Enthusiasm

"Today, the thrill and pixie dust of Barack Obama's Presidency is gone. Americans feel no hope. Democrats are despirited. And enthusiasm is clearly on the Republican side."

That was Reince Priebus with what I assume is his audition tape for Saturday Night Live. Reince Priebus is most likely hoping to get to be the replacement for the sketch they used to have about Debbie Downer. You really do have to listen to  the delivery of that audition tape to appreciate the irony. He is talking about enthusiasm but he has absolutely none. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

With the Democratic Convention going on, it's the perfect time for Better Know a District. Yvette Clarke of New York's 9th was Stephen's guest. (But she will be in the 11th or is it the 11th now and will be the 9th??? Darn that Census and all the redrawn districts.) They talked about, if you can believe this, time machines. Time and time again, people realize that an interview with Stephen will be anything but easy. He will catch you off guard and trip you up on details.

Stephen is no fan of facts, especially when facts are used to attack good men like Paul Ryan. It was disgusting how everyone (Washington Post and Fox News) jumped all over his statements because they weren't "factually" honest.

Washington Post - Paul Ryan rebuts claims he made misleading statements in convention speech.
Washington Post -  Paul Ryan's breathtakingly dishonest speech
Fox News - Paul Ryan's speech in 3 words "World record for the greatest number of blatant lies."

From all that, Stephen was able to piece together quite the flattering statement for Paul Ryan.

Another thing Paul Ryan has been called out on is running a marathon really fast. He doesn't exactly remember his time and so inflates it (deflates it?) down to less than 3 hours when actually it was over 4 hours. Runners, those people who run 26 miles for an afternoon of fun, say that true runners remember their best  time. They remember exactly, to the second, how fast they ran that marathon. Stephen had one piece of advice for Paul Ryan. Brag about stuff that can Not be fact-checked.

Stephen's guest was Reihan Salam, Contributing Editor for National Review. Finally, a conservative guest! The two of them were having a nice yet awkward discussion when the audience started pooh-poohing Salam. "Excuse me!" Stephen said to his audience. "I'll be the one to disparage my guests."

Salam pointed out that George W. Bush was able to persuade Democrats to vote for some of his ideas and Obama can't seem to match this.

Stephen asked if it was because of the failure of Democrats who are willing to compromise with people they don't like and thus vote for Bush's stuff? Or is it that the Republicans have the strength not to do anything for someone they want out of office after one term?