sorry that should of course be understaining
Is there a blue dress in evidence?
Would have loved to see these Conventions 200 years ago.
Steve--We also ratify the planks in the parties' Constitutions (is that the right word?) The positions the party is taking on various issues. There is work that is done--but mostly...not.
There might be. Royal blood is blue so that would be ok with Lewinski attire. Royal semen aparantly is **************
Censored by order
Keeper of the Royal Jizz.
I think Sofia is right. Ratification of planks has a certain ring to it.
Or as one delegate to a UK conference was heard to say "Lets put our heads together and make a log cabin"
Actually, I was right about the plank part-- The plank goes into the platform.
So, I watched them all, but can't pinpoint stuff all so easily..
as the powers at conventions were waning, the importance of primaries was, yeh, gaining, some wee states deciding who would run. Weird to me, but then, that's me. Although I am sure the old conventions were rigged in different ways, the rigging did not always work predictably.
Reminds me of the Palio in Siena. I have read a lot about it over the centuries. (I mean, it is centuries old....). Not saying I know what is going on this next year. But in the past it as been so crooked... the jockeys so bought and rebought, the internal vying so fraught with chance, that in the end, it was often a crapshoot, a race that nobody knew who would win. (I have a great article on it if anyone is interested.)
Times Square, I was there in 1950, but I was a child and don't have a full view in my head right now. Maybe if I saw pictures of it in '50 I might have a glimmer. I only lived in NYC a year, but it was a very good year, when I was eight. Big ships, big buildings, big toy departments, all that mattered.. Well, no, what really mattered was my pink rubber ball, which bounced very high.
I can't wait to see what Bush is going to say tonight. Will he come out swinging? Will he mention the Swift Boat ads? Will he say the word "nucular"? How many times will he say the word "freedom"? I say he says it...7 times.
The Republican plank as introduced at the convention. Attack the opponent truth and honesty need not apply. It was pointed out that during the democratic convention Bush was named 18 times and there was very little if any character assassination. However, to date during the republican convention Kerry has been named 87 times and there has been little else but character assassination and of course the deifying of Bush. What I want to know is that all the republicans have? Is that what they are all about? How about explaining their actions and policies for the last almost four years and above all the state of the union. They play government and the electorate like a football game where the best offense is a good defense. One thing is true they are indeed offensive
Mr. Bush and the Truth About Terror
Published: September 2, 2004
While Republican delegates have been meeting in New York City, terrorist bombs have been exploding in the rest of the world. The horrific pictures of victims on an Israeli bus and slain airplane and subway passengers, as well as of a school held hostage in Russia, are a stark reminder to Americans that terrorism is not all about us. It is the tactic of preference for the self-obsessed radical movements of our age.
President Bush was absolutely right when he said it was impossible to win a war against terrorism - it's like announcing we can win a war against violence. Terrorism can only be minimized and controlled, and that can be done only with a worldwide strategy, joined by all of the world's sensible and peaceful nations. We hope that when Mr. Bush accepts his party's nomination for re-election tonight, he makes that argument.
The chances of a serious dialogue about terror took a blow, of course, when Mr. Bush retracted his completely sensible statement about terrorism after the Kerry-Edwards campaign attacked it. So far, this has been an election season of monumental simple-mindedness, in which the candidates start each day by telling us this is the most important election in the history of the planet, then devote the rest of their waking hours to meaningless sniping. But it's certainly not too late to elevate the conversation.
Tonight we do not need Mr. Bush to remind us that he went to ground zero and spoke through a bullhorn. It was a fine gesture that any president would have made. As far as judging his leadership, it is as irrelevant as the famous extra minutes he spent in a classroom in Florida during a reading of "The Pet Goat" after the World Trade Center was attacked.
We do not need to hear further justification of his invasion of Iraq. It seems clear to us that the whole war is a mistake, a detour from hunting down terrorists that was undertaken on the basis of wrong information and is likely in the end to do far more harm than good when it comes to ending fanaticism in the Middle East. But the president is certainly not going to admit any of that, and as far as the future goes, he and John Kerry are in agreement about staying the course in Iraq.
What Mr. Bush should really talk about tonight is staying the course in Afghanistan, which is a case study in the perils of battling groups like Al Qaeda as if they were nation-states. The American-led invasion was a success to the degree that a government friendly to the United States and opposed to terrorist groups has been installed in Kabul. But armed opponents of the government are still all over the rest of Afghanistan, including Qaeda remnants and a revived Taliban.
So are the people who sponsor them, like Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a notorious warlord and savage fundamentalist who in the 1980's and 1990's served as the chief mentor and protector of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Qaeda mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Incredibly, Mr. Sayyaf has been a major beneficiary of the American-led invasion and is now one of the country's leading power brokers. All of the main candidates in the coming presidential election in Afghanistan, including the American-backed incumbent, Hamid Karzai, actively seek his endorsement.
If Mr. Bush is going to speak seriously about terrorism tonight, he also needs to talk about Israel. With its fixation on Iraq, the administration has allowed the situation in Israel to turn into a stalemate in which the Sharon government continues to expand its suicidal West Bank settlements while attempting to keep the Palestinians under control with sheer military force. The West Bank is not just a breeding ground for terrorists; it is the perpetual wound Arabs use to justify supporting and financing violent extremists.
Iraqis can go to the polls to vote, but the Middle East will still be a hotbed of terrorism if Palestinians cannot grow up with hopes for a decent life in a land over which they have some control. There is no way that the current mess is going to improve without the very aggressive intervention of United States diplomacy.
The Bush campaign is betting the ranch on the idea that Americans, in the end, will vote for the candidate they think is most likely to keep the nation safe from terrorism. The president has been honest about saying we will never be totally safe. He has been much less frank about explaining that even relative safety depends on our ability to create international alliances and to pick our fights not on the basis of where our armies can successfully fight, or of settling old scores, but where the gravest dangers lie. There are few venues less promising for truth-telling than a political convention, but there are also few better opportunities to make the public listen.
You forgot the link on this last story, au.
Opened a thread linking your last this morning au.
I imagine some will find it surprising that this is something both a conservative and a liberal can agree on.
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Cutups and Cutthroats
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 2, 2004
I always enjoy hearing about how a teenage Dick Cheney stood off to the side with buckets of water to put out Lynne's flaming batons.
But there was an even better moment during Claire Shipman's two-part "Good Morning America" interview at the Wyoming ranch this week. Trying to humanize Dr. No, ABC was let into the inner sanctum to watch Mr. Cheney take his 4-year-old granddaughter on her first solo horsie ride and hear how he's teaching his granddaughters fly-fishing.
Ms. Shipman asked the vice president "his greatest guilty pleasure."
His wife quickly interjected that it was fishing. But we all know, of course, it's global domination.
It's always amusing to watch Republicans try to get down. At convention time, they stop bilking Joe Lunchbox to act like Joe Lunchbox.
How awkward in Columbus, when W., hanging with Jack Nicklaus, noted that his grandfather was born there, so they should "send a homeboy back to Washington, D.C." Do they know a homeboy from a Lawn-Boy?
How you livin', dawg?
And speaking of dawgs, whuddup with that video of Barney debating that French poodle Fifi Kerry about taxes? By the time the twins finished their White House Valley Girl routine, and Karl Rove and Karen Hughes went all giddy in the sendup, the convention's arc was clear.
Highly scripted screwball moments designed to soothe fears that the Bushies are bullies alternate with high-octane, turbo moments designed to stir up fears that we won't be safe without the Bush bullies.
Unlike the arrogant Boston Kerry strategists, who focus-grouped and dial-a-metered their convention to death, scrubbing most of the direct attacks on President Bush, the arrogant Austin Bush strategists have encouraged their non-girlie-men speakers to put the pedal to the metal and flatten the poor Democrat who is windsurfing through his free fall.
Despite the fact that the economy is cratering, Iraq is teetering, Afghanistan is reverting to warlords, Dick Cheney is glowering at the world, the war on terror has created more acts of terror, Ahmad Chalabi is an accused spy for Iran and the Pentagon has an accused spy for Israel, Republicans felt so good about themselves that when Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was inspired to become a Republican by Richard Nixon, they exploded. When Tricky Dick is a hot applause line, they're feeling cocky.
Republicans are political killers. They are confident that Americans, in a 9/11 world, are going to be more drawn to political killers who have made some "miscalculations" on Iraq, as W. put it, than with a shaggy-haired Vietnam War protester whom Bush 41 compares to Hanoi Jane.
"I still have great difficulty with his coming back and making those statements before the Congress and throwing medals away," the president's father told Don Imus yesterday.
Republicans know that plunging ahead with a course of action, even if it becomes obvious it's wrong, is an easier political sell than flip-flopping, even if it's right.
When the president slipped, admitting that the war on terror is unwinnable - perhaps recognizing that terror's a tactic, not an enemy - he had to be saved later by Laura Bush, who fixed his stumble into nuance. Then Mr. Kerry made the mistake of responding in Bush black-and-white, calling the war on terror winnable.
While Democrats whined about the meanies and their Swift boat attacks, the G.O.P. juggernaut rolled on.
Zell Miller, playing Cotton Mather behind the cross-like lectern, made Mr. Cheney seem rational, with a maniacal litany of weapons he said Mr. Kerry had opposed that can destroy any mud hut in any third world country: B-1 and B-2 bombers, F-14A Tomcats, F-15 Eagles, Patriot and Trident missiles, and Aegis cruisers.
Just as the "third party" ad effort has been ferocious and misleading, so have some of the attack speeches here. Dick Cheney stomped on John Kerry the way he's stomped on the world. In fact, he stomped on Mr. Kerry for trying to get along with the world: "He talks about leading 'a more sensitive war on terror' as though Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side." It's nice to know Mr. Cheney remembers Al Qaeda.
As others raged, Mr. Bush flew to New York and went to an Italian community center to eat pizza with Queens firemen. The homeboy was having a ruthless, but effective, week.
McGentrix
What link would you like. What you see is all there is. It is a complete editorial from the NY Times.
Dowd again hits the bullseye. Zell Miller was especially bellowing, bellicose and blathering with disingenous lists of "facts" that are as transparant as Saran Wrap (talk about MM). His wool was barely covered by his phony sprayed on coating of wolf's hair. Bush Sr.'s ridiculous expression during the speech was priceless considering Miller delivered a scathing attack against him during the first Clinton/Bush campaign.
