More From Snark at Yearly Kos

More from Snark at Yearly Kos:

Wes Clark gave a good speech this morning. Much like the one he gave in Vegas last year. Pretty unequivocally made it clear he has no intent on running for elective office again. No one asked him about a potential cabinet role in a Democratic administration though. And he declined to say who he liked amongst the group of Dems. He spoke very well about the need to make diplomacy more than traveling around the world telling other countries that they need to do what we say or we’ll kick their asses or having it be a “you do this and we’ll do this” bargain. Need a more global focus. I sat in on a session called “Left Behind By The Right” this morning. The panel was Cenk Uyger (Huff Post), John Dean, David Brock, Eric Massa and Roy Cook (not sure if that’s correct). Roy works for Arianna Huffington at the Huff Post. Arianna was supposed to be here but apparently she broke her ankle while walking down the street in NYC with Charlie Rose. She got her heal caught in a subway grate and twisted her ankle. All (except for Cook) are former Republicans, now cured. The general theme from the panelists was that they didn’t so much leave the Republican party but rather it left them and they jumped off before it want over the cliff of extreme rightwing authoritarian ideology. Brock described the shift in the Republicn party as going from the party of Bob Dole to the party of Bob Jones. But Eric Massa had the best one liner. The Republican party went from a big tent to a small outhouse, he said. And the stink is awful. They of course all spoke about the media and how even in this election it has already latched onto the narrative of what the next president will be like and it’s naturally a compilation of the characteristics of the Republican candidates. Pretty like Romney. Wise like McCain and Strong and steady like Giuliani. Roy Cook spoke about the “even handedness” of the media. The sense that they need to present every story as an either/or scenario. Presenting both sides equally even though one side is bogus. John Dean had a great little story about Bush in Crawford. Bush was out for a bike ride one day around Crawford when he came to a little boy with a box full of newborn puppies for sale. Bush went over to the boy and said “Of course those are all good little conservative Republican puppies, right son?” And the boy responded, “Absolutely, Mr. President.” A little while later Bush came back over with Laura to show her the puppies and asked the boy, “Tell the First Lady what kind of puppies you have there.” And the boy said, “Why they’re good little liberal democrats.” Bush was aghast! He said, “But that’s not what you told me before!” And the boy responded, “But they’ve opened their eyes now Mr. President.” Everyone has really been ribbing O’Reilly about his KKK and Nazi comments too. Pretty funny. I wrote this Friday morning. More on the rest of the day tomorrow. Mary [from The Left Coaster] invited me out to dinner with the Commonweal people. We ventured into downtown and ate at a nice Persian food place. Very good food in an old brick factory building. Great atmosphere (something I was worried about not getting any of) and a nice jazz trio playing while we ate drank and talked. An engaging bunch and I'm indebted to Mary for inviting me to tag along.