Sunday Night Tweets- Malaysia Airlines Wishes You a Happy Monday

As most of you know by now George McGovern, the long-time U.S. Senator from South Dakota died in his home state early this morning at age 90; we will have a tribute to him later in the week. One of his campaign buttons from his race for the White House against Richard Nixon in 1972 is pictured above. We also have an image of Liberace because it was the best thing we could think of of for gay marriage. And, we were not able to find an image of a flight attendant from Malaysia Airlines so we are going with this image of Christina Ricci from the 2011 tv series "Pan Am," which never quite got off the ground....pardon the pun.

Here are tonight's tweets from the 8:00-9:00 p.m. hour on Sunday night, New York time:

1) @ABC11_WVTD (ABC11 WVTD, a tv station in Raleigh, NC): "Vice president's son Beau Biden makes stop in the Triangle."

2) @Markknoller (Mark Knoller is the CBS News White House correspondent): "Earlier today, Pres. Obama issued statement on passing of George McGovern calling him a 'generous, kind, honorable man. He will be missed."

3) @davidcnsswanson (David Swanson, an author from Charlottesville, Va.): "What Senator George McGovern Got Right_ Let's Try Democracy."

4) @PeterBeinart (Peter Beinart is a columnist for "The Daily Beast"): "I will never forget reading McGovern's 1970 speech where he says 'this chamber reeks of blood' during Vietnam, would any pol say that today?"

5) @LunarAnticsZeno (Zeno is from what we can tell some sort of comic book character; and yes he apparently tweets as do family cats and dead celebrities): "The difference between stupidity and genius has its limits, Albert Einestein."

6) @TeaPartyCat (Top Conservative Cat, actually a liberal blogger who rakes Republicans over the coals): "Romney changed his position on gay marriage, but since he was changing back to a previously abandoned position, it's not a big deal."

7) @MAS (Malaysia Airlines, and yes it is Malaysia Airlines as opposed to Malaysian Airlines we checked with our correspondent in Kuala Lampur to be sure): "Hopefully your Monday will be much better. Have a great Monday, and an incredible week ahead."

http://www.malaysiaairline.com

Quote of the Day/Week- George McGovern

Hmmm...for some reason, we are seemingly popular in Iraq and Slovenia these days.

Today, we start our series on quotes of men who couldn't quite become king as we profile and quip men who lost the presidency of the United States.

On our sister blog "The Daily Vampire," we quoted Bob Dole, 88, the Republican nominee who lost the presidency in 1996 to Bill Clinton.

Here, we quote George McGovern, 89, the Democratic nominee who lost the presidency to Richard Nixon in 1972. McGovern is the oldest man to have either run for or become president. He edges out Dole as well presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who are both 86.

McGovern is also considered to be the most progressive candidate to have run for president in the modern era, though some may argue that Al Gore, known for his environmental politics, is more liberal. Ironically, McGovern represented South Dakota, a conservative state in the U.S. Senate.

This quote reflects McGovern's strong opposition to the Vietnam War:

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

CLARIFICATION: Apparently, the Harvard men's basketball team is not on their way to the NCAAs quite yet. Apparently, the Penn Quakers can tie for first place with a win over Princeton tonight and force a one-game playoff. The Ivy League is the one remaining conference in NCAA Division-I basketball without a conference tournament.

Yesterday, Virginia Commonwealth, Loyola (Md.) and Davidson were among the teams to win their respective tourneys.

Silly Picture to Fill Space- George McGovern T-Shirt

Today we are featuring items from our Christmas Wish List, posted here last week.

For those of who weren't around in 1972 (well, I was only two years old myself), George McGovern ran an unsuccesful presidential campaign against Richard Nixon. Though McGovern, who was a senator from South Dakota, only won Massachuessetts, Nixon went on to become an infamous, though very unique, president (Nixon is my favorite Republican president; of course, I am a fairly partisan Democrat!).

McGovern, who is considered the most liberal presidential candidate in modern times, is still alive at age 88 and according to Wikipedia, he still resides in Mitchell, S.Dak. McGovern was also known for his vehement opposition to the Vietnam War.

We learned while researching this that Sargent Shriver, Ahnuld's father-in-law, was actually McGovern's running mate; he replaced Thomas Eagleton after it was revealed that he had suffered mental illness. Of course, nowadays, we have Zoloft, so things like this would not be political liabilities (eyes rolling).

The McGovern '72 t-shirt is available from retrocampaigns.com

They also offer t-shirts from winning campaigns and from Republican (as well as other Democratic) presidential losers, like Barry Goldwater '64. But, we didn't see any t-shirts with Bob Dole or John McCain on their web site! Perhaps, that is not retro enough....?!