Posted on 11/09/2002 6:13:52 AM PST by BigWaveBetty
U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) shakes hands with Chris Chelios (R) as coach Scottie Bowman (2nd L) and Brett Hull of the Detroit Red Wings look on during a ceremony honoring the team in the White House November 8, 2002. The Red Wings won the 2002 Stanley Cup by defeating the Carolina Hurricanes. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Bush (news - web sites) hosts a visit to the East Room of the White House by the NHL's Detroit Red Wings (news), winners of the 2002 Stanley Cup Championship, in Washington, Friday, Nov. 8, 2002. Left to right on front row with President Bush are: Sergei Federov, Steve Yzerman (news), Bush, retired Coach Scotty Bowman, and Brett Hull (news). (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
HLL, please tell some of those great Red Wings stories!
The most shocking thing about American politics is how "shocked" we are every time the obvious happens.
You'd think it would be a no-brainer to call an election in which a popular, barnstorming president is pitted against a leaderless political party whose only coherent message is that the other guys aim to toss the elderly into the street. But almost everyone got it wrong, including the network stars who giddily imagined that deadlock 2000 would repeat itself and Louisiana would become the new Florida, thus allowing them to ruin our Thanksgivings by bloviating from New Orleans for a solid month. History has a way of moving on, even as pundits and politicians alike keep fighting the last war.
The Democrats are farcically — or, if you choose, tragically — even more mired in the past than the press is. Terry McAuliffe has been fond of saying that defeating Jeb Bush was his top priority this year. The notion that avenging 2000 could be more important than, say, holding onto the Senate into 2004 is so nonsensical that only a party chairman cryogenically entombed in the Clinton-Gore fin de siècle could say it with a straight face.
This obsession with a lost battle was doomed in any case, and Tuesday brought final proof of "the complete failure of the `Florida anger' strategy as a motivating force for Democrats," in the words of Byron York of National Review. Not only did Jeb Bush win easily but Democratic turnout in the party's south Florida stronghold was down 17 percent from the 1994 Bush-Lawton Chiles race, despite campaign appearances for Bill McBride by Al Gore, 2000 anger incarnate. The fault this time was not in the chads.
"I'm not sure what we did wrong," Mr. McAuliffe declared on Wednesday, no less clueless in defeat than in anticipating victory. Denial, the first of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of death and dying, is his party's order of the day. (No. 2, anger, is rapidly yapping at its heels.) Tom Daschle's position is that President Bush drowned out the Democrats by talking about Iraq and North Korea. "We felt [feeeeeeling, woo woo wooooo feeeeeling!] we did have the economic plan," he told Paula Zahn on CNN. "We just weren't successful in getting you to cover it." [Snort! Gufaw!] [snip]NYTimes
Pitiful really. It's time we have a talk with the GOP in our areas. When I volunteered to call people to remind them to vote, nobody told me to ask if anyone needed a ride to the polls. Which seems like the best time to ask that question. Or perhaps a mail out to registered republicans telling them there is a service that will take them to vote followed up with a phone call.
We MUST do SOMETHING!
Eat yer heart out, Jeffords!
But look at this! Donna Brazile comes right out and says what we've known is the dims only hope to get elected and now it's in print!
Leave it to Democrats -- the "bumper-sticker party" -- to unveil a catchy slogan for their complex problem. The solution du jour for the latest Democratic debacle: Stand for Something. [snip]
-- Donna L. Brazile directed the 2000 Gore-Lieberman campaign and is chairman of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute.
Here's my Democratic bumper sticker, albeit a little long:
Vote Democratic for New Ideas on Opportunity, Responsibility and Security for All.
A couple more words: I have been through four Democratic debacles: 1980, 1984, 1994 and 2002. Similar aftermaths: a fruitless debate between the left and the center; and waiting, even hoping, the economy collapses to bring the party back. Let's do it better this time. [snip]
Let's realize we can't win without both wings of the party. Republicans were hungry enough to submerge their differences to win. We need to do the same. And let's not count on disaster to bring us back. Instead, let's stand for things we really believe and remember that we'll never win again unless we're willing to take risks that could cause us to lose. WashCompost
Unfreakinbelievable!
Let us remember those wise words from Gephardt: "For every 100 points the stock market drops we'll pick up a seat in congress!"
Lousy, filthy, scum sucking bastard got just what he and his party of rats deserved!
MAVERICK director Larry Clark beat up the distributor for his movie "Ken Park" after the jerk declared that America deserved to get attacked on 9/11.
Clark, who helmed "Kids" and "Bully," delivered a brutal beat-down to Hamish McAlpine after the screwy Scotsman started spewing anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiments during dinner at London's posh Charlotte Street Hotel Thursday night.
An enraged Clark, 59, punched McAlpine several times in the face - breaking his nose - choked him, then overturned the dinner table on the bloodied big mouth.
Clark was arrested by London police - and now McAlpine is pulling "Ken Park" from the London Film Festival, where it was supposed to unspool tonight.
"He says he's not going to distribute the film now and he's pulling it from the film festival," Clark told us from London yesterday. "He can be mad at me for punching him in the nose, but don't take it out on 'Ken Park.' "
Clark said he lost it when McAlpine ranted that 9/11 "was the best thing that ever happened to America" and declared that innocent Israelis blown up by Palestnian suicide bombers "deserved to die."
"I was wrong," Clark said. "I shouldn't have punched him. I shouldn't have lost it. But at the same time, I wouldn't have been able to look myself in the mirror the next morning if I hadn't done anything. I'm not gonna let this [bleeping] idiot talk about supporting terrorism and the killing of innocent people. I am an American!" Page Six for the rest
You done good Larry! Thank you!
I also think Larry Kudlow is a hottie. :-)
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