Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

I was a teenager when, on December 3, 1979, over 17,000 people tried to get into the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati to see The Who, who were already well past their prime. Whoever got in first got the best spot. That’s how “festival style seating” works.

In response, the city banned such seating. Now, it’s the only of the top 50 venues with such a ban, and it wants to get rid of it — with guidelines, etc. The new groups, I assume, don’t tour. I just checked Billboard Magazine’s concert charts, and the top shows were by dinosaurs Madonna and Prince. You’d think it was 1984.

Take note of that, John Kerry. You know what happened to Fritz.

It is almost as if he is ignoring what the President is saying, but assuming that the President is doing what he is doing. He’s talking of himself.

The game was aired by the FOX broadcast network.

Current Brits are upright members of civilized society, but this Boyce fellow…

I’m reminded of the treatment of “Arthur ‘Two Sheds’ Jackson” on the very first episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus [link].

But one candidate still has his 4-day commercial coming up. It will be interesting to see if Kerry breaks with tradition and attacks the President during the week of the Republican Convention. He really has to do so.

He is desperate. He’s didn’t get his Edwards bounce, he is not getting his convention bounce, and none of the standard rules seem to apply. He has to unseat an incumbant who is extremely popular with half the country, and he himself is extremely popular with none of it.

Beckel’s reply was curious: “Bush has never grabbed hold of the economy; he’s been too focused on foreign affairs and the war.” (The last part is a paraphrase from memory.) Beckel was arguing that a healthy economy will not benefit President Bush, as he hasn’t done much with it.

That’s as nearly as curious a statement as Kerry’s assertion that Bush has no record (see post below). If Beckel’s argument is the perception Kerry’s team wants to foster, fine. But it’s an invention.

I didn’t hear any more of the show, but his assertion might have been that Kerry now has the incredible momentum and the President has to shake things up. Charlie Cook made a similar argument some weeks ago.

I’m not going to talk about what should have been done in the past, although I agree with what the President did. I will say that at this point, dumping Vice President Cheney for someone else would be seen as an act of desperation. Because that is exactly what it would be.

The President is not desperate.

A friend once joked that the greatest piece of American music ever written was Dvorák’s 9th Symphony: From the New World.

Gershwin was a genius. And he wrote for Americans. While Beethoven wrote primarily for kings and princelings, Gershwin wrote for Americans who wanted to see a show. There is a beauty to a music created for capitalistic reasons that only adds to his merit as a composer.

Someone spoke to me recently about rereading the Federalist Papers and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It was great stuff, they argued, but government now has reached a point where it has become a necessary part of our lives. It’s become entrenched, in that sense. (This is similar to that argument the Supreme Court used to uphold the principle that States cannot regulate abortion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that the abortion right is so entrenched we cannot go back.)

The argument is one of lazy thinking. Just because a bad condition has existed for a certain amount of time does not strip man of his natural rights. Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Hamilton, and Jay are as relevant to us now as they were to our forefathers then.

I don’t know that Mr. Socas was particularly relevant to anyone at any time, even his afternoon speaking slot. He’s running against Congressman Frank Wolf, a conservative Republican.

It was a fun political event. It gives the faithful something to do, and it rallies the troops. We continue having these conventions, I suspect, as habitual symbolism. The initial purpose of these things is not in the minds of any but a few observers.

The Democratic Party threw a Democratic party. And if JF Kerry loses, he’ll at least have had his moment. Mike Dukakis had his moment and Bob Dole had his. I’m not certain either had a chance, though; Dukakis because he was essentially running against Ronald Reagan’s proxy and Dole partly because of Ross Perot.

Is this batch of Dems serious, though?

U.S. soldiers forever changed by the Iraq war deserve a president who “understands on the most personal level” what they’ve endured, Senator John Edwards said Wednesday in a prime-time pitch for his boss.

Edwards, who accepted the party’s vice-presidential nomination at the Democratic national convention, playing up John Kerry’s decorated Vietnam War service as a swift boat captain who saved his crewmen. “They saw up close what he’s made of,” the millionaire ex-trial lawyer and rookie senator said in prepared remarks for thousands packing a downtown arena.

That was filed before 9pm ET. They’ve got their soothsayers up north, it seems, and they certainly drew a picture of a potential leader south of their border as being a lightweight.

They do this regardless of who the leader is, and yet Dems claim Kerry/Edwards will give us new respect in the world?

It’s obvious that the only speech which could have been classified as “great” by anyone was that of Barack Obama. I think we are seeing some defiance here. Theresa gave a discursive, self-centered, and weightless speech Tuesday, and most everyone knows this.

By repeating that it was a great speech, they are either trying to convince those listening that it was a great speech, or they are doing damage control on Theresa’s feelings. That’s important, because a Bush landslide is only a hissy fit away.

I caught the very, tail end of his speech, and he was screaming about courage.

Some of his delegates have said they might revolt. It’s bigger than Dennis, they say. They want a progressive voice. (I posted on this earlier today.) Not even the liberals are stuck on Kerry.

This evening, there was a lot of talk about “John Kerry and John Edwards,” though I infrequently heard Kerry’s name spoken alone. (Edwards talked in terms of what “John and I”/”we” are going to do. His wife talked of how great JF Kerry is then how great Edwards is: “The single most optimistic person I ever knew.”

Everything Kerry-related had to do with Vietnam or was a huge promise. He’ll do this, do that, do the other. Almost every other Presidential candidate of recent memory has promised the moon and the stars. Cue the violins, but watch for the wink. (Fingers crossed behind his back.)

This is disturbing.

He was born in Somerville, Massachusetts — Representative Michael Capuano’s district now. Capuano is quoted from the floor of the DNC disputing claims that Kerry would institute drug price controls if elected:

“I don’t think there’ll be drug pricing. I just don’t think that’s the way to go,” said Rep. Michael Capuano, whose district includes Cambridge, Mass., one of the leading drug development centers in the world.

“I think the way to go is to have international agreements, enforced international agreements, that make sure we [the U.S.] aren’t subsidizing healthcare for people around the world, which is what we’re doing right now,” Capuano added, referring to the ongoing debate as to why other wealthy nations are paying far less for drugs than the United States.

We’re paying more, in part, because other wealthy nations have price controls for drugs.

Spoken like a true herder of livestock.

The song was the theme of the 1979 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Their team leader was their first baseman, Hall of Famer Willie “Pops” Stargell. I don’t suppose Kerry wants to try to emulate that magic…

As I’ve said, Dukakis looked goofy with the helmet in the tank because it seemed out-of-character for the technocrat. Kerry playing astronaut is a goofy image, but that’s it. It’s to be expected.

It won’t hurt Kerry, and I do not buy the argument that the tank photo hurt Dukakis in a big way.

It looks like the RJ deal is going nowhere, and this team needs starting pitching. Please, please not Kris Benson!

A thoughtful war. He’ll have to think himself out of his paper bag first, and I’m not certain he can do that.

A thoughtful war. It’s an interesting notion, anyway. Oxymoronic, but interesting.

It’s a funny photo, though. FNC’s Carl Cameron described Kerry as looking “sort of like an Oompa-Loompa,” from the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film,.

He is described as a “rising star in Democratic politics.”

Okay, he’s a star. He can now use one name, like so many other stars. Which is he: Barrack or Obama?

Will also thinks she’s hot:

[I]t is a fact that she is attractive. She has won a beauty pageant and appeared as a contestant on “The Dating Game.'’

She’s met Chuck Woolery. That’s all I need to know.

JF Kerry was there, rooting for the Sox and against the Yankees’ starting pitcher, José Contreras, an escapee from Castro island gulag.

You know, at times like this, it seems secondary that the Yankees are leading the division by… it will be 7 1/2 games. We’ve got to beat the Sox!

Not tonight.

I wonder what he would have written between innings at the ballgame tonight. Three times, he was musical director at the National Conservatory in New York, so I assume he would have been a Yankees fan if the team had been around then. Of course he’d have been a Yankees fan. And a Republican. “A vote for Bush is a vote for Dvorák’s Symphonic Variations!”

Uh, I’ll run that one by Mehlman. Or maybe not.

If McAuliffe hadn’t rushed his party to a nomination this year, it is possible that Democrat voters would have gotten to know JF Kerry in the familiar and Democrats-only format of the primary process. He could them have his own personal support, not merely attracting Democrats because he is the only official alternative to President Bush.

It’s a though, and not a very good one. More likely, the Dems would have nominated Edwards.

I have heard suggested as the first intelligence czar: Thomas Kean. The thought sends frightful chills. If we have to have one, how about Rudy Giuliani? (Fifteen years ago, I’d have suggested Al Hague.)

That wasn’t the highlight. It was a great game for drama, with Bill Mueller winning it with a walk-off against Mo Rivera in the bottom of a three-run ninth, but I hadn’t seen something that entirely sloppy all season. The game was a mess, as was the rain-soaked field.

The two teams scored a combined 10 runs in the 6th inning, with 89 pitches thrown to 22 batters. The inning lasted 67 minutes.

Boston won, 11-10, cutting the Yankees Eastern Division lead to 8.5 games.

He was paid, but there is nothing in the records to indicate definitely that he trained with the Alabama National Guard.

Is this still an issue?

Will Kerry have added stature with his fellow Senators? Will he be considered a distinguished statesman? We know that he’ll have added celebrity to push him beyond his former role as Teddy’s junior colleague. Will he be considered by Dems as a reminder of a great failure, similar to the way Gore is now presented? (The 2000 election does more to the Dems than simply remind them of a loss. It’s a loss that some don’t think was really a defeat.)

Will Kerry fill the role of the ranking Democrat on a Senate Committee?

Will he become a favorite on the Sunday morning talk shows, serving as the requisite Democrat snipe?

If Kerry somehow manages to win the election, will a Democrat among those of you reading these words have bookmarked this post with which to taunt me?

Did Al Sharpton ask these questions in his campaign?

It was 8-7, and it was that close. These games always are almost always tense and dramatic, and the Yankees almost always win. This time, they managed to force Boston Ace Curt Schilling out of the game in the sixth while losing. He gave up seven earn runs.

Kevin Millar — Boston’s “Cowboy Up” dude from last year — hit three home runs off three different pitchers and he was on deck at the final out. If Trot Nixon had gotten on base, Millar would have been in a position to hit his fourth homer and win the game.

So what?

Ten games back in the loss column, it is past time for the Sox to give up on chasing the Yankees and look to staying in the Wild Card race. If Nomar stays healthy and doesn’t demand a trade, they have a real shot at it.

Although they were careful not to say this, this paucity of imagination and curiosity, as it regards terrorism, ran throughout the Clinton Administration; however, the blame must be placed on the man whose job it was to use his imagination, to think outside the box. President Clinton’s national coordinator for counterterrorism was Richard Clarke. Without mentioning him by name, the report places much of the blame squarely on his shoulders.

I’d include the direct link from which to download it, but I think the idea is to visit their page and see their ads. It is called capitalism, and I support it with every fiber of my being.

As usual, Tom Gordon pitched the eighth and Mariano Rivera the ninth, and the did so nearly perfectly.

The problem is, no one scored any runs until the bottom of the ninth. Vinnie Chaulk struck out Gary Sheffield and A-Rod to get the first two outs for the Jays, then Ruben Sierra walked in, tanked one, and ballgame over. Yankees win. Theeeeeeeeeee Yankees win!

Rivera picked up his first win.

It’s tomorrow night, 7:05p. at Fenway.

A bit of trivia. On the TV show Cheers, Mr. Gaines took his daughter Kelly and her boyfriend Woody the bartender to a symphony concert where the orchestra played Mahler. Rebecca began chatting with Mr. Gaines about Mahler then decided she was his new girlfriend. He was very wealthy, and that sort of thing was it for her.

G’night.

Note that I did not say I think Clinton gave the orders to leak the story. He didn’t have to do so, for such is the almost cultish loyalty amongst the followers surrounding that man.

“I am sorry to disappoint science fiction fans,'’ he said through his distinctive computerized voicebox. “But if you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe but in a mangled form.'’

I could have told you that, and I don’t have an advanced scientific degree. (Uh, yeah, right.)

Tomorrow is a day/night doubleheader at Fenway.

This is the first real Dem scandal we’ve had in what seems like an aeon, and I do not know what to make of it. But there is something I learned from the Democrats back during the Reagan Administration, and that’s: don’t foam at the mouth about a perceived scandal until its nailed down; otherwise, you will end up looking the clown.

It happened then, and it’s happening now to the Dems in spades.

I need more than wild-eyed press reports. Remember, this is the same press which demanded an apology last month after the 9-11 Commission had ruled something which it hadn’t.

“Whatever mistakes have been made let us rejoice, let us be pleased Iraq has been liberated.”

Then Prime Minister-Margaret Thatcher said almost the same thing in 1982 after the Falklands conflict.

The right side is winning this war of words about a war and wills against a great evil.

Edwards, of course, is a plaintiff’s attorney.

According to AP:

Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration’s handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.

Berger’s response, almost literally, has been: “Ooops. Sorry.”

Okay, they had some guy named Alex Graman start the game, and he was pasted for five runs. The Yanks kept battling back, but they fell by a score of 9-7.

They need quality starting pitching, and they might have to rely on a 40-year-old guy, if they can even get him (RJ),

In his 2003 State of the Union, the President gave his source as “British intelligence,” not the CIA.

And where did Clinton himself hear that Saddam Hussein “was close to having a nuclear weapon, a representation that was made” by him in 1998?

But Clinton’s motives are a pristine as were Joe Wilson’s.

Also good news for Detroit, though I don’t have the figures handy, their four game series with the Yankees set the attendance record for their home field, Comerica Park. The Yankees have done this in several ballparks this year. That’s the kind of story which makes a fan smile.

But at CIA, Giuliani would bring a problem-solving, effecient, combative management style. He’s not a conservative so wouldn’t intimidate Jay Rockefeller and the other Intelligence Committee Dems. And, most importantly, America is not done praising him.

Bush/Cheney leads Kerry Edwards, 49% to 44% — the same 5-percent which separated Bush and Kerry last month, before Edwards was the named choice.

Good news for Kerry: he’s more competitive at this point than Al Gore was in the 2000 election, where the former Veep lost by 13 points.

El Duque picked up the win, his second in as many starts, and Mariano picked up his 33rd Save.

And we can’t forget Jason Giambi, who had a rare fielding gem. He also left five runners stranded on base.

If there is a trade, who gets traded? How about Giambi, Joe Wilson, and Congressman Rahm Emmanuel (D-Illinois)?

I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

Democratic White House challenger John Kerry on Friday urged President Bush to take full responsibility for flawed U.S. intelligence on Iraq, proposed to create a spy czar and vowed to double the number of clandestine agents.

JF Kerry proposed cutting and voted to cut funding and slash the number of human intelligence agents.  He helped create problem.
 
Will he admit that he was wrong and apologize to the American people?
 
 
 

Perhaps this will put to rest any lingering notion out there that the Clintons still run the Democratic Party.

The AP reports that New York Dem big shot Judith Hope snapped: “It’s a slap in the face, not personally for Hillary Clinton, but for every woman in the Democratic Party and every woman in America.”

Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), the longest serving female Senator, will speak on their behalf. Is this also a slap in the face for every woman in the Democratic Party and every woman in America?

If you are French and reading this, please do not be offended. I’ll listen to Francis Poulenc, a Parisian, tomorrow. I have issues with Chirac and the poet de Villepin only, not that it much matters in the grand scheme.

Today, in the face of terrorist demands, she decided to withdraw her 51 — count ‘em — troops slightly over a month ahead of tourists.

From the Latin: “Fortune smiles on the brave, and frowns upon the coward.”

With a terror problem of her own, one would think Arroyo would have been willing to continue this one small step to show that she would not capitulate.

If they do not get at least 50 votes towards cloture, scratch the idea. Kerry and Edwards opted not to vote on the procedural matter.

The proposed is a reaction to the Courts taking the right to define marriage from the States, to which it is Constitutionally entrusted by the 10th Amendment.

I would have liked to have seen an Amendment constructed which returned the power to the States.

The two men knocked in by Soriano’s homer — Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter — are current Yankees.

The American Leagues starting infield was Giambi, a Yankee, at first. Soriano, the starting second basemen, played that position for the Yankees last year. He began as a short stop, but was moved because Jeter is the starting shortstop for the Yankees. Period.

The starting American League third baseman, Alex Rodriguez, also moved from the shortstop position for Jeter when he became a Yankee.

Good night.

“I’m getting excited about it and I’m just thinking about it,” Ditka told WGN-TV from his Chicago restaurant Monday.

Last Wednesday, I wrote:

[Mike Ditka} has the name recognition and he would certainly attract some energetic volunteers. Conventional wisdom, which hasn’t meant a lot of late, tells us that [Jack] Ryan already cost them the seat, so it’s too bad the Illinois GOP won’t at least look into it.

Think outside the box. It’s getting musty in there.

The next day, I wrote of the rumor that House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) was pushing for a Ditka candidacy, and I gave the URL the Draft Ditka web site. (Though it seems I screwed up the HTML that morning.)

Again, the Illinois GOP had better think outside the box. Obama’s a young, competent guy with a decent sense of humor.

Mike Ditka would mix it up.

Everytime liberals accuse Bush of lying, be sure to ask “Where is the lie?” Most often times, there really is no lie.

And that’s it exactly. If they accuse the President of lying often and loudly enough, and maybe do one of those Google bombs, what just isn’t so become true in a psychologically twisted way.

“Common knowledge” is an assumption.

“Excuse me, sir. What did Bush lie about?”

“Goin’ into Eye-rack he sold us all a buncha nonsense.” I use the word “nonsense” a lot — that made me smile. I furled my brow pensively and continued to listen. “He said Sad-dum had them WMDs. He didn’t. He said he was going to invade the US. He couldn’t.” Hadn’t heard that one. But hey, I’m a Republican operative — biased as the day is long. I need to take my blinders off. “He said he had body doubles; we don’t know that the man they say we caught is really him. He said Sad-dum was buying Uranium from Africa — how is Africa producing uranium? They can’t feed their people and they got uranium?”

Hmmmmm.

Beethoven is the Ronald Reagan of classical music, in my opinion. He bridged the classical and the romantic eras, just as President Reagan brought the cold war to an end and began the post-era. Reagan’s remembered for “Tear down this wall!,” though he had eight years of great Presidential speeches. Reagan’s most remembered for ending the cold war, but he did a lot more. Beethoven is remembered for those four notes, but he wrote some other great music. Most importantly, I think, after Beethoven, all composers measured themselves against him. He set the standard.

Even Clinton measured himself against President Reagan.

Then they praise Secretary of State Colin Powell because he supposedly “grilled and probed CIA officials relentlessly before he addressed the United Nations before the Iraq war to make the U.S. case against Saddam.” Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller was all over the Sunday shows claiming that such intense grilling and probing — “hammering,” he called it — was a form of pressuring the agency to reach a certain conclusion.

In their abject desire to see the President defeated this November, their thinking has become so flawed that it would be laughable if it weren’t so contemptible.

She hasn’t been watching their quasi-erotic togetherness on the campaign trail.

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NOTE: Dr. Barthwell was not the President’s drug czar; she was the Deputy Director for Demand Reduction. This lends a little to Trent Lott’s comment Sunday morning on ABC’s This Week that we do not need a “Intelligence Czar,” as he would be forgotten like the drug czar. The drug czar, by the way, is John P. Walters, which name means very little to me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Democratic nominee, State Senator Barack Obama is an African American, and so is Dr. Barthwell. Only two blacks have heretofore been elected to the United States Senate.

I know nothing of her ideology, just that she wears the all-important “R” on her lab coat.

It was great to see them again. You’ve got to figure…

They couldn’t do anything better than what had already been done, so they tried something a little different. It was a tougher sell for me, but it’s worth a little effort at first if you like this kind of music. It’s like getting into Kansas if you started out listening to Led Zepplin. (That might be an awful analogy. I’m not sure.)

Good night.

The Senate. From what I have heard of their report, each of the problems listed was the fault of the U.S. Senate. Starting with the Church Committee of thirty years ago, the proscription of exploiting assets who were considered “unsavory characters,” the Senate broke the system. And the Senate Intelligence Committee is charged with seeing that it works. They didn’t. They didn’t seem to care until it became obvious.

On FNC’s Special Report report Friday evening, Rockefeller admitted that he didn̵