For Live Convention Blogging, Check Out Bob Cesca!

There is no dearth of news coming out of the convention, via MSM or the blogging world (go to Memeorandum, and wear waders).

Nor on the airwaves, with cable news employing resources and staff, that is only slightly higher then when a white woman goes missing.

So, lets us point out, above the fray, a voice or two you should check out.

Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! Go!

No, not our description, that is the name.

He's been going at it, giving minute-by-minute updates, marked with wry, and often, hysterical observations.

Liveblogging The DNC - Day One

8:14PM
Speaker Pelosi is making with the talking now. We heard her earlier as she was nominated as the chair of convention just prior to the ratification of the platform. And, by the way, she's wearing a lovely dentist smock.

Liveblogging The DNC - Day Two

9:38PM
My senator, Bob Casey, just delivered the line of the night so far:

"John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush over 90 percent of the time. That's not a maverick. That's a sidekick!"

10:28PM
Governor Schweitzer of Montana is totally eviscerating Senator McCain on CSPAN. But of course the cable news networks are busy talking about how the Democrats aren't eviscerating Senator McCain. This is fucking horseshit. Here's Schweitzer:

"If you drill in all of John McCain's back yards -- even the ones he doesn't know he has... that single answer proposition is a dry well!"

Check it out ...

Also, take a spin by Dennis Perrin, for more on-the-money takes on the Denver Dog-and-Pony Show.

James Carville physically resembles an "X-Files" creature, his marble-mouth syntax harder than ever to decipher. Plus, he looks like he really doesn't give a shit about the convention. He's a Clinton crony, so he can't be happy about how the convention is shaking down, despite tonight being Hillary's big show. But overall, he just appears bored, phoning in his standard routines.
David Brooks acts like a balding, nearsighted hyena, baring his blunt fangs while making predictable, pre-chewed points. Jim Lehrer looks nearly dead, and no amount of pancake can make Mark Shields appear as if he's 98.6. Probably the freezer he's kept in between segments.

Go visit Dennis Perrin

Perrin On McCain, Clinton and Pornographic Ringtones

No quotes on this one.

It would spoil things.

Head on over to Dennis Perrin and read his post from Saturday (H/T to Barry Crimmins);

Crisp Bluejay Sutra

It's fall-on-the-floor, tears-in-the-eyes, funny!

Best of Day! ... Dennis Perrin

Fox News, which looks like something they pipe into solitary cells in federal prisons ..."

Between the Ming Dynasty-like schedule of debates, the coverage of voting night by the Cable News guys (heaven forbid, the networks interrupt their idolized reality shows) has, in most cases, rivaled Ronald Reagan's funeral (I think if you search in the 200-range of your cable channels, you may be able to find the Old Gipper's burial still going on).

Is there really a need to go on-air some two-to-three-hours before the polls close?

At this point, about the best Exit Poll data they have is the extrapolation of the 16 people who voted between 2-3PM, not, necessarily, a hindrance to the gasbags to dribble out their theories and begin testing their narratives, which they will babble on endlessly, during the final six-hours of broadcast after the polls close?

Just some random musings, a prelude to hipping you to our second offering of Best of Day (okay, we've fallen down a bit on this, as it should be highlighted with greater frequency)

Dennis Perrin, in his post "Where Have You Gone, Diane Linkletter?", riffing on watching the primary returns last evening, had a falling-over-with-tears hysterical line.

"Of the three major channels, MSNBC has to be the worst. Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Tim Russert taken all at once is too much for the sober mind to process, their pale, sagging faces morphing into a single yammering unit. Toss in Stepford Anchor Norah O'Donnell and the mummified remains of Tom Brokaw, and who needs hallucinogens? Granted, MSNBC is bad acid, cut with the cheapest crank, but you'll experience insane images and sounds not found at its competitors, especially Fox News, which looks like something they pipe into solitary cells in federal prisons."

Visit (and bookmark) Dennis Perrin


Bonus Links

Riding The Woody Allen Train To Last Night's MSNBC Democrat Debate

Obama Romps ... And, Gloria Borger, with The Best Political Team on Television, Sticks Her Neck Out

Last Nights' Dress Boy Sticks His Neck Out

Boy, this took a lot of courage ... And what prescience!

Move over Nostradamus, there's a new kid on the block ...

Maybe he has a "feeling" on how the Cubs are going to do this season ... Or, does he already know who our next president will be? ... Or perhaps, he's holding high over our guilty pleasures, teasing those around him, smug with the knowledge of who is this season's American Idol winner?

Drum roll, please ...

Prediction [Jonah Goldberg]

"In the next few days, there will be a wave of liberals — Frank Rich comes particularly to mind — who will use WFB's memory to beat up on today's conservatives ..."

Whoa! ... Ya think so?

Well, Commissar Goldberg, you don't have to wait that long ... And you don't have to worry about "today's conservatives" ...Beating up on Buckley himself will do just fine ...

Barry Crimmins - Burial Right

Dennis Perrin - Socked In The God Damned Face (with bonus videos of Noam Chomsky schooling Little Billy)


Bonus Links

"The morning after always looks grim if you happen to be wearing last night's dress"

Timothy Noah/Slate: Am I a Fascist? Jonah Goldberg's tendentious history of liberalism

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Dear Jonah: I Am Not Serious, Either


Move over, Old Timer, the new kid Jonah is taking over!

Three For The Road To Democracy (And How To Make SUV Sunroofs Safer) ... Perrin and Crimmins ... And Perrin Again ...

There's a boatload of great reports and posting on the situation in Pakistan (suggest you visit Memeorandum and use their Archives feature, pulling up the posts over the past few days; And there's a new-kid-on-the-block, Megite you can check out) - and the reaction to it here, by our media, and the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds running for President.

Both Barry Crimmins and Dennis Perrin ring in with a few that definitely rank high on the list.

Perrin asks, What Can Red, White & Blue Do For You?, and to give you a good idea where he takes this ...

"Suddenly, everyone's an expert on Pakistan, or at least a mourner of Benazir Bhutto, who, for some, is swiftly becoming the Princess Di of the Near East ..."

Crimmins weighs in with "River City, Pakistan";

It gets even funnier, in an awful sort of way, when you consider that even though Pakistan matters it doesn't matter because Hillary Clinton clinked glasses with Benazir Bhutto or John McCain spoke with her a few times. It certainly doesn't matter because Rudy Mussolini wants us to live in perma-post-9/11 fear. And it really doesn't matter because shameless American politicians' first instinct is to bask in what they see as the reflected glory glistening in a pool of Pakistani blood.

We're literally being told, "See, things happen in this world-- which is exactly why I should be in charge of it! How much clearer can this be made to you?"

Then, there is, arguably, the best, deadcenter and most poignant, post that, in its' succinctness, sums up perfectly the warped, phony Bush Grindhouse (and the Condoleezza Rice Ballroom Dancing & Charm School) Pakistan/U.S. Foreign Policy (historically), Democracy-In-A-Box (no assembly required) from Dennis Perrin;

Pakistan's Shame

Both are good, insightful posts and worthy of adding to your reading list.


Barry Crimmins: I'm surprised we haven't seen one of the candidates reprise the Iowa-based Music Man. Friends we've got TROUBLE -- right here in River City. TROUBLE with a capital 'T' and it rhymes with 'P' and it stands for 'PAKISTAN!'

Boppin' Around The Christmas Blogs (Herb Caen-Dot-Dot-Dot Style) ...

Well, coming off the, seemingly, long holiday break (and being freed from cooking and baking for nearly two-straight days), it's back to posting ... But, we go gently this day, warming up the engine and defrosting the windows, so to speak ... Think of it like stretching before a run or workout ...

While you were unwrapping gifts, downing the eggnog, and otherwise kickin' back, The Garlic was on-duty, taking a stroll through the blogosphere, checking up on who was naughty and who was nice ...

Carol Gee, on her own South by Southwest, as well as The Reaction, offered a wistful (and pragmatic) look at the Christmas holiday .... And Libby Spencer, also crossposting on The Reaction and The Impolitic tells of her own mini Christmas miracle ...

Joe Gandelman, over on his The Moderate Voice doesn't let us forget Brenda Lee... While Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés (she of the great Burma posts earlier this Fall), also on TMV, details her emotional Christmas Eve...

Dennis Perrin checks in with a post on how Christmas touched him this year ...

The ever-digging Glenn Greenwald, on Salon, posts about the Christmas Political wishes... Digby gives us her A Sec-Prog Christmas Redux, while Spencer Ackerman, on TPMmuckraker, presents A Special Christmas Message from Blackwater...

Think Progress shoots out their Year In Review: The 10 Most Popular Posts Of 2007...

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher lays out the Mike Huckabee-Rush Limbaugh dust-up... While Larisa Alexandrovna, on her at-Largely (crossposted at Huffpo) fills Jonah Goldberg's Christmas stocking will a well-deserved pile of coal ...

But The Winners Are ....

Plural, as is two, rip-roaring, well-written, hysterical posts ...

James Wolcott's, on his Vanity Fair blog, Distinguished Poet Confronts the Ghost of Christmas Pus, is a fall-on-the-floor laughing dissection of an NYT Op-Ed of Christmas Day (and after you read it, after reading Wolcott, Wolcott's take is even funnier, so pad your floor for the second fall) ...

The op-ed page of The New York Times dropped quite a meatball into the Christmas stocking this morning--a poem by Paul Muldoon titled Myrrh that syrrh was awful. If I didn't have a touching faith in human nature, I'd suspect a put-on, and yet I fear the poem and poet are sincere. It begins:

And our good friend Barry Crimmins rings up Sir! Bah Humbug! Sir! in his ever-brilliant style;

At CNN they even squeezed in their Chief Pentagon Apologist Barbara Starr (you know her, she 's the one with a face that warns: don't lie or you'll end up looking like this) filing her annual report concerning NORAD's heartwarming 'tracking' of Santa's Christmas Eve journey. (He's currently over Australia!). What a charming way for the military to endear itself to impressionable children it can't start openly recruiting until junior high school.

Starr told us the military was tracking the "intruder" but she assured us that Santa's movements would only be monitored. How magnanimous of Pentagon brass not to scramble jets to shoot down St. Nick! Do we ever stop benefiting from a strong military? God bless us, every one!

And to all, a good night ...

Was Something In the Air, or Water, Last Week?

Man, the Rightwing Freakshow was at it last week.

Maybe they went off their meds, or there was something in the air, or water.

Garlic readers know of our fleeting brush with the infamous faux reporter, Jeff Gannon (okay, he spam commented a bunch of sites, seemingly, anyone that called him a fake reporter, but, it was all we had to work with).

Our good friend Barry Crimmins also took note of it, in his post Dang me!, along with Dennis Perrin, author and another great humorist, who has been butting heads, of sort, with some dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds on that Un Poco Pink Balls, or some such moniker.

Check it out, or go straight over to Dennis Perrin and read his hysterical posts on it.

And, while you're in the mood, check out Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report, and his riff on Fox News’ Hannity rails against Halloween, which ‘teaches kids to be liberals’

Lame Duck President and a Lame Duck Freakshow ... Not sure which one is going to be worse ...

Oh, God help us!