{"id":340,"date":"2007-07-24T11:16:22","date_gmt":"2007-07-24T16:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2007\/07\/24\/yes-sir-thats-his-baby\/"},"modified":"2007-07-24T22:25:37","modified_gmt":"2007-07-25T03:25:37","slug":"yes-sir-thats-his-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/07\/yes-sir-thats-his-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Yes Sir, That’s His Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relaxation tip: Ignore the presidential campaigns because it’s 15 months before November 2008. It’s six months before any primaries that matter. Why get worked up? A good part of the chaff will be be blown away by either luck or strong campaigners so you won’t get your hopes up for some goofus.<\/p>\n

Entertainment advice: Enjoy the presidential campaigns now. Some of it actually is fun, not to mention educational. (I speak for many nerds who find education is entertainment.) Maybe you’ll catch the goof that kills the chances of a candidate — live, before it’s in the cable-news loop and repeated so often you almost feel sorry for the goofus.<\/p>\n

I was in the former camp until My Beloved and I heard about the CNN\/YouTube<\/a> Democratic debate held Monday night. All questions came from voters who presented them on YouTube clips. The eight Dems all were pretty adept at both obvious and left-field questions. Both easy and odd queries were presented in a variety of formats, including being sung and with props.<\/p>\n

The moderator directed questions to “all” to two to four candidates while a question for a particular candidate went first to that person then to one or two who wanted to rebut. There were no closing statements, and no question requiring all eight to speak. This kept the show moving. A Republican YouTube debate will be in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of Illinois, Arkansas and New York left herself exposed in a couple of questions but no candidate took the bait. She was the most presidential, but in the months ahead the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. was uniquely courageous. A citizen spoke in a video clip<\/a> about the need to protect the interpretation of the Second Amendment meaning all sane, law-abiding adults may own all sorts of weapons. He held up a military style assault rifle, calling it his “baby.” A couple of candidates responded by defending gun ownership while advocating better identity checks for felons and loonies. Biden wonderfully did not pussyfoot:<\/p>\n

I tell you what, if that’s his baby, he needs help. I don’t know that he’s mentally qualified to own that gun.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The audience gasped. But Joe held his ground. I bet he supports Americans’ right to guns, but he’s not going to act like other candidates and ignore the obvious. -30-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relaxation tip: Ignore the presidential campaigns because it’s 15 months before November 2008. It’s six months before any primaries that matter. Why get worked up? A good part of the chaff will be be blown away by either luck or strong campaigners so you won’t get your hopes up for some goofus. Entertainment advice: Enjoy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-spin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6102,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2018\/07\/goofus-american\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":0},"title":"The Goofus American","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"July 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"HAVANA \u2014\u00a0We went to Cuba! On our return, family and friends wanted to know all about it. \"How was the food in Havana?\" has been the most frequent question. Our answer: We barely ate on the island, not a satisfactory response for us, either. What can my wife or I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Plane tows a banner, advertising a gun range I think, above South Miami Beach.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/south-beach.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/south-beach.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/south-beach.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/south-beach.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/south-beach.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":280,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2007\/02\/doubt-benefits-govs\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":1},"title":"Doubt Benefits Govs","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Briefly: The president said, most recently in this morning's news conference, that Iran -- officially or unofficially, maybe its government is behind it, knows about it, or knows-no-thing -- is behind some weaponry used against U.S forces in Iraq. You know, Iran's sometime rival, sometime enemy Iraq. Now we wait\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1677,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2009\/09\/cant-vote-or-dont-vote\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":2},"title":"Can’t Vote or Don’t Vote?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, bored with NPR and between audio books, I had the radio scan for AM talk radio and ended up at KURM-AM, 790. Despite being a Rogers station, longtime host Kermit Womack kept getting calls about today's Fayetteville school millage election. It's not a vote on building a new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":533,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/08\/hollywood-1-critics-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":3},"title":"Hollywood 1, Critics 0","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Mr. Boo Klist -- liking audio books nearly as much as printed ones -- now wants to recommend a new movie that's gotten ho-hum reviews, Kevin Costner's Swing Vote. Even the critics I like get stuck on the probability of its premise, that a presidential election through odd circumstances depends\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mr. Boo Klist"","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2004\/09\/drop-anchor\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":4},"title":"Drop anchor","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"September 22, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004. The presidential debate particulars have been announced. Jim Lehrer of PBS, Charles Gibson of ABC and Bob Schieffer of CBS will be the moderators -- and PBS's Gwen Ifill will host the vice presidential debates. Lehrer is the top news guy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/01\/ex-executive-privilege\/","url_meta":{"origin":340,"position":5},"title":"Ex-executive privilege","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Monday, January 17, 2005: Days ago, George II brought in George the First and Bill Clinton to lead private fund-raising for the south Asian tsunami disaster of 12\/26\/04. This is life imitating art! \"Saturday Night Live\" has a periodic cartoon by one of its staffers--\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}