If Sheriff Taylor says it, it must be true

I watch this video and I think to myself...Boy, I'm ready for this election to be over.

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

If you're one of the millions of Americans who couldn't manage to decide who to vote for until you heard from a couple of iconic fictional characters - you're welcome.

New Roy Carter ad

Check out Roy Carter's latest ad, which highlight's Rep. Virginia Foxx's dismal track record on supporting military families and veterans:



When I'm talking about why I vote for this candidate and not that one, I try not to get personal. But when it comes to Rep. Foxx I just can't help it. I don't know what she's been up to in Washington all this time, but apparently representing the people of the 5th District isn't on her to-do list. She'd rather suck up to President Bush than respond to requests from her constituents - which is, you know, her job.

On a related note, back in September my family and I went to see Kay Hagan speak at the local VFW hall with former Senator and Vietnam vet Max Cleland, who's a personal hero of my step-father's. As long as I live, I will never forget hearing veteran after veteran - some of them in their 80s - tell horror stories about writing Senator Elizabeth Dole's office for help navigating the VA, and not getting so much as a form letter in reply. As the daughter of a combat veteran, this seriously pisses me off. And yet it's Dole, Foxx and others who want you to believe that they're the ones who have our military's best interests at heart.

When we send someone to Congress, it's that person's job to be our voice in Washington. Not just on legislation, but on what they call "constituent services" - everything from service academy appointments to tours of the Capitol. Foxx hasn't done her job. Neither has Dole. We can do better.

How anti-reproductive choice laws hurt ALL women

In response to several state ballot initiatives that would restrict reproductive freedom, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women have put together this video with the stories of real women - many of them profoundly anti-abortion - whose rights and health were jeopardized by similar laws.



Laws that "protect" a fetus from the moment of conception on may sound good, but they're short-sighted and have no basis in reality. How exactly is a law that would send a woman to prison for having a miscarriage "pro-life"?

Today the Winston-Salem Journal endorsed Senator McCain for president, in part because McCain's philosophy frowns on government intrusion into people's private affairs. Um...? What could be more personal than conceiving, bearing and having a child? Yet it's the conservative lawmakers like McCain who are leading the charge to put hospitals, anti-choice groups, some random guy in Congress - anyone other than the mother herself - in charge of her health. Or, as McCain put it, "health."

I'll say it until I'm blue in the face - reproductive freedom is about so much more than abortion. Laws that supposedly protect children have been used to strip childbearing women of their most basic rights and even their lives, and they will be used that way again. As I wrote in my letter to the Journal this morning, is it crazy to think that women deserve at least a portion of the autonomy McCain would grant to, say, oil company executives? I think we're capable enough to handle ourselves, personally.

"Godless"

I was just defending Senator Elizabeth Dole the other day, comparing her favorably to her predecessor Jesse Helms. I said that I could never imagine Dole using the kind of sleazy campaign tactics for which Helms was famous.

I guess I was wrong.

In her latest ad, Dole tries to tie her opponent, state senator Kay Hagan, to a group that advocates for the rights of athiests and agnostics. The ad goes as far as having a Hagan sound-alike saying "There is no God" at the end. I saw it fot the first time last night, and I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn't believe that anyone would stoop quite that low - first of all, vastly overinflating the role of this group in the fundraiser in question (Obama-Ayers style), but, even MORE disturbingly, suggesting somehow that people who don't believe in God are unAmerican. Look, I think they're wrong and are seriously missing out, but they have civil rights, too. (There's that pesky First Amendment again!)

Dole should be ashamed of herself. And she shouldn't ever get to call herself a Christian again, at least not with a straight face.

That all-important Village People endorsement

Is anyone more than a little annoyed at all this "Joe the Plumber" crap? I'm not talking about the man himself - Mr. Wurzelbacher can ride his 15 minutes of fame as far as it will take him, and that's the American way. (Memo to those of you who live in the future Rep. Wurzelbacher's district...Really?) I'm talking about McCain/Palin's incessant compulsion to identify voters by their professions.

First, there was Joe the Plumber. Today, Palin appeared again with someone named Tito the Builder. Who's next, Marco the Pre-Op Tranny Hustler? What, is McCain running for the mayor of Busytown?

By dragging these apparently hard-working Americans out on the campaign trail with them, McCain/Palin imply that their administration would be better for working people. Which is total BS, but most of us know that. At first the whole Joe thing was amusing - watching McCain attempt to channel Bill Clinton by mentioning Joe 47 million times during the last debate. But now it's just weird, and kind of creepy. Every time one of them call Obama a socialist, I want to say, "Oh yeah? At least he's not reducing people to their method of earning a paycheck."

And another thing. I'm sure Obama/Biden would just love to break me out in the middle o f a campaign rally. ("And here with me is Sara the Associatedirectorofcommunicationsandmarketingslasheditorial...") But they can't. Do you know why I can't run off to a political appearance in the middle of the day? Because I have a job. I'm at work, motherf*ckers. Hear, that, Joe and Tito? Just because I sit in an office all day instead of picking at my plumber's crack doesn't mean I'm less "American" than you, it doesn't mean my opinions matter less than yours and sure as hell doesn't mean that I contribute less to this country and its economy than you. If your job is such a massive part of your identity, than maybe you should get your ass off that podium and go the f*ck back to it. Sheesh.

In the meantime, I think McCain needs to get a new campaign song...

UPDATE: Joe the Plumber can see a synagogue from his house!

Everywhere the signs

More about stolen campaign yard signs...the newspaper in Southern Pines reports that Obama-Biden signs are more likely to be stolen, while one area of Wisconsin has seen more targeting of McCain-Palin signs. Either way, it's sad, and in my opinion is the logical result of this bullying, hyper-partisan campaigning style that we've seen for years now.

Yesterday one of my Facebook friends mentioned on a thread that "they" come through one particular neighborhood here in Winston-Salem about once a week and clear out all the Obama signs. The signs are promptly replaced. That got me thinking...Obama headquarters here sells those yard signs for $5 each. I don't know how many they've distributed total, but I know they did sell out of almost 5,000 in a little over a week earlier in October.

At $5 each, that's $25,000 raised just from signs - not counting bumper sticker or button sales, or other donations - from one field office. And that's just in one week. Imagine how many yard signs they've sold over the course of the whole campaign. So, the next time you read about Obama raising $150 million in one month, thank your friendly local Obama hater for all his or her hard work.

(Stealing signs is also counterproductive in that the quickest way to motivate a liberal is to piss him/her off. And then there's that whole First Amendment thing.)

What Sarah Palin means for feminists (really)

A few years ago, feminist scholar bell hooks spoke at my alma mater. In the afternoon, several hours before her public speech, hooks did a more casual Q&A with students. Inevitably, the issue came up – isn’t it shameful that our country has never had a female president, and shouldn’t putting a vagina in the White House be the top priority of every good feminist?

To paraphrase hooks’ response: Um, no, not really. She mentioned a few women that she personally would actively work against, should they ever run, including Secretary of State Condi Rice. hooks’ point was this: the assumption that any woman is inherently better for human rights than any man is grossly sexist.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that little exchange lately, as I’ve been watching the commentary from many right wing TV analysts and bloggers following Sen. McCain’s selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The consensus seems to be that Palin’s nomination has rocked American feminists. The Washington Post reiterated it today. She supports a ticket that’s profoundly in opposition to our political goals, but…She’s a woman! Must…have…woman…president…My little woman-brain’s circuits are overloaded!

Except that…um, no, not really. Most feminists over the age of 12 managed to work past the reductive “vagina=GOOD” logic quite some time ago. But that didn’t stop the pundits from setting up straw (wo)men left and right, asking how feminists who push for the advancement of women could possibly not support a woman candidate. (I’ve already answered that question. Not supporting fair pay legislation and casting rape as a second-class crime might have a little something to do with it...)

We’ve heard a lot of talk about how Palin’s candidacy has forced progressives to challenge certain assumptions. But I don’t think there’s been enough said about how her very existence forces conservatives to re-evaluate their own dogma.

What if I told you that there was a family where the wife/mom had a high-powered, demanding job, and she wasn’t depicted as a ball-busting shrew? What if I told you that her husband managed to be both a super-masculine athlete with a blue-collar job and a loving father engaged in the raising of his children? What if I told you that this decent, apparently deeply religious family wasn’t immune to things like domestic abuse or premarital sex?

It’s interesting to me that conservatives in this country have, for at least a generation now, been holding up this Eisenhower-era “Donna Reed” fantasy of what the world should be like, only to now line up behind a woman whose family shatters most of those stereotypes. (One hopes that her politics will catch up…) It’s the same with McCain – adulterer, divorcee – and yet he somehow miraculously manages to be a person and a leader with integrity.

Understand that none of this will stop the Limbaughs of the world from spewing their BS about “family values” – as if they had any themselves – but it means they’ve been defanged. It’s a small sign to me that the wind is shifting. They'll never be able to spout that "a woman's place is in the home" crap ever again, at least not with a straight face.

I wouldn’t expect the aforementioned pundits to know this, but feminists are actually pretty comfortable with the Palins as people. (Again, politics are a whole ‘nother thing.) They seem like they’re a tight, loving family, who embody the long-held feminist position that in a post-patriarchal society families will have the freedom to do whatever’s best for them. (I think bell hooks wrote a book about it…) If someone here feels threatened by the Palins and what they represent, I can assure you – it isn’t the feminists.

Robin Hayes: Asshat (and other observations)

The closer we get to the election, the more desperate and stupid some people get, and the more impatient I get with their desperation and stupidity. First, it was Gov. Sarah Palin campaigning in Greensboro last week, saying how much she enjoyed visiting the "pro-America" parts of the country (which is pretty frakking hilarious considering that Greensboro is one of the few reliably Democrat-voting areas in the state). Then some idiot Stepford Congressperson from Minnesota tells Chris Matthews on national TV that she thinks someone should have a full-scale investigation of every member of Congress to see which of them are "anti-American."

Then, Rep. Robin Hayes (NC-8), when opening for a McCain rally a few days ago, says that liberals "hate real Americans." (You can donate to the campaign of his opponent, Larry Kissell, here. I just did.)

What bothers me most isn't the blatant hate speech and demonizing of one's opponent - the antithesis of this mythic "reaching across the aisle" stuff that's supposed to be McCain's specialty. What bothers me is that not a single one of these frakking asshats are willing to articulate what any of it means - "pro-America," "anti-America" and my personal favorite, "real Americans." It's the use of a code the type of which has always been deeply dangerous in our country's history. Using such incredibly damaging language to win an election, of all things, is just obscene.

Gov. Palin had the grace to apologize for her comment. Rep. Hayes doesn't seem to understand the problem. Though the "progressive = unAmerican" BS has still got to go, I'm glad to see Palin apparently distance herself from the blatant racist-coded language that her campaign's been rolling out lately.

Speaking of racism...In his appearance on "Meet the Press" Sunday, Colin Powell beautifully laid out the reasons he decided to support Barack Obama over John McCain. He specifically mentioned the apparent drift of his party toward exclusivity - concepts like "real" Americans - as a reason he's not voting for McCain/Palin. I expected to hear Rush Limbaugh break out the "all black people stick together" line, but it was downright disappointing to hear George Will go there.

The irony escaped them - Limbaugh, Will, et al, in dismissing Powell's decision-making process an chalking his support up to racial loyalty, only proved his point that the conservative movement in this country has become obsessed with divisive identity. Powell is no longer a war hero, former head of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State. He's just another black man who put race above country, according to them. So, one question.........If you had a moderate Democrat, who votes with the other Congressional Democrats on most issues, but yet he actively supports the Republican presidential candidate - even going as far as to speak at the Republican convention - and by coincidence the two men share the same race? By Limbaugh's logic, Joe Lieberman is a bleeding racist, too.

I have a wonderful idea. Let's talk about ideas, voting records, judgment and leadership qualities. Let's agree to give two purple shits about the color of someone's skin, because by 2008 we should've learned by now that skin color has about as much effect on someone's personality as eye colors. And most importantly, can we PLEASE stop throwing around words like "anti-American" or "fascist" or "Nazi" as if they don't have real meanings. It's not going to help us solve our problems.

Flashback! Fun with deficits

It really is fun, I promise! OK, so in my last post I referred to something I wrote on my old blog about how, in modern times, Democratic presidential administrations have actually been more fiscally responsible than Republican ones. Found it! [Here's hoping the links still work...]

...There's this myth that the Republican administrations are better with money than the Democratic ones. Interesting, because the breakdown of budget revenues, debts and surpluses going back to 1962 would appear to show otherwise...you can download it from the Congressional Budget Office here.

If you're not into long columns of numbers, there's always the summary of historical trends in the "Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government (Fiscal Year 2007)." You can download the whole 329-page document, but here's my favorite part:"The traditional pattern of running large deficits deficits only in times of war or economic downturns was broken during much of the 1980s. In 1982, partly in response to a recession, large tax cuts were enacted. However, these were accompanied by substantial increases in defense spending. Although reductions were made to nondefense spending, they were not sufficient to offset the impact on the deficit. As a result, deficits averaging $206 billion were incurred between 1983 and 1992. These unprecedented peacetime deficits increased debt held by the public from $789 billion in 1981 to $3.0 trillion (48.1% of GDP) in 1992.

After peaking at $290 billion in 1992, deficits declined each year, dropping to a level of $22 billion in 1997. In 1998, the Nation recorded its first budget surplus ($69.3 billion) since 1969. As a percent of GDP, the budget bottom line went from a deficit of 4.7% in 1992 to a surplus of 0.8% in 1998, increasing to a 2.4% surplus in 2000. An economic slowdown began in 2001 and was exacerbated by the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001. The deterioration in the performance of the economy together with income tax relief provided to help offset the economic slowdown and additional spending in response to the terrorist attacks produced a drop in the surplus to $128.2 billion (1.3% of GDP) and a return to deficits ($157.8 billion, 1.5% of GDP) in 2002. These factors also contributed to the increase in the deficit in the following two years to $413 billion and 3.6% of GDP in 2004, falling to $318 billion and 2.6% of GDP in 2005. Debt held by the public, which peaked at 49.4% of GDP in 1993, fell to 33.0% in 2001 and increased to 37.4% in 2005." (www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/pdf/hist.pdf)

Then there's a more partisan interpretation here, which is pretty succint. Interesting how it dovetails with the government's own analysis.

Food for thought

Imagine if you'd invested $10,000 in the stock market during the 40 years that Republicans have been in the White House since the Great Depression. Now invest the same $10,000 in the 40 years that we've had a Democrat president. Which party's leadership gives you a better return?

*Sara laughs like a maniac, screaming "I told you so!!!"*

Of course, this study just looks at presidents, not which party controlled Congress. But it's still interesting for those of us who are really sick and tired of hearing about how Democrats will screw the economy, despite all factual evidence to the contrary.

On my old blog, I did a post about federal budgets, overruns and surpluses during different presidencies, with the same results - Democrats have historically been better at managing money than Republicans. (I'll try and find it for you...)

Stop the insanity!

People, people, people. In the immortal words of John McCain, my friends. Maybe we're all just a little frazzled by the extraordinary length of this presidential campaign and its importance. That's understandable. But I feel like things are getting ugly, and sadly, they really don't have to.

A week ago, Senator McCain's campaign indicated that they were taking the gloves off, which apparently means attacking Barack Obama's so-called "associations." At McCain/Palin rallies this week, we've seen people screaming "kill him!" (referring to Obama). Obama HQ here in Winston-Salem advises people to take their yard signs in at night, because so many of them are being stolen or defaced. At least in this area, there have been reports of McCain signs going missing, too. Today when Gov. Palin appeared at a Philadelphia Flyers game, fans booed her and her daughters, despite a scoreboard message urging them to "show Philadelphia's class" (well there's your mistake, right there). Yesterday, when McCain said nice things about Obama, his own fans booed him. Obama returned the favor to McCain, and - you guessed it - booed.

I can't help but see this as the inevitable product of an election process that puts so much emphasis on personalities, rather than policy ideas. At one time I felt really optimistic about this campaign, both because of the mood of the country that's sick and tired of partisan BS and because of the people we nominated, who I believed would be above playing to the worst instincts of their supporters.

The thing is, on Nov. 5 we're all going to have to work together to find the best solutions for our country. We don't have the luxury anymore of dismissing ideas because we don't like the person who proposed them. Get OVER it.

But I do feel better having volunteered this evening at the Democratic Party's booth at the Dixie Classic Fair. Sure, it felt good to sell out of Obama buttons and tell hundreds of people about early voting. But it also felt good to joke good-naturedly with the folks around the corner at the Republican booth, and down the aisle at the Libertarian Party booth. Apparently we here on the ground are a little more mature than some of our leaders.

(Except for the yard sign-stealing people. Let me introduce you to my good friend, the First Amendment.)

(Oh yeah, one more thing. My aunt's a Secret Service agent. Say one thing to my face that I think is remotely threatening to Obama and I'll put your ass on every mf-ing watch list on the planet.)

I'm Mortified, Horrified and all that.

Fox News: being 44-year-old woman is "mortifying." And the governor of Alaska is a supermodel, and should be treated as such.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YInuTc3C3jM

I say again...

Live Presidential Text Dialogue: Mom Edition

‘Cause my Mom’s just this cool…

In response to a question about bipartisanship, McCain cites his hero Ronald Reagan, who worked with Democrat Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill to “fix” Social Security.
Mom: If Reagan and tip fixed ss then why r we still screwed?
Me: I like the hoover shout-out myself.

Mom: Drinking on “my friends.” Hic!
Me: i was thinking the same thing! He’s making me think of that red hot chili peppers song that i hate…

Mom: BTW keith olbermann tonight: mcliar voted for the 3million $ bear dna earmark he invoked in the last debate

Me: is he going for the jewish vote with all the anti-pork?
Mom: lmao

Mom: Wasn’t the online records thing either hillary or obama’s idea first? And is it just me or does mcpain look really, REALLY old?

McCain outlines his plan to deregulate health care shopping so you can buy a policy from a company in another state if you want. Sounds great on paper, but it’s already hard enough to find a local doctor who accepts every insurance in our own state, let alone having to deal with companies in the other 49…And Obama counters that insurance companies will just gravitate to states with lax regulations, like banks did. Does anyone want our health care system to someday do what our banking industry’s been doing lately?
Me: I’m wondering how much the out-of-state thing will cost my doctor…
Mom: Yeah, that ‘across state lines’ thing is where they started with the banking industry.
Obama specifically names Delaware as a veritable Dodge City for bankers. The same Delaware that Joe Biden’s from. The Joe Biden whose son works for one of those banks. Um.
Me: Obama needs to lay off Delaware though. HELLO, Biden!
Mom: True that.

McCain says that Russia’s coming for the Ukraine. I’m confused, because his running mate assured us that “As Putin rears his head,” he’d have another target in mind.
Me: Ukraine??? i thought it was alaska…
Mom: All I know is I can see it from my house

Brokaw asks if Russia is evil, and McCain gives a refreshingly un-Bushlike answer.
Mom: Whoa---nuance from mcsoundbite!
Me: I know, right? who knew?

McCain: I know what it's like in dark times. I know what it's like to have to fight to keep one's hope going through difficult times. I know what it's like to rely on others for support and courage and love in tough times.
Mom: Like the love and support of his wife Carol?
Me: Carol? What Carol? There is no Carol. You will be submitted for reeducation.
Mom: Not when I move to mexico

Me: pop quiz. What’s mccain’s fave 60s tv series? Hint: james garner.

Mom: According to mudflats blog he said my friends 12 times. Felt like more. Andrew Sullivan says Obama mauled mcgrumpy.

Mom: Chris Matthews just said mcgrumpy used ‘my friends’ 22 times last night. I thought mudflats count was too low –the drinkin’ game musta got ouuta hand up there

Read the full debate transcript here.

I have a lot to say about tonight's second presidential debate, but first I wanted to get this in.

I keep reading polls that indicate Republican Pat McCrory is pulling Democrat and Independent voters away from Democrat Lt. Gov Bev Perdue in the governor's race. I don't know if that's true, but just in case anyone thinks McCrory will be a moderate, "maverick" centrist governor, I think it's worth pointing out that today he appeared in Greenville with the person who thinks Vladimir Putin is all ready to jump Alaska.

In other Charlotte-related news, the CEO of Bank of America endorsed Barack Obama yesterday.

I'm going straight to Hell

You've got to love the Pavlovian instincts of the crowds at Sarah Palin's recent speeches. So, the other day when she (mis)quoted from a New York Times article about Barack Obama's tenuous ties to Weatherman founder Bill Ayers, the crowd reaction went something like this:

"New York Times! Elite liberal media, boo! Rubish, filth, slime, muck! Boo! Booooo! BOOOOOO! Oh, wait, they said something bad about Obama.....Yay! New York Times! Woo-hoo!"

The same kind of thing happened today when Palin (mis)quoted former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, telling a crowd in California that "there's a special place in hell for women who don't support other women." Aside from more reflexive booing ("Clinton appointee! Boo! Oh, wait..."), I have to wonder...is Palin stupid, or does she just think we are?

Now, for the record, I don't think Palin is stupid. Like her references to Hillary Clinton the day she was announced as John McCain's running mate, I think this was yet another calculated attempt to tie her candidacy to the feminists who've done the real work of advancing women, despite the people like Palin's running mate and many of his supporters, who've done everything they can to undermine that work. It's a cheap way for conservatives to pretend that they're feminists without the inconvenience of having to support anything that's good for women.

Unfortunately, what Albright actually said was "help" women, not "support." And I find it hard to believe that the first woman Secretary of State would ever advise anyone to cast a knee-jerk vote for someone based solely on that person's gender. As I said many times earlier this year when explaining why I wasn't voting for Clinton, voting for someone just because she's a woman is just as sexist as not voting for her because she's a woman. Whether you want to "help," "support" or both, I'd urge you to remember one thing: one of our future vice presidents wrote the Violence Against Women Act; the other one thought that taxpayers shouldn't have to have the "burden" of collecting evidence in crimes against women. Just sayin'.

And I have to say that Palin's anti-intellectualism is really starting to piss me off. She read the Albright quote on the side of a Starbucks cup? Really? God forbid she had read it in, I dunno, a newspaper or something. And I'm sorry, I grew up in a small, rural town, too. My parents couldn't afford to send me traveling all over the world, either. But I still manage to learn things about other places, people and their points of view. Just because you're "Joe Sixpack" doesn't mean you have an excuse to be unengaged.

What you do when you have nothing real to offer

In an interview this week, Senator John McCain's campaign indicated that they would "have to get a little tougher" on Senator Barack Obama in response to Obama's recent gains in several state polls. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here." "The subject" being the sh*tty economy and how to fix it, energy policy and foreign policy, or anything else that voters actually care about. So here we have McCain's people admitting that their policy ideas are out of the mainstream, so they're just going to have to rely on pure distraction to win at this point. Right.

So in the coming weeks, get ready to hear a lot about someone named William Ayers, who founded the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground back when our parents were still in middle school. Yes, I called them terrorists. As much as I agree with WU's founding position that American strategies in Vietnam were wrong, there's no arguing with the fact that they killed people. I don't care how noble your cause, the moment you rig a bomb or shoot a cop, you're dead to me. Okay, do we have that clear now? Good.

Okay, so Ayers gets off on procedural technicalities in 1970-something, gets his Ph.D. and starts teaching college in Chicago. Twenty-odd years later, he's brought in to consult with a group that's reforming Chicago's public schools - a group which happens to include an ambitious local attorney named Barack Obama. Though their paths cross publicly from time to time, the two meet "sporadically," to quote an article in today's New York Times. At no point does Ayers ever advise Obama or work for any of his campaigns.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, is already at it, telling a fund-raiser in Colorado that Obama "is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," no doubt reading off her color-coded cheat cards.

This is horsesh*t on about 15 different levels. Haven't we heard (until our ears are ready to bleed) how McCain and Palin are these mythic "mavericks" with a track record of "reaching across the aisle" to people who are on the other side of that aisle because they disagree with you in order to find solutions? But when Obama so much as meets a few times in several years to talk about education with - get this now - an education professor - oh, my hell, he obviously wants to blow up the damn Pentagon. *LOUD NOISES*

And does anyone else call mild BS on the fact that Palin quoted from the Times article in criticizing Obama? Yes, I do believe that would be the same NY Times that McCain/Palin have been ripping for some time as a "house organ" for the Democrats - but now all of a sudden they're cool? (I'm so f*cking tired of these people. Are they stupid, or do they just think we are?) By the way, the Times wrote: "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.' " Doggone it, my friends, there you go again, with your poor reading comprehension skills. *wink*

From the beginning, this has smelled like a gang of operatives combing through Obama's press clippings to find anyone remotely controversial. I mean seriously? The guy that he met that one time at that thing? Really? I gotta tell you, I meet a lot of people at a lot of things, and I don't usually vet them too seriously. Nor do they vet me. (Please, oh please, let one of my right-wing friends run for president someday and get reverse swift-boated just 'cause they met me that one time!)

The McCain campaign thinks this is a viable strategy. I guess since their only other options are taxing our automatic employee benefits and winking, they don't have much else to go on. I think we're smarter than that. I think we're more concerned about what the prospective presidents will do tomorrow than what people they barely know did 40 years ago. But you know, I'm just Sara Sixpack out here in small-town America, watching football and trying to get a good interest rate. "Weather Underground" is the Web site I visit to check the forecast every day. And that's it.

I have no words.

I really hope this is like that episode of "The West Wing," when a candidate pretended to be clueless and uninformed, just so he would look better in an upcoming debate. Because, honestly, I refuse to believe that a candidate for the vice presidency of the United States can't name a single Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade.

Of course, she couldn't name any newspaper that she read, either.

The McCain campaign made a brilliant political move choosing Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, so I don't understand how they could botch Palin's public roll-out so royally. When you keep someone totally cloistered from a press that is starved for information about her (if for no other reason than to sell newspapers), then you risk having too much attention focused on every interview. If the campaign had Palin doing interviews five times a day, this would've been news for 30 seconds.

Nice of you to stop by...

I haven't had much to say about the N.C. governor's race, but this caught my eye. In his ubiquitous TV ads, Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory is fond of repeating the slogan "The difference is leadership." The ads have always bugged me because (among other reasons), McCrory never says what he thinks "leadership" is.

From what I can tell, a graduate of the Pat McCrory Leadership Academy knows how to make the hard choices. "Huh. My city's been out of gas for two weeks and one of our largest employers just sold itself like a consumptive chick in a Verdi opera. Maybe I should put down the barbecue and go the f*ck home."

Sure, you can't control natural disasters like hurricanes and idiot bankers. But what you can do is at least pretend that you understand and care about what the people you represent are going through. As lieutenant governor, McCrory's opponent Bev Perdue has had to clean up after hurricanes on a fairly regular basis. (There may or may not have been barbecue involved.) Seriously, what's up with these Republicans who can't walk and chew gum at the same time? That's supposed to be leadership?

Faux Hawks

Remember that episode of Soth Park when the kids went to Mel Gibson's house to get a refund for "The Passion of Christ," and found Gibson to be a freaky torture fetishist who literally chased them down, begging them to poke fiery metal pointy things into his body? Pay close attention. See? That's so totally Fox News.

Fox News, and the conservatives who love them, have taken this whole "the liberal media is OUT TO GET US!!!" paranoia to a whole new extreme. They're feeding off the over-the-top feigned outrage that's become the normal defensive response during this presidential campaign. Now, paranoia can be convincing if there's a grain of truth to it. But by searching out things over which to melt down, Fox & Co. are starting to look like the proverbial boy who cried wolf.

This, for instance, just made me laugh out loud. PBS's Gwen Ifill, who will moderate the VP debate on Thursday, has written a book. That book contains the line, "the black political structure of the civil rights movement has cleared the way for post-racial politicians to ascend to new heights." Fox sees something incredibly threatening in this factual observation, and proceeds to flip the hell out.

Now, Ifill may be the most middle-of-the-road reporter in the blandest news organization in the country. There's a reason you don't see her often on prime time, or scoring big bucks on the lecture circuit - she's not the partisan analyst that cable news loves. She's the furthest thing possible from an Olbermann, a Matthews or an O'Reilly. Gwen frakking Ifill? You're attacking Gwen frakking Ifill???

To me, this looks like a preemptive strike to go ahead and paint Ifill as biased toward the Democrats, so that if Gov. Sarah Palin does poorly in the debate, there's already a built-in scapegoat. It's Fox's bad luck that the person they sought to demonize is - I don't know if I mentioned this already - Gwen frakking Ifill. That dog just won't hunt.

And I'm getting pretty aggravated at the conservatives' war on the media. I'm as critical of the corporate press as anyone, but please spare me this "liberal media bias" bullsh*t. The press has one bias, and one bias only: the "what will get us the most readers/highest ratings?" bias. Never in modern times as an administration gotten such a free pass from the press, and they've had such man-love for John McCain it's not even funny (until he kicked them off his bus over the summer, that is). And we can please stop saying "in the tank?" What, was that the phrase of the week in your right-wing propganda memo?

UPDATE: Here's the full version. Can't you just see O'Reilly chasing Obama down in a bus?