Friday, October 01, 2004
Spinnin' Away
The post-Debate debate is in fully-frenzied form at this point on the day after. Like so many of the info-obsessed, I've been spending a good portion of the morning thus far digesting the spin with C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" playing in the background. I TiVo'd so much spin that I worried my receiver might melt. The blogs I read are full of interesting tidbits. One that caught my eye is the hilarious DNC ad made up entirely of Bush's frustrated grimaces - as Josh Marshall advises, they need to keep this one rolling because it might be Bush's "sigh moment" for this campaign.
Ken Mehlman got punked on his post-Debate conference call spinfest thanks to some crafty bloggin'. But compared to all the wrongly used "undecided" voters who were actually Bush supporters on CNN and other media organizations, that just about merely balances the scales.
Bush surely showed his love for Poland last night - those references were comical, at best. But I was reminded of the not-so-long ago comments by their President Kwasniewski saying that Poland was "taken for a ride." I bet the Polish papers are worth a looksie today.
I've yet to find bloggers really making a big deal of Bush's story about Missy Johnson and how they oddly "prayed and teared up and laughed some" together. While looking for it, I came across Richard Wolffe's latest Newsweek posting that features one of my favorite lines thus far in this cycle of shtick. He writes, "(t)he president was killed by a thousand cutaways," and goes on to rip Bush a new one in elegant British style. Boil down the whole 90 minutes and that's what we're left with. Business Week throws more logs on that fire with some sharp language in another post-Debate post. The Kerry people have to be ecstatic today.
Away from the campaign and the vacuous nature of discussing these details, craziness seems to dominate. Iraq is still worsening, and there seems to be little we can do but watch and hope these new "major combat operations" are the right ones (I doubt that they are, to be frank). But to take our minds off of that mess, Scalia gave a speech at the JFK School at Harvard where when questioned about having gay friends he responded with the single most arrogant and badly chosen joke line in the history of a very arrogant and badly chosen life. "I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged." Now there's a Conservative that even the Castro here in San Fran could love for at least an evening.
Much more coverage to look at. But for the time being, I for one was pleasantly surprised by last night's format and tenor. Next up - the Veep debate on Tuesday. Hopefully, the High Times mock Cheney blog will be inspired to update (they're stoners, after all - deadlines tend to be fluid). Cheney seems to give Edwards no props, as evidenced by his appallingly jokey comments about Edwards being the "other guy" recently (Note: Katie Couric used this line this morning but I've not yet found it online). Regardless, the game most certainly is fully on now.
The post-Debate debate is in fully-frenzied form at this point on the day after. Like so many of the info-obsessed, I've been spending a good portion of the morning thus far digesting the spin with C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" playing in the background. I TiVo'd so much spin that I worried my receiver might melt. The blogs I read are full of interesting tidbits. One that caught my eye is the hilarious DNC ad made up entirely of Bush's frustrated grimaces - as Josh Marshall advises, they need to keep this one rolling because it might be Bush's "sigh moment" for this campaign.
Ken Mehlman got punked on his post-Debate conference call spinfest thanks to some crafty bloggin'. But compared to all the wrongly used "undecided" voters who were actually Bush supporters on CNN and other media organizations, that just about merely balances the scales.
Bush surely showed his love for Poland last night - those references were comical, at best. But I was reminded of the not-so-long ago comments by their President Kwasniewski saying that Poland was "taken for a ride." I bet the Polish papers are worth a looksie today.
I've yet to find bloggers really making a big deal of Bush's story about Missy Johnson and how they oddly "prayed and teared up and laughed some" together. While looking for it, I came across Richard Wolffe's latest Newsweek posting that features one of my favorite lines thus far in this cycle of shtick. He writes, "(t)he president was killed by a thousand cutaways," and goes on to rip Bush a new one in elegant British style. Boil down the whole 90 minutes and that's what we're left with. Business Week throws more logs on that fire with some sharp language in another post-Debate post. The Kerry people have to be ecstatic today.
Away from the campaign and the vacuous nature of discussing these details, craziness seems to dominate. Iraq is still worsening, and there seems to be little we can do but watch and hope these new "major combat operations" are the right ones (I doubt that they are, to be frank). But to take our minds off of that mess, Scalia gave a speech at the JFK School at Harvard where when questioned about having gay friends he responded with the single most arrogant and badly chosen joke line in the history of a very arrogant and badly chosen life. "I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged." Now there's a Conservative that even the Castro here in San Fran could love for at least an evening.
Much more coverage to look at. But for the time being, I for one was pleasantly surprised by last night's format and tenor. Next up - the Veep debate on Tuesday. Hopefully, the High Times mock Cheney blog will be inspired to update (they're stoners, after all - deadlines tend to be fluid). Cheney seems to give Edwards no props, as evidenced by his appallingly jokey comments about Edwards being the "other guy" recently (Note: Katie Couric used this line this morning but I've not yet found it online). Regardless, the game most certainly is fully on now.
