Peter Murmann

I watched large portion of Sarah Palin’s speech last week while waiting at the airport for my delayed plane. The first couple of minutes after I tuned in she seemed a bit wooden. But then she loosened up and launched into the good lines crafted by very skilled speech writers. The Republicans want to pull [Read More]

Having search the internet, it is not clear to me that Sarah Palin has received a full vetting. McCain is making a big gamble. In two months we will know whether the move was brilliant or stupid. Here is the best background article on the nomination. The story behind the Palin surprise By: Jonathan Martin (Politico.com) John McCain [Read More]

This is the first time that I have watched more than a few minutes of the Democratic Convention. I am driven by the curiosity of a theatre critic: How is the event staged? What is the party doing to avoid disaster in November? Will Hillary or Bill be the spoilers there are rumored to be?  [Read More]

I just watched Hillary Clinton’s speech. For me it was the best performance to date at the convention. The will be a tough act for Barak Obama to follow in two days. Full text of her speech: I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And [Read More]

Andrew Sullivan sums up what we can expect of the next weeks until the November election. The phoney war is over as the US presidential candidates square up for the most compelling contest in a generation. The eagerly anticipated text message arrived on millions of mobile phones yesterday at 3am. With it, many Americans who [Read More]

  Part 2: May 6, 2009 A Complicated Question  By MAUREEN DOWD (NY Times) I had dinner once with John and Elizabeth Edwards, when he first burst onto the national scene. Looking across the booth at her grinning, boyish husband, she told me that it was irritating to be married to someone so comely who looked so much [Read More]

Flawless was better than my neighbor on a previous flight made it sound. It has an interesting psychological twist at the end. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is more fun to watch than the first Harry Potter, a flick that bored me out of my mind. Leatherheads, directed and strarring George Clooney is [Read More]

While everyone was focusing on Obama’s world tour last week, Frank Rich puts the spotlight on McCain and raises serious questions whether McCain is ability the see what the priorities of the day are. How Obama Became Acting President By FRANK RICH (NYT) IT almost seems like a gag worthy of He never would have been treated [Read More]

If this is all I would ever say when I don’t know that a microphone is recording me, I would be very happy. The relatively tame headline on ABC News “Microphone Picks Up Private Conversation Between Obama and British Leader on Need for Vacations and ‘Thinking’ Time” was dramatized by the Drudgereport to “BAM [Read More]