Didn't get to see it last night because of Fringe Fest rehearsal, so I'll probably spend my entire day reading transcripts of Iron Bill's speach last night.

But for now, this quote made me want to throw my chair through the window in celebration.

"Our friends have to portray us Democrats as simply unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America," Clinton said. "But we don't."

Goddamn! Every single word in that sentence is perfect. Every single one. As a writer, I am humbled.

UPDATE--More good heroin from Jimmy Carter:

In the tones of a disappointed teacher watching wayward pupils undo his own careful work, Carter charged that the Bush administration has undone much of the world's goodwill toward the United States. And in a striking departure from the usual slogans and sound bites of modern political rhetoric, Carter laid out a careful case for the prosecution against the Bush administration that had Democrats nodding thoughtfully before they applauded.

"Our dominant international challenge is to restore the greatness of America -- based on telling the truth, a commitment to peace, and respect for civil liberties at home and basic human rights around the world. Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered, and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth -- without trust -- America cannot flourish. Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the sacred covenant between the president and the people," Carter said.

"When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our republic together begin to weaken," Carter added. "After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world. But in just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as all this goodwill has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations. Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combating terrorism."

The thing I love most about Bill Clinton is that in ever speech he makes, he's still doing that amazing bit about uniting America. His overall message when you look at his speech in its entirety is that this country works better when we stop all the damn bickering, recognize each other as Americans who all want the same thing, and return some level of civility to politics (for instance, in the perfect sentence I previously posted, referring to the Republicans as "friends", even as he reminds Americans that they were better off under the Democrats).

Anyway, in comparison, I'm pretty perplexed by the purpose of the Republican "Truth Squad." John Kerry's gone out of his way to unite the Democrats in pushing a positive message, in turning this election into less of an indictment of Bush and more of a rally behind Kerry. I think it's admirable, even if, in all honesty, it's poll driven (the swing voters have overwhelmingly run away from attack ads).

So that's where we sit: Bush spent millions on attack ads that did almost nothing for him, and Kerry and the Dems are trying to push a positive message.

Then, as per usual, Bush sends his frikkin goons to do the dirty work for him.

The Republican Truth Squad is a bunch of Elephants in Donkeyland trying to diffuse the Democratic message by attacking Kerry and Edwards. They will hold daily press briefings every day during the campaign.

Among them is Texas Rep. Henry Bonilla, who has lit a fire under my brother's ass for being a part of this crap. My brother wrote him a stinging letter denouncing him for turning his back on his race (in my brother's words: a Republican Mexican makes about as much sense as a Black slave owner).

So I did a little research and found a transcript of their press conference yesterday. From Bonilla's remarks:

REP HENRY BONILLA: Thank you, Ed. This is a great country, because we all come to the table regardless of where we fall in the political spectrum, whether it's on the far left or far right, and we are able to debate issues.

What we are talking about today are the issues related to the record of John Derry for 20 years. If you are an angry, hard-core Democrat, you ought to be very proud, because they have stood for raising taxes for 20 years, against education issues that we worked on the last couple of years as well in the bush administration, more government regulations, more internationalism.

First of all, is this really the time when "more internationalism" is a bad thing? Isn't that Bush's huge weak point, that no one in the world wants to help us out in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Secondly, this whole thing is just lame, because they're not even using facts. I searched this whole damned transcript and I can't find a single fact in it. There's innuendo, there's misrepresentation. There's a few things that are true that are taken out of context (they note, for the billionh time, that Kerry voted for the war but against funding, but fail to mention that Kerry had his own funding proposal that included more money for combat pay and benefits which Bush threatened to veto).

Basically, this panel is a group of thugs who are on the attack. And, if you kind of squint your eyes reeeeeeeeeal hard and concetrate for a reeeeeeeal long time you can work your mind into the subtleties of their message. For instance:

"and view John Kerry as being pessimistic about the future of America..."
"I don't believe that we need a president who is pessimistic about the future of America"
"If you are an angry, hard-core Democrat, you ought to be very proud"
"they stand for an extreme, angry hard left constituency"
"if you are a hard-core extreme Democrat, this is your dream ticket"

What's the purpose of the DNC?

"an extreme make-over of John Kerry's record"
"one of the great make-overs of the Democratic convention"
"starting over with this make-over convention"
"Let the Makeover Begin!"

But what about the funding for Iraq?

"vote to send troops to Iraq, then vote to cut off funding"
"and it would be cutting and running to vote against funding for the troops"

Ugh. (And yes, I know that I'm ripping off a great Jon Stewart bit.)

And then about a million more attacks for Kerry's votes to cut funding for education and intelligence and military spending, all failing to note the circumstances in which those votes occurred, or the unacceptable riders to those bills he voted against. Just a bunch of misinformation and all this Liberal Liberal Liberal tag (as if George ush was going to stand up in August and say, "America, like me, is fanatically conservative!! To my brothers on the right!!")

Then they showed a video, with the following information on the screen:

BILL CLINTON -- 1996 Dem. Nat'l. Convention Speech: "We have the lowest combined rates of unemployment, inflation and home mortgages in 28 years." (Applause.)

TEXT:

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE 1993-1995: 6.2 percent 2001-2003: 5.5 percent

INFLATION RATE 1996: 2.6 percent 2004: 1.9 percent

MORTGAGE RATE 1996: 7.81 percent 2004: 5.86 percent

BILL CLINTON -- 1996 Dem. Nat'l. Convention Speech: "You know what higher interest rates mean. To you it means a higher mortgage payment, a higher car payment, a higher credit card payment. To our economy it means business people will not borrow as much money, invest as much money, create as many new jobs, create as much wealth, raise as many wages."

TEXT:

PRIME INTEREST RATE 1996: 8.25 percent 2004: 4.25 percent

Anybody else notice the dumb thing about these numbers? (and god bless Barry Glassner for training my eye for such manipulations).

The most recent numbers they show for Bill Clinton's presidency only extend to 1996.

Hey guys: I don't know if you heard, but...uh...Clinton got re-elected. I wonder what the numbers for 2000, when he left office, look like.

Whoops! National unemployment was at 4%. So it rose under Bush.
Whoops! Inflation rate was 2.74% when Clinton left office and was1.9% in January of 2004. However, it currently stands at 3.74% and has been around 3% for a great deal of Bush's presidency. Wonder why they left that out...
(in fairness, the Prime Interest rate and Mortgage rate have both dropped. It's a good time to buy a home!)

Anyway...God bless the reporters at this press conference who didn't put up with their crap.

QUESTION: Ed, at your convention you're going to be offering some of the more modern people from your party. Is that a makeover for you also?

GILLESPIE: Well, the fact is, we have got people from across our party.

*****

QUESTION: When you look back at the Bush era, does that help or hurt in any way your efforts?

GILLESPIE: Well, I think it's helpful, actually. I think if you see when President Clinton talked about how strong the economy was, at the time he was seeking re-election, you compare that to where the economy is today, under this President, I think it's very favorable for us and we like to highlight that fact as well. (Uhh...the war? Thousands dead? No mention of that? Unemployment? Hello?)

*****

QUESTION: You said -- you said you expected the President to be behind. I don't know how far. He's had three, almost four years now to make his case. If he has made his case to the American public, why do you expect him to be behind?

GILLESPIE: Well, first of all, we knew the Democratic primaries would dominate the news cycle for the first three months of this year.

QUESTION: They didn't dominate for three years, when you had the opportunity.

*****

QUESTION: Half the country, or more than half, really wants to vote against him, or doesn't know whether they want to vote for him. What does that say about his style of leadership?

GILLESPIE: I think the President has obviously been a strong and decisive leader...

And then this lovely gem, courtesy of Bonilla.

QUESTION: Congressman, while you are up there: A minute ago, you criticized democrats for being in favor of more government regulations, more internationalism. What did you mean by that?

BONILLA: I meant that as Americans, George W Bush has highlighted and has maintained us as a strong leader, as a beacon of leadership on the world front. And has not ever been in favor of making any decision affecting our country based on some other world leader's opinion, and again, I think Americans ultimately appreciate that.

Actually, Henry, they don't. That's why a majority does not support the war or unilateralism.

And, on a basic logical level--isn't stooping to calling a guy names like "angry" and "hateful" kind of...uh...angry and hateful?

These guys are a joke, yo. My brother, in anger called my Dad to talk about it (my father, a onetime appointee of Governor Bush, being very politically connected). My brother asked what my dad thought of the guy. Without hesitation, he responded:

"He's an asshole!"

A Bush appointee voting for Kerry. It's a good day, America.

So this writer by the name of Annie Jacobson gets on a plane with her husband, sees fourteen Middle Eastern looking guys, and flips out. She notices, after a while, that they were all giving each other eye contact and congregating at the lavatories. She and her husband began freaking out and did the responsible thing, reporting the terrorists in their midst to the airline's crew.

Well, since she was freaking out so bad, the stewardess did something that is never, ever done: she revealed the identity of the Air Marshals on board to reassure the woman that the situation was under control. And, it turned out, the Air Marshals needed a deputy, so she and her husband were asked to write down descriptions of the men discreetly (if the stewardess did it, it would look suspicious, she told vigilant couple). Once they landed at LAX, Air Marshals overtook the men and all was right with the world.

Being the reponsible freelance writer that she was, Mrs. Jacobson wrote about the whole terrifying ordeal and was quickly picked up by the Republican press and WarBloggers everywhere as a voice of reason against the maddening PC idiocy of racial profiling. Something needed to be done! Why would Northwest Airlines allow all these men on the plane? Why woudln't they arrest them? Doesn't anyone in here speak English???

She points out that she went to India and never felt scared.

Anyhoo--the inevitable happened and she turned out to be a hysterical, reactionary, somewhat racist twat (sorry--the blog I got this from dropped the T bomb and it just seems to fit so nicely).

They were musicians. Fourteen musicians.

They were playing a concert.

Why did they congregate? They knew each other. They were in a band together.

Why did they have mysterious little red books? Who knows. They were...uh...reading?

Why did the stewardess ask for the couple's help in fighting terror? To keep their hands busy and shut them up.

The real problem faced by the crew, it turns out, was not the terrorists. It was the middle-aged white couple who threatened to send the entire plane into hysterics over a group of musicians. And the even bigger problem, it turns out, was that Air Marshalls, who had already checked the guys out and knew they were probably alright, had to reveal themselves to calm these two waterheads down.

The source said the air marshals on the flight were partially concerned Jacobsen's actions could have been an effort by terrorists or attackers to create a disturbance on the plane to force the agents to identify themselves.

Air marshals' only tactical advantage on a flight is their anonymity, the source said, and Jacobsen could have put the entire flight in danger.

"They have to be very cognizant of their surroundings," spokesman Adams confirmed, "to make sure it isn't a ruse to try and pull them out of their cover."

Vandammit, yo. We have met the terrorist and it is us.

Don't you love that? Fourteen "suspicious" men on board and the Air Marshalls were concerned with Annie Jacobson. Priceless.

So the blogging world is having quite a time discrediting this lady, but the sad thing is that it really isn't gonna do anything. I mean, the Air Marshalls eventually told her what really happened and explained to her that she freaked out and that the guys were just musicians about to do a show. And, faced with the truth; faced with the actual facts of what her delusional mind created, this was her response:

So the question is... Do I think these men were musicians? I'll let you decide. But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?

If you put your ear right up to the computer screen you can hear baby Jesus crying.

*****UPDATE*****
I've been cruising the internet and some of the reactions to this thing are mind-blowing. Even in light of the truth, people are still sticking their guns. "How do we know they were musicians? It's clear they were assembling a bomb in the lavatory. This exposes all the flaws of our security system, that these men were not more thoroughly searched or tied down." It's really, really, really, really, really fucking depressing.