Speaking Of Everything…

End Game: Time for the GOP to go Negative!

“Now you’re getting nasty.”

–Indiana Jones

The GOP has thrown everything they can at Barack Obama: Experience, Elitism, Naivete, etc.

The economy is tanking and the Democrats are rising in the polls. Voters want out of Iraq and the Democrats are rising in the polls.  

What is a desperate party to do? Pick up the shovels and head for the manure pile! Bill Krystol, one of the neoconservative guys advising McCain, (and one of the Project for the New American Century knuckelheads who showed Bush the way into Iraq) says: 

“The McCain campaign has to convince 51 percent of the voters they can’t trust Barack Obama to be our next president. This has an ideological component and a character component.”

Standard Rove/Atwater Operating procedure. Divide the country in half and get 51 percent of the voters scared or mad over some cultural aspect… gay marriage was the thing that helped steal Ohio for the GOP in 2004 – but that is off the table after the Biden /Palin debate. Here are a couple of ads from te “Good ole days!” Jesse Helms “Hands“  ad, and the George H.W. Bush,  Willie Horton ad, The new offensive should be just that, Offensive! The more offensive, the better to resonate among the “real, hardworking Americans… white Americans” identified by Sen. Clinton.

I remember one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite quotes was from Al Jolson, “You ain’t seen nothin’, yet!”

It is going to get real thick over the next 30 days. 

“Shoeless Joe” Hardy or the Whine of the Ancient Mariner?

Oh, I was gonna write something pithy this evening about how John McCain has changed so dramatically since the 2000 campaign, but Barry Dunsmore beat me to it by a couple of weeks. Dunsmore, a retired ABC News reporter, is a columnist for the Rutland (VT) Herald, wrote:

“Question: What do Dr. Faust, Joe Hardy and John McCain have in common?

Answer: The first two are fictional characters — the third is a candidate for president.

Question: Yes, but what do they have in common? You be the judge.”

They all sold their souls to the Devil.

I was gonna go with the Joe Hardy from “Damn Yankees” theme. Old guy loves the Washington Senators but they suck. He wants them to win so badly he sells his soul to the devil and becomes “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO” a star baseball player who helps the Senators challenge for and win the pennant. 

In the end, Joe beats the devil, thanks to the powerful love of his wife.

But Dunsmore got to the Faustus analogy first. So, I’ll go with something completely different; “The Whine of the Ancient Mariner.” 

Voters, voters, everywhere,

And yet the polls did shrink;

Voters, voters, everywhere,

Too bad they’re apt to think.

What happened to the “old” John McCain?

I can’t help it. There is something epic and almost mythic in watching the train wreck that is the GOP presidential campaign. Full disclosure; I would have voted for John McCain in 2000 if he been the GOP nominee. I will sell everything I have and move to New Mexico to raise Alpacas if he and Sarah Palin are elected on November 4, 2008.

This guy has morphed into the very politician he claims to abhor… and on top of everything else, he has managed to go from looking like the Aviator Hero to cranky old guy next door! You remember the old guy in the neighborhood you wanted to give the ol’ dogshit hotfoot to?

Yeah. That guy.

Some dems just can’t vote for Obama…

Interesting article in the LA Times. Folks in Appalachia may be feeling the pain of the economic situation, but before they vote for a black man, they just won’t vote at all. Be sure to check out the column by a local guy in rural Virginia who just happens to be a GOP big shot in their community.

Palin Wins Debate…

…because she didn’t fuck up!

More on the debate later, I just finished an assignment and I’m hititng the sack!

The Last Nail in the Coffin…

Yesterday afternoon the House of Representatives failed to pass legislation requested by the Bush Administration and Fed Chairman Henry Paulson for $250 billion to bailout the financial industry. Naturally, House Republican leaders quickly blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for losing the votes of their members for saying in a speech before the vote:

“Today we must act for those Americans, for Main Street, and we must act now, with the bipartisan spirit of cooperation which allowed us to fashion this legislation.

This not enough. We are also working to restore our nation’s economic strength by passing a new economic recovery stimulus package, a robust, job-creating bill that will help Americans struggling with high prices, get our economy back on track and renew the American dream.

Today we will act to avert this crisis, but informed by our experience of the past eight years, with the failed economic leadership that has left us less capable of meeting the challenges of the future.

We choose a different path. In the new year, with a new Congress and a new president, we will break free with a failed past and take America in a new direction to a better future.”

The full text of her comments are here.

This was enough to make the House GOP dissenters take their legislative ball and go home? Fugedaboudit! These idealogues were not going to vote for this bill no way, no how. These guys sent Vice President Dick Cheney, (The Prince of Darkness), on his way last week saying, “The problem is that they’ve used up a lot of goodwill.”

No, this had nothing to do with Pelosi’s comments, instead, this was a matter of idealogues on the right standing firm on the “principles” that got us into this mess in the first place. Bob Herbert in today’s New York Times is correct in labeling knuckleheads such as Darrell Issa (R. CA) as “Mad Men.”

“With the fate of the Bush administration’s desperate $700 billion bailout of the financial industry hanging in the balance, Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican from California, stuck to his political playbook like a man covered in Krazy Glue. He pronounced himself “resolute” in his opposition to the bailout because to be otherwise would amount to a betrayal of party principles.

To deviate from those principles, in Mr. Issa’s view, would be like placing “a coffin on top of Ronald Reagan’s coffin.”

We are witnessing the death throes of the Bush Administration… will the financial system bite the dust along with W.?

The Debate: McCain Makes The Case For… Experience?

Sen. McCain repeatedly said, “You don’t understand” and “I went to…”

So what does that say about Sarah Palin?

Obama came off as very knowledgeable when it comes to foreign policy and compassionate for the little guy on domestic policy. He also demonstrated that he wouldn’t take any guff off McCain, but refrained from being disrespectful.

McCain, however, never looked at Obama and consistently sought to diminish him.

Let the spin begin!

McCain will be declared the winner based on the asshole quotient. The pundits will say Obama missed opportunities to land heavy shots on McCain, and for sure, there were some openings. But this ain’t over. There are still 40 days left in this thing. Why use up your heavy artillery if you don’t have to? Obama still has bullets in his clip, McCain’s clip is empty.

Tonight was to be his big night; this debate focused on foreign policy which is supposed to be McCain’s spinach.

Whenever Obama boxed McCain into a corner, McCain pulled out a heart tugging story about a veteran, or a of a visit to Waziristan, Bezerkestan, or wherever, concluding with a condescending phrase.

He stayed in attack mode all night long, but Obama didn’t bite. He smiled and responded, “I agree with John on that point,” and would then gently give an example where McCain didn’t appear to know what the hell he was talking about.

McCain was all bluster, Obama was cool.

Since most pundits will go into “sports metaphor mode” why shouldn’t I?

See the election as a tennis match… this is the third and final set and tonight it was “Game one, Mr Obama!”

Obama hung tough, stood his ground and didn’t look like an asshole.

The “Independents” and “Undecideds” can’t say they don’t know where Obama is on foreign policy after tonight.

Troy Anthony Davis’ Execution Stayed

I found about Troy Davis a couple of weeks ago when I was assigned to research his case and write to him.

There is no way this man should be executed. Convicted in 1989 for the killing Officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, GA, Davis was sentenced to death although there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. Seven of the nine witnesses against him have recanted. Some of the witnesses claim they were coerced by police to testify against Davis who has steadfastly insisted he is innocent. Today, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed his execution which was scheduled to take place tonight at 7pm.

Amnesty International has been championing Davis’ case with support from former President Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI. Here is their statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.

I hope Troy gets a chance to get a fair hearing and at the very least has his life spared.

Obama Heckled by Blacks at Rally… in Florida. Why am I Not Suprised?

A bunch of stoopids heckled Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama this afternoon at a rally in Coral Gables on the campus of “The U,” the University of Miami. These knuckleheads chanted and held signs aloft that read, “Blacks against Obama”, “Jesse Jackson Hates Obama”, “Obama for Abortions”, “Obama for Gay Marriage” and “Obama Endorsed by the KKK.”

Why do I call these mostly black men Knuckleheads? Because I was trying not to call them assholes. These guys were identified as belonging to group called, Michael Warns. You may think I put the wrong link there, but the Michael Warns link takes you here.

If you go to the home page, you get linked to his book sale site and his “Black Man Show.” Check out the reasons listed for being against Barack Obama. The first reason is they claim Obama would make child support federal!

’nuff said.

Never mind all the Lilith and Oprah as personifications of Satan, these bastards just hate black women!

With Friends Like These…

Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a Hillary Clinton fundraiser and a member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee, has come out in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin because Obama is an elitist. Hmmm…. Can you smell, I mean, spell HYPOCRISY? This woman splits her time between the US and London and has contributed about $100K to the Clinton campaign.

You can’t make this stuff up! Speaking to Campbell Brown on CNN, the Lady sayeth:

“Barack Obama went and called the people who have guns and cling to their religion bitter. The people out who are the rednecks or whatever are bitter.” “If bitter is the easiest way for you to rationalize that, I truly with all my heart believe that John McCain will be a great president, then call me bitter. But it doesn’t really advance the dialogue, Campbell, sorry.”

Nothing like a millionaire who is married to a British lord to identify with “the common folk.”  Yep, with McCain surrogates out there like this, well… as Harry Truman once said, “I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you? It’s about time that the people of America realized what the Republicans have been doing to them.”

If you are an everyday joe, one of the “real, hard working Americans,” out there, will you please stop bending over for these guys?