http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/ 15 en-us Copyright 2008 Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=4.21-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Now, it's personal. John McCain and Sarah Palin were backstage, and Lehigh County GOP Chairman Bill Platt was warming up the crowd of 6,000 at a rally here for the Republican ticket. "Think about how you'll feel on November 5 if you wake up in the morning and see the news, that Barack Obama -- that Barack Hussein Obama -- is the president-elect of the United States," Platt said. The audience at the Lehigh University arena booed at the thought of it. "The number one most liberal senator in the United States of America was, you guessed it, the ambassador of change, Barack Hussein Obama," he added. "This election is about preserving America's past and protecting the promise of its future." The sage Platt had more information to disclose. "Barack Obama refused to wear an American flag on his lapel," he said of the man who, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/rage_and_love_from_camp_mccain.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/rage_and_love_from_camp_mccain.html Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 John McCain needed a big night at Tuesday's second presidential debate to turn around a race that seems to be getting away from him. So he hit Barack Obama where it hurts: in the overhead projector. McCain was asked about the global economic crisis. The Republican candidate answered by accusing Obama of voting for "$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago." Minutes later, another questioner at the town-hall-style debate asked what sacrifices would be required to restore the American dream. McCain answered that "we have to eliminate the earmarks," including -- you guessed it -- "the overhead projector that Senator Obama asked for." The markets took another plunge Tuesday in what pretty much everybody calls the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And we're talking about overhead projectors? Read the whole Sketch -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/open_season_on_small_game.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/open_season_on_small_game.html Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 FORT MYERS, Fla., Oct. 6 -- John McCain is collapsing in the polls in Florida and other swing states, but Sarah Palin, God bless her, has a solution. "For me, the heels are on, the gloves are off," she announced at high noon Monday to a group of Republican donors at the Naples Beach Club. You betcha. As the donors sipped their bloody marys and mimosas, she added, in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "I'm sending the message back to John McCain also: Tomorrow night in his debate, might as well take the gloves off." Darn right. Read the whole Sketch -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/unleashed_palin_makes_a_pit_bu.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/unleashed_palin_makes_a_pit_bu.html Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 ST. LOUIS, Oct. 2 -- This week, Sarah Palin gave a curious rationale for her candidacy. "It's time," the Republican vice presidential nominee said, "that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency." When she took the stage Thursday night here at Washington University for the vice presidential debate, Sarah Six-Pack all but popped open a cold one. Wearing a glittery flag pin on her jacket, she blew a kiss toward the audience. She gave a wave that Tina Fey would probably describe as adorable. Then she regarded her Democratic foe, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Read the whole Sketch. -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/joe_and_sarah_six-pack.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/joe_and_sarah_six-pack.html Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:50:07 -0500 As a leader of the "Pray at the Pump" movement, Rocky Twyman spent the summer visiting service stations to ask God for lower gas prices. But after he saw the House of Representatives collapse in chaos as it attempted to pass a financial bailout on Monday, Twyman headed to Capitol Hill yesterday with a new cause. "Join us in prayer for healing our U.S. Economy NOW," his hand-lettered sign announced as he stopped passersby across the street from the Capitol. "Our Congress Needs God and Prayer Now." Within hours, Twyman's prayers were answered. As if touched by the hand of God, Senate leaders abandoned their partisan ways and declared a new day of harmony and togetherness. "We're going to have a significant bipartisan victory on the rescue plan here in the Senate tonight," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) exulted after lunching with his fellow Republican senators. "I think you're http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/kumbaya_distinguished_gentleme.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/10/kumbaya_distinguished_gentleme.html Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0500 The bailout bill was going down to defeat on the House floor yesterday, and Democratic and Republican leaders were desperately trying to twist arms and change votes when a bipartisan group of backbenchers began to heckle them. "Regular order!" they cried, demanding that the leaders end the vote and pronounce the bill dead. In the well of the chamber, Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the normally genial House majority leader, turned with fury on one of his tormentors, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), and shouted: "The market's tanking as we speak!" So it was. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 778 points, the largest one-day point drop in history. And no wonder: In the Congress of the United States, the insane are now running the asylum. Read the whole Sketch -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/a_house_divided.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/a_house_divided.html Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 By Dana Milbank The American people need a bailout -- from toxic metaphors. Rep. Paul Broun, a Georgia Republican, was downright earthy in his imagery this morning as he rose to denounce the financial bailout package before the House. "Madam Speaker, this is a huge cow patty with a piece of marshmallow stuck in the middle of it," he declared. "I'm not going to eat that cow patty." "The members will be relieved," responded Barney Frank, the Democrats' floor leader for the bill, "to know I have no matching metaphor." Frank must have been the only one without a rhetorical cow patty to dump on the House floor this morning. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/debating_the_bailout_torturing.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/debating_the_bailout_torturing.html Mon, 29 Sep 2008 12:59:00 -0500 OXFORD, Miss., Sept. 26 -- It was supposed to have been a Goldilocks debate. At one wooden lectern stood the Republican nominee, tempestuous and tightly wound. A few steps across the red carpet stood his Democratic opponent, cerebral and condescending. "Is John McCain too hot?" Chris Matthews of "Hardball" broadcast from the Ole Miss campus before Friday night's first general-election debate. "Is Barack Obama too cold?" But when they opened their mouths, what came out was neither hot nor cold, but a tepid gruel. McCain was controlled. Obama was succinct. And both were so mild that moderator Jim Lehrer didn't know what to do. "Talk to each other," he urged. "Say it directly to him," he pleaded. "Do you have something directly to say, Senator Obama, to Senator McCain about what he just said? . . . Respond directly to him about that, to Senator Obama about that. He's made http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/a_lukewarm_debate.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/a_lukewarm_debate.html Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Campaigning against us is a perilous endeavor: We are everywhere, and we control everything. -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/the_eastern_media_elite.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/the_eastern_media_elite.html Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:19:42 -0500 "You all know, I've been called a maverick," John McCain declared Thursday night as he accepted the Republican presidential nomination. Indeed he had. Over and over again through the evening's program. "Some people call him a maverick," said former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, one of McCain's warm-up acts. "May we summon ourselves to our best efforts and call this maverick forward." "The original maverick," said another speaker, David Cappiello. Convention organizers distributed hand-painted signs announcing "Maverick." Biographical videos proclaimed the "maverick" status of McCain and his vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. But the most striking thing about the message of the maverick Thursday night was how conventional it was. There were the requisite references to Sept. 11, including a video showing, to an ominous bass, the planes hitting the towers and the towers collapsing. "We remember buildings burning, bodies falling," the narrator said. There were the mandatory multiple http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/mccains_eulogy_for_mccain.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/mccains_eulogy_for_mccain.html Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the Louisiana coast about 10:30 a.m. Monday. Hurricane Bristol made landfall in Minnesota at 11:43 a.m. "Palin says daughter, 17, pregnant," announced the article by Steve Holland on the Reuters news wire. Sarah Palin, John McCain's running mate, disclosed this bombshell about her daughter Bristol "to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child." Upward of 10,000 reporters in and around the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, idled by McCain's decision to truncate the Republican convention because of Gustav, suddenly discovered that their plans for the day had been knocked up. Scores of them surrounded Steve Schmidt, McCain's senior adviser, as he walked through the media area outside the convention hall. Read the whole Sketch -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/gop_faces_a_storm_--_and_the_s.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/09/gop_faces_a_storm_--_and_the_s.html Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 It was a ceremony fit for the gods. Fireworks exploded overhead. A skycam soared through the air the way it does during "Monday Night Football." Strobe lights flashed, spotlights circled. Eighty-four thousand adoring fans, after waiting hours to enter Invesco Field at Mile High, waved flags, tossed beach balls and undulated in a massive human wave. And, in the middle of it all, stood Barack Obama, accepting the Democratic presidential nomination with "great humility." On a stage with an ancient Greek colonnade. Read the whole Sketch -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/obamas_big_fat_greek_setting.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/obamas_big_fat_greek_setting.html Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Deep divisions, bad feelings. Tensions that threaten to boil over during this week's gathering in Colorado. The Obama-Clinton feud at the Democratic National Convention? Well, yes, but that's happening 13 miles to the east of here, in Denver. The fight in Golden is between the townsfolk of this quaint Western hamlet and al-Jazeera English, which is trying to broadcast from here during the convention. It started innocently enough: Qatar-based al-Jazeera decided it would film the locals in Golden, the home of Coors beer, as they watched the convention from a biker bar Wednesday night. This would allow al-Jazeera's viewers to see Bill Clinton and Joe Biden through the eyes of those in a small American town that could pass as a set for a Hollywood Western. City leaders at first offered to host a pork-free barbecue for the Jazeera crew, then abandoned that plan when angry residents protested. But the http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/live_from_colo_its_al-jazeera.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/live_from_colo_its_al-jazeera.html Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 At noon on Tuesday, two young men walked onto the podium at the Democratic National Convention carrying four women's suit jackets -- red, orange, light blue and teal -- and holding each one up to the lights to see which would look best in the hall. It was Hillary Clinton's night, and nothing was being left to chance. Would she go with the orange or red, colors that attract attention? Or the blue or green, which have calming properties? Nine hours later, Clinton emerged on the podium -- in vibrant orange. The thousands of delegates and spectators in the hall -- even the Obama supporters -- raised white Hillary signs. The loudspeakers played her old campaign theme, "Yes, she can change the world." And Clinton earned adoring cheers, cries of "we love you" and more than a few tears as she recalled her campaign and her "sisterhood of the traveling http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/hillarys_last_bash.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/hillarys_last_bash.html Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 DENVER, Aug. 25 Most political conventions begin with the fall of the gavel. The 2008 Democratic convention began in the "downward dog" position. "On an exhale from the belly body, downward dog . . . using the entire breath to get there," a woman in tights coached a group of Democrats and liberal activists assembled for a pre-convention yoga session at 7 o'clock Monday morning. "Reverse swan dive all the way to stand tall . . . make the body long, make the body traverse the space between Earth and stars." Cosmic. Read the full Sketch. -- Dana Milbank http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/where_even_the_grudges_are_rec.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/08/where_even_the_grudges_are_rec.html Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:12:55 -0500