Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

This Is the Face of the Republican Party:

For the last few days, the same group of indistinguishable sweaty white people who gathered in New York in 2004 -- and plastered purple bandaids on themselves to mock the military service of John Kerry and the wounds that merited his three Purple Heart medals -- have spent their time in St. Paul at their 2008 convention alternately worshipping their own war hero (who languished, lamentably, tortured in a POW camp, while Kerry fought in that war, earning those Purple Hearts in combat) -- and jeering the candidacy and accomplishments of Barack Obama and his millions of Democratic followers.

On the face of it, the Grand Old Party looks to be having a good old time in St. Paul. A grand old party, in fact. Laughter, after all, is the best medicine, right? Sure is... And god knows, we're all in need of some sort of a cure.

But the contrast between the two political conventions held this summer could not be more stark, and while there will always be a substantial segment of the population ready to fall for the re-constituted manure these folks have packaged and are handing out in their pitifully tiny venue in St. Paul -- their medicine won't work. Laughing at someone is never as powerful as laughing with someone. And we all know it.

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

It is the entirely wrong tack to take.

First -- it's mudslinging, for chrissakes. On a nominee. Does that sound like anyone we know?

Second... she's a fucking GIRL. Did none of you take PSYCHOLOGY One-oh-fucking-ONE?

Stick to the basics. She's a supremely unqualified nominee. Let the record speak for itself. SHE SUUUUCKS.

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.

Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.

"Do you believe?" he cried.

Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.

She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn't sure.

"What do you think?" she asked Peter.

"If you believe," he shouted to them, "clap your hands; don't let Tink die."

Many clapped.

Some didn't.

A few beasts hissed.

The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was saved.

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

Adam and I are hardened old cynics at this point.

But Terry was born on December 7th, 1999. He has never NOT KNOWN a time when George W. Bush wasn't President.

And we've been sitting on the couch after Adam gets home from work, watching the DVR playback of the convention highlights... both of us WEEPING LIKE CHILDREN. Holding hands, looking at each other occasionally, realising that we LOST OUR GODDAMNED COUNTRY when they stole that election... and we knew it, we knew we knew it, but we DIDN'T KNOW what we didn't know.

Oh, we railed, we thundered at the television, we shushed each other because the baby was sleeping, then we'd go out to the patio and whisper-shout at the heavens at the INJUSTICE of it all...

But we just DIDN'T REALISE what would happen -- HOW COULD WE???

And we sit on the couch watching this Democratic Convention...

And we weep.

Keith Olbermann is very good at soundbite polemic; the rise in popularity of Countdown has as least as much to do with his inarguably charming personality as with Olbermann's ability to transform complex issues of modern political science into televised Reader's Digest versions both palatable and comprehensible to today's harried and confused American citizen.

Olbermann's genuinely outraged Special Comments -- the ones he aimed at Bush when he first started offering them on Countdown -- were things of beauty.

Lately, however, they've lost their impact. It started with the one he aimed at Hillary Clinton. They have become, successively, less effective with each attempt.

If he wishes to preserve the power of this particular element in his arsenal, if indeed it remains salvageable, Keith Olbermann ought to retire the "Special Comment." He must reserve its use for the truly heinous, the truly momentous, the truly "Special" -- or risk its becoming yet another Countdown number, no more nor less notable or effective a propaganda tool than the "Worst Persons" or "Bushed."

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

During a brief, albeit seismic argument with my husband this afternoon about l'affaire Edwards, some ideas crystallised; I realised just how cataclysmic the effect on Obama will be -- in very short order -- if John Edwards does not step up to the proverbial plate and take full responsibility for the entire goddamned mess. Right fucking now.

And that means take the damned DNA test and let the genes fall where they may.

I watched One Day in September a few weeks ago on HBO, despite my almost pathological aversion to films about painful historical events.

(Which is not to say I don't eventually get around to watching them; I just procrastinate. It took me two years to watch "Hotel Rwanda", a year to see "Blood Diamond." I did manage to see "Schindler's List" while it was still in the theatre, but only because my friend dragged me. And I've still never seen "The Sorrow and the Pity," but please, it's sixteen years longer than the war.)

Yes, I've buried the lede.