He sounds like he's answering the "platform question" at the Miss America Pagaent, no?

UPDATE: Speech just finished. Lest I be accused of unfairness (I'll leave that to Fox), it seems to me that Bush recovered somewhere around the final third of his speech from the Miss America / School Assembly delivery of the first two thirds that I mentioned above. He finished just fine. And the tear he almost squeezed out will no doubt be the tear heard round the world for the next few news cycles. More later, no doubt.

I should have known we were in trouble when Alan Colmes said "Senator Miller, I'd like to talk about the substance of your speech last night". He then went on to fire the only bullet that Sean allowed him, I guess, accusing Zell of having called Kerry "an authentic American hero" in 2001.

Zell said "I was wrong about that." Alan hemmed, hawwed, looked at his notes...and then...cut to commercial.

Wouldn't it be more honest if they didn't even bother to put a name at all after the "Hannity &" part?

Oh, well. Since Colmes is useless, I'll toss out another contradiction and factual inaccuracy from Zell's speech that apparently didn't occur to the hapless and completely useless Colmes.

Kerry in his acceptance speech: "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security."

Zell last night: "Senator Kerry has made it clear that he would use military force only if approved by the United Nations. Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending."

There ya go, Alan. Would that have been that hard?

Apparently Colmes has no memory, isn't allowed access to Google by Sean, or simply has no familiarity with what's actually going on anywhere but in the Republican National Party and/or the Fox News Channel. Not that there's any difference.

And Cheney? He said last night: "George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people."

I'm sure Colmes will get right on that. Sigh.

There has been so many blatantly and provably incorrect statements on the RNC's podium this week, that it's becoming almost tiresome to point them out.

So forgive me if you have become as weary of it as I have, even though I've only bothered to highlight a few of them. But if folks like you and me don't take the time to point these out who will? The Mainstream Media?!

In this case, it fell to a polling organization, Gallup to be precise, to fact check where the Media has decided to nod off again this year:

Provably and factually incorrect statements at the GOP Convention. One after another after another.

Feel free to "liberally" use the "Email it to Someone!" link at the bottom of ALL the entries here on the BRAD BLOG! It's game time, folks! And someone's gotta show up to play! How about you?!

Is it not possible that the Republicans knew exactly what they were doing by allowing the angry and ugly Zell Miller to be their counterpoint keynote speaker to the Democrat's hopeful and positive Barack Obama?

No doubt, they knew full well the type of poison they could get Zell to throw into the water. Surely they vetted his speech before hand, and thus must have known how almost none of it would stand up factually to even the most tepid of journalistic scrutiny.

For proof of that, see CNN's interview with Zell after the speech last night, during which CNN took a short break from business-as-usual to become, if only momentarily, journalists again who managed to trash in only just a few minutes almost everything Zell was hoping to sell last night.

So if even CNN, of all media, would be able to debunk this clown in minutes, surely the Republicans must have understood that in advance and decided nonetheless that the effort would be worthwhile.

So why would they do it? We'll have to assume at this point that they are just happy to get the trash into the public domain where it'll be unexamined red meat to the Talk Radio Nation. And then, when the predictable and simple debunking occured among the literatti, the only person who'd stand to look like a jackass would be only be a Democrat after all.

Pretty cagey. Smells precisely like classic Rovian Machinations if ever there were any.

I think, however, that they may have been overly optimistic about Zell being the only one who might get stained in this devil's bargain. But only time will tell.

- Josh Marshall, on the entirety of RNC Night 3, demonstrates why he's at the top of the blogging food chain.

- Andrew Sullivan similarly, though from the Conservative side, asks the tough questions about the as yet unexplained second term for Dubya. The real and adult questions about his so far unrevealed agenda that the "real" media is too busy reporting on theatrics and horse-races to ask about.

- Zell Miller, the Republicans Great White Hope, challenges Chris Matthew to a duel on last night's Hardball. Yes, a duel! Here's the video.

It's tough to wrap one's brain around what happened last night. No doubt, the Dems are rightly indignant about the vicious and fallacious smears of the GOP. And perhaps it'll spur them, and the rest of America, to step up to the plate. Bile of that sort frequently does.

The GOP, seemingly, in free fall towards doing whatever they need to do, have become a party quite willing to "win at all costs". The smears no longer take place solely amongst the shadowy dirty-tricksters, or in the last few days of the campaign. They are now quite public and, more troublingly, acceptable to an entire half of our only two viable political parties of the moment. Never mind the implications for America itself and/or the world through such vitriolic and poisonous tactics, the GOP is all in favor of them! And they're not shy about it anymore!

None other than the "Vice-President" of the United States himself is not only able, but apparently quite pleased with himself thanks for lying about and mischaracterizing his opponent in the number one national public political forum. "He talks about leading a 'more sensitive war on terror,' as though Al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side," said the Veep, knowing full well what the war hero, 20 year public servant and Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry actually said on the subject. And never mind what Cheney and Bush themselves have had to say about "sensitivity" in this war.

From Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Talk Radio Nation, we'd expect it. From a sitting "Vice-President" --- at a supposed "time of war" --- it's just embarrassing, frankly, as a patriotic American.

And yet, the "America Loving" Republican Party goes wild with applause and approval for such slimy tactics and clearly (for surely, even they realize it, right?) disingenous rhetoric.

Then their was Zell, the former Dixiecrat/segregationalist who had until recently referred to John Kerry as "an authentic hero" and "strong on defense" and --- before he flipped --- characterized the Republican party as "having sold out their country". There he was, wagging his crooked finger and flapping his forked tongue for the approval of the trained seals.

He, like Cheney, is more than welcome to do so, of course, but really, is that what the Republican Party wants to reveal as their true face? Is that the "Compassionate Conservatism" we hear so much about for a few weeks every four years?

Never mind the errant and misleading substance itself of Miller's barked outrage. (The bulk of the Defense Cuts he accused Kerry of supporting were the very same ones submitted and requested by --- who else? --- Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney himself!) But, like Pat Buchanan's torching of the '92 GOP convention, it's Miller's tone here that will both enliven the already-sold-on-Bush angry base, but send the moderates and undecideds fleeing for the exit doors once the dust has settled and they come to understand what's really going on here.

It's no mistake, that the smoke-filled back rooms of the GOP bosses chose a guy like Alan Keyes (begged him, in fact, as BRAD BLOG commentor Johnhp has pointed out) to be their US Senate Nominee from Illinois. A guy who refers to his own Vice-President's daughter as a "selfish hedonist". The bosses are angry and bitter, though it's hard to understand why, since they control all branches of the U.S. Government. But hey, even eating their own young is worth it for a few more angry white votes. Their public choices tell that story painfully plainly.

At this point, with the Media itself so cowed by these vitriolic con men, it's reasonable to believe they will continue to do what they've done so far in this campaign: Dutifully stick to repeating Karl Rove's press releases and reporting the thunder of the trained seals as they beat their fins together.

But oddly enough --- and it really is odd, given the noise pitched against them --- the American People have a way of rising above such unseemly phoney-baloney when it reaches the type of fevered pitch that it now officially has. Zell and Cheney lit the fuse last night, and it's likely only going to get worse between now and November. But usually the American People end up getting it. I'd like to think they will this time as well. But if not, they will get precisely what they deserve: Four more years.

Is it just me? Or does it seem that even the National Weather Service has turned partisan this year?

Tonight, in Zell's wacky keynote address at the RNC, he said: "For more than 20 years, on every one of the great issues of freedom and security, John Kerry has been more wrong, more weak and more wobbly than any other national figure. As a war protester, Kerry blamed our military. As a Senator, he voted to weaken our military."

He said much more, and no doubt more on that all later.

But first, a few words from Zell about John Kerry back before "the change" that you may have missed while the Media was busy repeating the Bush/Cheney press releases:

Whacky, huh? Well, perhaps only if you bothered to watch Zig Zag Zell (as they call him back him on George for being on all sides of every issue) tonight at the Republican Con-vention.

UPDATE: For more fun Zig Zagging with Zell, go here!

Thanks to "Berry's World" for this item. I'd heard it referred to last night, but didn't have the exact quotes:

It's not often that I repost BRAD BLOG comments here as their own item.

But in honor of the nutty Zell Miller's jump to the Republican Party tonight, it seems only "Fair and Balanced" to highlight a spot-on comment from a Republican, or at least somebody who was one up until George W. Bush and his Theocrats came along and hijacked the party. Teddy was once a proud member of the GOP. However, unlike the whacky "cross-dressing" Senator Miller who will give the RNC keynote tonight, Teddy is anything but nutty.

In an attempted bi-partisan spirit, I highlighted his excellent "Bull Moose Forum" blog earlier today. I realize that this would be two pops in one day, but when one chances upon that rarest of creatures --- an intellectually honest Republican --- it seems only proper to give him his due. Especially in this fierce, Crazy World we seem to now live in.

Teddy was replying to Paul's parrot about the GOP's "Big Tent" sham on this item concerning the hypocrisy of Dubya's several flip-flops over the last two days about being able to win, and then not win, and then win the "War on Terror".

Paul is one of the BRAD BLOG's notably intellectually dishonest fake conservatives slash Bush suck-ups slash GOP apologists for those of you who may not bother to read the comments.

Here's Teddy's on-the-money reply:

Keep up the good fight, Teddy. Your party and country will thank you some day. The BRAD BLOG goes ahead and thanks you now.

We also thank Paul for his contributions here, making the difference between your father's GOP, and George W. Bush's GOP painfully clearer each and every day.

Teddy, the erstwhile BRAD BLOG commentor and author of the excellent "Bull Moose Forum", a right leaning blog in the true TR/Conservative sense (as opposed to the "Fake Conservative" nonsense one often sees parrotted in comments from the Right on this blog and elsewhere) has an excellent analysis of last night's speech by the Governator.

Using quotes from William Saletan's Slate commentary today on why Republicans like him, should reject George W. Bush, Teddy points out that there is no "Big Tent" in the Republican party. No matter the smoke and mirrors they haul out every four years to appear as though they are either "compassionate" or "conservative".

Of note, along with his own insight and analysis, Teddy ran these quotes from the Slate story:

On the nosey, my boy. And this one...

Right again. And, as the Bush daughters might say, "it's like, provenly knowable!"

I've heard it suggested of late by several Conservative commentators that the real reason the RNC has chosen to give all of their primetime speaking slots to their largely Pro-Choice, Pro-Gay, Anti-Gun superstars like McCain, Schwarzzeneger, Guliani etc., is because they are the most popular Republicans in America.

So can someone please explain to me how so many of the Neandercons can keep a straight face when they keep trying to tell us that they and the policies they support are the "Mainstream" beliefs in America?

In other words, the most popular Republican Leaders in the country are the ones who wholly disagree with a bulk of the Republican Platform, most of the Ditto Heads, all of the Freepers, and certainly George W. Bush on issue after issue after issue.

Isn't that proof-in-the-very pudding that in reality, it is George W. Bush and his Rightwing Gang of Theo-Neo-Neadner-cons who are the real outside fringe minority group in this country?

I'm just askin'.

"Franklin Roosevelt didn't want to go to war, but he knew defeating tyranny demanded it. And my husband didn't want to go to war, but he knew the safety and security of America and the world depended on it."
- Laura Bush at tonight's RNC Convention on the Iraq War.

FDR and George W. Bush. Yes! Exactly what all of America is thinking! Two peas in a pod those two! Last night he was Churchill and tonight he's FDR!

Abe Lincoln spins in his grave in anticipation of tomorrow night's speeches! But, I digress...

Can anybody here demonstrate a single shred of evidence to support Laura's contention that her "husband didn't want to go to war" in Iraq?

While you're at it, I'll take any shred of evidence that "the safety and security of America and the world depended on it".

Anybody?

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Brad the Fisherman!

Brad the Tree Hugger!

Brad the Fireside Blogger!

...And a few other photos from our recent Pacific Northwest Road Trip now available online for those who may care.