Speaking of comedy gold . . .

Lucia over at Alas, A Blog has a good post about Alan Keyes. My favorite thing is Keyes talking about his opposition to gun control:

"You're not talking about giving citizens access to atom bombs and other things," the former presidential candidate said. "That's ridiculous."

So, Keyes thinks that civilians shouldn't have access to atom bombs. Thanks for clearing that up, Alan, since that is such a central issue to the debate.

Comedy Gold, I tells ya

Via Tom Tomorrow, I enjoyed this post by Sam Rosenfeld of TAPPED:

Wow, Wolf Blitzer kept telling us we were in for a treat and he was right! Did you all catch that Saturday Night Live spoof they just showed to introduce the convention? Have you ever seen anything so hilarious in your life, ever? Ever? Wolf kept on hammering away to us for about ten minutes beforehand that we were going to be watching a funny SNL spoof that the RNC had put together, and I think it's now obvious that "funny" was just about the understatement of the year.

It was just like the intro to SNL, see, only it was a Don Pardo impersonator, and instead of the cast members from the show -- no, seriously, you're gonna love this -- instead of the cast members, they announced the primetime speakers for the convention! Ha. Ha ha ha haah ha ha Ha HA HA HAAA HAAAA HAAAAA HA!!!!!! Oh man, when the Wolf promises comedy gold from the GOP, he and they deliver it. Just priceless. As Wolf helpfully told White House flack Dan Bartlett after they had finally picked themselves off the floor and wiped the tears of mirth from their eyes, "This shows the Republicans have a sense of humor."

Understatement of the millennium, Wolf.

Why I haven't posted in a couple days

I'm starting my job. As a Graduate Teaching Assistant.

My God, 6 months ago I was living in the dorms and on Monday I'll be teaching about 80 college students.

Words fail me.

I feel a little better about the world

Over at Margaret Cho's blog this e-mail was printed.

----- Original Message -----
From: Me
To: margaret
Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 6:04 PM
Subject: pro-gay

This is kind of weird, and I don't really know what to say so I guess I'll just go for it. I am a sixteen year old straight male high school student and I recently saw your "I'm The One That I Want" DVD, and I loved it. I really love your views on the gay lifestyle. I think it's horrible how people judge others when it's none of their damn business. Love is love, that's all there is to it. I am currently attending a high school that is thankfully tolerant, for the most part, of others and even has a gay straight alliance club. My friends and I (gay and straight alike) believe strongly in gay marriage and can't wait until this country gets it through their thick heads that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the gay lifestyle and that people deserve to marry who they please (animals excluded). I just thought that I'd drop you an e-mail and let you know that I love you for your views and that I intend to check out your other DVDs.

-T.

I'm all smiles.

Pot-kettle?

The thing is when the Swift Boat veterans denounce William Rood's Chicago Tribune article as partisan I mean, what do you say? This isn't even the pot calling the kettle black - it's the pot calling the ivory vase black. The ivory vase that's white, 'cos it's ivory. You know?

Josh Marshall gets it right

In the last few days I've gotten various emails from critics (gleefully) and supporters (frettingly) of Kerry either wondering or simply asserting that Kerry brought this on himself by highlighting his service in combat in Vietnam. The point is echoed by reporters who sheepishly hang the attention they've given to the Swift Boat group on Kerry's having 'made his service an issue.'

For Kerry supporters or Democrats who think this may be true, I can only ask you, please, please do not be such chumps. And for his critics, please allow your punches to the groin the purity of their cynicism, without sullying them with any claims that Kerry forced your hand.

More here. I'm with August - I want to have 10,000 of Josh Marshall's babies, too. But on to the point at hand.

I am so sick of people saying that the Swift Boat Liars* attacks are justified because Kerry made his service in Vietnam an issue in the campaign. Bullshit. Anything Kerry says can be rebutted, but there's appropriate and inappropriate responses. An appropriate response would be of the sort as to say, "So what if he won those medals, that was 30 years ago and in a war he renounced." An inappropriate response is to lie outrightly in order to smear Kerry and by association all the men he served with.

But the optimist in me says this will backfire. All it'll do in the long run is to further highlight Kerry's service in Vietnam, and all the facts point to the conclusion that Kerry deserved all three of his purple hearts, his bronze star and his silver star. If Kerry's camp can keep up the counter-attack, this issue should be a plus for him come November.

*-Credit goes to Atrios for coming up with this descriptive name.

The previous post

I think enough is obvious, so I'll just point out the only difference between the previous post and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is that I don't have the money to turn it into a national commercial, and hence a talking point. But wouldn't it be funny if I did? "Today on Crossfire: Does President Bush rape dogs?"

My only concern is that Karl Rove or Marc Racicot see this blog and turn it into the newest anti-Kerry taling point . . .

President Bush rapes dogs!

That's right, he's a dog-raper. I don't think anyone wants a president who's a dog-raper.

And it is now President Bush's responsibility to prove this wild accusation is incorrect.

Quick thought

You know, Ann Coulter wrote a book in which she defended McCarthyism, then Michelle Malkin wrote a book defending Japanese internment. What dark part of America's past will right-wingers defend next? Poll taxes? The Sedition Act? The box office success of Armageddon?

Possible lynching in Tuskegee

Go read about it.

I really don't have much to say on this. I agree with Ampersand that more details are needed, which means our only hope to find out exactly what happened is more media attention.

I'll do what I can with my maybe 15 readers or so.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth get schooled, literally

Ah, the term "schooled", is there any situation where it isn't appropriate?

Anyhoo - via Daily Kos Kerry's campaign corrects a misconception (read: outright lie) from the SBVT*:

In a just-published book, "Unfit for Command," the veterans said that "Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War" and that he "would have been court-martialed had he gone there."

But the Kerry campaign said that the group, which calls itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is wrong and that Kerry was inside Cambodia to drop off special forces on one mission and was at the border on other occasions.

"During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien," Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said in a statement. The statement did not say when the cross-border mission took place.

Let me recopy that first paragraph up there in case you missed it:

In a just-published book, "Unfit for Command," the veterans said that "Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War" and that he "would have been court-martialed had he gone there."

Excuse me? Would have been court-martialed? Do these Vietnam veterans know anything about the Vietnam War?

OF COURSE KERRY WOULD HAVE GONE INTO CAMBODIA! Just because America's stated policy was not to enter Cambodia and Laos, doesn't mean America's military tactics didn't involve entering Cambodia and Laos. It's called politics and warfare. How do these people think the Khmer Rouge came into power?

My God, if these guys aren't liars, their naive idiots. This is your war guys. Get the facts straight.

* Note: I've never seen any use of the abbreviation for this group of liars, but I'm not going to bother writing out their name twice, goddammit!

August "seems to" totally school that commentor

I found this post quite amusing.

You mean the Republicans aren't being 100% honest with their talking points?

Via Mrs. Atrios the Gadflyer has a good post on the whole "Kerry is the most liberal senator" line.

More on National Preparedness Month

Check out this interview with Bob Harris.

Kerry doing it right

I don't subscribe to the Arizona Daily Sun no more, but I found this remarkable. (Via Atrios)

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - The Arizona Daily Sun characterized John Kerry's Sunday night rally in Heritage Square as "practically the second coming" and devoted its entire Monday front page to the blessed event.

Stories examined the opinions of undecided voters in the crowd, Teresa Heinz Kerry's speech, Indian issues and, for balance, protesters supporting President Bush.

You can't buy that kind of publicity. And that, in large measure, was the point of the Democratic presidential nominee's 4,971-mile trip from Boston to Oregon by bus and train, which ended on Friday.

A recent study by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University found that, on a cost-per-vote basis, it's more effective to send a presidential candidate into smaller media markets than to buy advertising in major television markets. While millions of eyeballs see 30-second spots, local visits are better at moving voters, the research found.

Forget good campaigning, this is brilliant to get coverage like that from the Sun.

You may not realize, but Flagstaff is a fairly liberal community with a disgustingly conservative newspaper. My family stopped subscribing to the Daily Sun after they stopped printing Doonesbury because they needed "balance in an election year." This from a paper whose idea of a left-wing columnist is Nat Hentoff. (They've recently added Doonesbury back after enough people were disgusted by them)

But for Kerry to get this coverage is great. Sure Flagstaff isn't much on the national scale. It's a town of about 50,000 people (I believe) and it's only that high 'cos it's got a university, but you know the saying, 50,000 people here, 50,000 people there and pretty soon you've got a constitiency. Okay, so that's not really a saying per se, but - what was my point again?

Bush chooses pleasing religious zealots over the health of Americans

This sort of thing is absolutely infuriating.

Lethal new regulations from President Bush’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, quietly issued with no fanfare last week, complete the right-wing Republicans’ goal of gutting HIV-prevention education in the United States. In place of effective, disease-preventing safe-sex education, little will soon remain except failed programs that denounce condom use, while teaching abstinence as the only way to prevent the spread of AIDS. And those abstinence-only programs, researchers say, actually increase the risk of contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Article here. Read the whole thing. Do it now!

Via Echidne.

National "Be afraid enough to vote Republican" Month

From Bob Harris apparently the Department of Homeland Security is declaring September "National Preparedness Month" in what can only be described as a brazenly partisan move.

Go ahead and click on the link above, it's really quite disgusting.

Still haven't gotten into the swing of things

Yeah, haven't really been blogging, have I. Oh well. While I get back into the groove, though, here's a pretty good Ted Rall toon for your enjoyment.

Raznor now has high speed internet

Finally got a cable modem. So posting should be up to schedule soon. However tomorrow, I'm heading to Portland for my cousin's wedding, so won't have access to my computer. Oh well. But starting next week, we'll see about a more regular posting schedule. And I'll probably do a few posts today.