First up, thank you to Ava and C.I. for doing "John Edwards (Ava and C.I.)" yesterday. Elaine and I got off the plane and most of the gang was there. Ava and C.I. had been speaking all day and weren't there. That's cool and not a complaint. I'm just explaining that once we got to C.I.'s and put away our stuff, Ava and C.I. drove up and that's why they didn't go out with us. They said they'd been on the road all day and really just wanted to take off their shoes and relax so for us to go on and they'd do a post for Elaine and me so we didn't have to worry about that. So thank you to them for guest posting. I really did like what they wrote and agree with it. They didn't need a disclaimer for me (or for Elaine).
They were talking about two things if you missed it the post. 1) Student reaction to Edwards. 2) Is Edwards stronger than he was in 2004. On the first one, that really is true. Since he just goes after Hillary Clinton, it does look like he's got a problem with her but in agreement with the other Democrats running for the presidential nomination. There may be no reason to go after someone like Joe Biden's who is lower in the polls but Barack Obama is ahead of Edwards and supposedly he and Obama are different. So how come he's got nothing to say there? It's a campaign error that they better fix or else accept that people are going to see it as Edwards has a problem with Hillary and it's not really a political problem.
The second point I had forgotten about. Edwards really was weak in the debate with Cheney and the only reason he really scored a hard win was because after the debate bloggers and all were saying, "Dick Cheney met John Edwards at this Congressional prayer thing on . . ." I mean, on his own, Edwards really didn't score any knock out punches.
So when you put that with what he's doing now, that is a good point. The only real passion coming from his campaign is his attacks on Hillary. He needs to change his campaign some (expand on how he's different from ALL the candidates for instance) or he really just looks like he's running because he doesn't think Hillary should be president.
I thought it was a really good post and thank them for it. Even with them putting in that they were speaking for themselves, I still have some e-mails whining and screaming "You went after Edwards!" WTF? :D Do those idiots know how to read? It says "Ava and C.I." in the title and in the first sentence. But I've got 10 John Edwards lovers e-mailing how dare I write what I wrote. Ava and C.I. wrote it. But I do agree with it. And they didn't go after Edwards. They pointed out a flaw in his campaign that he can fix or ignore. If they wanted to go after Edwards, they could have.
But they pointed out a campaign flaw and that was their point. We've worked on stuff like that at Third before and not run it because they can do that with any candidate, talk about where their campaigns are failing and what needs to be addressed. And the reason those pieces get killed online is concern by the rest of us that they're helping the wrong candidate. :D So it wasn't an attack on Edwards. It was charting the message the campaign is starting to send out without intending and how if you take that message and pair it with what happened in 2004, it's not painting a strong candidate.
The rest of us get back from eating and Ava and C.I. both go, "We wrote about Edwards. We put in a disclosure noting they were our opinions." When we'd all left, they didn't know what they were writing about. I was cool with whatever and was just glad Elaine and me didn't have to try and come up with posts. But I'm glad they wrote about Edwards.
Ma asked me to get some photos of the food. :D She said she wanted to see the turkeys especially. :D I woke up at three a.m. because I'm still on EST time (which would be six in the morning back home). C.I. was in the kitchen starting the turkeys and goes we can do a half-hour run if I want? That's different from home. I go, "You're going to leave the turkeys alone?" I took some quick digital snaps of them and then we went for a run.
When we got back, C.I. checked on them (I took more snaps) and then started on the first entry for the morning "The 'Great Return': Bussed in & bought." That's really great. The back story on that one is that a friend at another news organization in England called C.I. and asked, "Do you believe this s**t?" C.I. had him on speaker. C.I. goes, "I haven't seen it, hold on, I'm pulling it up right now." C.I.'s scanning it and going, "Well, the real story here is that the small number of refugees that are returning have been bussed in and paid." C.I.'s typing it up while they're talking and the cell's going off so I'm catching that and taking messages. Then C.I. was working on the gravy and some pies and returning the calls I took the messages on. Those conversations and highlights from Canadian members are the focus for "Other Items." I've seen all of that before except C.I. also cooking and overseeing the catering while it was going on.
I was thinking, "There's too much food." Then everyone started arriving. :D Elaine had warned me there would be a ton of people and that this was nothing compared to Christmas. She said Christmas is a "madhouse." :D I'll take her word on that. It was really a great Thanksgiving. I never even went into the room where they watching sports. C.I. told me where that was set up but so much was going on everywhere else that I never made it in and didn't even feel cheated. I've got to read the new issue of Harper's magazine because there was this really intense discussion about Iraq and someone brought up Naomi Klein's new book and C.I. mentioned an article in Harper's about what happened in Gutamala. I'm sure the magazine's around here somewhere but we get it at home and I'm on vacation. :D I'll wait until I get home. At four o'clock C.I. went to take a nap. Elaine told me C.I. would be up the entire night working on cooking and stuff. It really was a great spread. We're all going to watch The Apartment in a bit and I'll probably be out for the night after that. That's one of Elaine's favorite films and just something she and C.I. always do on the holidays.
I got the snaps and Ma's not going to believe them. The turkeys looked great and they were so good. She and C.I. have been talking about basting because Ma bastes like crazy. Ma makes a great turkey but she works so hard on it. C.I.'s got a very simple approach that Ma wanted pictures of to prove it works. It involves creating a base beneath the turkey and lining around the bottom of the turkey. You only baste every now and then. C.I. basted twice and told me to take pictures before the last base to prove that it really wasn't needed. So I've got the photos and Ma can use the method at Christmas. I called home and wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving and Ma's first question was, "Is this for real?" :D About cooking the turkeys. Yeah it is. They looked great and the one at my table was so juicy. I assume they all were. Elaine had told Ma it did and that it wasn't some secret turkey you needed to buy. It's really just something that happened. Elaine's first Thanksgiving in college was going to be alone. C.I. was leaving late to take care of some papers and Rebecca had already left. Elaine hadn't made a big deal of it but she wasn't doing Thanksgiving. Her folks died when she was young and it was just her and her brother who'd gone to work in Europe when she started college. So they ended up doing their own Thanksgiving, her and C.I., and inviting some other people over. Elaine says she can't cook but she can do desserts. She can cook. But she did the desserts that first time and C.I. took care of the rest but neither of them had ever cooked a turkey. Elaine was trying to help out with other stuff too and ended up cooking the dressing in it's own dish. Which meant nothing to stuff the turkey with. So, for seasoning, they looked for what they had and they really didn't have much. But they had some apples and onions and some other stuff and C.I. ended up throwing them in the roasting pan with some other stuff and that's how the method was developed.
I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. If you didn't, check out Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Lame Duck Turkey" which will give you something to be thankful for.
Here's the opening of Dave Lindorff's "Impeachment is Back on the Table:"
The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself.
--Excerpt from Scott McClellan's forthcoming book "What Happened"(Public Affairs Books, due out in April 2008)
With that one little statement, released on the Public Affairs Books website this week, all excuses for not impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney, not to mention indicting Cheney (who of course has no immunity from prosecution while in office), have evaporated.
Here is rock-solid evidence from a man who, as press secretary, was privy to the inner workings of the White House, of a vile conspiracy involving the two top men in the Bush/Cheney administration, as well as their top three staffpeople, to expose the identity of an important CIA undercover operative, Valerie Plame, and then, when caught, to obstruct a criminal investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, into that crime.
Forget for a moment the administration's other high crimes and misdemeanors and acts of bribery and treason, though many, like defying laws passed by the Congress, or violating the Nuremburg Charter, are surely far more egregious. This particular set of crimes--conspiracy, obstruction of justice, lying, and of course the underlying crime of abuse of power and perhaps treason (since Plame's responsibility as a high-rankiing CIA operative was preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly in the Middle East!)--is serious enough.
There is no way that American democracy can continue to survive, even in its current truncated form, if the Congress continues to duck this issue and pretend that it has "more important things to do," as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her retinue of "leaders" in the House have continued to claim for an entire year in control of the Congress.
Be sure to check out the whole thing.
dave lindorff
the common illslike maria said paz
mikey likes it
trinas kitchen
the world today just nuts
lame duck turkey
