Friday, February 10, 2006
OPENING CEREMONY
Ok, kids, in honor of the XX Winter Olympiad in Turin/Torino (somebody make up their mind on this, please), Italy, we'll be playing a special game of Make 'Em Rhyme, using various photos I've stolen off the Internet. So, if you're up to it, Make 'Em Rhyme!
Thursday, February 09, 2006
DAY 999 - A.B.B.
Today we'll cross the aisle and take a look at the leading Democratic contender to be A.B.B., Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY).
(I promise these will be more than just Wikiregurgitations once we get to the more obscure hopefuls.)
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton was born on October 26th, 1947 in Chicago, IL, and was raised in nearby Park Ridge, IL. Her father Hugh was into textiles and her mother Dorothy was a housewife. She graduated from Maine South High School in 1965 and matriculated at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She briefly served as the president of the Wellesley College Republicans (a woman after Karl Rove's heart!), but joined the Democratic Party shortly after graduating as valedictorian of her class in 1969. She was the first student to deliver a commencement address at Wellesley, a speech which was chronicled in Life Magazine.
Rodham entered Yale Law School in 1969, where, while working on a number of liberal causes including, among others, Senator Walter Mondale's sub-committee on migrant workers, she met a young, dashing law student by the name of Bill Clinton. The two were married in 1975, two years after Hillary received her J.D. from Yale. The couple moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Hillary joined the Rose Law Firm and Bill ran for and won the state governership in 1978. Hillary was the first woman to be made a full partner at Rose in 1979, and after Bill suffered his only electoral setback in 1980, the couple returned to the governor's mansion in 1982, where they would remain until 1992. Hillary gave birth to her only child, Chelsea, on February 27th, 1980 (who may or may not be Bill's only child, depending which right-wing conspiracy theorist you talk to). Hillary continued to work for the Rose Law Firm throughout her tenure as Arkansas' First Lady.
Of course, Hillary became the First Lady of the United States when Bill was elected to the presidency in 1992 and again in 1996. Though she worked on many of the traditional issues tackled by First Ladies, such as women's rights and children's issues, Hillary broke significant new ground with her assignment to head the president's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. This assignment proved to be a debacle, as the Task Force issued a confusing and complex plan that failed to gain support in Congress. Hillary was not asked to participate publicly on any substantive issue after this, although she was surely President Clinton's closest and most trusted adviser throughout his two terms in office, which wound down shortly after the infamous Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke in 1998.
Ever the pioneer, Hillary became the first First Lady to seek, and then to obtain, a Senate seat, winning the 2000 race to replace Daniel Patrick Moynihan in New York, after she and Bill had purchased a house in Chappaqua, NY in tony Westchester County earlier that year. Certainly, Mrs. Clinton's grace and wrought-iron determination amid the Lewinsky scandal played an enormous role in engendering sympathy with New York State voters. During her Senate tenure, Hillary has focused primarily on Homeland Security, especially after the 9/11 attacks occurred in her state, and has continued her interest in universal health care. Politically, Clinton has spent much of the past six years employing her husband's famous "triangulation" strategy, taking policy positions significantly to the right of her supposed liberal constituency while still maintaining favor with that constituency. She was a strong advocate of the war in Afghanistan, voted to authorize force in Iraq (although recently she has been critical of the Bush administration's execution of the war), and has allied herself with noted conservative bomb thrower and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on improving access to medical records. Mrs. Clinton is running for a second term in the Senate in 2006, and appears to be a shoo-in, although it was reported just today that Rove may be helping the current Republican front-runner, Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, which surely sent a shiver down Mrs. Clinton's spine. Karl Rove could have made Jeffrey Dahmer a viable candidate for County Coroner.
Scandal has not evaded Mrs. Clinton nor merely been confined to her husband. In 1979, Mrs. Clinton managed to turn a $1,000 investment in cattle futures into a $100,000 profit with the help of her friend James Blair. This amazing return prompted charges of hidden bribery, none of which were substantiated. In 1993, several long-time employees of the White House Travel Office were fired and allegedly replaced with Clinton cronies. Mrs. Clinton was implicated in the firings, in a scandal known as "TravelGate", but special prosecutor Robert Ray could not find conclusive evidence that she was involved. Also, White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster committed suicide on July 20th, 1993, a death that numerous conspiracy wackos have attempted to tie to the Clintons, and specifically to Hillary, after it was alleged that files related to the Senate Special Whitewater Committee had been removed from Foster's office on Hillary's orders. And of course there was the Whitewater scandal itself, in which the Clintons were involved in a land speculation deal in Arkansas in 1978. After a $40 million investigation, the Clintons were cleared of any wrongdoing, although the probe did manage to unearth Bill's dalliance with an intern.
Hillary has written several books, including her best-selling 2003 autobiography "Living History". She received a Grammy for the audiobook version of her 1996 book, "It Takes A Village:And Other Lessons Children Teach Us". She is famously a New York Yankees fan, despite her Midwestern upbringing.
Can she win in 2008? The Democratic nomination seems eminently reachable. I don't see another Democrat with near her name recognition, charisma, and campaign apparatus. John Edwards, Al Gore, and John Kerry have all been rejected either by the party or the full electorate or both, making it unlikely that the Democrats will try to recycle them. Evan Bayh is a new face, but as such he has a long way to go to catch up to Mrs. Clinton's almost rock-star status. As for the general election, it seems unlikely that a polarizing figure such as Hillary could out-poll her own husband, who in both 1992 and 1996 failed to receive a majority of the popular vote. In addition, her nomination would unleash a smear/whisper campaign by her rabid opponents the likes of which the republic has never seen nor will likely see again.
(I promise these will be more than just Wikiregurgitations once we get to the more obscure hopefuls.)
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton was born on October 26th, 1947 in Chicago, IL, and was raised in nearby Park Ridge, IL. Her father Hugh was into textiles and her mother Dorothy was a housewife. She graduated from Maine South High School in 1965 and matriculated at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She briefly served as the president of the Wellesley College Republicans (a woman after Karl Rove's heart!), but joined the Democratic Party shortly after graduating as valedictorian of her class in 1969. She was the first student to deliver a commencement address at Wellesley, a speech which was chronicled in Life Magazine.
Rodham entered Yale Law School in 1969, where, while working on a number of liberal causes including, among others, Senator Walter Mondale's sub-committee on migrant workers, she met a young, dashing law student by the name of Bill Clinton. The two were married in 1975, two years after Hillary received her J.D. from Yale. The couple moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Hillary joined the Rose Law Firm and Bill ran for and won the state governership in 1978. Hillary was the first woman to be made a full partner at Rose in 1979, and after Bill suffered his only electoral setback in 1980, the couple returned to the governor's mansion in 1982, where they would remain until 1992. Hillary gave birth to her only child, Chelsea, on February 27th, 1980 (who may or may not be Bill's only child, depending which right-wing conspiracy theorist you talk to). Hillary continued to work for the Rose Law Firm throughout her tenure as Arkansas' First Lady.
Of course, Hillary became the First Lady of the United States when Bill was elected to the presidency in 1992 and again in 1996. Though she worked on many of the traditional issues tackled by First Ladies, such as women's rights and children's issues, Hillary broke significant new ground with her assignment to head the president's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. This assignment proved to be a debacle, as the Task Force issued a confusing and complex plan that failed to gain support in Congress. Hillary was not asked to participate publicly on any substantive issue after this, although she was surely President Clinton's closest and most trusted adviser throughout his two terms in office, which wound down shortly after the infamous Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke in 1998.
Ever the pioneer, Hillary became the first First Lady to seek, and then to obtain, a Senate seat, winning the 2000 race to replace Daniel Patrick Moynihan in New York, after she and Bill had purchased a house in Chappaqua, NY in tony Westchester County earlier that year. Certainly, Mrs. Clinton's grace and wrought-iron determination amid the Lewinsky scandal played an enormous role in engendering sympathy with New York State voters. During her Senate tenure, Hillary has focused primarily on Homeland Security, especially after the 9/11 attacks occurred in her state, and has continued her interest in universal health care. Politically, Clinton has spent much of the past six years employing her husband's famous "triangulation" strategy, taking policy positions significantly to the right of her supposed liberal constituency while still maintaining favor with that constituency. She was a strong advocate of the war in Afghanistan, voted to authorize force in Iraq (although recently she has been critical of the Bush administration's execution of the war), and has allied herself with noted conservative bomb thrower and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on improving access to medical records. Mrs. Clinton is running for a second term in the Senate in 2006, and appears to be a shoo-in, although it was reported just today that Rove may be helping the current Republican front-runner, Yonkers Mayor John Spencer, which surely sent a shiver down Mrs. Clinton's spine. Karl Rove could have made Jeffrey Dahmer a viable candidate for County Coroner.
Scandal has not evaded Mrs. Clinton nor merely been confined to her husband. In 1979, Mrs. Clinton managed to turn a $1,000 investment in cattle futures into a $100,000 profit with the help of her friend James Blair. This amazing return prompted charges of hidden bribery, none of which were substantiated. In 1993, several long-time employees of the White House Travel Office were fired and allegedly replaced with Clinton cronies. Mrs. Clinton was implicated in the firings, in a scandal known as "TravelGate", but special prosecutor Robert Ray could not find conclusive evidence that she was involved. Also, White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster committed suicide on July 20th, 1993, a death that numerous conspiracy wackos have attempted to tie to the Clintons, and specifically to Hillary, after it was alleged that files related to the Senate Special Whitewater Committee had been removed from Foster's office on Hillary's orders. And of course there was the Whitewater scandal itself, in which the Clintons were involved in a land speculation deal in Arkansas in 1978. After a $40 million investigation, the Clintons were cleared of any wrongdoing, although the probe did manage to unearth Bill's dalliance with an intern.
Hillary has written several books, including her best-selling 2003 autobiography "Living History". She received a Grammy for the audiobook version of her 1996 book, "It Takes A Village:And Other Lessons Children Teach Us". She is famously a New York Yankees fan, despite her Midwestern upbringing.
Can she win in 2008? The Democratic nomination seems eminently reachable. I don't see another Democrat with near her name recognition, charisma, and campaign apparatus. John Edwards, Al Gore, and John Kerry have all been rejected either by the party or the full electorate or both, making it unlikely that the Democrats will try to recycle them. Evan Bayh is a new face, but as such he has a long way to go to catch up to Mrs. Clinton's almost rock-star status. As for the general election, it seems unlikely that a polarizing figure such as Hillary could out-poll her own husband, who in both 1992 and 1996 failed to receive a majority of the popular vote. In addition, her nomination would unleash a smear/whisper campaign by her rabid opponents the likes of which the republic has never seen nor will likely see again.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
THESE LOW APR RATES ARE MAKING ME THIRSTY
Yup. When I think of quality financial instruments, I think of Kramer riding a tricycle.
DAY 1000 - A.B.B.
Today, TCP is kicking off a new semi-regular feature. In exactly 1000 days, we'll be electing a new president. Thanks to the 22nd Amendment (many, many great and heartfelt thanks, I might add), this president will be Anybody But Bush (hence the A.B.B).
I have no idea what this feature will consist of. I'm doing it mainly because a) I have nothing else to write about, since I won't be repeating last year's hideous experiment of Phillies blogging, and b) it makes me feel good. To see those numbers count down, day by day, will do more to warm my frigid little heart than anything I can imagine.
I guess we can start with a profile of one of the contenders for the 2008 race, Senator John McCain, R-AZ. (Don't let the fact that his is the first profile be an indication of my sympathies...the election is still a long way away.)
Senator John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29th, 1936 in the U.S.-controlled (at the time) Panama Canal Zone. If he were to be elected, he would be the first president ever born outside the United States. Look for the right-wing nut jobs to bring that up during the primaries. A son and grandson of Navy admirals, McCain joined the US Naval Academy in 1954 after attending Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA. In 1958, McCain graduated from the Naval Academy 894th out of 899 students (maybe Bush isn't so dumb after all).
After graduation, McCain became a naval aviator, and served in Vietnam on the USS Forrestal and the Oriskany. He was shot down on October 26th, 1967 and held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. He remained imprisoned for five-and-a-half years, finally being released in 1973. He received the Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Flying Cross for his Vietnam service. Can you say "Hanoi Hilton Survivors for Truth"?
After retirement from the Navy in 1981, McCain ran for and won the seat for the First Congressional district of Arizona in 1982. In 1986, McCain won the Arizona Senate seat that Barry Goldwater had vacated when he retired. McCain has since been re-elected to the Senate three more times, the most recent in 2004.
Early in his tenure in the Senate, McCain was tabbed as one of the notorious "Keating Five", a group of Senators who received cash and favors from savings & loan operator Charles Keating. McCain was eventually exonerated for his role, and ever since has spent a great deal of time on campaign finance reform, culminating in the passing of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Among other provisions, this act prohibits "soft money" (unlimited money raised for the parties and not any specific candidate), and bans "issue ads" (ads produced by corporations or labor unions that refer to candidates but do not expressly advocate their election of defeat) in the 60 days prior to a general election of the 30 days prior to a primary election. The results of the act have been generally weak. Both parties have used a loophole in the act that allows for the raising of unlimited money by what are called 527 organizations, such as MoveOn.org and the ironically named "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", both of which played a significant role in the 2004 presidential election.
McCain ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2000. Prior to the South Carolina primary, campaign workers for George W. Bush called South Carolina voters and asked then if they knew that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child and that he and his wife were raising the child in their home. The Bush workers were referring to McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter, Bridget, whom McCain and his wife Cindy had found in an orphanage run by Mother Teresa. Nice. Due to this and many other questionable campaign tactics by the Bush team, McCain's early lead in the primaries was wiped out, and George W. Bush vaulted into the nomination.
Personally, McCain has been married twice, first to model Carol Shepp, whom he divorced in 1980, and then to his current wife, beer distributorship heiress Cindy Hensley McCain. McCain has fathered five children, one with Carol, and four with Cindy. In addition to Bridget, he also adopted Carol's two sons from a previous marriage.
The divorce and remarriage will likely be a significant story in the 2008 campaign. Shepp was involved in an auto accident while McCain was being held prisoner which left her on crutches and with a significant weight gain. McCain admits to engaging in extramarital affairs between the time he arrived home in 1973 and his divorce in 1980, and was likely having an affair with Cindy before the divorce was finalized.
Cindy herself has had some personal setbacks, including an admitted addiction to painkillers, and a recent stroke.
McCain has had a few other notable gaffes in his career. In 1998, he joked at a Republican fundraiser, "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." In 2000, he told reporters on his "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus that "I hate the gooks.... I will hate them as long as I live". He was forced to apologize for both remarks.
McCain has appeared in several films and TV shows, befitting his apparent love of pop culture. His resume includes cameos in "The Wedding Crashers" and "24", frequent guest stints on "The Daily Show" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien", and hosting "Saturday Night Live".
I'd have to say at this point, McCain would be the front runner for the Republican nomination if there weren't such pesky things as primaries and convention delegates. Unfortunately for McCain, these institutions are controlled by evangelical Christian conservatives in many parts of the country, and they do not necessarily take kindly to McCain's moderate voting history, his desire for campaign finance and other reforms, and the seeming embrace of him by many high-profile left-wing and moderate celebrities. McCain made a concerted effort during the 2004 campaign to assuage some of the fears of the Christian right, aligning himself strongly with President Bush and the war in Iraq. The recent revelations about the Bush administration possibly engaging in torture and illegal domestic surveillance and McCain's sharp opposition to both programs, however, have helped distance McCain from the President and could deeply hurt his chances in 2008. Another factor is McCain's age. He will be 72 in 2008, which is three years older than the oldest elected president, Ronald Reagan, was in 1980.
Many thanks to Wikipedia, from which most of this was brazenly lifted.
I have no idea what this feature will consist of. I'm doing it mainly because a) I have nothing else to write about, since I won't be repeating last year's hideous experiment of Phillies blogging, and b) it makes me feel good. To see those numbers count down, day by day, will do more to warm my frigid little heart than anything I can imagine.
I guess we can start with a profile of one of the contenders for the 2008 race, Senator John McCain, R-AZ. (Don't let the fact that his is the first profile be an indication of my sympathies...the election is still a long way away.)
Senator John Sidney McCain III was born on August 29th, 1936 in the U.S.-controlled (at the time) Panama Canal Zone. If he were to be elected, he would be the first president ever born outside the United States. Look for the right-wing nut jobs to bring that up during the primaries. A son and grandson of Navy admirals, McCain joined the US Naval Academy in 1954 after attending Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA. In 1958, McCain graduated from the Naval Academy 894th out of 899 students (maybe Bush isn't so dumb after all).
After graduation, McCain became a naval aviator, and served in Vietnam on the USS Forrestal and the Oriskany. He was shot down on October 26th, 1967 and held as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. He remained imprisoned for five-and-a-half years, finally being released in 1973. He received the Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Flying Cross for his Vietnam service. Can you say "Hanoi Hilton Survivors for Truth"?
After retirement from the Navy in 1981, McCain ran for and won the seat for the First Congressional district of Arizona in 1982. In 1986, McCain won the Arizona Senate seat that Barry Goldwater had vacated when he retired. McCain has since been re-elected to the Senate three more times, the most recent in 2004.
Early in his tenure in the Senate, McCain was tabbed as one of the notorious "Keating Five", a group of Senators who received cash and favors from savings & loan operator Charles Keating. McCain was eventually exonerated for his role, and ever since has spent a great deal of time on campaign finance reform, culminating in the passing of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act. Among other provisions, this act prohibits "soft money" (unlimited money raised for the parties and not any specific candidate), and bans "issue ads" (ads produced by corporations or labor unions that refer to candidates but do not expressly advocate their election of defeat) in the 60 days prior to a general election of the 30 days prior to a primary election. The results of the act have been generally weak. Both parties have used a loophole in the act that allows for the raising of unlimited money by what are called 527 organizations, such as MoveOn.org and the ironically named "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", both of which played a significant role in the 2004 presidential election.
McCain ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2000. Prior to the South Carolina primary, campaign workers for George W. Bush called South Carolina voters and asked then if they knew that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child and that he and his wife were raising the child in their home. The Bush workers were referring to McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter, Bridget, whom McCain and his wife Cindy had found in an orphanage run by Mother Teresa. Nice. Due to this and many other questionable campaign tactics by the Bush team, McCain's early lead in the primaries was wiped out, and George W. Bush vaulted into the nomination.
Personally, McCain has been married twice, first to model Carol Shepp, whom he divorced in 1980, and then to his current wife, beer distributorship heiress Cindy Hensley McCain. McCain has fathered five children, one with Carol, and four with Cindy. In addition to Bridget, he also adopted Carol's two sons from a previous marriage.
The divorce and remarriage will likely be a significant story in the 2008 campaign. Shepp was involved in an auto accident while McCain was being held prisoner which left her on crutches and with a significant weight gain. McCain admits to engaging in extramarital affairs between the time he arrived home in 1973 and his divorce in 1980, and was likely having an affair with Cindy before the divorce was finalized.
Cindy herself has had some personal setbacks, including an admitted addiction to painkillers, and a recent stroke.
McCain has had a few other notable gaffes in his career. In 1998, he joked at a Republican fundraiser, "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." In 2000, he told reporters on his "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus that "I hate the gooks.... I will hate them as long as I live". He was forced to apologize for both remarks.
McCain has appeared in several films and TV shows, befitting his apparent love of pop culture. His resume includes cameos in "The Wedding Crashers" and "24", frequent guest stints on "The Daily Show" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien", and hosting "Saturday Night Live".
I'd have to say at this point, McCain would be the front runner for the Republican nomination if there weren't such pesky things as primaries and convention delegates. Unfortunately for McCain, these institutions are controlled by evangelical Christian conservatives in many parts of the country, and they do not necessarily take kindly to McCain's moderate voting history, his desire for campaign finance and other reforms, and the seeming embrace of him by many high-profile left-wing and moderate celebrities. McCain made a concerted effort during the 2004 campaign to assuage some of the fears of the Christian right, aligning himself strongly with President Bush and the war in Iraq. The recent revelations about the Bush administration possibly engaging in torture and illegal domestic surveillance and McCain's sharp opposition to both programs, however, have helped distance McCain from the President and could deeply hurt his chances in 2008. Another factor is McCain's age. He will be 72 in 2008, which is three years older than the oldest elected president, Ronald Reagan, was in 1980.
Many thanks to Wikipedia, from which most of this was brazenly lifted.
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