Posted 8:37 PM by Robert

Damn The Balloons, Full Speed Ahead!
 
I wasn't watching CNN at the Great Balloon Moment, but this e-mailed account is hilarious:

TOO funny!  Here I am reading the judge's sentencing of Richard Reid after listening to as much of Kerry as I can stand, when I hear a voice start hollering "Go Balloons! Go Balloons! Increasingly frantic, till finally, "What the fuck are you guys doing?? We need more balloons!!"(pardon his French)  A fitting end to the extreme makeover, eh?? Would write more, but I can't stop laughing!

Here's the audio link [from DRUDGE.] The whole thing is just one more indication that the entire Stepford (Oops! I mean "Boston!") convention has been beyond parody from beginning to end. No doubt tomorrow we'll be hearing from the Kerry campaign that the whole balloon shortage was a Republican dirty trick, perhaps along the lines of another Fox News  interview with Mary Beth Cahill:

HUME: i must ask you about this balloon shortage that suddenly emerged and fell in your laps last night - or rather didn't fall into your laps last - or at least not enough of them. there he was, the senator, left at the podium with what most people would consider a peculiarly insubstantial amount of balloon support, which i guess the hall operators were supposed to provide to him. how did that come about?

CAHILL: well, yesterday senator Kerry personally - or it might have been Theresa - cleared the balloon count dynamics with the hall operator's logistics arm and was told confidently that everything would be fine, just fine, when it came to the balloons. And then there was this leak of one of our most dedicated operatives pleading, just PLEADING for adequate balloon coverage, that CNN just "happened" to pick up transmit to the public. 

HUME: it was leaked?

CAHILL: yes.

HUME: it was made by CNN, right?

CAHILL: yes, it was.

HUME: so the campaign had no idea there would be any balloon shortage or potential balloon shortage.

CAHILL: none.

HUME: when arrangements were finalized with with the hall operator on the balloon count.

CAHILL: there was no mention of a possible shortage. and all of the sudden these leaked imprecations are getting broadcast. "balloons! more balloons! what the fuck, balloons, etc." are out.

HUME: do you smell a dirty trick here?

CAHILL: well, what do you think?

HUME: that CNN is not a particularly Republican organization.

CAHILL: and here's another thing. while i would never point fingers and descend to the kind of un-American incivility and pattern of unsubstantiated accusations that we all know has come to characterize the right wing in this country, i do find it strange that the hall and the hall operator seem to have pretty close ties to Mitch Romney, a well-known Republican.

HUME: can you tell me exactly what you meant by "un-American incivility?"

CAHILL: I didn't say that.

HUME: with respect to the balloon shortage and leak, you don't have anyone in mind? do you think --

CAHILL: i don't.

END