It's been quite a summer. A lot of milestones here, both glad and sad.
I don't expect to be back to blogging with regularity, however. For one thing, the summer reading list is not finished ... maybe not even heavily dented.
POLITICAL SILLY SEASON
The summer's political infotainment, the conventions, lived up to their modern, self-referential character.
Despite fiery rhetoric on all sides, the whole lot came out sounding notably bland, especially in contrast to the Olympic forerunner.
Perhaps the strangest posture is Senator McCain's effort to position as a reformer of his own party. As if.
As if Ahab was finally going to catch the whale, or something. It was somehow fitting that Jack Abramoff was getting press over his indictments at about the same time as McCain was giving his "acceptance" speech.
THE PALIN PUNT
Pity Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. They poured huge amounts of time and money into the race, including endorsements and fund-raising for McCain. (Okay, maybe Rudy didn't, because he just camped out in Florida for most of it ...).
The GOP is so desperate to re-brand, that McCain has made a slap-dash decision to gamble that effort on a Governor who is going to need as much pre-schooling as did George W. Bush, who received GOP policy luminaries in Crawford during the campaign to help him appear knowledgeable...
We now know how badly that turned out (especially for those who excused him, by saying he would have good advisers around him).
Monday, September 8, 2008
Update
