Open Thread

Just watched some of a video called An Engineer's Guide to Cats. Kinda long, but I laughed out loud a couple times around the 3 minute mark when they were talking about "cat hobbies".



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Edwards and Obama on The Colbert Report

Here are the videos, for anyone who missed seeing John Edwards and Barack Obama on The Colbert Report last night...

Update: Apparently the Edwards video was pulled from YouTube. I've removed both videos from this post so that people won't be clicking them in vain--I imagine the Obama one won't stay up for long. Here's a link to the Colbert Report web site, where you can watch segments from last night's program.

There was another candidate on last night's show, I seem to recall.

Oh yeah, this one:
Secretly recorded tape reveals Hillary blasting MoveOn & Democratic activists

Nice one, Hill. Do we need to remind people why MoveOn was founded in the first place?

And click here for audio of both MoveOn Hatin' Hillary and MoveOn Lovin' Hillary.

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Hillary seeking the "Colbert bump"

She's scheduled to appear on The Colbert Report tonight.

It's been taped already, as reported here.

“Are you telling me there is no one in this theater who can fix the mess we’re in?” Mr. Colbert said.

Enter Mrs. Clinton, who strode out on stage, smiling.

“I can,” she said. “I can, Stephen!”

After pausing for applause, Mrs. Clinton said, “Let me handle this,” and squinted up into some imaginary rafters to talk a technician through the problem.

Then she moved onto the issue of Mr. Colbert’s appearance.

“You know what, Stephen?” she said. “Your forehead is a little shiny. Makeup! Makeup! Can we get some translucent powder, please?”

Mr. Colbert said in mock amazement, “Wow, Senator Clinton! You’re so prepared for any situation!”

Mrs. Clinton replied, “That’s O.K., Stephen. I just love solving problems.”

I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

John Edwards will also be making an appearance on stage, and Barack Obama will be on via satellite.

(I still think a "Colbert bump" sounds like what you get when you're expecting a little Colbert.)

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To What End?

Ten million people watched this debate. Somewhat of an indication that they're interested in the outcome. They were NOT assisted in that aim. . . .

. . . many of the millions who did watch, didn't like what they saw. Including TV critic Tom Shales of the Washington Post and Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News. First Shales:

"It was another step downward for network news — usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.

The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent."

And from Bunch, an open letter to Gibson and Stephanopoulos calling their performance "a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, 'a shameful night for the U.S. media.'"

Alessandra Stanley of the NYTimes focused on "the veiled ties and tensions between news media stars and political figures" which "sometimes make voters bitter, leading them to cling to political satire by the likes of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert as a way to explain their frustration."

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/politics/abc_debate_reviews_shoddy_televised_train_wreck_excellent_82656.asp

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ICE OUT! (Shout it all together!)

Mid-April snow squalls left fresh snow on Mount Mansfield.



It won't last long.
For on Monday in Vermont the ice in Mallett's Bay
{ where listener and family sail }
broke up and was pushed by the wind to one side!



Now if that would just happen in the political campaign, eh?


This is a Speak Freely Thread. Let the winds of Change blow free!

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People who should know better

Hat tip to Jed Report for reminding us of Hillary's "tea and cookies" remark.

"Those of us who have tried to have a career, tried to have an independent life, certainly somebody like myself...you know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life."

I remember when she said that. I sympathized. I was in grad school, and had no plans (at that time) to do the "stay at home" thing. And I hadn't yet developed a real respect for how challenging and rewarding such a choice could be.

But I liked her back then. I recognized that she was treated unfairly. She's the one who talked about a "vast right wing conspiracy", remember? Knowing from personal experience what it's like to be hammered with your own ill-chosen words, she should be the first person to denounce such attacks on her fellow Democrats. Instead, she seeks to profit from them. That's just sad...and wrong.

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Bitter Voters for Obama

New web site just went up...Bitter Voters for Obama.

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"Look how American I am!", continued

Hillary Clinton: "Who do Americans want to have a beer with? Look--I've got photographic evidence right here!"



"What's that? Do shots with you?"

I can totally imagine her TerminatorVision activating at this point, rapidly displaying the probabilities of various outcomes depending on whether she says yes or no. After all of her efforts to convince the regular folks that Barack Obama is the one who is elitist while she "gets" small-town America (having been raised on "pinochle and the American dream"), can she afford to say no?

"Well...(shrug). Down the hatch!"

From ABC's Political Radar:

Clinton stood by the bar and took a shot of Crown Royal whiskey. She took one sip of the shot, then another small sip, then a few seconds later threw her head back and finished off the whole thing.

(Pictures via Huffington Post)

When I saw these pictures of Hillary Clinton last night, my first response was to be disgusted at the pandering. But then I was intrigued. Maybe this situation offers us some lemons with which we can make lemonade.

Fact: Hillary is determined to stay in this thing.
Fact: We can't get her to stop doing John McCain's work for him

Those are some rather disheartening facts. But we should at least be able to get some entertainment out of this. There could be any number of, shall we say, "less than dignified" things Hillary could be persuaded to do on camera to bolster her "real American" cred.

Developing...

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