Got birther?

John McCain was born at the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone on Aug. 29, 1936.

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President McCain

From The Man Who Never Was by Todd Purdum for Vanity Fair:

It’s an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the first two years of a McCain-Palin partnership in the White House might have produced. There would probably have been no stimulus bill, and the country’s economic condition would be no better (and probably worse). General Motors and Chrysler would have been allowed to go bankrupt rather than helped to emerge into a state of healthiness, as they may well be doing. There would have been no significant new regulation of the financial industry. The Bush tax cuts for those Americans with the highest incomes—something McCain had opposed before reversing himself—would have been extended. There would have been only modest health-insurance reform, at best—McCain’s proposals were Republican boilerplate and meant for use in the campaign, never a serious program. Perhaps there would have been greater progress on immigration, though McCain had already abandoned that issue, and it’s easier to imagine his taking the more nativist stance he has since adopted. There would be no Supreme Court justices Kagan and Sotomayor, but there would likely be two more conservative justices, and the days of Roe v. Wade would be numbered. There would be no troop drawdown in Iraq. The United States might well have bombed or blockaded Iran in response to that country’s flawed election last year, or in response to its nuclear program. There would have been serial feuds between aides to the president and vice president, but the fact that Vice President Palin had an independent power base, far larger and more enthusiastic than McCain’s own, would have limited what President McCain could do about it. The “Ground Zero mosque” dispute would probably have arisen anyway, and McCain might have been hard put to do anything but side with the opponents. The Palin-family soap opera would now be daily fodder for the national press rather than mainly the tabloids.

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Ain't misbehavin'

I love marital aids that look like they've been plucked from the set of Star Trek tos.* I'm talking your fantastical and otherworldly. I'm talking your improbable.

You'd think I'd have had a bit of media posted here from the old Star Trek with an example of exactly what I mean, but after a person has been searching for vids and photos that have an incidental prop in them that look like a groovy dildo for over an hour, a person realizes that they're pretty much at the end of the line. The evocative photo of Kirk and Uhuru will have to do. You can extrapolate the rest for yourself.

*tos is an acronym for "the original series," which I learned while doing my intrepid research for this post. I'm cutting edge like that.

Oh all right already. I hear you bellyaching over there. Now this is as examply as I'm going to get, but damn if this little number couldn't command the Bridge and then some:

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This post lovingly dedicated to Fred.

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Darth Cheney chimes in

"In three days we'll choose a new steward for the presidency and begin a new chapter in our history," the Vice President said Saturday morning. "It's the biggest decision that we make together as Americans. A lot turns on the outcome. I believe the right leader for this moment in history is Senator John McCain." --via HuffPo

Finally, here come the cavalry

David Frum, a former Bush administration member, for yesterday's Washington Post:

“There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him. I could pile up the poll numbers here, but frankly . . . it’s too depressing. You have to go back to the Watergate era to see numbers quite so horrible for the GOP. McCain’s awful campaign is having awful consequences down the ballot. I spoke a little while ago to a senior Republican House member. ‘There is not a safe Republican seat in the country,’ he warned. ‘I don’t mean that we’re going to lose all of them. But we could lose any of them.’ In the Senate, things look, if possible, even worse.”--no Post link available without registration.

But don't worry, ye elephants! Your Girl Vice President has decided to break ranks and call in some reinforcements to help out! Here comes the "sassy" Elisabeth Hasselbeck to save the day with talk about clothing and sexism!

Mr. Powell, that was simply brilliant.

Life, Sentator McCain, is not fair

Johnny baby, this ain't very nice, but here are the facts: Even if you two had repeated the same word over and over and over again, you would have lost last night's debate.

First there's the superficial things we broads have been dealing with for years--a lot of which have to do with why you chose Missy Sissy for your VP--Obama is taller, younger and better looking than you. A LOT better looking. Of course, that only gets you so far. Eventually a Presidential candidate has to open his mouth. And as you so eloquently put it, Obama is eloquent. On the rare occasions when the related to also Vice Presidential person that you have selected to be importantly the second over highest person for the extreme ballot that American persons can of related to the Great United States opens her mouth, Johnny baby, things don't (ahem) go very well.

And Johnny? You just plain behave like an asshole! Your every action implies that you can barely stand to be on the same planet as "that one," not to mention the same stage.

I am beginning to think, Mr. Man, that you act like a mean old guy because you are a mean old guy!

And one last thing, baby. Behold the 20-second sound bite that moved Every. Single. Undecided. Female. Voter. onto the Obama square:

Children should (still) be seen and not heard

Sarah Palin is keeping reporters at arms' length in her campaign, but she had a very different approach as Alaska's new governor: She couldn't get enough of them ... In 20 months as governor before McCain tapped her, Palin scheduled more than 300 interviews and press conferences, according to an Associated Press review of her official daily calendar.--from comcast.net 10.13.08*

So it seems that Palin is more than amenable to interviews and press coverage. A-course, that all came to a screeching halt when Daddy 'Cain stepped in. Daddy 'Cain knows when to keep a girlie in her place.

Funny to think this image is as relevant today as when I posted it 38 days ago. Funnier still to think it will be every bit as applicable on Nov.4.

*Thanks for the link, baby.

A view of the Weathermen unlike any other

Last July, I wrote an essay called "A God Among Men" about the Cleveland Thinker, which was substantially damaged by a bomb in 1970. The perpetrators of the crime were never caught, but it was widely suspected that the Weathermen had staged the explosion as part of their elaborate protest campaign. As I researched and wrote my essay, I had never heard of Bill Ayers, a notable member of the Weathermen who has garnered his share of press during these volatile campaign days.

My first drafts of "A God Among Men" included incendiary language about the bombers. But the more I read about the Weathermen (whom I imagined as the bombers per public opinion), the more I wanted to portray how The Thinker himself might view them. I changed the descriptions surrounding the Weathermen to language that I thought Rodin's creation may have used. Here are the pertinent excerpts from the essay:

Then beneath the cloak of a fair spring night came other men who embodied the fears of your doting protectors. You beheld them with your pensive gaze. After all, these were your people as well. But anger and danger and heat coursed through their veins, and they’d come to slay you in defiance of privilege and war, of inequity and power. With hands as human as those that lovingly massaged you with wax, they laid a fierce weapon between your muscled thighs, where all men are vulnerable, even those fashioned from thick metal.

In the dank, deep darkness, the terrible explosion rang …

Your attackers disappeared into that long-ago night –- anonymous and small, never facing retribution. They are alive, dead, aged. They are mothers, fathers, politicos, artists and thieves: molecules in the sea of humanity.

"A God Among Men" is one of my favorite works in my portfolio. And now after all that has transpired in the past weeks, I am stunned by those excerpts. When I reread them, it's one of those few moments when I feel as though I grasped something that was beyond my power as a writer. It is nearly spiritual.

Trust

Author Steven Covey was a guest on the Oct. 9, 2008 edition of "To The Point." He talked about trust and how contagious it is. He talked about distrust being more contagious and how these tenets apply to our current financial crisis. His words rang with crystalline clarity.

"You can't talk yourself out of a situation you behaved yourself into," said Covey, citing our banks and government. It's true. Despite all the charts and numbers and ratios, the simple human phenomenon of trust bears massively on our markets. I find that at once endearing and hopeful.

Let's hope that $700 billion will allow Our Boy Wonders to do some real nice behaving. It seems like they started last week, although it didn't catch hard enough to land the market on a solid rock bottom (and yes, that undertone you hear is Erin coming to terms with the fact that there was no way around the bailout). Maybe this week will be better.

And oh yeah, seeing all the international peeps talking around a table this weekend in Washington was A VERY GOOD THING.

I also think someone kicked John McCain in the pants over how his bloody red meat was feeding the Wall Street bear as well as his campaigners. Thank god he's publicly muted his rhetoric. When you scare vulnerable people into believing the man who is very, very likely to be at the helm in a few months is an cagey terrorist, that only goes to fuel the contagion of financial distrust. After all, The trillions lost in the market is coming right out of John Q. Public's wallet. Obama will do well to can the "erratic" talk as well and start acting like the President.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.--Frank Schaeffer for the Baltimore Sun

Yet another look at the other team

All Hail Michelle

Michelle Obama appeared on Larry King Live tonight. She was so articulate, so smart, so charming ... Throughout the entire interview, Michelle did not flail once. She was bullet-proof, air-tight and a regular genius.

Cindy McCain and Sarah Palin? Girlies, go bake a cake. You silly little broads are both completely out of your league. Michelle Obama is the face of the new American woman.

It only takes two little words to expose who you really are

"That one."

John McCain's very bad day

To view the complete 13-minute film or for other links, visit keatingeconomics.com. The site is sponsored by Obama for America.

Still hungry for more? Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson offers up Make-Believe Maverick.

And Barack? If you're listening, you ought to send Tina Fey a fruit basket or something. You couldn't buy that sort of service.

Frank Rich's op-ed piece on the spectacular fall of McPalin for the NYT.

McPork

"Well, the first thing we have to do is get spending under control in Washington. It's completely out of control. It's gone -- we have now presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society.

We Republicans came to power to change government, and government changed us. And the -- the worst symptom on this disease is what my friend, Tom Coburn, calls earmarking as a gateway drug, because it's a gateway. It's a gateway to out-of-control spending and corruption.

And we have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison because of the evils of this earmarking and pork-barrel spending. " -- John McCain during the 9/26/08 Presidential Debate

McCain used the word "pork" no less than five times during debate, saying that as president, he's going to eliminate upwards of $18 billion of it! Can anyone tell me what he did to try to eliminate the $150 billion in pork on the behemoth bailout?

Grampa 'Cain is grouchy again

Plenty more to view here.

The clip on Palin's experience is a must-view. I won't give my full discourse on this, but as a writer, I am very very keen on details and behavior. One of McCain's biggest problem is how he constantly and vehemently endorses his running mate, which he does in the "underdog" clip as well (she may be mentioned in the other clips--I haven't watched all of them yet). When he tries so hard to persuade, it comes off defensive and only serves to highlight Palin's inadequacies. I feel like McCain would gladly wrap his hands around my throat and shake me until I started touting Palin's brilliance myself.

On top of the anger, he is so forced and unnatural. Who is he trying to convince? Me or himself?

Spot-on commentary about Palin and her Dad during CBS/Couric interview

Monday morning rant

Okay, I am ready to step out of the delusion cloud and face the fact that Sarah Palin will not bow out of the upcoming election despite getting hammered from every direction.*

Predictably, instead of standing up to her critics, Palin is no where to be found. Instead, Republicans here and there are singing her virtues. I just heard Romney blatantly ignoring questions on the Today show about doubts surrounding Palin. He just breezily touted her as a wonderful maverick. I couldn't stand it, so I turned off the box and sat down to write this. Other conservatives** are saying that Saturday's SNL skit was mean and that the low low expectations the country has for Palin are bound to have her coming out on top in Thursday's debate.***

WHAT? Mean? This is presidential politics, you candy-asses. And low expectations? Oh, how their tune has changed since the Hillary days. At least none of the Palin spin seems to be working.

*Yeah, I know that Biden has had his share of gaffes as well. Here's the difference: Biden has been out there campaigning and interviewing all the time. So sure, he misspeaks once in a while--maybe even more than once in a while. On the other hand, every single thing that comes out of Palin's mouth is moronic in content, language and form, which is why the McSleaze camp just shuts her up.

**I'm starting to have trouble with the term "conservative" these days. Can anyone give me one single example of prudence or conservation that the Bush Administration displayed over the past eight years? We've had a bogus preemptive war without a funding plan or exit strategy, and a rootin' tootin' free for all economy that has led us to the brink of a complete financial meltdown. Then there's the matter of that little $10 trillion deficit and one massive bailout after another. So one example--that's all I'm asking for--one example of CONSERVATISM out of the conservatives over the past eight years.

***Hal Perry put a reminder bug in my ear about the rumored bug in Bush's ear in a 2004 debate against Kerry. Any possible way the McSleaze camp would try such a trick with Palin this Thursday?