Monthly Archives: August 2004

And to All a Good Night

This has been one of the longer days in recent memory, beginning with a blogger breakfast at 8:00. The day included technical problems with our internet connections; our first video post; interviews with a number of luminaries including Ed Koch, Ken Mehlman, Ari Fleischer, and, most memorably, recent Miss America Erika Herold; a National Review party at which I met Rich Lowry and Byron York; an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s »

You know the Republicans have had a good night

when Chris Matthews and his mostly liberal panel can’t think of anything negative to say about the proceedings. I’m sure the spin has started by now, but immediately after the one-two combination of John McCain and Rudy Giuliani was administered, Matthews and company could only express awe at what they had witnessed. Finally, good old Andrea Mitchell was able to get in a shot at Bush. Mitchell opined that McCain »

The power of love

We may be witnessing two of the most emotional political conventions ever to take place in the same year. But the emotions in question are very different. The primary emotion at the Democratic convention was hatred, the hatred Democrats feel towards President Bush. The primary emotion at the Repubican convention, at least tonight, was love — love for our country, love for our fallen heroes, and love for freedom. The »

“It’s like fuggin’ 9/11 never happened.”

That’s what one New York City cop told Roger Simon yesterday, during an anti-Bush protests. The overriding purpose of tonight’s session of the Republican convention — from Ron Silver’s speech, to John McCain’s, to the tributes from the loved ones of the 9/11 heroes, to Guiliani’s remarkable address — was to remind us that 9/11 did happen. We know in our hearts, and the polls confirm, that if Americans really »

America’s unsettled score

God bless Rudy Giuliani for invoking the memory of the slain Israeli athletes and of Leon Klinghoffer in his declamation on the genesis of the war in which we are engaged. I waited in vain, however, for Rudy to note that the leader of the operation that resulted in Klinghoffer’s murder — Mohammed (Abu or “Daddy”) Abbas — had been holed up in Baghdad and sheltered by Saddam Hussein until »

The night of the moderates

The list of Republican convention speakers for tonight and tomorrow is dominated by moderate and liberal Republicans. Although I’m eager to hear John McCain, I’m not thrilled with the moderate tenor of the proceedings because I’m a conservative. The MSM isn’t thrilled either, but its leading lights offer a different reason — they contend that the Republicans are concealing the true, conservative face of the party. I hope the MSM »

Gandhi then and now

In “Won’t get fooled again?” I somewhat angrily noted the family lineage involved in the efforts of Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson to assist in the destruction of Israel. This article from tomorrow’s The Age provides additional evidence: “March home, urges Gandhi grandson.” »

Video-Blogging Bloggers’ Corner

If you’re interested in what our little corner of the convention looks like, I’ve done a quick video that shows Radio Row and Bloggers’ Corner. A few celebrities and near-celebrities make appearances, including Roger Simon, Ed Morrissey, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved and Gereralissimo Duane. The video is here. Hopefully, as the convention goes on the video footage will be a little more newsworthy. »

The Bell Tolls

As our readers know, we are fresh from a bruising battle with Jim Boyd, assistant editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. So John Podhoretz’s piece in today’s New York Post seems timely to us: This democratization of the news [through blogs and talk radio] is clearly a good thing, if only because it increases available sources of information in a democracy. But it isn’t a good thing if you’re a »

Live from bloggers’ row

Captain Ed catches Rocket Man (left) in mid-keystroke when he should be networking with Roger L. Simon (center) and Tom Bevan (right) of RealClearPolitics. (Photo by Ed Morrissey courtesy of Kevin Aylward and Wizbang.) »

Happy Days are Here Again

Finally, the convention staff has our internet connections up and running. I’ve felt like a fish out of water, being cut off from the internet. On the other hand, nothing significant has been happening, so it’s not as if I would have had anything to report anyway. The action won’t really start until tonight, when McCain and Giuliani speak. In the meantime, for the curious, here is what Bloggers’ Corner »

A Slight Technical Problem

Well, I’m here at Bloggers’ Corner at Madison Square Garden, ready to start blogging. But there is one small hitch: no internet access. This rather basic requirement for Bloggers’ Corner seems to have been overlooked. They are working on fixing the problem, and I’m sure it will be up and running before anything very interesting happens. In the meantime, a few of the bloggers have been able to pick up »

Sanity check

I think it’s a good sign, from a mental health perspective, if one can say of some politicians, “I disagree with him/her most of the time, but I have great respect for him/her.” Unfortunately, there are very few politicians about whom I can presently make that statement. Maybe it’s the times; maybe it’s me. Probably it’s a bit of both. Fortunately, there is John McCain. Although I agree with him »

The lesson of 1944

Fred Barnes compares this Republican convention to that of 1944. At that time, “President Franklin Roosevelt was a commander in chief whose popularity had been worn down by nine years of economic downturn and three of world war. He was politically vulnerable. But he rallied the natural Democratic majority in the country with a convention speech vigorously defending his war record and presenting an attractive vision of a new term. »

Democratic camouflage

In today’s Wall Street, Journal James Taranto follows up on Deacon’s “Truth and consequences” with “The Democrats’ patriotism problem.” Taranto’s column also bears on our report from Thomas Lipscomb immediately below regarding the masks of John Kerry. Taranto observes that this year the Democrats have both decried imaginary Republican attacks on their patriotism and falsely impugned the patriotism of their Republican adversaries. The column places the campaign in the context »

Thomas Lipscomb reports

Over the weekend we took note of the fact that the Washington Post’s Saturday story on John Kerry’s days as the leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War blurrily retraced the reporting of Thomas Lipscomb six months ago: “The Post picks up the scent.” In recent days Lipscomb has been breaking new ground in the coverage of John Kerry’s medals and citations. We are huge fans of Lipscomb and »

RNCBloggers

Via RSS, RNCBloggers is picking up all new posts from the Web logs reporting from the Republican convention. You might want to bookmark it for handy reference over this week. On the other hand, given the indiscriminate RSS feed from our site, RNCBloggers will also be picking up my reports from the other dramatic convention taking place this week — the annual convention of the American Political Science Association starting »