4,823 Iowans Can't Be Wrong, Can They?

So, The Stepford Wife wins the Ames Straw Poll. And now we're supposed to take her seriously. Let's put aside the fact that nobody in this pathetic race to the bottom deserves to be taken seriously. What does this "triumph" really mean?

Well, first let's think about what The Ames Straw Poll is and what it isn't. What is it? Well, according to Wikipedia (I already linked above; sorry, not doing it again):

"The poll takes place among attendees of a fundraising dinner benefiting the Iowa Republican Party. Before the vote, each candidate is given a chance to make a short speech to the attendees.

The poll has been described as a cross between a political convention and a county fair, where Iowa voters have a chance to mingle, eat barbecue and have a little fun. The party divides the venue into sections and auctions each to the candidates, who can then set up booths to present their case to the voters. The larger areas and those closest to the entrance often fetch the highest price. In 2011 bidding started at $15,000 and ranged to as high as $31,000 (bid by Ron Paul).

Non-Republicans are allowed to vote in the Ames Straw Poll. However, all voters must be at least 16 1/2 years of age, be legal residents of the state of Iowa or a student attending an Iowa university/college, and purchase a ticket priced at $30, however some campaigns pay the fee for their supporters."

And what isn't it? A primary or a caucus. That doesn't happen until next year when the vultures will descend anew on Iowa.

So, it's a fundraising event sponsored by a local branch of a national party that charges thirty bucks for the privilege of getting in and eating hot dogs and listening to Mike Huckabee play the bass at a tent bought by one of the candidates that allows people of non-voting age to participate. In a very small state. With a total of just over 16,000 people voting. Which is slightly more than the population of my hometown, which I can guarantee you was never asked its opinion on anything, let alone had said opinion be national news and the cause of a major candidate dropping out of a presidential race.

So out of the 16,000 Iowans (and students who just happen to be there) who paid thirty bucks to go into a tent, about one quarter of them chose The Stepford Wife. That's 4,823 Iowans, some of whom are, again, not of legal voting age. You may have heard that Ron Paul came in a close second. But you probably didn't. It was all Stepford Wife, all the time. And we are supposed to consider this a legitimizing event.

There's a reason that the two candidates who actually have a chance of winning the Republican nomination didn't bother to show up. It's a farce. And they would only cheapen themselves by participating in it. Which is undoubtedly the last positive thing I will say about either of them. Except maybe that they aren't quite as batshit crazy as The Stepford Wife.

It's Only Fraud If You're the One Doing It

So, if you watch Fox News or generally subscribe to the Republican party line you surely know for a fact that voter fraud is a grave and very real threat to our fragile democracy. So you certainly must support all of the efforts being put in place by multiple states to ensure the integrity of our votes.

Of course, in the real world, voter fraud is about as much of a threat to democracy as the infield fly rule.

Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.

In Miami, an assistant United States attorney said many cases there involved what were apparently mistakes by immigrants, not fraud.

So, because after five years of the Bush administration investigating and finding nothing of any real impact going on, the natural response of the Republican Party is to push harder to eliminate the scourge that their own president's administration found to be virtually non-existent. They would have done it sooner but they needed to take over a mess of state legislatures first. Which they now have.

Is there a single honest person alive who doesn't know what this is really about? The people least likely to have photo IDs, which is the new standard that the Repubs are pushing, are (and this is entirely coincidental, I'm sure) the same folks who are most likely to vote for Democrats. That is, poor people, black people, young people, poor black young people and the elderly, who are turning on the GOP like German Shepherds over the Paul Ryan gang's efforts to kill Medicare.

So the voter fraud issue needs to be revived in order to a) deflect attention from the actual problems we have right now, and b) help to ensure that fewer people who might vote against them next year and in years beyond are actually able to do so.

This is gutter politics. This is gross. This is much more of a threat to democracy than the supposed voter fraud going on. Tens of thousands of voters will be turned away or have their votes not counted. And I think we know who's going to benefit from all of this.

Surprised?

It's Sex With Someone I Love

Okay, so the Tea Party has just handed another seat back to the Democrats. Thank you, Delaware Republicans.

Two things about Christine O'Donnell.

Thing 1: What the hell is this?

Why are you in the picture? Honey, let me explain something to you. Your husband wasn't masturbating all these years because he was trying to perfect the sexual experience flying solo. He was doing it because there didn't happen to be anyone else in the room with him. He didn't have a vagina to stick his thing into so he improvised with whatever was handy. Now that he does, if you really think he's going to prefer masturbation to that sweet sweet part-of-God's-plan vagina that you're sporting, then yes, I would question why you are in the picture. But not for the reason you think. It's either because your husband is gay or that you're just really terrible at the nasty. Any straight guy would prefer a female body that is sleeping, lethargic or outright dead to their own hand. Maybe you should have practiced a bit yourself.

Thing 2: The folks on the news are talking about this like it's some kind of tidal wave that's sweeping the nation. But look at the numbers here. No, really. Look at them. They're right here.

Machine		Absentee	Total	Percent
Votes		Votes	Votes	Votes
UNITED STATES SENATOR	325 of 325 Districts Reported
REPUBLICAN PARTY
MICHAEL N. CASTLE	26201	820	27021	46 . 9 %
CHRISTINE O'DONNELL	29882	679	30561	53 . 1 %

30,000 votes. That's it. A nation of over 300 million. A state of about 885,000.

She got 53% of the votes cast in the primary. But overall, only 3% of the people in her very dinky state voted for her. 1/100 of 1% of the nation. And it's being treated as a historic event and a triumph for the nutjobs in this country. Please.

Some more perspective? There are slightly fewer than 30,000 people in the town of my birth. And nobody pays any freaking attention when those people vote on anything. Staten Island has almost half a million people, not much less than the whole state of Delaware. And they're considered irrelevant not just in the country, not just in the state, but in New York City, where they account for less than 1/16 of the city's population.

Enjoy playing the masturbation videos and having another Palinesque nitwit to focus on for a little while, American media. But don't kid yourself that this is a significant event. All it is is the fringe forfeiting another decent shot at Republicans gaining another seat.

Wait a Minute

Now, I'm as excited about anybody else regarding this past week's election. It fills me with a hope for my country that I had long since abandoned. Not to pee all over this, but let's stop for a second and consider two things. (I consciously waited a few days before posting this. We needed to celebrate a bit. But here we are.) We're gettng seriously into glass-half-empty territory here, but these are important things to consider before we go all giddy.

Thing 1: The Bush Administration

This actually comes in two parts, Thing 1(a) and Thing 1(b).

Thing 1(a) is the existing legacy of these turdheads. The damage that they have done to, among other things, the environment, workers' rights, women's rights, science, separation of church and state, the judiciary, our infrastructure, confidence in government, our standing on the world stage, and, oh, our constitution is going to take the better part of Obama's first term (hey! optimism!) just to discover and unravel, let alone to fix.

And the judiciary can't be fixed unless one of the Supreme Court justices contracts a particularly virulent communicable disease, taking Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas down with them. Barring that, those guys aren't going anywhere for the foreseeable future. The best-case scenario is that Ginsburg, Souter and Stevens are replaced with justices who will be similar to them. Obama's win won't shift the court back to the left. It will only prevent it from moving farther to the right. And this also leaves out the lower courts, which decide what even gets to the Supremes. Their effect goes largely unseen by the general populace. Dozens of creeps on the level of Scalia have been planted there over the last eight years. They're not going anywhere either.

And restoring regulations to industry is going to take forever, and will be violently opposed by the coal, oil, gas, logging and nuclear industries. Good luck with that. We can't take back the unnecessary pollution that has already been spewed and will continue to be spewed while we struggle to return some common sense to our environmental policy. Or bring back the polar bears and other less-cuddly animules that are dying out due to global warming. Which brings me to Thing 1(b).

Thing 1(b) is the inescapable fact that these guys are still in power for another two months. They have plenty of time to make things even more difficult for Big O. All presidents sneak in last-minute regulations designed to tie the hands of the next administration, or at least to make them look bad by repealing them. Read this to find out what we're up against here. We won't even mention all of the pardons for themselves and their buddies for civil rights violations, torture, illegal wiretapping, lying to congress etc.

Thing 2: 52%-47%

This felt like a big victory because Obama won a vast majority of electoral college votes. And the rest of the world is overwhelmingly pro-Obama. (Except, uh, Al Qaeda.) If the entire global population were allowed to vote in our election, Obama probably would have received 75-85% of the vote. But right here, he got just over half. What the hell is wrong with us?

Obama will undoubtedly be able to restore world opinion of us to a respectable level. He already has, without even doing anything in an official capacity. But right here at home, we have advanced a little but we've still got a long way to go. We're still a bit racist. We're still a bit anti-intellectual. We're still a bit untrusting of anything that smacks of gummint control, even if it's really government assistance. We're still not quite bright enough to take accusations like "socialist" with a real understanding of what the terms mean and how they relate to historical reality.

Considering a) how badly John McCain ran his campaign, b) how badly Bush/Cheney and the Republican Party have run this country, c) that 80% of the country told pollsters that the country was heading in the wrong direction, d) how little McCain's policies differed from Bush's, and e) how unbelievably ill-equipped Sarah Palin was for the office, it's pretty pathetic that almost half of us still thought it would be better to elect the same party again.

The hope that I have after this historic election is tempered by the sad realization that we have not, in fact, come such a long way, baby. But maybe we can get there. I'm willing to try if you are. I'll end with the same line I ended with earlier this week, because it holds true no matter what.

Let's get to work.

Yes, We Did!

For a long time I have wanted to be proud of my country. I bristle at the reflexive patriotism of many on the right that seem to live in the "real America", where we're always perfect and we never have to work to improve ourselves; we just need to wave a flag and give dirty looks to everyone else. And some of us nominal Americans seem to fall into the "everyone else" category.

I watched as a corrupt administration subverted our constitution and broke our most important laws, and had the nerve to call anyone who objected un-American. There's irony for you.

I watched as another nation was invaded, a nation run by a big fat creep, mind you, but one that posed no threat to us or to our allies. I listened to the obvious lies and marvelled that so many bought them wholesale. I despaired as those of us who cared about our laws, our treaties, and simple morality were shouted down and made to feel, again, un-American.

I watched as the same people who sold us the war, and who had already shown over four painful years that they were utterly undeserving of the trust that we had placed in them, were given another four years to wreak further havoc. I was shamed because the first time was a fluke, but this time we only had ourselves to blame.

I lost all hope in the American electorate at that point. And I never thought we could recover from the damage done by these people. And it may take a long time to do so. But I finally have some hope. I finally believe that the people who will be in charge are honest and intelligent and driven by a desire to move us forward, not deeper into some reactionary Manichean fantasyland.

I followed the election last night with measured optimism. I would not allow myself to fall into the trap of assuming it was over until there was no doubt. And at the beginning of the night, there was plenty of doubt to go around. The first layer of fear fell away when they called Pennsylvania. But it persisted. Then they called Ohio. Oh my.

After Ohio, the numbers simply were not there for McCain. It would have been downright impossible for him to make up the electoral votes he needed. And yet, I would not allow myself. I needed to see it clearly, unambiguously and unequivocally. I knew that California and the Pacific Northwest were done deals, but I needed Wolf Blitzer to say it out loud and flash the graphic on the screen. I could not relax until then.

As the onscreen clock counted down the time until the polls closed in California, I clenched my hands together, waiting for it to somehow be yanked away, like the 1986 World Series. Somehow the ball was going to go through somebody's legs. Somehow this was going to be snatched away from us. But it wasn't.

When the Red Sox finally won the World Series in 2004, I did not jump up and down like a crazy person and run screaming through the streets. I felt a sense of relief, a peace and serenity that I didn't expect. I became rather quiet, shared a glass of champagne with friends, and silently wept.

When the graphic finally came on the screen last night declaring Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States of America, I felt a similar calm. I did not jump up and down like a crazy person and run screaming through the streets. I sat and stared at the screen, not excited but relieved and serene. I still could not quite believe it. And I silently wept.

I feel proud of my country again. Maybe for the first time, truly. The margin of victory (in the popular vote, anyway) was not large enough to make me feel totally confident that enough of us have turned the page. And the current occupants are diligently poisoning the well to make it even more difficult to even get back to where we were in 2000. But that commentary is for tomorrow. Now we are at the dawn of a new day. I feel like we are once again a place of sanity. And hope. And true patriotism, not mere jingoism.

Thank you, Barack Hussein Obama. Thank you, Joseph Biden. Thank you, Michelle Obama. Thank you, ACORN. Thank you, David Plouffe. Thank you, Howard Dean. Thank you, whoever you are that kept calling me and e-mailing me asking for money. Thank you, Rachel Maddow. Thank you, Keith Olbermann. Thank you, Tina Fey. Thank you, Ohio. Thank you, Florida. Thank you, (holy crap!) Virginia and Indiana.

Thank you, America. I love you.

Let's get to work.

Are We There Yet?

This election is like crack. I've been consumed by it. I obsessively scour the web for any news concerning any of the candidates and how the polls are going. I look at the major newspapers, I look at the blogs, I look at Pollster (a lot), I look at InTrade. I even watch all of the nattering nabobs on cable TV. Mostly Olbermann and Maddow, because they natter for my team. Which is refreshing after only having two other flavors in the recent past, Neutral and Shit Sandwich.

I cannot wait to get this damn thing over with so I can go back to being a somewhat normal human being again. I hate anxiety. I hate uncertainty. I want to wake up and know that everything is going to be all right. Or at least that it won't be all right, but I'll know what the not-all-rightness will look like.

It will be soon.

I hope.

Go vote.

Free to Be, You and Me (No, Just Me; Not You)

Seriously, people. Someone get Governor Moosekiller a copy of the Constitution. Ours, that is. I'm not sure which one she keeps referring to, but it's not the United States Constitution. Hell, you don't even need to buy her one. I just linked to it. And then read the fucking thing to her. And then explain it. Seriously. It doesn't take long.

First, she insists, repeatedly, that the Constitution gives the Vice President lawmaking powers. And now she craps all over the sacred 1st Amendment.

Apparently, "freedom of speech" really means "freedom of speech for governors from cold states but not you". And "freedom of the press" really means "freedom of the press to keep their yaps shut when I say stupid shit and never ever call me on it". Here's what she said to conservative radio host Chris Plante of WMAL-AM.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Excuse my French, but how fucking dumb is this asswipe? Oh no, I made slimy allegations about somebody and then the press said they were slimy. My rights are being violated!

Set aside for a second the logical problem with her argument (and I use that term loosely). Negative campaigning, by definition, is making statements about the other party meant to cast them in an unflattering light, as opposed to making positive statements about yourself. The media don't need to convince anyone of anything. It's negative campaigning. Period. What's at issue is its veracity. Anyway...

Palin has the 1st Amendment exactly backwards. She can say anything she damn well pleases. But then the press has the equally important right, nay, the responsibility, to call bullshit on her. This is basic stuff. Really basic stuff. I'm sure nobody reading this needs me to explain it to them. Which makes you all more qualified to be Vice President than this moron.

Mrs. Palin, here's the deal. Your rights are no more or less important than anyone else's. I know you don't want to believe that. If you want to have a nice little dictatorship where you can do whatever the crap you want but nobody can say or do anything to you, then please go back to your pals in the Alaskan Independence Party and make your own little stupid country. Please leave ours alone. The Bush/Cheney junta has done enough damage to it already.

Please, America, get this goddamn election over with so that this utter dipshit can go back to the cave she crawled out of and John McCain can begin apologizing for letting James Dobson and Bill Kristol foist her on us.

A Big Fat Chunk of Dishonesty

Bill O'Reilly may be the most clueless (or dishonest; it has to be at least one) person ever to have a television show that human beings watch. And I'm only assuming that they're human. Here's Bill's expert breakdown of the current electoral landscape.


Crikey! Obama's behind! How could such a thing happen?

Wait. Here's a map from Slate based on data taken from Pollster, which aggregates data from several polling sources.


Hmm, bit of a discrepancy there. Here are some numbers from some of Bill's "tossup" states.

• Pennsylvania: Obama 52%, McCain 41.3%
• Oregon: Obama 54%, McCain 39.4%
• Iowa: Obama 53%, McCain 41.3%
• Michigan: Obama 54%, McCain 38.1%

Wow, only 16 points. That one's a tossup, all right.

And here are some numbers from some of McCain's "safe" states in O'Reilly World.

• North Carolina: Obama 48.8%, McCain 46.9%
• North Dakota: Obama 44.9%, McCain 41.3%

Georgia, Montana and Indiana are all in play but McCain is ahead so those are really only a mild stretch for Bill. But Obama is actually leading in two other states that O'Reilly has already awarded to McCain. They're not even tossups for Bill! From where is Bill getting his numbers? From the same place his head is.

[Wait for it.]

His ass!

John McCain: Socialist

How radical is Obama's tax plan? So radical that John McCain supports it. At least he used to. Will he next week? Maybe he should debate himself.

I love people who make videos like this. It means I don't have to. This is from Jed Lewison at Daily Kos. Play it for all of your McCain-supporting friends and family who like to call Obama a socialist.



And remember, people, we're not "experimenting" with anything. We're talking about a reversion to Clinton-era tax levels. I seem to recall the economy being just dandy during the 90s. If that was an experiment, it was one that worked. A lot of the money that's currently leaking out of your 401(k) was made back then.

Ted Stevens: Convicted Felon

Ha ha!

He was already trailing slightly in the polls. (Read that link quickly. It's gonna change.) Re-election now seems a bit of a stretch for this lying bastard.

Watch how quickly Governor Moosekiller becomes someone who doesn't even know the guy, just like The Idiot forgot that he knew Ken Lay once he joined the Convicted Felon Club.

Joe the Dumber

Do you make over $250,000 a year? Do you know anyone who makes over $250,000 a year? If so, are they (or you) struggling in any way? If so, can you (or they) look at someone making $18,000 a year working two jobs and explain that suffering to them? I'm sure they'll be all ears.

How this whole "Joe the Plumber" nonsense came to be the McPain campaign's big shillelagh is kind of mind-boggling to me. A guy asks Obama a question at a campaign stop, Obama engages the man thoughtfully, answering his questions and taking the guy's concerns seriously. At one point in the conversation, Obama mentions how "spread[ing] the wealth" (assuming there is any) is good for everyone. McPain picks this up and starts screaming about how Obama told poor old Joe (not really his name) the Plumber (not licensed, so not really his profession) that he's going to have his hard-earned money taken away from him to give to phony Hollywood socialists.

Obama's supposed gaffe was made based on the assumption that this guy actually would be making over $250K a year. (He wouldn't be.) And if he were, what the hell does he have to cry about?

Oh, and he doesn't have the money (or, um, the license) to buy the company anyway. And if he did, it would be the company's tax burden, not his. And he owes back taxes. (Not that that matters to the discussion. But it's fun to point out.) Based on what we know, it's pretty clear that this guy would actually benefit from Obama's tax plan. So, he's just the perfect tool to demonstrate how wrong Obama is. Of course.

Watch the whole video and it's unclear what the McPain campaign really thinks is so damning. (Assuming they do. Unless they're complete idiots, they know the truth.) It's utterly flimsy and yet they keep hammering on it as if this was the thing that was going to bring Obama down.

The whole thing makes no sense. And yet, we see campaign ads with people proclaiming that they are "Joe the Plumber" as if they were Spartacus or something and Obama really were going to destroy the middle class by spreading their wealth to some unnamed other (Wait! I know! It's black people, isn't it?), contrary to what the actual numbers say.

Oh, we're all Joe the Plumber now. In a way, it's true. We're all subject to being used fraudulently as a campaign tool to sell a bad product.

The joke's on you, people.

Huntin' and Fashion

Remember when... ("remember when": a recurring theme here) Remember when Al Gore was being ridiculed by Republicans for paying a consultant to suggest he wear earth tones? It was about $10K, as I recall. And remember John Edwards' haircuts? Important issues, they.

Guess how much the Republican National Committee has paid (so far) to clothe Sarah Palin?

$150,000. Plus almost $5,000 for hair and makeup through September alone.

"I like her. She's just like me!"

Because you just spent $75K at Neiman Marcus. We all do.

Colin Powell's Sycophancy Pills Wear Off

Colin Powell took a big step towards redeeming himself for spewing an economy-sized bucket of bullshit (his word, and mine) at the U.N. in 2003 by endorsing Barack Obama on "Meet the Press".

His words were a reminder of why we admired this man in the first place. He always seemed like he didn't quite belong in the group he was in. And we always hoped he'd dull their edges a bit. Until that speech at the U.N., when we all lost any respect we had for him.

By now decent and honest Republicans everywhere (yes, they exist) are scrambling for their place in the lifeboats of the S.S. Straight Talk. And Powell is undoubtedly an A-lister.

If you haven't watched this yet, you should. And if you know anyone who's planning to vote for McPain, make them watch it. In under 7 minutes Powell gives the most dispassionate, reasoned case for Obama (and against McCain) that we're likely to see.



Me, I would have said that McCain and Palin are lying, hate-mongering troglodytes. But that's not going to change anyone's mind. This is the nice way to say it. I particularly admire the way he pointed out that (surprise, America!) we are not a nation of bigots. Religious tests for office are not only forbidden by law, they're against our supposed national ethos.

Thank you, General Powell. And welcome back.

Round 4: The End (Finally)

Remember back in 2000, when Al Gore got pilloried for sighing during the debates with The Idiot? And remember how he got lambasted for seeming to be a different person in each debate?

I heard Johnny Mac breathing at least four times during Obama's turns last night. And we got yet another John McCain for this debate. It wasn't really a different guy. It was just a different flavor. Gore had gone from pedantic to forceful to just plain lame (although he really won each debate quite handily, regardless of the wanna-have-a-beer-with-him crowd's bewildering preference for the other guy). McCain was a cranky old man who wouldn't look at his opponent in the first debate, a cranky old condescending man who wandered a lot in the second debate, and a cranky old sarcastic man who alternated between screaming and laughing inappropriately in the third debate. And he interrupted Obama a lot. Not good.

Obama was even more Obama-y then ever and McCain was even McCainier, like himself in the previous debates but on steroids. Or goofballs. He tried really hard to seem funny and sharp. But he just looked like your embarrasing uncle, who also tries really hard to be funny and sharp but only has you and your family to embarrass, not the whole freaking country. Of course, the polls had been trending towards the cool guy for some time now, so McCain doesn't stand to gain much by being more of what we're already deciding we don't like very much. But he doesn't have any other arrows in the quiver. So there it is.

For the first half hour I was bored and thought McCain was actually winning. Obama was trying not to lose, like a football team up by 20 points in the 4th quarter running out the clock. Which is fine. That's all he had to do here. But after McCain wasn't able to rattle Obama, and Obama showed yet again that he knew exactly what he was talking about on, oh, every issue, McCain's head started to smoke and he grew increasingly disjointed and embarrassing-uncle-like.

He actually was making a bit of sense for a while. And then he just started babbling incoherently, moving from one topic to another, getting angrier and more dismissive all the while. By the end, he was equating Down Syndrome with autism. And criticizing someone's health care proposal with calling someone a terrorist. This debate was the McCain campaign in a nutshell. No direction, no consistent message, throwing everything at the wall hoping desperately that something will stick, progressively more insane as it circles the bowl.

Obama did himself proud in his responses about abortion, taxes and (why must we talk about this? why?) Bill Ayers and ACORN. McCain looked like he crapped his pants after he taunted Obama for not saying what penalty would be levied for not providing employee insurance and Obama told the strangely ubiquitous Joe the Plumber that his penalty would be "$0".

McCain had at least two horrible moments. First, he pooh-poohed women's health, suggesting that women exaggerate their own health risks because they just looooves getting them some abortions. Ow, my neck! I need an abortion! Great way to get the gals on your side, Johnny.

(Oh, and while we're on the subject, I am so fucking sick of the "liberal" position always being called "extreme" and the conservative position always being called "mainstream", regardless of where public opinion really lies. What was that last word? Oh, yes. LIES.)

His other bad moment was more subtle. It was after Obama discussed the Lily Ledbetter case. McCain brushed it off with muttered comments about the statute of limitations and the case being a "trial lawyer's dream". He, of course, never bothered defending the actual merits of the case, which was a disgrace. He clearly did not want to talk about it and quickly moved on to the next topic. Another bad bad thing to say in front of the ladies. Or anyone with a sense of fairness.

The post-debate snap polls all went Obama's way. Again. And McCain's positive/negatives went even further in the wrong direction.

This is not over yet. A lot can happen in three weeks. But something really disastrous would have to occur for Obama to lose this.

McCain can most productively spend his time drafting a nice apologetic concession speech.

How Do You Spell "Bullshit"? P-A-L-I-N

Alternate spellings: M-C-C-A-I-N and D-A-V-I-S.

Remember this quote from John McCain from not too long ago?

"[I]f a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed."

Here's what McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told Faux News' Chris Wallace regarding the Troopergate report released on Friday. (Quotes and stuff cribbed from Glenn Greenwald. Thanks, Glenn!)

"The reality is there was absolutely no wrongdoing found in the report — 1,000 pages — an enormous waste of time — and the best they could come up with was: no violations of any kinds of laws or ethics rules."

And here's what Sarah Palin herself told the Alaskan press corps.

"Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that."

Wow, they really dodged that bullet. So much for the partisan witch hunt. Oh wait. Here's what the report said in its very first finding.

"For the reasons explained in Section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."

Um, yeah. Cleared of all wrongdoing. Because abusing power and violating laws are not really wrongdoing. At least not for Republicans. We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

What's that sound? It's McPain poll numbers dropping even further.

Round 3: "Town Hall"

We didn't learn much from the latest prez debate. Perhaps the best new information we got is that John McCain knows how to get Osama bin Laden. In a real debate with follow-up questions, the next question would be along the lines of, "Yeah? How?" But this wasn't a real debate.

Of course, in a sane world, the response from ordinary people would be along the lines of, "WHAT? How long have you known this and when the fuck were you planning on telling us, you asshole? Have you considered sharing this valuable information with our current leaders? Someone needs to be sent out for an 'enhanced interrogation technique'." Of course, this isn't really a sane world.

McCain's other big moment was doing that fierce combination of demonic botox smirk and lingering-war-injury shrug while pointing at Obama and calling him "that one" as if he were your grandmother saying "Guess who broke somebody's lamp today?" "Why who, Grammie?" "That one." "Waaahhh!!!"

Some people have claimed this was racist. Eh, not really. He didn't exactly call him "boy" or "uppity". It was just garden-variety condescension. Bad enough, and the one sound bite that people will remember most from this event.

Overall, Obama again showed himself to be calm, collected, knowledgable and, yes, presidential. McCain again showed himself to be a cranky, petulant, impatient old man who should be put out to pasture before he does even more damage to his once-proud reputation. Oh, and he said "my friends" so often that it started to sound like "you ignorant shitbags".

This was supposed to be McC's best format. Of course, foreign policy was supposed to be his best subject. If this is the best he's got, we don't need to see any more. Time to stick a fork in him.

The Sad Lunatic Ravings of a Desperate Man

Wow. The McCain campaign is degenerating even more rapidly than we expected.

Read this account of a speech the old fart gave today.

These people are officially out of ideas. I know, I know. They never really had any in the first place. But now that the economy has spiraled out of control (a tragedy but, politically, a plus for Dems) and no one seems to give a rat's petoot about McC's war record or his "maverick" pick of that other "maverick", whose maverickiness seems to consist of not following that herd that, you know, knows stuff about stuff, these guys are left with ad hominem attacks on Obama.

What's really sad about this is how baldly it smacks of desperation. McCain, who used to be civil and respectable, has become an old-fashioned Washington mudslinger. It doesn't suit him. It made him look bad in the first debate and it's making him look bad now.

What's that, John? Obama's inexperienced? Is that supposed to be news? What's that? He hangs out with terrorists? We went over this in the primary. It didn't fly then. How the hell is it supposed to fly now?

And get a load of this.

“Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis,’’ he said. “I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed."

This is classic projection. Does he even know how hypocritical this sounds? Case in point: he goes on to say this.

“Today the Dow has fallen below 10,000,’’ he said. “And yet, members of his own party said they felt no pressure to vote for the bill. Why didn’t Senator Obama work to pass this bill from the start? Why did he let it fail and drag out this crisis for a full week before doing a thing to help pass it?’’

Wow, do I even have to point out whose party stonewalled this thing and who couldn't get them to pass it for the life of him? And his pledge not to debate or campaign until there was a resolution? Remember that?

McCain has jumped the shark. This is entirely unpresidential behavior. And it's only going to hurt him. His only hope is that this deflects attention from any actual issues. Because he's getting his ass whooped on substance.

Round 2: Tag Team

I didn't really catch much of the latter half of the VP debate last night. I was totally cocked off my ass from drinking every time Sarah Palin used the word "maverick". By 45 minutes in I was reduced to taking my pants off and French kissing my TV screen while screaming "Kiss me, you hot sexy veeper, you! SLLUUUUUUURRPP!" And then Joe Biden finished his response.

D'oh!

Well, this was about what I expected. Palin, of course, didn't display the awkward pauses and idiotic non-answers that we saw in her interviews with Katie Couric and, to a lesser extent, Charles Gibson. Instead she displayed awkward attacks and well-scripted non-answers delivered with a wink and a smile and a "you betcha". Oh, and a whole pile of lies.

Of course, she couldn't come up with any fresh lies. She just had the ones from her note cards, which she consulted furiously during Biden's turns and even during her own. Whenever a buzzword was mentioned by Biden or moderator Gwen Ifill, the light in her head went on and she grabbed the note card with that canned response on it, regardless of whether it was really appropriate to the question or whether she had already used it.

She certainly showed that she was capable of talking, as long as she had something rehearsed. And she is undeniably charming. And forceful, when she has the aforementioned rehearsed statements. If I had watched this debate and I didn't speak English, I would have given it to her hands-down. Unfortunately for Mrs. P, I (and the rest of America) do speak English. And, call me crazy, I care about content. Her "responses" were utterly free of substance. It was, as The Idiot and his fellow Texans would say, all hat and no cattle.

Seriously, I expected overuse of "maverick" but even I was stupefied by just how many times she said it. And here's something you may not have known: she's from the middle class and she's a Washington "outsider". And, get this, a MOM! Wow! I can so relate to her! Okay, so what else ya got? Nothing? Okay. I can so relate to her!

She spoke, at least at first, entirely to the camera, which I found almost as disconcerting as McCain talking exclusively to Jim Lehrer. Mix it up, girl. (Obama did and it was effective.) And the winking? WTF? Who does she think she's talking to? Is she promising us a little roll in the hay or something? I do not care to be flirted with by my (vice-)presidential candidates, or any other candidates. There are plenty of people on the internet that are hotter than her that will be happy to wink at me. And some of them are smarter than her too. Possibly most.

If I were looking for someone for a local newscast, she's my gal. She looks good on camera and can read a cue card like nobody's business. But as a politician and potential leader? She's still a complete joke. And not a funny one. This debate, although better than her interviews, only confirmed this. There was still no actual substance there, no matter how well she sold it.

Oh, guess what? There was someone else at the debate. It's true! Joe Biden was there. Yeah, and they even let him speak. And damn, he was pretty good. A bit lumpy in the first half but he was strong, coherent, knowledgeable, and he actually responded to the questions with stuff he knew about, not just stuff from his note cards. (He did have note cards; they all do. But he can go off of them, which is unsurprisingly useful in a debate.)

He didn't say anything stupid. He's a very smart guy but sometimes he lets his mouth run off. Not tonight. I liked him more after watching this. And trusted him more to run the country, if need be. Which is good.

I was encouraged by the post-debate polls. It appears that most people considered Biden the winner. I didn't expect this. Eight years ago, I couldn't wait for America to see The Idiot in the debates against Al Gore. "Great," thought I, "they'll see what a dipshit this guy is and his numbers will crater." Gore mopped up the floor with him in the debate (on substance, anyway, and truthfulness). Then afterward everyone said the debate was a tie or even that W. had won. I knew that we, as a nation, were in deep deep shit at that moment. (Little did I know just how deep, and how wide, it would get. But that's another story.)

I fully expected the same this time around. "I like her" would trump "She has nothing to say." If we had really learned our lesson, McPain would be getting slaughtered in the polls already. And they're not. But it seems that, although we are slow learners, we are getting it bit by bit.

Keep going, America. You can make it.

Palin Bingo

Why just watch the debates and scream at the television? Have some fun by printing out these custom Palin Bingo cards.

If that's not enough for you, you can always fall back on the standard drinking games. I plan to get completely sloshed by drinking every time she says "maverick".

And the Misses Just Keep on Comin'

So, Ms. P is well-informed. It's very impressive. Here's what she had to say to Katie Couric about how she stays so informed.

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

Geez. She couldn't have just tossed out the name of one major American newspaper? (I know, I know. She doesn't know any.) And does anyone really ask her how she can stay informed way up there in Alaska? We do have the internet now. Or maybe she doesn't.

So, she can't name a single newspaper (although she reads all of them), she can't name a single actual policy that John McCain promoted ("I'll get 'em for ya!") and, rumor has it, more Couric interview nuggets are going to be available today showing that she can't name a single Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade.

How can this get worse? As noted in comments, I'm not expecting a major disaster in Thursday's debate with Joe Biden. But I'm having a hard time figuring how she's going to have anything remotely intelligent to say after watching these interviews. She was supposed to be prepared for them too.