Wednesday, August 18, 2004
The Force Ain't Exactly Backing Off These Days
Star Wars. While the original movie may be timelessly entertaining, the concept for a Reaganesque impenetrable shield against America's enemies is a complete joke in the post-9/11 world. I remember one of my first thoughts almost 3 years ago after that fateful day being that this charade of military no-lookie-inside-we-makie-big-secrets contracts had ended. But Bush yesterday threw another log on that fire. Saying that opponents to missle defense you-must-make-the-pie-higher dreams aren't aware of the realities of the 21st century has to quite nearly top the audacity scale so astonishingly elevated by this Bushie era. Hey, if the idea of knocking down rogue missiles worked, I'd be the first to say put them in place. Hell, I'd want one. And even if the feasibility was within reach in an Apollo program long-term anticipation, I'd still be on board. Yet all the scientists that I've seen debate this grossly-uninvestigated expenditure have called it a historic folly unworthy of the limited resources we have to put toward such programs. Someone's got to bring us back around to the debate terms used after 9/11 - if they can hit us with our own planes using the improvised weapons they can get through our own security, do we really want to spend billions every year researching how to knock down a fictional long-range missile fired with obvious intent by a nation we could subsequently level in response? At some point someone has to echo the McArthy era and say - at long last, sir, have you no decency at all?
The normal rash of political stories in today's papers don't really advance much in the way of the '04 race. So I want to shift gears somewhat. I just got word yesterday that a piece I submitted and then re-submitted to McSweeney's with some encouragement from their editors was nixed. Given that I'm trying to get back in the game, this was a disappointment. But in an effort to exorcise my lingering hopes for this bit o' shtick and to move on to the next, I'm going to offer it up here. Originally, I'd wanted to take the codenaming by the Secret Service (as reported by the National Journal at the end of July) of Kerry, Edwards and Teresa to the next level of silliness. Quite obviously from the point of view of McSweeney's, I went too obscure on many of the references. But I guarantee you, I've got justifications for them all. Let me know if you want any of the names explained (my email). Regardless, I hope someone gets the Shecky Green Bottle reference that I've been justifying to my wife for the past few days - I swear it's worth a second looksie, even if only to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not-so Secret Service: The Kerry Campaign Codenames
by Eric Magnuson
---
John Kerry – Minuteman
John Edwards – Speedway
Teresa Heinz Kerry – Mahogany
Vanessa Kerry – Fulbright
Alexandra Kerry – Shiny
Chris Heinz – Shecky Green Bottle
Andre Heinz – Don Rickles, No Relish
John Heinz – The Kerry Larry
Cameron Kerry – Kirk! (pronounced as Ricardo Montalban did in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”)
Elizabeth Edwards – Wendy’s Supreme
Cate Edwards – Tigger
Jack Edwards – Piglet
Emma Claire Edwards – The Other Piglet
Wesley Blake Edwards – Billy Beer
Mary Beth Cahill – Mary Beth Cahill
Tad Devine – Smidge Delightful
Rand Beers – Rockwell Margaritas
Max Cleland – Lefty
Ben Affleck – Future President Jack Ryan
Teddy Kennedy – Scooby
Richard Gephardt – Dickard Goodheart
Howard Dean – YEEAAARRGH! (no wait, too obvious)… Cabot Extrasharp Cheddar
Kerry’s Swiftboat Mates – Gilligans I through XII
Please be advised: Final Bush Campaign assignments delayed until after Convention due to upcoming, pre-scheduled Terror Alerts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so as Bush preps to head to Crawford for yet another undeserved vacation, I do so likewise in heading to my wife's family compound in Santa Barbara. Maybe this Bush punk and I have something in common after all.
Star Wars. While the original movie may be timelessly entertaining, the concept for a Reaganesque impenetrable shield against America's enemies is a complete joke in the post-9/11 world. I remember one of my first thoughts almost 3 years ago after that fateful day being that this charade of military no-lookie-inside-we-makie-big-secrets contracts had ended. But Bush yesterday threw another log on that fire. Saying that opponents to missle defense you-must-make-the-pie-higher dreams aren't aware of the realities of the 21st century has to quite nearly top the audacity scale so astonishingly elevated by this Bushie era. Hey, if the idea of knocking down rogue missiles worked, I'd be the first to say put them in place. Hell, I'd want one. And even if the feasibility was within reach in an Apollo program long-term anticipation, I'd still be on board. Yet all the scientists that I've seen debate this grossly-uninvestigated expenditure have called it a historic folly unworthy of the limited resources we have to put toward such programs. Someone's got to bring us back around to the debate terms used after 9/11 - if they can hit us with our own planes using the improvised weapons they can get through our own security, do we really want to spend billions every year researching how to knock down a fictional long-range missile fired with obvious intent by a nation we could subsequently level in response? At some point someone has to echo the McArthy era and say - at long last, sir, have you no decency at all?
The normal rash of political stories in today's papers don't really advance much in the way of the '04 race. So I want to shift gears somewhat. I just got word yesterday that a piece I submitted and then re-submitted to McSweeney's with some encouragement from their editors was nixed. Given that I'm trying to get back in the game, this was a disappointment. But in an effort to exorcise my lingering hopes for this bit o' shtick and to move on to the next, I'm going to offer it up here. Originally, I'd wanted to take the codenaming by the Secret Service (as reported by the National Journal at the end of July) of Kerry, Edwards and Teresa to the next level of silliness. Quite obviously from the point of view of McSweeney's, I went too obscure on many of the references. But I guarantee you, I've got justifications for them all. Let me know if you want any of the names explained (my email). Regardless, I hope someone gets the Shecky Green Bottle reference that I've been justifying to my wife for the past few days - I swear it's worth a second looksie, even if only to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not-so Secret Service: The Kerry Campaign Codenames
by Eric Magnuson
---
John Kerry – Minuteman
John Edwards – Speedway
Teresa Heinz Kerry – Mahogany
Vanessa Kerry – Fulbright
Alexandra Kerry – Shiny
Chris Heinz – Shecky Green Bottle
Andre Heinz – Don Rickles, No Relish
John Heinz – The Kerry Larry
Cameron Kerry – Kirk! (pronounced as Ricardo Montalban did in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”)
Elizabeth Edwards – Wendy’s Supreme
Cate Edwards – Tigger
Jack Edwards – Piglet
Emma Claire Edwards – The Other Piglet
Wesley Blake Edwards – Billy Beer
Mary Beth Cahill – Mary Beth Cahill
Tad Devine – Smidge Delightful
Rand Beers – Rockwell Margaritas
Max Cleland – Lefty
Ben Affleck – Future President Jack Ryan
Teddy Kennedy – Scooby
Richard Gephardt – Dickard Goodheart
Howard Dean – YEEAAARRGH! (no wait, too obvious)… Cabot Extrasharp Cheddar
Kerry’s Swiftboat Mates – Gilligans I through XII
Please be advised: Final Bush Campaign assignments delayed until after Convention due to upcoming, pre-scheduled Terror Alerts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And so as Bush preps to head to Crawford for yet another undeserved vacation, I do so likewise in heading to my wife's family compound in Santa Barbara. Maybe this Bush punk and I have something in common after all.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Many Things Old is New Again (sic)
Of all the old faces I didn't want to see return to the public spotlight, Karen Hughes most assuredly tops the list (with the possible exceptions of MC Hammer and Deion Sanders). But she's back. How ironic that her return to the Bush Campaign coincides with Dana Milbank's re-introduction of Bush's daily malapropisms on the Trail. Connection or coincidence? Coincidence, surely. There's no doubting how much she's needed though.
E.J. Dionne - an often-overlooked TalkingHead with a big gift for hitting the nail squarely - really hits one hard with today's column. In summation, he itemizes some great retorts for Kerry to use if he really wanted to confront Bush's latest mischaracterizations and chest-thumping challenges.
Of all the possible ToughTalking Dems, Tom Harkin got downright snappy on Cheney yesterday. You go grrrl!
The NYDaily News has what I've only seen there as an exclusive on Frances Fragos Townsend - Bush's top homeland security adviser that made her debut during last week's utterly unexcusable but hopefully not forgotten Orange Alert charade. As reported, Townsend's proven quite the turncoat. She served in the Clinton Administration, but kissed all the right asses and donated $2K to Bush/Cheney '04 just 2 days before getting her cush Bushie gig. Lots of ugly asides make this article a guilty pleasure.
Since I've been away from daily posts for so long, I've completely missed some big stories. Many have been covered to death elsewhere, so I want to bring one to the nation's attention herein - the complete dissolution of this season's Milwaukee Brewers' hopes. Going into the All-Star Break in mid-July, the Brew Crew was a half-dozen games over .500 and looking like a legitimate team, albeit one run by the Selig family. Sure, their offense was suspect, but they had a truly complete pitching staff and that's 75% of Major League Baseball, right? Um, wrong apparently - they've dive-bombed into the cellar of the National League Central and show almost no hopes for getting their ship righted with the overwhelmingly competitive ball being played on the Senior Circuit this season. Hell, even the Expos managed a 7-game winning streak this past few weeks. Once again, America's favorite team named after the art of beer-making has been sent packing well before the season enters the final stretch. Myself and approximately 17 others have likewise had our secret dreams crushed.
But if any story has legs today given just how idiotic the press' attention is on matters of real significance in August, it will surely be Kerry's interview with GQ. Can anyone disagree with his comments about Charlize Theron? Personally, I'll take issue with his feelings about Catherine Zeta-Jones - she has to be a body-snatcher or something equally nefarious to have achieved her status at this point while still being small-minded enough to do all those T-Mobile commercials. Still, Kerry shows real gravitas in his admitting that all his past skirt-chasing was somehow beneath a man of his, um...height.
Of all the old faces I didn't want to see return to the public spotlight, Karen Hughes most assuredly tops the list (with the possible exceptions of MC Hammer and Deion Sanders). But she's back. How ironic that her return to the Bush Campaign coincides with Dana Milbank's re-introduction of Bush's daily malapropisms on the Trail. Connection or coincidence? Coincidence, surely. There's no doubting how much she's needed though.
E.J. Dionne - an often-overlooked TalkingHead with a big gift for hitting the nail squarely - really hits one hard with today's column. In summation, he itemizes some great retorts for Kerry to use if he really wanted to confront Bush's latest mischaracterizations and chest-thumping challenges.
Of all the possible ToughTalking Dems, Tom Harkin got downright snappy on Cheney yesterday. You go grrrl!
The NYDaily News has what I've only seen there as an exclusive on Frances Fragos Townsend - Bush's top homeland security adviser that made her debut during last week's utterly unexcusable but hopefully not forgotten Orange Alert charade. As reported, Townsend's proven quite the turncoat. She served in the Clinton Administration, but kissed all the right asses and donated $2K to Bush/Cheney '04 just 2 days before getting her cush Bushie gig. Lots of ugly asides make this article a guilty pleasure.
Since I've been away from daily posts for so long, I've completely missed some big stories. Many have been covered to death elsewhere, so I want to bring one to the nation's attention herein - the complete dissolution of this season's Milwaukee Brewers' hopes. Going into the All-Star Break in mid-July, the Brew Crew was a half-dozen games over .500 and looking like a legitimate team, albeit one run by the Selig family. Sure, their offense was suspect, but they had a truly complete pitching staff and that's 75% of Major League Baseball, right? Um, wrong apparently - they've dive-bombed into the cellar of the National League Central and show almost no hopes for getting their ship righted with the overwhelmingly competitive ball being played on the Senior Circuit this season. Hell, even the Expos managed a 7-game winning streak this past few weeks. Once again, America's favorite team named after the art of beer-making has been sent packing well before the season enters the final stretch. Myself and approximately 17 others have likewise had our secret dreams crushed.
But if any story has legs today given just how idiotic the press' attention is on matters of real significance in August, it will surely be Kerry's interview with GQ. Can anyone disagree with his comments about Charlize Theron? Personally, I'll take issue with his feelings about Catherine Zeta-Jones - she has to be a body-snatcher or something equally nefarious to have achieved her status at this point while still being small-minded enough to do all those T-Mobile commercials. Still, Kerry shows real gravitas in his admitting that all his past skirt-chasing was somehow beneath a man of his, um...height.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
After a few months of dead air, I am inspired to get back to posting thanks to my wife's comment earlier this afternoon that I "haven't posted anything on my blog in a while." Big understatement, sweetie, and thanks for noticing. But I've fallen back on the facts that we've been moving to another coast (the Left one), settling into a new apartment over the last month after a successful sale of most of our disposible furniture goodies back in VT, and finding out that we're pregnant (a distraction worth mentioning but hardly usable as a means for slacking on the politicocommentary shtick). Whatever. With less than 3 months until the election I'm exicted to officially enter the fray once again. Try the Kool Aid, folks - it's made without the usual ugly additives and is meant to appeal to almost everyone that likes the flavors of politics. All the blogging - and more irritatingly the established-media's commentary on those in the fold - during the Democratic Convention made me loathe the form. Regardless, I need to get off my high horse and get back into the battle.
