Posted 8/01/2004 12:21:00 PM by Douglas

Pretty good piece about the political lull we're faced with between the conventions. [From The Times, so registration required. Bastards]

A modern convention is a Super Bowl whose final score was announced weeks before. The Blue Team elects to kick off! Red will receive! One long halftime show, essentially. The networks strive to make it sound more compelling than watching contestants being lowered into tanks with reptiles, but there was more electricity on C-Span 2, which showed black-and-white clips of John F. Kennedy in 1956, clouds of cigarette smoke rising behind him, throwing his support to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee; of John Chancellor being arrested on the floor; of Senator Abe Ribicoff of Connecticut pounding the podium and denouncing the mayor of Chicago's "Gestapo tactics." That was must-see TV.

I like the reptile tank idea!

One of the things I noticed about the speakers is that all the losers from the primaries. If Democrats wanted to see Dean, Kucinich and company, don't you think they'd have voted for them?

Wednesday there was the speech by Dennis Kucinich - a reminder, perhaps, that the primary system really does work, even though an alarming number of Yale millionaires manage to slip through the net.

But I do love the thought of the Republicans now having to outdo the Democrats. Here's a good start.

Mr. Cheney might try to counter Mr. Edwards's educational boast by saying, "I was the first member of my family to get kicked out of Yale."

And now for no reason at all, this line.

Mr. Edwards galvanized the crowd on Wednesday night with the refrain "Hope is on the way," though he ended up sounding like a tow-truck dispatcher.

Ha!