Originally Posted By DAR <<They're dressed normally as they come in and then change clothes before they go crazy.>> I imagine that they're wearing both set of clothes, they couldn't have just brought in a duffel bag could they?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Okay getting of Heart I do have to ask who was in charge of security there. I know the one guy up the balcony didn't too much. But there was the one lady who started to charge the stage. How hard is it to miss these people, they're the ones that smell like weed and b.o. They're going to stand out at the GOP convention.> Yet, these are the people that supposedly know how to keep us safe...
Originally Posted By Ursula Hey, I liked balcony guy. He just kindly showed his sign and kept to himself.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice Possibly a large handbag, DAR, but that's probably doubtful since I'm sure they were checking those, ala Disneyland security at least. And it did look like the one woman was stripping as she down the stairs and was being dragged back up. Wild scene and pretty funny all in all.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>And it did look like the one woman was stripping as she down the stairs and was being dragged back up.<< She was removing her outer layer because she had stuff printed all over her clothes, just in case they took her sign away before the cameras noticed her (which they did - you could see some guy crumpling it up). Too bad for her, though, it didn't show up on TV. Most viewers didn't even know what she was protesting unless the anchors told them. One guy on whichever channel I was on at that moment noted that it was practically a gift to McCain, who is excellent under such circumstances, as he was last night.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice The second one... In the pink nightie or whatever the heck it was... The print on her back said "Pro-Choice" for sure, but I couldn't read the entire thing.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice Oh, and I was watching on CSPAN (no commentators) and knew exactly what they were doing. I think the one in the jacket was the same one they busted the night before. Short brown hair and glasses.
Originally Posted By DAR <<Yet, these are the people that supposedly know how to keep us safe...>> I don't think members of the security detail have any particular party affiliation.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? ... Well, several readers have written in to tell me that the building is actually the main building on the campus of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. ... So it's not a mansion, but a middle school. But that still doesn't answer the question of why they picked this picture to have him standing in front of -- when I would imagine that 99.9% of the US population would have no idea what they were looking at. ... Late Update: I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.<< <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/213806.php" target="_blank">http://talkingpointsmemo.com/a...3806.php</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>They're dressed normally as they come in<< Stuffed elephant hat, red white and blue feather boa, rotating bow tie, GOD GUTS AND GUNS suspenders... check....
Originally Posted By DAR Yeah I don't really get the whole dressing up thing whether it's the delagates or protesters. And when they cut to the shots of the crowd when it came to the 18-45 year old women more partisian bias but we have overall the better looking women. I mean look at Fox News.
Originally Posted By mawnck >> Stuffed elephant hat, red white and blue feather boa, rotating bow tie, GOD GUTS AND GUNS suspenders... check....<< And that was just the pit bulls.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <I don't think members of the security detail have any particular party affiliation.> Yeah, but who hired them? Doesn't the buck stop with them?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Yeah I don't really get the whole dressing up thing whether it's the delagates or protesters.<< Well, you have two parties that embrace the icons of: Fat, lumbering elephants or braying jackasses. With that in mind, a red white a blue skimmer hat and a boa seems downright reasonable I guess. ; )
Originally Posted By mawnck I for one am getting sick of all this left-wing rhetoric implying that just because Sarah Palin is from Alaska and has an undergrad degree from the University of One Of Those States With Corn All Over It and is a super-fundamentalist Christian and was a beauty pageant contestant and talks with a weird accent and shoots large mammals, that she's just trailer trash. If you're going to call somebody trailer trash, you better have a really good reason to do so. Like this t-shirt. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/31/sarah-palin-photos-a-bust_n_122816.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...816.html</a>
Originally Posted By dshyates Now we see this, after all the backtracking after talking about her rack.
Originally Posted By inlandemporer Here's what I thought about McCain's speech last night. First, I appreciated the tone, which was much better than Palin's. Although I think that ought to be a given. I don't really give too many points to someone simply for not being snarky like Palin was. Second, even though I've heard the POW story before, I respected it. I thought the end was the best part of the speech. It made me admire him as a person, but it didn't make me want to vote for him. Because in the middle of the speech, he just lost me. I was glad to hear him talk some substance, but every policy he supported was straight out of the Bush playbook. Tax policy to education to trade to energy to Iraq. All of it continuing Bush's policies. Of course he said he'd "shake things up," but he was talking about things like earmarks or corruption. I was happy to hear him use that word, especially in relation to his own party, but what he was saying in that long substantive part of the speech was basically that he wants to be "Bush without the corruption." Now obviously, that would be an improvement. But it wouldn't fundamentally change our direction. Even if he got everything he wanted, even if he was able to excise every earmark from every bill, that doesn't save all that much in the larger scheme of things. We could save a whole lot more just getting out of Iraq (at 10 billion a month!). And it does NOT fundamentally change our economic direction or get us out of this huge whole that Bush has dug for us. And then I had an mini revelation that clinched it for me. I think McCain is sincere. I don't think he's cynically saying "I'm for the average guy" while secretly twirling his moustache backstage and sharing a cigar with the fat cats laughing it up about the poor suckers. No, I think he's sincere. But in a way, that's almost worse. Because I don't think McCain GETS it. I think now he actually doesn't UNDERSTAND that simply being "Bush, but without the corruption" is not going to fundamentally change things. I don't think he's just cynically trying to appropriate Obama's strong point of change, I think he believes he really represents it. But he doesn't. If you don't change the underlying Bush policies, you don't change our direction, earmarks or no. It seems to me he really thinks that just ending earmarks and corruption will change our direction. But, although admirable goals in themselves (assuming he could even pull it off), they won't. And that's why his speech all but made up my mind to vote for Obama. Even if he gets what he wants, we'll still be heading in the wrong direction, and just digging the hole we're in deeper. Because the major policies will be the same as the past 8 years of failed policies. He told us so last night. More of the same. I'll watch the debates, and I'm still open to voting for him, because I am somewhat concerned about Obama's lack of experience, even though he seems to me one of those people who just excels at anything they put their mind to. There ARE such people, and I think he's one of them. But the inexperience is something in the back of my mind, so I'm open to McCain still. But he'll have to fundamentally break with Bush's POLICIES, not just the incompetence or corruption, before he gets my vote, which I don't see him doing, because I don't think he gets it.
Originally Posted By ecdc Regarding the Republican convention, someone on Hardball just made a great point. He said if you'd had a drinking game while watching the convention where you took a shot every time somebody mentioned Bush or Cheney, you'd end each night disappointingly sober. So true. The entire convention was about "change" and how John McCain can bring it. I love how they act as if everything that's taken place the last 8 years happened in a vacuum.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***How hard is it to miss these people, they're the ones that smell like weed and b.o. They're going to stand out at the GOP convention.*** And guys like this one are calling the Democratic candidate "elitist". I'm past outrage at this point and have gone full circle to "amused". The whole thing is just laughable at this point.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox "Some people would rather not be associated with them at all. People still talk about Heart, their songs are in current video games. Just because you don't dig them, doesn't mean that they are worthless. Grow up. Some people would rather do what's right than play political kiss ass." Well put. Seems that this is the FIFTH time this year that the McCain campaign used copyrighted works without the copyright holders' permission: <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/05/mccain-barracuda/" target="_blank">http://thinkprogress.org/2008/...rracuda/</a> Various ads have had to be pulled and/or re-edited for unauthorized use of the theme to "Rocky," the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," and video footage of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey in a "Wayne's World" skit. Jackson Browne even sued the McCain team and the Ohio GOP for unauthorized use of his song "Running on Empty." Five times in one year? This was not ignorance of the copyright law. This was willful disregard of the copyright law. And McCain has the nerve to pledge that he will "protect the creative industries from piracy": <a href="http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/cbcd3a48-4b0e-4864-8be1-d04561c132ea.htm" target="_blank">http://www.johnmccain.com/Info...32ea.htm</a> Un-freakin-believable.
