Skip to main content

Grand Old Time


A lot of thunder, but not the right kind this year at the GOP convention.  First Charlie Crist steals a little bit of thunder by announcing his endorsement of Obama after being thrown under the bus in 2010 by his party.  Then Isaac rains on the parade.  Yesterday, Ron Paul made a surprise appearance, if for no other reason than to remind Republicans there is still an alternative.  It looked like Chris Christie needed a little assistance to the podium to deliver his keynote speech.  But, ultimately Mitt Romney got what he wanted.  I'm not so sure about the GOP.

Comments

  1. Already downplaying expectations,

    http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/romney-strategist-downplays-potential-convention-bounce-bets-off-175539796.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice commentary above. I only caught snippets which were plenty for me.

    The right considers Obama a "manchurian candidate" but that's how Romney appears to me. Very mysterious in what he really believes. The others running the party and the platform are a little more forthcoming, and it doesn't look good for America if they win.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Funny thing about that cartoon -- they are all of one kind.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting how Minnesota delegates were forced to sit in the back of the auditorium. Local reporters had a field day pointing out the second class treatment they got at the hands of the GOP at the convention.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think that had something to do with Ron Paul. Ditto Iowa.

    Plus they moved all the delegations of color (e.g., America Samoa and Puerto Rico) to the front of the bus so that it didn't look quite so lily white when the cameras scanned the convention.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I don't think we have anything to worry about, av, with a platform like that and a candidate like Romney they pretty much gave away the election this November. It has to be one of the most uninspiring conventions ever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you're right. The American people aren't really known for being all that interested in the details.

      Delete
  7. One thing that is readily apparent is that Romney is a control freak.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, the irony in this,

    Ann Romney Woos Hispanic Voters, Urging They Get Past 'Their Biases'

    http://news.yahoo.com/ann-romney-woos-hispanic-voters-luncheon-181637003--abc-news-politics.html

    I wonder if dear Ann sees it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The adjective Orwellian immediately comes to mind.

      Delete
    2. Hispanics to get past their "biases". I guess that's why the Puerto Rican delegate was shouted down during her speech at the RNC. Race card anyone???

      Delete
  9. Nick Kristof has a good editorial in today's New York Times, the newspaper Fox News and republicans love to hate:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/opinion/kristof-the-secret-weapon-all-of-us.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

    ReplyDelete
  10. We all built it, indeed.

    Who would have thought that fire fighters, police, and school teachers would be the new enemies of the people?

    My guess is Romney will run the country just like he ran Bain Capital -- making lots of money for those who invested millions of dollars in his campaign, and laying off or outsourcing the rest of us.

    ReplyDelete
  11. http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/rnc-removes-2-for-taunting-black-cnn-staffer/nRPGd/

    ReplyDelete
  12. I saw that story. Amazing! And they say this campaign has nothing to do with race.

    ReplyDelete
  13. That's pretty much how Dubya, Pere and Ronnie ran the country, av, so what's new from the GOP, other than Romboid better represents the faceless AmeriCorp these guys envision.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Well, you know, it's like they were taunting him because he worked for CNN. He just happened to be black ; )

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. CNN and the New York Times often get lumped together as the enemy, but the guy's skin color says it all.

      Delete
    2. CNN may not be Fox "news" but it's about as conservative as they come otherwise.

      Delete
    3. I think the problem with CCN is that it doesn't just make things up. Rupublicans are big into fiction.

      Delete
    4. When the truth doesn't suit you, what other option do you have?

      Delete
  15. Romney's big mistake is he is utterly failing to reach beyond the conservative base of his party. Between all that religious conservative nonsense and their Norquist anti-tax pledge they are doomed. Everything he says and does is aimed at anchoring this hardcore base, when at best it counts for no more than 40 per cent of the vote. No amount of vote rigging is going to give him another 10%. But, I don't see any signs of softening in the Romney camp. Each day, they harden themselves even more.

    ReplyDelete
  16. You have to hand it to Condi for being able to say all this with a straight face,

    Condoleezza Rice never addressed President Obama by name, but the former secretary of state delivered a sharp rejection of his foreign policy tonight, charging that the White House had forsaken past and potential allies, leaving the world to wonder, "Where does America stand?"

    http://news.yahoo.com/condoleezza-rice-hits-obama-foreign-policy-020948614.html

    I'm curious what allies we have forsaken? Poland?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Why I turn the t.v. off at night .... I caught a snippet of Ryan waxing poetical about his father and how he hopes he would be proud of him and, click, off it went again. Can't take it.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Clint Eastwood's speech made it everybody's day:

    https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/s480x480/304999_10100166126867913_1901508754_n.jpg


    In his rambling slurry speech he embarrassed himself pitifully.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005