McNeill's for Realz.

Brattleboro, VT -

I am sitting halfway down a long, German beer hall-styled table on a moderately warm spring night in the upper Connecticut River Valley pondering how my life was completely altered not but ten minutes ago. What could cause such a stir? Quite simply, it is the unlikely bedfellow of wireless internet and McNeill's Brewery. Coming home from Middlebury this evening I stopped in at my old watering hole, thinking I would turn on the laptop and try to churn out some words that I could later cut and paste into my blogspot interface, and was shocked to find a real-deal wireless connection. The potential of drastically altering 1) the face of McNeill's, 2) my social life and 3) the utter fabric of Western New England is real, very very real. Let me tell you, brothers and sisters, how the cask beer goes down easier than water after a ten mile run. Let me tell you how sweet it is, like the perfect match of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie on a brisk fall eve.

Although now that I have opened everything up I realize that I don't have much to say. The Clyburn fish fry and California Dem caucus mean little to me, as does the GOP bickering circuit. On the McCain trail, there have apparently been lots of railings against Harry Reid and his comments on a lost war. As McCain puts it, " if you declare this war lost, then who won? Who won? Al-Qaeda? Are we ready to acknowledge that Al Qaeda has won the war in Iraq? I don’t think so." You are missing the point! Of course Qaeda didn't win the war. Qaeda was never involved in Iraq! Hello, McFly! It is all one big moot point. So shame on both of those guys. Reid for being a bitch and trying to embarrass the administration with the "loss" thing and McCain for trying to exploit it without any real basis. I hate to beat a dead horse (unless it is a McNeill's Dead Horse IPA on cask) but I won't be undersold on this issue! As my boy Zak says, "No more lies!"

On the bright side the spring peepers are out, the rivers are flowing fast and furious and the running career is back in full swing. Plus I'm just really excited about McNeill's. Regrettably, I live an hour away.

Duck's Breath,
BTB

DE(bat)ES Nuts!!

All eight of our Democratic presidential hopefuls squared off last night in the first of who knows how many debates down at South Carolina State. Today the press corps came out with a number of "winners" and "losers", so I figured that we should do the same here at 3QHQ. Everyone from The Fix to Slate to Joe Scarboro had their say on the winners and losers. Not that we give a shit. Here is our take.

Obama received mix messages. Many found him reluctant and milquetoast, trying too hard to maintain his status quo as the up-and-comer and drastically afraid to say something stupid when his already-strong momentum is crucial in catching Hillary Rodham in the first two weeks of February 2008. Yet there were plenty of others, like Chris Matthews, who found him sophisticated and deep. Then there was John Edwards who found him "high falutin'" or some such. HRC seemed to get positive reviews across the board, and that comes as no surprise. If you are looking for a careful, intelligent, centrist candidate she is your person. As a result, she will do well in every debate. This one was no different. Edwards was also mixed. He is hard to dislike with his old southern charm and $400 good looks. He also took it to the rest of the big 3 more than any of his compatriots (Barack and HRC, that is), but that awkward pause in the moral leader question certainly didn't help him. While we are on it, I reallllly felt that Obama looked around before raising his hand on the "global war on terror" question. Bush league. That was certainly my biggest critique.

Of the second tier, Billy Rich was the clear loser. He couldn't keep his words under control and he was gesticulating like a Valley Girl. Plus he appeared to be sweating profusely. Dodd was uneventful. Biden did well, but that is no surprise. Biden is a tight dude. Everyone loved his "Yes" answer, and his silver-haired patrician looks, and he certainly has good things to say. He is a longshot to win the nomination, but I presume he will come out of this fray with goodwill from a large faction of Americans. Meanwhile, someone in the blogosphere finally picked up on our friend at BHC's mantra that Kucinich deserves respect on account of his wife. She certainly towered over him on the stage last night. But seriously, Kucinich was arguably the biggest winner of the night from our vantage. He really brought the Quabbin Qabin down with his story about living in the same $22.5K Cleveland house that he bought in the early 90s. Take that, Edwards and Clinton! Imagine if Kerry was in the house. He spoke forcefully about the war, and his pocket Constitution gimmick was endearing, if a little contrived. Lastly, Gravel is a kook and need not be included in any more debates. In other words, bring out the hook!

Speaking abruptly from the Haymarket before it closes, we look forward to more debate. Stay legit.

Pursuing Happiness - In English

Please recall the imbroglio over Newt Gingrich's English-first comments of a few weeks ago. In making a plea for English to be the only language spoken in classrooms and on ballots, he called it the "language of living in a ghetto" and was lambasted for his words from sources across all spectra. Recently he wrote a clarification, here posted in the Manch U-L where he talks of his own difficulties learning Espanol and the importance of multilingualism in culture and commerce, if not in government. It is worth a read, if only for what appears to be sincerity. Either that or its fool me twice, shame on me.

Plus, Bill Maher is on point in the Huff Post. Conservation may be a personal virtue, according to Dickey C., but it is a pretty important virtue. "So thanks guy in line at Starbucks, you just killed us."

The Substance and the Shadow

There has been a lot of talk about Fred Thompson looking Presidential. Yesterday he spoke on the Hill with little substance, and today I watched a month-old clip of a FOX News interview (part 1, part 2). I, too, found little substance. I am not condemning him by any stretch, given that he is merely a citizen right now and not a candidate, but nor am I impressed. He doesn't even look presidential. As Dana Milbank writes, "Actually, Thompson looked old and sallow as he faced the cameras for a few seconds before hopping into a waiting GMC Envoy." It's true! Thompson is jowlier than Alfred Hitchcock. Combine him with McCain and GOP suddenly stands for Geriatric Old Party. The article I linked in the previous post talks of Thompson as a Cuban-smoking, pickup-driving everyman, but based on the interviews I have seen he is far from receiving my vote as the GOP beer candidate. I would be afraid he would keel over or lecture me on being more pious. Plus, he's a shitty actor.

We will close on a lighter note. Everybody sing along with John McCain, "Bomb bomb bomb..."

HI-larious, right??

Never Surrender!

Earlier today I was on The Weekly Standard's website reading this article about Fred Thompson, and I scrolled over an ad, paid for by McCain 2008, with the blue-sheened stars of our great Flag framing the words "SURRENDER IS NOT AN OPTION" and with a plea to sign this petition to "tell Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that withdrawal will endanger America." Take that, Madame Speaker! What I have never understood about the withdrawal of troops from Iraq is how it equates to surrender. To me, surrender only exists in a well-defined battle with two distinct sides. Are we surrendering to the state of Iraq? We are the state of Iraq! Are we surrendering to "the terrorists"? If that is the case it implies that we will let them have their way with us, whoever they are. Even the most Colbert-hating traitorous liberal wouldn't agree with that statement. The idea of leaving as surrendering also implies that we will otherwise stay until they surrender, whoever they are. Given that scenario 2 is impossible, I argue that scenario 1 is also illogical and false. Instead, we surrender our dignity by staying over there. We surrender the happiness and livelihood of the families of our fallen soldiers. We have surrendered $417 billion dollars. Isn't it about time we replaced our white flag with those beautifully evocative stars and stripes?

Gaffes

With the quarterly earnings posted, the campaign is back in the swing of things. Everybody got their day in the sun (or, if they earned less than $10M, their day under a rock) and now is the time to rock that hott suntan. Ah, who am I kidding? It was a week full of gaffes.

Leading the charge was Johnny Mac, who last weekend gave a press conference from a Baghdad market talking progress on the war effort. Wearing full body armor, flanked by dozens of soldiers and heavy artillery, McCain said "never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today." He quickly reverted to damage control, telling 60 Minutes (among others) "Of course I'm going to misspeak and I've done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do in the future." Given the harsh response to his Baghdad visit, McCain needed to play politics to placate his numerous critics especially after the shellacking he took in fundraising the week before. He is a wounded man trying to stay on life support long enough to heal up for the summer. But, if you actually look at his comments, which the sound byte media does not allow us, McCain really didn't misspeak in Baghdad. What he said was that there "are reasons for cautious -- very cautious optimism" in Iraq, and based upon his reasons, that is a valid argument. His only true gaffe was insensitivity. It is incredibly disrespectful to the people in Iraq everyday without an armored posse to flash the cameras, smile, and talk about progress when people are dying by the handful every single day without body armor and tanks to back them up. He should have apologized about that, and not about misspeaking. He didn't misspeak, and therein lies the twofold problem. Number 1, why is he backing down from a statement that he could easily stand behind? And number 2, does he really feel the need to seek out optimism? Straight talk? More like fate talk. Like, I think he is fated to a slippery slope away from the wide respect he used to hold.

A few days later, Mitt Romney gaffed about much more benign guns. The kind of guns that kill critters, and not neighborhoods full of civilians. My watchdog homeys up in Keene badgered Mitt into saying "I've been a hunter pretty much all my life." Pretty much. Kind of like I pretty much get every girl I go after. By pretty much, they meant once when he was a teenager he shot a rabbit with a BB gun, and then last year he shot at some quails while at a posh resort with the Republican Governors Convention. Ultimately, the campaign decided to stop lying and just came out and said "Governor Romney never said he was Teddy Roosevelt. He’s more like Jed Clampett." By the way, I was up in Keene yesterday, however briefly. Just wanted to give a shout out to the Elm City. I anxiously await next time I get to kick it at Margarita's with all the Owls.

In other news, Newt came out on Fox to call for Gonzo to get, well, gone-zo. "This is the most mishandled, artificial, self-created mess that I can remember...the buck has to stop somewhere and I am assuming it is the Attorney General and his immediate team and I think it is amazing that there's any doubt about the fact that they have totally mishandled this." Damn.

What the gaffes really come down to is this: its a damn shame that these politicians can't just Ghost Ride their campaigns when they become too hard to handle.


Ghost Ride
Go Crazy
Who's That Drivin?
Quabbin Qountry.

Hugo-Not

I have always admired the bold statements of Hugo Chavez from afar, but I will admire no longer. Once the speaker of such in-your-face shit talk as "the great loser today was George W. Bush. The man went away wounded. You could see defeat on his face," and '"The devil came here yesterday, and it smells of sulfur still today", Hugo Chavez now only makes his past stances seem even more egomaniacal and hollow. Apparently, the tyrant has temporarily turned the Bolivarian Republic into a prohibition state for the holy week to cut down on drunk driving accidents. Nor is it the first time he has done such a thing. What a freedom-hating sham! It shames me now that I once, however briefly, named my fantasy basketball team the Hugo Chavez Oilers. If only Bush had a boozy bully-pulpit from which to mock him with something along the lines of, "Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" Alas, only 657 more days. Hopefully this will satiate my critics who say I am too focused on America. It is too late to get into more pithy subjects, instead I will retire to my chamber to dream about Ghost Ridin' the Whip or some such nonsense.

Ahoy,
BTB

48 Million Reasons to Be Afraid

Today's Fix posted HRC's modest first quarter earnings at $26,000,000. Yeah, that's in millions, and yeah, that is only since January 20, 2007. The official HRC website reminds us that "in March of 2003, the highest total reported by a Democratic campaign in its first-quarter fundraising report was $7.4 million and the top four candidates combined raised just over $23 million." In other words, we can and will whore like never before! On the same day, Clinton finance chairman Terry "the snake" McAulliffe sets the artificial standards of competition high saying, "I would expect Senator Obama is going to have a comparable amount of money to what we have." Let's hope not.
...
breaking news
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Even as we speak here at 3Q, rumours have it that Obamamania may have contributed a nearly-identical $21-22M. All this is very disheartening, especially in light of the news that so many states are frontloading primaries on their own terms. Has year-and-a-half-in-advance pocketbook voting replaced the polls in primaries? Poor John Edwards ($14M), and poorer Chris Dodd ($4M)! I guess it shows something that tens of thousands of people are willing to part ways with his money so soon, I just don't know if it is more to do with candidate support or Thomas Tusser. Let's face it, I'd rather spend my money on supporting my local barkeep, or at least buying up conservation land. I am very fearful of this cycle of doom where campaign cash gets tossed around like $100 bills at a Pacman Jones stripper party. Let's make it rain with handshakes and not phone banks.

Instead I will have to stay refreshed with Chuck Klosterman's Final Four bloggings, where the topic of the day is a rant about the McLaughlin Group. More on refreshiness later.

Signing off with a Sam Smith Oatmeal Stout,
BTB