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This is not the kind of man
To be deciding the fate of nations:

He's an ex-prisoner of war
Who's now a captive of corporations.

VERSE CASE SCENARIO

Tony Peyser provides daily poems and weekly cartoons for BuzzFlash and also writes the BuzzFlash column, "Blue State Jukebox." He was a daily cartoonist for the L.A. Times from 1994 to 1997. You can e-mail Tony at tonypeyser@yahoo.com.

 

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It was the summer of 2000. A young non-bald, non-crazy Britney Spears was at the top of the charts that summer with "Oops!...I Did It Again." The New York Yankees and New York Mets were headed toward the World Series.

And on August 3, John McCain was standing on the stage at the First Union Center in Philadelphia, accepting the nomination to be the presidential candidate of the Republican Party.

Oh, wait a minute. That didn't happen. Well, Britney happened. And the world yawned its way through a Yankees-Mets World Series.  

McCain didn't get his chance in 2000. So we spent the last four days of 2008, a very different time, listening to what Philadelphia would have looked like in late July and early August 2000. You almost could have expected hoagies to be featured. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter, the two Republican senators, would have strutted around, proud of their state. And perhaps a Phillies hat or two would be featured.
Technorati Tags: Be-Elected Chad Rubel 2008 race John McCain 2000 Britney Spears Yankees Mets

BARBARA'S DAILY BUZZFLASH MINUTE

The Repuglicans spit out the word “liberal” as though it is something distasteful, they bandy the concept of liberal about as though it is worthless, they look for new and more unique ways to denigrate and demean their liberal opponents but guess what, John McCain owes his life and all that came after to those “liberals”, those hippies, those flower children, those peace not war protesters he and the Repuglicans so vehemently condemn!  All those “liberals” were the instrument that in effect brought an end to the VietNam war thus making possible his release from the Hanoi Hilton!  Had it been left entirely up to the likes of John McCain, “stay there for 100 years” John McCain, he could be wasting away in a Prisoner of War prison cell even now!  So I say to everyone, change is what you make it, and real change begins with Barack Obama!

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A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Harold Lippes

After 8 years of frustration, moderate Americans were starving for an intellectually honest presidential debate without the divisive campaign tactics that have polarized us for so long and contributed to our stagnation. In America, we're supposed to respect opposing views and use healthy debates to resolve issues and move us forward. The prospect of an Obama-McCain race was exciting to many because both candidates pledged to debate the issues on the merits and both refused to engage in negative campaign attacks. Sadly, negative attacks are often effective so we will always have to tolerate them to some extent during campaigns but we could ignore them and focus on the honest debates.
 
The candidates have compelling and impressive personal stories. John McCain was a fresh, brash, maverick fighter pilot who, as a POW, rejected an offer of freedom because so many other POWs had been imprisoned long before he had. Maverick McCain heroically gave their freedom priority over his own. Throughout his political career, he has defined himself as a maverick and a person of conviction. Virtually everyone admired him for that and did not care if his views were sometimes different from their own. They respected him. In the recent past, many Americans were willing to support and reward almost any politician if they were people of conviction because it seemed those people had almost vanished from politics. Unfortunately the maverick is gone.

Technorati Tags: Reader Contribution Harold Lippes John McCain maverick 2000 Jerry Falwell George W. Bush

The introduction to John McCain at the Republican National Convention last night was all about family values. There was the paean to his mother and father, the touching story of his and Cindy's adoption of a baby girl from Bangladesh, and then there was Cindy herself, who was the focus of much of a gauzy introductory film on McCain, and who also did the introductory speech, and who brought all the kids up on stage with her at the end.

Oddly missing from this warm, feel-good picture, however, was a single mention of McCain's first wife Carol Shepp -- the one who stood by him, raising their three kids, through his trying five years in a Vietnamese prison, only to be dumped upon his heroic return for a younger woman, despite, or because of, her having suffered permanent disabling and disfiguring injuries in an auto accident during his absence.

Now I'm not faulting McCain for leaving his wife for a younger, richer woman. Who knows what the relationship was like at the time. Maybe Shepp wanted him out of her life by the time he started slipping off to date beer heiress Cindy Lou Hensley. But if McCain and his campaign staff wanted to make him a poster child for "family values," they should have had the basic integrity to explain that he didn't always consider marriage a binding covenant, for better or worse, richer or poorer, and in sickness or in health. (If you want an unvarnished view of the real John McCain, read an interview with Carol McCain published last June in the UK newspaper, The Mail, The Wife US Republican John McCain Callously Left Behind.)

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BUZZFLASH MAILBAG

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Subject: The Republican Circus

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A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Brian Cooney

For most people, Labor Day means the long weekend at the end of summer, picnics, and sales at the mall. This Labor Day also marked the start of the GOP convention and the landfall of Hurricane Gustav. It was especially easy to forget the original meaning of this holiday. As the U.S. Department of Labor explains on its Web site, Labor Day is "a creation of the labor movement. . .and a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."     

Despite these contributions, American workers are not being treated well in our economy. In Bureau of Labor terminology, "production and nonsupervisory workers" comprise about 80% of all nonfarm private-sector employees. From 1947 to 1973, the average weekly earnings of this group rose 161%. From 1973 to 2005, they declined by 6.5%.             

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UPDATE September 8: The GOP landed a huge shot by getting Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews thrown off the anchor desk and replaced by status quo, corporate stooge David Gregory. The left complains a lot about right-wing media bias and nothing gets done. The right whines a little and instant success.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Chad Rubel 

Republicans like to think of themselves as strong. Yet the few times they get attacked, they think of themselves as "whiners."

The GOP has attacked NBC News and MSNBC for their "left-wing" take on the race, and how in the pocket Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, among others, are for the Democrats. Well, Hillary Clinton supporters would vehemently disagree about Matthews, and Olbermann's "sin" has been to be tough on people when someone needs to be tough on them. Right now, that is the Republicans.

When Joe Biden and later Barack Obama gave their speeches last week in Denver, the coverage went right to the panel. "What did you think about the speech?" A seemingly logical conclusion to do - need to know right away the first impressions after a speech.

Technorati Tags: Analysis Chad Rubel right-wing media media bias GOP MSNBC St. Paul

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Chad Rubel 

Seeing a movie at a film festival is a great way to get a jump on viewing a film before your friends do. "Real Women Have Curves" and "Kissing Jessica Stein" were two movies I saw months before anyone else knew what they were.

But sometimes you see a movie at a film festival, and it may take a while to get out there, if it ever does. I wondered whether I would ever see in theaters, the Michael Moore's movie "Captain Mike Across America" that I saw last September at the Toronto International Film Festival.

[My original analysis of the film from last September.]

The movie is a documentary of sorts, displaying Moore's 60-city tour of college campuses leading up to the 2004 election, what Moore called "the birth of a new political generation." I thought it would be a great tool to remind us of what happened, and energize the electorate in 2008.

But I was concerned that perhaps it would never be screened. But there is an opportunity for you to see what I saw last year. The movie is now called "Slacker Uprising" and you can download it for free beginning September 23.

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Subject: McCain running against the Republican Establishment?

John McCain is running against the Republican establishment? The Republican establishment that he now admits failed the American people. John McCain is going to take America back from people like John McCain? And that's change we can believe in? I wonder if the Republicans running for reelection in the House and Senate are going to pick up on McCain's theme and run against the Republican party too?

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BE ELECTED
by Christine Bowman

This whole week has been entirely Sarah Palin's news cycle. She was announced as the GOP's VP pick last Friday, she spoke to the nation Wednesday night, and every pundit on the political circuit has tried to wrap his/her mind and words around Sarah Palin all week long.

What should the Obama campaign do about that news cycle dominance, and ultimately, about her?

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