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.

I’m watching Giuliani’s speech at the RNC right now. He’s talking about how Obama was a community organizer and the crowd is hissing venomously. I like that the GOP has managed to make community service into a negative.

Now the crowd is chanting “drill, baby, drill,” to show their support for fossil fuels. They’re all, “no alternative fuel sources! Dead dinosaurs and 10,000 year old plant matter in our gas tanks only!” It’s amazing what people will get worked up about. I’m sure if we actually developed an alternative fuel source, there would be tons of hold-outs in the Republican party who insisted on using oil because the new fuel just wasn’t black and viscous enough.

I think the main difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats get excited about new ideas, while Republicans get excited about old ideas. Right now Giuliani’s getting the ladies in the crowd pumped up about this awesome foot-binding technique he just read about that’s all the rage among the spice traders. (Edited for inclusion of funnier joke.)

And now here comes Palin. They just flashed on Bristol and Levi, the new D.C. “it” couple. Levi’s standing on his chair, pointing at Bristol and shouting, “SEE THIS CHICK? I FUCKING NAILED HER!” Damn, Bristol’s STACKED! Which candidate would I most like to have a beer with? That one!

Palin’s first line: “God loves bad parents.” The crowd goes wild. They’re all bad parents, too! She flings her glasses off, takes the pencil out of her hair, and gives her chest a celebratory shake. The crowd eats it up. Now this is the hard-drinking cougar we were hoping to see!

Now she’s talking about how she was a hockey mom and she told a joke about hockey moms that drove the hockey moms crazy. So she’s won Minnesota and Alaska, I guess. I’m pretty sure those are the only states with ice.

Oh shit, I didn’t know McCain was a P.O.W.! You learn something new every day.

I’ll tell you what they’re doing. They’re setting the bar so low that all she has to do is show up for her speech tonight and be audible for the media to call it a triumph over adversity. Call it the Bush Strategery. If he manages to repeat a sentence that contains a complete subject and predicate, he’s given marks for eloquence. You mark my words … no matter what she says tonight, the media takeaway will be that she’s a “woman of the people.” And at least one commentator tonight will say, “the crowd just loves her.”

Matt sent a great quote from Atrios:

According to MSNBC, the Palin kids were told their Ohio trip was to celebrate an anniversary. In the dark about the Veep announcement.

I try not to tell people how to parent their kids, but last night I said to Mrs. Atrios something along the lines of, “I don’t know what goes on in their family, but at the very least if I had a pregnant teen daughter and I was asked to be a VP candidate I’d sit down with her and make sure that was ok.”

Here’s what I’m curious about with this situation. Maybe some of my religious friends can clue me in. What’s the sin-reversal factor on a marriage? It’s a massive sin to have sex out of wedlock. It’s a massive sin to get pregnant out of wedlock. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a massive sin … I’m pretty sure that swearing and murder are on the same basic level in the eyes of the Lord … but there’s definitely a worse stigma to pregnancy than to, say, kicking your coworker.

So how does this work, morally? If you get married immediately, is everything cool again? You’re in deep trouble if you conceive and give birth while unmarried, but if you give birth while wearing a golden hoop around your finger, it reverses the deep trouble of the teen sex thing and makes you morally pure again. So then it seems like the baby part is sort of incidental … it’s the marriage that God’s looking for. Thankfully, He’s unconcerned with what you do with the kid after it leaves the womb.

One thing is for sure — Palin has definitely proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that she ain’t secretly pro-choice. She’s so not pro-choice she’s giving her daughter no choice but to marry this guy:

Welcome to your life, kid! Hope you enjoy having the unshakable feeling that you’re the sole source of your parents’ misery!

Putin accused America of provoking the Russian/Georgian conflict to get McCain elected. I read something about this a couple of weeks ago. It all started, if you’ll recall, about two weeks after Obama returned from his European power trip, and everyone was like, “clearly, McCain hasn’t got a chance, because Obama is the King of all Foreigners.” And then McCain was like, “whuuut? Watch me orchestrate this swift diplomatic resolution between Georgia and Russia.” And everyone in America, including me, was like, “I have no idea what’s going on in this conflict.”

I’m always impressed when newspapers include quotes from the Press Secretary as if they mean something. Dana Perino’s response to Putin’s allegations:

Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, said: “To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate – it sounds not rational.

“Those claims first and foremost are patently false, but it also sounds like his defence officials who said they believed this to be true are giving him really bad advice.”

Can we just pretend the Press Secretary doesn’t exist from here on out? Her entire job is to deny. You could really program a robot to do this job with just a 1 and a 0.

The LA Times did a little roundup of the candidates’ tax plans the other day. I’m always fascinated by peoples’ obsession with taxes. I guess it probably goes back to the days of the Stamp Act and some kind of national instinct that if we’re paying taxes, it means we’re not really free. For some reason, talk of cutting taxes gets people riled up, while talk of cutting spending, particularly in the military, does not. We’ve spent over 100 billion dollars on a missile defense system that will never work (according to the BBC, it is akin to hitting “a bullet with another bullet”) while our only real enemy is doing a pretty good job with $.99 improvised explosive devices and hijacked airplanes. But for either candidate to say they’re going to lower defense spending would be tantamount to proposing Muslim extremism as our national religion.

Anyway, here’s the skinny, in case you’re curious:

The major difference is that John McCain wants to lower taxes on the wealthy, while Obama wants to increase taxes on the wealthy. Now, before you pass judgment, consider this: conservatives and liberals have a different philosophy of what will improve our economy. Conservatives believe the way to improve everyone’s lives is to give the wealthy more money, then let it filter down to the people who need it most. Liberals believe you should solidify the non-wealthy first, and the wealth will trickle up. At least, so my rudimentary knowledge of economics tells me.

And honestly, I don’t have a problem with that difference of ideology. I tend to think that if rich people are given more money they’ll probably just keep more money, but it is somewhat comforting to know, at least, that there is a philosophy of greater public benefit in the conservative view. Many conservatives truly believe that if those at the top benefit, those at the bottom will, too.

Here’s what I don’t understand: if this is truly a difference in ideology, why don’t the Republicans admit it? John McCain’s tax plan is quite clearly diagrammed in the chart above, and it includes lowering taxes for the wealthy and corporations. Yet because he’s found a way to give a 21 freaking dollar handout to the poorest Americans, he’s able to claim he supports lowering taxes, and Barack Obama supports raising taxes. I want to believe there are conservatives who believe in the public good, but smoke-and-mirrors tricks like this sure make it difficult to believe their hearts are in the right place.

Am I wrong to believe in the basic goodness of people? Does John McCain have any interest in making the world a better place, or is he strictly concerned with how much money he can make for himself and his friends? Am I giving him too much credit to think that his intentions might be noble, if misguided? Give me a sign, Lord!

How does a career politician like John McCain get to air an ad that says “Washington is broken?” Um, wasn’t he in the majority party for 6 of the last 8 years? And didn’t he help elect George Bush to a second term? Ergo, if Washington is broken, isn’t it kind of his fault?