Barack's Speech

Side Bar said one of us might be able how to figure out to embed Barack's speech. Well, great success, I did it.



It's a dope speech.

Allow me to introduce...DANIELA QUAYLE!

I mean, Sarah Palin.

What was all that I was hearing about Obama not being ready to be president?

Palin in Comparison

I want to write about the incredible speech that Senator Obama delivered last night at the Democratic Convention, but you either saw it or you didn't. If you did, then you know. If you didn't, then please, please, set aside some time today and watch it. If I wasn't old, cranky and inept at computer-type thingies, I would find a way to embed it here (maybe one of my co-contributors would be so kind).

And besides, news has just leaked that Senator John McCain has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (sounds like PAY-lin) to be his running mate. I am struggling to decide whether this is the worst possible selection in this history of presidential politics (well, second worst , well, ok, third worst, but whatever, you get my point).

Governor Palin is three years younger than Barack Obama, has been governor for less than two years, and, until today, was known to exactly sixteen people. Moreover, in her limited executive experience, she has been running not California, not New York, not even Texas, but Alaska. Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, and almost half of them live in the city of Anchorage. If the entire state of Alaska were a city, it would rank 17th in the U.S. by population, between Forth Worth, Texas and Austin, Texas, and behind such metropolitan giants as Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana. Alaska is cold, dark (except in June when the sun stays out 24 hours a day), and so desolate that the government actually pays people just for living there.

And one more thing about Alaska? It is fucking weird. I am sorry, everyone can just calm the fuck down, but it is. Yes, I have been there (just for a few weeks), and it is like all the fucking weirdest, most eccentric people from Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama just woke up one day and were like, fuck it, let's go skiing up in the middle of fucking nowhere.

By contrast, Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden has been a senator for 183 years, fought for the North and the South in the Civil War, and put Vladimir Putin in a headlock the last time he saw him, just as a warning. When life hands Joe Biden lemons, he uses them to kill the enemies of freedom. In fact, Joe Biden once took me out for a beer, couldn't find bar to his liking, so he just sat me down in the middle of the woods, and said: "wait here." In a few months time, some guys showed up and built a bar around us. When it finally opened, Biden ordered three shots of Wild Turkey, took them in a row, and washed them down with a shot of warm tequila. Then, without a word, Biden took out a book of matches, and set the place on fire. Over the roar of the flames he yelled to me, "always leave a place the way you found it."

Ok, fine, that didn't really happen. But policy positions aside, it cannot seriously be disputed that Joe Biden has a wealth of experience in the domestic and foreign arenas. And in a time of crisis, I think most Americans would be comfortable with Biden stepping in as President, even if only to hold the reins for a short while.

But Palin? McCain is 72, and has had a physically grueling life . . . it is not THAT unreasonable to think he might not live for another 8 years. How can he possibly tell Americans with a straight face that Palin is ready to be President at the drop of a hat. And even if he is successful in making that argument, can he also convince Americans that while Palin is ready to be President, Obama is not? I think even the most simple-minded voter (LJT's 12th grade analogy needs to be remembered at all times, I know) would see the intellectual dishonesty on that one.

Is this to win over disaffected Hillary Clinton voters? Is McCain out of his fucking mind? Does he have so little regard for the female brain that he is just like, "well, sure she is pro-life, a member of the NRA, and the governor of a state full of lunatics, but she is a woman. The Clinton chicks will surely dig that." Could these people possibly be that stupid? How many Hillary Clinton supporters are going to say, "sure, I hate everything about her, but she does have a vagina. Go McCain!"

I could be wrong. Maybe the disaffection among Clinton supporters runs so deep that they will do anything to keep Obama out of the White House. I guess her solidly right-wing positions on key conservative issues will please the Republican base, but if the name of the game is winning over the centrist/independent crowd, and convincing America that a young, inexperienced politician should not be handed the keys to the White House, then this seems like a very, very strange pick.

Let's Hope I'm Wrong

Here's a quote from me from a post on January 19, 2005:

Why is there only one black senator? There are one hundred senators and only 1/2 a black person. Until there are more black senators, there ain't never gonna be a black president. Write that shit down. Barack could single-handedly capture Osama bin Laden and balance the budget and that negro would still not get elected president.

I just thought I'd bring this back to light in the hopes that I'm wrong. At the very least he's got as good a shot as any other Democratic candidate, perhaps better.

Relatedly, here is Side Bar's comment to my post:

"Barack could single-handedly capture Osama bin Laden and balance the budget and that negro would still not get elected president."

Priceless.

Actually, though, I disagree. I don't think there is enough blatant, out and out KKK-type racism to preclude a black guy from getting elected President (i.e., not enough guys going, "fuck that, I agree with that guy on most issues, but screw it, he's black"). Racism as it exists today is much more subtle - a black guy with baggy pants and corn rows can't get a home equity loan at his local bank as easily as I could, minorities have a harder time getting a cab, etc.

This is the problem with success stories like Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Barack Obama and the like. These leaders are used as evidence to support the claim that there is less racism in the country. That's bullshit. There's plenty of racism, it's just that a very few prominent black politicians have overcome it, and achieved positions still disproportionately held by whites.

Americans would embrace Obama the same way they would have embraced Powell (he was polling in the 40's in 1996), but I don't think that such an outcome would signal the sort of watershed moment in race relations that most pundits will announce.

PS - After a bit of a rest period for me, the Daily Show has once again become required viewing in this election season. It just does not get better.

John McCain is an asshole, part 2

"That bitch behind me better not get ugly. Wait, what?
She already looks like a corpse? Call my divorce lawyer.
Uh...have I mentioned I'm a POW?"

(This is a follow-up to Side Bar's previous post, so definitely read that first. I think this will be the second in a long line of us trying to point out that genuine-war-hero John McCain might just be a total fucking jackass douchebag as well. LJT and Chuck: Please feel free to join in. There's shitloads of evidence out there. Also, if any of our tens of readers feel like contributing, let us know. Send an email, post a comment, call us, whatever. But please don't call me in the morning, especially on the weekend. I have a scheduled hangover, and I really can't move it.)

John McCain's first wife, Carol, was totally faithful to him while he was locked up and tortured for five-and-a-half years in Vietnam. During those years, she took care of their three children. Except for when she was hospitalized after life-saving surgery, when the kids (as well as some other family friends, I'm sure) had to take care of her.

Carol McCain had a horrific car accident in 1969 -- on Christmas Eve, no less, while she was delivering presents to friends -- where she flew through the windshield and barely survived. After her surgery, she didn't look the same. Just like any other human being who endures such an event.

John McCain came home from Vietnam unable to lift his arms above his shoulders, due to the daily torture he endured there. (Not really torture, though, according to a certain current president John McCain fully supports. That's hinky.) He, too, was disfigured.

Many people would consider moving on if her/his spouse was gone for five-and-a-half years, much less if she/he knew the likelihood of his/her return was unlikely, as it would be if the missing spouse were a POW for that length of time. Carol McCain, however, stayed faithful.

Like John, Carol had nearly died. When he finally returned home, a courageous hero of the highest order, what happened? He saw that his wife looked different. Read: not as hot as before. She was shorter. She was uglier. She was fatter. So John McCain began cheating all over the place, after a few years settling on the rich (family-rich, not earned by her), hot ex-rodeo queen. He then used her family's money to finance his now-ex-wife's alimony, housing, and medical care. Apparently, John McCain – who had endured five-and-a-half years of torture – could not endure his wife, his ever-faithful wife, looking the way she did. He had adopted her two children from her first marriage; they had had a child together. But, I guess, even that wasn't enough.

John McCain earned a whole hell of a lot of good will during those five-and-a-half years. But does that count for everything? As Side Bar pointed out, he was in his mid-40s when he decided to spend six months pursuing this rich heiress while he was still married to Carol McCain. This can't, a la George. W. Bush, be chalked up to “youthful indiscretion.”

And this is the candidate playing the “character” and “integrity” cards?

Ugh.

For the record (and this is not meant to be dickish [“McCainish”?]), here's how Cindy McCain looks these days. How long will she be around?

John McCain and Family Value

Recently, the UK Daily Mail published a story about John McCain's separation from his first wife (Open Bar gets the credit for finding this story and sending it to me). You can, and should, read the whole thing here.

For those who want the synopsis, here it is (with some of the info taken from here and here):

• John McCain was married to swimsuit model Carol Shepp in 1965 (her first marriage ended in 1964 when she sued her first husband for infidelity).
• In 1967, he was shot down over Hanoi, and endured five and a half years of torture at a Vietnamese POW camp.
• In 1969, some two years into his captivity, Carol was in a serious car accident, leaving her unable to walk and severely disfigured.
• McCain won his release in 1973, and came home to find his wife bore little resemblance to the woman he left: she was much shorter, because she had sections of her legs removed, and she had gained considerable weight.
• In 1979, then 43 or 44, and still married to Carol, he met Cindy Hensley, who was 25, beautiful, and the heiress to a multi-million dollar beer distributorship.
• Still married, McCain dated Cindy for six months, while pressing his wife to grant him a divorce. (side note: the Daily Mail article totally plagiarized this line: "Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage" - from a 2000 New York Times article, in which Nicholas Kristof wrote that: "Over the next six months, Mr. McCain pursued Miss Hensley aggressively, flying around the country to see her, and he began to push to end his marriage.")
• In April of 1980 the divorce was finalized, and in May of 198o he married Cindy.
• His children from the marriage to Carol did not attend the wedding, and would not reconcile with him for several years.

I understand that there are two sides to every story, and no doubt the McCain camp could explain this story in a manner that would assuage the discomfort it would cause in some of his supporters. But is that a reason to leave it unreported? Why have no major American news media outlets focused on this? Is it because they feel badly? Is it because he is not denying it? Was it too long ago?

And even if the mainstream media is not reporting it, surely they would report on the fact that others are reporting it. In other words, if MoveOn.org and other 527's pressed this story, the media would report it, but take the high road and say that they were just covering the coverage, not the story itself (they cloaked themselves in that bogus excuse when John Kerry got swift-boated). So where are the left-leaning political action groups to bring this completely factual, entirely true story to light? What is going on here?

It is not an accident that McCain lost to George Bush in 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina. That contest was seen as a turning point in the race to unseat the Democrats, and Bush won, at least in part, because he took the gloves off and went after McCain with everything he could possibly find. Some of it true, some of it Rovian fantasy (like using push polling to suggest that McCain had an illegitmate black child). Of course none of us would tolerate the latter in our own candidate, even if it means you lose, but I am all for the former, especially if it means the other guy won't win.

So let's get to it, Democrats. As my co-authors have already observed this week, it is time to take the gloves off and start punching. John McCain is a man who wants to be president of the United States, but in his 40s (not in his 20s or even 30s) demonstrated a complete lack of a moral center. And the other side has the audacity to claim the mantle of the religious right, value voters, and moral superiority? Don't make me laugh.

"Family values" doesn't mean marrying the richest girl who says yes.

Would someone please shove a spiked bat up McCain's ass?

"What do you mean you've never heard of Delaware?"

Color me mildly unimpressed. A few nice speeches, sure. But I still feel like this convention hasn't been hitting the ball out of the park. The ball is there, it's right fucking there, sitting on a tee waiting to get knocked the fuck out. To paraphrase a certain someone, GET THE BALL! WIN IT, BARRY!

Though I didn't see it, I hear that John Kerry actually gave the best speech tonight. WTF? I saw Bill's speech, and it was good. Not great, certainly not his best stuff, though he did have a few nice points. My favorite:

"The world has always been more impressed by the power of our example than the example of our power."

Well said. I don't think he did as well as he could have, but I'm not as low on him as I was a few days ago.

Joey Biden did all right too, I guess. I was hoping for some outright trashing of John McCain. Biden gave us a bit of that, but not enough. I loved the "Freudian slip" part, and I really can't tell if it was rehearsed or not. (I've directed enough actors to be confident that I can usually tell that stuff, but with Biden, he just does that stuff naturally sometimes. So who knows? Wouldn't really surprise me either way.)

But (Kerry aside) where the fuck were the harsh attacks on McCain? Where were the brutal reminders of the innumerable atrocities perpetrated by the Bush administration? Where were the incisive reminders that what the other side has done the last seven years has failed pretty much every single time?

Here is a brief rundown of what we're likely to hear next week at the Republican convention:

• Barack Obama cannot be trusted.
• Barack Obama wants us be attacked by terrorists.
  
• Barack Obama wants to kill babies.
• Barack Obama hates God.
• Barack Obama hates you.
• Barack Obama is a suicide bomber.
• Barack Obama rapes children.
• Barack Obama was a major inspiration for Hitler.
• Barack Obama is fucking your wife.
• Barack Obama cheats at Monopoly.
• Barack Obama got AIDS from a poodle because he's into bestiality and he's gay as fuck.
• Barack Obama takes shits on the American flag, then burns that flag and leaves it on your elderly mother's doorstep.
• Michelle Obama is his sister. SAME LAST NAME?!?!?!?!?

So yeah, maybe someone tonight could have bitched out McCain and Bush a bit more. I'm not suggesting that he had to call McCain way too fucking old and probably senile (if not now, soon) or remind everyone that he fucked around on his first wife, then divorced her after she got into a car accident and suddenly wasn't as hot anymore -- all so he could marry into Cindy's huge beer fortune. (Oh boy would I love to marry into a beer fortune. How sweet would that be? I would totally give up Side Bar's life for that. Sorry, man, but it is the way it is.)

But where was the shit about how Bush enabled and embraced torture as foreign policy? I really don't get it. To me, the biggest failure, the thing that has the farthest-reaching consequences is this administration's usage of fucking TORTURE as a main tool in the war on terror. How in the fuck did this happen? America's moral leadership is shot to hell right now -- not so much because of the Iraq war, though that is certainly part of it -- mostly because we've been TORTURING people and explaining it away for the last few years.

And what about Dick Fucking Cheney? Why the fuck has no one (rhetorically) shot that bastard in the face?

I guess there's Al Gore tomorrow, too. Maybe he'll come with the machete. Al, like Kerry tonight, has shown a remarkable growth in testicular fortitude since losing the presidential election. Forgive me if I'm a bit leery of it happening a third time in a row.

Argh. I hate making snap judgments about shit like this, because it's politics and you never really know how things are going to play. And hey, there's still one more day.

I'm not a Chicken Little. I don't care that the national polls have tightened the last few weeks. National polls don't mean shit anyway. And I've learned over the past year that Barack Obama is, in fact, smarter than I am. He beat the Clintons. That's still pretty unbelievable. I'm sure he has a plan, and after all, there are still more than two months till November 4th. I trust ya, Barry. But for God's sake, get someone out there to -- pardon my if you've heard this before -- cut McCain's nuts off.

I'm with ya, Barry. And to repeat what I said earlier: GET THE BALL! WIN IT, BARRY!

Mets Haiku II

It's that time of year, again.

Just before the fifth inning . . .

Summer, yields to fall
October beckons, sweetly
I shall embrace her

After the 13th

Cruelty awaits us
She laughs at familiar pain
Filthy, fucking whore

Open Bar's thoughts on tonight's Mets game

The.

Hate.

I.

Mets.

(author ties noose around his neck while trying to organize thoughts)

Guaranteed: Sportswriters tomorrow draw the connection between the Mets blowing a seven-run lead in tonight's game to them blowing a seven-and-a-half-game lead last season.

I hate to say it, but the Mets were in first earlier tonight, now the Phillies are. So the BLATANTLY FUCKING OBVIOUS CONNECTION THAT WILL BE TOTALLY OVERPLAYED is actually somewhat accurate. In spite of the stupidity.

In conclusion, I hate the Mets. Fuck you all.

Okay fine, I'll watch tomorrow's game.

And the next one.

And the next one.

Time to read some Camus.

(sigh)

How 'bout those Giants! Oh yeah. The whole Umenyora thing. Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Fuck.

Boy these pickles taste good.

No. No, they don't. Even pickles don't taste good anymore.

(cries)

Is there good left in the world? I doubt it.

(author jumps off milk crate, neck snaps)

(in heaven, author has three-way with Angelina Jolie that Australian swimmer chick Stephanie Rice. Nice!)

Keith!

I just got back from Hawaii tonight, and I am going to write about it as soon as I can (You know what's fucking awesome? Hawaii). I am a little behind the other posts, and I will comment when I can, but I was watching the Mets tonight, and I had to get a Keith-ism on the record. In the top of the 8th, with Daniel Murphy pinch hitting, Keith was explaining that there are many ways out of a slump, and talked about the variety of remedies available to a struggling hitter, and concluded:

"It's 6 or 7, half dozen of the other." Now, never mind that this particular saying had absolutley no relevance to the situation at hand, Keith clearly does not understand what it means. If I could figure out a way to post the video here, I would. I have watched it about 13 times tonight.