I just got back to the no-tell motel, and would have been able to step on Anne Laurie’s post earlier if the cops had not shut down an entire fucking southbound lane of a highway. President Obama was on the “Amer” part of “God Bless America” and I was already rushing for the exits, I am that exhausted. Imani, who seemingly has a bottomless pit of energy is heading back to the PPL to meet Heather. I figure I have a long drive, might as well be smart and get to bed early.
At any rate, the entire thing was just great. John Kerry was awesome, and I saw on my twitter feed that a lot of people were wondering where this John Kerry came from. What short memories we have, because John Kerry in 2008 gave one of my favorite speeches:
At any rate, the Obama speech was great, and the place was just electric. There was this crazy older woman about 6 rows in front of me down and to the right who just kept screaming “I love you Obama” and “YES WE CAN” and it was really funny and sweet at the same time.
I’ll have more to write about tomorrow night when we get home, but I did want to note that I think I saw the permanently deranged Robert Stacey McCain in the press room at the Arena.
MoeLarryAndJesus
John, thank you for this site and all that you do.
A day without Balloon Juice is like a day without some cat following me around demanding butler service. Which might sound negative, but it’s not.
DFS
McCain showed up in public? Won’t Brett Kimberlin follow him home and start killing his pets or something?
David Koch
There’s no need to call Ann Romney a “crazy older woman”
Geeno
I think what surprised me about Kerry was the amount and quality of the humor. He’s a great speaker, but I haven’t seen him be that funny.
Comrade Javamanphil
How easily even those of us in the weeds of this shit every day can adopt the narrative of the media. Kerry kicked Bush to the curb in the 2004 debates. But he didn’t counter the Swiftboaters quite quickly enough and we all think he’s bad at this.
Narcissus
Hey cole you’re the only dude I know who goes on a road-trip with an amazing smoking hot chick and goes to bed early for tomorrow’s drive
don’t change dude
WarMunchkin
My favorite part was Bill Clinton. I never miss a Clinton speech.
Fake audio, but fun to watch if you’re a fan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=433-nmcWw8E
Micheline
Please donate money to the Obama campaign as the Romney campaign will begin its carpet bomb ad campaign:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/06/romney-campaign-to-carpet-bomb-airwaves-after-obama-nomination-speech/
BGinCHI
Drive safe Cole-san.
This is your last chance to tell us about the BBQ you ate.
Just lie to me if you didn’t have any. You could at least judge the cole slaw for vinegar content.
It’s COLE slaw, your namesake!
Comrade Javamanphil
@Narcissus: Tunch and Lily are waiting.
SarahT
@MoeLarryAndJesus: What you said !
Fordpowers
dude. Social anxiety. It’s a thing.
Cain
@Narcissus:
Come on, I think ABL is pretty cute. You’re making Heather blush.
Matt McIrvin
Looks like the big story is going to be that the Obama speech was a failure because it wasn’t the Bill Clinton speech or the Michelle Obama speech. Obama is toast, he’s never going to be able to beat Bill Clinton on election night.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
wearing a yellow jacket?
Tractarian
In Romney’s world, the cars get the elevator; the workers get the shaft.
–Gov. Jennifer Granholm
Just thought I’d share that.
Anya
This (via Richard Adams at the Guardian) made me sad for these lovely people. I hope they get to meet the POTUS in person.
replicnt6
OT, but Romney’s come out in favor of cold fusion: http://boingboing.net/2012/09/06/179832.html
That’ll teach the Soviets.
Anya
I bet more people watched President Obama’s speech than Mittenz’.
BGinCHI
@replicnt6: Romney:
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this partition! It is not the right height!
Hill Dweller
@Matt McIrvin: Ed Kilgore predicted this earlier today.
Obama could roll out of bed and give the best speech most of these hacks have ever seen. They chose workman like for a reason.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
@replicnt6: Energy crisis solved!
KG
@replicnt6: Cold fusion? So where does he stand on death rays?
Anya
Did this idiot forget that she was McCain’s running mate? I swear that woman gets more idiotic.
BGinCHI
@Hill Dweller: Plus he lays out all the accomplishments and no one thinks that matters?
Sometimes America is like a skeevy dude who never goes on a second date.
waratah
@Matt McIrvin: I came to the same conclusion from reading twitter. I think it is funny coming from reporters and pundits because Clinton’s speech was telling it like it is which is what they should have been doing.
Phil Perspective
Cole:
I don’t think the 2008 Kerry is what people were comparing tonight to. Try four years earlier.
JustRuss
I remember Kerry’s 2008 speech, and thinking “Where was this guy in 2004?” It was that good. Didn’t see him tonight, I’ll have to check it out. Obama did great.
arguingwithsignposts
@Anya: that cannot be a real quote. is it? that’s not a word salad, that’s like a word garden.
Mnemosyne
@Anya:
Obama’s speech was about “grim determination”? Really? I think we have another of those British-to-American failures to translate here.
horatius
@Anya:
Will somebody tell this lady that she represents the below average American, y’know the mouthbreathing types?
divF
@Micheline: Done. As big a number as I could manage.
BGinCHI
@horatius: Does she know where she’s little?
Person of Choler
So where did all the people go who were going to fill the outdoor stadium but couldn’t fit indoors?
By the way, what made the guy who was going to stop the ocean’s rise decide he couldn’t fend off a late summer rainfall for a couple of hours?
rikyrah
when he said
I nearly cried. it hit me in the gut…all the anger I’ve had at the fuckers who have disrespected him from jump street.
hell fucking yeah.
Violet
Thank you, John. It has been tremendous fun to live vicariously through you and ABL. So glad you went. Rest up.
AnotherBruce
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
We must have the same cat.
? Martin
Average Americans don’t give up on a job halfway through, and then grift the public for vacation money.
magurakurin
@replicnt6: But when his scientist find that it doesn’t work he’ll trick Obama into backing it and then he will expose Obama as a fool who was duped by fake science and win. But Simon Templar will rescue the real scientist, a beautiful young woman, and she’ll show Obama’s scientist the real….
oh wait, that’s a Val Kilmer movie.
fuck Rmoney, we’re takin’ him out.
BGinCHI
@Person of Choler: I’m guessing they are at your sister’s place, doing what people do there.
Don’t be ashamed, a lot of people have poor relations.
cckids
OT, but two weeks ago when Pres. O was in Vegas, my daughter & I went to see him. Leaving after the speech, two little old ladies (both over 70 easily, both white) met back up, having been seated separately.
Both were very excited & fired up; one said “did you see? He shook my hand! HE SHOOK MY HAND!!”. The other smugly says “He hugged me!”. First one: “Well, you have that walker. You always get special treatment”. We were falling down laughing.
Enthusiasm gap my ass.
Mnemosyne
@Person of Choler:
Hey, you guys are the ones who think Obama controls the weather:
Mnemosyne
@cckids:
I think the enthusiasm gap closed about 5 minutes into Mrs. Obama’s speech on Tuesday. Possibly earlier.
BGinCHI
@Mnemosyne: Sad that the guy who made Clerks has sunk so low to be Boehner’s spox.
It really is a tough economy.
rikyrah
just made a donation to the President…
WaterGirl
@cckids: What a great story!
Yutsano
@Person of Choler: LOLWUT?
Hill Dweller
@BGinCHI: I think the wingnuts were lobbying the pundits behind the scenes to start comparing Clinton and Obama even before his speech, ignoring the fact that Obama’s people helped Clinton write it.
Of course, the Village, scared the Dems’ successful convention might produce a bump, do their best to shit on it. They need that ad revenue.
Suffern Ace
@BGinCHI: Boehner does often have that look on his face as if he’s just received a stink palm from someone.
MonkeyBoy
via twitter here is a pic of a distinctly un-angry looking ABL and the girls. She let the girls out and they decided they wanted a drink, or so she says.
BGinCHI
@Hill Dweller: Agreed. Plus they suck balls. In a non-pleasurable way, for those who don’t want to get up to that kind of thing.
Whores Race Coverage.
Anya
@arguingwithsignposts: Unfortunately it’s real.
Anya
@horatius: I think she’s proud of that fact.
MattR
@Anya: I am mildly surprised that Palin never went full metal birther. I’m sure there has to be some self serving reason that she hasn’t.
Spaghetti Lee
Ah, fuck the media. They all had their little ever-so-precious concern-trolly “Obama’s lost his base/lost his enthusiasm/is being too partisan responses” written before the speech even began. Fuck Erickson, fuck Coulter, fuck Malkin, fuck Lowry, fuck Goldberg, fuck Will, fuck Brooks, and super-extra fucks to Jennifer Rubin.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@AnotherBruce:
Maybe. I have three of the same cat.
They’re very different, but they all want butler service.
Mnemosyne
@MattR:
My guess is that she doesn’t want to open that can of worms with a 10-foot pole given all of the controversy and speculation about her last pregnancy.
MattR
@Mnemosyne: I suspect that is it, though she has never been one to shy away from insisting she be subject to a different set of standards.
pragmatism
i can’t stop laughing at this from the onion: http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-help-us-destroy-jesus-and-start-a-new-age-of,29478/?ref=auto
mdblanche
@replicnt6:
That is the really damning part of what he said. He didn’t just make a boneheaded mistake, he revealed that he is fundamentally ignorant about how scientists actually work.
Spaghetti Lee
@pragmatism:
Oh, Lord. Some misbegotten wingnut blogger is already tweeting it out as news.
pragmatism
@Spaghetti Lee: the wingnut butthurt on the facebooks about this is awesome. Ted Nugent should sue them for stealing his 1000 yrs of darkness bit.
Gil O. Teen
It was a good convention, with some fine political speech-making from Presidents Obama and Clinton, FLOTUS, Gov. Patrick, and many, many others. But let’s not get too cocky. The next eight weeks are going to be about some very dirty politicking.
We’re already seeing the pre-written stories from various corporate media outlets, explaining how Obama’s speech wasn’t that good, or was overshadowed by Clinton or Michelle, or that, all objective evidence to the contrary, the Democrat Party (sic) is disillusioned, divided, and lacks enthusiasm. At this point, they’ll say just about anything to try to suppress or deny the post-convention bounce.
Next up, a billion dollars of negative advertising over the next eight weeks, featuring nothing but blatant lies (most of them already debunked) and smears against Obama and Biden. Each new lie or smear, no matter how obviously false, will be lovingly echoed, amplified and explicated in exhaustive detail by the corporate media drones whose paychecks depend on fellating the GOP.
Combine that with a well-funded voter-suppression effort – the likes of which we haven’t seen since before the Voting Right Act was passed – and it may still be enough to get Rmoney & Lyin’ Ryan close enough to 270 electoral votes to steal the election. They’ll need help to do that, either from Republicans involved in administering the voting in swing states, or, if it comes to that, SCOTUS, but I’m sure that Fat Tony Scalia and/or whoever’s the 2012 equivalent of Kathryn Harris or Ken Blackwell will have their backs.
dm
I just watched the 2008 Kerry speech — he used the “talk about being for it before you were against it” (about Candidate McCain vs. Senator McCain) and the “before he debates Obama, he’d better finish the debate with himself” (about Candidate McCain vs. Senator McCain) in 2008, too.
But there’s nothing wrong with recycling good material.
Death Panel Truck
@pragmatism: But this is funnier.
pragmatism
@Death Panel Truck: HA! That is funnier. a lot of the facebook hurt feelers are along the lines of “why do you only pick on conservatives?” variety. i see them as equal opportunists. The Big Dog and Joey Biden take their share of lumps from the onion.
Death Panel Truck
@pragmatism: I wouldn’t want to drink a beer with Bush, but I’d happily knock back some Cuervo with “Uncle Joe.”
And then go for a cruise in the Trans Am to score some tail. ;)
Mnemosyne
@Death Panel Truck:
Joe Biden has heard the Onion story and thinks it’s hilarious:
mdblanche
@Death Panel Truck: Oh, Onion Joe Biden. You’re the only thing better than real Joe Biden.
pragmatism
@Death Panel Truck: that reminds me of the astronaut episode on the simpsons when homer calls the Big Dog and asks him if he knows where they keep the tang.
“If there is anyone who knows where the tang is, it’s you.”
TS
@Anya:
Speaking of Russia’s neighbor
I tear up whenever I see Gabby Giffords and if ever there is a reason that Palin will never return to politics it is Gabby.
RadioOne
There are delusional idiots out there on the internet who think that Obama is going to get a 5-7 point bounce from the convention, and actually believe that the lead will widen after the debates.
We have to tamp these expectations down now. Almost everyone made up their minds months ago,and it’s going to be a close election.
Death Panel Truck
@mdblanche: So true.
@Mnemosyne: Not the same Onion story, but I enjoyed the Car & Driver piece.
Death Panel Truck
@RadioOne: Concern troll is vewwy, vewwy concerned. Nobody believes a 5-7 percent bounce is in any way conceivable, and minds will definitely change once Obama carpet-bombs Rmoney in the debates.
TS
@RadioOne:
.
Only ONE reason this election will be close
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/conventions-2012-12454702
mai naem
So, I guess this means y’all aren’t going to to Morning Ho tomorrow. I am a wittle disappointed. Oh, well. I heard the USA! USA! USA! and I figured John wasn’t going to like that. Hey, at least they weren’t shaking their finger foam sticks.
jonas
@Anya: If she’s such a nobody whom nobody would ever even notice because she’s so folksy and so ‘not elite’ and the little, insignificant governor of some BFE state, why the fuck was she ever qualified to be the vice president of the US?
hep kitty
Well, as everyone knows, I’m not a huge Kerry fan but that was a good speech. I just wish he’d ease off the botox a bit.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s more like a word dump.
Emma
@Mnemosyne: God I love Joe Biden. He’s the everyman all Republicans pretend to be.
Ben Cisco
@Spaghetti Lee: This from another board I frequent:
Mnemosyne
@Death Panel Truck:
At this point, “Joe Biden” is a running character in the Onion, so I’m guessing the real Biden has seen more than the one story that they asked him about.
patrick
nice….JC, did she let you play motorboat?