If A Shoe Drops on CNN, will we hear the sound?

CNN's Aaron Brown program on September 8 was one for the time capsule. What will future viewers, if any, think of it, think of them, think of us? A heartbreaking breakdown of the 1,000 American soldiers who were killed or died in Iraq, a so-called controversy on whether the University of Utah has the right to ban guns on campus, campaign reporting than manages to obfuscate the issues in the guise of clarifying the strategy and dynamic; a couple of authoritative studies that conclude that Iraq is deteriorating, that the situation there is worse now than it was before the American invasion, and that the most likely outcome is civil war.

Oh, and the reports that George Bush, the resolute leader of men to their deaths, consistently shirked his dubiously won National Guard duties, and by rights should have been shipped to Vietnam for his failures to keep his word and do the bothersome minimum his political influence bought him.

So catastrophic is this reporting that CNN couldn't face the implications of what it was presenting. So instead of covering the revelations arising from documents obtained by the Boston Globe and CBS News, and the thorough reporting both of these experienced and professional news organizations did on the subject of George W. Bush's dishonorable non-service, Brown and Co. reported first and foremost on White House reaction. "The White House said" began and ended each fragment of the story, and the questions to reporters was, what about what the White House says about this. Is this how they covered the non-story of the allegations made against Kerry's Vietnam record, not by responsible and thorough reporters, but by political enemies? Not exactly.

And Jeff Greenfield doubts that this clear evidence that should shame Bush from office, that is so morally corrupt in a man who sends others to fight and die to satisfy his delusions, is likely to change many minds. Why won't it? Because only those who want to believe it will believe it. Where is the objective judgment that all will concede tells the truth? he asks.

Are they talking about the same two stories? In one, the official record and the overwhelming evidence produced by journalists is that John Kerry earned his medals, acted heroically under fire in Vietnam, and has essentially told the truth about his experiences. In the other, the official record and the evidence painstakingly accumulated and evaluated by journalists shows that G. W. Bush failed to complete the drills he was obligated to perform in the Texas National Guard, failed to complete the drills he was obligated to perform when he transferred to the Alabama national guard unit, and failed even to serve at all with the Boston national guard as he promised to do. He obtained his national guard appointment due to political influence, and apparently got his honorable discharge despite his failures to meet his obligations, also because of political influence.

He even specifically "misspoke" or lied when "the White House" said he had stopped flying his fighter jet because his National Guard unit stopped using that plane. As weak and wimpy as this excuse is, the records show it is false anyway. The plane in question remained in use. G.W. just never bothered to show up again.

This is the man more than half of American voters polled believe is a strong leader, the best to lead the nation in Iraq and the war on terror?

Right. And Nixon was our greatest defender of the Constitution, and our greatest Civil Rights leader was Bull Connor.

Are we really going to permit GW Bush to be president for another four insanely awful years, just because John Kerry can't stand still when he talks? GW has gone beyond depending on telling the Big Lie in order to remain in power. He has become the Big Lie.

A Fresh Start

Now it begins in earnest, and it appears the Karl Rove lies and distraction machine has had its effect. It again becomes possible that the administration that presided over the most disastrous four years since World War II with the most profoundly destructive implications for the next fifty years, may be rewarded with another term.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign is fighting back with a clarity not seen since the primaries. But we return to our belief that the theme that could mean victory is simply FOR A FRESH START.

To energize the base and to win swing voters and inspire non-voters, we need to inspire emotionally while we make sense on the facts. We need to be positive at the same time as we relentlessly expose the damage that Bush has done, that must not be rewarded with four more years.

There is power in words, and these words---A FRESH START---are optimistic at the same time as they imply Bush's failure and the need to repudiate his administration. In themselves they do not attack anyone personally. Whether the implication is "throw the bums out" or a more neutral "time for a change," these three words say it.

Yet these words are primarily oriented towards the future.

They express what this campaign is already saying, especially since the Willy Horton Writ Large GOP convention. They don't concentrate on blame, yet the action required is crystal clear: for A FRESH START, vote for Kerry-Edwards.

If you are convinced this is an effective combination of words to use, it may be up to you to use them---in your letters to the editor, or any other communications you have in support of saving the future by getting Bush out of power. It may have to be a slogan, an idea that percolates up from a few individuals and possibly gets noticed by the campaign. But even if it doesn't, even if it clicks with one voter enough to earn one vote, it will have made an important contribution. Especially in a race which may be extremely close.

Now we turn the lectern over to Morgan....



Focus for Fall

Kerry has been hammering away at the folly and tragic cost of the Iraq war, and that's good. But prominent in his Iraq critique should be mention of the issue that stirs emotions, particularly of swing voters: the prison abuses, like Abu Grav.

Kerry reportedly was advised by Bill Clinton, shortly before going under the knife, to concentrate on economic issues, including the highly appropriate one of health care.

Kerry should emphasize most of all the health care crisis. Jobs, lower incomes, income disparities, are all vital issues, but it is easy to obscure them with apparently contradictory numbers. The facts in the health care crisis are stark. The platitudes that perhaps once were true simply aren't any longer: America is not the healthiest nation in the world, with the best health care system in the world, as most have long believed.

An American girl born today has a life expectancy lower than that in 18 other countries. An American boy is expected on average to live as long as a boy born in Brunei, and not as long as boys in 30 other nations.

Among the world's 13 wealthiest countries, the U.S. has the lowest (or nearly the lowest) life expectancy at birth and life expectancy for infants. It is worst (or nearly worst) in infant mortality and low birth weight. An American infant is more like to die than an infant in Croatia.

We're used to thinking of heart attacks as being the province of busy, wealthy middle-aged white men like Clinton, but in fact cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of death in poor black neighborhoods. This is where the vast wealth of the few really pays off: a woman born in a wealthy Washington neighborhood can expect to live 40 years longer than a male born in a poor DC district. It's a more potent killer, thanks to the stress of poverty, than drugs or homicides. So is cancer. And so is the amorphous category of "untreated conditions."

People die younger in Harlem than in Bangladesh.

The major health role of income disparity is expressed in various factors, but the most obvious one is health insurance. The wealthy have it (or don't need it), and they get better care.
The result is not just in getting life-saving surgery, but in getting simple check-ups and relatively simple care to follow up on what's found. But when care is postponed and then is given haphazardly, grudgingly, and in inferior ways, the result can be measured not only in dollars lost to the economy, but in human suffering. The suffering of people you see every day of your life.

In 2002, some 40 million Americans had no health insurance, including some 20 million with full-time jobs. Some 75 million Americans under age 65 were without health insurance for all or parts of 2001 and 2002. And it's worse now.

New figures from Kaiser, a leading health insurer, show costs of health insurance rose 11% just in 2004. The cost to insure a family for a year is now approaching the annual income of a worker earning minimum wage.

The Institute of Medicine blames gaps in insurance coverage for 17,000 preventable deaths a year. That's 5 times the death toll of 9/11, every year.

Health care is an issue that unites the poor and the middle class workers and families, small business and even large businesses being hampered or crushed by rising health care costs---rising faster than income for one thing, up 50% since Bush took office---and significantly, many health care professionals, including doctors and their organizations, and even some health insurance executives.

The U.S. health care and health insurance system is destructive and on the verge of collapse. It is a potent issue for John Kerry and John Edwards. All Bush has done is increase the burden on Medicare recepients while enriching drug companies and adding to the deficit. It's virtually all cost and no benefit, except to the already wealthy. Sound familiar?

John Kerry pledges to introduce legislation to create affordable health care insurance for all Americans as his first proposal to Congress.

Health care and health insurance is of immense personal importance to me. I am one of those Americans who lost health care coverage during the reign of GW Bush. I am six weeks older than Bill Clinton. Clinton has had the best medical care possible for at least the last decade, and had no apparent health problems, yet he required open heart surgery or he likely would have had a major heart attack that would have disabled or killed him.

As Senator Hillary Clinton pointed out, they have great health insurance, and Bill Clinton got the best care by the best doctors in reputedly the best hospital in the world for his condition.

If later today I were to have chest pains, or require any kind of care, it's very likely I would either not receive it, or it would be inferior and inadequate. If I had what Bill Clinton had, I wouldn't be facing rehabilitation, I would be facing imminent death.

With John Kerry's health care plan, at least the debate will be revived, and perhaps something will be done. This election could literally be life and death for people like me. It is life and death, and the difference between health and suffering, for millions.

The Real Second Term

GW will paint his second term plans in glorious platitudes tonight. His administration has been particularly fond of giving reassuring names to brutal programs that do the opposite of what they are called, and of making bold announcements but either not following through or acting in the exact opposite way. Our gutless press makes this a lot easier. GW's only talent has always been marketing, and the p.r. presidency fits in so well with the media that is nothing but advertising.

But reality cannot be forestalled forever. The piper must be paid. One concrete indication of Bush's second term plans came last month in a Office of Management and Budget memo, instructing every government agency with domestic programs to cut their 2006 budgets, especially---as the Washington Post reported-" popular programs that Bush has been touting on the campaign trail."

Here are some of the currently underfunded but well established and effective programs that will be cut further immediately in the second term: Head Start, WIC (the primary nutrition program for women, infants and children, administered by states), job training, home ownership aid, and a number of cuts in education. These programs of course benefit the poor, which more recent statistics show, have grown in number and are deeper in poverty during the Bush years; and they benefit the middle class, which nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office studies recently say have gotten the least benefit from the Bush tax cuts and are bearing most of their cost.

Expect the Bushies to push for even greater and more permanent tax cuts for the wealthy, to be paid for by the middle class, the poor, and everyone's grandchildren. Expect the remedy for Social Security and Medicare to be as costly, complicated, ineffective and ultimately profitable for favored private companies, as was the experiment with prescription drugs.

The Bush remedy for soaring gasoline prices is to make his oil buddies more money by ruining the Alaskan wilderness for centuries but yielding little oil. Every other industrial nation and even some huge auto and oil companies recognize the need for clean renewable energy, but the U.S. remains fixed in the past, as the future dies. The same on global heating and the climate crisis. The same on our fatally broken health care system---even the head of CA Blue Cross calls for a system of universal health insurance. P.R. and fundamentalist slogans won't make any of these daily tragedies and future catastrophes go away.

The trend is clear: more people falling out of the middle class, into poverty, where the so-called safety net is another advertising illusion. When are Americans who watch too much TV going to understand that because they want to identify with the rich and famous, this doesn't make them rich and famous? And those people who seem so friendly and down to earth, are always going to be friendly and down to earth with their wealthy friends, and their wealth comes largely from exploiting the gullibility of those who couldn't get them on the phone in a million years?

In foreign policy, some who troll those waters in Washington believe that the neocons that brought us a tragic war in Iraq are not really chastened but merely lying low until after the election. With Bush freed from facing the voters again, their ideological rigidity, their almost religious fervor and belief in their simplistic ideas, will once again drive American foreign policy and suppress internal freedom and dissent, as in the early days of Iraq and the Patriot Act. And why not? If they get away with the invasion of Iraq, based on willfully phony info, demonstrating stubborn ineptitude and arrogance, causing death, destruction and untold suffering---if they can do this and the electorate doesn't repudiate them but returns them to office--why not diss the rest of the world again, stretch our society past the breaking point to support their toy soldier video game wars?

These observers believe that in the second term, neocon Condy Rice will run the State Department, neocon Rumsfeld will move over to the White House as the national security advisor, and somebody like neocon Paul Wolfowitz will run Defense.

So get ready for war in Iran and/or North Korea. Get ready for Patriot II, and the power of the Bushies and the bureaucrats to spy on email and phone calls, examine every kind of personal record, with no recourse or remedies. What happens today if you find yourself on a no-fly list by mistake? It's not just a bureaucratic nightmare, because nobody knows which bureaucracy is responsible. It's something out of Kafka, it's happening to people right now, and in the second term, it will happen to many more. You don't have to do anything except have a name or physical description somewhat similar to somebody that someone told someone else might be suspicious. It can't happen to you? It can't happen here?

There will likely be no Supreme Court willing to protect individual rights against corporations and government, as Bush fills slots bound to open up in the next four years with rigid rightwing justices. It will be the Scalia and Clarence Thomas court.

You can forget about already weakened health and safety regulations, and especially consumer protections. Corporations will rule, and they will be allowed to lie, to cheat and steal, with impunity. As long as they put on a happy face. Like a lot that government does, it doesn't seem to matter until you need it, and it's not there.

A government that doesn't help the common good, help individuals in need or protect either individuals or the common good, isn't likely to be devoting resources to a common future, or to looking for what may help individuals and the common good in the future. So among those aforementioned cuts are slices in medical and scientific research. Not even mentioning the travesty of stem cell research, or other blatant bans and promotions that seek to establish the most extreme version of so-called fundamentalist Christianity as the ruling state religion.

At the moment, a tight race for the presidency seems to be getting even tighter, as John Kerry seems to be losing ground to a relentless and shamelessly lying p.r. campaign funneling through the GOPer convention, from the cheap façade of Arnold to the fulminating hatred of Zell Miller and the slick mendacity of the dangerously deluded Dick Cheney and GW Bush. This is no time for overconfidence. This is no time for nitpicking. Are you really going to turn up your nose at voting for Kerry because you don't like his looks? If you care about your children and your parents, if you care about nature and the planet's future, if you stand for justice, equality and civil liberties, you must do all you can to deny George Bush this second term.

The non-condemnation condemnation

It said so on the CNN crawl---Pres Bush condemns Swift Boat ad. Sorry, didn't happen. Bush, as he's done through his press secretary before, condemns all ads not sponsored by candidates or parties, including the Swift Boat ads, BECAUSE he doesn't like ads not financed by candidates and parties and their contributors. (Mostly because most of those ads are against his policies.) He did NOT condemn the Swift Boat ads BECAUSE THEY ARE LIES. In fact, other GOPer spokesfolks were on TV defending them, and making additional outrageous charges.

But the backlash, as well as the truth, has begun. See this Seattle Times article:

The Seattle Times%3A Nation %26 World%3A Debate continues to heat up over Kerry%27s vet record

Why they're crazy in the red states

The author of the story linked below drew himself a map of the United States according to suicide rates. He found that states with lower rates correlated almost exactly with the blue states, or the Democrat/ Gore-voting states in 2000. The states with much higher suicide rates tended to be the red GOPer/Bush-voting.

Did the author conclude therefore that GOPers are crazy? No, that would be more the kind of thing we'd say. He does point out that more people are likely to own guns in these states, which makes suicidal impulses easier to turn into suicides. But his major conclusion is that these are the states where mental health care is less available or stigmatized, or both. He points out that as on most health issues, the Bushies talk a progressive game but they fail to finance and support mental health services and their accessibility.

Boston.com %2F News %2F Boston Globe %2F Opinion %2F Op-ed %2F A suicide map of the US

Though this is probably a more reasonable analysis, we'd like to push it a bit further. There are plenty of people in this country who still regard psychological problems not as health matters but as evidence of character weakness, lack of manly courage, and symptoms of irresponsibility.

Everyone fears the prospect of losing the daily certainty of an accurate sense of reality. So denial is natural, not only of mental illness but even of any psychological influences at work in the "normal" person. The idea that one is either entirely and always sane, or else one is entirely crazy, is held by many people who may even deny they believe this.

This probably has something to do with a prevalent idea of sanity as functionality: in other words, if you can do your job, you're sane. If you can't, you are insane. There is no in-between.

And for millions of Americans, there is in fact no in-between. If you can't do your job (or jobs), sooner or later (usually sooner, if not immediately) you are cast out of the mainstream and into the street. You may as well be insane. You may as well be dead.

But there are also millions of Americans who do their jobs, who even look quite competent, yet wreak havoc on themselves, their loved ones, and in the case of those with powerful positions and/or involved in politics, on many other people, on in fact the entire planet---when they act in ways they may be convinced is rational, but in fact has a strong component of irrationality in perception, analysis and/or motivation.

So much of our political life, and a great deal of our national policy, is driven by emotions triggered by unconscious factors that appear to the people involved to be entirely rational. In general we have so little psychological self-knowledge that even to question our motives or actions is profoundly threatening.

In this the blue states, smug in multisyllabic rationalizations and stubborn two dimensional, machine-thought, are no more immune that the red states, smug in their virtuous ignorance and hypocrisy. So red and blue alike drip with the blood of the innocent.

Perhaps the best article so far on Bushies subversive use of lies and slander against Kerry, McCain and Max Cleland, is this one, published in that radical left wing terrorist propaganda liberal media outlet, Business Week:
BW Online %7C August 23%2C 2004 %7C Flinging the Foul Mud of Vietnam

Link to brief story about a new documentary on the Iraq war that finds it makes an overwhelmingly credible case counter to the Bush narrative---especially intriguing as it is from Reuters, which emphasizes financial news and is therefore read by GOPers...

Entertainment%3A Reviews Article %7C Reuters.com

Focus on now

In the Sunday Chicago Tribune, an editor there who has maintained silence for 35 years on his Vietnam war experience has gone public with his account of events as a swift boat commander---the only one still alive who was actually there for one of the actions Kerry's critics are lying about. He supports Kerry's account completely.
The story can be found at the Chi Trib site, an almost as detailed story at the NY Times, but since both are "subscription" a more accessible link is this one:
Reuters %7C Latest Financial News %2F Full News Coverage

Why are the actual Vietnam vets involved doing this? Several who previously supported Kerry were severely criticized for their actions in Vietnam by historian/author Douglas Brinkley in his biography of John Kerry. Combine that with resentment over Kerry's testimony when he returned, now taken utterly out of context in the new swift boat ads, when he reported having heard at the Winter Soldier hearings in 1970 or so, Vietnam soldiers detailing how they had committed various atrocities or witnessed them.

In Maxine Hong Kingston's latest book, THE FIFTH BOOK OF PEACE, she tells of her work with a group of Vietnam vets. They learned meditation. Eventually they met and embraced Vietnamese who literally had been their enemies---officers and soldiers on the other side. But their openness to new ways of dealing with their experiences, to nonviolence and dialogue, and especially their forgiveness of their enemies, did not extend to Americans who had protested the Vietnam war. They hated them. They were the unforgivable enemy, more than 30 years later.

As early as a first draft physical in Chicago in 1968, we met Vietnam veterans who trashed the war in no uncertain terms. By the early 70s, soldiers in uniform greeted as a brother a contemporary with long hair, because "you guys were right." The political danger John Kerry represented to Nixon in the 1970s was precisely as a well-spoken leader of what was becoming the most dynamic force in the anti-war movement: Vietnam veterans. Nixon's men found their own Vietnam vet mouthpiece, and today he has resumed his career as one of the ringleaders of the anti-Kerry vets.

But there were lots of veterans who felt personally attacked by any criticism or even reporting on the conduct of the Vietnam war. The Vietnam vets in Kingston's book needed more than meditation. They needed some shadow work, some guidance in understanding their projections. Most veterans of that war and most wars have been shamefully abandoned by their government. Many didn't get the medical care they needed, let alone psychological care that would expose that government's cynical use of them.

Now they are being exploited by wealthy friends of Bush, and encouraged in their delusions and lies.

We hope that the belated but now overwhelming exposing of these lies will mean this matter gets a rest. But we aren't all that hopeful it will happen on its own. We suggest that Kerry make an aggressive move to reframe the debate---not on the Vietnam war, but on the war in Iraq. The one the American people are now paying for, the one Americans are now dying for, in increasing rates.

Though the press has moved away from evaluating it, the situation in Iraq is stark. The military situation is worse. The political situation is dire. Billions of dollars have gone to Halliburton and other Bush crony corporations for reconstruction they haven't done, and the Iraqi people are suffering and angry.

More and more is coming out about Iraq and war on terror prison abuses, and the abuses of the Patriot Act that have, among other internal acts of subtle terrorism, placed thousands of Americans unjustifiably on no-fly and watch lists, including at least one black congressman and none other than Senator Ted Kennedy. Even these powerful members of the U.S. government can't get their names taken off these lists.

The only virtue of this press attention on Vietnam controversy is that press is going to be listening to what Kerry says. If he comes out with a full bore attack on Bush policy in Iraq, it will be heard. It is the issue that resonated throughout the primaries, an issue that independent voters are troubed by, and now is the time to return our focus to it. No president can do anything about Vietnam. This president chosen in 2004 must do something about Iraq.

Can't Find It At Amazon? Orwell's 2004

Wasn't it just a few entries ago we quoted the GOPer propaganda expert saying the real power of negative ads is in defining a story for the "free media", including the phony news outlets? The so-called Swift Boat Vets ads have become the textbook example in just two weeks, as a half million dollar ad buy in a handful of states has become the best known 15 seconds of the campaign, thanks to it being run over and over by rabid right talk shows and journalistically challenged cable news outlets.

For the story of the ad, why the people who appear in it are lying, and who financed it---not just GOPer fat cats, but those with direct ties to the Bushes and especially GW's secretary of cynicism, department of lies, distortions and dirty tricks: Karl Rove--here's a link to the New York Times story of 8/20.

The New York Times %3E Washington %3E Campaign 2004 %3E Friendly Fire%3A The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad

For a sickening chronicle of the media's compliance, you can go through the recent archives of
the Daily Howler.

Pack journalism, first exposed as such in Timothy Crouse's 1972 book, THE BOYS ON THE BUS, is weakness enough in the information media upon which a free society depends. So is the usual domination by owners rich enough to own the presses. But then the Fairness Doctrine was thrown out, meaning that rabid right radio could spread lies with no redress. Then TV news became a profit center, and then 24 hour operations on cable, with the emphasis on pretty faces and fast talking provocateurs. Spill all that over a population kept stupid by a combination of social pressure, bad schools, slogan culture and a 25 hr work day, and you've got the makings of Orwell Updated from 1984 to 2004. Big Adolf would be green with envy.

News from Pews

The Pews Foundation poll, that is. Here's a nugget:

"With foreign policy and defense issues at the forefront of the presidential campaign this year, swing voters' views on a range of these issues take on added importance. On eight of the 11 foreign policy issues in the poll on which there are significant partisan gaps, opinions of swing voters are closer to those of Kerry supporters than to those of Bush voters. "

Here's the link to the relevant page:

Part Five%3A Opinion About the Bush Administration%27s Stewardship%3A Foreign Policy Attitudes Now Driven by 9%2F11 and Iraq

Two priceless headlines on google news

Translation Error Cited in Sting Case
(a terrorist suspect may go free)

and just below it:

Rumsfeld Favors Slower Reform of U.S. Intelligence

We can't go any slower, dude.

What wrong with these guys?


We know why the Bushies "can't understand" Kerry's position on Iraq, but what's wrong with Chris "if I couldn't think in clichés I couldn't think" Mathews of Hardball? He's going after the Bushies for distorting a Kerry statement made on his precious show, while at the same time pretending he can't get a straight answer from Kerry---concluding that Kerry isn't a flip-flopper, he's wishy-washy. And a GOPer guest who professes to be or have been a journalist "can't understand" Kerry's position on his vote to authorize the President to use force as a last resort in Iraq, even though a campaign aide to Howard Dean explained it quite clearly while he was sitting there.

Kerry's position is that he voted to give the President the backing needed to get Saddam to take weapons inspections seriously---which was working, by the way, right up to the minute that Bush decided the fact that the inspectors weren't finding weapons meant Saddam really had them, and started bombing. If inspections were blocked, then the authorization of force would focus allies on the question of what to do to compel Saddam to cooperate with inspectors.
Kerry also expected of a President of either party that he would go to war only as a last resort, and only with thorough plans for the aftermath, etc.

Why is that so difficult to understand? No, he didn't vote For the War. He voted to give the President what he said he needed to rid Iraq of WMDs. He didn't say, let's invade Iraq, no matter what those cheese eating surrender monkeys want! He didn't vote to bomb, or invade, or to torture, and he's certainly not now crowing that it doesn't matter if the purpose of the war was a sham, it was a good thing anyway.

So why doesn't Kerry just say that he regrets his vote now---that essentially he shouldn't have trusted Bush's competence or veracity? It would be politically advantageous to do so. It seems pretty obvious from his answer the other day---that no, he thinks his vote was right because a President ought to have had that authority---that the reason he isn't repudiating his vote to give the president authorization to use force, is he wants that kind of flexibility for himself if he is President, though he makes clear he would use it in a far different way. If he says now that the president should be denied such authority, it would be used against him if he asked for it while president. It's the big stick that allows the president to speak softly, to use diplomacy in the real world.

It's no secret to our readers that we opposed giving Bush that authorization, that we suspected he would misuse it, that he and his ideologically rigid and simplistically zealous advisors were bent on war no matter what, that they had no plan and no clue about the aftermath, or the effect of invasion on the region. We more or less predicted it all, so how hard could it have been? Still, while we believe that Congress should have voted against authorizing force, we are pretty damn sure Bush would have gone to war anyway (which is to say, if he hadn't had the votes to begin with, he never would have taken the matter to Congress. He would have found or created the pretext to act on his own authority.) And we are not so taken with force authorizations as a policy for the future. We would like to see the United States institute a Department of Peace.

Our position on these matters differs from Kerry's, but we understand his position, and find it honorable. We can live with it, and we do mean that in several senses.

Now...what's up with John McCain? How can he call for the Bushies to condemn the attack on Kerry's Vietnam leadership and heroism, and when they don't, he campaigns with Bush in Florida anyway? Now he's questioning the Bush plan to take troops out of South Korea and Europe, but he's still the main speaker at the GOP convention?

Supporting a candidate who doesn't agree with all of your policy positions is understandable. But one whose integrity you've questioned? Who you have called to account, and who ignores you? We're beginning to wonder about John McCain.

Everything you wanted to know about pulling the media's chain but were too "sensitive" to ask

can be found here:

Cheney laughed in the voters' faces. But the press--and Kerry's camp--didn't care

well, almost everything...

The Only Fear

Three of the four most recent polls give Kerry an edge (of 5 pts) and while the fourth is within its margin of error, Kerry is also ahead in it (by 3 pts.) The conventional wisdom is becoming focused on the idea that Bush is on his way to defeat. His negatives continue to be high---notably above 50% in some of the bigger categories. Kerry has kept his lead on handling the economy and other domestic issues (with signs of a weakening economy that apparently flabbergasted Wall Street but which this column predicted six weeks ago), is slightly ahead on handling Iraq, and is gaining on ability to handle terrorists.

Bush on the stump is pretty clearly just trying to hang around until events may save him. And the events he's looking for are no secret. Whether the latest terror threat was manufactured for political gain is beside the point---it doesn't matter how credible it is, the indisputable fact is that it was used for political gain: Tom Ridge came right out and said so at his press conference, when he pointedly praised President Bush's leadership. It was otherwise a completely gratutious if not inappropriate addition to his report.

The Bush strategy is pretty clear and pretty focused. Some editorialists have dealt with it at length, as in this article in the Guardian:

Guardian Unlimited US elections 2004 Why Bush could be a fan of terror

But old curmugeon Jack Germond expressed it more succinctly when he opined that Kerry was winning because "Voters don't want Bush anymore" and the only question is whether "Bush can scare people enough to win."

So Bush is again talking about how America is not safe but he's working on it. The idea is that if people are focused on fear, and the headlines stay focused on terrorism, the voters will rally round the president. Same goes for an actual terrorist attack, or conversely, the capture of bin Laden, which Pakistanis have already long since revealed is the political goal of the White House---to capture or kill him before the election.

This White House is incapable of doing anything without increasingly blatant attempts to turn it to political advantage. It is becoming something of a disadvantage, as people become more aware of it. But never underestimate fear as overwhelming judgment.

Still, it is fairly amazing that in August, the only thing Bush can pin his hopes on is winning with intimidation. Nothing else is working. Meanwhile, Kerry and Edwards are solidifying their hold on their best issues and chipping away at Bush strengths. The Kerry-Edwards campaign is geared towards peaking in the debates and in October. As time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult for Bush. The later it gets, the more people will suspect political motives in terror alerts, etc. Still, there is a school of thought that even though undecideds usually break towards the challenger at the end, this may not be the case in a presidential election when fear is such a factor. And nearly everyone believes that Bush will benefit from an actual terrorist attack in America.

Think of it: a president who by every indication the voters don't believe should be re-elected, but who owes his election to the fact that terrorist succeed in blowing something up in the U.S. , and/ or in killing a large number of voters. It's almost as perverse as getting into office by means of voter fraud perpetrated by your brother, and votes by Supreme Court justices appointed by your father.

bubbleheads and bobbleheads

Chris "everything in my head falls immediately out of my mouth" Matthews had a Republican analyst on, talking about the proven effect of negative ads. Do you really think that an undecided person looks at an ad and immediately decides to vote against that guy, Chris sez, what kind of a bubblehead would do that?

The analyst said, the free media (the press) moves voters, not ads, but the ads set the agenda for the press---the negative ads succeed when the press starts talking about the guy in those terms.

In other words, the bubbleheads are the bobbleheads, the parrot-talking media mouths, the snide press boys and selfrighteous press babes, who go for the negative because that's conflict, and the poor dears don't know any other way to tell a story except as good guy vs. bad guy. How about good for the country, bad for the country, good for the world, bad for the world....nah. Too hard.

And since the negative ads are effective in putting little thoughts into the bobbleheads little minds, the campaigns spend millions of dollars on them, which all go to--what fun!--the media.

bumps and bruises

Despite the lack of a big post-convention bump in the head-to-head poll numbers, the Zogby poll (the most accurate in 2000) shows Kerry ahead in 13 of 16 battleground states, his best showing of the year. And the Marist poll confirms that Kerry has a cumulative lead in the battleground states, by about 8 points.

Though margins mostly continue to be very close, Kerry has opened a big lead in Illinois and some polls show a significant lead opening up in Pennsylvania.

Yesterday both Kerry and Bush campaigned in Davenport, Iowa at the same time. With the police otherwise occupied, shrewd political observers held up three banks. So we'd guess there aren't going to be many other towns interested in similiar simultaneity.

convention's end: slam dunk !

What did we tell you?

John Kerry’s nomination acceptance speech did everything the media bobbleheads demanded---and most of them (according to a salon survey) admitted it. A few technical but somewhat important matters: the speech was almost exactly an hour long as delivered, fitting neatly into the single hour 10 to 11 pm network slot—and using EVERY LAST MINUTE OF IT. Plus, as political insider Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out, it was a speech filled with sound bites, which is how most voters will hear it---on the Today show, on local newscasts. And GREAT sound bites at that.

That’s even before we bother saying that this speech was: personal and presidential, subtle and forthright, scathing and idealistic. It was solidly Democratic, yet it reclaimed issues like family values and faith, that Republicans consider their own. AND it’s emphasis on unity, on a positive campaign (but waged just not on issues but on values), on picking an administration of the best people including Republicans, on the American dream, spoke directly to independents.

It was also a damn good speech. In different times, JFK gave a rousing nomination acceptance speech, that had only one memorable section, on the New Frontier. He saved his economical eloquence for the Inaugural. Bill Clinton set the TV age standard with his nomination acceptance speech in 1992. But John Kerry surpassed it (a judgment rendered by none other than a Clinton press secretary.) It may turn out to be a speech of historical significance.

In terms of the convention, Kerry drew themes from previous speakers on previous evenings. He took Obama’s red states/blue states theme (Obama said “United States”; Kerry: red, white and blue states.) He echoed Edwards on middle class plight, using Edwards-like examples. He used a bit of Teresa Heinz Kerry’s “we can and we will” rhetoric, and like her, very effectively quoted Abraham Lincoln. (She read a long passage, very movingly, that contains both the” mystic chords of memory “ and “better angels of our nature” phrases. John Kerry’s quote was in this context:
"And let me say it plainly: In that cause and in this campaign, we welcome people of faith. America is not us and them. I think of what Ron Reagan said of his father a few weeks ago and I want to say this to you tonight: I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve. But faith has given me values and hope to live by, from Vietnam to this day, from Sunday to Sunday. I don’t want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God’s side.”

Speaking of Ron Reagan, Kerry picked up from his speech by making stem cell research a priority in this one.” What if we have a president who believes in science so we can unleash the wonders of discovery like stem-cell research and treat illness for millions of lives?”

There were also the themes of optimism and strength from many previous speakers, the metaphor of the boat and references to battlefield experience. But where other speakers might have been cautious, Kerry was forthright. After hoodwinking the media into believing he was going to tamp down any criticism of the administration he seeks to oust, there was stuff like this:

“ I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the advice of the military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who will uphold the Constitution of the United States.”

He deftly turned one of the dumber criticisms: “Now I know that there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities, and I do, because some issues just aren't all that simple. 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.”

Though he claims not to have seen Michael Moore’s film, he talked about American energy independence with this zinger: “I want an America that relies on its ingenuity and innovation, not the Saudi royal family.”

For those who thought he would drop issues he emphasized in the primaries, he said this in an echo of his stump speech, but in even stronger terms: “And when I am president, we will stop being the only advanced nation in the world which fails to understand that health care is not a privilege for the wealthy and the connected and the elected - it is a right for all Americans. And we will make it so.” (Star Trek reference there? Captain Kerry to the bridge!)

How deft is this? He talks tough on terrorism as he draws a subtle but real distinction in his approach, which again echoes and strengthens a theme that runs throughout the convention:

" We need a strong military. And we need to lead strong alliances. And then, with confidence and determination, we will be able to tell the terrorists: You will lose and we will win. The future doesn't belong to fear; it belongs to freedom. “

He took the values theme away from the Bushie attacker, sharpened it, and stuck it to the assailant:

“We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America. Not narrow values that divide us, but the shared values that unite us - family, faith, hard work, opportunity and responsibility for all - so that every child, every adult, every parent, every worker in America has an equal shot at living up to their God-given potential. That is the American dream and the American value.”

On Iraq he said the magic words the left needed to hear: bring the troops home. He actually mentioned peace, which had just about disappeared with all the strength talk. He deftly combined his own experience with what it means on the issue of war:

“And as president, I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation.
I know what kids go through when they are carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place and they can't tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they're out on patrol at night and they don't know what's coming around the next bend. I know what it's like to write letters home telling your family that everything's all right when you're just not sure that that's true.
As president, I will wage this war with the lessons I learned in war. Before you go to battle, you have to be able to look a parent in the eye and truthfully say: "I tried everything possible to avoid sending your son or daughter into harm's way. But we had no choice. We had to protect the American people, fundamental American values against a threat that was real and imminent." So lesson number one, this is the only justification for going to war.

And on my first day in office, I will send a message to every man and woman in our armed forces: You will never be asked to fight a war without a plan to win the peace.”

But just as Kerry the war hero brings valuable lessons to the presidency, so does Kerry the anti-war hero:
“Our purpose now is to reclaim our democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism, it is the heart and soul of patriotism.”

Finally, something that was personally meaningful to the Baby Boomers among us. John Kerry first attracted our attention as a possible presidential candidate a couple of years ago, when he talked about fulfilling the promise of the 60s and the 60s generation. It was an idea we didn’t hear again and had forgotten. Mostly we thought Kerry had forgotten it, but he hadn’t:

“And when I was in high school, a junior, John Kennedy called my generation to service. It was the beginning of a great journey - a time to march for civil rights, for voting rights, for the environment, for women, for peace. We believed we could change the world. And you know what? We did.

But we're not finished. The journey isn't complete. The march isn't over. The promise isn't perfected. Tonight, we're setting out again. And together, we're going to write the next great chapter of America's story.”

convention glances, third day

Notice there is none of this Convention: Day III around here. Some of us are old enough to remember when we weren't so pretentious. What changed the style? Briefly: a combination of Super Bowl hype (with their roman numerals) and the Iranian hostage crisis at the end of the Carter era, when Ted Koeppel hosted the pre-Nightline update every late night, with portentous theme music, big banner and pretentious title: Hostage Crisis, Day 21, or whatever. Ain't been the same since.

Okay, this is maybe a cover for not very much to say about today in Boston, as we did not watch real assiduously. Life goes on, you know? Anyway, the big deal was the John Edwards speech, which was his well-tested stump speech with some notable extras. The delivery was a bit shaky, a combination perhaps of dry mouth from decongestants (Edwards was said to be fighting a cold) and unfamiliarity with speaking---especially hearing yourself speak---in such a large arena with upwards of five thousand people screaming at your every pause.

But Edwards did what he needed to, and those extras were important: like voicing support for the 9-11 commission while the Bushies still dither, and pointedly saying it won't take three years for John Kerry to fix the intelligence system. He connected well on his middle class and "two Americas" issues; his strength in biography backing his words made even stronger by the presence of his parents---his references to them were skillfully done. His "I'm sick of negative campaigning, aren't you?" should play well with independents. It was also important for a white southerner to take Obama's point against identity politics and show another facet by saying, where should we talk about problems of race? Everywhere.

The only other speech we caught (on replay) was Al Sharpton's, and it was a great speech. It was the rouser the conventioneers were waiting for, and it made some very good points on Bush, and his pathetic attempts to charm away black voters. Yet Sharpton also made strong arguments in favor of Kerry, not only on policy but on character.

We haven't mentioned much so far in these reports about media coverage, and that's partly because we haven't been watching much of it. We've stayed with C-Span for most of the time, getting all convention and nothing but the convention in full. But since we missed stuff earlier we did check in with cable and network a little. What crap! But then you knew that. We just loved the CNN bobbleheads sounding like a bunch of schoolmarms after Sharpton spoke. He went way over time! Oh dear! He improvised and drove the poor teleprompter guy nuts! Tsk tsk. And shame shame, the Kerry people can't be happy that he wasn't just positive and on message. We sincerely doubt that the Kerry people thought they could put Al Sharpton on in early prime time and expect a soporific speech. We think they're smarter than that, and they were just fine with this.

Jesse Jackson spoke earlier (one we missed) but as Sharpton left the stage, when he must have known he'd just had the political moment of his life, we figured he knew exactly what he was doing---he was taking another necessary step. Martin Luther King took one at the March on Washington. Jesse Jackson took a big one in his speeches to Democratic conventions in the late 80s and early 90s, and his candidacies. Jackson was often criticised for alienating other Democrats and dividing the party by essentially being too black for prime time. Notice however that by the time Sharpton spoke at this convention, that no longer was an issue: an absolutely united party loved his speech. What the CNN folks were worried about were the swing voters, the independents and Republicans watching at home. Too black for them, supposedly.

Maybe, but it was a necessary step. ML King knew it--he said "I may not get there with you." Jesse Jackson must have known it. We suspect Sharpton knew it as he left the stage---he wasn't making the speech for his career, he's very unlikely to be a presidential candidate again, he probably knows he won't get there. But it was a necessary step. Maybe for Obama. Who might get there.

For blacks, Sharpton's bio is at least as compelling as Edward's---raised by a single mother who worked as a cleaning woman. He spoke truths that black people know quite well, even if white people aren't around to hear them much. His evocation of the cost in blood of the civil rights won for racial minorities was eloquent. And he was the only speaker we heard so far to bring up the importance of Supreme Court appointments by the next president, as a reason to take this election seriously. His comment was as astute and true as it was funny: "If George Bush had appointed the Supreme Court in 1954, Clarence Thomas would have never gotten into law school."

We know that journalists have to ask dumb questions just to evoke perhaps interesting answers, but come on, Charlie Rose. He asked some Democratic party official, what do you say to people who say they don't know what John Kerry is going to do, on education, on trade, on the environment.... Well, what we'd say (which is possibly why we are not party officials) is: you can try reading his positions on his website, or listen to a speech. What do you expect us to do, inject the information through feeding tubes while these people are watching American Idol?

Edwards talked perhaps more than expected about specific policies and programs, which may suggest that Kerry is preparing to be less programmatic, in both senses. The bobbleheads are debating the expectations they are themselves creating--will Kerry's speech measure up to Obama's or Clinton's? First, it won't have to, because few people outside the hall heard them, and absolutely every speaker in the hall has been talking about what a great guy Kerry is. Second, it will anyway. We expect him to blow all the expectations out of the water. But who cares about speculation? Wait a few hours and find out.

The third night ended with an extended and largely symbolic roll-call of the states. Since this used to be our favorite part of conventions we watched too much of it anyway, but our impatient persistence was rewarded by Pennsylvania. State after state prefaced the announcements of their votes with silly bits of hype for their tourist attractions and politicians. Then PA Governor Ed Rendell stepped up: "Pennsylvania, which will do its talking on election day, gives all of its votes to John Kerry."

convention impressions, second day
 
The night of transition, from elders to the future of the party, from Ted Kennedy (speaking) and Jesse Jackson (watching) to Barak Obama, Janet Napalitano and  maybe even Ron Reagan---before settling down to the party of the present with Teresa Heinz Kerry, and continuing for the rest of the convention.   

After probably the first Star Spangled Banner ever to be sung at a national convention in an American Indian language, historian and best selling author Robert Caro introduced Ted Kennedy in an unusual but fitting and long overdue way: by calling him historically a great U.S. Senator, on a par with the 19th century icons.  Edward Kennedy has been in the Senate continuously since 1962, when he was a young man even his brothers John and Robert thought might not be ready for prime time.  Through thick and mostly thin, and triumph usually wrung from tragedy or at least misfortune, he has been as skilled and internally popular a Senator as the last half of the twentieth century produced.  Though Republicans vilify him on the stump---and he cleary relishes giving them the needle as stylishly as possible---behind the scenes, Republican Senators generally enjoy working with him, and find him a skilled legislator, ready to find or create common ground.  But he deserves most praise for what Caro praised him: for steadfastly championing issues he believes in, whether they are fashionable or not any longer.  They are generally the issues his brothers championed, but he has been willing to both stand up to countertrends and to adapt his proposals to new information and better ways of doing things.  For example, he has been a longstanding advocate for health care reform with the goal of coverage for all Americans, and health care as a right.  He's done this when others supported it, and adapted his ideas when bills might actually pass, but he has also done this when it was not a fashionable issue.  It's about time Ted Kennedy was recognized for his years of service and achievement.  In any case, it's getting harder for Republicans to get much of a rise out of people by holding him up as an example of devilish liberalism.  He's just too much a fixture of American political life.
 
Kennedy's speech to the convention wasn't his best.  His voice broke, and he committed one great howler, when he referred to the "shirt heard round the world."  But his theme of similiarities between Boston during the American Revolution and American political choices today was reasonably effective, and yielded one of the better jokes of the evening: "But today our struggle is not with some monarch named George who inherited the throne, though sometimes it seems that way."  He also smoothly linked "the excesses of Enron" to the "abuses of Halliburton."
 
Kennedy set the theme of Kerry representing hope, against the Bush politics of fear.  Barak Obama picked it up in the keynote address.  Billed as the rising star of the party, this 40 year old multiracial candidate for the Senate from Illinois, met high expectations with the clear language, apt comparisons and economical but memorable rhetorical flourishes, and especially a superior delivery and presence. 
 
Obama referred to the "politics of hope," a specifically Kennedyesque phrase (adapted by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in a JFK era book of the same title) and varied it to the phrase most quickly picked up by the pundits, the "audacity of hope."  He also echoed and expanded a theme of Bill Clinton last night, who pointed out that because Democrats are inclusive and Republicans depend on narrow constituencies of the rich and the far right, that Democrats don't need division, but Republicans do.  Obama scored big with the audience in the hall, and if anyone was watching, probably on TV, by challenging the idea of a divided nation: we worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't want government snooping at what library books we read in the red states; we coach Little League in the blue states, and we have gay friends in the red states.  But most importantly he addressed the Republican stereotype of the Democrats as the party of special interests, that is, of identity politics, by saying directly: we are not black America, Latino America, etc.  We are the United States of America.  
 
He scored in smaller ways, too, as in his description of an idealistic young Marine named Shamus who (paraphrasing) believed in his country and its leaders, and who was on his way to Iraq.  I wondered, Obama said, "are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us?"  In addition to questioning the Iraq debacle, he recited a quick litany of all that Americans owe the troops and their families that shamefully they are not getting from the Bushies.  We think this is particularly important because we believe that there are going to be groups of voters who will tell pollsters they are voting for Bush, but in the privacy of voting will cast their ballot for Kerry---and highest on that list will be military families.  These days that means reservists and National Guard families as well, and maybe in particular.   
 
Obama also scored with a line that we imagine goes over well on his campaign stops, when he referred to America as the land of opportunity, even for "a skinny kid with a funny name" like him.  
 
Other highlights of the night: Ron Reagan's clear and compelling (and very well received) case for stem cell research, and the winningly cute presentation of the 12 year old representative of Kids for Kerry, who suggested that vp Cheney should be given a very long time out for his bad language, and "To summarize: Kerry---American hero, next President."
 
Howard Dean received a rousing reception in the hall, but we missed most of his speech, and Dick Gephardt's.
 
The finale was Teresa Heinz Kerry, introduced by one of her sons and a pretty good but too careful short film (Candy Crowley's bio on CNN, which seemed to use outtakes from this one, was better: it portrayed Teresa as depressed after the sudden death of her husband, Senator John Heinz, who was brought to life again by her relationship with John Kerry. )
 
But while this shed some light on John Kerry and their relationship, the idea of the film was to stress Teresa as her own person.  She does have a compelling biography: brought up under a dictatorship in Mosambique, demonstrating against apartheid in South Africa in the late 1950s, a UN translator who began her speech with greetings in five languages, and an award-winning philanthopist. 
 
It will be interesting to gauge press and public reaction in the next few days, but we could certainly see why many observers say she is a tremendous asset on the campaign trail.  She is especially effective making direct contact in small groups, but she showed here that she can handle speaking to a huge crowd and the television camera with confidence, personality and style.   We imagine most viewers were at least reassured, and possibly charmed or at least had their curiosity piqued.  Various racial constituencies and women, both on domestic and international levels, should be especially impressed.  Her appearance and her speech might let the world know that at last America might be growing up enough to actually elect a man who doesn't have to hide his wife's intelligence and views.
 
The lines likely to be quoted will be those about her outspokenness, but a line that jumped out at us was: we "reject thoughtless and greedy choices in favor of thoughtful and generous actions."
 
                

convention chatter, first day
 
Like traditional societies that begin political councils by reciting their history and the names of their ancestors, the Democrats begin with evocations of their past, relating it to the theme of the future.
 
Quotes resound through the hall from Adlai Stevenson and John F. Kennedy.  The first featured speakers were Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.  
  
An early refrain, that could be a slogan: We can do better.
"voices of HMOs and Halliburtons."
 
Al Gore looked relaxed, perfecting his deadpan delivery of jokes on himself.
"You win some, you lose some, and then there's that little known 3rd category."
Tones down his rhetoric, but gets in a few zingers:
  "Let's make sure the Supreme Court doesn't pick the next president, and this president isn't the one picking the next Supreme Court."
The key to his relaxation?  Among the few people he thanks is Bill Clinton, as he associates himself again--- as well as the Democrats---with an administration of peace and prosperity, jobs and budget surpluses. 
He accuses Bush of ignoring "the climate crisis."  An interesting article advocating that politicans use this phrase can be found here:  
 
Jimmy Carter, showing both his kindly and stern sides, praises Kerry's military service in the context of past presidents who saw the horrors of war and therefore sought peace, like Eisenhower and Kennedy.  Says in this election, nothing less than America's soul is at stake.
 
A speaker concentrates on the health care crisis; a showcase for the nine Democratic women U.S. Senators; Representative Bob Menendez discusses foreign policy towards Latin America in Spanish, and possibly the most powerful moment: one of the crew on Kerry's Vietnam "fast boat"--a black man now a minister---describes exactly what Kerry did and under what conditions to get his medals and purple hearts, in one case by returning under fire to personally pull a shipmate out of the water.
 
Several people---a couple of steelworkers, a Latina, a college student---address the convention from remote locations in Ohio, Wisconsin, CA.  Several taped presentations: one the story of an infant with severe respiratory problems whose parents ran into difficulties which Kerry and his Senate office solved so the boy could receive care at home; another the story of Kerry championing a Massachusetts little league team for disabled kids, that blossomed into a national movement.  Both highlight an often forgotten feature of political office-holders: their services to constituents, to individuals and families that make real differences in their lives, sometimes small but sometimes quite large.
 
Now in prime time, Glenn Close uses her star power to keep the TV attention on the podium for a powerful presentation on 9-11 that is emotional and pointed, without in itself being political.  But it sets a theme---how we were united as a nation and as a world on Sept. 12, both as a model for how things could be and ought to be, and as an example of what the Bushies squandered.
 
Hillary Clinton in a yellow pants suit, jokes upon her reception: I'm almost speechless, a reference to the fact that she was a last minute addition, by popular demand.  She delivers a strong and tough ten minutes, emphasizing that John Kerry is a serious man for serious times.
 
Bill Clinton in a trim black suit with silvery tie, delivers a polished speech for which he had a lot of practice, as it uses themes he's honed on the speaker and book signing circuits.  He makes the case very well, and sets a high standard for following nights.  His zinger, which dovetails nicely with Hillary's speech: " Strength and wisdom are not opposing values."               
 
 
    
Style notes
Is this the first political convention to be run by a multimedia DJ?  Video quotes and short films, and a mix of recorded and live music.  Today heavy on the Motown sound: We Are Family, Dancing in the Street, What's Going On?, Bebe Winans version of the national anthem (Al Gore said it was the best he ever heard, and in our more limited experience we agree), the much-maligned "singing stewardesses" version of Proud Mary done by professional singers, and the night capped by Patti Labelle, a change is gonna come...   The first---but not the last---airing of Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode, and Bill Clinton greeted by Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. 
 
The format did look like the Oscars or Emmys, and apparently it's organized by a producer who did the Emmys on TV.

One of the short films, early on, about the Democratic party used those stylish quick shots of cameras focusing or jerking past the picture.  It reminds us of the style a few years ago for typography:when for the first time word processors gave everyone the ability to use all kinds of professional looking print fonts and produce error-free copy, it became fashionable to use word processors to create ragged lines with mistakes that looked like the work of dirty typewriter keys.  Now that all kinds of video effects and editing are available to pretty much everyone, the fashion is to turn what used to be seen only as amateurish mistakes (camera in the act of zooming or getting the subject in frame) into high style.