Jeff Jarvis thinks he knows why the Democrats lost the election:

...I say instead that Michael Moore lost it for Kerry. He lost it by starting the mudslinging over military service when he accused Bush of being a deserter; this opened the door for the Swiftie mudmen and cut short the ability to condemn them for it.

He lost it by making unfair attacks on Bush (when he could have made fair attacks), helping Bush to rally his fans around him.

But mainly, Moore lost the race for Kerry and the Democrats by turning them, by association, into a bunch of rabid seething fringie liberal loonies, all angry and extreme and too quick to forget what the real war is and who the real enemy is.

The execrable Moore offered Kerry an obvious opportunity to win the election - the perfect "Sister Souljah" moment. The candidate could have gotten before the media and said: "No, Michael, the Iraqi Insurgents are not the same as our 'Minutemen.' Our 'Minutemen' were fighting for democracy. Those Insurgents are fighting for fascism, theocracy, the oppression of women - everything America deplores!"

I'm sure Kerry agrees with those sentiments, yet he did not express them, instead allowing Moore to be seated prominently at the Democratic Convention.