The US VP Debate: Cleanup on Aisle 4!

Well, if I ever wanted to know what it feels like to have someone wearing a permanently-plastered smile stab me in the back while pouring a bucket of sickly- sweet syrup on me, I certainly experienced that while watching the US vice presidential candidates' debate.

Is it too much to ask that a potential vice president not use phrases like "you betcha!", "darn right!" and words like "gettin'"? And exactly how does "doggone it" translate into Hebrew, for example? "Oy vey"? I can just see Sarah Palin on the Middle East peace mission circuit now. She'd drive the translators insane. You betcha!

There's no doubt that Palin appealed to that segment of the US population known fondly as Airhead-Americans and that you could hear one gigantic sigh of relief across the country from Republicans once the debate was over. You could tell she's been well-schooled this past week. Her repetition of right-wing talking points showed us that - and her stubborn refusal to answer some questions while so obviously steering her answers back to topics she was most comfortable with reminded me of a tractor pull at a country fair.

Oh, she has "folksy" down. But haven't Americans had just about all of the folksy they can put up with after 8 years of George "the guy you want to have a beer with" Bush? And considering the fact that she has no problem with the overwhelming power grab made by Bush's VP, can we call her Cheney in a Dress now? Let's just hope she doesn't end up shooting somebody in the face (and making him apologize for it later).

Joe Biden won the debate just by keeping his cool (repressing his infamous Inner Angry Joe), not jumping out from behind his podium in response to her inanity and managing to hold back any comment resembling "Jane, you ignorant slut".

I need a shower.

Related:

What? You wanted substance?

Check out the WaPo's Fact Checker and FactCheck.org for that stuff. I have a Canadian leaders' debate to watch now.

And here's the transcript and video. (Don't stare into her eyes for too long. You were warned.)
 

Hurricane Gustav, meet Hurricane Palin

This, from the largest community of so-called "progressives" on the tubes: Daily Kos

Well, Sarah, I'm calling you a liar. And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better.

Can you spell "l-a-w-s-u-i-t"?

You'd think they'd embarrassed themselves enough during this campaign. Obviously not.

With so many issues with which to go after a very inexperienced Sarah Palin, one would assume that would be enough to successfully pit the Obama/Biden team against McCain/Palin to make a convincing case for the Democratic candidate. Instead, far too many kossacks have decided that using the nastiest smear campaign they can possibly come up with is the way to win in November. And as if that wasn't enough, one of their female front pagers, georgia10, decided to post a sexist caricature of the Alaskan governor as well. Is it any wonder I left that place years ago? How can anyone take it seriously anymore?

"Progressives", heal thy selves.

The place has turned into a pit of vipers. So much for hopeychanginess.

And, for a laugh: you just knew this was coming... (or should have known, fools).

******************

In the real news world, Hurricane Gustav is set to most likely hit NOLA and the Gulf Coast hard on Monday and the Republicans are scrambling to make lemonade out of the impending flood waters:

Convention organizers and McCain advisers watched nervously as Gustav chugged toward land, fearful that the storm could evoke memories of the administration's widely criticized response to Hurricane Katrina three years earlier as Republicans seek to rebrand a party that has been battered under Bush's leadership.

They damn well should be nervous.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told reporters that the seven-hour program scheduled for Monday night will be pared down to a bare-bones session of roughly two hours, devoted mainly to meeting the legal requirements involved with opening the convention. He said that there will be no partisan speeches and that officials will assess what to do with the rest of the convention on a "day-to-day" basis until the magnitude of the storm damage becomes clear. He said the GOP will seek to make sure that "nothing we do detracts" from the response efforts in the Gulf states.

Afaic, they should all go down there for the cleanup. Some penance for Katrina is still required.

Updates on Gustav as they come in on Monday. May everyone stay safe.
 

Meet Joebama O'Biden

Jonah Goldberg may have coined "O'Biden" today, but I'm claiming "Joebama". Madman gets the bonus points for putting the names together.

Saturday was definitely mush mouth day for pundits and politicians alike. Both of MSNBC's head bloviators, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, slipped and called Biden "O'Biden" today - more than once - while Biden couldn't seem to manage to get Obama's name right during his coming out speech, ending it by calling him "Barack America" after Obama had introduced Joe as the "next president". (Freudian slip.) Whoops all around.

Just one question about the pick: If Biden is so beloved, why has his presidential bid failed - twice?

Fear not though, suddenly most Democrats (and their biased pundit puppets) are madly in lust with Biden as the attack dog - the guy who can flash his (really bright) pearly whites while biting your arm and smiling at the same time. In other words, he's a better-looking Dick Cheney.

Yes, not only will Joebama fix the ills the world but he'll do it by 10 pm and travel home by train to spend the nite with his family. Awesome. On top of that, he has a "drop dead gorgeous wife", as he reminded the crowd in Springfield on Saturday. Beats Lynn Cheney, doesn't it? Or maybe he's trying to reassure the voting public that he's not another John what affair? Edwards.

Of course, the big question of the day was whether Biden could manage to keep his big mouth shut so he doesn't embarrass poor Barack. Good luck with that. Biden as The Invisible Man? It's just not.gonna.happen. and as much as Dems like his attack-dog style, you can bet that Joebama will say something incredibly stupid during the next few months. That's just his way. (You know that horrified cringe you'd feel if your new puppy just pissed on your boss's leg? That'll be the vibe Dem supporters will have to fight off when Joe pulls one of his infamous boners.)

I'll say one thing: it'll be interesting to see if all of the Democratic supporters who had their ageism on full display as they've gone after McCain will now actually eat some crow and stop the age-based jokes and slams. I kind of doubt it though. Howard Fineman called Biden a "young 65" this afternoon. See. That's the trick. McCain is an old 71. Biden is young-er "codger" and he proved that by running up onto the platform to deliver his speech. Plus he has more hair than McSurge. That has to count for something.

I have a feeling the next few months are going to be absolutely intolerable. Thank Dog a new and improved 90210 is back. And that I actually have a life (of sorts). And stuff to crochet. That should help.
 

Quote du Jour: Tease

Is Obama taking the tease too far?

That was CNN's Wolf Blitzer today, commenting on the Big Wait for Obama's VP announcement.

The "tease"?

What is this to you, Blitzer? Foreplay?

Update: It's Joe Biden or "Obama Picks Older White Male Washington Insider" to be his changeyness VP. (At least he's clean and articulate.)



Wolfie must be orgasmic.

Bonus flashback to an old post of mine: Why Joe Biden Should Never Be President

Bonus humiliating moment: Poor Markos. Here he was, all excited that Obama was going to get those new-fangled text messages about his VP pick out to the masses before the MSM, so he decided to mock the "old media". (I guess that's like "old Europe".)

And is there a better example than this that old media is getting left out in the cold?

Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room begging viewers to stay tuned so CNN can bring them coverage of a text message.

Brilliant! We've got a lot of campaign a head [sic] of us, but this has been the Obama campaign's finest operation thus far.

But...ooops! As it turns out, that "old media" channel CNN got the breaking news about Biden Friday nite while Obamakins will just have to wait til the morning for those text messages. Yes kos, "Brilliant". You showed 'em!

(Maybe one of these days he'll figure out that, since Obama didn't make one appearance on his site throughout this entire campaign, all of this "netroots" hoopla the Obama campaign was pushing was just an effort to max out campaign contributions from so-called progressives who gathered round the Daily Obama watercooler ATM.)
 

Partisan Cowards

All they are saying, is give war a chance...

There comes a time when politicians have to set side their partisanship, their fealty to their president, their dreams of military success, to finally listen to the screaming words of the public they are charged to represent.

During the last two days in the US senate, Republican after Republican has spoken in favour of the continuation of absolute chaos - in favour of sending more US troops into Iraq's civil war. As Joe Biden (D-DE) put it today: why do you think Sadr and his fighters are laying low right now? Because they've been "scared off"? A handy right-wing talking point that's supposedly proof of the "success" of the so-called surge. Think again. As Biden pointed out, US troops are busy in the Sunni areas of Baghdad fighting Sadr's war for him. Why should he waste his men in battles when the Americans are more than willing to sacrifice their own?

Yet, right-wing war apologists are still trotting out the same old lines: any talk of withdrawing from Iraq emboldens Osama bin Laden. Yes, that's what Mitch McConnell (R-Useless) parroted in the senate again today. He and his warmongering colleagues prefer this posture when it comes to dealing with reality and most likely spend much of their time planning "victory" with these. Hey. It worked on the porch. Why shouldn't it be the same in real life? Surge on!

The great error of nearly all studies of war... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics...

~Simone Weil

And that's exactly why the Republicans (and Lieberman, of course) can't support withdrawal: they think they'd be traitors to their party and their president despite the fact that Bush is a lame duck (or a "political cadaver", as Hugo Chavez called him) while they ignore the reality that their war party already had more than enough chances to prove they knew what they were doing in Iraq. All they have left is political desperation. All they have left is their damaged egos. And, just like their position on the Iraq war, they won't surrender those without a fight either. They'd rather destroy more lives than destroy their self-righteousness.

Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.

~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

And so they keep lying. And so they continue the violence. And so many more thousands will die. And so their partisanship will continue because, when it all comes down to it, being a good party sycophant is much more important than actually having a conscience.

I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.

~Mary Roberts Rinehart

Biden Blows (Another) Gasket Over Iraq

Yes, Joe Biden is a pompous, egotistical blowhard at the best of times and if I was an American I wouldn't vote for him as president, but he sure does have some masterful political tantrums at the most appropriate times.

Witness this one on the senate floor during the Iraq war debate on Wednesday: