What does the Obama Convention offer? Not much.
Nothing on Guatanamo, illegal and unconstitutional torture, nothing about Russia beyond platitudes about Neocon solidarity with Georgian freedom-loving activities, nothing about NATO expansion, nothing about China, India beyond a roll call of rising powers, and so on.
No specifics about Iraq (and skipping Biden’s vote for the war, too). No talk about restoring the constitution or separation of powers from a rogue Imperial Regime in both domestic and foreign affairs. We did get a shout out to the Iranians. And a gloss over the Crowned One’s glaringly thin credentials for the job patently ‘above his pay grade’.
Biden is the attack dog? It wasn’t a Dukakis 1988 gig but no Ann Richards there either. And Joe, lose the French cuff links. (We’re partial to them now and then but not when we pretend to be a working class stiff hob nobbing with Tweety and Scrantonians — and we know the area very well personally). Democrats can’t seem to take their gloves off to save their lives.
If not Biden, who? If not now, when? Carville must be bouncing off walls. Land one. Hard. And keep going. Repeat exercise. Politics is a contact sport — ‘change’ notwithstanding.
We agree Biden at least rose above Mark Warner — who was an outstanding govenor — but eh. Biden’s effort couldn’t even rouse a captive audience ready for red meat. Who would have thought the Democrats could once again teeter on the edge of pulling defeat from the jaws of inevitable victory. Even the Crowned Prince’s ‘surprise’ visit was flat — choreographed to put him in that building briefly for optics. A last minute pirouette to prevent his sole participation being his ‘Party Rally’ in that bizarre Flavian Amphitheatre. One can only pray some idiot doesn’t unknowingly say, ‘Yo dog, wouldn’t a cathedral of light be tight? Suburban soccer moms would think it was like, down with a U2 show. Hectic for sure.’
The Big Dog still shows them how to draw distinctions with ease — something he tried to teach Kerry to no avail. He truly is he most gifted natural politician of this generation. We can’t expect that from the Crowned One tonight based on his rhetorical history. A surprise would be welcome.
Last night was the best for the Democrats so far — although HRC has been exemplary through out. If the Crowned One or David Axelrod doesn’t pay down her debt now (or at a more felicitous moment) in a significant way, they are truly men of little vision, honor or decency.
And as an aside, who precisely anointed the slightly bloated Luke Russert the spokesperson for the Millennials?
*Old joke from 1993 (and yes, we know he is still ambulatory).
DrLeoStrauss says
This is just cruel . . .
“As the economy reels, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the Other Running Mate — has been absolutely butchering Senator John McCain across the Rust Belt this week. It is not clear who has noticed.
“John is so out of touch, he just has no idea,” charged Mr. Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, who called his “old, dear friend” someone who “just doesn’t think,” who is behaving in a repugnant manner and who is peddling “Republican garbage,” and malarkey.
The older woman who introduced him at a rally here called Mr. Biden’s Republican counterpart, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, a “bucket of fluff,” and he rewarded the woman as he took the microphone with an “I love you” and a gentle kiss on the head.
“If I sound angry, it’s because I am angry,” Mr. Biden told a few hundred people gathered at a high school football field. Yes, he sounds angry, yelling through his stump speeches, flailing his arms and telling a (supportive) member of the audience to “Shush up, will you?” (“I’m kidding,” he added, but did not sound it.)
But the reality for Mr. Biden is that while running mates are second-fiddlers by definition, the phenomenon of Ms. Palin has rendered him something of a fourth or fifth fiddle. It is not like last month, when reporters swarmed Mr. Biden’s Delaware home and delegates swooned at the Democratic convention. He is now trailed by just a few national reporters, and struggling to break through in a race marked by historic firsts, political celebrities and charismatic newcomers — none named Joe Biden.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/us/politics/20biden.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Dr Leo Strauss says
“When does AEI start trumping the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this stuff?”
Army Chief of Staff Pete Choomaker and clueless as ever
(November 20, 2006)
Comment says
” … American may fall in love with her … she’s winsome … she’s feisty” – David Gergen
Interesting – we had the same reaction as Gergen, but we would have refrained from saying something so vacuous on TV. But Hey – that’s why Gergen gets the bucks ..
Meanwhile – the world waits on Powell as he continues to tell the world media that he is “in touch” with both campaigns.
Comment says
The neocons seem to really have a hook in McCain – As early as June Bill Kristol was talking up Palin and giving reasons and themes that McCain has been using lately.
It remains to be seen how McCain flip flops from his up-to-now adamantine opposition to drilling in ANWR. We doubt McCain ever gave it much thought when he opposed drilling, but saw it as a Mavericky-thing to do or to show the press how anti Bush he could be.
If we had to guess, we’d say it was a mistake for McCain.
Comment says
Sarah Palin? We are not sure what to make of it. She’s pretty in nice conventional way – Voice is somewhat prosaic. Since she’s lived in Alaska for so long one can only guess her potential downside is the inevitability of rubbing up against the corrupt machine. We could speculate about some more probs, but we’ll read up.
Anon says
re Rove
We’re pretty bored with the over-emphasis on Rove in Dem circles. But that being said – it must be pretty stressfull (for Rove) to have to think this way all the time. Constantly switching things and conversing and inverting. Anyway – this seemed like a shark jumping one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Q3VZuPvAs
Anon says
Pat: Speech was greatest thing since …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcnksZ4FL3Q
Anon says
clarification – we said that review was a bit indulgent, but we had not read page 2 when the reviewer did tear into Pollack for being a phony.
Anon says
David Gergen said the speech was “a symphoney … a masterpiece.” Sounds good.
Anon says
Leo, are you read for some Grand Strategy?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/books/review/Rodenbeck-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin
This negative review is sort of refreshing, but it’s still annoying that Pollack is taken so seriously. He may be brighter than Scheuer, but he is not very familiar with his subject matter and most of what he writes seems like disingenuous fluff purposely created to camoflage an essentially neocon war agenda.
A way our of the desert should begin by focusing on building our relationships in rising Asia – and not being tied down in Moslem lands/
Anon says
This is funny:
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/13890?in=1:02&out=5:35
Chait regards himself as anti Bush – part of the opposition. But he has been spoonfed the parameters of acceptable narrative from Bob Kagan no less. He thinks the Conventional Wisdom is bold. Then when Yglesias starts to breach the approved narrative by citing some discreet facts, Chait starts to fidget about and blink his eyes.
Congnitive dissonace snuck in.
Hunter says
Oh, and as a Millennial, I’d like to tell Luke Russert to fruitful and multiply, but not in those words (at least I’m a somewhat cultured Millennial…). As to who appointed him, here are a couple of clues:
clue 1
clue 2
Predictable. Sadly.
Hunter says
On the coronation:
Seriously, guys? Born in the USA? That’s not subtle at all.
And that video montage was so high school graduation.
But the main speech was damn good. I was (very) glad to see him open the door on making nuclear a part of the solution to our energy problems. I was also glad to see him lay out what will be perceived as specific policy proposals by the media in a venue where the uninterested masses might actually hear them. And attacking at every opportunity that old dude the other party’s going to nominate was nice too.
Thoughts?
Comment says
re Tweety meltdown – Bill O’Reilly can take this to the bankhttp://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/08/27/chris-matthews-oreilly-has-a-problem-with-race
Comment says
It was interesting to hear Kerry make lines sound bad or canned that with some editing out of excess verbiage might be workable.