From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
"First Choice"
That's the name of a political TV ad starring John McCain. Powerful stuff:
"America is under attack by depraved enemies who oppose our every interest and hate every value we hold dear.
It is the great test of our generation and he has led with great moral clarity and firm resolve. He has not wavered, he has not flinched from the hard choices, he was determined and remains determined to make this world a better, safer, freer place. He deserves not only our support but our admiration."
It even ends with a hug.
You really should watch it. It's a textbook example of how to position a candidate with judgment. As in, very very very very very poor judgment.
Oh look, a maverick balloon! [POP!!!]
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday July 8, 2008
Note: Yay! Made it through another Fourth of July weekend with all ten fingers intact. The four missing toes, however, is another story.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the general election: 119
Days 'til the Festival of Nations in Portland: 18
Months of consecutive job losses as of June: 6
Job losses so far this year: 438,000
(Source: Labor Department)
Amount of money the candidates spent in total on TV ads during the presidential primary season: $210 million
(USA Today via The Week)
Chance that a story in a British newspaper is a reprinted or rewritten press release: 3 in 5
(Source: Harper's Index)
Percent chance that military service guarantees competence as a U.S. president: 0%
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
The left would see us all destroyed for nothing more than their own vile power and purposes. It is up to us---all of us---to stop them.
If 300 can hold of a million, you can make a difference.
You are the tip of the spear. You are Leonides.
Feel like the left is too powerful? Keep fighting.
Does it seem like their arrows are blotting out the sun? Fight in the shade.
Does Obama loom like the god-king Xerxes? Never kneel.
And so I say to the left:
We are the tip of the spear. We will fight you. We will never yield.
This will not be over quickly. You will not enjoy this.
---modernconservative.com
All together now: One...two...three... Allllllrighty then!!!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Doggie psychology
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CHEERS to respectful disagreement. In C&J's June 19th poll (which registered 10,400 votes), 46 percent of Kossacks said our leaders in Congress were doing a poor or fair job, while a whopping 10 percent rated them good or great. But rather than run and hide from us, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is going to show up at the Netroots Nation convention next week. Instead of jawboning behind a lectern, she'll be taking our questions and trying to help us make sense of what the hell they're doing up there on The Hill. Whether you're planning to attend or not, you can still toss in your two-cents on Iraq, the economy, FISA, energy, you name it, by submitting a question at the at the Netroots Nation web site. Plus you can rate the questions people have already submitted to improve their chances of getting asked next week. I hope I get to ask her mine---I'm dying to know how many batteries Jean Schmidt runs on.
CHEERS to the Super Bowl of political conventions. It's official: Barack Obama will give his acceptance speech at Denver's Vanity-Obsessed Mega-Corporation stadium in front of 75,000 people. To spice it up even more, Obama will deliver his speech while trying to penetrate the Broncos' defense and score a TD. (Although if he makes it to the 40, I'd go for the field goal).
JEERS to the toughest job I'll ever hate. This is gonna hurt. Former Senator Jesse Helms, one of the absolute worst American role models to ever be birthed, has died at 86. And yet I feel honor-bound to note his passing with a word of praise. So here it is: Jesse Helms left the Democratic party. For that we can be truly thankful.
CHEERS to poppin' zero-g wheelies. Okay, NASA, now I know why you want to reactivate the lunar program: it's all about taking your new toys out for a spin. In my book, that's the only reason anyone needs to do anything. Carry on.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Daily Kos executive editor SusanG reports on John McCain's plan to erase the deficit with "Victory Savings" and asks: Does it get any loonier than this?
No.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!
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CHEERS to justice by the carton. Nine years ago, in the first class-action lawsuit of its kind to go to trial, a jury in Miami held cigarette makers liable for making a defective product that causes emphysema, lung cancer and other nasties. Thank goodness Big Tobacco learned their lesson and made their product much, much safer.
JEERS to the least-revelatory revelation of the week. The folks at NY Times are goin' out on a limb again:
Over the last 25 years, opportunities to head off the current [energy] crisis were ignored, missed or deliberately blocked, according to analysts, politicians and veterans of the oil and automobile industries. What’s more, for all the surprise at just how high oil prices have climbed, and fears for the future, this is one crisis we were warned about. Ever since the oil shortages of the 1970s, one report after another has cautioned against America’s oil addiction.
We were also warned about the health care, global warming, deficit, overfishing, housing, food contamination and crumbling infrastructure crises. Oh, and who can forget the famous PDB, Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the U.S.? We're just one big ball 'o proactive, we are. Which reminds me: has anyone been thinking about fixing the Y3K bug? [sigh] Didn’t think so.
CHEERS to house calls. My partner Michael's mother, a hearing-aid specialist in Michigan and with twice the energy you might expect from a 68 year-old, visited Portland over the holiday weekend. First thing she did was grab an L-wrench and in 30 seconds fix the kitchen-sink Disposall we'd given up on two years ago. Next time she's up we'll have her take a crack at world peace.
CHEERS to thoughtful gestures. President Bush turned 62 over the weekend. His staff gave him a special gift: a wooden box fashioned from a tree planted in 1892 by Benjamin Harrison's daughter, Benjamin, Jr. (Ol' Ben didn’t quite get the whole junior thing) that looks eerily like a coffin. It measures 12" x 18", and will be used to hold a list of Bush's accomplishments over the last eight years. Which means he'll have 11" x 17" leftover for pretzels.
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Three Years Ago in C&J: July 8, 2005...The London bombings:
CHEERS to steely resolve. While yesterday's terror attack in London was awful stuff, the resilient British have been through far worse and are calmly picking up the pieces, tracking down the terrorist thugs, and getting back into the routine. But FYI: due to yesterday's disruption, we regretfully announce that tea will be at 4:02 today.
CHEERS to parliamentary procedure. Amazing...immediately after the bombings, British politicians, including George Galloway, weren't the least bit worried about openly criticizing flaws in their country's foreign policy. See, Democrats? That's how it's done. Please make a note of it.
JEERS to Brit Hume of Fox News. What a prick and a half: "My first thought when I heard...just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures [prices] this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, `Hmmm, time to buy.'" Hmmm...more like time to crawl back to your cave, jerk.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to an extra pair of hands. It's here It's here It's here! Four years ago I found a web site called electionwatches.com, which sold old-fashioned (i.e. manual-wind) watches featuring the presidential candidates waving. Even though I wore my Kerry watch proudly and told everyone about it, the Bush watch outsold his. But this year the waving Obama model is kicking the other guy's ass (we suspect because the McCain watch only goes backwards). But the real reason I'm excited about getting mine this year is because I had to retire my Kerry watch after only a few months. Obama's should last me a good eight years. That's value!
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Oh, and this just in: Sportscaster Dan Patrick is going to re-team with, um, apparently Father Guido Sarducci. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"There were no clean towels, the garbage had not been emptied, the ashtray wasn't cleaned, the bed wasn't made and there was no coffee for the next morning. Basically, nothing had been done to Cheers and Jeers."
---Lee Camp
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