gonna persist with that cockammamie racetrack tipsheet format for his presidential campaign blog in the Boston Phoenix?
After three weeks or so it has already become irlsome, tedious and relentlessly repetitive.
Mind you, the gimmick is funny once or twice but as an ongoing framing device it is hopelessly inane. Moreover, if cliches were outlawed tomorrow (expls: Obama is...popular, Clinton is...well connected) Steve would founder as a pundit. He just doesn't have anything particularly original to say.
Can't see the Phoenix readership putting up with this drivel til November '08.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Forcing Gonzalez' resignation would be a nice thing
but it will solve nothing. A a petulant aging brat serves as our President who defines "character" as the appointment of ever more brutish lackey's to high office.
The only reason for Bush to replace Gonzalez is because he has someone even worse on tap for the sinecure.
This is the way things will be until Bush leaves office, the callow will be replaced by the callow and the nasty and so on and so forth.
We are therefore in a sort of life and death race with the President's governing style...can we save something of our freedom and republican institutions in the time he has left in office?
Thats the only question here, I can already tell you that if Gonzalez resigns tonight, his announced replacement will be someone on the order of Achille Starace...a bully to those below, a sycophant to those above.
Under these circumstances, with a "model" of Presidential leadership that is so contrary to tradition and common sense, the Senate is well within it's rights to decline confirmation. Better the Department of Justice drift until January 2009 than be further corrupted.
The only reason for Bush to replace Gonzalez is because he has someone even worse on tap for the sinecure.
This is the way things will be until Bush leaves office, the callow will be replaced by the callow and the nasty and so on and so forth.
We are therefore in a sort of life and death race with the President's governing style...can we save something of our freedom and republican institutions in the time he has left in office?
Thats the only question here, I can already tell you that if Gonzalez resigns tonight, his announced replacement will be someone on the order of Achille Starace...a bully to those below, a sycophant to those above.
Under these circumstances, with a "model" of Presidential leadership that is so contrary to tradition and common sense, the Senate is well within it's rights to decline confirmation. Better the Department of Justice drift until January 2009 than be further corrupted.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Meehan is out
and everyone else seems to be in....
I'm a little shocked that Marty took the Umass Lowell Chancellorship, but I'm told he has small kids at home and the financial rewards of the new sinecure can't be denied.
That having been said a vertiable battalion of hopefuls have piled in already headed by Niki Tsongas, widow of the late senator and presidential candidate. Rumors are still churning even as I write this of new and even more improbable candidacies.
Meanwhile the GOP could well offer up a credible candidate they seem to have a interesting collection warming up in the bullpen.
Well...never let it be said, that Massachusetts doesn't offer up consistent political theater on a grand scale.
At anyrate, this race will no doubt be the making of Lynn of "Left in Lowell" fame whose commentary on local and district politics are of a insightful and sensible type.
I'm a little shocked that Marty took the Umass Lowell Chancellorship, but I'm told he has small kids at home and the financial rewards of the new sinecure can't be denied.
That having been said a vertiable battalion of hopefuls have piled in already headed by Niki Tsongas, widow of the late senator and presidential candidate. Rumors are still churning even as I write this of new and even more improbable candidacies.
Meanwhile the GOP could well offer up a credible candidate they seem to have a interesting collection warming up in the bullpen.
Well...never let it be said, that Massachusetts doesn't offer up consistent political theater on a grand scale.
At anyrate, this race will no doubt be the making of Lynn of "Left in Lowell" fame whose commentary on local and district politics are of a insightful and sensible type.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Anyone else amazed to discover that
Steve Stark has the '08 campaign trail blogger gig at the Boston Phoenix?
This is to say the least something of a comedown for a paper that was once home to Dan Kennedy's political reportage.
Steve of course does have a nice looking resume, a stint as the Globe's official Clinton-hating liberal in the early nineties (he started predicting Bill's resignation seemingly a few weeks after the first inaugural)as well as a cultural commentator sinecure at WBUR...on paper it's all very impressive, in reality not so much.
None of this has ever changed my opinion of Stark as a hack scribbler who can pound out the blindingly obvious with a great deal of self satisfied relish. Banal...glib...surprising obtuse, Steve specializes in the sort of political coverage you can easily extract from junk like Time Magazine.
Why the Phoenix felt the need to resurrect Steve's career as a political pundit is a mystery? Can they really be all that impressed with his recent book on the Beatles, a tome that'll make no one forget Bob Spitz's biography or Goldman's trashy Life of John Lennon.
This is to say the least something of a comedown for a paper that was once home to Dan Kennedy's political reportage.
Steve of course does have a nice looking resume, a stint as the Globe's official Clinton-hating liberal in the early nineties (he started predicting Bill's resignation seemingly a few weeks after the first inaugural)as well as a cultural commentator sinecure at WBUR...on paper it's all very impressive, in reality not so much.
None of this has ever changed my opinion of Stark as a hack scribbler who can pound out the blindingly obvious with a great deal of self satisfied relish. Banal...glib...surprising obtuse, Steve specializes in the sort of political coverage you can easily extract from junk like Time Magazine.
Why the Phoenix felt the need to resurrect Steve's career as a political pundit is a mystery? Can they really be all that impressed with his recent book on the Beatles, a tome that'll make no one forget Bob Spitz's biography or Goldman's trashy Life of John Lennon.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Rudy Uber Alles?
Current polls show the Former Mayor of Nw York City has opened up a lead in the GOP presidential primary race.
His appeal is simple, he is running as 9-11's Eisenhower, a crisis tested Commander in Chief whose halo spells out "Leadership" in gilt letters.
Moreover he has the unabashed man-love of such strategically placed dupes as Chris Matthews and at the moment he polls well against Clinton and Obama.
A heady heady brew indeed for an ill tempered former mayor to ingest.
Of course, it is early in the race, most hard core wingnuts haven't yet tumbled to Rudy's pro-choice bona-fides, his three marriages and his sterling reputation in the gay community.
So count on a lot a money being spent to smear Giuliani as queer-loving dupe and an abortionist.
Moreover the naive affection of the likes of Chris Matthews & Mike Barnicle didn't do John McCain a lick of good in campaign 2000...remember that, hype and electoral muscle are two different things.
I just can't see this guy getting the nomination and not provoking a split in the GOP, either the Norquist types will sit on their hands or else the drama queens like Richard Viguerie will carry old their mangy old threat to start a 100% conservative third party.
Of course, Rudy could go the Romney-Route and backtrack on all his former core beliefs, but if he wants to avoid being labeled a flip-flopper he'd better do it soon and more artfully than the Former Massachusetts Governor.
His appeal is simple, he is running as 9-11's Eisenhower, a crisis tested Commander in Chief whose halo spells out "Leadership" in gilt letters.
Moreover he has the unabashed man-love of such strategically placed dupes as Chris Matthews and at the moment he polls well against Clinton and Obama.
A heady heady brew indeed for an ill tempered former mayor to ingest.
Of course, it is early in the race, most hard core wingnuts haven't yet tumbled to Rudy's pro-choice bona-fides, his three marriages and his sterling reputation in the gay community.
So count on a lot a money being spent to smear Giuliani as queer-loving dupe and an abortionist.
Moreover the naive affection of the likes of Chris Matthews & Mike Barnicle didn't do John McCain a lick of good in campaign 2000...remember that, hype and electoral muscle are two different things.
I just can't see this guy getting the nomination and not provoking a split in the GOP, either the Norquist types will sit on their hands or else the drama queens like Richard Viguerie will carry old their mangy old threat to start a 100% conservative third party.
Of course, Rudy could go the Romney-Route and backtrack on all his former core beliefs, but if he wants to avoid being labeled a flip-flopper he'd better do it soon and more artfully than the Former Massachusetts Governor.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Death scream from the tar-pits
I'm sure that when the bigger prehistoric mammoths got stuck in the La Brea tarpits they mitted some truly scary and sarcastic screams on their way to becoming fossilized tourist attractions.
Such is the case today with the Boston Heraldwhich gloats unashamedly at the alleged discomfiture of a few bloggers over Governor Patrick's recent political mis-steps.
Why this is news is a mystery to me.
In fact it isn't news at all, it's a smug recitation of a few bloggers angst, small beers indeed next to Scooter Libby's conviction yesterday, an item that can be found nowhere on the front page of the Herald's website.
You know what...these guys sound scared. Their readership is older than the College of Cardinals and blogging is one of those under-forty phenoms that One Herald never got from the git-go. Their daily sales have steady gone down for the past decade, the bullpen holds staff meetings in a broom closet and even Howie Carr just e-mails it in.
Yup, the Herald is stuick fast mah frens' and going down fer th' third time as well.
So they are (in the words of my grey haired old Irish Mother) "to be pitied"...time is not on their side snarkiness or no snarkiness.
Such is the case today with the Boston Heraldwhich gloats unashamedly at the alleged discomfiture of a few bloggers over Governor Patrick's recent political mis-steps.
Why this is news is a mystery to me.
In fact it isn't news at all, it's a smug recitation of a few bloggers angst, small beers indeed next to Scooter Libby's conviction yesterday, an item that can be found nowhere on the front page of the Herald's website.
You know what...these guys sound scared. Their readership is older than the College of Cardinals and blogging is one of those under-forty phenoms that One Herald never got from the git-go. Their daily sales have steady gone down for the past decade, the bullpen holds staff meetings in a broom closet and even Howie Carr just e-mails it in.
Yup, the Herald is stuick fast mah frens' and going down fer th' third time as well.
So they are (in the words of my grey haired old Irish Mother) "to be pitied"...time is not on their side snarkiness or no snarkiness.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Whatever else happens in campaign '08
lets all make a quiet pledge to elect a President who excites naught but the snobbish scorn of David Broder.
If the winner is in dutch with David, then it is all good as far as Humble Elias is concerned.
If the winner is in dutch with David, then it is all good as far as Humble Elias is concerned.
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