This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

OK, so this post will be somewhat introspective, but I am here at The Tank, an artist colony which has opened it’s gates to the Counter Convention (not to mention their WiFi). I think Joe Trippi was outside smoking (I don’t have the face recognizing skills that Herself has). There are famous-for-blogging “celebrities” here, but I don’t really feel like coming up to them and striking up a conversation.
The Gipperporn Video
Ugg. Pictures of kids, workers, and the Gipper walking down the hall, hugging George H.W. Bush. They really scrapped the bottom of the stock footage barrel to get the necessary montage of corn fields, ranch workers, and Lee Greenwood.
“Tear down this wall!” And they did! That must make Reagan a God, or perhaps demi-god. It is as of Reagan was made on the 8th day, and then later on that day, he made the Berlin Wall fall down. This is too ludacris for me to putv into words.
Mitt Romney:
“Kerry raised taxes 98 Times”
“If you trial-kawyers, John Edwards is your man.”
“This nation can’t have a policy of 57 varieties.”
“President Bush is right, blame america first crowd is wrong.”
I forgot he ran the Salt Lake City Olympics, the one that was mired in scandel.
No one here really likes Zell, I don’t know why.

In 1940 Wendell Wilkie was the Republican nominee.
And there is no better example of someone repealing their �private plans� than this good man. He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the
time.
And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue.

So Shut The Fuck Up dissenters, we don’t want to hear from you. This is exactly the same atmosphere that the Republicans fostered around the run up to the Iraq War and the 2002 elections. Just because we disagree doesn’t mean we don’t love our country.

John Kerry wants to re-fight yesterday�s war. George Bush believes we have to fight today�s war and be ready for tomorrow�s challenges. George Bush is committed to providing the kind of forces it takes to root out terrorists.

This makes no sense at all. It is George Bush is fighting the last war – the war of Nation-State sponsored terrorism. Just like corporations, terrorism has gone transnational. al Qaeda is beholden to no state, in Afghanistan al Qaeda (though the Taliban) sponsored the state, not the other way around. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Axis of Evil rhetoric against Iran, North Korea, and Syria, and the continued support of an anti-ballistic missile shield are the result of this thinking. The Bush Administration’s actions, as a whole, are predicated on this paradigm that states are the primary sponsors of terrorism. They claim that September 11 changed everything, in some ways they are right: terrorism can, and is, a low cost, low infrastructure event that can (and does) exist outside the realm and power of nation-states. Unfortunately for all Americans, the Bush Administration does not adhere to their own rhetoric; they are still playing by the old rules.
Vice President Cheney
If the inemnity that the the local crowd showed to Miller, the level was ratcheted up when Cheney entered in. When the convention crowd started chanting “Four more years,” our room started chanting “Four More Months.”
Home ownership is about the best indicator of the health of the economy as how many times I drink water a day.
When the PBS camera accidently cut to a protester, the screen went blank. Luckily the crack security system of New York and the Secret Service prevailed.
Cheney delivered the same flat, vitriol filled speech that he has been making for the last few weeks, complete with misstatements and distortions (can we say lie yet?) about Senator Kerry.
Final Thoughts
Cheney’s speech tries to reclassify the “War on Terror” as a battle of wills, a matter of not backing down. Much like a judo move, the Democratic charge that the Bush Administration is too stubborn is being recast instead as resolve and moral seriousness. The first wave of criticism, the “flip-flop” has laid the ground for moving the debate from being about whether or not the policies of the Administration itself is valid, but that the President has made a decision and is willing to see it to the end. It is brilliant – instead of talking about actual policy, they are talking about heuristics – signs that take the place of actual ideas.
Great Quotes of the Night
VP CHeney: “I now have an opponent of my own.”
Local Partisan: “Yeah, Death!”