AddieStan

Trippi-ing the light not so fantastic... So, the big NH is over, and all my weary newsbiz friends are fried, though the party's just begun. My favorite part was when, in his victory speech , Kerry said, "I have a message...," and indeed he did. He had Howard Dean's message. Botox aside, Kerry continues to look good. But if "electability" is the factor that keeps putting him over the top, has anyone considered just how electable he'll actually be once Rove runs oppo over the candidate's eccentric wife? And Dean! What a lovely speech of longing he gave that night. If only he had been giving that speech before he came in second. (Interestingly, MSNBC's Chris Matthews allowed Dean's speech to run far longer than he did Kerry's.) Quite the softball setup for the " Trippi trips " surprise ending. Speaking of coverage, what was CNN thinking with that lame "War Room" set they put Carville and Begala ...

Don't it make my red state blue? So, it's P-Day in the Granite State, and yours truly remains without a DSL--or any other type of telephonic electronic--connection to cyberspace. So, amid the slush I made a connection hydroponic (via rubberized boots) to a borrowed line, and have about 30 more seconds to write something witty, which just ain't gahn happen. I'm just smart enough not to prognosticate about today's contest. As for the big one in November, though, I will predict that unless the Bush team tames its snide, mocking tone , it may turn some of those solid red states purple*, leaving Mr. Rove with a mighty red face. (So, who's a weenie, now, KR?) Astute readers will discover that both of the links embedded above lead to Dan Froomkin's White House briefing on washingtonpost.com . It seems that Mr. Froomkin may just have the best job in our nation's capital. Well, except, perhaps, for Wonkette . *For those unfamiliar with the color w...

There but for the grace of God... How 'bout that Howard Dean on caucus night? Kinda makes ya glad not to have known him during his drinking years, eh? An officer and a prickly pear Then there was Wesley Clark's turn on the playground with Bob Dole, care of Larry King. Dole did his characteristic thing, something I call a blark. (A combination of a blurt and a bark.) "I think [Kerry]'s going to benefit a great deal in New Hampshire. Somebody has to lose," Dole said to Clark on air. "Now, of course, you don't want it to be you but I think it may be you." Clark began to flail around talking about leadership, when Dole blarked: "I think just politically you just became a colonel instead of a general..." Ooooo...a nerve was struck. "Senator, with all due respect, he's a lieutenant and I'm a general," Clark retorted. (I winced.) "You got to get your facts on this. He was a lieutenant in Vietn...

Two Cans and a String Oh, dear reader, are you out there? It's been so long! Alas, a conflagration of mishaps and miscues have led to your intrepid but intermittent blogger being more intermittent than usual. And during the Iowa stunner and the State of the Union snoozer, no less. I have a new computer, but no DSL to hook it into due to a great deal of confusion among phone companies. I had switched to Sprint to punish Verizon for continuing to bill me for a second line they never managed to install. I got the Sprint on a deal from AOL. Unbeknownst to me, AOL gave Sprint my debit card info, so Sprint started taking money out of my account even as they cashed the check with which I had paid my bill. So I cancelled my debit card and decided to change back to the less brazen but painfully confused Verizon. Ah, would that it were that easy. See, I deigned to move to another apartment in the same building I lived in when I began my vengeance spree against the telecoms. So now, ...

To Have and to Hold "The president loves to do that sort of thing in the inner city with black churches, and he's very good at it." So says a "White House aide" to the New York Times ' David Kirkpatrick and Robert Pear. The aide is speaking of the president's plan to visit marriage promotion programs in poor neighborhoods. Compassionate conservatism lives! More on Bush's vision thing to come...

Avoiding bin Laden I generally try to avoid the inside blogsball thing, but apparently not today. For on Josh Marshall's blog is an interesting commentary on this piece by Chris Suellentrop on Slate , which is a pretty bloggy site. What caught my attention initially was the tarnish Suellentrop's piece may or may not put on Wesley Clark's spit-polish-and-brass image. Josh Marshall unveils the mountain-out-of-molehill assessment that Suellentrop has given some of the general's utterances. But what held me is this one: "We bombed Afghanistan, we missed Osama Bin Laden, partly because the president never intended to put the resources in to get Osama Bin Laden. All along, right after 9/11, they'd made their mind up, I guess, that we were going to go after Saddam Hussein." I don't really find this Clark quote so outrageous. He is probably right. And while the Iraq war seems to be the result of craven motiviations, the avoidance of bin Laden...

Ben Franklin for Everybody! Just when you think the world might have wearied of religion angst among the pundits who parlez on presidential politics, there comes this piece from Nick Kristof, which examines the topic from a new angle. While I've been urging Howard Dean to quote Franklin when asked to speak about his own religious beliefs (Franklin declined to spell out his own with any specificity), it seems that none other than Vice President Dick Cheney has been using Frankin to telegraph his personal theology. Cheney's beliefs? The theology of empire, with a dash of predestination thrown in. Perhaps there's a Franklin quote suitable for politicians at various points on the political spectrum. As the sage of Philadelphia once said, "A place for everything, and everything in its place"--even, perhaps, an undisclosed location.

Still I Look to Find a Reason to Believe Give Up the Ghost on God, Howie! The more I listen to Howard Dean talk about religion, the more uncomfortable I become. It was less than a week ago--wasn't it?--that I took on his critics for citing Dean's apparent lack of religiosity as the latest qualifier for the "unelectable" label the anti-Deanies seek to pin on the Democratic frontrunner. But did Dean take my advice? Oh, no! Instead, he listened to the people who want to stop him, putting himself at risk for giving them all the "proof" they'll need of his heathen status. And so we have the "Dances with Job" incident. To refresh you: I suggested that Dean should decline to discuss his personal beliefs, and invoke Jefferson and Franklin in so doing. However, reminding his audiences that the denomination he adopted descends directly from the Puritans--the original religious dissenters to land in New England--well, that might not...

The Big Orange The fighter jets are roaring over Capitol Hill at an unnerving rate. When you live under restricted airspace, you can become inordinately sensitive to the sound of jet engines overhead. We've all gotten used to the sound. No one ever mentions it, as if to do so would summon some mighty bad juju. But every now and then, say when you're under Code Orange alert and the second British Airways jet in two days has been forbidden to make its daily run to the capital of the Free World, it can kinda get to you. At Dulles, where the Britjet was set to land, airport screeners learned that the airport's security director, a manager for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), had been arrested for drunk driving before his shift was over. The screeners are forbidden full union rights because full union membership, says management, would pose a threat to national security. At Dulles, at least, it looks as though TSA management poses a threat to...