Looks like President Obama is getting a Terrorist Fistbump from the DNC, per Gallup and Ras.

Hope it lasts!

Heh heh. (Credit to some other anonymous internet hero)

The only plus I see for Romney in this Swiftboat attempt is this:

It attempts to stir up a food fight that doesn't involve Romney in any way.

Romney is a bad candidate, he makes a worse impression with increasing exposure.

He can't handle attacks on him or his record, he's been floundering and off balance.

The OBL killing doesn't involve him at all, there are no questions he has to answer, no tax records to hide, no Medicare or Ryan plan questions to dodge.

Of course there is the downside that pursuing this angle could lead to highlighting Obama's one accomplishment that even most right wingers have to concede is a good thing.

Is anyone even complaining about the "chains" thing aside from obvious Team Romney partisans?

And CNN media sycophants?

Serious question.

I thought I'd figured out what Mitt was doing prior to this Ryan pick. Basketball analogy within!

Here I thought I had Romney read like a book. Crappy candidate but persistently on Obama's heels due to the economy. As things developed, the basic gist of Romney's strategy seemed to be: do not deviate, ever, from right wing orthodoxy, do nothing to rock the base's boat.

It's like if you were 10 points behind in a basketball game. Not great, but within reach. Don't take any big chances to close the gap that could cause turnovers and widen the gap. Just make sure you stay within that 10 points. This would be picking Portman, which I assumed he was going to do.

Then, when you're in the last two or three minutes, you do the GOP equivalent of fouling Obama every time he touches the ball and hoping he bricks his free throw attempts: a billion dollars of SuperPAC negative ad blitz in swing states, making it difficult in every possible way for poor black people to vote in Cuyahoga County, OH, etc.

You're still probably going to lose, but depending on how poorly Obama shoots free throws and how well your team can score quick baskets, you might have a 25 percent chance of winning.

It actually seemed like a reasonable plan for victory for a longshot challenger, possibly the best odds Romney could get. Not winning odds, but possible/doable.

This Ryan pick feels like Romney saw the lead creep from 10 to 13, got panicky and instead of sticking with coach's plan, just started hoisting three pointer attempts from half court in the middle of the third quarter.

I just started watching "Fishing with John" on streaming. Um, what exactly is the story here?

It's actor John Lurie going fishing in various locations with different hipster favorites (I think Jim Jarmusch and Tom Waits are the first two episodes).

I've jumped in to Willem Dafoe ice fishing in Maine.

Does anyone know the history of this show, how it came to be made? What channel it was on?

Sincere question for those who were around re: Carter being primaried by Kennedy

Was Carter primaried because he was felt by the part of the party to his left to not be liberal enough?

Or was it more a sense that, due to reasons having nothing to do with whether he had the proper ideological alignment, he was a politically failed president (weak economy, country feeling impotent over Iran hostages and OPEC etc.) who was going to lose big, and you had a major figure who always had presidential ambitions in Teddy Kennedy who saw Carter's vulnerability to a big defeat as justification enough to make a try at realizing his own ambitions?

I honestly thought it was more the latter than the former, but I was pretty young then and not too informed. Any enlightenment appreciated.

Wouldn't it be better for Romney to just say "yeah I ran Bain til 2002 and this is what we did"?

Instead of all this stupid legalese about how he could be CEO but have nothing to do with the company?

Is it really better from his campaign's point of view for him to be seen as a lying sack o' crap instead of as a corporate leader who did some ruthless stripping down of companies in the sacred cause of making giant piles of money?

"I did NOT have financial relations with that company!"

My cat's new thing is to punch me in the arm every time I walk by her little perch.

What'd I do?