The Dean for Veep thing...
Who the hells start floating Veep trial balloons in February fah crissakes?
Howard Dean does for all the good it will do him.
This is the time of year when any sane presidential candidate no matter how far behind he trails, does nothing but prophesy total victory.
Even the least and most diminished candidate loudly proclaims his disinterest in the vice presidency at this stage of the game. If they play their cards right come convention time, then no one will take their fusty denials seriously....not with party unity and the chimera of victory on the line.
Hell not even Hubert Humphrey in the full flood of his ravenous ambition for office would've started spouting about the vice presidency no matter how far down in the polls he was....
It calls into question Dean's patience and professionalism, hell even a newbie like General Clark understands the need for a pose of reticence!
Ah but it's got to be a painful comedown for Doctor Dean...this is a precipitous fall that is seldom seen in U.S. Politics.
A month ago Dean was campaigning all over the map like Yosemite Sam...now look at him.
Babbling about the Vice Presidency...which is naught but the desperate hope that Edwards or Clark can stop Kerry in time for Dean to win a primary or two and get himself into dealmaking position.
The man is still fundraising frantically....for what the second spot???
His supporters had better take a second look at all this...
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
Monday, February 09, 2004
Russert at High Noon
Fat Tim Russert took his victory lap on the Imus in the Morning show today.
Ghod I am so sick of this bloated shyster quoting his semi-mythical father "Big Russ" whenever the Meet the Press host wants to wallow in self congratulation...it is all beginning to sound very weird and unsettling.
Nonetheless given the size and morbidity of his ego, Tim Russert is the perfect interlocutor for our vain increasingly delusional President.
Very pleased with himself Tim was...all for asking the President a bunch of questions that GWB should've answered like a man a long ago.
It was akin to a make-up class compleat with the President sitting there glassy eyed looking obviously bored with his own lies and evasions.
Bush is still shilling for an phantom Iraqi nuclear weapons program....but more and more the President's rhetoric is composed of serenely assured statements followed by timorous corrections and wholesale revisions scattered throughout the remnants of the "thinking press".
GWB even promised to release all his pay stubs and personal data to counter rumors that he was AWOL from the Air National Guard for most of 1972.
The President then added with near psychotic aplomb "that information was already released in 2000" (hint, it wasn't and still has not been).
The draft evasion issue is said to be at best window-dressing...after all Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton both evaded the draft to the best of their abilities.
That is true....we've heard this story before and since others got a pass, Bush will get one or so coos the conventional wisdom.
Then again Quayle and Clinton were not war time Presidents.
Still that argument is a fine one and apt to get overlooked come next fall.
Nevertheless, the AWOL thing goes to the heart of who Bush really is as a leader-at least that is how I see it.
It is ultimately, a question of privilege....not of pay stubs and the like.
We can't change the fact that he was honorably discharged.
Still, it is clear Bush got in on privilege, got out on privilege and never gave any of it single thought even though someone had to go to Viet Nam in his place...someone more than likely poor and ill-connected to the world of power.
Just how much privilege is George Bush entitled to anyway?
How much more does he expect?
That might've made a good question from the curiously deferential Mr. Tim Russert.
Entitlement is something John Kerry understands as well, he grew up in fairly patrician circumstances.
He also understood at a young age that unrestricted privilege is a kind of galloping medievalism in the making.
Hence Kerry volunteered for the navy and then volunteered for hazardous duty in Viet Nam....winning a chestful of medals in the process.
The Senator's view of privilege is therefore markedly different that the President...much was given John Kerry therefore much was expected of him.
It is noblesse oblige....but we've had precious little of that these last few years with all our wild talk of revolution and empire.
And frankly given a choice between empire or revolution I'll take John Kerry's concept of service every time.
It is at least something that takes circumstances and limitations into account.
Fat Tim Russert took his victory lap on the Imus in the Morning show today.
Ghod I am so sick of this bloated shyster quoting his semi-mythical father "Big Russ" whenever the Meet the Press host wants to wallow in self congratulation...it is all beginning to sound very weird and unsettling.
Nonetheless given the size and morbidity of his ego, Tim Russert is the perfect interlocutor for our vain increasingly delusional President.
Very pleased with himself Tim was...all for asking the President a bunch of questions that GWB should've answered like a man a long ago.
It was akin to a make-up class compleat with the President sitting there glassy eyed looking obviously bored with his own lies and evasions.
Bush is still shilling for an phantom Iraqi nuclear weapons program....but more and more the President's rhetoric is composed of serenely assured statements followed by timorous corrections and wholesale revisions scattered throughout the remnants of the "thinking press".
GWB even promised to release all his pay stubs and personal data to counter rumors that he was AWOL from the Air National Guard for most of 1972.
The President then added with near psychotic aplomb "that information was already released in 2000" (hint, it wasn't and still has not been).
The draft evasion issue is said to be at best window-dressing...after all Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton both evaded the draft to the best of their abilities.
That is true....we've heard this story before and since others got a pass, Bush will get one or so coos the conventional wisdom.
Then again Quayle and Clinton were not war time Presidents.
Still that argument is a fine one and apt to get overlooked come next fall.
Nevertheless, the AWOL thing goes to the heart of who Bush really is as a leader-at least that is how I see it.
It is ultimately, a question of privilege....not of pay stubs and the like.
We can't change the fact that he was honorably discharged.
Still, it is clear Bush got in on privilege, got out on privilege and never gave any of it single thought even though someone had to go to Viet Nam in his place...someone more than likely poor and ill-connected to the world of power.
Just how much privilege is George Bush entitled to anyway?
How much more does he expect?
That might've made a good question from the curiously deferential Mr. Tim Russert.
Entitlement is something John Kerry understands as well, he grew up in fairly patrician circumstances.
He also understood at a young age that unrestricted privilege is a kind of galloping medievalism in the making.
Hence Kerry volunteered for the navy and then volunteered for hazardous duty in Viet Nam....winning a chestful of medals in the process.
The Senator's view of privilege is therefore markedly different that the President...much was given John Kerry therefore much was expected of him.
It is noblesse oblige....but we've had precious little of that these last few years with all our wild talk of revolution and empire.
And frankly given a choice between empire or revolution I'll take John Kerry's concept of service every time.
It is at least something that takes circumstances and limitations into account.
Friday, February 06, 2004
Dressed to Shill
Michael Powell....the poor dear.
Oh the F.C.C. Chairman must be simply livid, fairly writhing from the exquisite irony.
He spends three years cheerleading and approval an endless tidal wave of telecom mergers only to watch helpless as Viacom, owners of NBC and MTV blows the whole shithouse sky high with a tasteless half time show at the Superbowl.
That has to hurt, Powell has made trillions for these bastards and how do they reward him?
By rousing the wowsers and values charlatans in the red states to an apocalyptic fury.
Not fer nuthin' though but it is in the end but one small withered wooden teat....paltry stuff in a world of dirty bombs and fatwahs.
Yeah yeah I know...kids were watching it took us all by surprise...all those Department of Homeland Security precautions
yet a naked guy runs amok and Janet Jackson's wholly manufactured tittie flaps ungraciously in the Texas breeze.
But fear not, here comes F.C.C. Chair "Toy" Michael Powell the steadfast tin soldier of the Bush Revolution, putting on his big scary monster voice promising fines and frowns for all the miscreants concerned.
Viacom must be laughing that the impotent self righteous spectacle Powell is making of himself.
This has to be killing Michael though, a rolodex gone fat with lucrative post government service contacts, an easy future as a telecom lobbyist on the horizon, and that no-talent Timberlake has to blow it all sky high with one flick of his dainty wrist.
No wonder Powell is apoplectic...Viacom is one sixth of his future clientele...hell within two years it'll one fourth of his net income by commission.
You think he wants to levy these fines and make all these protesting squawks?
Hell No!
Alas Toy Michael is caught between the professional outrage mountebanks and his future masters in the private sector...a delicious lose-lose situation.
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy quite frankly.
If this keeps up our poor preposterous fraud might have to extend his sojourn in public service...
Something that could be precious and lovely to see even if the public interest is trampled underfoot every day with Powell at the F.C.C.
Sick
Demented
Typical...
Michael Powell....the poor dear.
Oh the F.C.C. Chairman must be simply livid, fairly writhing from the exquisite irony.
He spends three years cheerleading and approval an endless tidal wave of telecom mergers only to watch helpless as Viacom, owners of NBC and MTV blows the whole shithouse sky high with a tasteless half time show at the Superbowl.
That has to hurt, Powell has made trillions for these bastards and how do they reward him?
By rousing the wowsers and values charlatans in the red states to an apocalyptic fury.
Not fer nuthin' though but it is in the end but one small withered wooden teat....paltry stuff in a world of dirty bombs and fatwahs.
Yeah yeah I know...kids were watching it took us all by surprise...all those Department of Homeland Security precautions
yet a naked guy runs amok and Janet Jackson's wholly manufactured tittie flaps ungraciously in the Texas breeze.
But fear not, here comes F.C.C. Chair "Toy" Michael Powell the steadfast tin soldier of the Bush Revolution, putting on his big scary monster voice promising fines and frowns for all the miscreants concerned.
Viacom must be laughing that the impotent self righteous spectacle Powell is making of himself.
This has to be killing Michael though, a rolodex gone fat with lucrative post government service contacts, an easy future as a telecom lobbyist on the horizon, and that no-talent Timberlake has to blow it all sky high with one flick of his dainty wrist.
No wonder Powell is apoplectic...Viacom is one sixth of his future clientele...hell within two years it'll one fourth of his net income by commission.
You think he wants to levy these fines and make all these protesting squawks?
Hell No!
Alas Toy Michael is caught between the professional outrage mountebanks and his future masters in the private sector...a delicious lose-lose situation.
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy quite frankly.
If this keeps up our poor preposterous fraud might have to extend his sojourn in public service...
Something that could be precious and lovely to see even if the public interest is trampled underfoot every day with Powell at the F.C.C.
Sick
Demented
Typical...
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Newsfreak....
Faced with a dearth of conservative opinion at virtually all levels of journalism, Newsweek magazine has bucked the conventional wisdom by hiring a real live rightical chic Dartmouth Review member to covered the 2004 campaign.
Ryan Gorsche, a pompous affected Dartmouth undergrad, has secured a priceless sinecure composing a column entitled "Minority Opinion".
Gotta give the kid credit, he has the gubernatorial sense of irony down pat.
Oh don't worry now, despite his Ivy League pedigree Ryan has all the simple-minded buzzwords down pat. He plaintively asks rhetorically three times in one column why "liberals don't speak out against terror?"
I of course am left wondering, why more campus republicans don't do something about terror-like maybe join the Marine Corps.
And anyway, just what does a 20+ year old boy have to contribute to the marketplace of ideas in an election year whether he is left or right?
Most of the DC punditariat comport themselves like snobby schoolyard cliques under the best of circumstances...one doubts Ryan can do anything to elevate the discourse despite his nominal maturity advantage.
Frankly, the exposure to Newsweek's so called "journalistic values" will only do the Ryan damage in the weary wicked end.
He is already crippled with a kampus konservative's unidimensional view of the world...how will Ryan's tender boyish sensibilities survive watching a vain power worshipping media whore like Howard Fineman in action?
I pity the hapless lad, I really do.
Soon enough the campaign will end and Ryan will end up pounding the pavement in Georgetown...begging for financial scraps from Richard Mellon Scaife and crying poor mouth at every well groomed door step.
He will talk dolorously of the awful oppression suffered by conservatives in Hanover N.H. capping his sad tail of woe with the Stalinist excesses at Newsweek magazine.
AND LO...the checks and loose change will roll in like a high lunar tide!
Another poor helpless campus conservative rescued at the last moment from the vast churning liberal tide...oh it will make a great book for Regnery with a introduction by Laura Ingraham and a blurb from Ann Coulter...
It is money in the bank kiddo...money in the bank.
Ryan Gorsche will be dining out on this experience for the rest of his life no matter how horrid he makes it all sound.
Believe that,
Player...
Faced with a dearth of conservative opinion at virtually all levels of journalism, Newsweek magazine has bucked the conventional wisdom by hiring a real live rightical chic Dartmouth Review member to covered the 2004 campaign.
Ryan Gorsche, a pompous affected Dartmouth undergrad, has secured a priceless sinecure composing a column entitled "Minority Opinion".
Gotta give the kid credit, he has the gubernatorial sense of irony down pat.
Oh don't worry now, despite his Ivy League pedigree Ryan has all the simple-minded buzzwords down pat. He plaintively asks rhetorically three times in one column why "liberals don't speak out against terror?"
I of course am left wondering, why more campus republicans don't do something about terror-like maybe join the Marine Corps.
And anyway, just what does a 20+ year old boy have to contribute to the marketplace of ideas in an election year whether he is left or right?
Most of the DC punditariat comport themselves like snobby schoolyard cliques under the best of circumstances...one doubts Ryan can do anything to elevate the discourse despite his nominal maturity advantage.
Frankly, the exposure to Newsweek's so called "journalistic values" will only do the Ryan damage in the weary wicked end.
He is already crippled with a kampus konservative's unidimensional view of the world...how will Ryan's tender boyish sensibilities survive watching a vain power worshipping media whore like Howard Fineman in action?
I pity the hapless lad, I really do.
Soon enough the campaign will end and Ryan will end up pounding the pavement in Georgetown...begging for financial scraps from Richard Mellon Scaife and crying poor mouth at every well groomed door step.
He will talk dolorously of the awful oppression suffered by conservatives in Hanover N.H. capping his sad tail of woe with the Stalinist excesses at Newsweek magazine.
AND LO...the checks and loose change will roll in like a high lunar tide!
Another poor helpless campus conservative rescued at the last moment from the vast churning liberal tide...oh it will make a great book for Regnery with a introduction by Laura Ingraham and a blurb from Ann Coulter...
It is money in the bank kiddo...money in the bank.
Ryan Gorsche will be dining out on this experience for the rest of his life no matter how horrid he makes it all sound.
Believe that,
Player...
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Right metaphor, wrong candidate....
The Chimes at Midnight is sometimes wrong...or to put it charitably, half-right.
Back before New Years I idly suggested that a "Bobby Kennedy Moment" spotlight at center stage and all was being relentlessly prepared for General Wesley Clark.
At the time the former NATO Commander seemed to have that ineffable RFK-like mixture of resume and known leadership qualities.
At the time, it was wise, even for the most committed Kerry supporter to perhaps look around for a decent and honorable alternate.
I freely admit this, any other Kerry die hard would say the same, IF you got them drunk enough.
Look what a difference a mere sixty days makes!
Clark tied for first place in Oklahoma with Edwards which has been his best performance to date!
I'm a little shocked at how lackluster the Clark effort has been...but there is in the end something to be said for a long experience of elected public life...an area in which Kerry, Edwards, and Dean all have an advantage.
Nope it is looking more and more like Clark got in because he sensed Kerry was about to tank in N.H. and he, the General could prosper by seeming forfeiture.
This was not necessarily a poor analysis back before Christmas, hell Wellington looked like toast for most of the day at Waterloo....and we all know how that turned out.
The candidate who has seized the RFK moment has turned out to be John Edwards...relentlessly on message, famously upbeat...an ubiquitous campaigner who promises jobs-n-victory 24-7.
I gotta give the guy credit, like Kerry he came up in the polls the hard way if he is in the race to the finish he has earned the run.
General Clark however, seems to be tanking...he may yet recover the initiative but like Edwards and even Kerry to a certain extent, the General is running as a centrist-and that part of the feed is already crowded with claimants.
There was a time when the formula was simply Kerry+Clark or Clark+Kerry in order to co-opt the moderates and present a game face to the general election.
Now however with Edwards on a roll the equation changes to Kerry+Edwards...Dean is fading fast and the big question there is how to induce his followers to support the ticket?
As for General Clark?
Well, it is not such a bad thing for a Secretary of Defense to have run hard and clean in the democratic presidential primaries. Laying claim to a constituency as a cabinet member has certain intangible advantages.
This is all woolgathering on my part...much is dependent on Kerry's continuing prosperity and that can change in an instant.
Health to all our candidates...
The Chimes at Midnight is sometimes wrong...or to put it charitably, half-right.
Back before New Years I idly suggested that a "Bobby Kennedy Moment" spotlight at center stage and all was being relentlessly prepared for General Wesley Clark.
At the time the former NATO Commander seemed to have that ineffable RFK-like mixture of resume and known leadership qualities.
At the time, it was wise, even for the most committed Kerry supporter to perhaps look around for a decent and honorable alternate.
I freely admit this, any other Kerry die hard would say the same, IF you got them drunk enough.
Look what a difference a mere sixty days makes!
Clark tied for first place in Oklahoma with Edwards which has been his best performance to date!
I'm a little shocked at how lackluster the Clark effort has been...but there is in the end something to be said for a long experience of elected public life...an area in which Kerry, Edwards, and Dean all have an advantage.
Nope it is looking more and more like Clark got in because he sensed Kerry was about to tank in N.H. and he, the General could prosper by seeming forfeiture.
This was not necessarily a poor analysis back before Christmas, hell Wellington looked like toast for most of the day at Waterloo....and we all know how that turned out.
The candidate who has seized the RFK moment has turned out to be John Edwards...relentlessly on message, famously upbeat...an ubiquitous campaigner who promises jobs-n-victory 24-7.
I gotta give the guy credit, like Kerry he came up in the polls the hard way if he is in the race to the finish he has earned the run.
General Clark however, seems to be tanking...he may yet recover the initiative but like Edwards and even Kerry to a certain extent, the General is running as a centrist-and that part of the feed is already crowded with claimants.
There was a time when the formula was simply Kerry+Clark or Clark+Kerry in order to co-opt the moderates and present a game face to the general election.
Now however with Edwards on a roll the equation changes to Kerry+Edwards...Dean is fading fast and the big question there is how to induce his followers to support the ticket?
As for General Clark?
Well, it is not such a bad thing for a Secretary of Defense to have run hard and clean in the democratic presidential primaries. Laying claim to a constituency as a cabinet member has certain intangible advantages.
This is all woolgathering on my part...much is dependent on Kerry's continuing prosperity and that can change in an instant.
Health to all our candidates...
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Ugly news day....
A post Superbowl pall has settled over the Boston Globe, college students rioted in the aftermath of the Pats victory and John Kerry despite all continues his improbable march to glory.
The streets of Boston all the way from Northeastern to Morrissey Boulevard are crowded with wreckage and punctured egos.
This malaise has even penetrated the op-ed page wherein today Joan Vennocchi sighed, swore, and halfhearted tried to pump up a "Romney for Veep" bid.
Poor poor Joan...this must be tough, never a particularly diligent reporter she faithfully babbled all the Right Things about John Kerry and look how she ended up...?
Inane and isolated.
The more I read of the Globe's op-ed page the more I realize this is the most ignorant self satisfied bunch of phonies that has been fielded by an aspiring national newspaper in fifty years.
And more than a few of them seem to be "non practicing attorneys"....and we all know how much lawyers just love the plain unvarnished truth don't we?
Nonetheless, there is a dispirited "another country heard from" quality to Joan's Romney for Veep jihad....because clearly the Commonwealth just deserves an Acting Governor as trite and ill-prepared as Kerry Healey.
If Joan can't destroy John Kerry then she'll figuratively destroy the state with Governor Kerry Healey-a personage clearly unqualified to act as a school crossing guard in Beverly.
Kerry is surging in the polls (as of today), meanwhile Romney (the hero of the Globe's punditariat) languishes with low public approval ratings.
Having been proven wrong about damn near everything, what is a sensible columnist to do?
Why elevate a batty lightweight Lt. Governor to the corner office-that'll generate some headlines.
Sick
Demented
Typical...
A post Superbowl pall has settled over the Boston Globe, college students rioted in the aftermath of the Pats victory and John Kerry despite all continues his improbable march to glory.
The streets of Boston all the way from Northeastern to Morrissey Boulevard are crowded with wreckage and punctured egos.
This malaise has even penetrated the op-ed page wherein today Joan Vennocchi sighed, swore, and halfhearted tried to pump up a "Romney for Veep" bid.
Poor poor Joan...this must be tough, never a particularly diligent reporter she faithfully babbled all the Right Things about John Kerry and look how she ended up...?
Inane and isolated.
The more I read of the Globe's op-ed page the more I realize this is the most ignorant self satisfied bunch of phonies that has been fielded by an aspiring national newspaper in fifty years.
And more than a few of them seem to be "non practicing attorneys"....and we all know how much lawyers just love the plain unvarnished truth don't we?
Nonetheless, there is a dispirited "another country heard from" quality to Joan's Romney for Veep jihad....because clearly the Commonwealth just deserves an Acting Governor as trite and ill-prepared as Kerry Healey.
If Joan can't destroy John Kerry then she'll figuratively destroy the state with Governor Kerry Healey-a personage clearly unqualified to act as a school crossing guard in Beverly.
Kerry is surging in the polls (as of today), meanwhile Romney (the hero of the Globe's punditariat) languishes with low public approval ratings.
Having been proven wrong about damn near everything, what is a sensible columnist to do?
Why elevate a batty lightweight Lt. Governor to the corner office-that'll generate some headlines.
Sick
Demented
Typical...
Monday, February 02, 2004
Naked Houston...
There is no better metaphor for the lamentable state of "Homeland Security" than the streaker who briefly disrupted the Super Bowl yesterday.
Pursued ineffectually by a hapless team of police, our naked indictment of the system ran pink and amok before straying too close to Patriots' linebacker Matt Chatham and getting power-slammed to the Houston turf.
"Gloom and doomers" will recall that Tom Ridge and the "H-Men" from the Department of Homeland Security declared the Astrodome a "special security site" before and during the game.
This meant it was a no fly zone and all guarded bythe likes of the Delta Force, the Death's Head Hussars, the Imperial Guard, Caesar's Tenth Legion, th' Black Watch, The Wild Geese, the Sikhs and the Ten Tigers of Kwantung.
All made a mockery of in due course the moment one naked attention-seeker stepped onto the field.
I'm beginning to think that Tom Ridge really can't do anything right on a very basic "Don't-have-Gilligan-do-it" kind of level.
All kidding aside what if that guy had dynamite strapped to his body?
What if he had several like minded accomplices in the stands?
Sure it would've been tough to smuggle dynamite into the stadium....but the proximity to the field and a nationwide audience has a irresistible attraction for the shameless and the homicidal.
Think about that.
But thank Ghod almighty in heaven above no doubt the H-Men down in DC are pulling double shifts right now in order to figure out a high tech test for "potential nakedness."
There is no better metaphor for the lamentable state of "Homeland Security" than the streaker who briefly disrupted the Super Bowl yesterday.
Pursued ineffectually by a hapless team of police, our naked indictment of the system ran pink and amok before straying too close to Patriots' linebacker Matt Chatham and getting power-slammed to the Houston turf.
"Gloom and doomers" will recall that Tom Ridge and the "H-Men" from the Department of Homeland Security declared the Astrodome a "special security site" before and during the game.
This meant it was a no fly zone and all guarded bythe likes of the Delta Force, the Death's Head Hussars, the Imperial Guard, Caesar's Tenth Legion, th' Black Watch, The Wild Geese, the Sikhs and the Ten Tigers of Kwantung.
All made a mockery of in due course the moment one naked attention-seeker stepped onto the field.
I'm beginning to think that Tom Ridge really can't do anything right on a very basic "Don't-have-Gilligan-do-it" kind of level.
All kidding aside what if that guy had dynamite strapped to his body?
What if he had several like minded accomplices in the stands?
Sure it would've been tough to smuggle dynamite into the stadium....but the proximity to the field and a nationwide audience has a irresistible attraction for the shameless and the homicidal.
Think about that.
But thank Ghod almighty in heaven above no doubt the H-Men down in DC are pulling double shifts right now in order to figure out a high tech test for "potential nakedness."
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