Comrades, even the fearsome PUMA Militia needs to take a break. I’ve arranged for our cocktail party to be held on a deck overlooking the Delaware River between NJ and PA tonight. We’re at Point Pleasant, PA. You can check it on the webcam . This is the place where you can rent a tube and a bus will take you several miles up river so you can spend the next couple of hours doing absolutely nothing but floating. The water is shallow and there are “rapids” but you can handle it.
I love water. I spent most of my childhood near one major ocean or another and the tang of salty air always brings back good memories of Sundays at the beach, shell hunts, sand crabs and the shoo-shoosh of waves. But I’m just as happy on the river or next to a lake or just listening to the sound of rain. Water never lets itself be hemmed in. It always seeks the path of least resistance. If you put an obstacle in its way, it just flows around it. You can contain water but after awhile, it evaporates and turns into a new raindrop and starts flowing in a different direction. Accumulate enough water in one place it is literally a force of nature. F=ma and all that. It can be benign or powerful but it is rarely ever still. It never does what it is told.
So, take off your combat boots PUMAs, park your deadly force HP printers in the corner, sit back, relax and watch the river roll by.
Welcome to The Scratching Post Cocktail Party. I’m your hostess for this evening. You’ll find the bar on the left side of the deck, manned, as always by our ever faithful bartender, Rico. He’s got plenty of flair and always has a special drink. Tonight, you can choose from a Causmo, that will help Hillary Clinton retire her debt and look towards the future with HillPac. There are lots of good causes. For example, Murphy at PUMAPac still needs to pay for those buses to Denver. Drop in and say hello. Causmos are $10. Or, if that’s not in your budget, you can try a light, citrusy AJ Summer Drink. Of course, you can order whatever you like.
Tonight’s entertainment hails from Brazil. Bebel Gilberto is the daughter of Joao Gilberto and singer Miucha. This soft Summer Samba goes nicely with sunset over the river, warm summer breezes and good friends, So Nice…
We militant PUMAs are really quite approachable, now that we’ve taken off the camouflage. But if you feel a belligerent word starting to harsh your mellow, consider checking it with Florence, our lovely attendent.
The waiters will be circulating shortly with a salad of sun ripened Jersey tomatoes, fresh basil and mozarella. There are also some fresh corn cakes with a chipotle mayonnaise. Please drink responsibly and tip your wait staff generously.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama‘s campaign has bought $5 million worth of advertising time from NBC Universal to run TV spots during the Olympic Games, a source familiar with the deal said on Wednesday.
The package, believed to be an unprecedented political media buy for the Olympics, includes commercials that will run on the NBC network and cable channels such as USA, MSNBC and CNBC during the August broadcast of the Summer Games, the source said.
Both NBC and Obama’s campaign declined to comment.
That payoff was sure sweet, especially for the fellatio work on MSNBC. I wonder how much were the bonuses Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann got for getting on their knees without kneepads for 6 months?
But wait, there’s more! The “former media darling” John McCain noticed something in the milk wasn’t clean with all this Obama love. (Note: I do not endorse or will endorse John McCain as president, I just think this video is TOO AWESOMELY “good to be true”):
UPDATE: Pat Johnson & Carol Diamonds, your sugarbear Ed Rendell is in this clip!
Is this how the NBC/Obama/GE love marathon went down? : You scratch my back a little by saying I am the second coming of JFK & MLK, Jr., and I scratch you $5 million dollars for your Olympics. Then you continue to scratch my “Obama is a God” message and I’ll scratch you some love by giving you full and unlimited permission to build nuclear plants EVERYWHERE once I become the Galactic Emperor. < /snark >
So, NBC/Universal = MSNBC = GE = Nuclear Plant Builders = Exceleon Energy = David Axelrod = Obama.
It’s no surprise that backroom dealing was de riguer in the NBC/GE boardrooms, that 99.9% of NBC news personalities (and notice I did not call them “anchors or journalists”) were just overly and unobjectively FAWNING over the Precious. With this $5 million dollar ad buy, this is further proof Obama has bought the campaign and has ZERO interest in keeping the tenets of “free press” and “Democracy.”
There is an “ism” word that begins with an F that describes this very thing. Mussolini would be proud.
PUMA all the way to Denver!
UPDATE 2: This is an image for the Scratching Post Confluence/HireHeels Cocktails:
Way to go, Janis! Your ad catapulted The Denver Group into the NYTimes. (BTW, Heidi Li has a very nice post this morning that elegantly lays out why the convention must be open and transparent.) In Clinton Supporters Try One More Tack, Heidi Li and Mark Rubin’s advocacy group is prominently featured and what’s more, the Times actually seems to get the point of the FDR ad. Whoa! They *can* be taught.
Update: edgeoforever found another reference to us and The Denver Group at a local affiliate of ABC News. We are described as “militant”. Damn, camouflage makes me look washed out and clashes with my hair. The comments seem to be very supportive at the ABC site. It’s like, “Well, an open convention *does* seem rather reasonable when you think about it.”
Add that to the list of media outlets that have featured PUMAs or made reference to us as humorless troublemakers. You know, I have no problem with the troublemaker part. It’s only trouble for the people who think we are ruining their beautiful plans. But humorless? That just frosts my crockies, Conflucians.
All this media attention is heady stuff but it does have a down side. We’ve seen some evidence of this in the spam filter. BTW, Francine, you really need to take a break and cut back on the Kool-Ade. The Obamaphiles are none too pleased right now. We are about to ruin everything. The media is dipping its toe into the water because, hey, the summer is slow for news, even with, or *because* of Obama’s Grand European and Middle East Best President Evah Tour. A little conflict keeps the news junkies strung out. Give them a little tease now and then, show a little bit of Diane’s shapely gams on Fox and watch the revenue pour in.
Now, I like the publicity, but the DNC is going to want to squash us like a bug. You know it’s coming, though, what can they throw at us at this point? They’ve already called us every nasty name in the book including racists, though I draw the line at Republican. So far, we have been immune to guilt trips, the sweet enlightenment of reason and ridicule, That leaves only a few options. The most powerful is to divide us from within. I’m not being paranoid. Obama is the presumptuous nominee because the Dems were divided from within. C’mon, John Edwards would have been a perfectly suitable candidate but he was ignored by the media. Barack Obama was a much more potent adversary for Hillary Clinton because he pitted two vital constituencies of the Democratic base against each other. Oh sure, the DNC loved him as well but they stupidly fell right into the trap the GOP laid for them. The DNC pissed off its biggest voting bloc for the smaller one that has no chanve of expanding outslde of the party. But nevermind.
My point is, they have done a lot already to get us to shut up, sit down and go away but we seem to be holding out. So, they will have to send in the SWAT team to take a wrecking ball and split us into factions.
Hmmm, how do we get around that one? Think, think, think. I know! Let’s first keep the mission simple. If there is no mission creep, there won’t be a lot to argue about. So, as our goal, let’s get Hillary;s name nominated at the convention in Denver. Let’s not look beyond Denver for the time being. Simple goal, And let’s try to keep our egos in check. We are all in this together. We all have a role to play. Some of us are writers, some of us are organizers, some of us are media persons. None of us can succeed without the others and none of us are better than the others. We only get to be famous if we succeed. Otherwise, we’re merely pains in the ass.
Now, Conflucians, the $%&@’s about to hit the fan. Find a buddy, hold hands, stay together and look both ways before crossing the street. We will be ok if we stick together.
Of further interest: Terry Gross on Fresh Air recently interviewed Ryan Lizza. Lizza wrote about Obama and his Chicago ties in the New Yorker. It’s pretty clearr to me that Terry is in the tank for Obama. Her voice almost sparkles when she talks about his book “Dreams of My Father”. Earlier in the primary season, she interviewed political watchers and the fawning over Obama as better than sliced bread really grated on me so I’ve had to avoid some of her podcasts. It made me think less of her as an interviewer and generally, she’s unmatched. I’m not surprised though that she went for the affluent liberal schtick. But Lizza seems a bit more grounded, especially when he says, ” Obama is incredibly lucky to have always been at the right place at the right time”. Yes, indeedy. Don’t miss the section where they talk about Trinity Church. It sounds like Lizza was intially willing to cut Obama a break on his genuine religious conviction and later came to a more level-headed conclusion. Listen and critique: Obama and the Chicago Establishment.
Comrades, even the fearsome PUMA Militia needs to take a break. I’ve arranged for our cocktail party to be held on a deck overlooking the Delaware River between NJ and PA tonight. We’re at Point Pleasant, PA. You can check it on the 
The Confluence 