Vice President Sarah Palin/Schadenfreude

should send chills through your fucking blood:

“Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” State Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican.

Before anybody says anything ludicrous, allow me to remind you that Obama has a JD, was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, a community organizer, and has lived abroad. She did local sports, ran a town the third the size of Norwood, and was runner up for Miss Alaska?

Are you kidding?

Update: Fire up the Celine Dion. Find Leo DiCaprio. Get to the life boats...it might be too late to steer from this iceberg. It's worse than I thought (better, actually, but that's a matter of perspective.

The question begs; What happens if she leaves the ticket? What does McCain do in this instance, since so much rides on his ability to be firm and steady. If Talking Points Memo has this correct, this is a fuck up of epic proportions. Jesus, to have the party lawyers doing vetting work during the convention? This is too much.

By the way: Some on the left are making an enormous amount of hay about Palin's kid and whatnot. I won't dignify that shit one bit, because, at the end of the day, its a cheap shot, and it dilutes what is very much at issue: McCain ability to lead, and Palin's shady "experience". This is what's important; not the morality of her nearly adult child's decisions.

Code 347: Completely Lost Due To Incompetence

Rest assured, friends (ugh...I feel gross just saying those words)...

I am not the sort who throws an event, harangues everybody into coming , and says nothing about it.

The fact of the matter is that the man is against me; How else can one explain my cable get disconnected last week by my weird neighbor, and then, it getting disconnected again Friday morning by the cable company trying to prevent the weird neighbor from stealing my goddamned cable?

Anyway, I want to publically thank Bret, Amy and Mary from the Downunder for their hospitality. We had some glitches, to be sure, but we handled it like champs, and everybody had fun, and was inspired I think, except for the doubting Thomas at the left end of the bar. I tried...






I know we were all kinds of fired up, ready for the hard work ahead. If you came down, thank you for supporting.

I wanna take this opportunity to thank the fine folks at NPR-oh wait, I don't, because they never called. They didn't even call to say they weren't calling. I spent most of speech getting my head together to talk to some patchouli stinking asshat about the speech, and they didn't even bother. My dreams of super liberal celebrity (Professor and NPR interviewee!)--dashed!

Fuck 'em: They never play TRex, anyway...

Okay, so we have history on our side here, the air is charged, the tide is turning. Fired Up! Ready To Go!

I Have a Dream...

What a crazy, crazy thing it is to reflect on the resonance of tonight in history-and the vibrations of history bouncing back through tonight.

The grey heads of venerable punditry are quite right to reflect on this moment in our history, as are the Civil Rights Warriors who were there, and ones before who's torch they carried.

The thing is that for most people of my age, and younger, this has never been a black or white issue, but something more pragmatic, and profound: If one person in our society is denied equal rights, then we are all denied equal rights.

Certainly, my generation, or the one after, does not have a lock on the wisdom it takes to negotiate the labrythine nature of racism as it characterizes that most basic of human rights: Identity. We do not have the inherent genius to fix this all in one electoral swoop.

What we do have is an individual who is supremely talented and intelligent enough help us disentangle the mess that the right wing has created, and continues to foster via talk radio and talk news.

The bamboozling thing about race is that its most virulent practioners, for all the pretzel logic of conspiracy, can never grasp the irreducible skeptical first step: Who benefits from this?

The answer was, and is, old rich white guys. Not the working class white guys. Not poor blacks. Not even Jews. It is always old rich white guys who benefit from racism as a clever distraction, while they rob the till.

The disentangling of this is not disentangling of "racism" persay, but the pursuit of social justice as a end in and of itself, the recognition that if a city, state or nation can fuck over one group, what's to say that they won't come after the rest of us.

So tonight, while you are watching Barack Obama make history, and while you are watching the right wing come at the whole thing, knives out, like the smart ass frat boys they are (or wanna be, for that matter) pretending that its all utopian nonsense, all in the imagination, and we're all a bunch of ________________(insert insulting label) liberals, remember that it is the failure of the imagination that assumes that it must always be such (because it must not-democracy is always becoming), or, rather, the dark imagination called paranoia that has brought us to this precipice.

Remember that some imaginings are beautiful. Remember that our great republic existed first as the imagining of a collective genius, and that all great leaps start as leaps of the imagination.

TONITE!!!

Listen Up: I was told that NPR is calling the bar between 9 pm and 10 pm. Listen for The_Wizard.

The_Third Night: United We Stand

We're All in Love...

Well...I have to admit it: After the fear and loathing of the campaign trail, the recriminations, the hatred, the fear, paranoia all around...the dems pulled it together. Holy mother and father, they really pulled their shit together...

But that's the thing with the Clintons: They are like lotharios. They break your heart with their bullshit, then come back in, and sweet talk you, leaving you to wonder why the hell you got all mad in the first place.

Falling in love again.

First, Hillary inscribes this night in history by personally calling for the nomination of. This was a huge deal. Like a lot of us who have worked on Obama's campaign, experienced the kind of weird and virulent hatred from the 44'ers, I could not shake the feeling that some kind of weird bullshit was going to go down, that, somehow, the true progressive cause who get mugged, and, in its place, so kind of triangulating simulacra would get put foisted on us.

This was not to be: She did the right thing-and with a dramatic flourish.



Then Bill came out, and sweet talked his way right back into my kitchen. If people wanted red meat, he was tossing the empty carcasses of 25 years of GOP bullshit lies, corporatism disquised as "conservatism", hatred disguised as "family values":



Joe Biden, who I wanted as a Secretary of State, came out, and kept it Irish real for everybody: The future that George...er John McCain wants...



Finally, Barack shows up,and thanks everybody, and winds us up for tonight!!!



I remember watching the '92 Convention, and, in some way, the combination of speeches and ceremony, I dunno, it felt like the prelude to a victory.

Maybe I'm too far in to be objective, but this feels like we've turned a corner.

Gustav

Is likely to underscore, but hopefully not reiterate, for the whole country during the convention, that massive humanitarian GOP fuck up known as Katrina.

hUH?

Okay...

I'm probably gonna come off like a dick for this, but I gotta wonder a few things:

1. When you read something like "Cindy McCain Heading to Republic of Georgia", a reasonable person would want to know what possible use she could be there?. Ostensible charity work?
2. Is this a co-inky-dink that her Husband is the scary coldwarrior water carrier for Republic of Georgia? We are now all "Georgians" now. We are supposed to kick Russia's ass (finally)...Still, you are sending your wife into a potentially dangerous situation for political points.
3. Maybe he's gott send her as collateral on all that tough guy shit he was talking...

Perhaps...Saakashvilli to McCain: "I want my money back!"

Night Two of The Convention

Why the Fuck is Mitt Romney there?



Whoah? Is there a note of resignation in this? "Loyal Opposition"?Doesn't this presume that the White House has changed hands, that Republicans are no longer the Executive Branch?


9:00: Tweety is incredibly surly, snapping at Olbermann. Somebody get him a drink-QUICK! Seriously, he's really grumpy.

In other impressions, Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan are at it again. I think she could kick his ass. I think he'd like that very much.

9:37: In the midst of some discussion of schadenfreude and American politics, Tweety apparently called Bush a clown. He's drunk. Seriously...he's the Larry Merchant of Politics.

Oh yeah, Casey's "not a maverick. He's a sidekick" swipe at McCain is nice.


10:30: Mark Warner looking a lot like the guy from Double Dare.

hastily constructed by the_wizrd 08

10:37: Hillary...the obligatory video...misappropriations of Tom Petty's "American Girl"...jeez...this is kind of scary...

11:19: Hillary...resplendent in sartorial compliment, chucked red meat to the united party. Reminded her faithful that it never was "about her" really, but the movement of freedom. She quoted Harriet Tubman.

Thank You!

8:30 am: The MSNBC intellectual abortion known as Morning Joe rolls on. Scarborough works the Latte angle, and Mika looks on, vacantly, pretending to have a backbone. She is a arguably more attractive Alan Colmes, though no less clown. Joe begins rubbing his nipples, longingly talking about his campaign days, and how "he knows" as he works through the Clinton-Obama mutual annihilation fantasy, and McCain, by virtue of his being a spoiled WASP from an aristocratic southern family, is able to do the right thing for America, and get us all killed.

Joey is so tough...

Hat Trick

courtesy of the excellent ZaiusNation.

Democratic National Convention: Day One Random

I would tend to say this may be the most unified thing the left has gotten together in sometime...

As the result of the asshole who lives next door disconnecting my cable again, I finally got a chance to watch the CNN Revealed on McCain and Obama.

The documentaries, which were generally excellent, drew sharp distinctions between the candidates; It's hard to not be inspired by Obama, especially after one gets a fuller sense of his community organzing days. People were seriously impressed with him then, as they are now.

McCain, however, doesn't get off so easily, and nor should he; Despite with the "even" handed approach (i.e., glowy lovey dovey hero worship. Afterall, he is Maverick), he comes off as, well, spoiled brat smug prick who is just working his Daddy issues out on the rest of us. Yup, I said it.

When people talk of Bush's third term vis a vis McSame, they aren't kidding: Like Dubya, McCain is working out major Daddy issues. However, I doubt very much his father would find much honorable about John McCain now.

In the light of this, in which McCain is revealed for the liar he is, and the course of this campaign, in which he is revealed as the liar he is, we are still faced with media which is keeping itself entertained with the imposed narrative at the expense of the rest of us. McCain is Maverick. Obama is the Man from Parts Unknown. McCain is Mr. Straight Talk. Obama is a Celebrity. Hillary supporters...And, now, McCain is using Hillary against Obama (like you didn't see that one coming).

Since I'm working up McCain, let me say this, clearly: Being a War Hero is not a qualification for being President. The most decorated person in the history of the military, Audie Murphy, found himself addicted to Placidyls, sleeping with a gun underneath his pillow. This is not the sort of behavior you want in a President. Honoring Service is one thing; Getting control of a Nuclear Arsenal is quite another. I was thinking of a parade...

More later...

Later...

Looks like 44'ers were out in full force (all two of them), representing the little known "feminist" dixiecrats (or the McCain Campaign), advancing the Obama is a Secret Muslim thread. When confronted by Tweety, of all people, about their evidence, they declared that "I don't have to tell you."

Can we put this one to bed, finally?

Otherwise, it was nice to see Teddy up and around. I was a bit afraid it was going to be like watching Dick Clark do the Rockin' Eve, but it was pretty moving.

However, the inarguable headliner was Michelle Obama. She was real. She was passionate, and, after a slow start, she knocked it out:

BIDEN

It's official.

Update: Here' s the rationale.

Are you Smarter than a Kobald?

Well...

Looks like Goldfarb drank the potion of delusion.

The upside, of course, is to never underestimate the power of warriors, wizards and halfing pickpockets against the forces of darkness. Good work guys...Love the Logo!

NEXT THURSDAY!!!

New Special Comment

McCain, Georgia, and the Smugness of Authoritarian Capitalism

Devilstower has some insightful-and provocative-thoughts on the current state of global capitalism.

Smear the Candidate with Ideas

Clarence Page reminds us that David Duke may be know by many names:

"Obama has a bigger immediate headache than Duke and his allied dimwits. It's the rising chorus of anti-Obama attack books that don't always let truth get in the way of a good hatchet job.

Leading the pack is 'Obama Nation' by Jerome R. Corsi. It leads the New York Times best-seller list, helped along by bulk orders from conservative book clubs and other arenas of the right-wing echo chamber. Corsi does not hide his agenda.

His inaccurate portrayal of Obama as a closet Muslim and black activist drug-user is intended to do what his earlier hit-job book, 'Unfit for Command', did to Sen. John Kerry in 2004 when he was the Democratic presidential nominee.

Corsi claims he's not a hater, but says he's known to make hateful statements. He has called Islam 'a worthless, dangerous satanic religion'. He also has observed that 'boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is OK with the pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press'."

The Purpose(less) Driven Debate: March of the Panders/Winning America One Superstition at a Time

Anybody else annoyed with the fact that the first "debate" held this season is being hosted my some third rate Robert Schuller wannabe in some over blown, ostentatious quasi Crystal Cathedral mega abortion... and the two men running actually legitimize this charlatan by showing up for his Jesus and Donkey show.

Puh-leez.

What if the Union for Reform Judaism, The Archdiocese of New York, or United Muslims of America wanted to host a debate-er, "forum"? Would they show up?

What if the United Wiccans, The Church of Satan, or, Jah help I, The Scientologists wanted to hold a debate? Would they go? How much shit would they catch if they did?

Seriously, folks, this is why one should keep religion to one's soul.

Update: Oh...guess what? It might have been a little skewed.

If The Kids Are United

I was doing my homework, and listening to iTunes, when this Sham 69 song came on, which I had not listened to in years:

This got me thinking...We need an Obama playlist for the long battle ahead. What should be on the Obama playlist?

Where ya been for...ever?

I am certainly heartened that people have woken up to the chicanery of this incarnation of the Republican Pary, but part of me wonders why they have had their heads up their asses for so long.

Get Off My Lawn!

How dare they!?!:

"'Kids want to think for themselves -- they don't care what Mom and Dad say', said Rutherford, a burly man with a Manhattan in his hand."

MLA

You know, I spend a good part of my life explaining that :

1. Wikipedia is source to be evaluated rhetorically, being extra careful to parse the language for indications of bias. One must examine the text carefully, looking for what Wikipedia calls "Weasel Words".
2. Wikipedia is a source that is egalitarian, and, as such, the information presented must be corraborated by running down its sources, listed on the page itself.
3. Yeah, you need to cite Wikipedia; otherwise, it is plagiarism.

Who do I do all this explaining to? College Freshmen. Eighteen year olds. Not septagenarian presidential candidates holding a degree from the Naval Academy.

Department of Bullet Dodging: Unholy Fools screaming Nader in a crowded primary edition.

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ...Howard Wolfson is the biggest jerk-off this side of...Mark Penn

Gosh...it has to be somebody's fault, right? The media and everybody were ready to coronate Clinton the God Emperor of Dune, and that bad man and a bunch of youths stole it...STOLE IT I TELL YOU! And he was abetted by a cheating sonabitch! See...SEE!!!

"'Our voters and Edwards' voters were the same people', Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. 'They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama'."

I think the reason why Clinton lost is fairly obvious, don't you?

Update: Of Obviousness and Jerk-Offs...The Atlantic's journalistic schadenfreude on the rise and fall of the Hillary Clinton Campaign.

Check out this gem from Chief Jerk-Off Mr. Winner Take All:

"It is a vast right and left wing conspiracy. Listening to Brit Hume say that Obama is surging while Hillary failed to do X is almost comical and certainly transparent. The right knows Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun, and a third party would come in then anyway."

I always wanted part of a vast conspiracy. It's called democracy.

Stupid

The G.O.P as ingrates:

“Real men don’t think things through".

R.I.P. Isaac Hayes

This sucks...I grew up on this guy, and love this...

An under appreciated one, for most people anyway.

Anybody Listening...

Hey Congress! Hey American People! Kucinich isn't a wack job! Bush Co have been doing impeachable shit the whole time!!!

“'My source also notes that Dick Cheney, who was behind the forgery, hated and mistrusted the Agency and would not have used it for such a sensitive assignment', the magazine wrote. 'Instead, he went to Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans and asked them to do the job'."

Update: To paraphrase the epistle of Harriet Johnson to William J. LePetomaine, appropos of the articles of impeachment:

"The fact that you haven't even read the articles of impeachment just goes to prove that you are the leading asshole in the country".

Department of Bullet Dodging: WTF Edition.

Seriously...

I was thinking about this earlier: I had been impressed with Edwards in '04, and was, until January of this year, someone who had supported him for the Big Job.

Can you imagine what would have happened if he had been the nominee. Sweet Jesus, it would have been carnage-Self Inflicted carnage by a selfish little shit. He could have sunk the whole thing.

Not to mention his wife, surviving cancer...wow, what a s.o.b

So have a drink for us...and have a drink for his wife and kids.

For John Boy...Fuck Off.

Unholy Fools

What the hell is the major malfunction of the Clintons and their supporters?

First, Bill Clinton gives, well, a Bill Clinton "weasel" answer as to the qualification of Barack Obama to be president.

Then we find out that Hillaristas are demanding a roll call, Kennedy-Hart style, in an attempt to torpedo our chance at a real future. The folks over at Hillary is 44 are on the cusp of replacing the Bama Pachyderm as my choice for most ideologically deluded folks this side of Townhall.

[Are the 44er's really arguing that Paris Hilton is running for President? What happens when the ideological framework gets too convoluted? Too paranoid? Too detached? What is satire in twisted phenomenology?

This sea of Bizarro...I can't really find my bearings and I don't understand what's going on, aside from ill ease and permanent dread. It's like the hellish cross fertilization of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" with the "Sloop John B". Who writes this shit? MTZPLK?

I feel so broke up. I wanna go home...]

As a matter of fact, I think they are the same team! Hillary is 44 should be called McSame is 44.

I mean, seriously, the 44ers' are on the verge of conspiracy theory, as though Opus Dei, The Freemasons, and the Illuminati (Pelosi, Brazile, Obama, and the majority of voting Democrats-you know, The Cabal) are denying her not because she ran a craven and shitty campaign, and were presented with a better tomorrow in the person of Obama, but for some other sinister reason.

Misogyny? Homophobia? All of the above?

Again, the central fallacy in all of this is the Clintons' and Hillaristas' belief that the historical moment at hand in embodied in THEIR candidate, and that Obama was chosen as an opposition to that.

This thinking is seriously misguided and completely ideological:that the transformation that we now need comes from the epidermis, the plumbing, or anything aside from the integrity and the conviction of the candidate, and the belief in becoming MORE DEMOCRATIC, which is always an "in the future" proposition, is insulting and absurd to everybody who voted in the primaries. EVERYBODY.

The historical moment here is that we are as close to the precipice of a legalistic Corporatist take over, in which the transparency of government is a cynical ploy, and the idea of the president working for the people is a cruel sham-but we can still turn it around.

At this moment, to threaten to fuck up the convention, to torch the future in service to some bullshit sense of destiny, is absolutely mindblowing.

Are you seriously willing to fuck over millions of people, including yourselves, for the chance that Hillary might run in 2012? Four more disastrous years for your dream, YOUR DREAM?

Four more years of insecurity, war, financial ruin and corporate power becoming rule of law? Four more years of health care for the rich? All so the hubris and the failings of your generation can be set right, all so your failings, your cynicism, your incessant need to make your ideological construct a reality. A permanent TV movie version of the '60's?

My God...you have been hanging with the Right Wing too long, because this can only be read, given the revelations about the Bush Administration as of late, as the height of arrogant, white, monied, generational tyranny, and a guarantee of President McSame, with possibly the last flicker of hope for a more democratic society extinguished in total war, debt subjegation for all, and endless Fleetwood Mac simulacra tours.

Please Stop Now.

Seriously.

PLEASE STOP NOW.

That is Special

"Soaring oil prices will leave the Iraqi government with a cumulative budget surplus of as much as $79 billion by year’s end, according to an American federal oversight agency. But Iraq has spent only a minute fraction of that on reconstruction costs, which are now largely borne by the United States.

The unspent windfall, which covers surpluses from oil sales since 2005, appears likely to reinforce growing debate about the approximately $48 billion in American taxpayer money devoted to rebuilding Iraq since the American-led invasion."

Now...explain to me again why we can't have universal health care?

Maverick

And Now For Something Completely Stupid...

I got this one today:

"I just can't stomach this guy and the disgraceful
liberal Congress!!!

Subject: Fwd: DISGRACE!

The man is pretty confident that we are pretty stupid. Is he rightWHAT A DISGRACE!!! AND HE IS ALL AMERICAN????



Obama The Patriot - Removes American Flag From His Plane

The Patriot Room
Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:11:07 AM by Bill Dupray

Barack Obama recently finished a $500,000 total overhaul of his 757. And as part of the new design, he decided to remove the American flag from the tail...

What American running for President of the United States would remove the symbol of his country? And worse, he replaced the flag with it with a symbol of himself... Obama is such a despicable human being.



Please forward this if you're not ashamed of our country and our flag & if think this is a disgrace. If you do not forward this to everyone you know nothing will happen. If Obama is elected president of the United States we are in trouble. If you think the Liberals can lead our country just look what Pelosi and Reid have accomplished for us. "

Jesus weeps at your being such ignoramuses.

But just in case, let's get a look at Maverick's plane, shall we? Betcha its covered in Old Glory, right?



Ahhh...ummm. Oh wait. He added one.

I guess the mark of a patriot is ostentatiously putting flags everywhere. I suppose that makes Bush the biggest patriot of them all, since he put over 4000 flags on coffins since 2001.

Yay!?!?

:(

Update: You wanna know why this guy should be President? You wanna know why we have the best candidate in a generation?

When's the last time a Democratic Presidential candidate spoke so true about the GOP?:

"It's like, it's like these guys [The GOP] take pride in being ignorant."

Can I get a "FUCK YEAH!"?

Wow (slight return)

Or Rather, this is just fucking evil, slight return:

"The book reports (or charges) that the Bush White House faked a letter from Saddam Hussein’s intelligence chief to President Saddam in late 2003, backdating it to July 2001 and reports that Saddam’s intelligence chief (Habbush) was in the protective custody of the C.I.A. at the time– even while the U.S. military had him in the 'deck of cards', a list of Saddam officials wanted dead-or-alive. The White House ordered the C.I.A. to arrange for Habbush to write the fake letter in his own handwriting. The controversial letter did find itself to the world media in December ‘03."

You know, they say that the truth shall set you free, but as the colossal goat fuck know as Bush 43 winds down, we get to look into the heart of darkness, and know that these scurrilous bastards are likely to get away with this highest of crimes.

It kind of makes your heart hurt-or feel as though a part of you died, as you read it.

Wow

This is just fucking evil:

"There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. "