Two things jump out from yesterday's front section of the Wall Street Journal (yes, I read the paper a day late, thereby covering the weekend since there is no Sunday edition): Democrats are doing a terrific job of getting across how angry they are, and Republicans are shitting themselves. When shills like the WSJ staffers can't think of any way to make Democrats look weak, then the attack has been well and truly joined.

Page one has the headline "Shaky Economy Challenges Ambitious Obama Agenda" (how did the economy get all 'shaky,' anyway? I guess Wally knew he couldn't sneak more McCain proclamations about how great the economy he doesn't understand is, what with the 250-point drop in the stock market sharing page space.). It bears noting that the WSJ's lead piece on the first night of the Democratic National Convention has the incredibly insipid message that Obama's aiming high but potentially faces a budget pinch (like not having the money to spend ever stopped a Republican!). That's a sign of deflation among the GOP's biggest backers.

Page two: "Wary of Marginalization, Liberals Push Priorities": yeah, you wish, Gerald F. Seib. Jerry has his panties all in a twist because, in Denver, all the wings of the Democratic Party have arrived and are actively trying to lobby one another to support a wide array of causes. The party platform, it is noted, is deficient--or, we might say, it is overly broad and yet also omits large ideas. But unlike the GOP, which lets the business/raider wing run the country (into the fucking ground) and only allows the religio-crazy wing out of the cellar/closet every four years or so, the Democrats are actually making progress through friction, compromise, debate, and change. We talk to one another -- not always with respect, as I have proven -- but I care deeply about the people who have, say, the mental defect that makes them enjoy Ralph Nader's abortive forays into politics. I want those people to get help, and from within our party. And, anyway, Hillary Clinton declared equal rights, civil rights, and gay rights to be cornerstones of the party's policies last night. So, fuck the platform. If the homos are in, everything's in.

Pages four and five are all convention coverage: Michelle Obama's speech (hey, she's smart and articulate, and kind of looks like a hybrid of Sigourney Weaver and Jane Fonda...in other words, she makes Republicans go all watery inside), how the delegate vote is fixed so that a key state gets to put the candidate over the top, Barack's "average-guy credentials" (what, Michelle doesn't own a multi-million dollar beer distribution business??). But best of all, this line from an article that also notes that insane/blasphemous/heretical Republicans have been standing outside Invesco Field in Denver for 2 weeks, praying for rain on the night of Obama's speech: "The potential downside:" (of having 80,000 people in a frenzy over Obama during the convention) "the larger-than-life scale could aid Republicans in their quest to portray Obama as a celebrity candidate..."!

I'm not sure what they're hoping to convey to the reader with ideas like that. A "celebrity" candidate -- this from the Reagan party? The Arnold party? The Giuliani party? Shut the fuck up.

God forbid, apparently, that voters should actually like the candidate they support, or support him too enthusiastically! How low-class and vulgar! The GOP attracts the natural aristocracy, you know, and if voters can't appreciate that and willingly give their votes to their superiors, well then they've been duped by a media creation! I think this line of "reasoning" (the WSJ's, not mine, which is unassailable) reinforces that which cannot be said often enough: Republicans don't care a whit for markets, which is really what elections are all about -- the crafting of a product and the selling of it to a receptive and desirous public -- they care about cabals that can engineer benefits for the members of the cabal. Thus, the GOP will settle for McCain picking his VP at the Nutter Center in Ohio (which is a basketball arena for the Horizon League's own Wright State Raiders), a 12,000-seat venue, instead of the 80,000-seat Cleveland Browns stadium, which would look ridiculous not least of all because it would still only have about 10,000 people in it, because McCain is at the head of a small but powerful network of lobbyists, image makers, donors, and fixers, and he doesn't give a shit about my vote or yours. Like the cops in Chinatown, he wants to skate by, like most Republicans, by doing as little as possible.

Celebrity candidate, indeed! Obama enjoys the support of tens of thousands of Democrats and that means he's somehow defective. John McCain can't get retirees to stop gumming their carrots long enough to watch him do his dinner theater re-enactment of his misremembered POW years -- but Obama is too popular! says the wounded peacock. Bad news for McCain: what he's peddling doesn't sell, and the popular vote really is a popularity contest (it has "popular" right there in the name, John). Triple-bad news: Obama is increasing his electoral vote lead across the nation, except in POWsylvania and POWida and POWxas. He may yet POW those areas and get the POWs he needs to POW the POW in POW POW POW.

And finally, the most pathetic but humorous group of all: the GOP crybabies. Some fairy named William McGurn, writing for a feature he calls "Main Street" (which either makes him a reactionary fucktard, or else a comedy genius on the sly), writes that "Democrats Made No Room on Abortion." Two things, McGurn: one, you are ostensibly writing on behalf of pro-life Democrats like Bob Casey (don't do us any favors, shithead), but on Tuesday when this came out, Bob Casey hadn't spoken yet at the convention. He did so last night, and what do you know? He didn't have an issue with Obama on abortion. Wow! It was almost like...like...your whole article was a meaningless bait, or else directed entirely at an audience so dumb that it is already sewn-up for McCain. And, item two, good. Hillary Clinton's speech last night drove home the point that Democrats don't have to compromise on a fucking thing. We're winning. (Clinton, by the way, masterfully took for herself the title of representative for every woman in the Democratic Party, thus ensuring that Obama, should he be elected, will have to go through her if he wants access to them. It was fiendish but brilliant.) She did not plead or cajole, or ask, she took it as a given that Democrats are Democrats, and any GOP asshole who is looking for signs otherwise should curl up and blow away.

See, we don't have to "make room on" abortion. Clinton was the anti-compromise candidate (you may recall that I support her based on the potential for her to cause Republican blood to run in the streets), and her speech reaffirmed that even out of the race, she has injected a little steel into Obama and has opened his eyes to the futility of compromising with people who don't care to let you live decently, much less speak to you. There was no compromise last night at the convention, and this is the best and only kind of "take it or leave it" politics for the Democrats. In times like these, when as she said, the nation itself hangs in the balance, you can get on the bus or you can drown in the mud. There is no second-guessing during an election.

Conservatives are pissing themselves in fear. The end is nigh for their "dream ticket" and their fantasy-made-flesh in GW Bush, and they haven't learned a damn thing. To our credit, we don't appear to be trying to reach them this time around; re-education comes after November. As frightening as it sounds, that's what it will take to make the unrepentant conservatives talk sense again.

But in the meantime: Kill, kill!

**By the way, the Wright State Raiders' mascot is a wolf. What is up with that? It makes almost as little sense as John McCain's mascot being the "Maverick," which I think is some kind of gay Scientologist fighter-pilot.