Stinque We Must

We had hoped to announce this under calmer circumstances, but events overtook intentions, so here goes:

Welcome to Stinque!

Stinque will be our new home from here on, and we're inviting everyone — bloggers and commenters — to come party with us.

Our intention for the site is simple: We want to embrace the traditions we've quickly developed at our old home, and allow them to continue evolving. While the primary focus remains politics, the name reflects the broader interests of our community: If someone wants to post or chat about sports, culture, Big Fucking Ocean Tornadoes, or even Project Runway, we want them to feel at home.

(We mention Project Runway here so that when we gag on somebody's finale liveblog, you can hold us to our promise.)

We hold no ill will towards our former hosts, and we don't want folks feeling like they have to choose sides. We just have Profound Creative Differences with their future plans, and thought it best to bow out now before we get all pissy about it.

We're Not the Only One Out to Lunch

We've been highly distracted with geek chores the past couple of days, and we're discovering that trying to catch up with the Financial End Times is like missing an episode of a primetime serial — we have no idea how that polar bear got there, but we imagine it'll make sense eventually.

So pardon us while we attempt to wrap our exhausted mind around this:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) warned his former colleagues that they would pay a price in November for backing the bailout now — and that John McCain could ride to victory over Barack Obama by persuading voters that the bailout is really the “Obama-Bush plan.”

Now step back from this a moment and consider: It's understandable that they want to run away from an unpopular president, and the Republican convention was the equivalent of outlaws trying to switch their black cowboy hats to white — but this is the first suggestion we've seen of throwing Dubya under the bus.

We're tempted to agree with Newt, just to see the attack ads — a Rovian snake swallowing its tail.

House GOP rises up against Cheney [Politico]

And in the Trunk, Bundles of Cash

[via Blogenfreude]

Saw Hu Jintao from window today (and got picture) — he jumped out of limo, shook the hands of a carefully-assembled group of chinese people, then bounded across park avenue to do some more. Bush, on the other hand, hid in his limo.

Eternal Sunshine of the Blogless Mind

If it seems like the world is vanishing from your grasp piece by piece, well, it is. One day your comments are taken away from you, the next week the whole posting engine goes south.

And while we would gladly accept $700 billion to fix it, fact is your money's no good here, just like the rest of the world. Either the Evil Hamsters deign to fix the database, or they don't. At least, being hamsters, it won't take much gold to sew their parachutes.

Besides, times are tough all over — just check out this headline from Business Week: Wall Street Bailout Could Crimp CEO Pay. Golly, that would be just awful, wouldn't it? It was only in 2005 that CEO pay was a mere 411-1 over working wages, and nobody wants to return to the dark days of 1990 when it cratered at 107-1. Fucking up the world economy is hard work, after all.

Let's face it: If we don't lend them a hand now, who will hire the gardeners for the McMansions? Topiary doesn't trim itself, pal.

No, no, we're fine, just something caught in our eye, that's all. But the moment we see Sally Struthers asking us for a few dollars to maintain an orphaned Lexus, god help us we're gonna lose it.

Liar’s Paradox

Here's one for the annals of epistemology:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

Oh Ben Smith, you're so adorable. "Little regard"?

McCain camp criticism rife with errors [Politico]

This Time It’s Personal

"This is a desperate attempt to gain political advantage using scare tactics and deceit," said Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman.

How does he do that? How does Tucker Carlson's bastard child say that in the face of eight years of Rovian politics? Who taught him how to lie like that? What pampered Eastern elite college did he attend on Daddy's money?

Turns out he didn't. He went to a Western state university. A very Western state university. A state university so Western, you can hop in your Pinto and be walking the Florence beach within an hour.

Tucker Bounds, Boy Liar, Campbell Brown's Punching Bag, went to the University of Oregon.

My university. My home town. My fucking turf.

It's not like there aren't assholes among the Duck Diaspora. One of them owns a sneaker company, although we treat him nice because the money he saves from Asian sweatshops buys some nice buildings on campus. And the dead half of Simpson-Bruckheimer was responsible for putting Tom Cruise in a fighter jet. And we were really proud of Yosuke Matsuoka until he, um, signed up Japan with Germany and Italy a few generations back.

But we prefer to talk about Prefontaine. And James Ivory. And Randy Shilts. And Wayne Morse, one of the two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. (The other? Ernest Gruening of Alaska. Small world!)

It's okay, we'll be fine. At least it rains a lot in Eugene — the stench has probably long since washed away into the Willamette.

Crisis Draws Attention to McCain Social Security Plan [WSJ]

'Dynamic Duck duo' help propel McCain's campaign [Oregonian]

That and $700 Billion Will Buy You a Bailout

''This is a hole in the dike and it threatens to injure the safety and soundness of our banking system. It's alarming to believe that the Fed, usually the great defender of the banking system, is now leading the deregulatory charge.''

And so, like Babe Ruth pointing the bat towards right field, Chuck Schumer — then a Brooklyn congressman — called the catastrophe that would unfold twenty years later.

The year was 1987, and the occasion was a major Federal Reserve vote that loosened Depression-era restrictions on banks — notably, allowing them to begin underwriting those mortgage-backed securities we've heard so much about lately. The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act wouldn't fall for another dozen years, but this was the beginning of the end.

The Reaganomic argument of the day was that while FDR may have saved capitalism from itself, 1930s protections had been rendered quaint by 1980s conditions, that we needed to take off the leash so American financial oligopolies could compete with oligopolies overseas.

And besides, the Cassandras fearing unimaginable calamities like trillion-dollar bailouts had failed to recognize that the financial system was all grown up now. Thomas Theobald, vice chairman of Citicorp, offered three "outside checks" on market misbehavior:

• "a very effective" SEC


• knowledgeable investors


• "very sophisticated" rating agencies

Give him credit — that's three for three in naming the most cited failures underlying the current meltdown.

Missing from the conversation that long ago spring was any reference to Gordon Gekko or "Greed is Good," but that's only because of a technicality — Wall Street didn't premiere until December. The movie's tagline: "Every dream has a price."

Bank Curb Eased in Volcker Defeat [NYT, May 1, 1987]

The Long Demise of Glass-Steagall [Frontline, 2003]

Coffee’s For Closers

[Bush] added, "People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it's important to have confidence in our financial system."

And speaking of con jobs, here's today's winning Lotto number: $700 billion.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout [AP]

Those Were The Days

Didn't Sarah Palin used to be somebody? We vaguely remember her from a few weeks back — maybe it was a crotch shot in a limo. Or that "Leave Sarah Alone" video. Or the other one. Or the one that's not the first two.

Maybe this will help:

Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board," said Munger, a music composer and teacher. "I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, 'Sarah, how can you believe in creationism -- your father's a science teacher.' And she said, 'We don't have to agree on everything.'"

Ah, now we remember: She's Chuck Heath's daughter. You know Chuck — he's retired now, likes to hunt moose and caribou. Used to teach science. And apparently, near as we can tell, didn't care much for creationism, at least not in the classroom. Good for him.

The pastor who clashed with Palin [Salon]

Is 'Palin Effect' already wearing thin? [SFGate]

Office Maxxx

Poor Cheryl Oldham. She gets a "prestigious job supporting high-ranking corporate executives" at a magazine publisher, but her working life becomes a series of nightmares straight out of The Devil Wore Prada.

Sort of.

Substitute "Nothing" for "Prada", and you'll understand her predicament. Seems the boss has a taste for professionals in another line of work, but his office isn't sufficiently insulated to contain the din of their animated consulting sessions:

The prostitutes "made loud, obnoxious and repeated noises of sexual gratification that disrupted the office and (Oldham's) ability to perform the essential functions of her job," her lawsuit alleges.

So Cheryl takes it up with HR, but HR doesn't want to hear about it. The boss asks her to testify against a co-worker who's also distracted by the chanson d'amour, and when Cheryl refuses, the boss calls her a fat old cow. Disenchanted by the glamorous promise and squalid reality, she finally files a lawsuit.

And who's the boss, you ask?

Hustler's Larry Flynt sued over 'loud sex in the office' [Contra Costa Times]

World Financial Markets At a Glance

U.S. Drafts Sweeping Plan to Fight Crisis As Turmoil Worsens in Credit Markets [WSJ]

KTHXBAI

And we thought Bluetooth would be the death of us.

Engineer in Deadly LA Train Crash Was Texting [WaPo]

I’ll Broaden My Exposure If You Short Your Position

The Fed will spray the dollars around the world via swap lines with other central banks who can then auction them in their own markets.

It's the end of the world as we bow-chicka-wow-wow know it...

Central Banks Offer Extra Funds to Calm Money Markets [Bloomberg]

The War on Boomers

As we were about to say last Sunday before we got tired of sounding like an oracle and spiked the post, this might be the most critical week of the election: the week the caricatures settle in.

Events overtook our discussion anyway. Who cares what Sarah told Charlie? That's a pre-9/15 attitude in a post-9/15 world. The past keeps disappearing at an alarming rate this season, and we're sure something will happen this afternoon that makes us forget this morning. And whatever it is, Geezer will promise to reform that too, just after he tells us not worry about it.

But despite our admonition to not pay attention, we do peek at polls occasionally, especially if they promise to enlighten us beyond who leads among 1,100 adults stupid enough to answer the phone.

Even if takes — let's see — seven grafs to find what we're looking for.

And sure enough, what we find is this: Nothing has changed. Including the fact that everyone continues to ignore the only consistent statistic all year: your age.

If you're under 45, odds are 3-2 you support Obama. If you're over 65, the odds reverse. In between, even. You can chart that with a ruler, left to right.

This election is a war on Boomers, and it has been from the start. Sarah Palin didn't change that, probably because anyone her age or younger can see what an idiot she is without the intercession of Uncle Charlie.

Everything else is a smokescreen, mildly interesting chatter at best. If you expect to live until at least 2035, you're voting for your future. If your chances of surviving McCain's first term rival McCain's, you're begging for one more chance to fuck up the world royally before passing what's left of it to the next generation.

McCain Seen as Less Likely to Bring Change, Poll Finds [NYT]

Miss a Day, All Hell Breaks Loose

So, while we were bravely rescuing CP commenters from being cast adrift on an ice floe, apparently Geezer said the economy is sound, and then he didn't, which was before or after he pulled a Gore and claimed squatter's rights on the Crackberry, but definitely before Failed HP CEO Carly Fiorina said he doesn't have the cojones to run a Fortune 500 company, while we discovered that Talibunny lurves them tanning beds, which makes the odds of Geezer croaking first from skin cancer less certain.

Oh, and Nader's talking to parrots.

We give up. Just throw the election into a blender and we'll check back later.

He’s Not Dead, He’s Resting

Nader. Parrot. Awesome.

CP Commenter Strike Enters Second Day

Sure, we could blame it on a malfunctioning database, but who are we kidding: It's you, taking your vengeance on our groundbreaking series of posts, "Sarah Palin: Get Over Yourselves, She Can't Be That Bad." You're dumbstruck by our sudden advocacy of plucky personality politics, and rather than comment, you're acting like a sulky bunch of goth kids.

Well, fine. Until you grow up enough to treat us with some level of respect and deference, we'll just leave the comments broken, and you can spend the day with the whiners at Kos and TPM. Then you'll come back on your knees, begging us to fix the comments, and maybe we will if your anguish pleases us.

And maybe we will anyway. Soon as we figure out how.

(Oh, hi, hamster fans! Sorry for the confusing crosspost. Actually, no we aren't. We don't make sense half the time anyway, why should we start now?)

We Interrupt This Campaign for a Financial Meltdown

Fannie and Freddie? So last week. Yesterday it was Lehman Brothers going down, Merrill Lynch being sucked up by Bank of America, and AIG holding a $40 billion gun to the head of the Fed.

That would be AIG, "the nation's largest insurer", collapsing by Wednesday if its credit rating slips a notch this morning.

And all because you — yes, you — took out an exploding mortgage to pay for your exploding credit-card debt to cover your exploding student loans to get into a good college so you could enjoy financial freedom for the rest of your life.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

A Chaotic Sunday Opens Wall Street's Week [WSJ]

Talibunny Campaign Airplane Held Aloft by Journo Jollity

Last night's SNL debut was enjoyed by everyone watching on Sarah Palin's jet. Well, almost everyone:

There were howls of laughter from the sizeable press corps covering Palin's first foray on the campaign trail without her running man as a chaperone.

But, from the front of the plane, silence. The flight attendants assured us Palin and her entourage were watching. What she thought, though, is anybody's guess.

Quick-thinking campaign operatives picked up on Chicago Bureau's remark and issued a release claiming the front-cabin silence stemmed from the following 85 minutes, not the first five.

Live From New York, It's Sarah (Tiny Fey) Palin! [ABC]

The Onion Throws Deep Into Python Territory

It was either this or Yet Another Contrarian Electoral Essay. We figured you could use a break.

The Onion [via Sully]

Sarah Palin’s Gay Book Club

TPM scores it a ban; we need to review the footage with the copy desk. Here's the play from the Times:

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”

“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”

That would be Laura Chase, Palin's "campaign manager" during her 1996 run for Wasilla mayor, when the town had less than 5,500 residents. "Bejeepers" is Alaskan for "holy shit that bitch is running wild."

The McCain campaign responds in a related AP story that "Governor Sarah Palin has never asked anyone to ban a book, period." Normally we'd parse that for nuance and spin, but since Geezer now favors the efficiency of repeated outrageous lies, we won't bother.

Instead we'll have a look at "Pastor I Am Gay", the other book earning Palin's Seal of Squeal. Written by Howard Bess, a "liberal Christian preacher" — we'll pause while you reread that — from nearby Palmer, the book was on the shitlist of Palin's church, the Wasilla Assembly of God. Bess says the rival church tried to force his book out of stores, and that librarian Mary Ellen Emmons (now Baker) told him several copies disappeared from the now-famous town library.

Must be a sale on scandals today. Buy Censorship, and we'll throw in Homophobia for free!

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes [NYT]

GOP campaign downplays Palin book-banning inquiry [AP]

For the Record, Bristol’s Pregnancy

"The McCain campaign said Gov. Palin opposed the bridge to nowhere, but now we know she supported it," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor in a statement. "They said she didn't seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn't lying about?"

Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says [CNN]

Harshing the Buzz

If there's one thing we do fear this fall, it's not the increasingly whimsical attack ads, but the Rovian ground game. While we remain confident that 51 percent of the American electorate will come to their senses soon enough, we're not at all confident they'll actually be allowed to, y'know, vote.

Let's start with a taste of Andrew Hacker's article in the latest New York Review, which reminds us of the score to date:

Requiring a driver's license to vote has a disparate racial impact, a finding that once commanded judicial notice. To apply for the state ID card that Indiana offers as an alternative, moreover, nondrivers must travel to a motor vehicles office, which for many would be a lengthy trip…

The Indiana decision [Crawford v. Marion County Election Board] will not only make it harder to add new people to the rolls; many who had previously voted without photo identification are now required to produce an official photograph. If Marion County (Indianapolis) has the same proportion of unlicensed voters as Milwaukee County, I count it as having more than 44,000 black residents who will be needing transport to motor bureaus to ensure that each item in their nondriver ID application has been properly filled in. Extended nationwide, this means that a lot of on-the-ground assistance is going to be needed.

And if that's not enough to grab your attention, here's the breaking news from Wisconsin: state attorney general J.B. Van Hollen has filed a lawsuit against the state's election board, insisting that it crosscheck driver's license registrations on voters who registered or changed address since January 1, 2006.

an election official said the lawsuit could force clerks to check data on about 1 million voters. And critics accused Van Hollen — a Republican serving as the state co-chair of John McCain’s presidential campaign — of filing the suit for partisan gain.

We won't even bother listing suspicions about The Company Formerly Known As Diebold, or the integrity of its equipment in the best of circumstances. It's enough to note that concerted efforts to Block the Vote are already underway, in states where denying the franchise to significantly large numbers of American citizens would be beneficial to a campaign too desperate to lose.

In other words: It's the Ballots, stupid.

Obama: The Price of Being Black [NY Review]

Van Hollen’s voter-check lawsuit sets off a tempest [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

There’s a Rodney Dangerfield Line in Here, and We’re Not Going There

On one hand, we're just a tad uncomfortable running this as the Porn Post.

On the other hand — we can't resist.

But it's a sad story. David W. Johnson's wife suffered a stroke some years back, and she was placed in a Portage, Wisconsin, nursing home. Although she was all but comatose, he remained a devoted husband, visiting daily, reading her the Bible, moving her limbs so her muscles wouldn't atrophy.

Oh, and closing the door to her room and, er…

Yeah. That.

But that's not the story. The staff grew suspicious that he was too loving a husband, and tipped off the cops. The cops got a search warrant, installed a hidden camera in the room, and…

There you go. Caught on tape. That's the weird part.

The wife's sister is cool with loving hubby, so we're not going to pull a Frist and diagnose his behavior from afar. But the tape was used to bring charges against hubby, the tape was thrown out of court as the product of an illegal search, and the tape was the basis of an unsuccessful appeal by prosecutors to a state appeals court.

And the tape may yet travel to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Not that anybody's watching it, of course. Are they?

Wis. court: Cops illegally taped nursing home sex [AP]

Fear Me.

Nojo, 7 a.m.: "Kindie Porn already established that John McCain was willing to lose his integrity to win an election."

TPM, 3:04 p.m.: "An Obama spokesperson just blasted out a statement comparing McCain's current campaign to the infamously despicable 2000 campaign run against him in South Carolina -- true fighting words -- and adding that McCain 'would rather lose his integrity than lose an election.'"

(Update: And in the Low-Hanging Fruit aisle, you can see variations on the theme starting to show up in late July. But hey, it's all about timing.)

Gradually We Became Aware of a Hum in the Room

One of the tricks to surviving the next couple of months is to not pay attention.

And by that we mean: Don't twitch like a goddam exposed nerve at every development.

To put it politely.

We sat out Lipstickgate, for example, because Kindie Porn already established that John McCain was willing to lose his integrity to win an election. No point tossing our soda over subsequent installments. (Unless they're really good, of course. But Kindie Porn sets a high standard in low politics.)

It's a matter of finding the signal in the noise, the leading indicators of where things are going. Some days there's so much static, you might as well be listening to Al Smith battle Herbert Hoover on the wireless. Other days you might notice that Geezer doesn't draw adoring crowds without Talibunny to display like a motocross queen, and file that for future reference. Three strikes is a trend.

What you don't do is worry about the latest poll revealing that Demographic A supports Candidate B because of Issue C. Demographics don't vote. States do. (The exception: Throughout the spring, folks under 50 were very likely to be Obama voters. The vote was split by generation, not gender. We're keeping an eye on that.)

You also write off what cannot be changed, and see what remains. You know Charlie Gibson is going to be lobbing snowballs, so move on to something else — unless Talibunny fields them with a blowtorch. You know the media's going to roll over and play dead (exceptions always welcome), so start considering whether anyone outside the chattersphere is paying attention.

We remain confident, but the election was never a given. The disconnect between John McCain's reputation and John McCain's actions — "I'm John McCain, and I approved this latest abomination of a commercial" — has yet to settle in. But it's being noted, and not just by Obama partisans. We know what an electoral tipping point feels like ("There you go again!"), and we haven't felt it yet.

The moment we do, we'll order that steerage ticket for the Ark.

Let’s Do the Bump

Okay, the state polls are starting to catch up with events, so let's have a look at the field.

The chart above is the one we're watching most closely — it shows the electoral-vote count in states where either candidate leads by more than 5 percent. (We're treating everything else as a statistical dead heat.) State polls aren't released as frequently as national dailies, and this chart averages polling over the past seven days, so there's gonna be some lag in the results.

And if you want to say that Obama drove off a cliff after the Republican convention — wait a sec.

Certainly more states are in play at the moment, which shouldn't be unexpected. We'll need another week, after the hysteria dies down, to see whether that's a blip or a fact.

But what catches our attention — provisionally, it's still early — is that McCain hasn't made any significant gain. You'd expect the lines to cross right about now, and granted, they still might. But so far, the takeaway is that while voters aren't certain about Obama, they don't seem to have much stomach for the alternative.

For comparison, let's look at 2004:


So much bobbing and weaving there, it might as well be a toss-up — nothing approaching the clarity of this year's pattern.

And that's one reason why we're not freaking out yet — it's just too soon to hit the eject button, and nothing's yet outside our comfort zone. Circumstances may change in another week, but the only bump we're seeing so far is a speed bump for Barry.

Electoral College Graphs 2008 [Electoral-Vote.com]

In America, No One Can Hear You Scream

Live from Wasilla [Band of Thebes, via Sully]

When Demagogues Attack

Back in our distant childhood, Joe McCarthy was even more distant, someone you would see, if at all, in a scratchy kinescope clip. He was as quaint as a war movie, as irrelevant as the Andrews Sisters.

We knew about "McCarthyism" long before we knew about McCarthy. The word, if not the man, was relevant in the political climate of our youth. It was used with derision. It was something to avoid. It was the L Word of its day.

Joe came to mind as we were contemplating Barry's response to McCain's Rovian attack ads. It seems a tepid response at first, not at all what's required. It's not angry.

I don't care what they say about me, but I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and swift-boat politics. Enough is enough.

Well, fine, we were thinking, but civility doesn't win elections. Get out the rhetorical bat, whack some rhetorical kneecaps. Politics is bloodsport, violence punctuated by consultant meetings. Man up.

But then we remembered the line that finally broke Bomber Joe's winning streak:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness...  You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

And just like that — in that very moment — it was over. Joseph Welch slayed the dragon.

It's a risky strategy in the hothouse timeframe of a fall presidential campaign, but hey, it's risky running as a black man in These United States. We want to see more, we want to see it expressed with more conviction. But the more egregious McCain's attacks get — and they will, Rovians can't help themselves — the more righteous civility just might carry the day.

Obama On Lipstick Controversy: Attacks Media, Says "Enough Is Enough" [TPM]

Andrew Sullivan Greets the Apocalypse

Yes, McCain made a decision that revealed many appalling things about him. In the end, his final concern is not national security. No one who cares about national security would pick as vice-president someone who knows nothing about it as his replacement. No one who cares about this country's safety would gamble the security of the world on a total unknown because she polled well with the Christianist base. No person who truly believed that the surge was integral to this country's national security would pick as his veep candidate a woman who, so far as we can tell anything, opposed it at the time.

McCain has demonstrated in the last two months that he does not have the character to be president of the United States.

Nobody's listening to him either, but it's fun to watch him stew.

McCain's Integrity [Atlantic]

The Madness of Crowds

No, we're not talking about the idiots cheering on a teleprompter jockey because they've suddenly become fans of Lifetime biopics. We're talking about the people who fear those idiots.

We're talking about, as a Kos commenter aptly described it, Palin Panic Anxiety.

Word to the wise: Take a long, slow, deep breath. Repeat all week, if necessary.

And now, let's address the facts:

• McCain chose Palin to appease the fundamentalist power brokers in his party. The gambit worked, and she is more popular than he is among the idiiot faithful. If anything, the power brokers are now warning Geezer not to distance himself from her divisive religious views.


• The idiot faithful are beyond redemption. Write them off. Now. They are not susceptible to reality, and they never were. They will swallow the spin as given, and even fill in their own spin when guidance from McCain's Rovian puppetmasters is not available. For further details, consult the evolution of Greek mythology.


• We're still riding a very big wave from a very big performance. It's going to continue cresting this week, and it might even last into the next. It's going to consume all attention from the media, and from supporters and opponents. That is the nature of these things, and there is no point wasting energy on resisting. Ride it out.

Meanwhile, the prosecution's case grows day by day, as Chainsaw's series of posts amply demonstrate. These things will gain no traction right now, but they are on the record, and will start seeping into general consciousness once the initial novelty and enthusiasm wanes. Americans get bored very quickly, and once they've had their fill of Maverick Hockey Mom, they'll need some fresh news to keep them interested.

That's when we'll start hearing The Rest of the Story, and that's when doubt will begin to disturb the Fabled Undecided, those who are enjoying the show right now but aren't committed to the plot. Think Heroes and Lost, initially wildly popular but stumbling after their first seasons. In presidential politics, the second season comes very quickly.

Sarah Palin: Child Abuser

We're on the verge of setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of all this, but here's the latest in Talibunny: The Sarah Palin Chronicles...

An Anchorage judge three years ago warned Sarah Palin and members of her family to stop "disparaging" the reputation of Alaska State Trooper Michael Wooten, who at the time was undergoing a bitter separation and divorce from Palin's sister Molly.

How bitter? Trooper Wooten — try saying that without attracting half the birds within earshot — was the subject of twelve complaints to state police by assorted Palins. Talibunny was between jobs at the time, and the judge saw no need to treat her with deference. "Disparaging will not be tolerated — it is a form of child abuse," he said at a settlement hearing.

And he meant it. If the Palin Posse didn't back off, he threatened to send the kid to daddy instead.

Warned by the Court [Newsweek]

Democracy in America

"Obama's one accomplishment? Legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners. Learning about sex before learning to read?"

Of course the ad blatantly distorts the facts of the matter, but let's not worry about nuance at the moment. John McCain is staking his claim in the gutter. Gloves off, Gentleman Barry.

New McCain Ad Falsely Suggests Obama Wants Kids To Learn "About Sex Before Learning To Read" [TPM]

We Hope He Focus-Grouped That One

Barry gets, how you say, uppity:

"You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," Sen. Obama said during a town hall style event in Lebanon, Virginia. The comment was a reference to Gov. Palin's joke during the Republican National Convention that lipstick is the only difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom.

Ummm, okay... But as much as we'd like to see some offense, something tells us this might might not spin well. His other one-liner was less provocative: "You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called 'change,' it's still going to stink."

Obama Turns Up Heat on Palin [WSJ]

Madden Electoral College ’08

We felt a disturbance in the Force upon the release of the latest polls Monday, but before everyone rushes off to their favorite Tatooine dive bar to drink themselves into oblivion while the world blows up, a note of caution:

National polls don't mean shit.

Sure, they're amusing, and fun to chatter about when we're not trash-talking Talibunny, but after our civics lesson in 2000 — Al Gore won the popular vote, in case you haven't heard — we should be well aware of the Dead Hands of the Founders upon our electoral system.

The action is in the states, and state polls are the only polls that matter. Our Telestrator seems to be broken, but if you imagine us doing a Minority Report on the map, you'll see that the vase looks just like a face.

Hold on, wrong map.

Okay. The two joints we follow both show Obama with commanding leads in the electoral-vote count — especially in sure-thing states — and this hasn't changed all summer. Because they both average polls over the past week, they won't really show the effect of Moose & Squirrelcheeks for a few more days, but if all Talibunny does is make red states redder, we're not worried.

But we will have that drink. Who needs an excuse?

Electoral Vote.com • Pollster.com

You Won’t Like the Media When They’re Angry

Congratulations to the Washington Post for bagging the first trophy of the Presidential Hunting Season, a handsome 12-point buck of a scandal involving America's Talibunny:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.

That would be a tidy $16,951 collected for sleeping in her own bed. Go Mavericks!

Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home [WaPo]

Obama Uses the L Word, America Faints

Barry takes up Rachel's suggestion, calls lying for what it is. Can America handle the truth?

Talibunny Improvises, Hilarity Ensues

McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaking in Colorado Springs, Colo., said Fannie and Freddie had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, however, aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.

Granted, the only folks who will find that funny are the handful who know how Fannie and Freddie work. And granted, that handful doesn't include their managements. But it's a start.

Candidates briefed on seizure of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac [McClatchy via TPM]

Famous Blogger Answers Your Questions

Q. Are you a liberal partisan hate rag?

A. No. We hate all idiots equally.

 
Q. Why are you using a derogatory term against women?

A. You mean "cunt" and "trollop"? You must have us confused with Maverick McCain.

Oh, pussy. Right. Actually, "you're a pussy" is a common expression accusing someone of lacking courage, especially in an athletic context such as hockey games. But if you'd like, John McCain is a dick. Fair's fair.

 
Q. I get it. People think differently than you so they aren't thinking for themselves.

A. No, people reading from someone else's canned scripts aren't thinking for themselves. People who think differently from us are merely wrong.

 
Q. This is liberalism to its core: I'm smarter than you are and I'm going to yell and rant till you agree with me.

A. We are, we will, but we don't expect you to agree with us. To quote Lex Luthor, "My genius is no match for your ignorance."

 
Q. She ain't gonna find an unbiased network except for Fox.

A. If the survival of the human race were dependent upon your acuity, we'd be worried. Which, come to think of it, we are.

 
Q. She has a major in journalism and a minor in political science. She was also an on-air sports reporter, so I think she knows how to handle the media and their pettiness.

A. It's not Chris Matthews we're worried about, it's Vladmir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hu Jintao, Kim Jong-il, and whoever has the launch codes in Pakistan, for starters. If Sarah Palin is too chickenshit to chat up even Katie Couric, we fear for the Republic when John McCain is taken out in a tragic motocross accident next year.

 
Q. Perhaps, and I'm really going out on a limb here, she's spending some precious time with her family before she hits the road. You know, with that baby with Downs and with her pregnant daughter.

A. Or maybe, just maybe, John McCain selected a manifestly unprepared governor of Alaska with no known interest in national or international issues as his running mate to appease the Fundamentalist power brokers in his party and skim off a few Hillary voters in the bargain, handed her a prewritten and hastily revised speech to deliver at his convention, sent her on the road with a teleprompter to make sure she sticks to the script, and is taking pains that she avoid any extemporaneous contact with a microphone for fear she says something that reveals how little she knows or how divisive her views on social issues are.

But that's just us spitballing.

 
Q. Palin has agreed to an interview with Charlie Gibson of ABC. What do you have to say about that, smartass?

A. We welcome the opportunity to drop "pussy" and switch over to the more delightful "Talibunny."

Can Sarah Palin think for herself? [Debate Policy]

MSNBC Makes Daring Play for Dullness

We hope you enjoyed the Keith & Chris Show at the conventions, because it's just been canceled.

David Gregory will be anchoring MSNBC coverage of the debates and election night. Viewers complained that Olbermann and Matthews were too interesting and lacked the soporific run-on mastery of Wolf Blitzer.

Joe Scarborough was shoveling out back and could not be reached for comment.

MSNBC Drops Olbermann, Matthews as News Anchors [WaPo]

Pussy Palin Hides in the Attic

Sarah "Pussy" Palin, craven understudy leader of the free world, remains too chickenshit to face the public without a script written by somebody else, raising serious questions about her ability to answer a 3 p.m. call from David Gregory, much less a 3 a.m. alarm about Vladimir Putin.

John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will all be appearing on the Sunday chatterfests today. Cuddles Wallace held open a slot for Palin, but she had a nervous fit and will be flying back to Alaska to shoot things that don't shoot back. "She calls herself a pit bull, but she's acting like a poodle," says a well-placed blogger, speaking on condition that the neighbors turn down their fucking TV at night.

We're now in Day 10 of Pussy Palin's Campaign of Zen, and desperate acolytes are searching for something, anything, to prove to doubters that she's capable of speaking her mind, and not her speechwriter's.

Perhaps this will tide us over:

“Turning maybe purple in the state means, to me, it’s more independent, it’s not the obsessive partisanship that gets in the way of doing what’s right for this state, and I think on a national level that’s what we’re gonna see,” Palin said about Obama's prospects in Alaska before aliens abducted her. “I’m a mom, and my son is going to get deployed in September, and we better have a real clear plan for this war. And it better not have to do with oil and dependence on foreign energy.”

We feel better now. She said that only a few weeks ago.

Palin on Obama [New Yorker]

When We Get Bitter, We Cling to Monty Python

It’s Not Minneapolis Airport, But It’ll Have to Do

Remember that scene in Fargo? No, not that one. The nice little moment where Frances McDormand's husband is preoccupied with entering the federal duck-stamp painting competition.

The competition is real. Every year, duck hunters need to buy a license before heading out to do an Elmer on Daffy. And every year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issues a Migratory Bird Conservation and Hunting Stamp for the purpose.

Joe Hautman of Plymouth, Minnesota, won this year's competition. He's one of "those Hautmans," the brothers Norm Gunderson frets about to Margie.

The stamp looks like a postage stamp: Beautiful waterfowl painting. Dollar amount. And the toll-free number for a phone-sex service.

Oops.

Not Joe's fault, just some dyslexia in the layout department. The number to buy more stamps is 1-800-782-6724, but someone typed it as 1-800-872-6724.

No big deal. The first translates as 1-800-STAMP24. The second is 1-800-TRAMP24.

Duck Stamp includes phone-sex number [StarTribune.com]

Rampant Shoplifting Breaks Out During McCain Speech

Looks like Nancy Wilson will have to get in line, because "Barracuda" ain't the only thing the Geezer stole last night.

As he spoke, a number of images appeared on the Plasma of Liberty behind him. And the folks behind one those images aren't happy.

TPM has been following the big story all day: a photo of a white building wasn't Walter Reed Medical Center (as presumed), but Walter Reed Middle School in Los Angeles.

"Permission to use the front of our school for the Republican National Convention was not given by our school nor is the use of our school's picture an endorsement of any political party or view," said Principal Donna Tobin.

California dems are staging a press conference there any moment.

Meanwhile, second-string scandal-monger Daily Kos has identfied at least four photos from the Geezer's video intro that came from an online stock-photo agency. (Good shots, good prices — we use them all the time.) What the Kos Kiddies find intriguing about the selections is that they feature black people, who otherwise were MIA during the convention.

School Raps McCain For Using Image As Speech Backdrop Without Permission [TPM]

McCain Winning Coveted "Stock Photos" Demographic? [Kos]

Nancy Wilson Bitchslaps Pussy Palin

"I feel completely fucked over."

Nancy Wilson to Entertainment Weekly, after the McCain campaign shoplifted Heart's "Barracuda" this week. Sarah "Pussy" Palin, understudy leader of the free world, was too chickenshit to respond.

Heart's Nancy Wilson responds to McCain campaign's use of 'Barracuda' at Republican convention [EW]

Sarah Palin is a Pussy

"For the complete story on Sarah Palin – including how her family deals with Trig's condition, and how they are embracing Bristol's pregnancy – pick up this week's PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday."

Well, that's nice, and it'll certainly make our next visit to Ralphs more entertaining while we suffer that idiot writing a check ahead of us in line.

And for now, that's all we'll hear from Sarah Palin in her own words.

It's been a week, and the Republican nomineee for Vice President of the United States has not spoken in an unscripted or uncontrolled setting. She hasn't held a press conference. She hasn't chatted with the boys in the back of the Straight Talk Express. Heck, she hasn't even shown up in the warm confines of a Fox News studio.

What's she afraid of? Is the future understudy leader of the free world too scared to talk to even cuddly Chris Wallace? (Stay tuned on that.)

To be fair, she'll be busy — she has thirty fundraisers scheduled over the next sixty days. (Not for the campaign, which is sucking at the public teat this fall, but the RNC and state parties.) But if Barry can face down Papa Bear, surely she can drop by Chris Matthews to show us who has the hardballs.

Unless she's a chickenshit. Are you a chickenshit, Sarah Palin? Because we just said you are — all talk, no stick. And we think you're too chickenshit to prove us wrong.

Sarah Palin Talks About Her Family Struggles [People]

When Will Palin Meet the Press? [Newsweek]

The Charlie Browniest

Chuck Jones gets all the attention — for Bugs, for Road Runner, for the Grinch — but our unsung childhood hero is Bill Melendez, the animator who brought Peanuts to life.

Things could have gone terribly wrong: the network wanted a laugh track, the network wanted adults to voice the kids, the network wanted anything other than jazz on the soundtrack. But Melendez and Sparky Schulz stuck to their guns, insisting that their way was the only way it would work.

And so they created "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", and we slept in Charlie Brown sheets and pillowcases for years. Robert Smigel — Triumph, all those SNL shorts — calls the Christmas special "the greatest half-hour American TV has ever produced."

Bill Melendez died Tuesday, at age 91.

Bill Melendez, 91; Award-Winning 'Peanuts' Animator [WaPo]

That Seventies Show

Whatever the demographers say, to be a Boomer you had to come of age during the Sixties. If you grew up in the Seventies — like Barack Obama, like Sarah Palin, like me — you're not a Boomer. You're not really Gen X, either — that's Eighties. We weren't born with Sesame Street, we didn't go to high school with MTV. Video games? Pong.

We don't have a label. We've rarely been pandered to — Dazed and Confused, Wayne's World, that's about it. (Rocking out to Queen in a Pacer? That's ours, baby.) We're in the shadows of two mountains.

Let me tell you a few things about the Seventies. It was the decade when retro first hit the market, when America started looking back instead of forward. American Graffiti. Happy Days. Grease. Animal House. We didn't have our own moment. We had a rerun of the Fifties.

And at the end of the decade, we embraced Ronald Reagan.

Not all of us, heavens no. But enough to make it noticeable. Some of the smart kids were tired of the Democrats, tired of Jimmy, tired of Teddy, who wasn't yet the Lion of the Senate but the idiot brother who drowned a chick and supported what we called fascist legislation. No, he wouldn't do.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. (Even our protest lines were borrowed from the Fifties.) My co-editor of the student newspaper's annual satire supplement — who loved the Who, who as a copy editor suggested "All We Are Saying" as the perfect headline for a John Lennon candlelight vigil — would a few years later start a campus neocon tabloid.

I followed Carlin. He followed P.J. O'Rourke.

This fall, we're taking over the country. The torch has been passed to a new generation, and this time it's personal. It's the Barry & Sarah Show, hosted by Jon Stewart, fortysomethings all. Joe and John will have walk-on parts, but they're both irrelevant to the story. It's our world now, and you kids will just have to deal with it. You'll get your turn soon enough. If anything's left.

Oh, What the Heck

Here's how you launder a story: A supermarket tabloid is not a respectable news source (until, um, it is), but if you can get a respectable news source to comment on it, you've put it in play. Bonus points if the respectable news source brings it to your attention first.

So we've got Geezer flack Steve Schmidt emailing reporters: "The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Governor Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false."

What allegations? What cover? What affair? Wait, what?

We of course refuse to stoop so low as to spread unfounded rumors. So here's the cover to put the flack's statement in context, and here's a link to respectable Howard Kurtz dishing the details explaining the background. We thank you for helping us preserve our journalistic virtue.

McCain Aide Rips Tabloid Report [WaPo]

Relax, It’s Not Rudolph

Counterclockwise from left: Non-pregnant daughter, caribou, blood, Sarah Palin. Enjoy your breakfast!

A Hunting Trophy [LAT, via SanFranLefty]

Bigger Than Jesus

See more shocking teen pregnancies! Is her high school sweetheart ready for fatherhood? Did David Duchovny pick the right moment to duck into a pestorking addiction clinic?

Sums up "Democratic strategist" George Lakoff, "It's conceivable a 17-year-old girl just screwed the GOP."

Sarah Palin: Political Opponent Recalls Being Ridiculed [Us Weekly]

A Moment of Silence for the Greatest Voice in Movies

And to honor him, one of our favorite videos ever.

Don LaFontaine, voice of movie trailers, dies [AP]

John McCain Expresses Full Confidence in Sarah Palin

This is why you don't want to plan too far ahead: We were all set to run with Mary Tyler Moore gags this week.

Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process [NYT]

Levi Johnston Responds

"Aug. 24: Oh Emm Gee - I’m going to be a dad. Holy shizzles, Bristol’s pregnant! I don’t think her mom knows yet."

What? You thought? No, no, no.

Levi Johnston is a web developer from Phoenix who's enjoying his inadvertent notoriety. If you have any website or database problems, you can email him at knocked.up@levijohnston.com. And near as we can tell, he's owned the domain since 2003.

Levi Johnston Blog

The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

Sarah Palin's 17-year-old unmarried daughter is pregnant.

"Gov. Palin is a strong proponent of teaching abstinence-only sex education to teenagers," reports ABC.

Palin says 17-year-old daughter is pregnant [AP]
Palin confirms daughter's pregnancy [Independent UK]
Gov. Palin Says Her Unmarried 17-Year-Old Daughter Is Pregnant [ABC]

Let Them Eat Crow

Back before they weren't talking to each other, Shrub and Geezer shared a warm moment on the tarmac at Arizona's Luke Air Force Base. The occasion was Geezer's 69th birthday (how young he looked then!), and about an hour later Shrub was chatting up the crowd at the Pueblo El Mirage RV Resort and Country Club.

Twelve minutes before Shrub began his remarks, CNN posted the day's Gulf Coast forecast:

Flooding from Hurricane Katrina's Monday landfall could wreak catastrophe on New Orleans, overwhelming the city's water and sewage systems and leaving survivors in a bowl of toxic soup, a top hurricane expert said.

It was Monday of Katrina Week — August 29, 2005. We wouldn't learn of the flooding until Tuesday, but it was Sunday that we learned the definition of "contraflow" as we watched nonstop live coverage of the mandatory evacuation of a major American city.

"It just wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster," McCain said as he sliced the cake.

Hold on, our producer's screaming something in our earpiece — oh, McCain said that this time, about possibly canceling the Republican convention. Please accept our correction and apology.

To be fair, McCain wasn't the Decider in 2005, and as a senator he has since "supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy."

Wait, damn producer again — okay, he voted against an independent Katrina commission. Twice.

Katrina Kerfuffle [FactCheck.org, 6/5/08]