I'm not sure I have anything to add to this, except I woke up from a nap just after it had started and asked my friend if we were still watching The Colbert Report.

--Glynnis MacNicol

Ahead of Sarah Palin's speech yesterday I said that I wouldn't be surprised if her appearance rivaled Obama's in terms of television  viewership. Well, the Times has just reported that not only did Palin's speech trump Joe Biden's by 13 million viewers, she was only 1 million shy of Obama's record of 38.4 million. So it wasn't just the Twin City traffic!

This country is most definitely hooked on a reality show called The Presidential Election. I sort of suspect that after another two weeks of
Palin the public will (possibly gratefully) return to Obama, but who knows, the Alaskan governor may turn out to be one of those "special guests" who gets her own hit spin-off series.

—Glynnis MacNicol

The other day my colleague Tom Hodges noted how "deeply the youth of this country has been inured to extreme Homeland Security measures." It's an interesting point and caught my attention particularly in light of all the security I've been navigating these last two weeks (not to mention daily life in NYC). Of course there are two sides to this coin. To wit: Just now I twittered for FishbowlNY that the "woman who just served us a sandwich said that she's happy to see a woman like Palin running for office and not some feminazi type." Not two minutes later a friend of mine emailed to find out where I was eating. Yesterday someone forwarded me
pictures of Bristol Palin drinking with friends and kissing other girls—the usual Facebook fare and the sort of thing that will become more common as this generation enters the workforce—presumably posted online by either Bristol or her friends. Speaking of Facebook, I have a number of "friends" on it who are either media contacts or people I've otherwise lost touch with, many who have emailed this week (likely after seeing some of my updates) curious to hear what the conventions are like.

My point is, the Homeland Security measures we appear to have grown so used to perhaps feel less constricting in a day and age when we voluntarily give up so much information about ourselves. It is also a measure of how quickly I've become accustomed to needing credentials to do just about anything worthwhile that the other day when I left a restaurant after ordering to-go sushi I actually wondered to myself whether I possessed the proper credentials to reenter it in order to pick the food up. What's the old saying? A body can get used to anything.

—Glynnis MacNicol

The Palin speech: where to begin? I know I keep mentioning this, but watching things live is such a difference experience than seeing it on TV, though, last night had the reverse effect on me than the one I experienced at INVESCO. I have yet to see the television coverage but I can't imagine it could have conveyed the belly of the whale (or perhaps barracuda) feeling of the inside of the Xcel center during Giuliani and Palin; it was a bit like a cross between a Pentecostal church service and a college football game. All that cheering. (Afterward I ran into Time's Karen Tumulty who passed on a friend's impression that the GOP had mastered this game long ago.) I found the "drill baby drill" chant the most alarming—it was followed by this eerie feeling that I was actually watching Tina Fey in an SNL opener. And it was hard not to wonder whether all that derisive "community organizer" talk was actually racially coded language. As for Giuliani, the less said the better. I will, however, note that I think this is the first time he has used a noun, a verb and 9/11 effectively and just add to that Anil Dash's Twitter last night: "I hate to be one of those people tweeting about politics, but you can't stand in front of the NYC skyline and denigrate liberals. You chump."

I think it's hard to argue that Palin didn't knock it out of the park. My strongest sense watching her was that this was a woman who had stepped up to the tremendous role she had been asked to fill (does history make great leaders, or do great leaders make history?) and then exceeded it. Regardless of your ideology, that last shot of her on the stage holding her infant was especially striking. It must be the first time a woman politician has not only been allowed to brandish motherhood so blunty but been lauded for it. It's not something that should be overlooked. Of course the other side of that coin is what an amazing thing it is to watch this upstart governor from Alaska cash-in on Hillary's legwork of the last 18 months. What a funny
world we live in. I don't think there is any way Sarah Palin could have been tapped for VP let alone made it past that first day of revelations if the country hadn't just finished an 18-month course in the vagaries of
modern-day feminism. I couldn't help but wonder what Hillary was thinking as she watched Palin's speech.

So far most of the day-after quarterbacking has focused on Palin's attack on the "media elite." I'm well aware, as I assume are most, that this is a tried and true GOP tactic—perhaps a tad more surprising in this case because of John McCain's longstanding good relations with the press. But I couldn't help thinking that in was an unwise decision on Palin's part considering how un-vetted she is; a bit like dangling red meat in front of a hungry tiger. Regardless, however many more Palin shoes will drop between now and November (and I heard that some of the press currently digging around in Alaska have described what's coming as comparable to an explosion in a Payless store), one thing's for sure: Last night's speech will keep her going for the foreseeable future.

--Glynnis MacNicol 

Here’s proof that Joan Holloway, Mad Men’s sultry office manager, works with a bunch of clowns. Or at least did. If the clever ad men at Sterling Cooper had a time machine—and there’s no hope of that, since they just got a Xerox copier--they could pin this photo of actress Christina Hendricks from Playboy's July 1999 issue on the office bulletin board. Bikini-clad Hendricks, on the right, helped illustrate our article on summer shooters; today she plays the sexy Miss Holloway on the period drama. According to our feature, shooter drinks "came into vogue in the anything goes-Sixties." Look for Joan to down a Slippery Nipple any episode now.

--Stacy Klein

As might be expected, there weren't a lot of people of color to be seen in Xcel Center last night. But there appears to have been an oversight. A friend sent us these photos. Here's the official photo of the McCain-Palin families. Who's missing? How about Bridget McCain, the daughter the McCains adopted from Bangladesh. Here's a picture of Bridget with her mother taken at the convention. Why was she not included?
 

I viewed tonight's RNC events in St Paul at a safe distance, Minneapolis. That's $40 in cab miles. Something told me to steer clear of subarctic storm Sarah as it moved through the Xcel Center on its path toward the White House. Luckily, Glynnis MacNicol volunteered to brave the unpredictable winds and catalog the debris. Are you all right, Glynnis? (She may have suffered hearing loss). We look forward to her report.

Sarah Palin dealt some damage tonight though not, as supposed, to herself but to the name at the top of the ticket (and perhaps a few eardrums). Her determination to hit every low note was impressive. She pulled out a surprising catalog of snide asides, wait-for-it gotchas, and discordant false praise for her opponents. She decided to lecture her professors, reproaching do-gooders, berating the well-mannered, and throwing down on anyone who might look askance at her resumé in the future. She might not have bagged any moose but she sure startled them with her moose-call voice. Senator McCain will have to watch where he steps tomorrow night. All that suppressed anger at the bottom of the ticket as well; is it too much of a good thing?

Governor Palin surrounds herself with family like Bob Cratchit at Christmastime. If Señor McCain wants her to work overtime striving for high public office he will have to increase allowances for her burgeoning household. But how does he insert himself into that affecting scene without appearing like the addled Ebenezer Scrooge? Sarah, put another lump of coal on the fire and... drill, baby, drill!

I also thought of Lawrence Welk when Señor McCain toddled out onto the stage with microphone in hand: "Wasn't that wunnerful folks?" "Didn't we choose the right candidate?" I thought his first choice was Joe Lieberman with the cloying bipartisan refrain: God bless us, every one.

—Tom Hodges

Somehow in our coverage of the Bud Select Events in August, we forgot to include the party in Chicago. How could that have happened? Five Playmates hosted the event on August 10 at Level, one of the hottest nightclubs in Chicago. The party joined forces with the Playboy Golf VIP Player’s Party and Playboy TV’s 25th anniversary party, so there was certainly no shortage of bunnies at the event. Dressed in iconic bunny costumes, Playmates Juliette Frette, Alison Waite, Laurie Fetter, Pilar Lastra and Tiffany Selby mingled and posed for photos all night with the adoring crowd.

–Lindsay Silberman

I'm now back at the (packed) CNN Grill and Sarah Palin takes the stage in two hours or so. I will say that when you have the right credentials things work like clockwork here, unlike Denver where things worked sort of well for everyone. I have no idea how Palin's speech is going to go tonight -- it is amazing to realize that she only entered the national consciousness six days ago -- but I feel like in terms of attention her appearance could rival Obama's in terms of television viewership. Palin has tapped in to the People magazine-reading America, and that's a large and widespread group. 

—Glynnis MacNicol

We just caught the last bus to St. Paul. It's a GOP shuttle that loads outside the Hyatt and it's full of delegates. Sarah Palin is speaking tonight and my counterpart Tom Hodges has generously lent me his credentials, or else I would have opted for the couch about ten blocks ago. A slim woman in black patent heels and a pencil skirt just walked by carrying a leather bag with the GOP logo stitched into it. She's a delegate from Kentucky. The couple beside me are both wearing multiple McCain/Palin pins, and more than one person has given my open laptop a sideways glance. I have this strange feeling that I am a spy in enemy territory -- strange since (a) I'm Canadian and can't actually vote, and (b) liberals often annoy me. The traffic between here and our Minneapolis accommodations was worthy of New York City. It took us 30 minutes to go 12 blocks. Our cab driver was also NYC-worthy and told us that the police had rented all the vans from the rental car companies and were constantly driving SWAT teams around the city. He also said the GOP buses (presumably the kind I'm currently in) have taken to parking themselves 20 in a row, forcing city buses to find a different route. He described Egyptian traffic to us: "donkeys cross the freeways!" and then, as we drove past a taxi stand, said many of his counterparts had opted out of the evening shift. Five blocks away from the Hyatt, feeling car sick, we jumped out and ran. Part of the problem is that the bridge that collapsed last year has never been rebuilt (tangling up  commuter traffic) and the light rail doesn't yet run between the two cities. No one seems to be quite clear on what exactly about Minneapolis-St. Paul recommended itself to the GOP.

—Glynnis MacNicol