I have to confess that I watch The O’Reilly Factor on the Fox “News” Channel sometimes (it’s on live at 10am here, repeated at 1pm and 6pm), mainly from a perverse fascination in watching the interviewing skills of someone so smarmy and devious. I’d heard in advance that Bono was going to be on his show, and was expecting some sort of fireworks. But not only was there no mention of Grammy Award speeches, Bill actually seemed civil towards His U2ness.

Transcript at Fox News, and a video at u2exit.com. And a mention to @U2 for posting the links.

I’ve just watched about two hours of the Wednesday night session of the Republican National Convention on broadband from C-Span. The Green Party of California described the convention as a “Fascist Infomercial”. Informercial it certainly is. And today we saw a speech from the prime fascist himself, Vice-President Dick Strangelove.

There were the heartwarming video clips hosted by attractive young Hispanic and African-American women, proof no doubt that the GOP is not a party of WASP males. We had speeches.

A speech from the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney: “I don’t believe Senator Kerry is the leader our country needs. I respect his four months under enemy fire in Vietnam. It’s John Kerry’s record in his nearly 40 years since Vietnam that’s the question.” That set the theme for the evening - “Let’s Put The Boot Into John Kerry”.

A speech from Romney’s deputy, and a variety of other GOP pollies. And then, get out your handkerchiefs! The Tribute to Ronald Reagan. What a tearjerker. And what a coverage of his foreign policy. H.Kissinger: “Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War”, followed by RR’s famous utterance “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

No testimonials, alas, from a couple of the better known beneficaries of Reagan foreign policy: his good mate in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, or his CIA-trained mujhaddin leader in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden.

And, like any good infomercial, we were told where to go to buy an extended version of the Reagan tribute, including Footage Not Seen On TV. (It’s here if you really must.)

This led us in to a speech by the Reagan son who’s not a Democrat Animal Planet compere.

Then we came to Democrat Senator Zell Miller of Georgia. “In this hour of danger, our president has had the courage to stand up. And this Democrat is proud to stand up with him.” Ah yes, he’s retiring from the Senate in January. This is the guy who tried to introduce the Beethoven for Babies program in Georgia a few years ago. “Ode to Joy”… let me whistle a few bars of “Duelling Banjos” instead…

And that brought us to the highlight of the evening, Vice President Strangelove. Let me just post a few excerpts from Herr Halliburton’s speech (source, Washington Post):

CHENEY: Senator Kerry began his political career by saying he would like to see our troops deployed “only at the directive of the United Nations.”

AUDIENCE: Booo.

CHENEY: During the 1980s, Senator Kerry opposed Ronald Reagan’s major defense initiatives that brought victory in the Cold War.

AUDIENCE: Booo.

CHENEY: In 1991, when Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait and stood poised to dominate the Persian Gulf, Senator Kerry voted against Operation Desert Storm.

AUDIENCE: Booo.

Where’s Punch and Judy when you need them?

CHENEY: Senator Kerry also takes a different view when it comes to supporting our military. Although he voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, he then decided he was opposed to the war, and voted against funding for our men and women in the field.

AUDIENCE: Booooo.

Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop.

(APPLAUSE)

You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a Madison Square Garden-full of Republicans chanting “Flip-flop! Flip-flop! Flip-flop!” for a couple of minutes, while clapping their hands with thongs on them.

And I’m still pondering the Jimi Hendrix-style rendition of The Star Spangled Banner at the end of the evening.

Speeches and video from the RNC at (among other places, no doubt) the Washington Post. I’ll try and catch up on some of the accredited bloggers and other related blogs shortly. MSNBC’s Hardblogger is at the RNC and contains links to all the accredited bloggers on-site at the MSG.

Also coming in this thread, I’ll have more to say on the RNC, recap my views on the Democrat Primaries and DNC, and say who I’d vote for if I were an American… and his initials aren’t JFK.

It’s on. JWH didn’t want to do it on the weekend of the AFL grand final, or the weekend of the NRL grand final, and he didn’t want to call it during the Olympics. The federal election will be held on October 9.

I’m going to leave the nuts and bolts of documenting this campaign to other bloggers to whom I shall link selectively, but I’ll put my voting intention cards on the table right now.

I think that it is extremely important that the Howard Liberal/National Government is removed from office on October 9. In my view, John Howard is manifestly unsuitable to govern this country. He has presided over the most inhumane, most dishonest, most arrogant Australian government in my lifetime. He has done his darnedest to unravel much of the good work done by Hawke, Keating, Whitlam, even Fraser.

Multiculturalism has become almost a dirty word as JWH has sought to return to Anglocentric Menzian 1950s values. “For all of us” was his election campaign in 1996. For all of whom? This is the government that made Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party virtually redundant by absorbing some of its philosophies.

Australia would be a republic now - it had broadly bipartisan support in 1999 - if it were not for his personal spoiling tactics.

Tampa, and the “Children Overboard” fraud are two episodes that are part of the JWH legacy. But John Howard needs to be remembered most of all as the Prime Minister who led Australia into war as an aggressor. This is a disgrace that we will have to bear for many years to come.

The war on Iraq did not have the support of the Australian people - this was demonstrated on the streets of our cities on 16 February 2003. The decision to go to war did not even have bipartisan support within Parliament. The Senate voted against it, in a non-binding decision. Had the act of going to war in Iraq required legislative change, Australia would not have been there.

Howard’s government is the first in our country’s history to have been the subject of a successful no-confidence by the Senate - twice.

I support the election of the Australian Labor Party to government under Mark Latham, but not without reservations. I will discuss these at a later time. In my local electorate of Grayndler, I will, be voting for the re-election of the sitting Labor member, Anthony Albanese. He is a member of the ALP left, the shadow member for employment services, and in my view one of the more talented members of the Labor front bench.

In the half-senate election, I will, however, be giving my support to the Greens ticket, led in New South Wales by John Kaye. While I do not support all of the Greens policies, I do believe that my philosophies coincide more these days with the Greens than with the mainstream of the ALP. There is little doubt in my mind that the presence of third parties in the Senate such as the Greens and the now-imploded Australian Democrats has been successful in modifying or even blocking some dangerous legislation during the Howard years.

My second preferences in the Senate will be directed towards the Labor Party.

My next post in this series will contain links to blogs and media websites covering the Australian election campaign.

The Australian Olympians are home, they received a bipartisan polly reception at Sydney Airport on Wednesday morning. Let’s put the wrappers on one of the darker moments of the Aus Athens campaign… The Sally Robbins Story.

Sally, as you’ll recall, collapsed in her seat on the Australian boat during the women’s eights final on the middle Sunday. There were some narky comments from some of her team-mates, and reports that some of them were threatening to chuck her overboard. (They didn’t, but I’m surprised that John Howard didn’t say that they did. But that’s another topic.)

What we saw on display was human nature, and I don’t think anyone should be overly upset about that. The Australian Olympic Committee had a “you must bite your lip at all times” clause in the athletes’ contracts without giving any guidance as how to make that practical.

ABC’s Media Watch wrapped it all up superbly on Monday night. Here’s a collection of media coverage after the event last week:

• “Australian rower under fire after Olympic collapse“, 7.30 Report, ABC-TV 23 Aug transcript.
• “Former Olympic rower discusses Sally Robbins’ collapse“, Lateline, ABC-TV 23 Aug transcript.
• “Robbins faces abuse after Australian rowing defeat“, Lateline, ABC-TV 23 Aug transcript.
• “Australian rower speaks out after Olympic collapse“, Lateline, ABC-TV 23 Aug transcript.
• “Women rowers reconcile following Robbins collapse“, 7.30 Report, ABC-TV 24 Aug transcript.
• “Rowers show united front“, Lateline, ABC-TV 24 Aug transcript.

Unsurprisingly, the Sally Robbins story makes a Reuters list of the Games’ quirkiest moments.

I never quite finished writing the beach volleyball wrap last week. This is as far as I got:

I happen to consider beach volleyball to be one of the more successful introductions to the Olympics in the past decade or so. Not for the reasons most people would think. It’s just a womderfully athletic sport, whether male or female, highly telegenic and allows the spectators to be close to the action. A total of 104 matches played over twelve days in the two competitions. Unless Atlanta or Sydney, Athens saw beach volleyball action till midnight most evenings. Floodlit beach volleyball is a bizarre thing to watch on television. I wonder what it is like live…

I stated my views last Monday week on the use of the term “beach” volleyball, and I’ve been impressed at how the Norwegians call it “sandvolleyball”. So, from now on, sandvolleyball it shall be here.

Congratulations, then, to the medallists. For the women, Kerri Walsh and Misty May of the United States with gold, Adriana Behar and Shelda Bede of Brazil with silver, and Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs (USA) with bronze. In the men’s event, Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos of Brazil (gold), Javier Bosma and Pablo Herrera of Spain (silver), Patrick Heuscher and Stefan Kobel of Switzerland (bronze).

Australia continued a fine Olympic tradition begun in other sports and came fourth in both competitions.

Bjorn Berg. It sounds like a typo but this 32 year-old Swede made it into the round of 16, along with his partner Simon Dahl, where they were eliminated by the Spaniards. Berg and Dahl indeed share a website (in Swedish).

Still to come: A list of the best media olympic websites that I have been following over the past three weeks, and some of the olympic blogs.