Amy's Robot

Devoted Fans

Sometimes there are people who like to get their pictures taken with rock stars, such as Sebastian Bach. And sometimes, there are people who like to stand in a Barnes & Noble for three hours to hear one of their favorite economists and political commentators speak. And very rarely, those two types of fandom exist in one person.

So I bring you some Robot on the Spot shots from Al Franken and Paul Krugman's appearance yesterday:

• Franken and Krugman
  
• Close-up of Franken at book signing
  
• And the one that makes me extra gushy inside: Paul Krugman and Amy

Some highlights from the talk:

In an interview for an upcoming installment of The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly told Paul Krugman that he was "demeaning himself" by doing speaking engagements with people like Al Franken. Krugman told Franken this, saying he could think of no higher praise.

When Paul Krugman says of our government, "These guys really scare me," I know we're not just being a shrill bunch of ninnies in working hard to get Bush unseated. He also used words like "corruption" to describe the administration, and said he didn't think they believe in Democracy. He predicts that the scandals that are yet to break will be greater than anything we are yet aware of, and that it's these known unknowns, to use Rumsfeld's epistemological phrase, that they are working so hard to keep under wraps. In this sense, the current administration has a lot more to lose than the Democrats in the upcoming election, so they will work that much harder to maintain power.

He also thinks there is a 1 in 4 chance of a suspect election result in November.

Good old Al Franken got some good lines in too. An audience member raised the issue of Bush's gaffe yesterday at the signing of the new Defense bill. Bush said, "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." In response to this, Franken said, "Well, he doesn't always lie."

He also stated that his chief weapons against the administration are "scorn and ridicule." We share his preference for these weapons.

There's another great column today from Krugman, this one about the way the media has lost interest in covering Iraq since the transfer of sovereignty. Meanwhile, Americans assume that things in Iraq are improving and becoming more secure, while in fact, reconstruction has slowed, and large sectors of the country appear to be under the control of groups hostile to the new government. As he says in the essay, "The course we're on leads downhill."

categories: Celebrities
posted by amy at 12:02 PM | #