Day: August 28, 2008
Why Pensito Review Does Not Have a Correspondent in Denver
Justin Peters of the Columbia Journalism Review provides a rare insight into what exactly the 15,000 journalists covering the Democratic National Convention are actually doing:
14,000 are wearing terrible suits.
7,500 aren’t doing much at all.
4,021 are smugly bad-mouthing the convention and its participants in their story ledes (“There is no reason for so many journalists to be hereâ€).
2,294 are bitching about only having perimeter press passes.
1,026 are drunk.
500 don’t have credentials, but are trying desperately to get them.
340 are confused about how to find the proper press office inside the Pepsi Center.
150 are in the CNN Grill.
62 are enjoying massages.
Seven of them are having their photographs taken with Captain Morgan, the rum-loving pirate who, for some reason, was credentialed into the convention.
One of them is frantically trying to engineer a meeting between Captain Morgan and Ted Sorenson, the painfully dignified Democratic legend who is finishing an interview with Tavis Smiley just as Captain Morgan bursts into the tent, T-shirts and Morganettes in tow.
Crist Rigs Vote Against Florida Felons
Apparently, Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is determined to further the state’s reputation as a hostile environment in which to vote in presidential elections. That, or he believes that most felons are Democrats. Either way, his belated executive order restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time just five weeks before the deadline to register to vote in the November election smacks of vote-rigging.
He was asked to issue the order last December by the American Civil Liberties Union, but waited until this week to actually do something about it. According to the Orlando Sentinel, only 9,000 of the 112,000 felons who would be eligible to vote actually have registered. There’s a whole process of reinstating one’s civil rights that has to be completed before a convicted felon can even register to vote in Florida, and that takes time.
Seems Charlie Crist figures that by kissing a girl and rigging the system so that nearly 100,000 Floridians will be denied the opportunity to vote in the upcoming election he will earn the chance to be John McCain’s running mate. Fat chance, Charlie.
Crist had better hope he never gets nailed for a felony, or he’ll be the Sweetheart of Cellblock C in a Tallahassee minute.
