Will wonders never cease?
I was accepted into the Graduate program in Public Communication at American University School of Communications.
Woo Hoo!
Karl Rove: “Small town mayor and short term Governor not ready for Presidency.”
You read that correctly, folks. Karl Rove, whose disciple, Steve Schmidt, is now ram-rodding the McCain campaign, told CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Scheiffer that a short-term governor who was previously a mayor would not have the attributes or experience to step in as President.
However, he wasn’t speaking of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, that gun-toting, moose-eating, bikini-sporting, former mayor of Wasilla, a town of 9,000 and GOP Vice Presidential candidate. No, he was talking about former Democratic VP prospect Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia and former mayor of Richmond.
“With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished,” Rove said. “I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America.”
Rove continued: “So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States? What I’m concerned about is, can he bring me the electoral votes of the state of Virginia, the 13 electoral votes in Virginia?’”
Hypocrisy, knows no bounds, when it comes to these ruthless bastards, aptly described by former head of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives, John DiIulio, as the Mayberry Machiavellis.
The only reason McCain picked Palin is because she will play to the conservative base of the party who will vote almost solely on the idealogical issues so dear to their hearts. God, guns, and gays…
McCain’s VP pick – “Foward to the Past!” Brilliant political theater!
From a purely political point of view, McCain’s choice of Palin was a masterstroke. He had slung the entire kitchen; range, sink and refrigerator at Obama and had closed the stupid daily polling figures. So what next? Pawlenti? Romney? Ridge? What does any of them do for McCain who has already used up his best stuff? Drawing on the historic race/gender (1st black man as opposed to first white woman) issue and having the Hillary Clinton campaign to wield as a smoke screen, the decision to put Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a right wing ideologue, on the ticket to satisfy the red-meat conservative base was brilliant.
The POW hero and the Hockey mom.
They will talk her up as a “maverick” to re-bolster McCain’s BS reputation for being the independent guy he used to be… before he gave his balls to Bush in SC eight years ago and never took ‘em back.
“She fought against her own party! She is a reformer and a maverick!”
Big freakin’ deal. She turned down money for a superfluous pork barrel project bridge that had been thoroughly scorned by the entire news media and the butt of late night TV host’s monologues. To me, that is the equivalent of hearing men say, “I take care of my kids!”, as if that is some kind of big accomplishment.
Ignore for the moment that in order to win, the GOP needs to have a ticket that swears it will fight its own party, the party that has been in total control of the government for most of the last eight years.
This maneuver, by the Karl Rove crew running this campaign, is going back to the Lee Atwater playbook, which is to divide the country in half and win 51-49 per cent by any means necessary.
For right now, and if they are very lucky, for the next week, the GOP convention will drive the news cycles. McCain’s campaign has to hope this will ignite the conservative base and that base will now get behind McCain without having to hold their noses.
The question is: will white folks, the “hard-working Americans”, so eloquently described by Senator Clinton, stop screwing themselves and vote for once go into the voting booth humming, “We Don’t get Fooled Again!”
Hey Mom! This one’s for you!
My Mom, who turned 81 last week, called me this evening to talk about the convention. Mom grew up on Long Island, NY and went to Lindenhurst schools. In the late 1930s, Lindenhurst was the scene of a massive march by the German American Bund, Nazi sympathizers.
(http://www.newsday.com/community/guide/lihistory/ny-hs729a,0,7169.story?coll=ny-lihistory-navigation)
From kindergarten to high school, Mom was always the only black kid in her class. For her, school was one long, drawn out slice of hell.
But she called me tonight to talk about the Democratic Convention in Denver, CO., and seemed almost in tears. I could hear the wonderment and joy in her voice as she told me she never thought she would live to see what happened in Denver this evening; Senator Barack Obama’s name was placed in nomination. “In my lifetime, I never imagined I would see this day… a black man nominated as the candidate for President of the United States.”
Mom was a true believer in the political system and indoctrinated me at an early age. When I was a little kid, (4-5 yrs old), I remember walking petitions with her for county water on our street. I remember going to NAACP meetings to help stuff envelopes. I remember that cold, rainy morning in November 1964 when my Mom took me to the firehouse and brought me into the voting booth with her. She flipped the levers on the local candidates, then picked me up and said, “Push that lever, son,” and then, “Now pull that red handle hard!” I grabbed the grip handle with two hands and pulled the lever to the left and was amazed as the curtains on the booth opened.
She put me back on the floor, knelt down next to me and said, “You know what you did? You just voted for President Johnson!”
Mom, I knew this day was coming because you showed me the future.
Hillary Brings the Thunder and Lightning
In case the knuckleheads at PUMA and/or Justsaynodeal didn’t hear Hillary Clinton’s salutory speech, she said “No Way. Now How. No McCain!” When you read or listen to these Clinton Cultists who claim they are trying to save the Democratic Party by destroying it, or hear Pat Buchanan sputtering in his efforts to deny the power of her gesture tonight it makes one wanna say, “What the F…?”
Hillary Clinton finally explained herself as she outlined what it was that kept her in the race to the bitter end. Quoting Harriet Tubman, Hillary said,
“On that path to freedom, Harriet Tubman had one piece of advice:
If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they’re shouting after you, keep going.
Don’t ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
And even in the darkest of moments, that is what Americans have done — we have found the faith to keep going.
I’ve seen it in you. I’ve seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and union workers, the men and women of our military you always keep going.
We are Americans. We’re not big on quitting.
But remember, before we can keep going, we’ve got to get going by electing Barack Obama the next president of the United States.”
Can you dig it?
The folks at Fox were extremely subdued in the aftermath although Dick Morris swore beforehand that the better Hillary did tonight the worse it would be for Obama. Twisted logic as usual from the ol’ toe-sucker.
Kevin Duckworth, R.I.P.
Kevin Duckworth used to play for the Bullets in the early 90′s, back when our family was just getting settled into Washington, DC. I quickly learned that the Bullets were going to be a team that looked awful from afar, but always seemed to be that close to being good… and then would look awful up close.
“Duck” was a nice guy but, without the rest of his former Trailblazers team mates around, he was a pretty ordinary big guy who took up space on the floor… in a good way!
44 seems awfully young to die, but Kevin passed away yesterday while conducting (or attending – I’ve read differing accounts) a youth basketball clinic sponsored by the Blazers.
R.I.P. “Duck.” Your Bullets weren’t very good, but they were kinda fun to watch!
Fox News and Karl Rove… there are no words
Karl Rove – commenting on Michelle Obama’s speech: (all dialogue paraphrased)
“She did a shout out to Joe Biden. Anyone could have done that, but for her to do it was just being political.’
Britt Hume:
“But Karl, this is a political convention.”
Karl Rove:
“Yeah, but they didn’t have to dummy up.. uh, uh, embellish his resume…”
Laura Ingram:
“On a positive note, she looked great.”
Sheesh!
Obama has been “Biden” time. Let the campaign begin.
For the last few weeks folks in the punditocracy have been asking, “Why is the race narrowing, why hasn’t Obama put McCain away?” Why? Because the McCain campaign long ago abandoned the “Straight Talk Express” and has given into the Dark Side.
This time last summer, the media was referring to “poor John McCain,” standing alone in the airport waiting at the baggage carousel. No matter, Hillary was going to win the Democratic nomination and win or lose the general election , Those Who Own Us will get to keep looting the treasury and wrecking the government as they have for the last 27 years – Bill Clinton aside. Since Obama vanquished Hillary Clinton in the primaries – the corporate criminals who run this joint have brought McCain into the fold.
They then went to Plan B and brought in another in a long line of Lee Atwater disciples and descendants to take the McCain campaign into the gutter and pull out a knife.
Steve Schmidt, this bald-headed Rove disciple, is following the standard operating procedure of saying a big lie, saying it again and then louder until the media starts parroting the lie while pretending to “analyze” the charge. Schmidt claims this will be his last campaign, maybe he remembers the fate of Lee Atwater and wants to avoid going to hell.
Meanwhile, the pundits are also the ones screaming that Obama needs to hit back at John McCain. They said the same thing during the primary campaign when Hillary Clinton whacked him without conscious. It just goes to show that all the talking heads really don’t know the country in which they live.
Obama needs to punch back, they said. Yeah, right.
Barack Obama, black man, should have gone toe to toe with Hillary Clinton, white woman. That would have played as well as the Nicole Brown Simpson 911 tape.
Obama should slap John McCain about the head? Black man beating up Grandpa.
Joe Biden will have no such disadvantage in taking heavy shots at John McCain and those shots will land hard. But Biden’s biggest help will be with the (as Ms. Clinton so eloquently put it),”real, hard working americans, white americans,” that he can speak to.
Now, of course, the pundits are falling over themselves to say Biden will NOT be able to deliver any of the above. I disagree. I hope I’m right.
It will all come down to the ground game in the deciding states.Stay tuned.
Long time, no post.
Life has been CRAZY busy these last few weeks! I’m still waiting to see if I have been accepted at AU. Looking less likely. C’est la vie.
Maggiebelle (mother-in-law) has been to death’s door and back again, and again. She now has a gastric tube delivering nutrition to her and she has rebounded from being severely undernourished. She has reached a point in her dementia that she can’t (or won’t) swallow enough food. The social worker calls it a “failure to thrive.” We are looking into hospice care for her at our home.
Meanwhile, Fran and I squeezed in a trip to Madison, WI to see our son, Bear, perform in “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and we ‘thoroughly’ enjoyed the show. All punning aside, it was a terrific production with a first-rate cast and crew, fantastic set design (1920s New York City Art deco) and wonderful music.
Another treat was attending the live broadcast of Michael Feldman’s “Whaddya know?” radio production. That was a lot of fun.
Iraq has an $80,000,000,000 surplus…
White folks are doing backflips and Curly Howard floor-spins while screaming about the Iraqui budget surplus.
I believe that many of my fellow Americans are realizing they been had, took, hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok!
We should know that the official rationale for this war was bullshit.
Some will say it was “War for Oil” but they will only be partly right. Nope, ultimately this was an cynical adventure for the sole sake of profit. Cold hard CASH. Yours and mine.
This administration has played the nation like a video game:
GRAND THEFT USA.
They have drained the Treasury of the USA. We have been witness to the greatest transferral of wealth from public to private coffers.
It is so amazing.
Evidently the Iraquis ain’t stupid.
Now Iraq has come out for a time table for the withdrawal of American combat forces. Next they will ask (nay, demand) that the US Corporations withdraw also. Iraq is ready to begin rebuilding its infrastructure. However, they have already seen the work done by KBR and Haliburton, et al. They see how they can’t get water or power for than a couple of hours a day for YEARS after the invasion and toppling of Hussein. They see how the shoddy work on US construction projects kill our own military personnel by electrocution and how service delivery contractors (see above) have delivered water that has caused numerous ailments among our troops.
I’m pretty sure the Iraqui government figures it might as well spend its money on local firms to do the work considering the amount of dough the BushCheney Corp. has already raked in since 2003.
It has always been about the benjamins. Not WMD, not in retaliation for 9/11 and not to spread Democracy through the Middle East.
Mean Green.