You Are Dumb - Election 2008

The Conditional Vacation

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:15:36 -0500

Election 2008, 5 November 2008

Memo to the American People: YOU ARE EITHER DUMB, MEDIOCRE, OR DESERVING OF SLIGHT GRATITUDE.

First, the important news. I'll be taking my first ever break from the column starting tomorrow. It won't be a long break. Somewhere between two and five weekdays. I think we could all use it, honestly. At least, I know I could use it, and I'm projecting that need onto the audience because I can. So sometime next week - probably not Monday, but no later than Thursday - I'll pick up the keyboard again, having cleared the election bile out of my system and hopefully built up a nice reserve of non-election stupidity to rail against.

And I'm getting a head-start on the break by writing this way, way ahead of time. How can I get away with that? Simple. Being incredibly self-aware, I already know how I'm going to react to the three big possible outcomes of yesterday's election. So I'll just list them all here, in increasing order of probability, and you can enjoy them with the cold, post-election dawn shining in your backward-facing eyes.

WORST-CASE SCENARIO: PRESIDENT-ELECT JOHN MCCAIN.

America, go fuck yourselves. Oh, wait, that's redundant, because you already did. If McCain won, then either you're all even more racist than I gave you credit for, or the old bastard stole it despite around a seven point poll deficit and a Keystone Kops-level organization. Either are hallmarks of a world so completely insane that I'll need the entirety of my break, and them some, just to process how much I despise you all down to a level where I can be comically uncivil.

BEST-CASE SCENARIO: PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, SIXTY DEMOCRATIC SENATORS

Congratulations, America. You finally figured out that things suck. Don't pat yourself on the back too hard, though. It took thousands of dead soldiers, a trillion dollars in corruption and mismanagement, and the complete collapse of the economic system to get you to notice.

Prepare for the worst. Remember how, back in 2001, all the Bush apologists said you couldn't blame him for the recession that started when he did, because all that trouble was years in the making, and clearly Bill Clinton's fault? Yeah, don't expect that argument to get trotted out in January. I guarantee you that as you read this, the Republicans have already started their guerrilla war against the Obama administration, and the media will be giving them cover for it under the banner of bipartisanship. Well, bipartisanship is for suckers. Words like "moderate", "centrism", "coalition", and "reaching across the aisle" are just code for Democrats not doing what we all put them in power to do. Don't stand for it. America has shifted so far to the right that the most radical leftist agenda Obama, Reid, and Pelosi could muster would only drag us back to Richard Fucking Nixon on the political spectrum. Remember that when you're being asked to compromise with the powerless.

MOST-LIKELY SCENARIO: PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA AND THE FOUR-YEAR FILIBUSTER.

This is going to suck. Let's say you've got a feral child, raised by wolves. You bring that feral child, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a thin layer of its own shit, into your white-collar office workplace because it's Take Your Feral Child To Work Day.

The feral child wants to make copies, but you won't let him. The feral child wants to make mud pies for Janice's retirement party, but you won't let him. The feral child wants to work on linked tables in Access, but you won't let him. In fact, you keep him away from everything. The donuts in the breakroom, the good markers in the supply cabinet, even Minesweeper. You tell him to sit in the hard plastic chair in the empty cubicle and be quiet.

Oh, and you give him a large, heavy stick to keep him occupied.

The resulting stick-rampage, which leaves the duplexer shattered, the donuts scattered, and the interns splattered, is inevitable. And so is the shit Republicans will pull at every opportunity. They will have one tool at their disposal. One means of exercising power and influence, with all else taken from them. And they will beat you over the head with it while you plead with them to be reasonable and cooperate for the good of the country. In other words, it's going to suck, big-time. But at least a senile, power-hungry, amoral fucktard isn't in charge.

See you next week.

Vote, Motherfuckers. Vote.

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:12:20 -0500

Election 2008, 4 November 2008

Memo to all you motherfuckers out there: GET YOUR ASSES OUT AND VOTE.

You've read this column before. You know where I stand. I stand against John McCain. I stand against Norm Coleman. I stand against stupidity, and bigotry, and irrational hatred. Against fearmongering, bastardry, and pigfucking. Against rampant capitalist bullshit, against robberbaronage, against the systematic ass-kicking of anybody with a net worth less than a million bucks or so.

Today, I'll be voting against all those things, and you should, too. If you want, you can even vote for some things, and some people, but I've said it before, and I get to say it one last time. This election is about showing we can learn. It's about rejecting the truly awful ideas and philosophies that have sent America swirling down the shitter for eight years. Rejecting the dumbest war in modern history. Rejecting the mangling of the English language. Rejecting people who were wrong, and wrong again, and wrong some more, and who swear they'll get it right this time if you give them another chance.

Fuck them.

If you're in a swing state, vote. If you're in a battleground state, vote. If you're trapped in the middle of Pigfucker, Tennessee, hiding your signed copy of An Inconvenient Truth from your neighbors so that they don't burn you as a witch, vote. If you're nursing a baby seal back to health in the middle of an NPR studio adjacent to a vegan fair-trade coffee shop, VOTE.

Because margins matter. How much we reject all the horrible things foisted on us by the pretzel-choking fucktard and his band of puppy-rapers will depend not just on victory, but on the margin of victory. Every battleground state McCain loses becomes part of the story. Every percentage point in the national totals becomes a part of the story. Every deep-red state that McCain holds onto by the skin of his fucking teeth becomes a part of the story. And while we can win with 51% and 270 and 56 senators, it's the STORY that will let President Obama actually start walking us back out of crazy-land.

Fuck that Swing Vote movie. Your vote counts even if you walk in at the end of the day and increase the final margin in your state from 999,997 to 999,998. Not out of some idealistic, Schoolhouse Rock, Lifetime movie version of the glory of democracy, but because the people who control the conversation on November 4, and will continue to control the conversation on November 5, and Inauguration Day, and after the State of the Union address, need every excuse we can give them to provide the next President and the next Congress a tiny fraction of the leeway they showed Chucklefuck and Darth Vader since 2001.

So get off your ass, get in line, and be part of that excuse. If you don't, YOU... well, you know.

One Last Reason

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:07:08 -0500

Racism, 3 November 2008

Memo to anyone still thinking of voting for John McCain: YOU DON'T CARE.

Over the course of this year, I've offered my readers a laundry list of reasons not to vote for John McCain, but I didn't expect any of them to resonate beyond the choir to whom I preach most weekdays. Differences in policy, differences in tone, all these things can be set aside and looked past even by seemingly moderate conservatives whose lust for low marginal tax rates lets them maintain the illusion of the Straight-Talking Maverick.

People who, unlike me, are interested in maintaining a civil and polite discourse like to say that despite our political disagreements, most Democrats and most Republicans are decent human beings. And you know, I'd like to believe that. So let's give this a try. I'm going to describe something John McCain has personally done, along with his vice president and his surrogates, in the closing days of his campaign. It is something that no decent human being should condone. And it is something that any decent human Republican will have to willingly condone in order to walk into a voting booth tomorrow and cast a vote for John McCain. So if you know any decent human Republicans, make sure they know about this, and know what they're voting for.

Rashid Khalidi is a professor at Columbia University, where he heads that school's Middle East Institute. He's an American of Palestinian descent, born in New York. He's a historian, a respected scholar, praised by people across the political spectrum. So respected, in fact, that the International Republican Institute, chaired by John McCain, gave Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies a $450,000 grant ten years ago.

But that was then, and this is now. John McCain, war hero, maverick, straight-talker, bipartisan and moderate, has turned Rashid Khalidi into an enemy of the state based on trumped-up charges and lies. Why? Because Khalidi was friends with Barack Obama in Chicago.

In the extensive* research I've done on this whole sorry mess, the worst thing I can find about Rashid Khalidi is the claim that he was a "spokesman for the PLO" in the late 70's and early 80's. The take on this ranges from him giving his expert opinion / Palestinian perspective to reporters, making the claim erroneous, to, at the very worst, being one of a team of go-betweenss when Israel wanted to negotiate with the PLO without being seen to be negotiating with the PLO.

Oh, and he's criticized Israel. This is not a crime, no matter how it's treated by American politicians who've spent the last four or five decades treating Israel as an even more perfect country than America, a nation whose every policy is embodied in the flesh and blood of every single Jew in the world. And thus, suggesting that Israel has done things that are wrong is equivalent to wanting to kill all the Jews. But that's not actually the way things are.

The crux of this ginned-up controversy is Rashid Khalidi's farewell dinner from the University of Chicago in 2003, which Barack and Michelle Obama attended. According to the LA Times, at that dinner, Obama praised the challenging intellectual discussions he'd had with Khalidi over the years. From this, McCain has attempted to paint Khalidi as a dangerous radical, demanding that the Times release its tape of the event, which the Times says would violate their agreement with the tape's source. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

""If there was a tape of John McCain in a neo-Nazi outfit, I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different." - John McCain.

"Among other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism rather than the victim. What we don't know is how Barack Obama responded to these slurs on a country that he professes to support." - Sarah Palin.

John McCain, with his own words, elevated two professors discussing the complicated and nuanced Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a United States Senator dressing up in neo-Nazi gear and parading in front of a video camera. He and his are taking an American college professor and slandering him, portraying him as someone so dangerous that having dinner with him is a sign of moral corruption and unfitness for office.

I'm not even going to argue that McCain is doing it because Khalid has a beard, is of Palestinian descent, and has an Arab name. I'm not going to argue that it's all part of a shameless attempt to portray Obama as someone who secretly sympathizes with terrorists. That's all true, but even without the obvious hate-baiting, what McCain is doing is deliberate and reprehensible.

Rashid Khalidi did nothing wrong, and he is being turned into the object of right-wing frothing hatred, a caricature for Americans to fear, someone for Fox News to chase down with cameras, then portray his refusal to talk as further evidence for suspicion. John McCain is doing this, and he's doing it on purpose in order to win a few extra votes tomorrow.

And if you read this and still vote for John McCain, I'm afraid you can't actually be considered a decent human being. I'm not saying you have to vote for Barack Obama. You can stay home. You can leave the top line of the ballot blank and vote for Norm Coleman, Saxby Chambliss, or Elizabeth Dole for all I care. You can write in Mickey Mouse, or do something even more futile and vote for Bob Barr. But if you vote for John McCain, then you're saying that what's being done to Rashid Khalidi is acceptable. And it's not.

*At least compared to the usual rigor I pour into this column.

BOO!

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:16:21 -0500

Election 2008, 31 October 2008

Memo to the politics of fear: YOU ARE DUMB.

A lot of people are treating this election as a referendum of the effectiveness of character assassination and fear-based politics. Which would be a mistake. No, most of the attacks haven't succeeded in moving their beneficiaries ahead in the polls. That doesn't mean they're not working, it just means that Obama, for example, would be a lot farther ahead than he is now. We're lucky that fear is being overwhelmed by other factors right now, but don't count crazy bullshit out. In the interests of keeping you afraid of fear, for Halloween, I present the scariest ads of the 2008 campaign, courtesy SPASTIC TOPIC MONKEY FRIDAY.

We start in Mississippi, which right there ought to be enough to make you start shitting candy corn. Way down south in the land of cotton, Senator Roger Wicker is fending off a strong challenge from Democrat Robert Musgrove. In an attempt to scare voters into not voting for the not-very-progressive-at-all Musgrove, Wicker made a list of all the most liberal groups who contributed to the DSCC, who spent some money on his opponent. Well, he didn't make a list. He made a line. Of people in costume. Representing the interests.

The Friends of Hillary? Represented by a short-haired, possibly lipstick lesbian woman in a suit. A guy in a cow suit represented a beef plant. NARAL Pro Choice America is a middle-aged guy in glasses and a suit with a briefcase full of money, which only makes sense if you're a twisted embryo-fetishist. Oh, and the Human Rights Campaign? They got a cowboy, a biker, and a construction worker. You know, like the Village People. Because they're gay. And in Mississippi, the only gay stereotype they have is one from three decades ago, because they're backwoods pigfuckers.

Next we turn to my sweet home Minnesota, where Norm Coleman is getting long in the tooth in every possible sense of the term. In order to help Coleman defeat Al Franken, the crack team* at the NRSC came up with a great mailer. Using cartoon images of Franken, the cover says "Come on in, kids! Senator Franken's going to tell a few jokes..."

Open this inviting cover, and what do you find inside? On the left, cartoon kids with word bubbles attacking Franken. On the right, comic-book text saying Franken has "written so-called comedy routines about raping women", which as we've discussed happened in a writer's room brainstorming. Oh, and of course, "Wrote a pornographic column for Playboy - and thought it was funny."

See, if he'd written a pornographic column for Playboy and thought it -wasn't- funny, that would be a problem. That's called turning in shoddy work and getting paid for it, something Norm Coleman knows way too much about. The mailer caused a huge uproar because apparently Minnesota kids were going through the mail, looking at the comic book, and asking their parents what "pornographic" means. Or asking Dad if he still had the Playboy with the Franken column in it in that box in the closet Mom thought he threw away.

And finally, the big winner - the single worst, scariest, and most upgefucked ad in the history of Election 2008 - a call I'm more than willing to make with four days to go, because it's just that awful. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Elizabeth "My Husband's A Viagra Spokesman And All I Got Was This Lousy Lay" Dole, attempting to hang on to her North Carolina Senate seat. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor. Godless Americans and Kay Hagan -- she hid from cameras, took godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?"

First, as a proud godless American myself, allow me to deliver to Elizabeth Dole her obligatory "Fuck you and the plastic fake Jesus you rode in with". I didn't even know we HAD a political action committee, so that shows you just how harmless and powerless they are. We're certainly not some shadowy organization you can tar your opponent with based on a grossly exaggerated connection. Well, I guess Elizabeth Dole can, because she's a horrible human being.

Further evidence of Elizabeth Dole's oxygen-wasting potential comes at the end of the ad, in which the voice of Godless American Ellen Johnson saying "There is no God." is superimposed over Sunday school teacher Kay Hagan's face. If this ad proves anything, it's that there is a drastic shortage of tar, feathers, and rails for which to run people out of town on in modern American politics.

Hope you stocked up on fun-size Milky Way, because it's going to be a long weekend.

*Although to be fair, it's entirely possible they were cranked on meth instead.

The Final Three

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:29:13 -0500

Election 2008, 30 October 2008

Memo to the Final Three: YOU ARE DUMB.

It's less than a week before the election, which means I only have room for three, count 'em, three more IDIOTS who have SAID THE DAMNDEST THINGS before Election Day. Who are they? What did they say? It'll be tough to choose just three, but luckily, dumbasses who try harder make it easier for me.

"After all, we don't all write dirty articles for Playboy. Oh, and go Vikings!" - Victoria Jackson, who, along with John Ratzenberger, Robert Davi, Pat Boone, and Stephen Baldwin, appeared in an ad attacking Al Franken.

Um, Victoria? Do you know why you don't get to write dirty articles for Playboy? Because you're NOT FUNNY. And not very bright. That's why Al Franken is coming off a talk radio hosting gig and best-selling books to run for Senate, and you spend your time calling Obama the anti-Christ in your nutjob blog that nobody ever reads. Well, until you appeared in this ridiculous ad. Then everybody remembered you existed, wondered what you'd been up to, Googled you, found your insane fundie blog ravings, and determined that you'd been up to going psycho.

Also, that Vikings thing was shameful and pandering, and would that it were possible, I'd suggest that you, Norm Coleman, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee should all be ashamed of themselves.

"When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship. There is no freedom to the left. It’s always to our side of the aisle." - Iowa congressman Steve King, who has a history of saying stupid shit.

Huh. Now, I'm no expert on American History, but I'm pretty sure that on any number of occasions since 1776, the United States has lurched to the left. And I'm also pretty sure that we've never been a totalitarian dictatorship, except in Dick Cheney's wet dreams. So Steve King is already talking epic amounts of bullshit before he even reaches the principle that freedom only exists during periods of Republican dominance.

That may be true in King's world, but if it is, it's only because the NSA stopped listening to his phone calls because the couldn't fucking stand it anymore and spent their time listening to soldiers having phone sex instead.

"I believe Muslims are our enemies... I believe war is a fact of life and we should always win... I believe there is a moderate and a socialist in this election. I agree with a two-party system, but Obama isn't a messiah or a democrat. He's a Muslim socialist." - Marcia Stirman, FORMER head of the Republican Women of Otero County, in a letter to the Alamogordo Daily News.

The fascinating thing about Stirman's letter is that it contains one truly revealing statement. The long list of beliefs, including (as shown above), was titled "Why I'm A Republican". And certainly, if you want to bomb people with different religions, bomb people with different ideologies, and label people who aren't a different religion as if they are so that it gives you carte blanche to bomb them, well, the Grand Old Party is the party for you. Sure, you might get kicked out of your post as a face-saving measure if you admit it out loud and people notice, but in a party where G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North are members in fine standing, don't worry. You won't be on the outs for long.

I feel bad for the hundreds and hundreds of stupid people out there who've said stupid shit about this election, but I'm afraid we've filled our last three shots. The good thing is, once the election's over, these people will still be stupid. And they'll feel threatened and cornered and wounded and tiny and small. And thus, their time will come.

Eight A Dick

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:28:22 -0500

Election 2008, 29 October 2008

Memo to anti-gay Californians and outsiders: YOU ARE DUMB.

It's indicative of the insanity we're surrounded by every second of this election year that I haven't even mentioned Proposition 8 yet. Known colloquially as the Make Sulu Sad Act of 2008, Proposition 8 is a ballot initiative in California that "Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California (and) provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

This amendment differs from the similar amendments passed in Jesusland during the 2004 and 2006 elections in one significant way - it would actually walk back the legalization of gay marriage in California that, since a court ruling back in May, has allowed hundreds of gay couples to have their long-term commitments recognized by the state just like straight couples. Including George Takei and his husband.

Note that over the summer, California did not sink into the ocean. Men did not marry dogs. Like Massachusetts and Connecticut and Canada and various European countries, civilization has not in fact come crashing to a halt. Well, at least not because of the gays. But that hasn't stopped the usual collection of idiots from lining up to enshrine their completely gratuitous bigotry into the law of the land. Some of the most egregious examples of fuckwits supporting Proposition 8 (which you should of course vote NO on if you live in California, and tell everyone you know in California to vote NO on if you don't):

MORMONS!: Yes, everyone's favorite anti-ninjas, the Church of Jesus Christ of What The Fuck Is Their Problem, has been pouring money into California to stop gay marriage. Even though most of them live in Utah, which I predict will be the last state in the Union to have legal gay marriage, right after Tennessee, possibly before the sun grows cold.

According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, who should know, this is the most politically active Mormons have gotten since their successful fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, which should help you home in on what backwards fucks most Mormons are. Apparently, the anti-gay fervor amongst the Magic Underpants Faithful has gay Mormons feeling upset and unwelcome. Well, folks, remember that when choosing between homosexuality and Mormonitude, only one of those is actually genetic. When Election Day passes, whether Prop 8 passes or is shot down, all those other people in your church will still hate you. They'll just go back to doing it quietly.

ProtectMarriage.com: Apparently, the garden-variety fuckwitter of gay marriage opponents wasn't enough for the coalition of bigots behind ProtectMarriage.com. They got a list of companies that donated money to a sane group, Equality America, and sent them a certified letter including the following. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Make a donation of a like amount to ProtectMarriage.com which will help us correct this error. Were you to elect not to donate comparably, it would be a clear indication that you are in opposition to traditional marriage. ... The names of any companies and organizations that choose not to donate in like manner to ProtectMarriage.com but have given to Equality California will be published."

In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. When you're treating an entire group of people as second-class citizens because you disapprove of their biological makeup, what's a little blackmail and extortion? Just a bit of extra oomph to the cause, really. I'm not sure why they think the ploy would work. I mean, presumably, if the fuckwits at ProtectMarriage could get the list, then anyone can. And if they're donating to Equality America, then clearly they're telling "traditional" marriage it can fuck right off and die a long overdue death. Well, maybe not in so many words. Well, except Apple, which I'm pretty sure said something almost exactly to that effect.

It just makes the Yes On 8 crowd look like petty, small-minded thugs. You know, like a mirror does.

CLAY MUSIC MINISTRIES: - I don't know who these bastards are, but they've managed to singlehandedly break new ground in anti-gay ick. And how did they do it? By making an ad in which two seven-year-old children sing a tender homophobic ditty to the tune of "This Old Man". I can't make out all the lyrics, presumably because the kids are home-schooled. But they end with the couplet "If my dad is a woman or my mom is a man / Yes on Proposition 8", which doesn't even rhyme.

Also, I don't remember a single news story about the California court decision that mentions sex-change operations for existing, heterosexual parents. So unless Clay Music snatched up a couple of foster kids from the state, there's no way these adorable moppets could end up with a dad who's a woman. OK, that's not fair. I'm sure the seven-year-olds were trying to dumb down the argument enough that the pro-Prop-8 people could understand it.

Prop 8 needs to fail, and fail hard. If there are enough bigots in California to enact a constitutional amendment there, then it's going to take a hell of a lot longer than I thought for us to reach the inevitable future we're heading toward, whether the Mormons, the bigots, or the insane child-warping musical ministries like it or not.

The Bachmann Boogie

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 21:36:53 -0500

Wingnuts, 23 October 2008

Memo to Michelle Bachmann: HOLY SHIT, YOU SUCK AT THIS.

I cannot contain my glee at watching Michelle Bachmann, Minnesota's own basic-cable low-rent Ann Coulter, dodge and weave and do a St. Vitus' dance I call the "Bachmann Boogie" in a desperate attempt to recover from last Friday's disastrous Hardball interview. You know, the one where she called in the media to investigate members of Congress who may have anti-American views? It's like a schadenfreude sandwich on schadenfreude bread with schadenfreude mustard and a side of schadenfries.

Three weeks ago, if you'd asked me, I would have assumed that Bachmann's re-election was assured. She had the benefit of incumbency, was running in a district stupid enough to elect her in the first place. She was running against a guy named Tinklenberg. But now? Tinklenberg has almost a million bucks in small donors, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is in for another million, their Republican counterparts have pulled all their ads promoting Batshit Bachmann, and it turns out there is such a thing as bad press after all.

On Monday, I mentioned Bachmann's first attempt at playing her Get Out Of Fuckup Free card - the standard denial. You may have seen it recently when Sarah Palin claimed the Troopergate investigation said she didn't do anything illegal or unethical, which is a fascinating interpretation of "she broke an ethics law", and one that somehow seemed to work. But Bachmann is no Palin. Faced with direct quoting of her saying she feared Obama held anti-American views, she reached for the top of the Republican Community Chest pile, and to nobody's surprise, came up with "Blame The Media". ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Chris Matthews laid a trap, and I walked into it... Chris Matthews was using the term over and over, and I should not have used it... This was Chris Matthews. I made a big mistake by going on the show. I never should have... I just didn’t recognize — I never watched the Chris Matthews show before. I should have before I went on. I didn’t recognize that he would lay a trap the way that he did." - Bachmann, to the St. Cloud Times.

Wait, are we talking about the same Chris Matthews? Spud-For-Brains? He's a fucking cable news hack, not even one of the Spy Vs. Spy guys. You know how you can tell Chris Matthews has set a trap for you? Simple. Look for the piece of notebook paper taped to the wall with the word "TRAP" and an arrow written on it in crayon. If you then walk into that trap, you're as stupid as... well, Michelle Bachmann, I suppose. And there's a whole list of jobs, ranging from burrito folder all the way up to congresscritter, that being that dumb ought to disqualify you for.

And second, I call bullshit. Chris Matthews has been doing Hardball, or earlier incarnations of the same damn schtick, since 1994. You're going to tell me that the politically ambitious Bachmann never once tuned in? You're going to tell me that during the late 90s, when Matthews was making his bones by raking the Clintons over the coals, that the ultraconservative Bachmann didn't check it out EVER? No fucking way. The only true thing in that entire interview was the part where she said going on the show was a big mistake. Although that depends on your point of view. You could argue that going on Hardball was the first good thing Michelle Bachmann has ever done for society.

We've done the jump to the left and the step to the lie, but it's the psychotic thrust that'll prove she's insane.* Watch, as she goes on conservative talk radio and repeats the claims she swore she didn't make, and was tricked into making:

To Hugh Hewitt:"And so, he was using the word 'Anti-American' and I told Chris, what I question are Barack Obama’s views. Because Barack Obama’s views are against America. They won’t be good for our country." And to Mike Gallagher: "And they can’t take it because the point is what are Barack Obama’s policies? Are they for America or will they be against traditional American ideals and values?"

See? He's not anti-American, he just holds views that are against America and against traditional American ideals. Anyone who would twist that into Obama being "anti-American", based on nothing more than liberal bias and the knowledge that "anti-" means "against", is just a clever trickster who happens to host an obscure talk show that no Representative in their right mind would ever have heard of. Follow that?

BONUS HALLOWEEN COSTUME IDEA: Tie some sheets into a bunch of knots, drape them over yourself haphazardly, and be the hit of your party as "Michelle Bachmann's Logic".

*If I ever apologized for any jokes, I would apologize for this one.

Social Schism

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:03:16 -0500

Election 2008, 22 October 2008

Memo to The Discourse: YOU ARE DUMB.

Yes, we're in the middle of an election, and yes, in the desperate pursuit of Ultimate Power for people and their tribe, it's an anything-goes game of who can kick consensual reality the hardest in the nuts. But goddammit, words have meanings, and even the most insane Orwellian twistings of vocabulary don't change two fundamental facts:

We all pay taxes, and Barack Obama is not a fucking socialist.

And if you doubt either of those facts, there is something seriously wrong with your head. When someone says that 40% of working Americans don't pay taxes, the correct response is NOT to believe them so you have an excuse not to vote for the black guy. The correct response is to STOP LISTENING TO CRAZY PEOPLE. Because any number like that is (a) pulled out of someone's ass, and (b) ignores vast swaths of the tax system in order to reach far enough up their ass to even grab hold of it in the first place.

It doesn't count payroll taxes. It doesn't count Social Security. It doesn't count sales tax, property tax, FICA, Medicare tax, gas tax, booze tax, cigarette tax, or the wide variety of "fees" that Grover Norquist's No New Tax Brigade have been imposing in lieu of taxes. They just mean income tax and capital gains tax, which are the only taxes that matter to rich people, which is whom rich pundits are trying to protect by lying to you about people not paying taxes.

It's class warfare from the people who know it best. Pit people not making a lot against the people making even less, and they'll be so busy fighting they won't notice the robber barons on the top ended up with all the fucking money. And lots of stupid people fall for it. But it's bullshit. If you're employed, you're paying into the system, and even if you're not employed, you're probably paying into the system. And odds are, you'd actually benefit from a bit of the old socialism.

But Barack Obama is not a socialist. Socialism is not taking money from richer people and giving it to poorer people. That has a different name: American society for pretty much its entire history. That's part of the social contract we all agreed to when we decided not to move to another country. Everyone pays into the system, and then the system pays for stuff. Sometimes it builds a bridge. Sometimes it gives a poor dude money for a can of soup. Sometimes it bombs brown people. Maybe you'll benefit from it, if you're driving over a bridge, or hungry, or hate brown people, but your individual benefit isn't part of the equation. Society's benefit is. And that's not socialism.

Redistribution of wealth is not socialism. Redistribution of wealth is redistribution of wealth. And it happens constantly. Sometimes, like lately, the money moves up the chain into small numbers of very wealthy people. That's redistribution of wealth. Sometimes, usually thanks to the pressure of government, it moves down the chain, into large numbers of reasonably well-off people. Neither of those is socialism.

When Barack Obama proposes to shift the tax burden to roughly where it was under Bill Clinton, that's not socialism. It wasn't socialism under Bill. It wasn't socialism from the 30s through the mid-80s, during five decades when the tax rates rich people paid were higher than what Obama has proposed. There are three periods in the last century when the rich were taxed less than Obama wants to: the late 20s, when everything went to hell, the Reagan-Bush years, in which everything went at least to heck, and the Dubya Years, and we all know how fucking well that worked out. So, again. Not fucking socialism.

And not Marxism, and not communism, and not any of the other quaint red-baiting epithets thrown around by flailing wingnuts as their power wanes. And not some kind of creeping pseudo-socialism, as exemplified by Sarah "You're With Stupid" Palin in her attempt to pretend she's being reasonable. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"I’m not going to call him a socialist but as Joe the plumber has suggested, in fact, he came right out and said it, it sounds like socialism to him and he speaks for so many Americans who are quite concerned now after hearing finally what Barack Obama’s true intentions are with his tax and economic plan."

The only Americans who are "quite concerned" about Obama's tax plan are the people who, in defiance of all reason, think complete fucking knuckleheads like Joe The Plumber know the difference between socialism and a plumber's license. Neither of which he's ever seen. Who somehow are convinced that when Obama wants to move money down the chain, he's going to start with THEM and move all their money down to the undeserving poor. Particularly stupid people will think those undeserving poor are all of Obama's urban black welfare friends.

And just like in 2000 and 2004, if their ears and tiny brains prevail over their eyes and actual bank balances, they'll gleefully sign up for another four or eight years of handing all their money over to rich people to avoid the illusion of handing all their money to poor people. And that's definitely not socialism. It's sociopathy.

Bachmann Turnout Overdrive

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:25:07 -0500

Wingnuts, 20 October 2008

Memo to Michelle Bachmann: GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY.

Fuck, it's worth a try. Actual true story. Friday morning, workplace political discussion. The topic? That Michelle "Batshit" Bachmann was only four points up on her unfortunately-named Democratic challenger, Elwyn Tinklenberg. That morning, I predicted that if she were to do something incredibly stupid, she might lose. But it couldn't be the usual stupid shit she pulls two times a day. No, this would have to be something monumentally stupid, preferably on camera, preferably reaching a national audience.

From my lips to your non-existent deity or deities' ears. Because that evening, there she was, on Hardball With Mr. Potato Head, calling for a full media investigation into which members of Congress hold un-American beliefs, starting with Barack Obama and not stopping until they're all rooted out. On-camera, for twelve minutes, reaching a national audience, displaying the full range of utter idiocy and bugfuck insanity that we all know Bachmann harbors in her tiny, twisted brain.

Here's the short version of how it went down. Bachmann was there to push the Ayers story and act like there's a ton of stuff out there about the Obama/Ayers relationship that we don't know. This is, of course, a lie, but it's one of the lies Republicans are freely being allowed to tell this election, so that's OK. But then she took it one notch farther on the great wingnut belt. She dipped her toes into the conspiracy theory that Obama has been shaped all his life by radical anti-Americans, from Wright to Ayers to a whole list of other names that you usually see in all caps on a comments page.

And Chris Matthews, who has recently taken up pretending to be a journalist as a hobby, noticed that Bachmann was sitting on the other side of the Acceptably Crazy/Unacceptably Crazy wall, and decided to actually spell out the shit she was implying. This is traditionally done by cable news journalists to allow the politician to step back from the abyss. Having given everyone a nice long look at what they want to say, but can't, they then say "Of course I don't mean that, Chris. I'm just saying that the American people have a right..."

But Michelle Bachmann is, as we've noted many times before in this space, SUPER DUMB. So when confronted with the question of whether she was calling liberals, including her fellow members of Congress, anti-American, she leapt in with both feet. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Absolutely. I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views. That's what the American people are concerned about. That's why they want to know what his answers are. That's why Joe the plumber has figured so highly in the last few days... You'd have to ask them, Chris. I'm focusing on Barack Obama and the people that he's been associating with... What I would say -- what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that."

I didn't think she could pull it off, but she did. She actually broke her own individual record in the hundred-meter stupid, which has stood uncontested for MONTHS. And when you add in the blatant lie denial, ("I'm not saying his views are anti-American. That's a mis-reading of what I said.") and the truly epic electoral consequences, she may actually have broken the world record. And oh, what consequences they are.

First, when this broke wide, the left-wing blogs started sending money to Elwyn Tinklenberg. He got half a million dollars in 24 hours. Which, for a low-profile House race, is a huge, huge amount, and with luck, he'll use it to get some ads on the air in the final weeks of the race. But it gets better. ACTUAL NOT-BACHMANN QUOTE TIME!

"Thank you for your support in helping me lead the charge in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District against the destructive neocon ideology that has mired the United States in an unnecessary war in Iraq at a cost of thousands of American lives, hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars, and untold damage to the international stature of the United States of America. And, as if incumbent Rep. Michele Bachmann’s enthusiastic support for these policies is not damaging enough, she now appears to be calling for a witch hunt to 'find out [which members of Congress] are pro-America or anti-America.' We cannot tolerate this festering brand of neo-McCarthyism in our midst."

That rabid anti-american leftist is REPUBLICAN Aubrey Immelman, who tried to unseat Bachmann in the primary, and who is encouraging Republicans in her district to write in his name instead of voting for her. It's like Christmas in October, and every present Bachmann opens launches a spring-loaded pie into her face. If this actually gets Michelle Bachmann out of Congress, I swear, I'm going to declare October 17 an official YAD holiday and celebrate it every year.

Who Speaks For Mario?

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:27:02 -0500

Election 2008, 17 October 2008

Memo to Joe The Plumber, John McCain, and Barack Obama: YOU ARE DUMB.

And so, we are done with the debates. And what a way to go out, huh? In a desperate attempt to create a new demographic out of thin air that will vote for him, John McCain conjured up the mighty JOE THE PLUMBER, whose plucky spirit and hard-working American grit would be crushed, CRUSHED, by Barack Obama's brutal, class-warfare taxcuttery. But that's not important right now. What's important is that we kick off an all-debate SPASTIC TOPIC MONKEY FRIDAY with the most important picture on the Internets.

I have no idea what the fuck this actually is. And I don't care. Sure, it's taken willfully out of context, one frame out of 24 per second in which John McCain seems to be doing the robot while tonguing an imaginary penis. Not at all representative of the man or his life. But boy, howdy, would I love it if this image was the first thing the entire universe thought of when they heard the name "John McCain", so I present it here in direct shameless service of that noble goal.

Only one man in all of history has been photographed with his face looking like that and managed to keep his reputation as an intellectual and genius intact. That man was Albert Motherfucking Einstein. And as anyone who watched Wednesday night's debate can attest, John McCain is no motherfucking Einstein. Also, are Republicans allowed to have jazz hands? Doesn't that automatically make you a beatnik or a fairy? Maybe it's time for one of McCain's own non-litmus litmus tests.

OK. Joe the Plumber. Immediately after the debate, when all I knew was the guy's name and story, I was already prepared to tell Joe the Plumber to fuck right back off to whatever S-Bend he crawled out of. In an election cycle that's already given us hockey moms, Joe Sixpack*, and Chris Matthews' famous "regular Americans", the last thing I needed was some new incarnation of some new demographic filled with people who irritate me.

Then I found out that, far from a new demographic, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is all too familiar - an underinformed, tribal pigfucker who's too stupid to figure out that Barack Obama's tax plan would leave him with MORE money, not less. Probably because he's too busy railing against the evils of Social Security to learn how to use a pocket calculator. So double-fuck that guy with a couple of three-foot lengths of professional-grade PVC.

And Obama. Buddy, you know I want you to win. And you know you've probably got it all under control. And it's great that you're running against Bush, and running against McCain by telling us he's just like Bush. But the last time I checked, Bush and McCain were just two representatives of an ideology known alternately as "the right", "conservatives", and "Republicans". And you know what three terms you didn't use last night, and that I can't remember the last time you used? "The right", "conservatives", and "Republican".

And maybe you think you need that to win. And maybe you're right. But your opponent spent the entire debate coming out of the closet as a hardline movement conservative. He played every single conservative douchebag card he was allowed to bring into a domestic policy debate - "pro-abortion", ACORN, Fannie and Freddie, never raise taxes, activist judges, class warfare, redistribution of wealth.

All watchwords for a movement and a philosophy that is weaker than it's been in three fucking decades, and you couldn't take a moment of your time to kick it while it's down, drive a stake into its heart, and maybe start building up positive associations with liberalism in the general public? Apparently not. You get a pass now, but come January, we need to see some movement on this front.

*Back in the good old days, we called them "racist alcoholics". Goddamned political correctness.

Fucking Nuts

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 22:27:20 -0500

Election 2008, 15 October 2008

Memo to Republicans: ACORN? REALLY?

Sweet goddamn, Republicans love their shadow organizations. There's Skull and Bones, there's the Bilderberg Group, there's the Project for a New American Century. If you are the type to believe in secretive groups pulling the strings of power from safely behind the scenes, the GOP will happily fuel your paranoid fantasy with a bevy of vaguely-named, slightly troubling groups.

Over here on the left, we don't really have anything like that. I mean, maybe we do, and they're so secretive that I've never even heard of them, but I doubt it. If this is what the world's become WITH secret leftist organizations exerting their influence, then they probably suck at their job. Plus, if they existed, the Right would be working to expose them, not working to turn ACORN into one.

I'm guessing that in the past week, you've heard more about ACORN, the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now. They're a large grassroots organization who lobbies for the underprivileged, on the grounds that the underprivileged can't afford high-priced lobbyists the way Saddam Hussein and John McCain can*. But that's not what ACORN's been in the news for. ACORN has been in the news for stealing the 2008 election and causing the global financial crisis.

No, seriously. That's how hard-up the Republicans are. Spending two weeks calling Obama a darkie terrorist traitor ended up backfiring on them**, so they've transformed ACORN from a bunch of hippie advocates into a cabal straight out of Ian Fleming. Their plot? Phase one, siphon all the money out of your 401K and put it into the foreclosed houses of poor minorities. Phase 2, get one drunk homeless guy to vote under the name "Mickey Mouse" in every battleground precinct in the nation, giving Obama the Presidency. Phase 3? PROFIT.

We've discussed the "blame the economy on poor minorities" thing in the past, but it's worth unpacking this again because it's so goddamned insidious. Here's the reasoning. ACORN successfully sued banks to stop discriminatory lending practices that excluded minorities strictly on the basis of their race, or the race of most of the people in their neighborhood. Banks were then forced, against their will, to loan billions of dollars to these minorities without regard to their income or financial status, even though it was still perfectly legal to deny a mortgage to a minority who didn't have a job.

If it weren't for all those bad loans which were totally ACORN's fault, the ridiculous and greedy practice of assembling mortgage-backed securities, and bundling, and lying on your balance sheets about how much money you actually had, and all the other bullshit douchebags with MBAs come up with between games of Minesweeper? All of that would have worked just fine. But the minorities had to screw up the bottom of the pyramid scheme by not having the money their mortgage broker said they had.

So anyway, the whole thing is complete bullshit, and the sorry construction is only good for identifying the people who spout it as shameless morons who are not to be trusted. But we already knew that about FOX News. On to stealing the election! Here, for your edification, is what is actually going on.

ACORN, lacking an army of minions in shiny silver suits, has been paying local people a small amount of money for each new voter that person can register.
Some of those people did the math and realized if they turned in a bunch of voter registrations, they could get even more money.
Those people filled out, or had other people fill out, a bunch of bogus registration cards with obviously fake names and addresses (such as "Mickey Mouse") on them.
ACORN turned in these voter registrations, because a bunch of state laws say they have to. But they stuck Post-Its on the Mickey Mouse and other suspect cards so that the people whose job it is to screen out the bullshit registrations would have a pretty good idea they were bullshit registrations.
For ACORN to steal the election, somehow, a huge number of fake names and addresses would have to slip through the registration process. Then, with no way whatsoever of knowing WHICH fake voters got on the rolls, ACORN would have to round up thousands and thousands of people to try and vote using those fake names. And it's not like the ones that failed could try again using a different name, what with election judges all over the place.

The scheme, as presented in vague and threatening form by Republicans, would not and could not work. And Republicans know this, which is why they never, ever waste their energy trying to conjure up enough fake voters to outnumber the other side's real voters. Instead, they work on reducing the number of the other side's real voters below the number of their side's real voters, or generate the fake voters entirely in silicon after the polls close and nobody's looking.

Now, factual ludicrousness has never stopped the Right from pushing an idea into the general consciousness, but given that it took six fucking years to charge one of the fuckers who got caught jamming Democratic phone banks in New Hampshire, they can't actually be interested in getting anyone investigated or arrested. No, I have to assume that they're simply preparing the faithful. The 23-percent to 45-percent of the population that still approve of Bush or will vote for Gramps McGrumps. The people who will be unable to accept that the American people have finally, after eight years with their hand on the hot pan, decided to yank that charred stump away.

"We didn't lose, ACORN stole the election!" Count on that to be the battle cry of the same group of nutjobs who've thrown around the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome" since 2001. Expect ACORN to be the new whipping boy of the right, like the ACLU and the United Nations have been - hated and opposed by people who have no idea what the organizations actually do. From such fucking nuts do seriously twisted oak trees grow.

*And hey, turns out they hired the same guy! Small world.

**FINALLY.

May Be Racist

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:18:18 -0500

Republicans, 13 October 2008

Memo to Bobby May: YOU ARE A RACIST PIGFUCKER.

One important thing always to keep in mind about Republicans is that while they profess a belief in trickle-down economics, what they really believe in is trickle-down politics. And not just the thin stream of urine that runs down their pant legs every time they see a turban. No, this is more like the water cycle, where a trickle becomes a stream becomes a creek becomes a river becomes a torrent. The farther you get from the source, the more there is, but there's no denying the source.

John McCain is a trickle. He says Obama has troubling associations. Sarah Palin is a stream. She says Obama sees America differently from the rest of us. Bobby May is a river, and says that after Obama gets elected, he'll send America's money to Africa so that the rest of his goat-herding family can get rich. Not in a racist way, mind. Bobby May wouldn't want you to think he's some racist Virginian pigfucker. After all, we all learned in the 70s that racism is bad, right? He's just being satirical when he participates in today's exciting installment of ACTUAL PIGFUCKER QUOTE TIME!

"DRUG CRISIS: Raise taxes to pay for free drugs for Obama's inner-city political base... 2ND AMENDMENT: Under Obama will only apply to gang-bangers, illegal aliens, Islamo-Fascist terrorists, and Senator Jim Webb's aide... NATIONAL ANTHEM: Change to the "Black National Anthem" by James Weldon Johnson. And raise taxes." - Items from May's "The (Clarified) Platform of Barack Hussein Obama", which the Buchanan County bi-weekly rag "The Voice" inexplicably saw fit to publish.

You may notice that racist pigfucker Bobby May uses the words "raise taxes" a lot in his racist pigfucker column. That's because the racist pigfucker decided on "raise taxes" as his Official Comedy Repetition Item, the one thing the racist pigfucker would say over and over again to perhaps imply that he, as a racist pigfucker, felt that Barack Obama, a black man, would raise taxes. Especially on racist pigfuckers. Comedy repetition is a valid technique, but it must be handled carefully - in the hands of a racist pigfucker, it can just come off as grating and whiny.

How racist is Bobby May? Check out this entry:

"THE WHITE HOUSE: Hire rapper Ludacris to "paint it black." Taxes to be increased to buy enough paint to do the job plus spray-paint for graffiti." Seriously, if scientists could study the compression algorithms May used to get as much racism into this sentence as he could, we'd never have to buy bigger hard drives again. We start with Obama liking rap music, because all black people like the rap music. Now, Ludacris actually cut a pro-Obama track that includes the line "paint the White House black". By taking Ludacris literally, May thinks that black people are incapable of metaphors. And then, of course, because black people love graffiti, they won't just stop at black paint, they'll cover the White House in their filthy gangbanger tags. Oh, and they'll make white people pay for it all.

Of course, May isn't a bigot of a single color. He hates the entire rainbow - taking shots at gays ("Give tax breaks for NAMBLA membership fees"), Muslims ("Replace 50 stars with a star and crescent logo"), foreigners ("Extended franchise to the French, English and especially the Germans"), and gays again ("abolishing the 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy, replacing it with 'A queer in every foxhole and a camouflage sex toy in every backpack'". At least with that last one, we know what kind of gay porn Bobby May secretly downloads off the Internet at home.

But the best part of the whole column to me isn't the rampant pigfuckery. No, it's the last paragraph, which is so chest-thumpingly overcompensatory I suspect Bobby May may actually be a eunuch:

"If Barack Obama a/k/a 'The Great One' or 'The New Messiah' takes issue with any of the above then I dare him to meet me on County Talk next Friday to debate his plans to divide and conquer America and change Liberty and Freedom to Socialism and Communism."

Oh, you stud. What a challenge. Barack Obama, running for leader of the free world, is just going to notice your pile of crap in your pile of crap bi-weekly newspaper in your pile of crap county and head right down there to take on your super-awesome debating skills. I guarantee May has replayed this fantasy debate, where he exposes Obama for the Muslocommie terrorist-loving tax-loving traitor that he is, and then is carried out of the County Talk studios on the shoulders of the townspeople, to the house of the prettiest girl in Buchanan County, where he has hot sweaty sex with a gay soldier. It's especially hilarious when you contrast it with the reality of what happened less than a week later:

"I offer a sincere apology to anyone that I may have offended with anything that I've written when expressing my personal opinions. Effective immediately, I have resigned my position as McCain Campaign Buchanan County Chair."

Way to stick it to those black communists, pigfucker.

But Have The Gifts Been Reported?

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:55:22 -0500

Norm Coleman, 9 October 2008

Memo to Cullen Sheehan: YOU LOSE.

Or you win. It depends. If it's a contest for best campaign spokesman ever, you just came in last. On the other hand, if they're handing out nickel-plated turds for Worst Performance By An Apologist In A Non-Saying Role, then the seat-filler better get ready. You, sir, have an appointment with a podium.

One of the great tragedies of the World's Stupidest Presidential Campaign is that, like the war in Iraq overstretches our military, the Obama/Gramps fight overstretches my dumb-fighting resources. And the Darfur of my analogy has GOT to be the Coleman-Franken campaign, which has gotten mere lip-service from me despite being in my own backyard, pitting a professional comedian against one of my most hated sitting senators.

And it's a crying fucking shame, because it's gotten completely surreal. Basically, Coleman's spent the entire campaign defending against charges that Coleman loves being a Senator because people give him shit for free. Now, I find this hilarious, because I think it's about the least damning thing you can say about a politician. Given a choice between a rabid ideologue and someone who's just in it to steal really expensive pens for the office, I'll take Pen Guy every single time. As long as they keep it to the office, and don't start looting entire other countries, it's reasonably safe for democracy.

But Coleman's been hit with a barrage of stories about free shit. Discounted apartment rent. Free plane trips. Free vacations. Possibly a cushy job in risk management for his wife that she's completely unqualified for. All given by people who have an interest in seeing Norm Coleman stay happy. And the latest? Free suits.

I freely admit I have never paid attention to Norm Coleman's suits, due to the constant distraction caused by his mighty teeth, each of which is a miniature white monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey". But scuttlebutt says that ol' Norm has been getting pricey Neiman-Marcus suits as presents from local businessman and GOP doner Nasser Kazeminy. And when asked about it, Coleman has engaged in the clumsiest question-dodging I've ever seen, culminating in a press conference with Cullen Sheehan yesterday. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!

"Rachel, the Senator has reported every gift he has ever received... The Senator has reported every gift he has ever received... The Senator has reported every gift he has ever received... The Senator has recorded every gift he has ever received... The Senator has reported every gift he has ever received... He has reported every gift he has ever received, Rachel... Again they have disclosed everything they need to disclose on the Senate ethics forms... He does that every year as a United States Senator on his Senate disclosure forms... The Senator has reported every gift he has ever received... The Senator has disclosed everything that he is required to disclose and recorded everything that he is required to record... The Senator has reported every gift he has ever received... The Senator has done nothing wrong and reported every gift he has ever received... And again whatever has been required to be disclosed about her income and what she does has been disclosed."

The quote above contains 163, or 73%, of the 224 words uttered by Cullen Sheehan during the press conference. The other 61 words were no more illuminating. And all he's done is made me crazy curious about what the fuck they're hiding so desperately and ineptly?! That's how bad a spokesman Cullen Sheehan is. He's created a scandal so juicy-sounding it's forced me to use an interrobang. Is he smuggling rare lemurs sewn into the linings of these suits? Could the suits be part of an elaborate coded transmission scheme based on lapel length? Free suits alone can't justify that many reiterations of "The Senator has reported every gift he has ever received."

Whatever the real truth is, I hope Coleman fesses up to it after he loses, because as a member of the voting public, I demand an answer.

De Spite

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:52:15 -0500

Election 2008, 8 October 2008

Memo to bigots and bastards: KEEP MAKING IT SWEETER.

Like other, larger semi-topical comedy enterprises, I won't be covering the debate until at least tomorrow, if I cover it at all. My as-I-write-this prediction, at T minus 25 minutes, is that McCain will play nice and pretend he and his haven't taken the last shreds of their honor and dignity and stuck their collective dicks* in them over the past five days. And every single time they do it, I look at the poll numbers, and note that November 5 just got a bit more emotionally satisfying.

Gramps'll play nice tonight. But no matter how much he'll pretend otherwise, the dick-sticking reached a fever pitch, and I commemorate it today in an all-sleaze, all-smear edition of IDIOTS SAY THE HOLY SHIT GODDAMNDEST THINGS!

"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country. - Sarah Palin, who can't even manage to call Obama a terrorist sympathizer without a grating faux-folks word and a garbled sentence.

Let's pretend that Sarah Palin's argument holds even a drop of water, which it doesn't. But even so, what's worse - palling around with a 60s radical bomb-thrower who served his time and rehabilitated his life, or HAVING SEX WITH SOMEONE who sees America, it seems, as being imperfect enough that he's palling around with secessionists who would reject their own country? The First Motherfucking Dude was a member in good standing of the Alaskan Independence Party until it became politically inconvenient, and I damn well guarantee that Sarah was closer to Todd than Obama was to Bill Ayers. Hell, if any of us had any money left, I'd bet some of it that Sarah was closer to Todd's -business partner- than Obama was to Ayers.

"Terrorist!" "Treason!" "Kill him!" "Sit down, boy!" - Attendees at McCain and Palin rallies in recent days.

For context - the first two were shouted about Obama. The third may have been shouted about Obama or may have been aimed at Ayers; it's not clear. The last, along with some unquoted racial epithets and obscenities, were shouted at a black sound guy for one of the networks. Well, isn't that just fucking lovely?

And make no mistake - when they refer to "palling around with terrorists", or saying that Obama doesn't "see America" the way their supporters see it, this is exactly the reaction they're hoping for. They've been slipping the "Hussein" into his name too - surrogates and introductory speakers, but I think we all know that when it happens once, it might be some guy going off-script, but the second time it happens? That means it's sanctioned by the campaign.

"[Barack Obama has] waged the dirtiest campaign in American history" - Cindy McCain, speaking at a children's hospital.

OK, first of all, I hope that children's hospital took an inventory of the pharmacies after Cindy left, because from the sound of that quote, SOMEONE'S been dipping into the Charity Medicine Cabinet again. For fuck's sake, even McCain's campaign, as bad as it is, might not qualify as the dirtiest campaign ever. Of course, there's still another few weeks left.

But Obama? Really? It took him until now to use the word "Keating", and then only when he was provoked. The shit he could be dropping if he weren't rightfully wary of the "angry black man" stereotype sticking? Cindy McCain, who stole prescription drugs from a charity to feed her addiction, should be thanking Obama for letting her off easy. Or at least not participating in the single greatest Rovian projection in the history of politics.

Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all. The polls and the electoral map are well into "probably can't even steal it" territory. And with the media firmly grabbing hold of those polls and crafting the all-important snowballing "McCain Is Fucked" narrative, I'm cautiously optimistic** that the margin will also be greater than the total number of undecided secret racists Gramps has decided are his only remaining path to the White House.

*Yes, even Palin's dick. It's a taxidermically preserved moose penis that she brings out for special occasions and what she calls "knighting ceremonies".

**And regular readers should know damn well how not-lightly I say that.

Pygfuckermalion

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:00:18 -0500

Election 2008, 3 October 2008
Memo to Palinmaniacs: GET OVER YOURSELVES.

I hate even having to say this. I mean, making fun of stupid people is my stock in trade, right? So I should be happy to watch the country pile on a moron creationist book-banning VP candidate for being stupid. Hell, making fun of Palin has been so good to me I don't even mind all the other Sarah Palin Bingo imitators out there, even if none of them had the balls to use the letters in her name. Good luck finding a use for that domain name in six weeks, though. Really. All the best.

And I am happy. Sort of. Up to a point. As I write this, hours before the debate, I'm hoping for a train wreck that makes the Couric interview look like a Kasparov match. I'm not -expecting- it, since with 90 second responses and 120 second rebuttals, she'll get saved by the clock before she has to think on her feet. But I'm hoping.

At the same time, I feel the need for caution. Not caution in mocking Palin. She's earned every shot she's gotten and then some. But caution about the vague sense I have that people think the hockey mom's epic fail is some kind of watershed moment in America's battle with stupidity.

The problem is, she makes it too easy. She's dumber than Dubya, which is an impressive feat. But as dumb as Dubya was, the fucker always had an answer. Maybe not a great answer. Maybe not a parse-able answer. But he had an answer. And 99 times out of 100, that answer was good enough to maintain the conservative delusions about him for eight years.

Sarah Palin could barely maintain the conservative delusions about her for eight days. Her handlers are so desperate they're trying to pre-blame the moderator's unpublished book that includes a section on Obama. Like it's Gwen Ifill's fault Palin's a microcephalic moosefucker. Everywhere she goes, from a chair in Charlie Gibson's studio to a sandwich shop in Philly, it's like the rest of the world has put on a giant "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt. Noticing this is not a prerequisite for MENSA, as evidenced by the fact that even National Review writers are managing it.

People realized Dan Quayle was stupid too. But they never made the logical leap that other stupid, incompetent people were out there along with him, and they shouldn't be in charge of shit either. Instead, we crucified Gore for being smart and Kerry for being nuanced. Eight years after bashing Quayle for his superfluous "e", the same people turned around and saddled us all with a superfluous "W".

It's the same with Palin. If she's really the sign that America is sick of intellectually challenged, faith-crazy assholes who revel in their Average Joe ignorance, then it won't be long before Glenn Beck gets cancelled, James Inhofe gets voted out of office, and Comedy Central stops running "Larry The Cable Guy: Health Inspector".

But even if, as you're reading this, the news is falling all over itself to show footage of Palin calling Lithuania the central front of the war on cellulite, don't hold your breath waiting for the new Age Of Reason to dawn. Just hope it's enough to get us through November.