GO BERNIE!!!

Sen. Bernie Sanders goes to Washington.

If you didn't catch the speech

Here's the transcript.

Bada bada bada that's all folks!

I mean... my friends.



Do Republicans really want four more years of incoherence and confusion?

And if it makes you have goosebumps, is that wrong?

PSoTD reacts to the pooh-poohing over Obama's speeches:

I have to say, I think the attacks on supporters of Obama as just loving great speeches is about as foolish of an effort as I can think of... People, pay attention:

I Have A Dream is a speech.
The Gettysburg Address is a speech.
The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself is a speech.

WE HONOR THOSE SPEECHES IN THIS COUNTRY. They demand reverence. They helped change a country. I find it absolutely ridiculous to somehow try to spin that being a great speaker is somehow a negative. I do find that having to fall back on that as some sort of attack point is a very large negative.

Remember we've been listening to a president who cannot make speeches, does not inspire nor illuminate, has not melded passion with language in any way.

Then we hear Obama. We suddenly recall why such speeches make us stand up and want to be part of the future, make us want to roll up our sleeves and unite in a common and worthy cause. Governments can be great. A lot of us felt this during Kennedy's time. We saw it in glimpses in other presidents, but Obama makes us remember.

And then we look at the fear and warmongering Bush and his rapidly shrinking cabal. We watch his odd strut as he approaches the podium and listen to threats and warnings. Bush's head bobs, his weird inflections, his misplaced chuckles all are out of tune.

We've seen what a good government can be and Bush's government isn't it and has never been. It has been built of division, hate, and fear. It is beginning to crack and turn to decay and dust.

No wonder Obama's speeches are wonderful. They are full of promise when we have been given NONE. They are galvanizing, allowing us to pitch in for a better future, rather than be told we should not worry our little heads about it and to go shopping.

It reminds us what might have been and yet still could be. America being great rather than hated. Doing good rather than killing and stealing. Making peace instead of making war.

More of it please!

It's not like golf, Georgie.

The low numbers mean you are losing not winning.

Attaturk at Rising Hegemon catches the polling:

U.S. TROOP LEVELS IN IRAQ SHOULD BE…?

Now
Increased -- 6%
Kept same -- 21%
Reduced -- 39%
Remove all troops -- 29%

Pre-speech, 9/4-8/2007
Increased -- 11%
Kept same -- 19%
Reduced -- 35%
Remove all troops -- 30%

By the way, on the Michael Ledeen "Real Americans versus UnAmericans" front...

President Bush’s overall job approval rating remains at 29 percent, similar to what it was a week ago. His rating on handling the war in Iraq is holding at 25 percent.

And nobody wanted to listen to Bush talking:

Lesson one of the Right Wing Smear Machine

1) Take things out of context, and scream a lot. Example: Hillary Clinton singing a spiritual with a Southern drawl. Try to make so much noise about it that you get the candidate to collapse, cave in, capitulate.

Cheney did something unreportable?

Ok, now I'm really curious!

From today’s pool report from Vice President Cheney’s trip to Japan: “This was largely a repeat of the speech delivered the day before in Tokyo. However, the vice president made something clear this day that had been unanswered the day before — when he had departed from a prepared text in Tokyo that had read Americans “do not” accept a policy of retreat and instead said that Americans “will not” accept a policy of retreat. Your pool’s queries about the meaning of this departure in tenses went unanswered last night in what started as a background briefing with an administration official and lapsed into something else that is, well, unreportable.”

Spocko writes letters, Thersites takes wingnutty response apart

Spocko:

It occurred to me that some KSFO advertisers might not know how to respond to our letters. I'm sure some are shell shocked by the standard right-wing AstroTurf email campaigns. A thoughtful letter from one of us has a better chance of encouraging them to check out the situation at KSFO for themselves. And when they do, I believe they will be unhappy with what they hear. And whether they decide to stay or go, they will still need to convey that decision back to the letter writer and the station. To help them out, I'll give them some examples of letters from advertisers who have left KSFO and later some who have chosen to stay.

Thersites takes apart the wingnut counter-attack (my bold):

The substance of Spocko's complaints are to do with crazy crap like raving about killing millions of Indonesians and hooking testicles up to battery cables. Nobody gives a rat's ass if KSFO wants to be "conservative." The problem is the psychotic burbling.

Anyway, there's no such thing as the "Liberal Media." But since this is a central tenet of the Wingnut Faith, there's no point in debating it. What is more to the point is that Sheppard is trying his damnedest to distract from the issues at hand, that is, what the KSFO hosts actually said, the right of advertisers to know what they're paying for -- and the legitimacy and downright creepiness of KSFO and its parent companies slapping Spocko with a bogus legal threat.

It's also funny how Sheppard wants to paint Spocko as "an anonymous coward," a nonentity whose campaign has had no effect... but also as a Terrible Threat. You know, Mike Stark wouldn't have gotten involved in this, and neither probably would have we here at OBI to the extent that we have, if KSFO and ABC and Disney hadn't sent out that threat and gotten Spocko kicked off his ISP. I find it hard to believe that they would have done that if Spocko wasn't having any effect. Unless, of course, they are the real cowards in this affair. Could be!