Live, from DC, it's SOTU 2007!!

I can’t stand it! I tried to live blog during SOTU (State of the Union), but clearly, everyone and their treo were live-blogging for SOTU. At least, everyone in DC.

So this is coming late, and is transferred from a Word document… and you know how I love WORD. Anyway...

9:13 – Ok, so he acknowledged Speaker Pelosi’s gender right off the bat. He’s throwing us a bone. I’ll nod politely at that. (In real life, I got chills. How cool is that! MADAM Speaker!)

9:15 – Bush looks skinnier, no? Why is it I can’t loose weight after a 3-day stomach flu, but Bush peels it off like gang-busters?

9:18 – More enterprise? Like Starship Enterprise? Dude: Republicans heart space.

9:19 – No really, Bush is s-k-i-n-n-y. Dang.

9:19 – Strategic placement of Sen. Clinton behind Sen. Obama. Clinton wins the brighter colored suit contest.

9:20 – CSPAN joke #1. Way to kill ‘em, Bushy!

9:21 – Sen. Kennedy already needs a drink.

(I simply cannot keep this up the entire speech)

9:22 – First mention of “the right to choose!!!” Sadly, it was with regards to education. Abstinence-only education, is my guess.

9:27 – Wondering when he’ll scare me about those terrorists I/We just elected into office?

9:28 – Ah, yes. Illegal immigrants. Now he speaks to me and my people (minus the illegal part).

9:29 - I think Cheney is pissed that Speaker Pelosi keeps standing up. She's making him look lazy. Imagine.

9:30 - And we have "terrorists!" Excellent. Now I can go to bed scared :) Mission Accomplished, Bush Administration!

9:33 - Bush is seriously skinny. I need to move on, but I can't. If the media wants to fixate on what female politicians are wearing, then I will fixate on his weight. It's only fair.

9:36 - More scary stuff... anthrax, London plans blowing up, bombs on the West coast. Sheesh. We get it. We let them win by voting for Democrats.

9:37 - You know, I gotta hand it to Speaker Pelosi. She's so quick to her feet that she's up and down before Cheney can shift his weight from buttock to buttock.

9:38 - More of the same. Everyone hates us, we're all going to die, and soon. Blah blah blah.

9:42 - Sen. McCain has already checked out. He can't wait to go home and watch the new episode of Gilmore Girls.

(9:50 - I think I've checked out)

9:55 - Money for fighting HIV AIDS in Africa: notable, only I'm pretty sure I've contributed more with my purchase of my PRODUCT RED iPod than the Bush Administration has, but whatevs.

9:57 - "Matumbo: Son of the Congo a Citizen of the United States of America." I like that. Friends, please refer to me as "Molly: Daughter of Chile, Citizen of the United States of America."

9:59 - I love the story of Wesley Autrey... kudos to you, sir. People call him a hero, and he throws it back to our troops. (tear #2)

10:03 - End scene.

Thank you, that is all.

Overheard...

Great post on Thong Speed:

Overheard on Blog for Choice Day

Overheard by NN this afternoon catching a cab from Union Station:

"Why are all the flags at half-mast?"
"Ford. They stay that way for, like, a month."
"Oh. I thought it was for all the dead babies."

Having all these freaks protesting all over town has been a huge pain in the ass. I was stuck in huge traffic jams all day, and I because I couldn't get anywhere close to the Capitol.

Hopefully tomorrow all those snot-nosed brainwashed kids will be rounded up and bussed back to Kansas.

Seriously, don't parents know that kids will sneak around the chaperones and hook up on these overnight trips? Imagine the irony of losing your virginity at a pro-life rally.

why am i pro-choice?

I'm sick in bed with the stomach flu today... but nothing was going to keep me from participating in blog for choice. Not even projectile vomit. Sorry, TMI.

I'm pro-choice because by being pro-choice, and voting pro-choice, I can be sure that women are are able to choose which reproductive health option is best for them: whether it be motherhood (by adoption or by giving birth), birth control, or abortion. I trust women to make the choice that is best for them. That's the basic root of it all, for me.

I can go on and say that I believe the right to choose what one does with their body is a basic human right. I can go on and say that I don't think anyone, most of all the government (read: a majority of old, white men) should be able to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. And finally, I can go on and say that no one can know what it's like to walk in someone else's shoes until they do- so to tell them what life-changing choice to make is simply wrong.

But really, it's about trust. Trusting women. And that's why I'm pro-choice.

gratuitous gratuity

So, as many of you know, we (Charlotte, Lucy, and I) had our First Annual Chrismukkah Party this year on a blistery winter day (December 7th, y'all). It was v. eagerly anticipated (I'm told) because it was the first party of the year for many- and at this point, no one was had reached their fill of holiday cheer.

And it was quite the little fiesta. No joke. I saw lots of friends from all areas of my life (high school, GW, work, campaigns, bloggers, previous jobs) and met even more. I won't bore you with any more details, but I did want to draw your attention to the receipt (see below). Yes, THE RECEIPT. The receipt that gave me nightmares and caused many a sleepless night for Charlotte, Lucy, and me.

You see, we had an idea of what this shindig would cost us, and believe me- $472 bones was NOT it. We decided to put the cost on one credit card and then figure out how much each person owed the next day. Which was a great idea, in theory, except that when I gave MY credit card (which I gladly offered), I failed to remember that I would likely be tres drunk at the end of the night, and therefore ill equipped to decipher a bill. Details- or so I thought.

All I remember is at the end of the night, we were all so happy and so pleased that everyone had so much fun... and then I got the bill, was appalled and shoved it in Lucy's face screaming, "Seriously?!?! Seriously?!?!" all the while laughing and falling off my chair. I quickly calculated an appropriate tip, again thrusted it in Lucy's face screaming "Is this enough??!?? Is this enough?!?!" and then booked it outta there.

(I then proceeded to attempt to walk home b/c I had no money, and wouldn't until midnight (when I got paid)... Literally- I tried to get money out, and the ATM screamed "insufficient funds" at me, so I tried to coax Lucy to wait until midnight when I'd surely have the deposit available. Lucky for me, Lucy threw me a $20 and made me cab it home. But really- that's another story for another time).

It took us three a good many days to pull out the receipt and figure out the damage done. When we did, I realized that I had tipped our waitress (who was a v. v. bad waitress, by the way) $80 MORE than the already included gratuity. What an asshole I am! It still didn't knock the price down much, but holy eff- I wish I could get my money back. (Don't worry- I would never try.)

So that's the story of the gratuitous gratuity. May I NEVER be this gratuitous again.

THE END.

Blessed are the Children

** Please note the plaque: "Blessed are the Children: Dedicated in the Memory of the Unborn"

(While canvassing the Saturday before the elections, my turf led me to a catholic nursing home (no really, it did). I decided not to canvass them, but when we passed this statue in the parking lot, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to capture this statue. Definitely NOT our target audience.)

Great Op-Ed in Roll Call

(I agree with all except the Yankees reference... now that was simply not necessary.)

The Year That Was: A Very, Very, Very Weird One in Politics
Roll Call
by Stuart Rothenberg
December 12, 2006


Every so often, we have a very odd political year. The year 2006 was one of them.
Here’s a little test. Which one of the following things did you expect to happen 12 months ago?Please, be honest.

• Democrats would win the Senate;
• Republican Reps. Jim Leach (Iowa), Jeb Bradley (N.H.) and Jim Ryun (Kan.) would lose in the same election in which Republican Reps. Christopher Shays (Conn.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.) and Heather Wilson (N.M.) would win;
• Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) would find out that he’s Jewish;
• A former Prince George’s County executive and five sitting County Council members — all of them Democrats and all of them black — would endorse the Republican Senate candidate in Maryland; or
• Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner (D) would announce that he would not run for president in 2008.

And for good measure, let’s add another development. How many of you figured that a sitting Senator would lose his bid for renomination and yet win his campaign for re-election? (I’m not even going to factor in the time in February that Vice President Cheney shot his friend in the face or the e-mail scandal of the fall surrounding former Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley.)

Like I said, it was a very strange year.

The victories of Shays, Gerlach and Wilson, given the Democratic wave that washed over the country and resulted in the defeat of 21 incumbents, still strikes me as incredible. Two of the three were running against the same opponents who almost beat them in 2004, and all three represent precisely the kind of districts likely to swing Democratic in a wave election.

Their victories should prove once and for all that campaigns matter. Sure, district fundamentals are very important, and the national environment explains many of the House outcomes this year. But if Shays, Gerlach and Wilson had not run the types of campaigns they did, each would have lost. Their efforts allowed them to overcome the national trends that sent other Republican candidates down in defeat.

A year ago, we all were talking about the possibility that the 2008 presidential contest could pit two Virginians, Allen and Warner, against each other. (I remember scurrying to the reference books to find out the last time that had happened.) And now, neither man is a candidate for the nation’s top job.

Then there was the fundraising by the Democrats’ campaign committees this cycle, which, frankly, blew my socks off. Both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee proved their fundraising mettle, with the DSCC outraising the National Republican Senatorial Committee by more than $30 million, $119 million to $88 million through Nov. 27. Wow.

Thinking back to the beginning of the year, nobody in their right mind, and certainly not the folks over at the DSCC, thought that the Democrats would have a chance to net six Senate seats and win control of the Senate. By the beginning of the year, it seemed certain that Democrats would gain seats, maybe even as many as four or five. But the sixth seat wasn’t even a dream. Waves, though, have a way of changing possibilities, since waves come about only when there is considerable voter frustration and anger.

There is one other way in which I found 2006 strange, politically. Normally, after a party sweeps to victory, its leaders (and its rank-and-file members) say their victory was a ratification of their agenda. But most Democrats have been stunningly and unexpectedly realistic about why they won. Over and over, I’ve heard Democratic elected officials comment that the elections were a referendum on the president and his policies.

“The election was largely a rejection of George Bush. Voters are giving us a chance. Our job is to close the deal,” said a Democratic leader days after the results were in. My goodness, how refreshing! Sure, Democrats have an agenda that many Republicans will disagree with, and Democratic Congressional leaders eventually may drive their bus off the cliff. But so far, Democrats are sounding unusually measured.

And of course we all have our favorite nonpolitical surprises of 2006. Maybe for you it was the break-up of Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson or the wholly unimpressive St. Louis Cardinals winning the World Series or Google spending more than $1.6 billion to buy YouTube or even Bob Barker announcing his retirement (next year) from “The Price is Right.”

For me, it was the performance of New York Yankees outfielder Bernie Williams hitting a surprising .281 this year and playing his 16th year with the same grace, class and dignity that he had back in the early 1990s.

"Jim Webb Almost Beats Bush Senseless"

Ok, I think I'm coming around... while not orignially a supporter or Webb, I had to vote for him (yes- I voted in VA!!) because he was not George Allen- a man with whom I have a couple of personal bones to pick. Webb and his women issues didn't really rub me the right way, but now, after reading this post in Wonkette, I'm a solid fan.

The White House invited newly elected Senate and House members to a “private reception” after the election, and George W. Bush really charmed Jim Webb. According to The Hill, Bush asked Webb how his son was doing in Iraq; Jimmy Webb Jr. is serving in the Marine Corps. Senator-elect Webb said he’d like to see his son get home safely. “I didn’t ask you that,” Bush shot back. “I asked how he’s doing.”

Sources tell The Hill that Webb was so furious he could barely keep himself from slugging Dubya in the face, but he bravely made it through the dinner without violence. Webb’s office will only say that he had a “private conversation” with Bush. There’s an even better version from the Washington Post, after the jump.The Post says Webb refused to have his picture taken with Bush and even refused to stand in the receiving line. Here’s the paper’s version of the exchange:

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

2007 is going to be awesome.

Really, just imagine Reagan’s secretary of the Navy and the new senator from Virginia killing the junior Bush with his own hands. Shakespeare would’ve gone crazy with this kind of material.