This music sounds like 16-bit MIDI. Are they that cheap?

Nothing is more exciting than videos of stilted book readings.

These videos. are. killing. me.

I really hate that changing picture background.

John McCain is inspirational. He just inspired me to donate even more money to Obama. Where’s my credit card ...

Did they just cheer 9/11?

CNN is showing Iraq Vets Against the War in the back of the auditorium!

Whoa! The lime green screen is back!

Anyone else watching on the WaPo website see the guy holding the “YOU CAN’T WIN AN OCCUPATION” banner?

Do they ever learn anything? They actually brought back the puke/lime green color after the New Orleans debacle. Wow.

And now they’re cheering hard times?

10:16 PM: GREEN BACKGROUND!

Dear God/Satan/Zeus/Disco Ball/Your Mom:

Please let the footage of McCain in front of the green screen get cleaned up and released online.  Every Mac in the world has video editing software now and there will be endless hours of fun.

Please, if there’s any love in the world, let this happen.

“The economy sucks.”

“U-S-A! U-S-A!”

He wants to change War-shington.

Yikes! He just said he’s going to stand on my side. I hope he takes off the high heels first.

Do they ever learn anything? They actually brought back the puke/lime green color after the New Orleans debacle. Wow.

Well, yes. This is the modern Republican party. If something doesn’t work, do it again harder, dammit!

Do you want to let the goddam green win? Hell, no! This is America! We’re going to go out in victory over that green!

Why does Cindy McCain look so much like Paris Hilton “age progression” from a milk carton?

He just said Warshington again!

For the record, concern trolls, we know that a certain portion of the base is eating this up. And we’re on record as not giving a shit about that portion because they would eat anything Republicans shit out.

He wants you to think he’s going to Warsh it up ... clean it ... well, the coffers anyway.

I thought Sarah Palin gave annual speeches to the “me first, country second” crowd.

I just used shit in two separate senses, above, didn’t I? I must be an uncivil liberal.

He just said Warshington again!

Well of course. He’s a mavericky outsider. Only elitists call it Washington.

Dear John McCain,

KEATING FIVE.

Sincerely,

Auguste

I will make the [pork barrel politicians] famous and you will know their names!

Starting with Sarah Palin!

Will “Papa Don’t Preach” become the theme song of the campaign?

Holy hell, this speech is boring.

I like how he carefully enunciates “principals”.

Eh, I meant “principles”.  Duh.

He is struggling with the tel-e-prom-t-er.

Did he really just say Republicans believe in creativity? ‘Cause they sure don’t fund it.

This is what was missing from Barack’s speech: exhaustive lists.

/snark

God this speech is awful.

I learned that with a government run health care plan, a bureaucrat will stand between you and getting the health care that you need. That’s gotta suck.

“God this speech is awful. “

The MSM will declare it a “home run” and the proceed to talk about how the left is in “panic”.

Watch.

Laughably bad.

His smiles look like grimaces.

learned that with a government run health care plan, a bureaucrat will stand between you and getting the health care that you need. That’s gotta suck.

It’ll definitely make the colonoscopy awkward.

I learned that with a government run health care plan, a bureaucrat will stand between you and getting the health care that you need. That’s gotta suck.

Quoted for fucking truth after I spent last night trying to get them to cover, for Augustlet, a very popular medicine.

Seriously! It’s advertised on television and everything!

John McCain is inspirational. He just inspired me to donate even more money to Obama. Where’s my credit card ...

Me too. I can’t afford much, but I sent some over anyway.

Education is the civil rights issue of this century. That discrimination business is so last century.

I learned that with a government run health care plan, a bureaucrat will stand between you and getting the health care that you need. That’s gotta suck.

Just the one? Cause I think you could toss a head fake and get around them.

Wow, these people really have it in for public school teachers.  Teachers in the Twin Cities watch out.

Yes.  And the solution to failing, overcrowded schools is… to bus those students to better schools.  Beautiful.

Auguste, Roger Ailes found McCain’s comprehensive health care plan, but I don’t think you’ll like it.

Oh lord ... can we euthanize this speech? Sh-sh. There, there. It’ll be OK. That’s a ... er ... good speech.

It’s is really, really fucking sad the biggest applause line was for oil drilling.

Well, that link didn’t work out. Here ya go.

Who let Uncle Fester out?

Well, that link didn’t work out. Here ya go.

So if we marry John McCain, and then agree to let him leave us for a younger, prettier electorate, we’ll get free health care for life?

McCain’s got plans! Senator Obama does not! He says that he has them posted on this Intertubes thing that he has, whatever that is, but I can’t find them anywhere!

Please let the footage of McCain in front of the green screen get cleaned up and released online.  Every Mac in the world has video editing software now and there will be endless hours of fun.

I bet the gang at the Colbert Report is doing the Snoopy dance…

“I hate war.”
“I will secure the peace.”
But McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years.
Did you see the Iraqi war vet holding up the sign:
McCain votes against vets?
At least 5 seconds passed before someone mentioned his POW experience.

Well, at least he’s not comfortable talking about his POW experience. I’m so glad he’s showing a little modesty and class in this regard.

“VIETNAMESE THANKS MCCAIN”

Hungarian can give a shit though.

Oh! Daily Show is on! Time to change channels.

If you don’t like our country, make it a better one! Just don’t be one of those uppity community organizers!

Yaaaay! He’s wrapping up!

I like that whole list of things you could do to serve our country: I kept thinking “become a community organizer,” yet he didn’t mention that one for some reason.

NOOOOO! God that music is terrible!

“We never hide from History, we just viciously handicap its progress”

I’m so glad I watched “Kitchen Nightmares” and the U.S. Open.

If Republicans were honest:

http://whatyouread.blogspot.com/2008/09/if-republicans-were-honest.html

While McCain is shaking hands in the convention hall, Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang songs have been playing.  Is this a desperate attempt to win some black votes?  Now “Centerfield” by John Fogerty who is going to have a fit because he can’t possibly support McCain!

9:53 PM: We’re supposed to believe that John McCain is what we’d get if Santa Claus and George Washington adopted a baby and then sent said baby to DC to represent the fine people of Arizona

But John McCain doesn’t believe that gays are good parents! I guess now we know why he is messed up.

*opens eyes*

...wha....what happened? That was so awful I blacked out. And yeah, mention that if you don’t like the way things are going in the government join in to make it better! But being a community leader doesn’t count. And we’re gonna help the environment by drilling and making better power plants and clean burning coal, I think that’s the point I lost consciousness.

And now the anchors at MSNBC are pointing out how the words “George” and “Bush” were never uttered, let alone together.

I don’t understand.  I saw the same speech, and I thought he saw and pushed all the right buttons.  Where Palin was negative, he was positive.  He talked about all of the bread-n-butter issues that he needed to talk about.

Never mind that none of it is credible, and a lot of it hypocritical.  So what?  He’s a politician.  People are looking for the right buttons, not credibility, and it was the “two” of a “one-two” punch.

I think many of you are just complacent, and happen to think that the minutiae you care about are what the crucial segments of voters care about.  If John McCain loses, it will be despite, not because of this speech, and Palin’s speech yesterday.

huh? Anyone know what time it is? Guess I dozed off… I had a strange dream about Grandpa Smurff, only he was more boring and white. I need some f’ing coffee…

Mandos, give it up.  The speech was horrible and disorganized, and you can’t just make up a gloss for it.

I think many of you are just complacent, and happen to think that the minutiae you care about are what the crucial segments of voters care about.

As I noted above, what you call a “crucial segment” I call “would kill their first-born if the Republican leadership asked them to.”

It’s a good thing I had low expectations...I certainly was not disappointed.  I learned that McCain is a Maverick, and a POW...I get to pass go and pay attention to something more relevant.

No, I completely disagree.  The speech was relentlessly positive and constructive, which was precisely what was needed after Palin’s highly negative, base-firing speech. 

The problem, I think, is that none of you can imagine that the last eight years can be wiped from the mind of non-fanatical voters.  But, it can.  McCain cleared the deck of that simply by being positive and not failing idiotically.  The Code Pink Moment was just gravy.  Once you accept that there are non-Bush-deadender voters who *can* disconnect McCain from Bush, then the speech is exactly what McCain needed.

Do you not think that this can be done?  The number of people who support McCain in polls is consistently greater than the number of Bush deadenders.

Drill, baby, drill: it’s an effective siren song.

Of course we think it can be done, Mandos. We know it can be done. We’ve been paying attention, after all.

Don’t confuse scorn with underestimation; the kind of low information voters whose support or lack thereof for McCain hinges on things like crappy speeches are not reading Pandagon.

“[Palin] has worked with her hands and nose....uh, and knows...”

Heh!

Palin to connect them to the old politics, to fire up the resentment and anger of the base.  McCain to show the rest of the voters and the media the way to Maverick Nirvana.  It’s symmetrical.  No, McCain is not the most inspirational speaker on the face of the planet.  But everyone knows that.  Not everyone is voting on inspiration.  And some people are definitely voting along the perceived criteria and divisions of the blogosphere.

The difference in life experience between McCain and Obama is huge.  I thought McCain did what he had to do.  The story of his time in the Hanoi Hilton is important.  Five and half years of that hell had to be a soul-searing experience.  It is a lot of time to really learn about yourself.  Not something I would want to go through.  Given a choice between the war hero and the ward heeler, I will take the war hero.

See, I disagree with the “low information voter” formalization.  I know more than one socially moderate American, well-educated and in touch, even read blogs, who buy the Maverick Mystique, or are even willing to separate McCain and Bush.

Do I think they’re wrong?  Yes.  Do I think that they’re idiotic or ignorant? No.

To me, the scorn you talk about is underestimation.  You have to be able to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is willing to separate McCain and Bush, or at least willing to do so in the presence of Obama.

Maybe it’s because I was an Obama skeptic, electorally speaking (I believe he was a needless risk), that I see this.  Or the other way around.

“I know more than one socially moderate American, well-educated and in touch, even read blogs, who buy the Maverick Mystique, or are even willing to separate McCain and Bush.”

+

“Do I think that they’re idiotic or ignorant? No.”

= ?

Mandos, if they are not “idiotic” or “ignorant”, what exactly are they?…

Well, so my question then is, should we be pointing out the utter fallacies and failings of his rhetoric with greater respect? Would that make it better? Pandagon is known in part for its scornful humor; if you come here and are shocked to find scorn and humor which back up larger truths (Palin lies and is a mess, McCain sells out his principles at least once a sentence, everything the Republicans say about Democrats is pure projection) then they are, ex facie, at the wrong blog.

Scorn, humor, and bad grammar, at least in my case.

Sorry, Mandos, but even the rabid Republican I live with said McCain’s speech was horrible.

tomonthebay:

The story of his time in the Hanoi Hilton is important. Five and half years of that hell had to be a soul-searing experience.

Well, not to sound callous, but so what if it was? Is everyone who’s had a “soul-searing experience” automatically qualified to be president, or does that rule only apply to the guys on your team?

The problem I have with “The story of his time in the Hanoi Hilton is important.  Five and half years of that hell had to be a soul-searing experience.  It is a lot of time to really learn about yourself.” is… seriously.  This is a guy that was against torture by the US until it became a liability in his attempts to secure the Republican nomination that he just accepted.  He was against tax cuts in wartime until it became a liability in his attempts to secure the Republican nomination that he just accepted.  He was one of a very limited number of Republicans with non-crazy views on immigration issues until, you guessed it, it became a liability in his attempts to secure the Republican nomination that he just accepted.

On a lot of the issues that one could once pick McCain out of a crowd of Senate Republicans by, he’s completely changed his position so that he might run for president, and a lot of those issues were ones that he was, frankly, on the right side of before.

Which leaves the question; what did John McCain learn about himself during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton?  It’s a serious question.

“Which leaves the question; what did John McCain learn about himself during his stay at the Hanoi Hilton?”

Given that he almost certainly did learn valuable things about himself, the question should be: When did he forget those things?

How could the life lessons he paid for so dearly be cast off so easily on the way to transforming himself into yet another Stepford Republican just to get the nomination?

What a hollow shell of a man…

Mandos, if they are not “idiotic” or “ignorant”, what exactly are they?

Not using the same moral/intellectual/philosophical/economic criterion you are.

Auguste: Not greater respect.  Who said anything about respect?  Without the kind of blinders that everyone on the blogosphere seems to have put on.  The Obama respect/Unity/bipartisanship shtick is just the opposite side of the coin. 

The problem is that for a lot of people, the pro-Obama campaign seems to rely entirely on dissatisfaction with Bush, and then tying McCain to Bush.  Pretty much until the convention, and thereafter even then, the positive bread-and-butter issues were neglected even on the blogosphere.  IMNSHO.  Under those conditions, all McCain has to do is to say that he’ll do XYZ for ZYX, let Palin compare herself to Obama, and so on and so forth.

Maybe dissatisfaction with Bush is all that’s needed to put Obama on top.  Maybe cries of “McSame” are enough.  I wouldn’t risk it.  I don’t find Obama’s speeches inspirational or that interesting myself.  So it seems like a risk to me.

So, when one leaves Pandagon (if ever, really) to interact with real humans instead of a keyboard, keep in mind that to convince Republicans to vote for Obama, you can’t call McCain Grandpa Smurff? Or refer to your opponents as Rethuglicans ‘k!?  ‘Cause pointed humiliation of someone’s core beliefs tends to be <> to vote getting. So don’t try this at home.

but all kidding aside, Mandos is spot on. The campaigns have not ended, though, and for every action there will be a counter. And for every person you meet who could vote D but might vote R, you’ve got 1500 hours, to reach out. It counts.

In other words, Obama sometimes needs to deliver a “boring speech.” ie, a speech where he talks about doing XYZ for ZYX, and lays off the Unity.  Yes, and, he can even deliver a blistering policy attack or two, but please, say something “dull” for once.

Okay, staydaddy.

Rethuglicans = BAD!!!

Dhimmicrats = Good?

Grandpa Smurf = BAD!!!

B. HUSSEIN Obama = Good?

Is that about right?…

Oh, lay off.  No one said it had to be an either/or choice.  I strongly believe in snark.  I just think it has to be informed by the nature of the target, and not in a patronizing way.  Snark for agitation, not for self-validation. 

At one point in time, Americans knew how to do this.  Fear of it by elites resulted in the New Deal, etc.

An example is fafblog’s recent post on Palin’s role as a potential “new host body” for McCain.  It delineated McCain as a ghoul, not as a doddering old idiot.  That he is a life-sucking ghoul relates to the policy you think he’ll impose, and it’s effect on the listener.  That’s constructive snark.

But that’s not generally what I see.  And that’s reflected in the odd underestimation of his campaign.

Think of it this way.  I think it’s reasonable for someone to think that McCain is entirely serious when he says that he’ll run the government differently from Bush.  That he’ll bring Change.

Get this: different does not necessarily mean better.

That’s why I think the McSame attack, the boring attack, etc, are not strong foundations for a campaign against the American right.

So essentially, you’re saying that what Obama should do is ignore one of his major strengths (inspiring oratory) in favor of one of his opponents’ (lying.) And I’m not trying to be reductive here, Mandos, but it seems like jettisoning strengths in favor of the opponent’s is exactly what the Dems have done wrong for 28 years, plus or minus 60% of a Clinton.

Obama said plenty about doing XYZ for ZYX in his convention speech, but it wasn’t boring. And he got shit! For wonkery, and for not enough wonkery! I remember it as though it were only a week ago! And if he’d stood at the podium and “said something dull” he would have been attacked for that too. He got this far - won the primary, up in the polls, energizing the base, raking in the cash, a very very good chance to win - by not letting the Republicans run the game.

And no, Obama didn’t ignore policy before the convention. The media said he ignored policy. He could have said nothing but the word “policy” in his stump speeches - stirringly - and they would have accused him of ignoring policy.

A winning politician plays to his or her strengths.

I think it’s reasonable for someone to think that McCain is entirely serious when he says that he’ll run the government differently from Bush.  That he’ll bring Change.

Why? Why is that reasonable? Because that person believes everything a Republican says? I can’t think of any other reason; certainly it’s not reasonable based on any evidence that exists. And if the person believes everythign a Republican says, then, again, what’s the point of trying to argue with them?

But please do give me another reason; I’m not that good at thinking like a Republican. (No snark there; it may be that I’m missing something.)

Obama sometimes needs to deliver a “boring speech.” ie, a speech where he talks about doing XYZ for ZYX

Dude, MOST of the acceptance speech was that.  The kind of speech at which Bill Clinton excelled.  McCain may have tried to do that, but there was all that meandering stuff about firing bad teachers and using community colleges to do job training (um, hasn’t Bush been talking about that for years?) and something about changing unemployment to be, er, modern somehow… What was that?  It may be “positive” in that it wasn’t negative/critical, but there was no follow-through on how things would be _done _ differently.  So with no soaring rhetoric and no signature policy initiative, what’s left?  POW stuff.

He _really_ should have started with the POW story and how it changed him (supposedly) from being the cocksure dickface he used to be into the civic paragon he became (*cough*thanks to dumping the old ball-n-chain*cough*).  Run on giving back and facing hard truths.  Not the standard-issue Republican gobbledygook about teachers’ unions (bad!), entrepreneurs (good!), and skeery tax hikes (bad!).

Incidentally, I thought almost all the U-S-A outbursts were meant to shout down protesters.  I’m surprised that more hasn’t been made of that, “liberal incivility” and such, given the whole culture-war Buchananite climate of Palin and her Snowy Horde.

McCain was the least assholish speaker I heard all week. He actually seems to care for his fellow Americans more than keeping every penny of his hard-earned wealth.

I don’t understand how Republicans can call themselves Christians, btw. If it came to a battle between God and Mammon, Mammon would win every time. Instead of an actual eye of an actual needle, they must think the camel passes through an opening as big as an aircraft hangar.

seems

The story of his time in the Hanoi Hilton is important. Five and half years of that hell had to be a soul-searing experience.

Too bad he has no soul to find.

Mandos, if you think that PUMAs exist, they are nothing next to the pack of disaffected traditional, rock-ribbed republicans who are now so pissed off that they are endorsing and planning to vote for Obama.  Obama is actually speaking their language, and leaving them wondering “what the fuck happened to my party”.  I know because I have family members, registered Republican, who are making these noises and pointing to the endorsements.

So why doesn’t the MSM ever cover the divisions in the Republican party?  Why haven’t they covered Ron Paul’s convention? 

They’re so in love with the “Fractured Democrats” meme that they can’t even do the basic research to verify PUMA Darragh Murray only donates to McCain.  But it’s all Theocrat Republicans United.

With a country divided 50/50 red and blue, plenty of traditional Republicans have to be disaffected for the President to have a 30% approval rate.  How does that happen?

THE HANDS OF FATE. Sorry, Mandos.

Convention caption retrospective here. I guarantee at least one chuckle and two twitters, not of the internet variety.

Caren:

1. Lazy people and institutions don’t have the energy to find out if their tired assumptions are correct.

2. Morally corrupt people and institutions aren’t interested in finding out if their assumptions are correct because they get a perverse kick out of fucking people over.

3. Bought-and-paid for people and institutions are bribed into merely repeating their assumptions, which is a polite word for “whoring themselves out for other people’s lies”.

4. Cowardly people and institutions are easily bullied into repeating incorrect assumptions because obeying the bully and repeating the lie is easier; the bully can threaten you, but the slandered person can or will not.

5. Tribal people and institutions will repeat the false assumptions of their established social set: some because they believe them, some because they’d rather have somebody in their Set in charge, even if they are wrong, especially so if “wrong” means “hurting everybody else as long as I’m okay”.  This applies to both the Village generally, and especially to people like Peggy Noonan who are willing to say truth privately or on the sly, but never “in public”.

Almost every single bit of the so-called MSM can fit into one or more of these categories.

I believe that answers your question.  I could have said “because the media is in the tank for the GOP for at least five reasons that I can think of offhand”, but that would have been less fun.

My husband comes home late from work, looks at the TV and is like, what’s with the GREEN BACKGROUND???  Trying to appeal to the green vote? 

But of course! 

And, what MAJeff said.

Yes.  And the solution to failing, overcrowded schools is… to bus those students to better schools.  Beautiful.

And here I thought the Republicans had built their majority on opposing busing of inner-city schoolkids to mostly white schools.

-MikeEss,

You’re a natural at this election stuff.  Very advanced, but might I suggest your list needs work before publishing further as it seems incomplete without a cartoon effigy or name play of Palin/Biden. Any suggestions? And do you think USA/Evildoer could be substituted (respectively) for good/bad? That would spruce it up nicely and show bipartisanship.

All I know is I can hardly wait to see little Trig Palin trotted out wearing a shirt that says “My momma is Republican VP candidate and all I got was this stupid tee-shirt!”

I don’t know if that would complete the absurdity, but it would certainly significantly advance it…