TheDC Morning: How to look like an idiot in one easy step

Jamie Weinstein Senior Writer
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1.) How to look like an idiot in one easy step — Compare your political opponent to a Nazi. TheDC’s Caroline May reports:

“South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley did not hold back Wednesday afternoon during a Republican counter-convention press conference at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, after South Carolina Democratic Party chairman Dick Harpootlian compared her to Adolf Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun. ‘Dick Harpootlian is an angry, hateful man that continues to embarrass South Carolina every time he opens his mouth,’ Haley said of Harpootlian … Harpootlian was the third Democrat this week to apply a Nazi comparison to the GOP.”

Before you compare someone to a Nazi, or a movement to the Taliban as seems popular these days, perhaps you should crack open a book and read about that which you compare others too. Just a suggestion.

2.) Cozying up to Clinton — To win re-election, President Obama has been forced to do what is likely personally distasteful to him: embrace Bill Clinton. Wednesday night, Clinton delivered a barnburner in support of Obama’s re-election, reports TheDC’s Neil Munro:

 “The second act of President Barack Obama’s three-day, prime-time convention culminated with the Democrats’ most popular politician, former President Bill Clinton, countering the Republicans’ convention pitches from a week ago and endorsing the president’s re-election. Obama quickly repaid the favor — and sucked up much of the applause — by making a brief surprise appearance on the stage to embrace Clinton as he ended his speech. Clinton’s appearance and endorsement prompted a rock-star reception from the 20,000 Democrats who had waited for five hours while numerous speakers sought to woo swing-voting women, bilingual Latinos and blue-collar Midwestern workers.”

If Obama is lucky, Clinton changed a few minds with his speech, perhaps even the mind of his “closest political adviser” Doug Band, whom the New Yorker reported is planning on voting for Mitt Romney (though Band now denies this).

3.) Climate change the subject — Wasn’t climate change going to decimate humanity? Now it barely gets a mention at the Democratic National Convention. TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein (ME!) reports:

“Though the 2012 Democratic Party platform declares that the ‘national security threat from climate change is real, urgent, and severe,’ it is apparently not urgent and severe enough to merit mention by speakers at the Democratic National Convention during the past two days. The Daily Caller reviewed the speech transcripts of the over 80 speakers who took the stage at the Time Warner Cable Arena here in Charlotte on Tuesday and Wednesday, and only one mentioned climate change — and even he only mentioned it in passing.”

4.) Is Biden more of an “idiot” or a “clown?” — A new poll shows that Americans don’t hold Vice President Joe Biden in particularly high regard. Michael Bastasch reports for The Daily Caller News Foundation:

“When asked for a one-word description of Vice President Joe Biden, more people use negative words like ‘idiot’ and ‘buffoon’ than positive words, according to a new Pew Research Center and the Washington Post poll. Of those polled, 38 percent used a negative one-word term when describing Joe Biden while only 23 percent used positive words. ‘Idiot,’ ‘incompetent’ and ‘clown’ were the top negative words used to describe Biden.”

The sad part is the poll was probably just conducted among Biden’s best and closest friends.

5.) Poll of the Day: Bill Clinton is Mr. Popular— USA Today/Gallup poll of Bill Clinton’s favorability: 69% of American adults registered a favorable opinion of Clinton, 27% unfavorable. The result is Clinton’s best ever, dating back to right before his inauguration in 1993.

6.) Tweet of Yesterday — Michael C Moynihan: My Swedish wife on the conventions: “It’s just people getting up on stage talking about how their parents were really poor, right?”

VIDEO: Amid boos, DNC reverses position on God and Jerusalem

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Jamie Weinstein