Orange alert! Attacks could come at any time! We are at war! Buy duct tape! Okay, now vote!
The volunteers were aged from 18 into their 50s and described themselves as ranging from liberal to deeply conservative. No matter what a person’s political conviction, thinking about death made them tend to favor Bush, Solomon said. Otherwise, they preferred Kerry.
(Thanks to Jer for the pointer.)
Will Ferrell reprises his classic role as W in this hilarious PSA from America Coming Together.
(Which, by the way, is a partisan group. Hats off to Will for flying his true colors.)
Obama, who’s running for Senate in Illinois, has gotten a lot of (deserved) buzz for his speech last night. Catch the video or read the transcript. Trust me, watch the video if you can, because his presentation is what really makes this material worth it:
If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief—I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper—that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one.
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America-there’s the United States of America.
There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope.
USA Today has decided to drop Ann Coulter‘s reports from the DNC even before they were published:
“It was just differences over editing of a fairly ordinary kind,” said USA Today Editorial Page Editor Brian Gallagher. “We had some different conceptions of what the column should be, we tried to work them out and when we couldn’t, we decided the best course of action was for us to go our own ways.”
I took a look over at anncoulter.com, and gosh, I can’t imagine why USA Today might have hesitated:
Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston… [my female] allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call “women” at the Democratic National Convention.
TalkLeft: Dem. Platform Deletes Support for Death Penalty
Title pretty much says it all. Depending on where you come down on this issue, this might be good or bad news, but I can tell you, any neighbors of mine who heard the loud WHOOP! I made on hearing this news might wonder what I’m doing over here. I’m thrilled by this. It’s a first step in the right direction.
Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention
If you didn’t manage to hear Bill Clinton deliver this, you owe it to yourself to track down a recording of it. It was a phenomenal speech, delivered impeccably. There’s a reason Clinton is still The Big Dog. I had goosebumps, listening to him.
Wal-Mart gives more money to Bush. Costco’s CEO gives to Kerry. This according to an article in the Boston Globe.
Wal-Mart’s political action committee, the biggest company PAC, gave Republicans 81 percent of its $1.3 million in donations in the past two years, a higher proportion than any of the top 25 corporate PACs, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan Washington-based group.
Of course, the politics go beyond political donations:
”Wal-Mart is extremely strong in Republican strongholds; they are a red-state retailer,” said Amy Bonkoski, an investment adviser… ”Costco is stronger in Democratic states. Costco is a friend to labor. Unions hate Wal-Mart.”
…Costco wouldn’t have to raise salaries with Kerry’s proposal to increase the minimum wage to $7 an hour, from $5.15 now. It already pays hot-dog vendors as much as $16 an hour, and the lowest wage it pays is $10 an hour. That’s higher than the $9.96 average wage paid at discount stores bearing the Wal-Mart name.
Thank God I have a Costco membership. I think I’ll go buy a giant bottle of ketchup (Heinz, of course) from them now.
Members of the Brookings Institution argue in the NY Times that while Bush/Cheney is trying to paint Kerry/Edwards as out of the mainstream, guess who is actually further from the center?
The Decembrist: Kerry and the Possibility of Greatness
These are the days when I hope with all my heart that Kerry has people watching the blogosphere and taking notes for him.
Bush != Conservative.
The NY Times has a very informative interactive guide. Yes, you have to get past their annoying registration, but it lets you play around with the Presidential, Senate, and House races – on a regular map or an electoral one.
“Q. And if you could make a law, what would it be?
A. It would be that every person on earth would have three meals a day… think about yourself. You know when your blood sugar drops, and you’re a nightmare? Okay. Think about an entire continent of people whose blood sugar is like that all the time. That’s why there’s war.”
-Air America host (and Daily Show co-creator) Lizz Winstead, in Utne
“I’m surprised that the Bushes are doing so well over there. You people actually had a war of independence to free yourselves from a dynasty of blue-blooded Georges.”
-Alan Moore, as quoted in Salon
“Out of the mainstream”. “Liberal”. “Hate-fest”.
The Daily Show tells us not to believe the hype.
In the New Yorker, Paul Simms presents a humorous take on Number Two’s recent Senate outburst.
…”Songs in the Key of W,” an album celebrating “the eloquence of our president.” On a dozen tracks, education-challenged sound bites from the highest U.S. official alternate with the George W. Bush Singers, a five-person choir crooning the words verbatim.
“You’re working hard to put food on your family,” they repeat after Bush in “Deep Thoughts (Part II).” In “Nucular,” the man with his finger on the button demonstrates his inability to pronounce what the button’s for. Other songs catch our 43rd president confusing “commiserate” for “commensurate,” declaring that “it takes time to restore chaos” and just plain making up words (“Embetterment! Ingrinable!”).
The album’s warning label reads, “Grammatical Advisory: Exact Quotes.”
Hear samples at www.georgewbushsingers.com.
The always-sharp independent Arianna Huffington takes Bush to task for calling Kerry a “flip-flopper” when
In September 2001, Bush said capturing bin Laden was “our No. 1 priority.” By March 2002, he was claiming, “I don’t know where he is. I have no idea and I really don’t care. It’s not that important.”
In October 2001, he was dead set against the need for a Department of Homeland Security. Seven months later, he thought it was a great idea.
In May 2002, he opposed the creation of the 9/11 commission. Four months later, he supported it.
During the 2000 campaign, he said that gay marriage was a states’ rights issue: “The states can do what they want to do.” During the 2004 campaign, he called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
Dizzy yet? No? OK:
Bush supported CO2 caps, then opposed them. He opposed trade tariffs, then he didn’t. Then he did again. He was against nation building, then he was OK with it. We’d found WMD, then we hadn’t. Saddam was linked to Osama, then he wasn’t. Then he was … sorta. Chalabi was in, then he was out. Way out.
In fact, Bush’s entire Iraq misadventure has been one big, costly, deadly flip-flop:
We didn’t need more troops, then we did. We didn’t need more money, then we did. Preemption was a great idea — on to Syria, Iran and North Korea! Then it wasn’t — hello, diplomacy! Baathists were the bad guys, then Baathists were our buds. We didn’t need the U.N., then we did.
And all this from a man who, once upon a time, made “credibility” a key to his appeal.
…and good riddance.
Oh, you can be sure it will be back next year, but this at least clears the table before the election.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040714.wbrit0714_2/BNStory/International/
… I know the Globe and Mail is predisposed to be friendly to Blair, but since when has “Well, he really genuinely thought he was doing the right thing” been any justification for “going to war without evidence” and “getting other peoples’ children killed as a result of your errors?”
