Bettye Lavette performs Sleep to Dream & I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.

What’s on your mind tonight?

Today at 10 AM ET, The LiberalOasis Radio Show was broadcast on WHMP-AM in Western MA. My special guest was Rick Perlstein of the Big Con blog at OurFuture.org, and author of the critically acclaimed “Nixonland”, who reported from the site of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

The audio podcast for the show is here: (iTunes / XML feed / MP3)

Video of the opening monologue below, about how the RNC may have failed to speak to the swing.

At a reception in St. Paul on Wednesday for Catholic Republicans, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) — a fierce opponent of abortion — said that he is “very concerned that many of our schools and universities have lost their way.” They have become “bastions of moral relativism and moral compromise with the culture of death.”

As a solution, Smith suggested that “students must find the God of the Bible and Biblical values in the classroom”:

SMITH: Our schools need to become oases of goodness, sound moral teaching and, they must become agents of change in the culture. Our students must find the God of the Bible and Biblical values in the classroom, on the campus. I believe we need to do more to find effective ways to educate and inform policy makers and hold them to account.

Watch it:

Smith’s call for “Biblical values in the classroom” could easily be interpreted as a call for the promotion of Christianity in American schools. But, as the First Amendment Center has pointed out, “the courts have been clear that public school teachers cannot teach religion to their students or read the Bible to the class as a way of promoting their faith.”

Smith’s comments appear to be more radical than Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) claim last year that “every child” in American schools needs to learn “the tenets of the Christian faith.” While King conceded that if “the tenets of Christianity” are to be taught in school, “other faiths” should be taught as well, Smith said no such thing.

Transcript: (more…)

My first thought on walking into the Xcel Center tonight and seeing the blue screen behind John McCain was — have they learned nothing? Lime green jello and cottage cheese?  Is there no one in the Republican party who can do staging?  Hello, McFly?

My first thought on walking into the Xcel Center tonight and seeing the blue screen behind John McCain was — have they learned nothing? Lime green jello and cottage cheese?  Is there no one in the Republican party who can do staging?  Hello, McFly?

And then there was the  sound of McCain’s voice.  He’s obviously been taking public speaking lessons from Hal, the computer from 2001.  It wasn’t long before I needed a nap.  But fortunately, there was plenty of time for one.  Fifty-three minutes, in fact.

It was an endless laundry list of failed conservative ideas.  The place was packed with a sea of Karl Rove look-alikes (who knew it was a style?) who only got excited about the idea of lower taxes and drilling for oil.  But even then, just barely.

McCain promises not to raise taxes, but he never says that he’s planning to tax your health care benefits as income.  Haven’t heard much about that, have we?  It’s true — if you receive health care benefits from your employer, John McCain wants to consider that income, and subject it to income tax.  It’s estimated that this would cost the average worker a couple thousand dollars a year.  He doesn’t mention that much.

What he does mention is his POW experience.  Over, and over, and over again.  I was a lot more sympathetic to his personal stories of being plucky in the face of torture before he started using his POW history to assert that the very same techniques used on him can’t be considered torture when used on “detainees.”  McCain’s rather fluid definition of torture, and his willingness to use his history for political advantage as some enormous, all-purpose trump card leaves me a bit unmoved the more I hear his story.  And boy, do we hear it a lot.

I got there late and didn’t hear any of the other speakers because I was doing Bloggingheads with Ann Althouse (yes, we fought like alley cats, it’ll be up tomorrow).  As we were leaving McCain and his possee were standing around rather awkwardly on stage to a lackluster “greatest hits of the 70s” compliation, and I wondered how long it would take Heart to file an injunction over “Barracuda.”

Evidently not long.

McCain lamely tried to grasp the mantle of change last night, with a rehash of the same failed conservative policies and same dishonest politics that most folks want changed.

He accused Obama of wanting to raise taxes on everyone, when Obama’s tax plan lowers taxes more for more people.

He attacked Obama for supporting corporate welfare for oil companies, when it’s McCain who refuses to back the “Gang of 10″ compromise that would repeal those handouts.

He said he was for clean energy, when he refused to cast the deciding vote that would have broken a conservative filibuster blocking investment in clean energy.

He claimed Obama would not oppose teacher unions (horrors!), when he has directly disagreed with them on the subject of merit pay.

He said ” I’ll work to establish good relations with Russia so that we need not fear a return to the Cold War,” when he has been itching to bring back the Cold War by threatening to kick Russia out of the G-8.

He said Obama will “force families into a government-run health care system” when his plan rejects mandates for adults (remember the primary?), allows anyone to keep the coverage they have, and provides a choice between public and private plans.

McCain tells these lies because he has no chance to winning the swing vote on the merits, after voting with the president they all hate 90% of the time.

With that in mind, it will be interesting to see if McCain’s TV audience was a big as Gov. Sarah Palin’s 40M audience.

Because Palin was a political pick designed to rev up the base, But her speech clearly attracted more than base voters. And those swing voters may well have been turned off by the relentless sarcasm and lack of substance.

In other words, perhaps Palin speech’s was seen by too many people, and McCain’s speech — with its lies tailored to impress swing voters — by too few.

Media Matters reports:

During their September 2 and September 3 coverage of the Republican National Convention, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News each dedicated more on-air time — significantly more in most cases — to speeches and other official Republican convention programming during the most-watched portions of their coverage than each channel dedicated to official convention programming during the same times on comparable nights of the Democratic National Convention one week earlier.

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Warren Zevon - MSFU (NSFW)

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Bomb Repeat Bomb

Though Sarah Palin woke up the red meat and gristle Republicans with a speech worthy of a certificate of completion from the Hooked on Phonics program tonight, Warren Zevon kicks off Late Late Nite describing the current state of the Grand Old Party, followed by Ted Leo & the Pharmacists who have what may be the GOP’s only remaining prescription. Speaking of bombs, have you asked yourself today, where’s Cheney?

What’s on your mind tonight?

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has long opposed gay rights, stating that he is in favor of the “traditional definition of marriage.” Today, however, McCain’s chief adviser Steve Schmidt addressed a luncheon for the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay advocacy group. ThinkProgress attended the luncheon and captured exclusive video of the speech.

Schmidt opened by stating he has a personal connection to LGBT issues because his sister is a lesbian:

[I want to pay] my respect and the campaign’s respect to your organization. On a personal level, my sister and her partner are an important part of my life and our children’s life. I admire your group and your organization, and I encourage you to keep fighting for what you believe in because the day is going to come. You are an important part of our party.

Schmidt did not touch upon McCain’s opposition to gay rights and was cautious in expressing any support for the group’s agenda, simply saying that “over time” more equality for gays “will be reached”:

We as the Republicans are the party of freedom and as the party we strive to reach that goal and we’ll keep fighting as a party to reach it in full. And I think over time it will be reached. And you are an important part of this party.

Schmidt then changed the subject to politics and went after critics of Gov. Sarah Palin. Watch the full remarks:

Unfortunately, McCain campaign adamantly opposes the Log Cabin Republican’s agenda, which includes “equality for gay and lesbian people.” McCain said he couldn’t pick Michael Bloomberg as VP because Bloomberg is “pro-gay rights.” McCain opposes gay adoption of orphans, supports Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and opposes gay marriage and civil unions.

ThinkProgress also spoke to Jimmy LaSalvia, Director of Programs and Policy for the group, which has endorsed McCain. LaSalvia said McCain last met with the group in 2000. A McCain aide, Mike Duhaime, spoke to the group this week. LaSalvia expressed support for Gov. Sarah Palin:

Well, I think that we have a lot in common with Gov. Palin. She is a reformer who hasn’t ever been afraid to take on the party’s leadership and stand up for what’s right. And that’s what we do every day. We have taken on our party’s leadership when we felt they were going in the wrong direction, and that’s what Gov. Palin has done in Alaska.

When running for governor, Palin opposed civil unions as well as gay marriage. “I believe that honoring the family structure is that important,” Palin said in 2006.