anti-American al-Qaida.
There are bound to be a few reasons for this: one is that intense partisanship (on both sides) and stubbornness are not too far apart; another (whisper this quietly) that there is not a huge amount going on in this between-debate lull but people still need something to shout about.
Breaking all the rules, come twinned posts on the pro-Bush Wizbang and pro-Kerry The Blogging of the President asking those straying out of their usual patch of the blogosphere why they are voting for their chosen candidate. "Absolutely no mention of John Kerry will be tolerated," state the ground rules on the latter. "This is to limit the discussion to 'why vote FOR Bush' and not 'why to vote AGAINST Kerry'. If you want to discuss that, there are a couple zillion websites out there."
So far the posts have proved interesting. "Bush is doing something we haven't done in a half a century - trying to spread a semblance of liberty to the regions of the world that sorely need it," posts Gary Owen on The Blogging of the President. "Bush stands for retaining America's pre-eminence in the world, and has made great strides in eliminating state sponsorship of terrorism."
"Taxes," adds David B. "Whoever lowers taxes the most and the fastest will win my vote 99% of the time. It doesn't matter to me who's taxes get lowered, just as long as government takes less and less of our money."
Wizbang's posts put forward the Kerry argument, including some seldom heard: "There needs to be a return to balance in the balance of powers," writes David Anderson. "Since the GOP will probably manage to hold on to a majority in congress, it will serve the interest of the American people better to have a Democrat in the White House."
Another says Mr Kerry was his anyone-but-Bush candidate until he saw a television interview. "There it was clear that this guy's not just smart, but balanced," suggests Doug Robinson. "There's a kind of middle-aged gravitas to him, not a heaviness so much as a calm self-awareness: a sense of 'I know who I am and don't have to fake it'. That's pretty rare in politics."
It is not exactly Chamberlain's peace in our time or the trigger-happy Texan of legend, but it may be the best we can hope for until the final debate throws up a new set of quotes to discuss, and video freeze frames to pore over.
