CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL SCIENTIST HENRY NAU SAID IT ALL YESTERDAY. When asked what message a Bush loss would send terrorists and the rest of the world if this President were to lose the election, he responded that the message America would be sending is: “DEMOCRACY.

AS REPORTED BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Ten years ago: The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report saying CIA Director R. James Woolsey’s response to the Aldrich Ames spy case was “seriously inadequate,” but that his predecessors were ultimately to blame for the scandal. The original Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report is here.

I STILL HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO TO GET INTO JOSH MARSHALL’S league, but I just received my monthly web visits statistics for October, which are 250,683. Josh and Wonkette get more than this many visits by breakfast, but for a new site, I’m pleased. September visits were 140,386.

I AM ALL FOR FUN, BUT THE CRAZY PROGNOSTICATORS ON BOTH SIDES of this political race are going a bit far (and yes, I’m going to overstate my case, just for fun). It is Halloween tonight, and soon I’ll have little goblins and dwarf Dick Cheneys, George Bushes, and John Kerrys here to collect candy….

THOSE WHO THINK THAT COMMERCIAL AIRLINES ARE NOT SENDING back the remains of soldiers have outdated information or are wrong it turns out. I have been been flooded with information over the last day about the Department of Defense regulations regarding shipping back a soldier’s remains to the United States.

AFTER I PUBLISHED “A SOLDIER’S STORY,” A THREAD of extraordinarily interesting and useful comments by others has developed on topics ranging from whether the soldier I was speaking to was feeding me material that was part real and part rumor, all real, or entirely contrived.

LAST NIGHT, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY’S NEWLY ACQUIRED G. JOHN IKENBERRY celebrated his 50th Birthday and his brilliant wife, Lidia Usami, performed in a chamber music recital for about 100 of their Washington friends to whom they wanted to say good-bye. A lot of folks were discussing bin Laden’s latest video message to Americans.

I JUST SAT NEXT TO A VERY TOUGH SOLDIER FROM THE 82ND AIRBORNE on a flight back from Europe. I have been thinking for two days about how to share some of the things he told me without compromising him.

AP REPORTS THAT AN ARMED INSURGENT GROUP, THE AL-KARAR BRIGADE, says that it worked with various U.S. military and intelligence officers in moving the massive amount of explosives that has become a major pre-election controversy.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S OBSESSION WITH ESCAPING from the norms of the Geneva Conventions seems bizarre to me. One would think that lessons might have been learned by this point from America’s experiences at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.