The bubble inside the bubble

Please, please, watch the convention on C-SPAN. Your life will be so much better. No spin, no Meet The Press host wannabes swinging their dicks at each other, no F*cks News blond bimbo insinuating (or just outright saying) that Michelle Obama will kill and eat your children. It’s heaven, and the music is pretty good, too.

I liked Governor Schweitzer’s talk. Thanks for linking to it, Adam. I also like the way the natives pronounce the name of their state - Muontinna.

And since we’re viewing speakers from the B-List, I’ve got to say that I’ve really been missing this guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4EN7ibO1ec

Sounds like C-span was the way to go. I wish PBS had just pointed and shot the podium while anyone was speaking and saved the comments for breaks. At least I got to see the poor, old-ish, white, southern, displaced mill worker endorse Barak Obama. Tears time.

I am such a Convention junkie. Oh, for the days when the 3 networks touted gavel-to-gavel as a selling point for their coverage. Oh, for real roll call votes; the spiels about the great products, great people and the favorite sons (tho’ in 72, Sissy Farenthold was a great favorite daughter of Texas for VP, came in second) of our great alphabetical-order country. Of course, now, there are no votes on platform planks or on the presidential or VP nominations, so I don’t think Pelosi even had a gavel.
Funny, I HATED pep rallies in high school.
People think I’m weird around this time of year.

Okay–the Daily Show coverage, which I’m seeing a day later via iTunes, is pretty good, too.

I’m Dee, and I’m a Convention Junkie too.

And while this one doesn’t have the drama of past arguments over platform planks and delegate seating, it’s a joy to watch all those happy citizens of every age and color. Remember these images, and contrast them with what you’ll see next week when the Republican White Bread and Mayonnaise crowd invades St. Paul.

Somewhere Fannie Lou Hamer is smiling.

…and why wasn’t John Kerry that pissed off four years ago?

I think my head is going to explode:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=08&year=200 8&base_name=whos_afraid_of_the_uninsured#108681

Please tell me this will be picked up by the MSM more than the little blurb on Swampland or effectively covered by Obama’s campaign. I mean, I know it wasn’t McCain who said it, but it was one of his advisors on health care policy.

Unless it’s supposed to be sarcastic….

Critic says pope protests sculpture of crucified frog

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI has protested a sculptural portrayal of a crucified frog, saying it offends the religious sentiments of Christians, according to a critic of the work.

Cardinal Anselmo says I’m not getting enough press since my return from Australia, so he manufactured this controversy. Actually, I rather like the sculpture. We do what we must, I guess.

Vinnie and Guido stayed behind in Sydney to tie up loose ends from our trip and to represent the Vatican at Bondi Beach, though I haven’t figured out why the Holy See would need any representation there. They’re due back in several weeks. I hope they’ll find something interesting to do with their free time. They are such good boys!

I’ve been watching and listening from msnbc.com (no other choice, no cable here, and I don’t miss the running commentary at all). There’s been plenty of “red meat,” believe me.

Had to go the old-fashioned tv with rabbit ears (actually, one of those hurricane tvs) route, so I couldn’t watch it on C-Span, my first choice. But I did get to watch it on PBS - Jim Lehrer and team were reasonably unobtrusive and did try to make the coverage be about the convention and the presentations, not themselves. I will not listen to the commentators when I’m watching my Gators, unless it is a replay and the commentators are locals who are more interested in the game than themselves and their blatherings, and I was not about to be annoyed by the blathering class while trying to watch the speakers for myself. I don’t need no stinking interpreters. I speak the language, I understand the issues, and I can both see and hear. I do not give a flying fuck what anyone besides the odd useful observer has to say (I say odd both in the sense of occasional and the fact that that sort of commentator is an oddity any more, especially on commercial tv). Keith and Rachel are useful on their shows. The Democratic Convention is nobody but the Democrats’ and the viewers’ show. And the farther one can get from both commercial tv and commercial interests, the better.

I think the battle lines have been drawn and the troops have been rallied. And the only thing that matters about Obama’s speech and the prelude to his speech is whether viewers have a better sense that they know who he is, that they like who he is, and that they are more inclined to vote for him. The only reason the opinions of the pundits matter is that they repeat them over and over ad nauseum until too many of the swng voters adopt them. Call it the great disservice of the major media in the age of television.

And then there’s the AP, which purports to be a wire service providing news to the various news outlets, but which in this neo-Soviet era is virulently anti-Obama and rabidly pro-McCain.

But fuck it all, I’m going with hope (if she’ll have me).

Began watching political conventions as a mere zygote, SallyH? Well, in that case, please forgive my false assumption of your age, young lady. (Of course, you know, that is weird! Right?)

Please, oh please, can we talk about Sarah Palin?

The McCain campaign has just pulled their own teeth on the whole “too-inexperienced-to-be-in-a-position-of-such-power” arguement. It is conceivable, I suppose, that she would be able to hold her own on the international stage, although I have my doubts. But how could they point a finger at Obama’s youth & (in their meme) inexperience, and duck the 3 fingers pointing back at that them?

Tee-hee

Now Aunt Sam, Alaska’s kind of international. I mean you have to swim or wade through Canadians to get there. They’re way closer to Russia; I’m told that once upon a time you could walk to Moscow right from Anchorage over some boondoggle called the International Land Bridge. And Alaska, well it sure doesn’t look like Kansas, unless of course the environmental policies of the current administration win out, in which case it will become the new bread basket of the US. And you know what that means–tell her Sally!–Alaska delivers the wheat!

Boy, these colds are something.

PS: As a one time HRC supporter I want it known to one and all that this appointment in no way changes my allegiance to BHO or the Democratic Party. This is just in case the cable news folks are out puma hunting. I think pumas are actually much rarer than they think. They probably have to scour the Internet to find them. I’d say they were completely anecdotal, except that I actually know one. Gee, maybe I should act as his agent.

Did I say these colds are something?

Sarah Palin? Jesus Christ, McCain, if you had just bothered to turn a few more cards in your Rolodex, you coulda had me!!! I’m ready for the big time again, I tell you! I’ve even learned how to spell potatoe potato!! Can Sarah do that? Huh?!

It’s a clever choice in a twisted kind of way. It’s a “nyah, nyah - vote for us and we’ll give you a possible, maybe, woman president” kind of evil choice. Frankly, I thought it was extremely cynical. Puma hunting, indeed.

From what I hear about Ms. Palin, her opinions on choice, gun control, etc. are as neolithic as Mr. McCain’s - McNeil-Lehrer this afternoon opined that McCain picked her because she, like he, made chops going after government corruption, big company abuses, etc. But if you want Roe V. Wade to continue as the law of the land, you don’t want this woman anywhere near the White House.

OK. I want credit for this one. Sarah Palin was my idea. I only hope that future political scholars will give me the vast amount of credit that is due.

Mr. McCain and Cindy were in the back of the Straight Talk Express tamping down on of his daily strokes, that time I first floated the Gov. Palin trial balloon. Of course, I had dozens of photos from her beauty queen days that I passed around the scrum of male, red meat Republicans that have become Mr. McCain’s “think tank”. “And not only is she a looker, but she shoots better than Annie Oakley.” Now that really got the boys baying like bloodhounds. The only snag was, naturally, Cindy McCain. That hurtle was ridiculously easy to clear - Gov. Sarah Palin’s recipe for Mukluk Macaroons. Cindy bought rights to that recipe for the paltry sum of $37,000 - chump change for rich American’s making more than $5,000,000/annum. Now, she can slip that one onto the website, claim that it’s a recipe from her great Grandpappy Hensley’s Klondike days and no one can call her on it.

I certainly hope Obama wins, so I can be in on writing the great story of the 2008 elections. Not only do the spoils of victory go to the winner, but so does the re-writing of history. I may someday even have a statue of me erected on the National Mall. After all, this is still America and a boy can dream. I’ll be practicing noble poses, if anyone needs me.

Oh Lobster, has it been two years? I don’t know whether I’m more startled at “only” two years or “already” two years. Just…two years. Wow.

I found some wonderful vegan donuts, and yes, I’ll be drinking this weekend. And thinking of good times back in PA!

Ann linked to a lovely campaign button,
and I have to agree that that Palin might get my puma up. Now there’s a lady you could sing to about the Universe.

I wonder that Sarah Palin could allow herself to be the public target of such tokenism. How would it be if McCain found himself an African American running mate?

I finally took my Hilary signs out of my windows today, and replaced them with the Obama ones I picked up last night.

I can’t wait to see the Sunday squabble shows tomorrow. The Repugs are feeling mighty pleased that people are talking about McCain’s choice of Palin more than Obama’s big acceptance speech. But I think the moment the Fourth Estate decides to start asking the questions that all of us have been asking, Palin will be under the microscope and McCain’s poor (impaired?) judgement will be questioned.

Now, a note to the Gentleman from Illinois: YOU CAN STILL LOSE THIS. You should be miles ahead of McCain right now, and you’re not. Go consult with Hilary Clinton and her campaign manager, and then take a lesson from her and CAMPAIGN, CAMPAIGN, CAMPAIGN!!! And none of this crap about trying to inflate the appeal of the product by restricting access to it (the “chase figure” strategy.) Get out there every day and press the flesh. Hilary spoke to a cheering crowd of thousands in a packed gymnasium an Scranton - and then came to speak to the overflow crowd of 120 people or so who had hung out in an auditorium to hear her voice over a PA system. WE NEED YOU TO WIN THIS!

I was forced to get a room yesterday. Between the sunburn and the goddamned moquito bites!!!, I took a room in a B and B that had a bathtub. I went to a medical supply warehouse and cornered the local market on calamine lotion. I took it back to my room, filled the tub to the brim with the lotion and laid down in it. If gillian had been here, she could have taken a picture of me like that Annie Leibovitz photo of Whoopi Goldberg in the tub o’ milk. Except I wouldn’t have been laughing. And I’m pinker than Whoopi.

And now the Beauty Queen Governor’s child is with child? Oooh, I’m gonna like this election!

Off topic, but with the GOP (as the upper left hand corner types have taken to calling themselves, what with the Republican brand being not so hot at the moment) having their convention, this quote from A Word A Day seems especially appropriate. Are you listening Karl?

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. -Harry S. Truman, 33rd US president (1884-1972)

Cheers,
Jay

The cell phone is not completely charged yet, but I can’t stand it. I’ve got to listen to these messages from Jimmy to find out if he burned down my house, or anything.

……

No, no mention of pyromania. …… Oh,….that’s kinda sweet, Jimmy.

……

Oh, now that one’s really sweet.

……..

Damn, who needs a romance novel (sorry, Edith), when you’ve got voice messages from Jimmy Caliendo?

Oh, my! Oh, myyyyy!

…….

That about sums it up, Aunt Sam. On the bright side, the latest USA Today/Gallup (I think that’s which one is cited on Talking Points Memo) has a post convention bounce with Obama at 50% and McCain at 43%. Pay attention to 50% this late in the game, and pray to Lobster we don’t bomb Iran, which I think Bush threatened to do if Obama wins. Why he and Cheney are not in stocks on the White House lawn completely escapes me.

Directly under a cell tower, gillian? I think that’s agin’ the law. And there is the issue of brain cell irradiation at that proximity, or something like that, or at least maybe the equivalent of your microwave oven at 10%? Just askin’.

Well, it’s not the cover of RollingStone magazine, but I did get a full color picture of myself in the current issue, sitting in my office back when I was House Majority Leader (Damn!) with my personally autographed Dane Dobesh “Master” bullwhip. Christine still gets excited and immediately rolls onto her back whenever I crack it. If I’m wearing my Indiana Jones fedora when I crack it, she gets up, wrestles me to the floor and rips my shirt in the process! It’s a purely Pavlovian/Freudian response, so it’s no longer safe to take out the whip in public.

Oh, and one other thing. Replacing Sarah Palin with me as Veep would definitely not be considered “flip-flopping”, although that no longer seems to be a problem for your campaign. I certainly would have no qualms about flip-flopping, if that’s what you need me to do. I may spend the rest of the day practicing 180 degree shifts in political positions. I’m offering you my “A” game, John. Marilyn said “You’d better not fuck this up, John, or I’ll kick you square in the nuts so hard…!” Oh … no … actually, that’s what she said to me. Sorry.

I’ve always liked Fred Thompson in that role,too, MeanTim. He’d come into Sam’s office, knock back a couple of shots, pontificate about how things ought to be, and then go back to his office to sleep it off. You’re right! Fred Thompson is the perfect speaker for John McCain’s convention. And the way he pulled it off without a hint of bitterness about how McCain KICKED HIS ASS in the primaries. Yeah-boy, that Fred Thompson is some actor, all right!

And I’m sorry Rudy got bounced from the festivities. I was hoping he could explain again how he single-handedly saved America on 911. I still haven’t figured that one out. I tell you, America just doesn’t have enough heroes, does it?.