Dw. Dunphy: I thought I’d start things off tonight with a joke: So … Judas, Benedict Arnold, and the dude from Raiders of the Lost Ark who gets the spikes through his face walk into a bar. They see Joe Lieberman, turn around and leave, saying, “Shit, they’ll let anyone in here these days” … Well, it ain’t funny, but it is original.

Ted Asregadoo: He’s here ’til Thursday, ladies and gentlemen!

Jon Cummings: Try the red meat! The Republicans are having a special.

9:40 p.m. EDT: Laura Bush emerges to introduce her absent hubby…

Dw.: Laura seems to be having trouble with the TelePrompTer.

Jon: Is our children learning?

Ted: I feel like taking a nap.

Jon: Get your ass up! If I can sit through this, you can.

Dw.: I speak for all of us when I say this is a sacrifice for the good readers of Popdose.

Jon: Here is Laura’s “straight talk” about the achievements of hubby’s administration: 1. No Child Left Behind (enacted with more help from Democrats than anyone else, never fully funded by Bush, too reliant on standardized tests, school districts nationwide despise it); 2. Supreme Court justices Alito & Roberts (selling the populace down the river to big business, ready to gut Roe v. Wade on a moment’s notice); 3. Faith-based initiatives (even the former director of the program says the Bushies were pandering, then disrespectful to church groups); 4. The African AIDS initiative (hard to argue with this funding, though the policy behind it reeks of Christian-right asininity – and Laura’s “before” statistic that only 50,000 Africans were receiving treatment in 2001 is a steaming pile of horseshit); 5. Afghanistan & Iraq “living in freedom” (millions of them might beg to differ – if you can hear the women’s muffled voices beneath their burkas); 6. Having “kept the American people safe” (hahahahahahaha).

And heeeeeeere’s Georgie…live via satellite… (more…)

It’s hard to know exactly what to write in this space today, because as of this writing it’s difficult to know what form this week’s Republican National Convention will take. To begin with, news reports Sunday night suggested that Monday’s activities in St. Paul would be severely curtailed by the landfall of Hurricane Gustav, perhaps limited to formalities including an official opening, report from the credentials committee and adoption of the party’s platform.

These GOP moves certainly are prudent, from both a governing perspective (George Bush and Dick Cheney have no business abandoning their posts during such a crisis, a lesson they’ve thankfully learned by now) and a political perspective (a slate of right-wing hits on Barack Obama would be profoundly inappropriate on a night when the homes and livelihoods of millions are endangered, as would the sight of Bush and John McCain partying through another Category 4 hurricane).

The net impact of such a throttling-back of the usual partisan festivities is unknown. On the one hand, Republicans will be unable to get started with what should be the main point of this convention, to introduce to the nation the almost completely unknown VP selection Anita Bryant – excuse me, Sarah Palin. On the other hand, McCain and other GOP operatives are not-so-quietly thanking their lucky stars that they won’t have to spend an evening “celebrating” the Bush/Cheney administration on national TV.

Depending on Gustav’s strength and the extent of devastation it wreaks, the second night of the convention also may be pared down. Tuesday, unofficially, was Hatchet Night, the evening during which the long knives were most likely to be drawn on the Obama/Biden ticket; scheduled speakers include keynoter Rudy Giuliani as well as Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson and Tom Ridge (each of whom, notably, is without steady employment at the moment). This is the evening on which Gustav might inflict the greatest damage on the Republicans, because this lineup of speakers was the most likely to fling large, lying chunks of fetid meat into the baying, rabid audience. That task, under less somber circumstances, would doubtless be the second-most important of the entire confab. (more…)

Jon: Well, so much for the “civic duty” I believed would guilt the Popdose community into following the political conventions: Even my heretofore partner in blogging crime, Ted Asredagoo, abandoned our noble cause to catch a Waifs concert last night! (You know, Ted, Hootie & the Blowfish played a gig not five miles from my house on Tuesday night, but did I skip out on Hillary’s orange “traveling pantsuit” to catch them? Noooooooo! I thought to myself, Hill, I only wanna be with you…)

Before I introduce our guest analyst for the Bill & Biden show, allow me to note that, after two evenings dominated by women, the Democrats finally let the testosterone flow last night. As a result, there are no women to objectify – except MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell, about whom I always have just one thing to say (even when she’s eight months pregnant): Hubba hubba. So, without further ado, our surprise curmudgeon: Dw. Dunphy!

Dw.: These Democrats sure can talk! Don’t they know I gotta work in the morning? Anyway, it’s my turn to hang out with Jon and the ‘Bots on the Satellite of Love. Dr. Forrester’s evil show for the evening: Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. I’ll make sure I have extra hamdingers at the ready.

Jon: WTF is a hamdinger?

(Editor’s note: Jon, betraying a lack of pop-culture understanding that should get him banned from Popdose forever, apparently is unaware that hamdingers are deviled-ham patties that were sold by the block and often used for fish bait – a fact that is common knowledge to fans of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, as hamdingers played a key role in episode 512 and made a brief appearance in episode 513.)

Jon: What a bunch of dweebs I’m working with here! (Hey! I just figured out what that pretentious “Dw.” thing is all about.) Last night Ted blew 200 words on Vulcans, and now I have to deal with MST3K? (more…)

Jon: Our frequent commenter “Elaine” is eager for us to objectify Hillary tonight. Are we “up” for it?

Ted: I’m game…

Jon: So, Mark Warner looks pretty good. I keep remembering the picture of him on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, which I think singlehandedly forced him out of the presidential race because he looked like a space alien.

Ted: I gotta say, he looks like a Vulcan … who’s also a motivational speaker (if that’s possible). (Pause) He is a Vulcan! His speech is called “The Race for the Future,” and we all know that in the future Zefram Cochrane develops the first Warp engine and the Vulcans are there after the first launch. I think Mark has been sent back in time by the Vulcans to push humanity toward the Star Trek future.

Jon: Well, I dunno … Warner’s got rounded ears. It’s been a looooong time since I could make a Star Trek reference, so I’m just gonna stick with “space alien.” You can get as specific as you like. I still think Warner will be president in 2016. Did you see those daughters of his? They look like future first-daughter material.

Ted: Chris Matthews is drunk. Keith Olbermann looks like he just did a line of coke before they went live.

Jon: Speaking of drunk, is there a dumber human being alive than Ed Rendell? What major Democrat in his right mind would dare say in public that his own nominee is “like Adlai Stevenson”?

Ted: I lived in Philly when Eddie was mayor, and he was really popular. But for him to make a comment like that probably resonates with 2% of the U.S. population. So, yeah, he probably was drunk. (more…)

Jon: What were your impressions of Ted & the Kennedys? He looked pretty good, considering.

Ted: He did a very good job. Kennedy finished probably his last political speech, and it was nice to hear and see him look so vibrant.

Jon: If, as you say, this was Ted’s last political speech, it was certainly high on emotion…if utterly devoid of substance. It was as though he were running purely on motor memory…how to give a rollicking speech full of Kennedy-esque rhetoric, without actually saying something. I found it interesting to hear him speak within 24 hours of reading news reports of Margaret Thatcher’s rapidly advancing dementia. An era is ending, a generation of leaders is falling by the wayside–and I don’t (merely) mean to be snarky when I note that John McCain is only four years younger than Ted, seven years younger than Thatcher. Chris Matthews put it succinctly: “We have watched a Kennedy grow old.”

Ted: He’s a guy who represents the last of the liberals who have attracted so much ire from the Right. Kennedy’s brand of liberalism (characterized by the term “Big Government”) is one that became increasingly marginalized by both the Right and the DLC since the ’80s. To end up on the stage talking about Obama — whom he supported in the primaries — was a nice passing of the torch to a candidate who’s not a Kennedy liberal or a Clinton/DLC type.

Jon: Interesting perspective you have–though I actually think Obama is more of a Kennedy liberal than he would want to admit to the nation in general.

Ted: I don’t really see the same kind of “Big Government” stuff coming from Obama, but…

Jon: It was fascinating watching the choreography of Ted Kennedy’s appearance play out. Beforehand, Caroline Kennedy, John Kerry and others claimed they didn’t know whether Ted would speak at all, and on MSNBC Olbermann and Matthews seemed not to know either. After allowing that suspense to build, only afterward did Olbermann, without a hint of apology or irony, begin his analysis with, “They told us that speech would be four minutes long”–making clear that they knew the speech would be happening all along. I wonder if Fox made the same effort to build suspense for an audience full of Kennedy-haters; heck, I wonder if Fox showed Ted’s speech without contemporaneous heckling from Hannity. Maybe a Fox viewer can let us know… (more…)

Jon Cummings: Welcome to the first installment in a Popdose political adventure that won’t require you (or us) to leave the computer! Here’s my little secret, Ted: A few months ago, on a whim, I applied to the DNC for a blogger credential that would allow me into the Colorado Convention Center. Would you believe the Democrats turned Popdose down? Fuckers. I blame Jeff, whom I identified as the bossman. Of course, the Dems invited me to come to Denver anyway and stake out a position among the thousands of other rejects in the “remote” blogging center. As if! Unless I can get face time with the chairman of the Mississippi delegation, why would I pay the jacked-up hotel rates when I can TiVo wall-to-wall coverage on CSpan?

Ted Asregadoo: When I found out that Joe Biden was asked to be vice president on the Democratic ticket, I was looking for jobs on the Internet. I’m one of the “real people” who’s been on the receiving end of our wonderful economic downturn. Yeah, I was laid off from my day job a couple of months ago. Fuckers. Why couldn’t our sales department do their job and sell our product? Why, oh, why couldn’t our potential clients ignore their declining receipts and just buy into what we were selling?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot how messed up the economy is. I almost forgot about the insane amounts of money we’re pumping into our two wars; wars in which thousands have died for … well, I think you’ve heard the talking points from the current administration. I almost forgot about the real estate bust. I almost forgot about the credit crisis. I almost forgot the high price of oil. I almost forgot how the culmination of these elements had the consequence of throwing a bunch of Americans into the realm of the unemployed. Like I said, I almost forgot. But there are too many powerful reminders to stave off the amnesia; too many stories of economic and political woe that can’t be ignored.

The reality is that I’m ready for an economy where the government doesn’t prime the pump with selective military contracts. I’m ready for a government where all the freedoms that nobody gives a shit about, until they give a shit about them, aren’t eroded. I’m ready for a government where xenophobia and bloodlust revenge for 9/11 aren’t the New World Order. I’m ready for a Democratic administration who is unafraid of standing to thwart these forces and not merely yelling “Stop,” but standing tall with conviction and understanding of who they are representing. (more…)

John McCain trotted out an oldie-but-a-goodie on Monday at the VFW convention – proclaiming once again that, unlike a certain current president who allowed Osama bin Laden to give him the slip, McCain would “follow him to the gates of hell” and bring him to justice. Of course, he followed that statement with one of his trademark crypt-keeper smiles, so it’s hard to know whether he’s actually all that passionate about the subject or just likes to hear himself talk. Whichever is the case, now may be a good time to question not only where, exactly, the gates of hell might be (Afghanistan? Pakistan? the Cheney residence?), but whether it is even worth the effort to follow Osama there.

Lots of people have found lots of reasons to harp on the fact that we haven’t yet caught Al Qaeda’s grand poobah. Americans do like to see bad guys caught and punished – that’s why Law and Order variants play 24/7 on basic cable – and we prefer quick, tidy endings, which is why (despite the red-herring “surge is working” mantra) we’ve turned away in droves from the Iraq War. For Democrats, meanwhile, Osama is a valuable symbol of George Bush’s (and, by extension, the Republican Party’s) strategic failures and incompetence – and particularly of the foolishness of prioritizing the neocons’ Saddam obsession over “finishing the job” in Afghanistan.

McCain’s reasons are even more complicated – verging on psychotic, really. For Johnny Mac the military man, Osama represents a Mission Not Accomplished, as well as an opportunity to (finally) get something right after the fiascos of Vietnam and Iraq. For McCain the Moralizer, operating in that black-and-white world that conservative Christians (not to mention radical Islamists) populate, Osama is the epitome of an evil that “must be defeated,” as we heard during Pastor Rick’s un-American “faith forum” last Saturday.

Most importantly, for Citizen McCain the candidate, ranting about Osama is a means of separating himself from Bush; moreover, it’s the key plank in McCain’s belligerence-equals-experience foreign policy platform, which is pretty much all he’s got to offer as a rationale to lure voters to his side.

Of course, there is one guy who for years has shown no real interest in capturing Osama, dead, alive or otherwise: the guy who let him off the hook in the first place. “I truly am not that concerned about him,” Bush famously said as early as March 2002, reflecting an attitude that most Americans have come to believe is a rationalization for his own failures. (more…)

Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down to Georgia

My apologies in advance for taking occasional license with the meter…

Johnny Mac went down to Georgia, he was lookin’ for an election to steal
Yelled at a cloud and those doggone Russkies, tried to bring ’em both to heel
His opponent was nothin’ but a raw celeb — not even prez yet, but actin’ like he was
Johnny said, “I’ll show my fur’n policy credentials by takin’ up the cause”

He figured, “Those Democrats are pansies — ’bout as threatening as my mom”
So Johnny told the Russkies, “You’d better step off — don’t forget, we’ve got the bomb!
Ol’ George W. Bush might be lookin’ to talk (Not an option on Cheney’s list)
But my advisor wants war, and he should know — he’s Georgia’s registered lobbyist!”

But Vladimir Putin said, “You and what army’s gonna kick us off this land?
Your forces are a crock – they’re stuck in Iraq! It’s a quagmire, like Vietnam!”

Johnny take your blood pressre pills, turn up the rhetorical heat
’Cause hell’s broke loose in Georgia and Republicans hate retreat
Forget about diplomacy, negotiatin’s what Obama would do
Screw Britney Spears and the Europeans too!

Bush made too many promises — told the Georgians, “We’ve got your back”
So when South Ossetia tried to secede Saakashvili screamed, “Attack!”
But the Russian bear said, “Don’t you dare — we’ll bomb you out of all proportion
And that help you’re expecting from Bush/McCain? Might as well ask for an abortion!”

Johnny saw what the Russians were doin’ and said, “Boys, lemme tell you what
I’m gonna rattle my sabers and make enough noise to stir the electorate!”

He said, “I’m a seasoned vet, Obama’s just a boy
His Hilton is Paris, mine’s in old Hanoi
Bush ain’t my daddy, but Lieberman’s my whore
If Putin don’t back down, I’ll start another Cold War!” (more…)

Sometime last night, or this morning, or next Tuesday (why can’t the Chinese operate on American time, like everybody else?), George Bush gave what he probably fancies as his “tear down this wall” speech. He excoriated China’s government for its human rights violations and encouraged that nation’s people to seek greater freedoms, using what his spokespeople call (and who ever questions their veracity?) his strongest language to date. And he boldly made these pronouncements in a location from which every last one of the 1.2 billion Chinese would be sure to hear him … Bangkok, Thailand.

Bush previously had said he wouldn’t speak out against China’s crackdowns on dissidents, support for the Sudanese government, or other such issues while actually attending the Olympic opening ceremonies, because he has so much “respect for the Chinese people.” Never mind that had he spoken such words anywhere in Beijing, Wal-Mart’s supply chain might have disappeared completely and China’s bankers might have called in our considerable debts. Or maybe his reticence had something to do with his plans for a glorious 41-and-43 reunion with Poppy, who just happens to be the former U.S. ambassador to … China.

Of course, these being the Bush years, details of the big China speech were forced to share space on the evening news with word of the latest glorious development in our own nation’s human rights shame spiral, the “War on Terror.” (These juxtapositions have become de rigueur as Bush’s hypocrisy continues to swing violently along the rip-line between tragic and laughable.) Not only did the Bushies fail to win a full conviction in the first terrorist show trial staged by the Pentagon’s kangaroo court — excuse me, “military commission” — but journalist Ron Suskind offered evidence in his new book that the entire basis for the Iraq War was not only a fraud, but a forgery as well.

(more…)

“Napoleon once said, when asked to explain the lack of great statesmen in the world, that to get power you need to display absolute pettiness. To exercise power, you need to show true greatness. Such pettiness and such greatness are rarely found in one person. I look upon the events of the past weeks, and I’ve never come so to grips with that quotation … Your leadership has raised the stakes of hate to a level where we can no longer separate the demagogue from the truly inspired.”
–President Jackson Evans (Jeff Bridges) in The Contender (2000)

Rod Lurie’s political films remind me of a college professor whose classes I simultaneously loved and hated: you had to sort through a lot of annoying bullshit to get to the brilliant insight at the end. (I figure I’m going to pay for that sentence in the comments section. Have at it!) Nevertheless, I happened to catch the last 15 minutes of The Contender on the tube Sunday morning, right after John Kerry nearly bitch-slapped the utterly deserving Joe Lieberman on Meet the Press, and that quarter-hour (like Lieberman’s performance) fairly reeked of the colossal stench John McCain’s campaign has been emitting for the past couple weeks.

In particular, the last line from Bridges’s speech begs to be viewed in the context of this presidential race. The Republican Party’s entire modus operandi, in the absence of any ideas that resonate with the American people, is now to render the electorate incapable of “separat[ing] the demagogue from the truly inspired.”

McCain once promised that things were going to be different this time. In April he said, point blank, “This will be a respectful campaign. Americans want a respectful campaign … they’re tired of the attacks. They’re tired of impugning people’s character and integrity. They want a respectful campaign — and I am of the firm belief that they can get it and they will get it if the American people demand it, and reject the negative stuff that goes on.”

(more…)