You have to wonder whether this is the end-product of a large-scale game of Telephone, or unnatural enthusiasm for The Ring taken to its logical conclusion.
Is Jack Edwards the new John-John Kennedy?
Is Mexican the new Black?
The most impressive thing about Kerry’s selection of Edwards is that the force of JE’s charisma (hair?) actually bumped Bill Clinton out of the news cycle. That’s no small order— Bill has been pimping My Life every night this week: Larry King, Jim Lehrer, etc etc…
Over a year ago, Clinton famously said that the Democratic party had two stars (not counting himself): Hillary and Wes Clark. The surprise of the primaries was that Clark went from super giant to white dwarf in as much time as it takes to say “endorsed by Michael Moore.” Clinton had the numbers right but the stars wrong.
The fears of Edwards overshadowing Kerry on the campaign trail are overstated. Voters look at the ticket as a unit and will see a foreign-policy answer to the question, “if not Bush, then who” as well as a domestic-policy answer. The fact that it takes two different men to achieve this is not so important. The fact that the vice president has no formal role in determining policy is not so important either, as present office holders have shown.
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In case you were wondering… Title 36, Section 10 of the U.S. Code specifies that the flag shall be flown at half-staff:
* Thirty days from the death of the President or a former President;
*Ten days from the death of the Vice President, the Chief Justice or a retired Chief Justice of the United States, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives;
*From the day of death until interment of an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a Secretary of an executive or military department, a former Vice President, or the Governor of a State, territory, or possession; and
*On the day of death and the following day for a Member of Congress.
I'm the Chief Technology Strategist for the Red Hat US Public Sector group, an open source and free culture advocate, a picky drinker, an amateur aesthete, and a dog enthusiast.
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