And it serves them right…

Republicans scrambled to change the tone of their national convention on Sunday as delegates streamed into town amid scenes on TV of people fleeing Hurricane Gustav on the Gulf Coast. The White House said the monster storm would make President Bush’s opening-night attendance unlikely, according to the Associated Press.

NOAA

Hurricane Gustav boils in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday morn

The Republicans’ nominee-in-waiting, John McCain, tore up his campaign schedule to visit Jackson, Miss., with his running mate, Sarah Palin, to get briefings on the approaching storm. McCain said in an interview that he had conferred by phone with Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi as well as Govs. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Bob Riley of Alabama and Charlie Crist of Florida.

What strikes us as odd about this is that the Republicans have tried to claim they are the “party of God” over the past few years. So if there is a God, and he’s on their side, why would He spoil their party?

Something to ponder for the faithful, I guess.

Or, could it be karma? Is the party of Bush now having to pay the price for showing no desire to help the poor people of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city three years ago?

Some say what goes around comes around.

Well, this storm is going round, and round and round in the Gulf of Mexico, sending the Republican spin meisters scrambling for a strategy to deal with it.

We say it serves them right…

Powerful Gustav Rips Across Cuba | Track

Gustav Headed for Hot ‘Loop’ Current That Fuels Big Storms

New Orleans Orders Mandatory Evacuation

Sorry, Obama. But like the Dixie Chicks, I’m not ready to forgive and forget and make nice just yet. In other words, my soul is not rested, yet. Some people think this Grammy winning album and song are “sappy.” I say it is honest. Which is what art — and Web journalism — should be. The pain is palpable. It shows through. I too have real pain from what has transpired over the past 7 years. It is not just partisan or pandering or posturing, like much of politics and news. Anyone who makes fun of that because they do not understand is just an asshole and an idiot. So until the day when George W. Bush leaves the White House, this is my theme song. At least once a week, I play it on the drums — really loud.

by Dan Rutledge

Another great football season is being kicked off this weekend in the Southeastern Conference and all over the nation.

The big game for the weekend is, of course, Alabama vs. Clemson Saturday night in the Georgia Dome.

Second-year head coach Nick Saban, who is expected to up the ante from last year’s so-so season this time around, has what he likes – a big, inter-sectional opener played on a neutral field. The schedule says the game is a home game for Clemson, but the contest won’t be played in South Carolina. It won’t be played in Alabama either. This war will be waged in another state entirely, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

It’s a good set up for the Tide to get a big boost in the standings and in confidence that will serve them well down the road this season. This one is a ready made upset folks!

Clemson comes in a big favorite at No. 9 in the nation, while Alabama is barely made it onto the pre-season poll, coming in at No. 25. Clemson has all of its backfield and most of its defense back as well as some talented newcomers.

BUT (yes I meant the capital letters) … the Tigers lost their entire offense line. It takes several games, sometimes a half season, for an offensive line to jell and become a cohesive unit. And that is when you are replacing one or two members.

But the whole darn line? If you can’t block, it’s hard to run the ball. And if your quarterback doesn’t have time to throw, it doesn’t make any difference how talented the receivers.

Bama has a seasoned quarterback (who should have been All-SEC last year) in John Parker Wilson as well as some good players coming back Add to that several freshmen from the nation’s No.1-rated incoming class, such as Foley High’s Julio Jones, who are expected to play a lot if not start and you can see what I mean.

Or, tune in to ABC at 7 p.m. Saturday and see for yourself.

Vanderbilt (34-13 over Miami-Ohio) and South Carolina (34-0 over N.C. State) kicked off the SEC season with Thursday night victories.

Most of the other SEC teams will start the year with cream-puff lite games — No. 1 pre-season pick Georgia hosting Georgia State, Florida at home to Hawaii, LSU entertaining Appalachian State (no, the Catamounts can’t do it again; beating Michigan in last year’s opening was not parity, it was a fluke), Auburn hosting Louisiana-Monroe (no, even though they shocked Alabama last year, they can’t pull the big upset again either), and Arkansas hosting Western Illinois.

Mississippi State will open on the road, but should have little trouble at Louisiana Tech. Kentucky and Ole Miss will have a little more of a challenge in their first outings. The Wildcats will be on the road in an in-state grudge match against neighboring Louisville. The two schools don’t like each other and love to win against the other. That alone will make it a good one.

Ole Miss is at home but is also playing one of those grudge matches. Memphis isn’t officially an in-state rival, but the two schools are close and like Kentucky-Louisville, love to beat the other.

WEEKEND TV LINEUP

The weekend television lineup began on Thursday night and will feature two Friday night games as well. This week’s Fridays include Temple at Army (Lincoln Financial) at 6 p.m. and SMU at Rice (ESPN) at 7 p.m.

Saturday’s schedule, other than pay-for-view:
11 a.m. — East Carolina at Virginia Tech (ESPN), Syracuse at Northwestern (ESPN2), Bowling Green at Pitt (ESPNU)
11:30 a.m. — Hawaii at Florida (Lincoln Financial), Missouri at Kansas St. (FSN South)
2:30 p.m. — Southern Cal at Virginia (ABC), Utah at Michigan (ESPN2), Oklahoma St. at Wash. St. (FSN), Delaware at Maryland (ESPNU),
4 p.m. — Appalachian St. at LSU (ESPN)
5 p.m. — TCU at New Mexico (VS)
6:30 p.m. — Boson College at Kent St. (ESPNU)
6:45 p.m. — Miss. St. at La. Tech (ESPN2)
7 p.m. — Alabama vs. Clemson at Georgia Dome (ABC)
7:30 p.m. — Illinois at Missouri (ESPN)
9 p.m. — Washington at Oregon (FSN)

And now my soul is rested…

Letter from Denver
by Brooks Boliek

DENVER, Colo., Aug. 28 — As I made my way out of the Parking Lot of Death and onto the Sidewalk of Hope, it began to dawn on me that we might actually make it into the Stadium of Salvation before The Obama spoke.

Earlier on Thursday, I thought about going to a mountaintop. I wondered where my soul would be happier. I am, at heart, a mountain man. True they are different mountains. Older and hump-backed from eons of erosion, my mountains rise from suspect terrain. These, the Rockies, are new and less worn down by time, but they are mountains still.

In the end my political soul won out. The Rockies will be there for at least the rest of my lifetime, but the chance to see the first black man get the presidential nod from a major party won me over.

Still, as the sun beat down on me, the Big D and Kelly Girl in the Parking Lot of Death, I wondered if we would make it.

The Democrats don’t know how close they came to disaster on Thursday. Maybe things will actually break the Democratic way. Democrats find a kind of desperate solace in the thought first expressed by Will Rogers, that we don’t belong to an organized party. In recent years, it is expressed more crudely: Come on. We’re Democrats. We’ll find a way to screw it up.

After years of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the reverse may finally come true. And, that tide may have started to turn in the heat of a black-top expanse that may, or may not, have been the end of a miles-long line that became known as the Parking Lot of Death, or simply the P.L.O.D.

Me, the Big D and Kelly Girl ended up in the P.L.O.D. after a week of scrambling to find credentials to see Barack Obama make history. More than once we didn’t think we were going to make it. Credentials were hard to come by. It seems everyone knew this is the political Woodstock, and they wanted to actually be there.

After searching for days the Bog D finally had a line on a pair of the coveted sheets of plastic that show Barack’s profile in one light and the word CHANGE in another. There was only one catch, one of them may not work. It hadn’t been registered on the Internet.

As fate would have it, on the way to meet the congressional staffers that had the coveted community, we bumped into a friendly lobbyist who passed us a “HALL” pass. Now, after days of searching we had an extra. While the “HALL” pass was paper, it was a better credential, but I wanted the one that changed, depending on how you looked at it.

As we talked to our congressional friends at a coffee shop on the 16th Street Mall, we struck up a conversation with Kelly Girl. A member of Red Sox Nation she’d come down town to take in the scene. We invited her along with the caveat that if one of our three passes didn’t work she was the odd one out.

We began or journey to the Stadium of Salvation in high spirits. It wasn’t a short walk, but it wasn’t that long either. It was around 2 p.m. and the gates had just opened. Still, we couldn’t believe the line to get in on the Stadium of Salvation’s east side entrance. On the advice of officials who claimed to know, we’d be better off on the west side.

That was our first mistake. To walk to the West Side of the Stadium of Salvation we had to walk over a Highway of Major Proportion, and follow a trail that led down some rickety wooden steps behind a bar. It seemed like the end of the line was just a few more yards away. Those few yards stretched into hundreds and ended, we thought, in the P.L.O.D.

There we waited for hours. No water. No food. Well, there was a Burger King nearby. We didn’t move. We could see the Field of Salvation. It was tantalizingly close, but we felt doomed to stand in the P.L.O.D. I began to regret my decision to forgo the Rockies.

At about hour three in the P.L.O.D., things began to get ugly. I began to sense fear. Not for myself, mind you. No, I began to fear for the old people and the children, the sick and the lame. It could turn ugly.

Kelly Girl went to see if the line actually made it out of the P.L.O.D., or just turned into a circle and consumed itself. Her answer was not encouraging.

Big D began to mutter dark terrible thoughts. This could be a disaster of Biblical proportions. It would give the Forces of Darkness the ammo they needed to bring down The Obama.

“The Evil One is taking pictures of this right now,” Big D said as he looked furtively over his shoulder. “He’s writing the commercial right now. Obama can’t even run his own rally. How can he run the country?”

I came under his spell. Depression, the heat, thirst and hunger began to weigh on my mind.

I’m not sure if it did any good, but Big D sent an email to a friend of ours who know several Big Time Democrats. If someone dies out here in the P.L.O.D. it will be a disaster he wrote.

Maybe it did some good. Or, maybe reports from the helicopter overhead did some good. I don’t know, but within 15 minutes angels in blue appeared with water, and soon after that the line magically began to move.

In the nine conventions I’ve been to the cops were the best here. I know there was that incident with the ABC reporter, but the cops here were the most polite and professional I’ve seen. I actually thought that they cared for my safety, and I was never more glad to see them with bottles of water, then I was there in the P.L.O.D.

I asked one what happened.

He told me the DNC hadn’t planned it out. That there were only two entrances because of the screenings people had to go through.

“They just thought everyone would come out here and line up nicely,” he said. “They didn’t figure out how to organize everyone outside.”

Funny thing is, it almost worked. We pretty much lined up, but at the end of a line that stretched for miles, no one knew what to do. Everyone was willing, but it took the cops to get us to do it.

No matter. Disaster had been diverted, and in another small miracle, all three passes worked. So, me, the Big D and Kelly Girl were among the 84,000 strong inside the Stadium of Salvation.

In the end, it was worth it to hear The Obama. While it was an emotional experience, way up in the nose-bleed section the acoustics were pretty lousy. The Big D had a better ticket and said later he had no problem hearing. For me and Kelly Girl, however, it was different.

From my vantage point, four rows from the Stadium of Salvation’s edge, I only give The Obama’s speech a B-plus grade. It wasn’t that I was disappointed exactly, but the full impact of the speech will have to wait until I can see a recording.

One of the things that I tell people about political conventions is that there are two different animals.

There is the one convention for the party faithful that takes in the arena. That has a very different feel. It’s like an Alabama-Auburn game where both teams win.

Then there is the other one. The one on TV, and now, on the Web, that is for the American people. That one is the more important.

While I think the Democrats booted the ingress and egress from the Stadium of Salvation, it dodged the bullet, and may have actually turned the tables of history.

I haven’t heard from Kelly Girl since we parted at the Stadium of Salvation, but Big D said The Obama hit it out of the park

In the end, after our escape from the Parking Lot of Death, journey down the Sidewalk of Hope, ascent into the Stadium of Salvation, and the speech of The Obama, my soul is rested.

Editor’s Note: When I heard the other day that Jimmy Faulkner of Bay Minette had died, it brought back a lot of memories. And while we usually stay focused on the big national news on this independent news Website, there are times when we will reach back into the past and into local climes for interesting stories.

I must say that when I read all the glowing feature obituaries on Faulkner, no relation to the literary family from Mississippi that I know of, I just had to laugh out loud. Faulkner got the unchallenged praise in print he angled for his entire life in the Mobile Cash-Register and Gulf Coast Newspapers.

While we realize that it is an American journalism tradition to give people their due when they die — even political monsters such as George C. Wallace — we could not let this moment pass without at least a small tinge of criticism. After all, that’s what bloggers do.

Before we get to the obit, a couple of memories.

When I first met James H. “Jimmy” Faulkner in his office around the corner from The Baldwin Times newspaper office, which was across the street from the Baldwin County Courthouse on the small town circle, as a young cub reporter I thought he was a major head of state or something. That’s how he presented himself, with his secretary greeting you warmly in the outer office and making you wait for a little while before he would usher you in like he was the governor himself, even though he only served a couple of terms in the Alabama Senate.

But in South Alabama, as I found out over the next year in 1984-85, he was a political force who could call up George Wallace at any time and get pretty much whatever he wanted.

He was always gracious, but he exuded power.

The last time I saw Mr. Faulkner, he was fairly feeble and almost blind. It was 2002 and I was free-lancing for The New York Times, visiting Bay Minette to find out how the 2002 election had swung overnight from Don Siegelman to Bob Riley. Even though he had a reputation as being a life-long “Yellow Dog Democrat,” I got the distinct impression that Faulkner had supported Riley in that race. He tried to convince me that Baldwin County had never had an instance of election fraud in its entire history, but I was not thoroughly convinced then, or now.

In the one time I saw Faulkner really rattled and upset about something, he had been involved in a deal to sell a chemical plant he co-owned to the Uniroyal corporation, which was suing him after residents discovered that a nearby creek had been contaminated. He was pretty upset since because of the lawsuit, the bank had frozen his accounts and seized his assets. I don’t remember how the case came out, but I still have that front page hanging on my wall. It was my first lead story in newspaper as a professional reporter (not counting The Crimson White student newspaper at the University of Alabama).

So let’s just say that while Faulkner was a class act in his own way, he was not above wheeling and dealing as a business man in ways that might not have been as squeaky clean as the image he worked hard all his life to project.

The bottom line is he was a big fish in a little pond. But here’s his due…

GW

by Glynn Wilson and Dan Rutledge

James Herman “Jimmy” Faulkner, a long-time political power in Alabama politics, died August 22 after a long illness. He was 92.

Dan Rutledge

Faulkner’s face on the sign for the college named after him

He leaves a legacy of service to Bay Minette and Baldwin County, where he moved in 1936, for numerous economic development achievements, the primary focus of his life. During his life, he was a world traveler, touring more than 100 countries, as the legend goes.

At the age of 20, shortly after his arrival in Bay Minette from Tuscaloosa, he purchased The Baldwin Times newspaper, launching a career which he expanded into becoming a radio executive, a mayor, a state senator and a founder and president of an insurance company. He also ran two unsuccessful campaigns for governor, but became a long-time associate of George Wallace. And he published a newspaper column called “Mumblings” for 72 years.

Born March 1, 1916, near Vernon in Lamar County, Alabama, Faulkner began his life enjoying the positive guidance of his father, farmer, and mother, a school teacher. He received his advanced education at Freed-Hardeman Junior College, Henderson, Tennessee in 1933-1934, and the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, in 1934-1936.

Upon arriving in Bay Minette, he began working to build his newly acquired newspaper and seeking ways to enhance the growth of his hometown and Baldwin County. Faulkner was elected mayor of Bay Minette, serving from 1941-1943. He was the youngest mayor in America at that time. He was a World War II veteran, joiining the U.S. Army Air Corps, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant while serving as a pilot and flight instructor from 1943-1946.

Upon returning from military duty, he was elected state senator, serving from 1950-1954. While serving in the state Senate, he was a primary figure in improving education in Alabama, attaining the best retirement benefits in the nation for teachers and education administrators.

His political activities, in addition to serving as a mayor, state senator, and two campaigns for governor, have included being a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee, 1948-1952, finance chairman of the Alabama Democratic Campaign, 1976, and secretary-treasurer of the Baldwin County Democratic Executive Committee, 1936-1978.

His newspapers were widely recognized for their excellence over the years, often receiving the top award of General Excellence in their circulation category from the Alabama Press Association. His radio stations also received numerous awards for excellence in broadcasting. He co-published two books, Five Dollars A Scalp, in 1976, and Massacre, in 1989.

Two biographies have been written about him, the first Faulkner – Jimmy That Is, by Sandra Baxley Taylor, published in 1984 by The Strode Publishers (a vanity press); and Faith and Works, by Elvin Stanton, published in 2002 by NewSouth Books. He has had two additional books published, compilations of his newspaper columns spanning 72 years. The first is Mumblings, published by J.C. Choate Publications in 2004, and the second Byways of Baldwin, published by NewSouth Books in 2007.

Faulkner became a member of the Board of Directors of Alabama Christian College, Montgomery, Alabama, serving as chairman of the board from 1963-1989. He was instrumental in bringing a solid financial foundation to the college and assuring the success of a law school there. In April, 1985, the college was named in his honor, Faulkner University, and now has additional campuses in Huntsville and Mobile. He also was instrumental in acquiring a two-year college for Baldwin County, later named Faulkner State Community College in his honor. The main campus is in Bay Minette with additional campuses in Fairhope and Gulf Shores.

His professional achievements are lengthy. To name the most important few, he was founder and president of Loyal American Life Insurance Company of Mobile in 1955; owner and publisher of three newspapers in Baldwin County from 1936-1974; president of Faulkner Radio, Inc., a chain of seven radio stations in Alabama and Georgia from 1958-1985; president of Faulkner Phillips Media, Inc., 1985-1997; director of the First National Bank, Fairhope, 1976-1978; vice chairman of the board, David Volkert and Associates, Inc., 1984-2008; and chairman of the board, Alpine Laboratories, a chemical plant in Bay Minette, 1975-1979.

His memberships include the Bay Minette Church of Christ, where he was a member for 72 years and served as Elder and Treasurer for 50 years; Rotary Club; American Legion; President’s Club, Freed-Hardeman College; Who’s Who in South and Southwest; Who’s Who in World Commerce; Who’s Who in America; and Newcomen Society.

Faulkner received more than 35 awards during his lifetime, including eight Honorary Doctor degrees. Faulkner’s civic organization memberships and activities have been extensive over the years.

His family received friends Tuesday, August 26, at Norris Funeral Home. A private funeral service was held Wednesday, August 27, at the Bay Minette Church of Christ with private graveside services following in Bay Minette Cemetery. A memorial service was held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the L.D. Owen Performing Arts Center at Faulkner State Community College in Bay Minette. The family asks that contributions be made to the James Herman Faulkner Scholarship Fund at Faulkner State Community College, 1900 South Highway 31, Bay Minette, Alabama 36507 or Faulkner University, 5345 Atlanta Highway, Montgomery, Alabama 36193. Funeral arrangements were by Norris Funeral Home, Bay Minette.

He is survived by his wife, Karlene Faulkner; two sons, James H. Faulkner, Jr., and his wife Beverly Faulkner, and Dr. Henry Wade Faulkner and his wife, Ann Blackburn Faulkner; eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Henry L. Faulkner and Ebbie Johnson Faulkner; his first wife, Evelyn Irwin Faulkner, the daughter of the late Wade and Ella Irwin; and his brother, Dr. Thurston L. Faulkner, who served as Alabama Director of Vocational Education.

Other obits:

Gulf Coast Newspapers: So long, Jimmy!

Mobile Press-Register: Faulkner’s impact on area was enormous

Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson

I want to believe…

I am not kidding when I say I cried when I saw and heard it. And I cried again when I read it.

I don’t know for sure if we really can do it or not, if we can turn back the near complete destruction of the American Dream by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their corporate cronies.

Barack Obama knocks it out of the park in Mile High Stadium. Full text of the speech in the comments below…

I don’t know for sure whether enough people can truly get over the race issue and vote for “the black guy.”

I don’t know for sure whether we can keep Karl Rove’s hackers from stealing another election.

But as I sit here in The Bunker and take in this story on television and the Web — literally in a place on the planet that is situated on the suburban dividing line between the remnants of the Ku Klux Klan on one side and violent urban gangs on the other, on the front lines of the mortgage crisis with half the houses in the neighborhood empty and abandoned — I believe with all my heart that Barack Obama is right when he says this is a “defining moment” in our history.

I recently called it a “decisive moment,” which is actually a better term, but it’s connotations may not be as simple and saleable for the mass audience.

According to Obama, who is said to write his own speeches, this is “a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more [because of] the failed policies of George W. Bush.”

As far as the speech itself is concerned, there is no doubt that on TV, and in writing, it was the most important piece of oratory in American politics at least since John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address when he pledged to send U.S. astronauts to the moon in a decade.

I don’t care what any news organization or blogger decides to lede with as important about this week in Denver, but there is no doubt in my mind this is the lead quote:

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Now is the time to end this [oil] addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

I mean, Obama had Pat Buchanan, Nixon’s speechwriter and a former Republican presidential candidate himself, almost in tears on MSNBC, gushing over key passages. He called it a “moderate” speech appealing to the public’s “heart, spleen and guts,” and he really liked this part:

So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America — they have served the United States of America.

What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose — our sense of higher purpose. And that’s what we have to restore.

Obama appealed to “the better angels of our character,” without using the cliché:

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.

But he pounded home the decisive moment theme:

I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land — enough! This moment — this election — is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive.

And lest any pundit accuse him of being soft on his opponent, Obama then hit McCain in the mouth on his judgment:

Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.

John McCain doesn’t get it.

Later on, he said on the same theme, “John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.”

Obama espoused a policy that only the most hard-hearted anti-government conservative would oppose:

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American…

He offered a practical way to get on with re-tooling the economy to get on with dealing with the energy and global warming crisis.

I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels, an investment that will lead to new industries and five-million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.

He offered this for those of us without health insurance, although I think it may be the hardest goal for him to achieve.

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves.

He came out tough on defense, which he has to do to win, but I like the way he did it.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans — Democrats and Republicans — have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the twenty-first century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation, poverty and genocide, climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

I like his theme of talking about “one America,” although I’m not sure he alone can do this. It will take some serious healing time and the economy has to turn around for a lot of people.

…one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism.

I really liked this part, but I doubt the Republicans will…

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

…if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what — it’s worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.

You have shown what history teaches us — that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it — because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit — that American promise — that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance.

And it is that promise that forty-five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

Let us keep that promise — that American promise — and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

“We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

Of course he was talking about Martin Luther King Jr. on the Washington Mall and his “I have a dream” speech. It might have gone over many people’s heads since Obama didn’t reference him by name. But here in “Bomingham,” we get it.

So here’s what I have say to Mr. Obama.

“Good luck. You are one hell of a thinker and speaker, certainly compared to the current occupant of the White House, as well as your opponent. We not only need someone who instinctively knows how to say the right thing on TV. We need someone who believes in ‘thinking’ through our problems and soliciting the advice of ‘smart’ people, not loyal dumbasses like Brownie.”

Speaking of which, and I’ll end with this for tonight, as of now, Hurricane Gustav is headed right for the mouth of the Mississippi River and New Orleans, and should arrive just in time for the Republican National Convention in Minnesota, a stark reminder of the Bush administration’s abysmal handling of Katrina.

Looks like nature’s hand may yet play a role in this election.

(Full text of the speech in the comments below).

In search of Denver’s soul

Letter from Denver
by Brooks Boliek

DENVER, Colo., Aug. 28 — For the first time since I got here the Rockies are obscured by smog. During my stay here, I have often felt like Tom Horn. Actually I feel more like Steve McQueen’s portrayal of Horn in the 1980 movie.

Tom Horn movie sound track

In the movie the renowned former army scout and “range detective,” is hired by ranchers to hunt down rustlers. Horn finds himself on trial for the murder of a boy when he carries out his job too well. He is tried, convicted and hung for the murder, but he is so obviously railroaded that no one will pull the lever that opens the trap. His execution is performed by a machine.

While the screenplay by novelist Thomas McGuane and Bud Shrake wasn’t exactly historically accurate, the feeling it portrayed of a man trapped by the changing times and his on efficacy was spot on. McQueen as Horn kept looking out his jail-cell window at those mountains and the freedom he would never see until his own weight actuated the water-powered gallows and released his soul.

I feel a bit like that as I look at the now smog-obscured Rockies. They are there: So tantalizingly close; so achingly far.

When you’ve done as many political conventions as I have, they take on a certain sameness: the hard-to-get tickets, the over-sold parties, the overblown speeches. They are a constant.

This one is different, of course. The Black Guy gets the nod. As a journalist without portfolio, I may or may not get on the field. It is my ninth convention, and probably my last.

I’m torn. Do I stay here and try to hustle up a ticket to the field? Or, do I go out there to the mountains? Where would my soul be most comfortable?

Nine conventions, eight different cities (I went to New York twice.) In every city I tried to do more than just cover the speeches, the controversy, the delegation. I wanted to find a bit of each cities’ soul.

I like to think I was successful.

In New York once I went to every place where Tammany Hall had ever been. There’s still a New York Democratic Club. When I was there for Bill Clinton, it was in Hell’s Kitchen. It wasn’t a tony neighborhood then. It was still Hell.

In Houston, I found it on a bridge over a river. Could it have been the Houston Ship Channel? I can’t remember, but I do remember the oil refineries spread out like the lights of a gigantic city. The petroleum residue settled on my skin, and I had to take a long-hot shower to wash it off.

My organizational incompetence in Boston landed me an apartment near the Kerry’s house on Beacon Hill. I got to take some swings at Fenway Park. It’s still the best convention I have been to.

In Atlanta, I thought Dukakis had it sewn up. What a young fool, but then, that’s a city that lost its soul long ago.

New Orleans, pre-Katrina, exuded soul. It was a strange combination of Bible-thumping right wingers in a city where sin, if not exactly celebrated, is embraced. I’d been to the Big Easy before, but I fell in love with it then for all it’s wonderful contradictions and it’s decaying beauty.

Philadelphia is, of course, where the country was founded, but I think it’s soul rested with the driver that hauled me and now disgraced congressman Mark Foley and his staff around. He drove his own car, and knew every backstreet, twist and turn, and the best place to get a cheese steak. Foley let me be a fly on the wall. It was an incredible insight into the workings of what was a hard working politician. My paper buried it.

Los Angeles. Well, for 16 incredibly fun years I was THE Hollywood Reporter in Washington. I love L.A. because, it’s, well, L.A. It’s where the movies are made, and we all know how much I love movies. I spent my nights with a buddy who hit it big and lives in Pacific Palisades. It’s a wonder I didn’t get arrested.

Big D

Brooks Boliek tooling around Denver on a bike

Now, I’m in Denver. I like Denver a lot. I’ve spent a lot of time downtown. It’s cool down there, especially in LoDo. But like so many of these renovated downtown or waterfront districts, it has a certain sameness of feel that every other renovated district in America does.

My hotel is in Cherry Creek. It’s a four-and-a-half mile walk from here to downtown. I hoofed it there and back one day, and did it by bicycle on another.

On November 22, 1858, General William Larimer, a land speculator from eastern Kansas, placed cottonwood logs to stake a claim on the hill overlooking the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek. In what may have been the first political move in the history of the young state, Larimer named the town site Denver City to curry favor with Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver.

The people here are unfailingly nice. Those of us from The East wonder what they put in the water to make them that way for the convention. I am assured, however, by Patty Rousot, the “captian” of the volunteers in my hotel, that people are always that way here. Patty is a gem. She’s been tour guide a surrogate mother for most all of us hacks here at the Cherry Creek Hotel.

Patty tells me Denver’s soul is in Wash Park. I never made it down there, so I couldn’t tell you if that was for sure. While I want to believe her, I don’t think she’s entirely correct. I don’t think Denver’s soul is anywhere near Wash Park or LoDo.

I think Denver’s soul is out there. Out there, right now obscured by the smog of it’s own making. Out there in the Rockies where Tom Horn’s soul went when the water ran out.

EXCLUSIVE!

by Glynn Wilson

The ailing Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, one of Birmingham’s most important icons from the Civil Rights days, was ecstatic to hear the news Wednesday that the Democratic Party had nominated Barack Obama as the first African-American standard bearer for any political party in American history.

Bonnie M. Fountain

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

Obama is the first black man to have a really good chance of becoming president of the United States, about 50 years after the struggle for equal rights kicked off in Alabama when Shuttlesworth was still a fairly young man fighting Bull Connor and the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham.

“Anything is possible in America,” Shuttlesworth said when told the news of Obama’s nomination in Philadelphia, where he will attend his 75-year-old brother Clifton’s funeral Thursday.

“I’m looking forward to Obama rebuilding our nation and our reputation around the world, which is at an all-time low,” he said.

With his health problems of the past year since he suffered a stroke, Shuttlesworth, 86, was not able to travel this week to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

But just like Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, one of Martin Luther King’s lieutenants who was interviewed on MSNBC Wednesday, Shuttlesworth reacted emotionally to the moment.

“We need the immediate end to the Iraq war, a sensible health-care plan and a fix for the plunging economy, as well as solutions for our serious problems with education, housing, banking, and the disastrous mortgage situation in this country,” he said. “The world used to look up to us for leadership. We need to regain their trust. I believe Obama is the man for the job.”

Senator John Kerry, the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2004 who was “swift-boated” by veterans in that race, fired a broadside at McCain Wednesday on the conduct of his campaign, especially the involvement and smear tactics of Bush’s former spin master Karl Rove.

“Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same ‘Rove’ tactics and the same ‘Rove’ staff to repeat the same old politics of smear and fear,” Kerry said. “Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.”

Kerry also drew a comparison between the attacks on his patriotism because he opposed the Vietnam War and those on Obama for his opposition to the war in Iraq.

“Years ago, when we protested a war, people would weigh in against us saying, ‘My country right or wrong,’” Kerry said. “Our answer? Absolutely, my country right or wrong. When right, keep it right. When wrong, make it right. Sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power.

“This is one of those times,” he said. “And Barack Obama is telling those truths.”

Predicting that Republican attacks, like those that felled his presidential candidacy four years ago, will backfire against Barack Obama, Senator John F. Kerry issued a blistering critique of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a friend whom Kerry once sounded out about being his running mate, according to the Boston Globe.

Addressing the Democratic National Convention, Kerry linked McCain to President Bush’s foreign policy, which the Massachusetts Democrat characterized as reckless and extremist, and offered the failure of his own candidacy as a map for Democrats to follow to defeat what he called the GOP’s politics of “fear and smear” and “distortion and division.”

Also, Politico is now reporting that Republican strategist Karl Rove has been involving himself in more mischief in the Republican race for president, calling Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut Independent-Democrat, and urging him to contact McCain to withdraw his name from vice presidential consideration, according to three sources familiar with the conversation. Lieberman dismissed the request late last week, these sources agreed.

Rove Tried to Kill Lieberman VP Pick