The story of my week has been canvassing for Paul Hodes, and I diaried about it
here and
here. (And with reference to that first diary, let me say, while Emily and I canvassed together rather than splitting up our streets, everyone else I've canvassed with we've split up the streets and Emily and I finished our walk lists, so people in Washington should get off Patrick's back about that, ok?)
And it's probably a story I'm more interested in telling than the one I'll have later in the week about how the class I'm teaching started and I was totally unprepared because I spent most of Monday cooking and Tuesday volunteering for the Hodes campaign.
Unfortunately, one of the problems that emerged Saturday, a day I spent canvassing with two different volunteer partners, putting together lawn signs, and hanging out, is that there's so much I
can't say, whether because if anyone thought for a second I'd post it, they wouldn't say it around me, or because every time anyone did anything that could remotely be construed as embarrassing, their eyes darted over to me and they said "don't put that on the internet."
Representative of the things I'm not allowed to post: End of Saturday evening, in a bar, Dave says to Patrick "I love you in a totally platonic dude sense."
See? You didn't even think that was funny, though I assure you it was at the time.
But the funny thing about getting kind of up-close with a campaign is it becomes harder to write research-based, policy-oriented posts about, because they're not sitting around the office discussing Iraq policy, they're sitting around the office talking about how many hours it's going to take to canvass everywhere they need to. There's so much that goes unsaid, because you know what you're there for. You're there to help take back Congress, to get a strong, proud Democrat elected, to put someone in Congress who doesn't sometimes deny that caring about Iraq is his job, who genuinely cares about the environment rather than lying about his commitment to it when it's politically strategic. But that stuff isn't news. What's news is, like, who's hooking up and who love each other in a platonic dude sense.
I guess, in a way, it's like the Top Comments of politics. It's important and worthwhile and fun, but a lot of the important stuff lies under the surface, tying you together but not necessarily being articulated in that moment.
Anyway, a few comments for you tonight:
In keeping with what I was just talking about, in Elise's action diary: RunawayRose and Buffalo Girl let us know what they've been doing to fix the country, and casperr has an idea.
I always love a serious debate, and Opakapa and Jay Elias deliver in a big way with this discussion of warfare
richter lays out what makes comedy work (and why Bob Hope's comedy stopped working)
vcmvo2 notices a change in Bush's demeanor
Plutonium Page on the similarities between Bush and Ahmadinejad (and read down for Meteor Blades' response).
Meteor Blades on evidence of Iran's nuclear program
Once again, we're lucky to have had a number of submissions to the Top Comments email address topcomments at gmail dot com.
High praise from OrangeClouds115
I about died over this one
From BesiegedByBush
This is a tip jar that merits breaking the rules and putting in top comments
... so as to break the bank for a top notch donation to the ACLU ...
Cronesense says
From the diary 'The AP comes out swinging today'
by Mike Laut
Warren Terrer comes up with a brilliant new name for the 'W' in GWB
name. This has to be spread far and wide! Further down the thread
there is more information on 'waterboarding' with a reference to a
section in a movie of the technique. Brainstorming ensues.
From righteousbabe
Buffy Orpington comments eloquently on how difficult
it is to quantify the fruits of progressive seeds in righteousbabe's
fine
diary on psychology and genocide in Darfur.
First-time submitter FrankieB brings us wiscmass's eloquent comment on stopping genocide (also from righteousbabe's wonderful diary).