Hank Paulson may be the most important man in Washington today. In 2006 he left behind a 37 million dollar annual salary to become a public servant as Tresury Secretary. The one time Eagle Scout is one of the few Bush appointments that came to Washington prepared for the job....Good thing, considering the mess he found when he got their.

This is a painting I did a few years back, after Hurricane Katrina tested another Bush appointment, Mike Brown. His experience at the International Arabian Horse Association didn't prepare him for the job.

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 Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

Governor of Alaska and John McCains choice for Vice President, Sarah Palin introduced herself to many American's last night by delivering a very good speech before the Republican National Convention.

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John McCain picks Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, but Hurricane Gustav rains on the GOP parade truncating the planned events and speeches for the first day of the Republican National Convention.

Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

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Last night the Democratic party kicked off its four day convention to nominate Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden to lead the party in this falls election and become the next president and vice president of our nation. The delegates were treated to a speech by Caroline Kennedy; a Ken Burns tribute film to the Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy; a speech by the 76 year old senator, who recently suffered from a malignant brain tumor but made the journey to Denver to endorse Barack Obama; what I thought was a great speech by Michelle Obama; and capped off by Michelle and Barack's adorable girls teleconferencing with their daddy from Kansas City..... but I couldn't help notice that there was a subtext to the proceedings... especially if you were watching CNN....Get over it already!

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Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

The 2008 Democratic National Convention starts today. Obama has already proven that he and his campaign have great stage craft and there should be a big bounce from the four day show.... but then again, this is the democratic party... factor in the protesters, demonstrators and team Clinton, and all bets are off.

Piggybacking off of Stephen Gardner's Sketch of the Day postings of multiple versions of the same drawing I'm posting these doodles this morning. These are done very quickly (about a minute or two) so I don't mean to compare them with Stephen's studied drawings. Spontaneity often takes precedence over accuracy with these quick doodles. They are filled with mistakes, but hopefully they all capture an impression of the subject.

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Ball point pen on the morning newsprint

You here a lot about balancing the ticket, but maybe Obama would be wise to choose another youthful, ivy league educated candidate in Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.

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Ball point pen on the morning newsprint 

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones served the 11th district of Ohio since 1998. She was Ohio's first Black congresswoman, the first black woman to serve on the powerful Ways and Mean Committee. She chaired the House Ethics Committee and was  a strong opponent of the War in Iraq. She suffered an aneurysm on Monday and passed away yesterday from complications of the brain hemorrhage . She was 58.

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Biden's undisciplined manner has made him a favorite among the media, who are always hungry for a quote, but I've always heard that the cardinal rule for picking a running mate is do no harm. Might a loose canon bring more harm than good?

Thoughts?

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Pakistani President Musharraf announced his resignation yesterday. His party having lost an election, his popularity plummeting after declaring a state of emergency to eliminate his enemies and the prospect of loosing long time allies Bush and Cheney left him with no political options but to step down.

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The president of Eastern Airlines Phil Bakes, announced yesterday that the airline has agreed to pay a $9.5 million fine for failing to comply with routine inspections of it's fleet. After an investigation, the F.A.A. said it had found nearly 70 cases in which planes were operated in violation of Federal regulations, sometimes repeatedly. The fine is by far the largest ever imposed by the FAA. Bakes said that Eastern had agreed to the penalty because the prospects of litigation ''were clouding both Eastern's outstanding safety record and Eastern's substantial maintenance improvements.''

Also....check out this post by scholar Craig Conley in which he writes about doodles, highlights one of my napkin doodles and links to a bussiness week article about Doodling in the corporate world.

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