Game, Set, Match?

When George Bush and Dick Cheney look back at the election and wonder when it all went wrong, the answer may be October 28. After declining to discuss the missing weapons story for days, perhaps encouraged by right wing radio, TV and internet bloggers yelling "John Kerry is wrong," on Thursday Bush and Cheney crawled from beneath their rocks and challenged Kerry.

"Senator Kerry will say anything to get elected," Bush told 6,000 supporters.

The right reacted happily, perhaps thinking this would be the event that turns the corner for Bush. In fact, during the 6 p.m. hour on the east coast Charles Krauthammer on Fox News was going on about how the missing weapon story was now hurting John Kerry.

Unbeknownst to them, a thousand miles away in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a battleground state no less, KSTP was broadcasting a story from a reporter who was in actually in Iraq at the weapons site and saw the weapons, showing a tape, which shows U.S. military personnel examining the weapons, which they later left unguarded.

The KSTP crew witnessed soldiers using bolt cutters to get into bunkers. Inside, they found many containers marked "explosives." At least one set of crates carried the name "Al-Qaqaa State Establishment."

So much for the Bush complaint about speaking without the facts. On CNN Newsnight, Aaron Brown asked former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay if this was "game, set, match" on ending the debate on Kerry's claims. Kay's response - "I think it is game, set and match."

While Bush was speaking before 6,000, Kerry attended a rally in Madison, Wis., that attracted more than 80,000 people, drawn by Bruce Springsteen. A fire marshal said the crowd, near the state capitol, was the largest ever to assemble for a single event in the city.

In a close election, everyone was looking for the tipping point. Was this it, or the latest Halliburton relavations, or the doctored ad? Whatever it was, it was bad