Posted on 08/28/2004 5:14:56 AM PDT by BigWaveBetty
Go to the GOP Convention site for interactive chats, an electronic backstage pass, program schedule and news.
Please share stories and pictures of the convention.
Godspeed to Iowa Granny and Hillary's Lovely Legs on their trip to the convention!
I'm having trouble with our power, intermittent brown outs, shutting down the computer and some cable internet problems... here one minute, gone the next will be my motto for the time being.
President Bush (news - web sites) supporters taunt anti-Bush protesters as they leave the Miami Arena in Miami, Friday, Aug. 27, 2004, after listening to the president give a speech. (AP Photo/Joel Stahl)
:-)
That should put him over the top.
Bush supports Starbucks' anti-union practices? Who knew? There probably isn't anyone in the White House who gives a rat's rear end about Starbucks' staffing, and why should they?
Kerry Biographer: Kerry Can Release his Journals
The Kerry campaign has refused to release Kerry's personal Vietnam archive, including his journals and letters, saying that the senator is contractually bound to grant Brinkley exclusive access to the material. But Brinkley said this week the papers are the property of the senator and in his full control.
"I don't mind if John Kerry shows anybody anything," he said. "If he wants to let anybody in, that's his business. Go bug John Kerry, and leave me alone." The exclusivity agreement, he said, simply requires "that anybody quoting any of the material needs to cite my book."
Rats leaving a sinking ship? I sure hope so.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Saturday described John Kerry's tour of duty in Vietnam as more heroic than his own service in the Air National Guard, saying his Democratic rival had been "in harm's way."
But the president told NBC's "Today Show" that both sides should drop the debate over their wartime service, saying, "I think that we ought to move beyond the past. ... The real question is who best to lead us forward."
Asked if he believed that he and Kerry "served on the same level of heroism," Bush replied, "No, I don't. I think him going to Vietnam was more heroic than my flying fighter jets. He was in harm's way and I wasn't." Link
Clinton Visit Ends on Sour Note
By Dan McGinn, Ireland Political Editor, PA News
Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary were jeered when they left Enniskillen without saying goodbye to a crowd of around 130 people who had gathered to see them today.
Crowds waited for around two hours outside the Clinton Centre for International Peace at the site of the IRA’s Remembrance Day bomb blast in 1987 which killed 11 people.
However they were disappointed when the Clintons left the centre after spending an hour and a half meeting people involved in voluntary and youth work.
The crowd groaned as Senator Clinton and her husband’s motorcade left the town without crossing the road to shake their hands.
Some members of the public managed to greet the Clintons when they arrived and obtained their signatures, but there were boos as the motorcade left Enniskillen.
“Don’t come back,” one teenager yelled.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3416805
Tuning into BBC Radio Ulster on Thursday morning, I experienced what can only be described as a 'Troubles' flashback. The newsreader announced shortly after 7am that Bill Clinton would be holding talks in Belfast later that day with the main political parties in a bid to boost the peace process.
[snip]
The Clinton's magic no longer performs political miracles (if it ever did) and the only thing you can say about Bill and Hillary's love-in with Ireland is that wherever they go on this island the couple can be assured that the Irish media coverage will remain uncritical and fawning.
Only Eamon McCann was prepared last week to break the cosy consensus and question the Clinton legacy regarding not only Northern Ireland but wider foreign policy.
As with Mo Mowlam's supposed vital contribution to the peace process, the Clintons are given far more credit for securing some semblance of stability and compromise in the north than they deserve. Because, if you cast an objective eye on their record regarding Northern Ireland from the time of the first cease-fire to their exit from the White House, their achievements aren't so impressive.
Take, for example, Clinton's first visit to Belfast and Derry in the late autumn of 1995. Behind the gushing media hysteria and the misty-eyed sentimentality of a populace made to feel somehow important by a presidential visit, there were several reminders that all was not well with the fledgling peace process.
In the very days leading up to Air Force One touching down at Aldergrove Airport loyalist thugs beat a Catholic man to death in north Belfast's Waterworks simply because of his religion. Meanwhile, somewhere in deepest south Armagh, the IRA's top bombmakers were already planning for a spectacular strike on London that would kill two men and unleash a short but deadly resumption of Provo violence.
Indeed, the IRA army council had already made its mind up to go back to 'war' prior to the Bill and Hillary show turning up at Belfast City Hall. If the Clinton magic really worked so many wonders, then why did the sectarian killings go on and the IRA's leading cadres risk incurring Washington's wrath by returning to 'armed struggle'?
However profoundly you disagree with President Bush's decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, he is a President who means what he says. When al-Qaeda took American lives in east Africa, Clinton bombed a civilian pharmaceutical factory in Sudan; when bin Laden's terror network struck at the heart of the United States on 11 September, Bush toppled the Taliban tyranny.
Where Clinton maintained a policy of economic sanctions that hurt ordinary Iraqis and caused no pain for the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, Bush heeded the call of the Iraqi opposition and overthrew the Baath regime.
Eamon McCann quoted Norman Mailer last week, who famously quipped that with Clinton there was no bottom line. You may, like me, never dream of voting for Bush in a million of years but you've got to admit one thing - that, unlike Bill Clinton, at least Dubya has a bottom line. Complete story
I'm currently having a very good imported beer, I'll fetch you one. Not really sure about the creature's gender either.:)
What is that off to the right, a plague of locusts?
That story makes me so happy I bought a case of Harp tonight. Gotta love the Irish.
bump for reading when I get back from vacation--I can't believe I will be without media during the whole thing!
Liz Smith tells us:
PHOTOGRAPHER TOM GATES was rushing to the Mostly Mozart in Lin coln Center recently and spotted a crowd near Tavern on the Green. Tom leapt from his bike to find people quizzing former President Bill Clinton. He joined the fun. Tom: "What advice would you give John Kerry?"
B.C.: "He should be absolutely clear as possible outlining what he would do, if elected, on all major issues." [And Kerry is phoning this boob to get advise?]
Tom: "Did you see 'Fahrenheit 9/11'?"
B.C.: "Yes. And I think it's a brilliant film. I think it's a provocative film, and it is something everyone should see regardless of where they stand politically." ['Cause Ah'm gettin' a kickback dontcha know!]
Just for you I'll be extra diligent on recording the good stuff from the convention. Have lots of fun on your vacation!
That should put him over the top.
***
Now come clean off my spewed monitor after that post, M.
Way too funny.
“Don’t come back,” one teenager yelled.
***
Good thinking, over there.
It's sad that "they" will be back here.
Good job with the brewski, pm.
I had the most fantastic chair massage in the Nashville airport on our way home...fifteen minutes of heaven, and it's still doing me right.
Here's the update.
I am still in Michigan.
Today I was working at a victory center campaigning and handing out Bush tickets for Monday and then I went to the Yacht Club for a party and more campaigning.
My plane lands tomorrow in NYC at 4:00. I will then be on my way to my hotel then to a party on a boat that will be sailing around Manhattan.
Monday I am giving a speech at the Republican Women in Congress Luncheon and then over to meet women from Afghanistan.
Then a dinner and cocktail party, the convention, followed by a party with Travis Tritt.
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