The Palin-drome

Why does the VP pick matter so much this time?

Surely there's something of a perfect storm surrounding John McCain's gimmicky decision to put Sarah Palin on the ticket.  There's John's advanced years, but knowing the presidency is a high risk occupation no matter who sits in the big chair (they don't assign Secret Service protection to just anyone), that seems the least of the problem.

A lot has been said about the pick reflecting on McCain's judgment, but I think that's overrated as well.  Not that it doesn't show McCain is impetuous and often acts before thinking -- it does.  But we had ample opportunity to see McCain's seat-of-the-pants decision making style without having Sarah Palin's obvious inadequacies hammering the point home.

It really comes down to this.  Palin matters, and matters in a profoundly negative way if you're a fan of either McCain or Palin, because she's so ridiculously obnoxious.

When she came out of the box, echoing Rudi 9ui11iani and slamming community organizers, she pissed a lot of folks off.  She's been pissing more and more of us off every day.

You can compare her to quite a few VP nominees who weren't perceived as ready for the job on day one.  Quayle and Agnew are obvious examples who didn't prevent their boss from getting elected.  Thomas Eagleton didn't exactly help McGovern, true.  But he didn't spend too much time on the campaign trail undermining the party's chances against a nearly unbeatable Nixon reelection machine in 1972.  In fact, Eagleton was only on the ticket a couple of weeks and was gone by August 1st. He was way down the list of reasons McGovern didn't win. 

Besides, no one ever said Eagleton didn't know how to do the job, just that his electro-shock therapy sessions and illegal prescription for Thorazine might be reason to be concerned -- you might say.

Well, you might.

Okay, he was fucking nutz, clinically so.  Dangerously so.  Probably more troublesome than Caribou Barbie -- but she's wasn't drummed out of the ticket like she should have been, like Eagleton was.

No, Sarah is not suffering from any mental health problems.  Her delusions are a deliberate result of religious fervor, rejection of the scientific method, political opportunism and the usual sociopathic narcissism endemic to most compassionate conservatives of the last few decades.  Oh, and her complete ignorance of the Constitution and founding principles of this country add to the perception that she's a complete whack-job.

But that's not the whole story.  It's a personality thing.  She's irritatingly prideful in her role as smear merchant in chief.  You can tell she delights in attaching someone with a foreign sounding name to Barack Hussein Obama, with no clue whether the guy is a bad guy or not.  It doesn't matter to her and the rump of a party she's destined to lead because they simply don't associate with people whose names don't sound like "real America."

It's obnoxious.  The whole race-baiting, anti-intellectual, hypocritical, lying bag of horse dung package is obnoxious.  It's not "mavericky" to call a 4% tax hike on the richest Americans "socialism," it's obnoxious.  When you govern the nation's largest welfare state, you got some nerve bitching about spreading the wealth.  When you're married to a guy who belongs to a political party dedicated to removing one of the states from the union, you are an obnoxious twit to presume you know which parts of the rest of the United States of America are "real" or patriotic enough to tolerate your obnoxious presence.

So as we wade through mountains of post election rationalization for why John McCain lost against the most impressive political campaign history has ever seen, bumping again and again into the Palin syndrome; just remember how obnoxious she is, how much she pisses so many people off, how many women she insults merely for being the token candidate she is -- and how few, how very few of us "other" Americans can ever imagine wanting to do beers with her.

So Sick Of This

Maybe I'm just sick of being sick since I've been dealing with a chest cold for over a week now.  Maybe it's because I already voted, so in my subconscious I know none of the remaining flourishes of the campaigns make any difference to me personally.  Maybe, no ... without a doubt John McCain, Sarah Palin, their surrogates, spokespeople, bloggers and plumbers have fried my very last nerve.

Four more days.  One long weekend and we will finally have elected Senator Obama.  In just over a hundred hours from now, the polls will begin closing and John McCain will leave us Ohio voters alone, never to return.  Seriously, the guy is like a stalker.

The good news is, if the CNN poll of polls is any indication (and who really knows), he's not making any new friends in the Buckeye State.  McCain's strategy of swamping Ohio with his presence -- chasing down every contrarian in the State who either gets some secret pleasure in confounding pollsters, or is so completely and deliberately uninformed they really should be disqualified from voting -- is just pissing off the rest of us who've made up our minds.

I hear Obama's on his way back here too, just to rub our noses in the fact that Ohio, as usual, is home to the most fickle voters on the planet.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm delighted that unlike John Kerry in 2004, the Democrats have not given up on us, but I wish Arnold Schwarzenegger would.  Of course, it's always a pleasure to welcome Bill Clinton to Toledo, but he wasn't here so much (it seems) to flush out more Obama votes as to allay our fears that Ohio could be lost and turn the scales to McCain if the polls are wrong and Obama doesn't hold on to his slight lead.

During both of his public speeches in Ohio, the former president pointed out how crucial the states's 20 electoral votes are for a Republican win on Tuesday.
"In all those elections since 1836, not a single, solitary Republican has ever been elected without carrying Ohio," he said in Toledo.
"Once in a great while, but rarely, the Democrats have eased in without carrying Ohio, but that's rare … the point is that you have this election and the future of our country in your hands."

Thanks Bill, that makes us all feel so much better.

No wonder Al Gore didn't put this guy out on the stump. If it isn't about him, and campaigning for Hillary was all about him as well, his heart just isn't in it all the way.

Helen Rocks

Just a taste.

New rules:

I will stop calling George Bush a jackass when he stops calling me a terrorist: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

I will stop calling John McCain an ass when he stops calling Barack
Obama a socialist at every dog and pony show on the Straight Talk
Express tour.

I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops calling Obama
a terrorist sympathizer.  And I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch
when she stops calling the parts of the country where I don’t live more
Pro-American than the part of the country where I do live.    And I
will definitely stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops acting
like a bitch.

Andy tells us Helen is 82 years young, lives in Texas, isn't too fond of the blond bimbo on The View either, and gives great blog.

Democratic Blowout? Why You Shouldn't Believe It

We're hearing it every day, all day: "Unnamed senior Republicans" believe that John McCain is doomed to a landslide defeat. Barack Obama will win a "massive mandate." He will be handed more political power than "any president in a generation."


And -- who knows? -- maybe some of these Republicans actually believe it. Whether or not they really believe it doesn't matter. It benefits them to talk like that anyway.

It's called "raising the bar" and you know how it works.



Say, for example, Obama's winning margin is closer than currently projected. Say that all the undecideds break for McCain and Obama wins by only 4 points instead of 7 or 8. Yeah, I know: a win is a win. But you and I know that the storyline on election night will NOT be about Obama's historic victory. It will be about the uncertainty and doubt the electorate still has about him ("He couldn't close the deal") and how it will be difficult for him to govern after the election because of this.

They never stop. You know that. They'll be proclaiming that a 4% win means Obama "underperformed." Not exactly the Wilder effect, but you get the picture.

And it isn't just about Obama. For example, what happens if Coleman beats Franken in Minnesota? That race is not a done deal yet. Or Stevens beats Begich in Alaska? The verdict in Stevens' corruption trial may not come down before the election. And what happens if Republicans win back a few hotly contested seats in the House like LA-06? After three decades Cazayoux, the Democrat, won that seat from the Republicans in a special election last summer, but it may yet flip back.

If these things happen, the story on election night will be that Obama has no coattails; that he faces an uphill fight in Congress getting his programs passed; that he's weak.

Let's be blunt: if Obama gets elected it will be a victory of epic proportions. It will signal the end of the Reagan Revolution, the end of 40 years of conservative ascendance. It will signal the end of the Bush/Cheney nightmare.

But you know as well as I do that Republicans will look for any glimmer of hope, any silver lining in the black clouds gathering over their ruin. On election night, they'll be spinning like mad because the campaign for the 2010 midterms begins the next morning. In short, they'll be pronouncing the failure of the Obama administration before he's even sworn in.

It never stops. Never.

But you can help make it go away for a while by throwing the drowning Republicans an anvil. How, you ask?

Every time you hear this is going to be an epic blowout, don't believe it. Instead, call your local Obama field office -- today, now! -- and volunteer to phone or canvas voters in your area. Visit the Obama website and donate. And if your Democratic congressman or Senator is up for re-election, volunteer and/or donate there too.

Because the last thing I want to see on election night is Mitch McConnell's ugly mug breathing a sigh of relief about how the Republicans dodged a bullet.

QOTD

Thers at Whiskey Fire:

The Corner is a porn site for the resentfully ill-educated.

Kinda like a Mecca for the bitter and stupid; those that don't know any better, don't want to know any better, refuse to "get over it," and are paradoxily happy being bitter and miserable.

I'd add several satellite sites to the Corner, you know them. Town Hall, LGF, Free Republic, and to a lesser degree Hot Air and it's affiliates Malkin and Capt'n Ed's personal blogs. Even lesser sites like Dean's World and Atlas Juggs -- they'll all survive and perhaps be more invigorated than ever after the humiliation to come November 4th.

Certainly there'll be some demoralized sulking, more than a few GBCW posts and even more among their commentariate, but they'll be back stupider than ever by inauguration day. Trust me.

Yeah Me! I Voted Today

As did my lovely bride of 17 years.

That's two more Obama votes in the bank.

I have to tell you, I truly recommend the idea of voting from home.  It gives you the leisure to fully research all those ballot issues and make an informed decision -- which means of course that every issue we voted for will be doomed to fail since most folks just flip a coin on these things, or so it seems. 

Also, I can't tell you how many times I've read the papers the day after an election and saw which judges won, and couldn't be certain how I voted.  Now I have record since I copied our ballots.  Since party affiliation is not something you see with judges on Ohio ballots, I'm sure I voted for for a Republican or two over the years, against my better judgment.  This time I know for certain I didn't vote for any conservative ideologues for the bench.

Hilzoy In My Head

Sometimes when just mulling over something, like the strange and sad tale of Ashley Todd, instead of regurgitating whatever's on top of my head and aiming to fix what little there is on the table in the way of actual "fact" to the current political narrative, I wait to see what develops. Then Hilzoy was found inside my skull, taking notes, and writing my thoughts down better than I ever could.

I'd like to give a shout-out to the Pittsburgh police. I know nothing about the officers who worked this case, but it seems unlikely that they are all Democrats, all Republicans, or all any political anything. They are professionals, and they did their jobs. If they hadn't, some tall black man who was just going to the store or taking a walk could have ended up in jail.

***

I'd also like to give a shout-out to all the people who held off on this, and to Michelle Malkin, who did a lot to keep this story from getting completely out of hand. To the people who jumped on the bandwagon: think about the responsibilities that come with having an audience. When a story like this hits, you can try to convince people to withhold judgment until the facts are in, or you can lose your head along with everyone else. It seems like a pretty clear choice to me.

And to McCain's Pennsylvania communications director: now would be a good time to decide to spend more time with your family.

But it took an especially big brain like the on sitting on top of Marcy Wheeler's head to really flesh this story out with some contemporary perspective as she reflected on sitting on the story.

But as I researched this all day, I found myself to be less and less outraged about the McCain campaign's response to this specifically and increasingly outraged over McCain's response to John Lewis' rebuke of McCain's campaign tactics. As a reminder, Lewis said,

As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.

McCain, of course, lashed out at Lewis (and Obama) in response, ignoring his larger message about conditions that encourage things like Ashely Todd's race-baiting.

You see, as I researched this today, and concluded that--thus far--we have no evidence yet the McCain campaign did anything more than irresponsibly (but not surprisingly) push details it believed to be true, the part of Lewis' statement that talked about the "conditions that encourage vicious attacks" resonated more and more. As Scarecrow reminded me with this link today, Lewis' own history, and that of George Wallace, is a lot more ambivalent and ultimately extended far beyond Wallace's own violence. At this point, all of us have been thrust into a climate that encourages vicious attacks--and guarantees that vicious race-baiters like Ashley Todd will be guaranteed her 15 minutes of infamy.

Like Hilzoy and Marcy, I have to confess that of all people I must give credit to Michelle Malkin who resisted the bait on this one, which did a lot to encourage me to keep my powder dry and no doubt influenced a lot of others to wait for more facts to come in. (Here's a rare approving link to Michelle. She has a lot more rehabilitation to complete before I ever become a "fan," but she get's cudo's for this one.)

Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs is another story. This lady really gives anything she's associated with a bad name. Unsurprisingly she happily went down crazy lane and insisted on staying there well after Todd's outrageous claims were retracted because, well, you know a lot of other stuff she and her fellow inmates have accused Obama and his evil Democrat supporters of might be true -- but are covered up by the anti-Israel, anti-Atlas, anti-John Bolton international media conspiracy. I'm still waiting for Pam to escape from her cage and "bitchslap" Ashley.

Her non-retraction and failure to condemn her compatriots who pushed this story in the 'spere and in the McCain campaign which gratuitously added the blood liable lie to the travesty merely reinforces my long held conclusion that Geller requires psychological treatment, as much if not more than Ms. Todd.

It's in this way, with the disintegration of the conservative movement, Christopher Buckley's "Pup" may get his wish, the "kooks" are indeed being separated from the herd.

How our economy is more like a poker game than a restaurant

Recently, while I was cleaning a hairball out of the P-trap under my bathroom sink (I couldn't afford to call Joe the Plumber -- his agent wanted too much money) I found this link to a simple story entitled A Dinner for 10 Men: A Parable of Tax Cuts.

It opens like this:

"I'm opposed to those tax cuts," the retired college instructor declared, "because they benefit the rich. The rich get much more money back than ordinary taxpayers like you and me and that's not fair." "But the rich pay more in the first place," the businessman argued, "so it stands to reason that they'd get more money back."

Actually, they don't "pay more." Warren Buffet has famously pointed out that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does -- and he thinks that's wrong and has called for the system to be changed to make it right by her.

No matter. The parable goes on to prove the "professor" wrong and the businessman "right" by creating an analogy so idiotically simplistic that it makes my head hurt just thinking about how to summarize it. Instead, I'll simply include the closing paragraphs. You can reverse engineer the story from there if you want:

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short!

And that, boys, girls, and college instructors, is how America's tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table any more.

How do I put this in a respectful way? F#@k you and the horse you rode in on.

This is the sort of after-dinner story-fantasy I'm sure Ronald Reagan enthralled his corporate audiences with back in the early 60s before he became governor of California. It was stupid then and it's stupid now. Unfortunately, we had to live through this fantasy for more than 30 years to see how stupid -- and destructive -- it truly was.

I like a different analogy, one that is more down-to-earth, simpler to follow and much more concise. It's part of the 1951 memoir of Marriner Eccles, the chairman of the Federal Reserve circa 1934-48. In describing the causes of the Depression, he says this:

...[A]s in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.

There you have it -- a brilliant flash of insight from 1951. True then, true today. In other words, giving more and more tax breaks to the wealthiest among us, relying on a free market to "trickle-down" wealth to the rest of us, does not work.

So how did we get here, in this horrible place? How did this happen? Well, I'd say that it is a feature (not a bug) of the unregulated free market system. The tendency is for capital to cut its expenses ruthlessly -- on things like labor. As a result, wages (the real engine of the economy) go stagnant and the middle class borrows more and more just to stay ahead. After a while, the amount of debt far outweighs the amount of real assets that the middle class holds. Then credit dries up -- and the bubble pops. Everyone loses.

Cutting taxes again won't solve the problem. What solves the problem is building an economy where people have jobs that produce real, tangible benefits -- infrastructure improvements, energy independence, higher education and universal health care.

That's why I voted for Barack Obama: because he gets it.

Deep (Scary) Thought

Prior to "Still" President George W. Bush, the general consensus pretty much ascribed the "Worst President Ever" label to Lincoln's predecessor Buchanan and/or the author of The Great Depression, Herbert Hoover.

What could seal the deal for undisputed champ?  Well we already know that President Obama will have the biggest economic clusterfuck facing an incoming POTUS since FDR was sworn in.  Most would agree that The Great Depression was no small contributor to the rise of National Socialism and WWII . . .

Our Civil War was all but inevitable when Lincoln took over . . .

You know where I'm going with this.  In our globally intertwined military/industrial/media culture, will it take a Global Civil War to crown "W" chief of the absolute worst, or can we just give him a Mulligan?

If You Were Wondering What's Next

After Washington is conquered by the DFH, whatever will a liberal blogger do with his time?

• Pack for that long over-due vision quest?
• Invest the remains of his stock portfolio in hand-cut flowers and airport literature?
• Get back to the gym to eliminate eight years of flabby un-Americanism?

Or BLOG, BABY, BLOG!!

'Joe the Plumber' Mulling Run for Congress

Joe Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber," said Friday he may consider running for Congress in 2010, challenging longtime Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) in the Toledo-area district.

"I'll tell you what, we'd definitely be in one heck of a fight," Wurzelbacher said during an appearance on the Laura Ingraham show Friday, "but, you know, I'd be up for it."

"There is a movement afoot to draft you to run for Congress," Ingraham said. "Joe, let me tell you something: you decide to run for Congress, and I'll help you with your PR, I'll help you do your ads, I mean, I'll volunteer to help you."

Ingraham's producer, Brian Feldman, said that during the break after the segment, Wurzelbacher told Ingraham that his statements today represent the first time he has acknowledged considering a bid for Congress in public.

Wurzelbacher said he did agree with Kaptur's vote against the bailout, and touted his support for a flat tax on income.

BRING IT THE FUCK ON, DUDE.

So what do we have here? A netroots darling, a veteran of the progressive cause versus a guy who's name ain't Joe, isn't licensed to be a plumber, doesn't pay his taxes, thinks it's socialism for his non-existent tax increases to go to folks who didn't work as hard as he did -- unless he's the guy collecting welfare.

He's perfect. Just as phony as McCain and clueless as Palin. A made-to-order wingnut media darling. And I'm just the guy to crush his dreams.

Come on Joe, give me a reason to blog!

;-)