Democrats Control the Hill, but Not Themselves

The Washington Post ^ | Saturday, February 3, 2007 | Dana Milbank

[MinorityRepublican]

Yesterday was the first cattle call of the Democratic presidential campaign and -- holy cow! -- these candidates can moo.

"Each candidate has been given seven minutes to speak," announced Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean before the first of six Democratic candidates took the stage at the Hilton Washington. He further announced that an "official timekeeper" will hold up warning and "time's up" signs. "After 10 minutes, wild gesticulations will take place," he threatened.

This quaint exercise in Democratic Party discipline lasted about, well, seven minutes. The first candidate, Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.), took the floor for 20 minutes and 15 seconds, ignoring Dean's hovering, the removal of Dodd's image from the projection screens, and the fact that he drew applause for saying "Let me conclude." Former senator John Edwards (17:40) wasn't far behind, trailed by Sens. Hillary Clinton (16:12) and Barack Obama (15:30).

The closest to the limit was Rep. Dennis Kucinich (12:38), but this was probably because the audience treated his appearance as a chance to start conversations or to visit the restrooms. "Can you hear me in the back?" Kucinich called above the din. "Because I can hear you."

Now in control of Congress, Democrats were eager to demonstrate that they could make the trains run on time yesterday. They started the proceedings with an ROTC color guard. And Dean sternly read out the ground rules. "Each candidate was given the opportunity to play 30 seconds of music and can have up to 100 campaign signs evenly placed around the room."

But the Democratic National Committee is not exactly a precision drill team. The first speaker, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, wasn't ready when his time came to speak. Clinton, for her part, showed flagrant disregard for Dean's sign restrictions; her supporters hoisted about 300.

[onyx]

I hear you, but I am longing for HOT weather.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Found out this morning that mom and dad have been watching PAD ever since I mentioned to dad about it. Dad asked me if I watched it last night, and I said "of course". LOL

[BigSkyFreeper]

I love hot summer days. Five minutes out in the sun, and my summer tan is taken care of.

[onyx]

:0)

[STARWISE]

[onyx]

He gets the white chair. :0)

[BigSkyFreeper]

Not exactly a sunny tropical location, but I took this photo while I was in Denmark, which is currently the desktop wallpaper of my computer at the moment.

[BigSkyFreeper]

He gets the white chair. :0)

Which one? The one out there in the blazing sun? LMFAO

[STARWISE]

ROFL!! Aaaw .. plenty pretty chairs for all of us.

[STARWISE]

Nice job .. is that an ocean? The sand looks dark.

[BigSkyFreeper]

That is the North Sea. I'm on top of a 300 foot tall "walking desert", and about 50 feet in front of me is about a 500 foot cliff, and down below is a small beach. The wind was blowing pretty good off the Sea, and those paragliders were practically hanging in midair and sometimes swooping down and circling around the pile of sand back out over the water.

:)

[BigSkyFreeper]

This is me, at the same location. The tower is actually the steeple of a 400 foot tall church that is about 500 years old, completely destroyed by the walking desert. A person will be able to see the full extent of the damage to the church in about 15 years when the 300 foot tall pile of sand has moved on.

[STARWISE]

The terrain looks so stark. Looks like it was pretty chilly.

[BigSkyFreeper]

That was one of the nicer days. It was about 45 degrees that day. Denmark is a mix of all kinds of terrain, aside from mountains. For the most part it reminded me of Wisconsin. Lush rolling green hills and plenty of trees, and the whole month our family was there, we probably had less than a week of clear, dry days. Temperatures were anywhere from 45 to 65 in the daytime and 32 to 45 at night, and you knew when it got really humid when it was fogged over.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Typical Danish farm

Fredrickshavn, Denmark (pop. 30,000 - Northern Denmark)and the "Havn" (Harbor). This is the town we stayed at for most of our stay.

[Txsleuth]

The article by Dana Milbank mentioned that Hillary got less than enthusiastic applause by a lot of the dems at that convention.

[Txsleuth]

I have been reading ya'lls posts...

I keep looking for the Roaming Gnome.....where did he go??

Love the pictures...especially on the beach...

Gotta get my passport, onyx.

[STARWISE]

Ooh .. that is just beautiful, BSF .. I see the WI comparison.

[STARWISE]

Yeah .. there's some new rules aren't there. I haven't had one since I lived in the Bahamas.

I shouldn't keep looking at this .. it makes me so nauseous .. look at what theRapist gets paid to ...just to move his mouth and s-p-e-w his crappola .. scroll down to spouse's income.

http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/pfd2005/N00000019_2005.pdf

But I figure those that are stupid and partisan enough to hire him will also be supporting his WINO ...

[RobbyS]

He nay be a Christian, but his church is as opposed to Israel as the Black Muslims. The theological differences between such Christians and Muslims are slight.