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08/17/2000 Jay Nordlinger National Review EXCERPT I'm a little weary of the Liebermans' routine. Wednesday night was Joe-'n'-Hadassah night in LA (Dems 2000 convention), and if the country is falling in love with them, it is a strange country indeed. Mrs. L. introduced her husband, and she did it in her now-familiar very treacly style. The Liebermans have seemed awfully pleased with themselves, and with life, this month. Hadassah can't quite put a damper on her excitement, and neither can Joltin' Joe. She gushed her thanks for the Democrats' "support, enthusiasm, and love," which have been "overwhelming" (as though we...

The people of Alaska boast that they have the coldest state in the U.S. and "the hottest governor." In her younger days, Sarah Palin did come in second in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant but that's not the point. Republican John McCain named her just one week ago as his surprise pick for the vice presidency. This week, she was the star of the Republican National Convention and became the most talked-about person in America. They are right in Alaska; she is a hot commodity, though the Republicans may yet get burned. Most Americans have only started getting their first...

Last January, on the night of John McCain’s back-from-the-dead victory in the New Hampshire primary, I asked a longtime adviser how McCain had survived the collapse of his campaign a few months earlier. “You know, in the darkest days, I think there were a lot of us who just respected him so much we just wanted to band together to make sure to restore his dignity,” the adviser told me. “But the chance of this actually happening was pretty remote.” And yet it did happen. After McCain won New Hampshire, he kept on winning until there he was, onstage last...

A photo of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his Code Pink bundler, terrorist supporter Jodie Evans, has finally surfaced. Ironically, it most likely was released by Code Pink.The photo is included in a video report by WCCO-4 in Minnesota about Evans and her Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin infiltrating the Republican National Convention the night of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech Wednesday night.The WCCO reporter, Esme Murphy, included the unsourced photo of Evans and Obama to illustrate Code Pink's claim that they go after both sides. Murphy describes the photo as a Code Pink member "interrupting Obama", yet...

Grab a beer with... Biggest disappointment... Biggest star.... Freep it. Sarah is biggest star, Biden is biggest disappointment.

Freep this poll: Who had the better convention D's or R's

After lackluster showings in viewership at the beginning of the week, the Republican National Convention bounced back on Wednesday and Thursday, making it the most-watched political convention in American history (or at least since Nielsen began recording convention viewership in 1960).

Remember the Democratic National Convention? The Clintons and the Obamas, Invesco Field, the fireworks? No, I thought not. It's so last month. So B.S.P. -- Before Sarah Palin. Before Hurricane Gustav and his pals. Before the GOP rediscovered how satisfying it is to bash the news media, liberals and East Coast elites. And that's a problem for the Democrats. Last week's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., has re-energized the party and John McCain's presidential campaign. It wasn't just the convention's late timing or its retro, culture-war theme that reinvigorated Republican hopes. It was the power of Palin. McCain's...

Two masterstrokes were accomplished in the last two days of this year’s Republican National Convention. In her first appearance on the national stage — which can only be called a tectonic event — Sarah Palin secured the conservative base for maverick John McCain, while also reaching out to Democratic women. Then on Thursday night, John McCain struck again, making a play for the rest of the Democratic party. When John McCain was sewing up the nomination in the early spring, I spent a lot of time in many comment sections defending him in as many ways as I knew how....

The three adult children who took turns disrupting John McCain's acceptance speech last night, now being heralded as heroes by some left wing blogs, are off-springs of the steady lineage of vitriolic shrill that's come from Al Gore (of "He lied to us; he preyed on our fears" fame), Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Dick Durbin, Harry Reid, et al, for they have helped sustain and sanction their growth. With each spewing of distain and hatred for Bush-Cheney, a divot is taken out of the fairway of what civility there was left in American political discourse. And, while partisans might meet...

To paraphrase conservative talk show host, Larry Elders, "Truth is like kryptonite to a liberal". Liberalism withers and disintegrates in the face of honesty, integrity, work, independence, and patriotism. Therefore, liberals must ban these things at all costs. Witness the left's reactions to Sarah Palin. She is the most threatening person they have ever been confronted with, and they will try everything under the sun, moon, and stars to destroy her. Which brings up a point I've been wanting to make since the night of her speech. From about 2 minutes into Sarah's speech, and continuing until maybe a few...

LOS ANGELES, Sept 5 (Reuters) - A record 38.9 million U.S. TV viewers watched John McCain accept the Republican nomination for president on Thursday, beating the record set last week by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, Nielsen Media Research reported. Obama had an average 38.4 million viewers watching his speech accepting the nomination for his party last week. McCain's tally also was higher than the 37.2 million Americans who tuned in to hear Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's speech on Wednesday.

The View co-host and well-known Republican enthusiast Elisabeth Hasselbeck spent the day wowing delegates at the Republican National Convention Thursday. Hasselbeck, 31, served as the official emcee at a luncheon for Cindy McCain just hours before John McCain's big speech. Hasselbeck also showed off vintage-style "McCain '08" T-shirts she designed herself, and spent time on the floor of the convention taping a segment that will air on Monday, Sept. 8, onThe View. "She was a bit of a rock star," a source tells PEOPLE. "The Republicans were all over her, fawning over her, telling her she was the best, clapping...

There is such a thing as a black Republican, but they have been all but invisible at the party's national convention which is hardly representative of America's diverse population. Among the party's 2,380 delegates gathered in St. Paul only 36 are African Americans and very few other visible minorities were to be found on the convention floor.

H/t Kimberly M. Did the Code Pink members who interrupted John McCain's speech last night use MSNBC press badges to get into the hall? Not according to Code Pink itself, which claims the two women "obtained passes to the convention from disaffected Republicans." Right. There is another much more intriguing explanation out there. According to Shay at Booker Rising, which describes itself a newsite for black moderates and black conservatives [emphasis added]: "I took the shuttle bus back to Minneapolis, and I overheard a convention organizer named Phil telling a convention delegate that the protesters on Wednesday night got through...

Video at link

A protester holds a flower out to riot police outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota September 4, 2008. Police offered her a vase for her flower and then arrested her for possessing a Minnesota Yellow Gerbera Daisy, which is on the state endangered list. Illegal harvesting or sale of the flower carries a $30,000 fine and two years in prison. Semi-literate Code Pink Activist Janet Macaroni holds up a sign in support of "WAR" before collapsing from the weight of her handmade vinyl banner. Anti-war protester Jessica OrganicGrapeJuice is assisted by bicycle police after she puts...

Apparently Ted Anthony of the Associated Press thinks it is somehow "contradictory" of the GOP to show VP candidate Governor Sarah Palin's kids at the GOP convention on TV. He seems to imagine that, since the GOP objected to the media attempting to use the kids against Governor Palin, that the GOP shouldn't be allowed to have the kids attend the convention to see their Mother accept her nomination. Anthony's "analysis" hit the nets on September 3, the day after Palin's wonderful acceptance speech on night 3 of the proceedings. Naturally, the AP trolls our left leaning universities to find...

<p>Across all broadcast networks Thursday, Sen. McCain’s speech ended the night with a 4.8 rating/7 share, compared to Sen. Obama’s 4.3/7 average, according to overnight numbers from metered households in 55 U.S. markets measured by Nielsen. These ratings are preliminary, however, and are subject to change.</p>

ST. PAUL, Minn. — John McCain, a POW turned political rebel, vowed Thursday night to vanquish the "constant partisan rancor" that grips Washington as he launched his fall campaign for the White House. "Change is coming," he promised the roaring Republican National Convention and a prime-time television audience. "Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight for what's right for our country," he said in a convention crescendo. To repeated cheers from his delegates, McCain made only passing reference to an unpopular President George W. Bush and criticized fellow Republicans, as well as Democratic rival Barack Obama, to...