Tag: Slot 2

It was like a theme park ride, except with bombs and bodily injuries. The nation's premiere anti-terrorism museum opened in Denver on Tuesday, and somewhere between exhibit malfunctions and violent television panoramas reminiscent of "A Clockwork Orange" there was presumably some sort of message. But it all seemed to be more of an unintended satire on post-911 culture in the United States than an exhibit sparking an intelligent discourse on terrorism.

Oops, she did it again. Accepting the Republican nomination for vice president Wednesday night in St. Paul, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin repeated a false claim about her opposition to the notorious Bridge to Nowhere, an emblematic boondoggle widely derided by foes of Congressional earmarks.

John McCain's convention gambit is now a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the "angry left," Bush called them last night) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago '68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash.

On Monday, the McCain campaign website ran a quote from the candidate himself smack-dab on the homepage: "I pledge that tomorrow night and if necessary throughout our convention, we will act as Americans and not as Republicans because America needs us now." Darn right — you better not act like Republicans if you want to help America.

So his choice as a running mate of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is supposed to help Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain with voters in the critical American West? Well, I’m one pale male Colorado voter and a father of three who is singularly unimpressed.

An estimated 84,000 people witnessed Sen. Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech and the ensuing festivities at the final evening of the Democratic National Convention.

Last December I wrote an optimistic cover story for The Nation predicting that "peace advocates will likely have the best funded antiwar message in history" during the coming election year, as "tens of millions of dollars will be raised for voter education and registration and get-out-the-vote campaigns through the 527 committees which disseminate election messages independent of partisan candidates."

Religious ideas can have cruel consequences. Look what genital mutilation has done to generations of male Jews and to thousands of young girls sexually mutilated to satisfy tribal “morality.” If the religiously motivated Amendment 48 passes, one of its consequences will be the economic mutilation of many Colorado women.

Did John McCain signal the end of his Republican presidential run and launch his next campaign for the U.S. Senate in a phone interview with The Pueblo Chieftain last week?

ABC News' political blog, "The Note," points out this week that Paris Hilton is issuing policy statements while John McCain nominates his wife for a topless beauty contest. The world's turned upside down. Who could blame a person for thinking that chronicling such oddness is beyond the skills of simple journalists? This is a job for the novelists.