I’m with DougJ- I used to watch every second of every convention, Democratic or Republican, and I have not so much as watched an instant of it. They are just lying and then parading the 15 or so minorities in the GOP before the camera. What’s the point of watching that?
Think I’ll play some Civ V Gods and Kings while watching the Steelers. Speaking of the Steelers, mom and dad are at the game. They decided to go up, have a good dinner, then go to the game to celebrate their wedding anniversary.
Mr Stagger Lee
First congratulations to your folks, I don’t watch these stupid things, I will probably watch some college football, and do some Netflix.
Litlebritdifrnt
Jeb Bush is promoting Jeb Bush, is there any doubt now that the heavy hitters are waiting this one out until 2016?
Violet
Congrats to your folks! How many years is it?
I’m going to make chicken tacos with some leftover chicken, make some guac to go with, and watch down some stuff on the DVR. I might skim the primetime stuff, but probably will just follow along on some liveblogs. They’re more fun anyway.
cathyx
I say we all pile in the car and go to John’s house and have a party instead. Who wants to drive?
Birthmarker
Dumb and ot question–do fans have to pay to attend preseason games??
It is stunning how the repubs parade these minorities through. So cynical…A FB friend posted a pic of the female Hispanic Republican gov of NM today. No context whatsoever. Just posted the pic. It’s like, “We got one!!”
waratah
They have had more minority’s on the stage than in the audience.
@Litlebritdifrnt: I am watching Jeb Bush speak for the first time and he has not impressed me in any way.
BGinCHI
Cole, you going drinking again tonight?
It does help your late-night posts, with all due respect.
Bud
I am right with you, John. I’m the exact same way….every convention, no matter GOP or Dem and no matter if I liked the candidate or hated the candidate. In addition to skipping this entire GOP circus this week, I doubt I will watch more than Obama’s speech next week.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: Christie started the trend and they’re all doing it–Rubio, Condi, Christie, JEB! You name a possible candidate, except for maybe Ryan who is trying to play Purity Ball Son to Daddy Romney, and they’re all there to promote themselves and their 2016 brand.
And Romney knows it. He may be ignoring it, but he knows it. That’s gotta sting. It’s also going to throw him off his game. Look for more gaffes.
cathyx
@Litlebritdifrnt: So that makes Chris Christie, Condalisa Rice, Paul Ryan, and Jeb Bush so far
Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve watched most of it. I created a drinking game where I do a shot of whiskey every time a Republican lies. I’ve blacked out a half dozen times and died once.
Baud
I stopped paying attention in 2000.
Welcome to oblivion. It’s really quite lovely here.
MattF
And there’s the 0% Romney got in that poll from African-American voters. Pretty remarkable, considering that in any poll there’s a few who don’t understand the question, and that 0% really means less than 0.5%, otherwise it would have rounded up to 1%. It’s an achievement. So, if the question is “Romney?” the answer is “No, no, no, No-no-no-no, You’re not the one for me”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vklWbjPrd8c&feature=related
MikeJ
Seattlites! Slog tells me Vessel is back! The only bar in town that challenges Zig-Zag for quality.
Roger Moore
@Birthmarker:
Yes, of course they do. People are willing to pay money to watch them, so the teams are naturally going to cash in. The same thing is true of spring training games in baseball. If they just gave the tickets away, a lot of them would wind up being sold at a big markup by scalpers, so the teams might as well charge for them and keep the money themselves.
Mino
A little something we have to look forward to when the oligarchy comes. South African police shoot 34 of the men in a crowd protesting before the platinum mine, and then the entire crowd of miners is charged with their murder. Kafka has nothing on this.
TheMightyTrowel
This song seems pretty appropriate right now…
I will stop at nothing. Say the right things, when electioneering…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnRDDmXupA4
DonkeyKong
I did watch an hour of last nights dystopian funhouse and ended up pounding the floor with my fist like Charlton Heston at the last scene in Planet of the Apes.
Villago Delenda Est
John, good for your parents.
I hope the game is entertaining.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore:
In fact, preseason games are part of the season ticket package, and you pay exactly the same amount for an “exhibition” game as you do for the “real thing.”
Birthmarker
Thanks for info about preseason games.
Villago Delenda Est
@Litlebritdifrnt:
There wasn’t any doubt 2 years ago that the heavy hitters were sitting this one out.
The result was the klown kar kavalcade of the GOP primary season.
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
@Violet:
@cathyx:
In years to come, history books will look back on RNC Tampa 2012 as “The Audition Convention.”
geg6
Congrats to your parents, Cole! How many years? They have a beautiful evening and what looks to be a blowout of a game. Hope they went to a nice place in town. There are lots of them these days.
I, too, have not watched a minute of the GOP fail parade. A very odd thing for a lifelong political junkie like me. I vaguely remember LBJ v. Goldwater, but ’68 was the first time I watched both conventions obsessively and with enough knowledge to know what was happening. I’ve never missed a convention of either party since. Until now. I just can’t subject myself to the blatant lies and casual cruelty that is the RNC in 2012.
I’ve got the Steelers on and may tune in to Project Runway later. I’m off tomorrow, I’m +3, and I just wanna relax and forget about Mittens tonight.
Ash Can
Congrats to the Cole parents! Sounds like a great time.
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And the way you play it is, you fly down to the Jack Daniels distillery and dive into one of the tanks.
cathyx
@SiubhanDuinne: I hope the 2016 race gets real ugly.
Birthmarker
I am watching the Steelers/Panthers on the NFL online preseason package, which is actually a pretty good deal for $20. The Panthers’ 2nd string QB, Anderson, isn’t too bad. Just kind of a workhorse kind of guy. Not flashy.
John Cole
I thonk it is 44 years.
Larkspur
Ooh, happy anniversary to the lovely people what spawned our Cole.
I am house-sitting at a place with cable TV and I am not going to waste it on the RNC. I’m going to catch up on Suits. Also, last night I watched an independent documentary entitled Mine, about the companion animal rescues post-Katrina, and subsequent attempts to re-connect people with their lost pets. It’s part feel-good and part hugely troubling.
gogol's wife
@BGinCHI:
That was really something. It made it hard for me to get started on work this morning.
cathyx
@John Cole: You mean they didn’t have to marry because you were on the way?
EmanG
I think the teleprompter person is a Democrat….
Bob h
Ditto. Watching Republican conventions is in a category with prostate biopsies, etc. Spent afternoon at movies: Compliance and Ccsmopolis, both excellent.
Bob h
Ditto. Watching Republican conventions is in a category with prostate biopsies, etc. Spent afternoon at movies: Compliance and Ccsmopolis, both excellent.
mamayaga
The 2008 Dem convention is the only one I’ve watched at all in a long, long time. Even though I’ve been acutely aware of politics since the 60s, and have seen and even participated in a lot of turmoil, recently every election has seemed like the most crucial electoral situation I’ve ever seen. The anxiety goes right up to 11 when it looks like the media is going to grease the way for liars and scumbags again, and I just have to turn away.
One thing that has kept me from going too far off the deep end in the last year is watching the ever-tightening web around Rupert Murdoch and News Corp due to his minions’ habitual phone hacking, bribing, computer hacking, and most recently, obstruction of justice. Today Tom Crone, corporate lawyer, long time fixture in Rupie’s shop, and previously a right hand to the man himself, was arrested. This is someone in a position to drop a dime on Rupert’s son James. It’s getting good…
Maude
@cathyx:
You neat me to it.
Just Some Fuckhead
You need to stop thonking and just dribk.
HinTN
@cathyx: I’ll drive. How long will it take to get there?
cathyx
@HinTN: From here, if we drive straight through, 3 days.
chopper
@MattF:
to be fair, the poll was rigged. the question was ‘romney?’ and the choice was 1) no and 2) hell no.
funny tho, #2 still got over 99% of responses.
Maude
The SEAL guy will be on 60 Minutes. His voice will be disguised and his face blurred.
It’s to protect his identity.
Who will come out with his name in ten minutes after the show?
This is stupid. It isn’t cranking up the attention he had hoped for.
MikeJ
@Maude: I thought Fox already outed him.
Corner Store Operator
So who was the big mystery guest that was supposed to speak at the RNC? Did that happen yet?
redshirt
@Just Some Fuckhead: Fluck yeah!
Maude
@MikeJ:
So did I.
Thoughtcrime
@Corner Store Operator:
Here’s how it went down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s46jNfA9iMw
Joel
@MikeJ: Canon is pretty good.
robertdsc-PowerBook
Congrats to your folks, Cole.
Maude
@Corner Store Operator:
They say Dirty Harry.
Anne Laurie
@Violet:
You are correct, and I am so stealing that metaphor!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Store Operator: No. I’m hoping it’s Ahmadinejad to make the continuing case you don’t have to share someone’s faith to share their cultural values.
trollhattan
Wow, some blah woman just said of Willard, “He struck me then, and strikes me now…”
Didn’t know Willard was an abuser.
Foggy F Follansbye
Watching now, and apparently Romney is going to promise to appoint a lot of diverse feminazis to his cabinet.
Corner Stone
Freaky.
trollhattan
Stephen Covey is “late?” Didn’t know that.
“The seven habits of dead people” should be the next Breitbart moovee.
trollhattan
Who’s “Teller Hicks” and what does he know of streets and the taking to of?
Suzanne
@Just Some Fuckhead: That was funny!
John Cole
@cathyx: No. I was not born a bastard, i just grew into one.
Corner Stone
Mitt-Watch 2012!
trollhattan
Y’all need to be reading TBogg’s twittertwats in case you’re not.
trollhattan
Kim’s let herself go since the Olympics. Or maybe skeeters can be chunky (not that there’s anything…).
Foggy F Follansbye
Dang! Mitt just wrapped up the olympic skeet-shooting vote.
cathyx
@John Cole: Well, you should quit blogging then because we all know enough about you now to know that that isn’t true.
Foggy F Follansbye
No! Not Scott Hamilton! How could he!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Suzanne: And I’m winning!
Foggy F Follansbye
The RNC crowd has no idea how to respond to these liberal democrat Bennetton Olympians praising Mitt.
mai naem
@Litlebritdifrnt: I’m just glad the Dems are going to have their own heavy hitters by then – Hillary,Biden, Martin O’Malley, Dan Malloy, Warner,the Udalls, Deval Patrick, Cuomo, Schweitzer, Hickenlooper, folks from Obama’s cabinet – if Obamacare goes as planned by the Dems, Sebelius is going to be looking pretty damn good.
Suffern ACE
So Ryan’s message was that it was his generations calling to keep everything the way it is for their is for his children. Romney’s foreign policy will be simultaneously a paradigm shift and a restoration of Truman and Reagan. Egads. What a bunch of hopeless hooey on the hill.
J.D. Rhoades
Completely out of left field question: Does anyone know a quick and simple way to re-string a 4-string Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer? Because if I have to go through what I just went through every time I change strings, I’m going to chuck the sumbitch in the creek.
mai naem
@Maude: They already know the name. Reuters said Al Quaeda got his name on their website but that they(reuters) wasn’t releasing his name because of security.
Just Some Fuckhead
@J.D. Rhoades: I think you mean “crick”.
realbtl
@J.D. Rhoades:
Should be dirt simple. Unless you have one of the “authentic” ones with friction pegs. If that is the case throw the sumbitch in the crick and get one with geared tuners.
Just Some Fuckhead
Shew, Mitt uses the right lightbulbs, not those commie CFLs. Somewhere, Michelle Bachmann swooned.
Foggy F Follansbye
Romney’s grandfather “fled from a revolution?”. What?
Suffern ACE
@Foggy F Follansbye: Well that is true. He left Mexico during their revolution.
Corner Stone
God damn Clint. You’re not a stand up comedian.
This is brutal.
Just Some Fuckhead
Wow.
Clint Eastwood is a fucking trainwreck.
jgaugust
Is this actually happening? What the hell is going on in Tampa?
Elizabelle
shambling. and not well informed
i bet he prepares more carefully for his movies
Spectre
That moment when you realize Clint Eastwood doesn’t actually act. He actually IS a confused old loon.
jgaugust
@Elizabelle: Have you seen any of his films lately? They are just about this disjointed in their plots.
J.D. Rhoades
Dear Lord, this Clint Eastwood “surprise” appearance is a complete train wreck. Stammering and stumbling? Talking to an empty chair? This is just sad.
Quincy
Perhaps he could have spent a little more time studying the story boards for the speech.
Foggy F Follansbye
Obama needs to line up Betty White asap.
trollhattan
Wreck, train, one(1).
Your modern Republican Party.
jgaugust
This is actually what the RNC is doing to introduce their party’s candidate for President. Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?
Rachel Maddow absolutely teeing off on what she just saw. Holy shit that was a travesty.
Rita R.
Clint Eastwood: drunk or senile?
Spectre
Yay, now the pathological liar comes out to restart the Bay of Pigs.
Elizabelle
speechless
Quincy
This is the only night of the convention I’ve tuned in for so far. They haven’t all been like this have they? That Clint speech was wonderful.
Elizabelle
@Rita R.:
both?
trollhattan
I’m drinking this bottle of Cognac if Rubio describes his father’s hands.
Odie Hugh Manatee
What the hell did Eastwood say? That was the strangest thing I have ever heard and I thought that before Rachel Maddow came back on basically speechless.
Wow, I have no idea what the hell Eastwood was supposed to accomplish. None, not one.
Wow. Just wow.
trollhattan
@Rita R.:
Yes!
Elizabelle
@trollhattan:
was his grandfather a coal miner?
J.D. Rhoades
I can’t even mock Clint. It would be cruel.
Emma
Has anyone been keeping up with Tbogg on Twitter? better than booze.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
Cigar miner. Which sounds dirty, but it’s really a way of life.
Corner Stone
To Marco Rubio Groupies – You’re stupid.
Marked Hoosier
Gotta admit, seeing Clint Eastwood at the convention endorsing Romney sucked. I am a fan, and knew he was republican, but it still stings.
Quincy
Any chance Clint’s a Hollywood liberal whose just been running a long con?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Corner Stone:
I’m watching on a 20 minute delay.
Empty Chair? Seriously?
Does anyone else find talking to an empty chair to be kind of a pussy move?
FuriousPhil
I thought McCain was the “Get off my lawn” moment, but now I’m not so sure.
Always will like Clint and his movies, but that was…weird. Half community theater monologue, half Grampa Simpson.
hilts
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Clint Eastwood has redefined the word pathetic
Quincy
Any chance Clint’s a Hollywood liberal whose just been running a long con?
Corner Stone
Well, yeah, you fucksicle. They got rich stealing from all the rest of us.
trollhattan
Rubio waiting for the goobers to applaud his punchlines is a bit discomforting.
mai naem
@Foggy F Follansbye: That would not be fair. Fairer would be to stick Kirk Douglas up there. He’s 95 and would sound more coherent and, furthermore, he could talk about the good medicare did for him after his stroke.
freelancer
@invisibleObama is now an entity on twitter.
Elizabelle
@Marked Hoosier:
seeing him endorse so badly took a little of the sting out of it.
And Clint’s into projection too. Sad.
trollhattan
“We’re special.”
Yup, twelve for a buck, thru Saturday.
jgaugust
Rubio is basically giving a religious sermon on stage right now. Umm…this is the oddest hour of political primetime I’ve ever watched…
Just Some Fuckhead
Rubio is in a deathmatch right now with Christie for the 2016 nomination.
Elizabelle
@Marked Hoosier:
seeing him endorse so badly took a little of the sting out of it.
And Clint’s into projection too. Sad.
Elizabelle
@Marked Hoosier:
seeing him endorse so badly took a little of the sting out of it.
And Clint’s into projection too. Sad.
jgaugust
@Just Some Fuckhead: And Martinez from NM. It’ll be the three of them.
Elizabelle
@Marked Hoosier:
seeing him endorse so badly took a little of the sting out of it.
And Clint’s into projection too. Sad.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Santorum.
If we still live.
Spectre
“TBogg @tbogg
Politifact gives Invisible Obama Chair two invisible Pinocchios”
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Santorum.
If we still live.
trollhattan
Jayzus this site is fracked up today.
And so’s Willard.
trollhattan
Mic following Willard just picked up someone yelling, “No, no don’t touch me!” WTF?
Spectre
@trollhattan:
He was probably being groped by some closet case homophobe.
Lurker
Ugh. A liberal friend on Facebook got upset that President Obama granted Shell the right to “preparatory work” (but not actual DRILLING rights) in the Arctic. So he’s vowed to vote third-party this election instead of for Barack Obama.
We’re in California, not a swing state, so it’s not like this will affect the actual outcome of the election. However, I find his willingness to risk a Romney win disturbing.
Redleg
Phuk the phuking Steelers! Go, Bengals!
Re: the convention- I am with you John- I haven’t been able to stomach more than 5 minute bursts of bullshit. The phuking lame-stream media better start doing their job and calling bullshit on the blatant lies and distortions. I just heard Rmoney say that the country is worse off now than when Obama took office. That is an easily disprovable proposition.
Violet
@Anne Laurie: I wish I could claim it, but I got it from eric last night: https://balloon-juice.com/2012/08/30/let-me-step-into-your-erotic-zone/#comment-3657521
e.a.f.
I really have a difficult time listening to some of the Republicans so i turn off the sound. It makes it very interesting when all you are focusing on it their body language & their facial expressions. That guy they have up for v.p. has the smuggest facial expression & have ever seen on a politician.
I did watch clint for awhile, just for old times sake, he used to be soooo good looking. now he is kind of old but still when compared to some of the crowd, not too bad, I just didn’t want him to talk.