Roy Temple's blog

James W. Temple, my father, died tonight of heart and lung issues.  He was 84.

In many ways, my dad was a simple man.  He was a husband, father and grandfather, small businessman, and a veteran. 

He did what he was supposed to do, when he was supposed to do it, and expected others to do the same.

He had a strong sense of right and wrong, and always rooted for the underdog.

In many ways he was a shy man, but between his smile, his piercing blue eyes, and his sense of humor, he could light up a room.

He served in the elite 10th Mountain Division in World War II.  The men of the 10th Mountain Division were light infantry ski troops that fought the Germans in the rugged conditions of the Apennine Mountains of Italy.

My father always said others had it rougher.  Historians say the 10th Mountain boys had it plenty rough. 

For his service, he was awarded the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster.

Because of a mild stroke in early 1993, Dad was unable to attend the inauguration in Jefferson City.  He took great pride in the fact that the first phone call Governor Mel Carnahan made from the Governor's desk after his swearing in ceremony was to Dad to say that he had been missed.

He is survived by Ruth Temple, his wife of 51 years.  He is also survived by 3 daughters, Debbie Mueller of St. Louis, Kathy Scott of Puxico, and Michelle Thomason, also of Puxico.  He has 8 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren.

He died in Dexter Memorial Hospital, where he spent his last week surrounded by his wife and four children. 

He was cracking jokes until the medicine would no longer permit it.

Arrangements will be through Watkins and Sons Funeral Home in Puxico. 

­Tony Viessman made the trek to the Democratic Convention to promote "Rednecks for Obama."  It's a play on "Rednecks for Carnahan" from Mel Carnahan's 1992 campaign for Governor.  He hit paydirt with this bit on the CBS News website:

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Watch CBS Videos Online

Here's some video from this morning's delegation breakfast.

Yes, it's a shaky photo snapped quickly with an iPhone, but it is nevertheless a photo of former GOP Prez hopeful and Matt Blunt ally Mitt Romney:

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Here's a quick shot of Al Franken chatting with Missourians Rep. Rachel Storch, Phil Wright, and off-camera, Leonard Cervantes.

Franken was also accompanied by Franni, his wife of 30+ years.  He wandered by just moments after fellow Minnesotan former Vice President Walter Mondale stopped to chat for a few moments.

Here are some clips from Senator Claire McCaskill's speech to the Missouri Delegation breakfast today.  She talks about her speech tonight, and the fact that she is nervous for her kids, who will be introducing her tonight.

Here is Richard Martin, Senator Claire McCaskill's former campaign manager, discussing her role at the convention.

Check out this clip from Julie Gibson, a long time Missouri political operative, on last night's concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater.

A little while back Fired Up Missouri was selected by the good people who run the Democratic National Committee Convention to serve as the Missouri representative to the state blogger corps at next week's big nominating event in Denver.  Fired Up will be providing gavel to gavel coverage (and then some!) from in and around the Pepsi Center and Invesco Field as Barack Obama officially receives his party's nomination for President of the United States.  

That's a big job, and since most of Fired Up's regular contributors will continue blogging from their various undisclosed locations in Missouri, we've compiled a top-notch team of folks who will be attending the festivities in Denver to contribute to our coverage.  Those contributors include...

DNC Chairman Howard Dean today announced the selection of the Blogger Corps for the Democratic National Convention.  Fired Up Missouri was chosen to represent the Show Me State.

As part of the Democratic National Convention Committee's (DNCC)
commitment to engaging a broad spectrum of audiences in the 2008
Democratic National Convention experience using new technology and
other creative means, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman
Howard Dean today announced the blogs selected to participate in the
DemConvention State Blogger Corps during the four-day event in August. 
Governor Dean notified the blogs selected via an online video message
available at www.DemConvention.com.

Fired Up is pleased to participate in this exciting endeavor.

If you have ideas about how Fired Up can make the coverage of the convention the most interesting for our readers, share them via the tipline.

Who knew?  Apparently, The Source is still an active blog.  I long ago stopped checking it, but a friend of mine pointed out that Jeff Roe wrote another of his screeds attacking me today.

I normally wouldn't bother to comment, as I treasure Jeff's disdain for me as a testament to my good character.

However, his comments today are worthy of a response.  In his most recent post, he refers to "Roy Temple and his henchmen." 

That is way out of line.  Henchmen?  Really?

That is profoundly unfair. 

I have been amused by the recent handwringing by certain members of the so-called mainstream media about the grave perils that face our state because certain bloggers choose to use pseudonyms rather than post under their own names.

The beginning for all such bloviating is the apparently required point that anyone who blogs under a pseudonym inherently lacks credibility because they "will not attach their name to their writings." 

Too often, political journalists think they have written a balanced story as long as they have gotten a snarky quote from "both sides" and don't feel any obligation to present any insight into the objective reality of the situation. 

Allies of Governor Matt Blunt are bankrolling a campaign to "Swift Boat" Missouri's Non-Partisan Court Plan and replace it with a system where politicians pick judges.  And they have enlisted in that effort a PR firm that specializes in hatchet jobs just like the one they are currently committing on Missouri's Non-Partisan Court plan.

Today, Tim Scheiderer of CRC Public Relations spent part of his day trying to push around an editorial that his firm placed in today's Wall Street Journal. (It's a regurgitation of GOP talking points, so I won't bother linking to it.)

Anyway, since he made a personal appeal to me via email to blog about it, I decided to go ahead and write this post.  (Note to the geniuses that are paying their very high fees--Please keep spending your money on this type of cracker-jack PR judgment.)

No doubt, the folks behind this effort are hoping Missouri ends up with a system where the Chamber of Commerce bankrolls Supreme Court campaigns and elects judges who will ensure that the interests of average citizens will no longer get a hearing in Missouri courts. (That's how they do it in Texas, and those campaigns made fellows like Karl Rove, and political consultants like him, very rich.)

Most of you are probably thinking, but who is CRC Public Relations? I've never heard of them.  Are they in Jefferson City, or St. Louis or where?  Nope, wrong time zone.  It turns out that the brain trust in charge of doing in Missouri's Non-Partisan Court Plan isn't based in Missouri at all.  Instead, they're in Alexandria, VA.

And here's the best part.  This is the same firm that was in charge of doing PR for the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth.

So Tim, you're right, this is a great topic for me to post about.  But somehow, I doubt this is what you had in mind.

As Carol Burnett used to sing at the end of her show, "I'm so glad we had this time, together." After two years of political commentary, today will be Fired Up's last day of publication.

When we started, we set a goal of holding the Blunt Administration up to public scrutiny, to holding them accountable, and when appropriate, holding them up to public ridicule.

The recent absurdity of Team Blunt's behavior has made it nearly impossible to write commentary that is any more outrageous than their actual behavior.

We think it's been of value to point out their corruption in the fee office matter, the way they mishandled the Fred Ferrell matter, or the way they decided to sell MOHELA for $50,000 in contributions from Goldman Sachs. But once the Chief of Staff starts issuing 8 press releases in 10 days, how can we possible embarrass them any more than they are already embarrassing themselves?