Comparing this to the Democrats' night one: I guess they won, since supposedly people bought Michelle Worf-Obama's Little Miss Sunshine act. So they accomplished their night one goal.

Fred Thompson's speech was amazing. But then, the nets didn't carry it. Someone suggested, jokingly, they should bring out Thompson for an encore tomorrow night.

As daffy as that sounds, I think they ought to. I could stand to hear it again. And this time the McCain folks can let the goddamned networks know they expect them to cover the major speakers as they covered the Democrats' major speakers.

Let me just say that while Thompson's red-meat was dripping crimson and crazy-tasty, the high point was obviously his recounting of McCain's heroism in captivity. I knew the broad outlines of McCain's injuries and torment, but I have never heard it all laid out -- every wound, every broken bone, every pulverized tooth, so many beatings -- laid out sequentially like that. The auditorium was as silent as a pope's funeral and so was I.

I might not like McCain much as a politician, but goddamn I'll give it to him for being a fucking man. And a real patriot.

Lieberman was... well, Lieberman. His tone sounds halfway between the most boring atonal song in the world and half-dead moose moaning in a ravine. Some (like Howard Wolfson) suggested his case might play with Clinton voters -- Wolfson pointed out, which I missed entirely, Liebs' positive mention of Clinton was, of course, directed straight at the Hillary PUMA voters -- and maybe that's true, but I can't evaluate that. He wasn't speaking to me on a political level; hell, I'm not even sure if he was speaking to me on a physical level. He may have been calling together the Moose Moot for all I know.

Bush was... Bush. I'm frankly tired of listening to him. I'm not tired of him, just tired of his cadence and always-disappointing delivery and tropes of speaking. Even if he trots out new tropes, they sound similar to old ones, and I can barely listen to him anymore. He's only wowed me in a speech once (you know the one), and only really grabbed me a couple of other times. For a guy who's the leader of the free world and was pretty cocksure even before that, he sure seems to shrink and become something of a callow and timid young boy when a camera's in his face.

People at NRO are talking about how dead the convention seems, how empty of both people and energy. Party that's due to gulf state delegates being absent. Part of it may be due to the cocked-up nature of this truncated convention and the polls, which show Obama comfortably ahead for now.

So: Overall, one great speech, but probably much better received by partisans than swing voters, and it was only heard by (at best) one third of the total intended audience. A couple of snoozers of questionable impact.

No help.

On the plus side: American conservatives got a fever, and the only prescription is more Moose Belle. The whole convention lives and dies on Palin's speech. Lot of weight on those slender shoulders, but I kinda think she's going to pull it off.

Posted by: Ace at 07:50 PM | Comments (68)
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A truncated three-day convention.

And they have fucking better things to air than the highlight speakers.

Talking to Democratic politicians. And talking about Bristol Palin.

Outrage.

Posted by: Ace at 06:34 PM | Comments (91)
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How about I offer you the Judge Elihu Smails compromise: "You'll get nothing and like it."

Posted by: Ace at 05:17 PM | Comments (68)
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I've got the live blog ready to go -- kinda -- but I don't know the point of it. As Slu reminded me, being positive is a lot less fun than snarking on Democratic douchesacks.

I'm thinking it would be a lot better to just use the comments for blogging/snarking, but maybe I'm wrong. more...

Posted by: Ace at 04:36 PM | Comments (181)
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Daily Kos commenters lay it all out:

"If health insurance for all, an end to the Iraq War, an end to torture and illegal wiretapping, and a sane energy policy can be obtained at the price of destroying one teenage girl, her family, and the surrendering our self-respect I see that as a cheap trade."

And:

"Are you telling me that you would not use character-destroying lies to ensure a war against Iran does not occur? . . . What choice do we have? When faced with monsters, we have to be monstrous ourselves."

And:

Are you telling me you would not destroy the love a family holds for one another, even if it meant letting someone who would destroy the constitution become president?

Moroe here.

Via Hot Air's headlines, linking the Corner.

Posted by: Ace at 04:32 PM | Comments (85)
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Red State got Drudgealanched, so you may have problems getting to the link.

Here's the gist. Barack Obama refuses to call Palin the governor of Alaska. He only calls her the Mayor of Wasilla.

That's so he can compare his campaign's budget and staff to the town's budget and staff. He sorta doesn't want to acknowledge the state she current governs (not sits in committee legislatin' on) has a budget of over ten billion dollars per year.

So here's the headline, if you can't get to it:

Thanks to someone.

Posted by: Ace at 04:27 PM | Comments (31)
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Compare and contrast...

Biden on Palin:

Everything I know about her, there's no reason not to respect her and believe she's qualified to be the vice president.

Biden on Obama (before getting picked to run for VP):

As we know, Joe Biden is from Scranton, PA. Apparently people from that part of the country are known for their judgment and truthfulness.

Just saying.

Joe Biden, the gift that keeps on giving.

Thanks to Jonathan Adler for making the connection.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:02 PM | Comments (22)
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Kinda good news, despite the big warning that we're still close to 2006's deficit of 6.1%, which handed the Democrats almost everything they could want (except competency at governance).

But Palinmania isn't reflected in these numbers yet, or at least only to a small degree.

Posted by: Ace at 03:52 PM | Comments (20)
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TheyÂ’re the ones that made an issue of her family," he says.<

Isn't it amazing that Democrats can, as all politicians do, trot out their families and hug their kids on a nationally-broadcast podium, but it's only Republicans who "invite" attacks on their families by doing so? It's only Republicans who "make an issue" of their family.

So Barack Obama's daughters, I presume, are not fair game? That's funny, I seem to have seen a lot of them at the convention. They're adorable kids. One of the most poignant moments of the convention was their running to him and hugging him.

How is it they're off limits but Sarah Palin's mere mention of her children "makes them an issue"?

Chelsea Clinton, the Gore Girls... I seemed to see an awful lot of them in the nineties, too. Especially during election season.

Al Gore's boy got nailed for driving at like 100 miles an hour under the influence and on drugs. The media didn't seem to think that was much of a story. Didn't report it. I only saw it on Free Republic.

I guess he somehow "wasn't made an issue."

Fair Game?

Sen. BidenÂ’s Daughter Arrested in Altercation

Also his son was mentioned prominently, and introduced Biden at the convention.

Fair game? Shall we start digging around into his past? He's a good man (deploying to Iraq, I believe), and yet... he's fair game, it seems to me. Biden "made him an issue."

Funny that the media never thinks any Democrats' children are fair game.

Posted by: Ace at 02:26 PM | Comments (126)
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Someone asked me if I read Maureen Dowd's column today on Palin. No, I said, I never read her. She's an idiot. She's a mediocre blogger who happens to blog on paper at the New York Times.

Rather than linking that column, I'll relink two old hit-pieces on her back when she almost rated a link.

First: Artificia l Insouciance, wherein Maureen Dowd's word-processor bravely revolts against her puerile and predictable writing.

Second: The Dowd-O-Matic, which produces Maureen Dowd columns via the rolling of a 12-sided die. It's not as funny as the first one More true than funny, as they say.

Posted by: Ace at 02:01 PM | Comments (44)
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