Convention Open Thread
It looks like the election 2008, in which the Republicans are taking on the media, is underway.
So predictable, and who knows if they will succeed again.
7:51 pm- I actually have no desire to watch this. I am going to watch BSG. If someone wants to IM me when whatshername reads the speech they wrote for her, that would be great. Otherwise, I will just catch it on youtube. Move on to Tim’s thread above.
I guess I just remain flabbergasted that in the speech designed to introduce herself to the nation, the GOP is openly admitting Sarah Palin will be reading a speech someone else wrote for her before it was even known she would be the pick. I mean, I have learned to be cynical, but c’mon, folks.
Poor, poor John McCain and the hostile relationship he has with the media.
Tue March 4, 2008
No news, just ribs at McCain barbecue
he’s losing print reporters (who all double as TV pundits) right and left these days. and now even the paid GOP shills have been exposed as frauds who don’t even believe their own stories. soon all he’ll have left are the guys who come on TV and have nothing to offer but straight-up nonsense talking points.
can he get them back in 8 weeks? yeah, maybe.
the Dems really need to get in there and block: keep the GOP from regaining the media’s hearts and minds; keep the media from seeing McCain as StBBQ again. and they need to score: while the media’s inclined to look at McCain as just another cynical politician, they need to sell Obama, hard.
The wife and I are going on a late afternoon/early evening motorcycle ride up to Humbug Mountain State Park. I can care less what Palin parrots tonight. If I want humbug, I will go see it for myself. No need to listen to it. ;)
If I want to listen to a parrot, I would buy one.
Later!
Judging from how many people are in the auditorium right now, no one there is watching it either.
It looks like the wake for an asshole no one likes in St Paul.
From what I’m hearing in the MSNBC coverage that’s going to be a hard row to hoe.The press has it’s back up at charges of sexism and the like. Then there’s Buchanan sounding like a whining ninny trying to stoke the anti-press flame. Nora O’donnell was having none of it and shouted him down pretty good. I’ve been listening off and on all day and haven’t heard the bobbleheads even mention Troopergate, which is at least a solid Prima Facia case. That alone should disqualify her for high office. And it doesn’t matter if the trooper was a bad guy or not, it’s still misuse of office. Not to mention the appearance of cover-up.
BSG! BSG! BSG!
Via TPB Palin shouted with glee over an earmark McCain glumly decried with mcmavericky distain. It is called vetting.
Wow, the Reublicans are actually campaigning on investing in “small town America” as a way to justify Palin… and no one cares. When Dunn or whoever talked about increasing internet connectivity in rural areas and “reducing incentives for outmigration” to the cities the applause breaks were silent.
Oh, invisible pink unicorns. The president of the National Hispanic Medical Association went on about how by 2032 whites will be a minority, and how this should be celebrated (!), and usee that factoid to launch into a speech on how health care needs to be more available to Hispanics. You could cut the tension with a knife. (Weirdly, she’s endorsing McCain’s health care “plan.”)
Dang it, I should have written
I just learned that
Sarah Palin once triumphantly crowed
About an Earmark
John McCain dourly opposed
The lesson not learned, I suppose,
Is that by not vetting,
McCain’s just got hosed.
so yesterday we had all old white guys talking. Fred Thompson… exciting… Joe Lieberman.. wow. Now, we have had two very very rich corporate white women talk. Wow. Do they really think they are going to “connect” with average Americans with this line up?
More desperation. It seems the RNC is compressing the speeches tonight to try and cut down on network analysis. Or that’s what Chuck Todd just said. Good luck with that wingnuts. I’ll be cheering you on, though, at least on this one.
http://ap.google.com/article/A.....QD92VIANO0
The AP has moved from reporting into fortune-telling…
Serious… an hour and a half before the speech, up goes the review!
Why won’t one of these idiot MSM’ers let the McCain surrogates know that if Palin has more executive experience than Obama, that she also has more than McCain?
Carly Fiorina was just spewing some horseshit about how we should be concerned that America may elect a person who hasn’t made any executive decisions. Why didn’t Ann Genius Curry ask her “O U MEAN MCCAIN?”
Willard Mittens Romney: “George W. Bush is a big, smelly LIEBERAL who likes porn in schools!”
Somebody mentioned this in an earlier thread, but here’s a link that doesn’t go to GOS:
McCain/Palin, ready to compromise national security on Day One!
Mitt Romney just derided the “eastern elite”. Mitt Romney.
wth was the sudden USA chant about?
I’m not going to watch it either. I’m going to go ride my scooter around the unmilitarized portions of downtown St. Paul to watch the Xcel Center implode and sink into the ground this evening. Hopefully I won’t come home with locust splatter all over my helmet’s face shield.
And I am completely sick of having to constantly hear choppers and sirens when sitting at home.
What’s up with that red backdrop? It looks like a whorehouse.
Mittsanne. You don’t have to turn on that red light.
Your chance isn’t over.
You can still sell your soul to the Right.
Mittssssanne. You don’t have to wear that fake tan tonight.
Pimp your speech for money.
You don’t care if it’s wrong or right.
Mittsanne.
Mittsanne.
Someone must have told Carla Fiorina that you can hypnotize people by repeating a basic non-emotional subjective phrase over and over again. “I know John McCain”…”I know John McCain.”
Like she has any standing with me or the vast majority (even if they intend on voting for Sen. McCain)that her knowing John McCain carries any weight. Weak.
My brother is actually working on the stage at the convention (sound guy). Just got off the phone with him.
“These people are so boring. I can’t believe this. You went to the right convention.”
More from him post-Palin.
Lize, ask your brother if he’s run into a friend of mine named Ed there doing some of the computer work (he’s kinda impossible to miss — tall, English, glasses, beard and dreads).
Watching today, it looks like the media is biting back. they are pissed off.
They keep talking about this being a standby for the gop for 40 years and another old tactic dusted off. they are not cowering.
They are laughing at the republicans using this.
Chris Matthews went after Buchanan over it as well.
It’s hillarious.
I think the media has had it with the mind games. And they are also wanting the republicans to do something other then use the same old crap over and over.
I’m listening to Huckabee at the RNC. His entire message is “didja hear? John McCain was a POW.”
I know I’ll catch hell for this, but I’ve studied Palin’s record carefully now and I have to admit, I’ve really underestimated her. She’s a lot more qualified than I originally thought. Credit where credit is due:
!!! Sarah Palin for Senior Class President !!!
Note: that’s HS, not college
The GOP is a one trick pony. They’ve got nothing else.
Except I guess now they have the AP.
I watched a couple of minutes of Fiorina but she makes me want to puke. “Elect John McCain and he can fuck up America worse than I fucked up Hewlett Packard!”
Then I watched a couple of minutes of Romney. He was pretty funny. First calling to get rid of all of the expensive government regulators and then babbling about how Americans were hurt by the mortgage crisis and subsequent real estate collapse…without recognizing that this was made possible by the fact that the government had abandoned its oversight role of housing finance markets.
These people are such two-faced douche bags that I cannot believe America will put them in power again. They have earned 40 years in the wilderness. With an option for 40 more.
A question: is there any precedent for both the standing president and vice president not attending their party’s convention?
And of course, since I’ve just been told that Palin is a reformer:
How indeed? Jeezus, I detest these people.
Jesus Guliani is a tool. Someone ask him if McCain is planning on being “present” at all in 2008?
So the Republicans’ theory is attack Obama for inexperience defend Palin as experienced and mention that McCain was a POW. Now that’s putting America first and running a respectful and honorable campaign.
I’m not watching any of it, but I see from the blogging here and there by The Angry Left(TM) that many speakers are hitting on mayorial office as being the real deal.
What the idjits running the convention and writing the speeches don’t seem to realize is that we small-town folks aren’t terribly impressed by the people who serve as our mayors, even the ones we like.
i don’t understand why rudy needed to be so condescending about community organizing. is that really such a laughable thing?
Somebody send Rudy the memo that Bush signed up to leave Iraq sooner rather than later.
@ Monty,
The present VP (Darth) is in Georgia where he dished them $1 BILLION in aid. Now on to Azarbizhan (oil reserves there).
Too bad the folks in New Orleans didn’t have oil under the French quarter.
I have a feeling from watching the Refucklicans at this convention that anyone of a lower income level than them (the 1%) including the ever vanishing middle class is like the folks in 1967 Newark, NJ.
We are ALL African-Americans now!
Side note. Cindy looks like an anorexic watermelon wearing a bad bleached blond wig.
For all Andrew Sullivan’s faults (which are legion), he has been the most insightful about this whole campaign reflecting McCain’s utter contempt for Obama. McCain has no respect for Obama and can’t see why anyone else could. And that’s feeding everything the campaign does, from the month wasted on celebrity ads, to straight-facedly arguing that Palin is more experienced/qualified, to mocking community organizing.
Palin gets in on the c.o. slamming as well. From her prepared remarks:
Of course, according to Wasillians, Palin delegated all of her responsibilities to a full-time, new-hire administrator, so there you go.
Mitt is really setting the bar low for Palin to follow anyway. I had no idea what he was talking about with that sun rising and setting BS. It was a really strained metaphor. After that it was just liberal every other word. Does that work with anyone other than the people there?
Well it’s a well run campaign. What with the midget and broom and whatnot.
Hey Puma, are you watching Rudy?
He made a faux pas, and let it slip that the only thing the GOP agrees with Hillary on is that someone has to be there to answer the 3 a.m. phone call. “That’s the only thing we agree with Hillary on”, that’s what he said, did you hear him? The crowd cheered him too, they knew he was speaking the truth.
Oh, of course, he forgot to add that the only thing the GOP agrees with you on is that some woman, any woman, no matter how unqualified she is, is good enough to get your vote.
Are you listening?
I tried to watch it. I really, really tried. But after a punishing half hour of watching Giuliani, I just couldn’t take it anymore.
I know. I’m weak.
5 Fun Facts:
1. The population of Wasilla, Alaska is slightly smaller than that of Hicksville, Ohio.
2. The population of Anchorage, Alaska is approximately 75% that of Wichita.
3. Based on the stringent vetting practices of McCain and the GOP, anyone’s mom who worked for a company with offices in more than one state is eminently qualified to be VP. Hell, throw in some experience with 4H or Scouting, and she’s probably more qualified than McCain himself.
4. For 5 and a half years, John McCain had no PTA meetings. Or hockey.
5. Because he was a POW, you bastards.
From Greg Sargent at TPM:
check out the Giuliani live blogging over at 538. They got some weird problems with the timestamps…
So is it possible that not just Palin but the whole McCain campaign have been in media blackout and they don’t realize that everyone knows she LIED about the Bridge to Nowhere? Or can they really not come up with anything else?
Aren’t there laws against putting a 5 month old down syndrome baby in front of 10,000 screaming people?
That’s what fairings are for. ;)
Back from our ride up the coast and it was a nice one. Temps ranged from mid 60’s thru the 70’s. Saw some deer in the road, passed a car traveling in the opposite direction who was in my passing lane on my side of the double yellow. Nobody was in her lane and she was blithely driving along like an idiot.
Reading around, it seems that I didn’t miss anything. I am waiting for the bloodbath if/when she is opened to the press. You know they smell blood. They want to rip into her now, there is just too much to play with.
No, but there should be. I would never subject any infant to the noise that a crowd like that will make, never mind a special needs child that was delivered a month early. I believe that infants need stimulation but that is going into sensory overload IMO. That’s her business to do it just like it is my business to say that I would never do it. My wife thinks she is a total tool who does whatever she wants and screw the consequences. I agree.
By: John Cole
I guess I just remain flabbergasted that in the speech designed to introduce herself to the nation, the GOP is openly admitting Sarah Palin will be reading a speech someone else wrote for her before it was even known she would be the pick. I mean, I have learned to be cynical, but c’mon, folks.
Uh, if the speech was written before the pick, then how is it that it contains self references that could be by no one other than Gov. Palin ?
Cole, you are an idiot. I watched the speech. Did You ?
Are you suggesting that Romney or Pawlenty, for example, would have been handed a speech about being a mom, or a mayor in Alaska, or a governor of that state ?
A complete and total moronic reaction to her speech.
Are you serious?
It’s the McCain people themselves who said they wrote a generic speech before they knew who would be delivering it, and then reworked it for her…which by the way, were full of lies and exaggerations. Or didn’t they/she know that she’d already been busted on the “bridge to nowhere” and “earmarks” lies?
AP
jbarntt..it is you who are the idiot.
Rick Davis himself said the speech was already written for a man, but they had to tweak it for Palin.
jbarntt backfires once again! Do you own any guns, and if so how many times have you shot yourself in the feet?
Maybe what you should do jbarntt is whenever you assume something and you are going to post about it, make yourself look smart and take the other side.
I bet your accuracy would go through the roof.
“If I want to listen to a parrot, I would buy one.”
Not only the best line of the night, but the most useful if it could be used more broadly.