I am just dying for Lilek’s Bleat tonight.
John Cole started Balloon Juice early in 2002. Those who have followed along know that this has been quite the journey.
Lautenberg/Forrester Debate I just watched
Lautenberg/Forrester Debate
I just watched the debate between Frank Lautenberg and Doug Forrester on C-Span, and I only pounded my table twice and only shot soda through my nose three times. It was a thoroughly ridiculous affair, and there is a reason Frank Lautenberg did not want to debate 20 times in 20 days- he would have had his bell rung (if he did not get lost on the way to the debates). If Frank Lautenberg were running against ANYONE anywhere in the country that had fewer than 60% Democrat registered voters, he would have about as much chance winning this election as I would becoming Miss USA (even if I shaved my legs).
I will try to break my review down into categories:
Overall Demeanor and Look
Forrester seemed slightly nervous, and he smiled too much. At times I felt like he looked like someone who was trying to sell me Amway products. He just seemed a little stiff and coached, but trying real hard to seem Senatorial. At his worst, he looked like an Emcee at a convention for aluminum siding salesman in Atlantic City. His speech pattern was equal parts syrupy and stilted. All I can remember about his clothing was that he had on a RED POWER TIE and he used too much shit in his hair- it looked like a little kid’s would when his mother had to hurry to get him ready for church.
Lautenberg had an odd symbiosis going for him. He looked partially like Mr. Burns, partially like your grandfather when he can’t find his slippers and is lashing out at grandma, the dog, or whoever conspired to take away the newspaper before he was done with the crossword puzzle. Quite frankly, Lautenberg has a face for radio and comes off as the guy yelling at you to get off his grass when all you want to do is get your ball. By comparison, Bob Dole is outright lively and charming. And Lautenberg is suffering the from early stages of dementia. Period. I forget what he was wearing because I couldn’t get past the size of his earlobes.
Issues
Forrester: Defense spending, intelligence gathering, missile defense, generally not being Lautenberg or Toricelli. I am the future.
Lautenberg: I’m a Democrat.
Gaffes
Forrester just looked canned, but he committed no verbal gaffe’s other than a sometimes stilted speech pattern. He also had to struggle really hard to keep the fake smile, because there were times that he almost broke down laughing at Lautenberg’s general buffoon-like behavior. At times, Forrester reminded me of the SNL skit when John Lovitz is playing Michael Dukakis debating Dana Carvey’s George Bush, and you see Lovitz with that silly grin thinking to himself, “I can’t believe I am losing to this guy.”
Lautenberg simply refused to answer any question (I honestly started to think he didn’t remember them after he got three to four words into his response). Period. He did however, manager to invoke the big three at every opportunity, regardless of relevance. Vote for Lautenberg, and you are in favor of abortion, social security, and you hate guns. Lautenberg did look exceptionally stupid when he was allowed to ask a question of Forrester. He accused Forrester of cheating people on some sort of insurance coverage and showed he had no understanding of business- when someone bids less than you they win the contract. Someone bid less than Forrester’s company, thus he did not get the contract. Therefore, no one was ‘cheated’ or ‘over-charged.’ He then showed he had no clue how the IRS works by claiming that if Forrester would release his personal income tax records, that would show his business dealings and how he was overcharging people. Forrester pointed out that none of that information is on income tax records and that Lautenberg himself had refused in all his years to release his tax records. I doubtthis will score any crossover votes for Forrester- how many Lautenberg voters file income taxes, or understand them, for that matter. To be completely fair, I really don’t know what the actual business dealings are, but that is how Forrester explained it, along with the fact that the lawsuits were politically motivated. I have to take him at his word, as Lautenberg was utterly incoherent.
The worst blunder of the night was when Lautenberg attempted to defend his attacks of the age of Rep. Millicent Fenwick when Lautenberg originally ran for Senate. He actually said that 72 was too old for a Freshman Senator, which to me sounded reasonable, until Forrester pointed out that ageism is wrong, and that Lautenberg, if elected, would be a 78 year old Freshman. Woops. Doubly stupid, which in Democrat circles is cause for promotion or a Nobel Prize (see Carter, Jimmy).
Most Disgusting Moments
Both go to Lautenberg. The first was for cravenly injecting Paul Wellstone into the debate (“I just came from the funeral of one of the best Senators ever, Paul -he stumbled on the name- Wwwellstone”), as if knowing a populist progressive liberal is a reason for an establishment boardroom Democrat to be elected (which, ironically, is Walter Mondale’s new campaign platform in 30 words or less).
The second point was in his closing remark when he called Forrester a coward (in so many words) for not serving in the military but being in favor of defense spending.
Overall
Forrester seemed canned, Lautenberg seemed mean, out of it, and not in control of himself or his thought processes.
My prediction is that Forrester will get a 3-4 point bump but still lose (this is New Jersey, after all). Then Lautenberg will resign and they will give it to a 40 year old. There is absolutely no chance in hell he will last all 6 years.
*** Update ***
The NY Times clearly saw the same debate I did, but they seemed to miss something. Oh yeah. The debate portion of it.
Here is another puff piece, complete with some NY Times doublespeak:
“I think we saw today that Frank Lautenberg has been out of circulation for a while and his debating skills needed a bit of honing,” said David Rebovich, a political science professor at Rider University.
Translation: The doddering fool was trounced, but we can’t tell the voters that, so we will mention it in passing.
If It Walks Like A
This quote says it all about the non-partisan Wellstone ‘memorial’:
Still, he said he knew that the service became more than just a remembrance for the dead when he got a call from a reporter “who wanted some Republican response to the memorial.
“I said [to the reporter], ‘Do you realize what you just said?’ “
The he is Bill Walsh, the State GOP Deputy Executive Director. If it was not a blatant political rally, why would the press want partisan commentary?
There will be a backlash for this behavior, I predict.
We May Be Wrong, But
We May Be Wrong, But We Care More:
Over at the Daily Kos, the reaction tothe memorial has been, well, predictable. This is why Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians all fight- give us all the same damned thing, and we see something different. I will not budge that the ‘memorial was a nakedly craven political act orchestrated by Daschle and the DNC. Period.
When I was reading Kos’s write-up, I saw this money quote:
I shed more than a few tears tonight watching the memorial. It’s not often that liberals get to proudly wear their stripes in public. As Sen. Harkin spoke of helping those who can’t help themselves, the poor, the workers, the handicap — my wife turned to me and said “how can anybody be against those ideals?” It’s beyond me.
Therein lies the problem. NOBODY IS AGAINST HELPING THE POOR, THE WORKERS, OR THE HANDICAPPED. That is just an argument you have convinced yourself of, guys- that you and only you, and people to the left of you politically, of course, are the only people who care about the poor, the downtrodden, etc.
Telling, though. Wellstone’s memorial, and it’s all about Harkin. Snicker.
For the Terminally and Willfully
For the Terminally and Willfully Stupid:
For those of you who still refuse to recognize that last night’s Wellstone affair was a tasteless political rally and not a memorial service or celebration of life, here is this, from a conributer to the Vodkapundit’s commentary on the issue:
Eulogy for Wellstone
(Daschellus Caesar, Act III, Scene 2)
Friends, Democrats, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come not to bury Wellstone, but to endorse Mondale.
The elections that men win live after them;
The ones they lose are oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Wellstone.
Our party is nothing if not ambitious:
If it were to lose control of the Senate, would be a grievous fault,
And grievously Wellstone trailed in the polls.
Here, under leave of Clinton and the rest–
For Clinton is an honourable man;
Clinton, Kennedy, McAuliffe, Lautenberg;
So are they all, all honourable men (ha ha!)–
Let this not be Wellstone’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But internal polling data says he was going to lose;
And winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
No, therefore, let us rally for Mondale, his successor,
And bring him great victory.
He hath proposed the taxes greatly to increase
Whose ransoms will the general coffers fill:
When that the special interests have cried,
Mondale hath wept with them:
Is this not how the game is played?
Ambition should be made of stern stuff:
And, brother, are we ever ambitious;
Daschle is an honourable man.
You all did see that on C-SPAN
Jim Jeffords presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did did not refuse: now that is ambition, baby!
Yet Daschle says he is not ambitious (who doth he fool?);
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to eulogize poor, dead Wellstone,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You want to keep control of the Senate, right?
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for Wellstone
When you can be out working for a Mondale victory!
Bag the funeral and let’s have a rally!
My heart is not in the coffin there with Wellstone,
For I must vote early and often for Mondale.
(Apologies to the Immortal Bard)
by Michael Morley
More Than 200 Illegal Haitian
More Than 200 Illegal Haitian Migrants Run Ashore in Miami
Presumably, they want to come here to live and become U.S. citizens, which makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking.
Don’t they know that we have a brutal, tyrannical goverment whose President was ‘selected, not elected?’
Don’t they realize that that we are a country led by a unilateralist cowboy?
Don’t they realize that if they stay, there will be no way to support them, as this is the worst economy in fifty years??
Don’t they realize that even if they stay and live to old age, the Republicans will make sure they have no social security?
Don’t they realize that as blacks who are not members of the Congressional Black Caucus, any political particpation will be viewed as akin to being a plantation slave? Can’t they be plantation slaves in Haiti?
Don’t they realize our autocratic President is going to take all their civil liberties (as soon as they become citizens and earn them)?
Don’t they realize what a bad time it is to come here? Republicans might control all three branches of government, which would be terrible for “reproductive choice, the environment, civil liberties, Social Security and health care, as well as corporate accountability.”
Don’t they know Bush wants to put arsenic in the water? Don’t they have aresenic in Haiti, or something?
Don’t they know our President is trying to start a Nuclear War by creating National Missile Defense?
Don’t they know a vast right-wing conspiracy is assassinating Senators?
Don’t they know Bush is trying to pack the courts to take away their right to abortion?
Don’t they know they are just making Katherine Harris giddy, what with all these new black voters to disenfranchise? Are there even Haitian words for ‘butterfly ballot?’
Why the hell would they want to come here? You would think they would want to go someplace with more political and economic freedom. Like Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Or Iraq. I guess they just don’t get DNC press releases, Indymedia, the NY Times, or the Guardian in Haiti. To think they thought they had it bad there. Fools.
*** Update ***
The Minute Man, (aka Thomas Maguire), sends me this money quote from Edward Said in the UK Guardian:
No one could argue today that Afghanistan, even after the rout of the Taliban, is a much better and more secure place for its citizens.
I told you they didn’t read the Guardian in Haiti.
If One More Jackass Democrat
If One More Jackass
Democrat says it is in bad taste for the Coleman campaign to keep campaigning for their candidate until the funeral, I am going to go postal. This from the Democrats, who as early as Friday afternoon, before the bodies were cold, let alone retrieved and identified, were already floating trial balloons about a possible replacement.
This is how Democrats win elections- lie, cheat, steal, and turn off the public so much they don’t want to deal with politics- and then they get to do their bidding without any opposition or with friendly courts.
And if someone tells me they were not floating trial balloons on Friday, try this google search: