It’s the first day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. The media is carpet bombing the internet with stories about the 1968 DNC debacle. They’ve conveniently forgotten that the Dems convened in Chicago in 1996. The only action at that convention were outbreaks of The Macarena on the floor and among the dignitaries including Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Protests are expected during the convention but the analogy to 1968 is overwrought. Americans were fighting and dying in Vietnam in that annus horribilis. That’s not the case today. Protesters are there to denounce US policy in Gaza: some are anti-war, some are pro-Palestinian, and others are pro-Hamas. The language of the last group is as OTT as the media coverage. Genocide Joe? Killer Kamala? They sound like nicknames cooked up by the Insult Comedian.
In its hunt for clicks, the MSM is ignoring the many differences between 1968 and 2024. Most importantly, political conventions are now considered national security events with increased federal law enforcement involvement as well as federal money. In 1968, Mayor Daley had the hammer and misused it badly.
Former President* Pennywise has been lying low since the Biden-Harris swap. His rare campaign appearances have been chock-full-o-nutty comments and outright lies. This is one of my personal favorites:
“As the attorney general, [Harris] destroyed California, along with Gavin Newsom. And San Francisco, you know, was a great city 15 years ago. Now it’s considered almost unlivable. You can’t live there.“
In 2009, Gavin was mayor of San Francisco and Kamala was the District Attorney. I’m unaware of any Attorney General ruining their states; not even Ken Paxton in Texas. And Paxton is every bit as venal, corrupt, and incompetent as the Insult Comedian.
Trump has managed a rare feat for a Republican: angering the Veterans of Foreign Wars by dissing of Medal of Honor recipients. During the Vietnam War, Tricky Dick relied on the VFW’s support. Of course, Nixon was a veteran who knew better than to mock those who have served, especially the bravest among them.
Trump’s Medal of Honor comments have reaffirmed the validity of the losers and suckers story. I took that slur personally as my uncle was killed in action in Italy during World War II. The only good thing that came out of the controversy was one of my best posts ever: My Uncle Was A ‘Loser.’
Charlie Pierce has come up with the best nickname for Trump’s creepy running mate, J Divan Vance. I dig it not only for the couch joke but for its invocation of a past rotten Republican running mate, J Danforth Quayle. That’s unfair to Quayle, he was a dumbass but not a hater.
Maureen Dowd tried to recapture her glory days with this column, The Dems Are Delighted. But A Coup Is Still A Coup. Say what? Coups are the GOP’s jam. This was a peaceful transfer of power from the sitting president to his rightful political heir. Dowd won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999, but she’s a dowdy has been in 2024.
Except for Paul Krugman, Michelle Goldberg, and Jamelle Bouie, the NYT op-ed page is a toxic waste dump. The title of Ross Douthat’s post-Trump shooting column says it all, Donald Trump, Man of Destiny. You can’t make this shit up.
I was in Las Vegas when the Willie Brown controversy broke out. I originally planned to write a post about Trump’s seeming conflation of Willie Brown and Jerry Brown. It turned out that another Black California pol Nate Holden was in the chopper with the Kaiser of Chaos and said bupkis about Kamala Harris. Dig what Holden said to Politico:
Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden said. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.”
I met Willie Brown several times. It was with my father and his friend and business associate Hal Perry. That’s the same guy who introduced me to Willie Mays. Brown was the Speaker of the State Assembly at that time. He was good company and funnier than a ferret down your trousers. When I moved to Louisiana, I decided Edwin Edwards was the Cajun Willie Brown. High praise indeed.
President Biden will speak tonight at the DNC. I expect to hear the crowd chant, Thank you, Joe. I’ll be doing so in my living room.
The last word goes to Frank Sinatra: