It was good times at Goodnite Gracie's Saturday nite - our first set was mostly nerves and breakneck tempos. By night's end it was pretty mellow judging by the slow dancing in front of our little stage. Thanks so much to all our friends for coming out and we'll let you know when we're back there. We'll be enhancing our song list.
To that end, here is a lowfi MP3 of the band from Michael Feldman's "What Do You Know" performing "Sweet and Lovely", the Gus Amheim/Jules LeMare/Harry Tobias composition. The band is John Thulin on piano, Jeff Hamann on bass and Clyde "the Funky Drummer" Stubblefield. Here is my leadsheet of the tune as a PDF file.
Elsewhere in the news Jack Abramoff has been trying out a variety of hats at his various court appearances; he's still fine tuning, trying to find "the look". My recommendation is the lovely fruit sherbert colored Easter Bonnet.
Al Gore made a big speech about Bush 43's executive branch threatening the checks and balances of the federal government. Text of the speech is at: Liberty Coalition. I think the speech is rhetorically over the top at times, like the part about, 'if Bush can do the stuff he has already he can commit genocide', but it is still a good policy wonk speech and Gore is right. Ask yourself if Bush has abused the presidency. Of course he has.
I'll bet you forgot what a good policy wonk speech is like. I saw Clinton on Letterman last year and Bill went off with this big elaborate reply to Dave's question and you could see Dave kind of sit back, smile, and go, "Man, remember when the President knew how to Talk?" The Bush administration doesn't really try to lay out convincing arguments. They go exclusively on fear, trust, and the illusion of sincerity. Anyway, the argument, which I think Gore makes at about a B grade level, is that Bush 43's general strategy has been to enhance the power of the executive branch wherever possible and that he has crossed the line of accountability - there is no way to know if the executive branch abides by the Constitution any longer.
posted by Jerry Brabenec @ 1/17/2006 07:31:00 PM
3 Comments:
i was at gore's speech ... loved it!
as far as genocide.. he was quoting a dean from yale university! it is not as if he was making it up.. he said "dean bla from yale university said..."...
Exact quote from Gore's speech (which I found inspiring)
The Dean of Yale Law School, Harold Koh, said after analyzing the Executive Branch's claims of these previously unrecognized powers: "If the President has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution." The fact that our normal safeguards have thus far failed to contain this unprecedented expansion of executive power is deeply troubling.
I'm sure it was inspiring being there. How did you end up there? I notice when I talk politics that sometimes I kind of mask my own opinions a little, and I'm particularly critical of people on my side. I agree that the quote from the Dean is literally true but it is sort of hyperbolic. And after reading Gore's speech I thought the strong points were bringing together the different threads of the Bush administration's pushing of executive power and tieing it together with the Republican leadership's abuse of the legislative process.
Weak points for me were that the transitions from topic to topic were a little abrupt, and when you cite the Founding Fathers and the history of the republic it's a fine line between providing context and being manipulative.
I'd love to hear more about what it was like to be there, and thanks for your input!
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