I can't wait for this election season to be over. The rhetoric has reached a fever pitch and is disgusting and offensive. On "Fox News Sunday" this morning, Pennsylvania's Democrat Gov. Ed Rendell (who has done all he can to make sure that military voters don't get their ballots counted in that state) told host Chris Matthews that President George W. Bush is Al Qaeda's best recruiting tool and that Osama bin Laden favors the president's re-election. [Personally, I thought the 72 virgins was the best recruiting tool, but to each his own.]

Then you get the Democrats' first stepson stepping in it with some anti-Semitism and slander.

Chris Heinz, 31, displayed his mother Teresa's famous lack of rhetorical restraint at a recent campaign event with a group of Wharton students. Philadelphia magazine reports: "Heinz accused Kerry's opponents - 'our enemies' - of making the race dirty. 'We didn't start out with negative ads calling George Bush a cokehead,' he said, before adding, 'I'll do it now.' Asked later about it, Heinz said, 'I have no evidence. He never sold me anything.'" Heinz also reminded writer Sasha Issenberg of Pat Buchanan by saying, "One of the things I've noticed is the Israel lobby - the treatment of Israel as the 51st state, sort of a swing state." Buchanan was blasted as an anti-Semite years ago when he cited Israel's "amen corner" in Congress.

On the intellectual elite beat, we've got a college professor kicking a Republican student for being a Republican.

Fort Lewis College student Mark O'Donnell said he was showing people his College Republicans sweat shirt, which said "Work for us now ... or work for us later," when Maria Spero kicked him in the leg at an off-campus restaurant.

Spero then said "she should have kicked me harder and higher," said O'Donnell. "To physically take that out on someone because you disagree with them, that is completely wrong."

Spero, a visiting instructor of modern languages, apologized to O'Donnell in a letter dated Oct. 29.

One wonders how Spero treats students in her classes who disagree with her politically.

Yes, there are Republicans who behave badly too, but it appears as though the most vitriol is produced by the left. You don't hear Barbara or Jenna Bush calling John Kerry a traitor to his country for meeting with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in Paris -- while he was still a member of the military.