Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is embraced by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., at a bookstore in New York where he was promoting his new book 'Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency,' Monday, July 26, 2004. Just hours before Clinton was to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, she introduced Byrd as her 'mentor' and told the audience that he has been a champion of the U.S. Constitution.Maybe ole KKK Byrd told her where to buy sheets?
Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazoned with the "F-word" are my opponents. Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling.I can see why there was a problem.
USA Today: EYE-ROLLING? AT WHAT?
Apparently, the nuts at the Democratic National Convention are going to be put in cages outside the convention hall. Sadly, they won't be fighting to the death as is done in WWE caged matches. They're calling this the "protestor's area," although I suppose a better name would be the "truth-free zone".Apparently they have the ringer turned off on the clue phone in USA Today's offices. But then we knew that.
USA Today: CLARIFY WHICH NUTS (NOTE FROM AC: THAT KILLS THE JOKE OF THE NEXT PARAGRAPH)
I thought this was a great idea until I realized the “nut” category did not include Sharpton, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and Teddy Kennedy -- all featured speakers at the convention. I’d say the actual policy is only untelegenic nuts get the cages, but little Dennis Kucinich is speaking at the Convention, too. So it must be cages for “nuts who have not run for president as serious candidates for the Democratic Party.”
Looking at the line-up of speakers at the Convention, I have developed the 7-11 challenge: I will quit making fun of, for example, Dennis Kucinich, if he can prove he can run a 7-11 properly for 8 hours. We’ll even let him have an hour or so of preparation before we open up. Within 8 hours, the money will be gone, the store will be empty, and he’ll be explaining how three 11-year olds came in and asked for the money and he gave it to them.
USA Today: I DON'T GET IT.
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The nuts in the cages are virtual Bertrand Russells compared to the official speakers at the Democratic Convention. On the basis of their placards, I gather the caged-nut position is that they love the troops so much, they don’t want them to get hurt defending America from terrorist attack. “Support the troops,” the signs say, “bring them home.”
That’s my new position on all government workers, except the 5% who aren’t useless, which is to say cops, prosecutors, firemen and U.S. servicemen.
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Walking back from the convention site I chatted with a normal Bostonian for several blocks -- who must have identified me through our covert system of signals. He was mostly bemused by the Democrats’ primetime speakers and told me he used to be an independent, but for the last 20 years found himself voting mostly Republican. Then he corrected himself and said he votes for the “American.”
I’d say I love all these Democrats in Boston so much I want them to go home, but I don’t. I want Americans to get a good long look at the French Party and keep the 7-11 challenge in mind.
USA Today: WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY "THE FRENCH PARTY"? I DON'T GET IT.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry doesn't have a problem with his wife telling an insistent journalist to "shove it" when urged to explain her plea for more civility in politics. Neither does Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.Next Zsa Zsa sighting expected on Tuesday when she addresses the convention. In the meantime, below is my own contribution to civility. Hey, I'm just turning "back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics."
"I think my wife speaks her mind appropriately," Kerry told reporters Monday when asked about the exchange between his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and the editorial page editor of the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Asked about the response on CNN's "American Morning," Clinton said Monday, "A lot of Americans are going to say, 'Good for you, you go, girl,' and that's certainly how I feel about it."
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Rep. Don Sherwood, a Pennsylvania congressman who offered rebuttals to the Democratic convention on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign, said Heinz Kerry can get carried away.
"We'd love to have her spend a lot more campaign time in Pennsylvania," Sherwood said. "I just think the more we see of Teresa, the better it'll be for the Bush campaign."
Democrat John Kerry swooped into Boston last night on a stealth mission on the eve of his convention — saying he couldn't bear to miss the climactic game in the Yankees-Red Sox blood feud at Fenway Park.Yep - it sure was spontaneous:
But Massachusetts' favorite son might have made an error on the play: He heard plenty of boos from his hometown crowd when he strode onto the field to throw out the ceremonial first ball.
The appearance was supposed to be a surprise, but Kerry couldn't help touting the event to reporters on the plane from Ohio.Some wags have suggested that ole Lurch watches more Sox games than he attends Senate sessions.
"The idea of missing a Yankees-Red Sox series right before a convention week was not acceptable, so we changed the policy," Kerry told reporters.
Kerry, though, is apparently no Red Sox fan. Over the past few weeks, Kerry has claimed that his favorite Red Sox player growing up was Eddie Yost, who never actually played for Boston. Even famously liberal baseball pundit Peter Gammons, a New Englander, no less, was disgusted enough by the pandering to point out that embarrassing error.
According to a campaign staffer, Kerry was prepped on the plane from Ohio on the team's current players and manager, just in case he was interviewed during the game by ESPN, which was covering the game live. "He hasn't been paying attention, though he says he's a fan," says a campaign staffer on the ground in Boston. "But to the best of my knowledge, he's never inquired about the Sox, how they are doing, that kind of thing."
It wasn't just a love of the game that got Kerry to Fenway, campaign workers could be seen before the game on Yawkey Way loading "Sox Fans for Kerry" signs into boxes to be handed out in the stands to fans willing to hold them up during the game.
But less than 20 minutes after the game had started, a number of signs could be seen in the trash receptacles throughout the park, and Kerry volunteers were quickly picking them up so that photographers couldn't take pictures of them.
Kerry's pitch, caught by a Massachusetts National Guardsman who had recently returned from Iraq, was in the dirt.And he tossed it from only half way to the mound.
It's the eve of D-Cup Day. The groundwork has been laid: extra ads, more supervixen staff, full humidors, limos on call.Break out the party hats! And order a waitress sandwich.
Now, the gentlemen's clubs and the restaurants where waitresses are hotter than the barbecued wings are waiting on the players in town for the Democratic National Convention.
Practitioners of the world's oldest profession are seeking reinforcements to help service some of the 35,000 visitors – plus untold numbers of police reinforcements – expected in the coming week when Democrats name Sen. John Kerry their presidential candidate.Ruh Oh! Sounds like a budget buster for the "poor and downtrodden."
"Every convention brings in more people, and women fly in from all over the country to work it," said Robyn Few, a prostitute on probation who runs the Sex Workers Outreach Project, an advocacy group.
"There will be girls from California and from the South in Boston this week," she said. "I hope a lot of women make a lot of money and make a lot of men really happy."
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For weeks, escort services have plastered advertisements in magazines and on the internet asking women to work the convention.
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Local agencies said they charge anywhere from $200 an hour for a little company in a delegate's hotel room; rates at national agencies can be five times that much.
Every day last week, the already- dark mood of his hometown grew surlier, as the extent of the convention's massive disruptions of daily life became ever more apparent. But the man who would lead the Free World essentially went MIA.Sounds like the canonical Lurch experience.
He spent several days in serene splendor at the $10-million oceanfront mansion on Nantucket that his second wife inherited from her first husband. The senator windsurfed by day and hobnobbed with the Beautiful People by night, pedaling his $8,000 Serotta bicycle into the village for dinner at one or another of the island's fancy restaurants.
Meanwhile, in the sweltering city, the heavy lifting of actually averting total chaos was left to two local pols — Boston's Democratic Mayor Thomas Menino and GOP Gov. Mitt Romney.
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"He thinks he's acting presidential," said one Democrat at the State House. "But the reality is, he's been ducking and everybody knows it. This is just reinforcing the impression that he's not an executive, he's a legislator. The only decision he ever has to make is what wine to order with dinner."
The Kerry campaign has finally realized just how disgruntled the local population now is with the convention. They've scheduled a special concert of the Boston Pops to "thank" the city, but their initial plans ran into trouble when the first organizer quit, claiming he couldn't get anyone in the campaign to pony up the necessary funds.
"They strung us along for weeks," he told the Boston Globe, "then days, then hours, and I finally had to say, 'It's lights out.' "
When Boston was awarded the convention 18 months ago, amid great fanfare and excitement, it was pointed out that the Hub had never hosted such an event before. After this week, it never will again — at least if the people of the city have anything to say about it.Indeed.
Knight Ridder - Kerry pushes optimism in IowaWithout Lewis and Clark:The site, near where explorers Lewis and Clark stopped on the way west in 1804, holds special meaning for Kerry, who has often invoked the history of the trailblazing Army expedition as a metaphor during his campaign.Washington Post - Democrats Take Optimistic Message to Iowa, WisconsinSteps from the Missouri River, Kerry talked of the adventuresome spirit of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the need for ordinary Americans to join in a larger cause to "take back our Democracy."
I like my puff pieces better with Lewis and Clark, but where's Sacajawea? Ooops, she overlooked the talking points:
Houston Chronicle - Kerry, Edwards together stress positive themes
Reuters - Kerry delivers sunny message before convention
Optimism was supposed to be on display yesterday as Sen. John Kerry returned to the state that gave him a key caucus win — but someone forgot to give Teresa Heinz Kerry the positive message.Makes no sense either. Maybe it would work better if she just had the servants give her speeches?
As 1,000 people waved signs reading "American Optimism," the would-be first lady ripped President Bush.
"There's a lot we know isn't going right," Heinz Kerry said after assailing Bush's agenda. "But the most insidious and probably most debilitating of all of it is the lack of dignity and respect perpetrated on the American people. That is not American."
TRADING with foreigners has always been riddled with potential Lost in Translation moments. There are apocryphal stories told at business school about how, for example, the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" when translated for Taiwan, actually meant "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead".The "Big Watermelon!" I think these folks are on to something!
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But even grammatical and cultural differences don't explain what a new translation has done with Bill Clinton's My Life which shows what a great admirer Bill is of all things Chinese and particularly of the great Chairman Mao, with whose sayings Bill has, apparently, peppered his book. We all know a certain amount of dodgy translation is required when you're dealing with Bill. "I did not have sex with that woman" means "Well, maybe a bit of light oral relief but what's that between friends?" And "My wife is one of the most capable women I know," means "I'm scared as hell of her." But the pirate Mandarin version of Bill's memoirs, which has come on to the market in record speed, is even more full of crap than Bill is. It manages to promise "new extra material" despite being half the length of the original book and it shows a picture of a great man, with a huge interest in and love for China and all things Chinese.
You will be hard pushed to find Bill recounting in the English language version of the book how, as a young child, he said to an uncle of his, "Take me to China to play. China is a mysterious and unique place. I couldn't help but marvel at the great inventions of the Chinese."
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There is also a refreshing frankness about the Mandarin version. Bill says he really doesn't trust his own judgement with women, confiding that Monica Lewinsky was"very fat". He also tells his wife to "shut up" on one occasion, although on first meeting Hillary, Chinese Bill apparently thought, "she was as beautiful as a princess" and told her his name was "Big Watermelon".
