Presidential candidate John Kerry firing up the crowd at last night’s Democratic convention
Presidential candidate (and occasional President) George W. Bush at Andrews Air Force base this morning. Military custom apparently requires that the commander-in-chief salutes with his right hand, while holding his dog Barney with his left hand.
Month: July 2004
It may be the week of John Kerry’s ascendacy to the Democratic nomination for the President—a period of time during the presidential campaign where the opposition candidate traditionally lays low—but that doesn’t mean the incumbent executive branch’s Number 2 isn’t hitting the road and campaigning for local candidates. For the past few days, Vice President Dick Cheney (whom we’ve poked fun at before for his inability to stray from the rote lines of his standard stump speech) has brought his unique form of existential musings out west. Here, the veep ponders the idea of an alternate universe, five discrete times in twenty-four hours:
Remarks Followed by Q&A by the Vice President at a Reception for Congressional Candidates Goli Ameri and Jim Zupancic, Portland, Oregon, July 26, 2004:
But I explained to a group the other day that if it hadn’t been for that victory by Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Lynne would have married somebody else. (Laughter.) And she said, right, and how he’d be Vice President of the United States. (Laughter and applause.)
The Vice President Delivers Remarks at Luncheon for Congressional Candidate Roy Ashburn, Bakersfield, California, July 26, 2004:
And I explained to a group the other day that if it hadn’t been for Dwight Eisenhower’s victory in 1952, Lynne would have married somebody else. She said, right, and now he’d be Vice President of the United States. (Laughter and applause.)
Remarks Followed by Q&A by the Vice President at a Luncheon for Gubernatorial Candidate Dino Rossi, Kennewick, Washington, July 26, 2004:
But I explained to a group the other night, if it hadn’t been for that tremendous election victory by Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Lynne would have married somebody else. And she said, right, and how he’d be Vice President of the United States. (Laughter and applause.)
The Vice President Delivers Remarks at a Reception for Senatorial Candidate Bill Jones, Riverside, California, July 27, 2004:
I explained to a group the other night if hadn’t been for Eisenhower’s great victory in 1952, Lynne would have married somebody else. (Laughter.) And she said, right, and now he’d be Vice President of the United States. (Laughter.)
Remarks by the Vice President at a Luncheon for Congressional Candidate John Swallow, Salt Lake City, Utah, July 27, 2004:
I explained to a group the other day that if hadn’t been for Dwight Eisenhower’s election victory, Lynne would have married somebody else. She said, right, and now he’d be Vice President of the United States. (Laughter and applause.)
EARLIER: Dick Cheney (repeating a different aspect of his stump speech), George W. Bush, and John Kerry
From “Sick Bag Note Caused United Flight To Turn Back”, July 28, 2004:
…An air sickness bag with the letters “B O B” scrawled on it had been found in a toilet on board.
The pilot decided the note could have meant “bomb on board” and returned to Sydney, dumping almost a full load of fuel before the Boeing 747-400 landed safely.
Several other possibilities were being investigated, including that the note could have been a popular flight crew acronym for a good looking passenger, or simply a man named Bob.
One suggestion: aviation officials ought to have paid closer attention to the phrase “FIRE WALK WITH ME” that was scrawled on the bag’s flipside.
As part of our continuing coverage of this year’s exciting race for the White House, we asked noted “celebrity body language expert” Patti Wood to provide her unique brand of insight on the “hidden” feelings of politicians as indicated by their physical gestures and maneuvers, but she declined, claiming to be too busy working on an in-depth body language piece for Us Weekly on the recent split between Spiderman 2‘s Kirsten Dunst and yesterday’s it-boy Jake Gyllenhaal.
Ms. Wood’s less-successful sister, Cathy, agreed to step in and help us analyze and assess the inner workings of this year’s political love lives and goings-on, explaining that she had learned a lot about this process from her older sister. (She did, however, express some dismay about not being able to studiously examine photos of “that total hottie, Jake. I want to touch him.”)
Continued after the jump.
When you’re MTV, and you’re inexplicably working with the GOP to galvanize the youth vote, and you’re all, “Let’s get some kids voting and shit,” and they’re all, “Bitches, let’s get a program going, and we’ll get busy on our website, the front page and shit,” and you say, “Fuck yeah, we’ve got this shit right here, check out this fine-ass agendum,” then you give ’em an essay contest for young people on “how President Bush’s call to service resonates in their lives”:
Choose or Lose 2004: “Stand Up and Holla!”
Not having taken part in this inspirational program, we can only take a gander at additional elements and events from the MTV/RNC “Choose or Lose” Program Guide:
“GOP 2004: Get All Up in this Peace”
“Gippa, Please”
“Off the Hizzy, GOPizzy”
“Rock the Hizzouse of Representatives”
“Kerry’s Bunk in the Crunk”
“Bust a Cap(ital Punishment)”
“Like Junk in the Trunk? Ni**as get Sunk”
“Niger, Please: I Wanna Sex You Up”
“Please, Hamid, Don’t Hurt ‘Em”
“Bush 41 got Sonned”
“The Roof, The Roof is on Fire! And the Fire Department’s Underfunded!”
“Don’t Believe tha Hype… Actually, Believe It. Please.”
“Compassionizzle Conservatizzle”
“If I Ruled The World, Actually, I do, so go Fuck Yourself”
“We Skeet on Welfare Bitches, too”
“No Homo”
“Stand Up and Hola! (We welcome Latinos, though)”
And, finally,
“Vote or Die”
Categories
43, 42 Years Later
Last week, the reliably over-reactive Matt Drudge posted an urgent news flash for his legions of readers:
“RICH: ‘MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE’ MORE PARTISAN THAN ‘FAHRENHEIT 911’ Thu Jul 22 2004 20:56:59 ET”
THAT MORE OR LESS TURNED OUT (whoa, sorry, was momentarily stuck in all-caps/shouting mode) to be the news item in its entirety, in that Drudge’s pithy exclamation consisted solely of a handful of quotes from “Pop culture takes on the fear game,” an article by the New York Times’ Frank Rich (whom we absolutely adore, by the way) that appeared in Friday’s International Herald Tribune. Here’s the particular passage that got Drudge so worked up:
“[The act of turning the Bush-Cheney administration into an object of fear] can be seen at full throttle in Jonathan Demme’s remake of the classic cold war thriller ‘The Manchurian Candidate,’ which opens in the United States the morning after the Democratic convention ends. This movie could pass for the de facto fifth day of the convention itself.
I cannot recall when Hollywood last released a big-budget mainstream feature film as partisan as this one at the height of a presidential campaign. That it has slipped into action largely under the media’s radar, as discreetly as the sleeper agents in its plot, is an achievement in itself. Freed from any obligations to fact, ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ can play far dirtier than ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’ Not being a documentary, it can also open on far more screens – some 2,800, which is more than three times what Michael Moore could command on his opening weekend (or any weekend to date).
Aw, Frank, Matt…you guys needn’t get so riled up about the undercurrent of hostility towards this year’s race for the presidency that has apparently surfaced in Demme’s remake. In fact, there were already a slew of winks and nods to the current 2004 campaign running throughout John Frankenheimer’s original 1962 film. Prescient, indeed.
You’ve got Texas versus Massachusetts…
And the convention held at Madison Square Garden in New York…
Featuring a first-class imbecile on the presidential ticket…
And, finally, the minor-yet-significant role of Heinz ketchup in the race for the presidency.
Let’s hope the real convention ends better than the one in the film!
Offered up at yesterday’s Rock the Vote event in Boston: Jerry Springer, Biz Markie, Natalie Portman, Lauryn Hill, Al Sharpton, Howard Dean, and creative usages of an upside-down letter M.
Categories
We rewrite, you decide, Vol. 5
From the Remarks by the President at the 2004 President’s Dinner at the Washington Convention Center, July 21, 2004:
It’s now been three and a half years since the Vice President and I took office. We’ve faced significant challenges. We have met them head-on. I believe it’s the President’s job to confront problems, not to pass them on to future Presidents and future generations. (Applause.)
From the President’s State of the Union Address, January 20, 2004:
In two weeks, I will send you a budget that funds the war, protects the homeland, and meets important domestic needs, while limiting the growth in discretionary spending to less than 4 percent. (Applause.) This will require that Congress focus on priorities, cut wasteful spending, and be wise with the people’s money. By doing so, we can cut the deficit in half over the next five years. (Applause.)
According to the Congressional Budget Office, by way of Calpundit, this still means a deficit of anywhere from $240 to $500 billion in 2009.
2009? That means that this deficit is a “problem” that President Bush (regardless of the outcome of this year’s election) will certainly not be around to confront.
Applause, please.
Hilary Duff stars in A Cinderella Story, 2004
Scarlett Johansson promoting Lost in Translation at the Venice Film Festival, 2004
(With thanks to Kristina Dalberg.)