AddieStan

Kerry won. Is the nation listening? While the president managed to hang on, it's clear that John Kerry won this debate. The question is, will it matter? Are people ready to admit that things are a mess, or are a majority psychologically dependent on their "I'm pretty much okay; you're basically okay" vision of America. (The answer should give us a read on just how traumatized a nation we are.) One thing's certain, though: the dogs will be out tomorrow. Rove's sure to go nuclear on Kerry. Can he be baited to go too far?

Afghanistan's back If nothing else comes of this debate, your Webwench will be forever grateful to John Kerry for putting Afghanistan back on the map, and hopefully back in front of the eyes of the American people. Long distressed by the fact that no one seems to question our nation's half-assed commitment to calming that steaming cauldron of jihad, your blogstress has found herself turning to the South Asian press to learn what's up in the land where the final battle of the cold war was won by people who were left to starve for their trouble. Kerry was right to point out that 75 percent of Afghanistan's economy is today still based on opium, that we've committed one-tenth of the number of troops committed to snagging bin Laden as we do making a mess of Iraq.

Character issues? Yuck. The character question was just asked. Lehrer asked Bush if Kerry had the character for the office. Your blogstress loathes this sort of thing; at worst baiting, at best leaving the opening for the candidates to enter into an ugly personal game. Bush was clever enough not to take the bait, and came off looking magnanimous with a string of attributes for which he says he admires his opponent: service to his country, great dad, great daughters who have been kind to the Bush girls. Then he tried to soft-pedal his message of the evening: "My concerns about the senator is (sic) that he changes his positions on the war in Iraq," Bush asserted. "In the councils of nations there must be certainty." (Excellent line, actually.) Kerry's rejoinder was strong: "It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and be wrong...What I worry about with the president is that he's not acknowledging the reality on the ground...[in Ir...

Bush hanging on Bush is hanging on, but frequently seems to find himself backing toward the ropes. Kerry is doing an outstanding job explaining the president's mistakes in war and diplomacy, and doing so in understandable terms. In a risky move, Kerry invoked his Viet Nam experience in riposte to Bush's attempt to paint Kerry as somehow demeaning the sacrifice of troops in Iraq by criticizing the war. Don't confuse the warrior with the war, Kerry asserted, reminding the audience that he'd had a little experience with that phenomenon.

Wow! Something real! Kerry comes out swinging Holy cannoli! Watching tonight's presidential debate, your blogstress finds herself spellbound by the contest: it's about real issues. And the candidates are displaying their real stuff. After those awful, lockdown poltical conventions, your cybertrix never thought she'd live to see the day. Democratic hopeful John Kerry has come out swinging, and President George W. Bush is looking a little befuddled. As Kerry knocks him about on the decision to go to Iraq, all Bush seems to have to say is that criticism of that decision sends a bad message to the troops and allies.

Someone in the House gets it In their relentless push for votes on issues that prove thorny to Dems running in conservative districts, the House Republican leadership today called a vote on the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment, another expression of contempt from the GOP for the Constitution of the United States. (The amendment would supercede the rights of the states and circumscribe the parameters of marriage to that of the hetero kind.) Because of the novelty of being the first openly lesbian congresswoman, the keen intelligence of Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) is often overlooked. Here's an excerpt from her floor speech today during debate on the marriage amendment measure: Mr. Speaker, amending the Constitution is a radical action that should only be undertaken when absolutely necessary. Preemptively amending the Constitution to prevent something that has not yet happened is a dangerous principle that this Congress should not endorse. We must always remember that...

The humanity Waking yesterday afternoon from her ick-induced nap, your blogstress spied a most unusual sight through her boudoir window. Against a sky so thick with clouds it was nearly white lurked a dirigible of the same hue. No cheery zeppelin of commerce was this--neither Goodyear nor Fuji had sent their blimp out in celebration of the return of baseball to Our Nation's Capital. No, this was an unmarked blimp, sent to clock the movements of creatures in her Capitol Hill nabe. Thus wrote the Washington Post : Yes, there was a strange blimpy object flying over some government buildings in Washington before dawn this morning. But no, it's nothing to worry about. It's on our side. And whose side might that be? Since when were the Post and the Pentagon, under whose purview the blimp surveilled , on the same side? One would hope not to see Len Downie and Don Rumsfeld skipping through Rock Creek Park holding hands. In its cuteness, its oh-so-blithe tone, th...

September 29, 2004

Where's the blogstress? Your negligent cybertrix, lost in tawdry work of Operation Regime Change (compounded by a crisis in romance), knows she has left her devoted public bereft in her unexplained absence from the blogosphere. Alas, she has now acquired some manner of stomach flu or synonymous ick, and finds herself too retchedly wretched to commit witicism. Please, dear reader, bear with. You know she'll be back.

September 24, 2004

Calling Issac Newton As Professor Soundman and I discussed last night, the reason the U.S. Constitution works so beautifully has less to do with its content than its Newtonian structure (checks, balances, weights, measures, triangulation and Classical proportions applied to the structure of government). As noted here last week, the sages of the U.S. House of Representatives think they have a better idea: two branches of government, not three, with the legislature determining the outcome of law suits that would, under the unrevised document, have been in the jurisdiction of the federal courts. In other words, the House has declared the Congress to be the determinant of whether the laws Congress itself makes are Constitutional. Kind of revolutionary, don't you think? (Not to mention unconstitutional.) At issue is a bill that passed the House last night: the Pledge of Allegiance Protection bill , which according to its summary (scroll to bottom) on Thomas.gov , "amends...

September 24, 2004

Hadn't thought of that The back-and-forth continues on the merit, or lack thereof, of stating one's belief that Bush is going to win the presidential election. (Your blogstress must admit, however, that since her pronouncement, she now thinks Kerry has something of a shot with the Clinton team running the show.) And so, after an exchange based around this e-mail from Michael Moore sent to your Webwench from Karen, Executrix of Jersey, your cyberscribe was brought up short by this, also from Karen: I'm not sure we're going to win. I think we need to act like it, though. If one of my kids winds up on a plane to Iraq, which I think is likely if Bush wins, I'm going to need to be able to tell myself that I did everything humanly possible to prevent it. I also don't want the Republicans to claim some bogus mandate for four more years of evil, which makes it important to claw for every non-Bush vote. Your blogstress, having foregone motherhood for a lif...

September 21, 2004

All about George In her relentless pursuit of knowledge and divination, your blogstress got to wondering just what the heavens might have to say about the president of the United States. So, like any well-informed 21st century occultist, she went to Astrology.com and ordered up one of those free reports for 43. Birth Data for George: Birth Date and Time..... July 6, 1946 7:26 AM Birth Location............. New Haven, CT Sun Sign.................... Cancer Your Sample Report Section 1: How You Approach Life and How You Appear To Others Ferociously proud and somewhat vain, you like to be impressive and to be seen as Somebody Special. You are not timid, meek, or self-effacing, and are rarely content being in the background or in the subordinate position. You are a natural leader, and do not take orders from others very well. You must have something of your own, something creative - be it a business, a project, a home or whatever - that you can develop and manage accord...

Welcome to the club, Mr. Lyman Reading Rick Lyman's piece about stalking Vice President Cheney in yesterday's New York Times Week in Review, your blogstress knew not whether to laugh or cry. To his credit, Mr. Lyman has not let the vice president's refusal to allow him (or any other New York Times reporter) to travel with the rest of the press corps on Air Force Two get in the way of covering Mr. Cheney on the campaign trail. Flying commercial, renting cars to drive to Podunk, wedging himself between Secret Service agents and adoring fans, Mr. Lyman has logged countless miles in pursuit of the elusive Number Two. He writes an entertainingly disjointed tail about the whole experience, which deftly reflects the disjointedness of the life the undeterred but dispossessed reporter must lead in search of his quarry. And Mr. Lyman certainly performs a public service by pulling the curtain to reveal just how pack journalism and left-out-of-the-pack journalism work. Min...

To hope, or not to hope? In our ever-flowing stream of reader mail regarding the wisdom of believing in the possibility of a Democratic victory in November's presidential race, we find this from our good pal, Breaker from the Beltway, who taught your Webwench all she knows about HTML. (Perhaps because Breaker breathes the rarified Washington air, this reader is less sanguine than your blogstress's other amis chers .) There is much to discuss, including my burning issue these days of [when] the Kerry camp is going to start putting out consistent talking points that get a clear and decisive message across. The Republicans have been very successful at relentless and consistent messaging (some would call it propaganda or manipulation... but hey, it is working). Where is the passion in the Democratic platform? What is the Democratic platform? Bush gave them so many talking points, [but] I fail to see how any of the response is on-target or meaningful. So much to ponder, an...

What's the frequency? Just when you think that the Dan Rather bad memo story can't get any weirder, here comes the tale of Buckhead, the Blogging Oppo Dog. It was Buckhead who broke the story of the fake memos (that happen to tell the truth, according to the secretary who didn't type them), and within hours of breaking it, released a treatise on 1970s models of IBM Selectric typewriters. To our collective surprise, we now learn that Buckhead is a long-time Republican political operative--a veteran of the Bring Down Clinton team. Keith Olbermann, the sexiest man in journalism, according to Playgirl , offers a feisty and funny backgrounder on MSNBC's Hardblogger . Your blogstress actually once found Dan Rather to be the sexiest man in journalism, since you never really knew just when he might twink out, or some stranger twink out on him. And your Webwench found that ever-present threat of spontaneity oddly alluring. Plus, the guy is just handsome. And how can ...

Disappearing stupid president link For those who missed the very narrow window of opportunity to view George W. Bush's latest malapropism via a link posted on AddieStan (from which the aforementioned video clip has mysteriously disappeared), your blogstress has scoured the Web to provide you with the offending sound bite. Alas, she found it only available in print. Click here and scroll down to item labeled, "You get what you pay for". Other coverage available from Reuters and AP" target=resource window>AP .

When's the revolution? In the line of AddieStan readers who seek to convince your blogstress that reality is no substitute for wishful thinking, your cybertrix's dear friend, Nancy the New York Artist, writes: I think that of all times we need to keep on having some sort of faith that good will win over evil, and that responding to the display with fear is exactly what they want. It's propaganda, and there are those who will buy into it, and there are others who have to fight to keep their faith in the intelligence of our neighbors... Jaded though she be, your Webwench truly does appreciate the sentiment expressed by the Artist. She does not necessarily find her own defeatism to be a good thing; it's just her thing--for your cybertrix lives to fight another day by getting her mind beyond November 2nd, a day she contemplates with a deep sense of foreboding. And so your blogstress asks her readers to consider this question above all else: What kind of art should...

You get what you pay for You'll recall that your blogstress's dear White Dragon (yes, dragons can be dear), provided AddieStan with a link to a remarkable clip (which has mysteriously disappeared from its Web location) of the president of the United States before an audience of women, discussing the problem of those pesky frivilous law suits that prevent ob/gyns from "practicing their love". Here's the president's riff, lifted from the transcript of Keith Olbermann's September 6th "Countdown" show on MSNBC: OLBERMANN: And one last political item in our No. 3 story. We mentioned last week that President Bush struck an odd tone in his acceptance speech by referencing the plight of doctors, specifically, OB-GYNs, who had to give up their practices due to legal and insurance costs. Not that it wasn‘t a valid point necessarily, just that it rang so oddly in a president‘s acceptance of his renomination, making the world safe for gynecology. ...

Cheese log It is with great pride that your blogstress cites AddieStan's listing on a charming site, The Toon Show presented by one Harry Claude Cat, in the category of "cheese log". (Hey, the cat has Al Franken there, too.) Today our feline friend treats us to Don Imus's interview with John Kerry, plus a delicious bit of Texas Air National Guard propaganda. As for cheese, your cybertrix imagines herself as an inventive blend of Velveeta and Camenbert: inescapably American and creamy-smooth, but with a bit of a bite.