O Boy! It's the Democratic National Convention!

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Perception is all that's being fought here; in the paper today: "The Kerry campaign announced yesterday that the convention will include a series of slickly produced video 'moments' showcasing Mr. Kerry as a man of compassion and character." There's something vaguely hyper-real about it all.

Oh, and Kerry's "This is the most important election of our lifetime" = Paul Martin's "This will be the most important election campaign in our history". How close are we all to the pomo point where nothing means anything anymore? We're there in Canada, at least in terms of political hyperbole. I mean, it was the most important election in Paul's career, which is now conflated with our history. We got 'Choose Your Canada' et al from a man who'd spent the last two years carefully cultivating no opinion at all on every major policy question to arise. Kerry seems to be cast in the same non-mold, from what I can tell. He means nothing, and therefore has to overstate everything as much as he possible can.

Maybe we're not any healthier, then. Political conventions are still decision making bodies in a functional, rather than technical sense, but there is the notable exception of the most recent Liberal convention. Paul Martin's ascencion to the leadership was predestined; he captured some 97 percent of the delegates, with his only remaining competition motivated by equal amounts symbolism and personal bitterness. Bono was the keynote speaker, matching Martin well, empty platitude for empty platitude. It meant NOTHING.

Actually, I was underwhelmed by Gore's speech.

You down with DNC (Yeah you know me) 3X
Who's down with DNC(Every last demmy)
You down with DNC (Yeah you know me) 3X
Who's down with DNC (All the demmies)

No, the point is to make swing voters comfortable with the alternative

(Fave Clinton crit recently, Elaine Showalter on the autobiog: "I thought it was mixed. I was going up and down on it.")

Mo Rocca is on!!!!!! CNN Intl rules suddenly!! agh they switched off of him!

weird how Dean's mic kept flickering on and off.. i think he's permanently spooked by the gods of electroacoustic amplification

There's a bit about convention tunes now.. an opportunity lost to get into the psychodemographics of pop music, but it's good to hear "Elvira"

x-post I am in no position to confirm or deny thank god

whoa.

i don't, because that tended to sort of obviate the democratic process. i guess it did give the conventions a reason for being that they lack nowadays.

i missed tonight, but i'll try to tune in to obama tomorrow. anyone know what time he's scheduled to speak?

it saddens me how much candidates have to obscure their egghead, thoughtful qualities. al gore being the chief example. i guess kerry is now another.

xgau had a piece in the voice about how we actually need to get excited about kerry, or pretend to do so.

xpost

thanks hstencil! so are we going to devise a drinking game or what?

(we'll all be in the hospital by 10 PM)

There's a woman at the office who lives for politics. Like, some women her age have cats, she has activism. And good, sure, we need those people. It's a rough job, etc. But I can't talk about politics with her, because she won't tolerate any talk that's not of a certain uninformed bent. She doesn't want to talk economics, for instance. Goes right over her head. And I've been filling my head with Thomas Frank lately, so I very much *do* want to talk economics, if only to be proven wrong. She takes me for a liberal, and she's right, but that doesn't mean I... *sigh* You know what I mean. She's got half of the office wearing red on Friday now because she got an email -- a freakin' email -- that said we should all wear red on Friday to protest Bush because that's what the Hungarians did to protest Hitler's occupation. What?! I'm not doing that, nt even as an empty gesture of office solidarity! It's hysterical and stupid!

I'm jaded. I'm bitter. I'm intolerant of other people's enthusiasm. I'm not whole and healthy.

I believe Jon Stewart and his wife just had a baby.

yeah I'm not so sure it was a wise idea for the Dems to adopt this approach, but I'm not sure what the alternative would be, either. The 9/11 Commission talked a good game of "we're fighting Wahabbism, not terrorism" but they don't have an impending election.

that said, he wont switch teams to the democrats, i think that there may be enough dissatisfacion in the ranks of both sides to form an effective and new center right party.

OTMFM!

I get so tired of that snide side of political reporting, and it seems like that's all we get from anyone anymore. Even the ostensibly "serious" outlets have to show that they're smart-dickens enough to see through the hype and gauze and shadow shows. And OK, good, it's worth acknowledging the fraudulence. But it's also worth remembering -- and reminding people -- that the actual issues do actually matter, that who gets elected really does make a difference in terms of who gets health care, or whether the air stays breathable, or where we go to war. The issues are spin, but they're issues too for fuck's sake! The environment and Sept. 11 and Medicare weren't just dreamed up as clever political feints by Karl Rove or Terry McAuliffe. It would be nice if more of the Great and Powerful Media acknowledged more than occasionally that governing is about something more than who's in and who's out.

listening to an interview w. jesse jackson today about how we cannot pull troops out now, and that he wanted a war w. the un rather then no war at all sort of scared me, and i like jesse jackson.

and no matter how legit the distaste the average african american voter has for the republicans (the latest poll i heard was 75 per cen t feel disenfranchised and 69 per cent feels that this disenfrachisment is on purpose) does anyone else feel that the democrats assumption that they will always get that vote, and that they are owed that vote, is a little sickening ?

anthony i'd suggest that you listen to what the speakers are saying, the policies they are endorsing, and then you'll see a rather grand difference, even if the democrats are not all we would wish them to be (not even close). you can hardly expect a political party to satisfy your "anti-nationalism." you would have found the same flag-waving and so on at any political convention in american history, i would guess--from jackson to fdr.

...in a way this ("no effective difference") concept is another byproduct of what TH laments. if the media were more attentive to the respective party platforms, the differences (often very pronounced, even on economics) between them wouldn't be so casually dismissed or denied.

I don't think it's depressing at all! I just think it's time for people to take some personal responsibility for their own shortsightedness/stupidity.

Yes, in other countries therehas been a rise in extremistparties, but in no other country has the extremist party been part of and in control of a mainstream one.

Even so there's sill a great deal of common ground between the parties.

I don't think so, not necessarily. It certainly can be. But (not to sound like Nader or Bono... oh, what the hell) the fact that neither of these candidates are going to do anything to stop corporations from dominating the world economy disturbs me. It's too much like what Regan envisioned. All social policy aside, you understand.

entertaining your pov, how exactly did Reagan envision the domination of the world economy by corporations?

He brought America closer ideologically to laissez faire capitalism than anyone since... oh, anyone. Margaret Thatcher did the sam thing to her country, at the same time. The 80's really did suck.

this is not true. Reagan, while it's true that he did endorse "free market" principles and whatnot, had nothing on 19th Century American presidents, or even 20th Century American presidents pre-FDR, in your terms. He did deregulate many industries, although some of that was started in the 1970s before he was in office. And he didn't undo many of the New Deal policies enacted by FDR and the Great Society policies enacted by LBJ that were still in place.

I am willing to concede this may be presentation and not substance.

but the most important part there, is me admitting my post nationalism is me admitting that i perhaps am not the best to talk about this rationally.

Are you saying he woundn't have if he could have?

also kenan: no one here is, to my knowledge, proposing that electing kerry will solve all of our problems. but the world is a complicated place. it isn't simply moving in one direction, and the options aren't limited to hastening its movement or halting it. there are many things at stake, and i believe that electing kerry over bush would make a positive difference in many ways, even if he won't turn out to be some modern-day david swatting the goliath of the megacorporations.

the bits & pieces i heard of clinton's speech were great. something tells me that the GOP convention in a month's time will be really fuckin' scary.

xpost

i mostly agree with you, but the "welfare reform" issue is fairly complicated.

As for this:

Are you saying he woundn't have if he could have?

No, there are some of those policies that I don't think even Ronald Reagan would've undone, even if he had the power to. Social Security comes to mind. But again any speculation on that order is moot since the Republicans didn't control Congress, as they do now (ie. why talking about what's going on now and recognizing differences between the parties is important).

I agree! This all started with the "no difference" claim, and my half-heartedly defending how that's a valid point of view. Don't think I'm voting for Bush or anything.

I'm not really sure what the function of suzy's cartoon is, but it's not particularly heartening and/or relevant since we're having a good discussion here.

On the 'life' issue I think there is a substantial difference between the parties.

What's this? Chopped liver?

Anyway, as you were - have to go and read speech transcripts.

Reagan was all surface, to be sure. But his surface was one of the most alluring ones in modern times. It wasn't just his personality or his jokes, Reagan "saved" us from the seventies. He brought hope (however artificial) and life (however Hollywood) to politics in a way that America responded to passionately. Yes, you're probably right, he probably wouldn't have repealed the New Deal whole cloth. But he planted the seed and cleared the path for nutters far worse than him to follow (like our current administration). He *invented* conservatism as we now know it, socially if not quite politically.

Discuss. I'm going to bed.

and that the election that is going on right now is a fight between two people who are basically in the same ideological system.

you want another white, straight, ivy eduacted, old money, waspish man you can have two.

i am not aloof, i am active poltically, for small scale local issues and for larger trans or supernational issues--i care more about the death of a jamican queer actisvist in kingstown then who won the canadian election, and am fighting hard to perserve markets, gardens and housing in edmonton directly, those are the things that i can do tbat will affect my life.

fuck you a, there is no way that i am aloof, and i am offended by you suggesting that a long thought out, long argued position is cynical and lazy,.

Anthony, I worry about the impulse behind a suspicion that by virtue of Yaliness and wealth one becomes disqualified from public service somehow. Not all rich people are complacent fuckers who think a C average is cool. Some of them pay their fair share in taxes without exploring those cheating loopholes an economic conservative would sort out as second nature.

I am impressed that the GOP think Kerry so worthy of attack on 'spin' levels - or on spurious 'moral'grounds like the people who complain about his frankly amazing wife who seems to have told some Mellon Scaifer to shove off ALREADY, good for her, a fine example to us all. According to Sidney Blumenthal, Kerry became more lethal to them unravelling Iran Contra in his first term than by pursuing anything Vietnam-related.

i have spun off this thread, because i am thinking about it, but i dont see the difference there. i am worried about insiders, and all of those things apply, im worried about a democracy becoming a aristocractic oligarchy, and i am worried that what i loved in kerrys history has been knocked off to make him more complacent--you dont see any of the anger at vietnam, only the vienam as war hero stuff...the three purple hearts and a p boat on the mekong--i dont want a fucking war hero, i dont want a fucking war.

I'm not as worried about what you call insiders as you are - because a liberal insider is only there after years of wonking away on policy and learning how to convince people to do the right thing in language they'll relate to, even if they're the most selfish asshole to grace a golf course. They'll be well-rehearsed in arguing the toss with the most base conservatives you can find, the real fuckers. How many of us can say the same? That's part of the problem, the seeming remoteness of policy makers can be alienating in that way, but the people who press on have to be pretty fired up to do so. If you heard my friend Nellie explaining to my mom in policy and economic terms how the black man who held her up at gunpoint did not mean it was now OK to be a racist, because of the continuing effects of racism on his life choices that may have led him to the holdup, you'd know it can work.

The military thing is one of those matters that are sensitive generationally. Vietnam still rankles with people my mom's age, 60, even though her then-husband never had to serve (4F), her dad never had to serve in WWII and her boyfriend, who did go, wasn't in her life until 20 years after his service. And her mantra is 'nobody wants a war'. Kerry is pre-empting any attack on liberalism by saying his derives from being at the rifle end of coruscating conservative policies eg. Vietnam, while the architects of those policies were fixing it so someone else's kids had to do their gruntwork. They write checks they expect YOUR ass to cash. That's unacceptable. Clinton, in earning a Rhodes scholarship and thereby avoiding the draft, did something rare: he EARNED his reprieve as a scholar, and as pen mightier than sword I feel it is entirely honorable.

I don't want a fucking war either, but in some ways, some rockist ways, America needs to hear this from someone who's 'been there' rather than be told how important war, constant war, is to prop up the regime of some prick who wasn't. Remember, these adversaries think that might is right and that they have a moral high ground on matters sexual and economic - how do we take that away from them without stooping to their level? Send in a veteran who doesn't really want any more veterans for both anecdotal and policy reasons. We've demonstrated we don't want a career military veteran type, we've acknowledged that Tango and Cash are hypocrites, we've opened the door to exploring just how thorough this hypocrisy is.

kerrys military records, and how you described what he is doing in this war is what he has been saying, but its not something i am sure i believe.

i am still angry at him losing so much time on congress to be on the campaign trail, and though he voted against doma, i view it as suspect that he was missing for the fma.

i wish he was less wishy washy on abortion, that he didn't seem to be so isolationist when it came to foreign policy, that i knew what he thought about foreign policy (esp. africa and the mideast), affrimative action, gender pairty, the nea, affordable housing, drug plans for senoirs--but then many of those things i think need not to be handled on the federal level.

i am not really a liberal, i believe in many of the things that the republicans preach as well--states rights, localized (if not smaller) governments, charter schools, less activist judges (and i loved lawerence vs texas), maybe even faith and community based initaives

i jsut dont want to play the binary anymore

This resentment for people on what are classist grounds no matter how you slice them signals that it's okay for the rich to be exclusive in return. Class and entitlement issues are driving America apart in a divide and rule style.

(anthony I think the major fights between ideologies is actually over, for the time being, at least. With the bizarro exception of North Korea we're not in the time of "my ideology is better than yours" anymore, even on infranational issues like abortion. The contest has shifted to identity i.e. my IDENTITY is better than yours, and this plays itself out between states, especially in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East, and even more often inside states. International relations aren't about ways of life so much anymore as they're about race and ethnic based fear and violence)

They seem to believe that all government gets in the way of letting magic money do its free thing, and that almost all infrastructure should be built by private companies (cause you know -- they're just DYING to do it!). I wonder about this, and I don't know enough smart Re[publicans to ask them -- how do they imagine this happens? How does slavish service to the shareholders ever, in any case, translate into serving the greater good?

BOSTON - Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (news - web sites) has released his convention delegates, telling his supporters to "vote your conscience."

Kucinich, who formally endorsed presumed nominee John Kerry (news - web sites) last week, met with his roughly 64 delegates twice this week, with many saying they would still cast a vote for the four-term Ohio congressman at the roll call Wednesday night, according to an e-mail Tuesday from his campaign...

also, cornel west has always struck me as a phony.

I'm amazed that Democrats, BILL CLINTON OF ALL PEOPLE, are sticking to the network time restraints. He went over, what, five minutes last night? It sure beats the days when the nominee gave his acceptance speech to Guam.

NRQ I meant "way of life" to refer to a governmental structure for human living; wars aren't fought over that so much anymore, for now, at least. the nationalism anthony has so much of a problem with doesn't even EXIST in that kind of idological form any more.. the "clash of civilizations" btw america and islam would be far scarier if it had more truth to it. it's not the structure of government that's an issue for ObL, it's identity and respect. it's not ideology that's at issue w/Bush/Cheney, it's the money to be made from fear and division. ethnic nationalism a la Serbia and Croatia, and divide-and-conquer wholesale looting of national resources a la Equatorial Guinea (and uh, the United States via its corporate proxies) is by my lights more destructive these days than ideology

sort of related to him by marriage, sort of.

ObL is probably himself a nihilist of some sort, but his followers no doubt have very 'ideological' beliefs about eg the control of oil resources.

That's an odd conjecture. Isn't it pretty clear what his beliefs are, ie. extreme fundamentalist Islam? That's far from nihilism.

I also don't think ObL would agree that his issue is "identity and respect". He would very strongly assert that he does care about the structure of the government - ie., that it should be an Islamic state.

To deny this is to assert that either he is lying or he doesn't really know what he wants. Neither of these claims seems particularly well supported by the evidence.

So in x-post land here I think I disagree with O.nate: he wouldn’t “strongly assert” that, and to my knowledge hasn’t “strongly asserted” that. The guy’s method of operation here isn’t such that he really needs to—or would at all benefit from—outlining any sort of clear vision apart from the rejection of a lot of present realities. (Ha: someone get him a convention!)

Back on topic, Clinton's speech was lovely, particularly the "they need us divided" bit (though you'd think the delegates would have caught on quicker and dropped the boos from his "by all means, vote for them" repetitions).

NB now that I work for a jeweler, I spent a lot of last night marvelling at Hillary's pearls. Those were some nice pearls, man.

"The principal stated aims of al-Qaeda are to drive Americans and American influence out of all Muslim nations, especially Saudi Arabia; destroy Israel; and topple pro-Western dictatorships around the Middle East. Bin Laden has also said that he wishes to unite all Muslims and establish, by force if necessary, an Islamic nation adhering to the rule of the first Caliphs."

You may argue this is vague, but it certainly makes some prescriptions about governmental structure, which is what my post was saying. It also bears little resemblance to nihilism to my way of thinking.

old wars - to be gained: territory; means: national troops; financing: state taxation
20C wars - to be gained: ideology; means: propaganda and national troops; financing: state taxation
new wars - to be gained: identity; means: guerrilla and asymmetric warfare; financing: black market

of course the US is still fighting in 20C mode

I'd also agree that al-Qaeda's current M.O. is more destructive than constructive. This is in keeping with the *appearance* of nihilism that Nabisco argued for. However, in the long-run their stated aims (at least, and perhaps their sincere aims as well) are constructive - in that they seek to build a pan-Islamic state. This distinguishes them from true nihilists.

Sorry for cutting in on the Osama thread to offer a convention observation.

I was going to stop thread derailing on this, but Nate, yeah, that summary quote is exactly the kind of rhetoric I’m talking about. There are four points in it; note how the first three of them are all the kind of thing we can call, for lack of a better word, “reactionary”; notice they’re about ridding the region of certain influences, in order to brush off all outside impingements on exactly the kind of cultural identity Tracer’s talking about. But after that, then what? At which point the fourth offers a vision that, if it didn’t have such strong political connotations already floating around it, would pretty much function as a strong-religion platitude. I just want to be clear, I’m not saying those first three things are platitudes, and I’m not saying the fourth thing is all platitude. I think my original point was that people’s idea that this is a “nihilistic” viewpoint (and I don’t think it is) probably comes from the fact that its focus for the time being is on purging various elements, with only the occasional reminder of the traditionalist, if obviously frightening, dream of what that might result in. [x-post, we're on the same page about this]

All of which adds up to Tracer being absolutely right about the cultural identity issue. This rhetoric isn’t, chiefly, about the political power, the economic opportunity, or the rights and freedoms of Arabs and Muslims: it’s about the pride and identity and cultural independence of Arabs and Muslims. The dream of a return Caliphate isn’t about public administration, it’s about cultural and religious identity. Hence a future-vision not of details but of deeply stirring banalities about pride and honor and return, essentially, to the great empires of antiquity.

Weirdly, I honestly think a lot of the sway of this viewpoint isn’t just in its obvious, sensible resonances with people in the region, but in the fact that there aren’t other routes to vent dissatisfaction. Situations have been created where strong religion is the only force that can credibly and powerfully have any impact these oligarchies. As soon as you have strong religion—and its associations of traditional identity—allied against both oligarchic governments and their western friends—both associated with the selling-out of that traditional identity—it’s bound to go this direction.

I think this whole way of thinking - of looking at Bin Laden's apocalyptic pronouncements, religious fanaticism, martyr complex, etc. - and saying, "Oh this guy has identity issues", is coming from a very secular, very Western, post-Freudian place that has fuck-all to do with the mindset and world that these al-Qaeda guys actually live in. I honestly believe they don't give two shits about identity. What they care about is the will of Allah. Sure psychologists can try and trace this back to identity issues or political frustration or economic opportunity or how they were potty-trained or some other hand-wavy therapeutic mumbo-jumbo, but to equate this with their agenda is basically to reject the possibility of any mutual communication with them. It places them in a clinical subject-object relationship that is thoroughly Western, secular, and orthogonal to their worldview.

You may argue this is vague, but it certainly makes some prescriptions about governmental structure, which is what my post was saying. It also bears little resemblance to nihilism to my way of thinking.

I gues that's the thing: I *would* call this vague and nihilistic and having nothing to do w/ governmental structures -- because it's nothing more than 'Osama smash satan' menkoism. What this has set in motion is something else. But the identity stuff will always come second to control of the world's resources, which is surely the big bsattleground now.

i liked obama's line about being the skinny kid!

i got a phone call and missed obama's speech. what'd he talk about? how'd he talk about it? anywhere i can find a transcript/video?

o. nate, c'mon man, that "orthogonal to worldview" argument would be demeaning even if you applied it to animals. I understand trying not to fit a western template over the world, but further than that i have no idea what this subject/object relationship is, or why it's so terrible, or how i'm culturally misusing it.

What's demeaning about saying that concerns about "cultural identity" are orthogonal to the Al Qaeda worldview? What I think is demeaning is the suggestion that Al Qaeda is out there flying planes into buildings to express their culture. Al Qaeda has nothing to do with expressing Islamic culture. The fact is that these extremists believe that it is Allah's will for them to do what they are doing. And they believe that Allah is the absolute deity over everyone, in every culture, in the whole world. This whole idea that Al Qaeda is an expression of cultural identity is the product of a Western perspective rooted in relativism and multiculturalism which I believe is completely foreign to the way that extreme fundamentalists think. Al Qaeda doesn't believe that Allah is an expression of their culture!

amateur!st, I'd bet a lot of transcripts and whatnot are available at www.cspan.org.

mine too.

http://cache.boston.com/images/daily/28/andre_hillary_190b.jpg

Andre 3000 and Hillary. Future glimpse of the 2008 ticket?

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here -- the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

...That the "persistent reporter" was an editorial writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a conservative paper that has been highly critical of Heinz Kerry for years -- we expected this detail to quickly fall by the wayside.

Examples, please? ObL is radically anti-nationalist in that he wants to erase the existing national borders in the Middle East and establish a pan-national Caliphate. He doesn't care about national identity (ie., Iranian, Iraqi, Saudi, Jordanian, etc., etc.) - he wants to unite all Muslims under a single government.

I'm listening to Kennedy's speech right now... by comparison, it's "mumble mumble mumble JOHN KERRY, OUR NEXT PRESIDENT" "RAAAHHHHHH!" "mumble mumble mumble..." I'm not absorbing any of it ...

xpost

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040728/capt.dncc13307280220.cvn_wexler_kids_for_kerry_dncc133.jpg

Speaking of hope, my hope is that this guy won't be corrupted and cajoled by Washington--how long will it be before he succumbs to spinmasters and negative ad peddlers and open partisanship? Is he only calling out against the nutjobs on the right? The audacity of hope, indeed.

GAH! CARROTTOP HAS SPAWNED!

How many Republicans call out only against nutjobs on the left?

I think this would be a wholly appropriate tact at this point, considering that it's the nut jobs on the right who are in power.

I don't wanna know what Jack Ryan would interpret the word "nutjob" to mean.

xpost

that's not really the point.

hahaha

You're making my points for me? As you wish, then.

*bows* I put it to you you are misinterpreting me.

ok, this line is sort of funny. but really, I doubt Fritz Hollings, if single (I assume he's not) would be required to imply that he has a sexual orientation

So who do you trust enough to vote for then Don? The Republicans? I don't see any evidence that they are less partisan or power-hungry than the Democrats. The Libertarians? I guess we can imagine that that they would be pure and idealistic in their actions, because as long as they remain out of office there is no available counter-evidence, but I remain very skeptical that they would behave any differently if they ever became a significant party.

Obama does have a funny name.

After Mr. Edwards speaks, the hall will fill with the strains of ``Black-Eyed Peas,'' a nod to Mr. Edwards's down-home roots and a signal to rural voters and Southerners that he is one of them.

Appeasement? To refuse to push Mikulski around? My attitude is neither defeatist nor pessimistic, but is born of confidence - loud proclamations are required only when one's voice is not being heard. We don't have that problem right now.

I'm a great speller.

I was hoping that this was Don's statement of his political orientation.

(xpost: oh dear)

Where is the love?

Hstencil, I really don't see why a lack of protesting allows "the GOP to call the shots as to how and why and where issues are debated."

(and sometimes I think C-Span is the most biased network because the call-in shows are stuffed to the gills with people blatantly speaking off of RNC talking points)

bah. this guy is a fuckhead, only less obv so than others...

Nothing. They're only doing three nights.

I can't watch some of the musical interludes, though.

< pessimism >

Bigger exercise in futility: DNC or Mets?

< /pessimism >

there was a shot of two older gentlemen from the Hawaiian delegation tearing up, actually.

How About 1.5 Americas?

Perhaps those DNC speech-vetters were asleep at the switch?

And re: Saletan - we get the best keynote in 20 years, and all he can talk about is whether Obama is "exactly black". Meaning what, 'exactly'?

I don't think there is one in substance, but metaphorically, there is at least the appearance of one. By going for the uniter mantle, might Obama be inadvertently helping to cast Edwards as a divider?

Kaus rejects any populist bent in the Democratic message because he is obsessively opposed to Democratic efforts to achieve monetary equality (he calls his favorite targets 'money liberals'), preferring a focus on a more social egalitarianism. It's an interesting point, but not necessarily good politics.

despite the staggering empirical evidence (admittedly from the primary season but not at all limited to democratic partisans) that it does?

xpost

Especially since it's a deep psychological facet of American citizenship to hope and dream of winding up on pretty much the "wrong" end of the "two Americas" divide. Republicans have been really good in the past about convincing non-wealthy people -- and this is really amazing, when you think about it -- of convincing non-wealthy people that "liberals" are out to tax away all of the money they haven't even made yet, to rob them of the fruits of opportunities that haven't even been presented, much less seized. Amateurist is right, I think, that the average American finds it easier to think of him or herself as the one who's done well and earned his or her little piece of the pie than to think of him or herself as the one who's appealing to government to redistribute the wealth a bit more.

That said, Edwards strikes me as very good at avoiding the particular rhetorical tone that makes Republicans cry "class warfare." Especially during the past years, where part of his "two Americas" focus has been that the wealthy are actually living by different rules and standards (cue Enron, etc.) than everyone else. Which becomes not a monetary argument but a moral one, and Americans are always happy to get morally indignant about perceived elites.

NASHVILLE — Why don't people vote their own self-interest? Every few years the Republicans propose a tax cut, and every few years the Democrats pull out their income distribution charts to show that much of the benefits of the Republican plan go to the richest 1 percent of Americans or thereabouts. And yet every few years a Republican plan wends its way through the legislative process and, with some trims and amendments, passes.

The Democrats couldn't even persuade people to oppose the repeal of the estate tax, which is explicitly for the mega-upper class. Al Gore, who ran a populist campaign, couldn't even win the votes of white males who didn't go to college, whose incomes have stagnated over the past decades and who were the explicit targets of his campaign. Why don't more Americans want to distribute more wealth down to people like themselves?

Well, as the academics would say, it's overdetermined. There are several reasons.

People vote their aspirations.

The most telling polling result from the 2000 election was from a Time magazine survey that asked people if they are in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans say they are in the richest 1 percent and a further 20 percent expect to be someday. So right away you have 39 percent of Americans who thought that when Mr. Gore savaged a plan that favored the top 1 percent, he was taking a direct shot at them.

It's not hard to see why they think this way. Americans live in a culture of abundance. They have always had a sense that great opportunities lie just over the horizon, in the next valley, with the next job or the next big thing. None of us is really poor; we're just pre-rich.

Americans read magazines for people more affluent than they are (W, Cigar Aficionado, The New Yorker, Robb Report, Town and Country) because they think that someday they could be that guy with the tastefully appointed horse farm. Democratic politicians proposing to take from the rich are just bashing the dreams of our imminent selves.

Income resentment is not a strong emotion in much of America.

If you earn $125,000 a year and live in Manhattan, certainly, you are surrounded by things you cannot afford. You have to walk by those buildings on Central Park West with the 2,500-square-foot apartments that are empty three-quarters of the year because their evil owners are mostly living at their other houses in L.A.

But if you are a middle-class person in most of America, you are not brought into incessant contact with things you can't afford. There aren't Lexus dealerships on every corner. There are no snooty restaurants with water sommeliers to help you sort though the bottled eau selections. You can afford most of the things at Wal-Mart or Kohl's and the occasional meal at the Macaroni Grill. Moreover, it would be socially unacceptable for you to pull up to church in a Jaguar or to hire a caterer for your dinner party anyway. So you are not plagued by a nagging feeling of doing without.

Many Americans admire the rich.

They don't see society as a conflict zone between the rich and poor. It's taboo to say in a democratic culture, but do you think a nation that watches Katie Couric in the morning, Tom Hanks in the evening and Michael Jordan on weekends harbors deep animosity toward the affluent?

On the contrary. I'm writing this from Nashville, where one of the richest families, the Frists, is hugely admired for its entrepreneurial skill and community service. People don't want to tax the Frists — they want to elect them to the Senate. And they did.

Nor are Americans suffering from false consciousness. You go to a town where the factories have closed and people who once earned $14 an hour now work for $8 an hour. They've taken their hits. But odds are you will find their faith in hard work and self-reliance undiminished, and their suspicion of Washington unchanged.

Americans resent social inequality more than income inequality.

As the sociologist Jennifer Lopez has observed: "Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got, I'm just, I'm just Jenny from the block." As long as rich people "stay real," in Ms. Lopez's formulation, they are admired. Meanwhile, middle-class journalists and academics who seem to look down on megachurches, suburbia and hunters are resented. If Americans see the tax debate as being waged between the economic elite, led by President Bush, and the cultural elite, led by Barbra Streisand, they are going to side with Mr. Bush, who could come to any suburban barbershop and fit right in.

Most Americans do not have Marxian categories in their heads.

This is the most important reason Americans resist wealth redistribution, the reason that subsumes all others. Americans do not see society as a layer cake, with the rich on top, the middle class beneath them and the working class and underclass at the bottom. They see society as a high school cafeteria, with their community at one table and other communities at other tables. They are pretty sure that their community is the nicest, and filled with the best people, and they have a vague pity for all those poor souls who live in New York City or California and have a lot of money but no true neighbors and no free time.

All of this adds up to a terrain incredibly inhospitable to class-based politics. Every few years a group of millionaire Democratic presidential aspirants pretends to be the people's warriors against the overclass. They look inauthentic, combative rather than unifying. Worst of all, their basic message is not optimistic.

They haven't learned what Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt and even Bill Clinton knew: that you can run against rich people, but only those who have betrayed the ideal of fair competition. You have to be more hopeful and growth-oriented than your opponent, and you cannot imply that we are a nation tragically and permanently divided by income. In the gospel of America, there are no permanent conflicts.

good point. Owning stock (as most Americans do these days - hell I've even got my 28 shares of Lucent - currently trading at $3.07 for a whopping $85.96 capitalization) doesn't make one an oligarch.

Tangentially, the new Thomas Frank book moves around this territory, talking about how the economic splits Democrats often talk about just don't play as well as the supposed cultural splits Republicans do. But if people like Edwards can effectively conjure up a cultural image of a monetary elite -- i.e., a genuine culture of fat-cats who look down on you and think they're above the law -- that's when I think it'll fall more into place.

On this topic: am I the only one who thinks it isn't the hottest idea for Teresa to go parading her multilingual status? Aren't as many Americans violently offput by this kind of thing as are mildly impressed?

Is this really what "Americans" read? Like, are these the most popular five mags in America or something?

AP: Edwards Slamming GOP in DNC Speech
34 minutes ago

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - John Edwards, the upbeat Southern populist on John Kerry's ticket, was accusing Republicans on Wednesday of trying to "take this campaign for the highest office in the land down the lowest possible road."

In a speech to convention delegates poised to make him their vice presidential candidate, the North Carolina senator was asking Americans to "reject the tired, old, hateful, negative politics of the past" and embrace a Democratic ticket he said was full of promise and hope. Excerpts of the speech were obtained by The Associated Press

Edwards, a former rival of Kerry's who fashioned an upbeat message during the primary fight, did not plan to mention President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney in his address, officials said. But he makes no secret of his differences with the Republican ticket, and seeks to bolster Kerry against criticism that he's not ready to be commander in chief.

Like a parade of speakers before him, Edwards was pointing to Kerry's valorous service in the Vietnam War more than 30 years ago as evidence of the candidate's fitness to serve in the White House. Earlier, Kerry arrived to the convention city aboard a water taxi with crewmates from his Vietnam swiftboat.

Those crewmates "saw up close what he's made of," Edwards planned to say. "They saw him reach down and pull one of his men from the river and save his life. And in the heat of battle, they saw him decide in an instant to turn his boat around, drive it straight through an enemy position and chase down the enemy to save his crew."

"Decisive. Strong," the speech says. "Aren't these the traits you want in a commander in chief?"

The many injured U.S. soldiers in Iraq "deserve a president who understands on the most personal level what they have gone through," the excerpts say. Kerry won three Purple Hearts in combat.

Edwards was being introduced by his wife, Elizabeth, who says in a text of her address: "We deserve leaders who allow their faith and moral core, our faiths and moral core, to draw us closer together, not drive us farther apart. We deserve leaders who believe in each of us."

Edwards viewed his nationally televised prime-time acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention as an opportunity to introduce himself and Kerry to millions of Americans who know little about either.

Ahead of the address, Edwards said it would touch on the theme of "two Americas" — one for the rich, the other for everyone else — that became a staple of his stump speeches last winter during his unsuccessful but well-received bid for the Democratic nomination.

Edwards was Kerry's last major Democratic challenger to fold his campaign. He won but one primary — South Carolina, where he was born — but finished a strong second in many other states.

The 51-year-old Edwards said he wrote most of the speech himself in longhand on yellow legal pad, going through some 30 drafts, and he practiced it repeatedly.

Edwards' speaking style — direct, without notes and with short sentences and simple words — was honed over years as a plaintiffs' trial lawyer, helping him win one multimillion-dollar verdict after another. His 1998 Senate victory was his first try at elective office.

During the primary season, Edwards drew high approval ratings by projecting a sunny optimism and refraining from harsh attacks on his opponents.

"He'll be talking ... about the big themes of this campaign: optimism, searching for a better tomorrow that this nation has always represented," his wife said Wednesday morning on CBS-TV's "Early Show."

"He'll be talking a lot about Senator Kerry and the attributes that he brings and will bring to the office of the presidency," she said. "And he'll be talking about specifics of their plan to improve our safety and security and strength at home and abroad."

The candidate's wife — a lawyer herself — joined him early Wednesday for a podium and microphone check.

"It was actually a little less scary than I thought it would be when we got up there on the stage," she told CBS.

Many Democratic strategists see Edwards as offering strength in areas where Kerry is deemed to be weak — support among rural and small-town voters, especially in the South; his upbeat personality and common touch.

only the really stupid ones. It's pretty easy to spin her mutlinguism into "America can't compete in the world if we don't know anything about it."

On the other hand, I think there's been a campaign decision that she is who she is and they shouldn't mess with that, which is honest and good and refreshing. I dunno, I may not be making sense, but I do get a twinge of worry, though, about actively demonstrating the multilinguism.

http://cache.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/images/day2/04.jpg

well, not sure abt the multi-lingui thing, don't really see that as being as much of an issue as you do - mebbe i'm too optimistic but i don't really believe that.

I've actually been praying for ages that the campaign would 'unmuzzle' Teresa. All the fears as to her turning people off bybeing too forthright struck me as being foolish. I think she could be a real asset in humanizing Kerry. Y'know, 'he can't be that dull and boring a person if she sees something in him'

Steve Buscemi's on MSNBC now.

they may bring this up because it's been demonstrated that when candidates go negative, their ratings drop. this doesn't necessarily apply to surrogates though.

I believe Yance is referring to CNN political correspondent, Candy Crowley (no relation to Alleister), who bears a resemblance to the (pre-stapled) Wilson Philips singer.

Good lord...Mellencamp.

x-post

oh, come on, they were all over him with the whitewater and monica lewinsky shit.

"You never heard people speaking as negatively about Churchill as they do Hitler. Why are they so mean to him???"

btw, I fucked up his name too. it's "Aleister" apparently

Joe Scarborough is a boil desperately in need of lancing.

fear

Edwards promised everything but I tuned out before he got to the part about a chicken in every pot and money growing on trees.

his older daughter was looking very jackie o.

It seemed that his voice was a bit raspy though - perhaps too much campaigning lately or a slight head cold?

i still don't know whether the practice of focusing on a black person when a candidate starts speaking about segregation is deplorable or just hopelessly clumsy. (or somewhere in between.)

I noticed this quite a bit during Edwards's bit. But, perhaps, those bored-looking people represented the more photogenically engaged bit of the audience. The otheres had left for beer + cigarettes.

I misread that as jerk his chicken around so.

My only reservation about this is the possibility that he'd enjoy it.

There was apalpable sense of unease when the Imam started giving the benediction at the end of tuesday; a murmur of disquiet. If it played thatbadly in the hall how did that play in the country. It was a great thing to do nonetheless, seeing as you have to havethese things, even if the Imam did miss out his Bismillah Allah. Allahu Akbar. I guess that would have been a bit too much.

Teresa HK's speach got better and better as whe went along. She's going to make an interesting first lady.

especially if Ken Mehlman was doing the tying

Sharpton was (apart from one thing) terrific. It amazes me how he and the party have turned people’s whole perception of him as slightly-nutty to his advantage: these days he can stride out with a grandeur that’s comparatively mainstream and credible, take bigger rhetorical risks than anyone else, and come off like a straight shooter who gets all grave and responsible when serious matters are on the line. If he takes leaps some folks can’t follow him on, well: it’s just Al Sharpton, right? Kooky fellow, but he makes a lot of sense sometimes, and anyway, it’s not like anyone’s ever going to elect him anything. I was watching on PBS and so missed the went-too-far criticisms, though I was sort of wondering about that during his post-speech interview, which was ultra-reasonably defensive: “I didn’t call the president a name, or bash him, or say anything about him as a person. He threw down a gauntlet about the interests of black voters, and I answered that challenge.”

The uncomfortable part of Sharpton’s speech: his explicitly speaking for the whole of black America.

Couchside Convention Watch: The polymorphous perversity of Chris Matthews

With fire already in his belly, the 38-year-old clergyman said he was driving through Devonshire and Water streets Tuesday night, his truck plastered with anti-abortion images, when a young man ran up and tossed the cigarette through the open passenger-side window.

It hit his son, then bounced onto him, where a struggle to put it out ensued. No one was hurt.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040721/capt.bx11407212244.protest_lawsuits_bx114.jpg

...oh lord I can't even muster the amount of sarcasm required.

I started a new thread for the debates with the schedule

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040729/capt.dnc11007292013.cvn_protests_dnc110.jpg

What is it with people in Boston?

radical leftists burning books...are they Stalinists?

plenty of aggresive jerks, yes. also plenty of mellow cats. same as anywhere else really.

Now, the "decentralized direct action" and police response starts...

I wonder what kind of surprise there will be tonight - rhetorical, policy, stagecraft, endorsement?

albright is my favorite broochie mama

(yes at 10)

Wyclef is playin'?

I certainly didn't miss Willie (though i did miss Wyclef yesterday)

no, that was pretty quick (he's on a tight schedule). Dean milked it far longer.

and now he's warming up. classic Kerry - he'll close strong.

Teresa's got shitty posture. I'm-a just sayin'.

(ecw?)

"EE CEE DUB! EE CEE DUB!"

xxx-post

We will deploy every tool in our arsenal: our economic as well as our military might; our principles as well as our firepower.

The future doesn't belong to fear; it belongs to freedom.

[The] flag doesn't belong to any president. It doesn't belong to any ideology and it doesn't belong to any political party.

And let me say it plainly: in that cause, and in this campaign, we welcome people of faith. America is not us and them. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago, and I want to say this to you tonight: I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.

xpost

wow i was on PBS. i wish i had cable.

"I don't wear my own faith on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. And whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country."

and think it a particularly well-rendered turn of phrase.

drudge currently requesting "IF ANYONE HAS AUDIO OF CNN LIVE FEED OF OPEN MIC FROM DNC BOOTH AND YELLING AT FAILURE OF BALLOONS, PLEASE EMAIL TO M_D_R_goongoongoon_UDGE@AOL.COM..."

what prompted tracer's "oh fuck this guy" comment i wonder...

x-post: that's good news, i'll send him some retitled classic 'ardcore

x-post: dude the comment above it!!

tracer's comment was a joke

someone needs to fill Matt Drudge's email box with garbage pronto

yeah, i know, but why fdr as opposed to any other president, like kennedy or clinton or whatever?

'hey, did you hear that guy say fuck?'
'yeah, he said fuck pretty loud'
'yeah, fuck's a bad word to say on tv... 'cus of the censoring.'
'and the mic was on, too. his ass is totally grass!'
'totally grass. hey, let's go ask andy if he heard about it,'
'dude, he'll get a kick out of it.'
'hey, andy, did you hear that guy say fuck on tv last night' ...

uh oh, ix-nay on the ad-bay omen-lay

best part of that Herald article...

At the 1948 convention, Democrats released doves, which swooped down on President Harry Truman and senators on the platform, and prompted legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn to snarl, "Get these damn pigeons out of here."

Candy Crowley remains evil. Cate Edwards is, as they say, fahn.

- Joe Klein on Kerry's speech.

10,000 GarageBand-enhanced remixes by morning

FDR was the last true liberal.

(can we drop Larry King, Tucker Carlson, Gideon Yago AND Mo Rocca from the ceiling? pretty please with sugar on top?)

"My opponent voted for the war, but against aid for our soljers. My opponent says he against gay marriage, but also against an amendment to the, uh, U.S. Constitution that will protect the dignity of marriage between a man and a woman. My opponentsays he got three purple hearts when really, it was something more like two-and-a-half..."

I mean, really. i don't get too impressed with politicians. I'm not so much enthralled by the success of this convention as I am more amazed that the Democrats didn't fuck it up (balloons notwthstanding). The question I have in mind is How in the hell can George Walker Bush and the Republicans even come close to topping that?

Are the Texas delegates in the front row going to take off their cowboy hats and pray on the floor again whenever a gay person shows up at the podium?

What pictures of Larry King does he have?

there must be a new day of asthetic perfection in our fair country

a new day where any person can go forth from his home and not be forced to look at the obese as they waddle around, each hamhock-like forearm straining to shovel yet more food into their gullets

we must strive for this my friends

haha i caught that

is that kucinich over on the extreme left, knowing exACTLY which camera to smile into?

HAAAAAAAANG ON. HELP IS ON THE WAY / I'LL BE THERE AS FAST / AS I CAN

I'm going to bed.

the cspan cameras panning back & forth over the balloons not dropping didn't help things.

gabneb's photo is fantastic. It's the Justice League!

Fox News' post-speech coverage was expectedly shitty. I tuned in here and there to see their objective "analysis." Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke, the "Beltway Boys" are reptilian slime.

Overall, I really like Teresa Heinz-Kerry. She would make a fascinating first lady. I'm on that Barack Obama bandwagon too. I hope he kicks some right wing ass in the years to come.

Dennis Kucinich is the man too. Agree on the gabbneb photo. That's amazing.

DNC: The Film by Hype Williams

I thought Cleland was great too--even the "Crispus Atticus" thing was just the result of his relatively unrehearsed fervor.

x-post har!

I e-mailed Drudge a retitled MP3 of "Hey Asshole" by 1000 Homo DJs.

I was in Boston myself today just wandering about, did not manage to find anyone to beg/steal credentials off of in order to get in the convention hall. But Hardball put their pundit corral in a city square near Faneuil Hall so you could go right by it.. I had a nice chat with a lady from upstate NY who read Democratic Underground, her 12-year-old daughter had convinced her they should visit Boston, so they were standing there yelling "TWEETY!!!" and heckling Matthews the entire time. As far as protests, I didn't go near the zone but that photo above.. pretty much everywhere on the perimeter of the Fleet Center looked like that, and I wonder if that's actually a photo of the charter bus parking lot. There were cops all over the place but they seemed in a fairly pleasant mood & I had no idea anything violent went down..

Attucks father was said to be an African and his mother a Natick or Nantucket Indian; in colonial America, the offspring of black and Indian parents were considered black or mulatto. As a slave in Framingham, he had been known for his skill in buying and selling cattle.

Abandon ship

DAYMN that's rough

The elephant in the room.

You do not get your GOP cerdentials before you learn the lyrics to "Kumbaya"(sp)

Overall, I really like Teresa Heinz-Kerry. She would make a fascinating first lady.

Me too! She seems to understand that there's a time to speak, and a time to be silent. I'm more interested in what she'll have to say because she's not in soundbites every 5 minutes.

Damn, those college costs must be skyrocketing faster than I thought if a six-figure salary isn't enough to keep the kids in Pot Noodle.

(Then again, those private engagements should bring on enough bling for Ridge to endow scholarships to his alma mater.)

not that I wanna defend Ridge exactly, but I'm assuming that this $175K is pre-tax, in which case paying $20K+ to send l'il Jr. Ridge to a top-money school that will have him with bad grades (Evergreen? Bard? Bennington? other "liberal" schools?) still ain't a bargain.

Anyway, whatever, so ... I'm now totally down with the idea that John/Teresa interaction makes Kerry look totally deep, especially with the Edwards as a sort of whitebread foil. And it doesn't come off too cosmopolitan or foreign, either -- just sort of, you know, deep.

Also, there are good state/city schools in this nation that are more affordable than private institutions. But faced with the choice, I decided to go into staggering debt rather than attend a CUNY school. There IS no case for them (like, sadly, the majority of public education institutions in the city of New York, grammar school on up). I have no idea what the case is with sending Ridge's children to a state school, though I imagine a man in his position, who can theoretically go ahead and get into a position to afford a private institution, would rather send them to a private institution (name value, name value).

Anyway, keep on with this stuff, I am using this thread as an update for the convention, as I really haven't had time to pay attention to it. Thanks in advance, etc.

Hmm...

xpost: exactly. Edwards = hope; Kerry = help.

ihttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040730/ids_photos_ts/r4078133815.jpg

Celebrities (L-R) Sean 'P. Diddy' Combs, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ben Affleck watch the 2004 Democratic National Convention from a luxury box inside the FleetCenter in Boston, July 29, 2004. Author Norman Lear is pictures to the right. The party faithful will hear Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry (news - web sites) formally accept the nomination with his speech that will bring the four day convention to a close. REUTERS/Marc Serota US ELECTION

oh, this is a bad buddy pic just WAITIN' to happen.

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040730/i/r4078133815.jpg

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040730/capt.dnc22007300023.cvn_celebs_dnc220.jpg

Aren't you the woman recently given a Fulbright?

Kerry had his elegant moments, especially toward the close of the speech, when he announced that, "It is time to reach for the next dream. It is time to look to the next horizon. For America, the hope is here. The sun is rising. Our best days are still to come."

"Keep reaching for that rainbow. Fly high; like a bird in the sky. Let the sunshine in. We can build a brighter day, just you and me.

http://www.juanvaldez.com/menu/history/images/TheJuanValdezLogo-history-i.gif

The GOP will fight back by adopting the Vicuna

http://www.steelbeamtheatre.com/images/pinocchio002.jpg

I'm not sure how I feel about the personal appeal to George W. to keep things positive. On one hand, it seems hypocritical when you've just criticized the guy, and criticism is certainly and integral part of a campaign. However it does serve as a kind of challange to Bush. The appeal for positivity is itself a negative tactic. Overall, I like this new aggressive confident democratic party.

...Stephen Jewett, a DNC official involved in podium operations, said there was no malfunction with the balloon drop. The balloons were timed to come down slowly, he said, making "for a longer ending, which was nice."

I don't really care why he's really leaving, he indicated being weary of the goings on, what does anyone think that means? And as someone else kind of alluded to, pointing out the skyrocketing cost of American education isn't exactly a pat on the back for the Bush administration so hey, why not, let's let him plead the anti-private-loan case.

In other news, no one besides ten people, all on ILX, actually cares why Ridge wants out or probably is even aware he is leaving or possibly even knows who the hell he is, sadly (I include GWB in this group).

xpost I like longer endings, particularly when they involve copious usage of the word "FUCK".

you'll be happy (?) to know that kucinich proposed a "federal department of peace."

Bush has had some bad pictures taken today...

Seriously though, I find the term "Homeland Security Secretary" incredibly creepy. The word "homeland" has such old timey, feel-good connotations to me, like a bunch of ol' boys sitting on the porch trading WWII stories and talkin' about the gals, while the actual term has such bizarro surveillance state overtones...it puts an image in my head of some hideous Cerberus, except instead of having three dog heads, it's got Lincoln, Orwell, and Betty Fuckin' Crocker stuck up there. They really couldn't have come up with a less twee, patronizing word than "Homeland"?

I really shouldn't post to ILX after writing a massive paper on Wilsonian attacks on free speech and protest during WWI. My jokes are tasteless and my agitation high. I give myself 6.4/10.

Ralph wasn't having it.

??????!!

I just remember that during Bush's (mostly not bad, for him) immediate post-Sept. 11th speech to Congress, the second he said he was establishing a "Homeland Security" something-or-other (it wasn't a department at first...whatever it was), I heard the Big Bells of Doom go off. There was no way anything with that name was ever going to be anything but bad news. But it's a tricky bitch, because it'll be hard for any subsequent president (especially any Democratic president) to rename or disband the damn thing. I guess the best hope is in the Sept. 11th commission report -- you could implement a bunch of stuff from that and reorganize accordingly and get away from that horrible name.

"nothing but the best peanut butter for my nation."

No, quite the opposite. It's very easy to reject things when you've never been accepted. Look at his pathetic requests to be Dean's running mate, or to be given a speaking slot at the DNC.

Bush today: "When it comes to the economy and employment, results matter. When it comes to protecting our homeland security and fighting terrorism, results matter. Ansd when it comes to choosing a president, results matter."

It takes balls to say all that when in fact, the economy, employment figures, terrorism fighting, and even choosing the president over the last four years have had very dismal results. Heh, I guess they do matter, after all.

and what comprises the MAJORITY of southern manhattan? feh.

if the philadelphia inquirer is to be believed, then ralphie stiffed the philly street people he recruited to push petitions outta the money he promised them. forget those $10 stipends!