Oh lighten up, Ezra.

Where was your indignation when Al Franken authored a recent SNL sketch about Todd Palin having incestuous relations with Bristol and being the father and grandfather of her baby?

You have remained silent as your entire professionalism ran as a herd towards the Light of Obama. And then they turned snitty and snarky against McCain, trying to demonize him. The way the media savaged Sarah Palin and her family is despicable. But we didn't see you object.

So again, lighten up and enjoy the fire-works. Sarah Palin will expose the real Barack Obama, the same Barack Obama that you folks in the media have been covering for. You failed to vet him going into this, so don't freak out as all sorts of new things, and we all know there's plenty, will start coming out to fill in the blanks.

For the time being, enjoy some levity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E53jw0ezC-o

And I highly recommend that you watch "An American Carol". I know, I know, all red-necks are supposed to be whatever stereotype you've constructed for them. But you should approach this as an anthropological expedition into Middle America, and whatever makes it laugh. It ain't the best writing, but it is remarkably good, and it brings all its points across. There are even some obscure intellectual points made that only you, the highly exhalted over-educated ones, will get.

Keep an open mind, go watch and see what the other side is watching. And it actually ends on a really good and happy note, without being preachy.

Ringo,

Stupid enough to think Sarah Palin is smart and American Carol is funny.

I enjoyed the critic who said "I laughed harder at Munich."

Right wingers -- neither smart nor funny.

lighten up and enjoy the fire-works.

The problem is that it is McCain who refuses to "lighten up" and instead is taking his candidacy a bit too seriously at this point, perhaps even internalizing the claims that Obama is a Marxist terrorist. McCain isn't the only problem here-- a group of his devoted acolytes are going to end up smearing themselves by taking up the McCain cause here, only to find mud on their face when Obama wins and ends up being a good president.

We should heed the call to "lighten up" because the problem is that in their delusion to start thinking that Obama is someone "evil," McCain and his supporters are putting themselves in a severe amount of moral danger that may follow them for a long time. Voting for Strom Thurmond in '48 is the sort of thing that would carry a stigma for the rest of one's life. I wouldn't want people to carry around the same Scarlet Letter by suddenly taking up the cause of a dishonest smear campaign as part of the last throes of the dying animal that is the McCain campaign.

see what the other side is watching.

Given the box office results, it looks like "the other side" is so small as to not be an electoral threat to Obama.

But you should approach this as an anthropological expedition into Middle America, and whatever makes it laugh.

Once again, based on the box office returns, what makes Middle America laugh is, apparently, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." That's what "real Americans" are watching this weekend.

McCain has proven that he has no sense of honor and that he would rather lose his dignity than an election. Sadly, he has lost both.

Al Franken is busy running for Senate, not writing for SNL.

I can understand why you love Palin so much: you also have no capacity to appreciate that there is a difference between truth and lies. And a difference between the people who tell each.

Damn it Tyro, I was about to quote the same line, and note that American Carol made $3.8 million, and a movie about talking Chihuahuas made $30 million. You're making me redundant here.

if you want a front row seat to the last days of the McCain campaign, just click here...

ringo

beauty and art are in the eye of the beholder.
i looked at the vignette you provided, and saw no similarity.
but i have thought many times that barack obama bears a striking and remarkable resemblance to the most famous gold and lapis lazuli mask of tutankhamun,in the egyptian museum.
if you have a look at that timeless, gold masterpiece, i am sure you will agree!

Keating Five!

Just about everything associated with the McCain/GOP Campaign has backfired. I'll just point to that Swiftboating book that proved such a dud around a month ago.

Sure, they appear erratic and sputtering. They're about to receive their retribution from the American people and it's not going to be pretty.

Oooops, looks like Obama got frazzled by the Ayers thing, so he's lauching into 'Keating 5' Retaliation:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14302.html

If Obama's winning, then why would he do this?

Could it be 'cause they're expecting something? Maybe something big?

Re: An American Carol. So Ezra and his minions, you're saying that you'll only watch a movie that scores big in the box office. So you're saying that you only follow the herd. So you're saying that...uhh, what am I saying! You have blindly followed Obama without knowning whether he's got a compass. Well, he don't got none of dem orientation skills either, dogganit!

Glad to see that you've embraced your identity as that of someone who is identity-less. Obama will complete you.

Ummmmm. Don't think so. The Obama magic has broken. The fad is over. This is the precise moment when it jumped the shark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPSqL9_mfM&feature=related

How d'ya like dem apples?

One gorgeous post, Ezra.

isn't it also kinda late in the game for this? willie horton came up in june of 1988. the swift boat ads started in august of 2004. doesn't it take time for narratives to sink in? aren't people already voting in several states?

also: is there any evidence these types of things actually work?

"And I highly recommend that you watch "An American Carol."

the only times those words have been uttered in that order, ever!

Hi jacqueline,

Sorry, my mistake: I linked to the wrong video. This is the one I had in mind (...for levity):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSnEMV58F8

Great line in this week's Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

Ringo, Middle America does not care about "American Carol." Middle America is watching movies about Chihuahuas and teen movies featuring Michael Cera.

Right-wing films just aren't considered that funny or interesting by just about anyone in America, outside of the lunatic fringe. Hollywood has just learned an expensive economic lesson regarding the public appeal of movement conservatism.

So handsome Ezra has his "McCain will rue the day" moment...We'll have to remember it. I wonder, will Ezra publicly acknowledge that he'd got it wrong? How about some accountability for one's analysis? Anyone?

Oh and I wanted you all to remember Sarah Palin's great line today in Cali: that it is possible to be a progressive and a conservative at the same time.

Wow! This woman is on fire! Telling you now, she's unstoppable.

By the way, someone tell me a straighter shooter than Larry Wilkerson. Anyone? Nope, didn't think so.

COL Wilkerson on McCain:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

"Let's face it," says Larry Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "John McCain made his reputation on the fact that he doesn't bend his principles for politics. That's just not true."

ringo....

i like the first link better.
and not only do i think that obama looks like the golden mask of tutankhamun, but john mccain reminds me of the tinman in the wizard of oz.....
creeeeeek creeeeek
and now we know why cindy is always there....she holds the oil can!!

and.....joe lieberman looks exactly like the lion!
and it fits, too!!!!!
john mccain is in need of a heart
joe lieberman is in need of courage,
and we know who is need of the brains.
....and continuing, claire mccaskill looks like glenda, we already know who was the witch, green as a spring turtle...
and the enlightened and sensible one came from kansas.....and attained the wisdom of oz.
:-)

but we are not going down with them down the yellow brick road!
:-)

Ringo, that sad, soggy sound you hear is John McCain applying the lube to his ass in the hope that what follows on November 4th will be less painful. Still, do keep writing these amusing little posts if it helps you to come to terms with your situation.

Ringo, my lad:

I know you're standing valiantly at the breech, but don't you get it? Berlin is about to fall. The Allies are going to bring Bush Rule down. No matter how tall McCain stands above the anti-tank barricades, he has chosen the wrong side, made his Faustian bargain, spoken of too many friends he really can't call his own.

Wow! This woman is on fire! Telling you now, she's unstoppable.

Posted by: Ringo Meza | October 5, 2008 11:22 PM

Don't worry, a bucket of cold water will be applied to Princess Caribou on Nov 4th.

Oh come on guys and gals: is this really the grand sum total of your lives? To come up with snark and then turn to your like-minded "safety" buddies to beg for validation, "Did you see what I wrote? Did ya?!"

Is this the intellectual output that allegedly elevates you into America's thinking elite?

A spoof movie scares you. A MOVIE!!!
Pictures in motion, with sound.

Yep, surround yourselves with safe padding; insulate your egos from dissenting views. Life is good. Life is good.

Yep, surround yourselves with safe padding; insulate your egos from dissenting views. Life is good. Life is good.

Posted by: Ringo Meza | October 5, 2008 11:34 PM

I see you have been advising Dubya, Ringaringaroses - and we all know how that worked out!

On this, Ringo's right. Y'all gotta freak out a bit less when faced with some garden variety trolling. Chill!

Welease Ethwa!

I'm glad that none of you is disputing the reality that the Obama fad is over.

So you're left with snark and hubris. I am going to sleep blissfully tonight: you folks sure don't sound like the side that's supposedly winning.

Indeed, Ringledingle, Obama is so over.. which is why McCain has dropped trou and fled from Michigan. Such a strategist, that man...

Hi, Ringo,

The McCain campaign has been promising that the gloves will come off since August 21, when the story about McCain not remembering how many houses he has came out. August 21, as in over six weeks ago. If you wait six weeks for the shoes to drop, maybe it's because there are no shoes to drop.

Truman was right: the truth always sounds like hell to Republicans.

Attention, Reality! Ringo don't live here no more...

Gotta disagree with this in general. There's no penalty for those who participate in these smears. Yeah, they'll have to say they laid it on a little thick, and have a laugh at their expense on MSNBC with Chris, but please - you've got G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North, the true god Reagan, Newt, and many many more just hanging around like they're respectable people, and you've got a DC press corps desperate to fill time and print space with controversial but "entertaining" opposing-view leaders as soon as - and it's still appropriate to say if - Obama captures the White House.

The press doesn't allow bridges to be burned. They love the Republican drama queens because they entertain them. I can't believe anyone cared about any of the above people at any point after the national traumas and scandals they've caused - but there they are, and you can bet McCain (and god help us, the idiot reciter Palin) and a thousand Bushies will be re-invented and freshly respectable before you know it. Wish it weren't so, but people don't listen to me.

j klemm

sadly, what you say is true.
they all do come back to haunt us, like last year's halloween decorations.

The point, I think, for Ringo and others is that the Obama-Ayers attack makes no sense. Ayers may be a questionable figure - and it brings up a generalized question of how we, as an American culture, deal (and don't deal) with people's pasts - but it's hard to nail down what this is supposed to "prove" about Obama. And Ezra's right - the attack smacks of desperation, it's old, and it really won't change all that much. Particularly since Obama, I'm fairly certain, will have little problem "condemning" - or whatever verb one prefers - past acts by Ayers.

The bigger problem for Republicans is this - and An American Carol - is all they have: sarcastic, cynical attacks meant to camoflage the lack of actual ideas, proposals and specifics about the problems we face. McCain is going negative because he has, essentially, nothing else; no positive message, no new ideas, and nothing to get voters to, positively or affirmatively, pick him and Sarah Palin. Can they win with pure negative? I think, as many do, that the time for success with this has passed; our problems are too pressing, our need for solutions too strong, and the cynicism and sarcasm seem passe and old (that, I think, has more to do with the failure of An American Carol at the box office than it only being a right wing appeal). Ayers - like the shota about Obama as Muslim - is a done story with little new to be added, and no real impact on voters' decision making, and smacks, basically, of desperation. Which, in its way, is funny. And more than a little sad.

Let me second Ringo Meza's call to Ezra to lighten up by showing indignation at a comedy sketch.

Here is the transcript of that sketch (which, by the way, Al Franken had no role in creating). The premise is that NY Times reporters are cluelessly out of touch (especially about Palin & Alaska), so you can already start to see why reasonable conservatives would find it so objectionable. I won't repeat all of the filth, but to give you a sense of these despicable incest allegations, the closing narration is: "In 2009, Howland Gwathmey Moss V was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Times series on unproven, yet un-disproven incest in the Palin family. Sadly, he was to die 3 months later, run over by a snow machine, driven by a polar bear." That is offensive on so many levels. Truly, Jim Downey, James Franco, Bobby Moynihan, Bill Hader, and Lorne Michaels have sacrificed their honor, and Ezra must denounce and reject them if he is to have any hope of retaining a shred of his own.

Ringo is the sound that a weasel makes just before it is run over by a steamroller.

I saw that sketch. As Blar indicates, it was clearly a satire on the provincialism of NYC cultural elites, specifically NY Times reporters.

It's not surprising that the joke sailed right over the head of Ringo Meza, who would be well-advised indeed to stick to the likes of "The Naked Gun" and "Scary Movie", the prior efforts of the director of "An American Carol".

Indeed Weboy,

McCain has nothing to offer, other than his (now plaintive) claim on the Presidency as some sort of birthright, and he's going to go down swinging.

I was struck by something above - Palin's labeling of herself as a "progressive conservative". We've obviously seen this before - and we all know that conservatism is neither progressive nor compassionate. I think this is a pretty blatant theft of GWB's intellectual propery (never thought I'd string those words together) that ultimately won't work. I think though that it may be a roll-out of the 2012 campaign. An interesting subtext will be how she thows McCain under the bus over the next few weeks, particularly if the inevitable defeat becomes harder to deny.

I think it's imperative that we somehow manage to drive a stake into her ambitions for broader power with extreme prejudice.

Ezra, despite all the words used in this article, you have not explained why you think John McCain will regret the path he and his campaign have taken.

Is it because you think that he is a genuinely nice fella who would not normally do this?

If you assert as fact "A CAMPAIGN JOHN MCCAIN WILL REGRET." you have to tell us, at the very least, your reasoning.

John McCain has a long history of doing whatever he beneficial to him and later apologizing when caught or when it no longer matters. He did so with the Keating five, he did so with Paxson Communications scandal and he did it in South Carolina concerning the battle flag (Despite hiring a known racist and paying him $20K a month and also the racists son.)

The pattern is clear; McCain does whatever he wants, he lies when questioned about it and then when caught he calls a conference call and calls all the reporters and apologizes (usually while invoking Hanoi) and then everybody loves him MORE.

This is might happen again but what makes you think that he will really regret it? Maybe just maybe, he will be doing what has always worked for him with the press?

"Conversely, no one doubts he could spot the executive director of AIPAC with ease, and probably ask about his children by name."

American politics would be a better place if this could not be so confidently asserted.

Note to Ringo:

This really isn't about Ezra's minions or all those who blindly and senselessly worship and follow Obama.

It's not about every upstanding patriotic American who supports John McCain and the middle America representative Sarah Palin.

It's about you, and me. We have a choice, each of us! We can choose to participate in the ridiculous name calling and baiting that has become so common in our political discourse, or we can demand a representative government. We can ask that our elected officials speak to us and for us, and govern with our interests at heart.

If you are satisfied with how America has been governed by Bush style republicans, well, we know your choice.

However, there are a lot of conservatives, moderates, progressives, and yes liberals who think government should be run differently, and it is their prerogative whom they vote for.

Your poison isn't necessary.

Oh, yeah Ringo - you do kind of suck!

Cthulhu is wrathful.

I'm pretty sure Obama would recognize Khalidi in a crowd, they used to be relatively close friends. Not that there's anything wrong with that whatsoever in my opinion, but yeah, this isn't some fictitious association.

the EK blog overrun by trolls and members of the Obama tbag brigade while young Klein asserts Obama rally is a liberal. Who could have seen that coming?

You run to win. If you sincerely believe in your positions their is no honor in losing. Obama believes this and it is why his campaign didn't hesitate to brand two of the leading figures in the Democratic party as racists. I'd take an ostracized John Kerry over a two term W. Bush any day.

Oh, the trolling comes out in force now. Obama branned two of the leading figures in the Democratic Party as racists? When, pray tell?

It's sad that the Republicans feel that their only chance at victory is trying to exploit fear of blackness through distant associations. Sad, but not surprising.

Good shitting God, is this what everyone taught you dumbasses at Troll Prevention School? "Responding to somebody makes them go away"? "If I get a zinger in on the troll, I can put it on my c.v."?

Ali Abunimah runs the website Eletronic Intifada. He's a Palestinian from Jordan who wrote a book essentially arguing that, since both Israel and a moribund Palestinian leadership are unwilling or incapable of concluding a two state solution, the only way for Palestinians to have something like a decent life is to demanded equal rights and citizenship in Israel while recognizing Israeli sovereignty over all of the land it currently occupies. Roughly a one state solution, and one that is more than a little frightening to the more extreme pro-Israel forces on the right, but I mean, really cry me a fucking river.

My hunch is John McCain is going to come to regret this campaign very much indeed.

Why will McCain regret the campaign because he's going negative? What's the worse that's going to happen? He'll lose. Unless it didn't already look like he had a good chance at losing, he wouldn't be going negative. Sure, he'll regret not winning, but he wouldn't be going this route if he thought he would win without it.

"Wow! This woman is on fire! Telling you now, she's unstoppable."

Come on now, Lowry, we know it's you. Quit hiding behind the fake name and have another Starburst.

Why will McCain regret the campaign because he's going negative? What's the worse that's going to happen? He'll lose.

Ezra's working under the assumption that McCain is, at some level, someone who really believes all of his rhetoric about "honor," "putting country first," etc. I don't know whether you buy it, and I certainly don't myself, but Ezra does. Ezra is predicting - accurately, I think - that if McCain loses he will be universally despised left and right (more of a punching bag than Kerry or Dukakis), and that he'll regret the gambles that took him there. I don't think he'll regret it, because I don't think he has any principles, but Ezra does.

Why will McCain regret the campaign because he's going negative? What's the worse that's going to happen? He'll lose.

Isn't the idea that he'll regret the destruction of his reputation as an honorable straight-talking maverick, built over many years of courting the media? If McCain loses, I can't think of anyone who will have more damaged his own image by a run for the presidency - certainly our three most recent losers (Kerry, Gore, Dole) didn't do anything comparable. Dukakis, Mondale, and McGovern branded themselves as incompetent losers, but not as nasty jerks. Hubert Humphrey did kind of destroy his reputation, but this was more due to his support of the Vietnam War (largely before1968) and his behavior in the 1972 race, when he seemed to be purposely sabotaging McGovern, than his conduct in 1968. Goldwater, like the three hapless Dems, came off as an incompetent loser, but not as dishonorable or selling his soul to win. Nixon in losing in 1960 came off reasonably well - it was only his 1962 loss in the California gubernatorial race that made him a joke. Stevenson was still popular enough in 1960 to be nearly drafted as the nominee, and Dewey was still a major powerbroker in 1948. Wilkie launched a credible run for the nomination in 1944. Landon, again, gets "hapless loser" rather than "disgusting," as do John W. Davis and James M. Cox, while Al Smith gets "victim of horrific prejudice."

Charles Evans Hughes retained enough reputation to be appointed Secretary of State and then Chief Justice after his run.

So we probably have to go back to Theodore Roosevelt, who really did take some serious hits for destroying the Republican Party in 1912, to get at someone who was as reviled as McCain will be if he loses. Interestingly, Teddy is one of McCain's great heroes.

Harvey - whether or not McCain has any principles, you don't think that if he is "universally despised left and right" and "more of a punching bag than Kerry or Dukakis" that he'll regret the choices that got him to that point?

If you assert as fact "A CAMPAIGN JOHN MCCAIN WILL REGRET." you have to tell us, at the very least, your reasoning.

McCain will regret his campaign because he will have alienated his base, the press. He doesn't get to host any more BBQs, he's no longer the center of attention at the parties, he doesn't get offers to do cameos in movies set in DC, and he no longer gets wildly cheering crowds during his appearances at The Daily Show. He goes down in history as the guy who launched a desperate flailing smear campaign in a futile effort to derail the campaign of the next president and lost everything else he had before he ran in the process.

the problem, norbizness, is that many blog entries have no good reason for a comment box; people confuse fighting the trolls with political work...

Harvey - whether or not McCain has any principles, you don't think that if he is "universally despised left and right" and "more of a punching bag than Kerry or Dukakis" that he'll regret the choices that got him to that point?

Obviously you have a point. My take on McCain is that he needs to be understood first as a gambler who, when losing, regrets only the fact that he lost and not the fact that he gambled. But I see you're point, and you're probably right.

I live in the midwest, in Minnesota, and the movie I saw with a full house this weekend was Bill Maher's Religulous.

There is some good early evidence for Ezra's thesis and our hope for 'not this time'. Norm Coleman has run a negative campaign against Al Franken for months that continues to escalate in the end game. After an early lead, the latest StarTribune poll shows him down by double digits.

I thought all the fundies were watching "Fireproof" this weekend?

You failed to vet him going into this, so don't freak out as all sorts of new things, and we all know there's plenty, will start coming out to fill in the blanks.

Hey, I've been waiting for new things for six months now. Ayers, Wright and Rezko are all old news. Where's that new and different smear that the trolls keep promising us? Every time they "reveal" one, it turns out to be Ayers, Wright or Rezko again.

C'mon, I'm an American, I crave novelty -- where is my completely new and different Obama smear?

Nice piece, Ezra. Sincerity and eloquence don't play well on blogs; you'll pay the price in mockery. But it was a pleasure to read.

Re: Tyro - 'McCain will regret his campaign'

You know, I'd really, really, like to believe that, but until I see an actual chink in the Black Wild Maverick Armor, I think he'll probably do just fine after a loss. Looking at this past, he's withered much worse, no?

Ayers, Wright and Rezko are all old news.

I think we should all at least acknowledge that it is thanks to the HRC campaign that these "issues" are old news at this point. There's something to be said for airing all the potential dirty laundry during the primary.

Ringo protests way too much. Then again, it's seeing the market for GOP paid troll likely to run dry after next month.

Ringo Meza:

What kind of name is that? Can't even spell Mensa I guess. But that's par for you guise.

I love trolls. They keep the juices flowing. It's just that they're too ERRATIC.

A lot of people are losing. I'm convinced that more than a few Republican organizers are now taking to these blogs in order to try and stir up fears amongst Democrats.

McCain is toast. The stock market goes under 10K, people lose their dreams of retirement, and he's stuck talking about Ayers?

He's screwed. He's down 10 in Virginia. Down 13 in New Hampshire. Down 18 in Minnesota. Down 11 in Pennsylvania. He knows he's going to lose. What the shit show is about is reducing his margin and letting him "lose with dignity." The irony is that this will probably be the other way around.

Obama has high favorables. And he has since the primary. Attacking him--attacking a pol people like--on bogus grounds just pisses people off, hardens support, and fires up Obama's ground troops. The Obama ground machine is worth AT LEAST 2 points added on to his national total, probably more.

McCain may not have much honor left, but his self-image hinges on imagining himself an honorable man.

If he wins he will be president of the US, with sycophants aplenty to pump him up. Victory justifies all.

If he loses we will be treated to some conspicuous breast-beating and manly mea culpas, and not for the first time.

In the past the establishment always forgave him. For the most part it probably will forgive again. But in the popular imagination 2008 may go down as the year Rovian tactics stopped working, the year McCain sold his soul.

If that happens McCain will not be a happy old man.

When McCain approved the ad spinning the PTA supported Illinois legislation to protect small children against sexual predators as some sort of kinky sex ed for kindegartners, and even worse when he defended that ad later on, it pretty much said it all. John McCain would rather have small children go unprotected from the worst scum on earth rather than lose an election. Ayers, Wright, Islamophobia are chump change. Believe me though McCain's meltdown during the Wall Street craze pushed it along, if one wants to examine the exact point in time the tide turned it would have been with that ad. Not even Richard Nixon would have approved of it, and even Karl Rove had thought he'd gone too far.

Where was your indignation when Al Franken authored a recent SNL sketch about Todd Palin having incestuous relations with Bristol and being the father and grandfather of her baby?

Uh, Ringo, that sketch was mocking the media for spreading scurrilous rumors about Palin's family without any real evidence. They didn't show Todd Palin at all, they just showed some New York Times reporters sitting around and making stuff up, one saying "You know he's doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It's Alaska" and the other responding "He very well could be. Admittedly, there is no evidence of that, but on the other hand, there is no convincing evidence to the contrary. And these are just some of the lingering questions about Governor Palin." If you think the point here is to mock Palin rather than the media, you pretty much fail at comedy literacy (which maybe explains why you though 'American Carol' was funny).

Unfortunately, the attacks may work, simply because both McCain and Palin are filled with anger themselves; thus the one thing (the one and only thing) they can do with terrifying, black-belt competence is ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK. I am afraid that Obama, who handled Hillary's attacks well, may underestimate just how devastating the Palin and McCain attacks will be.

This partisan bickering with all of the name calling are the reason we have a system in which the American people are constantly sold out between the rise and fall of two parties. This will only stop when all of us can see past an R or a D and deal with each other as fellow citizens and try to make tomorrow's world better for our children. Until then member's of both sides will continue to insult their opposition while patting themselves on the back for being so smart. All the while the world burns.

Sounds like it's time to find a picture of McCain hugging Chalabi.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/09/chalabi-mccain/

If you think the point here is to mock Palin rather than the media, you pretty much fail at comedy literacy (which maybe explains why you though 'American Carol' was funny).

I believe there's actually a psychological study showing that authoritarianism tracks very closely with an inability to parse irony. It's a brain deficiency of some kind.

So Ringo Meza, is it a paid or an unpaid position you hold with the McCain campaign?

The ability to cut off your nose to spite your face, i.e., continue to gargle on incoherently in the face of reason, is a sure sign of some deep allegiance where you care not what an ass people think you're making of yourself.

Another tell-tale sign is snagging that first post under the comments section!

I know, I know, you're not going to stop. Be my guest and keep right on. You'll be able to rest in a few weeks.

What "Middle America" is doing at the moment is hoping their fucking job is still going to be there next week.

What "Middle America" is doing at the moment is breathing a sigh of relief that gas prices have come down to 3 bucks a gallon.

What "Middle America" is doing at the moment is screaming at their Congressmen over the bailout, and hoping that maybe some table scraps will eventually Trickle Down to them.

What "Middle America" is NOT doing at the moment is banging down doors to watch a steaming pile of right wing horseshit in movie theaters, since right wing horseshit is so readily available 24/7/365 on the TV and AM radio.

Righties are going to have to learn that they don't speak for "Middle America."

Say, did Bush catch Osama bin Laden yet?

...lighten up and enjoy the fire-works..

The self-immolation of John McCain has been rather amusing.

The nasal-speaking, winking female lightweight now leading McCain's sorry last charge is especially funny.

Oh, I think McCain already regrets the depths to which he has been forced to sink by the same people who sunk him 8 years ago. The more they chant: You want to win? Then you have to...the more he questions himself. Has to be agonizing him, which makes him just slightly more honorable than Bush II.

Ringo is seeing the little starbursts, that's all.

Sen. Obama demonstrates by his record and his rhetoric that he is a socialist. Of course, in the estimation many, that is a positive. Capitalism is, however, only the economic face of democracy, where the mass of individuals vote for the products and services they want by what they voluntarily pay. A democratic government has a political role to play - to ensure that competition among candidates is free and fair, but it would certainly be wrong for that government to try to fix votes. A democratic government has an economic role to play - to ensure that competition among suppliers is free and fair, but it would certainly be wrong for that government to try to fix prices or wages or mortgages or health care or ... The Obama message is disguised as compassion, but seems to cover a great deal of compulsion.

norbizness sucks my balls

McCain has no honor. Like most other neocon rightwing Republican nut jobs.

I think what the McCain campaign is not taking account of is the emergence of the youth of America in the electorate. I mean I'm seeing ads about getting out to vote on "Nickelodeon". The youth (18-28)in polls tend to be overwhelmingly for Obama due to the sense that they can be a generation contributing to history. With John McCain history would be made too but with the stigma of potential bigotry and anti-intellectualism being seen as a part of the American psyche. And he tends to forget that this generation of youth is more cynical than most and can read through the smears for what they are: a last minute desperate attempt to play on fears and prejudices.