SO GOOD

I nearly fell off my chair.  Bravo Sullivan, this video might be my favorite hands-down, of all your posts to date:

''
McCain's strategy in a nutshell.  "as crooked as a warped shalele [sp?]"

This hits the nail, squarely, on it's head. I'm in awe.

I'll Let Maureen write today's post

. . . because I love her . . . when she's not annoying me.

Today's column was a gem, as the NyTimes readership appropriately landed it at the top of the most e-mailed articles list. (Above "Doubling Vitamin D among Children is Urged", which is a huge accomplishment. Anything involving danger and children sends every NyTimes reader into an e-mail forwarding panic, likened only by your computer illiterate grandma who forwards every Obama-is-the-black-love-child-of-Stalin-and-a-Roswell-alien-corpse e-mail to her entire address book.)

I would like to insert a photo to illustrate such an email, perhaps to serve as "proof" for those opportunistic Obama-chain-mail happy folks out there, but I am too lazy.

Instead, let's relive when Paris Hilton had to go to jail for violating her probation:

Drink in the schadenfreude.

"How ugly is it"

Pretty effing ugly.  (just check out minute marker 17:17.  It starts somewhat rationally but then runs off the track, over a cliff, into a ravine, and then onto another f****** planet right at about 19:00).  

Check Please.

I really cannot believe this crazy equine excrement.  This really just makes me want to self sort more.  

The Great One has Spoken

Hitch' endorses Obama!

"Vote for Obama

MCCAIN LACKS THE CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT TO BE PRESIDENT. AND PALIN IS SIMPLY A DISGRACE."

Why a photo of Hitch' in the shower?  Why not? 

This is actually from a Vanity Fair shoot of Hitchens.  I personally love that he's smoking.  Where's his scotch?

also,

WTF, Bill Kristol unveils a new tactic--i mean a new direction of stategery--for McCain since 100% negative did not work last week.

Don't you just love how they can just pivot from implying that Obama's an Arab whose best friends are terrorists to disavowing the negative place the presidential race has gone to. Notice "the presidential race" is what went into despicable territory, not McCain's campaign. They're all about the slight of hand, implying that both campaigns were responsible. Right.

This is bound to be really confusing to the Palin-rally set, who just spent the last two weeks getting all pissed-off and afraid of Obama while sharpening their pitchforks to opening prayers at McCain rallies:

I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons," [Pastor] Conrad said.

And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day

Yeah, in case you're wondering, that actually happened.  

Depressing

While I'm glad he took her mic away, this is not enough. People are so crazy to be this open to suggestion it's really scary. With the dumber and shittier McCain supporters calling Obama a "terrorist" and an "a-rab" or worse, calling a black cameraman covering a Palin rally a "n******" and saying "sit down, boy" (I kid you not, check out Rich's link below).

The media is calling them a mob, which I think is correct but still doesn't underscore just how unacceptable it is to encourage such small-minded behavior.

Rich has it right in his column:

Until now. At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets, are actually something new in a campaign that has seen almost every conceivable twist. They are alarms. Doing nothing is not an option.

Maybe the only way I can deal with this insanity is by trying to have a sense of humor:

The guy who made this video is pretty annoying.

But damn, I am surprised that people in this clip sound so sure about his name actually meaning that he's suspicious. I guess the ethnic/race tactics engineered by Schmidt are working amongst the sort of folks who go to McCain rallies. McCain isn't willing to say "bah-rock HU-SSEIN o-bahma" on camera, but it seems like he's okay with having other folks doing it for him.

This is just silliness, and it's anti-American to imply that having a non-anglo ethnic background makes someone so un-American that they shouldn't be president. Frankly, it IS racist to imply that having the middle name "Hussein" is a disqualifier for the presidency . Anyone who honestly denies that fact is either kidding themselves or trying to get away with behaving as a racist without being labeled as one.

Ok this makes me feel a little uneasy . . .

but hey, Sullivan put it up (have I mentioned that this blog might as well be a selection of the dish?)

A supporter in the crowd yelling out "kill him!" at a Palin rally? This video makes me think they didn't mean "beat him in this election" but rather actually (gulp) "kill him".

And let me just take this moment to say that I know that the vast majority of voters who support McCain are not racists. That's surely true. But it is also surely true that the racist voters that are out there, are almost all voting McCain. Apparently the term "racist" is so loaded these days that nobody wants to have a calm and legitimate discussion about racism if they are in any slight way connected with said racists. The term is so loaded that I bet if you asked the folks in this video if they thought they were racists they would most certainly say, "hell no!"

So the point is, the overwhelming majority of McCain supports are not racists and would probably still vote for the conservative candidate if the candidates races were swapped BUT to insist that race doesn't play a part in voting behavior is simply wrong. The more important question is if it will play a big enough part to affect any of the tallies, maybe yes, maybe no.

Let me also give fair warning that this video contains what most people find to be offensive language. It's certainly not safe for work, unless you happen to work in redneck bar. And even then . . .



Somehow I feel a little bit dirty and quasi-racist for putting this up, I mean, I know this isn't what most white folks in America are like and that it's a really, really extreme case. It is, right?

Please tell me it is.

Can you guess what demographic they're shootin' fer? (pew-pew, pew-pew)

Via the Dish (it's a radio ad, hence no video. duh):



Who is Ralph Stanley? (totally outing myself as a non-card-carrying-Appalachian) Wiki says:

Ralph Edmond Stanley was born, grew up, and lives today in rural southwestern Virginia--"in a little town called McClure at a place called Big Spraddle, just up the holler" from where he moved in 1936 and has lived ever since in Dickenson County.[1] The son of Lee and Lucy Stanley, Ralph did not grow up around a lot of music in his home. As he says, his "daddy didn't play an instrument, but sometimes he would sing church music. And I'd hear him sing songs like 'Man of Constant Sorrow,' 'Pretty Polly' and 'Omie Wise.'"[2]

Now my question is, how come at the end Barack has to point out that he's running to be president? Do they really not know in West Virginye?

My answer to that is "No" but I'd like to get back to talking about Alaska . . .

nuff said (via the dish):

Eugene Robinson, Rachel Maddow Ticket for Prez!

Robinson gets McCain's fundamental approach to the campaign, via TPM. Nothing in here screams Robinson for Prez, but damn, I love him so.

OMFG! I'm speecheless

Breaking News!

You wanted it, you got it! Sarah Palin (aka Sarah Heath) in the 1984 Miss Alaska swimsuit competition!

Via the Dish (where else). After this dude's lengthy introduction, is the money shot. I demand the Interview portion of the competition!