And one last RNC "Great American of the Moment" Bonus pic!

An honest West Texan! I knew there had to be at least one out there!

Again, we hate to spoil the fiscal fantasies of the Fake Conservatives, but for all those "red" states out there who voted for Bush last time and calling for tax breaks, fiscal responsibility and decrying the "welfare state", you'd think they were subsidizing the "blue" states with all of their hard-earned tax dollars.

Turns out, as usual, the unreported truth is quite the opposite from the Fake Conservative fantasy.

In fact, the "blue" states, on average, get back less money than they pay out in federal taxes, while the "red" states receive more in federal funds than they put out. Go figure.

From Media Matters:

Is it any wonder then that "red" states want to keep their guy in office so they can keep sucking disproportionately off the Federal Government tit without anybody noticing? Red state welfare queens.

Once again, the "Liberal" Media seems to have forgotten to report much on all of this. I wonder if the Media really isn't so "Liberal" after all? But they must be! Sean Hannity wouldn't keep saying it if it wasn't true!

And on the topic of "Words speaking louder than Actions"...

A Conservative --- a real one, with character, courage and conviction --- reviews Bush's con job from last night. (Fake Conservatives need not click through. Far be it from us to spoil your illusions by dropping a big reality turd into your fantasy soup.)

George W. Bush:
Words Speak Louder than Actions

FOX News Primetime Convention Speech Coverage

Courtesy of Media Matters

Dear Fox News Watchers,

The Democratic Candidate for President of the United States is speaking live on television in response to the Bush/Cheney convention.

The Vice-Presidential Candidate is there too! Live!

Feel free to turn to either CNN or MSNBC if you'd like to see it!

UPDATE: Fox finally did go to the Kerry speech. They ran a total of 4 minutes of the speech, picking it up near the end, and dropping it 4 minutes later. Both MSNBC and CNN ran it from the beginning, when Kerry said things like "I'm not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq."

Total coverage of Kerry's speech: MSNBC - 25 minutes, CNN - 15 minutes, FOX - 4 minutes.

Just a few miles from Ground Zero. Where "the people who knocked down these buildings" would hear from "all of us soon."

I watched all four nights of the RNC Convention. But I'll be damned if I heard any word about who it was who knocked those buildings down. Did I miss something?

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?