McCarron just sent me this mass email that’s totally right on. Even our spam emails are nicer, less paranoid, and more clever. Can we please go back to living in a Democratic world, God? Thanks!

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re ‘exotic, different.
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you don’t have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking executive.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values don’t represent America’s.
* If your husband is nicknamed ‘First Dude’, with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

The stock market had its worst day since 9/11. How many times have we heard that phrase? Doesn’t it feel like we’ve been in a pretty constant state of financial instability since Bill Clinton left office?

I know it’s difficult to make sense of the connection between the economy and politics, but I sure have a hard time understanding how anyone could look at the state of our country right now and say, “I am going to vote for the pro-life party, because the most pressing issue we face is underpopulation.” Oh, and preserving fossil fuels as our primary source of energy.

Something else I don’t get: why are issues that would improve everyone’s quality of life (like affordable health care and worker rights) identified as liberal, and what is daily life like for most Americans that they wouldn’t rank their quality of life as pretty high on their list of concerns? Is that some kind of holdover from the Puritans, the belief that we’re put on Earth to suffer? And if so, does that mean there are a lot of people purposely voting against their self-interests, because they prefer misery to contentment?

That, I can understand. If you are planning on voting for McCain and Palin because you think they’re going to increase the world’s suffering, I absolutely cannot argue with you. Your logic is sound, Goodman You.

But I feel good today. I think the Palin excitement was a nice little entertainment break for us all, but she’s already starting to feel like yesterday’s news. The wonderful thing about our 24-hour news cycle is that overexposure can ruin people just as swiftly as it builds them up. Give her another 2 weeks and she’ll become the establishment. And then Obama and Biden will be all creepin on ah come up and be like, “yo, remember us? NOW YOU KNOW!”

Note: I spent far, far too much time making this illustration, and it still isn’t particularly funny.

Obama responded to the fake “lipstick on a pig” controversy today:

It’s adorable that Obama wants to talk about the issues instead of name-calling. Where does he think we live? Switzerland? I much prefer to hear my politicians taunting each other than discussing boring policy crap. I like to vote for the candidate with the sickest snaps.

From my pops, regarding a conversation he overheard in my hometown of Clio, Michigan. The names have been changed to protect my dad. Also, please be aware that VGs is our local supermarket.

I was at Rotary this morning and watched the following conversation between Jim Growly, cigarette smoking cynic / pragmatist, and Grace Happypants, superintendent / ex cheerleader:

Jim: When I listen to her [Sarah Palin] I expect her to pull out a flaming baton and twirl it for the talent competition.

Grace: I like her.

Jim: Do we need a no-talent beauty queen as our Vice President?

Grace: I really like her.

Dennis: Do you all realize that Bill Jones (our mayor/VGs bag boy/fellow Rotarian) is qualified to run for Vice President of the United States?

Bill: Actually, I am more qualified. I’ve been mayor longer than she was.

Grace: I don’t care, I really like her.

Clio has spoken.
D

As part of the liberal elite, I know I’m supposed to hate Thomas Friedman. Would someone remind me why this is? I read From Beirut to Jerusalem before I knew I was supposed to hate him, and I really liked it. I just heard him talking about his new book on Terry Gross last night and he was preaching in favor of good things that I believe in. So why do we hate him, again? Is it because he’s a blowhard? Or was he pro-Iraq invasion?

Dirty little liberal secret #2: I kinda think Chris Matthews is hilarious.

Complete non sequitur: Bob Herbert from the NY Times looks like a Frankenstein:

Read his column today, anyway.

Sarah Palin is the Nikki Blonsky of politics. Who’s Nikki Blonsky, you ask? Exactly.

This is Nikki Blonsky (I think she’s the one on the left):

She’s the scrappy youngster who was plucked out of obscurity to play the lead in the movie version of the musical Hairspray. According to her bio, she was working at Cold Stone Creamery when she found out she got the part. Also according to her bio, she has a dog named Rocky.

Was Nikki Blonsky good in the movie version of the musical Hairspray? I’m sure she was superlative. She was a fat girl plucked from obscurity playing a fat girl plucked from obscurity. And that’s exactly who Sarah Palin is: the political version of the fat girl plucked from obscurity playing a fat girl plucked from obscurity.

Which isn’t to say she’s fat. She’s kinda smoking hot. She gives librarian fetishists the world over cause for celebration. No, Sarah Palin is the Nikki Blonsky of politics because her story is 99% of the performance. All she has is her image. Now, I recognize that many Republicans feel this way about Obama, but Obama has written 2 biographies. He’s been running for president for over a year. If people don’t have a pretty good idea of who he is by now, they could use some help with their media study skills.

The big story from last week was that Palin’s “numbers” are better than McCain’s, Obama’s, or Biden’s. It’s pretty astonishing that anyone would treat this like an actual statistic. There wasn’t a huge cult movement hanging out, waiting for Palin to announce her candidacy for vice-president. She ain’t Ron Paul. Before last week, the only thing people knew of her, if they knew anything at all, was that she was the governor who used to be a beauty queen. So the “numbers” don’t have much to do with her … they have to do with the character she’s playing. But who is she, really? And who are the people that make up their minds about a candidate based on a single speech? It’s like voting for Mork from Ork without realizing he’s also Patch Adams.

We’ll see how it pans out. I would say it’s the most down-the-rabbit-hole political stunt I’ve seen pulled in my lifetime. George W. Bush was sort of in a similar situation, only instead of no one knowing anything about him, everyone knew who he was, but no one felt like exposing him. I’ve never seen a convincing argument that he fulfilled his duties for the national guard, and I’ve seen quite a few convincing arguments to the contrary. Somehow he got a free pass on this one, even though someone like me who has never done a moment of investigative reporting in his life knows the basic facts behind the case. With Palin, though, there’s not that much to investigate. They’ve created a political figure out of thin air.

Sure, she’s already had scandals … a la she voted for the Bridge to Nowhere before she voted against it, she’s giving some guff to a state trooper … but she didn’t let her daughter kill her fetus, and that’s kind of all that matters to anyone who would vote for her. (Or teach her about birth control, for that matter … I’d be really curious to know if she’s actually anti-birth control or if Levi is just too ignorant to know how to use a condom.) From what I’ve read of her (too much), she sounds like a queen bee master-manipulator masquerading as a sweet, innocent mom. I doubt anyone’s going to poke enormous holes in this persona in the next two months, so I would suggest we ignore her and concentrate on McCain. He has enough shitty political decisions in his past to choke a moose.

The crowd literally chants U.S.A. every time he stops talking. This crowd LOVES this country. Do you hear me? THEY LOVE THIS COUNTRY!

News color commentators are geniuses. On CBS I just saw a brilliant analysis of how McCain has the momentum right now. I doubt it had anything to do with the fact that ALL TV HAS SHOWN IS THE RNC FOR THE LAST WEEK. It’s probably because Sarah Palin’s speech really broke new ground.

Cindy McCain is the creepiest looking creepo-bot I’ve ever seen. She looks like she’s wearing a skin mask pulled taut over a plastic novelty skull. That’s not a face-lift, it’s a face-starch.

From the comments: I mentioned that Wasilla, Washington is only twice the size of my hometown of Clio, MI. Harmon pointed out that the census figures for Clio (population 2,500) only includes the square mile downtown area. Including Thetford & Vienna townships into the greater Clio metropolitan area (which, trust me, it’s still a reallll small area) you get a population of over 20,000. My dad and Harmon’s mom are both really active in the community, and I think either of them would tell you that you can have the intelligence of a tree stump and do a pretty good job as mayor of a town that size. And Sarah Palin’s town was significantly smaller.

But I don’t necessarily think the experience argument holds weight on either end … it’s just fun to mock Sarah Palin. It’s not about experience, it’s about intelligence … and Barack Obama is one smart son of a bitch. A smart, competent person can overcome any challenge. I don’t know that Sarah Palin is the one we should be worrying about, anyway … all it does is give her more press. She’s not running for President. I know, she’s a heartbeat away from the Presidency and he’s old, but when was the last time a president died in office of natural causes? FDR? In his what, fourth term? He clearly pushed his limits. If Dick Cheney can live through 2 presidential terms, anyone can.

Wait … hold on … did you know John McCain was a P.O.W.?!? Why doesn’t he publicize that to anyone? Now that I know that, I’m voting for him! ‘Cause everyone knows prison is a great place to develop your leadership skills.

Thank you, Daily Show, for being the only trustworthy source of news on television.

(Thank you, Liz!)

Update: Holy crapamole! Liz was on Chappelle’s Show! Check her reel, yo!

From the comments — Shea has determined that the McCain/Palin ticket is actually the Rooney/Poole ticket:

Obama’s campaign manager sent a statement today about the “community organizer” slam, which I was happy to see. We don’t need to take this. Community service is something to admire, and when the Republicans mock Obama’s work with his community, they’re implying that the only sort of service that counts is professional politics. As David Plouffe says:

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack’s experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let’s clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

Obama should completely own his community service work. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and in fact, it’s something to be very proud of. Good for them for nipping this slam in the bud.

Along those lines, why are we letting McCain use the word “maverick” as a positive? There’s a thin line between “maverick” and “unhinged.” If we can turn the word “maverick” against them, we’ve effectively shut down 75% of their message.