What about the girls who've already bought that extra dress...

In a move that gave dumb blondes a reason to never learn anything, The Miss America Organization announced a major format change to this year’s Miss America Competition, which will take place in Atlantic City on Saturday, Sept. 18th from 9-11pm. Finalists will no longer perform their talent live during this year’s telecast. Instead there will be a video montage of select talent performances, such reciting times tables, jumping rope, singing off-key, and injecting their own botox. One contestant will earn the “Producer's Pick” designation and the opportunity to showcase her talent live on Saturday night. The 'Producer’s Pick' will be the contestant whose performance captures the best combination of skill level and entertainment and who gives the cheapest, high-quality blow jobs. The decision which will be based solely on the discretion of the producers and their particular fetishes. This is an attempt to increase their sagging ratings for the event. I'm thinking that's code for "these girl's never had an ounce of talent anyway."

For this alone we should win by a landslide...

"I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States."

Isn't it sort of sad that this is considered a refreshing new standard for an administration? I can't wait till he takes this thing.

If a Democrat gives a speech and cable news doesn't give a Cheney, does he make a sound...

It's official. I'm a convention junkie. I can't peel my eyes away from television for more than a moment so as not to miss a moment of the action. And there is plenty of action. There is action in the words of the speakers. There is action in the cheers and tears of the crowds. I'm sure there is plenty of action at the after parties, if you know what mean. Umm-hmmmm.

Where there seems to be very little action is the disinterested and self-absorbed media "covering" this thing. All week long I've heard the media ask "why do we spend so much time covering this? It's all pre-scripted! Nothing really happens!" These types of statements simply show the media's lazy, arrogant hypocrisy.

Why do they cover it? Besides the fact that it's their jobs, they cover this convention because these speeches are important. These people are the leaders of one of the major political parties in this country, whose policies have far-reaching effects throughout the world. The issues discussed here are what the campaign will be won or lost on. Just because an address to the nation is pre-scripted does not make it unimportant. Charlie Gibson and Wolf Blitzer can stop whining about having to cover the convention when they stop devoting national time to water-skiing canines, Martha Stewart's handbags, and any other crap that is meant to makes people go "awwww" or "hiss."

The worst part of this coverage, besides their disdain for the idea of coverage a major news event, is how silly and unthoughtful the commentary has been. All concept of discussing the issues themselves seems to have escaped most of these cable news pundits. I restrict my comments to cable because the networks, in a shocking display of contempt, have chosen to show episodes of Last Comic Standing and Trading Spouses, because reality TV is so much more important than reality. And people wonder why the country's voter turn-out is so low . Maybe cause we expect so little of the vast majority of its citizens.

So while the networks challenge its viewers to ponder what's funny about Everybody Loves Raymond (which may be the harder task), the cable pundits concern themselves with process. Perfect example occurred last night after Al Sharpton went off-script to give a passionate speech concerning immigration, voting rights, the burdensome cost of the war in Iraq, and America's being misled into that war. Rather than comment on any of these pressing and substantive issues, the media began obsessing over the fact that Sharpton ran over 14 minutes and did not stick to his pre-approved speech.

Wolf Blitzer: "Al Sharpton was supposed to speak for six minutes."

Jeff Greenfield: "The more serious problem for the Democrats is ... somebody's going to have to do some very fancy footwork to make sure that Elizabeth and John Edwards get their primetime shot."

Judy Woodruff: "Al Sharpton just hijacked this convention, at least this part of it."

Oh, woe! What's to become of John Edwards' speech! Who will rescue him from the clutches of important policy matters being discussed by this inspirational black party leader! These are the same people who criticize politicians for running campaigns without discussing issues. Have I suddenly been transported to the Oscars? Are 12 minutes of Sharpton eliciting sincere emotional response from the crowd cause for alarm? Or do these commentators have no interest in covering anything of value?

Here's hoping they can give John Kerry the courtesy of paying attention to this monumental speech. And, John, please, please, please hit this one out of the park.

I'm in a red state, but I'd love to be his gay friend...

When I was in the seventh grade, our English department forced the entire school to enter some essay contest run by the local Optimists Club. The title, and only real direction we were given in crafting our mandatory essays, was "Optimism: The Right Stuff." I found nothing more absurd than forcing kids to discuss optimism in a school wide-contest. Optimism, despite conventional thinking, is a doctrine that this is the best possible world, to put as best a face on a situation as possible. You may have guessed, but I was a cynical kid. Weltschmerz. I thought blind optimism was unconstructive and naive. You have to take the good with the bad, accept them both for what they are, and work toward improving the whole lot of it. That's what I wrote about and needless to say it was a bit too controversial for The Optimist Club. I was not a finalist. We were forced as a school to watch those who did make the finals deliver their nominated speeches. It was a seemingly endless litany of moronic speeches about being positive in the face of all adversity, as if the emotional human experience was something to be ashamed of. I reject that.

This morning I woke up trying to decide what I should blog about; what great injustice has gripped my weary mind and stuck something long and slender in my craw? Being as how I've been on "all convention all the time" mode, I all the world's problems, all the country's backward policies and horrible mistakes seem almost palatable. The convention has given me a sense of optimism I have not felt for quite awhile. I've tried to convince myself that good people were out there working for the good of the country, but in reality it was very difficult to believe for an extended amount of time. By these last few days, I've been able to see those people. From the women of the Senate to Al Gore to Mrs. Heinz Kerry, I've seen some real Democratic spitfire on display. All this positive energy culminated in what everyone is talking about today - Barack Obama's keynote address.

Mr. Obama, the state senator from Chicago who is running for the U.S. Senate, delivered a masterful speech last night to a very energized crowd. This man's speech was filled with optimism and inclusiveness and equality for everyone:

"The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

I implore you to read his entire speech. It will give you chills and make you tear-up. This one's going places within this party. It seemed all the pundits were ready for Obama to run for President right here and now. He's got a long way to go before he can get to that level obviously, but I guarantee this man is going to get there one day. He's fast on his way to a landslide in the Illinois Senate election, which will make him the only black senator in Washington. He's a fresh voice who embodies the ideals of the Democratic party, the next generation of this country's leaders. Pay attention. This guy's the real deal. He's my kind of optimist.

Don't cry for me Massachusetts...

The Democratic convention got off to a less than dignified start yesterday afternoon when Teresa Heinz Kerry had words with a journalist. And by "had words with," I mean she told a journalist to "Shove it."

She reportedly said this to an editor from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a right-wing newspaper from her hometown, who asked her to clarify remarks she made earlier during a speech to Pennsylvania delegates.

"We have to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics," she told the delegates. When the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial writer asked her to clarify what she meant by "un-American," she said she never used that phrase, but he didn't relent. Heinz Kerry walked away, but then returned: "You said something I didn't say, now shove it," she said, pointing her finger at him.

As it's being reported, the journalist was innocent enough of trying to confront her with a phrase she did supposedly say, despite her denial. I don't think it's out of bounds to ask her what she means by that. But there is more at play here in this interaction than the mainstream press is to be reporting.

There's a history between Heinz Kerry and the Tribune-Review, a newspaper published by the right-wing donor Richard Mellon Scaife, the shadowy figure of Whitewater with close ties to Ken Starr. He helped to fuel the unwarranted Clinton impeachment through his money and extreme right-wing media influence. As the Kerry campaign put it in a statement: "It was a moment of extreme frustration aimed at a right wing rag that has consistently and almost purposefully misrepresented the facts when reporting on Mrs. Heinz Kerry."

Example #1:Scaife's charities funded the authors of a study purporting to link Heinz Kerry to a San Francisco group with supposedly "radical" views and accused her foundation of "laundering" donations to radical groups. This report was covered by Scaife's newspaper without mentioning that he helped fund it. This bogus report was only covered on the opinion pages of conservative newspapers.

Example #2: There was the report that Heinz Kerry's estate is designated as farmland, and thus assessed at a lower tax rate than her real estate spread deserves. But this story, too, has little merit. Heinz Kerry actually wrote a letter to the county chief executive in 2002 asking to pay more taxes because she thought her property was being underassessed.

So clearly Heinz Kerry expects hostile coverage from this newspaper, and her reaction was a product of that expectation. Democrats including Sen. Hillary Clinton jumped to Teresa's defense: "'She is expressing herself honestly and openly,' Mrs. Clinton told CNN this morning. Asked if such a remark would turn off voters, Mrs. Clinton said: 'I don't think that it will. I think a lot of Americans are going to say, 'Good for you! You go, girl!' And that certainly is how I feel about it.'"

While I am against Hillary Clinton trying to sound like a pre-teen girl from the early 90s, I support Theresa Heinz Kerry. She is woman of integrity who obviously speaks her mind. A first-generation American of Portuguese ancestry, Heinz Kerry grew up in the east African country of Mozambique. She is fluent in five languages, attended school in South Africa and Switzerland, and is chairwoman of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies. In that role, she has helped channel money to organizations focused on health care, early childhood education and the arts. She's like the Eva Peron of America, but without all the "Patti Lupone superficial glory-hogging." Maybe it's just the accent. Watch her speech tonight at the convention. You'll fall in love.