Dead people voting

This cartoon from the New Yorker in November made me wonder how many people who voted early were dead by Election Day. Shouldn't the Republicans have been up in arms about that? Did Obama's grandmother vote for him before she died the day before the election?

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Some people are disappointed by Obama already, and he's not even in office yet! I'd rather be disappointed by Obama than surprised by McCain any day.

Inside Straight

On Tuesday morning, William Kristol wrote in the Times about McCain's chances: "It’s an inside straight. But I’ve seen gamblers draw them."

The metaphor was not quite right, though. Drawing an inside straight means you've got AKJ10 and you cut the Q, say. But McCain was only holding the Ace and the Ten, and he would have to draw the Jack, the Queen, and the King.

I can't help quoting the Dead here:

Everybody's bragging and drinking that wine
I can tell the Queen of Diamonds by the way she shines
Come to daddy on an inside straight
Well I got no chance of losing this time

And that song is called ... "Loser."

Talk To Your Parents About John McCain

The satires of McCain and Palin are just too good to be true! (Of course, they would not amuse me as much if Gollum, I mean McCain, were ahead in the polls.)



Somebody should do "This is your brain. This is your brain on John McCain." :-)

(Thanks to PWADJ for posting this.)

McCain and Gollum

This is only one of the passages from Gail Collins's column that made me laugh out loud this morning:

Remember how we used to joke about John McCain looking like an old guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn? It’s only in retrospect that we can see that the keep-off-the-grass period was the McCain campaign’s golden era. Now, he’s beginning to act like one of those movie characters who steals the wrong ring and turns into a troll.

During that last debate, while he was wandering around the stage, you almost expected to hear him start muttering: “We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precious.”

Credit where credit is due: apparently, Jon Stewart first made the comparison on the Daily Show.

Household Finance

A tip of the hat to C. Dale Young for posting this one:

That One That One That One

This is so funny!

White Privilege

Here's my favorite line from a post by Tim Wise on "White Privilege":

"White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America."

(Hat tip to Poet with a Day Job!)

Dowd on Kissinger

My favorite line from the International Herald Tribune this morning is from Maureen Dowd on Friday's McCain-Obama debate:

"And who cares what Henry Kissinger thinks? He was wrong 35 years ago, and it’s only gotten worse since then."

Lousy Govt. = Lousy Economy

My favorite line from the Presidential debate last night was from McCain (from the CNN transcript):

"The Iranians have a lousy government, so therefore their economy is lousy."

I'm sure Obama noted the irony (he's far too smart not to), but I suspect he thought it would be a bad tactic to point out that McCain had just described the current state of the United States. (Tactic, not strategy, and Obama knows the difference, I'm sure.)

A Campaign of Lies

"... John McCain is running a campaign almost entirely based on straight up lies."

If you're not sure what to do about the horror of McCain's campaign, then follow the advice of Josh Marshall:

"This is clearly a testing time for Obama supporters. But I want to return to a point I made a few years ago during the Social Security battle with President Bush. Winning and losing is never fully in one's control -- not in politics or in life. What is always within our control is how we fight and bear up under pressure. It's easy to get twisted up in your head about strategy and message and optics. But what is already apparent is that John McCain is running the sleaziest, most dishonest and race-baiting campaign of our lifetimes. So let's stopped being shocked and awed by every new example of it. It is undignified. What can we do? We've got a dangerously reckless contender for the presidency and a vice presidential candidate who distinguished her self by abuse of office even on the comparatively small political stage of Alaska. They've both embraced a level of dishonesty that disqualifies them for high office. Democrats owe it to the country to make clear who these people are. No apologies or excuses. If Democrats can say at the end of this campaign that they made clear exactly how and why these two are unfit for high office they can be satisfied they served their country."

McCain may win, but those who have seen through him have to do their best to expose him as the liar he is.

McCain is a pain 2

It won't be smooth sailing
with Sarah Palin.

McCain is a pain

May McCain go bowl
with Dukakis and Dole.

May he end up as pale
as Walter Mondale.

May he be as bored
as Gerald R. Ford.

(A few lines in response to my friend Don's post.)