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.

Michelle Obama Wants to Eat Your Children

Oh my god. This is scary. We simply cannot let this woman into the White House. Mrs. O was the subject of a NYT profile today, and in it she showed her true colors. This is what she said at a recent rally.

“So many precious little babies like that one!” she said after noticing one infant near the stage. “Just completely delicious!”

Aaaaaauuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhh!

First terrorist fist jabs, then socialism, and now cannibalism?

The article continues:

Then Mrs. Obama leapt into the crowd, snatched two babies from their mothers, dashed their heads together and slurped out the contents. Crowd reaction was surprisingly mixed.

I'm not letting my kids anywhere near this fiend.

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.

Your Baby Doesn't Love You Anymore

That's right, Roy. It's over.

Well, the Sox came up a bit short last night. They had their chances, most notably in the 8th inning, when Joe Maddon used 5 pitchers to get 3 outs and the Sox left 3 men on base with 0 runs scored. The 9th seemed like an afterthought with the bottom of the Sox lineup batting.

Oh well. I don't feel as bad about it as I might. Maybe because we've already had some fun in the past few years and the Sox have a bunch of nice young players (and a whole lot of money) that will keep them competitive for the foreseeable future.

It's distressing how many runners they leave on base (they had the "advantage" in that department of shame 8-3 last night and left 12 on the night before, although they managed to win that one in spite of it) but the bottom line is that they just got beat by the better team. And it was kinda fun. Except for Games 3 and 4, and the first 6 1/2 innings of Game 5, which were torturous.

I almost would have felt bad for the Rays and their (newfound) fans if they blew this series after the absurd lead they chunked in Game 5. I'm not into schadenfreude. Even for Yankees fans, believe it or not. (Well, maybe a little for Yankees fans.) So the Sox' losing spared me some guilt. But I would have found a way to live with it.

The Rays, as much as I've hated to let the thought creep into my natural-order-loving brain all year, are a really good team and they earned it. Hats off to Maddon and to Matt Garza for pitching a phenomenal game.

Not sure if I'll be taking sides in the World Series. Lots of people want to see the team that beat their team lose to feel some kind of revenge. I've always been more of the opinion that you want that team to go all the way. That way you can say "Well, our guys lost to the champs. It may as well have been the finals."

Unless it's the Yankees, of course.

They're Alive!

Holy shit!

Saying that the Sox snatched victory from the jaws of defeat last night does not do the game justice. They were just 7 outs away from elimination and losing 7-0. They had been outscored 29-5 at home in over 2-24/27 games. They had nothing going for them. Nothing. A rerun of the utter shame of the previous two games. At this point they were just trying to avoid being shut out at home in the playoffs for the first time in 90 years and get ready to tip their hats to the Rays, who, credit where it's due, have been outstanding.

Then Dustin Pedroia knocked in a run with a single. Yippee. One fewer point of shame in this game. But, then...

Big Papi, 1 for 16 in the series and more accurately referred to as Big Poopi, went kablammo to make it 7-4. Huh? Do not do this to us, Sox. Do not. Do not get our hopes up.

Next inning, J.D. Drew knocks a two-run shot over the right-field fence to make it 7-6. At this point, we somehow knew that this was going to happen, even though they were still down and now only 4 outs from elimination.

Coco Crisp had one of the best at-bats I've ever seen (10 pitches!) to stay alive and knock in the tying run with a base hit.

They got into the bottom of the ninth still tied, thanks to a timely double play in the top half with two runners on. And J.D Drew came through again with a line drive single to cap off the most holy-motherlovin-crap-I-can't-believe-what-I-just-saw game we're ever likely to see.

This would have been amazing if it were just a regular game. The fact that this was an elimination game and the Rays had the champagne ready and the lockers covered with plastic just sent it into the stratosphere.

I'm sure that Rays fans are now feeling like we did in 1986. But hey, they're still up 3-2 and they get to go home (not that home is all that nice, but still, home) and face Josh Beckett, who in the playoffs so far has been about as steady as an epileptic with PTSD and a few bong hits in him.

The Sox still have an enormous uphill battle. But even if they can't get there, this was freaking awesome.

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.