about your mother being liberal on some issues but being afraid of terrorism and not wanting to change horses-- i know how frustrating that is... one of my best friends is sort of the same, he thinks bush is doing a terrible job domestically and doesn't agree with any of his positions on social issues, but he really thinks bush is doing a great job with terrorism and "doesn't trust kerry on foreign affairs". as of august, he still thought we'd find weapons of mass destruction, and he is convinced that invading iraq had made us safer. and he goes to harvard! more importantly, though, he doesn't read newspapers and gets all his news from cnn and fox news (so i've been emailing him articles from the new york times in an attempt to sway him). it frustrates me that someone so smart can be so uninformed.