WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?
Oddly enough, Howard Dean’s speech was kind of a snooze - especially after being greeted by a standing ovation. He seemed flat and not really connected to the crowd. Maybe he was keeping it low-key on purpose; if so, he accomplished it.
UPDATE: Dave Johnson has more:
Howard Dean spoke at our Blogger Breakfast [...]

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WHY, OH WHY, DO CONSERVATIVES HATE AMERICA?
Notice, please, that Fox News was the only network whose talking heads chattered right on through the playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner” last night at the convention.
Perhaps coincidentally, they also cut away during the touching 9/11 tribute.
Of course, Sean Hannity’s opinion of Michael Moore is much more compelling.

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COUNTING VOTES
Krugman:
It’s election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger’s campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.
When the count resumes, [...]

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MONEY TALKS
Over at Gadflyer, Zoe asks about the convention: Where are all the women senators?
That ignores a pretty powerful political reality. Let me explain.
Political nominations of all levels from a party capable of delivering the seat are a reward. The more visible and influential the position, the less likely a woman will be nominated to [...]

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A RISKER, NOT A SAFER
Via Digby, I read this today. And now I’m really worried.
President Bush charged up punishing climbs and down steep dirt paths on his high-performance bike Monday, at one point sailing over the handlebars and landing flat on his back.
The president dusted himself off from his fall on a treacherous descent, [...]

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A RISKER, NOT A SAFER
Via Digby, I read this today. And now I’m really worried.
President Bush charged up punishing climbs and down steep dirt paths on his high-performance bike Monday, at one point sailing over the handlebars and landing flat on his back.
The president dusted himself off from his fall on a treacherous descent, [...]

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CHASTISED
I’ve been accused of being too “in-crowd” in my posts. I suppose that’s true, although you can usually figure it out from the context, I think.
But because we strive to be a full-service blog, I’m including this link in the blogroll for any of you who are confused.

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TSK TSK
They should have known when he said to swallow instead of spit.

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WTF?
I don’t know what to make of this. But then again, maybe I do:
The FBI agent in charge of investigating whether top Bush administration officials leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent as political payback against her husband has been named to head the Philadelphia FBI office.
FBI Director Robert Mueller has designated John C. [...]

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`They need a divided America. But we don’t.’- The Big Dog
I was stuck in a massive traffic backup on I-95, listening to the radio while Bill Clinton gave his speech. My, he was fine, wasn’t he?
I spent the evening at a reader’s home in Northern Liberties. How nice it is, to hear people excited about [...]

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WELCOME TO RYDELL HIGH
From what I’ve read of the convention bloggers so far, most of their energy is spent trying to figure out who’s got the hottest parties - and how to get into them. Just like high school!
See, this is why I never really fit into that journalism “scene” - I don’t drink very [...]

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CENTERED
No, I don’t know why my text is centered all of a sudden. There must be some bad code somewhere, but damned if I can find it - and I’m too tired to keep looking.
So just consider it a graphic tribute to the mainstream moderation of the Democratic Party…

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YOU GO, GIRL
I love Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Minutes later, Colin McNickle, the editorial page editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, questioned her on exactly what she meant by the term “un-American,” according to a tape of the encounter recorded by WTAE Channel 4 Action News.
Heinz Kerry said “I didn’t say that” several times to McNickle. She then [...]

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I’D FORGOTTEN WHAT PRINCIPLE LOOKS LIKE
Here’s a transcript of what Jim Lehrer said in that C-SPAN roundtable yesterday on the media and politics (via Kos):
Some journalists see the conventions in an old fashioned cop-shop way. If the candidates are all known and there are no floor fights, etc. then there is no story. I disagree [...]

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KERRY GETS SULLIED
The Duchess endorses Kerry - sort of. More like a “damning with faint praise,” but close enough to get the Free Republic regulars into a lather:
Domestically, moreover, Bush has done a huge amount to destroy the coherence of a conservative philosophy of American government; and he has been almost criminally reckless in his [...]

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A CHANGE IS GONNA COME
Kos is finally up and running from the convention, and kicks things off with this thought: Can the Democratic Party stay relevant?
One last point for now. This new energy, this new money, this new effort to take charge of our party and reverse its long string of recent failures is being [...]

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WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, wrote this powerful piece on war for the Progressive from his perspective as a World War II veteran. (I won’t excerpt it because I don’t want to dilute it.)

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REMEMBER 2000
Via Melanie over at the Bump, this from Michael Kinsley:
You would not know from the Democrats’ three decades of defensiveness about themselves and the label liberal that the Democratic candidate got more votes than the Republican one in each of the past three presidential elections. Another way of putting this is that the candidate [...]

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WOMEN ON TOP
Good piece in the Boston Globe magazine about one woman’s push to make a female president more than a liberal pipe dream.

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REAL TV
C-SPAN has been a real treat all day, with live coverage of some very engaging pre-convention events. Right now, I’m watching a panel on Paul Wellstone’s progressive legacy. Do check it out.
UPDATE: Question of the day - what’s up with Jim Hightower’s hair? Gray hair, gray mustache and dark brown hair? Yoo hoo, Fab [...]

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HELP ME OUT
And please click on the ads. The more you do, the more likely it is I’ll get more ads. As you know, I can use the money.

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THE 9/11 OMISSION REPORT
Via Ileana over at The Fifth Estate, a pointer to this very interesting story:
Writing today in The Guardian (U.K.), Michael Meacher, a member of the British Parliament and former environment minister, pointed out that Omar Sheikh, who’s about to hang for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, wired $100,000 [...]

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PANDORA’S BOX
Scott Ritter on why Saddam’s people are winning the war:
The Iraqi resistance is no emerging “marriage of convenience,” but rather a product of years of planning. Rather than being absorbed by a larger Islamist movement, Saddam’s former lieutenants are calling the shots in Iraq, having co-opted the Islamic fundamentalists years ago, with or without [...]

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ALL HOPE IS NOT DEAD
I just finished watching a great Kennedy School of Government panel on the role of the media in convention coverage that was presented live on C-SPAN. (Watch for the rerun and check it out if you can.) It featured Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Judy Woodruff and Jim Lehrer, with [...]

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JOE WILSON: RIGHT AGAIN
One of the reasons I don’t usually post the most recent attacks on our loyal opposition is that, invariably, the so-called “proof” of our lies, treason, incompetence, etc. is discredited within a week of the original story. (Naturally, the media rarely follows up beyond the original news cycle.)
Like this:
A leading nuclear expert [...]

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IF THE RED-HEADED WHORE IS BUSY, I’LL TAKE THE BLONDE
Now TV personality Cokie “Mother Teresa” Roberts is going on about Kerry and Edwards voting in favor of partial-birth abortion “when the majority of the country is against it, and they have a real problem there.”
You inbred Beltway slut.
“It is a party of the left,” she’s [...]

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MEET THE ‘YES’
You know, Not-So-Tiny Tim Russert really is the biggest media whore of them all. I don’t know why I keep watching “Meet the Press,” unless it’s simply to remind myself why the corporate press sluts deserve no mercy.
Last week, it was the “Kerry is elite” routine. (Oddly enough, I just read in the [...]

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SACRIFICE
I was in the supermarket yesterday when I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt with a photo decal of her son in uniform. Across the top of the picture were the words “Proud Mother of A Soldier” (or words to that effect. Hard to tell, the aisle was pretty crowded).
I was thinking about my own [...]

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ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD
Hey hey, my my:
Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and a deep roster of other rock stars will unite for politically minded concerts this fall that will give voice to dissatisfaction with the Bush administration.
The all-star rock shows, which are expected to begin in October and target campaign swing states [...]

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THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
In his review, Frank Rich speaks on convention coverage:
YOU can’t blame the broadcast networks for cutting their convention coverage to a fig-leaf minimum of just three hours of prime time spread over four nights. That’s what both parties deserve for having steadily sanded down their quadrennial celebrations into infomercials with all the spark [...]

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