The Kicker

Don’t say there weren’t plenty of ambient points tonight for the convention scribes to get harried about tomorrow: -The song blaring over the speakers as the McCains and Palins waved from the stage at the end of the night wasn’t the “Maverick” theme song, but Heart’s “Barracuda,” a rather conspicuously timed ode to Palin’s nickname […]

The PBS camera crew getting footage on the floor as McCain and Palin worked the crowd following McCain’s nomination speech did their best to get the so far interview-shy Sarah Palin to say a few words, holding out the microphone and making their intentions clear. Not a chance. She didn’t even make eye-contact with the […]

When convention analysis cuts too close to color theory

I’m watching the convention coverage as served up by my old colleagues at the NewsHour on PBS, and I swear it’s an alternate universe. No posturing by television stars crowding out the happenings on the floor. It’s not hard to guess where the sympathies of David Brooks and Mark Shields lie, but they chat without […]

Wow. Ben Smith was right to flag this clip. Do yourself a favor and watch Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan give each other lessons on sexism on MSNBC’s St. Paul set earlier today.

What we didn’t learn about Sarah Palin last night

Well, the rigmarole for blogger access continues. So how did Matthew Yglesias, formerly of The Atlantic and now at Think Progress, who wrote yesterday morning that he didn’t “have the credentials necessary to go to the actual convention,” spend RNC day 2.5? He took a couple of hours to comb over the Republican Platform, before […]

From the Anchorage Daily News: Tailgaters [Sports Bar & Grill in Wasilla, Alaska] was packed to capacity and then some 15 minutes before [Palin’s] speech. And not just with Valley residents. News crews from CNN, Time, People, El Mondo from Spain, NBC, CBS, L’Ex Press from Paris, London Times, London Telegraph, Entertainment Tonight, the New […]

You knew it was coming: From today’s Boston Herald (h/t, Kevin D. Williamson): “Stylists to passé Sarah Palin: Let your hair down.” Yes, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has a lot on her plate: a pregnant teen daughter, a son on his way to Iraq, an infant with Down syndrome and a looming national […]

Republicans like to say the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin — and, specifically, her rousing speech last night — are “unifying” the party. And “unifying” also, it seems, those typically Cross-firing cable news commentators. Indeed, in the minutes and hours after the Palin speech there appeared in the oft-cloudy cable news firmament, a consensus: Wolf […]

Remember when Slate made that video, Hillary’s Inner Tracy Flick? Well, it seems that the Flick-ering torch has been passed tonight. The first call comes from Andrew Sullivan live-blogging the speech. 10:47 pm: She has this weird tick of scrunching up her face to make a forceful point. Kinda Tracy Flicky. And then, at around […]

Giuliani’s on fire at the RNC. He’s knocking (mocking) Obama’s record of voting “present” in the Illinois State Legislature, capping the attack with a comment about the decisive nature of executive power. “When you’re President of the United States, you can’t just vote ‘present,’” he observes. “You must make decisions.” It’s a great line, one […]

Because of hurricane Gustav, or perhaps because of an intentional compressed schedule, the RNC broadcast schedule has very few breaks between speakers. I have to fess up that I’m experiencing a bit of a Goldilocks phenomenon: Last week I complained that the DNC allowed too much time for the likes of Matthews and Olbermann to […]

Who needs the media critics when Mike Huckabee will do their work for them? Just now, Huckabee thanked the “elite media” for “unifying the Republican Party in support of Senator McCain and Governor Palin.” And then: “The reporting of the last few days have been tackier than the costume changes at a Madonna concert.” The […]

The Republican National Convention. Everyone who’s anyone in the GOP, from legislators to delegates to lobbyists to cabinet members to excited hangers-on, is here in the Xcel Energy Center. You can generally identify a political celebrity from afar by the media scrum surrounding him or her. John Bolton had a scrum. Kay Bailey Hutchison had […]