OK, Let Me Clear Your Head

Not by punching it. Yet.

There are rumors on the internets from Republicans, coming out of the woodwork, telling all us hopeful, misguided Democrats that this year's presidential election is already stolen and so we needn't bother ourselves with it anymore.

Now, I know (because I watched it on TV) that the 2000 election was stolen. I also think, based on my own evaluation of it, that Ohio in 2004 was stolen and with it, the election.

What I'm saying is, I can see how some Democrats would be quick to accept that the fix is in this time, too.

But, neverminding that McCain does not command the same fanatical, self-interested organization that Bush did (I mean, correct me, but the Saudis aren't backing McCain, right? Or the oilmen in Texas? Or the tailings of the 1994 Republican Revolution?), you have to wonder just what good it does anyone for Republican partisans to start yelling about how it's all over already and only fools would still believe that we're going to have an election.

Let me propose something:

Only Republicans would say this. The only reason to say it is to demoralize Democrats so they stop working for an Obama victory.

I, for one, am not going to listen to anyone, much less a Republican operative, who tells me that democracy is dead, the election is a fraud, and Obama has already been robbed.

It's just a little too on-the-nose for all this hysteria to be ginned up just when Obama has taken a solid and beyond-the-margin-for-error lead in the national polls.

Wake the fuck up, people.

PART II:

If you looked at the Spoonamore link above, you will have read that the GOP plans to steal the election by falsifying the vote, and that McCain is scheduled to "win" by 3 electoral votes.

However, if you play around with this map, you will quickly see that, even if you split NE and ME, it is impossible to win by 3. Can anyone figure this out?

The Moon

Very Witty. Get back to work.

Karl Rove IS Politics, Apparently

Something strange has happened to Democrats in the past 8 years. They have come to associate all politics and political maneuvering with Karl Rove. It may be that in view of the stubborn refusal of the Democratic Party to take any action, at all, against the Bush regime for the first 7 years, rank-and-file Democrats have begun to believe that the natural state of politics is supposed to be inaction. Thus, when the GOP makes a decisive move of any kind, Democrats are confused and panicked. "What does this mean?" they cry.

Incredibly, one thing it apparently means is that many Democrats have come to associate all political strategies and tactics (and there is a difference!) with Rovian dirty tricks.

On several left-leaning blogs, including AmericaBlog and Democratic Underground, almost every piece of news about the presidential race and politics in general has been met with postings along the lines of "Oh Noes You Guys! This is ROVE!" "OMFG! The Debates are a Rovian Trap!!!" "The Bailout is Totes a Trap for Democrats!" and the like.

If it please the audience, allow me humbly to suggest that people who react this way to simple politicking are, as Rousseau said, fucked in the head. Maybe by Karl Rove. I don't know. But some of us have reached a point where, when the House of Representatives debates a bill and then follows a known procedure during the vote, and Republicans happen to decide they won't vote for the bill --again, while following parliamentary procedures that have been used in the past to scuttle other legislation-- ordinary citizens who happen to follow the Democratic Party start screaming "Get away! It's a Rovian trap!!" Excuse me. No it isn't. It's a vote on a bill before Congress. And voting involves an amount of intrigue and political jockeying.

I guess what I'm saying is, subterfuge, secrecy, and the double-cross existed in politics long before Karl Rove. Moreover, to say that high-level strategy during a congressional debate is "Rovian" is a misnomer: Karl Rove is the guy who puts a leaflet under your windshield wiper that calls Obama a "nigger" who wants to sleep with your white, teenage daughter. He's not the guy with the big ideas, subtle schemes, or master plans. Look at his product, again, everybody: GW Bush is not subtle. He's not masterful. He's not opaque, or mysterious, or even all that complicated to figure out. That is the dreaded Rovian operation at its peak?

The bigger problem for my fellow Democrats is that they have lost the faith in language and reason. No wonder: I saw some McCain surrogates on TV yesterday and they were trying to say that sure, voters may think Obama is doing better than McCain, but he isn't. Think about that a minute. Then, McCain himself came on TV to say that voters who ask questions of the candidates are sleazy, "gotcha" punks. This just a day after McCain said that Sarah Palin's public statements, which she made voluntarily and openly, at her choosing, were actually a fabrication and "meant nothing."

But, of course, words do have meaning. Logic is powerful still. Reality does exist (and with the way the market is sliding, it's getting a whole lot realer all the time!). And for these reasons, other citizens and Democrats need to let go of this childish persecution fantasy they have that Karl Rove's tactics are politics at present.

Because, once you cross that line, and come to believe that everything is a conspiracy against your interests at this moment, you have lost the key, which is that everything, even the failed bailout bill, can be dissected, motives can be discerned, sense can be made. And, when you come to the bottom of it, you will end up with the weapons in hand to strike the Republicans: in this case, they scuttled the bailout bill because they do not like John McCain and because, according to their congressional leader, Nancy Pelosi hurt their feelings. Those two facts should be being used right now to pummel Republicans into submission. Force the infantile conservatives in Congress to grow the fuck up.

Instead, my fellow Democrats are tying themselves into knots with invented quandaries like "Rove wants us to vote for the bill, so the GOP can take credit for helping the average American...but many Americans support this bill, but also hate George W. Bush, who supports the bill...but we supported the bill...and McCain promised to fix the crisis...URG! Does. Not. Compute....Oh Noes! It must be a Rovian trap, y'alls!! OMFG!!"

Or how about Sarah Palin? She speaks at the GOP convention and proves she can read off a teleprompter (and, go back and watch that speech, if you can stand to. It wasn't as good as the McCain people claim, not by a long shot). Then, she disappears from view for two weeks. A series of beyond-disastrous TV interviews basically make her a generational punchline (my kids will want to hear me do impressions of her twenty years from now. Bet on it.). Then she hides some more. Then, she brings her dad (McCain) to the PTA meeting with Principal Couric, where he seizes the floor and complains that all the other kids are picking on his little Sarah. Words like "embarrassing" come to mind. "Pathetic." "Whiners." "Inappropriate." "Crazy."

But to my fellow Democrats, all they see is one word: "Rove." "Biden is walking into a classic GOP Rovian trap!! No matter what he says, he is going to be seen as beating up on Palin!"

If that were true, then it would mean several things. 1. The Democrats in the campaign utterly fucked up the post-debate discussion and allowed it to spiral into surrealist nonsense-land. 2. The media thinks women are weak, defenseless creatures who need champions. 3. The GOP thinks women are weak, defenseless creatures who need champions. 4. Everyone thinks the American public is stupid. I reject ALL of these possibilities. Every Democrat should, too.

This election and the current financial crisis have nothing to do with Karl Rove. He is now a semi-cogent opinion columnist for the Wall Street Journal, soon to be just the "Journal" after Wall Street disappears.

Politics is a game of moving parts and shifting tactics -- we, as a party, seem to have forgotten this fact, and instead fixated on the most puerile tactician alive as not only indicative of all political maneuvering, but as the manager of it as well. This is asinine. We must get back to using reason to knock the stool out from under the Republicans, not vague assertions of "traps," double- and triple-crosses, and secret conspiracy cabals. Shit, I have friends who couldn't even follow the plot of "The Usual Suspects." Now Democrats are gonna try to tell me that the public is buying into some super-elaborate "gotcha" plan by Karl fucking Rove? To that I say, "Don't believe it! It's a trap!!1!11!"

Debate Response

It was close. McCain was supposed to win -- he is the foreign policy pro, after all. Obama missed chances to wallop McCain on his love of Bush, his support for the bastard policies of deregulation, his culpability for the economy.

But Obama did well on foreign policy and stressed McCain's false assertions to the point where they HAD to be fact-checked (and they have been).

Most importantly, McCain's points were all rooted in events and persons from 20 years ago or more. He simply cannot talk about the present day, because he doesn't know anything about it. Obama was in the here and now. And (take it from a native southern white guy) he introduced himself to white voters as the friendly, accessible, trustworthy black man we can all feel OK about voting for. Republicans are just looking for a reason to say they are "OK" with Obama. Trust me.

Alaska: Drive It. Live It. Love It.

As governor, Palin had to use part of the money for that dadgum' ol' bridge to build a road to nowhere (see, she got to keep the bridge money, but the road funds either had to be spent on a road or, by law, returned) So. Ladies and gentlemen. I give you this:

This is what the road to the bridge to nowhere looks like:

Palin in Disneyland

Endure the ad at the beginning. The trailer is a pretty funny idea.

Bullet Dodged

The Wall Street Journal is all bailout this morning -- and the consensus is that the failure to reach an accord yesterday is the fault of John McCain. Contrary to my fears, nobody seems to care what Obama did or didn't, and even the WSJ is faulting Republicans for cutting off discussions without leaving any room to negotiate. Awesome!

Obama's First and Only Misstep

The bailout-that-need-not-happen has fooled our friend BO, I think. According to the McCain people, not only did Obama take the bait set out by McCain -- and he had no choice, as Bush commanded the presence of both candidates in Washington and there was no way Obama could have then said, "see ya!" and gone back on the campaign trail. Instead, he apparently stuck around all day and actually let his own party make him the focus of the discussions, while McCain sat in the back, said nothing, and took no position. The result? Republicans, who had been planning all along to ditch the bailout at the last minute, both to strike at Bush and also to get some of their own pork included in a revised proposal, ditched the bailout at the last minute and also, simultaneously, caught Obama looking like a fool.

Obama took the bait this time. Let it be the last time.

The good news for him is that there is no "winner" here. Most of the public doesn't like the bailout idea. But, somehow, McCain also isn't getting much traction with his "Obama scuttled everything!" line (it's almost like...like...he's lost all credibility) and God bless Barney Frank for coming out swinging all day today.

Obama has the debate tomorrow and he should succeed in taking all the positives McCain has left and turning them into question marks, if not glaring negatives.

If Obama wimps out, though, and tries to do some kind of pussy "teleconference" thing for the debate, that will be his second mistake.

Howie Kurtz Transcribes (Interprets?) Palin

Howie Kurtz of the Washington Post, everybody:

"Sarah Palin, describing the need for more troops in Afghanistan, said the United States has achieved "victory" in Iraq.

In an interview with CBS's Katie Couric, the second part of which airs tonight, the Alaska governor pointed to logistical problems in battling the Taliban: "Things like the terrain even in Afghanistan and that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, you know, we believe that -- Bin Laden is -- is hiding out right now and . . . and is still such a leader of this terrorist movement. There . . . there are many more challenges there. So, again, I believe that . . . a surge in Afghanistan also will lead us to victory there as it has proven to have done in Iraq. And as I say, Katie, that we cannot afford to retreat, to withdraw in Iraq."

You have got to read the rest of the article. Holy shit. Shit holy. It's an abomination to God. Anathema to brain cells. Note, particularly, the part where she tries to blame the press (to a journalist!) for her assertion that seeing Russian dirt = foreign policy experience. Also do not fail to guffaw at her contention that terrorists, "they hate what we stand for with the . . . the freedoms, the democracy, the . . . the women's rights, the tolerance, they hate what it is that we represent and our allies, too, and our friends, what they represent."

Kill me now, Lord. I've done seen all there is to see on dis' Erf!

Oh. My. God.

Just read the article.

Holy Shit, Was I Wrong

The further we get from the big suck-down that was the end of Lehman Bros., the less essential a $700B bailout looks. I was all in favor of it when it was first proposed, too, mainly because the disappearance in short order of half of the investment banks in this country looked like a true crisis, and I believe that, in times of crisis, the government has an obligation to step in. But shame on me. Henry Paulson actually gave away the shameful secret motive behind the conveniently-already-fully-written bailout plan on the very first day, when he mentioned creating a new Resolution Trust Corporation. That was the giveaway that the deal was itself a giveaway. See, the RTC took over the loans of failed S&Ls and disposed of them in a responsible, timely manner.

A new RTC, per Paulson, would buy the bad debt of companies that haven't failed yet. Essentially, this would be like taxpayers taking on worthless investments so that the private companies could go on about their merry ways. This is a huge difference.

Without accountability, without an equity stake for the public, without guaranteed repayment, without increased federal oversight (I don't, still, give a fuck about taking away CEO compensation), there can be no bailout. I was wrong.

Cell Phones and Polls

From Pew:

"In the current poll, cell-only respondents are significantly more likely than either the landline respondents or the cell-mostly respondents to support Barack Obama and Democratic candidates for Congress this fall. They also are substantially less likely to be registered to vote and - among registered voters - somewhat less likely to say they are absolutely certain they will vote. Despite their demographic differences with the landline respondents, the cell-mostly group is not significantly different from the landline respondents politically."

Bear in mind, too, that because cell phone users pay more directly for every minute they talk, they are probably far, far less likely to answer for a pollster (or any "unknown" number). So, even these numbers are skewed somewhat.

Chart:

Is McCain Going to Get Buried?

A Washington Post poll has Obama ahead among likely voters, 52-43%. That's a lot.

The Republicans are getting hammered on the economy, rightly, and Obama has done well to keep the pressure on. And we haven't even gotten to the Keating Five part yet, or discussed in detail how McCain's campaign manager is in the pocket of the mortgage corporations.

On top of this new, wider Obama edge, the polls are and continue to be suspect, or as I say, wrong. The reasons for this are many and ought to be clear (only calling people with home phones, weighting party ID equally even though there are more registered Democrats -- a whole shitload more -- than Republicans, failing to include Obama's newly-registered supporters in the ranks of "likely voters"). Also, there will be fraud. (That should be a movie.)

But let's say the polls are inaccurate, at the very least. What will happen on election day, as the media begin to sift the reults on the nightly news? Obama wins the Northeast in a landslide, giving him a big lead in the popular vote and Electoral College right off the bat.

Obama wins one southern state, increasing his lead in the EC. McCain wins the rest of the South, but not by nearly as many votes as Bush did (or as we expected, based on final pre-election polling). That means NC is within 1 million votes. FL is within 3 points. SC is less than 10 points. This equals an enormous (maybe insurmountable) Obama lead in the popular vote.

In the Midwest, Obama wins IL huge, WI big, MN comfortably, and MI barely. But he runs very close in IN, a shocker. He wins IA in a landslide. He's much closer in MO and OH than anyone believed.

Obama loses every great plains state, and Texas. But again, not by as much as we thought he would. His popular vote total is ridiculous by this point, maybe 5 million above McCain's.

Obama wins CO by a significant margin. He also wins NM and barely loses NV. CA, OR, and WA all go to Obama, who is President and has about 65 million votes to McCain's 50 million. This is less, in total, than the number of people who supposedly voted in 2004, when voting machines returned a few "9 million votes cast" reports in 500 vote precincts. But, many Republicans, it turns out, stayed home out of sheer indifference. And first-time voters came out in high numbers for Obama. And those 11 million more registered Democrats? All for Obama. The media will be scratching its head and wondering if maybe there was some kind of miscount, because Republicans are supposed to win elections...

On the subject of fraud:

In 2004, John Kerry had an insurmountable lead in the exit polls. But, when the final vote tally was reported, Bush had somehow won solidly. In order to make the exit polls fit the actual vote count, pollsters "weighted" (i.e., "fucked with") the data to make it "match;" but this led to a situation in which Bush's "win" can only be explained by an impossibility. There were about 125 million votes cast in 2004 (or, some 20 million more than in 2000). Almost 3 million votes were not counted (because of challenges, fraud, suppression, or incorrect procedure). That leaves 122 million votes.

Bush got 50 million votes in 2000 (riiiiiight). Between 2000 and 2004, by normal mortality rates, about 1.5 million of those people had died. However, in order for Bush to "win" in 2004, he would have had to gain more female voters than Kerry, more first-time voters than Kerry, more black voters than Kerry, and also, 108% of the people who voted for him in 2000 would have had to vote for him again. That is, even after he "received" all this new support (and don't forget the phantom "3 million evangelicals" who appeared for one vote and then disappeared again, forever), Bush would still have had to get all 50 million of his 2000 supporters, plus the dead ones, plus another 4 million votes. From somewhere. Meanwhile, Kerry would have had to lose black support, female support, new voter support (despite the Democrats having registered more new voters...) and also have lost about 25% of the Gore voters from 2000.

Bush's approval rating in 2004 was 48% just before the election. Presidents under 50% approval do not win reelection, much less gain new supporters on election day. That election was stolen, and you don't need fancy algorithms to know it. Simple math will do: 122 million - 50 million (Bush 2000 voters) = 72 million. Kerry votes = 59 million. Bush's "new" one-time-only voters = 13 million. 13 million new voters = impossible, unless Bush attracted one-quarter of Gore 2000 voters (or a similar group of impossible voters).

Also, the smoking gun for a fixed election: according to the final, official vote tally, Bush lost support in solid Republican areas (reflecting actual disgust among conservatives with Bush -- they voted against him in "symbolic" fashion in areas where he was guaranteed a victory, and where the GOP had no reason or, probably, resources, to enforce the fix), but Bush gained votes in heavily-Democratic, urban areas. Does anyone know a Democrat who voted for Bush over Kerry in 2004? No? QED, motherfuckers.

Ouch, Washington Post (and good for you!)

Washington Post:

"But there’s no Palin interview I’ve listened to, before or after her selection, that gave me the sense that she had anything but a millimeter-thin understanding of the issues facing the country she hopes to help lead.

Consider this exchange.

Hannity: What is our role as a country as it relates to national security?

Palin: Yes. That's a great question, and being an optimist I see our role in the world as one of being a force for good, and one of being the leader of the world when it comes to the values that -- it seems that just human kind embraces the values that -- encompass life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that's just -- not just in America, that is in our world.

And America is in a position because we care for so many people to be able to lead and to be able to have a strong diplomacy and a strong military also at the same time to defend not only our freedoms, but to help these rising smaller democratic countries that are just -- you know, they're putting themselves on the map right now, and they're going to be looking to America as that leader.

We being used as a force for good is how I see our country."

Not Too Good

It's not too good when the Associated Press, which is now under the control of a man, Ron Fournier, who once volunteered to work without pay for the McCain campaign, calls your VP candidate "In a Bubble" and then sarcastically notes her shitty, ragged little conference with two second-rate world "leaders." Highlights: New York residents, unimpressed with Palin's motorcade blocking traffic, just walked around her car and paid no attention to her police escort. Also: according to Colombia's foreign minister, Palin "knows well" the economic crisis. Congratulations. She can apparently read a newspaper.

Also not too good is when Newsweek reports that the possible VP is "afraid to be in the same room as a reporter." I'm so glad the "grownups are back in charge." What a relief and a comfort to me in these crazy, dangerous times.

Finally, all the pictures of Sarah Palin over the last week have established beyond any doubt that the woman has big legs. And as we all learned from Led Zeppelin IV, big leg women ain't got no souls. The British would know.

Despicable, Inhuman, Horrific, Disgusting

Words fail me. Palin and her sheriff in Wasilla, Alaska, coordinated to charge women who had been raped $1000 apiece for their evidence-gathering exams and lab work.

Where is the media? I, a not-gay man, will give up the World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup playoffs, and beer, if every single TV station agrees to report on this story every day, forever.

The most appalling part of Palin's utter contempt for women who have been sexually assaulted is not that she saved the town a (very) little bit of money. Or that she inflicted financial penalties on women who had just been terrorized. No, the worst part is the implication that lies just beneath the facts: once it became known that reporting a rape to the police would cost you $1000, women would stop reporting being raped.

The sheriff and his lazy-ass, under-brained deputies win. The mayor -- who could say that reported sexual assaults declined precipitously in her town -- and her paleo-Christian, woman-hating supporters win.

Only raped women lose.

McCain-Palin: inhuman.

Nationalizing the Financial Sector

Now, I'm just a small-town country lawyer, but it seems to me that too much is being made of the government's massive "bailout" of major investment banks, commercial banks, and that one insurance company. If not the government, where else were they going to get $700B?

I think liberals are missing some key points about this situation, and without citing anyone specifically (because you can Google the discussion), here are three items for their reconsideration:

1. Democrats in Congress went along with the bailout, not simply because they are Bush lapdogs (which they may be), but because the crisis came on very quickly and as evidenced by the meltdown by the "geniuses" on Wall Street, nobody knew what to do about it. The only history to be examined on the matter concerned bailouts. At least we might learn from it this time (ie, you don't just rescue scumbags and let them walk away for a while, then return in a few years and start doing the same shit again).

2. What would my fellow lefties have preferred the government to do? Nothing? Same as the mortgage crisis that touched of the meltdown in the first place? Would we all be oh so much better off (as liberal commentators seem to be suggesting) if Bush, Cheney, Paulson, Bernanke, Greenspan, the CEOs of Fannie Mae, Citigroup, BofA, Merrill Lynch, AIG, WaMu, Wachovia, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and so on, had all been frog-marched (a favorite fantasy jackoff term of leftists, for some reason) to a pit and shot? So, if I understand this hysterical mewling from the Democratic partisans correctly, we should have done absolutely nothing, let CEOs jump from windows or (more likely) fly off in private jets with (metaphorical, offshore) suitcases full of money, never to return, and then lynched the rest of them, and then every American could have lost even more money, suffered even more deprivation, fallen from an even higher cliff into the pit of ruin -- all so we could hold 'em responsible?!?

Fuck YOU ALL, says I, enjoying still having a place to live and a bank account with more than $0 in it.

3. My fellow Democrats and liberals, listen to yourselves. Many of you are complaining, at once, about the "scot-free bailout" for businesses while also wailing about the "nationalization" of the financial sector. What the hell are you complaining about (and can't you see the contradiction in your complaint)? "We" foot the bill, sure, in as much as we, the taxpayers, won't see any of that money again and it cannot now be spent for social programs, etc. But in all honesty, "we" weren't going to benefit from those funds, ever. Tax cuts, anyone? Didn't think so. No defense contractors, we, either.

Nationalizing the financial sector, in even the most limited sense, is the first step towards acknowledging that we live in a centrally-planned economy and society. Socialism is here, everybody. Holding the CEOs accountable and spilling their blood isn't the point. They are little fishes, wriggling away to avoid being swallowed up. Maybe they'll make it, maybe they won't. Who cares? They got away with some vast sums of money, but in every other sense they are ruined. And the government, faithless in it though most of us may be, after 8 years, has come out on top as the rightful regulator of the market. That's called a victory for ordinary Americans and for the idea of rational, fair, humanist economic policy from this day on. Take it and keep it, and make sure to know its power.

It is a small step, perhaps -- though I don't know how one could call this crisis and its fallout "small," it does remain to be seen just how deeply involved the federal government wants to be in day-to-day market activities -- but it's an important precedent. Fiscal sanity will reign in our lifetimes, thanks to the bright light that has finally shined on Wall Street. Even if that light cost "us" $700B.

Hmmmm...?

Why would the McCain camp cancel all of Sarah Palin's upcoming speaking engagements? Not "town halls," or "reporter interviews," but fundraisers in front of trained monkey-Republicans.

Why would they do that?

POW + McCain = RIP

Did McCain cover-up evidence that American soldiers were left behind in Vietnam?

Let's just say "yes." It feels good, so let's do it. Look, I'm a Republican now!

What Do You Think That Means?

Former publisher of William F. Buckley's National Review: Only Obama can save America.

"Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers."

"Per-tik-yuh-lur-leee"

This clip was also on the Daily Show, but it's so fucking appalling it bears repeated viewing (it boggles the mind from the get-go, about 20 seconds through 30 seconds in).

Who is this person? Does she have a Crayon lodged in her frontal lobe? This is a sick joke -- six months from now, we'll be reading entire books, no doubt already in the draft stages, about how fucking dangerous, stupid, and chilling Palin's candidacy really was.

Kill. Kill!

Fucking Right!

Thanks for the great line, Ray Whitney! (For the non-hockey fans, Whitney screamed "fucking right!" on camera while hoisting the Stanley Cup for the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006. NBC thereafter cut the audio for the rest of the Cup line.)

Media Matters does a great job of taking the mainstream press to the woodshed for creating the conditions that have led to the McCain-Palin blizzard of lies.

Consider:

"Writing at his blog on the Atlantic website, James Fallows noted the similarities between Palin's Bridge to Nowhere fantasy and Hillary Clinton's snipers-in-Bosnia fa ntasy from the primary season. He wrote:

In Senator Clinton's case, the more often she repeated the story, the more relentlessly the press said the story was not true. All parts of the press did this: right, left, middle. They didn't say that there was a "controversy" about her story. They said it was false. And eventually she bowed to the inevitable and stopped telling the story any more.

Fallows actually soft-peddled the press' take on the Bosnia story. Because rather than simply "relentlessly" announcing the story was not true, lots of press players used the tall tale to emphasize that Clinton was craaaaazy. Hysterical. Irrational. Unhinged.

Perhaps that was the media's right. (Candidates roll out whoppers at their own peril.) But if the press thought Clinton's fabrication was telling about her character, why don't journalists make the same assumption about Palin, who keeps repeating her fabricated tale?"

Go, read and become smarter.

Take the Step Already!

Now that we're nearing the end of the inanity that comprises the reportage of Sarah Palin, obviously it's a good time for Obama/Biden to step up the attack -- not on her, mind you, but on her sugar daddy, Drooly J Mac. While it's possible, and very appealing to think, that McCain/Palin will subsume itself in a maelstrom of stupidity over the next few weeks, it's not very likely. The second-rate Roves, barking mad, who are "managing" the campaign in the sense that throwing shit at a wall until something sticks constitutes "management," surely are already setting up the next distraction. The point is to keep McCain, especially, off television until the debates, and then only allow him to be seen at those arranged venues. Always leave 'em wanting more of what they never wanted to begin with, I suppose...

Obama, et al, must step in, soon. Expecting the Republicans to destroy themselves is one thing -- they've destroyed their credibility, their House and Senate and gubernatorial chances, the economy, our military, and working Americans' ability to live decently -- but taking an extended nap while McCain/Palin edges up to the precipice is insane. Push them over the edge, fuckwit!

Paulson: Mets Will Be Saved; Draws Line at D-Backs

Nice change of pace, I suppose.

Something Old

Everyone should read this piece on the history of Sarah Palin. Forget her qualifications to be VP; she's over-qualified to be that asshole tyrant who managed you at the Dairy Queen in high school. She's a joke that has lost its humor and it's time for her to go away.

Incidentally, if McCain's shame from the Keating scandal is ignored, along with Palin's attempts to not just avoid but actually stop and erase an ethics investigation that is still in the questioning stages, then we -- Americans -- have effectively conceded that laws do not apply to elites. And here I thought we were all sick of Bush's contempt for the law, not to mention all forms of truth.

Palin's surrogates, and McCain's backers, are arguing that asking questions of two candidates for the White House constitutes both a deep personal insult to them and also violates some iron law that commands respect for such people in the form of silent awe. If you must write about McCain or Palin, gush.

This cannot happen. Politicians are not above the law, nor do most Americans think they should be (an important little fact if you want to reverse this McCain ploy). And, moreover, politicians have to answer questions as they relate to political service and activities while in office. I believe we all agree on these points.

Something New(er)

Jesus Christ! Even when David Brooks is right, he's still completely wrong. What a fucking loser! But thanks for trying. You fucking loser. By the way: pink shirt: pink tie :: David Brooks: fucking loser.

In any case, the idea to take away from his piece (of shit!) is that Republicans, post-Palin, are now openly the advocates of "if it feels good, do it" -- and for most of them, mind-altering chemicals can't even be used as an excuse for such idotic behavior.

Who, oh who? would have suspected that conservatives would invent a set of lies to project onto liberals, cloaked in code-terms like "if it feels good, do it," and yet those poisonous ideas would turn out to be at the very heart of conservatives' own hollow, bankrupt worldview?

Suck it, you little hippies!

Something Funny

Ah, Rude Pundit. You used to swear a lot more. Pissknuckle!

The Strategy

Sarah Palin is a big nothing. Forget that she's a loser, a hypocrite, a hateful parasite on the corpse of the Republican Revolution. The truth is, she's nothing. No record. No positions that she can articulate, let alone defend. No ideas. Nothing behind the talking points -- scratch the surface and (contrary to the scum that I already wrote would come hissing forth in the form of scandal) what comes out is...blank stares. Stammering. Pathetic mewling and mealy-mouthed excuses.

And McCain owns her.

Obama is already refocusing, dragging with him a resistant but slowly-coming-around media, on McCain and his utter joke of a campaign.

The strategy is clear, especially for Joe Biden in the vice presidential debate. What he must do is explain, very directly and memorably, with no Edwardsian wind, what he and Obama will do. Then, he must tell the nation, in no uncertain terms, what a joke McCain is. Biden should draw upon his decades-long personal knowledge of McCain's actions to do this.

Then, he should turn the floor over to Palin and make her not only explain what she thinks the McCain platform is (and if her interviews thus far are any indication, she will inject her own wacky interpretation and get called on it), but also defend John McCain the politician -- the one Joe Biden and Barack Obama have been working with for years or even decades, and whom she barely just met two weeks ago.

Forget Palin. Fuck her and everything she represents -- it is so far afield to most Americans that they couldn't understand how monstrous her faith, her idea of public service, her family dynamics, or her worldview truly are. And that reflects well on ordinary Americans, that they don't believe in pure evil when they see it.

Make Palin talk about her new master, John McCain. That creature of pure ego will be unable to do it. Biden should destroy her, kindly, civilly, genteely, and completely. No accusations of being a "bad guy," or of "hitting a girl," or any of that. Just make her stick up for McCain in ways she obviously can't.

Should be fun.

Well, Fuck YOU, America!

You disappoint me. I gave you seven days -- seven! -- to come to your senses and ditch that McCain asshole, and what did you do? Fall in love?

No, really, I think what's happened here is a combination of three things:

1. Polls, which apparently show McCain leading ever so slightly, are measures of popular support, supposedly. And yet, we live in an electoral college-kind of world, politically speaking. The polls can be as neck-and-neck as they like, but unless McCain can win two of the following: OH, PA, MI, FL, he has no chance at winning the presidency. That's a cold, hard fact.

2. The polls are ridiculously wrong. I have never claimed to get along with math, and I certainly am not about to read through dozens of different polling methodologies to find the gotcha! variable that makes the whole thing worthless. But, I was born with eyes and ears (sorry if you weren't). And my eyes and ears tell me, beyond any doubt, that Obama and Biden are drawing 10 times as many spectators to their campaign stops as McCain is to his. My eyes and ears tell me that Obama's supporters are far, far more active and passionate and persuasive than McCain's. My eyes and ears tell me that average people have more Obama stickers, yard signs, and t-shirts. I don't know who these "professional" pollsters are talking to, but they have made an error somewhere, because my brain is not lying to me. It is a matter of time, I think, until the predictors catch up with what common sense already tells most of us.

3. The horse race-style of reporting is wasting an enormous amount of our time at a moment when we have no time for foolishness. The media, in its little, bored existence, feels compelled by some perverse reasoning (likely having to do with laziness and a dearth of ideas, in that order) to portray this election, like each of the past 3 elections (including Clinton/Dole in 1996, even when it was clearly out of hand at the end), as being oh-so-close and my! so exciting! In other words, they're still stuck ooh-ing and ahhh-ing at the artificially-sweetened icing while the rest of us are waiting for the cake.

It will be no surprise to anyone reading this that the media is largely composed of simple, uncurious people, just the sort who can be diverted by a shiny object at the key moment. But let's be plain: even the dum-dum media knows that its behavior is contrived and in some ways counterproductive. Acting like idiots, journalists know, makes them look, well, like idiots. Even if they cannot grasp what a real journalist looks like, they acknowledge that "shaping the story" (or what we used to call "making shit up because it sounds good") isn't helpful to the debate or the public good -- it certainly violates the public trust. And so there are only two things the media, self-aware though still lacking in self-examination, can do. One is, it can go along, bury its head in the sand, and just repeat the same horsehit until it, the media, at least becomes inured to the smell. This is usually what it does, and this is the reason newspapers are now free on the internet, and why TV newscasts on any given night, combined, draw fewer viewers than sitcom reruns used to in the 1980s.

Or, it can do what it has done less often but still with some regularity: the media can stop, look, listen...and acknowledge reality. In 1992, Bill Clinton was walloping the living fuck out of a beleaguered and hopeless George HW Bush and the media refused to take any notice until October. But once it became just laughable to pretend any longer that the incumbent was in the race, Clinton sleepwalked ("sleptwalked"?) his way through the month and on to victory.

Now, that was a very bad thing, as far as the media was concerned. After it gave up trying to make the president seem like a contender, people stopped paying as much attention to what the press had to say about the election. And this, the withdrawal of public attention, cannot be allowed to happen, and was not allowed to happen from 1992-2008.

But the reason I think this time is different -- and to circle all the way back around to that to which I attested at the very start of this point -- is because the media has too much on its plate right now, today, to fuck around with making McCain's dead meat ass look viable.

We just lost 50% of the investment banks in this country in 6 months.

The stock market has fallen 500 points today. In the past year, it has declined more than three thousand points.

Millions of citizens have lost their homes and, with them, their good names.

The sitting president is losing control of both his foreign policy and his domestic, government-by-terror apparatus.

Americans, more than any other time in my lifetime, are scared.

That last fact cannot be ignored, even by a jerkoff press corps. Americans are afraid of the future for the first time in a long time, and faced with problems like these it is not hard to see why.

And every second the media wastes talking about John McCain's "serious" bid for the White House, or how Sarah Palin is "energizing" the GOP, is a second they have could have been addressing the very real and far more important problems facing most Americans.

The Republicans have fucked up, big time: you don't reignite the culture wars during a time of unprecedented crisis and upheaval; you start that bullshit at a time when the American public is fat, happy, and bored.

The media is starting to come around to the state of the nation -- diminishing are the tones of triviality and the insistence on coverage of the most banal, pointless, and sensationalistic storylines, real and imagined. All it takes to cut those obscene standards to shreds is for one anchor, one columnist, one pundit, to take a breath and ask, "do we really have time for this?"

The answer, naturally (and as we all know) is "no." And that's why this election will be about issues and not journalists' fantasies; why McCain, besides being the usual white Republican 10 years behind the curve, humping old methods while being battered by the new, can't run or hide behind his sub-moronic lies; why the American public is -- as my eyes and ears tell me -- so deeply invested in this political sea-change; why Obama will win. The choice is too stark, too easy, and too terrifying if we get it wrong: either America can be great again, can stave off an apocalypse admittedly of its own making by choosing a serious, qualified, thoughtful president; or else we can vote to self-immolate, bringing ruin upon ourselves, letting the wolves inside even as we pretend not to hear them outside the door.

Either we are a nation of simpletons, child-like in our love of convenient lies, or we are intelligent, serious people who make our own destinies.

There is only one answer.

Taking a Week Off

Yep, I'm finally getting that sex change I've always wanted. And lots of electrolysis hair-removal. Anyway, I'm out for a week.

Hopefully by the time I get back, the American people will finally have turned on McCain for good.

The Ratings, The Horror

40 million people tuned in for Obama's speech because they knew what he was going to try to do and they genuinely wanted to see if he could do it. And he did.

38 million people tuned in for Palin's speech because they didn't know anything about her, couldn't imagine what she'd have to talk about, and genuinely wanted to see if she would even show up.

Raw numbers don't tell the tale: a pound of shit and a pound of gold weigh exactly the same.

CNN: McCain Sucked

CNN.com "analyzes" McCain's speech (really they just copied everything they wrote about John Kerry in 2004 and changed his name to McCain's):

"He tried to claim some of Obama's major campaign themes Thursday: unity and change. But when McCain talks about change, he talks about changing Washington. When the Democrats talk about change, they're talking about changing the way things are going in the country."

If only this McCain fellow had been able to get elected to the Senate 26 years ago -- he would have been able to change Washington from the inside. Poor guy. You know, a GOP Congress and some GOP presidents over the last 26 years really would have changed things, and McCain wouldn't have to ride in and save us from those awful Democrats this time around.

What Are You Gonna Do About It?

Palin says being a community organizer is for lazy, inept people who can't handle the responsibilities inherent upon a small town mayor. It's true. Community organizers could never get it together enough to run up a giant debt and then spend the rest of the day at the library looking for books with swears in them.

There's something about her whole "being mayor is like being a community organizer, but with real responsibilities" line -- and not just that McCain's best people spent an entire weekend crafting the ultimate takedown speech and that was the best they could do. No, the troubling thing, for Palin and the GOP, is that she could have said, "being mayor is like being a college professor..." and thus continued the at least plausibly effective lie that Obama is a liberal elitist. But she didn't.

Instead, she attacked community organizers, who are not passive, take-it-lying-down people, by definition. Oh, and they, like, work in the community. Let's just say, they know some people.

Black people. Latino people. Even white people. Lots of poor people. Also, though, lots of women -- who, exactly, does Palin think founds, funds, and runs all those women's shelters, rape-crisis centers, family assistance centers, neighborhood family programs, and so on?

I don't have any evidence of this, but indulge me and consider this statement: today, right now, across the country, hundreds if not thousands of "community organizer"-types are community organizing their way towards a McCain-Palin defeat. Talk about attacking the wrong crowd -- that lipstick-wearing pit bull just bit my baby!

Anyway, if you (like me) couldn't sit through last night's brain-gruel that was the RNC, here's a fun recap from a long-haired (but funny! I have priorities!) hippie. (My favorite part of what I saw last night was when Carly Fiorina talked about what would happen in the future, year 2013, if McCain was elected: "and then he'll make peace on earth, and then on Mars, because we'll have been at war on Mars, and then we'll drill for oil on Mars, and then John McCain will marry a model from Mars, and then he'll balance the martian budget, and then..."

Hippie highlight:
"8:33 PM: CNN's annoying little FACT box on the bottom left of the screen tells me that Palin was elected governor of Alaska as a "maverick reformer". Where would we be without FACTS?" The same little corner box also had the schedule for the evening (I am not kidding): "NOW: Carly Fiorina. NEXT: RNC video tribute. LATER: VP Palin's speech." Wow. I'll just set my TiVo for "later" then. Thanks.

Uh...Ass Clowns?

Oh I Cannot Wait

So, how about that fightin' Governor Palin? She could have played it safe, could have smiled, and looked down, and said, "gee whiz, y'all, I am just so darn proud to be here and to get a chance at the dream of every American: to make a difference for the working families in this country." Or some such shit.

Instead, she "came out throwing punches," as per CNN, and called Barack Obama a no-talent, gutless hack.

I cannot fucking wait for the response. Really. This utter joke of a candidate has just signed her own death warrant.

Have fun raising your deflicted, fucked-up family in your igloo. I hope wolves eat your grandchild.

Paul Together Now

Ron Paul is having his own convention across town from the GOP, in Minneapolis.

And he got 10,000 people to buy a ticket.

The seating capacity for the building where McCain is holding his convention is 18,000. And those people didn't buy any tickets. And there were empty seats there yesterday (too many folks still down in the gulf doing disaster relief?).

Say what you will about the Republicans, they really know how to play dead.

Speaking of being like unto the dead, is there a better way to drive home how old your nominee is than to have a parade of geriatrics, including the older-than-he-looks Fred Thompson, speaking in praise of him?

Palin Failin'?

Hey, where the fuck is Sarah "second woman on the moon" Palin, anyway? She wasn't at the convention today, she wasn't on TV last night, she didn't go to Phyllis Schlafly's photo-op today (how's that gay son working out, Phyllis?). Where is she? Why can't we see or hear from her -- especially when the big, fat raindrops of political destruction are falling all around the GOP?

I mean, did you hear that Obama has gained 11% with former Clinton backers (70% to 81%) just since last Thursday? Where's your genitalia now, Palin?

I understand that her "experience" was a lie and a dodge to begin with, and that therefore McCain's people, including the guy who smeared him in SC in 2000, have to spend every waking moment drilling the talking points into Palin's head, but she also has to actually appear in public sometimes, you know, like it's a campaign. This is not a silent auction, McCain!

In other news, I hear Obama has a black baby...or two!

Everybody Knew, Apparently

John McCain vetted Sarah Palin so thoroughly that he knew here daughter was pregnant before Bristol ever even had sex with her boyfriend. Seriously, y'all. That's the truth, you can believe him. Really. Come on...believe it! He'll be your friend.

If there was nothing to hide and the Palin people were so all-fired proud of their daughter, how come she spent the entire VP announcement holding her mom's newborn and with her belly covered up by a large blanket?

Did I say "covered up"? I mean, cover up. As in, "cover up your nostrils, because the McCain-Palin campaign already stinks like a fish that's been lying almost as long as Sarah Palin."

Two Liters

I just heard on MSNBC that the GOP is trying to get delegates to give blood to show support for the hurricane victims.

My wife says: too bad the Republicans don't have the blood types black people need.

I say: does the GOP know they won't take your blood if you are a drug addict or a homosexual?

The Diminshed Mrs. McCain

Cindy McCain must be furious. If she isn't, right now, then she will be. Why? Let's go to the video.

Does anyone actually believe that the second Mrs. McCain thinks her husband, the 72-year-old geriatric, is making a smart move by taxing his weary body and dissipating mind with a drawn-out run for the White House? Hell no! She wants to be First Lady, folks. That's about as far as her eyes can see (not because she also isn't a spring chicken anymore and may have cataracts, mind you; because she's a self-centered little rich girl who never thinks about anyone but Cindy McCain).

But oh, how that train has come off the tracks. Not just because Obama/Biden is kicking the shit out of her husband's team, but because even if he wins the presidency she is in line for a level of public exposure somewhat less than what the secretary of HUD currently receives.

John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin is eating up both Cindy's psyche and her airtime. Palin is a beauty-queen who apparently does not own a blouse with more than 3 buttons on it. She has a haircut, makeup tastes, and demeanor that mark her as either a backwoods tart or else a porn actress. John McCain will be spending upwards of 12 hours a day, exclusive of naps, with this woman for the next two months (and maybe more, if he wins!). Is this a shallow analysis of Palin? Yes. But it's also visually accurate and her selection as VP nominee is based, I believe, on some of these observable qualities (and, by implication, the desire to not have to show Cindy McCain, the faded beauty queen, on TV as much). As my wife says (and in a non-sexual way, in the literal sense) "how you get your man is how you lose your man, Cindy!"

If McCain/Palin actually wins, Cindy McCain's nightmare only gets worse. She wants to be the prettiest thing in the White House, a glamor icon. Laura Bush? Please. That trailer park ho shops at K-Mart. Barbara Bush was a tranny mess. Hillary Clinton is butch and then some. Cindy represents the First Lady as she might have been forty years ago, albeit with a fuckton of makeup and about one-tenth as much intelligence (did you know that Jackie Kennedy translated her own correspondence from Spanish and French? ).

But a McCain victory equals no such exposure for Cindy. The new game in town is Sarah Palin, and she's twice the woman any American could ever wish for, according to John McCain.

Pity Cindy. She may yet get her White House wish. But she's already a ghost as far as the campaign and the public are concerned. Her husband's desperate choice -- surprise! -- fucked over another woman in his life. I doubt he even noticed.

Hurricane Response and Ineptitude

According to the NYT, McCain has much to gain or lose by his response to the gulf hurricane today and tomorrow. But also, Bush is expected to jump into action and show that government, his government, can work in times of crisis.

Not bloody likely.

See, what the media just doesn't get -- and neither do most people, because it's an unthinkable premise for governing -- is that Republicans like Bush don't want the government (his government!) to look competent or to work effectively, American lives and fortunes be damned. In fact, the more incompetent the government appears, the more support private services will receive. And privatization is the name of the GOP government game.

Why is the Army in charge of gulf coast planning and security this time around (as opposed to FEMA or DHS)? Republicans love the Army. It's the one part of the government they absolutely cannot imagine doing without. But FEMA, that's part of the "beast" and should be made to look as powerless and ineffectual as possible. That way, down the line, Americans will be more disposed to accept, say, disaster relief brought to them by Blackwater, or the Baptist Church, or some subsidiary of the Carlyle Group. It's why McCain and his tool followers are pledging to focus their convention activities on what amounts to a bake sale for New Orleans; Republicans don't want a responsive, competent government that spends money (YOUR money!!) to save lives and help citizens.