You're totally wrong! Harold Ford looks like the Rock!

Ah, but does he see dead people? That would actually be cool, at least in a Haley Joel Osment sort of way.

Cyberchase from 5:15 to at least 6:30... no wonder this Convention is getting such poor ratings!

6:00 pm - Wife makes dinner. Nothing much going on at the Convention, so I decide to sit down and eat with her.

6:30 pm - That was a nice dinner. Check back in with the Convention. Still nothing happening, so decide to switch over to Sportscenter. Did you know that the Yankees might get Randy Johnson?

"6:30 pm - That was a nice dinner. Check back in with the Convention. Still nothing happening, so decide to switch over to Sportscenter. Did you know that the Yankees might get Randy Johnson?"

Dude, these are important times. Get your priorities straight, man! The NFL season is coming up. Brock Lezner (sp?) from the WWE signed with the Vikings. Have you seen his neck?

Looks nothing like Harold Ford, though ...

Kucinich is the fuckin' Rockstar!

Sharpton: "If George Bush were President in 1954, Clarence Thomas would have never gone to law school."

Ouch.

"If George Bush were President in 1954, Clarence Thomas would have never gone to law school."

If George Bush were President in 1954, we would have had an 8-year-old as President. That seems more worrying than whether Clarence Thomas would have ended up a lawyer... but that's probably just me...

And if you think the DNC is a snore fest, wait until the parte' in New York. Some how, I think that an evening listening to the Yoko Ono Experience playing Prelude to the Sound of Paint Drying seems to be infintely more interesting than watching either the DNC or RNC.

DEAR DIARY: TNR alum Bryan Curtis, now working for Slate and sitting behind me in the FleetCenter, offers a preview of Bob Graham's diary entry from tonight:

8:45 p.m. Speech at Democratic National Convention. Crowd listless. Applause lines failing. Air leaving room. Really, leaving room. Florida delegation--where's the Florida delegation? Silence. Long, devastating, horrible silence. Why? Sharpton went before me.

--Jason Zengerle
posted 9:17 p.m.

10:35 pm: John Edwards obviously didn't read your blog on outsourcing :-)

Watching the 2000 Republican convention we learned that the Republicans are the party of diversity.

At the 2004 Democratic Convention we learned that the Democrats are the party of war -- they simply love to kick ***.

8:33: The Reverend Al Sharpton says that if Bush were president in the fifties, he wouldn't have picked a Court that ruled the right way in Brown Vs. Board of Education. This is both overreaching and amusing. The only reason Brown came out the way it did is because in between the two sets of oral arguments, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren to replace Truman appointment Carl Vinson -- who would have led to a very different ruling.

Dan, you need to catch up on the news. The rumor that all Republican presidents are actually indistinguishable drones from a clone army has recently been debunked. Therefore, it is at least possible - just possible - that Eisenhower and Bush are different people with different values and attitudes, party affiliation aside.

Sharpton is correct on his basic point. Bush is not an original thinker and does not have a progressive rock in his head. Had he been from that era he would have held the conservative/right-wing values of that era.

Geez, with all that race stuff they're stuck in the time machine of the 1970s. I was going to comment more,but these conventions are party line snoozers and non-events.

What a waste of good moneys that some of us would use to start a few corporations or at least on some Great Lakes cleanup projects.

I noticed that most of the reasons Al Sharpton gave for thinking the Democrats are not taking black voters for granted were things that happened no later than the Johnson administration. As I recall he also mentioned some low-level black staffers on the Kerry campaign. And that "Obama Barako" guy. I missed his reference to the African American Democrats John Kerry considered as qualified to be Vice President as a personal injury lawyer who has treated his Senate seat as if it were a part time job.

Speaking of John Edwards, I was kind of ticked off that after promising free college, free health care, tax credits for child care, sunshine and lollipops for everyone he never got around to promising new brake linings for my '96 Ford Taurus, which is what I really need right now. And he calls himself compassionate!

"9:27: Do I agree with Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm on economic policy? Good God, no -- As I type this Granholm is stoking outsourcing fears and blathering on about "fair trade." But my word, she's a good-looking politician."

Finally, I agree with you on something other than free trade. Her speech was decent, but she needs to talk a bit faster.

AB

“The Reverend Al Sharpton says that if Bush were president in the fifties...”

How does one reconcile the views of Al Sharpton and Brad DeLong? Here is just one example of what DeLong said about the radical race card leftist over a year ago:

“The problem with treating Sharpton as just one more anti-war lefty is that that is not who he is, and legitimating him gives something I find quite scary a potential power base inside the Democratic Party. That cannot be good... Posted by DeLong at February 26, 2003 07:00 AM | TrackBack “

One merely needs to do some modest googling to find other utterances of DeLong’s disgust at Sharpton’s antics. Somebody is going to be effectively marginalized if John Kerry becomes president? Who will it be, Brad DeLong or Al Sharpton? Will the middle of the road Democrats still have a place at the table?

Sharpton: "If George Bush were President in 1954, Clarence Thomas would have never gone to law school."

Oh, yeah? Well, if John Kerry had been king of England, the Spanish armada would have crushed the English fleet! Not only that, but if John Edwards had been in charge of Russia in the late 80's, he would have never reformed the lovely 'one Russia'! Don't even get me started on what the world would be like if Al Sharpton had been at the Constitutional Convention.

Is this the season of counterfactual arguments, or what?

I guess it's redundent to say Sharpton's an idiot. I guess it doesn't mean anything to him that Bush's Sec. of State and National Security Adviser--arguably among the half dozen most important people in the government--are African American. This is the kind of crap that turned me away from liberalism and still repels me. The idea that the Democrats can take someone like Sharpton seriously and give him a forum for his inanities makes me sick.

Dude, Where's My Party? (with no apologies to the slob Michael Moore since he was willing to expropriate Ray Bradbury's title).

Re: Granholm.

Yes.

Correction to your 5:04: the Guardsman did not catch the ball. It bounced under his glove. (As one spinner spun: 'Kerry had a lot of stuff on the ball.')

sPeaking of Granholm, anyone see this?

http://www.migop.org/

Sharpton's actually toned down some of his more extreme rhetoric. The Tawana Brawley case remains a despicable piece of work on his part, and I can understand why he gives people hives.

I'm still hoping that the democratic party can cultivate black leaders who are not Jackson, Sharpton or Mosely-Braun. Obama may be good -- a little too liberal, but not a kook. Donna Braziles used to be OK, I guess she isn't actively into politics.

Where is the equivalent of Powell on the Democratic side ? It doesn't have to be an active politician, it has to be someone with a solid, long record of achievement outside of politics and is a Democrat.

Of course, I think the US will have Hispanic VPs and Presidents before African American ones.