Cheney will be the one with the shotgun, just in case Dan Quayle shows up.

Ah, see, you just don't understand. All resources are unlimited in a free market society. Water's like oil; all we have to do is drill more wells.

Hey, there's water in the ocean! Offshore drilling, hooray!

Yeah, not to mention their backing of President AWOL.

Would you like some cheese?

"I think it's just the most unfiltered, transparent approach," Bellavia says. "We want to know what these soldiers think."

Wow. Embedding reporters is "the most unfiltered, transparent approach"? That shows either a remarkable level of naivete or a remarkable level of disingenuousness.

This makes little sense; I guess racism works both ways.

Racism works all sorts of ways, though it's also worth noting that the related political and economic power imbalances generally go in specific directions.

The narrator continues, "While he's in our churches clapping his hands and tapping his feet, he's the only senator who thought our kids shouldn't be allowed to pray in school."

This is one of those lies I particularly hate. I'd be really, really surprised if he thinks "kids shouldn't be allowed to pray in school." The objection is to kids being led in prayer or otherwise publicly encouraged to pray. Phrasing it the way the ad did is disingenuous and dishonest.

(It also annoys me when the ACLU gets trashed for their work in cases like these. The ACLU has a long history of defending religious practitioners -- yes, even Christians -- when their religious freedoms are denied. How much credit do they get for it? Practically none. They're much too useful as a target.)

Actually, the courts have always held that local governments can designate where protests can be held. That's why marches, rallies, etc., always have to file with the local gvmt beforehand, and the routes/areas for these events are predetermined.

That's not an absolute. There have been rulings against local governments when they try to unnecessarily limit venues, or blatantly treat one group differently solely because of their message.

I think the Denver authorities are probably thinking in terms of security as well -- nobody wants another L.A. 1968 on their hands. Besides, the point of protest these days is to get on TV more than anything, ...

Um, yeah. Sort of like many of the things candidates do, no?

... and frankly the people at the convention as politicians and delegates don't really give a fuck what the protesters are going to be saying anyway.

That's not relevant to their freedom of speech.

... is supposed to be a Free Speech Zone.

Any news about the protest zones for the Republican convention, or is that just taken as a given? Will they be in the same city? The same state?

At this point, he has not said anything to clearly reflect that 1) he doesn't think that Clinton race-baited or 2) that he really cares about her supporter's feelings.

Obama has done those things, more than once, as I remember. And it was dismissed, belittled, or otherwise judged "not enough". (Usually because of something stupid said by the sort of fringe Obama supporter who was easily comparable any random fringe Clinton supporter.)

This comes back to arrogance - is Obama willing to set his pride aside and do what it takes to really unify the party, or is he just going to keep telling people about all of the good things he is going to do because he assumes that Clinton supporter's will vote for him? Or assumes that enough people will vote for him that we don't matter?

Why shouldn't people vote for him based on what he wants to do, plus whatever other meaningful criteria they want to use? What more would be sufficient for whatever few honest Clinton holdouts are left? Would nominating her for the VP spot really be enough, or would people then just call -- as some already do -- for her to be elevated to the top spot and Obama to be VP? (In some ways that might be better than having Clinton as Obama's VP ... but for bad reasons.)

Ye gods, Clinton herself has repeatedly asked people to support Obama. How do people who claim to be her supporters continue to actively oppose her on that? I can see not agreeing with her about that, but to actively fight it? At that point, it's not about supporting Clinton anymore.

Are you willing to set your pride aside and do what it takes to really unify the party?