Here's a great weblog tied into the Chicago Tribune website...
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Eric Zorn's Notebook
chicagotribune.com
THURSDAY, JULY 29, 2004
last updated 10:20 p.m.
LET'S STAY ON THE HIGH ROAD, YOU LYING, WARMONGERING PESSIMISTIC ABUSER OF THE CONSTITUTION
Instant analysis of John Kerry's acceptance speech here in Boston:
Yow.
That was much more aggressive than I'd expected given that so often around here this week we heard that orders were to keep Bush bashing to a minimum.
Kerry took out the whuppin' stick:
I will restore trust and credibility to the White House.... I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war
There is nothing more pessimistic than saying America can't do better.... We're the optimists. For us, this is a country of the future.
Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn't make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.
(Peace in Iraq) won't happen until we have a president who restores America's respect and leadership
We need to be looked up to and not just feared.
That flag doesn't belong to any president.
I want an America that relies on its own ingenuity and innovation - not the Saudi royal family.
And this curious smackdown:
What if we have a president who believes in science...
And in the middle of all this pointed rhetoric was this:
I want to address these next words directly to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists, not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another; and (wait, where's my shiv? Oh, here it is) let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States.
Again, my instant impression is that this was a (red) meaty speech that had a dozen or more exquisitely crafted lines.
Whether you're a fan of Kerry's or not, I think you'll agree that the speech did its job -- the job that most people said had to be done here this week -- which was to introduce Kerry to the American public, warm up (or at least flesh out) his image and define his policy difference with President Bush.
For more analysis, I direct you to my set of links to `blogs and special story collections about the Democratic National Convention, here...
chicagotribune.com
Now it's time to pack up our tables here in the media meat locker and prepare to fly back home.
Thanks for reading this week. Charlie Madigan, Ellen Warren and I have had a lot of traffic to TriBlog Central, and we're all grateful.
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Z-MAIL
Bill H. -- There may be some propaganda value to calling the Democrat Convention the "Democratic Convention," but it only makes reporters and publishers appear to be ignorant of grammar.
Similarly, it's the Democrat Party, not the "Democratic Party."
Please use correct English. Our youth are confused enough about grammar by government schools without having the media compound their confusion.
In 1996 I wrote that my ear had latched onto "Democrat Party," and I recognized it as an expression that immediately identifies the speaker as a whiny, partisan Republican.
The conceit is that the party "is not democratic," as Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp said during his 1996 convention acceptance speech. "They don't have faith in people," Kemp went on. "They have faith in government."
Hence "Democrat Party" in speeches by Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey, in Republican radio ads and in the foamings of every third caller to what I tautologically call conservative talk radio.
Bob Dole's famous snarl about "Democrat wars" goes back 25 years, and published sources variously first attribute "Democrat Party" to Thomas Dewey in the 1940s and Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.
We could get mired down in a high-minded debate over whether the D's better represent the interests of democracy--the principle of political equality for all--than the R's. But those D's who wish to fight back with a childish taunt of their own ought to refuse henceforth to say GOP (the abbreviation for Grand Old Party, an appellation long claimed by the R's) and, instead, refer to the MOP--Mediocre Old Party. At the least, this will remind "Democrat Party" whiners how ridiculous they sound.
Charles Shaw, editor of Newtopia.org-- Senator Kerry chose to ignore reports from United Nations weapons inspectors, international outrage over the planned U.S. invasion (of Iraq) and the millions of Americans who took to the streets opposed to the invasion.
Yeah, but Charles, so did we! You and I were both members of the liberal "I cant believe I'm a hawk club." leading up to the invasion.
Charles Shaw responds--Very true, very true. But I consider us casualties of the propaganda war. We both knew in advance about US arms and WMD dealings with Hussein, so we figured their claims had merit. But we did ignore a mountain of evidence that contradicted the claims that they had WMD ready to use, and we totally fell for that completely baseless "he will sell WMD to Al Qaeda" claim. The important thing is that we eventually realized the error of our ways.
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NOBEL PRIZE TO FOLLOW
The upcoming paperback edition of "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," was 10th on Amazon.com's best seller list as of 10:20 p.m. today.
A new copy of the hardback edition was selling for $480.
Meanwhile, another speculation is making the rounds here in Boston: If elected president John Kerry will take his first opportunity to nominate presumptively elected U.S. Senator Barack Obama to the United States Supreme Court.
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NO JOKE
In his monologue Wednesday, Jay Leno quipped:
Last night Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama -- a real rising star in the Democratic party -- spoke. When they told President Bush about Obama he said 'Isn't that the guy we can't find? Why don't we grab him?.'
Haw.
But U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D.-Evanston) this morning repeated a story she's been telling for months in which she says Bush made just that mistake.
Speaking to the Illinois delegation breakfast, Schakowsky recalled a meeting she and other lawmakers had with Bush in the White House in February.
As they were leaving, Schakowsky said, she pulled on her coat and Bush "literally jumped back and looked stricken" when he saw the "Obama" button.
Shakowsky said she explained that it wasn't Osama but Obama, and that he was running in the U.S. Senate primary in Illinois.
Bush said, "I don't know him," according to Schakowsky.
"I said, `Oh, you will, Mr. President,'" she said.
Craig Kilborn also used Obama in a joke last night:
The Democratic National Convention continued in Boston last night as rising star Obama wowed the crowd with the best keynote address in recent history. Obama was so impressive that the party is now considering having him give Kerry's concession speech."
I'm getting these jokes from The Hotline, a subscription tip sheet on the Web that's free to all this week.
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