Offthebus

Was the convention director asleep? For the first few minutes of the big McCain speech, the candidate looked like an entry in Stephen Colbert's "Make John McCain Exciting Green Screen Challenge!"

As any good executive knows, compounding one costly mistake with another is the essence of bad leadership. Marriage is a bond, for life, of love and faith and commitment. Papa Levi is not ready for that.

When it comes to her past association with the Alaska Independence Party, it is not fair to suggest that Palin agrees with all of that group's political positions. It is fair to ask with what policies she does or does not agree.

Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War marched to the convention center in St. Paul yesterday, as they did in Denver, where they delivered a letter to Obama. The GOP nominee would not meet with the vets.

This time McCain's tin ear for -- and lack of commitment to -- the true worth of women invades the public sphere. He refused to choose a qualified Republican woman and, in doing so, his contempt for women is showing like an oversized slip beneath a mini-skirt.

Authorities acting under untested preventive riot statutes burst into the private residences in full riot gear, handcuffed residents and carted away computers. Bloggers Glen Greenwald and Jane Hamsher visited the homes during the raids.

This past month, before the Democratic National Convention, OffTheBus community members conducted interviews with swing voters -- and people they thou...

Those disparaging Palin's lack of achievements have forgotten that it was Palin who wrote the famous "Lumberjack Song," which of course is about life in Alaska: "I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK/I sleep all night and I work all day."

In the afternoon, you start hearing the chatter of would-be party-goers: "What lists are you on?" "Who's going to be there?" "My sister is the stylist for Tom Brokaw's publicist, I'm going to see if she can get me into the Kanye show!"

"We should have an election in which we have one candidate making the case for the global war on terror and an opponent making the case that the whole concept of global war as the response to violent Islamic radicalism is flawed."

But, at the end of the evening, I was left wanting something. The impossible something. I want that bell unrung and, if I could have written part of Hillary's speech, here's what she'd have said to us...

The Olympics presented a sanitized version of China. They were designed to hide the "real" China where religious believers are persecuted, and torture is routinely used as an extrajudicial punishment.

Anti-abortion protesters, including Randall Terry, national director of Operation Rescue, blocked the entrance to the perimeter of the Pepsi Center yesterday, holding signs aloft and praying. Thirteen were arrested.

In a week in which Democrats and the national media are focused on the Convention and the surrounding protests/parties/circus, it's worth keeping one eye on what's happening on local television in the swing states.

"She was sensitive and showed some vulnerability. I think that's who she is. What we've been seeing about her over the course of the campaign are snippets -- 30 seconds here, 10 seconds there, Republicans slicing and dicing what she's saying into the smallest 6 seconds."

At the Democratic National Convention interfaith service both secular and fundamentalist protesters were ejected from the service. One of the prot...

Recreate68 is one of the controversially-named progressive groups organizing demonstrations and other activities at the 2008 DNC in Denver. The UpT...

A small band of men have been arrested for hatching and pursuing a drug-fueled plot on Senator Obama's life. The story actually tracks back to Sunday, and a press conference on the matter is scheduled for this afternoon in Denver.

Michelle Obama addresses the DNC during "prime time" tonight. There's a lot riding on that speech. For some perspective, we talked to Wendi C. Thomas, a columnist from The Commercial Appeal Memphis who is writing about the racial history being made at the convention.

Show the world the power of mobilized citizens, not only to reshape politics but also to redefine journalism and press coverage of the campaign.

If you promote war, vote for it or stand to make a profit from it, then you'll be happy to do your patriotic duty and send your children off first. Watch: When the children of the powerful and privileged are on the line, the cost of war, they'll tell us, is too damned high.

I want us to work, Barack, I really do. And if I sound demanding, that's because I am -- I've been hurt too many times not to be.

The simple-minded bumper stickers are back, and boy do they look good on the rear window of a 4x4: "Drill Here Drill Now." The policy they propose, though, doesn't look so good.

With the presidential nominee's Kansas roots, a Sebelius selection would make for a wonderful narrative, a tale of the heartland which could be spun to great effect at the Convention, and one that would help dispel the "exotic" aspersions cast at Obama.

Talking about Paris and Britney is not talking about healthcare and Iraq. There were 85 million potential voters who didn't vote in the last election. Obama needs to let them know what he can do for them.