Liberals say that in 2000 George W. Bush was elected president by the Supreme Court. I say that in 2004 George W. Bush was reelected by the Supreme Court--the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

Seventy-nine percent of the voters who reelected George W. Bush chose "moral values" as their top concern. Among all voters, morality trumped the economy/jobs, terrorism, Iraq, health care, taxes, and education.

Unsurprisingly, this undeniable phenomenon--morality being the primary catalyst that reelected the president--is being spun by pundits uncomfortable with it.

Adam Doverspike at RedState claims the morality "emphasis is very misleading." It's not, but his argument is. He claims "the War on Terrorism and the War in Iraq were the most important issue to 34% of voters while Taxes/Economy/Jobs/Health Care counted for 33% of voters. Moral Values garnered 22%."

Nice try, but the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq are two separate issues. They were listed as two separate issues in the exit poll. Sure, combining the records of the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Jets makes them the winningest team in football--if only they were a single team. They're not, just like the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq are two different issues. More evidence on this point can be found by analyzing where these votes went: voters placing chief importance on terrorism went 86-14 for Bush, while those picking Iraq went 73-26 for Kerry.

Moral values, CBS's Dick Meyer complains, are a code word, for well, being against immorality. Meyer calls the conventional wisdom that moral values were of supreme importance to election 2004 "exaggerated," "misguided," and "mularky."

Meyer writes: "Moral values, as a phrase on an exit poll, is a Rorschach Test; to a great degree, the question is like asking, 'What is most important to you – jobs, terrorism, health care, education, or the issue that is really the most important issue to you.' It's tautological." Come again?

Social liberals ignore reality at their own peril. Eleven of eleven states where questions on gay marriages and/or civil unions appeared on the ballot rejected the gay agenda. Four out of five voters who reelected the president picked "moral values" as the issue of primary importance to them. Moral values outperformed issues that received exponentially more news coverage--Iraq and the economy, to cite just two examples.

Liberals cheered the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts for imposing gay marriage upon the people of the Bay State--John Kerry's constituents--by fiat. They're not cheering now.

I think Iraq hawks are very eager to say that W's war was affirmed in this election, and that is probably what the RedState guy wants to say. But if you look at the polls we have to think it was a net minus for Bush, and that different issues were the winners for him. What especially worked for W was that libs think normal middle-class and lower-middle-class people should primarily be motivated (1) by their pocket books, and (2) out of hatred for the rich, rather than out of concern for actually good and right action (in the war on terror and on cultural/moral issues). Kerry's anti-rich rhetoric did him no good with normal white married folk in this country, which is the republican base.

When will the dems learn that people don't just care about taking the rich's money, but also care about things like marriage?

Also, Kerry wasn't an anti-war candidate. He never said that Iraq was a mistake and that we should pull out. Quite the opposite, he wanted 40,000 more troops! Had the elction been between a pro-war amd am anti-war candidate it would have been much more interesting.

This is definately a moral war. Most countries in Europe are pissed because they have already lost their war and cant stand to see anyone sticking up for family values over "progressive thinking".

Let's just hope Specter gets canned and maybe Clarence Thomas can even become Chief Justice.

I commented on the Mass SC under your post on Bush being reelected but just want to reiterate something implied by Short . . . the neocons, like the Dems, are spinning this result away from its true source. Note well what really seems to concern them. An interesting exception is the neocon fellwo traveler Ann Coulter who actually hits all this right on the button in her latest column.

The war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the current war being fought by Israel and the Palestinians are really are part of the same war. They are simply multiple fronts in the same war, much like World War II. Even though that war had fronts in Europe, the Far East, and Africa it was all part of the same war. Many pundits, both conservative and liberal, tend to view these as separate. If we get to narrowly focused on Osama Bin Laden, at the expense of the broader war, we will loose. It is very important that we understand the nature of the Jihadist enemy.

It is also very important that we understand what the goals of the Jihadist enemy are. Their goal is complete and total world domination. Nothing less will satisfy them. In other words, they do not hate us for anything we have or have not done. They hate us simply for who we are. Also it is very important to understand who the allies of this enemy are. Russia and China are both known to have supported terrorists and terrorist supporting states. The sooner we understand these things the closer we will be to victory.