Republican Convention - Day 1

Not much to report other than good job to the Repubs for making a well co-ordinated and appropriate change given the potential of Hurricane Gustav. It is not easy to turn a big ship around and they did. Tough to put a lid on a ton of preparation, but they were looking at the big picture and did it very well. Kudos all around.

Laura Bush and Cindy McCain looked Mahvelous in their brief talk to rally the crowd around temporarily turning their support to the victims of the Hurricane. Nicely done.

The big news was what was said/released, but not at the convention:

Sarah Palin's 17 year old unmarried daughter Bristol is 5 months pregnant.
Sarah Palin had also hired an attorney to defend herself against the allegations she tried to have her Trooper former brother-in-law fired.
Sarah's husband Todd was arrested for drunk driving more than 20 years ago.

Sarah Palin is giving the media a ton of work to do.

The Tropper-gate stuff is the only one that could have real teeth, but her daughter's pregnancy just creates a lot of wheel-spinning and the DUI is a non-issue that would have become one had it come out on its own some time down the road. This is some of the stuff that can happen with a relatively candidate not well known on the national scene. Hillary Clinton has a lot more dirty laundry and inuendo in her background, but it has all been trampled to death, so it isn't really newsworthy. New dirt always has the potential to be a Headline.

Props to Barack Obama for saying family is off limits and even saying he will fire anyone on his staff who pushes any issues about Sarah Palin's family. Unfortunately, the Beast that is the media is not so easily handcuffed and even on Labor Day, with a Cat 3 Hurricane about to come close to hitting New Orleans, this stuff was making headlines.