So, this is what happy feels like. For the past eight years, I have walked around, hunched over, struggling under the burden of a constant low-grade depression. I finally don't feel like an outsider in my own country anymore. This is amazing.

I haven't posted much lately. To be honest, I've been too nervous. I'm optimistic but not over-confident.

To keep myself occupied, I've been amusing myself by casting the nominees and their running mates as various characters.

For example, "Lost" castaways: 

• Sarah Palin would clearly be Kate -- the pretty, kinda shallow and annoying girl with the shady past that is always on the verge of catching up with her.
• John McCain would be John Locke, who else? -- the true believer who sees himself as a hero but who has slipped over the edge into egomaniacal craziness
• Joe Biden would be Hurley -- the sweet, basically smart, good-hearted regular guy who sometimes lets his mouth get away from him
• Barack Obama would be Jack -- even though I prefer Sawyer and Sayid, I have to see Obama as the principled leader with a painful family history who always puts the interests of others first

What about Shakespearean characters?

• I originally thought Palin was Lady Macbeth (and if McCain -- by some evil scheming -- takes the White House, I still think he shouldn't eat ANYTHING Palin gives him), but now I see her more as Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream. She's trying to memorize her lines and impress everyone with her acumen, but, ultimately, she's an ass.
• McCain is Lear, the sad old leader wandering directionless on the moors (or in the swing states).
• Biden is Falstaff, no commentary required.
• Obama is Henry V, criticized for his youth and inexperience and wild past, underestimated by everyone until he kicked the shit out of the French army (or the Clinton machine).

I could do this all night, but you get the idea, and it got me though the day.

I have to ask, what were the Palin staffers thinking to let those two Canadian radio goons talk to her? Is it really that easy to talk to Sarah Palin? If I had the slightest desire to do so, could I call up the Palin people, tell them I'm Margaret Thatcher with some advice to offer, and set up a convo?

And why on earth did Dick Cheney leave his underground fortress of evil to endorse McCain two days before the election? You know the McCain people had to be pissed. I think it was the Bush administration's "fuck you" to the McCain campaign for alternately pretending they don't exist and then talking about what a shitty job they've done.

I think it's very sad that Obama's grandmother passed away on the eve of the election. I wish she could have been in full possession of all her faculties to see (please, please, please, fingers crossed) her grandson win tomorrow.

And I wish someone would knock the shit out of the GOP assholes who are running the last-minute fear-a-thon concerning Jeremiah Wright. If I see that commercial one more fucking time...

Okay, I am going to end this rambling, ridiculous entry and go back to obsessively reading HuffingtonPost and The Daily Kos. And maybe casting the candidates as "Veronica Mars" or "Buffy" characters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW-6DpC-mj8

I usually tend to come down on the side of cynicism, but goddamn, I'm tired of feeling hopeless and ashamed of my own country. And I am guardedly optimistic that many other people feel the same way.

Check out the Palin-as-Prez site.  It's the best chuckle I've had in several days.

Colin Powell's long anticipated endorsement of Barack Obama on "Meet the Press" this morning certainly lived up to and perhaps surpassed the expectations of the most hopeful Obama supporter.

Powell not only lavished praise on Obama as a "transformational figure," he effectively eviscerated McCain on his response to the financial crisis, his pick of Sarah Palin as veep, his reprehensible campaign, and his part in creating an ever-narrowing GOP. It was a critique rendered all the more powerful by Powell's calm, reasoned, even delivery.

So, the question remains, how much does it matter?

I lost a significant portion of respect for Powell when he didn't level more stringent criticism at the Bush administration for its precipitate rush to war, even after Powell had (somewhat belatedly, I thought) disassociated himself from the administration.

However, Powell still carries great weight with many voters. Media deference to Powell, along with anecdotal evidence from my own family and community, suggests he has transcended race in a way no other black leader has ever managed to do in this country: he has achieved the status of a respected American elder statesman, not a black elder statesman. Maybe it's his military experience. Maybe it's the staggering breadth of his experience both militarily and politically. Maybe it's his obvious intelligence combined with quiet, dignified strength.

Powell inspires confidence. That is, of course, why he was so utterly convincing in what had to be one of the most dreadful lowpoints of his career, delivering the U.S.'s "evidence" of Iraq's WMDs to the U.N. The Bush administration misled Powell and used him to mislead the American public, while also blithely and foolishly ignoring all of Powell's caveats. Did Bush and his inner circle ever once really listen to anything Powell said?

Powell was a hollow, ineffectual figurehead as Secretary of State, and for someone of Powell's immense qualifications and experience, someone used to being listened to and having his orders followed, that had to sting. Did Powell seize back just a bit of what was stolen from him by Bush and company with his slamming of the current Republican candidate? Maybe.

Will it actually affect the outcome of the election? I don't know. It will certainly dominate the news cycle for a few days. In today's coverage, every Republican strategist I've heard interviewed (and I've heard at least six), sounds ever more hopeless and robotic in their insistence that William Ayers's incredibly tenuous connection to Obama really does reveal something sinister in the character of the Democratic nominee, who, by the way, is a socialist, if you haven't heard.

And despite McCain's strained smile as he states that Powell's endorsement of Obama was expected, Powell's defection from the GOP has to be demoralizing. And, as far as I am concerned, the more demoralized McCain is, the better.

 

Okay, I've known for a long time that Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is batshit, fucking crazy, but crazy in a manner I've come to expect from certain members of congress. If the vacant, unblinking, maniacal stare didn't tip you off, pretty much every time she opens her mouth, it's to blather on about intelligent design or the gays or pussies who want America to lose the Iraq war. Pretty typically wing-nutty, right? I mean, the senators from my state are Tom Coburn, who wants to execute abortion doctors, and Jim Inhofe, who doesn't believe in global warming. People who live in glass nuthouses shouldn't throw stones.

But at approximately 6:30 in the above video, Bachmann, spurred on by her terror of an impending Obama administration takes wing-nuttery to a shiver-inducing new level (because, and I don't know if you've heard about this, but apparently, Barack Hussein Obama is some sort of radical Arab Muslim elitist liberal who takes coffee with terrorists. One would have thought the media would have looked into this.) Bachmann, talking to an uncharacteristically near-speechless Chris Matthews, calls for the media to begin an investigation into which "liberal, leftist" members of Congress are "anti-American."

Yeah. I am usually leery of people who invoke the specter of McCarthyism, but this crazy bitch is calling for a witchhunt of oh-my-god-I-have-to-testify-before-HUAC-and-where-is-Arthur-Miller-to-write-a-play-about-this proportions. Who knows, maybe she'll get Sarah Palin's friend Rev. Muthee to spearhead the project. He's totally got the witchhunt credentials. Just ask that poor woman he terrorized into fleeing her Kenyan village.

It's not that I think any rational person will take her call seriously.

It's that I think the lunatics might take her her call seriously.

We already have Sarah Palin fomenting the freakiest, fringiest, angriest factions of the Rethuglican base, smiling when members of her audience call for Obama's death. Maybe it really was her idea instead of the speechwriter's to quote the racist Westbrook Pegler in her RNC speech. Pegler, of course, is infamous for hoping of Robert Kennedy that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

We, as sane members of the America citizenry, have the responsibility to hold political figures accountable when they come perilously close to inciting violence against their opponent. We also have the responsibility to protest loudly when political figures spit on the Bill of Rights on national television. Okay, maybe "national" is a bit strong. Imean, it was just MSNBC. But still...

What is the most effective way to hold politicians accountable? Make them unemployed politicians. I've been sending most of my donations to Barack and company, sadly reasoning that Andrew Rice's spirited but doomed bid for Inhofe's senate seat is a waste of funds better used elsewhere. But I think I can scrape together a few bucks to send to Bachmann's opponent Elwyn Tinklenberg. Yes, I know, it's very sad. But he can't help it if he sounds like a J.R.R. Tolkien character. Send him some money.

 

So, one of my friends from school had two abandoned kittens she was bottle-feeding. She wanted to keep them, but her puppies weren't meshing well with the new members of the household. My mom had to put her 19-year-old cat down last year, and she has been thinking about getting another cat or cats. I took her the kittens yesterday.  They are named Suzie and Tommy (my mom was raised in the '50s), and we played and played. They are beautiful and perfect.  There is nothing in the world more adorable than kittens (human babies included, IMHO).

When I came back to my house, I looked at my cats Sam (11 years) and Dennis (7 years) and asked (unfairly), "Why aren't you kittens?" Dennis looked apologetic and vaguely confused -- his typical expression. Sam's scornfully curled lip and half-closed eyes suggested this response: "Why don't you go clean up where I shit on the carpet? You know I don't like it when you go places."

Then he hefted his substantial girth off the floor and waddled off to check if I had put any more of his prescription weight reduction food in his bowl.

One is my friends is convinced Sam is a Republican. Fat cat. Get it? Get it?

So, who didn't see this coming?

As frothing-at-the-mouth disgusting as the McCain/Palin attacks have been in recent days, no honest observer of this campaign can have been surprised at their viciousness, least of all their main target. Check out Obama's prescience in the video link above.

I just keep reminding myself that the McCain/Palin tactics (remember when McCain, ironically, chided Obama over his misunderstanding of tactic versus strategy?) indicate fear and desperation. They are campaigning from a nearly indefensible position of weakness, and they know it.  They are appealing more and more to the lunatic fringe of the Republican base, and this is not a year, unlike other recent election cycles, where a strong base showing is enough to put the candidate over the top.

I keep reminding myself of these facts. Then I go and make another donation to Obama.

Donate here.

TIME writer Nathan Thornburgh gets to the substance of Palin's ineptitude in "What the Troopergate Report Really Says."

In the midst of Grandpa McGrumpy and Caribou Barbie's desperate attempt to turn the page and change the subject from the economy, the economy decided not to cooperate, again. Check out The Washington Post's photo gallery documenting the NYSE's 800 point plunge and the ripple effects around the world.

It's enough to make you stock up on canned goods and liquor and retreat to some isolated, easily defensible bolt-hole.

Or, you could laugh at 23/6's latest edition of "Get Your War On."

I enjoyed the traditional bluegrass of Ralph Stanley long before the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack revived interest in his music. But his newest recording is a radio ad in support of Barack Obama:

http://blip.tv/file/get/Tpmtv-ObamaRadioAdRalphStanley827.mp3

This is the most awesomest thing since Wonkette introduced me to the wonders of Blingee!

Sarah Palin Bingo!

I plan to play on Thursday night!

I was passing the time drinking a 2nd (okay, maybe 3rd) glass of wine (if my liver survives this election unscathed, it will be a miracle) and reading the genius responses to one of today's posts on CNN's "The Cafferty Files." Jack Cafferty had posited the question: "Are Palin's Interviews with Couric Helping Her?"

At 1:21 pm ET, someone who refers to him (or her)self as OLDEWOK responded:

"YES..Sara [sic] made Katie look like a [sic] east coast liberal bitch…WE love socker [sic] moms…and dont [sic] want them picked on by the elit [sic] snobs."

Hmmm....

Question: Are there some people who are entirely too stupid and ill-informed to vote because they will invariably vote against their own economic self-interests and who should probably be dissuaded from voting for their own welfare (and that of the country)?

Answer: Obviously

Question: Does holding this opinion make me an "elit" liberal bitch?

Answer: Again, obviously. And I am perfectly fine with that.

As a child, I told many a lie to get out of doing something I didn't want to do: go to school, have a playdate with the smelly kid down the street, mow the lawn. Bad, I know. And I had fully repented of my evil ways. Until I realized my childhood dishonesty was perfect training for a fulfilling new career -- presidential candidate "truth" spinner. And boy does McCain need some new spin.

Let's face it. John McCain has gotten himself into a heck of a pickle. Now that everyone from Bob Herbert  to Kathleen Parker  to Fareed Zakaria is calling for Palin to step down, how does McCain get rid of her without looking like even more of a reckless fool to independents and undecideds and also without alienating the "I Heart Sarah" Repub base, who couldn't much stand McCain pre-Palin?

Since McCain clearly has no problem with lying, this delicate situation calls for a lie of the first order. Here are some suggestions for an ambitious McCain surrogate looking to move up in the campaign ranks:

1. So many people have been so impressed with Gov. Palin's grasp of foreign policy these last weeks that she's been tapped for even higher service. C.I.A. No, no more questions. I can't compromise her cover. I've said too much already.

2. Both Vladimir Putin and Mikheil Saakashvili have asked that Gov. Palin come immediately to mediate a new treaty between Russia and Georgia. As much as we will miss her calm and steady presence on the ticket, we cannot in good conscience keep her from her higher calling as an international peacekeeper.

3. Gov. Palin has entered into talks with one of the major television networks to star, along with her family, in a new reality series tentatively entitled "So, You Think You Can Hunt." From Sarah's beauty queen days, having her own series has been a cherished personal goal. We cannot keep her from realizing it.

Okay, all joking aside. I think McCain is stuck with her. I have thought and thought, and I can come up with no strategy that would allow McCain to ditch her without further eroding his own standing. Choosing another running mate can't erase the embarrassing fact that he picked her in the first place. With apparently less vetting than I would give to people I was considering to pet sit my cats, I might add. Even if Palin "voluntarily" steps down, the fervid base will smell a rat and correctly assume their St. Sarah has been forced out.

On the whole, I'm glad. As poll numbers for McCain/Palin continue to tank following Obama's strong, confidence-inspiring performance in the first debate, my optimism becomes less guarded, and I think, "Yep, gambler McCain's Palin pick will be his undoing."

But a small, nagging part of me is worried. What if, it asks nervously, they get into office? Because of vote tampering? Or because of the vicious cancer of racism rotting America from the inside out? I hate used car salesman Mitt Romney, but at least he can answer an interview question without invoking a new Great Depression or saber-rattling us into a war with Russia. I can't stand Rudy Giuliani, but at least he doesn't think dinosaurs and humans occupied the 6,000 year old Earth at the same time.

I think I need someone to talk me down.

This seems incredibly stupid even for a campaign that has done some incredibly stupid shit, but let's give credence to the story for a bit, just for fun.

So the super-Christian, abstinence-only-education base that still hearts feisty hockey-mom Sarah Palin, the base that still arrives at rallies carrying signs saying "Palin Power," the base that thinks Katie Couric was simply the next in a line of "liberal" journalists being mean to St. Sarah, the base who has been giving money to the RNC because of Palin , these people would be okay with this glorification of teen promiscuity sanitized by a quickie, ill-fated wedding? Seems a bit hypocritical to me. I'm just saying.

But hypocrisy has, of course, become the guiding principle of McCain's campaign.

Still smarting from Karl Rove's 2000 smear campaign eight bitter years later (remember the implications concerning JM's illegitimate black baby?), McCain, instead of running a high-minded, honest race, put out a gutter-politics ad depicting a leering Obama as determined to "teach sex ed to kindergarteners before they can read," appealing both to voters' (conscious or unconscious) racism and fear of pedophiles.

After slamming Obama for being inexperienced and unqualified, McCain, cynically and apparently with less thought than he puts into what suit he will wear for the day, chose Sarah Palin, arguably the most unqualified candidate ever to "grace" a national ticket. She makes Dan Quayle look like an heir of Lincoln. After her catastrophic interview with Couric, McCain still referred to her in the debate as "the other maverick" on the ticket. Then refused to let her talk to the press afterwards, instead using Rudy Giuliani as his spinmeister.

In the midst of touting his his bipartisan creds and ability to "reach across the aisle," he demonstrated utter contempt for his debate opponent, evincing a complete inability or unwillingness to so much as look in Obama's direction. What does this disdainful, childish anger toward his "enemy" Obama suggest about McCain's ability to work successfully with a Congress almost certain to be under solid Democratic control? What does it suggest about his ability to implement much-needed diplomacy in our dealings with other countries?

So, while the McCain campaign is still printing signs with the ironic slogan "Country First," they are apparently crossing their fingers in hopes of a snowbilly teen shotgun wedding spectacle that would distract the voting masses from the fact that the country is, to be blunt, in the shitter.

Somehow, I don't think McCain's final Hail Mary pass will find any more success than the others.

You gotta love love all those little liberal geeks out there scavenging the internet for damning footage.

Finally! This is the MSM article I've been waiting for!

http://www.newsweek.com/id/161204/page/1

I'm not quite certain which candidate won last night's first presidential debate on points. I lean toward Obama, but if I am honest, this may be because of my whole-hearted support of Obama and my ever-growing distrust and dislike of McCain.

Certainly, McCain didn't have the disturbing, obvious "senior moment" I was kinda hoping for. Based only on his command of the issues, McCain acquitted himself well. As did Obama. Indeed, the very fact that Obama held (or more than held) his own on what was supposed to be McCain's strongest debate probably does tip last night over into the win column for Obama. Considering that McCain came into the debate trailing and desperately needing an unequivocal, decisive win, the McCain camp has to be disappointed.

Still, on points alone, the debate was pretty close to a draw.

But, as politicians and pundits have known since the first televised debates of 1960, when Nixon came across as sweaty and shifty and Kennedy came across as, well, presidential, Americans don't judge such things on words alone.

All anyone seems to be talking about is how McCain wouldn't look at Obama. When they shook hands. When Obama was directly addressing him, saying,"John..." When Jim Lehrer did everything but force the two candidates to hold hands in an attempt to get them to truly engage each other.

Commentators have debated what McCain's slight meant. Was he trying to keep a rein on his notoriously quick temper? Was he frightened? Nervous? I even read a posted comment on one blog that suggested McCain might have had trouble turning his head. He was a POW, y'know. For fuck's sake.

For me, the body language was clear. It. was. contempt. Pure, seething, and simple. The disdain suggested in his physical demeanor was underlined by his constant refrain of, "What Senator Obama doesn't understand is..." The fact that Obama always parried this jibe with clear, cool, and unhesitating answers must have really burned McCain's tired old ass.

What, McCain seemed to be asking himself, is this unqualified upstart doing sharing my stage? He might well ask a similar question of the unqualified upstart sharing his ticket, but that's another post.

And I can't help but be reminded of Hillary and Bill Clinton's often contemptuous, condescending disbelief that this audacious nobody had the nerve to try to derail the Clinton machine, rather than jumping on board and waiting his turn. The Clintons misread the mood of the electorate, used tactics which undermined rather than furthered their larger strategy,and generally underestimated the steel and smarts of Barack Obama.

If last night's display is any indication, McCain is making a similar error. Mean-spirited belittling may appeal to the Republican base (after all, they are such fine, upstanding Christians, right, Sarah?), but it doesn't play well with independents.

As the the CBS and CNN insta-polls demonstrate: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/26/debate-reviews-go-to-obam_n_129803.html

Final verdict: Obama came off as steady, smart, collected, informed, unflappable. You know, presidential. McCain came off as sneering, patronizing, testy, and, well, kind of a dick.