Red neck, white socks, blue ribbon beer.

Via the Corner, Slate's "Red state/Blue state" quiz.  And yes, I trended into the red by a comfortable margin, though knowing what the LIRR referred to hurt me a bit.

To my surprise...

Richard Cohen slams Ron Reagan for borrowing his dead father's coat to speak at the Democratic convention. [Link via Jonah Goldberg on The Corner. I don't go reading Cohen articles on my own, and since Charles abandoned his ongoing "Scourge of Richard Cohen" project, I've been ignoring his existence.]

It's hilarious to me that the Democratic party thinks getting one of the sillier Reagans to speak at their convention is supposed to be a political coup of some sort. Why on earth would this be a blow to the Republicans? Little Ronnie's never been *on* the reservation, if it comes to that; it's not like he's wandered off and we're trying to lure him back. Last I'd heard of him before the funeral he was wearing leg warmers and whining about he just wanted to--DANCE!--and I haven't taken him seriously in the twenty years or so since then. It surprises me that anyone would.

Sleaze offensive.

First thing I saw when I signed on AOL: "Donald Trump would 'fire' Bush over Iraq invasion", with an article apparently redacted from an upcoming August "Esquire" interview.

Am I supposed to give a flying fuck? Really, is this supposed to be a slam of earthshattering proportions; should I be feeling the foundations of the GOP shudder from this critical blow? Because, frankly, the man's a political idiot, billionaire or no.

"Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never have handled it that way.

Details. I want details on precisely how Donald fucking Trump would have handled Iraq.

Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country?," Trump said.

By that ridiculous standard, America is not a particularly wonderful democracy. As is bemoaned every four years or so, the percentage of eligible voters who just don't fucking bother is staggering. And yet somehow we manage to muddle through.

"C'mon. Two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he'll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn't have," Trump said in excerpts of the interview released in advance to Reuters.

Right. That's exactly what happened in Germany and Japan. If the short-sighted among us would sit down, shut their cakeholes, and let the adults do their jobs, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Trump would probably have fired Churchill. Fuck him.

Beautiful.

Paula just e-mailed me the following from the Hollywood Reporter, Monday July 12, 2004, Page 3 in the clips section:

Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus dubbed Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" a communist-style propaganda work after seeing it at a festival in Karlovy Vary. "We were used to such messages in the Communist days," Klaus said. "Everybody has open eyes and can understand that this is propaganda. It was a weak film that tells us nothing new."