DNC ‘08: 3.1

Hard-Hearted Hillary Made Me Cry

It has continually struck me quite odd ever since the DNC started that the also-ran got so very much nervous attention. Why so many big-wigs worried about whether she’d actually help the party’s nominee in this very important election, or whether she’d stab him in the back in a fit of leftover pique over losing what she (and the entire Republican Establishment) believed was her “rightful due.” As if OUR country, OUR leadership somehow became during the 1990s a monarchy instead of the Democratic Republic the founding fathers established.

Sure, the Bush “dynasty” did make it seem just like that monarchy, and God knows George Junior certainly has treated the position as if he has some sort of divine right to rule in flagrant disregard for what the country wants or needs. Yet that’s precisely what Democrats are running AGAINST in this election, not something Dems need to affirm when their turn comes around again. Maybe it’s a creeping mental illness, a delusional state easy to fall prey to in an era of Bush family totalitarianism. But the Clintons were better than that.

Oh, she gave a strong, spirited speech. She repeated her support for Obama and Biden several times, and came down hard on why the country absolutely doesn’t need another Bush (disguised as John McCain). But I saw no warmth, no genuine enthusiasm, and too much playing with the power she supposedly wields over a bunch of Republican plants whose jobs were to get her the nomination because that’s who the Republicans were determined to run against - because that’s who they could beat.

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DNC ‘08: 2.1

Assassination plot busted, Teddy’s speech…

…and Michelle Obama’s home run to the nosebleed seats. Wow. What a way to start a convention!

In a bizarre twist, the DailyKos blogging team - DKos is the official host of the “Big Tent” blogger-space attached to the Denver Convention Center - somehow got bumped from their posh hotel suites at the last moment and ended up having to spend the night before the convention at a hotel in Glendale (where the Newsweek convention crew was also ensconced) before arranging better accommodations for the rest of the convention. But during that first night there was some big excitement when the entire Denver SWAT team staged a big meth bust of a room across the hall, rousting the crew and leaving them witness to some very exciting police action.

…only to find out that they had been bumped right smack dab into the very midst of serious political intrigue when it was announced that the bust was part of a possible Obama assassination plot! The SS, ATF and FBI are all involved in investigations of the busted conspirators, apparently a small group of wackos from the White Supremecist corner of the hard-right wingnut end of the spectrum. Updates state that “at least” four people are under arrest in connection with the plot

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DNC ‘08: 1.1

Stoopid Network Tricks and Dallying Dems

As I sit here listening to CSPAN pre-convention inanities and old speeches in the background while waiting for the kickoff (and a Teddy Kennedy cry-fest), I figured I’d go ahead and report the first Odd-News story of the ‘08DNC. It certainly gave me a giggle.

The DNC pool coverage this year is being provided by… of all possible sources… Fox News. Just about 12 hours exactly from the opening, the sprinkler system in a Fox skybox was set off, flooding the downstairs concourse and club areas so badly the fire department had to suck it up with shop-vacs. The massive amounts of lighting and broadcasting equipment - and attendant wiring - had to be hastily removed to prevent electrical fire. The link is from KSUA-TV 9 in Denver:

Part of Pepsi Center flooded by sprinkler system

Some immediate pointed asides occurred to me, so of course I perused the bored-as-me blogosphere to see what kind of speculations might be floating around. The best I’ve found so far for satirical or just plain humorous value are:

• Since it’s the Pepsi Center, was it Aquafina?
• Their pants were on fire.
• Pundit hairspray meets Limbaugh’s cigar.
• Hot air from Sean Hannity.
• Methane. Too much bullshit too close to hot lights.

On the fact that some fundamentalists were out front praying for rain…

• Proof positive prayer works.
• Proof that one needs to word prayers carefully.

Hahaha!!! Whew! Presuming Fox’s lighting crew figured out they can’t put those hot spots within a foot of the heat sensors for the sprinkler system, I’ve also been idly watching the interactions between people and groups of people wandering through the convention center. If you thought the YKos and NetrootsNation conventions were regular hotbeds of rampant pair-bonding (mostly temporary), the DNC has to take the cake!

I’m sure there’s an equivalent amount of close encounters that take place during the RNC, so I’m not saying only one side of the aisle is sexier. It’s just that at the RNC it’s mostly chemically-enhanced and happening in the men’s rest rooms. [rim shot]

Hehehe!!! Okay, I think I’m prepared to spend the next four days glued to all-day platform committee hammering, all-evening speechifying and all-night partying - on CSPAN, sans commercials. Should be fun!

Posts to the DNC Series:

Stoopid Network Tricks and Dallying Dems
Assassination Plot Busted, Teddy’s Speech
Hard-Hearted Hillary Made Me Cry

It’s Joltin’ Joe!!!

AP

I got that pesky text message in the middle of the darned night, and it wouldn’t stop beeping. At first I thought it was the alarm going off despite not being set to go off in the middle of the darned night. Then disturbing thoughts about grandson at his aunt’s house, and daughter who is in another state packing to leave the country tomorrow morning, so I reluctantly got out of bed to see what’s up. Joe Biden was up! As if that was somehow supposed to get me excited at that ungodly hour. But hey, I did manage a nod to myself. All is well with Obama, though he still seems to be operating on Maui time.

Good choice, Barack! I’ve enough coffee in me now to be perusing the blogs and getting the details, looking forward to the afternoon’s rally and next week’s convention - there should be plenty to post about. So do stay tuned!

The Veep Guessing Game

We should know by Friday (or, Thursday when the Obama camp promises to ‘leak’ the choice to selected bloggers who will immediately ‘leak’ it to the rest of us). Who will it be? Will we be surprised? Disgusted? Outraged? Glad?

Don’t know if I have a favorite in this beauty contest. I’ve heard a lot of things, and thought about others. I’ve heard Hillary is out of the running, but she sure seems to still feel it’s her ‘right’ to be on the ticket. And given that she got half the votes cast, she may have a point. But how effective could Obama’s leadership be if he had a 2-fer on the Veep end that worked constantly against his policies and hogging the spotlight? So no, I wouldn’t be happy to see Hillary’s name drawn.

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When You’re Sick of Surrogates

…making a total ass of their candidate…

Getty

Time Magazine informs us that the Debate Monitors for the upcoming (and never too soon) Presidential debates have been announced. Now we can look forward to more one-on-one between Barack Obama and John McCain without having to roll our eyes on campaign surrogate gaffes enough to go blind.

For the first debate on Friday, September 26 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford the moderator will be Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of the PBS NewsHour. Always a delightful presence, calming influence and rational analyst.

The second debate will be between Vice-Presidential candidates - whoever those turn out to be - on Thursday, October 2 at Washington University in St. Louis. Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent for the NewsHour and managing editor of PBS’s Washington Week will preside. Another excellent choice.

The second debate between Obama and McCain is a Town Meeting format on Tuesday, October 7 at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Our fave Tom Brokaw of NBC News will officiate. Should be fun!

The third and last Presidential debate (and you thought McCain was serious when he offered to do Town Meetings every week back in the day, didn’t you?) will be held on Wednesday, October 15 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York with Bob Sheiffer presiding. Sheiffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of the weekly Face the Nation broadcast, is a bit more partisan than the others, but should turn in a good performance at that very late stage of the campaign.

Anybody want to offer odds on what the point spread will be by October 15th?

The Obamapalooza World Tour

Jerusalem and Berlin

Berlin

Jerusalem

Now, THAT’s how you woo the world! Our erstwhile allies are all pretty darned tired of being bullied. Maybe it’s not too farfetched to hope that Americans might finally get tired of being bullied too.

The Bushies (including John McCain) reacted to Obamapalooza just as everyone paying attention would expect. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice issued orders the night before Obama left to State Department employees in all the scheduled tour stops that they must not attend any speeches or events or aid Obama (or the other two US Senators on the tour) in any way when they’re in-country. But since assisting US leaders - or even arranging their events, as has been done for McCain’s travels - when they’re in-country is part of the diplomatic corps’ job description, most pointedly ignored the orders.

This is going to be a fun election.

Opinion: Obama Blows It On FISA

An Independence Day Comment

As an early Edwards supporter strong on health care, I considered the erstwhile “frontrunner” [Hillary Clinton] to be well to the right-center of me. As Obama’s star rose, I investigated and found him well to the right-center of me too. I was going for the populist, not The Machine or The Inspiration. Because after all the harm the Bushies have done over nearly eight years, Democrats have proven themselves cowards over and over and over again. Even after 2006. We needed, thought I, someone who understands reality in America, not just for the top 2%.

Sometimes I think we need a third party, to represent those of us who self-identify as ‘progressive’. But I’ve seen too many split-party tactics in my time, and I’m not sure at all that the US can handle more than two parties sans a representative form of parliamentary government. We’re just not equipped for it. Yet the Constitution is the only thing still standing between me and Big Brother. I’m not willing to give up on it now.

Which brings me around to the current presumptive front-runner, Barack Obama. And his odd vote on the FISA bill, complete with expansion of powers and retroactive immunity for breaking the law for the telecoms who were blackmailed into cooperating with illegal wiretaps.

The country’s just not in THAT much danger. I’m not plotting terrorist attacks when I talk to my relatives or friends on the phone. But I damn sure don’t want the NSA listening to everything I say! Or logging all my text messages. Or reading all my emails. I believe it’s a complete waste of resources electronic and human. I am not a threat. The time, money, energy and storage space they waste on me talking to my 85-year old Mother-in-Law or giving hubby a grocery list on his way home from work is wasted EVERYTHING.

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Limbaugh Does Sit-Down Comedy

For those of us who find Rush Limbaugh more offensive than funny, who have encountered his hoards of dumbass “Ditto-heads” with double-digit IQs, and who have suspected for years that there’s some weird kind of connection between butt-boils, Oxy-induced head cheese and those 4+ hour Viagra erections (what a Rush… hahaha), his graduation into the rarified realm of genuine comedy was a little bit surprising.

I mean, it’s not like his fans are capable of getting the joke, even though it is aimed at their sub-sub-average ‘least common denominator’ and all. But there it is on the June 24th transcript in all its deliberately offensive glory. Which those of us with more than two brain cells to rub together will certainly appreciate in the midst of our grief for George Carlin’s recent death.

It’s sort of a parody of the many talking heads out there on ‘real’ TV who keep race-baiting but aren’t quite sure how to do so without ending up like Imus. About 2/3 down the transcript page you get the full act, Limbaugh and his fictional sidekick character Bo Snerdley (”Official Obama Criticizer) on whether Obama’s got any “slave blood” in his veins. My favorite clip…

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The Roles Bill and Hillary Can Play

After a long, hard-fought and predictably ugly campaign for the Democratic nomination for POTUS, the Rules Committee of the RNC on Saturday did not hand Hillary Clinton what she demanded - ALL of the delegates for both Florida and Michigan. These two states had broken the rules by rescheduling their primaries to occur before “Super Tuesday,” knowing they would incur penalty and lose their seats at the convention. They did it anyway, Hillary claimed wins in both, even though Obama (and Edwards, and Richardson, etc.) weren’t even on the ballot in Michigan.

Thus as of today, June 2 on the eve of the last primary contest tomorrow, the count stands at Obama 2,071, Clinton 1,914.5. Obama needs 46 of the remaining 234 delegates, Clinton needs 202.5 of them. Which she isn’t at all likely to get, so for all intents and purposes (and barring some not-so clever coup d’etat at the convention by Bill and Hill), It’s Over.

There has been increasing buzz over the last couple of weeks that the Clintons are positioning for Vice-President on Obama’s ticket, but I predict this will quickly slide into the rain-gutter. Why would a President Obama want to have not one but TWO vice-presidents with egos so big they’d undermine his policies just to get the attention they crave? This is a bad idea, and I don’t think Obama or anyone moving and shaking in his campaign are going to fall for it.

So… what do we do with the Clintons? It’s quite obvious that their ambition, sense of entitlement and passion for divisive politics wasn’t quenched after 8 years’ worth of Vast Right Wing Conspiracy or Bimbo Eruptions. They still feel they’ve something to contribute, and we might all be better off if we go ahead and let them contribute. Here’s my ideas…

Hillary should go back to representing the State of New York in the Senate, and the moment one of the current cadre of Supreme Court justices dies or retires, she should be the first and foremost Obama nominee to that bench. With a Dem congress it should be a breeze to get her confirmed, and a lot of the folks there are themselves floating this idea of what to do with Hillary.
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