Let Your Fingers Do the Walking

I think Elliot's trying to take my job.

The Book Club

You have got to read this book!



Hugh Hewitt is brilliant, and his book, If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat, is a fabulous read. Interesting, great pacing, good info. I bought, read and completed it in 24 hours, stealing time in every meeting I attended last week. At the convention, I kept getting up in my meetings to do book reports and tell people, You've got to read this book!"

Party Report

Just back from the California Republican Party State Convention in San Diego. Good Times had by all. The Manchester Hyatt (which by the way is owned by a Republican who is very supportive of the party) is beautiful. Visit and support the cause.

The highlight was this morning's presentation. On the dais, 25 veterans - 4 Medal of Honor winners, a Vice Admiral who spent 6 years as a POW in Viet Nam, a Swift Boat veteran, 4 or 5 vets who served recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, Men (and one woman) from all the branches, all eras, various ranks. One was the oldest living Medal of Honor winner, honored for his service at Pearl Harbor, another a SEAL who made me feel like if the hotel was attacked we'd be very safe. When I unpack, I'll try and get the names posted and some photos.

The Brillian Mark Steyn and his fans

I sent an email to Tiffany Cole, Mark Steyn's assistant, and said I wanted to organize people at the California Republican Party to sing some great songs at the piano bar. She's hoping to find my favorite, Ain't That A Kick in the Head, and send it to me tomorrow.

How do these parodies sound?

ELLA FITS KERRY

Slim-Fast looked at Whoopi Goldberg’s performance and decided it “might be cheaper if they didn’t keep her,” so here’s my take on race-baiting, bile-spewing entertainers and NAACP leaders who Kerry supports. (My apologies to the elegant antithesis, Ella Fitzgerald). Sung to the tune of “Makin’ Whoopee:”

Another John makes Kerry swoon,
A short-lived sunny honeymoon
A big convention, with the intention
Of shakin’ Whoopi.

Despite a plea to tone it down
They’ll still say Dubya’s such a clown.
They do forget, folks
Votes they won’t get, folks,
For makin’ Whoopi.

Dems want a little love-nest,
Down where Rose Gardens cling,
But voters see a hate-fest,
Say, “Just Shut Up and Sing!”

When lots of Powell, and lots of Rice
Make Bond so nervous, he invites twice
It's really killin', that George ain’t willin'
To let ‘em Whoopi.

Disrespect so scary
Is more than lack of class
November brings to Kerry,
A can of Bush “whoop-ass.”

Another year, or maybe less
What's this I hear? Well, can't you guess?
Dems feel neglected, many defected
Because of Whoopi!

"A Devoted Steyn Fan

BOSSA SNOOZA

The Pol from Massachusetts
(also known as The Girl from Ipanema)
Tall and gaunt and grim and dreary
The pol from Massachusetts goes stumping
And as he's speaking, each one who's listening
Goes haaaooowwuuuuhhhhhnnnn (yawn)

What he's thinking is quite a riddle
He talks so tritely and says so little
They check their watches and stretch their arms
And go haaaooowwuuuuhhhhhnnnn (yawn)

Ahhh, they all watch him so sadly
Those who must act like they love him
Bob Shrum and Terry McAuliffe
Even they must be bound to agree
It's a pretty lame candidacy

Trial lawyers and union bosses
They know it's too late to cut their losses
But still they sigh and say why
Isn't it Hillary
But it just isn't she
No, it just isn't she

Michael Kalk
Austin, Texas

JUST TOO VERY KERRY

Mark- Bin tryin' to come up with that single word which truly captures our would-be Chief Long Face, considering:
-His wild accusations against his Viet Nam comrades...beheadings, collecting physical souven-ears, and so on.
-His wild accusations against President Bush (especially during the primaries).."He lied to the American people", etc.
-His shameless, win-at-any-cost wooing of occasionally-misguided righty, John of Arizona, for VP ( " hey, I can win this thing 'in a walk'....if you'll just hand me McCain over there".) The word I came up with is "frivolous". And he is just that, Mark...too frivolous for words. But I tried anyway.

Too Frivolous For Words, sung to
John Fibs Kerry
You're just too frivolous,
Too frivolous for words...
Like capable..credible,
And that old standb-by...electable.
You're such a schmuck
And just too very-Kerry
To ever..ever ever be
Your nation's Primo Visionary.
And so, I'm borrowin'
This oldie we've all heard
To tell you that you're frivolous,
Too frivolous for words.

John Gross
Beloeil, Quebec

These are Celebrities?

If I had a party and these are the only so-called celebs who RSVPd yes, I'd be mighty disappointed. Look at this list from Newsmax:

Not 'Bush's America': Hollywood Airheads Have a Gas in Beantown

A lot of people have requested a list of which Hollywood airheads are at the Democrat convention this week. Apparently these readers plan to snub the celebs' movies, TV shows and music.

We did a search of the wires and found that the lineup ranges from A-listers such as pop star Bono and pro-murderer activist Susan Sarandon to Z-listers such as William Baldwin and Chevy Chase.

The most visible of the bunch is poor Ben Affleck, still limping from a disastrous year that nearly bumped him from Premiere magazine's oh-so-important power list.


'The Irritant'

The most hateful rant so far has come from former movie star Richard Dreyfuss, who addressed California's delegation at breakfast today.


"In a speech that went on so long that California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres began to hover nervously at his side, Dreyfuss called Bush 'arrogant and incompetent' and said 'his appeal to patriotism is simplistic and thuggish,'" the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Dreyfuss raged: "He is the enemy of thoughtfulness. I wasn't raised in George Bush's America, and I wouldn't be comfortable in it.

"In this America, you point toward a sin and you are pointed at. You are the irritant, not the gatekeeper. You smell funny - sinister funny. Terrorist-friendly. You mention due process, and the silence is not respectful, it is ominous."

California's girlie-men delegates "gave him a standing ovation," according to the paper.

The most amusing anecdote so far: old folkie Carole King, who lives in GOP-dominated Idaho, advising Democrats from the Northwest on how to try to deceive Republicans into voting for John Kerry. Her condescending approach to her rural neighbors: "If you think it through, I respect that you will make the right decision for you."

Hollywood hatemonger Alec "Kill Henry Hyde" Baldwin made an observation about the presidential election that we can all agree on: "I never saw a clearer choice in my life."

Other Tinseltown tyros having a gas in Beantown, according to publications ranging from Variety to the Chicago Tribune to the Toronto Star: Billy Crystal, John Cusack, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jon Bon Jovi, Joe Pantoliano, Liev Schreiber, Natalie Portman, Glenn Close, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, James Taylor, Chris Cooper, Sean Astin, Harvey Weinstein, Rob Reiner, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Ziggy Marley, Wes Craven, Montel Williams, Jason Bateman, Ellen Burstyn, Wyclef Jean, Rachael Leigh Cook, Minnie Driver and Alfre Woodard.

The Los Angeles Times had this fun aside: "For a while, people were scrambling to find tickets to a party for Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) after various news outlets, including Newsweek, reported that Justin Timberlake would perform. But Timberlake declined the invitation. In his place: rapper Doug E. Fresh, who can imitate drum machines and other musical effects. That party invite is apparently not so hot anymore."

Bada Bing

Is Steven Bing, the demos top fundraiser, a mobster?

from ABC
Bing is perhaps best known for sparking a tabloid frenzy when he publicly expressed doubt that he was the father of actress Elizabeth Hurley's baby. (A paternity test proved he was indeed the father.) He repeatedly has refused to say why he is funneling millions of dollars to the Democrats

/snip/In fact, Democratic Party officials said they knew nothing about the man who law enforcement officials tell ABC News is Bing's friend and business partner — Dominic Montemarano, a New York Mafia figure currently in federal prison on racketeering charges.

Montemarano has a long criminal record and is known to organized crime investigators by his street name, Donnie Shacks.

"Donnie Shacks' main activity was murder. No question about it. That was his main function for the Colombo family and for organized crime in general. He was one of the top hit men in the New York area," said Joe Coffey, a former NYPD investigator.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Bing paid Montemarano's legal fees after his most recent scrape with the law. Montemerano's lawyer said his client was an employee of Bing's.

perhaps he'd like to hear a selection from the CD Mob Hits

Mambo Italiano
Artist: Rosemary Clooney

A girl went back to Napoli
Because she missed the scenery
The native dances and the charming songs
But wait a minute, something's wrong
Hey, mambo! Mambo italiano!
Hey, mambo! Mambo italiano
Go, go, go you mixed up sicialiano
All you calabraise-a do the mambo like a crazy with a
Hey mambo, don't wanna tarantella
Hey mambo, no more a mozzarella
Hey mambo! Mambo italiano!
Try an enchilada with da fish a bac a lab and then a
Hey goombah, I love a how you dance a rhumbah
But take a some advice paisano
Learn how to mambo
If you gonna be a square
You ain't a gonna go nowhere
Hey mambo! mambo italiano!
Hey mambo! mambo italiano!
Go, go, Joe, shake like a Giovanno
Hello kess-a-deetch-a you getta happy in the feets a
When you mambo italiano
Shake-a Baby shake-a cause i love a when you take a me
Mama say "stop-a or I'm gonna go to papa"
And a hey ja drool you don't a have to go to school
Just make-a wid da beat bambino
It's a like a vino
Kid you good a lookin' but you don't a-know what's cookin' till you
Hey mambo, Mambo italiano
Hey mambo, Mambo italiano
Ho, ho, ho, you mixed up Siciliano
it's a so delish a ev'rybody come copisha
How to mambo italianoooooo!
'Ats nice!
UNH!

Don't Worry, Be Republican

From the Wapo

The Politics of Fun

Nearly everybody in the greater Washington area agrees this is a fun place to live. But in a town where politics is a participatory sport, who has more fun, Democrats or Republicans?

By a narrow margin, Republicans are this area's fun bunch, according to a recent Washington Post survey.

Six in 10 Republicans said they were satisfied with the way they spent their weekends, compared with half of all Democrats. Meanwhile, a majority of Democrats said they wished they had more fun on weekends, a complaint expressed by fewer than half of all GOP partisans.

/snip/ Political scientist and wit Lee Sigelman of George Washington University, in a study he did a decade ago of national trend data collected over the previous 20 years, discovered that Democrats, on average, didn't live as long as Republicans, were less likely to marry, more likely to divorce if they did get married and more likely to commit suicide.

He also found that Democrats were less likely to say in national public opinion polls that they were "very happy."

"Compared to respectable Americans, i.e. Republicans," Sigelman concluded impishly , "Democrats can be expected to inhabit a Hobbesian state of nature, a world in which life is poor, short, solitary, brutish and nasty."

I used to practice the Politics of Dancing. It was always good for a few votes at a YR Convention.

Hat tip: Slings and Arrows

What A Wiener

From the Washington Times

Kerry hurls wild pitch

By Charles Hurt and Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


BOSTON - John Kerry bounced the ceremonial first pitch during last night's Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway Park, but he said he was just going easy on the National Guard soldier and Iraq war veteran standing in as catcher.
"I held back," Mr. Kerry told reporters early this morning, on the plane ride after the game. "He was very nervous. I tried to lob it gently."

Yeah, sure, he did it on purpose. Whiney Crybaby. Stomps his feet. Bush is not a better athlete than I am. He's not. He's not.



P.S. Wonder what the National Guardsman is thinking, since Kerry announced to the world that he was to whimpish to catch the ball.

Shoves and Bounces

Today wasn't such a good day for the Heinz-Kerrys.

According to the buzz, Kerry's opening pitch was a base on balls, not a strike.

In an unexpected move, Kerry, who wasn't scheduled to arrive in Beantown until Wednesday, made a surprise appearance at Fenway Park Sunday night, where he threw out the first ball for the game between the Red Sox and the New York Yankees. However, Kerry didn't receive the expected reception of the hometown favorite. Instead, Boston locals who have been inconvenienced by the security surrounding the convention offered up to him a round of boos.

And Teh-ray-za demonstrated her desire to see more civility in politics by telling a reporter to Shove It

Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic nominee John Kerry, told a reporter to 'shove it' on Sunday evening -- immediately after giving a speech calling for a more civil tone in politics.

Speaking to the Pennsylvanian delegation at the statehouse in Boston, Heinz Kerry delivered an impassioned plea against hate politics:

"We need to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics."

"My prayers for you, for me, for the country, for the world, are that we keep this at a high level, with dignity, with respect and with a great idealism and courage that took our forefathers to build this great nation."

According to multiple sources who attended the event, Heinz Kerry upon finishing the speech pushed her way through the Secret Service to get to Pittsburgh Tribune Review reporter, Colin McNickle. Upon getting to Mcnickle, Heinz Kerry asks, 'Are you from the Tribune Review' Mcnickle says, 'Yes, I am.'

At this point and in an irritated fashion Heinz Kerry says, 'Of course, understandable. You said something I didnt say. Now Shove it!'

Tape of the incident is being edited to air on Pittsburgh's WTAE-TV, and, according to a media source, ABC NEWS is set to run with it thereafter.

A witness of the incident said reporters were "stunned" by Heinz Kerry's outburst, especially in light of the speech she had just given.

And we have Video

Hunky Boys

from Newsmax ...

A statement released by the Center for Consumer Freedom called “Tinseltown Hunks Are Actually Hollywood Chunks” includes a surprising list of federally designated Hollywood heavyweights.

Actor Will Smith of “I Robot,” who is a muscular 6’2” and 210 pounds, has a BMI of 27, which puts him in the “overweight” category. Other stars who fit the feds’ “overweight” bill are “Bourne Identity” star Matt Damon (5’11”, 187 pounds and a BMI of 26), “Van Helsing” vampire killer Hugh Jackman (6’2”, 210 pounds and a BMI of 27), and Denzel Washington (6’0”, 199 pounds and a BMI of 27).

Moving into the heavier Hollywood arena, we find the names of Sylvester Stallone (5’9”, 228 pounds and a BMI of 34), Arnold Schwarzenegger (6’2”, 257 pounds and a very un-girlie-man BMI of 33), The Rock (6’5”, 275 pounds and a BMI of 33) and Tom Cruise (5’7”, 201 pounds and a BMI of 31). These celebrities have been determined by the government to be obese with Bruce Willis riding on the obesity cusp at 6’0”, 200 pounds and a BMI of 29.