Filed under: Barack Obama, Terror, Democratic Convention, Obama Administration

Ken Bazinet of the NY Daily News is one of the Obama Transition pool reporters who has shown a flair for keeping the "just-the-facts" chronologies pretty interesting, and he gave us some good stuff today: (via email)

While your pool was waiting in the motorcade for departure, about two dozen people in orange jump suits with black hoods over their heads and most with their hands tied behind their backs, gathered outside Transition HQ demanding that the terror prison at GITMO be shut down. They displayed a banner with a picture of the White House on it that read, "Close Guantanamo." A few also held smaller individual signs that said, "Shut down Guantanamo."

Your pooler was told the group has demonstrated outside President-elect Obama's HQ the past few days. Police, who arrived in eight vehicles, asked the group to move along and they slowly marched off single file, hands behind their backs looking like dejected vision-impaired sanitation workers (except their jumpsuits were pretty darn clean). Upon departure, we observed the relocated protesters about a block away from Transition HQ.

I think that gets the award for Funniest Pool Report, and I hesitate to even try to improve on it.

Aside from Ken's description, which could have only been improved by counter-protesters sticking feathers in their faces, I find it hilarious that, just this past Sunday, Obama said he was going to close Gitmo, and these guys immedately run to demand that he close Gitmo. They're like that Penelope character on Saturday Night Live, who tops everything anyone does. "I'm about hope and change, in fact I'm made of change, my head is dimes and my toreo is buffalo nickels..."

Don't get me wrong, I'm as rebellious as the next guy, but the typical modern protester, from what I've seen, amounts to an attention-seeking poseur. Caleb and I ran into a lot of them in Denver, where I taught them a lesson by out-attention-whoring them. We also got a hilarious glimpse of the near-empty "free speech" pen at the Pepsi Center, where one young joker took the mic to denounce the free speech pen, followed minutes later by another young man disavowing that position.

To be fair, we also ran into a group of courageous, young counter-protesters who came to lawfully disrupt the hateful Westboro Baptist Church clan. That's the kind of protest anyone can get behind.

Tommy on: BlogTalkRadio I Digg! I Facebook I Twitter

 

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Filed under: Hillary Clinton, Democrats, Barack Obama, 2008 Senate, Humor, Democratic Convention

Former Nanny star and cancer activist Fran Drescher has thrown her hat into the ring as a replacement for Hillary Clinton in the US Senate. From New York Magazine:(h/t James Kotecki)

Fran Drescher wants to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. She says she's qualified. "I've just been given the appointment of U.S. diplomat," she said at a party for HBO's Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven at that restaurant on December 3.

"My title is public diplomacy envoy for women's health issues, and I just got back from a four-country European tour of duty. I believe next I'll be sent to the Middle East."

Also an anti-cancer activist, Drescher has been considering a run for office. "I've been very successful in getting a bill passed in Washington," she said. "I was thinking I'd take the next four years to lay some groundwork, but I'm throwing my hat in the ring." What else makes her a good candidate? "I'm an authentic and honest person," she said. "And I think Capitol Hill needs more of that."

When I saw this item, I had to suppress the urge to immediately take credit for it. I hate doing that almost as much as Al Gore does. But, I looked at the evidence, and it is at least whelming.

In August, at Barack Obama's acceptance speech, I spoke with Fran, briefly. Here's the video of that encounter, which I believe shows her being bitten by the politics bug.



Now, what you don't see in the video is that after that, every time I looked over at Fran, she was throwing major vibe at me. At the time, I chalked it up to a combination of my roguish, sunburnt good looks and the sight of Caleb Howe following me around barefoot, wearing only denim overalls and a straw hat, picking a banjo that he had made for himself that morning.

I now realize that it was those things, plus the siren song of politics.

I have also realized that I am the journalistic equivalent of Tom Cruise in Minority Report. I report the "pre-news."

Sure, any numbskull can point a camera at Don Fowler while he's being a D-bag, but it takes real talent to get video of yourself inspiring someone to run for Senate in a few months.

Any nitwit can point a camera at a Fox News reporter as a crowd attacks him. It takes a keen eye for pre-news to get a half-an-hour of footage of that same reporter just before he's attacked, and not get the attack.

Any simpleton can turn his camera on a counter-protesting lunatic. It takes prescience to know that the camera will be there, and become that counter-protesting lunatic.

The upshot here is that you should all go back and skim my old stories to find out more about tomorrow's news. That 7 year-old blogger? You'll already know all about him when he wins his first Pulitzer.

Or, you can stick with Caleb Howe, and see stuff that's already happened.

 

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Filed under: Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Democratic Convention, Republican Convention, Sarah Palin

For a few years of my life, I worked part time as a fact-checker at a magazine. It's a tedious job, going through text and ferreting out mistakes, exaggerations, or outright falsehoods. Thankfully, when it comes to politics, we have the services of the good people at Factcheck.org, a non-partisan truth squad who make it their business to sound the alarm when politicians start spinning their improbable yarns. This week, they've dissected the speeches at the GOP convention, and their conclusions aren't pretty.

Among the worst of the untruths were those put forth by Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani.
John McCain took some liberties himself, mind you.

For comparison sake, you can see what they made of Barack Obama's convention speech as well.

They conclude that while both McCain and Obama stretched the truth here and there, Palin and Giuliani were guilty of outright fibs.

 

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Filed under: 2008 President, Media, Democratic Convention, Republican Convention

The Nielsen numbers are preliminary but it appears more people tuned into watch John McCain's speech last night than did Barack Obama's last week. But only barely. About 38.9 million viewers saw the McCain speech, compared to about 38.38 million for Obama. The ratings appear to mirror the national polling, which consistently has the two candidates neck and neck.

Across all broadcast networks Thursday, Sen. McCain's speech ended the night with a 4.8 rating/7 share, compared to Sen. Obama's 4.3/7 average, according to overnight numbers from metered households in 55 U.S. markets measured by Nielsen.

The GOP can crow and the McCain camp is no doubt encouraged they made the right choice picking Sarah Palin. She's got the Republican base fired up and they tuned in to the convention in droves.

 

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