Florida GOP Secrets

Via Steve Clemons's excellent new blog, The Washington Note, we learn of a UPI post that the Florida GOP national convention delegation is secret:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Florida Republicans refused to release the names of the state's delegates to the national convention in New York later this month, citing privacy concerns.

"Some delegates are not comfortable speaking and don't want their information given out, and we've honored their requests. Our priority is putting the interests and welfare of our delegates first," Florida party spokesman Joseph Agostini told the Miami Herald.

Reporters and editors were provided with contact information weeks in advance for Florida's delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month, including photos of some of the more high-profile delegates. Most other state Republican delegations are providing contact information as well.

"This is the same administration that has fought for three years to hide the records of Dick Cheney's meetings with energy executives," said Matt Miller, a Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's Florida campaign. "We should not be surprised they're hiding their delegates."

WTF? Secret? I was a delegate to the Texas Democratic Convention (thanks to my good and long-time friend Nancy Russell, a Kucinich delegate who, unable to be at the convention, enabled me to be "elevated" from an alternate to a delegate, even though I was and am a staunch Kerry supporter), and I was anything but secretive about it. If I had been one of the select few who became delegates to the Democratic National Convention... I knew a few from my own SD 13, and a splendid lot they were... I would have been shouting it from the rooftops. Secret? What's wrong with those people?

I think you know the answer to that question. Unlike Democrats, who embraced blogging from the convention and wide-open press access to delegates, the GOP intends, as always, to conduct the bulk of its business in secret, and notwithstanding its grudging and imitative admission of a few bloggers, really doesn't want anyone to approach the delegates before or during the convention.

And... Florida? Far be it from me to say anything bad about people being hammered by a hurricane, as indeed I myself have been in the past, but let's get real: Florida's GOP has a problem with the whole concept of democracy. If they have to hold elections, they rig 'em. If they have to hold a convention, they render it secret as much as possible.

What can I say: this is offensive to our founders' notion of a representative democracy. You're either with the founders or against 'em. If secrecy prevails, the terrorists will have won. And the Florida GOP delegates' mothers probably wear cast iron underwear as well!

Seriously... this is so typical of the thinking of the GOP that it is beyond belief that anyone thinks they have (small-d) democratic intentions at all. Once again, Florida may make or break us. And once again, Florida's Republicans are trying to hide something.

Steve
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Julia Child -- DOGGEREL!

For Julia Child (1912-2004)...

Julia

Her flours all blooming, Her mien unassuming, She taught us our French as    she stirred and she smiled; At age ninety-one, From our midst she is gone: Now we must discover    our own inner Child. We learned it her way As she taught us soufflé ; With sauces and    boeuf à parquet she beguiled. Now, sadly, my friend, We have seen julienned, We look to the strength    of our own inner Child. Our resident grinches Say everything French is Deplored and despised    and rebuked and reviled. Forget them! Let's eat... I say, bon appetit! And raise a last glass    to our Julia Child!

Steve Bates

(Please forgive any fractured French; to my regret, I don't speak the language. And many thanks to Jeanne for alerting me to Ms. Child's departure from this world. - SB)

Steve
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Clark Explains Reality To Cheney

Via Digby, we have a statement on the Kerry web site by Wesley Clark:

General Wesley Clark, USA (ret) released the following statement today in response to Vice President Dick Cheney’s attacks on John Kerry:

I spent almost all of my adult life in uniform serving this great nation in the United States Army. I have led American soldiers into battle and led an international coalition in the Balkans where diplomacy, backed by force, was the winning formula.

George W. Bush failed to learn the lessons from his predecessor or history. His ideologues who control American foreign policy have squandered much of our credibility with our allies and failed to achieve victory in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. They gambled with a go it alone policy and our soldiers are paying with their lives.

Today we Americans are shouldering the overwhelming costs of rebuilding Iraq without sufficient help from our allies. The administration’s incompetence in protecting our security effectively is rightfully a key issue in this campaign

Today, Dick Cheney took the lowest road in politics -- it was a cheap shot unworthy of the office of Vice President.

The truth is that this administration has over-relied on the military in the war against terror – if we are to win, we must use all the means at our disposal – diplomacy, international law, economic development, law enforcement, and only as a last resort, military force.

But then, maybe that’s to be expected. Neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney has ever heard a shot fired in anger. Never worried whether he’d ever see his family again or seen the destruction caused by the weapons he’s wielded. The losses of war are permanent. The consequences are unpredictable. That’s why John Kerry has always said force should be a last resort.

John Kerry understands the risk and sacrifice that American soldiers undertake every day, in a personal way that neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney ever will. John Kerry has the physical courage, tested in combat, to hunt down and kill our enemies. He also has the moral courage and humility to avoid the arrogance, which has doomed this administration. John Kerry will make us safer at home and restore our credibility around the world.

Any questions?

For me, this statement is evidence of all kinds of things: The Kerry/Edwards campaign won't take crap from Cheney without fighting back. Our nominees have the unreserved backing of the candidates they ran against in the primaries. Clark is forthright and articulate and (despite earlier doubts) a solid Democrat. We do not have to yield the issues of defense or national security to Bush. To those, we can add diplomacy, a thing at which Bush and his henchmen have not merely no skills, but negative skills. Clark would be excellent at State or Defense. (I have a slight preference for Defense, but Kerry can judge that one.) Oh, and one other thing of which this is evidence: Karl and Dick are increasingly clearly not, after all, infallible. How can Cheney respond to this without looking like an utter fool? Maybe he'd better head back to his undisclosed location.

For Republicans, this response must feel like Friday the Thirteenth, and I suspect that, as with the movies, there will be many sequels. Fight on, General Clark... you most certainly have the support of this old peace-loving Democrat.

Steve
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Lazy Dog Blogaround

It's baaaack! See the top of the page.

Steve
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Blown Job

No, you read it correctly. I wish this were merely a story about a BJ, but this is about an action, apparently by the Bush administration, that directly compromised American security, possibly for their own political purposes. I never thought I'd find myself quoting The New Republic so often, but Spencer Ackerman has turned up more info on the burning of the al-Qaeda computer expert Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan, whose capture and turning apparently led to the capture of additional al-Qaeda suspects... and might have led to still more, had Khan's name not been published, apparently at the behest of the Bush administration in its desperation to spoil Kerry's convention bounce.

America's allies in this effort... the Pakistanis and the British... are furious. Ackerman quotes, from the New York Daily News, Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat, about the potential loss when Khan was outed (see Ackerman's story for links):

Hayyat expressed dismay the trap they had hoped would lead to the capture of other top Al Qaeda leaders, possibly even Osama Bin Laden, was sprung too soon.

"The network is still not finished," Hayyat said. It "remains a potent threat to Pakistan, and to civilized humanity."

Osama bin Laden? They might have gotten bin Laden, if they hadn't burned this double agent?

There is more, and it looks as if Condoleezza Rice may be behind some of this. Read the whole thing. The kindest possible interpretation is that this job was blown, big-time, by Bush's national security team. Another possibility is that the Bushies blew it, knowing exactly what would happen, in an effort to gain publicity during the Democratic National Convention. As we used to say of Nixon during the investigation of Watergate, the Bush administration is either responsible, or they're irresponsible. Either way, it looks bad to me.

Does anyone still think the Bush administration is best at protecting us against terrorism?

(Found via the ever informative Laura Rozen's blog, War and Piece.)

Steve
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Living The American Dream

I am eating a bowl of yellow curry prepared by our neighbor, the one who recently joined us as an American citizen. The curry is about the same color as the background of this page, and is fiery enough to be satisfying but not a tongue-burner. I know restaurants in town at which I can obtain good yellow curry, but none of it compares to this. Home cooking is best, and our neighbor is one of the best cooks I know. And she is kind enough to share her cooking with Stella and me.

In about a week, our neighbor will no longer be our neighbor. She, her son and his wife, and her young grandson have bought a house in Katy (a town west of Houston). Their family is about to expand again, and the two-bedroom apartment was already a bit small for four people. They chose Katy because of its school system. I have seldom known people as congenial and hard-working as this family... it's icing on the cake that they are also Democrats... and I am delighted that they have found another part of their American dream. Yes, they will be close enough that we will be able to visit them from time to time. But I shall miss having them as near neighbors.

I confess I'll also miss the yellow curry. Good yellow curry is part of my personal American dream. May all of you reading this always have plenty to eat, and may some of it be very spicy and about the color of this page!

Steve
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Inspiration

We find it where we can. One of my sources as a purveyor of rhymes has been the inimitable William Schwenck Gilbert, middling playwright and wildly successful lyricist of the operettas he wrote with composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. One of many reasons they often scrapped with each other was that "Sir" in front of Sullivan's name: if you think class distinctions are a big deal in today's America, and if you do, I agree with you, they are nothing compared to those in England, in Gilbert and Sullivan's day as in our own. (Think of the Harry Potter books, for example.) As a man who was highly engaged in the social and political trends of his time, Gilbert often turned to political satire in his lyrics. His clever rhymes and political content inspired me in my youth, and do so to this day.

I've seen a couple of the operettas live, and a couple more on video, but my primary exposure is through one of my prized possessions, a 1941 piano/vocal edition of 11 of the operettas (that's all the famous ones; there are a couple that apparently didn't make the cut in their own day). The book is physically satisfying: it is hardbound, with a blue cloth cover and a red spine; the print quality is superb, and each number has a little cartoonish engraving by Lucille Corcos (think Beardsley, though not quite that over-the-top) appropriate to the text of the song. Best of all, I feel free to make actual use of the book, because it came to me used (though not abused). Some of my happiest hours are spent with that book in front of me on the piano music rack.

Here is a related inspiration (bear with me): Today, I was reading a superb deconstruction, written by pessimist on The Left Coaster, of a New York Press column by William Bryk called The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush, on what it means to be a conservative, and (as I have said many times in conversation with my many conservative colleagues and my few conservative friends) just why George W. Bush and the self-identified neocon's are not, by any reasonable definition, conservative. The column itself is well-drawn, though there are aspects of its content at which you will bristle. pessimist's analysis, from a liberal's point of view, is excellent, and I recommend you read the whole thing.

So what does the one inspiration have to do with the other? Iolanthe, produced in 1882, is one of the G&S operettas I have not seen. Fortunately, it is in my beloved book. (Any work in which a character plays a flageolet, a close relative of the recorder, the instrument on which I performed seriously for nearly 3/4 of my life, is sure to appeal to me.) There is a scene in which the lowly Private Willis (who does not play flageolet) is on sentry duty, guarding Parliament, and as one who considers himself "an intellectual chap," he muses on politics as he marches to and fro:

When all night long a chap remains On sentry-go, to chase monotony He exercises of his brains, That is, assuming that he's got any. Tho' never nurtured in the lap Of luxury, Yet I admonish you, I am an intellectual chap, And think of things that would astonish you. I often think it's comical Fal, lal, la! Fal, lal, la! That Nature always does contrive, Fal, lal, la, la! That every boy and every gal That's born into the world alive Is either a little Liberal, Or else a little Conservative! Fal, lal, la! Fal, lal, la! Is either a little Liberal, Or else a little Conservative! When in that House M.P.'s divide, If they've a brain and cerebellum, too, They've got to leave that brain outside, And vote just as their leaders tell 'em to. But then the prospect of a lot Of dull M.P.'s in close proximity, All thinking for themselves, is what No man can face with equanimity. Then let's rejoice with loud Fal, lal, Fal, lal, la! Fal, lal, la! That Nature always does contrive, Fal, lal, la, la! That every boy and every gal That's born into the world alive Is either a little Liberal, Or else a little Conservative! Fal, lal, la! Fal, lal, la! Is either a little Liberal, Or else a little Conservative! -- W. S. Gilbert

(Fair use invoked; educational purposes; willing consumers; etc. etc.)

If Gilbert's style of rhyming occasionally seems familiar to you, the resemblance is most certainly intentional on my part!

Unfortuately, politics has changed since Gilbert's day. We encounter liberals and conservatives, born or made. Then we encounter George W. Bush, born neither a little liberal nor a little conservative, but rather, as Ann Richards famously put it, "born with a silver foot in his mouth." (Ann was right; see the banner quote on this page.) In other words, he was born a wealthy, selfish, arrogant, anti-intellectual, marginally competent, power-hungry man with no sense of what it means to be conservative, or liberal, or much of anything else anyone could admire.

Thanks to all of you who stopped by or emailed today to wish me a happy birthday. To those who thanked me for my efforts, I should be thanking you instead. It's not every 56-year-old American, "never nurtured in the lap of luxury" and yet "an intellectual chap," who has people willing to read what he writes. For that I am very grateful. If you want to offer me a birthday present, please persuade 10 of your friends to vote for John Kerry and John Edwards this November, and retire the Worst President Ever. Thank you!

Steve
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Screw Jobs

Yes, that's what we've been subjected to over the past four years, but apparently it is also Bush's expression of attitude toward our employment situation. From Economic Policy Institute's JobWatch:

Job growth has stalled in the last two months. Payroll jobs increased by only 78,000 in June and a meager 32,000 in July, after rising 295,000 a month the previous three months. The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which was passed in May 2003 and took effect in July 2003, its "Jobs and Growth Plan." The president's economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (see background documents), projected that the plan would result in the creation of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—306,000 new jobs each month starting in July 2003. The CEA projected that the economy would generate 228,000 jobs a month without a tax cut and 306,000 jobs a month with the tax cut. Thus, it projected that 3,978,000 jobs would be created over the last 13 months. In reality, since the tax cuts took effect, there are 2,565,000 fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts. As can be seen in the chart below [i.e., here], job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 11 of the past 13 months.

     ...

(Emphasis mine. Regrettably there are no permanent links to the current edition of JobWatch. If it's not on the home page when you look, please look through previous editions for the 8/6/2004 entry. UPDATE: This page contains some, but not all, of the same material.)

According to EPI, median pay has also suffered, and we are experiencing the greatest sustained job loss since the Great Depression. Please read the whole article: there are some very nice charts, but they do not present a pretty picture.

Have we "turned the corner" into a blind alley?

Steve
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Best Headline ...

... so far, at least, on the subject of Bush's infamous comment (see the quote in the banner above), comes from Reuters, via Yahoo:

• Bush misspeak cites U.S. readiness to harm U.S

That about says it, doesn't it! It sounds like something from The Onion, whose job grows more difficult every day as BushCo™ engages in self-parody.

(Note: the period is missing in the original headline.)

Steve
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Streaming Video At 10 -- DOGGEREL!

You knew it would happen. You just didn't know how they would phrase it:

Feds: Terror threat corroborated by 3rd person
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration learned from a third person, separate from two prisoners identified this week, that al-Qaida was plotting to attack American financial buildings, officials said.

The information from the third person was "another new stream of intelligence" that supported the White House decision to issue a terror warning on Sunday, the officials said. ...

(Emphasis mine.)

Oh, my. How could I resist...

Streaming Screaming

"There is a new threat, and it isn't just chance!" ("Another new stream of intelligence.") "A third source emerges, our fears to enhance!" ("Another new stream of intelligence.") Tom Ridge is unleashing one more of his rants; A spatter of yellow, a smell in advance; A smiling Karl Rove was seen dropping his pants... ("Another new stream of intelligence.") Around us, upwelling, a palpable fear, ("Another new stream of intelligence.") Of threats to our values and things we hold dear, ("Another new stream of intelligence.") But now that the Dubya campaign is in gear, This will not diminish 'til late in the year. Forget it: just sit back and guzzle a beer... ("Another new stream of intelligence!")

Steve Bates

Steve
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Hot Air

Tonight, in Houston, "Area residents prepare for National Night Out," as in every part of the United States.

Meanwhile, as happens when the heat is on and the ozone is bad, the air in Houston today was "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" (select 8/3/2004, then scroll down).

Meanwhile, we read that "Pollution plan would let plants share the burden," i.e., industry wants a plan of trading caps, a great idea but difficult if not impossible to enforce.

Aw, you figure it out!

Steve
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Bush And The Commission

According to CNN, Bush now claims he is implementing the "key suggestion" of the 9/11 Commission, namely, appointing an intelligence czar. His support of Commission recommendations is being painted as broader than that: the Houston Chronicle print edition (an ugly thing, since the format change a month ago) says Bush "embraced the major recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission" including a czar (NDI), a counterterrorism center and a revision of the role of Congress (!). But Josh Marshall perceives the matter differently:

I was working on another project pretty much constantly through most of the day and heard discussion of this on the cable networks, particularly CNN. What I heard there was that the president had embraced the commission's recommendation on this point while only disagreeing on whether this new head of national intelligence would be housed within the White House or have cabinet rank status outside the White House structure.

Yet it turns out that this is but one, and not at all the most significant way in which the policy the president has embraced differs from that of the commission. In fact, when you look closely at it, it's nothing like what the commission recommended at all. The president went out into the Rose Garden, said he was adopting the commission's proposals. But in fact he was doing close to the opposite, doing more or less what they said shouldn't be done.

Read Marshall for details on what Bush doesn't support... e.g., NDI budgetary authority across agencies. What Bush advocates is pretty weak compared to what the commission recommends. Marshall cites a NY Times analysis, Intelligence Chief Without Power? Support Leaves Questions, in support of his assertion.

---

Meanwhile, back at the Lie Factory, the Bushies have supplied us this:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - Much of the information that led the authorities to raise the terror alert at several large financial institutions in the New York City and Washington areas was three or four years old, intelligence and law enforcement officials said on Monday. They reported that they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way.

(Emphasis mine.)

In other words, the whole thing was nothing but a campaign ploy! Isn't there a fable about this sort of thing? About a boy crying Wolf, and Blitzer not responding, or some such? More:

But the officials continued to regard the information as significant and troubling because the reconnaissance already conducted has provided Al Qaeda with the knowledge necessary to carry out attacks against the sites in Manhattan, Washington and Newark. They said Al Qaeda had often struck years after its operatives began surveillance of an intended target.

So... if our officials knew of this threat since before 9/11, and they experienced 9/11... why in the world haven't they already taken steps to protect the designated targets? Why now? You know why. I know why. And so do they. They would risk anything, including your and my safety, to retain power. Anything.

(Thanks to alert reader Bryan for getting me started on this topic.)

Steve
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DeLay Slams Liberty -- DOGGEREL!

Tom DeLay knows what's really important:

NEW YORK -- Sandwich chain Subway Restaurants today said it was ending a promotion at its German franchises that used an image of a fat Statue of Liberty.

     ...

At issue was a tray-liner at Subway's German franchises promoting the documentary "Super Size Me," which links the U.S. fast-food industry, particularly Subway rival McDonald's Corp., to the nation's obesity epidemic.

     ...

Subway began receiving customer complaints about the tray-liner, which features a heading that asks "Why are Americans so fat?", after U.S. House of Representatives Republican leader Tom DeLay of Texas criticized the promotion.

"I guess for some companies' corporate patriotism is as flexible as Jared's waistline," DeLay said in a statement last week.

     ...

Flexible corporate patriotism, eh? Coming from the man who engineered the mid-cycle reredistricting of Texas to the advantage of Republicans, the man who appears ever more likely to have violated campaign finance laws by laundering PAC money through the RNC for use by candidates, I find it a bit of a stretch to think that DeLay really cares much about this alleged offense to American patriotism, but I suppose he does know a lot about how corporations relate to government. But his victory most certainly deserves a double dactyl...

Give Me Your Tired, Your Fat...

Higgledy piggledy, Statue of Liberty, Holding her fries in her Typical pose, Piquing the ire of one Über-Republican... What's out of joint? Well, it's More than his nose!

Steve Bates

Steve
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How Real Is The Threat?

David Neiwert has his doubts about the recent alerts, especially about the purported targeting of news vehicles at the Democratic convention by right-wing domestic terrorists. For Neiwert, this isn't just idle speculation; he has had direct contact with Mike German, the FBI agent recently apparently forced out. And the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks, among other things, right-wing militias, "patriot" groups, skinheads, the Klan, etc., apparently knew of no such plan in the works. (Full disclosure: I've been a contributor to the Center for decades; I'm inclined to trust what they say.) Neiwert has much, much more; please read his entire post.

Never has it been more difficult to tell whether terrorist alerts... from the vague raising of the color level to the announcement of specific targets by Tom Ridge... are to be taken at face value, or interpreted for political side-effects. If indeed announcements are being made for both purposes... legitimate intelligence about threats intermixed with alarmist rhetoric... the Bush administration has much to answer for.

Steve
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Mad At Her

Mad Kane goes after Ann Coulter... in a limerick, no less!

Steve
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Sunday Personal Blogging

I don't know if this is the beginning of a pattern or not, but this Sunday I feel a need to put aside politics for a short while and post (mostly) nonpolitical stuff. Hey, I don't have a cat I can post pictures of, and occasionally I need a break. Here goes, from the sublime to the ridiculous...

• Dad died nine years ago today. Some of you have heard this before, so I'll be brief. Dad was of the "greatest generation," and served in the Navy in W.W. II as a gunnery officer on a troop transport ship, while his brothers served in the Army, one as a paratrooper. Dad was unenthusiastic about war, though he was proud of having done what he perceived as absolutely necessary in stopping fascism and nazism. He opposed most wars after W.W. II. Dad always felt, though, that his greatest accomplishments were as a science teacher in the public schools, and later as a school counselor. As a member of the state textbook committee, he fought the creationists over the inclusion of actual science (including evolution) in the textbooks... and he usually won. Did I mention that Dad was a hardcore Democrat?
• Computers are my livelihood, and often my vexation. A couple of months ago, I had this computer, my newest, repaired; its power supply had failed. Three weeks ago, I moved it in front of the choice seat in the office-at-home (the one facing the window), so that I would have an incentive to move my older software to it (the newer s/w was already there, and my work required the new stuff more and more often). To my dismay, my ancient and venerable IBM keyboard... the one that lasted me through four (4) computers... did not work with this one. The BIOS error message was priceless: "Keyboard error. Press F4." Right. If I could press F4, I wouldn't... oh, never mind. With great reluctance, I used the factory keyboard that came with the computer. Not good. For one thing, it has the grotesquely large Enter key, and the backslant and backspace keys are resized and repositioned from their traditional IBM positions, as in so many cheap keyboards of our day. For another, the tactile response sucked... I had to back up and retype with distressing frequency. Finally, today, I broke down and bought a new keyboard. What a fundamental difference in the quality of life it makes! Not only are all the keys in the right place (give or take the new ones invented since the old days), but the tactile response is just what it should be. This is my first blog post with the new keyboard. What a pleasure! What a relief!
• Stella is facing changes at her workplace, potentially major changes for her. No, she's not being laid off... but Keep your fingers crossed that she gets a suitable position.
• An artist friend of mine, a friend for well over two decades, gave me one of her many licenses to Adobe Photoshop Elements. She gets one virtually every time she buys a new graphic device (this one came with a Wacom Graphire tablet), and owns only two computers, so she gave me the CD and the license. As far as I can tell, the software comes with no tutorial, only (very good) help files. Tonight I bought two books on the subject. One is the first "for Dummies" book I've ever bought; I have serious objections to the series title, But let's face it: when it comes to digital photography and image editing, I am a dummy. Last year, for the first time, I did the actual design of a web site for a client, rather than merely the back-end development; the results didn't completely suck, but I'm not proud of them (as I usually am of my back-end work). If I'm going to expand into the web design business, I need to learn the craft. This is my beginning, however humble.
• Houston restaurant reviews for vegetarians: Droubi's on Kirby.
Good, standard, Middle Eastern food, cheap. This location, perhaps the oldest, an assemblage of railroad cars, is insufficiently air-conditioned against Houston's summer heat and humidity. The food is good, but I won't be taking Stella there. (I went with my old friend and musical colleague Paul, who actually occasionally reads this blog... greetings, Paul, if you're reading this post.) On the other hand, Ashoka, an Indian restaurant on Hillcroft, is an old favorite of ours, and we'll be going there for my birthday next weekend. (Answer: I'll be 56.) The sag paneer is the best in town; the other dishes are all better than average.
• We went to a bookstore tonight, I seeking books on Adobe Photoshop Elements, Stella seeking all sorts of stuff. She was wearing one of her Harris County Democratic Party T-shirts, and one young couple stopped us and told us they had hosted a Kerry party Thursday night. We all enthused over Kerry's speech... it was magnificent, wasn't it... and spoke of the polls, the number of Kerry/Edwards stickers appearing on bumpers in Houston, and the recent result (see DonkeyRising; I'm too lazy to look up the link) that party identification in America has finally swung back to the Democratic side. You know, I think things are changing. It's OK to be a progressive again, as long as you are willing to tolerate a militaristic streak in our politicians, born of fear of terrorism. In any case, Kerry is right (excuse the political slogan): hope is on the way. When I meet young people who are progressive, I regain hope that life is worth living!

Well, that's enough boring, personal stuff for today. I promise I'll resume political blogging right away!

Steve
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Selected Links To Recent Posts

 
Click any permalink below to go to the original article on a previous page. Click a comment link below to add a comment to the original article. Your comment will be noticed, by the YDD at least: HaloScan has a page allowing me to view recent comments, no matter which post they refer to.

The Best Offense

Steve
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The Two-Americas Speech

Steve
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Kerry The Day, Again

Steve
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As Crude As It Gets

Steve
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Obama

Steve
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Democratic Party Obsolete?

Steve
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