THE TENSION: Counterbalance for Sun 5 Nov.

The buzz inside the Beltway outside the mainstream:

Nancy Pelosi reemerges! House control at stake, President Bush campaigned Sunday in endangered Republican districts across GOP-friendly middle America. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), hoping to become the first female speaker, stumped for Democratic challengers in the left-leaning Northeast, reports A P.

SFGate.com reports House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi warned that a Republican victory Tuesday would prolong the U.S. involvement in Iraq another 10 years, as she embarked on a final push in a campaign that could make her speaker.

Despite the healthy economy, low unemployment rate, and fact that not one terrorist attack has occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11, Pelosi slimed the government:

"This is a freak show, and it has to come to an end," Pelosi said. "This is about a Congress and White House whose purpose is to concentrate wealth into the top 1 percent of our country at the expense of the middle class."

Kevin McCullough, writing at Townhall.com, tells us why we should believe John Kerry.

John Kerry hasn't tucked tail and run this fast since his third "purple heart" in Vietnam. Then he wanted to get out of the free fire of the Viet Cong, now he wants out of the free fire of truth and analysis. Nonetheless the world should take note of John Kerry, because this week he has given us all an indisputable truth.
John Kerry should be believed - not for the substance of what he says mind you - but because of what it reveals about him personally that he would pull the curtain back and let us all see what he really thought.
Liberals always have to dance around the truth, because nobody will vote for them based on what they truly believe. And every now and then when we get a peek at what their beliefs, we are reminded why we can never let them be in charge again!

Thomas Sowell, writing in The Washington Times, says a long-standing joke at election time is that if someone were to run under the name "None of the above," that candidate would win. This year, the Democrats are running as "None of the above" and polls show that they may well win the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate.

Some clever people say that Democrats will have two years in which to discredit themselves in Congress before the 2008 elections. But clever people have led many nations into catastrophes. Is this the time to experiment with "None of the above"?
Voting for a moderate Democrat for the House of Representatives can mean putting extremists like Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, Dennis Kucinich and Charles Rangel in charge of the House, where all spending bills and all impeachment bills originate.
Some people are justifiably angry at some of the Republicans in Washington. But voting to vent your emotions will have national and long-lasting consequences, both through lifetime judicial appointments and through the prospect of seeing the United States denied the resources needed to fight international terrorists at a time when our future and our children's future are on the line as never before.

Some final notes:

The European Union urged Iraq on Sunday not to carry out the death sentence passed on Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein after his conviction for crimes against humanity, reports Reuters.